Energizing teams and talent

When working with diversity, its frustrating to deal with teams and people who are at different levels. Those who 'know more' are scornful of those who 'know less'. Those who 'know less' keep insisting they have value to add and don't feel appreciated. Those who have acquired tribal knowledge over years of pain work to use it to consolidate their power and further their agenda.

To perform leadership roles in an environment where skill and competencies are not equally distributed, you may do well to learn from Dreyfus and Dreyfus (see their book 'Mind Over Machine..'). Per this model, there are 5 levels of progression:

1. Novice
2. Advanced Beginner
3. Competent
4. Proficient
5. Expert

There is a lot to learn on this subject, we will restrict this blog entry to a couple of key takeaways: Novices cannot learn from Experts, we know that intuitively but this framework helps explain why. Adjacent skill levels should be paired up to gain maximum synergy in competency development. Identify competencies needed based on the strategic need of an organization, initiative or project. Then apply the model. No one is a 'novice' per se, just novice in a competency.

To execute your strategy, establish learning plans and incentives to take the organization, teams and individuals from novice to expert in relevant competencies a systematic manner. Of course, you could always 'hire' instead of 'build'. If you 'hire' make sure you have enough people in each stage so that the newly hired 'expert' does not get rejected 'culturally' because there were not enough people in adjacent levels.

Dealing with ambiguity

In one of my earlier posts I had said that ambiguity is going to increase, not decrease. This continues to be true.

Most leaders have the following guidance to their follows: "Deal with it." This advice is a reflection of an abdication of leadership responsibilities. It is also a sign that they are clueless of how to deal with it. To be fair, in a small percentage of cases, they may be challenging their audience to rise to the occasion.

Leaders can take some concrete steps to deal with ambiguity:

• One, acknowledge it exists. This will immediately calm people down. When people think the other person has clarity and they don't, it really bothers them and leads to stress.
• Two, describe the ambiguity. Knowing why there is ambiguity actually helps to know the root cause. If if the problem is unsolvable or unknowable, there is a certain comfort in knowing that your worry is legitimate. In a peculiar sort of way, this reduces the worry for some.
• Three, ask for proposals. Don't ask for suggestions. The difference is, if someone makes a 'proposal' and you accept it, they get to follow thru execute. If they make a 'suggestion' and you accept it, someone else has to execute. I split hairs here to make an important point.
• Four, point out the opportunity for creativity and collaboration. If people start talking to each other, the fog may lift earlier than later.
• Five, be very careful not to judge people in this period. Judgment is a reflection of poor leadership and a sign of a leader's insecurity in general, this just aggravates the situation if displayed in ambiguous situations.
• Six, don't ask people to 'take initiative' and 'do something'. They will even if you don't ask them to. Problem is, they will try to help, but make things worse. Alignment to customer outcomes and priorities, coordination and timing is crucial.
• Seven, create a plan. Most teams freeze in their tracks and are unable to plan. Ironically, this is when they need planning the most.

Its not going to be perfect during periods of ambiguity. Duplication of effort, confusion, frustration and drop in trust have to be identified and dealt with.

3 distinct concepts

In executing your strategy, there are 3 distinct concepts to consider. These are often used interchangeably, so a clarification is in order:

• Business savvy: If you have this you have a keen understanding of business models (how is money made?) and problem solving.
• Leadership: If you display leadership behaviors you can prevent and resolve conflicts, influence your audience and look/behave/speak/smell like you are in charge.
• Decision making: This is the spark that starts the fire. The best ideas, the most detailed plans, the intentions and vision are all for naught if no action is taken. Decisions are the ignition to action.

Each of the above areas is a distinct competence and often go together. Usually people with business savvy are good decision makers as well. Leaders are often business savvy, they know how to get things done and what ideas will work.

If business savvy is missing, you will lose money. If leadership is missing, your ideas will not be accepted. If decision making is missing, inertia and rigor mortis sets in.

One way to deal with complexity

Suspend judgment.

When faced by complexity, there are good chances that you will encounter ideas that you do not understand or you do not agree with. The complexity also makes it harder to find cause and effect relationships, hence solutions are not easy to develop. We are forced to collaborate with people to piece together the puzzle. Given that people have different frames of reference, use language differently, are at different skill levels, you can begin to see why diversity is a double edged weapon. Heck, its like putting together a jigsaw puzzle without the final picture!

Judgment is a defense mechanism that appears when emotional awareness is low. Think of people who are judgmental as 'leaders in training'. It is a sign that you do not understand the issues on the table. It is a sign that the other person does not understand your point of view.

Yes, there is more to dealing with complexity, suspending judgment is not enough. But its a good starting point.

Abundance mentality

This is not a new concept and certainly not my idea.

The abundance mentality implies there is plenty for all. Everyone can get what they want without having to deprive anyone else of their desires. One way to achieve abundance is to increase the size of the pie. This requires high self-esteem and creativity.

The scarcity mentality on the other hand focuses on dividing the pie. This automatically assures that to get more, someone else needs to get less. A scarcity mentality is a sure recipe for conflict and frustration.

Strategy execution requires stakeholders to give and take. Strong facilitation and leadership is required to focus teams on the abundance mentality. A scarcity mentality results is dysfunctional politics and turf battles.

Thermometers versus thermostats

The difference between the two is critical:

• A thermometer is a proxy to the temperature in a room. A thermometer will not tell you whether its too hot or too cold, in other words, no value judgments. It will simply tell you the temperature.
  
• Thermostats take action based on business rules. If the temperature falls below a certain amount, the thermostat causes the heater to kick in to warm the room. If the temperature rises above a certain amount, the thermostat causes the air conditioner to kick in to cool the room.

In executing your strategy, you need both. Thermostats need a thermometer to be effective. Without a thermostat, a thermometer is useless.

As an example, business analytics and business intelligence reports are no use unless you can tie them to action.

Anticipation

Sometimes you can't.

Every time you catch yourself saying, "I should have thought of that" or "Why did I not think of that before?" you are reflecting on your (lack of) anticipation.

A more dysfunctional way is to ask, "Why the heck did you not think of this before?" This is the notion of carrying accountability to an extreme. Punitive questioning results in defensive behavior and reduced risk taking.

While there are consequences for not being able to anticipate, sometimes the only thing that can be done is to learn from the experience and improve the planning process.

Effective strategy execution requires improved planning, which in turn requires an ability to anticipate. 'Guessing' is not anticipating. For complex situations, experience from multiple people may have to be pooled together, while guarding against 'groupthink'.