CHAPTER 5
LET OTHERS LEAD
I feel miserable,’ said the new CEO.
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘I have failed again,’ she replied.
‘What happened?’
‘Well, I let a colleague down. I hate when it happens. We have so much work to do, we are all tired, it’s the end of the year and we need our energy to go forward, yet I drained someone of any motivation today. How could I do it?’
I resisted giving an answer or any advice, I just said ‘Hmmm’.
‘I was sitting in on a meeting with the sales team. When we were talking about how to keep up with all the information in our business, someone said that he doesn’t read any industry news sites because he thinks it’s too boring. I was provoked and snapped, said that if he doesn’t keep up with what’s happening in our market he would miss opportunities, he wasn’t doing his job properly, and that he should consider working somewhere else.’
‘I see …’
‘Well, of course, it’s not really his motivation I’m worried about now, but the head of the sales department, Mark. After the meeting he was upset that I had criticized one of his best sales people when it’s not my job to run his department. Furthermore, no one had set any expectations regarding what websites to read or not to read when working in sales, so I guess you could argue that it was kind of unfair. In any case, I interfered with the department head’s job and now he’s got to clean up the mess I created. I know I’m right, but instead of building energy and culture, I pissed people off.’
‘I guess you are angry with yourself.’
‘Yes, because I know what I did wrong.’
‘I can see that you are also frustrated because you want to support the people you work with, especially when it’s a peer from your management team. But at the same time you want to push forward and think that you are entitled to speak your mind, right? But you want to do it in the right way. You have set high standards for yourself, and you break your own rules. That hurts, and you feel like a failure.’
‘Yeah, something like that.’
‘So what’s next?’
‘If you screw up in public, I guess you have to apologize in public. At the next opportunity I’m planning to say in front of the group that I feel I behaved badly.’
Now it is time to focus on others. The whole point, after all, is to make the people around you leaders. This chapter is about letting others lead, and be leaders.
#047 Awaken What’s Within (AWW)
Fuel the inner drive.
When I’m leading my children, I try not to tell them what to do, not to give orders or directives. I never threaten them into a certain behaviour. Instead I try to coach them into experiencing what they feel is right. I try to awaken what is within, to make them follow their hearts.
I get a call from my son’s teacher, who tells me my son has misbehaved in the school canteen. I ask my son what happened and then I ask him what he thinks he did right or wrong in the situation. If he feels that he should go back to the teacher and tell him what he has been thinking about, maybe apologize if that is appropriate, or just give his feedback – then that’s great. I do not tell him that he must go back and apologize for whatever he has done. I wasn’t there, so I wouldn’t know. But he was there, and he can decide what his response should be.
When playing, my other son hits me with his wooden sword. I don’t tell him that it is wrong to hit other people and that if he does it again I will punish him. I tell him that it hurts and then I hope that he will relate to my feelings, realize that hurting people is not good and understand what he is doing. Maybe it is too much to ask from a child, but I give it a try and I can see from his look that he has given it some thought.
At work, I try to avoid telling people what to do. Even if it is obvious and it would save a lot of time just to give a directive, it’s better to awaken people’s own sense of what to do. I sometimes fail at this and instead snap and hand out the order, ‘This is what we do now’, letting the testosterone take over. Or, ‘The client thinks you did a bad job, you’re out of the project.’
Planning a company event could be done like this:
Leader: ‘Please buy beer or something for the all-hands meeting this afternoon.’
Office Manager: ‘OK.’
Leader: ‘Thanks.’
But better like this instead:
Leader: ‘We have something to celebrate at the all-hands meeting this afternoon.’
Office Manager: ‘Maybe we should get some cava and tapas?’
Leader: ‘Great idea!’
Whenever I’m meeting with a job candidate, I’m trying to understand that person’s motivations. I want to recruit people who are already motivated to do a great job whether that is because they like their field of work, they are naturally curious, or because they are positive about their life, opportunities and the future. They already have an inner drive. I don’t want to recruit someone who would need a fine title, a high salary or other benefits in order to be motivated. A salary is something you get in exchange for the time you put in, the results you deliver and your contributions to the company, it is not the necessary condition for your motivation. Of course, the salary should meet your market value and represent your skills and experience, but the main motivator should ideally be your inner drive. The management guru Peter Drucker said that the best employees are like volunteers, they don’t do it for the money but because they have a passion for it.
#048 The Dolphin School (TDS)
Reward the right behaviour, but do not punish.
Going with my children to play with the dolphins at the Dolphin Bay, located within the Aquaventure theme park next to the Atlantis hotel in Dubai, I thought that we were in for another tourist trap. It turned out to be a useful lesson in leadership. Before entering the big pool to meet the dolphins, we were ushered into a room for an introduction to dolphin training. First I thought this was just a waste of time, since the children were excited to meet real dolphins and did not seem to appreciate the prospect of spending 30 minutes in a classroom.
But I soon realized that this was going to be good. What really caught my attention was the dolphin trainers’ approach to leadership. The marine mammal with the playful attitude was trained by rewarding good behaviour, since it craved positive attention. If the dolphin did something the trainer did not want it to do, it was neglected. But it was never punished. The trainer explained that dolphins are intelligent beings and they do not respond well to punishment. I immediately related this to humans – who are also said to be intelligent creatures – and I realized that punishment does not really work that well for us, either.
Later on, I made a deal with my children to adopt The Dolphin School approach at home. I would never punish them, but bad behaviour would be ignored. For example, if the four year old was running around the table at dinner screaming while the rest us of us were trying to eat, we would just not notice or comment on it. It would be ignored, but not punished. However, if they did something good, there would be a reward.
The Dolphin School is one of the best leadership philosophies I have ever learned and I also practise it at work. At one point I was talked into punishing two people who had lost a lot of money for the company. I reluctantly complied, but it still feels completely wrong. Punishments create a culture of fear where external forces determine behaviour.
The sad thing is that punishments work, people avoid doing things they know they will be punished for, but it creates the wrong incentives and atmosphere. Instead of reactively not doing the wrong things because they will give you pain, it is better to proactively do the right things that bring satisfaction. A culture of punishments focuses on the negative, a culture of rewards focuses on the positive.
Furthermore, punishments make people afraid and insecure. At home, when the children trust that they will not be punished, they are more likely to tell the truth, which in turn enables a better and more honest relationship between parent and child. And ignoring the four year old who is running around at dinner time will soon bring him back to the table. If your bad behaviour does not get any attention, it’s not that much fun to be bad.
Reward the good, be disappointed with the bad and show it, but never punish. That’s The Dolphin School.
#049 Make People Stars (MPS)
Show your appreciation in public.
It is highly motivating to be recognized in public for work well done – the standing ovation, applause from an audience who love you and the feeling that you are a star. It does not need to be an Oscar gala, but you can praise the people you work with any time, especially in front of others.
When I run monthly meetings with the whole company I want to make sure that at least a few people get applause and recognition. Just like being nice, it does not cost you anything at all and you reap great rewards in terms of morale, motivation and performance. At the same time as you give someone public recognition, make yourself small. If you put someone in the limelight, be sure to not step in there yourself and take part of the credit. Make people stars, not yourself. (See also Take The Blame #026 TTB.)
#050 Time For Feedback (TFF)
Giving feedback is helping, and takes time.
Why ‘time for feedback’? Because you should book feedback meetings in your calendar, and because the feedback conversation in itself takes time.
Feedback is probably one of the most used and misused terms in business. It can mean anything from getting a response to something trivial (‘Hey, any feedback on that report?’) to a serious dialogue between two people about something important (‘Your drinking habit is a risk to your career’).
The definition of feedback I have learned is ‘coaching with the aim to help people help themselves’. Feedback is often used to get something off your chest, for your sake: ‘If you don’t make more of an effort I will have a problem delivering this quarter’s results.’ The purpose of useful feedback is rather to help another person achieve their goals: ‘I know how much you want that new client, but when you behave like that you will turn them off.’
From an excellent leadership institute in Stockholm called TUFF, I have learned a few things to keep in mind when giving feedback and having a feedback talk:
The Formal Leader is expected to give feedback to subordinates. But what about the Mindset Leader? If you are to act like a leader, do give feedback, even if it’s not part of your formal role or job description. You can always provide constructive and respectful feedback to colleagues and even your boss, to the waiter at the restaurant or your children’s teacher. Remember, there is a difference between proper feedback and complaining.
Furthermore, there is a fine balance between motivating, or pushing, people to do what you want to be done and supporting them in their interest. Feedback should not be subtle manipulation to get things your way. If the boss says, ‘It is not going to help your career if you don’t deliver the project in time’, the boss probably means, ‘It will be bad for my career if my team does not meet the deadline.’
If you are serious about developing as a leader, or as a human being in general, actively seek and ask for feedback. In most professional organizations there is a schedule for ‘performance evaluation’ and follow-ups. In my children’s school there is a quarterly review which requires the child, the teachers as well as the parents to reflect on a number of themes before the 30-minute feedback talk – with the aim of developing the student, no one else.
Whether you like it or not, you exist in a social setting and depend on other people. Without feedback about how you are doing, the information that comes from the outside in, there is less of a chance you will be able to understand yourself and how you are perceived.
In his book It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be, Paul Arden says: ‘Do not seek praise. Seek criticism.’ You naturally listen for good things being said about you, but you should really search for the bad news. That is how you evolve.
When it comes to criticizing others, I try to follow Warren Buffett’s rule: praise by name, criticize by category. We all like and are motivated by praise, so praise individuals directly. We don’t like criticism and are demotivated by it. So if you have to be critical it’s better to criticize something less personal such as a department, a market or a business. You can also criticize an attitude or a general behaviour, but it’s even better to celebrate and reward something positive and point in the right direction.
Giving feedback takes practice, but receiving it is an art in itself. Luckily it is quite simple. Whatever feedback you get, there is only one answer: ‘Thank you!’ Followed by reflection and maybe personal change.
#051 Compassion Not Co-dependency (CNC)
Be involved, but not to the point of self-destruction.
Compassion and co-dependency. This is a short entry about two very big subjects. Compassion is at the very root of human civilization and a foundation of Christianity and other religions, whereas co-dependency is a large area of research and practice that involves helping family members to overcome the destructive behaviour caused by the dependency (generally on drugs or alcohol) of another family member.
When you start focusing on the people around you, you should be aware of the dynamics. You are there to help, coach and support – not to be consumed by other people’s problems. If you understand the basic difference between compassion and co-dependency, you have come a long way in your leadership. To put it simply: care about people and their problems, feel their feelings (be compassionate), but it’s not your job to solve the problems. It’s up to the one with the problems. Sure, if a colleague is feeling down there is nothing wrong in trying to cheer them up. The destructive part of helping others happens when you get so involved that you actually take over their problems (becoming co-dependent).
The Entrepreneur normally couldn’t care much about other people’s problems – you’ve got enough of your own! The Manager, being a bureaucrat and administrator, sees others’ problems from a more technical standpoint – it’s either their problem or the company’s problem, and if it’s not the company’s problem then it’s not a problem.
The Leader must care for people and, above all, be compassionate. To have and show compassion is to identify with and relate to the feelings and sufferings of others without taking over those problems and sufferings. You let go of your ego and focus on others, which requires a strong self-confidence.
#052 Motivations Of Others (MOO)
Know what motivates you, but focus on the motivation of others.
Remember the ‘MOO’, I tell myself. Why do they do this? They are not here to fulfil your motivations but their own. To be a good leader, put your own motivations to one side and focus on what motivates others. The oil of any successful venture is to fuel the satisfaction, motivation and passion of the people you work with. Just imagine a place with dissatisfaction, apathy and indifference …
If you look into the motivations of others, you will find many different dimensions. One is motivated by money, another by writing beautiful code, a third by innovation and a fourth by always being right. Understand these drivers and build on them. Provide cash incentives to people interested in money and provide challenging tasks to the developer who is motivated by writing great code. Make a free role for the innovator, and don’t aim for winning every argument when talking with the one who always needs to be right.
#053 Here To Help (HTH)
Be there, support, make it easier.
If you ever get confused about what it is that you are supposed to do as a leader, just remember: I’m here to help the people I care for to succeed. I’m not here to make their lives more difficult. I’m not here to create obstacles or make things complicated. I’m here to help and make things easier. The head of sales was at one point so worn out that she simply could not take on any more work. I then offered to do some administration for her. These tasks were not in any way part of my formal role as CEO, but thinking that I was there to help her led me to do whatever she needed to get on her with her work.
Recently I visited the Wellcome Collection, a library, museum and exhibition centre in London for the ‘incurably curious’. The purpose of the place is to make its many objects and books accessible for everyone, and everything is easy. There is no entrance fee, you enter the vast library and its reading rooms without any registration process, the wireless network is free and you access it just by clicking the network name. It’s like the whole place is there to help you do what you came for: to read, learn, experience, enjoy. Be like that as a leader.
The perspective that you are ‘here to help’ as a leader has also been called Servant Leadership, a field pioneered by Robert Greenleaf. Some core characteristics of the servant leader are listening, empathy, foresight and the commitment to the growth of others. To understand servant leadership, think about the teenage wizard Harry Potter and the way he supports his little team and makes Ron Weasley grow, while helping and solving troubles like black magic and big dragons.
#054 Make Yourself Redundant (MYR)
You have not succeeded until you are not needed.
Warren Buffett is famously quoted for saying: ‘Delegate almost to the point of abdication.’ What he means by this is handing of all control and responsibility from the owner to the manager of a business.
I am a believer in that you either have the responsibility or not. If I am in any way responsible for something, I want to have the authority and accountability for it. It is a challenge for the Formal Leader, like me, when your domain is invaded by Mindset Leaders with different ideas about how to run the business you are responsible for. The solution is mutual respect. When I happen to be the Mindset Leader in another setting, approaching an area where there are Formal Leaders in place, I try to respect their roles and proceed with care. Likewise, the Formal Leaders must accept and try to benefit from the views of the Mindset Leaders. But even if I would like others to respect my role if I’m the Formal Leader, I am just as happy to give that authority and accountability to someone else.
By letting others lead you will release that person’s energy and potential, and the job will be done differently, more creatively and better. Nothing makes me happier than handing over control of a business to a new CEO and seeing them do brilliantly – and so much better than I would have managed.
I have always thought that success, for an entrepreneur, lies in making yourself redundant – that you are not needed any more, it works just fine (or better!) without you. When the company grows with a proven formula, and people are leading the business forward without any need for you, the founder – that is when you have made it. You created something enduring that may outlast you. If the company depends on you, and you have to do everything yourself because you don’t trust the people around you to be leaders, you have failed.
You can also use a ‘leadership vacuum’ to let others lead. In one company where I was responsible for the sales department, running an organization of country sales teams, one of the teams lost their Formal Leader (the sales director for the market). Suddenly one line of reporting was gone, since the team head reported to me and the sales people reported to the head. There was now no one who called team meetings, followed up on results and drove the team forward. I decided not to step in to be the team’s temporary new boss, even though many expected me to take on the role that was now missing. First there was confusion and frustration, but then the team started to self-organize, calling meetings, setting targets and identifying challenges that needed to be resolved. This was amazing to see, how people stepped forward to take initiatives and showed leadership. I praised them later and thanked them for their leadership. But this Mindset Leadership from informal leaders would not have happened if I had immediately assumed formal leadership to fill the gap. As a Formal Leader, dare to let the empty space be and let others expand into leadership. But note, it works better if there is already a culture of all-leadership in place.
#055 Let Everyone Speak (LES)
Don’t focus on the loudspeakers, but on the silent ones.
There will always be those who speak more than others in meetings. I call them the ‘loudspeakers’. They want to make sure that everybody hears what they say. I’m a loudspeaker sometimes, even though I try to keep my mouth shut.
What is your approach to the loudspeaker syndrome? Do you think that A) it is the survival of the fittest and you need to shout loud to be heard, or B) you should encourage the quiet people to speak up? Since the headline of this entry is Let Everyone Speak, you can guess that I’m a supporter of alternative B. Why?
Given that you value and respect the people in the room, you would think that the discussion would benefit from the input from all, not just a few. Furthermore, do you think that people who have contributed to the discussion will be more motivated to work with whatever was decided at the meeting? The one who remains silent has neither an obligation nor an incentive to be part of the outcome. This person may be hostile to what is being discussed, without you knowing. How do you let everyone speak? Well, it is simple. Just ask: ‘What about this?’ (See also Lead By Questions #042 LBQ.)
#056 Close Down Computer (CDC)
Be Visible.
Depending on your job, it is not unlikely that you spend much of your time in front of a computer. Try closing down that computer for a day and see what happens. One of the effects is that it suddenly will feel awkward being in your office. Because what will you do there? OK, you can make phone calls, but unless your job is in a call centre you probably can’t fill your whole day with useful phone calls. You can read, but sitting in your room reading may give the impression that you’re not really working, even if the inspiration you get might be good for your job. You can write with a pen, perhaps a thank-you note, or some entries in your diary. But there is also a limit to the writing you can do, because these days it makes more sense to have notes and correspondence in digital form, such as a online document or an email. You can tidy up your office and sort through papers. You can probably think of a lot of things to do in your room with the computer turned off, but after a while it will feel strange and unproductive being there. That is the whole point. Closing down the computer will force you out of your office.
So there you are now, standing in the open plan. What would you do? You could walk around and talk with people, ask how they are doing. Show that you care. You could go out and sit down in a café for an hour and just watch the world pass by. This is also called taking time to ‘smell the roses’, devoting time to the valuable things in life that we never have time with because we spend most of our waking hours replying to emails. When you take a break you often get new perspectives and unconsciously solve problems.
Closing down your computer is a leadership tactic, since it forces you to change patterns, go out there and hopefully spend more time with real people, your colleagues, and focus on them. Or your customers! I sometimes close down my computer, leave my room and take an available seat in the middle of the office and make phone calls to potential clients, in the reality of the company, and the reality of the external world, and make myself visible.
#057 Respect The Role (RTR)
Support, don’t interfere.
The company founder and CEO, an individual with a strong entrepreneurial profile, walks into a meeting in the Marketing Department, headed by the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). The CEO tells the people in the room, the Marketing team, that on his morning jog he got his greatest idea ever. He then outlines his vision for a new ad campaign. Silently watching the show is the CMO, who has called the meeting with her team to present her marketing plan, which it is her job to write. When the CEO has finished his monologue, he looks at the CMO and asks what she thinks. She probably thinks that it’s time to find a new job. She also feels that she neither likes nor respects her boss, and is quite unhappy and miserable for the rest of the week until she winds down on Friday evening with a glass of wine with her husband. Then on Monday, it’s back to business again.
We are all walking around with our various professional ‘hats’ on, or Formal Leader roles. In a company, the entrepreneur might have at least five different formal hats: the CEO hat, the board member hat, the owner hat, the management team hat, the founder hat. These are all somewhat different roles, which could potentially be a problem depending on actual areas of responsibility. (See Too Many Chefs #071 TMC.)
The Head of Sales has one hat, the Chief Technology Officer has another hat, the Chairman of the Board has her hat, the Java Developer has his hat – and all of these hats have associated responsibilities and authority. I would like the people I work with to have an essential respect for these roles as such, while challenging us in how we perform in them and how we could do things better.
For example, the CEO feels entitled to call and run meetings with the management team. If someone else started to call management meetings, with their own agenda, and maybe not even calling the CEO, it would be a mess and close to a revolution. The company would soon be in a turbulent state. To respect the role is, in this example, to let the head of the team (and leadership could very well rotate) call meetings with their team. However, it’s perfectly all right for the team to challenge the Formal Leader in how he runs his meetings. That is feedback, and it should always be given in a constructive, thoughtful and respectful way.
I chose two meeting examples because in some way or other the ‘role of roles’ is often highlighted at meetings. Meetings are a form of structured social context that appears systematically in an organization, and in each of these events people are (or should be) aware of the roles in the room. But the importance of roles, or the ‘hats’ that we are wearing at any given moment, is stressed all the time, in all kinds of settings: the dinner table at home, in sports or when playing a game, when introducing new ideas, allocating money to a project, giving someone some tough feedback or giving someone a gift. Roles can be formal or informal. Someone can be an appointed chief, another can be the voluntary volleyball tournament organizer. What’s my role and how does it relate to everybody else’s role in this social setting? Should I organize the next volleyball event, even though Bob always does it?
You can go ahead and break the rules to make a point, or just because you want results and don’t give a damn about others. That’s a choice available to you to make. But it would be foolish not to be aware of the consequences. Usually it’s good to respect the roles, just because it is the same thing as respecting people. That works for leadership.
#058 Other People’s Offices (OPO)
It matters where you meet.
I had to fire the head of the sales team. I did not hold the meeting in my room, but walked into his room. It did not make the outcome of the situation any different, but the interaction was almost certainly less hostile.
In any organization, people need to communicate. A company, a village or a family are different variations of social contexts. The very essence of this context is relationships that are sometimes quite complex. The way you communicate (in person, through text messages, body language, aggressively, calmly, etc.), how often, how rarely, the place where you communicate and what you communicate all matters – and it’s received in myriad ways depending on the receiver and everything that comes with their background.
Just thinking about it may make you want to stay away from interacting with people at all because the risk of misunderstanding and confusion is so big. That is probably why people prefer to spend time with close friends, because communication is simple: you like the same jokes and you know how to read one another.
With all this in mind, there are a few powerful rules that work to minimize the negative effects of communication. One is to avoid email or text messages for any discussion that might be sensitive or emotionally charged. Another rule is simply to spend time in other people’s offices. This is so simple, yet so effective.
If you are the boss of a company, a team leader, a coach, chairman of an organization or a project manager, you should beware of summoning people to your office (if you have one). To summon a co-worker to you is an act of ruling over other people. Coming over to their place instead is much more humble. The place of a meeting is always charged with meaning. If you are applying for a bank loan, do you meet at the bank – or is the bank coming home to you? I don’t think so. The one who holds the home ground has the upper hand.
If you’re a boss and call a subordinate to your office, rank is established from the outset. This is especially the case if you are sitting behind a desk, and as sometimes happens, you are sitting somewhat higher than the person opposite you. Just this setting, in the social context of an organization, is intimidating. And even if the purpose of the meeting is trivial, the atmosphere will be charged. If your purpose is to congratulate on a job well done, it will still create distance between boss and employee. If the purpose is to remark on a job not so well done, the setting makes it even worse. Do you want people to feel scared when they meet you? Sometimes, yes, but not as a routine. Another thing that might be worth considering is the gossip and drama that it creates when someone is summoned to the boss’s office.
Take the meeting in other people’s offices where you can create an uncharged atmosphere, focus on the job at hand and show that you are an equal peer with your team member.
#059 Small Personal Things (SPT)
It is not the big stuff that really matters.
Life is made up of small personal things that we care about, such as birthdays and anniversaries. They are ‘small’ because in the bigger scheme of things such as the sales targets you are supposed to deliver on for the quarter, falling real estate prices or global terror threats, they do not have much relevance for anyone other than the person directly involved.
Still, your birthday feels special to you, and possibly more important than current political issues or the macro-economic climate. You know that it is your birthday; you have celebrated it every year since you were born and your closest friends, family, relatives and a few Facebook connections will remember you and send their love and best wishes. Still, you can sit in that meeting and no one around the table will have the faintest clue that it is your birthday and they could not care less. They would most certainly congratulate you briefly if they knew, but you would not really interrupt the meeting and tell them, would you? It is just a small, personal thing. But for you it is kind of big.
There are so many things that are important to us individually, without meaning much really to others: collecting some weird form of art, listening to heavy metal music, going to drama classes in the evening, playing golf at weekends, that fishing trip with your pals every autumn, my new gadget, your new year’s resolutions, the pasta dish that is my favourite, and so on.
As a leader, don’t become occupied just with the big things – notice the small, personal things around you and how they matter to people. Acknowledge them. A CEO I know has entered all the birthdays of his employees in his address book and with his birthday app on his phone he gets an alert whenever there is a birthday in the company. Then he promptly sends a text message saying ‘Happy birthday!’, or congratulates the person as he passes their desk in the morning. It’s nothing really, just a small, personal thing, but it matters.
#060 Release The Energy (RTE)
Look for how to unleash the full potential.
One of my guiding principles is to look for the energy and potential that can be released – in people, ideas, businesses, companies. I think it’s a positive and optimistic approach.
Look for a person’s strengths and see how they can be developed. It is the same thing with companies, which are, after all, groups of people coalescing around ideas and processes.
In one company, we developed software for managing our own ad campaigns on Facebook in the early days, before such tools really existed. Then we were approached by Facebook to offer the tool to a wider, external market. We turned our software into an easy-to-use, powerful and affordable product for the advertisers, offered globally on the Web. This product was very different from the online marketing agency where it was developed, so we did a spin-off and started a new company that could exist on its own merits side by side with the original company.
To release the energy in the new business, we recruited its own management team and CEO, financed it separately, made sure it developed its own independent business plan and set the company free to unleash its full potential, in its own way, under its own brand. The management team got options in the company, making it their business, too. The results came quickly and the new and independent company grew fast ahead of plan.
Look out for that hidden potential. Maybe the COO can become a CEO of a separate company, or the great Mindset Leader can step up to more responsibility. Are there any opportunities to help individuals grow while making the business grow as well? Is there restrained energy that can be released by turning a systems development department into a new business area with its own plan, leaders and product revenues? Be on lookout constantly for potentials that can be unleashed. Release the energy wherever you can. This is probably easier to do if you are the Formal Leader, with a formal authority to bring about changes. But it is also up to the Mindset Leader to be on the lookout for any hidden potential and unreleased energy, relating to both your organization and your own part in it.
#061 Fifty Percent Ready (FPR)
Let other people in to finish your plan.
When you walk into a meeting, or any situation that you have called and initiated, you probably feel that you have to deliver. You have set the agenda, you have invited people who have allocated valuable time to spend with you, and you take pride in having thought things through and structured things properly. In short, you are prepared.
Now, if you come to the meeting with a fully ready plan and present it as such, the only thing the people in the room can do is to react to the idea and either like it or loathe it. If you have an open culture where everybody feels free to comment and criticize whatever is on the table, you might get constructive input on your idea. If you have a more destructive culture you will get negative feedback, an indifferent reaction, or worse: praise from people who want you to think that it is a great idea when they think it’s nonsense. In this scenario, you might go ahead with your idea in the false belief that you have your team behind you when in fact they are hostile to your idea.
Presenting an idea that is ‘too ready’ risks reducing the involvement and buy-in from the rest of the team. After all, it’s your idea, not theirs. What you want is feedback and, ultimately, involvement from the people who are going to make your idea come true. It’s also called buy-in. You want others to grasp and embrace your idea.
The solution is to call the meeting and present the idea in a form somewhere between a sketch on the back of an envelope and a full proposal, take-it-or-leave-it 100% idea. In short, be 50% or half ready. This will allow you to be humble: ‘I have thought this through’ but not ‘I have reached the final conclusion.’ Presenting things in this way will allow and invite others to come up with their own suggestions on how to complete the idea, thereby making it their own.
Remember, as a leader your task is not to get credit for everything but to get things done – and that always involves others. And you must bear in mind that you don’t have the final conclusion on everything. The world is too complex and there are always alternative perspectives. Have your beliefs, but welcome others to challenge and add to them.
Outside your organization, you might send proposals to your clients and customers. Even if these are a complete 100% idea that you stand for, the other side will have their view on it and come back with opinions. Embrace it, invite them. Be open.
#062 Not Your Agenda (NYA)
Be transparent, invite, ask.
At a dinner I sat down with the editor-in-chief of one of Sweden’s largest newspapers. She had successfully brought the company back from the brink and was now turning a healthy profit. I asked her about her leadership style and she said that she made people feel they were part of a family. I later asked her boss, the head of the media group, about the secret. He said that she ‘did not have an agenda’ – she instantly acted on her beliefs without trying to manipulate people into her plans. She was transparent.
To believe in something is good. But to have an agenda in an organization can be bad. Just the expression ‘to have an agenda’ is packed with negative energy and makes people cautious. Someone who has an agenda is not to be trusted, because he singlemindedly turns everything towards the fulfilment of his own goals.
To have an agenda at a meeting, in itself, all other things being equal, is a good and practical thing that is required for efficiency. However, the way you set the agenda, what points feature on it and how you present things can turn hostile, especially when you come with fully prepared answers to each point. Setting an agenda for a meeting can become a power struggle, because the agenda is in its own right an interpretation of reality or priorities. Try to involve other in setting the agenda. How? Here’s a simple way: whenever you send out an agenda, label it ‘draft’ to signal that you welcome input.
Now, there are different situations. There are circumstances when you are required to follow up on points or make a presentation and the expectation is that you deliver a well-prepared proposal. This is typical in a client meeting where you are supposed to outline your offering in a sales pitch. Or in a board meeting where the CEO is expected to report on the previous quarter with analysis and comments. These are fairly straightforward and typical situations that you can call delivery, reporting, pitching and commenting. You are the one with the presentation, and that’s the point of the agenda. You are expected to present. In short, this is about ‘Answering’.
The other setting is about ‘Asking’. Here your main purpose is to get others’ feedback on something, to get buy-in for an idea or plan, to launch a project. You want everybody involved, to initiate a budgeting process that requires department heads’ time and effort, to create a winning spirit and build the energy. But don’t bother asking if you have all the answers already, or if you just want to create the impression of involving people in the solution.
If you feel strongly that you know what to do, fight for your belief. If you think the solution is more open-ended, invite. The energizing thing to do, if you respect your team members at all, is to ask your team to prepare the agenda and come up with solutions. Resist the temptation to be effective. Resist the temptation to impress your thoughts and ideas you have been cultivating in your head for so many months now. Try to resist your own plan. Otherwise, you might be tempted to get your team to come to a certain conclusion without telling them explicitly what the conclusion is. This is the very problem of ‘having an agenda’, you want to achieve something without being frank about it. It’s better to state your beliefs up-front.
So if you want involvement, outline the issues at hand. It can be a strategic dilemma such as whether to invest in project A or project B. Then, let the team members plan the agenda. If you are the Formal Leader, it can be a challenge to let go of the control. The result might not be the exact points that you would have brought up, or the solutions, but you have achieved involvement. Now, it is not your agenda, it is the team’s agenda.