Leaders as a team

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Often when we talk about teams, we refer to working teams on projects. Groups of people tackling code, or a program or delivery of customer experience. While teaming is important at the execution level, it’s even more important amongst leaders. This may seem obvious but it is not common reality – especially in large organizations where you don’t get to pick your leadership peers.

In the past 9 months of being in one of the worlds largest corporations, I’ve seen and experienced this directly.  It’s rarely a product of intent (unless individuals are highly political and self-serving). Rather, unless there is a deliberate focus on creating a sense of one team – something that happens naturally in a start up where the goal / mission of the organization is more acute. Structures in large organizations cause silos due to defined mandates. Within silos, leaders have responsibilities for their own success, not necessarily success of the portfolio or area.

How do we organize and lead to deliver on bigger mandates? Well – I’ve been experimenting with a few things in the past months:

  • Try to get everyone in a room as much as practical
  • Force conversations out into the open that were previously 1:1 outside rooms
  • Create a trusted forum without fear of speaking up
  • Have no ego (this is a running theme)
  • Have no fear of losing your job
  • Document and action
  • …

As a leader, what are your strategies and tactics for teaming with your peers?

When ego gets in the way

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Today I encountered two instances of ego getting in the way good decisions – one personal and one professional.

For the personal project, I designed a house, engaging a well known and reputable architect. We did all the right things, consultations with the city, discussions with neighbours, thoughtful design. When we submitted to the city, despite support from city staff, neighbours and current planners, one voice in the room (the city’s ex-planner who’s outsized ego and outdated point of view is well known) – chose to oppose it, swaying the group to deny the application. I appealed. This was 4 months ago. Today was the appeal hearing. Typically taking days or weeks with witnesses, expensive lawyers and experts, the tribunal chair took 39 minutes to declare in favour of the project.
One ego caused hours of wasted effort and months of wasted time.

At work, a similar story emerged. Strong personality + ego + impatience + stress = an explosive combination. Cultures build in an environment of openness, not when there are directives and an unwillingness to question. Respectful opposition is seen as undermining when it should be additive. Building a high performing organization is not a straight line but iterates and pivots over time. Ego gets in the way by driving towards the bullet answer. The danger with ego at work is that there are too many other factors – concern for financial security, career and reputation impact.
Ego can throw meaningful work and culture into disarray. 

From my experience, some hallmark signs of ego include:

  1. Unable to let go of a firm belief even when faced with clear evidence to the contrary
  2. The inability to see issues from different perspectives
  3. A lack of listening and a focus on talking “at you”
  4. In the extreme – delusional reality and distorted memory
  5. The clear need to be right (even when no one else cares)
  6. …

What are signs you’ve seen?

Resiliency and pain

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From start to finish, pain bears resiliency. The trick is staying strong mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically when things are difficult, ambiguous and there isn’t a clear path. With each experience, muscles form that give the ability to face future challenges. Like rings in a tree trunk, layers of dirt to hard earth, we are the unique product of our hard won experiences.

How to identify a leader in the making

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Over the past 20 years of my working career, I’ve been amazed at the caliber of young leaders who I’ve had the privilege of working with. While this group of individuals have been exceptionally diverse, they have / had common hallmarks:

  • Depth in 1+ craft(s) – eg analytics, strategy, design etc.
  • Strategic viewpoints and broader business context;
  • Humility grounded in their desire to learn;
  • The ability to hone in on the part of the conversation that matters;
  • Presence and confidence in communication;
  • Kindness balanced with firmness
  • Positive energy

Some memorable examples:

  • The head of finance who went toe-to-toe with the President daily
  • The highly analytical strategist who developed C-Suite strategies
  • The design thinking strategist who could marry consumer insight with organizational context to create highly effective journeys
  • The analytics leader who’s composure and framing were well beyond their years
  • The entrepreneur who runs an enterprise level start up

These young leaders – whether currently in my world or in memory – inspire a higher bar for myself and my teams. Who are the emerging leaders in your world?

Do you need to restructure your org?

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Organizations are entrenched in their habits and routines. When these become sub optimal and structures need to pivot, how do leaders know when, what and how? Too often, restructures don’t result in their intended benefits – masking issues by moving pieces on the board around, without putting the work in to uncover root causes underlying why restructures occur in the first place. But delaying changes can cause high performing teams to lose momentum and languish. Consider the following when planning for restructures.

Key indicators of when.

There’s no signal that lights up that says “Restructure Now!”. The balance in any scenario is to remove the barriers and issues that keep high performing teams from achieving objectives without losing the things that are working well. Some signals that your organization is ready for a restructure include:

  • Existing structure doesn’t optimally support the current context of the organization
  • Deep dive into root causes cannot be addressed in the current structure
  • There is overwhelming consensus across leadership that a restructure is needed

What to restructure.

Many aspects of an organization are involved in a restructure. Organizational processes and structure, grounded in foundations.

  1. Starting with foundations, leadership needs to align to purpose, mission, vision and strategy. Without this core, any restructure will fail as leaders will operate off their own playbook – leading to mixed messages and spin.
  2. Determining the appropriate org structure is critical once there is alignment at the foundational level. How are teams organized to deliver on the strategy? Who are leaders for the teams? What are their roles and responsibilities? Clearly defined decision rights are key to both structure and process.
  3. Building the right processes to deliver within the org structure includes developing the routines of teams, how they communicate and are accountable to the organization and each other. To be successful, processes need to be grounded in the values of the organization and defined by a set of design principles that help to guide, not overly govern behaviour.

How to actually do the damn thing. 

This one is entirely dependent on the context of the organization. Restructures need to be handled with care as they impact at the intersection of human ambition and need for safety and security. Answering key questions when thinking about how will help to inform the how. Consider the following:

PEOPLE

  • How fragile are teams in the current state?
  • Are teams asking for change?

STRUCTURE

  • What is the organization’s readiness for restructure?
  • How severe is the anticipated impact?

 TIMING

  • How urgent is change needed?
  • What is the history of restructures and reactions?

There isn’t just one way to think about changing an organization. What’s important is to have a deep understanding of the rationale, context and ultimately, the people within your organization. Any change will have unintended consequences but the risk of status quo when the organization is calling for change is worse. Leaders need to take great care in not just thinking, but planning a thoughtful approach to changing their organizations. Ultimately, they and their teams will need to live the new world they create.

 

 

Perspective is reality

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Perspective is highly personal. It’s how you see the world, live in it, react to it. Our perspectives are coloured by our experiences which are coloured by our perceptive … So our realities are not anyone else’s. Let that sit for a minute. We interact across space and time with others yet everything we experience is fundamentally different – yet the same.

It can be crippling trying to make sense of potentially infinite perspectives in any given event. That’s if you cared about what others thought. On the flip side, it can be incredibly liberating asking and being curious about other perspectives. I prefer the latter approach but can often find myself in the former. How do you experience the world?