photo by pattyequalsawesome
Sometimes you run across derivatives of the same idea from multiple sources and it gets you to stop and listen.
Two recent examples have come from Netflix and Miles Davis.
Ultimately, it’s about how best to maintain a leadership position by enabling those around you to explore new boundaries. Leading and corralling rather than managing.
Netflix has posted a rather lengthy, but worthwhile slide show about their culture and how they work. They put it best by asking their managers to provide ‘context, not control’ (slides 76 - 84). In essence, describe where you want to go, not how you want to get there.
And The Miles Davis Story (as relayed by a friend) explored Miles’ proclivity to assemble talented musicians, set the mood for the evening and then walk around the stage as they do their thing. His job was to capture each individual’s wandering explorations and create something cohesive out of it. Sometimes it worked brilliantly. Often it didn’t. But his purpose was to create something that hadn’t been felt before. To do that you have to be willing to try things that don’t pan out.
It takes a unique type of person to be able to lead in this manner.
It’s no wonder that people who are at the top of their game are attracted by this environment. If you’re looking to set the direction for your industry then it’s a leadership style worth considering.
Lance Armstrong’s reemergence at the Tour de France has created an interesting plot line. Namely, who leads a team with two leaders?
Believe it or not, cycling is a team sport. It takes several unselfish teammates, called domestiques, who are willing to do more than their fair share of work in order to help someone else get the glory.
Most teams, therefore, are set up to have one acknowledged leader who has an opportunity to win the race and for whom everyone else protects and works. Lance, however, joined a team that had the winner of the 2006 Tour de France and arguably the strongest rider in the world today, Alberto Contador.
Last Friday was a day the rift in the team became publicly known. The team’s game plan had been to control the tempo of the first big climbs by riding out in front and doing the hard work. Then with a couple miles to go Contador attacked Lance and his teammates to recapture a few seconds and leapfrog Lance by two seconds in the overall standings.
After the race everyone from Lance to the other Astana teammates to the race director agreed that Contador’s attack wasn’t part of the plan. Lance, to his credit, said that his job right now was to the team and he stayed with the pack to ensure that no attacks from major competitors were forthcoming.
photo by ._SantiMB.
While arguments can be made that it was a shrewd move from a strong rider, it’s a team sport and a repeated game. There are two weeks left and Contador will need his team to help him if he stands any shot of winning.
So to break from the team plan in order to put himself in a better position made it known where his priorities lie. It’s all about him, not the team.
A leader and a team make one another better. It’s a symbiotic relationship where both fail without the other.
Sometimes in order to lead you have to hold yourself back and pull your teammates with you. Other times they will be pulling you. But you can be sure that when your motivation is individual glory and you pay no heed to the effort they’ve put in on your behalf that they will find it far more difficult to go to that well again. They will start asking themselves what’s in it for them? They’ll need to know that you have their back just as they always have theirs.
To lead a team give your team what you want in return. You’re not a team leader after all if nobody is following.
photo by keela84
ChangeThis has posted another excellent set of presentations this month. One that deeply struck a chord is Flow, Flee or Fight.
As always, it’s worth the full read, but for those leading teams and running companies there is a lot to be gleaned by reading between the lines.
Following the golden rule never hurts. If you start to treat people as you’d like to be treated and start listening to what they say, but also for what their actions are saying then you’ll be in a better position to harness effort and channel the ‘negative’ energy into something positive.
photo by annadriel
A recent Towers Perrin post reveals a conversation the author had with former NFL coach Tony Dungy. Football is known for its gruff, abrupt, in-your-face style of ‘leadership,’ but Tony Dungy was far from that. He succinctly states his philosophy to leading and getting the best from his players three points (from the post):
- His parents were both teachers and they believed that it was their responsibility to make every student an “A” student. But not every student learns the same way, so you have to tailor your style to each individual to bring out the best in them.
- You have to make each player on the team understand that the good of the team is greater than that of any individual, and that you can only be successful as a team.
- You have to earn your players’ trust — this is foundational to the first two. They have to trust that your coaching and advice is what is best for them and for the collective team.
I like this for several reasons:
First, if your leadership style is inflexible and you see people as cogs in the wheel then you dramatically limit the field of potential individuals who could excel in the job. Finding good people is hard, why should we further constrain ourselves?
Secondly, you are limited by the boundaries of your own imagination and thought process. If you only know one way to go about things then you won’t be open-minded to new, potentially better approaches.
Further, by acknowledging that people are unique you are connecting with them on a very personal level. In order to motivate you have to know them. That connection is usually a two-way street. By taking the time to understand someone you’re proving you care about them. Reciprocation is then difficult not to grant. You wind up getting a lot more effort in return.
Finally, you don’t want your people to compete with each other too much. That devolves into a race to the bottom. It is far easier to push another down than it is to lift oneself up. Putting the team first means that you won’t reward pushing others down in order to shine.
photo by robert francis
An excellent post at PsyBlog on the effects of group dynamics on productivity. Basically, the more people you add to a group the less effective the group becomes when the workload is additive. One interesting study showed that when people were asked to clap or yell as loud as they could their output in a group of six or larger was 1/3rd of what it was on their own.
As the author notes, “… a group problem-solving session relies on the brains of the best people in the group - social loafing wouldn’t necessarily reduce productivity in this group as markedly.” So this doesn’t wholly apply to our knowledge businesses, but I think we can all remember times when we were guilty of this or saw it in others in a group.
The post recommends several ways to minimize the effects of social loafing, including:
All good, but there are a few worth adding.
If other solutions have worked for you please leave them in the comments for others to see.
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