Today’s post is written for both avid readers and those averse to reading. These tips will help those with towering stacks of books just waiting to be read sort out the “must read” from the “should toss”. And for those infrequent readers, the first three tips will allow you to spend minimal time with maximum payoff.
I’ve been the victim of disastrous decisions made from “on high” – well-meaning corporate types who had no idea how their dictates impacted operations at the local level. And not all were disastrous, but many were ill-conceived, not very practical, or at times, bewildering and laughable.
I’ve also been the corporate type – struggling to make one decision that served many, being blind to the specific nuances and awed by the complexity of implanting something across large global organizations.
And too, I’ve suffered through my fair share of mind-numbing meetings attempting to get to consensus. And been a part of way too many projects that were stalled as key decisions were held hostage to the notion that a consensus must be reached.
I’ve also led my fair share of meetings trying to get to consensus. Often successful if the issue was minor or the culture was compliant. Often frustrated if the issue was major or the culture was one that pushed back.
And no matter whether leading decisions, or participating in consensus decision making, often experiencing decisions that were watered down or awkwardly cobbled together or crafted to the least common denominator.
And so I cheered as I read Fredric Laloux’s new book, Reinventing Organizations, where he described a third way of organizational decision making – the advice process.
The notion of telling stories in business is at times a bit suspect – as if telling a story was the same as spreading a falsehood. Or perhaps a bit too frivolous for the “serious” nature of the work we do. Or a bit too theatrical, pushing us well outside our comfort zone.
Doug Stevenson, founder and chief story teller at Story Theater International (and his amazing side-kick and muse, Deborah Merriman) have cracked the code on “strategic storytelling” for business. I had the wonderful opportunity to join three others in a retreat at Doug’s studio recently.
Doug draws heavily on his acting training and Hollywood experience to bring “the magic of storytelling” into a business setting. He breaks down the essential elements of story and teaches how to craft a compelling tale that captures attention and sticks with you for a very long time. Most importantly, he instructs business people in how to make their point using story. For storytelling in business is more than just spinning a good yarn or telling a story to get a few yucks. Much more than that.
It is clear that organizations that can create workplaces where all talent can bring forth their best, will be the best situated for success. However, I must admit that the work is long and hard – and progress is slow. But it is too important to waiver. So, I’d love to hear. What is your organization doing to tap into the potential that diversity and inclusion bring?
An artist looks at their work in a totally different frame of mind than does a mechanic. The artist sees infinite possibility. The mechanic sees a problem to be solved. The artist has a vision. The mechanic has a job. The artist works in iterations, continuing to add to the creation what is needed. The mechanic works by elimination, until the source of the dysfunction is found. The artist creates, the mechanic fixes.
As a leader, you are often in the “mechanic mode”. People bring you problems to be solved, work to be done, decisions to be made, dilemmas to be fixed. And that is a valuable and ever-present part of the role you play.
But how often do you play the role of creator?
In November 2014, Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, the billion dollar on-line shoe retailer, announced the company was moving to holarchy, an organizational structure with no job titles and no managers.
Instead of the typical hierarchy, fraught with bottlenecks, slow decision making, and concentrated power, the company will be organized into 400 circles, with each circle having a number of roles. The intent is “radical transparency” and extreme adaptability. In this model, the CEO has less power and all employees are expected to lead and to act entrepreneurially. Zappos and its 1500 partners (you and I would call them employees) will be the largest company to date to attempt this type of organizational structure.
Let me explain what I think works with this model, as well as what bothers me about this model.
Gallop just released the results of a study with Purdue, measuring the degree to which graduates have “great jobs,” through successful and engaging careers, and are leading “great lives,” by thriving in their overall well-being. They distilled their findings into six key college experiences that contributed greatly to well-being. Yet few college graduates that Gallup studied achieve the winning combination. What were the six key college experiences, and what can we do to help them achieve them more often?
Say the word hazing and we immediately think of college fraternities and high school locker rooms. The idea that if you want to be “one of us” there is a price of admission – sometimes embarrassing, sometimes requiring great sacrifices, sometimes acts of daring, and sometimes outright danger or death.
It’s not called hazing at work. It’s called things like, “just the way we do things here,” or “our culture,” or “orientation”. None the less, many organizations have strange (and less than helpful) rituals designed to test new members before they become a part of the group.
The idea of pivoting comes from lean startup – starting with a business idea and testing it in the real world with real customers (potential customers at this point) very early and very often. You test and explore and learn as an early step with a Minimal Viable Product (MVP) or just enough to get started. The hard reality is that more ideas fail due to not finding a market than due to poor execution. Build it too fully without testing it with the market and you are likely to miss the mark. You tend to overbuild. You might miss some brilliant insight from a customer that makes a real difference in your product or service; one that you would have never stumbled upon in the inner sanctums of your garage or home office. In lean lingo – one learns quickly, fails fast and avoids the tendency to over-engineer or perfect things before the customer (and their wallet) has their say.
As you test and learn and fail, you “pivot” or make changes and tweaks that make your product or service or business model better. You don’t lose sight of your goal; you just recognize that the path to get there might look like this:
So today I share with you a real life story of pivots and of persistence. And it is my story.
I was intrigued, and then, dismayed after a pit stop in a chain gas station on a trip to North Carolina. Attached to the inside of the door of the women’s restroom was a large, laminated poster – proudly outlining the 12 steps for cleaning said restroom. At first glance, I was thrilled that the establishment took this so seriously, as I really like clean public restrooms. However, a deeper look, gave me a touch of disbelief first and then a reminder of my despair about our education system.
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