In the Kingdom of the Blind…
There is an exercise we do with our workshop participants (I thank David Liebnau for introducing it to me), whereby everyone in the group is blindfolded. Two volunteers take on the task of leading the rest of the group, and their goal is to lead them to a certain meeting point (for example, a tree or a lamp post) a couple of hundred meters from the starting point. The leaders get to see the location of the goal and get to trace the steps there, but the rest of the team does not. The leaders explain the task, then don blindfolds themselves and the group, which often resembles a snake or a train of people, gingerly starts shuffling from the starting point. Most people are unsure when their sight is suddenly taken from them, and so take on a cautious approach and often self-protective body language and unusual walking style.
At some point, my colleagues and I remove the blindfold from one of the participants. That one person can now see. He or she has an ability or skill that by far tops that of anyone else in the team, and in turn, could take on the role of the leader, and yet, fascinatingly, more often than not, the participant who has their sight returned to them says nothing. He or she usually looks at us trainers despairingly, hoping for some sort of explanation, but they seldom tell the project leaders that they have a newly found skill set that could revolutionize how the task is completed.
At one such event recently, during the exercise debrief, the participant who had had her sight given to her, explained how she felt at that moment:
“I was unsure whether I was allowed to see or whether I was allowed to say anything, or not.”
In other words, the unseen culture of them and us, that is, leaders and staff and each in their place was so powerful—even in a workshop game situation—that it restricted an intelligent professional from expressing her strengths. Interestingly, when asked if he would have relinquished control of the task to a member of his team, had he known that one of them could see (i.e., had skills to make the team more productive), the team leader stated that he would have immediately handed over the project lead to the sighted colleague.
After doing the exercise with another group recently, the first newly sighted team member said nothing. He shared with neither his leader nor his team mates that he could now see, and so could have helped the process and productivity. He stayed quiet. After a few minutes, I thus removed the blindfold from a second person. Interestingly, she also did not utter a word. She just continued as if she were blind, walking with her hand on the shoulder of the woman in front of her and with a hand from her follower on hers. I continued to free up the sight of a third, fourth, fifth, and sixth team member. At no time did any of them tell the leader that they could see.
Upon reflection, after the exercise, they shared with us their frustration during the task. They explained that they felt internally driven to say something, but all decided not too because they:
“Didn’t want to ruin the game” or because they;
“Didn’t want to hurt the boss’s ego” or because they had looked around, could see that others could also see and were saying nothing and so assumed that;
“The culture of this team seems to be to say nothing, so I will also not say anything.”
This is a classic example of the power of an existing culture to force others to conform and of the complicated (pseudo-political) dynamics at play in groups.
With an international group in a recent workshop, snaking its way to its goal on a Barcelona rooftop, the team leader (positioned at the front of the blind people-train) heard quiet discussions from the now-sighted team members, but sadly could not hear what they were talking about (they were discussing how they would use their sight to help the group and how they would communicate this to the leader). Assuming that the group could all still not see (he was none the wiser as he was blindfolded) and not knowing the true focus of the discussion, the leader screamed his dissatisfaction at the lack of concentration, unfocused and irrelevant chit-chat, and disrupting elements and ordered everyone to shut up and listen! There would only be one voice: his. The sighted members followed his order and said nothing, and the productivity of the group remained low.
Our responsibilities as professionals and leaders in similar team situations in the workplace are threefold:
- We must develop a culture within our team, where ideas, suggestions, and proposals are respected and encouraged. We cannot afford to let our ego get the better of ourselves so much that it prevents us from taking advice and input from team members, who ultimately, could make the team more productive.
- If we feel, as leaders, that there are team members who can improve productivity of or contribute positively to team goals, then we must hear them out. My way or the highway only reduces the number of creative minds at work to one. Be bold, encourage discussion, transparent opinion, and creativity.
- If we find ourselves as the newly sighted player who has skills, knowledge, or creativity to offer, then we must find our voice. The knowledge is in the system (Baldwin and Linnea 2010). Not sharing that knowledge is the handbrake of innovation.
Let It Go
Talking of innovation handbrakes, the Peter Principle (Figure 3.1) is a theory posited by Laurence J. Peter in 1969 (Lazear 2000), which describes the all-too-common phenomenon of continuous promotion until failure kicks in. According to Peter, we have traditionally promoted those who are most successful in their role to take on a new role, and we do that until they have been boosted to a position to which they actually do not suit, and so fail, and are, inevitably, fired. Put another way, we all have talents and strengths (more on this in the next chapter), and it is the expression of these strengths that catch our superiors’ eyes and sometimes lead to our promotion. However, it is very possible that we had the strengths in that role to catch the eye, but that by no means guarantees that we have the strengths to be successful in the next role. Just because I am the best in my field or the best in my team does not mean that I will necessarily be the best at leading that team.
Figure 3.1 The Peter Principle: a good associate does not always make a good leader
The stage is often set as follows: the boss approaches, congratulates, and thanks for a job well done. She announces that the reward for your previous good work will be to head up the team that you were previously one of. In addition to that reward will be a car with slightly more horsepower, the word manager on your business card (which you will then quickly add to your professional social media page), a bit more money each month (after tax), no need to clock in any more, invitations once a quarter to team leader meetings, oh, and a heap of leadership responsibilities for which you have had no training and have no experience of how to deal with.
Put differently, you will be asked to do two jobs (will probably only be paid for 1.25 jobs), one of which you are totally inexperienced at and unqualified for. This enormous workload almost always leads to time management issues. The main bugbear of young leaders whom I coach is that they simply do not have enough hours in the day to keep all the balls in the air, and so they inevitably resort to type. To try to conserve energy, they focus on what they know, that is, the expert duties they previously did so well in, that it expedited promotion. They neglect the leadership aspects, so spending too little time with and too little time focusing on their team. This disconnect from the team, in many instances, leads to what I call cocoon leadership.
In cocoon leadership, the young leader, overwhelmed by the workload, ironically, makes life harder for herself by taking on everything that comes her way—good or bad. She retreats to her cocoon. Stressed and terribly fearful of failure (I could not possibly fail at my first job as a boss!), she convinces herself that undertaking everything and anything herself will be the best method of action. Of course, it is not. Our young leader has gotten herself into a vicious circle of over-responsibility. What she often fails to notice is that the sure-fire way out of this downward spiral is her team.
The more you lead, the less you have to do. By delegating tasks and responsibilities to team members, we not only free-up valuable time, which can then be directed toward other assignments, we (and this can be so efficacious) empower our staff to use their strengths to advance projects and solve problems. We kill three proverbial birds with one stone: we allow ourselves to develop, we help others to develop, and we get (people to get) things done!
Delegation, or as a popular song in a recent, family, animated film might call it; letting it go can be one of the most powerful devices in the leader’s toolbox. You should not be scared to let it go.
The best way to let it go is to involve your team in decision making and task completion, that is, delegation. Mack Story (online 2018) adduces five levels of delegation:
- Wait until told. Inexperienced leaders often keep their team waiting for things to do until they tell them. This, the lowest level of delegation, restricts growth, restricts respect, and restricts responsibility. In the short term, it can be effective, but in the medium and long term, it squanders staff talents and escalates frustration and disengagement. Associates do not learn to think for themselves at this level, and the pressure on the leader is high, as he or she has to do everything himself or herself and stay mindful of what he or she has told the team.
- Ask what is next. Worryingly similar to level 1. At this level of delegation, the only difference is that the team member returns to the leader to ask for their next job, instead of being told. Growth, respect, and development are also absent here, and the leader’s time management is still challenged. The only difference is that the leader may incorrectly convince him/herself that the productivity is higher because his or her staff keep returning for their next mission.
- Recommend a course of action. This is the level where the magic begins to happen. The leader has created an environment in which the associate feels respected, valued, and most importantly, trusted enough to approach, suggest ideas, and make recommendations. The leader no longer has the responsibility to determine the next steps. It has been transferred to the associate. If the leader disagrees with the suggestion, he or she can coach and ask questions to help inspire the delegate to new thought. If he or she agrees, he or she asks questions to understand and share the knowledge. A good leader will never take responsibility for any successes from the suggestion, though.
- Do it and report immediately. Ownership starts to develop on the part of the associate at this stage. The suggestion bringer moves on from level 3, in that they need not first share the idea with the leader; they are trusted and empowered to complete the task without support. They need only report back on results. This completion before telling the boss feeds engagement and ownership, and the team member may begin to feel part of something. As we learned from Robert Dilts in the last chapter, this feeling of identity drives creativity and motivation. Unsurprisingly, the leader, at this level of delegation, is involved only a fraction of the time when compared with levels 1 and 2. Just think what you could achieve in that time!
- Own it and report routinely. At this level, full responsibility and ownership has been transferred to the subordinate or team. The team simply reports their results to the leader at predefined intervals or even when the leader or team member just feel the need. The person or team have the complete trust from their leader and this trust, in turn, frees both the team and the leader for other endeavors. As Steven Covey puts it (cited by Story 2017): “The beauty of trust is that it erases worry and frees you to get on with other matters.”
Delegation not only eases pressure on oftentimes stressed managers, it breeds creativity, ownership, and trust, which, in turn, lead to motivation and increased team productivity. Give it a try. Let it go.
The Player-Coach
In professional soccer clubs in Europe, there is a sometimes personnel strategy whereby veteran players are promoted to the so-called position of player-coach. When a head coach leaves or is fired, a very small number of clubs have been known, on occasion, to ask one of their senior players to step up to the plate and coordinate team affairs (running practice, devising tactics, leading the team on game day, communicating with the press and senior franchise management, and so on), while at the same time, continuing as a player. In other words, these player-coaches are expected to look after their bodies, stay healthy, work on their technique, practice, and deliver high-quality performance on the field in as focused a way as they always did. However, unlike the rest of the roster, he or she runs practice himself or herself, and is not able to leave after practice. He or she remains at the training center and plans the next day’s sessions with his or her coaches and formulates the team tactics to be used against the next opponents.
What is interesting about the player-coach is that he or she is very rare. In the highest soccer divisions in Europe, over the last couple of decades, there have been just a handful of player-coaches who have held their positions for anything more than just a small number of interim games.1 Ruud Gullit (the Netherlands), Kenny Dalglish (Scotland), and Gianluca Vialli (Italy) are maybe the most successful examples of player-coaches. In U.S. sport, the phenomenon is even rarer. Tom Landry’s appointment of Dan Reeves as player-assistant coach for the Dallas Cowboys in the NFL in the 1970s and Pete Rose’s two-year stint as player-coach of the Cincinnati Reds in the MLB in the 1980s are two isolated examples of this uncommon appointment.
In professional sport, the player-coach is rare, and yet, it is very, very common in the corporate world. Almost every business in the world employs the strategy of promoting team members to leadership positions (see the Peter principle), but expects them to continue with their functional, technical and professional responsibilities at the same time. In a way, such corporate player-coaches are expected to do two jobs.
If you are reading this book, chances are you are already a player-coach or you soon will be. This transition from leading yourself to leading others and yourself requires a significant shift in mindset, and is maybe the hardest leadership metamorphosis there is. You need to learn to prioritize your tasks and hone your personal organization, while at the same time, developing skills, such as delegation, and communication with employees. Player-coaches have to move from trusting in themselves and their own abilities and strengths to extending that trust to others. Namely their teams.
Many young leaders struggle with this shift in paradigm and lots complain that they feel they lose control when taking on managerial responsibilities in addition to their process responsibilities. Young leaders oftentimes bemoan being forced to leave their comfort zone, and in particular, many note tension with having to delegate tasks, which they previously conducted competently themselves, to seemingly less-qualified colleagues. Why should I give that task to him and watch him do it worse than I would, when I can do it fine myself? I can appreciate why young leaders ask themselves this question. Before they were given added leadership responsibilities, they were good at their jobs. They were fast, efficient, skilled.
To try and detangle this conundrum, I would like to return to the player-coach scenario. Imagine you are a player-coach in a professional soccer team. You have chosen your team for the match and have included yourself in the on-field line up. It is the last minute of the game and the scores are level. Your team is awarded a penalty (similar to a field goal in football, in that your team could win the game with this one kick).
Who do you choose to take the penalty kick?
Maybe you are thinking:
- “I am the head of this team. I will step up and shoulder the burden of such an important task.”
Or maybe:
- “If one of my teammates shoots and misses, then maybe he/she won’t be able to deal with the disappointment and it may negatively affect his future performance.”
Or maybe:
- “I have the power to choose who gets the glory here, so I am going to take it myself and get the plaudits, if/when I score.”
How about the following tactic?
Let the best penalty kicker in the team take the penalty.
In other words, divide your team’s tasks up strengths-oriented. Who is the best at what? When you have identified your team’s strengths, assign them tasks accordingly. That is leadership. Bearing the weight of a thousand problems yourself (see i) protecting your team from (potential) failure (ii) or taking the glory yourself (iii) (even if you are unsuited) is not leadership.
Leading is about getting the right people in the right place at the right time to deliver top performance for the team. To achieve that, you need to lead strengths-oriented.
Chapter Leadership Challenge
Check out Delegation Poker2 by Jurgen Appelo.
Jurgen has designed a simple game that can be played by small groups with little effort (i.e., the playing cards can be downloaded for free or even scribbled on blank pieces of paper). The game even works as an individual, self-reflective exercise. Delegation Poker encourages players to reflect on the extent to which they would delegate responsibility in a series of short business cases. The players can then simply discuss their motivation for delegating differently or discuss and keep score. According to Apello, there are seven levels of delegation:
Tell: the boss makes the decision and orders others to do it
Sell: the boss makes the decision and convinces others to do it
Consult: the boss asks for others opinions and then decides
Agree: the team decides together
Advise: the team decides, but can use the boss as an advisor
Inquire: the team decides and then the boss inquires after completion
Delegate: the team decides and implements alone
1 Thanks to Bert Smith Jr for his support with this chapter.
2 https://management30.com/product/delegation-poker/