Gillian had a smile on her face. “I think I finally have the right team. Everything is working smoothly. And every team member has the competence to do what it is expected. What more could I want?”
“Dangerous to ask me an open-ended question,” I replied. “Do you feel prepared? Do they have the skills? Not to do what is expected, but to grapple with the unexpected?”
Regina was proud, “We just got an increase to my annual budget for my customer service team.”
“Oh, really?” I replied.
“Yes. Two years ago, we had a small team and our customer service scores were 1-2 on a 5 point scale. Not good.”
“Okay,” I agreed.
“I spent a lot of time working on how we respond to the various glitches in our product and warranty claims. Turns out, there were five problems we had to deal with most often, so we trained hard on those.”
“And?” I nodded.
“And, our scores improved. I got the green light to hire ten percent more to the team. Last year, we actually won a customer service award, averaging 4.8 on our scores.” Regina was bursting with pride. “And, this year, I got the go-ahead to really ramp up the head count on my team.”
“Regina, did you ever have a conversation with your operations team to talk about the five things that created so much customer service traffic?”
“They screwed it up again,” Charmagne protested. “Luckily, I managed the risk, so it wasn’t a devastating mistake.”
“Perfect,” I said.
“What do you mean, perfect? You mean perfectly wrong?” she stated flatly.
“I find competent people always in learning mode,” I responded. “To build the competence of the team, you have to keep them in learning mode. Do people learn more by accidentally getting it right? Or inevitably making a mistake? As the manager, this is your perfect opportunity to get your team in learning mode.”
“Why do they constantly make the wrong decision?” Deidra asked. “We have problems where the solution is counterintuitive. If the team follows the popular trend, they come up with a response that creates more damage than the original problem.”
“Why do you think that is?” I wanted to know.
“I don’t know. Instead of thinking through the problem, they wait and follow behind whoever has status in the group. And, of course, once that person has made a move, contributed the first idea, no one else is willing to question or challenge. Or add alternative solutions, or judge one idea more effective than another. After a while, that popular team member becomes a person of influence. One or two problems down the road and the team becomes incapable of wrestling with the root cause. And, I become the street sweeper in the elephant parade.”
“And?” I glanced sideways.
“And, what?” Deidra was frustrated. “You are looking at me like I’m the problem.”
“I just wanted to know what else?” I smiled. “Who taught them to follow someone else’s lead, instead of thinking for themselves? Who taught them to bring the problem to the street sweeper?”
“Okay, so we pinned showing up to work, to starting on time to meeting deadlines,” I concluded. “Now what. What is the next habit?”
“I get the practice of meeting deadlines, but I am still stumped on what to work on next,” Naomi looked puzzled.
“You’re stuck because you are trying too hard,” I suggested. “Put the next habit on your team. Have your team decide what the next habit of competence will be.”
“If I am stuck, they are going to be stuck,” she complained.
“You are stuck because you haven’t set up some guardrails to guide their thinking. Let’s take a simple framework like MUDA,” I prompted.
“I know MUDA, that’s the seven wastes,” Naomi sparked.
“And, what are the seven wastes?” I asked.
“Moving stuff around too many times,” she started. “Making too much stuff, overproduction. Making things too complicated, overproduction. Holding too much inventory, raw goods or consumables. Unnecessary movement, work flow and work flow sequence. Waiting for stuff, white space in the workflow, creating unnecessary idle time. Identifying and eliminating defects.”
“Very good,” my turn to smile. “Do you think your team could identify one of the seven wastes and work to improve their competence? Competence is not a choice, it’s a practice, it’s a habit.”
“It sounds like you understand, or have an accurate sense of your own competence, but your team, faced with a challenge, avoids, denies, or tries to negotiate back to the old way?” I asked.
“Yes, it’s almost like a way of thinking,” Naomi replied. “There are things I know I am not good at, but those things do not scare me. Some on my team seem genuinely afraid of trying something new.”
“But, if you have made it necessary, how do you proceed without a brawl or deliberate retreat?” I smiled.
“I think it is a matter of attitude. A mental state. The circumstances of reality do not change, they are what they are. It’s a matter of how a person sees the challenge of something new. If my team enters with a framework of failure, that it is going to be hard, it is going to suck and they will get yelled at for the failure, then it’s going to be a long day. Somehow, I need to change the framework.”
“But, the difficulty in the process will still be the same?”
“Yes, but it’s quite another thing if the team can see this is new, this is difficult, they will struggle, they will make mistakes, but they will continue. Things will get better and they will have small breakthroughs. Then, there will be a setback. They will have to re-focus. But, they will not get yelled at, they will be encouraged to try again. How long does it take to teach a child to walk? It is simply necessary.”
“Given your intuitive sense of competence, an understanding of your current limits of success, and what it might take to overcome those limits in the future, how does that translate to your team?” I asked.
“To run a marathon, I need to train,” Naomi replied, “I get that. But, my team appears to see things differently. If you gave me a challenge to run a marathon, and I agreed this was something I wanted to do, then I would engage in the necessary training at that distance. When I give my team a challenge, beyond their current ability to perform, they seem to shy away, avoid, make excuses, find something else to busy themselves with.”
“So, first they would have to agree that it was something they wanted to do?” I confirmed.
“In many cases, they don’t have a choice,” Naomi smiled. “If we are changing a process that requires additional technical skills, we are going to change the process, no choice. It’s similar to the question, how long do you give a child to learn to walk? There is no choice.”
“So, as a leader, you make it necessary?” I nodded.
“People will just muddle through, if you let them. If we install a new process, there is no muddle. I have to make it necessary.”
“How do you know if you are able to do it, unless you try?” I asked.
Naomi looked skeptical in her contemplation. “I think I have a pretty good understanding of my own competence, what I am able to do and what I am not very good at.”
“And, how did you come to that intuitive sense of your ability?” I pressed.
“I guess it’s just self-observing over a lifetime of trials and tribulations,” she replied.
“So, given a new set of circumstances, given a new challenge, you have an existing insight of whether or not you will be successful?”
“More than that,” Naomi countered, “I have a sense of where my failure points would be and what I would have to do to overcome those obstacles. Let’s say I was to try to run a marathon, 26.2 miles this afternoon. I am a runner, but my intuition would be that I would fail. My failure point would be in the lack of conditioning for that distance. But, I also know that if I were to train that distance over a period of 12 weeks, I would most likely be successful.”
“I assume your initial intuition and subsequent analysis is correct,” I nodded. “So, in your role as a leader, how does this self-observation apply to your team members as they are faced with new challenges for which they are not competent?”
“I want to take an inventory of my strengths and weaknesses,” said Olivia, somewhat excited.
“What for?” I asked.
“I think it’s important for us all to be more self-aware,” she replied.
“Why?” I pressed.
“I’m sorry, I thought you would support my interest in some self-reflection.”
“Self-reflection is fine, it’s a worthy pursuit, but for the purpose of what? Let’s say you take a complete inventory, a strength here, a weakness there. And, your observations are absolutely accurate. So what? What have you really accomplished?”
“Well, I would be more self-aware,” Olivia was a bit exasperated.
“Compared to what? A strength here, a weakness there, compared to what? Your inventory is just an inventory. I want to know where you want to go. What does life look like, feel like, taste like in your imagination of the future? What is your next destination on your journey? What is its color? Who is with you? What it your purpose in traveling there?
“When you get clarity in your vision and purpose, then self-reflection will be helpful. Understanding your strengths that will power your journey, facing your faults that might stop your journey, that’s the real value of self-awareness. Before you take an inventory, tell me where you are going.”
The emperor has no clothes, the onlooker said, to the gasps of others. It’s easy to identify in other people. “Only when the tide goes out, do we find out who’s been skinny dipping,” said Warren Buffet.
Who is the emperor? Pogo says the enemy is us. Why is that such a surprise?
We figure out the world as it stands, at least in relation to our small circumstances. We are comfortable. We build our lives on the routine. The biggest mistakes are made when times are good.
The world changes. The first step in the cycle of loss is denial. The tide goes out and reveals our exposure, and we are the last to see it.
Seeing nakedness in other people is easy. Not so much for self-awareness.