How Rogue Can Work For You

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Sometimes, independence is the best policy.

 

Allow me to indulge in a little bit of personal storytelling to make what may be a useful point.

22 and a half years ago, I made a commitment to leave a small town in lower Alabama to head to college at Stanford University. In that day, before the internet, I had barely known what “Stanford” was when the football recruiter first came calling; I literally asked him where it was on the map. As a somewhat highly rated football recruit with a modest national profile, I was known to Stanford more than Stanford was to me. When I made that commitment, a little-known fact is that I received hate mail from my South-loving neighbors…some of it mailed anonymously, some of it sounded off in newspaper columns. My favorite was a column in the Birmingham news that ended with “somebody said go west, young man, and Geoff Wilson did.” It was a tough decision. It’s one that I still to this day don’t fully grasp how my 17-year-old self made. The easy choices were right there (Alabama! Auburn! LSU! Florida State! Tennessee!).

I went for the “total package” that was Stanford–academics, athletics, weather, diversity of thought, and, above all, teammates who seemed to be interested in being more than only ground-pounding hunks of meat. Very, very few people understood my choice. My high school football coach, after hearing (from me) that I had committed to Stanford, simply responded with “I figured that…”

Telling.

20 years ago, I had a life-changing experience on the football field. I had one leg collapsed and twisted in one of those awkward ways that leads to reconstructive surgery and contemplation of one’s future athletic life. It didn’t put me off the field permanently–I missed a season and then was a starting tackle in college for a couple more years followed by a sip of coffee with an NFL club after “recovering.” But, it did blow my confidence in some ways and either physically or mentally cost me a step or two. Physically or mentally…which one, I’ll never know, but it was just enough.

14 years ago, I watched my maternal grandmother take her last breath. A sharp, spitfire (she would say “shit-fire”) of a woman, she ended her life unsure of her surroundings and probably glad of it–I doubt she would have liked the nursing home. She had rescued my immediate family and multiple other wanderers from crisis, she always had a pot of something cooking on the stove (just in case somebody dropped by), and she would not hesitate to, ahem, tan a hide or two. Watching her take a final few gasps was formative.

5 years ago, I went through a rending and private self-evaluation and made a choice to leave a prestigious and altogether fantastic global professional services firm (that I still like and respect today) while on the cusp of partnership. I can still hear the “no, no, no” admonition of a firm partner and friend when I said I’d made that choice.  I was in search of more than I thought that firm could offer in terms of long-term stability, so I went corporate.

3 years ago, I lent moral and physical support as I witnessed a very close 40-something family friend lie on a hospital bed in my mother’s living room slowly choking to death during a brief and brutal fight with lung cancer.

2 years ago, it all came to a head in two ways, almost mystically but doubtless coincidentally.  First, I faced a choice of staying corporate and doing, as far too many corporate types do, what I was told to do because it would mean more money. This choice came to me in such a way that my own purposefully transparent values and aspirations were challenged in multiple ways.

Second, during the somewhat agonizing deliberation over how to consider that choice, I had the experience of being the first good Samaritan on the scene of an awful one-car rollover crash on an interstate highway in Alabama.  The driver, with his young son and their cat in the car, had gone into diabetic shock and run off the road at 70 miles per hour.  As my wife and I saw the dust cloud ahead of us and saw the small SUV rolling multiple times, she called 911 while I shouldered our car and sprinted (as it were) to the scene.  The boy and cat were fine–the driver was not.  As the only person on scene, I was magnificently ineffective.  I clawed and wrestled to open the driver-side door of the upside down SUV only to find…finality.

It put my personal dilemma about “corporate or not” into stark relief at a time when such contrast was probably best needed. I faced the choice of either doing–in the misguided words of another colleague “whatever it took” to be a good corporate player or, in the words of a senior executive I worked with intensely for years, “going rogue.”

I chose rogue.

I think without the formative experiences of a few broken dreams (dammit, I was going to play in the NFL for a long time) and witnessing a few times how we all end with broken bodies (thank you, Chuck, for admitting that the best part was “knowing how you would go.”), I couldn’t have done it.

I think that anyone reading this has areas of life where rogue is right. It might be in work, health, or family, but choosing to go against convention can be exceptionally agonizing but altogether rewarding.  Why?

First of all, there is a binding pressure on so many of us not to be creative.  Wait, what?  Yes. The pressure to be as uncreative as possible–to be proles in somebody else’s totalitarian society–exists.  That can come at work, but I’d argue it also comes in civic society–churches, service organizations, and government.  When you are presented with choices and asked not to think them through–especially when you are scorned for thinking them through–you are facing this sort of pressure.

Conventional thinking comes from doing what you are told, not what is thoughtfully considered.

Second of all, there is a subtle but extremely strong force that holds us in thrall with the herd.  It’s known as “risk.” We view departing the herd and thinking on our own as risky. In fact, many corporate, civic, and church cultures are founded on the notion that people must be trained to feel worthless if they are disconnected from the whole. But it’s just not true–some of the most world-changing observations and decisions have been made by people who ignored the risk of solitude and actually did things.  Do you think Martin Luther ran his ideas by the hierarchy?

I’ll riff for a minute on this second one, because it is an area in which the world has actually changed for the better over the past 10 years or so.  In decades past, individuals attached themselves to firms for the promise of stability. The social contract was that people who did reasonable work didn’t get fired; they were part of the firm.

That all changed during the rise of corporate restructuring and overwhelming (but in many cases necessary) focus on shareholder value.  The baby boomer generation (my parents) walked right into the maw of this reality during the ’80s.  Lifetime employment was no longer real. Defined benefits were gone.  The social contract had changed.

But people’s behaviors did not.  They still joined companies with the thought that the company was entering into a contract with them…to the extent that they would eliminate their own professional voices and outside-the-firm career development options in favor of being “all-in.” I’d argue that such was the case until about 5 – 10 years ago.  The younger generation has gotten wise to it, although not entirely.  The world has changed.  Nowadays, it’s easy to source and sell talent on the open market, and firms play less of a role in the matter.

For young professionals, this means that “what’s in it for me” amounts more to the immediate experience and pace a role in an organization offers vs. merely a “job.”

For talented professionals with a longer and strong track record, this means that the only reason to sign one’s life away to a corporation is that that corporation has committed to an explicit contract with that individual (I’m talking ink and paper–verbal contracts are basically meaningless even when you have recorded the conversation, trust me).  The only other reason I can think of is if the talented professional owns equity in the corporation.

So firms like yours and mine are left with three basic value propositions for the people they employ:  Professional development for younger people to increase their employability within your firm or somebody else’s, ownership of your firm so that they can enjoy the longer term fruits of their labor, or a contract that offers some risk sharing.  That’s what we can offer to today’s “roguish” workforce.

That’s it: Professional development, ownership, or a contract.

But that brings you to the realization that for seasoned, talented people, an employment contract without equity is essentially a consulting contract. So, then what?  Well, the short answer is that in today’s economy, unless you’re an owner or are receiving an out-sized investment in your own professional development, you’re a consultant anyway.

Might as well admit it.

That is the biggest change in the past decade: Senior talent can finally find its own level outside of the politics and impracticalities of a firm structure, and younger talent clamors for more professional development sooner than ever.  It’s the truth. And, the only people I know who lament “their people’s” newfound ability to go get a better deal are people who think that people they employ are “theirs” in the first place.

I’ll offer a couple of implications.  You might already see through my story above and say it’s totally anecdotal. To that, I say guilty.  But still…

For the individual: This article is a long way of saying that life is short.  We all end up the same way…broken.  Once we (that’s you) have invested the time and effort necessary to build an exemplary track record, we might as well have the self-respect to exercise our freedom to choose.  Choose where and with whom we spend our time and efforts, and how we are compensated for the risk we take.  Let’s choose, at least occasionally, to be creative.

For the corporate manager:  It’s important to realize that in today’s environment, exceptionally talented individuals are going to look for ownership or a contract that looks a lot like it.  As a corporate leader, be sure to investigate the benefits that the new epoch of highly talented free agents brings to you and your organization.  Oh, and because you do employ people (just as I do), remember that the contract is different now…  people are looking for an employment value proposition today and not simply a career.  Almost no organization can credibly offer a career anymore, so you might as well offer a value proposition that extends employees’ capabilities immediately vs. promising something in the future that may or may not happen. So, go beyond hire and fire. Consider sourcing talent in a more flexible model.

No matter where you stand, rogue can work for you.

 

Real Talent Never Dies

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In the death of an icon, we can see how real talent lives on.

 

Today is one of those days that kind of creeps up on you.  It starts just like any other day, and then includes the loss of an iconic figure.

Incomparable pop star Prince has died.

To call Prince iconic is perhaps not generous enough.  After all, the guy actually changed his name to an icon for a while.

That’s beside the point.  And, yes, I’m hoping to make a point here…

It’s this:  Real talent never dies.

Prince’s exceptional talents brought joy to millions of people over decades.  He pushed the boundaries of pop music; and he did so with an impressive style.  His talent was, to put it mildly, transcendent.

And that’s the thing.  Prince’s talents are still with us.  They have just been passed on to innumerable talented performers who are to this day riffing on the style and substance of Prince’s repertoire.

I think that if we look at performers in the world–whether it be in music, theater, or business–the really talented ones…the ones with a capital ‘T’ in their talent, contribute to a body of thought, action, and art that transcends their short stay on the earth.

Think about Mozart…

…or Beethoven…

…or Bach…

…or Shakespeare…

…or Poe…

…or Picasso…

…or for that matter Rockefeller, Ford, Morgan, and maybe even Jobs.

They are gone and here at the same time. Each has left pieces that have been picked up and appreciated by others.  They have left behind techniques, styles, and visions–crumbs of talent that lead others to a higher plane.

So did Prince.

Real talent never dies.  It leaves the world better off.  It brings others to a higher plane.  Perhaps we should all aspire to such things, but some of us actually get there.

So long, Prince.  I guess this is what it really sounds like when doves cry.

The Worst Strategy Metaphor in Use Today

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Choose your business metaphors wisely, because they say a lot about how you view the world.

 

 

One of the minor annoyances present in the business world is the use of metaphors that are resoundingly misfit.

How often do we talk about “blocking and tackling,” or “moving the ball down the field,” or “hitting singles and doubles,” or going for the “Hail Mary” in our everyday professional lives?

How many times have you heard even these simple ones mixed up, as in “I think it’ll be a home run, but the boss keeps moving the goal posts…”

Often. Right?

But every now and then, a metaphor is used so often it becomes a paradigm that is dangerous.

The metaphor of business as a “chess match” is one of them; and I’ll tell you why.

Chess and chess matches, when viewed in the light of the complexity and ambiguity of the business environment, are purely tactical. Chess is tactics. I write this despite the existence of a body of literature suggesting that the preparation, staging, execution, and ultimately winning of chess matches amounts to exacting preparation for business leaders…Strategic nirvana.

I’d argue it’s analytic nirvana–necessary but insufficient for a strategic metaphor.

Alas, chess as strategy is a bad metaphor for business mortals. While chess allows us to illustrate the depth of analytic thought on an issue (the best masters of chess can see deeply into a match to judge moves and patterns); it lacks the breadth of conceptual thought necessary to be an active analog for business strategy.

Mastery of tactical depth counts for something, to be sure. But mastery of strategic breadth, on the other hand, counts for everything.

The issue is that we conflate the two…Badly.

The most magnificent Chess minds spend thousands and thousands of hours mastering tactics. They learn every potential combination of openings and defenses. They spend their lives immersed within the very box of patterns and potential moves that, for some reason, has become synonymous with “strategy.”

They do this, and yet they have been mastered by machines. Think about that for a moment, and you can start to see why the game is based on patterns and repetition vs. intuitive, virtuosic strategic brilliance. The mechanistic logic of chess is its own prison, and thus is the reason chess is a bad metaphor for business.

Allow me to create the mental image of business as a chess match, then you be the judge of whether it rises to the level of a sufficient strategic paradigm:

Imagine that you and I both agree to play in a business arena where we:

  • Start with the same resources
  • Agree to the same set of moves
  • Operate on the exact same game board
  • Disregard comparative advantage
  • Agree not to move pieces in any innovative manner
  • Operate in a purely zero sum environment
  • Keep all moves open and transparent
  • Avoid arbitrarily upgrading or switching out pieces for pieces with more power
  • Prevent the lowly from ruling the mighty (as in the illustration above)
  • Avoid outside sources of power, resupply, or leverage (i.e., capital, partnerships, brand equity)
  • Will on average play to a draw if we both play the game as well as it can be played (“…chess is a draw” according to famous grandmaster Gary Kasparov)

…and so on.

Are we now engaged in a strategic struggle for the ages?

No.

We’ve chopped all the degrees of strategic freedom save two: Our experience and our intellect. All the real world strategic levers I’ve outlined above lie in the negative space of a chess match.

In short, once you’ve taken nearly every strategic variable off the table, you are left with a chess match. It’s two people matching wits. That, folks, isn’t strategy, it’s a contest. It’s a highly regulated, constrained caricature of real world strategy.

Chess is a closed system. Real world strategy is an open system.

Strategy is about exploiting means to achieve ends. The first means anyone exploits in a strategic contest is whether to play on the terms available. While chess matches do offer the option of a “surrender,” to do so is to incur a loss and to provide a massive advantage to one’s adversary.

A second, and very important means, is the means of overinvestment. Overloading a single point of weakness (or strength) at a single point in time is a key real world capability. Put a team together to go after a single customer? Go ahead, it’s the real world. Overload on a chess board is a sequential thing, not an instantaneous one.

Other strategy games offer exit and overload options (like folding or going “all in” in the game of poker)–limiting losses or allowing asymmetric bets based on early indications that the game is or isn’t worth playing.

These moves are analogous to real world actions. But, they aren’t really an option in Chess.

If business were such that one could simply study all the moves in history and play the next match, it wouldn’t be all that tough, would it? That is essentially what has happened in chess. If it were so in business, IBM would have developed the Deep Blue machine for business back in the 1990’s and we would all be working for IBM at this point.

That, my friends, may be the best evidence for the misfit metaphor: If a computer can outwit a grandmaster (and they pretty much all can at this point), the game is one of logic and pure horsepower; not one of strategy.

If it were a game of strategy, the grandmaster would unplug the computer first, and then ask it to make its first move–while smiling of course.

Add to all this the cardinal observation that properly played chess will typically result in a draw (as noted above) and you have a very dangerous metaphor for your organization (implicitly, if you play well and lose, you did something wrong…Not always the case in business and life).

So, what?

I write this not to split hairs, but to illustrate the importance of the metaphors we put in front of our organizations–especially during times of change. So many of the metaphors we use are quirky; but some of them are downright dangerous.

If we are to pursue an enlightened approach to strategy, then using metaphors that speak to openness, flexibility, and canniness are much more on point than those that involve pure intellect applied to closed systems that imply no loss as long as strict discipline is maintained.

The metaphors you choose say a lot about how you view the world: Do you view your organization’s business environment as a closed, zero sum game, or something different?

File this one under strategy, change leadership, and perhaps curmudgeonly explication (as if LinkedIn needs more of that).

Note: The current Carlsen – Anand world chess championship match inspired thoughts for this article. Though the game of chess may not be a good business metaphor, the drama of championship chess matches can be quite a thing to behold and study.

Geoff Wilson is a strategy executive focused on the articulation of practical strategic principles for leadership. He also harbors the specific indignity of blundering into a fool’s mate one time in the 7th grade. He has just started a Twitter presence and still isn’t sure what to make of it, so consider following: @GeoffTWilson

Where The Money Is Made…

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Do you reward those who make the money or those who posture for it?

 

Operation Red Wings was a not-so-obscure military operation in the mountains of Afghanistan.  It started on June 27th, 2005 with the insertion of a SEAL reconnaissance team onto the side of a mountain near the suspected location of an Afghan insurgent leader. After circumstances that were made famous in a book and by Hollywood, 3 of the 4 SEALs were killed, along with 8 SEALs and 8 Special Operations aviation team members who were sent to rescue the original SEAL team when their helicopter was shot down. Marcus Luttrell became the famous Lone Survivor of the original 4 SEALs in this episode, as documented in his book and in the subsequent movie.

And yet…

In late June and early July 2005, I was completing a particularly challenging consulting engagement and then taking two weeks off to enjoy some paternity leave surrounding the birth of our second child.  I bet I complained about the long hours and the hardships I had to endure with a newborn in the house while I padded around in sock feet and drank the coffee of my choice while enjoying my air-conditioned house in Dallas, TX and my paid leave from a challenging but all-in-all cushy job as a consultant at a global firm.

Anybody see the irony, yet?

Somewhere, there is a fight going on.  You might be in the middle of it, and you might not.  It’s being carried out on your behalf, and you might not even know it.

In a recent conversation with a finance lead of a very strong business I work with, we came to an agreement on something.  The money isn’t made by the spreadsheet jockeys or the executives: It’s made by the gang who’s making product on the shop floor and the salespeople who are making sure the customer is happy and buying.

In other words, there’s a fight going on.  Somebody is out there sacrificing their own time and talent on behalf of the company, just like you, except if they don’t do their work today, there is no tomorrow. Perhaps we ought to acknowledge that.

What’s the implication here?  It’s nothing new really, but it is important. For all of us who live our lives off of the derivatives and commissions of real value, it’s important to stop and ask whether we are enabling value creation or hindering it.

I can hear it now:  “Oh, silly consultant… how could I as an executive be hindering value creation?  Look how much they pay me!”

Well maybe, just maybe, you are being paid for what you positioned for, not what you’re worth; it happens.  Usually it happens to other people, not to you (that is, I’ve never met someone who would admit they are overpaid–only a few people who admit their jobs were easy).

Yet there are innumerable vain corporate initiatives that create ungodly productivity taxes for organizations without really creating any value. I’m looking at you, activity-based accountants and demanders of the 90-page board report that nobody reads; they are everywhere.  Often, they are directed by people who enjoy plenty of time in their sock feet drinking the coffee of their choice while those who are in the fight struggle a world away. Except that a world away in instances like this could be just on the other side of the wall on the shop floor, or around the corner in the sales office.

I recognize that it’s a little bit strained to compare people who are struggling to get product off the dock or to make the next sale to Navy SEALs fighting in Afghanistan, but the imperative is the same.  Whether we’re talking about citizenship in a free society or our own work as executives, managers, and analysts, somebody out there is fighting on your behalf, and you’ll be a better pro if you recognize it.

So, do you reward those who make the money or those who posture for it?

 

 

Do You Know Your Dilbert Premium?

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Do you charge a premium for dysfunction?

 

I love Dilbert.

The classic comic strip by artist Scott Adams speaks to truths of the corporate environment.

As a matter of fact, the only people I have encountered who dislike Dilbert tend to be the ones whose behaviors the comic strip captures most perfectly.  In other words, they are offended.

What the Dilbert comics show best is the dysfunctions that crop up from management platitudes and organizational shortcomings.

They show the kind of dysfunction that overwhelms organizations…even some of the best organizations you know.  Leadership that believes “do something” is the answer exists in many, many forms.

I get a kick out of Dilbert’s send-ups of such stuff.  It puts on paper some of the rather ridiculous aspects of corporate environments (oh, and consultants) that make life miserable for people fighting the good fight.

Which has me thinking…

I like to think that a healthy part of running a healthy company is having people who value their own self respect and the dignity of others.  Those two things are really reciprocals of others.  I respect myself too much to be unethical, and I respect your dignity enough not to ask you to be.  Corporate environments that don’t foster self respect and dignity are worthy of leaving, as I’ve written before in many forms.  That’s a line that I won’t and I hope you won’t cross.

The real interesting question is about Dilbert dysfunction that falls short of the dignity line. How do you handle that? Do we need to define our own “Dilbert Premium” in our lives?  Do we need to place a price on dysfunction?

An anecdote

At a conference of consultants I recently attended, one of the participants related a story of a client.  It went something like this (and I’m quoting for effect, to be clear, I’m making up the quote):

“I was proposing on some work for a client who is known to be a real pain about fees and payment and scope. So, I was really careful to propose a lower than reasonable price for the work…”

What? Yes, that was my reaction.  What, you say?  You proposed a lower price for a potential client who is known as a pain in the rear?

Having served a few clients who were (a) known as jerks and (b) fulfilled that promise, I firmly believe that this guy didn’t have his Dilbert Premium worked out.

What is the Dilbert Premium? 

Think of the Dilbert Premium as the price of wading into dysfunction.  For a professional services provider, this is easy.  You know you have to go to the bottom of the septic tank to solve the problem?  Price accordingly.  Workers of this type are episodic.

The definition, then, of the Dilbert Premium is the increment or decrement you charge to your market value for dealing with particularly toxic or challenging environments or particularly attractive ones. 

Yes, that’s right, it works in reverse, too.  A lot of people make that calculation:  I like my job and the team, so I’ll take a pay cut. Still, it’s stunning to me how many people dislike the work, the people and the pay, and make no move whatsoever.  And by this, I mean seasoned professionals who are quite good at their jobs.

So, you work in a challenging business environment at a tough job with people you don’t like.  Name your price for your Dilbert Premium.  Is it higher pay? A better immediate working team?  Perhaps a change in job scope?  Those are all variables to consider.

How much do you charge to live with dysfunction? Do you just do your job, tolerate boors, and never ask for a raise? Are you expensive, or cheap?

I will write at some other point about how organizations’ cost of talent is directly related to reputation, growth, and leadership culture.  This one, however, is on you:  Do you price yourself appropriate to the dysfunction you will be asked to tolerate?

A second anecdote

I once took a lower paying role than an offered alternative on the theory (supported by historical evidence) that the Dilbert Premium would place the lower paying role far above the alternative; and, I was right.  The work, the people, and the pay were all fine. I never looked back.  If this is you, congratulations.

However, things do change, and as dysfunction mounts, you have to assess whether your assessed Dilbert Premium was, in fact, right.  If it was not…then look for the right time to make a change–a raise, a change in job scope, a change of team.

Ask yourself:  Do you charge a premium for dysfunction?  Should you start now?

How Is Your Team Like Your Teeth?

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A team can be naturally beautiful, or just pretty on the outside…Know whether your team has good hygiene, or just a good set of veneers.

 

One of the striking things about celebrities today, particularly U.S. celebrities, is that they rarely have questionable teeth. Their teeth are all pearly white, straight as a keyboard, and larger than life.

How can that be?

I mean, anyone need only look as far back as the 1980s to see natural teeth on actors of all types; perhaps the best illustrations would be Tom Cruise’s and Kelly McGillis’s choppers in Top Gun.  They weren’t bad by real people’s standards…they were real.  But by today’s standards, they were…subpar.  Both actors have taken steps since then, and both doubtlessly invested plenty of cash.

Today, even the lowest level budding stars get work done on their teeth (and other things) to the point that it’s hard to tell what’s real anymore.  The fundamental question one might reasonably ask is:  Who has good hygiene vs. just a good fixer?

That doesn’t matter when you’re picking your movie stars, but it does matter when you’re picking your next team, and that’s the point of this post.

Your teeth, your team

Like the glamorous celebrity’s grill, the team you are joining might be forged out of natural beauty, strong roots, and superb genetics, or it might be held together with a high-tech patchwork of braces, veneers, and chemicals.  It might be the result of great hygiene and spectacular care, or it might be the result of a shortcut to the local strip mall for some tenderness.

Is there a difference?

When it comes to teeth?  No.  But when it comes to your team?  Absolutely. That team you’re thinking of joining needs roots, genetics, and good hygiene.  It needs good relationships, alignment, and constant care.

But how can you tell whether your team is composed of veneers held by a brace?

Easy, test for hygiene.  Test for relationships, alignment, and—yes—joy; there is no joy in a team of artificial players.  Test for values. Ask whether team members regard each other as people; ask how they spend their time out of work. Plenty of teams will talk about concepts of doing good, values, camaraderie, and such, but those are veneers.  Fewer teams can point to times when fundamental values have been challenged and how they resolved the challenges.  That’s where teams are made…the defining moments.

This is a short post that is more about your career and your personal choices than it is about the team you’re a part of.  It’s rare that a single member can change the position of an entire team unless that member is the leader. So when it comes to your team, you can either grin and bear the reality of a team of veneers, or you can smile at the opportunity to be a part of something deeper.

Now it’s your turn:  What does a team you can smile at look like?  Leave a reply if you have a moment.

Hiring For Smarts Isn’t What You May Think It Is

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Only hire people smarter than you, but know what kinds of smarts you need…

In the modern corporate environment, far too many executives are bent on taking the notion of “hiring people smarter than they are” to the extreme.  In doing so, they create talent cultures where glib, facile intellects have an advantage over specialists of all sorts; and this is a problem for strategy creation and execution.

These cultures will take an un-apprenticed person with a generalist skillset (or, in some cases, merely a strong presence) and explain away deep functional deficiencies as “flat spots” to be rounded out.  They will concurrently ignore deep specialists without the glib (and, yes, I do mean this as a pejorative–as it very much is) facade and deem them not fit for higher office due to capability deficiencies.

They make depth and breadth equal partners in talent evaluation structures, and then overweight breadth in the actual evaluation. In doing so, they cast off expert talents in favor of generalists ones.  They get it all backwards.  In spades.

Why it happens

This problem goes back to a notion whose origin is unclear to me: “Only hire people smarter than you.”  I agree with this… No, really, only hire people smarter than you!

It’s a good policy.  Sure, on its face, it’s a ridiculous notion. It’s one whose logic leaves the smartest people in the most junior roles, and a team of ignoramuses in the C-suite.

In a seminal Harvard Business Review article called Hiring For Smarts, author Justin Menkes reinforced the notion that intelligence rules. Hire for it.

But to think that way too purely misses the point.  The people you hire need to be expected to develop more depth than you have at something. That something may be as straightforward as managing your calendar or as complex as negotiating cross-border partnerships.  People who work for you don’t have to be broader than you, but they should (eventually) be deeper than you at something. They have to be smarter than you or they won’t provide you real effectiveness.

In other words, if you only hire people who look like you but who are only slightly less capable than you at everything you do, you are either (1) running an apprenticeship shop (and that’s fine), or (2) really not a good hiring manager.  If you are hiring apprentices, that’s fine, but you need to acknowledge it.  More common is reality (2).

Some common reasons for these deficiencies 

So, then, why are so many executives, even those who are otherwise avowed technocrats, failing so miserably at this by over weighting degree, background, and a glib social presence on their way to hiring generalists that have nothing special to contribute to the team?

Here are a few reasons:

  1. They cultivate a magnificently flawed hiring processes:  Without a doubt the most common reason is that hiring processes place more focus on personality and presence than capability and competence.  To be sure, rapport is important in an interview. But, capability profiles can’t be dismissed in the interest of rapport. Some firms solve this with tests, some with good cop / bad cop interviewing approaches, and still others (the world class ones) with interview approaches that are very common and calibrated to find both rapport / fit and capability.  If your hiring processes solve for glib generalists that look like mini-senior executives, then that’s what you will get.  Unfortunately, those profiles are too often the most difficult to upskill to the needs of their next job.  Like it or not, technical competence is much harder to gain in a short time than boardroom presence, and a lot easier to justify in the after action report on a bad hire.
  2. They are scared as hiring managers: The second most common reason for the misapplication of the “hiring for smarts” notion is that hiring managers are actually afraid of hiring people with more knowledge than them. They continually hire technical lightweights because they are afraid of bringing a threat to their own well being into the organization.  So, they explicitly hire for nice looking generalists who seem very smart but who lack depth.  If your hiring managers tend to be the experts at vetoing recommendations from peers who review their candidates, you might have this in action.
  3. They propagate tyrannical management practices: The third reason I’ll give is actually the extreme other end of reason 2. This one is the hiring manager who only wants things done a certain way (whether that way is good, bad, ethical, or unethical), and will hire absolute blank slates–or, simply yes man versions of themselves–to do it. These hiring manager profiles are common, and come with significant downside.  If your hiring managers pound the table against the notion of bringing in people with strong experience from elsewhere because it “won’t fit,” you might have this dynamic in place.  You also might have someone concerned that an outside expert could find the cracks in their empire. Watch out.

So What? 

The “so what” to this post is right there at the top.  Hire people for their smarts, but know what kind of smarts you need. Try the old double blind test:  If you strip out the name, education, and company names from the resume, does it still suit your needs for a sufficient and smartly deep person?

Why am I writing on this?  It may read as very “HR-centric” and perhaps outside the scope of a practice that is focused on strategy and performance.

Simple.

Good teams build great strategies.

Good teams are built through great hiring and promotion practices.

And…Too often, today, so-called “great” hires are judged by their cover letter, brand names, and presences and not a thorough vetting of their C.V. and true special qualities.

I’ve yet to see a good team built exclusively from very smart generalists.  The best of teams have a strong vein of hard won experience and depth within them.  They also have a strong willingness to listen to that experience.

I write this for the CEOs and senior executives in my life and practice, but certainly these thoughts apply to anyone charged with building a team through hiring.

Hire people smarter than you.  Just make sure their smarts emerge from functional or technical depth, and you will be ok.

Good luck, and please share any thoughts you have!

 

What You Can’t See Can Hurt You

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Blind spots can limit your effectiveness and derail your career. As you get more senior, they can make other people’s lives miserable, too. Ask around.

I’ll state this out front:

I’m not sure an article of this kind can be written without a taste of irony. If you know me, you will see my blind spots pop out from the text or in your mind. If you don’t know me, you know somebody like me and will see the same. It can’t be avoided. Writing an article on other people’s blind spots is an invitation for the “pot-kettle-black” defense.

I can live with that.

The Curious Case of Blind Spots

What’s a blind spot?

To answer that question, I’ll refer to a tool called the Johari window.

Johari what you say?

The Johari window is an interpersonal evaluation tool that is fantastically simple and at the same time fantastically powerful when used in honest feedback cultures. It looks like this:

johari

Basically, it’s a shorthand way of categorizing all the things that either help or hurt you in interactions with others.

There are things you know about yourself (that means you admit that their impact is real, not that you know that the thing exists) and that others know about you (like, for instance, that you have a massive temper).

That’s the “Arena.”

There are things that neither you nor others know about you (like how you might perform in a life or death circumstance). Those things might be revealed to be good or bad.

That’s the “Unknown.”

There are things you know about yourself that others don’t know about you (like that you have massive anxiety attacks before walking into a high-stakes meeting, but are good at hiding them from others).

That’s your “Façade.”

And, finally, there are things that other people know about you that you do not know about yourself.

Those are your “Blind Spots.”

By the way, I encourage you to study the Johari window. It’s a simple tool that I have used throughout my career, although not with everyone. For those who have been the victims of a personalized Johari window session with me, I’ll admit now that the time I spent on the topic is a fantastic indicator of how much I care for them. It’s a tool of caring…seriously.

The Johari window is fully contextual. You may have a professional façade that drops the moment you walk through the door at home or at your local pub. You may have a personal façade at home that hides the tyrannical manager you actually are at work. It works both ways.

But why blind spots?

Blind spots can be brutal. They don’t have to be necessarily bad, but they can be brutal. And I’ll get to that in a moment.

Why focus on blind spots rather than the other areas of the window?  I’ll put it this way:  Your blind spots are a direct measure of both the integrity of the people around you and your own openness to feedback and change. The other areas are either your willful submission to feedback (Arena), your willful withholding and manipulation (Façade), or, as we say in the business, TBD (Unknown).

But blind spots are the people around you willfully withholding from you and manipulating you, which makes them dangerous.

How they are dangerous…

The danger of blind spots comes either from the distaste they create or from the lever for manipulation they create.

I’ll demonstrate with a benign examples, then extend to something more malignant.

Imagine a highly capable manager who has a habit of chewing a pen. Yes, it’s objectively a bad habit, but it’s one that is tolerated at many levels of the organization. Everybody the person is in meetings with witnesses the person chewing on his pen. Even the manager himself knows he chews his pen, so you might say the action isn’t really a blind spot. But blind spots aren’t about the actions themselves—they’re about the impact of the actions. And so when half the people who witness our manager with a writing instrument between his teeth are genuinely disgusted by it, our friendly manager is slowly and gently blackballed from higher management because of “presence” issues or some other HR euphemism.

Our highly capable manager is now capped out by a habit that could be solved by one bit of feedback. The manager thinks he has a crutch, but others think he has a disgusting habit. Somebody needs to talk to him, and he himself needs to ask about his own blind spots.

A more malignant blind spot that is endemic across workforces relates to good traits being used by others for ill gains. This is the realm of gender and equitable pay discrimination. One worker works for $60K a year, while the person in the next cubicle is doing the same (or less) work but making $90K. Some managers rely on these sorts of disparities. They rely on loyalty and trust as a kind of blind spot. The manager is aware of the disparity and knows that the worker is selling their time cheap, but the worker thinks the company is fair and worthy of loyalty.

Loyalty, then, can be a highly blinding trait (in at least some cases, it can even be considered blind loyalty). When a person who buys into the “team player” work mentality is working for managers who are covertly playing an “every person for themselves” game, these sorts of disparities become real. A pay culture built on loyal, naïve, and willing “suckers” is the pain of blind spots writ large.

Of course there are blind spots that are so bad they are almost comical. I once knew an executive who had a deep and abiding habit of bending the truth in highly visible ways. And I don’t mean white lies like “you look great today,” although those were legion. I mean lies that are so obvious and known to so many people that the executive became a bit of a hall-talk laughing stock because of it. This particular individual would frequently launch a whopper that was verifiably deceptive to the tune of “I just had a meeting with so and so” when so and so was never in such a meeting and perhaps not even in the building. Of course, as is often the case with highly effective liars, executives like this only need to fool the people who feed them.  That particular executive’s skill at and focus on upwardly targeted deceptions overcame the reality of their ineptness in all the others. Everybody, except their superiors, knew they were generally dishonest.

Don’t be that guy!

Which brings me to my final point. Really bad situations come from blind spots in high places. A senior executive who has a blind spot about his habits or weaknesses or tells, or the foibles of ego (or loyalty, for that matter), is susceptible to manipulation in ways that perhaps lower level employees are not.

Why?

Because typical senior executives have positions of power. They can make decisions that allocate real resources, and because of that, they are studied by others more thoroughly than anyone else. Nearly everyone these execs interact with in a professional context is looking for resources or sales or even just favor. Therefore, nearly everyone studies their interactions with these higher-ups looking for their blind spots. The only antidote is to maintain a set of healthy, close relationships with people who will challenge you and reveal your blind spots. Still, combine aggressive character study with ego, and you have a recipe that no close relationship can overcome. Years of flattery make some people impervious to the truth in these circumstances.

So what?

Why take the time to write on blind spots?  Because they are actually solvable, but they require diligence and discipline, and because they are highly deleterious to most true strategic approaches to career or company leadership. You may not chew pens, but you might ignore subordinates or interrupt peers or fall victim to flattery. All you have to know is that your blind spots can work against you, or in the worst of cases, actually be used against you.

Ask around, and if people say you have no blind spots, ask some new people.

The Pain of Virtual Leadership

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We all talk a big game.  It’s what we do when the chips are down that shows the kind of leader we are.

In case you missed it, today fed us an interesting anecdote in the world of fast growing companies.

Lauded startup Zirtual, a darling of the flexible work scene, announced that it was “pausing operations” in a terse and terminally unfunny email from founder and CEO Maren Kate Donovan delivered to customers just after 6am ET today.

“I realize this news comes incredibly fast and I am truly sorry for the Z-shaped hole this will leave in your lives and business.”

The Z-shaped hole?

Yes, that was in the letter to customers.

Now, the impact on customers of a sudden and absolutely unforeseen shutdown of a key administrative service is tough.  But, what about the impact on the more than 400 employees Zirtual had?  Of course, they knew.  Right?

Wrong.  Zirtual’s assistants found out by being locked out of their email accounts.

Yes, that’s right, the company folded and didn’t tell its employees until afterward.

So what?  Right?  Happens all the time.

Well… Sorta.   This one comes with a lesson.

It’s a lesson called: Don’t let your mouth write checks your character won’t cash.

To wit:  just 21 days ago, erstwhile Zirtual CEO Maren Kate Donovan wrote an article titled “How to Manage Chaos during a Company Shakeup” in Fortune.  Here’s your link.   It’s juicy with “you gotta be kidding me” quotes.   Such as:

“My team is without a doubt my biggest asset, which is something I never take for granted. So it’s vital to keep them in the loop during periods of change and consistently show support. Because what my employees don’t know could ultimately hurt the entire business. The sooner your team knows about upcoming shifts in the company—the better.”

Yeah.  She wrote that.

And…In a section titled “Don’t worry about your image” she drops this whopper:

“Oftentimes being honest about your own uncertainties in tough times relays a stronger message than being stern.”

Now, thanks to an early career stint at a venture-lending operation, I’ve witnessed the pain of a company shutdown in a few (perhaps half a dozen) instances and actually liquidated one. I understand the pain. I do not write this to stomp on a company that obviously has just imploded for some as-yet-to-be determined reason.

I write it because of one reality:  We all talk big.  Some people with big platforms and bullhorns talk the loudest.  They talk the loudest about being “reassuring” and being “vulnerable.”

We all talk big.

But, when the chips are down, all the big talk is useless.  It’s how you act when you are in the worst of circumstances that defines your (and my) character.

In good times, it’s easy to write for Fortune about your warm fuzzy leadership style.  Rarely is such commentary revealed to be hooey so quickly as in the Zirtual case.

Maren Kate Donovan doubtless has had a bad few days lately.  And, I’m sure there will be more written about Zirtual over the coming weeks as the facts of a 400+ employee company abruptly imploding comes to light.

Still, it’s a case study in failed communication; and a case study in faux leadership.

 

90 Percent of Everything Is Crap

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Learning this one adage can release you to focus on what matters.

What’s the difference between a performance culture that focuses on the positive and one that focuses on the negative?

It’s okay to focus on the negative—the misses and the missteps—in defining performance, but success doesn’t live in the negative.

Here’s a funny observation: When we are down on people and processes and investments and strategies, we focus on what’s not performing.  We find the flaws.

You’ve probably seen it in play.  You read the performance review of a person who’s out of favor, and it’s rife with articulation of the negatives. “Fails to do this, avoids this, lacks this, shirks that.”  We become so quick to criticize based on flaws that we don’t realize something critical: Doing so is a losing strategy.  Why?  Because 90 percent of everything is crap.  This phrase, commonly known as Sturgeon’s Law, implores us to evaluate things based on their strengths, not their shortcomings.

Even the best of performers have a flaw, or ten.  If you focus on the negative aspects of people, strategies, and performance, you will inevitably find them, no matter where you search. So the most honest appraisal of anything is to look at the peak of its performance.  It’s to look at the 10 percent of a person’s work that reflects their best effort—what reflects their best performance—and then to compare and act.

I’ve witnessed talent processes that have clearly focused on strengths, and I’ve witnessed others that focused on flaws, but one thing stands out:  Talent systems that focus on flaws reject more good talent than those that focus on strengths.

Why? Because when their talent ecosystem focuses on flaws, business leaders who take on the hardest assignments run the highest risk of being fired, regardless of their intrinsic talent. When the same leader is in a talent ecosystem that focuses on strengths, their tough assignments become opportunities to show strengths that are not evident in other circumstances.  At worst, a very strong manager in a tough situation gets reassigned, not resigned to the dustbin.

The same can be said for strategy.  A strategy that racks up a few losses early can be thrown out when flaws are the focus, but long-term success depends on defining strengths, not avoiding weaknesses.

So, 90 percent of everything is crap.  Knowing that, focus on the strengths in the people and concepts around you.