Into the unknown…

Image by Tracy Peltier from Pixabay

“So much depends on the outcome of … [insert your process, enquiry, application, etc here]”

I met with three CEO’s last week who echoed a theme. Much of the short to mid term future in their organisations depends on the outcome of things outside of their control. In each case, the outcome/s will require their organisation to change. The outcome/s will also dictate how palatable those changes will be. Whatever happens, there will be change and it will be reactive in nature.

“People are uncertain,” they told me.

Uncertain environments make detail difficult to map. Forecasting various probable outcomes is important work, but can add even more uncertainty.

Maybe you can relate. I know I can.

It's worth remembering that humans have always faced uncertainty. It is uncomfortable and we are pretty good at it. Like those 3 CEO’s you’ve got this.

Here are few things we can do in uncertain times to inject certainty for ourselves and those around us:

• Big picture - Where detail is lacking focus on the big picture. What direction are we heading in? What’s our Why? Is our purpose clear? Are there non-negotiables and principles to bring into focus? When detail is lacking, big picture guidance adds certainty. It gives clarity about what will guide future decisions. Focus on elements that fundamentally won’t change regardless of outcomes and future changes.

• Best Behaviour - Double down on how you treat each other. Focus on and reinforce the best of how people interact with each other in your organisation. When the going gets murky at our house, my partner and I call each other to kindness and integrity. Regardless of what happens, we at least have some certainty about how we will ‘be’ with each other.

• You know how to weave! One CEO, calling on her Maori heritage, likened the situation to being in a place where you don’t know what plants to gather to find the fibres to weave the mat. I reminded her that even if she didn’t know the plant, she could recognise a weavable fibre, and still knows how to weave. Whatever happens next, you know more than you think you do. Bring your deep knowledge and experience with you. The details of execution may be up for change, but you still know how to weave.

Order from Chaos - 5 Lessons from a Day with an Elite Response Team

I recently had the privilege of spending the day with a professional emergency response team in their training environment. They are tasked with entering highly dynamic and unpredictable environments, often with minimal information. The situations they face evolve rapidly. One of the stand out aspects of their work was their ability to create order in the midst of chaos. I wondered what lessons could be learned that apply to everyday leadership and business. While the physical risk for most of us is much lower, we certainly face chaotic and unpredictable situations, often with minimal information and evolving dynamics.

Lesson 1 - Inject Clarity

I’m rapidly forming a view that the number one job of leaders in an uncertain world is clarity. The team added clarity in a number of ways. Excellent communication that focussed on what was known and what they were going to do. This included quality questions that highlighted gaps and potential misunderstandings. Ultra clear roles and responsibilities. Everyone knew exactly what they were responsible for. Clear decision making so that when the inevitable decisions on the fly needed to be made the whole team knew where their decision making lines were. Clearly defined start, end, decision, and potential disruption points. Discipline to focus the above on known information or useful speculation. The team stayed well away from the potential rabbit holes of ineffective ‘what if’. 

Lesson 2 - Debrief

After the action stopped, the whole team paused for review. What went well, what could have been improved, what lessons could they adopt for the future? Notable in this process was a strong expectation that people would highlight potential improvement. There was little consideration of position or ego in the process. All input was matter of fact and welcome.

Lesson 3 - BYO Feedback

Part of what made the debrief effective was people providing their own feedback for places they could have done better or had messed something up. They weren’t attempting to blame others or circumstances for anything. And they certainly weren’t waiting to see if someone else noticed. Actively reflecting on your own performance makes it easier and safer for others to give you feedback.

Lesson 4 - Hone your skill

The combination of clarity, practice and debriefing had the team constantly honing their collective skill. Individuals were doing the same. Whatever it is you do, keep practising and refining. Be the best you can be. When chaos lands you know your capability and can deliver without hesitation.

Lesson 5 - Control for Innovation

The team took active control of all elements they could. How they moved, how they communicated, how they decided, who was responsible for what, staying fed/hydrated/rested so they were ready to go, flawless maintenance and front loading, testing systems and gear and much more. The discipline and tight control of elements they could control created a strong core of certainty within chaotic and uncertain environments. It allowed them to quickly adapt and innovate when they needed to.

In what ways can you incorporate these lessons into your work/leadership? What additional insights would you add?

Inspiring Company

I met Amy a couple of weeks ago. She’s 10 years old and already blazing a trail. Amy is in the process of learning to fly. There’s been a bunch of hurdles in her way with people giving her all kinds of reasons why it's not possible. She’s also meeting plenty of people who are inspired by her clarity and working with her to make it possible. When I asked why she wants to fly, it's to be an aeromedical pilot, preferably with RFDS. She’s also aiming to get into one of WA’s aviation specific schools where her goal is to be the highest performing student in that sector and see the school become the highest performing aviation school.

Check out some of her work to shed light on women in aviation at https://girlscanflyanything.com/

As a by-product of what Amy is doing, she’s being invited to speak at all sorts of events around the country.

Regardless of age, people with clear visions like Amy often run into walls. People actively blocking, telling them why not, and how it won't end well. Some go so far as to stomp on the vision, running the person down in the process. Vision like this is less common than it could be because there’s plenty of spectators with fire extinguishers in hand just waiting to put it out. I reckon we should hold the door open instead, or at least get out of the way and let the person work - and then watch this space, because something amazing will emerge. Go Amy!

Who could you encourage this week? What would that look like?

The Gap

Some Aussie front line workers colourfully describe the office as ‘Bullshit Castle’. The castle might be HQ in another city, or the supervisors office. When they tell me more, the story is always about directives issued with no operational perspective. In the same organisations, leaders are often looking back the other way with low confidence about how business is being done on the front line. Clarity is low. Frustration (and/or scepticism) is high. Do-overs are frequent. It’s hard to get a complete picture of what's going on, because trust is like unicorn horn!

There’s a continuum at play. At one end, I reckon just about every organisation experiences some mild form of the above. It doesn’t cause major issues, but it slows everything down. At the other end there are highly toxic environments where people rarely bring their best and collaborative work is non-existent.

Where does your organisation sit on the continuum? Whether you have a vast icy wilderness to cross, or already great pathways, enhancing psychological safety will move you in the right direction.

I’d love to hear what’s working for you, and where the frustrations are.

A Cautionary Tale

I was called in to facilitate a discussion between six team members from a settlement agency in a small open plan office. On a daily basis, they relied on each other for information, and to ensure timely settlements took place.

As with any workplace, there were a number of characters who would be unlikely to have much to do with each other outside work. Over the course of about two years, what started as a minor issue escalated to a full-blown investigation into bullying allegations. The heightened state of friction and tension in the office was causing significant performance issues, both individually and across the whole business. Balls were being dropped, and financial penalties were being applied due to non-delivery. The business was not dealing particularly well with the issue, and there was even the possibility of a massive escalation of the original complaint.

There were two issues that had once been minor, and had been allowed to escalate to the stage where they threatened work effectiveness, performance, peoples’ health, and the very company itself. The first was a personality clash that was exaggerated by the open plan office environment and sloppy personal and organisational management. Two people would spend large amounts of time talking about social situations and their personal lives. The kinds of conversations we all have over coffee, a meal or after work. The fact that it was during work time and in an open workspace had another colleague attempting to join the conversation. The others didn’t want to include her in the conversation. So far this is a minor issue.

Over time she felt increasingly excluded and marginalised from the conversations. She tried harder to join them. The other two increasingly shunned her and eventually escalated their behaviour to the point that a bullying and harassment complaint was made and the subsequent investigation found that they had not treated their colleague appropriately. Going forward there was considerable and difficult work required to repair the fractured relationships to the point that they could work effectively together again. Success would now require significant commitment, effort and willing participation from all parties.

In parallel, the person who eventually made the bullying complaint had several genuine performance issues with her work. Her manager had not dealt with these, and they too had escalated until the situation was untenable.

But the time I was involved, it was pretty much impossible for the manager to deal with any of the performance issues, without them being seen as an extension of the bullying the woman was experiencing. It seemed unlikely that the various players could find a space to move on from the issues. Their demeanour and attitudes suggested they would just continue to escalate their part in the drama.

Both issues could have been easily dealt with when they were hotspots or small tears. Like many in the face of tension, friction or conflict, the manager and others had avoided the issue for so long it had become largely unsalvageable.

The manager (and others) could have taken action to clarify expectations, set the bar, and catch it early. They could have:

• Addressed the issue of excessive social chat in the open plan work environment, especially when the conversations were not intended to be shared with everyone. Simply leaving these conversations for a morning coffee break or lunch would have made the issue disappear before it got traction.

• Addressed the performance issues as soon as they were noticed - initially by asking if the person needed support or clarification of their role, and ultimately through formal performance management if needed.

• Had a whole team conversation about expectations and behaviour in the open plan environment which would have enabled the team to set and monitor their own benchmarks for healthy ways of working together and getting the job done, as in the next case study.

Create Certainty in an Uncertain World

So uncertainty is still a thing. The frequency the phrase “these uncertain times” is used has been on a steep upward trajectory since the mid 60’s. Things keep happening where the final outcomes are unknown. Some have global impact like COVID or Russia invading Ukraine. Others are deeply personal like a loss or dire diagnosis. As leaders, one of our mission critical roles is to create a sense of certainty in an uncertain world. But how the hell do you do that, especially if you are currently facing unknown (and perhaps unknowable) factors and end points?

The key is to focus on what we can control. Build clarity about:

• Overall purpose, mission, or direction. Where are you headed and why?

• How you will act with each other internally, especially in the face of pressure. How will you respond to conflict, constructive suggestions, identified problems or barriers, achievements, setbacks? The more certain you can make how you “Be” together, the more effective what you “Do” about uncertainty becomes.

• Remain open and curious. An explorer's mindset is better than having all the answers.

All this takes time and focus. Sometimes it feels unproductive. When you nail it, you can travel faster because you can boldly rely on each other, regardless of the current circumstances.

Clarity

Brené Brown is well known for her assertion that “Clear is Kind”.

In Psychological Safety research people give many reasons for avoiding clarity. The top ones are:

• It will result in some form of retaliation

• It will damage the working relationship

I see myself and others do this all the time. I have something to tell you but I’m not sure hope you’ll react - so I beat around the bush using vague statements, or avoid the topic entirely.

Psychological Safety and clarity are reciprocal. Build one you build the other. Damage one you damage the other. Usually our own intention and meaning is 100% clear (and obvious) to us. For clarity to be shared, we have to get past filters, assumptions and experience.

Make it a personal and team standard to be more clear as a result of any interaction with others. Some places this applies:

• Vision, mission or purpose

• Expectations about behaviour or standards

• What success looks like

• How problems get solved

• Who is responsible for an action, and by when

• Targets and time frames

• Boundaries of delegated authority

• What you are asking for

• Your ‘Yes’ or ‘No’

What is one thing you could do immediately to be more clear? What about this week? Are there any longer term projects that could benefit from greater clarity? How could you contribute to clarity? Is there anyone you need to seek greater clarity from?

Field of Play

“The ideal solution is re-stump the house. That would cost around $80K. I don’t think it’s worth it. We can stabilise the structure and achieve a reasonable result for way less, but It won’t be perfect. Let’s discuss the compromises and consequences of the cheaper version to make sure you’ll be happy with the result”

Harry the Chippy

“We have clarity about the features that must be included at launch. These cannot be compromised. If needed we’ll delay launch until we can deliver them. Then there’s features that are essential to long term success. It would be great to have them at launch, but we won’t delay for them. We’ll likely release them over the first few months of the platform being live. Finally there’s our wish list, features that would make the product match our dream. For now we can’t be distracted by these. We can build them as we build success.”

Mike the Software CEO

Both these are examples of a leader doing one of the most effective things to reduce uncertainty - they are bringing clarity to the field of Play. Imagine a sporting team trying to focus its effort without knowing the rules of the game or boundaries of the arena. It would be chaos.

As a leader, especially in uncertainty, one of your main roles is to clarify the field of play.

That’s a great question…

“If you want a better answer, ask a better question”

I ask a lot of questions. I reckon it’s a key leadership skill to ask more than tell.

Often people say “Great Question, do you mind if I use it?”. I’m always delighted to share! A great question has a way of slicing through layers and revealing new insight.

There’s no doubt that using questions well is a worthy skill to develop.

Here’s some tips

• Collect good questions. Any time you hear a great question, record it somewhere. Make some notes about why it resonated.

• Ask yourself Where might you use it and why?

• While the question is important, it’s far more important to be genuinely curious about the answer.

• Ask generously. Questions are often used as traps to convince people or make them look/feel uniformed (politics is a great place to look for examples of this). Ask with the intent to explore.

• Make it safe to answer. We sometimes judge people by their answers. Small sounds of disapproval, eye rolls, telling them they are wrong etc are easy ways to put people off.

I’m always happy to share questions. How can I claim ownership of something that has probably been asked before? Many of the questions I use are collected from somewhere and I can’t always point to the source. I’d rather share them and encourage others to get good at asking too.

What's the best question you have ever been asked? Why did it have such a memorable impact? How could you use that question, or a version of it in your leadership today?

4 C’s for the Big Picture

There was one rock to miss. It was right in the middle of the raging river drawing my kayak to it like a magnet. I bounced off it hard, somehow managing to stay in the boat. I was rattled and the next few minutes were frantically reactive. I lost my awareness of the river, instead focussing on what was right in front of me. When a similar thing happens to pilots, they call it ‘getting behind the plane’. Decisions come late and each error compounds into the next. The ‘big picture’ disappears.

When many of my clients and friends in Western Australia describe business/life at the moment, it has the same feel. In many ways we are late to the Global COVID party. Now it’s here. Many clients work in disability and aged care services and now have positive cases. There’s deep concern for the wellbeing of people they provide services to and their staff. It’s rapidly evolving. Decisions have real consequences. They are reacting to a daily shifting landscape.

When we end up reactive and working ‘close to our nose’, just like the paddler and pilot, we lose perspective. Work seems somehow harder and less meaningful as reactivity forces us away from purpose and meaning - just dealing with the next thing.

Leaders can mitigate some of this for themselves and the people they lead with 4 C’s

• Clarity - rather the crystal clear version of clarity, think lighthouse in a thick fog. If a clear picture is not possible, provide clarity about direction and things to avoid. Give people clear priorities that reduce the pressure of decision making in the heat of the moment.

• Communication - talk to the team and keep them informed. It’s almost impossible to over communicate in high consequence fast moving environments. Make it as clear and brief as possible.

• Connection - Links to purpose/mission, each other and a sense of hope can all erode if playing too close to your nose. Be kind. Show you care. Value results. Remind each other of purpose. 

• Calm - The US Navy SEALs say ‘Calm is contagious’. Whatever the situation, panic or calm are choices. One advantage of a team is that when I am losing it, you will be calm. That will calm me. Later, I will share my calm with you. Breathe and slow down a little. We can easily get caught up in fever pitch. 

If you could benefit from the 4C’s right now, reach out. It would be my pleasure to give you some time. Book via the link or return email.