Leader As Translator
While a leader is an architect of meaning, focused on building clarity about the strategic nexus within a company, they must also be a translator who builds clarity about what is happening outside the organization, e.g. what is happening in the current and emerging market place. But when acting as translator, we need to remember that for many people the opposite of clarity is confusion and uncertainty. Traditionally, uncertainty is defined by a period of unpredictability or risk, and it is highly influenced by depth and time. Given current events, we are experiencing both confusion, ambiguity, and uncertainty. With the goal of clarity within the company about the mission, vision and core values plus the strategic plan, we must also build clarity about what is happening outside the company.
Recognizing that the concept of uncertainty is so big, we need to break it down into three workable distinctions. The first is market uncertainty, which can also be called demand uncertainty. In this area of clarity, a leader has to answer the following question: Are we still offering the right goods and services which meet the changing needs of our customers? While everyone wants to answer that with a clear and solid “yes,” the best leaders, who translate well and often, will question whether or not their information sources about what is happening within the market are still the right ones to be paying attention to given current events. Reflection and exploration of a variety of sources is helpful in this area.
The second is capacity uncertainty which reflects what is happening within the company. Given the external market changes, a translator who seeks to build clarity about external trends must also ask another question: Do our internal operations have the capacity to meet the changing needs of the market and the customers, and still be competitive at the same time? Here, they are trying to determine if the current people, structure, systems, and culture plus the external supply chain and partners have the capacity to match the dynamics and complexity to meet today’s needs and future needs.
The third is leadership uncertainty, which reflects whether or not the people in leadership positions have the correct mindset and the right competencies to deal with market uncertainty and capacity uncertainty. Sometimes, this is also called surge capacity, i.e. our ability to rise to the market challenges before us. The key question which the leader as translator has to answer is the following: Do we have people in leadership positions who have the capacity to plan and the capacity to execute that plan given the degree of uncertainty in the market and within the company?
Now, our typical response to uncertainty is to go into self-protection mode. In particular, we focus on our worst fears and insecurities. Brene Brown in her book, Braving The Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone (Random House, 2017) defines these fears as the following: “Fear of vulnerability. Fear of getting hurt. Fear of the pain of disconnection. Fear of criticism and failure. Fear of conflict. Fear of not measuring up.” One of the natural outcomes of all these fears is for people to protect their division, department, team, and themselves from potential chaos, disequilibrium, or the loss of resources. Therefore, we hunker down and focus on getting our work done, and keeping off of everyone else’s radar screen. We also define all problems as technical problems, namely ones with known solutions, because defining something as an adaptive problem would call into question our fundamental choices and belief structures, thereby creating more potential for chaos or disequilibrium and the resulting fear.
However, a leader, who is a translator and is an architect of meaning, knows that during chaotic times the desired response to chaos or disequilibrium is greater horizontal collaboration in combination with the creation and maintenance of new partnerships. They recognize that collaboration is a mission critical first step to resilience.
So, when a leader chooses to be a translator and to explain in greater detail what is happening outside the company in order for people within the company to maintain perspective, work collaboratively, and make wise choices, they know that the first step is to build clarity and understanding. As the majority of employees achieve this clarity, they are going to ask people in leadership two important questions. The first is: What is the plan? And the second is: Who is responsible for what?
As an architect of meaning and a translator, a leader must come to grips with one hard truth. The amount of time and energy needed to build clarity about the strategy within a company and the events that are driving this strategy outside the company are in an order of magnitude greater than the time and energy it takes to create the strategy. Therefore, the work of leadership at both levels, meaning and translation, is to build connections. This is not just a “connecting the dots” level of connection. It is much deeper and more holistic.
What leaders want when building this unique combination of clarity is for people to feel connected to the strategy and strategic direction of the company. They want people to feel connected to the day to day operational goals and operational priorities. They even want people to feel connected to their supervisor, their team, their department, and the company as a whole. For the best leaders grasp that when clarity, connection, and healthy communication takes place, it generate commitment. And that is powerful outcome when one is building clarity inside the company.
Time Erodes Clarity
Now, I can hear someone say that “I have a full time job as a leader. I am too busy for all this communication and building of clarity. I already am in too many meetings as it is, and I am always behind in getting my work done.” And on one level, all of this is correct.
Yet, what many leaders forget is that time erodes clarity. People get busy and they get distracted. They prioritize the immediate and forget the long term. They solve the pressing problems, and do not think about the line of continuity that transcends the hour by hour, day by day pressures. In short, immediate problems supersede attention to clarity.
This is why the action of building clarity has to include two other key parts. Patrick Lencioni in the aforementioned book notes that the third discipline of an extraordinary leader is to “over-communicate organizational clarity.” Here, “healthy organizations align their employees around organizational clarity by communicating key messages through: repetition, simplicity, multiple mediums, [and] cascading messages.” The goal is to constantly build clarity. This choice is followed up by the fourth discipline of an extraordinary leader which is to “reinforce organizational clarity through human systems.” As he writes, “Organizations sustain their health by ensuring consistency in: hiring, managing performance, rewards and recognition, [and] employee dismissal.”
It is the combination of Lencioni’s third and fourth disciplines that makes clarity so powerful. Because when this clarity is achieved and becomes systematic in the over-communicating and through the reinforcement of human systems, then clarity becomes a source of resilience in the face of market turbulence. It also becomes a competitive advantage, especially when it comes to staff recruitment and retention plus customer service and brand loyalty. When clarity is systematic and systemic, it can beat the erosion of time.
The Outcome Of Clarity
The depth of clarity, i.e. true understanding, comes when a leader chooses to create time and space for sharing, listening, and reflection. It is an investment and a commitment that compounds itself over time. It results in better operational and strategic choices. It can even support operational and strategic spontaneity.
At the same time, the outcome of clarity for both leader and follower is that all involved move from being defined as a position or as a generic employee. Instead, people become individuals who we know, respect, care for, and partner with over time. We transcend the title and engage with the person and their team. This can happen because building clarity is a course of action that has the capacity to unite us, and to help us translate the mission into an all day and every day positive experience for those served and for those serving. It results in coherence and community.
Therefore, in the beginning, a leader must choose to be an architect of meaning and realize that words matter. They also must be a translator for what is happening outside the organization to help all involved understand what to focus on and what to pay attention to, i.e. to make the customer the focus of all they do and to build win-win partnerships with customers and suppliers. They also need to create and educate others about the importance and value of a coherent strategic nexus. And finally, they must grasp that while time erodes clarity, this can be countered by the choice to make clarity systematic and systemic.
Yet, in the end, our clarity of doing must be balanced by our clarity of being. As Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world… as in being able to remake ourselves.” The first step to clarity is when we choose to be a person of integrity, honor, and respect. When this becomes our constant, then the power of clarity transcends and transforms all involved, shifting their behaviors, values, beliefs, and operating assumptions. The outcome of this level of clarity is confidence, competence, collaboration, plus community, all of which are critical during turbulent market conditions and chaotic times.
© Geery Howe 2024
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