How do leaders improve thinking and relating throughout an entire organization? - part #1

It was a lunch meeting and we were in a very quiet back corner of the restaurant. Major systems were under going change and this particular leader wanted to explore some ideas and thoughts about it all with me. Some of these changes were being done by choice, but others were being driven by outside influences. Standardization was going to be key to the new systems. Centralization and integration across “silos” was also critical to success. To make this all happen, financial investments and financial curtailments would have to be made. In particular, we were trying to think through what the organizational chart should look like three years from now given the current strategic plan. Lots of sugar packets, salt and pepper shakers and a ketchup bottle were involved in this time of sharing.

In the middle of this strategic level dialogue, I kept thinking of two insightful quotes:

“Begin with the end in mind.” - Stephen Covey

"The problem is never how to get new innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get the old ones out.” - Dee Hock, founder/CEO emeritus of Visa International

But in the end, I talked about the important work of Hermina Ibarra in her very thought-provoking book called Act Like A Leader, Think Like A Leader (Harvard Business Review Press, 2015). Here, she points out that to step up to leadership, you have to learn to think like a leader. 

Right now, we need more people who have learned how to think like a leader. We also need to recognize that this is a slow, but powerful journey. In particular, I pointed out to this individual that Ibarra believes that the way we think is a product of our past experiences. All of us need to understand more about a person’s history so we understand more about their “default” thinking patterns. If we, as leaders, want people to think and work in new ways, then we, as leaders, need to create new experiences. We have to understand that thinking and relating are interconnected.

One step in this process to create new mental maps and to refine old ones. The Dictionary defines mental maps as a mix of objective knowledge and subjective perceptions. From my perspective, it is all about how we frame things up. Aaron K. Olson and B. Keith Simerson in their book, Leading With Strategic Thinking: Four Ways Effective Leaders Gain Insight, Drive Change, and Get Results (Wiley, 2015) write that “In some ways, strategic thinking is like constructing a mental map that connects the current “here and now” to something, somewhere, or sometime in the future…. Just as a holistic perspective improves strategic thinking by ensuring that all factors are considered, it is also important to consider context…. Strategic thinking only matters if it leads to a purposeful action.”

Herminia Ibarra in the aforementioned book writes that “the only way to change how you think, therefore is to do different things.” As she continues, “This cycle of acting like a leader and then thinking like a leader - of change from the outside in - creates what I call outsight…. Doing things - rather than simply thinking about them - will increase your outsight on what leadership is all about.”

She believes “Outsight comes from a “tripod” of sources: new ways of doing your work (your job), new relationships (your network), and new ways of connecting to and engaging people (yourself)…. Sustainable change in your leadership capacity requires shifts on all three legs of the tripod.”

As Gregory Boyle writes in his book, Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship (Simon & Schuster, 2017): “We don’t think ourselves into a new way of living. We live ourselves into a new way of thinking.”

For us here today, we need to remember the wisdom of Cal Newport who wrote in his book, Deep Work: Rules For Focused Success In A Distracted World (Grand Central Publishing, 2016): “Our brains … construct our worldview based on what we pay attention to.”

Right now, the two most common leadership phrases I am hearing are these: “We inspect what we expect” and “What get measures gets done.” However, in the back of my mind are the words of a participant at a recent From Vision to Action Executive Roundtable when he shared “What get measured does not always matter.” 

Our problem as leaders is that we default to thinking “this” is like “that”, a habitual response to so many things. We forget what Margaret Wheatley wrote, “Habits save time: it’s easier to do the same thing, or think the same thing. Changing our mind takes attention and time.”

Marshall Goldsmith backed this up in his book, Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts - Becoming the Person You Want to Be, (Crown Business, 2015) when he wrote “Meaningful behavioral change is very hard to do” and “No one can make us change unless we truly want to change.” We as leaders forget that to understand a problem, you have to admit there is a problem.

In short, meaningful cognitive change is very hard to do. And no one can make us change unless we truly want to change. Therefore, we have to help people choose a non habitual response by helping them recognize that what we are dealing with currently is different than the past, and that a pre-defined solution may not be the answer.

This week ask yourself and your team these two questions: What are you paying attention to these days? and What is one of the biggest cognitive changes you’ve ever made? The answers to these two questions will help all of you move to the next level.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

A New Book on Leadership

I read all the time. Whether it is articles on the web, the latest issue of Fast Company magazine or the Harvard Business Review, I am always on the hunt for new insights or perspectives to help me better understand the fascinating and complex world of leadership and organizational change. 

Over the decades, I have found that certain authors are good sources of new insights. For example, Stephen Covey, Tom Peters, and Ken Blanchard in the 80’s and 90’s always provided solid research and ideas. More recently, one can always count on Jim Collins, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Patrick Lencioni, Margaret Wheatley, and Marcus Buckingham to present thought-provoking ideas and new perspectives.

However, over the last few years when reading the Harvard Business Review, a new author, Herminia Ibarra, has started appearing on my radar screen. Her research and ideas are intriguing and helpful. They have caused me to pause, reflect deeply, and rethink some things. Thus, I was delighted to see that she just published a new book  last month called Act Like A Leader, Think Like A Leader, Harvard Business Review Press, 2015. Now having read it twice, I think she offers some good, new ways of thinking about the world of leadership. 

The foundation of her new book can be summarized by the following quote by Richard Pascale: “Adults are more likely to act their way into a new way of thinking than to think their way into a new way of acting.” As she explains, “you can only learn what you need to know about your job and your self by doing it - not by just thinking about it…. we only increase self-knowledge in the process of making changes.” As she continues, “This cycle of acting like a leader and then thinking like a leader - of change from the outside in - creates what I call outsight.” 

In the book, she notes that “Contrary to public opinion, too much introspection anchors us in the past and amplifies our blinders, shielding us from discovering our leadership potential and leaving us unprepared for fundamental shifts in the situations around us.” Outsight comes from actions that revolve around redefining your job as a leader, redefining your network and redefining yourself. “As psychologists remind us, knowing what we should be doing and actually doing it are two very different things.”

Her case for a change in thinking how we approach leadership is solid and well thought through. Each chapter of the book contains excellent summaries of the material explored. For example, in the Chapter 1 Summary, she points out that “Outsight comes from a “tripod” of sources: new ways of doing your work (your job), new relationships (your network), and new ways of connecting to and engaging people (yourself)…. Sustainable change in your leadership capacity requires shifts on all three legs of the tripod.”

I was particularly impressed with her notion in Chapter 2 that effective leaders need to be a hub and/or a bridge. As she explains, leaders who are hubs do the following: set goals for the team, assign roles to their people, assign tasks, monitor progress toward goals, manage team member performance, conduct performance evaluations, hold meetings to coordinate work, and create good climate inside the team. On the other hand, leaders who are bridge builders do the following: align team goals with organizational priorities, funnel critical information and resources into the team to ensure progress toward goals, get the support of key allies outside the team, enhance the external visibility and reputation of the team, and give recognition for good performances and then place team members in great next assignments. Understanding when you are a hub and when you are a bridge builder is a good step in learning to be a better leader. 

I also was delighted to read about the role of operational, personal and strategic networks in Chapter 3 of this new book. “The first helps you manage current internal responsibilities, the second boosts personal development, and the third focuses on new business directions and the stakeholders you must get on board to pursue these directions.” I enjoyed how she framed up strategic networks as a one “made up of relationships that help you to envision the future, sell your ideas, and get the information and resources you need to exploit these ideas….A good strategic network gives you connective advantage: the ability to marshal information, support, or other resources from one of your networks to obtain results in another.” I completely agree with her when she further explained “You need operational, personal, and strategic networks to get things done, to develop personally and professionally, and to step up to leadership. Although most good managers have good operational networks, their personal networks are disconnected from their leadership work, and their strategic networks are nonexistent or underutilized.”

Overall, Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader is a good new addition to the lexicon of well written books about this subject. I enjoyed reading it, and recommend it to others. I also look forward to her on-going work in this area.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257