“What a ridiculous thing to say”, said the earnest Executive. This is serious business!
As experienced leaders and professional experts our comfort zone is typically the established operating models. Leveraging what we have been taught. Maintaining executive presence. Leading the room. Being ‘in control’.
In a time when we hear every day of unprecedented conditions in our world, when even the word “unprecedented” has had unprecedented google search hits (https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=unprecedented ) it is beyond pretending that we know all the answers. That we can pull off the “been there, done that” stance as a senior player.
My research and reflection on leadership teams being fit for periods of significant change (change-fit) has a recurring theme of needing space to expand awareness and learn new things.
That is not easy when we are so busy working and revert to overthinking.
Overthinking. I totally get the tendency to overthinking, the frustration of not having answers at your finger-tips. Working harder. Doing more thinking and worrying. Carrying the stress of being responsible for others. Feeling the pressure from others who want the comfort of definitive answers. Waking up in the middle of the night – still thinking. As a long term workaholic, planner, striver, high-achiever type, believe me, there is no pointing the finger here.
Lynne Cazaly in her book -ISH: The problem with our pursuit for perfection and the life-changing practice of good enoughmakes the case for letting go of our desire to be all over the detail, to be pushing for perfection and that working in an iterative learning approach is actually more effective.
It is definitely a mindset shift for many of us.
It is interesting to reflect on why does ‘feel the joy of not having all the answers’ seem so foreign to many organisational leaders – and the suggestion even repulsive to some as the behaviour of a good leader?
When we look through history and reflect on our own lives it is directly associated with periods of great advancement.
It is clearly the motivation of the Explorer. The leaders of pioneering times that created the world we live in today.
It is clearly the plot on many of our favourite movies – the heroes’ journey. Where people face what seem like insurmountable challenges and come through to a new level of their life – often beyond their wildest dreams.
It is clearly the approach of young children, a period of totally disproportionate learning and development in a person’s life.
It is clearly a recurring theme in the story of Masters and World Champions of ‘surrendering’ to the teacher/ coach new methods and breaking through to previously unseen levels of performance.
Looking at competitive sport, the story of Damien Hardwick, the Coach of arguably the strongest Australian Rules Football Club in recent seasons, Richmond Football Club, is fascinating in this regard. (This is coming from a lifetime Carlton supporter so we are transcending tribal rivalries for the greater message with this story)
Richmond was a frustrated Club not achieving the results they expected. Damien their Coach had been a fierce competitor in his playing days and knew the game. As the pressure on his job intensified, the self-confessed control freak stopped listening to those around him. He intensified his already punishing workload. His “happy-go-lucky” demeanour darkened.
“The reality was, I was the biggest problem of all,” Hardwick later reflected.
“That was the hardest self-reflection to come up with but it was certainly the truest one.”
The 45-year-old delegated responsibilities made himself more open to advice and invited the Tigers to play with “childlike” freedom.
Skip forward 12 months and Hardwick is the AFL’s coach of the year, star midfielder Dustin Martin is a Brownlow Medallist and Richmond win their first grand final in 35 long years. Winning again two years later.
The Command and Control method, the default of Management does not serve us well in times of unprecedented changes and overwhelming complexity.
If feeling the joy of not having all the answers seems a bit much for you to take on all at once, where could you create safe situations to give it a try?
