I wanted to carry on from my previous post, but I'm a little uncertain which direction to take this. Especially since I feel like I'd be rehashing topics I've talked about plenty (i.e. groupthink), and sort of want to do something new. If you're not already sold on the dangers of having a group of people come to a decision without properly weighing the pros and cons - and ensuring good decision-making is made throughout the entire process of funneling information to decision makers - then I don't know what I could possibly say to convince you.
Still, perhaps it's worth rehashing old territory in order to flesh things out a bit. *shrugs* I'll just type a bit more and see what comes out.
Right.
So. My previous post talked a bit about traffic rules, leadership, and choosing the world we want to live in. I mentioned that 'leadership' might involve showing people a different way of doing things, but that such leadership may not involve a well-thought out plan to get us somewhere we actually want to be.
"Where we actually want to be" is something I could write pages on, since it's essentially a value judgment... and since people are different, and sometimes have conflicting wants and needs, one person's answer might not be another's. There are some guidelines I think we can use, a way to envision a world where most people would want to be, but I think that'd be too much of a digression for now.
In a similar fashion, there are ways of leading that give better results than others. Again, this is a value judgment, but I think the risks of outright disasters (like the Challenger explosion) outweigh the disadvantages. I want to start out with some fairly uncontroversial, basic things that leaders can do to shape the command climate.
Consider, if you will, a fairly common claim that "there are no stupid questions."
I think most people know that this is a half-truth. There are stupid questions. It's just that when you see a colleague have their head bit off - figuratively - for asking a question, it immediately makes you start self-censoring. People grow afraid that the same thing would happen to them if they're not careful, and they start questioning whether it's worth bothering anybody at all.
Given the conformity experiments, and how many people decided to give the wrong answer rather than go against the rest of the group, this shouldn't exactly be a surprise. I said that social norms and conventions were as binding as tissue paper, but that's not quite true. In one of my undergrad classes, a sociology class, we were given an assignment to break one of those norms. Do something like stand on top of a desk (a classmate had done that once before, she must have taken the same class a semester or two prior to me), or wear a winter coat in summer. In my case, I chose to eat dinner with a couple of friends while sitting on the floor.
What's funny about this assignment was that initially I didn't think much of it. I mean, okay... I sat on the floor. It was weird and awkward. There's a reason we eat at a table, you know? But it's not like anyone was going to arrest me for it. And then I realized that I'd felt compelled to make little jokes. That every time I made eye contact with my friends (sitting properly in their seats at the table, so I had to look up at them) I was reminded of how strange this was, and had to say something to show that I wasn't really a weirdo who wanted to do this. That I was only doing it for a class assignment.
I definitely felt pressure, of a sort. Doing an assignment like that helps you see just how binding social norms and conventions can be... and, at the same time, how easy it can be to break free, depending on your willingness to tolerate feeling awkward. Willingness to tolerate other people thinking you're weird. And your willingness to confront the occasional 'enforcer' who tries to do more than just silently judge you. (I heard whoever wore a winter coat on a bus in spring/summer upset somebody enough that they got yelled at, which seems strange since wearing a coat is a personal choice that doesn't harm anyone else.)
Even more interesting was that after the assignment was handed in, and the professor swore that she had graded them and wasn't going to change them, she asked for a show of hands... asked how many people were truly able to bring themselves to do the assignment.
A LOT of people couldn't bring themselves to break even one of our unwritten rules.
Social norms and conventions are as binding as tissue paper... except they're not. If you're willing to go against the flow, you can easily break them... but other people often find ways of showing their displeasure when you do so.
Something I'd read pointed out that this makes sense. We're social animals, and we instinctively sense the danger in being too isolated. It feels awkward and threatening to go against the group...
Which is why good leaders shape the environment, so that you don't feel you're going against the group when you speak your mind. So you feel rewarded and encouraged to state your opinions, and ask your questions.
It's all too easy for a (bad) leader to take charge and create an environment where everyone feels they have to agree with them. If they state their opinion forcefully, mock anyone who gives a hint of disagreement, maybe even get one or two of their supporters to immediately chime in with agreement...
Then anyone with even a hint of doubt will probably self-censor it, bury it so they don't look 'stupid', and think that they're the only ones that feel that way.
Telling everyone that 'there are no stupid questions' is sort of like how good investigators are taught not to ask leading questions (since it gives too many hints about what you're looking for, and people respond with what they think you want instead of telling you what they actually saw.)
Sure, dealing with people's 'stupid questions' can be time consuming and exhausting. And although I made a negative comment about blind obedience earlier, it does have it's time and place. (Mostly when you're under fire and don't have time.) But frankly, if you're NOT under fire... or in a situation where you need immediate action... you've got the time to do it right.
You set the tone. You shape the environment. You send clear signals about whether it's okay to 'bother' you with something, or whether you expect everyone to shut up and go along with what you want.
And maybe, most of the time, you've got good judgment. Maybe you can get by without getting everyone's input. But eventually, especially when things grow complicated, no one person can do it all by themselves.
Which is why good leaders also build a great team, one with enough knowledge to fill in for each other's gaps... and an environment where they're able to bring that knowledge to the table.
I have worked places where even if I disagreed with the decision made, I was part of the debate and knew what the issues were. I knew that I prioritized some of those issues differently than others on my team (and ultimately my boss), but I could see the point of their arguments and even though I didn't get what I wanted, I was okay with it. Mostly. (If it happened too often I'd wonder why I'm even there, since my input clearly isn't wanted or needed... but generally I'm not completely shut out.)
And knowing that I pointed something out, knowing that maybe something else was changed because of the concerns I brought up... that's important too. To give a military analogy, imagine you're debating whether the enemy will come through a large mountain pass or a smaller one. The large one is big enough to maneuver through in a timely fashion, but fairly obvious and most of our forces are set to defend it. The smaller pass doesn't have as many defenses, but it's less likely the enemy will come that way anyway.
If everyone just assumed the enemy would come through the main pass, then they'd be royally screwed if the enemy chose to do something different. Unless... unless enough people spoke up about the smaller pass that the possibility got taken into account. Maybe a unit or two was placed where they could support the defense at the main pass, but tasked to watch over the smaller pass and move to defend if needed. To hold off the enemy until the rest of their forces could pivot to the new threat. And maybe a drone or sensor or something was set along the smaller pass to give warning if the enemy chose to come that way.
By having people speak out about other possibilities, a more well-thought out plan was developed. One that could adapt to the possibility that everyone was wrong, and the enemy wasn't going to do what they expected.
To bring this back to the beginning of my post - leaders shape their environment, and there's a bit of a value judgement involved in how they do so. Someone who shows no patience for questions may, for example, be creating an environment where decisions are quickly made and you're not stuck endlessly debating what to do. There's not one pure 'good' and 'bad' way of doing it, and all the stuff I just wrote about has it's downsides in terms of time and effort.
However.
When time is not of the essence (i.e. any decision making that isn't happening in a state of emergency, where you are close enough to take immediate action) the risks of making a poorly thought out decision outweighs the challenges of creating an environment where people are encouraged to speak up. Immho, that is.
Nobody can know everything, nobody can be right all the time. The mark of a great leader is building a team that, collectively, makes wise decisions.
That can require a lot of work up front, especially if the leader has to teach their people what to prioritize... but the ultimate goal should be to create a team that can handle it all without you.
Btw, this may be a bit of a tangent, but it feels like it fits best here...
I have run into people who seem central to an organization. One person that everyone goes to in order to get things done. This is, all too often, a sign of bad leadership. If you make yourself essential, you also make a system that will fail if/when you're not there to manage it. If you move to another company, or retire, or die... the system will fall apart. People all too often seem to think being essential is a sign of talent or something, but it's not.
A good leader will build a team that can continue without them, and doesn't need them. (Hence the difference, imho, between a George Washington and a Joseph Stalin.) This is also why the criticism that Democrats haven't been building their leadership pipeline ring true.
Actually, that's why any criticism about not building a leadership pipeline rings true. If you're not considering how to develop your people, if you're not getting them to the point where they can take over for you, you're not a very good leader. (I'm tempted to say 'idiot', but I've been thinking it's not really the best word for it. I've been making the distinction between intelligence and wisdom, you see... you can be very intelligence and very foolish at the same time. Besides, there are some great people who don't do so well on IQ tests, and it's not something they have control over. 'Wise' and 'foolish' seem to involve our choices more... maybe I should start using 'fool' more often? It doesn't feel right, though.)
Still, perhaps it's worth rehashing old territory in order to flesh things out a bit. *shrugs* I'll just type a bit more and see what comes out.
Right.
So. My previous post talked a bit about traffic rules, leadership, and choosing the world we want to live in. I mentioned that 'leadership' might involve showing people a different way of doing things, but that such leadership may not involve a well-thought out plan to get us somewhere we actually want to be.
"Where we actually want to be" is something I could write pages on, since it's essentially a value judgment... and since people are different, and sometimes have conflicting wants and needs, one person's answer might not be another's. There are some guidelines I think we can use, a way to envision a world where most people would want to be, but I think that'd be too much of a digression for now.
In a similar fashion, there are ways of leading that give better results than others. Again, this is a value judgment, but I think the risks of outright disasters (like the Challenger explosion) outweigh the disadvantages. I want to start out with some fairly uncontroversial, basic things that leaders can do to shape the command climate.
Consider, if you will, a fairly common claim that "there are no stupid questions."
I think most people know that this is a half-truth. There are stupid questions. It's just that when you see a colleague have their head bit off - figuratively - for asking a question, it immediately makes you start self-censoring. People grow afraid that the same thing would happen to them if they're not careful, and they start questioning whether it's worth bothering anybody at all.
Given the conformity experiments, and how many people decided to give the wrong answer rather than go against the rest of the group, this shouldn't exactly be a surprise. I said that social norms and conventions were as binding as tissue paper, but that's not quite true. In one of my undergrad classes, a sociology class, we were given an assignment to break one of those norms. Do something like stand on top of a desk (a classmate had done that once before, she must have taken the same class a semester or two prior to me), or wear a winter coat in summer. In my case, I chose to eat dinner with a couple of friends while sitting on the floor.
What's funny about this assignment was that initially I didn't think much of it. I mean, okay... I sat on the floor. It was weird and awkward. There's a reason we eat at a table, you know? But it's not like anyone was going to arrest me for it. And then I realized that I'd felt compelled to make little jokes. That every time I made eye contact with my friends (sitting properly in their seats at the table, so I had to look up at them) I was reminded of how strange this was, and had to say something to show that I wasn't really a weirdo who wanted to do this. That I was only doing it for a class assignment.
I definitely felt pressure, of a sort. Doing an assignment like that helps you see just how binding social norms and conventions can be... and, at the same time, how easy it can be to break free, depending on your willingness to tolerate feeling awkward. Willingness to tolerate other people thinking you're weird. And your willingness to confront the occasional 'enforcer' who tries to do more than just silently judge you. (I heard whoever wore a winter coat on a bus in spring/summer upset somebody enough that they got yelled at, which seems strange since wearing a coat is a personal choice that doesn't harm anyone else.)
Even more interesting was that after the assignment was handed in, and the professor swore that she had graded them and wasn't going to change them, she asked for a show of hands... asked how many people were truly able to bring themselves to do the assignment.
A LOT of people couldn't bring themselves to break even one of our unwritten rules.
Social norms and conventions are as binding as tissue paper... except they're not. If you're willing to go against the flow, you can easily break them... but other people often find ways of showing their displeasure when you do so.
Something I'd read pointed out that this makes sense. We're social animals, and we instinctively sense the danger in being too isolated. It feels awkward and threatening to go against the group...
Which is why good leaders shape the environment, so that you don't feel you're going against the group when you speak your mind. So you feel rewarded and encouraged to state your opinions, and ask your questions.
It's all too easy for a (bad) leader to take charge and create an environment where everyone feels they have to agree with them. If they state their opinion forcefully, mock anyone who gives a hint of disagreement, maybe even get one or two of their supporters to immediately chime in with agreement...
Then anyone with even a hint of doubt will probably self-censor it, bury it so they don't look 'stupid', and think that they're the only ones that feel that way.
Telling everyone that 'there are no stupid questions' is sort of like how good investigators are taught not to ask leading questions (since it gives too many hints about what you're looking for, and people respond with what they think you want instead of telling you what they actually saw.)
Sure, dealing with people's 'stupid questions' can be time consuming and exhausting. And although I made a negative comment about blind obedience earlier, it does have it's time and place. (Mostly when you're under fire and don't have time.) But frankly, if you're NOT under fire... or in a situation where you need immediate action... you've got the time to do it right.
You set the tone. You shape the environment. You send clear signals about whether it's okay to 'bother' you with something, or whether you expect everyone to shut up and go along with what you want.
And maybe, most of the time, you've got good judgment. Maybe you can get by without getting everyone's input. But eventually, especially when things grow complicated, no one person can do it all by themselves.
Which is why good leaders also build a great team, one with enough knowledge to fill in for each other's gaps... and an environment where they're able to bring that knowledge to the table.
I have worked places where even if I disagreed with the decision made, I was part of the debate and knew what the issues were. I knew that I prioritized some of those issues differently than others on my team (and ultimately my boss), but I could see the point of their arguments and even though I didn't get what I wanted, I was okay with it. Mostly. (If it happened too often I'd wonder why I'm even there, since my input clearly isn't wanted or needed... but generally I'm not completely shut out.)
And knowing that I pointed something out, knowing that maybe something else was changed because of the concerns I brought up... that's important too. To give a military analogy, imagine you're debating whether the enemy will come through a large mountain pass or a smaller one. The large one is big enough to maneuver through in a timely fashion, but fairly obvious and most of our forces are set to defend it. The smaller pass doesn't have as many defenses, but it's less likely the enemy will come that way anyway.
If everyone just assumed the enemy would come through the main pass, then they'd be royally screwed if the enemy chose to do something different. Unless... unless enough people spoke up about the smaller pass that the possibility got taken into account. Maybe a unit or two was placed where they could support the defense at the main pass, but tasked to watch over the smaller pass and move to defend if needed. To hold off the enemy until the rest of their forces could pivot to the new threat. And maybe a drone or sensor or something was set along the smaller pass to give warning if the enemy chose to come that way.
By having people speak out about other possibilities, a more well-thought out plan was developed. One that could adapt to the possibility that everyone was wrong, and the enemy wasn't going to do what they expected.
To bring this back to the beginning of my post - leaders shape their environment, and there's a bit of a value judgement involved in how they do so. Someone who shows no patience for questions may, for example, be creating an environment where decisions are quickly made and you're not stuck endlessly debating what to do. There's not one pure 'good' and 'bad' way of doing it, and all the stuff I just wrote about has it's downsides in terms of time and effort.
However.
When time is not of the essence (i.e. any decision making that isn't happening in a state of emergency, where you are close enough to take immediate action) the risks of making a poorly thought out decision outweighs the challenges of creating an environment where people are encouraged to speak up. Immho, that is.
Nobody can know everything, nobody can be right all the time. The mark of a great leader is building a team that, collectively, makes wise decisions.
That can require a lot of work up front, especially if the leader has to teach their people what to prioritize... but the ultimate goal should be to create a team that can handle it all without you.
Btw, this may be a bit of a tangent, but it feels like it fits best here...
I have run into people who seem central to an organization. One person that everyone goes to in order to get things done. This is, all too often, a sign of bad leadership. If you make yourself essential, you also make a system that will fail if/when you're not there to manage it. If you move to another company, or retire, or die... the system will fall apart. People all too often seem to think being essential is a sign of talent or something, but it's not.
A good leader will build a team that can continue without them, and doesn't need them. (Hence the difference, imho, between a George Washington and a Joseph Stalin.) This is also why the criticism that Democrats haven't been building their leadership pipeline ring true.
Actually, that's why any criticism about not building a leadership pipeline rings true. If you're not considering how to develop your people, if you're not getting them to the point where they can take over for you, you're not a very good leader. (I'm tempted to say 'idiot', but I've been thinking it's not really the best word for it. I've been making the distinction between intelligence and wisdom, you see... you can be very intelligence and very foolish at the same time. Besides, there are some great people who don't do so well on IQ tests, and it's not something they have control over. 'Wise' and 'foolish' seem to involve our choices more... maybe I should start using 'fool' more often? It doesn't feel right, though.)
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