Author: simongterry

Purpose & Practice grow together

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Purpose beats entropy. Adaptive leadership practice renews.

Most learning experiences fade. Some fade very quickly. In general only a small proportion of any experience is retained. Even less makes it into sustained practice.

Almost seven years ago, I had my first experience of a learning program that introduced me to adaptive leadership. That amazing experience, the Accelerate Program at NAB, involved work inside and outside the organisation on complex issues.  These issues required the practice of the skills of a different type of leadership than traditional transactional and expertise based command and control leadership. That leadership experience has been one that has grown every day since.

What makes the power of adaptive leadership lessons grow in practice?

Purpose & practice.

Entropy is the normal process of decay in systems.  Negentropy, or syntropy, is its opposite where things grow in strength over time. My experience is that purpose is a great way to beat entropy.  The Wikipedia for negentropy notes that even scientists see power in purpose:

Indeed, negentropy has been used by biologists as the basis for purpose or direction in life, namely cooperative or moral instincts.

My first experience of adaptive leadership in the Accelerate Program forced a great deal of personal reflection on purpose. That clarity drove new action in a range of different domains. Purpose is an incredible force for energy and drives the desire to see these new skills in practice. Naturally I began tentatively and with a great deal of discomfort.

In all the years since, I have learned that continued Adaptive leadership practice refines the clarity of personal purpose. I have become more aware of my effect on others and on the importance of collaborative solutions that engage many people in the system. Those interactions reinforce the growing energy. The purpose sustains you through the challenges of practice. A continuous iteration of purpose and practice, grows the effectiveness of your leadership.

The purpose is in the work. Adaptive leadership work especially.

Sales and service are a continuum

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Every interaction is a moment of sales and service to a customer. Sales and service exist on a ever shifting continuum, not as discrete functional experiences. Organisations treat these two functions differently because often the capabilities and the measures of performance differ. However for a customer, sales and service are just ‘getting what I need’.

Recently I was trying to make a change to an account with a provider. This should have been a simple service request to better align the product to my needs. However the provider clearly took the view that my request made me a retention risk. Instead of offering to help me meet my needs, they started to frustrate my efforts to make the change delaying matters with additional requests. Unfortunately the team wasn’t trained to ask the simplest sales question -‘why was I making the change?’. Had they asked, the change was a precursor to an additional purchase, not departure.

There is no surer way to lose a customer and miss additional business than to make it hard for the customer to get their needs met in any channel. Every interaction is an opportunity to find out what the customer needs and to make it happen now. The best way to keep a customer is to work to meet their needs to the best of your capabilities every chance you get.

Service processes that don’t facilitate a sales opportunity for customers miss huge opportunities. Sales channels that can’t fix other issues leave customers doubting your interest in their business. Creating a continuum can be as simple as helping service teams to ask a few key questions and supporting sales people with service issues. Theere are big opportunities in leveraging a moment that a customer is asking for your help.

Customers don’t wait. Customers don’t come back. Customers aren’t interested in your process complexity or functional model. Making sure you treat every customer moment the way they want. Meet customer needs as best you can offering a continuum of sales and service.

The Magic of Authority

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Authority comes when we are ready to lead and ready to deliver for others

Recently I was talking with a colleague in a mentoring conversation.  This individual was describing her surprise that she was being asked to lead a piece of collaborative work that she had initiated.  A group that she had brought together were deferring to her authority.  Because she had convened the group, chosen the individuals and had the compelling vision for the work, the group were ready to follow.  It was an adjustment for someone who saw themselves as simply as the coordinator to realise that they had earned the authority to lead others more senior.

At the heart of this moment, is a key insight.  The magic of authority is this – you have the authority because others judge you ready.  Others chose to follow because they trust in your vision, insight, capabilities, experience or approach.  Their trust and their followership means that you are ready to lead, whether you know that yet or not.

You can be thrust into a rank you are unfit to hold or where you are unsuitable to deliver on the expectations of the position.  We have all experienced the terror of those first moments of a new and challenging role. Rank is a gift and some times it is bestowed in error.

Authority doesn’t work that way.  Unlike rank, it doesn’t come as a gift from others.  Authority is earned.  If you have authority, you are ready to exercise it.

So next time you are wondering how you ended up in charge, remember that you earned it.  Go show your new followers that their instincts are right.  

That leadership is the least that they expect from you. 

Authority is earned

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The best obstructionist question is ‘who gave you the authority to…?’ My answer is always the same ‘Nobody’

Authority is not given. Authority is earned. Rank & title might be given to you but authority comes from action.

Authority is purpose, capability, experience and leadership rolled into one. You don’t get that without work (& hard work at that). People allow you authority when they have confidence in your leadership to deliver. Authority comes when others chose to follow.

My experience is that when everyone is standing around the empty white space where a problem resides, the person who first steps in to solve it wins authority. Almost always people are relieved that someone did something. That initial authority will grow if you keep delivering on the work to solve the problem.

Don’t wait to be given a parchment & seal with formal authority to act as a leader should. Waiting around is the surest way to lose what authority you have earned.

You have the authority because you want or need to act. It’s up to you to convince others to let you continue. That’s what leaders do.

So do it.

Start today

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It is never too late to be what you might have been – George Eliot.

Time isn’t waiting for you.  Start today.

We all have laundry lists of things that we want to do and want to become.   Those items will remain simply lists, if we don’t act.  

In life there is always something more urgent to distract us from what is important.  Meetings can wait.  Email can wait.  Coffee can wait.  Television can wait. Gossip can wait.  You may well even find today’s crisis can wait.  

Make time today to take a positive step towards your goal.  Turn your future life into a project and tackle it stepwise.  Small steps can come first.  Leaps will come later.

Regret is a wasted emotion.  Leave it behind along with the feeling of lost opportunity.  Turn those emotions into an impetus to act on your purpose.  With action comes progess, with progress comes confidence and we all know that’s essential to continued success.

Create accountability.  Promise the steps to the future you to someone who matters, someone who will hold you to account.  Publish your plans.  Share your future and you’ll enjoy the ride more.

If you are going to start-up the future you, get going today.

Decision review for leaders

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Leaders decisions are reviewed in real time. Are you up for scrutiny?

Umpiring decisions are now subject to detailed review in many sports, often controversially. What we have learned in this process is that human decisions made in an instant are often unreliable. Importantly, review itself does not always lead to greater certainty or a better outcome.

Leaders are highly visible and subject to the same exacting review. Teams scrutinize their actions and comments. There is a permanent decision review system in place on the actions of leaders. Nothing is irrelevant to a team trying to understand the leader’s agenda and whether the leader is true to his or her word.

How can a leader manage this level of scrutiny?

Recognize your actions and decisions are all public & subject to review: everything is subject to review. Even private actions will be discussed if someone is aware of them. Be ready to explain yourself to the watching review system.

Share your thinking where the basis for your actions is uncertain: you are better to provide an explanation than to have the review system in your team construct one. If you were uncertain, but a confident decision was required say so. Help the team understand the difference between certainty and confidence.

If it is an anomaly or an error, wear it: pretense just leads people to question your competence.

Signal: people are watching so remember you can send signals with your actions and decisions, even the smallest ones.

Most of all be clear & repeat yourself: your team rarely has a video replay of your actions. They will compare their notes instead. Their perceptions might be unreliable. Repeat your actions to improve clarity.

Every decision of a leader is up for review. Expect and manage it.