Episode #273: It’s Never Black or White

1,000 annoying shades of gray

ARE THE NO BULLSH!T LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLES ALWAYS APPLICABLE?

A few weeks ago I had a session with one of the CEOs who I'm currently mentoring, and he raised an issue that I thought was worth taking to the whole No Bullsh!t Leadership community. He challenged me on the principle of Friendly, Not Friends, and he made some excellent points.

So, I went away and thought about this long and hard. Here was a guy who I have a huge amount of respect for, and who's performing incredibly well as a value-driven, No Bullsh!t leader. We ended up having a deep discussion. And then, it hit me like a pie in the face: a lot of the advice I give is quite categorical. It sounds incredibly black and white.

In the same vein as the Friendly, Not Friends principle, you might've heard me speak about other principles, like:

• Respect Before Popularity

• Don't Dip Down

• Excellence Over Perfection

• Simplicity and Focus

• Speed Over Accuracy, and

• Single-Point Accountability.

In order to convey the principles in a clear and concise manner, I position them as unequivocal laws of leadership. This is important if you are to understand the principles sufficiently well to implement them. But, as is the case with everything in life, nothing is black or white: there are always going to be exceptions; there are always going to be judgment calls that need to be made; and there's always going to be a thousand annoying shades of gray.

In this episode, I'm going to address some of those shades of gray—some of the nuances of these critical principles. This should help you to understand how to put the principles into context a little better. After all, they live on a continuum, not in a simple binary relationship.

FRIENDLY, NOT FRIENDS

Only a month or so ago, I released an episode called Ep.267: Management vs Leadership, to expose the myth of the black and white view that many people espouse regarding the two disciplines. I spoke about the fact that management and leadership are so intertwined that they're virtually inseparable in the day-to-day dialogue that you have with your people.

Although I tend to state many of the core No Bullsh!t Leadership principles as black or white rules, you’ll no doubt discover a number of things as you move to implement them:

1. There are always gray areas and exceptions; and

2. Every implementation requires judgment and trade-offs.

You discover pretty quickly that you're operating along a continuum, not on either side of a clear, well-defined line.

Let's start with the Friendly, Not Friends principle. I'm a huge believer in this and nothing I've seen or heard in the last 20 years or so has changed my mind. On the contrary, as I've toyed with this in a few different circumstances, it's absolutely reinforced my belief in it. I even revisited the concept in an episode a few months ago, Ep.197: Why Can't We Be friends?

It's virtually a given that when you become friends with someone, the unspoken human laws of reciprocity come into play. You will cut them more slack than you would anyone else, and they will take advantage of that fact—not intentionally or maliciously… that's just our social programming.

Then of course, other people in the team see this, and they feel as though they're on the outer—that perhaps you're not running a meritocracy after all.

It's a natural dynamic no matter how impartial you think you are. And even if you can control it rigorously, can you confidently say the same for the other person? And what about the other team members' perceptions?

But wait: isn’t it also true that, in order to be a great leader, you have to care about your people at an individual level? Don’t you have to get to know them personally? Don’t you have to know a little bit about their life outside of work: their hobbies, their children's names, their personal challenges?

Isn’t it important to know what drives them? To be able to tell when you are stretching them too far (or not far enough)? Isn’t it important to be aware of their career ambitions and aspirations? And don’t you have to be able to communicate on their terms, in a way they will understand?

Isn't that bordering on becoming friends?

Well, no.

That's what I call friendly: friendly enough to care; friendly enough to make communication effortless… But, not so friendly that it crosses the line into friendship.

Friendship goes further: it morphs into things like spending a lot of time together in social situations; your families becoming close to each other, which further convolutes the boundaries; a level of mutual understanding and ease of interaction that far exceeds what you have with other team members.

Going out for a coffee or the odd drink after work, or even dinner doesn't necessarily make you friends. Often, those situations are incredibly valuable to help you to get to know someone better and to build a stronger relationship. But you still need to have the right measure of professional distance.

This can get really complicated when, for example, you formed a close peer relationship and then you were promoted to become the leader of that same team. And it's sometimes hard to know when the line is being crossed between professional relationship building and friendship.

So, yes, there are going to be trade-offs.

And, yes, you'll be naturally attracted to some people (normally like-minded people) more than you are to others.

But if you live by the principle of Friendly Not Friends, it's going to create a strong awareness of the pitfalls of having friendships with people who work for you. And that's what enables you to use your judgment to make sure that the relationships you have with your people are friendly, caring and connected—with just the right amount of professional distance. And it's that awareness that will save you from stepping on a landmine.

So that should give you a better understanding of what I mean when I say, emphatically, you need to be Friendly, Not Friends.

ONE HEAD TO PAT, ONE ARSE TO KICK

Another critical principle of No Bullsh!t Leadership is Single-Point Accountability. This is the key to successful execution. I covered this in one of the very early episodes of this podcast, Ep. 19: Execution for Results. I have seen so many companies that over-consult and over-collaborate: and the culture deteriorates until it becomes an all-care-no-responsibility culture… and it is the silent killer of performance.

This type of culture quickly degenerates into management by committee and decision-making by consensus. Everyone has a say, but no one has direct accountability for making the final decision. It's that classic Monty Python autonomous collective. Decisions flow up the line as a fait accompli to someone senior enough to sign it off, without necessarily knowing if the decision is good, bad, or indifferent.

We kid ourselves that consensus is good… and we even call teams that find easy consensus, High-Performing Teams, mainly because the people work well together.

But, in reality, after endless, soul-destroying rounds of appeasement, where do you end up? You end up at the lowest common denominator: you get a decision that everyone can sort-of live with but no one's really happy with. And you'd be hard-pressed to find a single person who thinks it was the best outcome.

Single-point accountability, with clear decision rights, overcomes this malaise. But, of course, it comes at the risk of a few people getting their noses out of joint when their opinions aren't taken into consideration.

This is such an obvious driver of performance to me, that I sometimes struggle to find the gray areas. But the shades of gray come in the level of consultation and collaboration that sit behind these accountable decision makers.

This is why leading for performance is really hard—you want people to have the autonomy to make the necessary decisions to deliver the outcomes that you’re holding them accountable for, but you don't want them to run off and make unilateral decisions that are ill-considered, convenient, or insular.

In setting up a culture of accountability, you also have to make sure that people don't go rogue and simply ignore the capability and experience that surrounds them. This can be quite a difficult balance to achieve, especially since we like people to feel included and heard. All the conventional leadership wisdom tells us to treat people the way we would like to be treated, and this is generally true.

But for me, my biggest driver in the way I'd like to be treated is to be given clear accountability, and not to be disempowered or derailed by well-meaning amateurs.

Too much deference to non-accountable people can lead the accountable person to feel as though you are not supporting them adequately. Too little, and other people feel as though their opinion doesn't matter.

Leading in this environment requires close contact with your accountable people. You need to inquire directly: “Who are you consulting, and how extensively are you consulting with them?” You need to suggest that they talk to certain people with specialist expertise. For example, “Have you run this past the legal team to see if they have a perspective on our contractual risk?”

For the non-accountable people, ask for their views in group meetings and one-on-ones (where appropriate), but keep them focused on their own accountabilities and try to read the play: do they feel as though they're getting sufficient opportunity to provide input to the problems that are in their wheelhouse?

This is a balance that has to be constantly monitored, but it's critical to start with strong single-point accountability and then overlay collaboration and consultation. If you try to approach it from the other direction, attempting to superimpose single-point accountability in a consensus culture, you will never attain execution excellence—I promise you that.

So, that should give you a better understanding of what I mean when I say, unequivocally, you need one head to pat and one ass to kick… for everything!

DON’T DIP DOWN!

A principle that's closely related to single-point accountability is Working at the Right Level. Not working at level is one of the most common issues that I see with leaders at all levels, from frontline supervisors to CEOs and board chairs.

My mantra of Don't Dip Down is vital, for so many reasons. You need to do your own work, and not over-function or overcompensate for your people (or your peers!) when they don't deliver.

For a start, any minute you spend doing someone else's job is a minute you are not spending doing your own; it also increases your workload; bringing you one step closer to frustration and burnout.

When you step in and make decisions for someone else, fix their mistakes, or finish their work, they never learn or grow. Sometimes they're not even aware that their work wasn't up to standard. Any under-performance remains hidden and people who ‘choose to cruise’ are never identified, resulting in a general decline of performance standards… and your team becomes inevitably mediocre.

This is also the gift that just keeps on giving: with no improvement in the individual you've bailed out, you have to step in every single time, because they're not learning from their mistakes. You've just made a huge rod for your own back.

But let's face it, it's so much quicker and easier to just do something, than it is to lead someone else to do it the right way… and you get to avoid any conflict with the individual (bonus!). Then, you rationalize by telling yourself things like, "I always get the job done.”… “I'm a results-driven leader”... and, “I wouldn't ask my people to do anything that I'm not prepared to do myself."

Such bullsh!t.

Don't dip down! It sucks your time and energy; it takes your focus off the right things; and it disables your people—it robs them of any potential growth and progression they might've had. And it's negligent, in terms of the mandate that every leader has to develop talent and build capability below them.

Having said that, there's also plenty of gray around this one. You can't just stand back and watch one of your people drive off the proverbial cliff. You want people to fail, and learn, and grow within the guide rails… with the safety of clear parameters. You don't want them to feel like they're working without a net. You want to support your people, and create a fault-tolerant culture, but not one where the failures destroy their confidence.

So, where's the gray?

Sometimes, you're going to have to step in when you can see something about to go wrong—but this depends almost entirely on how you assess the risk. If the consequences of a mistake, a poor decision, or a failed deliverable is too high to tolerate, you can't just stand back and let it happen. So you may decide to step in and be a little more directive about how a particular decision should be made.

But only on those things that warrant that level of intervention.

Which things warrant that level of intervention? Well, that's a judgment call that you're going to have to make. It's important to start with the clear discipline, mandate, and culture of not doing the work or making the decisions that belong at the levels below you. Then, only dip down by exception which, let’s face it, should be rare.

And bear in mind that every time you do, you are trading off the achievement of the outcome with a number of other critical factors, like:

• Developing your people's capability;

• Setting a high standard for performance;

• Working out how far someone can extend themselves;

• Identifying your under performers; and

• Being able to clearly identify who should and shouldn't be on your team.

So, that should give you a better understanding of what I mean when I say categorically, don't dip down!

SPEED OVER ACCURACY

Let's take one more to illustrate the gray areas that exist, even in the case of very clear-cut leadership principles: Speed Over Accuracy.

Speed is the most underrated decision-making factor. Many otherwise sound decisions become poor decisions simply because of the time it takes to make them. In any team, in every industry, in virtually any organization, speed is critical. It gives you momentum, which is one of the most underrated competitive advantages.

Companies that compete most effectively simply make better decisions faster than their competitors. That's it in a nutshell. It's the essence of competitive execution.

But once again, our human fear of making a mistake holds us back. What if I make the wrong decision? What if the decision isn't popular or doesn't gain widespread consensus? What if I'm missing crucial pieces of information?

Speed over accuracy is a cornerstone concept, but it doesn't mean you should make knee-jerk or ill-conceived decisions. The focus on speed needs to play out within the framework of a sound decision-making process.

I worked out during my corporate career that the decisions I made under extreme pressure, when I didn't control the flow or the timing of the decision, were at least as good, if not better than the decisions I made when I had all the time in the world.

So, I focused on trying to understand the anatomy of those decisions. Why was I able to make them so effectively? What drove them? I knew that if I could bring that discipline to all my decisions, and force myself into a sense of time pressure, I could reap the benefits of great decisions, made faster.

I worked out what the criteria were that needed to be observed. For example, any decision would have to factor in both long and short-term considerations; it would have to be holistic, considering a range of competing factors; it would require appropriate consultation with the right people (but not with everyone); it would necessarily consider the perspectives of many different stakeholders; and it would have to address the root cause of the problem, not just the symptoms.

I realized that doing this didn't have to take a long time. It simply demanded focus, discipline, and a keen sense of urgency.

But, once again, this is certainly not just black or white. There's an endless list of judgment calls that you need to make. How much data is enough? How much consultation is enough? How much risk are we prepared to take on? How malleable is the decision (i.e. how easy will it be to tweak or adjust or adapt to future events)? How easy will it be to execute?

It would be incredibly easy to misinterpret the principle of speed over accuracy to think it implied that you need to be reckless, or hasty, or somehow cavalier. But the leaders who do this are the same ones that call their next knee-jerk reaction, “pivoting”.

The principle of speed over accuracy is a game changer. Of course, when you try to increase the tempo, you know your people won't be entirely comfortable with it. So, you'll probably feel as though you should go slower—but you don't have to. You just need to remain methodical as you put the pressure on yourself to move faster, while you make the balancing trade-offs that every major decision requires.

So, that should give you a better understanding of what I mean when I say, without fear of contradiction, you have to prioritize Speed Over Accuracy.

LIVE BY THE PRINCIPLE, BUT LIVE IN THE GRAY!

You can see why, in terms of these critical principles, we need a strong mantra to keep us on the right track—a mantra that creates a common language that our teams can rally around. That's the end of the spectrum that we need to focus on.

But there are always trade-offs, and every situation is different. Being a great leader requires a dogged focus on the leadership principles that drive superior results for your team, and personal satisfaction for your people. And if you can manage that, it's going to help you to navigate the thousand shades of gray that you'll undoubtedly encounter along the way.

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