W. Edwards Deming found that 94% of performance problems stem from the system, not the person. Most organizations ignore this and focus on individual talent instead. Senior leaders need to design clear mandates, outcomes, and decision rights so their teams can actually succeed.
What have you found to be the biggest misconception of leadership as someone goes from one position, middle, maybe middle manager to a more senior role?
I think this might be an unusual way of framing it. I actually think the biggest misconception is that leadership is about the person, not the system around them. And if you were to go back to W. Edwards Deming and take a look at some of the work that he did, he talked about a talent problem being 94% the system and 6% the person. And yet, in human capital and broadly across most businesses, we focus way more than 6% on the actual talent involved. And I think the architecture is below that. So that's where I try to focus in on with the people that I work with and, you know, providing the mandate and understanding the clarity and focusing on that that element of it. And I think that's an understated and under-referenced element of professional development is making sure you have the right architecture around you.
So for those, because we are talking about rising and kind of what you need to arm yourself with in order to be successful, help our listeners and viewers understand what you mean by the architecture.
So What is the clarity in terms of outcomes of what those, what this job is supposed to do? And do you understand what winning really looks like? Can you talk about the 5 to 7 outcomes where if whoever's in that role does those things and only those things, that they would be considered successful? With people that I've worked with over the years, one of the biggest challenges you have is, is you have accountability. But you don't have decision rights that are linked to that level of accountability, which of course puts the person in a position where no matter how talented they are, they may not be in a position to thrive because there's a disconnect there. And you're held accountable for things that are beyond your scope of impact. And what I have found over the years is the individual talent is important, but But it's the architecture around that individual talent, which has a much higher degree of influence. So whether someone thrives or someone stubs their toe, and then we say, oh, this talent, boy, they just, they just didn't own their work. And yet, as leaders, we haven't defined what the winning outcome looks like in the majority of the cases.
