Inside JLC: Reinventing Your Leadership Team, Part 3

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us here at JLC Media. My name is Ray Jorgensen. With me are two of my colleagues, JLC Associates. Wonderful people. You're going to learn a lot from them today. Joe Marshall and Colleen Sullivan. And today we are on part three of kind of talking through an article that got all of our attention. I probably got my attention, then I made them listen to me. But it really got my attention about transforming your leadership team so it can really produce what's necessary in the future. And what I liked about it is it kind of went away from, let's just make ourselves digital. We'll be digital, then we'll look really cool. And the digital constructions, the digital initiatives can get us to the future that we want. The HPR team did as they did beautifully. Pricewater Cooper House is the ones that kind of got together on this. They interviewed all kinds of leadership people in multiple companies, and they all believe in digital initiatives. At the same time, they were very focused on transforming their leadership team. And in that transformation, there were four areas they wanted to focus on. So I'm going to state them to you, although today we're going to work on the third one. The first one was to make sure that you understand the necessary leadership roles and responsibilities that would enable your team to transform. What they have been doing may not be what they will be doing in the future, which may cause number two to pop in, which is make sure you got the right people on your leadership team. There may be some people that are beautifully equipped to produce what the system has produced over and over again in the past. Those human beings may not be the ones necessary to produce the necessary transformative behaviors that will change the system and produce a greater result. The third one is our focus today, and that is how do you actually keep your leadership team's eyes on the prize? How do we really get them thinking, behaving, interacting in ways that bring us to that transformative state, to that place of success that we want to get to. And we're going to spend a few minutes on that. And of course, we're learning organization people. So we're going to talk about that contextually about how the learning organization would think about it. And the last one, which is in my mind as a formal leader for a long time, and I sometimes did this well and sometimes didn't. I had to take ownership of the leadership team's behavior. And sometimes there would be someone who was on my leadership team who acted in ways that I may have not been satisfied with. People may not have been satisfied with. I'm not sure I always went and dealt with that effectively in my early years as a leader. As I grew in the position, I recognized the significance of us behaving in ways together. Anyhow, the next one that you're going to come, so a little teaser for the fourth one, which will come right after this will drop. The next week on Friday will be on taking ownership of your leadership team's behavior. But today, the focus is truly on making sure that everybody on your leadership team has found a way to let go of what we used to do that doesn't serve us in accomplishing this new end state that's unfolding. And that's why they use that word, transformative. We are transforming this team so it can adequately and successfully meet the needs that will produce the desired end state. Some may be digital, some may not. As you know, in this world of learning and learning organizations, human beings are the focus. And that's what we're going to talk a bit about today, Focus and human beings. Colleen, what are you hearing me saying? What's kind of landing on you or resonating with you about that opening? Sure.

Yeah. I'm hearing that. We're in a podcast series. We're in the third part focusing on an HBR article that has four different specific ways to transform your team. Today we're going to have a chat about focusing your team in a transformational way. How can we ensure that everyone is aligned with their activities and has an understanding of the desired end state? A big piece of Also, what I heard you say and what resonated is that sense of learning. How can we always be in a space of learning? So we're developing a common understanding about the state and then really thinking about ourselves and how we can stay focused. So we are always keeping our eye on the prize, so to speak.

It's easy to get lost in my own shop. If I'm in it, I can get lost in it. If I'm in hr, I can get lost in the HR issues and problems that I'm facing. You can get lost in your own space. That's not pejorative. That's just real. And I think what you laid out for us is how do we make sure that we are aligned? And that only comes through that common understanding. But we'll get to that in a minute. Joe, what resonated with you in that opening?

Yes. So I think for a lot of people it has to sound a little bit like bs, right? I mean, you go to the workplace Whether you're the CEO or someone else as part of the team. And you really are answering the bell, and you're answering the bell on so many things that are tactical today and that have to be done and require your attention and require your resources. And for many days on the job, if that's all you do, you go home exhausted and perhaps with some sense of accomplishment, but that's all you can do to get through your day. And so again, but most leaders recognize that if the organization is going to persist, if the organization is going to thrive, if the organization is going to succeed, whether you're working at a university or in a military department or on a production line, you're going to have to figure out how to deal with change, and you're going to have to figure out how to adapt. And some of that is technical, but much more of it is on a higher plane about what are we doing today and how are we going to do it differently tomorrow.

That's great.

So I think there's one of the stories told about Steve Jobs is that when Apple engineers went to him when the ipod was a success and said, hey, you know, we think we can put a phone in this thing. And Steve Jobs initial reaction to that was, no way, I do not want to be in the telephone business. You know, there's too many of them, it's too complicated, it's too hard. And so, and so then, so why would I mess up my music device with a telephone? Okay. And so it took it. And so there's a whole story about that, obviously. But the idea that he, even though he made his position clear, his mind was still open and he realized that in order to succeed, Apple had to transform. And his instincts were good enough to lead that transformation into the future. So that's kind of an easy, I think, example. But having that ability to focus your team on something larger than themselves that looks to the future is very important.

That's beautiful. Colleen, what are you thinking about that? That's excellent, Joe, thank you.

Yeah, I really like that because to Joe's point, if I'm just focused on my own department, if I'm just focused on executing the day to day and getting it done day to day, you lose sight of that bigger picture of what it is you're trying to collectively accomplish throughout organization. And then you are just checking a box. And so we talk a lot about lock on and lock off. So if I'm only looking at my own stuff, and I've coached clients before and they're like, well, I'm going to stay in my own lane. I'm just going to do what I need to do and that's what I'm going to focus on. And yet that kind of is a gap in understanding where are we truly moving towards. So I like what, what Joe was saying and how can. And the Steve Jobs is a great example of keeping that vision, that shared vision alive of what it is they're trying to accomplish is to day important. Absolutely. And yet we need to keep both of those visions in place.

So, yeah, I think you both have laid on the table a beautiful piece. I grabbed a quote for this conversation today which I did not share with you until you just said what you said, Joe, and you said what you said, Colleen, because it kind of matches. This is Black History Month. And if I think of that, I think about Martin Luther King Jr. And one of his quotes which I really like because it has to do with this transformative process is this one. We may have all come on different ships, but we're all in the same boat. Now, that is powerful to me because I think there are people that come with data analytics backgrounds. They come with it. They're HR professionals. I mean, just the list of possibilities are amazing. And if somebody. And I think that's really where Joe was going, Steve Jobs kept his mind open so he could listen to other people from different boats. Right. Who were coming up with a different idea so they could all be in the same boat to transform that device which was the centerpiece of the company, transform that device into something else. And recognition that we do come from so many different backgrounds and places I think is almost we don't talk about it enough. We don't behave as though it really matters, but it does. And to Joe's point, this will sound like bullshit unless you start to look around your leadership table and say, who are you? Where do you come from and what are your interests? What are you trying to accomplish personally? This goes to that sense in the learning organization about aspiration. So I was going to stay with Steve. I've heard him speak a number of times. Compelling speaker. And the story Joe told is a story he tells on himself. It's almost like he's being vulnerable by admitting, no, I don't want to do that. And at the same time, he was able to keep himself open to listen to other boat members, other people give him ideas that might transform the company. And I think that's the idea of getting ourselves focused on possibility. Not a thing, not a one stop or one size fits all but focused on possibility. How is that landing on you, Joe, that focus on possibility?

I think it's very important. I think the only thing that is static is something that's dead. So if we don't recognize that forces of change are at work in our work every day, every minute of every day, if we are content with the status quo, if we are content with where we are and we're not expressing a vision for the future, trying to plan for the future, trying to figure out how to evolve to the future, this is how you turn in to. I guess a classic case in American business is Henry Ford producing the Model T. Down almost to the Great Depression and not being responsive to customer demands led to the growth of other major motorcycles companies, namely General Motors. In this company at that or in this country at that time. So I think. But it, but again, this plays in so many ways and in so many spheres. And so again, reflection is the engine of change for executives. They have to have time, they must make time for themselves, dedicated time to think about what is occurring in their workplace, what is their organization doing, how are they going about it, and what does the future look like from that? I think they then have to enrich that process of reflection with input from those around the table, recognizing that they are very busy with the day to day and the technical, but bringing in those ideas and enriching it and creating a vision, but also a path on how we're going to move ahead. And again, I think this idea that, well, we're just so busy. So I will tell you, in one of my last jobs, someone I think said to me at some point, email, yeah, that's somebody else's priorities, okay? And when I thought, myself, when I reflected on that statement, I thought, well, how many times do I go to work and I open up my email and it's a register of a lot of things from a lot of people. And I spend my whole day just trying to work through my email.

Because.

You know, you answer the first couple ones and then you're, you know, you're feeling good about stuff, you're assembling for the others. When you get, you know, more coming in from the first couple you've already answered and you're just, again, you're very much caught in this tactical realm. I can tell you I had an experience kind of at the other end of that spectrum where on occasion I would go into work and I wouldn't even open up my email, I wouldn't even start my computer. I would just leave. It turned off because I had things I wanted to focus on that were more substantial. And somebody would call me and say, oh, have you seen the email from so and so about such and such? And I would say, no, I'm doing real work. And that would always get a what? Yeah, because again, they're very caught up in the tactical. And again, I'm not suggesting you can ignore. I always knew there would be a price for not starting the computer, because that's what we all did in government. Where I worked is we were very tactical and focused on that. But that underlying vision, which is one of the purposes of leadership, to define that, to set it and to make it a reality, that's important work.

So you really touched on powerful ideas, and I'm going to make one even more practical, and I'll let Colleen play it out. Personal reflection really matters because it is a way to change the work that we do is that we use disciplined conversation so that you can have collective reflection. And the part that sometimes. And this was, for me, when I first learned some of this work, and I'm still learning it, I forgot about the other side of reflection. So reflection sits there. And then if I am not careful, I will simply reflect about what I've done in the past and what I probably will do in the future back to Jobs, rather than generating a new way forward. And when Joe said, I just left the computer off for a while so I could do some real work, well, that's a generative behavior where I know if I get seduced into the email, I'm now being tactical and I may not get the opportunity to generate a way forward to accomplish the desired future. State the vision. So that sense of reflection. And ladies and gentlemen, those of you that listen, I want you to reflect personally. It is. Joe says it all the time. It's a little engine of change. It is. Especially in terms of refining your current reality. You can get better and better at your current reality. What Joe is kind of giving us a little shot in the ribs over is, well, yes, and we can. And I want to do that. And that's good work. Right. And how do we generate something new that can come from the reflective process? So reflection and generation are like a feedback loop. We can reflect and then think about, hmm, what could we generate different than we have now? And I think that's what Jobs did. So, Colleen, I know you are just a wizard at helping people work on both those pieces. Talk through what's landing on you right now.

Yeah, well, it's funny because I wrote that down reflection and feedback. Almost like the sista of reflection is feedback. And I think in both of our examples, it's demonstrated in both of them. So if we just look at the Jobs example. Absolutely. He was reflecting, thinking about how is he going to continue to move the company forward. He provided space for feedback throughout the organization where his team came up with these ideas. Mind you, sounds like he was an oppositional learner because at first he was like, no, no, no. However, that feedback enabled him to continue to revise and refine his end state. If you want to focus your team, it's critically important to provide feedback loops. So you're operating not just on your own reflection and your own thinking. You continue to get the inputs from your team so you can collectively refocus when needed to ensure the end state is really what you want.

So that's nice. Both of you have laid out a beautiful systems archetype, which is, I can focus on my current reality. I can reflect on the problems, issues. And Joe alluded to the idea of technical problems and adaptive challenges. I can do that, and I can get a little better at that, and I can refine my current reality. What you both have laid on the table, though, and I really want those of you that are listening to really grab onto this. How do I generate through this reflective process, how do I generate a new idea? And even if I disagree with the idea at first, what did Jobs do to keep himself so open to something new? And you mentioned Henry Ford. I remember Ford at the end of his career. Somebody said, well, you know, how did you. How did you move to the automobile? Didn't you. Did you ask the customer? And he said, now, if I'd asked the customers, they just want faster horses and nicer carriages, they would not have really thought about putting a motor on something and running it around with wheels. So the idea that there are certain people, and here's your leadership team, that's your money, that's where you go to generate new ideas. And once you start to talk about, yeah, we love our current reality, we want to do it better, we want to get better at the current reality. And once we do that, how can we generate what's necessary, what's necessary to get to this new state? Marshall Goldsmith, again, who I absolutely love, what got you here won't get you there. And this is really different in this kind of construction. And Joe, you've told me stories about some secretaries who were very happy what was happening, but they wanted something more. And I remember one of the secretaries of Defense that you worked with wanted something more, and he knew we could refine the current reality. But that's not what I wanted. I wanted something more. I needed to generate something new. Joe, talk to us a little bit about that stuff.

Well, so I would like to add another facet in this.

Please, please.

Which is that the. I would say for the people who think that this is kind of a soft skill or people who think that this is all pleasant conversations, they should just leave the room now, because this is hard work, and these are sporting conversations. And I think in some of the culture, it's understood that, you know, Jobs was not the most pleasant guy to be around because he expected you to bring it. You know, he was smart, and he was not afraid to ask hard questions. And so. But he was also not afraid to do the hard work. And if he challenged you on your ideas or your thoughts, then he was. And you didn't bring it, then. Okay. He was also big enough and deep enough to understand that maybe there was still value in the idea. It's just that you weren't the vessel or you weren't strong enough in your knowledge to put the idea forward. So I think that's so much of this, laying out a vision for the future is asking the hard questions and not being afraid to go to the hardest point in the room and say, what do we know about that? What do we think about that? And as a leader, being willing to demonstrate your own vulnerability and saying, okay, I don't know much about that, but I'm going to learn more about that. And that's one of the things that's pervasive in the DoD culture is, oh, I'm. The things that my boss are interested in. I'm fascinated by. And again, you see this over and over through the history of military leaders that they come in and sometimes they ask very difficult questions, or they pose problems, or they summarize problems and then say, what are we going to do about that? And so I think it's an uneven history. There isn't a smooth line here. So sometimes it's on the mark, sometimes it's off the mark. But I think this is the hard work of leadership. And sometimes you fail.

Which is an opportunity to learn if the culture is right. And I think the points you're making, Joe, are magnificent, because so often we get like, don't challenge me. I'm not gonna. I'm just gonna lean back. Well, people are resistant. Fear's a big thing. You know, people don't mind change. They are Fearful of what it's gonna feel like to be in a space where they don't know. The greatest leaders in the world show up and say, I don't know. When I met Joe Marshall the first time, he said to me, I don't know. He had a couple of things he wanted to work on, and he said, I'm not sure how. I have an idea, but I'd like to learn more. And it was watching somebody grapple with their own leadership presence and how they wanted to show up with their leadership team. Joe, it was magnificent to see that. And there's no question that there was an expectation of excellence from you for yourself, but also for the people that were on your leadership. Leadership team, and the ones that came and would push back and ask questions and challenge, My God, the room just changed. It just was a. It was one of the best leadership teams I think I've ever been around. It was really good. Joe. Colleen, what's resonating with you here? We're running out of time. I think we are.

Absolutely. You know, I think what's resonating is that importance of creating that space for feedback. And I think you're. You're absolutely right. You know, people say, I don't want to be challenged. Well, I think sometimes it's seeking to understand. It's creating a space for alternative perspectives, and all of that helps with this transformation. Because if you don't have a safe space to hold those conversations with your leadership team, where you can truly get the feedback of, you know what, you've got this great idea, right, about having this music thing, and now it can be better. Let's talk about adding a phone. Let's talk about this. So I think it's just. My invitation to our listeners is really to think about not only how often are you reflecting, but how often are you creating that space so you can invite the feedback from your team so you can continue to refocus as you move forward.

That's really good. See, we'll get stuck locked on to our own thinking, our own mental models, our own mindsets to put. I don't care how you describe. Describe that, but we get stuck there. Unless, to Joe's point, you're brave enough, and it takes courage to do this. You must be brave enough to create a space of high expectation and psychological safety. I want to know what you're thinking for. One of the greatest bosses I ever worked with was a secretary in one of our states. And once the team had learned this work, this learned very disciplined work, he Would say things like, okay, I am leaning in this way, but I'm not sure it's the right way. It is my best thinking so far. Notice that distinction in language. And I want to know who sees this differently. I want to know who thinks I might be going down the wrong road. I need to hear from you. And once that space, and to Joe's point, this is not for the weak of heart. This takes courage. You've got to be willing to say, I'm leaning this way and I want to know more. That is a very different way to show up as a leader and to craft a leadership team that has that capability to bring that methodology, that way of being. It's a dao of leadership, a way of leading into the entire system. And to Joe's point, it's not just soft skills. This is highly disciplined, intentional conversation. Well done, you guys. Joe, what would you tell our, our listeners as they kind of finish their workout or finish their car ride?

Well, again, just this element of how do you drive transportation or transformation and how do you focus your team on what that is? And so again, that's leadership work. It's important that the leader spend real time thinking about this because if what you're trying to transform into is something trivial or immaterial, your team's going to sense that and they'll be looking for other and better opportunities. So getting it right. Colleen talked about the feedback loops. So again, establishing the relationships where you have access to their thinking, to your team's thinking in a very mature and non judgmental safe space. These are things that you create over time that you have to work at. But working at it every day makes every day a little bit better. So I think sometimes, particularly for people who are in organizations that are in very tough spots, they're looking for quicker solutions. But this is something that pays off but requires consistent work. And it has a profound effect on both the workforce and, and the leadership.

Just so beautifully said by both of you. Those of you that are listening, I hope you're really focusing on this idea that transformation can happen when there's clarity about the focus. This is where we're going. This is our journey. This is where we're going. And people like us, we help you on the journey, we help you design ways that the journey can meet the expectations necessary to achieve the end state. And sometimes it's little steps. It's not everything all at once. Then to Joe's last point, I really want to underline that 10 times you don't just show up tomorrow and say now everything's good now you can tell me anything you want. Ha ha. They won't. It has to be every friggin conversation that you have has to have that space of psychological safety. Final thoughts, you two Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being with here at the three of us at jlc. We loved working on this article and I think what you heard from my two colleagues is phenomenal practical recommendations on how to increase your own personal practical knowledge so you can have these conversations with where we have a beautiful picture. We have a compelling story about where we're going. We are the ones that help on that journey. There are ways a way in general, but ways to help people find safe enough space to say what's really on their heart. We're all in the same boat, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you notice that today. Take care of yourselves. Be well. Sincerest thanks for listening to this episode of the Everyday Leadership Conversations Podcast. The Jorgensen Learning center offers a variety of programs for individuals and organizations to enhance their communication and leadership skills. To find out more about programs and upcoming webinars, check out our events page@gojlc.com.