Patrick Mosher uses the Titanic's locked binoculars as a metaphor for how inaccessible tools cripple teams. Most people use PowerPoint at only 15% competency. He outlines three steps to unlock talent: give each person the right tool for their strengths, fund deep learning, and assign stretch work that combines tool and talent.
Chapters
It was a calm, cold night with stars in the sky, no moon. The Titanic was traveling at her full speed, about 22.5 knots. Titanic's lookouts in the crow's nest peered through the haze with their naked eyes to look for anything dangerous in their path. Imagine that. They were squinting into the night. Weren't the lookouts equipped with binoculars? Well, yes, they were. In fact, there were binoculars in the crow's nest storage locker. Well then, why weren't they using them? Well, the storage locker was locked, and the key for that locker wasn't aboard the Titanic. The officer who had that precious key was reassigned the night before Titanic's launch. He had the key in his pocket and forgot to turn it over. Now, before you accuse anyone of negligence, ask yourself, have you ever forgotten where your keys are? Happens to me nearly every day. Actually, I more often forget where my reading glasses are. A small key in a pocket, just one little oversight. If the Crow's Nest sailors had been equipped with the right tools, they might have seen that iceberg with a little bit more time and maybe the Titanic swerves just enough to miss that iceberg, and we probably wouldn't be talking today about how the Titanic made its way safely to New York City. Let's learn from our history. Here's my bottom line question for you. Is your team equipped with the exact right tools to do their job effectively? Are they appropriately skilled in using those tools? Are all the capabilities of their productivity tools completely unlocked? Unlock your team's tools and unlock their talent. I loved talking to my clients and colleagues about effective use of tools. In my early consulting days, we called it technology assimilation. Later, we called it adoption. Here's how those conversations usually went. And imagine I'm talking to you. So, what tool do you use most frequently to influence clients to make decisions, like delivering proposals and presenting materials at steering committee meetings? And they would usually respond, PowerPoint. And I would ask, well, how often do you use that tool? And they would say, well, every day. And So I'd say, given all of PowerPoint's functional capabilities, what percent competency do you have in all of that functionality? At that point, usually there's a pause. Their eyes look up and to the left as they analyze the question, then their face faintly blushes as they answer with a tinge of annoyance, maybe 15%. So here's a tool that's most critical to influence the ideas and sell products and projects to your clients, and you only know 15% of its capabilities? Well, that usually led to launching into a deep conversation about their learning goals, and more importantly, applying the same logic to their teams. So if your teams and our teams are just using 15% of their functional capabilities, we're bottling up that valuable talent. Set them free. So here's 3 simple steps to unlock your team's talent. A, provide the exact right tool to enhance the unique talent for each member of your team. B, give them the time and budget to learn that tool to its fullest capabilities. And C, assign them tasks that stretch their talent into the tool and stretch their tools into their talent. Watch them grow, and they'll love you for it. And watch their productivity soar along with your results. Give your team binoculars to not only avoid icebergs, but to support your ship in steaming to your destination with world-class accommodations. After all, icebergs make better scenery than destinations. Well, binoculars locked up is just one of the 10 risk assessment components of our Titanic Diagnostic. Check out the other 9 on our Titanic Diagnostic app in the Apple Store.
