WARNING: Vision & Values Can Kill Your Company

Posted on December 19, 2011 by Lex

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If a true conflict of vision and values exists within the organization, one side must go.
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There are few things that will destroy momentum within an organization like a conflict in vision and values. This article will explain why this is so, what to do if you have a conflict of vision and values, and how to align or realign a shared sense of vision and values throughout your organization. First, allow me to define what I mean specifically by vision and values.

Making Sense of Vision and Values

Vision is the destination. Values are how we do the work.

Vision is the destination or ultimate outcome the organization is collectively working towards. For example, imagine that you’re a sea captain. Vision would be the destination and outcomes you’re seeking from a successful voyage. Are you sailing to Tahaiti or Vancouver? And what do you hope to gain from a such a voyage? Knowledge? Treasure? Experience? Or simply a ride to a new place? If vision is the destination, then values are the norms of behavior that are deemed acceptable during the voyage. What kind of ship would you run? Would it be clean, orderly, and tight? Or would you sail like a loose band of pirates, with the only moral code to win treasure or walk the plank? How the work is done reveals the values you espouse.

The same concepts hold true for your company. To be effective, an organization needs a shared and compelling vision so that everyone buys into where the organization is sailing and why. The crew has bought into the vision; they understand their role on the voyage; and they’re eager and determined to make it happen. A company also must embody a shared code of values so that everyone is clear on the modes of acceptable behavior and, more importantly, what isn’t acceptable behavior — the kind that will get you walking the plank. Without a compelling vision and clear authentic values, a company will tend to flounder like a ship adrift at sea. It’s just not going to get very far very fast.

What Happens if There’s a Conflict of Vision and Values

A true conflict of vision and values is an extreme situation that can’t be negotiated. That is, if two or more people possess conflicting vision and values, then one of them must go (yes, that means leave the organization). Intuitively, this should make sense. For how can two groups of people get along and work together if they want to head in opposite directions or don’t value the same conduct? For example, if a couple no longer share the same vision and values for their relationship, no amount of counseling is going to save it. It’s best for both parties to part ways and find partners who do share their vision and values. Likewise, if two company co-founders have a genuine conflict of vision and values, one should buy out the other or they should agree to shut the company down. The organization is just not going to make it while that conflict exists. On a global scale, we have seen plenty of conflicts of vision and values in action. Communism and capitalism are perhaps the most flagrant 20th century examples. In cases like this, if one imposes itself on the other, the resistance to change is so great that this usually results in war. Conflicting vision and values are the major reason why peace between Israel and Palestine is so hard to negotiate. Both sides have a fundamentally different vision and values around co-existence. Until that conflict is resolved, no peace treaties, walls, terrorism, or sanctions are going to bring the sides together. However, with shared vision and values, all other conflicts become manageable.

Because it’s so extreme, your best course of action when you suspect a potential conflict of vision and values is to prevent that conflict in advance. There’s an old saying that when the head is rotten, it affects the whole body. Put another way, vision and values tend to flow from the top of the organization down. Therefore, you want to be extra vigilant that those in leadership positions have bought into a common set of vision and values and actually walk the talk. When this occurs, by their very presence, they naturally instill shared vision and values and help to cascade them throughout the organization. Here’s how you accomplish this.

How to Align Vision & Values

Dynasties are built by highly proficient leaders who buy into a shared vision & values.

The legendary football coach Bill Walsh used a simple formula to realign the vision and values of the San Francisco 49ers in the 1980s. When Mr. Walsh joined the 49ers, he was a former college coach in his first year of coaching professional football. At the time, the 49ers were infamous for being perennial losers. Nothing in the organization seemed to go right. Mr. Walsh intuitively knew that if he was going to create a Super Bowl champion, then he would first have to change the culture by instilling in his players a new vision and a new set of values. The model he created is powerful in its insight and simplicity. The first step in using it is to place all of your current staff in one of the four quadrants: those who share the vision and values and those who do not, and those who have high proficiency in their tasks (produce results) and those who do not.

Who's on your team?

The Starters in Quadrant 1 are those individuals who exemplify the best that your organization can be. They walk the talk. They embody the desired vision and values of your organization and, at the same time, they have a very high level of proficiency (e.g. their skill in sales, marketing, finance, programming, etc.). When it comes to managing starters, you want to develop their capabilities and career paths for the long term. This is a strategic investment and a smart one. Your job as manager is to help them cultivate their own leadership qualities and find the career path that is most engaging and rewarding to them. Celebrate and honor this group. Include them in strategic planning and the new hire process. They can set the tone and tempo for your entire organization.

The Bench in Quadrant 2 includes those individuals who exemplify the desired culture of your company but who don’t perform at the same level of proficiency as the starters. When it comes to managing the bench, your job is to coach them and train them to improve their proficiency for the task at hand. Invest time, energy, and attention in this group for results today. It is relatively easy to develop proficiency in the short run but it is very, very challenging to develop character in the long run. You either have it or you don’t. Therefore, value those in Quadrant 2 and coach them in technical proficiency.

The Free Agents in Quadrant 3 are those who perform technically at a very high level but who don’t align with the company’s vision and values. This is like a group of mercenaries or free agents. They are in the game only for themselves and everyone knows it. Be careful with this group. Use mercenaries sparingly and in areas that are non-critical for the business but require a specialized skill. But at all costs, do not put mercenaries in leadership positions. If you do, this will have an adverse effect on the entire culture. When it comes to managing free agents, your job is to motivate and create incentives that reward short-term performance. Pay them cash on the barrelhead for a job well done. But do not attempt to win them over by offering a career path, an equity stake, or a leadership position that unduly influences others.

The Waivers in Quadrant 4 include those who don’t perform at a high level and don’t share the desired vision and values of the company either. If this was a sports team, this is the group that you’d place on the waiver wire and hope to trade to your competition. There’s no real point in investing time, energy, and attention in improving skills or attempting to create a shared sense of vision and values. In other words, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig. Do yourself and that person a favor: help them find a new job with a different company that better aligns with their talents, vision, and values. You’ll both be better off.

Using a simple model like this matrix can help you quickly group the types of people in your organization and develop a short- and long-range plan to develop each one. It also brings tremendous clarity in identifying the types of starters you want to attract and what it takes to develop your bench. It also shows you the types of free agent mercenaries who you can use for selected tasks but that you shouldn’t count on to be around for the long term. Finally, this brings clarity to your waiver wire and the types of people who aren’t a good fit for your organization’s culture.

Remember, nothing creates greater misalignment in an organization and slows execution speed than a conflict of vision and values. Therefore, attempt to avoid misalignment by being clear and committed to a powerful vision and authentic values up front. Then fill leadership positions in your team with individuals that intrinsically share that same vision and core values. If you can do this, you’ll have smooth sailing ahead. But if you make the mistake of hiring people who don’t buy into the vision and values, you’ll end up facing mutiny or forcing key members to walk the plank.

Back to The Business Execution Guide

Next to The 5 Classic Mistakes in Organizational Structure: Or, How to Design Your Organization the Right Way

The Physics of Executing Fast

Posted on December 13, 2011 by Lex

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Fast business execution creates its own momentum.

Let’s do a thought experiment. Imagine that you’re standing in the middle of a racquetball court surrounded by four walls. At your feet is a basketball. First, notice how the basketball just tends to sit there. That’s called inertia. In order to get the ball to do something, you have to apply a force to it. In this case, you give it a kick and the ball rolls along the floor, bounces off the wall, and careens in another direction before coming to rest again. Next, you walk and retrieve the ball and bring it back to the center of the court, place it on the floor, and this time, you give it a really hard kick. What happens? The ball rolls even faster across the floor, bounces off the wall with more power, and travels further in a new direction than the first kick. In essence, you just experienced all three of Newton’s laws of motion.

Newton’s three laws of motion will shed light on the speed and direction of your organization. If you want to move your organization forward quickly in a chosen direction, you should understand these laws and how they apply to business execution. Put another way, if you want to be successful, work with – not against – the physics.

The First Law of Motion

Newton’s first law of motion is about inertia. Inertia is a recognition that an object will tend to do what it’s been doing, unless acted upon by an imbalanced or outside force. In our thought experiment, that’s why the ball tends to stay at rest in the middle of the floor until you do something, like give it a kick. Inertia works in both ways, however. Once the ball is in motion from the kick, it tends to stay in motion too, until an outside force such as gravity, friction, or a wall acts upon it. Once the ball comes to rest, it will remain at rest until it is acted upon by another force.

Newton's First Law of Motion

Obviously, an organization isn’t a simple object like a ball. But you can still use the lens of inertia and see how it impacts an organization. Basically, because of inertia, an organization will tend to continue to do what it’s been doing unless acted upon by another force. That is, if your organization is slowed, stymied, or stuck, it will continue to act that way unless you do something to change it. And the greater the inertia, the greater the effort required at getting it to move in a new direction. On the other hand, if your organization is currently experiencing a lot of momentum, then like a train roaring down the tracks, it will be hard to slow down. Inertia can work in your favor too.

About the Physics

In Newtonian physics, “force” is a push or a pull on an object and is defined as either “balanced” or “imbalanced.” An imbalanced force is one in which either the push or the pull exerts an unequal force and cause the object to move. If all forces are equal or balanced, there is no motion.

In Organizational Physics, a “force” is not a push or a pull on an object, but a force of change applied to an organization. The force in this case is the Producing, Stabilizing, Innovating, or Unifying force or some combination of these.

Just as in Newtonian physics, one or more of the forces must be imbalanced in order to effect change. For example, if you want to drive your organization forward in terms of productivity, you’ll need to apply more Producing force and less of the others. To have the organization become more stable, you’ll need more of the Stabilizing force. To help it discover new opportunities and avoid future threats, you’ll need to amp up the Innovating force. And to keep the organization unified as a whole, you’ll need the Unifying force at work. Balancing and unbalancing the right forces in the right sequence, while keeping entropy low and integration high, is the art and science of Organizational Physics.

The Second Law of Motion

Newton’s second law of motion is about the relationship between force, mass, and acceleration. In our thought experiment, when you kicked the basketball harder, it had more acceleration and went further. There’s an equation in physics that explains this and is written F=MA (Force equals Mass times Acceleration). Basically, F=MA tells us that if you take two objects of the same mass and hit one with force, you’ll have acceleration. If you hit the other with more force, you’ll have more acceleration. That’s why if you were to take two identical basketballs and kick one really hard, it would accelerate to a certain speed and travel a set distance. Kick the other one less hard and it will accelerate to a slower speed and travel less distance.

Newton's 2nd Law of Motion: F=MA

While any frustrated CEO would surely love to simply kick their organization in the ass to get it to accelerate, it’s obvious that that’s not how things work. But why is that? Why can’t a CEO, a teacher, or a parent apply a force of change to the organization and make it move quickly and easily just like a ball being kicked? If F=MA, then why don’t your kids pick up their toys when you tell them to? Why doesn’t your sales team respond to the force of your incentive plan? Why won’t the market readily respond to the appeal of your advertising?

The answer is not that an organization isn’t a physical object like a ball. The answer is this: Mass is not size or volume. Mass is resistance to change. So the reason an organization, or a person, or a market is relatively hard or easy to move is due to its inertia or resistance to change. If the organization has a high mass, there’s plenty of visible and invisible resistance to change and it will be very difficult to get it to alter its behavior. If the mass is low, then there’s little resistance to change, which will come easily. This is an important distinction. Just because a Fortune 500 company is really “large,” does not mean its mass is necessarily big. Or, just because a family of four is relatively “small,” doesn’t mean that its mass is automatically light.

Here’s an example to show why mass is resistance to change and not size or volume. The United States of America is a very large, complex organization. Imagine that you have been elected President. You want to implement changes that you believe will benefit all. However, there are over 300 million people, each with different levels of needs, wants, desires, and perceptions, who are all represented by different politicians, who are in turn supported by different corporations and political action groups. Your legislative agenda is seen as beneficial to some segments and as a terrible loss to others. Therefore, the mass is very high. Even though you’re the President, it’s very, very hard to push your agenda forward because the resistance to change is so great.

There’s a saying in Washington: “Never lose the opportunity of a good crisis.” What does this mean? When there’s a crisis, the normal resistance to change is lowered because the system is under threat. When this occurs, it becomes much easier to get new legislation passed. For example, after the 9/11 crisis in the United States, new legislation called the Patriot Act was quickly passed. This legislation strictly curtailed civil and constitutional liberties and would have been unthinkable without a preceding crisis that first reduced the resistance to change.

I’m not advocating that you create crises to get your organization to do something differently. Rather, I’m making the point that mass is not size or volume but resistance to change – and even a very large organization, such as a country, will move quickly in a new direction if the resistance to change is low enough. Once the organization gets moving in that new direction, it will tend to stay on that course until another force causes it to stop or change.

The Third Law of Motion

Newton’s third law of motion recognizes that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. That’s why, when the basketball in our experiment hits the wall, it careens off in the opposite direction from which it struck. If the ball is coming quickly into the wall, it will travel far in the opposite direction. If it’s coming slowly into the wall, it will travel less distance in the opposite direction. Action and reaction are the essence of the third law of motion.

Newton's 3rd Law of Motion

Therefore, when you’re implementing change in one area of your organization, there will always be an equal and opposite reaction in another. If you’re not careful, the opposite reaction can also slow the speed and direction of your organization.

For example, imagine that your business is expanding rapidly. Congratulations! This is something you’ve wanted for a long time and you’ve worked very hard at it. You’ve finally got the momentum you were seeking. But guess what happens next? Faced with the new growth, the business’ administrative systems and people are falling apart and must be managed to keep pace. That’s an equal and opposite reaction. If you don’t manage the reaction well, it will act as a drag on your momentum. Or, with all the work and effort you’ve put into the business, your family life is stretched thin. If you can’t find a way to restore harmony, the family system will suffer from an equal and opposite reaction to your booming business.

The Secret to Executing Fast

In order for an organization to accelerate momentum, there are really only two things that must occur: The organization must make good decisions and implement them quickly. That is, if the organization makes a good decision and implements it quickly, and then makes another good decision and implements that one quickly, then like a train picking up speed, it will increase its momentum. Pretty soon it will be flying down the tracks and hard to stop. However, if it implements a bad decision, it will destroy momentum. Even worse, if it implements a bad decision quickly, it will derail completely. Conversely, if it makes a good decision but takes too long to implement it, then its momentum will decelerate too. Good decisions implemented fast are the key to organizational momentum.

So how do you make good decisions and implement them quickly? The secret lies in how the organization’s mass is managed. That is, if the mass is manageable, then it’s easy to apply a force of change and get the organization to do something new. Within organizational dynamics, the challenge in managing mass is that resistance to change is scattered throughout the organization. It lies within the individuals making the decisions, those doing the work, and those who can help, hinder, or influence the results. Therefore, no matter how much or what type of force you attempt to apply, when the organizational mass is widely dispersed, there’s nothing that can be leveraged to effectively push or pull against the organizational inertia.

Think of it like this — the reason that your organization doesn’t behave like an object — a basketball, for example — is because its mass is scattered all about. While a basketball is neatly self-contained and you can move it at will, your organization can feel more like a bunch of shattered glass loosely strewn about. With such a dispersal of mass, no matter how much of a force of change you try to apply, it won’t be very responsive.

In order to effect change, you must first gather in the organizational mass.

If it was possible to gather the pieces of glass and glue them back together – in other words, to make them behave like a ball again – then it would be easy to give that ball a push. Similarly, if you were able to gather in the organizational mass, then it would begin to behave like a ball and change its speed and direction. Once you gather in the mass and reduce the resistance to change, you can then hit it with a force, such as a decision or a directive, and it will tend to rapidly accelerate in a new direction.

Aligning the Execution Diamond to Increase Organizational Momentum

In order to have swift execution, the organization must have its vision & values, structure, processes, and people in alignment. (M) is the mass of the organization.

There are four basic subsystems of an organization that help to keep the mass self-contained and malleable, rather than scattered and resistant. These four subsystems, called the Execution Diamond, are the organization’s Vision and Values, the organizational Structure or design, the decision-making and implementation Process, and the People and teams involved. Think of these subsystems like a corral or a boundary that helps to keep the organizational mass self-contained.

So what are you trying to accomplish with these subsystems? In a word: Alignment. Your objective is to align each of these subsystems with your chosen strategy. By creating alignment the organization’s mass will be contained and headed in one direction. But without it, your organization will experience friction that prevents it from accelerating. In the worst-case scenario, it will eventually cease to function altogether. This means that if you want a fast-moving organization that goes in the right direction, then you’ll first need to create alignment within the subsystems. In fact, rather than taking action in a misaligned environment, save yourself the time, energy, and resources (not to mention the headaches, heartburn, and sleepless nights) by first aligning the Execution Diamond and then enacting change.

Look out for my next posts, where you’ll learn how to do this and make execution smoother and faster than you thought possible.

Getting from PSIU … to Really Good Management

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Lex

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Best management advice ever: "Gnothi Seauton"

If you’ve been following along in the management guide, you know that there are four fundamental forces (PSIU) that shape individual and organizational behavior. You also know that these forces compete for available system energy and that if even one of the forces is absent, the organization will perish. I’ve also mentioned that, if you want your organization to do something new – such as change direction or accelerate performance – you must engage the appropriate force. But how does all this translate into practical steps? And how can you use it to be a better manager of people and situations?

1) Know the Forces at Play

Knowing the forces at play within an individual or an organization delivers fast insight into what otherwise appears as complex or random behavior. For example, if you set up a team with all Producers, then that team is going to demonstrate some predictable behavior and outcomes. It’s going to move very quickly, produce a large volume of work, and blow past its milestones in record time. However, the work is going to have errors (it will be an inch deep and a mile wide), it will totally miss out on the implications and the coordination with other departments, and it will lack creative problem solving. A team of all Unifiers would have very different but equally predictable outcomes.

There’s another important benefit to knowing the forces at play. It’s this: it allows you to see and accept things for what they are, with less judgement. You should not underestimate the power of this. On the one hand, judgment is the capacity to assess situations or circumstances astutely and to draw sound conclusions. Obviously, good judgment is a critical skill for a manager. On the other hand, it’s hard to be a good manager when you’re holding personal judgment against someone or something. That type of interpersonal judgment causes us to close down, stop seeing what’s really there, and miss out on finding creative solutions. It also causes the other person (the person being judged) to feel resentful, unrecognized, and discounted. Like everyone else, I’ve experienced both sides of judgment, as both the judge and the judged. I can unequivocally say that interpersonal judgment demonstrates a lack of personal responsibility and results in a waste of energy and a loss of opportunity.

Growing up, my younger brother Carter and I fought constantly. I was the “responsible” older brother intent on working hard and “making it big” in the world (PsIu). He was the young, carefree spirit who loved to hang out with his friends (psiU). I’m ashamed to say that I would frequently nag, condemn, and ridicule him to get his act together, “be a man,” and make something of himself. The truth is that my vision of him was severely clouded by own judgment and he responded to me as you probably would: “Fuck off. You’re not in charge of me!” Later in college, after a few years of living apart, I took a road trip to visit him in Bozeman, Montana, to go hiking and camping in the mountains. Outdoors in this new environment, and probably because I was out of my own comfort zone, I was able to let go of my “judgment vision” and see my brother in a new light. In fact, I was utterly in awe at what I saw. Here was a young man who was extremely capable, knowledgeable, thoughtful, and powerful. Who was this person? Where did he come from? The fact is that he was there all the time. It was my own judgment that had prevented me from seeing him fully. What a sad loss of time, brotherhood, and missed opportunity!

On the other hand, I’ve also been the judged when my boss couldn’t truly hear, see, or listen to me without his own “judgment vision” clouding the interaction. For example, the man who taught me the most about organizational development is Dr. Ichak Adizes. He’s a brilliant thinker, highly regarded and wise. Many rightfully refer to him as the Peter Drucker of his era. I was originally introduced to his work as an entrepreneur and we struck up a collaboration and a friendship. Later, because I was so enamored of his methods, I joined his organization as an associate. However, soon after I joined and he became my “boss” (and not just a friend and mentor), something really altering happened.

He no longer seemed to see, hear, or understand me as clearly as he did before! On the receiving end, it felt like there was a thick interference field now operating between what I spoke and what he heard, between who I was and what he saw. Because I had the experience of collaborating with him deeply before he became my boss, the discrepancy was really profound. Now that I was “inside” the organization, it seemed that I was subjected to the same type of judgment vision I had projected onto my brother. As an employee, my own judgment vision towards him was equally activated. Now, there was no longer an individual and friend, but a “boss” and my own projections of whatever that entailed. All in all, we were two talented, capable people who couldn’t see past their own judgments.

To be clear, I don’t think my example of judgment vision between employee and boss is unique. In fact, I think it’s often the norm. For example, the COO for a famous personal development guru recently approached me seeking help in their strategic growth: “Lex, basically the guru doesn’t listen to anyone inside the company. He really only listens to external experts. We’re stuck on this issue and we need an external expert that he’ll listen to.” We all judge others and ourselves incorrectly. Sometimes consciously, usually not. Judgment of yourself and others may sometimes feel right and good, but it’s really a loss of energy, productivity, and human potential. There is a better way.

Instead of letting your interpersonal judgments run wild, learn to judge the force, not the person. By “judging” or identifying the force, you are able to respond to the underlying energy patterns at work, without becoming caught up in personal criticism. You’ll give yourself and others the freedom to be fully seen, heard, and reach full potential; you’ll have more productivity and less drama in relationships; and the entire organization will have a greater chance to flourish.

Judging a force is pretty straightforward. Rather than labeling a something as good or bad, right or wrong, you simply observe the force in action. Is this individual or situation change-driving or change-responding? Are they dealing with the parts or dealing with the whole? Is it a Producing, Stabilizing, Innovating, or Unifying force or some combination? By judging the force, you are better able to discern behavior without getting caught up in the drama. For example, if I had judged the force within my brother, “Oh, that’s the Unifier force. It likes to be with friends, hang out, and have a good time,” then I’m sure our relationship wouldn’t have been so needlessly draining for both of us. Similarly with my old boss, if I had learned to judge the force rather than the person, I would have been much more effective: “Ahhh, that’s the Innovator/Stabilizer combo. I shouldn’t offer up new ideas in this situation. Instead, I should ask some thoughtful questions to help him reveal his own vision further. And when I do see an opportunity to pursue, I should come prepared with lots of data to support it.”

When we don’t reduce others to the sum of our judgments, not only do we see more clearly but we also allow them to respond to us in a more positive way. We can then enjoy much healthier, more creative, and less energy-draining relationships.

2) Give the Force What It Needs

Whatever your managing, always work with, rather than against, its nature

Each of the four styles has a particular focus and need. The Producer is focused on what to do and needs autonomy to do their work. The Stabilizer is focused on how to do it and needs time and data to perform analysis. The Innovator is focused on finding new solutions (we call this, “Why Not?” as in “Why not this approach or why not this way?”) and needs excitement for their ideas. The Unifier is focused on the people involved and requires time to process relationships and emotions.

Good management requires versatility. You don’t manage different people or situations the same way. An effective manager is a flexible one who understands the different focus of each style and gives each one what it needs. Of course, to be truly flexible (and not just wishy-washy) you need to have a strong internal vision and values. You also need to know yourself. Are you a Producer, Stabilizer, Innovator, Unifier, or some combination? And what are your biases? Whatever your style, it impacts how you see the world and interact with others. Good managers recognize their own style and have the ability to adjust it for short periods based on who they are interacting with – all without compromising their own authentic vision and values.

Why is it important to meet the needs of each force? Assuming that you’re dealing with a mature individual, as you give a force what it needs, the energy of that force “moves through” and can make space for the emergence of other forces. But if a force doesn’t have its needs met, the energy stagnates and causes entropy to rise. Put another way, once someone has had their immediate needs met, they are in a much better state to be able to see and appreciate all the other forces and perspectives involved.

Imagine that you’re sitting in your office and different styles of people are coming to you for advice. In the following examples we are going to assume that you are a psiu – that is, you have an equal balance of all four forces. Of course, in real life, no one has a perfect balance so you will have to adjust your temporary style based on your predominant style. Here’s how you might successfully interact with each style by giving each force what it needs.

Polly Producer storms into your office. She has high energy. She’s talking fast and moving quickly. She’s focused on what to do and is frustrated at the continued delays. Your task is to give the force what it needs. So what do you do? You speed up your pace. You take a structured approach. You focus on the most immediate short-term objectives. You help remove any obstacles that are preventing the work from getting done.

Once Polly Producer has had a chance to vent her frustration, she’s once again able to focus on completing the task at hand. In addition, because you’ve met the immediate needs of her strong Producing force, Polly is now able to see things in a new light too. She can have a greater appreciation for all the details (Stabilizing), as well as an improved awareness of other people’s perceptions (Unifying) and the big picture of the overall strategy (Innovating). You can now give Polly lots of autonomy to complete the task. And because she’s a Producer, you don’t have to worry about the work getting done. You only have to check that it’s the right work and she hasn’t gone too far in one direction.

Sam Stabilizer knocks on your door. Sam speaks and moves at a more deliberate, thoughtful pace. He’s focused on how to complete a task or project. He’s in your office because the recent corporate objectives don’t make perfect sense. So what do you do? You slow down your pace. You carve out time to really explain things. You give Sam all the information he needs and all of the raw data involved in the decision. You focus on the short-term practical issues. You help him focus on how to do things more efficiently. You give him plenty of time to analyze all the data.

After Sam Stabilizer’s needs are met, he can amp up is creativity (Innovating) and production power (Producing) and better connect with others (Unifying). But if Sam was never given the data or time to analyze it, he would simply be stuck in his Stabilizing force. There’s no sense in berating Sam to work harder, to be more creative, or to be a better team player until you’ve also given him time to analyze and make sense of the data. By doing this, you’re able to leverage Sam’s talents and will likely uncover aspects of the problem or situation that would remain hidden if he, or someone like him, hadn’t analyzed it.

Isabel Innovator makes a grand appearance. She speaks and moves in broad, fast strokes. She’s been thinking about the new project and has some ideas. “Why not do it this way?” she asks. So what do you do? You amp up your own pace and get excited! You give her the space to go really big picture and take an unstructured, creative approach. Together you explore the broader implications, how to drive better results, and uncover where new innovations lie.

Once Isabel Innovator has had a chance to get excited with someone about her new idea, she may notice that the romance of it starts fading – followed by an increased awareness of the real effort (Producing), details (Stabilizing), and teamwork (Unifying) involved in bringing it to life. The result will be a better, more well-rounded decision. Isabel can now get out of her own way too. She can still be highly creative but won’t be nearly as disruptive by always throwing new ideas into the mix just because they’re new and she wants to be heard.

Ulysses Unifier enters your office and wants to chat. He’s focused on who is doing the work on the new project and is noticing that team morale isn’t has high as it could be. Ulysses moves, speaks, and thinks more deliberately and is usually “happy” and gregarious (unless he’s upset and will then need time to process his feelings). In this case, Ulysses seems really upset. So what do you do? You slow down your pace and try to see the world as Ulysses sees it. You give him space to share his feelings and get his perspective on the needs of the rest of the team. You empathize with him.

After Ulysses Unifier has had a chance to process his feelings, he’s much more capable of doing the work (Producing), following the process (Stabilizing), and supporting the new strategy (Innovating). If he doesn’t get his Unifier needs met, he’s going to be unproductive. Not only that: his gifts as a Unifier, including the ability to uplift others, empathize, intuit, and bring harmony to the team will be lost. By giving the force what it needs, the energy moves through and Ulysses can be at his best once again.

It’s obviously hard work to give a force what it needs. It takes time, energy, skill, and awareness to do it successfully. But if you don’t give a force what it needs, what happens? Our old enemy entropy starts to rear its ugly head. When the needs of a force aren’t met, rather than dissipating, entropy increases and becomes detrimental to the individual and to the team. Polly becomes frustrated to the breaking point. Sam withdraws into quiet resentment. Isabel gets dejected at the lack of interest around her and spins out even more crazy ideas (or stops sharing altogether). Ulysses gets so caught up in the melodrama that he becomes moody, grouchy, and petulant.

So yes, while managing others well is hard and time-consuming work, not managing well has an even greater cost. Doing it right is always worth your time.

Back to The Management Guide

The Key to High Performing Teams

Posted on December 1, 2011 by Lex

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Great organizations thrive by joining complementary styles.

Growing up, I had a good friend whose dad was very successful. They lived in a gorgeous home on Lake Minnetonka and I was lucky to spend time a lot of time there, hanging out and enjoying their largesse. Among the things I vividly recall about their home was a refrigerator magnet that read, “Behind every successful man is a wise woman.” I remember that magnet because it made my fourteen-year-old self wonder, “Hmmm, is Mrs. B trying to tell the world that she’s equally responsible for all this magnificence?” and “Is it really true that all successful men have a supportive woman behind them?” or “Maybe it’s her way of putting her husband in his place…” I didn’t have the answers then. But looking back, I can see that this message (dated and cliche-ridden as it is) is worth pondering and has implications for marriages and businesses alike.

The Secret to a Successful Marriage

A happy and successful marriage comes from joining complementary styles.

Marriage or partnership is an exemplary opportunity to match and leverage complementary PSIU forces. No one can be predominantly change-driving, change-responding, focused on the parts, and focused on the whole all at the same time. For much of human history, sexual and gender differentiation resulted in men playing the part of PsIu while women played the part of pSiU. That is, men were responsible for bread-winning (P) and strategy or career advancement (I) while women were responsible for organizing domestic life (S) and taking care of children and family (U). In short, the left side of the PSIU chart shows the classic “feminine” functions and the right side the “masculine” ones.

In the United States in the 1970s, when baby boomers shifted to a dual-income family model and women entered the professional workforce en masse, women joined men on the Producer and Innovator (or traditionally “masculine”) side of the chart. The result? Couples started outsourcing their Stabilizer functions to housekeepers, bookkeepers, and organizers and their Unifier functions to babysitters and marriage counselors – all to keep the family together!

Today, as many of us have outgrown long-standing assumptions about gender and marriage, we can see that the point is not about gender roles. Rather, it’s that all four forces must be present for a family – however you define it – to thrive. Specifically, what all successful and harmonious unions have in common is that both partners naturally complement each other. For example, a partner who is a PsIu will tend to harmonize well with someone who is a pSiU. If one partner is naturally externally focused on career innovation and the other is internally focused on domestic harmony and organization, the partnership can really work. If one partner is naturally better able to focus on short-run needs and structures, while the other is better at seeing the long run and creating harmony, that can also really work. Any number of themes and combinations are possible. What matters is that both partners complement the other and (as long as they share love, trust, and respect) they will have a happy partnership.

Compare that to a relationship where both partners are entirely focused on their careers and personal ambitions, while displaying strong Producer and Innovator traits (PsIu). If this occurs, there won’t be enough force organizing and bonding together the family, which will suffer and tend to disintegrate. On the other hand, consider a union where both partners are stable and prudent but prefer to hang out with their friends than develop their careers (pSiU). In this case, the couple will probably have a great social life and terrible cash flow. It takes a complementary team to have a chance at a happy relationship – and both partners must give and take to create a balance.

The Secret to a Successful Business

Highly visible leaders may get all the press accolades but, behind the scenes, there's always a complementary partner/team.

If you pay close attention, you’ll notice that a highly successful and visible business leader usually has a highly capable and less visible complementary partner. For example, Apple’s late CEO Steve Jobs was recognized for his inventiveness, charisma, and uncanny ability to predict the future of technology and anticipate (even produce) consumers’ desires. Jobs was also famous for his blistering attention to product detail. In one oft-repeated anecdote, we hear that Jobs ordered the original iPod dismantled the night before the press launch when he noticed that the headphone jack did not make a satisfying click when inserted. These are classic traits of the Innovator. Jobs was also infamous for his impatience and high work ethic. These are classic Producer characteristics. As a management style, therefore, Jobs coded as PsIu.

Tim Cook was Apple’s COO (now CEO) who, according to most reports, was a perfect complement to Jobs. Cook works at a relentless pace (Producer), is a spreadsheet junkie with ruthless attention to detail on the supply chain (Stabilizer), and is also down to earth, soft-spoken, and good at maintaining relationships (Unifier). As a management style, therefore, Cook is a PSiU. Cook’s production drive met Jobs’ own. They both demonstrated extreme attention to detail, but in different domains. While Jobs was a powerful Innovator, Cook is more of a Stabilizer and Unifier who makes things efficient and smoothes the way with others. Together, they made a powerful complementary team.

According to a 2011 profile by the New York Times, “Their complementary skills have helped Apple pull off the most remarkable turnaround in American business, and made it the world’s most valuable technology company.” The Times also recognized that a huge void would need to be filled when Jobs passed on: “When Mr. Cook is on his own, he will have to compensate for the absence of Mr. Jobs — and his inventiveness, charisma and uncanny ability to predict the future of technology and anticipate the wishes of consumers” (all Innovator qualities).

So while Steve Jobs was celebrated as the world’s greatest CEO, behind the scenes he had a complementary partner and executive team. The necessity of the complementary team gets short shrift in the media, however, which celebrates the cult of the individual. Just browse through any bookstore and you’ll see the mugs of Donald Trump, Bill Bellicheck, Jack Welch, Richard Branson, or the latest guru celebrated with very little mention of their complementary partners who supported their success.

Even business schools promote this cult of the individual leader. Read a popular business book about leadership and it will say something like this: A good leader produces results (P), brings efficiency and systems (S), is able to innovate to changing market demands (I), is a good people person (U), and focuses on the vision and values (U). This is nonsense. It’s a myth. Just because it gets spun as fact in the media doesn’t make it true. The bottom line is that if you want to be successful (and happy), you’ll need to surround yourself with complements. You simply can’t go it alone.