Podcast: Genius is Over-Rated

Posted on October 20, 2011 by Andrew Hollo

TRANSCRIPT: The Need For Distributed Leadership, especially at the Top

We need fewer geniuses at the tops of our organizations. I can already hear a loud objection, “Well what is wrong with geniuses at the top of organisations?” Let’s be honest. Heroic leadership is a cult obsession. Walk into any business bookshop and you will find acres of shelving on and by the heroic leaders in business: the study of Steve Jobs has become a mini-industry; before him, GE’s CEO Jack Welsh was similarly lauded. We are obsessed by them and I think there is a flawed logic in assuming that these individuals are as powerful as we think they are. There are many types of situations that in fact do not demand heroic geniuses – and there are some situations where a heroic leader might in fact get in the way.

Geniuses at the top of organizations who know they are geniuses fall into three traps. Firstly, they are very good at what they do. The second trap is that they are very hard workers. The third trap is that they think they are right. The financial-motivational speaker Bob Kiyosaki once said, “The secret of my success is that I am stupid and lazy. Being stupid means I surround myself with smart people. Being lazy means that I find others to do the work.” This is the essence of distributed leadership.

If we are to solve the most complex problems in society, be they business problems, social problems, or health problems we need distributed leadership: leaders at all levels talking to leaders at all levels, about four things.

The type of genius we do want is a genius for problem definition: What is the real issue here? A genius for solution refinement: What class of events can we influence that would make the biggest difference? A genius for continuous questioning: What else do we need to understand in order to grasp this issue far better than any of our competitors? A genius for collaboration: How do we capture the motivational effort of others? These are the types of geniuses we need.

It is helpful to remember that not all situations which require a leader will work with distributed leadership. In crises you want an autocrat, someone powerful who can rally people around them via charisma and charm – or threats. “There is a fire. Get out! Do it now!” This is the way someone like Rupert Murdoch runs a News Corporation. Similarly, bureaucratic systems don’t work on distributed leadership either. The founder of the English post office, Sir Roland Hill, was a bureaucratic genius. Mail delivery in the 1840’s was deeply corrupt and deeply inefficient. Hill had two single insights: prepayment and fixed prices. His system was simple: a penny per letter anywhere in the UK. These principals enabled an entire system of bureaucracy to be built around them which we recognize even today: postboxes, letterboxes, stamps, post offices and mail deliveries.

Of course, many of today’s dilemmas are much more complex than running a global media empire for profit or delivering mail. For these sorts of complex tasks we do need more than autocrats and more than bureaucrats. We need geniuses of distributed leadership where the head is important not as a decision maker or an authority or the highest pinnacle of expertise but in four other ways.

The first form of genius is the leader is as a designer of key concepts. This is the Steve Jobs model, and this was his real job at Apple. The second form of genius is as a mobiliser of people in the community with shared values. Whether you agree with his position or not, this is the Al Gore model with his message about human-induced global warming. The third type is a very powerful channeler of resources. The microfinancing genius Muhammad Yunus at the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh exemplifies this. The fourth form of genius is a collaborative genius: A.G. Lafley, CEO of Proctor and Gamble, has entered into literally hundreds of collaborations ensuring that that company continues as a global leader. I call this genuine distributed leadership because while the Lafleys and the Jobses and the Gores and the Yunuses are rightfully recognized in the press, they actually do their best work by creating conditions within which others can do their best work.

This doesn’t just happen at the top it happens at all levels throughout the organization.

Will our structure do the job it’s supposed to?

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Andrew Hollo

How to design a structure for an organisation that’s clearer on what it’s not than what it is

A client recently asked me, “Andrew, how do I know if I’ve got the right structure?”
She’s involved in setting up one of the new Medicare Locals and she’s smart enough to know that there’s no single right structure. But, she’s also savvy enough to know that there are common problems and pitfalls in structuring an organisation that’s not a service provider, not a policy unit, not a commercial sales or marketing function, not a research centre, and not a funder and contract manager. It’s a little bit of all of these.
In my work as an organisational consultant to government and the non-profit sector, I’ve seen *lots* of successful (and unsuccessful!) structures which led me to offer the following ten thoughts to my client:

You’ve probably heard the two sayings, ”Form follows function” and “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”. I’d argue that the ‘chain’ of conceptual importance for an organisation is as follows: value offered to customers > values > culture > strategy > function > structure. In other words, it’s premature to deal with structure unless we’re clear on the other stuff first (this doesn’t mean having nailed it down totally, but having strong ideas about each – and plans to develop them).
A good structure makes it clear how the customer interfaces / core service delivery work, separately from the corporate functions which service internal customers.
The best structures define TEAM performance, rather than individual performance. In other words, you shouldn’t be able achieve your own objectives unless others in your team achieve theirs.
Excellent structures tell us what the span of decision-making is for a given role; this should be tied to strategic plan / governance arrangements (advisory committees, etc).
A good structure should make provision for time-based projects to exist alongside ‘business as usual’ / ongoing delivery of core services.
The best structures state or imply leadership role descriptions (both for individuals – and the leadership / executive team) as a whole, by distinguishing between strategic and operational concerns.
There is no right answer to the question, “Should our structure be based on the people we have, or the people we’d like to have?” . . . but we do need to be clear whether our structure is person-independent, or person-dependent.
Traditional hierarchies aren’t going to cut it for a Medicare Local. You need, as a minimum, a well-organised matrix model, possibly even with ingredients of a heterarchy, or even a phenotype model.
Finally, a structure alone is only going to answer one question: “What is each person’s job and how do they relate to each other functionally?” There are six parallel pieces of work which need to exist at the same time:
- functional descriptions of major areas of core business
- performance descriptions for teams / key individuals
- leadership team charter / leadership role descriptions
- governance descriptions / decision-making cycles
- reporting relationships and key measures / reporting dimensions
- cost- and revenue-base for teams / individuals
A structure is just that. It doesn’t do the work of strategy, culture, values or value. Put 90% of your effort into those first.

Are you paying real attention to your customers?

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Andrew Hollo

What we can learn from a Balinese healer.

The little island of Bali has a population of just 4 million and receives half that many visitors each year. As a result, this tropical paradise is infested with all sorts of healers: spiritual and physical, shonky and authentic. This includes what must be the most concentrated population of masseurs anywhere on earth (except on board the ocean liner, The Queen Mary, where the ratio is one masseur for every 60 passengers). My wife and I love massage and we’ve road-tested dozens of masseurs in our local area: some charge as little as $5, while others charge Western prices.

However, we’ve found the best, we think. Nyoman Suparsa is not a massage therapist. He’s a healer who doesn’t need you to tell him “my lower back’s sore“. He just knows. He doesn’t need you to say, “A bit harder in there please“. He just does it. He’s become so popular, that he’s now training therapists to model his approach.

Nyoman says he has only three secrets, which he tries to pass on to his students:

Focus: Put yourself ‘in the zone’. There’s a mental, physical and emotional state which is conducive to great massage. Know how to put yourself in this state, even when it’s hot, your wife’s yelled at you, your kid’s failed a test, the traffic is a nightmare and you’re running late.
Concentrate on the client: Don’t forget who you’re here for. Don’t’ think about business, or the spot on the wall which needs painting. Give the client your full energy. Yes, it’s tiring, but that’s why they pay me more than the ‘cheap’ masseurs.
Don’t just practice your technique: just running through the same moves each time is not enough. You’ve got to watch different people massage, have massages yourself – and incorporate these into your personal style.

Do your practitioners do this? When they’re with your clients are they focussed, concentrating and learning?

Whose Job is Improvement?

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Andrew Hollo

If it’s everybody’s, it’s nobody’s.

Recently I had two illuminating conversations about improvement.

A local government OD manager, Melanie, was dismayed that a colleague didn’t care that an expensive lawn mower had been stolen; it took days before it came to anyone’s attention. “I’ve only been here a little while, but in my previous job, if that happened, the CEO would rip through the General Manager responsible“. Melanie’s holy grail is this: “How do I get people to become accountable?”

Later that same day, David showed me his organisation’s ‘traffic light’ system. On a single page are displayed this multi-billion dollar organisation’s quarterly results. A nice idea. Except that this one showed a lot of yellow and red, and not that much green. David is frustrated, because when his Director pointed to a red square, one of 80 or more and asked a group of Executives, “Who’s in charge of fixing this one?” all she got was eyes darting around the room and at the floor.

So, whose job is improvement?

Our first case perhaps costs the taxpayer thousands of dollars and some unmown grass at a sports ground; the second probably costs millions and could put people’s lives at risk.

A common answer given to me by my clients is this: “Well, it’s everybody’s job, isn’t it?” That’s really another way of saying, “It’s nobody’s job“. At best it’s lazy – it’s spending money carelessly. At worst, it’s dangerous, possibly putting people’s lives at risk.

What’s the answer?

In both cases, the leaders involved (not the managers I spoke with, but people one or two layers up the hierarchy) haven’t properly answered two, more fundamental, questions:

What does success look like?
How do we know?

This means that their activities are based on just that: activity. Not results. If they knew precisely what results they were aiming for, then a missing lawn-mower and red traffic lights would stop them getting there. And, if a missing lawn mower doesn’t stop you reaching your results, then why spend the money on it in the first place?

So improvement isn’t everybody’s job. It’s the job of the most senior person.

In how many ways are we really different?

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Andrew Hollo

We are fundamentally all the same, and fundamentally all unique.

How we think about difference depends upon why we want to think about difference.

I was once at an aboriginal community helping them work out how they should structure their health services. Some people wanted to visit the health services in the nearest town (The argument: “We need all the same services as anyone else, don’t we?“). Others said they needed specialist services delivered within their community (The argument: “Our people respond best to those who really understand our needs“). An argument erupted to which I sat and listened for a while. Eventually, I called the group to order and took a coin from my pocket.

“Look“, I said, “you’re like this coin. I flip it like this” and they all watched the coin rise and fall to my hand, “and it comes up heads. That’s like you saying, ‘But we’re the same as everyone’“. Then we flip the coin again and it comes up tails. That’s like you saying, “But we’re special and different“.

“But It’s the same coin, isn’t it?” someone said.

The room was silent. Eventually, the senior elder, Geoff, spoke, “Mate, that’s it exactly. We’re both. Same – and not the same“.

At one extreme there are no differences. We are all the same. We all need to eat, breathe, sleep, procreate. At the other extreme, there are 6,967,463,607 of us (as at 9.38pm, AEST, Oct 10, 2011), all with individual biochemistry and neurology, circumstances and skills, frustrations and dreams. We can go even further and suggest that those seven billion of us TODAY are in fact different (in circumstances and skills, frustrations and dreams) than YESTERDAY’s seven billion.

What does this mean if you’re trying to meet people’s needs in some way?

Work out what the level of the difference is and craft your message accordingly:

Providing a universal service (Your message is, “What all people want is _________”)
Providing a distinctive service (Your message becomes, “People want either x or y. We offer the best of x“)
Providing a unitary service (Your message evolves to, “People usually have to trade off x or y. We offer the best of both worlds“)
Providing a bespoke service (Your message becomes, “Only you are you. We tailor everything we do to your personal requirements“)

That aboriginal community wanted SOME parts of their health service universally delivered, and other parts distinctive. Once they realised this, the way forward was obvious.

Can we find out in less than 60 seconds if we’re dysfunctional?

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Andrew Hollo

The single most revealing diagnostic question for organisations

Jeremy Bentham, the 18th century philosopher said there are two types of people in the world: those who divide the world into two types of people, and all the others. Well, I’ve worked with two types of organisations over the past 20 years: those who are doing well and want to do better, and those where the wheels are falling off (or have already done so). The leaders and staff of these organisations respond in very different, yet utterly predictable ways, to a single question which an outsider is ideally equipped to ask.

That question is, “What would you like to do differently around here, but which you haven’t had the opportunity to do?”

The improvement driven organisations which are already successful respond to this question quite simply: usually a moment of reflection, followed by a handful of practical suggestions:
“We need to move into some different areas”
“Our clients need us to do more, for example . . . ”
“We’re inefficient in some of our functions”
“We need to specialise more”
“We don’t have the right skills or people in some areas”
“We have trouble filling some critical positions”
All of these automatically lead to a conversation about how to improve. This is profoundly healthy and constructive.

The ‘other’ type of organisation elicits two types of responses:
1. Blaming
“We don’t get enough funding to do what we’d really like to do”
“Nobody here is really open to change, especially the executive team”
“Even if I had good ideas, we’re bound in by legacy systems; there’s not a lot we can influence at our level”

2. Shrugging
“I don’t know”
“I think we’re doing OK, really, I guess”
“Um, not much”
“I’m not sure if my ideas are really that interesting to the organisation”

These last two responses spark in me an immediate recommendation. Let’s get the leadership team around a table and ask THEM a simple question, “What do you want that you don’t have now?” If they’re open to this, then there’s hope. If they’re not, then it’s time to scuttle the ship, at least until new captains arrive on board.