Great blog post from Bob Sutton last week about his visit to the headquarters of the internationally respected design firm IDEO. Bob was a little startled to discover that the CEO and author of Change by Design, Tim Brown, moved out of his corner office on the management floor and put his desk where you'd usually find the receptionist. Tim was "vaguely embarrassed and frustrated" to be in that big beautiful office all by himself. His move out onto the floor has done a lot to strengthen the collaborative culture they've created at IDEO. But, more importantly, now Tim can really see and hear what's going on. People can just walk up and talk to him. He can find out what they're thinking. He learns more.
Which brings us to one of our pet peeves: Leaders who pretend to want your opinion but do whatever they want, anyway, without really listening to what you have to say.
In fact, it's hard to imagine anything more annoying.
It doesn't matter how attentive a leader appears to be. If the input of the people on their team has zero effect on the outcome, because the leader's mind came into the meeting already made up, they're not going to fool anyone.
Don't they know people leave these meetings feeling like you just wasted their time? Don't they know it creates distrust and resentment? Seriously. Are they stupid?
If you're going to use a participative process in a meeting - in other words, if you're inviting people into a meaningful conversation with you about a decision, action, strategy, problem, whatever - here's one question you can ask to assess how successful you were:
Is the plan you ended up with, after your team worked on it, substantially different than it would have been if you had made the plan all by yourself?
If not, you've got a problem. And, odds are, your team not only knows it; they are ticked off about it, too.
We're going to be talking more about using participative processes - and other renewable leadership practices - in the new online workshops that kick off March 2. Each workshop includes:
- a webinar presentation (that you can watch anytime!)
- a live online chat
- a new book written by the ARE team
- study guides for you to use the webinar with your own leaders.
There are good ways to tick people off, and there are bad ways to tick people off. This is a huge way to tick people off in a BAD way!
Posted by: Tim | February 22, 2010 at 03:30 PM
Interesting point, Tim. What are "good ways" to tick people off --- and why would you want to do that? We'd love to hear what ya'll think about that. Ideas??
Posted by: Kelly | February 22, 2010 at 03:35 PM
1. "Good way" to tick people off= tell the bullies and the crazies they can't take over the playground. I shared your article on this theme with colleagues. No one said anything when I sent the link. Then I missed our conference meeting. Apparently the phrase "crazies on the playground" made it into both the "confession" and the "prayers" and the "conversation."
2. I never intentionally try to tick people off. Actually, it is one of the things I attempt to avoid the most. I am on the far end of the spectrum of "can't we all just get along?" Yet even I have to set boundaries and stop being "nice"
3. Jesus ticked people off in a "good way." Since we are getting a steady diet of Luke this year... Jesus ate with all the wrong people. Eat with folks of another faith in these times, especially one faith in particular, and I found out that might tick people off.
Am I nuts?
Posted by: Tim | February 23, 2010 at 02:39 PM
"nuts" in a good way, tim. you're right to remind us that acting in healthy new ways often ticks off "the crazies." it also often ticks off those who have a vested interest in the status quo, as jesus found out. good leaders have to be willing to go into the line of fire.
i probably should have focused in this post more on the fact that a leader who only pretends to want input from her team is wasting their creativity, energy, and passion - and therefore losing out on all the team has to offer - rather than focusing on how ticked off you're probably going to make them.
the truth is, when i was writing this post, i was FEELING ticked off, having just come off a meeting where i watched this actually HAPPENING to a group of people and could only do so much, in the moment, to stop it.
thanks for the helpful reminder that while ticking people off might be one measure of how a leader is doing, it's not the whole story. - kelly
Posted by: Kelly | February 23, 2010 at 04:01 PM