Welcome to ACK in Your Leadership.
I'm Chris and I'm Lorenzo.
And Lorenzo.
In this episode, I want to go over a listener question that I think is really fascinating and it's we've we've touched on some of the elements that I think are related to this before, but not specifically this question, and I was kind of really intrigued by it when I when I read it, this person wrote in and said that they lead a team of people and there are several really high performing individuals on the team, and a lot of them are they have tested results, and
they have you know, their expectations are high, and their performance and their outcomes are high year after year, and they really have no you know, kind of no nothing to improve on when it comes to their individual performance.
And when they're asked to do something where there's a very clear desired outcome, but there isn't necessarily a clear strategy and how to get it done, oftentimes there's a lot of headbutting because they have differing opinions on how to get that thing done, and because because they all have kind of this track record of great results, each of them kind of thinks, well, of course, I should be the one to decide how to do this, because
I'm the one with a great track record. And the person who wrote in said that, you know, it would be easy to just kind of like step in and just pick a side, but he doesn't want to do that. He wants them to be able to do this and not have to jump in and give the answer every time, because he doesn't think they'll learn anything by just you know, kind of doing doing that.
And he doesn't want to pick sides. He thinks that that you're.
You know, they're all they're all good people, and really oftentimes any of the outcomes or any of the strategies might work. So I think it's a great thing to pick apart and uh, and I want to give this person some advice.
Yeah, I think it's it's really good. You know.
The The reality is, especially when you work with you know, well performing or high performing teams, is you're gonna get really passionate people with really you know, a good amount
of opinions. And when you have that happen, especially when you have people that have some you know, uh, either some tenure or so experience around having success in the ways of their approaches, These are the times when it can get a little bit you know, squirrely, It can be a little bit around having to work through some of that because it's kind of like I some you know, a person A has had this example and done a good job and has had success in a certain approach,
a certain way of doing things. Same thing with person B. And now we have a point where we have to find a way to create maybe alignment where maybe one approach in totality won't be the best strategy for everyone, not just maybe these two, but like a larger collective team.
And when it comes to you kind of mentioned this like building skill with the with the individuals, like these are the moments, and these are the times when you really get a chance to kind of like work through you know, they're in a good way, work through their passion to get the work done, while also helping them to understand like the way in which you communicate, the way in which you collaborate, the way which we you know, we look at the thing that we're focused on or
working on as as the point of having to find a solution and having to have like you know, the conflict is with the thing, not each other. Those are the moments that I think are really important as a leader to start to not just you know, see what's going on, but actually say out loud exactly what you said, which is like sometimes you have to say, like, hey, I think you're both amazing. I'm really proud of the
work that you do. These are things that I recognize and respect in each of you individually, and this is a moment in time where I need to lean into your capability and your passion in a way that's going to help us move forward together and the team move forward together. And that means there needs to be elements here of negotiation and collaboration on how we get to
the point of what the best strategy is. And like saying those things out loud to high performing people, I think is really helpful and setting the stage of what you expect, but also setting up the conversation that needs to happen so that there's not a maybe battling of egos or who's going to be right or wrong here, or who wins the strategy, but saying the the end result of this is going to be you know, both of your ideas refined into a way that works best for everyone.
Yeah, I think that's spot on.
I think the first thing I want to say here is that this is a good problem to have when you think about what the alternative is, which is that you know, either a low performing team or people who don't have that passion or that drive to be able to get something done. Like the issue that this listener is dealing with is the result of I would assume good leadership in general, or at least, you know, inheriting a team of good people with you know that are
high performers. But kind of the root of this is ego, right, you know you have if you have a track record of doing well, then there's there's it's okay to have a little bit of an ego about that. It's okay to kind of understand that you have a good track record and to recognize that in yourself and to think that, you know, that gives me the credibility to be able.
To make decisions when it comes to these things.
I think where this leader can do the most is to, you know, kind of ask themselves a couple of questions, because the answers to these questions will will kind of lead them into you know, what the right thing to do is here? Number One, does it matter, meaning if you if you listen to the strategies that are being proposed by each of these people, can you see them working out? Can you see either of them working out?
And if the answer is yes, then it becomes absolutely a teachable moment to where you have.
To put it on them to get something done.
If you are inherently seeing something problematic with one of the two strategies, maybe you have access to information they don't have access to, then you know, you there's a way to convey that information without taking sides and then let them come to the conclusion on their own, you know, being able to say that both of them, you know, have you have you considered this and this and this and this and this, not from the standpoint of like
picking sides, but just kind of factual information, And if they see the same things that you see, then that will probably lead them in the direction of one side
versus the other. But if you're trying to groom a you know, kind of the next group of leaders, you know, people that could take over for your role or you know, people who want to move up into leadership roles, the skills that they need are going to be the skills of this collaboration and getting things done more so than the skill of figuring out the right strategy to get
something done. It's it's actually far easier to come up with a right strategy than it is to get to gain consensus and collaboration over what the right strategy is. And so, you know, if these people are are you know, kind of expressing a desire to move up into leadership roles eventually, that really is something that you need to take into consideration when it comes to the right way forward.
If there's a person who you don't see as being able to move into leadership role, so they're fantastic individual contributor, they do really good, you know, at their job, but you don't see them as being a potential for leadership and they haven't expressed it, then that's a different conversation to have because the skills that you're talking about aren't necessarily the ones that they need to you know, index
on higher versus just the individual contributor thing. So these are all questions you need to kind of answer to yourself before you figure out the right way forward. But I'm an agreement that the right way isn't necessarily to just jump in and make a decision for them.
Yeah, and I think that this is these are the moments where you do have to step in as a leader and not get tempted to like, hey, you guys are both great, figure it out. Let me know what comes out of this, like right, you know what I mean?
Like like you, because you're also to your point, like a part of the dialogue, a part of the conversation is also an assessment of where are they when it comes to the effective way of communicating the ability to understand the bigger picture, the reality of Like Okay, you know that does make sense. There is a larger you know, there's a larger element at play here than just me wanting to implement the idea that I have, like like watching and listening for those things I think is really
really important. And sometimes you know, I've been in a room with leaders where they just bail out, where they just say like, oh, you know what, okay, Like you know, let's just do it your way.
That's fine.
You know, you get those types of things as well. Yeah, and you have to think about that and say, well, hold on, like that's exactly like is that is that what we're doing?
Right?
You know what I mean?
Like like, well, depends on where it's coming from, right, Like, is it let's just do it your way, because you know, I'm I'm gonna I think you're gonna lose and I'm gonna sit back and watch as you burn, or or is it is it an actual agreement that hey, I see both things here and let's.
Try your way, you know, yeah, yeah, And sitting in the room and being a part of the conversation is really the only way to understand that and and to be able to recognize it as it's happening, right, because there's going to be some debate.
There should be some healthy debate. Uh.
And and sometimes you have people that just don't want the conflict and you know, to your point, like they'll they'll just back away from it or say, ah, you know, it's okay, it's not that big of a deal, or you know, like but but that's not what we're trying to solve for here. This is not about This is not about one of them getting solved quickly. This is about the conversation. This is about the dialogue. This is about the ability for us to collaborate and talk about
these things. And this is sometimes about saying, hey, let's have a whole bunch of conversation and and you know, we'll put a timer on it in fifteen or thirty minutes.
If we don't have a solution, we walk away. We come back later.
Yeah, because because again, like the time aspect can also put a lot of pressure on but that it's not helpful in building the skill or building the confidence or getting people over that hurdle of that initial kind of like defending or battling you know, their idea or you know, having to work through their emotions, of their ego and things like that.
That sometimes can take some time.
But as a leader, yes, you absolutely need to step in and you need to absolutely say things like, hey, I don't I'm not trying to pick a side here, but we definitely have two different approaches to this, and we need to find some kind of middle ground. Whether it leans farther one way or the other doesn't really matter to me. But we've got to find a way to move together and commit to one another that this is what we're gonna go do.
Right.
The two things I want to touch on here, One, I like what you said at the beginning around how you know the the right move here is to make sure that they don't view themselves as you know, members of opposing teams, but rather they're on the same team and they're trying to solve the same thing, and just kind of that mindset shift of thinking that you're you're not competing with this peer in order to like find the best solution, but in actuality, you both have the
same outcome as you're both have the same outcome desired, which is to solve this problem, and sometimes working together can figure that out. The other thing is, you know, you mentioned you know somebody you know potentially saying you know, I'm out or or let's go your way, because they're.
Trying to avoid conflict.
And that's an interesting situation because I've had that happen before, when I've had a person who I knew they weren't as comfortable speaking up in a room, and so I would, you know, encourage them to do so, and then they would, you know, like they it was almost like they needed, they needed that kind of invitation to do so in order to speak up, and and when they didn't speak up, they always regretted it. Later on they would come to me and say, oh, I, you know, the I really
wish I would have said this. I had a great idea, and they're usually right. They did have a great idea. They just didn't feel comfortable speaking up. And I started to realize that, you know, if they wanted to move into a leadership role, they wouldn't necessarily be able to rely on me or anybody else to kind of like you know, grease the wheels or light the fuse that you know, needed to be able to speak up at some point, they would need to summon it within themselves.
And so I stopped doing that.
I stopped kind of like you know, offering them time to do that and kind of letting them kind of feel the regret of not speaking up on their own and seeing it later on when it's like, oh, I should have said something. I had a great idea, and they needed that in order to be able to summon
that within themselves. And you know, if you have psychological safety on a team, and and the reason why a person might not be speaking up is not rooted in anything real, It's rooted in just their own, you know, personal.
Things they're getting over.
Then sometimes it's okay to let a person bow out for the sake of avoiding conflict and feel the sting of it going a different way and thinking, you know what, my way was better, I should have done my way. It might take that in order for that person to be able to summon those things in themselves in the future and and speak up and kind of advocate for themselves or their ideas, you know, when it when it's
the appropriate time to do that. That's a it's a really important life skill, not just in leadership roles, but just you know, self advocacy in general when it comes to your job is a really important thing, and some people struggle with that. So you know, if you're trying to develop that skill in one of your one of your people, you know, there's a there's a fine line between what you can do to encourage it and also at some point they they need to be able to summon it on their own.
Too, absolutely, And with that it brings us to this episode is one minute Hack.
But first a few words from our sponsors.
All right, for this episode of one minute Hackers, or want you to do. If you're leading a team of high performers who are having difficulty figuring out a strategy that they can agree upon to get something done on an outcome that is agreed upon. You know, as a leader,
your job is to do a couple of things. One, it's to make sure that you're very clear on what the desired outcomes are and the timeline for when that has to happen, so that you can work backward from that timeline to a point where you know the strategy has to be agreed upon by this day in order to make sure you have enough time to execute it and deliver on the results.
So set the stage for that correctly.
And then the next thing you can do is have the people who are having a difficult time figuring out the right strategy or agreeing upon a strategy present the positives of the other person's strategy. So instead of trying to fight for their own strategy, have them kind of hand the strategies to each other and fight for each others like they were trying to prove that the other
was the correct way to do it. Oftentimes, going through that exercise can kind of break free the roadblock that is happening that's preventing somebody from, you know, kind of mentally getting through the positives of somebody else's strategy because they're so focused on you know, getting their own and presenting somebody else's and the pauses of it can make a person feel like they are kind of co owner of that strategy as opposed to it just you know,
fighting for their way, and that can make people see the benefits of doing it the other way. If that doesn't come up with a solution that they can agree upon, at some point, as a leader, you might have to step in and make a decision. But it is important that they go through these exercises to try to do this on their own as opposed to you saying figure it out you're both high performers or making a decision
for them and deciding the way to go forward. They won't learn anything besides how to just be a high performing individual contributor if you're constantly you know, giving them the right solution when it comes to working together.
Yeah, and like, look, there's a lot of industries in a lot of places where continuing to be a high performing individual contributor is both necessary and very you know like like like good right like people like like love
that level of responsibility. So I even think though that this type of skill, though, is still critically important even if you don't step into a leadership role, the ability to understand what's around you to like, if you're talking about like the ability to influence people in a positive way.
It's also understanding how other people can see the work, can see the problem, how they approach it, how you need to tweak maybe your thoughts or questions or approach like understanding that like if if if there's multiple individual computer contributors or peers that you have, the success of the team sometimes is as if not more important than
the individual contributor success that you might have. And those are important concepts that, no matter where you go from here, are really really important to learn.
Yeah, completely having this kind of individual contributor mindset that doesn't take into account team goals, that's that's never a good thing.
You know.
You need to make sure that that each person on the team is thinking not just in terms of their own success but the team success. But usually when they're thinking that way, when they're just thinking about themselves, there will be a strategy that wins out over the others when it comes to team success. If the issue you're having is that as a leader, you can see any
of these strategies that are being presented working well. Typically I think that means that that the either the either the outcomes are aligned for individual success and team success, that means the same thing. Or it means that the people on your team do have a good idea of what team success looks like and they're not, you know, kind of putting themselves ahead of the team. And so
that's a very different problem. If the strategies being presented seem to value individual success over team success, that's an entirely different conversation to have. And obviously one of those strategies isn't going to work, whereas the other one probably.
Would absolutely And with that it brings us to the end of this episode. This is hacking leadership. I'm Lorenzo and I'm Chris, and we'll talk to you all next time.