BookNotes: The Octopus Organization #1: Stop Upholding Poor Leadership

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Hello everyone, welcome back to the lab. One of the things that I get probably the most comments on, are when I do my book notes series, where I'm just reviewing a book and get a lot of comments on those. So just read a very interesting book called The Octopus Organization, A Guide to Thriving in a World of Continuous Transformation. And incidentally, Harvard just put out sort of Cliff Notes version of this book at the same time. So I'm just going to summarize it.

Over the next few casts. We'll just take a deep dive into this very interesting book. Well, what is an octopus organization? It's a flexible, decentralized. And an organization that's built for change. Change management is like its core competency. The journey to becoming an octopus organization begins with identifying what the authors call anti-patterns. Anti-patterns. These are formulaic responses to complex challenges that can set organizations back.

So again, over the next three or four days or casts, we're going to deep dive into this book and some of the great ideas in it and how to overcome these anti-patterns.

So today, we're going to look at the main concept called stop upholding poor leadership. Stop upholding poor leadership. So when bad leadership is elevated, when it's supported or it's left in place for whatever reason, organizations suffer. Distrust, fear, disengagement, turnover spikes.

Self-preservation replaces ownership and problem-solving productivity goes down ethical lapses become more commonplace octopus organizations treat leadership as a behavior not a role, they develop leaders who create conditions where people willingly claim ownership and then they promote the ones who model empathy humility curiosity all the things that we want to see, here's how to uphold this kind of leadership and model it yourself,

so the first tip under this broad category is to speak last hold your opinions until others have shared their points of view. Invite people to speak and then actively listen. This prevents you and other leaders from dominating discussions. So speak last. Number two, build a shadow cabinet. Cultivate a group of trusted colleagues known for different perspectives. This reminds me of Lincoln's cabinet, a team of rivals. It was the book there.

I can't remember the author now. I I think it was Doris Godwin. But anyway, it reminds me of Lincoln's perspective where he never wanted yes men or yes women sitting around the table with him. He wanted people with extremely diverse perspectives, especially those that disagreed with him. So, you cultivate a group of trusted colleagues outside of your direct reports, of course, explicitly asking them to assess leadership styles, change assumptions, point out blind spots, perhaps in your thinking.

Okay? Number three, connect through shared experience. Occasionally, immerse yourself and other leaders in hands-on work alongside teams. Approach these moments as a learner and a contributor, not a director, not the leader, right? Fourth, build multiple feedback mechanisms. So include 360-degree reviews. Certainly if your company has those. If not, you can purchase those pretty easily online.

Do exit interviews. Do skip-level meetings where you're meeting with your manager's manager and asking them pointed questions and getting feedback from them. Have regular team retrospectives that focus on how your team works together. And if psychological safety is a concern, we've talked a lot about that on the Manager Lab, consider anonymous feedback channels if you have to. Okay, next, stop one thing. What does that mean?

So, focus on stopping at least one specific behavior that's identified through all these feedback channels that you're now getting, such as interrupting. Do you interrupt too much? Do you have a dismissive tone, perhaps? Checking your phone in meetings, using sarcasm dismissively or rolling your eyes or any other body language that might signal that you're disengaged or you're not engaged with your team members. And then track that progress by seeking follow-up feedback after a few months.

So stopping one thing is a tactic to root out individual behaviors that may be holding you back. Next is cultivating your own self-awareness. Understand your own triggers and your patterns, keeping a journal over several weeks, noting when your leadership slips, why it slipped, and how you might avoid it next time. So cultivating this deep sense of self-awareness.

And then the last thing under this broad category of stop upholding poor leadership is to model empathy and vulnerability, Showing courage by acknowledging that you don't always have the answers. In fact, maybe most of the time you don't have the answers and you need your team to help you. Share relevant struggles or learnings. And the best leaders, as we all know, and we learn from good to great, lead with humility.

So that's part one of the Octopus organization. Look forward to more iterations here in the next few casts. And until next time we meet in the Manager Lab, do good work.