Author: Chris Clearfield

I wasn’t nervous when the meeting started, but I should have been. My client was dealing with a serious power differential between their technical sales team (which “made the money”) and another team, a process group that was seen as a cost center—even though they were driving critical transformations in the business.

 

I’d supported the technology team as they sought to improve the speed and effectiveness of the sales team, and we wanted to share some of what we’d learned with a few senior leaders from the sales group.

 

One of the takeaways from our interview process was that real progress required technology and sales folks to work together collaboratively, as equals, and recognize that both supported the business.

 

Everyone joined the Zoom call on time—except the leader from the sales group (who is, of course, always very busy); he was 15 minutes late. No worries—I thought—I can talk fast. We’ll get through this.

 

Do you see my mistake?

 

I missed the power dynamic at play here. The sales guy was late, but I matched our cadence to his schedule.

 

The meeting got off to a bad start. I wasn’t surprised by the first reaction from the sales leader when I told him what I’d learned talking with the technology team: “Of course that’s a problem! We already know this.”

 

Resistance is interesting. It’s data. It’s something to be curious about and learn from. However, because I bent my plans to accommodate the sales leader’s schedule, we weren’t able to have the discussion about that resistance that we needed to have.

 

I help leaders find solutions to complex problems by leveraging our curiosity, asking questions, and exploring possibilities. Because I allowed the sales leader’s behavior to derail the meeting, I didn’t have time to ask these questions or get the meeting participants involved in the discovery process.

 

Frankly, this was my fault.

 

Every behavior in a system is promoted, supported, or allowed by the participants in the system.

• Some behaviors are promoted, like getting praise from your boss for working late nights to finish a project.

• Some are supported, like informally helping a colleague who needs to deal with a family emergency.

• Others are tolerated, like when leaders look the other way with a high-producer who is sometimes unpleasant or difficult to work with.

 

In this case, I let myself get sucked into the client’s system. I felt powerless—even though I knew my agenda and the areas of inquiry that would result in leadership support. I should have taken control, even if that meant rescheduling to ensure we had the time we needed to conduct the meeting properly.

 

Would that have delayed our process?

 

Absolutely.

 

Would it have been uncomfortable?

 

Maybe.

 

The point is that any choice has consequences.

 

But delaying the meeting or shifting the agenda would have been better than tolerating the “power over” behavior that I’d observed as I worked with the client.

 

The good news is that this conversation is more data, part of the work. That even I, as an outsider, get co-opted into these behaviors gives me a clue as to how strong they are. And that, ultimately, helps us move forward.

 

What about you? What behaviors do you see in your organizations? How do your actions (or inactions) create the culture that exists? Reach out on Twitter or LinkedIn and tell me about it, or if you want to have a longer conversation, click here to schedule an appointment! I would love to hear from you.

 

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I was feeling frazzled and overwhelmed as I dialed into the Zoom meeting with my friend, coach, and trusted advisor Greta. I had a lot going on—meetings, interviews, international travel—I was so busy I’d forgotten why I wanted to meet with her in the first place.

 

That’s a bit embarrassing, isn’t it?

 

But despite my confusion, I had clarity on what I wanted to do with our time together: center myself and explore why I felt so overwhelmed.

 

We did some breathing and “came into the room,” and then started talking about some of the work I had coming up. Greta helped me see something—yes, I did have a lot of important projects and events looming. But they were all commitments that felt “right” to me.

 

The problem wasn’t what was on my plate but how I was trying to eat it: in an intricate and complex fashion. I had prepared a simple meal, comfort food like roast chicken with potatoes and a side salad. But instead of a fork and knife, I brought a spoon, chopsticks, an egg spoon, a butter knife, a dessert spoon, a lobster crusher, and one of those little forks you use to get meat out of the tiny legs of a crab.

 

“Well, shit, I’ve done it again. I’m making things way more complex than they need to be.”

 

My tendency toward complexity shows up in a lot of contexts: my home life, my initial work plans with clients, and the way I structure my work with my team. I often have to walk back my first instincts to get to something that is practicable.

 

Working with complexity is one of my superpowers. I wrote a book on it, after all, and it’s the foundation of much of my work, so it’s not surprising that I lean into complexity as the first step.

 

Many of the organizations I work with have complex systems not because they were designed that way, but because they’ve been added to as business changes. Many of the leaders of those organizations are under pressure to perform and deliver, and they just have to deal with these old, inefficient processes because it’s easier than spending time updating them.

 

In these complex environments, it’s easy to overcomplicate the solutions to our problems. But that complexity is often counterproductive; it moves us further from our goal rather than closer to it.

 

Sometimes I forget that complexity is not necessarily the best way. The good news is that my awareness is growing, sometimes on my own, but often with the support of a coach like Greta, conversations with clients and friends, and feedback from my team. This support helps me step back and make the important shifts that allow me to be more effective.

 

With this awareness, I was able to unpack my commitments and deal with them in simple but effective ways. Over the next few days, I tackled a number of nuanced projects with ease, laying the groundwork for a week in London, working with two sophisticated clients who were dealing with extremely complex business and leadership challenges of their own.

 

In the end, the work felt great. I leaned on the simple approaches I had created and was able to be present and in the moment with my clients. The conversations I facilitated were complex and nuanced; my approach was not.

 

Do you have a complex business problem that would benefit from a simple approach? I would love to hear from you! Click here if you’d like to schedule an appointment, or you can reach out to me on Twitter and LinkedIn to share the ways you’ve successfully brought simplicity into your business.

 

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Shaun White, the 35-year-old godfather of snowboarding made his fifth and final Olympic runs at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics last February. Part of the founding generation of competitive snowboarding, White would be facing athletes ten to twenty years younger than him. Rumors of his retirement were already circulating throughout the winter sports world.

 

He starts strong with two good runs that put him in contention for a silver medal, but on his final run, after catching massive air, he attempts a 1440º twist. In 2018, while training for the Pyeongchang Olympics, White almost died attempting a similar trick when he clipped the top of the halfpipe upon re-entry, but after a brief recovery period, he still managed to qualify and go on to win the gold.

 

This time, his snowboard again clips the wall as he lands, but he doesn’t get hurt. He doesn’t even fall. It’s nothing dramatic; he just doesn’t have the momentum to keep going. His run and his Olympic career are over. He’s done. There will be no medal.

 

And it’s not like this is a guy who wasn’t trying to be a badass, right? I mean, White was competing for his fourth gold medal. I don’t know what his expectations were for his last run, but I’m sure he hoped he would go out on a higher note.

 

It was a moment that would test anybody, but White doesn’t lose his cool. He just takes his helmet off and gently boards down to the finish line. He looks disappointed, but he’s gracious and smiling, like he accepts what happened. I find it a really powerful moment.

 

Facing our Fears 

 

I work with a lot of goal-oriented high achievers who have become successful by being excellent at driving outcomes. But eventually, everyone gets to a point where they can’t control the results. Usually, they’re trying to influence someone more senior or encourage someone they work with to make a change. People fear not getting the outcomes they wanted or hoped for, and this fear can make us unnecessarily anxious.

 

Think about the pressure White was under, facing that 1440º on his final run. On that day, White was the oldest male Olympic halfpipe rider in history. His accident in 2018 changed his life, resulting in a pulmonary lung contusion, heavy internal bruising, and 62 stitches across his forehead, lips, and tongue. He couldn’t even recognize his own face, and the blood buildup in his lungs delayed his flight home. That he’s alive is a miracle; that he was even willing to step onto a snowboard again is incredible.

 

Dealing With Uncertainty 

 

Sometimes, all we can do is set our intention and be open to the outcome. We have to show up, bring enthusiasm, and do our best. Then, all we can do is let go and let things unfold. Circumstances are under our control only to a point. When they don’t go our way, we can still take pride in the fact that we honored our intent.

 

Shaun White may not have won a medal in his final Olympic competition, but the example he set in Beijing by facing his fears, giving his all, and being gracious in defeat is a fantastic model to follow.

 

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“You’re being relentless! Can you please stop asking questions so we can just chill for a bit?”

 

A request my partner, Katy, offered me in the midst of a conversation about our life and relationship.

 

I was trying to get to the root of something. She just wanted to relax.

 

I’m not always great at relaxing. But I tried. I settled in. I “chilled.” On we moved.

 

A few days later, a client wrote me a nice testimonial: “Chris took us through an amazing journey. His relentless curiosity and drive helped shape our global strategy.”

 

I laughed out loud when I read it (and sent a screenshot to Katy). There it was.

 

At work, drive and relentless curiosity are my superpowers. With Katy, they’re an impediment to connection.

 

It’s not that my relentless curiosity is right or wrong—it’s just not the right tool for every context.

 

If we want to be better, we need to grow our range.

 

Imagine a team caught in the day-to-day, endlessly meeting on Zoom to respond to crises and unexpected events. To work to their fullest, they need to develop the ability to step back and look at the big picture.

 

Now imagine another team—one that spends their time designing and discussing a future strategy without moving toward it. That team needs to cultivate its ability to focus on the details and move toward action.

 

More broadly, growing your range is about being able to reach for a response that’s appropriate for the moment.

 

We all have tools that we love, and approaches that come easily to us. But tools and techniques are specific to the tasks they are created for.

 

Just because something works in most situations doesn’t mean it will work in every situation. If we can take a beat, we might find a different tool, a different approach, or even a different way of being.

 

The key is awareness. So much of what happens in our brains and our bodies are automatic. Awareness creates a space in which we can hold off reaching for the easy, familiar method and try for something else that serves us better. We can experiment and see how different ways of working feel. What works? What doesn’t?

 

Operating differently than the ways we’ve perfected over the course of our lives can be scary and uncomfortable because it’s unfamiliar to us, like wearing a new pair of dress shoes. We worry the toes will be too tight or that the backs will give us blisters, but in the end, we might be glad we didn’t wear our ratty old sneakers to our sister’s formal wedding.

 

To achieve growth, you have to be willing to be uncomfortable and sometimes vulnerable as you test new strategies. You have to accept that you might make mistakes as you learn. Not every hypothesis will pan out. Not every experiment will be a success. Developing proficiency in new methods of communicating and leading change takes practice, and that practice can be rough, but ultimately, temporary discomfort is a worthwhile tradeoff for long-term personal and professional growth.

 

As a coach, I can support you and your team as you experiment with reaching past your familiar tools. I offer a fixed number of slots, so reach out if you’d like to discuss what might be possible if you could approach your work in a new way.

 

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“Dimmi con chi vai e’ ti dirò’ chi sei.”

(“Tell me who you go with and I will tell you who you are.”)

-Italian Proverb

 

The culture of my first company was very left-brained, quantitative, winner-take-all, and zero-sum: everything was a calculation, anything could be speculated on.

 

We were traders, so gambling on outcomes was our job, but it influenced our play as well. We would make crazy side-bets in the office on things like which intern could run faster, how long someone could stand on one foot, or who could lose a larger percentage of their total weight over a months-long period. I once even won two hundred bucks betting on whether North Korea would test a nuclear weapon over the weekend.

 

At the time this all seemed normal; in retrospect, I realize gambling like that was unusual outside my team’s culture—and that a nuclear weapons test, in particular, is a weird thing to bet on.

 

I realized that the culture of my office had given me a different perspective on how life is supposed to work when I found myself considering paying somebody ahead of me in line at the DMV to switch places. Time was money. Everything and everyone had a price. That’s the heart of capitalism.

 

I didn’t follow through on my fantasy of paying somebody for their place in line; I was just too uncomfortable. At the time I saw that discomfort as a weakness, but looking back, I’m happy I wasn’t able to reduce a person to a placeholder quite so easily.

 

Unintentional Mirroring

 

A team’s culture not only affects who shows up, but it also starts changing new employees as soon as they arrive. From the lingo and dress code to the attitudes presented about work and clients, our behaviors and ideals begin to rub off on one another.

 

My editor, Tina, reads almost everything I write. She spends hours each week pouring over her clients’ words, shaping them up, and making us sound better. During a meeting with a writer, Tina caught herself using the phrase “growing your awareness,” a phrase I often use both in my speech and writing. She’s noticed other new behaviors too. Our meetings often involve moments of quiet reflection, which she’s begun to incorporate in her own meetings. (She still refuses to leave her eggs on the counter, though.)

 

We take the concepts and ideas we learn from our work culture into other parts of our lives. It affects our friendships, our romantic relationships, and how we parent our kids. For better or worse, that is how cultures take shape.

 

An Evolving Environment

 

Work culture influences who we hire and how they change once we’ve brought them on board, and new additions to the team impact the work environment as well. We shape each other. That’s part of what makes cultural change hard—how sticky it is because of how easy it is to conform.

 

So how do you change? Well, there isn’t a fast or easy fix, but there is a process. Begin by surrounding yourself with people whose behaviors and ideas you are okay with absorbing, because they will inevitably change you. Pick people who will help you become a better person, and lead by example when you want to see a change in others.

 

Teaching and modeling the behaviors you want to see in your team is one of the best ways to ensure the kind of culture you want. This is especially effective when a new team is forming since the original culture of the founding members will influence the organization’s future culture. This is often referred to as “imprinting.” Like animals evolving, teams develop characteristics that reflect their formative environment, and those characteristics stick around long after the ecosystem changes.

 

Intentional Culture

 

Instead of being passive about shaping (or completely changing) the culture of your team, you can accelerate the personal and professional growth of your team by hiring a coach who will be intentional about the ideas and behaviors they teach.

 

That depth of engagement with work culture isn’t something I experienced on Wall Street, or even when I started my own firm. At first, my company’s culture emerged as a consequence of what I did. As I’ve deepened my skills as a coach and consultant, working with clients across a range of industries, I’ve started to see cultures more clearly. As a result, I’m more intentional in how I work with my clients and about the culture I create within my own teams.

 

Examining work culture has helped me understand the importance of creating space for feelings, fresh insight, dissent, and teamwork. I want to create an environment where everyone can win together.

 

It’s also the approach I bring to my clients.

 

Are you struggling to see (let alone shift) your work culture? I coach leaders and teams to create meaningful change for their companies. If that might be helpful to you, click here to set up a call.

 

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“Only the paranoid survive.”

-Andy Grove, Founder and CEO of Intel

 

In 2020, AMD—a company that was on the verge of bankruptcy in 2014—felled industry giant Intel in a corporate “David and Goliath” showdown. How did this stunning reversal of fortune happen, and what can we learn from it as we try to prepare our companies for unforeseen events that await us in the future?

 

It’s important to remember that even for the largest companies, perpetual success isn’t guaranteed. Consumer demands are fickle, and technological advances have the power to disrupt entire industries almost overnight.

 

In some ways, this story starts with Intel’s unique strengths: it’s the sole major US chipmaker and it’s also one of the few companies that design and manufacture its own hardware. (Most companies, including AMD, outsource chip fabrication to other companies.) This vertical integration and control over their product once gave Intel their competitive edge, but things change.

 

At its 2020 developer conference, Apple announced that it would be switching away from Intel processors to its own in-house chips. This proclamation sent a clear message to the tech world: Intel isn’t cutting it anymore. While Apple’s announcement was initially met with some skepticism, its M1 chips went out to outperform Intel’s by nearly every metric.

 

As if things couldn’t get worse, Intel faced delays in the production of its 7nm chip. (I am not an expert, but 7nm is smaller. And, when it comes to chips, smaller is better.) Originally set to be released in late 2021, the product was delayed until early 2023. AMD, however, has been using a 7nm production since 2019. The only thing that kept AMD from crushing Intel entirely was its manufacturing capacity constraints.

 

Outspoken former Intel principal engineer, Francois Piednoel, who worked with the company for over twenty years, blamed the challenge promotion of MBAs over those with technical prowess, which resulted in “no innovation.” Instead of leveraging the expertise of their engineers, Intel’s CPU roadmaps were laid out by planners with MBAs who “weren’t able to adjust.” As a result, Intel fell so far behind in chip design and manufacturing it was outflanked by a new industry structure that allowed more nimble competitors to dance circles around them.

 

I think that this take probably oversimplifies the story—after all, engineers can struggle to adapt just as much as MBAs—but helping people change is a theme in all of my work, and the cost of Intel’s inability to change shines through.

 

The setbacks at Intel damaged company morale and caused an exodus of executives and employees, but truthfully, Intel has struggled for years. Intel’s new CEO, Pat Gelsinger, has ambitious new goals, and a new plan for competing. He’s vowed that Intel will reclaim processor leadership by 2025, but for that to happen, the company must avoid the complacency that led to their disastrous and embarrassing summer of 2020.

 

By deploying a strategy that relied on competitive moats (like its deals with Microsoft and Apple), Intel failed to stay on the cutting edge.

 

As the world gets more complex and the pace of change increases, expertise and technical ability are table stakes, while the value of agility only increases. A comparative advantage in one moment can become a liability in another; a strategy that doesn’t place change front and center isn’t much of a strategy at all.

 

Does that resonate with you? I spend my time guiding leaders and teams to create meaningful change for their companies. If that might be helpful to you, click here to set up a call.

 

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“My in-laws arrived for a visit yesterday and my MiL just tested positive for covid. We are searching for a place for them to stay so we can isolate; my 4 y.o. isn’t fully vaccinated yet.”

 

My friend’s text got my attention. As I tried to help her find a safe place for her in-laws to isolate, it dawned on me that it was one of the half-dozen Covid-related disruptions that I’ve seen in the last few weeks.

 

Friends who have had vacations interrupted or postponed.

 

A canceled lunch with a client who I flew across the country to eat with.

 

A colleague who’s down with Covid and can’t focus on a project he was heading up.

 

As the world opens up, we’re taking risks again. We’re eating in restaurants, gathering in offices, and traveling. But while the consequences of getting Covid have become much less severe (thanks science!), we’re not immune from the tail risk of negative health outcomes or the disruptions to our everyday lives.

 

So what can we do about that?

 

Nothing.

 

Of course we can make personal choices about the risks that we take — asking ourselves, “Is it worth it?” Sometimes we decide that it is, as my friend did when she explored Yellowstone with her five-year-old son and 85-year-old mother last month.

 

But we can’t control outcomes.

 

I’ve spent a lot of my life working toward a destination. “When I have X, I will be Y.” When I have a certain number of clients, I’ll be successful. When I have a certain amount of savings, I’ll feel secure.

 

And, my personal favorite: when I’ve spent enough time on my personal growth, I’ll no longer lose my temper with my kids (hah!) or be reactive to my life partner (hah! hah!).

 

But life isn’t about controlling things. The universe is too big, busy, and complex for that. It’s a process, always changing, no matter how much we shrink our world.

 

Moving forward in life is all about embracing that change, accepting it, and choosing how we want to react. As the Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön puts it, our job is to be “with the ambiguity and uncertainty of the present moment without reaching for anything to protect ourselves.”

 

At first glance, this sounds very distant from the concerns of the everyday world — and particularly the world of business — but I don’t think it is.

 

I see the work of bringing about positive change through this lens: leaders need to to hold a vision, move forward with purpose, but also remain open to the unpredictable and complex process of change. It’s about having an intention but being open to what emerges.

 

As a leader, you see that things need to change. You and your team might be asked to collaborate in different ways or to adopt new technology so you can do more work, better, faster, and cheaper. Or, you may realize that your team needs a solid strategy so that you can say no to things that don’t create value.

 

You probably even have an idea about what you could change. But imposing change won’t work. You might make progress, but you’ll also create resistance. As Princess Leia puts it, “The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.”

 

Instead of imposing control, most of us would benefit by loosening our grip. Yes, be aware of the challenges that you face — but loosen your grip on the solutions. It’s not easy, but by letting go a little bit at a time, you will invite co-creation and the full, energetic participation of your colleagues and team.

 

I spend my time coaching leaders & teams to create meaningful change for their companies. If you’re one of those leaders, click here to set up a call.

 

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As technology improves and communication speeds up, so does the pace of life. Email replaced snail mail, and now messaging apps like Slack can keep us in touch with our work wherever and whenever we are. Instead of having more time for relaxation, we end up trying to be more productive. Work projects seem to go on forever and the “To Do” list never ends.

 

With so much to accomplish, it’s easy to lose track of what’s important, of why we work in the first place. Is work there to help us generate wealth? What is wealth? Is it a savings account? Is it an IRA fund? A swelling stock portfolio?

 

Is wealth about money at all?

 

I don’t think so.

 

To me, wealth is having the means to live the life I enjoy with the people I love. Pursuing money for money’s sake doesn’t add to my wealth if I don’t have time to spend with my friends and family. My children and my partner won’t care if I make an extra ten thousand dollars for the company if I’m too busy to take small moments out of my day to share my life with them.

 

Sometimes it’s just a hello, a pause, a hug.

 

Sometimes it’s a pause to take time for ourselves. That isn’t always easy, but it’s worth trying. What will remain important long after the job you have to do today will be the friends you made and the ways you made sure to take care of your personal health and mental well-being.

 

So the next time you find yourself rushing out the door with a coffee in your travel mug, or locking yourself in your office to hide from the kids, ask yourself what will serve you better down the road. Take a deep breath, relax, and spend a few extra minutes with your loved ones, or with yourself. You probably won’t remember that work project you finished ahead of schedule; most of us will never regret spending a few minutes more on self-care and human connection.

 

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“Brady and Jordan are both considered to be the best athletes in their respective sports. Both have led their teams to multiple championship victories and are superstars in their own right, but they have vastly different leadership styles.”

 

1989 NBA Playoffs: Game 5

 

Bulls vs. Cavaliers

 

The Bulls and the Cavaliers are tied for victories 2-2. Game 5 will decide who goes home and who moves on to the next round. The game is close, with both teams trading the leading position over and over as the clock winds down. With three seconds left the score is 100-99, with the Cavaliers in the lead, but Jordan takes the ball and throws a legendary foul-line buzzer-beater known in sports history as “The Shot.” Bulls win 101-100.

 

After the game Bulls coach Doug Collins commented that the only plan at the end was “get the ball to Michael and everybody get the [@#%!] out of the way!”

 

2017 Super Bowl LI

 

Patriots vs. Falcons

 

The Patriots are down 28-3 in the third quarter. Things look grim, but Brady rallies the team and executes four scoring drives in a row, including two 2-point conversions, tying the game and taking the Super Bowl into overtime for the first time in NFL history. Brady then leads another drive down the field and throws the ball to running back James White, who runs it across the goal line amid a cluster of frustrated Falcons.

 

When asked about his 25-point comeback, the largest in Super Bowl history and a record that might never be broken, Brady gave credit to his teammates, saying, “We all brought each other back.”

 

Brady and Jordan are both considered to be the best athletes in their respective sports. Both have led their teams to multiple championship victories and are superstars in their own right, but they have vastly different leadership styles.

 

Jordan was a strategic leader who set the pace and expected others to keep up with him. He got things done, leading the Bulls to six championship titles and scoring a record-setting 63 points in a playoff game. If his teammates couldn’t keep up, they knew the best way to support him was to make sure he got the ball and had a path to the basket.

 

Tom Brady, a 20-season NFL team captain, let his team get things done. His supportive guidance, encouragement, and ability to let his teammates take the spotlight led his teams to the Super Bowl nine times, and to seven Super Bowl victories. Brady cared about the strengths, feelings, and personal needs of his teammates and knew when to give one of them a chance to shine.

 

A lot of leaders are strategic drivers like Jordan. They set the pace and push people forward. Their relationships with teammates tend to be transactional and focused on getting the task done. There are contexts in which driving works, particularly when the task is clear and straightforward, like an emergency situation or an opportunity that will expire, but this leadership style can lead to a lack of team unity. When the group functions solely as support for a superstar individual, members may feel more like cogs in a wheel than part of an organic system.

 

Leaders like Brady primarily focus on relationships, caring deeply about their team’s experience. Intimate leaders know that the most challenging problems we work on require co-creation; a team that knows their contributions are valued—and feels they are valued as individuals—will set aside ego and work hard to get tasks done at crunch time.

 

At its best, leadership is a mix of focusing on the task and building relationships. Intimate leadership can only be effective if you can also flex your strategic muscles by, for example, giving someone feedback when they don’t perform to the level you expect.

 

At the same time, strategic leadership doesn’t work if people are scared of you. If they don’t have trust in you, people will worry that they’ll get shot down.

 

No one would say that Brady couldn’t get things done. He’s a superstar athlete. But what makes him special is that he balances the need for strategic driving with the need for team trust.

 

A leader who is only willing to lead through force will fail as soon as the need for a change is beyond their span of control. Pressure only works when you can apply it relentlessly. That’s what Jordan did.

 

But people are social creatures who have evolved to survive through collaboration. Sometimes it isn’t enough to have someone pushing us to succeed, we need someone who knows our needs and our talents and how to work with those to help everyone win.

 

Leaders who can only drive will not unlock the talent and creativity that their companies need to thrive. When one person is in charge of leading everything it can lead to blind spots and weak points. Insights bubble up and you need to tend to people’s responses.

 

Watching the Netflix documentary The Last Dance, I was struck by the cost that Jordan’s approach imposed. Yes, the Bulls were an incredible franchise. They won — a lot. But when you hear Jordan’s peers talk about the experience, it’s heartbreaking.

 

This group of ultra-capable athletes, performing at the top of their game, didn’t seem to like their de facto leader. Jordan could lead them to victory. But he couldn’t lead them together.

 

Do you remember the Gatorade ads that suggested we “Be like Mike?”

 

It’s not a bad approach.

 

But as the world gets more complex, the contributions of your team matter more and more. Trust and relationships matter.

 

Instead of being like Mike, try being like Brady.

 

If you want to read more of my thoughts about leadership strategies and the 90s Bulls dynasty, check out my article about Dennis Rodman’s legendary post-season Vegas vacation, and Phil Jackson, the Hall-of-Fame coach who took a big risk on his most controversial player.

 

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As leaders, our job is to determine the “what” and the “why.” When we let our team figure out the “how,” we can create a context where they’re able to perform at their best. Sometimes this can feel risky, but it can give us far better outcomes than we could have expected if we had imposed our way.

 

Phil Jackson and Dennis Rodman

 

In the late 90s, Dennis Rodman was one of the top three basketball players on the Chicago Bulls, right behind Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan. Known for his aggressive on-court antics and his bombastic off-court personality, Rodman was essential in helping the Bulls get into the 1998 playoffs after Pippen had to take a break to recover from foot surgery. With Pippen out of the game, the 38-year-old power forward was forced to buckle down and become Jordan’s right-hand man. This wasn’t easy for Rodman, who was used to having more freedom and less responsibility than Pippen and Jordan.

 

After Pippen’s return, Rodman needed a break. He requested time off for a trip to Las Vegas, right before the playoffs.

 

Letting Rodman take a Vegas vacation right before some of the most important games of the season seemed foolhardy on the surface (Michael Jordan was vocally opposed to the idea), but coach Phil Jackson, who had already led the Bulls to five championship titles, knew Rodman and understood that he needed time to blow off steam and recharge in his own way.

 

Jackson decided that Rodman’s “mental health” was worth him missing training, overindulging, and possibly getting into serious trouble just as the post-season was getting underway. He gave Rodman the benefit of the doubt and let him cut loose before the big games.

 

Valve

 

Some modern business models take these kinds of risks with their employees as well. Valve, the company that develops and manages Steam (arguably the most successful video game distribution platform) allows employees to choose the projects they work on. This freedom and flexibility keeps employees happy, motivated, and invested.

 

Valve also encourages employees to manage their own work hours and trusts them to track their own vacation time and sick days. The approach works with the attitude that incredibly talented people often don’t fit into a prepackaged mold. To make the most of their gifts, they need room to stretch and move.

 

This might seem like a big risk, but Gabe Newell, president of Valve, has demonstrated that it works. Valve is one of the most successful video game companies on the planet, and they are often ranked as one of the best companies to work for, thanks in large part to the company’s flat management hierarchy and the freedom and flexibility it affords employees.

 

Self-Managing Medics

 

Another example of a system that allows workers to take more charge of their own productivity and resource commitment is the Buurtzorg Model of medicine, which allows nurses to operate in communities without management and oversight from afar.

 

Under the Buurtzorg Model, a team of twelve nurses goes to work, tending to patients and managing their own team’s work process at the same time. A new team gets to know the needs of the community and those of local general practitioners, therapists, and other medical professionals. They then decide how to best organize tasks, share responsibilities, and make tough choices without the oversight of a medical board.

 

Using the Buurtzog Model, innovations happen because individuals and teams have the freedom to try new ideas. When these ideas are successful in small areas, the practice can then be expanded to encompass the whole.

 

Game Time

 

So what happened to Dennis Rodman? Was Phil Jackson’s choice to let him go wild in Vegas a good decision, or was it a big mistake?

 

Rodman’s trip to Vegas and the things that happened while he was there is its own story. He didn’t make it back on time, instead turning a 48-hour Vegas vacation into a 4-day adventure that is soon to be the subject of its own movie.

 

However, despite missing a few practices and being exhausted from his bender, Rodman returned to play some of the best games of his entire life, helping the Bulls win their sixth championship under Phil Jackson’s leadership.

 

Final Thought

 

I am not advocating that we all work in decentralized, self-managed organizations, nor that we send employees away for benders. But, when leaders are curious about how their team members can do their best work, they’re more likely to create the conditions that allow just that.

 

Share your “why,” and be clear about your “what,” the available resources, and the constraints. Then, let your people create the “how.”

 

Step back, and see what they can do.

 

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