If it’s not obvious,
you may want to find out who they are.
It most cases, it goes without saying that CEOs, C-Level
Leaders and Owner Operators give credence to the general idea that they would
like to have at least one other Big-Thinker on their team. The “general idea”
is only that because there are just as many business leaders who, quite
frankly, may not be willing to admit that they really aren’t all that comfortable
with Thinkers Bigger than they are.
Recently, in an exercise with a group of leaders like those
mentioned above, the question that we first put to them was, “If you had the
authority, the resources and all of your answers questioned; what direction
would you take this company?”
Read and think about that question again. Perhaps like many
of those we asked, the first thing they did was question the question. Others
wanted to re-word or re-structure it. Convinced we had juxtaposed some of the
words, most wondered about having “all of [their] answers questioned” and
inappropriately concluded the question needed fixing. It didn’t and that is the
way it was meant to be asked.
You may have the authority to decide whatever it is that
confronts you, but you may not have the resources. You may have the resources
at your disposal, but you may not really have the final say. Perhaps there’s a
board, advisers, bankers, a partner equal or otherwise. The point is; have you
had all of your answers questioned? Let’s face it, you are smart. You are a
risk-taker. You hold a position that calls for leadership and decision-making and
you are willing to accept the responsibility and ultimately, the accountability
for the results. Even so, there is that lingering apprehension that ought to be
present for the purpose of making sure you’ve had all of your answers
questioned. There may be a number of methods at your disposal to get that
accomplished and yet, far more leaders than yourself frequently overlook the
need to do so.
Back to the other Big-Thinkers in your organization – do you
know who they are? Do you want to? Let’s assume you do.
[If you are not having regularly scheduled One-to-One
sessions with your direct reports, it could very well be that this isn’t going
to be an effective exercise.]
We asked our group of leaders to pose the question, exactly
the way it is worded; ““If you had the authority, the resources and all of your
answers questioned; what direction would you take this company?”
Most gave their direct reports an opportunity to give some
thought to the question either by setting it up as an agenda item for their
next One-to-One or by memo as a separate item for discussion. As suspected, few
of those asked were Big-Thinkers in the context of what is being sought by the
question. Most were unwilling to breakout and go Big - go fearless in the quest
of leading the company down a path that simply had not been considered. The
majority patronized the so-called Mission Statement or framed up previous management
topics with new words and colors, but nothing really new or innovative.
The results were as expected. Big-Thinkers are hard to find
but they are there. Don’t kid yourself. There are Big-Thinkers all around you
but it takes time and effort to encourage Big-Thinking. You’re the only one
that can make that happen and if, to this point in time, you haven’t embedded
that objective in your corporate culture, the only hope you have of mining the
Big-thinkers ideas is to start with yourself and answer the question. Then go
mining for the Big-Thinkers in your organization. You’ll find them.
The link to a recent Ron Ashkenas blog posted at the Harvard
Business Review online addresses the subject well.
Jim Naleid
is a Life-long Entrepreneur,
Change-Agent and Thought Leader, Managing Director of Naleid &
Associates and a Regional TEC (“The
Executive Committee”) Chair leading a group of executives to become Better
Leaders, Making Better Decisions with Better Results.
No comments:
Post a Comment