Leadership Is Language

All my leadership training up to that point had been abour mak ing decisions and getting the team to implement them. I had peven questioned this paradigm until that moment aboard Santa Fe. Improw ing my decisions simply couldn't happen fast enough to matter. I needed a different solution entirely. The problem, I realized, wasn't that I'd given a ba

If the captain had displayed vulnerability, the other crew members would have felt safe enough to chime in. Emotions are necessary for decision-making. The idea that workplaces are emotion-free zones reflects the dominance of process work and our immersion in the performance mindset. It is a mode where decision-making is simply not part of the job.

This common mistake in organizations comes from treating all communications, orders, and information in the same way. Ideally, orders should follow the chain of command, but information should be able to flow freely throughout the organization.

The differences between redwork and bluework can be summarized in the table below.

REDWORK BLUEWORK

Avoid variability Embrace variability

Prove Improve

Do Decide

Repetitious Dissimilar

Blue collar White collar

Physical Cognitive

Individual Team

Homogeneity Heterogeneity

Production Reflection

Performance Planning

Process Prediction

Compliant Creative

Conformity D

The difference between doing and thinking can be described in several ways:

Our interaction with the world is doing.

Improving our interactions with the world is thinking.

Proving and performing is doing.

Growing and improving is thinking.

A focused, exclusive, driving, proving mindset is best for doing.

An open, curious, seeking, improving mindset is be

We don't use that word often in polite society, it's ugly. So we label it with other words like motivate, inspire, or collaborate. Often “collaborating" is really coercion in disguise. I've been guilty of this myself. You've probably done it, too.

Assume good intent. But if people are trying to make decisions that align with the organization's objectives, then we ought to trust them. Trust people first because your trust in them will affect their behavior. They will work harder, stay longer, and unlock more discretionary effort when they feel trusted.

The CEO of a public organization in Scotland told me how the group's business planning cycle occurred during the last quarter of the calendar year, which was also its busiest time of the year. So not only was it difficult to take people out of execution during this time, but none of the redwork performed during that last quarter, which might amount

The CONNECT play is the antidote to fear. Connect makes it safe to say what we see and think, even if no one else sees or thinks the way we do, even if we are not 99 percent sure that we're correct. Connect creates cultural conditions that encourage diversity of thought and variability of opinion. Connect is what allows us to move from paralysis to

TO MOVE FROM COERCION TO COLLABORATION

1. Vote first, then discuss.


2. Be curious, not compelling.


3. Invite dissent rather than drive consensus.


4. Give information, not instructions.