"Living" in the 'House of Excellence'
Landing the concept to tips of how to get to more practical...
A couple of weeks/issues ago here, I have presented what I call the "House of Excellence" - which is nothing else than a way to visualize, an adaptation with a story around, of the leadership model by L. David Marquet in his "Turn the Ship Around''. This started with me making sense of the model in my own head, with a metaphor, but I did start putting it to practice by using it to set the stage of what is my leadership model as I started my new gig in a new company, with (leading a) new team.
It was well-received to the point that this happened (and made me humbly proud as feedback and validation of what I am trying to achieve with investing the time to this blog/newsletter):
For convenience (so that you don't need to go back and read through the previous post - although I would recommend and be glad if you'd do that), here's a quick recap:
Stripped down context-related matters, at the essence and most universally applicable level, I would frame the goal of any individual, team or group of people as … dare and strive for EXCELLENCE!...
To get there… If we have to do ONE thing only, let that be: WE LEARN… That's the foundation.
We do that to achieve a more tangible goal, which can be defined as DISTRIBUTED CONTROL, which is a way of saying that we ambition to put decision authority as close as possible to where action is, because that is faster, more agile and sustainable (also more engaging for the people, by the way).. And that's like the 'roof' or the thing we need to sustain.
We need two pillars that help us to build up on top of the continuous learning in a more practical sense: COMPETENCE ( know how to do it) and CLARITY ( know why and context)
Putting it all together…
Now, at this point one could argue I've accomplished what I typically intend with my blog/newsletter, as the conceptual part is there. But hopefully you know why I call this The Conceptual Leader, and therefore you know that I believe in the powerful combination of theory that is put to practice, and that in fact real practical leaders are those that can navigate through new or different 'waters and territories'. And that requires conceptual thinking to make new connections and empirically learning new ways of doing stuff.
Hence, I figured it could be worthwhile to add a layer to the 'House of Excellence' story, which is to talk a bit about what can help to execute on that. So, here we are…
"Living in the 'House of Excellence' - practical tips"
Identify, highlight and appreciate (or redirect, if that's more the case) actions that are in line - taking the opportunity to reinforce, with daily habit, the language which is used in the model.
e.g., if someone seem to be operating in automated mode only, promote the use of deliberate action (such as asking to articulate why they are doing something in the way they are doing); or appreciating someone who brings an idea forward to the table of discussion, even if still in rough shape, or yet to be further evolved, in the best spirit of thinking out loud.
Over-communicate all aspects of context, purpose, objectives, etc., enabling the easy connection of what is being done with the bigger picture and the ecosystem of the broader organizaton.
Probe continuously to spot specifics that require clarification, or just more transparency, acting on them with context sharing, or documenting and formalizing what might be missing.
Incentivize the creation of a personalized development plan for each team member, as a mechanism to formalize some competence that is needed and currently missing.
Discover (meaning we have to experiment and see what is working best in our context) lightweight and uncomplicated ways of how to remember, assess and consolidate the most relevant learnings from the team in a given period, including from within as well as outside of it (i.e., learn from others).
This obviously is not meant to be a prescription in any way or fashion - I don't do those, because context matters and you have to figure out how to approach in your context and with your own ways of doing things. But I thought this could serve as food for thought and this is what is guiding my practice, what I am trying to do to get there.
I would be interested in knowing what you think about this… Both, in general, whether you'd agree with the proposition of daring and striving for excellence, whether the way I framed the model with the visualization and the story around it can be helpful to get there, or if you have any other ideas on how to execute on that.
Let's call it an "appetiser for thought" for now then!
by Rodrigo Sperb, feel free to connect (I only refuse invites from people clearly with an agenda to ‘coldly’ sell something to me), happy to engage and interact