Mark Bonchek likens the shift in communication to a hosting a great dinner party: don't do all of the talking; instead, bring others into conversation.
Mark Bonchek Talks Doctrine and Decision-Making
Teams of Lone Wolves
I first started conceiving of misfits and misfit teams when I began to reflect on my own employment process. As an unusual, "over"-sensitive and intelligent kid with no siblings, I often balked at oversimplified directions, experienced a bruised ego when receiving criticism, and struggled with how to participate in team or group environments. By the time I entered the workforce, I had developed a complex web of insecurities and related defenses designed to protect against the embarrassment of making public mistakes, compensating with my intelligence. It was in my first management position, which happened at about the same time I was engaging in lot of personal development work, that I really saw the impact.
Healing the Wounds of the Assembly Line with Feedback Loops and Doctrine
Often, the focus on the ideal of the cross-functional, interdisciplinary, extroverted worker results in questions being asked which the average employee is insufficiently skilled to answer. In her book Quiet, Susan Cain cites the example of one of her research technical interviewees' recollection of a 'murder board,' a panel of decision-makers whom engineers had to face in order to get their new ideas considered for funding and other resources. One can imagine a hard-faced panel of besuited men tearing down the brilliant if meek engineer with the smug expressions of a young MBA grad: "What's your marketing plan!," they might shout, "
Autonomy and Acceptable Failures: The Need for Doctrine
Autonomy, especially in and around U.S. businesses, is a tricky concept. Autonomy is valued very highly in our culture, but the challenge of finding a way to hand off acceptable amounts of control takes a lot more work than most leaders or employees realize. Few companies have the patience or budget for mistakes which occur when a more-autonomous goes wrong, so they choose not to grant autonomy in the first place, or revoke it at the first sign of trouble. Understandably, the constant conflict of employees who need autonomy and leaders who need accountability plagues most organizations.
Doctrine: Downloading Wisdom for Agility and Effective Improvisation
Doctrine sits in between strategy and plans. It is more specific than the strategy, but also more versatile than plans, or rules. Think of it as heuristics, or guidelines: the purpose of doctrine is to enable an individual to know what to do in a situation that's consistent with the strategy and achieves the objectives of a plan, but with flexibility, with autonomy, for the individual, in the circumstance. And the creation of effective business doctrine, I believe is going to be critical for the transition of business in the next century.
Caring: The Missing Ingredient
I think the biggest missing ingredient for leaders is caring. At some point along the line, they stop caring—about their teams, about the company, about their customers, and it becomes a matter of just executing actions. I think when leaders reconnect with why they're doing what they're doing, the difference that it makes in the world and allow themselves to open their mind and their heart and take action based on those, that's when things really start to happen. Because it becomes inviting to people. That's what becomes open and transparent.