Servant Leadership: Serve to Be Great

In our daily life, many of us have sometimes found that our individual efforts are not enough to find a solution or make a decision - that it is necessary to cooperate with our colleagues, friends or  family members. Such cooperation especially works well when you are experiencing some common challenges or have common interest in leveraging opportunities.  James Surowiecki in his book Wisdom of Crowds also reveals that a diverse collection of independently deciding individuals is likely to make certain types of decisions and predictions better than one person or even experts.

To overcome today’s social and business challenges are getting more complicated and require the power of collective intelligence by cognition (sensing), coordination and cooperation of a group of people. Getting more connected every day also provides more opportunities to enable the potential of aggregated knowledge, insight and expertise of a diverse group by enabling its members to communicate, visualize, and diversify in virtual environments.

According to Surowiecki, the intelligence of the crowd can fail when the group is homogeneous,  centralized, divided, imitating and highly emotional.

Prof. Oinas-Kukkonen, in his book Knowledge Management: Theoretical Foundations, captures the wisdom of crowds approach with the following eight conjectures:

1. It is possible to describe how people in a group think as a whole.

2. In some cases, groups are remarkably intelligent and are often smarter than the smartest people in them.

3. The three conditions for a group to be intelligent are diversity, independence, and decentralization.

4. The best decisions are a product of disagreement and contest.

5. Too much communication can make the group as a whole less intelligent.

6. Information aggregation functionality is needed.

7. The right information needs to be delivered to the right people in the right place, at the right time, and in the right way.

8. There is no need to chase the expert.

Enabling and elevating the intelligence of the crowd is a new critical role of Leadership besides visioning, influencing and establishing the trust of followers. To demonstrate leadership for collective intelligence, leaders need to:

• identify and build alignment around the potential benefits of cooperating to achieve the vision.

• inspire others to contribute their best cognition (sensing), coordination and cooperation

• create trusted environments where people can talk and think together across organizational boundaries.

• create space for new insights to emerge.

• catalyze creative thinking, innovation and wider perspectives among the people they lead.

• inspire coordinated action, rooted in common purpose and shared commitment.

• conceive, operationalize and facilitate transformational design.  

Dear Reader, the opportunities beyond collective intelligence are limitless and provide immense power for massive changes. With your leadership, you can enable the intelligence of a group in many situations, providing unique solutions to complex problems, and creating transformative innovative ideas,shifts of strategic thinking and cultural change.

What do you think? Is it worth a try?

As I type this , I am thinking of all the things I have to do, and how it would have been easier to try to sluff this commitment off to someone else.  But, that wouldn’t be fair, would it? Since I made a commitment to write a post for this blog, I feel I must keep it - unless disaster strikes. Especially when the blog is about leadership.

What message would I be sending my colleagues if I said no to a commitment they have all been living with for a year and which I made a year ago too? So what if I have to prepare a keynote address and a one-day workshop? So what if I am going on vacation and won’t be able to work easily while on the road? So what if I have constant demands on my time, and have an affliction in that I don’t want to say no to anyone?  

Well, as we all know, there comes a time when you do have to say no, especially if you know you are tapped out and have no more capacity. But you have to be very selective.

Should you say no to a long-held commitment like this Blog? No!

Should you say no to something that can wait for a month or two? Maybe...

Should you say no to something with a looming deadline where you run the risk of disappointing a lot of people or even embarrassing yourself or <gasp> both? No!

Should you say no to the offer of a new group membership that might pay dividends in long term, but will take some effort in the short term? Well, It depends, doesn’t it?

Should you say no to helping a family member with a critical health issue? Of course not!

Should you allow a protege to do something for you, especially when he/she may benefit by doing it for you, while freeing your time? Yes - of course!

So get your priorities straight and choose your “no's” carefully. Maintain your integrity. Know your capacity before you commit. And if sacrificing your personal time to meet important commitments is what it takes, get on with it!

When have you had to say no and wish you had said yes? When have you said yes and wished you had not (nothing personal, please!)?  What were the impacts? Tell us your story.

As most of you are aware, the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) defines Project Management as “the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements.”  After a summer of fun, I couldn’t help but think that while I manage projects in various areas in my business life, I am surrounded by successful Project Managers every day in my personal life, and so are others.  Each and every day you can pick up any newspaper and read a story about projects that were completed, but Project Management is often used as a “scapegoat”.  Sure, there are tons of successful projects and most are because Project Management was timely because the Project teams focus on meeting or beating cost, schedule, or scope.  But, it made me wonder why we fail so often at something we do so frequently.

So, back to my summer of fun.  I had the opportunity to do so many things with my family. Each and every summer I get to go to my favorite place on earth, Chatham, Massachusetts on Cape Cod.  I am fortunate to have a close group of family members who are able to join every year.  There are the usual 15-20 cousins, aunts, and uncles, but we also are lucky enough to have another 15-20 family members who come every few years.  Why am I telling you all of this?  It’s because I had an epiphany with regards to how much Project Management comes into play when this week comes around.  I thought it would be fun to look at the five process groups that entail Project Management Processes (Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring/Controlling, and Closing) and how they really make a successful trip.  

As an aside, my immediate family can identify with others living with a Project Manager, especially because of my usual PM focus, but there are occasions where it comes in handy.  To give you an idea of how far I have gone, a few years ago I created a spreadsheet for our Disney World visit.  You may laugh out loud or more than likely roll your eyes at this point, but I stand by my idiosyncrasies because my family each had requests of what they wanted to see and what they wanted to do. With some timely use of the processes I have learned through the years, everyone was able to see what they wished to see; be it a princess, a parade, or the Pirates of the Caribbean theme ride.

For those who don’t know about Chatham or Cape Cod, it can be treated like any other vacation spot and has tourist traps galore.  With upwards of 40 family members all vacationing at once, planning is of utmost importance to avoid those tourist traps.  So, on to the initiating phase.  There are a handful of us that have been coming here for over 35 years so we usually are the ones who focus on some of the requirements.  My older cousin and I usually are the ones who try to sort through all of these requirements since we are part of the original group.  However, it’s not to say that we make all of the decisions without input.  We need to make sure we take into consideration some of the constraints.  This includes pleasing the younger cousins who always have a say in where we go and what they want to see.  And there are also the older family members who may have some restrictions such as how mobile they are so care needs to be taken in where we go for some of the all-in family nights (bbq’s, beach nights, and dinner locations).  Meeting both the young and the old is always a challenge, but usually dictates the execution, or whatever the activity is, of each phase.

With the use of text messages, plain old sticky notes and scratched notes on sides of old newspapers, we are always able to monitor and control how things are going.  And one of the most efficient and relaxing ways of planning at the end of each night is to sit around a fire pit, roasting s’mores or enjoying ice cream and discussing not only how things went that day, but also looking ahead to the next few days.  For the newcomers, the veterans of our family vacation always give options based on feedback to try for the next day.  All of these Project Management tools come into play way more than I ever thought about.  And, with most project close outs it is done with handshakes, hugs and the soon to be patented, “Corcoran sendoff”.

So, what makes all of this possible each and every year with so many people?  It is due to the strength of family, but it is also due to the PM skills inherent in us as Project Managers.  We are able to successfully get the most out of vacation each and every time because of the process.  Sure, we don’t follow the PMBOK for each and everything we do in life, but it sure helps us all in areas that aren’t necessarily sitting at a desk or on a project site.  Next time you set out on a family vacation I implore you to think of this approach and see if it might help avoid some sad faces, just like you want to avoid those faces in your professional life.

In a complex and ever changing environment, would you trust someone who's answer is a definite "I know" or someone who said "I don't know" with a degree of certainty? Be a thinker. Ask "Why?"!

In an ideal world when everything is known, traditional Project Management (waterfall in the field of software development) and Command & Control authoritative style organizations may work (in the low trust and low ownership environment) for a while. Now, let's qualify that: everything is relative and it truly depends deeply on the experiences of the team, the objectives and the results one wishes to obtain.

Above the mundane, I advocate building The Agile Culture, Leading through Trust and Ownership (a book I highly recommended), practice principle based learning and distributed leadership (as in servant leadership, lead without a title and with self-organizing teams of professionals). The choice to serve and to lead is not something we do; it is an expression of our being.

I will share with you the valuable Trust-Ownership Model from The Agile Culture book mentioned above by Pollyanna Pixton, Paul Gibson and Niel Kickolaisen. Amazing things happen when you lead as an enabler, not manage as a controller.

Allow me to end with a quote from Lao-Tzu.

“Simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.”

― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

Let's see the world as a mirror reflection of ourselves and start with self-compassion, value diverse opinions, and as Skip Prichard had it: "Leading with Others In Mind".

May our world be full of magical moments when all involved treasure the experiences and become better servant leaders because of us!

Namaste.

European Soccer Championship ended recently. Leaving aside the flashy shows and the mediocre organisation, I was really puzzled by the difference in several teams’ behaviors. And this is not about their (sometimes boring) technical performance. This is, actually, related more to the (so-called) soft, human side of their achievements.

Let me tell a short story. More than 15 years ago during another European Championship, one of the qualified team was excluded (the name is not important) due to some political issues. . Officials replaced them with a runner up team from the qualifying stages. These guys were already on vacation, enjoying (literally) a really hot summer at the beach. They managed to get together in an unbelievably short period of time. But, their main goal for the Championship was basically to not make a fool of themselves. They had almost no training, they barely assembled a team of twenty young and not so famous players and, at the same time, they were tired after a very long season.

The first match was a disaster. They were butchered by the opposing team and showed a lot of weaknesses. Everybody was laughing and gave them no chances of winning even one game. But, they actually did it: they won the next one. And the next one. And the next one. And so the pattern continued.. They made it into the finals and...won the Championship! I repeat - with almost no training or practice games, with the smallest team of all teams in the competition and, most surprisingly, with young and obscure players. They managed to go against many odds and beat teams with a lot of notorious and famous members.

Many experts dissected and tried to explain this unforeseen success. Motivation, team spirit, strong desire - these were a few of the critical factors that were pushed as the foundation of the outsiders’ winning strategy. However, for me, something was missed or, at least, less explored. It’s related again to motivation and I saw it againat the recently-ended Championship.

The specialists credit as favorites for winning the tournament the teams with the biggest number of famous, skilled players. As soon as a national team has a lot of well-known, valuable players who won many international competitions (with their club team), it is automatically considered powerful and ready to win. Still, nobody is wondering if the team members can still be motivated and engaged.

They have everything - money, fame, prizes. They even won (take Spain example) a European and a World Championship. Even more, they come after long seasons, they want vacation and a large part of them are almost at the end of their prestigious career.

What strategy should the coach use in order to make that interior “engine” run one more time? “Money and fame” means little to these players. Transferring to another team? 90% of them already play or played at the biggest soccer clubs around the world. So, is there anything that can move them?

I could find only one answer - servant leadership. Helping others to grow, inspiring people, becoming appreciated and caring leaders - these might be (probably) the only triggers that would work in this situation. For mature, great players, the possibility of being servant leaders would ignite a big internal “fire”. They already have the tangible. They need the inner, intangible push in order to feel motivated. Hailing their authority (and not the power) will bring the desired thirst for fighting and winning every match again.

It might not be the only solution. But, we definitely should try it. I am pretty confident that we will move from “I need to be here” to “I want to be here” attitude. And then, for sure, we will have a more interesting tournament. Do you agree?