In an organization, nothing starts a mad fit of eyerolling and quizzical looks among employees quite like management decrees. It’s not unlike the images we have of royal decrees being issues in olden times. From atop his tower, the king stands before his subjects and issues proclamations that often have little positive bearing on their lives (e.g., your taxes will be increased because I want to fight a war in a land you’ve never heard of – or – this is your new queen, now bow down and worship her). But hey…he’s the king and do any damn thing he likes because he’s the king (including repressing the local peasants who disagree with his claim to allmighty power).

Management decrees (oh alright, if it makes you feel better we’ll call them “decisions”) often come from the same thinking: “This is a good decision from my vantage point and employees will just need to accept it.” These decisions don’t need to be weighed against whether they make sense to the employee, whether they mesh with their day-to-day experience, whether they make their working lives easier. The employee is supposed to follow the orders because the individual proclaiming them is their king boss.

For a more modern day example, CNN reports the Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs are seriously contemplating the idea of creating a tobacco-free military. At a surface level, it sounds honorable and makes sense since so many VA hospitals cope with the fallout of tobacco-related illnesses. But dig a little deeper and it shows the same misguided thinking that is the hallmark of one-way managerial decision-making: As your boss, I know what’s best and while I may pretend to care about what you think, I really don’t care enough to listen. If the Pentagon did listen, these are the things they might actually hear:

“When you’re tired and you’ve been going days on end with minimum sleep, and you are not getting the proper meals on time, that hit of tobacco can make a difference,” said Gen. Russel Honore, who was in charge of the Army’s training programs before he retired.

Other soldiers questioned whether this was a good time to stamp out smoking, given the Army’s concern with a high suicide rate. “For some, unfortunately, they feel that smoking is their stress relief. Well if you take it away, what is the replacement?” said Sgt. 1st Class Gary Johnson.

(Note: Let me say that I’m not advocating smoking or tobacco use. I enjoy an occasional cigar with friends, but also fully know the health risks. I’ve had my share of relatives who’ve dealt with the connected illnesses such as cancer and emphysema. But if you haven’t noticed, this blogpost isn’t about tobacco…it’s really about the hubris of managerial decision-making.)

There is something to be learned from getting out from behind the desk, the clinical wording of studies and the blind paternalism that passes for managerial decision-making. Demanding and decreeing change will likely get you nowhere at best; it might just cost you respect and influence among your employees. Bring your people into the decision-making process and learn how decisions will interplay with their daily working reality. Your decisions will be more relevant and your chances of having filth flung at you during company meetings will be lessened.

Earlier this week, Michael Arrington at TechCrunch managed to get his mitts on some rather juicy inside information from Google. Turns out that the tech darling isn’t the career paradise that it’s been made out to be. For all the gushing that us outsiders did over their innovative benefits and employment practices, perhaps it was all just hyperbole. From the post:

One message stands out though in most of the posts – employees thought they were entering the promised land when they joined Google, and most of them were disappointed. Some of them wondered if it meant they were somehow lacking. One person sums it all up nicely:

“Those of us who failed to thrive at Google are faced with some pretty serious questions about ourselves. Just seeing that other people ran into the same issues is a huge relief. Google is supposed to be some kind of Nirvana, so if you can’t be happy there how will you ever be happy? It’s supposed to be the ultimate font of technical resources, so if you can’t be productive there how will you ever be productive?”

There are some cautionary lessons to be extracted from this if you’re not only on the hook for your organization’s employer branding but employee engagement.

The reality doesn’t match the expectation. This is a failure of the brand to deliver the expected experience. Consumers rail against companies that deliver poor brand experiences, particularly when the brand has been hyped to the nth degree (e.g., Chevrolet, Sprint, Microsoft Vista). So, why does employer branding get a relatively free pass?

Individuals wanted to work for Google because it was supposed to be different than the norm, had innovative benefits, promoted a fun workplace, etc., etc. Turns out that maybe these were a clever facade masking a workplace and company that were just humdrum. If you want to sell the sizzle, that steak better not come out limp and soggy.

Professional failing is personal failure. It pisses me off when I hear stuff like this. Why? Because there’s a hellacious management problem here that no one is apparently trying to resolve. If a manager is going to wear the big hat and call him- or herself a leader, they better start with making sure that their people are getting what they need to be – and feel – successful. If an employee is struggling with their work, you better believe that’s likely going to get internalized as a “personal” problem. It’s a one-way ticket to not only poor engagement but a morale freefall.

When the going gets tough, uniqueness gets crushed. Yeah, I know…it’s tough out there for business. I get it. Now get over it. Everybody’s impacted so don’t think for a second that you’re special (hell, even Microsoft is laying folks off). So rather than curl up in a ball do something that none of your competition is likely thinking about right now: become even more unique and remarkable. Trust me, your competitor is hoping you’ll lay low like them. Instead, do something that will make their management wet themselves. Actually engage in employer branding. Build a workplace model where the people you have are doing their best not because they’re scared to death they’ll lose their job tomorrow if they don’t, but because they genuinely care about their work and their organization. Go out and look for the talent that’s looking for a place to make a difference (there’s plenty of good folks out there now).

Don’t waste this perfectly good opportunity. Be a leader, show some guts, and build something special when no one else appears to be doing it.

As a leader, do you expect faith from those who follow you? Do you reward that faith by continuously fulfilling the promise of things you say you’ll do? Or do you constantly expect your people to believe in you without doing the hard work of following through on commitments? Think hard about this because it’s your integrity and effectiveness that’s on the line.

It always amazes me when I see individuals in positions of leadership assume that their position affords them a never-ending surplus of good will and trust from their people. They get caught in the trap of thinking that their position bestows on them an ordained authority. It’s the same authority that drives the mentality of “I’m the boss, now respect me and do as you’re told.” In this form, the rights of leadership are not earned but always taken. All of which is really just another form of arrogance that creeps into the workplace.

I’ve always liked Covey’s metaphor of the bank account. New leaders coming into a team, department, division, and company are given a starting balance. It’s then up to the leader to manage their bank account of trust, faith, and follower commitment effectively. Yet, too many leaders quickly put themselves into the negative side of the balance sheet (for which – if we were truly talking about their ability to manage P&L in such a way – they’d be tossed into the street).

If you’re unsure of where you stand with the folks you lead, carefully observe the looks on their faces. Do they appear ready to follow or do they doubt you? Listen carefully to your own words. Do you find you have to say “Trust me” or “Be open-minded” when talking about initiatives? If you find commitment from others around you waning or already at the bottom, don’t be arrogant and believe that the problem is “out there” with them. Take a good long look inside and see that you’re a bankrupt leader. Remember, when you lead with no followers, you’re merely walking somewhere alone.

This past week, I had a brief twitter dialogue with Shannon Seery Gude (@seerysm) who was wondering how to get teams to track their time spent on projects. For anyone who has ever had to track time, you know it can be a laborious and unsavory administrative task. And worse, it can be frustrating busy work if you feel that your time-capturing efforts don’t serve a useful purpose.

At the root of her question was one that challenges managers and consultants every single day: how do I get individuals to change their behavior and do what I want?

My response: “teams track time when they understand the reasons and meaning…no one wants more silly busy work…appeal to their self-interest.” This deserves some unpacking, particularly since two different angles are contained in this one suggestion.

Angle #1: The manager or team lead helps the team understand why time tracking is important to them and how they use it to make decisions, keep the projects on target, bill clients, etc.

Angle #2: The manager or team lead helps each individual on the team understand how time tracking benefits that individual in some way, either now or in the future. It’s the self-interest that’s embodied in the familiar question, “What’s in it for me?”

Which of these angles do you think will work? Actually both. It’s important for a team to understand why something is important. But it’s self-interest that will ultimately help change the behavior of the individual. Every leader needs to understand that people commit to actions that matter the most to them, not to their managers or companies. Consider this bit of wisdom from Dwight D. Eisenhower: “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”

It works upward, as well. If you’re a manager who hopes to get senior management to agree to a new idea or sign off on a pilot project, the first question you need to pose to yourself is, “What’s in it for them?” and present accordingly. Way more often than not, they’re not going to agree to put organizational resources into something new because they feel altruistic; they’ll do it because they see the benefit to them.

If you’re concerned that this feels like manipulation, selling out, or being inauthentic, it’s not. Marshall Goldsmith argues that this is “natural law” and writes in August 2008 issue of Talent Management:

None of us has to apologize for appealing to self-interest. It’s the way of the world, and it isn’t as black and white as selfishness vs. selflessness.

If you want for someone to do what you want them to do, remember there’s no such thing as mind control (though we all secretly pine for the ease it promises). You’ll get more buy-in if you introduce the bigger picture of why something is important and then integrate with how an individual will benefit – based on their values not your own – to be a part of it.

Managers, when it comes to your employees where does professional development rank in your list of priorities?

A. It’s vitally important and I discuss it frequently
B. It’s important but don’t talk about it much
C. It’s not important – or – there are more important things to focus on

If you answered ‘A’ above…congratulations! Keep on doing what you’re doing. However, for all you folks who answered ‘B’ or ‘C’, let’s have a friendly chat, okay? I won’t lay a guilt trip on you (okay…try not to) and I promise by the end you’ll come away with a new appreciation for why growing your employees is important.

When I work with managers, I often hear four common reasons for why professional development gets pushed to the backburner:

Good Ol’ Fashion Fear of Change
Perhaps the greatest fear expressed is that if you grow someone, you’ll grow them right off your team or out of your organization. That might just be true. When people grow as professionals, they do change…and change can bring fear. In this case, it’s the fear of changes in the environment. There might also be a fear that if the employee leaves you just paid for growth that will benefit another organization and not your own.

So, what if you grow an employee and they leave? As Jamie Notter once pointed out, think of it this way: what if you don’t grow them and they stay?

What you can do: It’s time to confront this fear and realize that professionals must hone themselves or else they become dull and rather useless. If the employee stays, they’ll be far more useful to your organization’s purpose. Yet if the employee leaves, you can still take pride in the fact that you helped them move on to something important. And here’s an often ignored bonus: you now have a potentially new social link to another organization in order to share ideas and experiences.

Not Enough Time or Resources
This usually follows with, “When things settle down and get less crazy, then I’ll be able to give more focus to professional development.” Here’s the problem with that statement: it’s never going to get less crazy than it is now. If anything, it’s just going to get crazier.

What you can do: Stop finding reasons for not making disciplined time or resources available around professional development for your people. If time is the reason, create ways for your employees to make time (e.g., move some lower priority tasks off their plate to make room for professional development). If resources are the reason, it’s time to evaluate where you spend your money. If you don’t see professional development as an investment in your company’s future success, there may be something there to reflect on further.

We Have Bigger Problems to Solve Right Now
See above. Again, it comes down to priorities. Also, ask yourself this: Would growing the skills, experiences, and knowledge of our employees help us solve this problems more effectively?

It’s the Employee’s Responsibility
Managers, if this is your belief we need to work on changing that now. Here’s a simple question: what is your role in your organization? Take a few minutes to reflect on this. Hopefully, somewhere in your response, the word lead appeared. If you are a leader, know that a key responsibility of leaders is to produce more leaders. That takes a firm belief in the value of growing your employees.

What you can do: Assume the responsibility for growing your people. Yes, it’s the employee’s responsibility to be open and eager to achieve their own development (it’s the old horse and water thing). Yet, you must create these professional development openings and then create the space for your employees to use what they’ve learned. Going back to the first issue around the fear of employees leaving…if an employee has the ability to grow and use this new growth in their work, they’ll likely be far happier and fulfilled in what they do.

Remember managers…if your employees look good, then you’re going to look good. The manager/employee dynamic can be a mutually beneficial relationship…particularly if you take care of your employees and their need for professional development.

This weekend, I took Katie and Leah to one of the many local parks here in Austin. The brilliant thing about our city parks are the really neat playgrounds…and on weekends, there are always a gaggle of kids enjoying the freedom of playing. As I watched, it occurred to me (with a little help from Jason) that there is a lot we can learn about relationships – and in many cases relearn – from observing how kids interact with each other.

1. Lack of judgment
Watch kids play and first thing you notice is that there is a lack of personal judgment taking place. When a new boy or girl enters the scene, they don’t fret and wonder how this fellow player is going to add to their social circle. They don’t worry if hanging around with them is going to build or kill their cred as someone cool or hip. They don’t get hung up in a bunch of the social tangles that we create everyday. The only question they have is whether they want to have fun and play.

2. Sometimes you need a buddy
While kids can go off and play by themselves, they know that the teeter-totter doesn’t work very well with just one rider. And the merry-go-round works way better when someone else helps push. Listen for the laughter on a playground and you’ll likely see a group of kids enjoying the heck out of themselves – together

3. Free to begin, free to leave
There’s no planning, no exchange of business cards, no tearful goodbyes (well, only when you have to actually leave the playground). Kids live In the moment. They’re single-mindedly focused on swinging higher, sliding faster, climbing farther. When a friend leaves, another friend may enter.

4. Sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow
Notice that there’s never one person ordering others to go push them on the swings or spin them on the merry-go-round. There’s just a mutual sense of helping. And if someone’s hogging all the fun, they get left behind pretty quickly. That built-in sense of fairness means that there’s always a fluid agreement of leadership and followership.

5. It’s all about sharing the experience
For kids, it’s the fun of being together and enjoying the companionship and fellowship of others. There’s an acknowledgement that discovery is better when you can share it with someone else.

If all of this is true, what happened? Unfortunately, we went through that crazy mixed up time called adolescence. We were bombarded by all sorts of messages about what’s cool and hip and dorky and childish. Most of us figured out that some pretty good defensive armor was necessary to survive the hallways of middle and high school. Then, as adults we never stopped to check whether these things we learned during these tough times still work. If we did, we’d recognize that they don’t.

No worries. The cool thing is that as adults, we now have the maturity and insight to come back around to the lessons we intuitively knew on the playground. So, next time you find a playground inhabited by some fun-loving kids, sit down and just observe. And think about how you can bring some of these lessons that may be locked inside of you back out into your work and life.

Any other playground lessons to share?

Want to know the power of a system? Consider this…if you place a good manager within a bad system, they will founder nine times out of ten. Same goes for individuals; a bad system will dilute a superstar employee’s potential. Yet, how many times are we willing to give up on, demote, or release an individual rather than take a good hard look at our own systems? Right…I thought so. Perhaps because it’s easier to level the blame on a person than do the more intensive work of analyzing and overhauling a system that’s ineffective or downright bad. But by focusing on individuals rather than systems, managers maintain the idiotic charade that makes it look like they’re being proactive by rooting out the crappy people when in reality they’re just reapplying lipstick to the pig.

In Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths and Total Nonsense, Jeff Pfeffer and Robert Sutton write that systems trump individual effort on a regular basis. They argue that “bad systems do far more damage than bad people, and a bad system can make a genius look like an idiot. Try redesigning systems and jobs before you decide that a person is ‘crappy.’”

What are examples of bad systems? Here’s one that plagues non-profits and for-profits alike: silos. I’ve personally witnessed innovative and resourceful individuals rendered ineffective within a siloed organization. Yet, when it was time for the annual review (there’s another example of a bad system), these individuals had to take the lion’s share of the blame for their performance failings. It’s rather like giving a racer a Ferrari and then telling them to perform at their highest level on a dirt and gravel track.

So, then these individuals are labeled as crappy people, the kind you want to figure out how move off your team or out of your organization. But here’s the thing…that outlook will never lead to anything other than mediocrity in your organization. Consider again what Bob Sutton wrote a couple of years ago on the subject:

The worst part about focusing on keeping out crappy people, however, is that it reflects a belief system that “the people make the place.” The implication is that, once you hire great people and get rid of the bad ones, your work is pretty much done. Yet if you look at large scale studies in everything from automobile industry to the airline industry, or look at Diane Vaughn’s fantastic book on the space shuttle Challenger explosion and the well-crafted report written by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, the evidence is clear: The “rule of law crappy systems” trumps the “rule of crappy people.”

If you’re a senior manager and all of this sounds achingly familiar, don’t despair…let’s improve the system. Begin doing something that most organizations don’t do which is take a holistic and deep-penetrating assessment of your people-systems.

• Review your organization’s structure. Is your organization siloed or structurally ineffective?
• Review your organization’s social networks. Do your employees have quality relationships with others outside of their working groups? Do they know how to communicate effectively, have constructive conflicts, and build new connections?
• Review your organization’s knowledge management infrastructure. Can your people access other individuals easily and openly? Can your people access not only the knowledge of others but expertise that may exist outside of the job description?
• Review your organization’s learning systems. Do your employees know how to learn and share that learning in ways that benefits others in the organization?

These four assessment points of your people-system signal just the beginning of change. There’s still much to do to initiate and follow-through with the changes…issues to be addressed in future posts (or contact me for how I can help your organization). But the next time you rant about the underperforming employee or underachieving team, think first about the systems that got them there.

A little while back at the Employee Engagement Network, David Zinger posed a question to the group about important engagement statistics. He writes:

In an interview about the book StrengthsFinder 2.0 for the Gallup Management Journal, Tom Rath discussed the strong link between a leader’s focus and employee engagement. Here were the 3 powerful conclusions from Gallup’s research on conversation, engagement, and strengths:

If your manager primarily ignores you your chances of being actively disengaged are 40%
If your manager focuses on your weaknesses your chances of being actively disengaged are 22%
If you manager focuses on your strengths your chances of being actively disengaged are only 1%

The point of the statistics is to show the importance of management focus on employees’s strengths rather than their weaknesses. Makes sense. But, I guess the surprise for me is that (only?) 40% are disengaged if their manager ignores them. There’s probably some nuances behind this stat, but it does make you wonder who that other 60% is doesn’t it?

Being flat-out ignored by a manager or executive decision-makers unfortunately does happen far more than it should. However, my guess is if you’re a manager and you’re here reading this, you don’t fall into this rogue’s gallery of emotional unintelligence and leadership incompetence. But even the best managers can fall prey to some forms of ignoring her or his people. Each of these ignoring actions can contribute to a feeling of employee invisibility:

Not acknowledging contributions
Individuals want to know that their contributions are seen and appreciated. It always amazes me that so many organizations undercommunicate the genuinely positive experiences of its employees. And sorry…a generic, “Way to go!” doesn’t cut it. Be direct and be specific in what you say.

Not recognizing expertise
For many managers, expertise is only applicable if it’s directly related to an employee’s immediate work (a marketer’s expertise is marketing, an accountant’s expertise is in accounting, and so on). But only seeing and valuing this one-dimensional resume expertise can be discouraging. Managers need to take the time to learn about the expertise that exists outside their employees’s normal everyday work. It could be that your organization’s next great breakthrough may come from an unlikely place…but you’ll never know if you don’t ask.

Not seeing the individual worth
This is really about seeing someone only at the surface and in the plural form. It sees “people” but ignores the “person.” It’s the manager who walks by an employee’s desk and says “hi” but never stops to actually get to know him or her. Stop with the small talk and take the time to ask more interesting and powerful questions that can help you get to know your employees better.

As Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey write in How The Way We Talk Can Change The Way We Work (and if you haven’t read it, do yourself a favor and buy yourself a copy):

We all do better at work if we regularly have the experience that what we do matters, that it is valuable, and that our presence makes a difference to others. We may know in our hearts that what we do matters, but it is certainly confirming to hear the words from others. We do not, after all, work and live in a vacuum. Believing that what we do and how we do it make a difference can also lead us to take additional care in performing our work.

The good news is that each of these are quickly remedied with some careful self-awareness. And if you’re still not sure whether you’re fully seeing your employees, take the courageous path and ask.

At first, I was just going to make a short comment at Ben Martin’s blog on his latest post concerning organizations and branding. Yet, the more I thought about it and started writing I realized this is a blog post in its own right. Putting aside the dialogue on marketing, the central theme of the post is the organization as a monolithic or holographic entity. Now if you’re thinking, “I’m not interested in organizational theory and similar crap, why should I care?”…give me a second and I’ll show you why this may matter to your everyday working life.

Organization as monolith (aka no one is the organization)
This is the old-school version that no matter how much folks try to kill it, it just won’t die. It’s a vestige of our industrial society past where the top controlled everything and the workers underneath were just happy to not have their arm chewed off by the machinery that day. This concept was further set in stone with the idea of the blindly loyal organization man. In this case, the worker and newly formed middle manager were just happy to not have their head chewed off by the boss that day.

Unfortunately, the monolith as organizational model hasn’t passed into history despite the increasing evidence that it no longer serves a purpose to either the individuals working within it or the folks on the outside who purchase its services and products. How do you know whether you’re working for or dealing with a monolithic organization? Here are a few clues:

• The monolith talks at people
• The monolith sees people as things
• The monolith sets rules above relationships
• The monolith creates narrowly defined roles for people

If you see something strongly resembling an engineering mindset here, that’s not by accident. The monolithic organization is built around notions of efficiency, practicality, economy, and order. These are precisely the kinds of things that folks at the top of organizations want because they believe it makes their jobs easier. All of which is pretty much crap.

Organization as hologram (aka each person is the organization)
For us organizational leaders who understand that the 21st century calls for a different paradigm, we’re driving the movement from the concept of one to concept of the many. The power and control that used to be jealously guarded at the top is being dispersed downward and sideways to the point where the whole fixed hierarchical dynamic has become blurred and increasingly useless.

Rather than viewing an organization as a bland, uniform, static structure, consider the organization as a hologram. Within a holographic image, each section contains a complete image of the original object. So the real beauty of the holographic perspective is acknowledging that the organization is a vibrant collection of all the individuals within it. It recognizes that each individual is fully reflected in the whole. The organization is the individual and the individual is the organization. The interests of each individual and the organization are interconnected and interdependent.

This approach offers a more human organization. Coming back to the marketing and branding conversation that got this whole subject started for me, it means that there’s not one message but scores of messages that define the organization. Each person brings their own stories and relationships to the anthology that is today’s organization. And these stories evolve as the people within the organization learn, grow, and change.

Let’s recap…
If your organization is monolithic, what’s that getting you right now? Employees who give a damn about their work? Doubtful. Customers who want to buy from you? Maybe. Customers who are passionately loyal? Probably not. Just keep asking yourself what’s the price of control and what will it cost you to keep a tight hold on something that is only going to slip through your fingers eventually?

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Chocolate and Peanut Butter

Moe, Larry and Curly

And so on, and so on…

Each of these are fine on their own. However, when one is added to another, a great alchemical melding occurs. It’s the integration of unique things into something quite different.

Too many times we limit ourselves and our choices by placing an ‘or’ between our options. Why not choose an ‘and’ instead? Because it’s just not that easy to do, particularly in the world of management and business. We like our options to be neat, our decisions to be orderly, our outcomes to be quick and well-defined. Yet this more logical and rational preference costs us more than we realize. It cheats us of our potential. Do you think Moe would be half as hilarious if Curly wasn’t there? And while chocolate is very good, the addition of peanut butter takes it to a whole other level (okay, that may just be for me).

I used to be an ‘or’ kind of guy. If someone gave me a choice between chocolate or vanilla ice cream, I’d make a rational choice between the two options. Then my dear wife entered my life and introduced the power of ‘and.’ When presented the same choices, she’d always reply, “Both.” The first few times she did it, I would say, “Wait, you have to make a decision.” Her response? “Why should I? I like both and they taste better together.” Guess what? She’s right. And by choosing an integrative solution she’s modeling a process that is essential in today’s business world.

One of the most influential articles I’ve read in Harvard Business Review was from the June 2007 issue and titled How Successful Leaders Think by Roger Martin. The article is a prelude to his book, The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking, coming out in December 2007. His primary argument is built around the idea of an opposable mind. Like the genetic advantages we gain through our opposable thumbs (like holding a pencil, lifting large stone blocks, and catching a ride with strangers), we have an immense capacity to create new options through an opposable mind. Yet, we often veer toward the shallow compromises of an ‘or’ decision because of the mirage of comfort it yields. Martin writes:

We often don’t know what to do with fundamentally opposing and seemingly incommensurable models. Our first impulse is usually to determine which of the two models is “right” and, by the process of elimination, which is “wrong.” We may even take sides and try to prove that our chosen model is better than the other one. But in rejecting one model out of hand, we miss out on all the value that we could have realized by considering the opposing two at the same time and finding in the tension clues to a superior model. By forcing a choice between the two, we disengage the opposable mind before it can seek a creative resolution.

The next time you’re presented with two or more options, don’t be too quick in choosing one over all the others. Take a bit more time to play with the healthy tension between the ideas and follow the steps that Martin offers:

1. Start by acknowledging that everything is relevant at the beginning. Rather than quickly dismissing what seems trivial or unnecessary, welcome the complexity of the situation. It’s from this place that the best answers will emerge.
2. Consider how things are connected. Instead of choosing a path and immediately racing in one direction, take a step back and look at the whole situation. Find relationships, question assumptions, get curious about other possibilities.
3. Take a systemic approach to making a decision. Martin suggests that we see “the entire architecture of the problem – how the various parts of it fit together, how one decision will affect another…The order in which you make these decisions will affect the outcome.”
4. Achieve resolution by refusing the simple and segmented “either/or” model which only leads to compromised trade-offs and conventional options. Appreciate the natural tensions between conflicting ideas and seek a solution that creatively assembles the best of each option.

Yes, this might appear to be more difficult and more time-consuming. But if you truly want to differentiate yourself, your team, or your organization, then do something that few others are willing to do. When a problem arises today, get curious and wonder, “Wow! what would it be like if we put these different things together?” Don’t be surprised if it leads to some interesting solutions.

If you’ve seen the power of ‘and’ in your decisions, start a dialogue here and share your story.