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Erika Andersen
August 17, 2015
Frank* quite simply doesn t know what to do. The newly named CEO of a highly
regarded publishing company, Frank is a print guy through-and-through. He spent
twenty years working his way up through the editorial side, and is excited
about the challenge of bringing the company s great content into the 21st
century. In fact, he knows one of the reasons the board has chosen him to
replace the retiring CEO is his focus on finding new outlets and platforms for
the organization s wealth of content.
Now, though, he s sitting in a meeting of his direct reports and their direct
reports, and Anne-Marie, his head of digital, is talking about how they should
partner with social sites to syndicate their content in ways that could garner
both license fees and advertising rev-share and Frank has realized that he
doesn t really understand what she s talking about.
Should he ask a question that will reveal his lack of knowledge to his top 30
executives? Or should he say nothing and hope his gap in understanding doesn t
trip him up later in the meeting?
Being a CEO has always been a challenge: everyone looks to you for direction
and clarity, and it s your responsibility to set the tone philosophically and
practically for the entire organization. And your board and shareholders, if
yours is a public company, are expecting you to guide the enterprise to
sustainable financial success.
As if that weren t challenging enough, over the past decade it s gotten even
harder. The ever-increasing pace of change has brought with it the need to find
new ways of operating and the ability to understand and incorporate new
technologies on an almost daily basis.
Frank s dilemma arises out of this new pressure, and is common to almost every
CEO today: How can I demonstrate that I m capable of leading the company into
the future when there s so much I don t know? And how can I find out what I
need to know without looking incapable?
The good news is it s possible. We ve seen in our work with leaders that some
of the most highly respected CEOs and senior executives are also the best at
revealing their noviceness and opening themselves up to acquiring the
emerging skills and knowledge most necessary to their success. In fact,
research increasingly supports the idea that CEO openness to and about new
experiences is highly correlated with organizational effectiveness. Here, then,
are the keys to being successful as a novice when you re sitting in the big
chair:
Be great at the core of your job: My business partner is extraordinarily good
at what he does. I m impressed every day with how he builds relationships with
our clients and how he supports them to lead well and to be ready for the
future. Because I have such respect for him as a highly capable person, when he
says to me: I don t understand thing X can you explain it, or do you know
someone who can? I don t start assuming that I ve been wrong all this time,
and he s not really very good or smart after all I assume that this is why he s
so good, that he has built his expertise by being open to learning in areas
where he s not yet expert. If a leader starts by demonstrating that he or she
is excellent in many of the core skills and capabilities needed to lead, the
people surrounding that person will have confidence that he or she will be able
to learn the rest of what s needed, and will see that person s openness to
learning as a positive thing.
Recognize the inevitability of being bad first : Frank s hesitation to reveal
his lack of knowledge arises from a nearly universal human longing: we love to
be good at things. Especially once we get to be adults and have experienced
some level of mastery, we don t ever want to go back to being novices. Sadly,
though, every time we need to learn something new, we ll be bad at it when we
begin. That s just how it works. When you re attempting to understand or get
good in a new area of skill or knowledge, you re going to feel clumsy, make
mistakes, have to ask 101-level questions.
You can t change that reality, and given how quickly everything is moving now,
you can t avoid having to learn new skills. But you can make the process a
whole lot easier by simply accepting it; by telling yourself, I m going to be
bad at this for a while until I get good at it.
Recently I shared this approach with a client of mine who was having to learn a
new way to manage his company s supply chain and was both resistant to and
embarrassed by his lack of understanding. However, as soon as he was able to
shift his mindset into accepting being bad, he told me it was almost like
setting down a physical weight that simply acknowledging and accepting the
reality of his novice-ness made him feel immediately less pressured, more
capable and hopeful. He told me later that he felt as though the static in his
head had quieted down, and he was able to pick up on what he needed to
understand much more quickly than before.
Get good at being a novice in public: This is where the rubber meets the road
for a CEO. Having to show your noviceness in public when you re wanting to be
seen as a competent and powerful leader can feel awkward and even a little
scary. However, if you can be courageous enough to ask that first novice
question in public, I can almost guarantee you ll find your fears aren t
justified. You don t have to throw up your hands and admit you have no idea
what s going on. You just need to ask people to walk you through what they re
saying step-by-step.
For instance, our new CEO Frank might take a deep breath and say to his head of
digital, I m not sure I m following you could you explain that in a different
way? I m sure when he does, his heart rate will accelerate a bit, and he ll
wonder if he s made the right choice. But then she ll stop and say, Oh, sure.
It s what we ve found out from some of the one-off deals we ve done with
Facebook and HuffPo for our articles. How it works is Frank will listen and
understand, Anne-Marie will feel important and helpful, and the trust and
openness on his team will tick up a few micro-points.
In other words, nothing bad will happen and a number of good things will
happen. That will make it much easier for him to be bad the next time, and
the next. Word will get around that he s really interested in his people s
point of view and willing to learn from them, better conversations will happen,
and his employees will start to ask curious questions in their own meetings.
Learning in his organization will accelerate, and they ll be able to shift
their business in the fundamental ways that will allow them to succeed
long-term.
Erika Andersen is the founding partner of Proteus, a consulting, coaching and
training firm that focuses on leader readiness. You can keep up with Erika on
her blog or through her books.