I was in a room full of mid-senior leaders recently, helping them do the work of building transformation projects for their firms. We use a playbook I’ve developed called Right Project, Right Team, Right Plan, which allows them to go from having a solid idea to a scalable plan.
With a plan in place, then we can get to the hard work of implementation.
The implementation of any plan in a firm takes significant effort and a crisp influence intent. Before we get too technical though, I needed to help the group go to work on one important leadership skill that goes unnoticed by many in business: how to get everyone working together on the same page in a way that minimizes internal conflict. To get perspective, let’s zoom way out to your own experience: when you’ve heard a message from a truly influential leader in your firm, what do you remember?
You may think about their “presence” and ability to fill the room with their voice. You may think about their clarity and ability to slice through the fog and get right to the point. You might also think about their directness and authenticity – or perhaps their bearing and authority.
And while all of these are valuable traits, there is one thing that is common across all great leaders that I work hard with our participants on: deliberate framing. Framing refers to the skill of choosing the right context and metaphor in communications. By carefully selecting common ground and a useful point of view, leaders establish mindset.
It’s easy for us to not give much thought to how we shape our communications, but our words really matter. By moving an item from “a quality issue,” to “we have put our client at risk,” changes the scope and emotion that leaders impart regarding how to think about an issue.
The Location of the Problem Anchor Separates Good from Great
When an organization grows to more than a few dozen people, something interesting happens: individual agendas begin to appear and be expressed. These viewpoints are not necessarily negative, just slightly different. However, as the firm continues to grow, we start to see subtle (at first) competition for resources in the firm. This includes budget, talent and management’s attention. By the time a firm gets to more than a hundred employees, this competition is in full bloom.
You learn a lot about the experience level of the leader by how these tensions are expressed. New leaders will frequently pivot to an “us vs. them” approach to internal problem solving. You hear things like, “you need to approve more budget for us,” without the corresponding payback discussion. As leaders gain experience, you’ll hear things like, “I think the economic shifts in tariffs are going to drive a need for a more efficient use of materials. “We need to apply more budget and here is how we’ll get a payback for the investment.”
Senior Influencers use a Different Approach
Leadership can never eliminate this internal competition (in fact one might argue that it actually strengthens the firm), but they can always reframe it. When you hear a powerful insight from a senior leader, consider carefully how and where they have framed the problem. In the above examples, all the issues were anchored internally. There is nothing wrong with this for transactional issues, but for areas of transformation, we need to get above the lose-win dialogue of internally-anchored discussions.
Effective senior leaders get everyone in the firm on the same side of the table by anchoring their remarks in tensions and shifts that are external to firm.
For example, in launching a new line of services in a traditional product-based business, we need to anchor the initiative solidly in the external shift towards investors now preferring “asset lite” models. This will keep the inevitable pushback from everyone from the sales teams to information services aligned with an external goal. By doing this, they anchor their insights to a common “enemy” outside the firm, which rallies all of us to get busy solving the problem at hand. This allows collaborative, cross-functional work to get to the best solutions.
It also creates a real “call to action” that becomes quite sticky and can help a firm make a big cultural move. Microsoft’s latest CEO has done this in spades by anchoring his remarks in concept, capability and culture that are relative to three segments: device management, security and productivity. Note that the three segments are anchored firmly in the needs of the customer. This allows the senior team to put their focus outside of the firm, thereby removing friction on the inside of the firm.
How to Get This Work Done
Think of your firm like the area inside the dotted line on a diagram. Within the dotted line, you have the most influence with people, technology, budgets and priority. While on the outside of the line, there are a cloud of challenges external to your firm that conspire to provide opportunity and challenges. Business analysts call this a PESTLE analysis, and what we want from it is the 3-5 key items that are relevant for our firms in our locations, at this time. A good facilitator will take you through the work of exploration and convergence as a group or board.
Once you have these areas identified, you can go to work on crafting the right language. This is an iterative process and needs to be tested and crafted with frequent feedback from the leaders in your firm.
Benefits
Once you’ve done this, you’ll be amazed at how the friction fighting you program begins to dissipate. When you use this in communications, it raises the stakes and moves beyond the day-to-day internal zero sum games.
It also acts like an elevator for the careers of the leaders that learn to do this well. It’s a very appreciated skill, and is table stakes to be in the room with the “big kids.” These leadership skills allow firms to unpack significant growth.
Lastly, it gives you and the team a strong message for your external stakeholders. You’ll find firms that are great community partners have done this work and understand how they work into their local and regional ecosystems.
Ready to Get Started?
Feel free to reach out via my direct line at (847) 651-1014 or use this link to set up a call.
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