It happens in all phases of life: we step out to take on a project and we get off to a great initial start…then the very next thing that happens is that we have a setback. In our personal lives, it may be a garage project that looked so easy when YouTube phenom April Wilkerson did it, but that just doesn’t go as well when we pick up the tools (I suspect those sticky bits hit the cutting room floor in editing).
These setbacks also happen in organizations – I call these moments “gumption killers.” They are the interruptions in the smooth road we envision between action and positive outcomes. While these are small impediments to our DIY life, in organizations they are a big deal.
These gumption killers come in all sizes. For instance, I worked on one project where we had a critical path need for some large precision zinc castings. A sand casting vendor said emphatically that they could meet the need – and you guessed it – they missed badly and added months to a critical program schedule. On the smaller side, it might be an outage on a key 3D printer or software tool.
In these roles, we are routinely called on to initiate and execute projects that involve completing a number of complex adaptive tasks that add up to success. Each of these moments of initiative, insight, discovery, and resistance has the possibility to stop our progress dead in its tracks.
To solve these items in our work life, we need a better way to unpack them based on how we are wired up individually to see the world and interact with it. For my work with growth leaders, I have developed the Complete Growth Leader framework that we apply to get us started on breaking these energy killers (If you are not familiar with the four styles, take a moment to click on the link above).
Getting a clear handle on our own viewpoints, and in turn, those of our teammates, is the key to solving these roadblocks together. Applying insights from this system gives us some concrete clues on how to address these stallers and stoppers. In addition to the direct clues, it gives us insight into how we get stuck and stay stuck.
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Leadership Style | Dominant Approach To Getting Stalled | Blind Spot |
Moving Beyond the Blind Spot |
| Architect | Pull: Use a strong, emotional appeal to create tension. Strategize and recast the vision. | If there is no emotional attachment, there is no progress. If no progress ensues, they back up and strategically plan again. | The key to keeping the Architect involved is to have them focus on any needed new or novel elements. The detailed work needs to move to the Anchor role. |
| Catalyst | Push: Take personal responsibility and go apply themselves to achieving the goal. | Sheer force is not enough in the face of large scale resistance. If no progress ensues, they will be tempted to do the same thing – just harder. | Catalysts just want to know what needs to be done – and little else. The key to engagement is to have short, action-focused interactions. |
| Anchor | Plan: Stop, study and deeply plan a new course. Discuss, meet and optimize the plan. | Analysis paralysis. Missing learning by trying to design the perfect low-risk approach. If they remain stuck, they will go even deeper into learning. | This group needs to have some space to think between discovery and solution. In the heat of problem-solving, be sure to have breaks that allow them to think. Encourage them to articulate the least risky path. |
The secret to unpacking these issues is realizing that we all see issues in a different way and have a dominant method as our “go-to” way of solving the problem. If we only advocate for our own method of solution, we can set up a loop of failure (as shown in the third column). Understanding this allows us to modify our approach and get things back on track. It takes one of the leadership styles to step forward and begin to break the gridlock and get the team moving.
The real magic emerges when we combine all three leadership styles to our issue and harmonize a solution based on them all. We can then powerfully pull through the issue and build our “team” muscles.
Building Resilience Into Your Firm
These frameworks can be very valuable to the groups and teams in your firm. Building this kind of insight into your teams usually starts with a workshop where we unpack each other’s leadership styles and then go through a variety of application exercises, custom chosen to unlock team performance.
If you’d like to explore this with me feel free to reach out to me at 847-651-1014, or put an appointment on my calendar with this link.
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