‘Nine Lies About Work’ blows apart orthodox notions of leadership

Many ideas and practices that are held as settled truths in the work context are deeply frustrating and unpopular with the very people they are supposed to serve. The authors of

Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall, believe that these settled truths are the reason fewer than 20% of employees report being fully engaged at work.

They explain with compelling clarity that many orthodox ideas and practices are wrong and misleading. “We could call these things ‘misconceptions’,” the authors explain, “but because they are pushed at us so hard, almost as if they’re being used to steer us away from the world as it truly is, we’ll call them ‘lies’.”

I will share only a few examples as many of the nine lies have sub-lies beneath them.

Companies expend much effort to achieve and project a culture that will attract and retain appropriate high-quality staff. This is premised on the assumption that people care which company they work for. Yet, except for very small companies, there really isn’t such a thing as a “corporate culture”. All corporations are multicultural. One need only consider the differences in the culture between the accounting, sales and production departments of a company.

The most important work experience, the one that not only attracts talent but retains it, is the team. The dress code or other signifiers may attract a certain type of person to join the company but it alone cannot retain the right person.

The team experience has large and lasting impact on how you do your work and it doesn’t require everyone to “believe” in it. Teams help us see where to focus and what to do.

Teams make work real and make homes for individuals. If culture aims for conformity to a core of behaviours, teams focus on the opposite. At their finest, they insist on the unique contribution of each member. A team’s great power is that only through it can we express our individuality at work, and put it to its highest use.

There are practical things you should do as a team leader. At all times be aware of how your people feel about working on the team. Then correct what is not right. Buckingham offers a tool to identify the following critical issues relevant to work engagement, based on research:

●

Nine Lies About Work,

Enthusiasm about the company’s mission;

Clearly understanding what is expected of one;

Being surrounded by people who share one’s values;

Having the chance to use one’s strengths daily;

Having teammates who “have one’s back”;

Knowing one will be recognised for excellent work;

Having confidence in the company’s future; and

Always being challenged to grow.

● ● ● ● ● ● ●

If you are running the company, never lose sight of the fact that the team leaders’ roles are the most important ones in any company. It is they who have the greatest influence on your teams for better and for worse.

Another “lie” is that the best plan wins, and that includes the strategy plan. As someone who makes his living from strategy formulation, I wholeheartedly concur.

People like plans because they provide an illusion of certainty at best, and a buffer against uncertainty at worst. They provide us with the illusion that we will walk out of the casino with the cash, just as Danny Ocean (George Clooney) did in

In the real world, even with a cunning plan and perfect team, one can, as easily as not, arrive in the vault, open the safe ... and find it empty.

“Plans scope the problem, not the solution.” The best plan does not win in reality. It is more effective to co-ordinate your team’s efforts in real time, relying heavily on the informed

Ocean’s Eleven. and detailed intelligence of each team member.

Providing your team with an intelligence system, rather than a planning system, allows team members to see and react to patterns and to decide for themselves. People are very smart when they are provided with accurate, real-time, reliable data about the real world in front of them.

So, what can the team leader do? Foremost is to liberate as much information as you possibly can. Then help the team to understand that frequently sharing what they know about the world is vital. Then identify what information your people naturally gravitate towards and over time increase its volume, depth and speed.

This requires that you trust your people to make sense of the data. You are not the best sense maker they are. It is so “20th century” to use subordinates to provide information and to have leaders issue the commands. In reality, those who are closest to the action almost always know more. “The best, most effective way to create clarity of expectations is to figure out how to let your people figure it out for themselves.”

Another “lie” is that both the team and the individual would benefit from getting each member closer to a wellrounded ideal. This is a “lie” because research into high performance in any profession or endeavour shows that excellence is idiosyncratic. Each high performer is unique, distinct and superb because he or she recognises this distinction and has cultivated it intelligently. Great team performance is a result of diversity magnified not sameness rewarded.

Whether one is well rounded or idiosyncratic seems to make no difference, if he or she excels somewhere.

The subtitle of this books is

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A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World.

It certainly is a catalyst to freethinking in business, if not the world.

Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on strategy and implementation.

Chains of command: The authors believe those who are closest to the action almost always know more.