🐩 What a scene from 101 Dalmatians tells us about what your organization looks like
Published about 1 year ago • 8 min read
Hello and Happy Monday!
What do you do when your principles are in tension with each other?
I’ve been doing hill running every Friday throughout this calendar year, and I honestly hate it every time. I do it because it serves my goals, but the act of sprinting up a hill for 50 seconds multiple times isn’t awesome.
My wife suggested I change it up so I don’t hate it so much. My initial thought was resistance - I can’t change my commitment!
But then I let myself get curious about the suggestion. I realized that the resistance and curiosity were because my principles were competing with each other.
One the one side I had: - I do hard things. - I meet my commitments.
On the other side I had: - I explore and experiment with a sense of adventure. - I adjust things that aren’t working.
So, how to proceed?
What ultimately guided me was realizing that I don’t have infinite willpower. That bucket of willpower is drained every Friday at hill running time. Rather than fight this willpower battle for the rest of the year, I will pivot into something more sustainable.
So I went outside and designed a new workout. I chopped off the front and back of the run and focused on the steep middle section. I cut down my sprint time from 50 seconds to 20 seconds. I increased the repetitions from four to eight.
The result?
I had fun. My times were more consistent (I used to get so gassed by the end of the long sprints 😓) and I needed shorter rests. I’ll look forward to this now!
I actually have no idea which workout is better for my goals, but I figure that even if the new workout is “worse,” a less effective habit I adhere to is better than the best one that I don’t.
Have you ever experienced a tension in your principles? What was that like? How did you resolve it? Send me that story at heykev@kevinnoble.xyz.
Kevin
A Quote
“
Every time an employee works hard to make a change or to propose a new idea only to be met with bureaucracy, indecision, or apathy, the culture suffers. Every time an employee is recognized or rewarded for pushing the company forward, the culture strengthens.
— Ben Horowitz in "What You Do Is Who You Are"
Three Things
1 - ▶️ Claire Hughes-Johnson on Running Effective Staff Meetings - I liked her recent podcast episode with Tim Ferriss and then sought this video of her talking about staff meetings. I’ve been the leader of, and participant in, poor staff meetings and was curious to hear her perspective. I liked this heuristic; if your staff meeting isn’t working well, your team is likely not working well.
2 - 🐘 One Step Closer to De-Extincting the Wooly Mammoth - It’s fascinating to me that we might eventually have the technology to bring back species that have previously gone extinct. There are a lot of philosophical and ethical considerations in applying this technology we’ll have to wrestle with. And why the wooly mammoth? Sounds like it’s an attempt to mitigate global warming. The grazing habits of the mammoth encourage grasslands, which allows permafrost to penetrate more deeply into the ground and sequester carbon more effectively.
3 - 🎨 Improved Text Editing with AI Images - AI image generation is notoriously bad at rendering text. Storia’s Textify service focuses on improving this specific element. Sharing in case you need a solution to this problem!
Deeper Dive on Your Org. Looking Like You
There’s a scene in the 1960s Disney movie, “One Hundred and One Dalmatians,” where the main dog, Pongo, is thinking about getting a mate for his owner. He looks out of the window of their apartment and sees a series of women and their dogs walk by.
Each dog and their owner look alike.
Scenes from Disney's "One Hundred and One Dalmatians"
This same thing happens in business all the time. A leader’s organization looks like them. This can give your org. large blind spots and weak points, but you can also use this idea to amplify your impact.
Using Microsoft as an Example
Microsoft’s three CEOs illustrate today’s idea well.
Bill Gates - This Microsoft was extremely competitive, technical, with high intellectual rigor - just as Bill Gates himself was. It was also not very hierarchical, with Bill Gates communicating throughout the company via email - he’d even respond quickly to non-employees who emailed him.
Steve Ballmer - This Microsoft was sales-oriented, still competitive but less technical, and turned more hierarchical - just as Steve Ballmer himself was. They missed out on several technology trends.
Satya Nadella - This Microsoft is empathetic, collaborative, with a growth mindset - just as Satya Nadella himself is. Microsoft’s performance has soared in the last decade under his leadership.
"Our culture had been rigid. Each employee had to prove to everyone that he or she knew it all and was the smartest person in the room. Accountability—delivering on time and hitting numbers—trumped everything. Meetings were formal. Everything had to be planned in perfect detail before the meeting. And it was hard to do a skip-level meeting. If a senior leader wanted to tap the energy and creativity of someone lower down in the organization, she or he needed to invite that person’s boss, and so on. Hierarchy and pecking order had taken control, and spontaneity and creativity had suffered as a result."
I’m sure you’ve seen or experienced other examples throughout your career. A new boss comes in and changes how the team works. You move companies and the new one feels totally different.
For good or for ill, leaders have a huge influence on the orgs they run.
But what are some of the reasons why that’s true?
You hire people like you
Try as they might, leaders often hire people like them. There are a few biases that make this hard not to do.
Similarity-Attraction Bias - We’re attracted to other people who share our personality, attitudes, values, and interests. In hiring we’ll be more inclined to make an offer to someone similar to us.
Confirmation Bias - We have a tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information that supports our existing beliefs. In hiring we’ll favor candidates who confirm our beliefs about the “right” way to work and think.
Overconfidence Bias - We tend to overestimate our ability to judge the character and potential of others. This, combined with the previous two biases, means leaders tend to confidently assert their perspective in the hiring panels.
Since in most organizations the leader has the final say in hiring, these biases push leaders toward an org. that looks like them.
You give the same feedback to others that you’d give yourself
After you’ve hired people who are like you, you start coaching them to be more like you.
The quote below explains this very well; leaders give feedback to others based on what feedback they would give to themselves.
"It is said that all advice is autobiographical, and this, in part, is what is meant. We interpret what we see based on our own life experiences, assumptions, preferences, priorities, and implicit rules about how things work and how one should be. I understand your life through the lens of my life; my advice for you is based on me."
This makes sense. We give guidance and advice to others to help them succeed. In order to do so, we use our own memories and experiences to suggest ways in which other people can be similarly successful.
The byproduct of this type of coaching and feedback is that the org. is being taught to behave and act like the leader. This feedback and advice is passed on throughout the org.
Jeff Bezos at Amazon didn’t like presentations, so they created the 6-pager method. Everyone who presented information to Jeff needed to put it in this format. Before you knew it, the entire org. is presenting to each other in this format - even if Jeff isn’t there.
Alright, an org. tends to look like its leader. What can you do to prevent that - or leverage the fact that it’s happening?
Hire people different than you
Work hard in the hiring process to mitigate those biases I mentioned earlier. Look for people who are different than you.
Not that you are bad, of course - just that unconsciously hiring your doppelganger isn’t a good path to success. It makes your org. fragile. and magnifies your blind spots and weak points.
You want to be consciously looking for the skills, behaviors, approaches, and techniques that make your collective org. achieve success - even if those things are different than your own.
The one caveat here is that you’ll want core values and characteristics to be constant and, presumably, like you. If those things are different than you, you’ll achieve chaos, not strength.
Be careful giving autobiographical advice
In giving coaching and advice, be mindful of whether you’re giving “autobiographical” advice. Usually this kind of advice falls into the ‘how’ of work.
There are many routes to a destination. Just because you’d take one path doesn’t mean everyone else needs to.
There are many valid paths to a destination.
Hold people accountable for the results you’re looking for, but let them explore different pathways to get there.
Watch who you promote
An org. looking like their leader can be something used to your benefit, or detriment. Be careful who you promote into leadership positions!
When promoting a leader in your org. be really mindful of their behaviors as those will be amplified in the org. under them. If a leader is strong in certain areas, those will magnify in their org. Similarly, their weak points will magnify.
When evaluating a promotion into a leadership role, be thorough and honest in your assessments. Of course, no one is perfect, but any issues you gloss over are likely to be amplified later.
Improve yourself
If your org. is going to look like you, make yourself the best version of yourself you can. Your personal growth will turn into growth in your org.
Work on both your inner game and your outer game. Improve your mental health and your skills.
Read. Take classes. Listen to podcasts. Seek feedback.
You owe it to yourself - and the org. you amplify - to consistently seek to improve yourself.
Use your org. to find your blind spots
Lastly, use this principle to seek out your blind spots. It’s very difficult to see your own issues and limitations. Honest mirrors can help, but think of your organization as a mirror; it’ll reflect your good and bad qualities back on you.
Whatever your org. isn’t doing well is a clue to your own self improvement. If they’re struggling with decision making, maybe you are, too. Are there issues with collaboration? Innovation? Speed? Quality? Communication?
You’ll learn something about yourself in the process.
Bringing it all together
Your org. looks like you. That can make your org. fragile with large blind spots and weak points.
This happens because you hire people like you, and you give feedback to others that you’d give to yourself.
Work hard to counter your biases in the hiring process. Be careful when giving “autobiographical” advice.
Be really mindful of who you promote into leadership positions.
Always be improving yourself. Use your org’s issues as a clue to your own self improvements needs.
Call to action
Choose something relevant to your personal situation from today’s newsletter to focus on this week.
If you’re close to making an offer to a candidate or promoting someone, check for those cognitive biases in yourself before making an offer. Ask an honest mirror if they see any possible biases happening in you.
Take a look at whatever collective issue you see in your org., and question how your own behaviors, strengths, and weaknesses might be contributing to that.
If today’s newsletter gave you any insight, I’d love to hear about it. Did you notice any of these ideas at play in your work? Let me know at heykev@kevinnoble.xyz.
Have a great week!
Kevin
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