Leadership Lessons: A Case Study
I have moments in my career when I am faced with a choice, and I have clarity of how I am expected to respond. The conventional wisdom is crystal clear on what many would say is the obvious path. And I then I choose a different route, a better and less obvious one, and feel great about it, often with others looking on with puzzlement.
My superpower is what’s referred to as an “Arranger” (from the Clifton Strengths Assessment). And Arrangers apparently can look at a goal or desired outcome, and figure out the options to get there, and adapt with flexibility to find the most productive path forward. Arrangers like me are giddy when the path is riddled with complexity. It’s a puzzle! And we also enjoy when there are unexpected twists and turns. We get a special jolt of excitement using our flexibility.
The takeover. I remember when I started a new role, meant to support a senior leader who had administration as well and strategy in his portfolio. The role existed before, and the person rolling off gave me several pages of lists of things he was responsible for doing. What I was asked to do was to takeover these activities and reports and approvals and was expected to learn the convoluted systems in place. What I did was review the list with my new boss, ask him to highlight the top 5 things of 40 that he cared about. And then I let him know I was going to ignore the other 35, and would cover off on them if someone asked for them. What happened was maybe 10 more things came back into my portfolio, and I killed the rest of the activities, making way for new, strategic work he needed.
Global growth. Recently my boss asked me to scale a training program globally. We started with a pilot in two of our “major cities” with lots of coverage for faculty. He asked me to come up with metrics on where and how many we would train. What was expected was that I would look at the 3 month program and create a model. What I did was launch a nomination program so that we could collect demand per city, then experiment with the roll out given the faculty availability. Sure, it’s less neat on paper, but I know we’ll have better results tailored to the demand and needs of the city.
The wrench. I remember when I was running a conference and had a very clear vision for the content curation, pacing and flow of the general sessions. In one instance I had a clear line up of our executives and messaging. The session was perfect. Two weeks before, one of our speakers had to pull out due to a family emergency. What was expected was that I would replace the speaker and scramble. What I did was call the other speakers and give them more time, even adding in Q&A. It was even better than I had imagined. No one even noticed the missing speaker.
Listen to your instincts. March to the beat of your own drum. Find a path that makes sense. Welcome changing requirements. And celebrate when you make a difference.
