Message to leaders

Maybe you’ve noticed something change recently. Maybe you’ve struggled to find the words to describe it. Maybe you remember the feeling well. Tension? Pressure? Intensity?

The thing we are all experiencing something called whiplash due to duration mismatch. Or to put it another way, we improperly matched what we thought and actually need to run & grow our businesses. We overinvested for the future growth, and we overpayed for current assets, we built improper risk controls into the system.

These seems like a financial abstraction on a real world set of feelings. However, the lived experiences that influence these feelings are highly contextual depending on who you are: layoffs, declining business performance, missing deadlines, troubles with quality of service…sound familiar?

This duration mismatch causes us to make changes in how do business, but…there is one constant for us all as leaders — lead with empathy, openness, vulnerability, and an inclusive mission.

What does this mean?

It used to be that an industrial-era leader optimized for productivity via extraction of output in a zero-sum game of labor vs capital. In this world, the excess profits of a business can only flow to one “winner” the laborer, or the owner of capital.

Modern work is different, it’s an infinite game. Modern work is about unlocking human potential. With the belief that within each person is infinite potential. In economic terms, that the potential for value creation is not constrained. This begs the question:

How can we as leaders create the conditions to unlock this potential?

This is the whole game of leadership. What are the moves you can make over a known time horizon to create impact by fostering human potential.

Outcomes vs human potential

You may have also noticed a shift to focus on the short/mid-term. This is not a new story (but rather a story older than Aesop’s “Bird in the bush…” fable). We should not let it be the whole story.

Awareness is critical. We are social animals that look to others (including peers/competitors) in times of change. The part of our mimetic brains wired for imitation and loss aversion start lighting up. We can choose to blame others (scapegoat). This might sound like, “due to the macro environment” or “the world is shifting.” Alternatively, we can become aware of this mimetic/scapegoating tendency, break the cycle, and take ownership. Those of you that are experienced leaders know this lived truth, there is a deep hollowness that comes from blaming others and optimizing for short-term outcomes above all else.

Like the player who blames the foul, or the elite athlete who steps up to the podium and thinks, “I’m still not happy.” Then steps down to begin a new journey to do the real work of cultivating human flourishing.

There is hope for a balance. We can make bets to win and drive short-term outcomes while also cultivating human potential in our teams. Where is that balance for you and your teams? Where are we making bets to unlock the potential for our organization as whole?

Leading through the chaos

Leaders make hard decisions. Leaders care and empathize through the whole range of emotions. Leaders model and share a journey of learning and growth.

If we are lucky, we privileged to build something together in an organization that is human-centered and mission-driven. In my startup journey (eventually leading to the Microsoft acquisition) there was this permeating feeling of “controlled chaos” but always asking and asserting, “How are you doing? I’m here to help.” We can easily forget that sometimes the primary virtues of in any organization’s culture are founded in human-centric and mission driven values.

Wey may or not be faced with incredibly hard times. The

What’s next

Personally, as a leader I have been shifting my duration to short-duration bets that I expect to drive performance. I am challenging my team to calibrate as well. But I am also making long-duration bets on my business and my team (empathy, skill, shared experiences, etc).

Strongman vs wiseman. Strongman attractive in times of uncertainty

Wiseman: be there for you. Open, empathetic and supportive