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Communication is one of the core crafts of leadership.  [A craft is a combination of learnable skills and art used to produce something beautiful and useful.]

Leaders need to communicate to groups.  I encourage you to shift your mindset from “I’m talking with a group” to “I’m talking with a series of individuals.”  You know how to talk with a single person, right?  Ok, do that!  Start with one person, then shift your attention to the next person, and so on.  The whole group hears your conversation as you’re going person to person.

Writing a message?  Same mindset – you’re writing to representative people in that distribution list. One of the reasons the typical corporate memo sounds bland is they’re writing to a faceless, non-person named “DL-BigGroupofPeopleIDon’tKnow1234.”

Make your communication to groups more personal and you’ll connect better.  We’re always communicating, so the question is whether you’re connecting.

Hedgehog and Fox is an old and useful concept for strategy and time/effort allocation.  

The first recorded instance is from the ancient Greek poet Archilochus:  “A fox knows many things, but a hedgehog knows one big thing.”  This cryptic comment inspired Erasmus’ “Adagia”, Isaiah Berlin’s famous essay “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” and Jim Collins wrote a chapter about it in in his excellent book “Good to Great.”   

Most of our days naturally fit the fox model – many things, leaping from one to another, managing the unexpected and unplanned but necessary stuff of the day. 

The key is to plan for hedgehog days:  Intense focus on one big thing.  That kind of day doesn’t happen by default, it must be planned.  It must be guarded. 

Practical reality is that with all our obligations we’ll need to do more than just one thing during an entire day.  Don’t let that be your excuse. Go hedgehog on a 4-hour block of focused time and accomplish those big things!    

I have a working theory that complexity doesn’t disappear, but moves from one part of a system to another.  Analogous to the principle of the conservation of energy, I think of this as the conservation of complexity.   

I don’t know how to prove the theory but there is ample data to support the idea. 

• Amazon’s web interface lets you buy an item with one click and have it delivered the next day.  They’ve absorbed massive internal complexity to make that happen.  This is true for Uber, Google maps, and all the successful ecommerce applications.  Simplicity for the consumer, phenomenal logistics complexity for the provider.   

• HR and IT departments create elaborate self-serve transaction systems.  The responsibility and weight of work falls on employees more than the shrinking internal HR and IT departments.  Simpler for the departments, more complexity for employees.   

• Many process improvement efforts move the work “elsewhere,” unless they outright eliminate steps.  True reduction of work is uncommon. 

• Many of the labor-saving devices of the 20^th century reduced certain kinds of work, but came with increased expectations for getting more done.  The complexity moved from the labor of one task to the additional portfolio of work to be accomplished overall.   

• Plants and animals and microbes exhibit many simple behaviors, especially default responses to stimuli.  There are astounding levels of complexity below those responses.  

My suggestion is that leaders pay attention to where complexity is moving around, and be realistic about claims of simplicity on the far side of complexity.   

A wise mentor told me that we should guard ourselves carefully from the people who rush to the microphones and TV cameras the moment news breaks.  “Are they giving you confirmed facts or leading off with their first impressions?” he asked.

A few truisms about news:

Most news is the same things of history happening to different people. 

It’s nigh impossible to know the whole story.  The idea that multi-faceted events can be accurately described in a 4 min feature news segment or one newspaper article is preposterous, let alone a tweet or headline.

All sources of information operate from a perspective with some inherent bias.  Then pile on the fact that people have self-interests in driving some narratives over others.  Significant events always have competing narratives.

We filter information through our personal frames of reference and experience grids.  We are often compelled to fill fact-gaps with stories and speculation.

We obsess over points in time events and systematically underweight the currents and trends of the decades which brought us to those points in time.  This is easy to see when people blame whoever is “in charge” at the moment for events which unfolded after years of decisions and action & reaction by multiple stakeholders.

Anecdotes are genuine, but the plural of anecdotes is not data.

This blog isn’t going to address current events as a rule because I’ve grown to recognize the limits of my opinions and interpretations.  I’m aiming for more timeless commentary and discussion. 

…

I’ve been guilty many times of offering my opinion and perspective before I’ve studied an issue.  Sometimes I got away with spouting nonsense, and more often someone ‘corrected’ me.

The book of Job has some insights for us.  Elihu is the fourth and youngest man to confront Job.  He burned with passion and anger.  Elihu’s criticism of Job are some the harshest in the story!  It’s fascinating to me that at the end of the story God rebukes Job’s three friends and says nothing to Elihu!  Does Elihu get a pass because of his youthfulness and lack of perspective?  Perhaps.  I doubt I’ll get a pass for “youthful ignorance” at my age!

I don’t hold myself ‘above’ the opinion-wonks.  There are smart, savvy people worth learning from. 

How can we best live in an opinion-saturated world, fueled by 24 hour news, further bolstered by a seemingly infinite number of podcasts and social media options? 

Perhaps a good guideline is to give our focused attention to those who have studied a subject at least 100 hours in depth to understand it.  I should probably only offer my opinion on subjects where I’ve read at least 10 books and crafted by view over 100+ hours of thinking, and still hold it loosely.

You need to collaborate with and get support from people in other groups, in particular:

Functional groups like IT, Finance, HR, Legal inside your company

Third party support groups under contract, including consulting firms

Employees who have specific expertise not in your group

All groups inherently have a range of talent, from the excellent to the mediocre (and hopefully not) to the incompetent.

Do what you can to ensure you get to work with the excellent people in these groups.  You’ll get 5X more with 5X less effort, compared to working with the mediocre-skilled/experienced people.  

You can’t always control this, but there are two consistent ways to influence situations in your favor:

1.  Develop good relationships with the people leading these groups.  You want to be on good terms with them.  You should be able to just pick up the phone or message them and they’ll be happy to respond to you.  
2. Provide feedback about your contact’s performance to these leaders.  Make it plain where you’re pleased, where there are opportunities for improvement, and what’s been unacceptable.

I used to think that when I uttered the magic words  “I don’t know” my team would think “Glenn is honest and authentic” and “Ok, I’ll relax until someone tells me what I want to know.”

Fool! They might have considered me authentic, but they aren’t impressed and are unlikely to let it go.

Your best approach is to say  “I don’t know, we’ll work through it and figure it out together.”  Or “I don’t know but here is what I will do to find out and report back to you.” 

Next, keep your word.

Communication is one of the core crafts of leadership.  [A craft is a combination of learnable skills and art used to produce something beautiful and useful.]

Leaders need to communicate to groups.  I encourage you to shift your mindset from “I’m talking with a group” to “I’m talking with a series of individuals.”  You know how to talk with a single person, right?  Ok, do that!  Start with one person, then shift your attention to the next person, and so on.  The whole group hears your conversation as you’re going person to person.

Writing a message?  Same mindset – you’re writing to representative people in that distribution list. One of the reasons the typical corporate memo sounds bland is they’re writing to a faceless, non-person named “DL-BigGroupofPeopleIDon’tKnow1234.”

Make your communication to groups more personal and you’ll connect better.  We’re always communicating, so the question is whether you’re connecting.

Personal story:

Some years ago I was asked to be on a panel discussion at the end of a supervisor training session. I scooted into the conference room just in time and took my designated seat at the front of the room. 

The first question that came to me was from a younger lady: “How do you motivate people?” I replied simply, “You can’t.” 

There were a few chuckles, and then the laugher spread. I noticed the HR facilitator at the back of the room put her hand over her mouth. The young lady smiled and pointed at a spot over my head.

I turned to look behind me and realized I was sitting directly underneath a big poster titled “How to Motivate People.”

I laughed and explained my view:

“All motivation is intrinsic. You can’t affect something intrinsic in person directly. You can provide new information. You can give them an alternative frame of reference. You can create incentives for behaviors you prefer, and disincentives for behaviors you don’t prefer. These are all indirect means of influence. Their motivation is 100% their decision. The best leaders tap into their pre-existing motivation. It’s like stepping in front of a parade and helping the parade make turns and go a bit faster.”

Observation:  Few things drown creativity faster than self-censorship.  

I don’t mean that we’re free to say whatever comes to mind, or do what we like regardless of the consequences.  We often think silly thoughts and act in foolish ways. We should be self-disciplined and restrained in our speech and actions.  That’s maturity working in context.  

Self-censorship is the fearful editor that squelches our expression of our convictions.  Self-censorship weighs the opinions of “those people” above all else.  Self-censorship is moral cowardice. 

Hedgehog and Fox is an old and useful concept for strategy and time/effort allocation.  

The first recorded instance is from the ancient Greek poet Archilochus:  “A fox knows many things, but a hedgehog knows one big thing.”  This cryptic comment inspired Erasmus’ “Adagia”, Isaiah Berlin’s famous essay “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” and Jim Collins wrote a chapter about it in in his excellent book “Good to Great.”   

Most of our days naturally fit the fox model – many things, leaping from one to another, managing the unexpected and unplanned but necessary stuff of the day. 

The key is to plan for hedgehog days:  Intense focus on one big thing.  That kind of day doesn’t happen by default, it must be planned.  It must be guarded. 

Practical reality is that with all our obligations we’ll need to do more than just one thing during an entire day.  Don’t let that be your excuse. Go hedgehog on a 4-hour block of focused time and accomplish those big things!