Communicate Better

Show your workings

Hi there ????. Ready to lead? "Acts of Leadership" helps people, (irrespective of title or tenure), expand their leadership range one experiment at a time. Each issue shares a [pro/e]vocative definition of leadership, an idea and an experiment.

How can you not see it?

Have you ever had that sense, in conversation with a colleague, that you're just not on the same wavelength?

It seems like you’re butting heads at every turn.

Or maybe you're growing more frustrated that the other person just doesn’t get it, no matter how many times you explain.

If you’re lucky you sometimes get to the bottom of it and it turns out it's a simple misunderstanding

Crossed wires.

A bad assumption.

It's like trying to get out of a shop but the door won't open. Until you realise you're pulling, when the sign clearly says PUSH.

The work that lies ahead is challenging and will be filled with difficult conversations.

Let's reduce unnecessary accidental conflict by ensuring we're talking about the same thing.

A Definition…

"Leadership is... surfacing mental models."

An Idea…

Mental Models

When you play a simple word association game with a group of co-workers it’s not surprising that different people frequently react differently to the same input.

Take examples like?politics, code-red, performance-review, code reviews, brainstorming, team meeting, technical debt, promotion and management.

Whatever your industry sector you’ll have your own specific emotive language.

So how can the same event, the same stimulus, provoke such a different set of reactions?

One part of the answer is “mental models” — our personal, internal representations of external reality. We use them to interact with the world around us. We create them based on our own unique life experiences and understanding of the world.

• They are often tacit, invisible
• They may not be reliable or useful or correct

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are”. ( —?Rich, by Marillion)

Ladder of Inference

If you’re working on expanding self-awareness then you’re really working on bringing your mental models to the surface, so you can inspect them and understand them.

The Ladder of Inference describes how we move from observable data, through a series of mental processes, to a conclusion and resulting behaviour back in the world.

With each step up the ladder, we simplify (reduce data) and make meaning (interpret signals) until we reach our own

Reflection, advocacy, inquiry

So if surfacing all the mental models in a conversation is an act of leadership, how do you do that?

• Reflection
• Advocacy
• Inquiry

???Reflection:

Make time for introspection and use the ladder of inference as your guide. Check your biases. Explore your beliefs and where they come from. You built many of your mental models early in life to survive and succeed in that past environment. Your models may be a solution to a problem that no longer exists!

???Advocacy:

The simple conversational skill of ‘showing your working’.

“This is the data I used in forming my opinion”.

“Here are the assumptions I made in this report”.

“I excluded this data because…”

???Inquiry:

The other side of the conversational coin - to help other people bring their mental models to the surface.

“How do you see it differently?”

“What assumptions did you use?”

“What do you see is missing?”

…or, you have everyone draw pictures. If you've worked with me as your coach you already know how much drawing we do.

An Experiment…

?? - Notice the proportion of advocacy vs. inquiry in your conversations this week, and play more with the one that shows up least comfortably for you

?? - Draw a picture:

In your next 1:1 or team meeting.

• When the conversation seems to be about a specific “thing”, take a pause.
• Have everyone take 30 seconds to draw a picture that illustrates the “thing” you’re talking about.
• No words, letters or numbers. Just a picture. Invite sharing and guessing.
• Notice the impact of fun, disruption, art and vulnerability in the room.
• (Bonus kudos, you just got everyone present across the silliness threshold)

An invitation to explore…

?? TedEd:?Rethinking Thinking?: Trevor Maber [5 min 24 secs]

?? HBR :?To Change Your Strategy, First Change How You Think?(Bochek & Libert)

?? Article :?The Ladder of Inference: Building Self-Awareness to Be a Better Human-Centered Leader (Craig Dickerson)

Leadership needn't be lonely!

Lead when ready!

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