Empowering Possibility: Giving Them an “A”

A few years ago, I found myself sitting across from the person who was about to become my new boss after their company had acquired mine. This was our first meeting, and before we sat down, I had thoughtfully considered the role I wanted to carve out for myself in the new organization and I assertively pitched it. She listened graciously and told me that while she was open to exploring that role with me, she had envisioned a completely different role for me.

Great news except for one small detail…I had no expertise in the area of the business she had in mind. None.

She seemed undeterred by that fact, because, as she explained, what she had heard about my leadership, skills, experiences and learning agility assured her that I was the right person for this role. The trust she gave me – a leader she barely knew – empowered me to take on this challenge and it’s a decision I’ve never regretted. And while hard work has always been part of my DNA, I can confidently say that I worked even harder to reciprocate the trust imparted to me. Two years into the role, my team and I were recognized with a CEO award.

In my previous series , we explored the ways that building these strong foundations of trust can create a culture of inclusion. There’s another dimension to trust that I’d like to focus on that Benjamin and Roz Zander talk about in “The Art of Possibility,” and that’s the idea of “Giving an A.”

This concept has absolutely nothing to do with our traditional grading paradigm. You’re not grading someone (or getting graded) based on work completed or achievements accomplished. You’re not giving one person an A and another a B or a C. ?

In this context, “Giving an A” is about creating possibility by instilling the belief that ALL team members possess the capacity, drive and ability to excel, sometimes even before they’ve even had the opportunity to do so. Just like my former boss, who believed I’d be successful before I had delivered anything to her. Quoting the Zanders, “When you give an A, you find yourself speaking to people not from a place of measuring how they stack up against your standards, but from a place of respect that gives them room to realize themselves.”

Ways to adopt the “Give an A” mindset

Understanding this concept is a crucial step to elevating trust and possibility within teams. Here are a few ways that I’ve translated it into my leadership:

Changing the Mistake Mindset – We’ve all been there. A mistake happens and we have to bring it to our leader’s attention. For many of us, this is a stressful, anxiety-provoking moment because, depending on the leader, we are anticipating not only the reaction, which might be negative based on past experiences, but what ‘grade’ (in the traditional sense) we’ll be given on our performance not only in that moment, but in the future. We then turn ourselves into pretzels trying to minimize, explain or defend what happened. The mistake might get fixed, but a lot of energy is expended and trust is lost in the process.

As leaders, we have an opportunity to reshape this paradigm and create greater trust among our teams by reframing how we think about mistakes. What would happen if, rather than reacting negatively to a mistake, we looked at it as a fascinating moment (a Zander term) that could spark curiosity and learning? And what if we saw that mistake as an opportunity to help our team members break down barriers or better navigate through the problem? Think about the impact that would have on collaboration, transparency and problem solving.

For me, taking a moment to reframe the situation allows me to lean into my inclinations as a naturally curious person and ask a lot of questions instead of making assumptions and jumping to conclusions. By doing so, not only am I creating consistency in how I receive a “mistake,” which helps my team feel more comfortable bringing difficult situations to my attention, but I’m also giving my team respect and room to create greater possibility in how to resolve it by aligning myself with them and creating a one-team approach. ?

Forging New Paths – Being in a corporate environment for as long as many of us have, there aren’t many “new” problems – there are similar problems that are repackaged differently. Because of how our brains are wired, they’ll naturally create shortcuts to problem solving, and at a time when we’re all striving for more efficiency, taking these shortcuts only makes sense, right? ??

Not if we want to elevate trust with our teams and spur innovation. What if, instead of jumping in and influencing our teams to take the path we’ve already gone down, we stepped back and provided them with the freedom to think about a new way? Rather than expecting them to do it “our way,” we create a safe space for them to invent their own way, and potentially a better way? How would that allow creative, more innovative ideas to thrive?

This is hard to do and many of us will need to fight that urge to jump in, especially if we see the newly formed path reaching a dead end. The good news is that, even if it does, we can use the fascinating moment mindset and consider what we’ve learned on that journey to help guide our team in a new direction. By encouraging teams to view risk and failure as opportunities, we can forge better paths we never could have never imagined on our own.

Finding Talent – As we think about how we attract talent we tend to apply the traditional “A” model to prospective employees. We want candidates who check all of the boxes, who have the right experience and who went to notable schools. In other words, we create a context around their experience and expertise based on our standards, not necessarily the requirements needed to do that job.

Don’t get me wrong, experience and schooling are critical for some roles – you wouldn’t hire someone without a PhD to do complex molecular research. But there are many roles for which we have created artificial barriers, especially at the entry level, where training or an apprenticeship model can make up for experience or credential gaps. What if, for those roles, we expanded our definition of what ‘qualified’ means? What if we looked at skills and capabilities instead of degrees and requirements? ?

That’s why I challenged my team to think about ways of creating alternate career path options by rethinking job description requirements that are not directly linked to necessary capabilities for that role, such as extensive time in a sales role or previous pharmaceutical experience. One part of my organization created a new, entry level sales role that removed previous pharmaceutical sales experience and extensive overall sales experience as a requirement. The program has been in place for over a year, and we have hired some exceptional talent that are adding new dimensions to our sales team. ?

Creating possibility for both leaders and our teams

Learning how to give an “A” is a muscle that has to be strengthened but I believe that doing so can truly transform organizations. If we want our employees to be innovative and look for possibilities to solve complex problems, we must have – and express – confidence in their abilities, their experience and their knowledge. Giving them an “A” does just that.

Try it. Can you tap someone on your team who you know has skills but not experience and give them an “A” on your next project? You might notice a deeper level of commitment to that work. Or can you give that job candidate who has great skills but maybe not the perfect resume an “A” and hire them? You might get someone who will transform your team. And can you approach a mistake as a fascinating moment and shift not only your reaction, but your team’s approach to resolving it? You might find that problem getting resolved faster and with less angst.

The possibilities are truly endless.

I’d love to hear from all of you in the comments about a time you’ve given (or received) an “A” and what impact it had on you or your team.

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