Frictionless Leadership: Why New Founders Need These 3 Skills

Has there ever been a time where you see a team member do work at a quality that you are uncomfortable with, or worse, not do something, and then you jump in to do it yourself?

This is a very common experience among founders and driven entrepreneurs that leads to overwork (by you), burnout (yours, of course) and often causes more friction due to poorly systemized ways of thinking about leading.

There are three choices.

The first choice of course is to dive in and fix or do things because you know performance is subpar. This is instinctive. You have a map in your mind and you know where you are going, so you tell people what to do. And probably, things get fixed. But the consequence is that people potentially don't learn effectively, and might actually end up with you having to do all the work yourself - permanently. That's gonna be a drag on your freedom and your ability to do higher value added work.

The second is to do nothing and allow results to be subpar. You may find this odd. How is this even a choice? Why would I just stand by and do nothing? It's going to cost me. It's going to delay my project. And so on. Theoretically, the ability to step out and let the team sort things out is not entirely a bad thing if you have hired the right people. If you have only hired warm bodies, then no action is definitely not a wise thing to do.

The third choice is somewhere in between. You'll need to calibrate to the kind of intervention to do, and apply this appropriately, which leads me to skill number one.

Skill 1: Knowing how to determine where the level of the problem belongs.

A frictionless leader can think about the level and timing of the intervention. For example, you can consider intervention at six core levels according to Robert Dilts:

This can make a difference because it can either create more tension and resistance because you assumed the wrong focus and took action inappropriately.

Here's an example of the difference between two levels. As a leader observing your team, is the problem with their behavior, or their beliefs? This is a big distinction. If you think it is a belief problem and try to modify their belief, you are more likely to get higher levels of friction. When someone is forgets a task (like notifying the next team member on your project management platform), it's not the same as saying they have intentionally "messed up the team's progress".

A problematic behavior is best dealt with by either changing the environment, or upgrading capabilities. A change of environment could be a physical change (e.g. move the person closer to the team they are working with), or a procedural change (e.g. change processes that the team is working in). Alternatively a change in capabilities could mean that you build competency in the individual so that he or she can perform the behavior expected.

As suggested in the above diagram, the "Where and Whens" are Environment variables; the "Whats" are the Behavioral variables; the "Hows" are the Capability variables, "Whys" are the Beliefs and Values, and "Whos" are the Identity variables.

A useful behavioral competency of listening is required for any leader, specifically, to pay close attention to language variables. For instance, when "I am doing all I can to get this done" might presuppose a limit of capabilities. "I'm not sure if I can do it" presupposes a limit of beliefs. To improve capabilities, on will need to develop new skills. But to develop new and helpful beliefs, it will require a skilful person to probe the person's mental model of the world without making that person feel as if there is something wrong with them.

Skill 2: Reframing.

Reframing is the art of presenting new perspectives so that old perspectives are less rigid, or old limiting beliefs are lifted from an individual.

I remember having an argument with a person about an exercise she refused to participate in. It wasn't that she reasonably spoke up about the exercise. It was that she was adamant that it was a dumb exercise (for context, she had a PhD, and was a high ranking public servant). It so happened that I knew that one of the reasons why she wanted to improve her communication was so that she would be able to repair her communication with her estranged son. I brought up a meta point that if her pattern of communication was consistent, it would explain why her relationship with others was so bad, and why she truly did have to participate in the exercise to reap the benefits of being less judging in nature.

She had a blinding flash of insight and promptly agreed to do the exercise.

Reframing is sometimes trite because it does not "catch". In the sense, you can try and reframe a person's loss of his favorite pen as "oh, now you get a chance to buy an even better pen" really sounds like a platitude. The reason is that you look at it at the level of environment rather than belief - you only know that he lost his pen, but not the beliefs he has about them. If one had asked "what does it mean to lose that pen" and he might say "it means I can't even take care of simple things, how do I take care of my business"... Now you have a little more information that can support the reframe:

"The fact that you are concerned about taking care of simple things only means you are learning to get sharper with them, and in time be sharp enough to run a business."

The skill or competency driving the reframing capability is a combination of (1) listening, (2) empathy, (3) a desire to believe in a person's positive intention beyond their behaviors and (4) the ability to shift one's perceptual views to other, more viable options.

A framework for applying Skill 2

This framework is an advanced application of reframing.

It's common to say "I'm too soft-hearted and fail to let go of non-performers quickly". However, it is also important to look at what actually constitutes "non-performers". A good example is a person who might be great as an individual contributor (chases for closure of projects, delivers on time) might not be great as a people manager (need to develop people in spite of ambiguity, requires empathy). In which case, promotions do not need to be one of an additional responsibility beyond their level of competency (see The Peter Principle).

When you perceive someone as having a strength, the truth is that you can either develop adjacent strengths to enhance the strength in question, or you can develop alternate balancers to ensure the strength in question is not overplayed.

This concept comes from Daniel Ofman, and he calls it the Core Quadrants, based on understanding a core strength of an individual that he terms a core quality.

When one is able to look at complaints of a person (e.g. too pushy), one has to admit that it comes from a core quality of, perhaps, determination. In other words, when one is over-determined, one becomes pushy.

It is a great way to celebrate a person's strengths, by pointing out that you have a quality that you are overplaying, and you can have control over it if you learn to dial it down.

Likewise, an adjacent quality that is supportive is that which balances out the pushiness. In this case, patience. Ofman argues that when you are determined but patient, you get to develop a far superior strength that is functional in your workplace environment.

As mentioned, this skill is advanced reframing because it also needs the four behaviors of (1) listening, (2) empathy, (3) a desire to believe in a person's positive intention beyond their behaviors and (4) the ability to shift one's perceptual views to other, more viable options. And I believe the latter two are the more difficult of the four, only because we are creatures of emotional habit. Once we are triggered it becomes hard to think clearly at all.

Skill 3: Emotional Regulation

As I have constantly mentioned, emotional regulation is our true resource. When you can adjust your emotional states well, you affect other people. When you can manage your states, your results change for the better.

It basically means that to be a frictionless leader, you have to learn to eliminate the inner friction you have, and this is really a way to become far wiser and more mature than we have ever been.

I remember conducting a class for a group of newly promoted team leaders whom, as part of a sharing experience, were asked to share one of their lowest points in their lives. Probably because most of them were younger, they had low points like being rejected by the love of their life, being in a tenuous relationship with their parents due to a difference of opinion, and missing out on a promotion. Of course, as an experienced individual, I ventured to say that there are a lot tougher problems to face out there, and I shared a few of my own (e.g. coming close to bankruptcy). Most took this with a sense of gratitude that they could hear how they could learn lessons from bigger problems that other people have overcome.

What I did not expect was to receive a complaint in feedback that I was harsh and demeaning in my comments because I was said to be looking down on them and belittling their hardships, which I would never do. Rather than get upset, I embraced it as a lesson from the School of Life. Everyone has a perspective, and I'm no longer interested if anyone agrees with my opinions or not. I merely take it as an exchange of perspectives.

Because this is part of Self-Leadership research, I decided to include a video I did of my collection of research here:

Conclusion

This is not just an article to feel good. I'm probably one of the most negative people I know. There's a lot of discussion in the HR community about strengths, leadership and communication in order to bring about diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Frictionless leadership will serve to enhance organizations and the engagement of their human resources, reduce the tensions between people, but more importantly, become a role model as a "frictionless employee". Where connectedness and belonging enable people to be strong on their own, but stronger together.