To Lead Your Company To Success, Hear All The Voices

This article originally appeared in my Forbes #Leadership column.

I recently had the privilege to talk with Molly Tschang, Founder of Abella Consulting, who helps senior leadership teams work more effectively together. She’s one of my colleagues in Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches program. Here’s part of our conversation:

Nour: When you look forward to the future of work, what are some of our most significant challenges?

Tschang: We have great talent on the planet. Companies will need to better leverage the diversity of people, places, ideas, and experiences. The challenge to harness a variety of cognitive thinking is a big part of this.

Nour: Is that what you mean when you talk about hearing all the voices in an organization?

Tschang: Yes, I think many leaders conceptually are on the bandwagon of listening to all the voices, but I don't know if they fully appreciate what that entails from the standpoint of if you have a lot of folks from different backgrounds. It takes higher level capabilities—and processes— for people to be able to hear each other, to work with each other.

Nour: Why do you think this is so important?

Tschang: Leaders like to talk about innovation, which is fundamentally about change and having to lean into conflict and difference. If everything is going fine and we agree, we don't need to do anything differently. So there needs to be some driver for doing things differently, which means that someone doesn't think that what's going on right now is the right thing.

"Conflict" doesn't have to be an overly emotional or uncomfortable state; we have to embrace that someone might think something different. Rather than think "I'm right" or "I'm wrong," which is a default mechanism, can we get curious, genuinely curious?

It means replying, “Say more about that. What do you mean by that? How do you think about that?”

Nour: So you mean they should build off that different voice, rather than resisting it.

Tschang: Exactly. It takes a different level of interpersonal soft skills and social sensitivity. I call it relationship skillfulness, for people to move beyond themselves, to not worry about, well maybe I'm not right, and instead, truly connect with others. And even if you are right, how you reach alignment makes a huge difference.

Nour: When you say “people,” do you mean leaders or everybody?

Tschang: I mean throughout the organization. Senior leaders need to be at the forefront driving the business, but you need everyone on the boat rowing in the right direction.

Nour: So do you think that what you're describing is common in business?

Tschang: I think many leaders talk about “our investment in people, and we value our talent”…, I believe that in their hearts, they do. The disconnect is that if you look at company culture and where companies spend money—how are you measuring, compensating, and developing people—you start to see some disconnects. For example, often these ‘development programs’ roll-out across a company, yet the senior-most leaders aren’t included. How do they need to change, to grow?

Nour: Let’s switch gears a bit. As we move into the future, many industries are experiencing significant pressures. What are the changes you would like to see?

Tschang: For me, it is about answering the question, “Are we hearing all the voices in the system?”

Nour: You mean in the organization.

Tschang: Yes. Every organization and any group of people in some interdependent relationship—a couple, sports team, board—is a system. Ray Dalio, head of the world’s largest hedge fund, says that the truth—an accurate representation of reality—is the essential foundation for producing good outcomes.

But it's not that easy to get to the truth, because each of us with our different, diverse backgrounds has a sense of reality and we all think we're right.

And so for organizations to hear all the voices, to hear what's going on, at all levels is how you get to the 360 view. When you get the 360 view, and I'll call that the shared reality, the truth, you're going to be in the best position to make well-informed decisions, and to then execute with speed and agility. Short of that, you are sub-optimal.

Nour: Is this what you do?

Tschang: I feel very privileged to work with senior management teams. I'm guiding them, helping them to work cohesively and collaboratively as a unit…. committed to each other's success as much as their own, and that's playing for each other.

I'll use a sports analogy. You can play Ryder Cup golf, which is fantastic, you add up the scores, and you win or lose. Or you can play a more interdependent game like in the Stanley Cup, and that requires a deep level of understanding of each other, of the strengths and weaknesses of your teammates. It also involves team resilience when times get tough, and the mindset that 1+1=11 impact. That's beyond a Ryder Cup kind of game, and it takes some work.

David Nour is the author of ten books including the best-selling Relationship Economics, which makes the case that relationships are the greatest off-balance sheet asset any organization can possess. His new book is Co-Create: How Your Business Will Profit from Innovative and Strategic Collaboration. He is a trusted advisor to many leading companies, a global speaker, member of the Marshall Goldsmith #MG100 global executive coaches, venture partner at EGL Holdings, and an adjunct professor in the Executive Education program at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School in Atlanta, GA.