Lessons from Antarctica: The power of trust in enabling collaborative leadership

Here is the third piece for a series on leadership, a few weeks after my arrival home from the second voyage to Antarctica for Homeward Bound, the global leadership program I founded for women in STEMM.

The first article in this series took a frank look at what is happening with trust. The second was about self-awareness in senior leaders and its inescapable link to trust. In this third piece I examine, through the lens of my experience with Homeward Bound, what we can do together, to rebuild trust and why collaboration to a common cause is critical. This is long for a Linkedin piece, but I hope you see its worth.

Homeward Bound 2018

Year two of a global leadership initiative

Homeward Bound is a global initiative for women leading with a STEMM background. As a result of the first two cohorts, there are multiple collaborations rolling around our world amongst alumni and there is unprecedented media interest in the initiative. This has created a global platform for the women to use to enhance their visibility to common cause. There is demonstrable commitment to each other, and demonstrable commitment to and ownership of Homeward Bound by all involved. There is a tangible bond based on deep care, shared responsibility and common cause. This has happened in 3.5 years.

As I reflect on where we are now, a few weeks after returning from the second trip to Antarctica, where I, together with an incredible faculty, spent 21 days on board a ship with 80 women, ending a 12 month program, I can see clearly the key elements that allowed trust to develop, what I and others did well and what didn’t work, and I will share them in part with you here. (600 page book, 2 hour movie and TED talk pending!)

1.The purpose and strategy of Homeward Bound is integrated across all parts of the program and our communications

All the contributors in design, facilitation, coaching, strategy, communications and science were committed to the purpose of the whole. No one person owned it more than another; it belonged to all of us. The participants were selected from a significant number of global applicants for their commitment to this purpose, to the ‘greater good’ (the state of our planet – the operational mandate of Homeward Bound). This is also the headline of our strategy map: it’s visible in all contexts.

Thirty alumnae, supporters and leaders of the program (in an organisational context, these would be your existing staff) ran a comprehensive selection process to this purpose. Every application was reviewed and rated three times against agreed criteria, then reviewed for a fourth time by a final team. There was no hierarchy in this. I think the alumnae did a superior job in selection than the leadership team could do. I think this is true of staff over executive most of the time.

Conclusions:

●      If you don’t know the purpose of your organisation, the why behind what you do, then the strategy that is developed, the operational plans that are shared are opportunistic and transactional. Transactional plans don’t create deep engagement. Opportunistic plans create divisional competition (sales versus manufacturing for instance). A task is just a task. What we do here is more important than you do there. Suck it up. The deal is done, find a way to make it work.

●      It is far more important to invest in the work needed in defining it and creating buy-in from your staff than it is in operationalising it. Currently I think business energy is 10:90 (visionary to operational) and it likely should be 60:40; this needs more leadership time and less management/task time.

Capabilities a leader requires;

Commitment to purpose. Capacity to collaborate. Self-awareness. Personal values around inclusion, listening, diversity, and understanding no one person makes a good decision in a complex world on their own; those days are done.

2. The leadership team AND community own the strategy – the power of feedback

The HB leadership team is a group of people that is not fixed (you know the Peloton idea). It changes regularly allowing varied expertise to funnel in and the consequences of investing big energy to be shared.

In year two, the team included alumnae from the first program, which made clear the experience of the participants, their increasing visibility and the impact of our collective action. In the third year, it is likely this will be at least half of the team.

Key challenges in this context:

●      Engagement and leadership behaviour: The hardest and most inconsistently managed part of strategy execution is engaging stakeholders to strategy and addressing senior leadership behaviour. I have watched strategy fail many times because senior leaders don’t recognise the famous Peter Drucker’s quote on culture (it eats strategy for breakfast) and the irrefutable fact that executive team behaviour is a significant influence on culture. In the design of Homeward Bound we placed a very high premium on this.

Despite 35 years of working in this context, the latter point is absolutely where I personally have learned most. I have explored sense of self obsessively for most of my life and have led and facilitated leaders countless times. However, the behaviour that could cause most disruption in Homeward Bound was often mine. Even if this was only occasional, relative to the good that was done, it carried a disproportionate weight. I could too easily become the parent or leader people struggled with. I never intended for this to happen. I genuinely care deeply for all these women, and for their visibility in our world or I would not have taken on such so much extra work and such visibility for a cause that serves people very different from me.

But its value is platinum, even the voices of some of the most disruptive. The impact is so deep, in fact, that the process is now institutionalised. It is the alumni who review each program and who put forward the changes to ensure that the next group have an even more safe, productive and collaborative experience. The first time we did this was unnerving, the second exciting. What was different? We stopped being afraid of being judged or not being good enough and stepped into the circle of true collaboration for common cause.

Conclusion:

●      Leadership (distributed or collective, hierarchical or singular) is only effective in the execution of strategy IF it is self-aware; how can I lead and influence others if first I cannot lead and influence myself.

●      No one can escape this truth. It applies to who we are with families, who we are in teams and who we are in the most senior roles.

●      It takes a self-aware leader committed to people and the power of their collaboration; building this never stops

●      Fear of being judged, of not being good enough, of not winning, of losing power and influence, of wanting approval and recognition hold us back from collaboration founded on the skills of giving and receiving feedback

●      Everyone needs to learn these skills, including those who give feedback to leaders

Capabilities a leader requires;

●      Invest in understanding yourself - feedback, diagnostics, quality development as an ongoing part of leadership responsibility; there is never a time when you say, ‘I’ve done that’. I started my real learning at 60.

●      Let go of certainty (“my way is the right way”). Allow initial purpose and strategy to evolve so that many own it. Develop listening skills, the capacity to synthesise and share what is heard. Commit to getting engagement before moving to action. Temper a sense of urgency. Commit to this on an ongoing basis.

●      Understand there is nothing to be afraid of in collaboration; most people want the best for most people. Most people will manage the outlier voice better than any HR professional or executive will do. Learn to let go.

●      Develop emotional resilience/agility. Check your story at the door. Personal values around vulnerability (admitting when you are wrong, ability to let go of control). Freedom to learn (no matter your age). Belief in the power of people to do the right thing, ability to learn

In conclusion:

1.     All must own the purpose

2.     The strategy belongs to everyone

3.     Never recruit people who don’t own the purpose and strategy of what you do

4.     Ask for feedback. Listen to it. Act on it.

5.     Everyone who shares a purpose and strategic intention, who has the skills to contribute, has a voice; if they don’t then that part of the whole will falter.

6.     Leaders can only be what people need them to be if they are deeply self-aware and willing to address behaviour that separates them. This is a continuous journey.

No matter the job title, we all largely want the same things: an ability to make a meaningful contribution, a sense of belonging, a voice in decisions and to be recognised for what we do. Ideally, we’ll do this together, collaboratively. Collaboration and trust are easy words to use but not easy to build. But if the practice of leadership enables and amplifies trust, as a starting point, then collaborative leadership will be the outcome.

And Note: there is a compelling reason to do this; as the famous Carl Sagan has said, no one is coming from outer space to rescue us from ourselves.