The magic of loosing control

A kind of reflection in times of uncertainty...

Business typically works well when you have engaged and innovative employees, great leaders, and good decision making processes. 

And: leaders are often called ?Management“ and for sure we mostly have things under control, don’t we? We know what’s going on and for sure we are involved in decision making processes. 

But isn’t that an illusion? Do we really have control? I am not saying that for certain (and sometimes hard) decisions specifically these days, strong management and tough execution is needed. 

But in most cases in our day to day operations our employees know best what is the right thing do to. Having good conversations and inclusively consider different perspectives and impacts is something which is crucial anyhow for everyone every day. 

And now? We are in #HomeOffice! 

We learn all together how to even more use digital technology for collaboration, might it be sharing the latest insights in the #ESN to increase learning opportunities for others or showing the vulnerability of asking questions, where we don’t know the answer. Actually posting such questions into our ESN is by far more powerful and quick then finding the right expert (not only these days). Control? None!

We use chats and conversations in channels in MSTeams to create transparency in times, where due to e.g. home schooling not everyone is available any time during typical office hours, because we strongly encourage and accept all the flexibility needed, and we use video calls to interact and get each other informed. An ?online“ status is not necessary and shouldn’t (even never in the past) be any measure to control if someone is working. (Actually nowadays I do e.g. a lot of ?walking meetings“, where I am not ?online“, and being offline also helps to finalize things and not being interrupted.) Control? None!

And: actually I realize, that the missing conversations at the coffee machine or over lunch or by just walking down the floor bring me into a position, where I loose "control". There is just not enough opportunity to stay up to date. I realize beyond the fact that trust and collaboration always have been important for me, that the illusion of control is gone. There is none.

There is something instead. There is a vision and a clear strategy on what we want to achieve over the coming weeks. For sure we spend time together virtually to define outcomes and deliverables, we discuss priorities and put other things into the backlog for later, but that’s it. 

Because great engaged people are driving those things with strong passion and knowledge. They just make the right decisions and communicate them transparently. 

There is a reason, why it’s called "Leadership" Feedback and not ?Management …“. 

Leadership means these days e.g. staying connected, ask for and give feedback, coach others and provide direction and freedom to act. Leaders need to drive vision, help setting joint priorities, empower others and be available as listener in today’s uncertainty, stay calm and provide security where possible. 

So in this new situation that none of us has ever experienced before, we all lose control…

And the magic: Things are still working! Decisions are still made. Results are still achieved! 

Because great people are doing great things when they buyin to the vision and want to make an impact. They need freedom and support, but what they don’t need is control! 

I am thankful to be able to work with such great people, who continue to make an impact every day.

Thanks to the AI4Talent Project Team and all the other colleagues I work with. Thanks to the leadership team in HRSolutions for being with me on this journey and thanks to the #VUCARockers for the reflections and discussions - specifically Alexander Kluge and Harald Schirmer for their contributions over the last days. And finally thanks to Tobias K?del, whose post in Linkedin inspired me.

#teambayer #advancingdigital #leadership