The Most Crucial Leadership Skill That Few Possess

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Pattern recognition is a crucial leadership skill that enables leaders to make sense of their surroundings, anticipate potential outcomes, and make strategic business decisions in seemingly unfamiliar and unique circumstances. Those of you who read my content know that I’m an avid chess player and in chess, recognizing patterns is one of the pillars of the game.

Even if you don’t know how to play chess, take a look at the following three positions.

They all look completely different right? But the pattern in all three of these positions is exact same an they all lead to a forced checkmate known as “Anastasia’s Mate.”

In the first example (brown), black wins by force by playing Queen h5 with check, the white pawn on g4 is forced to capture the queen, and then black plays Rook h4 checkmate.

In the second example (green), black plays Knight to e7 with check, the King then goes over to either h1 or h2, then black plays Rook to h7 with check, the white pawn on g6 has to capture the rook and then black’s other rook slides across the board to h6 delivering checkmate.

In the third example (blue), white plays Knight e7, black then has to slide the king over to h8, white captures the pawn with the queen on h7 with check and forcing black to capture the queen with the king, then white plays Rook h1 with mate.

Even though all three of these positions look different they all have the exact same pattern with a forced mate.

When it comes to leadership being able to spot patterns is just as crucial. Consider the following scenarios.

You are:

• Taking over a new team that you have never worked with and you are looking to increase performance and engagement.
• Trying to decide on the best course of action when dealing with a pandemic even though you have never experienced one before.
• Making a strategic business decision in an environment you are not familiar with.
• Investing in your own learning and growth and are trying to decide on the best things to focus on.
• Looking to create a new line of business with either a product or service and notice a trend in the AI space. You want to take next steps to launch something.
• Trying to mitigate risks and downside for a current business crisis you are dealing with.

The list of examples is endless and in all of the above scenarios pattern recognition is crucial, let’s see how.

I chose three examples above to demonstrate how pattern recognition can play a role and then I’ll look at how leaders can develop and work on their pattern recognition skills.

• Taking over a new team that you have never worked with and you are looking to increase performance and engagement.

In your previous roles you recognized that some of the elements that drive performance and engagement included things like investing in employee experience, giving employees autonomy, strong recognition programs, and coaching and mentoring. Even though you are part of a new team, you recognize that pattern and implement similar programs.

• Trying to decide on the best course of action when dealing with a pandemic even though you have never experienced one before.

Even though you have never been faced with a pandemic you recall what it was like to lead through 911, the SARS outbreak, and the 2008 recession. You remember what worked well and what didn’t and as a result you immediately create a communication plan, set up daily leadership calls, host an all-hands meeting, and get in touch with medical experts to decide on the best next course of action.

• Making a strategic business decision in an environment you are not familiar with.

You have been involved in a few strategic business decisions in the past even though you were only a junior level employee. In the previous situations you identify that the common pattern has always been to do an ROI calculation, a leadership meeting where everyone on the team can share their opinions, a short and long-term analysis, and then a gut check.

The above are of course just hypothetical examples but you get the idea. I recently interviewed Dave MacLennan the Chairman of the Board of Directors who just retired as the CEO of Cargill, the largest privately held company in America. When I asked him how he approaches new situations and scenarios he told me:

Ultimately, you've got to draw on your own experience. One of the skills of effective leadership is pattern recognition. Asking, when I've seen this in the past, how did I handle it? Or perhaps more compellingly, how did other leaders that I saw and observed handle it? You then think I would do it that way, or I would not do it that way. Maybe I've seen something before but not exactly in it’s current form. But I saw what worked and I've seen what didn't work. So I'm going to choose what I saw worked or a derivative of that. That's what I tried to do in decision making."

How can leaders work on their pattern recognition skills?

Ask the right questions

Whenever you are looking to make a decision get in the habit of asking yourself questions like “when have I been in a similar situation before and what did I do? Did it result in a positive or a negative outcome?” Similarly you can ask when you have observed others being in a similar situation and how did they react?

Focus on continuous growth and development

The more you invest in your leadership development the more you will be able to spot patterns as you get exposed to more information, case studies, and examples. The more you learn the more dots you can connect and the easier you will be able to connect them.

Surround yourself with people who challenge you

A crucial way to spot patterns is to make sure that you are surrounded by people who will challenge your thinking, your ideas, and your assumptions. If you are surrounded by yes men and women who will agree with everything you say then you will never be able to come to the best conclusion. Having diverse perspectives will help you see beyond your nose and see the entire chessboard.

Practice the power of 10

This was told to me by Tim Brown, the former CEO of IDEO. Leaders must be able to zoom in to see the inner working of a particular situation but also zoom out to be able to see the big picture. Being able to zoom in 10x and zoom out 10x is what the power of 10 is all about. Oftentimes leaders are so involved in something that they struggle to see the forest through the trees. Sometimes a conscientious effort is required to take a step back.

Put in the time

As a chess player, one of the ways that I try to train myself to spot patterns is by constantly solving chess puzzles. The more puzzles I solve the more I can start to see the patterns. Similarly in leadership, you need to get of your comfort zone and solve as many business puzzles as you can. The more you solve the better you will become at spotting the patterns and the required solutions.

Pattern recognition is crucial for leaders to master. It aids in identifying trends, potential obstacles, and opportunities within a system or a business environment. It helps leaders forecast future events by understanding and interpreting recurring behaviors or trends, thus enabling proactive decision-making. Mastering pattern recognition also facilitates problem-solving and the creation of innovative solutions, as leaders can draw parallels from previous experiences or broader market trends.

Essentially, pattern recognition equips leaders with a key tool for steering their teams and organizations towards success in an increasingly complex and volatile world.

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