Secret Sauce

No, this isn’t about sauce for the Turkey you are about to fry. This is something I have been thinking about for a long time. So, let’s ‘dive’ in:

In the wake of a recent project where the team delivered far above and beyond everyone’s expectations, I have been asked on multiple occasions, variations of the same basic question: “What is it that we did to make it so successful?” At the heart of these questions, we are collectively looking for a “secret sauce,” a way to bottle and reproduce it elsewhere. Since that time, this basic question has been nagging at me, and I have been struggling to find a clear answer. Why did the team outperform every other team I have led? Is it because it was an emergency, a crisis, a mission that was easy to buy into; for which we all rose to the occasion, or something more?

Today, project teams have intense demands, and they often don’t meet the goals, or in some cases they just plain fail; some burn out and some quit. Considering these failures, firms develop training programs, quality initiatives, and talent development to keep these failures from repeating. So, with all this training that comes at a high cost, why is there no significant change? These are not new problems. Is it because the leaders are not fully bought in, or they are stressed out; overworked? Are we rewarding the wrong things? Is it because most people don’t have the discipline to buckle down and get the job done? Is it because they don’t have the right tools?

The processes and procedures that we follow, allow the teams to meet the lowest bar; and when followed; allow teams to keep up with the competition. In the high control organizations that are prevalent in engineering, these tools, processes, and procedures give management comfort. Sometimes I wonder if this is because the whole industry has fallen into a lull, a death march, where we have turned off our brains. In fact, if we continue down this path, the smartest, most dependable among us might eventually be Artificial Intelligence.

Change is needed, and the change is quite simple: Treat the projects like projects; and people like people. But how do we train our leaders to do this? It seems that is almost always the next question, and I believe that question is also the wrong question, as it focuses on a formula, on the outcome, rather than the person.

So, what is the right question? I believe it is more along the lines of how do we coach our leaders to lead, how can we get into each other’s lives to practice this principle? When teams trust their leader and each other; when they believe in each other, and are motivated by something bigger than themselves, and they pull in the same direction, they can accomplish amazing things. They don’t waste time on things that don’t matter, they stay true to the mission and work tirelessly to accomplish it. They can only do that when the leader is willing to slow down and relate as a human being willing to engage and get to know the people on their team at a personal level.

And that, I believe is the secret sauce, trust, care, a common purpose. To be leaders that truly inspire, we must be genuine, we must care. And the only way to do this, is for me and you to start by investing our time in those around us, to model servant leadership. To lean in and listen. I am on this journey, I struggle, and then on occasion succeed, and then struggle again. Will you join me?