What can the leader afford? (& I don’t mean budgets!)

In 1942, the psychologist JJ Gibson was advising cockpit designers how to make fighter pilots more effective. He created the theory of affordances, much developed since: that every living thing is seeking opportunities for action in their environment. What can I do, here and now? is a constant question driving our perceptions, feelings, thoughts and actions.

?This means our tools shape our actions; we don’t decide on how to complete a task and then seek the tool. If you have a calculator, you probably won’t do the sums yourself. If you have a bag, you will see things that can be picked up. (Side quest: Ursula Le Guin’s wonderful Carrier Bag theory of Fiction)

The more comfort you have with a tool, the more you’ll seek to apply it

You’re going to want to lead with the tool you’re most familiar with. CFOs, put away the P/L. CMOs, drop the brand strategy. Flex your toolkit: consciously change tools and overt that you’re doing so.

Power is itself a tool: the more you have, the more you’ll think and behave like it’s easy

How many times have you heard a senior person say “the [project/task/tech] isn’t difficult. Just do ____”. The giveaway is the word ‘just’. Watch yourself: what’s easy for you isn’t easy for others, and your claiming so will disenfranchise them.

Make it frictionless

If the task feels easy it will become easy. Research shows that people with a heavy backpack think a mountain is steeper than those without.

So create affordances in the environment that make the task easy for people. This runs from giving people the tech they need to do the job right down to checking the whiteboard pens work.

Be someone else’s affordance

As a leader, you exist as part of people’s environment. How are you an affordance for them? It’s often said that a leader is there to support their team, to clear barriers out of the way and so on. That could be re-framed as the leader is an emotional support tool and a battering ram tool. These can be useful things to be. But what’s the tool they need right now, and are you able to be that for them?

One of the best bosses I ever had, many years ago, was a magnifying mirror. Gordon would reflect back to me my performance in a way that gave me confidence as I stepped into a new and larger role. He amplified what he could see working, to focus my attention on that. Do more of this. And when I was going down the wrong path, he would reflect back what he was seeing and amplify my alternative ideas. Try a different way. He never told me to do anything, he just showed me my actions and impacts clearly enough that I could make my own choices. He became the tool I used to grow into my new role.

When was the last time you asked you team member, what can I afford you today - how do you want to use me to pursue your goals? I’ve had answers like this before:

• I need to vent. I’m OK I just need to moan about [X] so I can be professional out there
• I need you to sparr with me to stress test this idea I’ve had
• I need you to advise me how to work better with [person]. I’ve tried so hard and it isn’t working
• I need you to deal with [stakeholder] – their demands are unreasonable

All four of these might be valid positions to take as a manager when a staff member presents a story beginning with “Jeff and I have to deal with this supplier. I think we should do [A] and Jeff thinks we should do [B]”. But you can imagine how only one of these will hit the spot in a given situation.

It’s good if you can be the manager your staffer trusts to take one of these positions. Better if your capable of taking any of the four. But best is that you can take all for and you let the staff member choose.

Strategy as an affordance

It's hard to get a consistent answer to the question what is strategy? To quote Larkin: Ah, solving that question // Brings the priest and the doctor // In their long coats // Running over the fields.

A better question is to think of strategy as just a tool and ask, what does Strategy allow me to do?

An example of a great answer to this question from a current client. I’m supporting their strategic thinking, in the context of sector VUCA-ness and significant Board and Executive change in the last year. Their CEO said: I have challenging BAU and more strategic growth options than I have hours in the day. I get calls weekly that offer me more. I need the strategy to close some of these off, and make a small number the priority.

If I think of the strategy as a tool for the CEO, I can facilitate the work with the Board so that it produces, among other things, clear directions (If the idea has these features, pursue it) and a framework within which a Board decision can be sought and then taken with confidence (Bring us proposals that you think we will judge pass criteria A,B,C).

So before you finalise your strategy, consider what it affords its users. Ask:

• Can I use this to choose between possible paths?
• Can every leader apply this to shape their daily work?
• Does it tell me what to fund, and what not to fund?

You can’t afford to have a strategy that does not afford opportunities for action from your leaders.

Strategy as Trebuchet

A new senior manager at my workplace in the 00s wanted to create and grow a function. She was right but it was novel and she met reactionary opposition in her early conversations. She sent her strategy up to the Board set in a typeface called Trebuchet. That’s named after a medieval siege weapon, used to throw rocks with great force to destroy a fortification. (I am 90% sure she chose the typeface deliberately.)

It’s certainly a tool for change. And whether it was the typeface or the clear rationale, her strategy prevailed.

Fin

That’s it for another bi-week. Please make use of the affordances of ‘like’ and sharing, if you’re so inclined and happy strategising.

Paul