Wisdom for the practice of leadership

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Podcast Episode 34 (part 7): When A Plan Falls Apart

This week’s episode builds on Monday’s article, part seven in the series titled “Complementary Contradictions.” Here is the transcript of the podcast.

Sometimes, you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, these seeming contradictions are, in reality, complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. In this series of articles and podcast episodes, we are looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, are opposite sides of the same coin, or at least differ from each other, and we are pairing them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader. Last week, in part 6, we talked about what happens when a plan comes together, and this week, in part 7, we talk about what happens when a plan falls apart.

In the last discussion we established the importance of having an intentional and methodical process for assessing where you are, determining where you need to be, and drawing the map that shows how you will get there. The map is your plan, and therefore it is crucial for getting from here to there without getting lost. If you do it well, you will experience the joy of arriving at the destination that you have been eagerly anticipating. And it happened because a plan came together. However, sometimes (to continue the road trip map analogy), the car breaks down, there is road construction and detours, or the rest stop is closed. Everything you planned out starts to fall apart, and you have to figure out what to do. You may have had the best of intentions, but it just doesn’t work out the way you wanted it to.

I experienced a great example of this during a Christmas season, when I attempted to get my wife a special present. For some time, she had wanted a record player so that she could get some old jazz records to listen to. There was one particular color and style of record player that I knew had drawn her attention, and when I went to the store to purchase it, to surprise her with it as a Christmas gift, the only one left was the display model, and that’s when the adventure started.

Because it was the display model, the power cord – a DC adapter – had been misplaced, and the store manager could not find it. I agreed to purchase it at a discounted price and then planned to go to Radio Shack and find a cord. However, much to my dismay, Radio Shack did not have a power cord that would work. Desperate, I emailed the manufacturer to order a replacement cord, but by this time, I accepted the realization that it would not arrive by Christmas, and so I was forced to wrap a gift that she wouldn’t be able to use when she opened it.

So, of course, when she opened it, I immediately had to explain what happened. The cord arrived only a few days later, and without telling her it had arrived, I plugged in the record player and put on a record to surprise her with the sound. But then, again to my dismay, I could hear no sound coming out of the speakers!   I opened up the record player, and everything inside seemed to be properly connected and in working order, so I put it back together. Then I discovered the source of the problem – the arm had been bent and broken right at the base and then bent back to appear as if nothing had happened. Finally, I accepted the inevitable, that the record player was a bust, and I would need to buy another one. My wonderful plan had fallen apart. 

 Sometimes, that happens in leadership (and in life). You have great plans and good intentions, but then everything falls apart, and nothing works the way that you had planned. You find yourself in a quandary, and in spite of all the work you put into preparing your next steps, starting your big change initiative, or creating your strategic plan, you feel like you need to go back to the drawing board or give up altogether. Much like my attempt to make this meaningful purchase for my wife, you ended up running into unexpected challenges or obstacles that threw off your plans and forced you to have to rethink it, redo it, or let it go.

What matters after that is how you respond, and I think that you probably have five options.

  • The first option is that you can try to fix it. Sometimes that’s possible, with minimal damage or loss, but it’s also just as likely that you’ve gotten to a point that is beyond fixing.

  • Your next three choices are to blame yourself and beat yourself up; blame someone else, react in anger, and take it out on others; or put on an act and pretend like it works, even though it doesn’t. In my experience, these three seem to be the most common responses people take. The reality is, though, that none of these make things better, and in fact, they will most likely make things worse. So that leaves the final option:

  • The fifth option is to acknowledge the failure and start over.

In the end, that is most often going to be the best answer: to decide to accept reality and learn from it. Now, the best thing you can do is to do things differently, or start again, or make adjustments and corrections, or even throw it all out and move on to something else. In any event, your plans fell apart. Regardless of what happened, sometimes the best of intentions come to naught, and all you can do is accept the circumstances and move forward.

Incidentally, the following week I found a similar record player in the exact same color. I had needed to accept the fact that the first one was broken and that I needed to find a different one. When I did, I found what I was looking for, and I was finally able to give my wife the gift she had wanted. While it is important to prepare a plan, sometimes that plan falls apart. At that point, accepting the reality becomes the first step in moving forward to a new plan that will work.

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Complimentary Contradictions (part 7): When A Plan Falls Apart

Sometimes, you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, these seeming contradictions are, in reality, complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. In this series of articles and podcast episodes, we are looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, are opposite sides of a coin, or at least differ from each other and pairing them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader. Last week, in part 6, we talked about what happens when a plan comes together, and this week, in part 7, we talk about what happens when a plan falls apart.

I tried many different ways to lose weight, and yet, for 25 years, I remained within the same 20-pound range. I’d spent money on weight-loss programs, I’d purchased books on specific weight-loss plans, I’d followed pre-determined menus, and I’d tried various exercise regimens. Every time, I would lose weight up to a point, then it would stop. Most of the time that was because I couldn’t maintain the routine or the plan, yet that didn’t stop me from trying to do it again anyway. I kept trying, but it kept not working.

Then something seemed to change. Perhaps it was a different plan that was more lifestyle-based, perhaps it was motivation, perhaps it was simply a personal choice, but I did something different, and it worked. Over a period of several months, I lost 50 pounds and increased my overall health, and over the next several months after that, I maintained the weight loss. What was different? Probably several things: I made use of an app on my phone to help me maintain awareness of what I was eating, I incorporated moderate exercise, I weighed myself daily (again, to help me stay aware), I ate a piece of chocolate every evening. I’d done variations on these in the past, but this time, they were done in moderation and in combination, rather than with radical, significant change. I continued to eat what I enjoyed but modified and in moderation (smaller portions, more fresh foods, still with lots of flavor); I exercised consistently but moderately (not trying to run a triathlon); I ate something sweet every day, but not in excess; and I maintained awareness every day. The other thing I did was an idea that came from my children: I set two mason jars next to each other where my family could see them, filled one with the number of marbles that equaled the number of pounds I wanted to lose, and each week would move marbles from one jar to the other (or back again) based on what I had lost (or not) until the original jar of marbles was empty, and the empty jar was full. The end result was that I successfully reached my goal weight. I did something different, and it worked. (And I learned some lessons on leadership along the way.)

I’ve experienced the same process numerous times in organizations. Several times, I’ve found myself doing the same thing over and over again even though it hasn’t worked before, and I needed someone or something to shock me into the realization that I needed to do something different. Other times, I’ve entered into a new organization and discovered frustrations over things that were not working, but when I confronted the issues, I was met with resistance because of tradition or history. It took me approaching the issue with an outside perspective to come up with a different way of doing things that worked much better. In one organization, it almost became my unofficial motto to say, “Then we’ll try something different,” as I worked to resurrect a struggling school. In fact, it was in that environment that I recognized the importance of thinking differently, thinking outside the box, and being willing to question how things were done and explore doing them in different ways.

Jim Collins, in Great by Choice (2011), explains the importance of trying different things as part of the process of identifying what works. From his research, he identified several key practices that were necessary for maintaining long-term success. One of those was something he called “empirical creativity,” which he described as “relying upon direct observation, conducting practical experiments, and/or engaging directly with evidence rather than relying upon opinion, whim, conventional wisdom, authority, or untested ideas.” (p. 26) This concept is explained with the illustration of first firing bullets, then cannonballs; or, testing ideas in a low-risk and low-cost manner, using that information to empirically validate what will actually work, and then concentrating resources on those ideas that have been validated. The idea is, very simply – try different things until you find what works, then put your efforts into that.

One of the challenges for a leader is realizing the need to do something different. Sometimes tradition gets in the way – “We’ve always done it that way.” Sometimes we get stuck in routine and don’t think about doing something different. Sometimes, we simply don’t see that we need to do something different because we think that it will still work if we find what needs to be fixed. Then, we keep doing what we have been doing, it keeps not working, and we keep getting frustrated. Black and Gregersen talk about this in their book, Leading Strategic Change (2003), when they say, “the need for change is born of past success – of doing the right thing and doing it well . . . but then something happens: The environment shifts, and the right thing becomes the wrong thing” (p. 11). They go on to describe the process of change as something that happens in four stages (p. 13):

  • Stage 1: Do the right thing and do it well
  • Stage 2: Discover that the right thing is now the wrong thing
  • Stage 3: Do the new right thing, but do it poorly at first
  • Stage 4: Eventually do the new right thing well

The bottom line is that, regardless of the work you have done in preparing a plan, it sometimes (often?) doesn’t work the way you expected it to work, and “the best-laid plans of mice and men” seem to fall apart. Perhaps that’s where you find yourself right now. Maybe you are in a circumstance or environment where what you are doing is not working. The right thing is now the wrong thing (or perhaps it was never the right thing). Maybe it never has worked in the past (like my previous weight loss attempts), maybe it worked at one time but not any longer. Regardless, whatever plan you had seems to have fallen apart and it’s not working; and when it doesn’t work, it’s time to do something different. 

Black, J. S., & Gregersen, H. B. (2003). Leading Strategic Change: Breaking Through the Brain Barrier. Prentice-Hall: New York, NY.

Collins, J., & Hansen, M. T. (2011). Great by Choice:  Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck – Why Some Thrive Despite Them All. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers.

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Podcast Episode 33 (part 6): When A Plan Comes Together

This week’s episode builds on Monday’s article, part six in the series titled “Complementary Contradictions.” Here is the transcript of the podcast.

Sometimes, you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, these seeming contradictions are, in reality, complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. In this series of articles and podcast episodes, we are looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, are opposite sides of a coin, or at least differ from each other, and we are pairing them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader. This week, in part 6, we talk about what happens when a plan comes together, and next week, in part 7, we talk about what happens when a plan falls apart.

In the last two weeks, we talked about zooming out and zooming in, in order to first see the big picture and then to take care of the details piece by piece. You have heard the saying, “You can’t see the forest for the trees,” and that was our primary metaphor for these contradictory, complementary ideas; contradictory in that you cannot do both things at the same time – see the forest AND see the trees – and complimentary in that you have to go back and forth – look at the forest, then at the trees, and back to the forest – repeatedly in order to successfully navigate where you are going and what you are doing. That pair of principles is a great prerequisite to the next pair of principles, which is all about having a plan and managing the detours.

In my experience as a school administrator, I was committed to cultivating an environment that challenged students to think well and to think biblically. That involved constantly seeking out the best ways to do that, including trying to identify the methods that would help me do that most effectively and efficiently. For example, I took typing on a physical typewriter my senior year of high school to prepare for typing papers in college. By the time I became a teacher, I was learning to type on a computer with a word-processing application. By the time I became an administrator, students were learning word processing applications in 9th grade, and it wasn’t long until they became junior high courses instead. And now, it has reached the point where students are learning to type and code algorithms in kindergarten and lower elementary. 

With that understanding of the progression of technology as the background, I reached a point in my leadership experience when I came to believe that in order to teach students with excellence, it was important for every student to have a device in their hands in the classroom, either a laptop or a tablet. So, I began to research. I looked up studies and data on the use of devices and their impact on learning. I visited other schools that were already considered “1-to-1,” meaning one electronic device for every student. I researched specific devices and apps, with the pros and cons of each. With the help of the IT director, I explored the hardware (network speed and strength, Wi-Fi devices, charging stations, etc.) and software (Learning Management System, programs, and apps). I prepared a pilot test run with a teacher and a classroom. And finally, I prepared for the rollout of this next step in how we were educating our students to prepare them for college and career. 

Essentially, I had created a plan that resulted in every student having a tablet in their hands when they came to school in the morning. It was the result of a lot of things – research, preparation, identification of needs and potential solutions, getting feedback and listening, establishing a process, and eventually implementing it. It was thrilling on that first day of school of a new school year when it was now normal for a student to walk into a class, take out an electronic device, open the app and take a quick pre-assessment to give the teacher immediate feedback before the lesson, or start collaborating on a research project with other students, or begin typing a paper, or watch a supplementary video to the lesson to improve understanding. This was all the result of a plan to do something new, but to do it intentionally and well.

That’s what it looks like for you when you put a plan together first, before jumping into a new change. There are important steps for you to follow and a strategic plan to prepare that are necessary in order to set you up for success. Maybe there is something new you need to do that you haven’t been doing. Maybe there’s something you have been doing that hasn’t been working. Maybe there’s something you have been doing that has been marginally working but needs to be better. Before that happens, and so that you can implement and navigate well, you need to create the plan.

What does that plan look like? It looks like a step-by-step process of analyzing, evaluating, identifying, defining, and implementing a plan for future direction and growth, otherwise known as a strategic plan. I would encourage you to read the article that matches this podcast, where I list eight specific steps in the planning process that I believe are essential. Understand that my steps are not necessarily the only way to do it, but it’s a starting point for you. You may find other strategic planning methods, or you may modify the steps I have given to match you, but regardless, you need a plan. 

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What matters for you is that you have an intentional and methodical process for assessing where you are, determining where you need to be, and drawing the map that shows how you will get there. The map is your plan, and therefore it is crucial for getting from here to there without getting lost. If you do it well, you will experience the joy of arriving at the destination that you have been eagerly anticipating. And it happened because a plan came together.

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Complementary Contradictions (part 6): When A Plan Comes Together

Sometimes, you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, these seeming contradictions are, in reality, complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. In this series of articles and podcast episodes, we are looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, are opposite, or at least differ from each other and pairing them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader. This week, in part 6, we talk about what happens when a plan comes together, and next week, in part 7, we talk about what happens when a plan falls apart.

I was fairly young and had just become the headmaster of a small Christian school. I knew that the school had been operating with an interim headmaster, that enrollment had drastically declined over the previous couple of years, that they had recently gone through a major shift in identity, that resources were very limited, and that a desired plan for building a new school facility appeared to be stalling out. I felt the emotional mix of excitement about the possibilities and the anxiety of feeling overwhelmed and in over my head, but I also knew that God had clearly and specifically directed in my life to put me in this position. I had previous administrative experience, but not as a head of school, and I had no real training in strategic planning. I simply knew that I had a major project ahead of me, so I rolled up my sleeves and began to assemble a plan of action.  

I started with an intentional process of trying to determine the current status – resources, people, programs, obstacles, etc. – and identify direction and goals, followed by prioritizing those goals and deciding what steps would need to be taken to achieve them. It began with the simple process of first zooming out and then zooming in, the pairs of principles I put together in the last couple of articles and podcast episodes, which I described last time as writing things down on individual, notebook-sized sheets of Post-it notes and placing them on a large empty wall. When they were all up on the wall, I stepped back and began to look at them, individually and together, and then began to sort them into categories and themes and to look for connections, arranging them by groups, priority, and sequential order of process. When I was all done, I had my first official strategic plan.

Strategic planning could be defined as the process of creating and initiating a specific plan to address a determined and identifiable goal need, and my own process in that school was a very crude (although efficient and effective for me at that time and place in my leadership development) form of strategic planning. In the years since, I have learned from experience, education, and training much more about effective – and ineffective – strategic planning. Therefore, even though I helped to facilitate excellent change and growth (with credit actually going to God much more than me; I was only the instrument He chose to use), I now know a number of things I would have done differently or additionally, in my first attempt at strategic planning.

There is an experience that takes place in the book of Ezra, in chapters 9 and 10, that provides a great source of learning for us on this topic. Ezra had already successfully led a group of leaders back to Jerusalem from their place of captivity. The physical temple had already been reconstructed, and now Ezra had returned to facilitate the restoration of the spiritual temple – the hearts of the people. After he arrived in Jerusalem, he took the time to assess the situation and determine the issues (in this circumstance, they were the issues of unfaithfulness and unholiness) and prepared a strategic plan to address the issues and restore the people and the nation before God. This is the process we see when we focus on in Ezra 10:6-17. There we find a description of the process, from inception to implementation, of a specific and measurable plan to address the issue that they faced. In this process, Ezra led the way by his example and his intentional methods, showing us how we, too, can undertake the task of strategic planning for our ministries and organizations.

  1. Step one: Preparation (v. 6) – Enter the process ready, so spend time preparing yourself for the task ahead; this includes your spiritual preparation, humbling yourself before God.
  2. Step two: People (vv. 7-9) – Gather the right people together, including (a) those who will be affected, (b) those who will help make the process, and (c) representative leadership from among the followers.
  3. Step three: Need (v. 10) – Identify the issue(s) or need(s) that must be addressed; before you can prepare a plan, you must be able to articulate what it is that needs to happen, or where it is that you need to go, based on where you currently are and what you are currently doing. Don’t make it complicated.
  4. Step four: Goal (v. 11) – Identify the goal or goals that are to be achieved; this implies identifying the means and steps of correcting or resolving the need that has been identified, and determining what will need to be accomplished that, when done, will fulfill the plan.
  5. Step five: Listen (vv. 12-13) – Listen, giving people a voice in the process, especially those people who may be impacted or affected and those people who have “ground floor knowledge.” Listen to what they say and let them know that they have been heard.
  6. Step six: Process (vv. 13-14) – Establish a process for implementing the plan in four pieces: (a) determine the steps in the process, from start to finish; (b) select leaders to oversee the process of carrying out the plan (this also helps to provide accountability); (c) create a calendar, schedule, or timeline; and (d) when all is said and done, it needs to be more than just talk, and so the process has to be initiated.
  7. Step seven: Obstacles (vv. 13, 15) – Identify and prepare for obstacles and opposition so that you are ready to respond.
  8. Step eight: Implement (vv. 16-17) – Take the action step of implementing the plan and the process, keeping the end in focus, and identifying when the goals have been reached.

The A-Team was a popular television show in the ‘80s, and one of its iconic lines came when the leader of the team, Hannibal, would say, “I love it when a plan comes together!” That’s the joy of a strategic plan. It’s the opportunity to zoom out and see the big picture, zoom in and craft a strategy for the details, and zoom back out to see what will be when you put your plan in place. When you are stepping into a new situation, facing a need for change and growth, have carried out or completed the last strategic plan, or have simply stagnated . . . it’s time for a plan to come together.

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Podcast Episode 32 (part 5): Zoom In and See the Trees

This week’s episode builds on Monday’s article, part five in the series titled “Complementary Contradictions.” Here is the transcript of the podcast.

Sometimes, you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, these seeming contradictions are, in reality, complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. In this series of articles and podcast episodes, we are looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, are opposite, or at least differ from each other and pairing them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader. Last time, in part 4, we explored the idea that you need to be able to zoom out and see the forest, and this time, in part 5, the idea that you need to be able to zoom in and see the trees.

Last time, in the complementary episode to today’s discussion, we talked about taking the time to see and understand the big picture.  We said that, in successful leadership, you need to be able to get above the clouds and see the whole picture before you can drop back down to ground level and begin the process of directing, guiding, leading, and moving. If you don’t do that first, you won’t know where you are, you won’t know where you’re going, and you will end up someplace else. The point was that you can’t see the forest and the trees at the same time, so start by first zooming out to see the whole picture. But then, you need to zoom in, which is our topic for today.

As I started as the head of school at a new school, I set about getting an understanding of where I was. That began by learning the history and context and gathering information to first have the big picture of the place I had stepped into. In other words, I started by zooming out, which is what we talked about last week. I did that by spending my summer before the start of the school year meeting with people – faculty and staff, parents, alumni, students, and board members. I asked everyone I met with to tell me about the school and their experience with it. I also asked specific questions about topics that would come up in the conversation. By the end of the summer, I felt like I had a pretty good map of where I was. I had developed a picture of the school, its history and culture, its strengths and weaknesses, and the sore spots. Then I began to zoom in.

Now that I could see the whole forest, I could start focusing on the trees, and I could help everyone else see the same thing. I started communicating, loudly and often, the positive message of who we were, how we had thrived and excelled, and where we shone. I painted a big picture of why and how we were a school of excellence. Then, I focused in and identified the specific areas of improvement and prioritized them. I transparently communicated what we were addressing first, and the steps we were taking to address those issues. I also acknowledged the other areas of need that we were not addressing first, and communicated how we were prioritizing things. For example, my big picture review revealed that one subject area – science – seemed to be lagging behind the other subjects in its level of excellence. It was not intentional, but it seemed that in the previous years, a focus on some of the other subjects had inadvertently led to a neglect of attention to science. And it suffered because of it. The big-picture review also revealed that we need to restructure and reinforce our Parent-Teacher Fellowship program.  But, as Verne Harnish said in Scaling Up, “If everything is a priority, nothing is,” so I had to establish priorities, and addressing the academic subject area of science took priority over making changes to the PTF.  So, I established a curriculum review cycle that set a schedule of curriculum and subject area review once every 6 years, and made science the first subject we would review. I assembled a committee of teachers, parents, and administrators, and we spent time analyzing and making recommendations, and the end result was a noticeable improvement in science almost immediately (so much so, that when the cycle came back around to science 6 years later, the science program was excelling and producing student who were getting accepted into top colleges in engineering and premed programs). In the process of addressing the priority of the deficiencies in the science program, we ensured that we had a process to evaluate and preserve the strength of every academic program moving forward (not only taking care of one tree, but a grove of trees!).  The next year, we were able to address the specific area of parent involvement and support through the PTF and made changes that dramatically improved the organization and activities of this program. 

The point I am making is that, once I could see the whole forest – where we were, what we had, how we were doing – I could then zoom in and focus on individual trees – the science department, the parent-teacher fellowship, and other spots – and begin to clear or treat the trees to improve the health of the whole forest. I couldn’t address the shortfalls in the science department, restructure PTF, improve extracurricular student opportunities, develop more detailed written procedures and processes, and a number of other things, all at the same time. We didn’t have the capacity to do everything at once, nor would that have been healthy, because too much change too fast can do more harm than good. Rather, with the big picture in mind, I could address one thing at a time that gradually moved the school and the people into a much different – and better – place.

That’s part of your responsibility in leadership. You must understand the big picture so that you can then zoom in on the details as they relate to the whole picture. That helps you to see what is important and what is not, or what is more important and needs to be addressed first. Knowing that big picture helps you see the individual pieces through the lens of your identity, your location on the map, and your broad culture and history, so that you can bring those individual pieces into alignment with your mission and values and can make the necessary changes.

Don’t underestimate this half of the pair of principles, though. Yes, it is vital to see the big picture, but it is just as vital to see the trees. You need to be aware of the areas that are struggling and need to be addressed, as well as the places that are thriving. An understanding of these enables you to know where to praise, where to encourage, where to confront, and where to change. Without knowing that, your forest becomes entangled and overrun. You have to take the time to zoom in, see the trees, and care for those individual pieces of the puzzle. You have to apply the vision and values to the day-to-day operation to put them into practice. Otherwise, you have a lot of words without any action.

As you can tell, these two ideas – zooming out to see the forest, which we talked about last time, and zooming in to see the trees, our topic for today – work in tandem, and I believe they are inseparable. You cannot lead well without doing both. If all your energy is being spent only one or the other, you are going veer from your mission, lose focus, and experience deteriorating quality. You can’t do one and not the other. So, zoom out, zoom in, and do it again, and again, and again.

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Complementary Contradictions (part 5): Zoom In and See the Trees

Sometimes, you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, these seeming contradictions are, in reality, complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. In this series of articles and podcast episodes, we are looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, are opposite, or at least differ from each other and pairing them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader. Last week, in part 4, we explored the idea that you need to be able to zoom out and see the forest, and this week, in part 5, the idea that you need to be able to zoom in and see the trees.

Last week, we pointed out that a good leader needs to be able to see the big picture. Like jigsaw puzzle pieces, each piece of the context, the environment, the organization, or the situation fits into a larger context, and you can best see how it fits when viewing the whole picture. In order to see the whole picture, you, as a leader, must be able to get on the balcony, zoom out, and get above the forest to be able to see clearly. Being able to do this will keep you from getting lost among the trees, and will provide the perspective necessary to implement changes and adjustments when you zoom back in.

Most of us probably remember doing “connect the dots” picture puzzles when we were young.  The page would have dots all over the paper, usually numbered in a sequence.  The task was to place your pencil tip (or crayon) on the first dot, draw a line to the second dot, then another line from the second dot to the third, and so on until all the dots were connected.  At that point a recognizable picture had emerged (at least, if you connected the right dots together, it did).  The reason they formed that picture was that they were not a random smattering of dots; rather, they were each specifically and intentionally a point on a bigger picture, and therefore, connecting those dots allowed the picture to take shape.

Astronomers do something similar by grouping stars together (constellations) and drawing imaginary lines between those stars in such a way as to form a picture or a symbol.  This makes it easier to identify and remember groupings and locations, relative to direction, season, and time.  The real significance of the picture is not the picture itself, but rather their arrangement, and the connectedness of the stars in that arrangement.  In other words, these specific stars appear in this particular place, in relation to each other, at this time of the night and year.  This knowledge is what was used by mariners of the past to navigate ships, providing a map in the sky for direction and location.

One of the skills that an effective leader learns to harness is connecting the dots.  Generally, a leader is responsible for providing and shaping vision, which requires the ability to see and communicate the big picture. Part of seeing the big picture includes seeing how various pieces fit together to form that picture.  It is an understanding that certain events, actions, and ideas are going to complement each other in a way that produces a positive impact.  Therefore, a good leader is able to identify those connections in order to harness their connectedness.  He also helps others to recognize those connections.  In an article originally published in the Harvard Business Review, Warren Bennis and Robert Thomas describe this as the importance of grasping context, saying, “The ability to grasp context implies an ability to weigh a welter of factors, ranging from how very different groups of people interpret a gesture to being able to put a situation in perspective. Without this, leaders are utterly lost, because they cannot connect with their constituents” (p. 112).

Rath and Conchie, in Strengths-Based Leadership (2008), also speak to this when they categorize 34 leadership strengths into four basic categories, and then identify one of those strengths as Connectedness.  They explain, “People strong in the Connectedness theme have faith in the links between all things. They believe there are few coincidences and that almost every event has a reason” (p. 139). This involves helping people to see how various pieces are parts of a whole, or part of a bigger picture.  The person with this ability recognizes interrelatedness between events, people, or both. It is the ability to connect the dots and then help others see the connection.

This happens to be one of my strengths (it showed up as one of my top five when I took the StrengthsFinder profile).  Part of the reason stems from my faith in the sovereignty of God, which in turn leads to confidence that things don’t happen by chance. Part of the reason simply stems from an ability to recognize connections.  The realization of this emerged over time, and eventually, I understood that it was one of the things that made me more effective as a leader.  I could identify factors in the environment that were impacting outcomes, see how specific individuals were influencing culture, or spot the connection between seemingly unconnected events.  This, in turn, helped me to understand how to shape vision, make adjustments, or communicate information.

For example, when I began working in one school, I discovered that the students as a whole were performing poorly on standardized tests, like the SAT and the ACT.  As I reviewed the curriculum, I could also see that many of the classroom tests were focused on details and memorization but at the expense of critical thinking and interacting with ideas.  I also learned that most students did not take practice standardized tests (like the PSAT or PLAN) because it was voluntary, and so they had little familiarity with those tests.  Although those pieces were not the only reasons, I could see the connection between those factors and poor test scores.  My response was to create tests that improved critical thinking and reasoning, require all students to take the PSAT and PLAN, and create and institute a Test Prep course.  The result was a notable improvement in average scores.  But it began because I recognized the connections.

In two different organizations, I experienced an initial lack of trust and resistance to my efforts.  When I took the time to do some research and understand some of the history and culture, I learned in each place that the organization had been through a period of harshness, excessive control, and poor treatment of employees.  It was clear that there was a connection between their past experience and their responses to me.  An understanding of that connection helped me to determine my own actions and responses, enabling me to intentionally restore and rebuild trust.

More recently, connecting the dots of environmental factors led to changes that I implemented in the instructional process.  Over the last ten years, I could see that young people were being affected by technology.  The onsite of the Internet, with accessibility to information, social media, and electronic devices are all factors that combined to influence how children interact with the world around them.  Global communication became possible, making the world smaller.  Technology was incorporated into the workplace environment in many fields.  When I connected these dots, the conclusion was clear – digital integration needed to be part of the classroom.  As a result, I initiated a 1:1 program, one in which each student carried an electronic device into the classroom as an educational tool, and teachers incorporated the use of those devices in the learning process.

The lesson for you is this: you will be more effective if you can learn to connect the dots and see the trees.  Find the connections and use those connections to make decisions that will result in positive changes and improvements, decisions that will move you and the organization forward.  And here’s a tip: it’s easier to zoom in, see the trees, and make connections if you can zoom out, see the forest, and understand the big picture.

Bennis, W., & Thomas, R. (2011). “Crucibles of Leadership” in HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Leadership. Harvard Business Review Press: Boston, MA.

Rath, T., & Conchie, B. (2008). Strengths-Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow. Gallup Press: New York, NY.

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Podcast Episode 31 (part 4): Zoom Out and See the Forest

This week’s episode builds on Monday’s article, part four in the series titled “Complementary Contradictions.” Here is the transcript of the podcast.

There are times when you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, you may hear conflicting counsel that seems to be contradictory to each other, but which is actually complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. That’s what we are talking about in this series, in both the www.LeadershipEzra.com website articles and on the weekly podcast. We are looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, or at least differ from each other, and we are pairing them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader.  Today, in part 4, we explore the idea that you need to be able to zoom out and see the forest, and next week, the idea that you need to be able to zoom in and see the trees.

In the last two episodes, we talked about two complementary ideas: first, the idea that you see what you’re looking for and then, that you don’t see what you’re not looking for. The point we made was that, whether we realize it or not, we all develop perceptions of how we need to experience the world around us. Those perceptions tend to be based on either past experience or future expectation, or a combination of both.  We either have an experience, positive or negative, real or imagined, or we have a specific expectation that we are anticipating, and we then form a perception based on which we look for a certain outcome, and only see the things that confirm that outcome. Consciously or not, we decide what we are looking for, and only see what affirms or confirms what we expect to see.

At the same time, and although we believe we notice everything, especially if we are looking, we tend to miss a lot of what is right in front of us, primarily because we are not looking for that specific thing in that specific way. When I am looking to see or find something, without realizing it, I am expecting it to look a certain way or be in a certain place, so I then overlook it when it is not in that place, or it looks different than what I remember or expect. Because our tendency is to only see what we are looking for, it takes a conscious effort to see things that we are not looking for.

Now we are tackling another pair of ideas.

In my first experience as a head of school, I stepped into a situation in which the school had been struggling significantly. Enrollment had declined dramatically over the previous couple of years, the upper grades were meeting at a rented facility on the other side of town that was in terrible disrepair and not conducive to learning, the new building program was stalled, and there was not a clear and organized budget (the school was under the leadership of a church, and its budget was literally a single line in the church budget). I, however, was young and inexperienced.  So what did I do?  One of the first things I did was purchase 5” x 7” post-it notes. Then, I started writing down everything I could think of that I needed to know about, take care of, fix, protect, and do.  Everything I thought of, I wrote on a single Post-it note. I found a room with an empty wall and started sticking all of the Post-in notes on the wall.  After I had them all on the wall, I stepped back to the other side of the room and stared at the wall.  After staring at the notes for a while, I started sorting the notes that were there into related groups, and adding new notes of things I could see were missing.  I did this for about a week, and by the end of that time, I had begun to form a good picture of the puzzle I needed to put together to bring wellness, healing, and excellence to this school. Only then was I able to begin to zoom in on the smaller groups and individual pieces and get to work.

 You see, before I could create, inject, establish, repair, and restore all that I needed to do, I first needed to gain a big-picture understanding of what was in front of me. Similar to mapping out a trip, I needed to see the whole map, with the routes and stops and detours, so that I could plan the individual steps of the journey.  One of the downsides of modern vehicle GPS screens is that, in my personal opinion, you can readily see where you are, but not where you are trying to get to. It takes you there step by step, but you don’t see the whole picture along the way. In contrast, the exercise I went through in that first head-of-school role was intended to help me see the whole picture before I started on the journey.

In leadership, it is crucial that you take the time and effort to zoom out and see the big picture before you start your journey, and again periodically, or even frequently, along the way. You need to be able to step back, gather all the information that you can, and see the big picture, like the picture on a puzzle box that shows you the image you are trying to assemble before you put the individual puzzle pieces together. If you don’t do that, you end up with three issues:

  1. You don’t know where you are. Sure, you can see the spot you are standing in, but you only see where you are relative to yourself, not to the big picture.  In marine terms, that’s called dead reckoning.  It means you are trying to establish your position and direction based solely on where you think you are at the moment.  That will derail your plan if you are not where you think you are because you didn’t place yourself in the context of the whole picture.
  2. You don’t know where you are going. It only makes sense that if you can’t place yourself in the present, then you have no frame of reference to know the direction you are going in the future. You end up lost and wandering without a map.
  3. You will end up someplace else. This only makes sense.  If you don’t know where you are or where you are going, then eventually, you will end up somewhere, but you will have no idea where. Then you have an even greater mess because you now have to figure it where you ended up so that you can start over and try to get to where you need to.

The big picture today – pun intended – is that successful leadership requires taking the time to see and understand the big picture.  You need the vision and mission.  You need to know your intended outcome.  You need to survey the landscape.  You need to see the forest.  However you want to say it, you need to be able to get above the clouds and see the whole picture before you can drop back down to ground level and begin the process of directing, guiding, leading, and moving.

I just said GPS systems don’t show you the whole journey, only the steps along the way. Technically, you can see the whole route if you zoom the screen out, but if you do that, you can’t see the individual turns, stops, and steps. You can see one or the other, but not both at the same time. Therefore, you need to choose one or the other at any given time. Isn’t that the lesson of today’s topic? You can’t see the forest and the trees at the same time, so start by first zooming out to see the whole picture. Then you’ll be ready to zoom in, but that’s the topic for next time.

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Complementary Contradictions (part 4): Zoom Out and See the Forest

Sometimes, you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, these seeming contradictions are, in reality, complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. In this series of articles and podcast episodes, we are looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, are opposite, or at least differ from each other and pairing them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader. This week, we explore the idea that you need to be able to zoom out and see the forest, and next week, the idea that you need to be able to zoom in and see the trees.

I enjoy puzzles. I enjoy all kinds of puzzles – word puzzles, number puzzles, brain games, etc. – but in this instance, I am specifically referring to jigsaw puzzles, the ones that are pictures cut into hundreds of little pieces that need to be assembled. And I have a preferred method of assembly: first, turn all of the pieces face-up, setting aside those that have a straight edge (the outside frame); then assemble the outside frame; finally, begin to assemble the rest of the pieces, looking first for pieces that more obviously fit in the same section together. In the process of putting the puzzle together, however, one of the most important components is not the puzzle itself but rather the picture on the box.

It is the picture on the box that provides the perspective and the vision of what is being assembled. It provides a visual landscape that helps in determining the general context or place where an individual piece belongs. It’s a map that lets you see where you want to go. I once used the picture on the puzzle box to illustrate a lesson in a class I was teaching, by giving a puzzle to each of several small groups of people. Some of the groups had the puzzle box so they could see their picture, but some of the groups did not (and some had all the correct pieces, but some had the wrong pieces or were missing pieces; that served to make a different point). Part of the purpose of the lesson was to illustrate the importance of “the big picture,” or the master plan, for managing a process, a task, or life itself.

Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien, demonstrated the same concept when he and the company of dwarves were traveling through the Mirkwood Forest. As they traveled, the troupe lost sight of the path they needed to follow, became lost, and began to be disoriented. Eventually, Bilbo was sent to climb a tree in order to get above the canopy, and when he did, two things happened: his head cleared, and he could see where they were in relation to where they needed to go (in the movie, he could see the edge of the forest; in the book, he could only see more trees).

Heifetz & Laurie addressed that idea in a Harvard Business Review article, “The Work of Leadership” (2011).   In the article, they discussed the importance and challenge of adapting behaviors and changes in order to thrive in a new or different environment and specifically identified six principles for leading adaptive work. The first principle is labeled “Get on the Balcony,” which is explained as follows: “Get on the balcony. Don’t get swept up in the field of play. Instead, move back and forth between the ‘action’ and the ‘balcony.’ You’ll spot emerging patterns, such as power struggles or work avoidance. This high-level perspective helps you mobilize people to do adaptive work.” They go on to say that “business leaders have to be able to view patterns as if they were on a balcony. It does them no good to be swept up in the field of action.” The emphasis is on the importance of a leader being able to move between the balcony and the field of action, and the necessity of the balcony for providing perspective.

Collins & Hansen also addressed the idea in Great by Choice (2011), in a chapter that discusses identifying and responding to dangers and changes in the environment. Using the terms “zoom out” and “zoom in,” they point out that effective leaders, “when they sense danger, immediately zoom out to consider how quickly a threat is approaching and whether it calls for a change in plans. Then they zoom in, refocusing their energies into executing objectives.” The authors then describe the discipline required to “zoom out for fast yet rigorous decision making and zoom in for fast yet superb execution.” The discussion emphasizes the need for effective leaders to be able to step back and zoom out to the big picture in order to recognize and understand the changes and issues in the environment, which then makes them better able to zoom back in and focus on plans, objectives, and details.

The implication is simply this: a good leader needs to be able to see the big picture. Like puzzle pieces, each piece of the context, the environment, the organization, or the situation fits into a larger context, and you can best see how it fits when viewing the whole picture. In order to see the whole picture, you, as a leader, must be able to get on the balcony, zoom out, and get above the forest to be able to see clearly. Being able to do this will keep you from getting lost among the trees and will provide the perspective necessary to implement changes and adjustments. Zoom out, see the forest, and learn to see the big picture.

Collins, J., & Hansen, M. T. (2011). Great by Choice:  Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck – Why Some Thrive Despite Them All. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers.

Heifetz, R. A., and Laurie, D. L. (2011). “The Work of Leadership,” in HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Leadership. Harvard Business Review Press: Boston, MA.

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Podcast Episode 30 (part 3): You Don’t See What You’re Not Looking For

This week’s episode builds on Monday’s article, part three in the series titled “Complementary Contradictions.” Here is the transcript of the podcast.

There are times when you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, you may hear conflicting counsel that seems to be contradictory to each other, but which is actually complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. That’s what we are going to be talking about in the next weeks, in both the www.LeadershipEzra.com website articles and on the weekly podcast. We will be looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, or at least differ from each other, and we are going to pair them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader.  Today, in part 2, we are discussing the second half of a pair, and will be talking about the idea of “You don’t see what you are not looking for”.

In the last episode, we talked about the idea that you see what you are looking for. The point we made was that, whether we realize it or not, we all develop perceptions of how we need to experience the world around us. Those perceptions tend to be based on either past experience or future expectations, or a combination of both.  We either have an experience, positive or negative, real or imagined, or we have a specific expectation that we are anticipating, and we then form a perception based on which we look for a certain outcome, and only see the things that confirm that outcome. Consciously or not, we decide what we are looking for, and only see what affirms or confirms what we expect to see.

In today’s episode, we are flipping the coin to the other side.  On the one side, we tend to see what we are looking for, but on the other side, we also tend to not see what we are not looking for.

Have you ever been looking for something in your refrigerator or medicine cabinet, and you can’t find it no matter how much you look, but then someone else grabs it right from under your nose? My wife needed to use some Vaseline, so I went to get it for her from the linen closet. I looked high and low but couldn’t find it. I went to the store, and when I found the Vaseline, all that I could see were (in my perspective) large containers. In my mind, I thought that it only came in smaller containers, but I didn’t see those there.  Wouldn’t you know, when I got home, I immediately found the Vaseline that we already had, in a larger container in the linen closet. I realized that I had looked right at it in the closet but hadn’t seen it because I was looking for something much smaller.  I didn’t see what I wasn’t looking for.

I’ve done the same thing countless times in the food pantry or in the refrigerator, looking for something with an unconscious image in my mind of what the thing looks like, and in these instances, instead of seeing what I was looking for, and because it’s what I was looking to see, I completely overlooked the thing that was right there in front of me. Once again, I didn’t see what I was not looking for.

Think about when there is a constant, repeating noise, like a ceiling fan or the humming of an air conditioner, that you tune out after a little while and don’t even notice that it is there anymore.  Your mind is focusing on other things, so it tunes those things out, and eventually, you don’t even realize that they are there.  That’s what is happening here.  It’s too overwhelming to see everything, so your brain filters out what is not necessary or relevant, and even though it’s there, you don’t see it. Therefore, if you have a picture in your mind of what you are focusing on, your brain filters out the other things. 

This idea applies to your leadership.  Whether it’s people or circumstances, it’s easy for us to miss something important because we are not looking for it.  It may be because we don’t want to see it, or because we are looking for something else, or because we are not paying attention. Regardless of the reason, we miss something important, and it results in a difficult challenge.  Once, when I was a new head of school in a new school, I was also serving as the student government advisor so that I could be connected to the student culture.  Based on my previous school experience, I had a great idea for a homecoming week activity, and I pushed the student leaders toward it.  In my mind, it was a great idea (it had worked great someplace else, so, of course it would here!), and I was only thinking about how good this would be for the students and expected them to respond that way. I didn’t even see that they were not receiving it well. It was later that their discontent with the idea – and with me – came out when someone else pointed it out to me. Because I didn’t see what I wasn’t looking for, I had a mess to clean up.

Do see how that happens? Or should I ask, do you not see how that happens because you weren’t looking for it? And just like the discussion last week of seeing what you look for, the struggle of not seeing what we are not looking for leaves me with a couple of thoughts:

1) Be self-aware.  Recognize how your own expectations and viewpoint can cause you to miss something important, and step back to make sure you are not allowing a “predetermined bias” to prevent you from seeing what you need to see.

2) Be intentional about gathering information and listening carefully before you decide what you are seeing or what you are looking for.  Otherwise, you won’t see what you are not looking for.

 The pair of principles we’ve discussed these two weeks go together:  You see what you’re looking for, and you don’t see what you’re not looking for.  With these two ideas working together, you can become much more careful and prudent about seeing what you need to see, which in turn will lead to better decisions and, therefore, better leadership.

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Complementary Contradictions (part 3): You Don’t See What You Are Not Looking For

Sometimes, you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, these seeming contradictions are, in reality, complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. In this series of articles and podcast episodes, we are looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, are opposite, or at least differ from each other and pairing them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader. Last week, we explored the idea that “You see what you are looking for,” and this week, the idea that  “You don’t see what you are not looking for.”

Have you ever spent hours looking for something that you lost, only to find it sometime later in an obvious and open place? I have, and it usually causes me to mutter something like, “I can’t believe I didn’t see it before, it was right in front of me!” Don’t those experiences make you wonder why you couldn’t see it in the first place? This tendency seems to reflect an idea referred to by Chabris and Simons in The Invisible Gorilla (2010) as “the illusion of attention.”

The illusion of attention is the idea that “we experience far less of our visual world than we think we do,” as Chabris and Simons state, so, “when people devote their attention to a particular area or aspect of their visual world, they tend not to notice unexpected objects, even when those unexpected objects are salient, potentially important, and appear right where they are looking.” They go on to explain that “we know how vividly we see some aspects of our world, but we are completely unaware of those aspects of our world that fall outside of that current focus of attention,”, and that “we are only aware of the unexpected objects we do notice, not the ones we have missed.”. What this all really means is that, although we believe we notice everything, especially if we are looking, we tend to miss a lot of what is right in front of us, primarily because we are not looking for that specific thing in that specific way. Therefore when I am looking for something that I have lost, without realizing it I am expecting it to look a certain way and be in a certain place, so I then overlook it when it is not in that place or it looks different than what I remember or expect; essentially, “your moment-to-moment expectations, more than the visual distinctiveness of the object, determine what you see – and what you miss.”.

The same illusion of attention takes place in the context and environment of an organization, and in ways beyond the noticing of specific physical objects. When leaders are analyzing the present culture of the organization, planning for the future, or trying to identify issues and opportunities, it can be very easy to look around or look ahead with an unconscious expectation of what you will see; the result is that you will likely see what you are looking for but will miss what you are not looking for, and not even realize it. There may be an opportunity to tap into someone’s strength or ability, there may be an idea or a new method developing in a department, or there may be a problem that needs to be addressed, but because you are not looking for it, you miss it. And when you miss it, you may lose an opportunity or create greater difficulty.

So how do you open your eyes to see more of what you might otherwise miss? I remember a number of years ago the popularity of 3D optical illusions (also called stereograms) – pictures that looked like flat geometric patterns, but when you stared into the picture and allowed your eyes to relax and un-focus, looking beyond the flat image, a 3-dimensional image would appear. There was more to the image than the first look revealed, but it required intentional effort and a different way of looking. In the same way, when you are leading an organization, there must be intentional effort to see, and to see beyond what is in front of you or what you are expecting to see. How do you do that?

  • First, recognize our tendency to not see what we are not looking for.
  • Then, remove any expectations of what you think you might see.
  • After that, you can work at zooming out and zooming in – trying to step back and take a wide-angle look at everything, then looking at more specific details, then stepping back for a wide-lens look again, and so on.
  • Finally, you can also try to look through different eyes, by trying to see through the approach or perspective of other people or other angles.

It’s fairly easy to miss things that you are not looking for.  I’ve done it when I was trying to introduce a new change that I assumed everyone would get behind, and because of what I was therefore expecting to see (their support), I only saw the examples of support and completely missed the grumbling from those who were resisting.  You could probably guess that this eventually created difficulty in the change implementation because I had failed to see it and address it early.  I looked, but I didn’t see because I was only looking for what I expected to see.  So, as Chabris and Simons said, “looking is not sufficient for seeing”; because our tendency is to only see what we are looking for, it takes a conscious effort to see things that you are not looking for.

Chabris, C., and Simons, D. (2010). The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us. MJF Books: New York, NY.

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