I did something today I feel like I don’t do often enough. And then, I quickly got out of the way. It's really an easy story (and a short one).
We have a business problem (opportunity). As a leader, I have a vision of what I think we should do. Beyond that, I'm not sure how we will get it done or even if the vision I have is right. However, I'm blessed in that my team is composed of some very bright people who, at a minimum, share my passion for working with nonprofit and government organizations. Therefore, my answer was easy.
I selected three people who I know are smart, are dedicated, share my desire to help our clients do better, and bring different perspectives from having worked with our clients. Following that, I did the following:
- Shared my vision with each of them individually, letting them know they had complete discretion to adjust the vision.
- Gave them time to think about it.
- Asked them to schedule time together to brainstorm the solution, including the action steps needed to implement it.
- Got out of the way (that is, I didn't attend their meeting).
- Received a brilliant solution with the steps necessary to implement it.
The steps above seem obvious, yet as leaders we often miss the one most important step: Get out of the way. Assuming we hired the right people (and right has lots of definitions), we need to let them do what they do. We need to encourage them to be creative. We need to let them do things that will make our organization better.
Too often, though, we create the vision, and then we interfere in the process of creating the solution. When we sit in the brainstorm meeting, our presence as leaders may cause those attending to want to create solutions that please us rather than really solve the problem. By not being there, we free them to say things like, "That vision is missing something; if it included xxxxxx, we could really create something great." And because we're not there wasting time defending our idea, they can move forward.
One last thing: Doing this requires trust. We need to trust that our people want to do the right thing. And our people need to trust their leaders so that they can make the vision better without offending the person who created the vision.
How do you assemble brilliance in your organization?