It’s well established that diverse perspectives lead to innovation, a critical component of organizational growth. As long as your organization or agency is articulating and broadcasting consistent vision and value to your customers and employees, you should be enthusiastically collecting as much perspective as you can.
But too often today’s managers operate in a way that suppresses perspective. They assume that they’re position endows them with expertise that is somehow more valuable than those they supervise, and they focus on forcing their perspective on their departments or divisions. This is one fundamental difference between theory X and theory Y managers–between managers who seek control and practice more dominance-oriented techniques and managers to who are more participatory and govern through trust, open-mindedness and empowerment.
A simple example of this is the manager who attends a webinar or conference and edits down the content and re-presents the material to their department, often with their own qualifying content. This is fine, to an extent, as the original content might not all be relevant. But this is also an example of a manager deciding that they don’t trust their subordinates to think for themselves and examine the source content through their own lens. It’s a decision to develop perspective, not filter.
When we talk about filter, we’re talking about the collective experience and knowledge that inform our choices. This ability to filter is critical to survival–it helped our ancestors avoid getting eaten, it helps us make nutritious food choices at the supermarket so we can stay healthy, and it helps us build networks, bridges, and collaborative engines in our places of work. It makes it possible for us to self-select into groups and teams that draw from our strengths and drive the greater good.
Rather than spending time rehashing a webinar, the manager could simply forward the presentation along with a quick recap of how they feel it’s relevant. But that alternative just removes the theory X factor from the equation and doesn’t help those on the receiving end develop their filters. Here’s what theory Y has to say about developing filters.
Be a Coach
Theory X managers are tellers. “Do it this way.” “This is not what I had in mind.” And the death knell of many an organization: “This is how we’ve always done it.” Theory Y managers are coaches who ask questions. “How do you think this will turn out if we take this approach?” “How does this support the project goals?” “What do you envision our next step to be?”
Coaches are critical to organization growth and engagement. They use inclusive language that implies teamwork rather than 1:1 relationships of dominance and subordination. Coaching requires less energy and work–it’s exhausting and inefficient to constantly tell others what to do and maintain a bank of strong opinions. Coaching requires patience and deep listening, both things that co-workers, supervisors and supervised alike, respond to well and appreciate. By coaching through questioning, you’re helping those you manage to develop their own filters in a guided, proactive way.
In our example above, the manager could send along the presentation and ask those on the receiving end to write down five things they found insightful, or five questions the presentations raised, then pool the responses and encourage group discussion.
Make Opportunities for Growth Readily Available and Accessible
Theory X management tends to put people in narrowly defined career predicaments. This is due to a variety of factors. First, managers who dictate rather than encourage self-initiated growth tend to pigeon-hole their employees and drive them to become specialists, and then rely on them to provide a very specific subset of tasks for them. Second, the employee, in turns, feel less valuable and becomes disengaged, preferring to keep a low profile and just “get through the day.”
Get to know your employees’ strengths and skill sets, and align them with work that will help them flourish.
It’s one thing to be really good at a narrow set of things and be celebrated for it. It’s another thing to be regulated to jobs that you don’t necessarily love doing and dread work as a result. Get to know your employees’ strengths and skill sets, and align them with work that will help them flourish.
Especially in creative fields (design, videography/photography, stack development, etc.), it’s important to encourage well-rounded skill sets that cover a diverse set of disciplines. This is the glue that holds teams together–sharing knowledge and bouncing ideas off one another because of overlaps in interest and skill sets. Even in more “disciplined” fields (accounting, i.e.), it’s good to have people job-shadow and take on work outside of their comfort zones. They will develop new perspectives that will pay off in unexpected ways.
In our example, the manager could ask people to identify topics from the presentation that interest them and aren’t necessarily part of their current job description, then follow up individually to discuss what opportunities might be available for them to explore those topics.
Follow the Rule of Thirds
During your one-on-one meetings (you are regularly holding weekly one-on-ones with those you supervise, right?), follow the rule of thirds:
- One third of the conversation is about how you can help them with what they’re currently working on.
- One third of the conversation is about how they can help you with the work you’re currently doing.
- One third of the conversation is about how they can grow and develop their filter, and how you can help.
The first two are fairly straight forward. This is a great opportunity to level the playing field and build rapport and trust with employees by setting your respective workloads side-by-side on the table. The critical and often missed element to one-on-ones is step three. Make sure you’re devoting time to talk about their career paths and how you can help them grow and reach their professional goals. Be a coach, ask questions about their interests and capacity in relation to their current duties. Connect the dots between what they currently do and their potential.
It’s crucial to remember the real goal of leadership – to create more leaders, not followers. Finding ways to develop filters is like sending your team’s brains to the gym. Each time you encourage someone to ask questions and step outside of their comfort zone, you’re helping to develop their filter and their ability to lead others through similar circumstances. A cycle that will pay endless dividends to your company’s bottom line.
