Technology leaders have a challenging role: On the one hand they face complex business environments which are frequently changing. On the other hand they have teams that are looking for clarity so they can bring themselves fully into the business.
Bridging the gap between these two worlds is a balancing act, but getting it right is critical to success!
Walking the Leadership Tightrope
Particularly during the current macro-economic downturn, many technology business are rethinking how they best deliver value to their customers. Massive layoffs have left teams in a transition and re-organisation phase. How can we do with less and consolidate roles and responsibilities? How can we get more efficient at what we do?
At the same time, many organisations still have ambitious targets and stakeholders are applying pressure on hitting milestones to deliver against the company strategy. How can we ensure everyone is more aligned and focussed on the most important initiatives?
Technology leaders are walking a tightrope, balancing between complex changes facing their organisations and setting their teams up for renewed success.
It's a Multi-Dimensional Challenge
So where should we start? What should we tackle first? How do we know what adjustments will have the biggest impact? Unfortunately, there is no simple answer to that!
Technology teams are a complex socio-technical system where a change in one area will directly affect many other areas.
For example, when we adjust the product vision, we have to consider how we structure our organisation to deliver this. In many cases, this will also affect the tooling and processes needed to support the change.
As with any complex system, we need to be careful and consider all elements as a whole. We need to design experiments that incrementally affect change. This will also allow us to get our teams on board and get their commitment. Ideally we also define metrics which allow us to continuously evaluate the impact of the experiments against the desired outcomes.
We can Grow into Complexity
From my personal experience, it can be quite daunting when being faced with complexity. I certainly felt this when I lead a technology team of a hospitality sector business through the Covid years!
But complexity is not absolute - it is relative to our current level of personal development! We therefore can use complexity as a source for our leadership growth by breaking it down into smaller challenges that we can overcome!
Complexity is not absolute - it is relative to our current level of personal development!
For example when we are faced with a significant change of direction or changes in ways of working, we can learn from peers, mentors and coaches to grow into the complexity that we experience for the first time in our careers.
Develop Your Mental Complexity
When external complexity is challenging us, we need to find a way to develop our own mental complexity to adjust to a new situation. We also need to keep in mind that in most cases, a new situation will not only affect ourselves, but often our whole team or organisation.
When we develop our mental complexity, we will change how we relate and collaborate with the people around us. We need to carefully consider how our own growth reflects in the way we work and lead.
When we develop our mental complexity, we change how we relate and collaborate with the people around us.
Here six steps that can help you in your personal development when confronted with a new situation:
Communicate Share your experience and understanding of what's happening with peers and your line manager. Remember that your perspective is valid and nobody can challenge how you are feeling!
Listen Ask what your peers, direct reports and line manager are seeing and feeling and be open to different perspectives. Acknowledge their views and consider how they match up with your own.
Establish Common Understanding Reflect on how the new situation affects you and others. Discuss how you can come to a joint view. It can be helpful at this stage to get additional support from outside your organisation who can guide you through a bigger change.
Consider the Goal Based on where you are now, what would be a reasonable development goal that you and others can agree to and work towards? Ask yourself how your environment and your role within it could look like in three months time. Visualise an outcome that you can focus on!
Make a Plan How will you get to reach your goal? Develop initiatives that could help with overcoming the complexity you are confronted with. Consider mentoring or coaching to help with personal or organisational learning. Prioritise your ideas based on how quickly they can get you to your goal.
Take Action Start with with the most promising initiative! Make sure you share with everyone affected what you are doing and why you are doing it. Be open to their feedback as you will need their commitment! Now it's all about action and finding out what makes a difference! And remember to reflect on progress before you take the next step!
If you want to learn more about implementing significant change in yourself to overcome complexity, I can recommend the book "Immunity to Change" (Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey).
Comentarios