Lawless Thinking brings you insights, tools and encouragement direct from our world of bold strategy delivery.

If this edition was forwarded to you, you can sign up here to receive your own copy in the future.

Thought of the Week

“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that things are difficult”

 

Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, 104

TL;DR

Faced with the opportunity to own, perform and demand respect from the exec, most people I observe choose to: Hesitate, Escalate, Congregate, Placate to avoid exposure and vulnerability.

The stories that keep us in these responses are ubiquitous across the world in my workshops, and very convenient. They let us off the hook.

Many executive teams are spending a fortune trying to get their people to take the wheel. It is exhausting, and slow, being the main source of energy and permission in the system.

I will explain how to start standing out using the DARE Loop which differentiates you immediately.

The Four Moves To Stagnation

There’s an old routine I’ve seen motivational speakers use.

She holds up a £10 note. She asks the audience of 500 people who wants it. There is silence. Nobody wants to be exposed. She pockets her £10 note and begins the speech.

Every human being runs the same default loop when offered what they want, on the other side of a little exposure that they don’t. A self-protection Story creates Emotion creates a defensive Action and a mediocre Result. It is fast, automatic, and it feels like thinking.

If you cannot identify and interrupt this loop, it leads to four major frictions that you may recognise:

I hesitate. Wait for one more piece of data. Get one more view. Sleep on it, again, just in case.

I escalate. Send it up the line to join an overloaded bottleneck of things being sent up the line by extremely expensive executives.

I congregate. Loop in stakeholders. Set up a meeting when our calendars finally align.

I placate. Second-guess what you think the senior person will want. Serve the personality and not the purpose.

WHY? Because of ‘the story’.

I often address the ‘Top 100’, those who report to the exec team. In workshops after my keynote, I ask them to define the bold, stretch strategic result they want to achieve this year. Then I ask them to name the story they will have to delete in their own heads, that they habitually tell themselves, in order to actually deliver it when they get back to work.

The same lines come up every time, all over the world. The story I must delete to take ownership and ACT is:

“I’m not senior enough.”

“I need to wait for permission.”

“I mustn’t rock the boat.”

“I need to do it the way it’s always been done.”

“I’ll never get all the stakeholders aligned, so why bother?”

“I can’t change the bureaucracy.”

“I’m too busy.”

“The regulator.”

These are the most senior 100 people after the Exec. They all report to a member of the ultimate decision authority. They are the bureaucracy. They own ‘how it is done here’.

These stories are as convenient as they are ubiquitous. They let us feel comfortable. They let us blame another thing and feel wise as we criticise. They sound sensible and, because everybody is telling the story, they are almost impossible to argue with in the mirror.

But in a high-performing culture, these stories simply do not exist. The purpose is too strong to permit them in people’s thinking. A newcomer would quickly realise that speaking one of these excuses will alienate, not endear.

Another uncomfortable truth: most executive teams are spending a large amount of time, energy and money on getting their people to take ownership and get things done.

So the promotion you want may well be sitting on the table in front of you, waiting. You can do more than you think to help the exec team win. And they will see you.

Using the DARE Loop instead.

The DARE Loop is the alternative. It demands action, ownership and ‘first-principles’ thinking as opposed to ‘story-based’ thinking.

What is the RESULT you want to create?

What are the ACTIONS required of you to deliver it?

Will you DECIDE and commit to those ACTIONS? Will you humbly EVALUATE what you created, learn, improve and iterate: the LOOP part.

So far, so easy. But when you are sitting in a meeting thinking ‘this is a waste of my time, I should be talking to a customer’, will you tell one of the blame stories above and stay comfortable? Or politely excuse yourself and become vulnerable and different in order to perform and deliver?

So what is the story you need to delete in order to perform, stand out, be what AI can never be and enjoy deep satisfaction and also secure that promotion?

What would be a better story to use as your guide when you feel the risk of exposure heading towards you?

After all, did anybody at your organisation ever actually get fired for taking a decision in line with the strategy and values and getting vital stuff done faster?

Most people add drag (hesitation, escalation, congregation) into the system to feel safe. What could you do to turbocharge it instead?

Your exec team pay people like me to join them onstage and help them encourage everybody to be courageous and leave the comfort zone. It’s what they want. It’s what the company and the customer need.

Why don’t you have some fun with that, and maybe secure yourself that promotion along the way?

My Fortnight

I am excited to announce that Symmetry is to be renamed Lawless & Co. and we have begun recruiting Senior Associates who are seeking an exciting firm with a clear career path to partnership.

We architect strategy execution and AI adoption in global organisations. We will build upon your expertise, supporting you to become truly world-class in walking beside our clients to execute and implement the strategy once the consultants have left the slide deck behind.

We are also looking for a disciplined marketing strategist capable of designing, building and operating a foundational AI-enabled CRM, supporting our content and who is looking for a career-defining challenge.

Meanwhile, I was delighted to deliver keynote addresses for fascinating and fabulous clients at the iconic Odeon, Leicester Square (pictured), at the Belfry, in Barrow-in-Furness (where the Defence Investment Plan was, finally, being carefully perused), and in Paris, all alongside our exec team advisory projects.

Book of the Week

If you want to take the wheel, I recommend Taming Tigers by me. It’s precisely why I wrote it. It contains case studies on deploying a ‘take control’ approach from the inspirational CEO asked by the UK Government to turn Northern Rock around after the crash, a US Naval officer faced with an underperforming team on an aircraft carrier and more. It also sets out the Ten Rules for overcoming your ‘Tiger’, picking up your pen and writing your story.

If you are a leader wanting to see your people take the wheel more, I’ll offer you Turn the Ship Around by L. David Marquet. A US Navy submarine captain takes command of the worst-performing boat in the fleet and, within a year, has the best. But how?

His method is elegantly simple. He stops giving orders and trains every officer to bring him intent rather than requests for permission. “Captain, I intend to…” If you read one book on how to give the wheel to your people, read this one.

Write Your Story 🖋️

Jim