The Art of Questioning and Being Wrong

With the passing of Steve Jobs on October 5th it is an appropriate time to reflect on how we each approach innovation in our business.   It has already been speculated that Mr. Jobs will be equated in history with inventors such as DaVinci, Edison, Tesla etc, Mr. Jobs was well known for his attention to detail and in fact being a very difficult person to work for.   There is a story that has now entered into Apple folklore and while probably embellished it does emphasis his attention to detail.   Apparently Steve called his top designer/programmer on Sunday morning at church with a message to immediately come back to the office due to an emergency.   The individual left church immediately and upon meeting with Steve at the Apple head office in Cupertino found that the urgent issue was within a project that the company was working on with Google.  The urgent issue apparently was with the Google logo, the colour of yellow was slightly off and Steve wanted it fixed immediately.   Hard to imagine a top programmer not questioning why he was being called into work on a Sunday, however this exemplifies the fastidious  attention to detail that Jobs had, something I can appreciate as I am typing on my MacBook Pro with the keys that seem to float under my fingers.

There is a 'however' to this message, in this age of hyper-competition and concerns about the economy have we forgotten how to question decisions, directions and provide feedback that we are often in the best position to provide.   Along with this, as leaders have we forgotten that we are often wrong when we do not solicit these opinions.   In his note "Please Complain" Seth Godin feels that there are several reasons we do not solicit complaints from customers and by extension employees:

• You might believe that inviting disgruntled customers to call or write to someone who will actually take action will encourage them to become more disgruntled. If no one is listening, the thinking goes, then perhaps the annoyed will quietly go away.

• You might believe that it's expensive to listen to squeaky wheels, particularly if you have someone in authority (as opposed to a low-paid clerk) actually listening and responding.

• You might believe that the noisy minority don't share the objectives of the rest of your audience, particularly the higher-paying and silent majority.

Have we allowed our fear of customer complaints to extend to our own teams.  Most companies today that exist in mature industries still stick to fairly rigid corporate hierarchies that are excellent at managing information flows from the top down, they are not set-up to allow for feedback from the 'bottom-up'.   In his article The Danger of Deference Ron Ashkenhas states that deference to authority along with following a hierarchy is deep rooted in society and very difficult for us to overcome.   The difficulty is in our 'new economy' we need everybody in the organization contributing new ideas and improvements.  As leaders we need to express confidence in our teams and to our boss we need to let them know that this deference is happening (in private).

Along with this reduced solicitation of questioning we have also lost our ability to articulate our concerns and questions in a way that is non-threatening and constructive.   As leaders, we are typicaly focused on coaching, strategy and implementation with less time for information gathering.  As followers we are focused on implementation and often survival with little time for constructive reflection.  This often has us in the vicious circle of complaining rather then providing feedback to either correct the strategy or implementation.


As leaders we have an opportunity to understand that our decisions are much better when our team's contribute to the information gathering, analysis and decision making.  My ask for this week is if you are a leader, actively solicit feedback from those around you.   As well all of us should let our boss know areas where deference is possibly holding back individuals from providing feedback and making better organizational decisions.

How will our children (or grandchildren) do their job?

For many of us it has been back to school time for the past several weeks.   I know in the Adamcryck household the first day of school was a very sad event.   Amanda packed up all of our son's 'stay at school' clothing and packed him and two backpacks off to the first day of school.   I would imagine she looked like Tenzing Norgay accompanying Sir Edmund Hillary up the slope of Everest dragging along our son with all of his 'gear'.  The expectation was a child sad to leave his mother after several summer months at home.  Of course he was so excited to get back to school that he ran into the classroom without saying good bye.

Back to school time has me wondering if we are preparing our kids properly for their career.

I was speaking to a group the other day and they asked me what a leader of the future would look like.   I am asked this often so I provided my thoughts:

• High level emotional quotient
• Ability to lead through uncertainty
• Ability to lead across business lines
• Technologically capable
• Innovative
• Strong communicator
• Ability to lead without formal authority
• Global mindset

Upon reflection I realized that I was talking about leaders within the next five years as well as within traditional organizations.   I now realize that I could not define what leaders will need over the next twenty years.

This had me wondering what I will need to do to set my son up for success as he hopefully enters the post school work force in 15 - 20 years from now.   Also what should I be demanding from our educational system to help us prepare the next few generations for how the world of work will change during that period.   We have seen the most rapid change in work since the industrial revolution with jobs constantly being created that did not previously exist and there is no end to this change in sight.   When I was in university we would have never dreamed that social networking would create an entire industry, now this is making people billionaires.  

It is hard to believe, but our 'modern' education system was not originally designed to provide students with an education.   In 1918 the compulsory education system was put in place as adults were concerned about child labour taking away from adult work.  The adult workers successfully petitioned politicians and business owners to send children to school.   The argument was that the classroom would make children more compliant and able to take instruction better.   Straight rows and putting one's hand up in the classroom were not originally meant to provide higher learning.   For more on this topic please read Seth Godin's Blog

I also read an interesting blog on what the future will look like for kids and it is interesting where the author sees it moving towards.   One of the items discussed is how to use games to promote education and develop individuals.   This makes sense as we see more people each generation playing electronic games and socializing within those games as well.  In a posting on How We Prepare Our Kids For The Future there is a great discussion on alternative methods for teaching our children.

This thinking extends to our graduate and post-graduate learning environment.   When we think about what is learned in traditional business schools does this really set-up our leaders of the future for the types of decisions they need to make?   Our business schools teach our graduates to utilize frameworks and heuristics such as Internal Rates of Return, Porter's Five Forces and the use of spreadsheets.   If we then compare to some of the recent success business success stories such as Facebook, Linkedin does our traditional education system really prepare students to create or work within these environments where disruptive innovation becomes the norm rather then the exception.

There are several established, however non-traditional methods of teaching such as Montesorri and Waldorf that have managed to create more innovative thinkers.   How can we now develop our public systems to adapt to the changing requirements of our world of work?  Do we continue to attempt to develop non-traditional thinkers through traditional means or do we need some other means to create the next generation of leaders?



Social Networking

In an effort to move myself into the digital age, I am now attempting to establish a greater online profile.  If you would like to join either my Google + Circle or Linkedin, please send me an  e-mail at michael.adamcryck@gmail.com.