Get in the Boat

by Pat Bodin

  Sometime later, with my new company, I attended a training hosted by Pat Bodin. As he talked about Green, Blue, and Red people, I could correlate all the different parts of my story to relational breakdown between the different colors. Specifically, there was a complete breakdown between Green and Blue. The Blue board presented a plan to save the company, but the Green owners told them to cut 40% of the staff. The Blue board tried to explain that drastic cuts would most likely kill the company, but the Green owners insisted on that route. The line between Green and Blue were completely blurred. Those who thought they were green, were actually blue (by definition). They were just providing recommendations while the true Green (the owners) had to approve the direction. Throughout this story, role confusion was in full swing. All the major warning signs in the next section were present throughout. The key lesson here is that ownership always wins out in the end—even to the detriment of a company, unfortunately.

  Warning Signs

  Here are a few warning signs of company downfall. Do you perceive any of these in your business? If so, it needs to enhance the relationships between Green and Blue and Red, in line with the principles taught in this book.

  Disconnected Green leaders is a warning sign of a company’s downfall. The C-Suite needs to stay involved and understand how the business operates. When Green dictates what will happen, without input from Blue and Red, disaster is just over the horizon.

  Poor communication or lack of communication is another warning sign. As the company was falling apart, the owners thought they were keeping the problems hidden from everyone outside the immediate fray. They thought the engineers and technologists were in the dark. But they didn’t realize that people talk in organizations. People notice change, especially change for the worse.

  In the heyday of my company, we had lines of communication open. People listened. But during the last few years of the company’s life, people stopped listening. Employees would bring issues and ideas to Ben and me, but we could never get buy-in from the owners and board. Company meetings turned from dialogues into monologues: “This is what you’re going to do. Here’s what you have to do it with. Now go do it.” There was no two-way communication, only dictation about how things were going to happen.

  Employee unhappiness is the final warning sign. In an environment where Red and Blue people feel irrelevant, employees stop saying, “I am here to work for the good of the business,” and start saying “I am here to do the minimum work and go home.”

  That is a disaster recipe for any business. You don’t ever want your employees to have that mindset. You want them to have pride in their work. At my business, we always prided ourselves on how we helped our clients. We tried to train our Red people to speak Blue. We told them, “Whenever you’re with a customer, always ask how you can improve the relationship between them and us—even if it’s not part of your job description. Always be thinking that way. And if you have any ideas yourself, let us know.”

  Communication breakdown between Green and Blue and Red spells disaster. That’s why it is so crucial that you learn how to be relevant and get in the boat.

  Summary

  The key to successfully being Blue is relevance to the goals of the organization. The strategists and the tacticians don’t typically communicate well. The role of Blue people is to enable the strategists’ business model and use the support of the tacticians to accomplish their mission. If Blue people connect the dots effectively across the organization, there will be less friction and more success. They do that in two ways. First, they understand the value chain: the coffee beans go through the French press and create the benefits of aroma, flavor, and social interaction. The Blue person ensures there are no missing links between what the business needs and the tactical solutions to those problems by making sure the processes and policies of the organization work together in unison.

  Blue people delve into specific processes to improve them. This is called value streaming. (In the coffee example, value streaming is trying to improve the French Press.) They look at the process as a whole, see how diverse elements fit together, and implement practical, tactical changes in order to better the outcome. This affects the value of the entire process, helps achieve specific KPIs, and promotes organizational goals. Blue people call their shot beforehand, hit the mark with their changes, and measure what matters on the back end. As they enable the organization to meet its goals, Blue people are increasingly seen as relevant by Green strategists.

  To effectively improve a process, Blue operators need to understand the desires of the Green strategists. That is why understanding the business model and what drives it is important. Green strategists ponder those matters regularly. Technologists can directly engage in a process within an organization and if they can make the process more effective, they can also make the experience more impactful.

  Here’s the challenge: historically, technologists have spent little time thinking about business models and value streaming. They have only cared about and worked with the raw ingredients. The idea that the technologist should be thinking about business models and value streaming is probably new to you, but I think it is essential. I would like technologists everywhere to spend a lot of their “mind time” thinking about value streaming. Value streaming empowers you to plug into a process and improve it, which is the number one way you can become relevant. No better way exists. What if the technologist was no longer viewed as the roadblock, but started to be viewed as the competitive advantage of their company?

  SECTION V.

  ELEVATE RED

  Chapter 16.

  Are You a Lone Wolf?

  A habit is a labor-saving device for your brain—and once it finds one, it doesn’t like to let it go. In his book The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg says that habits emerge “Because the brain is constantly looking for ways to save effort. Left to its own devices, the brain will try to make almost any routine into a habit, because habits allow our minds to ramp down more often.”33

  Once a habit is established, it is very difficult to break. Anyone who has ever tried to change their dietary norms or start an exercise routine knows this. We might call the phenomenon “habit inertia”. We continue along with the same habits because it is easier, it is a well-worn path.

  Habits are not only physical activities like brushing your teeth or going to the gym. Habits are also mental activities like “Don’t trust strangers,” or “Think concretely instead of abstractly.” There is a common mental habit in IT that must be eliminated before a Red person can be elevated to Blue. We might call it the lone wolf perspective.

  Wolves are pack creatures. They prefer to live and hunt together, which enables them to take down animals larger than themselves. But sometimes a wolf leaves the pack and heads out on its own; it becomes a “lone wolf ”. Since they must fend for themselves, these animals are often more aggressive and dangerous.

  Technologists often view themselves as lone wolves outside the pack. That perspective is both self-made and group-facilitated through habit and inertia. The mindset is “us against the world,” which makes working effectively with others quite difficult. Lone wolves don’t put themselves in vulnerable positions. Why? Because they have no support from a pack. And since they are not willing to show vulnerability, no other pack will ever invite them to join with them.

  Patrick Lencioni, whom we met earlier as the author of The Three Signs of a Miserable Job, wrote a business fable called The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Here is his list of dysfunctions:

  ❶ Absence of trust—lack of willingness to be vulnerable within a group

  ❷ Fear of conflict—preferring artificial harmony over constructive passionate debate

  ❸ Lack of commitment—feigning buy-in for group decisions, which promotes ambiguity in the group

  ❹ Avoidance of accountability—letting peers slide into counterproductive behavior without challenging them, which sets low standards

  ❺ Inattention to results—focusi
ng on personal success (such as status and ego) before team success34

  The fundamental dysfunction is the absence of trust; nothing happens without trust. Lencioni writes, “Great teams do not hold back with one another. They are unafraid to air their dirty laundry. They admit their mistakes, their weaknesses, and their concerns without fear of reprisal.”35 Elsewhere, he notes that “Teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability.”36

  Forming bonds

  There is a reason that teamwork is good for us. There is a reason that knowing each other, working hard together, and being successful together is more impactful than seeking success individually. And it’s not just about being relevant, which provides meaning in our work; there is something more. Carl Jung stated, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” The hidden secret is that our behavior is directed in part by unconscious forces.

  As discussed earlier, Patrick Lencioni states that one of the signs of a miserable job is anonymity; we must know the people we work with on a personal level or we’ll be unhappy. This is one of our challenges with other co-workers in our organization; we may not know them. Scientists have noted the “proximity principle,” the tendency for people who work closely together or live near each other to develop friendly relationships over time. It is thought that this is due to our brain’s need to group things together, to mentally assign objects (including people) which are in close proximity to each other into a shared group. Repeated interaction with people in near proximity actually creates connection in our minds, especially if there are also shared goals, values, or experiences. Our brain groups ourselves together when given the opportunity, causing individuals, “I and me,” to become a unit, “we and us”. Working individually detracts from this. Spending too much time working from home has the potential to detract from this.37

  When we do form positive relationships and start to effectively work together, our body will make an even stronger bond with a neurotransmitter called oxytocin. Oxytocin is the warm and fuzzy chemical, the “love hormone” responsible for creating attachments and establishing trust. But here is the thing about oxytocin – it doesn’t just give us a feeling of well-being, it is produced by our brain’s response to anything that feels good to us, whether physical or mental. Are you eating a delicious dessert? Your body produces oxytocin. Were you just embraced by a loved one? Oxytocin. Greeted by your puppy at the end of the day? Oxytocin. Given credit by a coworker? Oxytocin. Praised and recognized by someone in leadership, especially in a public setting? Oxytocin. Our workplaces are becoming increasingly virtual with less time to have in-person proximity, fewer opportunities to talk around the water cooler, and less opportunity to “break bread” with our co-workers. The virtual workplace can have benefits to families and individuals, which can increase job satisfaction, but care must be taken to avoid the potential negative side-effects of separation. How do we mitigate this fragmentation? The more we can do to increase both our virtual proximity and our actual proximity, the better our team will function; texting is less proximal than voice calling and voice calling is less proximal than video chatting, for instance. The more we can share the credit with our group, the more public praise we can give, the healthier we will be as individuals and as a team, because our brain chemistry matters.

  Serotonin and dopamine are two other chemicals that contribute to job satisfaction. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter responsible for mood. When people feel low social support, they have lower serotonin levels and will feel less job satisfaction. It is important to feel part of a group, to work as a team. Dopamine is responsible for motivation and the high we get from meeting goals. One of the things that I love about being a technologist is the thrill of solving a problem that was viewed by many as unsolvable or at least difficult. When we reach success on these projects, our body kicks in dopamine.

  So, with the proximity principle in place, enhanced by our brain chemistry, how do we use that to get in the boat with leadership? We need to seek ways to get out of our comfort zone and engage systematically with people that have a common goal, our company’s success, but not a common role. Technologists need to talk to others in the organizations, such as sales, marketing, engineering, production. Technologists are often introverts and this takes bravery on their part, but remember that Blue people don’t bite. Taking baby steps toward this goal is fine as long as steps are being made.

  Technologists cannot survive as lone wolves. The IT department’s only hope is a shift in perspective from outsider to insider and from lone wolf to valued partner. As one sage proverb expresses it, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

  Chapter 17.

  What Do You Fear?

  What do technology leaders fear? I believe the most common fear is the unknown. Specifically, it’s the unknown future state that any change might bring about: “What if the business changes and my job is no longer valuable? What if my amazing boss leaves and a bad one replaces him then makes my life miserable?” What if…what if…what if. As a consequence, adrenaline, the flight-or-fight response, engages. Most technologists prefer flight: You hide from the higher-ups and hope you can do a satisfactory job without getting fired.

  What happens when you hide from fear? It directs your life without you realizing it. Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist who founded a school of psychology around the 1920s. He addressed being conscious to fear: “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”38 Hiding from fear places you in the realm of fate. You are no longer in control. You do not mitigate risk because that risk, to your unconscious mind, seems like uncontrollable fate. You are subjugated to the outcome.

  What is the smart way to handle fear? You identify the risk and mitigate it. Carl Jung would describe that process as becoming conscious. I think “conscious fear” is just another name for “risk,” and the good news is that you can mitigate risk. Open your eyes to new opportunities.

  For instance, your boss might leave the company, which causes you fear because he provides protection and relationship. Once you identify the fear as a risk of lost relationship, you can respond by expanding your network to include others in the organization. You endeavor to become relevant, asking, “How can I impact you in a positive way?” Extending your umbrella of protection, you gain new relationships and mitigate the risk of your boss leaving. With a new network of relationships, you are more relevant, have a better career path, and have more leverage to ask for a budget.

  Our natural reaction

  Our natural reaction to the uncertain future threatens to derail our efforts to get into the same boat. How? Because our natural reaction is fear and while we are afraid, we are bad teammates.

  How do people respond when confronted with an uncertain future? The psychological framework is flight or fight. I’ve seen this throughout my career. IT people hide from their own business. Even for leaders, this is not uncommon! This, of course, creates communication challenges, because leaders who are controlled by fear don’t want to talk to anyone. They are already afraid of failing at their current projects, so why would they want to talk to someone who might give them another one? Visualize a desk covered by stacks of paper in piles that reach above the head. The technology leader is thinking, “Everything will topple over if I add another piece of paper.” Whether that is the reality or not does not make a difference if that is the perception of the mind.

  I’ve been in many environments where the Director of IT has a list of all his projects on the whiteboard behind him and the entire board is covered with scrawled listings of projects. He doesn’t even know how he’s going to prioritize this workload, much less complete all of these projects. How do technology leaders operate in such an environment? By squeaky wheels and pet projects. “The squeaky wheel gets the grease,” and the loudest-shouting functional leader gets the IT help. As for pet proj
ects, they may prioritize (consciously or unconsciously) what they really want to work on instead of what is most necessary for the business. Thus, a disconnect emerges.

  Is competency the issue? I don’t think so. There are some incompetent people out there, but I think the issue is prioritization, not competency. The challenge is to prioritize our work to make sure we’re doing the right things and not hiding from the functional leaders who could tell us what those “right things” are. Even if they communicate clearly, our own fear can shut down our listening abilities so that we don’t hear well.

  Sometimes technology leaders do opt for fight over flight. This frequently happens to avoid having to say those dreaded, three words: “I don’t know.” Technology leaders want to stay away from that phrase, never admitting ignorance. Technologists commonly believe their value is derived from what they know. Because of this, they hold their knowledge hostage and resist the free exchange of ideas with others.

  Moreover, they hate to be contradicted. When someone dares to contradict them, they emerge from hiding and try to prove that they know better. And maybe they did know better than everyone else 30 years ago. Today, almost every young leader has a decent idea of technology’s capabilities. The leader knows the desired outcome and that it can be achieved but just doesn’t know how exactly to achieve it. So, when IT says “It can’t be done,” the response is skepticism. The leader knows someone can do it, often because he has experienced it in the business-to-consumer (B2C) world. Technological progress brings new features along all the time. Young leaders know that they can integrate family members’ schedules together into a shared calendar, they are aware of the encrypted messaging that now comes standard on many smartphones; they have witnessed these functionalities and many others in B2C, so they question why their technologists can’t replicate that functionality within the business. They say, “I need encrypted messaging” and hear back, “It can’t be done.” They are in disbelief. “What do you mean it can’t be done? My smartphone does it. Why can’t you?”