Transitioning from a Bossy Boss into a Digital Age Leader [Series Conclusion]

Posted on August 25, 2015 by Rob H

Now that we are to the end of our 8 POST SERIES, BRAD SZOLLOSE AND ROB HIRSCHFELD INVITE YOU TO SHARE IN OUR DISCUSSION ABOUT FAILURES, FIGHTS AND FRIGHTENING TRANSFORMATIONS GOING ON AROUND US AS DIGITAL WORK CHANGES WORKPLACE DELIVERABLES, PLANNING AND CULTURE.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our discussion about digital management over the last seven posts. This series was born of our frustration with patterns of leadership in digital organizations: overly directing leaders stifle their team while hands-off leaders fail to provide critical direction. Neither culture is leading effectively!

Digital managers have to be two things at once

We felt that our “cultural intuition” is failing us. That drove us to describe what’s broken and how to fix it.

Digital work and workers operate in a new model where top-down management is neither appropriate nor effective. To point, many digital workers actively resist being given too much direction, rules or structure. No, we are not throwing out management; on the contrary, we believe management is more important than ever, but changes to both work and workers has made it much harder than before.

That’s especially true when Boomers and Millennials try to work together because of differences in leadership experience and expectation. As Brad is always pointing out in his book Liquid Leadership, “what motivates a Millennial will not motivate a Boomer,” or even a Gen Xer.

Millennials may be so uncomfortable having to set limits and enforce decisions that they avoid exerting the very leadership that digital workers need! While GenX and Boomers may be creating and expecting unrealistic deadlines simply because they truly do not understand the depth of the work involved.

So who’s right and who’s wrong? As we’ve pointed out in previous posts, it’s neither! Why? Because unlike Industrial Age Models, there is no one way to get something done in The Information Age.

We desperately need a management model that works for everyone. How does a digital manager know when it’s time to be directing? If you’ve communicated a shared purpose well then you are always at liberty to 1) ask your team if this is aligned and 2) quickly stop any activity that is not aligned.

The trap we see for digital managers who have not communicated the shared goals is that they lack the team authority to take the lead.

We believe that digital leadership requires finding a middle ground using these three guidelines:

Clearly express your intent and trust, don’t force, your team will follow it
Respect your teams’ ability to make good decisions around the intent.
Don’t be shy to exercise your authority when your team needs direction

Digital management is hard: you don’t get the luxury of authority or the comfort of certainty.

If you are used to directing then you have to trust yourself to communicate clearly at an abstract level and then let go of the details. If you are used to being hands-off then you have to get over being specific and assertive when the situation demands it.

Our frustration was that neither Boomer nor Millennial culture is providing effective management. Instead, we realized that elements of both are required. It’s up to the digital manager to learn when each mode is required.

Thank you for following along. It has been an honor.

Leading vs. Directing: Digital Managers must learn the difference [post 5 of 8]

Posted on June 17, 2015 by Rob H

Fifth IN AN 8 POST SERIES, BRAD SZOLLOSE AND ROB HIRSCHFELD INVITE YOU TO SHARE IN OUR DISCUSSION ABOUT FAILURES, FIGHTS AND FRIGHTENING TRANSFORMATIONS GOING ON AROUND US AS DIGITAL WORK CHANGES WORKPLACE DELIVERABLES, PLANNING AND CULTURE.

Digital Management has a challenging deep paradox: digital workers resist direct management but require that their efforts fit into a larger picture.

If you believe the next generation companies we discussed in post #4, then the only way to unlock worker potential is enable self-motivated employees and remove all management. In Zappos case, they encouraged 14% of their workers to simply leave the company because they don’t believe in extreme self-management.

Companies like W. L. Gore & Associates, the makers of GORE-TEX, operate and thrive very well in a team-driven environment… This apparently loosey-goosey management style has brought about hundreds of major multibillion-dollar ideas and made W. L. Gore a leading incubator of consistently great ideas and products for more than fifty years. To an outside observer it looks as though the focus is on having fun. But to the initiated, it is about hiring intense self-starters who contribute wholeheartedly to what they are doing and to the team, and most important, who can self-manage their time and skill sets.

— Liquid Leadership by Brad Szollose, page 154

Frankly, both of us—Brad and Rob—are skeptical. We believe that these tactics do enhance productivity, but gloss over the essential ingredient in their success: a shared set of goals.

Like our Jazz analogy, the performance is the sum of the parts and the players need to understand how their work fits into the bigger picture. A traditional management structure, with controlling leadership and über clear, micromanaged direction, backfires because it restricts the workers’ ability to interpret and adapt; however, that does not mean we are advocates of “no management whatsoever” zones.

The trendy word is Holacracy. That loosely translates into removal of management hierarchy and power while redistributing it throughout the organization. Are you scared of that free-fall model? If workers reject traditional management then what are the alternatives?

We need a way to manage today’s independent thinking workforce.

According to Forbes, digital workers have an even higher need to understand the purpose of their work than previous generations. If you are a Baby Boomer (Conductor of a Symphony), then this last statement may cause you to roll your eyes in disagreement.

Directing a Jazz ensemble requires a different type of leadership. One that hierarchy junkies —orchestra members who need a conductor—would call ambiguous…IF they didn’t truly know what was happening.

Great musicians don’t join mediocre bands; they purposely seek out other teams that are challenging them, a shared set of goals and standards that produce results and success. This may require a shift in mindset for some of our readers.

Freedom in jazz improvisation comes from understanding structure. When people listen to jazz, they often believe that the soloist is “doing whatever they want.” If fact, as experienced improvisers will tell you, the soloist is rarely “doing whatever they want”. An improvisational soloist is always following a complicated set of rules and being creative within the context of those rules. From Jazzpath.com

In the past generation, there was no need to communicate a shared vision: you either did what you were told, OR just told people what to do. And people obeyed. Mostly out of fear of losing your job. But, in the digital workforce, shared goals are what makes the work fit together. Players participate of their own will. Not fear.

Putting this into generational terms: if you were born after 1977 (aka Gen X to the Millennials) then you were encouraged to see ALL adults as peers. In the public school system, this trend continued as the generation was encouraged to speak up, speak out and make as many mistakes as possible…after all, THAT is how you learn. And the fear of screwing up and making mistakes was actually encouraged, as teachers also became friends and mentors. Video games simply reinforced the same iterative learning lessons at home.

Thousands of years of social programming were flipped over in favor of iterative learning and flattened hierarchy. Those skills showed up just in time to enable us to survive the chaos of the digital work / social media revolution.

But survival is not enough, we are looking for a way to lead and win.

Since hierarchy is flat, it’s become critical to replace directing action with building a common mission. In individual-centric digital work, there are often multiple right ways to accomplish the team objective (our topic for post 7). While having a clear shared goals will not help pick the right option, it will help the team accept that 1) the team has to choose and 2) the team is still on track even if some some individuals have to change direction.

Just listen to the most complex work out there that has been influenced by Jazz; the late Jeff Porcaro, pop rock drummer and cofounder of Toto admits to being influenced by Bo Diddley for his drum riffs on the song Rosanna. Or if you are a RUSH fan you know that songs like La Villa Strangiato owe the syncopated rhythms, chord changes and drum riffs to Jazz.

Or the modern artist Piet Mondrian who invented neoplasticism, was inspired by listening incessantly to a particular type of jazz called “Boogie-Woogie.”

Participants in this type of performance do not tune out and wait for direction. They must be present, bring 100% of themselves to each performance, and let go of what they did in the last concert because each new performance is customized.

You have until our next post to cry in your beer while whining that digital managers have it too hard. In the next post, we’ll lay out 12 very concrete actions that you should be taking as a leader in the digital workforce.

PS: Brad some important insights about how their childhood experience shapes digital natives’ behavior. We felt that topic was important but external to the primary narrative so Rob included them here:

Continue reading →

Can Digital Workers Deliver? No. [cloud culture vs. traditional management, post 1 of 8]

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Rob H

In this 8 post series, Brad Szollose and Rob hirschfeld invite you to share in our discussion about failures, fights and frightening transformations going on around us as digital work changes workplace deliverables, planning and culture.

Digital workers will not deliver. Not if you force them into the 20th century management model then they (and you) will fail miserably; however, we believe they can outperform previous generations if guided correctly. In the 21st Century, digital technologies have fundamentally transformed both the way we work and, more importantly, how we have learned to work.

So far, we’ve framed this transformation as a generational (Boomers vs Millennials) challenge; however, workers today transcend those boundaries. We believe that we need to redefine the debate from cultural viewpoints of Boomers (authority driven leadership) and Millennials (action driven leadership). In the global, digital workforce, these perspectives transcend age.

We looked to performing music as a functional analogy for leadership.

In music, we saw very different leadership cultures at work in symphonic and jazz performances. The symphony orchestra mirrors the Boomer culture expectation of clear leadership hierarchy and top-down directed effort. The jazz band typifies the Millennial cultural norms of fluid leadership based on technical competence where the direction is a general theme and the players evolve the details. Both require technical acumen and have very clear rules for interaction with the art form. More importantly, these two extremes both produce wonderful music, but they are miles apart in execution.

Today’s workforce generations often appear the same way – unable to execute together. We believe strongly that, like symphonies and jazz concerts, both approaches have strengths and weaknesses. The challenge is to understand adapt your leadership cultural language of your performers.

That is what Brad and Rob have been discussing together for years and, now, we’d like to include you in our conversation about how Cloud Culture is transforming our work force.

Read Post #2!

Cloud Culture: Reality has become a video game [Collaborative Series 3/8]

Posted on August 27, 2014 by Rob H

This post is #3 in an collaborative eight part series by Brad Szollose and I about how culture shapes technology.

DO VIDEO GAMES REALLY MATTER THAT MUCH TO DIGITAL NATIVES?

Yes. Video games are the formative computer user experience (a.k.a. UX) for nearly everyone born since 1977. Genealogists call these people Gen X, Gen Y, or Millennials, but we use the more general term “Digital Natives” because they were born into a world surrounded by interactive digital technology starting from their toys and learning devices.

Malcolm Gladwell explains, in his book Outliers, that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to develop a core skill. In this case, video games have trained all generations since 1977 in a whole new way of thinking. It’s not worth debating if this is a common and ubiquitous experience; instead, we’re going to discuss the impact of this cultural tsunami.

Before we dive into impacts, it is critical for you to suspend your attitude about video games as a frivolous diversion. Brad explores this topic in Liquid Leadership, and Jane McGonnagle, in Reality is Broken, spends significant time exploring the incredibly valuable real world skills that Digital Natives hone playing games. When they are “gaming,” they are doing things that adults would classify as serious work:

Designing buildings and creating machines that work within their environment
Hosting communities and enforcing discipline within the group
Recruiting talent to collaborate on shared projects
Writing programs that improve their productivity
Solving challenging mental and physical problems under demanding time pressures
Learning to persevere through multiple trials and iterative learning
Memorizing complex sequences, facts, resource constraints, and situational rules.

Why focus on video gamers?

Because this series is about doing business with Digital Natives and video games are a core developmental experience.

The impact of Cloud Culture on technology has profound implications and is fertile ground for future collaboration between Rob and Brad. However, we both felt that the challenge of selling to gamers crystallized the culture clash in a very practical and financially meaningful sense. Culture can be a “soft” topic, but we’re putting a hard edge on it by bringing it home to business impacts.

Digital Natives play on a global scale and interact with each other in ways that Digital Immigrants cannot imagine. Brad tells it best with this story about his nephew:

Years ago, in a hurry to leave the house, we called out to our video game playing nephew to join us for dinner.

“Sebastian, we’re ready.” I was trying to be as gentle as possible without sounding Draconian. That was the parenting methods of my father’s generation. Structure. Discipline. Hierarchy. Fear. Instead, I wanted to be the Cool Uncle.

“I can’t,” he exclaimed as wooden drum sticks pounded out their high-pitched rhythm on the all too familiar color-coded plastic sensors of a Rock Band drum kit.

“What do you mean you can’t? Just stop the song, save your data, and let’s go.”

“You don’t understand. I’m in the middle of a song.” Tom Sawyer by RUSH to be exact. He was tackling Neil Peart. Not an easy task. I was impressed.

“What do you mean I don’t understand? Shut it off.” By now my impatience was noticeable. Wow, I lasted 10 seconds longer than my father if he had been in this same scenario. Progress I guess.

And then my 17-year-old nephew hit me with some cold hard facts without even knowing it… “You don’t understand… the guitar player is some guy in France, and the bass player is this girl in Japan.”

In my mind the aneurism that was forming just blew… “What did he just say?”

And there it was, sitting in my living room—a citizen of the digital age. He was connected to the world as if this was normal. Trained in virtualization, connected and involved in a world I was not even aware of!

My wife and I just looked at each other. This was the beginning of the work I do today. To get businesses to realize the world of the Digital Worker is a completely different world. This is a generation prepared to work in The Cloud Culture of the future.

A Quote from Liquid Leadership, Page 94, How Technology Influences Behavior…

In an article in the Atlantic magazine, writer Nicholas Carr (author of The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains) cites sociologist Daniel Bell as claiming the following: “Whenever we begin to use ‘intellectual technologies’ such as computers (or video games)—tools that extend our mental rather than our physical capacities—we inevitably begin to take on the qualities of those technologies.

In other words, the technology we use changes our behavior!

There’s another important consideration about gamers and Digital Natives. As we stated in post 1, our focus for this series is not the average gamer; we are seeking the next generation of IT decision makers. Those people will be the true digital enthusiasts who have devoted even more energy to mastering the culture of gaming and understand intuitively how to win in the cloud.

“All your base belongs to us.”

Translation: If you’re not a gamer, can you work with Digital Natives?

Our goal for this series is to provide you with actionable insights that do not require rewriting how you work. We do not expect you to get a World of Warcraft subscription and try to catch up. If you already are one then we’ll help you cope with your Digital Immigrant coworkers.

In the next posts, we will explain four key culture differences between Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives. For each, we explore the basis for this belief and discuss how to facilitate Digital Natives decision-making processes.

Keep Reading! Next post is 4: Authority (previous is ToC)

Cloud Culture Series TL;DR? Generation Cloud Cheat sheet [Collaborative Series 2/8]

Posted on August 20, 2014 by Rob H

SUBTITLE: Your series is TOO LONG, I DID NOT READ It!

This post is #2 in an collaborative eight part series by Brad Szollose and I about how culture shapes technology.

Your attention is valuable to us! In this section, you will find the contents of this entire blog series distilled down into a flow chart and one-page table. Our plan is to release one post each Wednesday at 1 pm ET.

Graphical table of contents

The following flow chart is provided for readers who are looking to maximize the efficiency of their reading experience.

If you are unfamiliar with flow charts, simply enter at the top left oval. Diamonds are questions for you to choose between answers on the departing arrows. The curved bottom boxes are posts in the series.

Here’s the complete list: 1: Intro > 2: ToC > 3: Video Reality > 4: Authority > 5: On The Game Training > 6: Win by Failing > 7: Go Digital Native > 8: Three Takeaways

Culture conflict table (the Red versus Blue game map)

Our fundamental challenge is that the cultures of Digital Immigrants and Natives are diametrically opposed. The Culture Conflict Table, below, maps out the key concepts that we explore in depth during this blog series.

	Digital Immigrants (N00Bs)		Digital Natives (L33Ts)
Foundation: Each culture has different expectations in partners
	Obey RulesThey want us to prove we are worthy to achieve “trusted advisor” status. They are seeking partners who fit within their existing business practices.		Test BoundariesThey want us to prove that we are innovative and flexible. They are seeking partners who bring new ideas that improve their business.
Organizational Hierarchy see No Spacesuits (Post 4)
	Permission DrivenOrganizational Hierarchy is efficient Feel important talking high in the org Higher ranks can make commitments Bosses make decisions (slowly)		Peer-to-Peer DrivenOrganizational Hierarchy is limiting Feel productive talking lower in the org Lower ranks are more collaborative Teams make decisions (quickly)
Communication Patterns see MMOG as Job Training (Post 5)
	Formalized & StructuredWaits for Permission Bounded & Linear Requirements Focused Questions are interruptions		Casual & InterruptingDoes NOT KNOW they need permission Open Ended Discovered & Listening Questions show engagement
Risks and Rewards see Level Up (Post 6)
	Obeys RulesAvoid Risk—mistakes get you fired! Wait and see Fear of “looking foolish”		Breaks RulesEmbrace Risk—mistakes speed learning Iterate to succeed Risks get you “in the game”
Building your Expertise see Becoming L33T (Post 7)
Knowledge is Concentrated Expertise is hard to get (Diploma) Keeps secrets (keys to success) Quantitate—you can measure it		Knowledge is Distributed and SharedExpertise is easy to get (Google) Likes sharing to earn respect Qualitative—trusts intuition

Hopefully, this condensed version got you thinking. In the next post, we start to break this information down.

Keep Reading! Next post is Video Reality

Cloud Culture: New IT leaders are transforming the way we create and purchase technology. [Collaborative Series 1/8]

Posted on August 14, 2014 by Rob H

Subtitle: Why L33Ts don’t buy from N00Bs

Brad Szollose and I want to engage you in a discussion about how culture shapes technology [cross post link]. We connected over Brad’s best-selling book, Liquid Leadership, and we’ve been geeking about cultural impacts in tech since 2011.

Rob

Brad

In these 8 posts, we explore what drives the next generation of IT decision makers starting from the framework of Millennials and Boomers. Recently, we’ve seen that these “age based generations” are artificially limiting; however, they provide a workable context this series that we will revisit in the future.

Here’s the list of posts: 1: Intro > 2: ToC > 3: Video Reality > 4: Authority > 5: On The Game Training > 6: Win by Failing > 7: Go Digital Native > 8: Three Takeaways

Our target is leaders who were raised with computers as Digital Natives. They approach business decisions from a new perspective that has been honed by thousands of hours of interactive games, collaboration with global communities, and intuitive mastery of all things digital.

The members of this “Generation Cloud” are not just more comfortable with technology; they use it differently and interact with each other in highly connected communities. They function easily with minimal supervision, self-organize into diverse teams, dive into new situations, take risks easily, and adapt strategies fluidly. Using cloud technologies and computer games, they have become very effective winners.

In this series, we examine three key aspects of next-generation leaders and offer five points to get to the top of your game. Our goal is to find, nurture, and collaborate with them because they are rewriting the script for success.

We have seen that there is a technology-driven culture change that is reshaping how business is being practiced. Let’s dig in!

What is Liquid Leadership?

“a fluid style of leadership that continuously sustains the flow of ideas in an organization in order to create opportunities in an ever-shifting marketplace.”

Forever Learning?

In his groundbreaking 1970s book, Future Shock, Alvin Toffler pointed out that in the not too distant future, technology would inundate the human race with all its demands, overwhelming those not prepared for it. He compared this overwhelming feeling to culture shock.

Welcome to the future!

Part of the journey in discussing this topic is to embrace the digital lexicon. To help with translations we are offering numerous subtitles and sidebars. For example, the subtitle “L33Ts don’t buy from N00Bs” translates to “Digital elites don’t buy from technical newcomers.”

Loosen your tie and relax; we’re going to have some fun together. We’ve got 7 more posts in this cloud culture series: 2: ToC > 3: Video Reality > 4: Authority > 5: On The Game Training > 6: Win by Failing > 7: Go Digital Native > 8: Three Takeaways

We’ve also included more background about the series and authors…