This Chapter of Leadership is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say – and What You Don’t begins with the story of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The disaster may have been avoided if a single button had been pushed. The button went unpushed until too late because the person did not have permission. Marquet states “How is it that a person could be more afraid of pushing a button without permission, than dying in a fiery explosion?” Hierarchy above all is a power play from the Industrial Age, a play that remains entrenched in corporate life. Fear supported by steep hierarchies, distorts common sense in environments with a strong culture of control and compliance.
A colleague told me a story of an organization with a highly publicized open-door policy. The policy encouraged every employee to reach out directly to any leader, including the CEO, of the company if they had questions or concerns. Reality was perceived as something radically different. The grapevine suggested an employee had been pressured to quit after they had gone around their manager. Whether true or apocryphal, the story ensures that only carefully curated information flows upward through the hierarchy.
Open and direct communication is at the heart of the connect play. Building a culture of communication dispels fear and enables the conditions that encourage diversity of thought and opinion.
Marquet states that connect is the replacement for the conform play. The conform play is about forcing people to conform to your wishes and to make sure no one rocks the boat. Conformance surpasses challenges, conflict, and papers over differing opinions. The adage “pour oil on the water” might calm the wave, but it will kill the fish. Connect might feel messier because it is harder to sweep disagreements under the rug but yields better decisions and more resilient organizations.
As in the previous chapters the author suggests four options to execute the connect play:
- Flatten the power gradient,
- Admit you don’t know.
- Be vulnerable, and
- Trust.
While some power gradient is inevitable, every effort should be made to minimize levels within an organization. The steeper the power gradient the harder it is for hard information to flow up. The book identifies several proxies for measuring steepness. One that I think is very telling is physical separation. The executive floor is an example. If you have little to no possibility of seeing your executives the power gradient is steep. On a different level, observe who can get away with coming to meetings late without consequence. This is a reflection of a hierarchy of power.
Marquet states:
Steep Hierarchy + Aggressive Goals = Ethical Lapses
The equation might be the most damning statement of how poor management is exacerbated by organizational design which creates situations that make bad behavior easier. When decisions take initiatives sideways, the steeper the hierarchy (a form of power gradient) the harder it is to tell your boss something they, or their bosses, don’t want to hear.
The four connect plays break down barriers so that information can flow upwards, downwards, and sideways more freely. As an example of applying to connect, Marquet suggests that if you must make an assessment, focus on the work by using nouns rather than verbs. Instead of “you’re using an outdated report and making bad inferences” reframe the statement as “that report is outdated yielding bad inferences”. The first statement judges the person. The statement infers that the person making the statement is more powerful and can judge the other person. The second statement assesses the event and removes the inference of positional power. Applying this concept will be my experiment for the week.
Previous installments of our re-read of Leadership is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say – and What You Don’t (buy a copy)!
Week 1: Logistics, Introduction, Foreword – https://bit.ly/3sTqyu3
Week 2: El Faro – https://bit.ly/3RnkUue
Week 3: The New Playbook – https://bit.ly/3Llgmki
Week 4: Control the Clock – https://bit.ly/45UFp5Z
Week 5: Collaborate – https://bit.ly/3PzFiXI
Week 6: Commit – https://bit.ly/46DMmsF
Week 7: Complete – https://bit.ly/47aTDQe
Week 8: Improve – https://bit.ly/3FMT1Vw
