Get out of the way!

Sometimes at workshops I have been asked what is my single piece of advice for aspiring leaders. I’ve usually responded by quoting Martien van den Wittenboer, one of my better Shell bosses, with “Be Yourself”. I do love that as generic advice; we all spend far too much time trying to work on improving our weaknesses, and not enough building on our strengths and contributing with our unique assets. But now I have had a bit longer to reflect on my whole career, such as it was, and I have changed my mind. Now I would say: “Get out of the way!”

I believe this advice can apply to almost any manager. Like dysfunctional families, all of us are bad bosses in our own unique ways, but I don’t think very many of us err by being insufficiently intrusive. A bit like the famous epitaph for no one “I wish I’d devoted more of my time to work”, “I wish my boss had intervened more” would be a rare plea indeed.

I also believe this advice is especially useful because it is rarely offered. We all receive lots of advice about what we should do more of, but not enough about where we should be doing less. Finally, I think back to all my own bosses, and how they could have helped garner better performance from themselves and from me. Staying out of the way is a recurring theme.

Many of us are given a manager job because we have proven ourselves performing the jobs of subordinates. So we become a boss, and we can do what our subordinates do very effectively, probably better than them since we have more experience to bring. So we end up trying to do their jobs for them, since that is our comfort zone, and it has disastrous consequences.

First, no matter how dedicated we are, we can’t do ten jobs well at the same time. We become a bottleneck, as we are late doing one job while we are doing all the others. Worst of all, we get tired but there is no time left at all to do the one job that we actually have to do, the one of manager. The team leader job involves prioritizing resources, coaching, a lot of politics and interface management, and some skills requiring more distance such as future planning and creativity. These things are totally sacrificed while we are busy doing the jobs of our subordinates, so the team fails to go forwards. We are busy and tired, but we are not doing what we need to do at all.

Then we should consider the impact our behaviour has on the team members. How are they supposed to develop and grow if they are not allowed to face all the challenges of their job? What does it do for their confidence if they see their boss stepping in all the time? And how much initiative are they likely to show, if they know that everything they try is likely to require rework and may even duplicate someone else’s effort? In the end, such subordinates tend to shut down and do the minimum. What a waste of talent that is, and what a loss of upside for the business.

This is all very obvious stuff – we could never fall into this trap ourselves, could we? Well, that is one of those examples of asymmetry in boss relationships. It is extraordinary, and I have tested it many times. If I ask people to rate their bosses, they tend to score them rather poorly. But if I ask people to rate themselves as a boss, they are rather positive. There must be one or two really bad bosses out there who are skewing the numbers! Either that, or many of us are far less effective than we think. And a good place to start would be to look out for warning signs that we are in the way.

I think the most telling examples are often in progress meetings for projects. These can range from formal stage-gate type meetings with steering committees, to informal progress meetings between a boss and one or more team members trying to achieve a project task.

What are the most common outcomes of such meetings? Sadly, my experience tells me that the most common single outcome is to have another meeting in the future. Usually, the team is asked to check up some extra data or work stream, to correct a few errors, and to come back and re-present later on.

This outcome is a classic symptom of not getting out of the way. The extra data might help, but is it really necessary, or is it just that the person asking for it is demonstrating what they would have done if they had been doing the work themself? Do those errors really justify re-work, or is the one pointing them out just trying to justify their seat at the table by being clever? If the presentation is lacking, might it be that the original instructions were not clear enough, or that the team has really only done a partial job because they suspect that however complete a job they did, there would be some complaints and re-work demands?

Of course, such outcomes only serve to delay and extend projects and to demotivate project teams. Whole organisations become mired in meetings when this is the prevailing culture. How often are you in such meetings? Might you be the problem here? Don’t just consider the formal type of meetings, but extend your thoughts to informal progress meetings with team members. If instead, you can force yourself to let something move forward as good enough, even if not perfect, you will help everyone.

The second major symptom of being in the way covers excessive secrecy and protection of hierarchy. “Need to know” has its place, but in my opinion confidentiality and restriction are overused in business, sometimes just as an unconscious way of making something or someone feel important. Ask yourself if you could delete the word “confidential” from some documents, or if you could share things more with your staff. Are you uncomfortable when your staff talks directly with your own peers or your boss? If you encourage this, you avoid becoming a bottleneck and you open the door for more creative and agile solutions: in most cases you’ll find it reflects well on you too, as your staff will want your team to look good in front of others. Your team will also benefit from greater exposure and thank you for it.

Another area you can get out of the way is in team discipline and administration. Rotate chairmanship and agenda setting for team meetings. Set down the standards, but then watch the team enforce them for you via peer pressure. You can even involve them in recruiting. Don’t worry, you won’t lose control, you’ll just create a more productive and motivated unit, one which will often surprise you with ideas that you would not have thought of yourself.

I am not advocating the absent manager, and indeed there are important responsibilities to perform. If you have to sign something off, take your own signature seriously and don’t just be a rubber stamp – but then be very clear what you expect and be ready to accept something as good enough. A key role is to represent and defend the team and its members when required: that is one area where they will not want you out of the way at all. Also, it is important to be available if team members ask for help, and to put as much time as you possibly can into coaching and developing them.

As with so many good practices in business, there are useful parallels elsewhere in life. As parents, perhaps our toughest and most valuable responsibility is to let our children learn to fly solo, which means getting out of their way whenever we can. Then there are governments: most attempts to meddle in markets do more harm than good, as Brazil is finding out now. One great feature of capitalism is to leave the market to its own devices whenever possible. Mind you I laughed when the Economist recently ridiculed the latest Chinese five-year plan – which business would try to operate without one of those?

Lastly, getting out of the way can help in foreign policy too. I can argue that Obama has learned that, even though patience can be hard and have consequences. His Syria policy is slowly forcing others to face up to their own responsibilities – I could argue that Russia intervening is actually a triumph for the US, rather than the disaster portrayed by the macho commentators.

One of my proudest Shell legacies is a programme called Applied Leadership, in which leaders attempt peer couching in teams without much of an imposed agenda. What I forget at times is that the real architect was not I but Greg Lewin, a rare master at getting out of the way. I had proposed some heavy leadership programme, but he had the courage and foresight to see that Applied Leadership would be more effective. Well done Greg – a lesson for us all.