leadership – Page 12 – Andy writes!

One of the most important lessons from Charlene Li’s book Open Leadership — and one that I failed (so to speak) to address in last Friday’s post about the book — is the idea that it’s OK to fail. This is one of the most valuable lessons from the book, and one that risk-averse institutions like colleges and universities ought to embrace.

“Success,” Winston Churchill said, “is the ability to go from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” Li quotes Churchill in her chapter on the value of failure (Chapter 9, “The Failure Imperative”), and points out that “by mastering failure, [leaders] create an environment in which risk taking is encouraged and recovery from failure becomes a skill that everyone in the organization possesses.”

Li then poses a question that is key for higher education:

In your organization, how important is it for people to be risk takers, to be innovators? If initiative and innovation are key to your future success, then you need to take a long hard look at how you personally create trust and approach failure, because it will be reflected back in the culture that you create.

Colleges and universities tend to be mainly conservative, cautious institutions. Not many of our leaders got to where they are by taking huge risks in their careers. And so, the culture that rewards a cautious approach is not likely to reward risk takers — especially if they fail.

So where does that leave us who fall in the middle of the org charts and who aspire to be the open leaders Li talks about? I think it leaves us to take risks and give those who report to us as many opportunities to take risks as we can. We should not discourage risk-taking simply because we are in a culture that rewards caution. Moreover, we should learn to practice the art of forgiveness. To those in our organizations who take risks and fail, we should ask: “What did you (we) learn? How can this help us in the future?”

We should also take a cue from Google, which has a motto — “Fail fast, fail smart” — that would be a nice one to adopt in higher ed.

Li writes about one spectacular failure at Google in which one VP’s error cost the company millions of dollars. When the VP told Google co-founder Larry Page about the costly mistake, Li recounts, Page told her: “I’m so glad you made this mistake. Because I want to run a company where we are moving too quickly and doing too much — not being too cautious and doing too little. If we don’t have any of these mistakes, we’re just not taking enough risk.”

When was the last time you heard an administrator in higher ed say something like that? Perhaps soon, we’ll hear more of that kind of talk amid the halls of the academy.

Let’s make it happen. Let’s follow Google’s motto to “Fail fast, fail smart.” That would be a win.

I just finished reading Charlene Li’s book Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead.

The book’s title is apt; there’s no way I could better describe what the book is about. It’s a quick read, and a good resource for anyone leading an organization — or a department within an organization — that is using social networking tools in any way. I obviously came to the book with a bias, having a love for the power of social media, so I’m not sure how people not so enamored with tools like Twitter would view the book and Li’s ideas about openness. But I took away quite a few things from the read. Here are five:

1. Openness can be structured. A lot of us tend to think of the idea of openness as chaotic — no structure, no governance, no rules. But as Li points out in Chapter 5, openness can be structured. In fact, it should be.

2. Think in terms of “covenants,” not policies. In that same chapter about structuring openness, Li introduces the idea of covenants as a means for setting expectations. When I think of that word covenant, my mind’s eye see this image of a wild-eyed, bearded old man stepping down a mountain carrying two stone tablets. But Li has caused me to reconsider that image. “Covenants,” she writes, “are promises that people make with each other, which differ form traditional corporate policies and procedures that dictate how things will operate within organizations. The philosophy behind covenants is more suited to openness strategies, because the promises, bargains, and contracts reflect a real trade-off and transfer of power and responsibility. When leaders open up and give up control, they trust that employees will do what they promise, that customers will respond and engage in a civil manner.” Li talks about “sandbox” covenants, in which an organization first defines the walls of its sandbox — “how big it will be, and what activities do and do not belong there.”

3. Different organizations do openness differently. Institutional culture can be a strong thing, and there is no one-size-fits-all strategy for managing openness in the social media sphere. Li discusses three organizational models — organic, centralized and coordinated — and points out that each has its benefits and drawbacks. For many college and university campuses, a coordinated approach, with strong centralized direction and guidance but with execution at the edges (the various departments and offices), may work better than the centralized approach.

4. I am a (gag) ‘Transparent Evangelist.’ Using the classic two-by-two matrix, Li breaks open leadership styles into four categories: the Cautious Tester (collaborative but pessimistic), Realist Optimist (collaborative and optimistic), Fearful Skeptic (independent and pessimistic) and Transparent Evangelist (independent and optimistic). As you might guess, “the Realist Optimist is the most powerful and effective of the open leader archetypes, somebody who can see the benefits of being open but also understands the barriers.” Fortunately, I have one or two Realist Optimists on my team who can drive our openness strategy. As for my archetype, Li says we “can play an important role in working with external stakeholders, especially customers and partners who are already eager to engage the organization. They can also help identify other optimistic open leaders in the organization, finding the other ‘zealots’ who will help support your open strategy.” I just wish Li hadn’t used that term “evangelist.” I’m so sick of it. Can I get an Amen, anyone?

5. Open Leadership extends beyond social media. Li’s focus with this book is to get leaders to be more open in the world of online communication. But I think many of the lessons of Open Leadership extend beyond that realm. Structured openness within an organization is a good thing, offline as well as on.

Friday Five bonus. Take a look at the table below from Chapter 8 of Open Leadership to see how open leadership (on the right) differs from traditional leadership. Where does the leadership of your organization fall?

Category: leadership

The value of failure