Category: Leadership

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In today’s fast-paced, content-rich, distraction-laden world, leaders often struggle to make clear decisions under pressure. Many feel they’re constantly reacting, without ever stepping back to assess the bigger picture. But there’s an often-overlooked solution to this: mindfulness.

Why mindfulness matters for decision-making
In a world full of distractions and constant demands, it’s easy for leaders to lose focus and make reactive decisions. Our colleagues, families, and friends depend on us to make sound decisions, especially if we hold positions of power or influence. To be effective decision-makers, we must focus our attention on the most important issues.

Everyone knows what attention is. It is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. Focalization, concentration, of consciousness are of its essence. It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others.  – William James, writing in 1890

As leaders, the decisions we make shape the direction and success of our teams and organizations. Effective decision-making is critical because it impacts every aspect of our roles, from setting strategic goals to managing daily operations and responding to unexpected challenges. This need has grown with the rise of knowledge workers and the increasing role of AI in handling routine tasks. As routine tasks become automated, the value of human decision-making increases, making our ability to make sound decisions even more crucial. Many leaders face significant obstacles that hinder their decision-making abilities, such as stress, emotional reactivity, information overload, or plain old distraction. These challenges can lead to suboptimal decisions, affecting not only our performance but also the well-being of our teams.

This is where mindfulness comes in. While mindfulness is often associated with relaxation and stress reduction, its benefits extend far beyond that. Mindfulness is about being fully present and aware in the moment, thereby enhancing our ability to make clear, balanced, and informed decisions. When you are practicing mindfulness, you are not cutting out something. You are instead bringing to the forefront of your consciousness what the mind is already doing, noticing and processing innumerable things. When you are being mindful, you can more effectively choose when and what to focus on instead of being distracted and then wrapped up in one thought or feeling, one shiny object or another, one phone or computer notification, one question or appeal for attention from another person…and another and another seemingly unendingly.

Mindlessness	Mindfulness
Reacting without thinking	Pausing to consider options
Easily distracted by thoughts	Focused on the present moment
Impulsive decisions	Thoughtful, intentional decisions
Operating on autopilot	Conscious awareness and control

Most people are rarely mindful—in fact, many operate on autopilot. It’s similar to dreaming. Think of a time when you were dreaming: you had no control over what thought came next, and you were fully absorbed. This is how many of us go through daily life.

Mindlessness
Psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s research on attention shows that our ability to focus depends on factors like mental fatigue and distraction. The more tired or distracted we are, the harder it becomes to focus on anything. Mindfulness will help you make clearer, faster decisions, even in high-pressure situations. By reducing the experience of distraction, it allows you to focus on what truly matters, improving your ability to lead your team effectively and reducing costly mistakes.

A 2020 study found that the average person has over 6,000 thoughts per day—about one every 9 seconds. With so many thoughts constantly flowing through our minds, it’s no wonder that staying focused can be such a challenge. Mindfulness helps us manage this overwhelming influx by training our attention on what matters most, so we’re less likely to get swept away by the next thought that arises.

Think about yourself for a moment. How long can you truly focus on writing an email or listening to a colleague before another thought interrupts—even if just for a second? While you may maintain focus longer in some situations, as Kahneman’s research shows, attention is clearly a bigger challenge today than ever before. This constant flitting from one thought to another impacts our ability to maintain focus on tasks, which in turn affects our decision-making. When we’re not fully present for the appropriate amount of time to do a specific job, our decisions can become fragmented and less effective.

The goal of mindfulness isn’t to stop your thoughts but to become aware of them. Like the earlier metaphor of dreaming, the aim isn’t to stop the dream but to become conscious of what’s happening around you, so you’re not swept away by one thought while missing the bigger picture. By noticing when our minds wander, we can train ourselves to refocus on the task at hand, which improves our ability to make thoughtful, clear decisions.

Try this 60-second mindfulness exercise.
I’d like you to try a simple mindfulness exercise:

1. Get into a comfortable position, sit up straight, and close your eyes.
2. Take a slow, deep breath in and out.
3. Focus your attention on your breath.
4. Notice where you feel it most prominently—whether it’s at the tip of your nose, the surface of your lips, or the rise and fall of your chest or stomach.
5. Set a timer, and for the next 60 seconds, try to keep your focus solely on your breath. Cover it with all your attention. While you might have thoughts about other things, gently bring your focus back to your breath whenever you notice your mind has wandered. It’s perfectly normal for thoughts to arise. The key is to recognize them and then return your attention to your breathing.

After your exercise:
How was that experience for you? Did you notice your mind wandering and then successfully bring your focus back to your breath?

This simple exercise is the foundation for sharpening your decision-making during high-stakes meetings, negotiations, or when managing competing priorities. With regular practice, you’ll find that you can stay calm, focused, and intentional even in the most difficult situations.

Overcoming flooding
University of Washington professor John Gottman has researched what his institute calls “emotional flooding.” This happens when someone is so overwhelmed by their emotions that their decision-making skills are overpowered. Emotional flooding happens more often than you might think—it’s not just limited to heated arguments or intense grief. It can occur even in people who seem emotionally reserved.

Research from the Gottman Institute shows that pausing for just two seconds between a stimulus and a response can significantly improve performance. This applies to everything from answering simple questions to handling complex, high-stakes conversations.

As a leader, you’re constantly required to make quick decisions, prioritize tasks, and navigate high-pressure situations. Mindfulness gives you the mental space to pause, process, and respond thoughtfully, allowing you to stay calm and clear-headed, no matter the challenges you face. When we’re mindful, we are less likely to react impulsively and more likely to provide thoughtful, well-considered responses—both qualitatively and quantitatively better.

Consider a scenario where a colleague asks you a challenging question. By pausing for a couple of seconds before responding, you give yourself the opportunity to process the question more thoroughly and provide a better, more thoughtful answer. If pausing remains at the level of a hack or trick though, you will inevitably forget about it and revert to your old, very common habits. This is why you need to practice mindfulness. So that when you have a decision to make, you do so with awareness, intention, and the ability to stay focused on the task at hand, thereby actually doing your job better.

As a leader, your ability to manage distractions and focus on what truly matters is key to success. Mindfulness helps you control your thoughts, keeping you focused on strategic priorities and reducing the risk of making reactive, impulsive decisions that can harm your team or organization. By practicing mindfulness regularly, you’ll sharpen your focus and decision-making abilities, allowing you to handle complex leadership challenges with greater ease. You’ll be able to think more strategically, make quicker decisions, and guide your team more confidently.

The rider and the elephant
In his book The Happiness Hypothesis, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explains that the mind consists of two parts: the elephant (the impulsive, unconscious mind) and the rider (the rational, conscious mind). While the rider can guide the elephant, it’s only possible if the elephant allows it. When the elephant becomes scared, angry, or agitated, it takes control, leaving the rider merely along for the ride. The elephant is in control when you’re on autopilot—like when you pull into your driveway and realize you don’t remember the drive or when you impulsively yell at someone and later regret it.

Most likely, your rider was distracted and didn’t even bother to try to direct the elephant or was over-powered and simply could not direct the elephant. The elephant, your unconscious mind, just did what it believed was best, which was kept you on the road and got you to your destination. It’s the elephant that’s in command when a hockey goalie launches at the puck before ever consciously knowing or seeing where it was going, when a musician plays an incredibly fast riff on a guitar or piano, when you burn or cut your finger and are pulling your hand back almost before you even realize it. It’s the elephant that’s in control when you’re emotionally flooded, and more often, it’s the elephant that’s in control when your phone buzzes and you reflexively look at it or a colleague asks you a question and you just start speaking.

Our unconscious mind often dictates our actions and decisions, sometimes without our conscious awareness. As Haidt says in his book, to make better decisions, we need to:

1. Ensure that our conscious mind is clear and focused on specific goals.
2. Motivate our unconscious mind by finding emotional connections to our goals.
3. Shape our environment to minimize distractions for the unconscious mind.

“You” are simply not as smart as you think you are.
It’s difficult to equate human thoughts to bits in a computer because the human brain does not function like a computer, but we can use this analogy for illustration purposes.

While our minds process up to 11 million bits of information per second according to some estimates, our conscious brain can handle only a fraction of that—about 50 to 400 bits (depending on who is doing the comparison and exactly how they’re making it). This gap explains why so many of our decisions happen on autopilot. Mindfulness helps bridge this divide, increasing our capacity (Kahneman) and our ability to consciously act upon our goals (Haidt).

This disparity in conscious and unconscious bandwidth means there’s a lot going on under the surface that we simply are not conscious of. We know our heart beating, much of our breathing, reaction times, and many other functions are handled unconsciously, but so is a lot of everything else that we do. You can notice this when you’re talking to someone. In most cases, the words come out of your mouth before you consciously think them. It’s almost as if it’s not you choosing the words, but you know it’s you. It’s just not the same “you” that deliberates over a decision and then makes a choice. It’s the elephant, the unconscious you that processes millions of bits of information and then decides what to say before the conscious you, the rider that only processes 50 bits per second, has time to catch up. It’s the elephant turning right or left before the rider even realizes they’ve come to a fork in the path.

Understanding how much happens in our unconscious mind—and how often we let the elephant guide our choices—helps us see why it’s so easy to go on autopilot, reacting instead of thinking. By becoming more aware of our thoughts, we can better manage our responses and make more intentional and better decisions that our colleagues need to be able to rely upon us for.

Your mind as water
I suggest you try this exercise by reading a single paragraph and following the directions before moving on to follow the directions in the next paragraph. If you are using a timer, give yourself at least a minute to test out the directions in each paragraph. If you are not using a timer, follow the directions in each paragraph for as long as you feel that you’re having to work at it, but not so long that you have a feeling of not being able to stick to it successfully anymore.

Exercise 1
Close your eyes and imagine your consciousness as a giant lake that you are looking down on from a high vantage point. This lake is vast, with no edges in sight. Everything within your view is water. This represents the space where all your thoughts and feelings arise. If you can see anything on or above the surface, you are aware of it. It’s in your consciousness. Now, we know there’s a lot below that surface as there is in any sufficiently large body of water. Sadly, we just can’t see past the surface.

Exercise 2
Now imagine a spot on the water with ripples radiating out, like when a fish breaks the surface of a still lake. These ripples represent your thoughts. Something rises from your unconscious mind, breaks the surface, and you’re suddenly aware of it. These could be thoughts about your breathing, the sounds around you, your sweaty hands, or a memory from work.

Exercise 3
As you visualize these ripples, notice how your mind jumps from one thought to another without you deciding to do so. One moment you’re picturing the lake, the next you’re thinking about an itchy foot, then suddenly you’re wondering why the neighbor is talking so loudly. Often, we get so caught up in one set of ripples that we forget about the rest of the lake—the other thoughts and ideas floating around.

If the average person has just over 6,000 thoughts per waking day and struggles to focus on a single thought for long, what often happens is similar in this visualization to zooming in and getting caught up in one set of ripples, then another, and another. This can happen in meetings, conversations, or while working on tasks, leading us to lose sight of our broader goals. One of the problems with this is that we rarely feel distracted or unable to focus. We’re simply doing what we do all the time. We’re thinking and doing. But, isn’t that also what happens while we’re dreaming? We’re certainly thinking, and as far as we experience it in the moment, we’re doing something–even if not physically. As far as we’re concerned when we are wrapped up in a dream, we are doing something, but as I’ve stated, we move from thought to thought unintentionally, effectively becoming the recipients, or victims, of whatever thoughts we receive and become wrapped up in rather than the intentional directors of our thoughts and actions.

What’s the problem with watching a TV show and having a memory pop up about high school, then focusing on the show again only to pull out our phones and google the cast, then deciding that we should check our work and personal email while we have our phones out, then checking social media only to end up doom scrolling for the next 10 minutes? We don’t notice that this aspect of our minds is such a problem because we get our tasks done–we answer that colleague’s question, we finish the email we’re writing, we sit through and participate in the meeting. What we’re rarely doing though is intentionally focusing. More often than not, what we’re actually doing is allowing ourselves to get distracted and just returning over and over and over to the same task–sending that email response to a colleague but not giving it our best thought because our mind has just come from the show we’re watching to the email and is flitting back and forth while we type for example.

The goal of mindfulness is to be aware of all these ripples on our mental lake—our thoughts and feelings—without getting caught up in them. For example, being aware of the motivation to pull out our phones or think about that old memory without being drawn in unintentionally. By being aware, by being conscious, we can choose where to direct our focus, rather than being constantly pulled from one distraction to another.

Let’s see an example of how the mind focuses
Let’s take the concepts I’ve discussed and get a more visual experience of this. For this exercise, I’ve noted in [bolded brackets] when I would spend some time on what has just been described and how much time I would put toward that.

Exercise 1
Sit or stand as if you were going to repeat one of the last exercises, but this time keep your eyes open and pointed at something simple. Don’t look at your device or anything that is moving or has intricate patterns, shapes, colors, or writing. Focus on something like a chair, a spot on the wall or the carpet in front of you, or a simple decoration. [30-ish seconds]

Exercise 2
Now, while you keep your eyes pointed there, let the focus of your attention move around your visual field to take in other things you can see. For example, if I were in my office, I might look at the carpet in front of me or the puff guard on my mic and then, keeping my eyes on that spot, consciously notice the items behind or off to the side. To give myself a better chance of really focusing my mental attention, I might then ask myself: What are those things? What are the colors and shapes? What are the objects? Keeping my eyes in the same spot, I can then shift my attention to things closer to me on my desk, such as my keyboard and some papers. [1-3 minutes]

Exercise 3
Now, if you haven’t done it already, keep your eyes in the same spot and consciously back out your mental focus. Try to just be aware of all the shapes, colors, and patterns in your visual field. You can’t visually zero in on more than one thing, but you can be aware of everything. You’re trying to not get lost in the thing you’re staring at and stop noticing everything around it in your visual field. [1-3 minutes]

Mindfulness is somewhat akin to this exercise. All of those objects are there, and if you think about it, you can take all of them in at varying levels of detail. The closer some object is to the point you’re focusing on, the more detail you get. The further out toward the periphery, the less detail your mind can pull in from your eyes.

You can point your eyes at a single thing, and even though you can tell yourself right now that you know everything else is there, that’s not generally how we experience life. When you’re at your desk typing, you’re mostly looking at one spot on the screen and maybe thinking about what your fingers are doing. You’re more than likely oblivious to all the other things in your visual field, the feeling of sitting in your chair, or anything else. You’re mentally wrapped up in that typing until a notification pops up to the side, and suddenly, your attention is pulled there, and your train of thought for your typing quickly evaporates into nothingness.

The more you practice mindfulness, the easier it will become to be aware of all the thoughts and feelings that occur to you, even though you cannot really take in more than one very deeply at any one time. When you’re in a state of mindfulness, you have a better chance to choose what to focus on rather than just reacting and getting lost in a thought.

To bring this explicitly back to decision-making, you cannot control when, for example, a colleague walks into your office or calls you on Teams. But once engaged in that conversation, you can be aware of all the thoughts and feelings popping up on the surface of your mental lake. This awareness allows you to choose to focus on the task at hand rather than letting your mind wander, which can result in lack of engagement, poor decision making, and potentially hurt feelings if the other person notices you’re not paying attention.

Pattern matching makes mindfulness hard.
Our brains are notorious resource hogs. Despite being relatively small and lightweight, they consume a significant amount of our body’s energy. This is not true for many other species because they lack or have very simple versions of many of the structures that make our brains so powerful, such as the prefrontal cortex. As humans evolved, our brain’s intense energy consumption needed to be optimized. More energy used by any part of the body means more energy must either be consumed through eating or drinking or taken from some other part of the body. And since food has often been scarce and predators common through human history, our brains having the ability to do more was great, but not if it meant that we lacked the calories needed to power that brain for the time periods needed or if that energy consumption from our brains meant that we lacked the energy to run from a predator. To conserve energy, our brains developed ways to reduce unnecessary mental effort.

This is where pattern matching comes into play. Rather than processing every detail, our brains look for familiar patterns and quickly categorize them. This conserves energy for novel or unexpected situations that might require immediate attention. In doing this, we are effectively taking what the rider could have done with its low number of bits that it can process at any one time and turning it over to the elephant that has much more processing bandwidth, but also makes decisions to for example ignore, react, or take some other action before our rider realizes that for example we didn’t pay attention to anything our colleague said in the last 5 minutes.

Imagine walking into a new conference room for the first time and seeing chairs around the table. Your rider does not spend time examining each one to see how it is unique. Instead, your elephant recognizes the pattern, a seat with four legs and a backrest, and says, “Rider, nothing to pay attention to here.” This pattern matching helps you save mental energy and conscious bandwidth so that you can focus on the things that have historically been more important, thinking about the unfamiliar things in our environment: people we do not know, objects that are foreign, sounds from the darkness around us in the forest, and so on.

However, this same mechanism can lead to issues, especially in leadership. Imagine a colleague who frequently complains but rarely takes action. You might start to pattern-match their behavior, tuning them out before you’ve gathered enough information to know if this encounter will be different. Alternatively, an employee known for being reliable might have an off day, but you might miss the signs because you’ve categorized them as always dependable. And again, why do you do this? It’s easier to let the elephant set the direction so that the rider doesn’t have to expend any more energy than necessary.

Pattern matching means saved time and energy, but also missed opportunities and bad decisions.
Pattern matching can cause us to overlook important details and make assumptions that aren’t always accurate. This can lead to missed opportunities, poor decision-making, and strained relationships within our teams. I know that we’ve all been in situations, where we’ve felt that someone wasn’t giving us their full attention, but how about this for another possible situation of pattern matching? Whether you’re male, female, black, white, straight, gay, or whatever, have you ever felt like you were getting the “All ______ people are like that” treatment?

For example, I’m an American that has lived in Germany twice and Sweden once. And, I’ve done a fair amount of traveling in my life. Even if I make allowances for some sense of insecurity or simply just misunderstanding on my part, I can tell you without a doubt that I have been pattern matched to “All Americans are like that” numerous times. In most cases, this is harmless. In some, it’s not, but regardless of whether harm is done or not, it certainly doesn’t feel good for me, and it leads those doing the pattern matching to not engage with and appreciate me in the ways that make me unique from the pattern they match me to. And yet, our brains are built to do this so that we can put our energy toward the things that we perceive as being new or novel and not the things that we think we already understand well. If “all Americans are like that” or “all women are like that” for example, I consciously or unconsciously believe I can focus on something else.

As leaders, it’s crucial to be aware of this tendency and consciously challenge our assumptions. Mindfulness can help us stay present, notice these patterns, and make more intentional decisions.

So, how do you make better decisions with mindfulness?
Next time you have a chance to make a decision, you can do something as simple as take a moment to become aware of your thoughts and feelings. You can visualize your mental lake. You can take a breath before responding. Or, you can do what I like to do, which is to ask myself, “What am I doing? (I might for example not truly be paying attention to the task in front of me.) And, what do I think about this?” This can help to break out of pattern matching. And sometimes, whatever it is that just came to mind is worth your attention, but you taking a second to ask yourself what you think about it gives you the opportunity to weigh it against everything else you have going on and say for example, “I’ll get to that later,” rather than just getting distracted by something new.

Practical uses of mindfulness for better decision making
One of the simplest metaphors for focus and decision-making is to think of the mind as a muscle. While we could talk about different mental “muscles”—like empathy or critical thinking—let’s keep it simple. Most of us struggle with focus. Our minds jump from notifications to memories, emails, grocery lists, and more, often without us realizing that we’re not giving full, uninterrupted attention to any one thing. Imagine training your ability to focus and make decisions just like you would train your body for running or weightlifting.

The simplest way to improve the strength of your mental focusing and decision-making muscles is to:

1. Dedicate a small amount of time every day to practice.
2. Isolate and use those muscles when appropriate.

Daily practice
What you make time for daily has the biggest impact on your life. We all make time to eat, sleep, work, talk to our families, scroll through social media, or check the news. Some of these activities help, while others harm. But what we do every day has a greater impact than, say, the weightlifting we might do once a week.

To incorporate mindfulness into your daily routine:

• Spend 10 minutes a day practicing mindfulness meditation.
• Choose a focus area—such as general mindfulness, attention to your breath, or empathy for that person you’re having a hard time appreciating right now.
• Set a quiet alarm to help you stay on track.
• Close your eyes, take deep breaths, and focus solely on your chosen intention.

I think of this as roughly equivalent to physical training. If I’m doing a general mindfulness meditation, it’s somewhat similar to doing a general workout like a walk, run, or bike. Focusing on something specific, like your breath, is similar to working a specific muscle group, like doing a back or biceps workout. Consistency and structure are just as important for training your mental muscles as they are for anything else in life.

It’s difficult to set aside time for daily practice. If you don’t exercise a muscle though, it’s much more difficult to use it well when needed. If you never walk or jog, it’s hard to sprint for the airplane as the gate is closing. If you never do pushups or pullups, it’s harder to push your kids on a swing or lift them up as much as you and they might like. The same is true of your mind. If you don’t practice mindfulness, it will be harder to focus and make the high-value and critical decisions you’re likely being paid good money to make.

Daily use
There’s no trick or hack that will work in the long run. Sure, you can follow a 5-step process or a 3-question decision tree. But the most reliable way to use mindfulness daily for better decision-making (after practicing regularly) is to recognize when mindfulness would be most especially valuable. Then, ask yourself a few simple questions or direct your mental energy toward what matters, and use those mental muscles.

Many of us have found ourselves in situations where we realize we could put down our phones and pay attention to our child or close our laptops and focus on a meeting. But switching your focus isn’t always the right move. It’s simply another set of ripples on the surface of your mental lake.

To evaluate competitors for your attention and intentionally put your focus on one, ask yourself two questions:

1. “What am I doing right now?” Are you writing an email while half-heartedly nodding to your child or colleagues? Are you watching TV while doom scrolling on your phone? First, figure out where your attention is going and where it is not. For example, a colleague calls me on Teams while I’m in the middle of writing a strategy document. I greet them and engage minimally until they request a response because my mind mostly just keeps going on the task I was focused on before their call. What am I doing here? What am I paying attention to?
2. “What do I think about this?” Taking a few seconds to acknowledge the new set of ripples on your mental lake can be more than enough time to simultaneously allow you to determine whether this new thing is worth devoting your attention to, if it’s worth attempting to multi-task alongside something else, or if it should be shelved for later. Often for me, this will result in me making a note to come back to whatever the new thing is. For example, I’m in the middle of a meeting, I remember I need to order something for my daughter’s birthday, and I make a digital note rather than going to order the thing, which would only take my mental focus away from the meeting for longer. This seems obvious, but honestly, how often do you think of something during a meeting and start working on that thing almost immediately?

Now, I want to say that–for the mindfulness Puritans–focusing on one thing at a time is not explicitly mindfulness. Practicing mindfulness is seeing all of those ripples on your mental lake, being aware of everything in your consciousness. For most of us, mindfulness is a means to a greater end. By practicing mindfulness, you gain the ability to focus intentionally on what matters, so you can give your full mental power to the task at hand.

Conclusion
No matter who you are—whether you’re a critical thinker, emotionally volatile, or something else—you and the people who depend on you will benefit from better decision-making. This might mean improving the quality of your decisions while increasing the speed at which you make them or being more focused and mentally present in your life.

Imagine facing a sudden crisis at work: a client is upset, the team is stressed, and decisions need to be made quickly. Instead of reacting impulsively, you take a moment to center yourself, refocus, and address the situation calmly. This mindful pause allows you to make thoughtful decisions that are best for your team and your client

In today’s fast-paced world, mastering mindfulness is not a luxury—it’s a necessity. By becoming more present and intentional in your decisions, you’ll not only improve your leadership but also experience greater clarity and calm in both your personal and professional life.

To unlock the full potential of your leadership, I encourage you to start practicing mindfulness today. Even small, daily exercises can help you make clearer, more intentional decisions and improve your focus over time.

And if you have any questions, send me an email at eric@inboundandagile.com.

I’m going to take you on a longer-than-necessary journey here, but please stick with me. It will be worthwhile.

The Industrial Revolution

Prior to the industrial revolution, nearly every business had 2 types of workers: Owners and employees. In most organizations, that was it.

Due to most everything having to be done by hand, there was a low limit on how large a business could get. There was only so much people could work on and so much value that could be produced. Part of this restriction was due to errors. Manually performed work is inherently error prone. Think for example of the so called Wicked Bible that omitted the word Not making the commandment, “Thou shalt commit adultery.”

When work had to be performed manually, you were going to run into problems. If your work product has high error rates, people don’t want to pay a lot for fear they might get a lemon. Until the industrial revolution, this hesitation led people to not purchase things or to pay less than they otherwise might have.

Additionally, management systems simply were not developed enough for a person to be able to add value to the work of a large set of people with whom they could not immediately and frequently interact. Think of for example Scrooge and Marley’s money lending business with Scrooge sitting in the corner watching Cratchit do his job. Without the benefits of an adding machine, calculator, electric lights, a time management system, and so on, Scrooge’s ability to add value only stretched so far, which could be one of the reasons he is portrayed as such a terrible manager. He was micro-managing, being a tyrant, etc, and Cratchit’s ability to produce value was limited due to having to do everything by hand. No calculators, computers, or anything else. If this were not the case, Scrooge could have had a whole building of Cratchit’s working away, whose shoulders he did not have to look over in order to ensure that their work product was error free.

With the industrial revolution though came the ability to increase both quality and quantity of work. If I have a machine stamping the soles of shoes, I know that–once I get the machine set up correctly–it will do the job the same way every time. Humans naturally deviate. As this revolution occurred, employers were able to hire more employees to either work the machines or be treated like machines in that they only did a single task in an assembly line or division of labor scenario, which is less error prone than when a single person handles multiple tasks. At some point in this revolution and growth of the size of businesses, people like Scrooge simply did not have enough time or ability to add value to the work of all of those employees.

The widespread adoption of the assembly line greatly accelerated this shift toward more workers and less owners. Because while the assembly line–and variations of it–had been in use as far back as the Venetian Arsenal in the 12th century and even Ancient China, it was not until the industrial revolution when it began to be used to produce more than just a few items.

With the introduction of division of labor and machinery to automate work, you not only had an increase in the number of workers you could hire due to the amount of revenue you could generate, you also had higher quality products you could charge more for and specialized skillsets in your workforce that the owner-manager did not possess.

Enter the managerial class

For the first time in history, large numbers of businesses became stratified into–not a two-tier Owner-Employee organization but rather–a three-tier Owner-Manager-Employee organization. In this new structure, the owner’s responsibility was to the vision for and financial viability of the company with value adding oversight duties being shunted off to the managers. This was new and unusual, because until this time, the only people that could generally be trusted to shepherd the well-being of the company were people with an ownership stake. This new managerial class had no ownership, but still had to exercise responsibility.

While this shift was occurring, a man by the name of Frederick Winslow Taylor revolutionized business with his 1909 book The Principles of Scientific Management, which built on a long evolution of business and efficiency thinking to espouse the viewpoint essentially that humans and their processes should be molded to machines rather than the other way around.

With the advent of scientific management came systems of control and communication that are highly efficient, but somewhat dehumanizing. All in the span of 100-200 years (less in some places), workers went from being craftspeople that knew how to do everything related to a job and who had a direct relationship with their employers and customers to people that worked on only a single piece of a job (for example only installing car fenders rather than building the whole car) and who had no relationship with their employers or customers.

I cannot find the exact quote, but in The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith said something like:

Man will become the minimum his environment requires.

Paraphrasing Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations.

And in this case, man’s environment had removed the understanding of the whole product or process and replaced it with an understanding only of installing the watch face, attaching the wiper blades, and so on, which is far more boring and less fulfilling than actually building something yourself and seeing people use it. This robbed the worker of the intellectual understanding of–and attachment to–the achievement that comes from really producing something because you never actually got to see your final product, and when you did, you had only done a small part.

As a result, it became ever more important to motivate workers externally. No longer was it just enough to do a good job because you couldn’t see the good job you had done playing out in the world. Scientific management espoused incentives and methods of control that treated employees like animals or machines. This created an environment in which management had to compel workers to work harder, better, faster even when they felt it was not worthwhile. And when their shifts were done, they were dismissed with something completely unrelated to the accomplishment of a job and instead something that fit the needs of the machine, a whistle or a bell.

Is it any wonder then that–come to today–so many people that work inside of machine-like businesses are dissatisfied with their jobs? For example, 90% of clergy express high satisfaction, while 39% of dry-cleaning workers do. Clergy own most or all of the process from beginning to end of their work and interact with their “customers”, seeing the outcomes of their efforts. Dry-cleaning workers conversely often do not interact with customers, work on a whole process from beginning to end, or see the outcomes of their efforts. The same is true of many industries and specialties.

Schools and industrialization

Many people have made the point that schools are like factories, so for the most part, I will not rehash that here. However, I will point out that–when you design a high throughput system–you cannot deal with edge cases very well. When you have an assembly line building clocks, you cannot accommodate a worker with slightly worse vision or a slower swing of the hammer. The worker fits or they don’t, and if they don’t, they are out.

The same is true of the product as well. You cannot accommodate production of a product that has variation to it. You produce the same thing over and over, and if a product has any variance, you get rid of it.

The same is true of schools. This is where so many children fall through the cracks. Whether you think of them as workers or products, if they don’t fit, they’re out.

If you have children, you’ve likely seen that they are at times well ahead or behind their peers, but generally not in everything. Rather, they might be behind in math for six months while ahead in reading, and then, it switches. If you’re a teacher though with 20, 30, or more students, it is difficult to slow down to help kids that are behind because that takes away from everyone else, and you’re on a schedule, and you have standardized tests coming up, and on and on and on. Too many demands, too many students, too little time.

If a kid is ahead, that might seem great, but instead of capitalizing on their skill or success, the teacher typically has to have them wait on everyone else. And if that student is like I was (and like a lot of kids generally are), they’re not going to sit still and just wait. They’re going to put their energy into something. This is where you might get kids that could be good at something falling out of the educational factory not because they are lazy or stupid or anything else, but because they don’t fit the mold the school requires. They have “too much energy”, “cannot focus”, etc. Much of it likely due to the fact that they are bored as a result of having to wait.

Our school system trains children to be unaccountable workers because schools are filled with children that are being pumped through the system regardless of whether they care about a specific topic, if they are ahead or behind, and more. This introduces from an early age in children resignation that they are not in school to satisfy themselves, but rather to satisfy the desire of others. Ask many children why they go to school, and a sadly, large percentage of them will say because they “have to”, “mom/dad make me”, or some variation rather than because “I get to learn” or “I enjoy it”. They go because something outside of them (people that hold power over them) tells them to do it, and once they are there, other powerholders tell them what to do.

When you’ve gone through 12 years of compulsory education, learning that what you want is less important than what some authority figure wants, you’ve received a lot of reinforcement that it’s only worth doing something when someone, who has power over you, tells you to do it. You learn to just do what others tell you to do because they hold power over you. Passion, skill, understanding, and anything else be damned.

And, no matter where you’re at in your studies, you get told to pass on to the next thing by what? The ringing of a bell or whistle just like in a factory.

What happens at work?

What we see in the work world is a lot of workers that have been habituated to only doing things that someone, who has power over them, tells them to do. Additionally, we see a lack of ownership of the duties they’re given, because honestly, it is harder to take responsibility for something that you might not be enthused about doing, but have been told to do, is it not?

Cruelly, we see some of these workers become managers and learn by example from their teachers, school administrators, and eventually managers that the way to manage people is to treat them like bigger children that should be passed through the factory system with little regard for their unique skillsets, desires, or abilities. Instead, they should be made to fit the mold of every other worker. And, if they don’t fit, they’re out of the company.

This creates an environment in too many companies in which people are there because they have to be. They need to pay the rent, college loans, and more. They’re not there because they want to be. And then while there, they’re treated like what they care about–or are good at–does not matter unless they just happen to be lucky and care about–or are good at–their jobs, or they are in a culture and/or have a boss that does not treat them like they are part of an assembly line.

The outcome of this is that too many organizations are less successful or productive than they could be. You have managers that other-ize their workforces. Believe me, I hear it all the time. “Why won’t these people just do their jobs?” or “I’ve given them everything they need, and they’re still underperforming/won’t do what I say/act like children/whatever.” You have employees that are disengaged, not looking for new or innovative solutions, and worse believe that every job is like this.

Worse still, you also have employees that are at the end of the day wiped out from doing work that does not energize or excite them. And, instead of bringing light and joy to those around them after an invigorating day of doing something they love, they instead bring their frustrations home with them.

Where it works

There are people and organizations that do not fit this mold. Some were lucky to have parents or go to schools that did not treat them like they were passing through a factory. Others did, but they found something they were passionate about and were able to succeed at that thing. Some managers actually add value rather than just bossing people around or wielding power over them. And, some companies actually have cultures that encourage people to bring some of their uniqueness to bear in the service of shared goals.

I wish it were as simple as saying that everyone should just “follow their passion”. The reality of it though, I believe, is that most of us have to work. We have bills to pay. We can avoid community groups (church, neighbors, whatever) that make us uncomfortable. We can not talk to the other folks in the gym or when we’re out walking our dogs. We can skip joining that soccer or bowling team or taking that dance class or getting that drink with some acquaintances after work. But, we generally do have to work, and it’s even part of our development that we most often want to work because work gives us the opportunity to feel productive and have our time and efforts be valued. And, work is the place where we can actually experience that the right way to do things is not to treat each other like non-humans or pieces of a machine, but rather as contributors to a greater good.

If you are a leader, you can work to establish a culture that strips away all of that factory training your staff has taken on and instead help them to realize that true motivation does not come from a powerholder telling them what to do, but rather from connecting what you are good at and care about to a shared goal and understanding that your work matters. When you do this, you’ll see more job satisfaction, more productivity, and more new and innovative solutions in place of what used to just be people taking orders.

After writing recently about cultural misalignment and how that impacts employee stress levels, I was thinking about levels of alignment around culture.

My proposal is that there are 4 levels of alignment around culture in an organization:

1. Level 1 – At this Leadership level, leaders must not just be fully aligned with each other and the company. They must also be aware of things that the remainder of the organization is not, such as basic assumptions described in my other post.
2. Level 2 – At this Integrated level, employees must be fully integrated into the culture such that they align with the values and have had enough experience with the situations that those values should apply to that they feel (even if they do not overtly recognize) the underlying basic assumptions.
3. Level 3 – At this Learning level, employees are getting their repetitions in. They are beginning to experience what others have experienced before and will move eventually to either Level 2 or Level 4.
4. Level 4 – At this Misaligned level, employees either are simply not aligned around espoused beliefs and values or they are, but due to misalignment around basic assumptions, their behavior, performance, and/or satisfaction do not show that they have integrated into the culture.

Level 1 – Leadership

As discussed in my other post, employees can afford to not be explicitly aware of the culture’s underlying basic assumptions because they are only required to act in accordance with the culture. Leadership on the other hand has to guide the organization and help to shape its culture.

When organizations encounter new and novel circumstances for which there is no prior experience or knowledge, leadership needs to advocate for a specific type of response (an artifact) and potentially even a value. For example, “I believe we should do this…” Espoused values and beliefs are always open to debate, but those that are supported by underlying basic assumptions are much less likely to be argued with because those beliefs and values are simply statements about the way the world works.

New beliefs and values though will typically be seen as something coming from another party. When we encounter a new situation and the CEO says that we should handle it a certain way, I as an employee might not see that as the natural solution, but rather as the CEO’s value or belief. I will not internalize it until my experience confirms that his solution is just the way that those situations should be handled. In this way, leadership guides the ongoing evolution of the organization’s culture.

Once new beliefs, values, or basic assumptions are set and felt by the employees though, they begin to limit the ability of leadership to deal with circumstances in any other way because a departure from an existing belief, value, or basic assumption would demonstrate misalignment to the employees and contribute to the stress or underperformance mentioned in my other post.

Level 2 – Integrated

In the most common scenario, you have employees at this level that have been around the bend with you so many times that they have experienced certain solutions that just work or are simply the preferred way of doing things in your situation. These are the people that understand whom to call, how to respond, how to manage projects, etc when specific situations arise. They have been there done that so to speak and learned that the way the organization has responded works.

One of my clients has what they call The Woodard Way. They instill The Woodard Way in their staff through a 3-month training program that everyone goes through and then repeated reminders for how everything they do comes back to a specific approach and why it works.

Culture is a process of social learning. It is not something you do alone. And, culture is also learning from the mistakes of others without having to pay the dues, which is what you want from all of your employees. Ideally, they do not have to make all of the mistakes in order to learn the same lessons, but rather can learn from others what the organization has experienced works or does not.

Level 3 – Learning

Generally, people do not spend a significant amount of time at this level, and the better job you do hiring for cultural fit and onboarding your people, the less time they will spend here. My company for example is small so we do not have a robust onboarding process. We do however work in organizational culture and alignment, so we are much more sensitive to instilling in new coworkers our values and preferred behaviors than other organizations our size might be.

Fundamentally, when you ask yourself how long it will be before a new hire can fly on their own, the answer is for the most part the amount of time they remain at the learning level. After that point, if not before, you should be able to clearly see progress toward level 2 or that they are slipping down to level 4.

Level 4 – Misaligned

This is largely the level I described in my other post. I know I have been there more than once, so I’m guessing you have been there at least once. I hope that you at least liked your colleagues and felt like you’re one of them. Often, misaligned people do feel lonely and isolated though unfortunately.

At this level, performance is likely an issue. The person delivers work that is not what was expected and/or handles situations in a manner inconsistent with the organization’s norms. They and those around them have likely expressed at least some level of dissatisfaction, and as much as you might wish to work on it, you are likely better off parting ways.

As unfortunate as it is, when there is misalignment, it is not often due to an issue with espoused beliefs or values. Most values are idealistic and things that the majority of people would support–truth, love, and the American Way sort of things. The problem comes in the manifestation of those values, and that is generally determined by the underlying basic assumptions.

For example, the company and I both say we value truth. Due to my experience though, truth is best communicated one on one because I have an underlying basic assumption that growth is hampered by embarrassment, and pointing out a problem with truth in front of a group would embarrass the person having the problem. The organization however has come to learn that truth is best arrived at through open debate. What we might see in this scenario is that I appear to shy away from stating the truth and do not seem to be living the value. I know though that I’m just waiting to have the hard conversation one on one. And what I appear to see is that I just work with a bunch of jerks that are more interested in arguing and being mean to each other than they are in actually living the truth value.

Level Management

One of the most interesting things about culture is something that I’ve already stated. Leadership helps to establish culture, but once it is established, culture limits the leadership’s options. As a result, it is incredibly important to be deliberate about hiring and onboarding, to be as consistent and aligned as possible when dealing with new circumstances, and to be as proactive and sensitive as possible about identifying and acting on misalignment.

I once took a job at a company with a lot of great people and customers, but from the start, something wasn’t right. Looking back on it, it was obvious that there was a cultural alignment issue. At the time though, what I could see was a lot of baffling behavior on the part of others, and I experienced a lot of confusion on the part of others about my behavior.

I would work hard on something and actually do a good job, but my effort would not be valued. I would be asked to work on things that simply made no sense to me. And no matter how much talking we did, it seemed like we were never on the same page when it got time to deliver.

After trying to make it work for 2 years, I finally admitted to myself that it was a bad fit and decided to move on. And, don’t get me wrong. It was a hard decision, I did not enjoy the journey, and I had a hard time not just blaming the other party/parties, but the rational part of me knew then–and knows now–that the issue was not that either party was bad or at fault per se. It was a bad cultural fit.

Unfortunately, I worked with people there that experienced the same thing and took it harder. For the sake of privacy, I won’t get into details except to say that I’m about as low anxiety of a person as you can get. On the Big 5 personality trait of Neuroticism, I’m 14th percentile, and I’m 1st percentile in Withdrawal, so I typically experience little anticipatory anxiety and rarely have a long lasting negative emotional state. It wasn’t like that for others though unfortunately.

The Impact of Stress

Think of a seesaw. When one side is down, your stress level is low, and your non-stress level is high. I’m calling it non-stress here because there are a lot of things that are the opposite of stress.

For all people, even people like me, there are times of stress. Like happiness, sadness, etc, stress comes and goes. It’s like weather. The personality traits I mentioned above are more like climate. Despite the fact that my climate might have a naturally low balance of stress response, storms do blow through.

When you get into a stressful situation, many things occur. Your body shuts down nearly everything that you do not need to survive right now, so for example, your kidneys stop processing fluid, and your body actually begins breaking down your immune mechanisms. Who needs an immune response that might keep you from getting a cold when you might not live beyond today?

In ideal circumstances, you get into a stressful situation, you deal with it, and it passes after a reasonable amount of time. Some people hold onto their stress response longer than others, but in the ideal circumstances, this is periodic, and they are able to move on.

Highly stressful situations though create stronger stress responses though, and therefore, the swings between non-stress and stress are larger.

The more often you swing between stress and non-stress, the more wear and tear it puts on your body to adjust. In our visual, it’s a fulcrum. In your body, it’s all of the mechanisms that flood hormones into your blood to stop or restart activity, turn on or off organs, and so on. The more this happens, the more difficult it becomes to switch, and you find yourself simply staying in stress for longer, taking longer to come down when something has stressed you out. It’s like your climate-level balance of stress has gone up.

When you get into stress response, your body shuts down what it does not immediately need and even goes so far as to break down your immune response mechanisms. Imagine a baby on the end of a very high seesaw with mom underneath doing everything she can to protect that baby if it falls off, but not really being able to do anything because she’s too far away. Nonetheless, her attention is still 100% focused on something she cannot do anything about.

When you have frequent stressful situations though and that fulcrum begins to wear out, so that you find yourself staying in stress for longer (with a higher climate balance of stress as I’ve put it), your body does not just recruit mom to watch the baby. Your body recruits everybody in the neighborhood.

Now, everyone that should be doing a job, earning some money, participating in the neighborhood watch, mowing their lawns, and more are instead doing anything they can to get you out of danger instead of doing their jobs.

This is one way that stress contributes to illness. Your body is so focused on dealing with the stress, and its ability to do so has gotten so worn down by repeated bouts of stress that it’s less and less effective despite throwing more and more at it. And while your body is focused on fighting the stress, viruses are getting through the cracks, plaques are building up in your arteries, and more.

Company Cultures and Stress

When you work in a situation like I was in, you will experience stress more often. You will be working hard, in that non-stress position, turn something in, get a reaction you were not expecting, and go into stress response. The more often you are misaligned, the more often this is going to happen. Hopefully, you get along with your coworkers, but more than likely, the misalignment also contributes to there being THEM and YOU, so not only might you be having work problems, you’re also alone.

And, as studies have shown, lonely and isolated people also have lower immune response.

If you read my post about levels of culture, you will see that this is all the more likely to happen when you take a job in a new/different kind of culture, but you believe you’re aligned on values. You will think that–based on X value–you will know what to expect, but due to underlying basic assumptions that no one talks about and few people (certainly not you due to you being new) understand explicitly, you will run into situations in which it appears that your colleagues are not acting in alignment with the values.

This creates that stress response. To you, the values say A + B = C. You experienced A + B = D. And now, you’ve run into a challenge.

The more that you deal with this, the harder it will become to deal with the stress, and the more likely it is that you get to a point where these occurrences contribute to a lower overall level of both health and satisfaction. And, all because you took a job where you are misaligned with the company.

Company Culture, Stress, and Leadership

Ask any leader and they will say that they want a strong culture, everyone aligned around values, etc. Look at how most of them act though. Many people have said some version of:

Don’t pay attention to what people say. Pay attention to what they do. Behavior never lies.

Even if leaders say they want a strong culture, alignment, and more:

1. It’s hard to do and rarely something that pays the bills today.
2. They might have no idea or true intention to actually work on it.

Even if only for financial reasons though, it is in leadership’s best interests to ensure organizational culture is strong. The last time I saw these numbers, the cost of healthcare added $1,500 to the price of every car sold in the United States. That means, if you buy a Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla, you’re paying around 10% just for the healthcare expenses of the employees that worked on the car. As a consumer, I certainly would like to pay a bit less for products if I could, and healthcare expenses are a major contributor to prices.

In the United States, these are currently the top 4 chronic healthcare conditions:

1. Heart disease.
2. Cancer.
3. Diabetes.
4. Stroke.

All of those have proven ties to stress.

With the cost of healthcare being a major expense for employers and sickness being a major reason that someone might either not come to work or not be able to do their job well, it is in employers’ best interests to improve their employees’ health as much as possible. And, stress is a major contributor to health that leadership can have influence on through things like ensuring that you hire people aligned with–and cultivate people aligned around–your culture.

To not do so risks significant pain for the individual employee and lower overall success for the organization…although you might not realize why if you don’t bother to focus on these things.

Decades ago, Sloan School of Management professor Edgar Schein developed a model for understanding and analyzing organizational culture. His model divided an organization’s culture into three levels:

1. Artifacts are the things you can see–behavior, office layout, work product, etc. Artifacts are easy to see and hard to understand. The Egyptians built pyramids (artifacts). Those are easy to see. Why they built them though is harder to understand.
2. Espoused beliefs & values are what you say you stand for. Values theoretically prescribe how people act.
3. Basic assumptions are the foundation of culture. They are the beliefs that are so deeply embedded that most people don’t even know they are there. They are just taken for granted because essentially “this is the way the world works” or “this is just the way it is”. As long as values are not simply aspirational, they arise because of basic assumptions. Values come to be because you have encountered a certain situation enough times to eventually recognize that X or Y behavior in that situation is important to the group. Basic assumptions only appear as espoused beliefs or values when they have been recognized, but they always show up in artifacts as behavior. When that occurs, it is not always easy for outsiders to understand the behavior because they cannot see and certainly have never felt the basic assumption that led to the behavior.

Encountering culture

When you first encounter a culture, you are presented with the artifacts and have almost no ability to understand them. For example, if you visit your partner’s family for dinner for the first time and find that they fight constantly throughout the meal despite the fact you were told they are a very loving group, you likely cannot understand how fighting and being loving go together if you come from a family that perhaps did not argue through meals.

At the level of value, the idea of being a loving family sounds the same, but because of your experience, you define loving through the behavior of not arguing. The reason for this might be a basic assumption that your family has that is that you can demonstrate your love for a person by being concerned about their mental well-being in the immediate moment. Does your family ever talk about that though? Probably not. They more than likely avoid arguing because “that is just what you do” or “that is the way it is.”

This group though might have a basic assumption around love that runs more like, “You demonstrate love by focusing on the long-term outcomes.” So for example, if you’re about to make the wrong decision, I need to tell you so, and if you won’t listen, I need to make you listen. That is love in my world.

Understanding culture

In order to understand artifacts, you cannot just understand the values. You have to have enough experience with the culture to feel (if even you do not recognize) the basic assumptions.

Having moved numerous times in my life, I have encountered this many times. I would move to a new place, see someone do something that would not be a typical response where I’m from, and wonder more or less “what is with these people”. The thing is that–when you’re from a city in the west and you move to the south for example–you might find that the average person generally lacks the ability to deal with a disagreement head on and instead will just think or say to themselves “bless their heart”.

To you, it looks like they’re just avoiding conflict. When in reality, it might be that for example people in Seattle or New York or whatever other city have learned that you don’t get anywhere avoiding confrontations. And, people in Atlanta have learned that you don’t get anything out of most confrontations. They might value the same things–such as getting their jobs done or working toward a better future for their communities–but their experiences have taught them that their way of getting to those end goals is better than the alternative.

Hiring and culture

When you hire someone, they might very well align with your organization on values, and the artifacts you and they see might appear to align. For example, your company–like mine–values diversity of behavior and thought, and your candidate says, “That’s so cool. I’ve worked with some really valuable people that weren’t like everyone else in the company, but we never really got anywhere with them because our management treated everyone like a cog in a machine. So, those different people just didn’t fit in.” On the surface, all good, but once the person starts, you find that something is not working. This is where basic assumptions rear their ugly heads.

It turns out that–while your company values diversity of behavior and thought–it has an underlying assumption that it’s okay to go down a lot of unsuccessful paths on projects because those multiple failed attempts will result in arriving at the best possible outcome. Coming from the cog-and-machine environment though, your new hire might very well have learned through experience that you arrive at the best possible outcome when you limit all of the brainstorming or trying new things and instead stick to schedules and best practices. You both value diversity of behavior and thought, but your experience has led you to the conclusion that there are different times and places for those things.

Your best chance of avoiding hiring problems related to culture alignment is to ask questions that get to the candidate’s worldview. Don’t just talk about what you value or believe. Get down to why things are the way they are. Why is it better or worse to do X? Why is it better or worse to communicate in Y way? And so on.

Leadership and culture

Unlike when you are a worker, you must have an explicit understanding of basic assumptions when you are in leadership. One reason is what I’ve already said about hiring. You can align around values and beliefs, but basic assumptions dictate how those values and beliefs are acted out. Additionally, as a leader, you must have a clear understanding of your company’s basic assumptions, or else, you will struggle to understand why your people act the way they do sometimes.

As a worker, you have no need to have explicit awareness of your company’s basic assumptions. To do so would be like the difference between simply knowing that gravity acts in a certain way versus knowing why it acts in a certain way. In my example of the arguing family, most families almost never talk about arguing or not arguing. Arguing, or not, is just what they do. They have learned that that is the best way to act.

From the leader’s position though, you must get down to basic assumptions and have a clear understanding of them. Otherwise, you and someone else can seemingly agree on espoused beliefs and values, but still be in conflict that it seems is not resolvable.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about “The Innovators Prescription”. It’s a good book and worth your time. What has been on my mind though has been the dichotomy between–and process of going from–a primary care physician to a specialist and how we do not follow a similar model in the business world.

In healthcare, we can expect to go to a primary care physician, have some level of diagnosis performed, and then be recommended to a specialist if appropriate. For example, you had a cold back in November, your cough persisted, you saw your primary care physician, they prescribed something and said to come back in X weeks if it did not get better, it did not get better, you went back, and they referred you to a pulmonologist.

In business, we self-diagnose and go straight to the specialist. When you have a revenue problem, you diagnose it as a website or brand issue, go to the website or brand solutions provider, get your prescription, and go on your merry way.

Unsurprisingly then, many organizations never overcome the challenges that they face because they really are not very good at diagnosis–unlike a primary care physician that might not specialize in for example knee or lung issues, but who does specialize in 1) dealing with the most common challenges and 2) knowing how to identify a problem and point you in the right direction. This is one reason that so many businesses jump from problem+solution to problem+solution.

They have a problem. They misdiagnose it. They go to the solutions provider they think they need to solve the problem they believe they face. They get that solution. And 6 months later, 1 of 2 things occur. Either, they move on to the next problem+solution set (which more than likely is just a new manifestation of the previously unsolved underlying challenge) or they blame their solutions provider for not fixing their problem. When more than likely, the work they got was appropriate for the price and circumstances, but it was not what was needed in order to address the actual challenge.

Some businesses try to build their version of the hospital, where you have all specialities under one roof, but you still face a challenge here. In most cases, you go to for example a big marketing agency for a specific job like an ad campaign or a new brand. You do not go to them for diagnosis, and having worked at marketing agencies, my experience is that they generally are not good at diagnosis…even if they have people within the business that could do that job. And, even if you are open to being diagnosed and the one unicorn employee in the agency is able to provide that diagnosis, that hospital (marketing agency) is incentivized to keep you in house rather than to recommend you to a specialist, so you often cannot even trust the diagnosis.

The same thing happens in management consultancies, specialty business service providers (like accounting or HR shops), and more. Those are all either the equivalent of going directly to the ophthalmologist and telling her you need a specific eye surgery (which she provides of course) or going to the hospital and having them try to keep your options limited to only the services they provide under one roof.

What most organizations need is a primary care physician.

Rarely, do the trusted advisors in the business world provide all services. The best ones though specialize in diagnosis so that your business can get the challenge it faces actually resolved rather than doing what I have experienced both as an employee in some businesses and also as a solutions provider for others, which is jumping from problem+solution to problem+solution, getting everyone’s hopes up that this is the thing that will unlock your organization’s potential, and then wearing down your social and leadership capital due to never getting to the other side where people can just buckle down and focus on the challenges in the business’ mission and vision rather than the challenges that just get in the way of actually doing the job.

A little self-promotion

Incidentally, this is something that originally attracted me to my company Bigwidesky, something we specialize in, and something I’d like to think I have gotten better at over the years, so if you are open to exploring if the challenges you face have underlying causes that you might not be seeing, I’d be happy to chat.

Most people treat their company culture like it’s something that is inevitable, like something that will arise or change regardless of what they do. This occurs at both the leadership and the worker levels.

At the leadership level, not seeing that culture is something that you do rather than something that just happens crushes the ability of the group to move toward a preferred future, toward a better culture.

George Washington Carver said:

Where there is no vision, there is no hope.

George Washington Carver

At the worker level, not seeing that culture is something that you do rather than something that just happens contributes to a sense of helplessness, to a sense of victimhood.

Paraphrasing the Bible, Ralph Waldo Emerson said:

Where there is no vision, a people perish.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

And both of these contribute to finger pointing. Leadership points to the workers, saying they just won’t do or be the way they are supposed to do or be. And, workers point to leadership, saying they lack vision, are tyrants, don’t want things to be better or different, don’t care about the staff, etc.

Most of the time, both are wrong. Most people want to be part of a strong culture, but because they lack the understanding that culture is not inevitable–it is something you do–they fail to realize that they contribute to the undesirable situations they wish would change.

The culture problem is multifold.

One

If you believe that something is inevitable, you lose the understanding of and motivation for doing the work that actually brings that thing about. Why work on your company culture when it’s just going to be (or become) what it is (or will be) regardless of what you do?

The reality is that a culture becoming something good was often the result of people in the past struggling to make it so. Rarely, do good things like a healthy culture just happen.

Two

If you believe that culture (or anything) is inevitable, you lose your sense of the past and the future. As far as the past goes, none of the struggle that occurred to make your culture what it is today matters because essentially “it would have happened like this anyway”. Sadly, a consequence of this is that you lose the opportunity to learn from the lessons of the past, because again, the struggle didn’t matter, so why worry about doing anything better or different moving forward?

As far as the future goes, you see only one possible future. Your culture is going to be what it’s going to be regardless of what you do. So, you’ve lost the ability to see, discuss, or work with others toward multiple possible futures, which invariably would require work from you in order to realize one over another. No work is required for you to realize the inevitable future, so you do not need to engage with others in any culture-related struggle.

Three

This all leads to an inability to process facts. If you see something as being inevitable, you will move or interpret facts to suit the narrative that supports your view of the past, present, and future. And when the facts cannot be moved or interpreted, you will simply disregard them.

We can see this in our broader culture in our inability to focus on anything, but narratives. When a fact challenges a narrative and we refuse to even admit that fact into consideration, this degrades our trust in “truth”, authority figures, and facts on the whole. It’s as if you can have your facts, and I can have mine. Mine are right. Yours are wrong, so yours aren’t facts. When in truth, mine are potentially Facts In Name Only.

Often, we’re not actually talking about facts, we’re talking about narratives. And narratives cannot generally disprove one another. Facts disprove narratives.

The most obvious early examples of this played out in authoritarian and communist countries decades ago, but you see it increasingly in the west now. So many things are about what I believe and not about what is demonstrably true.

Four

If you lose the sense that culture is something that you do and instead see it as just happening, you lose the ability to understand why others would act in some greater interest. You cannot understand why they struggled the way that they did in the past.

In fact, you have to embody the spirit of the culture you wish to be a part of, and part of that embodiment is participating in the work it takes to make the culture a reality. The culture you see as inevitable actually won’t come about if you do not live both the spirit of the struggle to realize it and also the spirit of that future in which it has come about.

Not living the spirit actually is a large contributor to people espousing a desire for a different culture, but unintentionally working against its realization. This is because their actions support the current paradigm or the alternative futures that they themselves refuse to see. This leads to people thinking that they supported something the whole time (for example, a movement toward a different culture), it didn’t happen, and that the reason it did not happen was that someone else did something to stop it…when in reality, the individual’s non-participation here was part of what stopped it.

What to Do About Company Culture

From leadership’s seat, you have to develop a vision and communicate that it takes everyone to make a culture.

Whether you’re in leadership or anything else though, the key thing to realize is that you are a part of culture and a part of change. Your company’s culture does not just happen to you, and it certainly does not just happen on its own. It is a combination of the people, how they work together and interact, how they make each other and clients feel, and more.

Culture is an active process of cultivation and practice. You live it everyday. If you are not happy with your company culture, you play a role in making it what it will be tomorrow.

To do anything less is to lose sight of the struggles of the past, the lessons you can learn from others, and the understanding that tomorrow can be better than today.

Are you struggling to find the employees you need? Like me, do you constantly hear from executives that “no one wants to work anymore”? You’re not alone. In nearly every meeting I attend with executives around the U.S., these issues come up.

But, what if the real reason is something that no one is talking about?

The real reason ‘no one wants to work anymore’

The problem is poor alignment between what a job is advertised to be and what the employee actually experiences. On the outside, companies present an inspiring mission or vision.

Look at almost any organization’s website, and you will see an inspiring mission or vision:

1. Nike – To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.
2. Harvard – To advance new ideas and promote enduring knowledge.
3. Salesforce – To empower companies to connect with their customers in a whole new way.

What most companies present on the outside is a Call to Adventure. It’s the inspiring message that tells you there is a dragon out there that needs to be slain, you’re the one that can do it, and when you come back from that adventure, you and your community will be better for it.

But, what most employees experience is far from that.

One solution – Make the work mean something

The solution is to make the work mean something. Companies need to help employees see the part they play in realizing the company’s mission. This can be done in a number of ways, but the most important thing is that businesses need to show their employees that their work matters.

You don’t have to make everyone’s job exciting per se. You don’t have to give your call center manager the most innovative work in the business.

But, you do need to help your employees see the part they play in realizing your mission.

The most obvious contributor to employees not seeing this–and some potential employees not wanting to work for you–is that most businesses don’t bother to show their employees that their work matters. Employees all too often feel either like their job is meaningless or that it should mean something and no one realizes that.

When you feel like you are a cog in a machine, you feel unseen. You feel like you are just one of many. And, you likely cannot see what your purpose really is. So while you’re spinning and doing your job, you do not sense any greater connection to a larger purpose or that anyone recognizes your value.

You can change this for your employees by better communicating what your company makes real in the world and how each person plays an important part in that. And if you can do that, you stand a better chance of actually being able to get people to want to work at your company rather than just seeing you as another paycheck that maybe they’re no longer so motivated to seek out.

Are you looking to create the ideal job that aligns with your strengths, interests, and abilities? Writing your own job description can be a powerful way to take control of your career and create a position that benefits both you and your employer. I’ll walk you through the steps of how to write your own job description, including identifying a need for a new position, creating a job title, describing the role’s alignment with the company’s mission, and listing the job duties and qualifications. I’ll also provide a template and example to help guide you through the process. Follow these tips and take the first step towards finding your dream job.

The steps to writing your own job description

1. Identify the need for a new position.
   • Explain how your job solves a problem or meets a need that is currently not being addressed.
   • Use research and your own experience to back up your argument for why this position is necessary.
2. Create a job title and description.
   • Choose a descriptive and professional title for your job.
   • Write a brief summary that outlines the purpose and main responsibilities of the position.
   • List the specific duties and tasks that you will be responsible for.
3. Explain how the job aligns with the company’s mission and values.
   • Include a statement that shows how your job will support the company’s goals and values.
   • Explain how this position contributes to the company’s success.
4. Describe the required qualifications and skills.
   • List the education, experience, and skills that are necessary for someone to be successful in this role.
   • Explain why these qualifications are important for the position.
5. Provide a plan for pitching the job to your employer.
   • Identify who the appropriate person or group is to pitch the job to.
   • Outline the steps you will take to present your proposal, including any materials you will use (such as a written proposal or visual aids).
   • Consider possible objections or concerns that your employer may have, and prepare responses to address them.
6. Follow up after the pitch.
   • If your proposal is accepted, thank your employer and follow through on any next steps that are necessary to implement the new position.
   • If your proposal is not accepted, consider whether there are any changes you can make to increase the chances of it being approved in the future.

Step 1: Identify the need for a new position.

For you to really take control of your career and have the best opportunities, you need to demonstrate vision, passion for that vision, and an understanding of what your organization needs to achieve its goals. In 20 years of my career to this point, I have been lucky to have the freedom to both explicitly write my own job description at times and also to develop my own job without writing the job description other times. What responsible owners and managers generally need to see though is how what you do–or will be doing–solves a problem for the organization.

For example, my manager left the company I worked at years ago, and I was left as the most senior member of the team, but not by much. After discussing with my management, I crafted a job description that helped them to see how their overt need for a manager of that team aligned with both my current skill set and the skills and experience I could acquire if given the right support over the coming months.

To do this, I research what managers of that type of role did at other organizations, what responsibilities they typically had before taking on a managerial role, and what I would need to do to develop from where I was to where the company needed me to be. I did this using job board searches and by reaching out to connections of connections on LinkedIn to ask if I could do an informational interview with them.

Step 2: Create a job title and description.

Picking a job title

After clearly identifying, documenting, and being able to make the argument for your position, it is time to choose a descriptive and professional title. To do this, I recommend surveying titles at your existing company and performing searches on job boards.

While Wizard of [pick a topic] or Head of Excellence and whatnot might all be applicable and interesting, they also might present some difficulties for colleagues, clients, and the market to understand. For example, let’s say that you are a high-powered project manager with the Head of Excellence title. Will you colleagues know to come to you for high-level project management guidance versus going to someone with a title like Head (or Director, VP, etc) of Project Management? And while I hope you stay at your current employer forever, the reality is that you might very well move on, but will potential future employers be able to quickly get a sense of what you do if you have a wacky title?

Writing the job description

At this point, keep your job description as brief as possible. You’ve hopefully searched job boards for similar roles, and you likely have pages of examples of roles, responsibilities, descriptions of what the day to day looks like, and so on. Those are all valuable, but the shorter you can make this the better at this point.

You have the need and how it aligns with the company. You have a professional and descriptive job title. Now, write 1-2 paragraphs that outline the purpose for the job and the main responsibilities of the position. For example:

The Chief Futurist role exists to leads the practice of Futurism and establish a consistent company viewpoint on this practice. The main responsibilities for this role are establishing the vision for what Futurism is and how we deliver it, leading high priority client projects in this area, and mentoring and managing our team of Futurists.

Someone reading your high level description should be able to walk away with a strong understanding of what they can rely upon you to accomplish. This is not the How of your job. It is more like the central themes and goals.

Next, you get into the How by describing the specific duties and tasks you will be responsible for. This is where your job board research comes into play again.

Most job listings have innumerable bullet points listing everything people in those roles might have to do, skills they should possess, and so on. Pick the most relevant ones for your new roles and then adjust and add to them based on your vision for the role and how you see it aligning with what the company needs. The length of this list depends on what is appropriate for your company and role. As with many things though, I recommend you keep it as short as reasonably possible.

Step 3: Explain how the job aligns with the company’s mission and values.

By this point, you’ve explained the need for the role, established a descriptive and professional title, written the brief role summary, and documented duties and tasks. The next step is for you to explain how your job supports the company’s goals and values.

Goal Alignment

Thankfully, while many companies lack actual strategies to achieve their goals, few lack goals themselves. Many are unrealistic, more like dreams, but they still exist. So whether your company’s goals are to grow 10% in revenue this year, become the premier provider of paper products in the Northeast, or something else, your responsibility is to explain how your job will help the company achieve those goals.

If for example your company’s goal this year is for revenue to grow 10%, but your job is largely an internally facing role, you can still impact revenue by ensuring that your work is delivered with such high quality, on time, and more that clients want to spend more money with you. Additionally, you might be able to ensure that your company has higher efficiency and/or saves money somehow around your work, so while you might not deliver more revenue, you can deliver more profit.

Value Alignment

Next, you have to align your new job with the company’s values. This can be difficult because most companies lack real values. They more than likely have unrealistic dreams or generic platitudes, that can be read any number of ways, such as “Respect” or “People First”. Still though, if you want success in this endeavor, you have to align your role with the company claims to value.

My company for example has a value about consulting your network. The basic idea is that we want people that are always learning and who will build networks around them that make them and us better. As a result, if I were making an argument for a new leadership position, I could align it with this value by saying that a key aspect of me being in this job will be finding new ways of doing our work and new partners so that we are always improving and constantly bringing new things to the market.

How you contribute to success

You have likely done this throughout your job description, but you need to ensure that you have a clear statement about how your job will contribute to the company’s success. Will you being in your new role generate sales? Will it improve work product quality? Will it open new markets? Is there a need in the business not currently being met?

State clearly how your role will contribute to the company’s success, and you will help executives imagine how what you are asking for aligns with greater company needs.

Step 4: Describe the required qualifications and skills.

Next up, it’s time to list the education, experience, and skills that are necessary for someone to be successful in this role and why they are important for this role. Thanks to you job board searches, you should have a large list of options. This is the space where you list “Bachelors degree in Marketing, Business, or a related field required” and so on.

You cannot reasonably pitch to have a job if you do not have the qualifications, so ensure that the education, experience, and skills are both appropriate to you and also actually necessary for the role. There is no value is listing for example that a BA is required when it’s not. Similarly, if you have 20 years of experience, but someone could do the proposed job with 5 years, you need to list 5 not 20.

Step 5: Provide a plan for pitching the job to your employer.

At this point, your job description itself is likely complete or nearly complete, so beyond editing and refining, your next steps are to:

1. Identify who the appropriate person or group is to pitch the job to.
2. Outline the steps you will take to present your proposal, including any materials you will use (such as a written proposal or visual aids).
3. Consider possible objections or concerns that your employer may have, and prepare responses to address them.

If you have a boss already, but maybe you are pitching a role that would not report to them anymore, you might need to take political or power dynamics into account. There is no use for example pitching a role to your CEO if they’re going to go talk to your current boss and hear that that person knows nothing about your pitch. That might not look too good for you.

As you prepare, ensure that you understand the need, how the company will benefit, and so on so that you can make a cogent and compelling argument. Also, prepare for any objections so that you are not stopped in your tracks at the first question.

Assuming that the person you are pitching to has little knowledge of what you will talk to them about, begin the conversation with a statement of why you want to speak with them such as, “I have identified a need and an opportunity in [this area] and have a proposal for how to address that I would like to speak with you about.” Once you have described the need and opportunity, explain your understanding of how this aligns with the company’s goals and values, and be sure to ask if the person you are speaking to sees the issue in the same way.

If they do not see the issue in the same way, take the time to understand how they see it because you might not still be able to move forward with your pitch. You need information about their perspective though before deciding.

If they do see the issue in the same way you do, explain your pitch for a new role at a high level and then ask if they have any questions and/or would like you to get into details. This is not the time for you to give them a monologue. It would be better to let them talk as much as they are willing to so that they feel heard.

Step 6: Follow up after the pitch.

If your proposal is accepted, thank your employer and follow through on any next steps that are necessary to implement the new position. Typically, this involves an action plan with specific deadlines, and it might very well include a plan for how to replace you in your current role or otherwise cover the work you are currently doing.

If your proposal is not accepted, consider whether there are any changes you can make to increase the chances of it being approved in the future. If at all possible, ask why your proposal was not accepted so that you understand if there is anything to be done and/or where you might not have been in alignment with the needs of the company.

Conclusion

1. Identify the need for a new position.
2. Create a job title and description.
3. Explain how the job aligns with the company’s mission and values.
4. Describe the required qualifications and skills.
5. Provide a plan for pitching the job to your employer.
6. Follow up after the pitch.

To conclude, writing your own job description is a great way to take control of your career development and find job satisfaction. By identifying a need, creating a job title and description, and presenting your proposal to your employer, you can create a position that aligns with your strengths, interests, and abilities. This can lead to more motivation and engagement in your work, as well as the opportunity to develop new skills and add value to the company. Take the time to create a job description that works for you and your employer, and you may find yourself in a fulfilling and enjoyable job tailored just for you. Encourage readers to share their experiences with creating their own job descriptions in the comments below, or to contact you for more information on how to do so.

If you are writing your own job description and have questions, please shoot me a line at eric@inboundandagile.com. I would be happy to help if I can point you to any resources.

Business is drunk on personality testing.

You take Myers-Briggs and find out you’re an INFP or some such nonsense. You take Enneagram and learn that you’re a Challenger.

And, thanks to this. Your behavior suddenly makes sense.

“No wonder I don’t always get along with people. My personality test says that I tend to be aggressive.”

“Big surprise that I get overlooked at work. I’m an introvert.”

Never mind that a supposedly aggressive person might be tame around their grandmother or that that introvert likes to get loud when playing poker with their buddies. We’ll just overlook that.

The reality is that numerous studies over decades have shown that personality tests predict <10% of behavior. The reason for this is fivefold:

One, context matters more than supposed personality traits at the level of individual situations. For example, maybe you argue hard in the board room or a court of law, but are easygoing around your kids. Why? The context requires different behavior from you.

Two, you cannot reduce many things in life down to a single variable and have much reliability. Can you judge your health based solely on your cholesterol level? Sure, it’s important, but what about your physical activity, blood pressure, diet, stress level, and so on? Or, how about IQ? Raw brain power is important of course, but is a high IQ all it takes to pick out a “smart” person, a hard worker, or something else?

Three, the trait has to be limited in scope and very specific to predict anything well. If you were seeking someone to model swimsuits, you would be better off asking someone with high body-esteem, because that is more specific, than someone with simply high self-esteem, which is simply too multi-faceted.

Four, a person has to be pretty extreme in a trait for it to predict well. If for example you are a 95% in extraversion, we are more likely to be able to predict how you will act in most situations than if you are a 75% in extraversion. The reason is that your trait is less likely to be dampened by any situational specifics.

Five, traits predict general patterns better than individual actions. It’s a little like the difference between weather and climate. Just because your climate has gotten warmer or dryer does not mean that you will not have colder or wetter days. The same is true of traits. Hire someone that tests high in flexibility, put them in a chaotic situation, and you might find that their reaction is to try to build some stability by implementing prescriptive or restrictive rules. But when they go home, they might very well revert to being flexible with their family.

I share all of this because you are not as simple as a single measurement or personality trait.

Your height does not describe you with any level of confidence that I could make real judgments about you.

Your hair or skin color does not describe you well enough that I can draw conclusions with high confidence.

The same is true of your cholesterol level, your waistline, or any number of other things.

And, it is most definitely true with personality tests.

Yet, employers seek to reduce the evaluation of job candidates–and even current employees–down to very few measurements so that they can simplify how they think about us, and we invite that because we’ve bought this line that our Myers-Briggs or DISC or whatever explain so much about us.

Slowly but surely, we can change this though by refusing to others and ourselves people down to simplistic and broad measurements. You are not just a number or a skin color or a personality type. You are more than that, and so is everyone else.