Rules of Engagement | Book Review

“That command and control approach no longer works,
and it no longer serves us.” (p. 30)

Carolyn Swora presciently weaves powerful personal and executive stories for our leadership growth consideration. Our current pandemic environment is an ideal time to shed old habits and reconsider our purpose at work and at life. We may consider Rules of Engagement a companion to Drive (Dan Pink), open to think (Dan Pontefract), Lead From the Heart (Mark Crowley) and the culture engine (S. Chris Edmonds).

Swora persuasively identifies the key to the future success of companies is how well networks of teams operate together (p. xv) – think of General Stanley McChrystal’s Team of Teams. Recent strategic management challenges in the workplace also indicate dependency on other teams as a top challenge. Swora references (p. xvi) the useful term VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity) which seems more the norm than the exception today. Statistically for every ten people you see, six of them are feeling overwhelmed, and that particular statistic is going to become worse as time goes on (p. 2). Many virtual leadership course attendees feel burned out in 2020, validating the point.

The three parts of Swora’s work: What is not working, Secret to success today, and introduction of Four Rules of Engagement are compared to Academy Leadership course workshops. Applying the four rules as a coach with an abundance mindset may be considered our worthy follow-on homework assignment.

Part I | What is not Working

Technology for technology’s sake. We’ve all seen it. Swora cites Bersin’s first curve (p. 9) – that technology was supposed to make working life easier but instead is making it harder. Self-evaluation scores plummet in Setting Leadership Priorities workshops. That’s because people are drowning (p. 18). They’re drowning in data. They’re weighed down by deadlines. Worse, they’re suffocated by a corporate culture that says it’s not OK to say you’re not OK. Consider my term for this trend: Professionally Busy.

Susan Cain points out in her book Quiet,  that our society places an inordinate amount of value on the extroverted (think dominant red/yellow Energize2Lead, or E2L profile colors) personality (p. 20). This is why when boarding a flight, you’ll hear many extroverts calling their colleagues to let them know that they are busy -- and therefore important.

Since 2013, leadership research by both Gallup, Bersin & Deloitte has found that senior management and CEOs are recognizing the importance of employee engagement and culture, that it does impact profitability (p. 27).

Swora cites four major forces at play that are shaping how we live and how we work (p. 31):

• Globalization
• Disintermediation
• Technology
• Demographics 

Let’s look at the second and fourth. We can think of disintermediation, or taking out middlemen or information hoarders, as an accelerant for crossing the Knowing-Doing Gap. Millennials readily inform us expectations have changed. When we play The Numbers Game in our Setting Leadership Priorities workshops, we discover the power of Knowing What Comes Next. Kids demand that now, and will leave an organization that doesn’t keep them informed.

On page 47 Swora introduces the Psychological Contract. We may think of this as an unwritten Personal Leadership Philosophy, or by extension, S. Chris Edmonds concept of an Organizational Constitution.

Let’s look at the eight elements of a leadership philosophy:

• What Does Leadership Mean to Me
• Personal Values
• Operating Principles
• Expectations
• Non-negotiables
• Priorities
• Personal Idiosyncrasies
• Commitment

Together these elements explicitly address many of the beliefs and values found below the “waterline” of Swora’s Iceberg model (p. 50).

Part II | Secret to Success Today

Using Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs as backdrop, Swora shares Chip Conley’s observation (p. 72):

• a transactional leader is leading from the bottom of the pyramid.
• the transformational leader is leading from the top [of the pyramid]. 

Think of our E2L profiles. Our dominant colors in our lower, or instinctive dimension correlate well with what is needed for survival. We don’t want to spend all our time in high stress mode, we want to operate at higher levels knowing the basics are taken care of. When we’re operating with a sense of purpose, we’re in a transformational state which may lead to self- actualization.

Like the Riggs’ found in Counter Mentor Leadership, Swora cites Matt Lieberman’s focus on social connection needs: 

“We intuitively believe that social and physical pain are radically different kinds of experiences yet the way our brains treat them suggests that they are more similar than we imagine.” (p. 76) 

During our Creating a Motivational Environment workshops, we ask “Do leaders actually motivate people?” Swora informs us it’s a faulty logic that assumes people are just machines that happen to be flesh and blood and ultimately, it is our minds not our bodies, that determine our ability to produce (p. 93). Nothing there about what the boss said.

In contrast with managers, Swora confirms our job as a leader is to create an environment that facilitates performance; to remove the barriers that hinder performance and productivity (pp. 96-97). A frequently admired term during Leader’s Compass workshops is shield – indicating how good leaders protect and nurture those in their care.

The Global Human Capital Trends Report has consistently identified culture as an emerging area of importance for CEOs – yet 80% of large organization CEOs don’t know what to do about it (pp. 99-100).

Alignment is the answer. In our Core Values Alignment workshop, we learn 80% of a leader’s time should be spent aligning around agreed-upon purpose, values and normative behaviors. Swora points out frequent misalignment between organizations and individuals – a performance gap (p. 107).

Whether done explicitly or implicitly, our leadership philosophy must be aligned with our organization, or we risk performance and values gaps. Most of us have experienced this when encountering an organization that proclaims numerous virtuous behaviors while clearly visible actions indicate otherwise. 

Part III | Four Rules of Engagement

Connect to people, not processes (p. 129).

There is something critical missing:

 “people got taken out of the equation with the advent
of mass production, when organizational metaphors
became machine-based.” (p. 131)

In our Effective Decision-Making workshops, we learn of four decision making criteria: Decision quality, implementation (think outcome), cost (and schedule) and development. Like mass production, time-based decisions are made using the first three criteria, leaving out development, or people, as a criteria.

When we focus on people, or adopt a development-based decision-making process, development as criteria replaces cost (schedule). Imagine an aligned (with the organization) leadership philosophy prioritizing development. That’s a powerful tool.

Create opportunities to collaborate, and minimize competition (p. 145)

We live in a competitive society, but that does not mean there are only winners and losers. The scarcity mindset unfortunately perpetuates such thinking. In our Leveraging the Power of Conflict workshops we learn that competition and collaboration are both assertive strategies, but competition is based on a win-lose outcome while collaboration is based on win-win outcome.

Swora offers a great place to start improving collaboration – meetings (p. 154). Start with clear objectives and promote knowledge sharing. Then act like a coach, that is ask questions rather than direct. Great idea.

Be adaptable and expect your plans to change (p. 161)

2020 is the perfect year making this point. Who could foresee the Covid pandemic? In our Aligning and Accomplishing Goals workshops, we learn that leaders expect plans to change, and that is not a reason to abandon the planning process. How we react to changes is an indicator of our leadership ability.

Another way to think of this is acceleration. In 2020, VUCA has been intensified. Marginal business models that were fading may immediately disappear. The importance of our leadership philosophy, especially letting others know “where we wish to go,” has likewise intensified. There’s also a good chance original plans how to reach the organizational objective have been replaced once or more.

Everyone can be a leader if you give them the opportunity (p 181).

Swora cautions us this is not feel good, ‘everyone gets a participation trophy’ thinking. The skills that make leaders successful are different from the skills that make a manager successful (p. 186).

If we believe that being a leader means having a title or being in charge, we’re probably confusing leadership with authority. Let’s try replacing the word leader with influence or influential:

Everyone can be influential if you give them the opportunity.

It’s not hard to think of a person, who with no authority or title, who has influenced others. Swora quotes Drucker:

“With the rise of the knowledge worker, one does not ‘manage people.’ The task is to lead people, and the goal is to make productive the specific strengths and knowledge of every individual.” (p. 186). 

The Leader’s Compass book showcases the importance of credibility and trust, or put another way, authenticity. Swora shares five characteristics of authentic (pp. 193-194) leaders:

• have the ability to take on board and process information about themselves and adjust their leadership style accordingly.
• make adjustments as circumstances and the environment change.
• sense of personal identity is strong enough, and grounded enough in who they are – the base of their triangle – that they can make adjustments without feeling that they are losing themselves.
• know if the organization’s pyramid shifts, they know how to shift with it.
• are also strong enough in their sense of identity that they’re not afraid to show it at work. 

Summary

In 2020, we’re all feeling a bit vulnerable. It probably feels weird, but that is part of being a leader.

We are not, as a culture, encouraged
– or accustomed – to being vulnerable. (p, 197)

Swora offers additional resources at:

Http://pinnacleculture.ca/bookregistration/

She also shares the hashtags:

#PWE, #PurposefulWorkplaceExperience, #RulesofEngagment and #WorkplaceCulture

Carolyn Swora generously provided a copy of her book for review.