What Do Multiple Layers of Reality Have to Do with Leadership?
Key Idea: Relying only on quantitative data limits our perspective of reality and is insufficient in leading teams and organizations to sustainably succeed.
I recently read that there are around 2.5 quintillion (that is 2.5 followed by 18 zeros!) bytes of data collected each and every day, and this number continues to climb exponentially with no end in sight. A good portion of these data are collected by organizations to measure performance, track progress, and understand what is working and what is not. These data are of course important to knowing to what extent an organization is achieving its desired outcomes and are thus essential in achieving an understanding of its current reality. However, if one’s goal is to lead a team or organization not only to achieve performance in the short-term but also to fully engage employees and to unleash a team’s full potential leading for long term performance, relying solely on that which can be quantified leaves out other layers of reality that play a key role in the quest for sustainable success.
This thesis came to me as a result of some recent conversations with leaders of sales teams about what might be missing in their efforts to create the most engaging and successful environment for their teams. They of course had a set of tangible sales goals that their teams worked hard to achieve on a quarterly basis. But these leaders (and for one of them, his team as well) felt that something was missing, and they wanted to develop a greater sense of camaraderie and team belonging that can be so hard to cultivate in a group of striving sales people but that they saw as essential to creating a team climate that would enable everyone to do their best while learning and benefiting from each other’s expertise and wisdom. Creating this type of climate was essential, they felt, in order to collectively perform at the highest levels while navigating the ups and downs that inevitably are a part of any sales organization’s experience.
My reply to both clients was the same and one I believe that holds a key to those who have the benefit of accessing quantitative data to describe how each person on a team is performing at any given time. My suggestion was to first reframe one’s perspective about measurement to see it as a method we use, especially at work, to define our reality. By this, I mean that our goals define our work to a real and significant extent. We have all heard the maxim, “what gets measured gets done,” so in a substantial way, our goals define what constitutes success for us. And, our vision of success is essential to our life experience as it defines what’s of utmost importance to us and thus in part comprises how we perceive our world and our place in it. We are constantly gauging where we are in relation to our goals so it stands to reason that how we define success is integral to how we feel about ourselves at any given time.
How does this apply in an organizational setting? My contention is that there is much more going on that contributes to the long term health and viability of any business than that which is tracked by quantitative means. Thus, why would we want to restrict the picture of reality we hold as primary, and that we look to in order tell us how we are doing, to only those measures we can easily track quantitatively? While of course important, these measures offer a limited view of our world that leaves out many other elements that are necessary to understand if we truly want to know how we are doing in a more comprehensive and holistic way. What about aspects of work life that we know have an impact on our performance but which we do not typically bring into the conversation about it? Things like team climate, team and organizational health, and employee well-being are all relevant and important to longer term sustainability and performance, but they are typically not part of the conversation we have about how well our teams and organizations are performing.
This perspective is particularly important if we are intent on building sustainably healthy and high performing teams and organizations, and this is especially true when quantitative measures reflect a volatility in performance, much of the time which is due to some inherent cyclicality to the business. Especially important to note here is that volatile performance will inextricably be linked with volatility in behavioral and emotional responses if only quantitative measures of performance are tracked and held as meaningful. If you have been connected with an organization that strongly reacts reflexively to any downward turn in numbers, you will have viscerally felt this relationship. My argument here is to balance out the short term performance data with a wider, more holistic view of what is going on that allows for a fuller interpretation of reality and that therefore more deeply connects to the totality of human experience at play in any given organization.
Now, sales organizations (and others that have easy access to quantitative performance data) are fortunate that they can rely on data that gives up-to-the-minute portrayals of how it is doing. These data are meaningful but insufficient in terms of portraying what is happening. Two areas that are particularly important to access for data include process-oriented data as well as subjectively derived information, such as that related to team cohesion, the extent to which learning is taking place, and how much enjoyment is experienced by the team as it works individually and collectively towards its desired outcomes.
Process-Oriented Data
As any investor and salesperson will tell you (and those in many other industries where an effective process is core to their work), success is all about having a repeatable, proven process that will succeed over the long term no matter the performance bumps that happen in the short term. Relying on a proven process is what helps successful individuals in these professions to navigate the inevitable downturns that come with the territory. Thus, knowing that process, executing it well, and tracking performance to process are all integral to an organization’s success.
Subjective Data
Remembering the thesis that measurement significantly informs our portrayal of our reality, both process- and outcome-oriented data are insufficient descriptors of that reality if we are interested in building long-standing, sustainable organizations. What is missing are the team members’ relationship to the work and to each other, both of which have an impact on performance, how much discretionary effort is applied to the work, and overall how much an individual’s contribution can be counted on day-in and day-out over a longer period of time.
What kind of qualitative data? It depends on a team’s goals and what’s most important, but I recommend that at least some of these data are team-health focused. For one of my clients, he wanted to create a thriving team culture where people learned from each other and where colleagues reached out openly for help and had their requests met quickly and effectively. He wanted to see the climate develop so that there was more to the work experience than just individuals selling to make their numbers, but instead felt connected to a larger whole and a more meaningful purpose. My response to him was to first pull the team together to discuss what would kind of climate they wanted to create together by asking such questions as:
What would it feel like to be a member of a team that succeeds?
What else is important to describe what success would look like, both individually and collectively, beyond the numbers we normally track? If we attained this success, what would we be doing together? How would we feel when interacting together?
What kinds of topics would be important for us to discuss if we are to learn from each other?
How would we be interacting if we were to truly enjoy working and meeting together? What would we focus on and be talking about as a team?
How would we know when the team is on track in creating the desired climate? Off track? What might we do when we are off track?
Answers to these questions and others like these will help to frame what goals to include when constructing what will comprise the picture of team health. Once a more comprehensive picture of success is arrived at, then one can begin the process of figuring out how to measure these other parameters. It is likely that measurement would include some sort of team survey or check-in, and for these efforts to be successful, there will have to be a degree of psychological safety in the system itself, which is created and nurtured by both the intentions and actions of the leader as well as the team members themselves. While outside the purview of this article, having the conversation suggested here to describe and determine how to track a more holistic definition of success will significantly contribute to establishing this type of climate, especially for a leader who is taking over responsibility for a team or building a team anew.
Conclusion
Quantitative results are of course essential to managing any team or organization, but they are insufficient on their own when considering how to describe success as fully and comprehensively as possible. The truth is that there are other layers of reality in play that help to define the collective experience and thus explain the performance of each individual on the team and the team overall. Why not actively bring these other layers of reality into consideration so one can access the power that comes from focusing on a more holistic view of what is happening? By incorporating multiple dimensions of reality into the ongoing conversation about success, leaders can help create a climate where a more complete human experience is seen as integral to what is important, thus connecting more deeply to what really is going on when the boss isn’t looking.