Whose genius?
Comedian Bill Murray once had a fascinating encounter with a late night cab driver in San Francisco.
The driver explained to Murray that he was a frustrated saxophonist who never got time to play, because he drove cabs 14 hours a day. Murray asked him, “Where’s your horn?” And the driver said, “In the trunk”.
So Murray talked him into giving up the driving to him, while the saxophonist played from the backseat. Murray then thought he’d turn it up a notch, and asked his ‘driver’ if he knew anywhere good to eat. From the back seat came this reply: “There’s a great late night BBQ place nearby. But it’s a sketchy neighbourhood”. Murray said, “Relax - you’ve got a horn”.
They ended up eating — and playing music — for an astonished crowd. At 2.15am.
This showed me why Murray is a great comedian: he can take a tangent and make it a ‘core experience’ for someone. But he’s also a great human, facilitating someone else’s genius (for everyone’s genuine enjoyment), using a key leadership trait: enabling other people to be heroes in their own life stories.
This story gives rise to two questions: “Whose genius are you facilitating?” and “What would happen if we let more tangents become core?”
Just pick 3
Walt Disney has told generations of movie-watchers stories of dramatic transformation.
Think about the classics like Beauty and the Beast (selfish prince turns loyal) and Cinderella (marginalised servant turns princess), and more recently Mulan (ordinary young woman turns warrior). When Bob Iger became CEO of Disney in 2005 he, with his board, were determined to transform what was already a strong business.
To do this, they determined just three areas of positioning focus. Yes, just three.
They were (i) develop creative content; (ii) broaden international reach; and (iii) distribute directly to consumers. Notice how succinct these are. And powerful: these positioning focus areas were durable enough to drive a 15 year acquisition strategy (Pixar, Lucasfilm, Marvel and the biggest by far, 20th Century Fox). If you want to know more, check out Iger on Masterclass (a fave of mine right now!). And his new book is lined up in my Kindle, ready to read.
The transformation is yielding great results. In 2023 already, Disney has released five of the top 12 films in the world, between them grossing some $3b. Under Iger, Disney has outperformed the stock market by roughly double — which is hard to do when your starting position is a $35b company.
Question: Can you identify just three transformative areas of focus for your organisation?
Collaboration anxiety
Do you remember in high school how teachers would group you into threes or fours and expect you to produce something together?
Two memorable products remain in my mind. A diorama of tectonic plates (for Geography) looked like one of the terrible desserts produced by my friend Paul’s mum. The other was a wall poster (Biology) trying to explain how we germinated some plants. This looked OK from 10 feet away but quickly lost its meaning as soon as you started to actually read it, as Paul had a free hand with the Letraset stencils (remember those?) and we had at least 10 fonts clamouring for attention.
I hated it all.
Mostly I thought, “I could do better on my own”.
We’d end up arguing, and the kid with the loudest voice, or whoever grabbed the texta first, would get their way. Other times, I just didn’t like a couple of the kids I was grouped with. I spent my group time silent and sullen, while they produced something that they then presented as ‘our’ work. It wasn’t. A third time, I remember a teacher’s pet in the group, who kept telling us, “But Miss Sheehan said to do it like this!” I had other ideas, but clearly these weren’t going to fly.
Fast forward to adulthood.
We are still grouped together, in workplaces, in cross-functional or multi-disciplinary teams, or in multi-organisational alliances, partnerships and consortia. And, guess what? Those kids with the stencils, the loud voices, the texta-grabbers and the teachers’ pets, they’ve also grown up too. And we have to work with them.
Or, they might even be us.
In my work in dozens of organisations each year, I notice many of us experience what I call Collaboration Anxiety. So what is it? It’s a fear to cross boundaries, to speak honestly, and to get the maximum potential from co-work.
I see Collaboration Anxiety manifest in ten ways. See how many of these you experience with your primary team at work (Score yourself with 1 = never; 2 = occasionally; 3 = consistently).
1. Doubt. In your heart of hearts, you honestly don’t believe collaboration works best; you think smart individuals would make just as good, if not better decisions.
2. Mediocrity. You don’t have a group with enough intellectual firepower and so you end up with ideas that everyone can live with, but nobody’s passionate about.
3. Holy cows. Your group won’t challenge the status quo, so the real problems aren’t solved.
4. Distrust. You don’t believe in each other’s motives, others’ commitment to follow through, or others’ competence and capability.
5. Power. Either nobody feels like they’ve got authority, or one person does and they dominate. Sometimes, those who have the authority are reluctant to use it.
6. Politics. Subtly, or not so subtly, you or others behave cautiously because of past disagreements and ‘water under the bridge’.
7. Fear. You, or others, lack courage to talk about what really is going on, or what matters the most.
8. Too fast. You stop asking deep questions (like ‘why’?) too early and hence get fixated on peripheral issues or are railroaded into ‘quick’ decisions.
9. Too slow. You find it difficult to have discussions that are time efficient and, instead, waste time talking in circles. It’s nobody’s job to move the conversation towards a conclusion.
10. Relevance-impaired. You are making decisions that should be made by others.
Question: Rate yourself on the above 10 factors - how did you score?
SCALE = A score of 10 - 14: Well done - You have no or little Collaboration Anxiety - go forth and collaborate!; A score of 15 - 20 - You have some Collaboration Anxiety and need to reset team expectations; A score above 20 means you have significant Collaboration Anxiety and it’s time to rebuild your team from first principles or seek help in doing so!
Do let me know that you’ve gained an insight, however small (or large) from reading this week, by clicking the ‘heart’. It gives me the impetus to keep writing each week, and moreover, think about dropping me a line to let me know what resonated this week.
Spend your week fostering productive collaborations, and facilitating others’ genius, and I’ll be with you again next Friday.
Andrew
Great 5MSS thanks Andrew.
Particularly liked the Bill Murray story -
"enabling other people to be heroes in their own life stories."
That really resonates with me, through the work I've been involved in, past and present...
Both stories got my brain ticking - thanks Andrew