Adding valueâbut at what cost?
By Marshall Goldsmith
The world's top executive coach explains why half of what a leader says may not be worth saying. (Fast Company, Issue 73, Page 58)
The two men at dinner were clearly on the same wavelength. One
of them was my friend Jon Katzenbach, the former McKinsey & Co.
director who now heads his own elite consulting boutique. The other
was Niko Canner, his brilliant partner. They were planning a new
venture. But something about their conversation was slightly off.
When Niko floated ideas, Jon tended to interrupt him. "That's a
great idea," Jon would say, "but it might work better if
you…" and then he would share a different way to
tackle the issue. When he finished, Niko would pick up where he
left off, only to be interrupted by Jon again. Back and forth it
went, like a long rally at Wimbledon.
As the third party at the table, I watched and listened. I do this
for a living as an executive coach. I help smart, successful people
identify interpersonal challenges that they can
improve—and then coach them to get better. I'm
used to monitoring people's dialogues, listening for clues that
reveal why even the most accomplished people may sometimes annoy
their bosses, peers, and subordinates.
Ordinarily, I keep quiet, but Jon was exhibiting classic
smart-person behavior. When Niko left the table, I laughed and
said, "Jon, perhaps you should just go with Niko's ideas. Stop
trying to add so much value to the discussion."
In my experience, one of the most common challenges that successful
people face is a constant need to win. When the issue is important,
they want to win. When the issue is trivial, they want to win. Even
when the issue isn't worth the effort or is clearly to their
disadvantage, they still want to win.
Research shows that the more we achieve, the more we tend to want
to "be right." At work meetings, we want our position to prevail.
In arguments, we pull out all the stops to come out on top. Even at
supermarket checkouts, we scout other lines to see if there's one
that's moving faster.
In Jon's case, he was displaying a variation on the need to win:
adding too much value. It's particularly common among smart people.
They may retain remnants of a top-down management style even if
they don't want to. These leaders are smart enough to realize that
most of their subordinates know more in specific areas than they
ever will, but old habits die hard. It's difficult for them to
listen to others disclose information without communicating either
that they already knew about it or that they know a better way.
The problem is, while they may have improved the idea by 5%,
they've reduced the employee's commitment to executing it by 30%,
because they've taken away that person's ownership of the idea.
Therein lies the fallacy of added value: Whatever is gained in the
form of a better idea may be lost six times over in the employee's
diminished enthusiasm for the concept. One of my top clients said,
"Unfortunately, at the CEO level, my suggestions get taken as
orders, even if I don't want them to."
Later on, Jon and I had a laugh over the dinner incident. As one of
the world's leading authorities on building teams and instilling
pride, he knew the right answer. He was amazed at how often he had
said "but." That's how pernicious the need to win can be. Don't get
me wrong. I'm not saying that leaders should zip their lips to keep
their staff's spirits from sagging. But the higher up you go in an
organization, the more you need to let other people be winners and
not make it about winning yourself.
For bosses, that means being careful about how you hand out
encouragement. If you find yourself saying, "Great idea,
but…" try cutting your response off at "idea."
Even better, take a breath before you speak, and ask yourself if
what you're about to say is worthwhile. One of my clients said that
once he got into that habit, he realized that at least half of what
he was going to say wasn't worth saying.
As for employees, be confident about your expertise. Stand up for
what you believe in! Years ago, an experienced chocolate maker
agreed to produce a sampler box of 12 chocolates for the late
clothing designer Bill Blass. The chocolatiers designed a dozen
different chocolates for Blass's approval, but sensing that he
would resent not having a choice, they seeded the selection with
several intentionally inferior pieces. To their horror, Blass liked
the inferior chocolates. Blass was a man of great taste in
clothes—not candy. After he left the room, the
chocolatiers said to one another, "What are we going to do?"
Finally, the head of the company, a family business that had
thrived for seven generations, decided, "We know chocolate. He
doesn't. Let's make the ones we like."
Sweet.
