I remember attending an Asian leadership panel a few years back, a very senior executive from EcoLab shared an advice given to him when he was a young chap working at one of the top investment banks. He was a rising star, bright, driven, hardworking, but he was frustrated by people around him who are going at a slower pace than him. His mentor said to him, "there is no doubt that you are an A+ person; however, 80% of the world is run by C- people, so if you want to get anything done, you better find a way to motivate, develop, and enroll them in your vision. Otherwise, despite of your strong ability, you will fail to get anything done as a leader." While I found it a bit elitist to call others "C-", there is an insight here that really made me think and his words have stuck with me ever since.
If we think about it, most “smart” people we meet are not people who were born with the highest IQ. I mean, how many Stephen Hawking’s have you met in your lifetime? In fact, most of us become more intelligent by building up a reservoir of diverse experiences. These experiences help our brain develop schemas (i.e. mental frameworks) that allow us to recognize similar circumstances and to make connections between disparate parts of a situation, which makes problem-solving seem effortless. Diverse cultural experiences also help us broaden our experience of the world, allow us to feel things we were previously unable to feel due to the limit of our languages, and sensitize us to non-verbal cues that we were unable to pick up before.
There are not that many people in the world that is as lucky as me (and my peers) to be endowed with the intellect, education, professional training, and international exposure we had. Because of these valuable and extraordinary experiences, we have developed a unique perspective that enables us to excel in life. So rather than the “elitist” angle that someone is inherently better than 80% of the world (which reminds me a bit of the Nazi’s), one could argue that many of us so-called “A+” people in the world is “A+” because of our lucky circumstances (plus some level of personal initiative), and the “C-“people are at the bottom of the curve greatly because of their lack of exposure and the resulting ignorance.
So, the world is not fair and we’re not all born equal - that’s the reality! But, for anyone who feels a sense of obligation to make the world better due to his/her good fortune, how can we effectively lead the other 80% into success and a better world? For me, there are 3 questions I’ve been asking myself regularly:
1. How can we emulate our experience and simplify something that took us years and years to develop in one meeting so our subordinates/co-workers can gain the same perspective and understand what we are trying to do and why?
This challenge rarely came up when I was working in the US because I was privileged to have worked in a Fortune 100 company where only top talents were recruited. All my team members were well-educated and extremely intellectual/logical; as a result, even when there are gaps to be closed, it’s usually a matter of a couple hours of discussion, and we’ll be on the same page, ready to move forward. Now I’m in Africa, where 40% of the population is illiterate (let alone getting an Ivy League education), I contemplate this challenge pretty much during my every waking moment. I get frustrated on a weekly, if not a daily basis, for my inability to make my colleagues understand why there are so many other more efficient ways to do something. What is clear as day to me usually is clear as mud after several days, weeks, and sometimes months of explanation. I am often upset at my ultra-complex view of the world (and its problems) and more so, at my failure to simplify and articulate all that is in my head in a simple, easy-to-follow manner. To me, the task feels a little bit like asking a marine scientist to give a 1 minute overview on “the ocean”; it can surely be done, however, it feels wrong because so much of the important things will be lost this way! But, what’s the point of giving all the details if you’re going to lose your entire audience by minute 3 anyway?
2. What motivates people? and How do I leverage what motivates them to align their action with my objectives?
We often assume what motivates other is the same as what motivates us. I am guilty of this big time! Having drunk the corporate America cool-aid for so long, I assumed everyone is motivated by a combination of a few things in a work setting: personal/professional development, career advancement, sense of accomplishment, recognition, or financial rewards. After working in Africa for awhile, I discovered a whole new sets of motivation that I did not realize existed. To give a couple examples, some people show up to work because they like being social; work is a great place where you can have a community of people who share something similar that you can talk to and spend your day in an enjoyable, social way. These guys are always walking around, talking to people, and you wonder if they get any work done at all during the day. Some others feel a sense of pride working for a multinational, they are willing to take lower salary in exchange to be able to tell others that they work in a foreign company, even if it’s sweeping floors.
I made the mistake of assuming that others come to work to do "work". I assumed that, like me, they want to do a good job and keep on improving, if not for getting the job done's sake, at least for the prospect of a promotion/higher salary. As a result, I kept pushing them to do better, which probably created a lot of stress for them (and make me look like a slave driver). It only occurred to me recently that most of my colleague don't think like that. It's just a job, they like showing up, they spend their day, it's not complicated. If things get done, things get done. If not, oh well, they'll get done eventually, it's not important. People do get worried if their job may be on the line, but no one seem to lose sleep over the prospect of unemployment.
I don't think coming to work to socialize is a wrong motivation; however, having to manage people with a completely different sets of motivation is definitely a challenging, and very interesting task. I hope that as time goes on, I can gain some wisdom here, and am definitely welcoming advise/suggestions!
3. How do you focus people on the right things?
When the motivation isn’t on getting things done in the best way possible to drive business results, people focus on all sorts of things that’s fun to do, but unproductive for the business. For example, one thing I found I never need to nag people on is sending me invoices, which is an activity I find extremely tedious and try to avoid at all cost. On several occasion, nothing has been agreed yet, and I get a bill. But thinking from a different angle, I guess sending an invoice is one of those thing that's quick to do (just put in a number in the letter head and hit send), and extremely rewarding (what's not rewarding about getting some moo-lah in the bank?) However, among all other fires that needs to be put out, this seem to be the first thing people care about.
Also, because of the focus on the short-term, people spend lots of energy chasing after something very small. For example, sending a personal car km away to deliver 1 carton that doesn't even make enough profit to cover the cost of the petrol. However, being able to say that I've made that 1 carton of sales make people feel good, since they don't personally feel the cost associated with the transport until much much later.
So training people to develop a strategic mindset and the ability to prioritize and focus on 20% of the activities that can deliver 80% of the results is important. But again, when it's not standard practice, how do you drive that behavior without sounding like a broken record after awhile?
