Back in the early days of COVID, there was a lot of criticism of the scientific community for not having specific and precise answers, and for changing their guidance. Way, way back in my past, I was a biochemist, and at some point I learned about viruses. I don’t remember much from my science days, but what I do recall is that viruses are pretty bizarre alien things with a clear and singular goal to replicate, adapt, and survive. In other words, they are not static and often unpredictable. Many people were expecting black and white answers about the COVID virus, but the scientists were living in an unpredictable world of gray.
I found a business lesson in all of this regarding black and white versus gray decision making. A lot of things in business are pretty cut and dry, and can be reduced to procedures and rules and black and white decision making. However, customers, competitors, and markets are constantly changing and evolving, not unlike a virus, so there really isn’t that much about a business that stays black and white for long. This leads to the gray zone that requires judgement and thought. As a CEO we spend our days in the gray zone. Anything that is black and white has probably been dealt with long before the CEO gets involved, so a CEO has to be comfortable operating in the gray zone.
The same comfort with gray needs to exist for the leadership team, and in varying degrees for everyone in the organization. That realization means we all have to be comfortable with some amount of gray. So what does that look like? We can’t operate without any defined processes, policies and rules, and we can’t create rules for every eventuality, so while there is some black and white, what can we do about the gray?
When dealing with gray, a necessary ingredient to add to the mix is judgement. Every team member needs to have judgement that they can apply to a situation to recognize when black and white really turns out to be gray. Empowerment is the tool to unleash judgement. The more we can grow our muscles for dealing with gray at all levels of the company, the more everyone will be empowered to apply judgement, and we can be confident that we will end up with the right result.
David Marquet developed an intent-based hierarchy that describes how we grow empowerment. At the lowest rung, an employee faced with a gray decision tells their manager the facts and asks the manager to tell them what to do — command and control. One step up the ladder, the employee states the facts and their recommendation, and the manager still gives the order, but there has been a discussion about why and how the decision was made. One step up, the employee tells the manager what they intend to do, and the manager approves the action or teaches the employee how to look at the problem differently. Lastly, the employee acts and tells the manager what they have done — true empowerment. Each step is built upon trust and understanding, and a belief that the employee’s judgement warrants empowerment.
Empowerment is not delegation. When a manager assigns some part of their responsibilities to an employee, that is delegation — a top down grant. Empowerment is bottom up, and based on an employee having the space to build knowledge, skills and the self-confidence to take charge. A manager can deny someone the right to act, but they can’t give someone empowerment — it is earned and developed and built on trust.
Many teams are quick to escalate issues up the management chain, which is an indicator of a lack of empowerment. It shows that when there is not a black or white answer, individuals lack the knowledge, skills and self-confidence to act. It also indicates that management has not created a permission structure that empowers individuals to confidently apply judgement when they are in the gray zone. Escalation wastes time and resources. As a problem is pushed up the hierarchy, more and more people get involved, there are more meetings and discussions, while the clock just keeps ticking. In a hard-charging growth environment, escalation is like throwing sand in the gears. Everything just slows down. In my last post, I wrote about ‘Trust’ cultures versus ‘Prove It’ cultures. Escalation is a symptom of a Prove It culture. If I do not trust you to have good judgement and make good decisions, then I challenge your right to do so. As peers, when I challenge your authority, the natural outcome is an escalation to a higher authority. When we are operating in the gray zone, there may not be just one ‘correct’ answer or approach, so we can expect different team members to come to different conclusions. Trust and empowerment enables a team member to respect the judgement their peer applied to make a decision, and together they can move forward.
In the gray zone, mistakes do happen. When we do not have perfect information, we will not make perfect decisions. When we empower people to apply judgement in the gray zone, we have to accept that they may make different decisions than we might have, and they may make mistakes, or the outcomes may be sub-optimal. There will be situations or areas where management is not comfortable with junior people making mistakes, so it is important to create clear black and white boundaries with no ambiguity — guardrails. As the captain of a nuclear submarine, David Marquet withheld the right to make any decisions that put lives at risk. In business it is less dramatic. We set spending limits, or constraints on public communication, or limits on signing binding long-term contracts. Clarity about when a team member has permission to apply judgement is critical for team members to build the self-confidence to move forward. They have to know the scope of their autonomy, and be confident that management has their back in the event their judgement does not lead to an optimal outcome.
The more we build a team that understands that not everything in business can be black and white, the more we become comfortable in the gray zone. Building a trust culture and empowering team members to apply judgement to deal with gray instead of escalating will tap the brilliance of everyone, not just higher level managers. As a result, it will improve execution and efficiency. May the gray be with you.