One of my favorite metaphors for how people participate in a business is based on a sporting event. Think about a stadium filled with fans in the stands, a coach on the sidelines, and teams on the field. Each constituency is focused on the game, but each is participating in a unique manner.
The fans in the stands talk about all of the things the players did right or wrong, the actions of the coach, and how they should do things differently. However, the fans are not actually on the field and they don’t have to take responsibility for the outcome. They are just spectators and critics.
Coaches are in a different position. They stand on the sideline and direct the plays on the field. They set the game strategy and select the players that will make up the team on the field. But, once they field the team and send in the play, they are not actually a part of the action, and they are not the ones that have to make split second decisions to respond to the opponents actions on the field.
It is the players on the field that have to know what is going on and how every member of their team will respond to the action of the game. They take direction from the coach and put it into action, but they also have to adjust on the fly as the play unfolds, and they have to be equipped to make those split second adjustments autonomously.
In business, there are lots of people around the edges of any decision, and many of them behave in a manner similar to the fans in the stands. They have an opinion, and at times they freely express it, but they are not really in the game. It is not their responsibility. Leaders and executives are more like the coaches. They select the team and strategize the ‘plays,’ and they are responsible for the result, but they have to rely upon the members of the team to actually execute.
The players on the field are the front line of the business. For example, a sales person in the middle of a sales call cannot just pause the meeting and run back to the coach every time a prospect asks a question. They need to be able to operate autonomously with enough knowledge and depth of understanding to keep the ball moving forward. They also need to know the role of each of their teammates in the sales call, and how each will respond to challenges. If you have ever seen a sales executive and a sales engineer that are totally in synch with each other, their interplay in a sales call is like poetry. No matter what the prospect throws at them, they know their roles and have the confidence to rely upon each other to be brilliant.
The same sort of poetry is necessary in nearly every corporate situation. Successful teams act as one, and have a shared understanding of the game and the strategies to win. Less successful teams rely upon the coach to tell them what to do, and lack the ability to be nimble and respond to a changing situation. As leaders we need to create a culture and environment that drives employees out of the stands and onto the field, and fosters teamwork and the ability to efficiently move forward autonomously without relying too heavily on the coach.
For the leader to gain trust in the team, and be confident that the players have a solid understanding and judgement, I suggest three questions: “What do you think?” “Why do you think that?” “What would you like to do about it?”
We want individuals to have an understanding and an opinion, so the first question is “what do you think?” It requires thinking, and observation, and an understanding of the goals and objectives, and is the first indicator that the individual’s opinion is informed.
The second question is “why do you think that?” In active listening, we try not to ask a ‘why’ question because it generally puts people on the defensive, but in this exercise, the purpose of the question is to ask the speaker to defend what they think. They may have just made a good guess at the answer to the first question, or they may be parroting someone else’s opinion, so we want to go deeper. “Why do you think that?” will elicit the inputs and reasoning behind the answer to the first question. It moves the speaker from being in the stadium seats to being on the sideline. It should illuminate the speaker’s logic and understanding of the situation, and it can open the door to dialog and sharing differing perspectives.
Lastly, question 3 asks “what would you like to do about it?” Now we are down on the pitch actually having to put the play into action. Notice, the question was not “what should we do about it?” While we may get this type of response, a ‘we’ answer moves the speaker back up into the stands, opining about what others should do. As a player, it is about what do ‘you’ plan to do. This is where we get commitment and action. Instead of suggestions for others - we want informed individuals who will take action. We want to move people out of the stands and onto the field.
Whenever I participate in a business meeting or observe a team, I am always sorting the participants into the three categories: spectator, coach, and player. By watching the interactions and behaviors, it is easy to spot who is who, and which individuals will move the ball forward. Those are the ones you want to put in the game.