Trivialisation is everywhere. When facing a complex challenge some people jump to trivial solutions: “We just need to improve communication / get the right talent / use common sense!” But such “solutions” are never trivial to implement (ex, how do you improve communication and attract the right talent and why is sense not that common?) because trivialisation is not about finding solutions.
Trivialisation is about reducing the anxiety people feel when facing complex problems by creating an illusion of certainty. You’ll have heard a senior leader state that, “it’s not rocket science!” before concluding, “we just need to do X,Y and Z”. And when these trivialisations fail they blame people’s inability to execute plans and exclaim again, “we just need better talent. It’s not rocket science!”.
Trivialisation prevents us doing the smart work needed to solve complex challenges; starting with the honesty to admit that “we don’t know” followed by the bravery to declare “we’re going to find out” by experimenting and learning. Unfortunately, many leaders turn to others for answers. And these also exclaim, “it’s not rocket science — you just need to do what I advise you!”.
One “solution” — ‘training leaders better’ — is also an example of trivialisation as current leadership development approaches are flawed: They take leaders away from their workplace (and teams), put them in an artificial environment, teach them theory based on yesterday’s best practices, and then expect them to go back apply what they’ve only just learned with little to no follow up support.
Leadership is about making teams more than the sum of their parts — more than just a collection of individuals, but a real team working towards a common goal and recognising they need each other to do this. So we can’t develop effective leaders by focusing on the individual leader alone. We have to develop leaders and teams together as they work on achieving their goals.
We don’t need to train each team member to become leaders (we need to train them to keep developing the technical skills the team needs) but we do need to show them how they can become more than the sum of their parts and that this is the leader’s role. Think of the manager of a sports team — they don’t score the goals themselves, they help the team become great at scoring goals.
To explain this we can use the example of the human brain, which is made up of 90billion brain cells. Each cell is unremarkable but when they all communicate together human consciousness emerges. We’re still not sure what consciousness is, but we know it emerges from such interactions because when our brain cells stop communicating we lose consciousness and our ability to adapt and act.
And just as consciousness emerges from interactions between brain cells, your organisation’s culture emerges from interactions between your people — it’s this that helps you adapt. Therefore, don’t trivialise leadership development — don’t try to create superheroes who do everything — instead help them and their teams interact better so they can better meet the challenges they face.
Learn more here: https://powermaps.net/adaptiveleadership
Trivialisation is about reducing the anxiety people feel when facing complex problems by creating an illusion of certainty. You’ll have heard a senior leader state that, “it’s not rocket science!” before concluding, “we just need to do X,Y and Z”. And when these trivialisations fail they blame people’s inability to execute plans and exclaim again, “we just need better talent. It’s not rocket science!”.
Trivialisation prevents us doing the smart work needed to solve complex challenges; starting with the honesty to admit that “we don’t know” followed by the bravery to declare “we’re going to find out” by experimenting and learning. Unfortunately, many leaders turn to others for answers. And these also exclaim, “it’s not rocket science — you just need to do what I advise you!”.
One “solution” — ‘training leaders better’ — is also an example of trivialisation as current leadership development approaches are flawed: They take leaders away from their workplace (and teams), put them in an artificial environment, teach them theory based on yesterday’s best practices, and then expect them to go back apply what they’ve only just learned with little to no follow up support.
Leadership is about making teams more than the sum of their parts — more than just a collection of individuals, but a real team working towards a common goal and recognising they need each other to do this. So we can’t develop effective leaders by focusing on the individual leader alone. We have to develop leaders and teams together as they work on achieving their goals.
We don’t need to train each team member to become leaders (we need to train them to keep developing the technical skills the team needs) but we do need to show them how they can become more than the sum of their parts and that this is the leader’s role. Think of the manager of a sports team — they don’t score the goals themselves, they help the team become great at scoring goals.
To explain this we can use the example of the human brain, which is made up of 90billion brain cells. Each cell is unremarkable but when they all communicate together human consciousness emerges. We’re still not sure what consciousness is, but we know it emerges from such interactions because when our brain cells stop communicating we lose consciousness and our ability to adapt and act.
And just as consciousness emerges from interactions between brain cells, your organisation’s culture emerges from interactions between your people — it’s this that helps you adapt. Therefore, don’t trivialise leadership development — don’t try to create superheroes who do everything — instead help them and their teams interact better so they can better meet the challenges they face.
Learn more here: https://powermaps.net/adaptiveleadership