#333: That wouldn't work in my team - or would it?

Welcome to the Thoughtful Leader podcast. My name is Ben Brearley. I'm a leadership coach and the founder of Thoughtful Leader. The Thoughtful Leader podcast is all about short, sharp leadership advice, because thoughtful leadership is good leadership.

Welcome to episode 333 of the Thoughtful Leader podcast. In this episode, I'm going to deal with the common statement that leaders often make, which is, oh no, that thing wouldn't work in my industry or in my team. And yeah, it's a common one I hear and notice quite a lot. So I'm going to unpack this a little bit.

why would people say this and what are they really worried about? So let's get into this one right now. Now, I deliver a lot of training and workshops in the leadership space and something I hear from certain audiences and people in the room is sometimes, well, no, that wouldn't work in my team. No, that wouldn't work in this industry.

and often this comes up when dealing with topics like empathy or giving feedback or emotional intelligence and those sort of softer skills and a lot of people have skepticism about those because it's like well no that wouldn't work in my team my people wouldn't respond well to that and it's an interesting reaction because what you'd rather have is a bit of an open mind that okay maybe this is something I could try and maybe that would help me in my particular leadership situation.

But what this statement does instead is it dismisses a potential solution without considering it. So you'll actually never know whether it could have worked or not. And leaders who do this dismiss these ideas out of hand and then all of a sudden they feel justified at their lack of action in this space, for example. So let's unpack that a little bit.

I jumped ahead a little bit there. But why do leaders maybe do this? Well, the first reason I think a lot of leaders dismiss models or tools or approaches or concepts in the leadership space is because they fear the awkwardness or the difficulty of engaging in a conversation or a situation that these models suggest. So for example in assertiveness training it often regarded as a positive thing to do to say things like when you come in late to work I feel concerned because it puts pressure on our team How could we work together to make sure this doesn't happen again?

And what that is doing is it's owning a feeling, it's stating an emotion. And so that's an example. And so someone might feel very awkward about talking about emotions in their team. And therefore, what they'll say is, oh no, that would never work in my situation.

Because they fear the awkwardness or the difficulty of having that sort of conversation, mentioning emotions and actually dealing with those emotions. And the key here is that if you don't entertain some sort of model or idea as an option, then you are not forcing yourself to go through with it. And therefore, you're avoiding the discomfort. You're keeping yourself very safe.

and so I'm not saying that you dismiss all these things out of hand but it's worth thinking about when you come across a model or some technique in leadership that you think wouldn't work maybe think about you know why what are you trying what are you afraid of here are you trying to protect yourself because the second readers are second reason I find that leaders sometimes do this sort of thing is because what we're suggesting goes against some sort of core belief. So this one comes up when it comes to motivation theory.

So sometimes I'll teach classes about motivation theories that are out there. And obviously motivation theories are not the gospel. You have to deal with the individual. You can't just say this model is a perfect fit for this person.

But sometimes when we deal with motivation theories, so as an example, there's a bunch of research out there that suggests that a sense of purpose in your work is a big motivator. Autonomy, you know, the ability to decide, make decisions about the work that you do is a big motivator. And those sort of things sometimes get pushback from people when they say, oh, no, no, my team, no, no, no, that would never work in my team. And sometimes this is because you've got a core belief that, for example, people don't like work and they hate work and therefore you have to have a carrot and stick approach all the time to the people in your team.

So when it comes to motivation theory, for example, no, no, no, that wouldn't work because if I don't, you know, if I don't punish them, they won't work hard. And what that's doing is because you may have a belief that yourself, you believe that you don't like work and all you work for is the money and if you didn't have to, you wouldn't work. So a sense of purpose isn't valuable to you. So it always worth interrogating your core beliefs about something Because if it goes against your belief you struggle to adopt something because then you need to actually change your mindset And that hard People don't like to question their own mindset or their own identity is the word I'm looking for.

People will struggle to adopt things that go against what they currently believe because their identity is wrapped up in that. So if you come up against something in the leadership space that you think, oh no, that would never work. Have a think about whether you're keeping yourself safe and do you have a core belief underneath it all that actually is forcing you to dismiss these ideas because you may be limiting yourself. And it's true that not every model or every concept works in every situation, but you don't want to dismiss things out of hand without being intentional about it.

And that's what thoughtful leadership is to me. It's about being intentional about what you're doing. So before you make this statement and dismiss certain concepts that you come across, think about, you know, why would it not work exactly? What specifically is the problem here?

What do you think is going to happen if you try to use this thing? Try to get detailed about it because you might find that when you actually consider it, there is some validity to what the model or the technique is, maybe it's your own personal misgivings that are holding you back here. The second thing to think about and to ask yourself is, what would need to be different for this thing to work? What would have to be different in your team, in the environment, in yourself, and all of these sorts of things?

Because instead of saying that something won't work, maybe the real answer is, I'm not comfortable or confident in trying to do that in my team. Maybe that's the real issue here. It might be that you're just not comfortable or confident in trying to enact the solution. And when you start to approach things that way, you might go, okay, well, maybe that means I need to build my confidence or build my skills in a certain area because then I'll be able to use this thing, use this idea to make an improvement in my team.

So it's always worth, and I catch myself doing this a lot as well, when you hear things and you go, yeah, that's rubbish, and you shut it down. And it's always worth questioning yourself and going, is it really something that won't work or is it something that I'm pushing back on because it would make me have to work hard or make me have to change my mindset about a certain situation. And therefore, maybe I should do the inner work of trying to make myself better than just dismissing things that could actually be valuable for me and my team So this might and when you ask the question about you know maybe I not comfortable or confident trying to do that in your team, you can start to adapt your approach.

So rather than dismiss it out of hand, see if you can adjust the idea to suit your style or the situation that you've got. So when I go back to that feedback example, you know, I feel concerned because of blah, blah, blah, you're, you know, you're owning your feelings, those sort of things. Sometimes leadership models and concepts and feedback models, which I've talked about on this podcast before as well, sometimes they come out as sort of robotic because it sounds like we're reading off a script.

So if you are trying to adopt something for your team, you have to be very careful to make sure it's authentic and make sure it's your own style so that you don't come across as some sort of robot who's read some sort of textbook and now using a script because people won't perceive you credibly in that space. So rather than dismiss things out of hand, see if you can adapt it to see whether you could actually make it work for your team. And if you give it a good go and you try things out and they just don't work, well that's great information because you can try something else.

You can work out why they didn't work and you can move forward. Because if you don't try some things and you dismiss them out of hand, you'll never actually know whether they might have worked or not. So I'm interested in your opinions on this one. Do you hear stuff in the leadership space or in the work space and people suggest them and you go, no, no, that won't work in my team?

I'm interested. What are some examples you've come across? So put your comments on the show notes page, dollfleeter.com slash podcast slash 333.

It's all the threes. And let me know what you think about this one. So leave a comment and let me know. Also, I am actually doing a bunch of other writing.

I write more general essays about human behavior and people and technology on my own other website, which is called benbrearley.com. And I'll leave a link to that on the show notes page as well. If you're interested in reading more about topics that aren't necessarily specifically about leadership, although they do often have a leadership, they're related in some way, you can go to benbrilly.

com and have a look at my essays. I'm using that to just explore my thoughts and write some different content because I really enjoy the process. So if you want to read some of those, go check them out as well. I'll put a link to the show notes on the show notes page for that.

All right. Thank you for listening once again. Keep up the thoughtful leadership, and I'll be back next week.