The Puzzle without the Cover
Leading is like working on a puzzle without the cover. In turbulent times, throw three puzzles in the same pile. In crisis, hide the edges.
Certainty about the future is illusion.
At best, leaders experience a life of ambiguity, punctuated with guiding moments of clarity.
The picture:
Mission, vision, and values are the colors of your future.
- Mission: What value do you bring to others? A mission that centers on your organization is only compelling to you.
- Vision: Where are you going?
- Values: What behaviors best achieve mission and vision? Choose three to five behaviors that you’ll always exemplify, regardless of the situation.
Mission, vision, and values don’t predict the future. They make it.
Stability:
3 factors of stability when the picture is missing:
#1. Character.
Successfully putting the leadership puzzle together is about character, more than the puzzle. When the cover is lost, it’s all about the person putting the puzzle together. Think about patience, grit, courage, curiosity, and openness.
Think who before what.
#2. Relationships.
The people around you are the biggest factor of success. This is especially true when the puzzle is mixed up and the box top is lost.
Surround yourself with people who:
- Believe in the mission, embrace the vision, and exemplify your values. Invite believers to join. Ignore or reject the rest.
- Honor each other’s strengths.
- Address adversity optimistically.
- Speak with kind candor, courageous vulnerability, and forward-facing curiosity.
Surround yourself with true believers.
#3. Mentors, coaches, and the voice of experience.
Voices from the outside protect you from getting lost in the puzzle. No one knows the future, but a few have faced challenges similar to yours. Some are skilled at helping you find clarity.
You need someone to help you find your compass, not tell you what to do.
What brings stability and certainty to the leadership journey?
Dan
Excellent subject and suggestions.
I would add that Leaders need to gain a sense of history about their organization. Specifically Leaders need to understand the past leadership, good or bad, and the key elements that have formed the firm’s culture. These can help the new Leader succeed.
Brad
Brad James, author The Business Zoo
Thanks Brad. You provided a useful reason to look into the past. Love it.
Perhaps there are three perspectives that enable leaders to work on the puzzle more effectively.
The past: History of the organization. Defining moments. Big successes/failures. Influential leaders, good or bad.
The present: People and opportunities. Where might the people who currently on the team take the organization? What are our best opportunities to add value?
The future: Who would we like to become and what might we do today to get there.
Great quote: “You need someone to help you find your compass, not tell you what to do.”
As someone who needed extensive help to find my compass and leave a less than desirable life behind to finally find success, this hits home. Someone telling me what to do would have taken ownership of changes I was making away from me and ultimately would not have allowed me to grow to where I am now.
Guiding, not dragging or forcing, is the key. Thanks, Dan!
Thanks Eric. Love your story. I’m so glad you shared your experience. I think the need for someone to tell us what to do sends us off in the wrong direction and only helps to make us less powerful.
There are times when techniques and skills can come from others, but direction has to come from within.
Dan
‘Working on a puzzle without the cover’
I love this! So versatile.Works in so many ways.
Excellent post.
Thank you
Ian
Thanks Ian. Glad you enjoyed. I worked with my wife on the wording of that sentence.
What brings stability and certainty to the leadership journey? The experience of others with similar journeys with their puzzles tends to help the journey, I love the compass element.
Thanks Tim. Yes…get with someone who has dealt with a puzzle similar to yours. Don’t expect them to do your puzzle for you. But an outside definitely helps with perspective.
“Speak with kind candor, courageous vulnerability, and forward-facing curiosity”. I love that.
It makes me think of the power and pitfall of shame as a barrier to courageous vulnerability, Perhaps before we can speak with courageous vulnerability to others, we first need to have the courage to see ourselves- shameful, painful aspects included. We will never be able to finish the puzzle with pieces missing. While there is rarely certainty along the leadership journey, bold authenticity would seem to help fortify and stabilize leaders ( and their teams), from the uncertainty and chaos around them. Great post!
Thanks Lori. Great seeing you here today. Brilliant contribution. Love “bold authenticity.”
There’s a whole truckload of insight in your comment. You bring to mind the work of Brene Brown. Her book, Daring Greatly, was helpful to me on this topic.
Great visual, Dan. Thanks for reviving it. I used this when teaching Introductory Business Management at the college level, although I admit to being a bit more devious. First, pairs of students got to “work” a puzzle (a simple one because of what follows). Then, they had to work the puzzle without the box picture. Then, they had to assemble their puzzle upside down after flipping over all the pieces, and no box. And lastly, two teams mixed their puzzle pieces together (different pictures but from the same jig so they were interchangeable) then split the pile in half and assemble what they could, also flipped over. Objective: you never have all the information, so when do you realize that and how do you adapt – recognizing what you have that you do need; ignoring what you have that you don’t need; trying to obtain what you don’t have but do need (if possible); and when must you just cut to the chase (with a back-up plan).
I still have the puzzles.
Brilliant. Thanks Jim. Love how you expanded this idea. I’m thinking about using a version of this in my keynotes. Fun!
Had an instructor that went one more step. puzzle with a photo on both sides, 1 person on each team knew what it should look like and 1 other was told to lie and say he was the one who knew what it looked like. No one had ever met each other. The lesson, building trust but validating the skills and intent at the same time. By the end I wanted to hurt that instructor and there was more then one team that everyone just walked away.
Thanks Walt. Sounds like a bitter lesson. The idea that someone might intentionally sabotage the team is valid. It could happen. IN my experience, they do this to make themselves look good or undermine someone who might outperform them.
Validating intent seems like an important lesson. But I wouldn’t blame anyone for being frustrated with the process.
I’ve seen underhanded backstabbers be tolerated, even honored. It may be because of self-serving leadership, who choose to serve themselves over the best interests of the organization.
Certainty will always be illusive without knowing the science of people because it tells us exactly what leadership is and why people react the way they do to what management does and does not do. Briefly, the science is that people have the same values and use them the same way, have the same five basic needs, and about 95% are conformists/followers, some more and some less. This science gives you certainty.
I have been trying to wrap my head around your reply all day. Have not been able or have I had the time to spend on a rebuttal or support. Will sleep on it, to be honest I am waiting for Dan’s input. Maybe my brain went someplace else and I completely misunderstood your input.
Hey Walt, I can’t speak for Ben. I’m not even sure what the 5 Basic Need he refers to are. If they are Maslow’s Hierarchy of need, the hierarchy is useful, but has been shown to be an oversimplification.
Here’s one article: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/positively-media/201111/social-networks-what-maslow-misses-0
Thank you, sometimes my knee jerk reaction can come off as judgment and closed minded. That doctrine was what I was thinking he was refereeing to. Despite my attempts in life to prove I don’t need anyone but myself I know we need each other. The good thing that I have learned for the most part is you can chose who those people are. I enjoy those who challenge me and grow with me. One reason I love your blog. Have a good night.
Maslow is interesting, but not useful for leadership. The five basic needs are: to be heard, to be respected, and to simultaneously have autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The last three were proven in 30+ years of research by Edward Deci, Richard Ryan and many other collaborators {termed Self-Determination Theory) as what motivates us. The degree of motivation depends on how well management provides for those needs. In my own experience, I added to be heard and respected since these are the only ways a learder can meet the other three needs and are the only ways people can be led to extremely high performance as done by the likes of Steve Jobs or Chester Nimitz. The performance gains are north of 300% by several of my turnarounds thus proving what Stephen Covey wrote that the possible performance gain of good management is 500%, not 5% or 50%, but 500%. Of course, it is handy to understand that leadership is simply the transmission of value standards which most of the workforce then use as how to treat their work, their customers, each other, and their bosses. Sadly, the leadership industry wildly misunderstands leadership.