My client Mitch, an investment manager, wanted to reinvent investment banking. But as a leader, he had to convince his team to apply his ideas, even though they could make some members uncomfortable. So, as you read, ask yourself:
- Can I, through my own example, demonstrate the value of applying new ideas?
- Do I collaborate in ways that foster trust between team members and between the team and myself?
- Do I erect guardrails, so that my team does not feel threatened by new ideas?
- Am I good at predicting the impact of new ideas, so that I don’t just spring them on people?
Mitch could answer these questions affirmatively, but he also continually evaluated his progress. “You can’t lead,” he said, “without making sure that you’re working at your peak.”
Mitch, then around 50, ran an investment management service for high-net-worth families. But he wanted to found a new firm, based on principles that he wanted to test. He called these principles “radical collaboration” (RC).
RC would create something less impersonal, more responsive to human instincts that (he insisted) drove the market. It would add a new dimension to market analysis that encompassed an analyst’s humanity.
“Right now,” he explained, “my team crunches numbers, but the human element is missing from our equation.”
I asked him to tell me more. “For one thing, there’ll be real give-and-take among my team.” Mitch saw his team as a family. “If you can’t bare your soul to people you work with,” he said, “they won’t understand your motivations—why you think money should go here and not there. The best investment decisions turn on trust and understanding.”
Still, I advised Mitch to take care before taking the plunge.
He took the plunge, taking several buddies with him to a new firm that he called Aspiration, Inc. “I explained my new direction to them. It was my first test of radical collaboration, and it passed.” What he meant was that he had been totally candid, exposing his need to pursue a life in business consistent with the rest of his life. “I told them that choosing investments is no different from how you connect with people: You find ones you identify with, who make you feel energized.”
As he went forward, he was candid. “I admitted that after years in therapy, I finally realized that living with a sense of possibility was the only way to save my marriage; possibility can lead to growth.” He bared his soul, which was basic to RC. He described in vivid terms how he wanted to proceed through life and connect the process to how he would pick investments. “I wanted them to follow my example as we set out together.”
We kept talking as Aspiration picked up the pace of investing. The team was now holding weekly sessions explaining why they liked one investment over another. The numbers jostled with more personal motivations. “People know their psychology matters, and that no motivation is off-limits.” The point was to clarify team members’ previously hidden rationales. If someone had a bad experience buying a house, the team should know, so it could evaluate why a member resisted investing in a real estate investment trust. “Once we all know this stuff, we can make rational decisions together.”
“But isn’t there a risk?” I asked. “People may feel like they’re under a microscope, like they’re sacrificing privacy.” Mitch said, No, so long as everyone participated equally. It sounded more like group therapy than an investment strategy, but the proof would be in whether they beat the market. If their clients got richer, and the team got bigger bonuses, then it could be a strategy, provided everyone kept up the self-revelation.
Mitch’s goal was to demonstrate why collaboration requires that you explore seemingly unrelated or, at best, tangential issues that may turn out to be central. “If I am going to lead,” he told me, “I have to convince people around me to try new, potentially effective approaches.” Mitch saw leadership as a shared attempt to break through to new ways of approaching problems.
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“We’re not judging each other,” he said, “just objectively evaluating each other’s judgment.”
So, was it working out? At the weekly meetings, a team member would present a project, in financial but also personal terms (why, for example, personal concerns made the project attractive). Then, during the following week’s meeting, everyone would offer personal reasons for supporting or rejecting it. “We raised concerns about incentive and motivation, and why someone might feel inhibited. No one called anyone’s feelings illegitimate, just maybe misplaced in context with the project at hand.”
So, Mitch called himself a facilitator, standing back and encouraging discussion. “Okay,” he said, “I’m the leader. But my goal is to broker consensus through clarity and insight.”
He didn’t expect linearity. That is, if you’re pushing the envelope, the envelope may push back. A good leader learns how to push.
Mitch said that radical collaboration meant that you got to the root of a working relationship. You understood how it worked, so you could fix it if something failed. “My goal,” he said, “is to have a unified mental process where, ultimately, we think like one person would think. We weigh all our concerns internally, and then we decide.”
Mitch learned a lot about the role that collaboration plays in leadership. For example:
- A leader pushes the envelope and accepts that the team may push back.
- If a leader comes up with a brave new idea, it should first be tested to ensure that the team is on board.
- If your collaborators see tangible benefits in doing things your way, they will likely stick with you.
- The human element of collaboration is important, even where the collaboration is not primarily about people’s personal relationship.
Mitch thinks a good leader doesn’t accept limitations until he tries to push past them.