The adventurer in practice
As I’m using the adventurer theme as a shorthand for how I operate in the world, I’ve borrowed a definition of adventure that I found from Jon Levy in Wikipedia:
- It is exciting and remarkable;
- Possesses adversity and/or risk;
- Brings about growth;
In this article, I’d like to talk about being inventive to find clever ways to overcome adversity. I will explore how I have been helping individuals grow where they have potential that is not being fully realised. And, of course, in helping others, I have grown myself.
I’ve used the following words to help me think about this article:
resourceful — the ability to find quick and clever ways to overcome difficulties
ingenious — (of a person) clever, original or inventive
potential — latent qualities or abilities that may be developed and lead to future success or usefulness; the possibility of something happening or of someone doing something in the future.
Unrealised potential
One of my colleagues, Raymond, showed great potential but was unable to demonstrate this because of his position.
He was operating as a business analyst within an Agile team and had extensive experience with Agile practices. He also demonstrated humility, self-awareness, desire to learn and grow and an instinctive approach to how to support others in their growth. In short, he had some attributes which would make him a great Agile coach.
However, he was not able to have the potential impact in helping his wider team. One of the reasons for this may have been due to not having the expert ‘status’ inferred when being labelled as an Agile coach. No doubt, there will have been other reasons and the root causes will have been far from obvious.
My frustration was that a talented individual was being wasted. I also happened to be in a position where I knew demand for good Agile coaches was high and could make some introductions.
To cut a long story short, Raymond is now operating as an Agile coach and also scrum master for my team where he is able to grow and realise his potential. Equally, he is having a positive impact on the team, providing us with support and effective practices to help a motivated but frustrated team to be more effective.
Another of my colleagues, Kav, was seeking some support to help with her professional growth. After some suggestions and discussion, I agreed that I would be her mentor.
This has been a powerful relationship where the growth has happened on both sides. She has decided on her areas of focus which has been, firstly, finding her longer term goal and, secondly, understanding how and if she is moving towards that goal.
This has given me the opportunity for growth by researching and experimenting with different approaches for discovering personal purpose. Find Your Why by Simon Sinek has been useful.
Bard Papegaaij’s work on helping find individual meaning was very helpful.
I’ve also explored Robert Kegan’s model for adult development and practices (with Bard’s help!). This has helped me and her in our individual growth but also in helping other colleagues with self-awareness and growth.
Growing the team capability and being resourceful
In my team at Lloyds, we try to be role models and keep in view what we are asking our colleagues to do. It is suprising how easy it is for us to fall into telling but not doing. This is neither wilful behaviour or a sign of laziness but it can happen very easily. Avoiding this requires constant vigilance and attention.
One example is to ensure we always focus on understanding the customer (or colleague in our case) needs and use them to drive our decision making. This ensures we avoid decisions based on opinions which inevitably lead to the loudest voice (or the HiPPO) winning out.
In the last few months, I’ve been keen to ensure we bring this practice in place by adopting some simple customer research practices such as usability testing and user interviews.
This has taken weeks to recruit test customers (colleagues), run tests and synthesize results. None of us has any great expertise so we’ve been learning along the way too. The next step is to embark on a round of user interviews which would also take several weeks.
Recently, I attended a presentation where one of our training team was playing back his research to lead to a new training offering. The research that took place was of a high standard and generated many insights which drove a lot of excited conversation.
I realised that there was an opportunity to capitalise on the research as it looked like it would overlap with our interviews.
I scheduled a meeting to explore this with two more colleagues and, very quickly, some smart, motivated colleagues had agreed how to collaborate and share user research across several teams who would benefit.
My limited contribution here was to see the connection and schedule a meeting — my colleagues took it from there. It is a classic example of being resourceful by being aware of the overall goals and seeing a connection.
I will stay close to this as it develops but I won’t ‘manage’ anything, I will just stay in touch to ensure we get the maximum benefit from this shared research.
Living by my values and working with those
The work and experiences I’ve described above were easy and effortless because they reflect my values.
I hate waste! I know this because I am frustrated by food rotting in the fruit bowl or going past the expiry date in the fridge. This value applies to people as much as it does to things — I hate wasted potential!
Matching Raymond to an opportunity could look like an act of generosity — it was driven by frustration with the waste of his talent. Don’t get me wrong, I do get pleasure from helping people and seeing them grow. But minimising waste is a value that feels like a very natural driver for me.
Finding a better way to meet our need for customer research by pooling resources is a little different. This is a happy coincidence of values, my strengths and the context:
- dislike of waste
- not status-driven (belief in equality)
- ability to see the woods for the trees and make connections
- consistent with group beliefs: no need to seek permission on detail; motivated and engaged; good for the wider team
My dislike of waste is a reflection of my laziness. It’s one of my best attributes! This drives me to seek opportunities and learn how to achieve more with less effort. There is nothing that frustrates me more than missing an opportunity to be more effective or the same work being done in two diferent places.
I don’t tend to be driven by the need to enhance my reputation. I gained my satisfaction from seeing a connection, an opportunity for more effective working and providing others with the opportunity to make it happen.
So it was easy for me but ONLY if the group values and beliefs supported me. In this case, the individuals involved were motivated and felt empowered to do the right thing. They saw no threat to their relationships with bosses or other colleagues which allowed them to do the right thing for the wider team and make an immediate decision. The well known jobsworth would have killed this opportunity stone dead!
So what?
This article illustrates the importance of self-awareness in providing fulfiling work. It has taken me time and reflection to understand myself and my values better. But it has been worth it as I’m much clearer on when I will do my best work and what I need to do my best.
For example, I need an exciting and remarkable adventure to motivate me. I need trust and autonomy to find how best to respond to the risks and challenges of the journey.
Fortunately, challenging fundamental assumptions about how we work together and support a workplace that puts the human and our needs back at the centre is a remarkable adventure.
If you want to find out more about your values and purpose, I recommend you start with Simon Sinek’s Find Your Why or Bard’s articles will help you start out on that journey. Or contact me if you want more help.
