Blanchard's Situational Leadership Model

A couple of days ago, I ran my team through a whistle-stop tour of Blanchard's Situational Leadership Model.  If you've never seen it, it's a really good way of looking at task/goal oriented behaviour especially when managing people.

It's very different to traditional management and leadership theory.  The key premise is that people move through different stages with any task, no matter who or how skilled you are: it's just the speed you move through the stages that varies.

The stages are: 

1. The Enthusiastic Beginner/D1 (Low competence, high commitment).  This is where they are very motivated and require a huge amount of support, but don't really know what they are doing.
2. The Disillusioned Learner/D2 (Low competence, low commitment).  This is where the person has started to realise what they don't know, but isn't there yet, and the initial enthusiasm has worn off.  They can get frustrated more easily, and often feel there's little to show for their efforts. 
3. The Cautious Contributor/D3 (High competence, low commitment/confidence).  Here, the person can do the job but don't have confidence in themselves yet.
4. The Self-Reliant Achiever/D4 (High competence, high commitment).  The person knows what they are doing and is self-managing.

A good way to understand the model is to think of a project away from the office such as painting your bedroom.  You start full of enthusiasm, convinced it will be the most wondrous bedroom in the world when you are finished.  You toy with the idea of transfers, murals and multiple tones having poured zealously over interior decorating websites and magazines, and have a plan written down.  However, a few hours in, with paint dripping in your hair, splodges on the floor and one wall looking like a remnant of a sixties acid trip, you've lost all motivation. You are close to throwing the brush and phone your best friend in tears; they encourage you, telling you it'll be OK and giving you tips that you write down, such as using a roller and thinning the paint.  You use their help and grimly keep going.  Gradually the walls get covered more easily, and you even start correcting your early mistakes with a third coat.  Your friend pops round to check you haven't committed Hari Kiri with a paint scraper to find a very credible bedroom.   Impressed, they tell you so, which spurs you to finish of the edges and snagging jobs.  And once you've finished, you realise that it's actually all fine, that you can do it, and you're off to paint the kitchen.   

What makes this model different to a lot of leadership theory is that it asserts that each development stage has an associated leadership style that compliments the situation.  The idea is that you adapt your leadership style according to where the person is in order to help them effectively; hence the idea of situational leadership rather than always having one style of management.  This is where the axis of support and directive behaviour comes in.  You modify the amount of direction and support, depending on where they are in that curve.  The advised styles are:

1. Enthusiastic Beginner/D1 = S1 Style.  You need to provide specific instruction, direction and attention, like a task or check list in easy steps.  They will be the ones that have lots questions regarding the task from the large to the small, but are generally full of interest and engagement.
2. Disillusioned Learner/D2 = S2 Style.  The person still need direction and to a lesser extent help structuring a work/task plan, but they need lots of praise and recognition for the things they do manage to ensure that their contributions are recognised and help with positive reinforcement.
3. Cautious Contributor/D3 = S3 Style.  The person still needs support in the form of recognition or praise, and you need to be available for brainstorming and discussion of problems, but there's a step back from the directive style to let them find their own way.
4. Self-Reliant Achiever/D4 = S4 Style.  This is essentially delegation; the person knows what they are doing and how to do it.  

What I really like about this model is that it recognises human behaviour without judging, and offers a good management solution.  No-one is expected to be immediately competent on this model, and motivation is understood to ebb and flow without censure.  

It's worth noting that the model is not the easiest thing to implement, because it involves constantly being aware of where people are with regards to specific projects, and they can easily be a D4 in one task, and  D1 in another related topic simultaneously.  As a manager, you need to be able to pick up the cues when discussing various projects, and accepting the need to be agile as you move around topics. But if you can track where people are on the curve, then it enables you to support them in the most appropriate way.    

The other thing about the model is that it offers a neutral and safe language to approach issues that could be potentially painful going forwards.  This is why I shared it with my team: it's a lot easier to go to a manager and say “please stop delegating at me!  I'm currently a D2 with this project!”, or “I don’t need a task list but I’d quite like to chat things through before I go ahead: I'm feeling a bit D3?” that to have to admit to feeling lost or lacking in any enthusiasm.  We're going to try and use it as a mutual language, and see how it works.  

Wish me luck! 

The Golden Circle

Netflix is a wonderful thing.  As well as providing hours of distraction and enabling a deadly snack food habit that's going to have me looking like Jabba the Hut in 20 years, it’s got a good line in documentaries and lectures, and recently added a chunk of the TED back catalogue.  For those people who are unaware of TED, it’s a global set of conferences run by a non-profit organisation which are in some way inspirational, extraordinary or significant either because of the speaker or the topic. 

One of the talks I've watched recently is Simon Sinek’s “How great leaders inspire action”.  Sinek is very charismatic and watchable, but once you boil it down, his key premise is simple.  He believes that you have to have a core proposition, whether as a person, business or brand that you understand and believe in, and all messaging that works flows from that core belief.  Without that understanding, your messaging will fail.  He encapsulates this in the idea of the ‘Golden Circle’.

The Golden Circle

• Why: Why are you here?  What makes you get out of bed in the morning?  What drives you?  Or, what is the core of your brand/product/company?
•  How: How are you going to do what you do?  What enables you to be that person or deliver that service?
•  What: What is it that you are?  What do you provide?  What product/service do you offer?

His supposition is that most people go about this backwards, talking about the easiest first, which is the 'what'.  Most people know what the do in an operational sense.  "We provide [X] product",  They sometimes get the how, but generally miss a lot or all of the ‘why’.  This fails because he believes we make decisions with our limbic brains which controls our decision making but not language and rational thought which sits in the neocortex.   

The idea is not completely new.  It’s in the core theory of branding when you need both a vision and a mission statement for your brand to understand what you are and why you are there.  It’s also in marketing 101 looking at ‘Features, Attributes and Benefits’ or F/A/Bs, where you look at each tangible feature of a product/service or company, and list out what that can mean and what the more intangible benefits are for the recipient, whether it’s saving time, money, increasing prestige, aiding self-validation etc.  For example, if talking about a new medical device to a procurement department: "Our new device has a simple menu system that is 20% faster to set up,/ which will allow your staff to see more patients in a day / so reduce waiting lists and save you money in staff time" And in certain companies, they do encourage your external messaging to be B/A/Fs where possible, rather than F/A/Bs.  i.e. “Save money by reducing your waiting lists/by using staff time more efficiently and enabling them to have more appointments per day/ made possible because our devices have a simple menu system that is 20% faster to set up”.  

But it’s the simplicity of his model that works.  If you can articulate the golden circle in one or two sentences for your core products/brands, you’re probably a lot further along the curve than many of your competitors.  Even well known and loved brands probably lack a chunk of ‘why’ inside the businesses they serve.  Then you need to check the consistency of that message; you might be able to layout the proposition but can your colleagues in Customer Services?  Operations?  Because if they can’t, something’s not been carried forwards.  And that's not even looking at your customers and how they perceive what they receive (hint: it's often not what you think).     

The talk also struck a chord when thinking much more in the context of leadership: until watching that talk, I’d never really considered the repercussions of leaders/managers personal F/A/Bs on the team around them.  You can do a really good job managing a team and it's performance even if you don't believe in the company; but you're managing rather than leading or inspiring and that is different.  And you'll have lesser outputs from your team.  It’s having some core beliefs that shape your actions and that will cause  other people to follow, in internal and external roles, such as: “I believe we can be main influencers in the global company/through excellence in strategy, planning, implementation and innovation/ whilst providing marketing and commercial services”.   

It’s a simple but effective method of ensuring that teams remain focused and dedicated even if changes are going around them, be it changes in structure, personnel or direction.  If you have an influencer in your company, then they have to believe in what they and their team are doing, or everyone loses focus.  I feel that this is part of a manager's role and responsibility: to define the core 'why' of their team or department and be that role model.  

It's not about being falsely positive, it's about being genuine and finding something within what you are doing that you believe in.  It doesn't even have to reflect the currently reality because aspirational visions can pull a team towards that goal.  Believe that your team are at the core of commercial strategy, and your requests to them, the questions you ask, the projects you all work on will be in line with that goal, and cause your team to become those strategic leaders, even if they weren't before.   

At worst, it’s worth bearing in mind that if you understand the importance of belief, and recognise your lack of belief, you can change it.  The slightly clichéd affirmations in front of a mirror have a basis in clinical trials: Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) studies on forced compliance demonstrated that if you act in a way contrary to your beliefs, you will change your beliefs to match, and numerous other studies have replicated that.  Act like you believe in what you are doing long enough, and you’ll start to believe it yourself, although I would question why you're working in for a company you really don't believe in! 

So the core is, know why you’re doing what you’re doing (with conviction!), understand how you are going to do it, and then do it, and people will follow.    

Guess I'll be off to do a bit of Why/What/How then!