How to Build a Team, Become More Tolerant and Make Better Decisions
They knew that whether they liked a man or approved of him was irrelevant, if not a distraction. And by staying aloof they were able to build teams of great diversity but also of strength.
Peter Drucker believes that by focusing on meritocracy diversity will naturally follow, as the only selection criteria is that the person is the best for the job. This effect can be seen to an extent in sports where ability is more self-evident. We do not have to like the people that we choose to work with, we just need to ensure that they are the best people for the job. Of course this theory has its limits. We cannot entirely ignore personalities as highly disagreeable people, who may be very effective at what they do, can alienate the rest of the team and overall success and productivity can be hindered as a result.
To tolerate diversity, relationships must be task-focused rather than personality focused. Achievement must be measured against objective criteria of contribution and performance. This is possible, however, only if jobs are defined and structured impersonally.
To facilitate the success of meritocracy focused hiring, Drucker believed that it was necessary to totally exclude personality from the hiring process. Maybe being a team player and having a positive attitude is less important than ability. Job listings are often full of buzzwords that are thrown on to describe the ideal candidate’s personality along with allusions to office or company culture. What do these terms really mean? And do they actually have any impact on the workforce or a person’s success?. Probably not.
Once a person is hired there needs to be clear KPIs to determine their performance, this should not be done subjectively by a line manager or someone else who will introduce bias and how much they like the person. Performance should be objectively measured and defined from the start to ensure that the best employees are rewarded.
One of the most obvious facts of social and political life is the longevity of the temporary… The effective decision-maker knows this. He too improvises, of course. But he asks himself every time, ‘If I had to live with this for a long time, would I be willing to?’ And if the answer is ‘No’ he keeps on working to find a more general, a more conceptual, a more comprehensive solution — one which establishes the right principle.
We shouldn’t settle for rushed temporary solutions as more often than not we may find them becoming permanent. If the solution is just adequate enough then there will not be enough will to change them. The founders of Netflix famously chose the beta-name of Kibble. A name they thought was so bad, that when they came to choosing the actual name, they wouldn’t be tempted to fall back on it.
If we can find a quick fix and then say I’ll do it properly later, the chances are that it will never happen. Always try to find a solution that fits within your long term goals and planning. Don’t settle for “this will do”. I’m not saying that every solution needs to be perfect, it’s impossible to do that every time and more importantly, there are no perfect solutions, just the ones which fit best within your framework. Be wary of a temporary solution and make sure that it is one you are completely satisfied with as you may be living with it for the long run.
Everyone connected with safe-driving campaigns… felt that to accept a probability of accidents was to condone, if not to encourage dangerous driving… It is this common human tendency to confuse plausibility with morality which makes the incomplete hypothesis so dangerous a mistake and so hard to correct.
We live in a world where so little is under our control and because of that we are inevitably going to encounter danger and negative encounters. It is impossible to eradicate these entirely and to do so may not be worth it. The acceptance of this fact, however, does not equate itself to encouragement of these dangers or negative events. For example, everyone agrees that murder is bad and as a society we would be better off without it. However, the murder rate is not 0 anywhere in the world. Why is this? Why has more not been done to totally eradicate murder?
Well, what would we have to do to totally get rid of murder? For one, we could change the definition to mean something so specific that nothing could fall into it (or, if someone was so inclined, they could broaden the definition to artificially increase the murder rate). We could remove anything that could be categorised as a murder weapon. Prisons have already tried this, yet death’s still occur (and we still have hands!). We could force everyone to stay in their homes, but then you are more likely to be murdered by someone you know (if anything this may increase it!). It looks like the only way of guaranteeing no murders at all is to lock everyone in solitary confinement. This would surely lead to a murder rate of 0. But is that worth it? Would you be willing to trade your complete freedom for that. I wouldn’t.
Sometimes danger and risk have to be accepted as part of life, that’s the trade off we have. We accept that the government has a monopoly on violence and the ability to survey citizens. The hope is that these allowances will have some perceivable reduction in danger, but where do we want to strike this balance? How much unpleasantness are we willing to accept? What are we willing to give up to eradicate it?
People therefore inevitably start out with an opinion; to ask them to search for the facts first is even undesirable. They will simply do what everyone is far too prone to do anyhow: look for the facts that fit the conclusion they have already reached. And no one has ever failed to find the facts he is looking for.
Even if we know nothing about a topic, especially in the news, we are very quick to form an opinion of it and once that opinion has formed we are very reluctant to change our minds. No matter what that opinion is we will find facts readily available and ignore all those that refute our side. We only need one fact to entrench our position and we only need one fact to undermine the opinion we disagree with. It doesn’t matter if this is the only fact out of hundreds that contradict our beliefs.
There is no true objectivity, our bias will always creep in (even when creating seemingly neutral KPIs, we may come up with easier ones for employees who we personally like!). One way that we can increase our openness to different opinions is to purposefully expose ourselves to viewpoints that contradict our own and genuinely listen to them. To take this further, try writing down opposing arguments to your beliefs, but the challenge is to make them as strong as possible. Don’t intentionally straw-man the arguments that you don’t like. Doing this will not only increase your tolerance and openness, but will also make your arguments more robust as you already know what the opposing arguments are and have a clear picture of them in your mind. Or it may make you change your mind as you are swayed by the counter arguments, which again, is no bad thing.
Decisions of the kind the executive has to make are not made well by acclamation. They are made well only if based on the clash of conflicting views, the dialogue between different points of view, the choice between different judgements. The first rule in decision-making is that one does not make a decision unless there is disagreement.
Leading on from the last point, it is essential that opposing views are considered. If we are all in agreement then this may be a sign that alternatives, or weaknesses in the plan have not been fully considered. It is very rare that the best solution will be stumbled upon immediately. Consensus is often a symptom of lazy thinking as people do not want to come up with their own ideas or perhaps an old idea is being recycled and everyone is happy to manipulate it to fit the current situation. Disagreement and civil discussion should be encouraged as through this better ideas are created. Ideas need to be tested to see how robust they are. If they do not hold up to scrutiny, then they are bad ideas and better ones need to be found. Don’t settle for bad ideas, keep looking and something better will surely appear.
The effective executive is concerned first with understanding. Only then does he even think about who is right and who is wrong.
As the arbiter of disagreements, the leader first, needs to act impersonally, looking only at the ideas and arguments, not at who is saying them. A leader should not practice favouritism. Secondly, the leader should always ensure that they understand and could relay each argument to the satisfaction of those presenting the idea. A leader cannot make a decision if they themselves do not fully understand the options in front of them. In relation to this a leader should not be afraid to ask questions, even from those they are leading. This attribute of asking questions is one of the things that made Napoleon so formidable. A leader should act with humility in their search for knowledge as this is what will make them a truly great decision maker and by extension a truly great leader.
All quotes from The Effective Executive, Peter Drucker.
