It’s Rocket Science! Another leadership lesson from a mission of Captain Hanks

Prefer to watch rather than read?  Click here to watch the video. (This one is much better on video)

Remember Apollo 13?  The time when Tom Hanks got together with Kevin Bacon and the other guy and tried to fly to the moon?  Then the spaceship went BANG! and they had to try to get back.

To save power, they had to move to a smaller area of the craft, which created an issue as the carbon dioxide filters weren’t designed for that situation.  Too much carbon dioxide in the air is not conducive to being alive, so the obvious solution was to take the one from the bigger area of the craft and use that.

Star Wars Can Teach Us About Org Structure?

This time I go through a scene from the TV show Andor…so it’s better to watch me do this on video.  To do that, click here.

And if you can’t…I’ll go through it now.

Have you seen the show Andor?  I’ll bet you didn’t know there’s a lesson in there about organisational structure!

The show is part of the Star Wars pantheon, but it’s different.  Deeper, and goes right into the effects of colonisation, imperialism and how that can turn individuals. 

And…we get to see what’s called the Imperial Security Bureau in action, which we can picture as an Executive Team of an organisation.  Here they are:

The scene I go through is a meeting of the ‘Supervisors’, who are the equivalent to Executives, with the boss being Major Partagaz who we might say is the CEO.

Command and Control – not automatically evil

Prefer to watch on video than read?  Click here – 4 mins with captions.

The Paintball Experience

I went paintballing once.  Thought it would be fun – I’d played a lot of sport, am pretty coordinated, I like reading about war…

And it sucked.

The whistle goes, I attempted to move…POP…..POP….POP and I’m out.

Regroup, go again, POP…..POP….POP and I’m out.

You know what I needed?

Some sort of sergeant.  Some sort of person who could yell at me

“Thompson, over there…NOW”.

Team Leader Pt II – Lessons from Old Tailem Town

Prefer to watch on video rather than read?  Click here – 4 mins, with captions.

I was on my oldest child’s school excursion to Old Tailem Town recently (which, by the way, is pretty freaky, which is why the kids love it…)

As I watched the teachers do their (awesome) thing with us bunch of volunteer helpers, the thought occurred to me that what we have here is a great example of how the Team Leader role works.

The Team Leader Role – How to Set it Up to Work

Prefer to watch on video than read?  Click here – 5 mins with captions.

The Team Leader role.  Called lots of things – sometimes ‘Team Leader’, older-school names are ‘Supervisor’ and ‘Leading Hand’, modern names are ‘Coordinator’.

Then we have the Manager role.  Sometimes called that, often now called ‘Team Leader’ because management has  apparently become evil, and in the US this role can be called ‘Supervisor’. 

And before you get started on ‘hierarchy is bad’, remember that most of us work in hierarchies, and it remains the optimal structure in many situations.

If it’s run well.  Which is what this is about.

Manager Poker – the quick way to destroy ownership and accountability.

Prefer to watch on video than read?  Click here, 4 mins with captions.

When playing poker, or more importantly in my life with my three kids, when playing Uno, it’s important to hold your cards close to your chest.

We see the same in organisations – managers holding their cards close.  I call it playing Manager Poker.

It’s no good.

Truth Serum? Could we handle work reality?

Prefer to watch rather than read?  Click here for the video, 5 mins with captions.

Indulge me in a little work fantasy, which combines two very unlikely sources – authors Jan De Visch and Otto Laske…and Jim Carrey!.

Jan De Visch and Otto Laske are researchers and consultants, and one of their brilliant books is Dynamic Collaboration. 

In this book they refer to Job 1 and Job 2:

Genuine Buy-In – the power of CAPI

Prefer to watch on video rather than read?  Click here, it’s 4 mins, with captions.

My work with organisations often involves getting groups together so they can see their work situation, make decisions on what needs to change and put these into action.    Which means at some point in the preparation, we are going to be asking “right, so who do we need to have in the room”?

That’s where I lean one of the brilliant concepts of Dr. Ichak Adizes, called CAPI.

Leading in Dissent – more lessons from Captain Hanks

Prefer to watch rather than read? Click here to watch the video, 5 mins, with captions. 
(Previous videos here BTW)

Like I did in my article and video on Radical Competence, this week I again break down a scene from a movie starring Tom Hanks.  This time it’s Saving Private Ryan, with our mate Tom playing Captain John Miller.  To get the full effect, it’s really best to watch the video, the article doesn’t really do it justice.

What you’ll see is an example of handling what we might call justified dissent – Captain John Miller and his soldiers have stormed the beach at Normandy in World War II, and he is given their next mission – select a small group of your people and find a Private Ryan.  The mission exists as Private Ryan’s three brothers had all been killed in action, and the US had passed the ‘sole-survivor’ policy which required that in situations such as these, the surviving sibling be brought home.  As you might expect, this is not exactly the mission the soldiers signed up for, and not all are happy.

51 – The magic number for ownership, accountability and engagement

Prefer to watch on video than read?  Just click here – 5 mins with captions.

Engagement, ownership, accountability…whatever you want to call it, we all want to see (and feel) more of it.

Like all things, half of the game is internal, and there’s a magic number that can help get us there.

Pretty Pictures

Let’s start with our standard managerial hierarchy…

…even the way it looks give us a certain sort of vibe.

Here’s a more modern way to draw it:

Looks a bit kumbaya with being in a circle and all, but taking out the cynicism, it looks a bit more like everyone’s involved.