Leveraging the Flat Culture
When I interviewed Troy Campbell, behavioral psychologist and professor, for my forthcoming Superpowers podcast, we talked a lot about team dynamics. One of the frameworks he suggested for team cohesion was ACE: Acknowledge, Connect, Explore.
The basic idea is what you’d expect: great teams take time to acknowledge and appreciate the unique contributions of their members, make meaningful connections around those contributions, and explore further areas a team member might excel in. This model has several positive effects--building confidence and spurring teamwork, certainly. But one of the second-tier benefits is that it creates a “flat culture.”
“When you’re aware that you have an ability someone else doesn’t have,” Troy said, “it flattens out their hierarchy. If everyone knows their strengths, it makes it easy to divide up tasks and let others take the lead in areas where they’re the most competent.” This sort of culture is a petri dish for powerful, productive teams.
Implicit in the ACE model is a need for the vocabulary that my Superpowers research provides. Superpowers are the innate, instinctive, inimitable gifts we all have. Knowing your Superpowers, especially in the context of a team, is one infallible way to create synced teams. And while Troy might not have known it, perhaps a third-tier benefit of the ACE model is that it is primed to detect Superpowers.
So often, our Superpowers are invisible to us--they’re in our blind spots. We take our strengths for granted and wrongly assume everyone else is just as competent as us, and competent in the same way that we are competent. Habitually acknowledging the strengths you see in others is the best way to ensure everyone is tuned in to their Superpowers--and then able to mesh them in a team setting.
In a future issue, I’ll dive more indepth into the interview from the brilliant Troy.
Superpowers enrich and naturally create flat cultures, which empower others and create space for everyone to contribute meaningfully. As flat cultures become more normal with more interdisciplinary teams, how can your team leverage every single unique strength on your team to become more united?
Poem by @EndlessWill (William Davis)
We are blessed with amazing talent in Durham. And one of them is William Davis, the poet laureate of Hillsborough. I gave him the word BELONG, and this is the poem he wrote. I think it captures our longing to be a part of something, if only those around us can see that we have a part to play.
Give Your People the Freedom to Fly, Dialogue Review (image from original issue)
Trust, in modern organizations, is the cornerstone for allowing innovation and healthy transformation. But how do we best establish trust in our workforce and inspire purpose-driven dedication in others?
“We cannot empower individuals unless we trust them, and we cannot expect them to run with ideas and risk failure unless they trust us.” In this piece, we take a look at how senior executives from some of the world’s most successful companies such as Kohler and Disney, understand trust and its function in the workplace. Though it was written a few years ago, the ideas I shared of empowering our people and the role of trust in making that possible, remain true.
Dialogue Review is published by Duke Corporate Education, recently ranked by Financial Times as the #1 corporate education provider in N. America. A premier leadership and management journal featuring insights from the world's leading minds and corporations, it reaches 1 million readers globally.
Thank you for reading this issue of Leadership Playbook: Unleashing Your Superpowers! A reason for me in writing this newsletter is to refine the ideas that I’m working on. But I need your help. To do that best, I’d love to know what question you may have on each issue, or how it applies to your situation. Please ping me at CoachSanyin@gmail.com and share your feedback with me. THANK YOU!
And superpowers builds on my earlier work - The Launch Book. I believe the hero of every book is the reader. So, going forward, I’ll share a picture with you from a reader of The Launch Book.
.“Be who you are, and not who you think you cannot be.” ― Claire Díaz-Ortiz. Claire is a VC, author, and the early Twitter executive who got the Pope on social media.