Undefended Leadership: Challenging the Now to Create the Next

Paul Prior at UXDX EMEA. Video: https://youtu.be/PGlaRmVLlQM

Readable transcript: edited from the recording's captions for readability (fillers and false starts removed, punctuation and section headings added). Wording is the speaker's own. Timestamps are positions in the video. Names marked [?] could not be verified against the audio.

Where the idea of undefended leadership came from

[00:00:00] Hello UXDX, and thank you for clicking on my video. I'm not going to lie to you, I've spent the last 20 minutes playing with the filters on Skype. I've had everything from a mustache to big ears to an avatar, but I've managed to settle on just a normal view of poor you looking at me. So I have my coffee in hand, and I figured with this one I'll literally just talk about this concept of undefended leadership, which has probably been on my mind for about a decade, and really as a concept to describe modern organizations vis-a-vis where they've come from in the past. Anytime I speak to people about this phrase, undefended leadership, I typically find it's good to tell them a quick story about how it came about, or how the realization came about, and let's just see where we go from there.

[00:00:49] So it was around the tail end of [?] and I was in yet another boardroom talking about yet another transformation program. We've all been there. My mind was wandering between watching this little bird, I think it was a robin — it often is a robin for some reason — picking away at a leaf in a rose bush outside the window, and trying to decide between a toasted cheese sandwich and salmon and brown bread for lunch. But I digress.

[00:01:14] Let's go back a couple of weeks first, before this meeting. About three weeks earlier, in the program management office, this fantastic PM called Emer began her journey towards the 50-page slide deck that we were now looking at in front of us. I'm not even going to start on the common trend of using Microsoft PowerPoint as a documentation device. Hopefully we won't be using an enormous amount of it today.

[00:01:38] After Emer spent about two weeks moving boxes around a page and trying to compress really complex language into the most succinct messages that she possibly could, it was the last week that was really interesting. Starting Monday she began the journey of bringing each of the five board members, including myself, through the pack, repeating the same narrative five times before the meeting itself. This is often described as "no surprises" or alignment, and it speaks indicatively to a lack of transparency, trust and vulnerability in the boardroom. Let's all be honest.

The two questions nobody asks

[00:02:15] So let's go back to the boardroom. That was Emer's journey through it. Although those that know me would suggest I have the attention span of a three-year-old eating a chocolate bar while jumping on a trampoline, this is slightly different. I couldn't help but notice that the two most obvious questions were never coming up in the room, and actually when I look back over my career today, they rarely do. The first is, what was the return on investment in the last transformation program? And the second one, why are we doing another one? And don't tell me you haven't thought of it.

[00:02:46] The truth is, if anyone had asked, they would have opened a Pandora's box of political responses based on choice bias, protection of position, fear of showing vulnerability, or my personal favorite, gaslighting — an example being, "I don't think that's appropriate at this time, let's remain positive." Love that phrase. All designed, of course, to project accountability outwards and stop the feeling of discomfort that comes from admitting any type of mistake.

[00:03:15] This is obviously an extreme position and sounds quite cynical, but think of it as observational, and often completely unconscious to those involved. Boards are fantastic, and those individuals that were in it are fundamental to the success of every organization, being completely honest.

[00:03:36] But there's a whole industry that's built around keeping us this way in the boardroom, and the consulting industry is a perfect example of this. I've come from it, so I have to admit that this is me as much as it is anyone else. They hedge your bets in creating long-term relationships with clients, basically selling them iterations to the same theme repeatedly, knowing that they're going to encounter this kind of challenge as an organizational board.

[00:04:01] That's not to blame them. In fact they're incredibly confident at putting forward solutions that create momentum while not forcing the issue. I think that's the best way to describe it. The people we need to blame is ourselves: human nature, our struggle with objectivity, our antiquated views of organizational design, and archaic approaches to leadership, being perfectly honest.

[00:04:23] On the latter point, there's this brilliant guy called Charles Spinoza[?] who I had the pleasure to work with at Vision Consulting, and he identifies this concept of existentialism, which is a point at which we all realize — and I've been there — that the behaviors and skills that have made us successful in the past are not those that are going to create success into the future. At this point we really only have two choices: build the skills, or completely ignore it. A lot of people choose the latter, and that is unfortunate in the context of organizational success.

Seventy thousand people rolling in the same direction

[00:04:55] What I should say at this point is nothing about this is about being right or wrong, and in fact, strictly speaking, there's no such thing. Most things that we say as individuals are both right and wrong depending on the context that's there.

[00:05:06] But let's talk about an organization for a minute and use Meta, formerly known as Facebook, formerly known as FaceMash. Only Prince and Puff Daddy have had more iterations of their name in recent years. Meta has about 70,000 employees. I imagine a lot less soon, considering Zuckerberg's just recently announced the first redundancies in their history. Anyway, off I went again. Of the 70k I think about 6k work in Ireland. Maybe some of you do — congratulations if you do.

[00:05:38] Now think about that for a second. Is there any other aspect of our lives where we're forced to spend 90,000 hours of it with 7,000 individuals that we may not even like, want to hang out with in any other circumstance, or bring into our friend group? Not only that, we're told to roll in the same direction, an incredibly complex set of directions that we're forced to conform to, take on those organizational values. Of course we can choose organizations that are closer to our values. And our performance in doing so is evaluated against common objectives, like it's ever possible to find common ground between 7,000 individuals in the first place.

[00:06:22] Of course I'm being deliberately incendiary here, and it's a very extreme position.

Why organizations are still designed like a 1930s factory

[00:06:28] But let's get a bit boring for a second and look back at the start of modern organizations, because it's a good place to start. Ford is an organization which we're all familiar with. Many of us have studied it in our MBA programs, etcetera. It was established in 1905, I think, and besides Henry Ford's disappointing support of Nazi Germany, at the time it was heralded as one of the most innovative organizations in terms of organization design, and Taylorism came from it, and lean, Six Sigma, and all these cool terms that I've made a lot of money off.

[00:07:01] Before we go further we need to understand the world of the 20th century. It was a period of real progressive reform, particularly in the United States. It started with Woodrow Wilson's appointment as president. You may remember him from the Simpsons episode where Bart used his name to write love letters to Edna. That's my personal favorite memory. This time resulted in more regulation, in particular the Administrative Procedure Act, the APA.

[00:07:28] In 1917 Great Britain, France and the United States challenged domineering Germany and Austria-Hungary, as it was at the time, which was a precursor to strong economic growth. Incomes began to improve along with living conditions and working conditions in factories. Automobile manufacturing started to explode as America fell in love with the car — still the case, I think, on that side of the Atlantic.

[00:07:53] The 1930s were epitomized by this silent generation, a real determined and resilient workforce with a strong work ethic. The majority of the workforce was involved in some form of manual or industrial labor, self-sacrifice at the center of the workforce mentality. I'm not sure that stopped right up to certainly my parents' generation. And most notable, there was a level of financial prudence.

[00:08:19] So these two worlds colliding, the optimistic and the conservative. Are we still awake? Great. Does this sound like the world of today? No. So why do we design our organizations around a theory from the 1930s? Wouldn't that explain the friction in combining a workforce where two or more recent generations have lived in a world where titles are not synonymous with tenure, where we have the likes of the Collison brothers running highly regulated and massively successful organizations, and where we are finally growing the freedom to be ourselves, with a structure that presumes the behaviors of the past will predict success in the future?

[00:08:58] Now, I'm not quite finished channeling Tom Cruise's "you can't handle the truth" monologue from A Few Good Men. Let's work through this bit together and bring it back to what it means in the context of your job and experience design.

The balance: extreme right and extreme left

[00:09:15] So I think I could share a little whiteboard here in Skype. Look at that. I was going to use FigJam, but they didn't pay me enough, so I'm going to use the whiteboard instead.

[00:09:35] Okay, so let's talk about that friction that I spoke to in terms of organization. Let's take a balance, and forgive me with my drawing. I built here — oh, that's the straightest one I've done yet, I'm quite proud of that one — where the equilibrium is in the center. Luckily we're all used to that type of view. And there's an extreme right and an extreme left.

[00:09:55] Now if you were to describe the common behaviors at the extreme right of most corporate regulated organizations, what would you say? You'd probably say conservative. Risk averse. Forgive my spelling — collegiate, definitely not spelled right. What else would you see? Oh, subordinated. Subordinated. And highly hierarchical. Let's stop there, we can come back to it.

[00:10:37] Now if we look at the strong left, which is a lot of the new generations coming into the marketplace: risk-taking. Direct, both in how they speak. Action-orientated. This is hilarious, seriously, listening to me play this, don't know what's going on there. Action-orientated. Flat — I think that's probably fair to say, and we'll talk a bit about that in a second in terms of teal organizations. A massive amount of resilience. And I'd probably say there's resilience on both sides. There's different types of resilience. And a level of entrepreneurial — oh, here — entrepreneurial, close enough, is that right, fascinating — entrepreneurial thinking.

[00:11:44] Now what would you say the far right say behind the back of the far left? So I would suggest, say at times, reckless. Aggressive. And the reason that they probably see them as aggressive[?] — aggressive, and the reason for that is usually you'll find the left not just direct but also assertive. Assertive, oh, definitely not right, but anyway. And they're also quite purpose-driven.

[00:12:23] Anyway, I digress. The right might look at the left as reckless and aggressive, and the left might look at the right as dinosaurs. Dinosaurs, close. And lacking innovation.

[00:12:39] Okay, nothing wrong with either side of this. In fact I'd argue the right-hand side is more important for the sustainment of profitability in any organization, while the left-hand side is more growth-orientated. However it is worth exploring this a little bit more.

The herd and the breakaways

[00:12:56] What do you think this symbol might be? Oh, let me see. Okay. So most legacy corporate organizations pretty much lean towards the right, so you might have risk and compliance along here. Long-term workers here. You'll have the herd — I'm going to get back to what I'm calling the herd — all in around here. And then you'll typically have some kind of breakaways, individuals who are trying to move towards equilibrium. I should say, to start, the perfect for any organization — I'm not sure if anyone's achieved it — is obviously to have an even review of resourcing around here.

[00:13:45] Now in the last five years most of these organizations have realized that their growth is saturating within the marketplace. They've been incredibly successful to date and are now looking to hire new types of individuals into the organization. That's why we're seeing the woke movements, neurodiversity spoken about a lot more within organizations. But the first couple of hires are very far removed from the heritage. So for example, if you're the first hire in an organization that's like that, you're probably going to be right on the extreme here, and then what happens is some people follow and some people move up to that, and then you might have a couple of stragglers that are across each of these.

[00:14:27] Now, when you're talking about the herd mentality, which is all this grouping on the right-hand side, you can think of them like sheep. So when one particular sheep has a particular opinion about something that's different, they self-validate. They look to the other sheep in the group and say, well, that sheep isn't moving like that, or that sheep isn't thinking like that, so I must be correct because I'm thinking like the other sheep. Whereas the people on the left-hand side here are predisposed to think outside of the herd, or outside of the norms.

[00:14:58] So what typically happens then in that case, if you look at this like a tug of war scenario, is the amount of force that this side of an organization needs to exert to move the herd even one percent is a lot less than the force it has to exert for the person on the left to move one percent. And that's what creates this friction between organizations. It's incredibly rare to find those first five hires on the left that have the resilience and perseverance to keep tugging on that rope until the organization starts to come with us.

[00:15:33] Probably the best thing we can do as leaders when we do this is realize that they need a support structure around them to do that, and also give them the space to introduce some of these new behaviors within it. I often see individuals on the left being deemed lacking in emotional intelligence, when in fact they're already reading the room, they're just making a different choice. And equally these individuals are looking at the right-hand side and not necessarily always understanding the importance of the herd in the context of the overall organization.

[00:16:03] So the simple takeaway from this — and I didn't even put this in the right place, oh I can move that, great — is that the perfect equilibrium point is to have most of your staffing in or around the center of it, and having some kind of aligned respect across both sides while the organization is coming into equilibrium. This is something I was taught very early in my career, before joining organizations, as an exercise to go through to understand where your place might be.

[00:16:36] So now that we've done that, let me see if I can unshare this. Would that work? Great, I think that worked.

Teal organizations

[00:16:43] So that's all fascinating. We've had a quick story about organizational evolution up to the current times, a realization that a lot of organizational structures haven't changed in all that time, and the realization that we're currently at this friction point between innovative thinkers and profit centers, to be fairly honest, within organizations, and how do you create a balance around both of them? To understand that a bit further, let's talk a bit about teal organizations and what that actually means.

[00:17:20] Okay, so here we go. If this moves, forget you saw that, because you're going to come back to that straight after this. So I can't remember the guy who wrote the book around this. I'll find a way to get it to you, or reach out to me if you're wondering and want to learn more about this. But organizations over time, depending on their composition, on the domain that they currently lie in, have different characteristics that are associated with them, and once we understand this we can actually identify the brands with these characteristics really, really quickly. Personally I don't necessarily agree with some of the terms in this, but let's walk through it.

[00:17:55] So you have your red organizations. An incredibly emotive color, almost as most of the story that I told you at the start. Used to be commonly associated with large corporations. I don't know if that's true anymore, because the alphabets and the Googles and the Facebooks of this world are really innovative companies, Stripe being another one. But they are large corporations. I often hear regulated entities, when they look at my background, talk about, you know, you've worked with a lot of startups. They don't realize that actually most of these companies are ten, fifty times the size of them, and they could probably buy them about six times over. So I think sometimes the judgments that we make towards organizations can be equally as prevalent in the context of this conversation. But definitely public universities, the military are very red, and usually they're looking to innovate. We spoke about that in the diagram that you would have seen previously.

[00:18:50] There's five different colors, but let's just keep to the three. So the second one is the likes of Ben and Jerry's, which is all around delighting customers. Delighting customers is a really interesting term. We talk about wowing customers, moments of truth, delighting customers in the context of experience design, when a lot of our products that we have are quite commoditized. I can't remember the last time I jumped up and down in my chair at buying a pair of underpants, for example. So I don't really want to be delighted when I'm in Penneys shopping for those type of things, but having a nice frictionless experience is good. Ben and Jerry's, luckily for most of us, tastes quite good, so maybe we do get delighted through that. But they're one organization that talks a lot about shared values, engagement, stakeholder balance, culture over strategy, and empowerment.

[00:19:41] Now what I would say is the red and the greens have become very much blended in today's organizational system, but it's the top one that is really interesting. And Patagonia is obviously a company that many of you are hearing in the news at the moment, so it's perfect timing for me to talk about that. This is really about flat multi-disciplinary teams that are empowered to make decisions for themselves, so distributed decision making, and much higher purpose in the context of what they're doing. Certainly for the generations that we're now hiring in, purpose is one of the largest considerations for them coming to us.

[00:20:20] Anti-fragile organizations: assertive people, telling the truth, people are very comfortable with feedback, they're not afraid to have the challenging conversations that need to be had to move towards success. Wholeness across the organization, self-management, and an evolutionary purpose. I often talk with members of my team around, what do you want to be written on your gravestone the day you die, and how do you ensure that these 90,000 hours that you're spending in work aligns as much to that as possible? I think typically it's about 60 to 70 percent of our time where we're actually working on something that's fantastic and that we're excited about, and then the other portion of the time it's something that we have to do as part of our jobs that we're not necessarily excited about.

What this means for UX and DX work

[00:21:09] So these teal organizations are really aligned to the new generational asks of having purpose-driven organizations, and the way they work and the way they hire. The previous concept of a UX designer was somebody who only concentrated on the visual elements, for example, of an e-commerce website. I even hear from my own team now, but wait there, my role overlaps with lots of other people in the teams, and that's a really nice thing for me to hear, because it means then that they have a vision for moving towards this teal organizational structure as well.

[00:21:48] UX and DX now has become synonymous with so many other skills: KPI frameworks, financial management and management accounting, understanding how much it's going to cost to make that change versus the benefits to the business, understanding customer journey mapping, understanding omnichannel approaches, and understanding the best there is in terms of design and interaction design.

[00:22:14] What's always interesting, and I suppose the reason that I'm talking about a subject that typically could be seen as digressing from the concept of the UX and DX conferences, is there's nothing that is currently known in the world around UX and DX design that isn't already written down, or that you can't meet someone and speak to them about. So how do you differentiate yourself in the future? You need to have multi-dimensional thinking around it, and a lot of that comes from the culture that you create, how you empower people to have those conversations, and people becoming a lot more self-actualized — really understanding what it is they want and the person they want to be, and having the commitment to be that person in the context of an environment that hasn't always been supportive but is definitely getting more supportive towards achieving that.

[00:23:01] And then the resilience to do that at times. There's a great phrase by one of the famous — I think it was Kobe Bryant — who said, just before I do a slam dunk I get lots of boos. It's a beautiful metaphor for somebody who has really good self-actualization, being comfortable in the discomfort and knowing that not everyone's going to want you to actualize yourself.

Your personal value proposition

[00:23:23] So that moves us on to the next thing, which is that many of us talk about value propositions in the context of the organizations we work for. Certainly when I see seed pitches or series A pitches, that's one of the first things you see, which is, what's our value proposition? It's always customer facing, but it's never about the individuals within the organization. So I would implore you to pull together your value proposition in the context of what you want to achieve as an individual, because that helps you make really good choices in the context of the organizations that you work for, but also what your brand proposition is in the context of the UX and DX work that you actually do.

[00:24:05] There's a simple and a complex way of doing this. I'm not going to lie, I thought about doing the complex way, but I didn't feel I had the patience to try and explain it all in the timeframe that was available, and I might have lost you all through it. So let's keep it simple. The way to write it down is: I help — and your most promising prospect — that needs help with — the pressing concern you address. I don't think I need to explain that where you have these brackets you're meant to fill them in, and I'll show you mine in a second in the context of work so you can get an example of what it looks like. Succeed by providing — material improvements you will deliver — unlike — the alternative solution, and describe the reason why you are a better choice than someone else. So this company piece is probably less prevalent in the context of your own personal value proposition. As demonstrated by — what behaviors do you put in place that will deliver on your promise?

[00:24:59] So I was really excited to do this, and I literally did it while I was playing with the filters on Skype before coming on and speaking to you all. This is what mine came out as. Maybe it'll come out differently if I try it again tomorrow. But I would like to feel I help people that are constrained by inertia — not really sure what to do next, maybe hitting existentialism in the context of Charles Spinoza[?] — succeed by provoking their minds.

Provocation, feedback and taking a position

[00:25:27] Provoking is an incredibly important tool that's at your disposal. There was a fantastic phrase that I can't remember who I should be attributing it to, that says we're all in therapy because of those that won't go to therapy. It's very, very true. Typically you find the people that are most averse to feedback are the people that need it the most.

[00:25:52] Just while I'm on feedback, really interesting: the way to think about it is when someone's giving you feedback they're making an investment in you. I think when you change your mindset towards that you're much more open to what the feedback might be, and also the feedback that you're giving.

[00:26:06] So provocation is an incredibly important tool to create this space in someone's mind to allow the inception of a new possibility. Yes, it might piss them off. Yes, it might make them feel uncomfortable, so there is a repair that you need to put in place after the conversation. But I've yet to see where provocation with the right intention doesn't create a new possibility for that person, and therefore a new possibility for everyone.

[00:26:31] So it's unlike the traditional approach dictated by social constructs such as our convoluted understanding of emotional intelligence, which is keep your mouth shut and don't say something that might hurt someone else in the room. I don't think anyone, unless you're Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy, comes into a room with the intention of hurting someone else. It's usually a byproduct. And so it's either a byproduct of the words that you chose, and you absolutely have to put your hands up in that case, or it's a byproduct of the fact that maybe you've just touched upon something that's very close to the truth in the context of that person.

[00:27:04] I would hope that this is demonstrated by an ability to create a significant step change performance improvement within the organizations that I work, and also empowering organizations and individuals to succeed at their goals. So I'm very much interested in the advice that I got, which was — I asked a CEO one time, how did you become a CEO, and they said, I gave 110 percent. Now firstly, 110 doesn't exist, so let's say 100 percent. The truth of the matter is that even when we're thinking we're giving 100, we're probably giving 100 in the context of the hours that we're giving to the tasks that we're doing. We're not necessarily applying a hundred percent of thinking towards that task and a hundred percent of dedication to do so. So if I can help someone, including myself, move one or two percentiles beyond what they thought was possible, then it not just works for them and what they can achieve as a DX or UX capability, but also helps myself in the context of that.

Pulling it together

[00:28:05] So hopefully that was sharing. It was sharing, great. So let me bring all this back together. At the start we spoke about the evolution of organizations, and the fact that a lot of organizations are on the cusp of change but haven't changed since the Ford factory.

[00:28:21] In the second piece I briefly introduced a model that allows you to understand the friction in the organization between these new people you're bringing in that are innovative thinkers, and the existing heritage in the organization, and why they may be giving certain feedback to each other, which is really around misunderstanding the intention beneath, and also having respect for each side.

[00:28:43] And then we spoke about different types of organizations, in particular whether teal organizations may be an answer to today's problem. And then finally your value proposition as a DX and UX designer. What's interesting to you is I didn't mention anything about design skills in the context of my value proposition. Maybe it would make sense for you to do that, but in the context of what I want to achieve as an individual it wasn't as pertinent.

[00:29:10] So I'll just say finally: every time I speak there's at least one of what I call a John in the room. Now I know lots of lovely Johns, so don't get too carried away with the fact that I've used that name. If you scan across the room, and most speakers do because they're trying to get feedback as they go, you have a room that's pretty much split into two types of people: people who are indifferent to what you're saying, and they're probably on their phone or half asleep or at the conference because they're trying to get a day off work; and people who are really excited and attentive about what you're saying. And then there's a group typically in the middle of people that spend most of their time tutting and throwing their eyes to heaven, particularly if you're taking a position that is converse or quite direct in the context of the positions you typically see in a presentation style.

[00:29:58] For me it's really important that you take a position, and like I said, it doesn't matter whether it's right or wrong. But us as leaders are equally as responsible for teaching people how to think as we are what to think, and actually what to think is a lot less important than how to think.

[00:30:16] So hopefully today has given you some empathy in terms of how you're going to think going forward. Please do reach out to me if you have any questions, concerns, or if you want to explore these type of topics further. Thank you for your time. I know it can be sometimes difficult to look at these things over a laptop or over a phone, and I really hope that you're enjoying the UXDX conference. Thanks everyone, and take care of yourself.