FIRST, MANAGE YOURSELF
sometimes the formal structures are actu- ally getting in the way.
Most innovation happens between the
silos, in their adjacencies. So if you are not communicating across functions or across levels and dealing effectively with that diversity of thought, you are not going to get the kind of healthy conflict that tends to lead to new ideas.
Army AL&T: It is possible to overcome those barriers, though. So the question is, how do you make a concerted effort to forge ties across bureaucratic boundaries and get things done through the infor- mal network you talked about?
Hill: First of all, you need to build a stra- tegic network—which in our language is the network that allows you to scan and sense your environment, to detect what the future may bring and prepare for it. Your strategic network basically helps you figure out the performance gaps and the opportunity gaps: How do you know what your priorities should be, what you should work on? You can only know that from actually understanding what the organization’s priorities are, and understanding the opportunities and challenges in your area of responsibility.
When we talk about networking, many people experience it as a dirty word or evidence that the organization doesn’t work. Well, no. Te only way you can know what your team should be working on is if you are talking to the right people and they are talking to you. You don’t just want to have the bosses tell you what those priorities are and what the capabil- ity constraints are. You also want to be able to inform your bosses of what you know, what they should be taking into account and understanding. You want those to be two-way conversations.
So when you are building networks, you need to be deliberate and think about who do I need to be connected to, both in the military and outside the military, to understand the opportunities and the challenges that we are facing. I try to help leaders understand that that is a part of your job. Te only way you can answer those questions is if you are interacting with the right people and having two- way conversations. Don’t tell them, this is what I am working on and this is how you can help me. Instead, ask, “What are your pain points and how can I help you get the job done?” Ten, when you set your priorities for your own team, they are more likely to accept what you are trying to do, right?
Ten you also need to build the opera- tional network that allows you to actually get things done—to close those gaps, to work on those priorities. If people don’t trust you, they are certainly not going to help you work on an opportunity gap because they have so many performance gaps of their own to work on.
I always tell people, think about who you are dependent on to get your job done now. Ten think about who you are going to be dependent on six months from now, and introduce yourself to those people. Because if they don’t trust you, if they don’t know what they can expect from
you or if they can’t influence you, they are not going to help you get your agenda done. Not because they are bad people, but just because we are all human. So try to build relationships with people before you actually need those relationships.
Army AL&T: I would like to talk about your work on leading innovation and
“Collective Genius.” Tell me about the approach that you talk about in the book.
Hill: Te research on innovation is quite separate from the research on leadership, and we were looking at that connec- tion. Often we sort of have this myth in our head that innovation is about a solo genius having an “aha!” moment. But in fact, the research has been clear for quite some time that most innovations are the result of collaborations among people who have diverse perspectives or talents.
Te second thing is, we know that you really can’t plan your way to an innova- tion; you have to act your way to it. It is a process of discovery-driven learning. Tere are missteps and wrong turns and, of course, actual failures.
We know that most innovations are actu- ally a combination of ideas, often old and new. Very rarely is an innovation the result of a single idea. And the final thing is that innovation is really hard work, and
I always tell people to ask themselves, how do people experience you, and how do people experience themselves when they are with you? Because leadership is always about an emotional connection.
84 Army AL&T Magazine July-September 2017
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