Crafting a Resident-Centric CX Strategy for Michigan

Last week, I shared an idea about one idea to shape growth, talent development, and performance in Michigan through labor productivity improvements. This week, I’ve tried to illustrate how CX practices can be used to inform talent attraction and retention at the state level.

The post is below, and it’s a ChatGPT write-up of an exercise I went through to rapidly prototype what a CX approach might actually look like. In the spirit of transparency, there are two sessions I had with ChatGPT: this this one on talent retention. I can’t share the link for the one on talent attraction because I created an image and sharing links with images is apparently not supported (sorry). It is similar.

There are a few points I (a human) would emphasize that are important subtleties to remember.

1. Differentiating matters a ton. As the State of Michigan, I don’t think we can win on price (i.e., lower taxes) because there will always be a state willing to undercut us. We have to play to our strengths and be a differentiated place to live.

2. Focus matters a ton. No State can cater to everyone, and neither can we. We have to find the niches and do something unique to win with them. We can’t operate at the “we need to attract and retain millennials and entrepreneurs” level. Which millennials and which entrepreneurs? Again, we can’t cater to everyone - it’s too hard and too expensive. It’s just as important to define who we’re not targeting as who we are targeting.

3. Transparency matters a ton. As a State, the specific segments we are trying to target (and who we’re deliberately not trying to targets) need to be clear to all stakeholders. The vision and plan needs to be clear to all stakeholders (including the public) so we can move toward one common goal with velocity. By being transparent on the true set of narrow priorities, every organization can find ways to help the team win. Without transparency, every individual organization and institution will do what they think is right (and is best for them as individual organizations), which usually leads to scope creep and a lot of little pockets of progress without any coordination across domains. And when that happens, the needle never moves.

4. It seems like the State of Michigan is doing some of this. A lot of the themes from ChatGPT are ones I’ve heard before. Which is great. What I haven’t heard are the specific set of segments to focus on or what any of the data-driven work to create segments and personas was. If ChatGPT can come up with at least some relatively novel ideas in an afternoon, imagine what we could accomplish by doing a full-fidelity, disciplined, data-driven, CX strategy with the smartest minds around growth, talent, and performance in the State. That would be transformative.

I’d love to hear what you think. Without further ado, here’s what ChatGPT and I prototyped today around talent attraction and retention for the State of Michigan.

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Introduction: Charting a New Course for Michigan

In an age where competition for talent and residents is fierce among states, Michigan stands at a crossroads. To thrive, it must reimagine its approach to attracting and retaining residents, and this is where Customer Experience (CX) Strategy, intertwined with insights from population geography, becomes vital. Traditionally a business concept, CX Strategy in the context of state governance is about understanding and catering to the diverse needs of potential and current residents. It's about seeing them not just as citizens, but as customers of the state, with unique preferences and aspirations.

Understanding CX Strategy in Population Geography

CX Strategy, at its essence, involves tailoring experiences to meet the specific needs and desires of your audience. For a state like Michigan, it means crafting policies, amenities, and environments that resonate with different demographic groups. Population geography provides a lens to understand these groups. It involves analyzing why people migrate: be it for job opportunities, better quality of life, or cultural attractions. This understanding is crucial. For instance, young professionals might be drawn to vibrant urban environments with tech job prospects, while retirees may prioritize peaceful communities with accessible healthcare. Michigan, with its rich automotive history, beautiful Great Lakes, and growing tech scene, has much to offer but needs a focused approach to highlight these strengths to different groups.

Applying CX Strategy: Identifying Target Segments

The first step in applying a CX Strategy is identifying who Michigan wants to attract and retain. This involves delving into demographic data, economic trends, and social patterns. Creating detailed personas based on this data helps in understanding various needs and preferences. For instance, a tech entrepreneur might value a supportive startup ecosystem, while a nature-loving telecommuter may prioritize scenic beauty and a peaceful environment for remote work. These insights lead to targeted strategies that are more likely to resonate with each group, ensuring efficient use of resources and increasing the effectiveness of Michigan's efforts in both attracting and retaining residents.

In the next section, we'll explore the importance of differentiation in attraction and retention strategies, and delve into the specific segments that Michigan should focus on. Stay tuned for a detailed look at how Michigan can leverage its unique attributes to create a compelling proposition for these key resident segments.

Importance of Differentiation in Attraction and Retention

Differentiation is crucial in the competitive landscape of state-level attraction and retention. It’s about highlighting what makes Michigan unique and aligning these strengths with the specific needs of targeted segments. For attraction, it might mean showcasing Michigan’s burgeoning tech industry to young professionals or its serene natural landscapes to nature enthusiasts. For retention, it involves ensuring that these segments find ongoing value in staying, like continuous career opportunities for tech professionals or maintaining pristine natural environments for outdoor lovers.

In focusing on segments like automotive innovators or medical researchers, Michigan can leverage its historic strengths and modern advancements. By tailoring experiences to these specific groups, the state can stand out against competitors, making it not just a place to move to but a place where people want to stay and thrive.

Overlap and Distinction in Attraction and Retention Strategies

The overlap and distinctions between attracting and retaining segments offer nuanced insights. Some segments, like tech and creative professionals, show significant overlap in both attracting to and retaining in urban settings like Detroit. This indicates that strategies effective in drawing these individuals to Michigan may also foster their long-term satisfaction. However, for segments with minimal overlap, such as medical researchers (attraction) and sustainable farmers (retention), strategies need to be distinct and targeted to their unique needs and lifestyle preferences.

Successful implementation teams will use these insights to create nuanced strategies for each segment. Avoiding a one-size-fits-all approach and recognizing the different motivations between someone considering moving to Michigan and someone deciding whether to stay is key. The primary pitfall to avoid is neglecting the distinct needs of each segment, which could lead to ineffective strategies that neither attract nor retain effectively.

Deep Dive into Experience Enhancements

Let’s delve into two specific segments: nature-loving telecommuters for attraction and tech and creative young professionals in Detroit for retention. For the nature-loving telecommuter, Michigan can offer unique experiences that blend the tranquility of its natural landscapes with the connectivity needed for effective remote work. Imagine "remote worker eco-villages" scattered across Michigan’s scenic locations, equipped with state-of-the-art connectivity and co-working spaces, set against the backdrop of Michigan's natural beauty. This not only caters to their desire for a serene work environment but also positions Michigan as a leader in innovative remote working solutions.

For tech and creative young professionals in Detroit, the strategy should be about fostering a dynamic urban ecosystem that offers continuous growth opportunities and a thriving cultural scene. Initiating a Detroit Tech and Arts Festival could serve as an annual event, bringing together tech innovators, artists, and entrepreneurs. This festival, coupled with collaborative workspaces and networking hubs, would not only retain existing talent but also attract new professionals looking for a vibrant, collaborative, and innovative urban environment.

Conclusion: Michigan’s Path Forward

Michigan is uniquely positioned to become a beacon for diverse talents and lifestyles. By adopting a resident-centric CX Strategy, informed by population geography, Michigan can tailor its offerings to attract and retain a dynamic population. It’s about moving beyond generic policies to creating experiences and opportunities that resonate with specific segments. The call to action is clear: Let's embrace innovation, leverage our unique strengths, and build a Michigan that’s not just a place on a map, but a destination of choice for a vibrant and diverse community. With these strategies, Michigan won’t just attract new residents – it will inspire them to stay, contribute, and flourish.

Attraction Segments Table:

Retention Segments Table:

The Dynamic Leader: Parenting Lessons for Growing a Team

In both life and work, change isn't just inevitable; it is a vital metric for assessing growth. My experiences as a parent have led me to a deeper understanding of this concept, offering insights that are readily applicable in a leadership role.

Children Grow Unapologetically

As a parent, it’s now obvious to me that children are constantly evolving, forging paths into the unknown with a defiance that seems to fuel their growth. Despite a parent’s natural instinct to shield them, children have a way of pushing boundaries, a clear indicator that change is underway. This undying curiosity and defiance not only foster growth but necessitate a constant evolution in parenting styles.

Today, my youngest is venturing into the world as a wobbly walker, necessitating a shift in my approach to offer more freedom and encouragement, but with a ready stance to help our toddler the most dangerous falls. Meanwhile, my older sons are becoming more socially independent, which requires me to step back and allow them to resolve their disputes over toys themselves. It's evident; as they grow, my parenting style needs to adapt, setting a cycle of growth and adaptation in motion.

The Echo in Leadership

In reflecting on this, I couldn't help but notice the clear parallel to leadership in a corporate setting. A leader's adaptability to the changing dynamics of the team and the operating environment is critical in fostering a team's growth. If a leadership style remains static, it likely signals a team stuck on a plateau, not achieving its potential.

A stagnant leadership style not only hampers growth but fails the team. It is thus imperative for us as leaders to continually reassess and tweak their approach to leadership, ensuring alignment with the team's developmental stage and the broader organizational context.

This brings me to a critical question: how often should a leader change their style? While a high frequency of change can create instability, a leadership style untouched for years is a recipe for failure. A quarterly review strikes a reasonable balance, encouraging regular adjustments to foster growth without plunging the team into a state of constant flux.

Conclusion: The Dynamic Dimension of Leadership

In the evolving landscapes of parenting and leadership alike, adaptability emerges not just as a virtue but as a vital gauge of growth and effectiveness. Thanks to my kids, I was able to internalize this pivotal point of view: understanding the dynamic or static nature of one's approach is central to assessing leadership prowess.

For leaders eager to foster growth, the practice of self-assessment can be straightforward and significantly revealing. It is as simple as taking a moment during your team's quarterly goal reviews to ask, "How has the team grown this quarter?" and "How should my leadership style evolve to support our growth in the upcoming period?"

By making this practice a routine, we can ensure that our leadership styles remain dynamic, evolving hand in hand with our teams' developmental trajectories, promoting sustained growth and productivity.

Photo by Julián Amé on Unsplash

Maximizing Organizational Performance: 7 Key Questions

Leaders are often charged with "making the organization perform better." That's an incredibly difficult mission unless we understand what an organization, especially ours, is and how it works. Only then can we diagnose organizational problems and make improvements.

This is a pretty long, nerdy post, so here's the tl;dr for those in a hurry, and for those who need a little taste to prove the read is worth it.

If you're trying to make an organization perform better, start by asking (just) seven questions. I think you'll make sense of your biggest problems pretty quickly:

1. Value Proposition: What do we create that other people are willing to sacrifice something (i.e., pay) for?

2. Market: Who cares about what we have to offer?

3. Capabilities: What are the handful of things we really need to be good at to create something of value?

4. Go-to-Market Systems: How will we engage with our market?

5. Resource Capture Systems: How does the organization get the resources it needs?

6. Collective Action Systems: How will we work together to turn our capabilities into something of value?

7. Investment Systems: How will we develop the capabilities that matter most?

8. Making organizations better is hard, but it doesn't have to be complicated.

Leaders are often charged to “make the organization perform better”. That’s an incredibly difficult mission unless we understand what an organizations, especially ours, is and how it works. Only then can we diagnose organizational problems and make improvements.

This is a pretty long, nerdy, post so here’s the tl;dr for those in a hurry, and for those that need a little taste to prove the read is worth it.

If you’re trying to make understand and organization and help it perform better, start with asking (just) seven questions. I think you’ll make sense of your biggest problems pretty quickly:

1. Value Proposition: What do we create that other people are willing to sacrifice something (i.e., pay) for?

2. Market: Who cares about what we have to offer?

3. Capabilities: What are the handful of things we really need to be good at to create something of value?

4. Go-to-Market Systems: How will we engage with our market?

5. Resource Capture Systems: How does the organization get the resources it needs?

6. Collective Action Systems: How will we work together to turn our capabilities into something of value?

7. Investment Systems: How will fwe develop the capabilities that matter most?

Making organizations better is hard, but it doesn’t have to be complicated.

The Seven-Part Model of Organizations

So, what is an organization?

I'd propose that an organization, at its simplest, is only made up of seven components:

• Value Proposition

• Market

• Capabilities

• Go-to-Market Systems

• Resource Capture Systems

• Collective Action Systems

• Investment Systems

If we can understand these seven things about an organization, we can understand how it works and consequently make it perform better. There are certainly other models and frameworks for understanding organizations (e.g., McKinsey 7-S, Business Model Canvas, Afuah Business Model Innovation Framework) which serve specific purposes - and I do like those.

This seven-part model of organizations is the best I've been able to produce which maintains simplicity while still having broad explanatory power for any organization, not just businesses. Each component of the model answers an important question that an organization leader should understand.

The seven parts (Detail)

The first three parts of the model are what I think of as the outputs - they're the core foundation of what an organization is: a Value Proposition, a Market, and a set of Capabilities.

Value Proposition: What do we create that other people are willing to sacrifice something (i.e., pay) for?

The Value Proposition is the core of an organization. What do they produce or achieve? What is the good or the service? What makes them unique and different relative to other alternatives? This is the bedrock from which everything else can be understood. Why? Because the Value Prop is where the internal and external view of the organization come together - it's where the rubber meets the road.

It's worth noting that every stakeholder of the organization has to be satisfied by the Value Proposition if they are to engage with the organization: customers, constituents, shareholders, funders, donors, employees, suppliers, communities, etc.

Market: Who cares about what we have to offer?

Understanding the Market is also core to an organization because any organization needs to find product-market fit to survive. This question really has two subcomponents to understand: who the people are and what job they need to be done or need that they have that they're willing to sacrifice for.

It's not just businesses that need to clearly understand their Markets - governments, non-profits, and even families need to understand their Market. Why? Because no organization has unlimited resources, and if the Value Proposition doesn't match the Market the organization is trying to serve, the organization won't be able to convince the Market to part with resources that the organization needs to survive - whether that's sales, time, donations, tax revenues, or in the case of a family, love and attention from family members.

Capabilities: What are the handful of things we really need to be good at to create something of value?

Thus far, we've talked about what business nerd types call "product-market fit," which really takes the view that the way to understand an organization is to look at how it relates to its external environment.

But there's also another school of thought that believes a firm is best understood from the inside out - which is where Capabilities come in.

Capabilities are the stuff that the organization has or is able to do which they need to be able to produce their Value Proposition. These could be things like intellectual property or knowledge, skills, brand equity, technologies, or information.

Of course, not all Capabilities are created equal. When I talk about Capabilities, I'm probably closer to what the legendary CK Prahalad describes as "core competence." Let's assume our organization is a shoe manufacturer. Some of the most important Capabilities probably are things like designing shoes, recruiting brand ambassadors, and manufacturing and shipping cheaply.

The shoe company probably also has to do things like buy pens and pencils - so sure, buying office supplies is a Capability of the firm, but it's not a core Capability to its Value Proposition of producing shoes. When I say "Capabilities," I'm talking about the "core" stuff that's essential for delivering the Value Proposition.

Finally, we can think of how Capabilities interact with the Value Proposition as an analog to product-market fit, let's call it "product-capability fit." Aligning the organization with its external environment is just as important as aligning it to its internal environment.

When all three core outputs - Value Proposition, Market, and Capabilities - are in sync, that's when an organization can really perform and do something quite special.

In addition to the three core outputs, Organizations also have systems to actually do things. These are the last four components of the model. I think of it like the four things that make up an organization's "operating system."

Go-to-Market Systems: How will we engage with our Market?

How an organization "goes to market" is a core part of how an organization operates. Because after all, if the product or service never meets the Market, no value can ever be exchanged. The Market never gets the value it needs, and the organization never gets the resources it needs. A good framework for this is the classic marketing framework called the 4Ps: Price, Product, Place, and Promotion.

But this part of the organization's "operating system" need not be derived from private sector practice. Governments, nonprofits, faith-based organizations, and others all have a system for engaging with their Market; they might just call it something like "service delivery model," "logic model," "engagement model," or something else similar.

The key to remember here is that go-to-market systems are not how parties within the organization work together; it's how the organization engages with its Market.

Resource Capture Systems: How will the organization get the resources it needs?

Just like a plant or an animal, organizations need resources to survive. But instead of things like food, sunlight, water, and oxygen, and carbon dioxide, organizations need things like money, materials, talent, user feedback, information, attention, and more.

So if you're an organizational leader, it's critical to understand what resources the organization needs most, and having a solid plan to get them. Maybe it's a sales process or levying of a tax. Maybe it's donations and fundraising. Maybe for resources like talent, it's employer branding or a culture that makes people want to work for the organization.

This list of examples isn't meant to be comprehensive, of course. The point is that organizations need lots of resources (not just money) and should have a solid plan for securing the most important resources they need.

Collective Action Systems: How will we work together to turn our capabilities into something of value?

Teamwork makes the dream work, right? I'd argue that's even an understatement. The third aspect of the organization's operating system is collective action.

This includes things like operations, organization structure, objective setting, project management approaches, and other common topics that fall into the realm of management, leadership, and "culture."

But I think it's more comprehensive than this - concepts like mission, purpose, and values, decision chartering, strategic communications, to name a few, are of growing importance and fall into the broad realm of collective action, too.

Why? Two reasons: 1) organizations need to move faster and therefore need people to make decisions without asking permission from their manager, and, 2) organizations increasingly have to work with an entire network of partners across many different platforms to produce their Value Proposition. These less-common aspects of an organization's collective action systems help especially with these challenges born of agility.

So all in all, it's essential to understand how an organization takes all its Capabilities and works as a collective to deliver its Value Proposition - and it's much deeper than just what's on an org chart or process map.

Investment Systems: How do we develop the capabilities that matter most?

It's obvious to say this, but the world changes. The Market changes. Expectations of talent change. Lots of things change, all the time. And as a result, our organizations need to adapt themselves to survive - again, just like Darwin's finches.

But what does that really mean? What it means more specifically is that over time the Capabilities an organization needs to deliver its Value Proposition to its Market changes over time. And as we all know, enhanced Capabilities don't grow on trees - it takes work and investment, of time, effort, money, and more.

That's where the final aspect of an organization's operating system comes in - the organization needs systems to figure out what Capabilities they need and then develop them. In a business, this could mean things like "capital allocation," "leadership development," "operations improvement," or "technology deployment."

But the need for Investment Systems applies broadly across the organizational world, too, not just companies.

As parents, for example, my wife and I realized that we needed to invest in our Capabilities to help our son, who was having a hard time with feelings and emotional control. We had never needed this "capability" before - our "market" had changed, and our Value Proposition as parents wasn't cutting it anymore.

So we read a ton of material from Dr. Becky and started working with a child and family-focused therapist. We put in the time and money to enhance our "capabilities" as a family organization - and it worked.

Again, because the world changes, all organizations need systems to invest in themselves to improve their capabilities.

My Pitch for Why This Matters

At the end of the day, most of us don't need or even want fancy frameworks. We want and need something that works.

I wanted to share this framework because this is what I'm starting to use as a practitioner - and it's helped me make sense of lots of organizations I've been involved with, from the company I work for to my family.

If you're someone - in any type of organization, large or small - I hope you find this very simple set of seven questions to help your organization perform better.

Making organizations better is hard, but it doesn't have to be complicated.

We can learn to be lucky

Learning only when we make a mistake is not enough.

Life is too hard. Creating value in enterprises is too hard. Marriage is too hard. Reaching goals and making our dreams come true is too hard. All these aspirations are too hard to only learn some of the time.

Some people say we learn more from failures than from successes, and that may or not be true. But the way I see it, that’s a misleading trade off: we can learn a lot from both.

However, what I’ve observed in organizations is that in practice teams usually learn much less from successes than from failures. It’s not that they can’t learn more, they just don’t.

This is for two main reasons. First, teams usually have less motivation to learn from success - why be a downer and interrogate our victory when we could be celebrating? Even when teams choose to debrief successes, they seem less willing to be introspective and self-critical so the debriefs they do are less fruitful. Moreover, most organizations have more systems that force debriefs of mistakes to happen.

The second reason why teams tend to learn less from success is a matter of technique. Learning from failure is a bit more familiar because it’s an exercise of cause and effect. We saw bad effects, and the goal of a debrief is to understand the root causes. By understanding the root causes we can make different choices in the future.

Learning from success is different (and perhaps harder) because it’s an exercise of understanding counterfactuals. What could we have done to obtain a better result? What aspects of our success were because of our decisions and skills, rather than good circumstances? The fundamental questions when trying learn from a success are different than those needed to debrief a failure.

When you’re doing your next debrief, try these three questions to get the most learning possible out of a success. I’ve included some rationale for the questions and some examples within each.

Question 1: What would’ve had to be true to have a 2x better result? What about a 5x or 10x better result?

This question helps us understand the money we left on the table. If we were successful it means we already had some level of competence or skill related to the challenge at hand. Could we have done better? Why didn’t we? Are we at a plateau of performance? How can we break the plateau and get to the next level? This is what this question gets at.

I thought about this question a lot when working on violence prevention programs at the Detroit Police Department. There were quarters and years where we had substantial drops in shootings and murders. A lot of time that was because the community-based gang violence prevention programs we launched were working. But in Detroit, even after those successes, violence wasn’t at an acceptable level for our team, our leadership, or our community.

When we asked questions like, “why can’t have a 30% drop instead of 10% drop” we thought about other avenues for reducing violence. We started to explore domestic violence prevention, partnerships with social service organizations and faith-based organizations, and other non-traditional avenues. Thinking critically about our success helped us to lean in harder to the problem.

Question 2: What was a near-miss? What almost was a big problem but we got lucky?

This question helps us understand where caught a break. Teams generally discount their own luck, and do so at their own peril. Because the next time around, we might not be so lucky.

I just experienced this at Thanksgiving. Our family’s tradition is to go to the Detroit Lions’ Thanksgiving Day football game, and we host an early brunch at our house since we live closest to Downtown Detroit where the stadium is. I make bagels & lox, a breakfast casserole, and coffee. My father-in-law makes bloody marys.

When he arrived, he asked, “do you have ice?”

We usually do not have ice in our house. Our refrigerator is old, and doesn’t have a built-in ice machine. But this Thanksgiving, we were lucky - we happened to have extra ice in the freezer from a party we hosted a few weeks earlier.

Even though our family brunch was a resounding success, I learned something important: make ice part of the plan for any party. I added “get ice” to the party prep checklist I keep on my phone. I also plan to look into a better set of ice molds to make it easier to have ice on hand all the time.

Question 3: What gifts were just handed to us that we did nothing to earn?

This question helps to understand and shape luck. Teams usually have some headwinds or beneficial circumstances that just fall into their lap without even trying. Usually, those headwinds aren’t a guarantee for future challenges. But if we understand what made us lucky this time around, we can actively try to shape those headwinds in the future.

I saw this happen on a project some of my colleagues recently completed. It was a data analysis to understand a large area of SG&A for our company. The project was a clear success because the insights uncovered will have a huge benefit for our company and our customer. By all accounts the team did a great job and they executed flawlessly.

But they did have a healthy amount of luck, too. The executive sponsoring the project had an incredibly clear and specific question they wanted to understand. The clarity the team received up-front led to a very focused analysis on a specific set of data. Many times people who request work of analytical teams have no idea what they actually want to understand, and that creates huge drag on an analytics team.

It was a big headwind to have a clear, and focused question from jump. That’s definitely not a given on any project. But what we learned is that in the future we can push for clarity and actively shape the question very early in any analytics project to create headwinds for the team. We can shape our own luck.

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Every team and every organization I’ve been part of underperforms. Even the best teams out there have even higher ceilings. We can and should learn from failures, but we can learn just as much from successes with the right questions and approach. And if we do that, we can learn to be better and contribute more to our teams, our customers, and our communities.

Photo credit: Unsplash @glambeau

Creating Safe and Welcoming Cultures

To help people feel safe and welcome within a family, team, organization, or community, two general strategies are: special attention and consistent treatment.

Examining the tension between those two strategies is a simple, powerful lens for understanding and improving culture.

The Strategies

The first strategy is to provide special attention.

Under this view, everyone is special and everyone gets a turn in the spotlight. Every type of person gets an awareness month or some sort of special appreciation day - nobody is left out. Everyone’s flag gets a turn to fly on the flag pole. The best of the best - whether it’s for performance, representing values, or going through adversity - are recognized. We shine a light on the bright spots, to shape behaviors and norms.

And for those that aren’t the best of the best, they get the equivalent of a paper plate award - we find something to recognize, because everyone has a bright spot if only we look.

This strategy works because special attention makes people feel seen and acknowledged. And when we feel seen, we feel like we belong and can be ourselves.

But providing special attention has tradeoffs, as is the case with all strategies.

The first is that someone is always slipping through the cracks. We never quite can neatly capture everyone in a category to provide them special attention. It’s really hard to create a recognition day, for example, for every type of group in society. Lots of people live on the edges of groups and they are left out. When someone feels left out, the safe, welcoming culture we intended is never fully forged and rivalries form.

The second trade off is that special attention has diminishing marginal returns. The more ways we provide special attention, the less “special” that attention feels. Did you know, for example, that on June 4th (the day I’m writing this post) is National Old Maid’s day, National Corgi Day, and part of National Fishing and Boating week, plus many more? Outside of the big days like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day - how can someone possible feel seen and special if the identity they care about is obscure and celebrated on a recognition day that nobody even knows exists?

The existence of “National Old Maid’s day” is obviously a narrow example, but it illustrates a broader point: the shine of special attention wears off the more you do it, which leads to the more obscure folks in the community feeling less special and less visible, which breeds resentment.

The second strategy to create a feeling of safety and welcoming in a community is to treat everyone consistently well.

In this world everyone is treated fairly and with respect. Every interaction that happens in the community is fair, consistent, and kind. We don’t treat anyone with boastful attention, but we don’t demean anyone either. We have a high standard of honesty, integrity, and compassion that we apply consistently to every person we encounter..

The most powerful and elite don’t get special privileges - everyone in the family only gets one cookie and only after finishing dinner, the executives and the employees all get the same selection of coffee and lunch in the cafeteria, and we either celebrate the birthday of everyone on the team with cake or we celebrate nobody at all.

The strategy of treating everyone consistently well works because fairness and kindness makes people feel safe. When we’re in communities that behave consistently, the fear of being surprised with abuse fades away because our expectations and our reality are one, and we know that we will be treated fairly no matter who we are.

But this strategy of treating other consistently well also has two tradeoffs.

The first, is that it’s really hard. The level of empathy and humility required to treat everyone consistently well is enormous. The most powerful in a group have to basically relinquish the power and privilege of their social standing, which is uncommon. The boss, for example, has to be willing to give up the corner office and as parent’s we can’t say things like “the rules don’t apply to grown ups.” A culture of consistently well, needs leadership at every level and on every block. To pull that off is not only hard, it takes a long time and a lot of sacrifice.

The second tradeoff is that to create a culture of consistently well there are no days off. For a culture of consistently well to stick, it has to be, well, consistent. There are no cheat days where the big dog in the group is allowed to treat people like garbage. There are no exceptions to the idea of everyone treated fairly and with respect - it doesn’t matter if you don’t like them or they are weird. There is no such thing as a culture of treating people consistently well if it’s not 24/7/365.

The Tension

The answer to the question, “Well, which strategy should I use?” Is obvious: both. The problem is, the two approaches are in tension with each other. Providing special attention makes it harder to treat others consistently and vice versa. They key is to put the two strategies into play and let them moderate each other.

A good first step is to use the lenses of the two strategies to examine current practices:

• Who is given special attention? Who is not?

• Who doesn’t fit neatly into a category of identity or function? Who’s at risk of slipping through the cracks?

• What do our practices around special attention say about who we are? Are those implicit value statements reflective of who we want to be?

• What are the customs that are commonplace? How do we greet, communicate, and criticize each other?

• Who is treated well? Who isn’t? Are differences in treatment justified?

• How do the people with the most authority and status behave? Is it consistent? is it fair?

• What are the processes and practices that affect people’s lives and feelings the most (e.g., hiring, firing, promotion, access to training)? Are those processes consistent? Are they fair? Do they live up to our highest ideals?

As I said, the real key is to utilize both strategies and think of them as a sort of check and balance on each other - special attention prevents consistency from creating homogeneity and consistency prevents special attention from becoming unfairly distributed.

From my observation, however, is that most organizations do not utilize these strategies in the appropriate balance. Usually, it’s because of an over-reliance on the strategy of providing special attention. That imbalance worries me.

I do understand why it happens. Providing special attention feels good to give and to receive and is tangible. It’s easy to deploy a recognition program or plan an appreciation day quickly. And most of all, speical attention strategies are scalable and have the potential to have huge reach if they “go viral.”

What I worry about is the overuse of special attention strategies and the negative externalities that creates. For example, all the special appreciation days and awareness months can feel like an arms race, at least to me. And, I personally feel the resentment that comes with slipping through the cracks and see that resentment in others, too.

Excessive praise and recognition makes me (and my kids, I think) into praise-hungry, externally-driven people. The ability to have likes on a post leads to a life of “doing it for the gram”. The externalities are real, and show up within families, teams, organizations, and communities.

At the same, I know it would be impractical and ineffective to focus one-dimensionally on creating cultures of consistently well. It’s important that we celebrate differences because we need to ensure our thoughts and communities stay diverse so we can solve complex problems. I worry that just creating a dominant culture without special attention, even one that’s rooted on the idea of treating people consistently well, would ultimately lead to homogeneity of perspective, values, skills, and ideologies instead of diversity.

The solution here is the paradoxical one, we can’t just utilize special attention or treating people consistently well to create safe and welcoming communities - we need to do both at the same time. Even though difficult, navigating this tension is well worth it because creating a family, team, organization, or community that feels safe and welcoming is a big deal. We can be our best selves, do our best work, and contribute the fullest extent of our talents when we feel psychological safety.

Getting Process Out of the Black Box

The first three weeks after Emmett (our third son) was born, were unusually smooth. And then I went back to work.

Maybe I’m just a novice and I should’ve expected brother-brother conflict while our two older sons, Bo and Myles, jockeyed for new roles in the family. But when I went back to work, and perhaps coincidentally perhaps not, snap. The good times were over and their relationship flipped, seemingly overnight.

This rattled me. I don’t have a sibling and I was resentful toward my sons - that they didn’t realize how lucky they were. I made this known to them and performed several other magnificent feats of faux-parenting, including yelling, calling out mistakes, ignoring the bad behavior, ordering them to “work it out” - and probably several embarrassing and obviously ineffective strategies.

I was particularly frustrated with our older son, who was more frequently the instigator of conflict. Why doesn’t he get it? How is he not learning from this?, I thought.

After a particularly bad episode, involving a modest but intention punch to a defenseless brother’s chest, I accidentally had a small breakthrough. I AAR’d my son.

An AAR is an After-action review that I learned about when reading some books about the US Army’s approach to leadership. Basically, a unit should debrief right after a mission using four simple questions. These questions vary depending on where you read about it but they’re roughly this:

• What did we intend?

• What actually happened?

• Why?

• What should we do differently next time?

It turns out, even at 4 years old, Bo was pretty responsive to the AAR. He was capable of thinking through these questions with some modest support and he actually learned something. But the takeaway of this story is deeper than to “AAR your kids.” The real lesson is that important “processes” like helping my sons learn from a mistake shouldn’t be improvised; for the important stuff I shouldn’t be winging it.

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Let’s simplify the world and say there are two kinds of organizational processes, explicit processes and implicit processes. I’m going to start with family stuff as an example, but as we’ll see shortly it applies to professional life as well.

Explicit processes are ones that are worked out, down to specific, simple steps. Explicit processes are the sorts of activities that everyone in our family has a mental checklist or process map for in their heads. In some instances, we even have simple diagrams drawn up on a whiteboard in our kitchen.

Here are some examples of explicit organizational processes in our family:

• The routine at dinner / bedtime

• The routine for how we get ready in the morning

• The routine for how we get ready when we have to leave the house

• The routine for drop-off and pick-up from school

• The routine for cleaning up toys

• The routine for feeding the dog

• The meal plan for the week

To be sure, we don’t have perfect processes worked out for all these routines - we’re always learning and improving. But having any process that are explicitly understood to the entire family does two things: 1) we avoid rookie mistakes (and at least some toddler meltdowns), and, 2) we have a starting point for process improvement. For explicit processes, we’re decidedly not winging it. We have a plan that is explicitly known to everyone.

Implicit processes are the situations that we haven’t thought through in advance or taken the time to make specific, simple, or known to everyone. The way these processes work is in the metaphorical black box - they happen, but it’s not clear how or why - we’re essentially winging it on these. Some examples in our family, past and present, are:

• How we coach our kids when they make mistakes

• How we share information with our kids and family

• How we learn and adjust as parents

• How we resolve sibling conflict (and when we intervene as parents and when we don’t)

• How we determine how much of a plate needs to be eaten before dessert is allowed.

Most of these are at least a little squishy in our household. But during the heart of Covid Robyn and I took something implicit - how we communicate a day-care Covid exposure and quarantine - and made it explicit. By working through the process and trying to make it simple, clear, and essentially into a checklist a few really good things happened:

• We were calmer (because we had a plan to lean on)

• We executed faster (because we knew our roles, and cut out unnecessary steps)

• We executed better (because we didn’t panic and forget really important, but easy to miss steps like getting complete information from our day care provider about the exposure)

Making the implicit process explicit is a game changer, because routines that are made simpler and clearer go much better than when we wing it. And as I mentioned previously, explicit processes are much easier to improve iteratively.

Of course, in our professional lives not every implicit process is consequential enough to make implicit (e.g., it’s probably okay to wing it when picking a spot for the quarterly happy hour). But in my experience lots of really consequential processes in organizations are ones where most of us are essentially winging it. Or worse, the processes are explicit but are complex, bloated, or shoddily communicated…and as a result outcomes are actually worse than winging it.

Here are some examples - how many of these are explicit processes in your organization? How many are implicit?

• How we learn from a failed project

• How we manage in a crisis

• How we hire, interview, fire, or promote fairly

• How we react to changing consumer or market trends

• How we coach and develop employees

• How we support new managers or employees

• How we make a big decision

• How we plan or facilitate meetings

• How we communicate major decisions or enterprise strategy

• How we set goals and measure KPIs 

• How we scope out, form the right team, and launch a strategic initiative

• How we make adjustments to the strategy or plan

How many of these should be simple, clear, and well understood? How many of these are okay to wing it? 

It seems to me that a simple, relatively cheap way to radically change the performance of an organization - whether at work or at home - is to take consequential processes that are implicit and make them simple, clear, and explicit.

The Weekly Coaching Conversation

Coaching others is definitely the most important and rewarding part of my job. When I took on this responsibility, I worried: would I waste my colleagues’ talent? How do I help them grow consistently and quickly?

Here’s a summary of what I‘ve been experimenting with.

Experiment 1: Dedicate 30 minutes to coaching every week

I raided my father-in-law’s collection of old business books and grabbed one called The Weekly Coaching Conversation: A Business Fable About Taking Your Game and Your Team to the Next Level.

The idea in it is simple: schedule a dedicated block of 30 minutes every week with each person you’re responsible for coaching. I thought it was worth trying. As it turns out, it was. Providing support, feedback, and advice falls by the wayside if it’s not part of the weekly calendar - at least for me.

Experiment 2: Ask Direct Questions

We start each 30 minute weekly meeting the same way, with a version of these two questions:

On a scale of 1-100 how much of your talent did we utilize vs. waste this week?

This question is useful because it’s direct feedback from the person I’m trying to coach. I can get a sense of what they need. Most of the time, what is holding them back is either me, or something I can support them with, such as: more clarity on the mission, an introduction to a subject-matter expert, some time to spitball ideas, or just some space to explore. This is also a helpful question to ask, because when the person I’m coaching is excited and thriving, I get to ask them why, and do more of it.

What’s one way you’re better than the person you were last week?

This question is useful because it helps make on-the-job learning more explicit and concrete. We get to unpack results and really see tangible progress. Additionally, I get a sense of what the person I’m coaching cares about getting better at which allows me to tailor how I coach them.

Experiment 3: Stop controlling the agenda

At the beginning, I would suggest an agenda for our weekly coaching sessions. But over the course of 3-5 weeks, I transitioned responsibility for setting the agenda to the person I’m coaching. This works out better because we end up focusing our time on what matters to them, rather than what I think matters to them (which is good, because I’m usually wrong about what matters to them).

It also works out well because my colleagues are in the driver’s seat for their own development. And that fosters intrinsic motivation for them, which is really important for fueling real growth. I certainly raise issues if I see them, but it frees up my headspace and my time to be responsive to what they ask of me.

I still have a lot of improvement to do here, but I spend a lot less time talking and much more time asking questions and being a sounding board by letting go of control of the agenda. Which seems to work out better for my colleagues’ growth.

What I’m thinking about now (I haven’t figured it out) how do I know that my support is actually working, and leading to real growth and development?

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I am absolutely determined to discover ways to stop wasting talent, in my immediate surroundings and across the organizational world. It’s a moral issue for me. And I figure a world with less wasted talent starts with me wasting less talent.

I’ll continue to share reflections on what I’m experimenting with so all of us that care about unlocking the potential of people and teams have an excuse to find and talk to each other.