Lessons in Lateral Leadership

 Roger Fisher and Alan Sharp, Getting It Done: How to Lead When You’re NOT in Charge. HarperCollins Publishers, New York 1999.

Summary:

The goal of this book is to define ways to produce high quality results through collaboration by lateral leadership. Lateral leadership is not guiding by superior authority but rather is inviting colleagues to work with you to solve problems.

The primary guidelines are handled under a three step method to improve oneself first and then to guide others to change:

· Organize and sharpen your personal skills at getting things done by yourself.

· Understand clearly your strategic goal of getting things done with others.

· Develop some tactics of participatory leadership.

DEVELOP PURPOSE.

· Sharpen your purpose: develop a purpose that motivates and guides you, in terms of results to be achieved. Formulate immediate objectives, mid range goals and a long term vision.

· Everyone helps formulate a set of results to achieve together.

· Lead in improving setting the purpose in your own organization. Find out the organizational purpose and the reasons for it, and find ways to make them focused and tangible.

THINK SYSTEMATICALLY.

· Develop a personal framework for organized and clear thinking. Look for information that helps make decisions. Rather than react to symptoms, step back and look for causes. Invent creative approaches to different situations.

· Clarify a vision of collaborative, systematic thinking.

· Stimulate others to think systematically.

INTEGRATE THINKING WITH DOING.

· Follow a sequence of “Prepare -> Act -> Review,” to learn from experience.

· Prepare and review together for a group learning experience.

· Help your colleagues learn from experience.

OFFER EVERYONE A CHALLENGING ROLE.

· Reframe your job to include engaging challenges. Find opportunities to use your best skills, take time to contribute, even when it’s not your job, and expand your job to include things that aren’t being done.

· Clarify a vision of everyone becoming fully engaged. Assume that contributing ideas is everyone’s job, share responsibility for dividing work, frame the success of the whole project as everyone’s responsibility.

· Foster a climate that invites engagement of everyone in the projects, initiatives and group tasks.

EXPRESS APPRECIATION AND OFFER CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK.

· Learn how to offer supportive feedback. Express appreciation to motivate, offer advice to improve performance, evaluate against the performance of others only when needed to make a personnel decision.

· Clarify a vision of mutual support and coaching: “Appreciation makes everyone perform better. Seeking coaching is a sign of competence. Anyone can coach anyone.”

· Encourage others to offer feedback in ways that are helpful.

Applying the Lessons to Working in IT:

DEVELOP PURPOSE.

· Internalize your own reasons for the job role you’re in, in terms of the results that you wish to accomplish, and be able to articulate them.

· Internalize the goals and objectives for your organization in terms of desired results, and relate your job goals and objectives to them. Draw the connections yourself. Use the connections during project consultation.

· Ask intelligent questions about the larger reasons why things are being done the way they are being done, in terms of desired and expected results, rather than established routines.

· Work with others to relate their projects, roles, goals and objectives to the larger organizational goals by asking the intelligent questions to them in a non threatening manner.

THINK SYSTEMATICALLY.

· Research IT problems from both a technical and organizational (“process”) perspective.

· Develop a personal systematic troubleshooting (“root cause analysis”) methodology to identify, formulate and articulate solutions to problems encountered.

· Articulate how to troubleshoot problems efficiently and effectively, and encourage others to work problems through systematically.

· Develop a personal technical analysis methodology to examine I/S initiatives, improvements and solutions for corporate benefits, possible pitfalls, unexplored risks, and possible improvements.

INTEGRATE THINKING WITH DOING.

· Prepare thoroughly but not excessively for ‘action.’ Remember that ‘doing’ can be written and oral communication with others as well as technical ‘hands on’ tasks. Formulate a desired result, consider the task in light of the others who will be or could be evaluating the result, and evaluate the probable effectiveness of the preparation throughout the course of the preparation.

· Execute the planned actions skillfully.

OFFER EVERYONE A CHALLENGING ROLE.

· Take the initiative yourself to look beyond the routine responsibilities of your own job roles to include more challenging responsibilities.

· Look beyond personal and social compatibilities to organizational synergies in working with technical teams.

· Look for important but overlooked tasks that may be vital to the success of the team effort, and take the initiative to achieve those.

· Assist the less forthright and articulate members to express their thoughts and take action, so that their contributions may be recognized.

· Arrange so that all team members both take responsibility and take credit for the result of the team’s goals.

EXPRESS APPRECIATION AND OFFER CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK.

· Look at the validity of information and direction rather than the authority level or position in the hierarchy of the source.

· Express genuine appreciation for help offered and rendered.

· Encourage others to accept valid information and direction and offer genuine appreciation