Leadership

Leadership - It's Time for a New Game

by Mike Alafaci

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.
-- John Quincy Adams (6th President of the United States, 1767-1829).

At least once in our lives, nearly all of us have been inspired by someone to do more, be more, or believe in the possibility of more. We admired those people. We wanted to be a bit like them and we felt good about trying our best for them. These people were leaders, because they were able to generate the best in us while achieving results that left everyone better off in the process.

These leaders may have been managers, schoolteachers, parents, sales people or anyone who influenced us. While they achieved results, this wasn’t what made them so good. What made them so good was the shift they were able to generate in us and other people.

Leaders with these abilities are able to achieve outstanding results. And we can too. Not by copying or imitating them, but by developing our own skills to address the same things they addressed. This kind of leadership can be learned, practiced and tailored to suit our own individual style. But to be successful, it must first address the challenges facing leadership.   

The challenges facing leadership can be grouped around three things:

1. The need for trust. Lowered trust in leadership is a natural response to news of discredited leaders in the community, business and religious institutions. Lowered trust has also been bought about by an over emphasis on competitiveness without regard for other priorities. The impact of lower trust, as Stephen Covey Jr puts it, has slowed everything down by imposing controls on big business and legal overlay in our communities. Most of us want leaders and people around us who we can trust, who are fair and not hiding some self-serving agenda.

2. The pressure to perform. The speed of society and business has put greater pressure on us to achieve results, but if left unchecked we can deny ourselves of our need to find meaning and satisfaction. The busier we have become as a society, the more disconnected and isolated we seem to be. Social networking websites are exploding. Most of us want a sense of connection, meaning and satisfaction while feeling we are achieving our best, and receiving the best from others.

3. The need to work together. Today, there is such diversity in society and the workplace. We work with people of all generations and cultures, and within this there are many personal preferences that challenge us to work together in a way that adds value for ourselves and others. Leaders and followers struggle to navigate the motivations of different generations and cultures. Most of us want to find synergy and common ground in order to achieve our best.

These challenges come with great opportunities to excel in leadership. Each of them has a mirror image of opportunity. The common elements are greater performance, meaning and satisfaction. And these are available right now.

To seize this opportunity, something has to change. And it can be found in the game we play.

The world is a stage and life is a game

While I was writing this I had the opportunity to hear the Dalai Lama speak in Brisbane, Australia. His message wasn’t religious, it was intended to be universal. The Dalai Lama believes our purpose in life is to be happy.

Pointing to an opportunity for change toward happiness, he drew an important distinction between the last century and our new century. The last century, he said, was focused on the use of force to solve problems and achieve happiness, but this hadn’t worked. He questioned the effectiveness of war on reducing terrorism, and the use of force in the future to solve problems and bring about happiness and success.

Instead of force, the Dalai Lama suggested that all of us as leaders in this new century have an opportunity to lead with skill and compassion, creating happiness for ourselves and others. He suggested that it starts with compassion for human value. Instead of “they”, we can think “us”. Instead of war and force we can try dialog and collaboration, he said.

The starting point for this new game is our area of focus. Ben Zander, Conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, describes a new game where we change from playing a win-lose game to playing a contribution game. A win-lose game is an ever-anxious game of competition with fleeting satisfaction. A contribution game is an endlessly inspiring game.

The difference between these games is what we focus on most. The win-lose game is the one where almost our entire focus is on either winning or losing. We compete out of habit. We compete even when it is not appropriate. For me it was an almost fanatical desire to make my profit and loss numbers. Even when I was making them, I was still wondering how I could make more. If I encountered something that threatened my goals, I went straight into competition to avoid a lose outcome. For a short time, my focus was distorted by my goals and fears.

The win-lose game is seen in the behaviour of over-competitive parents at their children's sporting events. It is seen in couples who would rather be right than happy. It is seen at work where people would rather use force than try to create a pathway to success. These examples are all natural when our focus is on win-lose rather than how we can make a contribution.

In Australia there is something called mateship that exists between people. In essence it is about treating people fairly and not just hoping they will do the same, but giving them a every opportunity even when they don’t act fairly in the first place. When our focus is stuck on the win-lose game and competing, the essence of mateship is lost or at best comes second to competition. The problem is not in competition, but in the amount of focus placed on competition.

The contribution game still keeps score

Competition is fun. It is a great way to score our successes and to continually improve. Like any great sporting team, we must make contribution our focus. In sport it is training. Athletes spend much more time training than competing. If they focused only on competing without contributing, they would lose sight of the things that help them win like diets, fitness, helping team members. So it is in leadership and business, where our training is working with colleagues, clients or strategic partners in a way that contributes.

Unfortunately, losing follows winning around like a bad smell. There will always be wins and losses. Always. If we treat everything like a competition we move closer to a loss because our focus is diverted away from contributing to the things that help us win. There's another reason for shifting focus. We have other needs beyond winning, like feeling a deeper sense of meaning and satisfaction from a job well done where we made a significant contribution of our skill, compassion and good will.

The contribution game is something most people would like to play. It starts by putting our focus on contribution first and then on the outcome. Instead of first asking, how can I win this, we can ask how can I contribute?

My experience of this game

I like the contribution game a lot. I started noticing it 20 years ago and have been trying my best to play it ever since. Sometimes I have failed terribly, and other times succeeded brilliantly. The game keeps a score, is still competitive, but is focused on making a contribution first and achieving a result second - not last, just second. When playing this game our and other’s performance, meaning and satisfaction go up, way up. But don’t take my word for it. I hope you will explore this game for yourself.

For some people the new game will be a reminder of what they already know. For others it will be just what they need to reach the next level in their leadership. In reality, though, every one of us recognises these ideas deep down. It’s just that some may have forgotten or become distracted, and others may not have seen them in action or had the chance to practice them yet.

I consider myself fortunate to have worked with some great leaders. These leaders demonstrate the skills and ideas I am calling Leadership by Contribution. The ideas combine formal leadership theory, research data and my own observations and leadership experiences.

If we connect with the idea of a new game focused on contribution, and the idea of replacing force with compassion and skill the question is: Do we have the courage and strength to try to play it? I hope to provide some ideas and ways to play this game in everyday leadership situations.

I hope you will try the ideas and decide if they work for you. If they work then great, use them or adapt them to your own style. If they don’t work, then ignore them, try something else, or keep doing what works for you.

My leadership intention is to learn how to help others enhance their performance and satisfaction so they can use that to benefit others. This is where I believe contribution in leadership begins for me. This work is my contribution to you and the people you influence, lead and benefit. In the coming articles we will look at how all of this can be applied in everyday situations.

Mike Alafaci – December 2007