For you Americans, did you have a good 4th of July? We did, although very low key. In the morning the whole family (minus my youngest) went out and did a few hours of yard work. We had a ton of cleanup to do from growth over the summer. There's something cool about seeing a physical space transform from your own hard labor.
In the evening we grilled sausages and hot dogs, and combined it with homemade potato salad for dinner. Homemade potato salad - with homemade mayonnaise, too! - is one of those things I didn't realize was so easy to make until late in life.
The night before the 4th we heard some noise outside the house, went on the back deck, and realized we could see a fireworks show from the city! While it wasn't the same thing as being there, the logistics were a lot easier!
Have a great week!
Kevin
PS - The July Leadership Ruck date has been set for Saturday, July 20th, at 10:30 AM in Austin!
Get out in the sun, exercise, and chat with other leaders in person. Details and sign up here: https://lu.ma/acp6lwsr. I hope to see you there! 🎒☀️😅
A Quote
“
Consciously consider whom you allow into your life—not like some snobby elitist but like someone who is trying to cultivate the best life possible. Ask yourself about the people you meet and spend time with: Are they making me better? Do they encourage me to push forward and hold me accountable? Or do they drag me down to their level? Now, with this in mind, ask the most important question: Should I spend more or less time with these folks?
— Ryan Holiday in "The Daily Stoic"
Three Things
1 - 🛍️ Marine Layer Take Back Bag - Do you have old clothes that you don’t want anymore? Maybe some branded corporate swag that you never wear? Yes, you could take them to Goodwill, but sometimes they end up in a landfill anyway. If you buy this $20 bag from Marine Layer, they’ll tear them down to recycle, AND give you a $40 gift card. Not a bad deal; marine layer has good quality stuff.
2 - 💬 Speech To Text Transcription + AI - I just bought a year subscription to Otter.ai after using the free version for over a year. I use it primarily to record my thoughts before I forget them after getting back from a run. I don’t use it this way, but it can call into your Zoom / Google Meets meeting, recording action items. There’s also an AI integration window next to the transcription where you can query the meeting. (if you’d like, my referral link here gives you one month of Pro Lite, and I get some recording minutes)
3 - 👌 Where Does the Term OK Come From? - We use it all the time, but what’s the origin story of the word OK? People have always tried to create their own language to demonstrate who’s in the “in” group, and who is “out,” and I love that that’s how OK came to be. Will any current Gen Z / Gen Alpha slang survive? Unlikely 🙂
Deeper Dive on the “Sliders” Model of Leadership
Today I’m sharing a model of leadership that’s been forming in my brain over the years, but until today have never put “on paper.”
Discussions of leadership often focus on prescriptive and static things. Leaders do this, but they don’t do this. Thinking about leadership that way can be demotivating and make you very fragile!
It’s demotivating because some descriptions of leadership, especially when you’re starting your journey, can see too different, too difficult, too far. Why start a process that’s unattainable?
It’s fragile because life is dynamic. Leadership isn’t a single way of being. It’s doing whatever the situation requires. Since situations aren’t static, conceptions of leadership shouldn’t be either.
Today, let’s deep dive into this dynamic framework of leadership!
(I encourage you to do this every week, but since today’s topic is new, I really encourage you to share your thoughts with me at heykev@kevinnoble.xyz. Does this resonate? Do you see something missing? Let me know!)
The Sliders Framework
Single bar
Ta-da! 🍻 🎂 🤯 A bar!
Wait.
You probably need to see more before that makes sense.
That single bar represents something that’s a variable. I think of the bars as skills, perspectives, or concepts. They exist on a spectrum. You can go to one extreme, or go to the opposite extreme.
The size of the bar represents the range you can operate in.
Single bar with a slider on it.
One way to develop as a leader is to increase the length of that bar. As you learn new things you can increase your effective operating range.
A longer bar has a greater operating range.
When you first learn about something new, you’re what’s called “consciously incompetent,” using the language of the Four Stages of Competence. It means we know there’s a different way to be (conscious), but we’re not performant yet (incompetent).
The consciously incompetent areas I draw as a box with a dashed line border. It shows that I know there are settings on the board, but I can’t use it effectively yet.
A new area of conscious incompetence.
Another way to develop as a leader is to gain new bars. These bars are in your blind spot; you can’t see them because you haven’t become aware of them yet.
Blind spots are the fog around what we know, so they’re represented by fog around the bars.
Oh no, what's out there? We're blind!
When you bring these ideas together, you’ll get a visual that looks a little like the following.
The full model shows the operating range of different skills / perspectives / concepts, where we're consciously incompetent, our blind spots, and our current settings.
The next idea is to think about how you’re operating in any given situation across the total operating range. I represent these as a “slider” on top of the bar. For any given meeting, project, interaction, or situation you have the option to slide up or down your operating range.
The slider settings you choose will impact your effectiveness in that situation.
Putting this all together, you have two tasks as a leader: 1 - To increase the depth and breadth of your operating range. 2 - To quickly adjust your sliders across your operating range to maximize effectiveness in a given situation.
We’ll spend the rest of the newsletter talking about how to do these two things. But first, I’ll give some examples of these sliders.
Examples of Bars and Sliders - Volume
My first executive coach liked to get a new team into a room and have each person scream.
His “why” was about getting comfortable being uncomfortable and trying something new. It also highlights that “volume” is a bar and slider. What is your operating range of volume, and where do you typically set your slider? Do you ever whisper? Do you yell?
My coach would ask each person to scream as loud as they could. He’d ask the screamer to rate their volume, and everyone else to rate the volume they heard. It was common for the screamers to be like, “Oh, that was an 8 or 9.” (out of 10)
And the room would say, “That felt more like a 4 or 5 to us. 6 tops.”
The screamer, when they tried again, could often go much louder. We operate in a range tightly bound around our default volume setting, but the full range is available to us if we try.
For example, you might whisper to encourage people to tighten up, get close, and pay attention. You might yell at the top of your lungs to get someone’s attention in a facility with equipment noise. Choose the volume setting that the situation demands.
Too loud. Dial it back.
What other bars and sliders exist?
Examples of Bars and Sliders - Others
Since bars and sliders are an abstraction, there’s a near infinite number of things you could conceptualize in this way. Anything that exists on a spectrum can have a bar and a slider. I’ll share a few examples with you to illustrate the point.
Movement Speed
How fast you move is a slider. I’ve known people who like to race between meetings and gauge the quality of interview candidates on their walking pace.
At the other end of the spectrum you might want to slow down. “Power doesn’t rush.” Watch any President walk into the State of the Union. They’ll take their sweet ass time, glad-handing, kissing, etc.
I tend to be on the fast side, so I’ve literally practiced being slow to extend my operating range. For example, after I’m done bagging at the grocery store, instead of rushing to the payment like I’m embarrassed to be there, I saunter over like Obama entering the State of the Union.
It’s awkward, which means it’s good practice 😀
Power doesn't rush.
Firm Declarations vs. Open Curiosity
Getting more conceptual, on one end of a spectrum you could have firm declarations. You tell people what needs to be done. At the other end, you might have open curiosity where you inquire.
Neither is universally effective; it depends on the situation. Sometimes you want to make declarations, other times you want to get curious.
What’s more common is that leaders get used to being one way, and then their slider gets stuck. They’re used to operating with declarations and then don’t practice getting curious, even if that would make them more effective.
Accountability vs. Compassion
I wrote a whole deep dive on this a few months back. Sometimes you want to hold firm on accountability; no excuses! Other times you should be more compassionate.
You can learn to extend your range in either direction. There are techniques to improve accountability and also to improve compassion. Then you can set your slider across this operating range as the situation warrants.
Micromanagement vs. Hands Off
Micromanagement is often derided, but it is part of a possible operating range, and it can be effective. The first quadrant of Situational Leadership is literally telling someone what to do.
Not all situations call for micromanagement, of course. If you use that style with someone who has high task-relevant knowledge, you’re going to create problems.
Inversely, if you’re completely hands off, that can work - but only if the person has the right context and skills. If you’re hands off with the wrong person or team, chaos can ensue.
Neither end of the spectrum is good or bad. They just exist. What matters is selecting the right style for the right situation.
"There is a time to stand firm and enforce rules and there is a time to give ground and allow the rules to bend. Finding that balance is critical for leaders to get maximum effectiveness from their team."
With these examples I’m sure you’ve got the picture. Any skill, perspective, or concept can exist on a range.
Learn new bars, extend your ranges, and then get good at picking up on what setting is most appropriate for the situation at hand.
How to use - Gain new perspectives
One way to extend the range or discover a new bar is to gain new perspectives. They can come from anywhere, but I’ll share three here: Read, Take Feedback, and Observe.
Read
A book can distill a person’s lifetime into something that takes 3-4 hours to read. Books are a great way to learn new perspectives.
So are newsletters! 😊 I write this newsletter to share new perspectives with you so that you can develop as a leader.
If the goal is to learn new perspectives, it’s good to read things that challenge your thinking. Robert Greene’s “The 48 Laws of Power” is great in that way. It creates awareness of the farther end of bars.
Take Feedback
The universe is constantly trying to teach you, so feedback is all over the place. It can be explicit as when someone shares their feedback, or it can be implicit as when you have challenging interactions.
Be open to other perspectives. You don’t always have to act on the feedback, but you do need to listen.
Feedback sometimes feels static; be less this way and more this way. If you think about feedback considering today’s sliders model, then feedback is just highlighting other parts of the range. Or it’s learning which situations need which settings.
Feedback is interesting information you can use to build your map, but you don’t have to switch who you are.
Observe
Everyone acts rational to themselves, so try to pick up on why they do what they do, even if you can’t see the internal logic that got them there.
Watch your boss or peers in a meeting. Can you see the settings they’re using on their bars?
Is someone annoying you at how much they talk, or how little? Is it effective? What could you learn about extending your own range in either direction?
Watch out for a cognitive bias called the “horn effect.” It’s where your perception of a person is significantly influenced by a single thing you don’t like. Be open to learning anything from anyone.
How to use - Do hard things
Doing hard things recalibrates your limits.
You might think the bar ends at a given point, but it’s probably not true.
Exercise makes this point really obvious. Running up hills, doing Crossfit, or any number of high intensity things will teach you a lot about yourself. You’ll realize you’re capable of more than you thought. What felt like an upper limit was actually the brain creating a false barrier.
But you won’t see the barrier until you force yourself to blow past it.
I love this quote about Churchill as an illustration of this. Here, an entire government department blew past a previous barrier! I bet Chamberlain felt like he was giving it his all, only to see Churchill come in and smoke him. The department found “hitherto unimagined levels” of capacity because Churchill recalibrated their limits.
"A new electricity surged through Whitehall. Subdued corridors awoke. “It was as though the machine had overnight acquired one or two new gears, capable of far higher speeds than had ever before been thought possible,” wrote Edward Bridges, secretary to the War Cabinet. This new energy, unfamiliar and disconcerting, coursed through all bureaucratic strata, from the lowest secretary to the most senior minister. The effect within No. 10 was galvanic. Under Chamberlain, even the advent of war had not altered the pace of work, according to John Colville; but Churchill was a dynamo. To Colville’s astonishment, “respectable civil servants were actually to be seen running along the corridors.” For Colville and his fellow members of Churchill’s private secretariat, the workload increased to hitherto unimagined levels."
At work, what could you do to increase the intensity, like Churchill, just to calibrate the higher end?
Can you do 10 back to back 30 minute meetings?
Can you do a daily standup, showing how much progress you’ve made since the last time? Can you do twice-daily standups?
Team standup.
What would the “limit-busting” version of accountability look like? Could everyone include an agenda and document link in meeting invites? Could you review open actions at the beginning of a meeting? Could you spend five minutes documenting “who does what for whom by when” to get clear actions at the end?
I’m not advocating that anyone operates at the limit for a long time. That’s a recipe for burn out!
I’m just highlighting there’s a spectrum and doing hard things recalibrates your limits. You can choose if, or when, to set your slider there.
How to use - Adjusting to the situation
Everything to this point has been about finding new bars and increasing their range. We still need to talk about how to adjust sliders to each situation to maximize effectiveness.
The biggest skill here is awareness. Awareness of self, and awareness of others. Having this framework helps you be conscious of options, which is a start. From there you can watch how you act and the response you get from others.
Are you getting the results you want?
If yes, great.
If not, time to slide.
What should you be aware of? There are too many to list, but I’ll highlight four key ones: People, Timelines, Cost of Failure, and Values and Culture.
People
If you treat your boss like you treat your spouse, or vice-versa, it’s not likely to work well.
Learn your people. What makes them tick? What do they value? How do they take feedback? What are their sliders set at, even if they’re not conscious of them.
When you get a group of people in a room, the dynamics are more complicated. Who are you meeting with? What’s going on in the background? Is there fear? Are there skills missing?
The more easily you can read the room the more you’ll learn how to adjust your sliders.
Timelines
How much time do you have to achieve something? Short timelines require more directive leadership. If you’ve got time to spare, you may consider different options.
I tend to see people overestimating their time, and therefore decreasing the urgency, intensity, and engagement, which does NOT lead to an effective outcome.
How much time do you have left in the meeting? Will you meet with this team again soon? When’s the next review with your boss? Is there a key external dependency date?
Knowledge of timelines should affect your slider settings.
Cost of Failure
Will everyone get fired, or will the business go under, if you fail to achieve the outcome? That requires very unique settings!
If there’s very little cost of failure, maybe you can afford to dial your settings differently. Maybe you can make space for others to lead and make decisions. You can make space for learning and training.
Values and Culture
As we explored in Leadership Buoyancy, different companies have different values and culture. Many a leader has failed by taking their settings from their old company into their new. What worked there may not work here.
If you work internationally, you’re aware of how different business cultures influence effectiveness. Don’t take a technique from Portugal and blindly apply it in Japan.
Get a sense for how different countries, companies, departments, teams, and individuals have different values and culture. Choose your settings to match the situation.
The case against breadth of operating range
Like most things in life, there are tradeoffs in this model. This is a framework about anti-fragility. It’s about being an effective leader no matter where you find yourself.
That robustness comes at the cost of effectiveness in narrow specializations. Someone who doesn’t slide, who only has one way of working, may be fragile, but they’ll crush it in their specialization.
For example, think about the accountability / compassion slider from earlier. Someone who is specialized in operating at the high end of accountability, who has 20 years of only working in that environment, is going to be super effective in that environment. They’ll very likely out-compete another leader who
In Olympic sports, you don’t get a lot of all around athletes, you get specialists, because the bounds of the competition are narrow. The shot-putters excel at shot-put. The pole-vaulters excel at pole-vaulting.
Since business doesn’t operate in such narrow confines, I find the sliders model to be an effective approach for the dynamic realities of the modern world.
A specialist might beat you in their speciality, but it doesn't transfer to other situations well.
Bringing it all together
The “sliders” model of leadership development is a dynamic approach to being the most effective leader in whatever situation your find yourself.
In this model a single bar represents something that’s a variable. I like to think of the bars as skills, perspectives, or concepts. They exist on a spectrum. You can dial something all the way up, or you can dial it back down. You can go to one extreme, or go to the opposite extreme.
The size of the bar represents the range you can operate in.
You have two tasks as a leader: 1 - To increase the depth and breadth of your operating range. 2 - To quickly adjust your sliders across your operating range to maximize effectiveness in a given situation.
Volume is an easy example to make the model concrete. Your operating range is the volume you use at work. You can go to one extreme and whisper, or you can go to the other extreme and yell. The slider represents the volume you’ve chosen for the given situation.
There are a near infinite number of other bars to consider. For example, Movement Speed, Firm Declarations vs. Open Curiosity, Accountability vs. Compassion, and Micromanagement vs. Hands Off.
Those are just four examples; any skill, perspective, or concept can exist on a range. Learn new bars, extend your ranges, and then get good at picking up on what setting is most appropriate for the situation at hand.
You can gain new perspectives by reading, taking feedback, and observing those around you.
You can recalibrate your limits by doing hard things.
Use awareness of self and others to dynamically adjust your sliders to the optimal settings. Some key things to pay attention to are: people, timelines, cost of failure, and values and culture.
Call to Action
I’d suggest two things for you this week, tied to your tasks as a leader: 1 - Pick a bar and do something beyond your normal operating range. 2 - Choose a different setting than you normally choose in a meeting.
For the first, it can be anything. Use more compassion than you’re used to. Stick to the rules, or break the rules - wherever you’re not used to operating. Do something hard. Find another gear, like Churchill.
For the second, again, it’s your choice. Whisper when you join the next meeting. Stop early and focus the team on clearly documenting action items. Be more playful. The goal is to “get comfortable being uncomfortable” and to see whether these new settings increase your effectiveness.
As always, have fun, and tell me about it! What did you try? How did it work? Did it feel weird? Email me at heykev@kevinnoble.xyz. I’d seriously love to hear from you.
Kevin
Thanks for reading! If you loved it, please tell your friends and colleagues to subscribe here: https://kevinnoble.ck.page/
