This is part two of a three part series we are putting together to explore the delicate relationship between leadership and their teams.  In part 1, we addressed the issue and results of not properly handling this two way street.  The most important piece to remember is when you do not maintain this balance, crashes are often silent.  For part 3, we will explore the team members’ roles in maintaining the Two Way Street, but now we must direct our attention to the organizational level.

I see three pieces to the puzzle.  Infrastructure, process, and culture.  Being abundant or scarce in any of the three will not solve the Two Way Street for your organization.  The secret is what leadership should be doing daily; know your strengths and weak spots so you know where to lean when times get tough or where you might take on water first.

Infrastructure

I look at infrastructure as being the most difficult spot to accurately assess when exploring your ability to connect with your teams. The biggest reason is because you may have huge amounts of resources at your disposal in a large organization but they may not be deployed correctly, if at all.  The other side of the coin is small organizations may know how to leverage not only their own resources and infrastructure but even some from outside of their companies (ie. co-working spaces, networking groups, etc.).  So know this, just because you have resources, does not mean you have proper infrastructure in your organization from a people perspective.  The building can have carrara marble floors but still collapse on itself without infrastructure.

The predicament that leadership must face head on is the vision of how resources at your company’s disposal will be used.  NOT how they are deployed.  Any moron spending more time on his fantasy football team from home than doing actual work can throw money at problems.  This is “outside-in leadership.”  By that I mean, the dudes/dudets in suits do not necessarily understand the problems they are trying to solve.  They are not talking to the right people, enough people, or engaging enough time into solving the issue. They see a problem from far away and try to drive a possible solution into the situation. Go the opposite direction.  Who is the leader on that team? What do they know? What do they need to figure out from their team? Is there a problem on production or management side? Get inside the problem, empathize, and create the solution. Outside the box (or no box) thinking is great.  But don’t confuse that old cliché with how actively lead your company.

Resources normally mean dolla….dolla…bills y’all.  But your bank account is only a portion of your infrastructure.  Lean start-ups may not be flush.  Their solutions come in the measure of how they use their people.

Processes

“Stick to the process,” says every college football or NFL coach in order to avoid providing actual answers to the media’s questions. Well that is fine and dandy. It’s a bunch of crap when it comes to most problems, however. What they are really trying to say is “we have to stick together, persevere, and keep going together in the right direction over the long-term as a unit.” That response is a little too warm and fuzzy for most media and a bunch of football players.

While their response really has nothing to do with process, the ability to implement your infrastructure relies on how well you design your processes.  How do new team members get implemented? How does your team go about communicating ideas, results, and issues up and down the ladder? These are your processes.  Processes will be distinctive to every organization. So, to not waste time in a general post, I will break my own rule and not dive too much into the “how to” here. Here are some principles to follow in your processes.

Processes should be overdrawn, administratively burdensome, and a waste of time. Ha…just kidding. Hopefully you had a “…WTF…” moment. But that’s how processes can bog down teams.  They should be efficient, get across the most important points, and carry items to the needed parties.  I see too many times how upper management is getting 500 emails today and then they complain when they were not told about something. This is too much control in my eyes.  Do you really need cc’d on an email where you learn that you may or may not have people going to a preliminary planning meeting? Take a step back. I see exactly zero organizations do is set email formats or templates.  In a prescribed format, someone can refer back to something they have been copied on later but may see they are not the key contact on the current issue.  This hits the points I mentioned earlier. It’s efficient, measured by importance, and relevant.  Now, you can work to help your teams improve on more measurable skills like their judgment, communication, and engagement.

Culture

Great culture is your ultimate equalizer. It buys time when leadership makes a mistake. Culture props people up when they make mistakes themselves. Culture is the most important of the three pieces of the Two Way Street. Once you have great culture, it is self-fortifying and durable, but it also needs to be cared for.

When I first told one of the partners at my firm about my idea for Stark Business, they eventually came to the conclusion that I wanted to write about “having ping pong tables in the office.” Trust me, dogs, ping pong tables, massages, and even TVs do not create culture.  In Ben Horowitz’s The Hard Thing about Hard Things, he devotes a specific section on what is not culture.  Based on me writing about how this gangsta only spits truth, you should know how I feel about his ideas.

The culture of an organization is defined by the exact people inside the organization.  It should be consistent with the mission statement and vision of the company.  Too many times companies have one retreat per year for the team to “get to know each other outside of work.” Personal relationships will most certainly help your company culture, but do you really think what amounts to an elementary school field day with Bud Lights will actually create great culture?

The idea of culture is to impact people on a daily basis.  It does not have to be a monumental impact, but it has to be able to be felt each and every day by everyone in your organization.  Look at how your people interact with each other. How do casual interactions go? Are they stiff or actual personal interactions taking place? If it feels like a 15 year-old kid who loves The Beatles talking to the varsity football coach, there is some evidence that your culture could use some TLC.

Culture is so significant that it can save working relationships too.  This is the element of the leadership’s part in the Two Way Street that will retain more employees, maintain productivity, and push people through hard times more than anything else.  So, if you’re an executive level person not thinking of company culture….you’re not doing your job.