... as I mentioned below, Mark Petersen's post about safety vs. risk got me to thinking. His post started off with this line ... "I sat on a plane last week and cried" ... which will get your attention. Mark has a great/responsible/challenging/rewarding role in a foundation that is working hard towards their vision of 'building charity capacity and stimulating innovative programs' in organizations across Canada and the world. Basically, this foundation attempts to support non-profit organizations that bring transformation to communities around the world.So when, in Mark's words ... "it was the first time it hit me so starkly that some people will ultimately choose to go down the safe, predictable pathway that leads to … safe predictability … but also low impact, reduced relevance, and minimal discomfort" ...
I went back to thinking about risk and reward. Mark goes on ...
The scriptures in Matthew 25:14-30 and Luke 19:12-27 hit me - the one of the person who digs a hole to sock the valuable away for another day. Thinking that they are preserving the treasure, they end up hiding it and covering it up. The eventual result, I fear, is they will forget where it is hidden, and eventually will walk around aimlessly knowing there are gold coins in the earth somewhere … but where?
Why, when we are faced with the potential of multiplying impact, do we shrink back and maintain the status quo? Why are we motivated by fear, not faith? This paschal weekend, mediate on this thought: the story of Easter is one of great risk".
Back in January 2007 when I began the Executive Arrow leadership program, one of the presenters was Bobb Biehl, a former VP at World Vision International. As Director of World Vision Volunteers, he designed and developed programs which raised millions of dollars worldwide. Anyhow, Biehl went on to establish the MasterPlanning Group, and some very simple but very helpful and even profound leadership and management and planning tools, some of which I try to use regularly.
One of Biehl's dozen or so books is titled ... Stop Setting Goals If You Would Rather Solve Problems ... which, I admit, sounded kind of hokey to me at first. But I was wrong, and I bought my very own copy.
Here's his thesis ... about 15% of the western world's population are goal setters. You know them, always wanting to set targets, measure results, begin with the end in mind, establish critical performance measures. They also ( according to Bobb, but I concur ) want everyone else to be like them, and if you're not, they kind of make you feel like a second class citizen. Biehl was one of these people for 25 years of his career, building promotion upon promotion, even his consulting practice on goal setting. One day he had an 'aha' moment. In the course of working with a client he observed a pattern that was new to him ... some people are natural problem solvers. Goal setting is counter-intuitive to them. They're never going to get it. So he went to work asking around his clientele ... and came to the conclusion that 80% of the population are problem solvers. That certainly puts things in perspective. But what about the remaining 5% ... who are they? what are they like? what's their bent, their unique contribution? He decided the 5% are what he calls opportunity oriented ( not opportunists ). He fleshes this out in the book, but in thinking about it, I fleshed it out myself some, and wrote to him, hoping I will get honourable mention in the next edition of 'Stop Setting Goals' ... just to have my name in a footnote about stopping goal setting would be an 'honour' :)I simply do not 'get' goal setters. I knew exactly what he was talking about when he began to describe them. But if I simply don't get them ... I know I drive goal setters crazy. Trust me. So while I can't shed much light on their psyche, I think I have a few insights into the problem solvers and the opportunity oriented among us ( 85% ).
Among the Problem Solvers there must be at least 2 kinds ... those who are natural fixers ... and those who anticipate problems. The fixers are great, when stuff goes off the rails they like to get in there and put it back together. The anticipators are fixers as well, but my experience says they have this intuition, or something, that smells a problem in the works. Often, if you let them, they will go after the problem before it becomes obvious to everyone, and do a preemptive strike. Obviously, these are important people to have around as well. I was surprised he pegged them at 80% ... but he's been around the block a time or two.
Then there are the Opportunity Oriented. I came up with three basic kinds of OO's ... first, there are those who respond to an opportunity when presented with one. Second, there are those who, like the anticipatory fixers, recognize an opportunity in the offing. Something about discernment? Or vision maybe? Then there's the third category ... the opportunity creators. These folks, maybe they're entrepreneurs? have a way of sniffing out the combination of people, circumstances, resources, momentum, serendipity and maybe luck that tells them there is a gold mine here IF we take a little time, and maybe risk, to uncover it, or put the pieces of the puzzle together, or align the right conversations. This, btw, drives goal setters nuts.
What do you think? Am I way off base, or does your experience semi-confirm this? I can tell you where I was sitting in a conference room in the Gatineau Hills of Quebec where the lights went on for me. I was constantly PO'd at those goal setters. All about the numbers. All about proof. All about stats. No room for mystery, or intuition, or gut-sense. Now I can put them where they belong ... in the 15% file. I'm not saying there's no place for them, I am just saying there's a right place for them ... maybe. Somewhere. Probably once the real vision/direction has been set and some accountability is needed?
So I played around with this a little ... thinking about the leadership teams I have been part of, and Biehl's 80 / 15 / 5 rule of thumb isn't all that far off. In one leadership body half the staff were opportunity oriented: half recognize/respond and half creators, the other half creative advance fixers. The board were almost all problem solvers: mostly fixers, with a couple of anticipators, and there was one goal setter ( who stuck out like a sore thumb ). No wonder leadership team dynamics were unique ... mostly we had figured out how to work together, but boy, I wish I had this insight 10-15-20 years ago.
All that to say ... Mark P is an opportunity recognizer/creator. He sat, in tears, on a plane ... why? maybe because he had run into the 80% rule ... after-the-fact problem solvers who could not rise to the opportunity being presented to them. Scroll back up and re-read the rest of this quote again ... "people go down the safe, predictable pathway that leads to … safe predictability … but also low impact, reduced relevance, and minimal discomfort" ... and ask yourself ... who are the problem solvers in your world? the goal setters? the opportunity oriented?
I don't think one is better than the other ( although I tend to like some more than others ). I think we probably need each other to get things done, but we need to recognize each other's unique contributions. How might I do that better than I have? How can we together avoid having ORD ... 'Opportunity Recognition Deficit'?
Maybe the graphic below is a different way of saying the same thing?
... be a synthesizer.
dlc
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