Friday Reflection (No.63): Attention Management + Shared Responsibility = Collective Impact
June 30, 2023
“You’re all I need to get by.”
Method Man featuring Mary J. Blige
This track from Method Man is one of hip hop’s greatest love ballads and has one of the catchiest backing tracks of the mid-90s…thanks to the master RZA.1
At the same time, the chorus -“You’re all I need to get by” - could just as easily be a mantra that high performing top teams repeat to each other and to their teams. The reason is that success at the most senior levels increasingly requires unprecedented levels of coordination across functions and geographies.
Leadership principle: Attention Management combined with Shared Responsibility unlocks the power of collective impact.
I have a new least favorite corporate buzzword: Collaboration.
While the intent of emphasizing collaboration is positive, its overuse as the panacea for all the ills of organizational life has led the word to lose its meaning.
Given that, for leaders who aspire to have teams that achieve the holy grail of “the sum being greater than the parts,” I suggest emphasizing “collective impact” instead of collaboration.
I prefer the concept of “collective impact” for three reasons. First, the concept stands the test of time. Philosophies as ancient as Taoism emphasize the importance of interconnectedness as a path to impact.2 Second, collaboration focuses on activity whereas collective impact emphasizes outcomes. And third, collaboration feels passive (‘hey colleague - let’s work together’) whereas collective impact is active (‘let’s pull out all the stops and put our egos aside to make this happen’).
But how do you unlock the power of collective impact?
First, you have to get the right strategy and the right complementary team in place. These steps are necessary but insufficient.3
Two other key ingredients are 1) Attention Management and 2) Shared Responsibility.
Attention Management
Many leaders misdiagnose attention issues as time issues. In most cases, time is not the problem. It’s misplaced attention. That means that the solution is not simply “prioritization” or “time management,” but rather attention management.
In practice, attention management means being intentional about where you place your focus each week, month, quarter, semester, year and strategic planning horizon (i.e., 2-5 years depending on the organization).
The benefits of this approach are reinforced by cognitive science research. In fact, Michael Posner’s research revealed that our focus operates much like a spotlight. We process information more rapidly and accurately when it's in the limelight of our cognitive spotlight than when it’s on the periphery.
It can be hard enough to ensure our own attention “spotlight” is pointed towards the right things. When you introduce the complexity of having to coordinate across functions and geographies, it feels daunting to ensure our peers simultaneously focus their attention on the same stage.
While there are no silver bullets, one practical way to think about directing the attention spotlight of a top team is through the lens of mindshare.
Each leader on the team needs to be explicit about roughly what percent of their mindshare will be allocated toward each enterprise-level priority. Then they need to debate as a team (or as a subset of the team) whether the allocation for each leader is sufficient to achieve the desired outcome.
In one example, Xiomara, Chief Operating Officer at a global company, shared her planned “mindshare” across her key seven priorities in a discussion with members of the top team. Their feedback during the discussion suggested she reallocate more attention to a critical initiative, crucial for meeting profitability targets. This insight led her to lean more heavily on her team in other areas and place greater focus on this initiative for the upcoming quarter.
Shared Responsibility
Attention management ensures that each leader has the right sheet music. However, having the right sheet music doesn’t necessarily mean the music will be in sync.
This is where shared responsibility comes in.
Shared responsibility means a) taking ownership for your own individual role in shared goals (especially when others stand to benefit more than you), b) proactively negotiating interdependencies between your team and that of other leaders and c) creating the conditions for open communication and specific feedback.
And most importantly, it means that when overall enterprise goals create tension between the functional goals of two or more leaders4, these leaders really seek to empathize with the perspective of their counterpart and have the maturity to make necessary tradeoffs that allow the enterprise to achieve its goal.
Shared responsibility is one of those concepts that sounds nice in theory, but in practice is fraught with peril, especially when it comes to incentives in the private sector. That said, some of the leading companies when it comes to shared responsibility are experimenting with creative bonus objectives to alleviate these tensions. Without these types of incentives, teams must rely on high levels of candor and commitment to reinforce shared responsibility.
When you have the right gameplan and the right people on the court, the combination of attention management and shared responsibility will reveal that your teammates can indeed be “all you need to get by,” even in the face of increased uncertainty and pressure.
Take Action: Practical and Proven Steps
Create an outcome-based set of priorities that defines each leader’s specific role in delivering the enterprise strategy (Leadership Scorecard): Have each member of your team translate the outcomes from your team or organizational scorecard5 into their personal leadership scorecard by articulating their role in delivering the key strategic priorities for the organization. Then have them assign a specific “mindshare percentage” to each of the priorities (total should be no more than 100%).
Discuss and pressure-test mindshare. As a full team or in small groups, have each leader share their scorecard and answer a specific set of questions.6 Then have the rest of the group respond and pressure test their thinking on “mindshare percentage” as well as anything else they think the leader should have on her radar to deliver the outcomes on her leadership scorecard.
Make shared responsibility a habit. Choose at least 3 peers on the team to set-up a quarterly cadence with a standing agenda that has the following three topics: a) Aspiration vs. Reality on Mindshare for the last quarter; b) Progress on the outcomes where you have shared responsibility; c) Mutual feedback (do more of X/do less of Y/keep doing Z)
Reflect: Some Questions to Consider
What is your optimal mindshare across your priorities for the second half of the year?
Which 2-3 priorities have the highest degree of dependence on the efforts of your peers?
For the priorities or initiatives you identified in question 2, what do you need from your peers to achieve your goals? And what do they need from you to achieve their goals? How explicit have you been with each other about the answers to these questions?
If this week’s Friday Reflection was practical or enjoyable (or maybe even both!), please share it with your colleagues and friends.
I have so much to say about this song. First, this line from the bridge describes the feeling I had when I first set eyes on my wife: “Like sweet morning dew / I took one look at you / And it was plain to see / You were my destiny.”
Second, Meth does an artful job at appealing to all genders on this track. It’s not too LL Cool J and it’s also avoids many of the misogynistic tones of many other hip hop ballads (ok ok not completely but he did well for a mid 90s track).
Third, the Biggie vocal sample just hits…
Last, one of my favorite lines just flows so nice from Meth - “And I got made love to give…”
Perhaps one of my favorite maxims from Taoism that relates to interconnectedness: “"I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.” These three treasures are at the heart of interconnectedness and cooperation, yet it can be REALLY hard to approach all relationships this way.
I’ve written extensively on the topic of complementary teams as it is the single most important lever to achieving organizational goals.
And this happens ALL THE TIME!
I’ve written more on how to develop an organizational scorecard in the practical actions of this Friday Reflection.
Here’s a starting point for the questions but feel free to make them your own:
How did you think about allocating your mindshare across priorities?
Which outcome do you have the most confidence in your ability to deliver?
Which one will be most challenging? Why?
From whom on the leadership team will you need support and partnership? What do you need from them?