Vote first, then discuss – to increase variability, which enables innovation and better decision- making. Psychological safety refers to how safe individuals feel to share their thoughts and feelings without judgment. This “vote first, then discuss” approach requires individuals to feel safe enough to dissent.

It turns out that immediate, positive, and certain rewards are the most powerful for establishing and maintaining a behavior. In these blinks, you’ll learn to identify outdated formulations you’re probably still using – and to develop new ones better suited to the workplace of today. If you speak Spanish or Chinese, for instance, either way you still need to understand how to craft a budget, run a meeting more effectively, and set goals. In any language, we all have times when we must be able to negotiate. And language is no differentiator in the need to think more strategically, to develop and execute winning business plans, and to identify areas where innovation will really pay off. It’s these common business situations and concerns that unite and move us forward. The Connect Play is the “enabling play” for all the other plays. “The Connect Play is about caring – caring what people think, caring how they feel, caring for their personal goals. Instead of judging from a position of power, we walk alongside from a position of encouragement” (p. 219). Marquet lists four principles of The Connect Play: Saving El Faro. Had they been enabled by “the power of connection,” the crew and captain of El Faro would have used language more effectively and constructively, and the outcome would have been entirely different.Pay attention to share of voice. If there are four people and each person says 25% of the words spoken, you have a perfectly balanced share of voice. One aspect of the El Faro tragedy is how unevenly the talking time was shared on the bridge. Thinking work, benefits from variability (VS doing work that benefits from reduced variability). When you brainstorm, for example, you want as many ideas as possible to emerge. And when you make decisions, you like to have options. That’s why good leaders reject the old division between deciders and doers and instead include all team members in the decision-making process. They know what Galton knew: that the wisdom of many is almost always superior to the wisdom of one. This approach also increases people's motivation, people given autonomy over their work are happier and less prone to burnout. BEDDOES-JONES, F. and SWAILES, S. (2015) Authentic leadership: development of a new three pillar model.Strategic HR Review. Vol 14, No 3. pp94-99. In September 2015, a container ship named El Faro set sail from Florida to deliver goods to Puerto Rico. The ship maintained its usual route, despite warnings from the crew about treacherous conditions caused by Hurricane Joaquin. The dangerous waters were insurmountable. El Faro sank off the coast of the Bahamas. Improve, don’t prove–Ask your people to improve on plans and processes, rather than prove that they can meet fixed goals or deadlines.

Losing El Faro. Communication records from a sunken container ship, El Faro, show that collaboration and communication were not fostered onboard. The crew’s concerns – which could have saved the vessel had they been heeded – were never given serious consideration. The tragedy is Exhibit A of the strictly top-down leadership style that needs to be retired in many arenas today. We replaced a language of invulnerability and certainty with a language of vulnerability and curiosity. Saying “can’t” implies there’s an external force trying to keep you from an undesired action. When you use the word “don’t,” on the other hand, the power comes from inside you. Intrinsic motivation is much more powerful in driving human behavior than compliance with an outside force.

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Running meetings: Vote first then discuss. This stops the anchoring effect where attendees follow the leader. If you’re running your meeting properly and divergent thinking still isn’t happening, your responsibility as a leader is to go looking for it. In a fast-paced age of innovation, we need new leadership strategies, starting with language. “After all, what is leadership but language?”

Whether your team speaks Chinese, or Spanish, or Portuguese, or English – or, in our complex global world some of each – when it comes to the language of leadership, with Harvard ManageMentor, nothing will get lost in translation.Focus on journey, not destination – to allow individuals to share the steps they took to reach a goal. This reinforces successful behaviors (pp. 179-181). The Collaborate Play runs in bluework – thinking and decision-making. Collaboration should produce a hypothesis that can be tested during redwork. You probably don’t realize it, but the language most of us use in our twenty-first century workplace is a relic of the Industrial Age. It’s designed to maximize efficiency, reinforce hierarchy, and encourage conformity. But the world has changed a lot in the past century. These days, adaptability, teamwork, and diversity are more important to a company’s success. So why are we still using a playbook developed for a different era?