Executive success is all about taking risks while limiting the downside–and when it comes to promoting someone who might not be up to the job, my favourite expert on this topic isn’t Nassim Taleb, but my parents.
You see, my mother and father were very clever in how they talked to me about Santa Claus, because they didn’t want me to be shocked by finding out he didn’t exist. So they consistently told me that “Santa lives in the land of make-believe”. When I was tiny, I thought this land might be around the corner or down the street, so it was easy to assume that Father Christmas existed just like anyone else. Gradually, I figured out that make-believe things weren’t real, but there was never a sudden revelation; after all, I’d always known Santa was make-believe, hadn’t I?
I tell clients to do something similar when they want to stretch a team member, but aren’t sure whether she can handle the new responsibility. For instance, if you’re going on holiday, ask the prospective team lead to run the standup in your absence. If it goes well, make it official on your return; if it’s too much for her to handle, it’s natural for you to step back into the role. In the latter case, there’s no shock or undue embarrassment, and you’re free to try again later when she has improved skills; after all, we always knew the position was only temporary, didn’t we? Experimentation works just as well for team structure as it does for product development; the trick in both cases is to set things up so everyone learns and improves when the experiment has a negative result.
This first appeared in my weekly Squirrel Squadron email, which goes out every Monday, and was originally posted on 5th December 2022. To get my provocative thoughts and tips direct to your inbox first, sign up here: https://squirrelsquadron.com/