I am a deep believer in principle based leadership and decision making. There is no set of processes or approaches that can deal with every single context, but principles can guide our thinking and help us make wiser and better decisions.
For nearly 12 years at Microsoft I was looking for and seeking to discover the principles by which teams, business units, or entire organizations within Microsoft built sustaining impact. There is no one principle that fixes everything, but I have boiled down 12 years of observation into a simple four world principle.
Seek light. Fight dark.
Josh Nicholls
Organizational darkness* drains energy, shrinks trust, narrows possibilities and ultimately destroys value.
Examples of organizational darkness can look like this: (hopefully this is not overly common)
- Gossip and back-channel blame and communication
- Withholding or distorting information
- Public shaming or humiliation
- Discouragement of appropriate risk-taking
- Turf wars and protection of silos
- Unclear or shifting priorities
- Shadow projects and hidden agendas
- Micromanagement that signals mistrust
- Humor that excludes or demeans
- Rewards (not always monetary) for behavior incongruent with organizational values
It seems relatively easy to spot darkness but it is not. It creeps into our interactions daily and if we do not actively fight the darkness in our organizations we will be sowing the seeds of destruction.
Organizational light* on the other hand is the opposite as you would expect. It energizes, uplifts, strengthens, empowers, builds trust, and expands people’s capacity to do good work.
Examples of organizational light can look like this:
- Candid, caring feedback focused on growth
- Public recognition of effort and small wins
- Psychological safety
- Story-telling that highlights collective purpose
- Celebrating learning from failure
- Cross-functional collaboration that reduces silos
- Clear, values-based codes of conduct that are lived
- Encouraging experimentation
- Clarity of priorities and strategy
- Empowerment coupled with accountability
It does not take much to seek light and reinforce it. If you seek light in your organization you will find it and you will also attract more light. This becomes a virtuous cycle that builds a culture and organization that delivers value and strengthens people.
Now a four part invitation to make this practical.
Part 1:
- Write down a specific situation in which you are experiencing organizational darkness. Be as specific as possible.
Part 2:
- Create a list of three ways you can “fight dark” in this situation.
Part 3:
- Create a list of three ways you can “seek light” in this situation.
Part 4:
- Act on one or more of the things you created in part 2 and 3.
Light cannot exist without the dark. We will experience them both and we can always use these four words to help us collapse the polarity and make decisions about any challenge we are facing at work or in life. Seek light. Fight dark.
*While these are my own observations I would be remiss to not recognize the very similar overlap in thinking and ideas to some expressed in the book Leading Through by Kim B. Clark.
