5 Ways To Avoid Becoming Obsolete As A Leader

“I’ve learned how important it is to ensure that the people closest to problems have a role in designing solutions.”

—Melinda French Gates, in her Pledge Letter for the The Giving Pledge

Gates said her approach to philanthropy has always been data-driven, believing it’s important to set ambitious goals and measure progress against those goals.

But she also said this, in her Pledge Letter: “I’ve learned, however, that it’s equally important to place trust in the people and organizations we partner with and let them define success on their own terms.”

That is unleashing individuality.

This article is part four of a six-part series that features a blend of written content and short videos of individuals from across industries (doctors, professors, executives, deans and more):

• In part one I introduced the primary obstacle underscoring nearly every challenge leaders are facing today—that we’ve been suppressing individuals.
• In part two I helped us start assessing where we’re suppressing those we teach in our schools, treat in our healthcare settings, and lead in our organizations – by sharing wisdom directly from students, patients and employees.
• In part three I shared ideas about how we need to change the ways we lead (especially given the ways we’ve already changed the ways we work).

In this article I’ll share stories and quotes from leaders at our recent Leadership In the Age of Personalization Summit showing time and again how we have systems that were built to function within certain realities and based on certain criteria that are no longer true or valid.

• The realities have changed.
• The circumstances have changed.
• The priorities have changed.
• But the way they do things remains the same.

Why? Because people don’t take time to re-examine how they do things, why they do them that way, and whether or not it’s still good to continue to do things that way.

We don’t need to change just for the sake of change. But we DO need to change if it’s warranted, for the sake of the individuals who get gobbled up in the old ways.

Evolve or Become Obsolete

According to Robert Johnson, president of Western New England University: leading in ambiguity is the new norm. He also showed how our educational systems were created within the context of a reality that is no longer relevant or true. So we need to change those systems.

How it started:

Johnson said, “Our K through 12 system was created for an agrarian economy and it evolved to become more and more mechanistic” and standardized. Also, for all industries: “Once upon a time in a world far, far away, you could predict the future in your organizations because of standardization and [most] everything was predictable.”

How it’s going:

[After the changes of the pandemic,] “if anyone thinks that we're going to go back to the old way of doing it within higher education and in most industries in this new world, they are sorely, sorely wrong.”

He said, “We have to evolve or become obsolete.” Watch this short video for more.

Johnson described our role: “We have this crucial role as leaders to create what the next new normal is going to look like. And it centers around personalization.”

What Was ‘Weak,’ Now is Strong

Wendy York, dean of the Wilbur O. and Ann Powers College of Business at Clemson University, talked about this particular “before-and-after” that many women are familiar with.

How it started:

She said in business school she was taught that so-called feminine traits made her weak and would get her “chewed up on Wall Street” – traits like having a heart for people, being empathetic, and being aware of other people.

How it’s going:

“… [Those are actually] major strengths in leading organizations built on trust. Because if you create a trusting environment, you create an innovative environment. And when you let people come to work as their whole selves, they bring all sorts of talents and skills and passion.”

Watch here for more from York.

Here are 5 ways to avoid becoming obsolete as a leader:

1. Use Technology to Gain a 360-Degree View

Malvika Bhagwat is partner and head of outcomes for Owl Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on education technology.

How it started:

“I've always been fascinated with the idea of blurring the boundaries,” said Bhagwat. “Right now we spend a lot of time thinking about learning that happens in a school, versus things that happen at home, outside in nature, or in different environments where we have hobbies and have fun. Right now we don't have a holistic picture of the learner and everything that they're engaged with.”

How it’s going:

“For me, with the help of technology, getting to a point where we can see that 360-degree view of a learner would be huge – where we can start pulling into the classroom learnings that they're doing outside of the classroom, and vice versa, and bridge those gaps at any level of their journey.”

Watch here for more.

2. Change Rules That Are No Longer Relevant

Sometimes our lives depend on it.

Ed Kim is physician-in-chief of City of Hope Orange County, a leader in cancer treatment. He stressed the importance of re-thinking criteria for clinical trials (criteria are the standards people need to meet in order to be considered to participate in any given trial of a new drug or treatment).

How it started:

“I've written probably several hundred clinical trials. There is a lot of regulatory standardization. And as someone who's been on both sides (I've been on committees to review protocols,) I never understood why there were so many eligibility criteria: 37 criteria is the median number. It’s because our therapies in the past were only incrementally better. So, in order to measure statistically any improvement, that was enough to pass an FDA or regulatory hurdle, you needed to really control your population.”

How it’s going:

“But we don't want those incremental drugs anymore. We want great drugs that make a big difference in people. So the bar needs to be reset. And we need to reset it to include everyone.”

He said one of his missions is to reduce those eligibility criteria. After seven years, they’ve reduced seven criteria and they have six more on the way out.

“I know it doesn't sound like a lot,” said Dr. Kim, “but seven out of 37, that's a start. That's what I want to see, because we know medicine moves slow in some areas and rapid in others. This is an area we've just got to fight that standardization and be transformative.”

3. Rethink Who You Consider to be Experts

When you’re redesigning a cancer center, who is the expert: architects who’ve built many cancer centers in the past? Or patients, who have felt isolated by facilities designed for the convenience of caregivers rather than the humanity of the people receiving care?

Tom Jackiewicz is president and chief operating officer of University of Chicago Medical Center/UChicago Medicine Health System. He shared a story from personal experience, when he was confronted with this reality, when his institution was planning to build a new cancer center on campus.

Jackiewicz pointed out a flaw that most of us have, no matter our field of experience: when we rethink something, we start with what we know. As Jackiewicz put it: “When it comes to architecture, you ask people, ‘What's the perfect space?’ They know their current space, so they'll tell you the three things that are wrong with it.” The temptation is to start with what you know, fix what’s wrong, and go from there.

But that’s not transformational. And Jackiewicz said that’s not the kind of thinking they needed. The realities have changed, with the explosion of virtual health, and a renewed focus on patients as individuals.

“We want to think about patients,” said Jackiewicz. “When they walk in, what's the experience we're going to create? That's a very vulnerable moment for people. They've just gotten a diagnosis of cancer. They're coming in. They want to hear about their treatment plan. How are we going to make that experience different than it is today?”

How it started:

Jackiewicz said he had a meeting with architects, and the discussion was around making the new building cool and scientific, a very traditional healthcare building.

How it’s going:

He said two days later, they got the feedback from patients: “That's exactly what they DON’T want. They don't want it to feel like an x-ray. They want it to be warm. The want to feel like when they walk in, they're part of the family that they're going to be taken care of.”

Jackiewicz said the building is really just one aspect of the change. “This is about training people differently, to think about what we're going to do when patients come in. It's not just about the surgery or the treatments. It's about the whole experience we've created for each individual that really matters.”

4. Give People Freedom to Try Without Fear of Failure

Mony Iyer is chief operating officer of Banfield Pet Hospital, the leading provider of preventive veterinary care in the United States with more than 1,000 hospitals in 42 states, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, and Mexico.

He said the value in strengthening culture by unleashing individuality comes from allowing people to do their best when they're not worried about how they're perceived. He continued the thoughts shared earlier by Malvika Bhagwat and Tom Jackiewicz, about seeing the whole student, patient or, in this case, employee.

“As leaders, we need to make sure we're treating the whole individual when they come into work, and allowing them to be comfortable doing what they do best and ensuring they’re not worrying about how they're perceived.”

How it started:

“When people are worried about how they're perceived, they tend to focus on that rather than on doing their best work,” said Iyer.

How it’s going:

“We want people to come in and be able to try new things and not worry about failing. And that means removing the fear from them and allowing them to be comfortable being their true selves at work, being their whole selves at work.”

He gave an example to show what this can look like. A team from Banfield’s home office created something new to help support the field offices. He said it landed “with a thud.” But, he said: “The team took the feedback, re-engineered the solution, and put it out there again – this time to rave reviews. They were willing to own it themselves, not be afraid that that failure was going to cost them, go back and come up with a new solution that resulted in a better outcome for everybody. That is really what we're trying to get to by allowing people to not be afraid of failure.”

They wouldn’t feel free to fail if leaders didn’t make it known that they were valued as individuals with capacity and dignity.

5. Change The Culture, or it Won’t Stick

Ninfa Saunders is former CEO of Navicent Health, a nonprofit health system. She shared an adage that she uses: “Culture is like pinning gel on the wall. If you're not careful, it will never stick completely unless you do what needs to be done.”

How it started:

“There is this intersection between relevance and sustainability. Sometimes we're so focused on sustainability and we're not thinking about relevance.”

How it’s going:

“So the question must be asked as you go in and out of situations like the emergence from this crisis of COVID,” said Saunders. “Could we begin to ask the question, ‘What is the relevance of the current culture, and what is the pivot capability that we have defined ourselves in to be able to execute differently? And I think that's just so very important. This is always going to be a work in progress.”

It's Always a Work in Progress

I couldn’t agree more. As we’ve learned from each of these leaders, we have to be able to succeed in a world of ambiguity. And to do that, we need to be nimble enough to recognize what’s changed and change along with it. That’s a process that must never end.

Pre-order my new book, Unleashing Individuality: the leadership skill that unlocks all others.