What is this Supposed to Look Like?

When my son, Max, was two years old and our son, Teddy, was a newborn, our family left our cramped Philly apartment and bought a house in the burbs about ten miles away.

Sitting on the floor of our new home, grateful and exhausted, my wife and I noticed something.

Max, who was pretty mobile at that point, was halfway up the staircase that led from the living room to the bedrooms. These steps were steep and there were a lot of them.

We’d never lived anywhere that had steps, and I couldn’t remember if he’d ever even seen steps. At my in-law’s place, I remembered, but maybe he was too preoccupied with the family and the dog to even notice.

But he did notice these steps and he was crawling up and down them like he’d just discovered the greatest toy of all-time.

Of course, this was dangerous, and so we put a stop to it immediately. We set up baby gates at the bottom and the top of the steps, and our issue was solved.

What this took, was me and my wife asking ourselves, “What is this supposed to look like?” And realizing right away, that our two-year-old having the time of his life on the steps was not it.

I ask leaders often, during their team meetings, their presentations, feedback sessions, or even walkthroughs of the physical space, “What is this supposed to look like?”

Often, the leaders either have trouble answering because they don’t know, or, they do know and are really annoyed at themselves because it looks nothing like their vision.

I’ll observe a virtual meeting and half the team has their cameras off. Okay, that’s not objectively bad at all. But, what’s the expectation? Because honestly, when my camera is off, I’m checking email and barely listening. I imagine others are the same. So I ask them, “What is this supposed to look like?”

When someone on the team needs something and they reach out to the CEO because they’re either unclear on how they should go about getting it because there’s no system, or there is a system, but it forces people to go in circles for so long, they reach out to the boss instead, I ask them, “What is this supposed to look like?”

Recently, I observed a training that a company ran for their internal team. It was slated to start at 1pm, but the facilitator, a person on the team, showed up at 1:10. Without communicating they’d be late and without apology. And during his session, the team interjected so often that his slideshow devolved into a conversation that only a few people (those with the most significant titles) engaged in. Others sat there silently.

I leaned over to the CEO during the session, “What is this supposed to look like?”

Leaders, if you don’t know, define it. What would meet your bar? What would allow you all to achieve greater results?

If you do know, but you haven’t communicated it or you’re not holding people accountable to it, know that those people they actually want you to do that. The people with their cameras on during the Zoom are annoyed at those who have theirs off. The person who needs to bug the CEO when someone else could handle it is embarrassed and wants a better way, and the people in the training who were made to wait and who were then forced to listen to a conversation for an hour actually want to be developed and want to know that you know their time is valuable.

What is this supposed to look like? Ask yourself. Define it. Reset when it’s even slightly off.