Full Transcript for Ep 24: How to Make Difficult Change Happen With Mission Critical Systems Expert Jon Berger

probab they probably don't. I don't think I'll probably have any listening. So why Jon Berger: I if if they are listening and you're a president, please please let us know. We we can we Anne: Okay. Jon Berger: can tune out we can tune we can tune it straight for you. Anne: It did. But at the moment, let's work on the assumption that that that this is not it's not the majority of our of our listeners. if I am a a junior manager or a a young person or even a middle manager or a senior manager but not a president, the president of the United States, why should I care about leadership and why should I put the time and effort into learning how to do it better? Jon Berger: Yeah, good question. What's in it for me? So leadership leadership is a tool. Why would I want to use that tool? one of the the the the commonly used definitions of leadership is leadership is getting things done using other people. I'm not sure that's that's all there is to it. sometimes I might want to lead myself and and leading oneself is a is a chapter in the book. I think that is important. But if you want to get things done, Then leadership is a fantastic tool or set of tools that you can use to get things done. If you don't care about getting things done, sure, don't bother using leadership. I think, and if I look back at my career from when I started to want to get things done using other people, and saw all of the many and wonderful ways in which I failed to do that. I just didn't really understand what I was doing. I wasn't thinking about them. I didn't understand what was in their heads. I didn't understand the tools that I could use to make things happen and to align folks to to to get the value from the fact that there were a bunch of us rather than just me. Then I think there's there's a lot that That most people can learn. And it in fact I think I believe there's a lot that everyone can learn because no one can be perfect at leadership. there's Anne: Yeah, so rolling back there, what you're saying there is that it's a tool for if you want to be getting things done, if you want some things to be happening and they are not happening. And that doesn't, I mean, obviously your context is software engineering projects. So you're managing teams of software engineers and it isn't quite it isn't delivering the thing that you wanted it to deliver. So that is a that is a signifier that maybe leadership is a tool that you should be using. Jon Berger: Yeah, you're not getting what you want. You're get or you're getting it, but you're getting it too slowly. or you're not sure whether you're getting what you want, you know. A and and if you're not achieving success more, better leadership will help you. thinking about how, thinking about that in your context is going to be important and valuable. Anne: Yeah, and the and the interesting thing is the book, although the context that you've come into this is managing and leading teams of developers to produce really difficult technical

products, the the tools, the the techniques that you're describing are very generic. They don't they don't generally just they're just they're not in any way specific to IT. Jon Berger: Yeah, absolutely. There's really nothing in the tools there that is specific software. And in fact, the the the the great feedback we've had from early readers has has backed that up from people in different industries who've said, yes, I this is a brilliant toolbox of things that I can use to to get things done, to make things happen. so yeah, so we know that's true. The the other thing to say is getting things done sounds like a very Top-down, I'm the boss and want to make things happen, sort of statement. and that that's that's absolutely important. And if more people make things happen successfully as a result of the book, I'll be very happy. But that's only part of what what we're we're talking about. I I I'd love everyone to be a leader. Everyone in a team should be a leader. More leadership is a good thing. And that leadership that you can display. as a team member influencing other people, influencing the rest of the team to to do what you're doing better, to be better aligned, to go faster, to achieve a better result. it's true wherever you are in the organisation. Anne: Yeah, and I I I I love a team where everyone's a leader. I absolutely they're my favorite teams. I it's a and sometimes Jon Berger: They're the best teams. For sure, for sure. That is a that is the gold standard. Anne: Rice. next question is, you've said you have a lot of experience, you said you did a lot of things and you a lot of training and face-to-face training and coaching, all that kind of stuff. But why did you write it all down in a book? Jon Berger: why did I write it down? In in in some ways this is a book about pain. Poor leadership incurs a lot of pain. and I've worked with a lot of leaders who've who've led in different ways. And I have been led well and I have been led poorly, but more to the point, I have led well and I have led poorly. And that poor leadership generates enormous amount of pain in lots of different ways, but both for the leader, but actually more more importantly, really for everyone else. I I loved good leadership and and and bad leadership is is just s is a challenge in so many different ways and a really interesting one. Having experienced both sides of that I wanted to try something new. So I spent many years running training courses for leaders and managers throughout my organization, not just in my teams, but but but across the the whole of the organization. And that led me to have loads of different conversations with different people. And I learned not just what I thought good leadership was was about or bad leadership was about, where the pain points were. I learned that from lots of different people in the organization. And so I could pull all of that together into some lessons that I could learn on what I think goodly good leadership was really

about, how it worked, what worked well, what didn't work well, how to think about that, because what worked well in one environment might might not work well in a different environment. and and and I found that the more of the time I spent on that. that leadership development in other people, the more I spent time I spent on training, the easier my job became, and the less pain I personally had to experience, and the less pain other people had to experience as well. So the the book is in some ways a story of pain, but it but it's not a negative story. It's a positive story because although you have to acknowledge the pain, I think and acknowledging that pain is a good way of building trust and acknowledging really where you are and ensuring you're on the same page as other people. The the goal is to is to is to get out the other side of that and and be happy. And the the book is a positive story of of how how to do that and how to cure that pain. Anne: So, How to Alleviate Pain, it's actually a very good book, it's a very cheerful book and it's very funny and it's very self-deprecating. It's all the kind of like, here's all the things I learned through pain and here's how I tried to applying pain to my followers. And it was quite clear in your book that you felt some pain, your followers felt some pain and between you, managed to find ways of alleviating it. Then you wrote it down. so that you can teach other people so that they didn't then feel the pain, but also didn't inflict the pain on the people who beneath them. And there was a result. You all delivered really difficult projects, difficult products, much, much more successfully. That was the interesting thing about the work. It was, it's a very good book. It certainly changed my view of leadership and strategy and management. So it's got a great name. What happens when you're not in the room? It's with a question mark at the end. So I quite like that, a question as the name of your book. Why did you choose that name? Jon Berger: so there are a lot of great leadership books out there. I I read a lot of a lot of leadership books. I I like them. I find that they're a good way of getting new ideas into my head and and many of those leadership books are ones I I reference in mine so I think it's helpful for people to know about them. but I wanted to do something a little bit different. I don't want a set of instructions, I don't want a recipe, I don't want a single idea that you just have to apply in all scenarios. N not because they're not interesting, I like some of those books, but because the reality of leadership is is it's way harder than that. it it's very much context dependent. And and the difficult thing isn't the the idea, isn't, isn't the the the answer to the question. It's actually getting a good making sure you're asking the right question in the first place. That's the that's the reality. That's the bit which grounds you and where you are. So I wanted a book which covered a lot

of ground. Because I didn't want just one thing. I didn't want this this thing works in this circumstance, but not in in the normal case. Because there in in some senses there isn't a normal case. There's just so many different possible contexts that you can be in. so I wanted something that that I would benefit from twenty five years ago, twenty years ago, fifteen years ago, ten years ago, five in all the different contexts I've been. What what would have been useful to me? What would be useful to other people who are in yet yet again different contexts to help them to think for themselves about what the right answer is, rather than just to have something dictated to them And that naturally meant the the the book is that the the title is a question, not an answer. It's not an always do this, but it might be this is a pretty good question to be asking yourself. No matter what the the the context. And it if you're gonna do that, your your your title has to be well what is the point of it all? What is the point of leadership? And and the point of leadership is that you're not doing the work, someone else is. Success is not measured by what you do when you are in the room. Success is what happens when you're not in the room. And leadership is how you influence the people who are in the room. And that is why this is a book about leadership. And that's why it's a powerful question to ask. Because in in any context, you you should be thinking, what really is the effect here? Am I getting what I want? Anne: So obviously, the question that that brings to mind is, you said that the book has lots and lots of things in it. Lots of different techniques, lots of different ideas. What kind of ideas? What kind of things would I will I be reading if when I'm reading the book? Jon Berger: there are lots of different things. But you know, at a very high level, the concepts in the book include some some stories just to help illustrate either a problem scenario or a solution scenario. lots of questions that people can ask, lots of ideas that might help people. you to navigate your way forward. and and thought processes, which are mostly in the form of helpful models which help you to get round an idea. So so I have not written a book which is written for any one particular reader to go, well this matches exactly what I'm doing today. Because that's not possible. So I've got a lot of different models in there. I really like models as a way of helping people to think, okay, it is a slightly simplistic view of the world, but does it match what I'm doing now? actually it does. Brilliant. I can go and do that. ways of helping people to think about their context. to help them. to make positive decisions and and if you're if you're getting stuck, they're a great way of getting unstuck. But more importantly, they're a great way of helping people to lead themselves. Anne: So what's your favorite model in the book? Jon Berger: Well, there are a lot of good models. And the answer to that question probably changes on a daily basis depending on depending on what what w which of the models feels most useful to me at the time. But but but but today's answer to that is going to be the car model, I think. I I do like the car model because it is simple, hopefully easy to to explain and understand, but it's actually quite powerful. and the car model is is sort of an that people people struggle with leadership because Because they're not clear on whether they're doing it or not. And that is, it's unclear to them whether they're doing it or not, because leadership is essentially an infinite collection of different things, all of which relates to what happens when you're not in the room. So if people want to know what they're doing, whether they're leading or not, then the car model is an answer to that question. And The car model is is quite simple. I am leading successfully if my team is motivated to go and do anything, if they know where they're going and how to get there, and if I'm not stopping them from getting there. So the car model is do we have any motive power? Is my foot on the gas? Is the engine running? Right? That's motivation. Is my foot on the gas? Steering is strategy. Do the team know where they're going and how to get there? And lastly, but but really very importantly, is my foot on the brake? It's like because if my foot's on the brake, if I'm a bottleneck here that stops things from happening, it doesn't really matter how powerful the engine is and how good the steering is, the team's still not getting there, or it's still not getting there very fast. So I like that model as just a If if the if there is a problem with leadership almost all problems are problems of leadership at some level, then I can say, well, wait a minute, is the problem do I need to put more effort into the motivation to get the team going? Is the problem actually steering related, that they're moving, they're just not moving in the right direction? Or is the problem actually that that my foot's on the brake somehow and and it's it's actually removing something which will help me to go faster? Anne: Yeah, it's interesting. think about that is a good model. I do like that one. I think about that one quite often. It's like, am I motivated? Do know where I'm going? Is my foot on the brake or somebody else's foot on the brake? Because you have a whole chapter which is about leading yourself is just another variant of leading teams and leading everybody else. So I think my favorite model though, I like car model, but I think my favorite model is the the followability model. Are you, are you followable? I like the whole man and the whole thing. So tell us a little bit about that. Jon Berger: Yeah, the followability model is is is another fun little model. It took me a while to to realise it was actually important to ask these questions. I don't think they're common questions to ask, but they are very useful in terms of becoming a better

leader. And and followability breaks down into into two things. One is does someone want to follow me? And secondly, are they capable of following me? So Do they want to follow me? That's that's sort of pretty easy to understand. It's a positive thing. The more I do to encourage people to follow me, the better. But there's another part of that which people don't ask as often, which is, is it possible for someone to follow me? And the the classic thing that I know I've I've seen on both sides of this many times in my career is that the the leader might actually have that positive clarity on where they're going. But what they don't have is an acknowledgement that the people they're trying to lead right now are in a hole. And it doesn't matter that they have this wonderful vision that over the horizon, just over there is everything we want. Let's just go over there. And their poor team are going, no, but how do we get out of this hole? It doesn't we're we're not looking for the direction after we get out of the hole. We just need a ladder. We just need we just Lower us a rope, do something. Acknowledge even that that that that we're in a hole so that you don't run off over the horizon and leave us in the hole. Right. And that acknowledgement that followability requires that that is it even possible for someone to go with me? Well what's what might be stopping them? I need to remove those problems that might be stopping them. And the the but also the the massive increase in again trust. that you get from saying, yeah, I see the hole you're in. This is the plan to get out of the hole, and then we're going to go over there and do that thing. Anne: Yeah, I really like that. It's amazing how many times you, as a consultant, I used to be a consultant, it's amazing how many times the first thing you had to do was work out the hole that everybody was in and then work out how they were going to get out of that hole because it just doesn't matter what other whizzy vision that the senior managers have. because everybody's saying, well, you you're not even vaguely paying any attention to the fact that we're in a hole. And I don't know if you're any pan for getting us out of this. It's like, yeah, first, first you start here. Yeah, I did like, really like, I liked all the models. were all very, you know, there were lots of, a lot of people models as well, which we won't go into in this episode, but fundamentally, I enjoyed the book all around. was, was, and I've read it quite a few times still. So I've enjoyed the book. You've got a lot out of writing the book. You wrote the book so that to effectively codify your own learning that you'd used to eliminate some of your pain and then taught other people. So they eliminated the pain that they were experiencing, which was then alleviating your own pain in the future. So where do we get this book? It's like, how do we get hold of it? Jon Berger: Yep. so it is now available on Amazon. There will be a link in the show notes or you can visit JonBergerLeadership.com Leadership dot com where there will be a link from there as well. Anne: Excellent. So, well, thank you. Thanks very much for being a guest on this and announcing your book. Hopefully, lots of other people will come on the podcast to announce that you are the first book announcements episode we've done. But yeah, hopefully many more to come because I massively approve of people writing books, especially books that codify their hard-won experience. And I massively approve of reading books or listening to them however you consume your books. But I'm a big fan of reading. I do like to read my books in my Kindle. I've quite a lot of authors on this podcast and I'm a huge, a huge believer. I like talking to Chachapiti as well, but it's not quite the same. In a book, you get all the arguments and you get the real life experience and you know, that's, that's worth so much. So thank you very much indeed for being on the podcast. Jon Berger: Thank you for having me. Anne: And thank you very much to all my watchers and listeners, well, our watchers and listeners. And I hope you enjoyed the episode and I will hopefully speak to you again on next week's episode of Asynchronous and Unreliable Podcasts. Thank you very much.