Winning the Long Game by Steven Krupp

Author:Steven Krupp [Krupp, Steven; Schoemaker, Paul J. H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781610394482
Publisher: PublicAffairs

THE DISCIPLINE TO ALIGN: PULLING IT TOGETHER

Jane Wang had always excelled at building a team. As she took on larger roles, she continued to rally key players. She discovered early in her career that alignment was a key success factor for project execution—her core strength. The biggest idea she took from the story of Whole Foods was the importance of repeatedly communicating a shared purpose and vision to her team. She simply had not thought enough about her role in shaping the future by articulating a clear, compelling, and empowering vision. In particular, Jane needed to act more boldly and persuasively when talking about where she wanted to take the business. Taking the long view was not one of her strengths and she resolved to work on that.

Bridging differences came naturally to Jane, perhaps because she did not like conflict and was adept at finding common ground. To her, conflict meant distraction and inefficiency. Even in bigger roles and within a matrix structure, she was confident in her ability to navigate, collaborate, and minimize such conflict when necessary. However, she acknowledged that she preferred to head off or avoid conflict because she struggled to see it as constructive and mutually beneficial. She could work harder to surface competing views when tension was high or resistance strong. Doing so might actually release tension. She thought back to some of the voices on her team, those who raised concerns about changing customer preferences. Perhaps she tuned them out? Perhaps she torpedoed rather than surfaced issues that might have increased awareness? Was she just too task- and deadline-oriented?

As Jane reflected on her strengths at aligning, she determined to push beyond her comfort zone, to be bolder about her vision, and to embrace resistance. She accepted the insight that conflict among ideas is necessary to find the best course, and that people can disagree with each other without becoming disagreeable. Most important, she started building on her alignment skill to reach out to others, expand her network, and rally others to her view. This also meant that she would have to work on her weaker side where necessary, such as positioning for the long game.

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