The Art of Unblocking: Enhancing Team Collaboration and Strategy with Juriaan Kamer
Leadership emerges as the pivotal focus of our discourse, underscoring its significance as the gateway to fostering a better world. We engage in a profound examination of how exemplary leaders catalyze the development of thriving organizations, ultimately contributing to the happiness of individuals within the workforce. Our esteemed guest, Yurian Palmer, brings invaluable insights, particularly his expertise in guiding leaders to enhance their impact by dismantling ineffective strategies, superfluous meetings, and bureaucratic hindrances. Throughout our conversation, we delve into the critical distinction between operating within a system and working on a system, illuminating the necessity for leaders to adopt a broader strategic perspective. This episode promises to equip listeners with actionable methodologies to refine their leadership approach and elevate their organizational efficacy.
The discourse presented within this podcast episode elucidates the fundamental essence of leadership as delineated by the host, Jaclyn Strominger, alongside her esteemed guest, Jurriaan Kamer. The conversation embarks upon the premise that effective leadership serves as a critical conduit towards fostering a better societal framework. Kamer, a connoisseur in the realm of organizational dynamics, expounds upon his extensive experience with radical and adaptive enterprises, including those devoid of conventional managerial hierarchies. He advocates for the necessity of eliminating inefficiencies such as superfluous meetings and bureaucratic obstacles that hinder organizational progress. The episode further delineates the distinction between operating within a system versus working on a system, a theme that resonates throughout the discussion. Listeners are encouraged to reflect on their operational modalities, whether as leaders or entrepreneurs, and consider the implications of their strategic approaches on overall organizational efficacy. This dialogue not only reveals insights into Kamer's recent literary endeavor, 'Unblock', but also encapsulates actionable strategies for leaders aspiring to navigate the complexities of modern organizational landscapes.
Takeaways:
- Leadership is fundamentally the key to fostering a more positive and productive world.
- Effective communication between leadership and team members is essential for organizational success.
- Developing a clear vision and mission statement is critical for guiding a company forward.
- Organizations should prioritize creating systems that empower employees to make decisions independently.
- Leaders must engage directly with their teams to understand the realities of their operations.
- It is vital for organizations to involve employees in the strategic planning process to enhance buy-in and execution.
Mentioned in this episode:
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Transcript
Well, hello everybody, and welcome back to another episode of this amazing podcast. My name is Jaclyn Strominger and I am your host. And we are here to talk about leadership. Leadership is, I believe, the gateway to a better world.
When we have great leaders and great companies with great leaders, that means we end up having great, happy employees, which makes happy people in the world. So today I have an amazing guest, Jurriaan Kamer, if I got that right. Yep, he. Absolutely. You guys, he is stellar. You are.
I'm so excited to have him on as a guest.
First of all, he actually helps leaders make more impact by eliminating ineffective strategy, pointless meetings, bureaucratic structures, and slow decision making. I mean, we all think that's kind of horrible, right?
He has been in and around the most radical and adaptive organizations globally, including ones without managers and high levels of autonomy. He has just written a great book called Unblock. It's his second book, and he's here to talk to us about amazing leadership. So welcome to the podcast.
Speaker B:Thank you for having me, Jaclyn.
Speaker A:Oh, and I wanted to say, and the one thing that we are going to learn as you are listening to this, you are going to learn and leave this podcast knowing about having and working on a system versus in a system.
So whether you are a leader or you're just your own entrepreneur or just you're listening to this, personally working on something versus in something is hugely different. So, yeah, so we're, we're here to talk about this. Thank you, Jurga. So welcome.
Speaker B:Thank you for having me. Yeah, I'm excited to be here and looking forward to this conversation.
Speaker A:Yeah. So, you know, I'm so curious. You know, you've had an amazing career. So what brought you.
What was your aha moment that brought you to a number one write the book Unblock and where you are right now?
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah. So I had a pretty, you know, I have a pretty diverse background, but I came actually from it. I was a software developer really early on in my career.
And just over the years, I became more interested in solving human problems rather than computer problems. I took on several roles as project manager, interim manager, cto.
And I just became obsessed with how do you get large groups of humans to collaborate toward a shared outcome? And yeah, I just saw the same kinds of organizational dysfunctions and patterns showing up everywhere.
Didn't matter if it was a small company, a big company, every sector, and even across the globe, when you get a large group of humans together, they somehow create the same dysfunctional system sometimes. So I became. Became obsessed with that. And, you know, the Last decade I've been.
Been consulting with companies and helping leaders to unblock their organizations. So yeah, it was, was only fitting to. To make that the title of my second book.
Speaker A:Right.
So when you think about obviously what you have seen in organizations, if you could break it down and this is, you know, I kind of love to talk about things in steps. What would be the two key first steps that you would tell a company or a leader to make to start the unblocking process?
Speaker B:Yeah, I think, I think there's two things, indeed there. Well, there's many things, but I think the key thing is, do you have, is it clear to you what you're trying to achieve?
So strategy and setting a certain strategic intent in the future is often something that is what every company has a strategy they think at least. But if you really look closely at the strategy, it's either unclear, it doesn't contain any bold choices, it's.
Or it's long, long lists of many PowerPoint slides with lots of bullets. So the tool of having an effective strategy is often not, not used well.
And so if you want to get somewhere with your organization, that's one of the first things we need to work at.
And then secondly, when there is a good strategy and people have an understanding of where the organization is headed, do you have a process of continuously unblocking yourself?
So do you have the skills and the rituals to be constantly on the lookout to finding the next big blocker that their teams and the people are running up against that you can take away and to go to the next level?
Speaker A:Right.
So when you think about those things you said, I will align that with almost, you know, the two steps that I actually think a lot of people need to make, which is, number one, first and foremost, really know what your vision is, and two, define your mission. Right, right, right. So you really kind of have to take those two key steps. So once you have that.
So why do you think people are getting, you know, when you think they have all these PowerPoint presentations and they have these strategies, why are they getting stuck?
Speaker B:Yeah, I think in terms of, in terms of mission, vision or strategy, what is often not happening is a conversation between the leaders that set those things and the people that are executing it.
So often it's like when you talk to the people that are on the front lines, they're like, you know what, our leaders, they don't listen to us, we don't speak to them. They always send us these kinds of decks and I have no idea what they really mean or what it means for us.
I just tried to do my, my thing here and every time I have an idea, like I have no idea how I can get an improvement achieved here. And then we talk to the leaders, they're like, oh, our people, they don't get it. Like I've explained it 50 times and still they don't seem to get it.
Like there's a real communication problem between layers. And I think it can be, yeah, that's an intent.
You know, if you want to overcome that, you have to be intentional in when you, when are you having those conversations? Are you really accessible? And I mean every will say their door is always open. But are you really lowering the thresholds for people to speak to you?
Are you having informal chats? Are you asking people to give feedback on your strategy? You know, there's, there's a, there's a lot of things you can do and learn there.
Because if the people that are looking at the strategy are honestly telling you, like, I have no idea what this means or, or you know, you know, you have this crazy idea to go somewhere, but the reality of the day to day is something else. That's when you really learn and you start to become humble.
Speaker A:Right. You know, it's so interesting because it's so true.
There's, you know, I'm, you know, the thing that's like blazing through my brain right now is communication. Right. I mean all need to have and leverage communication effectively.
And whether, you know, and, and I'm going to say leaders, as you're listening to this or if you don't have a team and you're an entrepreneur, really understand that the way that you communicate is so important and to be able to share your, that vision and what, what you want to be focusing on, you know, and using that almost like the KISS method. Right. Keep it simple. Right.
So when you're thinking about this and we're, you know, what is like the number one tip, you know, that a leader or a team member or a CEO can start with to help develop great communication?
Speaker B:Yeah, I think it sounds maybe too obvious, but is to talking to people as much as you can. Getting out of your ivory tower, getting out of those meeting rooms. Just in Japan, they say go to the Gemba.
It's from the lean methodology from the Toyota pitch.
I don't know if you know it, but the leadership philosophy of going to where the work happens, rather than asking for a report, inviting somebody into your leadership team meeting or sending out a presentation, just go to where the work is, sit next to one of those employees for a day and see what you learn. Pick up that customer service, call yourself and see what happens.
Really invest in understanding the realities of the people that work with you and work towards your vision so that you can then really, from that understanding, build the, the understanding that you want to give. Yeah. So I think that that's where to start. And it's. I don't know, like, there's something about.
There's maybe it's a status thing or like, I'm too important or I'm too busy. All these, all these things that people are convinced about. You know, there's lots of leadership stories. There's.
There's a CEO and I'm sorry, I don't know the name of the company anymore, but there's a famous CEO who always was the one in, in the canteen putting the food on the plates every day. And that was just one of the things he always did one hour a day. And that was his way to be among the people and to be accessible and to have a chat.
You know, it's about those. Finding those rituals that work for you that, that gets you really in connection with those people.
Speaker A:So let's break it down again. I'm going to go break it into those two steps. Sure. You know what, you know, pick two things or two steps that you can take and start small.
You know, whether.
And whether it is walking around the floor, so to speak, where your employees are, or as you said, if you have a food court or food commissary to hang out there.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Like, pick one of those things.
And then potentially, I always think it's maybe create something where you're having a coffee chat where you almost let everybody know, hey, you know what? I'm having coffee. I'm going to be here. Not in their space, not in your space, but in a neutral space.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Sit with me.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah. Some of the best leaders, they just, every week, three times a week, they have.
They have informal lunches where it's like, you know, and then somebody makes an effort to try to invite as many people across the organization to have the. Those conversations at a lunch table.
And especially if you're doing it across your organization, you're not only building connections yourself with different departments, but it's also about enabling departments to talk to each other, which also is another challenge that you see often.
Speaker A:Right. So the very interesting thing that you just said, too, is like the interdepartmental. I also think it's really key. Again, really take note of this.
It's really important to be able to have those conversations interdepartmentally so that you can set it up.
But also, you know, you've got the CEO or the founder or whatever, whatever title you want to give yourself because who really, it's just a, it's a title. Who cares. Everybody in your, in your fold is a partner and hopefully everybody thinks that way. I hate the word manager. That's a whole other story.
But whether you're the CEO or you are running a team, if you are running a team, act like the CEO of that team and do the same thing.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Speaker A:And to enable that, because that communication. All right, so we've got really enabling communications.
What else would be another step that you would have somebody take that would help them unblock?
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah. If you start with that idea like I have a strategy, I have a vision, a mission. I want to realize.
The one thing that I always tell leaders is don't make the mistake of cascading your strategy. And it's still the default.
Like the leaders at the top, they set the strategy or the annual goal or the annual plan and they ask the middle managers to cascade it down to the teams and then hopefully they execute. Right. They hold the managers accountable for executing.
The thing that's really missing by that is that you know, cascade is literally going from the top down. Like it comes from the word waterfall. You know, it's from the waterfall that always cascades down. It never goes bottom up.
And the problem with that is that you're going to miss all the wisdom of all the people that are on the front lines. So the better way to do it is to integrate and to self align teams. Invite teams to self align. So that means like go and go and set your strategy.
That's great. First of all, definitely ask feedback if people understand it.
But the second step is to ask teams to, to craft their own strategy based on your strategy. Meaning, you know, you know the organization strategy is X and our part of that is Y and our contribution.
To maximize your contribution, we are going to. And then you're going to set the strategy or the strategic intent of that team. And then also we're going to make these trade offs.
And if you invite every team or department in a conversation like that, you create a map of all the work and all the strategies across the organization.
You are going to see in real life A, if people got it, you know, if people got the idea and B, if the strategy is actually doing something, if it's actually working, shaping the decisions, day to day decisions in a certain way. And then when something deviates, we're like, oh, interesting you're picking this strategy.
It's so different from what I expected your department to do. Then you're going to have that conversation with them and say, hey, that's interesting. Like let's hear it.
And you know, you can go into that conversation saying, well, you should do this or that, but then you're going to fall into the same trap again because people should be telling you what they are intending to do based on your vision instead of the other way around.
Speaker A:Right. You know, I love that it's really being able to. Again, I'm going to break it down two steps.
Number one, if you set the idea and the vision that you want to have for the company for let's say for the year and then second step is asking the teams to say, okay, here's what we said. Step two is you now tell me how either a, you want to get there or do you believe in it?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:And you know, what's, what are you going to do? And, and the, I think the other than the next two steps are what, what are the people within that team going to do to hold themselves accountable?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:How will they hold themselves accountable as a team together?
Speaker B:Yeah. Yeah. And I think the other part that's often missed and could be a big value add is make the trade offs.
You're going to make explicit, you know, you'll make, make a list of the things you're not going to do or make the list of the things that you're willing to sacrifice at least for a period of time in order for you to maximize your chances to achieving the other thing. So you know, speed, even over cost, for example, could be, could be a trade off.
You know, these are these kinds of heuristics that are super helpful in making explicit that you know what, we're going to spend a bit more money, money now. But the upside of that is that we're going to go faster.
And if it just, it just helps people set heuristics so that they can make decisions, smart decisions along the way and you don't need to have to go to the leadership team every time that there's, that they're facing a decision. You know, you have these, this compass that people can navigate, they can use to navigate themselves.
Speaker A:Right. You know, I love, I like that.
So you know, when you're, when you're thinking about how you're working and you, and you, when we were talking before we started the podcast you know, it's. You share, you know, and we were saying working on a system, working in a system, you know, developing the roadmap versus being the traffic hop.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:So how hard is it for somebody to go from the designer from the traffic hop?
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, it is hard, especially if you're the founder of a company. You're used to being the person doing everything, basically, until it scales up.
It's a leadership shift that requires lots of self awareness, I think, understanding where you still have the desire to control and to really know what is going on in detail and where you really need to be involved.
And I think that the real challenge and the leaders that get this right is they are starting to set enabling constraints so they're able to put in place boundaries that are helpful so that they are no longer the ones that need to control and check everything. So there's something about risk tolerance in there, you know, clarifying risk tolerance for yourself and for the rest of the system.
There's something about working agreements. When do you still need to involve me and when not. It's about making decision rights explicit.
So for what types of decisions can you just go and go on yourself? And that's what I mean with working on the system is putting those agreements in place so that the system just runs without you.
And I think it's very liberating if you're able to do that as a, especially as a founder or, you know, as a leader. It.
It really means that you can go to bed at night without needing to work 80 hours because you know that if you're not there, the system just hums and just rolls on, you know.
Speaker A:Right. Well, you just said a couple things that I think are really. It's also, again, really take note of this. It's systems. Right. Because. And it's working.
You know, if you can have systems in place and have things designed and created within your company that you know that it's going to run without you.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:You don't have to have your foot and toe in everything. It is so freeing. Yeah, it does. It allows you to work above versus in.
And at some point in order to scale, you have to get to the point where you're above. Yeah, not an above in the sense of I am above all. It's more I am the person that I founded this.
I am above here and we are working on strategy and I trust and I'm in the. And I'm making sure that I have enabled everybody on my team to work as if I'm not even Here.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly. It allows you to also have those moments to think about longer term.
You know, if you're not distracted every day by all the small things, you can get this long term perspective. You can, you can see patterns, noticing patterns in the market, you're seeing patterns in your organization.
But that requires you to have your hands free for sure.
Speaker A:Right.
So how, how you know, in your experience how difficult and has it been to, you know, for the leaders to actually make it so that their hands are free?
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, that varies person by person. Some, some, for some leaders is natural.
Those are the ones that quickly hire people around them at the start of their business because they just recognize that they're not the best person to do that work. Others have more difficulty with it because basically their skill set is in their way. Because you know what, they're really good at something.
If you're going to give it to somebody else, the result is always going to be a little bit less. So it's all about perfection.
I think the thing that really helps, I think in all of this is, is a phrase or a mindset that we bring to our, to our clients. Often is the concept of is it safe to try? So we often go and have a conversation and we ask like, do we all agree? Is this the right decision?
There's this perfection thing that we have in our company. So we say, oh, we have to talk about it again, we have to go make it better. We have to ask for more information.
But the reality is many decisions are reversible.
And most of the times when you, the only way to really discover if something is the right choice is to try something and make something small and just do it rather than debating it. So it can be like a magic phrase for leaders to say, you know, what do we need to make this safe to try?
And then you have that conversation, which is really difficult.
Different conversations where you say, you know what, if we're going to do this, I'm afraid that I will lose control over this or that or I, I see these risks and I really want you to know these risks and to make that, you know, write it down, talk about it and say, you know what, these are the things that the founder or the CEO finds really difficult to let go of. Well, let's put some agreements around that in place. But other than that, maybe we can just go, or we have this conversation.
Well, it's safe if we make it a little bit smaller or maybe we do it for a short amount of time and then we evaluate. Right.
So it's about running these experiments on changing the things around you and changing the systems so that you can gradually feel more comfortable with, with letting go.
Speaker A:That's okay. So I'm going to ask you like the $6 million question.
Speaker B:$6 million? Why isn't it 10?
Speaker A:Well, it could be 10 million because, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm somebody from like, you know, product of the 70s. Right. So I'm like the $6 million man. Right, whatever.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:Right. So whatever multiplier you want to put it in there, do. Yeah, so I'll go, I'll go. Six billion. Right.
So question, because I know inherently the answer, but I want you to share it. And that is, what have you seen profitability wise?
The difference in a company when the CEOs and the founders and the leaders are able to be planners or working on the systems versus what's that bottom line impact?
Speaker B:Yeah, it's, it's huge. And it really brings me back to, I think it was an HBR article. It might even have been a book, the Founder's Dilemma.
And the subtitle of the Founder's Dilemma is do you want to be rich or do you want to be king? And I really love that kind of, you know. Yeah, I mean, it's so clear.
Like if you want to be financially successful, if you really want to be able to grow your business, then you're going to, you know, then you make the choice of hiring people around you. You know, if you want to be king, that means you're still going to be in control.
You're going to stay the CEO, but your company's growth will be limited by your own, your own tendencies, you know?
Speaker A:Right. That is such a great. I love that analogy too.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:I've got songs that are going through my head too right now.
Speaker B:And both, you know, I just want to say, like, both, both are valid answers. There's no good right or wrong, you know? You know, you don't need to be. You can have a happy life if you're the king.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:You can also have a miserable life if you're rich. Right. But that's, that's a different story.
Speaker A:Right? That's a whole, that's a whole different story. That goes back, I mean, that's also goes back to vision, a mission too.
But at the end of the day, what's real. What I think is really important though is, is, you know, making that choice of where do you want to be?
Do you want to be the king or do you, you know, Want to be that person who, you know, is, you know, has. Has a. Has an army.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:You know, of people or an army of companies that. And you're able to go travel without, you know, people trying to always peck at you. Right, right, right. Yeah, right, right.
You always have to, you know, so being able to work on your. On your business versus just always being in your business is so amazing. So what is next for you, Yurian? What are your biggest goals?
Like, what do you want to accomplish?
Speaker B:Yeah, so I left a large consultancy two years ago. We started. The four of us, we started EnBlock, and we are helping clients across the globe. And we're doing well. Like, we're pretty busy.
We're focusing more and more on strategy execution as a lens. We're feeling that the market is really pulling us toward that thing.
So our next goal is to become famous for having the strategy execution framework that always works. And, yeah, part of that is just finding more brave clients that are willing to try this stuff out.
Speaker A:That's fantastic. Okay, so tell everybody where they can find you, connect with you, all those great things.
Speaker B:Yeah. So on social media, I am mostly active on LinkedIn.
And if you want to learn more about our book, you can go to www.unblock.worksbook or find a book on Amazon.
Speaker A:Oh, okay. All right, so everybody, actually, I want you to all go find the book.
I will actually make sure I put the link to the book in the show notes and links to Urian's LinkedIn profile and the website. But really go out and connect.
This is, to me, one of the biggest things that we can do is help people connect with other great people and changing the world one person and one connection at a time. So, you know, reach out and connect. This is an, I'm gonna say, unstoppable leadership Spotlight podcast.
I'm gonna have to edit that one out, but thank you all for listening to the podcast. My name is Jaclyn Strominger and I am your host and I really appreciate you listening.
If you've enjoyed listening to this, please hit subscribe and follow us and give us a review, as well as share the podcast with your friends and colleagues. And thank you, Jurian, for being a great guest.
Speaker B:Thank you.
