Leveraging Your Ignorance

or Why You Need a Strategic Novice — part 1 of ?

Read any job description — I mean ANY job description — and there you will see, in many varied forms, to-do lists for experts of all types.

These lists use different jargon for different types of jobs and different industries or sectors, but they are all to-do lists with at least two common threads: 1) implementation of a thing or overseeing the implementation of others doing things, and/or 2) being (or becoming) an ‘expert’ in some specific area. The goal of said position is the managment and completion of initiatives, projects, or tasks that can be monitored, measured, calculated, reported, etc., etc., etc.

I will stipluate that quality and consistency of execution of all kinds of different tasks is essential to the success of any organization. Nothing happens — meaning, no one gets paid — if ‘shit don’t get done.’ Right!? Absolutely!

Except…

I submit to you that any organization of any kind in any industry would benefit from at least one person whose job it is NOT “to do” anything. At least not in the way that we think of ‘doing’ for nearly every job in nearly every organization.

Instead, your organization — any organization — should have at least one person (a team might be better for larger ones) whose ‘job’ is to be the helpful idiot, the strategically placed novice. Preferably, one who moves around frequently throughout the organization, possibly with your clients.

No management responsibilities. No deep industry expertise. No cutting edge knowledge to leverage. No P&L accountabilities. No direct reports or ‘downlines.’

They don’t even have to be a full-time employee. But you should have one (at least one) on your team. You should value them, highly. And you should reward them well for their value. More on this later.

First, let me see if I can guess your immediate objections. That’s not profitable. That’s not mission-critical. What’s the value-add? What’s the point? What does this person acutally do?

Hang with me. I’ll start with this last objection and work backward to address the others.

What do they do?

This is a person whose job — not part of their job while they also do x, but their only job — is to listen, learn, ask questions of anyone and everyone in the organization about what, why, why not, how, when, etc. (I’ll use ‘they’ to refer to this person — or people — for simplicity and gender neutrality from here on).

They have access. And they have a voice to question or suggest based on what they observe and learn.

They should be highly curious. Bold in expressing their curiosity, but able to blend in and observe quielty when appropriate. They should be observant. They should be a gifted communicator and story teller, able to convey a set of ideas picked up in one setting to another person or group that may have nothing to do with where they learned it.

They should be winsome and approachable to anyone they talk to. They should be able to chat with the ‘guys on the dock’ without coming off as ‘managment’ in the morning, and sit down with a CEO over bourbon after hours without being out of their depth.

Ther are really only two specific ‘deliverables’ or ‘results-oriented’ ‘mission-aligned’ activities that this person should be evaluated on in my opinion.

First, sharing the stories, observations, and insights they uncover in their travels with others across the organization (or in some cases with their clients). The form of this will need to make sense within the organization. This could be one-on-ones with C-suite execs, synopsis reports to senior leadership teams, or simply meeting with key indivuduals across departments, silos, or locations on some regular schedule.

Second, whenever and wherever feasible, this person should be gathering or connecting diverse individuals and groups across the organization to interact with what they have been hearing, observing, or recommending. Things like exploring a question, framing a challenge, mapping a process, imagining a novel approach, etc.

In this respect, this person should either be a skilled facilitator, or have access to the resources to include skilled facilitators with some regularity.

In future posts I plan to address “What’s the Point?” “ How it Helps?” and “What it’s Worth?”. Comments and critiques are welcome.