Page 110 - Make Work Great

Growing Your Crystal

they’re helpful. When it comes to role-modeling with peers, the key
to errors is to highlight them. For example, if you’re suggesting that a
coworker create a verbalized summary outputs list, you might begin
by sharing your own. In reviewing what you’ve written, he or she may
point out an incorrect assumption about required output. You may
be tempted to gloss over that specifi c issue or to stop and discuss it
on the spot. From a culture-demonstrating perspective, however, your
best approach is fi rst to acknowledge it and then to incorporate it into
the broader learning experience: “As you can see, I’m still learning
too, and you’ve given me something to think about.” In approach-
ing your error this way, you demonstrate humility, you maintain the
learning environment for both of you, and you subtly remind the
other person to learn from his or her own future mistakes too.
Your goal is always to demonstrate new patterns without com-
ing across as a know-it-all. By consistently demonstrating your own
overtness about tasks and clarity within relationships, and by describ-
ing both your successes and errors in a balanced way, you give the
other person more opportunities to internalize those new patterns of
behavior for themselves.

Be Careful of What You Role-Model
As we close this chapter, one fi nal, critical message is worth consider-
ing: be very careful about what patterns you demonstrate. As a role
model—especially if you’re a leader or manager—everything you do
is in the spotlight.
One of my most painful experiences of this phenomenon happened
in a day-long simulation training I was running. The simulation has
been refi ned over the years to mimic the complex, multivariate, early
information age workplace that is the topic of this book. Partici-
pants work in teams on a complex matrix of tasks—practicing team
building, improving their crystalline network, and learning from
experience and from each other how best to approach their work suc-
cessfully and not burn out. Feedback is consistently positive; people
quickly see the links between the challenges of the simulation and

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