Leaders Build Habits
A lot of work is being done on personal transformation through building good habits. We are a product of our habits—good or bad.
A habit is a routine or behavior that is performed regularly—
and in most cases automatically.
I’m currently reading Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones by James Clear. The orientation is toward personal change. It’s fascinating and very helpful. I’m looking forward to making application to discipleship, the sanctification process, etc.
But what I’ve found initially intriguing is applying lessons to cultural change in an organization or movement.
Could it be that leaders change an organization or a team culture by changing habits—routines or behaviors performed regularly within the organization/movement?
Forget about goals, focus on systems instead.
James Clear made the following statement about personal goals vs habits. I’ve spent a lot to time pondering this application to leaders as those who build habits or systems of effectiveness:
“Your organization (team, church, para-church) does not rise to the level of its goals. It falls to the level of its systems.”
Prevailing leadership wisdom argues that the best way to achieve something in the organization is to “set specific, actionable goals or outcomes.” In the past, I’ve been personally involved in setting BHAGs — big hairy audacious goals.
Unfortunately, as Clear argues, results have very little to do with goals we or an organization sets and “nearly everything to do with systems that are followed.”
Goals are not bad, per se.
Goals are about the results we want to achieve.
Systems, however, are about the processes that lead to those results.
And therein lies the key.
Goals are good for setting direction, but systems are best for making progress.
So, as a leader, I’ll bring culture change and better results by focusing less on goals/outcomes and by focusing on systems instead.
Here’s the counterintuitive idea about organization change and improvement.
“We think we need to change our results, but results are not the problem. What we really need to change are the systems that cause those results.”
To drop down to personal improvement as an example: I can set a goal of losing 20 pounds this month, but to reach it I must change the “system of habits” I practice (low carbs, more exercise, etc.).
To change I must focus on the system—the habits I practice—not the goal. To change an organization, I — as a leader — must focus on the systems–the habits we practice within the organization–not the goals we set.
James Clear writes:
The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game. True long-term thinking is goal-less thinking. It’s not about a single accomplishment. It is about the cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvement. Ultimately, it is your commitment to the process that will determine the progress.
So as leaders, we change our organizations by raising commitments and behaviors to a set of good healthy systems/processes/habits.
Application to Gettysburg and to Our Foresight Discussion:
John Buford, pictured here and above with his staff, has become one of our premier examples of leadership. His decision on July 1st to force Confederate forces to deploy west of Gettysburg is often seen as one of the reasons Union forces retained the high ground and eventually won the battle.
During our Gettysburg conference, we primarily look at Buford’s decisionmaking as an example of foresight—where leaders move from what is (current reality) to what could be (the dream/vision/goal) by making quick needed decisions to affect the status quo.
In Buford’s case, he deployed 2500 horsemen to fight in dismounted groups of four against the 20,000 Confederates marching toward Gettysburg. The effectiveness of Buford’s cavalry in delaying Confederate forces allowed 1st Corps Infantry Commander, John Reynolds to arrive with his well-trained infantry.
We make a big deal about Buford’s and Reynolds’ foresight in deploying Union forces so that at the end of day one, Union forces would hold the high ground south and east of town (Cemetery Hill, Culp’s Hill and Cemetery Ridge to the Round Tops).
Their foresight illustrates great decision-making, but the results of those decisions rested on the training systems they had put into place.
The fighting prowess and success of both Buford’s dismounted cavalry and Reynold’s elite infantry units (The Iron Brigade) depended on the “training” these troops had. In other words, Buford and Reynold had focused on building “training systems or effective habits in their men.”
At our musket shoot, we talked a lot about the “training, training, training” of fighting units. The best trained units fought the best. Leadership is not so much an empowering act, but an enabling act.
Buford and Reynolds had no doubt goals they set for their men, but it was the systems they put into place that made them fighters. As a result, their good decisions on July 1st were ultimately validated by the ability of their men to fight.
As we think about leadership, perhaps we need to think less about goals and more about systems.
James Clear has some interesting thoughts on “identity outcomes”–that I’m trying to apply to our leadership and disciplemaking role. Hope to add some discussion of that in next week’s Life and Leadership.
