An Inner Sense of Captaincy
I’m far from alone in the organizational consulting world in believing that an engaged workforce is more essential than anything else in successful strategy execution. If your people are “all in,” you’ll ace the goals every time, and together you and they will create the future you want for your organization.
Recently I read this terrific blogpost by Shane Parrish about some of the ideas of the poet and leadership thinker David Whyte. It talks about what he describes as bringing “an inner sense of captaincy” to one’s work. It made me think about employee engagement in a new way – not that Whyte or the post use that term as such.
Much of the literature on engagement focuses on team members’ performance in their roles when they have the emotional commitment to the organization and their work. Whyte’s idea shines a light on “performing” outside your specific role. Going the extra mile on things you’re not expected to do. And not even considering it an “extra mile,” but rather, just what you do, because of course you do.
I encourage you to read the whole piece (and Whyte’s book “Crossing the Unknown Sea” that it draws from). But here are a few dimensions of what this idea of “inner captaincy” enables that I think are so important, illuminated with some quotes:
Getting out in front of problems
“Sometimes in our work, we see a potential problem, or an unnoticed existing one, but choose not to take action … If we think something is worth saving, we don’t put more effort into protecting it ahead of time? … On a voyage, you need to look after your boat … It’s great to have people to solve problems but it is better to not have them in the first place.”
Looking not to leaders, but inside yourself, to step up when action is needed
“On a ship, everyone is in it together. If something goes wrong, they’re all at risk. And it may not be easy or even possible to patch up a serious problem in the middle of the sea. As a result, everyone needs to pay attention and act on anything that seems amiss. Everyone needs to take responsibility for what happens … even if something isn’t strictly your job or you might not get rewarded for it.”
Being prepared for potential future disruptions
“When people feel like it’s their responsibility to contribute to overall success, not just perform specific tasks, they can respond to the unexpected without waiting for instructions. They become ever more familiar with what their organization needs to stay healthy and use second-order thinking so potential problems are more noticeable before they happen.”
Another part of what’s notable to me in this idea of captaincy is the inner part. As leaders, of course you have to create the conditions in your organizations that stimulate this sense of ownership of shared outcomes. But if you want to achieve your strategic aims, you also need to build a team of people who are already, so to speak, wired for captaincy. People who embody this kind of engagement because “they view their work as a voyage that helps them change and grow” on a deeply personal level.
If these ideas of Whyte’s speak to you as I hope they do, you’ll get a lot out of exploring more of his work, as I’ve begun doing.