Last month at Develop Brighton, Criterion CEO Charity Joy gave a talk on the art of leading people who manage other leaders, and shared the tools she’s acquired throughout her career in game development.
Joy emphasized the importance of curiosity, trust, and clear communication when it comes to supporting managers, and provided strategies for delivering effective feedback and aligning people across the organization, especially when mentoring people into areas of expertise they might not otherwise have.
Curiosity
Having a curious nature and the ability to be open and ask questions is important when leading a leadership team. But Joy noted that a “sense of knowing” can hinder this curiosity.
“We bring knowledge and experience to our jobs, so we know a lot of things,” he explained. “The problem with 'knowing' is that it's closed to learning. And when you 'know,' it's dangerous when you're trying to manage people who have different knowledge than you, and it closes off opportunities for understanding.”
Joy encouraged people to find peace with not knowing how to be comfortable with not being the expert in the room anymore.
“There's nothing wrong with not knowing; in fact, it can be quite fun not knowing because then you really get curious,” he said. “Discovery is a joy, and the main tool of curiosity is to ask questions.”
“There is a joy in discovery, and the main tool of curiosity is the tool of questioning”
The ability to ask questions as a leader is crucial, specifically being able to ask things in certain ways to get the best out of the team.
“(When asking a question), you have to find out what's beneath the surface and be open to what you might find,” Joy said. “If you're genuinely curious when asking a question, you might be surprised, and surprise is good. You might also not like the answer, and that's okay, too. If not, you can ask more questions.
“Being curious about the people around us is the same as being curious about ourselves,” he added. “It's a fundamental skill when you're a leader.”
And when you are asked questions as a leader, take a moment to stop and reflect before giving an answer.
“Even if you think you know the answer, dig a little deeper, see if there is any nuance there so that the response you are giving is thoughtful, useful, appropriate and not a monologue.”
Communication
Joy emphasized the need for vision alignment and clear communication when leading leaders, and that there is an innate power in clear, simple messages to maintain coherence across a team.
“The reality, especially in the leadership arena, is that when there is confusion at the top, that confusion is magnified at the lower levels,” he said. “If there is no clarity at the leadership level, there is no clarity at the team level.”
“If there is no clarity at the leadership level, there is no clarity at the team level”
Joy highlighted a trap that managers can often fall into: believing that the people they supervise are experts in their particular field who know what they're talking about and shouldn't need guidance.
The flip side of this coin, he said, is avoiding sharing bad news with your team because you think they can't handle it.
“We might think that's empathy, but we're actually assessing our team's maturity and ability to manage their own emotions,” Joy explained.
“Thinking that you know what people should know or that you know how people will react puts you in a privileged position, without knowing your place. It also deprives you of the ability to understand what your team will do, how they will react, what they will say.”
It all comes down to having the ability to step back and trust the team, pause and reflect.
Training
Coaching is an important aspect of leading toward joy, especially in the ability to provide unbiased support.
“Your role as a coach is to ask questions, provide frameworks and guide them on a journey to discover what those answers might be and what might work best for them,” she explained.
According to Joy, it is much easier to train someone who is not in your area of expertise. He gave the example of Criterion's CTO.
“I can't give them advice on anything technological, but I can coach them and ask them questions,” he said. “If it's something I know, it's more dangerous because I start thinking, 'Well, this is what I would have done.'”
Joy emphasized that coaching is about facilitating and supporting, and fostering the “belief that the person in front of you really does have the right answers.”
Facilitation
As a manager, you must strive to be a good facilitator, Joy said, and an important aspect of this is knowing when to lead and when to follow.
“There will be times when you want to step back and follow your team,” Joy said. “Sometimes the best way to allow (your team) to shine is to stay out of their way.”
“Give (your team) the space to be heard and give yourself the space to be surprised”
As a facilitator, Joy suggested that managers should speak last, but should also “get ideas” from the rest of the group, not dominate the conversation, and “not give their own opinion, but get the rest of the team to give theirs.”
“There will be times when you want to intentionally step back and follow through, and we talk a lot about what it means to be a good leader when we're in leadership positions.”
Joy added: “In the end, it's probably going to be you who makes the decision, so don't rush the inevitable. If it's crazy and you hate it, you can change it. But give them space to be heard and give yourself space to be surprised.”
Trust
Trust is critical in any workplace, but it can be difficult to discern why someone isn’t trusted. That’s why Joy has created a framework that she uses while leading her leadership team to facilitate the solution to an underlying problem.
This framework revolves around three pillars: capacity, reliability and motivation.
“I encourage my teams to use this tool if they have an issue with a stakeholder or team member and ask them, 'What are you concerned about with this person? Is it about their ability, reliability or motivation? ' When we break it down that way, it's easier to have a conversation and address the issue in order to resolve it,” she explained.
Joy also encourages her team to use this framework in the feedback they receive and to consider how they are perceived as an avenue for self-reflection.
Trust can also be used to speed up processes within an organization. Joy noted that often within companies there are “big laws and little laws,” with the big laws being general principles such as punctuality and respecting the budget.
But when a major law is broken, smaller ones are added in an attempt to prevent the problem from happening again, which can slow everything down.
For example, if a team is under budget, smaller checkpoints can be set, such as more forecast reviews and meetings.
“It seems like the solution to a lot of problems in our organizations and teams is to add another meeting or process,” Joy said. “But is that really what's going to solve the problem, increase speed and confidence?”
Rather than adding processes, he suggested that eliminating these small laws will increase efficiency and trust within an organization.
Consistency
Joy emphasized that consistency and authenticity are key to guiding managers as they build trust and reliability.
“We can choose who we want to be and how we want to show up,” Joy said. “As leaders, you have to be clear about what you want to do.”
She added that those who manage their leaders “often get caught up in doing” rather than thinking about how they present themselves, for example, by being clear, trustworthy, reliable and consistent. For Joy, it’s all about remembering who you are so that that drives you to action.
“Every shift, promotion or change in your team and every phase of your project may require you, as a leader, to show up differently.”
Joy recommended asking yourself who you should be and who your team needs you to be at any given time.
“Every change, promotion or pivot in the team and every phase of the project may require you, as a leader, to show up differently, and that's okay, as long as you're conscious and deliberate about how you're showing up.”
As with any craft, the key to staying consistent is practice.
“We have to practice showing up the way we want to, setting the tone the way we want to set the tone, elevating and supporting our leaders the way we want to do it,” Joy said.
Joy suggested two ways to do this: by using mantras and “I am” affirmations. For example, one of her mantras is “My mood is not my master.”
“When I walk into a meeting room, I reset myself,” she explained. “I set cues to get out of my head, into my body and be in that room.”
As for “I am” statements, they can be as simple as: “I am a coach, I am a facilitator, I am a big supporter of my team.”
“It is through this taking ownership of the self that my action can emerge, and it is a great reminder for me,” Joy concluded. “Is it perfect? No, it is a practice, it is a continuous evolution.”