Learning to think together gives a leadership team a powerful capability. The next step is to apply it to the work of leading the organization.
Every leadership team member carries a picture of the organization.
That picture includes what the organization seeks to accomplish, where it is now, what needs to change, where it needs to be next, how it will get there, and how it will know it is making progress. It also includes each person’s understanding of their own role: what they are responsible for, how they will act, and how they will make decisions that move the organization forward.
Those pictures are likely to be similar. They are pictures of the same organization, after all. They are also likely to differ because each team member sees the organization from a different position, with different information, experience, responsibilities, and assumptions.
The differences matter because people act from the pictures they carry.
A leadership team that has learned to think together can put that capability to work. Team members can make their individual pictures visible, compare them, understand and appreciate different views, and develop a shared picture informed by the information, experience, perspective, and judgment of the entire team.
The Shared Thinking Cycle introduced in the previous essay provides the basic discipline: Draft → Compare → Consolidate. Applied repeatedly, it gives the team a way to develop shared understanding about virtually any consequential aspect of the organization.
The question might be large: What are we trying to accomplish? What business are we in? Where should we be three years from now?
It might be immediate: What needs to change next? What should we do about a particular customer, market, acquisition, hire, investment, or organization issue?
Or it might be operational: What outcome do we expect from this initiative? Who owns it? How will we know whether it is working? What does the leadership team need to review?
The subject changes. The discipline is the same. Each person thinks. The thinking becomes visible. Different views become available to the group. The team works through them and develops a shared understanding it is prepared to use.
That is where Manage to Lead fits.
Manage to Lead (MtL) is an integrated system of tools, habits, and practices that gives leadership teams a practical way to develop and maintain shared understanding across the work of leading an organization.
MtL is organized around foundational leadership questions: What are we trying to accomplish, and by when? What business are we in? Where are we now? What needs to change? What will we do? How will we know we are making progress? How will we stay on track and aligned as we execute?
The questions give the team’s thinking structure. The tools provide practical ways to work through the questions. The habits and practices make shared thinking a continuing part of how the team leads.
The IntelliVen MtL Leadership Workspace puts that way of working into practice.
A team member can develop a view. Other members can develop theirs. The team can compare what people see, identify common ground and meaningful differences, work through those differences, and develop a shared understanding. What the team comes to understand remains visible and available for decisions, actions, communication, and leadership review.
As the team works through different aspects of the organization, those understandings begin to connect.
What the team seeks to accomplish connects to the business it is in. What needs to change follows from its understanding of where the organization is now and where it needs to be. Initiatives advance those changes. Measures show whether the organization is making the intended progress. Leadership review enables the team to guide and support the work, make adjustments as needed, and keep the organization on track and aligned.
Together, these understandings form a coherent and continually evolving picture of the organization that the team can see, discuss, communicate, use, and maintain.
The Workspace gives the team’s leadership thinking a place to take shape, connect, remain visible, and stay current. It makes shared understanding practical to develop across the organization and sustain over time.
The IntelliVen Operations Advisor (IVOA), part of the Leadership Workspace and loaded with Manage to Lead knowledge and logic, helps the team strengthen that thinking.
Upon request, IVOA can help strengthen an individual entry for clarity, specificity, and internal integrity. It can examine the integrity of thinking across different Manage to Lead tools. It can also surface common ground and differences among team members and help them develop greater cohesion across their views.
The leadership team develops the shared understanding, exercises judgment, and decides what to do. Team members learn to make their thinking explicit, understand and appreciate the thinking of others, test what they believe against what they know, work through differences, and develop shared understandings they are prepared to use.
They also learn to keep those understandings current. Conditions change. New information becomes available. Experience adds evidence. The team’s picture develops with what it learns.
Over time, this becomes a normal way of working together. Team members become proactive about sharing their own thinking and drawing out the thinking of others. They become better at finding differences early, working through them productively, and maintaining shared understanding as the organization moves forward.
The Workspace is the place. Manage to Lead provides the tools, habits, and practices. IVOA helps strengthen the thinking. The team leads.
Try it on something that matters
Choose one consequential question your leadership team needs to answer.
Ask each team member to develop their own view before the group discusses it. Make the views visible. Compare them. Look for what you understand similarly and where your pictures differ. Explore the differences. Develop a shared understanding the team is prepared to use. Then decide what to do.
You can practice the discipline with a sheet of paper, a document, or a whiteboard.
Or bring a real question about your organization to the Leadership Workspace and see how Manage to Lead and IVOA help you make your thinking clearer, more explicit, and easier to work through with others.
Take the Leadership Workspace Tour →
Start with one question that matters. Make the thinking visible. Think together. See what you learn.
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