Teamership: Snakes and Ladders
Snakes and Ladders is a powerful way to look at leadership and leadership development.
“Leadership is like a game of snakes and ladders.”
That is what Therese suggested to the group as they were capturing their experiences of the 5-day leadership development program.
“You know, the frameworks and concepts that we are learning help us to progress. They are the ladders. The snakes are things like feeling overwhelmed, lacking confidence and being too busy.”
The group loved it and ran with it. It became the central theme for their presentation.
For me, it has become a powerful reminder of the experience that leaders have and how our development efforts need to acknowledge the Snakes and Ladders nature of leading and developing as a leader.
Here are a few reflections that I have had in recent weeks about Therese’s excellent metaphor.
Have good ladders
This seems like the most obvious implication from this metaphor.
The board isn’t full of ladders so the ones that are there need to help leaders to develop their capacity to lead.
Just like in Snakes and Ladders, not everyone is going to land on the square for each ladder. When designing programs, we need to offer multiple opportunities for leaders to take what they can from where they are – and not expect a linear, direct path of development.
We also can’t overwhelm with ladders – that looks like death by PowerPoint, fat workbooks (or binders!!!) and theory heavy content with no opportunity to be put into context.
Leaders will take the ladders when they can.
Our job is to increase the likelihood that when they will land on a square with a ladder they will feel ready to step on and give it a go.
Don’t kill the snakes
The counter to adding better ladders is to reduce the snakes.
That is an intuitive response and makes sense. As I reflect more, I don’t think that is as helpful as it initially seems.
If we remove or reduce the snakes, the game becomes simpler, more linear and more predictable. None of those things are what leadership is - or what leaders need to learn to work with in their roles.
What is more useful is acknowledging the snakes, helping leaders to better spot the signs of snakes and exploring ways to respond when they find that they have been sent sliding down a snake.
You never win, you only play
A really cool thing that happened in the session was that the group had written “Winning” at the top of the board. After some discussion, they crossed that out and replaced it with “Leading”.
The idea that at some point, you win the game of leadership is a limiting factor on the development of leaders. We can imagine a time in the future when leadership is something that we have perfected.
That opens up the idea that there is a time where we won’t need to keep working on our leadership. Alternatively, it could be that we measure ourselves against an impossible standard and never feel adequate enough to be a leader.
Neither of those options is great.
As long as you keep playing, you will reach the next board
The final twist that the group put on to this metaphor is that they added another blank board of Snakes and Ladders that was next to their original board. On that board, they weren’t sure what the specific nature or location of the snakes and ladders where, but they knew that there would be both snakes and ladders in their future.
They discussed that their intent was to keep playing the game and continue to level up their leadership. It was a classic example of what James Carse describes as an infinite game – a game where the whole intent is not to win, but to keep on playing.
We discussed in the debrief that if your goal was simply to progress to the next level through the snakes and ladders in front of you then all you had to do was keep playing. It really didn’t matter how many snakes you landed on – even if it is the same snake that keeps on sending you sliding!
Keep rolling the dice, keep moving yourself along. The only way to not make it through was to stop playing.
Too many leaders leave programs expecting that they have this whole leadership thing sorted. It’s a far more useful perspective to be leaving a program knowing that you have a few approaches that you can apply, that you are likely to struggle with a few things and that the most important thing is that you keep showing up.
Read this: Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse
The whole Snakes and Ladders metaphor made me think of the book “Finite and Infinite Games” by James Carse.
From what I can tell, Simon Sinek’s book, “The Infinite Game” seems to be basically a different version of the same thing. I prefer the original source where I can. This one isn’t an easy read or listen, but I’m willing to pay that price to go to the original thinking
Thank you. Build a ladder with me?
This coming Monday (1 December) will mark 8 years since my last day of employment.
Running this practice has been full of snakes and ladders for me!
One of the things that has helped me immensely is writing these notes to you.
They are always intended to help you and your teams operate better (that’s why there are always questions for you to ask yourself and/or others).
I know that your inboxes are full. I appreciate that you are willing to read and engage with what I share. I love it when you tell me that this sparked conversations – even if you disagree with or challenge what I have shared.
I’m committing myself to making these notes more regular and more useful for you – and I’d love to co-create that with you.
What is on your mind about teams, leadership and performance?
What would make this newsletter something that you look forward to each week?
Reply and let me know – I’ll read and reply to everyone who takes the time to write to me.
Consider this
Here are a few things to consider this week:
What are your thoughts on how important “executive presence” is?
How have you been present in your teams this week?
How would you like to be present in your teams next week?