Matt LeMay, business consultant, coach, and author, has an interesting way of gauging a company’s underlying culture. He asks a team leader if they would like some coffee. He finds their reaction telling. Do they offer to accompany Matt on his coffee-run? Do they offer to pay? Do they dub Matt as the coffee guy from then on? Often, Matt finds that a team leader’s response to a simple offer of coffee indicates not only the underlying culture of the company, but the company’s chances of successfully implementing dynamic operational change — one of his consulting specialties.
I reached out to Matt for an interview after I read his article titled On High-Status Work and Low-Status Work, in which he emphasizes the need for a foundation of shared respect among co-workers. I also wanted to know more about his experiences in consulting for early-stage startups and Fortune 50 enterprises. During our talk, I found Matt’s ideas to be a rare combination of visionary and compassionate, especially when considering low and high-status work.
In any company, Matt explained, there’s a visible and invisible organizational chart. The visible, or formal, org-chart establishes the hierarchy of decision-making within an organization. In contrast, the informal, or invisible, org-chart surfaces as co-workers jockey for high-status projects and avoid low-status work. In Matt’s experience, team leaders influence this interplay by choosing certain tasks for themselves, by who they include in strategizing, and whose work they recognize.
You May Not Be as Progressive as You Think
Matt consults with groups and organizations known for their forward thinking. However, an attitude that is often missing from an otherwise progressive workplace, in Matt’s view, is that “low-status tasks can be of high value, and performing a low-status task does not mean that you are a low-importance or low-strategic-thinking person.” An example of this can be found in a workplace scenario that may sound familiar.
You walk into the kitchen or breakroom at work and encounter a pile of dirty dishes in the sink. On the wall above the sink a note says, ‘Please do your own dishes!’ with an added smiley face. You shake your head at how unwilling your co-workers are to do a simple chore, and add your dirty mug to the top of the pile. You truly don’t have the time to wash dishes; you must get back to your work. I kept this scene in mind as I asked Matt how he thought an attitude of dismissal towards work perceived as low-status affects a company’s productivity.
“It results in a lot of people competing for high-status work, rather than collaborating to deliver outcomes,” Matt told me. Matt went on to say that it’s common for product managers to prioritize the pursuit of strategic work, which is seen as high-status. “And they’re not wrong for doing that. Those that ruthlessly seek out that work are often the ones who receive the most recognition.”
In Matt’s informed opinion, those who actually facilitate outcomes are those who, like an office manager, keep the team moving and connected. But due to a lack of recognition, facilitators often experience a feeling of disconnect, and move on. After their departure, their former team-leader may lament the difficulty in finding and retaining team-players, or those who maintain a team’s focus on intended outcomes, and wonder what can be done. The team-leader may take notice as their peers, who face this same challenge, choose to hire a consultant to help them adopt Agile principles. That’s where Matt comes in.
Tackling the Main Hurdle to Progressive Change
Matt would like everyone to know that the Agile approach to doing business is a combination of progressive methodologies, and not a singular philosophy. Also, though coined by software developers, the Agile movement is not just for tech companies. In addition, the Agile approach is not about going faster, but about delivering more value. A key facet to the Agile framework, according to Matt, is that “Agile is very much a challenge to traditional assumptions to what should be high-status and low-status work.”
The Agile manifesto places the customer, and collaboration, at the heart of all business activity. It inspires a personalized approach to software development and customer service, even as our societies become more technical and populous. Matt and his consultancy Sudden Compass are at the forefront of this movement. But, when faced with a team leader who wants to retain team-players and prioritize outcomes, Matt offers advice that is more classic than new-age. Interestingly, the advice fits perfectly within the Agile framework.
The first step a team-leader can take to combat divisive practices within their team, according to Matt, is to “have a conversation. Make the invisible, visible.” Bring the negative effects of solely pursuing high-status work out into the open. Then Matt encourages leaders to look at the whole picture: “In every organization, there are beliefs that are created through implicit value systems that no one gives a voice to, and they often run counter to what leadership is saying.” For example, leadership may claim that an open-office floor plan promotes fairness, while each executive enjoys a walled office. In Matt’s view, workers’ perceptions of office culture have a greater center of gravity than anything espoused in a company’s newsletter.
Once the pattern of an underlying culture is outwardly recognized, what are the next steps to changing its rhythm? In Matt’s view, if a team-leader truly hopes to create and maintain a cohesive team, and to secure outcomes by elevating low-status work, then a team-leader must lead, and not just promote, this shift. If there are dirty dishes in the sink, then a team-leader should pitch in and do the ‘dirty-work’ — and therein lies the main hurdle to progressive change.
To Move Forward, What Are You Willing to Give Up?
“In a lot of cases, leaders have gotten to where they are by doing high-status work — by gaming the system. But one of the gifts that leadership can give their teams is for them to choose to personally discontinue that dynamic, and to model something different.” It’s a difficult choice, and Matt recognizes the risk that leaders face in challenging the status quo, interrogating assumptions, and choosing to “call-out” team-members who solely pursue high-status work. “But the best leaders that I’ve worked with are willing to take on that risk.”
In addition to embodying the change, the way a leader publicly recognizes low-status work is important. Low-status work should not be seen as “dues-paying,” Matt said. The most effective way to elevate low-status work is to identify its positive effects. Publicly thanking the person who provided the team with sandwiches during their meeting so that the team could continue their collaboration uninterrupted, is an example. A leader could say, “This team would not have been able to deliver this project if not for…” or, “Thanks to the supportive efforts we received from X, this team’s morale improved, our facilitative needs were met, and we were able to close this deal.”
I saved my favorite question for Matt for last: What does the future of the way we work look like to you? I found his answer inspiring: “I hope the future involves more and better communication and collaboration,” Matt said. “Communication is the only way for complex humans to solve complex problems together. And, I think that the first question people should ask as they move forward should be, what are they willing to give up? Too many organizations say that they want the control and predictability of the old way of working, but they also want the speed and flexibility of the new way of working. That’s impossible. So, what are you willing to give up?” Matt expects prospective consulting clients to answer that question with a list. “Once they do, then I say, okay, let’s talk.”
You can reach Matt LeMay, and find his books, Agile for Everybody and Product Management in Practice, at MattLeMay.com. Matt would also like you to know about a project under his development — onepageonehour.com, where you can take a pledge to spend no more than one hour on any one deliverable, before sharing it with your colleagues. “Not unlike the pursuit of high-status work, we spend too much time making things impressive, rather than useful,” Matt said, and he admitted that the shift from perfectionism to collaboration isn’t easy. In this way, Matt inspired me to look at my own work practices, and to consider how I want to build on what I’ve learned by collaborating to achieve the greatest value, rather than just working to impress.