A question I am often asked is ‘How can I make my people do what I really want them to do?’ My usual answer is ‘You can’t.‘, often followed by the question ‘How can your people make you do what you really want to do?‘.

Thousands of books and millions of articles have been published on methods for getting your staff and colleagues to do what you want them to do.  The first of these publications were about dealing with simple situations that were known and familiar and declared that a command and control regime would yield the most efficient results.  This was the domain of the Commander, and although this method can be efficient in very specific contexts, it usually ineffective when dealing with the unfamiliar.

The vast army of writers then went on to describe how to deal with complicated situations that were unfamiliar to the people involved, although the nature of the particular situations was known to others.  This is the territory of the Manager, whose main task is to make specific and unambiguous decisions based on collected information and accumulated management theory.

However, although Commanders and Managers are usually competent at dealing with known situations, they often struggle when having to work with the unknown, the uncertain and the unexpected.  In the unknown, there are often no clear cut answers, and ambiguities and paradoxes may often need to be embraced.  Rather than decisions being made about whether to do this or that, they become about how to achieve this and that.

Working in unknown and ambiguous situations often asks for a more fluid and flexible approach. This is the realm of the Leader who usually reaches a favourable outcome by encouraging and inspiring others to engage with the complexities of the unknown.  Although Leaders may not know about specific situations, they often can draw on their experiences of exploring the unknown. Leadership is usually experiential, a quality that is experienced rather than a physical or intellectual process, and a Leader usually inspires by deeds rather than words.

Beyond the complex realm of leadership is the chaotic space of the unknown and unfamiliar.  There is no cause and effect or retrospective coherence, only seemingly random artefacts and events. This is the space of the Attractor, who creates a space for emergent creativity rather than encouraging Followers along the Leader’s chosen route. This space is often created by asking questions and so making I-You connections that then maintain and hold the space. In the unknown and unfamiliar, attending to the relationships between individuals and artefacts is more important than the individuals and artefacts themselves.

So if you want to make your people do what you really want them to do, ask them what they want to do, and help them to connect at a deeper level. Attract them into your space by sharing your vision, keep the energy up by amplifying that vision, and then let them get on with it.