The Superbosses Playbook: A Workbook Companion to Superbosses - Softcover

Introduction

In 2016, some months after the release of my book Superbosses, I presented the book and its lessons to 250 managers and executives at a large technology company. As audience members filtered in and took their seats, I found myself wondering what the following ninety minutes would hold in store for me. It was the peak of summer, and the weather outside was magnificent: 82 degrees, blue sky, blazing sun. It was the kind of day to spend relaxing on the golf course or on a beach chair sipping a cold drink, not sitting inside a bland, overly air-conditioned meeting room. Sure enough, as my host called the room to order, I noticed a certain distracted joviality among the audience members. They were discussing the vacations they would soon be taking or from which they had just returned, or the latest summer blockbuster movies they had seen.

When they finally settled down, I launched undeterred into my speech, describing how I had first noticed the phenomenon of superbosses. I explained the basics of what a superboss is-a leader with the extraordinary ability to make a mark on his or her industry or profession, not just by building an immensely successful, highly innovative business, but by spawning a significant amount of the industry's top talent. I talked a bit about common superboss traits like fearlessness, competitiveness, and authenticity, and I also delved into the unique practices of legendary leaders like Ralph Lauren, Alice Waters, George Lucas, and Bill Walsh: their personal and unconventional attention to talent recruitment, for instance; their openness to virtually all innovation, so long as it supports their underlying vision; and their tendency to sustain a close, personal, master-apprentice relationship with their protŽgŽs.

Fifteen minutes into my presentation, I noticed something: these managers and executives weren't simply listening. They were deeply engrossed. They were taking copious notes. They were ignoring their smartphones. They were nodding as I presented key pieces of superboss wisdom. They were even laughing at my jokes.

I paused for a moment to ask if there were any questions about or reactions to the specific superboss practice I had just introduced. A couple dozen hands shot up. "I've been managing teams of people for fourteen years," one man in his midforties said, "and I've been looking for a way to up my game. What I like about this is that it's very specific, it's easy to understand, and it's road tested." Another audience member, a woman in her thirties, noted that she was a software engineer by trade and had just become a manager a couple of months earlier, overseeing a team of eight engineers. "Frankly, it's kind of scary," she said, prompting sympathetic nods from others, "because although I'm great at writing code, I've got very little training on how to manage people. This tool kit you're describing allows me to take control over my development as a leader. That's what I want. It seems kind of like it could be my secret weapon."

A third person raised her hand, a senior leader at the company who oversaw an entire division of almost a thousand people. "I love learning about superbosses," she said, "because it will clearly help me manage my own team better. But here's what I'm struggling with: How can we scale it at our organization beyond a single manager to change the entire culture? We have 130 managers in my division. How can we help all of them become more like superbosses?" That prompted a great number of nods and supportive comments from many others in the room, senior executives and midlevel managers alike. As they told me, they didn't merely want their own team to perform better. They wanted organizational change.

I didn't know it then, but this question about scaling would turn out to be a game changer. After the publication of Superbosses, I traveled the world delivering workshops on the book to management teams at dozens of companies large and small, in all sorts of industries. I also presented at gatherings of C-suite executives, and at large conferences of human resource executives. Everywhere I went, I found that senior executives, midlevel managers, and new managers loved the ideas and found them immediately relevant to their work. But they wanted to know how they could deploy Superbosses so that they could not only manage their own teams better, but also teach other managers to become more like superbosses. More specifically, in our era of near-constant disruption, they wanted to know how they could use the wisdom of superbosses to make their organizational cultures more adaptable, dynamic, experimental, and entrepreneurial.

My first inclination was to advise these managers to buy as many copies of Superbosses as they possibly could, to share with others in their company (as the author, of course I'd think that!). But I quickly realized that this answer wouldn't suffice. Superbosses offers its audience of executives, managers, and employees an array of techniques for becoming more superboss-like and for finding, and working for, a superboss. Still, if I wanted to help organizations achieve the best results with a large corps of managers, I couldn't just expose these managers to the behaviors of a Ralph Lauren or an Alice Waters and say, "Go do this." I needed to go further, providing a rigorous regime of exercises that would make superboss practices more tangible and specific for people at all levels of an organization and at any stage of their careers. I needed to design a program that would help them spot superbosses in their midst more readily, that would encourage people to reflect in new ways on existing management approaches, that would spread experimentation with superboss behaviors, and that would help managers gauge their progress over time.

I sat down and drafted a set of exercises covering all of the primary superboss practices described in the original Superbosses book. I also designed a series of diagnostic tests, check-in exercises that people could use to measure progress, and integrative exercises that introduce teams to a range of superboss practices all at once.

Over a yearlong period, I tested these exercises with audiences large and small in a range of industries, adjusting and refining them so they were clear, easy to use, and effective. The feedback I received was amazing. Individual managers told me that they not only felt more familiar with superboss practices after running through specific exercises but had learned more about themselves as leaders and had actually changed their management behavior. When I facilitated exercises with entire teams, I found that team members deeply appreciated the chance to engage with their bosses. In addition to exposing employees to superboss behaviors, the exercises opened a new kind of dialogue between bosses and employees, giving each an opportunity to learn more about how to work day-to-day with the other.

How to Use This Book

The Superbosses Playbook gives managers and leaders the rigorous, road-tested tools they and their colleagues need to nurture great leaders and unleash them upon the world. The book is designed as a companion to the original Superbosses, but aside from that, how you use it is largely up to you. One organization integrated the exercises into a monthly workshop, devoting one session to each of the main superboss practices. As time passed, participating managers could chart improvements in how they functioned as bosses, and they could work on the exercises offline with their own teams between workshops. At other organizations, managers didn't use as many of the exercises, but opted to home in on those related to superboss practices in which they were especially weak. At still other organizations, managers seeking an overview of the entire superboss approach performed just one or two exercises for each of the main superboss behavioral areas, skipping the rest.

Although I intend some of these exercises for individual managers to perform themselves, many exercises are intended for teams to do together. As I see it, spending time with team members is a central activity of superbosses, underlying many of the specific practices covered in the Superbosses book. In addition to helping managers master these practices, team-based exercises benefit managers by spurring them to increase the amount of meaningful and productive time they spend with employees. Through these exercises, managers can deepen relationships with team members, obtain more valuable feedback from employees, nurture team spirit, and solicit new ideas and insights for the business. Finally, by working on these exercises with their teams, managers can become better teachers, and in this central respect, far more like the legendary superbosses profiled in my book.

One important note: Whenever you ask team members to fill out a survey or answer questions about you as a boss, make sure to guarantee them anonymity. If you don't, they'll be too afraid to do anything more than parrot back to you what they think you want to hear. In addition-and this is really important-be sure to follow up after the survey. Your team members need to know that you registered their input (whatever that may have been), and they need to see (not just hear) that you are taking steps to address that message.

I recognize that managers don't have endless time to work on adopting superboss practices, either alone or with their teams. That's okay, because as I say in the main Superbosses book, even a little superboss goes a long way. If you perform only a few exercises, and you do so only on your own, you'll still reap benefits, although not as many as you would if you worked slowly and methodically through the book and consistently involved your employees.

Be creative in integrating these exercises into your existing routine. What if you added twenty minutes to a weekly status meeting and ran through a new exercise each time as a warm-up? What if you picked a chapter of the main Superbosses book and dedicated several hours on your upcoming management retreat to performing the related exercises? What if you scheduled a series of ninety-minute or two-hour book club-style meetings, reading one chapter of the main Superbosses book per session and running through one or more exercises related to the chapter? What if you designated a "superboss week" and scheduled an hour each morning for your team to work intensively with one or more exercises in areas that are especially relevant?

Managers have so much to gain by looking to superbosses for inspiration, and so do organizations. Will these exercises transform your organization into the next Oracle under Larry Ellison or Kraft under Michael Miles? I can't promise that. But if you and others in your organization work at it, you'll increase the number and prominence of superbosses in your midst, transforming your culture and helping it master the flow of talent in the process. Over time, that in turn will lead to far better performance. All of us can supercharge our organizations by embracing the behaviors of these extraordinary bosses and helping others to adopt them. It requires a bit of effort and focus, and it doesn't happen all at once. But the investment does pay off-handsomely. So what are you waiting for? Set aside your daily work for a moment, gather your team together, and let's get started!

Introductory Exercises

Exercise #Intro-1

The Superboss Assessment

Assessment/Diagnostic

Purpose: To understand how fully you've incorporated superboss practices to date, and to identify where the greatest learning opportunities might reside.

"Becoming a great boss requires some effort, but everything that superbosses do is eminently learnable. Let's get to it."

Step One: Take the Superboss Assessment (see page 11)

Step Two: Involve Your Team and Colleagues

Ask team members, superiors, and peers to complete the superboss assessment by rating you on each of the dimensions in the survey. Ideally, try to get feedback from all of your team members, but if that's not possible, aim for at least half of them. Your team members should complete the surveys anonymously to ensure honest feedback. You'll then be able to compare the scores your colleagues have given you on each part of the playbook side by side with your own self-assessment. Your report will identify areas where alignment does and does not exist.

Step Three: Review Your Results

How did you do? Are you already performing a number of superboss practices? If so, congratulations! Give yourself some credit. And commit to continuing and enhancing behaviors in these areas. Conversely, are there any areas in which you're especially weak or that feel especially daunting? If so, give some thought to identifying the root causes behind these results. And then roll up your sleeves and get ready.

Step Four: Your Personalized Superboss Journey

We've designed the exercises in this study guide to help you improve your capabilities as a superboss, no matter which parts of the superboss playbook you are targeting. Your curriculum is bespoke, designed just for you.

Superboss Assessment: Self-Report Version        

Each item is scored along a 4-point scale:

1-Strongly Disagree

2-Disagree

3-Agree

4-Strongly Agree

Record your response to each question.

Talent Factor: Superbosses are talent spotters and talent magnets who unabashedly select exceptional people to work with.     

                You rarely or never feel threatened when someone on your team demonstrates superior specialized knowledge about something of importance to the mission of the team.

                You are like a talent magnet, somehow attracting people who want to work on your team.

                The most important criteria you often look for in a new hire are intelligence and creativity.

                You achieve success by surrounding yourself with exceptionally talented people.

Expectations Factor: Superbosses set high performance-based standards that energize employees to exceed goals.               

                Your team members don't mind working long hours to get the job done because of t...