Kansas City, Missouri, 2008. A team of the SWAT squad from the Kansas City Police Department (KCPD) was serving a high-risk search warrant searching for 2 homicide suspects. As they smashed into the house where the suspects were witnessed hiding, they discovered that the house was full of other occupants including women and kids and many families. The place turned into chaos as soon as they entered, with children running everywhere, and screaming mothers and babies crying and clinging on their legs. The team was shocked by this scene. Their team captain, Chris Huth, was trying to regroup the team for the next action. To his surprise, he found that one of his officers, Bob Evans, was at the kitchen mixing baby bottles. Imagine this absurd picture of a 6 feet tall alpha male police officer with tactical gear standing in front of the sink mixing formula milk while the SWAT team is in a fully armed operation. Chris, though shocked by what he saw, immediately understood Bob’s intention and helped distribute the bottles to the mothers and children there. The whole scene shifted instantly. Everyone calmed down and Chris was able to explain their operation and had them co-operate.
What drives Performance?
We are all leaders of many forms, whether we are leading other people as a team or leading ourselves to thrive excellence. When it comes to driving performance, we always think behaviors drive results. As long as one’s behavior can be managed or directed in a certain way, the intended result can be expected. No doubt, certain behaviors can lead to certain outcomes. Many leaders, through whatever means, can find ways to alter one’s behavior to achieve an envisioned result. However, this “behavior-push approach” of performance can only drive short-term outcomes without a fundamental transformation. The change from this approach is often resisted and falls back as soon as the pushing power is reduced.
A committed behavioral change will only happen when the foundational mindset is changed. When one’s mindset is sufficiently improved, you as a leader no longer have to specify everything each team member is supposed to do. When a new and unanticipated situation occurs, team members will think of the right thing to do on their own based on this mindset.
Mindset Transformation
Back to the baby bottle story, what made Bob perform such an unusual action during the operation? This brings us to a few years before this incident when KCPD was one of the most complained-about police departments in the United States. Using excessive force, not following standard procedures, etc during operations were as common as a culture within KCPD. Although the police officers there were doing all these to fight crime, they have forgotten the fact that they are public servants to the people. KCPD was the most unpopular government unit among the citizens of Kansas City.
Under professional guidance, the KCPD had undergone a series of workshops on mindset transformations. Starting from Chris’ leadership and his team, they learnt the ultimate purpose of the police force and the consequence of their actions to the community. They started to hold more accountability of the impact they imposed rather than just the tasks they performed. Bob’s self-driven decision of mixing baby bottles during the operation was not a surprise after all. It was just a realization of his profound understanding of KCPD’s purpose, a good example of the mindset driven approach. Chris’ squad has not received a complaint related to a search warrant in 10 years since the transformation process was initiated.
Outward and Inward Mindset
Understanding the importance of mindset driving results is fundamental but not sufficient. It is also crucial to be aware that there are different types of mindsets. Choosing your direction towards which mindset will bring you to a solution or more problems, and help you to grow or shrink. In other words, whether a mindset leads you to behave in a way that is calculated to focus solely on your own benefit, or a mindset that guides you to behave in ways that will further the collective results you, your team and your company are committed to achieve. When an unanticipated situation arises, this will become a guiding principle for us to choose the way of behavior and our actions.
The Outward Mindset workshop at RingCentral
We have been organizing the workshop of Leading with Outward Mindset for our team in China since this year and I am very glad to be the instructor sharing the principle of the outward mindset and some real life experience from it. At first, the participants of the workshop are leaders and people managers but later we found that the same principles can be applied to everyone with a growth mindset to ultimately become a better self in his/her career. During the workshop, we discuss a lot of case studies with fascinating stories. But most importantly, we have the participants form groups to share their real life examples and discuss how they would perform differently with a transformed mindset.
The result has been remarkable. In a tech company like RingCentral, technical skill is of course crucial and foundational for all innovation and development. But without a right guiding mindset, we will not be able to focus and measure on the right thing and unleash the full potential of everyone’s knowledge. Take a simple example, if each team member only focuses on his/her own benefit in every discussion and forget about the ultimate collective results the company should focus on, at best he/she only holds accountable for his/her own action, but for worst he/she will blame his/her poor performance on others. With the right guiding principle through the Outward Mindset, everyone is now held accountable both for their actions and performance, and for their impact on others’ action and performance. Productivity and efficiency are just the natural outcomes from this.
A true collective result is the only outcome that matters in a company.
The institute we honor
In closing, we would like to thank The Arbinger Institute for publishing these inspiring books below which are the basis for the workshop above as well as the content in this article. The professional insight from the books, the fascinating stories as well as the actual case studies in reality helped us develop a better self, a better team, and a better company.
The Arbinger Institute. (2019). The Outward Mindset : How to Change Lives and Transform Organizations . Oakland, California: Berret Koehler Publishers
The Arbinger Institute. (2010). Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box . Oakland, California: Berret Koehler Publishers
The Arbinger Institute. (2015). The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict. Oakland, California: Berret Koehler Publisher
Originally published Dec 10, 2024
