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The Professional B State Culture
Amateurs practice until they get it right; professionals practice until they can’t get it wrong.
—KENNETH VAN BARTHOLD
No matter what kind of company or their current level of A State, I usually give everyone in my foundational workshop a puzzle to complete with very clear directions about how to complete it. “Before we start,” I say, even though most people have already begun figuring out the answer on their own, “I want to make sure everybody is clear on the assignment. Raise your hand if you understand the desired outcome.”
That stops them, at least long enough for everyone to raise their hand.
“You just fell into the first trap! How can you understand the desired outcome if I haven’t given it to you yet?”
Pencils drop around the room.
“Don’t feel too bad,” I always go on. “It’s very common for people like us, who accept and delegate tasks, to think that understanding the task is the same thing as understanding the desired outcome—but they’re completely different. Plus, you all made an assumption about the task that, if true, would make this assignment a struggle to complete. But it’s not true, so you’ve fabricated exactly the kind of struggle we often see in businesses.
“The desired outcome, which I’ll present in a moment, demands higher-level performance, but will be easier to achieve if you all dedicate yourselves to it. Now, when have you ever raised performance standards in your organization that made it easier to accomplish the desired results? Never! Higher standards always mean more tasks and more work, right? Wrong! So how many of you want to hear this desired outcome, which will raise expectations yet make it easier to accomplish?”
After everyone nods or raises their hand, I tell them, “The desired outcome is for every person in the room to demonstrate the correct answer on their page within three minutes. If even only one person doesn’t have the answer on their page, the whole room fails. If you get the correct answer but the person next to you doesn’t, you fail. If your whole table gets the correct answer but a single person on the other side of the room doesn’t, you still fail. The only way to win is for everyone to get the correct answer. Ready? One, two, three . . . go.”
I start my stopwatch.
The response is always the same, regardless of country, culture, or type of organization. At least one person suddenly asks the room, “Anyone have the answer?” Then another person spontaneously jumps up, using the flip chart at the front of the room to demonstrate and teach the answer to everyone.
The room buzzes as they share information and help each other solve the puzzle. People walk over to other tables to make sure everyone has the correct answer. Those who struggle try to copy it from someone else’s page—but others quickly discover their difficulty and help them write it down correctly. The energy is high, everyone is having fun—and whether twenty-five or five hundred people are in the room, when I say, “Time’s up! Show me your solution,” they all hold up their workbooks with the correct answer.
“Give yourselves a hand! You guys completed the exercise.”
After they congratulate themselves, I say, “Want to know what you really accomplished? I didn’t give you any instructions or conduct a workshop on team building, communication, or quality control—yet you naturally demonstrated all those qualities because your focus was on the desired outcome, not on your own performance. You didn’t need ‘guidelines for good participation.’ I didn’t have to encourage or motivate anybody to take initiative. You didn’t need to clarify your values or learn if the person next to you was a ‘driver’ or a ‘mediator.’ Want to see something even more amazing?”
“Yes!” “Yeah!” “Absolutely!”
“How many of you made mistakes before getting it right?” Usually, about three-quarters of the people raise their hands.
“Who cares? No one! There was no ‘get it right the first time,’ provided you all got it right within the three minutes. There was no shame, criticism, or blame—just support! And it didn’t matter who gave the answer, did it? It could have been a manager, an employee—anyone. Anyone learn anything from this activity?”
Everybody chuckles and raises their hands.
“Oops! Sorry! I forgot to create a ‘learning environment’ first!”
Once they stop laughing, I say, “When you are outcome driven, you want to learn and better yourself to successfully achieve your outcome. You don’t need someone to motivate you—you’re inspired to succeed. Now, what was your assumption before I explained the desired outcome?”
“I have to solve the puzzle by myself.”
“Where did you learn to make that assumption?”
“In school.”
“Of course. And when you were in school and you shared your answer with someone else, what was that called?”
“Cheating!”
The “Game” of School versus the “Game” of Business
Most of us spent at least twelve years in school—many of us spent a good many more. The purpose of going to school was to learn. You didn’t have to like it, but you had to get through it. Some of us had an easier time and didn’t really have to study. Others studied a lot yet still struggled to get good grades. The school gave tests to determine whether you were learning. You had to take them by yourself because a group test couldn’t determine what you knew versus the other people in the group.
The school “game” ensured individual learning. The only way to “win” was to do your homework (alone), study well (also alone), and prove your knowledge by testing well (rigidly enforced alone). Individual effort was paramount—and cheaters were punished.
The business “game” is the exact opposite of all that. No individual, no matter how high their grad-school GPA, can possibly fulfill an organization’s purpose of satisfying its customers in the most cost-effective manner possible on their own. Every organization succeeds through its collective efforts. The person who takes your order and delivers your meal in a drive-through is not the same person who cooks it. The individual who prepares the food depends on whoever orders the supplies and ingredients. Each person must carry out their role effectively, but it takes the whole team to satisfy your desired outcome of a well-constructed bacon cheeseburger.
Any CEO will readily admit they didn’t build their organization strictly through their own individual efforts. They drew upon advisors, consultants, colleagues, and outside networks. They learned and gained innovative ideas from others—they recognized that they stood on the shoulders of all those who had come before them.
What schoolteachers call “cheating,” business leaders call “smart.”
Business Isn’t “Clean”
When young adults first enter the workplace, they seldom realize their careers will follow a “tiered development” that relies on those “smart” team efforts, otherwise known as collective execution.
The sole focus for young new employees is typically on getting and doing the job—not on how to be a team player, deal with inefficient operational bureaucracy, or navigate through conflicting personalities, expectations, and priorities. Consequently, they often get frustrated and demoralized and either quit, complain incessantly until they’re fired, or “change careers to look for their passion” when they make mistakes, clash with their fellow workers, or don’t complete assignments. The ones who do successfully navigate those challenges often irrationally believe they’ll get promoted at the end of a year, the way they advanced from one grade to the next every year if they didn’t flunk out.
But when people gain the expertise to do their job well and navigate the challenges of their organization, their next step is not a promotion—it’s accepting the opportunity to refine their individual and Team Habits, so they can demonstrate greater speed, adaptability, and proficiency under stress and change.
That’s the business “game.” It’s not about being a lone-wolf hero; it’s about being an effective and innovative team player.
How I Learned to Stop Being a Hero
I used to like the challenge of solving problems, so when my team surfaced an issue several years ago, I secluded myself in my office and set to work. Even I was amazed and impressed at how quickly I solved it. Thirty minutes later, I left my office to share my brilliant solution with my team. I’ll never forget the looks on their faces.
“Uh . . . we solved that about fifteen minutes ago by calling one of our outside experts,” one person said. “We’re already on to our next problem.”
“By the way, Mark,” someone added sarcastically, “thanks for your efforts.”
We all—well, my team—had a good laugh. When I got over myself a few minutes later, I laughed too.
That’s how effective business works. Organizations purposefully engage their resources, talents, and teams into critical-thinking networks that solve problems and reach new levels of excellence. Individual, siloed “heroes” need not apply—although many old-school managers and high-functioning employees still hang on to their silo mentality. Just think about the breakdowns in your own organization that result from lack of information, poor coordination, or problems that don’t get surfaced until they become crises and negatively impact everyone. Classic A State.
This scenario is just one more reason why the B State organization utilizes “collective execution” rather than “individual stars” to achieve high performance and optimal customer satisfaction. My wife and I had a great B State customer experience when we purchased a Tesla. Every team member—seven different individuals from purchase to delivery—demonstrated their company’s culture of high-performance “collective execution.”
They answered our questions. They cared enough to share their honest opinions—even if that meant we spent less on extra features. And they kept us in the loop as various individual team members coordinated the different purchase and delivery stages. Was it a perfect experience?
No. But yes.
The driver’s window didn’t work when we got there to pick up the car, so the delivery team member immediately called a technician, who fixed it on the spot. We drove off the lot as super-satisfied customers. Not only did each Tesla team member provide individual high performance, but the team as a whole made sure we were fully satisfied.
Classic B State.
The “B State” Began in Sports and Music
Because of my background in sports and music, the financial waste and marginal results produced by so many process-improvement, team-building, and leadership-development workshops used to frustrate me. Even “Lean” process-improvement efforts, while super helpful, didn’t resolve the execution breakdowns that stem from conflicting priorities, or poor problem-solving or decision-making, that undermine operational excellence.
“I’m working with an organization that isn’t satisfied with their performance-review process,” Todd Alexander, a close friend and B State coach in his own consulting practice, once confided in exasperation. “It’s created a lot of staff negativity and isn’t producing the results they expected. We did a study to figure out why, and discovered only half the managers used the system!”
“So that half got great results,” I said, “and the other half didn’t, right?”
“Surprisingly, no—using the system wasn’t the deciding factor. The managers who only used the process as a check-off list didn’t get any better results than the ones who didn’t use it at all. Plus, those managers who didn’t use the system but had regular performance-improvement conversations with their direct reports got just as good results as those who used the system for what it was intended—to stimulate those very conversations. Turns out, the process itself was less important than the behaviors it was supposed to generate—which were what actually achieved the desired results!”
Like I said—frustrating. We almost never had those kinds of breakdowns when I played baseball, basketball, or drums. And because my mind goes first to questions, I queried myself:
Every professional athlete and musician knows they must take classes to learn the fundamentals, then must rehearse and practice with others to develop the communication, coordination, timing, problem-solving, and decision-making they need to form the habits of execution that optimize their performance.
There’s nothing “soft,” theoretical, or “philosophically ideal” about an athletic or musical performance. Its “measurement of effectiveness”is based solely on whether the team wins the game, or the audience enjoys the performance.
When I first learned to play the drums, my teacher gave me two or three lessons at a time, but I would push myself ahead to learn five to seven, so I got better as fast as possible. Eventually, I rose to first chair in my school band and orchestra. With more lessons and practice, I competed and qualified for “honor band.” I thought I was really good—until I auditioned for a local rock group.
Reading music and playing in school groups didn’t give me the chops I needed for their level of collective execution. I didn’t know how to listen or jam when there was no structure or conductor, and I didn’t have the right attack, played too many fills, and couldn’t adjust to different song styles. I just didn’t fit in! So they kicked me off the drums, acknowledged my technical skill, and told me to just watch and listen for a while. It took me six months of hanging out with the band and practicing on my own to learn how to transform from being a by-the-book player into a street musician. Only then did the band hire me as their drummer.
I got better over the years—not from taking more lessons or going to workshops, but by playing with musicians who were more experienced and better than me. Over time, I developed my chops until I could effectively play as an equal band member at dances and local concerts. Still, I didn’t become an excellent drummer until we went into the studio to record. That forced us to tighten our performance and rise to a much higher level of perfection, communication, and listening—especially in those days of four-track recording. The bass player and I had to lay down our parts without any melody, harmony, or vocals behind us. We really needed every little corner and wiggle of a song in our heads and under our hands.
To prepare, the band played five-hour club gigs five days a week and practiced on our days off—while I still carried a full load of college courses! We all improved significantly, and I came to truly understand the importance of “team habits.” Playing well wasn’t enough; playing well together is what made us better and better—and improving “collective execution” never ends. It was all about tiered development, the process of constantly rising to everhigher levels of excellence, which leads to ever-higher levels of challenge.
High-Performing Team Habits
My high-performance music and athletic skills were not based on any single theory, set of rules, process, or workshop, but rather on the band or team giving its best collective performance despite constraints or individual competencies. Once we reached optimal execution, we practiced it repeatedly, so it became a “team habit.” That way, when people were stressed or overwhelmed, no one had to think about what to do—it was automatic! No one on my school baseball team, for example, had to think twice about what to do to make a double play. We practiced it so much that our collective execution became a solid, smooth, automatic team habit without thought or fumbles.
All athletic teams think and practice the same way. The former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana once said, “I only work on building my own skills during the off-season. During regular play, I focus on our team’s execution because that’s what wins ball games—not how well Joe Montana plays. If I change how I play during the on-season, it’ll throw off the rest of the team’s timing and coordination, and we’ll lose games.”
Could anything be clearer about the difference between optimizing individual performance and collective execution? Only collective execution wins ball games.