SOP? What SOP?
Most military chaps will know “SOP” to mean “Standard Operating Procedure”. SOPs are the backbone for getting things organised and done well. In leadership and psychology literature, SOPs serve as substitutes for leadership because they mitigate bad leadership while also providing guide rails for inadequate expertise in team members. Good SOPs prevent avoidable mishaps. But good SOPs can only take a team so far. It can make teams not become bad, but it cannot make teams become great. To do that, you would need a different type of SOP, one that focuses not on procedures, but on posture. What do I mean?
A Different Type of SOP
We have different postures we bring to work. It is my layman term for an entire stream of leadership and psychology research on working selves (which I know I will not do justice with any summary. But in case you are interested, you can read a brief explanation here). So we have a posture based on our positional authority, and we can have a posture based on our practice (functional expertise). We can also have a posture we adapt based on the project we are involved, or based on some type of deliberate practice enacted to stretch ourselves. Regardless, our posture determines our focus and how we apply ourselves.
Here, I would like to share a different type of SOP that has to do with our posture. This type of posture will make for high performing teams, engaging team climate, and impactful organisations. So what are these?
“O” is for Operational
First, let me begin with the most familiar posture. Teams live and die by operational details. This is true for any team in any type of organisation. The thing some leaders overlook is that teams can die not only from lack of operational details, but also from an over-emphasis on operational details to the exclusion of other things.
Some leaders run their teams so hard that they leave a trail of dead bodies in their wake. And then they move on to other teams to repeat the same. These types of leaders create a costly reputation for themselves – costly to create and maintain, and costly to the teams they inherit. Rare are the followers who relish the challenge of working with such a leader. Yet, such leaders are not uncommon. More likely, it would not be the first time team members have encountered such leaders. They would have been burned by previous experiences, and have learned to adapt with lukewarm apprehension, cautious cynicism or quiet quitting. No wonder leaders who only focus on operational excellence don’t get buy-in easily.
The point is, teams need more than a posture of operational excellence to be truly high performing. This brings me to the other two letters in my redefined SOP.
“S” is for Spiritual
By spiritual, I don’t mean religious. (BTW, I’ve written about being spiritual in the various roles we play. You can find them here in this blog: /spirituality.) To be spiritual is to lift up one’s perspective from self to something greater than self. It is to imbue the daily grind with a greater meaning and purpose beyond the here and now.
To be spiritual is to give hope for the now, to enable others to embark on their desired future. A more formal definition is provided by the late psychologist Rick Snyder, the foremost researcher on hope. He defines hope as “the perceived capability to derive pathways to desired goals, and motivate oneself via agency thinking to use those pathways.”
Hope is a highly desired spiritual outcome. High performing teams doing highly impactful work rely on hope as defined by Rick Snyder to carry them through tough times. Any team that does not deal with hope cannot propel themselves and others to do the impossible, to embark on the self-sacrificial, to promote a new logic in the face of what seems to be currently illogical.
Some of the most powerful styles of leadership are inherently spiritual in approach. A common definition of leadership is (my paraphrase) “the ability to see a desired future, and to bring others along for the journey.” The best of such journeys border on the spiritual. I imagine great acts of leadership to involve bringing people along for a great adventure, whether it is lifting Singapore out of the swamps and slums of the 1960s, or turning a flailing company around to become the new darling of an industry. Leaders who are not spiritual can only do good things, not great things. Likewise, teams with strong operational excellence need leaders to remind them of the spiritual, to propel them from good to great.
“P” is for Pastoral
This brings us to the last letter “P”, which stands for being pastoral. To get people on an adventure, one can police with a heavy hand, leaving people exhausted from an enforced march. Or, one can be pastoral, caring for the people, being in the right place, maintaining a right pace. Before you think being pastoral is about being lovey dovey, let me illustrate with an example to convey what I mean by being pastoral.
A long time ago, while I was still in the army, I hated forced marches. To ensure that every man finished the march, I found myself playing various roles, and needing to be at key places at different times. Since I could not be at all places at all times, I needed to put the right set of commanders in place to perform the various roles.
The commander in front is someone who sets a good pace. While that commander led the way, I also needed to be present occasionally to show leadership from the front. Next, I have commanders in the middle of the pack to prevent/reduce any breaks in contact. While they carried the bulk of this work, I needed to be there to feel the pulse of the pace. Finally, commanders at the rear of the pack were assigned to be with the stragglers, part cajoling, part encouraging, occasionally kicking their butts (metaphorically, of course) to ensure that they finish the march. Once in a while, I would also have to drop to the rear to help my commanders with this group of stragglers. For every forced march, I probably marched twice the distance my troops covered in order to be at these various places. Without a good team of commanders, I would definitely be marching even longer distances.
I think being pastoral is like how leaders need to be in a march. Not everyone wants to be in the march. And not everyone has the required level of fitness to march at the same pace. The range of roles required is not something a single person can fulfil. Hence, high performing teams are pastoral to each other. Each team member takes turn to be a pace-setter, a pace-sustainer, and a pace-supporter. They help each other set a good pace, stay with the main body, and do what they can to bring up the rear.
What is your SOP?
So, what is your recipe for high performing teams? Where are you in your spiritual, operational and pastoral focus? I have seen many instances of organisational dysfunction due to a lack in some portion of the SOP. Some people share their “church hurt” from serving in care-giving organisations who are not pastoral. I have observed burnout in individuals who are part of organisations overly obsessed with the operational. And I have counselled lost sheep languishing in their own professional desert from a lack of a spiritual harvest in spite of all that they have given to their organisations. It is not enough to excel at the operational. Rather, it is tragic to only focus on the operational. After all, there is more to life than work, and one’s work life can definitely be more life-giving.
