The DoKnowBe Tree: DO and KNOW

This is the third posting of our weekly blog and the final review of session one (A Leadership Framework) and the DoKnowBe Tree. Our August 24 post unpacked the roots of the tree—the BE portion of the tree. Today’s post will briefly unpack the DO and KNOW portions of the tree and then share thoughts on how each of these can be developed.

The DO section of the tree represents a leader’s behavior. There are as many behaviors expected of a great leader as there are branches on a tree. Like branches, some expected behaviors are a bigger deal while others are smaller. We don’t even attempt to cover all the behaviors that are expected of a leader, but a short list certainly includes things like:

• Listening well
• Sharing updates
• Asking questions
• Offering warm greetings
• Knowing key details
• Seeing the big picture
• Addressing issues
• Exploring the future
• Monitoring results
• Showing compassion
• Showing persistence
• Laughing at herself

In class, we highlighted two things every leader needs to do: 1) Build a great team, and 2) Create clarity around mission, vision, and values.

Building a Great Team

There are five specific behaviors that we unpacked later in the year on how to build an amazing team:

1. Hire well—bringing people onto the team.
2. Fire well—helping people move into other spots or off the team.
3. Develop individuals—learning about and doing what is effective in helping individuals grow.
4. Develop the group well—learning about and doing what makes a team most effective.
5. Shape the culture—understanding how powerful culture is and how to shape it.

I will dive into these topics in subsequent postings when reviewing those sessions.

Creating Clarity Around Mission, Vision, and Values

In the second cohort we used the book Conscious Capitalism for the Business Acumen session and the Creating Clarity session. This book calls out four distinct areas where leaders need to create clarity and names them differently than how we initially used the words mission, vision, and values. Here is a comparison of the four terms:

PILOT Cohort	LEAD 365 Cohort	Our Definition
Mission	Purpose	The reason we exist
Vision	Vision	A future picture of living into #1
Strategic Plan	Mission	A plan to achieve the vision
Values	Values	How we behave as we do all of the above

Many authors vary on what to call these four things, and I believe that a rose by any other name is still a rose, so we will try not to get hung up on what people call these and instead be clear about what they are and why it is important to create clarity around them. Again, we will take a deeper dive in subsequent postings when reviewing the sessions on these topics.

The KNOW section of the framework is used to capture the knowledge and skills necessary for a leader to be excellent. If she is a CEO this will include things like knowledge about how to understand financial reports and and key operating metrics, and skills like leading meetings and public speaking. If he is a head football coach this will include knowledge of what kinds of plays to call in every situation, and skills like how to communicate quickly and effectively in chaotic situations.

While gifts and passions (two of the roots in the BE section of the framework) aren’t really transferable from one person to another, knowledge and skills are. Knowledge and skills are the things virtually anyone can learn—information and abilities you can pick up from classes, books, and videos.

In class I may have used penmanship as an example of a skill. All of us learned to write with a  pencil when we were very young. This is a skill that can be transferred from one person (our school teacher in this case) to another (each of us). Some of us have a gift for this and as such have beautiful handwriting. Others of us, not so much, but we can still write with a pen or pencil.

An example of knowledge might be around the law. Many people can learn the knowledge needed to pass tests in law school and pass the bar, but only some have the gift to put that knowledge together in creative and strategic ways to give their clients a big advantage around legal matters. Just knowing the information necessary to work as a lawyer, as challenging as that may be, belongs in the KNOW portion of the DoKnowBe Tree. By and large, this knowledge is transferable from the professors and law books to the student. The ability to use that knowledge creatively and strategically is more of a gift, and as such, can’t be transferred from one person to another.

Developing the DO, the KNOW and the BE sections of the DoKnowBe Tree model require different approaches.

KNOW —The most common development efforts over the past fifty years have been aligned with the KNOW portion of leadership. Most individual development plans focused on taking classes, reading great books, and watching informational videos. I don’t have much to add here other than the fact that this method of development is effective only for this one section of the DoKnowBe Tree. I think KNOW is the least important of the three sections of the model. Unfortunately this was the only focus for many people’s intentional development efforts.

DO —We believe that the best way to develop the DO portion of the framework is through coaching. There are many areas in life where we are stuck, and yet we already know what to do and we have the skills needed to do it. I once heard Ken Blanchard (a leadership guru over the past forty years) say that the gap between doing what we know we should and what we actually do is larger than any gap we have between not-knowing and knowing what we should do. I suspect he is right and his point is well taken.

This is where the power of coaching comes in. Good coaches—through their helpful questions and high impact listening—help us connect with the knowledge and skills we already have for most situations, and they help us gain access to them and use them. They help us find our own answers and then help us take action.

Coaching is the best way to develop the DO portion of the framework.

BE —This is the most interesting and difficult section of the tree to develop. I have come to believe this section is more about discovery than actual development. Discovery of your real beliefs—as revealed by your behaviors, not your words—is very powerful. Your behaviors will reveal your actual beliefs. Of course we are blind to many of our behaviors, and as such, are blind to many of our actual beliefs.

This is true of our values, passions, gifts, and wiring too, and this why feedback is so important to becoming a person worth following. Others can help us see ourselves in new and more accurate ways, thus allowing us to be more aware of our DoKnowBe roots.

The best way to develop the BE portion of your DoKnowBe Tree is through anything that will lead to greater self-discovery. There are many ways to do this. Here are some of the top actions I know of:

• 360-degree feedback methods and other ways to ask people who know you to describe you (Johari Window stuff).
• Assessment tools like DISC, Motivators, Kolbe Index, and Myers Briggs.
• Trying new things where you don’t know how you’ll do, and then paying attention to what happens with no pride or shame tied to the outcome, just curiosity.
• Self-refection, prayer, meditation, and journaling.

You know of my brother Ron, the author of The Complete Leader. He has an editor who submits articles to magazines for Ron’s associates, and they have asked me to write an article on how to develop your root system. It is in process right now, and I will send it to you when it’s complete. It offers even more thoughts and examples of how to develop each of your roots.

That’s enough for this week. Next week Meredith will review some of the information we shared with you in our Feedback session.

We hope you have a great week with some moments of real growth! Remember, weekly moments of growth turn into significant growth over many months—and giant growth over years!

Best regards till next time,

Rodg

Image by Vinoth Chandar. Used under CC by 2.0 license.