How Mr. Spock Helps You Make Better Decisions
As leaders, we like being decisive and making quick decisions. We know our businesses well and are willing to act. Doing so without true contrarian input can be dangerous though.
You can make better decisions though simply by identifying and relying on your own personal Mr. Spock. Yes, I’ve been watching movies again and as usual, I can’t help but draw a leadership perspective from them.
In Star Trek (the new version – which was awesome) Captain Kirk is decisive yet impetuous. He takes on huge risks and acts on emotion. Many times he’s right. He has a good gut feeling and intuition. He knows his team and his organization’s capabilities. He’s a great tactician. But it’s easy to see how his snap decisions could lead to disaster.
Mr. Spock on the other hand is brutally logical and dispassionate. He is stylistically diametrically opposed to Captain Kirk. Needless to say the two of them go at each others’ throats (both figuratively and literally when Spock snaps and chokes out Kirk).
As a team, however, the two of them make better decisions. As conflict-laden and dysfunctionally painful as their relationship is at times, it works.
All of us would do well as leaders to find our own Mr. Spock. Here’s what I mean…
At one point in my career I had my own Mr. Spock. I was young, impetuous, and action-oriented. My bias was to make decisions, act on them, and see what happened. Sometimes those weren’t the best decisions and things kind of blew up on me (I know… hard to believe, right? ;). During those blow-ups I had my team in crisis damage control mode. We would clean things up, learn from them and move on with life.
One day, my Mr. Spock showed up – uninvited might I add. He was even-keeled. He asked difficult questions. He wanted me to articulate the logic and reason behind the decisions I wanted to make. He was a complete pain in my behind.
I avoided Spock at all costs. I made decisions without involving him. I didn’t invite him to meetings where we discussed upcoming decisions. I was an immature idiot in how I related to him.
Spock, being a driven little Vulcan, often found out about upcoming decisions and in his unemotional way invited himself to participate in the decision making process. He asked great questions. He pointed out logical flaws. He made my life difficult, slower, yet oddly more insightful.
Spock’s involvement in the decision making process helped the team avoid some errors and in one case prevented a pretty good sized crisis. He made us sharper and smarter. Over time I came to respect and seek out his input when I understood the value he added to the process. No, I didn’t thoroughly enjoy it but involving him was like Brussels sprouts – distasteful but good for you.
So who is your Mr. Spock? Who is that person that makes you consider other alternatives? Who is the person you avoid because they ask difficult questions and force you to think through your decisions more thoroughly? Sure, they slow you down but sometimes they’re the only obstacle between you and the Romulan warship you’re flying into range of.
Identify the person who can be your Spock. Have an up-front conversation with them about your style and their style. Let Spock know how you would like to involve him/her in your decision making process. Be sure to agree to disagree at times and try to clarify who makes what decisions and who has the authority to make which calls.
As painful as you might find it, you might learn a thing or two. You will likely make better decisions. Sure things might be slower but wouldn’t you rather take a little more time to increase your chances of success than rapidly flying into a Klingon ambush?
Find your Mr. Spock. He’ll help you be a better leader because good leaders listen. Good leaders make informed decisions. Good leaders utilize all available resources on their teams. Good leaders are open to input and productive dissent. You owe it to your team and your organization to endure the pain of dealing with Mr. Spock because in the end, it’s better for everyone involved – including you.
– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC
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Mike, my jaw dropped when I saw your post (in a good way). I've been using the "Spock" leadership approach for a few months now…
I've gotten a heck of a lot of good stuff from your blog, so here's my chance to add something back to the dialogue for once. Here's the full text of what I have shared with my team in recent months regarding the "Spock" approach:
Subject: How would SPOCK solve the "SITUATION"?
UNEMOTIONAL YET POSITIVE
1) APPROACH : Approach the problem with the expectant attitude that there is a logical practical solution just waiting to be found. Be relaxed, calm, confident and clear in your mind. There is no place for emotion in this process – it will trip you up, and you’ll blind yourself to factors that you might not otherwise see. The worst thing I’ve seen leaders do is get emotional and disengage from the solution altogether, solving nothing, and undermining their own authority.
2) LANGUAGE: Change your language from negative to positive. Instead of the word “problem,” use the word “situation.” Problem is a negative word while situation is a neutral word. “We have an interesting situation”, is better than, “We have a problem.” As a leader, when you use language that is perceived as negative, the team perceives you as emotional and weak because you cannot control your own emotions via language. Even if you do not feel “positive” about a situation, you can demonstrate a “cool under fire” approach thru a choice of positive language.
ANALYSE
3) DEFINE : Define the situation clearly, in writing. Think of it in terms of what the issue is NOW, and then where you want the issue to be in the future. “What is the CURRENT unfavorable situation?” Then define: “What is the IDEAL situation?” No problem is too large. Break it into smaller parts if it seems overwhelming — problem solve the issue in pieces.
4) EXPLORE: Explore ALL the possible causes of this situation. Seek other perspectives to make sure you’re not missing a root cause. Failure to identify the causes or reasons for the situation often causes you to have to solve it again and again. Be careful that you don’t make false assumptions based on a pre-existing bias, such as “someone is lazy”. Don’t decide on one single course of action before weighing other options. Write out as many solutions or answers to the situation as you can find. The quantity of possible solutions usually determines the quality of the solution chosen.
5) ASSESS : Risk Assessment. Beware of “Unintentional Side Effects”. Seeking other perspectives, as mentioned above is one way, but also try to chart out a “what if” scenario to identify what is the best case and worst case scenario for each possible solution. Weigh the options.
6) CHOOSE: Choose your battle: after you’ve weighed options, sometimes the best solution is not obtainable without significant sacrifice of your other objectives. Before you decide to allocate resources to solve a situation, figure out if the problem is worth the cost to solve it.
THEN : LEAD
7) DECIDE on a clear course of action.
8) ASSIGN clear responsibility for carrying out the decision and then set a deadline for completion and review. Remember, a decision without a deadline is just a fruitless discussion.
9) FOLLOW UP: monitor the decision, compare actual results with expected results and then generate new solutions and new courses of action.
Hopefully this is of some use to your readers too!! Thanks for all you do!
I grew up as a “TREKKIE”. Watched STAR TREK (The original) when it first came on. I always liked MR SPOCK and I embraced logical thinking all my life. It seemed to work for me‼️‼️😁
What if you are the Spock trying to lead? Does that mean you need to find a Kirk? Sort of a silly question, but a serious one!
The challenges of a "Spock" in a leadership role could be:
1. Paralysis by Analysis – if logic doesn't point to a clear path of action then you may end up spending all your energy looking for the clean, "perfect" answer when none exists. Since timing is so critical, and this is why organizations value decisive leaders, your opportunity may be lost before you get started.
2. People Matter – and people are not logical. Illogical tendencies involving emotion, feeling and personality underly effective communication and teamwork.
Just as a "Kirk" needs a team member to check his impulsiveness, a "Spock" needs a team member to balance his own shortcomings.
Nice article but no surprises. All good leaders have one or more sounding boards to test out decisions. Every strong willed leader must be tempered by their team or gross miscalculations of judgement will occur.
I have often used THE SOPRANOS as an example of a particular management style that can be successful but had never considered STAR TREK. Great insight into the need for diversity in the workforce — and the requirement that one takes advantage of it. Ripe for research validation too.
Thanks!
Andrea Schrager
This a great and timely post – it is so important to show stong leadership skills in tough situations. I get too emotional in heated situations and am working desperately to be in control and be a calming force (as leader of people and project teams). I am reading Working with Emotional Intelligence which is helping some… I need to invision getting a vulcan death grip when starting to get emotional (amygdala attack) as the book calls it.
Thanks for keeping this out front and something to get better at for corportate longevity.
@Anonymous – if you're the Spock, I would argue you do need a Kirk. Someone like Kirk will push for action and prevent analysis paralysis. There's a balance between the two. Find your Kirk and you might find more of your well-thought ideas moving into action.
@Paul – totally agree. Analysis paralysis is crippling. A Kirk-type personality can break through that. I would argue though that the point of people mattering is not missed by Spock. It is logical to account for the illogical nature of people and factor that into the decision making process. If you think holistically about ALL factors affecting the problem (including emotions) you'll get to a better answer.
@C W Cobalt – thanks so much for sharing some great thoughts. Too funny we both had Spock on the brain. This is an awesome approach and set of recommendations you've shared. Want to write a guest blog post sometime (I'm not kidding)? If so, drop me an email at info@thoughtleadersllc.com and let me know.
@Andrea – see my last post about Michael Corleone for a preview of some mafia leadership. You bring up a great point on Soprano style leadership and I actually have a post in the queue on mafia-style leadership so stay tuned. Thanks for being a reader.
@Anonymous #2 – good book (Emotional Intelligence). Your awareness alone of your challenges is a great start. I encourage you to come up with some regular way to remind yourself to put your new skills and approaches into practice every day. Even if it's a sticky note on your monitor that serves as a reminder to chill out, those reminders help build the behaviors you're looking to model.
You might not be surprised to know that the original project idea for "Star Trek" was not so loosely patterned after "Gunsmoke", with Captain Kirk in the Matt Dillon "let's go shoot it out" role, Spock as the cool-headed logical Doc character, Uhura in the feminine influence Miss Kitty, Chekov on Deputry Chester, etc.
As I said, somewhat loosely based. In Gene Roddenberry's book, he billed the show to the potential financial backing as "Wagon Train to the Stars"
@CW Cobalt: You wrote "2) LANGUAGE: Change your language from negative to positive. Instead of the word “problem,” use the word “situation.” Problem is a negative word while situation is a neutral word. “We have an interesting situation”, is better than, “We have a problem.” As a leader, when you use language that is perceived as negative, the team perceives you as emotional and weak because you cannot control your own emotions via language. Even if you do not feel “positive” about a situation, you can demonstrate a “cool under fire” approach thru a choice of positive language. "
I think this is simply wrong. For starters, it leads to the "euphemism treadmill"–pretty soon your team will hear "problem" anyway every time you say "situation."
Secondly, good leaders are honest: if there is an actual problem, admit that it exists. Some things really are negative. Pretending that something which will hurt you is neutral just shows your team that you're in denial.
That's not to say you can't still be "cool under fire" in your attitude.
i am a proponent of this philosophy. i like plain words. if something is going to pieces, i will tell my team. but the job of the leader is to show them the way out and make them believe it can be done.
i like the word ‘problem’, and other frank terms. unless i know there is a team member who is sensitive and can’t cope with realism, i think sugar-coating is an insult to my team – but then again, being a Spock, i don’t emotional modifiers in general (words you add or replace to a factual statement so that it is more emotionally comforting but aren’t logically necessary). people generally know when something is bad. if you use euphemisms they either think you don’t understand the gravity of what you’re asking them to do or go through. or that you know it’s bad but aren’t willing to take some action or speak out in their interests, so not saying it is a problem is a way for you to sidestep that ethical decision. or that you don’t think they can deal with the truth.
besides, solving a problem is so much more satisfying than managing a situation.
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I don’t think you need one of this and one of that. If you’re ALL Kirk, we need to have a little talk. If you’re ALL Spock, I’ll want your phone number and will question your stoicism when your compassion is needed. (For Star Trek redux, I loved the scenes between Uhuru and Spock. His human side was shown.) I think you need to develop or–depending upon where you are when assessing your leadership style–to balance the Kirk AND the Spock from within. I LOVE Captain Pike if we’re only allowed to make references to Star Trek. Personally, I would prefer to go TNG and would opt to be a Picard.
Uhura. Didn’t mean to go all Swahili on you.
I’m a fan of Star Trek forever.