What's your leadership C4Q?

During the Industrial Revolution, workers performed tedious, repetitive tasks daily in dreadful factory and foundry working conditions. In this bleak environment, overseers used fear as a psychological instrument to keep output high and ensure workers did what they were told. There were no “suggestion boxes” because new ideas simply had no place in such oppressive, autocratic workplaces. And while employers later shed those brute tactics for more subtle extrinsic rewards — such as pay raises, promotions and more sick leave — those incentives remained partly driven by fear as they could easily be taken away.

Only in recent decades have companies recognized the value in appreciating people for their work and giving them the freedom to do their best on the job. We’ve also learned that toxic managers undermine employee engagement, confidence and commitment. It’s now well documented that a bad boss is the No. 1 reason why employees quit their jobs. (See The Number One Employee Benefit That No One’s Talking About, by Tom Nolan, Gallup.com.) Indeed, today’s workplace is vastly different from the often-toxic environments of the past as organizational psychology gives way to advances in neuroscience for insights into how and why people are motivated to achieve.

Our brains are wired to seek knowledge and novelty

Poet Robert Browning provided a glimpse of this new reality when he penned the oft-quoted line from Andrea del Sarto: “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for?” That passage from Browning’s 1855 poem hints at the human “seeking system,” that part of the brain (within the limbic system) that fires up the impulse to explore beyond what is already known and reach new levels of understanding. It captures how our dreams always lie beyond our achievements and how our imaginations consistently strive for understanding.

This seeking system is the cauldron in which innovation, creativity and curiosity simmer. By using fear to motivate employees, companies simply quash the seeds of creativity, curiosity, critical thinking and collaboration — together known as the C4 quotient, or C4Q — and create fertile ground for complacency, disengagement and other behaviors. In short, they restrict a function of the human brain.

Daniel Goleman, psychologist and author of the best-selling book, “Emotional Intelligence,” introduced the importance of five factors for emotionally intelligent leadership: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills. These overlapping leadership soft skills are essential for creating workspaces that encourage authentic out-of-the-box creativity for both contrarian and conventional thinkers who enjoy chasing their curiosity down their respective pathways.

Source: Donn LeVie Jr. STRATEGIES, LLC

Psychologically empowering workplaces nurture C4Q

The curiosity quotient (expanded to include creativity, critical thinking and collaboration) is the new mantra for leaders in a world increasingly dominated by artificial intelligence (AI) and COVID-19 disruption. The C4 quotient is a quick and simple back-of-the-napkin calculation. If a leader encourages and supports three of the four-mentioned elements, their C4Q is .75; if they embrace all four, their C4Q is 1.0.

A 2017 McKinsey & Company report predicted that as many as 375 million people may need to find jobs in a new sector altogether to offset the threat that automation poses to employment. (See Jobs lost, jobs gained: What the future of work will mean for jobs, skills, and wages, by James Manyika, et.al., Nov. 28, 2017.) In this expanding era of AI disruption and post-COVID-19 paradigm shifts, current and up-and-coming leaders need a workforce and workspace vision shift for assessing their future value. Are leaders valued for what they know or how they make others feel? Are leaders regarded for the value that can be measured, or for potential value their ideas can generate?

The choices are not either/or but yes/and. With proper emotional intelligence (EI) skills, training and coaching, leaders with a high C4Q capacity can set the standard for creating high C4Q workspaces.

David Picard, CFE, manages a group of Medicaid fraud investigators for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. Picard’s plate has been full as he’s dealt with four team retirements in five months, the coming administrative transition from Medicaid to managed care and several team members working from home due to the pandemic. “Managing in such an environment you have to use leadership curiosity, creativity, critical thinking and collaboration,” he says. “It means keeping your hand on the rudder and steering the ship on a straight course with the four C’s on board.”

Here’s what a psychologically empowering workplace (PEW) looks like when leaders support C4Q development:

• Workers take initiative, apply risk assessment and embrace uncertainty.
• Workers have the freedom to perform job-related activities with their acquired expertise.
• Workers have the authority and accountability to have an impact on higher-level strategic direction or operational results for the organization.
• Workers are granted self-determination regarding project work and related processes that influence successful outcomes.
• Workers can perform tasks that complement their beliefs, behaviors and worth.

In short, they feel valued as employees and people in the eyes of leadership.

A larger vision for C4Q

Vince Walden, CFE, CPA, is chairman of the ACFE Foundation and a managing director with Alvarez & Marsal’s Disputes and Investigations Practice. He sees a greater importance and an anti-fraud element in the application of the four C’s.

“When thinking about the four C’s in the context of the Fraud Triangle, it makes sense that companies whose leadership and culture display high levels of curiosity, creativity, critical thinking and collaboration would exhibit less pressure to commit fraud within the organization as well as, perhaps, less rationalization,” Walden says.

Psychological workplace empowerment is most evident at the group or team level. The degree of psychological empowerment at any organization will vary, however, because often it’s linked to a particular manager, director or other leader.

Where initiative, ingenuity, and any of the four C’s are constrained by leaders, high performers will leave the company, while many of those remaining may display a variety of negative attitudes or behaviors in response to the perceived inequity.

Psychological empowerment may start at the top, but all employees are responsible for “paying it forward” by promoting the attitudes and behaviors underlying the four C’s. (For more information on psychological workplace empowerment, see July/August 2019 issue of Fraud Magazine, Bad Leaders: Increased Fraud.)

Key leadership actions for psychological empowerment

There are three key actions a leader must undertake to initiate the shift in culture:

1. Remove the humiliation of failure. Not all roads lead to success — especially on the first try. Leaders must accept and communicate that where out-of-the-box creativity is allowed to thrive, failure must be acceptable. In one study, researchers asked, “What percentage of work that goes wrong is blameworthy?” Responses were in the low single digits. But when asked, “What percentage of failures are treated as blameworthy?” the response rate jumped to between 70% and 90%. (See The Fearless Organization, by Amy C. Edmondson, Wiley Publishers, Nov. 20, 2018.) There’s a disconnect in the messaging.

Such blame attribution leads to defensive posturing rather than correcting root causes of failure. While leaders must swiftly identify workplace mistakes, they should also understand that curiosity, creativity and innovative thinking sometimes lead to dead ends. In the words of inventor Thomas Edison, “I have not failed 10,000 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 10,000 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.” That quote belongs in every corporate suite corner office.

When failures do occur, it’s best to pursue root-cause assessment without accompanying punitive measures or reprimands if you want curiosity, creativity, critical thinking and collaboration to continue to thrive. When given the opportunity, people who had a hand in some failure along the creative path often show great tenacity as problem solvers and create exceptional value.

2. Demonstrate fallibility and humility. Presence-driven leaders with EI skills demonstrate humility and can admit to not having all the answers. Collaborative leadership invites suggestions and ideas from team members — especially those with prior experience with a particular problem or challenge. Otherwise, employees will resist expressing curiosity and “what-if” scenarios to consider if leaders project an all-knowing aura. The leader with a high C4Q listens more than speaks and asks challenging questions while keeping judgmental comments in check. When an employee presents an idea, let them run with it.

3. Respond encouragingly. To build trust, a leader must do more than just listen. How you respond is critical. For example, simply thanking workers (genuinely) for their contribution helps encourage future contributions. Consider adopting some of their suggestions, “celebrating” their failure (avoid assigning blame, and have team members participate together in root-cause failure analysis) and eliminating behaviors, words and attitudes that destroy psychological empowerment. But it’s not just the leaders who can help build and maintain a psychologically empowered environment. Internal champions are needed at every level to encourage employee empowerment to take root.

Evolving approaches to leadership excellence

Not long ago, companies used different measures to assess leadership potential and effectiveness. Leaders stood out by having high IQs for solving problems faster. Later, emotional intelligence (EI) measured their abilities to perceive and express emotion and develop strong interpersonal skills to better maneuver around organizational politics and lead others through change, disruption and uncertainty.

Walden now sees the four C’s as important factors that shape internal culture. “While it’s hard to gauge opportunity — the third leg of the fraud triangle — as that ties more to a company’s internal controls environment, certainly pressure and rationalization can be positively or negatively impacted by the four C’s as they drive culture and employee satisfaction.”

AI and COVID-19 challenges require leaders to encourage workforce curiosity, foster creativity in the workplace, encourage and require deeper critical thinking and support more collaboration across business units. They also require a willingness to contend with more people in the “big tent,” tossing out new and contrarian ideas from a workforce comprised of digital natives, digital immigrants and digital refugees.

Donn LeVie Jr, CFE, is a Fraud Magazine staff writer, and a presenter and leadership positioning/influence strategist at ACFE Global Fraud Conferences since 2010. He’s president of Donn LeVie Jr. STRATEGIES, LLC, and E.P.I.C. Results Coaching, where he leads several virtual strategic coaching and mentoring programs for executive leaders and high-performing professionals. His coaching website is epicresultscoaching.com. Contact him at donn@epicresultscoaching.com.