Why high expectations are crucial in cultivation

In this article we share highlights of our conversation with our good friend & cultivator extraordinaire, Nick Thorpe.  Nick has been a ThoughtWorker for nearly 10 years. For many years now, he has straddled the world of software delivery and talent development at ThoughtWorks. He’s played various roles in software delivery teams, from Business Analyst to Project Manager to Client Principal. He’s also been the Head of People for ThoughtWorks Australia, a Lead Trainer at ThoughtWorks University & a Subject Matter Expert in the global talent space. He’s also worked in ThoughtWorks Australia, Germany & India at various points. He currently lives in Melbourne, Australia and is a passionate practitioner & advocate of Cultivation.

We chatted with Nick about why creating and holding high expectations is a critical ingredient for a cultivation culture, why cultivation makes delivery better, how thinking about shiny-shoes can up your game and some hilarious stories from his own growth & cultivation journey. Read on!

I. Q: What does cultivation mean to you?

Nick: When I think of cultivation, I think of a series of activities that lead to growth, and I think of growth as being capable of bigger or better outcomes. Cultivation is about facilitating this growth for others and oneself.

The mental picture I have of cultivation is that of a young plant. You can think of the young plant as an individual. This plant’s roots are  in the soil, and it has the sun shining on it. Now, the soil needs to contain the right nutrients for the plant to keep growing. You can think of this nutrient-rich soil as an environment where the person’s potential & capabilities are nurtured: a.k.a. an environment of cultivation. The sunshine represents high expectations for people . The plant yearns for the sun. Unless the sunshine of high expectations shines on it, the plant isn’t going to grow to its full potential, just as surely as it won’t if the soil is poor.

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II. Q: Why are high expectations important?

Nick: The thing about expectations, is that people rise to them. In a team, members are watching to see where the bar is. And if growth is about continuing to create bigger and better outcomes, then we need to expect that from ourselves and others. Unfortunately it’s one of the things we tend to leave out or ignore in the narrative of growth and cultivation. We talk a lot about coaching, mentoring and  feedback. And these are all absolutely essential. But without high expectations, they aren’t going to help you realise your full potential.

The idea of Local Maxima comes to mind. If I go hiking up a mountain, given where I’m standing, I will possibly see the first hillock that I need to climb. And that’s the highest point I need to reach in the immediate vicinity - the local maxima.

But as I begin to climb, I will begin to see other, possibly higher hills that I need to continue climbing on this hike. And if someone has already hiked this landscape before, and they are coaching me or climbing with me, we may celebrate that first hillock climb but they will have their eyes on the series of higher hills that lie ahead. They understand what the Global Maxima is.  They know that a series of higher climbs is both expected and possible for me to do, with support and encouragement. So while we will be happy with my first milestone, as we briefly rest and drink some water — their real expectations from me from the start have been  higher. And hill after hill, they will keep raising the expectation.

The Dreyfus model of competency development tells a similar story. Someone at a mastery level for facilitation will have relatively higher expectations from others than someone at a proficient level.

In real world terms, it means that in our growth journey, we exist in unconscious incompetence until someone with more  experience and higher standards makes us aware of what we do not yet know, and raises the bar for us. So holding high expectations is critical for growth. We have to constantly keep raising the bar for ourselves & those we cultivate, otherwise we aren’t really realising our full growth potential.

This also means that we need to value and celebrate those who hold high expectations from us and their ecosystems.

Unlike how we feel about being coached, mentored and encouraged; being held to high standards is often uncomfortable. Because it means we have to admit we don’t know some things, we have to stretch and build skills to a higher degree. That brings all kinds of discomfort in its wake. But if you ask people when they have grown the most, they will almost always talk about situations where they were thrown out of their comfort zones and had to adapt and learn a lot, often quickly. So the next time you find someone who holds high expectations of you, latch on and don’t let go! :)

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III. Q: Do any stories come to mind that reflect these principles for you?

Nick: Yes. Two.

On my first project at ThoughtWorks, our project lead Ben Escudero, walked past me, stopped dead in his tracks, and said:

“Your shoes. They aren’t shiny enough! And they're not business shoes!”

He explained how the way we dressed reflected our attitude to the client. Now you could argue about that and, yes, that was embarrassing but did I have shiny shoes the next day? You bet I did! I thought about this every time I put my clothes on. I began ironing them the night before. This was a strange and new practice in my household. My children walked up to me with curious faces and asked me “What’s that thing dad?”. And I said “It's an iron, kids!” They’d never seen me with one before!  Not since the last funeral I'd attended had I touched an iron. And here I was, iron in hand every night, thinking about what I was reflecting to my client everyday.

Now the shiny shoes story isn’t just about the shoes, you see. Ben was pointing to things way beyond our work outfits. He was talking about upping our game and holding ourselves to high standards in everything we did. Whether it was our capabilities as consultants, the quality of our communication, the outcomes we delivered or smaller details like shoes.

Shiny shoes was really a metaphor for all sorts of high expectations from the team.

I remember having this sense of “game-on” in that team. And I’ve had that sense in every team where we’ve had high expectations for ourselves and each other. It’s just so exciting and energising to work in an environment like that!  

Another story goes back to the Local Maxima concept I was talking about earlier. I recall, years ago on a project, when I was new to Agile delivery, I was responsible for maintaining the project delivery wall. And frankly I thought I was doing a pretty awesome job! I was feeling pretty good about myself. Then came this other fellow, who’s standard of what good looks like was way higher than mine. He took one look at the wall and looked like he was going to choke! He told me the wall was a disaster and I just ignored him because the wall was working so well. He persisted though.

Over several retros and feedback conversations, he made me see that even though that wall may be good enough, it could be so much more effective.  In true beginner style, I had followed a recipe I had been given, and it had worked once.  I didn’t know it, but my standard was simply “It’s not broken. Therefore it is good.”A complex looking 6-lane wall became a 3  lane wall with superior collaboration and flow. Fewer lanes, more conversations, and suddenly blockages became very apparent. . It was an uncomfortable time, I was used to thinking “I’m pretty good at this stuff” until he came along. Talk about unconscious incompetence! He was much further on the Dreyfus scale and I had to break open my belief and really up my game. None of my project walls have ever had 6 lanes since! :D

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IV. Q: What is the balance between high expectations & nurturing?

Nick: Neither of them work in the absence of the other. To merely have high expectations without support and cultivation is cruel. Not only will it not work, it will distress and injure humans. To purely support without expecting great results from people and driving them to reach higher, will not result in growth either. Anything is acceptable - therefore, after a point, there will be disconnection, boredom and stagnation.

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V. Q: How do high expectations affect the culture of feedback?

Nick: The quality and content of feedback conversations that happen in a team, will reflect the presence or absence of high expectations.

If high expectations are absent, then the feedback conversations will often be lukewarm and low value. If you did alright in your work but not very well, I will tell you that it’s okay and it’s good enough. I am unlikely to give you feedback that will lead to true improvement & growth.

This can be for two reasons:

One: I may not think we need to push beyond “good enough” to a higher bar, because that’s simply the norm.

Two: It’s too risky for me to call out average work that’s just getting by. Why would I risk looking like a cruel villain or a finicky taskmaster, which I will, in a culture that doesn’t care about the pursuit of excellence? It would be too costly for me to do so. This cycle is described in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.

So what we end up with, is a vicious cycle which perpetuates low expectations in every feedback conversation. It’s very rare to find such instances at ThoughtWorks. But I have worked in a couple of teams like that in the past and I can tell you it’s draining. I felt a sense of low energy and mediocrity that was quite suffocating.

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VI. Q: What is the correlation between a strong cultivation culture & high impact delivery to clients?

Nick: I see this in a couple of different ways.

One, in a culture of cultivation, teams grow faster in their capabilities and deliver bigger outcomes as a result. Why do they grow faster? Well, a key feature of a cultivation culture is that knowledge sharing happens regularly and abundantly. When team members don’t hoard knowledge or skills, and instead share them with their team members, the collective group becomes stronger and more skilled.

Likewise, a thriving feedback culture helps team members learn and grow much faster than usual. So when they come up against a roadblock or let’s say a team member is off sick, they don’t come to a standstill. They can still deliver well.

A team that has a thriving cultivation culture, is also highly connected because everyone is helping others grow and the emotional connection is high. Everyone is invested in each other’s success. So the team is also more resilient in face of challenges that inevitably come up in delivery.

Second, as a premium consulting firm, ThoughtWorks is expected to deliver beyond good software. We are expected to help clients transform and elevate their own culture of delivery. So it’s fair to say that we are responsible for cultivating our client’s teams as well as our own — and this is an expected part of our delivery. We can’t do this unless our own foundations of cultivation are strong, and we walk the talk constantly.

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VII. Q: Speaking of growth, is one’s own individual growth at odds with helping others grow?

Nick: It’s not a zero sum game. Helping others grow doesn’t mean I have to neglect my own growth. In fact I have to continuously grow myself in some way in order to meaningfully help others as well.

At a meta level, in a culture of cultivation, you are surrounded by opportunities for your own growth. Feedback conversations constantly reveal opportunities for both improvement and recognising what you’re good at; you take a strengths based approach to your work and career, someone is always there to share their knowledge if you are open and so on. So cultivation as a culture means that everyone is growing, as opposed to a competence culture, where there is a constant race for a celebrated few to be the best.

I think of Ange Ferguson and she’s a perfect example of someone who has grown leaps and bounds in her own career. And she has also helped countless ThoughtWorkers grow along the way. I remember this conversation with her years ago, where she said :

“Whenever I start a new project, the first thing I think about is ‘who will replace me?’. So my primary aim as a leader is to make myself redundant.”

What a beautiful thing to hear that was! So while Ange was constantly making herself redundant by spotting and nurturing other people’s potential, she was simultaneously taking on bigger responsibilities for herself. And that journey continues for her even today! Ange’s story is a great example to understand that cultivation is not a zero sum game.

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VIII. Q: You are clearly a passionate advocate for cultivation. Where do you suppose that comes from for you?

Nick: I’ve met some great cultivators in my career. But I think my earliest and perhaps strongest inspiration is my grandfather, Claude Thorpe. He was a Physics & Chemistry teacher at high school, which begins from grade 8. He taught senior classes, and by the end of his career, he was a consultant in the education department on the science curriculum. But he always hung on to teaching grade 8 in addition to all this. He used to say “I love that moment when they’ve understood something new and their eyes sparkle with excitement! I want to make sure I am always plugged into that excitement of someone else's learning!”

He absolutely loved being able to take these students to these transformative points where they would complete an electrical circuit and the light would go on. They would just sparkle with confidence! In a way they would be jolted out of their “local maxima” to a whole new level. I suppose I inherited that from my grandfather. I really enjoy being able to help others find transformative insights about themselves and their world. I get a big buzz out of seeing that spark go off in someone's eyes when they go - “Oooohh I get that now!”

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IX. Q: We are in a time of dramatic change at the moment. What role can we play in ensuring that cultivation remains central to our culture?

Nick: I think we are at a time when the value-exchange equation between employers and employees is changing dramatically. From the employer’s side, they are thinking things like: “Wow those office buildings are expensive, maybe we can get by without those. Maybe we don't need all this travel that really cut to the bottom line, we had almost no travel this year, yet all the work still got done. That's kind of interesting.”

On the other side, the employee is thinking: “ Wow, I used to spend 2 hours commuting for work, I really don’t need to do that everyday. It looks like my stakeholders cared only about the outcomes I delivered rather than whether I was available 9 to 5, that’s a lot of flexibility. I now have the freedom to pick up my daughter from school in the middle of the day and still get all my work done. I’m never giving that up again!” So all of this is being renegotiated.

The risk we have is that in this wave of change, cultivation can end up taking a back seat. That’s harmful for the culture of the organisation itself, but especially for those who are new or are struggling, and need close nurturing. I think ThoughtWorks itself is quite aware of this but it's a very real risk for our industry.

So it’s so important that people who believe in cultivation stand up and advocate for it loudly. That we make an extra and conscious effort to strengthen cultivation in our own teams, and make sure our organisations remain committed to it.

Double down on those 1:1 chats, make space for learning rituals, ensure that feedback is constantly exchanged. We have to make sure cultivation remains part of how we build our future, if we want a connected, thriving and creative workforce.

Illustrations: Created by Chitra, inspired by Wooly Pronto's tutorials and other internet searches :)

Cover Image Credit: Benjamin Voros on Unsplash