Stars & Guardians

One way to think about the perspectives individuals and teams have on their world is to place them on a spectrum from Stars to Guardians. I first encountered this in a class with Jim Baron. What I'll present below may not follow exactly what his book lays out (I leave out foot soldiers, for instance), but this is how I've come to apply this framework in my experiences. 

Think about the random events we encounter every day. How do they fall in relation to where you are on a spectrum from worse to better. Do your random events generally make things better than status quo? Or are random events for you generally worse than status quo?

Stars generally benefit from random events, whereas Guardians typically dread random events. Classic Star positions might include entrepreneurs who get traction with a product, marketers creating content that goes viral, or consultants that deliver a big project that delights an executive audience. 

Contrast that with some classic Guardian positions that could include a company IT team that has unexpected network downtime, an electric utility that experiences a transmission failure, or an auditor that misses a key bit of data. 

In my experience, Stars frequently have great ideas about how to make things better, while Guardians are often charged with protecting or managing critical resources of all types (e.g. time, energy, materials, labor). Neither position is wrong, but not recognizing the different perspectives can make it difficult for two sides to communicate. How can one reduce that buffer?

Stars: Seek to truly understand what it is the Guardian you're working with is protecting. Understand what some random events are that they've encountered recently and how they reacted to them. Learn their language and talk to them in their terms, developing ideas and approaches that have a grounding in what matters to them. Help them understand all facets of the random events they face, and perhaps they can shift down to the spectrum a little bit. 

Guardians: Don't hide your concerns under a blanket of "everything's fine." Understand that a Star may have different perspectives on the challenges you face that could be beneficial. Don't become lax in your responsibilities, but maintain mental flexibility and recognize that there is almost always more than one way to do something. 

Starting a new team with an expanding mandate? You may find yourselves shifting from Stars to Guardians over time. Facing a decline in relevance of the resources you're guarding? Think about examining the random events you're facing and look for upside you may not have seen before. 

There is no right answer, there is only right effort.