The Operator Exoskeleton

One of the reasons I was able to perform my duties at Xero for more than 12 years while along the way enduring countless challenges, break-points, and navigating significant change as we grew through multiple stages of maturity from 3 people to over 600 in the UK (inside a global business that grew from 40 people to more than 4,000 at the same time) — and I was still smiling when I finally logged out — is that I was able to build a kind of “operator exoskeleton” around me.

By that, I mean once we had progressed from me being the only leader in the business and reached the point where I needed to pull together a senior leadership team for the first time — and many subsequent iterations of that team over the years — I managed to construct a support system around me by finding and hiring people who either amplified or complemented my strengths and abilities or who supplemented or compensated for my weaknesses - a bit like Ripley in that incredible Power Loader suit in the movie, Aliens.

While growth gathered pace and momentum and organisational complexity began to swirl around my ankles and then quickly accelerated beyond my modest capability, I somehow avoided drowning or capping out as many early-stage founders and leaders do. Instead, I was able to grow and thrive at the centre of it all for 50 quarters straight inside a custom-made operational exoskeleton that fitted me like the best Savile Row-tailored suit.

Of course, I would like to say that this was my intent all along, but I actually fell into it. Reflecting back, I’m sure the one thing that nudged me, unwittingly, toward this operator exoskeleton thing was an early learning and development project we worked on where V1 of my leadership team all undertook a DiSC psychometric assessment.

In a DiSC assessment, participants rate themselves on a scale across 24 questions such as, “Accuracy is a priority for me”, “I love meeting new people”, and “I can be pretty forceful with my opinions.” — you are then presented with a personalised report and graphical mapping (mine is the black dot on the chart below), showing where your individual preferences lie across four primary DiSC behavioural styles — Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness.

The basic idea is that there’s no good or bad score with a DiSC assessment. One person’s profile doesn’t define them in a hard, literal sense since it’s assumed that everyone has a degree of competency across each behavioural style, even if to varying degrees. Instead, your DiSC profile is designed to provide you with a general illustration of your preference - how you prefer to operate in an organisational context — and as a leader, being able to map your team’s preferences provides a useful guide as to the behavioural biases of your team.

Psychometric assessments can get a bit of a bad, pseudo-science rap, so I’m not trying to promote the DiSC assessment as some kind of miracle cure for organisational dysfunction.

And so, regardless of whether it’s DiSC or any similar kind of activity, the real power move here is to utilise whatever device you choose to start a conversation with your team and provide everyone with a common vocabulary and a benchmark or starting point for a discussion about what it will take to operate and grow into a high-performing team - and sharing each other’s DiSC profiles was a great ‘aha’ moment for our team development, and for me as a manager and leader.

However, we achieved it, sparking an ongoing discussion about team development and opening up about the competencies and behaviours we excelled at and those we didn’t — individually or collectively — were critical development capabilities we were lucky to acquire and learn.

And when I was hiring senior people, it guided me to appreciate the importance of operating with humility about your own strengths and weaknesses and building a support system around yourself as a leader. Too often, leaders hire people either in their own image, people who won’t challenge them, or people who generally fit with the prevailing balance or culture of the team.

It was a helpful way of thinking about team development that guided me in building what would become my operator exoskeleton, extending my service life far beyond what I imagined I was capable of.