You, Me and Us: What's in a Dyad?

According to the dictionary definition, a dyad [ˈdʌɪad] is simply something that consists of two elements or parts. In mathematics, it is an operator which is a combination of two vectors*. In organisations, it describes the relationship (link or connection) between a leader and follower, a leader and another leader, or two team members. It is the smallest unit of social interaction. And I would argue it is at least as important as a team when it comes to the performance of organisations – though not as commonly the focus of development efforts. That is something we want to change.

Around 15 years ago, I found myself in a complicated, but not uncommon leadership role, that placed me in a position that was technically subordinate to a peer at the same rank/level. I reported to that position on paper, and in the personnel management hierarchy - but we each had discrete accountabilities and leadership roles, and overlapping interests. We had sets of teams that reported directly to one of us, and our senior leaders would consult with us and direct us separately or together, depending on the topic. It sounds like a recipe for disaster, but it actually worked really well. Everyone (including the two of us), knew what we were each responsible for. We consulted regularly, made decisions together or independently as appropriate, and together we led a complex organisational capability. That’s not to say that there weren’t hiccups or challenges, but they were easy enough to overcome. It seemed that the way the positions had been set up provided enough clarity that it just worked – or so I thought.

Fast forward two years, and I found myself, still occupying that position, but with a new incumbent in the other. Suddenly, all the rules had changed. Almost overnight, I found myself feeling untrusted, undervalued, and without autonomy. None of the accountabilities, structures, reporting requirements, or management functions of my role had changed. And yet everything had changed.

My assumption at the time was that there was a trust deficit in the relationship. But that never quite sat comfortably with me. We liked and respected each other, and I do think there was at least as much trust as you would expect to have early on in a new working relationship. But there was certainly a lot of something missing.

I realised much later, that what was missing in the second relationship was the deliberate conversation about HOW we would work together.

As it turns out, that was something that had occurred the first time around, almost by accident. We hadn’t consciously set out to shape our leadership dyad – but by talking about how we would make decisions, how would leverage each other’s influence with key stakeholders, how we would communicate with each other, and how we would lead together, we were doing exactly that. We weren’t designing the roles – we were designing our bond. And when that person moved on, and another came in, I had failed to realise that I needed to design a new bond. I couldn’t just swap out one person for another. I needed – we needed – to invest in the new dyad. It seems like a no-brainer to me now, but at the time, I really thought the structures and processes we had established would take care of everything else. Boy, was I wrong about that.

Fast forward another almost-decade to when I was considering my master’s research topic – by this time the leader-leader dyad was an obvious choice (my focus was specifically on technical contexts – but I’ll have to cover that in another post). In my interviews with leaders who worked together in very similar constructs to my experience above, I found there are at least seven dimensions to the relationship that contribute to its success.

Sure, there’s the role of trust – it’s fundamentally important – but there’s also an understanding of power and influence, acknowledgement of the role of each person’s expertise, decisions about risk and accountability, agreements about how decisions are to be made, and how communications will flow, as well as the organisational and structural considerations.

How often have any of us sat down to consider all of these dimensions? Perhaps only slightly more often than we’ve sat down to TALK about them.

So we’ve started working with pairs of leaders to facilitate exactly those conversations. We call it dyad coaching – some of our clients have referred to it affectionately as couples counselling – and it is having a huge impact. I wish this was something I could have accessed, or even considered taking a structured approach to, when I was starting to lead in messier and more complex environments. It could have saved a lot of time, and so much wasted energy worrying about things that might have been easy to address. But as with many of The Expert Leader’s offerings, the mistakes we’ve made in our past become the foundations of the support we can offer others now.

It is my hope that we will start more conversations about dyads. Teams, networks and organisations – no matter how large – are all made up of a series of connections between two sets of people. If they break, the system suffers. Conversely, if they are strong, the whole system benefits. We’re starting to realise that the path to changing teams and organisations, might have to start with the basic units. So, if you are interested in finding out more about our dyad coaching, contact us at info@theexpertleader.com.

*So, what about the mathematical concept of a dyad? I quite like it because vectors have both magnitude and direction – defining a dyad in this way recognises that we’re combining two things that could be pointing in different directions. People are on different trajectories when they meet each other in the workplace – at times that may enrich the dyad, but at the very least it is something worth recognising and understanding.