Real World

leadership tune up

Are your standards slipping? What’s the overall feel in your department or business? How’s the energy on a daily basis – good, bad, ok but a little low? Are you proud of the work your folks put out, concerned, or hoping and waiting for it to turn around and get better?

Once things start to slip a little, they generally continue to slip. Over time we tend to adjust. We stop striving, we coast a little, we put our attention on something else. We don’t notice it at first, but after a while we realize things are really out of sync and we wonder how it got so bad so quickly.

Well, it didn’t. People don’t suddenly stop caring either. They don’t just wake up one day and decide to never again give their full effort. But us humans will give 99% effort of the day before. Think about that. A difference of only 1% less effort, less energy, less engagement. That’s barely noticeable. In fact, if it went right back up to 100% the following day, we’d never even notice the blip. Likewise, if it drops another 1%, we’ll likely never feel it. Until we do…

My car started running rough a month or two ago. It started off intermittently. I thought it was just a bad tank of gas at first. It would hesitate, idle roughly, or even die at stoplights. Then it would be fine for a few weeks. But the gaps between kept getting closer and closer until, one day out of the blue (not really) it started to run poorly all the time.

At 80,000 miles I figured it was due for a tune up. The manufacture says it goes 100,000 miles before it needs spark plugs. The forums say real world is more like 60-80,000 miles. Theoretical is nice, but it doesn’t help my car run better. $20 worth of spark plugs and 30 minutes of effort and it’s running great again.

Most striking wasn’t that it was idling and accelerating smoothly again – I expected that. No, the biggest surprise was how much better it runs. It accelerates quicker and revs more freely. Going from bad to acceptable was expected. But the subtle yet noticeable difference between acceptable and really good was actually a bit astonishing.

It was that 1% difference. I never noticed when it slipped from great to good, but I did notice good to poor. That has me really wondering about my own leadership. I would notice if my area suddenly performed poorly, but would it really catch my attention if it gradually declined to acceptable?

Would I notice if the energy was consistently getting a little worse? Would I notice if overall customer service slipped a little? Could I tell the difference if my team had tapered over time to being mostly engaged?

I’m not so sure I could and that has me worried. Tuning up our leadership is not quite as easy as changing spark plugs, but probably needs to be done regularly. So what can I, you, or any leader do about it? Hmmm. A few thoughts come to mind and I’d love to get your perspective:

Discuss your vision and ideals. A lot. More than you think your need to. Your vision should excite you, so use that enthusiasm to get others on board and understand your expectations. They don’t have to have your passion (it’s nice if they do) but they do need to be completely clear on where you stand and the level of performance you want.

Be straight forward and tell the team your concerns that standards could slip over time. Tell them that you’ll be more involved and have more feedback. Not to be nitpicky or a micromanager, but because you care. You want them to be at their best. You want the team at its best. You want to be at your best.

Ask for feedback from the team about your own performance. Do you seem different lately? Do you have less energy or seem less engaged? Maybe they’ll tell you and maybe they won’t, but you owe it to them and yourself to ask. [Quick caveat: never ask for feedback if you are not 100% willing to consider it and do something about it.]

Shatter isolation by getting the team involved in cross-functional projects, both within the team and throughout the organization. It helps prevent a narrowing view and helps invigorate things with new ideas.

Ask the questions about what’s going great and what could improve regularly. Don’t expect people to come to you. Go to them.

What else?

no more surprises

Nobody likes to be surprised by bad news. Surprises can be a career limiting event. From this day forward, do all in your humanly power to make sure that two types of people are never, ever surprised:

1. Your boss. Your job is to make your manager’s life easier. The #1 way to make their life (and your life) more difficult is for them to be surprised or blindsided by what you have done or not done. We will all make mistakes and drop the ball from time to time and the first step to retribution is making sure your boss isn’t surprised.

2. Your customers. Your job is to make your customer’s life easier. Nobody buys from someone who makes their life more difficult. Surprises make things difficult. Changes happen, there are things outside our control. Customers are far, far more forgiving if they know about potential issues in advance. Delivering bad news in advance is difficult, but letting them call to complain after being surprised by bad news is a far more challenging situation.

yesterday, today, tomorrow

It’s a mistake to think that today’s actions created today’s results. There is a natural lag between action and outcome.

Where we are today is a result of yesterday’s decisions and actions. Yesterday’s actions are today’s results.

Where we will be tomorrow will be a result of today’s decisions and actions.  Today’s actions are tomorrow’s results.

What tomorrow are you creating? Where will today’s choices take you in five years? Where do you want to be?

the best career advice you will ever receive

Want a great career? Looking to get ahead? It’s actually pretty simple. Understand that everyone gets paid to solve problems, not to complete tasks and approach your job accordingly.

People stall out when they think they get paid for a certain number of hours or to check off to-do’s. Their careers tend to accelerate when they connect the minor tasks to the big picture, understand the outcomes all the tasks are creating, and focus on making that outcome happen.

The value you create for the company – the value you get paid for – is based on the level of problems you are able to solve. Bigger problems have bigger potential consequences and those who can effectively solve them bring more value to the company and get paid more. My boss is paid more than me because she solves tougher problems with bigger consequences than I do. Her boss gets paid more than her for the same reason.

If your boss has to solve problems that you should be able to handle, you aren’t very useful and are probably easily replaceable. If you’re taking on and solving things above your boss’ expectations you are probably difficult to replace and will soon be moving ahead.

Want more money? Want a promotion? Learn to love solving problems and moving solutions forward. Problem spotting doesn’t pay very well (anyone can do it), ignoring problems pays even less. All the money, responsibility, and glory is in solving problems.

nontroversy in the workplace

Want more engagement and less knee-jerk decisions? Eliminate nontroversies.

A nontorversy is a controversy that isn’t. It’s artificial, manufactured, or falsely amplified. It’s a non-issue that is given more time and energy than is due. It’s making mountains out of molehills.

Nontorversies are easily seen in the political arena and talk radio. They are used as daily distraction and attempt to discredit opponents over non-issues.

Nontroversies are created in the workplace by the rumor mills, passive-aggressive people, complainers, people who create unnecessary drama as a hobby, or those who play cutthroat corporate politics. Some common examples:

Continual complaining about issues they don’t really care about.

Inflating the severity of other people’s mistakes so it goes several levels up the chain of command before everyone discovers it was very minor.

Creating new rules and policies before investigating how prevalent and persistent an issue is.

Over-reaction to pending legislation. Panicking before even knowing what it’s going to look like in real life.

Focusing on the fad and buzzword of the day.

Continually positioning oneself (or department) as the hero whenever anything goes wrong, no matter how minor.

Two faced complaining and finger pointing.

Finding flaws in other’s work to make oneself look better.

Over-labeling events. Forever referring to that time five people got laid off as “Black Tuesday.”

Harboring anger and resentment for issues that happened years ago and have long since been resolved.

Trauma and drama sell. People seem to love to gripe and find flaws and complain about any change. Nontroversies thrive wherever there is a lack of transparent, authentic, honest communication but they can pop up anywhere. That is their nature. Yesterday’s nontroversy is today’s old (yawn) news. Today’s nontraversy will be replaced with another tomorrow. Nontraversies don’t need substance. They don’t need logic. They don’t have to have a long shelf-life. They just need to give us something to overact to today.

High performing teams and companies can’t (and don’t) waste time and energy on non-issues. What are you doing to eliminate drama ? How do you keep the nontroversies at bay?

project management failure

I was mountain biking the other day with someone who seemed to always be in the wrong gear. When the trail turned uphill, he wouldn’t start downshifting until he was already climbing. By then, it was too late and then he would stall out and have to hop off and push the bike. I would do what others in the group did and downshift before getting to the hill, enabling me to ride past the walking cyclist. Skillwise, this person is a better rider than me so I found it odd that I’d catch him on the hills. I took me a long time before I realized that the only real difference was that he didn’t look past his front wheel and I tend to look much farther down the trail. Idon’t have faster reaction times and I certainly wasn’t a better rider, but by looking farther ahead, I created more time to react.

So, what does this have to do with project management? I recently had near catastrophic failure on a project I was leading. Deadlines were pushed to the absolute limit and disaster was imminent. It all turned out well, but it was despite me rather than because of me. I saw the edge of the cliff and knew how close I had let my team had come to failure. The insight from the mountain bike ride the other day made me realize that I simply wasn’t looking far enough ahead. I was like the cyclist walking up the hill. I had gotten so caught up in other tasks that I didn’t take the time to look ahead. It was project management at its poorest. I was looking so close to my metaphorical front wheel that I could only react after problems or the unexpected popped up. Looking further ahead would have allowed me the space to anticipate and react much more quickly instead of scrambling and swerving at the last second.

Once again I learn a lesson that I already knew. Those are the most painful. And the most valuable.

life balance defined

Life balance. I discussed 4 common myths and what it isn’t the other day. Now, it’s worth taking a look at what it is.

My definition:  life balance is the process of actively creating fulfillment in every major area of our lives: career, family, relationships, spirituality, health, hobbies, finances, etc.

The common definition seems to be: working less. When we’re overworked or stressed, we say we need more life balance and what we mean is we want less work. But working less doesn’t automatically balance our lives. If we’re overworked, working less will free up some time that we could use to find better balance, but that is neither automatic nor guaranteed.

I suspect that when most of us think of a balanced life we think of it as not having pain in any of the major areas. Yeah, that’s a start, but avoiding pain contracts and shrinks our lives while seeking fulfillment expands and opens our lives up. No pain vs fulfillment sounds similar, but it’s the difference between not starving and having plenty to eat, of not being poor and being financially secure, of not having enemies and having lots of friends, of never getting emotionally hurt and connecting deeply with the important people in your life, of not being ill and being vibrantly healthy, and so on. It is the difference between surviving and living.

This means that life balance is:

  • Dependent on you knowing what you find fulfilling. Life balance is about creating fulfillment, so if you don’t know what fulfills you it’s going to be really, really hard to create balance. When we don’t know what would be fulfilling we default to avoiding pain.
  • Different for everyone. We are all fulfilled by different things so be cautious about trying to imitate another’s life balance choices. They might work for you, but they might not.
  • Never finished. Balance is a dynamic process that is always shifting and changing. There is no finish line, there is no “done”. It is always subject to change as we face new circumstances and life events.
  • Dependent on opportunity costs and tradeoffs. We can’t spend 24 hours a day on each aspect of our lives so the key is knowing how much time and effort we need to give to each area and when.
  • All about priority management. Creating balance requires effectively managing our time and priorities.

The big questions are:

  • What are your priorities?
  • What would fulfillment look like in each major area of your life?
  • What would you need to do to create that?
  • Why is that important to you? Is it really, truly so important that you’re willing to do what it takes to get there, or does it just sound cool? Choose the things that matter to you so much you’re willing to work to get them.

I suspect I’m overcomplicating it. Life balance is simple (not easy; never easy). Be clear on what you want from life and what yo’re willing to do (and what you’re willing to forego) in order to get it. Then go do it.

change keeps on changing

“…the core of the matter is always about changing the behavior of people and behavior change happens… mostly by speaking to people’s feelings.” ~ John Kotter

We want to believe that us humans are rational beings governed by reason and logic. We really, really want to believe this, despite our entire life experience. As near as I can tell, the strongest thing we can say is that we have the capacity to be rational, but we use nearly all of that capacity to explain, rationalize, and justify the decisions we’ve made with feeling and emotion.

This concept has been studied and demonstrated for years. Advertisers know it and use it to their advantage. They create change by hooking us on feelings of fun, status, sex appeal, freedom, control, power, hope, fear, etc.

Rationally, we know that too much of anything is bad for us. So, if we made rational decisions, none of us would suffer from too much food, alcohol, smoking, etc. Emotion drives us to action, intellect justifies it and makes it reasonable.

There are exactly 1.7 bagillion books, articles, and classes on change and change management. Companies are in turmoil as they try to keep up with the world and the best ones are using change to their advantage to continually evolve.

The problem is that we fall for the myth of rationality and think that big change = analyze à think à change. We look at options, analyze the pros and cons of each, decide, and move forward. When we focus on speaking to emotions it becomes:  see à feel à change. We see or visualize the outcome, feel what it will be like once we have made the change, and then take action.

The problem is that both are an oversimplification and we are driven by both. Some people are more analytical, some are driven more by instinct and emotion, but we all have a deep need to understand the reason behind the change AND emotionally connect to the benefits of the change.

We need both to create the motivation for change in ourselves, in our teams, in our companies. So, what can we do to better address our intellectual and emotional needs around change?

Your take?

 

wisdom of the ages

As I rapidly approach middle age, I’ve noticed that I have collected some core beliefs, lessons, and philosophies over the years. If you stand next to me long enough, you’ll hear me say all of these things. From my experience, they are universal and apply across cultures, gender, race, industries, etc. That said, your mileage may vary, use at your own risk, etc.

It’s all about priorities. This explains ALL human behavior. We all have different priorities, but behave in ways that support our highest priorities. Even when someone’s behavior is completely inexplicable, rest assured they are honoring their most sacred priorities.

Everyone needs a hobby. We all need activities that bring us joy, excitement, and pleasure. For some it’s mountain biking or scrapbooking or watching football or music. For others, it’s gossiping, creating drama, putting others down, playing the victim, etc.

I have reasons, other people have excuses. That’s the difference between a reason and an excuse, but really I just have excuses. I use this as a reminder that even though my explanations make complete sense to me, they are really only excuses. To quote the great Mark Twain: “There are a thousand excuses for failure, but not a single good reason.”

Imperfect action beats perfect inaction. Perfectionism destroys more than it creates. This is a lesson I keep learning over and over. In most cases it’s far, far better to take action, notice what’s not working, make corrections, and keep going than it is to wait until I’m 100% certain of everything before moving forward.

Some things are better to have done than to do. I learned this during a long, sometimes grueling backpacking trip through the Sierra Nevada mountains. Although it was very difficult doing it and there were quite a few stretches when I really wanted to quit, I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything. But really, this applies to any situation where we are deferring gratification and enduring in the short term to gain in the long term.

The #1 leadership secret is… there are no leadership secrets. All leadership is on display and any of us could quickly compile a list of traits of our best and worst bosses. Interestingly, those lists would be remarkably similar, even going across industry and culture. Want to be a great leader? Do what your best managers did, don’t do what your worst managers did, and you’ll be off to a really great start.

The best ideas in the world are worthless, until the moment they are put into action. Theory is nice and pleasant and fun. Application is what changes the world. Action without thought is counterproductive, but thought without action is meaningless.

So what wisdom would you add to the list?