Archive for the ‘relationships’ Category

A client organization graciously invited me to their semi-annual Leadership conference last week. There were lots of laughs as hundreds of organizational leaders watched The Second City hosts perform the comedic improvisations that they are well known for.

There was also some seriousness and attention to the importance of leadership too. We did plent of group interactive exercises. One exercise, a long time favorite, created a lot of buzz. I had forgotten about the energy that can be generated with the “yes….and” exercise until that day.

How “Yes….and” works

This is a great exercise to facilitate with your team if you want to generate some new ideas, or to simply emphasize the importance of supporting new ideas. Its also a great follow-on to last week’s post, “Ten Things That Will Foster Great Conversations”.  It shows what happens to the energy in a conversation when new ideas are shot down – and then shows what happens when they are supported. It goes like this:

Each person in the room pairs up with a partner. In each partner-pair, and in each round, person A describes a new idea. This can be set up by the facilitator as a real situation that needs fresh ideas   (in this case, the “pretend” scenario was, “What should our team do for our annual off-site?”). Each person in the room can find a new partner for each round.

Round 1: Person B responds to Person A’s idea(s) with “No….but/because (a reason why it won’t work)”.

Round 2: Person B responds to Person A’s idea(s) with “Yes….but (a reason why it won’t work or another idea that person B feels is more viable)”.

Round 3: Person B responds to Person A’s idea(s) with “Yes….and (support and build on A’s idea)”.

In the third round at last week’s conference, we could hardly hear our partners talk. Several hundred people supporting a partner built up to a clear crescendo, demonstrating the positive energy of building, teamwork, partnership, and support.

Try it at your next meeting. After the demonstration of “shooting down” ideas in rounds 1 and 2, your team will understand the importance of support and collaboration with round 3.

(P.S. This works well demonstrated in small and 1:1 meetings too!).

Every Thursday, we provide you with a thoughtful way to coach yourself – something all leaders need to do. So take five – enjoy the inspirational quotes and reflect on the questions that follow. 

“When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves.” William Arthur Ward

Recall a time when you were open to finding what was good in someone:

• What did you discover and learn about that person?
• What did your discovery bring out in you?

Consider someone whom you feel is adversarial to you or your leadership.

• What is good in this person? How might you help them to foster their “good”?
• What is the first step you could take in helping them to foster their “good”?
• When will you begin?

A client with a long career has been watching things change all around him. A new manager (a former peer) and new peers where there weren’t any before. The new ways of doing things have been challenging. He’s discovered that what worked for him in communicating and relating to others in the past have been a detriment in this new situation.

Well known and respected throughout the organization, this was a “go-to” person when questions cropped up in his area of expertise. Reporting lines were crossed to get his opinion, and he enjoyed being the person with the know-how to help make things happen.

Enter: a reorganization. Every interaction, every way he operated - had shifted. Yet he continued to behave and do the things what worked for him before. His new peers were exasperated. His manager had been coaching him, but progress slowed. My client was frustrated, creating a dynamic on the team that was not optimal.

Yet I recently heard a story of how my client humbled himself in the midst of this change, to ask for help at a recent meeting with his manager and peers.

My client knew that he needed to solicit assistance from his peers to make the changes that would be sustainable. So he told them what changes he wanted to make in his interactions with them and requested his peer’s assistance to let him know when he wasn’t doing what he intended.

My client and his manager both told me it was a “powerful moment” for the team. My client revealed his humanity, and his peers listened. At that moment, the tide of frustration began turning. His peers were now willing to see him differently and offered to help him make the changes he wanted to make. I believe the behavioral changes my client needs to make will be sustained, if he can continue to to be open to the feedback he gets from others.

This  incident shows that when we reveal our humanity, when we are humble enough to ask for help, others are willing to be there for us.

Are you willing to be human enough to ask for help with your leadership?

A friend of mine is a rather controversial character. Many people spread gossip and talk about the things that she’s done that are less than complimentary to her.

Last evening, my husband commented that the buzz he hears from others about this person is completely different than what he hears from me. My stories about her are positive. Because that is what I choose to “see” and to focus on in her.

I am not Polyanna. I know that my friend has failings (as we all do). I just choose not to put too much attention on those things that are negative in her.

And I believe that a focus on what is good about my friend brings out the best in her. She can see herself through the mirror I hold up and know that she isn’t “bad”.  She will try harder to do the right things by seeing herself in that mirror.

When my friend and I are together, she speaks of the things she’s trying to improve about herself. All the while, I see her in a positive light.

She is, at her core, a good person trying hard to do her best. Her failures are human mistakes of the kind we all make. We must learn to forgive the human mistakes in good people and to help them to see their best.

What are you looking for in the people you lead?

If you are looking for what they are doing wrong, they will fail.

If you are looking for what they are doing right, they will grow and succeed.

I was quite young in my career and my life when I discovered that our CEO was a special human being. At the time, I was working as an assistant to the Vice President of Discovery Research when his manager asked me if I would plan a trip for several VP’s and the company CEO to take our private corporate plane into the USSR for a meeting with several individuals and groups there, up to and including some high level Soviet government officials.

The Cold War between the U.S. and the USSR was thawing and the USSR was starting to break up. The Soviets continued to be wary of outsiders, particularly Americans. But they were open to considering mutual business interests; our company CEO saw an opportunity to create some alliances. I had no idea what I was getting into when planning this trip, and felt a lot of pressure for a successful outcome.

I worked through an intermediary to the USSR that would slice through Soviet red tape and allow only the second-ever private jet into the USSR (after Armand Hammer’s) since the changes in the country started taking place. Complicating the trip was the fact that our company’s leadership had several meetings to schedule once they arrived, so would want to be able to travel from place to place within the USSR via the corporate jet and the Soviet rail system (I learned later that this was a first).

Planning was painful

Planning this trip was a six-month project because at that time, the bureaucracy of the Soviet Union was beyond compare and the USSR was beginning to unravel. Every time I thought we moved ahead on this a little, something came along to knock the timing of the trip back again.

Close to the scheduled date for takeoff, some of the paperwork to allow the entry of the pilots (who were company employees) had been delayed. Even though we had a date for the flight, the Soviet bureaucrats told us not to worry, the paperwork would come through before takeoff.

The morning that our executives were scheduled to fly, the paperwork for the pilots was still not cleared.  So off I went to get the CEO out of a meeting to tell him the bad news (you can imagine how much I wanted to do that!). The corporate executives were cleared for entry into the USSR, but the pilots would have to remain behind at the Moscow airport for the entire ten days of the trip.

Care for “The Team”

Upon learning this news, the CEO said to me, “Those damn Russians!” (I still chuckle about his comment today) and said he wouldn’t leave the pilots behind for ten days to languish at the airport. He considered them part of the team. So, I started the trip planning all over again (another six months!). The second time around was a charm and the trip went off without a hitch.

I’ll remember this CEO as a person who thought it was important to treat the pilots as part of the “team”. Several years later, I flew on the corporate jet with the CEO through a harrowing thunderstorm. I observed firsthand the respect he extended to the pilots as we bounced and dipped, and his concern over my own nausea.

For what it’s worth, the CEO enjoyed a long career at our company, and passed away a few years later while still officially in the CEO position. He was so beloved that there were very few employees who didn’t mourn openly the day his death from cancer was announced.

Me too.

I know this post is longer than is typical for this blog. Trust me, it will be worth the time you spend reading it. I came to know Erika Andersen through my friend, colleague and mentor, Wally Bock, who had an intuition that Erika and I would have a few things in common. We do. One of those is her wonderful book, Being Strategic, which Wally reviewed here.  Erika defines and explains “being strategic” in one of the most simple – but effective – ways I’ve ever seen.

Erika is the founding partner of Proteus International, a coaching, consulting, and training firm that helps organizations clarify and move toward their hoped-for future. Oh, and she’s a genuinely smart and wonderful person, too.

What does “being strategic” mean?

I love that you’re asking this.  One of the reasons I wrote Being Strategic was to attempt to resolve some of the confusion around that phrase.  People use it so much – and rarely explain what they mean by it.  People use it to mean everything from “considering the competition,” to “thinking long-term,” to “being manipulative and cold-hearted,” to “agreeing with me!”

The definition I offer in my book for “being strategic” is: consistently focusing on those core directional choices that will best move you toward your hoped-for future.  It’s a deceptively simple sentence – there’s a lot in there.  It assumes that you know where you’re starting from, where you’re trying to go, and how you’re going to get there – and that you keep your attention directed toward doing it.

I’ve observed over the years that the best leaders – those who are most consistently successful in creating organizations that thrive – have and exercise this capability.  They get very clear about the organization’s current state – both strengths and weaknesses – and then, based on that starting point, they envision and articulate a clear and compelling future. They select a handful of core directional efforts – strategies –that they believe will best move them toward that future, and decide tactics for implementing those strategies. And then they stay consistently focused (and keep their organization consistently focused) on using those strategies to move toward the future they’ve envisioned.

How can “being strategic” be applied to the workplace relationships leaders must create or sustain?

Excellent, authentic relationships are essential if leaders are to be truly strategic.  Even if a leader is skilled at both strategic thought and action, he or she needs to be operating within a web of strong relationships in order for that capability to have an impact organization-wide.

Here’s why: I’ve often seen truly brilliant leaders who have a clear strategic view of their organization and a well-defined strategic plan for getting the future they envision – but who lack strong relationships, especially with those who work directly for him or her.  Those organizations tend to do less well than you’d expect: the leaders’ vision and strategy don’t “translate” into the day-to-day, because the rest of the organization doesn’t understand or own it, and therefore isn’t committed to making it happen.

The process of being strategic, as we practice, facilitate and teach it in organizations, is essentially collaborative.  It works best when you work together as a team to define the challenge, clarify your current state, envision your hoped-for future, agree on the obstacles to achieving that vision – and then determine the strategies and tactics that will get you there.  No one person can see clearly enough to do all those things for a whole organization – or even a whole department.  And human beings are most committed to accomplishing those things they’ve helped to define.

Why do strategies fail? Why do they succeed?

Strategies fail for lots of reasons.  One of the most common is that strategies are, all too often, not created to move toward a defined future, but simply in response to a threat.  For example, in the early eighties, Pepsi had a strategy of “winning on cost.” It was how they thought they’d take market share from Coke, which at the time was beating them in most domestic markets.  Unfortunately, that strategy wasn’t linked to a clear vision (other than “kill Coke”), so they made some sales decisions that weren’t sustainable, in terms of impact on long-term profitability.

Here’s another one, which sounds weirdly obvious and avoidable, but I see it happening every day: strategies fail (even good strategies) when organizations stop focusing on implementing them.  And that very often happens in hard economic times.  One of our clients is in danger of this right now: they’re in the process of abandoning a strategy that’s key to their vision, and that has served them very well for a number of years, because they think it’s too expensive. (We’re trying to help, but they’re in panic mode, and that makes it hard to think clearly.)

Strategies succeed when (no surprise here, given what I’ve said so far!) key people in the organization work together to select strategies that will best move them toward their agree-upon future…and then consistently focus on implementing those strategies with tactics that are feasible, impactful and timely.

What are the most important elements of strategic thinking?

Let me answer that question in two ways.  First, there’s the process of thinking strategically, which I describe as a mental model that consists of a “pre-step” and then four steps. 

The pre-step we call “defining the challenge.”  It consists of getting clear about the problem that you’re currently trying to solve – which can be as broad as “How can we create a sustainably profitable organization that provides unique value to our customers?” or as finely focused as “How can I make sure my number two person is ready to step into my role when I get promoted?”

Once you’re clear on the challenge before you, whatever it may be, the steps of strategic thinking are simple (though not necessarily easy). They are:

-        “What is”: your current reality relative to your challenge;

-        “What’s the Hope?”: your hoped-for future, the one in which your challenge has been successfully addressed;

-        “What’s in the Way?”: the obstacle between where you are now and where you want to go;

-        “What’s the Path?”: the strategies and then tactics that will best take you from where you are to where you want to go,  while overcoming the obstacles.

Then there are the actual skills for being strategic:  becoming a fair witness, pulling back the camera, and sorting for impact.  You employ these mental skills throughout the steps outlined above.

Becoming a fair witness means getting as neutral and objective as possible about the situation.  This is especially important when you have a strong emotional investment in a particular outcome – it’s all too easy to lose your objectivity about your current reality, or what’s possible.  My favorite example of non-fair-witnessing are the contestants on American Idol who literally cannot sing…and yet have convinced themselves that they’re going to win the competition!

Pulling back the camera means mentally “stepping back from the action” so you can get more context and get clearer about why things are happening and how they’re connected.  Quite often, when someone is told they’re “not being strategic” or are “too tactical,” it means others see them as only looking at things from a very narrow, close-in frame: staying focused only on their own actions, needs and point of view.  Good strategic thinkers “pull back the camera” to look more broadly at the factors that might be impacting the current situation, or where it might be possible to take the organization, given the landscape surrounding it.

Sorting for impact means thinking about how much a particular fact, circumstance or event is going to affect your challenge.  So, as you stay in fair witness mode and pull back the camera, you “screen” the data that comes into your viewfinder against your challenge, asking, “How important is this to the problem I’m trying to solve?”  Sometimes the answer isn’t entirely clear – but far more often than not, it is…and doing this “sorting” process helps you stay focused on the things that are most essential to your success in the challenge you’re addressing.

Then you put it all together, using these three skills as you move through the model.  It may sound complex, but once you get the hang of it, it starts to feel pretty natural.

And that, for me, is the most exciting thing about being strategic – that it’s learnable. Most people talk about being strategic as though it’s something you’re born with, or not.  And too bad for you if you’re not!  But we’ve seen over the years, in teaching people to us these skills and this process, that almost everyone can improve their ability to be strategic – and thereby increase the likelihood of creating the business, the  career or the life they most want.

I love to watch Cesar Millan’s “The Dog Whisperer” program on TV. I am a dog lover and currently share an office and home with Edgar the Leadership Pug, who is wise beyond his pug-ness about how to lead his human pack. My husband and I have learned a thing or two from Edgar and Cesar’s show in order to take pack leadership back into our hands, where it belongs.

Cesar’s skill is not only the work he does with the dogs. His true gifts are in teaching the dog’s owners that well behaved canines are really about the owner’s willingness and ability to step up to being a (pack) leader. The lessons he teaches are insightful for any leader.

Note: I don’t intend this post to compare leaders and employees to dogs, but rather to emphasize that the lessons of leadership can be learned in a variety of ways. If you are a dog lover (and maybe even if you aren’t) you can learn a lot from Cesar.

Some of the leadership lessons Cesar teaches us humans:

In order to lead your dog well, you must understand how they want to be treated: Cesar shows that the best trained dogs are treated as – well, a dog would want to be treated if they were part of a pack. As an organizational leader, it is important that you get to know your people. What are their strengths? How do they want to use them? How can you best lead them?

Clearly communicate your rules, boundaries and limitations: Communicating with our canine friends is not easy, but it must be clear and in their “language”. Similarly, followers are looking for clarity in your expectations. Find a way to communicate them simply and well. Then repeat your expectations in as many ways possible.

Use calm, assertive energy: Cesar teaches humans that screaming, yelling and anger only serve to escalate the energy of the dog to that level; they are ineffective at best and can be destructive. Organizational leaders who use these techniques must also find a way to stop using these emotions that can be “caught” like viruses in the organizations they lead.

Imagine a successful scenario: Cesar works with humans to understand that their pets can, and do, change. Likewise, organizational leaders must believe that their employees have great potential and recognize when it is realized.

If you stay alert, you might find lessons in leadership where you least expect it. What are the unlikely places that you find leadership wisdom?

Most businesses are structured and controlled. There are processes to follow, strategies to set in motion, and bureaucracy to wade through. This structure can give us a false sense of control about the other stuff in our workplaces. Make no mistake. People cannot be controlled; in fact, they are downright unpredictable and messy, for a lot of very wonderful reasons. Leading people can be messy too.

When I work with my clients on new behaviors that will help them to impact and influence their workplaces, they can often get a false sense of the control that they are wielding over their employees. “Well, if I do this, then they will do that”, as in “If I become more inclusive and empowering, they will do what I want”.  It’s really not likely that you can predict precisely what others will do when you change how you manage and lead them..

Leadership is an art

Max DePree, in his classic leadership book,  had it right when he called leadership an art. People will not do what you want (exactly), they will do what they want (sort of) based on their strengths, gaps, skills, personality, the weather, the culture, their personal issues, their professional issues, what they think of you, what drives them, how they interpret the mission, what filters they turn on when you provide direction, how they feel, and what they had for lunch.

Whew. That is a lot to get in the way of having control over others. And it’s only the tip of the iceberg of the things that can effect a person’s ability to complete the work they way you want it completed.

Be willing to be surprised

So when you are making the changes in your behavior, you also have to be willing to be surprised and delighted. Let go of the belief that you have control over how others get things done. Rest assured that those who are inspired and motivated will do it their way – and their way may turn out to be amazing. Ask yourself instead:

• What new strengths do I see emerging in my team?
• Who is “flowering” under my new belief and willingness to let go of control?
• Who requires more guidance? How will I coach them?
• What is surprising me here? What is delighting me?

For all of their messiness, people sure can be amazing.

A big part of a leader`s ability to create and sustain great relationships in the workplace have to do with their ability to “just notice” other`s reactions. Jane Dutton from the University of Michigan has academically termed this “relational attentiveness” in her wonderful book, Energize Your Workplace.

Leaders who are attuned to the behavior and emotional states of those around them can make the adjustments necessary to revive an organization whose energy is low and needs some reviving to increase its effectiveness. Sagging spirits are an all-to-frequent occurance in today’s workplace.

Yet we are moving so fast, we don`t take the time to notice as we should. Look around. Are the people in your workplace connecting with each other? Are they energetic, enthusiastically diving into the challenges provide? Do they eagerly await the success they will have with new learning opportunities and stretch assignments? If not, you may have some work to do.

My experience

One of the best workplace experiences I had in my budding Human Resources career was in a role as a specialist in Corporate Compensation. This could be pretty bland (and sometimes, honestly, demoralizing) work, “sore-thumbing” job descriptions and determining the wages and bonuses of corporate officers who pocketed Christmas bonuses that were equal to many times my annual salary. (I remember someone asking me what I did in that job. I was ?€“ unusually ?€“ at a loss for words to describe it).

The manager of this business unit (perhaps a bit bored himself) would often rally the troops when our spirits sagged by encouraging some fun or arranging for us to go out to lunch. He was also a bit of a jokester himself, who allowed us to tease him, and play along, about his own failings. It allowed us to re-energize on a personal level with ourselves and with him.

The gift

This manager`s real gift was the ability to “just notice” when we needed to step out of our routine and enjoy the company of one another. He might be surprised to know that this is how I remember him and what I enjoyed ?€“ and learned ?€“ from his leadership.

His ability to react ?€“ and lead us beyond ?€“ our sagging spirits is a lesson for all leaders to “just notice”. Keep an open mind and heart in your workplace. Just notice when the energy of your team is low and requires your light touch to lift it up. Lead others with that lift and enjoy the energy it provides to you and your team!

What have you done to lift others when spirits sag?

Next week I’ll begin a new weekly feature at this site called “Thoughtful Thursday” where I will simply ask a few good old fashioned open-ended questions to make you reflect. No answers, just questions. You can choose to respond to the questions on this site – or just ponder. I’m looking forward to it.

The comments received on the previous post, “Bad Manager or Flawed Human?” were insightful and thought-provoking. I would like to thank everyone who took the time to express their passion about the subject. There is so much more to say. This post is my own follow up to the conversation in that post about “it won’t do any good to address the behavior of my manager”.

Many of us want to be able to turn to one another in our communities and workplaces with dialog that will further the healthy relationships that help us, our leaders and organizations, to grow. How can this happen if we don`t take some personal responsibility for addressing the behaviors of managers that harm us and ultimately destroy “the greater good”? By choosing to abstain from addressing this behavior, we benignly participate in the the unhappiness, if not the immorality, that we see around us.

Our responsibility transcends our fear

There is no reason for “feedack” conversations to be one-way (manager to employee). Just because we think it won’t change anything, is not the real reason. If we look beyond that excuse, we know the real reason is our fear. The structure and culture of our organizations have perpetuated this. Yet, our personal responsibility to take action must trancend our fear. Our workplaces cannot ever get healthy if we don’t begin the dialog with the offending manager.

I am not suggesting confrontation. I am suggesting dialog. This is a key distinction, because confrontation is grounded in anger. Dialog is grounded in our own passion for making our workplaces and our world a better place.

Why should we feel powerless to speak to our managers about their poor behavior? What is the worst that could happen?

Rejecting an opportunity to have a conversation with our managers about their poor behavior doesn`t change a thing. Having a dialog at least has a chance at catalyzing change.

Where to begin

So when you are tempted to complain or take a raincheck on the chance to initiate a difficult “feedback” conversation with your manager, ask yourself:

• What is my fear?
• What is my role in this situation?
• What is the most productive action I could take?
• Is there risk in taking that action?
• Even if there is risk, is there possibility that my willingness to address the situation will catalyze a change?
• What am I willing to do?
• How will I start?

Ask for permission to have the discussion with your manager (“May I offer you some suggestions?” ” Would you be willing to listen to some feedback?”). By starting the conversation this way, you are not offering unsolicited feedback ?€“ 99.99% will answer “yes”. This is where listening and growth begins because they are now accepting ownership for what you have to express. Then say it with kindness and respect because your manager is not a bad person. They are a flawed human just like you.

Yes, it`s hard. Yes, there is some risk. The potential benefits of your dialog outweigh the risks. This courageous conversation is your responsibility.

Note: I would also encourage you to watch Bret L. Simmon’s excellent video blog series on The Courageous Leader.