Mar

27

A worker’s complaint, a manager’s great opportunity

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Friends,

One of the most frequent issues raised by readers is this: “What can you do about a boss who thinks his ideas are the best, who continues to act like a technician instead of a manager, who wants to micromanage every issue and solve every problem; a manager who is thus choking off initiative, creativity, candor, and teamwork?” These readers resonate with a fellow I wrote about who quit his job because he was told “we don’t pay you to think.” These workers are frustrated and are convinced that their employers are not getting anything near their best value. Today, I want to address this problem from the perspective of such a manager, and next week, I will write about it from the perspective of the person being managed.

Are you such a manager? Few would admit it. But, perhaps it’s misleading to think that you are or aren’t a controlling manager. Yes-no. True-false. Good-evil. For the fact is that at different times in our careers, and under different circumstances, nearly all of us will act to over-control people and work. I know that under different circumstances for me – e.g., when I’m not feeling well, or am agitated or frustrated – I will be much more controlling than at other times. So my first suggestion to every manager, parent, teacher, coach, or other person in charge is this: question your assumption that you don’t over-control, and assume for a moment that this message applies to you. For the truth is this: it’s baked into the system of authority that people will not feel like they can tell you! Few cultures allow an employee or a player or a child to say: “Get off my back! Let me think. Let me make a mistake once in a while. For Pete’s sake, will you listen?” When they do so, it’s in sheer frustration, and generally doesn’t lead to a happy outcome for anyone.

So, you have to keep asking yourself: Am I managing these people, or am I putting manacles on these people? And if, or when, you are not sure if you are over-managing, take this very simple step: start to ask them! “Hey, do you feel like I am giving you the freedom and support to control your work and contribute to the team?” And listen to the answer.

Such openness will lead directly into this discipline to help you get the most out of your people: Encourage your own belief that there is not a single right way, and that you are not uniquely possessed of that right way. Get open to others! This has two powerful implications. First, the most important thing you can do to generate great energy and ideas, is to believe that people have those insights. This means checking your normal, human tendency to think that you understand it best and understand it all, and it means checking your skeptical view of your workers. If you think your workers aren’t as smart as you, don’t care about the work, can’t possibly see all that you see, etc., then . . . well . . . they won’t. If you can’t see it, they won’t be it. Your first job is to believe in them. And if your arrogance or pride – we all have a little of that – or your insecurity – we all have that, too – are inflating you, then you can bet you are deflating them. If you’re not expecting their contribution, input, ideas, and candor, then pretty soon they’ll stop generating them. How much DO YOU believe in your people’s ability and value?

Questioning whether you know “the right way” will lead you away from an either-or world into a both-and world. Very seldom is the coach or parent or manager totally in the right, and the player, child, or worker totally in the wrong. Instead, there are different perspectives and different truths. Here is the most powerful thing an authority figure can due to build their credibility and to fuel their team’s energy and activity: simply hear, think about, and clearly acknowledge their ideas and contributions. Verbalize it back to them! “So what you’re saying is . . . ?”

Verbalize their ideas in the most clear and favorable way you can – not to get ready to prove them wrong, but to understand what they’ve got right. That will help you give it honest thought, and see the value and see their value. Then they will feel listened to. Such listening will also inevitably change the situation from an either-or, right-wrong, to a both-and where you can say, “I see what you’re getting at; is there a way we can achieve what you are after?” Get them, then, to help you achieve what you are after, instead of telling them, “No. We can’t do that. We have to do it my way.”

In summary, I suspect that we can all get short-term results and generate long-term energy and enthusiasm from our teams if we commit to continually breaking out of a boss-knows-best mode of thinking. Question yourself. Hear them. Articulate their views out loud. And engage them in the search for win-win. Doing these things could dramatically improve the quality of work of your team. Let go of that little Wizard of Oz in you, that needs to be right and in control, and instead…

Lead and learn with your best self

Dan

Mar

20

Goopy or Not? Readers Write Back

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Dear Friends,

It has been a while since I shared some of the replies that you send to RFL. But last week’s column evoked many, varied and interesting replies. You’ll recall I started with a reader’s feedback that RFL was too “goopy, rah-rah righteous,” and I then wrote about Jim Collins’ idea of asking questions and facing brutal facts. Today I share with you excerpted comments. Let me only say two things about them: length prevented me from sharing them all; I invite you to notice how differently people hear and respond. This rich diversity is why I so often say that a leader has to check their own assumptions, style, and habits; because different folks need different things. Here’s some of the interesting replies I received:

1. “As to asking questions…I tell folks that I want to be known as a wiseman….why’s man. I tell them that I will ask lots of “why’s” and hopefully through that get us all in a better position to understand and improve our processes.”
2. “I think of your RFLs as helpful tools – ways to approach problems, people or life in general. But they are hard for me at times because they are a bit superficial – again, I don’t mean goopy, but they are about visible response options: ask questions, don’t ignore the brutal facts, you don’t have to pretend to be a know-it-all…etc. I want to know more about emotional/invisible/internal response processing. How do you get yourself to the point where the appropriate and visible response options become automatic – to the point where you are not hurt by the slam, but laugh at it and then learn from it?”
3. “I read with amusement someone’s comments that you were “too goopy, …righteous.” In a world filled with corruption, it is a breath of fresh air to read your words each week. If you have struck a nerve, or caused some to be offended, it is because you have shared the righteousness of Christ, in your clear but subtle way, with others. I share your challenge to be discreet but firm with your faith. . . I am encouraged to read your weekly email, especially encouraged when I read between the lines, because I must present the gospel the same way in many of my meetings with people. Please keep doing what you are doing.”
4. “Your last line ["learn with your best self"] is absolutely right on . . . it is about learning! As I draw this part of life to a close and move to anther phase (which I hope will continue to include learning and contributing!) it becomes more and more clear that work is about learning and applying, and then learning more and applying more, and trying it again and again. I know so much more now than in 1974 when my public service career began . . . but, wow, I certainly do not know enough! Leadership, like other behaviors, are based on what we’ve learned, understand in our gut, and have the courage to apply. Being open to brutal reality means one has learned that we don’t know it all and that we need to learn more from those who have the information, insight, experience. Openness to brutal reality through questioning requires emotional intelligence . . . which usually means one has learned about the emotional side of leadership and human interactions, as well as the value and need for facts and perceptions from all sources. It is often easier to focus on known facts, and breaking issues into tangible pieces and parts, than it is to address the chaos or confusion that comes from being open and learning more and more. I deeply believe that success tomorrow depends on learning more and more today.”
5. “Creating a climate where all parties feel safe to participate in processing the latest doings as to what worked, what did not and what can be done differently in the future is the hallmark of a healthy family, group, or club. After all, despite the complexities and magnitude of an organization, one really is dealing with human nature, until such time emotionless robots begin to rule and make the rules.”
6. “Too often, men tend to be either-or thinkers, rather than both-and. To paraphrase Jesus: Render to Goopy what is Goopy’s and to Brutal what is Brutal’s.
7. “In my work with leaders we are constantly wrestling with how to really pursue the truth and the facts…..(which aren’t necessary the same thing), in order to be a community of learners about how the world is really working. One notion that helps: “data are my friend”. Both the notion and the syntax seem odd, but both are right. I remember writing a brief poem with the line, “The brutal facts aren’t brutal they are just the facts.” In a sense facts are neutral. It is the story we tell about them because of what we WANT to be the facts, or the negative impact of the facts on our view of the world and our role in it, that makes them brutal facts, rather than beautiful facts. But they are simply facts.”
8. “I happen to be reading a biography of Alexander the Great . . . Alexander clearly was a Level 5 leader: Unbelievable resolve (leading 30,000 men on a march across 3,000 miles of desert and mountains) . . . largely on foot, within a single year . . [with] great humility before the army. They loved him for it and followed him literally anywhere. But he also was, well … kind of goopy. An essential component of his leadership was an unembarrassed belief in and commitment to the great Greek myths. One of his burning ambitions in the Hindu Kush was to find the cave in which Prometheus was chained. So … the grizzled Macedonian veterans were led 11,000 feet up into the mountains by the 26-yr old kid who wants to find the mythic hero’s cave? Goopy? Rah-rah? Plus he believed in and practiced the “diversity” of his day. Definitely goopy.
Methinks goopy keeps not bad company.”

I hope you enjoyed these thoughts as much as I did. They are a reminder to be open to the rich diversity of those around you, so you can . . .

Lead with your best self,
Dan

Mar

13

The Goopy vs. The Brutal Facts

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Friends,

When people sign up for RFL, I ask them to tell me a little about what their leadership challenges are. And when someone unsubscribes from Reading for Leading, I also invite them to tell me why. Last week I got a pithy reply. The reader said I was, “too goopy, rah-rah, righteous.” I loved his candor and laughed at the poetic sound of his language. And does he have a point? In some respects: YES!

Jim Collins, in his book, Good to Great, is often quoted for his “goopy” stuff, like his homage to the “level 5 leader,” who combines great resolve with personal humility. But one of the aspects of Collins’ book that gets quoted the least is Chapter 4’s admonition “Confront the Brutal Facts.” Collins argues that organizations that treat themselves to wishful thinking are in trouble. Instead, he says that facing hard facts is especially important in this age, where customer demands and outside competition change faster than ever before. (The same need to face “brutal facts” is vital in other domains; for instance, when responding to symptoms of cancer in an individual, or indications of the spread of disease among people or animals.) Great visions, positive attitudes, and goopy, rah-rah righteousness, won’t will away such real challenges.

So, when we lead in these fast-changing worlds, we have to face the brutal facts. Collins offers dependable practices to get to those facts. First, lead with questions, instead of answers. Why? What do questions do? Why ask questions, if you know the answers? Were this a classroom, I would stop and listen to your replies to these! Questions open up to data. Questions lead to the realities that people closer to the customer, the shop floor, the competition, or the symptoms will see. Questions generate a culture where it’s okay to ask, to be ignorant, and where you model a desire to learn. It’s not so easy. Sometimes, as a parent we feel like we’re supposed to know it all, or as a supervisor we think they need us to be always in control and in the know. So, we tell, more than we ask. And that tells people that we may not really want to hear “the” truth – just our truth. And we miss out.

Collins parallels this point about question-asking by arguing for post mortems. When a project is over – especially if it didn’t turn out as you had hoped – ask, “Why?” Not to assign blame, but to move to constructive solutions. Such inquiries lead to a deeper understanding of some of those brutal facts and heighten the chances you’ll get it (more) right the next time. You might consider doing such a post mortem. You’ll have to fight the urge to get to the next project. We know the result of that haste, right? We tend to repeat our mistakes, continuing to rely on assumptions which have been undermined by changing realities.

So, as the week begins, you might ask yourself, “Do I create a culture that is fearless about the facts?” Or, if that’s too goopy, you might ask, “How can I create an organization that looks at the brutal facts all the time? What can I do to invite greater awareness of the changes and challenges that affect our work?” If you can get folks to look at what Collins calls the brutal facts, you’ll improve your organization’s ability to learn, to evolve, and to thrive.

Lead, or as a reader suggested to me last week: Learn, with your best self,
Dan

Mar

6

Monday Morning: Blues or Jazz?

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Friends,

Monday morning has a beat to it – like a funeral dirge, some would say. Many of us were taught by parents, radio stations, and popular culture to dread the hour. The relative few who are blessed by having a vocation, and not just a job, welcome Monday morn. Those who “own” their work – literally or at least metaphorically – don’t mind Monday morning. For most people I have known, Monday comes like a long-awaited bill in the mail; somehow they hoped it wouldn’t arrive, but here it is and the bill must be paid. And Mondays bring customs, habits, rituals. As individuals and groups we often repeat our steps, our approach, dressing ourselves in yesterday’s attitudes and expectations.

Meanwhile the world about us changes, is never the same. Our little girls “suddenly” have boyfriends. People quit buying Big Macs, cassette tapes, or Blue Light Specials. The Chinese have launched their own internet, Iran is developing nuclear technology, and the insurgency in Iraq keeps evolving. What worked yesterday may not work today.

Leaders – whether titled or not – lead change. Here in Michigan, for instance, my wife as Governor is constantly trying to get people to see that our old way of life – in which low skilled factory jobs were readily available – is over and gone. So she’s declared the goal of doubling college graduates by 2010, and is urging the legislature to mandate a serious statewide core curriculum in place of the current one which only requires that students take civics to graduate high school. Such changes are vital, both in themselves and as a Monday morning call: “Wake up! It’s a new day. There’s a different (and challenging!) world out there!”

In times of change, leaders bring new eyes to Monday morning. They see the new day. They really want to see this day, these circumstances; they welcome reality, unphased that it will require change. They exude an openness to today’s new stuff, and that openness spreads to others. How open are your people to bringing you this reality? Do your big kids trust you with their big kid problems? (It doesn’t happen automatically. You must prepare the way.) Is your staff awake to the changes in your industry or field? Are they terrified of change (and perhaps mirroring your fear that you thought you were hiding)? Great leaders want to know what’s happening, encourage their people to share the news, and are consistently ready to change their behavior and the behavior of the group to meet new challenges. Is that you?

It’s Monday. Tell them your door is open, your eyes are open, and your mind is working – ready for whatever the day may bring you, and ready to bring your best to the day. In some measure, you can decide whether or not it will be an upbeat day, whether you’ll be singing the blues or getting them jazzed for the week, if you . . .

Lead with your best self,
Dan

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