Jul

26

The Discipline to Defuse Painful Squabbles

Filed Under All Posts, Reading for Leading | 17 Comments

Friends,

Nearly every Sunday my parents packed us in the Ford Country Squire and we hit I-94, on the way to our grandparents on the east side of Detroit.  We always watched for the (Uniroyal, I think) billboard with the rolling digits, an up-to-the-minute tally of US Car & Truck Production.  I can imagine a similar sign, with fast rolling odometer-like digits, but it would be titled, Painful and Unnecessary Squabbles at Work and at Home.  I figure the US daily tally would reach a million by dinner time.  Last week, I observed one.  You know the typical indicators: Two folks not talking to each other (though occasionally sending heavily coded emails), each feeling misunderstood and offended, others brought in (by at least one of the adversaries) to commiserate, and folks walking on eggshells.  Oh, and work halted by one, the other, or both.

I confess that I have personally walked into LOTS of these – one at the airport a couple days ago.  And I have read about them in big circles: in the Bush and Clinton White Houses, for instance.  And call me naïve, but I’d guess the odometer-like tally of Painful Squabbles could slow to a crawl if people did two things.  Test out these two prescriptions by thinking about somebody you’re at odds with…

First, admit that your ego is in play (you already knew your adversary’s ego was in play!).  Ego involvement creates astounding asymmetry.  The issue can be tiny, such that an objective stranger would say, “let it go, man!  It’s nothing.”  But, when the ego feels threatened, the issue seems huge.  Someone was not consulted.  Or somebody went around somebody.  Or somebody thinks they’re being embarrassed.  The coach pinch hit your kid.  Or somebody forgot (if you’re the one grievously offended, you say “somebody ‘forgot’ in quotes) to invite you to the meeting.  Or somebody talked to one of your staff people without talking to you first.  Or gave a report to the boss, without letting you know.  Or (especially if you don’t just have an ego, but a male ego) somebody jumped to the front when the clerk said “next in line, please,” even though they knew you were there first. Recognize it: the issue is tiny, but for the ego that’s acting big (or small depending on your perspective), it’s huge.

Second, choose to shift from the small perspective of ego, to the larger issue of understanding what the other person is thinking and feeling.  Their “attack” can be seen – with great discipline, mind you, as full of opportunity:  opportunity to enlarge your understanding, to broaden your view, to learn to work with someone who sees things quite differently.  A tiny example.  I let Jack raise the issue – he’s almost 12 now – about whether he had to go to church last night.  He was frustrated.  (He’s a wonderfully calm arguer, so if I did some things right, I’m sure it’s in large part because he’s not super-aggressive and voluble).  Yet, as he pushed back, the dirty parent secret is this:  I could easily have been threatened by his rebellion, worried that he wasn’t respecting what I cared about, or mad that he was defying my authority.  My ego was more than ready to fuel those fears and to trigger a powerful reaction to crush the attacker.  But I kept ratcheting it down – alternately asking him what he meant and why, and then asking him what he heard me saying.  In the end, I made him go to church, and invited him to go freely in spite of my admitted coercion.  He wasn’t happy.  But he was heard.  There was understanding if not glee.  I remembered and respected what it’s like to be him – twelve, questioning, easily bored, etc.  And I hope he found me somewhat reasonable.  We slowed the revolving Painful Squabble tally just a little.

 

So, monitor the ego and listen to the other to

 

Lead with your best self,

 

Dan

 

Jul

22

Speaking about sustained change

Filed Under All Posts, Speaking | Leave a Comment

I’ve been speaking more and more about leading through sustained change – recently speaking to Cisco managers and the Mich Society of Association Executives.  Leading through sustained crisis is different than “normal” leadership.  Sometimes, all your assumptions fall apart.  Think about newspapers, who thought nobody could compete with their long-developed skills at gathering news, formatting, editing, printing, distributing.  Look: you can do it all online.  Let me know if I can help your leaders learn to lead in times of incessant change!

Jul

22

Execs Tips For Getting on Top of Time

Filed Under All Posts, Reading for Leading | Leave a Comment

I am working with a group of executives and when asked what issue they would like to discuss at our monthly meeting, they quickly and overwhelmingly said: Work overload. Email in particular has been mounting, becoming more and more of a daily (and nightly) grind.

 

We discussed numerous “tips and tricks” that make much sense. I emphasized two things: first, not all people are the same, and what works for one doesn’t work for another. So, I encouraged them to focus on what they thought could work for them and choose two strategies and pursue them. Second, what works for anyone will change over time – as they and their circumstances change. So, time management is best seen as an ongoing experiment and learning, not a once-and-for-all effort.

 

At the end of our meeting, they each committed to a strategy or two that would work for them. Here are their thoughts, hoping they might help you:

 

  • Block the earliest part of the day for high-priority work that demands a fresh mind. That may be writing, strategy, or other deep-creative work. Do it before you turn on the computer or at least before you open the email!

  • Close the “open door,” that leads to a thousand interruptions. One exec said he was creating quiet times for himself, but balancing that be scheduling set times with staff to give them his full attention. Let staff know you’re doing this and why.

  • Use the phone with key stakeholders. A woman with a vast volunteer support network said email gives her the illusion of efficiency. Her office has become entirely virtual. But the critical feeling of relationship has been badly hurt by driving all communication through email and away from the more personal. Her advice to herself: Don’t hit the “ignore” button and send important people to voicemail. Instead, she’s picking up the phone calls. Treat your key clients, customers, KIDS! as people and not just email recipients. You lose a little control, but gain a lot more.

  • Manage the Crackberry addiction!!! Like an addict: You have to have it – like a cigarette. Just one more look at it – like one more drink, or one more quarter in the slots. You guiltily sneak a hit on the crackberry in church, on a date, or at your kid’s performance. A couple of our execs had developed “recovery” type behaviors to deal with the habitual quality of the blackberry:

    • Don’t bring it into meetings. A COO in a large health system has been confronted by a peer about his blackberry in meetings, and he concluded for himself: I’m sending the wrong message to people I’m with, and I have to admit: it diminishes my focus in the meeting. Below see the strategy he developed to keep up with the avalanche of emails he’s temporarily ignoring. Another director of a large non-profit is trying two strategies to manage his addiction:

    • Turn the sound and vibration off. This exec “admitted” he’s turned the sound and vibration off his blackberry, unless he’s expecting something. He felt he’d become like the dog salivating when the bell rang. Now, he’s not constantly interrupted. And:

    • Keep the blackberry in another room at home. At home this exec says he keeps the blackberry on a different floor in his house. He takes away the temptation entirely. At our home, parents on blackberries and kids texting pay 25 cents to the family cottage fund when caught texting at the dinner table.

  • Shorten meetings to forty-five minutes. The exec who isn’t bringing his blackberry to meetings made a counterbalancing time-saving decision/experiment: he changed meetings he was chairing from an hour to 45 minutes. He’s finding people more focused in that time, and he uses the saved 15 minutes for emails that he feels he must get to.

  • Stop over-promising: It creates unnecessary pressure and sets you up for failure. One exec who runs a great small business with personal service said: “I’m a pleaser, so I notoriously say it will be delivered sooner than is practical.” She’s finding that many clients prefer clarity and she’s avoiding costly disappointments when expectations were not realistic.

  • Block 2 times during the day to look at emails. This exec said he looks immediately after lunch, and then in the quiet time after others leave the office. Some have said we’re living in a time of permanent attention deficit disorder. Keeping email off at times allows him to focus his attention.

  • Keep a “no” list and have a goal of using it every day. Saying “yes” to things of lesser importance drives out things of high importance. So, in this case, “no” means “yes” to accomplishing what really matters.

  • Journal to clarify your mind. A highly successful litigator finds that he gets great value early in the day from doing 15 minutes of free-form journaling. “Things crystallize” he said, as his thoughts inevitably take him to the important things.

  • Ditch the ballast. When done with the email, delete (or otherwise move it out of the inbox). When you can decide, decide. Unless a revisit will add quality – truly relevant information or necessary perspectives – decide and move. Revisiting is costly in time and energy.

  • Choose a time management strategy or two and focus. Better to pursue a couple simple strategies than to have time management itself create a whole new set of distractions and/or guilty failures!

Jul

20

Men Leading in the New World of Work

Filed Under All Posts, Reading for Leading | 18 Comments

 Friends,

Last week I wrote about the huge opportunity that’s there when you recognize slow change and move with it. If you had any question about whether women will become ascendant in management, check out last week’s survey. (It’s unscientific nevertheless the results of the 500 people who answered the survey are startling.) I’ll return to that theme in future weeks, but today the yin to the yang.

I’d venture that nothing is more important to us than our children, whether the “our” is the general “our” of community or the intense “our” of the young ones in our own families. And that change I referenced above is profoundly affecting the work place of the home and the major “customers” in it -those kids. Women are on the march in the outside world of work, but have we in our society begun to see the depth and expanse of these changes at home. In this week’s quick survey, I wonder how you think we’re doing – particularly how men are making and will make the transition to leading with their best selves in the home place, where my father’s generation almost never ventured, mine has begun to tread, and in which the Gen Xers and Gen Yers are increasingly plying a new trade.

One of the striking aspects of last week’s survey is the contrast between perceptions (those of men and women) of the great talent of young women, yet their (again both men and women) significant skepticism about when women will outnumber men in mid-level and especially high-level positions.

Is one of the reasons for that contrast the fact that we don’t believe in men’s ability to lead (either full-time or as the primary parent) at home. Is it that we have hardly begun as a society to prepare men for excellence in this new world? In their relatively new world of public leadership, women have models aplenty: Hilary, Carly, Jennifer, Nancy, Oprah or Condoleza – all navigating and excelling.

So whom do we men look up to as models of male parenting? Of course, by definition such role models would be private. But I wonder if many or any guys could name such models. I suspect that we are at a critical beginning point, well behind the curve that women have climbed. Perhaps part of beginning and celebrating the extraordinary opportunity men have to lead in the home place is to unashamedly lay claim to it. I suspect I’m like a lot of guys who feel like, “I’m a pretty good dad, but I make a lousy mom.” I’m guessing that’s the flip of what trailblazing women felt and thought in the early days leading in the traditional world of work.

Maybe it’s time to begin to bring our own unique style (part of which reflects our maleness) of leadership and stop feeling like we don’t belong. It’s probably the best way to create some good role models for our own sons.

Love to hear your thoughts – through the comments and/or the survey – on how, especially guys at home,

Lead with their best self,

Dan

Jul

12

Women, Work and the Arc of Democratization

Filed Under All Posts, Reading for Leading | 27 Comments

Often we live in the middle of slow-moving change, which only appears dramatic when we step way back.  It makes you wonder what possibilities go unnoticed, and who seizes on the opportunities buried in those slow changes.  For instance, I have long thought that the entrance of women into the workplace in large numbers – and increasingly into leadership positions – is an example of such long-slow change.  Over time, women (and progressive men who have welcomed their arrival) have humanized and democratized workplace culture.  Autocratic, topdown, paternalistic leadership – which almost never made much sense – was long tolerated as part of business culture.  Now, with a more traditionally feminine emphasis on relationships at work – collaboration, encouragement, diversity, etc. – that has changed.  It’s the humanization and democratization of work that has resulted, for example, in Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For,” quadrupling their rates of telecommuting in just one short decade.  It’s good for the workers, and what’s good for the workers often times…well, you know.

 

In the long arc of workplace change, I wonder if we are still slow catching on – catching on to the shortcomings of some old models of leadership.  We still seem rapt by the Alpha Males, for whom drives for sex and power irrationally take precedence over the long term welfare of the people they have campaigned to lead.  I wonder will males adapt?  Can we intentionally evolve?  Or will the culture (led by the strong demands of women) simply realize that women are just more reliable – less distracted, contentious, egoistic, and (one of our dirty male secrets) less vindictive?  

 

I’d love your feedback in any of three ways:   1.  Answer a one-minute survey about women’s capability and advancement;  2. Hit the comments key below and weigh in.  3. Listen and call in this Saturday when we discuss the evolving roles of women at work on the Everyday Leadership show.

 

Say no to the dictator – whether within or without – and push for the humanization and democratization of work, as you

 

Lead with your best self,

 

Dan

Jul

5

Frans “Medici Effect” Johansson

Filed Under All Posts, Radio | Leave a Comment

I’m not sure I ever had more fun with a radio interview than when Franz Johannson came into my studio to do a “Superstar Leadership” interview.   Franz came with his wife and beautiful baby, and he had the enthusiasm and energy of someone who not only love their work but loves their life.   I tried to get him to show me how to innovate on the spot.  Listen in to see if he was successful at it!  Hear him in Fourth of July 1 podcast.

Jul

5

Celebrities and Everyday Leaders

Filed Under All Posts, Reading for Leading | 15 Comments

Michael Jackson.  Steve McNair.  Mark Sanford.  Sarah Palin.  Those we follow, caught between circus and tragedy.

If ever there was a time for Everyday Leaders, it’s now.

With the freedom and democracy we were bestowed on the 4th of July, 1776, I think I’m going to work to make my corner of the world a just little better this week.  Hope you will, too.

Lead with your best self,

Dan

Get Adobe Flash playerPlugin by wpburn.com wordpress themes