Leading in Tough Times 2 - You Under Pressure

Friends,

Last week, with a first RFL in a series on “leadership in times of challenge,” I invited you to consider the possibility that someone’s nutty behavior may be less a product of their individual psychological makeup than the fact that there are unusual pressures in the system.  I gave the example of a teen acting out, or someone blowing up at a meeting.  It’s easy to blame them, but it may be much more fruitful to ask: What’s going on here (or in other circles they’re in) that would cause them to flip out?  What was implied is that systemic pressure will cause a weak link to break; pressure seeks escape.*

Today I’d suggest more broadly: Everyone – or nearly everyone – consciously or otherwise reacts to pressures and stresses on the system as a whole.  And it’s important to know how YOU react.  If a company is in trouble, for instance, fear will generate predictable outlets:  e.g., authorities will be blamed; factions will fight over perceived scarcities (of money, management’s attention, etc.); personality differences that are usually tolerated will become hot spots.  The well-meaning people fueling these distractions will often and unwittingly be taking focus away from the real work that’s threatening the company.

The first work of leadership is to know how I - me, the one I can best control – react to pressure.  Two places deserve your attention.  First, are you playing the distraction games mentioned above – rumor-mongering, finger-pointing, side-taking, etc.?  If so, STOP!  Second, it helps to understand how you react under pressure.  Most of us tend to exaggerate our behaviors, leaning upon our perceived strengths, our comfort zones.  For instance, I tend to retreat into the safety of big-picture thoughts, big ideas and ideals.  But the group may need focus on some hard details and daily execution.  Others tend to be take-control folks, and under pressure may take the situation by the throat (remember General Haig when President Reagan was shot, announcing he was in control?).  Some retreat.  Some charge.  Some get Mr. Spock like logical.  Others get very emotional – angry or empathetic to the point of paralysis.

Do you know what you do under pressure?  As I have often written, leaders ask not “What’s comfortable for me, or what do I want?” but must always ask, “What does the group need?”  Don’t assume they’re the same.

Economic and other group pressures will continue to accompany those who lead, it’s important to understand how you react to them if you are to

Lead with your best self.

Dan

* Ronald Heifetz is a phenomenal teacher when it comes to understanding group pressure and leadership response.  A Harvard-trained psychiatrist, Heifetz started the leadership programs at the JFK School of Government at Harvard where he continues to teach leadership.  You can find his analysis in his book Leading on the Edge, co-authored by Marty Linsky, former chief of staff to Governor William Weld of Massachusetts.

Everyday Leaders - Leading in Tough Times - First in a series

Friends,

Gosh, we had some great calls to the Everyday Leadership Show on Saturday.*  The callers elicited wonderful thoughts and advice from my regular guests, Kathi Elster and Katherine Crowley.**  The economic downturn and hovering uncertainty formed the unmistakable backdrop for the calls.  Groups and individuals act quite differently when the context changes:

* When storm clouds arise, when the barometric pressure increases quickly;
* When the team is losing, when the inning is late;
* When ticket sales or charitable contributions drop off markedly;
* When foreclosures increase or sales plummet.

Under such over-arching pressures, people can act very strangely.  In the next few RFLs I’ll offer some thoughts on those changing behaviors and the resulting demands on leaders – whether you’re leading with authority or from among the crowd.

Lesson One:  read the signs.  So often we assume that weird individual behavior is weird individual behavior.  But so often weird behavior - like the skittish reaction of the deer or bird - tells us more about external conditions than about that particular animal.  Some people are simply more sensitive, and/or are more wildly expressive.  They are like pressure-meters in their systems.  So, an adolescent on a behavioral wild streak almost always points to something going on in the family system and/or the peer system, and not just to their personal psyche.  An employee who freaks out, stomps out, quits, betrays a confidence, or suddenly withdraws, may tell us much about the system(s), if we look there.  Likewise, we would do well to at least wonder whether the unusually hostile behavior of a somewhat nutty boss has been provoked by changes or stresses in the system(s) s/he belongs to: family or peers at work or major pressures in the organization.

Perhaps this sounds obvious.  But it runs counter to thousands of years of our mental programming, our automatic responses.  We look – for good reason – at behavior as the product of individual freedom and choice.  Our legal and moral and child-rearing systems are built upon this fundamental truth.  It’s only a partial truth.  So, perhaps look this week at the people who seem to be acting nutty, acting out, acting difficult, and take a detached approach.  Wonder about the systems and stresses that may “belong” more to those conditions than to the individual’s idiosyncrasies.  Where might this take you – first, simply in insight, and then beyond that to some different leadership responses?  As always I look forward to your thoughtful blog responses.

I’ll offer some more thoughts about leading groups under pressure in the coming weeks.  Detaching and wondering and critically thinking are keys for you to

Lead with your best self,

Dan

*  You can hear the Everyday Leadership Show (experts in the first hour, and advice in the second to help you “make work work”) on Saturday mornings from 7-9 AM.  You can hear it online live at http://www.wjimam.com or subscribe to podcasts through iTunes, at the linked url

** Co-authors of the best-selling book Working With You is Killing Me.

What’s the Context for Challenge?

Friends,

Why don’t we see the importance of challenge in our efforts to motivate others to reach higher levels of productivity and achievement?  I’ve asked this question in prior Reading for Leading columns and asked it of audiences to whom I have spoken.  I have shared the perplexing data from tens of brainstorming sessions:  for every one person who tells me that the way to energize followers is “challenge,” there are six others who say that the way to energize them is to “feed them,” and two more who say feed them “chocolate!”

On Friday I was wondering aloud to a group of lawyer-leaders why it had taken them so long to identify challenge as an energizer.  I pointed out that challenge was in the title of my speech and permeated a discussion leading up to this inquiry about energizing.  “Why,” I inquired of them - and now inquire of you - “don’t we see the tremendous power of challenging ourselves and others to unleash energy?”  Think of Mary Lou Retton, Baryshnikov, Bill Gates, Colin Powell or YOU:  In instances of great achievement isn’t there always someone there setting a high bar, a lofty goal, a challenge?

I don’t think you can dispute that.  Can you?  As I pondered-remonstrated with the group of lawyers for not more quickly seeing the power of challenge, Judge Stephens pushed back.  She said challenge won’t work unless people feel you believe in them, feel like they have what they need to meet the challenge, and know it’s okay if they fail.  What do you think?  Are those the necessary conditions to make challenge work to unleash energy?  What do we need to put in place so that those we lead (and we ourselves) will accept challenges to: improve, grow, stretch, excel, reach, risk, aspire, experiment, and otherwise expend energy to accomplish our full potential?

I’d love to hear your successful experiences, where others have challenged you, or you have challenged others.  What were the conditions or context that led challenge to lead to actual motivation, energy expenditure, and results?  We’ve got to challenge yet challenge well if we’re to

Lead with our best self!

Dan

Dads and Grads- A Request and an Idea

Friends,

I hope you have been finding value in “Reading for Leading” - whether you have been getting it every Monday for eight years, or for just eight weeks. With your indulgence, once or twice a year, I go off track a little and seek your help. With Fathers Day coming up and in this graduation season, I have a request and an idea.

The Request: Today, tomorrow and Wednesday of this week, Meijer supermarkets in Michigan are offering a great deal for Mentor Michigan. For every $25 gift card purchased, Meijer will give $2 to Mentor Michigan. Last year in two days we raised over $12,000 to support our vision to make sure that every child has a caring and stable adult in their life. We hope to far surpass that amount this year. You can give a card away to dads or grads or just turn around and use the cards for your shopping. Spend $100 on cards and you’ll painlessly give $8 to Mentor Michigan.

The Idea: If you’ve enjoyed “Reading for Leading,” you might consider giving my book, Everyday Leadership: Getting Results in Business Politics and Life as a gift to a grad or a dad. I’m happy to sign and personalize a copy, and we’ll get it out in the mail right away (with free shipping). Sales of the book have already generated over $5,000 for Mentor Michigan.

Many of us have been blessed with a caring dad. In my case, my dad was my primary leadership model. One way to honor your dad is to support the boys (and girls) who unfortunately have no such model in their life. Become a mentor or just consider finding another simple way to give.

Lead with your best self!

Dan

Do You Have an I Problem?

Friends,

I asked my daughter - who’s got her first fulltime job - if she had seen some good or bad leadership this week. She said a team of people had been working on the solution to a problem, and when the manager came in and asked what ideas they had, one of the people said, “I was thinking…I’m pretty sure…I think this will work, etc.,” as if he had been figuring it all out himself. All five at our dinner table acknowledged the depressive effect when someone doesn’t realize there’s no “I” in team.

Her story prompted me to tell them about how Jim Knaus tried to teach me a lesson 10 years ago. I had authored a letter that went out to Jim and a couple hundred people. He sent his copy back. It was marked with red marker the way our tyrannical Advanced Placement English teacher Fr. Polakowski would savagely attack our every mistake. Jim had circled every “I” in the page-and-a-half letter. Yeeesh, there were an embarrassing number of red circles.

In both cases the multitude of I-statements were at the very least a major distraction to the work. Can you imagine the number of organizational problems that have a direct link to EGO? It happens a lot because who doesn’t have an ego in play? Often, likely in both cases above, ego takes over quite unconsciously. Getting conscious really matters, because when ego is out front, we get in the way of good teamwork. What we don’t realize is – paradoxically - the focus-on-me also gets in the way of our own growth, fulfillment, and peace. If you are up for a remarkable, onion-peeling look at how YOUR ego works – and works against you – pick up Eckhart Tolle’s somewhat misleadingly named best-seller, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life Purpose. Reading this book was like having someone circle my inner thoughts with a big red pen. Yeeesh again. You can’t read Tolle and not see some things you might not want to see. But the upside is you’ll have ten times more awareness, opportunity and possibility when you see how you may be letting the little “me” of ego get in the way of much greater purpose and a powerful and life-giving “we.”

For those who have read Tolle, I’d love to read your comments about what you learned from him. Were you blown away by his quotation of the fourteenth century poet Hafiz? You can find Hafiz at the top of this week’s RFL blog.

Pay attention to your “I’s” this week. You can never get too much self awareness if you want to

Lead with your best self!

Dan

Keep Their Spirit Alive

Friends,

Welcome back from Memorial Day. Sometimes these 4 day weeks put pressure on us to achieve 5 days worth of work. But before you start churning through it all, you might gather up strength and purpose from Memorial Day.

On Thursday, my wife and General Cutler invited the “families of the fallen” soldiers to come together for a memorial service at the Governor’s Residence. While there, a number of family members shared on tape with me what they’d like people to know about their sons. What was most striking to me was the number who talked about how their son (or brother or husband) was so outgoing, gregarious, and fun-loving. Patriotic, too, as you’d expect. But these men displayed an intense energy for life that family members kept talking about. More than a few said, “we tried to talk him out of going” or “going back, but he would not be stopped.”

They fought – and died - for all of us. I wonder if we should remember them not only in thought. But remember them by acting in the spirit they displayed. Their actions invite us to:

* Love our country – get educated, speak, vote, pay our taxes
* Jump into action – even when things are ambiguous – even when people warn us of the risks of action
* Find purpose greater than “me” and “mine” – to live . . . and even die for

Few reading this message will face the potential risk of an IED or a suicide bomber this week.  In gratitude to those who do, live courageously for a great purpose this week, and

Lead with your best self,

Dan

Leader or Whiner

Friends,

Would you argue with me if I said that we have become a culture of whiners?  Leaders — and of course I use that word not to refer to a position, but to a frame of mind and action — leaders don’t whine.  And our world needs us to lead.

Whining connotes powerlessness.  And unfortunately it also sucks the energy out of others.  Leading does not mean turning a blind eye to difficulties.  Indeed, good leaders are brutally honest about the facts.  But then, consciously or otherwise, when they see difficulties they choose one of two paths: acceptance, if the problems lie outside their influence, or action to stimulate change.

So, you might monitor your inner whiner this week!  When some difficulty – a jerk, the weather, the copier, your Achilles tendon, your teenager - is stimulating you whine, take a breath, one deep breath, and ask yourself: will I lead?  If you want to lead, then ask yourself:  Act or accept?

So:  Observe the whiner.  Choose to lead.  And ask yourself: Should I accept it or act?

To lead with your best self,

Dan

JUST a Great Case of Everyday Leadership

Friends,

I woke up on Mothers Day excited about writing about moms as the archetypal “everyday leaders.”  I was going to ask you if these words better described a great mom or a great leader:  they encourage, empower, stimulate collaboration, believe in their people, prepare us for the future, and serve others before themselves.  That’s mom - or great leader.  And then I cringed and scratched my head in disbelief when I opened the Free Press and read the lead sentence of an article about a woman running to be the Oakland County Executive.

“Before she was the mayor of Southfield, before she was on the City Council and before she joined the school board,” the writer began, “Brenda Lawrence was just a parent involved in parent-teacher associations for her children.”  Now, I’m not sure why the reader should set aside the fact that this woman’s been a mayor, city council person, and school board member.  But the thing that hangs me up is before that she was “just a parent.”  JUST a parent?  Huh?  Isn’t this 2008?  Just a parent is an insult to any woman - or man - who’s shepherding the most important resource we’ll ever have.

Besides, being a parent can be hugely relevant experience.  Moms, and increasingly dads, do just what municipalities do:  they make sure everybody’s fed, the bills are paid, the lights are on, the kids are getting educated, and we aren’t forgetting about grandma and grandpa.  The fact is that many — perhaps most — women entered politics in just this way.  They cared about their home, their kids, their block and their kids’ school;  then someone said:  “Hey, why don’t you run?”  Humbly - because people told them they were “just a mom” - they agreed to serve.

One more thing.  Raising children is probably pretty good preparation for dealing with the people who act like “siblings” on school boards, city councils, county commissions or legislatures.  As the writer went on to point out about Ms. Lawrence:  “In the late ’90s and early 2000s, Lawrence sometimes calmed an often tumultuous Southfield City Council, where members broke into screaming matches and one councilman threw a book, nearly hitting a city employee.”

Go Moms!  Go on ahead and lead - in whatever venue you choose.  I’m sure grateful that my mom was “just a parent,” and an everyday leader, who always

Led with her best self!

Dan

Optimists and Skeptics Look For Results in the Week Ahead

Friends,
One of Colin Powell’s famous guideposts for leadership is, “perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.” I always loved the West Point feeling of it: a “force multiplier” sounds so technical and mathematical and militarily strategic. Snap your fingers: you’re optimistic! You’re optimistic, your force has doubled! So today, an example of how optimism works, but also a realistic-skeptical question about how one can — or whether one can – willy-nilly make optimism work for them.

Last Sunday night my wife was complaining of intense abdominal pain. Given her extraordinary optimism, I nearly had to order her to go to the doctor on Tuesday morning. Within 10 hours of a CT scan, surgeons were removing an obstructed section of her small intestine. She was a patient patient for about two days, but as the meds wore off she quickly became her old self, way more optimistic than patient. Tubes were removed; one after the next. Friday morning I walked into her room to find her in her street clothes. Surprised, I asked “Are you showing them that you’re going to will yourself right out of here?” She smiled and said, “You bet.” I suspect that if it had been me, it would have taken me a week to get out of there. She was out in four days. I am utterly certain in this case: Perpetual optimism was a captivity minimizer.

I am drawn to people of optimism. Obviously I married one. I myself have deep-down faith and hope, but I’ve never been a cheery optimist, able to summon it at will. I have to work at my attitude constantly. This Monday morning I offer two thoughts for your consideration. First, optimism IS! a force multiplier. Can you possibly disagree? So second, make a choice to value it. If you can generate it legitimately in yourself, do so, and be grateful you have a gift for it! If you’re (more like me): thinking yourself born of gloomy people, raised in a land without sunshine, the victim of sundry bad moments, “blessed” with a skeptical mind, then recognize that. But look for ways to nudge yourself up the spectrum of hope. Here are a few:

* Consciously ally your self with upbeat people.
* Condition yourself to look for the silver lining.
* Make lists of good things that are happening.
* Look for opportunities and not just problems.
* Take little steps that lead to where you want to go.
* Bear witness to the genuine power of optimism in those who are fortunate to be blessed with it as a natural strength and way of being.

On Tuesday Jennifer knew she was going to be out of the hospital by the end of the week. What success might you will yourself into this week? as you

Lead with your best self!

Dan

Time Will Trick You- Fight Back!

Friends,

Time plays funny games on you sometimes. Last week I picked up our oldest daughter Kate at the conclusion of her first year in college.  Even though I had seen her — perhaps 10 times at intervals during this academic year — it still felt as though I had dropped her off a month ago, or okay, maybe two months at the most.  Then, when I was doing our “man on the street” interviews for my radio show this week, I asked a fellow about receiving recognition, and he said: “well it’s been about 20 years since I was recognized at work.” Holy smokes, time sure can get away from you.

Consider one implication from each of these stories.  The story about Kate offers this lesson: Although things may seem so much the same, things are changing all the time.  Our customers, context, employees, and technology — just to name a few factors — are always changing, and arguably changing at a faster rate than ever before.  So taking time out to note those changes and adapt is essential.  I was consulting to a management team at a great company, and I was asking them how they could radically heighten their workers’ sense of ownership.  I thought there was an awful lot of merit in one gentleman’s suggestion.  He said he was thinking of taking a hiatus for a week from his management meetings and instead getting completely immersed in the work of the teams that reported to him.  He sensed quite well that things have surely changed since he was in their positions.  (In much the same way I plan on just listening and observing how my “new” daughter has evolved.)

When the “man on the street” said it had been 20 years since he was (formally) recognized at work, my first instinct was to laugh, then to cry, and finally to say “it’s really just not so surprising that 20 years could pass with no one keeping score. Time flies.”  But the obvious moral of the story is this: People need to be told what they’re doing well and told often.  Time can slip away on you (as can taken-for-granted employees).  You assume they know that they’re playing a great role.  You think you told them last week, or was it last month.  “What?” you say.  “It wasn’t last year?  It was some time in the 20th century that they received that recognition from the CEO?”  So before this day ticks away on you, look for some people to recognize, appreciate, and encourage for their good work.  Maybe order those plaques or rings or cheesecakes or Tigers tickets or movie passes, or something fun to recognize a job well done.  (By the way, in chapter 7 of Adrian Gostick and Scott Christopher’s new book The Levity Effect: Why it Pays to Lighten up At Work, you can find 142 ways to have fun at work.)

Time, like rust, never sleeps.  Stay alert and alive

To lead with your best self!

Dan