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

Your Responses Last Week Were Like Dynamite

Friends,

Last week I wondered aloud with you why no one had addressed the issues in the prior week’s Reading for Leading, about managing up. Among the huge number of terrifically intriguing responses, came this one from Tony in Kalamazoo: “Looking at the number of responses this week vs. last week puts me in mind of Robert Redford’s line as the Sundance Kid: ‘Think ya’ used enough dynamite there, Butch?’” LOL as they say.

Consider this analogy. In some respects, I am in a position of relative authority with respect to the reader. Like a boss, it falls to me to set the tone or agenda, at least in this small virtual space that I occupy. Like “real” authority figures, I know that my work is much more effective when more people weigh in, sharing their views, their thoughts and feelings. And like authority figures at work I proceed in a routine fashion. From time to time, I ask — more or less explicitly — for your feedback. Two weeks ago I received virtually none. But then look what happened when I went out of my way through multiple links to the blog in the text and through repeated requests for your input: it blew up like dynamite!

Which one of us as a boss, parent, teacher, principal, pastor… does not think in their own mind that they are open to, no, seek, no, thrive upon, no need input and feedback? Yet which one of us hasn’t fallen into certain routines that make it almost inevitable that we will receive next to no feedback in the routine of our days and weeks?

Perhaps the greatest truism in sales and in development work is, “you won’t get the sale unless you ask for the order!” Managing’s the same. So if you feel like you are bearing the load, or just not engaging and involving your teams, you should step outside the routine and quite explicitly, emphatically and repeatedly seek input. If you don’t believe me, spend a few minutes reading some of the comments in last week’s blog, for they make it so abundantly clear that many people find huge obstacles when it comes to managing up. Many find it useless if not downright dangerous. If you want their input, you better systematically remove barriers and plow open routes for input. You’ve got to go out of your way to bring them into your way, and thereby

Lead with your best self!

Dan

Your Unusual Silence on Managing Up

Friends,

Do you make anything of this?  Last Monday I wrote about “managing up.”  I got only 4 blog comments, three of which were random attacks on the Governor that were unrelated to my column.  Typically 15-20 people weigh in.  Then on my radio show this week the topic in the call-in hour was the same: how to manage up.  And not a single call!  I don’t think it’s accidental.  I’ll tell you what I think, and I hope to hear what you think.

First, “managing up” can be a scary proposition.  I imagine there were people who would have loved to call in and get some advice on handling a challenging boss, but those same people might have understandably been afraid to talk about it publicly.  What if the boss heard?!  I also suspect that people feel rather hopeless when it comes to this topic.  “Geez,” I imagine them saying, “It’s hard enough to manage down, to manage your kids or your team, let alone to manage your boss or your parents!”

I’d love to hear whether you think this is true (you can blog with a pseudonym or anonymously).  Do you aspire to managing up?  Or do you think it’s too dangerous?  Do you think you should try to manage up – i.e., is it the job of all us who wish to lead, to lead those who are the formal leaders?  I suspect this could be a robust exchange, especially if we drop the gloves of abstraction and actually write honestly about how we approach leading up.  Do you manage up?  Why, or why not?  What holds you back?  And what works?  I fervently invite you to contribute to this week’s blog and read what others have to say.

Here’s my take on it.  I think managing up is risky.  And I think there are genuine limits to how much you can get a manager to change his or her practices.  But I think most of the time it’s worth the risk.  If you lead with your best self, you will almost inevitably engage the formal leader(s) to share information, question assumptions, offer ideas, and otherwise act with ownership.  I hope you might take a little ownership of this important conversation, and blog this week, as you

Lead with your best self,
Dan

This is not a blog about politics

John P, Dave, and Mark B.,

For the first time since I turned “Reading for Leading” into a blog I have chosen to “moderate” it - in this case to remove  your coments from my blogspace.  I’m sure you expect that I don’t agree with your political views, but that’s not why I am turning you out.  This is a place for people to discuss how THEY are attempting to lead.  It’s a place for discussion and even for self reflection.  If you read through the archives you will find lots of people disagree with me, question me, complement my views (or compliment me) and together, I hope, we are learning to lead more effectively.  Your comments just don’t fit here.

Your messages barely even attempt (John P tries with one feeble opening line) to be relevant to the topic of “managing up.”   Managing up is vastly different than “complaining up,” which is what 99% of political blogtalk is.  And this is not a site for political blogtalk.  Kindly find another place to “complain up,” or even fashion compelling rational arguments about my wife’s policies or leadership.

I will continue to engage RELEVANT discussions about her leadership; I am both open and intrigued by that.  But this site is devoted to people interested in “leading with their best self,” not fundamentally ”complaining that Jennifer isn’t leading with her self.”

Thanks for understanding. 

A Fun Take on Whether Managers Are Manageable

Friends,
 
Fifteen minutes before we went on the air on Saturday morning, I said to Frank, my technical producer: “Hey, do you think you can find an audio clip of Tony the Tiger saying ‘they’re G-r-r-r-r-eat?’”  I explained that it would be fun to play it to introduce Kathi Elster and Katherine Crowley, who were joining me to give advice to listeners on workplace issues.  Frank said, “It’s kind of last minute, but I’ll see if I can.”  What do you do when your supervisor makes a stretch - if not totally unreasonable - request of you?  Dan and Chip Heath in an article in this month’s Fast Company magazine offered some fun and effective thoughts on how to deal with situations like this in their article “Your Boss is a Monkey.”*
 
The Heath brothers offer that you would do well to think about “managing your boss” in the same way that exotic animal trainers alter the behavior of their charges.  The Heaths offer 3 rules: ignore bad behavior (instead of getting manipulated by it); realize that all interactions matter; and reward good behavior!  So, if I were a habitual last-minute manager, and you wanted to have some impact with me, you would first, ignore my bad behavior, i.e., don’t get all bent out of shape by it.  Don’t let the monkey, elephant, lion, or manager think you’re flustered by his insolence, irreverence, etc.  Neither cower nor shriek nor, for gosh sake, run away!  Stay in control.
 
Second, realize that your behavior will always teach the animal a lesson.  So, if you bail me out again at the last minute, I’ll learn: “I can do this last-minute stuff, and it’ll all work out.  Sweet!  Or, as the teenagers say, ‘Solid!’”  Frank did a good job with me.  He told me it was last minute and he’d see if he could.  In this case, he couldn’t, so this monkey, me will feed into my mental model: I may need to ask Frank sooner than the last minute next time I need something from him.
 
Third, the Heaths say: reward good behavior.  So, for example, when I actually give “Reading for Leading” to my team to format before midnight on Sunday, commend me on my thoughtfulness, promptness, etc.  And don’t forget:  it takes a LONG time to train a monkey!  So you have to patiently seize and celebrate all the small wins along the way. 
 
The ‘boss as monkey” theory raises plenty of questions, but in two short pages the Heaths offer an intriguing idea for managing your manager.  It’s also an interesting mirror to hold up to yourself as the monkey-manager!  I thought it was good enough to distribute the article to my team.  I hope they’ll all keep training me, because the better I am for them, the better we’ll produce together.  You need that kind of input to
 
Lead with your best self!
 
Dan
 
* You can find the Heath’s article entitled “Your Boss Is a Monkey.”  at http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/124/your-boss-is-a-monkey.html.
 

Candor is King

Friends,

Jack came home this week frustrated with the environment in his classroom.  Some students were lagging behind, the classroom had become too social, and so his teacher had cracked down.  Jack felt the freedom at the heart of the Montessori system was being squeezed out.  It was unfair, he said for everyone to feel the crackdown, and he also thought the teacher would get more with carrots than with punitive sticks.  So, Jack announced to me that he had asked for and been promised a meeting with his teacher and the principal.  As parents we admired the little man’s gumption, and we were amused by the birth of this righteous spirit.

Most of all, I was blown away (again) by the school’s culture.  They flat-out welcomed dissent! In many “normal” schools, this is not how the dissent would have been managed.  The easiest thing (as with businesses) would be to just not take the kid seriously.  After all, he’s ten and culture is the domain of adults (supervisors).  If he persisted, the school could - and could have in this case - shift the focus to the student’s failings.  In this case, the school saw Jack’s dissent as a wonderful opportunity to teach and learn about culture, about how groups balance freedom and responsibility, about the tough choices of those in authority, and about Jack’s own role.  He left feeling heard, and no doubt spreading the word throughout the already positive culture that it was okay to raise issues with the authorities.

Imagine the workplaces we would have if more of our schools created such learning cultures!  Imagine the lawsuits avoided at work!  Imagine the shared learning if people were more open to understanding the diverse perspectives of work.  Where Jack was welcomed to dissent, I find that people come to me to find an end run when they feel they have not been heard.*  And when I raise their issues I sometimes end up being the “shot at messenger,” who is really just trying to invite people to listen and engage, instead of feeling like they are being attacked.

There are tens of studies that have demonstrated that openness and candor in the workplace – especially in the 21st century economy – promote innovation, speed, quality, and productivity.  When it comes to cultures that generate results, candor is king.

But as a supervisor, manager, or if you’re even higher in the food chain, YOU MUST PROACTIVELY WORK to generate an atmosphere of  candor.  (Sorry for all the bolds, caps and underlines, but I’m TRYING TO SCREAM THE POINT: be proactive.  When someone has an issue, do you absolutely welcome it as an opportunity to learn and to teach, to engage and improve?  More importantly, if I asked your people this, would they say, “Totally, s/he loves it when we challenge to make things work better!”   You’ve got to work to create that kind of culture and so to

Lead with your best self!

Dan

NOTE: This Saturday on my radio show, I’ll be joined by Stephen Covey, author of perhaps the best book ever written on personal effectiveness, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (a great gift, by the way, for approaching graduations).  Listen to the show at 7 am ET through www.danmulhern.com

** yes, some ARE just “whiners,” but some have important data that needs to be heard.

Regular People, We Lead

Friends,

So I was at Easter Mass in a small town “up north.”  I judged: This seems to be a very average little church.  Modest outside and in.  The priest, preaching, choir, all seemed to me stunningly regular.  One of the stained glass windows had a brown puppy in the foreground.  Some average voice of an angel in my own mind noticed all this rating and judging I was doing.  It asked me to ponder what might lie within the joy of different folks, as at that moment they lifted their regular old arms and their regular old small town hearts at the end of the “Our Father” prayer.  Perhaps they celebrated triumphs over cancer, alcoholism, a soldier son come home from Iraq, or some other avoidance of threat, evil, or ill.  Who could know what kind of rebirths they were giving thanks for?  And who was I to judge the significance of their lives?

Two young teenage girls, perhaps sisters, sang a duet from the pulpit after communion.  With every measure their nervousness faded, and their enthusiasm rose, ‘til in the end they were singing for all they were worth.  In full voice, they sang as Joni Mitchell once wrote of a street musician, “real good, for free.”  And I thought: What a gift to lead in our own average worlds!  Where life matters to each of us, and we live for those times when we can lift our arms in joy or our hearts in shared songs.

We don’t have to make it to the Sweet Sixteen or the Final Four or the cover of Time to have what we do matter.  It helps to remember, reminded by your better angels, that we’re all in the end regular, normal people, whose lives are improved when you

Lead with your best self,

Dan

Listen for Stephen Covey who joins me on my radio show on Saturday, April 5th at 7:00 AM.  We’ll chat about the “7 Habits” and his upcoming program at Eagle Eye Resort on April 9th.  You can listen across the Michigan Talk Network or from my website, www.danmulhern.com.