Management Craft

Blooming in Spite of It All #management #success

I saw this shrub in a parking lot median and had to snap and share this pic. As you can see, the tree has no leaves, is completely dormant - EXCEPT for one wonderful and lush bloom.

Made me think about a common question I have gotten over the years from managers - can I really have an impact in this dysfunctional organization!??!

The answer is always - maybe, it depends, yes if......

I admire people who bloom in spite of the dysfunction. They define great management, in fact. It is easy to thrive in a model organization that "gets it" on the most important ideas. It is much harder to make something happen when every fiber of the organization reacts to change like a transplanted organ sometimes rejects its new host.

Managers who bloom in spite of it all create teams who do the same. Yes, you really can make a difference when it seems so hard to do. It starts with seeing dysfunction as the reason you are needed, not as a barrier to doing your "real" job (whatever that means, cutting through the dysfunction is your real job, it is how you earn your salary, how you make a difference).

As we head into Thanksgiving week, I want to thank all of you out there who show us how this is done. You are amazing. Take a day off and then get right back in the game!

Great Performers - What's the Manager's Responsibility?

I like this post from John Kotter on his Forbes blog called, How to Retain the Heroes Within Your Workforce. Check it out. The suggestions, as you might imagine, focus on how to engage and USE your team's talents and that we need to actively do so.

And this begs a question - if you are a manager, does this mean that you should change things, manufacture challenges, adjust work tasks, to ensure that your top talent does not get bored or feeling like their work is not meaty enough?

Yep.

I am not suggesting that you manufacture tasks that are not useful or in alignment with the organization's goals. That would be irresponsible. But it is also irresponsible to lose high performers because they were not challenged. Your organization needs their best work. They want to do their best work.

Check out Kotter's post and think about the ways you can better engage your best performers.

 

Repetition Leads to Brain Pruning - Your Message Might Be a Lullaby

I attended TEDxHouston last weekend. It was a nice line up talks and a great collection of people. One of the talks that I found interesting was offered by Anthony Brandt - composer and music director. His message was focused on answering the question, "do we need the arts."His perspective, as you might expect, is that we do.

That's a given, here's what I found fascinating.

Anthony talked about what artistic endeavors do to our brains and how this relates to creativity. He was joined on stage by a string quartet who demonstrated his points through music.

Here's the first point: repetition "prunes" our brain. I love that word, pruning - not that I want to shrink and dehydrate my brain but that it offers a vivid image of what's happening. Anthony used the example of lullabies and why they put us to sleep - they are sweet and droning, the same phrases repeated with little change.

Instead of pruning our brains, art and artistic activities bend, break, or blend. The quartet played snippets of a Beethoven piece showing how he used all these techniques to build drama and interest.

As Anthony was talking, I could not help but think about how we communicate in the workplace. Lullaby or Beethoven? What I see is a lot of lullaby and very little Beethoven.

We tell leaders they need to communicate mission/values/goals again and again. And they do, reminding us through mouse pads and video clips. But unless we are going deeper, to the point of bending, breaking, or blending, we are just putting people asleep.

To change the culture, we need to persevere/repeat, but we should not do this in ways that prunes our brains. This idea offers leaders and opportunity to combat the lackluster vibe and engage our teams in building better futures.

What this means is that we need to let  - encourage actually - employees bend, break, and blend the ideas and this means that we need to be more flexible. Allow people to create and make the organization's goals and vision their own. Not to the point that the organization goes off course - but in ways that keep it moving forward.

Leadership lullabies can be found in everyday workplace practices and messages. Most staff meetings are lullabies.

Wake up your team! Wake yourself up! If you are not creating, you are pruning.

@BreneBrown on Courage

I attended a luncheon yesterday that featured speaker, author, and researcher Brene Brown. Her newest book, called Daring Greatly helps us see the intersection between vulnerability and courage and how they are connected. Check it our here.

Her TED talk is one of the most viewed. It is called The Power of Vulnerability, check that out here.

I was struck by how Brene said that she had engineered her life to be small. I can relate and know that I have done this at times, too. And then there are moments when we play it big and we align all aspects of our lives to showcase our power and our talent.

Have you noticed how different these experiences feel? It makes me wonder why we so often go small.

• Big feels like a ripe, juicy raspberry with fresh whip cream. Small is like a watery sugar juice box.
• Big feels like a Fall breeze in the mountains. Small feels like a coat closet in an old house.
• Big feels like a stand ovation. Small feels like waiting for a return phone call.

Why do we engineer our lives to be small?

It makes sense sometimes, I suppose. We need to want it. Over the last year, I have retreated a lot to focus on my health and that was and is the right thing for me. And yet, I know that I am ready for something big to happen soon. I will need to show up and act accordingly.

How 'bout you, are you ready to step into a bigger arena? If so, Brene's book might offer some inspiration for you.