Management Craft

Don't Worry Yourself With Others - #doyourjob #management

I am one of those folks who watch the super bowl for the entertainment, not the football. Not just the ads and half-time show, but also the stories of triumph and beating the odds.

During yesterday's telecast, I was struck by the interview with soon-to-be MVP Eli Manning who said that his coach encouraged players to "do their jobs." The point he was making was that each player had a role and needed to focus on executing his role, not worrying about what others were doing or playing armchair quarterback/running back/tight end/kicker/and so on. Team members need to own their jobs and trust their fellow team members to do the same.

We should do this, too.

I am NOT saying that we should focus only on ourselves, work poorly with others, or adopt a survival of the fittest mentality - me, me, me. I am not suggesting corporate narcissism. Regular readers will know that is not my point here because I would never suggest this.

Here is the point: Think about how much better you and your team could be if everyone focused on his or her job, his or her contributions, his or her role within the team. A great team is made up of strong team members.

What gets in the way?

• Some people find it more interesting to think about what others should be doing differently. This is lazy and weak.
• Some people define success as compared to others. This approach will never serve you well.
• Some people don't hold themselves to a high enough standard.
• Some people are not clear on what their role is or how it they are expected to contribute.
• Some people get so wrapped up in the drama of the team that they lose sight of what the team is responsible for contributing. This issue, BTW, is different from being mission driven. I have worked with several health care clients, for example, where the team felt they were dedicated to saving lives and healing but who were not making the connection between their team dysfunction and their ability to manifest the mission.

I see these issues when working with struggling individuals and teams. I have wanted to hit team members over the head with a metaphorical 2-by-4 and say, "just do your job, don't worry about others."

So much energy gets soaked up by this crud. The opportunity costs are HUGE.

I bet we all could do better if we remind ourselves to just do the the work - our work. To do our thing and support others so they can do their things. To define success while resisting the urge to envy or covet other people's lives or roles.

And as managers, part of "our job" is to institutionalize this way of thinking and doing, like Manning's coach apparently did.

I saw the master in action this weekend. #leadership #managment

I spent an afternoon with a dear friend yesterday. We chatted over lunch and walked around his beach town. I have always admired his engaging and caring way - he is a leader who makes others feel like they have his full attention and consideration and they do (that's the important part - it is sincere, not an act).

Why? Because he thinks and lives this way. He notices people and things and takes the initiative to be helpful and caring. More so than most people. More so than I do - by a long shot.

I have always known this about my friend but I was reminded - in a vivid way - during our walk. Those who we passed received a smile and hello. Someone had dropped a baby bottle on the walking path, he picked it up and put it on the cement wall so the owner could find it and no one would trip over it. We passed a couple who were taking pictures of each other, he asked if he could take their picture together and then had some fun with them to make sure they got a great shot. He interacted with people on the street, in shops, and in the restaurant in ways that made each smile and brighten.

You might be thinking that I am a little nuts for calling this out because these human acts are quite normal - or they should be. It is true that any one of these moments would be considered what it means to be a good person - nothing extraordinary.

But here is the distinction. He oozed care in every moment. He was aware of others, noticed others, proactively cared for others, and did so while being fully engaged in our conversation. I was much less aware of others.

My friend is someone for whom people love working and he brings out the best in them. And here is the main point of this post. WE can and should do this, too. It does not take a training class or being a particular behavioral style. We can relate to others in this way if we:

• Choose to be a powerful and positive influence on others.
• Take the time and attention to notice others.
• And then be gracious, kind, friendly, and helpful more often.

Don't go rushing to include these expectations in your new employee orientation. Don't add it to your performance review or create a management competency called, "caring." Just try being more demonstrably caring and see what happens. Lead from a basis of positive care for others and you will find that your days, weeks, and years are more amazing and that your good vibe spreads.

After spending the afternoon with my friend, I found myself thinking about how I can improve what I notice and how I respond to others. I am no ogre, BTW, but I can and want to demonstrate care more often - for everyone, not just a chosen few.

You have likely heard the mind teaser about the tree - if a tree falls in a forest but no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

I have to ask the same thing about caring for others. If we care but no one experiences our affection and goodwill, does it exist? I think that the vast majority of people are caring in terms of our intentions. Most of us are quite selective about how we give of ourselves and I am not sure this serves us, our intentions, or others well.

These tiny actions - smiles, pictures, gestures of help - add up and to make a very big and wonderful impression. Remember, though, that although this benefit is compelling, it should not be the reason that we choose to live a more generous (of ourselves) life. My friend does not think about this. In fact, I am guessing he would think this blog post is quite odd indeed.

What's Your Big Idea? How Many Can You Generate? #management #innovation

This post is inspired by four thoughts coming together.

1. A few years ago I pitched a book idea to Berrett-Koehler's President, Steve Piersanti. He passed on the book because the idea was unremarkable. He asked, "what's your big idea?" And he said, "I don't see it here." He was right, BTW.

2. A mentor of mine was trying to help me lower my expectations for a project that was frustrating me by suggesting that, "most people have only one revolutionary idea in their lifetime." He was wrong, BTW.

3. I was reviewing a piece of writing for a friend. He took a perfectly logical approach to laying out his idea but one that ended up stripping out the drama, magic, and most importantly, his big ideas. Ironically, his topic is innovation. And he has great ideas - big ideas.

4. I was re-reading Meg Wheatley's Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World (a must read for all managers) and was re-struck by her assertion that information is a force, not a thing. And that change occurs in jumps enabled by invisible connections. Big ideas are ideas that make quantum leaps and this happens every day (it is not a rare thing, see #2).

I believe that you and all your team members have the potential to generate MANY big ideas. But often, we don't know how to A) identify them, B) convey them, and C) use them.

Think about this the next time you create an email, a PPT, or have a conversation. What is the big idea that you want to share? Is it coming through in your communication? Start with the big idea first to generate interest and engagement. Great books do this, too. I remember one of my publishers suggesting that I move a chapter that I had in the second half of the book to the beginning because it contained the big idea (in Focus Like a Laser Beam, I think). I fought to keep the Tony Bennett story in the front of my book Hip and Sage because I knew that it encapsulated the big idea behind the book (I won, BTW, and I love the way it starts the conversation about relevancy and vibrancy).

When I coach, I am looking to discover the big idea each person has that makes up their unique brand of leadership - what is driving them every day?

And as a manager, you will catalyze team member success when you help each person define and convey their big ideas. In fact, I think one of the funnest and most special things we can do is to be mid-wives for big ideas.

Hallmarks of Good #Communication Systems and Practices

Here is a list of criteria I use to evaluate communication systems and practices. While no system will demonstrate all of these elements, the more the better.

1. More PULL than PUSH. More than being inclusive, it engages people and is interesting.
2. Nimble and changeable with built in feedback loops.
3. No reduction of core content (intent, emotion, connective elements, calls to action). (Content degradation is common when information cascades from high to lower levels, for example.)
4. As simple as possible. Low hassle factor.
5. Works when imperfectly executed. Never build a system that only your top 10% of managers or employees will use properly. The best systems work even when people botch aspects of it.
6. Serves all/many stakeholders and users.
7. Sustainable. Can be maintained and continued.
8. Leaders change with the topic (is not a one way or lead by same person all the time).
9. It is clear – everyone knows their role and the overall flow of information.

Use this list to test out your current communication practices or when you come up with new ideas for improvement.

Meaning: The "wolf" of control in trendy sheep's clothing? #leadership

I am doing some digging around about meaning and here is a thought to chew on this new week and year. What if leaders should NOT and CANNOT make work meaningful for others? What if this idea reinforces control, extrinsics, and thereby serves to wreck not build our feelings that our work has meaning?

What if whether our work has meaning comes from deep within each individual and as a result of how we each define our experiences? What would this mean for leaders? What should they be doing differently to help every team member do his or her best work?

This is all a bit existential, I realize. Even so, I believe and see that many of our well-intended efforts to improve our workplaces are based on flawed premises and therefore doomed to fail.

This is an important topic to discuss because we know that meaning is a key measure of satisfaction. People want to know that their work matters. As leaders we should do whatever we can to help our team members thrive. We should not, however, tell them why they ought to find their work meaningful or attempt to define what makes work meaningful, generally speaking. There is no general rule here and doing this would throw water on our employees' flames of interest, engagement, initiative, and internal drive.

Leaders can help affect meaning, however, although not by focusing on meaning.

• Get to know each person and build strong and trusting bonds.
• Catalyze - let your employees pull you into their world and let them lead in it. Be a great follower.
• Take the initiative to offer catalytic (not control oriented) coaching.
• Let jobs morph with change and be open and eager to hear about ideas team members have for how their role ought to be reinvented.
• Know what the concept of a zen moment might look like. Promote "being here now" working habits.
• Allow each employee to get excited about and tuned into the aspects of their work that bring him or her the most satisfaction and fulfillment. We all define "progress" and "accomplishment" differently. As the leader, you get to decide how performance will be judged and rewarded, but you cannot tell people which task means more to them.
• Never let a day go by without letting your team members know how much they mean to you. Be thankful, gracious, and caring. Nurture. No one should doubt that they matter here and to you. No one. Be real about this, too, don't use some schlocky practiced reinforcement schema. Can you say that's transparent?

Example: I was recently in a situation where the client was telling me how important I was to the team. This is nice to hear, but did not improve my feelings that I was doing work that was meaningful. This particular team has the money to spend on consultants and has good intentions. But they have not yet embraced their need for individual and team reinvention for the leadership team. They give praise for my work, but my measure of meaning is that I can catalyze change. It happens a lot, but not yet in this situation. So while I love hearing that I am important to my client, I would give that up to have a more substantive impact on their practices and beliefs. It is a work in progress!

I once had a boss who liked to tell me I was important to the team. But then his actions said the opposite. If he wanted me to feel genuinely cared for, he would have taken the time to understand what drives me, excites me, and makes me want to become immersed. He didn't and didn't guess correctly. He applied what he thought were universal management approaches to his good intention of wanting me to stay with the company and flourish and expand the business. When it comes to meaning, there are no universals.

Start with yourself: You are the designer and implementor of your work experience. You define meaning from your perspective and for your work situation. What brings out the biggest and most engaged you? What can you do to pump up your interest? How will you relish and fully experience what's happening right here and now? Herein lies the true potential for leaders. Going first, discovering the meaning they derive from their daily experiences, talking about the parts of your job that matter most to you, being here now (even when creating a strategic plan, are you being in the room with a group of talents colleagues who are together reinventing the organization).

 

The Tentacles of Our Ways – Why Change is So Hard

Someone asked me the question, "why is change so hard?" I thought I would share my response with you. Your thoughts?

We might like to think that change initiatives will go smoothly if we have and implement a good and detailed plan. The plan is critical, for sure, but is rarely the driver for success because change involves more than going from A to B. Change is hard because it requires hundreds of trigger flips and culture change.

There are many behavioral or belief trigger points of change adoption for each affected individual including initial acceptance of the idea, understanding of the plan, how our work will be affected, our feelings and beliefs about the change, and the specifics of each change as they are implemented. As these triggers are flipped, we move forward in the transition process. If due to resistance, lack of clarity, or operational challenges a trigger does not flip, then we may become stuck in the old way. As William Bridges wrote in Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change, “to begin you must first end.” When a trigger fails to flip, transition slows or stops. Multiply this by many triggers and employees and it is a miracle that change ever occurs.

Change does happen, however, and is often accompanied by a supporting workplace culture change. As change leaders, it is useful to think of a change initiative as creating a new reality or shifting the organizational culture. Every large change – even something as seemingly straightforward as a new software system – involves changing what people do (tasks, roles, structures), how they do it (processes and habits), and why they do it (beliefs and values). These three categories correspond to the layers of organizational culture as defined by John Kotter and James Heskett in Corporate Culture and Performance. To change culture, we must affect and align all three layers. If all we do is change what we do, new practices will eventually be in conflict with the culture and we will begin reverting back to the old way (the obesity problem in America is a great example of this – the “what” is usually quite clear to people and they change habits for a time, but many do not realign their values and beliefs to sustain and support change).  Our efforts to implement change will be more successful if we reach all three layers and especially the inner layer of values and beliefs. As Simon Sinek wrote in his book, Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, people follow because they believe what you believe. Change requires many willing followers (see his TED talk here).

Change occurs through emergent, not reductionist practices. Individual triggers of change adoption and cultural elements are linked and co-dependent like meshed and far-reaching tentacles. What’s the message for change leaders? Create an integrated plan, engage and enroll employees in the “why,” and attend to as many trigger points as you can. Think nonlinear. Think messy. Think terrier-like persistence required here. Think wonderfully human and the hardest work you will ever love.

When they won't comply - rejoice! #Management

The title of this post is a bit odd, I know, but stick with me here.... I was working with a client on a talent assessment. As part of the assessment, I met with each of the senior leaders one-on-one to discuss their team members. I had done this with the same client two years earlier and I sent out clear instructions and forms ahead of time.

Two of the executives decided to do things a different way. They changed nearly everything and presented me with their information, based on their reinvented system, when we met. The two executives used completely different approaches, too, not the same different approach.

On the one hand, this is a pain in the neck. I needed to create a report and results and somehow make their information work with the rest of it.

On the other hand, this was wonderful! Both of the two executives were totally engaged in the talent assessment process and they used this opportunity to better get to know their team members and have good developmental conversations. That's what we want to have happen during a talent assessment. And although the process I laid out could have resulted in the same or better level of engagement, it was because they OWNED the process and did it in the way they wanted that felt fueled to do the work.

The two executives who did not comply got the most out of the process. It was a bit more work for me to bring it all together but it was work well worth the time because the by-product was better developmental conversations between leaders and team members. I thanked them for their great work.

This got me thinking.... How often do we squelch ownership by forcing particular processes and forms on people? Even the BEST processes might not be as good as the clunky processes that they initiate.

Management is not about control anymore - that is so 1950s. Great management is a catalytic act.

Internal Branding, External Branding and Our Multicultural Strategy

Check out this thought provoking blog post from John Hawkins called The Business Case and Key Success Factors for a Holistic Multicultural Strategy (BTW, John is the new owner of my consulting firm, MPI Consulting).

John makes some great points about how we could and should think about building multicultural companies for a multicultural customer base (that is growing more diverse). I could not help but put on my OD and management hat and think about the ramifications of his recommendations for how we build and cultivate teams and the work environment.The external efforts affect internal practices - or they should.

This post offers a great example for how our external branding and business building efforts ought to link up and be supported by corresponding internal branding and organization building efforts. Do your strategies and practices help managers and employees develop a multicultural mindset? - Are your diversity intentions baked into your strategies, plans, goals, actions, and processes?

This could be a great discussion starter as you prepare to take a fresh crack at the new year. Encourage a generative debate on what might be possible if you created and implemented a multicultural strategy to support your external and internal brands. It's the perfect time! New Years realignment discussions can catalyze the energy and engagement needed to make things better every day.

Check out John's post and tell me what you think.

Happy Turkey Day!

Infinite Vision - Looks Like a Great Book @bkpub

I received my monthly newsletter from Berrett-Koehler publishers yesterday and this book seems really interesting and might be a perfect one to kick off the new year with renewed purpose, drive, and meaning. Here is the description from the newsletter:

Infinite Vision

Why Read It? The Aravind Eye Care System reinvented the rules of business to restore sight to the blind. Based in India, it is the world's largest provider of eye care and delivers results that equal or surpass those of any developed countries -- at less than 1% of the cost. In thirty-five years, Aravind has treated over 32 million patients, the vast majority for free. Those who can pay choose what they pay, and there is no paperwork. Aravind accepts no donations, yet it is highly profitable. Its baffling model is a popular Harvard Business School case study and is admired by Peter Drucker, Bill Clinton, and Muhammud Yunus. 
 
Written by Pavithra Mehta and Suchitra Shenoy, Infinite Vision is the first book to probe Aravind's history and the practices and values that unleashed its phenomenal success. While we bicker and moan about health-care coverage in the United States, perhaps there's a lesson here for all of us.  
 
Read an excerpt from the book here and then buy the book for 30% off here.

There is a compelling video clip on the book page that you should check out here.

I have not read this book, but I am going to pick it up and add it to my December reading list. What appeals to me about this is that I think we all want to help improve the positive impact that our businesses have on the community and we often struggle with how to think about this while having a financially successful business. We sometimes suffer from functional fixedness and can't think outside our business model box. Perhaps this case can inspire news ideas and ways we can help our organizations do good while performing well.

And kudos go to the designers at BK - what a beautiful cover. Makes me want to curl up with the book with a warm cup of tea. Darjeeling, of course.

Enter Your #Management Ideas for @human_capital M-Prize @hackmanagement

A couple of weeks ago I suggested that you share your best ideas and enter the HCI M-Prize (hosted by HCI and the Management Innovation eXchange) for management innovation. And while it is nice to win, the greatest outcome is getting engaged and getting feedback on your idea and sharing it with others.

See more here. There are 30 days remaining and so far 33 ideas have been submitted. Check them all out! For example, here is an interesting one called, "Culture Eats Strategy." And just a pointer - last year I waited until the last day to enter and I wish I had done it earlier because I would have gotten more feedback from MIX readers (a really smart and engaged bunch of folks).

Why not use this as an opportunity to collaborate with peers do a group submission? How do you capture, ignite, inspire, and cultivate leadership in your organization? How do you transcend hierarchical structures? How do you help leaders focus on what really matters?

Management is a craft and part of the learning process should be active and challenging. When we share with others, we speak from a different place. Our ideas develop and we reshape them. In sharing our ideas we learn so much more than if we did not share.

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Also, the fine folks at HCI are sharing the following discount with Management Craft readers (I get no cut of this, just passing the info along) for their Learning and Leadership Development Conference (virtual conference admission, no travel required!). Target audience: HR, OD, talent management, or training professionals, or leaders interested in leadership development systems.

Here is the discount deal from HCI:

"As we discussed, we would love for your followers to be able to participate in our HCI Virtual Learning & Leadership Development Conference on November 17th & 18th. We can offer our best discount which is $200 off the registration fee of $595. By entering code Virtual200, we can register them for only $395 for the full two days, plus they will receive a link to the presentations and videos on December 12th. Here is agenda information on our site: http://www.hci.org/2011learning/overview."