Leadership and Learning

Posts Tagged ‘cooperation’

In my last blog post I offered a leadership move I call EKG that combines three key practices – empathy, kindness and gratitude – as a way to devote more attention to the human side of change in your organization. These practices are effective at any time, but they have the potential for even greater impact when an organization, and the people in it, experience change. I appreciated the emails that readers sent me offering examples of how they had demonstrated the first practice, empathy, with great success. See? You’re changing the world already! Time to add on the next practice: kindness.

 K= Kindness

 “Kindness is free.” – Tom Peters

Some of the words that people use to describe kindness are grace, benevolence, generosity and compassion. Tom Peters also provides some examples of the power of kindness within healthcare, an environment that is all about demonstrating care and concern for others. You can read more about it here: http://www.tompeters.com/dispatches/011942.php. There are few work environments that are more closely linked to the importance of demonstrating caring and kindness, given the literal impact it can have on someone else’s well-being. In fact, stop and think a moment about your team and your colleagues in general. Given these common descriptors, would you describe these people as kind? If so, what are some examples of the things you see them doing and saying that make you think that about them? When you think of these things, notice how you feel physically. My hunch is that you feel a little less on edge just by thinking about these people and the way their kindness shows up each day.

Now, as a leader, turn this question toward yourself. Do you think your team and your colleagues would describe you as kind? If not, it may be that you’re not showing this side of yourself and your leadership style enough. It is common for busy leaders to get so engaged in the ‘real’ work they are called to do that they overlook opportunities to intentionally demonstrate care and kindness to the people around them. This doesn’t mean they are uncaring. In today’s fast-paced world, it likely just means they are busy. A busy calendar is no excuse, however. Leaders have to find a way to prioritize the human side of their ‘real’ work in order to foster engagement across their team and their organization overall.

If you watch the television show Undercover Boss you see some examples of ‘extreme caring’ every week. I’m not saying that you need to start handing out big bonuses, college funds, or extra vacation days, as terrific as those gestures are. I’m talking about simple expressions of genuine kindness that leaders can do every day. The only cost to you is the time and intention it takes to pay a compliment, offer an encouraging word, or perform a small task for someone without being asked to do so. Here are two examples for you to consider.

A little encouragement goes a long way. One of the hardest types of change for organizations involves the implementation of new systems. People are attached to the previous system (even if it was found lacking) and they are often flat-out resistant to the new system for fear that they will no longer be able to do what they used to do. As hard as it is to experience this as a user of the system, who do you suppose could use some encouragement during a scenario like this? The designated project manager and/or the department that is sponsoring the change! It takes about five minutes to send an encouraging email that acknowledges the effort being made and maybe, just maybe, your appreciation for that effort. You’d be surprised at how a small gesture of kind acknowledgement can make a big difference in the way the other person feels about the project they’ve been asked to implement. As Maya Angelou once said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Individual kindness fosters corporate kindness. Sometimes it only takes one person to role model kindness in a way that inspires others to follow suit. We see this all the time when natural disasters hit or a neighbor’s house burns down. Someone starts a fundraising drive, or a potluck parade, or within faith communities, a prayer chain. The next thing you know, a virtual army of compassionate people are united in response to the initial event. The same thing happens in workplaces all the time when a colleague experiences a loss or a health crisis, but leaders don’t have to wait for a crisis in order to start a wave of kindness.

Take time to think about the individuals you work with each day. Drawing on the empathy that I talked about in my previous post, what do you notice about those around you? Do they seem energized and upbeat, or a little worn out? Has your team been working full-out toward an ambitious deadline? If your environment is experiencing change, you may notice people acting a little more stressed than usual just because they are trying to adapt at the same time that they are trying to act. One leader can make a difference at times like this by looking for ways to ease the burden on others. Bring in cupcakes or some other treat if that works for your office’s culture. Institute no-meeting days so people will have one entire workday that is theirs to use as they see fit. You might even implement no-email zones in the evenings and weekends as a way to intentionally acknowledge and honor your team’s personal time. This is an idea that comes from Tony Schwartz’s book, The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working, where he presents a compelling case about the four core needs that we frequently neglect in pursuit of performance. His book is full of practical ideas that leaders can use to demonstrate kindness and pay more attention to these core needs, resulting in greater performance outcomes over time, according to research.

The bottom line about kindness is that it is more than just a nice thing to extend to those around you. Kindness adds fuel to the important engine that drives organizational performance. Combined with empathy and gratitude – the next part of this EKG equation – kindness promotes goodwill at the same time that it fosters good work. What opportunity will you take to demonstrate kindness in the coming week? Write and tell me about it!

You have probably felt at some points in your life that you were in a pattern, with the same things happening over and over. They may have been good or bad, but you felt the recurring theme.

This has been my life over the last two months. I’d like to identify what I’ve experienced, mainly because I believe it’s a sign of the times. I’ll explain at the end what leaders can do about this phenomenon – if they have the will.

I am accustomed to hearing the following story – we hear it at many client sites – but the consistency of it this autumn really struck me. It runs something like this:

• Our leadership doesn’t communicate with us.

• Our leadership is not interested in our ideas.

• Our leadership sees our role as simply executors of their will.

• Our leadership regards different ideas as hostile and threatening.

• Our leadership knows morale and engagement are low, and either blames us or ignores the data.

• Our leadership manages by threat and fear instead of encouragement and reward.

It has truly been like being in the movie Groundhog Day. As I have listened to participants in leadership development sessions, I have felt as though I could finish their sentences. In every case, where I thought they were headed with their comments was correct.

Before addressing what to do about this, it is fair to raise the question of how in the world things got to this point.

Actually, things have been this way for a very long time, but as people hear new models of leadership – based on shared values, connection, communication, accountability (for everyone) and meaningful results (to name just a few attributes) – the contrast becomes more stark, more painful. One clear marker of this is Generation Y, which generally wants to have nothing to do with the tired, worn-out models of leadership – if you want to call it that – bulleted above.

There is a palpable yearning for a new way to work out there, and leadership in many organizations is tone-deaf to it.

So while it’s actually not that new, I believe it’s intensifying, for several reasons.

First, organizations everywhere are under attack. Government agencies, banks, the cable company, your local retailer . . . they are all operating under conditions that are very different from just 10 years ago. Competition, consumer expectations, technology, social change, and globalization are all shifting the landscape.
Most people, in most organizations, in unguarded moments will admit to feeling overwhelmed, under siege, pulled in a thousand directions, working harder and harder and harder . . . and they’re not sure why.

Certainly, the acceleration simply to increase shareholder return has left many employees feeling empty. Human beings are wired for meaning, and so just chasing more money can feel meaningless. Steve Jobs once famously said that Apple’s massive market capitalization was interesting, but it wasn’t really the point. Great products were the point – and what produced that market capitalization.

But beyond the factors in play mentioned above, here is what is really happening in organizations that is producing such a profound alienation.

In any historical movement, as a new model or theory or way of living/working/being arises, the old guard intensifies its insistence on the status quo as the only legitimate way of living/working/being. Sensing the questioning, criticism and potential for something new and untested and not well understood, the decision-makers redouble their efforts to “stay the course.” Just do more of whatever has been done.

This reaction is easy to understand. A new model of leadership that emphasizes transparency, openness, feedback that runs both ways, willingness to listen, empowerment (I apologize for using this word if you suffered through any of the TQM initiatives in the 1980’s. I know how painful it was to have hopes raised and then dashed as organizations realized the cost of what they thought they were buying), shared values and meaning are so fundamentally at odds with the mind-set of “Because I’m in charge, I set the rules.”

I am sorry to tell you that this mindset is much more common, and entrenched, and intensifying that you may want to believe. The assault is underway, and the rear-guard actions are obvious to see.

This manifested in one example of a besieged executive who had received massive negative feedback on his leadership style. His response? “I don’t care what they think, and I don’t want to hear what they have to say.” I am always in favor of this mindset in battle, or in an emergency, when there is no time to hold a focus group or ask people how they feel about how things are going.

But seriously, folks, if you are trying to run an organization where people give their best, are connected to the mission, to each other and to meaningful results that make a difference in others’ lives, I have to tell you, this refrain just doesn’t work. It gets you begrudging compliance from a demotivated and disengaged workforce that did not believe enough in its own talents to leave and find a better place to work. Talent walks.

(It is also interesting to explore the reactions of leadership to high and unwanted turnover. You can easily see how defensiveness and blind spots collude to explain away the exit interview data.)

The fact is, the values systems in place with old-style leadership and a new form of leadership are so fundamentally at odds that some people believe it will take the dying off of the current generation of leaders in order for a new mental model to take hold. This is explicitly stated as the case in Thomas Kuhn’s book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. There may be many leaders who can’t make the shift. That doesn’t mean it’s not important to try to engage them in a new way of working, but in practical terms some will get it, and others just aren’t ready, and won’t.

So what is to be done?

This is a message for leaders. Apart from the communication role others may play in trying to help leaders see new things in new ways (I call this the Vertical Channel of communication, in which information flows up and down), this is directly targeted at those frustrated with their organizations, wondering where the accountability is (we hear this one a lot), wondering why people seem disconnected from the work, puzzled by the turnover, and so on. Here is what you can do:

• Ask the most important question of all: “What do you think?” Give people a chance to explain their reality, their perceptions, their ideas. This is tremendously motivating, and shows you actually care about what they think.

• Get out of your office. We know that in a largely unconscious process, you fill up the day with meetings and commitments so that you have no free time – a problem in itself in terms of renewal and sustainability – and you then plead that you don’t have time to communicate with employees. Dr. Phil would ask, “So how’s that working for you?”

• Define, really, the mission and values. Don’t write something on posters to go up on the walls that will invite cynicism and eye-rolling. If you can’t cogently and succinctly describe the mission, the so-what? of the organization, you’re in trouble. The mission is what people work for after they can eat, have shelter, transportation and high-definition cable TV. Ditto with values. They have to be real. Pompous, artificial, self-serving values are deal-killers. No one can get behind a value such as “Take the customer for all they’re worth,” yet that is the operating model in many private-sector organizations.

• Let go of the 50-pound weights you take home on your shoulders every night. Again, in a largely unconscious process (by this I simply mean unthinking), many leaders feel it’s all on them. Since they’re the only ones who can do it, or do it the right way, it’s a big weight. What about an organization where the best ideas come forward freely, shared meaning-making occurs – where people address, “What makes the most sense?” — and people are made accountable for execution? The operative model today was described by Jim Collins as “The genius with a thousand helpers.”

There are many more ideas, but the real point is that the will, the desire have to be there. It is a profound shift of values and the most basic, fundamental assumptions and sense-making for many. If your mental model is “I’m in charge so I don’t really care,” then good luck, because you’re going to need it.

If, however, you are open to the possibility that there may be a better way to work, you can get on the road doing the four things above. It’s a noble quest, and a modest start. See where it leads.

It was another rite of passage: Sitting in a high-school auditorium for the awards night before graduation. A parade of wonderful young people being honored for achievements and successes. It makes you optimistic for the future.

But one thing really stood out – jumped out – as a counter-cultural, I would say practically subversive theme. To understand it, and what it means for leadership, we first have to step back and look at the terrain in which many of our organizations are operating.

Increasingly, it appears to me that that ethos at work, our workplace culture, is about self-advancement and self-promotion. Jockeying for the verbal advantage in meetings, subtle or overt put-downs of those with other perspectives, the fight for the next promotion, the lack of true team consciousness as individuals come together and wind up in gridlock as they advocate for their own, individual interests.

I describe this as the crisis of the “I” story. (The “We” story is about connecting with others. The “It” story is about what needs to be done.)

Your own experience may vary. You see what you see, and if your view is more sanguine, then enjoy. You’re in a good place. What I see and hear too often in talking with people in workplaces all over is the late-stage moral decay; the logical, ultimate extension of Adam Smith’s invisible hand: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”

Capitalism and competition are great, but they are incomplete. Left unchecked, you don’t hear what I heard at the awards night. Here’s what the speakers kept saying about the recipients.

“He helped others who needed help.”

“She always had time for others.”

“He thought first about others.”

“She brought people together.”

“He helped people come to agreement.”

And on and on.

The objects in I think every case were “others.” The whole point, the focus of the excellence was toward others. Not the self, not the resume, not the accomplishments. It was about how this award-winner built something larger than him or her.

Think about your day. Your week. Your career. When you engage in action, which story are you living in? And as Dr. Phil asks: “How’s that working for you?”

The team over here at 8230 Leesburg Pike has been through a lot lately, let me tell you.

From a variety of sources, we have been buffeted by new demands, expectations, rapidly changing circumstances and other factors that all created what can safely be described as enormous stress.

It started in the autumn, so it’s not like it’s been just a short-term thing.

What helps you get through stress?

One thing I learned, or maybe relearned, or maybe learned more experientially is that a tight team really counts.

By tight team, I mean a group of people who genuinely care about each other, who are willing to put in extra effort to help others, and who actually appreciate and enjoy the opportunity to do so. There’s a certain pleasure and satisfaction in knowing that you are directly helping someone you care about. There’s an iron commitment in knowing you will go the wall for others.

There is something magical in this. It’s beyond the pure, very limited, self-interest Adam Smith wrote about. (Free-marketers, settle down out there. Nothing wrong with self-interest. It’s just that it’s only one part of a much larger picture.) It’s transcendent. It’s not really described in any competency model, strategic plan or other official artifact, because it’s not an official, organizational process. It’s an organic, grass-roots, person-centered state of being, grounded in relationships. The most an organization can officially do is to create the space, the grounds, for it to happen. Some military environments and sports organizations seem to be the best at fostering it. (Hmmm. I wonder if that’s because their performance is measured so carefully, because it’s so important?) But the people have to be the ones to make it happen.

Mot people have been fortunate enough to be on a tight team at some point in their lives. It could have been in a sport, a committee at church, a neighborhood or anywhere else. There is no real predicting it – it certainly can’t be guaranteed. But sometimes, it just happens. If it’s happened for you, you understand its power, and the difference it makes. If you shoveled snow off an elderly neighbor’s drive-way, and your other neighbors came out to help . . that feeling that you had, together? That’s what I’m talking about.

When I think about how the team I’m on might have fared through the stress we experienced if we had not been a tight team, I just shake my head. I don’t think it could have happened.

It’s the glue that keeps people connected. It’s a beautiful thing.

Like probably almost everyone else reading this blog, I have spent much of my adult life horsing around with software.

By this, I mean trying to navigate user interfaces, trying to understand the architecture of forms, trying to understand responses in the FAQ or Help forums that ironically assume proficiency in the programs or at least a master’s degree in software engineering, encountering bugs, eliminating viruses, losing saved work, spending half an hour trying to figure out how to do something that seems like it should take half a minute, and a variety of other tasks that added zero to productivity.

And like probably almost everyone else, I have just gotten used to it. It seems like just part of the terrain that software should be counter-intuitive, frustrating, buggy, quirky, glitchy and time-sinking.

No one intentionally sets out to design bad software. But people do design it in a context – that context being what’s in their head that they understand about the program and code, and how they see the entire software system.

Notice one word missing here: “customer.”

The shift involved in moving from thinking about one’s own distinctions, knowledge, perspectives and assumptions to those of the customer is nothing short of profound. It means letting go of whatever you think is “the right way,” and all the knowledge and beliefs you bring to the work, and instead entering a state where you get into the head of the customer. It doesn’t mean that’s the only legitimate point of view, or that the customer is always right. It does mean understanding the customer, though.

It is a great example of the platinum rule: Don’t treat others as you want to be treated. Treat them as they want to be treated.

This is why relationships matter. If you are not in a place where you want to make this shift, you’re done before you start. The door is closed to solutions that delight customers, that meet them where they are, and help them perform the work they have to do.

The shining example of a company that has embodied users as the point of the software is Apple. Every Apple user I have talked to makes the point that there is a significant difference between a Windows-based computer, with its attendant software and hardware, and an Apple computer. As a user myself, I appreciate the experience every time I use my iMac or iPhone. Steve Jobs’ fanatical insistence on elegant, customer-friendly design is the key.

I often think of software as the automotive industry 100 years ago. The prevailing mental model was probably that the goal of the car was to get people from point A to B. And it was. Except that along the way, people started to think about things like rider comfort (shock absorbers, better tires, suspension, frame construction), safety (frame construction, bumpers and seat belts) and fuel economy (more efficient engines). It has culminated now in cup holders, DVD players and music systems. The user experience is very different now.

Yet most of the discussion in the software field seems to remain around features, power and technology. The machine, not the person, is the focus.

This is why the user experience today is not really a technology problem. Apple has already proven a company can create a great user experience.

No, it’s really a problem with relationships. For any successful relationship, the parties have to understand each other, and unfortunately, I think most technology companies understand technology a lot better than customers.

A breathtaking example of this came when one company I worked for rolled out new technology for a Wall Street firms, who can be accused of being many things, but stupid not being one of them. After a steady stream of complaints from bond traders and analysts regarding the complexity and difficulty of use of our product, the marketing manager who had presided over the development of the software proclaimed in a meeting, “Well, the customers are stupid.”

This is a crisis in relationships. Such thinking cannot lead to products and services that are Apple-like in their beauty.

I was reminded of this over the weekend when my wife reported that her mother had been experiencing computer problems. She had called the help desk, where a technician asked her to unplug and replug a USB cable. When she couldn’t do it fast enough and the technician became impatient, she let him know that she’s 80 years old, the USB port is just above the floor, and in the back of the computer. It meant she had to crawl around on her hands and knees. While I’m sure the technician understood the USB configuration (actually, maybe not – it didn’t solve the problem), he didn’t understand enough about the user to ask, “Is the USB port easily accessible?”

It all starts with a question: Do you care? Do you want to try to understand the world through the customer’s eyes? If not, just go back to work. But don’t ever expect to be great like Apple.

If you do care, the door swings open to tremendous learning. One fish-in-a-barrel phenomenon – you could retire on this bet – is around what happens when a senior leader goes out an interacts with real customers. Every time, it results in some kind of significant learning.

It’s an interesting time right now with Steve Jobs on a medical leave of absence. The speculation is around how the company will do without his vision. It’s a startling and sobering point that he may be that indispensible. Is there no one else who is capable of putting customers first and foremost as Jobs has done?

A central question, and a great place to start, whether it’s your software, customer service, or any touch point with customers, is in asking the question: Are your processes and practices customer friendly, or are they organization friendly?

Apple “gets it.” Do you?

There is a real problem with the word “empathy.”

Many people confuse it with “sympathy.” If you look up the words, there is some literal connection between them, but the difference between them is huge for leadership and individual effectiveness generally.

Everyone knows what sympathy is. It is a feeling, usually connected to another’s pain. It is literally feeling bad when another is feeling bad. You may feel sympathy for the victim of a crime, or some unfortunate event.

Empathy is quite different, and it is not so connected to emotion. It is more related to cognition. Empathy, set in the context of emotional intelligence, is the ability to see the perspective that another person has – to “get” where he or she is coming from. It’s simply to understand.

The easiest way to understand empathy is to remember a time when you had a disagreement with someone, particularly a significant one, where something important was on the line. It could have been a pitched political argument, for example. In this argument, were you able to temporarily suspend your own thoughts and perceptions and judgments, and really understand what the other person thought?

If you are like most people, this is the last place you go – usually after all your defenses, attacks, blaming, name-calling, and projections (more on this below) are done. The need to be right, to win, to prove the other person wrong usually trumps true understanding – empathy.

Less dramatically, empathy also means understanding others’ views in situations not so charged. How do employees feel about the latest reorganization? What is their take on the new team being formed? How do they feel about telework? Simply understanding their perceptions is empathy.

It also doesn’t mean you always agree with the other point of view. It doesn’t matter. As long as you get it, you’re demonstrating empathy. The Washington Post used to run an ad that touched on this – “If you don’t get it, you don’t get it.” It’s really true.

What about the Devil, referred to in the title of this blog?

In order to develop this, we need to understand something called projection. It is a psychological term that means projecting onto others parts of ourselves we don’t want to own. In Jungian terms, these are thoughts and feelings that reside primarily in the unconscious mind. We use that term because it means we aren’t conscious of them – we’re unaware of the real contents they hold.

For example, if you think about someone who “triggers” you, it can potentially open a big developmental door to ask this question: Is there anything in what you are reacting to that reminds you of anything in yourself?”

On a very simple level, think of how you drive. If you’re ever in a hurry, you may do things behind the wheel that you wouldn’t normally do; go faster, stretch the red-light margin. When you are not so rushed, and you see people do similar things you can become judgmental. The magnitude of the negative emotion is equal to the presence of that factor in you, probably in your unconscious mind. If you have no issues with any particular negative behavior, it usually signifies that you have no baggage there. You tend to be surprised, or curious as to why someone would do that, but it doesn’t set you off. It’s much more neutral.

Carl Jung said the most important work a person can do is to withdraw his or her projections. Sounds easy, and it takes a lifetime, if that. Such people are accepting, grounded, and not easily pushed off center.

So the work is to see if you can understand different behavior or communication without being activated by it. This is challenging because many managers’ secret fantasy is that everyone be more like them. The thinking is, “If people were more like me, than everything would be fine.” This is something like the opposite of empathy.

So projection happens, and when it does we tend to demonize others, again, particularly in conflict. This is why this blog is titled “Empathy for the Devil.” (And it’s not because Keith Richards’ autobiography, Life, is published this week.) If you can just make this move, steeped in self-mastery, of simply understanding the point of view of someone whom you demonize, you’re already starting to play at the highest levels of consciousness and effectiveness.

For some, possibly synchronistic, reason lately I have been confronted with numerous examples of cases where the interpretation of what happened really depended on where you sat.

For example, one employee was railing against managers who do not prioritize the organization’s interests over their own. Later on, he described as a victory his own manager’s success in getting a favorable budget allocation out of a shared pot of money.

I think it’s pretty clear, but in case not, imagine how the people outside his department must have felt. Pure selfish politics.

It also happens a lot when one department needs something from another. The requester is seen as demanding, insistent and unreasonable. The other department may be seen as slow, unresponsive and aloof.

One more: An employee who has selected responsibilities on a special team is struggling to balance his or her commitments to the team under a heavy workload. The team may feel he or she is not “pulling their weight,” while the host organization is worried about all that time the person is spending on that special team project.

In all cases, the common denominator is a manifestation of what I call the crisis of the “I” story. In the I story, the only reasonable interpretation of events is filtered through what benefits the story teller. The I story excludes the interests and priorities of others. It is a nice, clean version of reality.

Except that it’s limited, and therefore often wrong.

Before addressing what specifically can be done to break out of the I story, I’d like to explain that conceptually, nothing can really change until individuals accept their interdependent, connected relationships with many others. A locus solely out of “what works for me” is doomed to fail. This is really a matter of consciousness, not tools or techniques.

The last sentence in the new, and phenomenal, book The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working by Tony Schwartz, is “A new way of working ultimately requires an evolutionary shift in the center of gravity in our lives – from ‘me’ to ‘us.’”

Much of this boils down to one, misunderstood word: empathy. Empathy is not sympathy, but rather the ability to see things the way another person might see them. It doesn’t even mean you have to agree, just that you get it.

If a person can get to this point, then there are a few specific things that can help in the complicated, fraught world of work.

Clear standards: Good agreements on who will do what by when provide an objective reference standard, and minimize negative judgments of others. Because agreements have to be negotiated, raw self-interest may be surfaced before it becomes a performance problem. Of course, this doesn’t mean that one’s locus shifts from self to others, but at least it’s understood earlier in the process.

Relationship work: This means intentional action to learn about and improve relationships. Feedback is the most direct way, but check-ins, process checks and just asking how others think things are going can surface disconnects.

Self-checks: This means asking yourself, “What is my intention here? Is it all about me, or is about others, too, and jointly figuring out what needs to happen for the best interests of the organization. It may seem simple, but it can take a lifetime of work.

It is always fascinating to read the biographies of failed leaders. These are the folks who went to jail, lost many billions, resigned in accounting scandals or lost the confidence of employees. Bad Leadership by Barbara Kellerman and Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington are packed with examples of such leaders.

We are talking Chainsaw Al, Dennis Kozlowski, Bernie Ebbers, John Rigas, Ken Lay et al.

In the stories of these leaders, a familiar pattern emerges with uncanny consistency. It goes something like this: Person of humble means pulls himself up, gets a job, gets promoted, starts putting results on the board, makes a big leap or two to the next levels, more results and then the top job — after which, everything eventually unravels.

Along the way is where it gets interesting. When former colleagues are interviewed, they invariably talk about how the person had some kind of singular vision or steely – almost scary — sense of direction, and executed to that with incredible will and strength. Hence, the results on the board. Along the way, slashing and burning were commonplace, dissent was not tolerated, and hey, as long as the results were coming in, who cared? Certainly not Wall Street with its quarterly earnings per share attention deficit disorder.

All this may have worked in the climb up, but once people like this arrived at the top, things started to change.

The resistance to hearing other ideas, the suppression of alternative points of view, and very often the command-and-control mentality ultimately wore down any goodwill, sense of genuine cooperation and social capital. In the end, all they had was rule by control, power and fear. Threats to subordinates and public humiliation were common.

What is really interesting about these narratives is how often the failed leaders bragged about their leadership style. They not only admitted, but celebrated and reveled in their take-no-prisoners methods. “My way or the highway” or “You’re either with me or against me” challenges were common. Self-congratulatory autobiographies as the makers of tough decisions or conveying that they did what had to be done are not hard to find.

There may be a temporary place for such leadership in crisis situations, but for most modern organizations, it just doesn’t work – at least in the long run.

Andrew Ashore, an analyst who met Sunbeam CEO Al Dunlap, was reported to have said, “”I didn’t necessarily like him or trust him, but I thought my clients could make money on him. I knew they just had to get out at the right time.” In other words, this pattern is so well-worn that stock analysts can try to market-time CEO trajectories.

At some point, the social capital is exhausted, relationships are non-existent and goodwill has vanished. When the hammer falls, there is no one to support the leader. And the rest, as they say, is history.

And this may all be just a history excursion except for one thing. Recently I have been talking with employees in the federal government about their perceptions of their leaders. Familiar patterns emerge: unwillingness to listen, no tolerance of disagreement, rule by force and threats to those who do not toe the line.

Sound familiar?

Michelle Rhee, the D.C. Schools Chancellor, has been one of the most controversial, polarizing figures in educational reform in years. She was pictured on the cover of Time magazine with a broom in hand, symbolizing the clean sweep she would make of the much-criticized D.C. school system. She has consistently forged a take-no-prisoners style in her decision making and communication, shrugging off growing criticism of her leadership style.

This blog post is not about the politics or merits of what she has done, or not done. Instead, it is about a fascinating quotation contained in today’s Washington Post, in a column by Courtland Milloy.

Milloy referenced a line Rhee delivered to an interviewer when she was asked about how her approach was being perceived in different parts of the city.

“That’s not how my brain works,” she said. “I don’t spend a ton of time thinking about the what-ifs. I’m a much better thinker when it’s, ‘Here’s the situation, now what?’ ”

One thing you cannot fault Rhee for is her unflinching honesty. Saying “That’s not how my brain works,” is much more straightforward than many other officials would have said.

Still, it leaves a nagging question: Are leaders just a product of how their brains work, or can they adapt, flex, change or grow in response to events and reactions? (The smart money, by the way, is on Rhee being out of a job with D.C.’s new mayor.) If you can excuse any perceived weaknesses with “That’s not how my brain works,” then you’re off the hook for any potential adaptation. People sometimes complain about assessment instruments, such as MBTI, or Disc, that they “put me in a box.” Saying your brain only works one way is a real, no-kidding box.

Beyond this, almost everyone in organizational life can relate to the law of unintended consequences, or how culture creates pushback on unpopular initiatives. Saying one does not explore what-ifs or perceptions of actions is cognitively limited and culturally naïve, respectively.

The what-ifs are often the stuff of organizational change. Not exploring those is a set-up for failure. The “if’s” have a real track record of becoming “is’s,” even by surprise.

Finally, there may be an argument for crisis leadership here. The D.C. schools were at the bottom of the barrel, and one could legitimately make the case that bold actions were required. But Rhee may be discovering the hard way that bold action works better when thought through for long-term and sometimes surprising consequences, and when supported by others.

Occasionally, a practice comes along that seems to cut through a lot of the normal confusion and noise at work, and genuinely helps people communicate and get work done.

The practice described here is very simple, except when it gets hard. Why it might be hard is explored below.

The practice is to simply say, “My interest in this is . . .”

So what is an interest?

An interest is why you want something. It’s the motivator behind action, the value or belief upon which you are saying or doing something. It greatly facilitates communication by helping others understand the why behind your what.

For example, if you want to see a report by 5:00, you can say, “I’d like to see the report by 5:00. My interest is in having enough time to read it before I have to pass it on.”

Or, “Can we invite Joe to the meeting? My interest is in asking him about his experience with projects similar to ours.”

You can probably already see, particularly in the second example, how not disclosing your interests might lead to misinterpretation. People often rush to fill in motives of others when they don’t have any actual ones.

For example, there could be many reasons you might want Joe in the meeting. Others might think you want him there because he supports your position on a contentious issue. Or because he’s your buddy. Or because you don’t know what to do about the issue.

The point is, imagined interests will rush in to fill any voids.

One client I worked with once said, “I learned as a leader that if I don’t tell people my story, they’ll make one up for me.”

This practice has another aspect to it that is more difficult. If you ever find yourself in a position of doing or wanting something for reasons that are not compatible with the organization’s, it will be very hard to talk about.

For example, if you want to delegate something because you don’t like to do that particular piece of work, or you don’t invite someone to a meeting simply because they have a different point of view, then that is going to be very hard to explain to others.

Revealing interests increases transparency, trust and communication. Practice saying, “My interest in this is . . .”