Leadership and Learning

Posts Tagged ‘courage’

The Heat is On

This week, I had the pleasure of participating in a video shoot Management Concepts organized as part of the Professional Government Supervisor Program. It was a lot of fun (apart from the mortifying aspect of seeing yourself on screen), but what I really noticed was how the director worked with people who had speaking roles.

Time after time, he would encourage the on-air “talent” through expressions such as “That’s great,” or “Yes!” or “That’s it!”

Let me tell you, it is no easy thing to stand in front of lights that look like they could be used to open a car dealership and coherently express thoughts. You are aware the camera is rolling, and that mistakes cost time and film.

In this context, I’m sure the Director has figured out over the years that the best way to help people perform at their best is to remove any sense of threat or criticism, and to encourage and praise progress.

Since it’s all about what it takes to achieve peak performance, we can contrast this approach with the fault-finding, nit-picking, micromanagement and looking for any weakness that sometimes characterize supervision, management and leadership.

A prime example of where this occurs is when something you write is edited by someone else. There is some kind of deep-seated need to find something to change. The dreaded red-ink (today, track changes) produces a lot of negative emotions in most writers. With a red page, they lose confidence, try to second guess the editor, and sometimes wind up hating the whole process of writing.

Contrast this with steady, honest praise for what is working well, along with questions or suggestions to change what could be better, but all couched in a posture of support.

The fact is, when we are criticized or micromanaged, our brain’s threat center (the amygdala) switches on. We can fight, freeze or flee really well, but we generally don’t get very creative, intelligent or resourceful. Cortisol (the stress hormone) floods our systems.

When we are praised, recognized positively or complimented, the dopamine and serotonin neurotransmitters kick in. We feel good, empowered and ready to roll.

So when the director said “Rolling,” he really knew what he was doing. In fact, I don’t know if he even knows about hormones, neurotransmitters or the amygdala. I think he knows a lot more about establishing shots, close-ups, over-the-shoulder shots, how to flare the camera and lot of other things. But he doesn’t need to understand exactly what happens between the ears. He’s operating very successful from his own intuitive understanding of what it takes to help people perform at their best.

I often compare the emerging, new story of supervision and leadership to the loading of a huge new program on your computer. You know — the blue status bar creeps slowly across the screen, so you go get a cup of coffee rather than staring at it for a long time.

This new story loading onto the computers we call ourselves and our organizations is contrasted thus:

• Commitment versus compliance
• Initiative versus status quo
• Communication versus need-to-know
• Engagement versus apathy
• Listening versus just telling
• Connectedness versus fragmentation
• Spirit versus emotional void
• Caring versus not caring
• Excitement versus depression
• Winning versus just getting by

The blue status bar just lurched forward a bit with the news that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is going to widen the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) out to all federal employees. It currently goes to about one-third.

http://www.fedview.opm.gov/2011/Reports/

(Caution: Descending into the survey results can result in a lot of time going by. The results are endlessly fascinating, and OPM has brilliantly made the data available in a way that can be sliced and diced across multiple dimensions, such as age, gender, supervisory status, HQ versus field, etc.)

OPM Director John Berry said the survey is becoming more important in how federal agencies address their challenges.

Now, let’s just stop here for a moment and have a pulse check.

One interesting thing that we run into from time to time in our work is supervisors’ and leaders’ reactions to hearing the concept that they are going to receive feedback from employees reporting to them. This is often in the form of the 360-degree assessment, an instrument that is rapidly growing.

There is simply no way to comprehend the sanity or utility of such an idea if you believe supervision and leadership are about control, command, only telling, using power to punish dissenters, and most of all, that the “people stuff” in work is irrelevant.

Sorry to tell you ladies and gentlemen, this mental model is much more common than many people think. Old habits die hard.

And so, here we are in 2012 with the federal government tripling the size of one of the most powerful surveys by which the workplace, supervisors and leaders are evaluated. It’s only been around 10 years, and now it’s being rolled out to all employees.

There is an expression command-and-control types use whenever employee perceptions, recommendations or even actions come into the mix. “The lunatics are running the asylum.”

This is a dark, depressing expression on several levels. It name-calls – a very primitive defense against uncomfortable things — and it compares work to an asylum. Some other expressions you have probably heard include, “When I want your opinion I’ll ask for it,” or “That’s not your area.”

I have often said that we are living in a fascinating time. The old story of leadership is slowly, agonizingly slowly, headed toward the door, mainly through the room called retirement. Showing up in its place, and championed by Generation Y, is an entirely new mental model around what leadership and supervision are.

The voice of employees is about to get a lot louder.

There is a great old story about a great old drummer named Bernard Purdie, who, if you’ve not heard of him, played on records by James Brown, Frank Sinatra, BB King, Aretha Franklin, Miles Davis and Steely Dan.

Bernard has a beautiful sense of time. When you hear him playing a simple beat, you want to move. (For an example of that, click on the following link.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FX_84iWPLU

The story goes that when Bernard was hired for a session, he would come in, set up his drums, and then before beginning to play, would also put up two signs, one on each side of his drum set.

One sign read: “You done it.”

The other sign read: “You done hired the hit-maker, Bernard ‘Pretty’ Purdie.”

That’s pretty bold.

If you watch the video clip above, you’ll understand why he was so bold. If you watch this video clip below, you’ll hear Walter Fagen and Water Becker (they are Steely Dan) talking about Bernard’s signs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ldtieSEyQM

“Boldness” is a word used in coaching that turns out to have some real significance. Boldness is about confidence, belief, passion and conviction.

It may be easier to understand by its opposite: lack of confidence, lack of belief, lack of passion and lack of conviction.

Boldness comes from processed experience. That means that not only have you lived something successful, but you have thought about it, and consciously concluded you have reason to be bold about something. (Sometimes people are very good at something, but taking a page from the “aw, shucks. It’s just little old me” playbook, they downplay or minimize their contribution. Not recommended.)

A key with boldness is to find where it naturally occurs in your work. Where do you find your voice? What gives you energy? Where does fear dissipate?

Where can you put up your own signs?

It was a pleasant lunch. As usual in this business, the conversation was around leadership, organizations and culture.

The point was made for the umpteenth time in my life that the federal government often promotes people into supervisory positions who are very skilled technically, but not very good in managing people.

I invoked one of my favorite expressions from Dan Goleman, who quoted one person in such a position who said: “It finally hit me – I have to learn all-new skills.”

One of the diners said, “You know, in my life I’ve had to do that several times.”

It was a succinct, yet powerful statement. No one should overlook or underestimate its significance.

The power in this approach to work and life resides in the adaptability, resilience and change-readiness it is based on. It proves an openness, a yielding to the rhythms of life, and a proper location of subject and object. It is also a way to facilitate movement through the stages of adult development. (See Leadership Agility by Bill Joiner for an excellent treatment of this topic.)

It is a stance of behaviorally being able to let go of things that may have worked, even for decades. It means stepping into uncertainty, risk and even fear. What if it doesn’t work? What if you fail?

Yet the circumstances of our work and lives demand sometimes that we change, even when we may not want to, or like what the change represents. It is the difference between, as Viktor Frankl put it, asking what you want out of life versus asking what life wants from you.

There is no need to belabor the point on resistance to change. We see it frequently; much less often in ourselves, where it is so easy to get up each day and pretty much do what we did the day before – no matter that the context and demands of the environment have changed.

I offered that I have experienced more than a few leaders in workshops and coaching who have proclaimed as soon as we started: “I’ve been at this (insert number of) years, know what I’m doing and I’m not changing.” This is often accompanied by a folding of the arms. Resistance, even stubbornness, thinking that since you have a hammer, every problem must be a nail, rigidity – all these characterize the opposite.

Here are some examples of the kind of deep, personal change I’m talking about — which happen to be essential for leadership in most settings:

• Micromanaging versus granting autonomy
• Trusting versus not trusting (very hard if you’ve been burned)
• Learning to look for strengths instead of weaknesses
• Asking for feedback versus making it clear you are the only one who will give feedback to subordinates
• Admitting mistakes and weaknesses (and what you learned from them) versus “the need to be right”
• Thinking of the impact of your actions on others versus just executing tasks
• Seeing others’ resistance as information versus something that is wrong and to be shut down

Erik Erikson said that during the bulk of our working years, human beings experience either generativity or stagnation. Generativity is creating, giving back, yielding, accepting and living. Stagnation is not knowing what to do when your moves no longer work, when your program is out of gas. It is the state of being stuck.

Are there any all-new skills you need to learn? Hint: Look at the your chronic, recurring, patterned problems. Start there.

In the embarrassing-admissions department, I have to confess I sometimes watch Kitchen Nightmares, that show in which the acerbic Gordon Ramsay (poster child for Thinking versus Feeling in the MBTI) shreds a failing restaurant along the way to rebuilding it into something successful.

The predictable sequence is: Gordon enters the disaster zone, dissects what is going wrong, engages in a confrontation, makes a new move, turns the place around. Along the way many bad words are dropped, emotions run high and arguments ensue.

It’s just like many workplaces.

One episode the other night struck me as particularly resonant for the modern office. In this show, the chef, Eric, began by talking about how many customers had complimented his dishes. “They say it all the time,” he stressed. He expressed complete confidence in his abilities and execution.

Of course, there wouldn’t be a decent show if there weren’t a different perspective from Gordon, who F-bombed his way through a critique of Eric’s meals. Eric’s response? To defend his cooking.

Gordon then went out with a video camera and asked people on the street if they had ever eaten at the place, and put together a little movie that he showed the staff, including Eric, of stinging criticism of the food.

Still, Eric defended his work. Even as dishes kept coming back into the kitchen as unacceptable to the diners, Eric defended. It’s easy to blame the customer, isn’t it?

The closest thing we have today to a movie about you and your work is the 360-degree assessment, in which people up, down and all around assess you on a variety of competencies. There are, fortunately, some other very simple and powerful ways to gather feedback, but first, the problem:

Research shows that the higher up ones goes in an organization, the less feedback he or she gets, and the less accurate it is. No need to mine the reasons here, since you already understand – it’s about power and control, and fear of consequences. It’s easy to understand.

So what if your organization doesn’t do a 360, and no one is walking around with a video camera for you?

First , you can observe. Carefully. What happens when you walk in the room? How engaged are people in talking with you? How committed to their work are they? Do they show passion and connection? Are they able to be themselves? Do they speak freely and honestly? What kind of impact are you having?

It can be hard to judge much of this, which is why there is step two.

You have to ask. Nicely.

This just means inquiring of others about their perspectives – on you. Simple, right?

Yes, actually, but maybe a little unnerving to most mere mortals and fallible human beings. How do you make this work?

You do it by, in the words of the brilliant facilitator Clara Martinez, “disarming yourself.” It means letting go of defenses, self-justifying routines, blaming and rationalizing logic. You have to really be ready for whatever people say. (This step is one of the reasons we call this field “the soft skills,” because this isn’t that hard, is it . . . ?)

It’s important to declare your intentions. Again, simple. “I would like to understand how I come across so that I can be as effective as possible in working with people.”

Now you can ask a few good, open-ended questions, and then be silent. Here are some candidates:

• What do you feel I do well, and not well?
• What should I start, stop or continue?
• What do I need to know about how I work with others that I may not see right now?

You can make up your own.

Do not respond, at least right away. This is the time to “go to the balcony,” as Ron Heifitz phrases it, and let the contents settle. Some of the messages may be a surprise – good or bad. Others may confirm what you knew or perhaps suspected. Some may rock your world.

This is the case when you have been holding fundamental, grounding assumptions that are in collision with the real world. Eric had some assumptions problems. These assumptions are usually unconscious (which is why they’re so difficult to get your arms around), and inform your actions on a constant basis. They are part of your worldview. Here are some assumptions that may start to come into focus, courtesy of feedback:

• The best way to get people to perform is tell them what to do.
• We’re not here to make each other feel good.
• If you give people positive feedback they’ll get a big head.
• It’s not my job to get into “people issues.” My job is to get the job done.

Dissecting the internal “logic” in these is beyond the scope of this blog. For now, they serve just as examples of fundamental assumptions that may bear fruit that smells a little rotten in feedback.

The fact is, there’s no fast way to allow feedback to filter down to the unconscious level at which fundamental assumptions live and can be challenged. Well, actually, there is one way, but it is a crisis, and usually a messy, expensive, dramatic way that change happens. It’s not necessary, if you are alert, disarm yourself, and let the environment talk to you. Just notice the messages. Don’t evaluate or interpret right away.

I recommend taking a walk in nature, sitting on your back deck, working out, playing golf, swimming or whatever else allows your conscious mind to idle. The prefrontal cortex (your executive decision-making center) has to get out of the way. When you’ve disarmed yourself and have cultivated this capacity to really just hear the messages, your ability to do something with them rises.

There are some stages that correlate to stages of change, even of death and dying (since part of you may actually go away in this process as a new part of you takes form – this is development, after all). There may be disbelief, confusion, initial acceptance, fuller recognition, ownership and action.

The final point I’ll make on this is, I think, pretty huge. For what it’s worth, my experience, limited as it is, is that if you can make it through this learning, and really come to accept whatever it is that you are hearing, it feels something like metaphorically stepping out onto a new plane, a new frontier. It is different from the old world in a very significant and important way. Out there, things feel clear, right and true. There is a freshness, a newness to it. It is an energizing place, from which new possibilities become apparent. The future can start there.

We all are imperfect, seeing imperfectly, acting imperfectly. The more you let go of any inner Eric, and grab hold of feedback (which is also imperfect – you have to sort through what is accurate and what may come from another person’s blind spot) and let it tell you what you need to know for the next part of your journey – limited in time as it is — the better things can get.

Many people are skeptical of miracles. They think they know “how things are,” and that they have a good grip on reality. They have little truck with the possibility of an event that would defy all expectations.

All I can say in response to this nonsense is that I saw a miracle yesterday, and I’d like to describe it to you.

In order to understand this miracle, we first need a little background.

To localize it, think of someone you know who is really stuck in his or her ways. This is a person who has been doing the same thing over and over for years, maybe decades, and you see no prospect of change.

(Of course, this person isn’t you.)

When you think of this person, you probably have a whole set of beliefs and opinions around the potential for change. Think of the following stock statements that you have already heard:

* “He/she will never change.”

* “That’s just the way he/she is.”

* “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

* “Why go to training? Nothing will change.”

The list goes on. Implicit in each of the statements is an imbedded notion that it would be a miracle if this person woke up one day, came in to work, and did something really different.

As soon as we confuse our pre-conceived notions, even assumptions, with reality, then we are off the hook for trying to help in any way. Our internal resistance to providing feedback to others, our failure to provide coaching when it may be needed, our fear of broaching a difficult issue is often defended on the grounds that “nothing’s going to change, anyway. It would be a miracle.”

Sorry to tell, but this view is wrong, and miracles happen. Here’s what I saw:

The meeting was called to discuss planning for an enormous training event starting in a few months. The person in charge of the whole event, and the team, had already been through a couple these events Predictably, lessons had been learned.

One of these was that the project manager was often needed in three places at once. Running here and there, with a cell phone glued to her ear, she put out fires, answered questions, handled problems and kept the client happy.

Now, being in three places at once really is a miracle, and I’m not advocating trying it.

As the meeting opened to prepare for the next conference, I observed something happen in the project manager. I could tell there was some hesitance, even discomfort. But she plunged ahead. She said, in effect, that she had learned a lot in the last conferences, and probably the biggest realization she had come to was that she had to delegate more. Given the need for her to be available to the client, she wanted to ask each of us to take greater responsibility for our areas of focus, to really “own” those from start to finish, letting her know if we needed help.

Some insight into the project manager: I have noticed in working with her over the years that relationships and harmony are very important to her. She would prefer to not upset people, and for everyone to get along.

For her to ask others to do more, she was taking a risk. After all, in many project teams, the load-balancing of work can be a delicate or explosive issue. Particularly if relationships are not positive, conflict can result as work is moved “from one plate to another.” As works demands accelerate pretty much everywhere, this is a real issue.

I looked around the room as the project manager made her request and saw instant acceptance. My sense was that not only did the team intellectually understand the reality the project manager was presenting, they also felt connected her in a constructive working relationship. There were “yeses” all around, and we moved on with a new understanding and operating rules.

For everyone who says people can’t change, I submit exhibit A. I watched someone take a new step, take a risk, and develop a capability in the process. She really transitioned into a project executive function in that move. I suspect that having taken this step, she will be a little more comfortable next time to make a request when it needs to be made.

I talked with the project manager afterwards and shared my own perspective of what had happened. She agreed with the interpretation, and said she would not have been able to make this request a year ago. Working with a coach had made the difference for her.

Organizational laryngitis – a term I made up – is not a medical condition in which everyone at work suddenly loses his and her voice.

Instead, it is a psychological and cultural condition.

Organizational laryngitis is widespread, culturally entrenched, a sapper of new ideas and a demoralizer. It occurs when large groups of people feel they cannot safely speak up with their ideas, perspectives and points of view.

When this condition sets in, the conversation does not stop. It goes underground. People need to express their ideas and interpretations, and if it is not safe to do so in meetings and with authority figures, they do it with colleagues.

Once true communication stops, several bad things happen. The talent walks out, the conversation becomes mainly complaining rather than problem-solving and a gulf is created between managers and employees. The longer it goes on, the wider it gets.

It is always interesting to watch what happens when new employees come in, unaware that the culture supports organizational laryngitis. They may speak up in meetings, prompting immediate eye contact and looks of alarm from those already afflicted. They know the newbie didn’t get the memo on what can and cannot be said around the place. Poor thing. Someone will have to have a chat with him or her in the hallway or coffee room – the great forums for conveying the real culture.

Why does this laryngitis start? Usually because someone signals that he or she did not want to hear what was just said. This is all it takes to inhibit the communication. A kind of no-go zone is established. Interestingly, it is not usually through the actual words said in response. It’s usually the facial expression and body language. The speaker picks up on an emotional level that a line was crossed.

If you’re ever interviewing for a job, one important question to informally ask your prospective colleagues, perhaps over coffee or lunch, is: “Can you tell the truth around here?”

If you are a manager, what can you do about this horrible condition? Here are some keys:

• Ask people what they really think

• Ask people what they are really feeling.

• Share difficult truths yourself, modeling the way that it’s OK to talk about the pleasant and not-so pleasant.

In organizations where laryngitis has been healed, it’s amazing how fluidly and effectively people communicate. Since there’s no need to sweep things under the carpet, information flows much faster and efficiently. There is no need for secrets.

Also, trust is higher. A great body of work now links trust to speed and effectiveness in business results. After all, you know how much longer it takes you to operate in a low-trust environment. That email you have to write to someone you don’t trust takes about five times as long.

This time of year tends to be full of milestone events. Weddings, big vacations, and graduations are at the top of the to-do list. In the case of graduations, valedictorians, thought leaders and celebrities of all kinds tend to include a common thread about the importance of success in their commencement speeches. Those messages tend to go something like this:

Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.
(Nelson Mandela)

Don’t live down to expectations. Go out there and do something remarkable.  (Wendy Wasserstein)

Do not follow where the path may lead.  Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.  (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

No pressure, right?

It has been some time since I was in college and longer than I’d care to count since I was in high school. And yet, one thing remains true today as if it was just yesterday: nobody I know gets up in the morning with the intention to fail. I’m no exception; I appreciate and strive for success as much as anyone else, and I like to be surrounded by people who do the same. Failure does happen though, and it often serves as an important milepost on the journey to success. For leaders, in fact, the learning that comes through and as a result of failure can be as important – if not more so – than the achievement of a successful outcome.

Leaders who are able to withstand and overcome setbacks give themselves and their teams the permission to fail in pursuit of learning and excellence. This is an adaptive capability that is not always easy for leaders to develop. It requires some resilience and humility along with a willingness to let go of what you think you know sometimes, for the sake of learning.

Here are three tips that I’ve used myself and that I’ve offered to executive coaching clients who seek to build this particular leadership muscle.

• What’s your definition? Look at your current definitions of success and failure and assess where you may need to let go of some long-held assumptions. Where did your definitions come from? Are they still serving you? If not, rewrite them.

• Experiment! Choose a small project that presents an opportunity for you to experiment with the possibility of failure. Include learning milestones for yourself in addition to project milestones – things you can observe and learn about yourself and your leadership style, in addition to the tangible project outcome. What you learn about yourself during times of “failure” may turn out to be mini-successes all in their own right, whether you achieve the overall outcome as originally planned or not.

• Involve others. Talk with your team about the effort you are making to build your adaptive capabilities by experimenting with failure. Engage them in the process by inviting their feedback on how you react, respond, and recover when things go differently than you’d planned. Be sure to tell your supervisor and other key stakeholders too so their expectations are set accordingly. After all, leaders are expected to manage and mitigate risks. Your first experiment should be big enough to provide learning but not so big that you put your organization at risk for the sake of your personal development.

In her commencement speech at Harvard two years ago, author J.K. Rowling talked about the “fringe benefits” of failure. Her short, 20-minute talk is one of my favorites because she is transparent about how she benefited from giving herself permission to fail for the sake of her own learning. You may not become a best-selling author as she has, but what would become possible if you gave yourself permission to fail…the room to learn?

Run an experiment or two and share your learning with me. No cap and gown required for this one!

It takes a lot of courage to lead.  It takes courage to step up to the challenge.  It takes
courage to stand in front of others and ask them to follow.  It takes courage to push or
pull others along a path that is anything but familiar or comfortable at times. 

The reason is takes courage to lead is that because leadership inherently involves risk. 
There is a risk that your activities won’t lead to outcomes…that your ideas will fail in
comparison to the promise you offered…and others won’t appreciate or even like you as
a leader.   

At the same time, the practice of leadership offers rewards.  Leaders can bring people and
their ideas together to create synergy.  Leaders build trust and foster engagement. 
Leaders experience the joy of seeing success via individuals, groups, and organizations.   

Make no mistake about it:  It takes courage to lead.  The questions for you are, where is
your courage, and when will you step up to lead?