Leadership Caffeine: Do You See Beauty or Blemishes?
Filed under: Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Leadership Skills, Management Education, Performance, Professional Growth, Talent Management
If you’ve ever worked for or around someone who is an expert critic…one of those individuals who can look at a masterpiece and spot a flaw, you know how demoralizing the experience can be. They look at beautiful pictures or great outcomes and focus on describing the flaws.
If you are one of these “Negative Motivators,” this one’s for you!
No Gold Stars Here:
A client struggled with a boss who believed that motivation and inspiration were outcomes of criticism. He wasted no time at every opportunity identifying what he perceived as flaws in the projects, programs, and presentations of his co-workers. When a frustrated and bold employee finally screwed up the courage to ask why he never offered positive support, his answer was immediate; “That’s not my job. I’m supposed to make you perform better, not cheerlead. You want a gold star, go back to kindergarten.”
Uh…OK. Thanks for the inspiration, I guess.
Look, I’m all for constructive criticism supported by coaching. That’s what we’re supposed to do. However, motivating by providing a never-ending string of criticisms is only going to demoralize people and teams and suck the life and creativity out of your organization.
Beware When You Start Believing Your Own Attempts at Rationalizing Your Behavior:
Every once in awhile, I run into a “Negative Motivator ” who has a well-developed and almost believable rationale for their approach. A few of the comments I’ve heard over time:
We’re all adults, and we don’t need daily pats on the back.
No one achieves greatness because someone was there telling them how great they were every step of the way.
How do people know how to improve if I don’t tell them?
It’s my job to ensure that people meet my high standards.
People want to please the boss. I use it as a carrot that’s out there in front of everyone. So far, no one has caught up to it.
In isolation, there’s just a bit of truth in every statement (OK, the bit might be really small in a few of those!), but what’s missing is an understanding of the human cost (energy, inspiration, environment) from a never ending slow-drip of negativity. A more balanced approach that acknowledges beauty where appropriate and offers encouragement and criticism will in my experience, produce far greater results.
5 Ideas for Achieving Better Balance in Your Feedback:
1. Know thyself. Many of the Nattering Nabobs of Negativity (thanks, Spiro Agnew) aren’t as semi self-aware as those who commented above. In case you dont’ know which side of the ledger you come down on…positive or negative, run a little experiment for a few days and keep a tally of how many criticisms you offer versus how many times you offer praise during a day. If the balance is consistently skewed towards the negative, you have work to do.
2. Know thyself, part 2. Give your employees a chance to share their thoughts on your feedback skills and habits. While the results of an anonymous survey can be skewed when groups fear the boss, if you are genuine in your pursuit of feedback on your own performance, you will likely gain some frank and useful input.
3. Advance your philosophy in pursuit of better performance (yours and theirs). You’re not completely wrong in your thoughts on constructive criticism. However, great coaches and great managers encourage the development of strengths and carefully help people navigate the weaknesses. They don’t bludgeon them into high performance with all that’s wrong with their work. There’s a needed balance of positive support and constructive criticism.
4. Don’t change your style suddenly and starting handing out gratuitous praise…support it with clear examples. You know when people are doing good work. Find time on occasion to acknowledge the work and share very clear and specific reasons about what’s good with the work. Your clearly defined positive feedback reinforces what people did right. Your goal is to get them to do that consistently.
5. Beware feedback sandwiches of all types. Sandwiching your feedback is a bad habit where managers who are uncomfortable offering constructive input surround the negative issue with big pieces of positive praise. (For more on this odious technique, see my post: Why I Hate the Sandwich Technique for Delivering Feedback.) In the case of our Negative Motivator here, beware Reverse Sandwiching…hiding the praise between two big pieces of your moldy negative comments. The praise will be overwhelmed by the negatives surrounding it.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
You can offer positive praise without being perceived as weak. Some “Negative Motivators” are concerned about losing their “tough” image, and they wrongly associate praise with weakness. I’ve worked for and around tough managers…those with high expectations and standards, who understood that positive praise was an important part of the success formula. While their minds might be drawn to the problems and the negatives they see in every image, they are emotionally intelligent enough to recognize that others both need and deserve positive support for their good work as well.
You don’t need to stock up on gold stars, but for top performance, you do need to learn to talk about and reward the positives on occasion. Just for today, start looking at the beauty in work and try and not preoccupy on the blemishes. You might be surprised how people respond.
Leadership Caffeine: Developing as a Senior Contributor
Filed under: Career, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Leadership Skills, Management Education, Professional Growth, Talent Management, Your Professional Development "To Do" List
I regularly use the label “Senior Contributor” (SC) to reference a state of management maturity that tends to exist somewhere between upper mid-level management or senior knowledge worker and the executive layer. While the hierarchical comparison may be imperfect, it’s an easy way for people to understand my intent with the phrase.
The SC is a professional (manager or individual contributor) on the brink of executive qualifications and someone that has displayed effective formal and informal leadership skills, value-creating critical and strategic thinking abilities, credible executive presence and a strong operating and quality orientation.
The SC is an individual that whether by design or accident has consistently been challenged to deal with complex and ambiguous business situations and has proven capable of rallying efforts, forming high performance teams, and facilitating results that create value for customers, improve operations and thump competitors.
This is one super contributor!
Sound like a mythical super-hero that was graced with unique powers beyond those of us mere mortals, and that dons his/her mask and cape to fight bad business in the dark of night? While you’ve got to be sharp to be a SC, you most definitely don’t need to be from a planet with a red sun or to have encountered a radioactive spider to lay claim to your own mask and cape. However, you do have to deliberately focus on developing and honing your skills to gain membership into this league of outstanding professionals.
Senior Contributors are Made, Not Born:
I’ve yet to meet an SC that wasn’t personally and professionally driven to learn, grow, overcome weaknesses, develop talents and place himself/herself in challenging situations as part of the development process. While some people have natural gifts that lend themselves to certain situations, membership in this league is open to anyone willing to put the effort forth. However, not everyone has the Intestinal Fortitude (IF) to succeed.
7 Suggestions for Developing as a Senior Contributor:
1. Look in the mirror and recognize that this battle to develop and excel is all up to you. Your firm doesn’t owe you this and cannot train you on it, and you certainly won’t achieve the level of SC through seniority and marking time.
2. Face your fears. Given my description of the SC above, almost everyone will have to face and overcome some areas of discomfort. Typically, the development of advanced communication and presentation skills (and the confidence behind the skills) is the most frightening area for people to face. Ironically, these may be the easiest to learn, practice and refine. Others like critical and strategic thinking capabilities require a conscious effort to rewire long-standing ways of thinking and acting. Easy to describe, but truly difficult to achieve.
3. Learn to adjust your altitude. SCs are capable of scaling heights from the big picture of market and industry forces and changing customer attitudes and perceptions to the nuances of process and operating improvements. As part of the “rewiring” or better yet, new wiring, emerging SCs must focus on connecting tasks to strategies and market forces and vice-versa. Take some mental Dramamine, because the altitude adjustments will be fast and furious.
4. Quit looking for silver bullets. There is no training course that once completed will bestow upon you the certificate of Senior Contributor. There are many, many, many resources, experiences and opportunities to gain insights and hone skills, but there is no silver bullet, so quit looking for it.
5. Great managers and mentors are priceless. A good manager and/or a good mentor can help you along the way. A manager that is committed to supporting the development of her people understands how important it is to challenge and coach team members. A mentor offers the perspective and context of experience and can serve as a valuable navigator. For those of you that lack one or both (a good manager and a mentor), the bad manager can serve as inspiration. I long ago developed a mental list of “things never to do,” when it was my day to lead.
6. Use your time wisely. Read, read and then read some more. From Harvard Business Review to Fast Company to historical biographies, you cannot spend enough time soaking up the teachings of successful people and people that have experienced and persevered through remarkable hardship. Make certain that most of your reading takes place away from the business bookshelf and tends towards history, biography and even literature.
7. Adopt a personal quality improvement program. Just as Franklin and Jefferson diligently recorded their decisions and their daily progress and activities, find a way to begin recording your own actions. Set goals, monitor and measure progress and strive to improve.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
As a senior executive, you want high performers and SCs driving my organization. What are you doing to foster an environment of constant learning and continuous challenge to support the emergence of SCs?
As an aspiring professional, responsible for forging your own brand in a complex world over a career that will easily span 50 years in many cases, what are you doing to step it up? Turn off the television, back away from the urgent unimportant, learn to overcome your own natural resistance, and get on with the good and hard work of developing yourself!
Getting Out of Your Own Way
Filed under: Career, Life and Business, Performance, Professional Growth, Your Professional Development "To Do" List
Almost without exception, the primary reason for sub-optimizing in your career and in life can be seen every morning staring back at you in the mirror.
Notice that it’s not your boss, your spouse or significant other or your parents or friends. It’s you.
We tend to be beings with a collection of habits, excuses, hang-ups and self-limiting thoughts that manage to conveniently jump out in front to slow us down anytime we’re thinking of making a change for the better in our lives and careers.
- “It’s too hard, why bother.”
- “The boss won’t let me…”
- “I’ll do it later.”
- “Tomorrow.”
I’ve observed the tendencies of deny, delay and rationalize in some otherwise very capable professionals and students, and have often wondered what they would be capable of becoming if they simply decided to get out of their own way.
What’s lacking or what’s wrong with someone that chooses to sub-optimize instead of self-optimize. And whether you want to admit it, it is a choice.
Low self-esteem? Lack of self-confidence? Some would indicate laziness, but in my own unqualified psychological opinion, there’s often a root cause of what we observe and describe as laziness. There’s something more going on beneath the surface.
How Do We Get Out of Our Own Way?
Even top performers dabble in malaise from time-to-time, but these individuals seem to have techniques for both recognizing and pulling out of even momentary downward descents from the rarefied air of high performance.
One high performer that I know described her approach as follows: “When I feel myself slipping mentally and approaching a point of tolerating mediocrity, a little alarm goes off in my mind that shouts: Wake Up! I remind myself how important that it is to me and to the people around me that I succeed at this task and I get mad at myself for slowing and I work harder.”
Another individual refuels by connecting with other high performers. “I have a group of people that I truly admire for their nearly limitless energy and enthusiasm for their work. If I feel myself moving toward not caring, I set up a lunch or coffee with one or more of them and just soak up their enthusiasm.”
Your Mom was right. It pays to keep good company.
Other Approaches:
- “I avoid associating with the naysayers and complainers. They revel in doing nothing but complaining and it is easy to get caught up in this mental performance trap.” Yep, Mom was definitely right.
- “I pray.”
- “I seek inspiration in my favorite biographies and books.”
- “I redefine my short-term goals to make them more digestible. After a few quick victories, I return to my focus on the bigger picture.”
- “I call my coach.”
- “I work harder.”
The Bottom-Line for Now:
You know whether you are going through the motions or putting your all into the tasks at hand. Overcoming the inertia of “going through the motions” requires an extraordinary expenditure of personal energy, but the psychic rewards make it worth the effort. Success starts with recognition followed by a bit of anger at yourself, followed by action.
As Peter Drucker once indicated, “Actions in the present are the one and only way to create the future.”
Now shove yourself out of your way and get going!
Leadership Caffeine for the Week of March 8, 2009
Filed under: Crisis Leadership, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Leading Change, Management Excellence Tips for Tough Times, Organizational Transformation, Performance, Your Professional Development "To Do" List
Welcome back for this week’s double-shot of leadership motivation. The gray and wet Midwestern weekend is giving way to a promising new week and it’s time to get going.
I’m brewing a pot of New Mexico’s award winning Pinon Coffee, courtesy of my sister-in law as just the cure for too much exposure to Sunday morning news shows.
Can I pour you a cup?
I’m taking my leadership cues this week from Michael Beers, a Harvard Professor with a forthcoming book: High Commitment, High Performance: How to Build a Resilient Organization for Sustained Advantage.
While I’m not certain that a Harvard Professor is the first one that I seek out to help me lead my way out of a crisis, I like what he has to say. Mr. Beer’s focus is on building high performance teams and organizations on the back of what he describes as high commitment leaders.
His Thoughts and My Comments:
-Prof. Beer:
“CEOs of High Commitment, High Performance (HCHP) companies think very differently about their employees. They see them as an asset and care about them as people. Consequently, they manage the downturn very differently.”
-Art’s Comment:
This fits nicely with last week’s post on Goleman’s research into social neuroscience (Smile, Your Mirror Neurons are Firing Everyone Up.) In essence: the most effective leaders care about and pay attention to their employees.
-Prof. Beer:
“We’ve realized that the leader can be a limiting factor in a journey to transform an organization into a HCHP organization.”
-Art’s Comment:
Didn’t need too much expensive research to figure this one out. Your leadership style and effectiveness are the governors on your team’s performance. It’s you, not them. What are you doing this week to help not hinder?
-Prof. Beer:
“These CEO’s (HCHP) operate from deep beliefs and values. Their purpose is to leave a legacy of a great firm.”
-Art’s Comment:
Even if you’re not working for such an enlightened CEO, nothing is stopping you from operating and leading with your own deep, core beliefs and values and making certain that these come through in your dealings with your team.
-Prof Beer:
“The journey to HCHP is not a straight line up. At various stages of the journey the company will face a crisis in performance. How that crisis is dealt with will determine the organization’s future HCHP trajectory.
Will the company liquidate its investment in high commitment culture and the talented people it took years to develop and impregnate with the company’s DNA? Or will the HCHP organization be able to negotiate the crisis without liquidating its social and human capital? These moments of truth define the organization’s future much more powerfully than speeches, appeals for better teamwork, and mission or value statements.”
The Bottom-line:
You have and will continue to face “moments of truth” in the days and weeks ahead. Instead of reacting, seize the remarkable opportunities in this environment to turn yourself into a High Commitment, High Performance Leader. The formula is simple, although executing on it is not.
- Stay confident and upbeat, but skip the false enthusiasm. No one will buy a Pollyannaish view of the world, but no one needs to see the boss sulking.
- Stay in front of your team members with company news and issues. Don’t hide from bad news. If there is a round of layoffs, double your visibility and outreach.
- Remember Beer’s advice that how you deal with the crisis now will determine your future trajectory. Provide challenging opportunities for your top talent. This is a target-rich environment for apprentice opportunities for your up and coming leaders.
- Set goals focused on helping clients and companies and work relentlessly on achieving those goals. Provide constant feedback on progress; celebrate victories and leverage mistakes to strengthen team and individual learning.
- Work darn hard. Get out of your comfortable desk chair and get out on the floor or into the market. Better yet, get out and help your customers win.
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OK, pour yourself just one more cup, jot down some action items and then get to work. You can’t fix anything by staring at the screen!
For additional reading:
Uncompromising Leadership in Tough Times by Michael Beer in the Harvard Business School Working Knowledge newsletter.
The Counterintuitive Nature of Management Excellence
Filed under: Crisis Leadership, Leadership, Leadership Skills, Leading Change, Life and Business, Marketing, Organizational Transformation, Product Management, Project Management
I suspect that most readers will agree that examples of management excellence, high performance and great leadership are not the topics dominating the news in this emerging “we’ve never seen anything like this before” economy. Instead, we are fed a constant stream of downward revisions, requests for bailout and examples of management failure of “someone should go to jail” Whole sectors are crashing, great old brands are on the brink of fading into the history books and recently great businesses are floundering.
Contrast this current phase with the other extreme of recent memory, the dotcom bubble of the late 90’s, when the laws of physics were upturned, profits didn’t count, and it was all about clicks and eyeballs. Everyone knew someone that was a gazillionaire and massive amounts of paper wealth came into existence overnight. And then disappeared. A few firms like Amazon, eBay and Google ultimately emerged from the carnage following the bust, to play major roles in a changed world. Ironically, this changed world looked more like what we knew than what had been professed by temporary pundits feasting on the momentary gullibility of the masses.
The point. It’s easy to ride with the herd in boom and bust periods. It takes no management skill whatsoever to spend a fortune building up clicks and it definitely takes no skill to slash budgets, cut headcount, freeze programs and hunker down and wait out the storm.
It does take remarkable management courage and skill to run against the crowd and conventional wisdom by investing in strategic initiatives and talent during tough times and resisting the temptation to chase mythical fortunes during boom times. Leveraging adversity to stimulate creativity and rethink business models, refocus on customers and look everywhere for innovation that will create value is counter-intuitive to the “flight” response that so many firms are exhibiting. This counter-intuitive nature is also the hallmark of great management and great managers.
Deming dared to call U.S. manufacturing on the carpet and predict their ultimate suicide if they ignored quality during a time when quality got in the way of volume and profits. Drucker spent a lifetime teaching managers the rules of management excellence. Based on recent news, most of us forgot to listen.
You face the choice everyday to stay with the herd or dare to do something different in pursuit of management excellence. In case you are looking for some thought-starters on counter-intuitive ideas, consider these:
- Resist the temptation during tough times to make all of the “hard calls” by yourself. Talk with and involve your employees in decision-making and idea generation. They are just as concerned as you are about their survival and they want to help.
- Don’t shred your strategic plan because “everything has changed.” It’s great to challenge your assumptions or as Ayn Rand often said, “Check your premises.” There may be new or more opportunity than you imagined, and the plan may need revision, but don’t scuttle it based on fear.
- Invest in your talent now. While you may be culling the herd of poor performers, you should also be investing in building the leadership and strategic thinking skills of your workforce. If this ends, they will propel you to new heights, and if this economic environment lingers, they will save your skin. Either way, you need to invest.
- Your customers are as perplexed and worried as you. It’s time to seek nontraditional relationships with key customers and partners. These relationships include joint-strategic planning, joint brainstorming and true partnering solutions that transcend the traditional press-release relationship.
- Take a sledgehammer to internal silo walls. The dysfunction inherent in most sales and marketing or marketing and engineering relationships is significant enough to sink your ship.
The bottom-line for now:
It’s an outstanding time for great leaders to stand up and be heard, and it is an outstanding time to focus on excellence in management. It starts by checking your conventional wisdom at the door. Go visit a customer, ask questions and listen. Do the same with your employees. And then do something that creates value versus something that reduces your chances of creating value. Your actions may just start a revolution.
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