Leadership Caffeine: Warning! Your Words About Change are Falling on Cynical Ears
Even the most credible of leaders have to step up their game when it comes to talking about and promoting change on their teams and in their organizations.
You can trust that a good number of the people doing the heavy lifting inside of your organization have developed a case of cynicism on talk of change emanating from the higher-ups.
They’ve consumed too many “flavor of the month” programs and developed heartburn when the programs died in mid-stream. They’ve watched people in your role come and go, and they no longer hear the siren call or pay much attention to the slogans and signs.
Can you blame them? If they wait a few minutes, this too shall pass, and in spite of their positive view of you, people have been conditioned to wait until the noise dies down and the focus turns back to getting the work done. They also know that you’ll likely move on to something bigger or different before too long.
For some leaders, the institutionalized and individual resistance to change is extremely frustrating and vexing. One leader offered to me, “I’m told that I’m credible, people have responded well to my leadership, I don’t pump sunshine or doom and gloom, yet people are dragging their feet on this new program. I know that it means doing new things and that can be frightening, but why aren’t people more excited and supportive?”
What’s a leader to do?
7 Helpful Steps to Get Started on the Right Foot Talking About Change:
1. Expect Resistance. Start from the assertion that you will run into a naturally occurring level of personal and cultural resistance, regardless of the how much people like and respect you.
2. Construct a Message for Real People. Lead with the facts. Explain the situation. Include your assessment. Avoid corporate and consultant-speak. Openly acknowledge the risks and unknowns.
3. Don’t Pitch the Solution…Share the Problem. Ask for help finding the solution. There’s a profound difference on how people process “here’s the answer,” versus “here’s the problem and we need to find the answer together.”
4. Beware the “Town Hall” Trap. Whether you are leading a company or a team, your inclination is to pull everyone together and to “present” your case for change. Senior leaders in particular fall victim to assuming that because something has been shared far and wide that it is now fact and reality. It’s good to share but there’s no “one-and-done” big group style of communication that cuts through the individual resistance to change. The large meeting is one step of many required for success.
5. Make Your Case One-on-One. The optimal level of dialogue is always one to one. Yes, it’s difficult. It’s also essential. Whether it’s you or those members of your change-coalition, the dialogue (not monologue) must be focused at the individual level.
6. Keep the Monologue Locked in the Closet. The faster people perceive that you are genuinely interested in their ideas and even their challenges to your own ideas, the faster the initiative will build momentum. Listen, acknowledge, adjust based on good input and share the adjustment. And just keep doing it.
7. Model the Behavior. Do as you say…and do it very visibly and genuinely. Nothing shoots a change initiative in the rear-end faster than your words and your actions not matching. The do must match the tell.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Change is inevitable in our world and intuitively, we all know and accept this reality. However, don’t discount the challenges you will face in gaining support for your message on the need to change.You’ve had ample time to process on it, but when your team members hear it for the first time, it’s either noise…or interesting but not tangible.
The only way through the resistance is straight ahead. Your honesty and authenticity are truly important. Your willingness to engage in a dialogue and your humility in asking for input and help are priceless.
Leadership Caffeine-Success One Step at a Time
One of my favorite quotes from the late Peter Drucker reads, “Actions in the present are the one and only way to create the future.”
I talk with a lot of people who have big plans. They want to change or improve or strengthen something about themselves or their organizations. A good number of these people are experts at talking about it, but sadly, very few actually follow through on their own personal change, improvement or growth initiatives.
Too many people fail to overcome resistance and start moving forward. Instead of heeding Drucker’s advice, fear rents space in their minds, creating a never-ending litany of excuses that help ensure that their feet remain firmly planted in place.
Those who do break away from the malaise that mires so many in the muck of their own fears, start small and keep moving, one painful step after another.
I was thrilled to receive a note from an Executive Director at a Not-For-Profit who just experienced an organizational milestone. While the specifics of our conversation had slipped my mind, apparently I offered some of Drucker’s fuel for action, and it made a difference. Instead of thinking about all of the obstacles in her way, she focused on the one step in front of her that would lead to the next set of opportunities to inch closer to her goal. She took that step and it worked. Her fear and frustration have disappeared, replaced by a new-found sense of hope backed by energy and a desire to keep moving.
Actions beget learning and progress. Progress turns hope into determination and fuel for even more forward movement.
If your goal is to write that book you’ve been thinking about for two decades, it’s time to put the first words down and keep moving.
If you’ve resolved this year to become a better leader, what one step can you take today that will help you start moving forward?
If you like so many others in our economy find yourself on the outside looking in, and recognize that there’s no going back…only forward to reinvention and something new, what first step can you take to turn fear and anxiety into motive power for forward progress?
Thinking about change without doing anything about it is toxic.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Most of our inaction when it comes to change can be attributed to fear. Fear of failure. Fear of discovering our limitations. Fear of being rejected. And while all of these fears seem real, they are false demons who taunt us, hoping we’ll forget that the faster we might fail, the closer we are to success.
Another favorite thinker of mine, Frank Herbert, offered in his science-fiction classic, Dune, “fear is the mind killer.”
Both Drucker and Herbert were right. Just for today, push the fear out and do something to move forward, no matter how small. And then just keep moving.
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Art Petty is a developer of leaders and a strategy consultant. Art frequently speaks on leadership and management, and his work is reflected in two books (Practical Lessons in Leadership and Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development) and over 1-million words published at The Management Excellence blog. You can reach Art via e-mail to learn more about his leadership development, speaking and management consulting services.
Leadership Caffeine: The Critical Importance of Cultivating your Cultural Intelligence
Filed under: Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Leadership Skills
Note from Art: this is the first of a planned series of Leadership Caffeine posts encouraging you to focus on developing the leadership and professional skills required for success in the emerging world.
Consider the case of “Raj”
“Raj” is a citizen of India working on an H1-B visa in the Midwestern U.S., for a global software firm based out of Germany. He leads a software development team comprised of a dozen team members spread across three continents. Only two members of the team report to him, and the balance are on-loan from other teams and managers.
Now, consider the case of “Dorothy”
“Dorothy” is an African-American manager in a U.S.-based health insurance provider. Her team is comprised of individuals across a variety of different ethnicities, including Mexican-American, Arab-American, Euro-American and Asian-American.
The Challenges are Obvious, but the Benefits from Getting it Right are Profound:
What’s remarkable about these two cases is not the complexity of the leadership challenges, but rather, the sheer raw potential to form something unique based on the cultural diversity built into these teams.
The benefits of successfully leveraging culturally diverse team members are many, including perhaps the most powerful of all: the potential to gain the unique insights of people who hold distinctly different world-views.
From ideation to problem-solving, opportunity identification and design, there are remarkable opportunities inherent in effectively tapping into the unique views of people from different cultures.
First, The Challenges:
On the surface, Raj’s situation is more complicated. He’s dealing across nations, time-zones and cultures with a virtual team who will likely never be in the same room together. His challenges to establish rapport, build credibility as a leader and get people working together where needed and in spite of distinct cultural differences and world-views, are complicated indeed.
However, don’t discount the complexity of Dorothy’s situation. While she has the benefit of being able to engage with her team in person, she is working in an environment where embracing and leveraging diversity is still relatively new.
Contrary to the myth, the U.S. is neither a melting pot, nor is it an environment where stereotypes have been wiped out and prejudices dissolved and left for the history books. The statistics on diversity in the workforce, the court cases on discrimination and the statistics by ethnic group indicate otherwise. And while many people of the ethnicities identified are second or third generation Americans, they still grow up in many cases in their own culture with their own unique way of viewing the world, inter-relating, deciding and working. There’s nothing easy here for Dorothy.
Cultivate Your Cultural Intelligence to Tap Into the Potential from Diversity:
Whether your situation/opportunity is about coping with and leveraging diversity across borders or in the office, your success and effectiveness as a leader requires active cultivation of your Cultural Intelligence (CQ) “muscles.” Dr. David Livermore, writing in his excellent book, The Cultural Intelligence Difference, suggests that there are four components to our Cultural IQ:
- CQ Drive-your motivation…your interest and confidence in functioning effectively in culturally diverse situations.
- CQ Knowledge…your pursuit of knowledge about how cultures are similar and different.
- CQ Strategy…how you make sense of culturally diverse experiences.
- CQ Action-your capability to adapt your behavior appropriately for different cultures.
While we’ll expand upon each of these and what Livermore and others have to say about strengthening your CQ in upcoming posts, your assignment for now is to ask and answer the following CQ Jump-Start questions:
1. Do I actively seek out culturally diverse situations…from food to travel to literature to group and social situations? Not surprisingly, many individuals gravitate towards the familiar and away from the foreign. Developing CQ requires the opposite behavior.
2. Am I knowledgeable about and comfortable relating to others from different cultures? My educated guess is that most Americans if given truth serum would offer “No” in response to this question.
3. Am I able to effectively engage with others from different cultures in pursuit of business objectives? If you were suddenly required to offer constructive feedback to a team in Japan or, to negotiate with a prospective supplier in Germany, how prepared are you to do this competently? Here’s a hint…neither of those situations is like others you’ve dealt with in your dealings with U.S. based teams or firms.
4. Do I have an understanding of the cultural world-view and dimensions of those of different ethnicities on my team? If you think it doesn’t matter, you’ve missed the point here. From family upbringing to religious training to views on power and even traditional cultural views on gender roles, these all are part of people’s make-up. Ignore them at your own peril.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Diversity isn’t just an HR initiative…it’s a critical part of your organization’s fabric and future. Leveraging it requires leaders to actively engage and focus on strengthening personal and team CQ. Your knowledge of and your abilities to gain from cultural and ethnic diversity is one of the critical leadership skills of our times. And much like that exercise program you’ve been putting off, this one only offers benefits if you put the effort into the program. It’s time to dive in. Your success and the future success of your firm may just depend upon it.
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Want More? Check out Art Petty’s latest book, Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development. Created for fast-moving and highly motivated professionals and leaders, Leadership Caffeine offers more than 80 short, idea-packed essays for the critical leadership and professional development situations in your life. (All royalties on purchases through 12/2 will see the royalties donated to a local food pantry. See original promo note for specifics.)
Join the many groups and management teams and meeting/conference organizers who have adopted Leadership Caffeine as a discussion and development tool. The collection makes a great gift for the newly promoted leader or for your team during the holidays.
- Single and Kindle copies on Amazon.
- Group and Volume orders, visit Marathon Books for the best service.
About Art Petty:
Art Petty is a Leadership & Career Coach and Strategy Consultant, helping motivated professionals of all levels achieve their potential. In addition to working with highly motivated professionals, Art frequently works with project teams in pursuit of high performance. Contact Art via e-mail to discuss a coaching, workshop or speaking engagement or to inquire about being a guest on The Leadership Caffeine podcast.
Leadership Caffeine: “You Have No Business Leading Others”
Filed under: Leadership Caffeine, Leadership Skills, Talent Management
In setting and adopting strategy, it’s critically important to decide what you are not going to do. The same goes for promoting people into roles where they are responsible for others. It’s OK to say, “No” to those who aren’t right for the role.
Leading others is not an inalienable right that comes with seniority or through mastery of a technical discipline. It’s too bad that a good number of senior leaders struggle to offer a clear “No” to those seeking the role.
While I’m a staunch defender of the premise that leaders are mostly made not born, there are some people who have no more business responsible for others than I do conducting brain surgery.
Sorry folks, not everyone can learn to lead. This doesn’t mean that leadership misfits don’t end up in roles responsible for others, but that doesn’t make it right.
One way to stop the perpetuation of lousy leaders and lousy leadership practices is to quit passing the problem forward. While that’s contrary to what we see in many of our schools and certainly from our politicians who like to kick the problems down the road, it’s an opportunity for you to take a principled stand for all of the right reasons.
3 Core Questions to Answer Before Promoting Anyone to a Leadership Position:
1. What are the individual’s true intentions? Much like a father questioning his daughter’s new date, experienced leaders must work with their team members to properly assess motivations. If pay, title or an office with a door are the unspoken objectives, the individual should be shown the door, at least as it pertains to a role leading others.
While most people won’t outwardly describe less than honorable intentions, some careful observation and interaction via low-risk developmental assignments spread over time, will provide you with ample insights to make a good decision.
2. How well does the candidate self-manage? If the individual showcases an ego as big as Indiana and a desire to prove that he is the smartest person in every room he occupies, the obvious lack of both emotional and social intelligence, is not only a leading indicator of poor fit, it’s a big, bright flashing red flag. Instead of putting on your dark glasses to shield your eyes from the light, it’s time to slow down or stop and face reality.
3. What is it about prior performance (anywhere in life) that offers clues to future performance in a leadership role? While people can and do change, I want to see at a minimum, examples of leadership…even if the circumstances were informal. Eagle Scout? Student Council President? Volunteer Manager? Military leadership?! Examples of where the individual rallied people to troubleshoot and solve problems? Life crises that taught important leadership skills?
The Bottom-Line for Now:
When we sign on to support the development of new leaders in our organizations, we are signing on for a full contact activity. The output is a direct reflection on us, and given the importance of this activity, it behooves all of us to take time and deliberately and carefully assess our leadership candidates.
I’m all for giving deserving people a chance, however, the key word is, “deserving.” Convince me through your actions that your intentions are honorable, and I’m willing to move to the next step. Prove to me that you can manage the person looking back at you in the mirror and your chances of gaining my support are increasing. And show me through examples that you have context for the role and I’m motivated to support you. Fail any one of those three, and you’re out, at least as it comes to leading.
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Want More? Check out Art Petty’s latest book, Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development. Created for fast-moving and highly motivated professionals and leaders, Leadership Caffeine offers more than 80 short, idea-packed essays for the critical leadership and professional development situations in your life.
Join the many groups and management teams and meeting/conference organizers who have adopted Leadership Caffeine as a discussion and development tool. The collection makes a great gift for the newly promoted leader or for your team during the holidays.
- Single and Kindle copies on Amazon.
- Group and Volume orders, visit Marathon Books for the best service.
About Art Petty:
Art Petty is a Leadership & Career Coach and Strategy Consultant, helping motivated professionals of all levels achieve their potential. In addition to working with highly motivated professionals, Art frequently works with project teams in pursuit of high performance. Contact Art via e-mail to discuss a coaching, workshop or speaking engagement or to inquire about being a guest on The Leadership Caffeine podcast.
Leadership Caffeine-If You Want to Be a Critic, Go Watch a Movie
Filed under: Dealing with Difficult People, Leadership Caffeine
The Leader as Critic is one of the most toxic, idea-crushing characters you’ll ever find in the workplace. This individual mistakenly assumes that title confers a License to Kill (perceived bad ideas) and he/she takes pride in shooting down ideas to protect people and teams from themselves.
Every time I offer an idea, she laughs and offers, “That will never work,” and that’s the end of the conversation.
Chances are you’ve seen this character in action, aggressively seeking out even the faintest whisper of a thought and pouncing on it with pride to show the world why it won’t fly.
Nothing changes here, because he refuses to consider new ideas.
A good number of these Lead(er) Critics and s don’t recognize this tendency in themselves. In art and architecture, some people focus on the objects and others focus on the gaps between the objects. At work, the Lead(er) Critic isn’t looking for “What’s Right” in the idea, he is looking at the gaps with trained eyes and finding fault.
The company wants us to innovate, but we can’t even offer suggestions without feeling like we’ve crossed over an invisible boundary where injustice is swift and punishment harsh.
Are You the Lead(er) Critic?
Run a Test…Shut Your Mouth. Starting today, every time someone offers an idea to solve a problem or make an improvement, immediately clamp your mouth shut and resist the urge to offer your comments.
Questions only, please. If you must talk, force yourself to ask clarifying questions in response to an idea.
Measure thyself. Keep track of how many times you encourage people to follow their ideas every week. If your journal page is empty after a week, you might just be the critic.
Do the ideas come with the problems? Pay attention to whether people approach you regularly with problems AND suggestions. If they show up with just the problem, you might be the critic.
Meetings more productive without you? Skip a few brainstorming meetings but ask for feedback and output. If the lists are suddenly longer and more creative, it’s possible that you might just be the critic.
The Eyes Have It. Ask people whether they feel comfortable proposing new ideas. If a look of fear crosses their face or, if their eyes go wide, you might just be the critic.
Six Ideas to Help You Survive Working for a Critic:
1. Recognition is the first step. In this case, recognize that Guile and Manipulation are your friends here.
2. Always strive to build the unarguable argument. Always make your case for a new idea by linking it to the team’s or better yet, the Critic’s goals.
3. Give the Critic credit for the idea. “Your comments the other day made me realize that what you really want is… .” Heck yes, it’s manipulative. I don’t care if you don’t!
4. Lead the witness. (Or should that be witless?) Involve the Critic in idea generation after the fact. “We really need your expertise here… .”
5. The frontal assault. Tackle it head-on. Provide constructive boss feedback if you dare. Use specific, recent examples and link the incident to the impact it has on the firm/team/individual. If this fails, resort to guile and manipulation.
6. Send a message. Print out this post and leave it on his/her desk chair. Circle the title.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
The double Nobel Prize winner, Linus Pauling, once offered (I paraphrase) that the best way to generate good ideas was to generate a lot of ideas. If you suspect you are the critic, it’s not too late to change your ways. Use the guidance above, step back let go and measure success based on promoting the development of ideas and new approaches.
If you are working for a Lead(er) Critic, try the high-road first with feedback. If that fails, it is your responsibility to outfox this character. It’s not pretty, it’s not elegant and it is just a bit manipulative, and it’s ever so right.
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JUST RELEASED! Check Out Art’s New Book: Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development
Want More: Sign up for the new, Leadership Caffeine e-Newsletter. I’ll guard your e-mail address with ferocity, while sharing ideas to energize and inspire.
About Art Petty:
Art Petty is a Leadership & Career Coach and Strategy Consultant, helping motivated professionals of all levels achieve their potential. In addition to working with highly motivated professionals, Art frequently works with project teams in pursuit of high performance. Art’s second book (an edited, annotated collection of the most popular leadership essays), Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development, was released at the end of September in 2011.
Contact Art via e-mail to discuss a coaching, workshop or speaking engagement.
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