Beware Contracting “I’m Right, You’re Wrong” Disease?
Filed under: Leadership, Leadership Skills, Management Education, Professional Growth, Surviving Lousy Leaders, Your Professional Development "To Do" List
It’s time to add another malady to the long list of things that bedevil the many lousy leaders walking unencumbered through our workplaces. It’s called, “I’m Right and You’re Wrong” (IRYW) disease, and while it’s not fatal, it’s clearly annoying to people and debilitating to performance.
Frankly, leaders that suffer from IRYW disease just piss other people off, while stifling creativity and innovation and casually squashing the souls of everyone they encounter.
IRYW sufferers take on many forms, depending upon how far along the disease is in warping their personalities. You might recognize it in one of the following forms:
- The boss that encourages input but never takes it. Ever.
- The boss or co-worker that gets visibly angry when someone disagrees with him/her.
- The manager that habitually throws dissenters under the bus.
- The manager or co-worker that always has to have the last word.
- The leaders that look at you as if you’ve grown two heads when you gather up the courage to share an idea or offer an alternative option.
Unfortunately, we run into this malady in our personal lives as well. We almost all have the relative or friend that is the self-anointed expert and this can be particularly problematic in households when it is a significant other or even an in-law. Feel free to offer up your own coping strategies from these examples…we’ll all learn in the process.
How You Can Avoid Catching “I’m Right, You’re Wrong” Disease:
-Take a daily dose of humility. Remind yourself when you walk in the door that your role is to help others to succeed, not to show everyone how smart you are.
-Set up an early warning system. While granted that it takes a fair amount of emotional intelligence to recognize that this is good, many brilliant and successful leaders cultivate peer relationships where they encourage feedback, including the “quit acting like a jerk” kind. I’ve had two of these colleagues for years, and their occasional clubbing over the head has been remarkably helpful.
-While it’s cliché, hire people smarter than you. Do this right and you’ll not only gain the benefits of their considerable intelligence, but you’ll double your efforts to help them and earn their respect, as you certainly won’t be able to play and get away with IRYW.
-Stay out of environments where you might be tempted to incorrectly assert yourself and damage the group dynamics. Some bosses have no business in group brainstorming sessions. If you’re one, find something else to do.
Surviving a Boss with “I’m Right, You’re Wrong” Disease:
-Recognize that for this individual, it’s really important to feel like they are right. Since were not psychologists here, we’ll have to pass on analyzing childhood issues or assessing other compensating factors and fous on developing some patience.
-A fair number of IRYW sufferers are harmless. They revel in their own seeming brilliance, but their survival instinct allows them to accept ideas and input…especially if they think they prompted the ideas. Again, we’re not psychologists, but you should use some psychology here. Hey, if you are as smart as you think you are, this one should be easy!
-For those that are in the advanced and more dangerous stages of IRYW, this is truly a challenge. I have no qualms attempting to give my boss quality feedback, even if I’m politely telling her that she is an ass, but in these lean job times, many will shy away from that tactic. Either develop moral courage, developing a coping strategy or start looking.
-If this boss provides you latitude to do your work, stay out of his/her way, execute, provide clear, formal updates and if you face a controversial decision, ask for input. Your very professional demeanor may have a neutralizing affect (to some extent) and your asking for input is a reasonable form of managing upwards in this case.
If you as readers have any other advice, we’re all ears!
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Make no bones about it, my emphasis is on working with good people wanting to become great. The failing in all of the writing and talking about effective leadership is that the lousy leaders rarely pay attention and definitely don’t recognize themselves. To those non-readers, enjoy your life For those of you aspiring and growing as professionals, take this as a polite reminder that you don’t need to be right all of the time. If you suddenly finding everyone agreeing with you, you may want to phone a friend and ask for a quick attitude adjustment.
Leadership Caffeine-Learning to Lead in the Project-Focused World
Filed under: Career, Leadership, Leadership Skills, Management Education, Performance, Project Management, Your Professional Development "To Do" List
The rise of “the project” as an important means of competing and creating value has profound implications for those in leadership roles. Unfortunately, in many cases, the evolution in leadership practices has not kept pace with the needs of project teams or the needs of organizations struggling to develop competence at executing on projects.
Our traditional models of leadership emphasize the development of skills and practices that focus on individuals and teams generally operating under the umbrella of a single functional leader. However, firms moving towards a project-focused culture tend to start by overlaying a matrix form project management structure on top of the traditional functional orientation. This new and non-traditional environment offers a host of new problems and challenges for leaders used to being masters of their own domains.
As a sidebar, while the project management discipline is well established and the role of the formal project manager is growing in importance and popularity, both my own anecdotal evidence and the many reports and studies on project performance indicate that we’ve not yet cracked the code on managing projects for success. In my work as a consultant and as a project management educator at the graduate level, I have few qualms in suggesting that the majority of the organizations that attempt what I’ve described above…imposing a matrix format on a functional orientation, struggle and flounder with their projects. Leadership or the lack of appropriate leadership support is a key issue in project failure.
8 Suggestions for Leading and Succeeding Inside the Project Matrix
- First, recognize that the rules of the game have changed. Your mission is no longer about optimizing results within your functional boundaries. Your emphasis is on providing resources and support for teams that aren’t yours.
- You enhance your position by supplying the strongest possible talent for work on project teams, not by hoarding this talent for your own purposes. Pony up.
- Your talent development efforts must now incorporate the development of skills and experience working within the matrix. Translation: you need to help teach and develop individuals that are comfortable and competent working on multiple initiatives for multiple teams.
- From time to time, complex project challenges will require your functional area’s direct support for resolution. This is a time for you and your colleagues to shine. Run, don’t walk and offer your help.
- Be aware of fluctuations and perturbations in the matrix. The brunt of the stress and complexity falls on the people doing the work. Communication, problem-solving, negotiation and prioritization are all complex in a matrix environment, and you can help by stepping in and facilitating solution development. Your efforts to reduce stress and complexity will pay off in the form of increased team performance and improved project execution.
- Hug a project manager today. OK, maybe not literally, but it’s a great practice to reach out and cultivate a relationship with your firm’s project managers. These busy individuals are at the epicenter of a firm’s key initiatives and have a unique view on the challenges, opportunities and the organization’s talent pool. Plus, develop a good reputation for supporting the project managers and this will pay dividends when you are looking for support for initiatives that impact your area of responsibility.
- Leverage the emerging project environment to expand your reach and grow your career. Top management is looking for leaders that understand how to help make things happen in an increasingly complex and hostile global marketplace. Your active involvement and contribution to project team success will highlight that you’ve moved beyond yesterday’s approaches to leading.
- Master the role of project sponsor. If you are at the level where you are eligible to serve as a project sponsor, sign-on and do everything possible to help the project succeed. Don’t make the common mistake of viewing this role as a token or honorary position. Good sponsors work hard to support their project teams. And don’t forget the Kevlar vest for others outside your project team that will have plenty of reason to take aim should things go wrong. This is the time when great sponsors shine.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Never turn down an opportunity to enhance your leadership skills. The increasingly important project-orientation of organizations offers a myriad of opportunities for you to develop new skills and try on new approaches. You can remain stubborn and insist on leading from a functional view-point, but in this case, your view might just be from the back of the unemployment line. It’s time to enter the matrix.
Leadership Caffeine: Teach, Don’t Tell
Filed under: Career, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Leadership Skills, Performance, Talent Management, Your Professional Development "To Do" List
I discovered a long time ago that I was much more effective as a leader and as a father (a much harder job to get right!) if I adopted an approach that emphasized teaching over telling.
While there are circumstances where telling is appropriate…the battlefield, the operating room, perhaps the football field and a few others that I’m sure that I would think of if given enough time, most people prefer to learn, not to carry out orders.
Learning engages the senses, opens the mind, creates new neural connections and challenges us to push beyond our routine thoughts and actions.
Good leaders develop an approach that incorporates teaching while emphasizing performance. The two are not only, not mutually exclusive, they are complementary.
Consider:
- The sales manager that observes and coaches her sales representatives will win out every year over the manager that berates poor performers and then demands performance at the end of a metaphorical gun barrel.
- The CEO that consistently and respectfully asks tough strategic and execution questions is teaching his team members how to focus on the important issues of value creation and performance.
- The shop floor supervisor that asks for input on solving quality problems is teaching people that their ideas count when it comes to making improvements.
- The journeyman carpenter that teaches by showing and then leaving the apprentice alone to try the same task, is inspiring by showing confidence and encouraging independent effort.
5 Rules for Teaching Leaders to Live By:
- Recognize that the additional time investment that you make in teaching will come back to you in dividends many times over.
- Resist the urge to bark an order even if you know exactly what needs to be done.
- Use questions as powerful teaching tools.
- If you must “Tell,” provide an explanation. Proper context for a “do this” ensures that some learning takes place.
- Mistakes are teachable moments. Resist the urge to pounce and strive to help all parties extract the lessons.
And as a parent, try doubling or tripling the amount of time that you spend teaching and please resist the urge to pull out the infamous, “Because I said so.”
The Bottom-Line for Now:
The old model of command and control leadership falls on rebellious and increasingly deaf ears in a workplace of boomers reinventing themselves, millennials finding their way and all of us striving to deal with the new complexity that is our world. It’s time to step up and teach.
I am reminded of a comment attributed to the late and great jazz trumpeter and band leader, Maynard Ferguson, who devoted an incredible amount of time to teaching and inspiring aspiring band students around the country. While I’m certain that I’m grossly paraphrasing his comment, it went something like, Why would you do anything else, when you can teach? His band members of course referred to him as The Boss.
It’s time to quit telling and start teaching. Why not start today?
Embrace Ambiguity and Grow With It
Filed under: Career, Innovation, Leadership, Leadership Skills, Performance, Professional Growth, Your Professional Development "To Do" List
Another one of my nearly endless and on-going leadership experiments deals with ambiguity in all of its forms and fashions. Many of my exchanges sound like the following, where I annoyingly (to the questioner) dodge giving the answer.
“What do you think I should do?”
Me: “I don’t know, what do you think?”
“How do you want the presentation formatted?”
Me: “Format it so that it clearly communicates your key points.”
Same person: “How many pages should the report be?”
Me: “I don’t know. How many will it take to concisely and clearly communicate your key points?”
What should we do?”
Me: “I’m going to go get a cup of coffee. What are you going to do?”
My wife: “Where should we go out to eat?”
Me: “I don’t know honey, where would you like to go.”
OK, the last one usually doesn’t fly, but the other ones are all valid. These questions come from students and direct reports, and I’m willing to be that you hear variations of these from time to time as well.
Many people fear ambiguity and/or they don’t trust their own ability to create or solve a problem, so they respond with a question that delegates the thinking to someone else. That’s a bad habit, and if the workplace or college classrooms were refereed events, those “you do my thinking for me so I don’t have to be creative or take a risk” questions would be infractions.
The Power of Silence as a Teaching Tool:
One of my own favorite lessons in ambiguity occurred a few years ago in an executive workshop at Kellogg. It was day one of the program on “Reinventing Leadership,” and a group of executives ranging from Director to CEO had just concluded presenting the results of our first breakout and case. I noticed that the two instructors were fairly critical of the less than creative problem-solving and uninspired presentations, and after some coaching with an edge, they proceeded to the next case. We broke back out into our work groups and came back in the room to run the teach-backs, and this is where everything changed.
After the first few report-backs, the instructors quit responding. They sat there and glowered at the room in silence. No other groups were called and you can imagine the fidgeting and palpable increase in tension in the room. Several people tried asking questions and were met with stern, stone-faced glares.
After what seemed like an eternity, one CEO stood up and said, “This is B.S., I’ve got better things to do,” and grabbed his papers and jacket and started to leave. Another participant stopped him and said, “Let’s figure this out…don’t let these guys beat you.” That statement was the turning point.
Slowly people came to life and recognized that we were being played…deservedly so, for delivering uninspiring solutions to vexing issues in our cases, and that the message here was dig deeper and do better.
Instead of reverting to our prior work groups, a new social order emerged with several people taking charge, organizing work teams, clarifying the problems and objectives and others joined in to facilitate solutions. Before you know it, the room was humming with creativity as the instructors continued glaring at no one in particular. Basically, we ignored them.
The exercise continued as each new work group presented suggestions and through another round of integration of ideas, we came up with what we all agreed was an inspired, novel set of do-able solutions for the problems at hand. No instructor involvement required.
Now it was our turn. We all sat down and silently stared back at the instructors. And finally of course, they broke their vow of silence with big grins, apologies and their heartfelt praise. The lessons were powerful and plentiful from that example, not the least of which was how to turn brutal, crushing ambiguity (the silence) into a creative outcome. This week-long program continued with other powerful exercises, but none that left such a strong impression as the few hours of silence.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Whether you are a leader or a contributor, recognize that ambiguity is an invitation to pursue creativity. If you are fortunate enough to work for a boss that encourages free-thinking and that doesn’t mandate explicit compliance on tasks, take advantage of this environment to see what you are capable of creating. If you are the manager, quit answering these questions and teach people to think for themselves.
One of the joys of working is the opportunity to create and the benefits derived from the powerful learning experiences that accrue in the process. Quit asking, start thinking and you’ll surprise yourself.
Leadership Caffeine-Create Success by Managing Your Response to Failure
Filed under: Career, Crisis Leadership, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Leadership Skills, Management Education, Performance, Professional Growth, Talent Management, Your Professional Development "To Do" List
No one wants to fail. It’s not something that we typically seek out as part of our personal and organizational character building experience. However, from a distance, we tend to mythologize failure, especially in the context of achieving future success.
Run a web search on some phrases built around failure, and you’ll come up with quite a few reflecting a very true statement, “Failure is a teacher.” Our histories and leadership legends all benefit from the context of understanding the final outcome of the story, but the telling of the story doesn’t adequately capture the powerful emotional forces that occur at the moment of failure.
Certainly, the stories are right and the lessons instructional. They inspire us to persevere, but the failure-leading to-success legends don’t guide us how to respond and cope in the moment.
In my own experience (personal and as a leader supporting others), the moment of failure is filled with a swirl of emotions ranging from anger to frustration to a deep depression-like funk. In particular, for individuals that have experienced only success in life and career, and yes there are those that enjoy mostly charmed existences due to their skills and perhaps some good fortune, the moment of failure feels much like being transported to an alien landscape where suddenly everything is not as it should be.
As a leader seeking to help team members through a dark point in time, or perhaps dealing personally with your own failure disorientation, here are a number of suggestions to help light the way.
Five Ideas to Help You and Your Team Members Cope with a Setback:
1. Speed is of the essence. The faster you can help everyone move from “what just happened?” to “what next?” the faster you pass through the cold, alien landscape of failure. Linger too long on an extended self-pity party and you might as well set up camp and become a permanent resident. Your goal must be to move through this phase or process in a hurry.
2. Don’t get caught up in blaming the world. Does it really help to blame everything and everyone else for the failure? Once again, attempt to move quickly to “what next?” or you risk an extended stay in the land where “yelling into and shaking your fist at the wind” is a national pastime. It might feel good for a moment, but eventually, it’s just dumb.
3. Beat yourself with a wet noodle and move on! If the failure is personal, resist the urge to blame your lack of ability. The destructive “I’m not smart enough/good enough” mentality likes to attach itself to your frontal lobe and take root, ensuring a growing problem with self-doubt. Instead, admit that you made mistakes, that you failed to exert enough effort to properly see or deal with the issue and once again, jump on the “OK, I won’t make those mistakes again…what next?” train.
4. Failures are often not performance problems. Don’t confuse the two Leader, please don’t make failure a punishable offense. Individual or team failures are different than performance problems and you should treat them as such. Too many leaders allow untreated performance issues to infect team environments, and then they attack the team, not the root cause of the underperformer. Don’t misdiagnose and mistreat here or the failure disease will spread.
5. Your time and asking the right questions will help your team members start moving forward. For individual failures, it is essential for you to create some one-on-one time and allow the failure/grieving process to unfold. Your role here is to listen and ask questions such as:
- What went wrong?
- What did you learn?
- How can you prevent this from recurring?
- What are your ideas for moving forward?
- How can I help?
Remember to set a follow-up discussion to ensure that the individual is back on track and focus on the challenges looking forward instead of the issues that are increasingly distant in the rear-view mirror.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Dealing with adversity is one of the core challenges of the leader. Developing a coping strategy for yourself and your team is essential for success. The legends and myths of failure are right…they do provide critical learning opportunities and teachable moments. Nonetheless, the fact that you or your team members are benefitting from one of these “priceless” moments offers little help or comfort at the moment of failure. Understanding how to leverage the emotions and the energy of the situations will help you create your own legends and examples. It will also reduce the unhealthy fear of failure that stifles so much creativity.
You don’t have to embrace or smile at failure. Instead, kick it in the teeth and use the emotional energy to propel you and your team forward.
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