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.
I’m re-reading Tom Kelley’s outstanding book, “The Ten Faces of Innovation,” based on his experience with design firm IDEO, and came across his wonderful use of the phrase Vuja De (the opposite of that feeling we call Déjà vu) in the chapter on acting as an anthropologist to observe people’s true behavior. With apologies to Yogi Berra for borrowing and twisting his classic phrase, “It’s Deja Vu all over again,” a little Vuja De in your daily leadership life might just be the prescription to turbocharge team and individual performance.
In my opinion, Deming has never been irrelevant as a management philosopher, teacher and advisor, but our fast-moving, idol-for-a-minute, fad-crazed modern culture, we’re quick to write off those thinkers and doers from prior eras as yesterday’s relics…interesting perhaps, but irrelevant.
The term and concept of “loyalty” is one that is frequently bandied about in phrases that sound much like, “there is no longer any loyalty to workers,” and “few workers admit any feelings of loyalty to their employers.” The term is also used to contrast today’s transactional workplace relationships with the supposed near utopian state of yesteryear, when our parents and grandparents started at one company early in their lives and ended up retiring from that company 40 years later. The concept of “loyalty” in the workplace is in need of a makeover, complete with a new definition and fresh examples of what constitute reasonable and professional levels of loyalty for and from all parties.
As leaders, we all know that it’s the little things that count. A word of encouragement might just be rocket fuel for one person while a constructive suggestion serves as the same for another. Alternatively, ignoring or paying superficial attention to a topic that an employee deems important is a guaranteed way to demoralize and deflate a person.
Thanks to Mark Bennett and the great people at Talented Apps for hosting the February, 2010 Leadership Development Carnival. Take a stroll through the Carnevale di Venezia Edition (you’ll have to click over to understand the creative tie-in to the Carnival in Venice) and check out some truly intriguing, inspiring and compelling posts from bloggers old and new. OK, instead of old, perhaps I should say familiar!
One of the recurring themes in my writing and teaching activities is the importance of blending the generations in the workplace. I’ve been a cheerleader for this cause for the past few years and I truly believe that good managers everywhere must find opportunities to leverage the unique perspectives of experience, pragmatism and idealism available from this fascinating mix of time travelers. I’ve now moved beyond my polite encouragement for managers to find ways to adapt and cope with what seem to be the foreign habits and foreign viewpoints emanating from the more youthful in the workforce. It’s time to get serious about learning and benefitting from this younger generation.
For anyone that caught the special tribute aired recently on 60 Minutes to the late Don Hewitt, the show’s creator, you will recognize the four words, “Tell me a story,” as Hewitt’s self-described secret to success for this now 40-something year old news magazine. In support of his “tell me a story” mantra, one of Hewitt’s fascinating insights and in his opinion, a secret to the show’s remarkable success was (I paraphrase) that people don’t want to hear about issues, they want to hear the stories of individuals impacted by the issues. There’s a subtle but profound lesson for all of us in life and in business in his messages.
Without exception, the healthiest businesses that I work with are those that offer a workplace environment and atmosphere that encourages a free-flow of ideas ranging from outlandish to “I can’t believe we didn’t think of that before.” It is the part of the natural culture of the firm to think in terms of “What if?” and “Why not?” Alternatively, the less than healthy firms that I encounter share many failure attributes, including a complete dearth of creativity and visible creativity-inducing practices and processes. What should you do if you are called upon to help jump-start the creativity culture where the creative processes have gone into deep-freeze?
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. 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.
