Randy Cantrell is the founder of Bula Network, LLC - an executive leadership advisory company helping leaders leverage the power of others through peer advantage, online peer advisory groups. Interested in joining us? Visit ThePeerAdvantage.com
Innovation in the workplace has been a hot topic during my entire career. It accelerated when the digital age arrived, but it was present long before that. Some of us are old enough to remember a time when our businesses operated with manual, handwritten spreadsheets, telephones and postal service mail. Facsimile machines arrived and suddenly communication got faster. Computers arrived and with it a piece of software called VisiCalc, the first electronic spreadsheet. That made every act of accounting – including inventory control and payroll – faster!
Technical innovation has built up speed all along the way. Today, it’s coming at such a rate of speed we likely need super-computers to measure it. The resulting avalanche of data has drastically increased the stress in the workplace. Every executive I know complains of being overwhelmed more often than not. Keeping up wasn’t always the biggest concern of leaders, but it is today.
Simultaneously, many leaders complain about a lack of innovation in their workplace. The pace, they claim, prevents it. “We’re moving so fast and furious there’s no time to consider improvement or innovation,” said one executive. “Besides, we’re afraid if we slow down enough to consider there might be a better way that we’ll just fall further behind.”
Not all that long ago I released an episode of my Leaning Toward Wisdom podcast where I talked about the damage of “the hack.” We’re focused on short-cuts and recipes. So much so, that I fear we rob ourselves of giving our work a chance to be great. But great is often the result of taking the time to innovate.
At home many people tell me they’re working hard to figure out a better way.
Doesn’t that seem odd? Busy moms and dads are often driven to figure out some things – to innovate – at home because of the blistering pace. Yet, that same pace at work stymies innovation.
Dig deeper and there may be some obvious reasons. Two of them actually: bosses and results.
At work we’ve got bosses. Even the bosses have bosses. And everything is measured, especially in high performance organizations. Employees, even executives (especially executives), are driven to knock out that to-do-list, produce results, finish projects, start new projects and keep pushing in a “mush-mush” world. No rest for the weary. No time to consider if what we’re doing might be done in a more efficient or improved way. It’s the pressure of the workplace.
The pressures at home are different. It’s less about performance and more about efficiency. Get the shopping done. Pick up the dry cleaning. Clean the house. Wash the clothes. Take the kids to school. Life is a never-ending series of to-do-lists. It’s about accomplishment, not performance. So the innovation is geared mostly toward getting things done faster, or with greater efficiency. “If I swing by the dry cleaners on my way to the pharmacy, I can avoid that road construction on my way back home.” At home innovation often takes the form of mapping out geographical and time navigation!
The paradox is that busyness is driving both behaviors. At work, it’s clogging up the innovation. At home, it’s forcing it to happen.
The result is we’re getting more done. We have to. But are we doing great work? Are we building better businesses? More importantly, are we building better homes (better marriages, better environments for our children to thrive)?
Innovation isn’t about change. It’s about improvement. It’s about taking the time to ask – and answer – the question, “What if —?”
What if we spent more time having meaningful conversations with our spouse?
What if we turned off the TV and all the electronic devices, and asked our spouse what we could do to be a better husband/wife?
What if we established non-negotiable standards in our homes? Those things that matter the most to us!
What if we took the time to consider our short-term future, and actually tried to map out a strategy to get us there? What if we decided to do more than hope our future would be better than our past?
What if we took more time to ask more “What if?” questions, and what if we took the time to come up with good answers to those questions?
At the heart of all innovation is the two word question: What if…?
Innovation is really nothing more than improvement. For all of us – personally – it’s about giving ourselves the very best opportunity to be the people we know we should be. The power to be our best.
There you sit. Alone. Pondering the problems of the day. And the week. To say nothing of the quarterly performance worries.
Your organization’s performance hinges on lots of people. You stare at the ceiling tiles in your office and think of the various functions in your organization. Finance. Marketing. HR. Operations. Sales. Most days you never stop to think about all the moving parts and how they have to work almost perfectly to get it all done. But today isn’t one of those days. It’s one of THOSE days. A lonely at the top day.
Your gut is telling you all the right stuff, but that’s only because you remember being a young leader who made the mistake of sharing too much. Sharing the strains of your leadership with your direct reports — that’s a mistake you know all too well because you used to do it until an older, wiser head warned you about how destructive that could be to your people. You can still remember the day when he confronted you about it. “It’s not fair to them,” he said. You hadn’t considered that until he taught you. You felt better venting to them, but he was absolutely right…it wasn’t fair to them. It was just one of the many leadership lessons you had to learn. He told you it was “leadership courage” because it meant doing the hard things that would best serve your people.
But right now, sitting alone in your office, you’re sure wishing there were an easier way. Some way you could bring in a few of your most trusted people and just spill your guts about these worries. But you don’t. And that makes you feel even more lonely.
Part of you feels like a hypocrite because you’re constantly preaching teamwork. Just the other day you called in one of your top leaders who has 3 very capable direct reports. She was trying to pull all the weight alone and you had to coach her to “lean on your people and give them an opportunity.” Now, part of you is feeling like maybe you’re making the same mistake — but that’s your emotional heart talking in your ear and you know it’s different for you. This time.
Some problems are “rally the troops” problems. Not this one. This is one of those play your cards close to your vest kind of problems. Your head is telling you the right thing – keep this to yourself and figure it out. It’s the loneliness of being at the top. With the authority, power and prestige comes lots of loneliness. You signed on for it though so there’s no time to feel sorry for yourself.
But the weight is still there. Hovering on top of your shoulders like a bar bell filled with weights.
How do leaders handle the stress of this kind of loneliness? Like the punchline to a joke…I could say, “Very carefully.” But, there are some more serious answers to consider.
These answers can serve to help any lonely leader better cope with the stress and understand why loneliness is sometimes ideal for your work.
Okay, the title of today’s episode might be slightly misleading, but I didn’t intend it that way. It’s not really about avoiding the loneliness of leadership. It’s more about the realities of loneliness and why you should embrace them.
It’s Good For Your People
You want to be among the very best leaders, right? Of course you do. Leaders come in a variety of positions. There are team leaders, executives, supervisors and all sorts in between. Some have many direct reports. Some have one. None of that matters because it’s still lonely at the top of the leadership ladder. Whoever you are, whomever you serve — you want to be a high performer.
High performance leaders always serve their people. Decisions are made to maintain the healthiest organization possible. It doesn’t mean great leaders serve the individual, personal best interests of every single person because they can’t. Sometimes the best decision is to eliminate a position. You can’t hang your hat on that decision being the best for the person who holds that position because it’s not. But if it’s the best thing for the organization and the overall performance, then you have to do it. Those are difficult decisions that a great leader will make even in the face of knowing they’re putting somebody out of work. However, the great leader will still try to serve that soon-to-be displaced employee.
I’ve terminated managers before and in the process dug more deeply into ways I can help him land on their feet. It’s not because I’m altruistic. It’s because it’s just the right thing to do when you can.
The courage required to face down your fears is B-I-G. Make no mistake about it. Loneliness is a fear. It’ll suck you down the road of over-sharing if you let it. You’ve got to have courage to refuse the urge because it’s unfair to your people to burden them with something beyond their ability to handle. You’ll over share if you stop thinking of them though, and keep all the attention on poor, pitiful YOU.
I’m not talking about keeping your people in the dark about things they should know, or things they can help you with. I’m talking about things that you might share with them followed by, “…but that’s not your problem…I’m going to have to figure this out.” Too many leaders utter those words to their people. Far too many keep on uttering them. Why weigh down your people with something they can’t possibly help you with, and something that might only serve to distract them from their work? Or make them worry unnecessarily?
It’s not about nobility. It’s about service. Serving your organization. Serving your people. Protecting your people. Your leadership role is no different than the motto used by police all over the nation – To Protect And Serve.
It’s Good For The Process Of Improving
Improvement often stems from thoughtful consideration. In spite of all the hoopla on collaboration there’s a time when sitting alone in quiet contemplation works. Too often leaders are rushed from one meeting to another, from one text message to the next and from one conversation into another one. Every leader I know complains about not having enough margin in their life. Some want more white space on their calendar to coach their rising stars. Others want more margin so they can better prepare for the most important meetings. Still others want the white space so they can just “mange by walking around.”
Loneliness is represented by the white space on your calendar. It may not be utilized with quiet though — and that’s a mistake. You’re not embracing the loneliness of leadership if you sit alone in your office plugged into every web-based group think vehicle available. Twitter. Facebook. Reddit. Mashable. Business Insider. Pick your poison. It really doesn’t matter. Blogs, social media networks, aggregators and even podcasts take away your margin. They diminish your loneliness, which is why we all rush to them when we’re alone. Fearful we’ll miss something…we plug into the rest of the world and tune out our own thoughts and feelings.
Even people who claim to enjoy being alone (and I count myself among them), admit they’re not rarely quietly alone. As I type this I’m sitting inside The Yellow Studio. The radio is on a local sports talk radio station talking about the Cowboys running back DeMarco Murray going to Philadelphia. The flat panel TV is on – with the sound down – tuned to ESPN where there’s lots of talk about Murray going to Philadelphia. Over on the monitor to my right is a Tweeter client showing at least 4 columns of various content. Apple iTunes is open to my music library and I’ve got a pair headphones on my left ear only listening to some Hayes Carll tunes. And like Eric Carmen, I could sing, “All by myself…” You can relate. Sometimes it’s noisiest when we’re alone!
Okay, I’ve now turned off the TV. I’ve shut down iTunes. Sports talk radio is still playing ’cause I’m afraid I’ll miss the official announcement about Murray leaving Dallas. Now, prepare yourself for the real shocker that will prove how crazy we can all behave. I honestly don’t care one bit who Murray plays for next year. Sure, I’m a fan of the Dallas Cowboys, but only because I live here. I’m an Oklahoma Sooner football fan – where Murray played – and I still don’t care. But something in my brain compels me to listen for fear the news announcement will come and I won’t hear it in real time.
Don’t laugh. You do the same thing. We busy ourselves even when we have white space on our calendar. We say we want to do this or that – and the this or that is always something valuable or profitable – but when we have time, we avoid doing it. Instead, we do something less important, or less urgent. If you don’t do this, then keep it to yourself ’cause you’re more special than the rest of us. We battle these things. And thanks to Apple and other technology companies we’re losing the battle. I’m talking to you, iPhone. And you, too, iPad. And you, iTunes. All you “I” things are making me take my EYE off the more important things, sometimes.
Okay, I’ve shut down the radio. It’s all quiet now. And just like that, I find myself now with my thoughts. And this keyboard. And this post – this podcast. I’m suddenly thinking more seriously about the value loneliness can play in leadership IF it’s properly applied. And if we’ll stop to think of it for what it can do to serve us better.
Find what works for you. But make it quiet physically and mentally. I’ll share with you some things have worked for me through the years.
1. Turn the lights down. Or off. I don’t mean complete darkness, but turn off those florescent overhead lights. Pull down the shades over your windows. Turn on a lamp.
That warmer light helps quieten my mind down. And it happens pretty quickly for me, likely the result of years of practice.
2. Turn off anything that makes noise. I’m fond of white noise. When I sleep, I’ve got to have it. But when I’m embracing leadership loneliness, no noise is best. Even a ticking clock will drive me batty. Nothing will bring out a hammer faster than a ticking clock. I will beat a noisy clock to death quicker than you can say, New York second.”
3. Look up. I can’t explain it, but there’s a distinct difference in my mental state when I look down on the desk versus when I look up at the ceiling or toward the ceiling. Weird, huh? I know, but maybe life is metaphorically telling me something when I look up. When you’re facing a problem, or a challenge, or a decision – you want things to look up. So you may as well get things started by doing it yourself.
You’ve got to figure out what works best for you, but I can tell you right now — whatever you’ve been trying has probably not worked well for you. Not unless you’ve given some concerted effort to embracing being alone with your thoughts.
We form habits that work for us on some level, but foil our improvement in others. One of my more recent favorite books is entitled, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Curry. The book chronicles the daily habits of creatives from the past and present. It’s done sort of in catalog fashion listing the person, followed by a page or two of how they went about their daily business. I find myself picking it up pretty regularly to just open a page and read of a few different people. The interesting thing you quickly find is that there’s not a single way to creativity. Nor is there a single path to being productive or being an effective leader. You have to not only find out what works for you, but you have to find out what works for your organization — because as a leader, your work impacts many other people.
Thinking time matters. And that’s the point. Drawing on your past experiences, your convictions, your philosophy and your intuition can flow more easily if you’re not looking outside yourself for every answer. There comes a time in every leader’s life – perhaps many times every week – when we just need time to think about our best course of action. Don’t rob yourself of that value found in loneliness.
It’s Good For Your Well Being
Let’s be selfish for a minute. Being alone is good for you. With all the demands on your time and with everybody tugging at you, it’s good to embrace the selfishness of being lonely, sometimes.
When I was a 25-year-old General Manager I was running a subsidiary of a larger company. The CEO of the parent company was about 10 years older and I really liked working for him. One day I was at the company’s headquarters (a different location than my offices). I was visiting with some folks in accounting and other people. I swung by the CEO’s office to stick my head in. The door was open, the lights were off. It was completely dark. I peeked in and say, “Dan?” He wheeled his chair around facing the doorway and I could see he was sitting there in complete darkness. I noticed a letter opener in his hand. I asked, “What you doing sitting in the dark?” He answered, “I’m contemplating suicide with this letter opener.” And we both laughed. I had caught my boss in a moment of loneliness. Leadership loneliness with a letter opener. A few years later Dan was killed in a car accident. It was a long time ago, but today I think of Dan every time I pick up a letter opener. A CEO sitting in the dark embracing a moment of loneliness.
You need time to exhale. Or inhale. Preferably both. It’s good for you to disconnect and just let your mind float to wherever it needs to go. Even before my days with Dan I had grown fond of using darkness. For as long as I can remember I’ve never used the overhead lighting in an office. I’m a fan of lamps. With bulbs that have a warm color temperature.
Good music and headphones plus darkness. That’s my personal recipe. You can mix up your own, but it’s important to go somewhere else in your mind. It’s a brain vacation without mind impairment. There’s a reason so many leaders, especially hard charging ones, are attracted to alcohol and drugs. The tension, stress and pressure of leadership must be released. Find a profitable, non-destructive outlet. I’m advising you to find moments while you’re at work. Sometimes 10 minutes is long enough. Sometimes you need an hour. Or two. Do it and don’t feel badly about it. Do it for yourself.
It’s lonely at the top. It’s necessarily lonely because the buck stops with you. It’s also lonely because as the head of your organization you’re driving. Only one person can drive. It’s the responsibility of the driver to get everybody to the destination safely.
Sometimes you want to roll down the road with ZZ TOP blaring through the sound system. Other times you want everybody to just shut up. The driver needs what the driver needs in order to navigate safely and successfully.
Embrace the tools of loneliness and you’ll be a more effective leader.
The most mundane businesses can exemplify high creativity. A plumber dispatches immaculately clean trucks, with crisply uniformed technicians (plumbers) who don booties before entering your house. Two hours earlier you called them – or maybe you visited their website. Your choice. After briefly describing your problem and giving them your location, you provided them with your cell phone so they could text you 30 minutes before their arrival. The experience infuriates you. Not at the plumber, but at all the other service providers who neglect this level of creativity. Your TV service provider. Your Internet provider. They all may as well arrive in a covered wagon compared to this plumber because they are so inept at being creative.
Wait a minute. You’re thinking, “That’s not creativity. That’s customer service.”
What’s the difference? What are the limitations of creativity?
I first learned creativity in business as a teenage hi-fi salesman. You may not think of it as creativity, but I knew firsthand the power of it.
A shopper enters the store looking for a pair of loudspeakers. We visit and I find out the type of music they love. “What’s your favorite record?” I ask. They tell me. I sit them down in a sound room – back when we had hi-fi stores and sound rooms – as I fetch their favorite record. I handle it as though it were a gem, because it is. To them. I carefully place the record on the turntable, manually clean it and gently lower the stylus into the groove. Then I turn up the volume, slightly higher than most people are used to. I say nothing. This experience – their favorite record coupled with a system unlike anything they’ve heard before – is captivating. Enthralling.
Where’s the creativity?
First, it’s in the thought process that compelled me to develop this simple process. Creativity is lost because of mindlessness. People act without thinking. Salespeople do it. Engineers do it. Accountants do it. Attorneys do it. Everybody does it ever now and again. Some more than others. Rote procedures foil creativity because we don’t think about “tricking it up.” Or we don’t think it needs to be tricked up. Why change? Why not change? I prefer to insert the word “improve” where others like the word “change.” That act of creativity changes everything because now the focus isn’t on simply changing for whatever reason, but it’s on improving. Who doesn’t want improvement?
Next, the creativity was in asking the shopper about their favorite record. Back in the 70’s when I was on a hi-fi sales floor nearly all the salespeople had their favorite tracks on records. Tracks they felt could really show off what a system could do. I was into music. I knew music was emotional. I knew songs were personal because everybody I knew – including myself – had certain feelings when specific songs were played. By asking, “What’s your favorite record?” I knew I’d get an honest answer. Come on, it’s a hi-fi store! Nobody ever said, “Well, I don’t know. I don’t really have a favorite record.” Everybody who came in had a favorite record.
The creativity was in my focus on their experience, not my own. It didn’t matter if I hated their favorite record. When the store was empty I could play whatever I wanted, but this was their moment. While I was looking for the record I’d engage them and find out why this was their favorite record. People love to tell the stories of the music in their life. Songs and albums have meaning to people – they did in the 70’s for sure. Everybody loved to talk about their favorite music. I gave them an opportunity to talk out loud about it. It also gave me some insight about the music in their life. Heavy rock fans loved lots of bass. Classical music lovers loved a more flat sound. That gave me insight about not only what products to show them, but how to adjust any system I played for them.
There was also creativity in the presentation of the music. It started the moment I removed the vinyl from the album sleeve. I never touched anything other the very edges of the album with my outstretched palms or fingertips. Yes, it had technical merits of keeping the oil of your skin off the vinyl, but it also showed the average shopper who likely didn’t handle their vinyl properly…how to do it right! It was part presentation, part education.
Cleaning the record served the same 2 purposes, along with making sure the record was as clean as possible for the best sound. Besides, it gave me an opportunity to educate customers in proper record care while allowing me to sell them an accessory that would protect their record investment.
The whole thing was genuine and intentional. It all served a purpose other than to put on a show. The value provided was real and authentic. In the end, a memorable experience was the goal.
Creativity is lost in the sea of averageness. Stealing ideas. Copycatting. Following the template created by others. Following the leader. They’re all the crap of lost creativity.
Creativity is lost in lethargy. Laziness. That’s part of the reason for all the copycatting, but when I’m thinking of laziness I’m thinking of people who just don’t think. The company that answers the phone the same idiotic way they always have because nobody is thinking about it. The retailer whose people all use the same greeting to every shopper, “Can I help you?”
How hard would it be to rethink that? Not hard at all, but it would take more effort than to just fly every day on auto-pilot. It would require a leader willing to ask a very hard question, “How could we do this better?”
Creativity may be lost – in part – due to the fear of leadership. Maybe leaders are afraid to open up a can of worms by asking the questions creativity demands. Maybe they’re afraid nothing else will work as well as the status quo. Maybe they’re afraid the front line people will have an idea better than theirs.
Creativity may be lost due to distraction. We’re not improving things because we’re not paying attention to the right things at the right time. Todd Pedersen, CEO and Founder of Vivint, Inc. was recently featured on CBS’ Undercover Boss. Part of his undercover work involved spending time in the call center where he discovered the equipment was dreadful. Call center employees couldn’t even hear all the customers calling in. Oh, by the way, Vivint is a home security company! Being able to communicate with customers on the phone is critical. He had no idea the equipment was a problem until he went undercover.
So it goes. Creativity gives way to the ordinary, everyday activities that never seem to unearth the real problems that stymie our success. It’s the vast marketing budget and activities of companies like DirecTV when customers would be absolutely dazzled with simplified pricing. Or a better customer experience when they encounter a problem. It’s the small, no account budget of a solopreneur who gets VistaPrint business cards, but can’t embrace enough weirdness to use them in a creative way.
Big business. Small business. We all suffer the loss of creativity…sometimes. Some of us are chronic sufferers.
Time to find it again. Or for the first time.
Step 1 – Stop.
Forget what others are doing. Forget what you’re currently doing. Just hit the PAUSE button. I’m not saying to stop doing business. It’s more mental than physical. Well, it can be. Stop doing what you’ve always done simply because you’re assuming it’s working well enough. Stop thinking all is well. Stop thinking there are no better ways. Stop living in complacency. Stop being satisfied. Stop thinking things will never be better. Or stop thinking things will always be terrific. Stop.
Step 2 – Think.
Questions are your friends when it comes to embracing creativity. Ask questions. Lots of questions. Ask every question you can think of. The obvious ones. The not-so-obvious ones. And all the ones in between.
Then answer them. Get your team together. Wrestle them down. Take whatever time is necessary to find the best answers to your best questions.
Step 3 – Be Fearless.
Try things. Creativity guarantees only one thing – the prospect of failure. You can’t let that outweigh the prospect of wild success. Or even moderate success.
What if it fails? I’m not saying risk the whole company on one wild idea, but if you insist on a culture of playing it safe you’ll wind up broke and out of business. Radio Shack is dying. They were once a Ft. Worth, Texas institution. Not any more. They lost their way, but they join a long list of consumer electronics titans that are now gone. If you tell me creativity is risky I’ll argue not having it is far riskier!
Go in knowing some things may not work. The lessons you and your team can learn will be worth the failure though. Your fearlessness will foster greater creativity and the reflexes of your team will improve. Some of the best creative successes will come from adjustments made out of a failure. Post-It Notes by 3M is a famous example. This is what Wikipedia says:
In 1968, a scientist at 3M in the United States, Dr. Spencer Silver, was attempting to develop a super-strong adhesive. Instead he accidentally created a “low-tack”, reusable, pressure-sensitive adhesive. For five years, Silver promoted his “solution without a problem” within 3M both informally and through seminars but failed to gain acceptance. In 1974 a colleague who had attended one of his seminars, Art Fry, came up with the idea of using the adhesive to anchor his bookmark in his hymnbook. Fry then utilized 3M’s officially sanctioned “permitted bootlegging” policy to develop the idea. The original notes’ yellow color was chosen by accident, as the lab next-door to the Post-it team had only yellow scrap paper to use.
3M launched the product as “Press ‘n Peel” in stores in four cities in 1977, but results were disappointing. A year later 3M instead issued free samples directly to consumers in Boise, Idaho, with 94 percent of those who tried them indicating they would buy the product. On April 6, 1980, “Press ‘n Peel” was re-introduced in US stores as “Post-It Notes”. The following year they were launched in Canada and Europe.
In 2003, the company came out with “Post-it Brand Super Sticky Notes”, with a stronger glue that adheres better to vertical and non-smooth surfaces.
Until 3M’s patent expired in the 1990s, post-it type notes were produced only in the company’s plant in Cynthiana, Kentucky.
Try nothing and you’re sure to fail. Try something new – something creative – and you’re certain to learn something. And it must might work the first time out. If not, you’ll have something to work with, something you can then try to refine and improve.
Step 4 – Don’t Retreat.
Working up the courage to be fearless at first is one thing. Maintaining the courage is harder.
Some lessons are so costly they’re priceless. I used to hear horror stories of retail buyers who made colossally poor decisions. Every now and again you’d hear somebody remark that the buyer wasn’t fired because the executives in charge felt it was such an expensive lesson they couldn’t afford to terminate the guy. Those stories made sense to me, even if they were somewhat fictionalized. I mean, if a guy bought something for say $150,000 and the rate of sale was so poor that the margins were a negative number, resulting in a net loss of $100,000 — it seems sensible to me to view the buyer as now having had a $100K lesson. Sure, it assumes he’s competent and capable and just tried something that didn’t work out very well. How do you suppose he’ll vet the next buying opportunity? More carefully perhaps. But he could also be subjected to his own loss of courage. If that mistakes creates a new tentative nature, he’ll be fired for sure.
Courage in the face of failure has to be maintained and fostered. Winners don’t retreat. They regroup and come back.
Step 5 – Celebrate The Process.
If creativity isn’t part of your organization’s culture it’s likely because the price tag is deemed too high to pay. People are afraid to be creative because leadership values the status quo too much. Or they value the safe outcome too much to innovate.
Creativity is a process, not an outcome. Everybody wants to celebrate the successful outcome. That’s easy. But that’s not where creativity’s magic is found. It’s in the process of being creative.
Celebrate that and you’ll stand out from the crowd. When your team rolls the dice on a well-crafted creative plan celebrate it. Do it before you even know if it works. Do it even if it fails. Do it if it works. Foster more creativity by making sure the team knows you value the process. It’s that process that’ll help you achieve new heights of accomplishment. It’s the fuel for your team to rise above the fray, too.
The same excitement I saw in the shopper hearing the details of their favorite record for the first time on a stereo system unlike anything they’d heard before is the same excitement I see in team members lead by a person who loves creativity. They’re alive and thrilled to do the work. It’s a unique experience they want to keep having over and over again. Give them the celebration of the process and watch them soar. Then you can sit back and take credit for having been the leader who made it all possible.
Today’s episode is a “free form” discussion about competition. I’m preparing a full-blown episode on the topic, but today I wanted to dive in, give you a taste and solicit your feedback. Let me know what you think. Thanks for listening!
Max’s dad trying to talk him into joining the soccer game.
Max is my oldest grandson. A few years ago he thought he’d like to give soccer a try. He thought wrong. I recorded the story of his fear and some lessons I learned back in April 2011. I’m posting it here today because fear is a timeless subject.
For a good long while Max’s dad and I both tried – together and independently – to get him to join the other kids on the field. This kid’s fear was real and it was working furiously to keep him off the field. He simply couldn’t withstand it even though he saw all the other kids enjoying chasing the ball all over the field.
Regardless of our age, fear is a powerful force that gets in our way. Max’s encounter on a spring Saturday a few years ago taught me some things.
It’s about four-thirty on an ordinary work day afternoon. I sit down at a computer terminal on a desk of an office worker. It’s not my desk, but it’s the closest unoccupied computer terminal. I need to check something in the system. The system is already logged on by a user so there’s no need for me to log in. Within seconds a message pops up alerting this particular user of a new inter-office message. I hit return to get rid of the pop up message because that’s my habit. Of course, I’m almost always on my own log in, but not now. When I hit return it opens the message. Right away I’m conflicted wishing I hadn’t seen it, but glad I did.
It’s a sexually explicit message between co-workers. I don’t know they’re even dating, much less involved in some inter-office romance that has crept into our professional environment. It’s graphic. I’m certain I blushed. And I’m sitting at this desk alone. Knowing what I have to do.
Within 30 minutes I’ve got a person sitting in front of me, alone in my office. I’ve printed out the message. And a few more just like it from an earlier date…all from the terminal I was sitting at. I know who the recipient of the message was and who the sender was because every employee has their own unique login (user name and password). In front of me sits the sender.
I hand over the printed copies without saying a word. The sender’s head drops. Profuse apologies follow. I purposefully allow the tension to build and hang in the air. I know it’s a terribly embarrassing circumstance. For both of us. I embrace it knowing that I have to correct this behavior, but also knowing that this person is a very good employee. I’ve no intention of terminating this person. Or the recipient, another high performing employee. But nobody knows this except me. Not yet anyway.
I express my disappointment and disapproval. I want this person to feel ashamed. It’s working. I resist the urge to make this easy on either of us. It’s a serious infraction and I need to embrace the gravity of the situation so they will. Within 15 minutes it’s over. I’m convinced it will not happen again. Ever. And like a compassionate leader should, I also embrace the notion that I will never speak of this again. I don’t. I forget about it and move on, refusing to allow it to dampen my enthusiasm for two employees who have a proven track record of high performance.
I sit alone in my office after it’s over and lean back in my chair. Big exhale. Relief that it’s over, but I know this “couple” is going to be fretting about it for a good long while. Their embarrassment will likely be felt forever. I’m happy about that. That’s how it should be.
But I’m also thankful that I sat down at that terminal. It gave me the opportunity to serve these employees. And to be discreet about it. What if it had been somebody else who had seen that message. My hand might have been forced to get rid of these employees. Sometimes it’s a very thin line that separates good fortune from bad.
Sitting down and having that talk was important. Being candid…well, there just wasn’t any other option. This wasn’t the time to mealy mouth around. It was time for honest conversation.
Leadership always comes back around to being honest and candid. The other day as I sat with a fairly young leader discussing a variety of challenges, I mentioned a story – and old book – that I knew was well before her time, The Abilene Paradox and other Meditations On Management by Jerry B. Harvey. The copyright is 1988, but Mr. Harvey first published his Abilene paradox story back in the mid-70’s. You can click here to download a free PDF of the Abilene paradox (not the entire book).
Here’s how Wikipedia summaries the paradox…
On a hot afternoon visiting in Coleman, Texas, the family is comfortably playing dominoes on a porch, until the father-in-law suggests that they take a trip to Abilene [53 miles north] for dinner. The wife says, “Sounds like a great idea.” The husband, despite having reservations because the drive is long and hot, thinks that his preferences must be out-of-step with the group and says, “Sounds good to me. I just hope your mother wants to go.” The mother-in-law then says, “Of course I want to go. I haven’t been to Abilene in a long time.”
The drive is hot, dusty, and long. When they arrive at the cafeteria, the food is as bad as the drive. They arrive back home four hours later, exhausted.
One of them dishonestly says, “It was a great trip, wasn’t it?” The mother-in-law says that, actually, she would rather have stayed home, but went along since the other three were so enthusiastic. The husband says, “I wasn’t delighted to be doing what we were doing. I only went to satisfy the rest of you.” The wife says, “I just went along to keep you happy. I would have had to be crazy to want to go out in the heat like that.” The father-in-law then says that he only suggested it because he thought the others might be bored.
The group sits back, perplexed that they together decided to take a trip which none of them wanted. They each would have preferred to sit comfortably, but did not admit to it when they still had time to enjoy the afternoon.
The story powerfully, but simply illustrates the breakdown in group communications. There are lots of things going on here. There’s fear of being the odd man out. There’s fear of saying what you really think, or feel. There’s fear of contradicting the person with the idea. There’s reluctance to speak out. Blah, blah, blah. Every issue boils down to fear of being honest and candid. Management brainiacs have long studied group dynamics and “group think.” Honestly, I don’t care about that crap. I care about somebody whose willing to serve. A real leader!
But there is something very powerful in the story because it clearly addresses something business people have probably all experienced — timid group behavior where people may likely be thinking the same thing, but nobody says anything. Have you ever broached a subject at work, wondering if you’re the only person holding a specific opinion, only to find out that everybody felt just like you. Hello, Abilene Paradox!
At other times you may have broached the topic and many people were in lock step with you, but there’s that one (maybe more) person who has a contrary opinion. Suddenly, a few of the courageous start to waffle, leaning more toward the contrarian. It’s usually because the contrarian is normally a more highly charged personality than the more compliant folks. That can intimidate some. It can change the psychology of the entire room leave you wondering how the waffler really feels.
You Can’t Let The Bullies Squelch The Room
The Abilene Paradox demonstrates how group-think can be innocently impacted by acquiesce and indifference. But it can also be impacted by one rebel rouser. Maybe you’ve seen it. One loud-mouthed bully can mount some podium topic and drive the room wherever he wants because most people will crawl inside a shell, especially if the bully has a title. I’m interested in group dynamics like that and I always catch myself looking away from the opinionated loud mouth, watching the others. Some shift in their chairs, visibly uncomfortable, but refusing to speak. Others look straight ahead, stoic. Still others doodle with greater intensity, never looking up.
Quite often the bully is convinced they’re speaking FOR the room. Watch for it the next time you encounter it. The bully will likely even use language to back up that claim. “I know others feel this way,” or “I’m only saying what I others are afraid to say.” There are many other variations of it, but it’s all the same – “I’m speaking a universal truth for the entire team.” But there was never an election or an appointment. Like a military dictator, the bully just takes the power and drains all the communication energy out of the room squashing all other opinions, especially dissenting opinions.
If the boss is the bully, you’re stuck. I would NEVER advise doing battle with the boss. You can influence the boss – maybe – but that’s a topic for another day. Don’t openly argue with your bully boss. Not all bosses are bullies, so I’m only talking about the ones who are!
If you are the boss and somebody else is hijacking the communication in bully fashion, you have to stop it. It could be something as simple as, “I’d like to hear from some others before I hear from you.” Different leaders have different styles. If you’re a leader handle the way you’d like, but I encourage you to pre-think it. Be prepared to kick bad behavior to the curb when you get your team together.
You Can’t Let Silence Ruin The Room Either
Getting input or feedback can be tough. The honest truth is, some people just don’t have a strong opinion. I used to think people were afraid or intimidated. And some are, or can be. But through the years I’ve come to realize there are far more people than I first thought who simply don’t care one way or the other. I’m not saying they’re apathetic. They just don’t feel strongly enough to speak up about every issue.
Other people are in that same camp until they hear something they strongly agree with…or something they strongly disagree with. Then, they’ll speak up. But if that never happens, they might sit there never uttering a word.
Giving people a safe, comfortable environment is important if the group is meeting to brain storm or figure out a solution. It’s impossible to address all the nuances of group think because groups get together for a variety of reasons. Interaction depends on the purpose of the meeting. Think about the context and purpose of the group so you can adjust the communication temperature of the room accordingly. Sometimes the temperature needs to be warm and comfortable. Other times it needs to be cooler. Leaders have to know the difference.
Ambiguity Foils Effective Leadership
Inexactness runs rampant in many organizations. Whether it’s the proverbial beating around the bush, or mincing words or soft-pedaling. But lessening the bluntness of communication is not the same thing as ambiguity, even though it can lead to it. You’ve experienced it before. Somebody is trying to tell you something, but they’re meandering, failing to just come out and say what needs to be said. You’re left wondering, “What were they trying to say?” If it was your boss, you were left feeling like a lost participant on Jeopardy, wondering what the question was. That makes finding the answer all but impossible.
There’s one fundamental reason why ambiguity foils leadership. It distracts people. They spend more time trying to figure out what the leader was saying, or what they really meant than they do making a positive difference. And it’s entirely the leader’s fault.
Consider a typical superstar employee who has an innocent casual encounter with the boss. The boss says, “Are you okay with the new software upgrade in the finance department?” The employee says, “Yes, sir.” The boss replies, “Okay, I was just wondering.” They go their separate ways.
All afternoon the superstar employee is consumed with, “I wonder what he meant by that? I wonder if he knows something I don’t. I wonder if he thinks the upgrade is a bad idea.” Because the superstar employee is conscientious, he frets about what the boss said. It was ambiguous and the employee is left trying to connect dots.
Meanwhile, back in the executive suite, the boss is talking with his right hand lieutenant. “I saw (insert name of the superstar employee) in the hall a few minutes ago. I asked him how he felt about the software upgrade in finance and he said he felt good about it. I thought you said he was a sharp guy.”
The boss doesn’t quite have it right though. And in true “the emperor has no clothes” fashion, the superstar employee was in a no-win-situation. He was trying to read the boss and be honest at the same time. Do you dare tell the boss you’re unhappy about a software upgrade that’s over half done? And what if the superstar is genuinely pleased about the upgrade? How was the employee supposed to respond? He’s asking himself all those questions and more. And the boss is characterizing the brief encounter completely differently. He heard the superstar employee say he felt good about the software upgrade, but that’s not what the employee said. He was asked if he was “okay” with the upgrade. He said he was. Seems like a trick question. Welcome to the world of the ambiguous leader.
Now, the lieutenant has certain feelings about the superstar employee he didn’t have earlier. This was a star employee, but now there are doubts. Turns out the executives are having trouble with some points of the contract with the software upgrade. The superstar employee has no knowledge of those. He only knows the execution of the upgrade. During the proposal process, the superstar employee had some reservations, but he’s not a decision maker. He merely had expressed those concerns to his manager who assured him the executive team was going to address those things. And they did. Now, with about 45 days left before the upgrade is complete, things are on schedule and the superstar employee, being a faithful worker, is pushing hard to keep the timetable on track.
Behind the scenes there are issues though that he doesn’t know. And he’s now being judged for things beyond his knowledge or control. Ambiguity will hurt him if he’s not careful. And all he said was, “Yes, sir.”
How is leadership foiled? Because they’ve got a superstar employee in a bad spot. And they now feel differently about this worker. Everybody suffers.
Scenarios like this play out all the time in the workplace where straight talk isn’t valued, or thought about. Sometimes it’s intentional game playing. Sometimes it unintentional and thoughtless talk, or questions. It results in ambiguity, which fosters distraction, confusion and bewilderment. Do YOU do your best work when you’re feeling like that?
I wonder how many hours are spent each week amongst co-workers asking, “I wonder what he meant by that?” Think of the wasted hours spent trying to figure out the ambiguity. Then, drive yourself crazy thinking of saving all that time with clear, straight talk.
Cafe Press – Ambiguity Gifts
A Prescription For Organizational Craziness
It was a few years ago when I first read the phrase that served as a blog post title to an entertaining article, What Happens In Vagueness Stays In Vagueness. It was written by Clark Whelton, a speechwriter for New York City mayors Ed Koch and Rudy Giuliani, and appeared in City Journal, an urban policy magazine. I’m a sucker for all things communication so it hit my Google alert for some reason. I catch myself re-reading it every now again because it makes me smile and reminds of Edwin Newman, the old NBC newsman with a love of the English language (as evidenced by his appearance on Saturday Night Live).
I agree with Mr. Whelton.
“Uh-oh. It was a classic case of Vagueness, the linguistic virus that infected spoken language in the late twentieth century.”
Straight talk is one prescription – I’d argue a necessary prescription – for the organizational craziness that vexes many leaders and employees. Unfortunately, some confuse this with crassness, but that’s a cop out taken mostly by people who are…well, crass. Rude, crass behavior isn’t professional or effective in building a high performance organization. So I’m not giving permission or approval for boorish behavior.
The third leg of my business offering (what I call the trifecta of business building) is to help people avoid going crazy as they build their business or organization. Slippery, unclear communication ranks high as a source for craziness among employees. “Why won’t he just tell me what he wants me to do?” is a common question I hear.
Some years ago after hearing that refrain uttered over and over by people in a company, I asked the owner, “Why won’t you just tell people what you’d like them to do, and how you’d like it done?” His answer is more common than you might think. “I want them to figure it out. I just wish they’d know what to do. It drives me crazy.”
Had I been a doctor I would have taken out my prescription pad and immediately scribbled out the prescription,
“Talk straight with all your employees. Daily.”
The owner was a father. I asked him if he required his kids to do chores. “Of course,” he said. “I want them to learn to work.”
“When you first assigned chores did you give them any instructions or did you just leave them to figure it out?” I asked.
He stammered a bit trying to figure out what he had actually done. One son, the oldest, was responsible for the family pet, an outside dog. “Did you have to show him how to put food out for the dog, and water…or did you just let him put out as much food as he wanted?” I asked.
He proceeded to tell me how he had to make sure his son measured out the food using a scoop inside the big bag of dog food, and how he had to tell his son to do it at a specific time each day. He also had to show him how to harness the dog for a walk (even though his son wasn’t the only one responsible for that).
“But you had to train your son in those activities. You didn’t just wait for him to figure it out ’cause you wanted the dog to be properly taken care of,” I said.
I saw the light bulb turn on. He looked a bit exasperated and said, “My employees aren’t my kids.”
“No, they aren’t, but they deserve the same amount of clarity.”
I asked if his son did the job with the dog perfectly the first time. Of course not. He told he repeatedly had to show his son and sometimes he had to bark at his son (so the dog wouldn’t bark for food). I asked him if a day came when his son did the job without being told, and did it well enough to suit him. Yes. Dad saw it happen.
“Do you have to show him how to do that now?” I asked. “No, he just does it now,” he replied.
“And your employees will, too — once they know what you want. You need to hold them as accountable as you do your oldest son with the dog. Your dog’s life depends on it. Here, your business depends on. I don’t understood why you wouldn’t give your business more attention than your dog.”
This was an owner who had no written procedures though. So it was a hard lesson to learn. Over time we helped him realize that he had been taught many things by people who cared enough about him to help him do a good job. He had people in his life who didn’t just leave him alone hoping he’d figure it all out on his own. I simply helped remind him of his purpose as a leader – to serve the people doing the work so they could do their work better!
It’s always about serving your people. The question I’d encourage you to ask is, “How is this serving this person?”
If it’s not serving them, then stop it. If it is serving them, then ask, “How can I serve them BETTER?”
The cowardly leaders avoid the hard work of serving their people because it’s not always easy. Sometimes it’s difficult, uncomfortable and too straight forward. Some leaders want to avoid the tension so necessary to serve their people. Like a parent who is too timid to discipline a child, the leader will quickly find themselves with employees who operate outside the lines. Show me a kid who’s a hellion and I’ll show you a parent unable to lead, or serve their child well.
You can be a straight-talking leader known for serving your people…or you can be known as anything else, but that.
Innovation in the workplace has been a hot topic during my entire career. It accelerated when the digital age arrived, but it was present long before that. Some of us are old enough to remember a time when our businesses operated with manual, handwritten spreadsheets, telephones and postal service mail. Facsimile machines arrived and suddenly communication got faster. Computers arrived and with it a piece of software called VisiCalc, the first electronic spreadsheet. That made every act of accounting – including inventory control and payroll – faster!
We form habits that work for us on some level, but foil our improvement in others. One of my more recent favorite books is entitled, 
There was also creativity in the presentation of the music. It started the moment I removed the vinyl from the album sleeve. I never touched anything other the very edges of the album with my outstretched palms or fingertips. Yes, it had technical merits of keeping the oil of your skin off the vinyl, but it also showed the average shopper who likely didn’t handle their vinyl properly…how to do it right! It was part presentation, part education.
