Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach. — Aristotle
This is Part 2 of a 2-Part series
It’s interesting… this 2-part series has just ten client lessons learned from 2021. I could double that number with little effort. Helping and watching clients grow, learn and succeed creates an incredible learning environment for me.
In Part 1, I remarked on the following lessons learned: 1. Culture is everything. 2. Intellect, purpose, and leadership are key. 3. Metrics without a system are meaningless. 4. High functioning teams disagree. 5. Low-hanging fruit creates early wins; allow grace with future misses and missteps.
Part two has another five lessons, all picked up as I work with, observe and assist clients. These are a bit more personal, and deal with our actionable behaviors.
Some are simple lessons that just needed reminding, others are breakthrough processes, at least for that particular executive or team. Let’s get started…
6. Before any reaction from a leader, always ask “to what end?” Zig Ziglar once
wrote, “Take the high road – there’s a lot less traffic.” Often we get smack dab in the middle of a contentious situation, and simply forget why we’re there in the first place.
Our goal in any situation, especially when emotions are starting to become a key part of every conversation, should be to attain the best available result (note I did not say simply “best result) while maintaining our credibility, the mutual respect of all parties and the longer-term relationship. Let’s unpack this a bit…
“The world is watching,” a phrase first used as part of the civil-rights movement in the 1950s, is instructive here. People are watching how we deal with the totality of the situation. It’s not enough to beright; those around us keeping an eyeball on our actions also want us to doright.
Why fire someone when you can let them resign? (There are exceptions to this, but few)
Do I really need that apology?
Am I forcing a decision that doesn’t need forcing?
Do I want to win, or do I want to change someone’s behavior? (Ask yourself this one a lot)
To what end? is a great question to ask as you feel yourself being sucked into the quagmire of tit-for-tat and one-upmanship.
Don’t go there. Stay on the high road. Keep your leadership behavior elevated and maintain your presence and credibility. You can actually win big by allowing someone else to enjoy a small victory of their own.
7. Poor communication can defeat effective leadership. Announcements, follow-ups, rules changes. Messaging is one of the more important parts of leadership, particularly at the senior-team level. It does us no good to do great things and then screw it up with the delivery.
In messaging to teams, large and small, plan, prepare and rehearse. Don’t try to use a simple message to also “remind everyone to sign up for…” or other such nonsense. Keep focused on the issue; short, direct and positive.
Put on your cynic hat and ask yourself how someone could object to the message or messaging and be prepared to adequately address those objections.
We frequently manage to irritate people with little effort on our part. Let’s not add insult to injury by irritating them when making an otherwise-positive announcement.
8. If you are forever saying “I don’t have time,” you’re likely in over your head. The
best leaders have time. Yes, you read that right – you have the time, particularly for those employees who need you. If not, you’re in the wrong line of work.
When an employee sticks their head in your office and says, “I know you’re busy, but do you have a minute?” They are actually telling you that you seem too busy for them, meaning their interruption was all that much more difficult (I’m not talking about jaw-jackin’ John who drops in several times each day just to waste time – that’s for another article on another day).
One of the key behaviors of those demonstrating real executive presence is the appearance that they have ample time to invest whenever necessary. Those with presence don’t seem to be spastic and harried all day, a slave to both their calendar and current raging fires.
They seem calm and in control and are masters of their time. They seldom, if ever, offer “I don’t have the time” as an excuse, nor do they appear too busy to have that discussion.
Did I mention they seem clearly in control?
9. If you’re planning to grow, but not building your bench, you’re planning to fail. Most fast-growth efforts become stymied from lack of leadership, not resources.
Now, I realize my bias in this conversation, but hear me out. Organizations looking at growth, particularly significant growth, are all awash in planning and such. Flip-chart-slinging-strategy sessions with 10-12 company execs and influencers, good chow (pre-apocalypse, anyway) and maybe even drinks at dinner.
The plans… they are a-flyin’.
Capital dollars resourced? Check.
Recruitment plan? Check.
Facility preparations? Check.
Leadership bench availability? Nah, we’ll wing it.
Wait… what??
If you believe your plans – those 3-ring binders represented by endless slide decks – why the hell aren’t you planning for your growing leadership needs? Think you’ll just wish hard, rub the lamp, click your heels together and boom! Leaders everywhere, all ready to get to work and manage your newfound, hard-fought growth?
News flash, Einstein. Not gonna happen.
Plan for growth by building your bench. If we develop existing and potential leaders for potential growth, there’s no downside. Either we need them and promote them, or we have better trained leaders in existing roles.
Hard to see a downside here. Planning includes leadership planning.
10. Grace and accountability can coexist. You may have heard before, but my most successful clients continue to reinforce the concept.
This has turned in to my mantra of sorts.
This whole bit about how holding others (and ourselves) accountable is mean-spirited or somehow offensive needs to go the way of the $1 cup o’joe. It just ain’t so. At least, it doesn’t have to be so.
This is the crux of the matter. Holding ourselves accountable isn’t narcissistic, it’s just pulling our weight.
Expecting accountability from others isn’t aggressive or forward, it’s compassionate, caring and kind. It’s knowing that we all do better when we expect the best from everyone.
Demonstrable empathy is a true example of successful leadership.
Empathy, at its core, is putting yourself in someone else’s position and feeling what they must be feeling; taking it further, empathy includes caring for other people and having a real desire to help them. And one of the best ways to pull that off in leadership is to be clear with expectations, vicious about providing resources and support, then creating the environment where we hold each other accountable for achieving what we set out to do.
Our ultimate goal is to help each other – to steal from Army recruiting – Be all we can
be. Be the best we can be.
For a leader, it means bringing kindness, empathy, and respect; It means using those as levers to help others succeed, to grow and Improve.
Grace means courteous good will. Sometimes even unmerited assistance.
Accountability means personal ownership of a specific expectation or result.
Wow! Where the hell did 2021 go, and why did it leave us with so many work environment leadership challenges that none of us saw coming at the beginning of 2020? We’re struggling how to manage a blended (at home / at the office) workforce and either losing workers as part of the Great Resignation (yeah, that was predictable) or trying to attract the talent we let go during the pandemic back to our company.
That’s what’s facing most of us in 2022. What worked in 2019 didn’t work in 2020. What worked in 2020 didn’t work in 2021. And this being the first newsletter of the year, let’s talk about what will work in 2022?
The basics. That’s right, let’s get back to the leadership basics in 2022. If you haven’t read the phrase ‘leadership hasn’t changed much in a couple thousand years’ in one of our newsletters or heard it in our coaching, you must be new to Triangle Performance.
Why do I believe in the basics? When’s the last time you heard a service industry employee say unsolicited, “I have the best boss ever!”
It had been so long for me that I was stunned when I heard it.
I was simply picking up my dry cleaning near closing time one evening when I expressed my appreciation that this small, local dry cleaners was able to stay open through the long period when none of us were getting our business clothes dirty. She nonchalantly replied, “That’s because I have the best boss I’ve ever had.”
To be honest, I was so surprised I didn’t even ask her why… until the next day. I went back and asked what made her boss the best.
“He talks to us, not at us.”
“He has a large workforce but makes an effort to know each one of us individually.”
“He made sure each of us was okay with reduced hours during the pandemic but never had to let anyone go.”
“If we make a mistake, he helps us learn how to learn from it and not repeat it.”
“If there’s conflict in the workplace, he addresses it immediately and helps us resolve it so we can all work together cooperatively.”
“He takes time to talk to me as a person and really listen; I feel like he genuinely cares how I’m doing.”
HOLY LEADERSHIP SKILLS, BATMAN!
You can accuse me of making this stuff up for the sake of our business or because I ran out of things to write about, but that would be your loss. This is the unadulterated result of real-life leadership, and it’s so basic that we should be embarrassed if our team doesn’t already feel like this person does.
Think of those bullets as a to do list for 2022.
So I’m going to call this boss Karl, because I want you to think of him as a real person and not just the boss. That, and the only guy I actually know named Karl couldn’t possibly be confused with the boss.
I wanted to find out where Karl got his secret leadership sauce, so I called him. Surprised and with humility, he quickly told me he didn’t do anything special… which was true. None of the statements above reveal anything special, except maybe not letting anyone go because of COVID.
Karl succinctly summed up his leadership philosophy’s source: “I had a great boss when I was younger.”
From watching his boss, Karl came to believe it’s not all about making money but also about helping others. Karl asked, “Who else is going to help those who work hard catch a break if not us bosses?” Good question.
Because Karl knows all his employees individually, he can tell when someone’s a little off and looks for little things he can do to make a difference. I dare say that while some of us may notice when our folks are having a bad day, very few of us would take the next step like Karl.
How about that last bullet up there? Really Listens and Genuinely Cares!!! Not nearly enough of that in the workplace – or in the home or anywhere else in the world for that matter. Karl tries to live out his motto “If you care, I care” with his people, and it shows.
One of a leader’s top responsibilities is developing new leaders. I’m glad Karl’s boss took that responsibility to heart… and so are his employees.
So what can we do that we know will work in 2022? Leadership basics. Let’s dust off our basic leadership skills and start the new year off on the right foot, shall we?
Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.
— Aristotle
This is Part 1 of a 2-Part series
I love the Aristotle quote. There’s plenty of successful leaders and organizations that “know,” and they do well with that knowledge. The next level folks, they understand, and they teach that knowledge to others, sometimes even unknowingly.
I’m a lifelong student of leadership. I live it, breathe it, study it. I coach executives in it, and advise senior-most teams on its concepts, principles, and values.
Yet I learn – from those very people paying me for counsel. No, this isn’t a consultant-stealing-my-watch-to-tell-me-the-time moment; it’s how we all get better. We study, learn, execute, examine, and adjust – adapting to changing environments and results.
And I learn a ton from our clients. Watching them execute, adjust, and execute again. Testing, reinforcing, molding behaviors to fit their organization’s needs. It’s fun to watch. So, I’ve decided to share my learnings; after all, I learned them from someone else, it only seems fair to pass them on.
My Top 10 Lessons Learned from Clients, circa 2021:
1. Culture is everything. Let me say that again – culture is everything. With a successful, intentional culture, you can overcome a talent shortage, resource constraints, even an occasional supply chain breakdown.
We cannot, however, progress past an ineffective culture. Organizations succeeding (not simply surviving) through our recent apocalypse didn’t do so simply because their CEO was smarter than the others, or because their credit line held up.
Culture supports leadership and organizations when tangible resources cannot. People’s desires to succeed, based on their support of the organization’s direction and demonstrable principles, is what separates the surviving from the thriving. Get it right.
2. Intellect, purpose, and leadership are key. In senior roles, intellect, purpose, and leadership beat out subject matter expertise hands down. Sure, rockstar functional expertise coupled with these components would be fantastic; but frankly, that functional mastery is way down the list for success.
Not to say we don’t want subject matter expertise – only that, when canvassing candidates for those roles, don’t start with specific knowledge. Start first by identifying those with the intellect (business acumen, learning ability), purpose (desire to succeed, proven processes), and leadership (influencing, collaborating, driven).
3. Metrics without a system are meaningless. Metrics must be built on a system to be truly successful. A system is a repeatable process with predictable results.
Windfalls may make bonus time fun, but do not showcase leadership success. The occasional windfall is a pleasure for all to enjoy, to be sure. But a reliance on windfalls is like buying lottery tickets as a retirement plan.
If a manager is producing solid metrics but is unable to describe how they did it or equally unable to explain how those metrics will be repeated, they aren’t leading, they’re simply along for the ride. A fun ride, to be sure, but they aren’t leading. Good leadership takes advantage of good luck – it doesn’t require it to succeed.
4. High functioning teams disagree. A lot. Difficult discussions are essential for team success. Remember, when reasonably intelligent, well-intentioned people disagree, the organization is better served.
One of the most high-functioning leadership teams I’ve worked with didn’t necessarily start out that way. It wasn’t until they could trust each other enough to safely disagree – frequently if necessary and with strong passion and conviction – that they really began to gel.
This same team asked for 360 surveys on the entire team, not uncommon in my world. Then they wanted to share their results with each other; again, not entirely uncommon.
Finally, and this is the uncommon part, I facilitated a session with the team to share openly in groups how they could help each other build and improve on the strengths and opportunities identified in each other’s 360 survey. Courage, transparency, vulnerability. A big deal.
5. Low-hanging fruit creates early wins; allow grace with future misses and missteps. Frequently, we replace a key incumbent with someone who has all the necessary skills that the predecessor lacked. Maybe the former exec was disorganized and a slow decision-maker; we fill that position with a hyper-organized high-speed decision-maker, and it immediately makes everyone say “oooh,” and “aaah.”
Followed by “Damned, we’re smart. We put the right person in the right job!”
Then, reality hits. The honeymoon wraps up, and the new exec faces some challenges that maybe they weren’t prepared for. Maybe they make a bad decision or two. It’s easy to say, “I’m not sure we put the right person in that job.” In fact, however, mistakes will be made, some things will get screwed up, missteps will occur, judgments will be questioned.
Know this. Realize going in that Mr/Ms NewExec will do some great things initially (hopefully), but eventually will become part of a functioning reality where big things happen and mistakes are made; we accept both and move on. Accolades for wins, grace for losses. Two heads of the same coin.
Stay tuned for 10 Client Lessons from 2021, PART 2
I had a mid-level manager ask me recently, “Is there a difference between giving feedback or giving criticism as a leader? Seems like the same thing to me.”
The differences seems subtle, but in reality they’re pretty damned big. And from a results perspective, the differences are huge.
Huge differences. Most have to do with intent and desired outcome.
Criticism, in its simplest form, is for the giver, not the recipient. To criticize is one of the easiest forms of ego defense, and is generally a display of defensiveness and lack of personal confidence. We criticize most when someone aspires to accomplish what we cannot (or will not), or when their accomplishment could somehow threaten ours.
It’s acting out hurtfully with negative thinking.
Feedback, on the other hand, is principally to help someone grow and improve. To positively change a behavior for the better. In other words, it’s more of what we recommend they do, and less of what they did wrong.
Further, if we include some self-reflection in our feedback — opening ourselves to others — we both grow. Our blind spots will be forever blind without effective feedback from others, and people are more inclined to be open with those who have been similarly open with them.
The Johari Window is a great tool for determining how public or “open” you are to receiving feedback, which is crucial for your feedback to be well received.
The more I increase my “public” or “open” window:
The less I am blind.
The less I have to worry about keeping things hidden.
The more I may discover parts of me that I like, which are hidden.
I can’t reduce my Blind area without help from others (feedback).
If I am to help others, I must learn to give helpful feedback.
It really is that simple.
And Be Brazen, remembering that Grace and Accountability can coexist.
Leading with influence is real leadership. It’s the only leadership that matters.
But how? It’s simpler than we sometimes think, so let’s just keep it that way. No need to complicate things unnecessarily. Three areas to focus on:
Know your audience. Influencing at a senior level is not the same as doing so for a more junior audience. Senior folks tend to grasp concepts and ideas more readily, while our up-and-comers can focus on our specific words so closely they can sometimes lose sight of the big picture.
Keep it intentional. Leading isn’t an offshoot, an unintended consequence, or an afterthought. It’s your primary focus, as should be your efforts to influence. Make your intentions known – no one should have to guess. Do good things, then move on without fanfare. Be the example, not the excuse.
Be aware of your impact. Like it or not, you’re always “on.” Effective leaders don’t get to have bad or “cheat” days. Those you lead need you at your best – or at least your apparent best – all the time. Be mindful that your influence doesn’t lead to unintended consequences.
Leading with Influence is simply “be the good example” on steroids. Exemplary, intentional behavior along with clear language on expectations and results gets us pointed in the right direction.
Auntie Em, Uncle Henry…you’re not in Kansas anymore!
Coming out of the chaos of the last 18 months, I’ve noticed that the people I work with have changed somehow. They sound the same and look pretty much the same, but they seem different. Kinda like Dorothy’s friends in the Land of Oz.
Has anyone else noticed it?
No, really. In the whirlwind that took us from Spring 2020 to Fall 2021, it feels like they changed while we were apart. Or was it me who changed?
What’s really changed is the workplace. While the difference may not as drastic as it was between Kansas and Oz, it may feel like that in some companies. Change is inevitable, yes, but poorly led and managed change on such a large scale can be the beginning of the end for previously well-led organizations.
The most obvious change is whether people are still working entirely at home, full-time at the office (if there’s an office left), or a hybrid of the two. Whatever the new work policies are, and how we came to the decisions about them, there’s a good chance we’ve alienated a fair portion of our workforce. So, what does the workplace of the future look like?
Lots of people are anxious about getting back out there after such a long time in some state of isolation. Just
getting back into an office with co-workers in close proximity and a commute that suddenly feels awkward can be intimidating, but having to sit in a meeting wondering who others have recently been exposed to can be downright paralyzing to some. Not to mention trying to avoid controversial topics in casual conversations in the breakroom.
That doesn’t bode well as we approach the end of another year and are trying to play catch-up to reach our 2021 goals.
So how do we as leaders decide what our future workplace is going to look like and how we’re going to ensure our teams can meet expectations? The first thing we have to remember is that nowhere in our organizations, departments, sections or teams does one size fit all. Where they work is different, what they do is different, and what we expect of them is different.
Start by focusing on what kinds of interactions between our workforce is critical to the success of the team (however we define it). Creativity depends on a different kind of interaction than routine information exchange. Some departments can get by mostly using phones and computers (HR and accounting come to mind) requiring much less face-to-face time in the office.
If it doesn’t matter what time of day (or night) a person’s work gets done as long as it meets expectations and is completed on time, why should we care when or where it gets done? Just one consideration as you decide who needs to be on-site daily.
Choice is important… within limits of course. The days of believing that everyone is more productive at the office than at home are long past. Does that mean each employee gets to decide where they’re going to work and on what days? The best answer I can give is maybe. It’s at least worth having the conversation.
Employees’ sentiments change over time, so what they wanted in 2020 might not be the same at the end of 2021. What won’t work is re-establishing the old schedule with strict daily attendance policies.
Just be transparent in the decision making. Regularly listen to others to generate ideas and gain a higher level of buy-in.
We’ve gotten used to virtual meetings; do we have to go back to sitting around the conference room table?
If we’re still measuring a meeting’s success by who attends rather that what get accomplished, we’re still doing it wrong. And if we haven’t figured out how to have hybrid meetings by now, the IT team isn’t doing their job.
Speaking of meetings, what about reacting to the boss’s ever-changing meeting schedule? I would argue if that kind of flexibility is required, it’s easier to adjust virtually than physically, especially in the case of geographically separated offices.
Finally, we have to be willing to make different decisions when new information comes to light. I wasn’t alone in thinking – initially anyway – we were returning to some semblance of normalcy earlier this summer. My kids are mostly grown, so I didn’t consider the ramifications of a parent having to stay home with a quarantined school-age child – or two back-to-back.
If we can let people work from home when their kids are sick, what’s keeping us from letting them work from home when their kids are healthy?
One last thought: talk to each other! No one in our generation of leaders has faced a global disruption in the workplace that we have – and are still having. You are not the only one having to make hard decisions about what the new normal will look like; others in your C-level and executive leadership circle are facing the same kinds of tough choices. Ask others what’s working for them and share what’s working for you. Together we can build a better workplace for the future.
There’s no clicking of heels and wishing things would go back to the way they were. It doesn’t have to be as crazy
as the Land of Oz, but we’re never going back to Kansas again.
