Didn't you HEAR what I said!???

Today I am processing conversations with two different executives whose recent requests have frustrated the hell out of me. In each case, each request was for something that I have suggested several times over as many months. Interestingly, or frustratingly, the request made no reference to our previous discussions. It is as if the idea that each had was fresh and was their own.

On the one hand, I want to scream - WERE YOU NOT LISTENING TO ME? I'VE BEEN SAYING THAT FOR WEEKS! I've been summarizing the data in bullet points in powerpoint. I've shown the data in spreadsheets and described the information in white papers. Each mode of communication was met with distracted or glazed over eyes or fake, polite, plastered smiles. Now suddenly they are asking for the same information in the same formats that I have presented in the past.

Well, after I checked my ego at the door...yes our job requires us to leave our egos behind, I should rejoice that my clients FINALLY get it. When they think it is THEIR idea, I should be happy. When they are ASKING for the information, I should be excited. Hard as that is for me to digest, change will happen when they think it was their idea. Hey it only took 6 months.

Any advice on how I can leave me ego at the door?

Aspire to Mediocrity

I heard an executive deliver a message recently in a town hall meeting with his employees: "Don't deliver the Mercedes when all they want is a Volkswagon."

It gives one pause, doesn't it?

Here's what ran through my mind:

• He just demotivated a group of very bright and talented employees who get up in the morning ready to do their best work.
• He thinks that using cliches will connect him more with his employees.
• He thinks little of the client groups.

Indeed clients may only want the Volkswagon solution to solve their business need. To be sure that we deliver the most suitable and best solution, we seek a deeper understanding of the need, diagnose the problem, identify potential solutions, understand the constraints and propose options to the client. This kind of diagnostic is often something clients don't have time nor expertise to conduct. (Think about taking your car in to check on the noise coming from your exhaust and telling the mechanic to use duct tape to correct the problem.)

The point is, practitioners customize the solution to the client's needs and the client's capability to embrace, implement and maintain the solution. Practitioners deliver their best work, their best solution. Whether at the end of the day it is a Mercedes or a Volkswagon, it will be the best product to meet the client's need. The ultimate outcome is to take the client group's performance and capability to the next level.

To inspire one's employees, avoid using cliche's. They are subject to a host of misinterpretation which leads to disengaged and demotivated employees. Otherwise, consider including a Nissan 350 next time.

Move to New Zealand (A Way to Control Change)

William Bridges' masterfully explains change as transition from what was to what will be; moving from the known to the unknown. Transitions can be filled with excitement, fear, anxiety, joy...or all of the above. It all depends upon the change and the choice to change. Becoming parents for the first time; starting college; that first job, or second job, or seventh job, etc. We change everyday...another day older. How smoothly we transition from the old state of being to the new one is about a combination of choice, control and perception. I don't choose to get old but I can manage my perception of aging and I can control how I age.

In the work place, changes include simple things like moving from one office to another office....ah how territorial we humans become when the company decides to reconfigure office space. We return to our caveman and cavewoman roots - maybe not with the physical clubs but with modern clubs of resistance...or complaint. The more complex changes include new systems, new procedures, new policies, new organizational structures. You know the types of changes where employees feel like something was "done to them." The changes where employees feel as though they had "no choice."

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are the toughest changes. I worked with one company during a time when M&A were a strategy to improve the balance sheet. It was purely an accounting exercise. Employees didn't find out about the acquistion until they showed up to work where the sign over the door registered a different company name. M&As are riddled with simple to complex changes and the mother of all changes: cultural change. That illusive thing, culture change, you know the one to which neanderthal executives' classic response is: "Don't be such a baby..."

So how do you best bring together two similar yet different cultures and integrate the systems, processes and procedures? Involve them in the change in as many ways as you can. (duh!) And don't just involve the top layers of the organization - involve all levels. Bring the users of the new technologies, procedures together. Assign them the task of finding the best way to make the change, communicate and implement the change to their colleagues. Agree on what to keep and what to throw out and let everyone know why.

Now as far as those life changes - some of which we have no control...well we can remain in the space of being victims:

• I inherited the genes
• The economy prevents us from our family entertainment plans
  
• Congress made the decision to.....(fill in the blank)
  

To controlling what we can control:

• I exercise and eat right to override my genes
• I took my family to an enjoyable movie in place of that expensive broadway show
• I can always move to New Zealand.... on a retirement visa.

Transitions can be managed.... by creating a positive vision of what will be and can be that is within our control. New Zealand is looking pretty appealing these days.

Let Freedom Ring

I grew up in an era of protest: protesting "the establishment," protesting the war, protesting our parents' generation. My generation spoke out in the form of demonstration. Our publications were limited: we did not have laptops, cell phones nor portable electronic devices. We didn't have blogs back then. But we always had free speech; then and now. We remain able to have a "voice" and a say in our democracy. We may not always like the outcomes but our system is designed to allow everyone equal rights and equal voice. On this Independence Day, I celebrate those freedoms.

Who do YOU trust?

Who is the most trustworthy person you know? What makes him or her trustworthy? What actions can you pinpoint that demonstrate trust? I posed these questions to several employees recently. Often times the most trustworthy person identified was a family member or a life long friend. The actions included:

• When I am struggling with a problem, this is the person whom I can talk; this is the person who will listen and will not judge me.
• A trustworthy person will support me when the chips are down. He will not abandon me in the bad times.
• This is a person who will also push me to think about things differently and in a very respectful way.
• This is a person who will seek my ideas and opinions and treats me equally.

It takes a long time to develop and build a trusting relationship but only a split second to bankrupt trust. I developed a deep friendship with my college roommate. And I blew it in our senior year, when I seriously flirted with my roommate's heartthrob. We have not spoken since. Breaking trust in our personal relationships leads to tensions, separations, divorce. At work, "divorcing" ourselves from our peers or supervisors may be a bit different. We generally don't walk away. We come to work, put up walls, don't talk to each other and gradually, we drive a deep wedge which impacts our commitment to the group and to the organization. I've observed professionals who face each other with smiles and head nods only to turn around behind closed doors and deny any agreements. On simpler terms, breaking promises is breaking trust. Not delivering on time; not keeping current in your work; stealing others ideas all damage and indeed destroy trust.

If the distrust is pervasive in an organization; that is, if employees get away with any distrust no matter how small and it becomes standard and acceptable behavior, then the organization has a serious problem. If employees cannot trust their leaders at the top of the organization, the consequences can be devastating but at the very least you have a population of disengaged employees who don't speak up, don't give it their all; they just do the minimum. There is no energy and no excitement to the work.

I've seen distrust in organizations so deeply entrenched that the employees are completely unaware. They don't know any better. At present distrust is rampant in our society....can you trust your financial advisor? can you trust the government regulator? can you trust public leaders? Who can you trust? Who do you trust?

Is Balance Bogus?

As practitioners, we must remain neutral and balanced when we diagnose behavior in organizations. There are many sides (perspectives) to every story. When I was a teaching assistant in graduate school, I asked one of the drama students to burst into my class feigning our break up and accusing me of cheating. The drama student was very believable. The students in my class were sucked into this performance like viewers of a TV reality show. At the end of this "performance," I asked the students to write down what they had witnessed...just the facts. The students moved beyond reporting the facts to filling in the blanks with inference. Clearly there was an imbalance; there were biased views. Sides were taken and the story was filled out:

• Some students thought that I indeed was cruel and harsh for having abused the relationship. Clearly I had cheated given the emotional state of the "victim" (the drama student). This group actually imagined me on a date, entwined in a lover's embrace.
• Some students came to my defense in writing as well as in reality. This group was clearly influenced by how calm I was during the "victim's" rant which came close to ending in a physical charge. If it were not for a group of "football" students who lept from their chairs to protect me, I might have been physically attacked.

Do employees, managers and leaders have unbalanced views of each other? Indeed, as humans we are fundamentally flawed in our ability to fairly assess situations and people. We hold onto our personal views to such a degree that we allow them to cloud our judgments...to a point where we sometimes do harm - sometimes physically, sometimes psychologically. We damage careers and reputations. To what end? What will it take for us to be respectful of our differences? What will it take to be balanced and fair in our judgments?

It's History

There is a dramatic sculpture referred to as The Future that sits in front of the National Archives with the inscription, "What is past, is prologue." Soak on that for a moment.

The phrase comes from Shakespeare's, "The Tempest" and is a metaphor that is spoken in Act 2 referencing actions that were described in the prologue of the play. Both the prologue as well as the actions referenced in the prologue are in the past.

Some interpret it to mean the past affects the future....more precisely, the past is just the precursor of what's to come. Wished I'd known that when each adolescent high school romance came to a crashing halt. Indeed, they served as a way to develop my future relationship skills.

What in the past is prologue to our current economic situation? Have the decisions of previous administrations led to the fall of the mortgage industry, for instance? Some would say absolutely and point to the Bush administration. How far in the past is prologue? In a recent issue of Investor Business, a journalist traced decisions as far back as the 1920's during the Hoover administration, that have impacted where we are today. Who would have predicted then that the past was a prologue to what we are experiencing today?

What is happening in our organizations today, that will serve as prologue tomorrow? During this economy, when jobs are being lost and few companies (excluding the government) are hiring, are organizations taking advantage of their employees: overworking them, cutting learning and development opportunities, eliminating benefits?....all in the name of fiscal responsibility. What is this prologue telling us?

Do Corporations Have Soul?

The better question might be do corporations NEED soul? If we equate soul to "moral compass," then ""yes" indeed corporations need souls and indeed many do not have souls. Given the economic conditions that we face as a nation, would having a soul have prevented the financial disasters we witness? Would "greed" have been overcome?

I think woven into this notion of having soul or a moral compass is the concept of self awareness and self-respect. When one's values are centered on integrity, respect and fairness one is authentically centered on these values, how is it possible to lie, to be dishonest, to treat different groups of people differently, to treat people badly? How is it possible?

Yet, I have seen it in organizations where executives are dismissive to front line workers: "Oh, they do not know what they are talking about." I have seen executives sign off on new policies only to exclude themselves from having to adhere to them: "Oh that policy does not apply to me."

I am in search of organizations whose executives do not behave this way. I am in search of examples where there is "corporate soul" and "authentic leadership." Do you know where I can find such examples? In government? In not-for-profits? In healthcare? In law firms?

Optimism, Pessimism, Realism

If you had the choice, would you hang out with Eeyore or Tiger? I have had the "pleasure" of working with both types. At first, your heart goes out to Eeyore. How sad, the poor guy can't seem to get a break. It doesn't take long though for you to figure out that the guy just can't be happy about anything. You stop being flattered that he...or she...stops by to use you as a "sounding board." By they time he or she is finished talking with you, you feel drained. That's because "Eeyore" sucked out all the oxygen in the room with his or her pessimism. On the other hand, there is the guy who is filled with energy and all smiles. His or her presence is almost contagious. Everything is coming up roses. Everything is terrific. Everything. These extremes just don't cut it. You want to hang out with this guy...until you find you just can't keep up.

Should we strive for the balance? Be in the middle? Or does that get dull too? Is being balanced, level-headed? Realistic? Does being balanced, pull you out of depressive times?

I think it is a matter of timing and spectrum. If you wake up one morning feeling like you lost your tail, for heavens sake, appreciate how you feel. Just know that you can't stay there for an extended period of time or you will make yourself sick. Love and appreciate the days you wake up ready to bounce around with joy and happiness because it is unlikely that you will do that every single day of your life....and if you do, I want to know what your formula is.

So talk to me about this notion of optimism and pessimism and realism.

Authoritarian or Authority Figure?

I had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Ron Heifitz speak on leadership. His remarks generated new insights that have helped clarify what I consider a C-Suite condition. As a result of working with and watching talented people rise to positions of greater responsibility, I have been struck by their seeming lose of what got them to these positions. Skills and capabilities like: being personable, open and trusting, caring, thoughtful, good listeners become overshadowed by just the opposite. Dr. Heifitz reminds us that we often confuse being an authority figure with good leadership and vice versa. "Getting to the top" may require that you are the most expert in your field, but it does not always mean having good leadership skills. Likewise, having good leadership skills does not always mean that you are the expert or the "authority" in your field.

But what should we expect from the people at the top of the organization? Expertise? The authority in their field? Or should they have great leadership skills? Some of the answer depends upon the organization. I speculate though that employees who work throughout these organizations want both. If push comes to shove, employees will opt for great leadership skills with the hope that the person in charge would use the employees for their expertise.

Is this making sense?