How to get good at uncertainty

If we become comfortable with change, it’s not scary. We can then embrace it, find joy in it.So how do we get good at change? Some suggestions that are working for me:

• Try something new, but small and safe. New things can be scary because we’re afraid we’re going to fall on our faces. But if it’s something small — learning to juggle beanbags in our living room, learning to balance on a rope that’s close to the ground, listening to a language-learning podcast, for example — it’s not as scary. There’s no real risk of getting hurt. And the more we do this, in small, non-scary steps, the more confidence we’ll gain that new things are not painful.

 

• When you mess up, don’t see it as painful failure. When you’re doing new things, there will be times when you make mistakes, mess up, “fail”. But these words are associated with negative things, like pain … instead, start to look at mistakes and “messing up” as something positive — it’s the only way to learn. Messing up is a way to get better at something, to grow, to get stronger.

 

• Ask “what’s the worst-case scenario”? If you’re exposing yourself, getting out of your comfortable environment, leaving behind security … it can be scary, but when you think about what is the worst thing that is likely to happen, usually it’s not that bad. If you lost all your possessions today in a disaster, how bad would that be? How would you cope? What opportunities would there be? What new things could you invent from this blank slate?

 

• Develop a change toolset. Learn how to cope with changes, no matter what they are. Have a fall-back plan if things collapse. Have friends and family you can call on. Develop some skills where you can get a job or start a new business no matter what happens with your current job or the economy. Learn ways of making friends with strangers, finding your way around a strange city, surviving on little. With a toolset like this, you can feel confident that you can handle just about anything that comes.

 

• Become aware of your clinging. Watch yourself clinging to something when you feel fear and pain. What are you clinging to? Often it’s just an idea — the idea of you and a romantic partner, an image of who you are. Become aware of what’s going on.

 

• See the downsides of clinging. Once you see your clinging more clearly, see the pain that results from it. If you’re clinging to your stuff, see the space it takes up, and the extra rent that costs you … see the mental energy it takes to live with all the stuff, the money you’ve spent on it, the lack of space you have to live. Anything you cling to has a downside — we only see the good side of it, and so we want to cling to it.

Do all that, then change.

What I learned about Management and Leadership This Week – March 28th

I am coaching a senior manager in a municipal environment.  He has been with the organization for many years and in his current position for 14 years.  He is talented – he knows everything about his industry.  His peers from other organizations call him for advice and direction; the Human Resources department relies on him for in-depth, background knowledge during contract negotiations; his direct reports always get the answer they need when they bring a problem.

He just resigned his position and he is going back to front-line delivery of service, either directly or through some form of teaching.  I was dumbfounded when I heard and I asked him why.

In a nutshell, this is what he said:

“Michael, I hate managing.  I hate having the phone beside my bed every night.  I hate having to do budgets, performance evaluations, and reports to Council.  I got into managing when I was in my 20’s and continued to move up the ladder.  Every step I took got me farther and farther from what I enjoy the most, which is front-line service delivery.  I’ve got 10 years left before retirement and I am not going to spend that time doing something I hate.”

I learned that management isn’t for everyone, no matter how talented the person may be.  There has to be a fit and a desire or it won’t work.  More than that, I learned that hating what you do isn’t something that you can cover over with an excellent salary, benefits and pension package.  In the end, its better to walk away.

Book recommendation: “The Trust Edge” and “The Five Temptations of a CEO”

In our experience, if a business book has three ideas that are worthwhile considering and adopting, it is a good read.  That isn’t a very high threshold, to be sure, but it seems to fit for us – there aren’t many books with even three good ideas!

Here are two:

“The Trust Edge”, by David Horsager.  A couple of years old, but it covers what is perhaps an obvious component of successful leadership, yet one that is considered a given by many people.  That component is trust.

This book offers some stories, self-assessments, suggestions and tips on how to figure out what sort of trust score you have and how to improve it.  If you lead people, read it.

“The Five Tempations of a CEO”, by Patrick Lencioni.  This is a book from 1998 and might be seen by some as being not sufficiently current to be useful.  One of the most oft-cited books on leadership is “The Prince” by Niccolo Machiavelli.  It remains relevant and instructional 500 years after being published.  So … read this book.  It is set in a style and manner that is reminiscent of “It’s a Wonderful World”; it’s a fable and a bit corny perhaps, but it talks about the most important leadership characteristics:  results, accountability, clarity, conflict, trust.  See, I tied the two books together!

 

Read them and let me know how they work for you.

Manage better by doing very simple things

Here is something that a supervisor shared with me the other day. He had taken part in a management training course we conduct and as part of the training I phoned him to provide some coaching around issues he was facing. One of the questions was about what his learning plan objectives would be. He said ‘I plan to be on the floor with the mechanics more.’ I probed a bit to see if there was anything else he was going to try to do, but that was the extent of it.

I thought it was brilliant. He didn’t pick three or four items – his workload would have short-circuited that.  He didn’t pick a new skill to develop – a new skill won’t help him manage his current situation and there isn’t any time for him to go off to a course or a secondment. What he did was this:

1. He looked at his situation and identified all that he had to do and assess what he could realistically take on, by way of changing how he manages.
2. He reviewed the short list and focused on the one possible course of action that – if successfully done – will make the biggest positive impact on his work environment.

By choosing to spend more time on the floor, he reasoned that he would be more accessible to employees, be in a position to better understand the ebb and flow of workload, and be available for immediate consultation by his direct reports for resolving technical situations, all resulting in increased productivity. For him, this will make a huge difference in achieving his objectives.

What’s the lesson?

1. Keep your development goals simple and straightforward.
2. Make the changes to your management style and practice that can be (relatively) easily incorporated into your current approach. Fine time, don’t reconstruct.
3. Look for ways to spend more time managing your staff face to face. All direct reports want more face time with their boss.

Let me know how that works for you.

Maple Leaf Hockey Leadership Poll

OK Leaf Nation.  I always write about managing, leading and change, so let’s go with leading.  The latest Maple Leaf debacle – the firing of Brian Burke.  For absolutely no points, no bragging rights and no money, please answer the following question.  Multiple answers are not allowed.  Please provide a rationale for your answer.  Go!

Managing is like … riding a horse!

I was coaching a supervisor yesterday and he commented that while he was spending lots of time with his direct reports, he wasn’t actively managing or leading them; in essence, he was working with them on a project, like a peer.  In the case of one rather difficult direct report, this approach was not working for this supervisor.  He felt he needed to be more proactive.

What he needs to do is be ‘on’ all the time with his direct reports.  He needs to realize that when he is with them in a work environment, doing work, he needs to understand that he is in his ‘manager’ or ‘leader’ role and act accordingly.  What does being ‘on’ look like?

It looks and sounds like this:  A manager weighs his words before they are uttered to ensure they are in keeping with his role.  Are the words appropriate to the situation?  Is the tone proper?  Am I providing direction and information such that my direct report can use it?  Generally, am I coming across like an objective, rationale manager who knows what he is doing?

All these things should run through your mind, more so if you are new to this type of thought process and less if you are a seasoned veteran.  I am not saying be worried about what you say and do, fearful of making a mistake.  I’m saying make sure you review your words before uttering them.  Make sure they are the right words for the situation, spoken in the right tone.

So, how is this like riding a horse?  Well, I recalled when I was taking riding lessons that my instructor said ‘every time you get on a horse you are either schooling it, or unschooling it.’  The point being that if you were schooling it, the horse was receiving the instruction it needed; if you were unschooling it, the horse was becoming more difficult to manage.  The same thing goes with managing and leading.  You are either actively managing and leading or just holding the title.  You must be ‘on’ and active in performing your role so that your direct reports continue to develop, grow and assist in achieving organizational objectives.

Let me know how that works for you.

Change & Transition and New Year’s Resolutions

This year I am DEFINITELY doing it!

New Year’s resolutions fail not because they are too ambitious.  They fail because we do not adequately plan so we can be successful.  In most cases, resolutions are about eating right, drinking less, exercising more or similar lifestyle oriented objectives.  Yup, its 2013 … I am DEFINITELY losing 20 lb.s this year.  But we  don’t, do we?

If an objective is worth achieving, it deserves a plan and not only that, a plan that has a chance of success.  How do you do that?

Before you go one step further, before one more hour has passed, before you consider doing anything else like go to the gym or throw out all that peanut butter, do this:

1. Identify the Problem that you are trying to solve.  “I need to lose 15 pounds”

2. Create a Picture of what it will look like once you solve the Problem.  “I will look fabulous.  I will have a new wardrobe and a new girlfriend!”

3. Generate a Plan.   This is critical.   You need to identify all the steps you will take.  First identify the components … exercise, diet, etc.  What gym will you join?  When will you go?  What spinning classes will you attend?  What will my girlfriend look like?

Second, identify the obstacles.  What will keep me from being successful?  Does that mean I have to stay away from the pub on Thursdays?  Are my food choices wrong?  Do I eat at times that are keeping me from being the newer, smaller me?  For every obstacle, have a solution.

Third, put it all together and give it to your wife, girlfriend, mother, friend, whatever and get input.  They will tell you if it is a plan that will work or not.

Fourth, implement.

4. Part.  You are the key ‘player’ in this, but I suggest you include a few more people who can help.  A buddy to work out with.  A friend to help you shop better.  Including people makes it harder to not follow the plan because you won’t want to disappoint them.

5. Progress.  Make up one of those United Way type thermometer diagrams and put it on the wall beside the fridge.  Mark the final goal and the incremental milestones.  Measure only once a week and mark it.

Write all this down.  Now.  Good.

Now that you are perfectly set up for success with your diet, take the same approach to that problem at work.  It works exactly the same way.

Let me know how that works for you.

Social Media = Communicating with Employees

If we accept that leadership – and by extension performance management – is about having a conversation with the people you lead, have you thought about how to use social media to connect with your employees, especially the young ones?

 

1. Twitter could be about sharing short, to the point ideas and inspirational thoughts that keep people focused on the important organizational objectives.

2. Blogs could be used to provide insight into what you are thinking, how you prioritize, or any one of a number of aspects about you, within the context of your leadership that people would find helpful as they do their work.

3. Facebook provides opportunities to promote your organization’s brand.  You can use it to educate both employees, clients and potential customers.

4. LinkedIn is about networking and that is as important inside the organization as outside.  Providing regular updates about what you are working on, where the organization is going, etc can be invaluable to people who are working to make your organization successful.

Each of these tools provides a different approach to communicating with people, but all are immediate, real-time methods of getting information out to the people that need it.  You can be selective and use one or two or combine them.  I write my blog and have notifications go out to LinkedIn and Twitter so that my entire network can access it as soon as I hit the ‘publish’ button.  You can do the same.

I know that all leaders find it difficult to connect with employees in meaningful ways: if you haven’t considered social media as a tool to help close that gap, you need to start.

Let me know how that works out for you.

 

Vision is a key leadership competency, but only if you can action it

I was sitting in a client meeting yesterday, discussing the output of a recent senior leadership team meeting, and identifying how to move forward with the project, which was about how to engage the SLT in having performance management discussions.  A thought formed in my mind about the essence of leadership; it came to me as the fire chief was speaking about what he was trying to do in the organization.  He had an idea about what needed fixing in the organization and he articulated it in about 3 sentences.  He then linked those sentences to what the organization could achieve (translate: meet its objectives)  in the current constrained public spending environment.   All I could do when he finished was say, ‘Yes, absolutely, that sums it all up.’

Leaders have a vision of how the organization is and where they want to take it.  Not necessarily a grandiose, far-flung, “let’s change the world” kind of vision, but certainly a high-level view of how the organization needs to change to be successful.  The successful visions (translate: those that have a high probability of success)  have common components to them:

1. They start with an accurate view of where the organization is at the moment.  They talk realistically about the positives and the negatives, but end on an upswing, speaking clearly about the opportunities that existed and their commitment to take full advantage of them.

2. They identify the environment that the organization operates within and clearly point out the significant factors that need to be addressed for there to be success.

3. They translate action into what people in the organization need to start, stop and keep doing.  They likely won’t have all the details, but they will have sufficient force behind their words to motivate people to get up and do something different, to help move closer to the vision.

4. Finally, they have enthusiasm.  The fire chief talked about how positive he felt after the SLT meeting, how good he felt the prospects were about success and how he was looking forward to the next phase of the project.  His enthusiasm rubbed off on everyone else in the room and the meeting ended with a sense of momentum and positive energy.

What the chief was talking about was his vision for how the collective leadership of the organization needed to change to be successful.  Think about it in a slightly different conceptual manner and it becomes his Picture of what leadership would look like in the future.  In essence, he was doing 2WA’s 5P’s.

I challenge you to do this:

• Think about your organization and where it needs to go to be successful.  Paint a vision, a Picture in your mind of what it will look like, in the future.
• Identify the opportunities that exist and how – if exploited – they will be a pathway to that vision.
• Analyze your environment and understand the pluses and the minuses regarding those opportunities and see how you can be successful in achieving your vision.
• Specifically identify the big chunks of work that are required to be done properly for your vision to be achieved.
• Take all that and put it into words.  No necessarily long, not necessarily overly dense or complicated.  Bring clarity and simplicity to your words and your vision about what is possible will be enthusiastically received.

In doing these things, you first identify how great things can be and then break it down into manageable steps so that people find it easy to understand how they can reach your vision.  Once they do that, they will easily move to action.

Let me know how that works for you.

 

Set your expectations and your direct reports will thrive

Setting expectations is about stating what you want from your direct reports.  But why are they essential to managing people’s performance?

Role descriptions (the HR variety) are the ‘what’ of jobs.  They state what people should and shouldn’t be doing, in a given position.  Expectations tell people the ‘how’ of their job.  Properly stated expectations will point out how an employee should behave in terms of delivering service, interacting with others, balancing work and life priorities, keeping current with job skill requirements, etc.  By having the ‘what’ of a role description, in concert with the ‘how’ of an expectations document, employees will more clearly understand how they should operate.

Do this:

1. Sit down with each employee and in an informal way, probe whether or not they fully understand all that they do in their role.  Make notes – I’m sure there are some things they’ll need to work on.

2. Going further, get a sense for how they do their work.  Find out if their behaviour lines up with one or more of: the corporate mission, vision and values; the organizational customer service ethos; or any other standard or code that your organization has that prescribes how people should operate in the work place.  Make note of any gaps between what their stated behaviour and what you think they should do and create a professional development plan.

3. Create a set of expectations for your direct reports.  Come up with 10.  Ensure they line up with the mission, vision, values of the organization, but make them behavioural so that people can ‘see’ how they should behave.   Talk about them at a staff meeting and make it clear that you expect people to align with them and that you will be following up.

What you’ll find is that over time, people will align with your expectations because you have laid them out first, monitored them and given people feedback regularly.

Expectations + role descriptions = great performance.  Take the time to set expectations and you will see a significant performance improvement among your team members.