The committee of one

I was fortunate to stumble upon an epiphany of sorts in my last session with Dan. As I mentioned in my last post, learning new techniques for developing staff, creating a positive atmosphere and planning is actually the easy part. The harder task is incorporating these new techniques into an already jam-packed day.
I specifically talked to Dan about planning. Looking at the formal process covered in the material, I wanted to understand where the possible points of variation could come into play. Simply put, I felt like I was good at identifying the objective, highlighting pros and cons, targeting a date and outlining obstacles and possible solutions. I was not so good when it came to identifying accountability and I wanted to know how the process could be customized to suit me as an individual.
Accountability, probably to no one's surprise, is the place where most planning breaks down. I know this had been my experience. That wasn't the epiphany. The epiphany for me was why.
Having taken the leadership index at the beginning of the sessions (as well as any number of DiSC and Myers-Briggs tests during my career), I know that I'm the type of person who likes possibilities more than absolutes. I felt like this might be my issue in taking the final steps of the planning process. Turns out, that's not all there is to it.
The bigger issue is that I tend to plan by myself. Anti-collaborative, I know. I just have always seen it as easier (and faster!) to spell out as much of the process as I could by myself and then share/implement it as a collaborative effort. In doing so, I always ended up assigning myself the lion's share of the tasks. Why? Because I was the only one in the room and since it was my plan in the first place, I felt like I was always in the best position to know what needed to be done. Repeat this process too many times, and suddenly you're drowning in work.
Sometimes the best revelations are the ones you don't intend to find. This certainly shed an entirely different light on my planning process and I'm anxious to try a different tact next time. Who knows, maybe I'll actually enjoy the process?

The time-crunch dilemma

I had to admit that for the first time since we began the process I wasn't able to get to the assigned work between sessions. While I'm not the kind of person to simply let things slide, sometimes the demands of life (work projects, community commitments, children's activities and just the need to take a deep BREATH!) prevent you from getting to everything. There are only so many hours in the week, right?
This week highlighted the importance of habits. The need to translate theory into action through habit-forming has been been a consistent topic throughout much of the reading and subsequent discussions with Dan. A habit is a behavior repeated to the point that you demonstrate competence without much conscious thought. I recognized this week that I haven't managed to turn some of the things we've been working on into habits yet. As I get into my daily grind and the grind of deadlines seem to compress hours available in the day, practicing what I've learned here is still an extra time commitment. I've bought into the value of what I'm learning but I certainly don't have a unconscious competence.
Thankfully the new material is at an end (!) and the next few weeks are going to provide an opportunity to ingrain some of these lessons into habits. Is it bad that I want to do more things unconsciously? I wonder how long it will be before I can simply sleep all day and still get everything done...

Empowerment is a four letter word

Can empowerment be evil? That depends on how it's defined. For some people, empowerment is a challenging concept because it is interpreted as lack of control and lack of discipline. The discussion I had with Kyle this week focused on this very topic.

Empowerment is a word that is used a lot today. It has become one of those cursed "Business Buzz Words" we hear often, but until someone creates another word/phrase that can be overused, I will continue to abuse this one. We read books on empowerment, attend speeches, and occasionally read blogs on the subject. I find leaders are often split on whether or not empowerment is a good thing. It all depends on the definition.

One group interprets empowerment as total freedom for employees to do whatever they want in their jobs. The responsibility is handed to the employee and we as leaders are left flying blind. By this definition, even I would be scared to let my staff steer the ship. If this becomes the predominant belief in the organization, then the outcome is the need for greater control because the leadership may not trust that the employee will do the right thing. After all, that is why we have leaders isn't it? They're here to tell people what to do. They make sure the work gets done. Right? In this model the value of the leader is placed on that leader's control and not on the ability to lead.

Here's an example: Think of a time where you worked in a job that had very strict procedures. In no way were you allowed to deviate from how you did your job because someone else already determined that the process implemented was the best way. You spend your days following the manual to the letter. Sounds fun doesn't it? No thinking needed. Just follow steps 1 through 10. While we all have times that we would like to turn off the gray matter, most of us want a little more stimulation in their jobs. In addition, we need to be active in what we do. Our brains are like a muscle. They require exercise to build creativity. The more structured the job is, the less you are required to think of new ways to get things done. Inevitably there will be a time when you will have to change what you are doing and it will be difficult to find that new solution.

The other challenge is we do not live in a black and white world. There are many different colors and many shades of gray. In virtually every situation, you will come up against a problem that doesn't work in the procedure manual. Now what? For some this means you need to create a new process. The new process will fix the loopholes in the old and make it more restrictive. This pattern continues until all the loopholes have been fixed. The problem is loopholes are often infinite.

The other definition of Empowerment has a different twist. It involves giving the employee the ability to make the correct decision for each situation by following the guidelines set by the Vision, Mission, and Values of the company. Here, instead of control we use discipline. This involves doing the right things the right way for the right reasons at the right time. Discipline is internal where control is external.

I would compare the proper use of empowerment to following a highway to your destination. As long as you stay on the road you will get to where you are going. But the highway has to be wide enough for you to safely maneuver past cars and around slower traffic. It also needs lines painted on it so you know which lanes you are in and where the edge of the pavement is. If the road is well thought out and well marked, anyone with the skills to drive a car and an understanding of the rules of the road can get where they want to go. In this case the destination is the company's Vision, the road is its Mission, and the lines on the highway are the Values. If you fail to follow the rules of the road or deviate to far from the center line, you will wreck.

Our challenge as leaders is understanding these differences, as Kyle does, and being able to lead and develop our people to know what they need to do through the results they need to meet. An even greater challenge is instilling these ideals in our people so we can get out of their way and help them be successful.

Just me and everyone else

I'll echo a phrase Dan's used in his posts before: simple, not easy.
As Dan wrote in his post, we spent the majority of our time talking about the communication process and the impact of people on our efforts, our business and our lives. I came to the realization that there has rarely been a time in my life that I've been confronted with a business problem I haven't been able to solve. That would sound to me like the recipe for a very successful career. Yet, I'm not sure I've ever experienced more or less job satisfaction than the next person. Why? Because it's about people, not problems.
I use the analogy (slightly altered, writer's license) of a business owner walking through his store and complaining that he could get more done if it weren't for all the customers packing his store. People can make our jobs, and by extension our lives, more rewarding. Watching an employee grow in their knowledge and skills to the point they take their performance to a completely new level is wonderful. There is tremendous power in creating a positive working relationship with a colleague that becomes the springboard for great achievement. Large problems can be made smaller when you have this type of relationship in place.
But the opposite is also true. There are, and always will be, people who bring little more than negativity and headaches to our lives. Unlike the strong relationships, little problems are made larger and large problems become nearly insurmountable. If you're like me, you've run into this everywhere you've been. It's a fact of life.
The question I've started to explore is: how am I going to deal with this? As Dan indicates, you can't change anyone else. The effort, then, is internal. I can't change how anyone else acts but I do control how I react. As a younger man I considered this a form of "losing". In other words, I was the one making the change and that seemed to reward the other person for their bad behavior. As I've matured, I take a different view. They have their side of the story and if I find it difficult to work with them for reason A, it's likely that they find it difficult to work with me for reason B. At the end of the day, it's still about results and you need the collaboration of people (both those you like and those you don't) to succeed. It's a simple proposition, but personal dynamics make it far from easy. Perhaps the real reward is in the effort. Like the old saying goes, "If it was easy they wouldn't call it WORK".

Leadership would be easier if it weren't for all these people.

People are what make your business successful. In addition, they make it complex, challenging and frustrating. Why? Because everyone is different. That was the discussion I had with Kyle this week.

At any one time you and your people are at different stages in their life which they have different needs. Each individual communicates differently and interprets information differently. In addition, people learn differently, have different needs and constantly battle their own insecurities. As leaders, we must learn how to "read" these behaviors, adjust our communication to match theirs and still try to get something accomplished. On top of all that, we need to own our behavior, and to a certain degree, the behaviors of others. This is quite a daunting task. While this can be very difficult, it is one of the major factors that separates leaders from managers.

Conflicts in business arise every day. These can be positive, such as collaborating on a new production process. It may create disagreements and even arguments, but the goal of the group is not to attack, but make the process better. Other conflicts may be negative. They are the actions that serve no other purpose than to disrupt. Spreading rumors, name calling and accusations are examples of these.

Often the negative conflicts take us away from what we really should be doing which is achieving the Vision of the company. Instead we end up putting out fires and doing what we often call "babysitting." As a leader it can be the most draining part of your work.

However, successfully proactively dealing with individuals' communication style and behavior can be quite rewarding. Part of leadership is becoming a master of reading people. Learning what makes someone do what they do allows us to potentially curb that behavior for a more positive one. It comes at a cost though. It forces us to own the communication process. We must accept that our actions dictate the actions of others and that can make us resentful because we can't make the other person own their behaviors. What we need to remember is we cannot change others, we can only change ourselves. And it's only when we change that others will.

Lights! Camera? Action!

I heard a saying the other day that a habit is a behavior repeated many times. There's a crucial lesson in that saying, and I think it deals with applied learning.
The biggest piece of this process, as it invariably is with every formal or informal education I've received in my lifetime, is trying to apply what I've learned. I can't think of an instructor who hasn't preached this very same mantra over and over, but I'm surprised by how often I've disregarded it. Is this perhaps why I continue to feel the need to be "educated"?
As Dan indicated in the previous post, we've gone through many of the sections of reading and for the most part I've found the material to be interesting. Let's define interesting: hmm, that seems accurate, for the most part, to someone in a land far, far away. I use the words "theoretical" and "in theory" a lot when I'm learning to indicate that I'm intellectually processing data but I haven't lived it. My last session with Dan we spent discussing the things I'd learned, but most importantly what I've done to apply the lessons. As luck would have it, there are situations daily that require the practicing leadership skills. Who knew?
Thinking about the specific things we've talked about during an actual situation isn't the easiest thing, another thing that every instructor says. But practicing makes it easier and I guess that's the point. Make it a habit. The funny thing is, I'm a big fan of various physical activities that require repetition to build muscle memory. Why I've never embraced this concept in the behavior sense is a mystery to me.
Or maybe this is all just an elaborate Jedi mind-trick Dan's playing on me. Food for thought.

It sounded good when I read it, but...

A common theme that Kyle (and many others) have brought up as they go through the materials is, "this all sounds good and I agree with the concepts, but does this actually work in the real world?" For the most part I will say, "Yes, it does."

When I discuss things related to communication and leadership with my clients, they are often surprised that they have heard this information before. There are many books that discuss these topics, and for the most part, they say the same things. Yet we get hung up on the belief that these concepts may work in other situations, but not ours.

The basics of leadership and communication are relatively simple. It's about understanding and being understood. Though the concepts are simple, it doesn't mean they are easy. Best practices work best when they are practiced. Sometimes we get it in our heads that once is good enough or if it doesn't work the first time then it won't work... EVER. Neither statement is true. The art of leadership and communication requires constant practice. Saying something once means it's rarely remembered. However when you reinforce it multiple times the outcomes change. For example, many companies have a Vision statement. How many people know it? More importantly, how many understand how their job impacts its outcome?

Here's an exercise for the business leaders out there. Ask your people to tell you the company Vision statement. In most cases, less than one out of every ten can tell it to you. Why? Often because it was created absent of any involvement of the staff. In addition, after it was created it was assumed that people would learn it through osmosis. Just by walking into the corporate office, you will come to know it and live it. Nothing could be further from the truth. But if you have a Vision and if you find ways to incorporate that Vision into your daily discussions with your people, the ratio changes. Through the dialog you create an understanding of the idea and the impact each person's job has on it. Now eight out of every ten may know and understand it.

So the concepts are simple, but not easy. In order to be successful you must practice your communication every day and you must be willing to adjust and improvise as necessary. Leadership is as much art as it is science. That is why some are more successful at applying these traits than others. Everything from personality to ability to attitude impact the outcome. This is why these concepts usually work. When they don't it may be from the belief that they would not work in the first place. Make a difference, put in the effort on some simple concepts to get the maximum result.