Business Record - Iowa Biz

Be Unreasonable

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Sitting behind the steering wheel of a car seems to warp our thinking and thus, our behavior. Remember George Carlin's reflection, "Have you ever noticed? Anybody going slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac." What is it about driving that seems to suck all of the good sense out of us?

Take this scenario: you're driving down Interstate 80 in Central Iowa and you see an orange sign with a merge left symbol: "Road Construction. Five Miles Ahead." What do you do? Given the thinking of some drivers at this point, the reasonable thing to do is to start moving over into the left lane. So they do.

Three miles later, an orange sign appears: "Right lane closed two miles ahead." What do you do? Lots of drivers at this point definitely think the reasonable thing to do is to immediately move over into the left lane...now! So they do.

It must seem reasonable. But does it make sense? And what if, instead of being reasonable, they chose to be "unreasonable"?

You're at that second orange sign. Want to raise the ire of hundreds of fellow travelers? Just stay in the right lane and drive two more uninterrupted miles to the merge point. Now, you can expect a struggle to merge left at this point, and maybe even a few raised middle fingers. Because you've been "unreasonable" and somehow they think you've broken a law and are getting by with it!  That never sits well with the masses.

What's going on here? It doesn't make sense to start queuing-up two miles before you have to, leaving one whole lane devoid of traffic. And yet, because of some sort of herding instinct, people do just that, engaging in behavior that  to them seems reasonable. It must also seem reasonable -- and justified -- to punish others who've simply shown good sense.

I was in Minnesota a few weeks ago and notice that to counteract this herding tendency, the state's department of transportation actually posts signs several miles out from construction sites that say, "Use both lanes during backups." In other words, "Resist the urge to be reasonable. Don't merge now. Keep driving. DRIVE! DRIVE! DRIVE!"

I wonder if this phenomenon ever shows up in the workplace? As a leader in your organization, do you ever jump on board whatever is the popular position, at the first sign of a confrontation up ahead, rather than staying the course for a little while contemplating various courses of action and really considering whether being "reasonable" is what makes the most sense here? 

• Not "what have we done before"?
• Not "what do we assume our customers will expect of us"?
• Not "what will keep our employees from being mad at us, and giving us the proverbial finger"?

"Reasonable people," said George Bernard Shaw, "adapt themselves to the world; the unreasonable ones persist in trying to adapt the world to themselves. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable."

Be a true leader. Prepare to be unreasonable. And next time, keep driving!

Work is What We Make It

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Why do some people love to work in their gardens and others hate to garden? It's not about gardening, is it? The act of gardening -- in and of itself -- has no meaning. Each of us, when we think about the hobby of gardening, give that activity meaning. 

Same thing with work. On any work team, there are team members who enjoy the work and others who dread showing up each day. Same work, different reactions.

Do you think you could come to see your work -- your job, your position, you role -- differently? As a joy. Satisfying. Fun and fulfilling. Or are you like the old TV character, Dobie Gillis, who said, "I don't have anything against work. I just figure, why deprive somebody who really loves it?"

Do you know someone who has turned a routine, mundane procedure they have to do every day into an enjoyable event? We've all heard stories, or experienced for ourselves, what it's like to be on a flight with an attendant who sees his or her job as more than just handing out peanuts.

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen! Welcome aboard flight 458, direct from Miami to Philadelphia....Now that I have your attention, my name is Andrea and I'll be your first flight attendant today. Actually, we are en route to Denver so if you were not planning to go there, now would be a good time to get off the plane...In the event that we mistakenly land in a body of water, a decision must be made. You can either pray and swim like crazy or use your seat as a flotation device...We will be serving breakfast in flight this morning. On the menu I have eggs benedict and fruit crepes...not really, but they sound good to me. However, the flight attendants will be offering a choice of an omelette or cold cereal."

Andrea has connected meaning to her work. She's a comic-lite. She makes the chore of air travel a little more pleasurable. She makes people chuckle. And I bet she's laughing inside along with them.

• If we can't do the same, we spend our eight to 10 hours every day at work in quiet desperation.
• If we can, we keep ourselves recharged, fulfilled and satisfied.

What we do is not as important as how we see what we do. Check out Dave and Wendy Ulrich's newest book, The Why of Work. There's an article about their book in this month's Psychology Today. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "If you are called to be a street sweeper, sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts in heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well."

Notice that King didn't say, "If you're a street sweeper and don't like it, get out! Now! Find something to do that you like better." He didn't say you couldn't do that, but he did say to do well whatever it is that you're called to do at that moment. It's that "bloom where you're planted concept."

Remember the old-time comedian George Burns? He had the right attitude. He said, "Fall in love with what you are doing for a living. To be able to get out of bed and do what you love to do for the rest of the day is beyond words. I'd rather be a failure in something that I love than be successful in something that I hate."

Notice that Burns didn't say, "If you hate what you're doing, change jobs. Now! Find something to do that you like better." He said find meaning in what you're doing for a living right now. Whether that's sweeping streets, attending to air travelers or gardening. Work is what we make it.

Where you stand depends on where you sit

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In Congress, the Democrats sit on one side and the Republicans sit on the other. Is it any wonder that the parties don't get along? Or that they lack the resolve and unity of purpose to find common solutions to our nation's huge problems?

Without a doubt, as Joe Reeder, a Washington lawyer and former assistant secretary of the Army, describes in his article, Break Up the Parties, "this segmented seating arrangement shelters our representatives from opposing points of view, reduces the need for common courtesy, reinforces the worst tendencies of a two-party system, and undermines efforts at cooperation."

Being physically and emotionally separated by party intensifies the partisan rancor that's innately alive.

What if, instead of being seated by party, representatives were seated alphabetically? You know, like you and I were seated in grade school. So the first half of fifth grade, I got to sit between Betty Oman and Bobbie Richards and the second half, Sarah Peters and Tony Quinlin. Is it any wonder that I still remember what all four brought for their lunches and if they had cats or dogs as pets. I got to know them. Intimately. And how they thought about things and what they dreamed about. And I learned how to get along with them, sitting two feet from them for eight hours a day, for four or five months at a stretch.

Is it just me, or is this a no-brainer? Mix up the members of Congress! If not alphabetically, then by birth date, or state, or by drawing names out of a hat.

But not by party.

Having assigned seating in grade school obviously doesn't eliminate all the squabbling, but letting kids sit only with kids they like certainly would not allow for learning civility, respect for differences, collaboration and compromise.

We know that without communication, trust and mutual respect, relationships won't be very strong. And without strong relationships, there won't be a spirit of unity toward a common purpose. And without a strong sense of unity, you won't have a strong team, organization, community or country. What if something as simple as a neutral seating chart for Congress eventually led to civility and bipartisan action?

One-on-one relationships are the key. Whether in grade school, corporate America or Congress. As Joan Baez said, "The easiest kind of relationship for me is with ten thousand people. The hardest is with one."

One person relating with another, like Betty Oman and Bobbie Richards. And Bruce Braley and Steve King.

Lighten Up or Tighten Up

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We gotta be productive. That's a given. But how we show up - the state of mind we're in, in order to be productive and the approach we assume - well, that is different for different people.

For example, in the March 2010 issue of Inc., several entrepreneurial leaders shared their productivity secrets. Seth Priebatsch, CEO of SCVNGR, a Boston-based start-up that helps organizations engage people through location-based smartphone games, admits his approach is "Expand my day!" In addition to fully-packed workdays, he comes into the office on weekends, meets with people late at night or early in the morning, reads technical manuals and watches video tutorials late at night - even the last half-hour before sleep. And that works for him. He's very productive. And happy.

So is Krissi Barr, founder of Barr Corporate Success, a business consulting firm in Cincinnati. She said, "If I think something is going to take me an hour, I give myself 40 minutes. By shrinking your mental deadlines, you work faster and with greater focus." That's what I call "tightening up" - pushing harder - with a focused drive. And that works for her. She's productive and happy with her approach.

Question #1. Does that sound like the mode you take on when you need to be productive?

That heads-down, hunkering-hard approach doesn't mesh with other entrepreneurs' styles, however.

Like Scott Lang, CEO of Silver Spring Networks, a California-based developer of smart energy grids. For him, being productive is "being agile." He leaves large blocks of time - up to 50 percent - open in his calendar every day. That wiggle room allows him to be light on his feet, reacting in the moment to opportunities that he may otherwise miss, he thinks, if his calendar was packed too tightly.

Or Jason Fried, co-founder of 37signals, a Chicago-based software firm, and author of Rework. He thinks of himself as "wildly ambitious and unapologetically lazy." He thinks laziness is the best return on investmetn out there. The opposite of driven, his focus is today. In the now. He, along with his team of 15 colleagues who have millions of users - and millions in profits - don't spend time worrying about what could, might, or may happen. They spend their time on what matters now.

Question #2. Do Scott's and Jason's styles sound more like the mode you settle into when you want to be productive?

Both styles - lightening up and tightening up - work. And there are lots of variations in-between. The secret is figuring out your own approach and then refining it every day.

Now, back to work.

Building a Culture of Well-Being

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You can count on the Gallup Organization to do good work. They gave us "First, Break All the Rules" and StrengthsFinder. Now, with "Wellbeing: The Five Essential Elements," they've once again come up with valuable insights into worker engagement and productivity.

Gallup researchers Tom Rath and Jim Harter studied people in 150 countries - from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe - to explain how people experience their days and evaluate their days overall. In other words, what makes people feel truly satisfied overall? Experience a sense of well-being? They analyzed hundreds of Gallup's global surveys involving millions of respondents. I mean, these guys were thorough.

A couple of key insights emerged. Here they are. Think about what these insights mean to you as a leader and to your role as culture-builder where you work.

#1. Five core dimensions are universal elements of well-being. Achieving nirvana in one or two at the exclusion of the others doesn't work. They require a holistic perspective in order for people to achieve well-being. Take a look. Is your work culture "well-being-friendly"?

Career Well-Being: Feeling appreciated as a person and not just as an employee, respecting management, looking forward to going to work each day, enjoying the company of co-workers, feeling pride in the organization you work for

Social Well-Being: Having good relationships at work, friends, a support system for weathering tough times

Financial Well-Being: In control of finances, frugal but not pinching pennies, aware of costs and in control of expenditures

Physical Well-Being: Lots of energy, healthy eating, getting sufficient rest as well as regular rigorous exercise

Community Well-Being: Being actively and productively engaged in the community and neighborhood groups, being part of meaningful activities like Crime Stoppers, homeowner association, PTA, Red Cross, et cetera.

#2. The secret to a happy life is rooted in interactions with co-workers and the boss. Remember the saying, "People don't quit a company; they quit a bad manager?" Gallup's latest research supports that.

Good managers know what their employees care about, see them as individuals, know what's going on in their lives and are interested in their career development.

Good managers see their employees as unique individuals, know their strengths, celebrate their successes and are clear about expectations so their employees know what they're supposed to be doing on a daily basis.

Good managers understand the importance of socializing at work. Productive employees are engaged employees and they likely have a best friend at work with whom they chat and interact.

Intrigued? Each copy of the book has a unique ID code for Gallup's online "The Well-Being Finder," a program designed to help you track and improve your own well-being, as well as gain insight into supporting a culture that supports the five elements. Check it out.  

Gaining Perspective Through Adventures

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Leading is an adventure. Especially in this fast-paced, rapidly-changing world. Regardless of the industry or the marketplace in which you play, few leadership competencies are more critical than perspective:

• Being able to think globally.
• Seeing issues and challenges from the broadest possible view.
• Posing future scenarios with ease.

Where does perspective come from?

It's not about graduating top of the class necessarily or coming up with 50 ways to build a better mouse trap. It comes from living a life as an adventure:

• enjoying a breadth of diverse interests
• looking for unique opportunities to experience new cultures, tastes, sensations -- in new and unusual places
• being curious about how things work, how they connect, and "what ifs"
• enjoying Qs more than As, and absolutely loving "maybes"

Live life that way -- every day -- and as a leader, you'll have a huge repertoire to draw from when you need a new idea or a strategy for a situation you've never faced before.

Remember's history fascination and admiration of the "Renaissance Man?" It was perspective that fascinated us -- their breadth of knowledge and interests and pursuits.

Develop perspective. Start today, wherever you are on that continuum between "narrow and parochial" and "curious and global." Resist the temptation to "lean in" and select on your iPad or smart phone only those topics and apps that currently interest you. Do what the burgeoning hi-tech industry calls "lay back" by broadening your data stream to include intriguing new topics and options that you've never explored before.

Try these tips and tricks and techniques to enhance perspective.

• Read international publications and autobiographies of people you've never heard of. Pick a country and study it. Read the Wall Street Journal and Inc. and jot down three interesting things that parallel what's going on with you. Learn to connect what's out there, with what' s in here.
• Pick something to dabble in that you've not paid much attention to before -- the opera, MTV, learn to play the piano, romance novels, be a Big Brother/Big Sister, learn to juggle. What new connections surface for you? Your brain is gaining perspective without you even working at it.
• Volunteer for a task force or a cross-functional team at work that requires you to learn other functions, businesses or nationalities, helping you see connections to a broader world and from a number of diverse viewpoints.

And finally, see life as an adventure. It is. But you have to acknowledge that fact and show up that way in order to broaden your perspective and enhance your leadership. Enjoy the ride.

Knowing You Don't Know

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Knowledge is power, they say, and when we don't know, we tend to feel powerless and afraid. And yet, being able to embrace and accept a certain level of unknowing is a good thing.

Like the old Hasidic rabbi who crossed the village square every morning on his way to the temple to pray. One morning, a large Cossack soldier, who happened to be in a vile mood, accosted him, saying, "Hey, Rebby, where are you going?"

And the rabbi said, "I don't know."

This infuriated the Cossack. "What do you mean, you don't know? Every morning for 25 years you have crossed the village square and gone to the temple to pray. Don't fool with me. Who are you, telling me you don't know?"

He grabbed the old rabbi by the coat and dragged him off to jail. Just as he was about to push him into a cell, the rabbi turned to him, saying, "You see, I didn't know."

Leaders can fall into the trap of seeing their role as the one who should know it all -- and then worse yet, think they do! We are so used to instant gratification, faster computers and microwaved food. We want instant weather, stock quotes, public-opinion polls and interest rates on our Blackberries and iPhones. We find it hard to let things go unknown or unfinished for very long. We want to know immediately what's going to happen next, don't we?

But in the end, the most important things many times show themselves slowly, and in their own time.

Edward Gibbon conceived his history of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire while listening to a choir of monks at vespers. Nobel physicist Steven Weinberg was nagged by the problem of how nuclear reactions produce the heat of the sun -- until it came to him one day unbidden as he was driving around Boston in his red Camaro. The idea for the microwave oven came to Percy Spencer one day when a chocolate bar melted in his pocket as he stood in front of a magnetron, the microwave tube used to power radar.

Sometimes our greatest insights come when we don't know, and know that we don't know...but we're open to the prospect of the "knowing" showing up unexpectedly. Like Archimedes who allegedly discovered the law of gravity while taking a bath. Who would have known?

Are You Boring?

Gertrude Stein via last.fm

Gertrude Stein claimed, "No one real is boring." She's right. The most interesting people I know are the ones who are genuinely who they are -- no phoniness, no pretense, no trying to impress. They're congruent.

Think of someone you know like that. They're true to who they are, unwilling to compromise their integrity and self-respect in order to satisfy the expectations of others or win their approval. You can count on them to say what they mean and do what they say.

Being real -- congruent -- is especially critical if you're in a leadership role. Not everyone may like your personality or agree with your decisions, but by golly, if you're authentic, they'll admit they like the fact that:

• you'll be straight with them,
• they'll know where you stand, and
• you'll stay true to your convictions.

Impressing others isn't important to you; being true to yourself is.

Rosa Parks' intentions and words and actions were congruent on that December evening in 1955 when she was returning home on the bus at the end of a long workday. "I was sitting in the front seat of the colored section," as she tells it, "and the white people were sitting in the white section. More white people got on, and they filled up all the seats in the white section. When that happened, we black people were supposed to give up our seats to the whites. But I didn't move. The white driver said, 'Let me have those seats.' I didn't get up." Her one act of congruence became a defining moment in American history and made her a role model for the civil rights movement.

As leaders, if we suppress our authenticity we lose touch with the very source of our vitality and initiative.

• We lack courage.
• We lose hope.
• We take ourselves too seriously.
• We resist taking things on faith.
• And thus, everyone loses.

Want to be more real? Ponder:

• What triggers your desire to diminish or inflate your self-worth, to be something you're not?
• When and with whom are you completely yourself? Why only them?
• What would be the benefits of stepping fully into your authentic self and bringing your unique gifts into the world of work and home?

Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) said, "Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." ...and because, as Gertrude Stein says, you'll never be boring!

Rituals Rock

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Remember your first day on your current job? What did you do? Did you sit in a room by yourself and read procedure manuals or don a safety hat and goggles and hop on the back of a forklift to tour the company's two-block-square warehouse?

Studies show that how a new employee is introduced and assimilated into a new culture is one of the key reasons why over 55 percent of them don't stick around for more than two years.

New employees walk through your company's door their first day on the job with certain impressions and expectations they got during the hiring process while you were "courting" them. After a few days on the job, will those impressions hold true? Maybe even improve? Or, will the employees be starting to think, "What have I done, coming here?"

I'll never forget my first week on the job at Meredith Corp. Every day that week Meredith employees would pass me in the hallways, recognize me as a new employee, and say something like, "You're new. Welcome! You're going to love it here!" And I did. Employees weren't set up to say that -- they said it because they did -- love it.

If you're looking for a way to on-board new hires in a powerful way so they'll stick around and voluntarily engage other new hires in a welcoming way, establish a ritual or two. A ritual engages new employees in activities that convey the organization's character while creating an instant bond. Taking part in that activity -- whatever it is -- is sort of a rite of passage. As a result of participating in the ritual, they now feel like they "belong."

In the March, 2010 issue of Inc., Leigh Buchanan gives examples of company rituals:

• Gentle Giant moving company in MA initiates new hires with a run up the steps at Harvard Stadium -- alongside Larry O'Toole, the CEO.
• New employees at Foot Levelers eat popcorn, watch the movie Rudy,and cry together and then talk with CEO Kent Greenawalt about how Rudy's character traits and practices play out in their culture.
• CXtec new hires are paired with a veteran staff member early on in their tenure and they spend a morning together serving donuts and coffee from a cart to everyone in the Syracuse, NY offices.

As a result of these simple rituals, now these new hires "belong." And when they belong, they're much more likely to "love it there!" And stay. And be innovative and productive and a good ambassador for the company. And that rocks.

The Paradox: Ego & Humility

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Humility. The quintessential character trait. Right?

Remember when Jim Collins, in his book "Good to Great," said that two-thirds of the companies he studied didn't make the leap from good to great because they were weighed down by the "presence of gargantuan personal ego that contributed to the demise or continued mediocrity of the company?"

Extreme personal humility was one of the two unique traits his "Level 5" leaders had.

We recognize the names of many who fit in that two-thirds group: Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling (Enron), Bernie Ebbers (WorldCom) and Carly Fiorina (HP). The list goes on and on.  And that's only the business world. What about Tiger Woods and John Edwards? Any "gargantuan personal ego" at work in their cases? You think?

What is it about ego that allows leaders to get to good, but without humility, does not allow them to move to great? Doesn't it seem like ego is something we've got to have if we want to succeed, but having it often interferes with the success we're after?

Columnist Linda Campbell (Fort Worth Star-Telegram) said in her Feb. 7 editorial, "When ego trumps self-awareness" in the Des Moines Sunday Register, that "Presidents and Oval Office aspirers are egotists. The tame and insecure don't have the self-assurance to convince themselves or others they can lead the free world's most powerful nation...But self-awareness and good judgment are crucial in successful national leaders."

That's the paradox, huh?

In their book, Egonomics, David Marcum and Steven Smith say, "Ego is a free radical." I love that analogy. Our bodies need free radicals to be healthy, to fight viruses and bacteria. But when free radicals go amok, they can kill us, attacking our good cells and vital tissue. That's exactly what ego does to leaders' character when their egos run amok.

In my workshops, I talk about a concept called, "crucial moments." Crucial moments are those points in time when the next action we take will either take us down a good path; a path we will feel good about having taken because it leads to what we ultimately really want. Or our next action takes us off-course, down a path we might later regret.

Everyone of us faces scores of these crucial moments every day. Many of these moments are of small significance. But occasionally, the next step we take -- the next choice we make --  can lead to a life-changing outcome. It did with the leaders mentioned above. It can with you and me. And we often don't know at the time the significance of that one "next step."

There's the rub, huh?

Think of your daily crucial moments. What role does your ego play in those choices? Like the tag line for the CHARACTER COUNTS! in Iowa program: "Everywhere, all of the time."

Our ego -- like our character of humility -- is always there, always available, always at risk. Every moment counts!