Business Record - Iowa Biz

The sky is not the limit

No one can put a limit on you without your permission.

Eli Whitney was laughed at when he showed his cotton gin. Edison had to install his electric light free of charge in an office building before anyone would even look at it. The first sewing machine was smashed to pieces by a Boston mob. People scoffed at the idea of railroads. People thought that traveling thirty miles an hour would stop the circulation of the blood. Morse had to plead before ten Congresses before they would even look at his telegraph. Yet for all of these people the sky was not the limit.

In grade school I learned this little ditty and it has stuck with me ever since. "Beware of those who stand aloof and greet each venture with reproof; the world would stop if things were run by men who say, 'It can't be done.'"

Do you hope and strive for the very best, or do you just hope to avoid the worst? Is there some area where you've been your own worst enemy, putting your own limits on success?

Many of us have heard opportunity knocking at our door, but by the time we unlocked the chain, pushed back the bolt, turned two locks and shut off the burglar alarm -- it was gone! Don't be one of those leaders who spend their lives looking around, looking down or looking behind, when you need to be looking up. The sky is not the limit.

Look around your world. Can you see the limits, the "I can'ts or shouldn'ts" that you have created for yourself? Remove just one this week and start to see just how high you can go.

Guilty of innovation pitfalls?

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In Blueprints for Innovation, Prather and Gundry list five pitfalls to innovation. If you're trying to change a process, create a new product or service, or get your team to think in new ways, check out this list of pitfalls. Are you guilty of letting any of them hold you back? Be honest with yourself. Ask others their perspective.

1. Working on the wrong problem. You may be expending too much energy on something minor or even something that only you see as an issue.
2. Judging ideas too quickly. There could be a "nugget" buried within a thought and you'll miss it if you're evaluating rather than really listening.
3. Stopping with the first good idea. When you explore a variety of ideas, you can more carefully analyze, bring key thoughts to the top, blend the best of the best, and chart the path to innovation.
4. Failure to get a sponsor. You can do few things in isolation, and innovation is dead without the support and blessing of key decision makers and influencers. Selling your idea to others is crucial to moving them forward.
5. Obeying rules that don't exist. Know what's written in stone and what you see as true because it's always been that way. Innovation comes from those who think differently.

So what do you think? Recognize any stumbling blocks within that list to your own efforts to be more innovative? If so, focus on how you can eliminate it this week.

- Shirley Poertner

Feed your back burner

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It's soup season. Don't you just love the aroma of a hearty pot of soup that's been simmering all afternoon when you walk into the house after a long winter's day at the office or in the field? I do. 

Our creative minds work kind 'a like that stock pot full of soup on the back burner of your stove.

The back burner of our minds work in much the same way as the back burner of a stove, slowly brewing a pot of vegetables and broth into a delicious, succulent feast of soup. All we have to do is put each of the ingredients in the pot, stir them up, and then leave them alone to cook, only periodically adding a dash of this or that and stirring the pot.

A soup on the back burner needs to cook slowly; if we cook it too fast, the flavors don't blend properly or we burn the ingredients. The back burner of a stove requires little attention; we can cook something else on the front burner at the same time.

Putting problems and decisions on the back burner does two things according to Richard Carlson and Joseph Bailey in Slowing Down to the Speed of Life:

• It allows us to slow down to the moment and attend to what is happening now and enjoy our lives.
• It puts our most creative and intelligent thinking to work on issues that we have no immediate answer for.

We can solve problems with far greater ease if we feed our back burners. Try intentionally setting on your back burner a pot of problems, a handful of possible solutions, facts, and a timetable for when you need an answer. Like the ingredients of a soup, the thoughts you put on the back burner must now be left alone to cook properly while you go about the daily responsibilities of being a leader.

When you revisit the problem after it's simmered a while, you'll find the ingredients have come together in a way that will surprise you. And the solutions that surface will be much different -- and better -- than what you'd have gotten by turning up the heat and rushing the process.

It's like Emil Vollmer, the inventor, said years ago, "The challenge is the thing. I might not get the answer right away. I might have to walk away, have a cup of coffee, but when I come back, the idea comes to me."

- Shirley Poertner

Is your name Buffett?

Is your name Perot, Gates or Buffett? Probably not. But it doesn't matter. A name and a bank account may open a door, but ultimately the person who walks through it will be measured by his or her core capabilities and actions. Successes in your past may be noteworthy, but it's how you handle each new challenge before you today that continually shapes your life and eventually your legacy.

Think about your current challenges. Answer these three questions:

1. Has past success made you "dangerously comfortable" with your life?
2. Can you risk "certainty" to create new levels of competency?
3. What can you do to re-invent yourself, expand your skills and awareness, and move forward for self-growth?

The old Irish proverb is right: "You've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was."

Even if his name was Buffet.

-Shirley Poertner

Actions versus words

"Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't," Margaret Thatcher said.

It's the old "actions speak louder than words" philosophy; those who have to talk about their power are working to convince themselves -- as well as others -- that they really have it and know how to use it. But people become leaders in the eyes of others through their actions, not through their job titles or their rhetoric.

When you think of a true leader, who comes to mind? Who inspires you to be part of their team? What gives that person his or her power? What is his or her uniqueness, and how can you put such skills and capabilities to work for you? Alfred Lord Tennyson called power "self-reverence, self-knowledge and self-control." An organization can bestow a leadership title, but only an individual can earn it.

Identify one element of your leadership style that you would like to focus on in the coming week. Make a list of 3 or 4 specific actions that you could undertake that would help you hone that element. Remember, it's those actions that make all the difference, not the words!

- Shirley Poertner

Just get up!

Vince Lombardi said, "It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up."

Ever had a game plan that simply didn't work? Have there been days in which nothing seemed to go as you'd planned, no matter what you tried to accomplish or how you worked to move forward? How well did you handle your frustration and disappointment? Did you crumble in defeat or display resilience?

Do you make a practice of taking time to calm down, breathe deeply, reflect and develop a bounce-back strategy? A leader is not defeated or distracted by mistakes; a leader asks, "What can I learn from this? How can it empower me? How is this an opportunity to increase competency? What solutions am I not seeing?" A true leader is responsible for leading people out of disappointments and uses them as a way to rally and involve others in problem solving.

Vince Lombardi didn't say this, but he could have: Don't look to learn from those who win every game, go to the top, and then stay there. Look to learn from someone who has won, lost, and come back to win again. It's what you do when you don't win that helps you win in the end.

Try this: Identify someone you could learn from. If they're local, take them to lunch and ask them for tips and suggestions. If they're from elsewhere, or famous, read their blogs or books to gain some insight into their ability to get up when knocked down.

- Shirley Poertner

Who's driving your bus?

Imagine this: you've got a window in your forehead, so you can look in and see what's going on. There in your brain is a steering wheel, a big ole leather seat, and even one of those hats with a badge on it -- just like a Greyhound bus driver wore in the old days.

My question to you is, "Who's driving?" And the answer we often have to give is, "I've got a hijacker driving my bus!" Every one of us has one kind of hijacker or another driving our bus, at least some of the time.

So who's driving your bus? These hijackers or phantom bus drivers are our old, dependable habits. What each one of us is today, for better or worse, is the result of behaviors that we have repeated again and again over months and years and it is the same method -- repetition and practice -- that we must use to replace the hijackers in our driver's seats with new habits. New habits that are more effective and satisfying and that will drive us to a new and better destination.

Scary as it may sound, what you are or will be at sixty is what you are at thirty -- doubled. Unless you decide to change drivers. Now. No other outcome is possible otherwise, for practice makes perfect. With thirty, forty, or more years to drive the same route hundreds of times, your bus driver will be able to do it blindfolded, without even thinking about it.

Want to adopt new habits? Then take these steps:

1. Name the old habit you want to change or eliminate.
2. Clearly describe the new habit you want to adopt.
3. List the steps you will take to get started and keep going.
4. Identify right now how you keep yourself from deviating from your new habit at the first bump in the road.
5. Ask someone to help you stay on course and be specific about what you want them to do.

Wrestle the wheel away from your hijackers! Drive your own bus to where you really want to go, not just to the place you happen to be headed.

- Shirley Poertner

Be the best you can be

Jessica Guidobono said, "Every job is a self-portrait of the person who did it. Autograph your work with excellence." When people see your "autograph," what do they see?

An employee went to his supervisor to ask for a raise. "I am already planning on giving you a raise," she said. "Oh, great!" he said. "When will it be effective?" "As soon as you are," she explained.

Do you give your best in your role at work? If a thing is worthy of our time (...and we all certainly dedicate many hours to our professions), it is worthy of our best efforts.

In some of his speeches, Louis T. Rader relates that many top executives feel that a 99 percent effort is good enough. But here is the eye opener. If this figure -- 99 percent -- were converted into our daily non-industrial life, it means that:

• More than 30,000 babies would be accidentally dropped by doctors and nurses each year.
• Electricity would be off for fifteen minutes each day.
• Twelve newborns would be given to the wrong parents daily.
• 114,500 mismatched pairs of shoes would be shipped each year.
• 18,322 pieces of mail would be mishandled per hour.
• 2.5 million books would be shipped with the wrong cover.
• Two planes would crash daily at Chicago's O'Hare.

Perfection is impossible for us to achieve. But doing and being one's best is not. Texas' first black congresswoman, Barbara Jordon, once said, "Each day you have to look into the mirror and say to yourself, "I'm going to be the best I can no matter what it takes." She never said, "I will be the best." She said, "I will be the best I can."

Think about the effort you put into being the best programmer, the best sales rep, the best leader you can be. How would you rate yourself on a 10 point scale, with 10 being "I consistently give my best" and 1 being "I'm a sluggard."

If your job is a self-portrait of you, are you proud of that portrait?

• If you can honestly answer "yes," how can you ensure that you maintain that level of effort through the ups and downs of the workplace?
• If you had to answer "no," what one thing can you do differently starting today that will begin to improve that picture of your and your effort?

- Shirley Poertner

 

Don't be the bass on the wall

Ever notice that you never see a fish on the wall with its mouth shut?

Opening your mouth can get you in big trouble sometimes. Knowing when to speak up - out of conviction, regardless of the consequences - and when to remain quiet. That's the challenge. It's like teetering on the edge of a precipice. Lean backwards? Or lean over the edge and plunge ahead?

We've been blessed with two ears and one mouth. That's not an accident.

William Penn said, "If thou thinkest twice before thou speakest once, thou wilt speak twice the better for it." My motto has always been, "If in doubt, don't." Saying that phrase to myself in the moment of indecision ("Should I say this or not?") has served me well in the workplace. Seldom have I regretted holding my tongue if that still, small voice inside my head raised a red flag in the heat of the moment.

Can you think of a time when you wished you'd kept your mouth shut because you felt like you ended up mounted on someone's wall for all to see, embarassed and regretful? Think right now of a motto that you can silently say to yourself in those moments of temptation to give yourself time to decide, "Should I say this or not?"

- Shirley Poertner

Bring problems to their knees

Ever heard of Steve Ventura? He's a smart guy. He said, "The hallmark of a well-managed organization is not the absence of problems, but whether or not problems are effectively resolved." Sure beats trying to create a problem-free environment, huh?

Apollo 11, the first successful space flight to land humans on the moon, was off course 80 percent of the time throughout its successful 1969 mission. But thanks to continually making strategic changes and fine-tuning, they reached their goal.

Problems are inevitable and provide the best opportunity for real learning. No one welcomes yet another challenge, but we learn through the experience of dealing with them. Leadership guru Warren Bennis calls mistakes "missteps" that are necessary for actualizing visions and achieving success.

• When faced with a problem, do you develop and consider at least two solutions? Or three? or four?
• Are you comfortable with the challenges of "what if's?"
• Do you consistently look beneath the symptoms to find the root causes?

Decide right now to use your next misstep as a practice field to bring problems to their knees and solve them.

- Shirley Poertner

Don't be a chicken: Fail quickly!

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The people who design jet engines use a chicken test. This test fires chickens (usually purchased at the supermarket) at a running engine. They attempt to run this test as early in the design process as possible because if the engine can't pass the test, there is no point in spending additional millions designing it.

Fast failure is acceptable; slow failure is not. But even more unacceptable is NO failure. If you aren't failing anywhere at work, then it's likely that you're not trying hard enough. You are not pushing the envelope.

The following related story may be urban legend but it's a good one. (It comes from David Thielen's, The Twelve Simple Secrets of Microsoft Management.) A British company asked Boeing for one of its chicken guns to test a new jet windshield. After using it the Brits called up Boeing and reported that the chicken went through not only the windshield but also the brick wall behind it. Boeing sent an engineer over to England to investigate. After watching the workers run the test again, Boeing added to the instructions, "Make sure chickens are defrosted before firing."

The point? Identify failure as fast as possible.

• Sit down and try to come up with everything you're doing that could lead to failure. (It's usually pretty easy to accurately predict all the things that could trip you up. The surprise is usually in which of the predicted items actually did cause the failure.)
• For each item on your list, figure out how to determine, as early as possible, if this is a showstopper.
• For each showstopper, don't give up. See if you can find a way around the problem.
• Only if the problem is truly unsolvable do you kill the project.
• Oh, and be sure to read the instructions. All the instructions.

- Shirley Poertner

Hello, obstacles!

Image by Joriel "Joz" Jimenez via Flickr

Every obstacle introduces a person to himself.

How we respond to obstacles at work is important. No obstacle will ever leave you the way it found you. You will either be better or you will be worse as a result of that confrontation. But keep in mind one important fact about obstacles: every obstacle has a limited lifespan. Many times there are things that we worried about last year that we can't even remember today.

Mediocre leaders tend to be tamed and subdued by obstacles, but great leaders always rise above them. You and I need to be like the leader who, when asked what helped him overcome the obstacles he encountered, responded, "The other obstacles." We should be like a kite that rises against the wind, causing it to fly higher and higher.

What is one of the greatest obstacles that you are facing at work right now?

Lay that obstacle in front of you and take a good hard look at it from a number of perspectives. Flip it over. Turn it inside out if you can. Bring someone else in to look at it and tell you what she sees.

Many times obstacles, given this sort of scrutiny, begin to shrink in size. If nothing else, a number of paths will appear to go over or around or through what might have once seemed insurmountable. And pretty soon, you'll begin to welcome obstacles because you recognize that you're growing in the process of tackling them. Hello, opportunities!

- Shirley Poertner

Just Believe

Frank Lloyd Wright said, "The thing always happens that you really believe in, the belief in a thing makes it happen." And we know how that turned out for Mr. Wright!

It only takes one idea to change your world. One idea and a trait that all visionary leaders share. Intelligence? A position of power? Charisma? Money? A brilliant plan? We know better, don't we?

The one common component? Belief.

Walt Disney had 84 banks turn down his financing request to create the animated film that introduced the world to Mickey Mouse before bank #85 said yes. Thomas Edison and his buddies tested 10,000 different materials before they discovered one suitable for the filament in electric light bulbs. They just would not give up. They believed.

Now, as a leader you may not have your sights set on inventing a world icon or radically changing the daily life of millions of people. But you are a leader, right? You do have a vision. Are you ready to do whatever it takes to bring that vision to life? Do you believe?

• What idea do you believe in with such certainty that you know you simply could not walk away from it?
• What's getting in the way of you making that vision a reality?
• How could you remove that obstacle?
• What other obstacles can you anticipate and prepare for in advance?
• Who could help you?
• Who would share your vision and belief?

And now the most important question: What are you waiting for?

Start today. Don't give up until it's done. Believe.

- Shirley Poertner

Master the 15-minute meeting

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Want to know something that can make all the difference in a successful day at the office? A must-attend, 15-minute maximum, 8 a.m. meeting in which you surface the day's milestones, needs for assistance, and snafus.

What about when a crisis arises during the day? Call a 15-minute meeting and sort it out.

If you're religious about sticking to the 15-minute-maximum rule, you'll discover you've stumbled across a powerful device that can pretty consistently move the productivity needle in the right direction.

Tom Peters said, "Master the 15-minute meeting! You can change (or at least organize) the world in 15 minutes!"

I don't know about that, but I do know that when people have 15 minutes to get things covered, they get things covered in 15 minutes. There's no room for fat, for pontificating, for unnecessary deference. People learn to state their cases simply and succinctly, which is a valuable, but uncommon, life-skill. Gone are all the small, time-wasting rituals that turn many meetings into endless drones.

The 15-minute-maximum-meeting routine sends powerful messages about action, clarity, brevity and focus. And, oh yes, simplicity, too. Which is another admired but uncommon trait.

Try this:

• Schedule your first "lightning speed stand-up meeting" in the next 24 hours. And then every 24 hours thereafter.
• The agenda? (1.) What's happened in the last 24 hours? (2.) What's going on today? (3.) And nothing else. Never go to 16 minutes. Fourteen is just great though. Set the alarm on your Blackberry if it helps. 
• When you're absent, delegate. Have the meeting whether three people or 14 are in the office. But have the meeting religiously. Make it clear -- as in "What part of 'no' don't you understand?" -- that nobody misses this meeting. Period.

Hoarding Hinders Success

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Face it. Unless your goals are very small, you're going to need help. Or at least some support. Unless you can do the work of the whole team by yourself, both performance and morale are going to suffer. You must quit hoarding and learn to delegate.

Be honest.

• Do you hoard tasks, keeping your favorite ones for yourself?
• Do you "throw" tasks at people without an overall plan or sufficient follow-up? And then complain because they never really got it?
• Do you micromanage because you don't trust others to do it "right?"
• Do you think it's easier or faster to just do it yourself?

If you answered yes to some of the questions above, you may have a delegation problem. The majority of managers do.

Andrew Carnegie said years ago, "No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it." Wanting all the credit is one thing; wanting to do it all yourself, for whatever reason, is another.

Time is our most precious commodity. There's never enough. One of the main reasons is that managers do too much themselves. They often do too much themselves because of their discomfort with delegation.

We all know cognitively that delegation frees up valuable time. Delegation motivates. Delegation develops people. It gets more done. It's a skill that first-line supervisors are supposed to learn.

Yet, many high level executives still haven't grasped it.

Even senior leaders can be guilty of doing the tactical stuff first and letting everything strategic go until last. And when they do that, they don't have time to develop others. That makes them even more reluctant to delegate work because their team members aren't ready to accept it. Duh!

If you know you hoard tasks and don't delegate effectively, try this:

• Identify an important goal that's looming for you and your team.
• Who's most critical to you and the team achieving that success?
• What are the specifics of what that person needs to know to help achieve that goal?
• Spend time now with that person and make sure they understand the why as well as the how of the task or project.
• Then be available to that individual to answer questions, re-direct and reinforce.

You'll find yourself agreeing with William Feather, American author and publisher, who said, "Next to doing a good job yourself, the greatest joy is in having someone else do a first-class job under your direction."

 

Related articles

• Successful Delegation (maaruthi.wordpress.com)

Frame It Up

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A shoe factory sends two marketing scouts to a region in Africa to study the prospects for expanding business. One sends back a telegram - or text message - saying, "SITUATION HOPELESS STOP NO ONE WEARS SHOES." The other writes back triumphantly, "GLORIOUS BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY STOP THEY HAVE NO SHOES."

The frames our minds create define -- and confine -- what we perceive to be possible. Every problem, every dilemma, every dead end we find ourselves facing in life, only appears unsolvable inside a particular frame or point of view. Enlarge the box, or create another frame around the data, and problems vanish as new opportunities appear.

Konrad Adenauer said, "We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same horizon."

Our minds are designed to string events into story lines, whether there is actually any connection between the parts. These story lines are founded on a network of hidden assumptions, accumulated over time. If we can learn to notice and distinguish these stories and their underlying assumptions, then we can shift the framework to stories whose underlying assumptions allow for new perspectives. Henri Bergson says, "The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend." Even with something as simple as bare feet.

The next time you need -- or just want -- to look at a situation in new and different ways, ask yourself:

• What assumptions am I making that I'm not even aware of that give me what I see?
• What might I now invent that I haven't yet invented that would give me other choices?

We can learn to turn HOPELESS SITUATIONS into GLORIOUS BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES just by changing the frame around our stories and their underlying assumptions...and never see things quite the same way again.

Driving Ambition

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Elvis Presley said that "Ambition is a dream with a V8 engine." What a sweet ride! Often it's the only difference between champions and losers. As star golfer Nancy Lopez once said, "Competitors take bad breaks and use them to drive themselves just that much harder. Quitters take bad breaks and use them as reasons to give up."

Donna Karan, the celebrated fashion designer and founder of DKNY, started out in the business as Anne Klein's assistant. But she had a dream with a V8 engine. While pregnant with her first child, she clearly communicated her priorities and goals to Klein. She was committed to the company and wanted to have as active a role as she could during and after her pregnancy, as long as her unborn baby's health would allow it. Anne Klein died when Karan's baby was two days old. The company's corporate head asked Karan to take over as chief designer.

Ambition doesn't mean being a workaholic. Nor does it mean being unethical. It's a combination of goal-setting, focus, engagement and competitiveness. On the golf course, Jack Nicklaus was as driven as they come. But off the course, he managed to build a multi-million-dollar business at the same time, raise a great family, and give back to his profession.

• Who's your role model when it comes to ambition?
• Is there someone in your company or your family who combines intensity, passion and focus with the ability to hang on for the long haul?
• How do they do it? Ask them.

On a scale of one to ten, rank yourself on focus, goal-setting, and competitiveness. Your scores will tell you if you're running at V8 capacity or puttering along on only four cylinders.

- Shirley Poertner

The Selfish Neither Thrive or Survive

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After the game, the king and pawn go into the same box.

There's an important lesson there. Though that Italian Proverb has been around for a long time, it speaks to team life in today's workplace. If you want to be a contributing member of a successful team, you have to put others on the team ahead of yourself. You have to see the good of the team as more important than your own short-term success. How are you when it comes to taking a backseat to others? If someone else gets credit for work well done, does it bother you? If you get bumped from the "starting lineup" of the team, do you pout?

Try this:

• Are there successful teams in your company? If so, ask to sit in on one of their meetings. What do you see them doing that you can immediately apply to your own team? Talk with some of their team members. Ask them what practices have led to the team's success.
• Make a list of the three most important elements you took away from those conversations. Bring your team together and begin a conversation about how you might change the way you all work together.

Highly functioning teamwork is important. It can also be a matter of survival. Remember the movie, "March of the Penguins." If emperor penguins in Antarctica don't work together as a team, they die. Period. Thousands of male penguins huddle together, providing each other enough warmth to last through the most brutal subfreezing weather. They take turns walking around the outside of the huddle while those in the middle sleep.

Teamwork means survival, and the selfish don't survive.

Orville Wright Did Not Have a Pilot's License

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Think about it. Orville had nothing tangilbe or framed on his wall to tell him that he could successfully do what he knew he had to try. And yet how often have you said to yourself, "I'm going to build a Web page after I've taken classes." Or, "I'd go for the sales manager job but without an MBA, what's the use?"

Some of the greatest advances in history were made by individuals who didn't know any better. They didn't know they "couldn't" do what they ended up doing.

Ask yourself:

• "Is there something I'm putting off doing because I think I'm not quite ready?
• Am I waiting for permission or validation from someone else?
• Are the credentials I'm waiting for necessary?" 

What if you just stepped out and did it?

Would you fly?

Let People Be Different

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David Grayson said, "Commandment number one of any truly civilized society is this: Let people be different." And why not? People ARE different!

For some reason, we can be uncomfortable with people and groups different from ourselves, but we find extreme differences within the animal kingdom as intriguing. Think about it. When it comes to survival, the ostrich seems to lack good sense, has eccentric parenting habits, and can't fly even though it has wings. But it can run 60 mph for 30 minutes to survive a predator.

We appreciate that in the ostrich. But equally as remarkable is the bombardier beetle, which survives by carrying twin storage tanks on its back of hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinone. When threatened, the bombardier beetle mixes those chemicals together, shoots them through a special nozzle and blinds their foe. Now that's also a strategy worthy of admiration.

To survive and thrive in today's global marketplace, it's important that leaders see diversity within their workforce as key. Markets are more diverse. The labor pool is more diverse. And almost every global company's greatest opportunities are in cultures different and more diverse than its home country's. Managing global diversity well starts with understanding and embracing small, local diversity.

As a leader, do you:

• manage all kinds and classes of people equitably?
• hire variety and diversity without regard to class?
• deal effectively with all races, nationalities, cultures, disabilities, ages and both genders?
• support equal and fair treatment and opportunity for all?

To truly let people be different -- and recognize and embrace and leverage those differences -- you'll want to:

• understand without judging those who are different from yourself,
• see people more as individuals and less as a member of a group,
• recognize your own subtle stereotyping and biases, and
• be able to make a business -- and personal -- case for diversity.

Differences are good. Mark Twain put it this way: "It is not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horseraces." The same can be said for successful enterprises.

Is WOO You?

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Raise your hand if you haven't heard of Gallup's StrengthsFinder. Most of us have.

The book, which introduced the concept of nurturing your strengths, came out in 2001: "Now, Discover Your Strengths." Since then, there's been a worldwide conversation about the importance of identifying, nurturing and developing one's strengths, rather than focusing on the difficult and counterproductive task of overcoming weaknesses. Even Benjamin Franklin got it. He said, "Hide not your talents. They for use were made. What's a sundial in the shade?"

Makes sense. And it's a lot more fun than swimming upstream, taking the path of most resistance, rather than flipping over and floating with the current of least resistance.

That's where WOO comes in. It's one of the 34 themes in the StrengthsFinder repertoire. WOO stands for winning others over. Individuals who have this as one of their five greatest strengths enjoy the challenge of meeting new people and getting others to like them. Strangers are energizing if you're high in WOO. Learning the names of others, asking them questions, and finding areas of common interest are fun and exciting for you.

Once a connection is made, those high in WOO are happy to wrap it up and move on to meet new people in new places. It's not necessarily about making friends; it's about making connections.

Sounds like the quintessential net worker in today's speed-meeting, Facebooking, LinkedIn world, doesn't it?

If WOO is you:

• Be prepared to explain to others that making connections is an innate part of who you are and how you're wired. To those with a lower WOO ratio, you could seem insincere and overly friendly otherwise.
• Tap your talent for meeting and greeting new people and putting them at ease. You're the ideal person to serve as a greeter at your church! Find a job where you interact with lots of people over the course of a day.

If WOO is NOT you:

• Don't despair. (Imagine what the world would be like if everyone had WOO as a top strength!) Reach out to someone with strong WOO talents and let them help you expand the range of your network. It'll be a win for both of you.
• Don't take it personally if those with WOO as a strength are super friendly, but then don't stay in touch. It's not about you. They're just a sundial looking for more sun!

 

It's Time to Defrag

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Plunk down megabucks for a new computer. Still -- inevitably, eventually -- it'll become sluggish.

Frequent use of certain programs and stored documents causes pieces of information to become scattered, making your computer search for the pieces before they can be used. To fix it? You have to run a program that retrieves the pieces and brings them together where they can be more accessible again.This process is called "defragmentation." The secret is sensing when it's time to defrag.

Life's like that. We're all busy people. Like pieces of information on our hard drives, we can become scattered, and overwhelmed by everything on our plates and the constant pressures of being on call at work 24/7. Research on well-being though shows that the best adjusted people are generally the busiest people, both at work and off-work. The secret is they know when and how to defrag.

Harvey Mackay says, "Knowing when not to work is as important as knowing when to." Because this thing we call work/life balance really has nothing to do with 50/50 or clock time. It has to do with how we use the time we have. Here are three tips for defragging:

• When you work late and have only an hour with the kids before their bedtime, are you there with them in the present tense? Or are you obsessing about something the CFO said to you in the parking lot after work? Focus on the moment. Defrag for 60 minutes.
• If your worklife consumes you, add things to your off-work life. Seems counterintuitive, doesn't it? Yet research shows that the best adjusted people forced themselves to structure off-work activities into their schedules, just like they do meetings and offsites at work. They schedule time for the gym, they put date nights on the calendar with their significant others, they set aside 30 minutes a night to read mysteries or romance novels, just for fun. They structure in defragging time.
• Bring your strengths at work into play at home. If you're great with people, start a neighborhood group to fight for a cause. If you like to organize things, volunteer to start up and organize a committee at church. When you're doing what you're really good at, in a relaxed setting away from the pressures of work, you can easily slip into defrag mode.     

Define what "balance" means for you. Then live it. Before you become sluggish and scattered. Know when it's time to defrag.  

Short, Simple and to the Point

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I've always said that if you can't explain the essence of a project in one page, you aren't ready to head up that project. Or, if you can't hold a powerful feedback session with employees, using  a one-page document outlining what's working and what's not, you have to question whether you deserve to be their manager. What about not being ready to make a group presentation if you can't talk from a 3X5 card?

I'm fascinated with the idea of brevity. So few can do it well. And yet, how do you know what you really think or want to do unless you can narrow your thoughts down to a razor-sharp focus in just a few words. Until you get to that point, I'm not convinced you actually know what you really want.

As an executive coach, I helped a client a few years ago develop the ability to do this. She'd gotten feedback that she was verbose. Her emails and her in-person exchanges were full of excess words and perceived fluff. She became a master at expressing herself with clarity --whether in writing or in person -- in just a few words. Or a few sentences if necessary. Or if need be, a page. Her influence rose quickly within the organization because people actually heard what she was saying, some for the first time.

Bill Joos is a venture capitalist and a marketeer from Silicon Valley. He gets 95,000 applications for funding. He teaches people how to get heard. He and his team at Garage Technology Ventures whittle that number down to 50 funded projects. Bill teaches entrepreneurs how to get heard by nailing the core business proposition down to just seven words. Seven words! Asking for millions of dollars with a seven-word target.

In a recent CBJ Quarterly (Corridor Business Journal Quarterly), Tim Boyle had "The Final Word" and talked about this topic of brevity. He talked about the power of "the six word synopsis," like an NPR-ish sort of parlor game. It's what great trial lawyers do well, he says. They practice "summation," wrapping up an argument with a punch line. Wham! No way the jurors could miss that point!

It's like Twitter-lite. Tim shared a few of his six-word favorites:

• Text messaging just isn't cutting it.
• Cancer diagnosis taught me to live.
• Smart people can overcome their education.

And the six-word epitaph on a gravestone in Los Angeles, "I told you I was sick."

Can you boil the mission of your department down to six words? If you're unhappy with an employee's performance, how would you convey that in six words, leaving no chance of misunderstanding? What's your leadership vision. "In six words, who are you?"

Work sucks. Fix it.

"Work sucks," according to Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson, unless we rebel and do work differently. Unless we do it the way it makes sense. The way it ought to be done in the Information Age.

Instead, we're stuck in this Industrial Age mindset of forty hours, Monday through Friday, eight to five. And it's making us sick, according to Ressler and Thompson -- authors of Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It. It's why this sense of dread descents upon most of us on Sunday evenings, about the time that Sixty Minutes comes on. We know, deep down, that what we're about to do the next morning is stupid and unhealthy.

The solution as they see it? They call it a Results-Only Work Environment, or ROWE. In a ROWE, people can do whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as the work gets done. As long as someone is getting the results they are responsible for, their life is their own.

Ressler and Thompson wrote their book this year to start a movement, a movement to reshape the way things get done at work. They base their belief that this workplace of absolute trust and treating-adults-like-adults will really work on their experience in the early 2000's at Best Buy Corporate headquarters. They implemented ROWE there and found that:

• employees are happier
• company productivity is up an average of 35%, and
• voluntary turnover rates are down as much as 90% in some divisions.

What do you think?

• Would a ROWE work where you work? Why or why not?
• How hard would it be for you as a leader to embrace the idea of trust to that extent?
• Are there some people who would thrive in a ROWE and others who would fail miserably?
• Do you already set the kind of clear goals and expectations that tell you whether someone is doing their job and getting the results they're supposed to get?

We all need clear targets and results-statements to be able to do our best work. And we'd all like to think that if we were just given the freedom to get those results as we see fit, we'd do it. However, the fact that so many people leave corporate America to start their own enterprises and survive only a year or two --in spite of being their own bosses and having total freedom to get the results they're after -- makes me wonder: like everything else in life, does a ROWE require an awful lot of discipline, more than a lot of us have? I know, that sucks!

 

 

Zebras and Wildebeests

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Ah, to be on a dream team! It's what we all dream about, huh? A bunch of people each skilled in his or her own specialty areas, pulling together, accomplishing way more than the added total of each working separately. Companies talk teams all the time, but very few provide the environment for teams to survive, much less thrive. They reward individual performance and undermine the very concept of unity and shared vision.

Unity of purpose is the very backbone of a high performing team. We sometimes think of unity as "sameness." It's actually just the opposite; it's about diversity. And that's where the strength...the backbone...comes in. Ralph W. Sockman, in "The Treasure Chest," said, "There are  parts of a ship, which, taken by themselves, would sink. The engine would sink. The propeller would sink. But when the parts of a ship are built together, they float."

What about you and your team?

• Do you value and leverage the strengths of your individual team members? Or do you resent that not everyone is as creative? Or as detail oriented?
• Do members of your team set aside their own interests for the good of the whole? Or are you a group of individual contributors, each vying for the recognition and visibility that belongs to the team?
• Do you all find joy in each other's successes? Or do you forget sometimes that nobody can achieve the team goal unless everyone achieves the team goal?

While dream teams have all of the talent they need to accomplish a task, not any one member has all of the talent. High performing teams learn how to take advantage of each person's stengths and avoid unreasonable exposure to each person's weaknesses. Members of a dream team talk openly about their strengths and weaknesses. A weakness is not considered bad. The team just adjusts to it and moves on.

In Kenya, both zebras and wildebeests migrate from Masai Mara to Serengeti. Now here's the interesting part. The two massive herds travel together because the zebras have good eyesight, but a poor sense of smell. The wildebeests have bad eyesight, but a good sense of smell. By traveling together, both herds are less vulnerable to predators. Like high performing teams, they're more likely to survive AND thrive.

Sitting in the Catbird Seat

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In his inaugural address, Gov. Terry Branstad told us that Iowa is at the "catbird seat of history." On Jan. 23, on Meet the Press, CNBC's Erin Burnett referred to some political figures "sitting in the catbird seat." It's obviously the place to be. What's that phrase mean for you as a leader? What does sitting in the catbird seat look like for you?

Catbirds, along with their cousins -- the mockingbirds -- are known as the mimic thrushes. The catbird is named for its ability to mimic the sound of a cat's meow. And here's where the "sitting" part comes in. They seek out the highest perches in trees to sing and show off. They're "sitting pretty," as the American phrase goes.

To mimic the sound of one of your most common enemies...that's pretty bold! Like asking for trouble. At the same time, the catbird is smart about where and how it's bold. It will stand alone, take a stand, be bold. But it's strategic in where and how it spreads its message.  

How does this relate to your role as a leader? Where and when do you need to be more bold? Maybe it would almost feel like being reckless in some way. And where and how can you do that in such a way that you're "sitting pretty?" You have the advantage; others can't help but hear what you're sharing. Your positioning is impeccable.

The first mention of Govenor Branstad's phrase showed up in James Thurber's 55 Short Stories from New Yorker, in November 1942:

"She must be a Dodger fan. Red Barber announces the Dodger games over the radio and he uses those expressions...'sitting in the catbird seat' means sitting pretty, like a batter with three balls and no strikes on him." That's the kind of balance we're all looking for, regardless of whom we're leading!

Cast Down Your Bucket

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When someone recommends a new approach, or comes up with an idea that seems really far out, what do you do? Most leaders drop that idea onto the "sieve" in their brains that analyzes new data and a couple of things can happen.

1. The idea might fall right on through because it doesn't line up with perspectives and philosophies that have formed their "screen" over the years. It doesn't catch. It's dismissed out of hand. 
2. Sometimes though, because the idea is so unusual in contrast to what's already seen as ok, do-able, or right, it's grabbed up. It's weighed rather than tossed.

The story is told of Booker T. Washington's 1895 Cotton States Exposition address, where one of his illustrations alluded to this need for intentionally weighing an idea that at first blush might seem outlandish.

"A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal, 'Water, water; we die of thirst!' The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back, 'Cast down your bucket where you are.' A second time the signal, 'Water, water; send us water!' ran up the distressed vessel, and was answered, 'Cast down your bucket where you are.' And a third and fourth signal for water were answered, 'Cast down your bucket where you are.' The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh, sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River."

It's especially hardest when we're stressed and our options seem limited to be open to new ways of seeing things. It's easier to let what might be a perfect solution fall through the cracks because it doesn't align with our hardwired options.

When was the last time you caught yourself grabbing hold of a new idea that you first wanted to dismiss? Did it end up becoming your new norm?

P.B. Medawar said, "The human mind treats a new idea the way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it." Grab ideas and at least weigh them before tossing them aside. "Cast down your bucket where you are."

Give Me Five!

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Americans are sick of partisan politics. Since the November elections, "compromise" is the word of the day.

Not everyone is willing to reason together of course, not if it means giving in on anything they feel strongly about. In fact, it is like some people would rather see nothing happen -- see progress stall -- than reach across the aisle, find common ground and collaborate on a decision. The fact that there's even an aisle at all is problematic!

It is not just politicians. We've all seen results suffer in organizations because leaders didn't know how -- or didn't want to -- dialogue, and then, when necessary, reach consensus.

I was talking with an IT executive the other day and he was telling me about a team-based decision making tool their "scrum" teams use. (Scrum teams. Now there's another intriguing concept. But I digress...) The decision making technique is called Fist-to-Five and it comes in really handy when there is not total agreement on how to move forward with a project. Those times when it's important to canvass all team members' opinions in order to refine the decision and ensure buy-in on everyone's part. When it's not ok to say nothing and then complain later.

Here's how it works: When there's disagreement -- perhaps partisanship -- about a decision within a project team, a cross functional team, a leadership group, a staff committee, even a family, you let people vote using their hands and display fingers to represent their degree of support.

• Fist: a no vote -- "I need to talk more about this and would require some changes before I could agree."
• 1 Finger: "I still need to discuss certain issues and suggest some changes."
• 2 Fingers: "I'm pretty comfortable but want to talk about some minor issues."
• 3 Fingers: "I'm not in total agreement but feel comfortable enough to go with this decision."
• 4 Fingers: "I think it's a good idea/decision and will work for it."
• 5 Fingers: "It's a great idea and I will be one of the leaders in implementing it."

A team is ready to move forward with a decision once they've addressed the concerns of anyone displaying fewer than three fingers.

"Moving forward, making progress." Like "compromise", our hope for tomorrow.

Leading in a VUCA World

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We've come to expect a business environment -- a world in fact -- that is constantly changing. We get that.

Well, hold on. Because change is just the tip of the iceberg, at least according to futurists such as Dr. Bob Johansen, author of Leaders Make the Future: Ten New Leadership Skills for an Uncertain World. Remember when a generation was considered to be 25 years? Now it's six years.

The difference today between a 13-year old and a 19-year old is significant: a whole new "generation." That's rapid change!

Futurists like Johansen have begun to describe our world as a VUCA world. VUCA stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. The term started in the late 1990's in the military and is now used everywhere.

Leaders in this kind of environment have to be at their best on a personal level, self-aware, optimistic, focused amidst distractions, cool, calm and collected under pressure. We used to talk about seizing opportunities. Those windows of opportunity open and close very quickly in a VUCA world and leaders have to be "in the zone" to seize them.

A VUCA world sounds frightening and threatening. But the positive flip side of VUCA is vision, understanding, clarity and agility. Effective leaders in a VUCA world train their brains to:

• "See the play before it happens." That's vision.
• Understand themselves first and then others, building empathy.
• Sense a situation clearly and simply by paying attention to how they pay attention.
• Be prepared to take action based on alternative realities and unprecedented challenges.

One of the biggest take-aways for me as I think about operating and leading in a VUCA world is the difference between dilemmas and problems. We love to problem solve. However, many problems today are on a gigantic or global scale and are unsolvable. They're dilemmas and can be improved, but not solved. If a situation is a dilemma and we try to frame it as a problem to solve, we're in trouble.

Are you facing any dilemmas in your VUCA world that you've been trying to problem-solve? How's that working for you?

When "Nice" Isn't Nice

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"But he's such a nice guy."

I know you've heard someone say that recently about someone they work with. You've undoubtedly said it too.

What preceded that "But...?" I bet it was something about that person's passive aggressive behavior. Our culture is full of this kind of behavior -- in both our personal and professional lives.

Imagine it. Ed promised that he'd be on time for your team's weekly meeting, even though he's been late the last three meetings for various reasons. You guessed it! Ed showed up fifteen minutes late. Again.

Rather than being apologetic, he explains to the team that he "couldn't help it" because Billy had the flu and had to be dropped off at a different daycare. He lamented, "I'm sorry but hey, the kid is only 4. I couldn't just leave him at home."

The team is disappointed and ticked. You can tell by their body language and you can read it on their faces. Does anyone say anything however? No. After all, a 4-year-old can't be left home alone. You can't argue with that. And Ed is "such a nice guy."

Bingo. An example of classic passive-aggressive behavior. Things (...like meeting ground rules) are sabotaged by the passive-aggressive and it is somehow never his or her fault. They express their true, negative feelings, but in a passive, indirect -- and often hurtful -- way.

A really good passive-aggressive is very "slippery," according to Dr. Tony Fiore. They're slippery with excuses, justifications or alternative reasons for why things go awry. At first glance, they may appear to be caring and considerate, but their actions may turn out otherwise.

Sometimes the behavior isn't overt. Instead it shows up in their words. Sarcasm is often a tool of a passive-aggressive person.

Recognize these?

• Talking behind the back of a co-worker instead of talking directly to them about concerns.
• Using labels like on the surface appear playful, but they carry an edge. There's a subtle hidden message in the name calling...and everyone knows it.
• Exaggerating and whining about someone's faults, but acting nice to their face.

One thing that makes dealing with passive-aggressives so tough is that you're often left wondering, "Is Ellen really devious and underhanded? Or is just my imagination? Is it me, and not Ellen?"

What can you do if you have a passive-aggressive on your team? Two tips:

• Look for patterns of behavior. Being late for one meeting isn't passive aggression. Being late for four in a row and none were her fault...hmmm.
• Deal with it directly and respectfully. Explain what you've observed, what you're starting to think, and ask for their reaction.

"Nice" isn't nice if it drives honesty and the truth underground and keeps healthy dialogue from happening. Think twice before using the label "nice" about someone. Make sure "nice" means nice.

Shut Up and Listen

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Listening means you've got to stop talking.

It never ceases to amaze me how few leaders really listen. I mean really listen. I had lunch with a guy the other day who's been in a leadership role -- a CEO -- for over a decade now. If he consumes as much of the air time with his employees as he did with me over a sixty-minute lunch -- and I bet he does! -- his organization can't be performing at its best.

Robert Sutton, a professor in Stanford's department of managment science and engineering, wrote "The No Asshole Rule" back in 2007. He's followed that up with Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to be the Best...and Learn from the Rest. In an interview in INC. magazine in October, Sutton was asked about the right balance between talking and listening.

He said, "On one hand, there is the blabbermouth theory of leadership. In Western cultures, the person who talks the most is viewed as having the highest status...But most bosses ought to shut up and listen more."

Do you have a listening problem? Sure, you know about paraphrasing, not interrupting, listening for underlying meaning. But do you do them? Or, like most of us, are you a selective listener? You listen intently to some, neutrally to others and not at all to yet others. Now think:

• Who do you listen to? Who don't you listen to?
• What factors determine the difference?
  • Smarts?
  • Age?
  • Gender?
  • Level?
  • Like you/not like you?

I challenge you to challenge yourself to practice listening to those you don't usually listen to. Listen for content. Separate the content from the person. Work hard to see and hear, and thus acknowledge the other person's humanity and their need to be heard.

Remember, listening doesn't mean you accept what's been said or even that you accept who said it. It just means that you've stopped talking and you're listening.

Know What You Don't Know

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"Fifty-one percent of being smart is knowing what you are dumb about."

Ann Landers said that last century. Socrates said something similar many centuries ago: "First, know thyself."

Studies show a strong correlation between knowing yourself -- self-knowledge -- and success in life and work.

• The best indicator of a high performance appraisal is being able to see yourself as others see you.
• The best indicator of a low one is overrating your skills.

Know yourself. Know what:

• You're good at.
• You're average and bad at.
• You're untested in.
• You overdo or overuse.

If you know these things, you can compensate for them. Hire someone. Outsource the work. Delegate it. Ask for help. Don't know these things about yourself? That's a blind spot. And a blind spot is about the worst thing you can have. You'll venture into areas that should make you cautious and humble, and instead you could go in overly confident.

Disaster could loom.

Learning what you don't know about how others see you is one of the most important steps you can take in your career, regardless of your age or position. What can you do?

1. Ask for feedback on an ongoing basis from a number of sources. Rely on feedback obtained from a confidential source, like an electronic 360-degree survey of peers, direct reports and bosses.
2. Focus on competency results by comparing you relative to you, not you to everyone else. Your goal is to know yourself better. Ask: What surprises me in this feedback? Why might people say this about me? What experiences shaped my pattern of scores? What do I need to do differently?
3. Work with a development partner who can objectively help you interpret your feedback and uncover your blind spots. Debrief efforts you make to behave differently in those areas where you discovered blind spots.

Knowing ourselves better is a lifelong process. I recently heard the story of two executives talking about a personality test they had just completed. It was one of those 30-item surveys that puts you in a box. "I'm red," explained the first executive. "What color are you?" Without missing a beat, the second executive replied, "I'm plaid."

Well, if you're plaid, what's important is knowing you're plaid!

It's About the Passion

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Reggie Leach said, "Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire." We can relate to finding the passion for ourselves to be successful. But what about finding that passion within others, especially those we hire to help us make our team or organization success?

When interviewing, I'd rather find someone who's passionate -- on fire -- than someone with a lot of experience in numerous industries with all of the right initials behind their name. Give me individuals who are on fire, not because I lit their fires via incentives or praise but because they came that way.

How do you know you're talking to a candidate who's on fire -- or will set themselves on fire -- once they're on board? Watch for:

• Lots of energy. Wide-open enthusiasm when talking about the potential they see in the position. You can almost see sparks of excitement around them. It's a beautiful thing.
• Non-verbals and body language that says, "I'm intrigued and excited about this position. Tell me more." Leaning forward in their seat, looking you in the eye, taking notes.
• Showing up ready. They've done their research about you, your organization and the open position. They've come with lots of questions -- but not just any questions. Questions that get to the heart of what it'd be like to join you in your passion. And you can tell they can hardly wait to hear your answers.

 It's like they want to know:

• Is this something that I'll look forward to doing, come Monday mornings, and not tire of the rest of the week?
• Is this a role that will sometimes make me lose all sense of time?
• Is this a position that's so intriguing that i just have to take the chance and do it?
• Will this job make my heart sing?

Remember the passion of Christopher Reeve? He said, "So many of our dreams seem impossible, then improbable, then inevitable." I want to hire big dreamers. But not just any big dreamers. Big dreamers who set big fires!

Make It Easy to Move the Piano

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Sam Ewing said, "Hard work spotlights the character of people. Some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses and some don't turn up at all." Of course, those who "turn up their sleeves" receive most of the rewards in life. They produce. They get things done. They work hard. As managers, we know we can consistently count on them and are more willing to cut them some slack when they're in a bind.

In the workplace, there's really no substitute for getting things done. It's the bottom-line of organizational life. Don't we wish that everyone on our team consistently met production goals, project deadlines and job responsibilities?

Sure. But what if they don't?

Once not getting things done surfaces as an issue, it's awfully easy to begin to look for reasons, and to begin to find other problems -- either real or imagined. Next thing you know we've villainized the person and feel like giving up on them. We don't have to let that happen.

Here are three things a manager can do to make it easier for others to work hard and produce results:

1. Identify mission-critical priorities. Help the under performer find the three to five things that most need to get done to achieve their goals. This provides focus, and focus helps achieve results.
2. Set measurable goals. Make them clear and specific so there is no doubt on anyone's part what "results" and "success" will look like.
3. Set mini-deadlines. Ensure that progress is being made, unlike a rocking horse which keeps moving but doesn't get anywhere.

It's been said, "Too many people are ready to carry the stool when the piano needs to be moved." Don't let someone get by with only picking up the stool. Make moving the piano easier.

Knowing Isn't Doing

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How many books have you read giving you the knowledge you need to do something, but you haven't done it? How many seminars have you attended, giving you the skills you need to make a change in your behavior, but you haven't changed? Knowing isn't doing.

I bet, as a leader, you know the importance of praising positive performance. And even though you notice instances when praise is warranted, you don't always do it. Knowing isn't doing.

In your personal life, you know how important it is -- if you want to lose weight or just be healthy -- to not snack after dinner. Yet, how often do you find yourself at the refrigerator at 9 p.m., searching for a little something to satisfy your sweet tooth? Knowing isn't doing.

Think about John Lancaster. In 1601, John Lancaster figured out on his first East India Company trading voyage from London to the East Indies that if he regularly gave his sailors lemon juice, he could keep them from dying of scurvy. Do you think his news was eagerly embraced by other trading company captains and scurvy was then eliminated? No. It was centuries before knowing became doing, and lemons and limes made scurvy a scourge of the past.

Or, think about Ethna Reid, founder of the Exemplary Center for Reading Instruction (ECRI) in Salt Lake. Her decades of research have proven what the best teachers do in their classrooms that raise students' performance scores 2 or 3 grade levels in a year. We know, but do we do? No. Low-performing schools all over the country still struggle to improve student test scores.

Good ideas (knowing) aren't necessarily adopted (done).

Q. What's one thing you know you need to do, or need to do differently? As a leader? With your team? For your organization?

Q. What's it going to take to actually follow through and start doing? Whose support do you need? Who do you need to tell about your decision to take action? How will you hold yourself accountable to continue the "doing" when the going gets tough?

Walter Bagehot said, "One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea." I'm not sure I totally agree with that. I think we love ideas; we love the "knowing." It's the "doing" that we hate, the changing. I challenge you to pick one thing that you know and do it until it becomes your new norm.

Find Balance; Be Busy

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Do your employees have work/life balance? Do you? With all the downsizing and rightsizing going on, people are busier than ever at work, putting in longer hours, carrying more stress. Being busy may not be the problem though.

Research on well-being shows that the best adjusted people are generally the busiest people, on- and off-work. These are individuals who are not one-dimensional. They're not so consumed and focused on what's happening at work that when they leave work, they're too exhausted to do more than crash and cocoon. They have found a way to force the issue of balance in their lives.

As an employer, one of the most valuable benefits you can provide your associates is assistance in regaining much needed space and sanity and, yes, balance, in their lives. You can do this by:

• modeling this practice yourself as a leader. Talk about your passions outside work. Bring in pictures of yourself skydiving. Keep your golf trophy on your credenza. Demonstrate that it's okay -- and important -- to totally disengage from work once in a while and do something you enjoy. Set the right tone for living with balance by way of your consistent behaviors.
• encouraging others at work to add things to their off-work life. It may seem counterintuitive, but the best adjusted people force themselves to structure off-work activities just as much as on-work activities. They schedule them, structuring them into their lives. Times to exercise. Community, religious or sports activities. Coffee with friends. Things they enjoy doing, but without time set aside for them, work and life's busiest crowds them out.
• providing perks that are especially considerate of employees' busy lives, like flexible hours, telecommuting, and parent friendly assistance. Such perks don't have to be costly. McGraw Wentworth, a provider of group benefits, offers on-site pickup and return of clothes that need laundering. Think of the off-work hours saved with that benefit! Hours that can be spent playing with the kids, reading, biking.

E.B. White said, "I arise each morning torn between a desire to save the world and a desire to savor the world. That makes it hard to plan the day."

 Finding that balance between "saving and savoring" -- between work and non-work -- is hard, but vital. So, get busy.

Low Man on the Totem Pole

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Have you ever referred to the newest member of your work team as the "low man on the totem pole?" Meaning that he or she is at the "bottom" in terms of value to the team and the experience and perspective they can provide. It's a common analogy in our culture. But it's way wrong, a common misperception.

First of all, consider that Native Americans didn't think of it in that way. They likely put the most important person or symbol at the bottom, at eye level. Would it have made sense to put the most important person twenty or thirty feet off the ground, where no one could see him? Yet in our culture, we have this sense that higher is better. When we carve out organizational charts, we put what we consider the "most important people" at the top, right?

Think about our supermarkets today. What's the most valuable shelf space? The eye-level shelf. That's where the high-margin items go. Marketing experts charge big bucks to help retailers figure that stuff out.

Secondly, that newest person on the team brings a valuable perspective that others on the team have lost, or are in the process of losing. That new member has objective eyes. They can see things that others no longer notice:

• the unspoken norms, such as safety violations, that have become "undiscussable"
• sloppy maintenance of company property and landscaping ("Weeds? What weeds?")
• practices that at first made sense, but now serve no purpose

Diversity is prevalent, whether it's among the faces on a totem pole, or within the boxes on an org chart. That diversity is a challenge and a godsend. Mahatma Gandhi suggested that one of the greatest challenges of our day is finding unity amongst diversity. Instead of focusing on how "high" or how new people are, we need to focus instead on finding unity of purpose. It's through unity of purpose that we can come together synergistically to accomplish great tasks -- tasks where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Astronaut Michael Collins understood the mistake in seeing some positions as lower on the totem pole than others. He said about his role on Apollo II, the first expedition to the moon, "I know that I would be a liar or a fool if I said that I have the best of the three Apollo II seats, but I can say with truth and equanimity that I am perfectly satisfied with the one I have. This venture has been structured for three men, and I consider my third to be as necessary as either of the other two." Collins was pilot, while it was Armstrong and Aldrin who got to actually land on the moon. How 'bout that for a demonstration of unity of purpose?

Be Unreasonable

Image by PhotoDu.de via Flickr

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.