Leading Effectively Series
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For 35 years I've prided myself on running pretty good meetings. I keep people on the topic, complete the task, ensure everyone has a chance to contribute (even those shy or anxious members), and focus on action outcomes with accountability. But it doesn’t take much for a meeting leave the tracks and plunge into the icy waters below.
In fact, all it takes is forgetting to surface the hidden expectations and assumptions that everyone is carrying when they enter. I had to learn that again recently when I led a meeting to make some policy recommendations for the Center.
On the surface the meeting went well. Everyone spoke, although some more than others. One of the members had written a memo that sparked the meeting, so that person contributed more than others, but that would be expected, wouldn’t it? We’d had over a week of a virtual data collection process in which a wide range of other professional staff had been invited to write their experiences or expert advice. I asked that each person open the meeting with any concerns they’d like to raise and then we proceeded on the basis of proposals. We got them all covered in the two hours allotted and I took the results and wrote a summary.
So, how did I know that the meeting was a flop? Every member of the group (and a few other colleagues) called or wrote me after the meeting with a proposal to either strengthen or revise the recommendations I’d collected in the summary.
Why weren’t these raised in the meeting? Of course, it’s possible some people hadn’t really given the issue enough attention in the days leading up to the meeting. However, when I questioned those who communicated later, I found that a whole set of hidden assumptions had sunk our little ship:
1. “Doug, I expected that you, as an expert in this, would have spoken up more.”
2. “I didn’t want to be seen as just pushing my own agenda.”
3. “I didn’t feel like getting into an open conflict with ______.”
4. “I don’t think I really understood what was being asked of us.”
They all seem reasonable issues to me. They should have been addressed in the meeting.
So, what are the lessons I’m taking from this?
1. When everyone’s attention is stretched thin, it may take two meetings: one to get participants to really focus and understand the issues and context, and another to knock out something that can stand.
2. Taking time to get clear about the purpose of the meeting, the roles to be played by each of the participants, and the group norms can save a lot of time later.
3. I should trust my gut. If I’m feeling hurried or anxious or frustrated, there’s a good chance I’m responding to something emerging in the group. Take time to figure out what it is and if I can’t figure it out, ask the group.
Why is it that the hardest lessons to learn are the ones we have known all along?
Good luck with your meetings,
Doug
 When we lack the capacity to effectively communicate with one another, metaphor can provide the means. It has been said that leadership takes heart and requires a certain amount of verbal acumen. Well what happens when we can no longer find our voice and our hearts are literally ripped from our chests? Joss Whedon explores this struggle in his Emmy-nominated, Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode, “Hush.”
Those not familiar with the Buffy lore (and shame on you), Buffy Summers is The Chosen One – the one girl chosen in all the world to fight the vampires and demons – all while attempting to survive young adulthood. She juggles the responsibilities of saving the world from certain destruction while trying to discover why she can’t maintain a healthy relationship with the opposite sex. If you thought high school was hell, try living on the Hellmouth.
In this particular episode, a pack of Brothers Grimm-like fiends known as The Gentlemen arrive in the dead of night and proceed to steal the voices of Sunnydale’s residents as they sleep. While it is obviously upsetting to wake and find oneself mute, the true horror of the situation is not made clear until the following night when The Gentlemen begin to collect what they are truly after - the hearts of the townspeople. Losing one’s voice may be unsettling and inconvenient, however terror quickly settles in when you realize that, scream all you want, no one is going to hear you.
But what does any of this have to do with the real world? How does a stake-wielding blonde make her way into a leadership blog? As the Buffy gang sings in another episode, “Where do we go from here?”
We hear time an again how effective communication is imperative. We’re coached on active listening skills, etiquette, and verbiage - yet we rarely discuss within the workplace the emphasis non-verbal communication has on the meaning of our message. Of course personal experiences will play a part in meaning-making, however it is sometimes what is left unsaid that imports the most impact. When a co-worker loses a close family member, the gentle squeeze of a hand can convey so much more than the mere, “I’m so sorry to hear of your loss.”
So where does metaphor come in? Metaphor is a vehicle. It provides us with a means of expression when words fail us or an illustration would better convey our message. Rousseau wrote “Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.” He is not implying that we are literally chained to our desks, our homes, and our families. Rather, he provides a metaphor that society has saddled us (another metaphor) with certain responsibilities and expectations that is virtually impossible to escape. In the Buffy episode, Whedon uses metaphor on several of levels.
When Sunnydale’s inhabitants literally begin to lose their hearts to the Gentlemen, the survivors find themselves reassessing their current relationships or lack thereof. Suddenly, conversations that seemed too difficult to broach in the past become less complicated without the need to “talk about it.” Actions become more accountable. Up until now, Buffy and her current love interest Riley have had one awkward conversation after another, each trying to conceal their hidden identity from the other. Coincidentally, it’s not until they loose their ability to speak that the characters make any real physical contact. It’s not until they are surprised to find themselves in the same room, holding their own against a common enemy that they begin to understand the depth of one another’s character.
So what is being left unsaid in your workplace?
We're fascinated by the reasons that things go wrong. And they go wrong quite often. Sometimes in spectacularly unpleasant ways; sometimes in a slow slide into irrelevance. Whole industries are devoted to the diagnosis of failure and there are some lovely, detailed models of organizational disaster. I'm persuaded that in many cases there is a simple, accessible common factor that affects us as individuals and as organizations. It's anxiety. Actually, it's rather the difficulty individuals and organizations have managing their anxiety. This lens has been helpful to me as I've watched smart, talented people and organizations drive themselves into the ground.
It happens when the whole focus of attention is on the risks and dangers of living in this difficult world. While I'm not so pollyanna that I think we should only focus on our strengths and opportunities, it isn't difficult to get into an obsessive preoccupation with managing risks, real and imagined. I used to think it was something we could blame on the corporate legal department, because it's their job to identify and hedge the organization against excessive risk. But now I think it has more to do with the way we react to potential risk: we let it control our business choices.
It manifests in a couple of ways in organizational life. One occurs when organizations begin to multiply their policies and rules to cover every potential problem. The paradox is that contracts and policies that build in protections from every type of malfeasance or negligence define the relationship as fundamentally absent of trust. That is, they communicate more than limits or boundaries; they also communicate an implicit expression of the relationship itself. Perhaps more importantly, the multiplication of rules and policies has a chilling effect on creativity and innovation. When there are many rules, it becomes the first responsibility of employees to check to make sure that they are not violating them.
Then comes the documentation. While documentation is important to preserve records of actions and ensure reporting, the need to document everything can mean that 20 to 30% of the creative energy of the organization is diverted from customer service, product development, or business strategy. Some businesses find that filling out forms is their new business model. New rules and requirements in HR policy or in contracts should be subject to their own rigorous risk assessment: do they add sufficient incremental safety to justify the additional negative impact on climate and workload?
Last week I met a consultant whose firm focuses on performance improvement through people policies and practices. She told me several stories of companies who had accelerated the aggregation of HR policies, thereby clearly communicating to the workforce that none of them could be trusted and they were expected to attempt to steal everything possible from the company. She said something that CCL believes most fervently: you can't change performance if you don't address the culture. She has proposed a single sentence HR policy: Every employee is expected to work for the best interests of the company and its customers and employees.
A culture of distrust (and its cousin: control) cannot spawn an organization where everyone gives their best. That kind of culture only comes where leaders believe in the capability and generosity of their follows. Unfortunately, when the market is down and the strategy isn't working all that well, it becomes easy to blame the attitudes of the workforce. Or when someone goes off the track, it's easy to clamp down on everyone. The multiplication of "zero tolerance" policies shows how quickly we accede to the hierarchical solution; even if the result is the arrest of 5-year-olds for carrying camping utensils for show-and-tell.
Compliance is not creativity.
Control is not commitment.
Passion, creativity, commitment: these are all freely given or they are not given at all.
Our culture is flailing in a sea of anxiety...about the economy, about jobs, about competing on the world stage. This is the time to reinforce our commitment to collaboration, to mutual trust, to shared goals. When anxious, our best escape is in a return to core values. We need to line up with people who are leading the way to positive environments, inspiring innovation, making high performance a pleasure.
Find them. Shine a light on their energy and grant others the freedom to do it, too.
Doug
The word "entitlement" basically means getting something because it's your right to have it - it's not a matter of earning it. On the other hand "empowerment" is about building confidence and capacity in order to gain access – to rights, to resources, to information, to services, etc. – in order to shape one’s life and surroundings.
The crossroad where entitlement and empowerment meet is charged with emotion.
Those of us in a dominant status group may be so used to certain rights and privileges, we feel entitled to them and abashed at the thought we wouldn’t have them and feel those without aren't doing something "right." Those of us in a non-dominant group may struggle towards empowerment in order to get glimpses of a life others take for granted, wondering why it has to be so hard.
There are a plethora of indicators, but none that give a sense of the overall feeling people have about their lot. I suspect, based on gut feeling, that with the recent roller-coaster economy more people are realizing that what they thought they were entitled to – a job, a house, a retirement - is no longer in their grasp. And those who still “have” are probably holding on a lot tighter.
 But what does that mean for us – all of us?
Germany, among other nations, has adopted kurzarbeit - shortened work hours so more people can keep their job. In contrast to lay-offs, with kurzarbeit everyone loses a little so everyone can keep a little.
I wonder if this feeling can extend to other areas – beyond a paycheck? I suspect that spreading opportunity (becoming collectively empowered) would do more to move our entire lot forward than having the dream of being able to move into one of the narrowing slots reserved for those who are entitled.
I find it telling that folks in the middle class tend to give more (percentage-wise) to charities than those in more affluent groups. Chances are they have a better idea of what it's like to need a break and that sometimes it has more to do with circumstance than personal character.
It's an old question; how much of "you" can you reveal at work? I don't mean dress code, but acting and saying things the way you would outside of work. Where's the line between inappropriate and inauthentic?
With social networking, flexible schedules, and hip-mounted technologies that keep us connected to people and places all over the world – separation between work and non-work is no longer the default way of doing things. Most workers have to figure out and manage their boundaries – by reinforcing them, blurring them, or whatever makes sense in the moment. Switching from one’s “work-self” to one’s “non-work self” is something we have to do more frequently. Many folks blend work and non-work “friends” on social networking sites. That could be a good thing, but is it? The idea of an integrated self is appealing - it'd make life easier, but is it a equal option for everyone?
Being authentic is bound to be easier for folks who are part of the leadership “in” crowd (aka folks who fit the leadership mold – who look, walk, or talk in a manner consistent with dominant images of leadership). As we collectively embrace more inclusive images of leadership, I imagine the option for everyone to bring their full self to work will increase.
In the meantime, we may have to ask ourselves is this inappropriate or is it something that challenges our image of leadership - and thereby places an expectation that someone else has to be inauthentic in order to fit our leadership mold?
The acknowledged leader (chief) of a homeless encampment in Providence, Rhode Island, was happy to step down when some in the group of 50 or so challenged his leadership. After all, he’d never been elected. It was just that the 55-year-old former factory supervisor had always been seen by those who gathered around him under the condemned freeway overpass by the river as the leader. However, the American assumption is that followers have a say in who will lead.
It wasn’t long before fights broke out among those who had taken up residence in the little tent city. Food was stolen. Soon John Freitas was voted back in as the chief and the community created a compact that included a 5-member leadership council and rules to guide the little community. By July, it had grown to 80 people with its own organization (tents of young single people and substance abusers are near the road so emergency vehicles won’t have to go through the rest of the camp, for example).
While this community is temporary (the overpass will be torn down) it shows how the right kinds of leadership are critical to the health of any group. It may even suggest that the symbolic value of the identified leader is essential to the process. The compact declares that “no person shall be greater than the will of the whole,” but it seems that having the executive function located with one person (Mr. Freitas) provides a kind of security that ensures the safety of the process.
This story from the NY Times provides a nice illustration of some important aspects of leadership and the role of leaders. I’d be interested in know what you see in it.
The NFL's Denver Broncos are in a perilous state right now. They fired head coach Mike Shanahan December of 2008. Shanahan coached the Broncos since 1995, led the team to over 125 victories and two super bowl victories. His replacement? A 32-year-old rookie coach, Josh McDaniels.
Coming from the New England Patriots, McDaniels was well-groomed for a head coaching job – he was the quarterbacks coach and then offensive coordinator. There is a growing trend in the NFL to hire younger people for head coaching jobs – this is not unlike what is going on in organizations today, or even in politics. Younger people are starting to get high-profile jobs.
So, what does McDaniels do when he first gets to Denver? He tries a trade with his old team for Matt Cassel, an up-and-coming high potential star QB who started for injured superstar QB Tom Brady last season. As he was the offensive coordinator and QB coach of the Patriots, McDaniels knew the talent Cassel had and wanted to bring him to Denver. There’s one problem...the Broncos already had an up-and-coming high potential star, pro-bowl QB Jay Cutler.
Of course, this trade rumor leaks out, and Cutler feels hurt, his ego bruised, and now holds a grudge against his team. There is now a lack of trust between the young star player, and the young coach and Broncos organization. Cutler demands to be traded. So, what does McDaniels do then? He undeniably says Cutler is the Broncos’ QB, and says repeatedly that he has text messaged Cutler, and Cutler has not returned any of his text messages.
Text messaged? Granted, text messaging is probably what Gen Xers and Millenials do to communicate. And, they are not in the same city to talk about this issue. But, if you as a manager had a conflict with one of your coworkers, would you want to text message that person and wait for his or her reply? Or, if you and your boss had a conflict, would you want to receive a text message from your boss as a way to deal with it?
CCL’s Kerry Bunker along with others wrote a 2002 Harvard Business Review articlecalled “The Young and The Clueless” where the article talks about a young, high-potential employee who was labeled as brilliant, strategic, energetic, and motivated (like McDaniels). Those qualities helped the young manager rise fast (like McDaniels). But, the young manager was too ambitious and had a lack of people skills, and eventually derailed (like the path McDaniels is going down).
Perhaps McDaniels is too young, too ambitious to be an NFL coach. Maybe he wasn’t thinking about the repercussions of what a trade rumor would do to the Broncos or his star Cutler. Moreover, what was he thinking about handling a conflict via a text message? The inability to handle conflict is part of “Difficulty Leading a Team” which CCL has found to be one of the five behaviors of derailed managers. If McDaniels doesn’t get this resolved the right way, his career may have already derailed before coaching his first NFL game.
Would you have text messaged your coworker if you were dealing with a conflict? Would you want to have a text message sent to you? Or, would you have been more proactive, and want to deal with the conflict directly, face-to-face perhaps, in a safe environment? What would you have done?
When Terrell Owens was cut by the Dallas Cowboys last week, it mildly surprise me - granted, it was 6AM, I was half-asleep, and that’s the news I awoke to from Mike and Mike on ESPN2. After I wiped the sleep from my eyes, and really thought about it, was it really a surprise?
A little background – Terrell Owens, or “T.O.” went to college in my hometown, at UT-Chattanooga. Since being drafted in 1996, he has become the best wide receiver in the league…in terms of statistics. He trails only Jerry Rice in touchdowns on the all-time NFL list for receivers. He has the record for most pass receptions in a game. No question, on the field, T.O. is one of the best wide receivers ever.
He was initially drafted by the San Francisco 49ers, and made an unbelievable touchdown catch from Steve Young in the 1997 playoffs. His star was on the rise. Then, his “toxic leadership” started to show. He publicly belittled and degraded his then quarterback Jeff Garcia and feuded with his coach Steve Mariucci. In 2004, T.O. had enough of San Francisco, and left when he became a free agent.
T.O. then signed with the Philadelphia Eagles and was immediately embraced by the team and city and became a top NFL player. He even came back from a broken leg suffered shortly before the playoffs and ended up playing weeks later in the Super Bowl. He shined in that game despite the team’s loss to the New England Patriots. Then, his “toxic leadership” started to show. He publicly belittled and degraded his then quarterback, Donovan McNabb. T.O. also wanted more money, so through his agent, Drew Rosenhaus, threatened to “hold out” and not report to training camp. He came back to the team, only to start complaining again about Donovan McNabb and the entire Philadelphia Eagles management. In 2006, the Eagles had enough. They deactivated T.O. from the roster in the middle of the season. At the end of the season they released T.O.
T.O. then signed with the Dallas Cowboys and was immediately embraced by the team and city and continued his superior play on the field. Then, his “toxic leadership” started to show. At one time, he cried over his quarterback Tony Romo when the media criticized Romo, but the next year, publicly criticized Romo himself for not throwing him the ball enough. T.O. thought Romo and another offensive player, Jason Witten, were drawing up plays without him. T.O. kept criticizing Cowboys teammates and management, in particular, his offensive coordinator Jason Garrett. On March 4, 2009, the Cowboys had enough and released T.O.
What should you take away from this? Talent is talent and can help your team or organization in the short term. No doubt, everyone wants the best talent. But, if that talent has a continual history of not being able to work well with people; of making people feel uncomfortable; of degrading others; of demoralizing or belittling others; of bad-mouthing projects, people, management, the organization; of spreading rumors; of talking behind peoples’ backs; of believing that life is unfair; of having a sour demeanor all the time; of complaining all the time about anything and everything; of feeling that everyone is against him/her; of having an inflated ego; of thinking he/she knows everything; of immaturity; of looking out only for him/herself over the best interests of the team or organization – no amount of talent can overcome that amount of toxicity.
With all of his statistics, this particular one stands out for me – 13 years in the league, T.O. has been a part of ZERO Super Bowl championships. People with less talent and far less toxicity have been more effective in helping their team win championships (see wide receiver Hines Wardof the Pittsburgh Steelers for instance).
Looking back, I am not that surprised T.O. was let go by the Cowboys last week, nor should you, knowing what you now know. Toxicity trumps talent. But, what do you think came to me as more of a surprise than hearing T.O. was let go by the Cowboys? The Buffalo Bills picked up T.O. less than a week later.
If once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, and three times is a trend, what’s four times?
I just got back from a program training Egyptian women in leadership. This was the third time for me. The women were all wonderful again: Beautiful both in their headscarves and without, Eager and brilliant in their learning. It is always a humbling experience to be in the midst of such noble women.
This time when I went to Egypt it was time for something other than the tourist clichés of Cairo, even though they are wonderful. I had seen the museums and the pyramids, and I had traveled to Luxor and Aswan and Alexandria and cruised on the Nile. I wanted something really different. Egypt has plenty. No shortage of stuff that’s different. It’s a real cornucopia of different stuff: A connoisseur’s dream. So I recruited a courageous colleague and went to the desert.
The desert is not just a bunch of sand. That was my first learning. The geology of the ancient Sahara desert includes, apparently, both volcanoes and glaciers. And according to many climatologists, the prognosis for this 3,000 mile wide stretch of earth if global warming continues is verdant green again! Who’da thunk it? Sorry. Who would have thought it? :)
The volcanoes in the Black Desert are numerous and breathtaking. Take a digital camera if you go, or you’ll run out of film. The sunrises and sunsets are spectacular, especially in the White Desert, a curious and stunning collection of windcarved calcite monuments reminiscent of a Dr. Seuss book. That’s where our little safari slept. The SUV’s separated themselves from one another but some were still visible. Each little campsite with its own white statues. Ours were strangely like Mt. Rushmore to me in the dark, so that’s what I called them. Others were like rabbits, chickens, horses, mushrooms (lots of mushrooms!) sphinxes, nefertittis, and cats.
My colleague Ginny and I had objected to our first driver, so we used my limited Arabic to give our guide some feedback and request a new driver. “Mish ayzeen Nassar,” I said, and pantomimed how he hollered angrily and waved his arms around. We were afraid he would have road rage or something. We didn’t want him at the wheel. So we got Omda. He was much calmer. Apparently we had fired the leader of the safari, though, so he didn’t go away. I think he and Omda just changed cars. Anyway, Ginny and I were happier.
I was glad to see our guide Abdul seemed to use a “leave no trace” policy in the desert. We packed out everything we brought in, except for a few chicken bones and scraps they threw to the desert foxes. The foxes were really cute, with huge ears. I heard them all night: chuh chuh chuh chuh chuh chuh chuh chuh chuh as they ran around collecting every morsel that had been left for them by any of the groups. Except for the tire tracks, in the morning no one would have been able to ever tell we were there.
Ginny asked me later what stories I would collect from our experience in the desert to share with my participants later in the classroom. I thought for a moment. Taking care of our real concerns by firing Nasser? I guess the feedback helped. He certainly was more amiable later as he walked from his campsite about 100 yards away to ours to eat Abdul and Omda’s good food. His son Ahmed (about 12, learning the business?) was still with us, so it made sense for him to come. He also brought his carload of Egyptian tourists and their little table. I guess he never intended to cook. Fortunately we had plenty.
Maybe that’s a good lesson. I wondered what we would have done if I hadn’t spent months before the trip learning Arabic on my 45 minute commute into work. We still could have done it somehow. I remember when a friend fired our driver in India because he had been drinking. There’s always a way. Anyway I felt vindicated that all that time hadn’t been a total waste. In the desert they really don’t speak much English.
 But no, I think the story I will take is of the foxes. We saw two of them in the morning, perched on a tiny bit of shade on one of the rock formations, watching us leave. They had found a way to blend in perfectly with their environment. I know they didn’t live anywhere else but the desert, because everything else was 40 or 50 miles away. I asked Abdul how they got water. “Mayya” is the word for water, but the rest of the sentence was a bit complicated for me. I had to draw a picture of a fox. Finally the Egyptian tourists helped and Omda said there are tiny springs around in the desert, plus they can lick moisture from the rocks. I don’t know. Abdul said they get water from the campsites. I didn’t see anyone give them any water. But anyway, they survive. Clever like a fox, I guess.
A leader has to be clever to survive in a hostile environment, to fit in even when there is no water. In this hostile economy we are all learning to do without. Like the fox, we are patrolling our territory to find something we might use, something we might have ignored in better times. It takes watchful oversight. It takes courage. It takes the ability to learn quickly. And the ability to just wait. We have to be clever like a fox.
With the U.S. elections less than a month away, I am thinking more and more about our country and the leadership I think we need as a nation – in terms of domestic issues and international concerns. No matter who wins the election, the new president will need to rapidly change their focus and, to some extent, their leadership style. Having won the election, the new president will need to shift from rhetoric that differentiates and divides to rhetoric that unites. Those who were the former opposition become colleagues. They will need to “win over” the supporters of the other candidates. It seems obvious enough, but it is a lot harder to pull off – partly because of the process it takes to become President.
I’m not a political scientist (or even close), but there’s something potentially damaging to the nation about political campaigns. Campaigns are essentially conflicts, and like other forms of conflict they can be conducted in a manner that is productive or dysfunctional. Presidential campaigns are both productive and dysfunctional, in my opinion. They are productive in articulating the issues we face as a nation and examining how we can best address them from different perspectives. They force us to reflect on where we are and need to be going as a nation on a regular cycle – and allow us to have a say (a vote) in what happens next. The dysfunction stems from what should be a separate conversation becoming the focus of the conversation as well as a system that is adversarial in a manner that is not always issue-focused (or even relevant in some cases). I’ve already mentioned I am not a political expert – the comments section provides an opportunity to provide another – perhaps more informed perspective.
I’ll start with the dysfunctional aspects (mainly so I can end on a positive note). There are basically two broad ways to motivate people - hope and fear. Every candidate has used hope and fear to engage the populace and connect with constituents; wordsmiths craft messages that communicate “I am the person that can provide what you hope for and my opponents are or will create what you most fear.” Unfortunately (to me anyway) fear is an effective tactic. Expansive and unreasonable fear is even better. Many political advertisements focus on deconstructing the other candidate to indicate they are not telling the truth and their promises of the things you hope for will be replaced with them doing things you fear. Every four years we get a lot of information about why someone would be a scary choice for President. We also hear a lot about how mud slinging is bad – but apparently it works because everyone uses it to some extent.
I often watch political ads and debates and wish for more information about how that candidate is going to make our nation better rather than information about how the other candidate screwed things up or is a bad person. As the campaigns heat up, the attacks get more personal and the dialogue less respectful. I cringe when I watch a lot of political ads as well as during the debates. Where are we supposed to learn how to engage with one another respectfully rather than name-calling? Where can we see critical thinking skills used to tackle issues and move us forward rather than sound bites that trigger an emotional response? I hope the next President of the U.S. can become a role model for how to have respectful dialogue (even when we completely disagree) and how to work through conflict in a constructive manner.
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