Leading Effectively Series
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 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.
I recently worked with a very high-performing team of government leaders. We were working together trying to hone their leadership edge and create an even better synergy within the team.
During the discussions, the team (a group of high performers within the Federal Government) revealed the immensity of their challenges – they had a ton of money to manage, and hundreds of pieces of legislation to track – where would they have time to do leadership development or team building?
As one senior official stated, the plate is overflowing and yet others keep putting more on it.
This is a challenge facing many government agencies – it is both a sign of their importance as well as a unique compliment of others trust in their ability to handle such a difficult workload. The question remains, however, how to manage such a workload?
 This reminds me of the traveler who once asked the village chief how to eat an elephant? ‘One bite at a time’ was the reply.
Like the village chief, this high-performing team may want to look at how they can slowly take little bites and begin to make headway against the overflowing plate. There are a number of options to address overwork or over-tasking. Some include reviewing team roles, updating team priorities, creating efficient processes – and… yes, even making the time for leadership development and teamwork reflection.
I can hear the refrain – we don’t have time!
I wonder if we looked at time differently, a new perspective would enlighten us with an answer. Instead of looking at time as a boundary, lets look at time as an investment. If you invest time now in team building, could it return more time later? Research demonstrates the time spent in learning and reflection results in improved communication, efficiency, and trust within teams.
In addition, CCL research and others have demonstrated time and again the importance of reflective time for senior executives.
Thinking about time as an investment helps us to realize the return on its potential. Instead of looking at everything on the plate. Lets look at how we eat it, the time it takes to eat, and where we are investing that time at the current moment. Performing this quick analysis may reveal the amount of time being wasted, instead of invested in key priorities.
Using this temporal analysis is a wise investment that will help the team address that overloaded plate… one bite at a time.
Rick Neuheisel, UCLA football coach, is on a roll this year. His team is 3-0 (including a defeat of my beloved Tennessee Vols which I am still trying to get over).
 Despite his team beating the Vols, one of the things I like about him, he coined one of the best terms used on the Dan Patrick Show ever – “Passion Bucket.” He said during an interview with Dan Patrick a couple of years ago, when talking about how to defeat UCLA’s main rival, the USC Trojans, “When you’re at UCLA, you have to have your passion bucket full.” Lots of people have since used the term “Passion Bucket” on radio or television or in interviews, like Kobe Bryant, Bob Costas, Tim McCarver, and Kevin Love.
I love the term “Passion Bucket” and have tried to drop the term in conversation when I can. What “Passion Bucket” really means to me, it is a way to measure your enjoyment of life, a way to measure if you are living life to its fullest, a measurement of your energy and enthusiasm and motivation, a measurement of whether you are able to give everything you have, a measurement of how much you love and enjoy yourself and who you are.
 Sometimes your “Passion Bucket” may be overflowing; sometimes it may be empty. Leaders need to pay particular attention to the latter. When your “Passion Bucket” is empty, you won’t get work done; you won’t be a good leader, a good worker; you won’t be a good friend; you won’t be a good husband, wife, father, mother, son or daughter.
What can leaders do when their “Passion Bucket” is low, or empty? I recently had to think about this myself when there was nothing left in my own “Passion Bucket.” That was a rough time; work and non-work stuff was just awful, full of frustration and rejection, trying as hard as you can and nothing good coming as a result, not getting any breaks, a lot of hurt. As you can guess, I could not get work done, I didn’t enjoy life, I forgot what the good things were that made me who I was and made me unique. I was lost. That is a horrible place to be.
How did I start to refill my “Passion Bucket?”
I talked a lot to those closest to me and they listened to my frustrations. I also did the stuff that made me happy. I ran more miles. I played more golf. I listened and played more music. I went to Home Depot and bought all the yellow flowers I could find and planted them. I also really and truly thought about what were the things that made me who I was, the things that made me the individual that I love and that the people in my inner circle loved about me. I just didn’t give lip service to it, I really thought about those things. My inner circle of people also helped me with that as well.
Only you really know how to fill your own “Passion Bucket.” At work, maybe it’s concentrating more on the people you lead and less on the tasks of work (or vice versa). Away from work, maybe it’s journaling or writing. Maybe it’s hiking, or going on vacation. Maybe it’s scrapbooking or throwing a huge party with friends and family. Maybe it’s meditating or getting involved in the community or with certain religious activities. Maybe it’s spending just a bit more time with your spouse or kids. Seeking the advice of a professional counselor can also be invaluable.
 So, if your “Passion Bucket” is empty, allow yourself to take the time to figure out how to fill it back up.
Work, events, even people that you think are close to you can drain your “Passion Bucket” but ultimately, time and only you and those who are truly close to you can help refill your “Passion Bucket” to where you want it.
A full “Passion Bucket” is worth its weight to you at work and away from work, so don’t neglect it.
I was reading the headline peering out at me from the magazine being read by the woman across the aisle of our mini-jet. It was featuring an article with one of the new clichés: "You Are What You Measure."
Of course, you are a good deal more. You are also what you never measured and a certain portion of you escapes your awareness altogether. Because I'd already congratulated myself (that is, my 'unmeasured self') on missing one flight today, I granted me permission to indulge a trivial irritation. The irritation? Thoughtless deification of formerly useful bits.
Since it's already come up, take measurement, for example. In all kinds of fields (physics and psychotherapy come to mind) the fact that measuring behavior has an effect on that behavior has proven a useful idea. In human behavior, we even have a number of useful studies that can help us predict the likely effects of that measurement.
But, that's never enough. Now, business writers of all stripes dramatically warn that what isn't measured doesn't even exist. Worse, if you can't assign numbers, you have no control! (Sorry, got a little carried away there...)
The truth is that you can increase your sense of control and are more likely to increase the occurrence of those behaviors you are caught paying attention to. In organizational contexts, you 'pay attention' to things by counting them, or weighing them, or timing them.
However, as every Ph.D. candidate* trying to get a manageable dissertation question can tell you, the stuff that's really important is really hard to measure. Often the act of identifying reasonable metrics requires serious over-simplification of the factors that affect desired outcomes.
My point (and I do have one) is that virtues deified become tyrants. Unfortunately, there's a rumor that many consultants make their living by deifying one good thought or another. In the case of measurement, I'd propose a couple of iconoclastic actions:
1. Measure things that you intend to do something about. Before collecting any data, think about the decisions, actions, policies, practices, or amusement that you hope to derive from it. Make your motto: No More Dusty Binders We Never Open.
2. Pay attention to intuition and critical thinking. Intuition is the mental application of the algorithms of experience to complex or partial information. There are things your gut knows that your brain hasn't figured out yet.
Your monotheistic friend,
Doug
*I wasn't thinking of you.
Tiger Woods may not have won a major this year, but he won the Fed Ex Cup, the Super Bowl of the PGA Tour. We tend to forget that this feat is accomplished a little over a year after knee surgery. We tend to forget that while he didn’t win any majors, he did win a PGA-tour best six times this year. We tend to forget that his son was born earlier this year, thus adding exponentially (as only the addition of a family member can) to his commitment off the course. Not forgotten by Tiger, however, is the totality of a year of consistency… proud of the victories, and very eager for more.
What the media and general populous tended to remember this year was Phil Mickelson. Mickelson only won three times on the course this year, not usually a cause for extensive media coverage even with a win on Sunday at the Tour Championship. But it was the battle with breast cancer that his wife and mother had off the course that we tended to not forget.
According to the American Cancer Society, an estimated 192,370 new cases of breast cancer are expected to be diagnosed this year. To have not one, but two of those diagnoses strike immediate family members is not just a statistical anomaly, it is devastating. To be able to go about one’s work while supporting your family members is remarkable. To then succeed in your work and produce excellent results is unforgettable.
Today, there are about 2.5 million breast cancer survivors in the United States; 2.5 million unforgettable wins. For some, they have “won” against multiple diagnoses. Others, like Amy and Mary Mickelson are still on the course and still battling for a win. Most are not the wife or mother of a celebrity, but the wives, mothers, daughters, and friends of people we know or work with… or of ourselves.
As we embark on National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October, let us take a moment to cheer these unforgettable wins and continue to cheer and encourage those still on the course. All wins should be treasured, but there are some that are valued more than others and are truly unforgettable.
 So, it's college football season again. I was watching ESPN one weekend morning, and Lou Holtz was being interviewed. I know of Lou Holtz from being a famous and successful football coach at the University of Notre Dame (where he won a national championship) and the University of South Carolina. Before that, he was also a successful football coach at Minnesota, Arkansas, NC State, William & Mary, and even coached professionally for the New York Jets.
When I was watching television that morning, he was being interviewed because he was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame. It really struck me as to what he said – it was very refreshing. He said he was thankful for his wife, thankful for his family, the athletic directors who hired him, the coaches who coached with him, the players who played for him, because without all of those people, none of his successes would have been possible.
 Even though so many of us are working nonstop just to survive, I encourage you to take a few moments and think about those who helped you get to where you are today, who helped you be successful, and why. If they are still alive, let them know. Your family, your spouse, your kids, your coworkers, your friends. Get in touch with that high school teacher or college professor who had an impact on your life and thank them. If they aren’t alive anymore, take a moment to think about them. Because without any of these people, deep down inside you know, you would not be where you are today.
If you feel inclined, leave a comment about who you are thankful for. Maybe people will be inspired by who inspired you.
And, by the way, Lou Holtz is also known for his motivational speeches and pep talks both as a football coach, and on television for ESPN and College Gameday, like this one, probably the coolest ever.
My recent post about the legacy of Ted Kennedy stirred up an interesting discussion in CCL's LinkedIn Group. Our blog posts are fed in as News items for the group to read and discuss. If you haven't joined us there yet, we'd love to have you in the group.
Two of the main ideas in the discussion are 1) can someone reinvent themselves? and 2) how “perfect” do role models need to be?
Here's what I have been thinking.
I have witnessed high-impact experiences prompt significant changes in people's lives; personal transformations. People can and do make big changes in themselves. Not everyone experiences it, but some people do have a moment (or a time) when they decide – I’m not the person I want to be or that I could be.
What's really interesting to me is how complex personal transformation is and how difficult it can be to foster. I usually think of things like a serious illness, the death of a loved one, or some other major event as a potential prompt. One discussant recommended the book The 12 Bad Habits That Hold Good People Back by Waldroop and Butler as a place to read more about personal transformations; I haven't read it but it looks fairly well rated by other readers. Another goes so far as to say “A leader who has been through this comes out a better person and a better leader.” While facing significant challenge is not my idea of a good time, it can be one of the best teachers we have.
Regarding the second idea, all leaders have flaws and experience failure. Having children and entering public office are two surefire ways to find out about your flaws and taking risks is bound to lead to failure at least some of the time. But without a little risk nothing changes - which means nothing gets better.
On a side note, if someone learns from a risk gone wrong, I'm not sure we should refer to it as failure, maybe a mistake.
Anyway, it's difficult to know where to draw the line in terms of when flaws are to great or mistakes too frequent or severe for someone to be an effective leader - and we all have different ideas about how and what we value as the "good" and how we weigh that against the "bad." I guess that's part of what makes leadership so interesting. In one context a leader who is a philanderer is no big deal, in another, it is the leader’s undoing.
I’d be interested to hear what people think are the flaws or mistakes that can revoke a leader’s “role model” status. What do you think?
Franklin D. Roosevelt used those words to describe the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. September 11, 2001 was another day which will live in infamy after a premeditated series of equally dastardly attacks. 9/11 was the culmination of more than 20 years of terrorist attacks on Americans:
· The US Embassy in Tehran takeover (1979)
· the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut (1983),
· the Achille Lauro hijacking (1985),
· Pan Am flight 103 bombing (1988),
· the first World Trade Towers bombing (1993),
· the Khobar Towers bombing (1996),
· US Embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya (1998),
· attack on the USS Cole (2000), among others.
No longer could we ignore the conflict which was being thrust upon us by people who hate what we represent.
Watching the television news this morning before coming to work I could not help but be taken back to the events of that tragic day. I was teaching at the U.S. Military Academy just 50 miles north of Manhattan on the banks of the Hudson River. It was a bright, clear, beautiful late summer morning in New York. One of the hijacked planes flew right down the river not far from where I worked using it as a guide on the way to its final destination.
The events that unfolded that day were horrendous. The televised scenes of airliners crashing into the World Trade Towers, people leaping from the burning buildings, the subsequent collapse of the twin towers, the sorrow and anguish of the witnesses covered in soot and ash, the Pentagon in flames, and the crater near Shanksville, Pennsylvania from United Flight 93 all shocked our national consciousness. I watched with horror the video of the heroic firemen and police rushing to the scene of the disaster as survivors fled in the opposite direction, knowing they were going to their deaths. Learning later the details of what unfolded on those four doomed flights made us wonder at what kind of evil could commit such acts.
I spoke that morning to a group of frightened, bewildered West Point plebes who were in a reading efficiency class offered by my department. The instructor scrapped the lesson plan that morning and I came in to reassure the students instead. I compared their class to the class which entered West Point in the summer of 1941. They entered the Academy with their country at peace but now the nation been plunged into war by events not of our choosing. We had no idea of what was to come but only knew that our world had changed forever in an instant. Those cadets graduated in 2005 and were commissioned to lead an Army at war, with most serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, many serving multiple tours.
As horrible as that day was, the days, weeks, and months which followed saw a sense of national unity which had not been witnessed for a long time. People volunteered in the recovery efforts, gave blood, donated money, flew the American flag, and joined together in defiance of the forces of hate which had brought this evil to our shores. The divisions which separated us, melted away before our common threat. The American spirit, battered and bruised by the attacks of 9/11, arose out of the ashes like the phoenix with a sense of pride and defiance.
Why was America attacked? As Ronald Reagan once said, “America is a shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere.” The principles of Liberty, Democracy, and the rights of men and women for which we stand are antithetical to the forces which attacked us. Winston Churchill once remarked, “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.” We Americans are blessed to have been born in a country which grants us unparalleled opportunities to rise on our own merits and make the most of our potential.
So, on this day of remembrance, eight years after we were attacked and awoken from our slumber, let us remember our sense of national unity and those things which bind us together. Recall the spirit national harmony that arose in the dark days following 9/11 and work together in solidarity to defend our nation and make it better for all of its citizens. We must remember that there are still forces in this world which mean us harm and vow, as Churchill said during the Blitz, to “never, never, never give up.”
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