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
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
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.
It was a long wait at the Department of Motor Vehicles to take my motorcycle driving test, so Bryan and I got into one of those conversations about our work. Bryan is the entrepreneur who was renting me a motorcycle and helmet so I could take my test. His day job is as a hospital imaging tech (CT scans, X-rays, and so on).
When I told him about the Center, he asked “Can you do anything for surgeons?” and then launched into a series of stories about the leadership of surgical teams. He said, “I was working with one surgeon recently and everything was going smoothly. He would ask politely for what he needed. He calmly asked for the reports from different members of the team. In the middle of it, it dawned on me that this was extraordinary! A surgeon was being polite and not freaking out.”
He went on, “On another occasion, we did one surgery with one of the intense, narcissists. The next surgery was with a different surgeon and when he asked for something, the whole surgical team scrambled frantically to get it. He looked around him and held up his hand, ‘Hold up there!’ he said, ‘Wrong doctor!’”
Bryan told me that there was a rumor passing around his hospital that there was a proposal that the team evaluations of the surgeons be eliminated. He didn’t have much confidence in the self-awareness or even willingness of these team leaders to take feedback. “But,” he said, “the teams where the surgeons treat the rest of the team with respect and maintain a professional attitude do better medicine.” He was convinced they had better outcomes too.
I asked Bryan what he did about it. “Well, three of the other techs got fed up with the behavior of one surgeon and they wrote a report to the hospital. I just deal directly with the docs. If I think a surgeon is crossing the line, I’ll tell him...try to make it humorous and not create a problem, but I’ll say something directly to the surgeon.”
He told me about one 25 year veteran surgical assistant who was dealing with a surgeon who began sputtering and waving his hand in front of her face. While quite sure that she actually knew what he wanted, she still challenged him, “What, are we five? Use your words!”
The fundamentals of leadership are still key. The more power lodged with the designated leader, the more is required of him or her: certainly self-awareness and respect for the contributions of others. It can be a matter of life or death.
 My favorite hockey player, Joe Sakic of the Colorado Avalanche, retired last week after an illustrious 20-year career as not only a great hockey player, but a great captain and leader. The “face of our franchise for the past two decades” is how the President of the Avalanche organization described him. His teammates, fans, and management were in tears of appreciation and adoration at his press conference. This is truly a valued leader to that organization.
This led me to ponder retirement from the view of those in the talent pipeline. How do people within an organization react where their respected and esteemed leader decides to retire, especially when that leader is the face of the company, the brand, the franchise?
There are many who mourn the loss of the leader and wonder how life will go on after they leave. As a Green Bay Packer fan, we are still wondering about life after Brett Favre, even after his successor has been on the job and functioning quite well for more than a year. GE stockholders wondered who would ever live up to the reputation and legacy of their beloved Jack Welch. Anne Mulcahy retired a couple of weeks ago after leading Xerox in a multi-billion dollar and substantial brand image turn-around the past nine years (in addition to being an icon for demonstrating how to effectively break the glass ceiling).
But what about those in the pipe ready to start demonstrating their legacy? Aaron Rogers held a clipboard for three years waiting to show that he was worthy to be a starting quarterback in the NFL. Jeffrey Immelt held and demonstrated excellence in numerous global leadership positions for almost 20 years before being given the CEO reins. Ursula Burns, I imagine, is eager to demonstrate that she can be the role model for African-American female leaders and as exemplary a CEO as Anne Mulcahy.
In succession management, we often talk about what does a person needs to get to the next “level” without acknowledging that a key criterion is the level needs to be open. The person above you needs to leave, whether by their own promotion, a lateral move, or retirement. So if you are the Aaron, Jeffrey, or Ursula of your organization, is it okay to be happy for the opportunity to shine? The chance to assume the next level (whatever that level may be for you)?
Let me know your thoughts. In the interim, I’ll be seeing how Matt Duchene (the Avalanche’s First round pick this year) does in training camp; excited that they have such outstanding talent on the team yet getting a bit misty eyed as they retire the “19” jersey on opening night this year.
I'm supposed to be a Big Thinker. At least, that's the excuse we use when I've forgotten to fill out some form or other or have conveniently missed a 5 am meeting. "He's a big thinker," someone will say, gently implying I’m not capable of dressing myself without help. “He’s not that good with the details.”
This caricature is beneficial to me insofar as it presents an image of a kindly, if doddering, ivory-tower intellectual. It has saved me from a number of lengthy meetings on structuring internal processes so as to preserve the sovereignty of one group or another. I’ve even bought into it myself along the way and make occasional self-deprecating comments designed to imply someone else had better tackle the details if we don’t want to starve.
However, like most identity-statements, it is true some percentage of the time and in some percentage of circumstances. For instance, when it comes to language, I’m a raging OCD-driven traditionalist. For some reason, which I could probably blame on my parents, I’m personally offended when the language I grew up with undergoes changes. (You have no idea what it took me to adapt to dangling participles. Only regular doses of the PBS radio show “Way with Words” allowed me to write “I grew up with” instead of “with which I grew up,” for example).
 My current obsession is the new British Invasion. Of course, I’m as taken with accents and dialects not-my-own as the next guy, but why must we now pronounce “collegiality” as if the “g” belonged at the beginning of garage, not at the end? I remember the shivers I felt the first time I heard one of my fellows talk about call-eeG-ee-a-lit-ee. In good-old American english (note the small “e”), the combination “gi” within a word always is sounded as if it were “ji” or “jee.” You will note that all American dictionaries recognize the soft “g” sound as the first pronunciation and most note the hard “g” only when making reference to the college of cardinals. Did we need to change collegiality to conform to “colleague” once we had decided we no longer had "co-workers"?
Now, in the interest in beating my critics to the punch, I will confess I’ve been caught describing my cell phone as my “mobile” (moe-bile) instead of (moe-bl) and, when in London, I adapt. However, here I take my stand: when in the United States of America, I will practice collegiality (coll-ee-jee-ality) with my colleagues, although I expect most of them to turn up the torture now that they know my secret. That’s true collegiality (pronounce it how you will).
Tom Glavine was recently released by baseball's Atlanta Braves. A little background on Tom Glavine - He has won over 300 games as a pitcher (a watershed statistic for pitching greatness), two Cy Young awards (an award handed out to the best pitcher in the league), 10 times an all-star, and 1995 World Series MVP of Atlanta’s only world series in win in the 1990s. More than likely, he’s headed to the Hall of Fame.
 Glavine had been with the Braves since being drafted in 1987. He left the Braves to sign a more lucrative contract with the rival New York Mets club in 2003. He re-signed with the Braves in 2008, pitched a few games, but hurt his throwing arm that year. He had surgery, and had been rehabbing since, hoping to return to the Braves in 2009. I read last week that his rehab start with the Braves minor league Single-A team in Rome Georgia went well. That same day when I went home, I was watching the MLB network and saw that the Braves released Tom Glavine. I was shocked.
Many have speculated why the Braves released Glavine, a veteran pitcher with a proven track record and lots of nostalgia attached to him of glory days of the past. Some have thought that the Braves wanted to get out of paying a $1 million bonus if Glavine pitched in the major leagues. Others thought that Glavine’s pitches were just not acceptable for major league pitching and that he just didn’t have what it took to pitch in the majors anymore. Some (and I put myself in this group) see that the Braves are just trying to move on, and use their high potential, youthful (and much cheaper) pitchers and start with them. They need “on-the-job experience” and no more training in the minors. It is probably no coincidence that if Glavine came to pitch in the major leagues, there would be no spot available for star phenom Tommy Hanson to move up from the minor leagues to the major leagues. It would cost more money to put Glavine in the majors and keep Hanson in the minors, and would somewhat slow down Hanson’s development into the star pitcher the Braves (and everyone else in major league baseball circles) thinks he will become.
My friends asked me how I felt about this, as they know I am a Braves apologist and an Atlanta Braves homer. What I told them: Loyalty always takes a back seat to youth and/or money. Back in 2003, Glavine left his loyalties behind and signed with the arch-rival New York Mets for more money. This year, the Braves left their loyalties behind to try and save up some money, and help the progress of their future by cutting ties with a player synonymous with the success of a decade ago, and promoting someone younger for success in the future.
Leaders sometimes have to face this same decision. They have to choose between loyalty of their people and cutting costs in dealing with the problems in their own organization. On a more personal level, sometimes they have to choose between staying loyal to their present company and the opportunity to make more money at another company. Glavine was an integral part of both scenarios during his career. The final outcomes of both have not been pretty for either side. Personal feelings aside, one can see that it boils down to “it’s just business.” Sad, but true commentary.
 On Friday I did something that used to strike fear in my heart. I took my two young boys to the video store to select a movie for the weekend. The kids walked into the store, agreed on a movie, and we walked out the door in less than 10 minutes. Easy. But it used to be a nightmare. They would bicker on and on about which movie to get. I would mediate and ultimately figure out which movie would satisfy them both.
Until one day when we’d been in the store for 20 agonizing minutes with no end in sight and I’d reached my limit. I said, “It’s your job to pick out a movie together. If you can’t agree, we will not get a movie.” As the squabbling continued, I refused to get in the middle and just repeated, “Talk to your brother and figure it out.” Eventually it sunk in and, miraculously, we walked out with a movie in hand.
Now it’s habit for them. Whether it’s deciding which snack to buy at the grocery store or which video game to play first, I don’t do the heavy lifting for them. And they’re getting good at it. They approach problems differently than I would. Their reasoning is different. And their solutions are creative.
As leaders, this can be an easy trap to fall into. We don’t give employees a chance to do the heavy lifting of figuring out their own solutions. We want to hang on to what’s made us successful: namely, being great solution generators. We shy away from delegating because it’s easier and faster just to do it ourselves. If we really want to be successful, we need to conquer our fear of delegation and get our minds around what it means to contribute in a different way.
My boys weren’t learning anything from watching me pick out a movie or make the peace between them. But when I gave them the power to make a decision I normally make, that’s when the learning kicked in. About how it feels to be empowered, to have the authority to make decisions, to develop a new-found confidence in their capabilities.
That’s what good leaders should do – let their people learn not just by observing leaders but by doing the work of leaders. I like this quote from Rudolf Frieling, SFMOMA curator of media arts:
“(T)hese objects, once they are assembled, will lend themselves to certain functions, but they might also be reconfigured and used in ways that we can not foresee. Precisely because we might embrace the idea of dysfunctionality-the fact that it becomes more difficult to do something maybe is what makes it more interesting — and provide an open situation.”
 On a recent "This American Life" podcast (National Public Radio), Will Felps, now a professor of Talent at Erasmus Research Institute of Management of the University of Rotterdam, described his dissertation research on the power of a "bad apple" to spoil the whole environment of a team. The interview is at the beginning of this podcast which you can listen to at this link click here to listen for free. His research suggests that a strong negative personality can have a disproportionate effect on the operations of a team working on a joint task. It seems that bad behavior can be contagious and infects all that is taking place in the work environment. Will says he got the idea for his work originally from the experience of his wife, who was working in an extremely negative workplace. However, when the critical player (a guy he described as "mean, but in a funny way") was overcome by a chronic illness that caused him to be away from work for several days at a time every week, the environment stopped being cold during those days. People encouraged each other and it became a more productive workplace.
The three types of bad behavior Felps looked at in the lab included just such a person (the mean but funny guy who makes fun of others), a confederate who played the disengaged, indifferent slacker, and the seriously depressed person who finds a dark cloud in every sky. In nearly every test group Felps observed, his confederate was able through one of these behavior patterns to influence the group to poor performance. The only exception was one group, where the son of a diplomat used questions to help the group find its direction and get aligned. In that group, his confederate's influence was neutralized. More on this in a later blog.
The implications of this research for coaching skills development among managers is intriguing. More obvious is the thought that selection and promotion needs to take seriously the kinds of attitudes potential leaders bring with them. The "bad apple" already has more power than others in a team. You don't want to poison a larger group with these toxins.
You can find information about Dr. Felps at the Erasmus web site ERIM Doug
 My favorite football team growing up was the Chicago Bears. They were tough, especially their linebacker, Mike Singletary. I have a clear memory of his eyes wide open before the snap, just waiting to tackle. He was intense. He had a nickname – Samurai.
After his hall-of-fame career, he became an assistant coach. He became interim head coach of the San Francisco 49ers after Mike Nolan was fired in October 2008. The 49ers were once a proud franchise that fell on hard times lately. There was a lot of losing, not many playoff games, and a lot of underachieving.
You knew what kind of coach, what kind of leader, Singletary was going to be his first game as head coach.
During halftime of his first game as head coach, he gave a “pep talk” by pulling down his pants, showing that the team was getting their you-know-what kicked.
Near the end of his first game, Singletary sent one of those high-profile, high-paid, underachievers, Vernon Davis, to the showers early after making an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. Singletary said that Davis would better serve his team by taking a shower and coming back out to watch the team play than going back out on the field.
The post-game interview sounded like Samuel L. Jackson from Pulp Fiction (The Dan Patrick Radio Show did a great parody of this, it was hard to tell the difference). In the post-game interview, he said that he was not going to tolerate players who thought it was all about them when in reality, it should be all about the team. He also said “We can not make decisions that cost the team.” Singletary even said that he would rather play with 10 players (and be one player short), than play with 11 when that 11th player is not sold on being part of the team.
“It is more about them than it is about the team…cannot play with them, cannot win with them, cannot coach with them, can’t do it. I want winners. I want people that want to win.”
He said the team will change because the team wants to change and wants to be champions. He said the mindset needed to change, and he wanted to know who really wants to win. Many players had been there so long under unsuccessful times, the players become part of the problem rather than the solution. He wants players that are solution oriented.
What can leaders learn from this? First, I would not recommend pulling your pants down. But, Singletary’s “pep talk” though unconventional, got his point across. Communication is important. Second, it is very hard to change a culture of losing. The same goes for sports teams as much as it does organizations. When there is a culture of underachieving, of losing, or apathy, a leader who comes in sometimes needs to be forceful, set a tone, be strict, be results-oriented, and maybe “call people out” or “cut the fat” for the betterment of the organization in the future. Those that aren’t part of the solution are part of the problem. Third, to go from a culture of losing to a culture of winning, buy in from everyone is needed. Those who don’t believe in the vision or direction the team is going, don’t buy into the vision or direction, or are not sold on the vision or direction, are just not going to be useful as the team goes into a different direction. A leader must be visionary, and get buy-in from followers.
Singletary is now the permanent head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, after winning 4 of the last 5 games. In the locker room after the final game of the season, the announcement was made in front of all his players that this December would be the last December that the 49ers were going to have their last game in December – in other words, the Samurai linebacker who is now head football coach, was going to lead the team to a winning record and playoff games in January next year. Through communication, vision, and selling people on a direction, leaders can start to turn a culture of losing into a culture of winning and success.
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