by Jane Perdue | Leadership
“You can’t do that. It’s not in the plan.”
How many times have you heard that line or one like it spoken at work?
Planning is important. Business plans, contingency plans, succession plans, project plans, etc. are all good—until they aren’t.
Plans bring order and continuity. However, they can also become obstacles to innovation, inclusion, and creativity.
Think about the colleague who has a detailed plan for everything and refuses to deviate from it, no matter how compelling new information may be. Think about the company that fails to recognize the institutional bias that’s been embedded in its long-time succession and promotion plans.
It’s easy to come up with new ideas; the hard part is letting go of what worked for you two years ago, but will soon be out of date. ~Roger von Oech
A few years ago, I served on the inaugural steering committee for a new community conference intent on becoming an annual event. The first conference was a roaring success; the second even better. The third not so much.
One of original steering committee members who had stayed the course shared her diagnosis as to why the third event was unsuccessful. “The plan had worked well, so we relied on it too much. Because we stuck to the plan, we missed out on including some excellent panelists and speakers. No one wanted to step outside the lines and do something different.”
Ever been in that spot?
Through social conditioning, training, preference, or the desire for convenience, people fall into one of two mental traps about planning and get stuck in their thinking.
One camp frets that chaos will result if there’s inadequate planning and control. The other believes too much planning and control will stifle creativity. The concerns of both camps are valid.
If both concerns are valid, then what’s the problem?
The problem is either/or thinking—accepting the notion that planning is either about control or chaos.
Planning for and achieving successful outcomes require both chaos and control, both disorder and boundaries.
These paradoxes are equally important but essentially different management requirements according to the late management consultant Peter Drucker. Regardless of how contradictory dealing with both disorder and boundaries sounds, they’re interdependent. Like it or not, both are necessary for success. Either/or doesn’t work.
The Wright brother flew right through the smoke screen of impossibility. ~Charles Kettering
The natural tension between the disorder that improvisors thrive on and the boundaries that control freaks adore can be managed provided people are willing to be curious and flexible.
3 ways to find the sweet spot for planning
Doing three things aids us in keeping curiosity, flexibility, and success front and center as we first create and then execute our plans.
1) Have a general game plan.
Know what you want to accomplish. Have a timeline. Define roles, responsibilities, and measures of success. Think about what could go wrong and how to deal with problems. Identify resources and stakeholders. Be willing to flex or scrap it all and re-invent when circumstances shift.
2) Get comfortable being slightly uncomfortable.
Recognize that always sticking to the plan provides a false sense of security that obscures new opportunities. Learn to be flexible with “how” the “what” of the plan is implemented. Be willing to challenge the end goal. Embrace and reward purposeful discomfort. Be willing to be vulnerable and sometimes not be certain of the next step.
3) Leave room for serendipity.
Whether that interaction with an unintended outcome or moment of “aha!” realization is engineered by an app or a spontaneous stroke of fate, be open and receptive to the mad genius possibilities it presents. Don’t let existing plans become a straitjacket. Roll with the punches.
Serendipity. Look for something, find something else, and realize that what you’ve found is more suited to your needs than what you thought you were looking for. ~Lawrence Block
Finding the sweet spot between too much and “just right” planning takes time and patience, but it can be done.
Have how you learned to manage the tension between chaos and control?
Image credit before quote added: Pixabay
by Jane Perdue | Leadership
Wouldn’t it be lovely if humility smelled like warm chocolate chip cookies so we could easily find ours when we lost it?
A small group of us were sharing comeuppance stories—times when we’d gotten too big for our britches and had taken a big fall from grace.
Betsy’s fall was the most dramatic. She’d been off-the-charts successful in her marketing job for a cosmetics company. Another company recruited her for their CMO job, complete with huge salary, signing bonus, and jaw-dropping perks. Betsy enjoyed her amazing perks for only five months. The CEO who’d recruited her fired her, saying Betsy was overly self-righteous, too self-important, and unnecessarily scornful of employees who weren’t executives.
“Go. Now. Be gone,” said the CEO as she made a sweeping away gesture with her hand. “I want you out of here immediately.”
Betsy said the CEO’s office had glass walls. So, while the CEO’s words were unheard by others, she saw everyone watching the dismissive gestures. And smiling.
It took Betsy five months to be able to say she was glad the humiliating experience had happened. Without it, she said, she would have remained too big for her britches, believing the myths about herself. She said she might have even become more unbearable.
“I got what I deserved. I let my success go to my head,” she said.
As do too many others.
Getting what we deserve
The endless stream of self-aggrandizement, the recitation of one’s specialness, of how much more open and gifted and brilliant and knowing and misunderstood and humble one is. ~Anne Lamott
Not letting success steal our self-awareness is at the heart of staying humble. We control whether that happens or not. Either we let success go to our head and become self-important jerks, or we don’t.
Success isn’t some kind of a sentient being that inhabits our bodies, takes control of our mind, and miraculously makes us someone new.
Becoming successful or powerful or rich only shows what we really were all the time.
Hubris is an accessory we acquire.
If we were kind before being successful, we stay kind. If we were thoughtful, we stay thoughtful. If we were open-minded, we stay open-minded.
Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real. ~Thomas Merton
How could Betsy and the rest of us have stayed grounded enough so we didn’t have a comeuppance story to tell? A smorgasbord of choices and options exists. To make sure we don’t get too big for our britches, all we have to do is be self-aware.
If you’re looking for suggestions for how to avoid having a comeuppance story, here’s 31 ideas to get you started. Take a look and think about what could work for you.
31 things to do
- Practice gratitude
- Admit to being wrong, don’t double down
- Accept challenges with grace
- Adopt a beginner’s mindset
- Focus on the effort, not the outcome
- Ask for feedback and really listen to it
- Confront your prejudices
- Choose purpose over passion
- Be curious and ask questions
- Kill your pride
- Appreciate others
- Accept good enough
- Understand your weaknesses and faults
- Be gentle with the weaknesses and faults of others
- Keep your abilities in perspective
- Don’t fear failure
- Accept others as they are
- Don’t measure yourself by material possessions
- Practice self-compassion
- Live your values and do so with grace
- Let others live their values with grace, too
- See happiness as a by-product of purpose
- Give credit where it’s due
- Connect deeper than generalities
- Don’t evaluate others by their position or status
- Accept criticism as a gift
- Laugh at yourself
- Forgive
- Be mindful of the expectations you set for yourself and others
- Listen more, talk less
- Serve someone
Humility is a quiet gift we give ourselves and others.
Quiet anything easily gets lost or overlooked in today’s hurly-burly pace of life. But, as with most good and worthwhile things in life, we have to want quiet humility. Have to work at having it. Have to never lose sight of its importance.
Owning the responsibility to maintain our humility makes all the difference.
Image credit before quote added: Pixabay
by Paul Thornton | Leadership
Whether he or she works as a CEO, a coach, or any job that requires motivating others, a great leader is at heart a good salesperson.
Why?
Because, if an organization’s leadership isn’t constantly persuading the rest of the team to buy into an idea or a philosophy, the team is likely to splinter, which means everyone starts moving in his or her own direction.
Selling and persuading is much more than simply barking orders, which, regardless of the circumstances, rarely gets the job done.
Leaders don’t always have formal authority or positional power to compel people to do what they want done. So, in many situations, they need to persuade, convince, and sell people on their ideas.
If a leader is to be a successful salesperson and influence others, he or she must first understand what their people are thinking. Then, the leader taps into whatever the person’s strongest emotion is at that time.
Ultimately, being an effective leader who can persuade and influence others is a matter of appealing to people’s heads, hearts, and hands.
Appealing to their head, heart, and hands
Here’s how a leader who’s a salesperson makes persuasion and influence work:
- The Head – This is an appeal to the intellect.
Leaders can persuade people through rational arguments that include market research, customer surveys, and case studies. They also should highlight the business benefits of ideas and how they will help employees. In some situations, it helps to explain the consequences of not changing. Explain what’s at stake and what they will lose out on if they don’t change.
- The Heart – This is an appeal to emotions.
People only change their behavior when doing so makes them feel better. The leader needs to connect to people’s need for status, order, honor, security, and purpose. Engage their hearts by making employees feel they are part of something big and special.
- The Hands – This is persuasion through direct involvement.
Give employees something to experience viscerally, like the way salespeople let someone take a car for a test drive or how new restaurants offer a taste test. Demonstrations help people experience the value and benefits of a particular idea or innovation. Direct experience can alter how a person thinks and feels about a new initiative.
Leader as salesperson
Having the right mix of facts, emotional appeals, and involvement helps sell ideas and proposals. Once that’s done, the leader needs to close the deal by asking for people’s commitment to whatever is proposed.
Commitment is an act, not a word. ~Jean-Paul Sartre
In some cases, you may need to start small. Get people to commit first to taking baby steps. That’s progress.
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Today’s contributor, Paul Thornton, is an author, trainer, speaker, and professor of Business Administration at Springfield Technical Community College in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Image credit before quote added: Pixabay
by Jane Perdue | Leadership
Just like spring breezes and pollen, conflict is in the air.
Contentious attitudes are everywhere. We find them in the media, in workplaces, in our social media feeds, in the streets, between friends, and at the dinner table. Civility and respect for other’s rights to have their opinions are beginning to feel as outdated as a wall calendar.
A number of people have shared how they’re struggling to stay calm and deal with the friction and discord swirling around them.
I’m struggling with that, too. You?
I’m also struggling with discovering I didn’t know people I thought I knew. It’s been hurtful to be on the receiving end of their unpleasant attacks. Their darkness tugs at some dark spot in me that cries out to respond in kind.
Lessons from a wise man
That feeling isn’t new. I experienced it back when I worked in labor relations and contentious was the flavor of the day, every day.
Joe had been a labor relations attorney longer than I was old and was willing to help me learn the ropes. The first lesson he taught me was how to disagree without being disagreeable; the second was not to make things personal by attacking others.
He believed conflict wasn’t logical or rational but rather emotional and relational. What we think shapes how we feel and act. For many, feelings become facts.
The same issues that lead to protracted conflict (e.g. values, status, and identify), are also the triggers of strong emotions. People who feel ‘unfairly attacked, misunderstood, wronged, or righteously indignant’ are typically overcome with emotion and respond with hostility and aggression. ~Michelle Maiese, Emotions, Beyond Intractability
Joe said only a silly person believed they could solve a conflict based in differences of opinion or perspective. He said people needed to accept that, in those situations, conflict is a fact of life.
Here’s his wise counsel for dealing clashes of interests:
- See conflict as something ongoing that needs to be managed; not exterminated like termites.
- Aim for a constructive, goal-oriented solution that gives everyone a small win.
- Strive for outcomes that improve performance.
- Look to advance the greater good; there’s something bigger than all of us out there.
- Accept that differences of thought, opinion, and perspective are both healthy and uncomfortable.
- Handled without skill, patience, or compassion, conflict can easily become ugly, leaving people frustrated and angry. Don’t go there. Find a way to let respect over-rule self-righteous anger.
- Take the high road and be productive, not the low, unproductive one.
That last point about making conflict either productive or unproductive is crucial. Conflict, handled constructively, can be an instrument of growth. Handled unproductively, well, too many of us have experienced unpleasant attacks—that sometime get so bad that relationships and friendships are lost.
Wondering which side of that productive/not productive line you sit on?
Imagine you’re a party to a conflict that’s flared up because of differing principles and values. Think about what you would normally do when you feel your needs, interests, or concerns are threatened. Then take a look at the table below.
If more of your actions fall on the left side of the table, take a step back and reflect. It’s likely you’re not letting people feel heard, respected, or free to voice a dissenting opinion. Aren’t those things you’d want people to do for you?
How conflict makes us productive…or not
| Unproductive |
Productive |
|
|
| Refuses to see other’s position |
Open to exploring another point of view |
|
|
| Respond with anger or accusations |
Respond calmly and respectfully |
|
|
| Becomes defensive |
Acknowledges thoughts or feelings and doesn’t try to justify |
|
|
| Reasons or argues others out of their invalid thoughts and feelings |
Approaches issues with facts, not emotions, saying when you do xx in this situation, I feel yy |
|
|
| Withdraws love and compassion |
Continues to care and be compassionate |
|
|
| Nonverbal communications (facial expressions; posture; gestures; pace, tone, and intensity of voice) are hostile |
Nonverbals are agreeable, pleasant, nonthreatening, and friendly |
|
|
| Focuses on winning and losing |
Understands that success is more than a score or coming out on top |
|
|
| Passionately defends individual power and rights |
Seeks mutual interests |
|
|
| Dredges up the past |
Focuses on the here-and-now and the future |
|
|
| Refuses to let go of any contrary issue |
Knows when to pick a battle |
|
|
| Makes it personal |
Doesn’t let things become personal |
|
|
| Always goes with the gut; doesn’t see the need to research or seek to understand |
Gets the facts from checking multiple sources |
|
|
| Denies being wrong |
Shows courage and openness to being wrong |
|
|
| Co-mingles and conflates people and problems |
Respects people, attacks the problem |
|
|
| Jumps to conclusions |
Gathers additional information before deciding |
|
|
| Intolerant of differences |
Welcomes differences |
|
|
| Refuses to negotiate or compromise |
Aims for inclusive consensus |
|
|
| Is eager to escalate, exaggerate, or embellish |
Stays level-headed and keeps to the facts |
|
|
| Demands my-way-or-the-highway allegiance |
Commits to working together to work it out |
|
|
| Presumes that others will live up to and/or accept their expectations |
Gives others room to have their own expectations |
|
|
Thanks to Joe all those years ago, today, whenever I’m facing a vocal someone who passionately sees things differently than I do and who’s starting to get under my skin because all they can say is that I’m wrong, wrong, wrong, I take a step back and think about their right to think differently.
I have to understand and respect that I’m never going to change someone else. Only they can do that.
I know I can’t control the other person’s response, but I’m in total control of mine.
I have endeavored to remember that the object of life is to do good. ~Peter Cooper, industrialist and philanthropist
Image source before quote added: Pixabay
by Jane Perdue | Leadership
It would be great, wouldn’t it, if chocolate was one of the four food groups?
That’s an idea I’ve suggested (just a wee bit tongue in cheek) for lots of years. Despite my extreme fondness for chocolate, though, I don’t indulge every day. Some days I want a different treat. Why? The joy of variety.
Over a caffe mocha (of course!), a friend and I were discussing the general state of world affairs, which led to talking about success, civility, inclusion, leadership, and respect. My friend and I both worked in corporate America for many years, sometimes at the same company at the same time.
None of our corporate employers were interested in the joy of variety; they were interested in only one flavor—numbers. Reports, meetings, discussions, performance evaluations, etc., centered around the bottom line.
We were ambitious, so we conformed and played along in valuing results more than relationships. Today, the memories—and shame—of my complicity haunt me.
If you love chocolate like I do, imagine how frustrating it would be to walk into ice cream parlor after ice cream parlor to find that vanilla was the only flavor sold. If you own an ice cream parlor and love vanilla, imagine how wearisome it would be to have to deal with those people “who can’t get with the program” and keep demanding chocolate.
Don’t these situations parallel what many people encounter when they go to work? The expectation to do things “one way” or else? The pressure to conform or else? The frustration? No wonder employee engagement is at an all-time low.
Having standardized business processes and procedures makes good business sense; otherwise, there’s confusion and chaos. But standardized everything, the one flavor approach from processes to thinking to doing leaves no room for joy of variety (the 31 flavors!) in thought, opinion, perspective, and experience that brings zest to life, love, and leadership.
Being ‘right’ is the easy part. Finding the ‘rightness’ within the opposite point of view is the challenge. ~Barry Johnson, author Polarity Management
One corporate boss was extreme in his preference for numbers and results. I struggled with his unyielding orientation.
As you might imagine, that boss and I had our challenges. While our approaches were different, we had the advantage of liking and respecting each other. Our spirited debates were sometimes epic.
Over time we realized our region was most successful when there was a focus on both results and relationships. Our path of learning to accept “multiple flavors” was a bumpy yet rewarding one filled with lessons, loud voices, and laughter as we learned about our blind spots and tested our tolerance for seeing beyond our own preferences.
5 leadership gifts that keep giving
While that boss and I learned many things, five items made a profound difference in how we approached one other, issues, and those around us.
We learned:
1) To be mindful about using the word should.
Thoughts about what should be introduce personal bias, which reduces open-mindedness, which in turn increases right versus wrong arguments, which leads to reduced opportunity and morale.
2) To replace the word or with “and.”
Either/or thinking zaps innovation and inclusion; both/and thinking boosts them. Using “and” expands comfort zones, too. That boss and I discovered that we usually preferred one side of “or” to the other. However, when we considered the big picture, it became easy to see that the words existing on either side of the word or were both equally important over time, like results and relationships.
3) To be curious.
Taking Walt Whitman’s advice to be curious, not judgmental, was a game changer. We learned more, reduced bias, and had fun seeing things we would have missed before.
4) To pay attention to our hot buttons.
When people or events set us off, we reflected instead of reacting, which made a positive difference in us as leaders and people.
5) To express gratitude and appreciation.
We discovered that letting go of being the all-knowing tough guy who’s got everything under control is liberating, that recognizing others is great fun, and that focusing on what we had instead of what we didn’t have lightened the mental and emotional load.
Instead of contradicting each other’s view, the task is to supplement each other’s view in order to see the whole picture. Each of them has key pieces to the puzzle. Paradoxically, opposition becomes resource. ~Barry Johnson, author Polarity Management
Five little big things made all the difference in us becoming “31 flavors” leaders and, more importantly, better people—a gift to ourselves and others that keeps giving.
Image credit before quote added: Pixabay
by Jane Perdue | Leadership
Toby is struggling to understand why his boss is now unhappy with job performance that once made him happy.
Toby’s employer experienced significant change in the last 18 months including new ownership, new management team, and all new systems. The new owners also want a different style of leadership, one that’s inclusive and flexible.
Toby has worked for the company for 15 years and describes himself as a “get it done” guy. To Toby, his yearend performance review was a disaster. His boss told him future promotions were unlikely because he is too competitive, too logical, too critical, and too focused on results and tradition.
His takeaway from his boss’s feedback? To start looking for a job.
Toby reached out to Aaron, a former colleague, and asked for advice. He was surprised by the advice Aaron gave him. Aaron told him to quit looking for a job and get busy living up to the possibility in what his boss had told him. Say what?
Aaron pointed out that Toby’s boss had used the word too in describing Toby’s performance. The boss hadn’t said that being logical or results-oriented, etc. wasn’t wrong, just that Toby was too logical, too results-oriented, etc. The boss hadn’t said those weren’t the right things to be. He said Toby was just too much of them.
Toby had over-used his strengths and turned them into weaknesses. To get back on track, all he needed to do was take a more balanced approach to leading himself and his team.
5 things for Toby to do to keep his strength a strength
When we’re good at something, it’s easy to overuse a skill. Almost any skill that’s overused become a weakness. Toby can “dial back” his preferences to be the inclusive and flexible leader his employer needs him to be. Toby can:
- Compete externally and collaborate internally.
Toby likes to win. In his zeal to be first or best, he forgets that his colleagues and employees are on the same team and often treats them like adversaries. Toby can channel his competitiveness by learning to work with, not against, his co-workers and team so together they all can compete externally.
- Use curiosity to temper his tendency to be overly critical and judgmental.
In these days when it seems more acceptable to loudly proclaim I’m right and you’re wrong, curiosity has fallen into disuse. Sameness is comfortable and quick, which causes leaders to miss the power and magic in differences of thought, opinion, perspective, and experience.
As many managers do, Toby relies heavily on his experience to quickly make decisions and formulate strategies. He can use a travel trip to learn to be a better leader. Experienced travelers know that there are usually many routes leading to a destination. Someone who opts to take a back roads route still reaches their destination.
To be less critical, Toby can seek to understand by asking questions before acting and judging. Curiosity is a handy tool for expanding comfort zones, controlling bias, and building collaboration (something that can help him with his too competitive thing—people’s input can be melded with what he knows to fashion win/win outcomes).
- Seek to improve both economics and engagement.
Toby is a numbers guy. Nothing wrong with that. Where Toby goes wrong, though, in pushing for results is in forgetting that it’s people who make the results happen. Without strong connections that make people feel valued and recognized, workplaces have unhappy employees and lackluster performance. However, when bosses choose to build authentic, caring connections and value both money and meaning, both results and relationships, employees are engaged, performance is strong, and everyone wins.
- Maintain the best of the old while embracing innovation.
Aware of Toby’s strong preference for what has always been, his boss encouraged him to envision a tree when he’s faced with something new that triggers his skepticism and resistance. A tree has roots, his boss said, to give it stability and help it stand strong. But the tree grows and takes in the sun because of its new branches and leaves. A tree that fails to grow new branches will be stunted and may become root-bound and die. New growth rooted in tradition, the boss said, is what makes all of us grow and be better. Toby can choose to learn how to take in the new while holding on to traditions and values.
- Lead with both a logical mind and an emotional heart.
A line that Toby frequently uses with his team and others is “just give me the facts.” Facts, data, and logic are good, however, they’re not always enough to persuade people to act. That takes emotion. Aaron suggested he lead with his heart and manage with his head, so he can better connect with those around him. Toby can learn to make kindness, compassion, and respect part of his routine leadership practices just as he does with logic, competition, and focusing on the bottom line.
The seat of knowledge is in the head, of wisdom, in the heart. ~William Hazlitt, philosopher and essayist
Over-reliance on a strength isn’t uncommon. Who doesn’t want to showcase what they do well? The tricky part of being an effective leader is getting past the blind spot created when a strength has turned into a weakness. Toby is fortunate to have people in his corner who are willing to coach him in finding a “Goldilocks’ just right” balance.
To receive a better performance review next time (and maybe a promotion), Toby doesn’t have to learn a new skill—all he needs to do is refine and recalibrate the skills he already has.
Image credit before quote: Pixabay
