Ron’s Short Review: Very profound book on the need to change yourself before leading change with others. A great section on the Tyranny of Competency that I’ve found very useful.
A Note From the Editor:
As we recently mentioned, we are reposting popular blog posts while Ron is recovering from some health issues. A few years on, we’re looking back at some posts Ron wrote at the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Ron’s Short Review: This book changed my habit of getting meaningful work done. I have carved out time every month to isolate myself and my thinking on particular projects. The productivity improvement has been astounding.
Deep Work
The COVID-19 virus may be offering the opportunity that you’ve been looking for to stand-out in a crowded world. In his book Deep Work by Cal Newton he makes some great points about Deep Work and the lack of it.
One of the things that Cal says is:
To remain valuable in our economy you must master the art of quickly learning complicated things. This task requires deep work. If you don’t cultivate this ability, you’re likely to fall behind as technology advances.”
“A McKinsey study found that the average knowledge worker now spends more than 60 percent of the workweek engaged in electronic communication and Internet searching, with close to 30 percent of a worker’s time dedicated to reading and answering e-mail alone.
This state of fragmented attention cannot accommodate deep work, which requires long periods of uninterrupted thinking. At the same time, however, modern knowledge workers are not loafing. In fact, they report that they are as busy as ever. What explains the discrepancy? A lot can be explained by another type of effort, which provides a counterpart to the idea of deep work:
Shallow Work: Noncognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tend to not create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate.”
How not to be replaced by a computer
The “easy to replicate” emphasis is my note. Why did I highlight that particular statement? Because when something is easy to replicate it means that a person who makes less wages can easily to the same work. More importantly, a computer can be taught to do easily replicable work. Your job is in danger of becoming computerized if you don’t shift from shallow work to deep work!
How do you counter this danger of being replaced by either cheaper labor or a computer? You learn, practice, and become good at and known for your deep work and deep thinking.
Cultivate Deep Work (Thinking)
You can pick up almost any article, magazine, podcast or post that will tell you how to survive working from home. These sources talk about
- Get started early (don’t let your day get away from you before it starts)
- Act like you’re going to the office (wrong, take advantage of doing things differently)
- Have a dedicated workspace (good idea, but focus on making it a non-interruptable workspace)
- Go to coffee shops, libraries, public lounges (may not be a bad idea but discipline must tag along as well. You can’t go to a coffee shop just so you can enjoy your favorite drink) And during the pandemic, many of these public places are not even available to us.
- Stay off the public media! (Great suggestion.) Regardless of where you’re working from, stay off public media.
What you really need is the discipline and focus for deep work.
Living a life of Deep Work and Thought
As Cal Newton closes his book he says
Deep work is way more powerful than most people understand. To leave the distracted masses to join the focused few, I’m arguing, is a transformative experience.
The deep life requires hard work and drastic changes to your habits. For many, there’s a comfort in the artificial busyness of rapid e-mail messaging and social media posturing, while the deep life demands that you leave much of that behind.”
Isolation Advice
Then I was reading a Wall Street Journal article titled “Coronavirus Lockdown Lessons from Antarctica.” The article looks at many of the scientific teams that populate Antarctica during the wintertime and are completely isolated. They focus on one team in particular from Norway that works at the Troll station.
“On a recent evening, Troll’s six-person team put together a list of advice for those struggling with extended lockdowns.
-
- Give people space…folks have to be allowed time on their own to read books, listen to music, watch television.
- Don’t let problems linger and get bigger—talk about it from the start.
- Stay active, and even if you are in a small place, move furniture and get fit.
- Take a deep breath, this is a time to be curious”
Curiosity
I think curiosity is the foundation piece to deep work. Wikipedia says
Curiosity is a quality related to inquisitive thinking such as exploration, investigation, and learning, evident by observation in humans and other animals. Curiosity is heavily associated with all aspects of human development, in which derives the process of learning and desire to acquire knowledge and skill.”
Development and Learning
Notice that curiosity is heavily associated with development and learning. I once had a friend who was fond of saying “as long as you’re like the little kid pulling his wagon up the hill, you’re doing fine. But as soon as you stop exerting the effort to get up that hill and you sit down in your wagon to rest, you’ll find yourself at the bottom of the hill”
Reflection
I think the first thing to be curious about is yourself. Socrates is quoted as saying “To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.” I’ll give Socrates a pass because he was alive about 400 years before Jesus but the Bible says “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”
Even if you don’t hold to the Christian faith, let’s put those two concepts together. What they are really saying is that you must know who you are and how you fit into this life and humanity as a whole. That doesn’t come easily. A complete lack of this reflection is a sign of Psychopathy. Just a few of the symptoms of Psychopathy include: Grandiose sense of self-worth, lack of remorse, guilt, or empathy. Lack of long-term goals. None of these symptoms show signs of self-reflection. Start with yourself.
Notice that not having long-term goals is one of the signs associated with lack of self-reflection. Where are you going? What does the end of your journey look like? What do you want to be remembered for? These issues and others are not part of our busy lives, they are reached only by deep, reflective thought.
Opportunity
You’ve been handed an opportunity. Don’t waste it!
- What kind of person do you want to be?
- How will you become a great leader?
- What will make you an outstanding team member?
- What is that thing inside you that you always wanted to learn or explore?
Build it into your routine. Find a quiet place and a quiet time at least several times per week. Force yourself to go quiet and think about these things. You’ll come out the other end a better person.
This post was originally posted here and here on March 26 and April 23, 2020. This review was originally posted here on December 1, 2017.
I know, I know, enough of the Coronavirus already. We’ve been self-isolated and at this point have no idea what to believe is true and what is hype. What I do know is the interesting journey I’ve been on in relation to Deep Work.
Deep Work
The COVID-19 virus may be offering the opportunity that you’ve been looking for to stand-out in a crowded world. In his book Deep Work by Cal Newton he makes some great points about Deep Work and the lack of it.
One of the things that Cal says is:
To remain valuable in our economy you must master the art of quickly learning complicated things. This task requires deep work. If you don’t cultivate this ability, you’re likely to fall behind as technology advances.”
“A McKinsey study found that the average knowledge worker now spends more than 60 percent of the workweek engaged in electronic communication and Internet searching, with close to 30 percent of a worker’s time dedicated to reading and answering e-mail alone.
This state of fragmented attention cannot accommodate deep work, which requires long periods of uninterrupted thinking. At the same time, however, modern knowledge workers are not loafing. In fact, they report that they are as busy as ever. What explains the discrepancy? A lot can be explained by another type of effort, which provides a counterpart to the idea of deep work:
Shallow Work: Noncognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. These efforts tend to not create much new value in the world and are easy to replicate.”
How not to be replaced by a computer
The “easy to replicate” emphasis is my note. Why did I highlight that particular statement? Because when something is easy to replicate it means that a person who makes less wages can easily to the same work. More importantly, a computer can be taught to do easily replicable work. Your job is in danger of becoming computerized if you don’t shift from shallow work to deep work!
How do you counter this danger of being replaced by either cheaper labor or a computer? You learn, practice, and become good at and known for your deep work and deep thinking.
Cultivate Deep Work (Thinking)
You can pick up almost any article, magazine, podcast or post that will tell you how to survive working from home. These sources talk about
- Get started early (don’t let your day get away from you before it starts)
- Act like you’re going to the office (wrong, take advantage of doing things differently)
- Have a dedicated workspace (good idea, but focus on making it a non-interruptable workspace)
- Go to coffee shops, libraries, public lounges (may not be a bad idea but discipline must tag along as well. You can’t go to a coffee shop just so you can enjoy your favorite drink) And during the pandemic, many of these public places are not even available to us.
- Stay off the public media! (Great suggestion.) Regardless of where you’re working from, stay off public media.
What you really need is the discipline and focus for deep work.
Living a life of Deep Work and Thought
As Cal Newton closes his book he says
Deep work is way more powerful than most people understand. To leave the distracted masses to join the focused few, I’m arguing, is a transformative experience.
The deep life requires hard work and drastic changes to your habits. For many, there’s a comfort in the artificial busyness of rapid e-mail messaging and social media posturing, while the deep life demands that you leave much of that behind.”
Take advantage of the opportunity being offered
We’re all looking for a silver lining to the isolation caused by our current pandemic. Take advantage of the forced isolation to become a deep worker and deep thinker. It will pay rewards that you can’t even think of at the moment.
Ron’s Short Review: This book changed my habit of getting meaningful work done. I have carved out time every month to isolate myself and my thinking on particular projects. The productivity improvement has been astounding.
I’m continuing my series on an in-depth look at a wonderful little book that’s twenty years old this year. The title is Management of the Absurd by Richard Farson. You may want to consider dropping back and reading the previous blog posts about ABSURD! I think it will put each new one in great context.
Farson starts this section by identifying C. Northcote Parkinson, author of the famed Parkinson’s law, as the godfather to the idea of management of the absurd! I guess if you were going to be the godfather of something, this would be a fun one. A couple of Parkinson’s famous quotes include:
- Work expands to fill the time available.
- The time a committee takes to discuss an item on the agenda is inversely proportional to the amount of money involved.
Good humor works because it contains a grain or foundation of truth.
He also includes one of my favorite quotes from Henry Kissinger, “The reason university faculty discussions and disputes are so time-consuming and acrimonious is that the stakes are so low.”
Big changes are easier to make than small ones. I’ve seen this at play a few times in my career. Farson is careful to point out that making a big change doesn’t necessarily make it appropriate to the strategy. It’s not just big but it’s big in the right direction. But, given a prudent decision process, it’s often easier to jump right into the big change than move forward with incremental changes.
A couple of places where I’ve observed this working well included the move of a corporate headquarters. There was a reasonable argument for moving to one of the corporations existing facilities and expanding as a cost saving argument. But, part of the reason (a big part) for moving the headquarters was to kick-start a new corporate culture. This had a better chance of happening with a move for everyone to an entirely new environment. Big cost but big impact.
People changes is another place where big changes can create change better than smaller changes. Sometimes it’s a complete reorganization. Sometimes it’s promoting someone who has consistently shown great promise or leadership but may be down the ladder on the org chart or in a completely different role. Probable the best HR professional I have worked with had been the Chief Operations Officer but was called on to fill the void of the HR role when health issues required a change. Bold and unexpected move.
Another people change is dealing with what Robert Quinn in his book Deep Change calls the Tyranny of Competence. This is when an individual is seen to have such a high level of competence in a certain role that no changes are made even when there seem to be numerous character or leadership deficiencies. In the few cases where I’ve worked with managers who made changes (usually asking the person to leave the company) it’s amazing how much competence and creativity came out of the organization that was no longer suppressed by the tyranny.
If a change is needed and has been well deliberated, consider making a bold move rather than incremental. Bold moves often have a better chance of success.
Ron’s Short Review: Quinn thinks and writes very deeply.
A Note From the Editor:
As we recently mentioned, we are reposting popular blog posts while Ron is recovering from some health issues.
Tyranny of Competence
Bob Quinn in his book Deep Change introduced us to the concept of the “Tyranny of Competence.” This is a person that is so good at the skills of their job, leaders will tend to overlook their other flaws in character. They assume the character flaws would never cause enough negative issues to overcome the positive impact of being really good at their job.
Don’t ever think that. The destruction caused by lack of character is always greater than the competency provided.
Steven Covey gave us the image of leadership, being equal parts character and competency. You can be the most competent person ever, but without good character, you’ll never become a great leader. Conversely, you can be a person of utmost integrity and character, but without being competent at what you do, you’re no longer trustworthy and therefore will never make a trusted leader.
I’ve always been a little surprised at the lack of visibility around this issue. I’ve often thought that maybe I’m more tuned into the destructive aftermath of this character issue than the executives I work with. And quite honestly, the measurement systems of our corporate environments tend to be more competency based than character based.
Rock Stars of Competency
Then one morning I experienced a little incident that added some clarity. Because of a heart operation and subsequent complicating factors, I had been living in a hospital environment. Beyond dealing with my own personal health issues, the thing that occupied me the most was observing the culture of an operating hospital from a patient’s (customer’s) point of view.
Now, a hospital is certainly competency-based. Without a doubt, I want the most competent surgeon handling my heart so I can get healthy. But it’s amazing that even at this “rock star” level of medicine, how much of a difference character makes. From the patient’s point of view, the doctors I consider the best are the ones that treat me as a human being. I have been very blessed with great doctors but what’s even more interesting is how the hospital staff reacts to these surgeons.
The high character surgeon treats the staff with respect and relates to them as human beings, even as simple as using their name. The entire staff is very eager to provide to the patient whatever the doctor thinks necessary for the health and well-being of the patient. However, when the doctor forgets to exhibit that good character to the staff, the patient actually suffers. The staff goes back to a checklist approach. It’s clear that the overall care of the patient diminishes when the providing doctor doesn’t demonstrate good character, but assumes it is only great competency that gets the job done.
Character Based Environments
Below the doctors are the nurses and the rest of the caring staff. Down here, it’s character that makes the difference. Without exception, these nurses and “techs” (one nurse and one tech assigned to each patient) are there to help you get well. There are still competence issues of taking “values”—pressure, temperature, weight, etc. and administering meds—but for the most part they mainly want to know how you’re doing and what they can do to make your stay more comfortable. The most precious commodity is sleep. And while the timing of the system conspires against you, many of the nurses and techs will delay almost anything if they think it will allow you to sleep just a little bit longer. Except Alex!
Don’t Be Like Alex
Alex is a young, energetic tech who was new to me until one morning. At 5:00 a.m. (one of the few times during the day that I could actually fall into a deep sleep) Alex bounded into my room, turned on the lights, and asked if he could check my weight. My answer was, “No!” Undaunted, Alex wheels in the scale (light still on) and offers to help me out of bed. It’s obvious he’s not going to leave so I slowly bring myself to consciousness, drag myself out of bed, stand on the scale, and satisfy Alex that he’s done his job. He even encourages me to get some sleep as he departs with his poundage figures in hand.
My reaction to Alex’s overall performance?
Competent? Yes.
Showed character? No.
Overall, rude, obtrusive, failure as a tech.
In competency based environments, lack of character is always destructive but may be under the radar. In character based environments, lack of character is seen as complete failure.
The message in all of this is balance, balance, balance.
Regardless of which aspect is more valued in each environment the best leaders, the most cherished and valued people are the ones with both great competencies and the same time exhibit the greatest of character. They are respectful and treat others with great dignity.
If you yearn for success, be the best you can be and at the same time, care and respect those around you for who they are.
This post was originally posted here on September 10, 2015.
In the Harvard Business Review was the following article:
The 3 Elements of Trust by Jack Zengar and Joseph Folkman.
Three Elements of Trust
I think Zenger and Folkman are right on when they identify
Positive Relationships
-
- Stay in touch on the issues and concerns of others
- Balance results with concern for others.
- Generate cooperation between others.
- Resolve conflict with others.
- Give honest feedback in a helpful way.
Good Judgement/Expertise
-
- They use good judgment when making decisions.
- Others trust their ideas and opinions.
- They can anticipate and respond quickly to problems.
Consistency
-
- Are a role model and set a good example.
- Walk the talk.
- Honor commitments and keep promises.
- Follow through on commitments.
- Are willing to go above and beyond what needs to be done.
Let’s unpack each one of those.
Positive Relationships
Of the five points that Zenger and Folkman make, the three I would pick as the most powerful would include, concern for others, resolving conflict, and giving honest feedback.
Concern for Others
Human beings have an amazing ability to determine if someone really cares for them or is just using them to accomplish a task. Don’t kid yourself, you can’t fake this one. If you don’t truly care for the other person, they will do what they are told because of your position but nothing more. To build winning teams, you need more. You need people’s energy, creativity, and cooperation.
Resolving Conflict
Resolving conflict relies on good listening. I identify this skill as
Listening with the intent to respond vs Listening with the intent to understand
It takes a great deal of energy to listen with the intent to understand. First, you must suspend what you “know”. People know when you’re just lining up your points to make as soon as you see an opening in the conversation. It’s even worse if you create that opening by interrupting with your points to counter their points. They know you’re not trying to understand them.
There is a great deal of talk about diversity these days. Listening with the intent to understand and teaching others to do the same, actually takes advantage of the diversity. It’s not about our origins, race, gender, or whatever is being thrown into that diversity bucket these days, it’s about understanding. The diversity identities being tossed around today don’t mean anything if we’re not listening to understand. Individuals will have very different belief systems, even if they’re part of the same category of people.
Good Judgement/Expertise
The biggest issue to watch out for in this category is what Robert Quinn in his book “Deep Change” identifies as the “Tyranny of Competence”. Some of my more difficult consulting and coaching times occurred when I had to convince and then help leaders dismiss people who fell into this category. The first word in this title is “tyranny”. People who fall into this category are incredibly competent and knowledgeable in their subject matter. However, they use that competence as an excuse for not developing good relationships. Every time the person who lives by the Tyranny of Competence is asked to leave, I’ve observed teams blossom into highly effective teams based on trust.
Zenger and Folkman put three elements in this category: Good judgment, trust of others, and they respond quickly. I believe the middle point of the three —”Others trust their ideas and opinions”—is the hinge that makes the other two work. One reason that the trusts exist is that there has been listening with the intent to understand. I can’t emphasize enough how much this element builds trust. Because good leaders have listened well and built trust, they tend to have good judgment and can respond quickly to threats.
Consistency
I believe consistency requires Integrity. Integrity comes from the Latin word “integer”— meaning whole or complete. Integrity means that you are the same person regardless of the circumstances or the people present. It has a foundation of honesty and character. Are you a person of integrity? Are you always the same person? When you have integrity and are consistent, it builds trust.
Elements of Trust
Evaluate yourself. Get feedback from others.
- Do you develop positive relationships?
- Do you exhibit sound judgment?
- Are you consistent and would people say you are a person of integrity?
Regardless of the environment, be it leader, team member, family member, or citizen, nothing will carry you farther than developing trust.
Last week we looked at the Top 10 most popular posts from 2020, specifically #10-6. This week, we’ll finish the list by looking at the Top 5.
#5 – Culture: Involvement – Adaptability
Adaptability and Involvement are the two quadrants that make up the left side of the Denison Culture Chart. This side of the chart identifies “Flexible” cultures. Cultures that adapt well. Cultures that respond quickly to customers and markets… continue
#4 – Character vs Competence
Bob Quinn in his book Deep Change introduced us to the concept of the “Tyranny of Competence.” This is a person that is so good at the skills of their job, leaders will tend to overlook their other flaws in character… continue
#3 – Being Humble is Being Down to Earth
It doesn’t seem to make much sense, but truly great leaders are humble.
The problem comes with how the word is normally used: Humble is thought to mean shy, retiring, unobtrusive, quiet, unassuming. Being humble can seem weak or, horrors, even borrrrrrrriiiiiiinnnnngggggg… continue
#2 – Opposite of Victim
Some people I’ve worked with have what we might think of as that victim mentality. The Leadership Style instrument I use (LSI from Human Synergistics) measures two areas titled Dependent and Avoidance that collectively describe a style that starts with the assumption that they are the victim in most circumstances… continue
#1 — Performance vs Trust
Those are not my words. Those were spoken by Simon Sinek. If you have not discovered Mr. Sinek, look up his website. I read him and Share Parrish more than any other blog writers out there… continue
And now we’re ready to begin to learn more about teams, leadership, and cultures in 2021. Thanks for reading my blog in 2020.
Over the last couple of weeks we’ve looked at the Project Oxygen findings at Google related to high-performing teams.
This list is from the book Work Rules by Laszlo Bock who is the person at Google that has helped shepherd the project.
The eight findings that help teams perform at their peak include:
- A good coach
- Empowers the team and does not micromanage
- Expresses interest in and concern for team members’ success and personal well-being
- Is productive and results-oriented
- A good communicator – listens and shares information
- Helps with career development
- Has a clear vision and strategy for the team
- Has key technical skills that help advise the team
In this week’s blog, we’ll cover the last three findings.
6. Helps with career development
As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs on this topic, it’s difficult for me to distinguish between Leadership issues and Team issues. This has mainly to do with my Mental Model of Team, Leadership, Culture.
This is not to say that Laszlo’s approach is incorrect, it’s just that I come at it from a different perspective.
In my mind, it’s difficult for a team to help a member in their career development. Teams can certainly contribute but it is often the leader who is in the best position to help with career development. What comes to mind is the lack of career development. I have often been hired as a consultant to work with an individual who has “gone off the rails” in the mind of their leader. The leader will tell me that unless this person deals with the issue, they will no longer have a position at the company. In every case, the individual has held a senior position in the company, often they have been Vice-Presidents.
Shocking News
When possible, I have looked back over several years of performance reviews. It’s always been amazing to me that if the person has worked for the company for any length of time, their annual performance reviews mention the issue I’ve been hired to help them deal with. And yet, when I mention to the individual that unless they correct this issue they will no longer have a position with the company, they’re shocked. They’ll say to me something to the effect that “no one has ever mentioned to me that my continued employment depends on me fixing this problem.”
People Pleasing
Why is there such a disconnect? The person dealing with the issue says “no one” has ever told me it could cost me my job. The person hiring me to tell the person will say, “I’ve put this issue in every performance review for the last several years.” Why the disconnect? I believe it’s because almost everyone wants to be a people pleaser and believe that giving people bad news counters that desire. Managers will say to an employee “you must fix this issue.” They might even say “unless this issue is fixed I can no longer keep you in this job.” But, because people don’t like to give bad news, they’ll almost immediately shift their conversation to tell the person all the things they do well. The bad news never sinks in or is dealt with. Think about that for a minute. My boss says to me: you must fix this issue. It can’t go on like this.
Yet almost immediately they will say: but I love how you handled such and such or you’re great at dealing with certain kinds of problems. What does the employee hear? Blah, blah, blah, but I love how you handle this or how you deal with these issues. You’re doing great!
If there is an issue that must be dealt with
- state the issue
- don’t accept excuses
- don’t move on until the is a plan in place
- make sure there are milestones to fix the issue
- make sure the consequences are clear if the issue is not fixed
People Caring
The way to be people-pleasing is to be people caring. If people feel they are being held accountable with caring and support, they’ll be the happiest.
7. Has a clear vision and strategy for the team
Once again this sounds more like a leader issue than it is a team issue. However, while a leader should have a clear vision and strategy for the team, it should never be used to dictate to the team a course of action.
Team members need to be bought into the strategy/vision
If team members don’t have a shared strategy or vision, the team will never grow and develop together. I’ve worked with too many teams through the years that didn’t take the time or make the effort to develop a shared strategy/vision. In every case, competition develops as managers try to implement their own vision at the expense of others. It becomes a tremendous waste of resources.
Leaders must have a strategy/vision but leaders must also be humble enough to see beyond their own vision and they must have enough grit to bring the team together around a joint vision.
8. Has key technical skills that help advise the team
This final “Oxygen” is true at both the leader and the team member levels. Trustworthy teams and members must have both character and competence. It never works to have one or the other, there must be both.
Information Technology
From a leadership standpoint, I believe the Information Technology (IT) area of the business is the most vulnerable. The IT portion of the business is:
- Complicated
- Fast-moving/changing
- Many faceted
I’ve seen too many IT leaders that fall short on one or all of these issues. When that happens, the IT department can buffalo the leader.
Tyranny of Competence
With team members, I have more often seen what Robert Quinn calls the “Tyranny of Competence” in his book, Deep Change. This happens when an individual has so much competence in a given area that it is felt the competency must be protected at all costs and therefore, the individual may have a lack of character and there are no consequences.
Character and Competence must be present for teams to thrive.
Project Oxygen
This covers the eight elements found to be meaningful in building great teams. Think about them. Incorporate them. Discuss them. The more you can build these into your own makeup or a team’s makeup, the more success and satisfaction you’ll experience in life.
Amy Cuddy has written at least three very profound books:
- When They Trust You, They Hear You: A Modern Guide for Speaking to Any Audience
- Leadership Presence – Part of HBR Emotional Intelligence Series (14 Books)
- Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges
Amy says the first two things people want to know when they first meet you are:
- Can I trust this person?
- Can I respect this person?
Psychologists refer to these dimensions as warmth and competence, respectively.
Warmth is not measured on corporate evaluations
I often run an experiment with teams where half the team gets a list of characteristics found in a fictitious person. The other half of the team gets a similar list of characteristics on another fictitious person.
Both lists contain words such as:
- Intelligent
- Skillful
- Industrious
- Determined
- Practical
- As well as a few other descriptions
There is one (and only one) difference in the two lists:
- One list contains the word “Warm”
- The other list contains the word “Cold”
I then have the whole team vote on characteristics such as:
- generous vs. ungenerous
- unhappy vs. happy
- reliable vs. unreliable
- frivolous vs. serious
- imaginative vs. hardheaded
- dishonest vs. honest
- There are 16 total comparisons
(Remember that the lists are identical except for the words warm and cold.)
The group that has the word “warm” in their descriptor attributes the more positive characteristic to their fictitious person.
The group with the word “cold” in their descriptor attributes the more negative characteristic to their fictitious person.
Is a person warm or cold? This one factor will set our expectations for that person and can be the difference of our trust factor! Be a warm person. It pays rewards.
Respect or Competence
In the book, Speed of Trust, author Stephen M. R. Covey lists four characteristics that need to be present before we trust someone. This list has often helped my consulting when there is obvious (at least to me) mistrust on a team. However, when I ask the team if they trust each other, the answers are almost always a positive yes.
But when I break down trust to this subset of characteristics, there is usually one where people have a concern. “Yes I trust the person but….”
The list is
- Integrity – Is the person always the same person no matter who they are talking with or what the circumstances are?
- Intent – This one usually revolves around the issue of what is best for the team or company vs. what is best for the individual. Is their intent focused on the best for others or the best for themselves?
- Capabilities – The person may be sharp and accomplished but do they have the experiences necessary to work through the situation they face? Are they capable?
- Results – Has the person actually produced positive results.? Often people talk a good line or more likely have a list of reasons why something didn’t work. Did they actually produce results in spite of the difficulties they faced?
When you break down the question of trust into these four components, it’s easier to deal with and identify.
Trust/Respect
Is trust more important than competency? Or is competency the supreme measure of success and reliability? If you think competency is the superior measurement, you need to read a chapter from Deep Change by Robert Quinn. The chapter is titled “Tyranny of Competence”.
Amy Cuddy says “But while competence is highly valued, it is evaluated only after trust is established. And focusing too much on displaying your strength can backfire”.
Be trustworthy first! It’s the only way your competency will have value.
We’re recapping some of the most popular posts of 2017. Today we dig into posts 5 through 1.
5. Myers-Briggs In-Depth: Attending and Perceiving: Sensing vs iNtuition – Part II
Most successful business people have figured out that they need to balance this function. This balancing act most often takes the form of a trusted partner, colleague or consultant.
Continue Reading…
4. Being Humble is Being Down to Earth
It doesn’t seem to make much sense, but truly great leaders are humble.
The problem comes with how the word is normally used: Humble is thought to mean shy, retiring, unobtrusive, quiet, unassuming. Being humble can seem weak or, horrors, even borrrrrrrriiiiiiinnnnngggggg.
What does it really mean to embrace humility?
Humility is derived from the Latin word humus, meaning “ground.” One way to describe truly humble leaders is that they have their feet on the ground.
3. Myers-Briggs In-Depth: Judging vs Perceiving
I have set up the following two signs in a team meeting:
- I have to get my work done before I can play.
- I can play anytime
I then ask the team to position themselves along the spectrum between those two signs. Once positioned it almost always correlates between their Judging vs Perceiving preference on this scale.
2. Absurd!: The More We Communicate, The Less We Communicate
People don’t want more information; they want more meaning. What does this mean? How should we interpret these numbers? Give us meaning. Tell us stories. Help us understand.
1. Character vs. Competence
Bob Quinn in his book Deep Change introduced us to the concept of the “Tyranny of Competence.” This is a person that is so good at the skills of their job, leaders will tend to overlook their other flaws in character. They assume the character flaws would never cause enough negative issues to overcome the positive impact of being really good at their job.
Don’t ever think that. The destruction caused by lack of character is always greater than the competency provided.
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