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Character vs. Competence

by Ron Potter September 10, 2015

Source: contemplativechristian, Creative Commons

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.

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Surviving the Darkest Days

by Ron Potter April 9, 2015

In my previous blog on the book “American Icon” by Bryce Hoffman, I commented on the leadership style exhibited by Alan Mulally as he led the Ford Motor Company through some of their darkest days. He exhibited two key characteristics, Humility and Endurance that are hallmarks of great leadership and may have helped him save Ford.

Photo credit: John Spooner, Creative Commons

Dedication to Teamwork

But it may have been his dedication to teamwork that was equally important to the survival of Ford. The auto industry and Ford in particular were not pillars of teamwork at the top. While I’ve worked with many great teams within the auto companies, the warring chiefdoms of the larger corporation often seemed to be the culture de jour.

Self-Selection

When Mulally first arrived in Detroit, both the existing leadership team and the outside community (mainly the press) assumed there would be a clean sweep as Alan brought in his trusted team members from his years at Boeing. But, Mulally surprised them all when he answered one of the first reporters that his team was already in place, meaning the previous team members of Bill Ford’s team. He commented with a very particular statement that I have shared with many of the leaders that I’ve worked with through the years. Build the right vision and culture and the people who don’t belong there and won’t work out in the end will self-select out. Once they realize that you, as a new leader, are truly taking the team or company in a new direction and you endure through all of the setbacks, they’ll either get on board (as Mark Fields did in the book and is now the current CEO of Ford) or they’ll realize they don’t belong and figure out how to save face and move on.

The Tyranny of Competence

This may be the more difficult issue to deal with when creating great teams. The Tyranny of Competence is a title Chapter in Robert Quinn’s book Deep Change. Quinn states that “It is fairly easy to find an extraordinarily competent person who plays a particularly powerful role in the organization.” “The person often argues, ‘The only thing that should matter is how well someone does the job.’” In Mulally’s case, it happened to be the Chief Financial Officer (CFO). This was not only a powerful role but a critical role. Hoffman writes of the CFO “[He] had devoted his life to Ford and worked as hard or harder than anyone else in the building to save it. But he was dividing the company at a time when it needed to be united like never before. He had to go.”

The Darkest Moment

In this darkest moment, when you would think that you need all of the hard working competency you can find, Mulally decided that teamwork was more important than experience and hardworking competency. And he acted. Mulally, was not looking for blind loyalty, he had demonstrated time and time again that he preferred to hear contrary opinions and radical ideas. But the CFO was making decisions on his own that were contrary to the team decisions and enforcing them in spite of where the team and Mulally thought they should be going. This was not going to work. Teamwork was more crucial in the darkest of days.

What have you seen or how hard have you worked at really building team? A lot gets written about teamwork in companies. What are you actually experiencing? Share some stories with us.

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Blog Trust Me

Is the Hero-Leader Hurting You?

by Ron Potter January 12, 2015

Why is humility such a key quality on a leader’s personal resume?

For starters, being humble prevents most of the mistakes that cripple a person who is proud. Consider Henry Ford, for example.

He was an icon of American industry. His revolutionary ideas about manufacturing and design put him near the top of anyone’s list of great American businessmen. Ford carried out his vision with the Model T. The car literally changed the face of America and the priorities of American citizens. By 1914, Henry Ford’s factories built nearly 50 percent of all the cars sold in the United States. Now that’s market share!

There was, however, a chink in Henry’s armor.

He was so proud of his Model T that he never wanted it to be changed or improved. One day, as the story goes, a group of his best engineers presented him with a new automobile design prototype. Ford became so angry that he pulled the doors right off the prototype and destroyed it with his bare hands.

Not until 1927 was Henry Ford willing to change. Grudgingly, he allowed the Ford Motor Company to introduce the Model A. By that time, the company was well behind its competitors in design and technical advances. Ford’s market share had plummeted to 28 percent by 1931.

Image Source: Zeetz Jones, Creative Commons

Henry Ford just could not let go. He had created something, and he was unable to imagine that his “baby” could be improved. Nobody could help him, and he was unwilling to stretch himself to learn how he could make his product better or different.

Consequently, he lost his executives, created havoc in his family, and damaged the company’s market share beyond repair.

Henry Ford’s leadership approach probably resembled what some now refer to as the hero-leader. Many organizations look to a hero-leader to deliver the power, charisma, ideas, and direction necessary to ensure a company’s success. In many cases, the hero-leader does create blips in performance. For a time the dynamic chief is seen as a savior of the organization.

For a time.

In an interview with Fast Company magazine, Peter Senge said,

Deep change comes only through real personal growth—through learning and unlearning. This is the kind of generative work that most executives are precluded from doing by the mechanical mind-set and by the cult of the hero-leader.

Senge points out that the hero-leader approach is a pattern that makes it easier for companies to not change or move forward. The hero-leader weakens the organization and in many ways keeps it at an infant stage, very dependent upon the hero-leader’s creativity and ideas. The people around the leader do not seek or promote change because the hero-leader is not open to new ideas (or ideas that he or she did not originate).

Under the hero-leader, people tend to acquiesce rather than work together as a team with a free exchange of ideas. The hero-leader may take the company in a new direction, but the troops within the organization only go along because it is a mandated change. This type of change is superficial at best.

Despite all of Henry Ford’s incredible qualities, it sounds as if he was a proud rather than a humble leader. In his case, the Bible proverb certainly was true: “Pride leads to disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.”

Is your pride getting in the way of doing something you’ll really be proud of? Or, often easier to answer, do you see someone else who could do great things if they would just let go of their pride? Share some stories with us.

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Blog Personal

Transister Radio

by Ron Potter February 2, 2023

When I was growing up there were no computers masquerading as radios. But I do remember my first transistor radio.
It had both AM and FM and would fit in my hand. This allowed me to lay in the front yard on warm summer evenings listening to the Detroit Tigers baseball game. But baseball games had a lot of downtime which allowed me to think, observe the Milky Way, and listen to the sounds of summer nights.

Polymath

I thought a lot about being a polymath.

Not really; I didn’t even know the word polymath. A polymath is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects and is known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. Those long evenings in the front yard allowed me to think about many ideas and subjects.

Curious

I was always curious. I was always asking a question related to seemingly unrelated topics. While this drove my mother crazy, my father seemed to get it and would always question me about the source of the question. My dad had a degree from the high school in our small community. But now that I know the term, I considered him a polymath.

Famous Polymaths

One article written by Zat Rana is titled “The Expert Generalist: Why the Future Belongs to Polymaths.”

While I don’t consider myself comparable to them:

Aristotle invented half a dozen fields across philosophy
Galileo was as much a physicist as an engineer
da Vinci might have been more famous as an inventor than an artist if his notebooks were published

The polymath is interested in learning.

Specialist

Don’t get me wrong, the world needs specialists. In fact, there are a lot more specialists than there are polymaths. The difference is that a specialist picks a topic and then goes deep. The world couldn’t live without them. The polymath, however, specializes in a domain or two of specialty.

Learning Is a Discipline

As I said above, the polymath is interesting in learning. Learning itself is a skill and when you exercise that skill across domains, you get specialized as a learner. When I was growing up it was common for people to have a single career and then retire. In the future (while it has arrived) people will likely have multiple careers that differ significantly. In such a world, learning becomes even more valuable.

Engineering and Microcomputers

I received an engineering degree from the University of Michigan. It was assumed I would spend my career working in the engineering industry. But then, I saw my first microcomputer. It had dual floppy drives and a 5″ green screen. I knew my career was going to change right there. When I arrived back at headquarters, I informed my boss that I was leaving the engineering business and going into microcomputers. His words were “What’s a microcomputer?” I said, just wait, you’ll find out.

After many years in the microcomputer business, I realized that I was being asked by key executives to help them think about their business more broadly. I didn’t realize it at the time, but they were asking me to be a polymath. I still didn’t know what the word meant but I did realize I was being asked about a broad range of businesses from construction to pharmaceuticals to food and other industries. They were asking me to learn about their business from a broad “polymath” viewpoint.

From that point, I worked on three continents, in multiple countries and cultures. I was being paid to think as a polymath. Once again, I’ll make the point that specialists are required. They invent things and get things at peak efficiency. But without polymaths, no ideas are sweeping across disciplines. They are also required and often seem to be thinking before the specialists understand their topic. Polymaths can often seem ahead of their time.

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Blog Leadership

Leaders Don’t Lack Curiosity

by Ron Potter July 29, 2021

“Journalists were once marked by their curiosity. Now the only thing that’s curious about many of them is their lack of curiosity when a story doesn’t fit their priors.”

That is an interesting statement by Gerard Baker in the Wall Street Journal

Change in Journalistic Standards

I once read that there was a change in our journalistic schools during the Watergate Break-in when Woodward and Bernstein worked with their secretive informant that became known as Deep Throat. Their reporting eventually led to Richard Nixon’s resignation from the presidency.

The change at the journalism schools was described as a move from reporting the news to making the news. The students now felt they could become the newsmakers rather than just reporters. I believe this eventually led to Mr. Baker’s statement in the WSJ that journalists were no longer curious if the story didn’t fit their priors.

The definition in Webster’s dictionary for the word prior is: taking precedence (as in importance). This means that a journalist’s prior belief of what is right or wrong or if it is the right agenda takes precedence over being curious.

Being curious used to be what was important to report the news.

Leadership Priors

Leaders have priors. There are things they believe about leadership, their corporate mission, the marketplace, and many other spaces. However, knowing that you have those beliefs and still keeping an open mind, curious about what others think or believe is the hallmark of great leadership.

Scott Fitzgerald is quoted as saying: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” Leaders should possess first-rate intelligence. That means that opposing thoughts may both be valid.

I believe the best leaders and leadership teams should constantly be dealing with the dilemmas they face. As Fitzgerald says, that first-rate mind still retains the ability to function.

With dilemmas, there are no right and wrong answers. That’s what managers are dealing with. Leaders should be dealing with dilemmas where both answers are equally good or bad, right or wrong. “Being on the horns of a dilemma” means that you’re going to get gored either way. You’re just picking the horn that will or won’t gore you.

Leaders retain the ability to function even when faced with dilemmas!

Beliefs and Convictions

Our current society tries to lump us together in certain categories. While some of us may have very similar backgrounds, we each have a different set of beliefs and convictions.

I often ran an exercise with the teams I was working with that I called “Human Beings, not Human Doings.” At work, we’re often thought of by what we do. But if we leave our understanding strictly on what they do, not who they are, it leads to many of the conflicts and bad feelings that can happen in the workplace.

One of the topics I’ll use in the exercise is to ask “what person and/or event has shaped who you are today?”

I grew up in a very small, homogenous, rural community in southern Michigan. On the surface, it looks like all of my classmates came from the same mold. But we have each been shaped by different people and events.

For instance, I grew up with a father that had lost a leg during WWII. Of all my classmates, I was the only one with a father who only had one leg. His hard work, entrepreneurial spirit, and no complaining attitude shaped me. I had much less patience for consulting clients who tended to whine and complain and shift the blame for their own behavior.

Because of my father, my belief was that you worked hard, did your best, and took responsibility. I had a different experience than all my “homogenous” classmates. And they had different experiences than I did. We must get to know the human being, behind what they do for a living.

We are Each Unique

It’s been said that no two snowflakes are alike. I believe that about humans as well. As my brother and sisters and I have talked during our adult years, it’s obvious that each of them is unique and different from each other. And yet we grew up in the same house in the same small town with exactly the same two parents.

Get to know the human beings on your team. It will add a great deal of understanding and closeness that is needed to build great teams.

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Blog Myers Briggs Type Indicator Myers-Briggs

Myers Briggs Type Indicator: Deciding

by Ron Potter April 1, 2021

There are a couple of problematic issues with this preference pair. One of the issues is the title of this preference. For years it was titled “Judging” but the wise people at Consulting Psychologists Press (CPP.Inc) who own the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) changed it to “Deciding” a few years ago. I think this is a better description.

The other problematic issue with this particular scale is that one end is defined as “Thinking” while the other end is described as “Feeling” (T vs. F). Business teams in particular revolt at the use of feelings. They’ll say things like they don’t let their emotions or feelings get in the way of making logical decisions. But this is your Deciding Function! You will either make balanced or unbalanced decisions. Make balanced decisions, both thinking and feeling. Those will be better decisions.

Thinking – Positive and Negative

A thinking preference can be very positive when it comes to decision making. The thinking preference tends to be very logical, objective, and can be firm but fair. In addition, they will often hold justice in high esteem, can be very principle-based, and will easily critique ideas and decisions. In the end, it’s very difficult to argue with the logic-based decision that comes naturally to the thinking preference. And that can sometimes become the problem.

Because the thinking preference comes across as confident and even critical, there is a natural barrier for others to challenge. I had a boss once that was probably the most logical, thinking based person I’ve ever known. Because I had gained his trust, he often would take me to visit various project sites to get a feel for how the business was working. Unfortunately, it never occurred to him that the way he set up the meeting rooms seemed much like a judge (with full authority) questioning those running the business. He would sit at the center seat at a small table. To his left would be the site’s general manager and to his right would be me. He then would ask each of the site managers to enter the room, sit in a chair (feeling fully exposed) in front of this tribunal looking over the desk at them.

I know that my boss was simply trying to get as deep into the details (He also had a strong presence for sensing that we talked about in the last blog) and find out the truth of what was going on. As soon as he detected any weakness in a person’s thinking or attention to facts, he would relentlessly pursue further details with more critical questioning. Often the person seated in front of us (the tribunal) would eventually crumble and sometimes leave crying.

Later, as we were driving away from the site, I would say to my boss that he had really crushed Larry (or whomever). My boss would come back with genuine surprise and say something like “I noticed there was something wrong. What was the matter with that person?” I would explain to him that his approach to questioning and drilling down shook the confidence of some people. Again confused, he would say “I don’t get it. I’m just trying to find out how things are going!” He was a total thinker and never learned the value of balancing it with feeling type questions.

Feeling – Positive and Negative

The positive side of the feeling preference is truly caring. Caring for people. Caring for values. The feeling preference focuses on things like values, mercy, compliments, harmony, empathy, compassion. These are actually the issues that help create great teams. If you’ve read my blogs you’ll know that there is no correlation between IQ and success. But, there is a complete correlation between EQ and success. EQ is Emotional Quotient and deals with many of the issues we just listed above: value, harmony, empathy, compassion. The feeling preference does not ignore the thinking side. They’ll acknowledge all of the points that the thinking preference makes as being real and accurate but will question if a decision is better being made on the facts or harmony (or other feeling preference focus).

I’ve watched leadership teams get ready to make a decision based on logic. They’ll list all of the logical reasons they should make this particular decision. But then, someone says “But how will our customers react to that decision?” After a pause, someone will say “Your right. They’ll hate it. Maybe we should consider a different decision.”

Statistics

I’m going to take a look at the statistics to see what we might learn and then I want to close with a couple of more thoughts.

Here at the Statistics:

US Population Thinking = 40%; Feeling = 60%
Leadership Teams Thinking = 84%; Feeling = 16%
Operation Teams Thinking = 83%; Feeling = 17%

One of the things we learn from these numbers is that both Leadership and Operations Teams are substantially more thinking-oriented than the general population. To some degree, this makes sense because businesses and corporations generally run and make their decisions based on logic, not feelings. However, that’s a falsehood.

Fifth Avenue marketing firms learned long ago that people make decisions based on feelings and then justify those decisions based on logic. Business and Corporate leaders are just the same, they just won’t often admit it. In fact, it’s important to know that even ideas are believed to be true based on our emotions and then justified by logic. Knowing this to be true, it’s important that when having a team discussion about which decision to make, members should share their feelings, emotions, previous experiences (baggage) with each other. And don’t let a member get away with explaining the logic of a decision. Make sure they share their emotions first, then explain what logic they use based on the emotions.

You’ll get sick of me saying this time and time again, but the best decisions are balanced. Balance, balance, balance. However, it’s important that to balance this Deciding function, you must start with the feeling side.

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Blog Myers Briggs Type Indicator Myers-Briggs

Myers Briggs Type Indicator: Energizing

by Ron Potter March 18, 2021

Extroversion or introversion. Where do you get your energy from? In Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) this is known as your energizing function. More importantly, if you’re making a decision, which side of the pair do you need to be in when you are comfortable or convinced the decision you’re making is right. We are energized by extraversion or introversion.

Extravert or Introvert Labels

I think this pair more than any of the others has been misused when we label people. I clearly fall on the extraversion side of this pair. In fact, when I take the assessment I usually have the highest possible score on the extraverted side. People often assume that extroverts talk all the time.

Even though I score the highest possible score in that area, I spend a great deal of time reading and thinking quietly. My amazon statistics indicate that I read somewhere between 50 and 100 books a year. I spend that time in silence. I enjoy writing these blogs, creating visuals, both Powerpoints and animations, for my consulting work.

Every month or so I look forward to getting up to my cabin which sits in the middle of 500 acres of wilderness in northern Michigan to enjoy the quiet, solitude, time to think, and time to write. I spend much of my time being completely quiet. This is not a trait associated with extroverts.

However, if I’ve been thinking through a concept or a decision I have to make during this quiet time, I must talk it over with someone before I’ll make the decision I’m confident about. If I make a decision with quiet time only, then I’m always questioning the decision. I need to talk it through with someone. I need their thoughts and opposing views to be sure of my decision in the end. I am energized by my extraversion preferences!

Introverts Can Be Talkative

One of the traits of introverts is that if they’ve had time to think about a topic (which puts them into the introverted preference), they’re ready to talk. They will be fully engaged in the conversations and willing to share their thoughts. However, if we extraverts suddenly bring up an idea they haven’t had time to quietly think about they may go quiet.

What I’ve seen happen more often with teams is the introvert will simply repeat what they’ve already said. It can often sound as if they are saying to us “Didn’t you hear what I just said? Let me repeat.” In fact, the extraverts heard what they said, this was simply a new thought. But springing a new thought without time to quietly think about it doesn’t go over well for the introvert so they repeat what they have thought out.

How to Accommodate Introverts

Let’s face it, meetings are designed by and meant for extraverts. Why do we have meetings? To get together and talk.

One of the best approaches to accommodate both the extravert and introvert in meetings is for a wise moderator to:

Stop the Discussion
Ask everyone to write down what they think the three best ideas were based on the discussion
Give them time to write down their thoughts
After a reasonable amount of time, ask each member to put their best idea on the flip chart

It’s always fascinating to me to watch what happens during this “writing” time.

The introverts will do something to cut off the “chaos” in the room. They’ll put one hand over their eyes, or they’ll turn away from the team with their pad or they might even move elsewhere inside or outside the room. But this allows them to think. Almost immediately the thoughts clarify and they start writing. They’ll often write more than the requested three things and then either rank-order them or combine them.

Meanwhile, the extraverts may write the number one thing that was obvious to them. Sometimes they’ll even write two things but they seldom get three things written down. What do they do? They move over to the refreshment area where the rest of the extraverts have gathered so they can talk. By doing so, they’ll come up with their list of three and then regather at their seats.

The wise moderator then begins to go around the room and ask each person to contribute their number one item to the list. In doing so, the moderator has essentially kept the environment on the introverted side even though people are beginning to speak. Once the list is exhausted, the moderator will open it back up to discussion thus moving it back to an extraverted environment.

Meetings are extraverted environments. They don’t have to dedicate 50% to talking and 50% to quiet time. However, if you don’t build in some quiet time, you will lose the brainpower of a high portion of the participants.

I’ve often asked the introverts what happens to them as soon as they walk out of the room at the end of the meeting. They will all say something like “I wish I had said that —It all of a sudden became so clear to me!” What they’re saying is they didn’t have the opportunity to “think” during the meeting.

We must create an environment that allows everyone to capture their best thoughts.

Archetypes

The statistics on MBTI have proven to be the same around the world. However, I’ve observed that each culture has its ideal of what type a great leader is or should be.

In North America, we tend to hold up the extraverts as leaders. They should be outspoken, confident, leading through words, and ready to handle change.

In Asia, it tends to be almost the opposite. Their leaders should be soft-spoken, quietly confident, lead through action and think long term, not reacting to every change that comes along.

In an American office, if someone walks past the leader’s office and sees them sitting quietly, it’s assumed they are not doing anything so this might be a good time to interrupt them with a question. In Asia, if the leader is seen sitting quietly, it is assumed that they are deep in thought and should not be interrupted.

Statistics

For each of the four pairs, I’ll identify the split in the US Population, Leadership Teams, and Operations Teams.

The US Population is well researched and statistically sound. For Leadership Teams, I always used the database that I have gathered through the years. And even though it had a couple of thousand data points and should have been valid, I was always a little hesitant to say that it indicated anything beyond my own file. Then, one day I was able to see the database collected by the Center for Creative Leadership. They had tens of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of leaders in their database. And to my great relief, their statics were exactly the same as mine.

Operations teams are the teams in the organization that are responsible for the rubber hitting the road. If the company makes widgets, this team is responsible to get as many widgets out the door as fast and cheaply as possible. The head of the Operations Team is usually part of the Leadership team.

Once we see the splits of these three data sets, it’s worthwhile to ask if there is anything to be learned.

US Population – Extraversion = 50% Introversion = 50%

Leadership Teams – Extraversion = 62% Introversion = 38%

Operation Teams – Extraversion = 56% Introversion = 44%

One of the things learned here is that Leadership Teams are more extraverted than Operation Teams and a lot more extraverted than the general population. This is a talkative bunch!

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Blog Culture

Unity

by Ron Potter February 25, 2021

Joe Biden’s Unity Address at the inauguration on January 20, 2021 was the title of an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal written by their editorial board. In the opening paragraph, they write “The peaceful transfer of power from one party to another is a sign of underlying democratic strength no matter our current political distemper.”

I have always believed that this is one of the true strengths of our republic and our constitution. If you look back through history, I believe that we are the only country that has pulled off this peaceful transfer of power for over two hundred years. It makes me very proud.

Unity

But this blog is titled “Unity”, not the transfer of power.

Some of President Biden’s words were “Politics doesn’t have to be a raging fire” and “Disagreement should not lead to disunion.” Unfortunately, politics does remain a raging fire, regardless of which party is in power. But my focus here is not politics, but teams and corporate cultures. The second statement is the one I want us to hang on to because it is one of the elements of high-performance teams: “Disagreement should not lead to disunion.”

Disagreement

Some people believe that you can’t have unity if you have a disagreement. I believe the unity that comes out of trusting and respecting disagreement is the most powerful unity that you can experience. From our ancient philosophers, we find that the idea of truth, love, beauty, and unity is the highest level of happiness. I use these four concepts to help teams bring about unity from disagreement.

Truth

I’m not talking about truth being the opposite of lies. I’m talking about what you know and have experienced as your truth. I often marvel at the concept that there are no two snowflakes exactly alike. I would put forth the premise that there are no two human beings that are exactly alike.

I’m one of four siblings in my family. We all had the same father and mother. We all lived in the same house for most of our lives. We all grew up in the same small town for most of our lives. I say “most of our lives” because my father died when my youngest sister was still in her teens which altered her life a great deal. But what I have found very fascinating through our adult years is how the “truth” of those formative years was so different for each of us. I remember one discussion between myself and my siblings as adults when I finally said “Who are you talking about?” They said “Our father”. My reaction was, “That’s not the father I knew or grew up with”. Even how we ranked from youngest to oldest changed how we experienced our parents.

In order to build a strong unity, we must share with each other what we see as the truth of the situation. Both of my daughters and all four of my grandchildren have lived overseas. They have experienced different “truths”. I believe this will serve them well through life.

I’ve told this story before but it’s very powerful for me. During my consulting years, I almost always conducted a session with each team that I called “Human Beings, not Human Doings”. In these sessions, participants were asked to share about someone or some event that they know profoundly affected their lives and values. We never made it through a single session without tears flowing.

Knowing each other’s experiences, values, and truths, is the first very powerful step towards unity.

Love

The second of the unity elements was termed “love” by the Ancients. Unfortunately, that word loses something in the translation and how we think of it today. In the Greek Language which most of these ancients spoke, they have at least four words (I’ve seen as many as six) that all get translated into the word love in English. Our English is very limiting.

Philia – deep friendship. The city of Philadelphia is based on this word.
Eros – sexual passion. We get the word erotica from Eros.
Philautia – love of the self. We would translate this word as narcissism — self-obsessed and focused.
Agape – love for everyone.

Agape is the word for love that I associate with teams. I often used the word “respect” to convey this idea. Do we show respect for the other person regardless of their “truth” being in alignment with ours or not? Do we listen with the intent to understand? We didn’t have the same experiences as the other person. We must listen with a willingness to learn and understand about the background that would bring them to their truth. Only then can we begin to develop true and powerful unity.

Beauty

This is another word that’s difficult to understand in the business context. We’ve heard that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. That makes beauty unique to each individual. I don’t think that works well with teams.

I’ve come to think of beauty as elegance. One definition is being pleasingly ingenious and simple. I think this definition works well with teams. Ingenuity or innovation is a very strong skill in high-performance teams. Although sometimes it seems counter-intuitive, simplicity is also a strong point for high-performance teams. Adding complexity and complications to projects or decision making is not a trait in high-performance teams.

Unity

Unity can be a hard thing to detect at times. Especially if a team is good at working through their differences. What does make unity visible is commitment. When every member of a team shows commitment to decisions made, even if they personally see things differently, that’s unity. Each member has to carefully demonstrate the commitment. For others to hear the words “Well, I don’t agree with it but that’s what we decided as a team” is not unity. But when people know that while we may have initially disagreed with the results and yet see full commitment on our part, they know that we’re committed to the team and the team’s decisions.

Truth, Love, Beauty, Unity

Truth, Respect, Elegance, Commitment

These are the elements of unity. Check your own attitude and the behavior of others with each element. Building high-performance teams require putting all of the elements in place.

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Blog Culture

Science is Always Right

by Ron Potter February 11, 2021

But scientists are not always right! Even scientists have a perspective on the world that will shape the scientific data they see.

All too often I hear people refer to science as the answer that ends all arguments. As a Christian, I especially dislike the one where Christians don’t believe in science. I’m a Christian and I believe in science. I’m not technically a scientist but I do have an engineering degree that depends a great deal on science.

Francis Collins might be considered this nation’s leading scientist. He is currently the Director of the National Institute of Health (NIH) and a leader in the Human Genome Project. Dr. Collins wrote a book titled, Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.

Virtual Meetings

My point in this rambling is that we are entering a new era of virtual meetings versus face-to-face meetings. I believe this is our future. Many companies, especially the ones with collaboration platforms such as Webex, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and others are adding technology to improve virtual meetings. I believe they will have a positive effect on meetings but they are also claiming that this technology will create high-performance teams.

I believe they’re missing a key point.

Tech That Aims to Improve Meetings

The Wall Street Journal recently printed an article called “Tech That Aims to Improve Meetings”. For the article, they interviewed management experts, technologists, academics, and startup founders. They broke the article into the following categories:

Who’s Paying Attention? Worker’s posture and expressions are analyzed to determine positivity and engagement levels.
AI to Manage the Flow with an AI-powered moderator. It would provide feedback, facilitate flow, monitor time, and interject if someone is getting cut off or talked over.
A Seat at the Table: The software would assure that the meeting includes a diverse ethnic and gender balance.
Immersive Presentations: Participants would use virtual-reality glasses to view materials such as PowerPoint slides and others. The goal is to have the participants flip pages, go deeper and move their heads to flip between tables, charts, presentations, and the meeting itself, eliminating the need to flip back and forth between these things on a shared screen.
A Fitbit for Meetings: In this one, each participant wears a smartwatch that analysis and tells them about their personal overall performance.
The Virtual Office Party: This is an attempt to provide the casual chat between participants by having their avatar hear only the voices of nearby avatars as they move around.
Data-Driven Collaboration: Avatars are used in this one as well to “help” people casually talk while keeping track of personal interactions between employees to help match up people across departments when needed.

A line at the beginning of the article says “Critics say elements of tools under discussion raise concerns about worker privacy and may face resistance as being too intrusive.” I think if they had explored this one point further the conclusion may be that none of this technology will work because workers will find it too intrusive.

The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups

At the same time that WSJ article appeared, I was also reading The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle. I found the contrast between the two documents striking. While the WSJ article may be focused on running meetings more efficiently, that does not translate into higher performance. In The Culture Code, it’s stated that the highly successful groups talk about relationships. There isn’t much in the WSJ article that talks about relationships.

One section of the books talks about patterns of interaction:

“When I visited these groups, I noticed a distinct pattern of interaction. The pattern was located not in the big things but in little moments of social connection:

Close physical proximity, often in circles

- Profuse amounts of eye contact
- Physical touch (handshakes, fist bumps, hugs)
- Lots of short, energetic exchanges (no long speeches)

High levels of mixing

- everyone talks to everyone
- Few interruptions
- Lots of questions
- Intensive, active listening
- Humor, laughter
- Small, attentive courtesies (thank-yous, opening doors, etc.)

One more thing: I found that spending time inside these groups was almost physically addictive.”

MIT’s Human Dynamics Lab

There is also an interview with Alex Pentland who runs MIT’s Human Dynamics Lab. He said:

“If I lean a few inches closer to you, we might begin mirroring. It only works if we’re close enough to physically touch.”

Pentland says that words are noise. Group performance depends on behavior that communicates one powerful overarching idea: We are safe and connected.

Safe and Connected

All the technology currently available or available in the foreseeable future may in fact make meetings more productive. However, I currently don’t see any that help people feel safe and connected. This will be the challenge for the near future.

GPS4Leaders

In the app we’re developing, we do get at the issues that help people feel safe and connected such as trust and relationships. But it will still require the participants to take corrective action and make changes when the data indicates these are a problem.

Star participants and leaders of the future will be good at this!

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Blog Leadership

Emotion, Humility, Humanity

by Ron Potter January 21, 2021

Howie Mandel, the comedian, identified these three traits of people who changed the world. More than a comedian, I have always found Howie to be a deep thinker as well. These were identified in a youtube video by Howie.

Emotion

We often think of emotion as something inside of us and very personal in nature. In fact, it has more to do with communication.

Even as I work with a team that has developed an app for being a better team, it seems like every day we find ourselves talking about how we should communicate with people who may be interested in our app. We talk about communicating with emotion. If people don’t feel the message, if our words don’t invoke a deep connection, they’re just words. A software app lends itself to communication with logic but people seldom remember logical statements. They decide right from the beginning if they agree with the logic or not. If they agree, then they don’t feel like they’re learning anything new. If they don’t agree, the words are almost immediately shut off and seldom remembered. Communicating with logic doesn’t create much movement.

Communication with emotion creates a deep need to listen and learn. Emotion is about communication.

Humility

Humility should not be a new concept to you, the reader of this blog. We’ve talked about the need for humility many times. It is number one on my list of great leadership traits. Humility says we’re all in this together—let’s figure it out together! Lack of humility is ego. Ego says “I have all the answers—listen to me and do what I say. I’m smarter than you.”

Humility says I don’t have all the answers. Humility wants to know what the other person thinks and gives that information equal status. They may have a better idea. They certainly have a point of view that makes others think and see things in a different way.

Humility listens to other people with the intention to understand. People feel heard. It makes people want to be more of a participant. Humility is powerful.

Humanity

I’ve written in previous blogs about an exercise I used when working with teams. I called the exercise “Human beings, not human doings.”

I always started the session with a couple of simple rules:

Listen with the Intent to Understand. You could ask questions, but only to clarify or increase your understanding. No advice was to be offered, just listen.
Put away anything you may have in front of you: papers, reports, and most importantly phones. Pay attention to the other person.

The process was simple. I asked each person to share a person or event that has deeply shaped their values. We never ended a single meeting without tears. It deeply affected people. They were being Human Beings. It was not about what they did or what was their title. This was exposing their humanity.

These three things: Emotion, Humility, and Humanity were three traits that Howie Mandel claimed were possessed by people who had changed the world!

I agree. We may define your world as your team. We may think of an impact on the whole world. But without these three, you don’t have a chance to influence either.

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Blog Culture

Rut or Groove?

by Ron Potter December 17, 2020

Are you in a rut or a groove?

One of the cartoons I enjoy is Animal Crackers by Mike Osbun. In a recent strip, one character with a glum face says, “I’m in a rut.” The other character with a cheerful face says “I’m in a groove.” The first character says “Trade ya.”

Definition of Rut and Groove

The definitions of the two words are surprisingly similar.

Rut: A long deep track made by repeated passage.

Groove: A long, narrow cut or depression, especially made to guide motion.

Notice that they are both long. However, the rut is deep and caused by repeatedly doing the same thing. Einstein says, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” That seems like a good definition of being in a rut.

Groove is defined as a narrow cut (not deep) but is there to guide your motion.

How Do We Move from Rut to Groove?

In the Animal Crackers cartoon, when the character says ‘trade ya’ he doesn’t seem to believe that trading is possible. He’s stuck in his rut and there’s nothing that can be done about it.

But there is something that can be done. Notice in the definitions that a rut is a deep cut while a groove is a narrow cut. All it takes is deciding to move from rut to groove.

The Mind Projects in Straight Lines

A friend of mine told me that something I had said to him 40+ years ago was helping him get through some tough times. He reminded me that I had learned early that the human mind tends to project in straight lines—if things are going bad, it seems like they’ll continue to go bad. If things are going good, we assume they will always be good. But life never travels along straight lines. Things constantly change.

When You’re in a Rut

If you’re in a rut, the straight lines projected by the mind believe you will always be in a rut. Not true! Things change. The real question is, how do we get into a groove sooner? How do we ‘trade ya’ as our Animal Cracker friend says? And there’s a simple answer to that question!

Attitude

It always amazes me how much attitude and outlook makes a difference.

There’s a story about the first days of NASA as they were preparing to go to the moon. One of the head scientists was on his way home late one night so he cut through the giant hanger that had been built for the spacecraft. As he was crossing the cavernous space, he saw one of the janitors sweeping up the floor. In an effort to make a human connection, he asked the janitor what he was doing. The janitor, with wonder in his eyes, said, ‘Haven’t you heard? We’re going to the moon!’ He wasn’t just pushing a broom, he was helping get the hanger ready, so they could go to the moon. Great attitude!

A woman who was in the audience when I was speaking wrote me a letter. She would drag herself out of bed and get to her job just because she needed to provide for her family. She hated it. She not only hated the company she worked for, she hated the industry because she assumed all the companies dealt with the same issues.

After listening to the message about attitude, she decided to change.

By the time she wrote to me, she couldn’t wait to get started at her job every morning. She loved her job, she loved the people she was working with, and she remembered why she chose that industry in the first place. It was still the same place on Monday that it had been on Friday when she heard the message about attitude. The only thing that changed was her attitude and remembering what she loved about her work to start with. Her attitude had changed—nothing else.

How much of your attitude impacts your energy and excitement about what you’re doing and where you’re doing it? Think about it. It may have more to do with it than you realize.

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Blog

How to Remember What You Read

by Ron Potter November 19, 2020

How much do you read? I guess by most standards I read quite a bit. I read almost everything on my Amazon Kindle. Every year Amazon sends me statistics on how much I read in a particular year. In my most prolific year, I read 50 books. That’s an average of a book per week. I guess I do indeed read quite a bit.

How do I remember

So how do I remember what I read? I highlight what I read and then I write up my highlights. I started that practice when I was reading hardcover books. I would highlight with a yellow marker than when I was finished, I would go back through the book page by page and type all of my highlights into a Word document. Very time-intensive.

I love the fact that Kindle keeps track of all my highlights and puts them in one location. Now I go to that app once I’ve finished a book and simply copy all of my highlights into a Word document. Very time-efficient. However, because I don’t type my highlights, I find that I don’t remember as much as I used to remember when I was typing.

So when Shane Parrish of fs.blog wrote an article about remembering what you read, I was very interested.

I believe Shane is one of the best bloggers in the business. He reads an abundance of books. He interviews people who are influential in may topics. He has deep thoughts and has an interesting perspective on those thoughts. He does not get caught up in the daily news or social media. They are short team. He is interested in the long term.

I cannot remember the books I have read

Shane starts his article with a wonderful quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I cannot remember the books I have read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.” (Italics are mine)

If you are actively engaged in the books you read, they will make you. It’s not what you read, it’s how you read.

Here are a few highlights from the points Shane makes in his blog. I hope they change how you read.

Quality matters more than quantity. Reading a bad book doesn’t add much to your life or understanding. I used to think that if I started a book, I should finish it. Google says there are somewhere between 600,000 and a million books published per year in the US alone. Believe me, they can’t all be good.
Speedreading is bulls**t. The only way to read faster is to read more.
Book summary services miss the point. Even as I’ve thought about providing me readers with more in-depth notes from the books I’ve read, I realize that the highlights are from my perspective. So are the summary services but I believe they’re written from an even more elementary perspective.
Don’t read stuff you find as boring and finishing a book is optional. See note #1 above.

Filter your reading

This isn’t school as Shane says. Focus on some combination of books that:

Stand the test of time
Pique you interest
Resonate with your current situation

Intelligent Skimming

I’m really bad at this aspect. I just don’t seem to gain any knowledge or understanding by skimming the index or other lists of subject-matter. I don’t see myself getting much better with this one.

Know your why

Shane encourages us to understand why are you reading this book?

Entertainment?
To understand something or someone you don’t know?
To get better at your job?
To improve your health?
To learn a skill?
To help build a business?

Any one of these reasons are valid. In fact I’ve had the experience multiple times where I’ll read something that will help me get better at my job, only to see the same subject in an entertainment book, only to see an article in WSJ or Forbes or some other source. But none of that happens if you don’t read.

Notes for remembering more

Shane finishes his blog with seven things that will help you remember what you read.

Take Notes
Stay Focused
Mark up the book
Build a vivid mental picture
Make mental links
Keep Mental Models in mind
Stop when bored

As I said at the start, I believe Share Parrish is one of the best bloggers in the business. But there is one major piece of advice for remembering what you read. That advice is to start reading!

If you feel like you need to improve your life or environment, start reading.

Read for your life!

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