Ron’s Short Review: The shift to technology-based work is pushing us beyond the information age. If you’ve been an “Information Worker” you should learn how to augment technology to keep yourself relevant.
Years ago, I named my company Team Leadership Culture. To me, that described exactly what needs to happen in corporations to get things humming.
- Building great teams is the foundation to success
- Developing Leaders to grow and direct the teams and create more great leaders
- Both lead to a culture that will sustain the success over the ups and downs of daily business
Without the trust and respect that it takes to build teams, you never develop great leaders and have no hope of creating a positive culture.
Decades ago, Alvin Toffler wrote an amazing book titled Future Shock. Wikipedia describes the context of the book like this. “He believed the accelerated rate of technological and social change left people disconnected and suffering from “shattering stress and disorientation”—future shocked.
I’m not technology averse. In fact, quite the opposite. My grandson was laughing at me the other day as I explained how I carried my 35 pound Osborne portable computer through airports in the 80’s. I purchased my first Blackberry “smartphone” three months after they hit the market in 1999. I’ve been riding the wave of technology advancement since the day Toffler published his book.
But, with this advancement of connected technology, I’ve also seen the deterioration of teams.
Every year teams seem to become more remote and global. Without the technology available to them today they couldn’t function at all. But, the one sentence that remains stuck in my head from Toffler’s book is “High Tech. High Touch.” His point was that as technology took over, it would require even greater human connection to make it all work.
From a very practical standpoint, I have observed remote and global teams that get together face-to-face at least twice a year to talk about the human side of their team work seem to advance faster and farther than any other team.
Some teams try for more times a year and few of them make it but scheduling often makes that difficult.
Other teams either commit to twice a year and don’t make it or are so deceived by the need to accomplish “real” work while they’re together that they give insufficient time to building team. These teams never advance and often deteriorate.
A recent Wall Street Journal article really caught my attention because of this experience. “IBM, a Pioneer of Remote work, Calls Workers back to the Office.” Even though IBM has been a leader in remote work throughout this century, workers were given 30 days to decide. Move to a company-maintained office or seek employment elsewhere.
Why would the leader of remote work decide to lay down such a stark edict? High Tech. High Touch.
They had accomplished the High Tech portion of the formula. They even marketed their services as “the anytime, anywhere workforce.” But they missed the High Touch portion.
Teams simply don’t work if there is low trust. Trust makes it all work. You can’t develop trust electronically. You need to:
- Look people in the eye
- Shake their hand
- Put an arm around their shoulder
- Laugh some
- Cry some
Without High Touch, it just doesn’t work.
Are you going back to the office? IBM workers are. You should be also. At least on a regular enough basis to build Trust. It’s the foundation for all collaborative efforts.
A 19th-century Russian author challenged his brother “Don’t think about a polar bear right now.” Our modern version might be:
Don’t think about:
- That email right now
- Your next meeting right now
- The project that’s due on Monday right now
- Any other obvious thing that occupies your mind right now
The point is, it’s very difficult to clear our mind of the many present and urgent things so that we can get into deep thinking and deep work. Interruptions, mental and otherwise get in the way.
I’ve written a few blog posts about the technology and “always connected” habits that we’ve gotten into that deplete our ability to think deeply about important issues. But, even if we eliminate the technology of the day (our Russian lived over 100 years before an internet browser existed) we still have difficulty avoiding the distractions of the moment.
I’ve been working at understanding my own distractions and how I can avoid them long enough to do some deep thinking. One model that comes to mind is the Kubler-Ross stages of grief.
I’ve used these stages as a model for dealing with difficult feedback. Maybe they can help us with distractions as well.
Stage 1: Denial
- I can handle this.
- It will only take a minute.
- It doesn’t really distract me.
- I can get back to my thoughts immediately.
The first stage is to get real about the impact of the distraction. Study after study tells us that if we divert our mind to another topic, it takes a great deal of time to get reoriented and back on track. Don’t kid yourself. Distractions are costly.
Stage 2: Emotion
With the Kubler-Ross model, we’re usually thinking about anger. But it’s not just anger, it’s any emotion. I think the distracting emotion here is elation.
- It will be fun to just check Facebook for a minute.
- I just want to see what last night’s scores were.
- Connecting with my friend cheers me up.
Caving into your emotions is costly.
Stage 3: Bargaining
- It’s only a few seconds.
- This won’t take long.
- I need the fix to keep my energy up.
You can bargain all you want but it’s still a distraction. Even the time it takes to bargain is costly.
Stage 4: Depression
- What’s the point, I’ll never get good at this anyway.
- What makes me think I could generate a good result simply by avoiding distractions.
- I’m just not that good.
Avoiding time for deep thought for any reason is costly. Convincing yourself that you’re not good enough even if you give yourself the time becomes self-fulfilling.
Stage 5: Acceptance
- I can get better at this.
- I may stumble to start with but I’ll get better over time.
- Each time I avoid the distractions helps me get better at doing it again next time.
Believing that you can do this and accomplish it in small steps is rewarding and avoids the cost.
Stage 6: Action
Once you get into the habit of avoiding the distractions you’ll be amazed at the productivity and joy it provides.
Kubler-Ross tells us that we go through all of these stages when it comes to grief. It’s just that each person goes through them at a different pace.
You’ll never avoid them but if you get good at speeding through them you get better. Just to make myself clear, speeding through them doesn’t mean caving into the distractions quicker. It means to get beyond the temptation of each stage quicker.
God speed.
Farson gets right to the point when he says “Planning is built upon the flawed idea that it is possible to predict the future. Yet the future almost always takes us by surprise. Since there is simply no good way to predict future events, there is no sure way to plan for them.”
Study after study indicates what human beings are terrible at predicting the future. While our weather forecasts are getting better and better with technology, I still haven’t met anyone who trusts the forecast beyond the next couple of hours. I had to laugh this morning when watching Mike and Mike on ESPN. They were broadcasting from an outdoor location and complaining about not being dressed adequately because their weather apps had been wrong. We’re good at predicting rain when we’re getting wet.
Farson reinforces this idea: “By and large, organizations are simply not good at changing themselves. They change more often as a result of invasion from the outside or rebellion from the inside, less so as a result of planning.” It’s easier to plan for change when the barbarians are at the door.
So, do we abandon planning? No, planning is important to make sure everyone is on the same page and doing things as expected. But, we must compliment planning with scenarios. Planning is developing answers. Scenarios are created by asking questions. “What if” questions. What if a new competitor invades our space? What if we no longer have access to that material? What if our customers taste changes? I find that when teams and companies do adequate scenario planning, they’re better able to handle the changes that the future throws at them. When a change occurs, they have the sense that they had talked about that (or some form of it) and therefore are more equipped to handle the change. Farson says “At best, planning becomes a form of anticipatory, strategic thinking – the basis for organizational flexibility and readiness. That may be the most it can offer, but that’s a lot.”
It is a lot. It helps to react more quickly and be less shocked or depressed when the change does occur.
However, one scenario that I seldom see teams tossing on the table is one of great success. What happens if we’re more successful than we anticipate? I remember a TV commercial a few years ago of a small startup company gathering around their newly launched website to see if they get any orders for their new product. As the first order hits there is relief on their face. As ten orders hit smiles appear. As a hundred orders appear cheering breaks out. But as the orders continue to climb into the thousands and tens of thousands, a look of complete horror darkens their faces. They didn’t plan for greater than expected success.
Planning is good but inadequate. Add scenarios. What could (and will) go wrong? What happens if we’re extremely successful? You’ll be better equipped to deal with the future.
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.
Knowing something is different than knowing the name of something.
Shane Parrish of Farnam Street Blog spoke of this concept from Richard Feyman, the Nobel winning Physicist.
Faynman said that his technique would ensure that he understood something better than everyone else. It helped him learn everything deeper and faster.
Shane says it’s incredibly simple to implement. The catch: It’s ridiculously humbling.
Well, if you’ve read many of my blogs you’ll know that ridiculously humbling is a good place to be. Let’s take a look at the Technique.
Step 1: Teach it to a child
Faynman says “Write out what you know about the subject as if you were teaching it to a child. Not your smart adult friend but rather an 8-year-old who has just enough vocabulary and attention span to understand basic concepts and relationships.”
My daughters may not even remember these moments of learning or certainly may not remember them the same way but that’s OK because we know that everyone’s memory is unique. So, here’s my memory.
When my daughters each hit about fifth grade they came to me with a school topic where they were struggling. By the time my daughters were this age I had finished my engineering degree from Michigan and had already been in the work place about 15 years. I knew a lot of stuff (or thought I did). So, I would begin to explain the subject from my point of view and experience level. After a few minutes of me pontificating I could see their eyes glaze over and they soon would say “You’re no better than everyone else. I still don’t get it.” After being humbled I asked to see their text book and would quickly scan ahead a chapter or two. I than would think about what they needed to learn to be ready for the challenge in the next chapter. When I focused on where they were and what they needed to learn at that moment, I discovered that their learning quickly accelerated as they moved from chapter to chapter.
I was recently consulting with one of our best known high tech firms. The team I was working with was trying to sell their technology into one of the oldest, most successful heavy industrial manufacturing firms. Upon returning from a meeting that didn’t go well, the team leader said to me “They are so un-savvy”! I told him my “Teaching a fifth grader story.” As he listened quietly his eyes began to grow wider and he finally proclaimed, “We haven’t been trying to teach them the next chapter, we’ve been trying to teach them from a book that’s being written as we go!” He quickly pulled his team back together and focused on what “chapter” their client was on and how could they quickly teach them what they needed to know for the next chapter. They began to have great accelerated success with that client and built a great bond of trust.
We’ve all become experts in our field. (I remember seeing a porta potty with the proclamation on the side “Outstanding in the Field”) Don’t use the language and concepts you’ve come to know. Figure out how to teach them to a fifth grader. If you can do that, your own learning will go deeper and deeper as well.
We’ll save the other two topics of Review and Organize and Simplify for future posts.
The world we live in is chaotic. A great leader learns how to leverage chaos into creativity, to bring a sense of tranquility to a crazy world.
Dealing with new technology, profit expectations, continual new-product development, the fickle shopper, and global competitors and global teams requires perpetual change and lightning-fast reactions. Markets change, old competitors consolidate, new competitors emerge, and attempts at re-engineering threaten our daily bread. Both leaders and employees can soon feel under siege and at the mercy of chaos.
A creative, energy-filled calm is what we need. A word picture may aid our understanding of this. Imagine you are a surfer. There you are with your board, waiting for the “big one.” If you are in Hawaii, the waves you are playing in might rise to twenty feet. All around you is surging, frothy chaos. Currents, tides, and the weather have combined to create a uniquely unstable environment. Conditions are always changing; every moment the ocean is different. If you try to catch a wave exactly the way you did yesterday, you will take a hard fall. You must stay alert and react quickly to every nuance of water, tide, and wind.
Gutsy leaders confront chaos. No one who is content to just paddle a surfboard beyond where the waves break has ever caught a “big one.” Neither has such a person ever wiped out. If you want to ride a wave, you have to enter into the chaos. If you panic while riding a big wave, you are sure to wipe out. If you stay calm, you can have a wonderful ride while tons of water crash down around you.
Creating calm in the office requires a similar ability to assess the environment, to act quickly, and to stay calm. The economy, products, competitors, consumers, and employees all constantly change. Someone has to have answers; someone must be an independent thinker, able to calmly think things through.
I’m familiar with a banker who had a client ready to sell a branch location of his business. The main location seemed to be prospering, but this particular branch appeared to be a drain on energy, time, and resources. The business owner was upset, but the banker remained calm. He took the time to analyze the underlying causes of the owner’s problems. He visited the location, recast the numbers, and advised the owner not to sell the branch but to move and resurrect it. In reality, the branch location was producing extra cash, and the owner, following the banker’s advice, turned his entire business around.
People will follow leaders who stay steady in the turbulence and work with them to create new answers, new plans, and a new future.
Whatever you do, don’t slip into what we call the “arsonist’s response to chaos.”
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that firefighters in Genoa, Texas, were accused of deliberately setting more than forty destructive fires. When caught, they stated, “We had nothing to do. We just wanted to get the red lights flashing and the bells clanging.”
Do you know any leaders who intentionally start “fires” so they can get the “red lights flashing and hear the sirens”?
Leaders in a client’s organization proudly described themselves as “firefighters.” They were proud of the fact that they were good at hosing down crises. But when they were asked, “Is it possible you might also be arsonists?” it caused a great deal of reflection within the company.
The goal is a creative, steady productivity—not an out-of-control environment that squanders energy and resources on crisis management.
Many believe that quality and productivity will define the economics of the twenty-first century. One of the principal events of the last century was Japan’s postwar emergence as an economic superpower. This came about primarily because of the quality revolution among Japanese manufacturers of automobiles and electronics, who zoomed past their American counterparts as consumers demonstrated with their wallets a preference for imports and the quality (perceived or real) of the products brought to the marketplace. In the process, American companies exported millions of jobs and, at the same time, were jolted into the reality that American consumers wanted, and even demanded, the highest quality.
To stop the outflow of consumer dollars, American manufacturers instituted many programs to improve quality. Total Quality Management (TQM) became more than just a popular catch phrase. It became a process driver for hundreds of companies and the focus of many leaders.
Authors Tom Peters and Nancy Austin wrote: “Any device to maintain quality can be of value. But all devices are valuable only if managers—at all levels—are living the quality message, paying attention to quality, spending time on it as evidenced by their calendars.”
The spotlight on quality remains. Today, consumers expect every product and service to be of the highest quality. Joseph Juran, publisher of the classic Quality Control Handbook, states, “We’ve made dependence on the quality of our technology a part of life.”
Clearly, American leaders need to emphasize quality in every aspect of their organizations. Whether they are service-driven or product-driven, company leaders must completely understand the need for quality and communicate that message down the line so that everyone in the organization fully understands the importance of maintaining and improving quality.
This addresses organizational quality, but what about personal TQM?
In the wake of the Volkswagen scandal as well as other corporate meltdowns, investors have lost hundreds of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of people are out of work. Cooked books, deceitful executives, and lackadaisical board members have caused a collapse of inconceivable proportions. The disintegration of these companies represents an unimaginable failure of leadership and governance. What has happened to personal quality?
As you learn and apply the principles of trustworthy leadership presented in my book, Trust Me, you will become a leader known for personal “total quality.” Specifically, no leader can have a life of quality without integrity. And the same is true for the entire organization. Without integrity, it will be impossible for the organization to have a truly high-quality reputation with customers, employees, peers, and shareholders.
Integrity is absolutely necessary for the success of a leader and an organization. A total quality life insists on integrity.
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 blogs about ABSURD! I think it will put each new one in great context.
“The notion that people need to communicate more is perhaps the most widely accepted idea in management, indeed in all human relationships. Whether it’s called counseling, team building, conflict resolution, or negotiating, it boils down to one idea – that if we talk it over, things will get better.”
I just finished another Culture Survey’s with a client. (Actually I dealt with three client surveys over the last six weeks.) There are a couple of items that always get low scores on every company’s survey and one of them is the need for more communication.
Unfortunately, most corporate leaders respond to the noted lack of communication with more information. Seldom do people want more information. Every organization and person I know, including myself is overrun with information. We carry around the knowledge (and information) of man in our hand in a device we ludicrously call a phone when it uses about 0.001% of its capability to provide phone service. What we don’t carry around with us is the wisdom of man.
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.
Our author says:
“Almost all of this information is quantitative rather than qualitative and is of little use to top managers, who are dealing with predicaments that seldom yield to logical analysis. What these executives require is more likely to come from the advice of their colleagues than from comprehensive displays of data.”
Simon Sinek notes that great leaders inspire action by starting with Why! If you haven’t seen his video check out YouTube for “Why, How, What” or Simon Sinek below. Why starts with meaning. People are seldom interested in what you do but they are often interested in why you’re doing it.
The more we communicate, the less we communicate. The more with inspire with meaning and helping people understand why, the more we communicate.
Sally runs a division of a company in a highly technical industry. At her disposal is a team and technology that can dig into any question and come up with reams of data to support the analysis. Sally with collect this data, cross-reference it, put as much of it into spreadsheets and data base systems that would blow your mind. At her fingertips she can go deeper and deeper into any question or issue until she reaches the base level of data and facts that support the whole structure.
When her people approach Sally they know where the question is going to head:
- Where’s the data on this issue?
- To what level of depth have you uncovered?
- How recent is the data?
- Have we gathered it from more sources than just our own?
And on and on. Sally wants to be sure that we have all of the data that’s available to us as we search for answers and directions.
Once Sally feels that she has all the data to be had, she’ll spend hours poring over the spreadsheets of data looking for the insight and understand that she needs to present her finding to the leadership team. She really wants to make sure they “get it” based on the facts.
What do you think? Is Sally as “Sensing” or an “Intuitive” type?
Myers-Briggs gives us some quick sketches for each type:
- Sensing
- Like to present the details of their work first
- Seldom make errors of fact
- Like using experience and standard ways to solve problems
- Intuition
- Like to present an overview of their work first
- May make errors of fact
- Like solving new complex problems
So, what do you think? Sensing or Intuition?
In our next Myers-Briggs based blog we’ll continue the story of Sally the data miner. Please join us. You might be surprised.
Ron’s Short Review:
Great view of how our rapidly changing technology and expectations of the next generation of young people are going to change the structures of our corporations. Written way back in 2009, you can see much of this playing out already.
It often amazes me how much people read into emails.
A number of times I’ve had clients send me an email that someone has written to them and say to me “See, this is what I’m talking about. Can you believe the attitude of this person?” Then when I read the email I may think that it’s a bit too long or I’m not quite sure what the point is or more often I’m thinking they should simply pick up the phone and talk to this person. However, I seldom see what the person is talking about.
Email has become one of the largest stumbling blocks to clear understanding among colleagues. (Click to Tweet)
I’m not suggesting that we eliminate email because it is a fabulous tool and is very useful in many, many instances but I’ve also seen it misused and abused.
Consider these two traits:
- Email is the universal technology tool that everyone knows how to use (even if inappropriately).
- It is a tool that is available to use 24/7 from almost any location due to the proliferation of smart phones.
BUT, because of these two traits we are using it for tasks that are ill suited for email. It’s not well suited for dealing with arguments, or making difficult decisions, or carrying on a meaningful dialogue. It’s best suited for short, quick, meaningful exchanges of information.
I subscribe to a gmail service called Boomerang. I use Boomerang mostly for its delayed send feature, but occasionally they’ll send me an analysis of how I’m using the service and they also share some overall analytics from their entire data base of users. The most recent one reached some conclusions that were affirming on one hand and surprising on the other.
Here are a few of their findings:
Message Length: Emails with a message length of 75-100 words receive the highest level of response. That one was not surprising to me. Long detailed emails put me to sleep faster than a boring novel. I’m constantly thinking; get to the point, what is your point, why are you writing me this epistle?
Subject Line: Subject lines that receive the best response are both meaningful and are 3-4 words long. Now, that’s often difficult to accomplish and it actually takes some thought and work to provide meaning in 3-4 words. But that’s the point. Put some thought and effort into it and it will be more meaningful to your receiver and elicit a better response.
Reading Level: Here’s the surprising finding, a 3rd Grade Reading level of writing generates the best response level. Now, before you jump to the conclusion that it’s because of all the people you write to are just stupid, understand that reading level is calculated based on the number of syllables in your words and the number of words in your sentences. By writing shorter emails using simpler words your email will be received with greater understanding. And that’s the point. If your emails are not understood or misunderstood, why are you wasting your time writing them?
Incorporate some of these tips in your email writing today!
I picked up small book off my bookshelf this week that is twenty years old. When I say it’s small I mean in size (small format and just 172 pages) not stature or content. It is a profound book and should not be forgotten. I don’t know if it every achieved numerical success but the forward was written by Michael Crichton (the late author who wrote books such as The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park and others). That should have gotten the attention of a lot of people.
The title of the book is Management of the Absurd: Pardoxes in Leadership by Richard Farson. You’ll find it on my Reading List but as I said, it’s twenty years old so you may not have spotted it. But this book is timeless.
Just look at a few of these chapter titles:
- Nothing is as invisible as the Obvious
- Effective Managers Are Not in Control
- Most Problems That People Have are Not Problems
- Technology Creates the Opposite of Its Intended Purpose
If you’re like me these titles grab you before you’ve read one word in the chapter. I wish I was as good at creating grabbing titles as this.
I haven’t done this before but I’m going to spend some time going through Management of the Absurd with you. I’ll capture a few thoughts and lines from various chapters and talk about the timeless nature of the principle. I believe you’ll begin to see that the truths that guide good management and leadership are ageless and should frequently remind us of the seemingly absurd nature of good leadership.
Chapter one is titled “The Opposite of a Profound Truth is Also True.” And in the first few paragraphs Farson reminds us that:
“We have been taught that a thing cannot be what it is and also its opposite.”
This belief that if my position or perspective is true than yours must be false leads to an incredible amount of conflict, strife and division within organizations.
F. Scott Fitzgearld reminds us:
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”
Now I think having a first-rate intelligence would be a great starting point for a good leader but notice that I don’t say a high IQ. There has never been any correlation found between IQ and success and one measure of a great leader is achieving success. So it’s not IQ, its intelligence. Don’t believe that the opposite of a profound truth, your truth, is not also true.
In his book The Primes, Chris McGoff points out that often when teams don’t seem to be able to reach a decision it’s because they are assuming they’re in a right vs wrong argument when in reality they’re in a right vs right argument. The opposite of a profound truth is also true. Great leaders realize that they are often choosing between right vs right, not right vs wrong. Assuming everything is a right vs wrong argument is childish. Great leaders are also mature.
Don’t let your leadership or management style look like it has the maturity of a teenager. Realize that even though you may hold the truth on a topic, others on your team also hold the truth. Bring all the truth’s out together and then decide which direction the team should take.