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BlogTrust Me

Persist

by Ron Potter

Whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything.”
—James 1:2-4, NLT

Why persist?

When leaders develop endurance or perseverance, they develop maturity—not only within themselves but also within their organizations and teams. Persistence breeds character as we stick to the task, bring others along with us, and develop an enduring organization. According to Julien Phillips and Allan Kennedy,

Success in instilling values appears to have had little to do with charismatic personality. Rather it derives from obvious, sincere, sustained personal commitment to the values the leaders sought to implant, coupled with extraordinary persistence in reinforcing those values.

Bringing Others Along

Leaders who persist understand the importance of bringing every part of the organization along with them. It is a time-consuming and focused activity that will eventually yield tremendous results in overall morale, productivity, and team/employee support.

A leader needs to understand that he or she may quite naturally have an easy time focusing on the future or on how the future will look when certain projects, tasks, or goals are completed. Others within their teams may not be able to clearly or easily see the future, or they may be naturally pessimistic about anything involving the future.

A leader needs the persistence to bring these people along—they are valuable to the team’s overall balance. They may simply need the leader to either ask them questions to propel them into the future or help them visualize steps to the future outcome.

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BlogTrust Me

Peace and Making Meaning

by Ron Potter

How do leaders create peace in the midst of chaos? How do they restore an organization to the point of balance and productivity? How do leaders reach out to employees during times of uncertainty and worry?

By becoming peacemakers.

The major problem many leaders face is not the mechanics of change or even embedded resistance to change. The chief challenge is helping people understand what is going on around them.

According to a national survey taken by the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research in the fall of 2001, only 1 in 5 adults said they felt hopeful about the future as compared with 7 out of 10 who reported feeling this way in a 1990 survey. People are distressed and want someone to bring meaning to their daily lives.

Calm and team effectiveness come when a leader makes meaning out of the jumble of chaos that surrounds employees, suppliers, and consumers. In most situations, every person on a team brings a different point of view, a unique experience, or a personal preference to the table. Every market change brings with it new expectations, new competition, or new hopes. It also brings new opinions, new points of view, and new preferences. How does a leader make meaning out of all that?

Peacemakers focus outside themselves

Leaders who understand the need to make meaning for their teams and organizations understand that it starts with their own style. If we are self-centered and proud, we surrender the ability to see the angst in others. The prideful leader will not see the need for communication or helping others understand what is going on around them. Such leaders hold their cards close to the vest. Their focus is on themselves.

In contrast, leaders who put “you first” and have self-esteem based on humility are able to look beyond themselves and help others see meaning in their circumstances.

Peacemakers maximize opportunities for communication

I have a friend who says, “You need to tell people the story until you vomit—then tell them some more.” Peacemakers take advantage of every opportunity to communicate with people to help them understand chaos and confusion. Communication is not just speaking; it involves listening, too. In true communication, a leader honors everyone’s opinions and frames of reference.

The goal is to learn, not necessarily to check items off the to-do list. This creates a “learning” organization or team that encourages and listens to everyone’s opinions. Before making decisions, leaders of learning organizations probe the dissenters to better understand their opinions. They listen, learn, honor other people, and discover how to make great, lasting decisions.

Peacemakers encourage thinking

Even when people see change or confusion as an opportunity rather than a menace, they still need to feel safe and unafraid. Leaders need to create an environment that is open and flexible.

Leaders need to encourage thinking that seeks the sustainability of improvements, not just the solutions to problems. In order for people to go that far, they need to feel supported and that their thoughts are being heard and acted upon.

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BlogCultureOrganizational IntegrityTrust Me

Organizational Integrity: Learning to Change

by Ron Potter

For the next few Monday posts, I want to provide some snapshots into what makes up organizational integrity.

To have a great organization, integrity must be widespread. It won’t do to be a saintly leader of highest integrity if the rest of the team consists of liars, backbiters, and thieves. Integrity must exist from top to bottom. There are some key qualities that need to be modeled by leadership in order for an organization to embrace integrity.

Last week we started with Prioritizing People-Development. This week we explore Prioritizing People-Development.

Prioritizing People-Development

Another way a leader builds team integrity is through a willingness to make changes. How does a leader do that? How does a leader react when challenged or confronted by peers or subordinates?

Tom Peters is no stranger to change. He insists that embracing change is the single most competitive weapon in business. He suggests the following major points to help leaders effect change:

  • “Trust/respect/don’t underestimate potential.
  • Insist upon (and promote) lifelong learning.
  • Share information.
  • Get customers involved.
  • Emphasize ‘small wins.’
  • Tolerate failure to the point of cheerleading.
  • Reject ‘turf’ distinctions.”

Embracing change is the single most competitive weapon in business. Are you willing to change? How do you react when you are challenged or confronted?

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Short Book Reviews

The Book of Why

by Ron Potter

Ron’s Short Review: I found this a little difficult to read but the key point for me is that we put way too much emphasis on cause and effect when in fact they are random events that happen in the same time frame. Our human mind looks for shortcuts to understand the world around us and if it can attach a cause and effect to an event, it will do so in order to explain it quickly and easily. Take caution. We have to question more to better understand the world around us.

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BlogCulture

NEXT

by Ron Potter

What will you do next? This one question may be the key to success.

Our lives are filled with events. This list is long and complex, especially when you add personal experiences, but I’ll just stick with corporate issues in this blog post.

Events can include issues such as:

  • A competitor surprises you with a new product or strategy in the marketplace.
  • A disruptive new technology catches you off guard.
  • You fail at an assignment.
  • A teammate seems to be cutting you down behind your back.
  • Your boss seems to be showing favorites on the team.
  • You just experienced great corporate, team or personal success.

As you can see these events can range from outside your control, to personal experiences, failures, successes and everything in between.

With each of these, we will experience emotions. These emotions will vary as wildly at the events themselves and range from good to bad. We may experience:

  • A desire to retaliate.
  • Feelings of failure.
  • Wanting to react immediately.
  • Being a victim.

Again, our reaction, emotions, and immediate feelings will be all over the board. They’re natural and they will happen. Don’t assume that “as an adult” you should keep your emotions under control and feel bad about your reactions. They’re human. They will happen.

But, what you do next will determine your success or failure now and throughout life. Having the initial reaction is involuntary. What you do next is a choice.

If you’re part of a team or maybe even the team leader, you should intentionally talk about what you do next to deal with the issue.

If you’re dealing with a failure:

  • don’t stick your head in the sand
  • don’t ignore the truth
  • don’t hang on to some false or out of date view of the world
  • don’t write it off as bad luck

If you’re dealing with success:

  • Don’t let it go to your head
  • Don’t assume you’ve got everything figured out
  • Don’t assume your success will last more than a day
  • Don’t stop figuring out how to get better every day

Whatever the circumstances, figure out what to do next.

Great individuals and teams are constantly learning and growing. They’re figuring out what to do next.

Enjoy your success. Mourn your failures. But in all circumstances constantly be asking “What should we (I) being doing next?”

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BlogTeam

The Power of Nutmeg

by Ron Potter

Because my wife is of Dutch heritage, we have spent time exploring her ancestry back to the Netherlands. Her family was a part of New Amsterdam which eventually became Manhattan. A distant family member suggested I read a book titled The Island at the Center of the World. Fascinating.

Here is a description from Goodreads that will give you a small understanding of the scope of the book and Impact of New Amsterdam on New York and America of today.

When the British wrested New Amsterdam from the Dutch in 1664, the truth about its thriving, polyglot society began to disappear into myths about an island purchased for 24 dollars and a cartoonish peg-legged governor. But the story of the Dutch colony of New Netherland was merely lost, not destroyed: 12,000 pages of its records–recently declared a national treasure–are now being translated. Drawing on this remarkable archive, Russell Shorto has created a gripping narrative–a story of global sweep centered on a wilderness called Manhattan–that transforms our understanding of early America.

The Dutch colony pre-dated the “original” thirteen colonies, yet it seems strikingly familiar. Its capital was cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic, and its citizens valued free trade, individual rights, and religious freedom. Their champion was a progressive, young lawyer named Adriaen van der Donck, who emerges in these pages as a forgotten American patriot and whose political vision brought him into conflict with Peter Stuyvesant, the autocratic director of the Dutch colony. The struggle between these two strong-willed men laid the foundation for New York City and helped shape American culture. The Island at the Center of the World uncovers a lost world and offers a surprising new perspective on our own.

Upon reading this book you begin to realize that many of the concepts that America is built upon came from the early Dutch colony, not completely from the English colonies that came later.

But, knowing what New York and America are worth today or back in the mid-1660’s a very powerful question begins to emerge “Why did the Dutch give up Manhattan without firing a shot?”

The answer to that question is Nutmeg!

The most expensive spice in the world at the time was nutmeg. It cost more per ounce than gold. The Dutch wanted the nutmeg trade and were willing to give New Netherland including New Amsterdam to the English in trade for the small Polynesian Island of Run.

Today that trade looks absolutely nuts. The wealth of America could have been a foundation for the Dutch and we would be closer to the Netherlands today than England. You’ll have trouble finding the Island of Run without Google help.

The point is that at the time, this was a good trade. We didn’t quite see the total future and value of the new world, but the value of Nutmeg was well established. It was a good deal. The world economy and shipping was driven mainly by spices in the 1600 and 1700’s. Filling one ship with Nutmeg at over thirteen dollars per ounce was a tremendous economic driver. Manhattan for the Island of Run was a very good deal.

Lesson learned? Don’t judge decisions made in the past by the conditions that exist today. You will falsely accuse the decision makers of making bad, wrong or stupid decisions. Nothing may have been farther from the truth.

One of the reasons many teams and corporations aren’t good at decision making today is caused by the second-guessing of decisions made in the past.  Learn form the past, don’t second guess the past.

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BlogCulture

The Machines won’t stand a chance!

by Ron Potter

Earlier this year I reviewed the book Only Humans Nee Apply. The question raised by the book is:

How do we as humans survive in this incredible technology, robotic age that we’re now entering?

One way to look at history is through the “ages” that have been identified.

  • The Agricultural Age
  • The Industrial Age
  • The Information Age
  • The Technology Age

The Agriculture Age and Industrial Age are well documented and understood. One important thing to remember is the workers at the center of those ages were essentially the upper-middle class of the day.

The landowner or industry owners were the wealthy of that era, but the agricultural and industrial workers were the upper middle class of the day.

The steam engine brought an end to the industrial age when factory workers began making more money. The industrial age ended in September 2007 when the United Auto Workers wages dropped from $60/hour to $20/hour. Industrial workers could no longer make upper-middle class wages.

But when did the information age end? By some measures, it ended 50 years ago. We just haven’t noticed yet.

The Next Age

The next age has gone by different identifies. The Conceptional Age. The Creative Age.

What we know for sure is that we’re entering a new phase where the technology is finally hitting its stride and doing many things that the information or knowledge workers used to do. Several of our major colleges today employ sports writing “robots”. Plug in the stats from the game and the computer writes the sports story.

In his book, Only Humans Need to Apply, Tom Davenport talks about the different ways humans will survive and thrive in this machine age.

  • You can become a machine maintenance person, a technician. Machines will always need maintenance and repair.
  • You can use the machine to augment what you do. My first example of this was using spreadsheets. Spreadsheets began to augment what I did as an engineer. The problem with allowing machines to augment what you do is they quickly get smart enough to take over what you do.

Davenport says our best chance is to augment what the machines can do. How do we begin to use that technology and apply our creativeness? The one aspect that machines haven’t mastered is being creative (so far). How do we begin to apply creativity in ways that machines would never think doing? This is how humans will survive in the technology age.

Augmenting Teams

But, I believe our greatest augmentation opportunities lie in teams, not technology. We need to think about our teams in a similar way. How do we augment each other? If we don’t, we’re not gaining the incredible power of teams. We’re just a group of individuals working together. But in the same way, we think about augmenting machines, we can augment what each other do. By doing so we’re creating a team that can go far beyond even what the best individual on the team can do.

This idea of augmenting each other means we’re required to know each other not as human doings, not as what we do or how we do it but as human beings.

  • Who are we?
  • How do we think?
  • What are our beliefs and assumptions?
  • What are the values that we hold?
  • How are we going to face difficulties together?

This is where growth happens when we’re faced with difficult situations. Teams that learn to augment each other, that function better as a team than as a group of individuals. These are the teams that will be extremely successful in the future. In fact, my belief is that if teams fully augment each other as human beings, the machines won’t have a chance.

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BlogCulture

Renovation Project

by Ron Potter

My wife and I are in the middle of a renovation project. Not large but it still requires framing, drywall, plumbing, electrical, tile work, finish carpentry and painting. At one point or another, we’ve had the heat, gas, and electrical all shut-off.

I overheard my wife talking to a friend who had asked her how the project was going. “Hard, messy and very disruptive” was the response given. But then she said, “But we know it will turn out nice, so we can put up with the disruption for a while.

While it didn’t make things less hard, messy or disruptive, knowing that the end product was going to be pleasing and meet our needs helped.

That made me think about Team Renovation Projects. I’ve seldom worked with a stable team for a great length of time. There have been a couple and I can tell you that it’s been very helpful in building team strength and cohesion. But most teams are going through nearly constant renovation. Teams are under constant change. The company is growing or shrinking which changes team size. People are coming and going to and from new jobs. Corporate restructuring is happening on a regular basis. Teams are under constant renovation.

But, team renovations are not as clear and obvious as room renovations. Instead of knowing that things will turn out nice, we wonder:

  • What else will happen along the way to change things again?
  • What will happen when we lose the experience and history of one of the members leaving?
  • Will the new person fit in?
  • Will the leadership development provided to one or more members bear fruit?

Not knowing the answer to these and other questions and doubts lowers our ability to deal with the disruption. Or in some cases, I’ve had leaders who don’t believe there should be any disruptions and therefore have little tolerance for it.

Team renovations are disruptive. But, just like the home project, if we’ve designed well, selected the right people that fit well, and have a clear picture of how things will look and work with this new team, our ability to cope with the disruptions increases. Our ability to be patient through the disruption increases the odds of a successful renovation.

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BlogCulture

Are you fit enough to think?

by Ron Potter

I have a confession to make. I’m not fit. I’ve never been very fit. It’s just never been a priority for me.

I admire people who are fit. I don’t admire the people who have turned fitness into their religion but I do indeed admire fit people.

I’ve used many excuses through the years for not putting in the effort required to be fit. Today I’m going to share one of them.

I’ve always had a desire for learning and understanding. I’m realizing that I can do a great deal of learning but that doesn’t necessarily result in understanding. That will have to be another blog topic.

For this blog post, I’m confessing that I use my quest for learning as an excuse for not being fit. In the morning, I would rather read than exercise. When I have a moment during the day I’ll spend those spare moments reading or writing or thinking.

Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Then I noticed a picture of Rodin’s The Thinker. I’m familiar with the sculpture. I have the image in my mind of the man leaning forward, head resting on his hand, in deep thought. But I never looked closely. I know his position but I never noticed his back, his arms, his thighs, his abs. That sculpture may be one of the fittest men I have ever seen. The Thinker was fit! Incredibility fit.

I’m not going to make a resolution. I’m just not that sure of myself. But I have been inspired. The Thinker was fit. I enjoy being a thinker but I think I would enjoy being a fit thinker even more.

Hope is not a strategy. Inspiration is not a plan. At this point, I only have the inspiration. But inspirations are a required first step in meaningful changes.

What is inspiring you today? Nothing? That’s a problem. Something? Turn it into an action plan. Do something about it.

Let’s share some stories. I’ll keep you informed on mine.

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BlogLeadership

3 Ways to Develop Dynamic Change in Others

by Ron Potter

Is there a surefire, can’t-fail approach to mentoring effectively in an organizational setting? Probably not. But that should not come as a surprise because, after all, we are talking about relationships between people. However, here are some ideas, principles, and goals that will help illumine your path to a satisfying and successful mentoring experience.

1.Be an encourager

Encouragement is one of the mentor’s most powerful tools for leading another person to higher levels of personal growth. The Greek word for encouragement means “coming alongside.” This means helping another person by being right there, offering whatever assistance is required.

All of us need encouragement—a word from somebody who believes in us, stands by us, and reassures us. Encouragement renews our courage, refreshes our spirits, and rekindles our hope. Encouragement goes beyond appreciation to affirmation; we appreciate what a person does, but we affirm who a person is. Affirmation does not insist on a particular level of performance, and it is not earned.

Based on our observation, we do offer one caution related to the issue of encouragement: Many leaders themselves appear to have a low need for personal affirmation and approval and therefore have difficulty understanding the need to encourage and affirm others. If this describes you, you will need to train yourself to give what may feel like over-encouragement to others.

2.Be patient

Mentoring requires a good amount of patience from both parties. The endurance factor is quite important when the person with whom a mentor is working reacts with what might be considered a silly response (in words or actions). It takes patience to watch someone grow and develop into a better person. It takes patience to see missteps and not immediately go in and either change the behavior or solve the problem.

3. Be trustworthy

As a mentor you must exhibit integrity. The person you are mentoring will be open and vulnerable only after watching you live a consistently ethical life. Trustworthiness means being reliable, faithful, and unfailing. Trustworthy leaders are honest and transparent, committed, dedicated, and keep promises and confidences. They also have the moral courage to do the right thing and to stand up for what they believe even when it is difficult to do so.

The opportunity to mentor exists in every setting where people need to draw on one another’s talents to accomplish a goal.

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