Tag:

Decision Making

Consensus Building

by Ron Potter March 2, 2023

I meet on a regular basis with a group of highly intelligent and successful guys. We have a name for ouselves which is SPACE CADETS. The story is too long about how we became known by that name but we’ve enjoyed it.

Our topics range across the things we’ve been thinking about: a difficult situation we find ourselves in or sometimes simply curiosity. But it often deals with how we reach consensus with our team or client. One of the definitions of consensus from Merriam-Webster is “group solidarity in sentiment and belief.” You can look up the word solidarity but it often leads back to something solid. You build something together that is solid and that you’ll all defend.

There are two words in the English language that are often associated with building consensus.

One of those words is discussion. The other word is dialogue. Most people think of a good discussion as a way to reach consensus. Most of us don’t think of the word dialogue. If fact we often mix the two words up and misunderstand their meaning.

Discussion

There are some interesting ideas that discussion is based on. They include:

Narrow focus
Debate of what is “right”
Defending certainty
Seeking closure

Notice that there is an assumed “right” and “certainty” in the word discussion. Add to that the narrow focus and seeking closure (instead of understanding) and you begin to see that discussion may not be the best approach to building consensus. One of the best definitions that I found said that the word discussion is based on the same root word as percussion. What do you think of when you think about percussion? Drums!

I played percussion in our high school band. When we were in an orchestra situation I remember our band director asking me to bring down the volume on the percussion. But when we were outdoors in marching band, it seemed like he was always asking me to raise the volume. He wanted more percussion. Discussion in an open area with lots of listeners may be useful. But in a small team setting, percussion is not useful. It seems to have all the negative aspects of the bullet list above.

Dialogue

Dialogue is very different from discussion. Dialogue is an exchange of ideas and opinions. Dialogue has some very interesting aspects that you would probably love to have in most instances. It:

Surfaces all assumptions
Names and faces defense routines
Slows down conversation to create learning and shared meaning
Suspends certainty

Suspending Assumptions

The last point in dialogue is suspending certainty. All of us have certain ideas that we feel certain about. This is natural and it’s certainly OK as long as we know they come from our own views and observations. I think we would have a tough time with life if we didn’t have things we were certain about. But it’s important that they are really our assumptions and another person (especially one with different experiences and coming up in a different culture) may see them entirely differently.

I was very fortunate that my consulting career had me working around the world and being exposed to different cultures. I remember one team that was made up of people from Spain, Italy, Germany, Sweden, and the UK. It was fascinating to see them start talking about a topic from their own culture and history. Fortunately, this was a team that respected each other and was willing to understand how the different cultures viewed certain topics.

One funny experience I remember was working with a US CEO. He had gotten tired of people being late for meetings so he instituted the rule that if you were late, you had to stand on your chair or table and sing your college fight song or country national anthem. From his point of view that would have been very humiliating. Then one day we were waiting for a meeting to start and I asked him if he saw the people standing outside the conference room door. It seems that all the Irish were waiting outside the door so they could be late and have to stand on the table and sing their national anthem. They loved it.

Suspending Assumptions II

A couple of things to think about when you’re suspending assumptions are:

Let go of your own assumptions in order to understand the assumptions of others.
When it comes to your turn, help everyone understand your assumptions and what formed them.
Move from discussion to dialogue to help everyone understand all of the assumptions so that together you can come up with the best team solution.

It’s important to remember that you won’t win every argument and your assumptions won’t carry the day in every instance. Most often one assumption persuades most of the team but is enhanced by portions of some of the other assumptions.

One way to judge your ability to do this well is how you respond to people after the decision is made. When someone (who may have been fully aware of your position before the meeting) asks you what the decision of the team was, your answer should be something like, “The team thought this was the best solution.” When the person says they know that was not your opinion prior to the meeting, say again, “The team thought it is the best solution.”

Keep in mind that we all have different assumptions. I grew up with three siblings in the same house. We have certain similarities but, as a whole, we are each very different people. You’re no better or worse than the other person, you just have different assumptions.

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Yes, yes, yes, yes!

by Ron Potter February 16, 2023

I almost always say “Yes” to anything that is asked. I’ve been guilty my whole life, especially when it comes to church. I figured that I was doing the Lord’s work so I should say “Yes” to anything and everything that was asked of me.

The problem was that I was beginning to resent the amount of work I was doing while others didn’t seem to be pulling their share. Then a wise Christian friend gave me some advice. He helped me understand that I was putting too much sweat into the projects and I was losing my joy doing them. He noted that while my effort was appreciated, I may not have been the best person doing the job. He also noted that by saying “Yes” to everything, I was likely preventing other people from participating. Good advice!

From that day forward I limited myself to two major projects at a time at church (and elsewhere). If I was asked to do more than that, my response was that I was happy to do it—which current project should I stop in order to take on the new project? Often the answer was to not stop what I was doing; they’ll find someone else to perform the task. Or if it made sense to take on the new job, the question became, “Who should take on the task I was doing in order for me to spend the time and energy on the new project?” Either answer was good. These questions often led to me doing the job that best suited me and also helped prepare other people to become more involved. Win, win.

Value Your Time and Energy

I read an article in Entrepreneur magazine by Jess Ekstrom titled “The 6 Questions I Ask Before I Say ‘Yes’ to Anything.” Here are the six questions:

1. What purpose does this serve?

If the answer is “to serve,” that’s the wrong answer. There should be purpose for what I do. Why am I doing it? Am I doing it because I believe the Lord is asking me? Am I doing it because I like to see myself as the “go-to” guy? After that talk with the wise friend, I began to think about the things I do and I began to think about why I’m doing things. When you’re young, your personal resources seem unlimited. They are not. Over a lifetime, you only have the personal resources to do a limited number of things. Make sure they count and there is a purpose for doing them.

2. Why am I afraid to say no?

I never wanted to offend people. If they asked me to do something and I said “No,” it felt like I was offending them. Then I began to analyze what happened if people said “Yes” but in the end didn’t do for me what they had said “Yes” to. I was very offended. Let your yes be yes and no be no…

3. What else could I be doing with this time?

What is your time worth? I spent about 30 years of my career working with leaders and small teams. Setting a price for my time was very difficult for me. Every time I set a fee for my work, I had this sinking feeling that I had set it too high. Would anyone be willing to pay that amount? It seemed like every time I went through that process, there was no hesitation on the client’s part.

4. Can I delegate this?

This is a tough one for individual contributors like me. After I retired, many people asked me if I had sold my business. I told them there was nothing to sell. My clients bought me, not some company. Most of this work couldn’t be delegated.

5. What is stealing my energy?

This is an interesting one for me. I traveled all over the world and always seemed to have plenty of energy. But was there anything that seemed to be stealing my energy? As I think about it there were two sources:

The title of this blog. Saying “Yes” to too many things sapped my energy.
The second one I had to learn. When I tried to do everything the business required. Once I realized that I could have someone else do a lot of the work that took time, I had some of my energy back. (Thank you, Chris.)

6. How do I refuel?

Refueling happens very simply for me. We own a cabin in the North Woods of Michigan. Once I’m there for a few days in the woods and near the water, I feel completely renewed and refueled. You’ve probably heard me talking about how important nature is. Even children who grew up in the “projects” on the south side of Chicago were happier and better adjusted if they simply had one tree outside their window. How do you refuel? This is an important question that helps us get through life better if we’ve taken enough time to understand that the thing is for us and if we use it regularly.

Do you pay attention to these six items in your life? To me the most important and overarching one is, “Let your yes be yes and your no be no.” The biblical versions (Matthew 5:37) go on to say that anything beyond this is of evil origin. Restrict your life to yes, no, and who else should be doing this other than me? Beyond that, it’s of evil origin.

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Blog Personal

Chart Your Path

by Ron Potter August 11, 2022

I met Ashira Jones many years ago and she has always been a very stimulating force in my life. I like the way she thinks and I like the way she acts. She has a blog that you can find by using her name.

Curious

This is from an old blog of hers but it seemed appropriate for my circumstances at the moment. The title is “Stay the course or chart your own path?” I mentioned that my life had become too self-centered with the illness I was dealing with. This list from Ashira is a good list about curiosity that can help you break out of that funk.

She says that if you pause to consider what you REALLY want in life, ask yourself these questions.

1. Are you where you want to be in life? If not, what’s missing?

It’s so easy to live our life by default. We roll with what comes along without thinking about what we want in life or where we should be.

I have another close friend, Fritz Seyferth. Fritz is a Team Culture Coach. His book is The Shift from Me to Team. He is an incredible consultant and has helped many people and teams better themselves. However, years ago we were talking about the percentage that really wants to get better. It was purely a guess but the consultants around the table felt that if we were moving 6% of the people to 7%, we were probably doing well. Are you a part of that 6-7% or are you just floating along? As Ashira questions, are you what you want to be in life?

2. Is lifestyle creep limiting your options?

This is an interesting point that Ashira makes. She says that lifestyle creep happens when increased income leads to discretionary spending.

It’s interesting to me because I retired (to a fixed income) several years ago. Up to the point of retirement, I never thought very much about my spending. While I didn’t get extremely extravagant, I did spend whatever I wanted whenever I wanted to without much thought. Looking back I probably should have saved more and I certainly should have given away more. Was lifestyle creep limiting my options? Yes, I let it.

3. Can you articulate your top values?

I believe my values have always been relatively clear to me. They probably could have been more focused.

Ashira talks about autonomy being at the top of her list. I can see that in her. She makes decisions that support and lives a life that supports that. That might have been one of the reasons I’ve considered her an influential force in my life.

4. What patterns do you notice in your most frequent thoughts?

When I’m sitting and staring into space, my wife will often ask me what I’m thinking. Sometimes it may take me a few minutes to put it into words but I am definitely in deep thought.

Unfortunately, I see too many people who are either afraid of being alone with their thoughts or just never developed the habit of paying attention to them. Our social media with powerful computers in our hands has given people too many distractions. It’s easy to avoid your own thoughts or spending any time contemplating what they mean to you. That’s a very dangerous place to be.

5. What are you afraid of?

Ashira makes a really good point on this subject. Fear can be very real. However, if it’s examined you’ll notice some fears are real and other fears are fake.

When I was a young engineer, one of my first jobs was walking steel (6 to 8 inches wide), sometimes as high as 200 feet in the air. There were no nets or safety belts. It was a fearful situation and the fear was real. Making a wrong turn in a car or wondering if someone else approves of your decisions can also be fearful but it’s a false fear within your own head. Be very careful of your fears. Sort them out, which are real, which are false. Life will be easier when you’re clear.

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Blog Regrets

Regrets – Boldness

by Ron Potter March 24, 2022

In Daniel Pink’s latest book, The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward, Pink lists four core regrets:

While I haven’t fully read this book yet, it seems like the perfect next sequence after the series of being afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down that I recently wrote from Paul’s ancient text to the people of Corinth.

In this second of Pink’s regrets, Boldness talks about the lack of boldness to “accomplish a few important goals within the limited spat of a single life.” This lack of boldness seems a lot more urgent at age 74 than it did at age 24. That’s not unexpected because of the age difference but it’s important to be aware that accomplishing some things will only happen at a younger age. At some point, it becomes obvious that there is just not enough time to accomplish some things that you had intended to accomplish all of your life. So it’s important to begin those things that you would like to or intend to accomplish in your life when there is still time to accomplish them.

Why Boldness?

It takes boldness to start early because:

It’s difficult to carve out the time to accomplish something out of the ordinary when it seems like your everyday life is overtaking you at the moment.
It also means that we must overcome the fear of failure when we start a new venture early in life.

You might be saying to yourself, “I’ll be more equipped to do something bold when I have a little more experience.” Or you might be thinking, “Once I get through the busy part of my life I’ll have more time to dedicate to that bold idea.”

Looking Back

The subtitle of Pink’s book is “How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward.” This seems evident to me now that I’m in my mid-70s. It’s easy to say that “This is something I might have accomplished 50 years ago.” It’s more difficult to think that I should have started five years ago. There’s still a lot of time left to step out and accomplish that bold idea. After all, if I could accomplish the task in 40 years, I could surely accomplish it in 35 years. This is just an excuse for not stepping out in boldness and pretty soon that 35 years turns into 30 years until it’s too late to accomplish it at all.

I have a grandson who is a world-class bicyclist and I would like to go riding with him. But today that would be impossible. And yet, I’ve seen some 70-year-olds who could at least stay with him for a while. The difference is they started when they were young. They didn’t put it off.

Moving Forward

Plan. Start. You want to be better athletically, pick your sport and start today. You want to be better at chess, start today. You want to be healthier, start today. Whatever it is, start today. Don’t put it off until next year or when you turn 40 or sometime in the future. Don’t put it off. Don’t expect to accomplish your end goal immediately. Start small. Pink says “accomplish a few important goals.”

This means you know what is important. This means you’ve planned. This means you’ve taken that first step today. You’ll be able to look back a year from now and be astonished at how far you’ve come. You’ll be amazed at what it looks like in a decade or two. But if you don’t start today, you’ll be looking back on that year, decade, two decades from now thinking “what if?” Or thinking “I could have.”

Decide, Plan, Start

First, you need to decide what will be important to you.

Then, you need to build a plan for accomplishing your goal.

Finally, start today. Just small steps. But start!

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Blog Regrets

Regrets – Foundational

by Ron Potter March 17, 2022

A friend of mine recently sent me Daniel Pink’s latest book, The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward. (Thanks, Chris.)

While I haven’t fully read this book yet, it seems like the perfect next sequence after the series of being afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down.

Four Core Regrets

Let’s take a look at the Four Core Regrets that Pink identifies:

Foundation

Foundational regrets begin with an irresistible lure and end with inexorable logic.

Boldness

At the heart of all boldness regrets is the thwarted possibility of growth. The failure to become the person—happier, braver, more evolved—one could have been. The failure to accomplish a few important goals within the limited span of a single life.

Moral

Deceit. Infidelity. Theft. Betrayal. Sacrilege. Sometimes the moral regrets people submitted to the surveys read like the production notes for a Ten Commandments training video.

Connection

What gives our lives significance and satisfaction are meaningful relationships. But when those relationships come apart, whether by intent or inattention, what stands in the way of bringing them back together are feelings of awkwardness. We fear that we’ll botch our efforts to reconnect, that we’ll make intended recipients even more uncomfortable. Yet these concerns are almost always misplaced.

Unavoidable Foundation Regrets

We start with the foundational regrets. Like the issues identified in Paul’s letter to the people of Corinth in the last several blogs, these seem to be unavoidable. I believe I am an honorable person with good intent. But as I look back over my life, the first thing that comes to mind is my many regrets. I am reminded of regrets in each of the four core regrets identified by Pink.

Irresistible Lure. Irresistible means impossible. Have you been drawn to something that just seems irresistible? Fortunate for me, immoral things haven’t been irresistible. However, two material things have seemed irresistible to me. One is a nice car. I’m not talking about super-expressive cars but I am talking about the top-of-the-line American cars. I decided with my first new car in 1969 that I was not going to resist a new car every three years. Both of my daughters and sons-in-law find that rather extravagant because they are into decent used cars.
My other irresistible lure has been nice watches. I think it was because my father bought my first new all-electric watch for my high school graduation. I’ve been in love with nice watches ever since.
Inexorable Logic. The word inexorable means impossible to stop or prevent. I have been a very logical person all my life. I can convince myself of almost anything. The logic of my own reasoning becomes so strong and sound that it becomes almost impossible to resist or deny. Unlike automobiles where I made the illogical decision to lease a new car every three years (knowing it is illogical), I talk myself into the new watch with pure logic (or at least I think so).

Convincing Ourselves

My regrets tend to be more materialistic. But I know that some people deal with immoral issues. Like the new car in my case, I openly admit that a new car every three years doesn’t make sense. But if you reached an immoral decision and don’t openly admit it as being immoral, then it tends toward the evil side of human behavior. You know that it’s immoral but you decide to do it anyway.

For those issues where you’re convinced in your mind (through logic or ignorance), you need that trusted friend who is capable of saying to you, “You know that’s wrong, don’t you?”

Dealing with Foundational Regrets

Don’t be evil. The world knows it, and more importantly, you know it. Evil will eat at your character and humaneness. Evil will become one of the more painful things in your life.

Don’t let your bad logic overcome your wisdom. You need that trusted friend who will say, “You know what you’re doing is wrong and unwise.” Listen to them. Examine yourself and your motives. Allow them to be that trusted friend you need.

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Blog Culture

Humans Project in Straight Lines

by Ron Potter January 6, 2022

“It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.” ~ Mark Twain

A friend of mine who recently retired and is now fighting cancer said to me the other day: You said something to me years ago that has helped me tremendously through these hard times. I immediately wonder what I might have said years ago that is having that kind of impact today. He then explained. You once said to me that the human mind projects in straight lines but nothing in the world runs in a straight line. I do remember learning and saying that. If things were going well, my mind assumed they would continue to improve. If things were going poorly, my mind assumed things would continue to get worse. It never works out that way.

Straight Line Projections

K&E Company (the makers of high-end slide rules) did a visionary study on their hundredth anniversary in 1967. I was a sophomore in college and did all of my calculations on a K&E slide rule. Their study missed the coming electronic calculator. K&E shut down their slide rule engravers in 1976.
A late 60″s prediction was cheap energy forever. The oil embargo happened in 1973.
By the late 80’s economic growth based on new industries and discoveries looked dim. Netscape went public with their internet browser in 1995.
People tend to overestimate what they’re experiencing at the moment and undervalue the possibilities in the future. This reinforces Mark Twain’s quote that it’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.

Straight Lines Tend To Be Short

It’s OK to make predictions and decisions based on how things are going today. The mistake that most leaders make is assuming that the trajectory they are on (up or down) will last longer than it ever does.

I’ve seen many examples of this during my consulting career. I’ll have to be careful telling about one example because if people know that industry, they’ll know which company I’m talking about. In this example, the particular company had been the industry leader for over a hundred years. They made the best and highest quality product within the industry. They assumed that trend would continue and made plans and decisions based on the fact that the public would always purchase the highest quality product available. But the buying public is finicky. They actually changed their behavior and started purchasing less expensive products in large numbers.

I watched another client struggle with losing customers. When the leaders asked some of their key employees why they were losing market share, the answer was “customers don’t see us as a nutritious option anymore.” The leaders discounted their own employees by proclaiming that their products have been seen and promoted as a nutritious project for over a hundred years. That couldn’t have changed overnight. But it had changed overnight while the leaders were still projecting in straight lines based on the past.

This last example is not about a particular company but an entire industry. Many of my clients through the years have been in the pharmaceutical industry. The pharma industry may be one of the riskiest industries in existence. They will often take several years and invest nearly a billion dollars bringing a drug to market only to have it fail to pass human trials or FDA approval at the last minute. I can’t think of any other industry that takes that kind of risk.

I’m going to make a political statement here that I often avoid. There has been a lot of discussion from our government on price controls. It’s not a price control issue, it’s a trade issue. Nearly all other countries in the world do put price controls on drugs. This leaves the United States carrying the burden of the cost of development. If the US also puts price controls in place, there will be no further development of new drugs. Let’s fix the trade issue and have other countries pay their fair share of development.

Once a new drug has been accepted and makes it to the marketplace, there are a limited number of years left on the original patent for the company to earn back the high cost of development. Once a drug goes off-patent and becomes generic, I’ve seen many companies assume that the brand name drug sales still have a life that will tail off slowly. It never does. Once a generic is available, sales of the brand name drug drop to zero almost immediately. Thinking in straight lines can be deadly.

What’s a Leadership Team To Do?

It can be difficult for leaders and leadership teams to not get caught in the straight line syndrome. Here are a couple of ways to avoid that issue:

Listen to the outlier. When there is an outlier on the team their opinion is often discounted. It’s just easier to go with the majority rather than reconcile the outlier’s thoughts. Don’t do that. Listen to what they have to say. Listen with the intent to understand rather than reply. Don’t try to fit their thinking into your view of the world. Listen to how they see the world differently.
Nurture new and inexperienced employees to look at things differently. People from different disciplines view things differently. Listen to how they see the issue. Inexperienced employees often have the freshest views on things. They don’t know what they don’t know yet. They often ask interesting, novel, and surprising questions that experienced people have forgotten.
Listen to experts carefully. “Experts” know the answers they’re looking for and discount new ideas and outliers. We need our experts. But don’t just assume that their answers and opinions are right or the final answer. They know what they’re looking for and discount answers and opinions that don’t agree with their preconceived ideas.

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Blog Team

Reality Is Constructed By Our Brain

by Ron Potter December 2, 2021

Neuroscientist Patrick Cavanagh says that “It’s really important to understand we’re not seeing reality, we’re seeing a story being created for us.”

Brain Stories

What actually creates these stories? It’s our backgrounds, beliefs, assumptions that have been formed throughout our lifetime. Dr. Cavanagh says that “Our brains bend our perception of reality to meet our desires or expectations. They fill the gaps using our past experiences.”

Our brains see what we expect them to see. I’ve talked before about how our backgrounds and experiences form our belief systems so that we see what we want or expect to see. Remember the professor in Florida who had his class write down everything they could remember about the shuttle explosion that had occurred the day before? He collected all of their handwritten reports and then tracked down as many of them as he could several years later. Not one of them agreed with what they had written because their memory was different.

One student actually read his 14 written pages very carefully and then totally rejected it. He said the report was not correct then proceeded to tell the professor what “really” happened that day. His mind had created its own reality in spite of what he had written down at the moment.

Curious About Our Brain Stories

If we know that our brain tends to make up stories so that we see and hear what we desire, shouldn’t we be curious enough to explore what the reality is compared to our brain story?

It’s when we don’t have that curiosity about our brain story and simply accept our perception as the reality that creates problems as leaders and team members.

Intellectual Humility

In a Vox article, Brian Resnick said “Intellectual humility: the importance of knowing you might be wrong.”

This is a great statement: knowing that you might be wrong.

The first part of that statement is “knowing”. We all assume that our view of the world and circumstances is “correct”. However, if we mature in our thinking we begin to understand that our view or opinion is firmly rooted in the experiences and history that we have lived. Having respect for others indicates that we’re beginning to learn that their view or opinion is also firmly rooted in their experiences and history. And just like snowflakes, no two human beings have exactly the same experiences.

The second part of the statement is knowing that we might be wrong. I don’t believe that one set of experiences is right and one is wrong. I simply believe they are each unique. Building great teams starts with this premise. With full respect, we start sharing the different opinions and beliefs that we each hold. Once we’ve shared and understood, it’s then possible for the team to develop a unique response to the situation that belongs to the team. Not an individual.

Team Unity

It’s when a team reaches this unity that they really begin to become a team. They made the decision together. They each had a different view coming into the discussion. But they come out with a decision that the entire team supports. Even when others remind us that we had a very different opinion going into the team discussion we can honestly say, “that’s true, I did have a different opinion but as I heard each of the different opinions and listened with respect, we were able to make a team decision that I completely support.”

Team decisions that are made after each person has been listened to, understood, and respected for their opinions are the strongest types of decisions. Team members all support the decision and people around the team can easily see the commitment to the decision and the trust and respect they have for each other. This kind of team can lead a company to new heights.

Try it. It really works!

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Blog Culture

Are You a Hedgehog or a Fox?

by Ron Potter October 14, 2021

Years ago I was working with a client in Scotland. It was mid-June so the days were very long. Because Scotland is so far north the sun rises at about 4:30 in the morning. This allowed me to play nine holes of golf before my meetings started. While I was on one hole a small hedgehog came walking out from a nearby woodpile. He seemed oblivious to my presence and walked right into the line of my pending putt. I reached out with my putter and “patted” him on the rear end assuming he would scamper off the green. Instead, he curled tightly up into a ball and held his defensive position. I watched him for a few minutes but he never came out of his defensive ball. I then took my putter, treated him like a golf ball, and putted him off the green. After a few minutes, he got up a scampered off.

So when I saw the Wall Street Journal titled, “The Hedgehogs of Critical Race Theory”, I was intrigued.

Archilochus

Archilocus was a Greek poet and philosopher who said, “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing”. The WSJ article says that the political philosopher Isaiah Berlin wrote an essay in 1953 suggesting that the world was divided between hedgehogs and foxes. He identified Karl Marx as a supreme hedgehog and Franklin Roosevelt as a restlessly improvising fox.

The WSJ article expresses that the world’s hedgehog population tends to expand in times of stress and change. Lately, it has exploded in the U.S. with all of them advancing One Big Thing or another, each peering through the lens of a particular obsession. (Italics are mine)

The theologian Richard Niebuhr, explained it this way: “There is no greater barrier to understanding than the assumption that the standpoint which we happen to occupy is a universal one.”

Barrier to Understanding

Do you want to understand or would you rather stick with your hedgehog approach to one big standpoint? This is the difference between normal teams and great teams.

In great teams, everyone suspends their opinions and standpoints for a moment while they attempt to completely understand each members’ viewpoints. This requires that we listen to understand rather than listening to respond.

It’s a natural human trait to keep score in our head of the issues that we agree with and disagrees with while another person is explaining their viewpoint. STOP IT! It does take a great deal of energy and discipline to fully listen with the intent to understand where the other person is coming from and what is forming their opinion. It takes hard work.

Work at it! It will make you a better person and a better team.

Koosh Ball

A colleague called me the other day and asked if I had ever dealt with someone that was so convinced that their opinion and perspective was right that they never stopped talking or interrupting. And if so, how did I deal with it? My answer was a Koosh ball.

It was an exercise I often used when we had a “talker” on the team. The rules were simple:

Only the person who was in the possession of the Koosh ball could speak.
When that person was done expressing their opinion and perspective they would then decide who the Koosh ball was tossed to next.

Two things I often observed was the the “talker” still needed a signal to stop talking even though they knew the rules. I often had to put my hand up to cut them off and remind them that their job was to fully understand the perspective of the talking person. They still seemed to have a difficult time. It took hard work on everyone’s part.

The other thing I often observed was that the team was so tired of constantly hearing the talker, they would toss to anyone other than the talker. It became obvious that we were hearing the other’s perspective for the first time. Very refreshing and very empowering to everyone.

Opinion and Perspective

It’s OK to have clear and powerful opinions and perspectives. However, don’t assume that each person sees that same universe. Every person is unique and comes from individual experiences and understandings. Just look at your own family. I have three siblings. We grew up in the same household with the same parents and were only a few years apart. And yet, each of us had very unique experiences and developed a unique set of values.

That is why great teams outperform average teams and individuals. Pulling all of those experiences and unique views of the world together into a team decision is very powerful. If you haven’t experienced that, I hope you do someday.

It’s incredibly satisfying.

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Blog Leadership

The Decisions You Make Determine the Kind of Team You Are.

by Ron Potter September 16, 2021

This is oversimplified, but you can boil the purpose of most teams down to:

Leadership Teams
Management Teams

Leadership teams provide vision and mission and deal with the difficult issue of dilemmas. Management teams make the tough choices of executing the vision and mission in the most cost-effective manner.

If you’re not dealing with dilemmas, you’re not a leadership team

Most management teams are dealing with right vs wrong issues. The answers may be difficult and the team may be divided, but in the end, they can be categorized as right vs wrong.

Dilemma issues are very different. They deal with right vs right issues. For instance, almost all leadership teams deal with short-term vs long-term. Should they deal with both? Yes. But often, the resources needed to give both fronts adequate support are not available. So they now face a dilemma.

Should they apply the available resources to deal with their short-term issues? Yes!
Should they invest in the long-term success of the company? Yes!
Are there enough resources to do both? No!

They are now faced with a dilemma. Both answers are yes; they just don’t have the resources to do both. Which option do they invest in?

Horns of a Dilemma

The origin of the word dilemma is delaminated. This refers to the horns of a bull that are laminated. Thus, when you’re in a dilemma, you’re being forced to pick one horn or the other, knowing that you’re still going to get gored by the opposite horn.

If you decide to put your available resources toward fixing and supporting the short-term, the long-term issues are going to gore you. Or visa versa.

The issue for leadership teams is to be transparent about their decisions and document, document, document. It’s all too easy for someone to second guess the team’s decision when the other option is goring them.

When dilemmas are not being handled in a completely transparent way or there is inadequate documentation, someone will be thinking or saying, “The Leadership Team should have seen this coming and given it the adequate resources to prevent this mess (being gored).” The truth is that they did, but they were faced with right vs right choices and those issues are much more challenging than right vs wrong issues.

If your leadership team is not dealing with right vs right issues, they’re a management team!

Personal Dilemma

I am currently facing a genuine personal dilemma. I have a liver disease called NASH. The first two letters stand for non-alcoholic. My liver scars over as if I’ve been a heavy drinker all my life and begins to shut down even though I don’t drink any alcohol.

Trying to understand the issues I face as my liver continues to fail, I’ve spoken with two heart transplant surgeons that I know. Even though they are separated by geography, they both gave me the same answer. I’ll have to choose between a liver transplant or continue to treat and deal with the symptoms of a failing liver. But they both said there is no right answer. Either way will produce difficult issues that I’ll have to face and deal with the best I can. But while there is no right answer, they both advised me that I must come to peace with the direction I choose.

At that point, it hit me. I’m dealing with a very real, very impactful, very difficult decision. I’m facing a dilemma. And the only advice the surgeons could offer me was to be at peace with the decision that I make.

Leadership Teams

Leadership Teams face the same issue. They must reach a certain level of peace with their decision, knowing full well that at some point they’re going to get gored by the other option.

This is a very difficult task. It’s difficult to deal with it on a personal level. It’s maybe even more difficult to deal with it on a team level. Getting the entire team to be at peace with the decision takes a great deal of patience, openness, confidence, and trust.

It’s hard work! But it’s the only way that Leadership Teams fulfill their mission of guiding the company through dilemmas.

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Blog Leadership

PREgret

by Ron Potter May 20, 2021

Years ago I was thinking about the regrets in my life. I was asking myself if there were things I should have or could have done to eliminate or reduce the number of regrets. As I was thinking about the topic, I notice a familiar pain in my sternum. I began to realize that I had a physical manifestation when I regretted something I had said or done. I began to ask people I knew where their regret pain manifested itself.

Where is the pain?

Everyone seemed to have a different answer. I heard locations like:

Neck
Shoulders
Forehead
The base of the skull
Forearms
etc.

The answers were many and varied, but the pain was a given. No one questioned the pain itself, they just had different answers of where it was located.

“Listen” to the pain

If the pain always shows up somewhere, become familiar with it. The pain can and will become very familiar. If the pain is present and identifiable, you will “know” you are in one of those moments that will result in regret. Here’s the key, “will result in regret”.

Regret Pre-Indicator

Through experience, I began to learn that the pain was a precursor of regretful actions. I eventually read some science about how these neurotransmitters work and indeed, there is an early warning system. That means that the pain you become familiar with is actually a precursor to the thing you’re about to do or say will cause regret— PREgret!

I don’t know if this is a good thing or bad thing but I have become so aware of my “regret pain” that it often triggers a debate in my head:

You’re about to say something that you’re going to regret.

I know, but I think it needs to be said.

But you will regret it! Maybe you should just back off a minute.

But it needs to be said. I’m going to say it anyway.

REGRET

Where does it hurt?

Become familiar with your “regret” pain. If you tune into it, you’ll have a lot fewer regrets in life.

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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 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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