Ron’s Short Review: “Messes are made of information and people.” The concept of messiness is guiding me through my next book about building great teams. Abby introduces us to Information Architecture. A great concept.
Ron’s Short Review: The concept is that doing small things can lead to big results. But what a slog. I don’t often give up on books but after reading for days and getting to chapter 10 which was only 20% of the way through the book, I gave up and read three other books in a few days. I think there are good nuggets and I’ll get back to it but can’t complete it now.
I recently suffered a minor heart attack during a weekend golf outing with my buddies. On my first day home my wife, daughter and I were taking an evening walk in the woods. My daughter asked me what I was feeling. Notice she didn’t ask “how” I was feeling. [future blog post?] The word that came out of my mouth was “angry”. That surprised me. I wasn’t necessarily feeling angry but when she asked what I was feeling the honest answer was angry.
It immediately reminded me of the sequence that Elisabeth Kübler-Ross taught us years ago about five stages of grief. I’ve used this sequence many times with my clients to help them understand that the stages are very natural and will happen every time we receive impactful feedback. The stages are:
- Denial/Shock
- Anger/Emotion
- Bargaining
- Depression
- Acceptance
So if I was experiencing the anger stage, that means I must have gone through the Denial/Shock stage. As I thought back it became very clear to me that as I was standing over a six foot putt for birdie on the 18th hole and experiencing chest pain I was going through the denial stage.
Image Source: RedTail Panther, Creative Commons
“I’m sure I’m just winded from the long walk up to the elevated green.”
“Actually it’s pretty hot out here, I’m probably just overheated.”
“As soon as we finish I’ll be able to get a cool drink, sit down for a while and it will all go away.”
All complete denial thoughts. I left my birdie putt a few inches short. Of course I later blamed that on my heart attack. All a natural part of the anger/emotion stage.
What’s interesting to me is that knowing the stages of grief instantly makes them easier to deal with and work through. I know that I’m yet to face the bargaining, depression and acceptance stages but it’s critically important that I eventually get to the acceptance stage because only then will I be able to take appropriate actions. The sooner I can work through the stages in a healthy way the sooner I can take actions toward a better future.
As a leader, you and your team are constantly dealing with feedback about performance both good and bad. Your job is to help your team and yourself get to the stage of positive, productive action after receiving the feedback. Knowing the stages of grief and what we will be feeling during each stage is the best way to move through the stages quickly and constructively. If you or your team reaches a point of arrested development, stuck in a particular stage, you’ll never get to the action step that comes after acceptance.
Good leaders know the stages and help their teams get to acceptance quickly. People never remember what the feedback was; they will always remember how you reacted to it.
What stage is the hardest for you or your team to get through?
What have you learned that helps you through your most difficult stage?
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) structure is made up of four pairs of functions. Together they combine for a possible 16 different preference types. Notice that I use the word “preference.” These functions have nothing to do with skill or ability, they are simply different preferences for dealing with the world around us.
Experience Preference. Let’s experience a preference in real time. Take a writing instrument and a piece of paper and sign your name to it. I know, I know, I never actually do this either when a book or blog site asks me to do it but I guarantee you will understand it better if you experience it instead of just imagining it. So pick up that pen and sign your name. Thanks.
Photo Credit: Lucas, Creative Commons
Now, put you pen in the opposite hand and sign your name again. When I do this in a team of people the room immediately fills with nervous laughter and chuckles. It can be embarrassing.
When I ask people to describe the experience of that first signature I’ll hear words like:
- Easy
- Comfortable
- Natural
- Without thinking
When I then ask them to describe the second experience (often after waiting quite a while for them to complete the task) they will use words like:
- Difficult
- Awkward
- It took longer
- I had to think through almost every letter
This is an example of your personal preference at work. Whether right handed or left, when you’re working from your preference it’s easy, comfortable, and natural and you do it without thinking. Let me suggest right here that if you’re trying to make a decision, maybe you shouldn’t do it “without thinking!” When we force ourselves (individually and collectively) to use our non-preference methods, we’re actually forcing ourselves to think more.
The best teams and leaders. Over my consulting career I have observed many teams and leaders improve their effectiveness by learning to balance their MBTI preferences. The most effective teams are the ones that, either naturally or through process balance their preference diversities and use that balance for better decision making and corporate impact. Also, the best leaders I have ever worked with seem to have no strong preferences when it comes to working with their people in spite of the fact that they and I know that they possess very strong personal preferences. Great teams and leaders have learned to balance their natural preferences.
Over the next several blogs we’ll first do an overview of each of the functions and then in subsequent blogs I’ll dig into each one in more depth with some practical applications for creating better dynamics and better decisions making.
So the Four Functions are:
1. Energizing
2. Perceiving
3. Deciding
4. Work Life
And the Three Rules are:
1. Balance
2. Balance
3. Balance
With the proper use of these four functions and three rules you’ll build better teams and become a better leader.
Many of you have shared this learning with me in numerous MBTI sessions. Share with us some of your “ah ha” moments or deeper understanding that have helped you become better leaders and team members.
Snoopy, Charlie Brown’s irrepressible dog, once lamented,
“It’s not easy being head beagle.”
And in the wake of recent moral meltdowns at both high and low levels of corporate America, Snoopy’s insight may be more on target now than ever before.
For those who still aspire to lead others well, however, the current leadership climate presents a great opportunity—especially for those who earnestly want to lead right. As never before—in all segments of society—we earnestly want to associate with people who are genuinely trustworthy.
Steve seemed to have it all. He was tough, smart, disciplined, quick on his feet, and an effective strategist. He worked hard and could match anybody’s résumé with an impressive list of business and personal skills. With all that Steve had going for him, why was he failing in his latest and greatest work assignment? Was there a way for him to pull out of his tailspin?
Image Source: The US Army, Creative Commons
Before his success in business, Steve had been an Army Ranger. Listening to Steve was like listening to a Tom Clancy audio book, only this was the actual participant reminiscing in real time. Steve’s Ranger training had prepared him to withstand almost anything, including extreme pain, in order to execute a mission. This was one sharp, strong man—Rambo in a business suit. Part of Steve’s extensive Ranger training had included instruction in being a leader at any level of organizational structure. Steve understood both giving and taking orders. He knew how to take charge, size up the situation, and go after the objective.
As part of my consulting approach, I had tested the team Steve was a part of to assess leadership performance. I’ll never forget the afternoon I met with this man who was so discouraged that his whole demeanor drooped. Steve was desperately looking for understanding and some help to regain his footing. What had pierced the strength of this highly trained, combat-proven Ranger?
Steve’s discouragement resulted from feedback he had just received from his peers on his leadership style and how it was affecting his ability to lead, to be trusted, and to be a good team member. He thought his leadership practices were sound, but his peers and those who reported to him directly saw them as oppositional, competitive, and detrimental to the team’s ability to function successfully.
Steve saw himself as a good, competent leader. Before I showed up, Steve assumed he had made all the right moves, had all the right skills, and was doing just great, thank you! Now this devastating feedback from his team told him other-wise. He knew in his heart he had the right stuff, so what was wrong?
What Steve didn’t understand is that skill is only part of the equation. He did have many solid leadership attributes: He was committed and focused, had great integrity, and could endure difficulties. What Steve didn’t understand was that some of his behavior and attitudes were offensive to coworkers. It didn’t matter to them that he was an ex-Army Ranger and had great leadership qualities and a list of achievements to show for it. To them he seemed proud. Steve didn’t understand the difference between being proud of your accomplishments and being perceived as kind of a cocky know-it-all. His air of superiority kept others from feeling they could trust him. Once Steve began to exhibit a more humble attitude in response to his teammates’ feedback and became more attentive to their accomplishments and strengths, trust began to build.
Trust is at the heart of any honest relationship.
Quality leadership is vitally important today, and many people work hard to improve their leadership skills. But all the training and technical skills, as important as they are, will not create an enduring, trusted leader.
Regardless of where you have been and what you have done—or even if you have no experience at all—you can become a leader worthy of trust.
Share with us the leadership behaviors that have prevented you from trusting.
Ron’s Short Review: 1. Be the best. 2. Be a meritocracy. 3. We’re here to make a profit. I’m not sure I agree with all of his 78 recommendations but many of them are provocative.
Ron’s Short Review: Many organizations rely on getting better, faster, and cheaper, others rely on innovation to drive growth. Both require learning.
Ron’s Short Review: When I read this book I thought I only got one point. Then I heard Marquet speak and he said “There is only one point to the book.” That made me feel better and honestly, it is one powerful point.
Ron’s Short Review: I’ve used this very little easy read with many of my clients. Life is difficult (as Scott Peck would say); do it anyway.
Ron’s Short Review: Disorder and change are the times we live in. This books helps in dealing with this new reality. This and a couple of other books like “Predictably Irrational” remind us that the world is not really the logical, orderly world that we assume (or desire) and we need to learn how to function well in an irrational, disordered world.
Image Source: damien_p58, Creative Commons
The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization
A mile marker is one of the people, events, experience, or moments of learning that when you look back have influenced, shaped, or directed you along your way. I can identify specific “markers” in my mid to late twenties that clearly lead me to the consulting/coaching business. My wife was putting together a scrap book of our early lives recently and made the comment that I must have had consulting/coaching skills as a young child based of the comments classmates had written. Mile markers are important to identify to understand our own growth, development and direction.
The Fifth Discipline was one of those books for me. I had been educated in the discipline of Project Management at the engineering school of the University of Michigan. Managing and running things was a scientific discipline that could be learned and applied to getting things done. But, right from the start I had always felt that the most productive thing I could do was to help people grow, develop, learn and help the teams function well together. I believed that if we could improve the people side of the business, the business would be successful. Here was a book that “scientifically” presented these principles in an organized form.
What are the five disciplines?
- Personal Mastery
- Mental Models
- Building Shared Vision
- Team Learning
- Systems Thinking (Fusing it all together)
For this discussion I want to focus on number five, Systems Thinking.
We tend to be aware of System Structures “out there” in the “real world”. Physical structures like a manufacturing plant are visible to us. We can see the raw materials and parts coming in one end of the plant with the finished product exiting the other end. We can see what happens when parts don’t show up on time. We can identify “bottle necks” in the system and work to alleviate the restriction. We can even see the systems that are not so physical such as cost and demand relationships. The Fed works with a “system” to determine interest rates as they try to manage (manipulate) the economic structure. But what we don’t really see or more importantly don’t believe is that our individual human behavior works in a system across our team and company. Until we can step back and see things in a systemic way, we will fail to change the behavior that is causing the bottle necks and disruptions to our peak performance.
One of the reasons we don’t see “the system” in our teams and companies is what Senge describes as “Cause and effect are not closely related in time and space”. That’s one of the reasons I like business simulations. They allow us to act out and see the system at work in a closely related time and space. That brings me to the rest of my blog title: Paper Planes and The Beer Game. But, that’s all the time and space I have for this post. Tune in to Paper Planes and Beer Games in the next post.
Ron’s Short Review: Another framework for viewing organizations and their behavior.