Ron’s Short Review: While this book was written for the Chrisian audience, the principles apply directly to any Leadership Team. You’ll have no trouble translating them directly to the corporate environment.
Ron’s Short Review: Outstanding book. Being from the Detroit area and working around the auto industry, I had heard most of the stories (except those about the Ford Family), but Hoffman really puts them together well. Mulally really puts team first and you can see how that attitude saved Ford during some of the toughest days in its history. Every leader, present or future should learn from this book.
I read Jeffrey Katsenberg’s book, “Hard Things About Hard Things.”
I just listened to Ruth Chan’s TED talk, “Hard Choices.”
So here’s the Hard Thing about Hard Choices:
Ruth explains that any choice that can be quantified is an easy choice because all numeric values can be related to each other based on their comparative amounts but hard choices are based on values.
Values can’t be quantified and compared to each other. Values are based on who we are and who we want to be. Ruth goes on to look at the dilemma from a person’s point of view and concludes that taking the quantitative approach is the safest way out. Making a value based decision forces us to choose who we want to be. I agree. This is a great personal growth philosophy.
But here’s the hard part: I work with corporate leadership teams where I help individuals make their own personal value and growth decisions through my personal coaching. The problem is we also have to make hard team decisions.
I believe most corporate teams fool themselves into believing they only make logical, fact based decisions or believe all decisions can be reduced to a number exercise so that the >=< analysis can be made. But as Ruth explains, hard choices are not quantitative in nature; they’re value based.
So how do you get a bunch of MBA trained financial experts, engineers, marketers, and scientists to make the hard choices based on value?
You need to build team.
Not just a team with defined roles and responsibilities, not just a team with clearly defined interfaces and decision gates. Not just a team of various functions that get together to discuss and coordinate the business. Not a team, but TEAM!
Teams are built on respect and trust. Teams honor and appreciate the diversity of thinking, attitudes, and beliefs that we bring to the table. Teams know who we are and what shapes us and what values we hold dear and what values we won’t violate.
These teams are fully capable of making the hard decisions and are fully capable of making them work.
If you want to build a great company, build a great TEAM.
Have you been fortunate enough to be part of a great team? Share with us how that happened. What made it work? What’s keeping your current team from being a great team?
What are you willing to pay for?
Maybe it’s that nicer car or maybe just the nicer option package on the car you’ve already decided to buy.
Maybe it’s shopping at Whole Foods versus another grocery store.
Maybe it’s those concert tickets in the center stage seats.
There are certain things beyond our necessities that we’re willing to pay for. But why? That less expensive car still gets you from point A to point B. Sitting farther back at the concert may even provide better sound. So why do we pay for these items? Perceived value!
Image Source: 401(k), Creative Commons
We’re willing part with our hard earned resources because our perception is that it will provide us with value that we appreciate.
Have you noticed that from our elementary school days, we’ve been told to pay attention! Why do we have to pay to give someone our attention? Because it takes focus, concentration, discipline, and, most importantly, there will be a value received for the price paid.
Therein lies the problem. If we don’t actually believe that we’ll learn something by paying attention or that the other person has nothing of value to offer, we’re not willing to pay. This relates closely to another blog I wrote about listening with the intent to understand. If we’re not willing to discipline ourselves to truly understand the other person or pay to give someone our attention then we’re exposing our own ego and arrogance.
When our ego and arrogance is the driving force behind our inability to understand another person or we’re not willing to pay the price of granting another person our attention, we’ve violated the first principle of great leadership: humility.
When great leaders are willing to work from a foundation of humility by offering to pay to give others their attention in order to truly understand the other person, they begin to create a culture that develops great teams that are able to grow together to generate a synergy that surpasses their own expectations.
Be willing to pay attention, you’ll be blown away by the value you’ll receive.
I think of doctors in clinical environments. I consider my cardiologist one of the best doctors I’ve ever had because while he is with me it seems that I’m the only thing that matters to him. Although I know he is paying a great price by giving me his attention and not being distracted by all of the commotion going on outside the room. I appreciate the price he pays.
Share with us about the time when someone paid the price to give you their attention.
I just love Scrat, the saber-tooth squirrel from the Ice Age movies. He always creates some minor little crack that looks harmless, but as the crack propagates, it begins to create all kinds of havoc in his world with major consequences. Such ‘cracks’ can be destructive and debilitating in corporations.
Image Source: Lars Hammer, Creative Commons
I was working with a couple major functional divisions within one corporation, trying to do some team building. These functions needed to cooperate with each other in order for the company to be healthy and thrive, they just couldn’t seem to get along. After a few of the normal approaches to overcome differences didn’t seem to produce any progress, I began to dig deeper.
The story that began to emerge was that the people in the functions had no problem working with each other and, in fact, preferred it. The problem was that their top leaders wouldn’t allow or, more impact-fully, didn’t want the cooperation to happen.
When I sat down with the first of the two senior VP’s that were responsible for one of the functions and asked about the oppositional position he had with the other senior VP, his response was, “Oh, there’s no opposition between us. We worked that out long ago.” I thought great, an answer exists, we just need to get the message down to the functions. So I asked, “Tell me about the solution the two of you worked out.” His response? “We simply agreed to disagree!” Well, that was very gentlemanly (and lady like in this case) of him but very destructive.
The difference between them didn’t go away, but like Scrat’s minor crack, propagated deeply into the organization. As I would talk to members down in either organization, they knew that their ultimate bosses disagreed and many of them took it on as their job to make sure the other function failed in a belief that their particular boss would be vindicated or somehow pleased.
Senior leaders cannot agree to disagree. They must build consensus. (More about how to build consensus later.) They’re part of a leadership team. If members of a team agree to disagree, there is no team.
Have you experienced a peer who just didn’t agree with you but was also unwilling to even work on the issue, preferring to agree to disagree?
How has disagreement of leaders above you on the org. chart impacted how you work with your peers?
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.
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.
I’ve learned this concept from Chris McGoff. In his book, The Primes: How Any Group Can Solve Any Problem
I’m not trying to be morbid here, but what do the following words have in common?: pesticide, homicide, suicide, genocide? They all end in “cide.” In Latin, the word means kill, killer, murderer, to cause death. One of my clients who was a Latin student said there was even an indication of public execution—to put to death publicly.
So, if we go back to our word decide, it doesn’t mean to figure out what to do, it means to figure out what to kill.
If leaders and teams would actually start killing off the options or directions they’ve decided not to pursue, a great amount of resources could be saved and redirected toward the chosen path.
When you must decide, figure out what you’re going to kill and publicly execute it.
Image Source: Brandon Doran
All too often, we decide what we’re going to do and we muster the resources to pursue that option. But no one tells the many people down through the organization what to stop doing. And in fact, there’s lots of momentum in the life of the organization for people to continue doing what they’ve been doing over the last several months or years. If you don’t publicly execute that work, they’ll naturally continue to do it.
As I was working through this concept with one of my clients, one team member said, “But we’re really good at prioritizing our work.” And she was right. The organization was really good at knowing which issues should receive top priority and the most resources. But as we continued to pursue the concept, it became painfully obvious how many resources were being applied to extremely low priority items. In fact, by deciding to kill off those low priority items it was astounding how many resources would be freed up to concentrate on the things that really need to be accomplished.
When faced with a team or leadership decision, decide what to kill and then publicly execute it and you’ll be amazed at how many more resources you have available to pursue the path of success.
Why do we have such a hard time killing off projects, initiative, lines of work or almost anything that people have been dedicating their time to? I can think of several reasons but what’s your experience? Share with us.
Ron’s Short Review: We seem to be very aware of the right brain, left brain concept. This book gives us a little more balanced view by explaining that the right/left sides are always working together and a better concept is to look at what the top brain, bottom brain do differently. Very interesting.
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: No organization has ever been managed out of a crises, they have all been led. Sinek brings a great view of leadership.
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.