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The Work Paradox: More Play, Less Pain

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“In a culture that sometimes equates work with suffering, it is revolutionary to suggest that the best inward sign of vocation is deep gladness—revolutionary but true.” ~ Parker Palmer, The Courage to Teach

People prefer leisure to work—no surprise there. What is surprising is that they report more optimal feelings of being “in the zone” when engaged in work.

This strange, yet revealing, paradox may explain why so many U.S. retirees experience depression and ultimately return to work.

While we clearly associate leisure with pleasure, we seem to have an unwarranted prejudice against work: We automatically associate it with pain. This belief is so deeply rooted that it distorts our perceptions of actual experiences. It’s a learned response that severely limits our potential for happiness at work.

To achieve professional satisfaction, you must experience—and consciously record—the positive emotions you feel on the job.

Finding Flow

Claremont Graduate University Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was one of the first psychologists to study the concept of “flow.”

Flow occurs when we are fully immersed in a task, enjoying ourselves while performing our best. It can happen anywhere, anytime. We experience it when we participate in sports and hobbies. More frequently, our flow experiences occur during periods of peak performance at work.

When we fail to recognize pleasurable moments at work, focusing solely on the negative, we miss out on experiencing more happiness and satisfaction. Each of us must find ways to extract more meaning and fulfillment from the “daily grind.”

It’s often a matter of reframing situations and changing the way we speak about our tasks and responsibilities. Other times, we can devise games and turn work into play. Some people find it helpful to ask a trusted peer to serve as an accountability partner, working toward concrete goals and milestones.

Action Steps

Reflection and action yield meaning and energy. Harvard University Continuing Education Professor Tal Ben-Shahar combines these two powerful learning tools into one concept: “ReflAction.”

In his excellent book, Even Happier: A Gratitude Journal for Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment, Dr. Ben-Shahar urges readers who seek happiness to record their experiences and ideas in a journal. In addition, work with an accountability partner to become more mindful of moments of gratitude.

Even Happier features numerous exercises that can be used in groups, book clubs, seminars or workplaces.

Lifelong Learning

The happiest, most successful people are lifelong learners, according to numerous research studies. Learners constantly ask questions and find a sense of wonder in the world.

Recall the wonder and enthusiasm you enjoyed at the beginning of your career. If you’ve lost some of the proverbial “lovin’ feeling” (and most people have), recapture it by initiating an education program of your choosing. Your program should include two categories:

1. Personal development

2. Professional enrichment

Commit to learning material that will benefit you currently and in the future. Be sure to allocate regular time in your schedule for continuing education.

If you don’t know where to start, pick up a copy of 25 Days to Better Thinking and Better Living: A Guide for Improving Every Aspect of Your Life, by Drs. Linda Elder and Richard Paul. Read one chapter each week as part of your personal-development commitment.

For professional enrichment, seek out a mentor you trust, and ask him/her to join you for lunch. You can also hire a coach to help you improve on the job or attend a seminar on the latest developments in your field.

Think about the relationships among all of these activities. What makes them enjoyable? Is there any overlap between the personal and professional? If so, can you identify a common theme in both “work” and “play” that you enjoy?

Making Work More Like Play

Thriving at work allows you to do so at home and at play. There’s really no need to separate the two worlds, according to neuroscientist and “play researcher” Stuart Brown, MD, who describes their strong correlation in his book Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul.

When you feel the temptation to complain about work, stop yourself. Rephrase what you were about to say by focusing on the more interesting parts of your day. Make an active effort to recognize and record the positive aspects of your job so you can experience more pleasure and flow.

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Why Do Leaders Deceive Themselves?

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The secret of rulership is to combine a belief in one’s own infallibility with the power to learn from past mistakes. ~ George Orwell

As much as we’d like to believe that we’re rational human beings, we can all too easily mislead ourselves. Self-deception is a process that encourages us to justify our false and invalid beliefs.

Individuals, organizations and communities experience self-deception — the root of most problems, according to the Arbinger Institute, a Utah-based consulting firm. It’s human nature to blame others, externalize causes and deny our role in organizational struggles. This tendency is so pervasive that few of us escape its reach, and self-deception intrudes into every aspect of our lives. Nowhere is it more destructive than at the top of the leadership food chain.

You’ll find that self-deception:

  • Obscures the truth about yourself
  • Corrupts your view of others and your circumstances
  • Destroys your credibility and the trust others have in you
  • Inhibits your ability to persuade others
  • Thwarts wise decision-making

 

Fortunately, recognizing this leadership trap can inoculate you against its consequences. If, however, you believe that guarding yourself against wishful thinking will prevent self-deception, you may be in for a bumpy ride. Ongoing vigilance is required to preserve immunity, note Arbinger’s experts in Leadership and Self-Deception. Awareness will:

  • Sharpen your vision
  • Reduce feelings of conflict
  • Enliven the desire for teamwork
  • Redouble accountability
  • Enhance your ability to achieve results
  • Boost job satisfaction and overall happiness

 

Are You “In” or “Out” of the Box?

Leadership and Self-Deception features an entertaining story about an executive who is facing challenges at work and home. His exploits expose the psychological processes that conceal our true motivations and intentions from us and trap us in a “box” of endless self-justification. Most importantly, the book shows us the way out.

When you’re “in the box,” you are speaking with your interests and goals in mind. Through the lens of self-justification, you’ll find external factors and other people to blame. You’ll deny responsibility for problems and fail to identify your part in perpetuating them. In your interactions, you’ll try to change other people and convince them to do what you would do.

When you’re “out of the box,” there’s room for openness, authenticity, and interest in and empathy for other people. You’ll seek the true basis for problems, including your own participation. You’ll be less interested in assigning blame or judgment, or being locked into unproductive battles.

Confidence Games

One of the most documented findings in psychology is the average person’s ability to believe extremely flattering things about himself. We generally think that we possess a host of socially desirable traits and that we’re free of the most unattractive ones.

Most people deem themselves to be:

  • More intelligent than others
  • More fair-minded
  • Less prejudiced
  • Better drivers

 

While confidence and a fair view of one’s capabilities and strengths are essential, overconfidence and an elevated sense of worth lead to fragile relationships. When we focus on proving ourselves, we spend far too much time on defending and justifying our behavior. We cut ourselves off from opportunities to understand our colleagues. Our ego prevents us from communicating an interest in others. In other words, we lack empathy.

The vast majority of people attribute their successes to themselves and their failures to external circumstances. This self-serving bias is a feeble attempt to positively reinforce our sense of worthiness and self-esteem.

Our preferred perceptions lead us to test hypotheses that are slanted toward our chosen direction. By consulting the “right” people, we increase our chances of hearing what we want to hear.

We’re not consciously distorting information, but we have considerable opportunities to jiggle various criteria and arrive at conclusions that favor our biases.

Managerial Self-Deception

Try telling a colleague or subordinate that he has a problem, and the depth of his self-deception will become clear.

Helping others see what they’re unwilling to recognize is a widespread leadership challenge. It’s especially tricky when we observe it in others, yet are unable to acknowledge it in ourselves.

In business psychology, the prevailing wisdom has assumed that a high degree of self-confidence leads to promotions and leadership success. New studies, however, prove otherwise, writes business psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic in Less-Confident People Are More Successful (Harvard Business Review blog, July 2012).

A moderately low level of self-confidence is more likely to make you successful, Dr. Chamorro-Premuzic asserts. Don’t confuse this with a very low degree of self-confidence. Excessive fear, anxiety and stress will inhibit performance, impede decision-making and undermine interpersonal relationships.

But low-enough self-confidence can work in your favor because it:

  1. Makes you pay attention to negative feedback and be self-critical. This means you’re open to learning and improving. Most of us tend to listen to feedback and ignore the negative in favor of the positive. If you want to overcome deficits, you must listen to both positive and negative comments.
  2. Motivates you to work harder and prepare more effectively. If you really want to achieve leadership success, you will do whatever it takes to bridge the gap between the status quo and your professional goals. 
  3. Reduces your chances of coming across as arrogant or delusional. People with lower levels of self-confidence are more likely to admit their mistakes instead of blaming others — and they rarely take credit for others’ accomplishments. 

 

If you’re serious about becoming a strong leader, lower self-confidence can serve as a strong ally, inspiring you to work hard, conquer limitations and, put simply, avoid being a jerk.

Inspired Leadership

When you’re courageous enough to question your own behavior and motives, you model the behaviors you wish to see in others.

Help yourself and your staff by:

  1. Reading Arbinger’s Leadership and Self-Deception.
  2. Working with an executive coach to pinpoint areas of self-deception.
  3. Asking yourself, “What’s my part in any given problem?”
  4. Identifying ways to set aside your ego and achieve optimum results.
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A Dashboard For Managing Complexity

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Businesses are becoming more complex. It’s harder to predict outcomes because intricate systems interact in unexpected ways.

Staying on track is much easier with a guide or checklist. Michael Useem, a professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and bestselling author of The Leadership Moment, has published The Leader’s Checklist to create a clear roadmap for navigating any situation. It is presented here in condensed form, with sample questions accompanying each principle:

  1. Articulate a Vision: Formulate a clear and persuasive vision, and communicate why it’s important to all members of the enterprise.
    • Do my direct reports see the forest, as well as the trees? 
    • Does everyone in the firm know not only where we are going, but, most importantly, why?
    • Is the destination compelling and appealing? 

  2. Think and Act Strategically: Make a practical plan for achieving this vision, including both short- and long-term strategies. Anticipate reactions and resistance before they happen by considering all stakeholders’ perspectives.  
    • Do we have a realistic plan for creating short-term results, as well as mapping out the future? 
    • Have we considered all stakeholders and anticipated objections? 
    • Has everyone bought into, and does everyone understand, the firm’s competitive strategy and value drivers? Can they explain it to others? 

  3. Express Confidence: Provide frequent feedback to express appreciation for the support of those who work with and for you. 
    • Do the people you work with know you respect and value their talents and efforts? 
    • Have you made it clear that their upward guidance is welcomed and sought? 
    • Is there a sense of engagement on the frontlines, with a minimum of “us” vs. “them” mentality? 

  4. Take Charge and Act Decisively: Embrace a bias for action by taking responsibility, even if it isn’t formally delegated. Make good and timely decisions, and ensure they are executed.  
    • Are you prepared to take charge, even when you are not in charge?
    • If so, do you have the capacity and position to embrace responsibility?
    • For technical decisions, are you ready to delegate, but not abdicate?
    • Are most of your decisions both good and timely?
    • Do you convey your strategic intent and then let others reach their own decisions? 

  5. Communicate Persuasively: Communicate in ways that people will not forget, through use of personal stories and examples that back up ideas. Simplicity and clarity are critical.
    • Are messages about vision, strategy and character crystal-clear and indelible?
    • Have you mobilized all communication channels, from purely personal to social media?
    • Can you deliver a compelling speech before the elevator passes the 10th floor?

  6. Motivate the Troops, and Honor the Front Lines: Appreciate the distinctive intentions that people bring to their work; build on diversity to bring out the best in people. Delegate authority except for strategic decisions. Stay close to those who are most directly engaged with the enterprise’s work.
    • Have you identified each person’s “hot button” and focused on it?
    • Do you work personal pride and shared purpose into most communications?
    • Are you keeping some ammunition dry for those urgent moments when you need it?
    • Have you made your intent clear and empowered those around you to act?
    • Do you regularly meet with those in direct contact with customers?
    • Can your people communicate their ideas and concerns to you?

  7. Build Leadership in Others, and Plan for Succession: Develop leadership throughout the organization, giving people opportunities to make decisions, manage others and obtain coaching.
    • Are all managers expected to build leadership among their subordinates?
    • Does the company culture foster the effective exercise of leadership?
    • Are leadership development opportunities available to most, if not all, managers?

  8. Manage Relations, and Identify Personal Implications: Build enduring personal ties with those who work with you, and engage the feelings and passions of the workplace. Help people appreciate the impact that the vision and strategy are likely to have on their own work and the firm’s future.
    • Is the hierarchy reduced to a minimum, and does bad news travel up?
    • Are managers self-aware and empathetic?
    • Are autocratic, egocentric and irritable behaviors censured?
    • Do employees appreciate how the firm’s vision and strategy affect them individually?
    • What private sacrifices will be necessary for achieving the common cause?
    • How will the plan affect people’s personal livelihood and the quality of their work lives?

  9. Convey Your Character: Through storytelling, gestures and genuine sharing, ensure that others appreciate that you are a person of integrity.
    • Have you communicated your commitment to performance with integrity?
    • Do others know you as a person? Do they know your aspirations and hopes?
       
  10. Dampen Over-Optimism: To balance the hubris of success, focus attention on latent threats and unresolved problems. Protect against managers’ tendency to engage in unwarranted risk.
    • Have you prepared the organization for unlikely, but extremely consequential, events?
    • Do you celebrate success, but also guard against the byproduct of excess confidence?
    • Have you paved the way not only for quarterly results, but for long-term performance?

  11. Build a Diverse Top Team: Although leaders take final responsibility, leadership is most effective when there is a team of capable people who can collectively work together to resolve key challenges. Diversity of thinking ensures better decisions.
    • Have you drawn quality performers into your inner circle?
    • Are they diverse in expertise, but united in purpose?
    • Are they as engaged and energized as you?

  12. Place Common Interest First: In setting strategy, communicating vision and reaching decisions, common purpose comes first and personal self-interest last.
    • In all decisions, have you placed shared purpose ahead of private gain?
    • Do the firm’s vision and strategy embody the organization’s mission?
    • Are you thinking like a president or chief executive, even if you are not one?

Not all of these questions are applicable to every situation, but it is the questioning that counts.

Whether you are facing a typical day at the office or walking into a crisis, ask yourself and others these questions to inspire correct actions. Only then can you make sense of the complexities you encounter.

 

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The Art of Bouncing Back

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 “Some of the most important and insightful learning is far more likely to come from failures than from success.” ~ Former Procter & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley, interviewed in Harvard Business Review (April 2011)

How we respond to failures and bounce back from our mistakes can make or break our careers. The wisdom of learning from failure is undeniable, yet individuals and organizations rarely seize opportunities to embrace these hard-earned lessons.

Harvard business professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter is unequivocal: “One difference between winners and losers is how they handle losing.” Even for the best companies and most accomplished professionals, long track records of success are inevitably marred by slips and fumbles.

Our response to failure is often counterproductive: Behaviors become bad habits that set the stage for continued losses. Just as success creates positive momentum, failure can feed on itself. Add uncertainty and rapidly fluctuating economics to the mix, and one’s ability to find the right course is sorely tested.

Long-term winners and losers face the same ubiquitous problems, but they respond differently. Attitudes help determine whether problem-ridden businesses will ultimately recover.

Luckily, most of us can learn to become more resilient with training and coaching.

The Best of Times, the Worst of Times

Take the example of two typical MBA graduates who were laid off from their positions during the recession. Both were distraught. Being fired provoked feelings of sadness, listlessness, indecisiveness and anxiety about the future.

For one, the mood was transient. Within two weeks he was telling himself, “It’s not my fault; it’s the economy. I’m good at what I do, and there’s a market for my skills.” He updated his resume and, after several failed attempts, finally landed a position.

The other spiraled further into hopelessness. “I got fired because I can’t perform well under pressure,” he lamented. “I’m not cut out for finance; the economy will take years to recover.” Even after the market improved, he was reluctant to apply for positions and feared rejection.

How these individuals handled failure illustrates opposite ends of the spectrum. Some people bounce back after a brief period of malaise and grow from their experiences. Others go from sadness to depression to crippling fear of failure—and in business, inertia and fear of risk invite collapse.

Optimism and Resilience

Research clearly demonstrates that people who are naturally resilient have an optimistic explanatory style—that is, they explain adversity in optimistic terms to avoid falling into helplessness.

Those who refuse to give up routinely interpret setbacks as temporary, local and changeable:

  • “The problem will resolve quickly…”
  • “It’s just this one situation…”
  • “I can do something about it…”

In contrast, individuals who have a pessimistic explanatory style respond to failure differently. They habitually think setbacks are permanent, universal and immutable:

  • “Things are never going to be any different…”
  • “This always happens to me…”
  • “I can’t change things, no matter what…”

University of Pennsylvania psychology professor Martin P. Seligman believes most people can be immunized against the negative thinking habits that may tempt them to give up after failure. In fact, 30 years of research suggests that we can learn to be optimistic and resilient—often by changing our explanatory style.

Seligman is currently testing this premise with the U.S. Army’s Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program, a large-scale effort to make soldiers as psychologically fit as they are physically fit. One key component is the Master Resilience Training course for drill sergeants and other leaders, which emphasizes positive psychology, mental toughness, use of existing strengths and building strong relationships.

This military program will no doubt provide insights for civilians who wish to become more effective within their workplaces and organizations.

Learning from Mistakes

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Failure is one of life’s most common traumas, yet people’s responses to it vary widely. Many managers have learned to reframe personal and departmental setbacks by stating: “There are no mistakes, only learning opportunities”—and it’s a great sentiment. In practice, however, their companies often continue to view failures in the most negative light.

Part of the problem lies in our natural tendency to blame. We perceive and react to failure inappropriately. How can we learn anything if our energy is tied up in either assigning or avoiding blame? Still others overreact with self-criticism, which leads to stagnation and fears of taking future risks.

In the 1930s, psychologist Saul Rosenzweig proposed three broad personality categories for how we experience anger and frustration:

  1. Extrapunitive: Prone to unfairly blame others
  2. Impunitive: Denies that failure has occurred or one’s own role in it
  3. Intropunitive: Judges self too harshly and imagines failures where none exist

Extrapunitive responses are common in the business world. Because of socialization and other gender influences, women are more likely to be intropunitive.

Fortunately, managers at all organizational levels can repair their flawed responses to failure. Business consultants Ben Dattner and Robert Hogan suggest three highly effective steps in “Can You Handle Failure?” (Harvard Business Review, April 2011):

  1. 1.      Cultivate Self-Awareness.

    First, identify which of the three blaming styles you use. (Note: They occur automatically and immediately, so they are unconscious emotional responses.) Do you look to blame others? Deny blame? Blame yourself?

    It’s hard for us to see our personalities clearly, let alone our flaws. It’s harder still to learn from our mistakes if we’re caught up in the blame game.

Next, take at least one self-assessment test to help broaden your view of your interaction style. Two popular assessments are the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the Big Five Personality Test. (You can take a free version online at personal.psu.edu/j5j/IPIP/ipipneo120.htm.)

Finally, work with a coach or mentor to improve your level of self-awareness. While it takes some time to shine a light on our attitudes with respect to failure and blame, each of us can benefit from such reflection and discussion.

For example, think about challenging events or jobs in your career, and consider how you handled them. What could you have done better? Ask trusted colleagues, mentors or coaches to evaluate your reactions to, and explanations for, failures.

Pay close attention to the subtleties of how people respond to you in common workplace situations. Ask for informal feedback. If you’re in a managerial position, you may underestimate how what you say may be perceived as criticism, due to the hierarchical nature of your job.

  1. 2.      Cultivate Political Awareness.

Whereas self-awareness helps you understand the messages you’re sending, political awareness helps you understand the messages others are receiving. It requires you to know how your organization defines, explains and assigns responsibility for failure, as well as how the system allows for remedial attempts.

Political awareness involves finding the right way to approach mistakes within your specific organization, department and role.

  1. 3.      Develop New Strategies.

 

Once you’ve become more aware of your failure response style (and your bad habits), you can move toward more open and adaptive behaviors.

Practice these strategies the next time mistakes and failures present challenges:

Listen and communicate. Most of us forget to gather enough feedback and information before reacting, especially when it comes to bad news. Never assume you know what others are thinking or that you understand them until you ask good questions.

Reflect on both the situation and the people. We’re good at picking up patterns and making assumptions. Remember, however, that each situation is unique and has context.

Think before you act. You don’t have to respond immediately or impulsively. You can always make things worse by overreacting in a highly charged situation.

Search for a lesson. Look for nuance and context. Sometimes a colleague or a group is at fault, sometimes you are, and sometimes no one is to blame. Create and test hypotheses about why the failure occurred to prevent it from happening again.
Blameworthy or Praiseworthy?

Admittedly, some mistakes are more blameworthy than others. As a manager, how do you make it safe for people to report and admit to mistakes?

Harvard management professor Amy Edmondson delineates a “spectrum of reasons for failure” in “Strategies for Learning from Failure” (Harvard Business Review, April 2011), as summarized here:

  1. Deviance: An individual chooses to violate a prescribed process or practice.
  2. Inattention: An individual inadvertently deviates from specifications.
  3. Lack of Ability: An individual doesn’t have the skills, conditions or training to execute a job.
  4. Process Inadequacy: A competent individual adheres to a prescribed, but faulty or incomplete, process.
  5. Task Challenge: An individual faces a task too difficult to be executed reliably every time.
  6. Process Complexity: A process composed of many elements breaks down when it encounters novel interactions.
  7. Uncertainty: A lack of clarity about future events causes people to take seemingly reasonable actions that produce undesired results.
  8. Hypothesis Testing: An experiment conducted to prove that an idea or a design will succeed actually fails.
  9. Exploratory Testing: An experiment conducted to expand knowledge and investigate a possibility leads to undesired results.

Notice how this spectrum progresses from mistakes that are blameworthy to those that could be considered praiseworthy. 

How many of the failures in your business are truly blameworthy? Compare this to how many are treated as blameworthy, and you’ll have a better understanding of why so many failures go unreported.

You cannot learn from your mistakes when the emphasis is on blaming. You cannot learn to become more resilient when your energy is tied up in assigning or avoiding blame.

Perhaps Procter & Gamble’s Lafley said it best in his Harvard Business Review interview: “I think I learned more from my failures than from my successes in all my years as a CEO. I think of my failures as a gift. Unless you view them that way, you won’t learn from failure, you won’t get better—and the company won’t get better.”

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Love ‘Em or Lose ‘Em

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Retaining talented employees is a key problem for corporations. Even when there is a slower economy, attracting and holding top talent is a serious concern. The trend is exacerbated by a growing propensity for people to change jobs frequently. After 20 years of down-sizing, it is ironic that corporations are now concerned about losing employees.

The problem is one of getting qualified and talented people into the right jobs and keeping them there. HR professionals, managers and CEO’s are all searching for what they can do to keep their good, talented employees.

Some organizations are turning to retention bonuses to attract and retain talented people, some reported to be as high as $20,000. There are also reports of an amazing array of perks and benefits being offered to make employees’ lives more comfortable. Some organizations offer dry-cleaning services, car-detailing, concierge services to run errands, child-care, pet-sitting, gym programs, and chair massages.

But you can’t buy love. Throwing money or gifts at people isn’t enough to keep them. If they don’t like the company, the people they work with, the boss or the way that they’re treated, they will still leave.

Finding solutions to employee retention means more profitable companies, happier, more productive employees, and more satisfied customers, and ultimately greater stock value.

Losing employees is very expensive. Studies have found that the cost of replacing lost talent is 70 to 200 percent of that person’s annual salary. Expenses include recruiting, orientation and training, lost productivity during that period, even lost customer satisfaction because of the change. Finding and training the best employees is a major investment.

What can a company do, once they have found talented people, given them valuable training and equipped them, to prevent them from walking out the back door and going to competitors?

Why they leave, why they stay

Study after study shows that people leave because of their direct supervisors, more so than any other reason. It is the manager who more than anyone else can do something about retaining workers. The manager can be seen as responsible for creating a satisfactory working environment.

However, studies also show that 9 out of 10 managers think people stay or go because of money (Harvard Management Update, June 1988.) This keeps showing up in research, in spite of the fact that people leaving jobs say otherwise. Money and perks matter, but employees report that what they want most is challenging, meaningful work, a good boss, and an opportunity for learning and development.

In 1999 the Hay Group studied more than 500,000 employees in 300 companies. They found that of 50 retention factors, pay was the least important. Other studies bring up similar lists of the 10 most important reasons people want to stay with a company.

  1. Career growth, learning and development
  2. Exciting, challenging work
  3. Meaningful work, ability to make a difference and a contribution
  4. Great people
  5. Being part of a team
  6. Good boss
  7. Recognition for work well done
  8. Autonomy, a sense of control over one’s work
  9. Flexible hours and dress
  10.  Fair pay and benefits

 

This is contingent upon people having already attained a certain level of material comfort. That is, once people have their basic needs met, they care more about what they do and who they work with, rather than the money.

It’s not about the money

So why do managers still think it’s the money? Do they view people as important capital assets, or as easily replaced? Do they nurture, respect and protect their workers? Or are they looking at them only as performers? Diagnosing the gaps in espoused theory and theory in action is important in putting retention efforts in the hands of managers who are most closely working with the employees and who can make the difference.

One possible explanation why managers still think it’s the money may be that

when employees complain to them, they often bring up the subject of compensation. Workers come to their bosses when they want a raise. They may feel they are not earning enough, or as much as another person. When these concerns are frequently verbalized to managers it gives them the impression that money is what matters the most.

A 1999 study by the Saratoga Institute for the American Management Association cites three reasons people leave their jobs:

  1. Poor supervisor skills
  2. No growth opportunities
  3. Inability to speak freely

 

Some of the most comprehensive research on what makes a great company has been done by the Gallup Organization. In 1999 they published the results of a meta-survey of over 1 million employees. This information is invaluable and is contained in the book, First Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman (Simon & Schuster, 1999).           .

The important relationship with the manager

Based on a wealth of data, the Gallup Organization attempted to define not only what makes a great company, but because so much depends upon it, what makes a great manager.

In today’s labor markets, companies compete to find and keep the best employees, using pay, benefits, promotions, impressive job titles and training. But these well-intentioned efforts miss the mark. The most important element in attracting and retaining key employees is the front-line manager.

The Gallup study found that people weren’t necessarily loyal to the company, but rather to the unit they worked in, and this was because of their feelings toward their immediate supervisor.  In other words, companies aren’t employers-of-choice; it is the supervisors who are the essential determinants in retaining talented people.

No matter how generous its pay, benefits or training, a company that lacks great supervisors and managers will suffer. Great managers, according to the Gallup research, have the following behaviors that set them apart from others:

  1. They select an employee for talent rather than for skills or experience.
  2. They set clear expectations and define the right outcomes rather than the right steps.
  3. They motivate people, by building on their strengths rather than trying to fix their weaknesses.
  4. As each employee grows, they encourage them to find the right fit for their strengths within the organization.

 

Creating loyalty

The following four elements have been proven to be effective in creating employee loyalty: praise and recognition, a sense of contribution to the company, learning and development, and having a best friend at work.

  1. Praise and recognition: It has been said that no news is good news, but for managers interested in keeping the best workers, this is not true. For workers, not getting any feedback is tantamount to being ignored: it leads to complacency. Workplaces that ignore performance will destroy the very human spirit that makes the true difference in quality output and service delivery.

 

Positive recognition is often thought of as coming strictly from supervisors or managers, but studies have found that employees also value praise and recognition from peers. Co-workers know the particulars of a job and when they give good feedback it can be more meaningful.

What can a manager do to help foster this? Model the appropriate way to give frequent praise and recognition. Working with a coach will help develop appropriate and effective feedback skills.

 

2.   A sense of contribution to the company: Excellence only happens when people have a deeply felt sense of purpose in their lives. Human beings want to know they make a difference. Organizations need to let employees know how their job and their performance is important to the overall success of the company. There must be an alignment of the worker’s personal reasons for being there and the purpose of the job. It is more exciting to share a mission rather than to simply accomplish a task.

      What can a manager do to increase this sense of meaning? Involve the workers in other aspects of the company. Take them to meetings, let them know about what’s going on in the company in other departments and teams.

3.   Learning and development: It is important to offer trainings and learning opportunities. Traditional management highlights the need to help employees identify their weaknesses and then creates a plan for them to improve. The emphasis is on what the employee is not, rather than on developing more of who they are. Effective organizations are now hiring coaches to help workers develop their strengths and to become more of who they are.

      Working with a coach involves holding up a mirror to employees and encouraging them to know themselves. As they come to better understand who they are, they can see opportunities for growth in the company, utilizing their strengths and talents. As they move forward in their self-knowledge, they can look for places within the company where their talents are a good fit.

4.  Having a best friend at work: This is a key element in why people choose to stay at a job, even in the face of other dissatisfactions. In the best workplaces, managers recognize that employees want to forge quality relationships with their co-workers and that company loyalty can be built from such relationships. Developing trusting relationships with one’s coworkers provides a significant emotional compensation for employees. While organizations pay close attention to the loyalty workers may feel toward the company, the best employers recognize that loyalty also exists among workers to each other. Great managers allow time and opportunity for these relationships to flourish.

Managers know that they need to attract and retain talented people in order to succeed in the competitive workplace. And they also have to find ways to get workers to improve performance. People usually don’t think of themselves as performers, but as individuals with certain strengths and talents. Workers must know that the manager cares about them on a human level before they are going to be motivated to make extra efforts.

There is no one-size-fits all retention formula. Here are some of the ingredients:

  1. Honest communications in all directions
  2. Supervisors who invite workers into all facets of work and help them to see the big picture, that is, the corporate value of their contributions
  3. Workplaces that encourage experimentation and learning.

 

There are no new tricks. It is the same old story: there is a great need to engage and enable the hearts, minds, and yes, even the soul of people at work. This engagement is far more important than bonuses, perks and even chair massages. It is primordial to retaining talented people.

 

Measuring Strong Retention Factors

The Gallup Organization has released the results of their massive in-depth study of great manager across a wide variety of industries in a book, First Break All The Rules: What Great Managers do Differently, by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman (Simon & Schuster, 1999). This research generated thousands of different survey questions on employee opinion.

Finally, using sophisticated statistical analysis, they produced 12 questions which work to distinguish the strongest departments of a company. This essential measuring stick provides the link between employee opinions and productivity, profit, customer satisfaction and the rate of turnover.

They are reprinted here with permission of the Gallup Organization, Copyright 1999. They are copyrighted  and cannot be used without Gallup’s permission.

They can be accessed at www.gallup.com/poll/managing/managing.asp.

  1. I know what is expected of me at work.*
  2. I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right.*
  3. At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.*
  4. In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for good work.
  5. My supervisor or the person I report to seems to care about me as a person.*
  6. There is someone at work who encourages my development.
  7. In the last six months, someone at work has talked with me about my progress.*
  8. At work, my opinions seem to count.
  9. The mission/purpose of my company makes me feel my job is important.

10. My associates (fellow employees) are committed to doing quality work.

11. I have a best friend at work.

12. The last year, I have had opportunities at work to learn and grow.

According to the results of years of Gallup Organization research, these 12 questions are the simplest and most accurate way to measure the strength of a workplace.

*Further analysis revealed that five of these questions are linked to retention: numbers 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7. When employees score highest marks for these five questions, the company has a strong retention factor. As a manager, if you want to build high retention, then securing high marks to these five questions is a good place to start.

Resources:

Buckingham, Marcus and Curt Coffman; First Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently; Simon & Schuster, 1999.

Gendron, Marie; “Keys to Retaining Your Best Managers in a Tight Job Market,” Harvard Management Update (June 1998): 1-4.

Hay Group, “1998-1999 Employee Attitudes Study,” 8, HR/OD, (December 1, 1998).

Herman, Roger E.; Keeping Good People: Strategies for Solving the #1 Problem Facing Business Today; Oakhill Press, 1999.

Kaye, Beverly and Sharon Jordan-Evans: Love ‘Em or Lose ‘Em: Getting Good People To Stay;  Berrett-Kockler Publishers, 1999.

Klobucar Logan, Jill; “Retention Tangibles and Intangibles” ; ASTD’s Training & Development, April 2000.

Smart, Bradford D., Ph.D; Topgrading: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching and Keeping the Best People; Prentice Hall Press, 1999.

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Managing For Peak Performance

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 “Put simply, the best managers bring out the best from their people. This is true of football coaches, orchestra conductors, big-company executives, and small-business owners. They are like alchemists who turn lead into gold. Put more accurately, they find and mine the gold that resides in everyone.” ~ Dr. Edward M. Hallowell, Shine: Using Brain Science to Get the Best from Your People (Harvard Business Press, 2011)

Most managers want their people to achieve excellence at work. We really can’t ask for more. In fact, peak performance can be defined as a combination of:

  • Excellence
  • Consistency
  • Ongoing improvement

To achieve peak performance, each person must find the right job, tasks and conditions that match his or her strengths. Facilitating the right fit therefore becomes one of a manager’s most crucial responsibilities. While every employee has the potential to deliver peak performance, it’s up to the manager to find ways to make it happen.

It’s easy to spot peak performance when it happens. It’s what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes in his book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2008). Employees who work at optimum levels experience a state of “flow,” typically losing themselves in a project, meeting or discussion. They may lose track of time or where they are.

Each of us has relished such moments, but it’s hard to purposely replicate “flow” experiences. Many managers struggle to find the right words to rekindle motivation in people who have lost their enthusiasm.

Two Sides of the Disengagement Coin

Disengaged employees often appear to lack commitment. In reality, many of them crave re-engagement. No one enjoys working without passion or joy.

While many factors cause disengagement, the most prevalent is feeling overwhelmed (or, conversely, underwhelmed). Disconnection and overload pose obstacles to performance, yet they often go undetected or ignored because neither qualifies as a disciplinary issue.

Meanwhile, managers try to work around such problems, hoping for a miraculous turnaround or spark that reignites energy and drive. They try incentives, empowerment programs or the management fad du jour.

While it’s impossible to spark flow moments all day long, you can greatly improve your ability to help others achieve peak performance. Until recently, managers tried various motivational methods, with only temporary success.

You can’t sprint to peak performance, the brain needs careful management and rest. Brain science tells us that as knowledge workers, we must manage our thinking minds with care.

In addition to variety and stimulation, we require food, rest, human engagement, physical exercise and challenge. You cannot expect a human being to sit at a desk for hours and produce quality work without providing these essential elements.

We often forget that thinking is hard work. If you work too many hours, your brain’s supply of neurotransmitters will be depleted, and you won’t be able to sustain top performance. Without proper care, the brain will underperform—and brain fatigue mimics disengagement and lack of commitment.

Peak performance also depends on how we feel: hopeful, in control, optimistic and grateful. We need to know that we’re appreciated.

Using Brain Science to Bring Out the Best

While no management guru has found the golden key to unlocking the full panoply of human potential at work, several diverse areas of research shed new light on the possibilities.

Dr. Edward M. Hallowell, author of Shine: Using Brain Science to Get the Best from Your People (Harvard Business Press, 2011), synthesizes such new research into five sequential steps managers can apply to maximize employees’ peak performance. A psychiatrist and ADD expert, he draws on brain science, performance research and his own experience to present a proven process for getting the best from your people:

  1. Select: Put the right people in the right job, and give them responsibilities that “light up” their brains.
  2. Connect: Strengthen interpersonal bonds among team members.
  3. Play: Help people unleash their imaginations at work.
  4. Grapple and Grow: When the pressure’s on, enable employees to achieve mastery of their work.
  5. Shine: Use the right rewards to promote loyalty and stoke your people’s desire to excel.

“Neither the individual nor the job holds the magic,” Hallowell writes. “But the right person doing the right job creates the magical interaction that leads to peak performance.”

Hallowell refers to the five cited essential ingredients as “The Cycle of Excellence,” which works because it exploits the powerful interaction between an individual’s intrinsic capabilities and extrinsic environment.

Step 1: Select

To match the right person to the right job, examine how three key questions intersect:

  1. At what tasks or jobs does this person excel?
  2. What does he/she like to do?
  3. How does he/she add value to the organization?

Set the stage for your employees to do well with responsibilities they enjoy. You can then determine how they will add the greatest possible value to your organization.

According to a 2005 Harris Interactive poll, 33 percent of 7,718 employees surveyed believed they had reached a dead end in their jobs, and 21 percent were eager to change careers. Only 20 percent felt passionate about their work.

When so many skilled and motivated people spend decades moving from one job to the next, something is wrong. They clearly have not landed in the right outlets for their talents and strengths. Their brains never light up.

The better the fit, the better the performance. People require clear roles that allow them to succeed, while also providing room to learn, grow and be challenged.

Step 2: Connect

Managers and employees require a mutual atmosphere of trust, optimism, openness, transparency, creativity and positive energy. Each group can contribute to reducing toxic fear and worry, insecurity, backbiting, gossip and disconnection.

A positive working environment starts with how the boss handles negativity, failure and problems. The boss sets the tone and models preferred behaviors and reactions. Employees take their cues from those who lead them.

To encourage connection:

  • Look for the spark of brilliance within everyone.
  • Encourage a learning mindset.
  • Model and teach optimism, as well as the belief that teamwork can overcome any problem.
  • Use human moments instead of relying on electronic communication.
  • Learn about each person.
  • Treat everyone with respect, especially those you dislike.
  • Meet people where they are, and know that most will do their best with what they have.
  • Encourage reality.
  • Use humor without sarcasm or at others’ expense.
  • Seek out the quiet ones, and try to bring them in.

Step 3: Play

Play isn’t limited to break time. Any activity that involves the imagination lights up our brains and produces creative thoughts and ideas. Play boosts morale, reduces fatigue and brings joy to our workdays.

Encourage imaginative play with these steps:

  • Ask open-ended questions.
  • Encourage everyone to produce three new ideas each month.
  • Allow for irreverence or goofiness (without disrespect), and model this behavior.
  • Brainstorm.
  • Reward new ideas and innovations.
  • Encourage people to question everything.

Step 4: Grapple and Grow

Help people engage imaginatively with tasks they like and at which they excel. You can then encourage them to stretch beyond their usual limits.

If tasks are too easy, people fall into boredom and routine without making any progress or learning anything new. Your job, as a manager, is to be a catalyst when people get stuck, offering suggestions but letting them work out solutions.

Step 5: Shine

Every employee should feel recognized and valued for what he or she does. Recognition should not be reserved solely for a group’s stars.

People learn from mistakes, and they grow even more when their successes are noticed and praised. Letting them know that you appreciate victories large and small will motivate them and secure their loyalty.

When a person is underperforming, consider that lack of recognition may be a cause. An employee usually won’t come right out and tell you that he/she feels undervalued, so you must look for the subtle signs. In addition:

  • Be on the lookout for moments when you can catch someone doing something right. It doesn’t have to be unusual or spectacular. Don’t withhold compliments.
  • Be generous with praise. People will pick up on your use of praise and start to perform for themselves and each other.
  • Recognize attitudes, as well as achievements. Optimism and a growth mindset are two attitudes you can single out and encourage. Look for others.

When you’re in sync with your people, you create positive energy and opportunities for peak performance. Working together can be one of life’s greatest joys—and it’s what we’re wired to do.

Maintaining Excellence in Uncertain Times

Nothing is as difficult as managing in uncertain times. With the rapidly changing competitive environment and new technologies, it’s hard to keep up.

Managing people well is even more challenging when you’re constantly putting out fires. How are you supposed to bring out the best in your people when no one has a clue as to what will happen tomorrow?

Most managers draw upon their core values and lessons learned along the way. To ensure success, embrace a plan like the Cycle of Excellence. It can help you manage people when they’re faltering. Perhaps one of the five steps is going unfulfilled. An employee may not be in the right job or may not be sufficiently challenged.

A plan is a mooring to use during times of crisis and chaos—a strategy for redirecting energies in the right direction. It can be used to correct course. You can’t sacrifice performance in the name of speed, cost cutting, efficiency, and what can be mislabeled as necessity. When you ignore connections, deep thought disappears in favor of decisions based on fear.

These five areas of focus can help you avoid fear-based management practices, which have the potential to disable you. Use it to identify problem areas and decide on a plan of action. In this way you and your employee can creatively manage for growth not just survival.

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Rethinking Motivation

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Most business leaders have lost sight of what motivates people at work. In fact, some companies haven’t updated their management practices in years, which means they’re incapable of creating high-performance teams.

Companies continue to ignore the obvious: Offering incentives and rewards is less effective than tapping into truly meaningful intrinsic motivation. Leaders operate on old assumptions about motivation despite a wealth of well-documented scientific evidence.

The old “carrot-and-stick” mentality may actually inhibit employees from seeking creative solutions, partly because they focus on attaining rewards instead of solving problems.

So, how can you successfully tap into workers’ inherent motivation and creative drive? How can you boost the number of actively engaged employees from the paltry 33 percent reported by the Gallup Organization? And how can you sustain employees’ enthusiasm after their first 30 days on the job?

Seven Deadly Flaws

In Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, former U.S. Department of Labor aide Daniel H. Pink says businesses are out of sync with what scientists have been telling us over the last 50 years.

The hackneyed carrot-and-stick approach, now dubbed “Motivation 2.0,” encourages poor leadership practices, including Pink’s “seven deadly flaws”:

  1. Extinguishing motivation
  2. Diminishing performance
  3. Crushing creativity
  4. Crowding out good behavior
  5. Encouraging cheating, shortcuts and unethical behavior
  6. Becoming addictive or obsessive
  7. Fostering short-term thinking

In fact, Pink holds Motivation 2.0 partly responsible for the economic chaos of 2008. Mortgage brokers, for instance, were so hungry for commissions that they made questionable loans, which helped bring the nation’s banking system to its knees.

The Hawthorne Studies

In the 1920s, Harvard Business School initiated the first studies of human behavior at work, with support from the Rockefeller Foundation. Clinical psychologist Elton Mayo and Harvard Medical School physiologist L.J. Henderson were recruited to study the impact of various working conditions, such as how lighting affects fatigue levels.

Early research was conducted at AT&T’s Western Electric Hawthorne Plant. The results were published by F.J. Roethlisberger and W. Dickson in Management and the Worker.

The researchers found that workers’ and managers’ social needs had a powerful impact on their behavior at work. Workers enthusiastically embraced opportunities to contribute their thoughts, ideas and experiences regarding workplace issues.

Unfortunately, these findings failed to change work conditions for employees.

Scientific Management

At the beginning of the 20th century, American engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor asserted that businesses were being run in inefficient, haphazard ways. He invented the concept of “scientific management,” which assumed workers were little more than machines. To make the machine run smoothly, you rewarded the behaviors you wanted and punished those you discouraged.

“Work,” Taylor stated, “consists of mainly simple, not particularly interesting, tasks. The only way to get people to do them is to incentivize them properly and monitor them carefully.”

Thus began the firmly entrenched practice of motivating people with the proverbial carrots and sticks.

In the 1900s, Taylor had a point. We were, after all, building railroads, highways and major factories. But today, in much of the developed world, this is no longer entirely true. For many people, jobs have become more complex, challenging and self-directed.

Freud, Skinner & Maslow

The 20th century saw the birth of psychology and study of the human psyche. Sigmund Freud proposed that all humans were driven to seek pleasure and avoid pain. In the 1930s, behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner created a large body of experimental research to show the effects of positive reinforcement on augmenting certain behaviors and extinguishing others.

In the 1950s, psychologist Abraham Maslow questioned the idea that human behavior was purely rat- or pigeon-like. He launched the field of humanistic psychology, proposing that once survival needs were met, people sought to achieve self-mastery and actualization.

In the 1960s, MIT management professor Douglas McGregor imported Maslow’s ideas to the business world. He proposed that humans had higher drives that weren’t contingent on rewards and punishments. If managers could tap into these inner motivations and grant employees greater autonomy and respect, workers would unleash greater performance.

While McGregor’s writing influenced some organizations, there were only modest improvements —mostly more flexible dress codes, working conditions and empowerment programs.

Despite these psychological insights, businesses entered the 21st century using outdated and ineffective motivational strategies.

The Third Drive

In 1949, psychologist Harry Harlow placed puzzles in monkeys’ cages and was surprised to find that the primates successfully solved them.

Harlow saw no logical reason for them to do so. Their survival didn’t depend on it, and they didn’t receive any rewards or avoid any punishments. Apparently, the monkeys solved the puzzles simply because they had a desire to do so.

As to their motivation, Harlow offered a novel theory: “The performance of the task provided intrinsic reward.” The monkeys performed because they found it gratifying to solve puzzles. They enjoyed it, and the joy of the task was its own reward.

Further experiments found that offering external rewards to solve these puzzles didn’t improve performance. In fact, rewards disrupted task completion.

This led Harlow to identify a third drive in human motivation:

  1. The first drive for behaviors is survival. We drink, eat and copulate to ensure our survival.
  2. The second drive is to seek rewards and avoid punishment.
  3. The third drive is intrinsic: to achieve internal satisfaction.

But Harlow’s theory was met with disdain from the behavioral scientists who dominated motivational theory at the time. It took almost two decades for scientists to return their attention to intrinsic drives.

Negative Impact of Rewards

In 1969, psychologist Edward Deci ran a series of experiments that showed students lost intrinsic interest in an activity when money was offered as an external reward. The results surprised many behavioral scientists.

Although rewards can deliver a short-term boost, the effect wears off. Even worse, rewards can reduce a person’s longer-term motivation to continue a project.

Deci proposed that human beings have an inherent tendency to seek out novelty and challenges, to extend and exercise their capacities, to explore, and to learn.

Open Source Innovations

The third drive has become more important as our society moves from a manufacturing-based economy to one of knowledge and services.

Carrots and sticks continue to provide effective incentive and motivation for work tasks that are routine and repetitive. But for jobs that require complex creativity, intrinsic motivation works best.

As proof, examine the case of two companies that set out to publish online encyclopedias:

  1. Microsoft hired the best people and devoted considerable funds to achieve Encarta.
  2. A global force of volunteers created Wikipedia with no budget or salaries.

Encarta no longer exists, while Wikipedia thrives as a fully functional volunteer project.

Most businesses haven’t caught up to this new understanding of what motivates us. Too many organizations, governments and nonprofits still operate from assumptions about human potential and individual performance — ideas that are clearly outdated and ineffective. They continue to pursue short-term incentive plans and pay-for-performance schemes in the face of evidence against them.

Unleashing Motivation

How do you move yourself — and your company — away from using carrot-and-stick incentives?

Pink describes three critical conditions for an intrinsic motivational environment:

  1. Autonomy: Give people autonomy over what they’re doing and how they do it, including choosing their time, tasks, team and techniques.
  2. Mastery: Give them an opportunity to master their work and make progress through deliberate practice.
  3. Purpose: Make sure people have a sense of purpose in their work — preferably to something higher and beyond their job, salary and company.

Autonomy may seem daunting when it comes to practical implementations. Some companies, however, have already forged new and innovative work environments that are generating huge results — most notably, Best Buy’s ROWE (“results-oriented work environment”) program. With ROWE, employees have no schedules and are measured only by what they get done.

Google is famous for its “20-percent time” program, which allows engineers to spend 20 percent of their time on projects that interest them. Google Mail is one successful project that came out of the program.

The Australian tech company Atlassian implemented a similar program, with engineers given a full day each quarter to work on any software problem they choose — a ritual the company calls “FedEx” days. (Completed projects are delivered overnight.)

Creating Flow

People are most productive and satisfied when their work puts them in a state of “flow” — more commonly recognized as being “in the zone.” In the flow state, one experiences a heightened sense of focus and a generally higher sense of satisfaction.

What we know about flow is primarily based on the work of psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, whose seminal book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, describes it as the moment in which “a person’s body or mind is stretched to the limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.”

You can’t give people the opportunity to create “flow” experiences without providing autonomy, time to practice and improve mastery, and a sense of higher purpose.

Rethinking Management

Intrinsic motivation theories aren’t palatable to everyone. Unfortunately, our notions of what constitutes proper motivation in the office are often too entrenched to be flexible. Some companies have given lip service to worker “empowerment,” without actually letting go of control.

At its core, management hasn’t changed all that much since Taylor and his scientific management theory proposed that we need to control the passive nature of workers with extrinsic motivators.

This doesn’t work for motivating non-routine, right-brain activities required of knowledge workers today. Management, in this sense, is deeply out of sync with human nature — in essence, management is the problem, not the solution.

Rethinking Human Nature

Our basic nature is to be curious and self-directed, to seek out and explore solutions to problems. If your employees are inert, disengaged and bored, something has flipped their default setting.

Many leaders will resist giving up their carrots, and many workers will find it hard to imagine a world without incentives. We’re conditioned to like the carrots and avoid the sticks.

But leaders who recognize the value of, and who can implement, intrinsic motivation can expect a whole new workplace — and an entirely new definition of work. We don’t need better management as much as a renaissance of self-direction.

The bigger, unanswered question is whether today’s leaders are ready to rise to the new challenges autonomy will require.

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Are you aware of the “Leadership Shadow” you cast?

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Many of the Executive Coaching clients I’ve worked with seem to be unaware of the “Shadow” they cast as a Leader. It’s a shadow that reflects what a leader pays attention to, how they respond to crisis, deal with a disagreement, treat those around them, and behave in general. It all feeds into the cultural fabric of the organization.

As I’ve observed, if a leader treats every unexpected problem or unanticipated roadblock as a major crisis, so will employees. If a leader takes the view that every problem could have been avoided and therefore when something goes wrong, heads will roll, the resulting behavior will be one of blame and finger-pointing. If a leader views mistakes as a natural part of learning, exploring, and experimenting, the result is an attitude that supports risk taking and innovation.

Not too long ago I worked with the head of an engineering organization who reported to the CEO of a medium sized software company. As a part of assessing his leadership style I interviewed a cross section of his direct reports, peers and a sample of primary customers. One of the most significant behaviors that surfaced was his inability to filter negative messages. For example, if the CEO met with him to talk about his concern with delivery dates or a process interruption, he would immediately call a meeting of his responsible staff members and chew them out under the guise of finding out what was happening to cause the problems. He had no idea that his behavior was being modeled by most of his direct reports and the managers that work for them throughout the organization. Being able to filter emotional messages before acting is a fundamental leadership responsibility.

Beyond actions, leaders shape the culture through the stories that they tell and the stories that are told about them. The stories that leaders tell help to inform employees about what leadership considers important.

One story that I’ve retold many times has to do with a new regional VP of Sales who had just relocated back to the U.S. as an expat. He walked into a regional sales review meeting where each manager was expected to present their forecast, where they were and why. After hearing one presentation and the beginning of a second where the managers’ complained about their products and lamented the lack of technology and product capability of their competitors, he stopped the meeting. He then got up and moved to the front of the room with what seemed to be a scene from Patton’s Army. He then said, “I didn’t come here to listen to excuses about why you can’t sell because you believe the competition has better products, technology or whatever.” What I do expect to hear is how your commitment and strategy to sell our company’s products is producing results. After that, I’m open to discussing what we can all do to improve. For those of you who may not have heard or understood what I just said, “we all get paid to sell the products and services of this company and it requires everyone’s commitment to be successful. You have a choice to make, which I expect to see at the reschedule date of this meeting.” That story became part of the folklore that helped shape the future culture of that company.

A critical element of the leadership shadow is the “Say-Do” factor. It has to do with having the courage of your convictions. If you say you are going to do something, but act differently when it’s not politically correct or represents a risk to you or your position, you put your credibility at risk as a leader and create doubts about what the company stands for. A recent situation that exemplifies the “Say-Do” factor is when Bill Belichick, the head coach of the New England Patriots didn’t allow one of his star players, Wes Welker to start in the critical playoff game against the New York Jets because of comments he made during a news conference regarding the Jets coach. Whether you agree or not, it takes courage to maintain a high Say-Do factor. And, when you consider Belichick’s overall performance as a leader and the consistent results the Patriots have achieved as an organization and business, perhaps it makes sense to examine the Leadership Shadow you cast….

We write this blog to inform and challenge the thinking of our readers. We can only tell if we’ve done that by hearing from you. That’s why we welcome your feedback and comments….

“We can’t solve the problems of today using the same Thinking we used to create them”

– A. Einstein

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Applying Filters to Your Speaking

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Have you ever found yourself with the proverbial “foot in your mouth” because of something you said?  We all do that sometimes – and often in situations where we then feel foolish or embarrassed.  I once heard a great way to filter your thoughts before they come out of your mouth, and to consider what you are going to say before you say it.

Before you speak, ask yourself first, “Is it true?”  Meaning, is what you are going to say a truth …. Or is it a rumor, or gossip, or something that you are spreading that doesn’t merit discussion?

Secondly, ask yourself, “Is it kind?”  Who will be hurt if you speak your thought out loud?  Is it a kindness to speak it, or hurtful?

Last, ask yourself, “Is it necessary?”  Do you really need to say it?  What would happen if you didn’t?  Does what you are planning to say create positive action or unintended consequences?

This simple routine for considering what you are doing to say – BEFORE you say it – will ensure that you are always a positive influence to those around you.   Using this simple routine might mean that you stop gossip rather than extending it; that you curb the impulse to share an exaggerated story.  In asking yourself if what you are going to say is true, kind, and necessary, you will also be modeling effective speaking behaviors and encouraging others to do the same.

I have a client who struggles with her place within a management team.   She tends to think faster than most, and as a result also talk first and is often the first to raise her hand or react to an idea in a meeting.   Together, we discussed a new technique that she successfully used when with groups of people.  She simply counts to five before she speaks.   In that way, she can allow the space around her to slow down, she can consider what she is going to say, and she can apply this test as well – is it kind, is it true, and is it necessary?   When she does speak, then, her words serve her well, and she has become known in that management team as someone who is wise, thoughtful, and kind.

Have you considered how you can apply this simple filter to what you are going to say?  How might it make a difference in your interactions?  Let us hear from you!

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Leadership For Sustainability

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I was rereading the book “Good to Great” by Jim Collins the other day and it occurred to me that with all the talk about sustainability in business we should revisit some of those basic concepts covered in that book. The chapter on Fifth Level Leaders really hits home with what it takes to create organizations that are excellent and have a prayer to be sustainable. An interesting question came to my mind. “What if our current elected officials adopted the concepts of a Fifth Level Leader?”

What is a Fifth Level Leader? It is a leader who has two major attributes. The first is a will to succeed no matter what is happening. The second is paradoxical to the first. That is to have a great amount of humility and modesty.

The will to succeed is for the organization not for oneself. This is a foreign concept to most leaders since they are usually focused on themselves first and then the organization. Fifth Level leaders work hard at whatever needs to be done and will not settle for anything less than what will meet the long term objectives of the organization.

What would happen if political leaders became so entrenched in making the organizations they serve succeed that they did not even worry about re-elections because the results would be so overwhelmingly successful that re-election would come automatically?  When service is placed above self good things happen.

The humility needed to be a Fifth Level Leader is the ability to give credit to everyone and everything else when things go well. When things go wrong, a mirror is placed in front of the leader and blame is apportioned to him alone. The organization’s Buck stops with the leader.

Fifth Level Leaders leave the place better than they found it and cultivate the next generation of leaders to carry on the organization. As Collins says, “most leaders hope the place implodes after they leave so it makes them only look better”. This short-sighted thinking of a lot of leaders does not create sustainability.

Is your organization led by Fifth Level Leaders? If not, what are you doing about it? Although it is not easy to find or develop this type of leader, a Fifth Level leader will only improve the organization. How will you get from Good to Great?