Category Archives: Success

Evaluate results not time

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We all know the workers who are the first to arrive and last to leave. They don’t take time off. You wonder if their kids even recognize them anymore. Contrast that person with an employee who leaves early for parent-teacher conferences and usually walks out the door in time to have dinner with his family.

Which is the preferable employee? That question is being bantered about more than ever, as young workers in particular strive for a life that balances work, home and community.

Kate Rogers wrote “Might Be Time to Tell Your Employees to Get a Life” on foxbusiness.com. She notes that more top-level execs are embracing a flexible approach to when, where and how work is done. They hold themselves and others accountable for the quantity and quality of performance – because that produces business results.

Rewarding “face time” at the office encourages people to look busy and be present, even when they’re not giving it their all. For some, being busy becomes a way of life and a means of avoiding other brutal realities. Tim Kreider notes in “The ‘Busy’ Trap at NYTimes.com:

“Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.”

Think about how you use your  time and help your team create real success. Is it all about being busy, or are you zeroing in on the business results that matter?

Need to refocus on the right results? Contact Humanergy.

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Four strategies for expecting the unexpected

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Stuff happens. You pull out of the garage on your way to work, already thinking of what you need to do once you arrive. Suddenly, WHAM! You’ve sideswiped the huge dumpster that the contractor left in the driveway in preparation for an upcoming roof replacement.

We are creatures of habit, and when we introduce an unfamiliar thing (the dumpster) in a habit-laden situation (backing out of garage), problems often happen. How can you be more prepared for unexpected occurrences in all aspects of life?

Build in time. Pretend that you have to leave home ten minutes earlier than you really do. That will give you time to breathe and focus. You’ll be more likely to see that dumpster (or child or bike) and react appropriately. Set project deadlines similarly; “finish” the product, step away for a day and then tweak it with fresh eyes. You’ll be astounded at the errors you’ll find and improvements you can make when you’re not under the gun.

Add steps to your habit. Examine your habits for shortcuts. Instead of opening the garage door, getting in the car, fastening your seat belt and backing out, add a step. Scan behind you. It may help to put a sign in your car for a couple of weeks, until that new step becomes routine.

Realize that stuff happens, even to you. As the saying goes, most people think that accidents aren’t their fault and yet take personal responsibility for their hole-in-one on the golf course. Recognize that accidents happen to everyone – and most often we bear some culpability. Taking shortcuts, losing focus or being overconfident are signs that you think it couldn’t happen to you.

Consider what might happen and act accordingly. Think through all possible outcomes, not just what you expect and for which you are prepared. You may have spent countless hours driving safely while talking on your phone. However, what if it becomes a particularly intense conversation or a deer dashes across the road? Is it worth your (and others’) safety to talk on your phone while driving?

Being prepared for the unexpected not only promotes safety. These same strategies help you become more present, nimble and resilient in the face of change. You are off autopilot and fully engaged in the present task. What better way to manage the expected and unexpected issues faced by leaders today?

 

Need help exploring your habits and making change? Contact Humanergy.

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More reasons you are not achieving your goals

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Are you tired of hearing about New Year’s resolutions? If you’re like me, you may have ambitious goals in January, only to find them a distant memory by February. That’s why comedian Joey Adams coined the toast, “May your troubles last as long as your New Year’s resolutions.”

If you want to achieve your objectives, you aren’t doomed to fail, even if you have done so in the past. If you missed our post called The real reason you’re not achieving your goals, read that now for ideas about how to avoid resolution-derailment. Here are more potential obstacles and their solutions:

Goals fall off the radar. Life has a way of overwhelming our goals, and we often lose track of what we wanted to achieve. One strategy for keeping your goal top-of-mind is an in-your-face tracking method. Try an automatic an email or task notification that is sent to yourself each week, reminding you of your goals and action steps. Create a public chart of your progress, and enlist others to help you stay on track.

You don’t involve others. The days of the lone rider are gone. Setting appropriate, challenging goals and achieving them require input from others throughout the process. Consider seeking feedback from people outside your industry, as well as subject matter experts in your field. You may be surprised at the new insights you will gain.

You don’t prep for action. Just aiming for a target is not sufficient. At some point, you must shoot. This means planning goal-specific, targeted action. Break big goals up into manageable bits, then set milestones for each stage. Your action plan must be flexible, yet contain the necessary detail to drive getting things done.

You set them for others. If you set the goals for your direct reports, proceed with caution. Will your people perform at their best if they do not “own” their goals? How would you feel if someone set yours? Probably less than enthused. If you must set others’ goals, at least engage them in a conversation to get their input and buy-in. Also, make sure you’re not expecting the impossible. Impossible expectations equals stress and poor performance. In other words, you’ll frustrate your people and not achieve your goals. Not only that, you’ll likely end up wasting time recruiting and training new employees when your people bail on you.

Reaching your goals requires dedication and discipline. Don’t use the age-old excuse: I don’t have time. As H. Jackson Brown, Jr. said, “Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo Da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”

 

Need some goals guidance? Contact Humanergy!

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Are you part of a culture of intimidation?

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You may be thinking, “Me? I’d never be a leader in an organization whose culture was intimidating! I’m a nice person!” Unfortunately, organizational culture and habits have a tendency to creep, if we’re not careful. There may be some ways in which you and other leaders contribute to people feeling constrained and bullied. You’ve just been too busy or narrow in your focus to recognize it. What are the symptoms of subtle intimidation?

Fuzzy accountability, blame and consequences that don’t fit. People aren’t exactly sure what they should be doing or what boundaries exist for their work. Expectations are unclear or inconsistent from one day to the next or one leader to the next. When things go wrong, the finger gets pointed, and the consequences don’t seem appropriate given the mistakes that were made.

Intense focus on what’s going wrong. Time, energy and emotion are invested in communicating about the problems and errors, and little is said about what’s working. Employees keep their heads down and hope for the best (or at least that they’re not the ones in the wrong this time). Sometimes negative feedback is delivered indirectly, such as jabs disguised as jokes.

Intermittent, inconsistent communication. Employees hear different messages from leaders, if they hear much at all. There is no context to what is communicated, so people don’t understand the importance and priority of the message. Confusion is common, and solutions are imperfect, since people don’t have access to necessary information.

Delegation is usually “swoop and poop” or micromanaging. Lacking the time (really, it’s commitment) to delegate appropriately, leaders plop projects in people’s inboxes, give direction via short, curt email or only half-delegate and then hover to make sure the work is getting done right.

Leaders don’t want feedback. Leaders may say they want critical feedback, but employees understand that this would come with grave consequences. “Remember Joe? Well, he criticized the boss and got canned.”

Leaders give feedback indirectly or vaguely. Often the person who needs the feedback is the last to know, as people discuss Sue’s problem with everyone but Sue. When leaders give feedback to their direct reports, they beat around the bush and don’t connect the dots between the direct report’s behavior and its impact. This leaves employees wondering what they did in the first place and uncertain about where they stand with their boss.

People create silos for support. To protect themselves or to gain power, people develop a group of allies within the organization. “You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.” Invisible silos of alliances exist and everyone knows who is in whose camp, even if it is not openly acknowledged.

If even one of these statements ring true, it’s time to take a stand and promote change. Start by modeling effective listening and openness yourself. Like everyone, you are not fully aware of the impact of your own behavior. Seek information to decrease your own self-deception. Then find like-minded people within the organization and ask, “Is this culture one that enables us to meet tomorrow’s challenges and achieve necessary results?”

Work together to build a safe, healthy and productive culture that allows people to fully engage in the organization’s mission and make a difference. Good intentions won’t change anything. As Mae West said, “An ounce of performance is worth pounds of promises.”

Have a question about this topic or want some input from Humanergy? Contact us!

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Be disruptive

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Whitney Johnson wrote a blog post called How to Identify Your Disruptive Skills. She wasn’t instructing people on how to be rude or annoying. She wrote about how you can uncover their most unique strengths. As she said, “These may be capacities that are so innate you may not even consciously recognize them, or skills you have honed over years of practice. These are the skills that can help you carve out a disruptive niche — consequently upping your value in the marketplace.”

Being disruptive in this context means tapping what is already within you – and undergoing a metamorphosis. Your transformation may seem profound and surprising to others, yet it is based upon your truest self – your disruptive strengths.

The idea of being disruptive is appealing in a broader context of careers and performance. It allows you go move from floating through life to taking the helm. Being disruptive requires that you no longer let circumstances change you. You decide what you will do and how you will do it. How can being disruptive work for you?

Strategy. Charting a course for the organization requires courage, a depth of knowledge and judgment. When thinking strategically, you fast-forward to the future and imagine a new reality. Being disruptive when it comes to strategic thinking means that you widen your view and keep an open mind. Doing this allows you to identify unlikely and previously unrecognized options. So many “lucky breaks” are really the result of thinking more broadly and openly. In 1902, nobody thought that 3M would morph from being a mining company to a global technology innovations company. Someone(s) took a larger view of the possibilities, and if they hadn’t, it’s unlikely that the company would even be in business today.

Innovation. Rather than incremental change, think of innovation as jumping the tracks, shifting into a whole new way of working – a new tool or best practice that exponentially elevates the quality of work. Tweaking can be fine, but it can also be a symptom of the slow march to doom. As John Cage said, “I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I am frightened of old ones.”

How can you make sure that you are you bringing energy to the right stuff – your disruptive potential? Your most disruptive strength may not be obvious, so you’ll need to do some work to uncover it. Johnson gives some excellent advice in her blog, including increasing your self-awareness. One good way to do this is to courageously, regularly, emphatically seek feedback. Not, “Have any feedback?” but, “What is the one thing I should stop or start doing?”And then courageously, regularly, emphatically change.

Think you don’t have time? You do. Being disruptive requires that you study how you’re spending your time and re-allocate aggressively. As Carl Sandburg said, “Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.”

Have a question about this topic or want some input from Humanergy? Contact us!

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Most rules are unnecessary and some are really dumb

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Let’s just clear this up, for those of you who are rule followers: Yes, there are a few rules that organizations need in order to comply with the law and create necessary structure and standards. Other than a scant supply of dictates, what more do you really need? (Even Moses came back down the mountain with only 10 commandments!)

The whole question of rules was reinforced by a blog called “What Every Manager Should Know About Managing Gen Y.” It advised leaders to create ‘Gen Y-friendly rules.” In fact, the authors recommend that you review all rules that people seem to try to work around.

Better yet, put all rules on the chopping block. Start with these:

Rules you can’t or won’t enforce. If people are breaking a rule right and left, ditch it. Either it’s impossible to enforce or the organizational will isn’t there. Lack of enforcement promotes cynicism and apathy about rules in general, even the ones you really need.

Rules that upper management folks break. If rules apply to some and not to others, get rid of them. Selective enforcement of the rules contributes to a toxic work environment.

Rules that don’t help you achieve your goals. We could insist that all of our staff maintain X hours of office time. We don’t because we realize that time in the office has little, if any, relationship to our goal – delighted clients. Keep your eyes on the prize and only create rules that are necessary for achieving it.

Rules that are micromanagement in disguise. Rules that tell people what to do and how to do it should raise alarm bells. Instead of dictating the “whats” and “hows,” only require that people orient towards the right goals and adhere to your ethical standards. Then let them exercise judgment and creativity in their work.

There are some pretty outrageous rules out there, if online postings are to be believed. Even if your policies don’t include a requirement that you give 2-weeks’ notice before dying, you may want to review your list. There may be some oppressive or just unnecessary rules that are doing your organization more harm than good.

Lots of rules may be an indicator that you’re spending way too much time on the activity of work – what you will DO. When your focus in on what you will ACHIEVE, you need fewer rules. Organizations can’t dictate their way into success – that requires an unrelenting focus on where you’re going and the crucial few non-negotiable rules that will help you get there.

Have a question about this topic or want some input from Humanergy? Contact us!

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It takes a village to make you the best leader possible

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Remember the 1996 book by Hillary Clinton titled It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us? One main idea of Clinton’s book was that it takes more than a parent to nurture children who thrive and ultimately contribute to society.

The village idea can translate to your growth as a leader too. Leadership development achieves the greatest impact when your village – your boss, peers, direct reports and other key stakeholders -  is involved in the process. John Barrett, Humanergy’s co-founder knows: You get the most value out of your development when you make yourself a team project.

Consider these six benefits to using a team or network to help you develop as a leader. You will:

Know more. No one knows it all. We have different backgrounds, skill sets, experiences and perspectives. Leverage your team to increase your wisdom by broadening and deepening your thinking.

Have greater courage, strength, humility and forgiveness. Asking for help exercises all four of these leadership necessities. You’ll also model positive behavior by asking for help, which may encourage others to do the same.

Get realistic feedback. The feedback you give yourself may be skewed and incomplete. While you probably consider yourself to be self-aware (know thyself, right?), according to the Johari Window, there are always areas of yourself you do not know or cannot see, and that only others know.

Be grateful you’re not alone. When you have a team to share in your successes and failures, it magnifies your wins, minimizes your losses and is simply more enjoyable.

Have increased accountability and support. Human nature suggests that people who make promises are more likely to keep them than when they only set goals. Promises have more emotional and personal resonance than to-dos. Not only that, you can’t beat public accountability for ensuring that you’ll do what you say you will.

Be visible to future opportunities. As you develop your leadership savvy, your network will notice. Your teammates will vouch for your readiness to receive a promotion, lead a unique project or be a candidate for a special assignment.

Ready to grow as a leader? Make a list of the key stakeholders in your network—people who have an important stake in your success. Bring together both fans and those who don’t always agree with you. “We find comfort among those who agree with us – growth among those who don’t” (Frank A. Clark).

Your village can support your development and hold you accountable to leadership growth. Ask them to help you in meaningful ways that won’t be a burden. Also be prepared to do the same for others around you. You will create a supportive network that reveals the best in each other.

Have a question about this topic or want some input from Humanergy? Contact us!

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Give yourself a break

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It’s a new year, and if you are like most people, you’ve come up with some resolutions. I will lose 20 pounds, read all of the classics and be a perfect leader. It’s no wonder that most resolutions sputter by the first of February. We set completely unrealistic goals, with no view to potential obstacles. It may be enthusiasm that sets the stage, but it’s also the fact that we can be pretty self-critical, expecting that we should be able to achieve the unachievable.

Perfectionism, in the extreme, can predict mental illness, according to an APA Monitor article. For others, while perfection isn’t taken to the extreme, it can still lead to undue stress and anxiety. Instead of adopting resolutions that are doomed to fail, try some of these:

Do your worst. This British saying will help you to stay balanced. Essentially, it means that even if you make a mistake or don’t do your best, it isn’t the end of the world. If you only exercise twice this week, it will not derail your healthy lifestyle, unless you let it. It debunks our internal message, which is, Hey, I ate three cookies. I’ve blown it. I might as well eat the whole bag.

Take some time. Working every minute of the day is actually bad for productivity. Go for a walk, grab a cup of coffee or even take a power nap, and you’ll get more done in less time. If that isn’t enough incentive, research has shown that you’ll look and feel better too. People who take breaks have healthier skin, fewer problems with weight gain and sunnier outlooks.

Sleep. The old thinking was that in order to be a great leader (or great anything), you needed to work more and sleep less. Wrong. Too little sleep makes you more likely to become infected when exposed to viruses. Chronic sleep deprivation has been associated with weight gain, moodiness, loss of productivity, heart disease and diabetes. People who sleep more than 9 hours a night appear to have many of the same physical and mental risks as those who sleep too little. So aim for the sweet spot of 7 to 8 hours a night.

Giving up on perfection, taking breaks and sleeping more may seem counter-intuitive. Aren’t we supposed to be driving hard and seeking excellence 24/7? Nope. What leaders are supposed to be doing is what works. Why not start now? Step away from your desk and take a walk – a boost to your quality of life and your performance.

Have a question about this topic or want some input from Humanergy? Contact us!

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Are you hearing the bad news?

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You have a great relationship with the people you supervise and encourage them to come to you with any issues that need your attention. But are you hearing everything you need to hear – especially the bad news? According to a Fast Company article called How to get bad news to the top, humans are programmed to prefer optimistic information. We don’t like sharing the bad news, and we don’t like hearing it.

CEOs may be among the most out-of-touch. A recent study by Fred Adair, a Boston-based partner at Heidrick & Struggles, showed a sharp gap between how CEOs rate the effectiveness of their management teams and how the management teams rate themselves. Whether consciously or subconsciously, the team doesn’t share its true perceptions with the boss. Because the CEO isn’t fully aware of the team’s status, she cannot help the team work more effectively together, and can even make the situation worse.

Adair recommends engaging a coach to facilitate CEO/team openness. What else can you do to make sure that people bring all relevant information to you, not just the good news?

Pay attention to subtle signs. Because of our human preference to expect the best, we can ignore signals that things aren’t quite right. Missing data, a tense vibe in the office or less frequent communication can be harbingers of trouble on the way. These signals are your cue to gather more information, not to sit idly by.

Don’t shoot the messenger. It only takes once, and you’ll find that people grace your doorstep only when there’s happy stuff to report. Even if you succeed at keeping your mouth shut, are you showing your anger nonverbally? That can be almost as damaging as a screaming fit.

Keep an open door, and walk through it. Open doors are great, but getting out among the team is even more effective.

Encourage civil disagreement. If your team isn’t comfortable disagreeing with each other, they certainly won’t openly disagree with you. Create and nurture a culture where the team debates and challenges one another – and you – respectfully.

Look and listen. Nonverbal clues can be powerful, so take notice. Does their body language match their words? If not, follow up with open-ended questions to find out what is really on their minds.

Don’t jump to conclusions. It will take time to unravel the full truth, so don’t immediately react to the initial feedback. Once you’ve collected the necessary information, ask your team for suggestions about next steps, rather than pronouncing your conclusions from the executive suite.

Take a break from talking. Sometime it takes a radical step to get information flowing. If you usually do a lot of talking in meetings, stop. Tell your team that for the next day (or week or other timeframe that is workable) you won’t be talking, only listening. Then follow through – only speaking when it is absolutely necessary. There’s nothing like a few moments of uncomfortable silence to get folks sharing their thoughts.

You may assume that bad news travels fast, and you don’t have to take any extraordinary measures to uncover it. Perhaps that’s true for the most dramatic bad news, but it certainly isn’t for the pervasive, insidious issues that can undermine any team’s effectiveness. Don’t be the last one to know that there’s a bad moon rising.

Have a question or want some input from Humanergy about this topic? Contact us and we’ll get right back to you!


Are you leading from the back of the boat?

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Anne Berkowitch, co-founder and CEO of SelectMinds, advocates leading from the back of the boat in her interview posted at the New York Times’ Corner Office Blog. She notes that the best analogy for leadership is not the military general leading the charge, but the person at the back of the canoe who steers the craft. The back-of-the-boat leader doesn’t make all the decisions and can’t see everything clearly. What they can do is:

Make sure the vision is clear. The leader makes sure that everyone knows where they’re headed, and roughly how they’ll get there.

Ask great questions. Make fewer statements, and ask a lot more questions. This will elicit far more information and important dialogue that otherwise would not occur.

Support people. Rather than seeing your team’s role to help you, you are the servant leader whose goal is making your people’s lives easier.

From Humanergy’s experience with back-of-the-boat leaders, we’d add the following best practices:

Feed people. We’ve blogged on Feed, Need, Seed and Weed before. Feed comes first in the list, because it’s the most important and often overlooked. Feed the talented people up front in your boat by pointing out what’s working. Sure, you might have to weed out some negative behaviors, too, but that should be inversely proportional to the amount of time you spend feeding great performance.

Prevent complacency. Back-of-the-boat leaders don’t let their people get too comfortable with the status quo. They’re continually focused on innovation and cutting-edge performance that will keep the organization operating at its peak.

Be a mirror. Rather than “the answer,” people often need their leaders to be a mirror – to reflect back to them the behaviors and patterns the leader sees. Parker Palmer writes about using mirroring as part of circles of trust in his book, A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward An Undivided Life. Mirroring is a powerful tool that can help people arrive at profound insights about the situation at hand. It can be as simple as saying, When I said X, you said Y. When you do this without judgment and advice, the listener is free to dig deeper and form his own conclusions.

Being a back-of-the-boat leader requires visibility to what is really going on in the organization. You can’t do that without rubbing elbows with the people who share your boat. “The desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world”, said author John le Carre. So leave yours for a while and find out how your shipmates are really doing.

Have a question or want some input from Humanergy about this topic? Contact us and we’ll get right back to you!