You’re more likely to be fired by your team than your boss
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
Ken Hicks, CEO of Foot Locker had just said, “You are more likely to be fired up than fired down.” I was interviewing him yesterday and had asked how new managers and leaders could best make a difference in their first 60-90 days. He provided some intuitive advice about how if you go in with a grand plan to make a difference and expect people to execute on your great idea, you’ve lost the buy-in of the people around you. That is, you’ve lost the opportunity to listen deeply, understand and solicit the input of everyone on the team and gather the best ideas while simultaneously co-opting the engagement of the people ready to execute.
He went on to say – while defining the expression “You are more likely to be fired up than fired down” – that too often new (or existing) managers – get caught up in pandering to the imagined interests of superiors, and as a result lose the support of those around them. Building that support has to be more about listening to their ideas and contributions, than getting people to say what you want hear.
The result of lost support, while catering to the top, is that your team feels their voice isn’t heard, their ideas aren’t recognized, and so they disengage. When that happens, a manager cannot possibly execute on any grand vision and get anything done. Your team isn’t following any more. You’ve just been fired up. Sure, your leadership has the capacity to get rid of you top-down fashion, but long before that happens, long before the complete paralysis or catastrophe, or missed milestones, you’ve been fired up from the people you are supposed to be leading to a clear deliverable. Maybe you have that that grand vision in mind, but if you neglect the team, you’ve lost your ability to be effective.
Read MoreExploring New Terrain – Giving Greatness
There’s a sublimely beautiful spot in the north woods of Maine off the beaten path called Southbranch campground on the north end of Baxter State Park. It takes thoughtful planning to get there. To begin with, you have to mail in – yes, USPS mail in – your registration to Baxter State Authority. Although recently they do have an online calendar showing availability, you still have to fill out a piece of paper and select your top choices for camping spots, label an envelope, and mail it in. Baxter State Park Authority will mail you back a paper confirmation which you have to have in hand when you arrive at the checkpoint gate – more than ten miles out from the campground. Nothing motorized invited, on the lakes or trails, other than the car or van that got you there. We’ve visited the last three years and spend off-the-grid days paddling, telling stories by campfires, hiking, and sharing good company.
A highlight of this annual pilgrimage are gloriously high granite cliffs, about a morning-paddle away on an adjacent lake. After we awake, pack lunches, and paddle the length of Southbranch north lake, then portage to south lake along a stream, and tie up the canoes, we scramble up the faces of this granite rock to witness the beauty and quiet solitude of a wonderfully isolated deep lake in the north woods.
Then we jump! From various points that meet our own idea of courage, we jump. Here’s the thing – as the visit grows, as well as subsequent visits over a couple days, we find our collective rhythm in the adventure. We both encourage eachother, and ourselves, in more audacious jumps – or more interesting and unique jumps. Understand, at this site the sky is almost the limit – you could etch ever higher upon that rock and jump from a higher and higher point – there is almost no feasible summit since the true top is over 100 feet – a jump I have yet to see anyone take…yet.
Here’s the interesting part – after our group arrives and we spend time there, we first lead eachother to what is obvious, what is most accessible. As time passes, the sun rises and people start to find their own routes up the rock to higher jumping points, the group teaches what is possible, what can be achieved.
In the context of leadership, once everyone feels supported and in a safe environment, we begin to not only explore the possible but also teach those around us what is possible. Leading the way up the rock, demonstrating unique leaps of faith – older kids taking the hands of the younger to safely navigate the rock face. We have to examine both the novel and mundane with fresh eyes, and excitedly share those experiences – it’s only then we can both lead and encourage new climbs and new leaps from high above. Believe me, our work is no different. No group ever got dumber by hiding trails, or hoarding glory. Teach everyone on the path. That’s giving greatness.
Read MoreBetter Leaders: Build purpose and get out of the way
Share Your brand is a lagging indicator of the quality of your culture, and your culture is driven by the level of engagement in the organization. Positive and constructive leadership is the biggest driver of the habitat and the mindsets of the people in the organization that make that engagement possible. The goal is to draw those discretionary qualities from people in the organization – initiative, creativity, passion – that can’t be bought. You can dictate obedience, you can hope for loyalty, and you can even buy expertise. But you can’t buy those discretionary qualities of initiative, creativity, and passion that must come from all levels to create next-generation innovative value.
Since no longer loyalty, obedience, and even expertise constitute competitive advantage, your managers and leaders need to be focused on creating those environments and leading with those attributes that build creative, connected and engaged people. Only then will we find real deviation from the mediocre middle that will yield innovation – the kind of product and service innovation that creates sustainable value. Agreed?
In which case, the behaviors and influence that managers and leaders play in the organization have the ability to make a huge difference in eliciting those qualities of engagement that exist in everyone. Many companies understand this intuitively and have active policies to bring out the best in their people.
Dell Computers conducts training to help their people use social media and help them understand they are all brand ambassadors. Dell doesn’t leave the social branding to just one small department in the organization, everyone is expected to participate. Disney has famously focused on employee satisfaction, not customer satisfaction, with the recognition that happy employees create great customer experiences.
We have to thank Bob Sutton of Stanford University, for awareness of this fun study his colleague Deborah Gruenfeld conducted. Gruenfeld conducted a research study in which they brought together students in groups of three. One student was chosen the “boss” or arbiter, and the other two were asked to construct solutions to various issues on campus – making the campus more green, or improving transportation, or cafeteria services. The task itself was a red herring. What the researchers were most interested in was the role of power newly bestowed to one of the students.
During the session in which the “boss” is asked to evaluate the quality of the proposals from each of the two other students, the researchers bring in a plate of five cookies. After they each take a cookie, there’s two left. Every culture is aware of the social taboo against taking the last cookie so the cookie that’s in play here is the fourth. Consistently, the appointed “boss” was much more likely to take the fourth cookie, and to exhibit “disinhibited eating.” That is, chewing with their mouth open and leaving more crumbs.
It’s an amusing story but goes to the core of what Sutton calls the Power Poisoning Effect. That is, those in a place of power tend to:
• Give greater value to their own ideas and initiatives
• Give lesser value to the ideas and initiatives of subordinates
• Think that the rules don’t apply to them
• Have greater difficulty controlling their own impulses
Sutton describes how David Kelley, CEO and founder of IDEO, the premiere design and innovation firm leads differently. Kelley frequently assembles and leads group meetings. As Sutton tells it, when the conversations are going poorly, Kelley will spend a significant amount of time at the front of the room guiding discussion and reinforcing ideas from everyone. And when the discussions are going well, he will move to the back of the room, and if you aren’t paying attention he might slip out the door. Because he understands not only that the best ideas come from the people I nthe organization but that also his presence can possibly stifle conversation.
The message for leaders is that when there is a lack or either will or skill, you are needed to step in to guide, facilitate and aid contributors. And when there is a high level of both will and skill, sometimes the best thing you can do is get out of the way.
Read MoreHit a Wall? Your Mindset Matters
“Borders? I have never seen one. But I have heard they exist in the minds of some people.”
- Thor Heyerdahl, innovator, adventurer, and border-smasher
I have a friend who installed the same invisible dog fence I did, but he admitted he didn’t bother with the training and simply installed the underground wire and shackled his dog with the electrical buzz collar which would shock the dog whenever he got near the line. His thinking was the dog would just learn the boundaries himself and viola! – a dog self-trained to stay in the yard. I asked him what happened, and he described that as his young boisterous dog started to run and play as usual he would get shocked and, since he didn’t associate the pain with any clear boundary, he eventually sat in the middle of the yard shaking in fear, paralyzed to move. From that point on all the dog wanted to do was stay in the house.
There are many dimensions to this story – not least the owner’s choice and behavior – but what I want to address is the dog’s perspective. The dog, not understanding why the random shocks, arrived at a state psychologists call “learned helplessness.” It’s the point at which they (we) are capable of believing that nothing we do matters, and regardless of our action, we’re going to be punished or bad things will befall us. A sense of control, and a sense that our behavior matters, is one of the most important predictors of happiness, and in turn workplace productivity, collaboration and creativity.
In a 2002 study from the Families and Work Institute, researchers concluded the following six criteria for creating an effective workplace:
• Providing job autonomy;
• Creating learning opportunities and challenges on the job—where employees can grow,
learn, and advance;
• Developing environments where supervisors support employees in being successful on
the job;
• Developing environments where coworkers support each other for job success;
• Involving employees in management decision-making; and
• Creating flexible workplaces
All of the above offer workers more, not less control and autonomy over their team, their task, their technique.
Carol Dweck, author of Mindset, in a series of studies, has found that people fall into two gross categories – those who believe their intelligence and aptitude is fixed, and those who believe their intelligence and capabilities are malleable and can change over time with effort. When people are in a learning, instead of a fixed mindset, they continually keep getting better because they try harder and constantly put themselves in positions where they might fail. And keep getting better because, or despite of, the challenges they self-impose.
In the invisible fence example, think of the ways in which you bump up against boundaries and how you react to them. Do you run back to the middle quaking, or spend time probing to understand that invisible boundary and then concoct ways to circumvent, or leap beyond it? Or maybe tunnel under? And if you are the boundary-creator, ask yourself why? It could be a legitimate boundary – we do it to our kids all the time for health, or safety, or learning, etc… But in my experience, when you give trust, you get trust, and sometimes exceptional performance.
Read MoreTim Sanders Intro – Cultures of Confidence
ShareI had the fun opportunity to introduce Tim Sanders to our SkillSoft Perspectives conference yesterday morning. Following is what I prepared. What I said in real time yesterday was probably close, but who knows. When presenting, keep your knees bent. And if you’re wondering…Tim killed. So wonderful and spot on message.
Good morning. In just a few moments we will be presenting a live interactive satellite and webcast presentation featuring Tim Sanders and produced right here from the main stage at Perspectives. If you have attended in past years you may recall we have beamed IN live presentations featuring Sir Ken Robinson, Don Tapscott and Tom Peters from distant production studios around the country. This year as a special treat we thought we would bring the event to you and broadcast live from the conference, from right here on the floor of the event.
Today’s live presentation will reach well over 600 organizations and companies around the globe and up to 40,000 individuals – including significant audiences in Europe and groups joining us in the evening in the middle east.
Tim Sanders will spend a few moments with us in advance of today’s event speaking on our specific opportunities and possibilities in the world of talent, human resources and leadership development and the power of lifelong learning. For his main broadcast presentation he will share ideas from his new book Today We Are Rich: Harnessing the Power of Total Confidence. Because by understanding the source of confidence we can preempt personal and organizational recessions and begin to build Cultures of Confidence. We have all seen the engagement data from Gallop, TowersWatts that reveals less than a third of the people in organizations describe themselves as fully engaged. A Culture of Confidence builds an ecosystem of full engagement because it allows people to reach beyond the expected diligence, expertise and compliance and tap into that discretionary effort of initiative, creativity and passion that gives rise to purpose.
Consider the pharmaceutical Genentech who has a stated purpose and a mantra of IN BUSINESS FOR LIFE. Genentech has consistently been voted in the top 10 places to work for, and if you talk to the people there they will tell you the secret sauce is their culture.
In 2003 after clinical trials and FDA approval Genentech introduced the genetically-engineered intravenous drug Xolair to the asthma medication market. Unlike standard asthma treatments that stop asthma attacks after they occur, Xolair was developed to block the histamines in our immune system that trigger attacks. It was preventative and effective short and long term because it would first curb the attacks, and then allow the patient to lead a life without fear of asthma attacks, instead of using drugs that would simply stop them once started.
Genentech released Xolair with confidence because on paper they knew they had the killer app and rolled out their marketing, sales readiness, inventory and distribution in anticipation of strong sales. But strangely after 6 months into the product roll-out sales were well below anyone’s anticipation. Then the financial analysts spotted an anomaly – a big sales spike coming out of Dallas Fort Worth. Out of 242 national sales reps, two women in the Dallas area created a new sales playbook and were selling twenty times the national average.
See Genentech had previously built market expertise in cancer medicines, not asthma drugs. And if you’ve visited an oncology or pulmonary unit as often as I have recently, you’ll know the oncology specialists routinely administer intravenous chemotherapy and other medicines. But Xolair’s market target was allergists, pediatricians, pediatric nurses. Infusions require a different set of protocols not normal in your standard child-doctor visit. Clinicians administering Xolair also must be trained in recognizing rare reactions or side effects. The sales reps could spend all day with powerpoint and graphs talking about the statistical benefit and effectiveness of Xolair and they still wouldn’t get past the client’s apprehension about simply administering it.
The crux of the problem was mindset and methods of the pediatric doctors and nurses. The challenge was to expand their skillset and change the office culture to align with their goal, and remember Genentech’s goal is IN BUSINESS FOR LIFE.
So these two reps in Dallas and their team created a new playbook in which they became consultants and mentors in administering Xolair. They educated the doctors to focus on the long term lifestyle benefits – like their patients could own pets now or pick up jogging again. They taught the clinic staff how to navigate the new insurance paperwork maze to get reimbursed for this new treatment. In short, they stopped applying force and started becoming change artists working in close partnership with their clients. This kind of emotional intelligence, initiative and creativity working in service of a shared purpose is much more readily possible within environments that encourage and reward risk. In Cultures of Confidence.
But in this story let’s not get overly distracted by the process, the mechanism by which these two innovative sales reps worked with their customers. They used onsite tutorials and in-person workshops to educate their customer but they could have used an iPhone app or some other app perfect for the puzzle. In our work to create and cascade real behavioral change we can get wrapped up in the machine, the killer app, when really the mechanism should be transparent and frictionless to the user. The story line is about their mantra: IN BUSINESS FOR LIFE.
Don Tapscott has a marvelous illustration of this when one day a few years ago he was in his house when down the hall he hears his son calling out, “Dad! Dad! Come here – you’ve got to check this out!” So Don walks down the hall to his son’s room and finds him at the computer looking at images of space and his son is saying, “Look Dad, that’s quasar, and that could be a black hole, and over here are stars being born, and this light we’re looking at is millions of years old! Isn’t that amazing!”
Don is pleased with his son’s interest in the cosmos, and says “That’s very cool son, where did you get these images?” And his son says, “Oh, they’re not pictures I’m streaming live from Hubble.” At this point Don’s jaw drops, and he says to his son, “What?! Do you understand you are harnessing the most powerful telescopic instrument on earth? And it’s not even on earth?” To which his son replies, “Yeah whatever Dad, but look that’s the Orion Nebula!”
Ultimately our purpose here together as colleagues at this conference is about connecting people with ideas. Ideas that can change both their beliefs and their behaviors, which then can cascade out and change whole ecosystems within an organization. Providing people with the confidence of ideas and knowledge allows us to reach through our fears, find our passion and display it through purpose. See our passion is what we love to do, but our purpose is why the world loves you. I said, our passion is what we love to do, but our purpose is why the world loves you.
Please help me in welcoming our host for today’s keynote presentation, the witty, fun, intelligent, and always telegenic, SkillSoft’s own Tracey Matisak!
Welcome Tracey. Ladies and gentlemen, I want to recognize for a moment Tracey and our friends at D2 productions. Like the wizard behind the curtain Dave Walzer is somewhere in the vicinity listening on headphones and watching on 16 monitors. At last count, over more than a decade we have produced almost 100 of these events throughout North America and we are deeply honored to share with you such talented professionals that make this all possible. Please join me in thanking them both and everyone here behind the scenes that make this magic possible.
Read MoreInvite a Penguin to Your Next Meeting
Share
Years ago, Matt May was consulting to a Detroit car company. After interviewing people in the organization, he discovered theirs was a culture that stifled ideas in a command-and-control hierarchical fashion. The leaders of the company rejected his suggestion, didn’t believe him, and insisted they had an open environment where all ideas were welcome to the table.
So when Matt was asked to conduct a half-day workshop session he created an exercise in which each team, composed of diverse employees from all strata of the organization, had to work in teams to solve a puzzle. The exercise was about selecting the right balance of fuel, food, people, and resources for a successful trip to the moon. In the exercise there is a correct configuration of resources to solve the problem.
Before the exercise started, Matt did this: he took aside the most junior member on each team and gave them the answer. And told them they were free to do anything they chose to make their voice heard and be convincing to make their team successfully win the game except tell the team that Matt gave them the answer key.
Not one team got it right. At the conclusion of the session Matt asked the secret member of each team, who held the answer key, to stand up. The leaders attending the meeting were both appalled and enlightened to discover that contrary to their belief, voices from all levels of the organization really weren’t appreciated and listened to thoughtfully. After all, for each group the answer was sitting right at the table, yet no team delivered the correct solution.
We spoke to Juan, a senior IT leader at a large financial services organization, who had a similar experience, but his voice was heard. Recently, he was puzzled to be invited to a meeting with two of his colleagues from different departments who were trying to solve a business dilemma. As Juan sat through the opening comments of the meeting, he kept wondering silently what in the world was he doing here? Juan was leading the IT group, and clearly what these players needed was a business decision structure that had nothing to do with his team. But despite his puzzlement at why he was invited, Juan stayed and listened intently and shared his best ideas and suggestions during the course of the meeting. Within just a couple days Juan was included in some followup notes and found his colleagues had agreed and implemented the ideas discussed at the meeting.
But he discovered later in water cooler and cafeteria conversations, that it was his presence and divergent opinions and perspectives that bridged the understanding gap between his colleagues who had been too close to the project to see and execute the solution needed.
Maybe next time invite someone from left field to the table. Something interesting and successful might happen.
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