7 Ways to Turn Your Organization Upside Down

One of the major obstacles to change and growth in an organization is something we call “Organizational Inertia.” In physics, inertia is: the tendency of matter to remain at rest if at rest, or, if moving, to keep moving in the same direction, unless affected by some outside force.” In common language this means that people – especially in bureaucratic systems – will repeat old behavior and defend the status quo even when they are not getting the results they want.

One way to create change, then, is to exert an “outside force” on the existing system. In other words, change the workspace and you’ll change the way people behave in that space.

Seven Ways You Can Turn Your Organization Upside Down and Backwards to create new perspective:

1. Begin every meeting with a “good news report” instead of a “what’s broken” report. You’ll shift the mood of the room into a more creative, optimistic space, which will lead to better problem-solving and faster-decision-making.
2. Shift primary responsibility for employee assessment from managers to their team members. I speak from ten years of personal experience when I promise you that (once people receive basic training in the process) the quality and depth of performance feedback will INCREASE when individuals shift from passive receivers to active partners in their performance appraisal process.
3. Add an Upward Appraisal to your feedback system.  If you’re really serious about improving leadership in your organization, add an element of upward feedback to encourage frank conversation about teamwork (even entry-level folks have great ideas about what their manager could be doing to support them better!)
4. Write “contracts” with project team members, versus impose deliverables..  Goals created in a conversation of mutual commitment are more likely to energize AND get met, on time, than goals imposed from “on high” without negotiation.
5. Engage team members in the process of selecting new members of the team, or even (gasp) their new boss.  When people are invested in the hiring decision, they will view that person’s success in a different – and more positive — way.
6. Ask people what they think BEFORE you make your decision. Yep, that’s what I said.  Hold as a possibility that you DON’T know everything!
7. Hold (at least some of) your meetings standing up. Notice how the energy of a meeting shifts and becomes more efficient when the physical props change.

ACTION ITEM: Hold this question in front of you for the next month: How might I challenge the status quo, shift the environment, or create new ways for people to work together?

Remember, Leadership is not about a title: Anyone can be a leader who deliberately seeks ways to challenge organizational inertia, and strives to help others step up and take a more active and engaged role in their work.

How do you react when your world view is challenged?

WARNING: THIS POST MAY CAUSE YOU TO REACT STRONGLY – OR NOT. Please read the notes in blue before you read the main article.

This post is not about happiness, but it is about coaching. It is about noticing something about yourself — specifically, how do you react when you are confronted with something that really pushes your buttons?

I follow Seth Godin’s blog.  Seth is a prolific, creative, and in-your-face-highly-provocative thinker.  He challenges other’s perspectives.  He provokes and argues opposite angles.  I follow him because much of his work is in marketing, an area I study for my business.

A couple days ago, Seth published a piece that really challenged my thinking. When I followed the links to his data sources, I discovered some really vitriolic comments and a lot of fear and anger… not because of Seth, but because of the topic.   I had to read his post and the source articles several times to even absorb the message, because it is so wildly different from my world view and what I believe.

WHY AM I RE-POSTING HIS STUFF?

Because this is at the heart of real change. One the most significant obstacles to real change in human beings is that we believe stuff — and when our core beliefs are challenged, we tend to react by either ignoring new data that disproves our beliefs OR we vehemently argue against the new belief, to prove that we are right.

In my coaching, I help my clients step back and OBSERVE themselves, and notice their own beliefs and their behaviors and reactions. When you can observe yourself objectively, you become incredibly powerful at making new choices, considering new possibilities, or changing your behavior.  But first, you must NOTICE how you react and how you believe.

I invite you to read this post AS A COACHING EXERCISE.  If you are curious, follow the links to the Stats and the Images (below).  I do NOT advocate one point of view over another, but I ask the same question as Seth does:  How does this resonate with you?

Again, I am not making a statement — this is just a coaching exercise. See my questions at the end, in blue.

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The triumph of coal marketing

Do you have an opinion about nuclear power? About the relative safety of one form of power over another? How did you come to this opinion?

Here are the stats, and here’s the image. A non-exaggerated but simple version of his data:

For every person killed by nuclear power generation, 4,000 die due to coal, adjusted for the same amount of power produced… You might very well have excellent reasons to argue for one form over another. Not the point of this post. The question is: did you know about this chart? How does it resonate with you?

Vivid is not the same as true. It’s far easier to amplify sudden and horrible outcomes than it is to talk about the slow, grinding reality of day to day strife. That’s just human nature. Not included in this chart are deaths due to global political instability involving oil fields, deaths from coastal flooding and deaths due to environmental impacts yet unmeasured, all of which skew it even more if you think about it.

This chart unsettles a lot of people, because there must be something wrong with it. Further proof of how easy it is to fear the unknown and accept what we’ve got.

I think that any time reality doesn’t match your expectations, it means that marketing was involved. Perhaps it was advertising, or perhaps deliberate story telling by an industry. Or perhaps it was just the stories we tell one another in our daily lives. It’s sort of amazing, even to me, how much marketing colors the way we see the world–our reaction (either way) to this chart is proof of it.

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OK, end of Seth’s post.  Here are your questions:

1. Were you able to OBSERVE your reaction, or were you subject to your reaction?
2. Were you able to respect this point of view as a valid one (even if you disagree?) or did you feel compelled to immediately argue with it?

If the latter, pay attention, as you may be doing that in many parts of your life and be totally unaware of how rigidly you see the world.  This is not about being right or wrong, but about being able to hold multiple, sometimes conflicting view points so you can hold more reasonable conversations and make your decisions from a more informed/wider base.

OK.  Take a deep breath.  Thanks for playing the Leadership Game.

Change Starts With YOU

New habits can be tough to change in the workplace. People like predictability. When you show up differently – even if the change is for the better – it is still different, and you may feel pressure from others to go back to how you were “before.”

Still, change starts with you. Choose a specific situation, conversation, or relationship that sometimes creates difficulty or unhappiness for you. Notice how you behave or choose in that situation. Now, notice the internal conversation you have with yourself each time it occurs. Finally, try shifting that conversation to something more positive.

An executive client was having difficulty working with his CEO because he felt the boss was too hard to pin down. His perception was that the CEO changed her mind too often and was unable to make a decision. He found himself so focused on taking notes and analyzing ideas that he was constantly exhausted after their meetings.

We looked at the situation from different angles and my client considered the fact that the CEO, a high-energy extravert, was perhaps just “thinking out loud” and did not need him to create action plans. So he shifted his internal conversation from, “Oh no, here we go again” to “Let’s have some fun with this!” He stopped taking notes and began to practice active listening when the boss went off on tangents.

A few weeks later she thanked him for being such a great listener, saying, “I really appreciate being able to talk things over with you. Sometimes I just need to sort out the issues before I talk with the rest of the team.”

Practice does not make perfect. Practice does, however, build capacity and can serve to recalibrate us at whatever level we aim.

Remember, Leadership is not about a title. Anyone can be a leader who stretches new “muscles” and practices new behaviors that improve their relationships with others.

Lead With Questions

One of the oldest and most enduring leadership models in business today is Situational Leadership (SL), developed by Blanchard and Hersey several decades ago.  The SL model works with the stages of learning through which we all progress when we take on a new task.  The four stages (these are in my own words) are:

1. Clueless
2. Learner
3. Competent yet not Confident
4. Expert

The core lesson of SL is that people at different stages of learning need their leader to treat them according to their situation, or where they are on the learning journey. Someone brand new, who is Clueless, needs a manager to explain everything and provide specific instruction.  A manager who likes to direct and tell people what to do is quite effective for beginners.

Once an individual starts to learn a task, however, a good leader will gradually back off on Telling and shift to Asking questions as a primary tool for motivation. Learners need supportive questions like “What do you already understand?” or “Are you ready for the next step?”  The Competent-yet-not-Confident person needs a coach who will ask, “What do you think the best answer is?” or “What do you need from me?”  Finally, the Expert – who fully understands the task – needs little more than, “Can you take care of this?  Thanks.”

Why are questions such a powerful tool for leading? Because people are motivated in the workplace when they have the opportunity to learn, grow and contribute.  Questions allow people to be part of their own learning, to solve their own problems, and demonstrate their competence.  A manager who insists on telling people what to will destroy motivation and build an environment in which people stop caring — who needs to think if the manager Knows It All?

The best tool for leading is a good question asked at the right time. Leaders who Lead with Questions build positive workplace cultures that allow everyone to feel like they are part of the conversation and that their opinion counts.

Remember: Leadership is not about a title.  Anyone can be a leader who shows up in curiosity and seeks to bring out the best in others by challenging them with Powerful Questions.

Tell Your Team that You Love Them!

THE GIFT OF GREAT EMPLOYEES

Recently, one of my clients was stunned by the resignation of a star employee – a woman he’d been developing for an executive role, possibly even as his successor.  He told me he was meeting with her in a few hours to discuss what he might do to keep her.  Then he shared, “I’m going to let her know that she was being groomed for a top leadership spot.”

“You mean to say,” I asked, “that you’d never told her she was on your high-potential list?” Apparently that discussion had never taken place.

This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that I climb onto a soapbox and repeat this message: Tell your people – ESPECIALLY your best talent – how much you love them!

Do you remember how much time and attention you lavished on your best and brightest hires when they came on board? How you carved out time to meet with them during orientation, and rearranged your schedule to spend time in training and nurturing the relationship up front?  And then what?  If you’re like many managers, you got busy let your relationship with them shift to low-grade maintenance.

In other words, there was a point when you started to take them for granted. Big mistake.  While the economy may still suffer in many ways, the reality is that most talented people still have lots of options.

Practice Annual Re-Recruitment

Years ago I learned of the process called “Annual Re-recruitment” — and I share it again in the hope that you might avoid having to engage one of your top high-potential people in the conversation of, “what can you do to keep you?” after they’ve already given notice.

Annual Re-recruitment is stunningly simple.  All you need do is identify the top 15-25% of your people and sit down with each of them for a few-minute conversation**, in which you say, “I’m so glad you are here.  I value your talent and your contribution, and I hope we are letting you know that often enough.  I want you to be with us one year from now.  What will it take for that to be true?” Your own words may differ, but hopefully you get the idea.

Don’t assume people know you value them, unless you tell them directly and often!

Remember: Leadership is not about a title.  Anyone can be a leader who seeks to build enduring relationships with good people, and who makes it a priority to deliver positive feedback and give people the opportunity to learn and grow.

**And don’t even think about saying, “Jim, I don’t have the time.”  Because then I’m going to ask you, “Oh, but you DO have the time to update the job description, interview multiple replacement candidates, set aside time for onboarding, and then repeat the training process all over again?”  Nuh, uh.  If you don’t have the time to spend nurturing relationships with your best people, then something is awry, and to figure out what, just look in a mirror.  If you call yourself a leader, then behave like one!

If you’re not uncomfortable, you’re not leading

People don’t like to be uncomfortable. I cannot recall the last time I had a conversation a leader where the subject of “difficult conversations” about performance did not come up as one of their most feared situations.  Second to that is concern about telling people that “change is coming.”  Meanwhile, we face the reality that forward progress inevitably requires change, and change itself is uncomfortable.  What’s a leader to do?

If you want to be effective as a leader, you’ve got to get over yourself. While you may prefer to spend all your time in a happy, comfortable world where everyone does their job well and processes always work, that is, in the end, a fantasy world in which your role is unnecessary.  The raison d’être – the core justification – for your job is to solve problems, to declare new futures, to reallocate resources, and to name the elephants in the room.

In other words, your role by definition requires that you create discomfort, both for you and for others. I’m not advocating for “control freaks” or for those with anger issues to run amok in the workplace, because those behaviors create a dysfunctional form of discomfort.  I’m simply reminding you that you must, in today’s fast-moving world, continually stir the pot of change, and regularly challenge your team members to step up their game – and hold people accountable for delivering on their commitments.

In order to create discomfort, you must regularly practice that emotional state; you must become friends with unease, concern, nervousness, and even trepidation. When you become intentionally familiar with those emotions in small doses, you will gradually strengthen your ability to manage them.  You will find yourself more capable of holding difficult conversations because you’ll be confident in your ability to “live through the experience.”

How do you “practice” feeling comfortable with discomfort?

1. Start by having small conversations about minor concerns. Address little performance issues as they occur, so that the conversations can be about improvement versus “your job is in jeopardy.”
2. Rehearse your conversations with a coach or colleague. Many times the fear of delivering a difficult message dissipates when you speak it aloud in a practice session – so by the time you have the ‘real’ conversation, your system is already used to the message.
3. When a change is imminent, start talking with people about the high-level issues and direction even before you know all the details. By the time the final details emerge you and the team will have already gotten gradually used to the idea(s).
4. Have difficult conversations as quickly as you can after an issue emerges. 90%+ of the “drama” and discomfort comes not from the issue but from your thinking (and thinking and thinking) about it, and creating stories about what might happen.  Act before your imagination freaks you out.

Remember: Leadership is not about a title.  Anyone can be a leader who can step into the discomfort of a difficult conversation, knowing that on the other side of that discomfort lays greater potential for progress, accomplishment, and a more positive workplace experience.

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