What I can’t remember sharing with you is a critical ingredient in the change sauce that I call the Philosophy of ER.

I consciously developed it formally and have shared it for decades to offset all the talk about failure when people are working to change.

First, you have to understand that I don’t believe in failure; I don’t think that someone has truly failed unless they’re dead. As long as they’re breathing, the worst bums on skid row have the potential to change, i.e., the possibility is there, even if the likelihood is not.

For decades change has focused on setting goals and if they aren’t achieved as stated, then you had failed.

Over the years I’ve worked with a lot of people (including myself) whose self esteem was at best badly bruised, at worst like Swiss cheese.

They started by telling me how they had failed at this or that, but in more detailed discussions it turned out that, although they hadn’t achieved their stated goal within the deadline, the goals and deadlines (one or both) weren’t exactly reality based or had changed along the way and not been restated.

To be valid, goals must come with delivery dates, but those dates must be achievable—not easy, but achievable.

When you set goals without taking into account minor details, such as friends/family/spouse/kids/working/sleeping/eating, then you’re setting yourself up for failure.

Beyond being reality-based, we all need an ongoing sense of accomplishment, especially for that which can’t be done in a few days, to sustain the long term effort that big goals take—thus came the Philosophy of ER.

Over the last couple of decades I’ve ERed almost everything (even when it’s grammatically incorrect).

• I may not be wise, but I’m wisER.
• I may not be rich, but I’m richER.
• I may not be patient, but I’m patientER.
• I may not be skinny, but I’m skinniER.

You get the idea.

So start ERing today and tomorrow you too will be happiER, smartER, healthiER and successfulER.

Just keep reminding yourself that to err is human, but to ER is divine.

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Post from: Leadership Turn

“The US has 2.3 billion square feet of self-storage space. (The Self Storage Association notes that, with more than seven square feet for every man, woman and child, it’s now “physically possible that every American could stand — all at the same time — under the total canopy of self-storage roofing. …one out of every 10 households in the country rents a unit…”

According to Derek Naylor, president of the consultant group Storage Marketing Solutions, “Human laziness has always been a big friend of self-storage operators, because once they’re in, nobody likes to spend all day moving their stuff out of storage. As long as they can afford it, and feel psychologically that they can afford it, they’ll leave that stuff in there forever.”

I’ve said for years that people aren’t water faucets, able to turn off emotions and thoughts or change their MAP just because they change environments from home to work or vice versa.

Reading the article made me realize a hidden reason that makes changing culture so difficult.

It’s not just that the parts of the culture changes, but that the employees won’t let go of the parts that are changing or being replaced; instead they store them away to sort later.

But later never comes, so, like the stuff in the storage units, it sits in the back of their minds running up a bill that is paid in energy, focus and productivity.

As a result of the economy, many of the thousands of the units that were in use for no other reason than laziness are being cleared out, or at least downsized, and the stuff gotten rid of.

Perhaps this is a good time to work with your employees to clean out their mental storage places; to purge the cultural residue and clutter that fills them up.

So clear out the rubbish, open the windows and let the fresh air flow through reenergizing everyone.

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Post from: Leadership Turn

But think how much better it would be to have ALUC embedded in your culture as a part of its infrastructure.

ALUC isn’t something that can be mandated, even by the CEO.

All the proclamations, recommendations and demands aren’t going to force managers to do it if they don’t see the value or their MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) isn’t synergistic with ALUC.

What you can do is instill its value in those managers who report to you; they, in turn, pass the belief to their direct reports and so on down the ladder.

But how do you embed ALUC up your culture?

As Nike says, ‘just do it’—don’t talk about it—and it will spread by osmosis.

ALUC is a major productivity and retention booster, the results will speak for themselves, the how-to will be questioned, copied and implemented.

ALUC should also be a ‘make or break’ for all new hires in management roles, confirmed not only during the interview, but also through reference checking of previous direct reports, not bosses.

Not rocket science; most of the best cultural practices are simple, ignored, but simple.

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Post from: Leadership Turn

I tend to agree with George Bernard Shaw that “Lack of money is the root of all evil.” That or an insatiable desire for more and more of it.

Way back in 1877, Russell H. Conwell said, “Money is power, & you ought to be reasonably ambitious to have it.” The problem these days is that people substitute ‘all out’ for ‘reasonably’.

I don’t know who said the following or if they are just folk wisdom, but they certainly are accurate.

“All I ask is a chance to prove that money can’t make me happy.”

“While money can’t buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own form of misery.”

“While money doesn’t buy love, it puts you in a great bargaining position.”

I also like Lord Mancroft’s comment, “Money can’t buy friends. But you can afford a better class of enemy.”

But Francis Bacon really hit a homer with his statement, “Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.”

According to Samuel Butler, “All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income,” which is a good description of our current situation.

Then, of course, there is Emile Henry Gauvreay’s almost perfect description of the attitude that got many of us where we are today, “I was part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending their lives doing things they detest to make money they don’t want to buy things they don’t need to impress people they dislike.”

If you want to significantly improve your life you should embrace Bacon’s words, while eschewing Gaureay’s.

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Post from: Leadership Turn

But diversity refers to much more than race, creed, or gender.

Juicing creativity and innovation requires a strong diversity of both thought and skills within your organization—homogenizing your workforce dilutes the juice.

Thought Diversity

True mental diversity is about MAP and mental function, not just a race and gender. I’ve known managers whose organizations were mini-UNs with equal numbers of males and females, but they might as well have been cloned from the boss, their thinking was so identical.

There are three main ways to homogenize thought

• Hire all the same types, most often “people like me;”
• scorn/belittle/reject anything that doesn’t conform with your own MAP/ideas/approach; or
• allow others in your organization to do the first two.

As your organization grows more diverse you want to celebrate controversy, encourage disagreement, and enable discussions—all within a civilized framework that debates the merits of ideas, not individuals.

Skills Diversity

Skills homogeny is just as detrimental to innovation. As with MAP, people tend to gravitate towards people whose skills are within their or their group’s comfort zone; worse, managers may be unaware of the full range of skills available within the group.

The fix for skills homogeny is far simpler, since it requires awareness and mechanical action, rather than changes in MAP.

Use this three-step process to better identify and access your group’s skills

1. Skills survey: Have each person in your group create a complete list of all their skills, not just the ones they’re using in their current job, but also those from previous positions and companies, as well as skills they’ve developed outside of work. Have them rate each skill 1-5 (five being the strongest) based on their expertise. (I’ve yet to see a manager do this who wasn’t surprised at the results.)
2. Skills set matrix: Using a spreadsheet, create a matrix of the information.
3. Repeat and update: go through the entire process and update the matrix twice a year; add every new hire’s info immediately.

Be sure to consult the matrix every time you develop a new position or replace someone, whether through promotion or attrition.

Knowing all this gives you tremendous staffing flexibility. For example, you may have someone in your group who’s developed the needed skills on a new project and would be thrilled to move to the it. Then, using the matrix, you can design the new position to fill other skill gaps, both current and future.

The end result is a well-rounded organization of people inspired to learn new skills, because they know that they won’t be relegated to a rut just because “that’s what they’ve always done.”

Viva La Difference is the rallying cry for the anti-homogenizing movement.

(For more on how to diversify click here, here and here.)

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Post from: Leadership Turn

These days it’s called ‘engagement’ and smart managers are looking for ways to increase it. They want to incorporate practices and attitudes in their group’s MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) that will improve productivity and increase engagement.

Two such items are

• basic business knowledge and
• a large dose of pragmatism.

Business 101

Naiveté regarding business frequently leads to non-reality based ideas and attitudes. If people have a fuzzy or rose-colored view of what has to happen for the company to be successful, there’s no way they can contribute effectively.

Worse, this lack of knowledge can make them resistant to the procedural changes necessary to the company’s successful evolution as it grows, shrinks, or changes.

It’s not necessary, or even possible, to provide the in-depth business knowledge that comes from an MBA or 30 years as a successful CEO, but wise managers can provide basic understanding of the actual forces at work within the company, industry and even the economy in general at times such as this.

You want your people to understand

• the Business Mission Statement;
• customer desire as the driving force behind product development (why build it if they won’t buy it?);
• financial controls, what they are and why you need them;
• why/how to avoid blue sky approaches and impossible wish lists;
• the reasons for requiring excellent documentation;
• the importance of quality and manufacturability; and
• other business-specific subjects.

Teaching these should be active, not passive; merely posting the information on your intranet won’t get it done. Use brown bag lunches or company-wide webinars, followed by local discussions, to create a positive learning process.

Finally, be sure you encourage people to use what they’ve learned.

Pragmatism

Pragmatism should permeate your MAP, the groups and the company culture. It should be like stain as opposed to paint—not just covering the surface, but also sinking in.

By practicing pragmatism as well as preaching it, you encourage a reality-based culture where

• setbacks are easier to deal with because they are recognized and acted on quickly;
• employees speak up because they are assured that the messenger will not be shot;
• rose-colored glasses are obvious;
• growth and change of the culture without corrupting it is encouraged; and
• “not-invented-here” syndrome is veer batten.

Pragmatism works best as a part of a MAP that everybody is encouraged to embrace.

It helps to create a company in which not only can everybody see what the Emperor is wearing, but also have no compunction about discussing it.

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Post from: Leadership Turn

Jim Stroup at Managing Leadership describes it well.

“Initially the gurus told us that leadership was a superlative individual characteristic reserved to the elite, then a democratically distributed attribute accessible by all… first to vision, then decisiveness, then courage, then team-building skills, then forcefulness, then empathy. It’s about looking inward to one’s core self. No, it’s about communication and connecting with others.”

The list of leadership fashions is actually much longer than Jim’s list; different looks are marketed by different leadership houses and each has a name designer at the helm with more junior designers doing much of the actual work. Every so often one of these junior people leaves and starts her own house and so the industry grows.

Along with the major houses are the small independent designers who may be aligned philosophically with a larger house, but put their own spin on the product.

Just as fashionistas drive the cutting edge (which can be pretty weird) in clothes, anoint designers, models and wearers as icons and then trash them for being out of touch or too <whatever>, so, too, do leaderistas drive what’s fashionable in leadership, hold icons up for adulation, dump them from their pedestals when their feet soften and switch when more trendy designs comes along.

The greatest difference is that fashion products are made of real stuff, while leadership products are built of words.

Consider Lao Tzu, who, 2500 years ago said,

“The superior leader gets things done with very little motion. He imparts instruction not through many words but through a few deeds. He keeps informed about everything but interferes hardly at all. He is a catalyst, and though things would not get done well if he weren’t there, when they succeed he takes no credit. And because he takes no credit, credit never leaves him.”

and

“As for the best leaders,
the people do not notice their existence…
When the best leader’s work is done,
the people say, “We did it ourselves!”
To lead the people, walk behind the.”

In 1987 The Leadership Challenge presented the 5 Practices of Leadership

• Model the Way
• Inspire a Shared Vision
• Challenge the Process
• Enable Others to Act
• Encourage the Heart

These days the hot terms are thought leadership and servant leadership.

If you’re getting tired of the leaderistas go back to Lao Tzu’s Tao Teh Ching; I have a copy that, measured in inches, is 4.5×3x3/8 in an easily readable font.

It will rev up your brain, sink into your MAP, juice your leadership abilities and add peace to your soul—not bad for a book you can put in your pocket.

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Post from: Leadership Turn

We hear all the time about ‘living up to our potential’.

I know that every time I didn’t do what someone thought I should, I heard about my potential. It became the club-of-choice used by teachers and family to push me, but I don’t take well to being pushed and my reaction was to dig in my heels.

The same ‘club’ had a different effect on many others and became a driving force in their lives.

Different MAP, different reaction.

I didn’t give it much thought until I was in my early twenties and a friend killed himself. The note he left is one of those things you never forget.

“I’m sorry. No matter how hard I try I can’t seem to do what you want. I keep being told to live up to my potential, but no one tells me what that is or what it means. I don’t know how to do it and nothing I tried seems to bring me any closer. This is easier, I won’t have to try any more.”

My friend was a straight A student, cum laude high school grad, full scholarship to a top university, etc., yet he was still being chased with that club.

I’m not suggesting that potential should be quantified because that would limit it, but living up to it shouldn’t be a club or a judgment—it should be an encouragement and incentive.

I read once that the past is a series of paintings that can’t be changed, while the future is a blank canvas on which we dream, but the present is within our grasp.

I believe that each day is a blank canvas; if you live it to its fullest, doing everything as well as possible within the power of who-you-are-today, then your pasts will hold many positive accomplishments, good memories and far more learning experiences than regrets.

To this day, I still hear the potential club, but no outsider can know whether I’ve lived up to mine.

In my response to Becky I said, “Life is about choices; when you look at how far you’ve come you have the choice to see errors or learning experiences; to congratulate yourself on what you did or beat yourself up over what you didn’t.”

I stopped beating myself up the day my friend died, but I didn’t stop striving.

Again, it’s about how you choose to view your past, present and future.

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Post from: Leadership Turn

“One strategy I used in my groups was to map out every single task we were doing, have the team agree that it is a fair and balanced, distributed workload, and completed the tasks on my terms. By doing this, I was able to finish everything quickly. In fact, on multiple occasions I gave myself MORE work only to finish it hours before the rest of the team to prove a point. I am not saying I recommend this, as I had the time to do it, but the underlying idea behind the method is what’s important.

What this does is put everyone on a common ground – it makes everything transparent. In a sense, it almost divides the group into a set of individuals. Although it may seem counter-intuitive, unless you have booming chemistry it is the best way to accommodate opposite personalities. Busy people will always like busy people better than productive people (think in terms of “misery loves company”). Productive people will like the other productive people. The idea is to work “together” separately and on common terms. I didn’t run into a single other problem after we began agreeing to these common terms. I would say “I’ll crunch these numbers, translate them, write the report on them, and email it to you if you do this other task… does that sound fair?” If they said “Yes,” then as long as you finish your task, they cannot say anything.”

Smart thinking—especially considering that Jim did this in college (he just graduated).

But what if you’re work isn’t quantitative? It’s a difficult solution to implement when your work day isn’t comprised of set duties.

Think about it. How many of your people really understand what you do and why you spend your time the way you do? And that means that when you’re managing by walking around, which is very productive, they think you’re just goofing off and leaving all the work to them.

The solution is simple, whereas the implementation can be difficult.

The solution is to communicate; to talk. To describe to your people what you do and why, so they see your wandering around the department as a job duty and not a time-waster. To make sure that your people can track your productivity even when you don’t seem busy.

Implementation depends on your willingness to share the details of your work and that depends on your MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™).

There are many managers who don’t know what they do beyond the obvious parts and you can’t share what you don’t know.

And more managers than you might think don’t want to share; they want to keep the managerial mystique intact, which means shrouding much of the work in secrecy or at least no details.

The former just takes some effort to identify and describe all the intangibles that make up your invisible work.

The latter is between you and your MAP, but as I keep saying, MAP can change and it’s always your choice.

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Post from: Leadership Turn

Before I go into this there is a caveat I want to make very clear.

What I’m about to write is NOT a judgment call—having been brought up in a judgmental family I don’t judge. Sure, I have opinions, we all do, but I don’t judge. The most I can say is “X isn’t right for me, but Y is.”

I might recommend Y; I might even argue passionately regarding the merits of Y, but in the end it’s your decision and you need to tweak/modify/change Y to fit your MAP—if you decide you have any interest in it at all—because Y is a product of my MAP and no two MAPs are identical.

Back to taking stock.

In a post at LeaderTalk, Becky Robinson says, “I still have more than half my life left to live… Still, with each birthday I feel the anxiety of wondering if I am living up to my potential. … Often, I can’t wake up from my daydreams of a disciplined and directed life long enough to make that life happen. … I have learned from experience that I need both [self awareness and willingness to change] if I want to be successful in life and leadership.”

To me, it was a very sad post. Sad because the focus seemed to be both personally judgmental and set such store on such an intangible as ‘leadership’—which is, in fact, a description applied and substantiated by others.

But that is probably just me. I’m very different.

I’m substantially older than Rebecca and have bounced, and occasional blundered, through life opening doors as the mood moved me.

I’ve made and lost money as well as friends as our lives diverged.

To paraphrase something I read somewhere, “a person should be judged by the number of people s/he brings to success,” and based on that I am enormously successful.

If I have any guiding philosophy it’s the same as Google’s—do no evil. I work very hard at not hurting anyone by word or deed, advertently or inadvertently. I doubt that I’m always successful, but it’s a goal about which I’m passionate.

I do not lie, cheat or steal.

If I were to have a tombstone when I die (I won’t, since I’m being cremated and scattered) I think I’d like it to say, “Miki worked hard to do no evil, hurt no person and give back more than she took.”

What would you want on yours?

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Post from: Leadership Turn