Who Are You?

It doesn’t matter if you are a diamond or a lump of coal, if you remain buried underground.

          Organizations in general try very hard to convince themselves that “people are our most important assets or resources.”  This quote is about  your obligation to “transform” people, digging up the buried diamonds of talent or applying the proper pressure methods of development  to turn the coal into diamonds. Actions speak louder than words . To truly show that people are your greatest assets, great leadership would  start devoting at least 20 percent of its time to finding out how to discover what they really have—a diversity of talent, skills, and knowledge that could power a large city, if we actually took the time to find out about people and ask questions to unleash their power. Ten percent would seem to be a low bar at four to five hours a week.

Too often, many of us remain a lump of coal, buried deep beneath the earth of corporate cultures, politics, and ignorance. There are so many employees who are already a diamond that remain unseen by the leaders within the organization, or who are that lump of coal that could turn into a brilliant gemstone, if they only were to have the proper pressure applied over time and maybe polished for a bit.

Corporations talk about “developing” people, quite often per the dictates established by the HR division in concert with senior leadership. “Developing” can sometimes be hidden code for “I don’t know how to tap into you, so we’ll put down some statements about you taking some training on your objectives for this year.” More radical leaders might suggest something as crazy as attending a seminar, but let’s dispense with cynicism. The bottom line is that finding out where people want to go (so you can help them on the journey), what fears they have (so you can really work with them for true personal growth), and what talents they have now (that are not being utilized) should be the most important focus as a leader. Outstanding leaders owe it to their companies to actively get the best from the employees that they are privileged to serve. Those who do not do so completely relinquish the responsibility and the trust senior executives have placed in them.

“Okay,” you’ve just said to yourself, “but how can I develop people?” That is the right question to be asking, so I will share some of the ways you might consider with your team members. I’m going to start with a few techniques my very good friend Steve has used. He is by far the best developer of people I have observed, truly a platinum standard for all of us to aspire to. So here are a few strategies to try:

• Send them to the most innovative space in the company—to the organization that is driving innovation most highly in the company. They should be prepared to share that with you or your team members and provide insight on how your team can be more innovative.
• Take your “toughest case” (everyone has one on their team). Try to discern what drives them to be a tough case by going through the value-sorting exercise online or using the traditional value card deck (search on “value sorting” online to find multiple resources). Use the results to apply appropriate developmental strategies tailored now to that individual.
• Use your influence with your network to find leaders, ideally senior managers or executives who might spend fifteen minutes with a member of your team, particularly if the team member has shown a penchant for casting dispersions on the “higher-ups.”
• If someone is due to retire within the year, do not let the bar be lowered from a developmental standpoint. Give them a challenge, perhaps just capturing their knowledge and skills to be transferred upon their departure, and hold them accountable with regular check-ins.
• If someone is not comfortable giving presentations, encourage them to find a local chapter of Toastmasters International and just attend a session to see if that might help them (I went with one of my folks to the meeting and found it to be a great experience with people willing to help each other).
• Assign someone a process improvement project of heft and have them plan it out and keep you engaged as an adviser.
• Invite that team member to attend a manager staff meeting and give a presentation on a project they are working on or would like to work on by getting them a slot on the agenda.

“But these take time, and I’m not sure I can get them time with a senior manager or at our staff meetings because people’s time is precious.” That is an answer, but not a good answer; because that is your job—to bring others along and maximize their value to the organization.

As a leader, the only way you can measure this needed focus on employee enablement is by measuring the time you allot for these activities and the quality of your results with each individual. Succession planning in most (not all) companies is often not much more than an exercise of putting only those high-potential employees on a list to be pulled out at some later date, when one employee takes a new job within or outside the company. While high-potential employees are important, this kind of investing in only one category of individuals (high potentials) is akin to stuffing your cash under the mattress, the cash being all the other people. If you aren’t actively and aggressively pursuing growth within all individuals for your company, you may be leaving the putt short and missing significant opportunities to better leverage human capital in the organization.

Final thoughts: Our job is to develop people to be their very best, isn’t it? Anything less is substandard or at least not our best effort. Remember, you are easily replaceable with anyone from a myriad of other leaders or managers. Don’t be a clone. Take the time to hunt for diamonds or to create pressure on the lumps of coal we call people—our “most valuable resources.”  Mining diamonds and mining coal are two different processes, but the final product can be the same prized gemstone under the right conditions. At the very least, do it for entirely selfish reasons, to further our own career, but do it. It will be so appreciated by every person and the organization you work for.

Be the “conscience” of your team—leadership or otherwise.

Two bosses in the space of five years told me, “Tony, you are the conscience of our team.” If you’re the recipient of that comment, you can have two reactions. The first is, “If I’m the conscience of the team, we’re in really big trouble!” The second reaction is, “Wow, if people see me in that way, I have a big responsibility to this team.” I’ve chosen to adopt the latter reaction and challenge myself.

What does it mean to be the conscience of the team? I believe it means that you are trying to look out for the greater good of the company, your leadership team, and those you lead. In order to be the conscience of a team, you must by default have extremely high integrity. You must have proven to the team that even under difficult circumstances, you are willing to appropriately challenge leadership and your peers. You must have actively demonstrated that you are trustworthy and can keep confidences. You also demonstrate humility and inform people when you don’t know the answer or make a mistake. You speak in actions rather than by words if you are considered the conscience. You are the one people expect to be looking at problems to be solved from more than one angle, to be holistic in your thinking and to provide that perspective in any conversation. Some of the angles you must challenge yourself to consider are technical approaches, the impact on people, the long-term and short-term views, and the politics that exist.  

Each of these lenses is an important viewpoint to consider, so let’s explore them further beginning with the last:

What are the politics that exist?

        Politics is neither good nor bad—it just is. If you fail to analyze or at least appreciate how others are going to react to decisions your team
        is making or  actions it is considering, then you sell yourself short and are likely to encounter some blowback for failure to apply this lens.

What are the short-term and long-term impacts of making this decision or considering each option?

        It is much easier to make a decision or resolve an issue for the short-term horizon. It takes more leadership courage and greater 
        depth of discussion to really tackle the problem for the long-term. Long-term process-solving often means that someone is going
        to have to give up something today.

What needs to be factored in from a people perspective?

      It is easy to select those same team members over and over again because of their “skill sets.” It’s kind of like the old Life commercial.
      Since Mikey will eat anything, we go to him over and over again. People certainly like to be valued for the skills they bring to the table
      but not so valued that we use them over and over again as though they are a retreaded tire. Speak up for people to get them assignments,
      no matter how small, to build their confidence. Being the conscience means getting people out on the ledge or on the tightrope and
      helping them to succeed in learning.

What are the technical considerations that bear on the issue?

      What will the customer who is going to be using the technology think? How will they use it? What business needs are they aiming
      to fulfill by using this technology?

       Technology can be great, but conscience-bearing questions should be asked, such as “Is that really going to make the job go
       faster or make the work easier so it can get done better?” or “Will that technology be yet another screen they’ll have to pull up,
       or will it reduce the number of systems to work in?”

What biases are present?

        Start with yourself. If you think you are completely unbiased, get some feedback from others to see what biases they have
        observed in you.  If you are not aware of others’ biases, perhaps it’s an opportunity to build some relationships. If you are aware
        of others’ biases, try to account for them and engage them in ways that allow them to provide useful input despite the biases
        we all have from our varying life experiences.

Being the conscience can be scary. Are you up for the challenge? The opportunity? or will you follow the path of acquiescence?                                   It's a choice we live with daily.  Choose conscience.

Attention! This is your company speaking. Employees ultimately are responsible for developing the skills necessary for advancing their careers. What? Seriously? For Real?

        What a cop-out and a shame that organizations would use this excuse to put the burden exclusively on the employee. This one has always bothered me as a leader. It’s far too easy, and it’s a poor excuse. While each of us absolutely needs to show initiative in advancing our careers, corporations that fall back on this common, almost trite saying are marginalizing a critical leadership role—developing your people into the best that they can be, stretching them so they will develop new skills, and creating advocacy for each one of your people that has any ability at all.

If “people are your most important resource,” then why do leaders spend little more than 3 percent (or less) of their time working with their teams to map out real possible career moves? --- By the way, 3 percent is about sixty-two hours per year or a little over an hour each week, not much, is it?

Identifying skills that need to be gained, assigning projects to challenge and grow them, helping them to identify people who will be their advocates, mentoring—the list could go on. If you aren’t taking these actions with the people entrusted to you, then I’d consider joining the mediocrity club and abdicate the responsibility for your most important resource; just as your company did when they put that statement in the company policy book or on the HR website. Too harsh? I’m in violent disagreement.

Several years back, I had to give midyear reviews to two employees on my Center of Excellence team who had been with the company for twenty-four and thirty years in the IT and finance divisions exclusively. When we had gone over all the parts of the midyear feedback, we began a discussion about what really motivated them at work—money, opportunity to problem solve, working with smart people, being able to create new ideas, writing software code, etc.  About midway through each session, each employee turned to me and said, “No one has ever had a conversation with me about what motivates me or asked what I wanted to do or jobs to consider in framing up my career.”  My heart broke to hear this.  What a waste of intellect and waste of opportunity to help people explore other interesting jobs within or external to the company—for two and three decades ! Part of me was embarrassed for the organization’s leadership over those many years, because they had abandoned their people—perhaps abandoned is too strong of a word, but I’m trying very hard to convey, “What a waste!”—and yes, it does absolutely indict managers they had over those decades for not leading those employees;  managed perhaps, but never leading. Perhaps no one taught them how to lead.

Every employee deserves to be told how their skills, or lack of skills, impact the company in the review. Every employee needs to know how their good and bad behaviors are affecting their opportunities to gain other positions and their team. And every employee deserves to have a conversation about their career opportunities to encourage them to explore potential jobs, to understand what it takes to obtain those jobs, and to have a leader who knows where they are trying to go, so that they can keep their radar tuned for situations where that leader might help each employee grow. And those have to be truly authentic conversations, not a chore done once a year.

Acknowledging that the company is correct that employees “ultimately own their careers” is fine, but if that is where is stops, it is (a) accepting mediocrity at best, (b) seeking average results from those you lead and yourself, and (c) setting a low bar for leadership; a weak excuse for not actively participating in a rich development of every individual in your charge. At its worst, it is shirking your responsibilities to lead people for your organization. Are you going to adhere to the company minimum or raise the bar to leading greatly?

When people in positions of influence say, “ People are our most important resource ,” but they make statements and take actions (or inaction) which do not square accordingly with this maxim, they deal in death. “Wow!, Too Strong!, You kidding me?” some of you may be thinking, “this guy is morose and a Debbie Downer.” I’m not. In fact, I am a realist – a pragmatist who calls you to look to your better angels and do your job with people as well or better than achieving your “outcomes.”

Until the singularity occurs, we don’t yet have self-running AI platforms to completely run a company, so people are the juice that make companies win or lose, thrive or die. If people in an organization, especially the management team (or in some cases, the leadership team), do not care with integrity for those “human resources” you are entrusted to lead, then by each day, comment, and with each action, or inaction, you become the figure in a hooded robe grasping a scythe – The Grim Reaper.

You are watched carefully if you are an influencer, and if someone isn’t watching you personally, you can rest assured your ability or inability to care with integrity is being passed along the human channels quickly by other sets of eyes and ears. Reputations are made or lost only through daily observations and as we know, they can be destroyed in seconds. You can kill the spirit with a glance, with a public or private reprimand, by shooting down or pushing off potential suggestions and solutions, or just not recognizing someone as they walk by you. Do this daily, and you bring those entrusted to you ever closer to death; not a physical one but perhaps worse.

When you behave and speak in these ways, you can quickly turn someone into a silent zombie who walks through the day operating at a level you just cannot afford. That’s a huge cost of poor leadership you just burdened your company and organization with; money you can ill afford to waste.

So how can you care with integrity and lead accordingly? Some of it isn’t hard.

Buy some thank you notes and keep the box at your desk, so you can take the 45 seconds it takes to appreciate someone while you are thinking of it. Not a single person, not even a strong introvert, doesn’t appreciate you knowing enough about them to tell them when they’ve done great work. Don’t wait for the big monthly awards setting. Water the garden daily. I highly advocate using the small window note cards you can purchase at Compendium’s website – inspirational quotes with a few lines for a note.

Purchase Kouzes and Posner’s “Encouraging the Heart”, which describes hundreds of ways to recognize team members or individuals such as how to use ceremonies.

Look for someone in your organization with a lot of potential (coal underground) and learn how to apply the right kinds of pressure to form them into a diamond.

Other thought-provoking tips can also be found in my newly published book, “ The Leadership Quotient ”.

Whatever you decide to do, consider leading with integrity and caring with integrity. What you sow will reap great rewards or create zombies.

 We all have biases. We all have those visual impairments known as blind spots. What are your mind spots and how can you mitigate them?

In business biases are basic – if you believe you have them, then you can identify them; individually or organizationally. If you think you don’t, then you won’t, and your mind will never be open to anyone’s ideas or ways to improve your organization. If you want to identify your biases and take stock of yourself, leverage the tools of “Project Implicit”. You say you haven’t heard of it?

“Psychologists at Harvard, the University of Virginia and the University of Washington created "Project Implicit" to develop Hidden Bias Tests—called Implicit Association Tests, or IATs, in the academic world—to measure unconscious bias.” [1] If you want to better understand hidden biases, stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination – how they are defined, acquired, and especially, some steps we can take to mitigate the biases once we identify them –  then go to the Tolerance.org site where you will receive a quick injection of all of the above. If you take that first step to lay a foundation for an open mind, then I urge you to take the introspective leap into one or all of the fourteen bias tests at Project Implicit. Whether you are an executive, a first-level manager or a member of a team, seeking to understand yourself is a core element of leadership. Just as there are “blind spots” in everyone’s personality and work practices, there are “mind spots” that are hidden but which can be understood and addressed – your hidden biases.

Once you are aware of those biases and how you can blunt negative aspects of the bias, you have taken the first step to create the foundation for an “open mind”. So where to next? The objective of creating the mindset of openness, the aspirational “open mind”, is to initiate active listening in you as a leader. Leaders have to be able to listen; to apply the open mind and fill it with new perspectives.

So, what are the two absolute requirements you must possess to assimilate, and deliberate perspectives being offered to you as a listener? It’s simple – “open your ears” and “close your mouth”. The first is to bring in the full spectrum of communicating with others; to open the faucet of new ideas. The second is the valve that guarantees the flow of ideas and perspectives is never shut off. I challenge you to take steps to open “your” mind and to be a better listener yourself. I then challenge you to help another to do so. The first is difficult. The second is what great leaders do every day.

 

The day after Labor Day is a good time to reflect on what we celebrated. For many of us it was the “official” end of summer - replete with the trappings of hotdogs and burgers grilled on a charcoal or gas grill and perhaps accompanied with a wide variety of complements from chips to potato salad, fruits and vegetables, perhaps some dips which added to our calorie count for the day, and of course desserts. The day was a time to share with family and friends within our community; making new friends and cementing relationships with others. Another thrust of the weekend’s activities centers around the consumer marketplace and all of the “Labor Day Sales” promising us huge discounts. How did you make out?

So what happens now? This holiday is described by the US Department of Labor as a “creation of the Labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers”. It was started not in the last century but the century before by union men MacGuire and McGuire. They knew then, as we purport to know now, that people who work - blue collar, white collar, and all the other hues that make up our workforce - are THE most important component of gigantic corporate conglomerates as well as small businesses, which are the lifeblood of our job creation engine.

So, most of us are back at work in our organizations today. Notice I said, “at work”, because “at work” implies we are performing actions – we are “working”. Working, laboring is not only a means of providing an income for ourselves and/or our families. It is an important way for us to contribute to our society; to make this country move forward and not lie stagnant. It is a way we develop social relationships which sometimes lead to non-work friendships. Most importantly, it is a way we can gain pride – pride in ideas we bring to life, pride in what we make and create, pride in our contributions, and most importantly, pride in ourselves.

If you are a member of any organization, you are a worker whether you work at a profit or non-profit organization – doesn’t matter at what level; you are a worker.  So, if we are to carry on the spirit and intention advocated by Mr. McGuire and Mr. MacGuire in the celebration of the day we honor labor, it is our obligation, our call to action to value and honor earnest labor, and that means honoring every individual at work in our companies and organizations. Are we doing that better than in 1894? Yes. Do we have much further to go? Yes, again.

True respect for each other’s work, and therefore each of us as individuals, is the penultimate definition of success – a true reflection of that mantra; “our people are our most important resources.”  Respect begins when each of us treats the other first as a leader in their own right. That is what I have come to call Leading Left, and if you are interested in hearing more about that radical way of leading, please reach out to me. In any case while Labor Day is still within recent memory, take the time tomorrow to say thank you to a peer, to appreciate a co-worker or a boss for the efforts they make every day to value your work; to value your contributions. And to those of you who receive an acknowledgement of your value as a worker, maybe you can pay it forward to them or someone else you work with? Only then will you have taken the call of our predecessors, heard it and taken action on it, and then moved us one small step closer towards the goal of treating people as “our most important resource.”

On everyone’s leadership journey, they encounter every manner of obstacle, challenge, or test. Often that comes in the form of criticism, deadlines, or seemingly impossible tasks. In every situation you have two choices; to become the flame or become stronger from the flame. In the old days there was an occupation called a blacksmith (I’ve only read about them). The blacksmith made a living constructing all kinds of shapes or objects out of metal over an open flame. The blacksmith had a choice of various metals to use, some very soft, which quickly melted such as aluminum, or some with greater potential, such as iron and steel. Blacksmiths knew how to use the right temperature over the right time period to make the iron stronger, a process called annealing. Knowing how to anneal the iron meant that the blacksmith mastered the flame, knew the qualities of the metal, and used both to produce a stronger product.

Blacksmiths are long gone, but the annealing process is still in use today. As leaders, we have the ability to choose to become one with the flame, to be consumed by it, or to master it and become stronger. Bad experiences can live with you for a lifetime, or they can be a rich source of strength in developing leadership skills.

On my first ship, a frigate named USS Barbey (FF-1088), I once worked for a man in my naval career who was so terrible and tyrannical that the men I led asked me (with absolute seriousness) if I wanted them to throw him overboard in hopes of his disappearing forever as we were departing the harbor of San Diego for an eight month deployment. The offer was tempting, as I have to admit this single individual made many peoples’ lives, including mine, absolutely miserable every day. I could have given up, but the choice was in front of me, and I chose to become stronger from the experience. I chose to never, ever practice any of those destructive faults from this individual’s actions and behaviors with any team that I would come to lead.

I hear you saying, “No one could be that bad, could they?” Have you ever had your office filled with garbage and other objects (lifejackets, paper trash, etc.) that made it impossible to even open the door to get in? I’m not talking about someone filling your office or cubical with balloons on April Fool’s Day either. It was just a regular work day, and I was physically unable to open the door to my state-room (beds and a small desk). Well, that was one of the many enriching leadership experiences offered to me for two years under Mr. Tyrannical. Eventually, I heard that Mr. Tyrannical smashed a young sailor’s boom box (they preceded the MP3 player and IPod® devices) into pieces in a fit of rage and was forced to make restitution from his personal funds; a poisonous person affecting a real team and wasting precious resources. He was not what we would call the “gold standard” leader, was he?

So what was the impact of living in this leadership hell for months and months? Instead of being proactive, we became primarily reactive; living in fear that we were going to get burned at any time. I spent my time on being perfect on every administrative task, whether it was important to running the ship or not. My team and I spent too much time talking with each other on how to prioritize our work that day or re-prioritize it if Mr. Tyrannical came up with some new discrepancy that required “immediate” correction. My sailors spent valuable time talking amongst themselves about what asinine action Tyrannical had taken or what stupid comments he’d made that day. Morale? Forget that as we just tried to survive for another day. I apologize now to my fellow officers who had to see me dejected as I came into the wardroom or for whom I used as an outlet for my frustration with this leadership “infection”. We had to endure this for two years. The lucky ones were my sailors who got out of the Navy or rotated to a new assignment.

Haven’t we all faced a similar demon at work or in our personal life – someone who threatens to take us down and kill our spirit?  In some cases we have the option to remove ourselves from the poisoned well and leave the company or take another job, however, often you have to figure out how you can blunt or avoid the spear tip thrown at you by a co-worker or boss that is not leadership-competent.

 On one hand is your choice to be aluminum (Al)  or lead (Pb). On the other hand, the choice is iron that can be strengthened into steel. What kind of blacksmith will you be? Decision-making and action are a significant part of the leadership equation.  Resiliency – bend or break, what choice will you make?