Category: Leadership

By Scott Patchin

Resilience – 4 Steps to NOT make it another initiative

Resilience is the new word for 2011.  If you have not heard it yet you will.  There is risk in using it because the definition sounds hard.  Mirriam-Webster’s dictionary presents resilience as  an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.  Can you hear the chatter over coffee or lunch already?  This as the potential to be a great Dilbert comic strip or episode on The Office.

So what would be the benefit to your team if people spent 50% less downtime after a major change?  Are you concerned about burning out key people?  Do you see no immediate end to the pace you are asking your teams to work?  It is time to address how an organization can use the resilience discussion to give their leaders more energy and provide their teams with new skills to deal with the realities of a difficult business environment.

  1. Be transparent about your concerns:  If everyone is feeling the stress and strain of an uncertain today or tomorrow then talk about it.  People are more likely to take it seriously if they hear their leaders discussing it openly and making personal changes/efforts to increase their own resilience.  
  2. Focus initially on self awareness / team awareness:  A basic discussion about stress and how it happens for each of us is a good place to start.  Just the knowledge of how each of us reacts to stress and how our teammates react allows discussions to happen in a way that people can help each other as they help themselves.
  3. Bridge awareness to ‘How do I cope?’:  There is lots of research around the effect of exercise, yoga, friendships, and many other things that allow people to relieve stress or gather support.  The key is to have people pick something and do it.  For executives, this is often where coaching becomes a key tool so they can have a safe place to deal with their individual needs and support in making a change into a habit.  For others, the support of a team or a few key friends at work is critical, so assist in building those relationships.
  4. Continue the discussion:  In one on one meetings leaders should follow-up on commitments made to pursue friendships or get exercise.  Maybe even pushing people to leave at lunch or make their 5pm yoga class.  In team meetings – spend a few minutes at the beginning of the meetings hearing about key wins and key stress points this week.  If someone sounds particularly stressed out make a habit to check in with them.

Resilience is a timely discussion given the current economic realities.  Just don’t make it an initiative, make it a habit.  How relevant is this topic to what you are seeing or hearing or feeling?

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By Scott Patchin

Is Resilience The Right Message? Three things to consider before starting this discussion in your organization

Many years ago a friend shared this story.  At the birth of their first child they reached a point where the doctor asked them if they wanted an epidural.  They had discussed it during birthing classes and decided to go through the delivery process without it because it was not covered by insurance.  Several hours of real labor had changed his wife’s thinking on the matter and she wanted it.  My friend, still being a rookie at marriage and childbirth, decided to coach his wife through the final stages of childbirth by offering the advice “Suck it up honey”.   I will stop the story here, but will share that they ended up getting the epidural.

Coming back from the recent economic downturn will take resilience from everyone.  How often does the message of resilience sound like the response of the father above when being delivered from others.  This is emerging as one of the hot topics in 2011 as companies grow with limited hiring and budgets.  Here are three key things to remember when tackling this topic:

1. What it means?  In the January 2011 edition of HR Magazine author William Atkinson provides a nice summary of the topic. (link to article)  A key point is this is not a new topic, but the current conditions in the workforce make this critical because the pressure caused by increasing expectations for performance versus the unprecedented push for efficiency.  People have more to do and fewer resources.  In his article, Atkinson refers to a survey that found 75% of people saying they were stressed to unhealthy levels.  The take away is that we need to equip our people to cope with this new reality.

How we should talk about it?  The topic goes beyond the wellness discussion, although how we take care of ourselves is important.  To start, the message has to focus on the reality that all levels of the organization are facing this challenge.  It has been said, but has it been said from the standpoint of “We feel we are doing what we have to do for this business to be successful.  Yet we know that it is stressing people beyond what is healthy.”  Next, focus on open and honest discussions about what stresses each person out, what we can do to relieve the stress, and what can be done to lesson it (both by the leader and the employee).  If there is going to be training, it needs to first focus on equipping the leaders to have these conversations with their teams and provide ongoing support.

Who we should be listening to?  A standard piece of every management library is a stress management book.  If it is not there go buy one.  Jim Loehr is an author that has been around this topic for a while using the analogy of creating a corporate athlete.  Another voice that I like to listen to is Doug Silsbee.  He has placed a few videos that outline his thoughts on the topic that will provide a perspective on how resilience can help and provided some basic stress management techniques.  Here is a link to the videos.

Back to my initial story.  Was my friend purposefully trying to be insensitive to his wife?  No.  They are still married and that baby son is now off to college.  But when stress hits sometimes the words out of our mouth don’t accurately reflect what we are thinking/feeling.  For leaders, just make sure the words out of your mouth take the discussion in a healthy direction, not to a place where people interpret the message as “deal with it”.  This is a topic we should all be talking about.

By Scott Patchin

Someone we all need to listen to – Jessica Jackley

Image representing Kiva as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase

I like listening to interesting people.  Recently I was able to see Jessica Jackley speak.  If you don’t know her, she is the co-founder of Kiva.org, which enables micro lending to happen in the world’s poorest areas.  Successful?  In five years they have made loans in excess of $130 million to 700,000 people.  In the process over 98% of the zero interest loans have been paid back.  If you want to hear her speech here is the link to the TED website.  It is a worthwhile 18 minutes.  Here is what I took away:

  • Know your mission (what / how / why).  It helps you say no to some things and connect with people who share similar goals.
  • In order to co-create with people you have to give up control (Kiva uses volunteer translators).
  • Do iterative development:  Build it, get feedback, improve it, and remember it is okay to fail.
  • Entrepreneurs see tomorrow > today

Finally, in response to a student asking her a question about whether he should pursue a similar career track, she responded with these steps to helping others:

  1. Learn as much as you can about the person you want to help.
  2. Ask if they have a place the can go to get their needs met.
  3. When you see things/needs that are not being met, find a way to fill in those gaps.

These three simple steps could be used anywhere it is important to connect with people and make a difference in their lives.  Which is everywhere from main street to the board room to the factory floor.  It is refreshing to see someone who did not read all the leadership books succeed because they were passionate and willing to try something.  Passion is the fuel for change, and Jessica Jackley stands out as a modern-day example of that.

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By Scott Patchin

Do Heroes Have To Be Leaders?

As I was having my coffee and reading the Sunday morning paper yesterday an obituary caught my eye.  A 92-year-old WWII veteran named Richard ‘Dick’ Winters had passed away.  I first learned about Dick Winters watching the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers.  It was based on a book published by Stephen Ambrose that told the story of a company of soldiers from the 101st Airborne during World War II.  I am the first generation in my family in the last 100 years not to serve in the armed forces, and I love to hear the stories of those individuals who did because it provides me a glimpse into the character of my father and grandfather.  What war requires and what it takes away from those who go through it still boggles my mind. 

The story of Dick Winters is especially interesting because he was not the leader of Easy Company when the planes took off from England as part of D-Day.  But when their company commander was killed in the invasion he assumed command and his heroics began.

Dick Winters was a hero, and he happened to be a leader.  What did he think of leadership?

“If you can,” he wrote, “find that peace within yourself, that peace and quiet and confidence that you can pass on to others, so that they know that you are honest and you are fair and will help them, no matter what, when the chips are down.”

Did he consider himself a hero?

When people asked whether he was a hero, he echoed the words of his World War II buddy, Mike Ranney: “No, but I served in a company of heroes.”

Being a great leader takes courage.  Being a hero takes a depth of courage to quickly act in unbelievably difficult situations.  Unbelievably difficult are the words for those who hear about the heroics years later.  For real heroes, they just call it their job or their duty, and humbly go about their lives. 

Something to think about today no matter what your title or position.

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By Scott Patchin

Leave the Squirrels Alone – Put Energy Where It Matters

Today at breakfast I watched the squirrels eat at my bird feeder.  Remember – I called it a bird feeder.  I grew up watching my Dad chase the squirrels away with every trap and method imaginable, so to this point in my life I saw the squirrel as an enemy.  Then I realized that 25 lbs of sunflower seeds was less than $10 . . . and that squirrels are just hungry.  Suddenly, the reason I had started this battle in the first place was fuzzy.  The only thing I could come up with was it was a matter of principle because I wanted to feed the birds.  So I decided to feed the squirrels and turn my energy to other things.

Seth Godin calls the part of our brain that takes over when we feel threatened the lizard brain.  More specifically, it is the amygdala or inner brain, and when it takes over the thought and reasoning parts are idled and fight/flight thinking dominates.  The resulting behaviors have been researched and identified by the Birkman Method as stress behaviors, and they are not normal or productive.  They happen when the lizard brain is in charge.

So what are the ‘squirrels’ you are battling?  In the business world I have seen operations square off with sales, engineering with design, quality with suppliers, finance with sales, and purchasing with just about everyone.  There are lots of battles going on, and in many the lizard brain is in charge.  Getting out of the lizard brain is one of those things that is simple, but difficult. Here are five steps to taking the control away:

  1. Step back and see the behaviors (yours and others) as lizard brain thinking.
  2. Ask the questions:  What is our common goal here?  What is the solution we are each offering?  Why are we so passionate about our solution?  (keep asking Why? until you get to the basic answer)
  3. Listen well and write the answers so everyone can see.
  4. Ask:  What solution best fits our common goal?
  5. Make a decision – and move on.

A grown man, in his pajamas, sneaking through the snow with a club to attack a squirrel is an image that reflects some lizard brain thinking.  What is a good image of your lizard brain taking over?  Identify it, remember it, and take the power away from it when it happens.

By Scott Patchin

The Career Question No One Asks – and 5 Questions All Leaders Should Answer

A couple of times a year I do a keynote address to high school students for something Junior Achievement calls a reverse job shadow.  This is a day where people come to the school to talk about their careers.  One question I always ask the students is:

  • Did any of the presenters share a mistake they made during their career journey? 

The answer is always no – which is a shame.  We get the students into a room to help them consider career choices, and we don’t take the time to tell them mistakes are part of the journey.  Like any journey, career journeys are not defined by the mistakes, but by our response to those mistakes.   They should know that, and we all need to remember that.

Next time you have a chance to tell your story, make sure you include the answers to these questions:

  • What careers/degrees/jobs did you have before you found this one?
  • What is one thing you wish someone had told you before you started?
  • What is the biggest mistake you ever made and what did it teach you?
  • What part of your job is more fun than hard?
  • What part of your job is more hard than fun?

If you are a leader, what would be the impact of sharing this information with your people? 

Remember . . . Vulnerable <> Weak.

By Scott Patchin

I know I said I would do that, but . . TrustBUSTER™ #9 – Four common causes and solutions

TrustBUSTER™ #9 – Does not consistently follow through on commitments

It was a team of eight people and we had just gone through a DiSC assessment and were discussing the results.  One of the individuals was particularly stressed out, and as we were talking through strengths and weaknesses she had an epiphany.  She said “I am overwhelmed with my work and exhausted.  I have too much to do because I cannot say no, and as a result I am missing deadlines.”

It is not normal behavior to not complete tasks on time.  We are not all task focused people first, but under normal circumstances we should all be capable of hitting deadlines.  So what gets in the way?  Here are the four most common causes of TrustBUSTER™ #9:

  1. Ignorance – In his Situational Leadership Model, Ken Blanchard called the initial development stage the enthusiastic beginners.  Remember when you would say yes to things, even though you had no idea how to complete the task?   Also, remember that ignorance is only a temporary condition. (hopefully)  Solution:  Recognize ignorance and either shorten the performance leash (check in frequently) or offer to partner/coach through the task the first time. 
  2. Trying to please – There are many different situations that contribute to this problem.  Fear from seeing people lose their jobs that results in feeling that yes is the only answer.  A high performing team of highly driven individuals and you want to do your share.  A leader that puts in 70 hours a week, and there is an expectation (real or imaginary) to keep up.  Solution:  Focus on having conversations  that define expectations and reveal how people are feeling about tasks.  In addition, self-awareness and understanding how teammates are wired so the situations above can be addressed openly.
  3. Big eyes / little stomach – We have all been there.  The buffet looked great and a little bit of everything is the decision.  The certain outcome is feeling sick and dissatisfied.  Some enjoy the challenge of too much or feel they are at their best when overwhelmed.  Even the best take on too much sometimes.  Solution:  Make it a habit to have frequent discussions about priorities to make sure expectations are clear.  Individuals have to learn to recognize limits and how an overloaded task list can negatively impact the overall team.
  4. Not enough time – There are people in every group that have time boundaries.  Whether it is someone working part-time, a single parent, or maybe someone who has learned through a heart attack that they need to keep their stress levels down.  Solution: Talk about it.  Not everyone wants to live a life of too much to do at work.   If it does not fit the culture (ex.  a startup company) then get that on the table and make the decision that is best for the individual AND the organization. 

How can a leader proactively address this TrustBUSTER™?  First of all, leaders need to be fanatics about making it safe to question priorities.  Secondly, making accountability a norm within the team is critical.  Mistakes will happen, but missed deadlines have to be discussed openly and the problems/barriers have to be named and addressed.  Always have the questions in hand “What will it take to get things back on track?” or “What has to change or fixed?”

By Scott Patchin

trU Tips 10 – Do virtual teams need leaders? Truths and challenges.

This posting is a monthly letter distributed to followers of The trU Group focused on exploring a leadership topic or answering a question from a reader.  To sign up to receive trU Tips as a monthly email click here.  My promise is to only use this mailing list to distribute trU Tips – so do not worry about getting many emails from me each month.

To view past trU Tips click here.

What I’m hearing

A friend posed a question to me, “In this new virtual world, how does the role of the leader change?”

What it means

Leading people in situations where information and decisions flow around you as the leader is challenging.  It could be creating a blog or an on-line community within a tool like NING to bring people together around a common interest or goal (this is a team).  In these situations participation is voluntary.

Seth Godin writes about this in his book Tribes, and says “Great leaders create movements by inspiring the Tribe (i.e. Team) to communicate.”  Godin’s challenge to lead in a tribe is very similar to the servant leadership idea that has been around for a couple of decades.  While Godin is writing about a virtual community, it mirrors reasons Peter Drucker often shared that  promoted the value of leading in a not for profit situation as a development opportunity for any leader.  Leading in situations where people have to want to follow you because they don’t have to follow requires a leader to lead differently.

The bottom line is that all teams need leaders.   Whether virtual or face to face, teams need goals, guidelines, and overall accountability to be successful.  However, leading in a virtual situation will expose people who have to lead through control and direct authority.  They will be found out quickly and painfully because their lack of passion around enabling, giving, and listening. 

The on-line world is bringing back the servant leader model in another form.  The concept is that people will not follow or work as hard for leaders that do not possess the relational capacity to connect with their people.  Generation Y/Millennials entering the workforce make this skill even more critical for leaders.  If you are interested in exploring the connection read The Servant by James Hunter and Tribes by Seth Godin.  In leadership literature there are few new ideas, only new approaches. 

What you should do

Make a list of all your leaders (direct reports) and your future leaders (high potentials).  Identify 5-6 characteristics/skills you feel are important for leaders to possess at your organization.  If building positive relationships with staff at all levels is not on your list then add it.  Rate each person versus your leadership criteria using the terms: strength, skilled, weakness, or unsure.

Explore your data by asking yourself these three questions:

  • What skill jumps out?
  • Is anyone not showing strength in building positive relationships?
  • How would I be rated?

Looking for a partner to connect this information with your operational or strategic plans for your business?  Contact me.   Scott@thetrugroup.com

By Scott Patchin

Building a Strong Team – no ropes needed, just a BBQ

I read a great story today about a team that developed largely through the actions of the team members.   It is about the Michigan State University offensive line and what they did to build a more cohesive and higher performing team.   It resonated with me because it was done largely through two things that we can all afford:  attitude and time.  Highlights for me:

  • Leadership (the coach) set the goal to develop a more dominant running game.  (result was +30 yds/game in 2010 vs 2009)
  • Their time together off the field was spent around a barbeque – eating.  (ie.  no ropes course or expensive consultants were needed)
  • The quarterback provided leadership (via encouragement) by buying t-shirts for the linemen to help show their unity and pride. (ie. no $$ compensation was needed to motivate this group)
  • No significant individual honors were received by any of the offensive lineman.
  • The opponents recognize their teamwork, and the players use the word PRIDE to describe how they feel about what they have accomplished.  What great key measures.

It is not certain that their team will win their bowl game, but it is certain that this group of young men have shown us they understand how to build an effective team.   Here is the link  – http://www.tidesports.com/article/20101228/NEWS/101229701/1011?p=2&tc=pg

By Scott Patchin

I care… really! TrustBUSTER™ #8

TrustBUSTER™ #8 – Shows little concern about me a person

When I stand in front of a room of leaders and ask the question “How many of you care about your people?”, 100% of the people raise their hands.  I believe that 99.9% of leaders care about their people.  (I will save a discussion about that .01% for later)

Recently, I led a group discussion around trust that divided 30 people into four groups based on personality type.  I provided them with the TrustBUSTER™ list and asked them to identify one behavior on the list they saw most frequently from the other three styles.  One group received feedback from all of the other groups that #8 was the behavior that tripped them up.  The group receiving this feedback was the task focused/achievement oriented group.  This is the same group that 60+% of executive teams fall into based on my past experience.

Why does this happen? A manufacturing supervisor once shared this wisdom with me, “Intentions without action equals SQUAT”.  In his book The Speed of Trust, Stephen M.R. Covey makes the point that “We judge ourselves on our intentions.  We judge others based on their actions.”  Both quotes lead to the same conclusion, if people don’t see it they don’t believe it.

As a leader, how do you bridge the gap between your actions and the perception of the people reporting to you?  Here are three ways to keep this TrustBUSTER™ from tripping you up:

  • Self Assessment: Test your knowledge of your people by asking these questions.  What are the names of their spouse/children?  Where do they live?  What non work activities are most important to them?  What is the biggest event going on in their life right now?  Take a moment to evaluate how you answered these questions.  This is pretty basic stuff, so if you missed anything you need to spend more time with your people.
  • Monday/Friday rule:  Spend time on Friday connecting with people to hear about their week or upcoming weekend activities.  Spend Monday hearing how the weekend came together or what they are looking forward to during the week.  (take a few notes after each conversation if you are like me and forget things)
  • Find a partner to help:  If you are an executive chances are you have way to much to do and connecting with your people is not a strength.  Find someone around you that will remind of key dates for your people(birthday, anniversary) and keep a pulse on what significant things that are happening with those in your team or department.  Enlist their help to remind you of opportunities to connect.
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