Tag: Leadership

By Scott Patchin

Silence – Creating it

Snowy day.
Image via Wikipedia

I have a weird tradition (at least according to my children) – I like to run in the middle of blizzards.  I have learned to love it because of the silence I experience.  Although I live in Michigan, sometimes it does not snow enough.

Most leaders I meet with display a real skill for driving action and results.  Through one of the assessments I use, the Birkman Method, some of those leaders realize they have internal needs for time to rejuvenate.  Silence helps them recover. 

Unfortunately, leaders don’t get rewarded for silence, only action and results.  The problem is without the former, focusing solely on the latter becomes a habit that can be destructive to ourselves and others.

Making a personal change requires focus and awareness, which requires some level of silence.  A mentor of mine, Doug Silsbee, teaches a technique that gives the body a moment of silence.  He calls it centering. Here is a link to his demonstration.  Our ability to adopt new ways of doing things or to deal with an unexpected event depends on our ability to center, to find silence.

If you don’t think you need it, at least allow others around you to create it. 

You do need it.  We all need it.

By Scott Patchin

Silence – Why it is powerful

I like 6am in my house, because it is quiet.  The challenge with external quiet is that it makes any internal noise louder.

Silence is powerful. 

  • In an interview it tells the candidate that the question you asked is important enough to wait for an answer.
  • In a one on one with a team member it allows the leader to send the message what you have to say matters to me.
  • In a team discussion it allows the person who is hesitant to talk the time to muster up the courage to say something.

What people do with silence tells me a lot about who they are.  I once interviewed with someone who filled the 75 minute interview with 60 minutes of what they thought.  A warning sign . . . . but I still took the job.  Ended up reporting to this person 3 months later.  It did not end well.

Test your ability to create and use silence:

  • Turn off everything electronic for 60 minutes during a day.  What did the silence reveal for you?
  • Go into a meeting with your team armed with only questions.  What did your silence allow your team to reveal?
  • On your drive home today turn off your radio and phone.  How did you use the silence?

Leaders need to be creators of  silence for themselves and others.

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By Scott Patchin

Resilience – The discussion starts(and continues) with transparency

I have had several opportunities to lead and participate in group discussions at retreat weekends.  When I listen to people share at the end of the weekend the message of I was encouraged to hear that I was not the only one struggling with ___________always appears.  People find comfort in knowing that what they are feeling is common to others.  All too often leaders are told or tell themselves they have to act more like a superhero than a person.  While it is true that leaders should not run around like Chicken Little every time something unexpected happens (people do look to leaders for inspiration in the form of strength), that is not the transparency that I am talking about.  Transparency is about admitting we are surprised or stressed, and then getting back to the work of dealing with whatever knocked us off-balance.

Resilience is not about not being rattled, it is about how quickly we recover.  Someone I look to as a great voice in this is Doug Silsbee.  Doug tells the story of a martial arts master who was once asked why he never seemed to be knocked off-balance.  The master replied that he was constantly being knocked off-balance, but he had learned through practice to return to center very quickly.  For the master who looked impenetrable, being transparent was about being honest when asked.  Imagine the impact on those who came to him to learn?  The students left that day recognizing the importance of practice in their own quest for mastery.

With an economic world that is so interconnected, there will constantly be events that surprise us/our businesses and knock us off-balance.  Learning to absorb those blows and get back to center is a skill that people/leaders at all levels need.  This path to resiliency starts by being willing to admit that, no matter what people see, we get shaken like everyone else.

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

We are in this together . . TrustBUSTER#10 – Asks team to make sacrifices, but does not follow

TrustBUSTER #10 – Asks team to make sacrifices ($ / time), but does not make same sacrifices

Something good came out of the most recent recession – shared pain.  When organizations have to cut as deep as they did, people saw the ‘shared’ part of it.  Money and other perks went away, so the pain from all parties was shared in most cases.  Here are three things that causes this TrustBUSTER and two ways to make it go away.

What causes it?

  • Executive – Sees the perks as entitlements.  Cars every two years, club memberships, assistant to pick up dry cleaning, or maybe the box at the local sports venue.  Is it part of your base compensation?  No.  Is it a performance bonus? No.  Is it something that is earned because of the stress and personal sacrifices made for work?  Probably the closest thing to a reason there is.  What employee will empathize with the last reason?  Enter TrustBUSTER #10.
  • Employee – Sees their work as the hard stuff and wonders what their boss actually does to earn their money.  Printing executive pay scales sells papers.  Piling on the working class for spending too much time complaining does not.  Studies have found that compensation is not a motivator, but can be a demotivator if there is a perceived inequality.  The only wisdom I can offer is my experience hearing leaders wish for their old job back.  It is not as easy as it looks.
  • Both – “If you could only walk in my shoes for a day!”  There is a TV show called Undercover Bosswhere the owner of a company spends a week doing frontline jobs in their company as an anonymous new hire.  I am not sure if it is all real, but it shows the impact of leaders getting their hands dirty once in a while.  Sam Walton was famous for visiting Walmart stores to interact with people directly.  I am guessing this one was not as much of a problem for him.  Too bad there is not a show allowing people to be a leader for a day.

Two solutions:

  1. Leader – get out of your office and talk to people – A chief nursing officer once shared conversation she had with a new nursing graduate.  The RN asked “Who drives you to work?”  An innocent perception of inequality.  Makes you wonder how many people thought that but were afraid to ask?  It is impossible for a CEO to know everyone, but the more you focus on people seeing you in normal situations the more you will be seen as a person and not a primadona.  Being seen in the cafeteria or the lunchroom a couple of times a week makes you  accessible and normal.  Take it to the next level and try sitting with non-executives when you eat.
  2. Look for chances to get to know your leaders – Your leader asks you to lunch?  Go.  Is there a corporate function?  Go and seek out leaders to meet and hear what they are thinking about.  When you get a chance to ask them questions, here are a few:  What have you learned lately?  What are your favorite things to do what you are not working?  What are the things that keep you up at night?  What do you want me losing sleep over?  

This trustBUSTER goes away when leaders and followers get to know each others.  For leaders, it is harder to implement a one-sided sacrifice when those on the short end actually have a name.  For followers, seeing leaders as people helps to alleviate some of the us versus them thoughts that fuel this TrustBUSTER.

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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

Self-Awareness 101: Why it matters and 5 questions to get started

A few days ago my 8-year-old daughter shared an observation.  She said “Daddy, when you come on field trips my teacher always gives you the new kids for our group.  You like to meet new people.”  Her comments made me step back because she sees that about me as does her teacher, who I have known for nine years.  I thought about what she saw, and she was right.  It pains me to see someone standing away from a group of people looking alone and lost.  I like to find those people, connect with them, and get them connected.  In my professional life, nothing irritates me more than seeing a poor onboarding program at a company or no resources put towards helping new leaders or teams be successful. 

Moments like this happen every day, but too often we let them pass by.  As our jobs and leaders change more frequently, understanding who we are and what we need to be successful and happy is important.  In fact, it is more than just important, it is critical. 

So here are the five sets of questions that make up Self-Awareness 101.  Being able to answer these will help you build a base of knowledge to use when being approached for a tough project or a new job assignment.

  • What do I do extremely well?  What are my talents?
  • What am I passionate about?  What gets me excited?
  • What do I need from my job?  What rewards mean the most to me?
  • What are the realities in my life right now?
  • What demotivates me?

In his book Mastery, George Leonard teaches us that mastery is a journey, not a destination.  Mastery of ourselves (ie. Self-Awareness) starts with commiting to understand ourselves and seek answers to these five questions, even if the answers come from an eight year old.  Enjoy the journey.

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.