Provide Context, Not Control

photo by pattyequalsawesome

Sometimes you run across derivatives of the same idea from multiple sources and it gets you to stop and listen.

Two recent examples have come from Netflix and Miles Davis.

Ultimately, it’s about how best to maintain a leadership position by enabling those around you to explore new boundaries.  Leading and corralling rather than managing.

Netflix has posted a rather lengthy, but worthwhile slide show about their culture and how they work.  They put it best by asking their managers to provide ‘context, not control’ (slides 76 – 84).  In essence, describe where you want to go, not how you want to get there.

And The Miles Davis Story (as relayed by a friend) explored Miles’ proclivity to assemble talented musicians, set the mood for the evening and then walk around the stage as they do their thing.  His job was to capture each individual’s wandering explorations and create something cohesive out of it.  Sometimes it worked brilliantly.  Often it didn’t.  But his purpose was to create something that hadn’t been felt before.  To do that you have to be willing to try things that don’t pan out.

It takes a unique type of person to be able to lead in this manner.

• You must be able to inspire.  Start by focusing on the destination and challenge people to find creative ways to get there.  Ask questions rather than provide answers (except for additional context).
• You have to be able to communicate.  You can’t over-communicate.  Make sure everyone knows where you’re going and what’s on the landscape ahead.  Everything is need to know.  Everything.  Find your preferred method, but most importantly…
• …You must be consistent.  While you may start getting self-conscious about saying the same thing twenty times – it will sink in.  Also recognize that one action counter to what you say completely undermines the foundation you’re trying to build.
• You have to be confident enough in your abilities to be able to let go.  More cattle herder less prison guard.  Your job is to recognize good ideas not to necessarily to create them.   Trust in yourself to be able to find the pearls of wisdom in disparate ideas.

It’s no wonder that people who are at the top of their game are attracted by this environment.  If you’re looking to set the direction for your industry then it’s a leadership style worth considering.

Deposit: Emotional Capital

photo by mrpattersonsir

Work is draining.  For many, rare are the days when we leave the office feeling energized.

• It drains us to work with people who communicate differently
• It drains us to combat the petty political games
• It drains us to try and adopt the company’s and our manager’s values in order to ‘get ahead’
• It drains us to figure out what is meant rather than what is said
• It drains us to just be told what to do
• It drains us to continually give ourselves pep talks in order to get our heads back in the game
• It drains us to repeatedly convince ourselves that what we’re working on is really important

As a manager you have to recognize that people are going through this.  Chances are you are too.  But change has to start somewhere.

Sure, technically your job is to make sure the ball is being advanced down the field.  But if your team is too exhausted (or detached) to run the plays how far is the ball going to move?

Your real job is to make deposits into the emotional bank so that when the inevitable time comes when the team needs to hunker down and everything has gone sideways that people are present, engaged and have the persistence to get through the rough patches.

From the employees perspective, they have gone out of their way to make the relationship work.  They started in their role excited and ready to roll up their sleeves and make a real difference.  But every slight along the way has made a withdrawal on their emotional involvement with you, the team and with the company.

• Seemingly innocuous statements may have reinforced how little you know them.
• Decisions may have been made that seemingly flew in the face of the stated company values.  That inconsistency gets noticed.
• Ideas may have been squashed prematurely.
• A teammate may have been rewarded ‘unfairly’

It all adds up and you may be responsible for making many of those emotional withdrawals.  If you expect them to dig in then you need to exert the energy to refill that account.

Focus on your people.  Feed them the projects that keep them energized.  Recognize they’re all different and build those relationships accordingly.  People do want to be treated differently.  They’re not all the same and not universally motivated by the same things.

Start today.  Hold one on ones that don’t focus on tasks but rather the individual.  The work will still get done.

Why Feedback Fails

photo by elevate printing

John Maeda’s recent post on the Harvard Business blogs discusses the value of being critiqued.  Two things stood out to me.  First, how the concept of feedback (aka crits) is entrenched in the supposedly emotionally-based art world and yet the supposedly emotionless, fact-based business world does everything possible to avoid annual reviews.  Second, was the fact that the business world has no idea how to constructively give feedback. (The latter likely follows from the former, of course.)

So…a few thoughts on how to start turning that ship.

Feedback often fails to motivate because we unintentionally make the conversation human.  Seriously.  We make evaluative judgments about the other individual rather than framing the conversation around their goals.  Though the content of the conversation is about the individual and their actions you want to be able to disassociate the individual from the process as much as possible.  You also need to make it apparent that you’re working to the same end point without placating or making unproductive comments in order to ‘soften the blow.’

It’s far easier to be critiqued by others when you know they have your interests in mind.  This is the subtle difference between being a coach and being a manager.

Know what motivates (why one works).  Know each individual’s goals (where they want to be).  And know how to talk to them in a way that gets heard (what springs them to action).

Not knowing these will likely lead to a brilliant failure.  It may not be immediately apparent, but the individual will likely shut down in the short-term and need time to bounce back.  That process can be long and if not properly managed, irreparable.   If you don’t already know the answers to the above a good starting point for giving feedback would be to start the conversation with the first two questions.  If you know the answers, start by reiterating them.

Giving feedback is incredibly hard.  Nobody wants to be the bearer of bad news.  Yet, most people want to be able to take some credit for helping others succeed.  Mentally shift how you think about this activity and it will get a little easier.  And your team should become more productive.

Engagement: Take the First Step

We all want to hire people who are going to make a difference.  Who will drive our businesses forward.

We want people who will remain engaged long after the honeymoon period.

The circle of engagement is pretty clear.  An employee likes her job so she works hard and does well which in turn produces rewards that matter to her so she tries harder still.

But where is the on-ramp?  What fuels this virtuous cycle?

photo by robotography

It’s easy to put the onus on the employee by saying you’re paying well, you have free yoga classes and M&Ms.  But none of those spin the wheel.  Despite what you may think those are only ‘nice to haves’ for most people.  People who are intrinsically motivated to do something amazing.

You’ve spent a lot of time and money to bring the new employee on-board.   So why not suck up your pride and take that first step?  Do everything in your power to ensure the people you hire succeed?

• Give your time liberally. Yes, you’re busy.  But every minute you give to properly on-board someone will give you several in return in the long run.  The new employee will appreciate it even if you don’t hear about it.  You’ll be rewarded with more and more focused effort.  Your team scales, you don’t.
• Praise early initiative. It’s tough for someone to come aboard, figure out how everything works and pay immediate dividends.  Rather than being ‘constructive’ and honing output, focus on input.  Few will be more motivated to put in solid efforts than when making the first impression.  Do your part to encourage that same level of effort in the future.
• Listen. Find out what where they loving pouring their efforts.  Ask for an honest assessment of their strengths and weaknesses.  Their weaknesses will be the areas where they put forth less effort.  Minimize those occasions.  Similarly, find out what they want to get out of a job, what skills they want to pick up and what motivates them.  They may have thought about it, but be persistent.

Engagement is a two-way street.  There is give and take on both sides, but we far too often neglect the new employee and trust them to ‘quickly get up to speed.’

Take the lead in engaging your employees and that lead will be followed.

Leaders Adjust to Their Followers

photo by annadriel

A recent Towers Perrin post reveals a conversation the author had with former NFL coach Tony Dungy.  Football is known for its gruff, abrupt, in-your-face style of ‘leadership,’ but Tony Dungy was far from that.  He succinctly states his philosophy to leading and getting the best from his players three points (from the post):

1. His parents were both teachers and they believed that it was their responsibility to make every student an “A” student. But not every student learns the same way, so you have to tailor your style to each individual to bring out the best in them.
2. You have to make each player on the team understand that the good of the team is greater than that of any individual, and that you can only be successful as a team.
3. You have to earn your players’ trust — this is foundational to the first two. They have to trust that your coaching and advice is what is best for them and for the collective team.

I like this for several reasons:

First, if your leadership style is inflexible and you see people as cogs in the wheel then you dramatically limit the field of potential individuals who could excel in the job.  Finding good people is hard, why should we further constrain ourselves?

Secondly, you are limited by the boundaries of your own imagination and thought process.  If you only know one way to go about things then you won’t be open-minded to new, potentially better approaches.

Further, by acknowledging that people are unique you are connecting with them on a very personal level.  In order to motivate you have to know them.  That connection is usually a two-way street.  By taking the time to understand someone you’re proving you care about them.  Reciprocation is then difficult not to grant.  You wind up getting a lot more effort in return.

Finally, you don’t want your people to compete with each other too much.  That devolves into a race to the bottom.  It is far easier to push another down than it is to lift oneself up.  Putting the team first means that you won’t reward pushing others down in order to shine.