The Dependability Quotient (DQ)

Sometimes the best mentors are your peers.

While cutting my teeth at my first ‘real job,’ I had a friend who constantly dwelled upon his Dependability Quotient (DQ).  His take was that he was only as good an employee as his word.  He was a freelance consultant so the need for a high DQ was more obvious than for all of us securely employed at Big Co., USA.

But, the need for a high DQ is the same regardless.

Work is all about trust.

Every interaction, even those with people with whom you are (supposedly) on the same team, is about trust.

In his case, the more people trusted him the more work he would get, the more money he would make and the more often he’d be recommended to others.

Even so, it holds true for all of us corporate monkeys as well.  The more often we successfully follow through on our word the more access to big opportunities we get.  The more we can be leaned upon to help senior executives.  And the more we are entrusted to do what’s right for the organization and we don’t waste as much time being mired in office ‘politics.’

While my friend and I never explicitly talked about how to quantify DQ, I’d guess his mental equation went something like this:

DQ = 0.75*(# of completed commitments) – 1,000*(# of failed commitments)

While that’s likely overstating it, you’ve heard the old pearls of wisdom that say it takes 10 happy customers to make up for one pissed off one.  Or ten positive remarks to cover the sting on one negative.  DQ would follow an amplified form of those.

We work interdependently these days.  There are very few things that one person accomplishes solo.  So in order for you to look good you need your manager, peers or subordinates to follow through on the items they committed to do for you.  And vice versa.

To get ahead, take the long view.  Worry less about the petty politics and work on establishing your DQ.  Only one of those will follow you for your entire career.

Think about who you’d love to work with again.  My guess is that they were the ones you trusted implicitly after hundreds of repeated actions where they followed through and made you look good.

Thanks for reading.  I’m off to tackle something I’ve promised to do for our team.  Chalk another 3/4 of a point up to my DQ.

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.

To Be A Leader, Be A Teammate

Lance Armstrong’s reemergence at the Tour de France has created an interesting plot line.  Namely, who leads a team with two leaders?

Believe it or not, cycling is a team sport.  It takes several unselfish teammates, called domestiques, who are willing to do more than their fair share of work in order to help someone else get the glory.

Most teams, therefore, are set up to have one acknowledged leader who has an opportunity to win the race and for whom everyone else protects and works.  Lance, however, joined a team that had the winner of the 2006 Tour de France and arguably the strongest rider in the world today, Alberto Contador.

Last Friday was a day the rift in the team became publicly known.  The team’s game plan had been to control the tempo of the first big climbs by riding out in front and doing the hard work.  Then with a couple miles to go Contador attacked Lance and his teammates to recapture a few seconds and leapfrog Lance by two seconds in the overall standings.

After the race everyone from Lance to the other Astana teammates to the race director agreed that Contador’s attack wasn’t part of the plan.  Lance, to his credit, said that his job right now was to the team and he stayed with the pack to ensure that no attacks from major competitors were forthcoming.

photo by ._SantiMB.

While arguments can be made that it was a shrewd move from a strong rider, it’s a team sport and a repeated game.  There are two weeks left and Contador will need his team to help him if he stands any shot of winning.

So to break from the team plan in order to put himself in a better position made it known where his priorities lie.  It’s all about him, not the team.

A leader and a team make one another better.  It’s a symbiotic relationship where both fail without the other.

Sometimes in order to lead you have to hold yourself back and pull your teammates with you.  Other times they will be pulling you.  But you can be sure that when your motivation is individual glory and you pay no heed to the effort they’ve put in on your behalf that they will find it far more difficult to go to that well again.  They will start asking themselves what’s in it for them?  They’ll need to know that you have their back just as they always have theirs.

To lead a team give your team what you want in return.  You’re not a team leader after all if nobody is following.

Being The Change You Want

photo by keela84

ChangeThis has posted another excellent set of presentations this month.  One that deeply struck a chord is Flow, Flee or Fight.

As always, it’s worth the full read, but for those leading teams and running companies there is a lot to be gleaned by reading between the lines.

1. Engagement is fluid and ever-changing. People are constantly evaluating the level of effort they should exert.  The outputs will typically match the inputs.  When they feel appreciated and when they feel their work is valued and valuable they increase their effort level.  This is not saying people are lazy.  Just that they work by the Golden Rule.
2. People are present, but not there. Most of your workforce shows up every day and does what is expected of them.  But most have a lot more to give.  Your job is to extract that available effort.  To do that you have to remember that effort is like a tap and you’re not in control of when it flows.  You can only make sure that everything is in place for the tap to work.  One place to start is by assigning work that may be just over the head of your employee and make yourself freely available to support.
3. Change and disagreement is good. Often, those who push back are actually engaged.  They push because they care (not always, but give the benefit of the doubt).  So be cognizant of how you handle disagreement.  Create the structure that gives people the ability to push back against the status quo.  It’s your job to listen and figure out what is best for the company.  Sometimes it’ll be necessary to have people move on, but having the value system in place so that people can voice what isn’t working for them is crucial.  As is having the system in place to end the disagreements and get back to work.

Following the golden rule never hurts.  If you start to treat people as you’d like to be treated and start listening to what they say, but also for what their actions are saying then you’ll be in a better position to harness effort and channel the ‘negative’ energy into something positive.

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.