Leaders Value People & Build Teams

Are you happy with the divisiveness in our world?  I’m not!  I am frustrated and angry that our society is so divided, and in many places it appears there is no desire to come together.  I think this is partly because our news media and politicians are focusing on things that divide us, not the things that unite us.  It appears to me that this divisiveness has spilled over into our day-to-day interactions.

John Maxwell and Rob Hoskins open their outstanding book, Change Your World, with a quote from Augustine of Hippo:

Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are,

and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.

Anger I have. Courage to see that they do not remain as they are? Courage to do what?  I don’t pretend I have the answer to instantaneously turn things around.  The news media and politicians will continue to focus on things that divide us no matter what I do.  I think the answer lies with smaller actions, but consistently applied.  Applied in smaller groups like my Rotary Club or the road association I am in for a mountain community.  I am going to focus on changing MY world, not THE world.

The road association was an interesting example.  Leading up to our annual meeting the emails between members became increasingly rancorous.  Admittedly, it was an extremely stressful 18 months or so leading up to this annual meeting.  On top of the uncertainty of the pandemic, the largest fire in Colorado history had threatened the community and the wettest Spring in recent memory took a toll on the road.  Patience wore thin.  Most of our communications were via email, which seemed to increase our isolation and lent a veneer of impersonality to the situation.  We kicked off the meeting by discussion some of the points that follow, and several members commented afterward it led to a shift in attitude, and the meeting was much more pleasant than any of us expected.

First, we all have a choice.  Do you choose to focus on things that divide us, or do you focus on things that unite us?  What unites us?  What do we agree on?  We should be able to agree on the purpose – the purpose of my Rotary Club (eliminate polio, make my community better) or the road association (affordable access).  We can have reasonable discussions on differences about HOW to achieve that purpose when we focus on the shared purpose.

We can also agree on values.  Let’s just start with one value – integrity.  Can we all agree we should tell each other the truth?  Can we also agree that a half truth is a whole lie?

Next, we should assume our neighbors have good intentions.  Most people are good people, and until they prove differently we should assume they have good intentions – they want to achieve the shared purpose and are going to tell us the whole truth.  This assumption has a way of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.  If you enter an interaction with the assumption the other party has good intentions, your communication – your body language and voice – communicate this even if the words are neutral.  On the other hand, if you assume the other party has nefarious intention your communication will communicate that, too.

Will any of this change THE world?  Absolutely not.  The media will still try and divide us.  Politicians will still do whatever accumulates the most power to them.  Will it change MY world?  I believe it will.  At least, it will change the way I look at my corner of the world.  If you are also angry about the way things are, and you want to change your world, visit ChangeYourWorld.com and learn more about how to apply your courage so things do not remain as they are.

At the moment, our focus seems totally consumed by the news – how many more got the virus today, what restrictions are added, how many more businesses closed, how many events are cancelled, how far the stock market dropped. Given our 24/7 new cycle of sensationalist headlines, it is easy to forget that
_                                            This, too, shall pass!

In the relatively short future, we will figure out how to improve the situation. Our immune systems will start defeating the virus (tragically, not everyone but almost), businesses and schools will reopen, and the economy will rebound. In the meantime, it is up to leaders to provide hope. Allowing fear to take charge can have disastrous consequences for an organization. Fear will paralyze thinking, innovation, and creativity. It is the leader who will help the organization to be prepared, not scared.

A Gallup Business Journal article* states followers want their leaders to provide trust, compassion, stability, and hope. A leader will have to balance stability in the moment while giving leaders hope for the future. Organizations with individuals that have higher hope have higher retention rates, employee satisfaction, commitment**, and productivity***. So, what does a leader have to do to build hope and achieve these benefits?

First, we need a clear direction for the future. We have to do more than manage a crises, we have to paint a picture of a much better future. Give our teams specific things to look forward to. We have to have faith and optimism that we can achieve this future. Next, we need to provide guidance on how we are going to move the organization into that future. Part of this effort will be to do everything we can to eliminate hopelessness. Hopelessness acts like fear, and robs us of creativity and innovation. Get your team to spend more time initiating and less time responding. Identify opportunities, not just solutions. Problems can be fixed by solutions, but opportunities create a future. Talk to your teams about what can be accomplished, not just what should be done. Create an attitude about dreaming of a future vision, and have the team focus on that.

A large part of creating hope is the leader’s day to day attitude, but one way to help build hope is to re-evaluate your Vision****. Revisit, rewrite, and clarify your vision. To paraphrase Ray Popham, it is easy when you are on top of the mountain; it is tough when the mountain is on top of you. Recast your vision full of hope. Hope can be the entrepreneurs’ best friend. Help your team cast a hopeful vision, and share confidence in your team’s ability to achieve it. Remember, our current situation is temporary. Build hope by looking forward, and find those opportunities that create the future.

• https://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/113542/what-followers-want-from-leaders.aspx
• Malik, Efficacy, Hope, Optimism, and Resilience at Workplace – Positive Organizational Behavior. http://www.ijsrp.org/research-paper-1013/ijsrp-p2274.pdf
• Popham, Positioning Yourself as an Agent of Hope Teaching Call, John Maxwell Team Mentorship Program, 16 March 2020.
• Popham, Nurturing Hope When it Ain’t Happening Teaching Call, John Maxwell Team Mentorship Program, 13 Aug 2019.

Gen David Goldfein, Air Force Chief of Staff, had some interesting things to say about leadership while praising MSgt John Chapman, Medal of Honor winner*.  Gen Goldfein’s comments apply far beyond the military, and apply to each and every organization that wants to attract and retain great talent.

Allow me to share some comments from Adam Hebert’s editorial*:

Probably the most important thing we can do to keep people in the United States Air Force  . . . is to put in inspirational commanders and leaders, both officers and NCOs,” Goldfein explained.  The wrong leaders create hostile environments and send airmen heading for the exits.

“Our airmen are far too smart to walk by or not see a say / do gap,” Goldfein said, referencing leaders who would tell their subordinates one thing but behave differently.  “If they see me saying one thing and doing another they’re going to see right through it.”

This is another way of stating John Maxwell’s Law of the Picture, from his 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.  People in all walks of life respond to the leaders’ examples.  The hypocrisy of “do as I say, not as I do” will drive people away.  That hypocrisy is part of what creates a hostile environment, and causes good workers, not just airmen, heading for the exits.  It is absolutely true that people do not quit a job – they fire their boss.  Good people want to work for a good boss where they are challenged, they know their work is important, and they can make a contribution.  The good boss extends well beyond just the business owner or C-level suite.  A poor leader in a mid-level position or as a direct front line supervisor will drive people away as rapidly as a poor leader at the top level.

From the same source, “The right leaders rally the troops behind them and create a culture in which airmen will eagerly go the extra mile to ensure success, whatever the mission might be.”  The mission is your vision.  Do your employees, the troops, go that extra mile to take care of the customer?  Do they spend extra time with a customer even though it is time to go to lunch?  Simply put, in business terms, the right leaders have an engaged workforce in a culture of accountability.  These employees will achieve your vision and more; without the right leaders the workforce watches the clock for quitting time, and does not go that extra mile, and does not take responsibility for achieving the vision.

What does this mean for you?  First, what are you doing to become a better leader?  The very best leaders understand continued growth is the first mark of a good leader; are you growing your leadership?  What about your team?  Are they developing as leaders?  What are you doing to grow your leaders?  If you don’t have ready answers for these questions, let’s talk!

*Air Force Magazine, Oct/Nov 2018, p2.

A successful entrepreneurship is a wonderful thing – signifying the success of a small team that has done EVERYTHING it took to build a business.  Generally, a founder adds a few trusted people, and everybody pitches in and gets the job done.  Roles and responsibilities are understood, but not defined or documented.  When needed, the sales person jumps in and helps production or shipping.  Processes are flexible, and undocumented.  No two days are the same, it is exciting, and the company achieves tremendous growth.  Everybody is busy.

As the business grows, and there is more budget available, more people are added.  Quite often these new people don’t have the same drive and enthusiasm.  Most businesses find at this point the need to start documenting “stuff.”  Policies are developed telling people to show up on time, when they can take breaks, how much vacation they get, and pretty much anything else required to answer questions somebody asks.   Every time there is a problem a policy is created so the problem “never occurs again.”  Nobody ever intended to build a bureaucracy, but all of a sudden the founder looks around, and there it is.  A bureaucracy.  And, running the business is not fun anymore.

Paul Palmes mentions this:  “While policies are important, personal policies of the organization’s leadership are extremely so.  The progression from entrepreneurship to bureaucracy can be slowed significantly through demonstrated policy-based behaviors that true leaders exhibit throughout the day.  Leaders use, practice, and embrace policy to everyone’s advantage; the organization is understandable and its practices consistent through just watching and listening to its leaders.  Rather than emphasizing reliance on requiring an employee to remember organization policies, leaders know that employees learn most directly through observation of how they interact with all employees.”  (Sustaining Success, Quality Progress, April 2018, p49).

With apologies to Mr. Palmes, I see this as a wordy version of “IT’S THE CULTURE, STUPID!”  One way of defining culture is the expected and accepted behaviors in an organization.

Let’s go back now and look at our growing entrepreneurship.  At the point new people were added that did not have the same drive and enthusiasm as the original team, the original team had assumed the new members were going to perform just like everyone else on the team.  However, it quickly became apparent these people were not engaged to the same extent as the original team.  At this critical point, nobody set expectations for the new people.  Nobody wanted to have the uncomfortable discussion, nobody set clear expectations and gave feedback, and that is when the company’s culture changed.  This new behavior was accepted, and every new employee sees it.  The founder becomes frustrated, and starts writing policies to address every situation, and BOOM.  There is your bureaucracy.

At some point, the business will grow and some documentation is required.  Any process that needs to produce consistent results and is performed by more than one person will need to be documented.  This usually starts with things like assembly processes – every single widget has to perform according to customer expectations, no matter who assembles it.  When onboarding new employees is done by more than one person, we need to start documenting expectations – usually leading at some point to an employee handbook.

I am still certain, however, we should only document what we absolutely have to.  Creating a policy to fix every problem leads to more and more paperwork.  We should not create policies to relieve supervisors of the responsibility of being a leader.  When there is a performance or behavior problem, the leader needs to address it with the individual, not write a policy affecting everyone else in the organization who are doing a great job!  While we praise in public, correct in private, word does get around.  People see what behaviors are accepted, and adjust their behavior appropriately.

The other point I see in Mr. Palmes statement is the Law of the Picture (The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, John Maxwell).  Leaders must demonstrate the behaviors they want the team to use.  Clearly, teams must treat each other respectfully.  Leaders must demonstrate this behavior.  Don’t confuse respectful behavior with lack of conflict.  I expect conflict, sometimes passionate disagreement, on teams.  The conflict is about ideas, not people!  Setting the expectation of respectful behavior makes it clear workplace bullying is not acceptable.  The leader who corrects disrespectful behavior right away avoids getting to the point where workplace bullying is occurring and a lengthy policy is required.

As your company grows, be deliberate about the culture you create.  Decide what the culture should be, and set the expectation on what behaviors you will accept.  Then, within that culture, you can establish the minimum policies and documentation needed to support and sustain that culture.

If your entrepreneurship is growing, and you are not deliberately creating a culture, one is being created for you.  Let’s talk so you can create the culture you want to work in!

I’ve been trying to catch up on some reading this summer, and found a very interesting article in the July 2018 issue of Toastmaster magazine, “Creative Leadership” by Stuart Pink.  I particularly liked the concepts of Creative Strength versus Creative Stamina.  Creative Strength is the idea generation phase of BtenConsulting’s Customer Focused Growth.  Every company should have a process to generate LOTS of ideas.  Idea generation is about regularly and repeatedly generating new, profitable, ideas.  The transition from Creative Strength to Creative Stamina is prioritizing those ideas.  Creative Stamina is the time to evaluate those ideas and determine, before investing a lot of money into product development or developing the service, if the idea will generate a profit.  Your company should be able to consistently, each step along the way, demonstrate the risks and potential for an idea to generate profit.  Customer Focused Growth will document the assumptions and help you evaluate and track the risks and profit generation potential of your idea.

Please Contact Us if you want to know more about Customer Focused Growth.

Read the whole article here:  http://bit.ly/TI_JulyLeadership

I recently had a question from one of my MasterMind participants about how to present the experience on her resume, and as I asked my peer network for their recommendations I received the overwhelming chorus of crickets in response.  Since I am apparently not reinventing the wheel, I will share my answer here.

First, what is a MasterMind group?  While MasterMind groups have been around for a long time (Benjamin Franklin’s was called a Junto), I am partial to Napoleon Hill’s description in his book Think and Grow Rich.  He described a MasterMind as the “coordination of knowledge and effort of two or more people, who work toward a definite purpose, in the spirit of harmony.”  The MasterMind is powerful because “no two minds ever come together without thereby creating a third, invisible intangible force, which may be likened to a third mind [the master mind].”

This particular MasterMind used John Maxwell’s The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership as the basis for our discussion on improving our leadership abilities and implementing those improvements.  While the basic question was about presenting the new experience on a resume, I think this is an opportunity to tell future employers that you are on a never-ending journey to better learn how to add value to others.  Companies should want to find people who are not satisfied with their current state of leadership and continuously want to improve.  If a company doesn’t get it, you will outgrow the position to which you are applying, and eventually be looking again.

So, to the particular question, every resume is different and ALWAYS tailored to the employer you want to speak with (get the interview), so there is no one answer.  If you include a Professional Experience Summary, I might include a statement like:

I believe strongly that a leader must continually improve herself, so she always has more to give to help her team.  Most recently, my leadership journey has included an in-depth study of The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, including how to implement those laws to add value to my team.

In other cases, you may choose to include the MasterMind as a line item in an Education and Training Summary.  Personally, I also include a list at the end of my resume of Formal Military Education, Acquisition, and Program Management Education.  Including the MasterMind experience as a single line in a section like this is also a possibility which may give you an opening to discuss the potential employer’s view of continual improvement during the interview.

I conduct MasterMind groups in the Denver, Colorado area, or remotely for those outside the Denver area.  Do you want to know more about my MasterMind groups?  Click here for more info.

Sometimes, those of us who see the need to improve leadership to achieve better results are accused of having only a leadership hammer, so everything is a leadership nail.  So, why do I continue to stress leadership?  Because, as John Maxwell says repeatedly, EVERYTHING rises and falls on leadership.

I have been a certified Lean Six Sigma Expert (Raytheon’s term for a Black Belt) since 2004 and an ASQ Black Belt since 2006.  Over that time, I have led or participated in hundreds of improvement projects, large and small.  Some of these projects have been spectacularly successful, and others that used all the right tools, used them properly, and had apparently near flawless improvements came to nothing.  So, what’s a continuous improvement practitioner to do?  Analyze, and drive to root cause.  I quickly noticed some projects with no charter, shaky documentation, and bare bones improvement plans delivered outstanding results.  These projects had strong leaders. One of my early projects was chartered as a Six Sigma project but wound up applying mostly Lean tools to reduce waste on an equipment repair task for the US Army.  The team lead was all in.  She gave us tremendous support, and demanded improvements be delivered and sustained.  Result – $5M improvement almost immediately, with the customer sending us more business the following year due to improved turn-around time.

I also noticed projects with a flawless charter, outstanding documentation, and a great improvement plan that achieved nothing lasting.  One such early project was a product development that required certification for some parts and processes.  The certification process was well defined, and the external certification authority was willing to work with us to turn around the documentation paperwork.  Internally, however, we could not deliver approved documentation to the certification authority on time.  The team developed an improved process to internally process and approve the documentation.  The anticipated change would have resulted in a certified product available, with anticipated sales of $84M in the current year.  The team lead and the Black Belt (me) did not properly account for the existing culture and did not anticipate the resistance to such an obviously needed (to us) change, and did not properly lead change to implement the new process. The product did not get certified that year, and the company did not get the needed $84M in revenue that year.  Had I better understood leading change, and been able to lead the team better, the company would have been $84M better off that year.  Believe me, I went to school on that one!

Any improvement project is focused on achieving better results.  To achieve better results, the team must CHANGE SOMETHING.

If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got.

–Unknown*

To get a better result, a different result, you must change what is done.  If the inputs remain the same and the process remains the same, we have no reason to expect a different result.

A different input or a different process is a change.  If the change is not compatible with the organization’s culture, there has to be a recognition of what has to happen to change the culture of the organization.

Changing culture is like moving a cemetery;

you don’t get much help from the residents.

–Anonymous

It requires leadership to communicate the need for change and guide the team through the change process.  So, back to the start; Why Leadership?  Every improvement project requires a change be implemented and sustained.  Implementing and sustaining a change requires leadership.  Improving leadership will improve your business.

*Perhaps “Disputed” would be more accurate than “Unknown.”  Most popularly, a version has been attributed to Henry Ford.

As I work with different companies, I often hear people in leadership positions tell me “Leadership was easy when you were in the military; you just order people to do something and they have to do it.”  I am always amazed by that statement because a leader in the military will never succeed if she or he depends on ordering people around.  In fact, the only times I remember anyone giving direct orders was during Basic Training, or as a formation lead in flight.

Military leaders spend a great deal of time communicating the mission to those they are leading.  When the members of the unit understand the mission, they understand the plan for the mission much better.   More importantly, they can make appropriate adjustments to the plan as the situation changes.

I always try to find out, as I visit companies, how much the workers know about the strategy of the business.  If the workers do not know the company strategy, I find they are not very engaged.  They tend to do what they are told, and when the task is finished they wait for further direction.  When the situation changes, the really good employees will try to make adjustments, but without understanding the strategy they are sometimes just guessing.  If they guess wrong, they are usually reprimanded and thereby trained to wait on direction.  These workers quickly become disengaged, to the great detriment of the business (more on employee engagement on a future posting).

Like the military leader who has to make sure the team understands the mission, business leader need to make sure everyone understands the strategy.  The strategy has to be clear, and have specific goals.  Those strategic goals must be broken down by year, quarter, and month.  Those monthly goals must be flowed down to departments and individuals as weekly and, ideally, daily goals so every employee knows how she is contributing to the enterprise strategic goals each day.

Never tell people how to do things.  Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. 

– General George S. Patton

Those strategic goals flowed to the departments and individuals tell each employee what they and the company need to accomplish, the “what” they need to do.  The next task of the leader is to make sure each employee can apply their ingenuity to determine the best “how.”  Leaders must encourage employees to make improvements and ensure they know how much latitude they have to try improvements.  Most importantly, Leadership must encourage reasonable risk taking, help the organization learn when the improvement doesn’t work out as expected, and reward ingenuity.  True, some businesses have less flexibility than others – for instance, processes that are certified by a government agency (such as the FDA or FAA) must remain compliant with the certification.  It is also true that these businesses have a procedure to consider and approve changes.

Military leaders explain the mission and expect subordinates to adjust the plan to take advantage of changes in the tactical scenario.  Business leaders can get better results by explaining the strategy, setting SMART* goals rolled down to departments and individuals, and let employees contribute their creativity and ingenuity to make the business successful.

*SMART Goals – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Timely (or Time bound).

Hi.  I’m a business coach, mentor, speaker, and trainer.  Although I have done a lot of process improvement work over the years, my real passion is to add value to people by improving their leadership capabilities.  I am going to share here some of my thoughts on leadership in the hope that you will find things you can apply in your life to be a better leader.  If there is something you like or can apply, I would love to hear about it.  If there is a leadership topic you want me to address here, please click on the Contact link and let me know.  If you want to know more about leadership, let’s discuss how I can add value to your life.

Cheers

Art