SparkPilot blog

I read this post on overcoming negative thinking shortly after I posted my glass half full post where he shares some guidance on how to fill up the glass.

http://www.lifeoptimizer.org/2010/02/23/negative-thinking/

One of the blogs that I follow is written by Gaynor Alder and titled:  The Modern Woman’s Survival Guide Gaynor’s ability to piece together words is mind blowing. Here is an exert from a recent post titled:  My Name is Bridget

She won’t judge me either. The only judging taking place, is me about myself. I have such high standards (especially about being professional in a work environment), that whenever I let myself go, I am hard on myself and beat myself up with the proverbial stick, as though I just killed Bambi’s mother.

Wow, talk about a great way to express her feelings about judgments.  One of the things that has struck me about judgments is that the judgment tends to be about the person. e.g. you get labeled as an idiot instead of someone who does some stupid things every now and again.  The judgment is personal instead of being against the behavior and as such understandably tends to upset people.

When we are the one being judged, often we are unaware that we are being judged and therefore we are being denied the opportunity to learn something about ourselves by the person doing the judging.

Then there is when we get to preside over our court and we do the judging.  In most cases we carry around the judgment which tends to skew our perceptions which can cause us to miss opportunities because our opinions have been skewed by our judgment.  In this case, not only does the person being judged suffer but so do we……

I really try not to judge, sometimes successfully, sometime not so much.  When I find myself being judgmental I give myself a mental smack to stop it and remember the behavior and how it makes me feel or impacts the situation.  I remember the behavior so that can I share my perspective with the person at a suitable time.  If I do not get a chance to share the feedback in a timely fashion, then I let it go.  Never to be dredged up again.

Over the year’s, I have had a number of opportunities to share feedback and to have it shared with me.  There discussions have been about the behavior and in most cases the feedback was well received.  Mainly because it was not personalized and was being shared to help.

Further more, I am happy to report that if I had followed my judgment, I would be three close friends less.

I read this today and  it resonated with me because it reminded me how our perspective can skew how we “see”.

A young couple moves into a new neighborhood.

The next morning while they are eating breakfast,
The young woman sees her neighbor hanging the wash outside.
“That laundry is not very clean”, she said.
“She doesn’t know how to wash correctly.
Perhaps she needs better laundry soap.”

Her husband looked on, but remained silent.

Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry,
The young woman would make the same comments.

About one month later, the woman was surprised to see a
Nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband:

“Look, she has learned how to wash correctly.
I wonder who taught her this.”

The husband said, “I got up early this morning and
Cleaned our windows.”

I arrived early at a restaurant for a meeting and overheard a discussion while waiting for the others to arrive.   Here is an excerpt from their conversation that resonated with me.

They don’t get it!  They are oblivious to the fact that no one trusts their team. I mean they claim to be transparent but when we need information from them, need have to search for it ourselves.  I think it is short sighted on their behalf when they watch me search, even if we ask them for help and they don’t help.  Then when we find the information that we need, they claim that they are being transparent with us.  Yeah right!!

I discussed this behavior with a colleague and he was familiar with the behavior that was being discussed above.  He labeled it as “discovery driven disclosure”.  He also mentioned that he had experience with behavior in the past and it had been really difficult to partner with that team because  their behavior undermined trust.  As a result, the teams spent a lot of time questioning each other and not so much time collaborating which impacted their ability to successfully deliver a solution.

The comments and followup discussion got me thinking about Trust.

Trust is the basis of all relationships, both personal and professional. We all establish trust with others in our own manner.  We also have our own starting expectations for others when it comes to us trusting them.  Some of us will trust others with little evidence, giving them the benefit and assuming positive intent. Others expect the trust to be earned and start off with a much lower level of trust.

Building on this starting point for trust, let’s look at some of the other elements that influence how we establish trust.  The first one, is how the role that we perform affects the trust level. We all tend to trust people that have “earned” a higher standing.   For example, we expect the chef at a fine restaurant will use fresh ingredients and work in a pristine kitchen when they prepare our food. If that chef is from a Michelin 3 star rated restaurant, then the expectations will be even higher.

The final and most important  element is the impact of our actions.  Therefore we need to be conscious of the impact of our actions or inactions on our trust level.   Be careful of disingenuous behavior, disrespecting others, selfish behavior and of course lack of disclosure or transparency because these behaviors will impact our trust level negatively..

Pulling it together

To help illustrate how all of these areas relate to each other and how they impact the level of trust, here is a formula to help quantify the trust level.

a – Starting Expectations

b – Role

c – Actions

To use the formula, each of these variables needs to be assigned a number of between 0 and 5, with 5 being the highest rating.  Now just rate each of the elements and then total up the numbers.  This will provide you with a qualitative trust rating.  Having some of your customers, partners or employees provide you with their ratings, can be an eye-opening experience.

Regarding the evaluation of the total value.  This will be unique to you and you will need to determine what numbers you are comfortable with.  For me personally, the number needs to be above 10.  I also use the formula by assuming positive intent and therefore if I have not seen any actions or behaviors, I assign either a 4 or 5 and then evaluate again when I have more data.  Using the graphic below, the red area is the high risk area while the green is the safer area, naturally with the ideal being a perfect score.

I finish this post with a quote a Robin Sharma book:  Leadership Wisdom from the Monk who sold his Ferrari.

Being open and truthful also means that you take care of the little issues and skirmishes that come up every day before they escalate into full-blown wars.

Careful, I am on my soapbox on this one!

I am still astounded by the number of people that are always looking for the silver bullet.  The magic pill that will make them lose weight, the one job that will make them rich and of the course the magic software that will solve this problem overnight.  Come on folks. after looking for the silver bullet for so many years, have you considered that it does not exist?

It seems that this behavior has been prevalent through the ages.  Vincent van Gogh gave us the following advice and he died in 1890.

Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of
small things brought together.

The basic principle is simple: be conscious about what you do, or do not do.

To put it differently:  Think and be aware of what you are doing.  Do not just bumble along in an unconscious manner.  It is important to be aware (conscious) about the actions that you are currently performing.  If I know exactly what I am doing at this moment, then I am managing not only the present, but also my future.  It is important for my current actions to contribute to me meeting my goals.

If you want to switch off and relax, go do that. However if you are not relaxing, be conscious about what you are doing, what you are meant to be doing and what others are expecting you to be doing.  When you do things with a purpose, it bring a level focus that otherwise might not be there.

So let’s look at some examples of how to implement this behavior.

• When you have a list full of tasks.  Be conscious of what tasks will help meet your goals and that not all the tasks are equal.  Some of them demand a higher level of diligence while others just need to be good enough.
• Do you approach your important meetings with a purpose and an agenda?  Be conscious about what you need to get from the meeting.  Now with remember these goals, be clear about how you are communicating your points and how they are being received.  Be conscious about what the other peoples needs are.  Soliciting feedback and input from the other person is always a good tactic.
• Now let’s look at soft skills and being conscious of the other people’s behaviors and reactions in various situations.  Being conscious of other people and your environment starts with being conscious of yourself first.  When you sit down in a chair, be aware of how your back feels against the back of the chair.  It sounds crazy but this awareness of your body and the chair will help.
• For those of us that attend a lot of meetings:  Evaluate each meeting to determine why you need to attend that specific meeting.  Although I am cognizant that I might be fighting the culture of some companies, I believe that meetings are not the place for status updates.  A far more efficient mechanism is to use a simple, concise and clear emails.  If you have a good reason to attend meeting, define what you are going to achieve at that meeting.  If you are running the meeting, then define an agenda that ensures that the goals are met and finish the meeting early by keeping people on topic.

Key points of this post:

• Whatever you do, perform the action with purpose and be conscious about your actions.
• Ensure that your actions contribute to your goals.
• Be conscious of the expectations of others.

I was born and raised in Africa and like most places in the developing world (politically correct term for 3rd world) , culturally, we looked to the 1st world countries for leadership and guidance. As a teenager, I was fortunate enough to be exposed to a number of visitors from various 1st world countries. This exposure allowed me to see, firsthand, some of the cultural generalizations.

Working with American, the first thing I noticed was how they increased the volume of their voice when they perceived that someone did not understand them.

The second thing I noticed was their optimistic mindset.  They were always willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt and listened to their input, ideas and feedback in a non-judgmental manner. I watched in amazement how these people responded very well to this behavior. They changed from being interested parties to involved participants. It was awesome to see how the energy levels increased and how the folks cooperated together.  Needless to say, the goals were achieved quickly and with little fanfare.

I believe that one of the biggest advantages that the Americans have, is their optimistic mindset.

Over time, I have come to realize that the behavior that I was exposed to as a teenager was a combination of the optimistic mindset and also an ability to listen.  Listening is a skill that all managers should have in their arsenal and constantly practice.  For some of us, this does not come easily, but for the sake of your people please continue to work on it.

Here are some well known folks that Through the ages there have been numerous instances of this rule.

• Abraham Lincoln suffered a nervous breakdown and was defeated numerous times in his political career.
• Henry Ford’s first automobile company was a failure.
• Thomas Edison failed with his phonograph company.
• Albert Einstein suffered from speech difficulties as a young child.
• Babe Ruth held the #1 spot as the best slugger from 1918 to 1928.  during this period, he was either in either the #1 or #2 position for strikeouts during these years too.

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. – Thomas Edison

Never give in, never give in, never; never; never; never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense – Winston Churchill

I recently came across a post regarding 10 reasons why people fail.  For the folks that know me, I prefer to focus on the positive but in this case I do believe that there are some great points raised. I have taken the liberty of changing the ranking sequence listed in the original post slightly.  I also inserted a number of  items of items of my own in the list.  Please refer to the original blog post for details on the reasons that are from the original post that can be found here:  10 Reasons Why You’re Probably Going to Fail

And the 13 Reasons…..

• It’s not your passion
• You don’t have a plan.
• You’re waiting for it to be perfect
• You’re afraid of failure
• You’re not willing to work hard
• You don’t have the skills or knowledge
  • Not knowing what to do becomes  tends to cause more paralysis the longer the challenge stays without a solution.  Here are some tips that can help:
    • Break the problem into smaller pieces
      • Large problems generally consist of lots of smaller issues/challenges.  Think of the problem as Thanks Giving dinner – eat it one mouthful at a time with a smile
    • Separate the problem from the solution
      • Define and understand the problem first.  When the problem is defined and clear, then work on the solution for each problem.
    • Put your ego away and ask for help
      • To soften the blow on the ego, you can do brainstorming sessions to elicit help from others.
      • Discuss the situation with your mentors and get their input.
      • Enlist help from team mates, when part of a team, it is less about asking for help and more about collaborative teamwork.  Remember, your baby is never ugly, so get people to help you make the baby.
    • Fill in the skills Gap
      • Attend a class
      • Do research and Read – books, blogs, Internet searches
      • Ask for help
• You don’t trust yourself
  • Or put differently, I don’t have the self confidence
    • The first thing here is to stop stabbing yourself with the butter knife!!!  Come on, putting yourself down like this is no different from stabbing yourself with a butter knife.  Your get to stab but no one knows that you are stabbing yourself because it is not life threatening.
    • Build yourself up through supportive statements
    • Trust in your instincts / gut, afterall in most case, your manager would not have hired you if you could not deliver the goods
    • Start small and build up slowly and regularly.  Succeed at least once a day!
• You do not have the support
  • We cannot succeed alone and we all need support.
    • Start by supporting yourself!!!  When others see that you are supporting yourself, they will follow your lead and support you too.
    • Support generates support other in a genuine manner because then they will support you
    • Ensure that you goals align with your manager’s because then they are incented to support in return
    • Teamwork and collaboration is the best source of support
    • Get a mentor(s) and/or a coach
• It’ll outgrow you
• You’ve had success in the past
• You’re unwilling to stop doing something else
• You won’t build a team of friends
• You won’t have the tough conversations

With the current Twilight craze going on, everyone is talking about Vampires and Wolves.  This got me thinking about the various “personalities” that we encounter at the office, more particularly High Performance Teams.  The three that came to mind, are the Vampires, Wolves and Zombies.

Vampires – there are different types of vampires.  The vampire that comes to mind is the blood sucker or the Sang Vampire or Sanguinarian Vampire as the smart people call them.  There are a number of other types but the one that I will touch on here is the Psychic Vampire or Psi Vampire.  These folks will either conscious or unconsciously feed on the life-energy of others.  In the majority of cases, they will feed from the energy from groups but the ones that we need to be aware of,  are the ones that suck the energy from us individually.  For me, the best way to handle these folks that come to drain our energy is just to say “No!”.   It does not make them bad people and often they do not realize what they are doing, they just find it energizing to be around you or in large groups.

Wolves – These guys & gals have their territories and search for food in those territories, they run in packs and will defend against anything that they perceive encroaches on their turf.  Because they are pack animals, the key is for them to see you as part of the pack and to achieve this, the key is to remind them that the enemy is not inside the company.  The enemy is outside the company and in most cases it requires management support to define the common enemy.  That is why they are called competitors.  Internally in the company we call the people that we work with colleagues.

Zombies – these are the folks that come to the office because they need the paycheck.  I am not judging this behavior, I am pointing out that the problem with this behavior is the impact on the rest of the High Performance Team who are busting their humps to solve the business need in the most expedient manner.  Therefore as managers, these folks are our biggest challenge because we need to help them with their self awareness, so that they can see the impact of their behavior on the rest of the team.  I have found that they tend to be blissfully unaware of the impact that their behavior is having on the on the team.  They tend to be horrified when they see how their lack of commitment is impacting the team. They are stunned when they see that their team mates are having to fill in for them not being fully engaged.  In certain cases, some of the team are putting in 110% to make up for them just cruising at 60%.

If the zombie chooses to make the transition back the land of the living, they will struggle with the change in priorities.  Often they are unprepared to handle the sacrifices that the changed priorities demand.  Managers need to be there for their folks to help them and coach them through these new challenges.  As the zombie reengage with the High Performance Team, often they will dedicate a significant amount of time and effort, they need to search for alternative techniques and skills that will allow them to meet the biz needs in a more efficient and sustainable manner.

I am in the hi technology industry and therefore I am very comfortable working at companies that are growing and leading teams that are growing.  Now let’s take a look at this year-to-year growth where the ellipses show the needs of the business.  In this example our employee, which we will call Mo, is represented by a star.

Year 1

The blue ellipse shows the business needs for Year 1.  Mo is doing pretty well in Year 1 because his skills put him on the high end of the business needs.  Therefore he is well within his comfort zone to deliver against the needs of the business.

Year 2

The greenish ellipse shows the business needs for Year 2 have moved on from where they were in Year 1.  Mo is not doing very well here though because he barely has the skills needed to successfully meet the business needs.  Mo is going to have to have to step up and grow his skills.  Mo needs to either have the self awareness that the business needs are changing or he could be caught unawares that his skills not longer meeting the business needs.

Year 3

The orange ellipse shows the business needs for Year 3.  Mo is in serious trouble here because he does not have the skills needed to meet the business needs.

The disadvantages of this model

• In Year 3 Mo might find himself unemployed or marginalized due to his skills not meeting the business needs.
• In Year 3, the business might need to go through the expenses of recruiting someone that can meet the needs of the business.
• Replacing Mo will not only disrupt the team dynamics but it will also take time for the new person to acclimatise to the business.

Improved Situation

Now let’s take look at another scenario where Mo is not stagnant and grows his skills in a similar direction to what the business is moving in.

Year 1

The blue ellipse shows the business needs for Year 1.  Mo is doing pretty well in Year 1 because his skills put him on the high end of the business needs.  Therefore he is well within his comfort zone to deliver against the needs of the business.

Years 2 & 3

The greenish ellipse shows the business needs for Year 2 have moved on from where they were in Year 1.  Mo’s skills have improved too and he is keeping track and staying aligned with the needs of the business.

The benefits

There are significant benefits to Mo growing his skills.

• People that are growing tend to find their work roles to be much more rewarding and therefore are much happier employees.
• If one person grows, they tend to drag the rest of the team along the road too, ultimately resulting in a team climate of growth.
• Because Mo’s growth is parallel with the business needs, they both win because he can customize his growth to meet the needs of the business.  The business gets someone that is really closely aligned with the needs.
• The team dynamics continue to improve and grow because people get to knw each other better and therefore they are able to work better as a more cohesive unit.

Earlier this week, I was a coach at a function that was targeted at managers.  The event provided a forum for the managers to share experiences on how they overcame the plethora of management challenges encountered in this recession.

During the discussions, it became extremely evident, to me, that some of the managers were worried about any cuts that the company have to make to survive. I provided them the following guidance:

“control what you can, know what you cannot control, and make peace with it”

control what you can (green)

This takes a significant amount of effort because it takes a constant level of vigilant awareness to look for new opportunities.

Here are some examples of what can be controlled:

• your boss & peers
• your actions, attitude and demeanor

I put boss & peers down as items that can be controlled because they can be influenced if you have the credibility and trust established.

know what you cannot control, and make peace with it (red)

The key here is know your limitations, the constraints that have been imposed on you and to make peace with it.  It just does not help to beat yourself up about the stuff that you cannot control.  Here are some examples of things that we cannot control:

• the weather
• the economy
• senior management (assuming that they are more than 2 levels of separation)

So if you cannot control things like this, it just does not help to worry or beat yourself about things like this.  So make peace with things and focuss your efforts and energy on the things that you can control.

I have no idea what is going on at the moment but clearly the market reset is creating a bit of a silly season.  The Seagull Syndrome is when some senior person flies in, eats your food, squawks at everyone and finally craps on you as they fly out.  Generally this occurs on a monthly or quarterly basis and other than these visits, you never hear from these people for the rest of the time.  In the past, I have the misfortune of calling people that behave like this management.

Despite the label associated with this behavior, it is extremely destructive to the people on the receiving side and the people quickly learn to brush off the behavior and often land up disregarding what the “seagull” might have to say.  The seagull also pays a price because their credibility starts to deteriorate with the people.

The loss of credibility for anyone is damaging but it is especially damaging for a manager.  As managers we need to be aware of any inconsistant behaviors that we might be demonstrating.  As employees, we should provide feedback to management so that they can be aware of their actions and the impact on us and the need for consistentincy.

Let’s call this executive Steve, he is a  senior level executive, in his early 60′s.  He is very well respected by the people in his organization in a large part due to his extremely calm demeanor.

Steve’s directs are all VP’s in the company and they had been struggling with an issue for close on 7 weeks and were all frustrated.  To make matters worse, these execs had allowed the issue  to impact their interpersonal relationships with some of them having their little versions of the “cold war”.

So during a meeting in the boardroom, Steve watched with mounting displeasure as his directs expressed their frustration at not being able to solve the problem.  Each of them proceeded to provide excuses or point at some or other reason why they could not address the issue on hand.  Steve demonstrated his patience and calmness again by allowing each of them to express their opinions. He then asked them how they were working together on addressing the issue.  Again they behaved in like ducks with watertight backs.  Steve then asked them about what they would do if they were in his shoes?  Again they had many words and Steve slowly stood up.  Some of his directs paid attention but others did not.

However, when Steve slammed his hands down on the table, the loud clap drowning out the expletive that he had just uttered.  All of his directs stared at Steve, dumbfounded, and then he said something:  “If I wanted to hear reasons why this cannot be done, I would have asked my teenage son!  I am paying you significantly more to solve problems.  So why don’t you stop behaving like teenagers and act like the professionals that I am paying you to be!”

Needless to say, his directs had a solution ready for him four hours later.

So the Lesson that I Learned from this, has changed how I approach things.  Now, when I am moaning or bitching about something, I simply ask myself:  ” am I behaving like a teenager?”  If the answer is yes, then I modify my behavior and to ensure that I am adding value.

Considering the recession that we find ourselves in, it is not surprising that I am being asked the following question:  “what can I do to ensure that I do not lose my job?”   All I can offer regarding this questions is some suggestions and here they are:

Make peace with what you cannot change and influence the hell out of the rest.

So here are some examples of the things to make peace with:

• company going out of business
• Reduction in Force
• elimination of the department/position

Now, here are some things to think about and to manage:

• Return-On-Investment:  Ensure that the company is getting more than what they are investing in you.
• Evidence of results: It is important to be able to demonstrate the results of your efforts.
• Don’t be a pain: Do not make life hard for your boss or peers.  Please do not bitch and moan.
• Solve the business need: In times like this, our role is to solve the business need in the best possible way.  Pushing back about tasks that you do not want to do, is the last behavior that should come to mind.
• Add additional value: Do more than you have to do for your job but do not neglect your job.
• Fiscal responsibility:  Resist the urge to spend money.