This is not what’s meant by communication!

Have a terrific weekend, see you Monday!

All this talk in my last few postings about change, awareness, and energy brings to mind something I call the Philosophy of ER. I developed it formally a couple of decades ago to offset all the talk about failure. First, you have to understand that I don’t believe in failure; I don’t think that someone has truly failed unless they’re dead. As long as they’re breathing, the worst bums on skid row have the potential to change, i.e., the possibility is there, even if the likelihood is not. The talk at that time, however, focused on setting a goal and if it wasn’t achieved as stated, then you had failed.

I found myself working with a lot of people (including myself) whose self esteem was at best badly bruised, at worst like Swiss cheese. They were constantly mentioning how they had failed at this or that, but in more detailed discussions it turned out that although they hadn’t achieved their stated goal within the deadline, the goals and deadlines (one or both) weren’t exactly reality based or had changed along the way and not been restated.

Yes, it is good for people to set goals with delivery dates as long as they are achievable—not easy, but achievable. When you set goals without taking into account minor details, such as friends/family/spouse/kids/working/sleeping/eating, then you’re setting yourself up. Besides, we all need an ongoing sense of accomplishment, especially for those things that can’t be done in a few days, to sustain the long term effort that big goals take—thus came the Philosophy of ER.

Over the last couple of decades I’ve ERed almost everything (even when it’s grammatically incorrect).

• I may not be wise, but I’m wisER.
• I may not be rich, but I’m richER.
• I may not be patient, but I’m patientER

You get the idea.

So start ERing today and tomorrow you too will be happiER, smartER, healthiER and successfulER. Just keep reminding yourself that to err is human, to ER, divine.

Do you have an energy budget? You should. Everything you do takes some kind of energy and your energy at any given time is finite. As with any resource, it’s important to know where you’re spending it, how much you have left, and when you need to make a deposit. It’s also important to recognize that you can spend energy moving forward or spinning your wheels—the first is an investment with discernable ROI, while the second is a waste.

There are three kinds of energy

• physical,
• mental, and
• psychic (not used as a synonym for mental)

and you draw some of each for any given task. This is especially true when working to change something in your MAP because you need to

• be awake and alert,
• think, and
• actuate, i.e., make the changes real.

Three kinds of energy, but only one bank for each type—not one set for professional use and one for personal.

Since an effort to change is ongoing, you’ll be drawing on your three energy banks at various times and in various amounts. These requirements need to be added to the energy needs for the rest of what you’re doing, both personally and professionally, and prioritized! The bottom line is that you shouldn’t bite off more than you can chew!

As with any bank account you need to make more deposits than withdrawals or you’ll end up like Enron. It’s your responsibility to keep them filled, just as it is to keep money in your bank account if you plan to write checks and gas in your car if you’re driving somewhere—it doesn’t happen by accident. Moreover, what replenishes your spouse/SO/kids/pets/whatever’s energy won’t necessarily replenish yours (and vice versa). That means that you need to learn what actions/inactions replenishes each kind of energy for you and then do them.

Jerry (not his real name) is a manager I worked with way back when I was first a headhunter. After hearing my Levels of Competency theory (May 4) Jerry decided to try it, I think mainly to prove that it was BS, and became a convert. As his awareness (May 9) increased, he told me that the biggest problem he was having was prioritizing what to work on out of the dozens of level one (incompetence) things he had found, and asked me how to proceed.

Well, I nearly fell off my chair, since Jerry’s one of the most competent managers I’ve ever known—then, now and in-between. So, what was going on? Mainly that Jerry was becoming so conscious of everything he said/did and feeling that he could have said/done it better, therefore it must be a level one problem. Not true!

I doubt that there’s anybody who, in hindsight, doesn’t think of some way to improve whatever is being considered, but that has nothing to do with competency—competitions does not mean perfect.

I suggested that rather than prioritize his actions, he should prioritize the results that came from what he did/said, since it was the results that concerned him; after the results were prioritized he could trace the thread back to it’s source, i.e., what he said/did and decide what to do. Once Jerry wrapped his brain around that, he was good to go and took off like a rocket.

Now, for those of you reading who think that Jerry’s too good to be true, he’s not. If he has one trait that sets him apart it was his openness to believing that something needed to change and changing it. He never worried about moving anything to the fourth level, although I know for a fact that he did on many fronts. He always said that as long as he got out of level one and moved the most important things to level three, that he’d have plenty of time to put out the fires he had started on level two.

The greatest compliment I’ve ever received came in the one phone call I’ll never forget. It came a few years ago from Jerry’s wife and made me simultaneously the saddest and happiest I’ve ever been. She called to tell me that Jerry had passed away and to thank me for teaching him my four levels theory and how to do it. She said it changed him, not just at work, but within his family, helping him build wonderful relationships with his kids and preserving their relationship through nearly 40 years of marriage.

Praise doesn’t get any better than that!

In a comment left on The four-level process of change post I was asked to go into more detail on how a person develops awareness.

To do so, you first need to understand that, like most MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) stuff, there’s not a silver bullet/one-size-fits-all approach. Even the definitions of awareness can change.

The modern definition of awareness is “having knowledge,” but the archaic definition of “vigilant; watchful” is still more applicable. It’s also interesting (if you love how words tie to ideas) that in my four-level process the archaic definition describes the action used to achieve movement from Level one to Levels two and three, which are better described by the modern definition.

Raising your awareness is probably most difficult because it requires you to become more objective about your self and your actions, i.e., learning to see yourself in the third person instead of the first.

Most people have some objectivity, e.g., they are able to look at a thing—clothes, jewelry, painting, furniture, house, etc.—and appreciate it’s beauty without wanting to own it or even actually like it.

Awareness is cultivating that kind of third person objectivity and then focusing it on your thoughts and words.

Start with things. The next time someone asks you if you like their new whatever, stop and think about it.

• Do you like it for you?
• Are you ambivalent, but guess it’s OK?
• Do you hate it?

He isn’t really asking you if you want to own/wear it, he’s asking about it in terms of himself, so think about it in terms of that person instead of in terms of yourself—in other words, think about it objectively.

• Listen to yourself; hear what you say from the outside, instead absorbing the content from your thoughts.
• Work at watching yourself as you move through life—watching her, rather than you.

Sounds weird, huh, but it works.

You want to develop your objective side without losing the subjective one. Most importantly, you want to be able to tell them apart! Awareness allows you to watch yourself when you need to, not every comment, every move, all the time.

The kind of awareness you’re working to build also means being aware of your effect on others, whether through words or actions. It’s often the effect that will give you a first level insight to something you need/want/don’t want to change. Not all unconscious or conscious incompetence’s (levels one and two) are worth changing. Change takes energy and no person has an unlimited amount, so you need to choose your efforts wisely.

How do you choose where to spend your energy? That’s for tomorrow.

To change any part of your MAP you need to progress through each of the four levels of competence:

1. unconscious incompetence,
2. conscious incompetence,
3. conscious competence, and
4. unconscious competence.

Along with the tenacity to follow through, you need the right catalyst: awareness, and how to use it correctly.

The Catalyst

There are many kinds of awareness; in this instance, awareness refers to the cultivated ability to see one’s own actions objectively. “Objectively” means seeing our actions unfiltered by “reasons,” (the mental explanations and rationalizations of which we may or may not be aware). In other words, seeing ourselves in third person context instead of first. Objective awareness is not a right brain/left brain function, (I’ve met too many over-the-edge left-brainers who have absolutely no objective view of themselves, their thoughts or their actions), it is an attitude that can be developed with effort.

You can start cultivating awareness at any point in your life and develop it to whatever level you want. One way to do this is to use the two-fold approach of reviewing something you did as if it were done by someone else and then combining your analysis with feedback from others involved. Include not only verbal feedback (if you’re the boss they may say what they think you want to hear), but how people responded and what actually happened. Additionally, feedback from trusted sources who will “tell it like it is” can be of great use.

Objective awareness is necessary or you’ll never even get to the first level; moreover, it is objective awareness that carries you through the next two levels, although it plays no part in the fourth. Truly competent people have become unaware of their competency as it has become automatic.

The Levels

The four levels are fairly self descriptive, but it’s the quality of the catalyst that keeps things from getting lost or minimized in the translation.

1. Unconscious incompetence: Doing something automatically with no idea that we do it poorly.
2. Conscious incompetence: Recognizing that we do it poorly, identifying why and setting out to change that.
3. Conscious competence: Learning to do it correctly and, through constant mental vigilance, making it a habit to do it correctly.
4. Unconscious competence: Doing it well without any conscious thought.

The Process

Once you start developing your objective awareness, you’ll start noticing your incompetencies (we all have them). Choose one to start working on. Your first effort should fit these criteria.

• It should matter to you;
• be of a manageable size with defined parameters, e.g., “improve communications with the people I manage” as opposed to “be a better manager”; and
• have measurable results.

As you focus on your managerial communications you’ll probably notice at least some confusion, misunderstandings and the resulting mistakes; however, this time you’ll use objective awareness to determine what’s really going on. As you move to level two, objective awareness may show you that the misunderstanding was a result of unclear instructions or that the confusion stemmed from a shortage of needed information. By consciously monitoring what you say and soliciting feedback to make sure that what you meant to say is what you did say and that it was understood, you will slowly move to level three. The move from level three to level four is rarely noticed. It happens as specific objective awareness efforts become habit, i.e., automatic and are no longer thought about.

Which is why when you compliment a truly competent person on their skill you’ll usually get a blank look and a response something like, “Well, how else would you do it?”

Over the years, and across all manner of organizations, the debate has raged—well, maybe not raged, but it’s certainly been discussed now and then—should we have an org (organization) chart, what should be in it, what if it falls into the wrong hands—<gasp> competitors or headhunters who will stop at nothing to steal our talent?

The outcome of these discussions ranged from predictable to bizarre.

One obvious and well used approach—as long as the company didn’t grow beyond 10 or 15 people—was not to have one. Since everybody inside the company knew what each other did, more or less, the lack of an org chart didn’t create a problem—although the “more or less” did create some memorable moments—and did work extremely well guaranteeing the information’s unavailability to the world at large.

However, once over 15 employees “none” wasn’t very viable. Companies had to do something to keep track of who they hired and give others at least some idea what they were doing, although paranoia levels were still high. The pre-computer answer was obvious and the master org chart was created, copied, and given to each department. Analog hard-copy memos containing informational changes were forwarded to the department manager and the manager was expected to arrange for the updating of the chart. This approach pretty much guaranteed that no single copy of the org chart would actually be accurate—in case “they” managed to get hold of it—so employees found themselves making an extra two or three phone calls to connect with the person they were trying to reach. Not exactly a productivity tool!

With the advent of the personal computer, and programs that easily created and updated organizational charts, companies were forced to be more creative in their efforts to forestall “them” from getting the information. Again, both of the following ended up being more anti-productivity, anti-innovation tools than talent protectors.

The first and one of the most popular solutions was to spread the required information over multiple documents, usually three of them (depending on the creator’s Machiavellian proclivities).

• An accurate org chart that included each employee’s name and position,
• a separate internal phone directory with all employees alphabetically, their extension number and a code number, and
• a list of departments and their code number.

The system worked like this: Let’s say you wanted to reach a test engineer. You would look at the org chart and find out that Jim Reynolds was shown in that position. You’d look Jim up in the directory, only to find that there were three Jim Reynolds listed. So you would look up the department code for test engineering (as opposed to manufacturing test) and compare it to the three Jim Reynolds listed and, assuming one of the codes matched, your call to Jim would yield one of the following response…

• “Sorry, no Jim Reynolds at this extension.”
• “I don’t work in test engineering any more and don’t know who took my place.”
• “Hi, this is Jim Reynolds. I’ll be on vacation starting August 10^th, and back in the office Aug. 25. If you need to speak to someone before that, please call my supervisor, Joe Anderson. Thanks, and have a great day!”
• “Hi, this is Jim…”

The second, more recent approach (to mislead outsiders) was to obfuscate titles through the use of internal company jargon or vagueness—taxonomy manager (AKA corporate librarian) and overview developer (AKA software architect)—a sure way to stymie the bad guys—as well as most of the good ones.

Three things have happened to start changing this.

1. There is a much sharper focus on innovation, teams and productivity improvement. Not just in the acquisition of new systems, but on actually improving processes and eliminating obvious time-wasters (see above).
2. The rise of the Internet and email are driving a much deeper attitudinal change in management thinking. Smart companies have realized that the only protection they have against having talent stolen is to create a company that people won’t leave.
3. More and more companies are reaching the conclusion that org charts are actually a form of communications between employees, vendors, clients and even Board members. This means that they have to be clear, concise, and accurate.

So, what should your org chart actually do? It should graphically show

• who is responsible for the various functions within the company;
• who should be contacted for information in a particular area; and
• how the different positions relate to each other and to the outside world.

No matter the size of the company, clear communications are absolutely critical in today’s business world. Job titles need to have an easily understandable relationship to the duties of the person involved—not inflated, overly generic, slang or buzz-word dependent, or in any way confuse or otherwise hamper the company’s ability to do business.

Historically, companies’ reluctance to publish simple, accurate, current org charts has been anchored in a fear that “they”—whether headhunters or competitors—would steal their best and brightest. But when corporate (or managerial) paranoia leads to withholding information making the job more difficult, there’s no need to worry about people being recruited because they’ll be out actively looking!

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It’s Friday. I don’t feel like writing, but want to leave you with something to ruminate on over the weekend, so here are some thought provoking questions to stimulate your brain.

Do vegetarians eat animal crackers?

Why isn’t phonetic spelled the way it sounds?

Why are there interstate highways in Hawaii?

If olive oil comes from olives, where does baby oil come from?

How does the guy who drives the snowplow get to work?

If 7-11 is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, why are there locks on the doors?

If nothing ever sticks to Teflon, how do they make the Teflon stick to the pan?

If you were driving at the speed of light and you turned on your headlights, what would happen?

Why is it that when you transport something by car it is called a shipment, but when you transport something by ship it’s called cargo?

Why do you drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?

Why aren’t airplanes made of the same material that is used to make the indestructible little black boxes that record flight information?

What would you touch with a ten-foot pole

Why don’t sheep shrink when it rains?

Why are they called apartments when they are all stuck together?

If con is the opposite of pro, is congress the opposite of progress?

If firefighters fight fires and crime fighters fight crime, what do freedom fighters fight?

And finally�did you know that you can find totally healthy, guilt-free, fruit sweetened, no fat, vegan approved, chocolate from Wax Orchards?

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MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) is what I coach; AMS is short for Assumption, Manipulation, Self-fulfilling prophesy and is part of your MAP.

I was a kid when I first identified this behavior (yeah, an overly analytical kid) and figured out that it really messed up our family relationships. I didn’t name it for another ten years, but did spend that decade working to eliminate it in myself (talk about deeply rooted behavior) and telling others about it.

Through purely anecdotal research I found that AMS is common and unconscious and that the actions are done serially and always in order. In general, the scenario works like this:

• Assumption: We think about something we’re going to do or tell someone and decide what the outcome will be.
• Manipulation: Then we do it or say it in a such a way as to elicit the response we expected.
• Self-fulfilling prophesy: This brings us full circle to back to the original assumption and we then say to ourselves, “See, I knew this would happen if I did/said [whatever].”

The astute reader (that’s you) knows that that this can be a good thing. After all, think about how much you can accomplish; the objections you can overcome; the minds you can change to flow in synch with your own, and many people do use it this way (think the power of positive thinking, actualization, etc.).

But here’s the kicker (you knew there’d be a kicker, right?):

AMS is also at the bottom of most miscommunications and misunderstandings, including biz problems, dysfunctional relationships, divorces and even war.

Employee example:

A: I bet my boss won’t approve my going to the seminar.

M: “I know that the training budget is down and that you might not think this is the best seminar for the money, but I’d really like to go.”

S: I knew s/he wouldn’t let me go.

Sure, this is a very obvious example, but once you start looking you’ll see all the subtle ways you set yourself up for negative results. Worse, when you’re a manager you may set up your people to fail instead of succeed.

From little things to damaging morale on entire projects, bad AMS often rears it’s ugly head. Negative spin can undercut people’s belief in their ability to finish a project on time:

• “I know it’s a really tough schedule and difficult project and we’re short some of the needed skills, but it’s supposed to be done and we’ll have to try.”

Whereas positive spin can inspire:

• “The project and schedule are challenging, but I have no doubts that working together we can finish it on time and in budget, plus we’ll all get to learn some new skills in the process.

The solution to bad AMS is simple, but implementing it takes longer (longer being a purely subjective amount of time—days to decades).

The trick to turning bad AMS to good is awareness—that’s always how you move through the four-level (unconscious incompetence -> conscious incompetence -> conscious competence -> unconscious competence) process of behavioral (or any kind) of learning/change.

Here’s what to do:

1. Listen to yourself to see what spin you’re putting on your words.
2. If it’s positive, pat your self on the back.
3. If it’s neutral, tweak it a bit.
4. If it’s negative, STOP, say that’s not what you meant and rephrase it with enough enthusiasm to convince your listeners. People’s mental delete function is like your computer, just because it’s deleted doesn’t mean it’s gone. So you have to take the time to really overwrite the negative and keep reinforcing the positive without sounding desperate, insincere or phony.

Keep monitoring yourself. You’ll find that after having to do step four a few times, your awareness not only skyrockets, it kicks in earlier and earlier. The end result is your thinking will actually change and you negative AMS will happen less and less.

Stay tuned. Tomorrow we’ll go through the details of the four-level process.

MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) is what I coach; BF is short for believability factor and is part of your MAP.

What does it take to be ranked as a good manager today? Not much more than usual, just incite innovation, raise productivity, improve quality and reduce turnover—preferably without spending more money.

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was something specific that you could do that would positively affect all of the above, make things better in your personal world and improve your sex life? (Ha, bet that got your attention!) Something that didn’t cost money, was completely within your control and that nobody had to know you were doing—ever?

Yes, there actually is something, not a fix-all silver bullet, but something that offers improvement—the amount depending on where you are now.

It’s not new, not rocket science and you’ve heard part of it time and again: Say what you mean and mean what you say. Actually the full text reads: Say what you mean, mean what you say, then DO what you say. Or, in modern language: Walk your talk.

Your follow-through is the most important. I can’t count the times I’ve heard people at all levels say about their boss some variation of, “S/he really means well, but nothing ever happens.”. If you don’t follow through, then meaning what you say won’t carry much weight with your employees, peers, bosses, and personal-worlders.

The follow-through needs to be 100%, too. A 60% follow-through rate yields a BF of about 40% since perceived results are usually lower than actual results. That disconnect makes it tough to get things done!

Are you disconnected? Easy to know; just count the times (be honest, remember this is between you and you) that you said you were going to do something and didn’t (at least not when you said you would); the times you promised X, but provided Y; the projects started, but not finished; the request for input that was given, but never used.

To find your believability factor assign a number value between one and ten to the said, meant, did, and result, then figure the percentage correlation between said and meant, meant and did, did and result. The results are your internal BF for each part, then add the them together and divide by three for your overall internal BF.

Next, poll the involved people (work or personal-worlders) and ask them to rate you on a scale of one to ten on

• whether you mean what you say;
• how often you do what you say you will do; and
• the frequency of results being what they expected based on what you originally said.

Use these numbers to figure your external BF in each area and for each person.

If you find substantial discrepancies between you and the majority of those polled, it tells you that you need to rethink your self-view. If you find just one or two significantly different from you and the rest, then you could be dealing with a communications problem (but that’s another column).

What’s the BF worth to you? At work you’ll find a direct correlation between your BF and the productivity of those who interface with you, no matter their level—even customers! In your personal world you’ll find the same correlation in your “relationship productivity” whether with your kids, your friends or your softball team. (I’ll let you figure out the application in the bedroom!)

So what do you do about it? First, what you don’t do is make any announcements as to what’s going to change. Change is difficult and serious personal style change is the most difficult because it means censoring yourself, living up to your commitments, learning to say no, not “anal-yzing,” and delegating when possible; in other words, learning that it is more effective to under-promise so that you can (almost) always over-deliver.

Where to start? Take a hint from Nike’s tag line and “just do it.”