After Monday’s post I had several emails and calls wondering if the ROI for seeing the ‘whole’ was really worth the effort considering the frequency of switching jobs and even industries, not to mention the speed at which everything changed. One caller said he was exhausted just thinking about it. (He was being factious—I hope.)

So on this Friday, before you grab the beer to celebrate your freedom, let’s consider the ‘whole’ in terms of WIIFY (what’s in it for you).

The short answer is that wrapping your mind around the whole is the difference between being considered ‘good’, ‘OK’ and ‘competent’ vs. having adjectives such as ‘great’, ‘brilliant’ and ‘world-class’ attached to your name.

And making the effort to be a ‘whole’ person provides a major benefit for you, personally by reducing—even eliminating—boredom.

Even a constantly challenging job can become routine; the two things that keep it interesting are people, who are ever-changing, and the intricacies of understanding your and the job’s impact on surrounding people and tasks and how it fits into and impacts the whole.

It’s similar to enjoying a baseball game; if you think the most fascinating position is pitcher and that’s the only player you watch, you’ll miss a lot of the action. In fact, you’ll probably miss many of the game-changing plays.

You’ll actually find a lyric harmony in the ‘whole’ and will be much quicker to notice any discordant notes giving you a decided edge within your current company as well as a more accurate assessment of what is really going on.

Mixing metaphors is not good writing, but this kind of holistic, or perhaps I should say ‘wholistic’ approach will be far more accurate in predicting whether you should fish or cut bait.

How’s that for good WIIFY?

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When you evaluate a task or project to you see the whole or the hole?

Most people are adept at seeing the hole, i.e., what needs to be added in order to succeed. What’s missing can include scope, skills, resources, etc.

Unlike donuts, holes don’t enhance your projects. Being sure the hole is filled is important, but it’s also difficult to fill it if you don’t also see the whole.

The whole is the overview of how that particular project fits into the larger picture. Understanding that helps you to identify and address the entire hole, so you don’t end up having to go back and fix the part of the hole you missed or, worse, move on leaving an unnoticeable hole that turns into a sinkhole down the road.

Seeing the whole means taking time to understand not just your own position/area, but the functions of those around you and how they all interact, your company’s competitors and trends in your market.

More work? Yes.

A pain in the wazoo? Yes.

The benefits to you, your team and your company? Priceless.

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Are you prone to exaggeration?

A little here, a bit there, year after year and that longevity often leads to more and more outlandish claims until your house of embellished cards comes tumbling down.

Research has shown that the human animal is prone to embellishing anything—maybe not everything, maybe not all the time, but it’s all possible.

What is the ethical line that separates a normal human frailty from a true breech of trust?

At one end you have the obvious black—outright lies and claims of things (degrees, experiences, etc.) that never happened.

At the other end you have white—the person considered a social misfit through total honesty.

And between them the various shades of gray.

How do you extricate yourself from an embellishment in the past that has become part of your history?

How dangerous are embellishments in these days of instant fact checking and the immortal nature of everything on the web?

A fascinating article in Knowledge@Wharton discusses all this and more along with the social implications, the effect on trust and various views on the subject of embellishment.

Please read the article, then come back and share your thoughts.

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Like you, I’ve been through some pretty rough times. Inevitably, at some point during those dark days, several someones would ask what in the world I found amusing about the situation.

Little did they know I was unconsciously following one of my favorite rules.

Blessed are they that can laugh at themselves for they shall be forever amused.

Just a little FYI; if you’ve read many of my rules you might wonder how I remember them all. The answer is I don’t. What I do is practice them consciously long enough that they are my unconscious response to the appropriate stimulation.

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Ask anyone if it’s easy to accomplish a task through others and be prepared for eye rolls and laughter.

In a post at Managing Salespeople, Dr. Jim Sellner talks about why managing is so difficult.

Management is not something you do once then sit back and enjoy your work. It’s a never-ending, unfolding story with many subplots. It is a mindset, a viewpoint, not only of work, or people, but of one’s worldview. It’s about making unique, often seemingly disconnected associations, connecting the interactions no one else sees. It is ongoing curiosity, questioning, searching for something new, different, better — posing the uncomfortable questions like “What if?” or “Why not?” That is the stuff of managing people.

Sounds a lot like a description of parenting, doesn’t it?

No, your team members aren’t children or crazy hormonal teenagers, although at times they may act that way, but even when they are acting like responsible adults they still need you.

• They need you to share the vision, so they know and understand why they are doing the work they do. They need you to provide all the information to do that work efficiently.

• They need you to challenge them, so they can grow to and beyond what they think is possible.

• They need you to trust them enough to let them make their own mistakes so they can learn from them.

• They need you to believe in them, encourage them and cheer them on.

So the next time one of your team comes to you, whether at work or at home, don’t short-change them with a brush-off response.

Remember that it was your choice; nobody put a gun to your head and forced you—you chose to be a manager, you wanted to have kids.

Now is the time to be the best that you can be—even if your manger/parent isn’t/wasn’t.

Image credit: Svadilfari on flickr

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What do you do when you want to improve your management skills?

Many people take a class, get another degree, and attend leadership school, all with the hope of finding management Tao. They crave a methodology, a set of actions they can do that assures management success.

But as the old adage says, it ain’t gonna happen.

Or to quote Bob Sutton, “I’ve come to conclude that all the technique and behavior coaching in the world won’t make a boss great if that boss doesn’t also have a certain mindset.”

So when you face new and challenging situations go ahead and

• access expert information, but don’t stop there.
• Discuss it with friends/colleagues,
• think about both what you read and what they said and
• watch the magic happen when you synthesize the input, tweaking it so it fits your MAP and the situation.

It is this process that makes it an approach you truly own.

Try the process with Sutton’s 12 Things Good Bosses Believe at the link above.

Management skills evolve, both personally and on a wider front, as they are shared with other managers, who also use the process, adding and subtracting based on their situation, experience and MAP.

Stop trying to use the whole cloth from just one source as seems to be happening more often these days.

Yes, the demands on your time are greater than ever, but there  is a crazy idea floating around that most, if not all, solutions are available on the Net if one searches long enough and, worse, that a better-than-50% fit can be used as is.

While this beats the “do first, think later” school of management, it’s not something that will win praise from your bosses or kudos from your team.

The way to become a great manager is to think, mull, accept, reject, evolve and even change your MAP as you digest and apply the information around you.

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In a recent post Steve Roesler asks this question “Is your organization deliberate about identifying–up front–people who have the heart to learn about themselves and the humility to make changes accordingly?” and ends with this summary comment, “A well-bred head lights up a single office. A smart heart lights up the organization.”

I believe that a “smart heart” goes beyond the changes required for personal growth.

Whether you are a manager, aspiring leader or team member a smart heart will advance you in any arena.

It is the quality that draws people to you; it makes people want you on their team; it assures people that you have their best interests in mind; a smart heart goes hand-in-hand with trustworthiness.

Faking a smart heart for an interview might get you hired, but faking isn’t sustainable. People aren’t stupid and the truth will out.

Think about it.

Then go and light up your world.

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My father turned down a parental deferral and desk job during World War II, instead choosing to fight and served as an intelligence officer in the Pacific. He returned safely.

When he returned he clandestinely took up another cause, helping the Haganah in the fight to establish the State of Israel. He died in his sleep during a road trip along with two others when the driver also fell asleep.

Both were causes about which he felt strongly; both he was willing to fight for, but in one case he lived and the other he died.

To some he was a hero, to others a villain and to still others a fool, who risked his life when he didn’t have to.

We need more fools.

Heroes

Some Heroes obvious, some unsung,
their lives and health, tempting fate.
Vulnerable in tasks for our civilization,
few glories for their life’s profession.

The Service men in our Armed Forces,
the cause be sure for freedom’s sake.
For their family, strangers, citizens all,
few medals show their life’s duress.

The policeman whose life is in peril,
by high-speed chase, gunfight ensued.
The simple traffic stop may kill,
few medals show the dangers faced.

The man who is trained as a fireman,
to save our lives, our homes from fire.
The first on scene when aid in need,
few medals show each hazardous deed.

The utilities that keep our comfort whole,
power and phone, the men on poles.
Sewage, garbage disposed for health,
no recognition for the civilian fight.

The many others whose work obscure,
performing tasks with risks not yours.
Construction, or the viral flu to cure,
no medals glory for the civilian plight.

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A comment on Ego-merge by Peter Gluck asked for my thoughts on “ego out.” (Peter is a charming fan who says he translats many of my posts into Romanian for his newsletter Info Kappa. How’s that for a great ego trip?)

I googled “ego out” to be sure I understood the conversation and here is my two cents—which has absolutely no basis other than my own thoughts on the subject.

First, let’s differentiate between ego and self-esteem.

• Ego believes that it knows best and ignores any evidence to the contrary, let alone other people’s ideas/thoughts/beliefs.
• Self-esteem is the belief that one has value and can add value to one’s world. (Note: This kind of self-esteem has nothing to do with the kind promoted in the entitled mentality so prevalent today.)

Self-esteem is good and should be cultivated and nurtured.

Ego, as it lives inside your head, isn’t intrinsically bad, but its application to the rest of the world is bad.

So people say, ‘eliminate ego from the conversation’.

Nice thought, but it falls in the same realm as eliminating junk food and mandating daily exercise to control obesity. As any fool can tell you that just ain’t gonna happen.

What can be done? Let’s look at it a bit differently by equating

• ego to subjectivity; and
• ego-out to objectivity.

The first thing that happens with the word change is it eliminates the threat of being egoless—a concept most people cannot/won’t embrace.

Next, change focus and spend energy bulking up and strengthen objectivity.

Third, increase awareness, so that you are conscious of which view you are applying to [whatever]. That heightened awareness will help you keep your subjective/ego view inside your head where it belongs or to plainly state that your words/actions are subjective, not definitive or “right.”

In many cases you want to present your subjective view and in all cases you can have both. For example, Whistler’s Mother is considered brilliant by every yardstick and objectively I can appreciate that, but I have no subjective liking for it.

This blog is another good example. The ideas as well as the commentary on other people’s thoughts, articles, etc. are purely subjective, based on my MAP, i.e., my ego.

I have spent decades developing my objectivity and awareness in knowing which is which, so I have reason to believe it works.

I’ve also found that the stronger my objectivity gets the more it tempers my subjectivity.

And sometimes, I find that ego/subjectivity really adds to the conversation, as long as all parties listen objectively.

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Last week I wrote about HBS’ effort to legitimize leadership as a multi-faceted function worthy of scholarly pursuit as opposed to anecdotal advice.

Back in 1994 Joel Kurtzmen coined the term “thought leader” and defined it as follows,

“Thought leader is a buzzword or article of jargon used to describe a futurist or person who is recognized among their peers and mentors for innovative ideas and demonstrates the confidence to promote or share those ideas as actionable distilled insights (thinklets).”

Back then it may have had meaning, but 16 years later its frequent use in conjunction with the leadership flavor-of-the-month has reduced it almost to meaninglessness.

“Innovative ideas” doesn’t mean restating old stuff in new ways or recycling ideas the way the fashion industry recycles styles.

More importantly, truly innovative thinking is not tied or constrained by ideologies or past actions.

A great number of leadership fundamentals were first stated 2500 years ago in China by Lao Tzu and others of his ilk.

It is good to restate them in language current to the time and place, but presenting them as original or innovative and then claiming, or accepting, the mantle of thought leader is not.

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