“There is no silver bullet that’s going to fix that. No, we are going to have to use a lot of lead bullets.”  --Bill Turpin (quote source)

Although Bill Turpin said this in reference to technical problems at Netscape, I see managers at all levels and across industries spending time looking for silver bullets with which to “fix” their people.

There are two reasons that this is a major waste of time.

First, I can categorically state that there is no such thing as a silver bullet. No matter what you are trying to do there is no tool or methodology that can be guaranteed to work in every situation and under every circumstance.

Second, No manager, past or present, has ever fixed anyone. The best that any manager can do is identify the problem, present the information and offer support, but any change or ‘fixes’ must come from the individual.

Lead bullets, however, are how most problems are solved and behaviors changed.

By some measurements lead bullets are expensive, since they cost time and effort over a longer period, but they typically have the highest ROI of anything a manager does.

So, time spent searching for a silver bullet fix or time spent chipping away at the problem with lead bullets?

As always, it’s your choice.

Flickr image credit: mdanys

Flickr image credit: Wesley Fryer

Grrrr. I hate it when bad human traits are excused based on career choice, position, etc.

A group of experienced small biz owners ranging from late thirties to late fifties described themselves thus, impatient, short on focus, easily frustrated, likely to jump in and solve a problem rather than count on the employee to do it; traits that have no place in good management (or leadership, if you prefer).

The more accurate analysis is captured in a comment citing similarities in the corporate world,

The top managers do delegate (maybe that’s how they get to the top) but the rest stick their noses into everything just like small business owners. Guess it is just human nature and the reason most people are not very good managers.

Before becoming an entrepreneur, manager, worker, parent, whatever, you were you. You possessed a certain MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) and embodied certain traits and you took those with you into your career and wider life.

Extreme examples make this glaringly clear, although even these examples are changing,

• Cops who intimidate were bullies on the playground and sought a career in which bully MAP could flourish.
• Pedophile priests were pedophiles long before they became priests and gravitated to a profession with both access and protection.

Careers don’t create traits, although they often magnify them.

“That’s who I am” carries a second, unspoken thought, “so deal with it.”

But “who I am” is your choice, not mine, and there is no good reason why I have to deal with it.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sweetonveg/4450198083/

An interesting article from Knowledge at Wharton cites several recent studies that help explain the difficulty corporations have tapping creative types for positional leadership roles.

Those individuals who expressed more creative ideas were viewed as having less, not more, leadership potential. The exception, they found, was when people were specifically told to focus on charismatic leaders. In that case, creative types fared better.

The article and associated studies should be required reading for every manager charged with hiring, whether for a so-called leadership position or team member.

Every manager wants to hire creative talent, that isn’t new, but understanding why you might pass on the very talent you need is knowledge worth having.

Creativity, also known as thinking outside the box, isn’t always a comfortable trait to have around; moreover, it requires much more effort to manage.

But make no mistake, while in today’s high stakes global markets those who color inside the lines can maintain the company for a time, it is the creatives who will take it to the next level.

It’s also worth noting that not all creative people are charismatic and those with charisma may not have a creative bone in their body.

Read the article and determine how much applies to you/your organization (team, department, company), and then decide if it’s worth changing.

As always, it’s your choice.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zedbee/103147140/

A call I had today prompts me to repost something I wrote last year.

Choosing Your Audience

Every day we make choices and, as kids, learning to make wise ones is one on the most important things that should happen as we grow.

But it doesn’t always happen.

The great thing is that you can change and learn to make good choices at any time in your life—it is an integral part of leading yourself.

One of the most important choices anyone makes is found in the people they choose to have as part of their life.

Although I could write my own ideas of what that means, I’d like to share something I received from a friend. I can’t find who the author is, so I’ll credit the prolific Anon.

Everyone Can’t Be in Your Front Row

Life is a theater – invite your audience carefully. Not everyone is spiritually healthy and mature enough to have a front row seat in our lives. There are some people in your life that need to be loved from a distance.

It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you let go, or at least minimize your time with draining negative, incompatible, not-going-anywhere relationships/friendships/fellowships!

Observe the relationships around you. Pay attention to: Which ones lift and which ones lean? Which ones encourage and which ones discourage?

Which ones are on a path of growth uphill and which ones are going downhill?

When you leave certain people, do you feel better or feel worse? Which ones always have drama or don’t really understand, know and appreciate you and the gift that lies within you? When you seek growth, peace of mind, love and truth, the easier it will become for you to decide who gets to sit in the FRONT ROW and who should be moved to the balcony of your life.

You cannot change the people around you…but you can change the people you are around! Choose wisely the people who sit in the front row of your life.

Copy the last sentence and tape it to your monitor and the bathroom mirror; forward the post to every person you care about—not with a lecture, but with a hug; discuss it’s meaning with your kids—they are never too young to learn this.

Take a long, hard look at who sits in your front row; if you don’t want them there you don’t need to have a major confrontation, just quietly lower their priority in your life and assign them to a seat at the back—even if they have you in their front row.

I know that I’m in the front row of several people who sit in the rear of my audience, but I say nothing, because nothing would be gained. They would be deeply hurt for no reason; they have little-to-no impact on me because they are far back and where they choose to seat me is none of my business.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26881907@N05/2755415480/

There are many ways to consider leadership’s future and I often focus on schools and education (not the same thing) and kids—who are the leaders, actual and positional, tomorrow.

But there is another view of leadership’s future worth considering and that is of leadership as an industry, as opposed to an action or description.

Make no mistake, leadership, directly and indirectly, is definitely an industry.

Consider the standard definition of ‘industry’: A category used to describe a company’s primary business activity, usually determined by the largest source of a company’s revenues.

From individual coaches to major consultants and every size in-between, thousands of people earn their daily bread and pay their mortgages with money made through their activities in the leadership industry. Even those who aren’t paid in money are earning something, whether it’s enhanced reputation, a way to spread their opinions/beliefs, an ego boost or something still more esoteric.

I’m not saying that this is a bad thing or a good thing, but it is a thing worth noting.

In a previous post I warned of the need to digest and tweak expert information as opposed to swallowing it whole and this is even more important when it comes to leadership, considering the vast volume of it and the media’s constant focus and insistence that it is leadership that separates the winners and losers.

Even if you subscribe to that idea you need to develop a definition that is relevant to your world and stands the test of time, not some offered up by the industry.

Leadership terms are casually thrown around, applied by some to any and every action that a person does, may do or should do and by others only to the actions/words of those in positional leadership roles.

Perhaps these two points are worth accepting, although I’m sure many will disagree with me,

1. Leadership is an industry in which people, directly or indirectly, earn their living.
2. Leadership information comes in a multiplicity of forms and the quality varies widely.

Accepting these two ideas results in one conclusion: like investing information, leadership information should be digested, internalized and tweaked for your individual needs at both that point in your life and in your future.

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hikingartist/4582034468/

An angry email berated me for Saturday’s post, saying in part, “Why don’t you ever choose more typical CEOs and cultures to write about? I read blogs to help me manage more effectively and the stuff you talk about is almost impossible to implement.”

The answer, in a nutshell, is that you can’t implement anything at odds with your own MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™)

Therefore:

• If you don’t believe in a happy workplace where people have fun then there is nothing that Tony Hsieh or anybody else can teach you that will help you create one.
• If you stand on your dignity and can’t laugh at yourself there is no way you can implement The Levity Effect.

I could keep giving examples, but you get the point.

I, and dozens of other experts, have said over and over that people can’t sell something they don’t believe themselves.

Nor can they implement cultural features that are out of sync with their MAP.

This is especially true for managers because they typically hire in their own image, so that their team has similar MAP—and the same problem.

If you find yourself on this treadmill, rather than write an angry email or complain to your buddies look in the mirror and know that you can change if you want to.

It’s your choice.

Image credit: Svadilfari on flickr

“What’s more important to you, being right or winning?”

That is what I asked a caller today.

“Frank” has been sequestered on jury duty for several weeks and when he returned to work he found that right after he left his team was assigned a new project and they were just finishing.

Frank said that the project had gone well, was on time and in budget, but he was upset that they had used a different approach from the one he preferred.

That’s when I asked, “What’s more important to you, being right or winning?”

You’d think that was an easy answer, but I was met first with silence and then with multiple reasons proving his approach was better.

He agreed that on time/in budget was a win, but still felt they should have done it his way.

So I ask you, “What’s more important, being right or winning?”

Image credit: immrchris on sxc.hu

Did you watch the new reality show Undercover Boss on CBS Sunday after the Super Bowl?

The opening episode starred Larry O’Donnell, President and C.O.O. of Waste Management.

O’Donnell plays ‘Randy’, a new worker being filmed for training purposes. At one location he jams the trash line by not removing large cardboard; he is fired, for the first time in his life, for not being able to efficiently collect blowing trash at a landfill—unlike the worker he is with who has done the job for 19 years while spending three days a week in dialysis; he cleans porta-potties with a guy who’s attitude is every manager’s best dream; and he rides with a female trash hauler where he learns that to stay on schedule women drivers use cans from the trash as pee-pots.

He meets a 29 year old single mother who overcame five kinds of cancer by age 25, has taken in her brother’s family and her dad, is about to lose her home in foreclosure and is doing three jobs post layoffs for the same money she was getting before, but is still upbeat and even invites the new guy to dinner.

O’Donnell is surprised by the physical and mental exhaustion he experiences his first day, amazed by the people he meets, outraged by what he learns and shocked at the implementation of a policy he personally conceived to raise productivity by which workers were docked 2 minutes for every 1 minute they were late.

At the start of the show when O’Donnell tells his executive team that he is going undercover the reactions vary from surprise to incredulity.

When he meets with them at the end and talks about what he learned and changes he believes are needed and how he plans to use his new knowledge the look on guy’s face said it all—he might as well have rolled his eyes.

Sadly, that is often the reaction from senior leadership regarding intel that comes from front-line, bottom-of-the-heap workers.

The smartest managers listen to their all their people—not just the ones in suits.

The final scene includes and overlay update on what happened to each of the people who worked with O’Donell and changes, both made and ongoing, as a result.

I don’t watch reality shows; I’ve read that many are scripted, but I do believe that there are bosses of large companies who don’t have egos the size of Texas and are capable of learning from unfiltered feedback from the lowest rank and file.

Plus, it seems that changes were actually made.

As big a believer as I am in bosses talking to the troops, there is no way O’Donnell would get this kind of feedback from this level of employee if they knew who he was.

Go ahead and call me naïve, but in spite of everything I’d rather be a chump than a cynic.

And in case you missed Undercover Boss you can watch it here.

Image credit: Svadilfari on flickr

Often

• Leaders can envision and inspire, but that doesn’t mean they can manage.
• Managers can motivate and lead, but that doesn’t make them visionaries.
• Visionaries can inspire, but not necessarily lead or manage.

Rarely can one person do it all and that’s OK—if…

The solution starts when you shove your ego in your back pocket and face facts.

And it’s the same at every management level, be it Microsoft or McDonald’s.

Once you accept that reality then you can move forward and

• relinquish power;
• hire those who compliment your skills;
• give them the correct title, authority and status;
• shower them with public and private recognition;
• valid compensation; and
• sincere appreciation.

Of course, the problem with this is that few will admit their deficiencies even to themselves.

Worse, even if you want to admit it, companies, bosses and peer pressure make it almost impossible.

That leaves you with two choices.

• Stiffen your spine, ignore the pressure and let the results speak for your success.
• Bow to the pressure, fake it for as long as you can and change companies before you are found out.

That’s the great thing about life—you always have a choice.

Image credit: Svadilfari on flickr