I’m unfamiliar with Strategic Strategist and have no idea what, if anything, this means, but still! So I told some friends and my b5 cohorts and received some very nice congratulatory emails telling me that I deserved it, etc. Fun!
But it got me to thinking once again that I just don’t have the ego for the networked, self-promoted, memememe world I live in.
It’s not that I don’t believe I have a lot to offer.
I think I’m a hell of a writer and that what I say has value, whether it’s of direct use or stimulates new thought paths.
To be honest, I’m often blown away when I read old posts here or at MAPping Company Success and realize I wrote them. The same goes for my book, The Swamp & the Alligators: a slightly irreverent guide to career planning and the search process. It’s 16 years old now and it’s still on Amazon.
I know my coaching is valuable and that it’s unique; it takes a different approach from much of the other coaching available.
But I’m always a bit amazed when others see its value.
Believe me, it’s not humility or any of those supposedly noble feelings. It’s just that it surprises me when the outside world agrees with me.
As my readers know, I’m very opinionated, but that doesn’t mean I assume or expect anyone else to agree—in spite of the law of averages saying that some will.
I’m lousy at “working the room,” whether in the real or cyber world.
Back when I attended parties I would hang out helping in the kitchen and over the course of the evening most of the interesting people would wander in and end up staying for the kind of conversation you can sink your teeth into (I’ve always been lousy at small talk).
I seem to do cyberspace the same way.
And, I’m grateful to say, the interesting people keep wandering in and staying to talk.
A few weeks ago Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said“The danger of that for the country is that there won’t automatically be an ability to restrain the excess that is typically associated with big majorities and single-party rule.”
OK, typical political rhetoric, but that isn’t what caught my eye.
What I found so amusing was the line about the dangers of “single party-rule.”
Amusing because when the Republicans owned the majorities in both the House and the Senate and there was a Republican President single-party rule was fine.
But it brings up an important point and one that can have a major effect on your company or team.
The point is consistency.
If, in fact, holding both the Presidency and Congressional majorities is de facto single-party rule then it doesn’t matter which party holds it, it’s still dangerous.
In business terms that means that if you condemn something your competition does or the way it acts and then do or act the same way you’re being inconsistent.
Likewise, if you laude something and don’t either follow suit or escalate it you’re being inconsistent.
People hate inconsistency, whether they’re your customers or employees.
And don’t kid yourself that they won’t notice, they will—people aren’t stupid.
You don’t have the advantage of ideology working for you in a business setting. Ideology works in politics, most people won’t notice the inconsistency in McConnell’s words, but even rabid Apple fans are quick to call Apple on anything that they think is inconsistent with the brand or the culture.
So think about your consistency and monitor your words and actions—better yet, build consistency into your MAP.
In a new series Jim Stroup is exploring what drives our need for “the cult of the superlative individual leader as the cure for our current difficulties” in spite, as Jim points out, of those same cult members having caused many of the current problems.
“We will take the position here at the outset, then, that the family of definitions of leadership that we are discussing is that which incorporates the idea of ineffably sensed forward motion – profound vision, unfathomable wisdom or judgment, courageous decisiveness, a charismatic ability to attract followers, and the like.
After all, it is this type of leadership that we are being told we must place our faith in, so that its exemplars can grasp the reins firmly in their hands, and with reassuring sure-footedness steer we poor, benighted masses out of our barely perceived and dimly comprehended peril. Into which, let it be said again, those exalted exemplars’ predecessors led us.”
Please click over and read this brilliant, irreverent discussion of what leadership has come to be and why it destroys instead of sustains. (Be sure to subscribe to follow it.)
Then check out Wally Bock’s comments regarding the continued idiocy of the leader vs. manager concept.
And my series on the same topic is worth reading if you haven’t already.
As I said in the old posts I pointed out yesterday, I don’t believe that anyone ever gets out of their box, but boxes are infinitely enlargeable and the only constraints are the ones you put in place.
I thought I’d offer up two visual mind-expanders today. Fun for you and fun for me.
Did you know that research shows that no matter how scrambled the letters if the first and last are in the correct position you can read the words? Try it now.
Could you read it? If not, try again.
How are you at spatial puzzles? Here’s one that’s been around for a long time, but I haven’t met many people who solved it.
Think abut what you just saw. The MAP that stops most of us from figuring it out is based on what we start hearing as toddlers when we get our first crayons—
“Silly, whoever heard of an orange sky?”
“But cows only have 4 legs.”
And from our first coloring book, and as a metaphor throughout life, we hear over an over “color inside the lines;” then all of a sudden we’re being chided for doing exactly that.
Go ahead, expand the lines; push the boundaries; you’ll be surprised at how easily they move.
I’ve always said that no one ever really thinks outside their box, they just keep enlarging it. Rather than reprinting these posts, please read three of them here.
And here’s a riddle for a bit of box stretching and Friday fun.
Many years ago in a small Indian village, a farmer had the misfortune of owing a large sum of money to a village moneylender. The moneylender, who was old and ugly, fancied the farmer’s beautiful daughter. So he proposed a bargain.
He said he would forgo the farmer’s debt if he could marry his daughter.
Both the farmer and his daughter were horrified by the proposal. So the cunning money-lender suggested that they let providence decide the matter. He told them that he would put a black pebble and a white pebble into an empty money bag. Then the girl would have to pick one pebble from the bag.
1) If she picked the black pebble, she would become his wife and her father’s debt would be forgiven.
2) If she picked the white pebble she need not marry him and her father’s debt would still be forgiven.
3) If she refused to pick a pebble, her father would be thrown into jail.
They were standing on a pebble strewn path in the farmer’s field. As they talked, the moneylender bent over to pick up two pebbles. As he picked them up, the sharp-eyed girl noticed that he had picked up two black pebbles and put them into the bag. He then asked the girl to pick a pebble from the bag.
Logically, there are three choices,
The girl should refuse to take a pebble.
The girl should show that there were two black pebbles in the bag and expose the money-lender as a cheat.
The girl should pick a black pebble and sacrifice herself in order to save her father from his debt and imprisonment.
But is there a fourth and better way out of the dilemma?
Take a moment to share your idea in comments and if you’re correct I’ll send you a management book (chosen based on your interests). If more than one of you gets it right the winner will be chosen using random.org.
I’ll post the answer next Friday, be sure to come back and see if your mind achieved what the girl’s did.
Today’s post is on a subject that angers me no end; it’s also a lead-in to tomorrow’s post.
I wrote about this lunacy shortly after I started writing Leadership Turn, but several recent phone calls made me go back and find the post to bring it to your attention again.
Of course, since you’re here reading this it’s likely that you’re already in agreement with me and don’t inflict this mindset on your people.
It’s about all those bosses (far more than you might imagine) who evaluate their people based on the language they use to discuss their actions as opposed to the actions themselves.
I thought about rewriting it, but decided not to, nothing has changed and the folks who called me recently are all facing similar problems.
Speaking In Leadership
I had a great time with “Jean,” who took me up on my free coaching offer and also received permission to write about her situation, since I’ve heard similar stories over the years.
She told me about a specific situation within her department and what she was doing to handle it. I asked her if it was working and she said it seemed to be, but that she’d rather solve it using leadership skills instead of just management skills.
Jean went on to say that she wanted to be chosen to attend her company’s leadership classes and to do so she had to demonstrate strong leadership potential.
Jean and I had a great discussion (we ran over the hour) about her interest in leadership, her goals, how she communicates with her people, her group’s culture within the overall company culture and what she’s accomplished—solid management, on-time/in-budget projects, low attrition, high morale and strong productivity in her organization.
Apparently the accomplishments aren’t enough for Jean’s boss, who’s been know to skip over DOers in favor of people who “speak leadership,” when describing what they’ve done.
In fairness, and before you get the wrong idea, Jean said that she loves working with him, he’s been a great mentor and promoted her twice. He just has this thing about leadership.
Since, in my opinion, Jean’s already demonstrated her ability to lead, what she needed to learn was how to talk about it. I knew she had read both books and blogs on the subject, so I asked her to choose something and then describe it to me as she would to her boss.
As I listened, the problem was evident. Jean’s description was low on “I,” high on “us.” It was about the challenge and how the team succeeded in overcoming it—exactly the way a good leader talks.
When I mentioned that, Jean laughed and said that speaking “leadership” sounded pretentious to her and that none of the leaders that she’d been around spoke that way, including her boss. She said that although she’d found a lot of the tools she used described in leadership books, she just assumed that they were different when used by a “leader.”
Now, I’m the last person to stomp on common sense (it’s too uncommon), so I suggested to Jean that she walk her boss through the prequel to the event, in other words, how she planned to achieve whatever, since when describing her planning she did use leadership terms.
As for all you bosses who recognize yourselves in the above—stop it! Stop focusing on the talk and check out the walk of your people who DO. Maybe they haven’t learned the language of leadership or maybe, like Jean, they find it pretentious to describe what they do that way, but if you’re desire is to identify those with the best potential I hope that you’ll start looking for it in what your people DO.
I’m fortunate to be a member ExpertCEO, an online community of CEOs of startups and fast growing companies that offers peer support and advice.
A couple of weeks ago a member invited everybody to post “things you’d never hear a VC say.”
They were pretty hilarious, with some of the best responses coming from VCs themselves.
Apparently I’m not the only one who felt that they’re too good not to share and today we were presented with a great compilation of the 12 best entries.
Anyone who has worked in a startup or spent time around VCs will appreciate the following; anyone contemplating doing so should appreciate the insights.
Last week I wrote that it seemed that change was in the wind for education and parental attitudes that have produced millions of poorly educated and entitled young people.
But it looks as if parents are still in the forefront of teaching their kids that there is no accountability and no consequences for actions such as cheating.
At Ohio’s Centerburg High, in the heartland of our country where, we are constantly told, ethics are at their highest,“so many of the senior class either cheated on final exams or knew about the cheating but failed to report it that district officials cancelled graduation.”
“Centerburg High, with about 400 students, is one of the state’s top schools, with an “excellent” academic rating last year, according to the state Department of Education. “Last year, the school had a 99% graduation rate, compared to a statewide rate of 87%.”
The cheating was the result of a senior hacking into a teacher’s computer, stealing the tests and distributing them to the entire class.
“Superintendent Dorothy Holden said the district had to take a stand and let students know that cheating can’t be tolerated… “We’re not going to put that type of honor out there knowing that many of you are walking through there and you cheated, you lied, you denied.”
According to Holden, “Some students admit they cheated; others said they knew of the cheating but didn’t participate; and others said they had the tests but didn’t use them. One student who used the test still failed.”
Three cheers for Dorothy Holden.
Of course, things didn’t end there.
“Some parents angry about the cancellation are organizing an unofficial graduation ceremony.”
Three thousand boos for those parents whose time would be better spent teaching their little darlings that lying and cheating aren’t nice.
Politicians and the media are rabid about the problems with school administrators and teachers and the public wrings its collective hands at the dismal state of US education.
But rarely do I read stories condemning the actions of parents for their active role in producing kids who can’t spell accountability and see nothing wrong with lying and cheating.
And before you say I’m being too hard on them remember that the parents are your colleagues and these are the kids you’ll be hiring—your workers, doctors, lawyers—and who, eventually, will lead our country, industry and social organizations.
Do you really think they’ll do things differently then?
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
But it got me to thinking once again that I just don’t have the ego for the networked, self-promoted, memememe world I live in.
I find those who believe they speak Truth to be scary—rigid, righteous, lacking empathy, incapable of seeing any view except their own.
“We will take the position here at the outset, then, that the family of definitions of leadership that we are discussing is that which incorporates the idea of ineffably sensed forward motion – profound vision, unfathomable wisdom or judgment, courageous decisiveness, a charismatic ability to attract followers, and the like.
Both the farmer and his daughter were horrified by the proposal. So the cunning money-lender suggested that they let providence decide the matter. He told them that he would put a black pebble and a white pebble into an empty money bag. Then the girl would have to pick one pebble from the bag.
Now, I’m the last person to stomp on common sense (it’s too uncommon), so I suggested to Jean that she walk her boss through the prequel to the event, in other words, how she planned to achieve whatever, since when describing her planning she did use leadership terms.
“Some parents angry about the cancellation are organizing an unofficial graduation ceremony.”
