A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.

A few years ago I wrote that good bosses need to be part shrink in order to deal with imposter syndrome and real programmer syndrome (for lack of a better term).

Now, there’s a third mental quirk to add to that list; call it high performer expectations syndrome.

Founders have notoriously high expectations of themselves and everyone they hire.

Those expectations are great motivators as long as things are going well.

However, those same high expectations, both external and internal, can have a negative effect on the best people — including the founder.

What we found essentially is this: When the going gets tough, favorites are more likely to quit. […]  When people walk in with high expectations and they begin to falter and experience setbacks, they have two options. They could persist and try to grind it out, or they could take the easier route that might preserve their self-esteem, be less embarrassing, and exit.

Founders and other high-performance team members aren’t likely to quit, although massively hyped stars are another matter.

Most high performance people know they are fallible, so the hit to their self-esteem is more internal and they are less likely to personalize public embarrassment — both attitudes that usually respond positively to “we’re all in this together” team support and coaching.

Stars, however, typically have a strong belief in their infallibility and a high sensitivity to public embarrassment — not a combination that lends itself to team support or coaching.

Good bosses take care of their people and themselves.

They also meld high expectations with a strong culture; one that makes glitches and even failing a learning experience that leads to both company and personal growth.

Image credit: HikingArtist

It’s amazing to me, but looking back over nearly a decade of writing I find posts that still impress, with information that is as useful now as when it was written. Golden Oldies is a collection of what I consider some of the best posts during that time. I recently read an article in Inc. on a better way to move yourself forward then setting goals or making resolutions and it reminded me of something I wrote back in 2009. Same idea; different language. Read other Golden Oldies here.

I write and talk a lot about what happens when you choose to change your MAP through awareness and the resulting boos to your energy and creativity.

What I can’t remember sharing with you is a critical ingredient in the change sauce that I call the Philosophy of ER.

I consciously developed it formally and have shared it for decades to offset all the talk about failure when people are working to change.

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.

For decades change has focused on setting goals and if they aren’t achieved as stated, then you had failed.

Over the years I’ve worked with a lot of people (including myself) whose self esteem was at best badly bruised, at worst like Swiss cheese.

They started by telling me 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.

To be valid, goals must come with delivery dates, but those dates must be 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 for failure.

Beyond being reality-based, we all need an ongoing sense of accomplishment, especially for that which 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.
• I may not be skinny, but I’m skinniER.

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, but to ER is divine.

Try it. You can do a lot worse than adding some ER to your life!

Image credit: Warning Sign Generator

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

Founders constantly talk about their need for ‘self-starters’ and ‘independent workers’.

They look for people who will ‘take the ball and run with it’.

They want high initiative and creative problem-solving.

What they really crave is a self-managing workforce or as close as they can get.

The disconnect results from the differences between what they say and their MAP.

If MAP fears any of the following then there is no way the walk can live up to the talk.

And while the answers to these questions require being brutally honest with yourself, they do not require being made public.

• Does letting go/delegating equal loss of control?
• Is your self esteem tied to methodology or accomplishments (AKA, your way or the highway)?
• Do you believe it’s more important that work is done well, than where or how it happens?
• Does your self-esteem equate control to power?
• Do you believe that people are intelligent, motivated and really care about their company’s success, OR that they are that you need to watch them every minute if anything is going to get done?
• How much of a micromanager are you?

Once you identify attitudes that need to change it’s up to you to modify your MAP as needed.

MAP can be changed, but those changes must originate internally—they can’t be forced by circumstances or other people, although either can be motivators.

Image credit: HikingArtist

EMANIO CEO and occasional contributor here KG Charles-Harris and I were discussing an article about how being a trouble-maker as a teenager can be predictive behavior to becoming an entrepreneur.

The same urge to innovate, think outside the box, take risks and break rules that helps an entrepreneur later in life might lead them to more destructive behavior as a teenager.

But only the guys.

However, the association only held up in the case of male entrepreneurs. Female entrepreneurship could not be predicted by moderately anti-social teenage behavior.

And those guys were well-off and white.

People coming from families that were comparatively well off in 1979, where the parents had some level of higher education, and where they lived in a two-parent home through age 14 or so, were more likely to be entrepreneurs.

Essentially the whole thing says what we all know, but rarely admit.

Affluent, white, male troublemakers are more likely to become entrepreneurs.

Their families have enough pull and resources to prevent them from being labeled ‘difficult’, let alone ‘delinquent’, because once you label a person and they are treated by society according to that label they often end up believing the label themselves…whatever it is.

And that label often becomes self-fulfilling prophesy.

Are you really surprised that when a middle or upper-class boy acts out the long-term result will be substantially different than when a black, inner city boy does the same thing?

Professionally, managers often do the same thing when they treat their people based on their title—then wonder why they don’t fulfill their promise.

Flickr image credit: SiSter PhotograPher

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.

Sxc.hu photo credit to: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/582071

Neglect. Drugs. Abuse. Molestation.

Where do you go when those four words describe your parents and your home life?

Where do you sleep; what do you eat?

When you’re cold and hungry you do what it takes to survive, including stealing and selling whatever you can find to sell—including yourself.

And these kids are as young as 10 years old.

The NT Times ran a two-part series called Running in the Shadows about teen runaways. It should be required reading for every American (part 1 and part 2).

Children on Their Own

This is the first of two articles on the growing number of young runaways in the United States, exploring how they survive and efforts by the authorities to help them.

Many cling together to avoid predators, but many more are seduced by pimps—it doesn’t take much.

“My job is to make sure she has what she needs, personal hygiene, get her nails done, take her to buy an outfit, take her out to eat, make her feel wanted,” said another pimp, Antoin Thurman, who was sentenced in 2006 to three years for pandering and related charges in Buckeye, Ariz. “But I keep the money.”

Out of frustration, Sgt. Byron A. Fassett of the Dallas Police Department started looking for patterns in child prostitution cases.

One stuck out: 80 percent of the prostituted children the department had handled had run away from home at least four or more times a year.

Fasset created a special “High Risk Victim” unit within the Dallas PD that has seen enormous success, both in getting kids out of that life and putting the pimps behind bars.

The unit’s strength is timing. If the girls are arrested for prostitution, they are at their least cooperative. So the unit instead targets them for such minor offenses as truancy or picks them up as high-risk victims, speaking to them when their guard is down. Only later, as trust builds, do officers and social workers move into discussions of prostitution.

Repeat runaways are not put in juvenile detention but in a special city shelter for up to a month, receiving counseling.

Three quarters of the girls who get treatment do not return to prostitution.

The results of the Dallas system are clear: in the past five years, the Dallas County district attorney’s office has on average indicted and convicted or won guilty pleas from over 90 percent of the pimps arrested. In virtually all of those cases, the children involved in the prostitution testified against their pimps, according to the prosecutor’s office. Over half of those convictions started as cases involving girls who were picked up by the police not for prostitution but simply as repeat runaways.

Those statistics are amazing. Here we have a case of initiative taken; leadership shown, and impressive success. Not a fancy approach, but a pragmatic one based on a proven pattern.

So why hasn’t it been applied across the nation?

In 2007, Congress nearly approved a proposal to spend more than $55 million for cities to create pilot programs across the country modeled on the Dallas system. But after a dispute with President George W. Bush over the larger federal budget, the plan was dropped and Congress never appropriated the money.

Just $55 million dollars, that’s all; a drop in the bucket in comparison to most earmarks.

But, in their wisdom, our wonderful, elected leaders in Washington didn’t believe it had enough reelection value to make it worth fighting for—maybe this is what’s meant by throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Of course, these kids can’t vote, may not live long enough to vote, so it’s no big deal to the folks on their perpetual campaign trail.

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Image credit: Franco Folini on flickr

A senior manager I work with is having high turnover because he’s rewarding and promoting those who are busy instead of those who are productive.

He’s concerned when his people aren’t busy. He believes that if they have they aren’t working they must be slacking or are under-utilized in their position and gives no thought to their productivity.

In a comment Jim Gordon said, “In school, people are taught to do WORK and not to be productive (well, they don’t say “don’t be productive,” but rather “stay busy”).  The problem is that of conforming to peoples’ constant need to stay busy.  Often “work” is seen as productivity – if you are one who is productive and you aren’t busy, people consider that to be counter-productive.  So the tragic upshot of this perception is that you have to put forth equivalent “work” alongside them.  The result is a lot of work and a little production.”

A manager who focuses on ‘busy’ instead of ‘productive’ will not only alienate her best experienced people, but also drive away her most promising new talent who, like Jim Gordon, do know the difference.

Always being busy may be visually impressive, but it lacks substance and leaves people exhausted.

Productivity drives success, both the company’s and the manager’s, but it’s also necessary for individual self esteem—it’s what gives people satisfaction in a job well done and energizes them.

So the choice is yours.

Do you want your people productive, excited, up for the challenge or busy, bored and polishing their resumes?

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Image credit: ZedBee|Zoë Power on flickr

Perhaps ‘As you sow, so shall you reap’ should be rewritten, ‘As you parent, so shall you hire.’

The generations that parented the Millennials are reaping the results of confusing self-esteem with entitlement.

The kids who sang ‘I am special / I am special / Look at me / Look at me… (set to the tune of Frère Jacques) in nursery school are still thinking that way in as they move through college and into the workforce.

Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University, narcissism researcher and author of Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled — and More Miserable than Ever Before, thinks that parents should stop “meaningless, baseless praise,” which starts even before nursery school.

Instead of mindless compliments why not take the time to teach them that all actions have consequences (AKA cause and effect)—even doing nothing.

Praise what they accomplish and instill in them an appreciation of the real value found in the words, actions, deeds, and contributions, both large and small, that they make in the world.

If your kids are young start by not only eliminating empty praise from your home, but also teaching them how to recognize it and why they should discount it.

With older kids—teens, twenties, thirties—help them wrap their minds around the idea that life doesn’t offer entitlements to anyone and share with them the real facts of life.

They are special to

• you, because you are their parent, and to others who also love them;
• themselves because “self” is the only person they will ever truly know or actually have the ability to change.

They are not special to others, except as the result of their words, actions and deeds.

Being special to you and to themselves does not entitle them to special treatment from their teachers, friends, bosses, colleagues, the guy complaining about their loud cell phone conversation at Starbucks or the cop who tickets them for speeding.

Special isn’t related to self-esteem—self-esteem is grounded in and built from their own efforts and accomplishments.

Self-esteem entitles them to nothing, but provides the strength to not only survive, but thrive, now and in the future.

They may not appreciate your efforts now, but they will be forever grateful as they make their way though the world as adults.

Image credit: sxc.hu and sxc.hu