Leadership is not rocket science

The value of uphill challenges

I was working with a group of leaders from co-operatives yesterday, when I met a man who had cycled the Pyrenees in 100 hours.  I made a joke about 95 of those hours being uphill and 5 being downhill, and he agreed with me.  Then it occurred to me that this is a lot like life and work.

Image by Danny McL via Flickr

We often complain about our challenges and the uphill challenges we may face, but in the end it is these times that provide us with the greatest value.  His sense of accomplishment was from making it through the entire journey, not from those fast downhill rides.

Think back to your greatest accomplishments.  Are they that way because they were easy, or because you came through the challenges?  As Thomas Paine wrote:

"The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.  What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.  It is dearness only that gives everything its value."

How might this perspective reframe your reality today?

The secret to engaging your people in today's economic times

Image by elycefeliz via Flickr

In a recent article called Why We Love Bad News and How it Supports the Recession, Ray Williams explores the human fascination with bad news, and how bad news like the recession can be almost addictive.  This makes it more essential than ever to help employees develop new habits of optimism to find ways out of the challenges they face.

The good news, according to Williams, is that we can change our habits and 'reprogram our brains'. 

"The best thing individual people can do to help our economy recover, is move toward a more positive, optimistic frame of mind by not seeing and reading negative news about our economy on a frequent basis."

What's more, research shows that optimists are happier, healthier and they live longer.

So what does this have to do with leadership?

Everything.

As a leader, part of your job is helping your people to focus on what is working, what your strengths are and what the opportunities are.

If they come up with problems, do you take the problem over, or do you coach them to come up with solutions?  If they are focused on their losses, do you help them focus on their assets (Time magazine says that jobs are the new assets, not stock holdings and pension plans)?  If they are dwelling on what they can't do, do you help them discover what they can do?

And, of course, before you can help your people see things differently, what are you doing to change your own outlook?

That's my 2 cents.  What do you think?

Christmas parties in the new economy

I was recently contacted to do an interview about an impact of today's uncertain economy: the cancellation of Christmas parties.  My short response: not a good idea.  Christmas party expense looks shows up on the financials and looks like a good cost-savings.  Employee commitment, engagement and productivity don't have a line on the financial statements and can cost you far more.

Why?  Canceling Christmas parties, especially on short notice, sends significant messages to your people.  First and foremost, it says that you're not confident of what's coming in the new year.  People can taste uncertainty and fear, and when they know that their leaders are uncertain and afraid, they become fearful.  And when that happens, productivity tanks.

Much of the 'corporate training' on what to say in uncertain times is to not admit your uncertainty and to say everything is fine and will be fine - or to say nothing at all.  The problem with that is that people can tell when you're feeding them a line.  They know when you're telling the truth and when you're not.  And when it comes along with actions such as canceling parties or other perks, they read between the lines.  And if you say nothing, the space becomes filled with gossip, pure and simple.

Times like this call for courageous leadership.  To be able to talk with your people about where you are and where you are going and to be able to admit (God forbid!) that you don't know what's coming and don't necessarily have all the answers (they know you don't anyway).  It's an opportunity to engage your people in a discussion about what you as an organization need to do to continue to move forward in this uncertainty. 

And it doesn't matter whether you have 5 people or 50 or 5,000.  There are ways to engage them all in meaningful conversation to co-create the way forward.  They may suggest dropping the Christmas party, and if it comes from such a process, it will be a far more empowering decision than if you make it unilaterally.

This is a time when real leadership will step up and stand out.  Uncertain times like this call for co-creative leadership. 

At least that's my two cents.  What do you think?

Motivation, revisted

In an earlier post, I spoke of how I motivated our teenage boys to carve pumpkins by allowing them to get what they 'wanted' afterwards - to take a baseball bat to them on November 1.  My condition was that their window of opportunity for this mass destruction was November 1.  Period.

It's now November 2, and the pumpkins are still sitting whole and complete on our front porch, despite a phone call to remind the boys yesterday.

They carved pumpkins only on the condition of getting what they wanted - that seemed incredibly enticing to them at the time.  But when it came time to get what they said they wanted, they didn't care enough to do it.

Interesting.

Remembering the basics of motivation

Our family carved pumpkins today (actually, they carved and I videotaped and google-searched how to keep pumpkins fresh longer), and I re-learned the keys to motivating others.

My oldest stepson (who is in grade 12) really didn't want to carve a pumpkin, no matter how hard I coerced him.  Then, he asked if he could destroy the pumpkin (exploding pumpkin pulp everywhere).  When I said yes, on the condition that it happened on November 1st, he dived right in and started carving.

This brings back the basics of motivation.  It's not about what you want - it's about what the other person wants.  If you keep trying to get them to do what you want, you lose.  If you can create a way for them to get what they want while you're getting what you want, you both win.  It's not rocket science, is it?