Workplace & Leadership: This I Believe

September 21, 2012

In my work with organizations both as an employee and external consultant, I have learned (and continue to learn) many things over the years. Many of these have evolved or been entirely reversed, which is indicative of the fact that we are living at a very dynamic time.

For example, in a recent article in Harvard Business Review magazine, Michael J. Mauboussin writes about how organizations are so often using the wrong metrics to measure success. The continual focus on earnings per share instead of other metrics and statistics prevents these companies from fully understanding their business. It’s time for business leaders to adapt their thinking.

In this blog post, I thought I would simply state some of what I believe with regard to the workplace and leadership. Although these statements are likely to continue evolving over time, I believe they will retain a kernel of truth that should remain constant.

I am indebted to many great business leaders and theorists for these ideas and I apologize in advance for a lack of attribution.

  • Most people want to do their very best at work.
  • More autonomy for how the work gets done leads to greater employee satisfaction and higher productivity.
  • Great companies don’t hire skilled people and motivate them. They hire motivated people and inspire them.
  • Character traits like zest, grit, self-control, social intelligence, gratitude, optimism and curiosity are common among great employees, yet are rarely advertised for or even looked for when seeking and interviewing candidates.
  • Emotional intelligence may not get you the job, but it will undoubtedly keep you in the job and help you get promoted.
  • Getting the right people focused on the right task is the most important objective for any organization to reach its goals.
  • Focusing on employees first is what will make customers happy and this leads to happy shareholders.
  • The role of a great leader is not to come up with great ideas. Instead, a great leader should create an environment in which great ideas can happen.
  • Everyone has the capacity for leadership no matter the position.
  • Leadership development should not be restricted to executives, but implemented throughout every level of the organization.
  • Most of the billions of dollars companies invest in leadership development fall short of success because the programs are so heavily focused on data and assessment gathering and very little on people and processes.
  • A high level of trust in the workplace is directly related to greater productivity, higher profitability and more engaged employees.
  • Building trust and accountability are the most important things a manager should work on in order to get the most out his or her people.
  • Praising workers in a meaningful way is a simple, yet highly effective means of raising employee satisfaction and overall productivity.

I welcome your thoughts and comments as well as other statements with regard to what you believe in order to extend the conversation.

Character and Success

September 20, 2011

Can you succeed in your career and life if you haven’t first learned how to fail?

This is the prominent question in a recent New York Times Sunday Magazine article titled “What if the Secret to Success is Failure.”

The writer suggests character traits, including the ability to overcome failure, may be just as important, if not more so, than intellgence in order to graduate from college and succeed in a career and life.

A list of 24 character traits come from a book called “Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification” by Martin Seligman, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania and Christopher Peterson, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan. The 800-page book is basically the “science of good character.”

Seligman and Peterson settled on 24 character strengths common to all cultures and eras after consulting works from Aristotle to Confucius, the Upanishads to the Torah, the Boy Scout Handbook to profiles of Pokémon characters. The list includes traits like love, humor, zest, bravery, citizenship, fairness, wisdom and integrity as well as things like social intelligence, kindness, self-regulation and gratitude.

Many would argue that character traits don’t belong in the classroom curriculum and that this should be the domain of parents and not teachers. Let’s face it, teachers have enough to handle at a time when American students academic scores are failing to keep pace with many students around the globe.

My own middle schooler is currently experiencing a great deal of anxiety over the increased demands sixth grade entails, and my wife and I can see that this anxiety is not strictly about the academics so much as the increased homework, internal pressure to do well, and the lack of mature coping skills.

And as difficult as it is for we as parents to watch our child struggle and possibly fail, it may be fundamentally important to her success that we do. We all know at some level that kids need a little hardship or challenge they can overcome in order to prove to themselves that they can do so. This may be the best—if not the only—way to build confidence in oneself.

So if overcoming failure and having certain character traits are so important to success, what does this say about the workplace? How often do these traits show up in a job description or are even mentioned during an interview?

A successful interviewer should certainly probe a candidate for a time when he or she failed at something, and then look for what was learned or how that experience led to improvement. If the candidate is unable to provide an example of failing, that alone should raise red flags.

Character traits are more difficult to uncover yet they can be ascertained through repeated interactions and requests for stories from previous work experiences as well as through detailed conversations with professional references. Ultimately, character traits may never be quantified enough to fully measure, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be looked for in a potential employee.

Many companies have a list of corporate values that include character traits that are consciously or unconsciously sought after in the people they hire. Knowing what these are and choosing to deliberately look for them in hiring should be emphasized.

What if your company looked for character traits like zest, grit, self-control, social intelligence, gratitude, optimism and curiosity in the people it hired? Would these be a good predictor of whether that employee succeeded or failed? I believe they would, but would love to know your thoughts.

Dipping Below the Waterline

November 29, 2009

My wife and I recently got married and we merged her 9-year-old with my twin 5-year-olds to form one larger family. The roles for all five of us needed to be redefined because of this big and wonderful change in the way we live. The old way of doing things needed to be updated. And despite the fact that this family merger was extremely good for each of us individually and collectively, adjusting to the changes required paying close attention to both the mechanics as well as the emotions involved. The changes required ongoing discussion and clarification of our new roles and responsibilities within this family group.

Regular clarification and discussion around changing roles and responsibilities should also take place in workgroups where new members join and others leave or when there is a change in focus or direction. When a workgroup reaches a level of productivity that is no longer satisfactory is also an excellent time for this.

The Waterline Model (developed by Roger Harrison, Ron Short and John Scherer) is a useful diagnostic tool for helping such groups who seem to be working harder than ever yet not operating as effectively as possible. It is also useful when there is dissonance within the group that reduces overall efficiency. This is because groups often get stuck not because of technical issues, but because of structural problems with regard to goals and objectives or roles and responsibilities.

The Waterline Model’s notion of task versus maintenance is useful to keep in mind whenever you are working with a group of people. For instance, when your group is working to accomplish something but gets stuck, it is helpful to stop talking about the task at hand and drop under the waterline to talk about maintenance of the group. Maintenance, in this sense, means delving into the relational aspects within the group. It means talking about the feelings, attitudes or perceptions that are inhibiting you from doing your part to fully participate in accomplishing the group’s goals.

When a workgroup’s progress gets stymied, it is more often than not the roles and responsibilities of each member that needs to be examined. In fact, more than 80% of workgroup dysfunction can be associated to this lack of clarity. This is because members may not be clear at a given time on what they are each supposed to be doing to help meet the group’s objectives. Job titles and job descriptions only go so far in addressing this. Without greater clarification around the specific role each member plays and the associated responsibilities within that role, the group can continually spin its wheels or go entirely off track. And these roles and responsibilities will likely change over time.

Shifting the focus from task to maintenance means taking the necessary time to clarify the roles and responsibilities of each member of a group. Talk about what may be keeping individuals from doing their part to contribute to the group goals and objectives. Give every member of the group an opportunity to speak up and communicate what may be preventing him or her from doing their best. Though it may seem like you don’t have time for this, the task at hand will always take longer and the problems will go deeper below the waterline if not addressed. These problems deeper below the waterline include such things as group dynamics as well as interpersonal and intrapersonal problems. And these can take a lot longer to rectify.

So whenever your workgroup gets stuck, take the time to stop doing and start talking. Check in with individual members of the group to figure out what needs to be said to get things unstuck. Making time for this regular maintenance will make your tasks go that much smoother and more efficiently.

Mark Craemer                                                                      www.craemerconsulting.com