How To Master the Office Dragon

"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him."
~ J. R. R. Tolkein (1892-1973), British author and philologist, The Hobbit

If you have to get things done in your office, (and why are you there if you don’t?) you have to take into account how to get what you need from those who may not want to give you the time of day. There may be those who don’t like you and/or your project, who are jealous of you, who don’t understand the importance of what you are doing, who are insecure, or who are just too busy to accommodate you. Your request for information or participation seems to be an opportunity for them to block your progress.

Like a dragon, they may choose to hoard valuable information and spend much of their time guarding precious resources and making sure others - like you - don’t get their hands on it.

Whatever the reason for their obstructionist behavior, it causes you stress, frustration and anger. How can you get what you want without going down that dark path?

It may be that you can’t avoid it altogether, but you can try. You can plan ahead. Know who is supportive and who isn’t, for whatever reason. The reason may not matter in the short run. What matters is getting your results in a timely and successful manner.

Time was when the only real performance expectation was “gets the results expected without generating a hostile environment.” That still is the bottom line. Here are some tactics that you can use to accomplish this when you have a dragon in your way:

1. Go around the dragon. Whenever possible, get what you need from friendly sources. Avoid rousing the dragon by cultivating alliances in other areas. However, if you choose to go over the dragon’s head, you may incite the ire of the dragon. Going around is good, going over is dangerous. Be very, very careful if you choose that route.

2. Feed and flatter the dragon. They may be feeling a little insecure about their work. Or, they could be one of those narcissistic dragons who only respond when it is all about them. Let them know what they do is noticed: “John is really taking a good look at the project you are doing…it’s possible that a bigger opportunity could result from your work.” Support their efforts and appreciate their ideas in public and they may start taking a second look at you and what you want. Because if you weren’t around, maybe they wouldn’t be getting any strokes or tidbits at all.

3. Offer the dragon a trade. Is there something the dragon wants from you? Maybe there is something you have that would benefit the dragon and they don’t even realize it. A morsel of information? A computer tip that helps them organize their files more efficiently? An introduction to another influential colleague? A good deal on a smart phone? Find out what they could use by asking or observing and offer a trade.

4. Distract the dragon. Perhaps the dragon can be tricked into giving you what you need with a little bit of distraction. Chat up the dragon about something of interest to him. How about those Rams? Love your car. Those shoes are fabulous. Where’d you find them? Once you’ve got the dragon in a good mood, ask for what you need. They will be in a more responsive frame of mind and more inclined to be accommodating. Just be sure you pick the right time to chat them up – don’t interrupt them when they are in the middle of their work flow.

Fighting, banishing, or slaying the dragon are only for extreme circumstances. We all wish the dragon would just disappear. But there will always be another dragon. Learn how to live with your dragon, work with your dragon, train your dragon. Become a dragon master and you will be the hero in your office.

Here are some dragon-training tips you may be able to adapt to your office dragon.

What Can You Do About Your Blind Spots?

We all have blind spots, those areas about ourselves that we don’t realize are hindering our progress – perhaps obstructing our ability to influence, to communicate clearly, or to form trusting relationships. Sometimes our blind spots are just our strengths overused to such an extent that they cross over, as I like to say, to the dark side.

A client who was a senior manager in a technical role told me that he was good with people. He knew when to empathize, and when to give “tough love”. He communicated well to his employees, colleagues and customers and everyone appreciated his affable yet strong leadership style. He was fair, honest, and looked out for his employees. In his 360 assessment, this was all confirmed. What was also confirmed was that he had a problem with his boss. When we discussed this, it came out that he resented his new boss for inserting himself into his operation, however minimally. It was his operation, and he knew it inside and out. His new boss didn’t know or understand his customers’ temperaments and concerns.

This client’s blind spot was his need for control. For the most part, he knew how to wield it fairly and lightly with his own team – he had been doing so for years, and his leadership style had worked well. But when it came to sharing his turf with his new boss – who was not overstepping or micromanaging by my client’s own admission – he balked. His attitude was souring his relationship with his new manager. He really wanted to ignore the fact that he had a boss at all.

Exploring this need for control revealed that because he had worked with the same group of people for a decade or more, he trusted them implicitly. He could ease up on his natural tendency to be in control, and had learned over the years that being transparent, sharing information, and delegating was a more productive and easier way to lead than the alternative. However when there were new customers, new projects, or in this case, a new boss, his need to be in control would reassert itself and he would tighten up his oversight at least for a while. This tendency didn’t work well to establish a trusting relationship with his new boss.

In a Wall Street Journal article last week entitled Bosses Overestimate Their Managing Skills, survey results from Development Dimensions International (DDI) revealed that managers didn’t equate their weak skills – which they identified as coaching, delegating, and gaining commitment - as areas of development. "It doesn't matter what industry you're in. People have blind spots about where they're weak," says Scott Erker, a senior vice president at DDI.

By definition, we are not cognizant of our own blind spots. Even if, through coaching, feedback, or a 360 degree assessment, we are aware of our blind spots, we will still often unknowingly repeat that undesirable behavior.

Last week’s post was about how to gracefully ask for and accept feedback. That’s an essential skill for any leader. But in order to successfully act on that feedback you may need an ally: someone who can give you a signal, a code word, or just a blatant reminder when you revert back to your old behavior.

Anyone who has attempted to change their own or others’ behavior knows that it takes time and effort. We have built up these behaviors and ways of thinking over time and burnt them deep into our neural pathways. In a sense we really are in a rut that requires motivated, consistent behavior changes over a period of time to forge new habits. That’s why trusted allies can be valuable help. Being humble enough to count on your own employees to be those allies goes a long way toward showing the type of leader you are.

We all have blind spots. Understanding ourselves deeply is essential to being an extraordinary leader. Knowing that our personality type, experiences, philosophies, and values can drive our behavior, and understanding how they drive it, awakens us to our own strengths, opportunities for development, and potential pitfalls. Knowing yourself as well as you can – taking off blinders, realizing your impact and how you are reflected in others’ eyes – allows you to realistically assess how to leverage your strengths, and adjust for your weaknesses.

Model How to Ask For and Receive Feedback Gracefully

When I became a parent, I suddenly became very conscious of my table manners. I religiously buckled my seat belt. I watched my mouth. Being a parent is a lot like being a leader: you are under constant observation. You are a role model and your behavior is the best illustration of how you want others to behave. You aren’t perfect, so acknowledging that by asking and acting on feedback goes a very long way toward building trust and respect on your team.

Observing leaders welcome and act on feedback is inspiring to those around them. One of the skills you can model to your employees is how to ask for and receive feedback. Three simple questions should be the standard for your discussions with your employees, both one-to-one and in team meetings:

1. What I can do differently that will help you (us) succeed?
2. What can I stop doing that will increase your (our) chances of success?
3. What can I start doing that I haven’t been doing that will make you (us) more successful?

Ask these questions during their performance reviews, before starting projects, when debriefing projects, and at least twice a year to each employee.

When you get their feedback, model how to receive it. Simply say, “Thank you. I appreciate your honesty and thoughtfulness.” You don’t have to make promises that you will change. You don’t have to say you will think about what they have said. The best way to respond is by your actions. Do make sure you understand the feedback and ask for clarity or examples if you don’t. Then next time you sit down with them let them know what you have been doing differently in response to their feedback. That lets them know that you listen well, take what they have to say seriously, and are committed to personal and professional development. And as a result they will be more likely to be honest in their feedback to you.

By showing that you welcome constructive feedback, modeling how to receive it in a non-defensive manner, and then acting on it, your team members will be more open to it too. They will learn how to ask for and expect feedback from their colleagues as well as you. And that makes for a more productive team.

How To Find More "You" Time

Stress and it’s ill effects are often in the news, and entire books are written on the topic. Perhaps too much stress is one of the reasons why the US has dropped to number 49 in the world in longevity. In the 1950’s, we were 5th.

The Center for Disease Control reports that 85% of disease has an emotional component to it. Stress is emotional yet it affects our physical bodies in measureable ways: brains shrink and nerve endings (dendrites) disappear from brain neurons. The stress hormone cortisol causes increased fat around organs. Stress weakens our immune response and causes changes in antibodies. There’s more, but I am not a doctor or scientist so it quickly gets too overwhelming for me.

Where are we supposed to find the time to exercise, relax and spend time with our loved ones? How can a leader take the time off that’s essential to reducing stress?

If you are a leader it is vital that you can handle stress, and you may think that you can handle more than most people. That may be true. But what is also true is that if you don’t manage your stress well, your organization will suffer from your poor decisions.

According to Henry L. Thompson, author of The Stress Effect, stress is often the reason for poor leadership performance. High stress compromises the ability to access our emotional intelligence and our cognitive abilities, leading to impaired thinking and behavior choices. Brain scientists such as John Medina tell us that stressed brains can’t learn as well either.

Here are two (just 2!) tips that will help you find the time to do the relaxing things that help manage your stress:

First, make sure you have your priorities straight. General George C. Marshall said “save (your) ammunition for the big fights and avoid a constant drain of little ones.” General Marshall, who as Army Chief of Staff during WWII built up troop numbers from 174,000 to 8 million, regularly rose at 6 am to exercise on horseback – to give him thinking time, he said – and quit for the day at 4 pm. From 4pm to his 9pm bedtime he relaxed with his wife dining, walking and canoeing. Sure, occasionally he worked late, but he knew the value of incorporating sleep, exercise, and recreation into a regular schedule. If you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of your team members and your projects very well.

By reviewing your projects to ensure they are aligned with your organization’s strategy, mission and values, you will probably be able to scrap a few that aren’t. Enlist the help of your employees to identify and eliminate the draining little tasks that don’t directly support the projects that are priorities. One of the questions you can ask to help identify vital tasks is, "Would our customers be willing to pay for that?"

Second, trust others. Delegate, ask for help, and relax knowing that your team members can take care of things as well as if not better than you can. Keeping information and responsibilities to yourself creates a downward spiral leading to dysfunctional teams. Micromanaging is detrimental to everyone, stressing out you and your subordinates unnecessarily and causing them to feel distrusted. Let go a little, and maybe let up on yourself a little too.

These two tips will help you manage your time better. In Good to Great, Jim Collins says “Most of us lead busy but undisciplined lives. We have ever-expanding 'to do' lists, trying to build momentum by doing, doing, doing—and doing more. And it rarely works. Those who built the good-to-great companies, however, made as much use of 'stop doing' lists as 'to do' lists."

If you prioritize thoughtfully and delegate more, you will have time to regularly schedule exercise and relaxation. In global research from the Center for Creative Leadership, it was found that executives who exercise regularly are rated significantly higher on leadership effectiveness by their bosses, peers and direct reports than those who exercised sporadically or not at all.

So take a tip from General Marshall, who wrote this in a note to a new brigadier general:

“Now I counsel you to make a studied business of relaxing and taking things easy, getting to the office late, taking trips, and making everybody else work like hell. It is pretty hard for a leopard to change his spots, but you must cloak your new rank with a deliberate effort to be quite casual….I woke up at about thirty-three to the fact that I was working myself to death, to my superior’s advantage, and that I was acquiring the reputation of being merely a pick and shovel man. From that time on, I made it a business to avoid, so far as possible, detail work, and to relax as completely as I could manage in a pleasurable fashion….”

It may be hard for you too to “change your spots” but the benefits are far more vast, and the detriments far too serious, for you not to take the time, every day, to relax.

Happy World Statistics Day! Coaching ROI Is Several Hundred Percent

A lot of people I talk to have only a vague idea of what coaching is. They think maybe I am a cross between Lucy and her advice booth from the comic strip Peanuts and an airy-fairy motivational speaker. They don’t realize that there are stringent educational and professional requirements for coaches just as there are for any profession.

I suppose anyone can say they are a coach. However, to be a “legitimate” coach, one should have graduated from a certified coaching program and be credentialed, or in the process of becoming credentialed, by the International Coach Federation. All the coaches I know also have other degrees and experience. That’s what makes them good in their area of coaching, whether it is leadership and career coaching such as I do, or retirement coaching, parenting coaching, wellness coaching, or any of the other many niches out there.

In honor of World Statistics Day – which is today in case you didn’t know, I‘d like to share some statistics about the profession and practice of coaching.

The International Coach Federation is the professional organization for coaches, with over 16,300 members in more than 100 countries. The ICF is the only organization that awards a global credential which is currently held by more than 6,700 coaches worldwide, including me.

In a recent consumer awareness survey commissioned by the ICF, 15,000 participants age 25 and up in 20 countries were surveyed by the International Survey Unit of Price Waterhouse Coopers. According to a press release from the ICF:

The Global Consumer Awareness Study determined common areas in which people are using professional coaching today. More than two-fifths (42.6 percent) of respondents who had experienced coaching chose “optimize individual and/or team performance” as their motivation for being coached. This reason ranked highest followed by “expand professional career opportunities” at 38.8 percent and “improve business management strategies” at 36.1 percent. Other more personal motivations like “increase self-esteem/self-confidence” and “manage work/life balance” rated fourth and fifth to round out the top five motivation areas.

In previous research the ICF found that coaching is also generating a very good return on investment—a median return of seven times the initial investment for businesses—while being used for some of the same motivations mentioned in the latest study.

Companies large and small are optimizing individual and team performance through coaching. Despite the recent global economic climate, ibm.com of North America reported a 563 percent return on investment from its coaching programs that engage sales teams and managers within the company. Solaglas, a leading UK-based glass replacement and installation company, reported higher customer satisfaction and a return on investment of 490 percent. Company executives believe these gains are small compared to the long-term impact coaching will have.

Coaching is not a mystery. It offers real results. Try it.

Do You Have the Courage to Be Candid?

In survey after survey, integrity is always one of the top qualities people say they want in leaders. However, one study has determined there are 185 different behavioral expectations around integrity. I’d like to talk about one of them here, candor – “the state or quality of being frank, open, and sincere in speech or expression. “ (www.dictionary.com)

Communicating with candor can be tricky, no matter who you are talking with. It takes some courage to speak frankly to a boss. Some people have trouble doing it with anyone if it involves bringing up something distasteful.

In a speech at the US Naval Academy last April, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a hall full of midshipmen that vision, perseverance, candor and moral courage are essential qualities for 21st-century leaders. “In addition to speaking hard truths to your superiors,” he said, “as a leader you must create a climate that encourages candor among your subordinates, especially in difficult situations.”

Straight talk, integrity and courage should always be encouraged and rewarded. Wisely, Secretary Gates noted: “In a perfect world that should always happen. Sadly, it does not, and I will not pretend there is not risk. At some point, each of you will surely work for a jackass. We all have. But that does not make taking that stand any less necessary for the sake of our country.”

Or for the sake of your own organization and peace of mind.

I want to make some distinctions about candor. Candor is not forgetting who your audience is. Speaking to the troops, Gates’ use of the word “jackass” was candidly appropriate. But some audiences might be offended or regard the use of coarse language as evidence of coarse behavior – not necessarily behavior connoting integrity.

Candor is not bluntness. It can be blunt, but again, know your audience. Being frank, particularly about negative issues, may require some diplomatic lead-in so that you don’t come across as cold or overly direct.

Candor is not always about something negative. Yes, according to marketing’s ‘Law of Candor’ admitting a negative creates a positive impression in the prospect’s mind. For example, Avis stating they are number two impresses the audience with the company’s honesty. A leader sincerely admitting they were wrong impresses the listeners. See the second video below for an example of a commercial that uses the Law of Candor to the max.

In the first video below we see a former CEO of Philip Morris. What he says may be the truth as he sees it, but does he seem candid to you? He may feel that he is being honest. Nothing he says is necessarily a lie, yet the way he presents the information, without any concern or acknowledgement of the whole truth, leads me to believe that he lacks integrity, even though I can find no lies in his presentation. He doesn’t impress me as being “frank, open or sincere.”

The second video shows a business owner being very candid about his products. He is not dressed in a nice suit, and doesn’t convey a sense of wealth and education. Which video instills more trust? Which leader would you allow to influence you more? Which leader shows more integrity?

Tips for Working with Expedient Colleagues

This week I was honored to have an article published on Introvert Zone about how process-oriented thinkers (who are often, but not always, introverts) can work more effectively with expedient thinkers. Check out the two-part article called "No, They Won't Ask: How to Successfully Work with Expedient Colleagues" for some practical tips that will make your life a little easier.