What's the secret to life?

"the secret of life is to enjoy the passing of time"

James Taylor

ASAP . . .

is not a deadline!

Management is common sense

"The good news is that the first steps to becoming a really great manager are simply common sense. . . Put simply, things normally go wrong not because you are stupid but only because you have never thought about it before." -- Gerard Blair quoted in Immunity to Change by Kegan and Lahey.

How do we develop common sense? Are we born with it? Do we learn it at home growing up?

"Common sense" is culture- and situation-specific. Every business, industry, organization, country, religion, and group has its own defined characteristics of common sense. For example, everyone knows it is idiotic to wear white mittens. Who knows? People who grow up in deer-hunting country.

We can develop common sense in our work environment by:
1) taking courses related to our industry and position
2) listening to those who are successful in that environment -- pay attention to what they say and do. How do they solve problems? How do they make decisions? How do they persuade decision-makers?
3) reading critically reviewed publications regarding our industry and position

How about you? How did you develop common sense?

Want to ensure everyone is on time to meetings?

How about this: Create a policy: $5 late fee for more than one minute late to meetings. Don't have people pay the team, though -- they must add $5 to the next tip at their next opportunity. If they go out for a meal, they must add $5 to the waitstaff tip. Get a haircut, add $5 to the tip. This way the team has a lighthearted way of ensuring on time meeting starts and people have more opportunities to show appreciation to others.
Idea from How NASA Builds Teams, by Charles J. Pellerin.
Photo: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=151 Suat Eman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Managing by walking around doesn't work . . .

. . . if you're out looking for problems. It only "works" if you're out looking for ways to "help people do their jobs better", say HBS professor Anita L. Tucker and Harvard School of Public Health professor Sara J. Singer in their working paper "Going Through the Motions: An Empirical Test of Management Involvement in Process Improvement".

Their studies show that employees become more discouraged when managers dredge up multiple problems -- even if they fix them all -- than when managers fix the one or two things the employees' believe are most critical.

In what ways is your visibility hindering rather than hurting your employees' performance?

What will you do today to help your direct reports do their jobs better?

What do they want most that we can want for them also?

We often have difficulty getting along with others who want something different for themselves than we want for them; or alternatively, who want something for us that differs from what we want for ourselves.

Think about your children. Are you currently having a conflict? If so, perhaps you are expressing to them a hidden wish that they would want something different for themselves. I want my son to get higher grades. He does not care about grades. We are in conflict. What does my son want that I can want for him also? What about your child(ren)?

Based on How NASA Builds Teams, by Charles J. Pellerin

Use HAPPS to express appreciation

• "Habitually: appreciate as a matter of habit
• Authentically: live in the mindset of gratitude to support you in experiencing what you appreciate in others.
• Promptly: the closer in time to the valued behavior, the better
• Proportionally: make the statement of appreciation (verbal, financial, paper) proportional to the behavior
• Specifically: your expression of appreciation will have more power when it is specific (see previous posts on this topic)"

How NASA Builds Teams by Charles J. Pellerin, page 158

How do the ways in which you express your emotions make others feel?

I know, I've said a million times, no one can make you feel anything. But any other title seemed less likely to get read.
What are the effects on other people of the ways in which you express your emotions?

As Carl W. Buechner said, "They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel."

How have you chosen to express your emotions today?

What do you tell yourself about other people's motivations . . .

and how does this story-line influence how you respond to those other people? (often our beliefs about others' motivations -- their thoughts behind their visible actions, or story-lines -- are negative!)

When we assume others think something negative, we have a much more difficult time overcoming conflict with them. Charles Pellerin, author of How Nasa Builds Teams, tells us that he learned in presentation by Robert K. Cooper of Ball Aerospace that research shows "that story-lines about other people's motivations are wrong 95 percent of the time! Would you bet heavily on something important with only a 5% chance of being correct? When you notice you are running story-lines about the motivations of others, stop them immediately."

There are several steps to this process:
1. notice you have beliefs about others story-lines that you create based on their actions
2. drop any story-lines that inhibit your ability to work productively with that person
3. focus on story-lines that facilitate your ability to work productively with that person

how do you contribute to the ways your team behaves?

An excellent tool to answer this question can be found at www.4-Dsystems.com.

On this site, home of How Nasa Builds Teams, you can find two diagnostic tools:
1. Team development assessment
2. Individual development assessment

Even if your team isn't interested, take the individual assessment anyway. You'll learn where you stand in relation to high performing teams. It's free, and takes about 15 minutes, so why not? The site also provides free tools to help you improve your performance.

What do you give your attention to?

"Traditional Melanesian sailors can be taken blindfolded to any point of the ocean within a radius of several hundred miles from their island home and, if allowed to float for a few minutes in the sea, are able to recognize the spot by the feel of the currents on their bodies." -- Flow: the Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszenmihalyi.

It is said that we can achieve whatever we put our minds to. Right now, too many of us have our minds on too many different things to do well in any one thing. To what are you attending right now?

We become what we give our attention to.

How often are you in a state of flow? Do you inhibit others' flow?

The state of flow experience is defined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi as "situations in which attention can be freely invested to achieve a person's goals, because there is no disorder to straighten out, no threat to the self to defend against."

Have you ever noticed how easy other peoples' problems are to solve? They're easy for us because nothing is in our way. We have no idea what goes on for people that is unseen and that prevents them from following our easy advice.

Csikszentmihalyi further states that those who attain flow "develop a stronger, more confident self, because more of their psychic energy has been invested successfully in goals they themselves had chosen to pursue."

Are you pursuing goals that fit with who you are, or are you chasing after someone else's idea of what you should work toward? What does it cost you to neglect to generate your own goals?

Are you expecting others to live up to your goals, or are you facilitating them in discovering and pursuing goals that fit who they are? If the former, what does it cost you and them when others in your life are not in a state of flow? What would you and others gain by supporting each other in discovering and pursuing self-concordant goals (goals that are aligned with our needs, personality, and values)?

From Flow: the Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

What leadership lessons do you find in stories?

If you haven't seen it in awhile, watch Apollo 13. You'll see numerous leadership lessons. Here are just two I caught:

1) leadership is shared. While Commander Jim Lovell is the leader on the craft, there are different leaders on the ground. As the situation changes, leadership moves from one person to the next depending on whose knowledge is greatest.

2) leaders trust their direct reports. In one scene, the 3 astronauts exit the simulator, with Commander Lovell and Fred Haise complaining about 4 hours sitting around for 5 minutes of action. The pilot, Ken Mattingly, says, "I'd like to do it again." Although Lovell knows it was near perfect, he also knows that it's critical that Mattingly believes in himself. He turns the crew around and they run it again. Later in the movie, different people on the ground are given absolute authority over specific decisions. Although Gene Kranz is the leader, he defers to others' knowledge when making critical decisions.

What leadership lessons do you notice?

Our job as a leader is to help other people light their fires

What are you doing today to help your employees, colleagues, spouse, and/or children find and light their own fires?

What I did:
1) asked my husband what he liked best about his work; really listened to his answer.
2) asked my coworker who was complaining that work had become boring: if she had a magic wand that she could wave and instantly something would change at work, what would she change? Really listened to her answer.

These types of questions help people explore what they are doing and can do to attain their best life.

What about you? Anyone helped you light your own fire lately? If so, how?

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=905


This video from Ted.com is a bit long (20 minutes) but gives some great insight into leadership:

Who travels when your dispersed team must meet?

According to Rick Brenner of Chaco Consulting, who travels when a virtual team must meet makes a big difference in future conflicts. See his blog here:

Dispersed Teams and Latent Communications; remote management, conflict | Chaco Canyon Consulting