Mundane Habits are the Key Exciting Route to Change

Author: Dave Crisp

26 Mar

Extending the last post, we’ve now got more, incontrovertible scientific evidence about what is so hard about changing executive and organizational behavior and why. It boils down to how hard it is to change habits, not just of individuals, but of groups that form organizations. Wow, earth shattering?? It is actually.

To get the idea across, it helps to get people thinking about other changes they want to make in their lives and what those take. For instance, one might start out attempting to lose weight and before long you realize it is more about overall health. It doesn’t take much reading to discover the experts say diets mostly don’t work, that you need an overall lifestyle change – but what’s that?

In practice it means working on one thing at a time, but recognizing it will take more changes to support the one you’re trying to achieve. If it’s losing weight you soon discover it is generally thought the best route is through a combination of moderate dieting and exercise. Both these are sets of habits that take consistent practice to develop. Neither the diet nor the exercise pattern you initially try are likely to be the ones you finally settle on. There are ‘sub-habits’ that have to be developed and other old, established ones you have to ignore (change isn’t really the right word for habits – you never really lose an old habit, just install one that is more frequently used and becomes more comfortable in time).

Habit is comfortable and automatic, so you have to pay attention to notice what your existing habits are and work consistently (tolerating some feeling of discomfort) to practice new ones instead. Most of us don’t last long at this. We try exercising after those New Year’s resolutions or when we get back to work after the summer. and then peter out when work pressure takes over. We skip one visit to the gym, then another, another and finally we hardly go at all. We know how this works.

Instead we have to concentrate on when and why we’re not following through with a view to finding a better time of day, day of the week or whatever until simply by trying variations we start to find the ones that feel most comfortable. and at the same time, by forcing ourselves to try variations we are actually repeating the core element – in this case exercise. which starts to feel not only comfortable, but like something we miss if we don’t do it – it becomes self-reinforcing to a degree, but yes, we still have to make the effort and the time.

If a particular change is truly a priority, it’s because we truly believe it will be better for us in the long run. Building such true belief may take some practice and reinforcement, too, plus reading on the subject, talking with others and willingness to take advice or pay attention to the obvious. We have great skills at rationalizing why our current habits are “close enough” – anything to avoid the discomfort of practicing change.

We can hear the statistics (on smoking, say, or the benefits of a positive employment environment) on our future and still not act, or at least not act consistently enough to make change stick. Senior executives who refuse to work on improving the environment for engagement and individual innovation are no different from the many who prefer to huddle in the cold despite the health risks of continued smoking. I recall one CEO who liked to brag he could outrun same-aged non-smokers on treadmill tests despite his heavy smoking habit. So what? It’s still hard to argue his health wasn’t affected, but at least that’s a personal choice affecting only himself (and eventually his family). Maybe I was lucky early on that my two-pack a day habit didn’t give me a choice if I wanted to keep breathing. Some people desperately want to believe they will never come up against the wall even though they know it’s there in theory. and maybe some won’t change despite the risky gamble.

For CEOs who argue they don’t have to stop yelling at subordinates and firing people for the slightest mistake, the gamble and the consequences affect far more than the individuals caught personally in these episodes. Shareholders, suppliers, customers and all other stakeholders are being shortchanged. Sure a senior executive can get away with bad behavior for a time, but overall results of disengaged staff and high turnover of key people will eventually tell the tale. It’s just proven business fact. Those who don’t acknowledge this can keep kidding themselves, but the rest of the world is figuring out the truth. Increasingly Boards are pushing such changes in habits or ‘culture’ or finding CEOs who will do this for them.

Bookmark and share this post

More »

0 Comments

Filed under: 5 Habits - Action, Coaching Yourself, Fix The Jerks, How Simplicity Works, Learning Organization

Hold The Presses – Brand New Leadership Ideas?

Author: Dave Crisp

20 Mar

Can we constantly expect brand new ideas in the area of leadership and HR strategy? Probably not, but hope lives eternal and it’s amazing what keeps emerging from a continuing focus on one key question. That is: what stops so many senior executives, teams and organizations from applying basic HR and leadership concepts that we know for certain make for better results, engagement and retention of key employees?

Bloggers, speakers, news people and the rest of us will continue to write about this until we get an answer everyone can absorb and apply. I was surprised to see a great contribution about this recently. But I suspect like many, I got excited by it and then a day later I can hardly recall why I got wound up. It seemed so obvious and logical and so much like information we already know that it’s easy to discount it. As a result I have to get myself wound up again and I wondered why.

The answer seems to be that because it sounds like much we’ve heard before that takes away much of its validity. Do you find yourself reacting that same way?

The piece I saw is from ‘strategy + business’ (a site I wasn’t familiar with) talking about how to change people’s behavior and organization culture, aka habits, via a ‘modern understanding of brain research.’ Here’s the thing: they refer back to Adam Smith’s theories (in the 1700s) – that’s how long this discussion has been going on, not just (like most HR concepts) the last 100 years or so.

The drift is that to change habits is tough and requires constant repetition and encouragement. and habits are what perpetuate behavior and ‘culture’ of organizations (which is just everyone’s combined habits). They’ve wrapped this old observation in new jargon – brain research – and some of the findings are generally interesting, but they simply reinforce these basic observations that we already know, have known since at least Adam Smith’s time and yet don’t find management people acting on very often.

Yes, it clearly bears repeating, but having repeated it, have we learned anything new? That’s what we always ask ourselves. The answer, I believe, in this case is yes. We learn that a couple of big organizations have changed their cultures through this process. (That’s important, but minor because although we hear lots about change efforts that don’t work, these aren’t the only ones that have.) We learn that modern scientific research confirms what we generally know, so we are on the right track. There’s some biology at work that it helps to understand and counterbalance – and our beliefs are validated. (Those are always helpful, but again, not totally surprising.)

More importantly we learn a couple of seemingly minor techniques for developing new, better habits that actually could be very important.

First it’s clear the objective isn’t to eliminate old habits (you can’t), but to install new, stronger ones that will take precedence over the old – through endless repetition (in this case endless means you can’t let the focus shift rather than meaning it’s drudgery). You can figure out your old habits by watching your behavior closely, decide rationally what you want to change and start practicing. and persist despite how scary or annoying or frustrating it seems at first. And we ought to surround the core habit with as many new, supporting habits as we can possibly develop. Eventually the new behaviors become ‘the way we do things here’ and you’ve achieved your goal, provided you keep practicing, the more consciously the better so as to ensure when people AREN’T thinking about these things they will ‘automatically’ do the right thing. What you can’t do is order it, enforce a bit of practice and then stop and expect the new, good behavior to continue.

So, it’s always been logic, it’s been observed for centuries, now it’s scientifically proven. and it’s what we all strive to figure out – how to change culture. Shouldn’t that seem unbelievably exciting??? Let’s actually do it this time!

Bookmark and share this post

More »

0 Comments

Filed under: 5 Habits - Action, Coaching Yourself, How Simplicity Works, Leaders of the Future, Learning Organization

Dealing With Leaders’ All Too Human Side

Author: Dave Crisp

23 Jan

In the last post I commented on conclusions from the book Kluge by Gary Marcus, about the odd ways human beings think due to the history of how our brains evolved. The word kluge describes a haphazard assembly of ‘stuff’ that is put together the way is it because it works, it solves some immediate problem and then further developments tend to institutionalize the earlier, odd, less than fully logical set up.

We needed instant emotional reactions to help us deal with predators and other dangers in our early evolution, but later needed more logical thinking to get beyond that stage. Nevertheless, while instant emotional ‘conclusions’ don’t help as much as logic in today’s world, the latter has never developed enough to fully balance or overcome emotion. So often we make decisions based on emotion and rationalize them afterward rather than logic first even when that would be better.

Marcus makes a solid case that our thinking tends to be biased consistently to see things as we want to see them and to be overly optimistic at times about our own powers of observation and thinking in ways that facilitate conclusions we hope for. We think we’re worth more or otherwise over-estimate our contributions when we’re actually fairly average, for instance, so everyone, including CEOs who more or less have the power to leverage better rewards for themselves, routinely expect larger than average pay increases even in tough economic times when they’re laying off others to save money.

A recent study of executives showed they know managers are generally better at technical skills than people skills like dealing with conflict, coaching and developing others, which consistently rank lowest for the very large majority of executives. People skills are where emotions get in the way of logic. So one might think that’s good news – they see the problem, which is usually the first step to improving. But you’d be wrong. It’s not that they realize THEY are short of people skills themselves! Executives see that OTHER managers are weak, but Korn Ferry’s extensive studies estimate 82% of executives need to improve in people skills. Since they don’t know this, only 15% actually said they felt these were areas where THEY needed help. While they could correctly identify such needs in general (probably areas they think others need to improve at), they were woefully off on where they themselves fit.

So what does Marcus recommend we do with this sort of information? First, make it widely known. Help people see these sorts of limitations apply so widely we ought to assume some apply to ourselves at least to some extent and work on doing something about it. In other words, reflect. Pay attention to research and knowledge that’s developing in the field of human thinking and behavior and take into account that your own decisions and habits may need to become more logical and careful. Pay attention to whether you’re about to make a decision that others will recognize as illogical. Get others’ input, work as teams, but not just with senior members, add diversity of thought and viewpoints. And, for Boards of Directors, do all you can to ensure individuals aren’t deciding their own pay and perks or granting their top teams compensation that will inevitably put upward pressure on their own.

Pay is just one easy example of where these flaws become highly visible. Early, well-known research shows everyone would like 20% more money, but that pay increases, no matter how good, become taken for granted in a year or so and 20% more again becomes the new objective. This is just as true if you make $2 million a year as $20,000. For instance, it’s also been shown that when CEOs order studies of the best place to relocate head offices, they almost inevitably concluded it should be closer to wherever the CEO lives. More research shows more pay doesn’t equate to more long run happiness above a fairly moderate pay level. How many other corporate decisions are being made the same way, based on how one or two people FEEL? And, of course, it isn’t just CEOs deciding in their own favor, but all of us tending to. They just happen to be somewhat more visible. Are we smart enough to find ways to balance these all too human pressures?

Bookmark and share this post

More »

0 Comments

Filed under: 4 Honest - Finding Reality, All That We Know, Books, Coaching Yourself, Fix The Jerks, Leaders of the Future

Civility… Really?

Author: Dave Crisp

19 Dec

Anyone reading much management literature these days will have noticed the growing demands for civility in the workplace, for an end to bullying and greater emphasis on treating people and speaking more politely. Entire bookshelves are devoted to it. Given the tone of much political debate, news and television, this is understandable across the board. We see a distressing lack of civility in many arenas and we don’t like it. or so we say.

Unfortunately the popular media seem to revel in incivility because, apparently, it sells. It certainly must draw major attention and sell advertising if we can judge by which shows survive the ratings battles. One only has to take a glance at Jersey Shores, the many ‘Real Housewives’ and dozens of others including some very popular blogs and even other supposed ‘reality’ game shows like The Amazing Race, to see the tendency to the worst sort of behavior to draw audiences. The first two are more blatant, but the ‘Race’ weekly shows team members berating each other for various shortcomings only partially balanced by later comments about how much they value and support each other.

Where do we stand really? It’s a puzzle because we are doing whatever we can to promote safe, stress- and harassment-free workplaces, yet we apparently enjoy seeing people verbally lash out at each other. We’d like to see greater civility in public discussion, but we not-so-secretly revel in ‘the other side’ getting slammed, often completely unfairly or out of proportion to what they’ve done, in the press. While we Canadians can feel somewhat smug that our level of public discourse hasn’t descended as far as some, we have to admit we are boosting the ratings of offending TV nearly as much as our neighbors.

It’s not news that human beings have contradictory feelings and thoughts. Perhaps we should just be thankful these cathartic ‘un-reality’ shows give us a chance to get our fill of incivility indirectly. On the other hand, there’s some reasonably reliable evidence that watching violence encourages viewers to act violently. Should we not be concerned this applies to violent discourse as much as actual behavior? That would make an interesting study, one I’m sure some college will undertake shortly.

In the mean time, I’m all for holding managers and workers to higher standards than we see outside of organizations. Realistically, though, I’m not sure we can do that as easily if we don’t at least try to address some of these problems in wider public behavior. Certainly schools, hospitals and other public institutions have been working away at the problem, but politics, the press and other media seem immune. Can we not develop the communication skills to have rigorous disagreements without insults to each other and to our intelligence?

Bookmark and share this post

More »

0 Comments

Filed under: 4 Honest - Finding Reality, Coaching over Command Leadership, Coaching Yourself, Fix The Jerks, Human Resources (HR), Leaders of the Future

HR Strategies with Downsides?

Author: Dave Crisp

16 Sep

Two recent presenters at Strategic Capability Network spoke about an up-and-coming idea in the HR strategy realm that has potential merit, but dangers as well. The Director of People Operations (Staffing) from Google and Steve Prentice who specializes in social media both noted the value of hiring staff who have wide-ranging, outside interests.

Google seeks to find out and select for a candidate’s broader interests in the hiring process to ensure diversity of ideas that will lead to innovation in products and services. Steve suggested using an internal Facebook-like system that allows staff to share interests other than simply work as a way of finding people in-house with unique qualities for particular projects. One example both cited, coincidentally, was that knowing someone was a skydiver might indicate their willingness to take risks and that, in turn, might be what you need on a particular project. Another instance – Steve is proud of his sideline – playing in a jazz band.

Both are certainly aware that something like skydiving is only one indicator of risk-taking and one not every boss might relish. I like to think I took risks throughout my career by taking on risky assignments like leading the organization’s union (and incidentally doing it well). Oops, that might not be something I’d want to make widely known to a new company since quite a few bosses would likely have the sort of reaction that wouldn’t have a positive effect on my career.

So how would I show my risk-taking ability or outside interests, many of which aren’t typical big-sellers in the old-fashioned leadership climate still found widely today? My affinity for philosophy and particularly Zen might be tolerated as odd, but harmless. or too weird for a senior VP.

On the other hand I had a CEO who referred to some people he didn’t like as Icabods. (That’s the timid, bookish school teacher character from childhood fiction – an image of ridicule.) I was a bit taken aback the first time he mentioned this to me, given my own early background as a school teacher. He apparently didn’t make the connection, but subsequent CEOs were often quick to tell me I ‘sounded like a school teacher’ – something they didn’t mean nicely on the occasions they were moved to point it out. In fact, I think it’s safe to say my bookish, school-teacher-like interests in philosophy and my understanding of left-wing issues made me valuable in environments where few others could relate and someone was needed who could. That’s diversity, but we have to realize not everyone sees the value.

Just as some unwitting students may be ruining their future job prospects by posting online photos and comments about drinking bouts and worse, we might be inviting employees to do the same without clearly being able to delineate what’s ‘acceptable’ or ‘laudable’ versus what’s ‘not wanted here.’ Can we ever promise all managers will be as open-minded as we’d hope?

I definitely don’t have the answers for this one. Skydiving may sound great to some managers and horrendously foolish to others. Anyone got a handy list of ‘great hobbies or interests to ensure promotions?’ I’m not sure we’re going to develop a specific idea of what those are. That’s the essence of diversity. Who will push the envelope? Soon as well as having the right job experience and training, you may need to cite ‘the right hobbies.’ That’s counter to the intent, but sadly seems almost inevitable.

The same challenges apply to other personal attributes as noted with disabilities and other diversity issues (check the post “Really? Do Tell”). Knowing how or when and how much to disclose personal information is a puzzle.

Bookmark and share this post

More »

0 Comments

Filed under: 4 Honest - Finding Reality, Building A Career, Coaching Yourself, Human Resources (HR)

The Biggest Problem For HR Strategy

Author: Dave Crisp

28 Aug

Over the last years and months I’ve come to believe the biggest problem with HR Strategy and getting results is individual leaders. We know in all companies there are pockets of satisfied, highly motivated, engaged employees who turn out superb work. We also know those are mostly the exceptions. Results and motivation are lost because the good work in one area is cancelled out or sidetracked by what’s going wrong in others. Only a handful of companies have spread engagement thoroughly across their organizations.

We further know that it’s the leader of each unit who makes this happen or not. So I’ve been pursuing the question ‘what’s the problem, why is it so hard to develop enough positive leaders to establish a culture (a set of typical habits) of supportive, innovative leadership across an entire organization?’ We know exactly what behaviors are actually necessary to achieve this and they are things anyone can do, any day, anywhere, if they simply keep them in mind and do them. These can work almost literally by rote if need be. And if you get someone behaving a certain way, their thinking usually changes to match according to psychologists. So why can’t we get leaders giving positive reinforcement, asking for feedback, supporting trial and error and so forth – the keys to great results?

The answer seems to be that we all too easily fall back into ‘natural’ ways of behaving toward others. We find it hard to empathize in most situations (some are far better than others) and without that guide to how another person might feel, we do what first comes to mind – which often means we immediately critique what’s wrong, follow our own instincts without reference to others opinions, etc.

Reading the 2008 autobiography of a US turnaround specialist (The Turnaround Kid by Steve Miller) gives some insight into these problems. He helped Lee Iacocca save Chrysler and then wrote a particularly damning condemnation of Iacocca’s leadership behavior, which he repeats in the book – lack of listening, favoritism, ego-generated strategy blindness and more.

A couple of assignments later he turned around massive construction company, MK, where he followed fired CEO Bill Agee. Bill ‘managed’ MK for his last two years from his Pebble Beach, California mansion, requiring Boise, Idaho head office execs to fly down for ‘instructions.’ Visiting Boise he was known to wear a bullet proof vest for fear of employees and his execs learned to wait a day before implementing his orders because his much younger, controversial wife from a scandal-rocked former work liaison would often convince him to change decisions. Really. You can’t make this stuff up. It’s all on record. But people still hire Bill for management advice. Really.

Miller, a self-styled sensitive manager, despite being a hard-nosed, typical CFO-type by style and training was able to do the right things – most of the time. He did remarkable jobs in numerous situations, including Chrysler and MK, of motivating and aligning large numbers of employees and unions to accept cuts and bankers to take lower rates on loans.

Surprisingly, even he stumbled later when he took on saving Delphi, the near-bankrupt auto parts spin-off of GM, where he promptly put his feet straight into his mouth. He insulted unions and even landscape staff as greedy for accepting on-par pay with the rest of the automotive industry. At the same time he was proposing cuts for them and increases in the C-suite. That’s a far cry from earlier massaging of pay cuts by empathetically pointing out everyone was in the same boat and awarding himself a $1 a year salary. Most recently he’s back (just this summer) to save AIG. It remains to be seen which approach he will take, but the bigger question is how can even a person who knows how to behave effectively suddenly do the reverse and create major problems? Was it just perception or a major glitch? At least we can be sure he has noticed and will rethink.

I’m not sure I have answers, but for HR and organization effectiveness this may be the biggest question of all.

Bookmark and share this post

More »

0 Comments

Filed under: 4 Honest - Finding Reality, Books, Coaching Yourself, Fix The Jerks, Leaders of the Future

Do senior execs ‘engage’ with HR issues?

Author: Dave Crisp

14 Mar

One advantage of reading a lot of HR blogs and news in a short time is that items fall together and suggest new ideas. The Canadian HR Reporter piece about HR in Vietnam and Cambodia (“Growing HR in Vietnam, Cambodia,” March 8, 2010), got me re-reading last year’s piece about HR in China (“Business of people behind Great Wall,” Canadian HR Reporter, May 4, 2009). Great strides are being made in all three countries, but some toss-away comments stand out most.

The author’s observation that there is “universal appreciation that a happy workforce is a productive workforce” reminded me that this is the origin of a major debate about how to define engagement versus commitment versus “employee satisfaction.” The latter, presumably, is closest to “happiness” and doesn’t correlate with productivity as well as the others, according to a number of observers.

Are we just splitting hairs or is this a key point to make with senior executives, especially those who equate these factors and are particularly skeptical of being sold plans designed to “make employees happy.”

Happiness may well be, and usually is no doubt, a long term byproduct of both engagement and productivity, but likely can’t be purely the purpose. On the other side of the coin, this is the reverse of the truism that money shouldn’t be made the primary object of business either, but is more often a byproduct of good service and filling customer needs. You can make money or make employees happy short term but, to sustain results, you need engagement, productivity and good service consistently for both. Focusing solely on outcomes – whether money or happiness – tends to overlook the core human issues that really engage and satisfy employees and drive results over the long haul.

I was even more interested to note the comment (about China) that they have a problem getting senior HR people engaged in their HR association as is the case in Canada (and in the United States) – another “engagement” issue, this time in-house so to speak. The Strategic Capability Network and the Human Resource Planning Society specifically target and do well at attracting senior HR people versus main-stream, certification-granting associations. Perhaps it’s just that there’s a place for both or perhaps a desire for exclusive focus on senior issues or smaller groups (since both these fit) for senior execs. But even within these focused groups, the number of senior executives turning out is still very small as a percentage of the total.

Is it that we in HR feel we have human resources all figured out and so want to attend meetings with a broader range of functions and function heads or do those other areas seem more important to learn more about? We now know effective HR can make a far bigger difference to organization results than finance or technology, in part because there are so few companies that do it well and knowledge of how to do it well is not as widespread. So rather than us engaging in their territory, perhaps we have another engagement issue of pulling these other function heads into our association meetings along with us. Somewhat like an insightful comment on my last blog post - that engagement has to go two-ways. As much as we want employees to engage in key issues, we need senior execs to engage with the key issues that stand to really drive results: HR issues. That’s something we – and they – still have more to learn about.

Bookmark and share this post

More »

0 Comments

Filed under: Business/Strategy, Coaching Yourself, Human Resources (HR), Leaders of the Future

Introversion Revisited

Author: Dave Crisp

11 Jan

Just when you think you’ll have time to write, life intervenes it seems. In the next while I’ll concentrate on interesting tidbits. In the online HR MBA class I assist with this article justifying introverts in business got some good discussion and seemed to reassure people they had a chance to get ahead.

It correctly notes about 40% of leaders in business (and elsewhere) are actually introverts. That shouldn’t be such a surprise, but it usually is. Being quiet, thoughtful and liking ‘alone time’ has never stopped actors, singers, speakers and leaders in other supposedly ‘extraverted’ endeavors from excelling. It’s not as clearly understood as other ‘obvious’ leadership traits that we are normally trained to think of, but introversion can contribute a lot. We need balance, and who better to understand how to balance the demands for being out in public with thoughtfulness than people who can see both.

In a presentation I have coming up for a senior university class on leadership, I thought I should show some photos of myself as a kid so these younger students could related to the gray-haired, bespectacled guy in front of them – someone who was a super shy, introverted kid who ultimately was able to learn to succeed as an executive and speaker. To me the transformation has always seemed almost unbelievable. I dragged out some old shots and was surprised to find I didn’t look as scrawny and geeky as I thought and I could actually see the progress, in increments, from that kid to the full fledged executive I ultimately became.

The kid……….. the union leader……… the graying executive.

So I thought I’d go find a photo of someone somewhat ‘geeky’ looking like what I had in my mind when I thought of myself in those teenage years. What turned up was a photo I will show the class with the comment, “As a kid I was convinced no one who looked the following guy, like how I thought I was, could ever be a leader, let alone someone who could make real contributions.” Nobody ever told me leaders could be like this unless they more or less walked on water. I think the message here is, when you see yourself as weak and introverted, it almost doesn’t matter what you look like – you’ve put limits on yourself that no one else is seeing. Thankfully I had experiences that slowly, but surely helped me develop a different style of behavior, yet I continued to see myself as the shy kid I was once. Here’s that photo: I wish.!

Bookmark and share this post

More »

0 Comments

Filed under: 1 Balance - Judgment, All That We Know, Building A Career, Coaching Yourself

Does Brutal Honesty Help?

Author: Dave Crisp

20 Nov

It may not be wise to always be brutally honest with others. In most cases it helps to try to find the silver lining as well as what needs to change, but I believe it is best to be completely clear when dealing with problems you’re struggling with if you can face doing it yourself.

On CLO Magazine’s blog, the question came up, “why aren’t there more people willing to step up to front line leadership?” One commenter observed, we don’t train enough. True, but I wrote this:

“I agree that we rarely teach practical leadership skills when we promote people or prepare them for promotion. We throw them in and let them sink or swim… and then some time later we try to teach them. In fact the skills have to be learned on the job with a coach (the boss, if the boss has leadership skills, which 80% don’t according to many surveys).

“However I think a growing factor today is that we expect the leaders to make sure the work is done even if they have to do it themselves – no excuses – do it or you’re out, so taking on leadership is taking on an unbelievable workload… still with no training on how to get others cooperating in getting it done. Sound like a good deal? Here, you be leader, you do all the work, we won’t show you how to successfully delegate… and then maybe we’ll fire you… in many states ‘at will’ with no recourse or severance… and you’ll be totally humiliated in the process most likely. Wow. I’ll take that risk. I’m exaggerating… slightly, but there are lots of organizations who do this to at least some of their promoted managers. Any wonder it scares people off?

“We desperately need to remedy this, but it seems to be one leader at a time and it starts with taking a brutally honest look at what those we promote are expected to do.”

This certainly doesn’t apply to every situation or organization, but not only is little training provided to actual managers, very few believe in trying to help potential leaders learn the skills BEFORE they are promoted. Often I see leaders who are being offered training or coaching where it is ‘too little, too late.’ They’ve already alienated their teams or at least fallen into patterns that aren’t highly productive and now have a hard time changing. It only really became clear answering this question and realizing that I was trying to be bluntly honest. If nothing else I think it illustrates the benefits of asking ourselves these questions via blogs and other means. Self-examination certainly reveals what we need to fix. I’m sure I’ve been as guilty as many when I didn’t provide training BEFORE it was needed.

Bookmark and share this post

More »

0 Comments

Filed under: 4 Honest - Finding Reality, Coaching Yourself, Human Resources (HR), Leaders of the Future, Learning Organization

A Happier Life?

Author: Dave Crisp

27 Jul

As you may have noticed, I took considerable time off posting to contemplate a number of things.

First my interest in studying happiness led me to attend the First World Congress of the International Positive Psychology Association based around the first MA course set up Marty Seligman of Penn State, whose book, Learned Optimism, I always highly recommend). The inexpensive, well-attended (1500) conference was great and all the ‘who’s who’ of Positive Psych presented – Diener, Haidt, Fredrickson (many of whom I’ve mentioned in posts previously) and many others, some known, others not so much. An amazing amount of research has been done in 10 years of the concept’s short life and a number of countries have actually absorbed the general principles as a way of measuring the success of government policy. After all, what is the purpose of government if not to create the environment for happier lives. Perhaps this is even a concept business might look at. We know for a fact that happier employees are more productive. More on this as we go forward.

Second, I spent considerable time thinking about why I don’t post more. And concluded, not totally surprisingly, that I only feel like doing so when I think I have something of value to say. What a novel concept. Of course, it’s very personal since, like most sites now, there is some unknown, potentially large number of people who MAY be reading some of this, but typically a lot fewer than 1% comment, so you have no real measure. Perhaps there are thousands of people out there just dying to hear everything that pops into my head. Somehow I pretty much doubt that. If so, I apologize, but you’re always welcome to let me know.

In the mean time, I will stick to my new timetable – whenever something is significant in my opinion. I’m not in this to pump out posts every day or attract business or a huge following, but to see if ideas can evolve into useful forward movement. With so many blogs and discussion groups desperate for readers, attention and significance, I’m happy not to compete every day. It will either add up to value in the long run or it won’t. Over time the Internet needs better ways to help people locate material of true interest to them. Maybe then the right people will find what they need here. In the mean time I’ll keep at it. occasionally.

Third, this coincided with some thinking about ‘full retirement’ whatever that might look like. I concluded that for me it probably looks like what I’m doing – bits of this and that – work, volunteering, travel, etc., all melded together. My idea of great travel was going to the conference, for instance. And I’m blessed with a spouse who is happy to tour those towns on her own and then guide me to the best parts we can share together.

My main conclusion was I should stop soul-searching about all of it – the ‘worry’ was a drag and I enjoy the stuff I do. While I don’t market, the work coming in is just fine. I like to be engaged and hopefully always will be, but not at the expense of a strenuous sales effort. Again, either people are interested or they’re not. Wouldn’t it be great if the world could work this way for everyone. It’s great that people write about what they and others are doing and keep us aware of new products and services. We all want to hear about things we think might improve our lot, but. do we really want the hard-driving sales ‘attack’ that so many businesses feel they must keep up?

Bookmark and share this post