The Second Biggest Mistake Leaders Can Make

In the face of a slow economic recovery, pressure to "do more with less," reduced budgets, and vanishing raises or bonuses, it's easy for employees to become demoralized, start asking tough questions, and maintain a habit of complaining. As their leader, you may know how well they're justified; you may even feel sympathetic. But if you want to sabotage your own impact and authority, you'll indulge their fixation on negatives and maybe even participate in the bellyaching.
Big mistake. Here's what you can do instead:

• Fill the vacuum with positives. No raises or bonuses? Replace it with praise and recognition and appreciation. Get creative: with budgets slashed to the bone, after a very tough work period, one of my clients asked her team to contribute to a potluck lunch, during which she handed out cheap novelty-store "Oscars" for "best office manager" or "best intern." It costs nothing to say "Thank you, that was very well done, I know you went the extra mile," or to mark team successes with an informal celebration. It's not just a mark of shrewd leadership but basic civility too — and when times are tough, a premium put on civility can make work life more pleasant.

• Give evidence to maintain hope. Human beings, I've found, set up artificial barriers as reasons to stay stuck — because the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know. Start citing reasons to be optimistic. Remind your team of past successes, or valuable lessons learned from tough times. Report news of industry improvements or signs of market turnarounds. Most people wait for happiness to descend up on them like the weather. Remember that optimism, like happiness (and anything else in life), is a choice.

• Hammer negativity and incivility. Complaining and negativity go viral pretty quickly, and very often it's an instigating individual or small group of individuals who reject positive evidence and "recruit" others to their point of view. Stop the viral contagion before it evolves into speculative gossip or petty forms of sabotage (enacted to prove the negative view is justified).

I'm not saying we should gloss over the very real difficulties of our times. What I am saying is that your team will not benefit from working for a leader who walks in every day with an attitude of "You know, you're right, everything sucks. I hate my job, I hated coming in today, and they're not paying me enough to uplift your spirits as well."

As leader you're not merely a higher-paid version of your employees. You not only represent them to your upper management, but you represent upper management to your employees. I've yet to meet anyone who ever said, "You know, during the rough times, our incessant complaining prepared us for the worst and got us through." More likely it was, "Things got very tough, but we had a good leader who kept our team together, dealt fair and square with everyone, kept us focused. And somehow we got through it."

The first mistake many leaders make is to forget how closely they're being observed by those who work for them. The second is closely related to the first, and that's to join your employees in whatever despair or cynicism bedevils your workplace. 

Time Enough to Die

A colleague told me about riding through the backwoods of the rural southeast, silently guessing that whole sections of that population had never left those tiny townships, may not have studied beyond an 8th grade education, and never entertained the idea of expanding their worldview outside the scope of their experiences. This became abundantly clear when a teenaged boy shrugged and expressed a listless curiosity "to visit a really big city, like Athens, GA."

"I'm not being a snob or putting anyone down," my colleague emphasized. As a workforce-readiness trainer, her concerns are naturally about developing meaningful touchpoints for this demographic, because hitherto she'd only worked with upwardly mobile white-collar elites — professionals with at least a 4-year degree.

"How," she asked, "do you reach someone so they'll consider an occupation they never believed possible for themselves? Or go back to school, when they hated it and dropped out before they even reached high school?"

How do you persuade an individual to see a world of possibility?

The latest word is that — globally — 291 million Millennials are unemployed and/or not engaged in any sort of educational pursuit. (To give an idea, there are roughly 316 million people in the United States). That's a lot of young people without a sense of what they want to do in life. And nobody — but nobody — makes a lasting change on someone else's say-so. The most profound changes originate from within, from desire and ambition and curiosity and renewed self-confidence and a psyched-up belief in possibilities.

So how do you reach someone who might be metallic in their impenetrability, or so closed down in their self-concept, they can't believe possibilities exist for them beyond what they see day-to-day? The writer Antoine St. Exupery had a brilliant comment: "If you need to build a ship, don't give people tasks and plans; teach them to love the sea."

No matter who they are or where they come from in life, the ingenuity of everyday people always finds creative answers to solve problems. It's been shown time and again.

So to my colleague I said, "I think you have to meet them where they are — and leave them with a new idea."

A lot of young people are told to find work that is stable, profitable, respectable. This is good common sense but it leaves out a host of other lifelong needs — the possibility of feeling inspired, room to learn and be creative, opportunities to solve problems that not only ease the anxieties of trustees and shareholders but also humanity at large.

As society advances, we'll all need to work smarter with our heads, less with our hands. We need people who know how to think critically, and imagine and produce, all with a vigor and enthusiasm that attracts more ideas and customers and business alliances. (Nobody likes working with teams that are humorless, uninspired, down in the dumps).

Howard Thurman said it best: "Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

The antidote to what doesn't make sense

I know this feeling: the 1996 Centennial Park bombing ... the hours during and after 9/11 ... waking up early before dawn last summer — my daughter Sam telling me about the Aurora massacre ... and again when hearing about the kids of Sandy Hook. 

It's this groggy slam of sorrow and disbelief — at the scale of the carnage, the brazen disregard for human life, and a thrum in your head of "Why? Why?"

What was the point to be made here, and has it been made now that you've blown the legs off a runner or riddled a kid's side with shrapnel?

For the next couple days, just pay it forward. Be extra kind to the jerk in traffic who's rude to you. 

"Love me most when I least deserve it, because that's when I need it most." 

Humanity needs it most right now.

That Rutgers coach is just the tip of the iceberg

Excuses, excuses....

I haven't posted here for nearly a year, primarily because I focused on writing a novel. It's my third and I began writing it over Labor Day weekend 2012. It took about six months to complete a first draft and I've had it out with readers who have since returned comments, so now I'm into rewrites — or, as I like to joke, Rewrite City: Town Without Pity.

Leadership and civility
...But I haven't forgotten about what's important here. Recently I revised my workplace civility course and geared it for leaders serving in the public sector, the bottom-line $64,000 question being, "What can you do to model the civil behaviors you expect to see from your employees?" 

Leaders or not, brazen repeat offenders are those with real or perceived "star power." They're the department manager, the killer salesperson, or the exceptionally gifted team member. The impact and long-term consequences of incivility are still the same: no matter how good your best employee may be, his or her acts of incivility will drive others away. And the entire organization will wind up paying for every cost.

Talent and civility

All day I've been bugged by this week's big sports story — the Rutgers coach on viral video, screaming homophobic slurs at his players, hurling balls at their heads, basically losing it when they weren't playing up to par. The sad reality is that homophobic slurs have been upheld since time immemorial to rattle a man's sense of his own masculinity, but it's still profoundly sick and wrong-headed to use them. His particular intensity may be new and off-putting, but screaming coaches are nothing new. Neither are belligerent CEOs or abusive drill sargeants or volatile artistic types.

Excuses, excuses

Why do we keep making excuses for this line of behavior? Does it look like "passion"? Do people perform that much better when belittled and terrified? Is so much riding on it? College sports may have become a billion-dollar business, but most American sports have  been characterized by gentlemen-athletes and scholar-athletes. (I think of the tender humility of Lou Gehrig's final farewell, or Pee Wee Reese throwing his arm around Jackie Robinson's shoulders). To squander that ethos is to surrender ourselves to the idiocracy thriving on the squalid conflict to be found in reality TV shows and cut-rate movies. 

Because here's the bottom line: If anyone in this world should know how to motivate talent, it's the sports coach. If anyone should understand the inner workings of players and teamwork, it's the coach. If anyone in sports should embody the values of fair play and sportsmanship, it's the coach. Anyone can be paid millions per year to stride along a ball court, screeching like a self-important putz. That he's like this? Shame on him. That he's been allowed to continue like this? Shame on us for tolerating it and believing value can be yielded from it.

If you as a leader do not hammer down on repeat offenders, their acts of chronic incivility will rework your organization until you wind up paying every red cent for the quantitative and qualitative damages they incur. It's not merely that this particular coach could behave this way; scrutiny should be paid to the culture that permitted it.

The Biggest Mistakes Leaders Make

No leader is perfect. Your boss is not superhuman, nor is anyone else in the pecking order. Here are some of the easiest pitfalls facing any leader:

•  He forgets how closely he's observed by his employees.

•  She confuses position with privilege.

•  He insulates himself with people who'll decrease his own personal insecurity, but fail to increase or improve the information flow he'll need to be effective in his job. (Additionally, he underestimates the symbolic impact of his own entourage and how their behaviors send distinct messages about his own character.)

•  She loses "the common touch" and foregoes basic courtesies when dealing with subordinates.

•  He is unable to assess when he's speaking as a private individual, and when his stated views represent the brand or service tradition of the organization he leads.

•  She's most likely to be influenced by the last person she spoke with.

Over the next few weeks I'll examine these in greater detail. Meanwhile, if you have additional thoughts or comments, please let me know. Thanks.

From the Madcap Idealist: Civility Media

A feature of old-stick-in-the-mud-ism is to deplore what the world is coming to.


The world has come to social media. I don't deplore it. It's a wonderful thing, to join the ambient reality of another human being's experience of life, to have immediate access to their insights and perceptions, to invite them to join in yours. And I'm old enough to remember that prescient McLuhan phrase about a "global village." 


Here we are.


One small problem: We the villagers have lost sight of a community's dearest value and commodity. We've forgotten what it means to be civil.


We use social media as a hedge to hide behind, to launch commentary that exalts those who agree with us, and shames or excoriates those who do not. It's easy to search and find punditry and stats that support our opinions; much harder to convene opposing viewpoints and agendas, and discern common ground. 


Today, public discourse is more polarized and rancorous than most Baby Boomers have ever known, yet this democracy was based on our willingness and ability to hold public discourse, whether that occurred in a town square or a Facebook thread.


Without civility, we become not merely savage (eg, the bullying of bus monitor Karen Klein), but accepting of — and inured to — savagery. We adapt and learn to avoid those who disagree or challenge us, right when we could be learning from each other. We reTweet for respect because it's far easier to press the RT icon than to actually practice civility — day-to-day and face-to-face — with that colleague or neighbor who irks us because their beliefs run antithetical to our own.


Glibly we talk about love ("our hearts and prayers go out to..."), about coming together as an American family, and embrace each other at candelight vigils for the dead, but we won't afford each other the most common courtesies in the routine run of a day. (Or, as a friend of mine put it: "Given the guys I work with, sometimes it's like death by douchebag.")


Basic courtesy is a rational act of love — for yourself, your self-respect, as a functional villager. It's an act of love for your fellow villager, your family, your community. So while reTweeting for respect and sharing anti-violence memes on Facebook, why not ramp up a couple other actions?


Hold the door open for someone else. Give up your seat on the subway to someone who maybe needs it more. Don't walk away from the copier with the paper jam you just caused. React to inflammatory behaviors with restraint, not insult or denigration. Understand that someone who disagrees with your opinion likely has an intensely personal experience of the same issue — and that is worth respecting. Choose not to shun, goad, provoke, or even to raise your voice. Articulate your disagreement not with name-calling, but with facts, figures, compassion, and a desire to learn more. If you're active on social media, curate diverse points of view, not merely rallying those who agree with you. Become the example, because we really need good leaders right now.

It takes nothing to be kind. The alternative is far more costly: if July 20 in Aurora, Colorado, taught us anything, it's that the ultimate WMD may be a single human being, existing in isolation, fully alive only when online, twisted by rage and illness.

The Things (Some) Print Salespeople Do that Drive Me Nuts

I've bought printing for 30 years and certain sales behaviors separate the insightful professionals from the glorified messengers. This is not to be negative or "high maintenance" but here are some mistakes that are sure to alienate.


Be dismissive and discount the designer's role.
As a vendor, it's always wise to focus on the client but, as designer to that client, I've known print salespeople who blew off my phone calls, got tetchy over changes, or treated me as (their) personal production assistant ("Hey, can you email me those specs again? I can't seem to find the original..."). 


What they forget is that many times my questions are our client's questions; I am the client's representative. And courtesy counts: Don't talk down to me. (On one account, the salesperson recognized his mistake and sought to correct it with an assortment of rather slimy ingratiating behaviors, but you can't build a positive collaboration within days after years of rude self-interest. By the time he got it, it was too little, too late.)


Pass the buck (or: Make me do your job for you).
This is where the salesperson tells me, "Heck, I don't know nothin' about that, so lemme have you talk to Bob in our prepress department." A couple problems with this: (1) In some print shops, Bob has no experience talking to clients, nor are they a priority in his busy prepressed day; and (2) I've known some print salespeople to "follow up" with me by asking what Bob said — at which point the client and I find ourselves briefing two people who work within the same organization, but never bothered to check with each other before calling us.


Solution: As salesperson, you're the print team leader. Act like it. You conference-call the question-answer session so you're also in on the conversation when I confab with Bob from your prepress.


Don't jam up the delivery.
This is for your own good: If your delivery folks "misdeliver" a client's job, the seemingly harmless mistake can potentially "unsell" the hard work that came before in the sales, creative, and production cycle. Why? Because clients keep tab! Every time they have to put out an all-points-bulletin for a box of brochures that didn't arrive precisely, they'll factor such incidents into future decision-making (ie, How much of a hassle is it to rely on you?).


Precise delivery means a promise to the client has been kept: "On the 10th of October at 10 AM, the brochures will be delivered to office 1010 in your headquarters." Sloppy delivery means at 10:30 AM on October 11th, the client is in the mailroom begging a mailroom supervisor to help her go through 300 newly arrived boxes to see if her brochures might be in there....


Talk "teamwork" to my face and spread doubt behind my back.
Stay classy, OK? If you feel skeptical about my production specs, talk to me and let's work it out. If you feel the production schedule has you set up to fail, talk to me and let's work it out. But don't go behind my back alarming the client about the cost of a certain effect just because you don't want to run the job with it.


I suppose it's an inevitable joke that salespeople are aggressive and supremely self-confident, but when have these qualities alone ensured the success of a long-term relationship? Good salespeople are excellent listeners who put a premium on sensitive relational behaviors, and constant problem-solving for their clients. They're more consultative than cocky.