Give a Buck

The Moral Comfort Zone of Doing Absolutely Nothing

The last thing I want to do is politicize my blog about soft skills in the workplace, but our workplaces do not exist in a vacuum. I wrote this upon hearing about the latest shooting rampage at Seattle Pacific University. I welcome your comments but just ask that you keep it civil; bad enough that bereaved parent Richard Martinez has been accused of being a "media whore."

In this life, the response that annoys me the most sounds like, "It can't be done," or "It's never been done this way before." 

These rationalizations spawn complacencies that sound like practicality but are in fact moral laziness. It's a way of saying, "Why bother, it's too much work, so why even begin effort?" This latest shooting in Seattle reminds me of all such notions. "We're never going to gather up all the guns, so why bother.... Gun ownership is an American right, so don't even dare try.... Hey, let's not overlook the sanctity of the 2nd Amendment!... (and that morally exhausted old nellie) Guns don't kill people, people kill people." 

So, okay, let's just leave the situation as is. Let's not attempt any interim solutions to establish background-check protocols, to help the mentally ill, or to mitigate the stupefyingly easy access to automatic weapons already blessed by powerful special interest groups. Let's tsk-tsk-tsk but do nothing while our public servants are graded and bought up by those same groups. We'll just pretend that brazen self-service won't happen when they try to leverage political power on the next set of issues we feel strongly about .... We'll just keep fighting between ourselves, jutting out our chins as we parade our semi-automatics in public restaurants and retail stores, and calling each other out for stupidity when we line up on both sides of this argument. But here's the point you and I keep missing:

Both sides of the argument should be affronted that the gun violence discourse is no longer democratically owned. 

Whichever you believe, take a stand. Write or call your elected officials. Donate money to the group advocating the side of the argument you believe in. Maybe the politicians will listen to moderate centrist views versus the barking of the extremists. Encourage civil discourse on Facebook so everyone walks away learning something new versus feeling justified in polarization. 

We've got to start somewhere. The current situation is untenable and it's only getting worse. Fixing the gun violence problem is supposed to be hard work. The same
thinking that got us to this point of escalating death tolls is not the same thinking we'll need to get us out of this (literally) bloody mess. We are not going to please everyone, which is a tough way to begin collaborations, but I'd rather collaborate with you in the most contentious way than watch passively as special interest groups define the argument. Or stand with you, graveside, watching another parent bury a slain child.


If we continue to do nothing, to remain passive, then each of us — pro- and anti-gun control alike — should be prepared to look in the eye of every parent who's lost a child to gun violence, and say, "Here is what I believe. Now what are you going to do about it?" Try that and then talk to me about courage under fire. #notonemore

The ending of things

Over 20 years ago this month, my friend and colleague Nathan ended his own life. He was only in his early 40s and it was a terrible shock to all of us who loved and respected him, and about a year later his mother, only in her early 60s, passed on as well, no doubt from a broken heart.

Nowadays, as I see the approach of her age coming up in my own years, I think about how and why things end.

Things end when people believe they've run out of options — or ideas. They're tired of trying, of problem-solving, of looking for alternatives. They're tired of the problem, that it exists at all.

Things end when people feel the burn of a constant disagreement and know they can no longer "agree to disagree." The state of disagreement becomes untenable.

Things end when it's healthier for an untenable situation to close, simply close. Sometimes the pain of ending things is less than the pain of living them out to no discernible conclusion.

In my job, I am constantly looking for solutions for my clients; it would be unacceptable for me to ever tell a client, "I'm sorry but that can't be done".... If Plan A is a bust, then let's try Plan B, or Plan C, or a hybrid of Plans C and F. And because that's the way I've lived for nearly 30 years, it's hard for me to accept it when people stop trying—or don't even begin to try at all. Coming up in the world of self-employment, I learned the try is what makes every risk and effort worthwhile of hope; but I've also learned that we each have different notions of "try." And so there's another lesson that comes with age: acceptance.

Acceptance. Finding one's own resilience again (and again, and again). Hope for the future. And peace to my friend Nathan's spirit, wherever he is.

"Would it upset you if I told you...um...your hair is burning?"

Recently, in a spurt of utter frustration, a friend asked me, "Are you this brutally honest with everyone? Someone shows up in a new dress and asks your opinion, and you tell her, 'Yeah, it looks like a sack on you.'"

No, of course not: none of us are universally one unyielding level of conduct in every aspect of our lives. I think this would be a pretty rigid, unresourceful personality. And there are different levels to the truth people seek in their lives, and varying levels of presumption and ethical action in how we choose to respond.

Pretty little white lies
It's easy to tell social white lies: we're not real stakeholders, the other person wants to keep feeling good about an innocuous private decision, and no real harm is done. In fact, greater harm might be done by giving an unvarnished truth ("Your new dress is a terrible mistake")....Social white lies abound: the friend in the awful dress may not really be asking for my opinion; maybe she just wants me to join her in feeling good.

But what if she's a friend and a colleague, about to represent our interests in pitching a critical new account? or she's about to head into a job interview for a position she really wants?

Ersatz vs. authentic kindness
Most humans are well-intentioned; most want to be kind. But throughout my life, I noticed there are people who feel obligated to be kind, or who are only kind when it's easy to be kind — they may in fact garner some pretty good personal PR. Just as there are social white lies, there's a shallow social sort of kindness that people enact out of short-lived good intentions or a fuzzy sense of moral obligation. While it's true "it takes nothing to be kind," the illuminating, life-changing kindnesses I've experienced in my life have come from individuals who took huge risks by giving me an unvarnished truth, not because it pumped their egos to deliver it, but because I needed more info, another way of looking at things, or, more drastically, to keep me from a terrible mistake. And I've found the authentically graceful people of the world are those who go uncredited — who are kind when no one else is looking, and no one else will know the grace they've bestowed on the rest of us.

The unvarnished truth for everyday moral dilemmas
I had to take a "co-parenting seminar" when I filed for divorce, and the one great take-away was this: "You will face many difficulties and dilemmas as a parent, where you won't know what to do. Any decision you make in the best interests of your child will have been the right decision." Somehow that unvarnished truth held me steady for 20 years, especially when my own pride and ego threatened to get in the way.

So when people in my classes talk about the small but troubling moral dilemmas they face at work, where there's more gray area than not, where matters of ego and turf cloud good judgment, I tell them, "You have to form a clear picture of what's going on, get advisory you trust, size up the risk, and do what's best for your organization. No one can misconstrue your motives if you can explain how your actions are in the best interest of the organization." For those who serve as agents and consultants, this means the wellbeing and best interests of your client's organization, if they're at the heart of the matter.

What "ASSUME" can mean
Insecure leaders usually gravitate towards yes-men and sycophants; we all know this. Human nature. Happens all the time. At a point in our socio-political history where good leaders are harder than ever to find, each of us can be a leader by being unafraid of reality. Especially in times of organizational crisis, where gray areas abound, and noisy scrambling egos threaten to muddy good judgment, be prepared to take a calculated risk. Don't be afraid to confront half-baked good ideas or outright poppycock.

•  Gently but firmly challenge points of unclear thinking, where you feel solutions have not been thought through. Ask for "groupthink" to work out options and contingencies. You should do this immediately and relentlessly if your department will be held solely accountable for results and outcomes.

•  Be unafraid to raise questions or confront delicate issues. Solutions often fail when touchy issues are left unconsidered. (Embarrassment is uncomfortable but remember that discomfort is temporary. And if you don't have a dog in the fight, don't play devil's advocate just to polish your own apple; you'll just come off looking like an ass).

•  Give and ask for concrete details: "If this, then what happens next? What should happen next?" A college professor once advised, "When you deliver a job to the next person in the production chain, explain it from their point of view, and do it explicitly. Pretend the other person's an imbecile, even when you know they're not. Be specific and clear so there's no room for unasked questions or easy assumptions."

In other words, be prepared to unleash "brutally honest," because assumptions aren't solid.

Bottom line? ASSUME can make an ASS out of U and ME.

Do you get it?

Clients regularly ask me to vet the assorted vendors who court their business. Some obvious questions:


•  How well does this person/organization understand collaboration? Project teams are usually cross-media, often not in the same region or time zone. In addition to expertise, effective collaboration requires access, responsiveness, and skillful listening.

•  How does this organization perceive themselves? Is there a clear vision and value proposition? Is this a group given to tough self-assessments, or are they narcissistic and in love with themselves?

An old Dr. Phil remark: "Be someone who gets it."

So . . . do you get it?


You can tell a lot about an organization by how they deliver their proposals. Proposal behaviors epitomize job performance. Even if judgments are processed unconsciously, most clients regard the speed, scope, and physical presentation of your proposals as indicative of job performance — ie, attentiveness to details, no bait-and-switch tactics, clear and reasonable expression of your insights (on any project-related issue).

•  Speed + accuracy = Motivation. Get that proposal in quickly, or ask the client when it would best serve them to receive it (and then beat it by a day or two, so you can discuss it before it's advanced to additional decision-makers). Imagine how it looks to a client to be ardently wooed for work, then made to wait days for your proposal. Hearing you say "It's been crazy around here but I'll get that estimate out to you!" may be a nifty sign (you're busy), but one shade away from hearing excuses  why you've missed a deadline (you're disorganized).

•  Appearance = Pride in work and gratitude. Is your estimate/proposal on your letterhead, or in an email, just a pile of numbers without an expression of gratitude for the opportunity, or even a signature? Many organizations require that clients sign on the dotted line before work can begin — fine if you need it, but personally I feel that if neither of our  handshakes are any good, then we probably shouldn't work together.

•  The "Tenzing Norgay" thing*. How have you defined the project and how you see process occurring? Do you suggest options and contingency plans for worst-case scenarios? Have you demonstrated why you're the right "sherpa" for this project journey?

"Give the client what they asked for, but tell them what you think they need." Your proposal/estimate is a great opportunity for showcasing how well you perceive their unstated needs, for defining both how you interpret the problem and the sort of solutions you think the client should consider.

You won't get every proposal, but every proposal is a great "venue" for showcasing how well you've listened to your client's briefing, and what you can do for them. If you're tired of the price game, stop giving clients mere numbers — instead, give them ideas, critical thinking, and strategies.

* Google it.

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."