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Leadership

LeadershipREPOST

REPOST: Character vs. Competence

by Ron Potter
A Note From the Editor:
As we recently mentioned, we are reposting popular blog posts while Ron is recovering from some health issues.

Tyranny of Competence

Bob Quinn in his book Deep Change introduced us to the concept of the “Tyranny of Competence.” This is a person that is so good at the skills of their job, leaders will tend to overlook their other flaws in character.  They assume the character flaws would never cause enough negative issues to overcome the positive impact of being really good at their job.

Don’t ever think that.  The destruction caused by lack of character is always greater than the competency provided.

Steven Covey gave us the image of leadership, being equal parts character and competency. You can be the most competent person ever, but without good character, you’ll never become a great leader.  Conversely, you can be a person of utmost integrity and character, but without being competent at what you do, you’re no longer trustworthy and therefore will never make a trusted leader.

I’ve always been a little surprised at the lack of visibility around this issue. I’ve often thought that maybe I’m more tuned into the destructive aftermath of this character issue than the executives I work with.  And quite honestly, the measurement systems of our corporate environments tend to be more competency based than character based.

Rock Stars of Competency

Then one morning I experienced a little incident that added some clarity.  Because of a heart operation and subsequent complicating factors, I had been living in a hospital environment. Beyond dealing with my own personal health issues, the thing that occupied me the most was observing the culture of an operating hospital from a patient’s (customer’s) point of view.

Now, a hospital is certainly competency-based. Without a doubt, I want the most competent surgeon handling my heart so I can get healthy. But it’s amazing that even at this “rock star” level of medicine, how much of a difference character makes. From the patient’s point of view, the doctors I consider the best are the ones that treat me as a human being. I have been very blessed with great doctors but what’s even more interesting is how the hospital staff reacts to these surgeons.

The high character surgeon treats the staff with respect and relates to them as human beings, even as simple as using their name. The entire staff is very eager to provide to the patient whatever the doctor thinks necessary for the health and well-being of the patient. However, when the doctor forgets to exhibit that good character to the staff, the patient actually suffers. The staff goes back to a checklist approach.  It’s clear that the overall care of the patient diminishes when the providing doctor doesn’t demonstrate good character, but assumes it is only great competency that gets the job done.

Character Based Environments

Below the doctors are the nurses and the rest of the caring staff. Down here, it’s character that makes the difference. Without exception, these nurses and “techs” (one nurse and one tech assigned to each patient) are there to help you get well. There are still competence issues of taking “values”—pressure, temperature, weight, etc. and administering meds—but for the most part they mainly want to know how you’re doing and what they can do to make your stay more comfortable. The most precious commodity is sleep. And while the timing of the system conspires against you, many of the nurses and techs will delay almost anything if they think it will allow you to sleep just a little bit longer. Except Alex!

Don’t Be Like Alex

Alex is a young, energetic tech who was new to me until one morning. At 5:00 a.m. (one of the few times during the day that I could actually fall into a deep sleep) Alex bounded into my room, turned on the lights, and asked if he could check my weight. My answer was, “No!” Undaunted, Alex wheels in the scale (light still on) and offers to help me out of bed. It’s obvious he’s not going to leave so I slowly bring myself to consciousness, drag myself out of bed, stand on the scale, and satisfy Alex that he’s done his job. He even encourages me to get some sleep as he departs with his poundage figures in hand.

My reaction to Alex’s overall performance?

Competent? Yes.

Showed character? No.

Overall, rude, obtrusive, failure as a tech.

In competency based environments, lack of character is always destructive but may be under the radar.  In character based environments, lack of character is seen as complete failure.

The message in all of this is balance, balance, balance.

Regardless of which aspect is more valued in each environment the best leaders, the most cherished and valued people are the ones with both great competencies and the same time exhibit the greatest of character. They are respectful and treat others with great dignity.

If you yearn for success, be the best you can be and at the same time, care and respect those around you for who they are.

This post was originally posted here on September 10, 2015.
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LeadershipREPOST

REPOST: Opposite of Victim

by Ron Potter
A Note From the Editor:
As we recently mentioned, we are reposting popular blog posts while Ron is recovering from some health issues.

Some people I’ve worked with have what we might think of as that victim mentality. The Leadership Style instrument I use (LSI from Human Synergistics) measures two areas titled Dependent and Avoidance that collectively describe a style that starts with the assumption that they are the victim in most circumstances. Some of the descriptions include:

  • A tendency to be easily influenced, not taking independent action
  • A strong tendency to deny responsibility or accountability
  • A passive attitude
  • Feelings of helplessness and/or guilt over real or imagined mistakes
  • The presence of rapid change or traumatic setbacks
  • A lack of self-respect
  • Extreme fear of failure

Someone asked me the other day what was the opposite of the victim mentality. That ignited a lively dialogue which came to the conclusion that Creativity is the opposite of victim mentality. Isn’t that a great picture? If we eliminate policies, procedures, governance, or leadership styles that create or assume a victim mentality, we unleash creativity.

Although my work is focused on leadership within corporations, the first thing that came to mind was our lawmakers. Start evaluating all of the bills that are coming through Congress (or ones that have been part of the landscape for many years) and begin to evaluate them in terms of “Do they create victims or do they instill creativity?” Many of the laws of this nation seem to start with the assumption that you are (or should be) a victim. And then they tend to perpetuate that belief. Our only opportunity in this rapidly changing global economy is to be creative and innovative. Shouldn’t we stop passing laws that push us toward or assume we are or should be victims?

But, closer to home, can you evaluate your or others’ leadership style on this victim-creativity balance beam? It’s always easiest to see it in others but the first step in great leadership is self-awareness, self-assessment, and humility. Have a discussion with your team. Maybe start by evaluating the group of people that work for you. Do they behave as victims or creators? What about our leadership style is causing that? How do we change the way we lead to increase the creative nature of our company?

My wife and I recently had the opportunity to listen to Condoleezza Rice when she made a speaking engagement in our hometown. During the question and answer period, one of the first questions was “How did a young person of color from Birmingham, Alabama make it all the way to Secretary of State?” The first words out of her mouth without hesitation were “We were never allowed to be victims!”

This post was originally posted here on June 1, 2011.
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LeadershipREPOST

REPOST: Listening With the Intent to Understand

by Ron Potter
A Note From the Editor:
As we recently mentioned, we are reposting popular blog posts while Ron is recovering from some health issues.

The next time you’re listening to something, especially on a topic where you don’t necessarily agree, try this experiment: Use part of your brain to pay attention to what you’re thinking when listening to the other person. It’s okay. Your brain has a lot more capacity than your think. You can actually listen to another person at the same time as you act as an observer to watch what your own brain is doing. I know you can.

If you’re like most of us, you’ll find your own brain developing some sort of checklist:

  • Those two points support my side of the argument so I’ll immediately respond with those.
  • That point is not supported by fact, so I can instantly discount that.
  • That reminds me I need to pick up dog food on the way home.
  • I can’t believe they actually think that point is valid. How could they be so naive?

Then the moment happens. The other person pauses; they may not even be finished with their point of view, but just pausing a moment to collect their thoughts or even pausing a moment before presenting their obviously convincing closing statement. It makes no difference; it’s a pause.
So you jump in:

“Let me reinforce a couple of statements you made earlier because I believe they make my point exactly. And let me also clarify another conclusion you reached that is counter to all the facts we have.”

And on and on and on until you’re forced to pause and the cycle repeats.

If this scenario reflects in any way what you are experiencing while “listening” to other people, then you listen with the intent to respond. Most of us do it. Most of us do it most of the time. It takes a conscious effort and some practice to actually start listening with the intent to understand. But what a difference it will make in your life if you even get marginally good at it.

When you listen with the intent to understand, your curiosity kicks in. You’re not trying to catalog the points you’re hearing. You’re wondering:

  • I wonder why they believe that?
  • I wonder what experience they’ve had with this in the past?
  • I wonder who they trust on this and why?
  • I wonder what they believe will be the best outcome?

If you’re truly curious and wondering, then your response when that inevitable pause comes will be totally different.
Your first reaction to the pause may be to simply wait to see if there is a conclusion or further thoughts.
You may actually ask if there is a conclusion on further thought.
You may express your wonderment and curiosity and begin to ask questions or clarification or deeper understanding or more background.

Whatever you’re response. If it’s driven by curiosity and wonderment, the other person will immediately know that you’ve been listening to understand. You want to understand, you want to know their viewpoint. This sparks a very different reaction on their part.
A few key things happen from their point-of-view:

  • Once they realize you’re trying to understand their point-of-view, they become less rigid in their stance and more willing to admit it’s just their point-of-view.
  • They become more open to questioning their own point-of-view because you’re honestly questioning it in an attempt to understand and not with the intent to control or discredit it.
  • And most importantly, once you’ve fully listened to and attempted to understand their point-of-view, they’re much more willing to listen to and be open to your point-of-view.

Steven Covey, in his The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, indicates that one of the seven habits is to “seek to understand before being understood.” This is what he was talking about.

Listen with the intent to understand. Practice it. Use it often. You’ll be amazed at how much people are willing to share with you and how much they’re willing to listen to and understand your point-of-view.
Try it. It will be refreshing.

And one more solid point: In my book, Trust Me: Developing A Leadership Style People are Willing to Follow, the number one trait of great leaders is humility. The foundation of humility is the willingness to listen with the intent to understand.

What’s your reaction when someone actually listens to you and truly wants to understand?

This post was originally posted here on January 15, 2015.
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LeadershipREPOST

REPOST: Performance vs Trust

by Ron Potter
A Note From the Editor:
As we recently mentioned, we are reposting popular blog posts while Ron is recovering from some health issues.

Those are not my words.  Those were spoken by Simon Sinek.  If you have not discovered Mr. Sinek, look up his website.  I read him and Share Parrish more than any other blog writers out there.

Navy Seals

Simon talks about working with Navy Seals.  Navy Seals are probably the highest-performing teams on the planet.  In his work with Seals, he asked, “How do you choose the guys that make it to Seal Team 6?” Seal Team 6 is the best of the best.  The Seals drew the following graph:

Leader or Teammate

Nobody wanted someone from the lower left: Low Performer and Low Trust.

Everyone wanted someone from the upper right: High Performer and High Trust.

When Simon asked them which type of person they want as a leader or teammate, they all said they would prefer someone on the right side of the chart than the best performer who had low trust.

Keep in mind that these are the highest-performing teams in the world.  But they would select Trust over Performance when it came to a leader or a teammate.

Corporations Have it Backward

In my thirty-plus years dealing with corporations and corporate reviews, they have all been heavily weighted toward the left side of the chart.  They graded and promoted people based on their performance rather than the trust they exhibited or expected.  It’s interesting to note that the Navy Seals termed that upper-left leader or teammate as toxic!  Regardless of high performance, if the person wasn’t trustworthy, they were toxic.

Performance Reviews

Why do corporate reviews focus so much on high performance rather than high trust?  I’m sure there are many reasons but the two that I see as most prevalent are:

  1. Corporations often want high performance (get the job done now) over anything else.  Part of the reason is that public corporations have bowed to quarterly reporting.  If the return isn’t better that quarter, the leadership is often called on the carpet by Wall Street and the Investors.  They don’t want to be in that position.  Therefore, they promote people who produce high results, regardless of the internal costs.  Remember that the Navy Seals labeled them as toxic.
  2. It’s easier to measure performance than trust.  With performance, it’s easy to check the box.  Was the goal met or exceeded?  Was it done on or ahead of schedule?  Easy to measure and identify.
    Does the person generate trust within their team?  Hard to predict.  The results may not show up for a long time.  Corporate leaders want results this quarter, not three years from now.

Trust Builds Long-Term Performance

I’ve worked with a few leaders who ranked high on the trust scale.  There are more stories, but two that come to mind include one leader who I worked with about a decade ago.  Three members of his team are now CEOs of three different companies.  He built trust!

Another CEO I worked with started two companies and built leadership teams that now run or are high-ranking leaders in several corporations.

Both of these leaders (and there are a few more) built leadership teams based on trust.  That doesn’t mean they ignored performance, but trust ranked higher when it came to evaluations.

Visit Simon Sinek’s youtube talking about Performance vs Trust.  Then evaluate what kind of leader or teammate you happen to be.  Then think about the type of leader or team you want to be a part of.  If you don’t like the answer to either of those questions, make a change!  If you’re the kind of person that believes outperforming everyone is what will make a difference in your life, you’re in for a shock.  You’ll end up very lonely.

If you’re the kind of person who exudes and promotes trust, you’ll find yourself much loved!

Lonely or loved.  You make the choice.

This post was originally posted here on May 7, 2020.
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BlogLeadership

Leading Change

by Ron Potter

The basis for this blog is a Harvard Business Review article by Patti Sanchez titled “The Secret to Leading Organizational Change is Empathy.”

I’ve had several experiences in my consulting career and personal life that emphasize the importance of empathy. One of them was a personal experience.

The Association

We moved into a new city several years ago to be closer to one daughter and her family. This particular family lived in the Middle East for at least ten years and we wanted to spend more time getting to know our grandkids before they went off to college. After looking at several possible locations we settled on a small community of condos within a couple of miles of our daughter’s house.

After a few years, I was asked to be the association president. The president before me had been in that position for several years and it seemed to him he was constantly dealing with conflict. When I agreed to run and won the presidential position, his words to me were something like, “Good Luck. This is a rough crowd.” He felt like there were competing desires within the homeowners and there was no way to reconcile them.

There were only sixteen homeowners in the association, so the first thing I decided to do was get to meet and listen to the needs of each of them. I had no agenda and no particular goal. I just wanted to listen and show empathy.

I visited each of the sixteen families and just listened. No goal. No timeframe. No rush. Each family invited me in and talked with me about their situation and desires. I made no attempt to correct or guide them, I just wanted to hear them. I left each visit with no promises made. I had just listened.

There were a couple of difficult issues that the association faced. After those visits, I formulated my plans (with the executive team) and let the residents know what I was going to recommend for a vote at our annual meeting a few weeks later. They had been controversial issues for a few years and I wondered how the discussion and vote would go. There wasn’t much discussion, so we put the issues to vote. All the issues were passed by unanimous votes. People felt they had been listened to. In fact even now, several years later, one of the residents who had been the most controversial and vocal calls me “the best president they ever had.” Why? Because I listened to her with empathy.

Who’s the Boss?

Another issue I remember is related to my consulting career. The CEO resided in the US but they had major operations in Europe and SE Asia. The European leader for the company was Irish and resided in Ireland. He was an authoritarian leader. People did what he told them to do or else. After our team meeting about leading with empathy, I was hoping he would change. Unfortunately, not.

When I began to talk with him about being a leader, I asked him to describe what a leader was like. He proceeded to tell me about the British ruling Ireland. The Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland by English kings happened in the last 1100s. His view of being a strong leader went back nearly a thousand years. But to him, a great, strong leader was based on England ruling Ireland. He wasn’t about to shake that image that a ruler was someone who came in and subjugated people to do what they were told when they were told.

Experience

Question your own thoughts and motives. What has your experience taught you? Who empowers you as an employee, that controlling boss who keeps you under his thumb or the empathetic boss who makes you feel like you’re a part of what’s going on?

Most often people think of an empathic leader as weak and a controlling leader as strong. That’s not true. A great empathic leader is one who helps you grow, develop, listen, and help your team make decisions. A controlling leader is one who makes all the decisions and expects you to respond. My observation over the years is that good people will leave a boss like that as quickly as possible. The people who stay under those conditions are sometimes referred to as “yes men” and all the creativity leaves the organization. Believe me, now and in the coming years creativity will become more and more required. Without it, companies will die quickly.

Fortune 500

Only sixty companies remain that were in the Fortune 500 after WWII. Why is that? One of my beliefs is that after WWII, most of the companies on the list were being run by officers from the war. They knew how to “command.” They expected their commands to be carried out without question. Companies were generally not creative. In order to survive the coming years, companies (leaders) will be required to be creative.

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BlogLeadership

Boss – Leader

by Ron Potter

On LinkedIn the other day, Fabio Moioli displayed a chart with the differences between a Boss and a Leader.  I thought it was well done and here are the ten he listed:

Touchy, Feely Consultant

The more I looked at the list the more powerful it became.  I’ve had bosses that fit mostly in the Boss category and a few bosses that fit into the Leader category.  I had a very successful consulting career for 30 years.  As I looked at the list and thought about how I conducted my consulting work, I believe much of the success I experienced was due to the fact that I worked off the Leader list as much as possible.  It also struck me that it had been very difficult functioning as a helpful consultant when the person I was working with believed very much in the Boss list.

I remember one vice president who functioned on the Boss side of the ledger.  To start with, he could just not figure out why his boss had hired me to help him with his leadership skills.  After all, he had been very successful (in his mind) working on the Boss side of the ledger.  Why on earth would he need this touchy, feely consultant?  He just didn’t get it.

Almost everyone who had worked for him over the years had either asked for a transfer or left the company.  When I asked him about that statistic, he considered them weak and blamed them for their failures.  It obviously had nothing to do with him.

Boss vs Leader

If you’re in a leadership position, think about each of those terms.

  • When you’re talking about the success of your group, are you talking about the great example you presented so that your team would do the right thing?
  • When you give an assignment to one of your direct reports, do you explain every detail and how you want it done, or do you allow them to be creative?  I’ve worked with people who had that micromanaging boss and it wasn’t long before they stopped taking any initiative and just waited for the boss to tell them what to do.
  • It’s easy to criticize.  It takes work and discipline to encourage when things go wrong.  I’m a football fan.  You can always tell what kind of coach you’re watching just by how they treat their players when the player makes a mistake.  Those who encourage the player and help them learn build great teams full of players that want to do their best.
  • Focusing on weaknesses vs strengths can be a tough one.  I don’t believe it’s a good idea to ignore weaknesses but it’s also important to help your team learn from their weaknesses and turn them into strengths.
  • I’ve also been in team meetings where the boss never shuts up.  Pretty soon most of the participants tune out what is being said and never learn.  The leader who listens and encourages grows great teams.
  • Whether they intend to or not, bosses are always inspiring others.  They either inspire fear or enthusiasm.  Inspiring fear brings the growth of a team to a halt.  As a leader, make sure others are inspired to be enthusiastic and do better.  Growing teams become powerful teams.

Easy to Get Trapped

It’s very easy to remain a Boss when you should be a Leader.  Being a Leader brings risks.  If the team fails, you feel like you’re failing.  But don’t make the mistake of believing that being a Boss will eliminate failure.

The best approach to becoming (or remaining) a Leader is to have a confidant who will tell you the straight story.  This confidant may be an outside or inside consultant.  It may be someone on the team who you trust and who is not afraid to tell you straight out how you’re performing.  It may be someone totally removed from the work environment that you can talk with and be straight with and they’ll be straight with you.

But all of these things are difficult to see on your own.  It takes a partner of some sort who you trust will give you the straight scoop.

Being a Leader

It’s difficult to be a Leader.  It takes hard work, good listening skills, and a lot of humility.  Find someone you trust who you can be honest with and they’ll be honest with you.  It will pay you great rewards.

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BlogLeadership

CEO Quotes

by Ron Potter

I came across an interesting article the other day that talked about the important work of a CEO.

This particular CEO wanted to develop a particular type of platform and started the development in his living room.  Today, over 830 million people from around the world are members and use the platform regularly.

In the article, this CEO states that he could not have had success without the help of his friends.  He says that “friends will be absolutely central to your sense of happiness, connection and meaning.”

Most people would assume he experiences happiness through his success in business.  He says happiness comes from the connection of friends, regardless of financial success.  Following are four lessons he learned from his friends.

Appreciate Other Perspectives

Early in his career, one of his colleagues stated that he seem to know nothing about how women thought and acted.  He realized there was an entire perspective of the world around him that he knew nothing about.  He asked his colleague to help him out.  His reaction was, “When there’s something important you don’t know, real friends will tell you about it.”

Realizing Your Purpose

Soon after leaving college, he was grappling with the question of “What do I want to do with my life?”  Again, another friend said, “Don’t sit there feeling like you don’t know what to do.  Go do something.”

I’ve mentioned in previous blogs that many people don’t do anything because they don’t feel qualified.  Notice the quote above.  It doesn’t say go get qualified to do something, but go do something!  I had three major careers in my 40 years of business.  I didn’t feel qualified to do any of them, I just started.  If I had waited or worked at becoming qualified, it’s likely I wouldn’t have accomplished any of the three.

Saying “No” to Yes Men

Here is what the CEO is quoted saying: “We all seek validation or approval in one way or another.  While it’s good to have friends that support what you do, it’s more important to have friends that can tell you the truth, even if it may hurt.”  He also says, “Friends will tell you not what you want to hear, but that you need to hear.”

Helping Your Friends Help You

The CEO says that the most important lesson is that “Your friends help you the most by letting you help them.”

That CEO is Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn.  I don’t know Reed and I have never worked for Linkedin, but I’m going to trust that Reed not only believes but lives these lessons.

I did consult for a multi-billion dollar firm several years back.  The CEO used much of that same language.  However, he thought of himself as a teacher.  He didn’t need to learn these things, he needed to teach others.  I watched as he would meet with people below his direct reports to impart these wisdoms.  However, with his direct reports, he acted as if he knew it all and didn’t need that “friend” described above.  His direct reports never cared for him and his tenure with that company was short-lived.

These are great quotes from Reid.  Just make sure they apply to everyone in your life.  You may have worked for three or four decades but that brand new employee is capable of asking the question that helps you.  Apply it to friends, family, and others that you encounter along the way.  You’ll learn and grow from each encounter.

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BlogLeadership

Humility isn’t a Byproduct of Heroism, it’s a Precondition.

by Ron Potter

I recently read an article by Sam Walker in the Wall Street Journal that had an amazing headline.  That headline: “In a Life-or-Death Crisis, Humility is Everything”

In the article Walker writes about:

  • Alfred Haynes, the pilot that brought the DC-10 to a landing after the rear engine blew up and took out all three of the planes independent hydraulic lines
  • Chesley Sullenberger, who ditched a plane in the Hudson River without a single fatality after losing two engines. (Tom Hanks made the movie “Sully” based on the accident.)
  • Luis Urzua, the forman at the Chilean mine cave-in that helped his team survive 10 weeks before a rescue could happen.

Humility was the Common Denominator

The common denominator in each of the cases was the humility of the leaders.

In the first example, Captain Haynes was faced with a hydraulic failure that engineers pegged at roughly a billion to one chance of happening.  When Haynes asked his flight engineer to look up the procedure for steering a DC-10 under these circumstances the flight engineer replied “There isn’t one.”  Haynes didn’t get angry, he just went to the next possible solution.  Capt. Haynes spoke calmly and clearly to ground controllers and even thanked them for their assistance.

Six days later, he was healthy enough to be wheeled not a press conference.  “There is no hero,” he said, “There is just a group of four people who did their job.”

He never took any personal credit.  He placed all the credit on his crew doing their job.  He was humble.

In the second example, Sully, in his first public statement said that after losing both engines and ditching his plane in the Hudson River without a single fatality said, “We were simply doing the jobs we were paid to do.”  He was humble.

In the last example of the Chilean mine cave-in, Luis Urzua, after being trapped below ground for ten weeks insisted on being the last man out when rescue finally came.  He was humble.

Humble Business Leaders

Sam Walker suggests that many of these celebrated leaders have a remarkable mix of courage and humility.  On the surface, these two words seem to be the opposite of each other.  Can you be courageous and humble at the same time?  Can you display courage while being humble?  Yes, you can!

In fact, it’s important that you exhibit and live both.  Most business leaders seldom face situations where they make life or death situations.  At least not in those terms.  But often leaders face situations where the work lives and livelihood of many of their employees lie in the balance.  It takes courage to make and then stick with those kinds of decisions.

Several years ago one of my clients faced that kind of decision.  They were going to have to terminate the jobs of a large percentage of employees.  It was a gut-wrenching decision.  This company had facilities all over the country.  The employees didn’t work in one location.  Based on that dispersion of employees around the country that would be losing their jobs, they decided to rent jets so that they could visit every location over the span of two days.

In those two days, they sat with the employees that were going to be impacted and listened to their feelings and concerns.  They didn’t explain why the decisions had to be made or the logic behind the decision.  They just listened.  After each meeting, the employees still felt bad about what they were facing but they also felt that had been listened to and understood.  They had experienced humble leaders who were making courageous decisions.  In the end, those employees moved on quicker and felt better about the culture of the company.  They had experienced humble leaders.

Courageous and Humble

It takes both.  Courageous decisions are often without the needed ingredient of humility.  In this case, humility requires listening and empathizing.  It also takes courage to provide both of those.

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BlogLeadership

Papa by the Pond

by Ron Potter

The Essay

This was an essay written by my granddaughter:

“Bend your knees,  watch the ball, steady swing.  Good Job, you hit the green.”  A very influential person in my life has been my grandfather.  He has taught me so many things.  Through all the ups and downs of life, he has been the same Papa Bear who is always cheering me on and making me feel special.  I want him to know I appreciate everything he has done in my life and even the small acts of kindness don’t go unnoticed.

My grandpa is the most kind-hearted person I know.  He is always asking how I’m doing, my opinion on things, and what I’m interested in.  He always wants to know about what I’ve been up to and he never gets bored when we talk.  My grandpa asked me what my favorite TV show was.  I said The Flash.  That night he went home and started watching it.  The next time I saw him he had all these questions for me about the show.  He made me feel really special and like someone cared about my opinion.  My grandpa has so much kindness in his heart and he shows it to everyone.  He has shown me there is always a reason to be kind to someone and strive to live that way every day.

Papa Potter has had many health problems but he never lets them keep him from still investing in my life or playing golf with his friends.  He takes time with everyone he cares about and makes sure they know he loves them and they are important.  My grandpa makes me feel so special even with all the things going on in his life and being super tired all the time.  He still takes the time to teach me to golf or just talk.  He takes his time every summer to take all the grandchildren to the golf course.  He lets all of us hit as many as we want and gives us pointers so we can get better. My grandpa has taught me that even with everything going on in this world, I can’t let it take up my whole life.  Even if I am stressed and have multiple things going, it doesn’t need to control my life.  I have to keep living and loving.

Last year, my grandpa received the Alumni of the Year award from his high school.  He had to make a speech for the event and he never talked about himself.  He only talked about all the people who influenced him.  He always cares about others before himself.  He has shown me it is really important to be humble and care for others and not be so consumed with one’s self.  No one will get anywhere in life if all they care about is themselves.  They won’t make life-long friends that will help them grow to become a better person.  Being humble is the most important thing my grandpa has taught me.

My grandpa is an engineer and he comes up with the coolest things to do with his grandchildren.  He makes the activities fun while still teaching us something important.  One summer, my family and I were up north at our cabin.  It is right by a little creek that we can float down.  He took us to the beginning of the creek and we would stop every 50 feet and then draw the shape of the creek and write down what we saw.  After we made it all the way to our cabin, we put all of our drawings together and made a map of the creek with all the bends and bridges.  It was the highlight of my summer.  My grandpa has a very innovative mind and puts so much energy into creating something fun for everyone.

I want to tell my grandpa I love him and thank him for everything he has done for me.  He has been the most influential person in my life and I don’t know what I would do without him.  He is such a kind and amazing human being.  I want him to know his grandchildren appreciate everything he has done because I know we don’t tell him enough. If I could tell him anything I would tell him I love him and he is my favorite person in the world.

My grandpa has taught me too many things to count.  The way he gives kindness, his drive, and his humility have all been very influential attributes in my life.  He is my favorite person.

I admit I cried when I read her essay.

Mentor

However, I immediately thought about being a mentor.  Many of the people that my granddaughter talks about in the alumni speech I would consider mentors.  They influenced my life.  They added directions to my thoughts and in many ways guided me.

Many of the things my granddaughter talks about in the essay should be considered mentoring—

  • Cheering another on.
  • Making another feel special.
  • Asking “How are you doing?”
  • Wondering “What’s your opinion on this topic?”

That is mentoring— building people up, helping them feel good about themselves and how they view the world.

Corporate Mentoring Programs

I’ve never been much of a fan of the structured mentoring programs I’ve seen at various corporations.  They too often seem about the older person parceling out their “wisdom” to the younger person.  They seem to be about tasks and projects, not about the value and worth of the employee.  They aren’t really mentoring programs, they’re more about training programs and telling the person what and how to do things.

True mentoring programs are powerful.  Pseudo mentor programs are somewhat demeaning.

Full Story

Just to give the full story here, when I told my granddaughter that I cried when I read her essay.  She said “Oh good.  When I tell my teacher that it will probably get me some extra credit.”

Oh well, so much for being a good mentor!

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BlogLeadership

Are You the Smartest or the Hardest Working?

by Ron Potter

Jamie Dimon has been a very successful leader of JPMorgan Chase for many years.  He talked of the traits to succeed that I found very interesting.

Traits of Successful Leaders

Mr. Dimon’s list of successful leadership traits included:

  • Humility
  • Openness
  • Fairness
  • Authenticity

He also included a shortlist of traits that don’t lead to being a successful leader.

  • Smartest person in the room
  • Hardest working person in the room

Later in the article, he enhanced these traits even further by distinguishing between management and leadership.

He identifies Management as

  • Get it done
  • Follow-up
  • Discipline
  • Planning
  • Analysis
  • Facts, facts, facts

This is a great list and is much needed to run a business.  But these are management traits, not leadership traits.

Dimon goes on to say that the key to leadership is not just doing the management thing but having respect for people. (Italics mine)

Elements of Leadership

Humility.  This is the number one trait of great leadership that I list in my book Trust Me.  The understanding of humility has taken a wrong turn since the original definition.  Humility is not being a doormat or turning the other cheek.

The original definition of humility meant tremendous power under complete control.   Notice that there is tremendous power.  Much of that power is identified in Dimon’s management list above.  But leadership has this strong element of humility.  One of the key elements of humility is having a deep respect for every individual.  If that respect is not there, it leaves untethered power.

Humility is the number one issue of great leadership.  Humility doesn’t happen without a deep respect for each individual.

Openness.  Some of the words related to openness include accessible, lack of secrecy, and frankness.  Being open means that you’re accessible.  Being accessible in general, people can talk with you at any time about anything.

Being accessible in meetings—because people feel and experience the respect you have for them, they are completely at ease talking about any issue.  And because you’re frank, they also know they can state their beliefs and assumptions and they’ll hear the same from you.  They also know that your frank opinion is not the final say but another point of view to be considered in the “team” decision.

Fairness.  Once again, a dictionary definition is very helpful:  “Impartial and just treatment or behavior without favoritism or discrimination.”  Can you see the equal respect for each individual in that statement?  Being fair with your team means taking each and every opinion and belief as equally valid.

Great teams understand that their individual beliefs and assumptions may not be the final answer but if they feel listened to with great respect, then they believe a great team decision will result.

Authenticity.  Authentic people are the same no matter what the circumstances.  There’s no question that you’ll hear the same thing from an authentic person regardless of who they’re speaking to.  They’ll say the same thing to an employee as they will to their boss.  There is no doubt in anyone’s mind.  They are simply themselves regardless of the situation or person they’re speaking with.

Be authentic.  Not being authentic is clearly and immediately noticeable by anyone and everyone.

Are You a Great Leader?

Or do you hope to become a great leader?  Yes, you’ll need to be a good manager but “good” managers begin to let their leadership traits come through even when they’re in a management position.  Even if you’re just a manager you can let the traits of a leader—Humility, Openness, Fairness, Authenticity—come through.

Great leadership traits always shine brighter than great management abilities.

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BlogLeadership

The Good Ole Days

by Ron Potter

Notice anything unusual about these medieval castle ruins?  You wouldn’t unless you knew it was built in the 18th century to resemble a medieval castle constructed in the mid-five hundreds.

Why do we have this fascination with the “good ole days”?

The Good Ole Days

I was born in the late nineteen forties.  So for me, the good ole days were probably the decade of the ’50s.  I have fond memories of lying in the front yard at night, looking at the stars, and listening to the Tigers play baseball on my portable radio.

We lived in the country about 3 miles from town.  I remember getting on my bike and riding to town and anywhere else I wanted to go.

We also lived on a piece of property with a wonderful stream running through it.  I remember leaving the house with my Red Rider BB gun.  On every occasion, my mother would say “don’t get wet!”  And on every occasion, I would come home wet.

To me, those were the good ole days.

But they weren’t all good.  I remember doing nuclear bomb drills at my school where we got under our desks.  Seems ridiculous now but that was all we had at the time.  My dad who had lost a leg in WWII built a new house in the early ’50s.  Off one corner of the basement, he built what we knew as the “storm shelter” but as I look back today, it may have been his attempt to build a bomb shelter.

Those “good ole days” were not all good.  But my memories of the good parts seem to outweigh the bad parts.  Research demonstrates that our mind enhances those good moments to the point of fantasy.  They were good but not as good as we remember.

The Good Ole Days were short-lived

For me, those good ole days were pretty much the 50’s.  The 60’s brought the sexual and drug revolution.  I didn’t understand or get involved with either.  I had a family member who dropped out of college in his senior year and moved to Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco.  That made no sense to me at all.

By the 70’s, I had graduated from Engineering School and was working.  I enjoyed it but it was work.  Not like the good ole days of being carefree.

In the ’80s I started a software company.  It was a new technology and it was exciting.  But still not like the good ole days.

From the ’90s on I had moved into Leadership and Team consulting and coaching.  Probably the most satisfying work I could imagine but I also had to sit in an airplane seat for 4 million miles to accomplish it.  Still not the good ole days.

So I began to wonder, are everyone’s “good ole days” short-lived and from an earlier part of their lives?  I imagine they could come from any portion of our lives but I believe they are probably short-lived.  So why this yearning for the good ole days when it was such a small portion of our lives?  A Wall Street Journal article indicated that 41% of Americans believe life is worse today than 50 years ago.

Placing our Identity in the past can be both natural and useful

I must admit that much of my identity is based on my life during the ’50s.  Life seemed to be simpler.  Life seemed to be more about community.  Life seemed to be more carefree.  I would head out the back door and jump on my bike and head in almost any direction I wished.  My grandchildren don’t have that kind of freedom today.  It’s sad to me but I also need to remind myself that every generation has probably experienced very changes.

Leaders and Team Members

I think the lesson here is to not get too stuck in our own “good ole days”, no matter how recent or distant.  I entered the workforce in the early seventies.  That was less than 30 years after the end of WWII.  America was rebuilding and the management approach of the day was built on a military model that many of the leaders had experienced first hand.  But that model was already beginning to chafe on the young generation (me) who wanted to be more entrepreneurial and innovative and not just do what we were told to do.

After starting in traditional engineering work, I saw my first microcomputer.  This was new and exciting and I wanted to be a part of it.  When I told my boss that I wanted to shift out of engineering and into microcomputers his response was “what’s a microcomputer?” I said hang on, you’ll find out.  In a few years, we had shifted the work that we had been doing on an IBM370 which we leased for tens of thousands of dollars per month to microcomputers that cost almost nothing in comparison.

Millennials

As I was wrapping up my 50 years in the business world, almost every leader I was working with was complaining about the millennial generation and their lack of a good work ethic.  I watched that generation get excited about things and put in many hours and a lot of brainpower.  They were working through something entirely new and exciting and different than any company had seen before.  It’s not that they didn’t have a work ethic (good ole day thinking) but they liked tackling things in new and innovative ways.  They were doing things differently, just like every generation before them.

As a leader, you need to keep an open mind and watch with curiosity and interest how the next generation is tackling things.  Mentor them.  Guide them.  Don’t tell them they need to do things as it has always been done in the good ole days.

Learn from them.  One of your jobs as a leader is to keep learning.

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BlogLeadership

Being Smart vs Not Being Stupid

by Ron Potter

It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten

by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.

– Charlie Munger, Berkshire Hathaway.

Most of us would consider Charlie and his partner, Warren Buffet, as being really intelligent.  And yet, here he is saying it’s more advantageous to be consistently not stupid.

Let’s examine those two words—intelligent and stupid.

Intelligent

One definition is “having or showing intelligence, especially of a high level.” (Italics is mine.)

I believe it’s one thing to be intelligent but a very different thing to show intelligence.  We’ve all seen or even commented on the person who is highly intelligent but seems to have no “common sense”.  It’s one thing to be very intelligent about a specific issue but in general, not understanding how the world works as a whole (common sense).

It took me too long to figure this one out.  As a youngster in high school, I was often reminded how intelligent I was.  I just seemed to “get things” like math and physics (not so much chemistry though…) and I had a great curiosity for geography and history.  These were subjects that just came to me.

I wasn’t trying to be the top student but I found I could get acceptable grades just by being smart.

Upon entering Engineering School things were a bit more difficult but once again, I just seemed to get most of the topics without a great deal of effort.  I found I could be one of the fastest at calculations.  I could often just see things and come up with the right answer in my head.  Once again, being highly intelligent seemed to be all I needed.

It wasn’t until I began my career as a leadership and team consultant and coach that I began to realize that being right wasn’t the best approach.  If I acted too smart, there was always someone there to shoot me down at the first opportunity.  My intelligence was not going to help me be a good coach and consultant.

I remember working with one team of a very large corporation that seemed to be stuck.  One of the youngest members of the team asked for some personal time with me.  His first question was “You see what’s going on don’t you?”  My answer was yes.  With that, he then asked, “Are you going to get in there and tell them what they’re doing wrong?”  My answer was no.  He seemed astonished.  Why would I not tell them exactly what I was seeing in order to correct it?  I explained to him that I can’t teach anyone anything, the only thing I can do was to help them learn.

I had learned that being right carried no weight at all.  Helping them learn at their own pace was the only thing that worked regardless of what I was seeing.

Stupid

Stupid is as stupid does.

– Forest Gump.

Don’t confuse stupid with ignorance.  Ignorance means “lack of knowledge or information.”  Ignorance is simply a lack of knowledge.  Stupid has full knowledge—you just ‘know better’.

Maybe one of the best ways to look at the word stupid is by examining its antonyms.  These antonyms include brainy, bright, clever, fast, nimble, quick, quick-witted.  Remember that these are antonyms.

That means stupid is not:

  • brainy
  • bright
  • clever
  • fast
  • nimble
  • quick
  • quick-witted

Remember that Charlie says the advantage comes by not being stupid.

Don’t be brainy, bright, or clever.  All of these signal that you’re smarter than everyone else.

Don’t be fast or nimble.  The means you reach your conclusions quickly.  You’re not listening well and trying to absorb what’s being explained.

Don’t be quick or quick-witted.  Quick-witted means coming to quick, humorous conclusions.  This can often mean that you’re covering up your own stupidity by offering a humous statement— that covers up your lack of understanding.

Consistently not Stupid

Charlie says they try to be consistently not stupid.  This means it takes a great deal of effort to continually act in a non-stupid way. 

I believe the key to being consistently ‘not stupid’ is to be consistently humble.

It takes a great deal of effort to overcome our natural desire to be the best.  But being the best doesn’t mean having the answer first and always being right.  Being the best means sharing your opinions when it makes sense and always realizing that they are only your opinions.

Fully respecting others and their opinions makes you the best and goes a long ways toward not being stupid.

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