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The Motivation of Money

by Ron Potter July 6, 2017

Clotaire Rapaille. If the name alone doesn’t fascinate you, his life story and his life work should.

I don’t have time to tell his story here but read his book The Culture Code: An Ingenious Way to Understand Why People Around the World Live and Buy as they Do

I had the opportunity to work with Dr. Rapaille for a short period years ago. But what I learned during that time sticks with me. Dr. Rapaille was performing a series of “syndicated studies” for major corporations around the world on various topics. One topic was about Rewards and Recognition, what motivated people. It was very clear from the global study that people were not motivated by money. In fact, it turns out that every time money is involved, in the form of a bonus, pay raise, profit sharing or whatever the mechanism, the deep-down belief in people was that the company had simply leveled the playing field using the money. Put simply, money was granted when they had already given the company an extraordinary effort. The company was simply “leveling the playing field” by rewarding them with money. Money was not a motivator, it simply made things even.

I know a young entrepreneur who is creating and growing a successful company. In my conversation with her the other day, she spoke of how she sits down with each employee at the beginning of the quarter to talk about how the employee wants to grow personally and what they would like to learn. They always find an opportunity for growth and development for the employee that would also benefit the company. By funding the personal growth and development of the employee she keeps them motivated and benefits the company through increased skills and capabilities.

Dr. Rapaille’s study answered the question, if not money, what was motivating. The answer to this began to take on the idea of a GPS system. All employees are on a journey to somewhere. There may be long-term goals and there are always short-term goals. Short-term goals might be related to having a young family and needing more time to be with them. Or trying to finish an advanced degree and needing the resources, time and tutoring to accomplish the goal. Long-term goals might include living in a particular geographical region, reaching a certain level of corporate leadership or even retiring at a young age.

The conclusion of the study? To really reward and motivate your people, you must know them and their journey. You must understand their GPS system and where they’re located on that trajectory. Once you’ve made enough personal connection with them to understand their current location, reward them by helping them get to the next mile-marker on the journey.

After a period of heavy dedication, send them home for a few days with their family.
Give them some time off to study for that next exam. Offer the help of someone who knows the topic well.
Give them some great feedback and then training to help them with the next stage of professional growth, not a one-size-fits-all training and development.
Whatever reward personally benefits them, that’s rewarding!

Two decades ago it took a high priced, global study to help managers understand what’s motivating to their employees. My young entrepreneur understood it instinctively.

Every leader/manager I know is asking me about the millennials and what motivates them. It seems to be a mystery. I have one piece of solid advice. Don’t ask me. Ask them!

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The Sweet Rewards of Humility

by Ron Potter July 3, 2017

Humility is costly, but there are incredible and often surprising rewards for leaders who recognize their own personal strengths and limitations while seeing and encouraging the greatness in others. Sometimes the ramifications of this timeless insight bring a smile.

Imagine a traditional, buttoned-down, classy department store with the expected crew of nicely dressed, decorous department managers and floor workers. In the midst of this stable setting appears a freewheeling bohemian hippie throwback with an attitude!

While consulting with a large department store chain, we encountered such a situation with a particular store employee. The management team just did not respect this guy because he did not fit the mold of the “perfect” floor salesperson. He dressed way too casually (did he even own a tie?). He wore his hair very long. His humor was caustic. He talked too loudly and joked too much. The only thing standing between him and a pink slip was the small matter of performance. He was positively brilliant at what he did!

His specialty was the children’s clothing department where the kids (and moms) loved him. To them, he was a funny, warm, and highly entertaining friend, a trusted advisor in selecting the best things to wear. Because the customers understood this man’s intentions—he loved meeting kids on their level and serving them—his countercultural appearance and behavior didn’t matter much. As long as his creative approach and personality accomplished the mission, he deserved to be a hero of management, not a personnel headache.

This man definitely was a diamond in the rough.

Sure, this example may be a bit extreme, but it illustrates the principle beautifully: A humble leader, who is not too full of self, has the capacity and good sense to allow others to sparkle and make a difference.

Many times a humble leader discovers strengths in his or her coworkers that even they have failed to detect.They relish the idea of helping people find their unique niche. They enjoy moving people along to bigger and better things. They celebrate the victories and provide encouragement when their people are discouraged or fearful of moving ahead.

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Blog Culture

Where are you in the Pecking Order?

by Ron Potter June 29, 2017

Maybe you’ve never been around chickens very much. This is where the term comes from. In the mid-1920’s a German author described the hierarchical structure of chickens. “Defense and aggression in the hen is accomplished with the beak.” The ones with higher authority peck the others with their beak. Fun to watch in chickens. Not so fun when you’re the one being pecked.

Egalitarian

Some companies have tried to eliminate the pecking order. One modern online retailer had attempted to get rid of the corporate hierarchy. However, some recent articles about the company have indicated that they’re experiencing an extremely high level of departures and turn over. I’m always hesitant to attribute a statistic like that to any one issue. But, one article I read indicated that the CEO wrote a very long memo offering employees three months’ severance if they felt that self-management and self-organization were not a fit for them. Ouch, that felt like a peck to me.

Hierarchy Can Work

I found two Stanford studies interesting. One concluded that egalitarian work structures were disorienting while hierarchical structures were more predictable and easier to understand which made them preferable. Another study said hierarchical structures had more staying power because they were practical and psychologically comforting. Now you could argue that predictable, practical and comforting are not the characteristics that will carry the corporation through the 21^st century. You may be right. But, I believe there is a deeper issue than just structure.

Trust is the Deeper Issue

Many of my corporate clients have asked me at one point or another about their organization structure. The basic question is “Should we be centralized or de-centralized?” My unsatisfactory response is that it doesn’t really make any difference. Every corporate structure is an artificial attempt at organizing people. There are positives and negatives to each approach. The most important is Trust. If there is a lack of trust in the organization any structure will be used for protection, security, and enforcement. If there is a great deal of trust in the organization, the structure seldom gets in the way, people simply want to work better together regardless of what the structure calls for.

I’ve had a few people in my life that have pecked at me. Starting with my mother and including a few teachers and mentors. If I knew we had trust and they cared for me, I didn’t really mind the pecking. If the trust wasn’t there, I felt they were pecking me just because they had a big beak.

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Blog Myers-Briggs Myers-Briggs Under Pressure

Myers-Briggs Under Pressure: Intuition

by Ron Potter June 26, 2017

I can’t possibly sort through all of these options. I’m already overwhelmed. We could work on this all weekend and we’d never get through everything we need to figure out. Stop! Don’t ask me again, I don’t know how were going to proceed through this morass! I need to get out of here, I’m starving and I need a drink.”

(If you didn’t start with the introduction to this “Meyers-Briggs Under Pressure” series, I suggest you make a quick review because it will help you better understand these subsequent blog posts.)

Teresa is stuck! She can’t seem to find her way out and she wants a clear path forward that cuts through all the information, data and options. Teresa’s dominant function is iNtuition (need for concepts, visions and future goals) and her inferior function is Sensing (need for detail and information).

There are four types that have this particular combination, the Introverted INTJ, INFJ and the Extraverted ENTP, ENFP. As noted above, the dominant function in all four cases is iNtuition and the inferior in all four cases is Sensing. These are what’s known as our Perceiving functions, how do we perceive the world around us? These are the functions that we use to take in the information that we’ll need to eventually make a decision.

In a healthy state, these Perceiving functions would then work in tandem with the “deciding” functions of Thinking or Feeling depending type. But, under pressure or stress, Teresa begins to lose this natural balance, falling back to her dominant function which has a need to know where all of this is going and becomes unable to combine it with her deciding function to keep things moving along. Teresa will retreat into her sensory pursuits of binge eating, drinking, TV watching, physical activities or whatever allows her to escape the fact that she’s stuck.

Balance, Balance, Balance

This is where team members and colleagues come into play. It’s difficult for any one of us to break out of these pressure packed situations. As colleagues, we want to help Teresa back into a balanced state by asking and sometimes even forcing her to use her auxiliary function. Notice that Teresa’s auxiliary function could be either Thinking or Feeling depending on type. Let’s start with the Thinking balance.

“Teresa, where do you think this will all lead?”

“I don’t know. None of it makes any sense to me yet.”

“I know, but tell me what you think will be the best answer in the end.”

“Well, it needs to provide us options once we get the product into the market place.”

“Great. Looking beyond the data for a moment, what step do we need to figure out next to give us options in the future?”

As we begin to force Teresa to try a little balancing act, she’ll begin to regain her footing. Note that we can’t tell Teresa what the final state should be. It has to be the act of balancing her own functions of iNtuition and Thinking that begins to restore her sense of balance and allows him to begin functioning on a more normal basis based on her own type.

If we’re dealing with either the INFJ or ENFP than Feeling is the auxiliary function, not Thinking. The approach is similar, just using Feeling questions rather than Thinking questions,

“Teresa, what are you worried about?”

“I don’t feel like I can figure out where this is all headed.”

“What values are you concerned that we’ll miss?”

“It could be any of them if we can’t figure out how this will end up.”

“Well, let’s talk through some scenarios and see how our values set with each of them?”

As Teresa begins to answer these very basic Feeling questions, she begins exercising her own balancing mechanisms and it begins to help him out of the rut. Teresa is regaining balance.

It doesn’t help to point out the values that we believe need to be protected. Our job is to help Teresa regain her own, natural balance.

Stay tuned. Next in our series titled “Myers-Briggs Under Pressure” we’ll shift our focus from the dominant styles centered on our perceiving function (sensing and intuition) to dominant styles based on our deciding functions of Thinking or Feeling. It’s an interesting shift.

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Blog Culture

Are you in business or busy-ness?

by Ron Potter June 22, 2017

I recently went through some physical therapy for a rotator cuff issue. As the therapist was doing what he was trained to do (push your body beyond all physical limits) he asked: “Are you in pain?” He wasn’t doing his job well enough unless I was experiencing excruciating pain (or so I thought). But he surprised me when he said, “I don’t just want you experiencing pain. However, if you’re experiencing true stretching and the discomfort that comes with it, that is positive. But, the old saying of ‘no pain, no gain’ is not helpful.”

I immediately understood what he was talking about and I could easily distinguish the difference between the pain that was coming from a healthy stretch vs. something that just hurt like it was causing damage.

Unfortunately, I feel we’ve lost this ability to distinguish between pain the stretching in our daily business lives. There is a stretching pain from:

Being productive
Trying new things
Reaching for new heights and
Pushing ourselves out of our comfort zones.

But there is also pain from:

Never saying No,
Tackling so much that we could never expect closure or even high levels of productivity and
Pain associated with the constant distractions of daily interruptions.

This is the pain caused by being busy. This is pain for pain’s sake. This is not healthy, this is torture.

Many of the teams I work with are asking for help to cure their stress. They know they’re in pain. You can see it on their faces. Their feeling trapped in busy-ness.

Business requires deep work. We need to be making better decisions than the competition. The word decide means to figure out what you’re not going to do, not just do more.

Not saying No.
Wall-to-wall meetings.
Conference calls
Text messages
Emails
Endless process of poor decision making

These are all signs of busy-ness and they’re killing us. Let’s start by doing some simple but profound things:

De-cide: Choose which option you’re going to kill.
Decision Process: Good decisions start by identifying the true owner of the decision. Most meeting thrashing is not over the decision itself but who really owns the decision. Determine that ahead of time, the decision will go much better.
Protect some deep work time. Give people space and time to think deeply about the situation. Wonderful and profound things happen.

Take a good hard look. Are you in business or busy-ness? If you’re truthful about the answer it will put you on a much healthier path.

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Blog Myers-Briggs Myers-Briggs Under Pressure

Myers-Briggs Under Pressure: Sensing

by Ron Potter June 19, 2017

I’m telling you it won’t work!! We’ve tried this a hundred times and it just never gets us anywhere. No, this is not a new approach and it won’t get us any closer than the last effort. We’re missing something. We just don’t have enough information to make the final decision. Now leave me alone so I can get the information we need from marketing, demographics, customer surveys, the last time we tried this, the data base, the internet, etc, etc, etc.”

(If you didn’t start with the introduction to this “Myers-Briggs Under Pressure” series, I suggest you make a quick review because it will help you better understand these subsequent blogs.)

Norm is stuck! He can’t seem to find his way out and he wants the security of more information and data. Often that information and data doesn’t exist, especially when we’re trying to make decisions about new directions or innovative approaches. Norm’s dominant function is Sensing (need for detail and information) and his inferior function is iNtuitive (conceptual and future focused).

There are four types that have this particular combination, the Introverted ISTJ, ISFJ and the Extraverted ESTP, ESFP. As noted above the dominant in all four cases is Sensing and the inferior in all four cases is iNtuitive. These are what’s known as our Perceiving functions, how do we perceive the world around us? These are the functions that we use to take in the information that we’ll need to eventually make a decision.

In a healthy state, these Perceiving functions would work in tandem with the “deciding” functions of Thinking or Feeling depending on type. But, under pressure or stress, Norm begins to lose this natural balance, falling back to his dominant function which has a need for more and more data and becomes unable to combine it with his deciding function to keep things moving along. Norm becomes very pessimistic about the future.

Balance, Balance, Balance

This is where team members and colleagues come into play. It’s difficult for any one of us to break out of these pressure packed situations. As colleagues, we want to help Norm back into a balanced state by asking and sometimes even forcing him to use his auxiliary function. Notice that Norm’s auxiliary function could be either Thinking or Feeling depending on type. Let’s start with the Thinking balance.

“Norm, what do you think the answer will turn out to be?”

“I told you I haven’t gathered enough information.”

“I know, but tell me what you’ve figured out so far.”

“Not much”

“That’s OK, just share the pieces that you’ve thought about. Even if they’re still open questions in your mind.”

As we begin to force Norm to try a little balancing act, he’ll begin to regain his footing. Note that we can’t tell Norm what we’re thinking. It has to be the act of balancing his own functions of Sensing and Thinking that begins to restore his sense of balance and allows him to begin functioning on a more normal basis for his own type.

If we’re dealing with either the ISFJ or ESFP than Feeling is the auxiliary function, not Thinking. The approach is similar, just using Feeling questions rather than Thinking questions,

“Norm, what’s bothering you about this decision?”

“I don’t know yet I just know something’s not right.”

“Let’s talk through the source of your concern.”

“I don’t even know what that is yet, I haven’t gathered enough data to even express what’s bothering me.

“Well, give me some clues. Is it a concern about values? Are you concerned about how people will react or be affected? Is it more anger or fear?”

As Norm begins to answer these very basic Feeling questions, he begins exercising his own balancing mechanisms and it begins to help him out of the rut. Norm is regaining balance.

It doesn’t help to point things out or share what we think or feel about the situation. Our job is to help Norm regain his own, natural balance.

Stay tuned, this was just the first of four installments about working under stress titled “Myers-Briggs Under Pressure”. Come back and join us for future installments.

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Blog Leadership

“Free-will” Doesn’t Exist

by Ron Potter June 15, 2017

This was a statement recently posted by Benjamin Hardy.

I didn’t agree. I believe in free-will, not predestination. People who take a very dependent approach to life don’t believe in free-will. They don’t believe their efforts can make a difference. They feel helpless because others will overrule them. They live a very sad life. Exercise your free-will. You’ll be happier!

But, as I read further I began to see what he was saying. There is a price to pay for the choices you make. That I agree with. There is always a price to pay. Even when you choose not to choose, there is a price to pay.

Time to Pay the Piper

Often the price to pay is some pain and suffering. If you’ve read many of my posts you’ve noticed my reference to Dr. Scott Peck’s book The Road Less Traveled. He explains that the root of mental illness is the avoidance of pain and suffering. Choosing not to pay the price at the moment (pain and suffering) will lead to some form of mental illness. The word that comes to mind most often is dysfunctional. We have a very dysfunctional team, company, environment… fill in the blank.

Dysfunction Junction

Why is it dysfunctional? Did someone decide there should be a dysfunctional team? Was that the desire, to work in a dysfunctional environment? Not consciously, but somewhere, the decision was made not to deal with a difficult issue. Therefore, with the decision made to avoid the pain and suffering in the moment, the consequence is a dysfunctional environment.

Time is a big cost issue when it comes to decisions.

Do I decide to help my employee learn a new process or take less time and do it myself?
Consequence: You will always need to do it yourself.

Do I decide to get the team on board before moving ahead or let them know the direction we will take?
Consequence: No buy-in. No engagement. Failed decision.

Do I decide to take the time for good deliberation or make a quick decision?
Consequence: People don’t believe in the decision and will continuing to support other directions.

Developing employees, getting buy-in, facing the dilemma of decisions all take time. Not paying the cost of time in the moment causes negative results. But those negative results may not become evident immediately. Later there is no visible cause and effect. People will say “It’s just dysfunctional.” No, that was the consequence of a decision you made.

There is no free-will. Every choice has a cost. And a consequence.

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Blog Myers-Briggs Myers-Briggs Under Pressure

Myers-Briggs Under Pressure: How MBTI Works

by Ron Potter June 12, 2017

How did we get to this point where one’s behavior looks like being a jerk to another person when we’re all trying to do our best?

(If you didn’t start with the introduction to the “Myers-Briggs Under Pressure” series, I suggest you make a quick review because it will help you better understand these subsequent blog posts.)

Order of Use

The two middle functions of Myers-Briggs (Sensing, iNtuition, Thinking and Feeling) are considered the decision making functions and each temperament type uses them in a different order.

Dominant Function

For instance, my temperament type of ENTJ (Extraverted, iNtuitive, Thinking, Judging) starts with the Thinking function being dominant. This means that I’m at my most natural using my Thinking function and will turn to it the most often when making a decision. Because it is my dominant function, I must have it satisfied if I’m to make a decision or support a decision.

Auxiliary or Supporting Function

Once my dominant function is satisfied (is it logical?) I will than turn to my auxiliary function to add balance and support to my dominant function. For my ENTJ preference, iNtuition will be my balancing function. So, once the decision seems to be logical or can be defended from a logical stand-point, my next question will be “Does it support or align with my conceptual view of the world of how things should be. This is my iNtuitive side.

Balance

First, notice that I have used my middle two functions of my Myers-Briggs type ENTJ. These are my dominant and auxiliary functions and must be satisfied for me to make and be comfortable with a decision. When I’m in balance and doing my best to solve problems and be in alignment with team decisions, I’m relying on these top two functions to be working in harmony.

Tertiary and Inferior Functions

The order of my last two functions, Sensing and Feeling happen with the Tertiary function (Sensing for the ENTJ) being 3^rd and Feeling being the last function in my decision making process. These two functions (notice they are not visible in my Type Indicator of ENTJ) will be used positively for getting outside the box of my normal thinking but will also show up when I finally “break” under the pressure and do or say something that I will likely regret later.

The role of Pressure and Stress

Under normal or healthy conditions, we all tend to function well in our dominant and auxiliary space. Our dominant function takes the lead but is open to and listens to our auxiliary functions for balance. We will likely pay attention to our 3^rd and 4^th function (Sensing and Feeling for the ENTJ) just to make sure we’re covering all the bases but they’ll tend to confirm decisions already made buy our first two functions. It’s important to note that I’ve always observed that the best of leaders seem to cycle through all four functions with equal emphasis so that the outside observer would have a difficult time determining which of the four functions is actually their dominant function. Balance, balance, balance.

But, under pressure or stress interesting things begin to happen. We immediately lose our ability to deal with our 3^rd and 4^th functions in a healthy, balanced way and in fact, we begin to lose our ability to balance our dominant function with our auxiliary function. We become stuck in our dominant function!

In fact, this is what begins to make us look like a jerk under pressure. Our normal balance begins to recede and we find ourselves working from our single dominant function which can get harsh and unyielding in many ways. In fact, if the pressure finally gets to the breaking point, we actually revert back to our inferior function. And unless we’ve worked at improving our behavior under pressure, we’re just not very good at expressing or dealing with our inferior function. That’s when we look and behave like a jerk!

We’ll begin to explore some of these issues in coming posts as we look at various types and how they might look like a jerk.

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Blog Culture

Can you Ignore the Obvious?

by Ron Potter June 8, 2017

A 19^th-century Russian author challenged his brother “Don’t think about a polar bear right now.” Our modern version might be:

Don’t think about:

That email right now
Your next meeting right now
The project that’s due on Monday right now
Any other obvious thing that occupies your mind right now

The point is, it’s very difficult to clear our mind of the many present and urgent things so that we can get into deep thinking and deep work. Interruptions, mental and otherwise get in the way.

I’ve written a few blog posts about the technology and “always connected” habits that we’ve gotten into that deplete our ability to think deeply about important issues. But, even if we eliminate the technology of the day (our Russian lived over 100 years before an internet browser existed) we still have difficulty avoiding the distractions of the moment.

I’ve been working at understanding my own distractions and how I can avoid them long enough to do some deep thinking. One model that comes to mind is the Kubler-Ross stages of grief.

I’ve used these stages as a model for dealing with difficult feedback. Maybe they can help us with distractions as well.

Stage 1: Denial

I can handle this.
It will only take a minute.
It doesn’t really distract me.
I can get back to my thoughts immediately.

The first stage is to get real about the impact of the distraction. Study after study tells us that if we divert our mind to another topic, it takes a great deal of time to get reoriented and back on track. Don’t kid yourself. Distractions are costly.

Stage 2: Emotion

With the Kubler-Ross model, we’re usually thinking about anger. But it’s not just anger, it’s any emotion. I think the distracting emotion here is elation.

It will be fun to just check Facebook for a minute.
I just want to see what last night’s scores were.
Connecting with my friend cheers me up.

Caving into your emotions is costly.

Stage 3: Bargaining

It’s only a few seconds.
This won’t take long.
I need the fix to keep my energy up.

You can bargain all you want but it’s still a distraction. Even the time it takes to bargain is costly.

Stage 4: Depression

What’s the point, I’ll never get good at this anyway.
What makes me think I could generate a good result simply by avoiding distractions.
I’m just not that good.

Avoiding time for deep thought for any reason is costly. Convincing yourself that you’re not good enough even if you give yourself the time becomes self-fulfilling.

Stage 5: Acceptance

I can get better at this.
I may stumble to start with but I’ll get better over time.
Each time I avoid the distractions helps me get better at doing it again next time.

Believing that you can do this and accomplish it in small steps is rewarding and avoids the cost.

Stage 6: Action

Once you get into the habit of avoiding the distractions you’ll be amazed at the productivity and joy it provides.

Kubler-Ross tells us that we go through all of these stages when it comes to grief. It’s just that each person goes through them at a different pace.

You’ll never avoid them but if you get good at speeding through them you get better. Just to make myself clear, speeding through them doesn’t mean caving into the distractions quicker. It means to get beyond the temptation of each stage quicker.

God speed.

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Blog Myers-Briggs Myers-Briggs Under Pressure

Myers-Briggs Under Pressure: Introduction

by Ron Potter June 5, 2017

We all develop our lenses through years of experiences, learning and observing. The lenses that I’ve developed through the years tend to be focused on leadership style, team building, decision making and other dynamics of leadership teams. (I like to think of the glasses Nicholas Cage uses to read the Declaration of Independence in the movie National Treasure.)

When I see what appears to be strange, unexplainable or dysfunctional behavior I’ll often flip the “blue” lens in place or maybe I need to add the “red” lens to the mix so that I can see a deeper image. The point is that with the right lens we can see and understand behavior and dynamics in most situations.

But what happens when you don’t have the right lens or haven’t developed the lens you need to understand a particular situation?

Reacting Under Pressure

There are too many times during a team meeting, especially a team under the stress of making a right decision during difficult conditions. when in a whisper or a side conversation I’ll hear someone say “What a jerk.” Nobody intends to be a Jerk. No one is sitting there trying to think about how royally could they screw up this decision making process. There not being a jerk, they’re just looking like a jerk through your lens. Try flipping down your “blue” lens to see how a particular temperament might react or behave in this situation. Maybe it begins to look more normal and understandable and not look like being a jerk. Still doesn’t explain all the behavior? Try flipping down your “red” lens to see how that temperament might behave under extreme pressure or maybe add the “green” lens to see what happens when that particular temperament finally hits the breaking point. Now that may not excuse the behavior but it sure explains it and helps us figure out how to support our colleague through these pressure moments.

Myers-Briggs Series

I’m going to start a series titled “Myers-Briggs Under Pressure” to talk about those moments when it seems like someone is being a jerk but in reality they’re simply performing in a manner that any person of their temperament type might behave under similar circumstances.

My goals are to:

Help you develop new lenses to see behavior in a new way and not write it off simply as someone being a jerk.
Give you new tools to help team dynamics improve overall.
Help you and others perform better under pressure
Prevent the breaking points when someone reacts in a way that makes it difficult to recover even with the best of efforts.

Withstanding Pressure

Hopefully we’ll change those opportunities from “Under Pressure” to “Withstanding Pressure” and here’s a healthier way to work that adds value to both the individuals and the whole team.

Stay tuned to “Myers-Briggs Under Pressure”

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Blog Culture

Never do this when seeking a promotion!

by Ron Potter June 1, 2017

You should never seek a promotion!

The word seek means to

Solicit
Beg
petition for

Don’t you just get a warm feeling when you think about solicitors or beggars or being asked to sign a petition?

Of course not. It feels like we’re being manipulated. When people seek promotions if feels the same way.

Why do people seek promotions?

What’s the mindset of those who are seeking a promotion?

The words I hear include statements like:

I deserve it.
I’ve been here the longest.
I have all the qualifications for the job.
I’m more qualified than the person being considered.
If I was in control of the larger group I could make things happen.

These sound like Level 2 of the 4 Levels of Happiness. Simply put, the four levels are:

Money
Ego
Serving
Teaming

When we’re seeking a promotion, we’re attempting to satisfy our ego.

What Happens when we get the promotion we seek?

If the promotion is received under these terms, what are your chances of success? Unfortunately, not great. There is very little support granted those who seek and then receive promotions.

They think they deserved it, let’s see them prove it.
Because they’ve been here the longest they think they can lead. They can’t.
They had the skills to do the work in their previous position. They don’t have the leadership skills to be successful in this position.
We should have hired the other person. It’s just a matter of time before this leads to failure.

How should we approach promotion opportunities?

If there’s a job posting and you’re interested in the position, please submit your application. Then let your work speak for itself.

After consulting with many leaders, it amazes me how many times I’ve heard “I wasn’t looking for this position. But, they promoted me into the job and I’m trying to do the best I can.”

Do your best where you are. That’s the key to promotion. Get better. Learn. Grow. Try things. Collaborate. See that others grow and get the credit for success. Strive to be better at what you do. That’s what gets promoted.

What happens when you get that promotion you were not seeking?

Then the things I hear are:

Give them a chance. They should have the opportunity to succeed.
I’ll give them a helping hand. They earned it.
If they make a mistake, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.

Can you see the difference in the responses? If you seek the promotion you’re on your own. Not even your boss, who may have promoted you will give you much support. But if you were working hard at being the best you could be at your position before you were promoted, people want to help. They want you to succeed. And most importantly, they’ll give you the time to be successful.

Will you sometimes be overlooked for a position? Quite likely. Would it have been better if you had sought the position? Absolutely not!

We’ve had the framework backward for a long time. Success doesn’t lead to happiness. Being happy leads to success. You will find that you’re the happiest when you’re doing your best, learning, growing and enjoying the moment.

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Blog Leadership

Would a good Spy make a good Leader?

by Ron Potter May 29, 2017

Yes, this sounds like another post I wrote recently but with a twist. Read on.

I love spy novels! One of the abilities that the good spy’s (at least the ones in novels) have is the ability to read micro expressions. Is the other person telling the truth or not?

This is not a novelist fantasy. There seems to be an actual science behind the idea of micro expressions. Following is the official definition:

Micro expressions are the rapid movements of facial muscles which show underlying emotions.

There are seven universal micro expressions:

Disgust
Anger
Fear
Sadness
Happiness
Surprise, and
Contempt

In my last Monday post, Dr. Hank Weisinger talks about using your own micro expressions to make a better decision. Can you also use them to become a better leader?

There is a great difference between managing and leading. Managing, at its best is:

guiding,
teaching,
instructing

Its purpose is to get things done in the most efficient way possible. Our corporations couldn’t survive without good management.

Leading is different. Leading is aligning peoples’ passions and personal growth ambitions with the company goals. If you’re good at seeing micro expressions, you can become a better leader.

One of my more painful moments in my work is watching good managers try to lead by managing more. The leader/manager ignores the expression of contempt that crosses the others face. Sometimes they seem to be unaware. Most of the time they’re taught or encouraged by their manager/leader to ignore it and keep managing. They believe that good leadership is driving people to work harder.

Good leaders help people tap into their own passion to achieve alignment with team goals. Good leaders pick up on the fear, sadness or happiness that crosses the person’s face. If they’re seeing anything but happiness, they’re asking questions and listening. When goals align with passions, happiness is obvious.

Good spy’s notice things that others miss. Good leaders see things that managers don’t. Moving beyond a good manager to a good leader is difficult. Micro expressions may help.

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