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Three Time Frames

by Ron Potter March 4, 2021

Raymund Chua was a client of mine many years ago. We built a good relationship and have stayed in touch with each other through the years. Raymund, living in Singapore, is doing some great work in Southeast Asia.

He posted something on LinkedIn the other day that I found very powerful because it was profound and simple at the same time.

Leadership Story

The chart is titled “The Three Timeframes” as part of a series called, A Leadership Story.

State of the Leaders Focus

Current – Next – Future

I’ve not only seen these states in various leaders, I’m aware that I also get “stuck” in one of the three states.

Possible Symptoms

This list is very interesting in that it shows the possible symptoms of each state.

Future Focus – Full of new ideas. Often not quite sure how to get there. Very Start-Up in its nature
Next Focus – Great initiatives but really never takes into account where the organization is or what they’re cable of doing.
Current State – Focused on doing well today with no thought of the future.

Which State is Best?

OK, trick question. While there may be moments in time when one state will serve better than the others, long-term all the states must be blended into the leadership thought. Let’s take a deeper look at each one of them.

Future Focus

This is an extremely valuable focus. Where is the future headed? What insights will prepare us for a future that is mostly unknown today? In the pandemic we’ve been experiencing which has caused tectonic shifts in our culture and way of doing business, this is a valuable focus.

What happens when the majority of people begin working from home?

Commercial real estate loses a great deal of its value.
Building teams becomes even harder when people are not able to be close to each other, shake hands, or put an arm around someone’s shoulder to offer some comfort.
It doesn’t matter where you’re located. Areas like New York City, Silicon Valley, Boston Rte 128, and others are no longer required living locations to be a contributing member of a high tech team.

I”m sure there are many other aspects of our future that we can’t even see yet.

But having a future focus will tune you into issues and moments that others may miss and could be extremely valuable.

However, being future focused comes with its drawbacks as well. I mentioned earlier that I get stuck in one of these states. This is the one that has been my nemesis and has added stress to my life through the years. Because I tend to be future focused, I look forward to what might be coming or what I may be able to experience in the year ahead. However, it is usually late February or March when I feel like the year is well underway and I’m bogged down in the ordinary and won’t be able to experience the fabulous future I had imagined. And by July or August, my sense is that the year is over and I might as well start focusing on the next one. Unfortunately, I’ve missed many wonderful things that happen “in the moment” because I’m so focused on the future.

You need all three.

Next Focus

I would probably call this “near” focus. These are the people who are focused on the near term —the next year if they are working in the business world.

They aren’t really thinking about the immediate or today’s problems and issues. They also are not thinking much beyond the year. There’s not much of what you would call future vision in their thinking.

There are two issues that these types face but don’t seem to grasp. One is immediate problems. They may have the year thought out but seem to be unaware that something is about to blow up or go terribly wrong in the next couple of weeks. By next month they may be trying to recover from or get on top of an issue that essentially keeps them from accomplishing the year as they envisioned.

The second issue is they are not visionary. High-performance teams always have a future destination they are excited about and committed to achieving. Because the next focus leader doesn’t think or have a vision for the future, it’s hard for them to build high-performance. They can be good at what we might think of as operational teams, ones that are efficient and get the near term tasks completed, but they are not good at having the right team or building the right skills for the future.

Current State Focus

These people are very short-term focused. They’re good at solving the immediate problem. In the business world, they are often called “firefighters.” Firefighters are important. There can always be a fire to put out and it must be done as quickly as possible. The problem I began to see over the years was that firefighters were sometimes arsonists. They either started fires or fanned small fires so they could put their skill set to use solving bigger fires.

They also don’t really do anything to prepare the organization or team for any longevity. They don’t really think beyond putting out the immediate fire. They don’t prepare the team for bigger or longer-term issues. And they certainly don’t offer up a future to work towards. They’re needed but they’re needed in the moment and not beyond.

There are two other categories that are also important.

No, No, No

The first (top of the chart) one talks about a leader that is neither current state, next, nor future focused. My apologies to those people who are trying to do a good job and make things better but I often think of government offices when I think of the No, No, No environment. In the “Unintended Team Culture” apart of the chart, it lists:

Good talents would have left. What’s left is a culture that is very contented (and at times) protective of the status quo.

In the corporate world, I’ve actually seen a couple of cases where the leadership had decided to no longer be in a part of the business or spend resources on doing a certain piece of the business. But as I looked around the corporation I would see people showing up for work, getting to their office, and continuing to do the work they had done for years just the way they had always done it. The CEO would be floored. He would wonder why they were spending resources on something they had decided to kill off months or maybe even years ago. It didn’t take much looking to find a No, No, No leader.

Yes, Yes, Yes

This category at the bottom of the chart talks about the leader who is focused on all three states, current, next, and future. If you read the “Possible Symptoms” and “Unintended Team Cultures”, I hope you resonate positively and want to belong in that atmosphere.

Possible Symptoms: A leader who knows the organization’s current capability, knows precisely what to do next, and has a roadmap to the future.

Unintended Team Culture: a culture that has a crystal clear understanding of their current situation, has a shared vision, and knows what to do to close the gap. I would actually title this as the Intended Team Culture.

Be a triple yes type of leader. It’s the only type that builds high-performance teams and has a shot of conquering the uncertain future.

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Unity

by Ron Potter February 25, 2021

Joe Biden’s Unity Address at the inauguration on January 20, 2021 was the title of an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal written by their editorial board. In the opening paragraph, they write “The peaceful transfer of power from one party to another is a sign of underlying democratic strength no matter our current political distemper.”

I have always believed that this is one of the true strengths of our republic and our constitution. If you look back through history, I believe that we are the only country that has pulled off this peaceful transfer of power for over two hundred years. It makes me very proud.

Unity

But this blog is titled “Unity”, not the transfer of power.

Some of President Biden’s words were “Politics doesn’t have to be a raging fire” and “Disagreement should not lead to disunion.” Unfortunately, politics does remain a raging fire, regardless of which party is in power. But my focus here is not politics, but teams and corporate cultures. The second statement is the one I want us to hang on to because it is one of the elements of high-performance teams: “Disagreement should not lead to disunion.”

Disagreement

Some people believe that you can’t have unity if you have a disagreement. I believe the unity that comes out of trusting and respecting disagreement is the most powerful unity that you can experience. From our ancient philosophers, we find that the idea of truth, love, beauty, and unity is the highest level of happiness. I use these four concepts to help teams bring about unity from disagreement.

Truth

I’m not talking about truth being the opposite of lies. I’m talking about what you know and have experienced as your truth. I often marvel at the concept that there are no two snowflakes exactly alike. I would put forth the premise that there are no two human beings that are exactly alike.

I’m one of four siblings in my family. We all had the same father and mother. We all lived in the same house for most of our lives. We all grew up in the same small town for most of our lives. I say “most of our lives” because my father died when my youngest sister was still in her teens which altered her life a great deal. But what I have found very fascinating through our adult years is how the “truth” of those formative years was so different for each of us. I remember one discussion between myself and my siblings as adults when I finally said “Who are you talking about?” They said “Our father”. My reaction was, “That’s not the father I knew or grew up with”. Even how we ranked from youngest to oldest changed how we experienced our parents.

In order to build a strong unity, we must share with each other what we see as the truth of the situation. Both of my daughters and all four of my grandchildren have lived overseas. They have experienced different “truths”. I believe this will serve them well through life.

I’ve told this story before but it’s very powerful for me. During my consulting years, I almost always conducted a session with each team that I called “Human Beings, not Human Doings”. In these sessions, participants were asked to share about someone or some event that they know profoundly affected their lives and values. We never made it through a single session without tears flowing.

Knowing each other’s experiences, values, and truths, is the first very powerful step towards unity.

Love

The second of the unity elements was termed “love” by the Ancients. Unfortunately, that word loses something in the translation and how we think of it today. In the Greek Language which most of these ancients spoke, they have at least four words (I’ve seen as many as six) that all get translated into the word love in English. Our English is very limiting.

Philia – deep friendship. The city of Philadelphia is based on this word.
Eros – sexual passion. We get the word erotica from Eros.
Philautia – love of the self. We would translate this word as narcissism — self-obsessed and focused.
Agape – love for everyone.

Agape is the word for love that I associate with teams. I often used the word “respect” to convey this idea. Do we show respect for the other person regardless of their “truth” being in alignment with ours or not? Do we listen with the intent to understand? We didn’t have the same experiences as the other person. We must listen with a willingness to learn and understand about the background that would bring them to their truth. Only then can we begin to develop true and powerful unity.

Beauty

This is another word that’s difficult to understand in the business context. We’ve heard that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. That makes beauty unique to each individual. I don’t think that works well with teams.

I’ve come to think of beauty as elegance. One definition is being pleasingly ingenious and simple. I think this definition works well with teams. Ingenuity or innovation is a very strong skill in high-performance teams. Although sometimes it seems counter-intuitive, simplicity is also a strong point for high-performance teams. Adding complexity and complications to projects or decision making is not a trait in high-performance teams.

Unity

Unity can be a hard thing to detect at times. Especially if a team is good at working through their differences. What does make unity visible is commitment. When every member of a team shows commitment to decisions made, even if they personally see things differently, that’s unity. Each member has to carefully demonstrate the commitment. For others to hear the words “Well, I don’t agree with it but that’s what we decided as a team” is not unity. But when people know that while we may have initially disagreed with the results and yet see full commitment on our part, they know that we’re committed to the team and the team’s decisions.

Truth, Love, Beauty, Unity

Truth, Respect, Elegance, Commitment

These are the elements of unity. Check your own attitude and the behavior of others with each element. Building high-performance teams require putting all of the elements in place.

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Blog Leadership

4 Things that a Leader Should Provide

by Ron Potter February 18, 2021

At the end of the last blog, I indicated that the star leaders of the future will help their teams feel safe and connected in a virtual world. There are some critical issues that a leader must provide in order to create a safe and connected atmosphere.

Hope

It doesn’t take much reading or watching documentaries to realize that entire groups of people lose their will to live or even attempt to do so when they have lost all hope. Leaders and teams will face setbacks and failures, but they must not lose hope.

Among the things that a leader or individual can do to provide hope include:

Freedom of choice and free will. Leaders must be careful even when they are well-intentioned. They may think that a solid plan and direction for the future will help people through a difficult situation but they also need to be careful not to stifle people’s ability to input their own ideas and goals.
The arts and creativity. We all are inspired by various arts (music, paintings, motion, etc) or creativity and innovation. Inspiration can lead to or renew hope.
Goodness and kindness. These acts of unselfish behavior on behalf of another person will inspire hope.
There are many other things that can inspire or renew hope. Loss of hope is deadly.

Love

The word love can be greatly misinterpreted. A more useful word in today’s business world might be respect. When people feel respected, even when their ideas may be at the opposite end of a scale, great things are possible. I believe this is one issue that makes our current politics so ineffective. It should be OK to have very different ideas. In fact, it’s powerful and useful to have different ideas if there is respect for the person and their ideas. Unfortunately, different ideas are not accepted or discussed with respect.

Respect is required for great leadership!

Joy

Although there is more to joy than humor, humor is a big part of it. When we’re able to laugh and enjoy the moment with each other (not at the other’s expense) life is so much better. A touch of humor or a lot of humor is a powerful ingredient of joy.

Peace

The opposite of peace is fear. From the dictionary, the opposite of fear can be curiosity, trust, courage, or calmness. What a great list of words. Being curious is fun and leads to learning more than almost any other word. Trust is powerful. Both to trust and to be trusted. How great is it to be both courageous and calm in times of difficulty?

Hope, Love, Joy, Peace. These are the new currency for great leadership in a virtual world (or any world for that matter).

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Blog Culture

Science is Always Right

by Ron Potter February 11, 2021

But scientists are not always right! Even scientists have a perspective on the world that will shape the scientific data they see.

All too often I hear people refer to science as the answer that ends all arguments. As a Christian, I especially dislike the one where Christians don’t believe in science. I’m a Christian and I believe in science. I’m not technically a scientist but I do have an engineering degree that depends a great deal on science.

Francis Collins might be considered this nation’s leading scientist. He is currently the Director of the National Institute of Health (NIH) and a leader in the Human Genome Project. Dr. Collins wrote a book titled, Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.

Virtual Meetings

My point in this rambling is that we are entering a new era of virtual meetings versus face-to-face meetings. I believe this is our future. Many companies, especially the ones with collaboration platforms such as Webex, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and others are adding technology to improve virtual meetings. I believe they will have a positive effect on meetings but they are also claiming that this technology will create high-performance teams.

I believe they’re missing a key point.

Tech That Aims to Improve Meetings

The Wall Street Journal recently printed an article called “Tech That Aims to Improve Meetings”. For the article, they interviewed management experts, technologists, academics, and startup founders. They broke the article into the following categories:

Who’s Paying Attention? Worker’s posture and expressions are analyzed to determine positivity and engagement levels.
AI to Manage the Flow with an AI-powered moderator. It would provide feedback, facilitate flow, monitor time, and interject if someone is getting cut off or talked over.
A Seat at the Table: The software would assure that the meeting includes a diverse ethnic and gender balance.
Immersive Presentations: Participants would use virtual-reality glasses to view materials such as PowerPoint slides and others. The goal is to have the participants flip pages, go deeper and move their heads to flip between tables, charts, presentations, and the meeting itself, eliminating the need to flip back and forth between these things on a shared screen.
A Fitbit for Meetings: In this one, each participant wears a smartwatch that analysis and tells them about their personal overall performance.
The Virtual Office Party: This is an attempt to provide the casual chat between participants by having their avatar hear only the voices of nearby avatars as they move around.
Data-Driven Collaboration: Avatars are used in this one as well to “help” people casually talk while keeping track of personal interactions between employees to help match up people across departments when needed.

A line at the beginning of the article says “Critics say elements of tools under discussion raise concerns about worker privacy and may face resistance as being too intrusive.” I think if they had explored this one point further the conclusion may be that none of this technology will work because workers will find it too intrusive.

The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups

At the same time that WSJ article appeared, I was also reading The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle. I found the contrast between the two documents striking. While the WSJ article may be focused on running meetings more efficiently, that does not translate into higher performance. In The Culture Code, it’s stated that the highly successful groups talk about relationships. There isn’t much in the WSJ article that talks about relationships.

One section of the books talks about patterns of interaction:

“When I visited these groups, I noticed a distinct pattern of interaction. The pattern was located not in the big things but in little moments of social connection:

Close physical proximity, often in circles

- Profuse amounts of eye contact
- Physical touch (handshakes, fist bumps, hugs)
- Lots of short, energetic exchanges (no long speeches)

High levels of mixing

- everyone talks to everyone
- Few interruptions
- Lots of questions
- Intensive, active listening
- Humor, laughter
- Small, attentive courtesies (thank-yous, opening doors, etc.)

One more thing: I found that spending time inside these groups was almost physically addictive.”

MIT’s Human Dynamics Lab

There is also an interview with Alex Pentland who runs MIT’s Human Dynamics Lab. He said:

“If I lean a few inches closer to you, we might begin mirroring. It only works if we’re close enough to physically touch.”

Pentland says that words are noise. Group performance depends on behavior that communicates one powerful overarching idea: We are safe and connected.

Safe and Connected

All the technology currently available or available in the foreseeable future may in fact make meetings more productive. However, I currently don’t see any that help people feel safe and connected. This will be the challenge for the near future.

GPS4Leaders

In the app we’re developing, we do get at the issues that help people feel safe and connected such as trust and relationships. But it will still require the participants to take corrective action and make changes when the data indicates these are a problem.

Star participants and leaders of the future will be good at this!

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Blog Leadership

He Makes Good Decisions

by Ron Potter February 4, 2021

I happened to come across a National Football League (NFL) scouting report of a young college student who wanted to be drafted into the NFL. The Scouting reports were not good.

The college student also took part in the NFL Scouting Combine where they test physical attributes. The results of that were not good either. The reports said he had poor arm strength and athleticism and his sprint times for the 40-yard dash were terrible.

In his report, one longtime analyst said, “I don’t like him. Smart guy. That’s it.” The only positive part of another report said that “He makes good decisions.”

In spite of these poor reports, this young college student was drafted in that year. Of the 200 drafted, he was taken at 199.

He Was Prudent

Prudent is not a word we see anymore. In fact, it doesn’t really sound very flattering. But the definition of prudent is: The perfected ability to make right decisions. That seemed to be the only positive thing in his scouting reports and physical analysis. He was Prudent.

The Perfected Ability to Make Right Decisions

There are two points that you need to pay attention to in that definition.

Right. It’s easy to make decisions. It’s not easy to always make “right” decisions. “Right” in this case means right for the individual, organization, country, and the world in general.
Perfected. Perfection comes with practice, patience, and wisdom. It takes time. You must work at it. I’ve spent a lifetime trying to perfect my golf swing. It’s far from perfect but it is better. Even the pros who will hit thousands of balls a day are trying to perfect their golf swing.

Practice Makes Perfect

We’ve all heard that old adage. But it’s not true. Practice doesn’t make perfect if you not practicing the right things or the parts that need to be practiced. Back to the golf pros, they not only have coaches but lots of technology to help measure and visualize their practice. They get almost instantaneous feedback on each practice swing.

Feedback

This is why instantaneous feedback is so necessary. I heard someone once say, if you swat your dog with a newspaper for something he did wrong yesterday, he’ll have no idea what he’s being punished for. He will only become afraid of newspapers. This is one reason why annual assessment sessions with employees are so useless. There may have been an instance several months ago that needs to be fixed. But by now each participant has formed a memory in their head that satisfies their own needs and ego. Memory is powerful.

A college professor once had the students in his class write down everything about the day before when the space shuttle Challenger exploded during take-off. Ten years later, the professor tracked down as many students from that class that he could find. He handed them their own written record of that day to read over. One student who had written 14 pages read it through and then tossed it to the side and said to the professor, “That’s not right. Let me tell you what really happened!” Ten years later his memory of the incident was more powerful than his recording of the incident the following day. Memory is powerful.

Prudent Decision Making

Prudence is a process. It has well-defined steps that will need to be practiced to reach perfection. The Prudence process requires Trust, Diverse Points of View, and a Good Process

Trust

In my book, “Trust Me” I list the eight elements of trust. Those elements are self humility, development of others, commitment to learning, listening and creating unity, focus on the issue, compassion for others, personal integrity, not avoiding constructive disagreement, and finally endurance to stick with it to the end.

Diverse Points of View

We hear the word diversity used a great deal these days. But diversity by itself is worthless unless there is trust. Trust must be established first. Without trusted diversity of thought, there is no perfecting of the decision-making process.

Good Process

Prudent decision making is not haphazard; it is a well-defined process. It can be simplified into three words: Deliberate, Decide, Do.

Deliberate. Because “time is critical”, most corporate teams don’t do enough (or any) deliberation. Other reasons I’ve encountered for not deliberating well include:

- “We already know the answer.” This happens because of ‘group think’ and ‘selective attention’. If we don’t have the trusted diversity of thinking, it’s easy to fall into these traps that make us think we already know the answer.
- This is only one right answer. This means that all the other possible answers are wrong. Leadership teams shouldn’t waste their time on truly right-wrong decisions. Leadership teams should be spending their time on dilemmas. This means they are dealing with right vs right decisions. These are the hard decisions.
- I believe what I see or I remember. (See the “Feedback” section above.)

Decide. One element of good decision making is described in something called Triple Loop Learning (Originally developed by Gregory Bateson and extended by Chris Argyris and Peter Senge). The first step in triple loop learning is to share openly and honestly your beliefs and assumptions about the topic up for decision.

Do. Having reached a decision through this process, the do part becomes much easier because all the parts of the team are working together. There is full commitment from each member of the team. I cover “Prudence” in previous blogs–take a look to get more detail than we covered here today.

So who was that young college student that was drafted 199 out of 200 that year? Tom Brady.

No other quarterback has appeared in more than 5 Super Bowls, let alone claimed over 4 rings. Tom has played in nine Super Bowls and won six of them. This weekend he will play in his tenth Super Bowl with the opportunity for his seventh win.

He makes good decisions!

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Blog Leadership

Truths of Life

by Ron Potter January 28, 2021

Truths of life can come in many forms. I found this list from Dr. Travis Bradberry to be pretty complete and comprehensive.

Great success is often preceded by failure

All too often we think that success came easy to a person. We might think they’ve always been successful and their current success is simply a continuation of that. However, it doesn’t take much discussion with successful people to hear about the failures and moments of frustration on the road to success. If you’re one of those people that think being successful just naturally happens to some, then you’re admitting that you don’t have the fortitude to live through and work through the failures in order to experience success. And to be clear, I’m not talking about large financial success. I often think of conscientious teachers who struggle and suffer wondering if they’ll ever make a breakthrough in a student’s life. They don’t always experience it but when they do have a positive impact, there’s nothing quite like it.

Being busy does not equal being productive

This one seems to be pervasive in today’s world. If people are busy all day, they think that is being productive! I’ve experienced a couple of “moments” in my life when I have worked hard at eliminating the word busy from my everyday language. I often find myself in that trap. I might think I really needed to connect with someone but was too busy to get it done. That’s just an excuse. Being too busy simply means I chose not to put an item higher on my priority list.

I was told once by a Japanese acquaintance that the word busy was made up of two symbols in their written language. The first symbol would be interpreted as a human being. The second symbol would be interpreted as a destroyer. Together the word busy would be translated as “human destroyer.” Don’t let busyness destroy you.

You’re only as good as those you associate with

We work hard at instilling this in our kids. They shouldn’t hang out with that person or crowd because they’re a bad influence on them. We seem to forget this as an adult. Even worse, we think because we’re adults we’re strong enough and wise enough to not let it happen to us. Wrong. If you don’t associate with positive, can-do people, you’ll never make it on your own. Even if it means leaving the company you work for, do it. You must hang out with people who are positive and care for you and others as valuable human beings.

You’re living the life you created

It’s easier to think of ourselves as victims of circumstances when things are not as we wish they should be. The truth is, you’ve created the life you’re living by the choices you’ve made. Maybe you can’t stomach or tolerate failure. Maybe you’re just being busy assuming that’s being productive. Maybe you’re not associating with the types of people that have your best interest at heart. You’ve made these decisions! You’ve created this life. Don’t blame others or circumstances.

Fear is the number one source of regret

Fear of failure. Fear of loss. Fear of what others might think of you. Fear of change. These are the things that kept you from doing things but that bring you regret now.

You don’t have to wait for an apology to forgive

Lack of forgiveness is like cancer. It will eat your insides out. If you need an apology before you forgive then it’s not really forgiveness anyway. It’s simply a barter. Forgiveness is not bartered.

Live in the moment

Bradberry says “No amount of guilt can change the past, and no amount of anxiety can change the future.” I don’t live in the past. There is nothing you can do about it so why worry about it. However, I’m really bad about living in the future. I don’t believe I’m anxious about it, but I think more about the future than I do about the moment. I’ve missed a lot along the way by living too much in the future.

Your self-worth must come from within

You know those people who seem to be worried more about what people think, what people might think, or how they think others view them. There is no value in this kind of worry. If you’re not comfortable with who you are it won’t make a difference anyway. Remember, you’re living the life you created.

Life is short

This one is so much clearer the older we get. Wise people don’t need to get physically old before they realize this. Life is short. Don’t waste your time being busy. Don’t waste your time with a priority list that is not important to you. Live life in the moment.

Change is inevitable—embrace it

Life doesn’t happen in straight lines. It’s constantly changing. It can easily throw you out of your comfort zone. But it’s inevitable. The sooner you realize that the easier it is to handle change. Make the right decisions. But don’t regret it if you don’t make the right decision. That’s in the past; there is nothing you can do about it. Life is short. Live it in the moment. It will be a different moment tomorrow!

A list of ten is too big of a number for most of us to keep track of and remember each day. Pick one or two of these truths. Use those to be a better person and to live a more enjoyable life. The one or two might change over time but concentrate on a couple that are creating more discomfort for you than they should. Then live an enjoyable life.

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Blog Leadership

Emotion, Humility, Humanity

by Ron Potter January 21, 2021

Howie Mandel, the comedian, identified these three traits of people who changed the world. More than a comedian, I have always found Howie to be a deep thinker as well. These were identified in a youtube video by Howie.

Emotion

We often think of emotion as something inside of us and very personal in nature. In fact, it has more to do with communication.

Even as I work with a team that has developed an app for being a better team, it seems like every day we find ourselves talking about how we should communicate with people who may be interested in our app. We talk about communicating with emotion. If people don’t feel the message, if our words don’t invoke a deep connection, they’re just words. A software app lends itself to communication with logic but people seldom remember logical statements. They decide right from the beginning if they agree with the logic or not. If they agree, then they don’t feel like they’re learning anything new. If they don’t agree, the words are almost immediately shut off and seldom remembered. Communicating with logic doesn’t create much movement.

Communication with emotion creates a deep need to listen and learn. Emotion is about communication.

Humility

Humility should not be a new concept to you, the reader of this blog. We’ve talked about the need for humility many times. It is number one on my list of great leadership traits. Humility says we’re all in this together—let’s figure it out together! Lack of humility is ego. Ego says “I have all the answers—listen to me and do what I say. I’m smarter than you.”

Humility says I don’t have all the answers. Humility wants to know what the other person thinks and gives that information equal status. They may have a better idea. They certainly have a point of view that makes others think and see things in a different way.

Humility listens to other people with the intention to understand. People feel heard. It makes people want to be more of a participant. Humility is powerful.

Humanity

I’ve written in previous blogs about an exercise I used when working with teams. I called the exercise “Human beings, not human doings.”

I always started the session with a couple of simple rules:

Listen with the Intent to Understand. You could ask questions, but only to clarify or increase your understanding. No advice was to be offered, just listen.
Put away anything you may have in front of you: papers, reports, and most importantly phones. Pay attention to the other person.

The process was simple. I asked each person to share a person or event that has deeply shaped their values. We never ended a single meeting without tears. It deeply affected people. They were being Human Beings. It was not about what they did or what was their title. This was exposing their humanity.

These three things: Emotion, Humility, and Humanity were three traits that Howie Mandel claimed were possessed by people who had changed the world!

I agree. We may define your world as your team. We may think of an impact on the whole world. But without these three, you don’t have a chance to influence either.

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Blog

2020: The top 10 REVIEW – Part II

by Ron Potter January 14, 2021

Last week we looked at the Top 10 most popular posts from 2020, specifically #10-6. This week, we’ll finish the list by looking at the Top 5.

#5 – Culture: Involvement – Adaptability

Adaptability and Involvement are the two quadrants that make up the left side of the Denison Culture Chart. This side of the chart identifies “Flexible” cultures. Cultures that adapt well. Cultures that respond quickly to customers and markets… continue

#4 – Character vs 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… continue

#3 – Being Humble is Being Down to Earth

It doesn’t seem to make much sense, but truly great leaders are humble.

The problem comes with how the word is normally used: Humble is thought to mean shy, retiring, unobtrusive, quiet, unassuming. Being humble can seem weak or, horrors, even borrrrrrrriiiiiiinnnnngggggg… continue

#2 – Opposite of Victim

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… continue

#1 — Performance vs Trust

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… continue

And now we’re ready to begin to learn more about teams, leadership, and cultures in 2021. Thanks for reading my blog in 2020.

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2020: The Top 10 REVIEW – Part I

by Ron Potter January 7, 2021

It’s good to have 2020 behind us. But before we completely settle in to 2021 and the new possibilities of this new year, let’s take a look at the posts with the most traffic from the year that was 2020. So this week, we’ll review #10 – 6 of Team Leadership Culture’s Top 10 posts.

#10 — Culture: Consistency – Core Values

In just about every company I’ve worked with over the last 30 years, their values were printed somewhere. Some times they’re in the employee handbook or other printed document but the majority of the time they’re printed in a beautiful art form on the front wall in the reception area… continue

#9 — Culture: Consistency Summary

The last quadrant of the Denison Culture survey is Consistency, “Does your system create leverage?”

We first introduced the mechanical image of leverage when we introduced the “fulcrum” of Consistency. Most people have seen or heard the quote from Archimedes when he said: “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”… continue

#8 — Culture: Involvement – Empowerment vs Delegation

Last week my blog post spoke of Empowerment in great cultures. I need to take a short side trip here to talk about the differences between the words empowerment and delegation. I’m not going to suggest that the words need to be used differently than they are today, that would be too large of a task… continue

#7 — Circle of Influence – Part II

I was a little surprised by the number of comments and feedback I received recently about the Circle of Influence post.

The point was to be perfectly clear about the part of the organization you can influence versus those you can’t influence even though you may have concern for what’s happening or not happening “over there”… continue

#6 — Absurd!: The More We Communicate, The Less We Communicate

I’m continuing my series on an in-depth look at a wonderful little book that’s twenty years old this year. The title is “Management of the Absurd” by Richard Farson. You may want to consider dropping back and reading the previous blogs about ABSURD! I think it will put each new one in great context… continue

Next week, we’ll take a look at the five top posts from 2020.

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Thankful and Discouraged

by Ron Potter December 31, 2020

Today is the last day of 2020. It has completely changed the meaning of 20-20 hindsight. In fact, I hope it continues to fade in the rearview mirror.

Almost all of our Christmas cards described the rough year that was 2020. It was a joy to hear the comments about how thankful and grateful people were through all of the difficulties.

Thankful

The things I’m thankful for include my family (all healthy and living around the world), the Lord and his personal love and forgiveness, and all the things that make life bearable or easier. We are warm, have a roof over our head, and people beyond family around us that love and care for us as well.

Discouraged

The thing that discourages me the most from this year is the loss of human contact. In public, we have masks between us, are able to elbow bump at the best, and have nowhere to meet. I used to arrange to meet people for coffee on a regular basis. And so we rely on video conference. It’s just not the same.

All of my grandchildren do well with their video schooling. But what they talk about the most is not being able to be with their friends. They need human contact. I went to a small rural school system where most of my classmates were together all the way through graduation. We still get together annually and I truly do love these people. We didn’t know each other in the work world where you’re measured on your productivity. We knew each other because we were together. We shared our life dreams together. We share the difficulties with each other. We encouraged each other. We were human beings together.

What We Used to Know as Teams

Highly effective teams got to know each other as humans. We shared together. We journeyed together. We accomplished outstanding things together. If you saw someone on the team who seemed to be struggling, it was easy to take them aside, shake their hand or put a hand on their shoulder and ask, “Are you OK?” Human touch! None of that is possible in a video conference.

Today I hear leaders talk about how productive teams are because there is no time for this kind of thing during a video call. It requires that you get to the topic at hand, receive updates if necessary, set the next goals, and assign the people who will be responsible. The productivity is great! But “team-building” is not. Productivity may remain high for a period of time, but a highly-effective team needing to tackle very complex or innovative solutions will never be built.

Technical Solution

There are no technical solutions to solve this problem. However, a team I’ve been working with has formed an app called GPS4Leaders to help overcome some of these issues. While we’ll never solve the lack of face-to-face issues or overcome the need for human touch, we have focused on where the team is starting to breakdown and how to overcome that issue. The system offers guidance in terms of where-to-look for helpful hints and offers what’s called a “Coach in a Box” to help guide the users in solving the problem they face. But, there’s still nothing like a true human connection to build trust and overcome issues.

Best Solution for the Moment

While I’ll stand by my statement above that there is no technical solution to this problem, there are some things that I believe could help.

Let’s start with understanding the purpose of the various forms of communication we have available today.

Email

Email is the oldest and possibly the most used communication software. However, email was intended to pass on information from one person to another or even several people at once. It was not intended to provide psychological understanding or even humor. It is a fact-based tool.

Text Messaging

Text messaging has likely taken over as the most used communication software. I have to convince my grandchildren that it is not universally used and it is probably worse at providing understanding or humor… hence emojis.

Social Media

I believe that social media was originally intended to share thoughts with lots of people but it seems to me that for the most part, it has allowed people to vent and make outrageous statements that they would never consider making when they are face-to-face with someone.

None of these technical solutions is good at building trust and understand. So what is a person supposed to do in this socially distanced world?

Pick up the Phone!

While a phone is still a technical solution that’s not quite as good as being face-to-face, it does allow for listening. Listening for emotional clues. Listening for understanding. Listening to show respect for the other person.

GPS4Leaders

This is where GPS4Leaders tries to help. Once issues are identified in the data, GPS4Leaders will encourage the team to talk through their beliefs about the issue or have one-on-one conversations for understanding, respect, and trust.

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Blog Leadership

Are you Confident or Cocky?

by Ron Potter December 24, 2020

Jeff Haden wrote the original article in Inc. magazine and covered more steps than I’ve focused on here.

I’ve been referred to as a “cocky SOB”, so maybe I fall on the cocky side of this equation. However, I’ve also been referred to as incredibility confident. I think the two are intertwined so let’s take a look at how you can be confident without being cocky.

Signs You Are Genuinely Confident

You listen 10 times more than you speak

I don’t know about the 10-1 volume but I’ve written several blogs on

Listening with the Intent to Understand
Listening with the Intent to Respond.

I don’t think it’s the volume of listening that you’re doing. I think it’s how you listen. You can listen a lot to a person but if it’s always with the “intent to respond”, the other person doesn’t really feel like you’re listening. It’s hard to stay in the “intent to understand” mode because our natural tendency is to get our point across. But when you stay in this mode, it really signals to the other person that you truly want to know what and why they think the way they do. It also gives them credibility. This is listening with confidence.

You duck the spotlight so it shines on others.

Not taking credit when it’s due to others shows great confidence. There is nothing cocky about this approach. Many people get threatened when they are not in the spotlight. They worry that if others gain more of the spotlight it will threaten them and their position. Confidence becomes obvious to others and is appreciated by the boss, teammates, and direct reports.

You freely ask for help

The help may need to come from anyone in the 360 circles around you. People who want to feel that they know everything about every subject will be quickly exposed (outwardly or inwardly) as needing help but being afraid to ask. Admitting that you may know a lot and have lots of experiences but you just don’t know everything makes you come across as very human. This is trustworthy.

You don’t put down other people.

Putting others down reflects more on you than it diminishes the value of the person you’re putting down.

You own your mistakes.

We’ve talked in several previous blogs about looking for someone to blame when things go wrong. This is cocky, not confident.

Confident leaders will be remembered and appreciated by everyone around them for a long time. While the actions of cocky leaders will be remembered for a long time, their names will soon be forgotten.

Be a confident leader!

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Blog Culture

Rut or Groove?

by Ron Potter December 17, 2020

Are you in a rut or a groove?

One of the cartoons I enjoy is Animal Crackers by Mike Osbun. In a recent strip, one character with a glum face says, “I’m in a rut.” The other character with a cheerful face says “I’m in a groove.” The first character says “Trade ya.”

Definition of Rut and Groove

The definitions of the two words are surprisingly similar.

Rut: A long deep track made by repeated passage.

Groove: A long, narrow cut or depression, especially made to guide motion.

Notice that they are both long. However, the rut is deep and caused by repeatedly doing the same thing. Einstein says, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” That seems like a good definition of being in a rut.

Groove is defined as a narrow cut (not deep) but is there to guide your motion.

How Do We Move from Rut to Groove?

In the Animal Crackers cartoon, when the character says ‘trade ya’ he doesn’t seem to believe that trading is possible. He’s stuck in his rut and there’s nothing that can be done about it.

But there is something that can be done. Notice in the definitions that a rut is a deep cut while a groove is a narrow cut. All it takes is deciding to move from rut to groove.

The Mind Projects in Straight Lines

A friend of mine told me that something I had said to him 40+ years ago was helping him get through some tough times. He reminded me that I had learned early that the human mind tends to project in straight lines—if things are going bad, it seems like they’ll continue to go bad. If things are going good, we assume they will always be good. But life never travels along straight lines. Things constantly change.

When You’re in a Rut

If you’re in a rut, the straight lines projected by the mind believe you will always be in a rut. Not true! Things change. The real question is, how do we get into a groove sooner? How do we ‘trade ya’ as our Animal Cracker friend says? And there’s a simple answer to that question!

Attitude

It always amazes me how much attitude and outlook makes a difference.

There’s a story about the first days of NASA as they were preparing to go to the moon. One of the head scientists was on his way home late one night so he cut through the giant hanger that had been built for the spacecraft. As he was crossing the cavernous space, he saw one of the janitors sweeping up the floor. In an effort to make a human connection, he asked the janitor what he was doing. The janitor, with wonder in his eyes, said, ‘Haven’t you heard? We’re going to the moon!’ He wasn’t just pushing a broom, he was helping get the hanger ready, so they could go to the moon. Great attitude!

A woman who was in the audience when I was speaking wrote me a letter. She would drag herself out of bed and get to her job just because she needed to provide for her family. She hated it. She not only hated the company she worked for, she hated the industry because she assumed all the companies dealt with the same issues.

After listening to the message about attitude, she decided to change.

By the time she wrote to me, she couldn’t wait to get started at her job every morning. She loved her job, she loved the people she was working with, and she remembered why she chose that industry in the first place. It was still the same place on Monday that it had been on Friday when she heard the message about attitude. The only thing that changed was her attitude and remembering what she loved about her work to start with. Her attitude had changed—nothing else.

How much of your attitude impacts your energy and excitement about what you’re doing and where you’re doing it? Think about it. It may have more to do with it than you realize.

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