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"decide"

Flow

by Ron Potter February 9, 2017

Daniel Pink spoke often of getting into the flow in his book Drive. You know you’ve been in flow when you look up and you’ve completely lost track of time. You’re so engaged in your work that time is not a consideration. You’re in the flow.

Even though I experience it on a regular basis I hadn’t heard the word recently until an article by Srinivas Rao titled “What it takes to lead an extremely high flow life” caught my eye. The hints that it took to get into high flow included:

Avoid Interruptions
Work for long enough to get into flow
Do deep work

Sounds simple enough. Every team I work with lately is telling me how wonderful it is to avoid the interruptions of their daily routines. Avoiding the interruptions rewards them with the time they need to really get into some deep work. NOT!

Every team I’m engaged with is asking me to help them with the stress and pressure of their business lives. I’m observing mental stress, emotional stress, and physical stress. People are getting sick, losing touch with their family and friends and feeling that they never have enough time to get into the work that they’re good at, enjoy and have been hired to accomplish.

Why have we allowed these things to happen to us? Everybody seems to understand that it’s happening and it’s destructive but there seems to be a sense of helplessness to get out of the tornado, plant your feet on the ground and get some work done. Why?

I believe one of the reasons (maybe the main one) is that we’ve lost our ability to say No! I just finished reading “The Power of a Positive No”. It’s good to understand why we’re hesitant to say No. The book offers what it calls the Three-A Trap:

Accommodate: We say yes when we want to say no.
Attack: We say no poorly
Avoid: We say nothing at all

And The Combination is the deadly mix of all three. Our reasons for not saying No are powerful; I don’t want to lose my job, I don’t want to damage our relationship, I don’t want to look ignorant, and the list goes on. But what are we doing by not saying No? Destruction and falling short of our goals. Not good things.

The simple word decide can be an answer. Think of all the words you know that end in “cide”. Cide in Latin means “put to death”. When we decide, we’re not supposed to keep saying yes to everything. We’re supposed to declare what we’re not going to do so that we can accomplish the important things.

Have you decided what you’re not going to do today? It’s the only way to get into deep work and flow. Enjoy the journey.

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No!: The key to success

by Ron Potter January 19, 2017

You’ll be seeing a few posts from me around the concept of a good No. It’s critical to decision making, prioritizing and a general sense of wellbeing.

Today I want to pick up on a blog post written by Gustavo Razzetti, MD. His post is titled “How to Focus on What Really Matters to You.” His six step process is:

Write down 10-20 things that you want to achieve.
Divide your goals in three groups:
1. Group 1: most critical
2. Group 2: doubts and not sure how critical they are
3. Group 3: can live with or live without
Eliminate Group 3 and all its content
Take a stand with Group 2. Eliminate those closest to Group 3. Move those that really matter to Group 1.
Rank the items in Group 1. Make time for those that really matter
Accomplish or initiate the top 3 priorities next month.

This is a pretty good list in a pretty good order. But the key to it is right in the heart, steps 3 and 4.

Eliminate Group 3 and all of its content! You need to De-Cide what’s important.

The word decide doesn’t mean figure out what you’re supposed to do, it means to figure out what you’re NOT supposed to do. It means to figure out what to kill. Forcing yourself to finally decide and eliminate some of the options that you’re holding open is a main key to success.

Step 4 continues the same process but gets even tougher because these are items that you have doubts about or are not sure. There’s a fear of letting go of something that might be valuable to you in the future. Let it go!

The other key to the list is step 6. Start now. Do it this month. Don’t delay any more.

An old Chinese proverb says that “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago.” But the real power of the proverb is in the second sentence, “The second-best time is today.” Plan the 3 priorities you’re going to tackle next month. Then plan which one you will do in a given week. Then plan which day of that week you’ll set aside time to accomplish your goal. Put it on your calendar and when other demands pop up, simply say “Sorry, I’m already scheduled for that time. Let’s find another option.” Enjoy your new found success.

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Blog Culture

The Enduring Organization

by Ron Potter December 19, 2016

Some organizations do not stick with something long enough to actually make it happen. They create a company full of orphaned projects, ideas, goals, and mandates.

This is particularly a symptom of the quick-deciding company we discussed in an earlier post. The quick-deciding company or team moves rapidly from decision to decision. Rather than taking time to learn from others, seek input, or teach in order to find quality, long-term solutions, the goal is deciding in a hurry. An organization’s goal needs to be quick learning so that good decisions can be made as soon as possible.

Building an Enduring Organization

It is important for leaders to ensure that their direct-reports become great leaders too. Many leaders enjoy serving under leaders whose style is balanced by humility and endurance, but when leading their own teams, they adopt an autocratic leadership style. In most cases they do this because they do not think the people under them are as good as they are in their respective jobs (prideful thinking). They say to themselves, “I can handle the style of my leader, but my people can’t function to the level we need them to under that style, so I’ll be more controlling and autocratic.” These leaders lack the perseverance to build leadership depth within the organization.

Do you remember Newton’s Cradle? That finely built desk toy sat on many desks in many offices around the country. It was usually made of some beautiful cherry wood with polished steel balls hung from nylon strings, all hanging in a nice row between the ends of the cradle. Each steel ball was tightly secured to the top, but if a person pulled one or two of them and let them go, they would bang continuously against the other balls.

My consulting partner and I have been working with two CEOs over the last few years whose leadership styles have so many similarities that we decided to give the style a name: the Newton’s Cradle approach to leadership. These two leaders developed a very tight and trusting relationship with each member of their teams. Everyone talked of them as “great” leaders and the kind of bosses for whom employees would do anything. However, these two leaders would send one or more of their direct-reports off on a mission that was bound to conflict with a similar mission of another direct-report. The leaders, however, would never make any effort to help the direct-reports reconcile the conflicts. They would just let them bang against one another until one was victorious—Newton’s Cradle.

For example, they would tell their CFO or COO that they must do whatever it took to control costs for the next quarter or two while, at the same time, encouraging the CIO to move ahead and implement the great, new, and costly computer system. This creates tremendous tension and turmoil throughout an organization as each person, feeling empowered by his or her boss, either joins the battle with the other direct-report or completely ignores him or her in dogged pursuit of individual goals.

Unfortunately, the Newton’s Cradle leader does not see the value of bringing every part of the organization together into a highly functional, persevering team.

In their book The Leadership Engine, Noel Tichy and Eli Cohen write that the best companies have “good leaders who nurture the development of other leaders at all levels of the organization.” Instead of defining reality for their workers, these leaders urge their workers to see reality themselves and mobilize the appropriate responses. Tichy and Cohen go on to discuss how much time many chief executives spend “formally and informally” on teaching. They conclude that the success of those firms is a direct result of everyone’s pulling in the same direction. “All of the winning leaders I’ve studied share a passion for people. They draw their energy from helping others get excited about improving their business. And they energize their people at every opportunity with stimulating ideas and values.”

The kind of leadership Tichy and Cohen write about is one that encourages leaders to develop other leaders. It is a primary focus for the leader who wants to build an enduring organization.

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Blog Leadership

Remember the Alamo: Thoughts on Leadership

by Ron Potter October 31, 2016

Creative Commons: Stuart Seeger

A phrase that to this day reminds Americans of selfless courage and heroic sacrifice is “Remember the Alamo.”
The early history of the Alamo did not signal that someday it would become a shrine of freedom. Originally named Misión San Antonio de Valero, the Alamo was used by missionaries for decades before the Spanish seized the site for nonreligious purposes in 1793.

The Alamo thereafter housed a changing guard of military units representing Spanish, Mexican, and rebel forces until December 1835 when Ben Milam led a group of Texan and Tejano volunteers in a siege against Mexican-occupied San Antonio. After several days of intense street fighting, Milam’s warriors drove the Mexicans from the city, and the Texans staked claim to and fortified the Alamo.

The Mexican General Santa Anna decided to teach the upstart rebels—and all Texans—a lesson. On about February 23, 1836, a contingent of thousands from Santa Anna’s army invaded San Antonio, and the battle was on. When the first shots were fired, only about 150 Texans were at the Alamo to mount a defense under the joint command of William B. Travis and Jim Bowie. The day after the battle began, Colonel Travis said: “I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible and die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor and that of his country—victory or death.”¹

Santa Anna’s troops battered the Alamo mercilessly. Travis and Bowie slipped couriers through enemy lines to go plead with residents of nearby communities to send reinforcements to defend San Antonio. On the eighth day of the siege, a small group of thirty-two volunteers from Gonzales finally arrived, bringing the number of defenders to about two hundred.² The battle raged for another five days. As the likelihood of defeat increased, Travis gathered the men and drew a line in the dirt, asking the men willing to stay and fight to the death to step over. All but one did. Among those who stayed was the famous frontiersman David Crockett.

“The final assault came before daybreak on the morning of March 6, as columns of Mexican soldiers emerged from the predawn darkness and headed for the Alamo’s walls. Cannon and small arms fire from inside the Alamo beat back several attacks. Regrouping, the Mexicans scaled the walls and rushed into the compound. Once inside, they turned captured cannon on the Long Barrack and church, blasting open the barricaded doors. The desperate struggle continued until the defenders were overwhelmed.”³

None of the 189 soldiers defending the Alamo lived. The Mexican attackers lost an estimated sixteen hundred men.⁴ The Texans may have lost the battle at the Alamo, but their sacrifice so enraged and energized others in the territory that just six weeks later the Mexicans were defeated for good at San Jacinto. The rallying cry in that great victory was “Remember the Alamo.”

Colonel Travis was a leader who understood that perseverance for “the cause” is essential. Personal values translate into organizational values, and it takes persistence to communicate those values to everyone in the organization. Every day there are reasons to stray from deep personal values, but great leaders do not easily give them up or modify them in the face of pressure.

This kind of perseverance comes from a deep sense of purpose for life and from trusting in something outside ourselves. Personally, we believe it involves looking beyond ourselves and seeking to trust God for the answers, the vision, and the hope to persevere.

_{1. ‑The Daughters of the Republic of Texas, “The Alamo’s Historic Past.” Found at http://www.thealamo.org/history/historicpast.html.

2. ‑From “Alamo,” The New Columbia Encyclopedia (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975), 46.

3. ‑The Daughters of the Republic of Texas, “The Alamo’s Historic Past.” Found at http://www.thealamo.org/history/historicpast.html.}

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Blog Culture

Can Stupidity be Cured?

by Ron Potter July 28, 2016

Well, it’s not actually a disease so there is no cure. However, there is an antidote.

I was with my oldest friend the other day. We’ve known each other since we were born so there are some very old memories hanging around.

One of those memories involves an ancient dam that held back the river in the small town where we grew up. One summer day as we were roaming through town looking for something interesting to do when we decided to work our way across this ancient dam. There was a catwalk from one side of the river to the other but it was not reliable and certainly wasn’t fully in place across the entire river. But we headed across anyway and either through bravery or stupidity (most like the later) we worked our way across some very precarious sections as we watched the water rapidly cross the top of the dam and cascade down to the river below.

When we returned home that evening the natural question first asked by our parents was “What have you been doing?” Probably because we were still a bit excited about accomplishing the goal, we freely told tales of conquering our fear and achieving the goal of crossing the river. With open jaws and terrified looks on their faces one of the parents finally said “Did you ever stop to think? Do you know how stupid that was?” Well, there it was; both the disease of stupidity and the antidote of stopping to think.

But I was a young teenager at that point, certainly I’ve become wiser through the years. But, it’s amazing to me how many corporate teams I work with seem to exhibit that same level of teenage stupidity, not stopping to think.

Because of the pace and globalization of today’s businesses, there it a belief that we must decide quickly in order to survive. But quick deciding is a relic of the industrial age. The banner of the industrial age is quicker, better, cheaper. But that only works when your future is clearly defined and the path is known. Then you can work harder and be smart enough to beat the competition by being quicker, better, cheaper. But through the information age and in particular as we move into the conceptual age, we’re often trying to see around corners and over horizons. This takes learning and working with perspectives. Today we need to stop and think. We need an attitude of quick learning leading to good decisions.

Quick learning environments require us to be open to perspectives and opposing thoughts and beliefs. It takes a great team environment in order to work through opposing views and build to commitment of a unified direction. It requires that we stop and think.

Move out of the quick deciding world and into the quick learning world. You’ll make better decisions if you stop to think.

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Blog Myers-Briggs

Ancient Tales of Modern Day Woes

by Ron Potter July 25, 2016

Long, long ago in a land far, far away I was summoned to the Court of the Farthing Orderer, better known as the office of the CFO.

Upon responding to the summons, the CFO looked at me long and hard for several minutes. Finally speaking he said, “You dress funny. All of us wear court garments of green and white but you are dressed in a strange combination of maize and blue.” But that’s another story to be revisited after the fall jousting season.

Now this CFO was a bit portly and slightly balding, not a particularly striking figure. However, he seemed to be very wise, was very good at ciphering and the other people of his court enjoyed working under his guidance.

“For what need have you summoned me?” I asked.

“One of my Knights,” the CFO responded. “I’m having a great difficulty understanding his speech.”

“Is he from a foreign land?” I asked.

“No,” responded the CFO. “He grew up in a court much like ours but in a smaller kingdom.”

“Is he performing poorly or not exhibiting the integrity of a Knight?” I probed.

“Quite the opposite,” said the CFO. “He has performed extremely well over the few years he’s been here and the King is very pleased with his work.”

Humbly bowing to the CFO I said, “I’m sorry for my ignorance, sir, but I really don’t understand the problem.”

“The problem is,” responded the CFO. “I never know where he is or what dragon he is slaying or how that slaying is going to further protect the Kingdom. I need better information to tell the King when he asks about the Knights exploits.”

“Alright, I need to talk with this Knight, where shall I find him?”

The CFO looked at me blankly and said, “Have you been listening to anything I’ve said?”

“Never mind,” I said. “I’ll find him.”

When I found our knight, I decided to take the direct route and said, “The CFO never knows where you are or what you’re doing, you need to communicate more.”

The Knight looked at me dumbfounded and said, “You’ve got to be jesting me! I talk to the CFO all the time.”

In the morning before the court is even open I tell him about my long-range plans while we’re practicing our sword play.
When I pass him in the great corridor of the King, I give him a quick update on all fronts.
I’ll often whisper in his ear during the Great noon-time Feast.
Even while having an evening ale I’ll give him a quick update.

I talk with him all the time. How could he need any more communication?”

And in that moment I saw the problem. Long ago I learned from a certain seer from the land of MBTI that two particular types of people often have a difficult time communicating. It seems that the CFO was an IS and the Knight was an EN. Hmmm…. I thought, how can I get this IS and EN to better understand each other?

I suggested to our EN (Extraverted iNtuitive) Knight that he nail a one-page outline of his weeks slayings to the CFO’s door every Monday morning.

“But that’s so restrictive,” said the knight. “How could I possibly convey all that’s going on in a one-page outline?”

“Humor me,” I said.

Three weeks later I asked the IS (Introverted Sensing) CFO, how are things going?

“Splendid!” were his words. “I know exactly where our Knight is and what dragon he’s slaying. The King and I are both very pleased.”

The moral of the story? Even if you grew up and work in the same court together, don’t assume your communication is being understood. Know enough about all of the “languages” being spoken and heard to assure good understanding and communication.

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Blog Trust Me

Teams Under Pressure

by Ron Potter July 11, 2016

The Discovery Channel recently featured a program about a pride of fearsome lions. The documentary illustrated what happens when the leader is no longer able to preserve order and calm.

In one scene the lioness-leader of the pride is leading the hunt of a zebra. As she chases her prey, the frightened zebra jumps over a log at the very same time the lioness is trying to bring it down from behind. As they both leap, the zebra winds up violently kicking the lioness-leader in the head, inflicting a severe wound.

Over the next few weeks, the culture of the pride changes significantly. The lioness-leader becomes fearful and, because of the event with the zebra, shies away just at the moment of the kill. The pride gets visibly angry with her; they are hungry, and the lioness’s traumatic experience has demolished the familiar, effective structure of the pride. She is no longer securing food. Her fear and tentative behavior have created chaos and caused a dysfunctional team that is confused and threatened by starvation.

During times of chaos and confusion, leaders can either be peacemakers, which will bring a calm that pulls the team together, or they can let a “kick to the head” at a decisive moment cause them to pull back, which will cause disruption, loss of morale, and uncertainty.

In my work with clients, most of the questions I receive concern how to find the key that opens the door to a successful team. Often the organization is in turmoil. It needs peace. It wants teamwork to lead the way out and beyond the current situation.

Peacemakers encourage teamwork. They seek group dynamics that unleash the right kind of power and the right attitude to achieve the best results.

So many books, articles, and seminars are developed to help leaders understand how to build teams. It’s ironic that on a moment’s notice during a terrible crisis several people facing impossible odds came together and built a successful team.

In what the news headlines called “The Miracle at Quecreek,” nine miners, trapped for three days 240 feet underground in a water-filled mine shaft, “decided early on they were either going to live or die as a group.”

The fifty-five-degree water threatened to kill them slowly by hypothermia, so according to one news report, “When one would get cold, the other eight would huddle around the person and warm that person, and when another person got cold, the favor was returned.”

“Everybody had strong moments,” miner Harry B. Mayhugh told reporters after being released from Somerset Hospital in Somerset, Pennsylvania. “But any certain time maybe one guy got down, and then the rest pulled together. And then that guy would get back up, and maybe someone else would feel a little weaker, but it was a team effort. That’s the only way it could have been.”

They faced incredibly hostile conditions together, and they all came out alive together.

The Quecreek story pretty well illustrates ideal team dynamics. Being a contributor on an effective team and working together to accomplish a meaningful mission is a deep desire of many. It’s up to the peacemaking leader to coach that team…of so many dreams.

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Blog Myers-Briggs You Might Be Surprised

You Might Be Surprised: Thinking or Feeling – Part I

by Ron Potter May 2, 2016

Dave and Charlie had been best friends for most of their lives. They had met in college and seemed to share common interests in both the classes they were taking and in the great outdoors. Both of them loved camping, hiking and most of all fishing. As their careers began their work took them in different directions but they used their outdoor activities to stay connected and would schedule at least one fishing trip together each year. Families began to grow and the distractions increased but their annual fishing trip was never abandoned.
And then a wonderful thing happened about half way through their careers. All of a sudden they were working for the same company and ended up in the same city. As it turned out their children had all gone away to college and they had a bit more time to spend together and they took full advantage of it by adding some weekend outings and expanding their fishing adventures to all kinds of venues.
You probably couldn’t find two guys more compatible then Dave and Charlie. They knew their similarities added to their mutual bond.
Then one day Dave and Charlie ended up in one of my Myers-Briggs team building sessions. As I run the sessions I rearrange the people in the room around the conference table based on their positioning within each scale. This allows me to talk with those in the middle of the scale about their ability to adjust their behavior depending on the situation. It also allows me to talk with those who are solidly on one side or the other of the scale about how clear their preferences are and how they will default to those preferences in many situations and often without even much thought. It’s just natural.
As we progressed through the scales of Energizing (Extraversion and Introversion) and the Attending/Perceiving functions, Dave and Charlie weren’t far apart and I could often see them exchanging knowing looks. Then we came to the deciding function, the one identified by Thinking and Feeling.
Once we’ve taken in our information through either our Extraversion conversation or Introversion reflections and processed it through our Sensing attention to detail or our iNtuitive conceptual view, we then will decide. This Deciding function shows us how we approach decisions from either a very logical, practical angle or a Values based approach. While Thinking types will consider emotions and feelings as data to weigh their decisions will be made based on logic. And while the Feeling types will consider logic and objectivity as data to value, in the end they will make their decision based on values.
Well now the dynamics between Dave and Charlie had changed. Dave was solidly on the Thinking side of the table and Charlie was well into the Feeling side of the table and Dave was staring at Charlie in utter disbelief.
Finally, Charlie almost erupted. “There is no way this instrument can be valid! Charlie and I have known each other all of our lives and we are completely alike. There is no way he could be on the Feeling side of this category. That’s not who we are!!!”
Can you guess how Charlie reacted? Did he truly belong on the Feeling side of this preference? Did Dave really not know Charlie after all of these years? In our next Myers-Briggs based blog we’ll continue the story of Dave and Charlie. Please join us. You might be surprised.

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Absurd!Blog In-Depth Book Reviews

Absurd!: Exploring Management of the Absurd

by Ron Potter February 4, 2016

I picked up small book off my bookshelf this week that is twenty years old. When I say it’s small I mean in size (small format and just 172 pages) not stature or content. It is a profound book and should not be forgotten. I don’t know if it every achieved numerical success but the forward was written by Michael Crichton (the late author who wrote books such as The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park and others). That should have gotten the attention of a lot of people.

The title of the book is Management of the Absurd: Pardoxes in Leadership by Richard Farson. You’ll find it on my Reading List but as I said, it’s twenty years old so you may not have spotted it. But this book is timeless.

Just look at a few of these chapter titles:

Nothing is as invisible as the Obvious
Effective Managers Are Not in Control
Most Problems That People Have are Not Problems
Technology Creates the Opposite of Its Intended Purpose

If you’re like me these titles grab you before you’ve read one word in the chapter. I wish I was as good at creating grabbing titles as this.

I haven’t done this before but I’m going to spend some time going through Management of the Absurd with you. I’ll capture a few thoughts and lines from various chapters and talk about the timeless nature of the principle. I believe you’ll begin to see that the truths that guide good management and leadership are ageless and should frequently remind us of the seemingly absurd nature of good leadership.

Chapter one is titled “The Opposite of a Profound Truth is Also True.” And in the first few paragraphs Farson reminds us that:

“We have been taught that a thing cannot be what it is and also its opposite.”

This belief that if my position or perspective is true than yours must be false leads to an incredible amount of conflict, strife and division within organizations.

F. Scott Fitzgearld reminds us:

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”

Now I think having a first-rate intelligence would be a great starting point for a good leader but notice that I don’t say a high IQ. There has never been any correlation found between IQ and success and one measure of a great leader is achieving success. So it’s not IQ, its intelligence. Don’t believe that the opposite of a profound truth, your truth, is not also true.

In his book The Primes, Chris McGoff points out that often when teams don’t seem to be able to reach a decision it’s because they are assuming they’re in a right vs wrong argument when in reality they’re in a right vs right argument. The opposite of a profound truth is also true. Great leaders realize that they are often choosing between right vs right, not right vs wrong. Assuming everything is a right vs wrong argument is childish. Great leaders are also mature.

Don’t let your leadership or management style look like it has the maturity of a teenager. Realize that even though you may hold the truth on a topic, others on your team also hold the truth. Bring all the truth’s out together and then decide which direction the team should take.

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Blog Qualities of a Caring Leader Trust Me

Qualities of a Caring Leader: Spontaneous Compassion

by Ron Potter February 1, 2016

Over the next few weeks, our Trust Me posts will explore the qualities of a caring leader. We explored the first quality – Understanding here. Then we took a look at the second quality – Concern. Communication was the third quality. Then we discussed Confrontation. Today we look at Compassion.

I observed a wonderful incident of compassion once while preparing a webcast for a client. The man helping set up the equipment and handling the technical details received a telephone call from one of his employees who was troubleshooting at another location. My writing partner Wayne and I learned that this employee was working on a crisis situation of great importance to her company.

Hearing just half of his conversation, we picked up that she was reporting on her progress in solving the problem. Later, when our technical helper gave us the details of the conversation, we learned that almost in passing she mentioned, “I have to check on my father. I think he had a heart attack or stroke or something.”

Our man interrupted the conversation right then and said bluntly, “You need to go to your father.” He didn’t even ask, “Do you need to go to your father?” He just said, “You need to go to your father.”

The employee protested, “No, I’m not going to go until this is fixed.” Her boss just kept saying, “Get off the phone, get on a plane, and go to your father.”

We knew that this man might get into trouble for making that kind of decision; his employee was trying to solve a serious problem. But he insisted, and she went home.

We reach several conclusions from this leader’s act of spontaneous compassion: First, this woman will be one of his most loyal and productive employees from now on. Second, he did the right thing even though painful consequences might follow. A trusted leader acts like that. Finally, he showed a true heart of compassion. He decided to care for the person. In that moment when he had to make a choice, he understood and responded to the needs of the person, not just a valued cog in the company machine.

That’s what compassion is all about.

Compassion is a compelling conviction to care enough to become involved and help others by taking some action that will improve their lives or set them on a fresh course.

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Blog Qualities of a Caring Leader Trust Me

Qualities of a Caring Leader: Confrontation

by Ron Potter January 25, 2016

Part of leading is confronting people and urging them toward better performance.
Confrontation does not involve giving a report on another person’s behavior. It means offering feedback on the other’s role or response. Its goal, in the business environment, is to bring the employee, boss, or peer face to face with issues (behavior, emotions, achievement) that are being avoided.
For us to be effective in confrontation, we need to focus on four things:

Balanced truth

You cannot confront someone on hearsay alone. Get the facts. Investigate the matter; check it out. There are always two sides to every story. What are they? Neither one is likely to be the “complete” truth. Look for the balanced story.

Right timing

We recently witnessed a near catastrophe. A client of ours was going to confront a customer. The customer had called the day before and verbally leveled several people on our friend’s staff. Our client was going to call the customer and confront him with some brutal truth: “Everyone in the office is afraid of you and doesn’t want to talk to you because of your aggressive style and attitude.” Just before our client was to make the call, someone in the office discovered that the customer’s wife had colon cancer and possibly multiple sclerosis. The customer was suffering right along with his wife, in addition to trying to be both Dad and Mom to the kids, coaching a sports team, and running a tough business. Instead of calling to confront the customer with the brutal facts, our client decided to confront him with care and sympathy.
Many situations will not be this clear-cut. The right timing may be harder to gauge. For sure, though, it is best to deal with a situation when the heat of the moment has passed. Having the courage and taking the time to come back to it after emotions have subsided is actually quite difficult. There never seems to be the same urgency later, but good leaders force themselves to pick up the issue at a better moment. When it is the right time to confront, the green lights will be flashing. Until then, hold on.

Wise wording

We suggest that you carefully plan what you will say when you confront someone. A proverb says, “Timely advice is as lovely as golden apples in a silver basket. Valid criticism is as treasured by the one who heeds it as jewelry made from finest gold.” Words have the power to destroy or heal. Choose them carefully when entering in to confrontation.

Fearless courage

Don’t fall back in fear when you need to confront someone. If you have assembled the truth, believe it is the right moment, and have carefully prepared what you will say, move forward and confront. As Roger Clemens did with Curt Schilling, press on: “How can I help this person be better, regardless of how I feel?” It may mean finding a more productive or satisfying place for the person—even if it’s with another company. In the end this option is better for the organization and, in most cases, for the other person. What is worse is allowing a person to continue in a harmful behavior or self-destructive attitude.

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Blog Culture

Discovering Ancient Truths

by Ron Potter January 7, 2016

Source: Dogancan Ozturan, Creative Commons

A recent CBS News article caught my eye. The headline read:

Are you happy? Do you know how to be happy?

After decades of studying and working with tens of thousands of patients, researchers at the Mayo Clinic say they’ve cracked the code to being happy.

Psychiatrist John Tamerin says for many people the root of everything we’re chasing, a better job, more money or true love, is happiness.

But this endless pursuit often backfires.

Now, after decades of research and a dozen clinical trials, researchers at the world-renowned Mayo Clinic, say they’ve actually cracked the code to being happy, and published it in a handbook.

Dr. Amit Sood led the research and says the first and foremost way to be happy is to focus our attention.

“… one of the biggest hindrances to being happy is too much thinking about one’s self, research shows.

So why did the Mayo Clinic decide to study happiness? Studies show happier people are healthier people.

Wow, “after decades of research and a dozen clinical trials” the researchers cracked the code to happiness. Even though over 2,300 years ago Aristotle wrote in his “Nicomachean Ethics” that the pursuit of happiness was the ultimate purpose of human existence.

This concept of the pursuit of happiness really forms the foundation for great leadership and great teams. I’m currently working my second book on how to create great teams. It’s built precisely on the concepts of Aristotle’s pursuit of happiness.

If you take a look at the four levels in the pursuit of happiness that Aristotle lays out, you’ll see that levels one and two are focused on self. As the researchers says above, “one of the biggest hindrances to being happy is too much thinking about one’s self.” Levels 3 and 4 are built on thinking about and blessing others. Level 3 describes the perfect model for great leadership. Level 4 describes the elements of great teams.

So, if you want to break your own code to happiness, become a great leader of people and a great team member. It provides the ultimate level of happiness.

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