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Pay Attention

by Ron Potter

What are you willing to pay for?

Maybe it’s that nicer car or maybe just the nicer option package on the car you’ve already decided to buy.

Maybe it’s shopping at Whole Foods versus another grocery store.

Maybe it’s those concert tickets in the center stage seats.

There are certain things beyond our necessities that we’re willing to pay for. But why? That less expensive car still gets you from point A to point B. Sitting farther back at the concert may even provide better sound. So why do we pay for these items? Perceived value!

Image Source: 401(k), Creative Commons

Image Source: 401(k), Creative Commons

We’re willing part with our hard earned resources because our perception is that it will provide us with value that we appreciate.

Have you noticed that from our elementary school days, we’ve been told to pay attention! Why do we have to pay to give someone our attention? Because it takes focus, concentration, discipline, and, most importantly, there will be a value received for the price paid.

Therein lies the problem. If we don’t actually believe that we’ll learn something by paying attention or that the other person has nothing of value to offer, we’re not willing to pay. This relates closely to another blog I wrote about listening with the intent to understand. If we’re not willing to discipline ourselves to truly understand the other person or pay to give someone our attention then we’re exposing our own ego and arrogance.

When our ego and arrogance is the driving force behind our inability to understand another person or we’re not willing to pay the price of granting another person our attention, we’ve violated the first principle of great leadership: humility.

When great leaders are willing to work from a foundation of humility by offering to pay to give others their attention in order to truly understand the other person, they begin to create a culture that develops great teams that are able to grow together to generate a synergy that surpasses their own expectations.

Be willing to pay attention, you’ll be blown away by the value you’ll receive.

I think of doctors in clinical environments. I consider my cardiologist one of the best doctors I’ve ever had because while he is with me it seems that I’m the only thing that matters to him. Although I know he is paying a great price by giving me his attention and not being distracted by all of the commotion going on outside the room. I appreciate the price he pays.

Share with us about the time when someone paid the price to give you their attention.

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BlogMyers-BriggsUsing MBTI to Great Advantage

Using MBTI to Great Advantage – Work Life

by Ron Potter

Using MBTI to Great Advantage is a blog series in which I’ll do an overview of each of the four Myers-Briggs (MBTI) functions and then in subsequent blogs will dig into each one in more depth with some practical applications for creating better dynamics and better decisions making. Click here to read the Series Introduction.

 

Work Life Overview: Judging vs PerceivingMBTI series header

Myers-Briggs (MBTI) calls this your “living” function but I never quite knew how to relate to that word so I’ve modified this slightly to “Work Life”. How do you like your work life structured around you? Our Judging types like their life organized and structured. Plan their work and work their plan. Our Perceiving types like things a little more open ended. Be ready for changes and surprises. React to the moment. Figure it out as you go.

Our business schools and businesses have taught us the need for organization and structure so I tend to see an overabundance of Judging types in the business world, until I ask people how they like their vacations structured. The most organized business person in the world might say to me “Totally unstructured! All I want to do is get away from the rat race for a while and be completely in the moment and do whatever I decide to do at the time. Or maybe simply decide to do nothing!” I find that many people are well trained and disciplined at work but as soon as they can get away from it will revert to their more natural Perceiving type on their own time. We’ll talk about the need for Balance, Balance, Balance in future blogs as well as some deeper and often hidden implications of this function playing out in the work place.

Four Functions and Three Rules. So there you have a quick overview of the four functions of Energizing, Perceiving, Deciding and Work Life and I hope you’ve already gotten the message that the best way to manage these functions is through Balance, Balance, Balance. Teams that accomplish this balance in a trusting, respectful manner are always the best teams. They make better decisions more quickly that are more universally accepted than teams that never figure out how to use their diversity. This is one of the best technique and mental model that you can ever implement for overall better teamwork!

Sixteen Types. It’s also important to understand that it’s not just the individual function dichotomies that make a difference, it’s the combination as well. An Introverted preference may function very differently when it’s part of an ISTJ preference set than when it’s part of an INFP preference set. All of this to say, don’t become the arm chair psychologists and assume you can figure out someone’s type and therefor figure them out. You can’t. Your best bet at success is to master the process that brings out the best of all of the fourteen type preferences.

The Four Functions:
1. Energizing
2. Perceiving
3. Deciding
4. Work Life

The Three Rules:
1. Balance
2. Balance
3. Balance

Over the next several blogs we’ll take a more in-depth look at each of the functions and learn some great techniques to create balance, balance, balance.

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BlogMyers-BriggsUsing MBTI to Great Advantage

Using MBTI to Great Advantage – Deciding

by Ron Potter

Using MBTI to Great Advantage is a blog series in which I’ll do an overview of each of the four Myers-Briggs (MBTI) functions and then in subsequent blogs will dig into each one in more depth with some practical applications for creating better dynamics and better decisions making. Click here to read the Series Introduction.

Deciding Overview: Thinking vs. Feeling

MBTI series header

Now that you’ve “perceived” (the first decision making function) the world around you (see previous MBTI blog), how do you then finally decide (the 2nd decision making function)?

As we work our way through the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), we once again encounter two words that carry a lot of pre-conceived baggage. Most business leaders assume (incorrectly) that business decisions should be made on a purely logical, fact based, “thinking” basis. There isn’t any room for touchy-feely in business decision making.

Well, the Feeling side of this function isn’t necessarily touchy-feely and in fact some of the most hard-nosed leaders I’ve met actually fall on the Feeling side of this equation. It’s not about emotion it’s about values and the “right” thing to do. Our Thinking types can lay out an argument that is purely logical, based on facts, and structured top to bottom building a clear argument for their case. Our Feeling types may look at all those facts and logic and actually agree with the conclusion but at the same time say “Who cares? Is this the right thing to do for our employees, customers, shareholders?”

Emotional Thought. This balancing act is often referred to as “Emotional Thought.” In his book Learn or Die: Using Science to Build a Leading-Edge Learning Organization, Edward Hess says”

 “Neurobiological research has shown that certain aspects of cognition, such as learning, attention, memory, decision making, and social functioning, are ‘both profoundly affected by emotion and in fact subsumed within the processes of emotion.’” (Bolds are mine)

This one is tough. Balancing this one becomes particularly tricky but has profound impact if we achieve the right balance. Also, all of the latest brain research that has been exploding over the last ten to fifteen years points to the fact that we as human beings actually make our decisions based on the Feelings side of this equation and then justify our decision based on logic (Thinking). We’ll have a lot more to learn about this one in coming blogs.

But, once again, the three rules for being more effective at decision making are:
1. Balance
2. Balance
3. Balance

This one may be the more difficult one to personally balance. What have some of your experiences been either successful or unsuccessful?

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BlogLeadership

Lessons from a Professional Organizer

by Ron Potter

My wife is a very organized person in most of her life. But like all of us, there are a few areas that just get out of control over time and you usually need help to get it back under control. She hired a personal organizer.

For the most part, I tried to simply stay out of the way, but I admit I was curious. I thought the organizer did a good job of seeing what the issue was, stepping back and looking at the overall picture; noting what was working overall and what portion of my wife’s life felt like it was under control and what portion was not, gaining the bigger picture.

Then she began to dive into the issue and started to ask the very direct, tough questions:
• How long have you had this?
• When was the last time you used it?
• What do you want it for?

After several pointed and pertinent questions, she calls for the decision:
• Trash it?
• Recycle it?
• Donate it?
• Keep it?

If she gets the “keep it” answer, she immediately recycles through some of the previous questions and then comes back to trash, recycle, donate, or keep.

Now here’s what I found interesting, she had provided bins for the three “non-keep” answers and the item would immediately go into one of those bins. At the end of the day, she put all of those bins in her vehicle and she made sure they were trashed, recycled, or donated.

Image Source: Katie Chao & Ben Muessig, Creative Commons

Image Source: Katie Chao & Ben Muessig, Creative Commons

At first I thought this was a nice service she provided, but then she began to explain why she did it. This way the decision was final. No turning back, no rethinking the decision, no second guessing.
This is exactly the issue I was getting at in an earlier blog, “Decide: we’ve got it all backwards.” In that post, we explored the word decide and learned that it didn’t mean figuring out what to do, it means figuring out what to kill.

My wife had made the decision to “kill” certain items into the trash, recycle, or donation bins. The organizer wasn’t going to let those items be an issue any longer—they were gone!

All too often in our corporate decision making, we let things linger, be second guessed, never really put them in the trash or recycle bin. Because of this lack of decisiveness uncertainty thrives. It consumes the resources you need for top priorities. If you will actually “decide” and make sure the paths you’ve decided not to follow are actually killed off, publicly executed, thrown in the trash, you and your organization will become much more productive, nimble and responsive to current needs. We waste a lot of resources because we don’t finally decide.

I remember one CEO saying to me “I’ve tried to kill that initiative three times and it keeps coming back.” His frustration was caused by the continued wasted resources and people’s attention that were being dedicated to a project he thought they were over and done with. But he had never “Publicly” killed the program. He had never made the global announcement that “We are no longer pursuing this initiative!” He simply turned his focus and his team’s focus to the things they had decided to pursue.

I can’t tell you how important this concept is. My clients are constantly looking for resources to pursue much needed projects, changes or new initiatives. But they never really put the needed energy or public face behind killing off the old, outdated, or lower priority issues. Figure out how to decide. It will pay huge dividends.

Take a look at your personal life, home or work; would you share with us some areas that would save you a lot of grief and energy if you simply publicly ended the pursuit? Maybe you do have a very clear corporate situation that emphasizes this very issue. Share with us what caused it and what helped alleviate it (or what should be done to alleviate the issue).

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BlogTeam

Horns of a Dilemma

by Ron Potter
Image Source: Martin Fisch, Creative Commons

Image Source: Martin Fisch, Creative Commons

 

“Boy do we have a dilemma!”
“This has presented a real dilemma.”
“This decision is so hard to make because it’s a real dilemma.”

I hear these kinds of statements all the time in my corporate world as well as in my civilian life. What are people saying when they talk of having a dilemma? Usually they want to make the “right” decision but it’s difficult to figure out which is the right decision or the best decision or the least damaging decision. Do you notice that there is a sense of right vs wrong or better vs best or least vs most in those words. Well, if that’s the case, you’re not faced with a dilemma, you’re just making a tough decision. The decision will (or should be) made for the right, best or most side of the scale, it’s just hard.

A dilemma is presented when you’re faced with making the right vs right, or the best vs best or the most vs most. Dilemmas are equally right! That’s what makes them a dilemma.

The original definition (without getting too deep into the word construction) meant the horns of a bull; thus, being on the horns of a dilemma. The idea is that you are about to get gored by one or the other horn, but you get to choose. Note that you’re going to be gored either way. Choosing which decision to make will not prevent you from getting gored! Now that’s a dilemma!

In the rapid paced world of today with global implications, I believe we are faced with more and more decisions that become true dilemmas. It’s not the case anymore that we’re faced with five “must do” activities to keep us competitive and all we need to do is prioritize them. No, today we are faced with five must do activities but we only have the resources and time to accomplish three of them. Which ones do we decide to kill (read the earlier blog on “Have We Decided Yet?”)? Now we’re facing a dilemma.

It’s when the goring for our decision happens at a later date when no one remembers (or admits to remembering) that we chose to get gored by one side of the decision. Today we’re getting beat up (gored) by the boss or the market place for lower sales volumes when we knew that would happen based on the price increase we took because of global commodity increases.

When you’re faced with a dilemma it’s important that you decide which alternative to kill, publicly execute the alternative and publicly record the expected consequences of that decision. Don’t look for someone to blame later, look at the consequences of your decisions to see if they were what you expected. Congratulate yourself if they are what you expected. Analyze your decision making process for improvement if they were not what you expected.

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BlogLeadership

Kicked in the Head: Overcoming Fear

by Ron Potter
Image Source: Azhar Khan, Creative Commons

Image Source: Azhar Khan, Creative Commons

My recent blog on Getting Past Failure reminded of me an experience I had with a client years ago.

I was working with a new president of a major company. He had taken over an organization that had just seemed to be stagnant for many years. His first instinct was to spend time out in the field riding with his sales representatives to find out what their daily experiences were like. He was looking at the organization from the ground up. His early impressions were that the organization was simply hesitant to make any decisive moves. He thought there were sales to be made and market share gains to be had but the entire organization was simply too cautious, afraid to make any major mistakes and not even willing to ask customers for a commitment.

At the same time, I had seen a National Geographic special that had followed a pride of lions. The lead female is the hunter for the pride. She will decide which prey to attack and direct the hunting party how to help her gain an advantage over the targeted animal. But she is the one who makes the kill. As she was in hot pursuit of her targeted zebra she rapidly moved in to make the kill and leaped for the attack just as the zebra came to a fallen log. The zebra jumped over the log and at the same time kicked hard at the attacking lion and caught her right in the side of the head. This kick sent the lion tumbling through the brush and the kill was lost. For the next several weeks the routine seemed to be exactly the same as it had always been but just as the lioness came to the moment of kill, she shied away. She was obviously afraid of being kicked in the head. Over the coming weeks as the pride became more and more hungry, younger females and even a few of the younger males began to challenge her dominance and position as the lead hunter. Rebellion was increasing when she finally regained her confidence or more likely overcame her own fear and finally made another kill. She and the pride quickly returned to their normal and successful routine.

The company above had experienced some of their own “kicks in the head.” They had received a regulatory citation about some of their sales practices. They had experienced some product failures as well as some competitor products gaining great advantage over their own. And they had experienced their own leadership failing to help them out of this funk. They were acting like the lioness who had been kicked in the head.

As the new president began to instill a level of confidence in their sales ability, in the quality of their products and in their strategic plan for being successful in the market place (through a combination of face-to-face meetings as well as large scale meetings) you could see the “pride” begin to return. Sales began to climb (even with no change to the product mix or market conditions) and by the time they launched a new product the following year (that product became the largest selling product in its category) the team was pumped up and ready to go. He had helped them recover from their kick in the head. In overcoming fear, the new president was able to lead his team to success.

Where have you and your team been kicked in the head? Things happen beyond our control. I’ve mentioned before a great book titled The Road Less Traveled, Timeless Edition: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth by Scott Peck M.D. The opening sentence of that book is “Life is difficult.” Life (and business) is difficult. We get kicked in the head occasionally. But, we don’t need to let the pride starve because of it. We can overcome our fears and regain our “pride.” Be aware of kicks in the head. Identify them. Talk about them. Figure out ways to deal with and overcome the natural fears that are a result. Life will still be difficult but it can also be encouraging and productive at the same time.

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BlogCulture

Re-Invention: Another Word for Change

by Ron Potter
Image Source: Werner Bartmann, Creative Commons

Image Source: Werner Bartmann, Creative Commons

There is constant talk of reinvention. Companies need to reinvent themselves. People need to reinvent themselves. I live in a state (Michigan) that needs to reinvent itself.

How does a state reinvent itself? The state of Michigan has been associated with the auto industry for over 100 years. During the peak of the auto industry, Michigan was one of the wealthiest states in the nation. Today it is one of the poorest and the only state that has lost population between the last two census reports. I’ve often tried to think of what Michigan would look like if Henry Ford, R.E. Olds, and many of the other pioneers of the auto industry had started in Ohio (or some other state) rather than Michigan. I have to assume that we would have an economy and state government geared to a level of a different and maybe less robust industry. We also have the cereal industry started by W.K. Kellogg and C.W. Post. Our tourist industry is outstanding and we even have a thriving oil and gas industry. But… the state would look much different today had we not had the auto industry. How do we rethink who we are?

I can only draw on my personal experiences when I think about reinventing ourselves individually. My career seems to have progressed in decades. For the first ten years of my working career I worked in the engineering/construction business, building large power plants around the country and learning the project management business. Then one day I saw my first microcomputer and decided that this little box (actually a 35 pound “luggable” machine in the early days) was going to change our lives. Six months later I was developing software for the new and growing microcomputer industry. After ten years of working with computers and software I had to ask myself the age old question “what do I really want to do when I grow up” and came to the conclusion that I had felt fulfilled working in two very different industries because my goal everyday was to create (and be) the best leaders and develop the best functioning teams. I believed that if I could grow myself, help grow the people and develop good team dynamics, the business would take care of itself. My developing vision was helping leaders and teams continually improve their performance. I thought that would be fun if I could get up and do that every day. Thus began twenty years (and counting) of consulting and coaching in the leadership development and team building arena.

What fulfills you? Have you stopped to ask yourself that question? It may be scary and risky but it will also help you to continually reinvent yourself. A necessity in today’s rapidly changing world.

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People on the Bus – Part II

by Ron Potter
Image Source: Jack Snell, Creative Commons

Image Source: Jack Snell, Creative Commons

In my last post, I talk about getting the wrong person off the bus. In this post I want to share three patterns that I have seen through the years.

Self-Selection
One is the story in the previous People on the Bus post when a person for various reasons decides to self-select out. They quit, they retire, they take another job but it’s their decision. And then as soon as it happens, you immediately experience the relief and freshness in the organization that feels like everyone exhaling a deep breath and then saying, “let’s get to work” with a renewed energy.

Still in Place 1.0 to 2.0
Every organization I’m working with is going through some sort of transformation. Things in this world are changing rapidly and it requires continued renewal and reinvention to keep up with the changes. It’s very easy to keep dancing to the tune that got you here. Although I see this in many cases of varying degrees, I’m thinking of one individual who has been very successful in his career for nearly thirty years. He has run large chunks of an organization, has been rewarded with bonus, salary and promotions through a steady career of successes. However, while he is currently responsible for over one hundred people, technology advancements in recent years have rendered what they do redundant. The entire organization needs to stop what they’ve been doing for the last couple of decades and begin doing things differently to continue to add value to the company. He’s in charge of the transformation. But, he doesn’t know what to do. He’s also afraid that he won’t be valued in the new environment. He’s spent thirty years honing skills that have been rewarded and now he’s getting the message that those skills are no longer valued. If he actually transforms his organization into what they need to be, there won’t be a need for his job (how he’s done it for the last many years). He can’t (or is not willing) to reinvent himself therefore he is not transforming his organization. Something will break soon. The company can no longer afford to have this large group of people producing daily work that is no longer of value.

But what about the leaders in this situation you might ask? Why is his boss allowing this to go on? This gets tough. Here is a guy who has performed well for three decades. He may know more about the job (as it used to be) than anyone else. As recently as two years ago he had received nothing but the highest annual evaluations and a steady string of promotions. And, he’s a great guy! “What am I supposed to do, fire him?”, asks the boss. Maybe.

It has become obvious that he is now the wrong person on the bus. We don’t want to just put him off the bus standing by the curb. And we certainly don’t want to throw him under the bus. But we do need to get him on a different bus or maybe in a different seat on the bus if he wants to go to the new destination where the bus is now headed. Leaving him where he is will become increasingly detrimental to himself, his team and the company.

Steady but Slow Improvement

A third thing that makes it difficult to get the wrong people off the bus is that they actually get better. Slowly.

Realistic time frames can be one of the most effective ways for dealing with getting the wrong people off the bus. In most cases the leaders (and even the individual themselves) know what the new behavior and approach needs to be and how it should work. And in many cases, the leader does a really good job of identifying the six (or 5 or 8 or 10) changes that need to take place in order for the person to be successful and valued on the new bus ride. The problem happens when after setting these new behaviors and competencies as goals for individual growth; the person only gets better at one or maybe two of the areas of required growth. During their performance review a year later they’ve improved performance on one of the areas but still need improvement in the other five. Then another year later they’ve improved a little bit on another area of the list but only marginally. However, because she see’s improvement the leader is reluctant to take the steps to get them off the bus. But a year or more has gone by and they haven’t moved on from behavior 1.0 to rev 2.0. In the meantime things are changing so rapidly that they really need to be transforming from 2.0 to 3.0. What I have experienced is that it takes nearly six months of consistent new behavior to develop some level of competency and acceptance and another six months of consistent behavior for it to sink in as second nature. But, if a person is still working on a new behavior in a year without essentially conquering it, it’s not likely that they will accomplish the needed goal in a reasonable time frame. It’s now time to help them onto another bus.

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People on the Bus – Part I

by Ron Potter
Image Source: MD111, Creative Commons

Image Source: MD111, Creative Commons

I was reminded the other day that when I was in kindergarten, I invited a friend to come home with me on the bus. Now, we didn’t make official arrangements like checking with parents or getting permission, I just asked this friend to get on my bus as we were headed home after school. As an adult I can now imagine the turmoil that must have ensued when this five year old girl ended up on the wrong bus.

Jim Collins in his book Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t talks about the importance of getting the right people on the bus, and while I certainly understand the concept of having the right people on your team, the full magnitude of that concept never really hit me until I began thinking about how much angst and commotion must have occurred because I had the wrong person on the bus.

Jim Collins focuses on getting the right people on the bus but I think the harder part of leadership is getting the wrong people off the bus. My young friend and I were unaware of the great disturbance we had caused by enjoying our ride home and looking forward to playing together. It was the adults, the supervisors, the leaders that could easily see the chaos caused by our decision and their efforts were focused on getting the wrong person off this bus and back on the right bus.

Today when I was with a client, I was notified that a person in the company had decided to resign. While no one was really rejoicing, it was very obvious that there was a relief in the room and a sense of “finally, we can move on” because this had been one of those people who were on the wrong bus. Now, before you jump to conclusions I want you to know that he was a fine human being, with a long track record of great success in a highly visible (and paid) leadership position. This was not some sloth who everyone knew should depart. It’s just that the school bus was on a new route and he hadn’t adapted to the new route and scenery. He remained stuck in doing things the way they had always been done. He had not re-invented himself (new word for change) along with the company and the team as they were re-inventing themselves to cope with the new realities.

In my next post, I’ll talk about three patterns that I see of the wrong person on the bus.

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BlogLeadership

Seven Deadly Sins

by Ron Potter

PrudenceMost of us know about the seven deadly sins:

Lust
Gluttony
Greed
Sloth
Wrath
Envy
Pride

And I must admit that while I’m not guilty of all of the sins all of the time, I have been guilty of all of the sins some of the time. But, are you familiar with the four Cardinal Virtues?

Prudence
Justice
Restraint
Courage

I’ve been spending some time looking at the four and in particular the first of the virtues, Prudence. One of the intriguing definitions of Prudence is:

“The perfected ability to make right decisions.”

What better descriptor of corporate leadership could be found? The perfected ability to make right decisions!
As I began to explore the concept for prudence further, it presented itself as a process. Prudence breaks down into the functions of:

Deliberate
Decide
Do

These are my words, not the words of the great scholars that describe the process, but what a great process to reach right decisions.

Give it good deliberation
Use a great and well defined decision making process
Go out and execute

Since 2000, one of the “deadly sins” that I’ve seen become more and more prevalent in corporate cultures is the attitude of quick deciding instead of quick learning leading to good decisions. With a quick deciding attitude, teams will ignore, steam roll, belittle or dismiss any behavior that appears to be or feels like it is slowing down the deciding process. In other words, a quick deciding mentality approach is anti-deliberation. It just doesn’t lead to prudent or wise decisions.
What we don’t have time for in our corporations today is non-prudent decisions. We must regain the technique of good deliberation to make great decisions quickly.
Let me know what you think. What is preventing our corporate leadership teams from spending the right amount of time deliberating so that we can then make good decisions? What are the roadblocks?

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