Tag:

Corporate Culture

Boss – Leader

by Ron Potter January 5, 2023

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

Touchy, Feely Consultant

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

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

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

Boss vs Leader

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

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

Easy to Get Trapped

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

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

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

Being a Leader

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

0 comment

Anyway

by Ron Potter May 12, 2022

Anyway by Kent Keith is a small quick read book. But, in spite of its small size, it is packed full of wisdom.

I’ll list all of the 10 Paradoxical Commandments here so that you can see all of them but then touch on a few that I believe are very powerful.

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love Them Anyway
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do Good Anyway
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed Anyway
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do Good Anyway
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be Honest and Frank Anyway
The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest ideas.
Think Big Anyway
People favor underdogs but follow only the top dogs.
Fight for a Few Undergood Anyway
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build Anyway
People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help People Anyway
Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the World the Best You Have anyway

Love them, do good, succeed, be honest and grand, think big, fight for a few underdogs, build, help, give your best, ANYWAY!

So few of us do it anyway. There always seem to be obstacles in the way. I think some of the worst are personal fear and worrying about what others think. I’ve often heard “what will others think?” People who are driven by what others think never achieve their own satisfaction, desires, and goals. As the book says, people always look for ways of stopping you and criticizing you. Somehow it makes them feel better about themself or superior by stopping your goals and ideas even though they have either non or very small goals themselves.

Let’s take a look at a few of these that I believe have a major impact.

Do Good Anyway

The profound statement in this section is “People who act on their own selfish interior motives commonly accuse others of doing the same thing.”

I can’t say that I’m totally clear of selfish motives. But I accomplish enough things without ulterior motives that I’m always surprised that other people think I’m only doing things for selfish reasons.

My first reaction is one of total confusion and amazement. It seems the other person believes I’m doing something entirely for personal reasons when I feel that I’m doing something for the good of the whole or the benefit of another person. I’m totally confused and taken back. Then as I think about it, I realize that the person who thinks I’m doing something for selfish reasons runs their whole life on accomplishing things for totally selfish reasons. Because of this, they assume that everyone does things for selfish reasons and can’t even comprehend when someone is not driven by selfish reasons.

There is no way for them to understand doing something for the good of others because they would never think that way. Unfortunately, there are too many people in the world who think that way. It’s good for us to understand who they are, realize that they would never understand our motives, and do good anyway.

Think Big Anyway

Only a few people seem to think big. One of the reasons is that people don’t think of themselves as being “qualified.” I’ve gone through three different careers and have never felt qualified. Even though I had an engineering degree, it mostly taught me about the mathematics of engineering. I never felt “qualified” to walk structural steel 160 feet in the air.

My second career was developing a software company at the beginning of the microcomputer industry. I never felt qualified.

My third career was running a consulting business. I called it TLC (Team Leaders Culture). I never felt qualified to dispense wisdom in those three areas until a CEO client of mine told me one evening that I was good at all three (building teams by teaching leadership and transferring it down through the culture). But my real value was simply talking with him during our evening chats. I now felt qualified to simply talk with the client about any topic.

Living the Paradoxical Life

Living the paradoxical life finds great personal meaning in loving and helping others find meaning in their lives.

0 comment

Blog Culture

Unity Through Diversity

by Ron Potter January 27, 2022

Truth, Love, Beauty, Unity.

You’ve heard this several times from me as a saying from Aristotle. I actually use it for building teams.

Truth – be honest with each other and the team
Love – Show respect for each and every member of the team.
Beauty – Don’t make things complicated, make them simple. (I’ve talked about the beauty of Einstein’s genius. It was not his mathematical genius that helped him stand out as a pillar in his field. It was his ability to simplify things.)
Unity – Work as a team. Build unity.

In one sense we can view these as a progression. By bringing out the truth, showing respect for individuals, ideas, and opinions, and boiling things down to the simplest of forms: we can then reach unity. This doesn’t create uniformity; it creates unity through diversity.

Another Ancient Text

Many of us have heard the story about the Tower of Babel. Most scholars put the writing of this book as much as a thousand years before Aristotle. Most of us think this story is about the people of earth at that time building a tower so that they could become gods of their universe. The reason this might have been possible is that the text says they had one language and the same words. They had uniformity. Earlier text indicated that the intent was for a diverse language and people. The children of Noah (after the great flood) spread about the world and created different tribes and languages. The intent was diversity.

The story of the Tower of Babel was about building a nation with one language. In the passage from Genesis 11, God once again caused the nation to disperse into different tribes and different languages. The goal was always diversity!

Uniformity vs Unity

These are close words but they mean different things.

Uniform: The same in all cases and at all times. Unchanging in form or character.

Unity: The state of being in full agreement: Harmony.

The keyword in uniform is “unchanging.” Nothing changes. Beliefs don’t change. Arguments don’t create change. Different beliefs and opinions don’t change. Referring to Aristotle’s statement, there is no need for Love (Respect) because nothing is going to change. Without respect for other beliefs and opinions, nothing changes.

The keyword in unity is “Harmony.” Have you ever been part of a choir, quartet, or jazz band/quartet? I’ve been part of a choir off and on for many years. I sing bass. My sound and notes are very different from the altos and other sections of the choir. But when we join all of our voices together, we create a wonderful and enjoyable harmony.

Have you ever listened to a great jazz quartet? There is no written music, just great blended sound. In fact, any instrument may take the lead at any time. All of the other instruments listen, blend in, and create a great harmony together. They create unity.

Uniformity or Unity

We’re seeing a great deal of uniformity in our nation at the moment. Because of the lack of respect, there is no change, there is no listening. There are only hard stances with an unwillingness to be open (and show respect for) other beliefs and opinions. There is no ability to build a great nation in unity.

Business Teams have the ability to overcome this uniformity and create unity. Business teams have the ability to be together because they are smaller and closer—although I worry about virtual teams. Business teams have the ability to share beliefs and opinions and listen to each other to build unity.

Our nation has less of a chance because of the desire to push an agenda to create a uniform belief (at least at a tribe level).

Build Unity

Build unity where you can. I believe it’s easier at a team level because of the personal connections and a fewer number of members. But, where ever you can, build unity on a national level. This means examining your own “unchanging” views and being open to others’ believes and opinions.

Unity can save us from ourselves.

0 comment

Blog Culture

Belonging

by Ron Potter November 11, 2021

A recent EY study looked at the power of belonging at work. Human beings have a great need to be part of a group. We can look all the way back to ancient tribes to see this need to belong. We all want to belong to a family, a community, a place of worship, a team.

Whatever the group is, we want to belong and be accepted.

Virtual World

In today’s virtual world, this has become more difficult. Almost every client I’m working with is asking about how we feel more connected in this virtual world. Our virtual meetings tend to be focused on the task at hand with little time for socializing or getting to know each other on a personal level.

One of my clients was recently struggling with this issue because he was part of a global team that had no opportunity to be together face-to-face. In fact, he was gaining the reputation of being a hard charger who needed to be in control of the situation and the project.

Then recently the global team had the opportunity to be personally together at a team meeting in Europe. He was thrilled with the opportunity and the outcome. Because they were all face-to-face he had the opportunity to shake hands, look others in the eye, and socialize after work getting to know each other personally.

When the meeting was over he felt much more connected and had an increased sense of belonging that he had not experienced during the virtual meetings over the last year or two.

The Art of the Check-in

The EY study suggested several tips for building relationships regularly.

Seize the small opportunities to connect
Check bias at the door
Assume positive intent
It’s OK to be vulnerable
Be consistent and accountable

Seize the Small Opportunities to Connect

Connection is much more difficult in the virtual world so it must be accomplished intentionally. It’s really impossible to accomplish this during team meetings. I have found that you must be intentional about expecting people to get together one-on-one (even virtually) and spend the time getting to know each other as human beings. These meetings are not intended to work on tasks but simply to build relationships.

Ask questions like:

How are you doing?
How can I support you?”

You must genuinely be interested in their answers which means that you must listen with the intent to understand. Truly understand. Ask clarifying questions that help you understand where the other person is coming from and the perspective they’re using to view the world.

Years ago there was an elderly woman in our church. If you asked her how she was doing her answer was “I’m doing fine unless you’re really interested”.

Be Interested! Get to know who they are and what makes them tick. No judgment. Just understanding.

Check Bias at the Door

We each carry our own biases. We just don’t always see them.

By listening to the other person we can often discover our own biases. It’s natural. We all have biases. But the more you are aware of what they are, the easier it is to understand the other person.

Assume Positive Intent

This one is more difficult than it sounds. Even though we have biases, we tend to accept them as natural and overlook their impact. But we often assume that the other person is speaking from their own bias and because it’s different than our own, we can easily fall into the trap of assuming they are not speaking with positive intent.

Again, the best way to overcome this issue is to listen with the intent to understand. When the other person assumes we are truly trying to understand them and where they are coming from, they’ll begin to drop or admit their own biases and start speaking with positive intent.

It’s OK to be Vulnerable

It’s not just OK to be vulnerable, it’s a must. If we are not vulnerable with the other person, our biases begin to take over and we are not speaking with positive intent.

If we want the other person to take on a positive intent role, we must do it first. Be vulnerable.

Be Consistent and Accountable

We’ve all heard the old saying “Do as I say, not as I do.” Once again it becomes a “you first” approach.

We must first be consistent. People should see a consistent approach and demeanor no matter what the circumstances or who we are talking with.

Then be accountable. People are often looking to shift the blame to another person or circumstance. Don’t be that person. Admit where you failed or made the wrong decision and be accountable for the results. It’s the only way to be a great leader or a great teammate.

People Want to Belong

Every human being has the built-in desire to belong. Belong to a tribe. Belong to a community. Belong to a team.

Humans without these positive options for belonging turn to belonging to a gang or a cult or a social media crowd. None of these are positive in the long run and will eventually lead to destructive behavior for either the person themselves or society in general.

Help people belong.

Help them be welcome.

Help them feel listened to and understood.

It will be the best thing you can do for yourself, the other person, society as a whole.

0 comment

Blog Leadership

Disagree without Anger

by Ron Potter September 2, 2021

“Just because I disagree with you doesn’t mean I hate you. We need to relearn that in our society.” – Morgan Freeman

Why are good friends able to disagree without getting angry? They spent time getting to know each other first.

First Rate Stupidity

“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.” F. Scott Fitzgerald.

You’ve seen me use this quote several times but always with the focus on the positive results of being able to hold opposing ideas at the same time.

Let me reverse that for this blog:

“First-rate stupidity is holding on to a single idea or philosophy without allowing others to share their point of view that may be different from your own.”

It’s OK to Disagree

I believe this is what Morgan Freeman was referring to when he said that it’s OK to disagree without hating each other. I’m afraid that our society has fallen into this trap of not allowing different points of view to penetrate our own belief system. I’m sure there are several reasons for this, including social media, politics, news media. I get very concerned when we begin to understand how some large tech firms send us to websites and posts they believe fit our profile and seldom show us the opposing view. This is not healthy!

Listen to all points of view

Years ago I was working with a CEO who believed that he listened to everyone on his team equally so that it encouraged all points of view. As I watched him work with his team for the first time I saw him put this philosophy into practice. He did indeed ask every individual on his team to give their input on certain topics so that they could see all points of view. However, I began to observe an interesting pattern in his questioning.

If someone on his team put out a point of view that didn’t agree with his thinking, he very sincerely thanked them for the input with no further comment. He would then move onto the next person on the team and ask for their viewpoint. If that team member seemed to voice a point of view that agreed with the CEO’s thinking he would also sincerely thank them for their input but would then reinforce their thinking because that was what he believed as well. When he was finished asking for input from each team member, it was clear to me and clear to the team which point of view he agreed with and which one he didn’t.

The team had gotten used to this “vetting ” of ideas and the ones who disagreed with the CEO simply went silent about their point of view and moved forward with the team in an effort to execute the CEO’s point of view as successfully as possible. Not the best use of team diversity.

Trusted Feedback

When the CEO and I were alone, I pointed out my observation. He was appalled at his own behavior. He really didn’t intend to shut off different points of view and didn’t realize that his behavior was doing exactly that. I’ve mentioned many times in previous blogs that I’ve met few leaders who didn’t have the best intentions. However, their behavior didn’t match those intents.

This is why feedback in the moment is so important. It can come from a coach like myself but we aren’t there on a regular and consistent basis. Everyone must cultivate trusted relationships they depend on to give them straight feedback in the moment that doesn’t really match their intent.

Take stock

How many of those relationships do you actually have? If you honestly believe you have many, good for you! It will make you a better leader and team member in the long run. If you have difficulty thinking of anyone who actually fills that role for you or if you’re concerned that the feedback they give you is intended to protect themselves or make you feel better about your behavior, watch out. You haven’t developed the kind of trusting relationships you need to be successful and satisfied in life.

0 comment

Blog Leadership

Entitled Anger

by Ron Potter August 12, 2021

“What we know is that entitlement is correlated with anger, meaning the more entitled you are the angrier you get,” said Ryan Martin, the author of Why We Get Mad: How to Use Your Anger for Positive Change.

Entitled

What does it mean to be entitled? A dictionary definition is:

believing oneself to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment
Italics are mine.

Believing oneself! Yes, it can come from your position in the pecking order but the definition says that you believe you’re entitled and deserve special treatment.

Leadership and Entitlement

I’ll remind my readers that the number one attitude of a great leader is humbleness. I would say that being humble is the opposite of feeling entitled.

We’ve all run into the entitled leader. Actually, they are not leaders, they’ve simply obtained a position of leadership. But they believe that because they have become a VP or general manager, they’re entitled to special treatment and feel no hesitancy to use a command and control style.

Anger

Anger can be real and justified at times. Even Jesus displayed anger at the money changers that were taking advantage of the poor.

The money changers were taking advantage of those who visited the temple. This made Jesus angry and he said “My house shall be called the house of prayer”.

Anger can be justified but be very, very careful of your motives.

On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors

Patrick J. Wright is the author of On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors, an account of John De Lorean’s departure from General Motors. (The account is written without De Lorean’s cooperation.)

De Lorean left General Motors to start his own company, Delorean Motor Company (DMC). If you’re a fan of “Back to the Future” you’ll remember the DMC used by “Doc” to go back in time.

There was one very telling section in that book that described the destructive nature of entitlement.

GM executives arrived at work each morning and their company valet service would pick up their car, take it to the shop, fix any squeaks, rattles, or other issues. The car was then washed and cleaned inside and out and returned to the executive for their drive home.

Based on these executives’ experience, GM was making some of the finest cars in the world. But the general public had a different experience. To them, GM was producing some of the worst cars in the industry. The executives didn’t understand. Sometimes they even got angry at the public for thinking that way. Their anger was based on entitlement!

Do you feel entitled?

That feeling or belief will get you nowhere. In fact, it will be destructive to you and others.

It can be difficult to see our own entitlement. You must develop good friends that are not afraid to tell you if you are acting that way. You must develop a great team that can talk about anything, even your behavior, without fear of reprisal. Entitlement will destroy you! Do whatever you can to keep it from creeping into your life.

0 comment

Blog Culture

The Coming Ice Age: Leading Beyond the Blizzard

by Ron Potter June 10, 2021

As we try to figure out the new normal, many comments and images have been tossed around. I ran across this article by Andy Crouch, Kurt Keilhacker, and Dave Blanchard of Praxis that gives us a good overview of what we’re facing.

Blizzard, Winter, Ice Age

For a minute, put your own thoughts to each of those words.

Blizzard

Years ago when my children were young, my wife and I decided to drive from Salt Lake City where we were living at the time back to her family farm in Michigan for Thanksgiving. Everything went great getting there as was our time with family at a very comforting time of the year. But then it was time to drive back from Michigan to Utah in early December. Things were going fine until I woke up (my wife was driving at the moment) and realized that we were spinning (a full 360) on the Interstate along with the cars and trucks near us. We had hit a blizzard in Nebraska. No one crashed and no one was hurt and we were able to get to the first exit which had a Holiday Inn where we checked in for a couple of days until the blizzard passed and the roads had been clear.

It was a scary experience!

Even after we were able to restart our journey, there was this anxiousness in the back of our minds as we headed out on the plains of Nebraska and into the mountains before making it to Salt Lake.

Blizzards are like that. Scary. They can be dangerous. And the possibilities can linger in our mind even after they clear.

Winter

Unlike blizzards that can come upon you quickly, we know that winters are coming. The calendar tells us so. The only thing we don’t know is how severe the winter will be and how long it will last. Keep in mind that we live in Michigan near the Lake Michigan side of the state. A couple of winters ago, we had an extremely cold spell of a couple of weeks during winter. Temperatures were below negative 20 degrees for nearly two weeks. When it’s that cold you need to protect people and things and be prepared if you lose your power. Even things in our garage began to freeze. But just like blizzards, we know that it will end sometime and things will get back to normal.

Ice Age

Back when I was a kid, we didn’t hear about global warming; we heard about another coming Ice Age. (Both based on science… supposedly.) We have beautiful, great lakes and terrain in Michigan because of the last ice age in which glaciers reached what is now the southern border of the state. It must have been impressive and awesome and it created and left a beautiful environment. But it was uninhabitable! The last Ice Age lasted about 12,000 years. Ice Ages create new normals.

What Are We Facing

Which category —Blizzard, Winter, or Ice Age— do you place our current Covid situation and the virtual workplace it has spawned?

Blizzard

I believe it’s clear to all of us that this is not a blizzard. We may have had some hope of that a year ago. We may have thought that “this will be over soon” and we would get back to normal. It is now obvious that is not going to happen.

Winter

I’m often asked why I continue to live in Michigan when I could live anywhere. My answer is that when you have a perfect day in Michigan, there is nothing like it anywhere else in the world. I’m sure it’s the result of the great lakes and beautiful forests.

But with Covid, we don’t get a summer full of beautiful days. We’re at least in winter. There will be no “perfect” days with Covid. We will not return to “normal”.

Ice Age

We may even be into an Ice Age with Covid and virtual work. Things are not likely to return to “normal” in our lifetime. It will be a much more cautious and virtual world. Because I have children and grandchildren who live in other countries of the world, I’m very familiar with virtual connections. But I can’t wait until I can be with them again to give them each a big hug. And with the teams I work with, there is nothing like that shake of a hand, that pat on the back, and being able to look directly into the eyes of each other when dealing with difficult issues.

New Norm

This is the new norm. We’re never quite sure what the new normal will actually look like. We only know that it will be different (and confusing) until the new normal emerges.

We haven’t really figured it all out yet.

I know that many of our collaboration platforms (Zoom, MSTeams, Webex, and others) are working fast and furious trying to figure it out. But I do know that they’ll miss the mark if they rely on transactional measurements rather than personal relationships interactions to create the new normal.

Trust

As the team from Praxis says, “Out greatest resource is trust”. Trust is difficult to cultivate virtually, although I believe it can be done with focus and effort. It’s more important than ever in this time of winter and/or ice age to build trust. It will be hard work but it will also be worth it.

0 comment

Blog Culture

People are Crazy

by Ron Potter June 3, 2021

The son of a friend of mine just graduated from law school. When asked what type of law he would like to pursue, his response was: “I’m good at writing and I enjoy research. Plus, if I go into research I don’t have to deal with people.”

As my friend was telling me this he told me this story, he said “I never listen to country music but when I got into my car, somehow the radio had been switched to a country music channel and the repeating line of the song being played was:

‘God is great, beer is good
And people are crazy’

People are Crazy

Throughout my career, I’ve dealt with fairly healthy people. And they’re all crazy! Including me. One of my clients said that everybody is 15% crazy. And if their 15% matched her 15%, everything was good. But if their 15% was at the opposite end of the spectrum from her 15%, they were going to have real problems, because they were crazy!

Smart People are Crazy

I think people with large IQ’s are particularly stubborn when it comes to crazy.

They’re smart.
They’re logical.
They can think through things.
They assume there is no other way to see a problem or solution.

Our reaction to them is that… “They’re crazy.”

Untrustworthy People are Crazy

When people are untrustworthy, devious, or manipulative they can be seen as crazy. If someone acts one way in certain circumstances and another in others, they are not seen as having integrity. They can be termed crazy.

If you feel you’re being manipulated by another person (and we always seem to know) one of our reactions is “Are they crazy?” People with integrity are seldom seen as crazy.

Overcoming Crazy

We mentioned integrity above. That’s a big part of overcoming crazy. Another trait is humility. Humble people don’t believe they know it all. They don’t seem crazy. A third is curiosity; it requires good listening. I’ve often talked about listening with the intent to understand. When you’re really curious, it requires that you learn something while you’re listening and asking questions. Listening with the intent to understand really cuts down on craziness.

Where is your Crazy?

People are crazy!

Have you thought about where you seem crazy to other people?

Think about it.
Ask about it.
Do something about it.

Being less crazy will help you be better at everything you do.

0 comment

Blog Myers Briggs Type Indicator Myers-Briggs

Myers Briggs Type Indicator: Diversity – Closing Thoughts

by Ron Potter April 22, 2021

Statistics Worth Noticing

There are a few statistics that I think are worth noticing. I have seen some interesting patterns in corporate leadership teams that are quite different from the US population as a whole.

Thinking

The first observation is that there are five dominant types when I look at corporate teams. They start with the types that end with the TJ combination. Remember that T (Thinking) is very logical in their decision-making. The opposite end of the scale is the F (Feeling).

The word feeling is misleading in Myers-Briggs types (MBTI). People often assume that you either work and think logically or your feelings tend to take over and may make rash decisions. A better descriptor might be values. People who have a preference for F (values) over T (logical) are not illogical. They’ll weigh all of the logical points of view but their final decisions will be driven by the values they believe the team (and themself) should live by.

Feeling Plays a Large Role (or Should)

As an example, I would often watch leadership teams prepare to make decisions based on the logic of one dimension or another. Once they have worked through all the logic, an answer might seem very obvious. Then, if there is a person on the team with the “F” preference, they may ask a question something like this: “I see the logic and I agree with the logic but how do you think our customer will react to that decision?” The question was not logically based but was value-based. I’ll notice the rest of the team being silent for a moment as they contemplate the question and then say something like “You’re right. The customer probably won’t like that at all and we may lose customers because of the decision.” This often leads to a rethinking of the decision, taking into account both logic and values.

Entrepreneur

Before I show you the interesting statistics, I want to throw in one further MBTI type. That type is the ENTP. It doesn’t end in TJ like the other four but it has been classically known as the “Entrepreneur Type”. I find that with leadership teams, the ENTP (Entrepreneur) type often comes up with a new or innovative approach to a topic but then the TJ’s take over for implementation (very logically based).

Together these five types INTJ, ENTJ, ISTJ, ESTJ + ENTP make up 71% of Leadership teams and 68% of Operations teams. Those numbers aren’t unexpected but in contrast to a general population where those five types are the preference of only 28%, it paints a very different picture of corporate leadership.

Don’t Misunderstand

It’s important that you don’t misunderstand me. I’m NOT saying that you should have a preference for one of those five types to be considered a good corporate leader. If you’ve learned to balance your own thinking on each of the four scales, regardless of your personal preference, you’ll make the best corporate leader. In fact, it is my belief that many teams and many individuals on teams fool themselves into thinking that the TJ+ENTP types are required and therefore “act” as if they are one of those types for fear that they’ll be “found out” to be one of the “inferior” types. There are no inferior types, only inferior balance of all types.

The Other Statistic Worth Noticing

The other statistical anomaly I’ve noticed on corporate leadership teams is in the NT/ST area. Notice that both types have the T component (logical) while some of them also have the N (iNtuitive) component and others have the S (Sensing) component. They are both logical in their decision-making but some are driven by their conceptual (N) view of the future while others are driven by the facts and details (S) of the present.

The US population, in general, is 10% NT and 30% ST. Leadership teams are 49% NT and 39% ST while Operations Teams are 32% NT and 50% ST.

Once again, this pushes corporate leadership teams in a much more logical approach to decision-making versus the general population.

Word of Caution

But here’s one word of caution. Madison Avenue learned a long time ago that we make decisions based on feeling (F) and then justify those decisions based on logic (T). Neuroscience has proved that to be true. This also holds true for ideas and thoughts. We “buy” based on feeling and then justify based on logic! Don’t kid yourself. Your feeling, value, emotional side comes into play in your decision-making much more than you think.

Years ago my wife and I were in a Chevy dealership looking for a “sensible” car. While we were waiting, another salesman and I were drooling over the current Corvette. My wife finally said, “I see no logical reason to buy a Corvette.” The salesman and I looked at her as if she was from the moon. The salesman said, “No Corvette has ever been sold based on logic!” Guess which model makes the most money for Chevrolet.

Diversity of Thought

Diversity has been used and misused a lot recently. I think one cartoon recently summed up that misuse:

When we think about diversity from a leadership point of view, we should be celebrating and encouraging diversity of thought, history, perception, and preferences. This helps us build unity, engage everyone and in the end, make the best decisions.

Respecting team members and their ideas will be key to building unity. Dividing people into arbitrary groups doesn’t help. Building respect is what helps. I’ve built these thoughts around the Myers-Briggs Type Indication. But working with any valid assessment of personality will do the trick as long as you drop the arbitrary ethnic, racial, or gender division. Diversity of thought is independent of these arbitrary divisions.

RESPECT the people you work with!

0 comment

Blog Leadership

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.

0 comment

Blog Culture

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.

1 comment

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!

0 comment

Newer Posts

Older Posts