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Leadership

Myers Briggs Type Indicator: Perceiving

by Ron Potter March 25, 2021

The perceiving pair in Myers-Briggs (MBTI) helps identify how you perceive the world. Each of us has a preference for either sensing or intuition.

The Positive and Negative of Sensing

This preference is for seeing and understanding as much detail as possible. When making decisions, the sensing preference wants the facts. What information is available to help make a decision?

The sensing function also seems to be focused on more of the near term than the future. In the business world I’ve seen the sensing types have the attitude that if we don’t make the right decisions at the moment, there will be no future to worry about.

The positive side of sensing is that they will often pay much more attention to detail than the intuitive preference. Like many married couples, my wife and I tend to be on the opposite ends of this scale. She has more of a sensing preference while I have more of an intuitive preference.

This has saved our (my) bacon many times, sometimes in big ways like purchasing a new home. I tend to think about the overall look and feel of the home and how that will help or hurt us when we’re ready to sell in the future. I’m also thinking about future market conditions and how that will affect our purchase. Meanwhile, she is going through the buy-sell agreement with a fine-toothed comb and is also paying attention to the details of the mortgage. I may be ready to buy or reject based on my preference when she’ll point out something I didn’t catch that changes my decision foundation.

The negative side of sensing is they will always want more detail. Having more detail is always a positive thing in their preference world. However, this can often delay decisions.

The Positive and Negative of Intuition

The positive side of the intuitive preference is that it is almost always thinking about the future. The intuitive preference will want to know why a decision is getting made, what will be the positive and negative outcomes of that decision, and will a sensing-based decision support our future goals?

Often the intuitive preference can discount the current data. They might ask questions like “Will this decision help prepare us for the future?” or “Should we be hiring now when the skills we need at the moment don’t align with the skills we’ll need in the future?”

Best to Use Both

Obviously, the best decisions will be made (keep this in mind when we look at the statistics) when we balance sensing and intuition. In my consulting work, I would often say to the teams, it never really matters which side of this scale (or any of the other scales) you fall on, the key issue is balance, balance, balance!

We talked in our last blog about a technique of pausing during a team meeting to have people write down key points. That helped balance extravert and introvert preferences. You can also use that time to ask team members to identify meaningful details and discuss their future implications. This helps balance sensing and intuition.

Statistics

It’s important to note that in the MBTI nomenclature, we use an N for the intuitive types rather than a I. This was done to help distinguish between introverted and intuition. Introverted = I; Intuitive = N. You have a preference for E I and S N.

US Population: Sensing = 74% iNtuitive = 26%

Leadership Teams: Sensing =41% iNtuitive = 59%

Operations Teams: Sensing = 60% iNtuitive = 40%

Notice that Leadership Teams are highly iNtuitive. This helps a team to be prepared for the future but can become a problem if they ignore or discount current details that the sensing preference will provide.

Operations teams need to be much more sensing focused because they are dealing with the here and now.

Balance, Balance, Balance

I’ve told my consulting clients that I don’t care if they ever remember what their natural preference is in the MBTI. What I do care about is that they learn to balance each of the four types. It’s the balance that brings the power of better thinking and better decisions.

I’ve spoken of a few of the CEOs that I considered the best I ever worked with. Their common trait is that they learned to balance the preferences. It didn’t mean that their personal preference changed.

It did mean that they had learned to balance the preferences by becoming better at asking themselves questions that their natural preference wouldn’t have thought of and by appreciating the balance they had in their leadership teams. They never let themselves or anyone else on the team ignore the questions that may come up based on opposite preferences.

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Three Time Frames

by Ron Potter March 4, 2021

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

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

Leadership Story

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

State of the Leaders Focus

Current – Next – Future

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

Possible Symptoms

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

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

Which State is Best?

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

Future Focus

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

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

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

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

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

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

You need all three.

Next Focus

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

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

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

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

Current State Focus

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

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

There are two other categories that are also important.

No, No, No

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

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

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

Yes, Yes, Yes

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

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

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

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

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4 Things that a Leader Should Provide

by Ron Potter February 18, 2021

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

Hope

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

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

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

Love

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

Respect is required for great leadership!

Joy

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

Peace

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

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

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Blog Leadership

He Makes Good Decisions

by Ron Potter February 4, 2021

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

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

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

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

He Was Prudent

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

The Perfected Ability to Make Right Decisions

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

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

Practice Makes Perfect

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

Feedback

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

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

Prudent Decision Making

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

Trust

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

Diverse Points of View

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

Good Process

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He makes good decisions!

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2020: The top 10 REVIEW – Part II

by Ron Potter January 14, 2021

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

#5 – Culture: Involvement – Adaptability

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

#4 – Character vs Competence

Bob Quinn in his book Deep Change introduced us to the concept of the “Tyranny of Competence.” This is a person that is so good at the skills of their job, leaders will tend to overlook their other flaws in character… continue

#3 – Being Humble is Being Down to Earth

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

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

#2 – Opposite of Victim

Some people I’ve worked with have what we might think of as that victim mentality. The Leadership Style instrument I use (LSI from Human Synergistics) measures two areas titled Dependent and Avoidance that collectively describe a style that starts with the assumption that they are the victim in most circumstances… continue

#1 — Performance vs Trust

Those are not my words. Those were spoken by Simon Sinek. If you have not discovered Mr. Sinek, look up his website. I read him and Share Parrish more than any other blog writers out there… continue

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

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2020: The Top 10 REVIEW – Part I

by Ron Potter January 7, 2021

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

#10 — Culture: Consistency – Core Values

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

#9 — Culture: Consistency Summary

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

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

#8 — Culture: Involvement – Empowerment vs Delegation

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

#7 — Circle of Influence – Part II

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

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

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

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

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

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Are you Confident or Cocky?

by Ron Potter December 24, 2020

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

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

Signs You Are Genuinely Confident

You listen 10 times more than you speak

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

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

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

You duck the spotlight so it shines on others.

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

You freely ask for help

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

You don’t put down other people.

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

You own your mistakes.

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

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

Be a confident leader!

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Oxygen – Part III

by Ron Potter October 29, 2020

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve looked at the Project Oxygen findings at Google related to high-performing teams.

This list is from the book Work Rules by Laszlo Bock who is the person at Google that has helped shepherd the project.

The eight findings that help teams perform at their peak include:

A good coach
Empowers the team and does not micromanage
Expresses interest in and concern for team members’ success and personal well-being
Is productive and results-oriented
A good communicator – listens and shares information
Helps with career development
Has a clear vision and strategy for the team
Has key technical skills that help advise the team

In this week’s blog, we’ll cover the last three findings.

6. Helps with career development

As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs on this topic, it’s difficult for me to distinguish between Leadership issues and Team issues. This has mainly to do with my Mental Model of Team, Leadership, Culture.

This is not to say that Laszlo’s approach is incorrect, it’s just that I come at it from a different perspective.

In my mind, it’s difficult for a team to help a member in their career development. Teams can certainly contribute but it is often the leader who is in the best position to help with career development. What comes to mind is the lack of career development. I have often been hired as a consultant to work with an individual who has “gone off the rails” in the mind of their leader. The leader will tell me that unless this person deals with the issue, they will no longer have a position at the company. In every case, the individual has held a senior position in the company, often they have been Vice-Presidents.

Shocking News

When possible, I have looked back over several years of performance reviews. It’s always been amazing to me that if the person has worked for the company for any length of time, their annual performance reviews mention the issue I’ve been hired to help them deal with. And yet, when I mention to the individual that unless they correct this issue they will no longer have a position with the company, they’re shocked. They’ll say to me something to the effect that “no one has ever mentioned to me that my continued employment depends on me fixing this problem.”

People Pleasing

Why is there such a disconnect? The person dealing with the issue says “no one” has ever told me it could cost me my job. The person hiring me to tell the person will say, “I’ve put this issue in every performance review for the last several years.” Why the disconnect? I believe it’s because almost everyone wants to be a people pleaser and believe that giving people bad news counters that desire. Managers will say to an employee “you must fix this issue.” They might even say “unless this issue is fixed I can no longer keep you in this job.” But, because people don’t like to give bad news, they’ll almost immediately shift their conversation to tell the person all the things they do well. The bad news never sinks in or is dealt with. Think about that for a minute. My boss says to me: you must fix this issue. It can’t go on like this.

Yet almost immediately they will say: but I love how you handled such and such or you’re great at dealing with certain kinds of problems. What does the employee hear? Blah, blah, blah, but I love how you handle this or how you deal with these issues. You’re doing great!

If there is an issue that must be dealt with

state the issue
don’t accept excuses
don’t move on until the is a plan in place
make sure there are milestones to fix the issue
make sure the consequences are clear if the issue is not fixed

People Caring

The way to be people-pleasing is to be people caring. If people feel they are being held accountable with caring and support, they’ll be the happiest.

7. Has a clear vision and strategy for the team

Once again this sounds more like a leader issue than it is a team issue. However, while a leader should have a clear vision and strategy for the team, it should never be used to dictate to the team a course of action.

Team members need to be bought into the strategy/vision

If team members don’t have a shared strategy or vision, the team will never grow and develop together. I’ve worked with too many teams through the years that didn’t take the time or make the effort to develop a shared strategy/vision. In every case, competition develops as managers try to implement their own vision at the expense of others. It becomes a tremendous waste of resources.

Leaders must have a strategy/vision but leaders must also be humble enough to see beyond their own vision and they must have enough grit to bring the team together around a joint vision.

8. Has key technical skills that help advise the team

This final “Oxygen” is true at both the leader and the team member levels. Trustworthy teams and members must have both character and competence. It never works to have one or the other, there must be both.

Information Technology

From a leadership standpoint, I believe the Information Technology (IT) area of the business is the most vulnerable. The IT portion of the business is:

Complicated
Fast-moving/changing
Many faceted

I’ve seen too many IT leaders that fall short on one or all of these issues. When that happens, the IT department can buffalo the leader.

Tyranny of Competence

With team members, I have more often seen what Robert Quinn calls the “Tyranny of Competence” in his book, Deep Change. This happens when an individual has so much competence in a given area that it is felt the competency must be protected at all costs and therefore, the individual may have a lack of character and there are no consequences.

Character and Competence must be present for teams to thrive.

Project Oxygen

This covers the eight elements found to be meaningful in building great teams. Think about them. Incorporate them. Discuss them. The more you can build these into your own makeup or a team’s makeup, the more success and satisfaction you’ll experience in life.

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Oxygen – Part II

by Ron Potter October 22, 2020

Last week we talked about the Project Oxygen findings at Google related to high-performing teams.

This list is from the book Work Rules by Laszlo Bock who is the person at Google that has helped shepherd the project.

The eight findings that help teams perform at their peak include:

A good coach
Empowers the team and does not micromanage
Expresses interest in and concern for team members’ success and personal well-being
Is productive and results-oriented
A good communicator – listens and shares information
Helps with career development
Has a clear vision and strategy for the team
Has key technical skills that help advise the team

Leadership or Team membership

As I said last week, my mental model puts some of these in the Leadership category and some in the Team category. Some fit both. I’ll distinguish how I see each of these but you can fit them into your own Mental Model.

2. Empowers the team and does not micromanage

The word empower has been misunderstood and used in recent years. Most of the time we’re actually talking about delegation, not empowerment. In this case, I believe either word can apply.

Empowerment

The word “empowerment” refers to influence. The purpose is to build up confidence and self-esteem. If you are empowered with a piece of the business, you can influence that piece of the business, but the authority clearly lies with the leader. Empowerment is granted by the leader to grow confidence and self-esteem.

Delegation

Delegation, on the other hand, means that a piece of the business has been entrusted to you. With teams, most of them should be entrusted with their piece of the business. Entrusting a piece of the business requires trust and respect between members.

3. Expresses interest in and concern for team members’ success and personal well-being

Individual success is one part of this equation. Helping members of a team be successful will help the team be successful.

The other aspect of personal well-being is often overlooked. With almost every team I ever worked with I ran an exercise (regularly) that I called “Human Beings, not Human Doings.” In this exercise, team members got to know each other based on who they were, not what they did. Often, after running this exercise someone would make a statement that expressed the fact they had known and worked with an individual for many years (15+ in one case) and they never knew “that” about that person. All of a sudden, many actions seemed to make sense and there was a true sense of caring and empathy for the person which often helped them be more successful and better understood.

4. Is productive and results-oriented

Team members must be trustworthy. We’ve looked many times at character and competence which are the two elements of being trustworthy. An individual must have character and at the same time, they must be competent at the same time.

A person may be the most honest, high integrity, highly principled person there is (great character) but if they don’t know how to do their job, they are not trustworthy. A person may be the best at their job (highly competent) but if they don’t also have high character (honesty, integrity, principled) they will not be trusted by the team. They will not be trustworthy. Both need to be present.

5. A good communicator – listens and shares information

The key to this one is listening with the intent to understand, rather than listening with the intent to respond. If you’re listening with the intent to respond (as most of us do most of the time) we’re running a little checklist in our brain as we’re “listening” to the other person. This checklist may include things we agree with, things we don’t agree with or anything that we want to reinforce or negate as soon as there is a break in the talking. However, the goal is not to understand, the goal is to respond. When we listen to understand we start asking a whole different set of questions and the other person feels we’re making an effort to understand them. When the other person feels that way, they are much more interested in what we have to say when it’s our turn.

Google Oxygen Project

Next week we’ll wrap of the last of the eight findings of the Google Oxygen Project.

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Blog Leadership

Oxygen – Part I

by Ron Potter October 15, 2020

Have you ever been near drowning? When I was a kid I don’t know how “near” I was but I was afraid that I was drowning. Swimming at our local swimming hole I got stuck under the 55 gal drum that we had used to create a raft. There was a point when I thought I was done for but eventually broke free and surfaced to suck and gulp oxygen into my lungs. That oxygen gave me my life back!

Project Aristotle

in 2012 Google set out on the task of figuring out which teams performed the best and why. They called it Project Aristotle. The main researcher at the time was Abeer Dubey. He said, “At Google, we’re good at finding patterns.” The problem was that they didn’t find any solid patterns.

Then they looked at the work of Amy Edmondson at the Harvard Business School. Amy and her team found something they called Psychological Safety. Psychological Safety meant that team members felt safe for interpersonal risk-taking. Team members felt confident that they would not

Be embarrassed
Rejected or
Punished for speaking up

They were safe within the team!

This type of team climate is characterized by

Interpersonal Trust
Mutual Respect

Work Rules

Now comes a book titled Work Rules by Laszlo Bock. Laszlo leads Google’s People Operations. Laszlo does a good job of summarizing the findings during that time of searching for what makes the best teams.

Oxygen

So what does this have to do with Oxygen? In my 30+ years as a coach and consultant to leadership teams, I saw too many people who were going through their days feeling like I did when I was underwater and running out of oxygen. I experienced this first during one of my summer jobs during college. It was in a factory and I would watch the employees go through the shift like they were short of oxygen. Then as soon as the whistle blew, it was like sucking in that oxygen when my head first broke the surface of the water. They had new life. They were energized. They couldn’t wait to get going on whatever it was that gave them oxygen.

Project Oxygen Finding

Laszlo breaks the results into eight “Project Oxygen Findings”

A good coach.
Empowers the team and does not micromanage.
Expresses interest in and concern for team members’ success and personal well-being.
Is productive and results-oriented.
Is a good communicator – listens and shares information.
Helps with career development.
Has a clear vision and strategy for the team.
Has key technical skills that help him/her advise the team.

I’m going to ask forgiveness from Laszlo at this point but as I categorize these elements into my mental model (Team Leadership Culture) I see many of them fitting into the Leadership category more than the pure Team category.

This is not to say they are incorrect, it’s just a different mental model.

A Good Coach

Future posts will cover each of the eight findings but I’ll close today’s blog with the number one finding – A Good Coach.

Why is a good coach necessary? Can’t teams just get better on their own? Do they really need that outside source to figure this out?

The answer to these (and other Team questions) is yes, but! As good as teams get, sometimes it’s valuable just to have an outside observer and someone who has no fear of voicing opinions. Good coaches can do that.

One of the projects that I’ve talked with you about in the past is our GPS4Leaders app. It has been our opinion right from the start that an app will never replace the need for a good coach but can go a long way toward bringing a team closer to the Trust and Respect levels that is required for strong teams.

Project Oxygen Finding

Over the next few weeks, I’ll unpack each of the findings from Project Oxygen. Stay tuned.

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Blog Leadership

Competency will get you…. Nowhere!

by Ron Potter October 1, 2020

Amy Cuddy has written at least three very profound books:

When They Trust You, They Hear You: A Modern Guide for Speaking to Any Audience
Leadership Presence – Part of HBR Emotional Intelligence Series (14 Books)
Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges

Amy says the first two things people want to know when they first meet you are:

Can I trust this person?
Can I respect this person?

Psychologists refer to these dimensions as warmth and competence, respectively.

Warmth is not measured on corporate evaluations

I often run an experiment with teams where half the team gets a list of characteristics found in a fictitious person. The other half of the team gets a similar list of characteristics on another fictitious person.

Both lists contain words such as:

Intelligent
Skillful
Industrious
Determined
Practical
As well as a few other descriptions

There is one (and only one) difference in the two lists:

One list contains the word “Warm”
The other list contains the word “Cold”

I then have the whole team vote on characteristics such as:

generous vs. ungenerous
unhappy vs. happy
reliable vs. unreliable
frivolous vs. serious
imaginative vs. hardheaded
dishonest vs. honest
There are 16 total comparisons

(Remember that the lists are identical except for the words warm and cold.)

The group that has the word “warm” in their descriptor attributes the more positive characteristic to their fictitious person.

The group with the word “cold” in their descriptor attributes the more negative characteristic to their fictitious person.

Is a person warm or cold? This one factor will set our expectations for that person and can be the difference of our trust factor! Be a warm person. It pays rewards.

Respect or Competence

In the book, Speed of Trust, author Stephen M. R. Covey lists four characteristics that need to be present before we trust someone. This list has often helped my consulting when there is obvious (at least to me) mistrust on a team. However, when I ask the team if they trust each other, the answers are almost always a positive yes.

But when I break down trust to this subset of characteristics, there is usually one where people have a concern. “Yes I trust the person but….”

The list is

Integrity – Is the person always the same person no matter who they are talking with or what the circumstances are?
Intent – This one usually revolves around the issue of what is best for the team or company vs. what is best for the individual. Is their intent focused on the best for others or the best for themselves?
Capabilities – The person may be sharp and accomplished but do they have the experiences necessary to work through the situation they face? Are they capable?
Results – Has the person actually produced positive results.? Often people talk a good line or more likely have a list of reasons why something didn’t work. Did they actually produce results in spite of the difficulties they faced?

When you break down the question of trust into these four components, it’s easier to deal with and identify.

Trust/Respect

Is trust more important than competency? Or is competency the supreme measure of success and reliability? If you think competency is the superior measurement, you need to read a chapter from Deep Change by Robert Quinn. The chapter is titled “Tyranny of Competence”.

Amy Cuddy says “But while competence is highly valued, it is evaluated only after trust is established. And focusing too much on displaying your strength can backfire”.

Be trustworthy first! It’s the only way your competency will have value.

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Blog Leadership

Wasting Time

by Ron Potter September 10, 2020

This concept was brought to me by my favorite author, Shane Parrish, through his farnamstreetblog.com.

It’s a review of the book “How to Live on 24 Hours a Day” by Arnold Bennett.

While I believe this fits into today’s issues, Bennett wrote this book in 1910.

This is one of the things written about in 1910:

The 1910s were a time of great change in American industry. The managerial side of industry was growing and American corporations were reorganizing and becoming more efficient. Technology was available to make corporations run more smoothly and increase production.

A few of the things happening in 2020:

The 2020s are a time of great change in American industry. The managerial side of industry is shrinking and American corporations are being forced to reorganize and become more efficient. Technology is available to make corporations run more smoothly, increase productivity, and help teams run virtually.

What are you doing with your time?

Shane pulls out a few quotes from Bennett’s book.

You cannot draw on the future. Impossible to get into debt! You can only waste the passing moment. You cannot waste tomorrow, it is kept from you.

Remember: You have to live on this 24 hours of time. Out of it you have to spin health, pleasure, money, content, respect and the evolution of your immortal soul. It’s right use…is a matter of the highest urgency.

So, what are you doing with your time?

One of our blogs a couple of weeks ago included the following quote:

Executives who were bracing for a months-long disruption are now thinking in terms of years. Their job has changed from riding it out to reinventing.

Reinventing

Our work-life is changing. You may have been “bracing for a months-long disruption” to your work life. But now we’re starting to think in terms of years, or maybe even forever.

How are you spending your time? Another quote that Shane pulls from Bennett’s book says:

Newspapers are full of articles explaining how to live on such-and-such a sum…but I have never seen an essay ‘how to live on 24 hours a day.’ Yet it has been said that time is money. That proverb understates the case. Time is a great deal more than money. If you have time, you can obtain money-usually. But…you cannot buy yourself a minute more time.

You cannot buy yourself a minute more time! Bennett makes another statement:

The supply of time is truly a daily miracle. You wake up in the morning and lo! your purse is magically filled with 24 hours of the unmanufactured tissue of the universe of your life! It is yours.

It’s a miracle! Every day you wake up with a new 24 hours that are yours!

Don’t Waste Time

Even though you have a new 24 hours every day, the time that you waste will never be recovered. Again, Bennett says:

You have to live on this 24 hours of time. Out of it you have to spin health, pleasure, money, content, respect and the evolution of your immortal soul. It’s right use…is a matter of the highest urgency.

Do you put the highest urgency on your time?

Don’t Be Busy

I’m not talking about being “busy.” I was once told that the word ‘busy’ is represented by two symbols in the Japanese language. The first symbol represents “people.” The second symbol represents “destroyer.” Therefore, a translation of the Japanese symbols for busy is “people-destroyer.”

Being busy is not productive. Consciously deciding what to do with the time that we have is productive. In fact, the word “decide” means to consciously figure out what not to do.

Don’t be busy. Decide what you are not going to spend your time on and then consciously spend it on the things that are important. Those things should include (but not be limited to):

Health
Pleasure
Family
Your immortal soul
Reinventing yourself

Reinvent Yourself

Just don’t be busy! Reinvent yourself!

Bennett says “You can turn over a new leaf every hour if you choose.”

We all have excuses for not taking the time to reinvent ourselves.

Too Young – not enough experience
Too Old – can’t change my habits
Too Poor – no resources available
Too Rich – need to “protect” the wealth
Too Secure – if I change I might fail. I’ll lose my security

What’s your excuse for not reinventing yourself? Believe me, the world is moving much too fast not to reinvent yourself!

My father’s generation didn’t have the urgency. The country was rebuilding after WWII and he was riding the wave.

My generation has needed to reinvent a few times. I went from engineer to micro-computer entrepreneur to executive coach/consultant to animator.

My kid’s generations have moved even faster as the world changes around them.

My oldest grandson graduated from high school this year and I’m already watching him reinvent himself as he goes.

Time is Limited

24 new hours a day is a great gift. But it’s easy to waste 10 minutes here or 2 hours there. Its right use is the highest urgency.

Don’t be busy. Reinvent yourself.

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