The Downside of Passion

A colleague of mine recently saw a bit of social research that reported people's perceptions of behaviors that deserve firing. One that stood out for me was that the respondents felt that managers who displayed emotions too strongly and displayed excessive histrionics (especially profanity) in the workplace should be fired. This gave me pause.

I am a passionate person in many ways. One of the things about which I am very passionate is my work. Another is my relationships. I hold strong feelings about both and upon reflection I must admit that there have been times in my past when I have earned the firing that these folks want for such managers. I have managed to generally avoid the profanity, but I have been loud and judgmental and have felt out of control at times. These were clearly moments when I was not being good to myself and the end results of such behavior are not often good. While it is incredibly difficult to change fundamental beliefs about things, it is possible and incumbent upon us all to manage our expressions of belief. I have learned to manage the passion by making sure that I focus in on the value-adding aspects of my work and the loving processes in my relationships.

In this age of much discussion about the critical role of emotional intelligence, this is an important change to make. I suggest that everyone take a hard look at their expressions of passion and put a sock in it when it is not value-adding for the work. I include in this passion about things like politics, religion, and personal issues that tend to swamp us emotionally. If you can't manage your passion at work by re-directing its energy, at least take some time off and deal with yourself appropriately. It will help everyone have a better work experience.

The Guide to Hosting Successful Meetings

Meetings serve many different functions here at MLC, everything from weekly internal staff meetings to multi-million dollar contract negotiations. While our meetings cover a wide range, they are known by our clients and our team for being very good. This is because they are productive. I thought I'd take the time to share a couple of the characteristics of MLC meetings, which add up to a pretty robust system for achieving our three requirements. If you are able to follow these simple steps, you will greatly improve your meetings chance for success. Ask yourself: do you do the following things? Would they make your meetings more successful? Enjoy!

1) Have an agenda
Creating an agenda, and sending it out to meeting participants ahead of time, lets everyone know your meeting is the real deal. This may already be the status quo at your organization (so do it!) or it may be an entirely new concept (so do it!). Most importantly, and most overlooked, put the purpose of the meeting on the agenda! Is the purpose to determine the status of Phase III of Project B? Or is it to determine which sponge vendor to go with? Or is it to name the band? A good purpose statement will help the facilitator and attendees to come prepared (in terms of mindset and documents) and know what the outcome should be.
A good agenda will have the following:
• Purpose Statement
• Start Time
• End Time
• Date
• Location
• Attendees
• Facilitator's Name
• Agenda Topics (and time for each topic, if desired)
We had a client that held meetings where nothing was ever accomplished. We were warned that if we wanted to get anything done, we'd have to go one on one with people. Well, we set a meeting and sent the agenda out ahead of time with a purpose statement and stuck to that agenda. Attendees came, and they showed up on time, because they knew that we had a goal to accomplish! They came prepared (with documents and in the right mindset) and didn't waste time in the meeting.

2) Start on time
This also created a powerful message in the company just mentioned, and will certainly do so in any organization where nothing runs on time! It says that the meeting is important. We always make the promise that if a meeting starts on time we'll do everything in our power to end it on time - again an often novel concept in organizations!

3) Take Notes
There's a genius Dilbert cartoon where the usual suspects are doomed to repeating strategic planning sessions each quarter because no one takes notes and no one remembers the strategic initiatives. While it may seem silly to take notes on what seems to be a non critical or easily "rememberable" meeting, I have found that it most definitley pays being safe than sorry. Taking notes is an absolute necessity in brainstorming, and oftentimes what starts out as a formal meeting has quite a bit of really great brainstorming that you do not want forgotten . . . Assign a notetaker (and put their name on the agenda). In some cases, we'll have a previous meeting recap at meetings by the notetaker to refresh our memories on what we were talking about. Another option, which we do at our staff meetings, is record the meeting and make it available to attendees (and those that were not able to attend) online via SharePoint.

4) Facilitate Properly
If all else fails, facilitate your meeting! Some of our clients yell at each other in our meetings, others repeatedly nod their heads at the boss man. Proper facilitation can lead you to your desired outcomes whatever the "tone" of the meeting.
As a facilitator, your primary goal is to ensure that the meeting is heading in a good direction. Be careful! This doesn't necessarily mean what's on the agenda! I beleive having a good facilitator is much more important than assigning a "time keeper" to ensure the meeting agenda is followed precisely. Healthy discourse is where great ideas and solutions are borne. You don't want to stifle creativity - especially if it’s the bosses or the clients! Based on a very successful practice of one of our older clients, we have begun instituting a "Parking Lot" in our facilitated meetings. The "Parking Lot" is a place on a white board or flip chart to write down unrelated topics that come up that are dropped for later discussion. If the meeting agenda is centered on what is needed to complete a project, and Bill and Judy get in a conversation about a new marketing concept, it is up to the facilitator to guide the discussion that way or put it in the Parking Lot for later. If there is time at the end of the meeting, go over these topics or put them on the next agenda.
Facilitation is a craft. Understanding when to push people along or let a topic develop, whether to start on time or wait for key participants, or what type of presentation to create, is a skill that can be developed. Also important is not to impose a meeting structure that is strikingly different than your current "meeting culture." Change for the better is a good thing, but not if everyone is immediatley put off!

5) Bring the right collateral
Things seem more "real" to people when they can hold them. I find handouts to be a great addition to most meetings. People are generally more receptive to something right in front of them as opposed to on a projected screen. Death By PowerPoint is a real phenomenon! Is there a uTube clip you could show to stimulate discussion or prove a point? An interesting article? A picture? Pictures, charts, and diagrams are great additions to stories or examples. I also find passing things out, as opposed to have it all piled up and waiting, to produce more stimulous.

6) Keep it light
Keep it light! Checklisting a list of tasks does not usually constitute a good meeting. People will participate more (hence the reason of getting everyone together in the first place!) if the meeting is enjoyable (read: NOT cold or sterile). The facilitator must use their judgement to decide how much joking around is ok, but some is almost always tolerable.

7) Meeting Recap
Always leave time on the agenda (at least 5-10 minutes) for a meeting recap. If the meeting is more informal or short we don’t waste time recalling everything that is said. Instead we focus on reviewing Action Items (if there were any) and when the next meeting will occur. A solid meeting will have a solid wrap up and closure.

8) End on time
If you end on time, people will be more willing to attend future meetings, plain and simple. Getting out earlier is the "bribe" for starting on time and staying focused. If you're meetings are very popular (good for you!), still end the formal meeting on time, but don't shove people out! Continue informally . . .

9) Follow Up
A meeting should never stand on its own! One of our most successful methods of getting people to follow up on meeting Action Items, or to generally stay involved, is to immediatley send out emails relating to the meeting. This may be the meeting minutes, the list of Action Items and their due dates and owners, it may be the invitation for the next meeting. Staying in contact with the attendees will ensure that they wont forget about your meeting as soon as they step out the door!

10) Create your meeting brand!
If your meetings are repeated (or you repeatedly hold meetings) create a brand around your meetings – set an expectation and make it high! This way, people will know what to expect whether its a Sarah Bowlin-run meeting, or if its the Accounting Group weekly meeting, or if Acme Inc. meeting with a customer. They will know what to expect. Some ways to brand your meetings are:
• Name your meetings, so that attendees have something to call it (Hey, are you going to Marketing Sessions this afternoon? Or if your organization’s more loosey goosey: “Chad, you goin’ to Bill’s Brainstormin’ later?).
• Make a logo to go with the name. It could be the company logo along with the name of your meeting. What about a slogan (or an overall objective?)
• Create consistent collateral. The agenda, PowerPoint, and handouts should have the same format each meeting.
• Talk about your meetings outside of your meetings. Send out a reminder email, ask for feedback, etc.
Understanding how to run a good meeting and then actually running one is an often underappreciated skill set. But rest assured, it will be noticed. Make the meetings an extension of your own personal brand and the success of your meetings will positively reflect on to you.

Ok, so use the tips above or not, but remember one thing: what you put into a meeting is what you get out of it. Have the right people, provide the right environment, and include the right tools and your meeting will accomplish what you wanted it to.

Value is the currency of healthy business relationships

Relationships in business, like in our personal lives, requires a little give and take. All parties need to bring something of value to the table, or the relationship is off-balance. "Value" can be measured in a variety of ways; money, companionship, loyalty, trust . . . the list goes on.

One of the most prevalent values in a business relationship is information. Salespeople give information on new products, coworkers share information on company happenings, and colleagues on industry and economic news. How many of your relationships are based on information exchange?

For information to be truly valuable a critical component must be in place: trust. Information is only as good as its source. You trust your vendors to give you reasonable rates and to be true to their word. You trust sales people to give you accurate information on new products. You trust the news from your coworker about your boss being fired is accurate.

In a salesperson's relationships with his clients this perception of a necessary value is magnified. Two things must be present in the salesperson: (1) They must be seen as a good source of information and (2) They must be trusted. With those two values in place, the relationship will provide value back them (hopefully in the context of sustainable sales, new leads, or even as a confidant). Of course, its not as black and white as this. Gestures, also provide value. Unless, of course, they are empty gestures. "Clues" as to how people are feeling (such as sending thank you cards, asking and genuinely caring about their families, etc.) are important in creating a lasting bond. And these little things are not so little. They're what creates trust. These bridges take a long time to build, but in the end are far more rewarding than one-time transactional sales, or a stale, one sided relationship.

Whenever I meet someone new, I like to provide value immediately. Feedback is an excellent mechanism, when used correctly. A story (whether to provide entertainment, or a moral) is always a good way to add value to a conversation. In emails, which have become so prevalent, I like to add a bit more to my "thank yous" and "it was a pleasure speaking to you" (which are becoming, in my humble opinion, empty gestures). I attach a YouTube clip that I think the recipient might be interested in or learn something from, or an industry article. As a salesperson, it is part of my value proposition to know things in my area of expertise and pass them along. Passing on unrelated but valuable information through my colleagues and clients adds value to our relationship overall. I ask good questions when colleagues are telling stories. Questions unlock new avenues of thinking, and can awaken the genious in each and every one of us! When possible (And when not obnoxious!) I share information on my own life; articles published, photos from a recent trip, eh, blog postings. . . .

And, over time this builds trust. Trust that I know what I'm talking about and that I care about our relationship. And that is the basis for a valuable relationship.

The Bottom Line

In the end you can have planned all the right behavior and learned all the right principles and committed yourself to being good to yourself even when it hurts, but if you do nothing then nothing happens, nothing changes, and you cannot be good to yourself in any way that matters. The bottom line is that you must DO SOMETHING.

In the very United States of America we value a bias toward action. Get up and get moving is the American way. The bias toward action produces some interesting aspects to the national character such as being really good at solving problems, but not so good at defining them. Defining problems does not fit with the bias toward action because an exercise in seeking goal clarity does not feel like the American version of work. So, we expend tremendous amounts of resource solving problems that we don't have or that don't matter while the really important things are ignored. But regardless of the downside to an action bias, remains a strong part of being good to yourself. The key is that the action bias be coupled with showing up, paying attention, adding value, and embracing accountability.

The action bias on its own will only guarantee that something happens. Action taken in a context created by the previously mentioned four other factors not only makes something happen, it makes the right things happen for you and for everyone around you. After all being good to yourself is not just about not turning the gun on yourself, it is about building and sustaining the social support networks that we all need for health and hardiness. Being good to yourself demands that you are also good to others, not because you focus on the others but because you guide your behavior by these principles and not by strategies for manipulation. I have seen many people with extensive social networks gained by working at looking like a friend, but relatively few that earn friendship by honest work at being the best version of themselves that they can be. I guess it is the "work" part that makes the difference.

It does tend to be more work to establish good habits than to continue familiar ones - after all it means change and we know that no one changes behavior just because it is a good idea to do so. There must be some compelling motive. Here you are truly all on your own because you can't go online and find a motive, it must come from inside you. The value of the change must speak to your deepest needs and make you humble enough to become a learner in your own life.

Okay, it isn't easy, but it is simple. That is sort of how the universe works. That which is really important is really simple and really hard for us humans. No matter, we can deal with anything together that makes us impotent as individuals.

He's Back

The next piece of the personal goodness puzzle is the the most difficult for many people to adopt. It is embracing accountability. We are not a really good society for embracing accountability anymore. I think we were at one time. Perhaps in the world that Normal Rockwell drew. There is just so much sense of entitlement these days. Personally I blame the trial lawyers. Many of them make a good living by encouraging people to think in terms of entitlement rather than accountability. I would like the trial lawyers to have a stronger sense of ethics about what you actually take to court. They seem to be consumed with chasing chances to impoverish one person to enrich another along with themselves. I do know that I could never win an argument over this point with a good trial lawyer, but I have the feeling nonetheless. After all, aren't we entitled to a legal profession that serves as the first line of defense against silly litigation? Just kidding.

In reality the responsibility for choosing accountability over entitlement is a personal one. Each of us has the job of making reasonable sense of life for ourselves without seeking to hurt others. Embracing accountability in life is the most self-affirming thing that a person can do. Accountable people are seldom victims. Entitled people are always victims. Victims have no healthy source of personal power. (Before you freak out, I do recognize that there is such a thing as a legitimate victim. A person hit by a car in a crosswalk with a walk sign lit is probably a victim. He or she did nothing to create their victimness. If there were no crosswalks or signs perhaps crossing the street unarmed would constitute encouraging victimness. I hope you get the difference.) Accountable people have power because authority goes hand-in-hand with accountability. Embracing accountability gives you the authority you need to meet that accountability. That authority is power in reserve that should be used judiciously to get things done. If you seek no accountability you can have no authority. That means that you cannot be considered the author of solutions or improvements or failures. Successes give us something to support our sense of effectivness. Failures teach important lessons - if we survive them. By the way, you are not entitled to survive your failures. You may be aware that embracing the accountability that goes with being the driver of the car opens the possibility that you might fail and not survive. Embracing accountability for the safety of children can put you in harm's way as they learn what not to do. Embracing accountability can cost you your job if those around you are good at passing blame. So, though it is definitely required for being good to yourself, accountability has a dark side as well. Be accountable if you would be rewarded. Be accountable if you would be recognized for accomplishment. Be accountable if you would be a real person who deserves respect and affection. Next we will cover the last of the five magical ways to be good to yourself. Stay tuned.

Being Good to Yourself, Again

Okay. If you show up and you pay attention, you are forty percent of the way there. But it gets harder. This is where you begin to make choices about how you will be a part of things that get done. This is where you choose the quality of your actions. I believe that the standard that we must apply is to choose those actions and only those actions that add value. For me that is what quality means in the context of human life, whether it is public and organizational or private and interpersonal.

That being said, it does not do much to remove the dilemma. Defining value is only a step closer to the answer and not all of the answer. Value is a construct like quality or leadership or love. We tend to know it when we see it, but each definition leaves us wanting more clarity.

We solve this dilemma by operationalizing the construct. We operationalize adding value by measuring the value added. This should be easier in the workplace than in personal relationships. I don’t know anyone that keeps track of the number of smiles that they can stimulate on faces of family members, or the number of thank you’s that they receive on a daily basis. We may not even be aware of such things let alone practicing data capture and analysis. It doesn’t matter that your relationship measures lack scientific rigor. It matters that your goals in relationships are things like creating smiles and thank you’s and the occasional, “I needed that.”

At work it is often not about what we choose to do but about what we choose not to do. When Warren Bennis was researching one of his books on leadership he was asking people what leaders did that encouraged followership. One of his interview subjects said that his leader “didn’t waste his time.” Some managers think that they add value because they keep people busy. Trust me; people know the difference between real work and busy work. Real work adds value and busy work does not. Patrick Lencioni, in his book, “The Three Signs of a Miserable Job” said that people must have a clear idea that their work matters, and that it has relevance for others. He said that they must be able to measure their contributions in a way that does not depend upon the subjective views of superiors.

So, if you are a manager avoid busy work like the plague, and if you are an individual contributor resist doing things that don’t matter to customers (the final arbiters of the worth of our work). You may then find yourself choosing behavior that adds value or at least questioning what you are doing. You may have to upgrade the ways in which you pay attention in order to define value, but that’s okay. You can’t really add value without showing up and paying attention anyway.

All right, I will concede that none of this is fish in a barrel easy. Jesse Ventura is quoted as saying something like the following:

When it comes to bringing values to life – to doing the
good, right, and appropriate thing…we're always working
at it, we're never totally there, and the challenge starts
all over again with each new tomorrow.

There is no way to argue with that. If it were easy we would all be doing it all the time. Simple does not equal easy. I think that one of the primary reasons why the overarching goal of physical medicine is to “do no harm” is because medicine has so much potential for harm running along with its huge potential for healing. We all need a sort of Hippocrates in our lives to give us some rules to follow. I have shared three that my friend offered to me with his advice to “be good to yourself.” There are two more to come. Stay tuned.

Even More on Being Good to Yourself

Okay, if you show up and bring all you have when you do, is that enough to bring out the absolute best that you can be? Not by a long shot. There is much more. If there were not more to it, life would be fairly easy. The next piece as I see it is not about what you bring to the party but how you behave when you get there. Perhaps chief among the things that are required to bring out your very best is to pay attention.

I know that sounds like something that your third grade teacher would bark at you just as you were about to dunk pretty Alice’s pigtail in the inkwell, (special points for all of you old timers that actually understand that allusion and bonus points to all who actually went to a school that had inkwell holes in the desks or better yet actual inkwells) but there is simply no better way to put it.

When I was in pilot training in the US Air Force we students were evaluated on the extent to which we were constantly gathering information from the sky around the aircraft and our instruments. The common admonition was that a good pilot has his head on a swivel and it is constantly searching for information essential to the safe and effective operation of the plane. In short, were we paying attention to what was of great importance if one were to come home alive from a mission? Granted, there was not a lot of information to get from the instrument panel in a biplane, but what was there was pretty darned important. So they tried to teach me that paying attention was a critical skill in developing a positive and lasting relationship with flying. Much later in life I learned that it is also darned important when it comes to developing human to human relationships.

By now we have all been exposed to the importance of listening as an essential relationship skill and I wish that paying attention were as simple as that. It is not. You see the demands related to paying attention in human relationships are much greater than those of a pilot in his aircraft. The key difference is that we learned that as pilots we could not trust our postural senses. That is you could not rely on your body to tell you what kind of motion was occurring because the multiple forces at work in the maneuvering of the craft could cause your body to lie to you. You could feel as if the plane were rolling over when in fact it was flying straight and level. So we learned to trust our instruments over our bodies and that learning saved many pilot’s lives and failure to learn it cost the lives of one of my classmates and his instructor pilot.

In human relationships, though, paying attention not only involves listening to words and syntax; observing body language including dress and appearance; and listening to the emotional quality in what people are saying; but it also means paying attention to one’s own thoughts and emotions at the same time. Now this is not easy. Despite the popular myth of multi-tasking, humans can only do one conscious thing at a time. Paying attention to both others and oneself simultaneously is a tall order. It is nonetheless true that paying attention as a requirement of being a successful social creature means exactly that. It serves you to, as Stephen Covey said, seek to understand if you would be understood and that takes listening to everything at once.

The good news is that it can be done because we can keep our consciousness on a swivel and sample outside and inside data alternatively just as we watched the sky and the instrument panel but not at exactly the same time. It only takes small samples of data to be paying attention if they are the right data and we alternate very quickly – at mind speed (think faster than a speeding bullet). We can sample the words and emotions of others as well as our own in incredibly small increments that can make it seem as if we are actually only doing one seamless thing. Isn’t it great being a human being?

Anyway, if Covey is right and I know that he is, a certain way that you can be good to yourself as you navigate the sometimes unfriendly skies of human relationships is to fully pay attention. It is the path to being understood and what feels better than that? In my early years of training as a counselor I was schooled in the skills of listening and self-monitoring, but I have had to practice incessantly all my life in order to barely maintain the skills. They have the shortest life of any that I know and fade quickly without rather constant practice. I guess that the urge to be the center of all things is so powerful for us Homo Sapiens that we drop the paying attention skills rather easily in favor of a more 70’s version of being good to yourself. Am I wrong?

More on Being Good to Yourself

Well, I have once again learned something. By that I mean not only that I have learned another new thing, but that I have learned again something that I have previously known, but apparently not known well.

A commenter on this blog asked if I were familiar with the work of Ken Wilber. The truthful answer was, “Not on my best day!” Of course I had to find out who this person is and why I might have triggered a thought about him. So, I searched, I found, and I rejoiced. His work is not an easy read, but it smacks of truth more than anything I have seen in my memory.

I think that I have been urged by my education and “professional” status to view myself as a psychologist (read scientist) first and a philosopher second, but I continue to have a nagging feeling that the difference between the two is more artificial than actual. Wilber tells me that the difference is unimportant except at a level of detail that is meaningless for most questions. So, I get to be both and that eases my mind a bit. It also reminded me of a saying that I read many years ago that posits a similar sentiment:

“The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity, will neither have good plumbing nor good philosophy.”

I think though that many folks today would consider science the exalted activity and philosophy not worth much consideration in the “real world.” Anyway, I want to be both and choose to ignore any requirement to be dualistic about it.

I have only read a little of Wilber’s writing at this point but I am taken by his apparent understanding that thought is a behavior and that it has substance and power in life. It is also damned hard to manage without a great deal of effort and practice. When my friend told me to be good to myself, he was really saying that if I was to be happy and fulfilled I would have to learn to manage ALL of my behavior. For example, it was not enough to follow Woody Allen’s advice and show up. I had to show up with all of my equipment ready to operate. In my past there were many times when I failed to show up at all and many, many more when I only brought the physical body and left the rest of the toolbox at home – or wherever such things are when not in use. Most certainly the results that I produced reflected this spotty preparation. My performance tended to bounce between brilliant and just plain terrible, and more often the latter than the former.

Now that brilliance is well in my past, I am pleased to find that I can be competent nearly all of the time if I bring the whole toolbox – you know the big one on rollers with lots of drawers that represent all of my education and experience. Competence is good. Brilliance is overrated. Being good to yourself is first of all about showing up. More to come.

The other day I was at a business luncheon, and I had to listen to the owner of a chain of franchise restaurants complain how difficult it is to get employees (teenagers) to say “Thank You” to customers. This man was outraged that his minimum wage employees were more concerned about texting their friends than contributing to America’s obesity epidemic. The conversation was centered around improving the quality of the customer experience and creating a culture that inspires customer enthusiasm. Now, given that culture is an extremely difficult concept to define in the first place, and that even the people who make a living studying it can’t really define it (take that, Med school!), I have no idea how a room full of business people expected to make progress of any sort on the topic over a lunch meeting. Nevertheless, in the tradtion of the light brigade (or maybe Don Quixote) this group determinedly plowed forward. The conversation covered the full gamut of business school solutions; “you have to stay on top of your employees”, “you need good policies and procedures in place”, “there’s no substitute for a good supervisor”, “recognize that in this industry, you’re not going to get the best out of your employees, so you’re going to have to beat them.” Alright, I exaggerated that last one… somewhat.

Now, having been born and raised in America, (a fact for which I will always be deeply grateful) I am willing to admit that I have known a few of the “self absorbed little thieves” that this franchisee was speaking about. I’ve even stayed in contact with one or two, since my days in high school. Hopefully, as you’re reading this, you’re sitting down, because I have some shocking news: the same friends that I used to “goof-off” with when they were at minimum wage jobs, have now become responsible, successful, and hard-working adults. I didn’t have the heart to interrupt the franchise owner in the middle of his call to action, and the conversation moved on. I must admit, though, I was only listening with half an ear. The problem is this: whenever managers have the conversation about when people become employees, they let out a great sigh of resignation, and come to the conclusion that the problem is intractable. The conversation ends with some comment like, “you can’t teach character”, or even more vaguely, “what are you gonna do?”

Now, despite the obvious desire for electroshock collars, and drug-assisted social de-programming for new hires (particularly among the loss prevention crowd), I’m going to make a rather rude statement: your employees aren’t the problem, you are. Here’s why: you’ve idiot-proofed everything. You’ve made the job so simple a monkey could do it. Yet, you’re complaining because the monkeys are flinging poop. Why don’t we try a better way?

First off, let’s agree that your company and career are a big reflection of who you are. You, the successful business owner, or skilled professional, have worked hard to get where you are, no matter where you started out, and you deserve credit for that. You took risks, struggled, maybe you got lucky, and it got you to where you are today. You are doing more than just dodging monkey feces, you are keeping people and families employed, thinking strategically, and trying to avoid all the new penalties the government is determined to throw at you. So what do you do when good old Uncle Sam starts drinking/ wanting to win an election and comes up with new regulations/ beats one of the other kids, while Aunt insurance company freaks out? You formulate a policy to tell your employees how to behave. Nobody wants it, but it’s for their own good, and it keeps both the insurers and the government happy. The only problem is, the government’s never happy (and insurance never gets cheaper). Uncle Sam just keeps on coming up with new regulations, and the next thing you know, running a business is about as complicated as the tax code. Not only that, but work becomes as much fun as doing your taxes, unless you’re a CPA, and I think we can agree that you CPA’s are sick people.

So how do we do it? How do we keep people interested in a grind that’s about as much fun as doing taxes? How do we inspire them to take the risks, and have the passion, that we have? How do we get them to care? It’s simple really; you let them take risks, like you used to.

Now before you start telling me that I, “should go to a place that’s run that way, just don’t order their “special sauce””, backup and read that last sentence. Get them to take risks like you used to. You waited until you saw the bigger picture, and then you tried something you’de been hearing about. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it really worked. Either way, it made life better and easier for you.

The people that you are trying to sheild from the government are going to one day be your managers and executives, your doctors and your engineers. If you don’t start listening to them now, you’re going to wind up defrauded out of your business, laying in a hospital bed, with your house in ruins, within the next 12 years. You’re a business person, not a bodygaurd, so quit trying to protect people. Build a relationship with them, instead. Just because you’ve hit the point that you’re ready to be in charge, and don’t need a mentor anymore, doesn’t mean you know everything. It means that you don’t need just one person giving you guidance, you need a company full of them. Having a relationship with every member of your company, or at least one more than you did yesterday, is the only way to get those guides. It’s not easy, and it’s not simple, but those relationships are the only way for you to find out exactly what you’re doing wrong and right. If you think it will feel good to have your employee put down a cellphone to tell you how great you are, imagine how it will feel to realize that they put it down because they have an idea that could double size of the business. Now imagine having that much work for them to do, and to have them be worth more than you’re paying them. Give them the info, and see where it takes you. Maybe the extra push that converts a friend who’s being texted into a customer who’s being talked to, is you.

The Corporate Physical: Understanding the risks of your company may be easier (and more important) than you think

“Good Health” can be measured in a variety of ways. Some choose to count calories, others count weight – both their own and that of the gym equipment they push, pull, lift, and pedal. By engaging in healthy behavior, the logic goes, one will be healthy.

The other method of measurement is to be proactive in finding and eliminating the risk of “Bad Health,” in monitoring conditions that may be harmful. In other words, monitoring one’s health and reducing the impact of the highest risks will lead to good health. Fortunately, this trend is gaining ground. Doctors are encouraging patients to check themselves regularly for cancerous tumors, sphygmomanometers (devices used for measuring arterial blood pressure) are popping up in local pharmacies and malls, and the yearly physical is gaining popularity. There is also the new phenomenon of Executive or Presidential Physicals (so named because it is the same given to the President of the United States semi-annually) which are designed to give a comprehensive look at all aspects of the patient’s health. Identifying and attempting to mitigate the risks of poor health before the sickness comes is an effective method for staying healthy. Corporations should use this strategy as well.

Granted, corporations are not the same as people. Only a cartoonist can naturally portray a corporation on an elliptical with monitoring devices clipped to its fingers or waiting patiently at the doctor’s office. But the analogy rings strangely true. Like a person, a large corporation is comprised of a multitude of smaller parts: the sales force (the feet), production (the hands), Public Relations (the mouth), and of course management (the brain). Also like a person, the management team “brain” is unable to be consciously aware of the health of all its parts on its own. While individuals have and use physicals so that experts can identify their health risks, corporations have a multitude of tools. Of these tools one is surprisingly underutilized: the Business Impact Analysis.

A well executed Business Impact Analysis (BIA) is the first step in performing a “Corporate Physical.” The BIA is a component of a Business Continuity Program which identifies a company’s processes, the resources needed to perform them, and the interdependencies between them. Once all processes are identified, they are prioritized in terms of criticality to operation of the business. This provides an excellent macro view of the business and answers questions such as: How long can I shut down manufacturing without affecting operations? What products should I begin producing first, in case of an extended shut down? How long can I go without paying employees? The end result is that management will have a clear picture of what processes are most critical and therefore most important to shield from risk.

A well-developed BIA will tie all process criticality back to the organization’s Core Value Chain, which will segment processes by their value to providing for the customer: Create (Marketing and R&D), Produce (Production), and Distribute (Logistics). Like the circulatory, musculoskeletal, and nervous systems each is vital and interdependent.

In this sense, the BIA provides a picture on what the organization looks like. Executives, especially if they are new to the business or consider themselves out of touch, can benefit immensely from this x-ray of their organization.

A Risk Assessment (RA) is the second part of the Corporate Physical and is usually included as part of the BIA. This critical report identifies significant risks to the business. This includes top exposures (for example, socio-economic risks if in a 3^rd world country, regulatory risks if in a heavily regulated industry, and physical risks such as if located on a fault line or in hurricane areas). The RA will also identify the impact of the loss of certain key aspects to the business such as locations, personnel, suppliers, and technology. Single Points of Failures (SPFs) will be identified and if properly written, recommendations for improving redundancy of SPFs are included. The end result is a picture of what is most at risk in the organization.

The Business Impact Analysis / Risk Assessment is a valuable tool because it provides a comprehensive view of the organization’s ability to recover from an event and how well it may mitigate the event in the first place. Findings and Observations (which MLC & Associates Inc. and other companies provide in their BIAs) provide a roadmap for achieving better health by further mitigating risk and identifying potential areas of weakness in terms of recoverability. When an organization’s C-level executives are presented with the BIA; they are oftentimes shocked by the breadth of coverage. Each and every aspect of a corporation can be organized in terms of the impact its disruption would have on operations.

Leaders have a multitude of tools and metrics available for checking the pulse of their organization. They should not only look at the ubiquitous share price, profits, and market cap for measures on how much money they have, but consider the incredible value of a Business Impact Analysis. In any case, a more complete picture is the best. As the old adage goes, “your health is your wealth.”

Hiring the Right People

It’s a funny thing about life, if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
--Writer W. Somerset Maugham

One of the most important tasks of a great leader is hiring and keeping the most talented people. As a business leader, I'm sure you've asked the question, "How do I hire the “right” people for my team and, in turn, for the company?"

In today’s business world, each of us have uniques skills, talents, backgrounds and work experiences. It’s easy to hire people, but hiring the right people requires more effort and time. Take the time to determine the criteria for hiring the right person for your team. Look for people who sincerely want to help other people. They will build solid, trusting relationships with other team members and your business partners. Look for people who have a positive attitude and can take responsibility for their own actions. They can be counted on to have integrity in their work and business relationships. Look for people who are driven by business challenges. They will give 110% of their effort to find the most effective solutions for your company.

The quality of your employees directly determines your ultimate level of success. Insist on hiring only the absolute best people. Make sure that the person you hire has the right chemistry and dynamics to work within your organization and team. A true team shares similar attributes and attitudes. The most qualified person is not necessarily the greatest player when they can’t work well with your existing team. Great teams are passionate, true believers who will always go the extra mile for each other and by extension for you and your company. The right person sticks with your company and your company’s efforts through thick and thin.

If you hire well, the benefits are tremendous. If you hire poorly, the problems are also tremendous. If you only hire the best people for your team, you can trust that they will contribute their knowledge, creativity, and ideas to solving the company’s business issues and challenges.

"The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it."
-- Theodore Roosevelt

The Curvedness of Humans

I don’t like the word “curvedness” very much even though it is correct. I wanted the word to be “curvyness” which I think is much more poetic and curvy in its own right. No matter, a rose by any other name and all that. The principle still applies and that is what I want to comment upon. Humans are curvy and I don’t only mean in the rather nice way that it is true for the female of the species. I mean also in terms of things social and psychological.

I am told that Thomas Jefferson was an advocate of moderation. From what the popular history says that makes him very unlike his associate Benjamin Franklin. I guess it takes all kinds to make a country. Anyway moderation is sort of also what I want to discuss.

I suppose that everyone would agree that too much of a good thing is not good for humans. For example, there have been at least two deaths in the western United States in recent years from deliberately drinking too large a quantity of water. Go figure. It sort of proves the point, though. Water is normally a good thing. In the right amounts, it quenches thirst and supports general health, but in too large a single dose, it can kill you. The same can be said of many things that we would consider good. Too much food, too much oxygen, too much sex, too much money, too easy a life, too many close friends of the opposite sex, etc. And if we think about it too little of these things can also do harm to you – the Catholic priesthood notwithstanding.

Why point out these painfully obvious truths? Well, because there are so many people that still seem to think that there is a linear relationship between how much of some things we have and the quality of human life or human performance. More confidence means more success. More power means more control. More money means more worthwhile person. More metrics means better management. More….well you get the point. The reality is that there is a “sweet spot” that humans must strive for when it comes to how much of something makes us the best we can be. That sweet spot is somewhere between none and way too much and it is different for different people.

I had a boss once that was perhaps the most brilliant administrative mind that I have ever seen in action. He warned me once when we were discussing a promotion for one of the people in our organization that we had to be careful how much money we associated with the promotion. Despite the fact that the manager’s performance had been truly exemplary, it was not wise to over-reward because we would run the risk of damaging a good person. At the time it seemed strange to hear such a thing. I, of course, thought how much more performance we might expect from this talented person if he had no monetary worries. Boy was I wrong. That did not stop me from asking for an explanation of such “bizarre” logic.

My boss answered my by telling stories of people whose lives had been sent into complete disarray by suddenly having too much money. As I dimly recall the stories the term drunken sailor comes to mind. Beyond pathological consumption, came other problems such as launching a gambling compulsion or damaging drug use. In the end I came to understand that he was actually looking out for both our interests as the representatives of the employer and the interests of the person whose life we had the power to impact. From then on in life I have been sensitive to the fact that the curve of optimal human experience looks like this:

So, if you hit the spot with just the right amount of desire or expectation and hit the spot with the right amount of getting or having our lives and all things human are as good as they can get. Now, the curve may not always be a perfect normal distribution but I prefer to think of it that way for purposes of illustration. At any rate, the point is that our purpose in life ought not to be just getting more of everything but hitting that sweet spot in all things. The result would be more content people in a more content society.

Alright, I know what you are thinking and I hope that we can address the unanswered question in a future posting. That question is something like, “How do you know where the sweet spot is?” There are probably many answers to the question and we will explore a number of them as we talk about managing ourselves and our organizations.

Be Good to Yourself

Many years ago I had the pleasure of working with a gentleman that I came to respect for his self-awareness and dedication to doing the right thing. He taught me a great deal even though most of the lessons did not really “hit home” until years later. Perhaps the greatest impact on me came from a simple daily admonition as we parted at the end of the day to “Be good to yourself.”

First let’s remember that this was during the infamous 70’s when just about anything was acceptable and hedonism was very much in vogue. The inevitable result was that I took his advice to mean that I should indulge myself and reward myself and generally pursue as much pleasure as I could find. The good news, or perhaps it was the bad news, was that there was a great deal of pleasure to be found. It was not until much later that I came to understand that he did not mean what I heard at the time. He meant something much more important and challenging. As it turns out the simple pursuit of pleasure may be fine for Paris and Lindsey but it’s not so good for me. Frankly I doubt that it is any good for them either, but that is content for another type of publication.

As time passed I changed. Feature that. In retrospect it seems quite natural but at the time it was a fearsome prospect. In those days of yore I never really wanted to make meaningful commitments or pay attention to the wisdom of others or limit my behavior to that which would add value, and I certainly did not want to embrace accountability. Perhaps worst of all, I would choose on many days to do nothing even when a whisper in my head (the ghosts of my parents?) told me that I should put one figurative foot in front of the other toward something –anything.

Anyway I came to realize that I had a larger purpose in life than to just feel good. It isn’t particularly important how I got there. It may have been the inevitable sorting out of all the lessons I avoided learning as a child and adolescent. It may have been changes in society as a whole. It may have been my choosing to return to the study of human behavior – including mine. It may have been the spiritual inspiration that grew in me. In this case I think that hindsight is not necessarily so crystal clear. No matter. I changed.

I found expression for my deeper and more authentic self in the study and application of organizational psychology. It has brought me grand elation and deep sorrow, but above all it has made me a firm believer in the basic rightness of humanity. With few exceptions, people try to do the right thing. Good intentions rule even though they may sometimes pave the road to perdition. In this blog I will share what I have seen in my more than thirty years in this work and ask the many questions that continue to plague me about what makes organizations work to the true benefit of their stakeholders. I will elaborate on what I came to know as the meaning of being good to myself and write about some of the many mistakes I have made on my journey. Please join me by commenting or posing questions of your own. I believe that your intentions are good and together perhaps we can keep from laying those infamous paving stones on a road that none of us wants to travel.

Common Sense and Consultant Selection

If there is anything we have learned in my more than twenty years in business it is that most managers and executives really do care about the people in their team, department, or organization. Oh, they may talk tough and even steel themselves against the pain when they must take administrative steps to discipline, correct, or terminate, or "rightsize" but they feel the pain nonetheless. I have also learned the inescapable truth is that the pain is largely from feeling powerless. If you have ever wanted deep in your heart to do something well and just didn’t know how and didn’t know where to turn for help, you understand what I am saying.

The problem for many managers is that they simply find it hard to trust internal HR people or outside consultants enough to entrust them with their people. In a strange paradoxical fashion they would rather have the situation go slowly around the drain all on their own than share the experience with a stranger. I guess that when we are afraid we might fail and we are doing something as incredibly important as management, it is better to not have an audience.

Some years ago a management scholar discovered that a surprising number of managers, in particular those that had moved up rapidly, lived in constant fear that they might be discovered for the fraud that they believed inside that they were. Perhaps not so many managers feel that way today as did years ago, but I rather doubt it. I suspect that an important reason that professionals like me are called in when it is way too late is that same fear of discovery. After all, to ask for help involves risk. What if the helper is a fraud too? What if the manager’s ineptitude really is the root problem? What if intervention actually makes things worse? These are all legitimate questions and I would never suggest that managers and executives ignore their fears and concerns and move ahead blindly with something as crucial as people problems. Rather I would suggest that the manager or executive do their shopping in a way that dispels the concerns and fears before making a decision to “open the kimono” and try the latest fad.

Informed selection of helping professionals depends upon getting the right information and the right information is not what program they are selling or what games they play, but what kind of person are they. If you are going to put your people, your very livelihood in the hands of someone else he had better be ethical and trustworthy and as committed to your success and to your people as you are. So don’t simply visit the web site and interview him. You will find that most practitioners can sound competent and can dazzle you with their socio-technical system analysis talk. Fewer can show you what you really need to know without a different selection strategy.

Do something with him that gives you a chance to see the person and not the sales pitch. Playing golf or tennis with the person is one of my favorites. It will reveal character in ways that an interview cannot. Both sports are really good because the play and the scoring depend upon an honor system. I prefer golf only because it is easier on my knees and allows more time for conversation. Most importantly, it is a game that demands character and that is what you must select for. A person that will improve a bad lie or fail to count a stroke or let you win is not likely to tell you the truth about what is going on in your organization or give you the feedback that you need to realize your potential. It is also true that if you play your cards right you can probably get him to pay for the round. You should include a couple of your key people as well so that they can do their own measuring of the person to see if he is a fit with your organization. Of course some other activity might work as well. Just make sure that it reveals the person and not the elevator speech.

This is not about brain surgery, it is about common sense. If you need your helping professional to be the right person with the right character and the right skills, expose them to you and your people before the billable hours begin; and trust your gut about which candidate can really help you with that “soft stuff” that drives you crazy.