Working With Others

Author Jim Harrison has said that “when you are tracking a bear, pay attention; because the bear is. Think about how many things that we do on “automatic pilot. For example, how many of you have had the experience of driving a familiar route, arriving at your destination, and then remembering absolutely nothing about the details of the trip. And you end up wondering how did I even get here.

On Monday, I wrote about deliberation; today I would like to suggest that paying attention or focus is equally important. How often have we been in a meeting with someone who is trying to explain something to us, and we appear to be listening, but instead we are thinking about what we are going to say, or worse yet, thinking about how in the world we are going to get to our son or daughter’s soccer game in rush hour traffic.

So, pay attention, and see what becomes possible.

Naomi Shihab Nye is one of my favorite poets.  She was also one of those featured in the Bill Moyers’ PBS series The Language of Life. In a lecture she gave at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival in Waterloo, NJ in the summer of 1994, she spoke with a group of aspiring writers.  She said people always ask for her advice when it comes to being a writer.  She said she always asks them, “What have you read in the last year that has really touched you or disturbed you or poke you?  If they can’t answer that question, I tell them ˜get busy’. “

When I am coaching someone, I always ask what he/she has been reading.  Sometimes the reply is. “I don’t have time to read. Sometimes I get the litany of popular business books.  Rarely, someone will tell me about the biography they have just read, or a timeless literature classic, or their favorite poet.  Then I get interested.

When I look at the range of titles available in the business section of the Border’s and Barnes and Nobles of the world, I observe countless books that seem to address the same the subjects over and over and over again.  Subjects like leadership, team building, how to start a business, how to plan your career, how to get more done have way too many titles.  What publishers often position as a new idea is usually an old one that gets repackaged.  Granted they need to sell books and I guess the best way to do that is to present tried and true or safe titles written by authors everyone knows that promise hope yet are not controversial.  Certainly there are some worthwhile reads here.  However, I would suggest that something that really touches, disturbs or pokes you will not come from the business section, but more likely from novels, poetry, and biography.  So what are you waiting for? Get busy.

Yesterday, I facilitated a workshop on Leadership for a group of managers from a financial services business.  One of the questions I asked this group was, “what does leadership look like in your organization?  In other words, I wanted them to identify the key characteristics of successful leaders in their organization , characteristics that could form the basis of leadership competencies.

Items that emerged from their small group conversations were characteristics such as integrity, high degree of ethics, being able to articulate a compelling vision, the ability to connect with people, being a good listener to understand the motivations of others, etc.  After I captured these items on the flip chart, I asked the group what they noticed about the list they had just generated.  After a brief pause, one of the participants said somewhat surprisingly, “there is nothing on the list about being an expert or being technically competent , it’s all about relationships!

Yes, Virginia, leadership is a relational concept.  It is extremely difficult to play a leadership role if there are no followers , unless, of course, you believe you are legend in your own mind.  To be sure, a leader needs to possess the task relevant competencies to understand the context in which they are leading.  However, that expertise, while perhaps necessary for the personal power that a leadership role requires, is not sufficient for good or even great leadership to be present. And this fact is what seems to escape educational institutions and to a certain extent business organizations that focus on developing the content expertise of the individual and just assume that the leadership competencies will emerge when necessary.  I am not the only one who believes that there is a void of leadership in many settings.  And unless we take a proactive stance that void will continue to the great detriment of all concerned.

One evening last week, I finally had the opportunity to watch the movie Rocky Balboa on DVD. In the spirit of full disclosure, I was born in Philadelphia and thoroughly enjoyed the local flavor of the first Rocky film back in 1976.  Even though Rocky II , V fit under the Hollywood mantra of “if you at first you have a blockbuster success, then run it into the ground, the reviews of Rocky Balboa had me interested in this finale to the saga.  I had planned to see this flick back in January with a friend of mine in Santa Fe, but we ended up having to cancel our plans for five consecutive weekends because of the freaky New Mexico weather.

So I settled in with a cup of tea and turned on my DVD player.  For those who have not seen the movie , the premise is that the aging Rocky’s beloved wife Adrianne has passed away and he spends his time at his restaurant named after her telling boxing stories to patrons.  In the meantime, an all-sports TV network puts together a computer simulation of a match between Rocky in his prime and the current heavyweight champion Mason “The Line Dixon (Sylvester Stallone has an affinity for campy names for fighters).  Rocky wins this simulation, much to the chagrin of the current champ’s handlers, who then get Rocky to come out of retirement to fight Mason so the latter can even the score.

At this point, you are probably wondering what this movie has to do the topics normally addressed on this blog.  Well, I am always looking for film clips to illustrate various conversations that I have in training or coaching settings and Rocky Balboa provides one.  It’s about competitive advantage and strategy. There is a scene in which Rocky’s trainer assesses the situation to plan his boxer’s strategy for the match.  The trainer does an objective assessment of Rocky’s strengths and weaknesses.  He points out that Mason Dixon is just too fast to try to beat him with speed, that Rocky’s knees won’t hold up to a lot of road work, and that calcium deposits in his joints preclude a lot of sparring.  Rocky’s main strength is his punching power and his ability to take a punch, so the trainer develops a weight-lifting regimen to put power behind his punches so that with every punch Mason will feel like he’s “kissing the front end of train at full speed.

What I liked about this segment was that it represented the kind of ruthless assessment of strengths and weaknesses that some organizations fail to do well.  I’ve facilitated strategic planning sessions where it seems more like a mutual admiration society.  The scene also provides a great example of the importance of crafting a strategy that is based on the competitive advantage that an organization has and then , and this is important , sticking to it.  I’ve witnessed organizations that at the first sign of adversity give up on a strategy too soon.  And by the way, the organizations that I’ve seen cling to a strategy too long, usually have not done that ruthless assessment of strengths and weaknesses.

I wish more businesses had the clarity of Rocky’s trainer.  After all, the competitive marketplace can feel like a heavyweight fight and it is not how you start, it is how you finish that counts.

From time to time I watch groups struggle with decision-making. The key issue usually centers on the absence of any dialogue about how decision-making will occur in the group. I’m amazed at how many groups and the leaders of those groups dance around this issue.

Many groups will agree that they will use consensus to make decisions without really understanding what consensus means. Most groups believe that consensus means agreement when in fact it means that every one feels heard and can support the decision of the group even if each member may not agree with the decision.

The bigger issue is more akin to Will Carey’s TV show, “Whose line is it anyway? The question for the group is “whose decision is it? Is it the leader’s decision, the group’s decision, or a group member’s decision? Most of the angst that I see in teams around decision-making centers on this very issue. Think about your own work group. Does the group have clarity about whose decision it is in each area of the group’s accountability?

Last night I listened to a re-broadcast of NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross.  One of her guests was the author of How Doctors Think, Jerome Groopman MD.  Dr. Groopman’s main point was that doctors tend to latch on to the first thing that a patient says with the idea of making a diagnosis within the short period of time in which health plans now expect physicians to see a patient in an office visit , approximately 12 minutes.  He cites the significant number of incorrect diagnoses that occur because most physicians fail to ask the simple question , “what else could be going on?

While listening to Terry Gross’ interview with Dr. Groopman was sobering, it made me wonder about the listening skills of most decision-makers in the business world.  In a world that seems to insist on a fast pace and short-term expectations of success, how often do they latch on to the first piece of data that gets presented and make a quick decision only to find that they’ve missed a key piece of information that would suggest a completely different course of action.  When I work with managers at all levels on the topic of decision-making, I share a line from a poem by the 13th century Sufi mystic Rumi:  “Stipulate with every transaction that you need three days to make sure! Sniff with your wisdom nose. Get clear. Then decide.  I think we could all learn from this advice.

I had the privilege of hearing Kim Nelson, President of the Snacks Division at General Mills deliver a presentation to a group of new managers.  One of her messages was about “The Best Lessons on Leadership You Learn From Your Kids. It was a very insightful component of her talk and it helped me think about the relationship of our personal lives to our work lives and vice versa.

Some of the best leaders with whom I have worked have at least one characteristic in common , they show up as the same person at both home and work.  In other words they bring their entire self to work and that same person is fully present at home as well.  When I do the MBTI”with managers and leaders, someone will say something like, “I’m different when I’m at work.  That is, they leave the way they really are at home.  How unfortunate.

Great leaders have evolved their style and their way of being so they are comfortable in their skin regardless of whether they are at home or at work. And in reality children can help us be our true selves.  Maybe that’s because those lessons they learned in kindergarten about working and playing well with others are still fresh in their minds.

About a month ago, I commented on the University of Minnesota’s hiring a new head football coach without any previous head coaching experience (The Hiring of a CEO , That is Head Coach). On Saturday, February 17, 2007, the Regents of the University of New Mexico named current Oklahoma State University president David Schmidly as the university’s next president. Of the five finalists , all of whom were qualified to lead this university , Schmidly had the most experience and the Regents picked him. In short, The University of New Mexico hired on the basis of experience rather than potential. Before his tenure at Oklahoma State, Schmidly had served as president at Texas Tech University as well. The last president that the UNM Regents hired had not held any university-level leadership roles; furthermore he lacked a track record of academic scholarship , which is usually a prerequisite for high-level administrative positions in academia. That president and the university parted ways over a year ago. So it is not surprising that this time the Regents went for the person with the most experience.

Leading a major state university is a challenging endeavor unlike leading any other business organization. I have heard a university described as a confederation of faculty loosely held together by a series of parking lots. And I have heard the act of leading a university is more akin to herding cats. As a president of a state university, one has to manage the relationship with numerous constituencies including the faculty, the regents or trustees, the legislature, alumni, and the various accrediting bodies that give the university the ability to grant degrees. Then there is the matter of the financial integrity of the place, the facilities, the athletic programs and so on. This is one job where experience does count and a track record of accomplishments is critically important.

Up until last week’s snowstorm that hit the Midwest and East Coast, high customer satisfaction scores seemed to indicate that JetBlue Airways employees “worked and played well with others.  As this low-cost airline discovered, it is one thing to provide outstanding levels of customer service when things are going smoothly; it is quite another to perform flawlessly under difficult conditions.  Instead, this seven year old airline based in New York City’s JFK International Airport left passengers sitting on airplanes on the tarmac for upwards of nine hours and countless others stranded in terminals around the country , almost a week after the storm hit and when other traditional airlines are back to normal.

The following statement from David E. Neeleman, founder and chief executive of JetBlue Airways was the quote of the day in today’s New York Times.
“We had an emergency control center full of people who didn’t know what to do. I had flight attendants sitting in hotel rooms for three days who couldn’t get a hold of us. I had pilots e-mailing me saying, ˜I’m available, what do I do?’ “.  Oh my.

The article goes on to say that Neeleman was mortified by the situation and admitted that the management of his company was not strong enough and that the major culprit was an inadequate communications system. (When I checked their website this morning, the last update was yesterday at 5PM!)  He promised that 100 corporate employees would be trained to “backstop the problem within two weeks and that performance would be “flawless in a month.  I’d love to be a fly on the wall in this company.  Sounds like there is a lot of blaming present.  My fear is that there may be a lot of yelling and screaming to come that will only make the situation worse.

For what it is worth, I’ll offer this observation. When I checked the Jet Blue website this morning and click on a few links I came upon David Neeleman’s background.  It seems he fits the classic profile of an entrepreneur , left college after three years, started up a number of ventures, and had an excellent track record of seeing a need and then attracting the financing to make a business to meet that need a reality.  And so JetBlue was born.  I know a lot of entrepreneurs and they all tell me that that the thrill for them is in the startup.  Taking an idea and developing it into a business proposition is what turns them on , not the day-to-day operations once the business is started.  They leave the running of the business to the management talent that they hire and the importance of that step cannot be underestimated.  If Mr. Neeleman believes that the management of his company is not strong enough than he needs to assess what elements must be present that are not there now to build a strong management team.

Clearly, like a paramedic at an accident scene, JetBlue needs someone internally to step up, access the situation, and quickly stop the bleeding to get the airline back on schedule and repair damaged customer relationships.  Then there needs to be a non-blaming conversation to agree on what needs to be present , such as contingency plans, an improved communication systems, and crisis management protocols, for example – so that this situation does not happen again.  I think what Mr. Neeleman and others will find out that for the traveling public low cost is not enough of a value proposition to sustain an airline.  Reliability and the ability to respond to changing conditions under situations of complexity and ambiguity are required.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I am an unabashed Tony Dungy fan.  I’ve been that way since I watched his first game as a University of Minnesota quarterback in the early ˜70’s. Nevertheless, I think managers and leaders (in fact, everyone) can learn a lot from Tony Dungy, the head coach of the current Super Bowl champion Indianapolis Colts: that nice guys can finish first; that perseverance counts for a lot; and that how you say things is just as important as what you say.  I’d like to focus on this last point for a minute.

As the sports pundits give Tony the credit he richly deserves, they continue to refer to one particular scene when he first took over as the Colts head coach.  In the first team meeting , and professional football teams have more meetings than the average business , Tony told his team in a very calm voice, “You guys will need to listen carefully, because this is as loud as I get.  I’m sure that each of us at one time or another has had a boss or has known someone who has had a boss that was known as a screamer.  There are managers and leaders that truly believe that the only way to really mean something is to say it in a loud voice.  Tony showed us all that you do not need to be a screamer to get results.  Moreover, I contend that successful leaders have a way of being calm under pressure and that I have never known a screamer who can convey a sense of “everything is going to be all right by yelling orders at the top of his/her lungs at their direct reports or peers to get a point across.  So what ways do you convey that sense of calmness that Tony Dungy does so well?