FearShackles

Fear in the workplace is like putting shackles on continuous improvement.

When team members have fear, the very best in potential performance and the highest aspirations of the organization are mired in concrete.

What would cause apprehension and tentativeness in the minds of team members? Fear of...

• Having decisions made within policy and law reversed.
• Public criticism.
• Retaliation.
• Social isolation.
• Embarrassment. 
• Being marginalized.

Some leaders use FEAR as leverage. FEAR is not tool, however, that affects, fosters, and promotes continuous improvement. 

Where we headin', Boss?

NotStrength

Being strong is an asset. Physical strength, intellectual strength, emotional/spiritual strength... all afford us a bit of peace, a little security, some comfort, and a degree of influence.

Strength is NOT...

• Bombast
• Condescension
• Brutishness
• Tone deafness
• Bigotry
• Disrespectful behavior
• Moral relativity
• Principlelessness

So, how do we look/feel/smell without strength? Fearful, weak, fickle, brittle, ... 

Knowing what we don't want to be is just as important as knowing what we do.

EmpowerPower

Empowered teams are powerful teams. They can get "stuff" done.

Teams that are DIS-empowered feel/look/smell like this:

• De-energized
• Helpless
• Listless
• Weak
• Fearful
• Useless
• De-valued

Teams that feel empowered feel/look/smell like this:

• Bold
• Eager
• Confident
• Energized
• Optimistic
• Accountable

Complex problems required the work of TEAMS of skillful, intelligent, enthusiastic folks. The environment we create for our TEAM makes all the difference in the outcomes we achieve. 

We can always do it better, and today is a good time to start.

Power up, or EMPOWER up!

HumilityAnchor

The richest form of leadership is grounded in the desire to serve. 

Effective service is anchored in a mindset of humility.

The wisest leaders I know and observe are humble to the extreme. They demonstrate and model that humility through...

• Being world-class listeners.
• Asking deeply reflective questions (even when they know the answers).
• Exuding transparency and vulnerability.
• Holding themselves accountable before demanding it of others.
• Expressing gratitude freely and broadly.
• Assuming the meaningless of rank in relation to human engagement.

Reminded of the Tim McGraw song "Humble and Kind."

Still learning a lot about humility from those impactful leaders...

EvalAntacid

Nobody likes annual evaluations. Well, perhaps a few masochists or sadists do, but none of the rest of us do.

Why do those yearly events cause us so much angst? From my experience on both sides of that table, it always feels painful due to the judgmental-prescriptive dynamic that is built into it. One person in the conversation, usually the boss/supervisor, is tasked with "scoring" the other person on their performance, then giving them advice/counsel on how to do that job better. 

An alternative that seems a bit less painful is a collaborative inquiry-based conversation. Some questions that generate reflective examination of performance (for both parties) can include the following:

• From your perspective, what are two or three of the primary things we need to try to accomplish in order to achieve the Vision our organization espouses?
• What about your assigned work role seems to align well with that Vision?
• What about your assigned work responsibilities seem misaligned, or maybe even run contrary, to that Vision?
• In what ways do you feel you've improved in the work you do?
• What about your work seems to give you the most pleasure?
• What about your assigned role causes you the most heartburn or anxiety?
• If our organization was performing perfectly, how would it look from your role?

The need for regular and reflective examination is obvious. Perhaps it might be more productive if we could fashion it into a conversation about getting better, and less about ranking and sorting and critiquing. 

Creep

Evolution is a thing. A real thing. It is the slow and steady creep toward .... survival.

We creep. As individuals, as teams, as organizations, as political systems, as cultures. 

That slow, steady, molasses-like creep can seem to be beyond our control. Alas, not so. While some creep along as "victims" of the people, experiences, forces they encounter, others quite purposefully creep toward betterment. In effect, they consciously choose to be the editors of their own lives.

At the end of the day, it's really about what we are becoming. Or, rather, choosing to become.

Getting better, every day, on purpose. It's a choice. We can start today.

Happy creeping...

OrBut

OrBut. Not orbit.

The words "or" and "but" are amazingly efficient conversation stoppers. When we use those words, we automatically signal to others that they are not thinking clearly enough, or intelligently enough, or, at the very least, at a level on par with ourselves. It's really not a good look.

Inserting the word "and" when we're tempted to use those other two subtly opens the world of possibility up by inviting others to think with us, to combine our thinking and experience and perspective.

AND, just think of the amazing things we might do together...

LeadSharing

Leadership, effective leadership, is a shared endeavor. Just like intelligence, it is always collective; never singular.

Yet, some think otherwise. They think...

• Accountability flows only in one direction.
• Others only improve with their help.
• Dissent should be squelched.
• Permission must be pervasively granted.
• Others must be pushed or driven to do the right thing.

Probably the very reasons that, when these folks look over their shoulder, ain't nobody following.

PeoplePalette

In most organizations, we've got the people we've got. Only in the rarest of situations does the leader of an organization get to craft the team from scratch. And in most organizations cleaning house and starting over is not an option.

Some leaders I have watched spend a lot of time wishing for better players, complaining about the team they have, and spending inordinate amounts of time trying to squeeze people out.

Some really wise others, however, choose to take the team they've been dealt and see how much they can get the team to grow, learn, adapt, and excel.

Both approaches take a LOT of time. The latter approach seems far more interesting, invigorating, and gratifying.

We get to choose how we "mix the colors" on the palette of people on our team. And we get to see what kind of picture we can paint with them.