Whining, Venting, or Problem-Solving?

All of us encounter a stressful or perplexing situation now and again.  Friends, family, and colleagues may bring theirs to us to discuss, and we do the same.  Over years of participating in these conversations, both as the listener and as the speaker, I have observed something that, once I got it, had saved me some time and frustration and I want to share that with you.  That lesson is to consciously categorize your conversations, and only spend time with those that are constructive.

The first step is identifying the conversation.  When a negative or stressful situation is being discussed, the conversation generally falls into three main types: 

1. Venting:  This involves describing the negative circumstance and voicing complaints about it.  Its main purpose, however, is to discharge negative feelings in a safe environment before moving on to more constructive solutions, either in the conversation or outside of it.  It can be positive if it allows the speaker to get out her frustrations, preventing them from blowing up in an inappropriate way or time.
2. Problem-solving:  This conversation acknowledges the concern and then quickly moves toward solutions.  The bulk of this conversation is about making the negative situation right, seeking greater understanding, or reframing the circumstance from negative to positive.  In situations where the speaker doesn’t have much power to affect change, the problem-solving focuses on how he can alter his perception of the situation, create a work-around, accept the situation, or plan an exit strategy.
3. Whining:  This involves describing the negative circumstance and voicing complaints, but the conversation never moves to possible solutions.  When constructive actions or remedies are suggested, the speaker usually shoots down all of them and resists any attempt to brainstorm solutions.  He may even disparage the person trying to help, saying things like, “You just don’t get it.”  Whining’s main purpose is often to reinforce the speaker’s perceived powerlessness, regardless of the reality.

Understanding these types of conversations has saved me a good bit of time and frustration.  It’s helped me focus my energy on problem-solving conversations and prevented me from expending energy attempting to help people who didn’t want it, at least at the time I was offering it. 

Take a moment or ten this week to notice the types of discussions you have.  Whether you are the speaker or listener, set a “no whining” goal and nudge your conversations toward support and problem-solving.  You’ll get more done and feel better about it, too.

How to be a Good Boss in Tough Times

The purpose of this blog is to provide you with leadership knowledge that is useful, whether it’s through summarizing information and experiences for you, or pointing you to powerful resources that don’t take a lot of time to absorb.  Robert Sutton is one of my favorite management resources because his work is based in research and he presents it in a very practical, if earthy, way.  This week, I want to point you to another good piece from him:  a 10-minute video about how to be a good boss in bad times (there is also a transcript of the conversation at this link, if you prefer that format).  There are many good points, but the two to watch for in particular are his discussion of “the toxic tandem” of power and the recipe for being a good boss in bad times.  (Teaser: The ingredients include prediction, understanding, control, and compassion.)

Those two pieces, along with several other points he makes, are immediately useful, whether your organization is experiencing layoffs, budget cuts, reorganization, or any of the other forms of workplace change and stress.  If somehow you have escaped any of these workplace realities recently, hang on, because they are inevitable over the course of a career.  I hope you’ll enjoy the video.

Improving Strategic Thinking

You already know that strategic thinking is important.  Cave men and women couldn’t bring down that mammoth for the tribe or figure out how to use fire without that ability.  It has become an increasingly important skill as the pace of change has increased from millennia (for cave folk) to days (us).  Sharper strategic thinking allows you to see current, unmet needs and emerging trends.  It makes your decisions less reactive and more constructive.  Interested?  Read on.

As I was reading three recent articles about this topic, one thing was immediately clear:  Strategic thinkers have open minds and not only aren’t afraid to be wrong, but also actively seek to prove their ideas wrong.  In other words, they do everything they can to prevent groupthink. 

How do they do this?  According to our three authors linked above, strategic thinkers start by constantly scanning the environment for data and patterns that help them anticipate what may be emerging in their workplaces or in their industry or field.  They spend time figuring out what they really need to focus on, to get to the core questions of any given issue. They listen well and think critically about what they hear.  They understand confirmation bias, which is the mind’s tendency – and yes, everyone does this -- to only attend to information that confirms what is already believed.  They self-monitor to become aware of their own assumptions and seek information that contradicts them.  That may include reading authors with whom they disagree, but it certainly includes seeking a team whose members think differently from them.  Finally, they avoid “analysis paralysis” by understanding that, while information gathering is important, they never have enough and decisions do have to be made. 

The core issue here is that strategic leaders manage their own egos – which tell them that they are always right -- and they reward constructive disagreement within their teams.  (A leadership model profiled earlier on this blog calls this “Consciousness of Self” and “Controversy with Civility.”)

Strategic thinking is a skill and Shaun Rein suggests three ways you can improve it  on a daily basis:  (1) Constantly question your own opinions for biases or untested assumptions; (2) Surround yourself with people who have well-reasoned but different viewpoints than your own; (3) Take time to recharge and get out of your ruts.  See or experience new things in your private life on a regular basis and this will freshen your viewpoint when you return to your leadership role, wherever that occurs: work, home, volunteering, or at school.

Being enrolled in a graduate program and experiencing an election year are both great opportunities for you to do these things.  Any small opportunities you take to strengthen your strategic thinking add up into a stronger professional with better thinking abilities.  Now let's go get strategic!  

Can You Hear Me Now? But More Importantly, Are You Listening?

Think back to your best supervisors, teachers, volunteer leaders, clergy members, or other leaders you’ve come in contact with.  What made them great? Chances are that good listening skills are one thing that made them stand out.  This is not surprising.  One of Stephen Covey’s habits is “Seek first to understand, then be understood” and many prominent leadership educators have focused on this topic as well. In last week’s profile of Michael Mack’s failure and eventual success, listening to others was a key factor. 

Most people think they are great listeners, but they may only be great at hearing.  True listening means hearing with an open mind, with a willingness to be changed by what you hear, and that gets increasingly harder as our lives get busier, our list of devices grows, and our media diet becomes ever more saturated.  Even after you are attentive, you have to be an active listener and that takes practice.  Want to know more? You can find a brief but useful summary of specific skills to practice here. 

Why not spend the weekend practicing these active listening skills?  As you talk with individuals you encounter or even as you do reading or other homework, spend more time asking questions and learning about those you encounter, or the content you are studying, rather than focusing on what you think of the person or material.  When someone tells you a story about themselves, instead of telling one of your own, ask them questions about theirs.  You will gradually increase your skill level and you’ll strengthen relationships, too.  Happy listening!

Garden Fresh Leadership Lessons in Losing it All and Getting It All Back Again

Michael Mack built the company Garden Fresh (which would later become Sweet Tomatoes and Souplantation) from the ground up with a business partner, but in 1990, he was fired as CEO by his board.  Four years later, he was rehired, mainly because of the way he conducted himself and lessons he learned.  You can read a more complete account of his story here, but the main takeaways are:

1. There are no Lone Rangers among successful leaders.  Mack was fired, in part, because he focused too much the numbers and ignored the people.  He always thought his way was best and refused to listen to the ideas of others or involve them much in processes.  By his own description, he was “arrogant, self-righteous, and overly independent.”  We all learned this lesson in kindergarten and it’s true today: to succeed you must play nicely with others.
2. It’s not about you. After being fired, Mack says he learned to focus on the outcomes and not as much on micromanaging the way people got there or on work as an vehicle for his personal ambitions. We know from other research that a sense of autonomy is one of the biggest predictors of workplace satisfaction and productivity.  Mack learned that the autonomy of others mattered as much as his own and a productive, happy team stays longer and produces more.
3. Look for ways for everyone to get what they want.  One of the changes Mack made was to stop shooting out “yes, no” answers and start conversing with people about their priorities.  He found ways for priorities to align and others to get what they wanted, which created better solutions, a happier team, and, ultimately more success for the organization.
4. Unburned bridges are best.  As a founder of the company and investor, Mack stayed on the board after he was fired.   He overcame his anger, stayed professional, and focused on company goals.  This impressed the board and was a major factor in getting his job back.
5. Bad things can turn out to be blessings.  Mack got fired when his wife was 8 months pregnant.  Unable to find work other than consulting, he stayed home with his daughter for several years and built a relationship with her that was incredibly fulfilling to him.  That relationship – which wouldn’t have happened given his previous 100-hour work weeks – and the personal changes he made led him to call the firing “a gift.” 

Twelve Things You Were Not Taught in School About Creativity

I think one of the most important, but under-emphasized, qualities of effective leaders is creativity. When most people hear “creativity” they think of artists and will often say, “Oh, I like that stuff but I’m not a creative person myself.”  They couldn’t be more wrong. 

Creativity is more about thinking differently and seeing things from new perspectives.  Artists certainly do that and we reap the benefits, but it is possible to bring creativity to everything , and all of us can learn to be more creative.  Why do this?  We all encounter situations or problems or needs that require solutions.   We can come up with the “same old same old” but, as a very smart person once said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.”  Creative thinking is required to solve those problems, prevent others, and, most importantly, proactively innovate new ideas, solutions, products, and services for our organizations.  I believe creativity has never been more important, given the pace of change in our culture.  Creativity is needed now just to keep up and super creativity is needed to truly lead.

I recently read an excellent, brief piece about creativity that I highly recommend, called “Twelve Things You Were Not Taught in School About Creativity.”  In this piece, you will find clarification about creativity, tips for how to improve your creative thinking, and things to anticipate if you are a creative thinker.  I’ve read it a few times now and I highly recommend it.  

Is Your Integrity Showing?

I’ve been in my profession for almost 20 years and spent many more years observing successful and unsuccessful individuals and organizations.  After giving some thought to what the successful individuals and groups have in common, it became clear that we rise and fall on many qualities, but two are the most common:  integrity and communication.  I’ll write more about communication in another post but let’s focus on integrity today.  For the record, the definition of integrity I use is your values matching your actions, forming a unified ethical whole.  Most people associate integrity with honesty, but it goes further than that.

Integrity is like a good sense of humor or good driving skills:  Everyone thinks they have it.  Some would even argue – as did some recent college graduates I interviewed – that they always live in a state of integrity; they always live their values.  The truth is that no one has perfect, unfailing alignment between their values and actions.  We all occasionally – hopefully rarely -- do things that are out of step with what we believe we should do or be.  Some people, however, have more alignment than others, and organizations, like individuals, can “walk the walk” (or not), too.  This is important for ethical reasons, of course, but it also has pragmatic benefits as well:  That level of integrity is part of what determines success. 

The reason integrity is so important in terms of leadership and success is that it is one of the major factors in creating trust.  Without trust, you simply cannot have effective working relationships, whether it’s with supervisees, supervisors, colleagues, customers, constituents or any other group or individual you work with.  Can you work effectively with someone you can’t trust?  Probably not.  You can work with them, sure, but I’m guessing that you will be guarded, the interactions will take longer because of the need to verify and follow up, and you will almost always attempt to lessen or avoid contact with those untrustworthy individuals because working closely with them costs you too much emotionally and temporally.  Those relationships are the key to doing anything at all, whether it’s selling a car or teaching a student. Trust is the foundation of those relationships and integrity is the concrete that makes up that foundation.

So how do you know you have integrity?  Here are five ways to see if your professional integrity is showing.

What do you do to ensure trust and integrity?