It's not my job

A month ago Thanksgiving, I talked about being thankful to your colleagues. As the week of Christmas has arrived, I am thinking about what and how you give in your organization.

What are you giving back to your organization?

Ideally, your teams are made up of diverse skills and viewpoints complimenting each other on how they interact and what they bring to the table. Your teams are confident enough to counter view points for creative discussion leading to creative solutions.

We all have our role. We all have our job.

Having our role also means that there are roles that don’t belong to us; tasks and responsibilities that don’t fall under our umbrella – tasks left to others.. jobs that aren't ours.

Do you ever do things that aren’t directly assigned to you? Of course we all have to mindful of our immediate and long-term responsibilities to ensure our work is getting done without being overworked ourselves, but I’d like to explore what happens when we give of ourselves fully at work.

Let’s starting with making a list of things that we could give:

• Pick up any trash you come across that’s the size of a dime or larger on the floor

• Help a colleague pick up something that accidentally spilled

• Walk a strong pace to get to your destination quicker – to finish quicker

• Smile and greet every person you encounter in your office

• Listen respectfully to every person you interact with in your office

• Help someone do their job if you have idle time

• Research and brainstorm on products, services, or just plain ideas that will help your company to do more.

• Contribute in discussion at meetings

• Prepare for meetings you’ll attend

• Finish your work when you’ve committed to finishing it

• Continuously think of ways you can do your job better

• Continuously think of ways your company can service its clients better

• Choose to share the positive verses complaining or dwelling on the past

• Support the team decision and make it successful even if you disagree with the method (within moral limits obviously)

• Go the extra step, put on the finishing touches, and do a little more proudly to delight your clients (or the colleague you’re delivering to)

• Be proud of what you deliver

• Understand the ‘why’ of decisions so you can support them fully

Wouldn’t you like someone who did all these things to work for you?

What more would you add to this list?

Sustainability in Leadership

There’s a lot of talk about sustainability of the planet, our energy sources, our households, our offices, and our products, but what about the sustainability of our leaders? What about the sustainability of your leadership?

What is your environmental impact on others?

Our words and actions are powerful in how others respond to us and how they perform their work. As a leader you are responsible for motivating your teams and moving your business in a positive direction.

The cost of uninspiring leaders is hard to measure as external factors are easy to point to as possible root causes to long launch cycles, lack-luster ideas, high PPM, low moral, and head butting between groups. As humans we’re wired to want to do good work and to be successful. Our personal pride runs deeper than any corporate directive. Consider how productive one might be however if your leadership combined with the corporate directive aligned with the personal motives of your team.

Just for kicks, let’s compare our needs and goals relative to plants:

P L A N T S			P E O P L E
Grow and get bigger			We want to grow, improve, succeed
Need sunlight			Want to prosper,
			Be seen as successful,
			Want to shine
Need water			Need encouragement
			Need feedback
			Garner respect
			Need to be empowered
Need support			Work better in teams
			Need a leader’s protection
Need fertilizer			Need training
			Want to learn new skills
			Sometimes need guidance

Like plants our needs are simple and just like plants we can still find a way to exist without enough water, sunlight, and support; the result is similar: smaller yield, less stunning product, lower functioning, and more issues.

How are you nurturing the environment around you?

We give water to our teams by providing encouragement and feedback in a way to help them do better in the future. We support by matching our employee’s skills to the task and partner complimenting skill sets. Through empowering others and setting them up to succeed, we also enable personal responsibility and ownership to succeed.

We support our teams by running interference between them and upper management, justifying work loads, timing needs, and effort to protect them from unneeded stress. I once took the heat for a two day delay in a program because an experienced and highly respected designer made a simple mistake causing a week’s worth of effort to be trashed and all designs to require rework. We were lucky in that the mistake was caught by the team. The designer knew the stakes were high and volunteered to work overtime squeezing seven days lost into two. Did my upper leadership need to know the name of this individual and their oversight or could the team (namely me) take the hit?

By protecting this individual, his reputation was not tarnished, his personal stress level did not rise from leadership pressure, and the team felt empowered by catching and readily fixing the issue. At the end all that was remembered was how well our team performed because our product launched successfully first pass.

What is your leadership story?

How did you nurture your team today?

Originally posted by me on http://linked2leadership.com/2009/05/10/sustainability-in-leadership/ May 10th, 2009.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist

If statistics show that 88% of people leave a job because of how they feel they are being treated, would building an organization with people who had excellent soft side skills help raise employment retention rates and keep everyone staying put longer?

Long ago I found myself interviewing with a small private company anticipating the landing of my first job out of college with a highly respected firm. During the final interview, I got an early and abrupt taste of their culture when I got slapped in the face.

And by slapped, I'm talking about hearing the following:

• "We start at 7am here

• We work most Saturdays, minimum two per month

• There is no swearing. Ever

• We pray at every company meeting

• You'll be expected to put in on average 60 hours per week

• And OH, don't worry about looking up for your next job, your manager will constantly be on the look out for you to grow within the company"

At that time, I had already worked four years in industry at four different companies and never had I heard or experienced such things. Not being a morning person, my mind was still stuck on the 7am part; I just kep smiling and nodding my head robotically.

Knowing I still had much to learn and wanting to work at this firm, I took the job; slap and all.

I won't deny the mornings were tough but soon I began to welcome the 7am starts because of the smiling faces of all the staff that would greet me during our morning stretch routines. Gratitude exuded from all in that we were showing up for each other.

Saturdays were a whole other ball game. It was difficult at first, but it changed for me also. Reluctantly I dragged myself in weekend after weekend to donuts, more smiling faces, and sometimes an on-site cooked breakfast by other colleagues and managers. Rather than the cold slap in the face feeling I had in the interview process, I was experiencing welcome, appreciated, and a part of something bigger. These mornings became great catch-up times where the week days were fast paced and business-only venues. The Saturday mornings were a chance to reset and decompress as well as spend more time on the production floor learning about the lives of team-mates.

Some perspective

This company is a leader in its industry with a reputation of a high standard of quality. Although also a leader in developing and delivering high tech products, problems arose there just as they do in any other company. There was one difference here though: problems were looked at as opportunites for success rather than opportunities for blame. When a problem arose, it was a time to demonstrate strength in character, not a hot-head full of steam. When "issues" happened, rarely were voices raised. Product issues were simply product issues because it was never interpreted as anyone's fault. It was always seen as a process oversight or a machine failure, not as personal failure by someone or a team, nor an opportunity to degrade people.

So what made the difference?

Respect for each other's abilities, values, and contribution made the difference between finger pointing and getting our work done. The attitude cultivated by leadership to respect and be present for one another enabled focus on solving the issues at hand.

Some how there always existed the skill set to solve any problem. Ironically there was always a solution to any problem. Pretty good, huh?

Consensus doesn't necessarily mean a solution that "kinda fits." It is something that is borne of constructive open dialog between trusting colleagues.

Were we just a bunch of rocket scientists who could fix anything? Likely and most definitely not. It is likely that the company heavily hired engineers that had the people skills first, technical ability second.

Did it make a difference?

I'll ask my question again: If 88% of people leave a job because of how they feel they are being treated, would building an organization with people who had excellent soft skills help raise employment retention rates and keep everyone staying put longer?

What would you do?

What works best in your organization and why?

This article was originally posted by me on L2L Blogazine, April 8th 2009 * Image credit to Jim Wilson for The New York Times, Gerlach, Nevada, October 14, 2006, www.nyt.com

r e s p e c t

Many relationships are defined by how one feels around another person. So the question is then what are you doing to build, grow, and nurture relationships with others?

Are you listening to people?
Are you abusing their time?
Do you value others?
Do you honor their values?

Leadership Question: Is how you relate with others affecting how you lead?

I remember well the first team I lead. This was to be my first project as a Program Manager and already some really heavy hitters were being added to my team. These guys were highly respected and top innovators in my company.

I asked myself This: “How was I supposed to get their attention? Why would they follow me?” What if I fail?

Adding further to my woe, the project was assigned a tight schedule. ..kinda fun!!!

In thinking about how I would tackle these tough questions that would inevitably put a stamp on me as a leader, I decided to implement a simple two-step plan.

The plan looked like this:

1) I used a team approach to discover what we didn’t know in the first week and then created an outline of how we would develop the components of the product that we were creating. I added the step of finding out what we didn’t know and pulling in market data at the same time.

2) I proposed meeting twice a week and provided a schedule on what we would be doing. Each meeting being a working session using brainstorm, benchmarking, and usability methods to design our product. The first meeting would be the tell-all to see if the team gave me any merit. I had given them an assignment for the meeting. This was to benchmark a specific hinge in the consumer marketplace and bring examples to the group.

I used a collaborative approach to make instill an inclusive feeling for each team member and hoped that would get the desired results.

And guess what? They did it!

Each participant on the team had gone exploring that week and brought one or two examples of how to complete the project at hand. Ultimately the project was a success. We had a lot of fun and everyone got along well. We even “cracked” a tough-cookie and converted that nay-sayer into a believer. And oh, we actually hit our deliverables and our project timeline!

As a leader, what did I do right to make this such a success? I can tell you with one word: respect.

Respect is a powerful tool enabling you to listen and consider ideas from others. It allows you to empathize with and value the time of others. I spent a lot of time with each team member listening to their ideas. As a team, we had specific deliverables each week and all were accountable in the same way. The idea is to make sure that each step is interesting and fun. Ask for their input and give them a venue to shine. The goal is to create and maintain an environment where everyone on the team could grow, prosper, contribute, and sparkle.

When a team member will bring something of value to a meeting they are consequently given lots of attention and kudos all around. The next meeting inevitably more team members will contribute over and above what they had before. Terry Bacon says it best in

What People Want:

“The most important job you have (as a leader) is to recognize the contributions of your good to great performers. It motivates them, encourages others, establishes your standards, and communicates that you care..”

What would you do for someone that values both your time and ideas?

Would you want to contribute more to them? Would you offer more effort to them because of their role, or because WHO they are as a person?

Originally posted by me, 1April2009 here: http://linked2leadership.com/2009/04/01/r-e-s-p-e-c-t/