Tales of a Recovering Extrovert

Many people have asked the question as to whether great leaders are born or made.  Certainly, we equate leadership success with the same shallow charisma that we simultaneously loathe and demand from politicians.  But can an introvert be a successful leader?

Other than questioning someone’s parentage, is there a faster way to insult someone than calling him an introvert?  Isn’t introversion something that we need to quickly cure people of by sending them to the Dale Carnegie Course?

People hear “extrovert”, and they think: outgoing, friendly, social, capable, productive, normal.

People hear “introvert”, and they think: shy, withdrawn, anti-social, elusive, dysfunctional, wall-flower.

In Good to Great, Jim Collins reveals the qualities that his research has shown as effective in running great organizations.  Interestingly, many of the qualities of “Level Five Leadership”, are found more naturally in people with Introverted preferences.

You might also be surprised who may be a closet-introvert:  High-profile leaders, television personalities, sports stars, maybe even one of your friends, neighbors, or family are introverted.  They’re everywhere, so beware – you never know when they’ll want to slink into the back corner of a meeting room, and silently wish everyone would stop talking at once.  Or perhaps pray that someone will listen to them for 20 seconds before interrupting them.  Worse yet, they may think about something before responding to a question creating that awkward few seconds of silence.

So you may be wondering where I fit on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Grid.

As someone who spends a lot of time talking to groups of people, and a person who worked in television (for a short and spectacularly unsuccessful period of time), I am rarely accused of being an Introvert.

I prefer to label myself as a Recovering-Extrovert.  We might need to create a new scale for measurement.

 

Working for Idiots

Believe it or not, it is possible that you are a very nice person, but a horrible boss.  The stuff of Hollywood legends, and blog anti-heroes is that of the grand-mal, asshole boss.  The person who is evil incarnate, and takes great pleasure in making others miserable.

I’ve worked in dozens of organizations either as an employee, contractor or consultant – and I’ve never met this person.  I have met a number of horrible bosses, and usually they qualify as horrible for much more subtle reasons than sitting in a corner office, and laughing like Dr. Evil while pulling the wings off living insects.  Below are some of the most common horrible boss types.

Everybody’s Best Friend – this is the most common type of horrible boss.  This person has a high need to be liked by others, and should therefore never be put in a position of leadership.  Unfortunately, we usually promote people who are good technically at the work, and rarely test a person’s ability to be disliked by others – a core skill for leaders.

Mr. Insecure – This poor guy feels pressure from above because he’s probably not very good at what he does.  He also thinks this peers and his direct reports are out to get him.  As a result, he takes irrational actions and makes poor decisions.  If you wait it out long enough, this guy usually manages to get himself fired.

Ms. Moody – This person is delightful one day, and a nightmare the next.  You need to look for the cues in the morning as to what kind of day she is having.  You can also be rest assured that when she’s having a bad day, you’ll have a bad day.

The Visionary – this person can be a good leader if and when he has a brilliant manager back him up.  When this ingredient is missing, this is the person that comes up with a bunch of great ideas, but has no ability to implement them.  One tell-tale sign of this type of horrible boss is assigning the same task to several different people.

The Prince of Darkness – this type of horrible boss desperately reinforces the hierarchy at every chance.  She will usually do this because she never really expected to amount to much, and probably feels like an imposter much of the time.  She’s so desperate not to be discovered, that she’ll do anything not to compromise her place on the corporate food chain.

Armed with this information, it is now your job to ensure that YOU are not any of these types of horrible boss.  You can’t change their behavior (unless of course you choose to commit bossicide), but you can make sure that your direct reports are never exposed to such things.

The Retention Interview

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Many organizations do exit interviews, but that’s a lot like closing the barn door after the horse has left.  Below we discuss retention interviews.  Specifically, we discuss:

  • Why Bother Doing a Retention Interview
  • The Basics of a Retention Interview
  • Sample Questions for a Retention Interview
  • Taking Action
  • Three Things to Remember About Retention Interviews

Why Bother Doing a Retention Interview?

The costs of employee turnover are well documented.  By regularly conducting Retention Interviews, unwanted turnover can be reduced.

  • Unlike an exit interview, the Retention Interview allows the opportunity to still do something to make them stay.  There are several advantages to this, for a leader:
    • Finding new people is both time-consuming and costly.
    • Your life as a leader is much easier without constantly replacing people.
    • Your results will be better if you aren’t constantly replacing people.
  • Retention interviews can help you keep a finger on the pulse of your organization, and give your information and ideas to address emergent issues as they come up.

The Basics of the Retention Interview

If you’ve decided that Retention Interviews are something you want to consider, then, here’s how to begin:

  • Start now.  The sooner you know about a problem, the easier it usually is to fix it.
  • Do Retention Interviews regularly.
  • This does not have to be extra work.  If you are already doing regular one on one meetings with you people, you can easily adjust those meetings to include elements of a Retention Interview.
  • Use broad questions about the company, then narrow down to the work, teamwork, and eventually your leadership.

Sample Questions for a Retention Interview

  • With high potential talent:
    • Tell me what you like about your work here in the last few months.
    • Tell me what has been concerning for you in the last few months.
    • What would you really like to be involved in over the next few months.
  • If you’re having retention issues:
    • “Why do you think some people are choosing to leave our organization?”
    • “If you owned the company what would you do or change to make more people want to stay?”

Taking Action

  • Finding out that you have problems is only a good thing if you’re prepared to do something about it.  If you don’t intend to listen, then you shouldn’t ask.
  • Use the information you gathered to sell your ideas for change.
  • When you implement organizational change, tell people it’s because of the feedback they provided.

3 Things to Remember About the Retention Interview

  1. You need to start now.  Every week that goes by is a missed opportunity
  2. Use existing forums.  You should be able to gather retention interview information without creating a bunch of extra work.
  3. Take action.  Act on the suggestions that people give you.

Watch the ‘3-Minute Crash Course’ about The Retention Interview (CLICK THE ARROW TO START THE VIDEO):

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Forget Your Superstars — Focus on Middle Performers

In just about any work group or organization, you’ll find a normal distribution of performance quality.  In other words, your employees will fall into the normal bell curve with a few superstars, a handful of laggards, with most of your employee population falling in the middle.

The management books and the HR folks will tell you reach out to all employees to create a high performing environment.  The fundamental flaw with this advice comes from its source:  most of the authors of management books have never actually been managers; and, HR… well, it’s HR.  If you’re one of the few companies out there with a high performing HR department, then you probably should heed their advice.  For all the other organizations, tell HR that once it manages itself to be a high performing group, they will win the privilege of advising you to do likewise.

Here’s what you actually need to do:  forget about the front and back of your bell curve.  Yep, that’s right, ignore your superstars and your laggards.

Your superstars are often your most high-maintenance people.  They often do great work, but leave a trail of broken relationships behind them. When you look at their overall impact on the organization, as opposed to their proficiency in what you’ve asked them to do, the net effect is often much less positive than you might be lead to believe.  They also tend to jump ship quicker than others.

Your laggards are a bit more tricky.  You can’t ignore critically poor performance, or it will drag others’ performance down.  You need to minimize the influence your laggards have on others, but you don’t want to put a whole bunch of energy into trying to improve the poor performer if there’s little chance it will substantially improve.

Leaders need to focus on the middle of their curve.  If you can push those good performers a bit further along the curve, then the overall impact to the organization can be substantial.  Those in the middle are lower maintenance, they probably have a higher ability to improve than the laggards, and they are more stable than the superstars.

The success of an organization rarely depends on the retention of a few superstars.  More likely it depends on the retention of the middle majority of good performers – the same group that likely gets the least attention in most organizations.

I guess irony can be pretty ironic sometimes.

 

Top 10 Stupid Things Smart Managers Do

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It is quite possible for smart managers to do stupid things.  This often happens because smart managers get busy doing the things they have always done without critical evaluation.  This is a standard occupational hazard for anyone that manages a business or leads other people.

In no particular order, we suggest below Ten Stupid Things that we’ve seen Smart Managers do:

  1. They diffuse their focus too broadly.  The most successful managers quickly learn what are the most critical items, and then execute against those items.  These same managers will have no more than seven priorities at a time, and they are very specific about what they won’t do.  Most importantly, they do work and tasks that are appropriate to their level, and delegate other tasks away.
  2. They work too much.  If you’re completely overwhelmed by the volume of work, then working harder won’t help.  It is possible there are exceptional circumstances for some limited period of time that will require you to work more, but as an ongoing solution, working harder doesn’t work.  You need to assess what things you may be able to give up, and what things to do differently.
  3. They Don’t Think.  It is very easy to become completely overcome with tasks.  When that happens, you are probably not taking the time to think about the business, and the strategies and systems that will propel success.
  4. They think everyone should operate at their level. Smart managers are usually in the position they are in for good reason:  they are smart and hard working.  They cannot project their own abilities onto others.  It is quite possible that others will not be able to get as much done, or get it done as quickly as the smart manager.  Managers need to accept this.
  5. They don’t listen.  Listening is an active skill, and needs to be practiced.  It takes time to listen to your people, and if a manager is always in too much of a hurry to listen to her people, she will end up missing opportunities.
  6. They “buy-it-back”. One of the most important skills for managers is delegating.  Many managers delegate tasks, but then end up getting those tasks back on their desks.  Make sure you delegate appropriate tasks to the right people, and don’t let them off the hook.  It is important to be a coach and teach, but not to come rushing in to save people at the last minute every time.
  7. They don’t teach/develop/mentor their people.  A manager’s first priority is to develop and build skills in others.  It is important to share knowledge and move others forward.
  8. They don’t say “no”. It is not often possible to do everything that everyone wants you to do as a manager.  Those most successful are very clear on what they’ll do, and what they won’t do.
  9. They don’t have a mentor or “board of directors”. Good managers have people they can trust to seek out advice and feedback.  In the absence of a good mentor, managers should establish a “board of directors” – a group of people that they go to for advice and feedback on the technical, political and organizational aspects of their jobs.
  10. They try to be everybody’s friend.  The best way to upset everybody is to try to keep everyone happy.  It is important to always treat people with respect, but it’s rarely possible to keep all the people happy all the time – so don’t try.

3 Things to remember about Stupid Things that Smart Managers do:

  1. It’s possible to be really smart, but still do stupid things.  Your not immune just because you think you’re smart
  2. You need to get honest feedback.  Find someone who will tell you the brutal truth when you’re doing something stupid.
  3. Pick your favorite one thing of the ten, and do something about it.  Check the list above, and pick one stupid think that you think you may be at risk of committing, and make plans to do something about it.

Watch the ‘3-Minute Crash Course’ about Stupid Things Smart Managers Do (CLICK THE ARROW TO START THE VIDEO):

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Education versus Experience

Every now and then I get drawn into the age-old argument about education versus experience.  On one side of the argument are people who seem to have an irrational resentment towards others’ educational credentials.  They ask, “how is it that smart people can do such stupid things?”

The answer, quite simply is that education and intelligence are not necessarily correlated.

On the other side of the argument are those that wave their communications degree from the local community college around like it was a ticket to success.  They ask, “I studied hard, why won’t they make me a vice-president of something?”

The answer, quite simply, is because you don’t know anything yet.

People who want to seriously argue whether education or experience is better, apparently have neither.  It is an argument for brain-dead people.  Here are a few points to ponder:

  1. Education is simply a different form of experience.  If this is all you have, it is limited at best.
  2. People who have 25 years experience at something need to be questioned as to whether they have 25 years experience (like a neurosurgeon) or one year’s experience 25 times (like a barista).  Sometimes anything past the first year is a waste of experience.
  3. When things don’t happen the way you want them to, it’s not necessarily a knowledge (education) gap.  If education was the only thing that mattered, then nobody would smoke, very few would be fat, and nobody would watch TV (or use any other recreational drugs).

The bottom line is that any education or development is going to make an individual better than s/he would be without it; it won’t make one individual better than another.  So stop fixating over education versus experience, and go improve one or the other.

 

Resistance is Futile

Wily Manager is a resource for managers at all levels of organizations.  We also encourage aspiring new leaders to engage with us to.  Every now and then I get some hate-mail that makes it clear that some non-managerial types hang out on the website too.  I’m guessing they visit so they can make themselves more angry and bitter than they already are because they are boring, ugly, and have no friends.

The hate mail I get is when I speak truth to managers.  Often times, these truths come at the expense of well-regarded intellectuals who have done lots of research about business, but have never really participated in one (other than the job they had as an intern during their undergraduate studies).

Here’s one of those truths:

“People will naturally resist change”

Of course, the gurus will tell you that people don’t resist change.  They say people will get on board if you take the time to explain the benefits, why the change is being made, and what’s in it for them.  That is exquisite BS.

The best is example is the metric system.  The metric system is much easier and nearly universal in its use.  Yet, the few hold-outs in the world cling to the old Imperial System like Linus to his blanket.

Here’s another uncomfortable truth:

“If you want to overcome resistance to change, you need to make the pain of staying the same greater than the pain of changing.”

The gurus would hate this truth.  They would contend that you hold people’s hands, sit in a circle, and sing campfire songs, and people will change.  They won’t.

Don’t coddle people through change – yes, you need to explain to them what is changing, why it’s changing, and what the benefits are.  You need to tell them several times.  But then you need to make the pain of staying the same greater than the pain of changing.

If you doubt me, here’s a third truth:

“Resistance is futile.  Your own distinctiveness will be added to our own – prepare to be assimilated.”

 

Organizational Change Resistance

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Organizational Change Resistance occurs in every organization, yet few put plans in place to deal with it.  Below we talk about how to deal with Organizational Change Resistance:

  • Identifying Organizational Change Resistance
  • Calling out Organizational Change Resistance
  • Coaching for Organizational Change Resistance
  • Three Things to Remember about Organizational Change Resistance

Three Steps to Dealing With Organizational Change Resistance:

  1. Identify the resistance
  2. Call out the resistance
  3. Coach the resistance

Identifying Resistance

The first step in overcoming Organizational Change Resistance is to identify the symptoms of resistance.

  • Missed Deadlines – One way for people to resist is to simply “blow off” a deadline.  If this is happening regularly, it could be due to resistance.
  • Excuses – Do people make excuses for why things are not getting done, or not being done in the prescribed way?
  • Finger Pointing  — Another way to resist is to point the finger elsewhere when thing go wrong.
  • Analysis Paralysis – Becoming overly-analytical is a way to avoid doing something you don’t want to do.
  • Silence — Withdrawing feedback or input is a way to demonstrate resistance.
  • Procrastination

Call Out the Resistance

The first step to dealing with Organizational Change Resistance is call it out for what it is.  When you confront people with this, keep the following things in mind:

  • Use direct, neutral, everyday language.
  • Describe how you see the resistance showing up.
  • Describe the impact the resistance has on you and the organization.
  • Describe how you are feeling.

Coach the Resistance

Coaching people through Organizational Change Resistance is not fundamentally different than coaching through other performance issues:

  1. Provide context.  Ensure that people understand the larger picture, and why you are asking them to do things.
  2. Clarify with them that they fully understand what you are asking.  Ask clarifying and confirming questions to test their understanding
  3. Create a path forward with them about what needs to be differently going forward.  You may need to go back and forth between the Clarify and Create stages a few times.
  4. Commit to what you will do to help people, as well as specific dates and deadlines for things that they are going to do differently
  5. Close your coaching session with a recap of what has been decided, who has what commitments, and express your confidence that the person can be successful.

Organizational Change Resistance

Three Things to Remember About Dealing With Organizational Change Resistance

  1. Leadership is a contact sport – you need to engage people, and discuss things when experiencing resistance.
  2. Use the coaching model template to prepare.  Your conversation needs to be structured, so use this tool to help do so.
  3. Involve them in the problem solving effort.  Getting their buy-in necessarily means involving them.

Watch the ‘3-Minute Crash Course’ about Organizational Change Resistance (CLICK THE ARROW TO START THE VIDEO):

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Firing People is Underrated as a Motivational Tool

Firing people is really under rated as a motivation tool – hear me out.

It’s not about punishment and intimidation – those things only work for short periods of time.  AND — as soon as you turn your back, people go back to what they were doing before.  It’s also not very nice.

Rather – by removing a consistent poor performer, you do that person’s peers (the rest of your team) a tremendous service.  If there are six people working on a team, and I am consistently not pulling my weight, then the impact of my non-performance is far more tangible on my peers than it would be to my boss.

This lesson was delivered home to me back when I had a real job as a manager – one that required me to occasionally fire people.  One member of our team constantly called in sick on short notice – a behavior that significantly, and negatively impacted his co-workers.  A bunch of us ended up working late because this person had called in sick, and we decided to go for a beer after work.\

We walked in to a local pub about 9pm, and saw our absent co-worker dancing on top of speaker.  It was quite obvious he’d been there for some time.  Apparently this fellow wasn’t very smart either – he chose to go partying at a place a block from work.

It was an easy decision to fire him, but what happened next surprised me.  Several of his peers thanked me getting rid of the guy, and one even challenged me on what took me so long!

I’m not suggesting you fire the bottom 10% of performers every month.  I am suggesting you provide crystal-clear expectations, do everything you can to help people be successful, and when the occasional person chooses to consistently betray his team and not perform, that you do not hesitate to remove that person.

Channel your “inner-Trump”.  Your team will thank you for it.

 

 

 

Team Motivation Activities

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It’s not about silly games, but rather Team Motivation Activities should be about how you manage your business and lead your people.  Below we talk about 5 Team Motivation Activities that can make a difference with your team.

This topic was inspired by a question from Matt, a Wily Manager member:

“Hey Wily Manager Team,

Thank you very much for the podcasts.   I know how to motivate one person at a time, but my question would be, how do you motivate a whole team that has no career aspirations and hardly any motivation to achieve their goals.”

Well, Matt – thanks for your question on Team Motivation Activities, and here’s some food for thought.

5 Team Motivation Activities

  1. Figure out what makes your people tick
  2. Set and communicate clear expectations
  3. Administer consistent reinforcement and consequences
  4. Promote healthy competition
  5. As a last resort, change out team members

These five team motivation activities may not be as much fun as a day-long high-ropes course, but they are much less expensive, and these activities have tangible outcomes.

Figure Out What Makes Them Tick

Your very first team motivation activity is to recognize that every person is different.  You need to determine why your team members may not be motivated.

  • Remember that everyone’s behavior makes sense to her.  You need to ask, “why would people behave or react in this way?”
  • How has the team historically been led?  If people have not been adequately led, they may have no historical incentive to go above and beyond.
  • What has been reinforced and rewarded?  If people have no career aspirations and are generally lazy, then this is what has historically been reinforced.
  • Has poor performance been dealt with?  If problem performers have not been addressed, then people will withdraw their discretionary effort.

Create Clear Expectations

Before a manager can bemoan his people’s inability to get things done, he needs to ensure those people have been provided with clear expectations.

  • Is there initiative overload?  Is effort diffused by dozens of different issues all demanding your people’s attention?  If this is the case, they end up doing all of these things poorly.
  • Overwhelmed by HQ?  If you work in a large bureaucracy, it is quite possible for multiple (and sometimes competing) directions are coming from head office.  Much like initiative overload, it diffuses people’s energy and ensures nothing will be done well.
  • Are there 4 – 7 key team goals for the year?  If there are 50 or 60 goals, your team will become frustrated and give up.  The most motivated teams are those who can rally around a limited number of achievable goals.
  • Is there one overarching objective or a clear vision?   For example:  “Be top 5 sales team in the country in 2012?”

Consistent Reinforcement and Consequences

Managers need to reinforce the behaviors they want to see, and respond appropriately to behaviors and performance that does not meet their expectations.  Unfortunately, many leaders believe that reinforcement and rewards are the responsibility of the HR group.

  • Look beyond variable compensation (or any other HR initiative).
  • Consistently reward desired performance in a way meaningful to the recipient.
  • Deal with poor performance swiftly and decisively

Promote Healthy Competition

  • Don’t pit people against each other, but encourage healthy competition:
    • Reward top performers on a regular basis
    • Public accountability where appropriate

Change Out Team Members

In some cases, when everything else has been tried, a manager must make the decision to terminate an employee’s employment.

  • You need to give everyone every opportunity to be successful.
  • When people choose not to be successful, make changes

BEWARE:  If you go overboard (and fire too many people), it will be obvious to all, that the problem is you, and NOT your people.

Three Things to Remember about Team Motivation Activities

  1. Treat people as individuals – all of your efforts must be motivating in the eyes of the recipient – not you as the manager.
  2. Be consistent — you need to reward people regularly, and deal with poor performance consistently, without bias, and quickly.
  3. Don’t abdicate leadership to HR or anyone else.  As a manager, it is your job to lead your people, not HR’s.  Use HR as a resource where you can to better lead your people.

Watch the ‘3-Minute Crash Course’ about Team Motivation Activities (CLICK THE ARROW TO START THE VIDEO):

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