The double-edged sword of success.

Wednesday, May 16th, 2007 admin

“The Industrial Model, achieved success by controlling people, managing information, obtaining the skills needed and getting people to do what was right – all to create a culture of effective administration. For a long time this was the best way to manage…much more is now needed.”

Gwen McCauley, Well Systems.

“What leader in his right mind would create something he didn’t want?” Ollie, a VP in the aerospace industry, had just heard me say “A leader’s behavior creates a model for the entire organization. Just suppose that the leader unintentionally creates the very situation he wants to avoid!” He was annoyed, “We’ve got problems but we don’t create them. It’s the attitude at lower levels that gets us into trouble.” He just didn’t get it.

Suspecting that Ollie was unaware of how employees perceive their senior team, I asked him, “Who would be foolish enough to tell the ‘boss’ the real truth when predecessors were labeled ‘troublemakers’?” His irritation started a series of events that resulted in feedback from directors, managers and even front line employees.

Today’s leaders need to be different - to think differently so they can do differently. Yet leaders tend to do the same things, piling work higher, pushing long hours and focusing, yet again, on tightening the purse strings – all of this with the intention of improving profit. There is no leverage in this. Change means different. What does ‘different’ mean? Lets look.

This leader has to change. The skills that drove executives such as Ollie through the ranks to become leaders are the ones that prevent them from leading effectively in today’s business culture. Ollie was a great example. Here is what he had to learn. Coaching helped.

  1. He found courage to look within himself. His coach and he designed a two pronged strategy – the first for himself and the second for he with his team.
  2. He stopped pretending that things were OK. At one point he acknowledged, “I just don’t know what else to do.” This is when positive change really began to escalate.
  3. He stopped long enough to notice what was working. His tendency was to push ahead at full speed, noticing what wasn’t working. When he focused on the negative all he was able to see was more negative. This showed up in his language. Talk about attitude?
  4. He learned how to use synergy. He invited his team to take part. Synergy strengthened their ability to work more cohesively and effectively as a team.
  5. He did what many can’t do - he asked for help. This is not easy for a leader who is hired to have answers. He noticed that he talked more than he listened and agreed that while he didn’t have all the answers he was learning the power of asking questions.
  6. He asked his team three significant questions. What do I do that interferes with your work? What do you need from me? and, What beliefs are prevalent that keeps us all stuck? (see limiting beliefs below)
  7. He learned to be silent. New ideas show up in silent moments. Silence is difficult to achieve in a culture where ‘being busy’ is the norm. Ollie stopped demanding and soon noticed new and positive responses among his team.

The answers to this leader’s questions were liberating for his team and for himself. Ollie’s ability to hear new answers and new ideas were cost saving for his company. His thinking about how to lead effectively changed, as did his leadership behavior. His learning isn’t over. He is spreading new ideas and behaviours around. His changes are being measured in unconventional ways with consistently positive results. Ollie, with his team, takes time to celebrate each small success.

TRADITIONAL MANAGEMENT BEHAVIORS ARE COSTLY - When a leader is open to new ideas his team and much of the organization follows suite. The reverse is also true. As with most people, leaders are unfamiliar with how their thinking links to their behavior and how their behavior impacts most people in their company. When senior leaders think fast and have answers to just about everything, they don’t listen well. They miss small important details. When they slow down they hear more, and make better decisions. People in their organization respond similarly

Ollie learned that, ‘what he said didn’t match what he did’. He worked long hours as did his boss and other VP’s. His tendency to have answers made it difficult for him to hear his managers and to be objective about his own leadership style. This was costing the company money. His managers for example:

As with Ollie, they were out of touch with their people and generally unaware of how their behavior caused productivity and morale problems. They kept a constant push, focusing on technology and projects. Information flow was blocked so that decisions made at the top lacked important information from the front line. Enthusiasm, innovation and great ideas were thwarted. In the extreme, media coverage would be negative, costs would increase or the bottom line would shrink and venture capital would disappear – each a costly matter.

Senior leaders reach their post because they are brilliant, analytical and focused on numbers, profit and business functions. The power and ability of their people to collectively grow the company is barely visible on their radar careen. Yet, the human being is the most brilliant bio-computer on the face of the earth. (see Molecules of Emotion by Candice Peart, Ph.D and any book by Deepak Chopra MD) People working together have the ability to connect synergistically at any moment simply by ‘choosing’ to collectively create ideas and methods of implementation that as individuals on their own they simply can not do. Our people are our next frontier in business and global competition. Leaders and managers need to learn how to work with the technology of human change in each moment. Politics gets in the way.

POLITICS DRIVES BELIEFS – BEHAVIOR FOLLOWS. Organizations are political. This means that people pay attention to who is in control and who is aligned with those in control. To advance in this system people must ‘do the right things’ and be seen as ‘looking good’. Telling the truth is considered a career limiting move that may get others in trouble as well as oneself. So people in organizations abide by certain beliefs that preserve order. Some of these beliefs interfere with achieving the best possible results. I call these limiting beliefs’. An empowering belief is one that frees people to do things differently. Here are but a very few of each:

These three limiting beliefs and accompanying behaviors contribute to the demise of human potential in the work place. There are many more beliefs of this nature. On the contrary, the empowering beliefs expand human potential and contribute to open communication where creativity and innovation soar - quality and profit follow suit.

WHAT WE FOCUS ON, EXPANDS – You can surmise by these few limiting beliefs that HOW a leader thinks is critical to the success of his company. Consider this! When you, the reader, are frustrated, perhaps even irritated with HOW things happen at work, doesn’t your irritation become the focus? You talk with colleagues about what ‘bugs’ you and ‘who and what’ keeps you from doing your job in the best possible way. Without noticing, your ‘irritation’, not your work, becomes the focus. The day passes. Thoughts about this situation continue to pop into your mind. Like it or not, these thoughts are limiting beliefs that interfere with the quality of your work. Limiting beliefs create fear, anger and irritation, all of which cost companies money.

People working together contribute more than each contributes individually. However, in today’s workplace commitment tends to be meager. People commit to a company, project or team when they have an opportunity to speak openly about their truth in the presence of someone they believe can make a difference. This ‘someone’ is often their boss. If there is no forum for an open discussion then anger, fear or irritation goes underground and comes up somewhere else as a quality issue. No company today can afford this, yet it continues to happen. Executives who want to deny this by saying “this doesn’t happen here” are surprised to find otherwise.

Without exception, human beings have difficulty seeing themselves objectively and therefore resist change. Coaching helps to break through their own resistance to change, lead more productively and have different conversations that if not had, can paralyze even the most successful team or company. Leaders that learn to use synergy with their team begin to function at even higher levels of competencies. In doing so, they enter a level of human technology around change that they never thought possible. Please note that Ollie’s team, unbeknown to Ollie, exhibited all of these limiting beliefs and more. He had to change. He had no other choice than to start with himself.

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Janice Calnan of CALNAN GROUP, Ottawa Ontario, Canada, executive coach, author, specialist in organizational change. Her book SHIFT: Secrets of Positive Change for Organizations and Their Leaders can be obtained through www.janicecalnan.com . Reach Janice at (613) 721-5900 or info@janicecalnan.com .

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