Category Archives: Leadership

Culture of Experimentation

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Every company claims they are open to new ideas. But ego and fear of change tend to deflect outside forces. There is a major difference between accepting feedback and acting on it. A feedback culture can only get you so far. After all, actions speak louder than words; what you do is more valuable than what you say. An organization truly interested in keeping an open mind must open its doors – not only to ideas, but also to active change. Companies must encourage every employee to tinker in genuine “ask forgiveness, not permission” fashion. Harsh punishment should not land on failure, but instead on apathy or closed minds. Any person or obstacle stifling healthy ideation must move out of the way.

Let your people play. Design and enforce a true culture of experimentation.

You Can’t Buy a Dreamer

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Every person may have a price, but the dreamer can never give you 100% unless you enable the dream. He or she may give you all the effort and energy available, but it’s not everything. You cannot squeeze every last drop from a man or woman whose heart lies elsewhere. Dreamers are not satisfied by a paycheck alone; they crave higher purpose. Stifling or shattering the dream only makes things worse.

As a leader, you should investigate your team’s dreams. Interview for and understand them. Dreamers and goal-oriented individuals share eagerly. If you want a culture full of yes-people, hire people without dreams. If you want a culture full of dynamic human beings that can take you to the next level, hire dreamers and foster dreams.

Get Out of the Way

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Just because you are leading or managing a team does not mean you need to have your nose in everyone’s business all the time. Process and management techniques should not be invasive to or stand in the way of your team. You are responsible for providing your people with all the tools they need to succeed and getting out of the way. The less you are involved and the better your team performs means you’re doing a good job. Implement processes that take everyone as little time as possible. Wind up the clock and let it run on its own.

Communicate With Nouns, People!

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Lives are short and people talk fast. More often than not, they talk too fast to be heard or understood. More than half of that, I’ve noticed lately, comes from a noun deficiency. People assume listeners understand who or what they are talking about and resort to using pronouns (or nothing at all) to frame the sentence. By doing this, you run the risk that listeners will think you are talking about something completely different.

“They’re pretty cool, aren’t they?” “What, spider monkeys?” “What?! No. Our stuff.” “Oh, I was thinking about spider monkeys. Wait, what stuff?” “Our products, dude. Are you listening to me?”

The subject plays an important role in a sentence and should NOT be glossed over. The ridiculous exchange above could have been averted with a better handle on the subject in the first question – “Our products are pretty cool, aren’t they?” In leadership and management, it’s on you to make sure people understand the context of your conversation – not the listener.

I received an email like this before and it boggled my mind: “Mike is trying hard, but Dan is just not up to it. Think we’ll need to let go.” What the hell does “need to let go” mean? Let go of what? Let go of the project? Let go of Mike or Dan? Let go of them both? If I acted on that email without confirming the object of the second sentence, I could have really messed things up. But whose fault would that have been?

Use nouns, people! It won’t sound silly; it will sound specific and productive. And whether listeners know it or not, they will appreciate it.

Give Employees Feedback Permission

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Seth Levine made me think a lot today about feedback loops within organizations. Employees fear giving feedback to their managers or superiors. Makes sense – if you take constructive criticism too far, you may find yourself on the street. Tragically, most managers and executives want and need advice to help them do their job better. While leadership coaches may help, third parties are not close enough to the conversation. Only people within the organization spend enough time around you to identify a specific and timely list of your faults. More importantly, outside help cannot understand all of the personality types you lead. Every team is different and takes a different approach. At the end of the day, you must own a leadership style that fits your team.

Fortunately, there are people who can help – your employees. By giving your team permission to provide feedback, you open a door to better-understand your style and flaws. Permission is not enough, however (remember: people fear the guillotine) – you must build structure to provide feedback. Some managers approach this anonymously, with surveys and the like. Others organize reciprocal reviews and have it out one-on-one. The anonymous approach allows employees to craft their responses and be more candid. A more open and direct approach can work for people who can manage tempers like monks. I suggest a combination of the two to get the full picture.

If your team corroborates specific faults across the board, you should take a pretty big hint. By including your people in the dialogue, you can empower them to challenge you to improve. If everyone can set egos aside, feedback permission can radically improve morale in the workspace, the drive for improvement, personal ownership of their role in the company, and collaborative honesty overall. I don’t care what numbers or information you share with your team; you are not truly transparent as an organization until teammates have the freedom to be honest with each other.

Profit Is Not the Point

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The goal is sustainability. We make money to cover our basic needs – food, water and shelter. The great businesses of our time have figured this out, too. Great product comes before profit – because only great product will keep customers coming back for more. We like steady paychecks and loyal patrons because we can sleep at night and know that life will go on.

The goal isn’t to make money; the goal is to exist. Once you’ve figured that part out, the next goal is to exist longer. Once you realize no one lives forever, the ultimate goal is to leave a legacy.

The only way you can leave a legacy is if you concern yourself less with profit and more with giving life all you’ve got. Sure, you should have a plan to make money. But if greatness comes first on your priority list, then have faith that the rest will follow.

Batch Like-Minded Processes

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Every January, my parents do a brilliant thing: they map out the year’s birthdays, buy cards for everyone in a single trip (often armed with coupons to save big bucks), sign & address every card in a single sitting, and slip them into the mail one by one as each birthday approaches. They save dozens of trips to the store (as much as 35 hours per year in round trips!) and finish the project with an annual peace of mind.

It might sound like cheating, but how many people’s birthdays have you missed? When faced with impending birthdays, it’s a lot of work to go to the store every time – the deed rarely gets done! Better to do it in a batch than not at all.

Batching like-minded tasks plays a key role in productivity. While multi-tasking, priorities get disheveled. You only carry out part of a task before moving on to another. By the end of the day, you’ve touched hundreds of things and finished nothing. Better to finish one stack and move on after it’s done. You may not make progress in other areas, but at least you can take pride in crossing something off your list.

The “like-minded” part is important. Managing money uses a different part of your brain than design. It takes a lot of mental effort to switch gears between creativity and cold numbers. The transition between may cost you time and quality. While the financials and design may fall under one project, they are not like-minded processes. Better to do the financials for three different projects at once – even at the expense of crossing a project off your list. You will hone your focus and build mental momentum to get you through similar tasks much quicker. In aggregate, you will save a lot of time and yield better results.

Study your to-do list. Group similar items by tool used, skill needed, energy level, people involved or any other comparison metric. Split tasks into sub-tasks if they need more than one different thought process. Tackle the biggest group pile of like-minded processes first. Then revel in your accomplishments.

Reputation Counts

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It never hurts to have a team of people on standby to support or validate you. Recommendations, trust and loyalty go a very long way. When it comes to leadership, it does matter what other people think. You may never shake hands on a deal with someone you do not know if naysayers stand between you. Good luck even making it in the door. On the other hand, passionate introductions from a handful of reputable people will secure you meetings and may even tie the knot for you. Connections are worth their weight in gold.

Work hard, lend a hand, expect nothing, respect everyone and love what you do. Reputation will follow.

Break Things

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When in doubt, break things to fix them. Don’t always heed advice to the contrary.

Only when something is broken can you truly see what it is made out of.

Vision = Faith

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You cannot call yourself a visionary if you need to see it to believe it. At that point, you’re just a spectator. Can you really see the possibilities? Do you really believe in it? It takes a lot of dedication and persistence to reach a point where you can qualify the vision. To get that far, the goal needs to be clear and indisputable to all parties invested. You need to understand the vision and believe wholeheartedly in it. You need to have faith that you are on the right path.