The People Around Us

She greeted us in the hotel lobby and enthusiastically told us about shopping tours, great places to eat, and sights to see. Two days later, in conversation, we found out that she had a PhD in Nuclear Physics and a number of years working in that field. Why are you working in a hotel after so much time studying and working we asked. Turns out that the career opportunities available locally involved working with higher risk radioactivity. Safer opportunities meant reestablishing in Europe. She wanted to be closer to home and family. Over our time in the hotel, I saw some other guests speaking to her as if she was stupid, and being disrespectful and demanding - a classic case of book and cover!

Over many years of working in and around for purpose organisations, I’m often amazed at the backgrounds of people who come to for purpose work. Some have long careers in the sector, but many come with a diverse range of skills, qualifications and backgrounds.

I’ve always found it fascinating and worthwhile to explore beyond people’s surface story (when they are happy to do so). Often we find interesting connections and motivations for being where they are now. Sometimes we find ways to work with people that go beyond the basic assumptions of the role, and make the most of their experience.

How well do you know and engage with the people in your team/organisation?

P.S. I have no idea if the equations in the image are representative of physics - someone out there will know!

Movement Matters

We’ve all been there. Standing. Waiting. Wondering. It sucks, doesn’t it!

In this bus queue we were wondering why the full bus wasn’t leaving and why four more buses were standing empty.

In traffic and supermarkets we change to the lanes that seem to be moving quickest.

Psychologists call it Progress Theory - If we are not making progress, we feel frustrated. If we are making progress, we feel better.

It matters in organisations too. In their 2011 book “The Progress Principle” Kramer and Amabile said, “Of all the things that can boost emotions, motivation, and perceptions during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work. And the more frequently people experience that sense of progress, the more likely they are to be creatively productive in the long run.”

Leaders have an important role to play in this sense of progress. If you are stuck on the hamster wheel of an ever growing to-do list, there’s a good chance you are missing a deep well of engagement and motivation for your team (and yourself).

If you lead in a ‘For Purpose” organisation, the progress principle is an even more powerful lever.

How are you using it?

Which direction and how?

Direction over detail is well and good if you know where you are going. Alice (in Wonderland) asked that cat which way she should go. She didn't care where she would end up. The cat reckoned in that case, direction didn't matter. Quite right!

I facilitated a conversation recently where big changes are afoot for an organisation with a long, proud and effective history. The conversation was about creating an ideal future within the inevitable changes.

The leaders and team did a great job of looking forward. They:

• Acknowledged and celebrated past success.

• Identified aspects of their organisation/work that they did not want to lose or compromise in the change.

• Articulated the likely limits to their future, including considering what is happening for their stakeholders.

• Laid out a high level plan for their future, which adds value and insulates from irrelevance.

• Framed their propositions thoughtfully, highlighting value to stakeholders rather than just making a wish list.

There’s a lot of detail to be added, but in less than 2 hours they have the bones of a solid future.

The risk in such a conversation is people getting stuck in the past rather than looking forward. They could have lamented the situation, complained, pushed back against inevitable shifts and fought over irrelevant detail. They did not. It was a great working example of Direction over Detail.

Epiphany

I love a good Aha moment. I had one last week when I was preparing to talk to a group of leaders. I was angry and ruminating on an interaction where the outcome had put me under unexpected pressure. I had to pick up more of a job than I was supposed to because the other person didn’t follow through at their end. It left me scrambling to keep the balls in the air.

So there I am, preparing to talk to leaders about dealing with pressure. Under pressure myself, and not dealing with it particularly well. I was playing the interactions with the other person over and over in my head, doing the things we humans do when we feel slighted. Pointing the finger of blame. Stewing rather than acting. Feeling wronged. Enrolling others in the drama. Burning precious time and emotional energy. Going nowhere.

The epiphany came as I thought about my session with leaders. I was talking about “Grinding the Gorge” where survival groups walk up and down trying to establish exactly where they are, rather than making forward progress. I’d never thought about rumination as an example of Grinding the Gorge but it is. AHA! I used the story in my presentation. My advice in situations like that is to value Direction over Detail. The details feel important, don’t they? We want to be right. We want acknowledgement of the slight and the impact. Usually there's a lot more going on and it’s less intentional than we think it is.

For me Valuing Direction took a mental shift from the detail (he said, she said) to the short term action needed and the bigger picture of what I wanted the relationship with the other person to be. I focussed my time, effort and communication there. Progress is being made. Next time I find myself grinding the gorge called rumination, I reckon I’ll exit much more quickly.

Where could your leadership benefit from a shift to Direction over Detail?

Bush to Boardroom, does it translate?

At a breakfast presentation this week for Quorum I was asked two great questions:

First Question - In survival scenarios, is there a group attribute that makes you smile, because you know the group will succeed?

Groups who take the time to discuss and make explicit their expectations of each other and the situation always outperform. It’s counter intuitive. It feels too slow, and not sufficiently focussed on the outcome. It can be frustrating, because alignment doesn’t happen immediately - things that seemed clearly agreed may need further discussion and exploration. However, the larger the shared narrative and understanding a group has the faster they can act, decide, resolve conflict, distribute tasks. Everything becomes faster and more efficient.

Second Question - Does that observation translate from the Bush to the Boardroom?

Yes! And to every ‘room’ where 2 or more people are attempting to work together for a shared purpose/result. In the boardroom it might mean unpacking what we mean by strategy, or clearly understanding where the division of board guidance and executive function lies. It might mean discussing where our focus should lie. It might mean clearly articulating contrary views and genuinely exploring the nuance of perspective and opinion.

In any situation, the clearer we can be about what is important to us, how we will conduct ourselves as we pursue it, and what success looks like, the faster we can implement.

A lack of alignment usually shows up as either conflict or disengagement. Observe those, lean in, and add clarity.

Direction over Detail

If you’ve navigated by topographic map in complex terrain, at some point you’ve stopped making forward progress while you try to work out exactly where you are. I’ve done it many times, and almost every group on our survival courses did it at least once. There’s two ways it happens:

1. We feel uncertain about where we are and attempt to regain certainty by pinpointing our exact location.

2. We feel certain about where we are (but are wrong), and bend our reading of the map to suit our perception.

Forward progress either slows or stops entirely, and the focus shifts to ever finer detail. I see the same thing happen to teams and leaders (and yep, I’ve done that version too). We burrow into detail to justify current effort, or make ourselves busy trying to perfect things that will never be perfect. Busyness goes up, progress goes down.

In the map scenario, direction is often the answer. On one challenging walk in the Pilbara, we spent ages going slow trying to justify our position and getting more exhausted and frustrated by it. If we had just walked East, we would hit a North/South water course that was unambiguous and unmissable. East was the way we were going and we were planning to follow that water course!

In teams and workplaces the answer is the same. Get clear on direction and favour progress in that direction over nailing the detail. The detail becomes clear as you make progress. It feels much more enjoyable too.

P.S. This is not a reason to avoid or gloss over detail when it is important. Listen to your specialist communications, risk, compliance and audit teams. Just be sure to keep moving.

Top 4 Mistakes when Preparing for Challenging Situations

Challenging situations come in many shapes and sizes. At work or time might be disrupted by something urgent. It could be a complaint, an equipment failure, someone being off sick, or an unexpected critical deadline. It might be relational like giving difficult feedback or correcting an error. It might be in your personal life like a family member getting sick, a contentious parent teacher interview, or a conversation with a difficult ex over the kids.

Bottom line is there are some situations we find more challenging than others. Last week, I highlighted visualisation as a great way to prepare. Here are the top 4 mistakes that people make when doing that:

1. Wishin’ and Hopin’ - even when you are pretty sure it won’t go smoothly, you just launch in and hope it will be OK, then feel surprised when it goes badly. The investment of a bit of time visualising your options in response to likely variables is well spent.

2. One Shot - only visualising one possible version of events. If any other version happens, you’ll be unprepared and surprised again. Pick 4 possible ways the situation could go on a continuum of “smoothly and well” to “terrible”.Visualise a version of each. How will you be feeling? What will you be doing or saying? What words or actions are coming from the other person/s?

3. Horror Movie - replaying past situations that didn’t go well and you wish you had showed up differently. Often we increase the impact of these negative images of ourselves and our capability with highly critical self talk. Act like a director. Say ‘CUT’ when you notice yourself negatively rehearsing and then replay the scene with you acting as you would have liked to have done.

4. Weird Energy - we can easily come in too hyped or too chilled. Each situation will have an ideal energy. Will you be calm, assertive, conciliatory, loud, quiet, listening, speaking? What is the ideal energy for the situation, and your preferred version of how it plays out.

Watch how these play out before your next moment of pressure. Rehearse well, Act well!

Right to disconnect

I keep running into leaders who say “I choose to do a lot of my work after hours and send lots of emails at night or the weekend. I don’t expect my staff to respond, but they do.”

If you do this it will set the expectation for many of your staff to respond, even if you explicitly state that you don’t expect them too. Expectations come from many sources:

• Notifications - if someone has their phone around them all the time, and notifications on, at the very least, they’ll see the message come in. Even if they choose not to respond, it will be on their mind.

• Standards - You are working after hours which sets an expectation that others should too, especially if you hold a senior position.

• Boundaries -  Some people and cultures have difficulty saying no to others. If you breach their boundaries, they’ll respond. 

• Old ways - It used to be said ‘never leave the office before the boss’. It’s changing, but it’s an enduring idea. If you are working any hours, it easily morphs to ‘don’t knock off before the boss’.

• Behaviour - You may not expect a response, but if you get one, do you respond again? This draws staff into an after hours discussion that your behaviour reinforces, even if you say you don’t expect it.

The new legislation is likely to get some leaders in strife for after hours emails like this, regardless of what they say about expectations. There’s a dead easy solution. All email platforms have a timed or delayed send feature. Learn to use it! Write your emails whenever it suits you, then set it to send during working hours. Simple, cleaner, better.

Don’t let legislation lead

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’ll know that WHS legislation has recently changed in Australia to include psychosocial hazards. Organisations now have a legislated responsibility to ensure that people are safe from undue psychological impacts of work. As of this week, there's been additions to enshrine people’s right to disconnect from work, meaning they cant be compelled to respond to out of hours communication unless it is unreasonable (e.g. when you are on call, or under a specific set of conditions for a limited time)

You could take the approach of finding out what the new rules are and then follow the legislative lead. That will take you down a rabbit hole of minimum standards and a compliance mindset. A better approach is to build the culture you and your team want/need for optimal performance and then create it together. The standard you set will be much greater than the minimum required, and will have the added bonus of boosting engagement and performance. 

Which Why?

A senior leader team I was working with this week spent time sharing their individual “User Manual”. Some great insights about how and where people work best, their preferences for information, building trust, working hours and more were shared. Super valuable. A common theme was that for them to commit time, effort and resources to something, they needed to know why. Makes sense - few if any of us like wasting time on work that doesn’t seem relevant. Whole books have been written on “why”. But which why? Those leaders articulated 5 different types of why:

• Large, audacious ‘change the world’ vision/mission why

• Large organisational purpose why

• Personal mission why

• Tactical ‘how does this relate to the rest of my/our work?’ why

• Unrelated to the organisation whys like family, health, travel, personal growth, freedom, balance, choice.

All the leaders wanted to know why. They all agreed that knowing why was fundamental to alignment of effort. But not all of them wanted to know the same why. A challenge to alignment is we tend to articulate importance through our own why and huddle with others who share that perspective. An effective leader works to understand the different whys in their team and works with people to align effort with the why that most interests them.

There’s a good chance that most of the whys you work with are in the list above. There’s also a good chance I’ve missed some. What would you add?

Compliance is not enough

Monday’s ABC Four Corners program "Don't Speak" has cast a spotlight on the critical issue of workplace bullying and the harmful culture of silence that persists in many organisations. People sometimes ask for clear examples of the kind of behaviour that the Psychosocial Hazards updates to Work Health and Safety legislation cover. The 4 Corners “Don’t Speak” program gives many clear examples across the full spectrum. It serves as a stark reminder of the devastating consequences when these risks are ignored, including severe mental health impacts and, in the worst cases, loss of life. We need to do better!

Organisations are already starting to see action based on the new laws. But guess what - changing legislation on its own, won't change behaviour. 

As in physical safety, exemplar organisations have already embedded culture which supports speaking up, asking questions, encouraging diversity, respect, and valuing contribution. They go way beyond compliance, embedding psychological safety and responsibility as key ingredients of high performance.

There’s many practical ways to do exactly that. What does your organisation do about it?

If you’d like a hand with it in your teams, let me know I’d be delighted to assist.

Clarity is Performance Fuel

Photo by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash

When it’s clear what you are doing, a solid performance becomes much more likely. The opposite is also true - a lack of clarity makes it very difficult to perform. The Olympics are on at the moment, and we are witnessing amazing feats of human performance by some incredible athletes (Go Aussies! - just sayin’).

These are humans who have dedicated themselves to a very clear outcome and have trained specifically for it for 4 years or more. Great work teams have clarity too. They know what they are working toward, as well as what each person’s role is within the team.

When clarity is missing, commitment rapidly dissolves. People initially attempt to deliver, partly in an attempt to gain clarity. But over time their commitment wanes. Imagine training for the Olympics, but being told regularly that the discipline you will be competing in has been changed. The novelty would appeal for a while, but it would get demotivating pretty quickly.

One of the imperatives of leadership is to add clarity whenever possible. How do you do that in your team?

Conduct: Low Hanging Fruit

Christine Porath has been researching incivility in the workplace for almost 3 decades. She defines it as “...seemingly inconsequential inconsiderate words and deeds that violate accepted norms of workplace conduct…”. It’s the small, slightly rude acts we do and experience - things like eye rolls, sarcasm, harsh words, snappiness. The stuff we can all do especially when we are tired and stressed.

Porath says it’s on the rise. In 1998 she found around 25% of people experienced regular rudeness at work. In 2005 it was almost 50%. By 2022 it was over 75%. An alarming pattern.

I often ask teams about the pattern in their own workplace. 98% say there's some level of rudeness. Over 70% say they do it occasionally when they lose their cool, and that they regret it later. A fair portion of us do it to ourselves with harsh negative criticism and self talk when we disappoint ourselves in some way (I know I do).

So if it's rarely deliberate why is it growing? Rudeness easily provokes a “Tit for tat” dynamic. The more we experience it, the more likely we are to bite back or pay it forward. That adds further to stress, which makes it even more likely that we’ll behave that way.

If you want a high performing team, there’s enormous value in naming this stuff. Talking about where and how it happens, and discussing ways to reduce it. In the same way that rudeness is contagious, so is kindness. It’s an easy, high ROI element of conduct that teams can turn to their advantage.

If you like to know more about how rudeness shows up, its impacts and what to do about it, I’d love to hear from you.

A Tale of Two Teams

I’ve worked in and with a lot of different teams. Each of them had a unique way of operating together. While there were some similarities, none were the same. One of the best ‘team health’ gauges is commitment.

In one team, no one was committed to their teammates. People would actively sabotage work and make each other look bad to gain advantage. It was like an episode of Survivor. Commitment was transitory and only ever for defence or advantage. It was a horrible place to work. Everyone was focussed on who was plotting what.

On another team, commitment was high. We would go out of our way to support each other to get results. Success was celebrated together. People willingly put in extra effort for each other. Everyone was focussed on getting the best outcomes. In both situations the leader was a very active participant in setting the team dynamic and culture, and the team echoed and amplified the standard they set. Both dynamics were also strongly self reinforcing.

Where does commitment lie in your team? If you want optimal performance, there will be tangible commitment to the team (each other), the task (what we are doing?) and the organisation and/or purpose (what are we here for?). Good leaders model and encourage commitment.

Running Light

If you are a runner (or train any other sport) you will know how tantalising and difficult it is to achieve a Personal Best (PB). Sometimes months go by and it seems impossible to get even close to your previous PB. I was talking to my good friend Lisa Dobrin recently about her running. Lisa runs regularly, is a yoga practitioner and has done several marathons in. She knows how to train, but for a long while PB’s were unobtainable. 

Recently she’s switched her focus from effort or technique and started focusing on running light. She’s been ignoring pace and other measures of effort, and focussing on light footfalls, feeling light, buoyant posture and mental lightness. Lisa said it’s been a fun experiment and out of the blue she’s hit several  significant PB’s like stripping 19 seconds off her best ever 1km pace. If you are a runner, you’ll know how epic that is. 

Most interesting to me, Lisa described it as almost effortless. It got me thinking about what results we might achieve in any area of life by focusing on ‘running light’, shedding unnecessary load or effort. How could you apply that concept to your life, relationships, leadership and work? And if you are a runner looking for a different way to train for a while, it could be worth a dabble.

Clarity precedes commitment

While I was working as a survival instructor, we emphasised over and over again the importance of water as one of the 5 survival priorities. Participating in an advanced exercise, we encountered a smelly, slimy pool covered with bubbly green algae. It didn’t look drinkable. But parting the layer of green sludge revealed slowly flowing, almost clear water. Clarifying it by straining through fabric, then boiling to purify, and it was perfectly drinkable. It took a while to convince the rest of the group that it was a better option than walking further with an unknown distance to our next water source.

There are similarities in the workplace. Like the group facing that sludgy looking pool, sometimes we need clarification before we commit. Clarification is a key role of leaders at all levels (even if you are an unofficial leader).

On Friday I was working with a CEO and Board discussing their strategy. They are pursuing organic growth by being exemplary at what they do (it’s working well). They also want to grow by acquisition. The nature of their industry means potential acquisitions are a rare find. The CEO was seeking guidance from the board about how aggressively to pursue the acquisition strategy. He mapped a provocative ‘worst case’ to see how the board reacted. Initially the discussion resembled the survival group around the skanky pond - wrinkled noses and obvious discomfort. As the conversation progressed, there was more and more clarity. By the end, the Board and the CEO had a crystal clear understanding about their approach. Ambiguity gone. Alignment achieved.

As a leader, in any situation, it’s worth asking “How can I add clarity to this interaction?”

Minor Changes?

Three stories from real people in real businesses this week:

• An engineer was plagued with constant ‘minor changes’ requested by a client. The engineering needs to be precise because of the loads on the structure. Relatively minor changes equal a full redo of the calculations and drawings.

• A highly customised vehicle had to be upgraded. The old model was no longer available. When the new one finally arrived, it didn’t fit in the shed.

• During an approval process a commitment was made to do things a certain way. When regulators made their inspection something completely different was happening. The original commitment had not been passed on to the operational team. The project may be suspended.

• A piece of public paving near my place was completed and dug up 6 times in one year because roads were changed, trees were planted, cables were shifted, water pipes were replaced etc.

We’ve all had experiences like these where one part of an organisation seems really badly informed about decisions others are making. At worst this leads to massive do-overs and significant frustration. I reckon it’s a compounding situation right now.

People’s to - do lists are so hectic, that they are focussed on what is right in front of them. Taking the time to ask for input from others and/or keep them informed can easily feel like a distraction from our primary focus. It’s false economy. I wonder what percentage of work across the planet is caused by a lack of cohesion, collaboration and communication. It must amount to a massive cost in time, dollars, resources and energy.

If you lead, take the time to slow down and facilitate the connections with people. Everything will go faster.

Police or Purpose

Many moons ago I was a Youth Worker. I once saw a great act of policing. There was a group of young people from a country town visiting Freo. They had gathered in a car park drinking around a mate's ute. They were loud and dropping empty cans/bottles everywhere, but not causing any harm.

A couple of local cops turned up and the older of the 2 leant on the back of the ute and had a yarn to them about street drinking, noise and drink driving. He politely asked them to chuck all the empties into the back of the ute, identified a guy who hadn’t been drinking, eyeballed his licence and then said, “My partner and I are off on patrol, when we get back it would be great if you had cleaned up the cans, and moved you and the ute back to wherever you are staying. If we come back we might need to write some cautions”.

He could have technically thrown the book at them and been much more pushy in his approach. His explanations and requests made sense, and had the group immediately on side. If he’d taken another approach it could have easily escalated with undesirable outcomes for all.

Workplace policy and procedure is similar, I reckon. As a supervisor, employer, or business owner you know that they have their place. From there you have 2 choices:

1. Use them to ‘police’ behaviour and productivity. This approach usually has lots of black and white compliance, criticism, right and wrong involved. The problem is that it rarely motivates people to do a great job. It’s more likely that they’ll adhere to the minimum standard, and/or hide stuff that will draw attention and heat.

2. Tell people about the purpose of them. Involve them in discussions about why they exist and what ‘good’ work looks like in your context. Get people focussed on a good job, not just a compliant one. They’ll be more likely to follow your lead, get excited about doing great work, and evolving great procedures to do it.

Is it contradictory?

Psychological Safety is a slightly misleading term. Many people think it's about being nice for the sake of avoiding conflict - that to be psychologically safe, we should avoid holding ourselves and others to a higher standard of performance. We’ll also avoid difficult conversations and feedback, so people feel safe. A psychologically safe environment is often uncomfortable, precisely because it is safe to do all these things. As a result individuals and teams will push into greater performance.

High psychological safety without a correspondingly high performance standard creates a comfort zone. Comfortable, but highly unlikely to yield high performance, learning or innovation. Over time, those comfort zones crumble into complacency and eventually apathy.

So what can our business owner of last week do to raise both psychological safety and performance:

• Aim for 5x as much affirming feedback as corrective. Tell people when they are doing a great job and why. This is significantly more effective in setting a high performance standard than critical or corrective feedback. And corrective feedback will be more willingly accepted when it is needed. People will want to know how to improve.

• Ask for feedback yourself. Listen and act on it. By doing so you set the standard that feedback is part of how we work.

• Give yourself feedback by reflecting on your work, what went well and what could be improved. Show the way on this and set up opportunities for others to do the same regularly. Many micro versions trump occasional large ones like performance reviews once a year.

• Be specific and clear when giving feedback. Many of us shy away from this in an attempt to be ‘nice’. It misses the mark.

• Get to know your team and what motivates them. When people feel you care about them as people, as well as the results, the results will benefit.

PS if you’d like some great questions to ask for reflection and feedback, send me a message and we’ll send them through.

Force won’t fix it

A while ago, I was doing a maintenance job on my motorbike. When trying to re-fit the front axle it wouldn’t slide through without a bit of force. As the saying goes, ”If at first it doesn’t fit, get a bigger hammer.” I got one and in return I got some damaged parts. My bigger hammer made a bigger problem.

The situation came to mind when I was talking to a leader about the performance of his team. According to him, they are not bad, but the general standard of their work is a bit lackadaisical. In attempting to lift the standard, all his tactics are about more force. Some of what he told me:

• He expresses anger and/or disappointment at the current standard of work (Understandable by the way, it costs him $$ when work is not on point)

• He plays people off against each other

• He makes thinly veiled threats about people losing their job

• He demands longer work hours to make up for the perceived shortcomings

• He constantly reminds people of policies and procedures

• He is looking over people’s shoulders all the time

• He never thanks people for anything (Why should I thank them for doing the job they are paid to do, especially if they are not doing it well? he asked)

I asked him how that approach was working for him.

“I think it’s getting worse,: he said. People don’t take responsibility and blame others/circumstances for their results. Like me with my axle bolt, I understand his frustration, but I’m not surprised.

In an environment where high results/standards are expected, but people don’t feel psychologically safe, the dominant feeling is anxiety. People will do almost anything to avoid attention and cover their butts. More force adds to the problem, making it harder and longer to fix.

Next time we’ll look at some of what he can do to reverse the current situation and build

Psychological safety as well as the performance standard.