Blanchard LeaderChat

My wife is six months into a new job.  She has been through a lot of training since she started and just recently completed a four-week class to qualify for an advanced role.

She’s been struggling to learn all of the different components of the new role and she hit a low point this past Wednesday.  With the training coming to an end, she felt she had only mastered 40% of the required skills.  As a result, she was thinking of turning down the advancement and asking to remain in her previous role.  Even worse, she was reconsidering her decision to take the job in the first place.  Maybe it wasn’t a good fit for her, she told me.

I was surprised at her reaction.  I knew my wife had been struggling to pick up the new skills, but I also knew that she was a bright, capable, woman who had mastered much tougher content in the past.  I did my best to offer a word of encouragement as I left for a 2-day business trip, but it didn’t seem to help much.  I could see the concern on her face as I kissed her goodbye.

Normal, but still painful

I thought about what she was experiencing as I travelled.  I knew that her reaction was normal and something that all people experienced when they were learning a new skill.  At Blanchard, our Situational Leadership II model called this Development Level 2: Disillusioned Learner.  It’s when people go from being enthusiastic about a task when they first start, to disillusioned when the task is more difficult than they anticipated.  However, with encouragement, and as they begin to apply their new skills and gain confidence, they finally move on to mastery.  It all sounds so neat in theory, but as my wife demonstrated, it doesn’t make it any easier for the person going through the process.  Still, reconsidering whether to stay with the company seemed an especially strong reaction.

That’s why I was so surprised when I returned home and she told me that she was moving forward with the new role and was even looking forward to the next position beyond that.

“What happened,” I asked, amazed at the complete change in her attitude in less than 48 hours.

What she told me next were two important actions that all managers need to add to their skill set when asking employees to stretch and try something new.

1. She received some positive feedback.  After two weeks of practicing her new skills (badly, in her mind) she received some outside feedback on how she was doing.  She was surprised to find out that she had received a 97 and a 98 rating on her two recent evaluations.  These scores were consistent with the scores she had been receiving in her previous role.  She was shocked that her work was so good.  She was sure that she was going to receive bad scores.  The lack of feedback up to this point had caused her mind to imagine the worst.  A little bit of positive feedback provided a different perspective and dispelled that fear.
2. She talked to her manager about her concerns.  She shared with her manager that she felt that she had only mastered about 40% of the material.  She also expressed her concern that maybe she wasn’t a good fit for the role.  Her manager reassured her that she was right on track and even shared a personal story that she remembered only being 20% confident of the material when she had completed the class years before.  The manager also shared that my wife was doing great, was one of the best people on the team, and that she had a bright future with the company. A little bit of encouragement and my wife’s confidence was restored.  In fact, she now had a “just watch me grow” attitude I hadn’t seen since she first started.

Is it time to check in with your people?

How are your people doing?  Are they knee deep in learning new skills?  Have you checked in with them lately?  It never hurts to ask.

Disillusionment is a normal stage of development.  By responding appropriately with encouragement and support, managers can help their people get through this difficult stage and move on to confident performance.  Don’t risk losing any of your best people to an extended period of disillusionment.  Don’t let a drop in confidence and perceived skill keep your people from moving forward.  Check in and see how they are doing.  Offer a word of encouragement if appropriate.  It can work wonders!

If you pile enough on, anyone can be made to look foolish and incompetent.  That’s the sad state of affairs many of us find ourselves in from time to time.  Work piles up, deadlines are missed, quality suffers and then there are the consequences to deal with.  What’s your reaction when faced with a situation like this?  If you’re like me, the tendency is to hold on to all of the tasks, accomplish what I can on a daily basis and hope that no one asks about the others.  Not a very good strategy for success.

There has to be a better way—right?

There is, and I’ll walk you through it.  Grab your to-do list and we’ll walk through this together.

Prioritize your list.

Take out your to-do list and scan through it.  If you don’t have a list and are just keeping it in your head, take some time to write it down.  There’s only one thing worse than a long to-do list. That is a vague, anxiety producing bunch of ideas you’re trying to keep straight in your head.  Get them out of your head and down on paper.  I’ll wait for you.

Okay—let’s take a look at that list now.  My list has 15 items on it.  How many does yours have?  Our first step is to prioritize the list by importance.  Give each of your tasks a letter grade of A, B, or C depending on how important it is.  We’ll try to get to everything on the list eventually, but let’s make sure that we focus on the important ones first.

I’m finished—are you?  In my own case, prioritizing my list gave me 8 A’s, 2 B’s, and 5 C’s.  I’m feeling a little better already—the eight A’s seem manageable and the five C’s really aren’t that important.  How did your list shake-out?

Identify where you are at.

Now, take a second look at the A’s.  Where would you say you are with each of these tasks?  At Blanchard we use a model where you identify yourself at one of four development levels with a task depending on your commitment to getting it done and your ability to get it done.

• Enthusiastic Beginner—you’re excited about the task but don’t really understand how to get started.
• Disillusioned Learner—you understand the task and have some skills, but aren’t very excited about it at all.
• Capable, but Cautious Performer—you’ve got the skills to do this, but your commitment and confidence wavers sometimes.
• Self Reliant Achiever—you’ve done this task successfully in the past and you’re confident you can do it successfully again.

What’s your commitment and competence for each of the “A” tasks on your list?  Are you just dragging your feet on a task because you’re not motivated, or do you really not know where to begin?  Are there obstacles in the way that are outside of your control?  Identifying where you are at with each task will help you with the final step.

Ask for help. 

In some cases, you probably have everything you need to knock off a task.  These are the tasks where you know what to do and you’re confident and committed to getting it done.  The first step of Prioritizing probably helped surface these tasks on your list.  You have everything you need so get those tasks done this week.

Some of the other tasks might have a trouble spot.  Either you don’t know what to do, have some issues with it, or have encountered some obstacles that are keeping you from making progress.  Talk to your manager about these.  Discuss where you are at with these key tasks and enlist their help.

If it’s been a while since you talked, keep the conversation focused on where you are at with each of the goals and what you need in order to achieve them.  Ask your manager to help you get what you need to succeed.  Be specific and ask for either some direction on accomplishing the task if you don’t have the knowledge you need, some support if you are encountering obstacles, or some encouragement if you are not sure how this task matches up with departmental goals.

Tackle that to-do list.  But don’t feel that you have to go it alone. Work is a group activity.  No man is supposed to be an island.  Prioritize your work, identify where you are at, and then ask for help when you need it.  It’s in everyone’s best interest for you to succeed.  Get started today!

In his book, Good to Great, author Jim Collins found that leaders at the most successful companies shared two traits—a fierce resolve toward achieving organizational goals and a deep sense of personal humility.  At the best companies, leaders worked tirelessly to keep the goals of the organization ahead of thoughts of personal accomplishment.  The result was financial performance that far outstripped the results of average organizations.

You may not be a CEO yet, but what can you do now to start building some of those qualities into your own leadership style and the way you are managing your current team?  Here are three places to get started.

Help your team discover its larger purpose.  The goal here is to have people pursuing a goal that is bigger than themselves.  Self-centered behavior is a normal condition.  Without something greater to serve, people naturally drift toward self-interest.  As a leader, your job is to lift people beyond self-interest into serving something larger.  What is the bigger mission of your team, department, or organization?  How does each individual position contribute to the overall goal?  Make this connection explicit.

Be careful with rewards and recognition.  Even well-meaning organizations have trouble with this one. How do you strike the right balance between personal and group recognition?  What types of behavior do you want to reward and encourage?  Leaders get in trouble two ways with reward and recognition. The first is when they inadvertently emphasize individual accomplishment over group accomplishment.  The second is when they use reward and recognition as the reason for doing the task.  You want to recognize individuals, but not at the expense of promoting team behaviors and results. Both of these common mistakes strip away at true motivation and collaboration. Structure reward and recognition in a way that makes it easy for people to “high five” each other and feel a sense of shared accomplishment.

Keep an eye on your personal behavior.  Actions speak louder than words.  Are you focused on individual accomplishment or team accomplishment?  If you are like most people, the answer is probably a little of both.  How does that affect your subsequent behavior?  As a leader, your actions are the single greatest teaching tool you have.  People watch your behavior for clues of what you truly believe.  What would people see if they watched you?  Consider where your own personal focus is.  Are you a serving leader—or more of a self-serving leader?  What do you personally believe about individual versus group recognition?  How does that play out in your work environment?

With a little bit of focus and some practice you can make important changes in your work environment.  Recognizing where you are is the first step.  Take that step and start making a difference in your life and the lives of the people around you.

Without a theory, framework, and understanding of personality types, people tend to judge others in comparison to themselves, explains Scott Blanchard in a recent article entitled, Understanding Others Begins with Understanding Yourself. Once that happens, you are very susceptible to “BLM Syndrome,” which is “Behave Like Me.” As Blanchard explains, “Without a way to understand how we’re different, it is very easy to judge the other person as being somehow insufficient.”

“For example, if my dominant temperament craves variety, action, and a freedom to act without hindrance, I may devalue and see as obstacles people who are peacekeepers and more team focused, collaborative, and harmonious.

“While I may be very comfortable with change, and open to it, and even drive it most of the time, there are other temperaments that come from a place that is more cautious and wary of change. There is nothing wrong with either disposition—they are just different. Still, it’s very easy for someone who is more ‘change able’ to judge others who are not as ready. Conversely, it is very easy for someone who is more careful and guarded to turn around and judge someone who likes change as being less than rigorous in their thinking and not very respectful of achievements in the past.”

Dealing with your shadow

This is especially true when you are working with someone who is least like you. Blanchard refers to this as your “shadow” temperament.

“This is often experienced as an initial reflexive allergic reaction to someone, but you can’t put your finger on why,” explains Blanchard. “Often, the culprit is that the person’s dominant temperament is your shadow. That’s an incredibly important and helpful realization. Now you can manage your feelings. It’s also helpful when you notice that someone’s having an allergic reaction to you for no apparent reason. You can explore that you might possibly be their shadow.”

Understand yourself to better understand others

Recognizing the way you are helps you to understand how you are different from other people. Using this as a starting point, you can begin to modulate your communication style to be more effective with people who are different from yourself. It also keeps you from defaulting to a lazy, “Well this is the way I am, I can’t change,” attitude.

Blanchard’s advice for better work relationships?

• Job one is to understand yourself as best you can.
• Next, empathize and understand that people come from diverse perspectives.
• Finally, be able to engage in strategies that can foster better communication between people who may have profound differences in the way they see the world.

To read more about what Blanchard has to say about temperament and personality at work, check out the full text of Understanding Others Begins with Understanding Yourself.  Also see the information about a free webinar Blanchard is conducting on March 28, Temperament at Work: Understanding yourself and others.

My colleagues Chris Edmonds and Lisa Zigarmi have written a new book called Positivity at Work.  The book is chock-full of 140 ideas for creating a more positive work culture. They obviously both have a lot to say on the subject but you’d experience something completely different if you spoke to either of them in person about improving your own work culture.

Instead of telling you everything they knew about creating an energizing work environment, you’d be surprised by how many questions they would ask instead. There are a couple of key reasons for this and some best practices for anyone looking to help others improve.

Don’t assume you “know.” It’s easy, especially when you are an expert, to only half-hear what others are saying on a subject you’ve studied.   Your brain’s ability to match up what you are hearing and connecting it with past information can get in the way of really listening.  Experts have the hardest time hearing things and seeing them with fresh eyes.  It’s a condition called educated incompetence and you have to be on your guard and listen especially close or you’ll miss things while you’re processing and making connections.

Find out “why.”  Make sure that you have a complete understanding of what people are telling you.  Do you understand the nuances of what they are saying and why they feel the way they do?  Is there any part of their thinking that you still have questions about?  Be sure to ask.

Listen with the intent of being influenced.  This can be the biggest challenge for an accomplished consultant.  So much value is placed on the ability to assess a situation quickly and figure out what’s wrong.  This is a very useful skill in many situations but not so good when you are trying to understand someone else’s experience.  Instead of driving for closure, look for possibilities.  How does their position make sense?  Under what conditions could their recommendation work?

A case in point

If you keep yourself open, you might be surprised at what you learn.  Early in his career, Ken Blanchard did some consulting work with a manufacturing company that was having a problem with employee retention.  Every summer, employee turnover would spike and cause a major upheaval as the company struggled to find qualified people to replace those who were leaving.  Blanchard was brought in to get to the bottom of the problem.

After meeting with the executives, Blanchard asked if he could tour the plant.  His intention was to discuss the problem with people on the shop floor to see what was happening.

The executives were confused.  “Why do you want to talk to them—they’re the ones that are leaving.  Besides, we told you what the problem was.”

Blanchard insisted on touring the facility just to double-check some of the assumptions.  He conducted several interviews and started to hear the same thing over and over again.

• “It’s too hot in here during the summer.”
• “The heat is just unbearable.”
• “The air conditioning is useless.”

The biggest culprit causing turnover in this plant was the physical working conditions.  Employees on the floor knew it, but management didn’t have a clue.

Do you really know what’s going on with your people?  Take a second to double-check this week.  It never hurts to ask a few questions.  You might be surprised at what you find out.

In their new book Positivity At Work, authors Chris Edmonds and Lisa Zigarmi identify five aspects of a positive work environment that lead to higher levels of well-being.  That’s a hot topic these days as organizations deal with the general burnout prevalent in so many workplaces after three years of belt-tightening and a single-minded focus on productivity.

Take a little test

Feeling a little burned out yourself?  Here are five places to look for causes and improvement.  See how you’re scoring in each of these key areas.  Keep track on one hand.  Raise a finger for every question you can answer “yes” to.

1. Positive Emotion at Work

Let’s start with the basics—“feelings.”  The ten positive emotions are Appreciation, Love, Amusement, Joy, Hope, Gratitude, Serenity, Interest, Inspiration, and Awe.  How many of these emotions have you experienced in the past week at work? Raise a finger if you’ve experienced at least one of these emotions during the past seven days.

2. Positive Relationships at Work

Good relationships may be the single most important source of life satisfaction and emotional wellbeing. In fact, The Gallup Organization identified that having a best friend at work was one of the key predictors of overall employee engagement.  Do you have at least one person at work that you can talk to, share experiences with, and confide in?  Raise a second finger if you do.

3. Meaning and Purpose at Work

The third ingredient of positivity at work is meaning or purpose. To what degree is your work—and the work of your organization—contributing to something bigger than just making money?  We all need to serve something bigger than ourselves.  If you have a clear sense of the bigger picture and how you contribute to it, raise a third finger.

4. Positive Accomplishment at Work

The fourth element of positivity at work is positive accomplishment or achievement. Are you good at what you do?  Do you feel like you are learning and growing? Positive accomplishment fulfills a vital psychological need.   Raise a fourth finger if you are learning, growing, and achieving at work.

5. Positive Health at Work

As the old saying goes, “If you have your health, you have everything.”  How is your work environment contributing to your overall physical health?  Sedentary, repetitive, and stressful environments take their toll.  How would you rate your work environment’s impact on your health?  If it’s positive, raise a fifth finger.

An open hand—or a closed, little fist?

Now take a look at your hand.  Is it open with all five fingers extended?  Or is it closed in a tight little fist?  (See my personal score—and share yours—in the comment section below.)  If you’re like me, it’s probably somewhere in between.  A couple of areas are good while a couple of areas could use work.

Now, the important question—what to do about it?  For some great suggestions on how to bring some additional joy, optimism, and well-being back into your workplace, check out Edmonds’ and Zigarmi’s website, Positivity Works.  You’ll find a free downloadable excerpt of their book that will give you actionable ideas you can use immediately.  You’ll be surprised at some of the small things you can do today that will make a big difference.

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Growth for a leader is like oxygen for a deep-sea diver. Without it – you die.

Leadership is a living process—and life means growth.

Join best-selling authors Ken Blanchard and Mark Miller today at 9:00 a.m. Pacific / 12:00 noon Eastern / 5:00 p.m. GMT for a free webinar on the four keys to increased influence, impact, and leadership effectiveness.  Drawing from their new book, Great Leaders Grow: Becoming a Leader for Life, you’ll learn how your capacity to grow determines your capacity to lead.

Using the acronym GROW, you’ll explore four strategies that leaders must use to challenge and stretch themselves—both on the job and off—to reach their highest potential.

To learn more about this free event and join the 1,500 people already registered to attend, click here.

Whether you’re a CEO or an entry-level employee, don’t miss this opportunity to take your first steps in designing your own long-term growth plan—a plan that can lead not only to continuing professional success, but to personal fulfillment as well.

LEARN MORE

With great power comes great responsibility.  In the unsettled atmosphere of the American Revolution between the victory at Yorktown in 1781 and the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, a movement arose from officers in the Continental Army to proclaim George Washington as King George I of America.

As incredible as it might sound today after 200 years of U.S. democracy, it was a very real possibility and opportunity for Washington.  As the military leader of the fledgling republic, he had the ability and the backing of the colonists who had put their faith and future in his hands.

And yet, Washington quickly dispelled the idea. Upon learning of the proposal, Washington sincerely and admonishingly responded to the officer who had written the original proposal saying that, “…if you have any regard for your Country, concern for yourself or posterity, or respect for me, to banish these thoughts from your Mind, and never communicate, as from yourself, or anyone else, a sentiment of the like Nature. “

For Washington, leadership was not about personal gain or ambition, but instead, service to a higher purpose and a greater good.  And to confirm his intentions eight years later, when the people wanted him to run for a third term—Washington  again voluntarily gave up his power when he refused to be nominated.

Why did George Washington do what he did? What was in the man’s mind? What can we learn from it during a time when egotistical self-serving leadership seems all to common? Those are the questions that Richard Archer explores in his post, The Spirit of Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Triumph of the Self.

Archer points to a couple of great resources for all of us to consider and reflect upon:

• In His Excellency, his heralded biography of Washington, Joseph J. Ellis underscores “the truly exceptional character” of Washington’s act. “Oliver Cromwell had not surrendered power after the English Revolution. Napoleon, Lenin, Mao, and Castro did not step aside to leave their respective revolutionary settlements to others in subsequent centuries. … Whereas Cromwell and later Napoleon made themselves synonymous with the revolution in order to justify the assumption of dictatorial power, Washington made himself synonymous with the American Revolution in order to declare that it was incompatible with dictatorial power.” Ellis thus reminds us that Washington, in relinquishing power — not just once, but twice — was bucking an imperialist pattern that stretched back to the days of the Roman and English republics, and which, sadly, continues to this day.
• Joseph Campbell might have called this pattern “ego imperialism,” “trying to impose your idea on the universe.” “That’s what’s got to go,” Campbell insisted in The Hero’s Journey. “Your ego is [only] your embodiment and your self is your potentiality and that’s what you listen to when you listen for the voice of inspiration and the voice of ‘What am I here for? What can I possibly make of myself?’” The great task of the hero, Campbell tells us, is “not to eliminate ego, it’s to turn ego and the judgment system of the moment into the servant of the self, not the dictator, but the vehicle for it to realize itself. It’s a very nice balance, a very delicate one.”
• Unfortunately, too many of us allow our egos unlimited rule. The tragic result, as Jung’s colleague Alfred Adler once warned us, is a life within “a self-centered world, a world in which one will never find true courage, self-confidence, communal sense, or understanding of common values.”
• In The American Soul, Jacob Needleman urges us to read Washington’s words as “referring to the need for both the nation and the individual self to turn within for strength, not to the egoistic impulses of one or another self-serving part of human nature, but to the inner self that represents the fountainhead of inner unity.”

In his words and actions, Washington’s beliefs were clear.  As Archer concludes, “… his words and actions in stepping down as commander of the army and as Commander in Chief show us the importance of taming our venal, egoistic ambitions, passions and prejudices in the service of a greater good.”

We’ve all seen the limitations and results of self-serving behavior.  On this U.S. observance of President’s Day, let’s consider what’s possible with leadership focused on serving others as exemplified by America’s first President.  For ideas and inspiration,  check out Archer’s complete post at Examiner.com

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Sometimes, nothing is more damaging to a career than success.  It’s not always easy to see this at work in your own life, but you can certainly see it in others.  In the movie, The Artist, one of this year’s Oscar-nominated films, silent screen star George Valentin falls victim to this when his past success make him blind to changes in the industry.  His pride, success, and arrogance keep him from even experimenting with the new technology of “talkies” and it costs him everything as he sabotages his own career.  Fortunately for Valentin, rising star Peppy Miller never loses faith in him, and eventually she helps him grow, change, and adapt.

Has success made you resistant to growth?  Here are three places to look.

1. Have you lost sense of who you really are?  Success changes people.  After years of striving and hard work, when fame and fortune finally arrive, it’s easy to step into the success, immerse yourself, and completely believe what everyone is telling you about how great you are.  Yes, you do have great strengths, but don’t let them atrophy, or even worse, turn into weaknesses through overuse.  Take some time, now and then, for self-reflection.
2. Have you become isolated?  A lot of leaders will tell you that it is lonely at the top. One of the great things about rising up the ranks is that you always have colleagues and peers to share experiences or commiserate with.  Once you get to the top though, you’re on your own—at least in your own organization.  Who do you talk to now?  Make sure you still have mentors and friends that you can discuss things with.  Make an effort to reach out and connect again.
3. Do you keep trying to recreate the past?  In The Artist, George Valentin responds to the introduction of sound into movies by spending his own money to produce the world’s greatest silent film.  It’s a vain attempt to hold on to the past and it only ends up making him look foolish and dated.  The world is constantly evolving.  Make sure that you are evolving too.

Don’t let success in the past keep you from success in the future.  Follow the example of leaders who are still growing.  Gain an understanding of yourself, reach out to others, open your world, and step into your future.  Don’t wait until you’ve hit rock bottom to dust yourself off and take your first steps.  The new path is there.  Use your strengths and find it!  Get started today.

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PS: I’m just getting started watching this year’s Oscar nominated films.  Which ones have you seen?  Recommendations?  Any lessons you’ve learned?

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“Growth is what separates living things from dying things,” explain Ken Blanchard and Mark Miller in their new book Great Leaders Grow: Becoming a Leader for Life. “Growth brings energy, vitality, life, and challenge. Without growth, we’re just going through the motions.”

In a recent article for Blanchard’s online newsletter, Ignite! the authors warn that if leaders are not continually growing and developing their skills, they run the risk of becoming stagnant. Once you are stagnant—or even perceived as stagnant—your influence erodes.

Growth should never be an optional activity

Still, many leaders do not grow. And it can happen at any stage in a leader’s career. It can be triggered by work-life balance issues, a reactive mindset, or it can be for organizational reasons, such as limited growth opportunities.

But the reality is that all of these challenges can be overcome. As Blanchard and Miller explain, “It is the decision to grow that makes the difference. The best leaders make a conscious decision to grow throughout their career and their life. This single decision is a game changer for leaders.”

8 questions to ask yourself

Wondering if you are growing—or dying—as a leader?  Here are some key questions to ask yourself based on Blanchard and Miller’s recommended first steps for leaders looking to grow (self-evaluation, honest feedback, and counsel from others.)  To what extent would you agree or disagree with each statement?

Self Evaluation:

• I know my own strengths and weaknesses.
• I constantly look for opportunities to grow at work.
• I consistently tell myself the truth regarding my leadership.

Honest Feedback:

• I actively seek feedback from those I know to be truth-tellers.
• I have mastered the art and discipline of asking profound questions.

Counsel from Others:

• I have a mentor(s) who helps me grow.
• I frequently share what I’m learning with others.
• I have a group of people I trust to give me counsel on important issues.

How did you do?  Did your answers surprise you?  It may have been a while since you even considered the subject of growth—especially if you’ve been focused on the short-term or if you’ve become comfortable, complacent, or resigned in your current role. All of these are potentially destructive attitudes.

“Great leaders go out of their way to expand their worlds both inside and outside of work,” explain Blanchard and Miller. “A willingness to grow allows leaders to take advantage of opportunities when they come their way.

“You cannot always control the circumstances of your career or work environment. However, you can control your readiness to lead and grow. Leaders who don’t are susceptible to pride, ego, and other destructive attitudes that can impede growth. As a result, they can become isolated and have a distorted sense of what’s going on.”

As Blanchard and Miller warn, “Be ready to face the next challenge, or you can end up as a leader who tries to apply yesterday’s solutions to today’s problems. That’s a recipe for failure.”

To read more of Blanchard and Miller’s thinking on the importance of growth, check out If You Want to Lead, You Have to Grow.  Also, take a look at the free webinar the authors will be conducting on February 23, Great Leaders Grow: The Four Keys to Becoming a Leader for Life, courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.