Month: December 2019

Momentum is crucial in organization success.  Momentum carries your mission forward.  Momentum solves certain kinds of problems on its own.  Momentum creates powerful narratives that will be told years from now. 

Momentum = mass * velocity

A gunshot delivers momentum because the bullet is moving at high speed.  A big diesel engine pulling a hundred railcars down the track at 40 mph can blow through 3 feet of concrete and barely slow down. 

That same big diesel engine can’t move forward from a standstill if you put a 2-inch block of wood in front of its wheels.  The organization must be moving.  Smaller organizations MUST move fast to have momentum. 

Velocity is both speed and vector.   An organization center going in 6 different directions has very little useful velocity.

Key to remember: Leaders create momentum; Managers solve problems.   [Both are important!]

Sustained energy input is necessary to create momentum.  There are two other aspects of leadership that are critical for momentum:

1. Trust.  More trust, faster decisions, less resistance, more likely to accomplish difficult objectives.
2. Authority.  There are empty words and platitudes.  Then there are words which galvanize a team and unleash energy – it’s not just the words, but the person sharing them who makes the difference.  Truth spoken plainly conveys authority, even if it is not “charismatic” in delivery. 

You can ask a customer (or a prospective customer) or client “What do you need?”  This will give you ideas about products and services.

If you’re listening that can take you forward, depending on your action plan.

I suggest wrestle with this exercise first:

My client/customer values __(short list)__ therefore we should ___(action plan)___.

Example:

My client values speed, quality, and the story that we’re using the latest technology in our delivery.  Therefore we can charge higher price (improving our margins) as we emphasize latest tech incorporated, and strengthen our ability to deliver even faster without sacrificing quality. We should adjust our hiring standards accordingly.

Example:

My client values massive data management speed.  Therefore, we should invest in the hidden-to-them aspects of network bandwidth, compute power, and a superior data architecture. 

Example:

My customer values consistently low price, even if it means waiting an extra 3 days.  Therefore we should segment part of our workflows to optimize for low price for this segment of our customers.

This approach helps you (1) create products and services that your customer hasn’t thought of, or can’t articulate, but will make them happy, and (2) deepen your connection with the customer.  Values are the foundation of wants and needs.

Note: critically important to test your value list to ensure it’s real.  Also, consider that different segments of clients/customers have different value lists.

It’s important to be disconnected when you’re on vacation.  It can be hard to get your mind off of critical work in-flight and unfinished business. Here is a strategy to help.

Before you go on vacation, schedule a 45-60 minute meeting with your direct reports the afternoon of your first day back in the office.  Reserve time in the morning of that day to work through your inbox and digital channels. 

Set these expectations with your direct reports before you depart:

• Each person gets 7 min max for an update
• Crisp comments on key issues, not a list of everything
• Focus on active and open issues, questions that need an answer, and things your boss or peers will want to know or want done
• Save less time-critical items for your next one-on-one meeting

Let your mind relax while you’re on vacation, confident that your team will be on top of the right things.

Done well, this “catch-up meeting” helps you get back to speed quickly with less interpretation of cryptic email messages that are no longer relevant.

Pro tip #1.  Before you leave, create your “cheat sheet” of critical issues and planned events for follow-up queries.  These are things you know you want to ask about.

Pro tip #2. Even if your boss doesn’t schedule something like this, be prepared to give just such an update when she returns.

Relatively new mantra from me:  Think about your vacation time strategically, purposefully.   Far too often many of us let our vacation days get sucked up into the traditional family events, maybe a big trip, and an end-of-scramble to “use up” our allocated time so we don’t lose it.

A leader I admire plans a week of vacation every 3 months.  This frequency keeps him fresh.  He unplugs his connection to work entirely. “I can feel the need again when I get to the end of the 11 week stretch of work.”

Family obligations (relationship opportunities!), the school calendar, and critical seasons of work likely mean you can’t evenly distribute your vacation time.  Still, plan proactively rather than passively or not at all.

2020 is almost here. Consider your upcoming year with these questions:

• Who needs your attention?  
• What are key times when you’re going to burn through more energy and likely to need a recovery period? 
• What can you schedule with intention to experience re-creation, not just “days off”?  
• How could vacations fit into your professional development opportunities?  
• What rhythms of work must you respect more in 2020 than you have in past years? 
• What value could a solid 2+ weeks away provide you?  When could a few 3 or 4-day weekends help you stay fresh and energized?  
• What travel and experience opportunities would give more breadth or depth?

The likelihood of a memorable 2020 is higher when you plan your vacation time strategically.

There is a remarkable detail in the account of the woman caught in adultery who the scribes and Pharisees used to test Jesus: The older men are the first to respond correctly. 

Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them.  The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery.  Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?”  This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.  And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”  And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground.  But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.  Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”  She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”  (John 8:2-11, ESV, emphasis mine)

The scribes and Pharisees clearly engineered this public situation to test and hopefully discredit Jesus or embarrass him in some way.  They don’t bring the adulterous man, or anyone to testify in her defense, but no one (including Jesus) disputes her adultery. We aren’t told what Jesus wrote in the dirt.  Perhaps he referenced the Ten Commandments – “Thou shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”  Perhaps he wrote the name of the person who manipulated this woman into adultery.  Perhaps he wrote the names of women these men had slept with at different times.  

Whatever he wrote, it helped each of them recognize their sin and walk away.

Note also how tenderly Jesus deals with the scribes and Pharisees in this public setting.  He knows their thoughts, their sins, their whole life with all it’s ugliness.  He easily could have verbally called them out.  His approach is extraordinarily loving to these men, just as it is loving to the woman – “Neither do I condemn you; go and from now on sin no more.”

I’m not surprised with the order of their departure. “Beginning with the older ones” is simply explained.  We older men are much more aware of our sins, errors, weaknesses, and failings.  We’ve lived enough that some of our youthful righteousness and arrogance has been smashed out of us.  We don’t only see the surface but increasingly sense the larger story and movements.

Today, especially in the Church, we need the older men to recognize what’s going on, the trends and popular ideas which are simply wrong or “within our rights and freedoms but unhelpful for building others up” (see 1 Corinthians 10:23, Galatians 6:1-2), and lead by walking away. 

This my appeal, older men.  Let’s stand with Jesus.  Let’s be men who are the first to walk away from errors of doctrine and judgment.  

Change drivers fall into two rough categories:

Impersonal wave movements.  Most people can sense them and a few clearly see them coming, but they defy efforts to control or shape them.  These include demographic changes in population, the broad swath of technological advances, changing tastes and sensibilities of large people groups, ecological shifts, and the transition between older and new business models.  These waves have massive energy but only become a big topic of conversation when they “suddenly” are seen as a threat to a favored status quo. 

Choices by tiny proportion of individuals.  These come from country leaders, bureaucrats, organizational leaders, the people who control/influence media, the algorithm designers and gatekeepers, judges, potentially your neighbors, and even members of your own family.  We hold leaders to high standards because a subset of their decisions have disproportionately large and long consequences for many others.  History is replete with events unleashed by the act of one individual – WW1 was triggered by a single assassin, tech-shaping businesses began as dreams of one person, and kings decided when to go to war.  I write “tiny proportion of individuals” because in the real story it is never just one person acting alone; others help or choose not to hinder.  As Andy Andrews has pointed out, there are about 1000 elected leaders in the US whose decisions influence the lives of 315 million people.  Less than 300 Chinese leaders systematically control a 1.3 billion person juggernaut.  There are millions of cooperative people aligned (some unconsciously) with those 1300 leaders.

Note that the impersonal wave movements can be exploited by savvy individuals, and often set up unstable conditions where a normally insignificant decision or event triggers a cataclysm of changes. 

You need discernment about wave movements, and being alert for consequential choices of the few.  Develop discernment by studying history, and especially history through biographies.  Seek out conversations with people with discernment  — there are relatively few, so be selective.  As I learned in the Boy Scouts, “Be Prepared.”

My friend Lane Arthur used to say, “Rain is a lagging indicator.”  We measure the rain as an output of a complex atmospheric system with many inputs. 

Yet rain is a leading indicator for a farmer, or a whitewater kayaker seeking a bigger thrill.

Every system is perfectly designed to produce the results it generates.  Leaders and managers, being in the system improvement business, need to think clearly about leading and lagging indicators.

We can draw it this way:

Indicators are oriented before or after the critical step/event.   All indicators have some value; leading indicators are more valuable than lagging indicators for improving system performance.  It takes skill and ingenuity to create valuable leading indicators because they are rarely obvious.  Tap into multiple perspectives to identify candidate indicators.

Lagging indicators often become the leading indicator for the next interaction of a system, or a separate system. 

Be smart about indicators to ratchet up your leadership effectiveness.

“Criticism is something we can easily avoid by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” (Aristotle)

All leaders are criticized.  Everyone who holds a firm view will be criticized.  For most of us this reality is no fun. 

A few helps:

Accept that being criticized is part of the package deal for leadership.  You have a set of responsibilities, significant privileges, and will receive criticism.  You don’t get to opt out of part of the package and keep the rest.

Distinguish between criticism based on misunderstanding and misinformation from criticism based on what you truly decided, said, and did.  As best you’re able, when there is a hope of corrected information being meaningful to others, gently provide correct information.  Avoid “throwing pearls before swine.”  Where criticism is a difference of opinion about what should have been decided/said/did, weigh it carefully to see what lessons are to be learned.  Stand firm if you remain convicted;  plan to behave differently in the future if that’s appropriate. 

Remember the limitations of your critics.  They see only a fraction (and usually a tiny fraction) of what you’re doing.  They most likely know less than you do about the information you had at the time you needed to make a decision.  There is no cost for them to be “Monday morning quarterbacks” because they’re not in the arena with you.  They often criticize as if it’s possible to do a proper split-test experiment on a historical situation, which simply cannot happen. 

Don’t give in to bullying and legalists.  Appeasement is a failed strategy.  Be disciplined but exercise your freedoms.  Both bullies and legalists despise humor, so use it well to help the larger audience understand their pettiness.

Be teachable.  Your critics can help you improve in the future.  There are sometimes hard kernels of truth in the fluff of popcorn. 

Don’t allow yesterday’s criticisms to use up too much of today and tomorrow.  Most of us feel and remember criticism more keenly than praise and commendation.  Train yourself to acknowledge them, and then keep whatever part is valuable in a well-managed “lessons learned” compartment of your mind.

Several kind people have expressed their disappointment with the look of this website. They suggest more pictures, a nicer header, some nifty plugins. I chuckled when one friend wrote “Your blog is kinda texty.”

It’s understandable. Many popular sites are highly visual. People with fast connections like images, videos, flashy stuff.

I’m not likely to make this change.

First, I’m focusing on ideas and words, with the occasional supporting diagram or picture. That’s what I do.

Second, I want this site to load f-a-s-t! Well-formatted text loads faster than images, especially on phones and tablets.

I do appreciate the feedback.

I arrived near the tail end of the Baby Boomer generation – born 1946-1964

Then come Gen X – 1965-1980

Then Millennials (sometimes called Gen Y) – 1981-1996

Then Gen Z – 1996 to today

(Sidebar: Ever notice the US bias in the way these categories are set up?  Since we’re at the end of the alphabet I expect the next generation will get a nifty nickname rather than a letter.)

You can certainly identify major experiences and events that distinguish these generations.  Those experiences shape what each generation tends to value.  Keep in mind that experiences in the US, China, Columbia, Belgium, and South Africa were significantly different for those generations.

All that makes some sense in the abstract, and affects what self-narrative is reinforced for individuals in those generations.  Yet saying “She’s  in Gen Z therefore ________ must be true” will be inaccurate much of the time.

When it comes to interacting with individuals – genuine flesh and blood people – in your organization, the “Gen whatever” labels aren’t helpful.  It’s much more valuable to understand these things about a person:

• Behavior and style characteristics (e.g., DiSC or Meyers-Briggs score)
• Their personal experiences in life, especially early experiences
• Their passions