Month: November 2020

A personal story from the mid-1990’s…

My boss and I were sitting in a briefing about the program to implement SAP at our company, code name “Quest.”  Massive.  First software project we ever capitalized on the financial books.  External consultants. Big $$$ commitments with no ROI for several years.

The presenter laid out the plan:

•             12 months to document the business requirements

•             12 months to create specs for the necessary customization

•             18-20 months for the implementation work

I turned to my boss and said, “This is doomed to fail.  The business requirements will change before they can implement!”

He responded: “The people in charge of Quest get to define success. Therefore, no matter what happens, it will be a success.”

There are two ways you can put this insight into your leadership toolbox:

1.   Watch for this “they get to define success” paradigm being used against you (or the best outcomes for the organization).  You probably can’t change it, but at least be consciously aware of the reality.

2.  Respect the power of being able to define success for an initiative. Use this super-power for good, not to manipulate or cover your butt.

I’m done with Twitter and will no longer post regularly on Facebook.

For many years now I’ve used Facebook and Twitter to share what I hope are useful and encouraging quotes, verses, links to articles, and birthday congratulations. It’s been nice to learn things about others, too, especially old friends and contacts who I no longer see in person. I’ve been grateful for the tools.

What’s changed in my view?

These are private companies who can set their own rules. I understand that they aren’t charging me directly for the tools, which means “I am the product” they are selling. Both companies have blocked friends for opaque reasons. There’s abundant evidence that their algorithms highly favor and amplify some content. These are not unbiased platforms for communication. The reality is that a subset of what I publish will not reach my followers.

I also find I’m overly attracted to checking these sites. I have been guilty of fixating too much attention on what gets liked, and what doesn’t. Stepping back will help me.

I will continue to produce content designed to encourage and edify. But I’m going to do this on platforms I control, for people who opt-in to say “I want to read what Glenn shares,” without algorithmic bias in the middle. I’m going to add much more content into my free weekly newsletter. (Sign up in the right side-bar.)

I will continue to use LinkedIn for professional reasons. I’ll still participate in some of the Facebook groups where I’m an active member.

I will miss seeing all the personal news and good commentary, but accept the tradeoff for the larger personal benefit.

Companies have made enormous gains with Lean, just-in-time inventory management, Six Sigma, and several quality approaches.  We are producing better quality at a lower cost with less waste. 

People remain important, and people remain messy.

It’s a mistake for leaders to apply “Lean” and quality methods to people.  Organizations work best when human relationships are “thick” – shared experiences, deep levels of trust, abundant communication, shared purpose, deep listening.  It’s a both-and reality for high-performing organizations: Manage things, Lead people.

The word Transformation has practically become a buzzword.  It’s sexy, seductive. 

The open lie is that transformations are elegant.  That caterpillar transforming into a butterfly?  No one talks much about the intermediate step, and it’s a good thing it’s hidden inside an opaque cocoon.

Transformation is usually an ugly process… and the biggest obstacle is our ego.  

Your ego talks to you.  It will tell you where the bottlenecks and give you the name of the roadblocks to transformation.  

Critically important: Ensure your future state is superior to the current state. There’s danger in status quo. There’s also danger in a crummy future.   

Some years ago I was talking with a friend who is an avid golfer.  “I score a 10 yesterday! It was great,” he said.  I asked him to explain this puzzling comment.

“I used to obsess about my golf score.  Most of the time I was furious with my bad shots, and frankly, golf just wasn’t as much fun.  So I decided to change the way I keep score for myself.

“If I have even one good shot on a hole, I give myself a plus one.  A good shot is one that felt good, the swing was good, the ball went close to my intended target, it stayed in the fairway, or landed nicely on the green – could be any number of things but it was clearly a good shot.  I’m happy with it.

“Getting a 10 means that on 10 holes out of 18 I had a shot that made me happy.  And focusing on that score – my joy score – has made all the difference in enjoying golf again.  I don’t focus on the things that make me mad.”

I greatly admire how my friend re-framed his scoring system.  He’s optimizing for a healthy objective.

Leaders can be hard on themselves.  Some of this is simply good self-discipline and striving for excellence.  We’re always working to improve our craft.  But there’s a dark, unhealthy aspect where we flagellate ourselves and make ourselves miserable.  This is leadership self-sabotage. 

What kind of “joy score” could you track in your leadership work?  What healthy objectives should you be optimizing for?  Give this some thought.   

Nothing quite like a pet to teach you things!

I take our dog Watson for walks every day, usually both morning and evening.  From his point of view, I exist to take him out on walks, feed him treats, and rub his belly for a few minutes between 5:30 and 7:00 pm.

I usually enjoy our walks.  I let Watson make many of the decisions about which way we go at intersections, and can figure out how to loop back to our house.

Sometimes I’m in a rush.  I have stuff to do.  I need to be back at a specific time, usually a short time.  This urgency is pressing on my mind.  I can feel my blood pressure rising.  I want to walk faster. 

Of course Watson doesn’t understand that urgency.  “Hey, that smells good over there,” he thinks as he pulls in a direction I don’t want to go today.  “Just give me a few more seconds to confirm which of my dog pals has peed on this fire hydrant.”  “I’m feeling great, let’s go longer today!”  

This contrast is a reminder that many of the people I’m working with don’t understand my frame of mind, either.  I want this meeting to be short and dense, let’s get to the facts and make a decision.  The guy who starts with the long chronological accounting can’t read my mind.  The lady giving the presentation doesn’t understand that this is my fifth meeting of the morning and I’m thinking more about the new incoming artillery barrage in my inbox than her same-old-same-old project update.  The new colleague launches into a conversation incorrectly assuming that you have all the same context she does. She’s been coached to get to the decision quickly (which is a useful and helpful practice) but in this case your mind is tired and you need her to slow down and lay out the groundwork. 

The opportunity is for me to gently communicate something helpful, and to practice self-control.  It doesn’t help anyone to simmer in frustration or allow your energized mental frameworks to tune people out.

A colleague asked me this terrific question: How have your ideas on leadership practices changed in the last decade? What would you emphasize today than you didn’t a decade ago?

Ten years ago I was sure I knew a few things.

Twenty years ago I was sure I knew nearly everthing.

Thirty years ago I was sure I knew everything.

I’m 58 now.  I hope I’m growing in humility over time; certainly my family, friends, and God provide ample reasons to be more humble! There are fewer things that I’m certain of, but they are deeper and more foundational.  I stress these much more now that I did in decades past:

• If you need a new idea, read an old book.  Be increasingly selective about the quality of your input streams.

• Connecting head and heart is crucial for the biggest unique contributions you can offer the world.  This connection requires that you be in touch with the transcendent aspects of human experience, not only the logical/physical/computable.

• Experience is not the best teacher.  Reflecting on experience is the best teacher (even experiences from history and from biographies).

• Being an “all things to all people” leader is a fantasy.  Aim to be the “very few things to the correct set of individuals” leader. You can inspire at a distance but impact comes with up-close interaction.

• Don’t believe the lie that consuming more makes you happy.  Joy comes as you create and contribute.  

• Be a professional, not an amateur.  (The difference is substantial.)

Mindsets and Mental Frameworks I still emphasize from previous decades:

• Leadership is a craft (learnable skills + art to produce something beautiful and useful)
• 80/20 – there is always enough time if you have enough focus
• Manage your energy, rather than time
• Communication is a key paradigm for leading people
• Stack skills and work across disciplines to generate breakthroughs
• Bad systems overcome even the best individuals, so think and design in terms of systems
• All leadership begins with self-leadership; all growth begins at the edge of your comfort zone

I’m anticipating a new renaissance,  based on the history of the Medieval Renaissance:

	1400-1550	Our time
Conversation about	Pandemics, plagues, wealth inequality, social norms, the roles of government and citizens, what to preserve from the past and what to jettison for progress	Pandemics, plagues, wealth inequality, social norms, the roles of government and citizens, what to preserve from the past and what to jettison for progress
Technology revolution	Printing press (1440) Architecture Art	Digitization & connectivity Medical Materials
New worlds inspiring imagination and creating economic expansion	North and South America	Space – asteroid mining, colonize the Moon and Mars Virtual environments

Human beings remain fundamentally human beings – deeply flawed, awesome potential.

A key insight: the Medieval Renaissance was led by ordinary people to make extra-ordinary choices about what questions to ask, what new things to study, what to try, what imagination could be made real, and how to use their time.  A very small fraction of the population created a massively different future.

We don’t need a giant renaissance for you to have one.  But if a critical 1% of people do, then the world will experience a new renaissance.

Choose.