Month: February 2022

This simple process will set you apart from 98% of your competitors for the next promotion and career opportunity:

1. Use 10 minutes of focused thinking to identify something which you should be working on 5-8 weeks from now.  Maybe it’s a predictable deliverable like a budget, a process review, or helping a new hire.  Maybe it’s developing a new product or service, or doing market research.  Maybe it’s improving your relationships with key stakeholders.  
2. Get on your calendar and schedule working time for yourself and meetings with others.  You and practically everyone else has plenty of open time on their calendars 5-8 weeks from now.  

Once you get better at this process, use the same approach for longer timescales!  What is something that you should be working on 1-2 years from now?  This is executive-level thinking and action.

Over the years I’ve held different roles and signed up with multiple relevant vendors, conferences, and newsletters.   This created a steady stream of potentially useful information.  

Now that I work in an unrelated area, the emails are still coming in.  I either ignored or deleted them for a long time.  Deleting was especially nice.  You get a little “happy juice” moment in your brain when you shorten your inbox list quickly.  

A few months ago I realized that these were simply distractions.  They aren’t relevant.  I’m not gaining anything by even seeing the subject line.  The sender thinks I’m still a good audience member when I’m not.

Remembering what Andy Stanley says — “What distracts us is never as important as what we’re being distracted from” — I just unsubscribe from each mailing list as they come in.  Takes 30-60 seconds for each, which is an investment in reduced distraction going forward.

Distractions come in many forms.  What can you do to “unsubscribe” from no-longer-relevant signals in your work environment?  

The people in your organization who are easiest to promote, and most likely to given new opportunities are the individuals who are known by more senior leaders.  This is simply a fact about how human organizations work. 

If people in your team aren’t on the radar of more senior leaders, including your bosses boss, then:

• You’ll have a more difficult time getting them promoted.  The decision-makers might say “I’ve never heard of Bob. Why should we believe he’s ready for the next level of responsibility?”
• You’ll have to work much harder to give them a strong rating in a fixed-distribution performance rating process.  “We only have X slots for the highest rating, and how could Jill deserve one if I’ve never heard about her work?”
• You’re going to struggle to defend their contribution in a “steel cage death match” meeting to decide which positions to eliminate.  “Since we haven’t heard about this person’s work, it much not be critical to the organization compared to others.”
• Your team members less likely to be appointed to new roles.  “We decide to ask Jose to stretch into that role, since we know he’s successfully taken on tough challenges before.”

You have a leadership responsibility to help other leaders know about your team members.  Here are four practical suggestions:

1. Invite your team members to give short presentations to your boss, or the whole leadership team.  Give them strong coaching so they can shine.
2. Forward email messages to senior leaders (not just your boss) about project work and accomplishments, even situations where someone is effectively working on a difficult problem.  Add some commentary notes so they have context.  Point out where this demonstrates greater potential for contribution in new roles in the future.  (Bonus level:  Ask your team member to write an email message that’s designed to be easy to forward.)
3. Mention individuals by name.  Don’t only say, “My team….” Give credit to the individual(s).  Repeat their names.
4. Go all out in project reviews, talent reviews, and succession planning to document the capabilities and accomplishments of your team members.  Outline how they’re improving. Give concrete examples of “soft skills” as well as specific deliverables. 

These are important leadership habits and practices.  Savvy senior leaders will notice what you’re doing and give YOU better opportunities in the future, too.

The first time I studied 1 John to really understand it, I was puzzled by the closing sentence: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”  It’s the only time the word ‘idols’ appears in the whole letter.  After a while I realized he was writing about idols all along without using that word.

Idols are anything we worship which is out of step with the true character of God.  Everyone will worship something (and likely many things) because humans are designed to worship and serve. 

We don’t use the language of idols much except when we’re speaking in “Christianese” to others who are also fluent in Christianese.

Perhaps we should consider using the word ‘addiction.’  That resonates today.  We have both good and bad addictions.  Humans are neurologically prone to addiction.  The pleasure and pain reinforcement loops are incredibly powerful, even though we have agency and will.  Everyone has at least tasted of the power of addiction. Therefore, we have a long-suffering sympathy for addicts who try and try and try again to escape a life-stealing addiction.

We can foster good addictions. Addictions to smiles, hugs, laughter, simple rhythms.  Addictions to good books and rich stories.  Addictions to simpler foods and plain water.  Addictions to walking and movement and flexibility.  Addictions to praise and worship of the One who is Worthy.

What happens if you get 5% better each year?  We’re an impatient species so it’s important to remind ourselves of the power of continued progress over time.

5% better each year means that after 30 years you’ll be 4.3 times better.

10% better each year?  You’ll be 17.4 times better.

What if you could reduce your weaknesses and vulnerability by 5% each year?  After 30 years you would be 5x less vulnerable.  10% reduction each year would mean you would be 25x less vulnerable.

Consistency matters immensely. This is a key part of playing the long game.  Especially when you can’t know precisely how long it is.

…

A friend is looking forward to retirement because of his increasing frustration with his job situation.  “Only 132 more Mondays, Glenn!  I can endure it.”

Years ago, I heard a men’s speaker describing how precious Saturdays are with his boys.  He calculated how many Saturdays he had left until his youngest son turned 18.  He bought that many marbles and put them in a big jar in his bedroom.  Each Saturday night he would take out a marble and throw it in the trash.  The shrinking jar of marbles became a powerful visual reminder of where to put his energy and attention.

Another friend of mine has been sober for over a decade.  He can tell you the years, months, and days since his last drink.  He has a calendar near his desk and every night he puts a red X through the day.  “I keep the chain going.”  He likes the advice of long-distance hikers: Never quit on a bad day.

“So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12)

Numbering is important.  Numbering gives us perspective. Numbering helps us live better.

…

There are times when numbering does not help.  When the drill sergeant barks, “Do pushups until I get tired” it will not help to count.  When you’re sitting with your elderly loved one who no longer recognizes you because of advanced dementia, it will not help to count.  When you need to defeat the temptation to compare your life to another, counting will not help. When you’re in a situation with no possible way to see the end, the only counting which matters is whatever counting helps you get to the next day. Or the next hour.

…

Everyone you know is counting things, marking events and times – some excellent, some bitter, some bittersweet.  Remembering this helps us be generous and gracious with others.

…

One of the encouraging themes in the Bible is that God sees us.  He knows all our counting, from the number of hairs on our heads, to the days of our suffering in exile, to the days until we meet someone again, to the great Day of restoring all things.  This helps us trust God, even when our counting feels like a burden.

I recently heard these infuriating words four times in one week: “I’m working on it.”  No specifics about when I should expect results.  No sense of commitment.  The only polite thing I could do as a follow-up was to ask, “You’re obviously busy, so when should I ask you about this again?”

There is another way, a better way.

When you’re given a task or project that will take more than a few minutes, book the working time for it on your calendar based on priority, value, and deadlines.  Don’t just add it to a list that grows and grows.  Expect to adjust your schedule occasionally to allocate your time the necessary and best contributions you can make.  (In football terms, it’s not quitting, but calling an audible.)

This approach gives you influence and respect because you can say things like:

“Based on previous commitments, I can work on this next Tuesday and deliver it by the following Thursday.  Will that be ok?”

“Thanks for asking about that task we discussed last week.  I reserved time for it tomorrow and you’ll have the report at the end of the day.”

“I’ll need to confer with my boss about back-burnering two projects she’s asked me to deliver in order to work on this project before the start of next quarter.”

Don’t say “I’m working on it” when it’s only vaguely placed on your list. 

(Note: This is not an excuse to say, “I’m too busy” and avoid work.  Professionals will always be asked to do more, because the saying “If you want to get something done give it to someone who is already busy” is true.  The reward for doing excellent work is the opportunity to do more excellent work.)

Schedule work, making your calendar your servant. Deliver your commitments unless there are good reasons to shift priorities.  Speak accurately about when work will be executed and delivered.

You’ll earn respect and put credibility “in the bank” for the future.  You’ll stand memorably apart from people who mumble “I’m working on it” and don’t consistently deliver.

“Things are going downhill.”

“We need to stop this before it gets worse.”

“Back in my day we never had this mess.”

Embedded in these statements is an implicit “things used to be better.”  Sometimes that is true.  Yet there remains the pervasive idea that things are worse now and we need to “return to” something. 

Challenge question: “When were things great for everyone? At what point in history was 99% of the human race experiencing a life free of struggles and corruption and failing?”

When in history were these things — globally, for all peoples — not an issue?

• Lack of accountability
• Partisan news  
• Lying politicians and corrupt rulers
• Ungrateful youth
• Nepotism and favoritism surpassing competence
• Elders resistant to progress
• Racism, sexism, classism
• Elites believing they have the right ideas
• People believing wild rumors and rejecting facts
• Censorship and suppression of information
• Failures of masculinity and femininity
• Unfair employer practices
• Distrust in institutions
• Wealth spent foolishly

We have made enormous progress, and there is still progress needed.   People have experienced “Camelot” moments in time but they didn’t last and certainly didn’t include many people.   Heaven is in the future, not the past.  

Watch out for this: Many manipulators and unscrupulous leaders desiring power will constantly refer you back to some time “before X was lost.” The scrape the wounds rather than heal them because they know open wounds ooze energy and passion. They don’t want to solve the issue, just make promises in a way that pulls you into their orbit and fuels their desires. This is at the root of many mob behaviors.

The word bureaucracy generally has a negative connotation.  No one proudly tells their mom, “I work for a bureaucracy!”

Investopedia has an interesting definition of “bureaucracy”:

“The term bureaucracy refers to a complex organization that has multilayered systems and processes. The systems and processes that are put in place effectively make decision-making slow. They are designed to maintain uniformity and control within the organization. A bureaucracy describes the methods that are commonly established in governments and large organizations, such as corporations. A bureaucracy is pivotal in the administration of the entity’s rules and regulations.”

Every organization needs to balance fast and slow decision-making. Likewise, there should be a mix of processes designed to produce what’s valuable and creative destruction of processes which are no longer valuable. 

So not all functions of bureaucracies are bad.  The distinction is about competence and energy.

My observation is that bureaucracies create safe spaces for mediocre talent and unenthusiastic workers.  This is a self-reinforcing cycle.  

The most successful leaders insist their functional groups are loaded with top performers and keep them lean enough so they can never do everything easily or comfortably.  That’s the guardrail against the worst tendencies of bureaucracies.