The Business Sensei

Failure

This is an excerpt from my new book, Organizational Psychology for Managers.

While there are certainly lessons to be learned from failure, and failure is necessary for successful innovation, we also have to take the time to enjoy the progress we are making and take pride in what goes right. Optimistic people are those who take pride in their successes, who recognize how their efforts made those successes possible, and who keep failure in perspective. Pessimists, on the other hand, focus on how they contributed to failure and tend to view success as being as much about luck as anything else.

Now, people have assured me over and over again that they are optimists! They are not focused on failure, no way, no how. Actions, however, trump words in this case, as they so often do. If you engage in behaviors that orient you toward success, you are an optimist; if you engage in behaviors that keep you thinking about failure, you are behaving pessimistically. When planning is all about avoiding failure, that’s inherently pessimistic!

Although pessimists so often seem rigorous and logical, optimists are happier and more successful. An organizational culture can be biased toward either optimism or pessimism; the most successful organizations are fundamentally optimistic. Optimism works.

Of course, it’s not enough to just say, “Be more optimistic!” If that were all it took, you wouldn’t need this book. Being optimistic is more than just some sort of mythical power of positive thinking. Rather, real optimism, the kind of optimism that gets things done, is based in identifying the positive, building resilience, engaging in behaviors that reinforce our sense of control over the world, and learning to reframe failure into useful feedback. Building an optimistic organization, enjoying success, and knowing how to learn the right lessons from failure, are all skills that take time to develop.

In this chapter, we are going to look at how to do just that. Along the way, we’ll see how the different aspects of organizational behavior that we’ve already discussed fit together to reinforce that message of optimism.

Balzac preaches real engagement with one’s own company and a mindful state of operation, especially by executives – who must remember that culture “just happens” unless and until they learn to recognize that their behaviors play a huge part in creating and cementing it. It covers the full spectrum of corporate life, from challenging bad decisions to hiring, training, motivating teams – and the secrets of keeping people engaged and learning – and/or avoiding actions which do the opposite. I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to participate in creating and steering company culture.

 

Sid Probstein

Chief Technology Officer

Attivio – Active Intelligence

What is stress?

This is an excerpt from my new book, Organizational Psychology for Managers.

I hear all the time about stress reduction and the importance of eliminating stress from your life. The problem is, if we eliminated all the stress, we would also eliminate all progress and success. Stress is healthy, in the same way that food is healthy: we need it pretty much every day, but too much can give you a belly ache or cause other health problems. It’s not necessarily the food per se, it’s the quantity or quality that kills you.

Stress, at root, is anything that gets us moving, be that thinking, feeling, or acting. When a stressful event occurs, we experience physical and psychological reactions. It is the combination of the stressful event along with our reactions to it that we need to know how to use to our best advantage. It’s when we don’t use stress to our advantage, or when it gets out of control, that we start experiencing the negative effects of stress: illness, distractibility, reduced team performance and organizational commitment, loss of creativity, and so on. In order to really understand how stress works, though, it will be helpful to look at cavemen and the starship Enterprise.

Let us turn the clock back twenty thousand years or so and consider Thag. Thag is a hunter, a member of a nomadic band of hunter-gatherers. In Thag’s line of work, the biggest risk is being eaten by something that disagrees with you. On a typical day, Thag wakes up in the morning, grabs his trusty spear, and heads into the primeval forest to hunt. He probably does not have a cup of coffee, there being a notable lack of Starbucks in the forest primeval and besides, Thag hasn’t yet invented money.

So far, this has been a fairly low stress day for Thag. There is enough stress, specifically hunger or the needs of his family, to get him up and out hunting, but nothing too extreme. This is about to change. As Thag makes his way through the forest, birds chirping ominously in the background, a tiger suddenly springs out. Now the stress level skyrockets. Thag’s heart starts beating faster, his breathing comes more quickly, and the blood is really flowing in his veins, which, in point of fact, is where he’d like to keep it. Under the surface, as it were, epinephrine and norepinephrine (the chemicals formerly known as adrenaline and noradrenaline) are released into Thag’s blood. Energy is routed from non-essential functions, such as digestion, healing, and the immune system, to Thag’s muscles. In little more than a heartbeat, Thag is ready to fight or run.

But wait! Since when are digestion, healing, and the immune system non-essential? Without them, we’re not going to be particularly happy or healthy. Fundamentally, if you’re looking at a hungry tiger, or, more to the point, if that hungry tiger is looking at you, neither fighting off the flu nor digesting your last meal are particularly high on the priority list. Your goal is to live long enough to worry about the flu otherwise that last meal really will be your last meal.

Why not run or fight and also maintain digestion, healing, and the immune system? Well, to answer that let’s jump from the distant past to a not quite so distant future. Whenever the starship Enterprise is attacked by Romulans, Captain Kirk orders full power to weapons and shields. That makes a certain amount of sense: when someone is trying to blow you out of space, you don’t want to put half power to the shields. Sometimes, though, full power is just not quite enough. When that happens, as it so often does, Kirk orders emergency power to the shields as well. At that point, Mr. Spock usually observes that such an action will mean taking power from life support, which never stops Kirk but does serve to make the scene more exciting (which is also a form of stress, albeit a pleasant one at least when it’s happening to someone else). Basically, the Enterprise may be big, but it’s not infinitely large. It has only so much power. That power can be put in different places, shifted around as necessary, but there’s still a finite limit to how much there is. Most of the time life support, or long-term survival, is a pretty high priority. However, when confronted with hostile Romulans, the short-term need to not be vaporized takes priority.

On Star Trek, this is known as a Dramatic Moment. For Thag, however, it’s more commonly known as the Fight or Flight response. Confronted with danger, the stress triggers Thag’s body to fight or run. Like the Enterprise, Thag’s body is finite. He has only so much energy to go around.

Organizational Psychology for Managers is phenomenal.  Just as his talks at conferences are captivating to his audience, Steve’s book will captivate his readers.  In my opinion, this book should be required reading in MBA programs, military leadership courses, and needs to be on the bookshelf of every Fortune 1000 VP of Human Resources.  Steve Balzac is the 21^st century’s Tom Peters.

Stephen R Guendert, PhD

CMG Director of Publications

Make It Easy

In jujitsu, there are two ways to throw someone: you can make it hard for them to stand up or you can make it easy for them to fall down.

When you make it hard for someone to stand, something very interesting happens. The harder you make it, the more they fight back. Unless your opponent happens to be asleep or under the influence of mysterious hypnotic powers, the very act of attempting to force them off their feet triggers and instinctive and intense resistance. This happens even when training with a cooperative partner who is perfectly willing to be thrown! It is the moral equivalent of standing on someone’s foot while trying to pick them up.

Conversely, when you make it easy for someone to fall down, they naturally follow the path of least resistance. It’s not that they make a conscious effort to fall, rather it’s that if you gently let them have your way, they suddenly discover that they are enjoying an up close and personal relationship with the ground. For the practitioner, this is a much more pleasant and much less effortful experience than trying to make it hard for the other person to stand up. Oddly enough, the fall is also more devastating.

Jujitsu, in short, is about minimum effort, maximum results. In a very real sense, the best practitioners are also the most lazy. They get what they want and they work exactly as hard as they need to get it, no harder.

Now, I’ve rarely seen a manager literally stand on an employee’s foot and try to throw her, but I do frequently see the equivalent behavior over and over.

In one particularly egregious case, a manager at one large and rather well-known technology company told an employee that he wouldn’t get a raise because he made the work look too easy. In a judo match, your throw is not annulled because you made it look effortless. In fact, those judo players who can make throws appear effortless are the best regarded in the sport. Does it really make sense to dismiss the value of an employee’s results in such a cavalier fashion? Is the manager encouraging future productivity or simply future activity?

At Soak Systems, engineers actually wanted to spend time fixing bugs in the software. Management, however, developed an arcane and excessively complex method of prioritizing bugs and scheduling people’s time. By the time the process was complete, the engineers had no say in which bugs were fixed or when they should be worked on. Functionally, that meant that when engineers uncovered serious bugs in the software, they weren’t allowed to fix those bugs: instead, they had to sneak in over the weekend to do the work. After a while, many of the engineers became increasingly discouraged or burned out, and eventually started shrugging and letting management have its way. At least, that way they stayed out of trouble. Management successfully made it so hard to fix the bugs that the bugs didn’t get fixed.

Does it really make sense for the managers to, metaphorically, be standing on employees’ feet so dramatically? After all, management did want to ship a working product! The more management tried to control engineering and force them to fix the bugs in a specific way, the less work actually got done.

In a very real sense, the goal is not to impose your will on people but to make it easy for them to do their jobs, to get them to focus their time and energies to produce the maximum possible return. When you figure out what your actual goals are and then create a path of least resistance to accomplishing them, people will naturally and instinctively move along that path. So how do you do that?

Your first obstacle is the hardest one to overcome. As every martial artist learns, the toughest opponent is the one they see in the mirror. If you find yourself getting angry or falling into a “I’ll show them!” mindset, it’s time to step back and take a break. Give yourself some perspective. Getting an opponent angry is an old martial arts trick and one that never stops working, especially on beginners. Don’t make beginner mistakes.

The next step is to find out if you’re standing on their foot. Ask questions. Understand what problems or obstacles your employees may see. Involve them in brainstorming and discussion. Help them help you to build a picture of the desired outcome and invite their suggestions on how to get there. The more you get them involved, the more you educate yourself. Pay attention to how your actions or the company’s rules are being perceived. Are they pinning people in place or are they making it easy for employees to accomplish the goals of the company?

You may not always like what you hear. Jujitsu students are frequently quite frustrated when their training partner says, “Hey, you’re standing on my foot!” When someone tells you something you don’t want to hear, they’re demonstrating their respect for and trust in you. Appreciate that and build upon it. If you respond harshly or with anger, you only cut yourself off from information; you don’t change anything.

Pay attention to what behaviors you are encouraging and which ones you are discouraging. When you stand on someone’s foot, you are encouraging pointless activity and exhausting, wasteful conflict: what do you suppose that employee at that high tech firm I mentioned earlier did on future projects? When you make it easy for people to do their jobs, you are encouraging constructive argument, innovation, and productivity.

So go ahead and make it easy. What’s stopping you?

Make A Decision!

“Daddy, can I have that?”

As the holidays approach, a familiar refrain is heard. More common than Jingle Bells or other traditional Christmas music are the unending requests from children for various toys. Even for those who do not have young children, there is the pressure of deciding what gifts to get for family and friends. Indeed, in one sense, the parents of young children have it easy: their kids are at least telling them what they want. Of course, if all the kids got all the toys they asked for, we’d be able to pay off the national debt about fifty times over. Since very few people have that sort of money, a certain level of decision making still needs to take place.

Although web-based retailers have certainly removed a great deal of the terror normally associated with holiday shopping, nonetheless it remains an oddly exhausting activity. An hour of shopping on Amazon.com may not leave us battered, bruised, or pepper-sprayed by over-eager shoppers, but it can still leave us feeling like our brains have turned to jelly and are dripping out our ears. Not only does this lead to some very odd looking stains on our shoulders, it can also be very hard to focus on much of anything else. Attempting to put off the e-shopping is even worse. In many cases, the effort of not shopping can be more exhausting than the shopping itself! When it finally happens, the shopping experience is all the more, let us say, poignant.

So what is going on here anyway? How can a few mouse clicks be so draining?

As psychologist Roy Baumeister and John Tierney explain in their book, “Willpower,” the act of decision making is oddly tiring. The more important the decision feels the more exhausting it is. When it comes to buying gifts for family and friends, well, the level of import often feels insanely high. Even worse, the more decisions we make, the harder the next one becomes. Eventually, we hit the point where we start making really bad decisions, such as deciding to go to the store at the last minute: even for those of us who are comfortable and familiar with the Internet, going to a bricks-and-mortar store often remains a natural and reflexive action no matter how utterly crazy the experience actually is. Worst of all: we don’t even realize how bad our decisions are becoming; all we know is that everyone around us is simply getting more and more unreasonable and the information we’re looking at more and more poorly written. Well, at least it appears that way and will only get worse when you’re experiencing decision fatigue. When our brains get tired, they start taking shortcuts, such as reverting to non-decisions such as “I’ll deal with it later,” or reckless ones such as buying our kids that “Build a killer robot” kit, complete with working death ray and nuclear reactor.

When it comes to buying presents, this once a year experience, nightmarish though it may be, is ultimately not all that big a deal. Sure, it may feel that way at the time, but ultimately it generally works out, albeit with the occasional bizarrely ugly sweater or killer robot along the way. In a business environment, however, this sort of decision fatigue can be both subtle and costly.

It turns out that there are two types of decisions that are particularly difficult. Coincidentally, they are also the types of decisions that arise quite frequently in businesses, at least those that involve more than one person. These two types of decisions are those involving compromise or negotiation and those involving innovation and trying out new ideas or ways of doing things.

The fact is, compromise and negotiation are relatively rare skills in the animal world. Outside of Tom and Jerry, I’ve never seen a cat negotiate with a mouse. When dogs and cats compromise, it usually involves one of them running up a tree (lest there be any confusion, it’s usually the cat). Even for people, compromise is surprisingly difficult at the best of times, not just when the old Christmas spirit is sapping our self-control.

Now, I am often told that compromise and negotiation is something that certainly managers and salesmen need to do, but what about everyone else? How much compromise and negotiation really takes place in an office? Quite a lot. Brainstorming, problem solving, group discussions all involve compromise and negotiation. So does simply dealing with life in the world of cubicles. When everyone is suffering from decision fatigue, it becomes much harder to work with other people. Little things become major irritants simply because it’s that much harder to shut them out.

Innovation and trying out new ideas run into trouble for much the same reasons. There is a much greater tendency to let problems fester or to accept those natural and reflexive solutions, the solutions that we don’t really like but which are familiar and oddly comfortable despite the actual unpleasantness they bring. In other words, the functional equivalent of going to a large department store, tired and grumpy children in tow, on December 23^rd. At least in that case you get to join all the other people who are doing the same thing.

Fundamentally, new ideas are particularly difficult to accept when we’re suffering from decision fatigue. Meetings to address what should be simple problems can drag on for hours and, at the end, no one can actually make a decision. This only increases the frustration level.

So what can be done to avoid these problems?

As many an endurance athlete has told me, “Eat before you’re hungry, drink before you’re thirsty.” In other words, don’t wait until you’re feeling grouchy and out-of-sorts to get a healthy snack (or even an unhealthy snack, though the benefit doesn’t last nearly as long). If you wait, you’re already making bad decisions and it can take a long time to get your brain back on track. Athletes who wait too long to eat or drink suffer from rapid performance collapse, and getting hit with decision fatigue is very similar. The major difference is that an endurance athlete whose performance collapses knows it. With decision fatigue, we don’t always realize just how drained we are until the next day when we ask ourselves, “How could I have been so stupid?”

Next, take breaks. They don’t have to be long, but getting out of the office for a few minutes to take a walk or get a snack can do wonders to replenish our mental energy before we start making bad decisions.

As the old adage goes, make haste slowly. If you do have to make a major decision, sleep on it. Make it first thing in the morning when you’re fresh, not at the end of the day. If you’re running a meeting, separate any decision making from the rest of the meeting. Take a long break before making any decisions or, again, if possible wait until the next day. Finally, recognize that everyone is always a little distracted at this time of year. Take that into account in your planning. It’s a lot more productive to build a little extra time into the schedule than to have to go back and fix bad decisions.

Making good decisions and getting along with our coworkers can be hard enough at the best of times. Don’t let the holiday spirit make it harder.

Sir CEO and the Green Knight

As published in the CEO Refresher

One fine day, Arthur, the CEO rode forth upon his trusty steed. At his side hung his magic sword, Expostfacto. Expostfacto was widely considered to be a sword with a sharp legal mind. Arthur had made his fortune renting camels, which he parked every day in a large camel lot.

The sun was shining. The birds were singing. Suddenly, a dragon came roaring out of the sky, heading straight for Arthur. Flame billowed from the dragon’s mouth. Arthur drew his sword and with one swift blow, buried the dragon in a shower of subpoenas.

So it went, as Arthur spent many days enjoying the freedom of facing foes instead of sitting in stultifying board meetings, where, regretfully, it was seen as déclassé to employ the full might of Expostfacto upon annoying board members or customers. Against the power of Expostfacto, each foe swiftly fell under a massive pile of paperwork.

So it went until the day that Arthur encountered Maldive, the Green Knight.

“None shall pass!” quoth Maldive.

Many blows were exchanged, with Expostfacto screaming its legendary battle cry, “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,” a phrase which has become familiar to all internet users. Eventually, though, with a mighty blow, Arthur struck Maldive’s head from his shoulders. That should have ended the fight right then and there, but Maldive was an internet marketing scheme. He simply put his head back on and continued the fight. Eventually, Maldive knocked Expostfacto to one side, and placed the point of his sword at Arthur’s throat.

“I could slay you now,” said he. “But on your honor, I will spare you if you can answer this question: What does every engineer desire? Swear on Expostfacto that you will return in a month. If you have the answer, you will live. If not, you die.”

Ignoring Expostfacto’s muttered comments on possible loopholes and the inadvisability of signing anything, Arthur took the oath to return in a month with the answer or without it.

Arthur rode across the land searching for an answer to the question. He called together all his senior managers and asked them, to no avail. He even posted the question on Twitter and Facebook, leading to some very interesting answers and suggestions, particularly from certain ex-politicians in New York and California. However, since Maldive had asked about engineers, Arthur knew those answers couldn’t be true because an engineer wouldn’t know what to do with one even if he found someone willing to go on a date.

By day 29, things were looking quite bleak for Arthur. As he rode through the frozen lands of Nadir, he encountered a strange looking man. The strange thing was that the man did not appear to be in a rush. As a CEO, Arthur was quite used to people rushing around following his orders. He could always tell when things were getting done by how much people were rushing.

“Who are you?” asked Arthur, puzzled at the sight of someone so calm and relaxed.

“Merlin,” was the reply.

“Merlin the Magician?” asked Arthur.

“No, Merlin the consultant. What seems to be a problem?”

“Nothing, nothing at all,” said Arthur who, like most CEOs, became very cautious at the sight of a consultant.

“Good,” said Merlin, who turned back to whatever he was doing, completely ignoring Arthur. This was a very unusual experience for Arthur, who was not used to being ignored by anyone.

After several minutes, Arthur said, “Well, I guess I’ll be on my way.”

There was no response.

“I’m going now,” said Arthur.

There was no response.

Arthur started to ride away. There was still no response from Merlin, who seemed quite happy to let Arthur leave. Arthur had not ridden very far before he stopped and turned back.

“Do you know what every engineer wants?” asked Arthur.

“Why do you ask?” replied Merlin.

Before long, Arthur was telling Merlin exactly why he wanted to know and what would happen if he didn’t find out. I wasn’t long before a price was agreed upon and Arthur had his answer.

“That’s it?” exclaimed Arthur. Reflecting on it further, he said to himself thoughtfully, “But that’s what everyone wants!”

The next day Arthur showed up at the appointed time for his meeting with Maldive.

“Well?” said Maldive.

“Is it money?” said Arthur.

“No.”

“Is it a fast car?”

“No.”

“Sex?”

“We’re talking about engineers,” responded Maldive. “If that’s the best you can do, then prepare to die.”

“Wait,” said Arthur. “What engineers want is the freedom to make their own decisions.”

There was a long silence.

“I see you encountered Merlin,” growled Maldive. “Very well. But I doubt you will learn from this experience!”

And so Maldive turned and rode away.

Arthur, meanwhile, departed for home in a very thoughtful mood. What, indeed, did it really mean that people want to make their own decisions? Obviously, if he allowed all his employees to make their own decisions, surely chaos would result. No one would know what anyone else was doing! There would be no coordination between departments.

The moment Arthur returned to his office, he discovered the true meaning of chaos. Thousands of emails needing his attention; projects stalled because he hadn’t been around to tell people what to do; irate customers complaining about badly maintained camels (even camel renters have some expectations!); employees angry and frustrated because they couldn’t get anything done in his absence.

“I knew I should never have taken a vacation,” Arthur thought ruefully to himself. “This happens every time! It’s even worse than when I’m in a meeting or on a call.”

As Arthur dove into sorting out the confusion that came about from his taking his guiding hands off the corporate reins, he kept wondering how much worse it could really be if he allowed his employees to make their own decisions. Would it really be worse than what he dealt with every day? Arthur decided to experiment: instead of solving the problems in one department, he gave them limited decision making power. They could approve all expenditures, including customer returns or gifts, up to a fixed amount. After a couple of false starts as everyone got used to the new arrangements, Arthur found that that department was suddenly taking up much less of his time and energy. Moreover, the increased productivity of his employees more than made up for the occasional decisions that Arthur might have made differently. Indeed, simply by building some structure, Arthur found he could permit much more freedom and limit the downside of the occasional mistake, and create almost unlimited upside. At the same time, he also found that he could now focus much more on the strategic direction of his company instead of spending all his time putting out fires.

Best of all, as Arthur spread these changes throughout his company, he found that work didn’t come to a halt whenever he wasn’t available. Productivity increased because employees no longer needed to look busy in order to appear to have a purpose; instead, they could actually engage in purposeful activity. Sure, there were still moments of frustration, but on the whole, employees were happier and more motivated than he had ever seen them. Motion does not equal progress, Arthur realized. Progress equals progress.

In the end, the ability to give people the freedom to work as they would like to work comes from building the structure to enable them to know what to do. Without structure, there may a lot of motion, but very little progress. What will you do to change that?

Stephen Balzac is an expert on leadership and organizational development. A consultant, author, and professional speaker, he is president of 7 Steps Ahead, an organizational development firm focused on helping businesses get unstuck. Steve is the author of “The 36-Hour Course in Organizational Development,” published by McGraw-Hill, and a contributing author to volume one of “Ethics and Game Design: Teaching Values Through Play.” For more information, or to sign up for Steve’s monthly newsletter, visit www.7stepsahead.com. You can also contact Steve at 978-298-5189 or steve@7stepsahead.com.

A Tale of Two Light Bulbs

As published in the CEO Refresher

Quoted in the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur

I was just quoted in “91 Ways to Get Out of the Box.”

(I’m number 14).

Here’s what I wrote (and he used all of it!):

Four Keys To Creativity

How To Get Out Of The Box: If you’re stuck…

Pick up a book, take a class, listen to a CD, but learn something new. Doesn’t matter what it is, or whether it’s connected to your field. Look for the unexpected connections.

Experiment and make mistakes. Explore. Try something unexpected.

Take breaks. Stop and reflect on what you’re doing. The eureka moment comes when least expected.

Be patient. Getting out of the box takes time!

Leadership and team formation

Ever wondered why some teams are a pleasure to work for and others are a royal pain? You can find out on my live radio interview on Leadership and Team Formation.

You can also read a discussion of the show here.

Boiling the Frog

There is an old and hoary claim that if you put a frog in boiling water, it will immediately jump out, but if you put it in cold water and slowly increase the temperature, the frog will sit there until it cooks. In fact, this happens only if the frog is equipped with little frog cement galoshes rendering it unable to jump: frogs are too smart to be boiled alive. They leave long before the water gets hot enough to cook them. Why, then, does this story have such longevity?

Read the rest at FreudTV.com