The Business Sensei

Voices in the Corridor: A Halloween Tale

Even the janitors don’t go down that corridor. Not any more, not for a very long time. The spiders moved in long since, creating a very different sort of website. The old-timers in neighboring buildings claimed that long ago, on a moonless Halloween night, a business had died there.

The last company to use that building tried to have the corridor blocked off. Each day the wall would be put up. Each morning, it was found broken and scattered, a trail of debris leading from the conference room at the end of the corridor all the way to the Keurig coffee maker in the kitchen.

Those who ventured into the corridor reported voices coming from the conference room, sometimes faint, sometimes loud, always indistinct. Always arguing, always debating, though none could say of what they spoke. Only one phrase would, from time to time, rise above the murmur, a phrase that struck fear into the hearts of all who heard it. Then, for a brief time, other phrases would emerge, before fading once more into inchoate argument.

Those who returned from the corridor were always quiet, subdued, as though some darkness had settled upon their spirits, a strange, mysterious darkness not easily dispelled. Either that or they suddenly realized that they had a lot of work to do and needed another cup of coffee. Yet, no force would convince them to walk down that corridor again, to listen to the voices coming from behind the closed doors at the end, heavy wooden portals locked from the inside.

What words had they heard? What phrase filled with horror those who heard it spoken in that cobweb filled corridor?

It was only this: “I call the vote.”

Four simple words. Four words that might seem innocent, harmless, a way to make a decision and move forward. Four words which left those who spoke them trapped forever in argument and debate.

The vote: there are those who claim it is the way all debates should be settled, all arguments brought to a close.

“It is how we do things,” they say. “It is the American way.”

When the vote is called, the tally counted, the argument does not end. It continues, on and on, through vote after vote.

“I didn’t understand the issues.”

“I thought a yes vote meant we weren’t going to do it.”

“We can’t vote on this yet, we haven’t considered all the issues.”

“I don’t care what we voted, that just won’t work.”

“We can’t vote on this. It wasn’t announced ahead of time.”

The vote settled nothing. No agreement was reached, no consensus created. People took sides, the arguments became more vocal, more strident. The debate less about the issues, more about convincing others or forcing agreement. Without consensus, each vote only convinced those who lost that their error lay in not yelling more loudly, in failing to persuade others. The value of the ideas, the goal of the meeting fell away, the vision of the business lost in the struggle. Winning the vote became the new goal, the new vision. To lose the vote was to lose face. Perhaps the vote was called without warning. Who knows?

Had there been a leader who could make a decision, perhaps that would have ended it. Or perhaps not. Sometimes decisions refuse to stay decided. More precisely, some teams are unable to make a decision and stay with it. They vote, over and over they vote, yet those votes settle nothing. Rather than end the debate, the losers join together to win the next vote. The issue refuses to die until, like a zombie, the debate itself has eaten their brains.

For a vote to work, first there must be consensus. For there to be consensus, there must be productive discussion, effective debate, meaningful argument. This takes time: not just time to argue, but time to learn how to argue. Most votes occur too soon, before the team is ready. Even a strong leader can’t always change that. Strong leaders draw out their teams, involve them in the decision even when the leader will have the final word. When the best leaders make a decision, in truth they are ratifying the consensus of the team. Their strength lies in their ability to bring about that consensus, to argue without being drawn into argument.

“I don’t care what the vote was, I’m in charge here.”

So the debate continues, on an on. Eventually, everyone else went home. Down that corridor, in that room, they call the vote, over and over, and nothing ever gets done.

Happy Halloween!

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.” Steve’s latest book, “Organizational Psychology for Managers,” is due out from Springer in 2013. 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.

Don’t over commit to start the new year!

Why do so many people end up overcommitted at work, in volunteer activities, or socially?

The tendency to say “yes” to any request stems from several sources.

First, most of us like to think of ourselves as the type of person who helps others. Thus, when a friend or colleague (or boss) asks for help, that request immediately triggers us to think, “But if I don’t help, what does that say about me? I’m not <selfish/mean/self-centered/uncaring/etc.” So, we agree to help in order to protect our self-image.

Second, and related, is what’s known as social theater: in certain environments, there are certain role expectations that are taken for granted. Helping others is often one of those expectations. Therefore, when someone asks, we agree almost automatically, without really thinking through the consequences, or even the wisdom, of the decision. Essentially, behaviors that we learned at some point in our lives without really thinking about them become automatic behaviors later when the right trigger presents itself.

Third, many businesses foster a culture of obedience and pressure to always get more done in less time. Although this cultural baggage is ultimately destructive to the business, as it leads to burnout and corner-cutting, in the short-term it appears to be very rewarding. Thus, it gets repeated and hailed as an emblem of the dedication and productivity of the employees. It is, in reality, a sign of a company with relatively low functioning teams: high performance teams know their limits and are willing to stand up for them. Low functioning teams, and the members thereof, routinely bite off more than they can chew.

Fourth, when we over promise and fail to deliver, we frequently assume that the problem lies within us: if we’d just worked harder, if we were just a little more skilled, if we just a little smarter, and so forth. Thus, we become even more determined to “get it right” the next time around. In truth, the problem was not that we weren’t working hard enough, or weren’t smart enough, etc. The problem was that we simply tried to do too much, not some personal failing that can be corrected by working harder.

So how do you prevent this from happening?

There are several techniques, which can be used singly or in combination.

One trick is to identify the thought or image that pops into your head the moment someone asks you for help. It can be hard to catch this, but with a little effort, most people will discover that some image flashed across their brain and that they are reacting to that image instead of the request for help. That image might be a thought about how important it is to help others, or a belief that other person can’t succeed without your help, or an image of being fired for not helping, etc. This is one of those situations where if you ask 99 people to describe their image, you’ll get 99 responses :). Once you catch the image, you can look at it and ask yourself if it’s actually realistic. Do they really need your help that badly? If you’re a productive employee, do you honestly think you’ll get fired for saying “no?”

Another thing to recognize is that boundary testing is a normal part of all relationships: we instinctively attempt to understand our environment, and that includes understanding what we can and cannot expect from the people around us. Not knowing the boundaries is anxiety producing. Children do this sort of boundary testing all the time, and when they don’t find a boundary their behavior only gets worse until they get a reaction. Adults are different only the sophistication (and even that is arguable!) of their boundary testing. Thus, saying “no” is a form of setting boundaries. Setting boundaries actually helps make other people feel more secure because they now know what to expect from you, and also establishes you as a peer of the person making the request. Consider, the only people who are, in our society, nominally prohibited from setting boundaries are children. Children are typically expected to comply with most adult requests (how often did you hear, “When your mother asks, it’s not a request!” when you were growing up?). Thus, it’s important to recognize boundary testing and also recognize that setting limits is beneficial for everyone.

Another approach is to reverse the question: “I’d love to help you, and I’m not sure how I can fit this into my schedule. Let me go through with you what I have to get done over the <time> and you can help me figure it out.” Frequently, people ask for help without realizing the degree of imposition. Going through your constraints and asking them to help you figure out how to fit in their request is often a good technique to get them to realize just how much they are asking of you. If, in the end, you still decide to accept the request, you’ve at least enabled them to recognize just how big a favor they’re asking.

Note that if your boss is making the request, you can still apply this approach, with a slight modification: “I would love to do this, and I’m concerned that if I agree, these other projects will suffer. Please let me know your thoughts on how I should prioritize these different tasks.”

By the way, it can help to block out chunks of time on the calendar representing the total amount of time you expect a task to take (when you estimate how long a task should take, add 25%… most of us underestimate!). Tasks never seem that big when you’re thinking about them abstractly, but when you create a visual representation, you’ll be amazed how much time you’ve allocated.

All right, so  you’re already over-committed, what do you do? The best thing is to take an honest look at your tasks, prioritize, and then start contacting people. You can start with either your lowest priorities or your most recent “Of course I’ll do that!” Either way, you need to say, “I’m sorry. I know I told you I would help you, and I’ve discovered that these prior commitments are going to take much longer than expected.”

No, the other person won’t be happy. However, they will be a lot happier that you told them early on, not at the last minute. The longer you wait, the more painful the conversation becomes, the angrier they’ll be, and the worse you’ll feel. Moreover, you’ll be that much more likely to give in when they start complaining, leaving you feeling overworked and bullied.

The importance of a vacation

I was recently interviewed for an article in AOL Jobs on taking breaks. You can read the full article here, or a related article (which I had nothing to do with), here.

The first article didn’t use everything I wrote, so here’s the full text, including the questions I was asked.

• Why is it so important from a performance perspective to log off and then return to work completely refreshed?

Let’s start by understanding how our brains work. We are built to tune out repetitive stimuli and focus on the novel. This isn’t all that surprising: most animals are built that way. It’s not the unchanging thing that is most likely to be a threat, it’s the thing that’s changed. Taking breaks allows us to view our work with new eyes instead of becoming bored and burned out.

Another piece of the puzzle is the way we make intuitive leaps. Archimedes didn’t have his “Eureka!” moment while he was staring at the problem. He had it when he took a break and went to the baths. Taking breaks enables the mental static to fade out and the creative and unexpected connections to pop up. Some of the recent work in neuroscience suggests that, although they’ve become encrusted with mystic gibberish, Zen Koans are designed to force the brain to essentially “take a break” from a problem it is stuck on.

• Is it helpful to perhaps check e-mails periodically on vacay for urgent matters to diminish anxiety and the workload upon return or is it better to be completely shut off?

I’m not sure that there’s a one-size-fits-all answer to this. There are some things to recognize though: our brains are built to remember uncompleted tasks better than completed tasks. You might ask, “If that’s so, why do we forget so many tasks?” The answer is that we are usually trying to remember too many different tasks!

When we check our email during vacation, we run the risk of seeing a problem that we feel we have to address and can’t from where we are. At worst, that can blow the vacation out of the water. If nothing else, it can ruin the rest of the day, or several days, because we can’t get the problem out of our heads. If you are going to check email during a vacation, make sure you have an easy way of queuing anything important so that you’ll be reminded of it when you get back. That makes it much easier to forget about it during vacation without worrying that you won’t remember to deal with it.

I will observe that the people who have the most trouble unplugging during vacation are also the people who work for or lead teams that have significant other performance issues. If you feel that you must check email during vacation or your team won’t be able to get anything done, that’s not an email problem, that’s a team development problem. You need to fix it. Similarly, if you’re telling me that people on your team can’t take a vacation without so much work piling up that they either have to work from the beach or are overwhelmed the moment they return, that’s also not a vacation problem. That’s either a team development problem, a leadership problem, or a scheduling/time management problem, possibly all three. Address those issues and you’ll be amazed how many of the other problems go away.

• What are two or three ways people can do this? For instance, one source told me to simply not bring the BlackBerry to the beach so you’re not tempted and in turn, you avoid losing the BlackBerry to sand damage.

Turning off the computer, putting the iPhone on airplane mode (so you can still listen to music), etc, are common techniques. I usually leave the computer off at least one day of every weekend. The real answer, though, is not technological, it’s personal: develop the habit of turning off. By turning off the computer one day of the weekend, I am practicing turning off under “controlled conditions.” When I went camping with my family earlier in the summer, I did bring the computer in case I wanted to write (I didn’t — never turned it on), and I put my iPhone in airplane mode. I took it out of airplane mode once to delete emails. Didn’t read anything, just deleted anything that was obviously unimportant.

It feels difficult at first to turn off. That’s why practicing is important.

• What are some benefits to logging off?
  

See above. Logging off helps increase motivation, productivity, and creativity. Let me add that the brain is a muscle. Like any exercise, it pays to change it up so we don’t get stuck in ineffective habits.

• In this digital age it makes it so tempting to remain connected but is it better or does it no matter if a vacation is a vacation is a vacation whether or not you take a long weekend that’s 100% work-free or a two week vacation whereby you periodically check in for messages?

It takes 7-10 days to really destress and start to relax. Staying connected can only slow that down. That said, if you can be disciplined about not getting sucked into your Blackberry and can control your time, checking for messages probably won’t do too much harm. Keep in mind, though, that once you show your co-workers that you’re available to help them during your vacation, you can count on them continuing to bug you. After all, by responding while on vacation, you’ve effectively given them permission.

• If there’s anything else you’d like to add as it relates to how to log off and why we need to, please feel free to add.

If you do check for messages, make sure you have a good calendaring service (e.g. iCal, GCal, followup.cc, etc) where you can quickly and easily schedule reminders for when you get back.

If you find yourself waking up in the middle of the night worrying about work or can’t get work problems out of your head, block out some “worry time” on  your calendar. Give yourself 15 minutes, and move on. Once we’ve addressed an uncompleted task, even if merely by scheduling time to think about it, we can let it go.

Psychology of branding

I was interviewed recently on the psychology of branding and creating personal brands. Since this question comes up a lot, I’m posting my thoughts here.

Let’s start by looking at what a brand is. At the most basic level, your brand is what people think of when you’re not there. IBM, for example, built a brand of service and dependability in the 1940s-1970s. Then their brand became overpriced and stodgy before they took control back in the 1990s and rebranded themselves.

Broadly speaking, a company’s brand is the shorthand for what they do and what’s exciting about them. A given brand won’t interest everyone; the goal is to create a brand that appeals to the people to whom you want to appeal: your target market if you’re selling products/services, your potential employees if you’re hiring, and so on.

Creating brand loyalty as early as possible and reinforcing whenever possible thus does two things: it builds your potential customer base and it builds a pool of people who start to connect themselves to the brand, who start to think of themselves as representing the brand. This is one of the easiest ways to attract potential  employees because they self-select: they’re already interested and at least passively loyal to the ideal of the company. Hiring people who are already bought into the ideal of the company saves a lot of effort convincing them to buy in later, and those employees are also the easiest to motivate.

Individuals, however, do not have the reach of a corporation. Corporations are also abstract entities, whereas individuals are, well, individual. Thus, individual brands need to focus more around personal attributes and what the brand means to others. For an employee, this usually means branding yourself as someone who produces results for the company. Specific details will vary according to the industry: a software engineer might build a brand as someone who writes bug-free code or who always delivers ahead of deadlines, etc. A salesman might build a brand around closing the most difficult clients, around rapid closure, around rescuing faltering deals, etc.

One of the reasons why candidates may stand out in an interview but fail to make a mark on the job is that they saw the interview and landing the job as the goal, instead of as a stepping stone. Another problem is that after a candidate lands the job, they often aren’t quite sure what to do next to stand out. If a candidate wants to establish their brand during the interview and then hit the ground running, I advise asking the interviewer(s) the following question: “If you hired me and in six months thought I’d done an excellent job, what would I have done to make you feel that way?”

Take notes when the interviewer answers! Not only does this question help the interviewer convince himself to hire you, you are also identifying your initial most critical goals. Hitting those goals establishes you as someone who produces results. Once you’ve established that brand, not only do better assignments come your way, you are also more likely to be forgiven if something does go wrong (and the fact is, sooner or later something always goes wrong).

The Hydrangea Conundrum

As published in The CEO Refresher.

Being Fred Flintstone

Remember the classic kid’s TV show, the Flintstones? Fred and Wilma Flintstone are a stone age couple who live in something that looks oddly like the 1950s with rocks. Lots and lots of rocks. Despite this, the show had nothing to do with either rock music or getting stoned. It did, however, have an episode which predicted that the Beatles were a passing fad. So much for prognostication! Fortunately, that episode is not the point of this article.

In one episode, Fred complains to Wilma that he can’t understand what she does all day. How hard can it be to take care of a house? Of course, as Fred swiftly learns, after he and Wilma make a bet, the answer is very hard. Fred, of course, makes a total mess of the whole thing. Now, obviously, the cartoon was playing off of social issues of the time and was intended to make people laugh. The obvious lesson, that a “non-working mother” is a contradiction in terms, is hopefully one that most people have figured out by now. The less obvious lesson is the much more interesting one: it is often impossible to gauge from the results, or from watching someone work, just how difficult a job actually is or even how hard they are working! Conversely, how people feel about the results has little bearing on how hard you worked to get them.

Read the rest at the CEO Refresher

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 the CEO Refresher.

Light’s Better Here

There’s an old joke about a man searching in the gutter under a streetlight. A passerby asks him what he’s doing.

“Looking for my car keys,” replies the man.

“Where did you drop them?” asks the passerby.

“Over there,” says the man, pointing into the inky darkness down the street.

“Then why aren’t you looking there?” responds the passerby in amazement.

“The light’s better here.”

Although ludicrous, like many jokes its humor comes, as it were, from the light it sheds on an important aspect of human behavior. Given the choice between poking around blindly in the dark or looking in the light, most people will choose the latter.

I can already hear the cries of, “But wait a second! That’s nonsense. Why would anyone in their right mind deliberately look where they know the keys are not?”

Why indeed? The fact is, we already have our answer: “the light’s better.” The real question is what does that actually mean?

Read the rest in the Messenger.

Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There!

I recently had the CEO of a certain business very proudly tell me that she was so busy looking for clients and helping her staff deal with the economic crisis that she didn’t even have time to sleep. Was she serious? Yes, she was. Were things actually working out for the business? That was less clear, however it didn’t matter. They were Taking Action, and that’s what really counted.

When we’re feeling stressed, the instinctive response is to take action. Taking action feels good; it provides an outlet for our energy and a feeling of accomplishment. It just may not actually be useful. Sometimes it really is better to follow the advice of the old joke, “don’t just do something, stand there!” After all, if you take the wrong action too frequently, you may well find yourself without the time, money, or energy to take the right actions.

Now, it’s certainly true that sometimes the toughest problem is just to get started. It’s sometimes the case that taking some action is better than taking no action at all. However, it does help if the actions being taken are those that have at least some chance of moving the business forward. It helps even more if the CEO can clearly evaluate the success or failure of each action and adjust course as necessary. That’s hard to do when you aren’t sleeping.

A lack of sleep leads to more than just a desire for an extra cup, or ten, of coffee. There is a reason why athletes want a good night’s sleep before a big game and why legendary investor Jesse Livermore stated that one his secrets of success on the stock market was being well rested. Lack of sleep interferes with motivation, judgment, and planning. It makes one more reactive, less able to stop and look before leaping. Worst of all, lack of sleep very quickly degrades a CEO’s ability to recognize a losing strategy and replace it with one that might work.

As anyone who has taken a first aid class recently will recall, the first thing you need to do in an emergency is evaluate the situation. That’s difficult to do when sleepy. Part of that evaluation involves determining how quickly you need to act. Even if there’s a wall of flame rushing toward you, a few seconds of thought can still make the difference between life and death: caught in a massive forest fire, firefighter Wagner Dodge stopped and thought. He survived the fire while those around him were engulfed. Wagner Dodge had only seconds to come up with an innovative solution to his problem. The good news: he did. The bad news: he had never developed strong bonds of trust and loyalty with his team. Under pressure, they ignored him and perished in the flames.

Today, many businesses are still facing the financial equivalent of that wall of flames. Instead of stopping and thinking, they are leaping into action. In many cases, those actions are not working out so well. The CEO who isn’t sleeping isn’t helping her company or herself. She is, however, giving herself the opportunity to undermine her own credibility with her staff. The longer that goes on, the more likely they’ll give up on her at just the wrong moment.

So what should a CEO do?

• Build up a reservoir of trust and reinforce it daily. Help employees understand your decisions. Invite employee feedback, ideas, and suggestions.
• Build and maintain loyalty: this is the worst time to cut employee benefits or have an opaque layoff policy. As demonstrated by IBM’s Tom Watson or HP’s Hewlett and Packard, building employee loyalty makes a tremendous difference in tough times. Without it, they won’t follow you when you most need them.
• Don’t just react to the crisis. Stop and think. Brainstorm solutions with others. Find someone who will give you unbiased feedback. Take full advantage of the eyes, ears, and brains around you.
• Take care of yourself. Exercise and sleep are critical to maintaining perspective and functioning effectively under pressure. Despite the failing equipment around them, even the Apollo 13 astronauts took the time to sleep before attempting their return to Earth.
• Anticipate success. Never pass uncertainty down to your team members.

Many companies will survive the current economic tsunami. Fewer will prosper as the economy turns around. It will be those who know when to stand there before they act who will be in the second group.

Click here for a printable version.

Growing Wheat in Siberia