Addressing the Rotten-Apple-People Problem

Rotten apples – negative, destructive, self-absorbed, unethical employees – pollute organizations.

Furthermore, foul leaders inevitably build stagnant, foul organizations. Worse yet, passive leaders – those who tolerate rotten apples – create rotten environments by default.

Leaders who tolerate rotten apples are rotten themselves.

Facebook contributors discuss: “One bad apple spoils the whole bunch, true or false?” (5/3/13)

Spotting:

You don’t need a study to determine if your culture sucks.

1. People use blind copies in email.
2. Gossips win.
3. Territorial managers stake out and protect turf.
4. Leaders live in ivory towers.
5. Competition is about winners and losers not performance.
6. Getting by is the goal.
7. Smiles and laughs are rare.

Your culture sucks if people don’t love working in it.

Solving:

Organizational culture is simply the way you do things – how people treat each other. Yesterday, a Leadership Freak contributor suggested social contracts. KaPow!

Social contracts say you’re serious
about the way you do things.

Social contract:

We will:

1. Address issues in the smallest context possible. Dirty laundry is kept in the laundry room.
2. Expect you to connect with colleagues and teammates.
3. Take responsibility to improve things we don’t like.
4. Pursue the best interests of all parties, always.
5. Call you out if you let others down.
6. Speak candidly with compassion.
7. Forgive offenses that are acknowledged and addressed.

We won’t:

1. Say one thing to your face and another behind your back.
2. Tolerate posturing and puffing behaviors.
3. Lie, ever.
4. Blow up.
5. Hold grudges.
6. Have secret agendas.
7. Complain without bringing solutions.

Consequences:

Violating our social contract is grounds for warnings, corrective action, and dismissal, if necessary. You might be sent to our, “Be Nice,” class for social delinquents.

Enforcement:

Everyone is authorized to point out violations of social contracts, regardless of position or tenure.

More: Connecting Through Social Contracts.

What would you include in an organizational social contract?

The Top 7 Ways to End Frustrating Wait-Time

Image source by Adryana Nicoleta

Life goes down the drain while you wait. Airports, repair shops, grocery lines, and doctor’s offices ruthlessly steal time.

Time is life.
Wasted time is wasted life.

Waiting:

1. Escalates anger.
2. Strains relationships.
3. Increases stress.
4. Reduces productivity.

Planning and preparation transform frustrating wait-time to satisfying productivity.

Top 7 Ways to End Frustrating Wait-Time

1. Create a list of things to do while waiting. Look around, and ask, “What productive activities could I do right now?” Do one.
2. Write thank you notes. (Prepare for waiting by keeping thank you notes with you.)
3. Journal. Turn off email, texts, and the phone.
4. Blog. Write a blog about waiting.
5. Connect. Grocery story lines are great opportunities to say, “Hi.” (For extroverts.)
6. Meditate or pray. People will think you’re sleeping.
7. Renew a relationship. Call an old friend and say, “I was just thinking about you.”

Bonus: Help someone. Look around and see who needs a hand. Pick up garbage if you’re a clean freak.

This post was inspired by Lets Grow Leaders.

How can leaders capture wait-time?

How to Help Snails Keep Up

Who’s falling behind? Thriving organizations leave those who don’t grow, behind. Change leaves those who don’t change frustrated, wondering what happened.

The puzzle changed and they don’t fit.

Helping snails keep up:

Successful leaders are people watchers. Know who’s falling behind.

Watch people first and performance second.

Observe:

1. Energy levels. What drags down?
2. Frustration levels. What frustrates?
3. Happiness levels. What energizes?
4. Development levels. What training or initiatives captivate their attention?
5. Change levels. What’s changing in them or their circumstances?

Performance is about people. Capable people, who fit in, love delivering the goods, when they believe in the mission. How are you enhancing capacity, building health, and aligning with mission? How are you helping others fit in?

Performance is a result; people are the end.

Go positive not negative. Positive motivates. Positive interactions create positive environments. If all you do is fix problems, all you’ll see are problems to fix.

Publically affirm attitude, first.  Praise performance later. Organizations that value transparency and authenticity should publically acknowledge it when it’s seen, for example. If you value positive environments, cheer those who cheer others.

Honor people before praising performance.

Look through behaviors; speak to attitudes. Build spirit and soul. Connect. But, don’t neglect performance.

Performance:

Placing people first builds foundations for tough conversations about performance later. Build relationships. Affirm people. Connect. Think how they think.

High performance energizes healthy people.

Call for exceptional. Low performance frustrates healthy people. “People first” isn’t lowering expectations. Go ahead, raise the bar. Healthy people rise up.

Pour into them if you expect them to pour out for you.

Strong relationships result in strong performance, but you must call for it. On the other hand, when people complain, “They’re never satisfied,” you’ve built lopsided, negative environments.

How can leaders help snails?

The Ten Principles of Pain

Pain persists till something changes.

Pain increases the longer it’s tolerated.

Dentist visits weren’t on my list of things to do during my early college years. We couldn’t afford it. I still have a gap in the back of my mouth where I lost a cavity-filled tooth. Once that tooth started aching, it didn’t stop. It grew worse till it became intolerable. I actually tried pulling it myself.

Toothaches don’t subside they get worse. The thing that’s hurting today will only hurt worse tomorrow if you don’t change something.

Change or:

1. Organizational stresses worsen.
2. Interpersonal conflicts escalate.
3. Internal struggles intensify.

One pain:

The Emergency Medical Technician, before plunging a giant needle into my chest said, “This is going to hurt.” It didn’t. I learned later, the sharpest pain is the only one you feel. The pain in my mangled hip masked everything else.

Challenge:

Look through pain. Biggest pain-points may not be biggest problems. They may be distractions. I could live with a broken hip but the pressure building in my right lung was crushing my heart.

Cause more pain. Stopping pain won’t solve causes. Plunging a giant needle in my chest actually caused more pain not less.

It hurts more just before it hurts less. It hurts to lance a broken department, for example. But, relief and health follow the knife.

Focus:

Pain intensifies focus. Focus on changing you more than changing others. Change your:

1. Willingness to listen.
2. Advisors.
3. Attitudes.
4. Definition of success and failure.

The most challenging changes are inside you. Ever notice how easy it is to focus on changing others? It’s incredibly easy to know what others should do. Blame exacerbates pain. Responsibility addresses causes.

Pain changes when you change.

The 10 Principles of pain:

1. Pain persists till something changes.
2. Pain increases the longer it’s tolerated.
3. The sharpest pain is the only one you feel.
4. Pain intensifies focus.
5. Look through pain.
6. Cause more pain.
7. It hurts more just before it hurts less.
8. Blame exacerbates pain.
9. Responsibility addresses causes.
10. Pain changes when you change.

Confession: Adding this list put me over my 300 words.

What have you learned about pain?

How do you deal with pain?

10 Ways to Spot Authentic Leaders

Talk isn’t always cheap. Words change lives and organizations. However, when it comes to authenticity, talk is nearly meaningless.

Authenticity, like trust, feedback, and empowerment are words tossed around in leadership circles likes nuts at a squirrel buffet.

Words apart from practice make you
feel you know when you don’t.

Using the term “authentic” doesn’t make you authentic any more than sleeping in a garage makes you a car.

10 practices of authenticity:

I’ve interviewed scores of high profile leaders. Authenticity appears quickly. Authentic leaders:

1. Talk comfortably about failure.
2. Say, “I hadn’t thought of that.”
3. Speak tough truths comfortably.
4. Share what they are learning. Fakers pretend they already knew.
5. Ask “dumb” questions.
6. Explore-with rather than conclude-for.
7. Invite feedback. You’d be amazed how many leaders fear feedback, even refuse it.
8. Honor others, profusely. Phony leaders need honor. Authentic leaders give it.
9. Know and acknowledge frailties and weaknesses. Fakers are omniscient and omni-compitent.
10. Empathize without compromise.

Bonus: Adapt, change, and grow. Phonies don’t grow they spiral inward like black-holes.

You change before you help others change.

The power of authenticity is influence rather than coercion. Fakers rely on position, authority, and manipulation. Authentic leaders influence through the power of their person.

Benefit:

Authenticity lowers stress; faking increases stress.

For the record, most leaders I interview practice authenticity. It’s refreshing and encouraging. Authenticity fills words with authority and power, without it, words are cheap.

How do you spot authenticity?

How does authenticity develop in a person?

Recollections of an Empty Cup

It’s the one year anniversary of my accident. I remember rehab.

There’s pain, discouragement, and negativity in every hospital. Alongside darkness, you’ll find hope and healing in the people who work there.

I watched them come to work like most do, kind of blah. But, somewhere between their first cup of coffee and seeing me, they embraced their “calling to serve.” It’s a selfless, breathtaking transformation.

Someone wheeled me to the kitchen where physical therapy patients ate breakfast together. I watched PT and OT professionals graciously make eggs to order, even though food services had provided breakfast. Discouraged patients often complained rather than thanked.

I saw them grumbled at and puked on. I saw one brain-damaged patient aggressively push a therapist against the wall.

Ungratefulness:

Our own pain prevents gratitude. Lack turns to bitterness.

If not pain, competence constricts and arrogance chokes gratitude. We withhold gratitude when our skills excel theirs and they should do better. We aren’t grateful when their devotion falls below ours; we’re better. Their lack stifles our gratitude.

Gratefulness:

1. Finds good, even when things are bad.
2. Appreciates service.
3. Honors those who demonstrate noble values.
4. Celebrates progress.

Expression:

I told the staff they were remarkable. I thanked them as they served. I was an empty cup. I gave them what I had, words.

Small things matter more when big isn’t possible.

When you can’t do something, say something. You are never helpless even when all you do is receive. Empty cups offer attention, appreciation, respect, and honor.

Lessons from rehab:

1. Feeling powerless is a decision.
2. Power is perception. Believe your words matter.
3. Affirm more. Could you affirm more and correct less?

A favorite post written three weeks after the accident, Dec. 10, 2011: The Hidden Power of Weakness.

The original “Gifts From Empty Cups,” written Dec. 13, 2011.

What if you pretended you were an empty cup? How might it impact what you see and say, today?

Overcoming the Downside of Pursuing Excellence

The problem with the pursuit of excellence is there is no done, only better.

Done satisfies. Move on. Yes!

There is no check box in the pursuit of excellence.

The second challenge with the pursuit of excellence is feedback. Excellence demands feedback but feedback begins in the past. Beware, the past sucks in like black holes.

Danger of “should have”:

“Should have” is the language of regret. “You should have…,” puts down.

“Should have” corrects the past; something impossible to do. “We should have…,” belittles past wisdom, effort, and passion.

Should-have-leaders honor critics and, in so doing, create more critics. “You’re right, I should have…,” is an invitation for second-guessers, nay-sayers, and critics. You get what you honor.

Next time:

“Next time” is better than “should have.”

“Next time” honors participants and ignores critics.

Next-time-leaders:

1. Honor effort, learning, and progress.
2. Build platforms for future initiatives.
3. Look to the future more than the past.
4. Instill hope and show confidence.
5. Ask, “What did we learn?”

No “next time”:

Critics judge, they never focus on next time. They don’t add value.

Critics sit on the sidelines, seldom offering useful suggestions. They tear down.

If the best you can do is point out failures in others,
you’re probably failing yourself.

Participants, on the other hand, build the future by offering insightful evaluations coupled with positive suggestions.

Momentum:

“Should have” ties to the past. “Next time” maintains momentum.

Bonus tip:

“What worked” and “What didn’t work” is better than “What went wrong?”.

How does the pursuit of excellence turn negative in organizations?

How can leaders pursue excellence in positive ways?

 

The 5 Positive Powers of Self-Doubt

Image source

If you grapple with self-doubt, keep reading. If you don’t grapple with it, you’re dangerous.

Experts sing, “Believe in yourself,” However, unquestioned self-belief produces self-serving leaders who won’t adapt.

Tom Petty captures the experience of many in, “Saving Grace,” when he sings, “You’re confident but not really sure.”

Confident but not sure is better than blind belief.

Self-doubt has its benefits. Robert Sutton in, Good Boss Bad Boss, says, “The best bosses dance on the edge of overconfidence, but a healthy dose of self-doubt and humility saves them from turning arrogant and pigheaded. Bosses who fail to strike this balance are incompetent, dangerous to follow, and downright demeaning.”

Move forward in spite of doubt.
Worry if you’re not worried.

Believe in yourself enough to bring self-doubt with you into decisions and commitments. “The relationship between commitment and doubt is by no means an antagonistic one. Commitment is healthiest when it’s not without doubt but in spite of doubt,” Rollo May.

Fear of making mistakes is healthy when it raises intensity, motivates preparation, and inspires vigilance. It’s unhealthy when it paralyzes you.

Press into doubt with deadlines.
An effective deadline is a mini-crisis.

Give yourself reasonable time to explore options and then pull the trigger. “When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand,” Raymond Chandler.

Focus more on the process – what’s next – and less on final outcomes.

The 5 positive powers of healthy self-doubt:

1. Motivates preparation. Useful self-doubt doesn’t paralyze it motivates.
2. Humbles the heart.
3. Opens the mind.
4. Invites others in.
5. Builds confidence in others. You’re trustworthy if challenges give you pause.

Why are those who sing the song of self-belief so popular? Because everyone has self-doubt. Don’t lose it, use it.

How can leaders use self-doubt as a tool rather than an obstacle to their leadership?

When has self-doubt gone too far?

Defeating the Demon of Leadership Loneliness

Leading sets you apart from others. Being out in front means you may walk alone. Additionally, you work to understand others but do others understand you?

If you feel alone, you aren’t alone. 

Leadership’s “A” game:

Leaders bring their “A” game every day. You direct, guide, manage, decide, counsel, encourage, challenge, …

1. You think of others and the organization before yourself.
2. You think about tomorrow while those around you focus on today.
3. You know things others don’t and can’t know. You keep confidences.
4. You can’t spill your guts. You’re guarded even when you’re open.
5. You’re always “on”, watched, and evaluated.

Being set apart results in feeling set apart.

The danger of alone:

Loneliness always makes life harder. Stress is deeper, darks are darker, and thinking is impaired when you feel alone. I even read that loneliness speeds aging.

Leadership’s “A” game results in feeling “A”-lone. To make matters worse, happy people don’t like hanging with lonely people. Lonely people hang together and create more loneliness.

Facing the demon of leadership loneliness:

1. Don’t expect people within your organization to understand you.
2. Train top tier leaders to think like CEO’s who put others first.
3. Engage people in the process early and often.
4. Avoid faking and pretending. Faking feeds the demon of loneliness.
5. Develop authentic relationships with leaders outside your organization. Expose your heart to someone you trust. Be selective.
6. Hire a coach. Be a coach and have a coach. Mine is Bob Hancox.
7. Take alone time at least once a month. Weekly is better. Alone time helps with loneliness.
8. Clear your mind so you can think more clearly. Read, walk, run, exercise, or go to a movie.
9. Warning: thinking you’re better than others is an arrogant defense mechanism that increases loneliness.

What are the causes of leadership loneliness?

How can leaders deal with feeling alone?

What Most Leaders Need Most

Don’t get so busy getting things done that you end up done yourself. Experience shows many leaders between 45 and 55 years old are so connected with business that they become disconnected with themselves.

Don’t get so lost in business that you lose yourself.

Gary Anzolone, CEO of CEO Clubs NYC, sat beside me for lunch yesterday at the Harvard Club. I asked Gary how he became interested in the CEO Club movement.

Gary said he remembered the first time he attended the CEO Club. It gave me a chance for self-reflection, to have conversations about business but not actually do business. As Gary talked, the words refreshed and encouraged came to mind.

Leaders are so busy doing business they seldom take care of themselves beyond distracting entertainments.

Leadership is who you are before it is what you do.

Most leaders most need focused time to care for invisible issues, matters of the heart.

Leader’s hearts are nourished
by authentic relationships with other leaders.

Suggestions:

1. Take the first step by opening up, authentically. Don’t spill your guts. Just toss a bit of your heart out.
2. Cultivate relationships with those who reciprocate your openness.
3. Look for courageous truth speakers who look you in the eye and say it like it is.
4. Look for someone who affirms more than fixing or explaining. Fixers offer advice too quickly. Those who explain why you think or feel the way you do, devalue and minimize you. The world is filled with fixers and explainers; stop being one yourself.
5. Brag to someone and see if they try to out-do you.
6. Celebrate the success of others.
7. Look for connections outside your business.

What are you doing to connect with other leaders?