12 Ways to Connect and Mobilize People

Young leaders often explain their aspirations in self-centered language. They focus on themselves and neglect others. Individual contributors are great, but leaders always connect and mobilize people. Leadership is about them.

12 ways to connect and mobilize:

1. Highlight need – explain why things can’t go on as they are.
2. Make them know they matter – show how they can help.
3. Include everyone in crafting vision – engage people if you expect them to be engaged.
4. Create channels for service – build organizational structure.
5. Call people to rise up – great work isn’t convenient. Disrupt established patterns.
6. Establish enabling relationships – build confidence by connecting the inexperience with the experience.
7. Honor effort – express gratitude along the way.
8. Rotate tasks and offer training.
9. Track results – tell everyone what’s getting done.
10. Point out more need – more to-do makes people matter more.
11. Celebrate success – dance because you’re making a difference.
12. Identify and leverage forward looking leaders.

Six roadblocks to success:

1. People tensions. Inexperienced leaders wrongly believe good causes and great needs solve interpersonal tensions. Connecting people, not completing projects, is the great challenge of leadership. Good people collide.
2. Power struggles.
3. Confusion. Begin with simple behaviors that express big vision.
4. Underutilized talent. People walk away when you waste their time and talent.
5. Diverse values and motivations. Accept that what’s important to one isn’t important to another.
6. Losing purpose. People lose motivation when they feel their efforts don’t make a difference.

How can leaders mobilize people?
What hinders effective mobilization?

How Pretending Develops Leaders

Your brain knows gibberish when it hears it. You can’t fool yourself. “I think I can,” sounds like a lie to someone who believes they can’t.

Pretending you can doesn’t help, but pretending does.
Expand skills and develop behaviors by pretending.

Example:

Fred’s performance stalled. It’s time for a tough conversation that you dread. Worse yet, tough conversations often end with you comforting rather than challenging. You’re a softy.

Invite a member of the leadership team for a walk. Tell them it’s time for a tough conversation with Fred. Say, “I’d like to run something by you.” Pretend you’re having the conversation with Fred.

Guidelines:

1. Don’t violate privacy by talking about Fred with his colleagues.
2. Find someone on the leadership team who knows Fred, if possible.
3. Use fellow leaders who have emotional intelligence.
4. Approach someone who handles tough conversations well.
5. Step outside your organization, when necessary, but protect privacy by changing names.
6. Begin with the end in mine. Always explain the goal of the conversation, first. Describe how you want Fred to feel and behave after the conversation?
7. Invite immediate feedback during practice. Ask, “How did it feel when I said …?”
8. Try several approaches. Adapt your approach to Fred. What works for him?
9. Seek alternatives from your partner. Ask, “How would you handle this situation?”
10. Visualize positive results but practice the process.

Repeating, “I think I can,” while sitting in your office, won’t change a thing.

You tell yourself you can because you fear you can’t. 

“I think I can,” adds stress when you fear you can’t. On the other hand, pretending builds confidence and develops skills.

When I pretend, I often ask someone, “How does it feel when I say…?”

How has pretending helped your leadership?

How can leaders use pretending to develop leadership in others?

Why Teams Fight and What to Do About It

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Nothing is more frustrating, from a leadership point of view, than a group of individuals circling each other like vultures. In-fighting wastes time, energy, and resources.

Incompetent leaders have teams who turn on each other.

Focus:

Lack of focus invites conflict. Teams who don’t know what’s important can’t focus. Leaders focus teams by showing them what’s important, now. Focus generates energy, unleashes creativity, and fires urgency.

Personal agendas:

Everyone knows Mary wants her way because it makes her look good. She cares more for her career than the team’s success. Immature people think only of themselves. Mature managers manage for the benefit of others.

People, who need control or credit,
fight to get it and refuse to give it.

It’s time for a tough conversation. Reform or remove her. If you can’t remove her, make her insignificant to the team.

Naughty or nice:

Teams flounder when they don’t know how to fight nice. Advocating for ideas isn’t naughty until it becomes personal.

Naughty fighting focuses on people.
Nice fighting focuses on issues.

Naughty fighting is filled with “you.” But, blame and accusation never solve problems.

Past tense conversations never create the future.

Fit:

Those who don’t fit, fight. Give team leaders a voice in forming the team.

Team formation establishes team potential.

High performers, who don’t fit, ruin teams. Creating fit:

1. Identify purpose. Why are we here? Know who you are before identifying those who fit.
2. Authorize teams to choose new members.
3. Interview for team positions like you interview for new hires.
4. Establish your code of conduct. How will you treat each other?

Will we interrupt each other during discussions?
What happens if someone is late or doesn’t follow through?
Will we have fun or be serious?
How will we solve disagreements?
What does candor look like?

Why do teams fight with each other?

How can leaders deal with conflict in the team?

Where Passion Comes From

Passion is longing to be what you could be, but aren’t.

Passion for leadership is the combination of falling below your imagined leadership potential and longing for exceptional leadership – at the same time.

The gap between longing and attainment is passion.

You:

ABC’s of finding your passion:

1. Accept disappointing performance. You read leadership books, blogs, and articles because you long to be better. You aren’t there yet. Pain gives birth of passion.
2. Believe improvement is possible and worthwhile. Hope makes you bold.
3. Create a Picture of the preferred future. Think about ultimate goals not the process. You aren’t sure how to get there. But, when you close your eyes and dream, you see the end.
4. Deliberate steps – action. The whole path is never clear but a step is always possible.

Others:

People fuel our passion when they make us feel we matter.

Recently, people fueled my passion, again. It happened during a presentation to a group of Human Resource professionals.

I paced the back of the room like a caged animal while announcements were made. A participant came back and said, “Can I do anything to make you more comfortable?” I’m not sure if my pacing invited the question but it made me feel I mattered.

A participant asked me to sign their program. I felt awkward and didn’t respond well. “Really?” I said. I regret saying that. After reflection, it makes me feel I matter.

About half-way through my presentation, someone asked, “What’s the future for you, Dan?” That wasn’t the topic. I almost brushed it off. Instead I gave a short reply and moved on. It made me feel I mattered.

Leaders make others feel they matter.
Any fool can make others feel they don’t matter.

Passion – the courage to act on dreams – comes from within and without.

How are you making people feel they matter?

Where does your passion come from?

Too Afraid to Matter

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Fear binds to the present.

Paralyzing fear pats you on the back when nothing changes.

Fear cheers for the status quo.

Fear says; don’t stand out because you’ll:

1. Look foolish.
2. Screw up. (You will)
3. Get in over your head.
4. Lose what you have.
5. Seem arrogant. Others aren’t standing out. What gives you the right to think you can?

Fear of loss and criticism prevents you from doing what matters.

How to matter most:

Forget and shift:

1. Forget about being in charge. Stop thinking leadership is authority, power, command and control. Shift to serving. Bring benefit. What’s the good thing you can do for others?
2. Forget about final results. Focus on the path forward. Meaningful results never happen all at once. How can you make a difference today?
3. Forget about one. Think two. An ancient proverb says, “Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor.” Everyone needs a “with.” Who can you stand with? Who can stand with you?
4. Forget about old guard leaders who are fear-driven, controlling, and self-protective. Pass them by. They need you to be like them.
5. Forget about fanfare and recognition. Do things quietly. Spotlights come later, if at all.

Bonus: Forget about permission.

Courage:

Above all, doing what matters takes courage.

Courage is taking action while thinking of reasons not to. 

Deep courage is bringing you to opportunities and challenges. People who matter, ask:

1. What does better look like?
2. How does my story apply to this challenge?
3. What can I do?
4. What can we do?

The path:

1. Start small.
2. Start now. Starting is the most important thing you’ll do today.
3. Start “with.”

Courage needs a next step; fear needs a guarantee.

How can people overcome paralyzing fear?

Facing Reluctance

Don’t waste yourself. You can – you must – lead.

Every connection, challenge, problem, pain-point, opportunity, or exchange, opens doors to leadership – to make things better.

Reject:

1. Embarrassment with your desire to make things better.
2. Waiting for titles or position. Leadership isn’t a title.
3. Beat-down from do-nothing detractors.
4. Traditional command and control leadership.

Every time you stifle your longing to matter,
you lose a piece of yourself.

Terminology:

Are you uncomfortable with the terms leader and leadership? Redefine them. Leadership is:

1. Influencing. Ask, “What’s important?”
2. Seeking a step toward better. Ask, “What’s next?”
3. Bringing value to others. Ask, “How can I help?”
4. Solving problems with others. Ask, “Can we fix this?”
5. Bringing yourself to challenges and opportunities. Ask, “What can I bring?”

If you can’t say, “I’m a leader,” say I’m an:

1. Influencer.
2. Collaborator.
3. Solution seeker.
4. Simplifier.
5. Liberator.
6. Next step taker.
7. Value adder.
8. Improver.

Don’t let others define you. Define yourself in terms of  your passion. Stop muffling your inner longing to make a difference.

8 tips for finding your leadership:

1. Give yourself permission. It’s always OK to do good.
2. Be you. If you like organizing, then organize, for example.
3. Help others know they matter. You matter most when you help others know they matter.
4. Step toward better.
5. Thank critics. “Thanks for telling me I can’t make a difference!” (sarcasm) Losers want you to lose too.
6. Tell a friend you want to step up.
7. Do something every week that develops you.
8. Bring others in. Leaders connect rather than retreat.

Following:

If everyone leads, who follows? Leading includes following, supporting, and enabling. Leading isn’t fighting for power and control. Great followers have hearts of leaders.

Listen to secret, stifled yearnings that whisper, “You matter.”  You’re surrounded by “ordinary” people who lead. Be one. Do something.

How can reluctant leaders find their leadership?

Hit it with the Simple Stick

Complexity makes confused leaders feel important when they should feel like failures.

“The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.” Warren Buffett

Rivers take long, complex routes to the ocean because they follow the easy path. The hard path is the straight one.

Rejection:

Simplicity is rejected because it seems unimportant, ineffective, even naïve. Simple feels common and easy, even though it’s rare and difficult.

Complexity is the path of least resistance;
simplicity the most.

Sources of complexity:

1. Resistance to simplify what’s already working.
2. Reluctance to kill something that might work.
3. Lack of resolve and attention to the value of simplicity.

Complexity reflects beginnings that never died, but should have.

Finding simplicity:

Simplicity is exclusive.

Complexity is inclusive.

Simplicity is the result of elimination.

Developing simplicity is taking away not adding to. Eliminating options is taking the straight path to the ocean.

First steps:

1. Find simplicity for yourself before imposing it on others. Eliminate nonessentials; expose essentials.
2. Make the pursuit of simplicity a leadership priority. Begin pursuing.
3. Constantly scan for complexity and attack it ferociously.

The Simple Stick:

The first time I read the expression, “Hit it with the ‘simple stick’,” was reading Ken Segall’s book, “Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple’s Success.”

People often walked away from Steve Jobs having been hit with the Simple Stick. Segall believes the reason Apple is the most profitable business in the world is it’s obsession with simplicity.

The path to exceptional includes finding your “simple stick.”

*This post continues my reflections on my visit to the Chick-fil-A Leadercast.

Bonus: “Simple Isn’t Easy“

What are the sources of complexity?

What does the path to simplicity look like to you?

Jack Welch on the Cruelest Environments

Image source: me

Jack Welch and candor come together.

It didn’t take long for the topic of candor to come up at the dinner I attended after the Chick-fil-A Leadercast. In his usual no-nonsense fashion, Jack said,

“If your employees don’t know where they stand, you have no right to call yourself a manager.”

Here’s what I’ve been thinking since dinner Friday night.

Sick, stressful environments include behaviors where:

1. Side-stepping and pretending is normal. Candor is taboo, even offensive.
2. Leaders “protect” others by massaging the message.
3. Confronting issues is rare.
4. Postponing, rather than addressing, is standard operating procedures.

Leaders who replace candor with hiding the truth become dishonest manipulators. They are either confused or self-absorbed or both.

Candor is kind; uncertainty is cruel.

Candor is kind because it generates clarity.

“Everyone wants to know where they stand.” Jack Welch

Dancing around feelings and ignoring issues:

1. Creates uncertainty.
2. Undermines credibility. You can’t trust leaders who don’t or won’t speak the truth.
3. Prolongs agony.
4. Encourages dishonesty.
5. Discourages excellence. When leaders avoid tough conversations, excellence doesn’t matter.

Dishonesty, in the name of “not hurting”
someone, hurts everyone.

Behind mediocrity is a tough conversation someone didn’t have.

Credible leaders speak with:

1. Courage.
2. Clarity.
3. Conviction.
4. Compassion. Give improvement a chance.
5. Optimism. (Another “c” would be perfect)

Credible leaders say what everyone already knows, but are afraid to say.

Kind candor:

1. Speak unvarnished truths. “Your angry outbursts frustrate your co-workers,” for example.
2. Reject excuses and blame – quickly, clearly, and firmly.
3. Develop clear pictures of “better” in terms of behaviors and outcomes.
4. Provide training, support, and resources.
5. Explain consequences.
6. Establish deadlines.

Kind candor stabilizes organizations, validates performance, lowers stress, enables excellence, and simplifies relationships.

See comments on cruelest leaders on Facebook (5-11-13).

What are the key success factors for developing candor in organizations?

Simple Isn’t Simple

Any fool can create complex.

Complexity leads to confusion.

Confusion leads to uncertainty.

Uncertainty produces cowardice.

Cowards never take meaningful action.

Simplicity:

Longfellow said, “… in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.”

John Maxwell said, “The leaders job is reducing rather than adding to complexity.” (Chick-fil-A Leadercast 2013)

Lousy leaders confuse – exceptional leaders clarify.

All successful leaders clarify by creating simplicity.

Challenge:

The challenge with finding simplicity is it sounds simple and easy. But, John Maxwell rightly indicates the path to simplicity always encounters complexity. Cloudy and confused always precedes clear and simple. Expect it.

If you haven’t felt confusion, you haven’t found simplicity.

Out of the fog:

Courageously create confusion by pressing for clarity. It’s the only path to simplicity.

“I’m not sure,” always precedes, “That’s it!”

Andy Stanley said, “If you don’t know exactly what you’re doing, you’re going to have a hard time doing it.” (Chick-fil-A Leadercast 2013)

Make simplicity your day-to-day strategy. Complexity and it’s partner confusion are inevitable, apart from intervention.

Make simplicity your operational priority. Ask:

1. Can we explain this in common, understandable language?
2. What’s confusing?
3. How are we more clear? (Great after conversations) Don’t ask, “Are we more clear?” If you can’t explain it, you haven’t found it.
4. Have we included those closest to the action in this decision?
5. Where are we fearful? (Complexity and fear are bedfellows)
6. After meetings ask, “Where are the points of highest clarity?”
7. How are we creating strategic confusion – confusion that occurs on the path to simplicity?

Bonus: Ask obvious, simple questions like, “What are we doing?”

Simple project:

Andy Stanley said the best thing he did, when he was a young leader, was create one sentence job descriptions for himself and his team.

Write a simple – one sentence – job description that captures the essences of your job. Live that sentence everyday.

Note: Special thanks to the Chick-fil-A Leadercast team for inviting me to this years event.

How can you make simplicity your mantra?

What are the essential steps on the path to simplicity?

12 Ways to Find Your Confidence

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Lack of confidence is the dirty secret in top leaders. Insecure leaders often cover insecurities with strutting. Cocky is compensation for lack of confidence.

Cocky is phony confidence.

Puffing up, putting down, posturing, excuse making, and negative comparisons express – lack of confidence – cockiness.

The need to feel superior means you aren’t.

Confidence vs. Cocky

1. Invites in – Pushes away.
2. Inspires – Insults.
3. Relaxed – Stressed.
4. One of – One above.
5. Lifts up – Pushes down.
6. Accepts – Rejects.
7. Releases – Controls.
8. Belonging – Alone.
9. Joy – Fear.
10. Transparent – Phony.

See: The difference between arrogance and confidence is _______, on Facebook. (Great insights from readers)

Reason:

Relational impact is the reason you care about cockiness.

Effective leaders connect. Cocky leaders disconnect, close doors, and shut out.

Confident leaders explore, learn, develop,
and grow in the context of community.

Finding confidence:

1. Reflect on and embrace your beliefs.
2. Reject cocky behaviors. When you feel like pushing others away, pull in, for example.
3. Focus on giving more than getting.
4. Accept your strengths and weaknesses.
5. Develop experience.
6. Adopt a learners attitude.
7. Admit mistakes without excuse and commit to improve.
8. Hold your ground, kindly.
9. Separate performance from intrinsic value.
10. Smile.
11. Plan. Develop first responses to unanticipated questions. Say, “I’m not sure of the answer, let me get back to you,” for example.
12. Share insecurities with friends. Bringing insecurities into the light often weakens them.

Bonus article: “10 Powerful Strategies to Build Your Confidence“

How can leaders find confidence?