Overcoming the Reason People Don’t Listen

Tune into others if you expect them to tune into you. Discouraged or defeated people need strength before they’ll listen to ideas or solutions.

Give strength before giving answers or solutions.

Six Ways to Strengthen others:

1. Agree with frustrations; don’t explain why. If they feel frustrated they are frustrated. It’s frustrating when you’re told why you’re frustrated.
2. Defuse negative emotions by validation. Emotional people don’t listen. Emotions cloud judgment, especially discouragement, anger, or bitterness. Always deal with emotion before providing solutions.
3. Strengthen others by seeing their strengths.
4. Acknowledge their contributions.
5. Shut off lights at the end of the day. Say, “Go home.”
6. Incorporate play at work.

Four Benefits of Strengthening others:

Vulnerability enhances influence.

You have greater influence with those who trust you; they’re vulnerable. People who feel understood become vulnerable; they feel safe. Safety is the belief that you’ll protect rather than abuse. “You won’t hurt me.”

Influence through vulnerability is pure manipulation apart from leadership integrity.

Affirmations open ears.

Convince someone you’re on their team and they’ll listen. Personal agendas create self-protection and defensiveness.

Encouragement lifts focus beyond self.

Discouraged people dwell on their own needs; someone has to. Strong people think about the needs of others.

Strength moves people from can’t to can.

Defeated people say, “I’m done or I can’t.” Strengthened people say, “I’ll try.”

Warning:

Driving doesn’t work for long.

You can drive people but in the end no one goes far on empty; you must fuel their tanks.

Leader as strength-giver:

Successful leaders help others believe in themselves, higher purpose, and vision. Discouraged people can’t believe. Pressuring weak or defeated people to perform makes them resentful and resistant.

Everyone loses when “You don’t understand me,” becomes, “You can’t make me.”

How can leaders strengthen the people around them?

10 Ways to Become a Risk-Taker

“Real change agents comprise less than
10% of all business people,” Jack Welch.

Most leaders play not-to-lose rather than playing to win, especially in large organizations. The more we have to lose the more we play not-to-lose.

What we protect owns, limits, and controls us.

What we risk propels us forward.

When to risk:

An unsatisfying present continues until you step toward your new future. If the present satisfies, roll over and go back to sleep. Listen to discontent – it’s yelling, “Get up and get moving.”

If the present is unsatisfying, risk losing it. It’s riskier not to risk when the present sucks.

Risk-taker questions:

1. What could you gain?
2. What could you lose?
3. What happens if you don’t change?
4. Who do you want to be? “To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily.  To not dare is to lose oneself,” Soren Kierkegaard.
5. What’s in you that suggests success is possible?
6. What weaknesses require compensation? Risks become peril when you ignore your weaknesses – build the team.

Risk-taker practices:

1. 70% certainty is enough.
2. Postpone all or nothing moments. Don’t go all in on the first play.
3. Use long-term purpose to fuel passion and provide guidance. Set one eye on the future while focusing on the present.
4. Acknowledge failure courageously and quickly.
5. Adopt experimental mode. Say, “Let’s see what happens.” Failed experiments aren’t cataclysmic, they’re expected.
6. Success isn’t the path to success – learning is. “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it,”  Pablo Picasso.
7. Keep opposites handy. Those who aren’t like you add more value than those who are.
8. Don’t quit! Adapt.
9. Measure and evaluate progress.
10. Adapt again.

Bonus: Have fun. (Include on all lists.)

What questions can risk-takers ask?

How do you decide a risk is worth taking?

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Where Women Leaders Are Better than Men

I asked the “Freaks” that follow my Facebook page, “What are women leaders better at than men?”

1. Knowing when there is no value in fighting.
2. Understanding when someone just has a crummy day.
3. Understanding the pressures that other women leaders face.
4. Organization and multitasking.
5. Compassion.
6. *Empathy.
7. Tenderness.
8. Building consensus, supporting staff, sharing credit, and leading from the middle.
9. Networking.
10. Emotional Intelligence.
11. *Listening
12. *Smiling through the pain.
13. Focusing on details.
14. Mission focus and *tolerance.
15. Transparency.
16. Simplicity.
17. Valuing people for who they are not just what they do.
18. Building relationships that last.
19. Creating an environment where mistakes are not just tolerated but seen as essential to growth.
20. What can you add, amplify, or illustrate?

Generalities and stereotypes that lock people in restrictive boxes belittle everyone. On the other hand, celebrating difference honors individuals and enhances organizations.

Note: Items are listed in the order they were posted on Facebook. An asterisk indicates that item was mentioned more than once.

Related post:

“It’s Harder for Women than Men“

“Where Men Leaders Are Better than Women”

I’ve Been Knocked Down, Now What

Jack Dempsey on one knee. (From Washington Post)

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The ability to get up after being knocked down
is the most important ability in life.

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Alison asked, “After being knocked down it feels a lot slower to rise up? Is it ok to take it slow?”

Don’t pop up quickly after being knocked down.

It’s humbling to find yourself looking up from your back. Wise boxers climb to a knee – clearing their head – until the referee’s count reaches eight.

Taking a knee isn’t defeat its preparation – preparation to kick ass.

Pride yells bounce up quickly, “Get up you fool. Don’t let anyone know it hurt.” Pretending it doesn’t hurt doesn’t help.

8 Principles for getting up, again:

1. Self-reflection. Few things are talked more and done less. Few times are better than when you’re on one knee. Don’t talk to others before you talk with yourself.
2. Forgive. Forgiveness is a process not an event. Act without offenses in mind – even when they are. Acting with offenses in mind results in bitterness, revenge, or both. Feeling forgiveness isn’t as important as acting in it.
3. Accountability. Holding someone accountable to make restitution and offering forgiveness may be separate issues.
4. Embrace. Few things change us more than brokenness, embrace it. Embracing frailty opens your heart and mind. You’ll see yourself and others more clearly when you feel the burn and let it hurt.
5. Support. Channels of support are open when you’re broken. Pretending it doesn’t hurt, squeezes support out.
6. Honesty. Avoid whining. Open your heart to select trusted friends. Tell them the things you wish you didn’t feel, but do.
7. Responsibility. Own personal weaknesses that tripped you up. “How few there are who have courage enough to own their faults…” Benjamin Franklin.
8. Adapt. You’ll repeat the pain if you don’t learn and adapt.

How can leaders make the most of “one knee” moments? 

What helped you when you were knocked down?

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Post in a picture by Larry Coppenrath:

How to Be Competent at Being Incompetent

Guess what insecure leaders do when one of their weaknesses comes to light? They immediate explain why it isn’t a weakness and how it’s not that bad. I see it all the time.

It’s hard to acknowledge what you can’t do well when you live in a world that expects you to be good at nearly everything. To make matters worse, pressuring someone to acknowledge a weakness is almost always a losing situation.

Reaching your best:

You’ll never reach your best until you courageously acknowledge your worst. Sweeping your frailties, failures, and weaknesses under the carpet – pretending your competent when you aren’t – stops learning, hinders development, and stymies growth. Worse yet, you become the bottleneck that hinders rather than maximizes organizational success.

If leaders are learners then leaders must become those who know less. Lack precedes learning. The more you need to learn the more lack you must acknowledge. Don’t be surprised if it seems you lack more than anyone. The higher you go the less you’ll know.

6 ways to be competent at incompetence:

Incompetence never inspires. You can, however, be competent when it comes to weaknesses.

1. Acknowledge limitations and weaknesses to individuals and teams but never dwell on what you don’t do well. Maintain optimism.
2. Always live in solutions (inspired by Bob Burg). Dwelling on what you don’t do well demoralizes and eventually defeats.
3. Learn enough to be able to recognize and evaluate experts.
4. Rely on trusted advisors.
5. Retain responsibility even while leveraging wisdom from others.
6. Celebrate learning by sharing what you’ve learned.

Side benefit:

Learning organizations are led by learning leaders.

Leaders who optimistically, willingly, and sometimes publicly, express their lack give everyone in their organization permission to become learners. Faking invites fakery; transparency invites transparency. Learning invites learning.

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It’s dangerous to let your weaknesses out. How can leaders navigate this challenging territory?

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Finding Your Power

Focusing on what others should have done is an excuse maker’s paradise.

Responses reflect values.

Excuse maker and blamers value themselves above others. They’ll drive the knife in your back if it serves their purposes.

Compassionate leaders value others. They believe in lifting rather than crushing.

Responses reflect confidence.

Blamers live defensive lives, feeling pushed around by circumstances and people. They don’t believe they’re able to change things. They feel trapped. They’re dangerous, like caged animals, they’ll lash out.

Confident leaders remain calm during disappointment while seeking solutions, at the same time. They aren’t frantic. They’re focused.

Responses reflect connections:

Excuse makers feel alone; they don’t trust or consult with others, except to determine who to blame.

Connected leaders seek solutions with others. They’re willing to ask “dumb” questions in their pursuit of smart answers. They don’t believe they have the answers. They believe they can get answers.

The weakness of blaming and the power of solution seeking is all about your values, confidence, and connectedness.

Embracing your power:

We taught our grandchildren to swim. They started with floaties. I still remember their white knuckled grasp the first time they tried swimming without artificial buoyancy. We stayed close.

They kicked and splashed and nearly sank, at first. Gradually we moved away. Soon they were swimming from one side of the pool to the other. Eventually, they instructed, “You can get out of the pool now, Poppi.” Their gleaming pride was priceless.

The most powerful thing you can do today is take small steps toward big goals. Forget giant leaps toward perfect solutions.

Your next step is too big if you feel trapped and powerless.  Break it down.

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How do you rise above excuse making?

How can we help others rise above blaming and excuse making?

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Seven Proven Ways to Inspire Others

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You make a difference by inspiring others to make a difference.

Here’s how:

1. Stop fixing.

If your passion for excellence and success drives you to constantly fix people, stop it. Problem centered fixers invite self-protective restraint in others.

2. Compassion wins. 

The pursuit of personal gain and glory doesn’t inspire, it threatens. Inspiration occurs when others believe you genuinely put them before yourself.

3. Share frailties.

The frailties you’re working through inspire others to work through theirs. Avoid whining. Focus on hope, progress, and benefit.

4. Leverage weaknesses. 

Your weaknesses are inspirational opportunities, especially if you’re loved. For example, acknowledging your inability to create systems gives place for system builders to step up.

5. Be great.

A life dominated by weakness and frailty never inspires. Bring positive value.

Value is determined not by what you tear down
but what you build up.

6. Believe in others.

“The people who influence you are the people who believe in you,” Henry Drummond. Rise above the failures of others by believing in their future. Those who believe in others inspire others.

“Keep away from those who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you believe that you too can become great,” Mark Twain.

7. See potential.

Potential motivates. See what could be not what is. People who believe in their potential dare to act. For example, a friend of mine is trying to earn a place in the Navy Seals. You don’t try that without believing in your potential.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.”

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How can leaders inspire others?

Creating a Mistake-making Policy

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Integrity isn’t perfection, its better.

During a hospital stay a nurse turned off and neglected to turn on my pneumatic leg pumps. (Devices designed to help prevent blood clots in the legs of trauma patients. Hospital staff called them SCUDS)

She removed them about 3 a.m. so I could get up. When I returned, she put them back on but didn’t hit the switch. We were talking; neither of us notices. She left; I fell asleep.

About 6 a.m. another nurse came in to check on me. I was awake when she noticed the SCUDS. She hit the switch and left.

An apology:

About 6:30 a.m. a forgetful nurse came to my bed and said, “I messed up when I forgot to turn on your SCUDS. I’m sorry.”

Perfection:

It’s sad when people ignore or cover their mistakes. “Perfect” people can’t be trusted.

On my team:

My forgetful nurse was qualified and experienced. I was never in peril. My activity level made the SCUDS precautionary.

If I ever need a nurse and I hope I don’t, I’ll ask for the forgetful one. 

Dumb leaders:

Dumb leaders sacrifice mistake-makers. Creating sacrificial lambs:

1. Invites disloyalty and dishonesty.
2. Stalls risk taking.
3. Stagnates ideation.
4. Honors ignorance.

Smart leaders:

Smart leaders maximize mistakes and honor integrity.

Stop hiding mistakes; publicize them – especially your own. Uncovering the dirty secret of mistake-making creates rich invigorating environments where:

1. Backstabbers and liars run.
2. Employees trust each other.
3. Customers trust you.
4. What ifs are possible.
5. Freedom empowers.

Wasting mistakes makes mistakes worse. If you can’t make a good mistake, you can’t be trusted.

Great organizations figure out how to be wrong in the right way.

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What does a useful mistake-making policy look like?

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More on mistakes: I asked Jack Welch about a tipping point in his life and he told me about blowing up a factory. “How Blowing up a Factory Changed Jack Welch“

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Five Ways to Fill Others with Courage

I wanted to make a difference when I was a teenager but lacked courage.

Encourage means to fill with courage. You have the power to give courage to others. You also have the power to drain people’s courage, to discourage.

The hardest thing about my nearly fatal accident isn’t the pain and recovery. It’s the anguish I caused others. You never want to put your spouse, family, and friends through what I put mine through. You want to lighten the load others carry, not add to it.

The dance of courage:

Since my accident, many are encouraged by my reentry into social media and blogging. The power to give begins with receiving; it’s sustained when we give back.

We learn to love by being loved. We learn to serve by being served. Someone pours from their cup into ours and the dance of courageous action begins.

Last night, friends brought dinner over. Thankfully, they ate with us. There’s been a parade of people like them. They pour from their cup into ours. They give us courage.

Lolly Daskal, Becky Robinson, and Jesse Lyn Stoner are pouring into my cup. They wanted to encourage and decided to help meet the financial need that exceeds our insurance coverage. They give us courage.

Easy:

Encouraging others is incredibly easy.

1. Understand the dreams of others. Leadership begins with understanding and accepting the dreams of others.
2. See the strengths in others rather than persistently working to improve weaknesses. Inordinate desire to improve things may create negativity. Spend more time focused on strengths.
3. Speak hopefully. All great leaders are always realistically optimistic. If you don’t think others can rise up to meet challenges, get out of leadership.
4. Serve others by helping them reach their dreams.
5. When possible, meet a need.

Discouraging others is incredibly easy.

1. Do nothing.
2. Say nothing.
3. Be negative.

How can you fill others with courage, today?

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The Top 25 Temptations of Leadership

1. Using position to intimidate or manipulate.
2. Believing talent, experience, or skills compensate for preparation.
3. Choosing the easy way for you rather than the best way for them.
4. Overlooking the destructive behaviors of high performers.
5. Withholding benefits or resources as punishment.
6. Avoiding tough issues.
7. Staying the same.
8. Pretending you know when you don’t.
9. Hiring yourself. Surrounding yourself with people who have your strengths.
10. Playing favorites.
11. Self-protection.
12. Waiting for the perfect solution rather than choosing the best option.
13. Consensus decision-making.
14. Seclusion.
15. Considering power a perk rather than a platform for service.
16. Placing short-term wins before long-term success. “Let’s just get this done, we’ll fix the problems or big issues later.”
17. Ignoring your inner voice when it says something isn’t right.
18. Allowing people to think you agree when you don’t.
19. Telling people what they want to hear.
20. Shortcuts.
21. Forgetting it’s always about the people.
22. Focusing on problems and weaknesses to the detriment of opportunities and strengths.
23. Giving answers before exploring options.
24. Meddling.
25. Little white lies.

Cave dwelling (seclusion) is one of my temptations. I love people but I also love privacy, books, and being alone.

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What are the most tempting temptations leaders face?

What temptations do you feel as a leader?

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Don’t miss a single issue of Leadership Freak, subscribe today. It’s free.  It’s private.  It’s always practical and brief.

Go to the main page of Leadership Freak by clicking the banner at the top of this page, look in the right-hand navigation bar, enter your email and click subscribe.  Your email address is always kept private.  Note:  if it doesn’t arrive, check your spam filter for a confirmation email.