The following video is from 2010 and is an important reminder as you choose a mentor(s).
Fear and Greed
This post was originally written in 2006, it was timely then and timely now. Is your organization paying attention?
I read today that Jeff Skilling of Enron fame wasn't in "it" for the money. He just wanted to build a solid business. I'm not here to judge him, but his comments are telling…as it relates to fear and greed.
Oh, how great it would be if every junior executive/manager got the workshop on fear and greed. It wouldn't guarantee total bliss, but it might reduce the wrecks. Sadly, corporations fail to talk about this due to their own addictions. You see fear and greed can be habit forming. They seem OK when you first taste, but leave behind ruined lives afterward.
If you're new to management or ownership, take some time to deal with the issues of fear and greed. No matter how well you think things are going. Your employees/subordinates will thank you for it.
Faith in Business
What level of faith (belief in something that is real, but unseen) do you have in your business? How about your people? Do you act on this faith even if the brilliance is not seen by many?
The answer to the three questions I posed will tell you a lot about the soul of your business and its true health.
This is the "hard" in hard work.
Do and Don’t
Do:
Love
Pray
Learn
Give
Forgive
Don't:
Give up
Fear
Hate
Ignore
Forget
The Collision of Profit Motive and Meaningful Work
I'm all for profit, wished I had more. And I'm very into meaningful work. The problem is found in the collision of profit motive and meaningful work.
The problem rears its ugly head when the profit motive starts taking greed steroids. Meaningful work exits when this happens. I wish this scenario was rare, but you and I know it's not. The crazy part is profit and meaningful work can coexist and thrive.
In many ways we live in a tale of two cities. One city is a place where management (entry to executive) is focused on profit, expenses, quarterly news, and the like. The other city is a place where the employee is looking and longing for meaningful work. They're not immature children or idealistic dreamers, just people who understand that life is a limited time offer and they desire to make the most of the time given. This is the reality and the reason we're in such a mess, relating to how we do and live out our work.
So why are the two at odds?
- At some point we put a higher value on things (money, possessions, titles) versus people and the lives they lead. And what is valued most, is what will get the lion-share of attention.
- Greed and power can be just as addicting as any drug. The person is overtaken and refuses to give it up.
- We started telling our children to fit in a box. See standardized testing as a measure of intelligence, for example. We've all but poisoned their ability to recognize meaningful work.
- Wall Street (for those entities in the publically traded realm).
- The absence of courageous leadership inside the halls of management.
I've always been about people-for better or worse, so I'm not writing to offer solutions on how to fix corporate America. In the spirit of giving you a place to start, a place to begin discovering where meaningful work may be found, I want you to take a look at the following video clip:
Your People Are Smarter Than You Think
If there is any statement I would want a manager/leader to understand, it would be the following:
"Your people are smarter than you think."
I feel sorry for those organizations that promote, deify, and plain flatter the pants off of management candidates and new hires (including senior management). I feel even sorrier for those individuals because most of the time they are not prepared to lead. It's often a case of letting words on a resume or some performance metric around revenue generation that leads to this ride to hell.
On face of it, you might say congratulations are in order for the recently hired or promoted. I wouldn't want to stop the celebration and I certainly applaud those who desire to lead people. The problem rests in not taking time to explain some key and essential truths. And one of those is:
"Your People Are Smarter Than You Think."
So You may be wondering why the emphasis on that statement? Here are the reasons why:
- People are tired of corporatese (a language that many organizations use to unknowingly frustrate) and false pretense.
- People are tired of managers who feel compelled to remind the world that they are the smartest guy or gal in the room.
- People often want to do their jobs with excellence, but they now know that Wall Street is often the prettiest girl in the room. And leaves them feeling the need to watch their back while the CEO gushes over the past quarters numbers. I think you get my point here.
- People know the world has changed, but often their leaders are vague on the subject and how it impacts them as an employee.
- People know that a title and position do not equal leadership. Thus, they won't really follow if they since an embrace of those two.
Living Life Well
One of the greatest hindrances of living your life well is the tendency to listen to crowd noise. The critics, the fearful, the rigid, and it goes on and on. Learning can certainly come from crowd noise, but it's best not to linger there for very long.
I see a disturbing trend where I live. The world is shaping up to need artists and many are acting as if it is calling for redundant task work. Prepping to understand what your art is can be difficult because its supposed to be. The riddle is summed up in not only finding your art, it's also the input that goes into making it.
The connection between the life well lived and our unique art is inseparable.
A Glass Half-Full in a Half-Empty World
Sustained optimism in the craziness of modern life is essential. It pulls you through in hard times and keeps you wide-awake in the good times. What makes it difficult is many attach their optimism to good fortune-small and large.
Let's face it, anyone can be optimistic when the glass is half-full in a half-empty world.
I've written before that human beings are excellent actors. This is really true in our modern life. You've seen it (maybe by accident) before. A leader works on summoning the right words, the right posture, the right look in the eye, all to portray something either not true or something less than sure. This is the strange dichotomy of being real versus the act.
True optimism requires truth.
I've found that people who have followed me just wanted me to be me. They were just looking for truth. Followers are often not under any delusions about where things stand these days. Pity the poor leaders who have convinced themselves otherwise.
So what's your glass like?
The Authentic Self and Why It Matters
A re-post from last year:
Any number of us have attended conferences, embarked on new programs for growth or decided to change something for the better. On the face of things, all of those choices are good. But your authentic self is where it all begins. If you fail to address authenticity, you run a great risk. No program, plan or event can help you until the authentic is addressed.
Are you still playing someone else's role?
I fully understand the trepidation involved in addressing who you really are (the authentic self). It conjures up the idea of no secrets, vulnerability and most of all honesty. This can be daunting and some just run from the proposition of "going there." But never forget that who you really are is the safest place you could ever be. I write this from experience.
Here are some things to consider as you turn to who you really are:
- If you've been in the habit of lying to your self, make a decision to stop. Self-honesty is essential in finding the authentic self.
- Are your friends situational? Sever the ties. Situational friends need sunny days, material success and the like to stick with you.
- Join my tribe at Epic Living (located on Facebook).
- Read Simon Sinek's book, Start with Why.
- Have or create a short list of what makes you come alive.
Changing People
I've never been able to change one person in my entire life.
I've been told by men and women greater than me, that trying to change people is a road to futility. You might be able to create conditions where someone might want to change. Life could make an impromptu appearance and crush someone to a point where they see no other way but to change. In the end change resides inside each and every one of us. Inside is the keyword here.
So what's with organizations trying to change people?
Organizations can become enamored with their own marketing and brand appearance, not to mention their profit engine. Just like someone who is told repeatedly how great they are. Here that often enough and some will think greatness is theirs. The next-door neighbor to arrogance is power and both work to will over people. It's really a facade, but these types of groups force and intimidate. Like walking a dog that doesn't want to go, they just pull them anyway and can't see the folly of dragging.
So are you in the business of changing people?
Maybe we'd get more if we just started looking at our people as they truly are and then realign, remove, restructure so that the band is playing together and in-tune. This is a courage-based endeavor that few leaders have a stomach for.
Find the courage.