At a client’s staff meeting last week, we had an interesting discussion about accountability. When someone stated that accountability and adherence to policy and rules were critical, the result was a combination of vehement agreement and visible discomfort, often on the same face. Why? Because this single sentence muddled an important distinction: accountability and compliance.
Your company has goals, your group has goals, and you and your employees have goals. Thus, everyone is aligned and working together, right? If only it were that simple! Let me tell you about Jim. Jim became a direct report when I joined an aerospace company years ago. He made people cry with his impatience. He couldn’t understand why others couldn’t just do things right. He’d rather do things himself than have to ask or explain twice. He believed he was pretty much surrounded by idiots. I had my work cut out for me!
Many “facts” that control your behavior aren’t facts! If you are a manager or a parent, knowing the difference between facts and assumptions is critical, but not common!
Gen X, Gen Y, the Greatest Generation – Give me a break! Generalization X, Generalization Y, and the Greatest Generalization sounds more like it to me! Imagine if all the energy and money devoted to trying to define and understand these generalizations, excuse me, generations, was instead spent on treating people like the individuals they are. Times change, but no one is a generation. When people describe Gen Y to me, they certainly aren’t talking about my daughters. Nor does my nearly 90 year old father, who sends me narrated DVDs with background music that he makes from old home movies, fit the image of his generation. You don’t hire a generation. You can’t teach a generation. You can’t get to know a generation. And it’s unfair to slap any stereotype on someone before you’ve even been introduced. It’s wrong and it’s insulting. We know that race and gender stereotypes are inappropriate and yet we embrace generation stereotypes with writing, training, and endless discussion. Why? It’s much more productive to simply listen, learn, and respect individuals as the individuals that they are. What do you think? Let me know at by email.
You’ve heard people talk about watching for the writing on the wall. They say that if you see signs that your days with a company are numbered, you should start looking for another job. Too many people are blind-sided or do nothing, even when the signs are clear. I agree. You must be alert to what is going on around you. But that is only half the problem. You need to take a good look in the mirror as well. Are you excited about your work? Are you learning important skills? Are you contributing effectively? If you aren’t operating at the intersection of your company’s needs, your passion, and your skills, and you don’t expect to be doing so any time soon, start looking elsewhere. Employment is a two-way street. Don’t abdicate responsibility to silver platters and pink slips. No one else is responsible for your career. No one else is going to make you sure you have a rewarding career.
Your priorities and desires for the new year likely require a combination of completing tasks and changing behaviors. The former is easy compared to the latter. Our behaviors and habits are so ingrained that they often defy our best and strongest intentions. Our environment and routines are largely to blame. When I was a child, my lunch bag typically contained a sandwich, a piece of fruit, and a cookie. I was into my thirties before I realized that fruit at lunch made me crave cookies. I broke the cookies-at-lunch habit simply by changing the pattern, eating the fruit first, and finishing with the sandwich, salad, or yogurt.
We had a Japanese student staying with us during her Thanksgiving school break. She was endlessly curious, but unsure how we might react to some of her questions. Rather than refrain from asking, she has developed the incredibly effective practice of prefacing her questions with: “I don’t know if I can ask this question.” This line accomplished four things: It gave us permission not to answer. It expressed her sincere desire to learn. It warned us that we may be in for a startling question. It made us eager to help her understand and learn. We can all learn a lesson from Midori. She is not the only one who can benefit from understanding others or a situation better. Too often we shy away from asking important questions. Personally, I would rather others asked my thoughts than have them try to guess. When we guess, we usually guess wrong. Asking permission shows interest and respect. Don’t just “let it drop” next time. Try these variations of Midori’s approach to learn what you need to learn: “It may be none of my business, but I’d really like to know …” “Do you mind if I ask you a question?” If you are told it is none of your business, at least you’ve learned something!
Growth can wreak havoc on employees and company performance. As companies grow, employees are stretched, morphed, overwhelmed, and trapped. Meanwhile, fundamental company needs are often ignored. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Growing into Unhappiness Growing into unhappiness is totally common. What happens is a long-term, trusted employee grows up with the company, takes on new responsibilities as needed, and does reasonably well in many different roles. Unfortunately, after several iterations, the assigned responsibilities are often far removed from the passion and interests of the individual. This long-term employee could be a founder, who winds up as CEO, but would really prefer to be immersed in the technology and innovation that made the company succeed in the first place. Or it could be a salesman who now finds himself behind a desk, managing others when he would rather be out talking to customers. There are countless scenarios that can end in unhappiness regardless of individual characteristics. Growing into Failure Not only might these employees grow into positions that make them miserable, they may also find themselves failing. The most important differences among jobs have nothing to do with the things that capture attention: title, salary, status, and office location.
Many of my clients, large and small, share a tendency to keep employees in positions for which they are ill suited far too long. The result is 360 degrees of pain and the solution seems unthinkable. It is time for new thinking. When an employee is not a good match for the job position, those above, below, and on all sides of the employee in question suffer. The supervisor’s expenditure of time, frustration, and anxiety may exceed the total positive contribution made by the mismatched employee. Colleagues of the mismatch may be picking up slack and/or enduring abusive or unpleasant working conditions. Direct reports could be receiving anything from no support to abusive micromanagement. At the very least, they are missing out on a good role model. If you add up the total cost in time, mistakes, missed opportunities, bad precedents, the erosion of energy, the contradiction of company values, and the blow to your own credibility as a leader and manager, the cost of keeping a mismatched employee is huge. Once you realize the full burden of the mismatch, keeping and firing are often seen as the only two choices, and the latter so reeks of surprise and cruelty that it becomes unthinkable.
My head swiveled at the sound of my name. “That woman Ann was just FABULOUS!” I was walking down the hallway after presenting “Sometimes a Great Project – 8 Uncommon Secrets for Repeatable Excellence.” I am accustomed to enthusiastic audiences but that outburst was pretty special. So what caused it? One of the things I know this group really appreciated was that I did not tell them to do more of the same – a little better, a little longer, a little faster, and a little harder. Instead, I gave them eight ways of looking at things differently so they could join the mere 5% who actually finish projects on time and on budget. Since that day, I’ve talked to several attendees and the response is universal.