The Patriots lost last night for the first time this season. But that is the least of their problems. Gronkowski was carted off the field and he now joins Amendola, Edelman, Lewis, Dobson, Jones – more players than I can list – who are injured. Brady looked crestfallen when Gronk went down. But this morning, what are they saying? “Just wasn’t our night.” In true Patriots fashion, they refuse to contemplate what Gronk’s injury means for the next game or the rest of the season. “It was a very hard loss” and “players gave a tremendous effort” are all that we will hear. Their job is to get it done. One game at a time. No matter what comes at them. Whether they will get it done remains to be seen, but we all know Tom Brady is special because of his uncanny ability to get it done by focusing on that and nothing else. Everyone has problems. Most people spend far more time agonizing, talking, and worrying about those problems than actually doing something about them. Save that energy. Channel Tom Brady. Your job is to get it done. One step at a time. No matter what comes at you.
In case you missed my viral posts on Forbes in the past month: 8 Secrets Smart People Know About Time Management 10 Reasons Your Employee Engagement Program Is Hurting Your Company 9 Reasons You And Your Employees Can’t Do 40 Hours Of Work In 40 Hours – And What To Do About It The first one has collected over 45,000 views. Don’t miss it!
The Power of Clarity that galvanizes commitment and drives high performance is built on three pillars. Clarity of Purpose If you want to maximize productivity, commitment, and results, everyone needs to know what they are trying to accomplish and why. You may think you’ve got this covered once you’ve established goals and priorities. You haven’t. First, you need to avoid the trap of too many priorities, which is a super common problem. Too many priorities means no priorities. If you have 2-3 priorities, you will accomplish 2-3 things. If you have 4-10 priorities, you will accomplish 1-2 things. If you have more than 10 priorities, you will accomplish nothing. I read this somewhere, don’t remember where, but I know it is true because it applies to me and everyone I know. At any given moment, you need to focus on one task. As your list grows, you spend more and more time looking at the list, shuffling items, trying to decide which to do next, playing games with yourself like adding things you’ve already accomplished so you can check them off, and not accomplishing anything that counts. Focus is absolutely critical. You and your employees must pare those lists down.
A client called to talk to me about creating a vision. He was struggling because he felt hand-cuffed by too many constraints. I responded by explaining the need to maintain a clear distinction between the vision and the journey. That evening, while watching Nelson Mandela’s Long Road to Freedom, I remembered our conversation. Right in the middle of the movie, Nelson Mandela, his fellow leaders of the ANC, and two wives embodied the problems that occur when that distinction is blurred.
“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” These are the words of novelist Maya Angelou and I totally agree. Early in my career, a colleague with a cause wanted me to jump in and help. The nature of the cause is irrelevant and long forgotten. But I do remember how she made me feel and she made me feel lousy. My colleague was a bright young engineer. She saw herself as a strong leader with rapidly expanding influence and impact. When she made me feel lousy, she taught me one of the most important leadership lessons I have ever learned. In many ways, she was the epitome of a strong leader when she broached her idea:
If any of the following sound like your performance management system, you aren’t improving performance. You may think you are, but you aren’t. 1. Employees are crushed if they aren’t “Truly Outstanding” or at least “Exceptional.” In an era where “all the children are above average,” especially in companies with outstanding employees, how do you accomplish anything by putting people in boxes that do nothing but confirm their preconceptions or shatter their illusions? And why do you want to put managers in a position where those are their choices? 2. The main take away is a rating and a salary change.
When your car gets a flat, you fix the tire, not the transmission. Why don’t you do that with your business? While working with clients of all types, I frequently see examples where a few difficult people, one bad outcome, and/or an obvious lack of clear communication and understanding involving one process triggers broad pronouncements and substantial changes in the environment – the equivalent of overhauling the transmission. For example:
I used to think I could do most everything best by myself. I was faster, smarter, more vested, and more familiar with the issue at hand. I knew exactly what needed to be done. Working with others just slowed me down. When I was a software engineer decades ago, there was no doubt this was true. I asked questions until I had the requirements nailed down in detail. I knew my code inside and out. I kept track of hundreds of details and test scenarios in my head and on scraps of paper. When I went it alone, I produced bug-free code. To the best of my knowledge, I never left a bug for the customer to find. When I became a manager, I continued to do “what got me there.” I asked questions and I learned. Then, just as I did with software, I thought things through with great care and wrote up the definitive solution or explanation that I knew would end all related problems and discussions. It didn’t work. And it took me quite a while to figure out why. The reason it didn’t work all boils down to one thing: You can’t control the behavior of others.
I’m sure you have employees who produce excellent results and whose behavior is exemplary. These are obvious keepers! You probably also have employees who produce excellent results but whose behavior is objectionable. They may destroy trust, create anxiety, and undermine other employees. They may require constant attention or damage control. Or they may whine incessantly. Whether these employees are toxic, more trouble than they are worth, or energy suckers, they are not keepers. So why are you keeping them? Everywhere I turn there seem to be executives and managers who suffer, and let their organizations suffer, because they won’t bite the bullet and terminate employees with bad behavior. Common excuses include: “But he is so good technically.” I doubt he is irreplaceable, and if he is, what would you do if he got hit by a bus tomorrow? It is time to start the replacement process. “He isn’t that bad all the time.” That’s not what you were thinking when you read the second paragraph of this article. That’s not what his co-workers would say if they felt they could speak honestly. Ask yourself how relieved people would be if he quit or was moved to another division tomorrow. Don’t delay. You owe it to your other employees to remove objectionable behavior. “I can’t fire him; he’s in a protected class.” No one has the right to make others miserable. If you can see and define the difference between good behavior and bad behavior, you don’t have to put up with the latter. When my clients make good behavior a job expectation and unload the trouble cases, they invariably breathe a sigh of relief and wonder why they waited so long.
Stacking firewood this weekend brought out a bit of the craftsmen in me. Stability was somewhat important, of course. We didn’t want it to topple over. Finishing was most important. Beauty and consistency were nowhere on the list. Nonetheless, I faced ample temptation to build a fabulous wood pile! It must be human nature – pride in workmanship, a little aesthetic compulsion, the intrinsic reward of learning how to do something better, finding a challenge to combat the tedium, … Who hasn’t done a better job than necessary on some task at some point? And who hasn’t been proud of delivering a better than expected result? Don’t we applaud excellence at every turn? Well, yes, until we decide it is eroding profits! Companies everywhere struggle with gold-plating tendencies – producing quality and features the exceed the requirements. Whether your employees are: