Drive vs. Driven

The other day someone asked me a question about management. I drew them a picture similar to the one above. As leaders we often think of ourselves as the main gear that does much of the work. In mechanical terms that larger gear (the one to the right) is called the “driven gear” and it does in fact directly generate the force that gets the mechanical work done. The smaller gear to the left is called the “drive gear” and it is that gear that allows the larger gear to work. Its placement and size dictate the effort and output of the larger “driven gear”. And of course the “drive gear” represents what management is all about.

When you look at your work over the next few days make sure you are asking yourself this, “is this something I should be directly doing, or making sure that it happens through my team?”. I would even suggest take one thing that you regularly do yourself, and see what happens if you put that work out to your team to do as opposed to yourself. It is a good exercise of delegation and follow-up; and key to the idea of helping work happen as opposed to doing the work. Often we talk about management as the practice of “almost doing the work” and this is a great exercise to practice that idea. So take one task that you handle directly and see if you can move it from the "doing the work” column to the “almost doing the work” column this week.

Our feedback and behavior dictates the effort and output of our team much like the “drive gear” does to the “driven gear”. The larger gear has the strength to get the work done, but it needs the direction and structure of the smaller gear to make it happen. The more you can be the “drive gear” the better your management and your team will be.

Micro-Managing

This week I just wanted to share a point that has come up in discussion a couple of times this week. People have used the phrase “I do not want to be a micro-manager”.

No one who is fully engaged and giving it their all at a job has ever complained about being “micro-managed”. Think back to your life (whether you were managing or being managed) and remember when people (including ourselves) have used the phrase. It almost never (if ever) refers to a manager who is telling an individual which hand they should hold the screw driver in or how to hold a pencil. It almost always involves someone coming back and checking on work assigned.

The person who gets antsy about this is not the person who is doing great and knocking it out of the park. The people who use this line (and I have been one in the past) are people who know they are not where they need to be and do not want to be caught in that situation. I know that is where I have always been when I griped about being “micro-managed”. When I am on top of my work and doing great stuff it never matters who comes by to check me out, the attitude is always “come on! Let me show you where we are!”. Same manager, same follow up, but a different performer has a completely different response. We should remember that as we lead our team.

Following up on work assigned regularly is not “micro-managing”, checking someone’s progress in the middle of a project or task is not “micro-managing”, in fact most things we call (or have been called out for) “micro-managing” is not “micro-managing”. Simply put, most actions people call “micro-managing” have a much more common name… managing.

Something to think about the next time we hear or think about that phrase.

Could be habit forming…

These words can often be found on some form of prescription medication. But it is also part of the prescription for our own path to excellence. Habits are often thought of as annoying or a problem but there is another side to habits. There is a hidden power in them. And that power is in their automatic nature. Imagine if we were to take a moment and intentionally build a habit (Of course it has to be something that you can do, which is to say we cannot build a habit out of the weather)

But you should ask yourself “What is the one thing that if I did it every day without fail, would have the biggest impact on my day to day performance?”
Now imagine if you didn’t even have to think about it and it just happened every day? That is the power of habit. We build habits every day – what I want us to consider is what happens if we do it with intention.

Think about the ”what is the one thing…” question above and come up with an answer.

Got it? Good.

Now ask yourself what is the first thing I need to do towards building this skill? The key here is it will be small. Whether it is listening for a phrase, looking for something (specific) or communicating specific items, the key is small, specific, actionable and repeatable.

As soon as you are done reading this email go out and do that action. And each time you enter a new “area” (room, building, section) do it again. Do it until you notice that you are doing that first step without thinking about it. This will take a few days.

Once you have the first step down what then? Look back at the “what is the one thing…” answer again and decide the second step you want to build. Follow that same process again and again until you have built that “one thing” into an automatic habit!

This is a small, easy and impactful way to make changes. It is powerful and can make a huge difference in your life. Imagine what you can do.
Warning, this could be habit forming.

the power of intentional observation

We all talk about managing and leading a lot. Time and time again we talked about the need to observe what is going on being a vital piece of being able to manage and lead.

But I would guess like most people we have not thought much about observing. We go around and we look and see what we see and that is observing …right? Of course it isn’t but it is what we all do most of the time.

But imagine if we went out specifically looking for one thing, one behavior and keyed in on that for 15 minutes. Imagine the feedback and coaching you could give your people with that kind of focus. With those observations you have data to make a change and an improvement. Without you are (pun intended) flying blind.

Observation is a critical component of leading people but it is a skill we do not think about, practice much or try to hone. Take a few moments and practice. Go out and look for triangles. Walk into a room and take 5 minutes and then try to write down everything you remember. Listen for a specific word in a conversation. Look for a specific behavior and see how many times it comes up in 10 minutes.

All of these tools can help us practice become more intentional (and therefore better) observers. And if we can improve our skills at observation, we can get better results from ourselves and our teams. In short, focusing on your observations skills will just make you better. So think about how you want to practice observation, what you would like to track on, and then it is time to get ready, take aim and focus. Happy hunting.

Moments of truth

When we think of a moment of truth we instinctively think of a pivotal moment. An event that makes a huge impact in our lives. We turn over the moment in our head, replay it in our minds, we analyze what happened and ask what might I have done differently?

But I believe that most big moments of truth have a build up to them. There is a pattern of small moments. These smaller moments set up the “big” moment of truth that became so impactful. And when we look at these moments the best thing is it possible to understand how we can improve on them. Especially when compared to the bigger moments.

When we look at our day there are repeatable key moments that we can focus on and make a difference. Of course we do not always look at what the repeatable, smaller moments of truth that we can focus on and impact.

You may see it as the first time you say hello to a team member, or first customers in the door, or any other of 1,000 possible moments of truth. And the more we take care that these are done well the more likely that the bigger breaks go our way also. The little stuff takes care of the big stuff.

So ask yourself about your moments of truth that you face every day. Have you thought about how you should ideally respond each day? Have you thought of the way you would like it to happen? Do you practice it? Do you notice it each day to try and improve over time so that it gets closer to your ideal? And if these are the building blocks of our bigger moments than isn’t the obvious question…shouldn’t we all answer these questions with a yes every day?

The enemy of great?

Most people answer fear of failure. But if you think about fear of failure is the enemy of starting something. Which of course would prevent greatness so that has real truth in it.

But the real enemy of greatness only rears its head once you have started. And that enemy is called “good enough”.

We often stop trying to improve something once we get “good enough” at something. And on some tasks that is fine. But if it is important to your goals, then “good enough” can be a killer. On the things that are important we should look as “good enough” as a milepost on the road that ends at “great” and we should not accept anything less.

We all have a lot to do and the allure of stopping at “good enough” is tempting. Because it is, by definition, good enough. And it is much harder to get from “good enough” to “great” then “just started” to “good enough
Greatness is not an easy trip, but it is an amazing one that we can make together as a team. It takes the willingness to call out this enemy directly by name and recognize that being good can often be limiting factor instead of a leaping point to greatness.

So we must force ourselves to honestly look at our major goals and force ourselves to commit to defeat the enemy that is “good enough”. Refuse to accept it as a destination and commit to watch “good enough” turn into a blur as we pass it on the path “great”. Tough? Yes. Challenging? Yes. Worth it? I think you know the answer.

Greatness… that is where we are going.

Let’s get moving.




Note: Credit to Michael Alloso's great seminar "You on your best day" that posed this insightful question

fault vs. responsible

So here is the situation. Something has gone wrong, and we go looking to see what happened. We search a little and find out what happened. Someone messed up and it was not us. So there are two questions that we should ask ourselves.

1) Who is at fault?
2) Who is responsible?

The first one is easy whoever messed up is at fault. And there should be coaching and correction and possibly even punishment. But the second question is more tricky. Certainly the person who messed up is responsible right? And they are – but they are not the only ones. As managers and leaders we are equally responsible for the situation. A leader is responsible for everything that happens in their world.

We can point the blame to whoever earned it, but the responsibility of the mistake and making it better falls squarely on the shoulders of the leader. End of story. No way out.

That is the challenge and opportunity of the leader. It may be instinct to look elsewhere when something goes wrong and say that it is not your fault. And it may not be … but if you are the leader that does not matter. The problem is yours to fix (the challenge) and the solution is yours to own (the opportunity). And then after we fix the problem we have to always ask ourselves “What did we do to let this happen? What can I as a leader make sure to do so this never happens again?”

The famous cliché on leadership goes “When something goes right the great leader looks out the window to his people; when something goes wrong he looks into the mirror” . As a leader we may not be to blame directly but we are responsible completely. When something goes wrong we can accept this reality and create some great opportunities for growth and improvement or we can hide. And this is how you should want it. So we have this to face almost every day because things go wrong. Next time it does make sure that you look in the mirror and take the responsibility and the opportunity. It is what leaders do.