Go ahead, make yourself uncomfortable

“Make yourself uncomfortable” is a powerful rule when it comes to excellence and management. When you are in a decision mindset, you must fight the temptation to immediately look for resolution and agreement. Instead you should seek out areas of discomfort and possible conflict and follow that lead. If you are reviewing steps you have to take in getting something done, look to which one you have the most discomfort about and address it first. Now a quick word on what I mean by discomfort. I am not talking about a lack of confidence or certainty that comes from doing something we are not competent at – this is called trying something new and learning. That is a totally different discussion.

Being uncomfortable has to deal with finding conflict, having tough discussions and making hard decisions. And the rule is simple: when in doubt, seek discomfort out. The more you do this, the better you will be. It is that straightforward. That is the good news.

The bad news? Well… seeking uncomfortable situations is not always fun. In fact, it rarely is fun at the moment. But what you achieve by doing this is always better and always pushes you closer to excellence. And THAT is fun. I can tell you in my own life when I follow this rule of thumb, the results always get better. As I said above, it is not always easy, but it is always well worth it.

So take a moment, think and look around, and then go ahead – make yourself uncomfortable. It will not be the easiest thing you do all day, but it probably will be one of the best.

Run your day...

Or it will run you. There are two aspects to running your day that I wanted to touch on briefly. These are attitude and Planning.

Attitude is a very simple idea… a simple idea that is very hard to execute. When things go wrong or get out of control, we all get angry, frustrated, illogical and a whole host of other emotions. These emotions have the ability to completely trample us down if we let them.

“If we let them” is the key phrase. Getting out of control is something that we let happen to us. By definition it means that we have let things get out of our control. So when you feel these emotions coming on there are three things you need to do.

1) Be aware of it. Awareness of emotions is one of the great (and underrated) leadership skills. Learn to recognize when emotions are overwhelming your situation. If you do not spot this coming on, you will not be able to react until too late.

2) Remove yourself and breathe. Whatever is going on, call a timeout. If you can physically remove yourself than you should, if you cannot do that then figure out a way to slow down. Then take a second and take a deep, deep breath. Breathe in for six seconds, hold your breath for a count of two or so, and then breathe out for seven seconds. This is a trick athletes use to get their emotions in control during a game. It may sound hokey and new age-y, but try it the next time you are getting worked up and then you can make fun of it.

3) Small first step. Look around and see what is going on and then take the first, and smallest, positive step towards moving to a solution that you can find. Whether that is writing down possible solutions, listing out the possible causes or even writing down rewards you may enjoy once you have resolved the issue, it is key to take a positive step forward. A simple reminder that you are able to control your situation.

This last point reminds us of the second part of running your day. That is planning.

If you do not have a plan to your day, then – in short – you have no chance. You will get pulled around, and pushed around in every direction, every day. Take 5 minutes over the next few days, and think about how you approach your day.

Do you have a plan of attack? Can you describe a structure to your day? Do you know where you and your people are supposed to be and when?

The more concrete the answer to these questions, the more structure you have to your day. And the more structure you have to your day, the more you can be on top of, get done, and respond to.

We all think we have an approach to our day and time. And many times we do, but I urge you to take a moment and think about what structure and blueprint you bring to your day. When you build a house you have a blueprint and a plan. Our approach to running our days should be the same.

Take a moment and review the blueprint and plan you have for every day. Always good to review how you approach this vital task. Every day we wake up and face the challenge of getting the most out of those 24 hours.

Will you run that 24 hours or will it run you? With the right attitude and plan you know that the answer.

I also wanted to take a moment and wish everyone a wonderful Independence Day weekend. This is always a wonderful time to reflect on the blessings we have in our lives. We live in a country that allows us all to express our thoughts and intentions, not as silent hopes, but as audible and visible actions bound only by our ability to dream and willingness to act. The United States of America allows us the opportunity to act and take on the challenge of building a better life for ourselves and our families.

We should be grateful; grateful that we live in such a nation that allows each and every one of us to act and lead. We are blessed to live in a world that allows us an unfettered option to dream, and act upon that dream. This is an opportunity we should be appreciative of, and work to make it better now and for the generations that follow.

When I say jump...

“How High?”

We have all heard this at one time or another. It is usually associated with someone making it clear who is the boss.

But I have often thought of this quote in parallel to the following famous vaudeville joke:

Q. How’s your wife?

A. Compared to what?

Both of these well-know and overused clichés hit at the same central point. That in order to succeed and improve you must have a standard to compare your performance to.

That is why the correct response to the “boss” who says “jump!” is not bending our legs and powering up, but is instead an emphatic request for clarification on the standard I have to meet to be successful. The same point is made in the old joke. Obviously, this is not the only point either quote makes, but they both point out this vital point.

This vital aspect is the idea that improvement comes from setting a standard. It is the basis for improvement, much like discipline is the basis for morale as we discussed last week. Without a standard, improvement is a haphazard, wandering effort that is difficult to spot, harder to measure and impossible to maintain. With a standard improvement is easy to see, measure and maintain. Which is the world you would want to work in?

So when you look around, stop and ask “if I asked everyone to ‘Jump’ would they know how high”? Anywhere that the answer is not 100% locked down there is a great opportunity to set the stage for continued improvement.

A myth about discipline

I want to address a myth today. Lots of people talk about discipline and morale. If you talk with people or type the words into Google you will see a lot of references to the relationship between the two factors. And the generally accepted wisdom says that the relationship to discipline and morale looks something like:

So in short, the more discipline you have (or create) the less morale you must have in an organization. This comes from the negative connotation of discipline. Resulting largely to the association we have tied to discipline with punishment. I could make comments about this probably starts when we are children … but let’s not get into that. The point here is that people confuse discipline with punishment and have therefore turned it into a negative thing.

However, what discipline is in reality is setting of standards, and working with people to make sure we meet those standards. It is creating the expectations, and setting the conditions to make those expectations happen. It encompasses the entire range of things we do to coach and make our people better.

If we look at discipline we see that, in fact, all of the components of discipline are the key pieces to improving morale – which is the exact opposite of what we have been conditioned to believe! If we have true discipline the relationship looks like:

But we have to remember that discipline is more than just punishment. It is the system for setting, teaching and reinforcing our performance to those standards. But when we approach discipline correctly, contrary to the common myth, discipline CREATES MORALE. Look around your world and see where you think morale could be better. You will see that the discipline in that area is always less than you want.

Therefore the recipe for the solution is simple. Just add a real system of discipline and improved performance and morale will surely follow.

A window to the soul

They say that the “eyes are the window to the soul”. This popular cliché states a simple idea, that what you see in a person’s eyes is the truth.

When we work and lead people the results are a reflection of us. Period. Much like the eyes in the cliché above, the work we produce says who we really are. Our words do not matter when compared to what we produce through our work and leadership.

If we have sloppy work, that is what it says about us. If the work is dull and uninspired, that is a reflection of our leadership. Conversely when we are excited, our leadership and work is exciting. Our work is a reflection of us every day. I know we do not often put it in such stark terms but it is reality.

We spend a lot of time at work producing work and leading others in work. That effort reflects who we are. No matter what we are doing we reveal ourselves to the world. The work we do is a reflection of who we truly are as people.

We have a challenge to make a masterpiece of every day. Because each and every day’s efforts are a reflection of whom we are. When we forget this we are saying something about ourselves. But when we are mindful of this, what a message we can send!

Think about the work you want to produce. How you lead people. What you want it to say about you, about your values and about how you want the world to be. Keep that image in your mind. See what it feels like to understand the message you send with your work and leadership. Imagine what it feels like to you and those you work with. Know the message you are trying to send with your actions. Got that in your mind?

Now go do it.

Imagine the world you would live in every day if you did. The work we do is a reflection of who we are as people. What a wonderful challenge and choice to live up to every day.

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“The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything either as a blessing or a curse” – Carlos Castaneda

“Make each day your Masterpiece” – John Wooden

“What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

why? why? why? why? why? why? why?

Just to cover this from the start the answer is not “because”. The above is a reminder of one of the best critical thinking tools that we have. I have always called it the “7 whys”.

This method is a vital first step to problem solving. As we all have heard the first step to solving a problem is defining the problem. The next step is figuring out what is the underlying cause of that issue. Some people call this the “root cause”. What it is called does not matter, what matters is that this “root cause” has to be addressed with any solution to a problem.

Which brings us to the “7 whys”. After you have defined the problem you can then wheel out this powerful and simple technique. Ask yourself “why does this problem happen”? And take each answer and ask “why does that happen” six more times and you will have uncovered the root cause of the problem. This is a simple tool, but very powerful in identifying the true challenge you need to solve.

A simple example to show you how this works (this example was taken from isixsigma.com)

Problem Statement: You are on your way home from work and your car stops in the middle of the road.
1. Why did your car stop?
- Because it ran out of gas.
2. Why did it run out of gas?
- Because I didn't buy any gas on my way to work.
3. Why didn't you buy any gas this morning?
- Because I didn't have any money.
4. Why didn't you have any money?
- Because I lost it all last night in a poker game.
5. Why did you lose your money in last night's poker game?
- Because I'm not very good at "bluffing" when I don't have a good hand.

Note that you do not always need all “7 whys” but you get the point.

Next time you are looking at a problem use the “7 whys” to make sure you are addressing the core issue. Also note you can use the H and W questions (How, What, Where, Who, When and of course Why) in sequence to drive to the core of a discussion or issue. The essence of critical thinking is to get to the vital issues that matter and this tool is a smart, simple and effective way to begin.

So try to use the “7 whys” to look at the next problem you are wrestling with. It gives a great perspective on the problem, it’s cause and solution. The next time you are presented with a problem, remember that you should not start by trying to come up with a solution right away but instead try starting with asking “why?”.

a mistaken quality

Mistake happen, we know this is a given.

As we have discussed before there is a value in anticipating the fact that mistakes will happen. This allows us to think about how we will recover. And this is important to excellence in execution. But there is another part of mistakes that we need to observe that is vital to our improvement

And that is to look at the quality of our mistake. There will be mistakes and we will learn from them. We need to review not only if we missed the target, but by how much? In sports the professionals are not the ones who never make mistakes but those who make mistakes that they can recover from much easier. The measure of a great performer is not only the quality of their successes but the quality of the mistakes. Call it a margin of error, or in sports terms a “good miss”; but no matter what you call it the key idea is to really observe your mistakes and see if they are getting better. This is the measure of a champion and this kind of observation is a champion’s skill.

So next time you make a mistake (and odds are I will make one before you!) take the time to acknowledge

1) that it happened
2) why it happened
3) how far off target were we

So the next time we make a similar mistake (and yes that will happen too!) we will look over everything again and see how much we are improving. If we can see improvement even when we have erred than you know that real change is happening. When our margins of error decrease we know that we are improving quality at every level. It is a wonderful lesson and learning moment if we are tuned in to observe it.

No one is perfect and no mistake is a total loss. We must train ourselves to take the opportunity from every challenge and the success from every mistake.