Catching Negativity

Communication is central to our relationships and thus to our community.

How we speak to one another is the key to strong bonds and fundamentally to leadership.  Everyone has the power to be a leader and that leadership can lead people toward the good or toward the bad.  Rhetoric is the tool to take people there.

In Mark Wiskup’s The “It” Factor he argues that when we open our mouths our goal is “to make something new happen, to shake things up – in a big way, a small way, or a medium way.”  “All talking is about change.”

The big question is: Am I aware of the effect my speech will have?

Leaders need to be continuously aware of the impact of their words.  When you speak, speak with intentionality.  There is NO SUCH THING as a casual conversation.  Within the context of your organization, you are always the leader.  Sure it’s a pain to constantly inquire “what will this person take from this conversation?” but it is an important consideration.

People using their speech for negativity need to be sent out of the group, separated from the people they could influence.  It’s not enough to try to keep people away.  People will seek them out.  You must be quarantined away from all.  That is how contagious negativity can be.

Everyone should be thinking about what we say, to whom, and perhaps most importantly how we say it.  There are great resources out there to work on our communication, such as The IT Factor, How To Talk So Your Kids Will Listen series, Fierce Conversations, or to get a conversation started at work, try the youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4LNYH_5III&feature=related.

Don't Be A Slave to Focus Groups: Be the Decisor

This is the first of a series based upon the article The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.

Steve Jobs is one of the most intriguing and controversial leaders of our time.  His name comes up frequently in classes I teach – sometimes in reference to his almost prophetic ability to revolutionize industry and many times as an example of a tough boss.  To many, defining Jobs after his death is the critical argument.  To me, who is the real Steve Jobs is less interesting than the leadership lessons Isaacson gleaned from his interactions with Jobs.  We can all learn from these lessons and begin to apply them to our own work.  Over the next several months I hope to tackle all 14 in thinking about how they can apply to all leaders and especially non-profit work.

Don’t Be a Slave to Focus Groups

“Caring deeply about what customers want is much different from continually asking them what they want; it requires intuition and instinct about desires that have not yet formed.”

I am a huge proponent of research and data gathering.  Everything in an organization should be measured.  Yet data is a tool with which to make great decisions.  The human brain has an incredible capacity to sort and analyze data.  After taking in a myriad of data points, we can decide on a course of action. As the Heath brothers point out in Switch, it's the elephant, not the rider that decides on the direction.  It is not our rational side that is the decider, but rather the emotional side.   That’s where instinct and intuition come to play.

What does this mean for our organizations?  Many times we try to rule by committee.  Somehow we believe that in the service sector different rules apply.  No one should “be in charge”, but the decisions should reflect the “community view.”  This is a recipe for organizations that move at the pace of molasses and are constantly behind – not in an I’m not out in front of the pack way, but in a why are you still doing it that way way.  Most people cannot articulate the “desires they have not yet formed.”  And non-profit organizations are notoriously slow at change.  This is okay and has many benefits, but it means that knowing where you need to go has to be done EARLIER than other, more nimble organizations, not later.  Some leaders can see things coming – they feel the desires still unformed.  It is those visionary leaders we need to be listening to.  Let them take in the data points and tell us where they are headed.  It is similar to chess masters.  We could all plod along making isolated moves on a chess board.  Some of us can even think three steps ahead.  But Masters see the whole picture play out in front of them.  They instinctively know (after much data and practice) what will happen twenty moves from now.  Talented visionaries have that ability – to see farther into the future than the rest of us.

I am not minimizing committee involvement or the community representation in organizations – these are vital functions that make up all the data points from which to make decisions.  But at the end of the day, good decisions are made from a lonely place—that of the leader.

Dangers of Servant Leaders

I love the “aha” moment that happens in class when leaders are introduced to the Servant Leader.  In Robert Greenspan’s seminal book, Servant Leadership, he defines a leader as someone who “leads from behind,” who puts others in front and is the caring and nurturing presence from behind that always has the organization as her first priority.  Somehow it touches the truth of what it means to lead, and you can see participants soaking it in and integrating the concept into their experiences.  It is powerful.  But it also comes with a danger warning.

Leading from behind can cause you to fall too far back --  to lollygag, rather than to lead.

In today’s New York Times, Paul Wolfowitz takes Hillary Clinton and the administration to task for ‘leading from behind’ in the Middle East.  Mr. Wolfowitz, former deputy secretary of defense, maintains that the state department has let others set the agenda and provide the means, taking a role of supporter, rather than provider. 

Biblical leaders are almost all shepherds.  Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David – they were all shepherds while, or in David’s case – before, they were leaders of a nation.  Even Moses, who should have had every qualification with his training as a Prince of Egypt, had to spend time as a shepherd before taking on the mantle of leadership.  What is so vital about a shepherd’s training?  Shepherds must lead their sheep from behind.  Sheep never follow the one in front.  So we learn that leaders are gatherers and caretakers, looking out for the stray, and keeping the group moving with gentle prods.

What we need to remember is that even when you are “leading from behind” – you have to be leading!

You are still a servant leader.  Sometimes the temptation is great to rest from leading.  We are tired from the risks that come with it.  Or we just want to focus on what’s in front of us, not have to project consequences down the line.

That’s when we can start to lollygag.

As Wolfowitz puts it “Policy makers should never underestimate the risks of action in the face of any conflict, but neither should they underestimate the risks of inaction.”  Absence of leadership can be dangerous. 

We not only want to, but must respond to people’s needs. 

And we need to respond from a place if leadership – hear the needs, feel the needs and meet them – take action to provide for the needs.  That’s the shepherd.  He doesn’t wait for the sheep to find water.  She doesn’t assume someone else will send the stray sheep back.  The shepherd might be in the back, but there is no question who is the one with the staff.

Confronting Ourselves

Every year Jews are given an opportunity.  A gift.  A day and half to truly confront ourselves.  For the rest of the year we can stay distracted by day to day busy-ness and hide from ourselves.  

Yom Kippur comes to allow us the opportunity to get real. 

We are to have honest conversations with ourselves about where we are and where we want to be.  And we’re scared to do it.

Most of us want to sit back, complain about our hunger, and let the chazzan do the heavy lifting.  We chant when appropriate and say the requisite “Amens”.  We feel very accomplished for having stayed quiet for so long.

But quiet is the opposite of where we should be.  If we are to truly to understand ourselves, we must confront ourselves in conversation.  The prayers of Yom Kippur outline a litany of sins, but this is just the beginning of the dialogue.  No one knows us better than us – except some might argue God, but to most, God’s not talking.  So have an actual conversation with yourself.  There is a strong cognitive difference between a thinking conversation and a spoken one.  Don’t look askance – I know most of you practice difficult dialogues before you try them on others – that is you in dialogue with yourself.  Put that energy to use for yourself.  Susan Scott, in her seminal book, Fierce Conversations, makes the point stronger.

 “All conversations are with myself – and sometimes they involve other people.”

Here are some steps to guide you through honest conversations with yourself from Scott’s book:

1.      What is the most important thing that I should be talking about

2.      Describe the issue

3.      How is this impacting you?  Who else is it impacting?

4.      If nothing changes what are the implications?

5.      What is the ideal outcome? When I resolve this what difference will it make?

6.      What is the most potent step I can take to begin to resolve this issue?

7.      What am I committed to doing and when?

Use the liturgy of Yom Kippur to help guide you if you are searching for language to identify your issue.  Sometimes you can find answers in the most unexpected phrases.

Just don’t let this opportunity pass you by.

Leadership Lesson: Start with confronting yourself.  Your success will give you strength and courage to confront others in the same meaningful and honest way.

Competition

What is it about competition?  You can take people who up until this point have had no interest in a subject or discipline and challenge them within a competitive environment and they soon care for nothing more than winning the competition.  In the last few days I have seen this happen to Hollywood stars, sports giants and Hillel directors alike (an interesting cross sample – right?)

On Dancing with the Stars this week, recording artist Brandy said that there is nothing more important in her whole life right now than winning the dance competition.  Asked how being an athlete affects his attitude, NFL quarterback Kurt Warner said his need to win puts his workout and practice schedule into overdrive.

At a meeting at the University of Maryland Hillel, Ari Israel, the Executive Director, explained the record number of students attending this year’s GA as the result of a competition between the largest Hillel’s Directors.  This competition was a result of Jerry Silverman’s (CEO of Jewish Federations of North America) challenge to have the college students represented.

While the competition among Hillels benefitted a greater cause – Jewish community involvement – the ferocity of the competitors on Dancing with the Stars serves as just as powerful a message.

If stars, who – let’s face it – have better things to do than humiliate themselves trying to learn a discipline they are unfamiliar with, and are probably motivated by the payday – get so consumed by the competition that they personalize it – imagine how you could channel that drive for good.

Leaders use everything at their disposal to inspire people to better the world.  Too many times we shy away from competition in our arenas thinking about the excluded and the losers.  But, perhaps we need to focus on the energy created, the level that can be accomplished, the creativity that starts to generate by mining our human competitive spirit.  There might not be a better way.  Are we really ready to sacrifice all that?

Leadership Lesson:  Competition if used wisely can fuel creativity, energy and accomplishment.  Think about how you can inject some healthy competition into your organization.

Anthems

Our human tendency is to pounce on other people’s mistakes.  So when someone makes a mistake on live television on the most watched TV event of the year, it tends to make a lot noise.  Sure it’s embarrassing for Christina Aguilera that she flubbed the words to our national anthem.  But we all make mistakes.  And singing a capella in that situation is bound to be intense.  We could chalk it up as a human condition.  Or we could take it as a symbol of something greater at work.

Ms. Aguilera’s mistake is a bellwether for our national condition.

An anthem is a song of celebration, usually acting as a symbol for a distinct group of people.  Our national anthem is the mission statement of our country. Yes, it is chronicling a specific event in time, but it is also a metaphor for the lengths we will go to ensure people’s freedom.  Every American should be so well versed in the mission that the anthem trips off the tongue – even when you’re nervous.  It should be a matter of “muscle memory” something you have done so many times that you don’t think it through anymore, it just happens.  Clearly this was not the case with Ms. Aguilera. 

It is leadership who needs to take notice.

This incident reminds me of all the YouTube videos my kids howl at where the basic premise is that the people being interviewed have so little knowledge of important facts that it’s funny.  My favorite is “Ending Women’s Suffrage” (click here).  Or the popular “Jaywalking” segments on the Tonight Show (click here).  We laugh, when in reality it is a telling measure of the national condition.

We wonder about the state of our country.  What does it say about us if people aren’t even rooted in the basics of what we stand for? 

 Mission statements are critical. 

Missions need to be something every member of our “group” can recite in their sleep.  How can we not know the words to our anthem of freedom?  How can we not understand the right to vote? 

 Education is not about learning antiquated facts from yesteryear.  It is about understanding how those facts affect our lives today.  The War of 1812 is long over.  Our defense of freedom is never over, no matter how many holes might be shot through our flag.

 Each of us should have our own mission as well. 

 Personal missions should be as clear to us as organizational missions and should guide our decision-making.

Leadership Lesson: Focus on mission.  Your organization’s mission should easily trip off the tongue of every member.  Let people see it everywhere (singing it might not be practical). Put it on the top of your agendas, hang it as a banner, make it your email tag.  There should never be an excuse for someone to flub the mission. Even if it’s not in front of millions of people, it could be in front of the most important people.