How to make your meetings more productive and fulfilling – part two

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In my last blog, I stated that one of the most common complaints I hear in organizations is “We have too many meetings.”

To coordinate and drive a complex team and business you do need enough points of contacts to make sure plans are clear and people are on the same page. Getting all the stakeholders in one room at one time is often the most effective way to do that.

Unfortunately, even though people have the right intent at heart because they don’t know how to run effective conversations people too often leave these meetings feeling that they didn’t produce enough value and progress, and therefore they were a waste of their time. And this, of course only adds to the overall frustration and mindset of “Too many meetings.”

In my previous blog, I outlined a few practical tips for making your meeting more productive and fulfilling. Here are a few additional tips:

Don’t compromise on the quality and integrity of the dialogue:

Yes, spend as little time as is needed to achieve the outcomes. However, do it without compromising on the quality and integrity of the dialogue.

If an important topic takes more time than allocated, do not shortcut the discussion and move on without having achieved its outcome. Manage the agenda based on achieving the outcomes, not time allocations.

Sometimes topics are large and complex and you may need more information or time to align on the decision, beyond the time you have during the current meeting. That’s fine, as long as you are sure you make a clear decision and commitment about by when you will make the decision. Don’t leave anything open or vague. Committing to commit is a powerful move.

It’s also legitimate to say “We are not going to make any decision or commitment on this topic at this point.” Committing to not commit is a clear commitment. Just make sure everyone understands and owns the consequence of that commitment.

As stated above, some topics require more debate. Don’t lose patience or react or take shortcuts to alignment. It will come back to haunt you in the future.

Don’t tolerate any cynicism or sarcasm. It undermines the debate. When people passionately debate topics they often say things like “That’s just semantics“, but then they continue to fight for their point of view with vengeance. Everything is semantics. We live in semantics. How we articulate and say things – especially decisions and commitments – is critical to our future direction and team strength.

Remember, another few minutes today could save you many hours and a lot of heartache in the future. Therefore, go all the way to reach genuine alignment.

Insist that people only talk if they are going to forward the action.

If you want your team members to speak and engage in effective conversation that achieves 100% alignment especially around complex issues or decisions, get your people to follow this rule: “Always forward the action when you speak”.

This means that you should encourage people to express their views. However, when they are done ask them to end with “Therefore I propose…” and propose something.

You want people to be focused on achieving the outcomes you set rather than opinions for the sake of opinion, which is what happens in most meetings, most of the time.  When there are uncertain, uncomfortable or tough choices and decisions to make, people tend to opt out to merely highlight the dilemma rather than take a stand, which is what powerful leaders do. Too many people get away every day by talking a lot without saying much.

Your meetings would be much more effective if the people who don’t have something to say that will forward the action – don’t say anything at all!

How much honesty can you stomach?

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If you ask the senior leaders of any organization how things are going in their organization, they would probably give you an upbeat, positive, optimistic description. If you then ask the shop-floor employees, the same question you would probably hear a different story.

From many years of experience, I can attest that there is often a dissonance between how senior leaders view their organizational and business reality and how employees do. While senior leaders often paint a rosier picture and claim that things are going well, even if there are issues, their people often highlight all the issues and describe things as not going that well.

In addition, employees often express frustrations about their senior leaders. They often say things like:

“We can’t be honest with our managers about the burning issues because they only want to hear good news. As a result, they don’t understand the full extent of the problem and we can’t address and change things…”

If you want to fix or change things or take any aspect of your business to a higher level, you have to start with honesty. You have to make sure employees and managers at all levels feel comfortable and safe to bring up the issues and problems, no matter how ugly or uncomfortable they may be.

Leaders who can stand in front of their superiors, peers, and people and acknowledge: “This isn’t working!” without discounting or sugar-coating the issues have a much greater chance to turn things around and generate breakthroughs.

Unfortunately, so many leaders seem insecure in this area. They seem to be so concerned about how exposing issues would reflect on their personal brand, that their self-preservation concerns hinder their ability to acknowledge and address the issues heads on.

So many leaders come across as politically correct and covering their behinds when talking about the issues. They can’t seem to be able to say: “This is not working. We need to fix it!” Instead, they say things like: “Things are going well, but we have an opportunity to improve…”

Their vague and watered-down pronouncement prevents them from fully owning and addressing their issues. It also weakens their ability to generate urgency to fix what isn’t working. In addition, their lack of blunt honesty hurts their credibility with their people, who usually know exactly how severe the issues are.

Just reflect on any corporate scandal or breakdown that has been in the news in the last few years and you’ll see a similar pattern – customers experience a big issue – be it environmental, safety or quality issues.

Once the issues are publicly exposed – often in the media, the PR department goes full-throttle into damage control. The CEO makes a public apology and the clean-up begins, including things like a stop in manufacturing and/or a product recall.

However, the question that never gets addressed is – Why did the breakdown happen in the first place?

From many years of working with organizations, I can tell you with confidence that employees and supervisors on the shop floor always know about quality and safety problems long before top managers become aware of them.

In a company where leaders are unafraid to hear the truth, employees tend to follow suit and be courageous and vocal too. This environment is much more conducive for everyone at all levels making it their daily business to make sure things are working the way they need to. In those organizations, important information, no matter how sensitive, controversial or troubling, percolates up to the right places very fast.

However, in organizations where leaders are reluctant to hear the truth, people tend to hide and cover their behind. Finger-pointing blossoms, people do as they are told but they are unwilling to be the bearers of bad news. When you don’t have honesty, leaders remain oblivious and blind to the issues and as a result, they don’t own, confront and address them effectively.

You need courage to look in the mirror, face reality and own the uncomfortable and challenging situations. When you do it, you move from being smaller than your problems to being bigger than them. When this shift happens, you always feel more empowered and eager to take action and turn things around.

Honesty is the mandatory first step for taking the game to the next level in any area. And, as the saying goes, “The truth shall set you free.” Even if at first it will “piss you off.”

How’s your team health? Time for a checkup?

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The CEO, of a global service company I worked with, focused only on the bottom line of the business and didn’t put a lot of focus on the ‘softer’ side of the business, including building his own leadership team.

However, when he identified that his team was not working effectively together and he felt that this was now negatively impacting the company’s performance, he decided to invest the time to train his leaders to operate as a high-performance team.

When he started this training with his leadership team their trust was low, leaders were engaged in back-channel chatter and avoiding addressing the business issues, as well as their own inner-personal issues and conflicts, in an open, honest, authentic, courageous and effective manner.

After a couple of team-building sessions, things started to improve. The team started to communicate in a more open and candid way, and everyone acknowledged that the atmosphere was better, people were happier and things were moving better at the business.

The CEO was pleased with the progress and as a result, he stopped all future team-building meetings to make sure his leaders spent the maximum time on business-focused activities.

It didn’t take long before things started to go downhill again, and not for any ill will. Without continuing to focus on team effectiveness, the intense day-to-day grind, busyness, and stress pulled people down again. Everyone was less open, compassionate, generous and collaborative. Finger-pointing and the negative back-channel conversation sprung up again. Teams started to work more in silos with less sharing and transparency, and instead of addressing conflicts head-on the leaders would go to the CEO to complain about their colleagues. Needless to say, the dysfunctional dynamic was hurting the business again.

After a month or so the CEO couldn’t tolerate the nonsense any longer, so he gathered his team, again, for a few team building sessions. This vicious cycle went on a few times. Unfortunately, I see this happen in other companies too.

Driving the business and building the team are two distinct paths and activities with two different sets of challenges and opportunities.

You are not going to develop your team as a high-performance team by merely working on the business at hand. Every high-performance of a championship team knows that.

There are multiple articles on the internet about what you can learn from sports championship teams about being a strong team and making your business greater. I found two great ones – one about the Golden State Warriors and one about recently crowned NBA champions, the Toronto Raptors. These articles are about team leadership, attitude, communication, boldness, not the technical basketball abilities of the players.

Unfortunately, I still meet too many senior executives who don’t seem to get this. They are either old school, or they are closed-minded or they suffer from a low dose of Emotional Intelligence (EQ).

These leaders tend to only spend time on developing their team when they feel they need to fix their team because they have a problem in team effectiveness. The minute they feel they have fixed the problem or at least pulled it out of danger they go back to their old ways of ignoring the importance of team health.

So, if you want your team to be a high-performance team:

Work on building the team distinctly, in addition, and in parallel to driving the business.

Stop stating the obvious and start stating your stand!

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I was attending a senior Executive team meeting where the topic of the discussion was consolidating the roles and responsibilities of a few key functions in the company in order to drive greater scale, efficiency and cost reduction.

The company was commercially successful. However, it was struggling to keep its historical leading market position in the growing competitive landscape, given its high-cost structure.

There were layoffs a few months earlier and the leader’s projection showed that if they didn’t come up with more efficient and wise ways to do more with less, they would have to do it again.

Needless to say, the stakes were high as the company had to shed some overhead cost and come up with new and more modern and innovative ways of doing what they had done in the same way for many years.

Because of the strategic importance of this decision and the fact that it would affect everyone the CEO wanted his senior leaders to fully align on, and own the way forward, in order to avoid problems in the execution of this drastic change.

The discussion was challenging and awkward. Even though most leaders had clear thoughts and biases about how they wanted the new organizational structure to look, everyone was holding back and conveying their thoughts in a diplomatic and cautious way.

There was a lot of:

“Well, the problem is that each of us has strong exposure and contact with our key customers…” or,

“The problem is that we all do this today, and we all are good at this…” or,

“We need to figure out a way to take the good things from the existing structure without the bad things…”  etc.

People kept highlighting the challenges and dilemmas instead of clearly stating their thoughts about how they believed the new structure should look.

The conversations dragged on for hours. It was ineffective and, to be frank, it was painfully exhausting.

Unfortunately, I see this conversational dynamic in key business conversations and meetings all the time – people state the obvious instead of taking a stand about the way forward.

There are no right or wrong answers and solutions to any business challenges, only possibilities/opportunities, and choices. Things change so quickly these days. There are so many examples of events we were certain would happen that ended up not happening and things we never imagined or anticipated that did happen.

The role of any leadership team is to make – sometimes hard – choices and then be responsible for carrying them out. That is what taking a stand is about.

Real leadership requires courage to take a stand.

Most of the time, leaders have good ideas and thoughts about how to drive the change they want. They simply are afraid that if they clearly state their stand about critical and sensitive topics that impact other people around them their boldness may come back to bite them. The key fears seem to include:

  1. Their idea may not get selected,
  2. Their ideas may get selected and then fail,
  3. They may be viewed as ‘forceful’, ‘self-serving’, ‘political’ or having a personal agenda.
  4. They may be viewed as picking sides or favoring other leaders.

The phrase ‘Career limiting move’ comes to mind…

But, if you want things to move faster, your meetings to be briefer and more productive and your experience of day-to-day business interaction to be much more powerful and satisfying, then be more courageous, clear and assertive about the future you want and stand for.

Just don’t get too attached to your answer, especially if you are part of a team. Someone else’s ideas may be a better fit for what the team needs. Be open to that.

Promote a dialogue where people spend less time on pointing out the problems and dilemmas (which got you into this dialogue in the first place) and spend more time on discussing, taking a stand and making courageous leadership choices regarding solutions and directions that will enable you to create and fulfill your desired future.

Don’t let past failures stifle your future success

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It is a well-known fact that most change initiatives outright fail. Most initiatives start with high expectations and hope for a better future, but because of a lack of follow through and staying the course, they end up producing the opposite effect; managers and employees at all levels who are even more skeptical and cynical about any future prospect of change, including their inability to make a difference in shaping a better future.

This is the starting condition of most change initiatives. I see it in most companies.

Take for example the regional senior leadership team of a large global manufacturing company that was operating in a very competitive and commoditized market in which their fixed costs were growing faster than their top line growth.

They had to figure out how to do things differently and work smarter in order to accelerate their revenues while reducing their expenses. This meant a significant transformation in their operating model and mindset about their business.

This company was very successful, and its leadership team members were very seasoned, experienced and smart executives who had been in their jobs for many years. They knew what they had to do. In fact, they had many great ideas about how they could do things differently.

However, because they had seen so many change initiatives come and go without delivering on their promise and hope, it was extremely hard for them to get excited about the new change. They simply couldn’t help but feel extremely skeptical about the likelihood of success.

If you want your change effort to succeed, you have to first free yourself from that notion that if you have failed in the past you are doomed to fail in the future.

You can do that by understanding and taking ownership of why your past change initiatives didn’t work. In most cases, it is because leaders didn’t follow through and stay the course.

You can’t change the past, but you can learn from your past successes, failures, and mistakes. You must be clear about your future aspirations and commitment so that you can be guided by them, and not by past events.

Secondly, you need to manage the mechanical and process aspect of your change. This means, aligning on clear, bold and measurable objectives that define the end-game or what success looks like, breaking them down to mid-course (six-months or annual) milestones and then scheduling a cadence of frequent follow-up meetings to track, inspect and drive your commitment.

You must make this routine the highest priority, keep each follow-up and review meeting religiously, and not delay or cancel these meetings, no matter what.

If you Google “How long does it take to form a new habit or change a habit?” you will get a variety of answers. Most popular seems to be 21 Days.

However, when it comes to forming new practices, rituals and disciplines within a team or organization, it takes much longer.

From my experience as a practitioner – depending of course on the size and complexity of the organization – it takes around a year of staying the course and keeping to your cadence of follow up meetings to integrate your change initiative into your team’s DNA. And, this is considered to be fast.

Last, but not least, you need to drive a mindset of what I call Unconditional Ownership. This means promoting an attitude of “let’s prove that this change will work“, rather than the common default resigned attitude that exists in most teams: “let’s see if the change will work”

The mental attitude is the most important component. In the case of the leadership team described above, they were very good at the discipline of setting goals and metrics, execution and managing process. However, because they carried so much baggage of skepticism and cynicism from the past, it hindered their ability to think outside the box and believe in their power and ability to drive the change they wanted.

You always have a past and a future. The most powerful relationship you could have to them is to be your future and have your past. Or as Mahatma Gandhi put it: “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”

 

Are you tolerating toxicity and unproductivity?

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In order for a leadership team of any company to truly operate at a high-performance level, the leaders need to have the courage to look at themselves in the mirror, face reality and take stock of what is working and what is not working in their own team dynamic.

The ‘working’ part is easier than the ‘not working’ for obvious reasons. There are always challenges, tensions, and issues between teams and between leaders. At times, teams feel frustrated by the fact that other teams are not listening or providing the support they need. Some leaders feel their counterparts are complacent, arrogant or simply incompetent and not adding value.

A few recent examples I have encountered include:

  1. The Head of Sales feeling a lack of support from Marketing. He felt Marketing was not listening to Sales’ needs, they put on events that are not effective and overall not adding value.
  2. The Head of Manufacturing complaining that Sales keeps selling features that do not exist or promising delivery deadlines that the factory did not agree to and cannot keep.
  3. The Head of Sales being frustration about his Head of Services counterpart not being responsive and supportive because he is too focused on selling new services rather than supporting existing ones.
  4. The Head of an overlay function complaining about the lack of inclusion, collaboration, partnership and mere respect and appreciation of Sales.

I could go on and on, there are so many examples.

Leaders tend to take the critical conversations about their team, personally, so even when everyone knows that something is not working, in most cases leaders avoid addressing the issues in order to avoid the unpleasantness of conflict. When issues are addressed, they are often discussed in a wishy-washy, politically-correct, diplomatic and/or polite way.

If leaders want to elevate their trust and partnership, they have to find a way to engage in an honest and brave conversation to air the grievances, complaints, and frustrations they and their team members have about other teams and managers.

Obviously, it has to be done respectfully and productively. It also has to be done in an honest and direct way. Beating around the bush simply doesn’t resolve anything.

I recently had the opportunity to help a senior leader of a technology company in doing exactly that.

Each leader wrote the key frustrations/complaints that his/her function had about the other teams they interacted with most and depended on most. Then each leader, in turn, communicated what they wrote, and others tried to listen openly without reacting.

By the time everyone had a chance to give and get feedback the space of the room had changed. People seem to be more reflective and less defensive.

No one seemed to be surprised by what others said about them.

Everyone acknowledged that many of the issues and frustrations had been around for a long time.

In addition, everyone acknowledged that these dynamics were stifling teamwork, productivity, and performance.

So, I asked them:

“If everyone knows these negative dynamics are going on and hurting the team, why have you tolerated them for so long?”

A couple of leaders took offense and claimed that they tried to change things but didn’t succeed. However, when we examined their claim a bit deeper, they admitted that they made a few light attempts in the right direction, but without strong enough courage, conviction or persistence.

Why do leaders tolerate any level of toxicity around them?

There was a good dialogue in which leaders acknowledged that they had avoided these tough conversations because – in simple terms – these conversations are hard, messy, scary and risky.

You may think that this specific senior team is particularly wimpy or weak. Trust me, that is not the case. On the contrary, this team has accomplished great things. However, like so many other effective teams, when it comes to addressing the challenging conversations, they shy away from the heat.

After acknowledging their shortfalls, the leaders also acknowledged the negative consequences of their environment – the stress, discouragement, lack of collaboration, lack of fun at work and reduced quality and productivity.

I have a client who when describing his job, he refers to it as “his 8-hour inconvenience.” Can you imagine going to work in that space?

It doesn’t have to be this way. If you focus on the negative consequence associated with not addressing the tough conversation, you may be able to muster the courage to take a stand and say: “Enough Already!”, “No more!”. From that declaration, you can start doing things differently.

It takes courage, but it is extremely empowering!

 

Do you know when to ’empower’ and when to ‘command and control’?

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In most organizations, a leader who manages in a command and control style is frowned upon and branded as an uncaring tyrant who doesn’t listen to people and doesn’t empower them.

While, people’s negative reaction to a top-down command and control leadership style is understandable and most often legitimate, there are times in which a command and control approach is the most appropriate and effective. In fact, at times it is necessary.

Take as an example the new CEO of a large global financial service organization. When he took the helm of his organization, he soon realized that he inherited a bigger mess than he anticipated.

The financial performance of the company had been on a downward trend for the past three years. Customers were losing confidence. Investors were becoming skeptical, and all this was reflecting badly on the stock price.

The internal picture was not any prettier. The culture of this firm was siloed and political. Regional, Global and Headquarter functions were not communicating and collaborating in a cohesive and effective way. There were cliques with different agendas, no one wanted to make the tough or selfless decisions and there was no sense or practice of holding anyone to account. Needless to say, things were steadily deteriorating.

The lack of agility and accountability started at the top. Many of the senior executives were nearing retirement, they felt entitled and cared mostly about self-preservation. As a result, there was no sense of real ownership, accountability or urgency to fix things and turn the company around.

The new CEO didn’t waste much time. He fired a whole bunch of senior leaders and replaced them with leaders who were ambitious and eager to succeed.

He took away most of the authority from senior managers and he insisted on being involved in all key decisions. Any executive that wanted to drive a project or strategy had to pass it by the CEO first, and any departure from that policy was treated with harsh consequences. People learned very quickly that with this CEO they had better ask for permission because if they don’t, they won’t get forgiveness.

Needless to say, people were upset and there was a lot of complaining. This CEO was definitely a shock to the system. But he didn’t really care about how people felt. He continued to single-handedly govern, control and drive the decisions and activities of his large global organization.

In the first year, the decline in performance slowed. In the second year, the company broke even and in the third year, they made a small profit, which was a major accomplishment.

The external winds started to shift. Customers were more satisfied, investors felt more optimistic and the employees started to notice too. They weren’t happy, but there was less complaining and morale was a bit higher.

Command and control is a very targeted management/leadership strategy. When applied appropriately and effectively it can help you turn things around. However, when you have succeeded to turn things around, you need to adjust your strategy from command and control to empowerment; to rebuilding trust, cohesion, and open communication. If you fail to do that your command and control methods that helped you achieve success could easily and quickly destroy it.

In Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3, versus 1-8 there is a passage/poem that starts with:

“For everything there is a season and a time…”

Well, there is a time for empowerment and there is a time for command and control.

You just need to know when to empower and when to command and control and have the foresight and wisdom to know the difference.

Do you have an attitude of gratitude?

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My mother taught me to be polite and say “Please” and “Thank you” when interacting with others. I am sure yours did too.

However, there is a much greater potential power in acknowledging, recognizing, praising and thanking people than good manners.

Committed people who aspire for excellence tend to often be too self-critical and also too critical of others. We tend to focus on what isn’t working, what is wrong, broken, bad and negative more than on the good things.

The critical perspective is often legitimate – meaning, people and teams could do better – and if you are level headed about criticizing yourself in an authentic way without taking it personally, it could be empowering and motivating. It could make you want to strive to do better.

However, let’s be honest, most of us are not super great at being motivated by criticism. We tend to feel invalidated and as a result, we lower our sights and become more resigned and cynical about what is possible for us. And for those of us who are better at it, we also need some positive reinforcement from time to time.

Acknowledgment, recognition and praise highlight the greatness, affirmative and positive in people and teams.

Highlighting what is good and positive is so easy to do. It doesn’t cost a dime and it makes so much difference. However, most people suck at it.

Why?

Either because they are stingy or because they are lazy. Yes, you heard it right, stingy or lazy.

The stingy have a ‘zero-sum’ mindset. They believe that if they make other people’s brand greater it will inevitably make their brand lower. This comes from a cynical point of view that “There is only a limited amount of greatness, recognition, compliments, and praise to go around, so I want it all to myself…”

The lazy misunderstand the essence and magic of acknowledgment, recognition, praise, and gratitude altogether. They think it about it as conveying information or data. If you ask the lazy “Why don’t you recognize the person who did all these great things for you?”, they would say: “Well, I already told them how great they are last week. I don’t need to tell them again. They already know it.”

But acknowledgment, recognition, and praise are not at all about sharing information or data. It is about touching people’s hearts genuinely and profoundly.

When you acknowledge, recognize and/or praise someone sincerely, from your heart, it goes directly to their heart and soul. It makes them feel unique and special; it makes them feel seen and heard; it makes them feel valued and valuable; it uplifts their spirit and energizes and empowers them.

Highlighting the greatness in others requires courage and generosity.

The good news is that there is never a scarcity of what you can recognize others for. You can acknowledge them for their spirit and heart; for their effort, dedication and behaviors; for their achievements and results. You just need to get over your potential stinginess or laziness.

I recommend you take on a practice of acknowledging at least one person every day and see how people react and what magic it creates.

The only advice I would add is that when you recognize someone, talk to them not about them.

For example, if you want to recognize your co-worker Joe, in a team meeting, don’t look at the rest of the team and say: “I would like to recognize Joe for staying every night this week to help me complete project x…“. Instead, look at Joe and say: “Joe, I would like to recognize you for staying every night this week to help me complete project x…”.

If you start practicing and adding this muscle to your daily routine at first it will feel like a technique. However, the more you practice the more it will become a part of your DNA; Just the way you approach relationships and interactions.

Needless to say, recognizing and praising people doesn’t cost a dime, but it can provide priceless value and impact.  Try it and see for yourself.

 

Do you talk about your issues or not?

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When it comes to communication and conversation, especially about the more sensitive, touchy and uncomfortable topics there are two types of leaders: the “Let’s talk about it…” type and the “Let’s not talk about it and it will go away…”.

Let’s be frank, no one looks forward to, or enjoys discussing the tough topics such as “What is not working?”, “Who is not doing their job properly?” or “Who is accountable for the failure in results?“.

People especially don’t like to talk about these topics when they know or suspect that their people are frustrated with, or blaming their leadership, performance or behavior.

However, some leaders seem to be braver, more mature or more responsible about their role and duty to foster an environment of frank conversation.

But more importantly, not talking about it doesn’t solve the problem, it pushes the problem and people’s frustrations under the carpet, so they are not visible and apparent. But that doesn’t make any of this go away, in fact, it makes things worse because it forms an undercurrent of unspoken negative chatter that wastes energy and time that forms a sentiment of resignation and cynicism.

Let me share two true stories…

The CEO of a global service company was a powerful leader who knew exactly what he wanted and how he wanted things to be done. He commanded his organization and executive team with an iron fist and because he had such strong industry knowledge, he wanted to be involved in, and control pretty much everything.

He was convinced that his leadership style was very successful because the company was doing better in terms of performance. Therefore, he had little patience for varying or contradicting views, especially critical feedback about his decisions or leadership methods.

There were many significant organizational, operational and customer issues and problems in the company, but the senior executives were very reluctant to bring them up because every time they attempted to do so the CEO would play down the issues and shut down the conversation.

Under this CEO the company reached a plateau, which it never overcame. While the business results improved, the CEO was unable to transform the culture of his organization. The levels of cynicism, resignation, and fear to speak up deepened and the company continued to be very political and siloed.

In contrast to the first story, the CEO of a global telecommunication organization, in this second true story, was a very bold, passionate and inspirational leader. He believed in teamwork and communication and he promoted that environment throughout his senior executive team and his entire organization at every opportunity.

In fact, when he as much as suspected that teams were not discussing or addressing the real issues that were preventing effectiveness or success, he was not shy to summon the relevant leaders and compel them to start talking.

However, his hands-on approach frustrated some of his executives, as they felt that he was too involved in their business and interaction with their peers. When the CEO picked this frustration up, he brought up the conversation at his next executive team meeting.

Despite people’s uncomfortableness to give him the feedback the CEO encouraged his leaders to communicate courageously. The senior team had a very open, honest and productive conversation, at the end of which the executives took responsibility for the fact that they were not promptly addressing issues between their functions. They committed to doing so. The CEO committed to taking a step back in his interference in his leader’s interactions.

Things visibly changed for the better and the CEO and many of his executives continued to remember these conversations as a milestone in the development of the executive team.

No doubt that the “Let’s talk about it” route is often harder, more uncomfortable and at times messier and more chaotic. However, it is a more powerful and effective route and it makes a bigger difference to the culture and performance of the organization.

 

Never forget the power and magic of Courage

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W.H. Murray, the leader of the Scottish Himalayan Expedition that pioneered the path to the top of Mt. Everest, knew something about courage. He shared his experience in a known quote, which I really love:

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness.

Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans:

That, the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.

I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.

Courage is the single most critical ingredient for achieving our dreams, aspirations and other great things.

Yes, knowledge, experience, credentials, skills and a good plan are material too. However, any plan is only as good as your relationship to it. I have seen too many people with a brilliant plan fail because they lacked the courage to take bold action, have faith or stay the course in challenging times.

Courage comes in many forms, expressions and styles. Sometimes, standing for what you believe and fully expressing yourselves with a loud and assertive voice is an act of courage. But, sometimes, remaining thoughtful and calm in the face of turmoil, allowing yourself to be vulnerable or simply listening to other’s with openness and generosity requires courage too.

Being ‘courageous‘ is very different than ‘being fearless‘. The dictionary defines fearless as ‘Lacking fear’. However, if you are courageous it does not mean you lack fear. On the contrary, you need to be most courageous when you are most afraid.

As Nelson Mandela put it:

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

If anyone knew something about courage, it was Nelson Mandela.

We all have the natural ability to bring forth courage and live by it every moment and day of our life, no matter what our circumstances are. Unfortunately, we often seem to forget or underestimate just how powerful and magical courage really is, so we don’t fully bet on it.

Early in my career when I was struggling with achieving my sales goals, my mentor at the time gave me some advice that impacted my entire life thereafter. He said, “If you do the right thing for long enough eventually you will get the outcome you want.”

It worked. I became the most productive and successful sales leader in the company. I have experienced this first principle time and time again in multiple areas of my life and the lives of others.

If you are willing to be courageous, take a stand for what you want and then stay the course by living, acting and behaving consistently, sooner or later the circumstances will line up with your stance. As W.H. Murray put it in his quote: ‘Providence will move too‘.

Yes, you need to believe in yourself and your ability; you need to have faith for this to work. If you allow yourself to become cynical, negative or sarcastic, the circumstances will prove you right. You know how the saying goes: “Be careful what you wish for!”

Someone shared with me this gospel of Thomas, which I thought is relevant:

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. However, if you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

Inaction can have grave consequences when it comes to being true to yourself and achieving your dreams and aspirations. In order to become confident and proficient at the practice and discipline of courage, you need to practice on a regular basis.

Eleanor Roosevelt, another brave and inspiring leader, gave very practical and powerful advice on this. She recommended:

“Do one thing every day that scares you!”

Courage inspires, enables, pushes and reminds us to pursue our dreams and never give up. And, when we remain true to our self, we are always the happiest.

You can’t have your cake and eat it too…

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Words are only cheap when we make them cheap.

It’s no wonder concepts like “alignment” “empowerment” and “accountability” are considered faded clichés in most organizations.

This is because leaders have abused these terms for so long by pronouncing them left, right and center at their convenience to present themselves as modern and enlightened leaders only to repeatedly not live up to their declarations and to the promise of these powerful leadership concepts.

Many senior executives say they want to build greater trust with their team, but they are unwilling to invest the time to bring their team together in order to build that trust.

Many leaders say they want to empower their people, but when their leaders attempt to give them critical feedback, they become irritated and angry, which suppresses any space for authentic communication.

Many leaders say they want to engage their people in the mission of the company, but when their people give them advice or bring up ideas for improving things, they ignore these inputs because they feel ‘they know best’.

Alignment and ownership, or ‘command-and-control’. They are mutually exclusive. You can’t play both games. You have to choose one or the other.

Leaders who think that alignment means everyone agreeing with their direction, views and management style and wholeheartedly following them and doing what they say with ownership and passion are simply naïve, disconnected and/or delusional.

If you want to build an environment of genuine ownership and alignment it comes with the price of people being encouraged and allowed to think for themselves, express their views and get the job done with their own voice and in their own way.

Empowerment is not a cliché or slogan from a management textbook, it is a powerful leadership paradigm and approach that is not for the faint-hearted.

If you are so convinced that you know best, you have all the answers, you are smarter than everyone in your team or you are simply too afraid of getting feedback and criticism from your people an empowered and aligned team environment is not for you.

If you behave like a dictator you will trade-off people’s ownership, empowerment and commitment. If you don’t listen, you will surround yourself with people who don’t speak.

The problem is that most leaders know how to play the corporate game and say the right slogans. Some actually drink their own Kool-Aid and believe their own stories. They believe that they are committed to promoting empowerment and alignment around them.

If you want to know the truth, find a way to ask your people. Either directly or through a trusted third party. If you are reluctant to do that you are probably not open to building an empowered and aligned team environment. However, if you are eager to do so, you probably are committed to building an open, honest and authentic team environment.

None of this is set in stone. If you recognize that you haven’t been focused on, or effective at building an environment of empowerment, trust and communication in your team you could always shift gears and start doing so.

However, to succeed you must first be honest with yourself and probably with others too, about the type of leader you have been and who you really want to be in the future. You cannot pretend to be committed to building an environment of empowerment, trust, and communication. Your inauthenticity would be clearly recognized. Some leaders really believe in the command-and-control approach. They have achieved good results with that and they don’t have a desire to change. If you are one of those leaders, be honest about that.

However, if you are committed to leading through empowerment, trust, and communication, declare that, acknowledge your gaps and identify your opportunities and start developing the necessary skills to become really good at it.

 

Take One Little Step…

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One little step stands between being courageous or being a coward. Literally!

The difference between being courageous and being a coward is – Action.

If you are committed to an outcome or direction that is beyond your comfort level and you take action toward it, you are courageous. If you don’t – you are a coward.

If you are committed to an outcome of direction that is beyond your comfort level most likely you will be afraid; you will have anxiety and/or nervousness about your ability to succeed. You will have moments of doubt, second-guessing yourself and even moments in which you will regret having committed to the direction. You will definitely be tempted to buy-in to excuses such as “It’s the wrong time”, “The risks are too high” and the variety of “I am not good enough” justifications. The fear and anxiety aspects are the same whether you are courageous or a coward.

In fact, the essence of courage is to acknowledge and embrace your fear and then go forward in the face of it. To not be stopped by fear. If you didn’t have the fear, you wouldn’t need to be courageous. Fearless people don’t need courage. However, what makes the difference is how you behave when you are afraid; do you take action to fulfill your commitment or not.

I was coaching a manager who unexpectedly lost his job after dedicating 25 years of his life to the company. He needed to work and earn an income, but he believed he was too old and unqualified to find a new job. He was discouraged, and this led to overwhelming hopelessness and desperation, that paralyzed him.

He made some attempts to reach out to people in his network seeking employment opportunities, but after these weren’t fruitful, he stopped trying. In fact, he stopped other things too, like going to the gym and eating well.

When I met him, he wasn’t in good physical and mental shape. However, he was in good enough shape to sincerely want to change.

My conditions for helping him included him going back to exercising at least four times a week and returning to eating well. These were small familiar actions that he could easily take on. I could see a noticeable difference in his energy and outlook within a few days.

We then made a list of contacts and leads and devised a plan whereby he would contact at least one person every day and then call me to share his progress. Within, a week he lined up two job interviews. Needless to say, this boosted his morale significantly. After four weeks he landed a new job.

If you adopt the mantra of “Progress, not perfection” it will empower you to take action.

You can get yourself unstuck from anything by taking small steps of action. Don’t try to take on too much at once, otherwise, you are likely to fall short, get discouraged and fall back into a bad place. Start with small steps of action in the right direction. I know it may not seem enough, but I promise you that small steps will eventually lead to bigger steps. Progress evokes more progress.

The good news is that we all have everything that we need to be courageous and take action. We may convince ourselves and others of all the reasons why we cannot take a small action forward. However, even if our reasons are legitimate, they are never the true cause of not taking action.

Taking action doesn’t guarantee the outcomes you want. However, if you go full out and fall short you will probably feel much better about yourself and your chances to succeed next time than if you fail because you didn’t try much in the first place.

One of my early professional mentors once told me:

“You either have the results you want, or you have the story why not.”

This mindset has stayed with me ever since.

There are two types of players in life: those who are brave and take action, and those who avoid action.

Which of these do you want to be?