Two days ago I heard part of a taped interview on the radio. The last sentence stood out, as almost no other I have encountered, as a recipe for fulfilling one’s potential.

The sentence:

“ …it always stops me in my tracks, because, as long as I remember that there is someone on the other side of the piece of equipment, the camera, who is watching me with expectation, and it can shape what they do next, I have to take what I do seriously every single day.”

That was Gwen Ifill, talking about being on one side of the television camera, aware that young girls were on the other side, absorbing a sense of what was possible for them.

I had to think about why I was so struck by this sentence.

Both adversity and privilege present us with reasons to be less than our best selves.  Ms. Ifill reveals an antidote: A single, simple, completely reliable impetus.

Few people have an audience in the millions. But we all have an audience—many people who encounter us directly or indirectly. Encounters with us “shape what those people do next”, for the better or for the worse.

But the power in that sentence is not that it makes us think of our impact on others. The breakthrough in that sentence is this:  Being conscious of the impact that we have on others’ aspirations and actions, we are inspired, no, compelled to raise our game, to take ourselves more seriously. And therefore, perhaps to…

Expand the goal

Offer that insight

Express that sentiment

Dig deeper

Commit more selectively

     Sign your work

Use better words

Delegate

Value your time

Be even more visible

Raise, or lower, your voice

Cross boundaries

Learn publicly — and privately

Do

Be powerfully generous

…

Thanks a million, Ms. Ifill

Photo Credit: Copyright Jane Pedrick,  2017

Tune Your Performance Assessment Meter

As the evolved leader you are, I am sure that when you assess performance you try to use an objective standard and objective observations of how people perform against that standard and their commitments. But signals from your employees can color your assessment. Here are two female tendencies that may erroneously skew your view of their performance and potential.

Tendency A:  “I Should Have…”

Say the product does not meet the customer need. Or maybe the reorganization wasn’t implemented well and productivity is taking a nose dive. Perhaps the company you were about to buy is now part of your gloating competitor. Whatever the details, an initiative has gone south and there is definitely “no joy in Mudville.” One or more people will come out of this with something between a smudge and a big black mark on their scorecard.

The stories that people tell around a failed project have a big impact on how they are remembered and evaluated. In this context, women tend to do themselves a disservice.

When something goes wrong, women assume that they could and should have done something to avoid it. They then go on to give that possibility a higher rating relative to other causes of the problem.  Sure, there are times when that may be an accurate assessment: Maybe the buck appropriately stops with them. But, often, the situation is not that simple and the true fault is more shared, or distributed differently, than your female employees may see or express.

We have all seen men and women who lead projects that fail and who demonstrate the “water off a duck’s back” approach at the post-mortem: The other group did not cooperate, the original mandate was wrong, etc., etc., This serves no one. Women’s tendency to take blame is much healthier for the organization (see this HBR article on the importance of taking blame).  But if it masks the true situation, it can harm their careers and keep the company from learning the right lessons from the failure.

What to do:

1. Screen for this tendency as you evaluate people and projects so you do not undervalue your female employees’ performance and potential.
2. Check in with key women after a troubled project to see if they are harboring too much self-blame.  That  can sap their motivation or lead them to make the wrong corrections (e.g., be too cautious) in the future. Get them to articulate the learnings and move on.

Tendency B: “We”

I was going to address the Asia sales managers for the first time at a business I had recently joined. The regional manager prepped me on the event and key issues. When I asked if he had any other advice, he hesitated a bit and then said: “It would be great if, when talking about your past experience, you used the word “I” instead of “we” a bit more.” This input was such a gift. He went on to explain that he thought my upcoming audience would appreciate the strengths that I brought to the business.  Using the word “we” when describing past accomplishments would not clearly express what I had driven and could do for them.  In that forum, the effort to be inclusive would be counterproductive.

No I in Team

Women tend to value and nurture community.  Also, blowing one’s own horn is discouraged in a variety of ways starting young. Whatever the cause, women tend to share credit and assume that:

• People know what they did, and that
• Some magical force will adequately reward them, not only for the managing to drag that project across the finish line when it was all but dead by the side of the road six times, but also for sharing the credit.

Truth be told, this trait is generally a real positive.  Not only is humility a good thing, but the hard output of the organization can go up as a result of it.  I have often quoted one of Sally Dudley’s key tenets: “It is amazing what you can accomplish when you don’t care who gets the credit.”

So, when you manage women:

1. Recognize that sometimes their “we” means “I”.
2. Tell them that there is an “i” in “community” and that they should use it every once in a while.
3. Thank them for sharing credit.

Outrage Deflector:  Yes, we are all individuals.  And..yes, many of these ideas apply to men as well.  And… no, not all apply to all women.   All that being said, there are patterns that apply to women disproportionally. and bosses who learn them and manage accordingly reap huge benefits.  Notice I did not say “men who learn them”;  women don’t magically think of this stuff either!

Managing Women Tip #1:  Push and Pull Them into Greatness

A boss of mine once proposed a big new job to me.  We discussed it and I concluded by saying:  “Ok, sounds great!  Let me think about whether I am ready for this.”  I remember he laughed and said ” You women.  Any of your male colleagues would have said “Of course!  What took you so long to get around to giving me this kind of opportunity?!”

Women often set a much higher bar for themselves when evaluating an opportunity.  They feel like they should already have all the skills and experience to do something before proposing to do it.  Men are more likely to believe and act upon their sense of their potential to do something.

Imagine if the women in your company proposed and took on as much responsibility as they are actually capable of fulfilling!  You can make that happen.

How:

• Aggressively push stretch projects and jobs to women.  Don’t assume that lack of voiced interest in more responsibility reflects a lack of true interest or capability.  Go ahead and propose the new roles to qualified women.  Hear their reactions and take action.  For example, correct misconceptions about what it means to be “ready”:  Be clear about why you see them as prepared.  Clarify that you know they will be learning certain things as they actually do the job.  Make it clear that this is the kind of “75% ready for it” challenge that she should get ready to take on repeatedly in her career.
• In between new roles, teach them to think in terms of their potential rather than their knowledge or experience.  Actively communicate the meaning of Potential and its critical role in determining who gets ahead.   Stress that in today’s world of continuous change and easy info access, potential is a key hiring and advancement criterion.  For help in defining potential in very specific terms, see my post on that subject.  Give the women you manage input on the areas of potential in which they are strong.  Oh, and by the way, don’t  talk about their areas for development in the same conversation — they’ll remember only that part.
• Require high potential women to pick a potential next job.  Sure, everyone should do this, but it is particularly helpful for women.  They tend to believe that if they do a really fantastic work in their current jobs, good things will happen.  Forcing them to pick a next job to research, and potentially prepare for, is a low-stress wrecking ball through that self-erected wall between them and  advancement.   It can drive the kind of thinking, networking, preparation that can both move them forward and change their self-limiting behaviors for good.

Doing the incredibly easy stuff listed above can unleash huge contributions from the women you manage and make you a hero(ine).  That’s good.

More Tips on Managing Women coming soon.  Do you have tips you want to share?

Cash Mob in Action

Economic policy affects our business and private life daily. But most people avoid thinking about it.  Many bigger picture economic theories can seem impractical, extreme, or so complicated that people sometimes retreat to overly simple reasoning. John Tomasi’s work proposes an alternative approach.  It is good food for thought about our personal and business decision making. **

Tomasi, a political philosophy professor at Brown University, has written a book titled Free Market Fairness. In a recent talk at Stanford he described its value added.  He started by noting that political philosophy has had three dominant ways to think about people, how they make decisions and what policies that leads them to support.

Tomasi argues that this is incomplete and that it leads to the current situation in which people can’t find any common ground: Too often policy issues are framed as part of a war that pits protecting the economic liberty of the individual against pursuing social justice.

So Tomasi adds an additional option to the table above.

As he puts it, this is “a hybrid theory of liberal justice, one committed to both limited government and the material betterment of the poor.”

I like this because it seems to do a better job of capturing the common sense of living in a democracy with a capitalist economic system.  Even Irving Krystol  wrote in Two Cheers for Capitalism that capitalism can give us the most efficient economic system, but it cannot be relied upon to give us the society we want. That, we have to make happen.

Tomasi doesn’t claim that his theory can be used to decide each particular issue. The idea is that embracing the connection between economic freedom and a level of social justice, and then recognizing how fundamentally important that balance is to a democratic citizenry, can help us:

1. Have more productive discussions, and
2. Generate new ideas to achieve the balance we want over time.

It seems like a good framework to use to reduce the gap between public opinion and the actions of our elected officials too.

A Current Corollary at the Company by Company Level

Each business also needs to understand this balance of values as held by its stakeholders.  For example, the business response to the Bangladesh building collapse is showing that although they may not always act like it, customers and employees expect companies to strike a balance between price and social responsibility.

‘Georgetown University Business Professor Edward Soule said the tragedy that ensued has almost certainly sent a shockwave into the executive suites of clothing retailers – both out of concern for the lives of those who were sewing their garments, but also out of concern for the reputations of any company that allowed the conditions to persist.

“They know for many of them, their brand integrity is at stake,” said Soule, an expert on managerial ethics and corporate social responsibility.’

**Note:  Everything above related to Dr Tomasi’s work is my interpretation based on his presentation.  Please refer to his works for his actual articulation and ideas.

Source: Snickers Ad

The only thing worse than not having an understanding of customer needs is having an incorrect understanding of customer needs. If you think that you avoid that by going straight to the source and asking them…think again.

Here is a surprising insight from those who study the psychology of decision making.  Radiolab* reports that Professor Tim Wilson of UVA did the following experiment as part of his research on choice:

Students were given the opportunity to take a free poster home:  Either the well-known Cat Clinging to a Bar poster, or a poster of an impressionist painting. Half of the students could simply take the poster and half of them were also asked to write a brief description of why they chose the poster. Six months later, they were asked if they still liked their chosen poster.

The Outcomes:

The poster cat, now immortalized in a surprisingly appropriate pendant form

The ones who did not have to explain their choice:

• Almost always chose the impressionist painting
• Six months later, the majority reported loving their poster

But the ones who had to explain their choice:

• Almost always chose the cat poster
• Six months later, the majority reported hating their poster

 Among the conclusions of the overall research:  Having to explain their choice biases people in favor of the less sophisticated option.

 Why does this happen??  Decisions require the brain to synthesize a broad range of considerations, some logical and some purely emotional. When forced to give a rational explanation of their choices people often choose the thing that is easier for them to explain. But, since that is not aligned with all their real needs and wants, they are not happy with their decision later.

The Implication for Your Business

A lot of market research is steering companies in the wrong direction. People can describe the familiar. They are likely to be clear and enthusiastic about what they currently understand and like. They often cannot even imagine an innovative product. They may seem negative as they naturally give a more ambiguous response to a new or nuanced idea. So you can get tons of customer input and still end up with an unsuccessful product.

 The Antidote

To design and deliver the right product, i.e., the product that your customers really want and which they will speak about with pride in the future, don’t ask them about their selection criteria. Do ask customers questions or, better yet, do observation of them that reveal their real decision factors. And get at how they feel, not just what they need.  For example:

• What bores them about their job?
• What other products to they own at home or at work that they really love?
• What makes them proud about what they do?
• What are their most progressive customers asking them for?  How about their most annoying customers?

If you would like help with understanding what kind of customer input will best guide your strategy or product plans, contact me.

* Radiolab program “Choices”

In a study described in the Stanford University Center for Social Innovation, all  the people involved were asked to  perform the same task but some were told it would be impossible for the researchers to know “whether you are cheating,” while others were told it would be impossible to know “whether you’re a cheater”.  The first  group (who got the instructions referencing “cheating”) cheated far more than the latter  group ( who got the instructions referencing being a “cheater”).  Similarly, in the recent election season, appeals to citizens to “be a voter” had much more impact on behavior than did exhortations to “vote”.

The choice of wording makes all the difference in the resulting behavior!

What these examples indicate:  We act on self-image.  In other words we all want to have a positive identity.  If you paint people a picture of a undesirable self, they are likely to stop doing the negative action as associated with it.  Similarly,  if you paint them a positive image of a person, they are likely to adopt the positive behaviors associated with that image.  In contrast, people are much less likely to change their behavior if you just describe the behavior in question.

Apply This Finding to be Help People be Fantastic 

When trying to influence a change in behavior, describe an identity (nouns), not actions (verbs).  For example:

• Speak to people about “being an innovator”, not about innovating.
• Remind someone preparing an important presentation to “be an inspirational speaker”, not to speak inspirationally.
• Set a ground rule that everyone on a team will “be a punctual member”, not that everyone should be on time.
• Tell yourself that today you will be “a paragon of focus”, not that you’ll really try to not be an email-slave

A Corollary

For many years I have used a related approach.  There’s no Stanford study behind this one, but here it is anyway:  I find that if you treat people as if they were their best selves, they shift their behavior more in that direction.   (As you can imagine, this definitely does not work on sociopaths.  Consequently,  it is a pretty good sociopath diagnostic.)

Have a great day.  And remember:  Be an Influencer!

Click here for the Article from the Center on Social Innovation.

Click here for the abstract of the actual “cheating/cheater” study.

• Reduce deforestation (in Uganda which is already 70% deforested!) & contributes to re-forestation
• Turn farm waste into safe fuel and fertilizer — reducing peoples costs as well as the serious health impacts of other fuels
• Provide men and women with their own businesses as manufacturers and distributors of those products
• Enable children to go to school instead of searching for wood

That is a lot of impact!  More on the business model that creates all these benefits can be found below.

The Eco-Fuel Business Model

Learn more about Eco-Fuel Africa social venture from their website (Click here) or from a YouTube video (click here).

How You Can be a Part Through Funding

Until December 12 you can use your phone to help fund Eco-Fuel toward sef-sufficiency or fund other Tech Museum Laureates.

Pledging instructions for funding Eco-Fuel (Pledge now through December 12, 2012)

For info on how to fund other Laureates by phone through the Tech Museum between now and Dec 12:  Click here.

Tech Awards information:

“The Tech Awards is an international awards program that honors innovators from around the world who are applying technology to benefit humanity.”  This year’s categories were:

• Environment
• Education
• Young Innovator
• Health
• Economic Development
• Sustainable Energy

I speak of Hewlett Packard in the past tense not because I think they are doomed but because the company that now bears the name is a completely different company from the one I knew. I left HP in 1999 to join the spin-off, Agilent Technologies.  So I don’t pretend to know anything about the current situation there.  But I do know that the original HP’s formula for greatness is too important to allow it to be discredited by association with the current mess and too valuable to be forgotten.  There is so much to share with you about the very accessible magic of the HP that grew at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23% for over 50 years. Today I think I will just share a story  and a summary description of the magic.

When I Realized Something Was Very Wrong

In the mid 1990’s the late Lew Platt was CEO of HP.  He and his CFO understandably worried that it would be increasingly difficult for HP to keep up the phenomenal record of 23% CAGR from 1942 to 1995.  In 1995 the company reached $31.5 B in annual revenues.  To grow even 15% in a year meant that the company would need to find $4.7B in new revenue.  So they asked the Corporate Development group to identify strategies that other companies had used to created growth.  I got the assignment.  It was a great project.  Since the General Managers of the businesses units were already thinking continuously about how to grow those existing businesses, I put particular emphasis on how companies got into new businesses.

I presented the findings to the executive team.  There was good discussion and questions.  Close to the end, one executive spoke assertively, saying in essence:  “This is all very interesting, but things are going pretty well.  Things have gone pretty well for us without doing any of those things, so maybe that means that we don’t need to do them.”  Though stated as a hypothesis, it was a conclusion.  The interesting thing is that he was wrong on two counts:

1. First:  The company HAD done those things. Bill (Hewlett) and Dave (Packard) were intuitively new venture investors. The entered new businesses when the company did not NEED to do so.  They went into countries (like China in ) when  there was “no” market there yet.
2. Second:  Financially things were going fine but that cadre of professional managers were focused on being careful stewards of their large businesses, not on creating high value new businesses. This paucity of internally generated growth encouraged later CEOs to plunge into a series of unfortunate acquisitions.

What Was Astoundingly Right Before So Much Went Wrong

I share this with you now because notwithstanding the many mistakes of the current HP, the important message of this post is that the key success factors of the original HP apply today.  Here is my summary of the HP success formula:

• Products that made a big unique contribution
• A system that built and unlocked human potential better than any other
• Executives that used informed intuition to make bold moves that they then made successful
• A commitment to customer success
• Financial discipline

This formula does not seem to have been applied at the company with the HP name for some time but none of us should make the same mistake.

The original HP version of those elements create virtuous cycles of high expectation and high performance.  Those cycles, in turn create their own fuel of profit and goodwill.

More specifics on this in future posts.

For a personal discussion of how to apply the HP formula contact me.

Who is NOT trying to make change happen faster? Managers want employees to take up the banner of [fill in the blank: More Innovation? Fewer missed deadlines?].  Employees want managers to take off the blinders and [fill in the blank: Call fewer meetings and reports? Stick to a set of priorities for more than a month?].   Regardless of your change agenda, I think you’ll come up with good change management ideas from this unusual source.

The Source

Unilever is taking sustainability seriously. A recent Triple Pundit article notes, “the company’s target is to halve its carbon footprint by 2020”. Fine, what is impressive is that their carbon footprint calculation includes the carbon usage by consumers of their products. In fact, they estimate that “68 percent of it comes from consumer use of Unilever’s products” and they are tackling the task of getting people to reduce that dramatically. First target:  Getting consumers to reduce food waste. This is a fascinating change management project and I encourage you to read more about it, but something that caught my attention was their use of “Five Levers of Change”. I think they apply regardless of the kind of change you are trying to drive.

Unilever’s “Five Levers of Change”

Here they are, as reported by Triple Pundit:

“Make it understood. Do people know about the behavior, and do they think it is relevant to them? This lever is about raising awareness and encouraging acceptance.

Unilever’s goal: Make participants aware that the average family in the UK is throwing away about $1,080 of food waste each year and help them connect the dots between reducing waste and saving money.

Make it easy. Do people know what to do and feel confident doing it? Can they see it fitting into their lives? This lever is about convenience and confidence.

Unilever’s goal: Help participants address the top three barriers the research highlighted to reducing food waste: food going bad quickly; throwing away leftovers; and preparing too much food, and look for tools that will help participants do it easily and conveniently.

Make it desirable. Will doing this new behavior fit with their actual or aspirational self-image? Does it fit with how they relate to others or want to? This lever is about “self and society” because humans are social animals.

Unilever’s goal: Make food waste reduction an aspirational behavior or link it to a positive self-image, just like it did with its Lifebuoy soap, linking washing hands with soap with being a good mother, which is, as the company explains, a powerful motivator.

Make it rewarding. Do people know when they’re doing the behavior “right?” Do they get some sort of reward? This lever is about demonstrating proof and pay-off.

Unilever’s goal: Show participants an easy way to identify the savings from their efforts to reduce food waste.

Make it a habit. Once people have made a change, what can we do to help them keep doing it? This lever is about reinforcing and reminding, “refreezing” people in their new habits so it becomes unconscious again.”

Failure-Proof Your Change Objective

We are often so personally passionate about a change that we ignore these needs. Your passion is important but it can raise resistance rather than enlistment.   To set Affective Action in motion, i.e., to engage people heart’s and spirits in your change agenda, you need to make them:  1. Want it;  2.  Be able to do it, and;  3. Want to keep doing it.

Applying the 5 drivers of enlistment described above should help your brilliant change ideas reach their phenomenal potential!

Trouble in Paradise

Recently Matt called and was very disheartened.  He had just been told that his boss had decided to hire a manager who would now be Matt’s boss.  The CEO explained that he himself doesn’t have the expertise in Matt’s function, so he had decided to hire someone with deep expertise.  Matt’s CEO emphasized that the new manager would be much better equipped to help Matt develop.

When we spoke, Matt was feeling hurt, insulted and even somewhat betrayed.  He had put in effort above and beyond because of the implicit promise of growing with the company.  Part of what he valued about the job was the breadth and also his spot at the table among the company’s core management team.  There was also a matter of pride, since people would have to be told of his narrower role.  He wondered if he should stay or leave.

His feelings were understandable and I felt bad for Matt.  But I also felt confident in telling him that there was a high probability that he could turn this into a very good thing for him.  Let’s see if you agree with my assessment and advice:

• It is a surprise to you, but it is a very common occurrence.  The company has had great success.  They are on a dramatic growth trajectory.  Like many companies  in this situation, bringing in some expertise can mean the difference between scaling successfully or stumbling just when things are going from good to terrific.  There is no indication of displeasure with your work, so this is the relevant context.  It is not something to take personally.
• You may have dodged a bullet.  You were heading into a high risk situation. You are learning the function but nobody else in the company has that functional expertise.  Neither you nor your boss know what you don’t know.   The company’s success drove a big increase in demands and visibility which, in turn, are driving up your learning curve and the cost of failure.  Having someone who knows the function can help with both.
• You can lead from any position in the company.  Don’t take on the narrower role with the assumption that your impact on the company needs to be less.
  • Successful people always do their job and part of the job of people well above them:  They look externally for the new ideas, they communicate inspirationally internally, they find and help fill gaps in the operational alignment of the functions, etc.  In fact, you are often in a better position as a “pillar” to drive the success of the company than you would be as part of the “frieze”, top management.
  • I have always advised people that the title of a job is a lot less important than the fact that you do terrifically well at it.  The latter is what people remember.
• Create a stable relationship platform for creating a great outcome for yourself.
• • With your CEO.  Senior managers always feel uncomfortable around employees to whom they have had to deliver bad news.  It is understandable, but this can lead to guilt ostracism that can have an even bigger negative impact on the employee.  Rather than wait for any discomfort to abate, meet with your CEO and present yourself as an engaged, commited employee who has clear ideas (and requests) about how he will maximize the mutual benefits within the new organizational order.
  • With the New Manager.  Make sure your new boss clearly hears and feels that you are committed to the company and to helping him/her be successful.  If the new manager thinks you have one foot out the door, he/she will not invest in you.
• Develop a plan for your personal success at the company and get input and buy-in from your managers and others.  Don’t wait to “see how it goes”.  You are likely to be disappointed because, Newsflash:  Nobody is thinking about you as much as you are.  Write down what you want in your new role and what kind of development experiences you want.  Since you are losing some visibility, consider including some description of the relationships that you want to maintain or nurture despite a narrowing of your role.  Once you find out your new manager’s key strength, actively study that.  The important thing is this:  Be an active agent in helping the new manager and your CEO make this change as successful for you as both you and they would like it to be.
• Gauge the behavior of the new manager. if s/he is mature, s/he will see your development as an important and will be pleased to give you stretch assignments, visibility, and credit for work well done.  If s/he is small minded and insecure, then you’ll see the opposite:  Hogging of credit,  lack of opportunities for you to take responsibility or grow, treating you like a serf.  In that case, leave.

There are some situations in which a change like this would be a signal that it is time to change jobs.  This does not seem like one of those. So, take on the somewhat smaller position, make sure you get even more development and measurable experience than you were getting before, do a great job and reap the rewards of growing with what seems like a great company in the making.

Note:  If  you are a manager who has to demote someone in a similar situation, and you want to retain the employee, manage these same forces and perceptions actively.

If you have a difficult job situation on which you would like advice, feel free to contact me.

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