A hard decision was made: Washington decided to attack. Target: the Hessian-held town of Trenton. As Washington began to lead his troops across an ice-swollen Delaware River the night of December 25, a strong Nor’easter began to blow, driving sleet, snow, and freezing rain into the eyes of the soldiers. The wind blew cakes of ice against the far side of the river, making the landing extremely hazardous. If all that were not enough, a significant number of Washington’s men marched through the snow and frozen ground without shoes.

They attacked to the south during the morning, taking the Hessians by surprise. After less than a hour of fierce fighting, the Hessians surrendered. Nine hundred prisoners, plus food, ammunition and other supplies went back across the precarious Delaware with Washington’s troops. Although not apparent at the time, this battle, and others over the next few days, provided a strategic inflection point for the American Revolution. Things would be different from this point forward.

How about today? Leadership is still hard. For at least three reasons:

• The demands on your time are great and likely increasing. The world is “smaller” and faster than ever before and the bar is higher.
• You are more connected that anyone in history. Not only has technology amplified the demands on your time, it has also democratized information while making it ubiquitous. Leaders cannot control or “shape” information as in the past.
• Everyone you know is either busy, distracted, or both. Think technology, interruptions, demands on their time, more information/less control, plus a get it done now (short term) mentality.

While those three things are true and real, I believe leadership is about building willing follower-ship for a cause, and idea or a course of acton. The genesis of willing follower-ship is anchored by three irreplaceable piers: character (who you are), competence (what you know), and communication (how you interact with others).

If you were in a war zone, wet, freezing, hungry, sleep-deprived, homesick, shoeless and asked to cross an ice-swollen river in the middle of the night with roughly 2,000 others (who, in a few days would be able to return to loved ones to defend hearth and home) in order to march another 9 or 10 miles in the middle of a nor’easter to attack a garrison of well-fed, well-supplied, well-trained mercenaries… what kind of person would you willingly follow?

In Other Words…

“But lest some unlucky event should happen unfavorable to my reputation, I beg it may be remembered by every gentleman in the room that I this day declare with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with.” – George Washington’s formal acceptance of command of the Army (16 June 1775)

“The reflection upon my situation, and that of this army, produces many an uneasy hour, when all around me are wrapped in sleep. Few people know the predicament we are in, on a thousand accounts; fewer still will believe, if any disaster happens to these lines, from what cause it flows.” – George Washington, in a letter to Joseph Reed, during the siege of Boston (14 January 1776)

“Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and show the whole world that a Freeman, contending for liberty on his own ground, is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth.” – George Washington, General Orders, Headquarters, New York (2 July 1776)

“A slender acquaintance with the world must convince every man, that actions, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of his friends, and that the most liberal professions of good will are very far from being the surest marks of it. I should be happy that my own experience had afforded fewer examples of the little dependence to be placed upon them.” – George Washington in a letter to Major-General John Sullivan (15 December 1779)

“Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence; true friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.” – George Washington, in a letter to Bushrod Washington (15 January 1783)

“If men are to be precluded from offering their sentiments on a matter which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences that can invite the consideration of mankind, reason is of no use to us; the freedom of speech may be taken away, and dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” – George Washington’s address to officers of the Army (15 March 1783)

“A people… who are possessed of the spirit of commerce, who see and who will pursue their advantages may achieve almost anything.” – George Washington, in a letter to Benjamin Harrison (10 October 1784)

“When the illustrious part that your Excellency has borne in this long and arduous contest becomes a matter of history, fame will gather your brightest laurels rather from the banks of the Delaware than from those of the Chesapeake.” –  Lord General Cornwallis, in a toast to General Washington after the Battle of Yorktown (1781)

In The Word…

“Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” – Romans 5:3-4

In Linked Words…

Re-enactment of Washington’s crossing of the Delaware

Washington Crossing Delaware from Robert Bell on Vimeo.

One repeating characteristic of Collins’ Level 5 leaders is their propensity to look out the window to apportion credit to factors outside themselves when things go well (and if they cannot find a specific person or event, they credit good luck). At the same time, they look in the mirror to apportion responsibility to themselves, never blaming bad luck, when things go poorly.

I appreciate and admire Collins’ research and findings. I further believe leadership is about building willing follower-ship. Level 5 leadership is one solution to that challenge. Like most things in life you can approach it the wrong way or the right way.

The wrong way often involves Balkanization – to divide a body into smaller mutually hostile groups – so that what seems on the surface like willing follower-ship actually involves manipulation, special consideration for favored groups and sanctions for disfavored groups, obfuscation in the name of clarity, drama-based role playing (victim, villain and rescuer) to curry favor with various groups at different times, assigning blame, avoiding responsibility, or other such behaviors.

The right way is grounded in three irreplaceable piers: character, competence, and communication (for more, see the next post), all in synch with Level 5 leadership.

A Level 5 failure example. On April 30, 2012, former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey posted an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal regarding President Obama’s “bragging rights” regarding the killing of Osama bin Laden. Mukasey said, “A recently disclosed memorandum from then-CIA Director Leon Panetta shows that the president’s celebrated derring-do in authorizing the operation included a responsibility-escape clause: ‘The timing, operational decision making and control are in Admiral McRaven’s hands. The approval is provided on the risk profile presented to the President. Any additional risks are to be brought back to the President for his consideration. The direction is to go in and get bin Laden and if he is not there, to get out.’ Which is to say, if the mission went wrong, the fault would be Adm. McRaven’s, not the president’s.”

“While contemplating how the killing of bin Laden reflects on the president, consider the way he emphasized his own role in the hazardous mission accomplished by SEAL Team 6: ‘I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority . . . even as I continued our broader effort. . . . Then, after years of painstaking work by my intelligence community I was briefed . . . I met repeatedly with my national security team . . . And finally last week I determined that I had enough intelligence to take action. . . . Today, at my direction . . .’”

In contrast, ”…George W. Bush, also had occasion during his presidency to announce to the nation a triumph of intelligence: the capture of Saddam Hussein. He called that success ‘a tribute to our men and women now serving in Iraq.’ He attributed it to ‘the superb work of intelligence analysts who found the dictator’s footprints in a vast country. The operation was carried out with skill and precision by a brave fighting force. Our servicemen and women and our coalition allies have faced many dangers. . . . Their work continues, and so do the risks.’”

“Lincoln took responsibility in August 1862 for failures that had been attributed to General George McClellan—eventually sacked for incompetence—and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.”

“Dwight Eisenhower is famous for having penned a statement to be issued in anticipation of the failure of the Normandy invasion that reads in relevant part: ‘My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.’”

Our leaders, including our Presidents, are not perfect, nor should we expect them to be. Not all of them are great leaders, though we should hope that they would be. The main point to be made by this example comes from Jim Collins: Leaders who have charisma and lead through brute force of personality become the brutal facts of people’s reality, rather than reality itself. When they ignore the Personal Humility side of Level 5 leadership, they greatly inhibit, or prevent, the opportunity of going from good to great.

In Other Words…

“At very best, a person wrapped up in himself makes a small package.” - Harry Emerson Fosdick, in On Being a Real Person (1943)

“Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being little. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation. Modest humility is beauty’s crown.” - Augustine of Hippo, p. 330.

“Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, ‘By jove! I’m being humble’, and almost immediately pride — pride at his own humility — will appear.” - C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (1942)

“The sufficiency of my merit is to know that my merit is not sufficient.” - St. Augustine

In The Word…

“Pride ends in a fall, while humility brings honor.” – Proverbs 29:23

Note: As always, comments are welcome and appreciated. In this case, partisan political rantings will, unfortunately, not be posted. This is about leadership and happens to use an example from today’s headlines. There are plenty of other blogs that offer political give and take.

For me, this plot is an interesting play on the game, Let’s You and Him Fight from Games People Play by psychiatrist Dr. Eric Berne (1910-1970). As a maneuver game, it’s somewhat romantic: a woman maneuvers or challenges two men into fighting, with the implication or promise that she will surrender herself to the winner. After the competition is decided, she fulfills her bargain. It’s basically an honest transaction with the presumption that the two will live happily ever after. As a manipulative game, it’s darkly comic: the woman sets up the competition and while the two men are fighting, she steals away with a third. The psychological advantages (internal and external) for her and her mate spring from the position that honest competition is for suckers. In either case, the psychology is essentially feminine. The high drama qualities of this game make it the basis for volumes of literature around the world, both good and bad.

In The Hunger Games the 12 districts and their tributes are manipulated by the Capitol in a deadly “Let’s you and them fight” game. The Capitol represents “villains” who love to play “victims” (after all, the districts need to be punished for their attempted rebellion years ago). Unfortunately, we see this type of behavior show up in corporate life. In the last post we briefly considered what happens when victim role players “go pro.”

What if you were of a mindset that tilted towards perpetual victim status? What if, over time, you learned to use victimhood as a strategy, or even as a weapon? What if you got good at it?  You’d probably show up as one of two general types of villains-as-victims:

Manipulators – These are the “poor me” types. They are “victims” of circumstance or the behavior of others. Their objective is fairly simple: they seek pity, sympathy or compassion in order to get something. Example: in the movie Wall Street: the money never sleeps, uber-villain, Gordon Gekko manipulates his daughter emotionally. He’s after the money!

Abusers – These are the ones who want to divert attention from their actions claiming that their actions were justified based on the bad behavior of others (often victims of the abusers’ actions). They’re after sympathy in order to get support, or enabling behavior, regarding the abuse of the victim (target). Let’s go back to the Wall Street movie for another example: Bretton James (Josh Brolin) and Jacob Moore (Shia LaBeouf) confront one another. Both are trying to divert attention from their actions, claiming they were justified in their respective bad behaviors.

What is the villain-as-victim looking for? Justification. Internally, they want to rationalize the inconsistency they feel about themselves and how they actually treat others. Externally, it’s a way to escape judgment or condemnation for their behavior.

Your job is not to fix the other person in these scenarios; your job is to not “take the bait” and to not be a “victim.” Don’t be a tribute, or the Capitol, in the Organizational Hunger Games.

In Other Words…

“Dear ones: Beware of the tiny gods frightened men create to bring an anesthetic relief to their sad days.” – Hafiz

“If it’s never our fault, we can’t take responsibility for it. If we can’t take responsibility for it, we’ll always be its victim.”
 – Richard Bach

“Self-pity is easily the most destructive of the nonpharmaceutical narcotics; it is addictive, gives momentary pleasure and separates the victim from reality.”
 – John W. Gardner

“You can’t hide your lyin’ eyes.” – The Eagles

“Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.” – Holocaust Museum

In The Word…

“Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” – Matthew 5:37

Note: The Hunger Games pin logo is the property of Lionsgate Films and is used here as a parody.

As a cartoon parody of 20th century silent film and melodrama mixed with adolescent humor, it was harmless, and, if you like the genre, entertaining. However, when the victim (the lovely Nell), persecutor (Whiplash), and rescuer (Do-Right) roles show up in business, the amusement stops.  Here’s how it plays out:

There are three psychological roles:

• the person who is treated as – or accepts – the role of victim
• the person who pressures, coerces or persecutes the victim, and
• the rescuer, who intervenes, seemingly out of a desire to “make things better” or help the underdog.

According to transactional analyst, Claude Steiner, “…the victim is not really as helpless as he feels, the rescuer is not really helping, and the persecutor does not really have a valid complaint.”

Every victim needs a villain. 

To complicate things a bit, these roles are dynamic: when the victim feels hurt and seeks revenge, he becomes the villain (persecutor). The persecutor (villain) may be attacked by the victim or rescuer when they go too far, or may feel guilty, and thereby becomes a victim, or a rescuer. The rescuer feels the hopelessness and frustration of trying hard to “make things better” or “fix things” and engages in blame, or is blamed, becoming a persecutor, or a victim. You probably feel like you need a Playbill to keep up with who is in which role!

O.K., this is not genuinely responsible behavior. Each player is acting out their own selfish “needs.” The reason this situation endures is that each one gets their unspoken, and often unconscious, psychological wishes or needs met. They feel justified without having to acknowledge or deal with the broader dysfunction, or harm done, in the situation as a whole.

Some victims “go pro.” The Urban Dictionary defines “professional victim” as one who claims victimization whenever things don’t go their way. Some are burdened by perpetual victim syndrome. Those are the people for whom wrongs can never be righted. The perpetual victim loves to play on your sympathy and is ever attention-seeking even if the attention is negative. They love the attention that a life of drama creates for them. More on this in the next post.

It’s not hard to imagine the distractions this kind of drama can create in business. These behaviors, especially the victim role play, tend to be self-fulfilling. They can also be self-limiting in that they help keep game-playing people from higher levels in an organization. Some of the time.

So what’s a person to do?  Two things: first, don’t play. The “game” doesn’t work if you don’t assume your assigned role. Second, someone has to be the “adult,” the one who responds to the “here and now,” dealing with things in ways that are not unhealthily influenced by the past. The idea and need is to see people as they are rather than to project a (or accept an unhealthy) role.

Let’s leave the drama to Dudley, Snidely, and the lovely Nell.

In Other Words…

“Every form of refuge has it’s price.” – The Eagles, Lying Eyes

“A man’s most open actions have a secret side to them.” – Joseph Conrad

“When attacked ask a question.” – George Kohlrieser, Hostage at the Table

“Delay is the deadliest form of denial.” – C. Northcote Parkinson

In The Word…

“Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.” – Luke 6:22

Top photo: Dad on left in "Ol' B29" amtrac. Bottom: Dad marked with "x" - "Chow time on Saipan" Click on picture to enlarge.

During the morning of February 19, 1945 my father was about to drive a United States Marine Corps amphibious tractor onto the beach at Iwo Jima. This was his third beach assault under enemy fire. As the “amtrac” neared the beach an explosion (mine, mortar, artillery, who knows?) took place under the bow of the vehicle. It flipped over dumping everyone into the surf. Those who surfaced on the left or right side were killed immediately by automatic weapons fire from shore. My father and two others somehow surfaced behind the trac, where they were pinned down until after dark. They waded out to chin-deep water and moved parallel to the beach until they could hear English being spoken. As they shuffled, soaking, hungry and chilled, onto the beach they were told to “Pick up a rifle and get back to work.”

If my father were here today I wonder what he would say if I told him about:

• the “pronoun police” – those who are overly concerned about the ratio of male/female/gender neutral pronoun usage and who never seem to miss an occasion to draw attention to some infraction
• the vice president of a telecommunications company who cancelled the participation of 17 people in an executive education seminar on corporate strategy execution because there were “no female faculty members.”
• the man who stopped a management team discussion in it’s tracks because he felt the use of the “black” markers only represented the negative information on the “white” board
• where does this stuff end?

I think my father would – once he realized I was serious and that the list of absurdities could go on at great length – simply ask, “What are you people keeping track of? Don’t you have work to do?”

Generally, political correctness is wasteful. It’s wasteful in two ways: first, it doesn’t add anything of value. Secondly, it consumes resources by denying, delaying or deflecting management attention from real and substantive issues that we should be working to resolve or exploit. Don’t misunderstand my point here: I’m all for an equal starting line, but no one is guaranteed an equal finish line. Business moves forward because people focus on making the business better, not by being overly concerned about one’s self-esteem.

I’m told that human cancer starts with a single cell. It’s development pattern is “growth without purpose,” other than to perpetuate itself. Cancer cells are generally inefficient. They burn fuel (glucose) in such a way as to produce extraordinary amounts of waste, such as lactic acid (lactose). The human body works hard, using lots of energy, to convert this waste into… glucose, which is devoured by the cancer cells. Wasteful. The disease is consuming the fuel that would otherwise nurture the organism, so it can create more inefficiency and waste. Sound familiar?

I believe a large part of the answer to such wasteful behavior in business lies in the credo of the Ritz-Carleton hotel chain: “Ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.” Respect, something that most of us appreciate a great deal when we get it, requires honesty not special treatment and “officially approved” (by whom?) language. When did we get so thin-skinned? When did we forget who we are? When did we give other people the power to “hurt” us with pronouns? When did we value waste so much?

As my father would have said, “Don’t you have work to do?”

In Other Words…

“Be a light, not a judge. Be a model, not a critic.” – Stephen R. Covey

“There’s nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos.” – Jim Hightower

“The ultimate judge of your swing is the flight of the ball.” – Ben Hogan

“People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do.” – Thomas Sowell

“Accept that no matter where you go to work, you are not an employee – you are a business with one employee, you.” – Andy Grove

Sign on the door at a counseling center: Low Self Esteem Support Group Will Meet Thursday. Please Use the Back Door.

In The Word…

“In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets” – Matthew 7:12

In Linked Words…

A politically correct “Tarzan” audition

Most of us have experience or some sort of personal reference to look back on where we have given advice (or perhaps have taken action) that, due to our own experiences or set of circumstances, we may have (likely) given biased advice or made a biased decision. We’re sometimes blinded by our own interests. Occasionally, we have a clear conflict of interest or a strong and well-formed bias in mind. That type of issue is fairly easy to resolve: acknowledge the bias or conflict of interest and give the advice, make the judgment call, or take the action. Clear conscience. There’s a darker path. Keep the conflict or bias secret. Pretend it doesn’t exist. Less clarity of intent risks less trust.

Situations dealing with clear or certain bias or conflict of interest are less troubling than the “blinded” version. As I mentioned earlier, we are sometimes blinded by our own interests. Our clear thinking is clouded. In the blinded, or clouded, state, we are more susceptible to both errors of ignorance (mistakes because we don’t know enough; we don’t ask enough questions, we don’t dig a little deeper) and errors of ineptitude (mistakes because we don’t make proper use of what we know; cloudy, biased, assumptive thinking).

We should try not to trust our own intuition too much. Let’s not be victims of societal bias: our society tends to favor a person of action over a person of contemplation. I’m not against action and I’m not for “analysis paralysis.” Why does it have to be either/or?

When we understand that we’ve “gone wrong” we open the door to fix things, make a positive difference, and get better at getting better.

Think about it.

In Other Words…

“I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process.” – Vincent van Gogh

“A wise man changes his mind, a fool never.” –  Spanish proverb

“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all” – Aristotle

“The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of Hell, a hell of Heaven.”
- John Milton, Paradise Lost

“When our Lord says, we must be converted and become as little children, I suppose he means also, that we must be sensible of our weakness, comparatively speaking, as a little child.” - George Whitefield

“… even if there is no showing of actual bias … , this Court has held that due process is denied by circumstances that create the likelihood or the appearance of bias.” – Peters v. Kiff , 407 U.S. 493 at 502 (1971)

In The Word…

“What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? ” – James 4:1

However, this no time for handwringing. Nor is it a time for “wishin’ and hoping’.” There are three proven “secrets” that work well in any economy but seem to be paramount in one like we have today.

1. Stop valuing everyone equally.

(Ouch! Did that sound a little harsh or perhaps politically incorrect? Read it again. “Valuing.”) I am in full and complete agreement with the self-evident truth “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…” I further believe that same Creator creates everyone with an equality of intrinsic worth as human beings. Please do not confuse intrinsic human value with talent appropriate for the job and aptitudes, innovative thinking, initiative, contribution, perseverance and other high achieving traits and characteristics.

We love all our employees. And, those who make a positive difference in business performance (thus creating more value) should be valued differently. Treat your high achievers differently. A former colleague used to say, “Feed your eagles and starve your turkeys.” (I can hear the folks over in human resources cringing even now!). Every employee deserves the right to succeed or fail. They further deserve – to the extent possible – the necessary resources to do their job. If you look closely you’ll probably find that your high achievers need more resources (hint: there’re getting more done).

Also, reward your high achievers accordingly. As an employer you want to “get what you pay for.” You should also “pay for what you get.” If your organization is fairly typical, many, if not most, of your lower achievers are very nice, affable and even loyal employees. Don’t be misled by the difference between “loyal” and “competence or contribution.” There should be a noticeable gap between the pay of your high achievers and your lower achievers. 

2. Hire slow and fire fast.

Chick-fil-A is one of those rare companies who “get it” when it comes to “hiring slow.” Andy Lorenzen, Director of Talent Strategy and Systems for Chick-fil-A says, “We take time to get to know the person, not just because we think it is the right business decision, but because it is the right thing for the person. We want the candidate to understand what it means to work at Chick-fil-A and have clear expectations as a result.  We also believe that there is ‘wisdom in a multitude of counsel,’ and because of that, many people typically speak into a selection. Doing that takes time. We believe in hiring slow because the outcome is usually better.”

The Vice President of Human Resources at another one of my client companies likes to say, “Engage early and often” when it comes to performance issues with employees. When Jack Welch was CEO of GE, he said, “When you don’t fire underperforming members of your team, you’re not only hurting the organization, you’re hurting them – because you’re giving them a false sense of what success looks like.”

Here’s how you keep this aligned: hold people accountable to the job you hired them to do. If they’re struggling, help them. Really. Don’t enable their shortcomings. Don’t just “keep book” or “paper the file” in anticipation of a termination. If they can’t live up to the minimum requirements of the job or are barely holding on to the bottom rung, you’re likely “giving them a false sense of what success looks like.”

Firing people is not about rude or heartless behavior. What is truly rude and heartless is to hold captive an employee who cannot be reasonably successful in your organization who might otherwise grow and blossom elsewhere. Set them free!

3. Understand that culture trumps strategy.

One of my intellectual heroes, Peter Drucker said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Your culture is often hard to see from the inside out. Well, you’re part of it. It’s “the way we do things around here.” It’s the collective assumptions about how we deal with external problems and internal integration. It includes artifacts and rituals (easy to see), shared values and beliefs (a little harder to see), and unspoken rules (very difficult to see), which are often underlying drivers of corporate culture. Culture is the most difficult corporate attribute to change and thereby one of the most powerful.

Louis V. Gerstner, Jr., former CEO of IBM said, “I came to see in my time at IBM, that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game – it is the game.” Is your culture helping or hurting your performance? How do decisions get made? What is the “pace” of business? How responsive is your organization? Does your organization focus more or accountability or blame? Does it value innovation or entrenched ideas? Do you have an idea-friendly environment? How open to change is your organization (adaptable or rigid)? Are your strategies and your culture in alignment?

A culture change initiative as a stand-alone project is dead on announcement.

If you decide to work on changing your culture, keep two things in mind: (1) keep your focus on the very few changes that matter most. Maybe two or three simple but important changes over the next 18 months. (2) Weave these change efforts into business improvement activities or projects.  A culture change initiative as a stand alone project is dead on announcement. Since culture is how we do things around here, make the desired changes part of how we do things now around here.

You can weather this storm. It’s as simple as 1… 2… 3…

Note: read more and about 3 culture change secrets here (PDF)

In Other Words…

“An innovation culture isn’t about problem-solving. It’s driven by power of questions – hunger moving into the unknown.” – Ashley Munday

“A manager is responsible for the application and performance of knowledge.” – Peter Drucker

“If you don’t execute your ideas, they die.” – Roger von Oech

“Doubt, the essential preliminary of all improvement and discovery, must accompany the stages of man’s onward progress. The faculty of doubting and questioning, without which those of comparison and judgment would be useless, is itself a divine prerogative of the reason.” – Albert Pike

“An ounce of performance is worth pounds of promises.” – Mae West

In The Word…

“Know well the condition of your flocks, and give attention to your herds,” – Proverbs 27:23

“During World War II, a British war correspondent had gone into Normandy. He was particularly disgusted by the fact that the generals were living in mansion and estates, in posh digs, while the grunts were on the line. The reporter was really upset one night when he heard that the Nazis had parked two Panzer divisions near Cannes, and a Scottish division was to face the worst of the Panzers the next morning; they were to attack right into the Panzers.

“The reporter went immediately into one battalion, and asked the Sergeant Major, ‘Where’s the Lieutenant Colonel?’ only to be told that he was in the back of the lines with the General. The reporter just flipped out and said, ‘Well doesn’t it anger you to know that you attack in the morning and your Colonel is back there with the General?’ At that point, the Sergeant Major drew himself up and said: ‘Sir, when the time comes for dying, he will be with us.‘”

There was a self-image improvement nostrum going around a few years ago that stated, “What other people think of you is none of your business.” I get that. We don’t want to try to remake ourselves according to someone else’s image of what we should be. Generally, we’re very poor at being someone who we’re not. There’s a larger point here for leaders: what do your followers believe to be true about you? What can they trust in you? What can you be counted on for? Why should they follow you? It’s not quite “What do they think of you?” but it’s close. It’s deeper.

I believe it has to do with four things:

• Character – Who you are at the core. Your values. Your beliefs.
• Commitment – What do you stand for (see Character)? Where do you draw lines and set boundaries? What will you not do? For whom and for what will you go the distance?
• Competence – What do you know? What have you learned? What can you teach me? What can you do? Do you understand the “here and now?” Do you have a clear picture of the “then and there?” How will you bridge the gap between the two?
• Communication – How do you relate to others? Do you clarify your intent? Are you a good listener? What’s your story?

Think about the important areas of your life; the important roles you play? Who are the important people in your life in those roles? What would you have them say about you after you’re gone? Really. Write the answers down somewhere. Check your answers. How well do they line up with your character, your commitment, your competence, and your communication? What do you need to work on? What are you going to do differently?

When the time comes for dying, will you be with us?

In Other Words…

“Your position never gives you the right to command. It only imposes on you the duty of so living your life that others can receive your orders without being humiliated.” – Dag Hammarskjold, former Secretary General of the United Nations

“In times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and eternity.” - Abraham Lincoln, December 1, 1862 Message to Congress

“When we are debating an issue, loyalty means giving me your honest opinion, whether you think I’ll like it or not. Disagreement, at this state, stimulates me. But once a decision is made, the debate ends. From that point on, loyalty means executing the decision as if it were your own.” -  General Colin Powell

“In the Western tradition, we have focused on teaching as a skill and forgotten what Socrates knew: teaching is a gift, learning is a skill.” -  Peter Drucker

“It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.” -  J. W. Goethe

“The deepest human need is the need to be appreciated.” – William James

“The kind man feeds his cat before sitting down to dinner.” - Hebrew proverb

In The Word…

“A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.” – Proverbs 22:1

The philosopher, Emanuel Kant had a different view of lying: lying is always morally wrong. Lying has a corrupting nature to it. For the one doing the lying, it corrupts the ability to make free rational choices. Each and every lie contradicts and tears at the moral worth of the individual. Additionally, lies corrupt others in their freedom to make rational choices (the lie leads others to make choices other than they would make if they knew the truth). Ouch!

In a previous post (Lies and damn lies), I talked about some of the reasons people lie (the why of the lie). For now, our issues are more practical than philosophical – ­­­­Is the person on the other side of the negotiating table telling the truth? Is the employee in the performance review fabricating facts to enhance or cover certain aspects of their performance? Is the applicant stretching the truth beyond the breaking point during the job interview? How can you tell the difference? As an owner/executive/leader/manager your job is to solve real problems with and for real people in the real world. You need the truth of reality and the reality of truth.

On any given day we’re lied to from 10 to 200 times, and the clues to detect those lies can be subtle and counter-intuitive. Pamela Meyer, author of Liespotting, shows the manners and “hotspots” used by those trained to recognize deception. Did you know that lying is a cooperative act?

Would I lie to you?

Pamela Meyer on Liespotting

In Other Words…

“You know where you are with a complete liar, but when a chap mixes some truth with his yarns, you can’t trust a word he says.” – Joyce Cary, The Horse’s Mouth (1944)

“The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray us
In deepest consequence.” – William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act I, scene 3, line 124

On est aisément dupé par ce qu’on aims. ”One is easily fooled by that which one loves.” – Molière, Le Tartuffe, IV. 3.

“I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won’t.” – Mark Twain

“I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.” – Frederick Neitzsche

“A lie is an abomination unto the Lord; a very present help in time of need.” – attributed to Adlai Stevenson

In The Word…

“If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.” – 1 John 1:6

Note: Pinocchio image is property of The Walt Disney Company. All rights reserved.

A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule. A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk. A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist.  Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the top musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written,with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars. Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100.

This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station  was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context? 

According to developmental molecular biologist, Dr. John Medina, author of Brain Rules, our brains can only focus on one thing at a time. Sometimes we’re not focused – lost in the blur of work and life. At other times our focus defaults to what it has always seen, to look where it habitually looks. As Medina says, “Our previous experience predicts where we should pay attention.”

Our brains are not capable of multitasking. Sure we can walk and talk at the same time, but when it comes to higher level processing, we just can’t do it. Medina emphasized the point, “Driving while talking on a cell phone is like driving drunk. The brain is a sequential processor and large fractions of a second are consumed every time the brain switches tasks. Cell phone talkers are a half-second slower to hit the brakes and get involved in more wrecks.”

Interestingly, today’s workplace encourages this type of multitasking. Email. Phone. Text. Internet search. LinkedIN. Facebook. Twitter. All at the same time! Yet the research on multitasking shows that your error rate goes up 50% and it takes you twice as long to do things.  Think about it, when you’re always online, you’re always distracted. So is the always online organization the always unproductive organization? What are we missing?

When we look, what do we see?

In Other Words…

“For any man with half an eye,
What stands before him may espy;
But optics sharp it needs I ween,
To see what is not to be seen.” - John Trumbull, McFingal (1775-1782), Canto I, line 67.

“Men who love wisdom should acquaint themselves with a great many particulars.” – Heraclitus

“To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.” – Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil, (1845), Book I, Chapter V.

“Wise men hear and see as little children do.” – Lao Tzu

“A moments insight is sometimes worth a life’s experience.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

“As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it.” - Albert Einstein as quoted in Paper Prototyping: The Fast and Easy Way to Design and Refine User Interfaces (2003) by Carolyn Snyder

“All things I thought I knew; but now confess
The more I know, I know, I know the less.” - John Owen (1616–1683), The Works of John Owen, Bk. VI, p. 39

“A word to the wise is infuriating.” – Hunter S. Thompson

In The Word…

“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” – 2 Corinthians 4:18

In Linked Words…

Joshua Bell at D.C. Metro stop during rush hour