Get Me Jamie Notter

Get My Generational Ebook for Free

2009-07-15T09:27:00-04:00

I am feeling generous and have decided to give away my ebook on Generational Diversity in the Workplace for free, at least for a limited time.

I wrote the book in 2007. It's about 60 pages and it covers the basics of generational differences and then talks about how to apply this knowledge (getting past the hype) and examines the broad implications for leadership. I'm proud of the book, and I've sold over 100 copies without really marketing it much.

But it's been out there long enough that I think I can give it away. So grab a copy. Tell your friends. It's a quick download.

Click here to get the Generational Ebook for free.

Recognizing Respect

2009-07-14T08:48:14-04:00

I noticed in my Google Analytics the other day that one of the most popular keywords for finding my blog is the phrase "what does respect look like." I did a brief post on that in October 2007, pointing out that when I facilitate, the group frequently asks for "treat each other with respect" as a groundrule, yet that doesn't help me as a facilitator, because I don't know what specific behaviors will be deemed disrespectful.

I've done enough facilitation to know that there is a rather wide range of definitions of respect. It's hard, because each person's definition tends to be assumed to be universal. When your respect is violated, it often brings with it a feeling of astonishment that the other party doesn't see how disrespectful they are being. This makes figuring out what respect "looks like" very difficult.

My understanding of respect all comes down to value (and values). To respect me, you will honor what I value. You don't necessarily have to value it yourself, but you have to allow me to value it without making it "less than" in any way. If I spit on your flag, I make it less than. That's disrespectful. But I don't necessarily have to salute your flag. It's just not that important to me. But I wouldn't consider that disrespect.

So if you want to know what respect (and disrespect) looks like, look for "less than." Look at your own interactions and try to notice that point in your thinking where the other person simply becomes less than. They're not worth listening to, they don't have anything positive to contribute here, they're not that smart, their intentions are not worthy...you get the picture. Maybe that one idea isn't so great, but does it warrant the drop into the "less than" category? You're moving into the land of disrespect here.

Want more respect in the workplace? Accept what other people value. Let them value that, even if you don't like it. Let them be them. You don't have to agree with them, and if their values are driving behavior that has a negative impact on you or the system, then you all need to talk about it and make some changes. But keep that conversation focused on behavior and impact, and not your judgments about whether or not the other side is right, adequate, normal, or worthy.

What does respect look like? It looks like just about anything you do while you are allowing someone else to be themselves fully.

Honoring the Freak Flag

2009-07-10T10:46:32-04:00

My friend Joe Gerstandt is a proud purveyor of the freak flag. I've been reading Joe's stuff for a while now (and it's awesome, by the way), and I will admit that the first few times he made reference to the freak flag, I was a bit confused. I figured it was something the cool kids knew about, and eventually it would make sense to me.

So I was grateful that he posted a clear description of what the Freak Flag really means to him. Go read it, because it will help you understand this post too.

I get it. So here's my story of getting in touch with the Freak Flag.

I like to think. I shared some of my blog posts around the office the other day, and after reading the posts, one of my coworkers said "You like to think...a lot...don't you." It's true. It seems to be my nature to ponder things, turn things around in my head. It's fun for me and when I share what I've come up with, people seem to like it. It ends up being an important part of my work.

And while thinking is easy for me, speaking up is not. Now, I'm a blogger and a professional speaker, so it's not like I'm quiet all the time. I don't have any kind of dispositional resistance to expressing myself. I do it a lot.

I'm talking about the times where in order to really be authentic I need to say something...and I don't. There are too many of these times, and in those moments I often take refuge in my thinking and choose not to express. When a friend makes a racist comment, but I don't want to ruffle the relationship so I just change the subject. When a client dismisses a challenge I think they need to face, but my ego says it's better when the people who pay you are happy with you, so I tread lightly instead of speaking the truth. When someone I love hurts me and I'm afraid if I say something I'll just make it worse, so I bottle it up inside (and, of course, make it worse. This is an aside, but isn't it interesting that many things we fear we also secretly desire?).

The Freak Flag gently reminds me to stop that foolishness. It is forgiving, of course, and won't judge me when I remain silent. But the Freak Flag, for me, is ultimately about VOICE. To continue Joe's descriptions:

It is the celebration of voice and expression and truth.

It shouts "Silent No More"

It is the celebration of listening and welcoming all voices

It is the celebration of showing up and building and creating and unfolding

On Fridays (at the very least) I fly my Freak Flag and I remember my voice. Silent no more.

The Downside of Control: Brittle

2009-07-08T14:55:18-04:00

Smart guy Joe Gerstandt referred me to another smart guy, Dave Pollard, who wrote an interesting blog post about groups actually resolving their own inadequacies (wouldn't that be nice?!). In the post, he talks about complex adaptive systems:

Nature's way of 'dealing' with complexity is to make these complex systems self-managing. A balance is found, and as the infinite number of variables constantly and inevitably change, the entire system itself collectively seeks and finds a new balance, a new equilibrium. The physical and social systems of our world are complex because, in Darwinian terms, they work. They are less brittle than simple and complicated systems -- cars break down much more easily and frequently than ecosystems and societies. If an ecosystem has a quintillion components, it makes far more sense to have all these components working collectively to resolve their problems (the resolution is then said to 'emerge'), than expecting a single superior intelligence, or even a single species, to try to manage the system and impose 'solutions' on it.

We have all heard it ad nauseum: change is moving at a faster pace, the world (your world) is more complex than it used to be, we need to be more flexible and agile. Flexible and agile are the opposite of brittle. So you think we would all be moving in the direction of self-managing systems, right?

The problem is, deep down we like brittle, because its ours to control. The automobile is an amazing engineering feat. The engineers used their smarts to create this complicated machine so that it works. It was designed and it works. Well, until it doesn't, and then another engineer (the mechanic) fixes it. As much as that can be a pain, we like it. We like to create and then fix things. It shows us that we are powerful. What we create may be brittle, but we controlled the creation and we're enjoyably busy with the fixing, so we'll live with that.

And, of course, in the case of the automobile we don't have much of a choice (at least until the machines become sentient and take over the world!). But with organizations, we have the option of letting the system do the adapting, rather than keeping all that control in the hands of the few people on top of the organizational chart. Open source software design is showing us the power of that. Social media is showing us the power of that. It's not brittle AND we can't control it AND amazing things can happen as a result.

And it strikes me that our most powerful leverage in this new context is to build the capacity of the system to correct itself. We're behind on this one, so we should start now. Like the quote I've been seeing on Twitter a lot these days: The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is right now.

It's All About Trust

2009-07-02T09:01:00-04:00

Charles Seybold writes a project management blog. Apparently the other day he went to an nifty little workshop filled with startup CEOs and they talked about how to build an effective organizational culture. He was struck by how much the conversation focused on tactics. "Things" management did to try to generate happiness, good will, or a strong culture.

He didn't buy it. For him, it's really all about trust:

I just don’t think that stuff matters if you don’t have trust. If people don’t trust each other you’re just bribing them to keep coming back to work. Culture is like mood; it’s temporary and changes easily and it’s just a reflection of the underlying relationships.

I love that. Culture is a reflection of the underlying relationships. If you want a strong, effective culture, those relationships need to be based in trust. If you want to change culture, you need to get at the underlying relationship patterns. That is why you can't dictate culture or really change it by putting up cool posters on the wall. You just can't control relationships, can you? That's why culture and culture change are so elusive. We want it to be mechanical, and it just isn't.

But you absolutely can nurture and build great relationships. Indeed, if you want a truly powerful organization, you must.

Set Your People Free

2009-06-30T09:16:00-04:00

In Gary Hamel's book, he suggests three areas on which to focus when creating a more human organization, and one of them is "too much management, too little freedom." As I said in my previous post, most people will agree with that statement at the high level, but I doubt as many will when the rubber meets the road--where people in charge actually have to manage less and dole out more freedom.

So think about your office and the various people that report directly to you. That's probably the easiest place to start. What would happen if you managed them less? It's hard to tell YOU what that would look like, since I assume it varies a lot case to case, depending on the culture of your organization, how many people you manage, how many people THEY manage, your personality, etc. So you have to figure this one out.

What is it you DO that manages these people? In what areas are they not free to do whatever they want--they have to go through you first. Can you see the places where you have the ability to GIVE freedom to your people. Imagine (this is only a thought experiment--for now!) what kinds of things would happen if you dramatically tipped the scales towards freedom. You still get to manage some, just significantly less than now. What are the range of impacts? What assumptions do you have that drive that range that you just came up with?

Even better, talk to them about it. Share the assumptions you have about why you manage. Would you really open yourself up that much? Hmm. Maybe I'll write another post on that.

In the mean time, at a high level, here are my predictions about what might happen if you give your people more freedom and manage them less:

Some people won't like it.
There are plenty of people out there who would rather have you make the decision. You get paid the big bucks, after all, shouldn't you be making these calls? Sure, you will need to make some decisions, but depending on the existing culture, you may be asked to do more than you should. Remember, freedom isn't comfortable, so if people aren't used to it, there will be some resistance. I know it's odd, but not everyone will jump at the chance to be in a more human organization, at least not at first.

You will have more time
The internal bandwidth that is used up by managing when you don't have to can be freed up along with the freedom your people now have. You will have new challenges, of course, so it's not like you're going to be bored. But you can shift that bandwidth to activities that will have more impact for you and the organization. In my opinion, THIS is why you get the big bucks.

You will have some 'splaining to do
This will be new. If it's not new, then the freedom part isn't really happening. Your people will start doing things that they didn't used to do, and you'll get new results, and you will not be managing it all in the same way you used to, and that will feel weird to you, to your people, and to others in the system. Even if the whole organization is you and the people that report to you, there are other stakeholders (members, customers, volunteers, etc.) that will not be used to the new way of doing things. Systems naturally respond to change, and in organizations it's not usually positive. You'll have to address that head on. Like any leadership challenge, there is an extensive communications piece to this.

You'll get better results
Your people will do better work. Freedom will allow them to bring more of themselves to work, and they will produce more. You will be more effective as a leader to, because you'll have the freedom to focus more on leading and less on doing the things you did before you got this position. things will look very different, and it will feel more chaotic at times, and there might be moments where you feel it's not working as well as it did when you had more control. But I am assuming the results you want are long term. Don't shut down the unbounded potential of employees who feel free just to give you the short term comfort of predictable results.

Authenticity a Buzzword? Try Truth

2009-06-26T09:19:00-04:00

I heard someone say recently that they were already sick of the word authenticity. It's obviously being discussed a LOT in social media spheres. I've talked about it here as well. I think it's a great word, but when any word gets too much play, it can start to lose its meaning.

So here's an alternative: truth. I can hardly think of an organization that could not benefit from more truth. Not that all organizations are baskets of lies--truth is more complex than that. But in most organizations, people hold back, leaders don't reveal, learning takes a back seat, and important conversations remain unspoken for years. The more I think about it, the more surprised I am that we're not doing more about this. I think there are some simple steps we can take to bring more truth into our organizations, and I'm not sure what we're waiting for.

So I'm thinking about putting together some consulting and coaching programs to tackle the issue directly. With much of my consulting work in areas of conflict, trust, and difficult conversations, the topic isn't new to me. But I've never focused on it directly. So tell me what you think of this. I see four areas of focus when bringing in more truth:

Walk
Talk
Culture
Structure

Walk is about changing behavior at the ground level. More truth requires everyone in the organization to consciously choose new behavior in situations where truth used to take a back seat. You can't order people to do this. You have to get right down at their level and work with them to create new patterns of behavior.

Talk is focused more on people in positions of authority. While those people too also need to change their behavior, because of their position in the system they also need to pay attention to what they say. And I don't mean trying to market the new "truth" program to the masses. I mean speaking the truth in public ways.

Walk and talk both focus on individual thinking and behavior. Culture and structure are more about the system.

Culture is about elevating the importance and value of learning and feedback in the system. If your system rewards and supports extensive learning and the giving and receiving of feedback, then you'll have abundant truth. It's hard work to figure out how to facilitate cultural changes in support of learning and feedback, but it pays big dividends.

Structure is about evaluating and changing organizational structures and processes. You'd be surprised at how much existing structures or even simple processes can make speaking the truth terribly (and unnecessarily) difficult. But if you change individual behavior WITHOUT the accompanying structural change, the individual efforts will fizzle.

As I said, I've been doing work on issues like these in organizations for years, but putting it together into a package focusing on truth is new, so I consider these programs in the "beta" stage. If you're interested in being a test case for application of the programs, send me an email.

In the mean time, you can read my article on truth, or the following blog posts:

Leadership is Not Comfortable

2009-06-25T09:18:00-04:00

I said last week that I would "push back" against some of the things I learned at ASAE & The Center's CEO Symposium. There were times during the presentations where I felt the speakers made some generically accurate statements, yet overlooked some important complexity in the process.

One example was a point they made related to culture and process. As association executives, we are working with volunteer leaders who (in most cases) are NOT association executives. They come from a different field, which has its own culture, processes, norms, expectations, etc. The speaker made the point that to the extent we can make our association's processes similar to the way things are done in that industry, the more comfortable our volunteer leaders will be and the more smoothly our processes will run.

At a high level, this is true. If we force our own processes on them, they are likely to start resisting the message simply because they don't like the medium. In the association I manage, I've been tweaking my financial reporting and budgeting process to present information in a format that I hope makes more sense to my volunteer leaders. It's a challenge, because the association's finances run on an accrual basis with income and expenses concentrated unevenly in certain parts of the year, but their industry is much more about quickly scanning the regular monthly cash flow.

So I'm all for making adjustments, but there's more to this issue that we did not get to discuss in the symposium. Sometimes comfortable is good, and sometimes it's not. Earlier this year I wrote a post about freedom not being comfortable. Comfortable is rarely a stretch goal! There are times when a system NEEDS some discomfort in order to grow and develop. There are times where the dominant ways of thinking and seeing things need to be explicitly challenged in order for the real opportunities to be discovered. Knowing when to push people out of their comfort zones is a critical leadership capacity.

Pithy Quotes that Actually Suck

2009-06-24T09:12:00-04:00

Maddie shared an interesting opinion on Twitter the other day:

It's true there might be a bit too many people putting up pithy quotes on Twitter. It can be irritating. But as I think about it, SOME of the quotes on Twitter are inspiring to me. So what's the difference? I think it depends on the quote. I am growing weary of quotes that sound pithy but in fact contain very little value. Consider this list I stumbled across today (things the author learned from his or her father):

1. Failure is what happens when you quit before you succeed
2. Your reputation is everything
3. People get what they deserve--you don't need to get revenge yourself
4. It's better to be lucky than smart (and don't confuse the two!)
5. Family is the most important thing
6. Drinks should be cold, food should be hot
7. Focus on the big idea, but sometimes, be ready to get into the details!
8. Treat everyone with respect
9. Tell the truth, always, especially in business
10. Approach everything with beginner's mind

These annoy me. Not because they are on Twitter (in fact, they're not the traditional quotes from someone famous that you frequently see on Twitter), but they annoy me because they sound sort of cool, but don't really mean anything. Look at them one at a time.

1. Failure is what happens when you quit before you succeed
Um, nope. Failure is what happens when things don't work out. Not everything works out, nor should we expect that. Quitting is not always a bad idea. But hey, if you want to stick your finger in that light socket another dozen times, go ahead!

2. Your reputation is everything
Sure, reputation is important, but it's not everything. Nothing is everything. And if you over-focus on reputation, you'll likely start screwing up in areas like BEHAVIOR, which is where your reputation comes from to begin with.

3. People get what they deserve--you don't need to get revenge yourself
No, they don't. Some people do crappy things and never pay for it. And even if they do, why do you care? Why does that matter? The notion that you don't have to get revenge because the universe will do it for you is just as misguided, in my opinion, as wanting revenge in the first place.

4. It's better to be lucky than smart (and don't confuse the two!)
Actually it's better to be both. I answer this one with a quote from Louis Pasteur: Chance favors the prepared mind. Smart (and hard working) and luck are interconnected frequently.

5. Family is the most important thing
Wait, I thought reputation was everything. See how confusing these absolutes can be?

6. Drinks should be cold, food should be hot
What?

7. Focus on the big idea, but sometimes, be ready to get into the details!
That's like "Breathe in, but sometimes, be ready to breathe out!"

8. Treat everyone with respect
True. But everyone defines respect differently, so how does this help?

9. Tell the truth, always, especially in business
Again with the absolutes. Truth is not so simple (and I like to write about that a lot).

10. Approach everything with beginner's mind
Okay, I actually like this one.

Bottom line: if you want to inspire, dig deeper than a quote that sounds cool. Repeat things that helped cause a real shift in your thinking or awareness. And when you have those shifts, write about it. People might start quoting you.

Buzz 09

2009-06-23T09:03:00-04:00

I don't normally do a whole lot of promotional blog posts. I certainly mention speaking engagements that I have and sure I like to plug the events that friends of mine are doing, though obviously I only plug them when I think they are valuable.

But I want to draw special attention to the one-day conference (Buzz09) that Lindy and Maddie are putting together in July. It is a "Social Media for Associations" conference that gets serious about social media and word of mouth. This isn't a "so what is Twitter?" conference. It's for senior-level marketing or membership staff, or CEOs of smaller associations, who are seriously focusing on social media.

You don't get this opportunity every day. Guy Kawasaki is doing the lunch-time keynote. He actually created a separate Alltop page for association management, as part of this event. Alltop--that gets 45,000 visits per day! Representatives from national companies like National Geographic and California Tortilla will talk about what they are doing. And this is all for a fairly intimate group of less than 100 people!

Maddie's post describes the details of what you'll get pretty clearly. I know our budgets to go to conferences are limited, but this is one that should likely be bumped up in the priority list.