I once believed that leadership was an achievement that resulted from a process of developing knowledge, skills, and experience -not to mention an accumulation of battle scars.  The problem with this idea of leadership development is that it is incomplete at best, but more likely just wrong.  If it was true, then leadership development would largely be an academic process, with a bit of practice along the journey.

I’ve learned that leadership development is not a path to enlightenment; it is an interactive growth process.  The most significant growth comes when you realize that your focus is not simply about developing yourself, but rather it is the development of self and the development of others.  The real work of leadership is sharing your knowledge, expertise and experience to help others succeed.

Engagement of Followers

One of the most remarkable leaders with whom I’ve worked is also one of the most transparent teachers I’ve ever met.  Not only did he share his challenges, approaches and the reasons for his decisions with his team, but he discussed them openly while he was working on them.  He asked for ideas, and invited his direct reports to challenge him on the key issues that would affect the organization.  He would go back to the decisions that he made to engage in a postmortem analysis.  On the surface, his leadership style allowed his direct reports access to information, motives, strategy, and the opportunity to influence the direction of the organization.

On a deeper level, this sharing engaged a broader group of people to learn collectively through leadership experience, while it was occurring.  He had a highly performing leadership team and organization, and the most engaged leadership team that I’ve ever seen.

Leadership through Influence

Not all of us will hold high-level positions in large organizations.  However, we all can directly influence the life and work of others.  We influence through leadership work.  The real work of leadership is sharing our knowledge, expertise and experience to help others succeed.

Influence through Social Media

I subscribe to many blogs that are written by people who deliver content that influences my life every day.  I’ve learned more about managing diabetes issues from blogs than from any other source.  I tweak my running and training strategies based on the advice of other runners who share their experiences.  And, I stay tuned into HR and leadership thought through a number of bloggers and social media influencers.  What’s interesting to me is that many of these people who influence my life do not hold high-level leadership positions in organizations; some of them make a living through something other than what they write.

Leadership is not a position, it is a choice.  The real work of leadership is sharing our knowledge, expertise and experience to help others succeed.  The most significant progress that I’ve made in my leadership journey has always been the result of what other leaders have taught me, and through what they are humble enough to share.

How do you share what you know to help others succeed?

When was the last time that something in your life became so overwhelming that you simply ignored it?  What are you ignoring right now that will likely cause you to experience pain or discomfort in the future?  What is stopping you from doing something about it?

There are plenty of things that I would love to ignore right now:  a major job transition, selling my house, and preparing to move with my family to Colorado, to name a few.  The good news is that these are all time-limited events, and I will push through them.  The exciting opportunities on the other side of these changes will re-energize me.

What about challenges not of our choosing, and not of short duration?

I’ve read for months about the struggles of other diabetics for managing their chronic disease over a lifetime.  My response had honestly been a helping of empathy, mixed in with a small dose of, “Suck it up.”  I had managed my blood sugars through a strict diet, vigorous exercise, and extreme focus.  If I could do it, anybody should.

The Rate of Change

One of the principles of the Adaptive Leadership theory is this:  leaders should introduce organizational change at a rate that people can tolerate.  The acceptable change rate is not the same for everybody, and it is the work of leaders to monitor this tolerance, and to make adjustments accordingly.  In other words, we are all capable of adapting to change as long as the rate of change is not faster than what we are capable of managing.

I wonder how this concept applies to our personal choices?  Are we capable of managing and maintaining lifestyle and behavioral changes?  How do we know when it is too much?

A Dose of Humility

I spent fourteen consecutive months managing diet and exercise changes through focus and discipline.  It was a pretty good run, and I’m proud of the substantive changes that it had on my health and my diabetes – my blood sugars were virtually perfect.  The problem now is that I need to begin again.

Fourteen months with no donuts (that’s hard for an ex-cop), virtually no beer, a fast-food hiatus, and 20-plus running miles a week came to a screeching halt about 6 weeks ago.  It’s not that I had a couple of bad meals, and missed a long run; I jumped into the fast-food express lane, riding my Lazy-Boy, and inhaled a doughnut (or maybe two) for the first time in more than a year.  I’ve completely abandoned my approach to managing diabetes.  The result:  I once again have erratic blood sugars, and feel like crap, all the time.

Tolerance

While living with such discipline is hard – sometimes really hard – I can’t say that the lifestyle changes (diet and exercise) alone led to burn out.  I’m wondering if it has more to do with the significant life changes (i.e., a new job and preparing to move my family 1,000 miles) that have pushed me past my point of change tolerance?  My reaction to more change has been to focus on that which is most immediate, and most pressing, seemingly at the expense of that which is not.  The time-limited, high-energy events have gotten all of my attention while the long-term health events have been ignored.

How true is this of our professional work?  When we get overwhelmed, we move into firefighting mode and deal with those things that are most urgent, rather than what is more important.  The long term consequence is burn out.

What has caused you to experience burn out in your job or your life?  How have you overcome it?

I love to talk about organization culture and leadership.  What I like even more than talking about it is working on it.  In my experience, they are inseparable.  You cannot change one without simultaneously working on the other.  What happens when we are talking about changing the culture of an entire industry?

Healthcare Finance Management Association (HFMA)

One of the best conversations I’ve had in a long time about culture and leadership took place last week.  I was interviewed by researchers from HFMA and McManis Consulting about the Value Project.

HFMA is in its second phase of an ambitious effort to help healthcare organizations prepare for the monumental changes that are occurring in (or, “to”) the industry.  The result of this research will be a series of recommendations and road maps to help healthcare organizations navigate the structure, reimbursement, and organizational changes that will be required as a result of healthcare reform.  In the end, healthcare organizations are going to have to change, and deliver more value to their patients and their communities.

What I found interesting is that I was one of few Chief HR Officers to be interviewed in this project to date.  I’m glad that I was given the opportunity, and I had a few suggestions and opinions to share regarding the project’s focus on “Culture and People.”

Managing Conflict

After a robust, high-energy, and 75-minute conversation, one of the researchers summed up my “radical” rant like this:  ”Building the culture to drive this change must include building the leadership capacity to manage conflict.”  My response was, “Yes!”  I’ll take it one step further:  this work is going to require healthcare leaders who thrive in a world of continuous conflict.

Change is Not a Program

One mistake that we often make in leadership and organization development is that we try to reduce the change work that we need to accomplish into neatly defined programs and initiatives.  We develop strategies, timelines, and metrics to fit into our strategic plans and organization dashboards.  Trying to codify change elements into concrete business deliverables sometimes comes at the cost of really understanding the human side of change.  It is difficult to plot the steps of behavioral evolution onto Gantt charts.

Radical change will always be rooted in messy and emotional people issues.  Conflict is inherent in change work.  But, it is in this conflict where human innovation, strength, and diversity lie.  The answers to our problems will be found in the conflict and debate that hasn’t yet occurred.  Leadership is about creating this conflict where it doesn’t exist, and effectively leading people to contribute where it does.  Change is not a program, it is a set of relationships and social structures.  Changing an organization, or an industry is a contact sport.

Back to Reality

As much as I like to debate theoretical constructs, it still comes down to the day-to-day actions of leaders to move their organizations (or industry) through change.  Here were a couple of my recommendations about the Value Project:

1. Involve more CHROs in the research.  There are some smart, radical, and strategic thinkers in the HR profession and the industry;
2. Do not underestimate the importance of organization development and social science research on change.  The real work of healthcare reform lies with the people who are providing care to our communities; and,
3. Challenge traditional business logic and assumptions.  As one of my colleagues often says, “Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic will not change the outcome.”  Focusing exclusively on re-aligning the financial incentives and payment systems will not in itself drive the behavioral changes necessary to create value in our country’s healthcare system.

What are your thoughts about healthcare reform, and the people side of the change necessary to address it?

I’m feeling a little guilty about the gap between posts on HR Soot.  I have a lot of new content in the works, but I refuse to post them until they don’t suck – that is the standard of the pesky little editor that sits atop my right shoulder.

In the meantime, I want to take an opportunity to make sure that you are aware of the relaunch of Project Social HR.  In addition to this being a social media mentoring program (you can sign up here to be a mentor, or a mentee), it is a multi-contributor blog.  There is some great content, and unlike this site, it is updated regularly.  My latest contribution, SM Engagement – It’s Personal was published yesterday.

Check out the site, and the personal blogs of the very talented contributors.

News Flash:  My wife recently called me fat.  Well, not exactly fat.  After work one recent afternoon, I changed into a form-fitted athletic shirt and a pair of shorts prior to going for a run.  My wife was leaving the house, and I needed to ask her a question.  I caught her as she was backing down the driveway.  She stopped and rolled down the window.

When the real purpose of our exchange was completed, she volunteered an additional, unsolicited observation.  ”Wow,” she said, “I haven’t seen that little jelly roll on you in some time.”  She smiled and drove away.

At first I was indignant.  No, I was offended.  Then I looked down and confirmed that my well-known, half-hearted muffin top had indeed reared its ugly pudge once once again.  Damn.  After a year of a flat stomach, someone had obviously managed to slap a baby roll of belly fat on me when I wasn’t looking.  I hadn’t noticed.  She was correct.

Love and Respect

The exchange and my reaction to it got me thinking about why my wife can deliver such a personal and candid observation when very few other people would have the courage or the leeway to do the same.  The answer is simple:  because I know that she loves me, and always has my best interest in mind.  I am open to her feedback, even when it is critical, and even when I don’t like what I hear.

Candor with Respect

My organization’s leaders have been working to improve what we call candor with respect.  I work with a group of great people, and we know that we need to get even better.  We need to become more open, honest, and direct in our interactions with each other because that is now required of healthcare leaders in this time of industry tumult and uncertainty.  We no longer have the luxury of time for organizational politics.  The healthcare reform train is headed down the tracks, and it is going to cause all kinds of collateral damage to the healthcare system the we currently know – that is not necessarily a bad thing.

I find it far more challenging to be so open to honest criticism in the workplace.  Ego, positional authority, credibility, and personal insecurities prompt us to create barriers against anything that might be harmful.  We don’t always assume that our colleagues have our best interest in mind, and when we do actually get candid feedback of a critical nature, we often assume that the bearer of candid criticism has bad intentions.  Because we question their purpose for pointing out our shortcomings, we sometimes assume that it comes from a lack of respect.

But, when such feedback is authentic and sincere, and we are able to set our egos aside, it is not that difficult to see that such candor actually comes from a profound sense of respect.

How do we know the difference?  I think it comes down to relationships.

Now, I’m off to change my shirt and do some crunches.  What do you think about candor and respect in the workplace?

I’ve been busy over the past several months.  I accepted additional areas of responsibility in my role, and all of the new demands have forced me to become more disciplined in how I execute my priorities.

It’s been a long time since I’ve actually developed a comprehensive, written work plan to organize my own time; but, I have once again been carefully planning the work, and working the plan.  Monthly milestones, weekly targets, and daily task lists have been keeping me focused on achieving the outcomes that I need to deliver.  It has felt good to check things off that list, and to visibly see progress toward my goals.

Interruptions

I’ve learned that the more responsibility you accept, the more people need your time.  Demand for a leader’s time often translates into unplanned interruptions to their work.  Telephone calls, emails, meetings, and groups of people landing in your doorway all create barriers to executing on a detail-oriented work plan.  It can become frustrating.  As pressure to meet deadlines builds, the natural response is to want to close the office door and to block out the calendar.  I need to focus on the work to get it done.

I had an employee come to my office last week.  She was anxious and asked if she could have a few minutes.  Despite the irritation that I felt over the interruption to my work on a very complex issue over which I had wrestled for months, I gave her my full attention.  We spent about 10 minutes discussing a project that she was leading.  Her problem was solved.  My problem was not solved, and I struggled to regain my focus.

The Real Interruptions

And then it struck me, again. I had been behaving like the interruptions to my important leadership work were those unplanned demands on my time from other people.  The real work of a leader is the time that we spend helping other people accomplish their work.  The real interruption to my leadership work had been the busy, task-oriented, check-list mentality that I created to try to manage new demands.

Patient Care Interruptions

The trap into which I had fallen is not any different that what I sometimes hear from clinical professionals in healthcare.  All of the regulatory paperwork, documentation, and computer work required of their roles prevents them from spending time with patients.  This is very frustrating to healthcare workers who largely went into their profession to take care of people, not regulations.

Focus

Whether it’s learning how to accomplish the detail work required of leadership, or managing the compliance and documentation demands of clinical care, the fact remains that we need to get that work done.  But, I am reminded about how important it is to maintain the right perspective.  Leadership, like patient care, is about taking care of people.  When our complaints and frustrations turn against those “pesky” employees or patients, then we have lost our perspective.  The good news is that our employees and patients are willing to remind us of our purpose, if we are willing to listen.

How do you manage the demands on your time?

How do you maintain the focus on what’s most important in your leadership or patient care work?

I do not typically take my bad customer service experiences to social media.  In fact, I rarely complain at all about these experiences, except to my family.  When I do have a bad experience, I privately decide whether it was bad enough that I will take my business elsewhere – on the business side of that equation, I know that these are the most difficult customers to keep.

Business fact:  no matter how good your company is at customer service, your customers will occasionally have bad experiences, and you will receive complaints.  That’s the way things go when you involve human beings, and their emotions.  No organization is perfect.

My Angry Rant

Last Saturday, I broke my own social media rule.  I was angry, and I fired off a tweet about a bad customer service experience that I had at the Hy-Vee store in Winona.  The message I posted was demure compared to what I was feeling.  Nevertheless, I sent my snarky comment out into cyberspace and curiously waited to see if the organization was monitoring social media.  They were.

So What?

I followed up with Customer Service like I had promised.  They responded promptly with an apology, which was followed immediately by another apology from the store’s manager.

At this point, I was impressed with a few things:  (1) Hy-Vee was monitoring social media, and responded to my tweet; (2) they asked for more information and an opportunity to address my concerns; and, (3) they were prompt, professional, and seemed sincere.  I was satisfied with their response to my less-than-constructive criticism.  It was probably more than I deserved.

Business Reality

Stop for a minute and put on your HR/manager hat.  How would you approach the resolution to a customer service complaint received via social media?  As a HR guy, I understand that these situations can be delicate because they involve people, both customers and employees.  What I expected was a follow up email or telephone call a couple of days later informing me that they had taken an appropriate training/coaching approach to resolving the situation.

HyVee WOW!

Instead, a couple of hours later I had a delivery of flowers to my work office – this was the first time I had ever received a delivery of flowers (kind of awkward, really).  With the flowers came a sincere, in-person apology from an employee of HyVee, along with a hand-written not from the store’s manager.  I was blown away.

The Business Case for Social Media

Sorry, but I need to take this great service recovery story a step further.  Here is the context:  I am far from being a social media influencer (yeah, that might surprise you).  You can look – I have about 1,200 followers on Twitter, and many of them were probably too busy drinking green beer last Saturday to notice my tweet (you know who you are).  My snarky tweet was not about to cause a PR problem for Hy-Vee.  Nevertheless, they responded.

Now, some numbers:  my family spends about $500 each month at our local grocery stores.  Let’s assume that we (meaning my wife) decide to continue shopping for groceries at Hy-Vee for the next 10 years (including the full duration of my son’s teenage eating syndrome).  The service recovery could easily mean $60,000 in future revenue.

Social Media & Service Recovery

While this reads like a great service recovery story, it is really a social media story.  Remember, my typical response in these situations is to privately take my business to another store.  My impulsive tweet provided an organization with an opportunity to address my frustration, which they did brilliantly.  Had Hy-Vee not been engaged in social media, the opportunity and the business would have been gone.  Perhaps the ROI of social media isn’t measuring what more you can get, but what you might keep.  Relationships are always personal.  Hy-Vee understands that.

None of this is intended to justify my juvenile social media complaint.  Just because I generally choose not to take my frustrations to Twitter, many other consumers (including your customers) do so quite regularly.

By the way, my wife has banned me from doing any more grocery shopping.  And, I wouldn’t recommend that other happily married men show up at home with a bouquet of flowers that were not intended for their wives.

What social media success stories do you have related to customer service?

Note:  While I apparently will not be permitted to return to Hy-Vee, other members of my family will continue to shop there.