Good read for leaders who want to take action from their pandemic lessons. Why this is important is that “be prepared” means so much more today than ever before.

In 2014, the ground shook in Virginia. At that time, a Virginia Congressman was literally on top of the world. He was the second-most powerful Republican in the United States House of Representatives and was slated to become the Speaker of the House. As a seven-term incumbent, Eric Cantor made history by, out of the blue, becoming the first House majority leader to suffer a primary defeat. His opponent spent 1/40th of the money and had a novice campaign manager.

Should Cantor and his staff and advisors seen this coming? Yes, if he was more conscious of his environment and seen the proverbial “handwriting on the wall.” Ridding ourselves of our illusions and delusions is the only way to see clearly. A leader’s job is to drive with headlights on in the dark, to anticipate the future, not cling to past accomplishments or old models of how the world works.

You have chosen leadership as your path to self-discovery, to self-awareness (whether you consciously understood that when you accepted the job or not).

Are you leaning into your challenges or avoiding them by believing “It’s not about the nail?”

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it makes great leaders

Curiosity

Really, just be curious: about how things work, about the people you work with, about how to get better, about what is actually going on around you.  Let me explain in a more scientific way…

To be successful in an ever-changing environment, you have to adapt … to new ways of working, learning, doing business, communicating, etc. In order to adapt, it is critical that you have mechanisms for obtaining information. You have to actively search for sources of information that will help you grow and develop.

This is where the Waggle Dance comes in… honeybees have a fabulous mechanism to learn about the external world. They have built into their world the Forager. Honeybee foragers are the sensory units of the hives. Their job is to gather information about the location and profitability of forage sites.  They then return to the hive and transmit the information to the other honeybees by means of the waggle dance. To keep the hive alive, the system has built in curiosity as a job function.  Among the forager bees, most are exploiters of old sources of food. Only 10% of foragers are explorers or scouts looking for new discoveries (Wisdom of the Hive by Thomas Seeley).

Thanks to sociobiologists over the past 50 years or so, we have been able to learn about nature’s built-in efficacy systems.  The forager honeybees are a great example of what a system needs to do to stay alive and thrive in an ever-changing environment.

How can you waggle?

You should spend at least 10% of your work week to being curious – to explore, to scan your work or business environment, to get a sense of what is happening/changing, so you can adapt to changes coming your way rather than be obliterated by change.

Social media and the internet make it incredibly easy to do this. But it can also be overwhelming; too much info dumping. So get an RSS feed aggregator or email feeds, comb through sources of information (blogs, podcasts, websites, Twitter) that you find the most informative, select the best to subscribe to and carve out a part of your day getting informed.

PBS did a good show on the waggle dance called Dances with Bees. It really is amazing to see the social physiology of the honey bee.

Are you addicted to fillers? Those “Ums” or “Likes” or “Uhs” in your speech?

Well now there’s an app that can help you break your addiction.

Fillers are basically words that are meaningless except to create conversation cues. Fillers can be effective communication tools if used properly.  For example, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice … Uhhh… you ain’t gonna fool me twice.”

Problem with fillers — they are addictive and easily become overused, loosing any value they may add as cues. The other big reason we use them is to cover up times when we are thinking about what to say next.

Ummo, the app, comes to the rescue. It’s really a simple but powerful self-awareness tool. Use it especially for speeches, presentations, or to get an idea of your speech patterns in general conversation. While the app will really help, we also need to learn to use pregnant pauses and be okay with silence while gathering thoughts.

Here’s a full review of the app I found helpful. Currently, it is only available for the iPhone.

If you want take another 5 minutes, check out Wikipedia’s list of fillers in different languages.

Leaders are paid to make decisions, ostensibly good ones. You have to be ready to swing for the one that becomes a home run.

More and more research is being dedicated to examining how leaders make decisions and what behaviors impact outcomes both positive and negative. What we know is leaders are much better making decisions for others than for themselves. The reason has to do with decision fatigue. Making decisions for others (vs. the self) is less depleting because it is more enjoyable.

Managing decision fatigue can help you make better decisions. President Obama wears the same thing everyday. He told Vanity Fair “You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits … I”m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.”

What can you do to reduce your decision fatigue and be a better decision maker?

Take a five  minutes to identify daily decisions you make that could be simplified, like what to wear, where to eat lunch, etc. Automate or minimize the routine decision making you have in your life so your energy is ready for the important stuff.

Successful leaders have trained themselves to hold two opposing views or thoughts in their heads at the same time. They can do this without getting anxious, without panicking. They use this ability to creatively problem solve.  They have disciplined their minds to learn how to think.

A case in point …

You supervise a creative, fun, young professional who you enjoy working with. This young person just did something stupid. She spent 100 hours working on a project for another department, unbeknownst to you. You now must engage her in a “what the hell were you thinking? conversation.”

Your heart says “mentor her, forgive her.” Your mind says do what your boss says “fire her.”

How do you lead in this situation? How do you creatively solve this problem?

Answer …
Allow the tension between the heart and the mind to drive new thinking. The tension between the two opposing solutions forces you to get more data, to seek new information. Because this is actually a complex problem calling for a thoughtful decision.

Perhaps the employee is not the problem at all, maybe the problem is the other department leader. Perhaps the solution may be to transfer her to the other department or maybe you are over delegating and not supervising properly or maybe you should just bill her time to the other department.  There’s not one solution. There are many possibilities.  “Knee-jerk” decisions to save face or caving-in to your boss is not being a leader. Thoughtful analysis just might save the company money by not losing a good employee (while providing her with a good lesson), it may help you grow your relationship with your boss, and it may just wake you up to the weaknesses in your management.

Thinking is your job as a leader. You need to get good at it.  MBA schools try to teach this skill. It’s not easy to learn. You have to practice it just like any other skill. And, that’s the rub. You have to practice in real time, on real problems, with real people, with real consequences.

So what can you do to be a better thinker?

Ask before you act. Always get more data.

You can only have a big heart if you have an open mind. Commit to learning how to think as a leader.

Manage your anxiety. Balance the tension between the heart and mind. That tension is always there when making decisions. Get used to it.

Photo Credit: Devin Shields

It’s so much easier to play favorites. You trust the person more, you know the task will get done, it makes your life easier. Some argue that playing favorites is not only OK, it’s actually great for the workplace.

Is there any value to playing fair? (aside from the regulatory backlash that could bite you in the a** if you don’t play fair)

NOT burning out your high performers, is one upside to playing fair. If you only rely on playing favorites, you are really training your best and brightest to leave you when you continuously reward them with overwork. If you actually lead, develop yourself and develop your staff, you can play fair AND play favorites.