A Man of Success

Albert Einstein once said, "Try not to become a man of success but a man of value."

When you are a professional, whether it be in business, in the government, or part of another organization, you are often pushed to be successful at just about any cost. You've seen it. You've seen people so focused on success that it's all they can do, all they can think about.

How do you measure success? Many of us measure from a perspective of:

• Fame
• Fortune
• Power
• Influence

So many times, these measurements are focused almost solely on ourselves. They can be very selfish and self-serving. I think Einstein is saying that the focus of our lives can't be primarily or even mostly about ourselves. It's just that a life focused totally inward seems kind of an empty existence.

I've mentioned it before: most all the motivational speakers out on the circuit today (people like Zig Ziglar) will say you can't be a true success until you've helped people around you be successful. For the majority of people, possessions don't really make them happy, not long-term, anyway. It's the people around us, people we care about, who do that. It's about relationships and being valuable to others.

"Try not to become a man of success but a man of value." In the end, that's where true success lies.

Glass 1/2 Full

Recently, I wrote about how bosses are responsible for the mood of the teams they lead (see post here). Then, the quote that showed up on my blog yesterday (9/19), from Norman Vincent Peale, said: Change your thoughts and you change your world. That quote, from the king of positive thinking, also reminds me of my post "if you wanna be somebody else, change your mind."

It's great to have positive thoughts, read positive ideas, and work to exude a positive attitude. You know what is absolutely priceless? It's having other people on your team who understand and live the "positive" perspective of life.

I was very blessed to work with a person on my last team who was all about the positive. It's not that she was all "Pollyanna" and looked at the world in an unrealistic manner. She just chose to react to both her and the team's situations with a positive outlook most of the time.

Her mantra was "glass 1/2 full, glass 1/2 full" when anyone else on the team responded to situations in a less than positive manner. In fact, my colleague's words and attitude were such a good example, that I've even gotten into the habit of saying "glass 1/2 full" when I encounter negativity.

A positive attitude doesn't fix all the ills of the world or of the situations around us, but it sure can help us cope with them better.

The Mood is on You

Have you ever heard the saying "if Mama ain't happy, nobody's happy"? Obviously, whoever came up with that saying was indicating that "Mama" affected the mood around the house. If she was upset, everybody was upset. If people weren't upset before they ran into Mama, they would be afterwards.

I do believe it's true, that in the workplace, if the boss isn't happy, nobody's happy. As a manager, do you realize the power that you wield? You set the tone for how the office will operate -- maybe for a particular day or maybe overall.

If you're a manager who wants to have a generally happy workplace for yourself and your people, then you've got to ensure that you project a positive and happy aura as much as possible. Now, it's not reasonable to think that any boss or manager is going to be in a good mood every day or that his or her life will always be hunky-dory. What I am saying is that you need to realize how your actions affect everyone around you in the office.

I guess it's fine to feel however you want to feel, but you owe it to your people -- the people who do the work, complete the mission, and make the operation "operate" -- to act like you're doing OK, to show you have a good handle on whatever situations are going on, and to help them feel they should be comfortable with you in charge. Let's face it, when workers are "down", their productivity suffers.

I challenge you to step back and take a look at yourself. Do you drag into the office in the morning? Do you grouse and complain about your boss or the leadership of the company? Do you whine about how business stinks? Do you just act depressed, in general?

If not, congratulations. Your work environment may be a pretty positive one. If so, STOP IT. Act positive and give your team another chance to be successful and fulfilled.

Where does world-class service come from?

I've been reading a great book on service called "What's The Secret?" by John DiJulius. His writing has stirred a lot of my thoughts for me and has caused me to reflect a lot on what I believe regarding service. It has also caused me to remember my own experiences with service.

The quote I'm pondering today is "World-class service is not something you deliver. It's a result of something you are."

When I think of this quote, it takes me right back to thinking about the foundation of any organization, good or bad: culture.

OK, so you know that outstanding service is a key component of any successful business. Let's say that you've received feedback from multiple sources that your organization's customer service is sincerely lacking. You're not happy learning about your poor service level and you know it needs to get better right away. What do you do? As a boss or leader, you can't go to your team one day and say, “Listen up, people. Customer Service needs to tighten up right now. You need to start treating our customers better.” Well, you can, but there’s a good chance that your words will fall flat and fail to cause any significant changes to happen. Come on; your service levels probably didn’t become what they are overnight.

So how do you get your people facing the right direction? You need to start by asking yourself where they learned or failed to learn how to provide the outstanding service. You have to start at the beginning. You need to revisit what? You need to revisit the culture.

What is the culture of your team? Take a look at some of the primary components that make up a business culture and you can better answer the question:

Management Style -– Are you a micromanager or a heavy-handed boss? Or do you foster an environment where your people feel empowered to develop new ideas and to “do it their way” (within reason) as they work to fulfill the mission?

Respect -- Do you provide world-class customer service for your employees? Do you treat them with respect? Do they know you value them and their ideas? Do they treat each other with respect? People aren’t going to provide your customers what they’re not receiving, themselves.

Training -- Do your people know your expectations? Can they envision the customer service you seek? Do you have programs in place to teach them how to do their jobs well and provide the level of service that you want?

If you ask yourself the status of any of the above areas for your team, find them wanting and then respond with “I don’t have time to do that or build that”, you’ve already lost. You’re never going to move your team ahead toward providing the world-class service that you want and your customers deserve. Instead, you need to commit to living the culture you want with your people, modeling it just as parents model behavior for their children.

Are there other ways to help ensure your people are providing world-class service to your customers?

Handling Resistance

Handling Resistance? From whom?

Well, in life, it could mean dealing with resistance from anyone. In a business setting, it could be one of your team members. It could be your boss or a colleague.

If you are trying work down a specific path or build on a idea and you receive resistance, you have several options, don't you?

1. Give up. It is an option, but if you feel strongly or passionately about your cause, it might not be your first course of action.
2. Push back. When resistance is applied against you, you can apply and equal and opposite reaction. Wear the other party down. It may be effective at times, but not the wisest choice of action if you want any kind of buy-in from others.
3. Determine the cause. I like this one. When you are met with resistance regarding an idea or action, you can try to figure out why the resistance has appeared. One of the best ways to find out is by asking questions. Try to get to the root cause.

This reminds of me of a story; yes, another military story. When I was a young lieutenant, I had to take turns performing extra duties with the other junior officers: Duty officer, Pay officer, and Report of Survey officer, to name a few. My first time as a Report of Survey officer, I met with a lot of resistance. You see, a Report of Survey is completed when some equipment is destroyed, damaged, or lost and the Army is trying to figure out if someone is responsible. This way the Army can determine appropriate actions like remedial training, punishment, and/or reimbursement. In this particular case, a sergeant was "signed for" a gunner's quadrant, a tool used to determine the proper elevation that artillery would use when firing against a target. The quadrant was destroyed and no one knew how it happened. There were denials all around. Since the sergeant was signed for the equipment, and there was no evidence as to how the quadrant was destroyed, I determined that the sergeant should pay. The sergeant resisted me because he said he hadn't destroyed it...one of his people had done so accidentally. That was most likely true, but like I said, I couldn't prove it. What I could prove was that the sergeant had not kept proper control of the item. The proximate cause, or root cause, regarding his efforts to secure the equipment was the real issue.

In trying to overcome resistance, what's the root issue, the proximate cause, for it? Ask why the other person doesn't want to go along with your idea. Get specific. Ask what is good about your idea (what they like or, at least, can live with) and what is unacceptable. Keep peeling back that onion until you get to the proximate cause. You may find that it's just one little kernel of disagreement or it's something small that you can fix.

By determining the root cause,

1. You can properly address it with facts and information.
2. Help the other party feel better about the idea
3. Let the person know you value their thoughts and concerns (you may make an ally).
4. Move forward.

My last boss was an expert at determining the proximate cause of resistance, handling the real objections properly, and then moving forward with most everyone feeling good.

What have you done when you encountered resistance? What other ways do you think would be appropriate for overcoming the objections you experience?

Encouraging A "Slacker" Teammate

I was recently asked, "How do you 'bring along' a slacker teammate?" That's a pretty broad question. What is meant by "slacker" -- someone who doesn't do his or her work? In this case, I think the question had to do more with people who are part of work or project teams outside their own normal duties. You've probably experienced it before. You are a member of a team where everyone may not be as engaged as they could be. Some people are pulling their weight and others are just marking time.

The answer is that you definitely DO NOT sweep the problem under the rug and pretend it doesn't exist. Obviously, the work or project team leader should be ensuring all members are doing there fair share. Still, work group team members have both the responsibility and the opportunity to help fellow team members be the best they can be, and in a way that supervisors may not be able to achieve:

Responsibility -- When we are team members, we all have the responsibility to help that team succeed even though being a team member is not part of our normal job duties. It's not just the boss or team leader's responsibility. True professionals look for ways to help the organization and those around them be better.

Opportunity -- Team members are not bosses...duh. Team members are peers and co-workers. We all have different levels of influence and experience. We have "horizontal" relationships that can hopefully allow our thoughts, suggestions, and ideas to be less threatening to others on our team.

Now that we've determined we want to try and help another team member with engagement issues, what do we do? Below are a few possibilities:

• Broach the issue of engagement. Sometimes others are not aware that they are not considered engaged or are willing to put in more effort when they realize their poor efforts are evident.
• Ask questions about how the "errant" team member feels about the work the team is doing. Talk through the feelings. Maybe the team member has negative feelings about the team and what the group is supposed to be accomplishing. Perhaps the team member doesn't understand what he or she is supposed to do.
• Challenge the team member to step up and support the rest of the team, even if being a team member is not something the other person really wants to be. We all do things from time to time that we don't LOVE. It's part of being a contributing member of society, let alone a team member at work.

Are there other ways to help peers become more engaged in work or project teams? Should you go to the team leader about the issues? If so, when should this occur?