Indecision is the key to flexibility

On the surface, this statement sounds like the enemy of a good plan. If we made a decision, we'd be seeing progress already. Being indecisive is thought of as bad. But is it always? How often do we hurry to get a project started, to find that a decision-maker changes their mind? Probably more ... [click here to read more, and don't forget to update your bookmark or RSS feed]

Addressing a manipulative boss - disguised as a short story?

"Look at this. They're all gone. They must not have much work to do to be leaving this early." I tried not to show my confusion as my boss at the time surveyed the art department's abandoned institutional gray cube farm. "If they can all be out of here this early, I will decrease the head count. These people aren't committed."

He adjusted his tie with his thumb and forefinger, pinkie pointed out, as though he was sipping tea in a fine restaurant. He convulsed for a second, then abruptly turned, headed back to the soft glow of the end table lamp in his office. He was here to stay, and had furnished his office accordingly. I kept expecting to see a Persian rug delivered, but for now he stuck with the industrial gray carpet us plebes had. His lamp was to let you know he was someone. He had a lamp. We plebes had fluorescent tubes as our only light.

For a brief moment, I considered biting my tongue. That was a brief moment. I had just wasted over an hour with him in my office, discussing important business issues, like what his favorite sushi restaurant was. I'm all for extra effort, but I'm not for extra hours of anti-productive emptiness. "It's 7 o'clock, why should they be here?" I asked, my blood pressure rising, and my insides tightening as I waited for his response.

"Because this is their JOB! They can't provide for their families if they have no JOB!" He ranted, small globules of spittle cascading from his open mouth, his goatee giving him the appearance of a contrived character from an animated comedy. A face suddenly appeared down the aisle from us. The cleaning crew was already in the office, and someone emptying the trash cans a few rows into the cube farm peered warily around the corner, probably seeing if he should make a break for the fire escape before this descended into violence. When he realized it wasn't a fight, and no guns were about to be taken out, he walked across the aisle, tying a garbage bag, pretending not to notice us.

"This is a publishing company, not an advertising agency. People make choices in life, and every artist I know makes a decision early in their career. Do they want a family, or would they prefer the excitement of the advertising world? The people here chose a family. If they wanted to work past 7 at night, they'd have chosen a career in advertising." The words were out before I could catch them. Pure, unadulterated, and honest. There, chew on that awhile.

He stared back, unsure how to handle the situation. I looked back, sure that he was the problem in the organization, not the solution. "See you tomorrow" I said, as I turned and headed toward the elevator.

The next day, I had an invitation from my boss for a meeting that started at 6:30 that evening. I walked to his office. He wasn't in yet. I went back to my office. I repeated this every 15 minutes, wanting to get rid of the anticipatory stress I was carrying. The morning dragged on. I worked on projects, and underneath it all, I carried the tension of the impending conversation with me, the same weight as I carried every day there. Heavy, yet immeasurable. Like the after effects of a swift kick in the groin, not that I'd had one of those in years. It was there, not letting go. Keeping me distracted with the pain.

At around 11:30, just as I was about to go brave the wall of smoke to get outside for a walk to enjoy the sunshine, my boss wandered past my office. He was coming in early, at the crack of noon. This was typical. I took a deep breath, and straightened my tie. He was big on appearance. "Fred, do you have a second?"

He stopped, turned his head to look over his shoulder, and said "Can it wait for our meeting later today?" You mean tonight, don't you? This was an inside thought, not a sentence that left my mouth.

"No, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. I have plans tonight, and can't stay after hours." I put a slight emphasis on "after hours", maybe more than was necessary, but that happens sometimes. "Can we meet today, during work hours?" I lightened up the emphasis, but it still came through.

"I have meetings all day, can't you change your plans?" He cold stared me. Now I was pissed off. That was rude. I was beyond being nervous. He continued on. "That's the only time I have available." He adjusted his laptop case, and looked toward his office, probably planning his escape from this random act of management he was being forced into.

I tried to hide my irritation behind the screen saver facial expression. I hoped it would work just this one time. "How about if we meet tomorrow first thing, I can come in early." I wasn't going to lose this one, he was just too oblivious to accept his impending loss yet.

"Gosh, I'd love to meet early, but I have breakfast with children every day. It's our ritual." Was that sarcasm, or did he have some intestinal distress while he talked? Either one was fine, because I just made Bingo, I hit pay dirt. He's going down. My brain quickly processed this tidbit, and came up with the perfect response.

"I totally get that, I'm all about family. See, that's why I can't meet after hours. I have dinner with my wife every evening. This is our time, a time for us to reconnect. It's what we've done for our entire marriage, and I have no intentions on changing this" I worked a smile into it, and used my soft library voice, the one I would use to ask "which way are the romance novels" if there were other patrons near the desk. At least if I read romance novels, that'd be how soft my voice was. I don't read them.

He twitched, and I could see I'd just overloaded the portion of his brain he utilized to win arguments with the maintenance staff. He was out of his league, on the slippery slope, and I had just given him a push disguised as a brotherly love tap. He was out of ammunition, the wind left his sails, pick your cliche, the discussion was over. "I'll look at my calendar and see what I can free up today." He never did. There wasn't anything to discuss. We never met after hours, I made it a point of coming in early to complete critical work, so I could deflect any urges he may develop to re-initiate evening meetings, or ambush my extra efforts with his dropping by to unload theories on why employees kept running their keys down his car when they left the office.

A few days later, I decided that this wasn't over, and I needed to put this issue to rest. I was in his office so he could regale me with stories of his meteoric rise in the advertising world, how he rescued every company he worked for, and how he would sleep in his office. I pretended I thought this was cool, and began to pity him for the things in life he chose to value. His two daughters and wife rarely saw him. Maybe they liked it that way. Maybe he liked it that way. But it was just wrong, fundamentally out of sync with what is important in life.

I waited about 45 minutes for him to pause in his story, and I quickly started with my topic. "Fred, I get the impression that being in the office is more important to you than productivity. It seems like face time trumps work time. If this is what you expect of me, to be here regardless of whether I have work to do or not, please let me know now so I can make decisions regarding my career path." He just sat there, his brain once again overloaded with confusion. He must have had everyone afraid of him throughout his career. Here I was, holding up the mirror, showing him for what he was. I wasn't going to play his game.

I continued. "If you are in any way dissatisfied with my productivity, please tell me so I can do what is needed so neither of us are disappointed. I hope you see by now that I will do what is necessary to deliver exceptional results, but I am not interested in sleeping in my office to show my dedication." Neither is my wife. I left that part out. Maybe I said it a little more pointed than that. Our minds have a tendency to smooth things over with time.

Fred picked his pen up, tapping it on his hand. He stared at the ceiling, then dropped the pen and leaned back in his executive chair. "No, that's not what I'm trying to have you do." His expression said something entirely different.

I won this battle, but the war would continue. It was the war for a life, and it had to be won. Losing was not an option.

Any resemblance to a person with a life, or without one is purely ... coincidental? You can determine if it's fact of fiction, either way, the point of the story remains the same.

Do you hold your ground when asked to do something that is against your principles? Or do you do what you are told to do, quietly seething, waiting for the chance to change the situation? Also, do you like this style of writing, a scene to make the point, instead of just an essay? Please comment below!

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When you're selling change, who's buying it?

I was reading an interesting article about the monetary system, and it contained a reference to how the kilogram is decreasing in mass - continuously. There's nothing that can be done to preserve the official kilogram measure, a hunk of iridium inside of three glass bubbles in France. It is decreasing in size - suck it up, you can't stop it. This got me thinking about change...

As soon as that shiny new car we just purchased is built, it begins its journey back to the elements it's made of. Carbon, plastic, water, or whatever. Entropy is all around us. Things fall apart. In course of a lifetime, many things grow. We see this in trees, kudzu vines, and the waistlines of Americans. At some point this growth ends, and everything begins to decompose. Life, and all that is around us is continuously changing. We as humans are continuously changing. We accept these changes, and continue to move forward in our lives.

A Soviet change committee

So why should we approach our jobs with an expectation that they won't change? Our jobs change, our organizations change, and we change. We learn more, find better ways to get our work done, and influence others, causing them to change. Yet we hear how much employees don't like change. I've often seen organizations go to great lengths to determine how the change can be packaged so it will be accepted by the employees. They think change is bad. They think change is scary. (umm, change is life). One organization I worked for bought everyone a copy of Who Moved my Cheese? As though we are all mice. Go ahead and move the cheese, the mice will still find it. Mice don't mind change.

In the course of my career, I've been employed in a variety of business structures utilizing many different revenue models. I've led many change initiatives, and focused on leadership in my MSM studies. What I learned is that there is never one correct answer in life. In spite of this, here is what I learned about getting buy-in for change:

• Fix what's broken - People can't stand doing things they consider a waste of time, or what doesn't produce tangible results. So listen to your employees and fix what's broken. Or better yet, let them fix what's broken. There's no better sense of satisfaction than showing up with a problem, and being asked to determine how to fix it. It's trust and empowerment rolled into one. Who doesn't want this?
• Don't tweak employee generated solutions - Studies show that when a boss makes changes to an employee's great ideas for change, the employee's support for the change decreases. It's okay to come back later and make more changes, but don't try to show how smart you are by tweaking it. 
• Give credit where credit is due - Don't be an idea thief. When someone comes to you with a great idea, don't run with it like it's yours. You will lose the employee's best efforts, and shut off innovative thinking across the team. People talk, and it will be about you. Being gracious, and giving credit will garner a level of support for your leadership that can't be purchased. 
• Communicate proportional to the change - Don't put a disproportionate amount of effort into the marketing of the change. If the change is that big, and took that much planning, you should have been making incremental changes all along to fix what wasn't working. Change should be intuitive, and doesn't need a lot of selling. Also, the more you communicate about it, the more training the people will think they need. Look at a smart phone as an example. The phones get more complex, and yet people figure out how to use them. They don't require slide presentations to figure out how to check on their Facebook friends from the new device. 
• Don't call it change if you don't have to - Some of the highest impact changes I've implemented in organizations wasn't called change. It was just something that made it easier for people to do their work. 
• Indecision is the key to flexibility - If you have a clear road map of exactly what must happen from now until you have reached the goal, then you are setting yourself up for failure. Be flexible, and if the changes aren't working, or you see that its really something else that's broken, be confident that changing direction will be completely acceptable, and a sign of your wisdom. Don't follow a plan just because a lot of hope and time were invested in it. Get lots of feedback from people around you, and you will succeed. 
• If it requires a complicated  plan to implement, it is probably too complicated - Good changes are intuitive. They resonate with the people doing the work, and aside from some communication of the change, it is easy to implement. If you need to develop lots of training material, then the change is probably not good. If it's not good, you won't get buy-in. 
• Foundations must be complete before the walls are built - I often see organizations try to implement Six Sigma before they have their processes documented. Or they adopt Agile methodologies, when their employees don't yet understand project management. One of my personal favorite project failures to observe (from afar) is when an organization tries to deploy an enterprise project management system for people who don't know anything about project management. So make sure that changes are completed in the right order, and the people who are expected to change have the skill set needed to make the change. 
• Know your people - Many of the people impacted by the change don't care how or why the change is coming. They don't want to be part of the solution. They just want to know how to do what they are supposed to do, and when they have to start doing it. This is okay. These are your solid performers, which are probably the cornerstone of your team. Don't force them to participate. Others may want to be involved in the implementation. Be happy for this, and include them. 
• Incorporate WIIFM - WIIFM means "what's in it for me?" I've seen some pretty interesting WIIFMs in my career. Don't tell someone that the company will prosper if they change. The next question will inevitably be "so what?" The best WIIFMs I've seen incorporate a better work life balance due to efficiency increases. 
• Make change a "win-win" - This is the foundation for the WIIFM, but I am referring to something else here. When we need to provide information to leadership to support decision making, don't send out a form. Find some way to provide your employees with a tool to work better, and use this to gather the data. This is the kind of change that is win-win. 

What interesting quirks have you observed related to change? Do you agree or disagree with my free advice? What would you add?

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Sometimes the best defense is a good offense

I learned a valuable lesson while the First Sergeant for an Army National Guard infantry company several years ago. An infantry company has around 100 soldiers, and generally has some extra duties that are assigned to a few select soldiers in the unit. The soldiers in these roles are exempt from most cleaning details, since they would perform their duties while everyone else was cleaning weapons and equipment on our return from training.

Dealing with difficult colleagues

One critical role is the retention NCO. The soldier in this role is responsible for convincing people nearing the end of their enlistment to reenlist. Our retention NCO wasn't doing his job. I would often ask him who was up for reenlistment, and he rarely knew. I'd often see him hanging with his friends from other companies, and not with our soldiers. We had a few conversations about it, and what my expectations of him were. Nothing changed.

So one day I relieved him, and assigned a new person to the role. A short time after I did this, the soldier I relieved came into my office, and said that many people in the company told him I relieved him because of his race. He was thinking of filing a racial discrimination complaint. I was surprised, to say the least. The vast majority of the soldiers in the unit were minorities. I replaced him with another soldier from the same minority, not that this mattered. He went on to level additional accusations, and stated that if I reinstated him as retention NCO, he wouldn't file the complaint.

I asked him to sit down in my office, and closed my office door. I then picked up the phone and started to dial the battalion sergeant major, my immediate supervisor on the NCO side. As I dialed, I thanked him for bringing this issue up, and I told him I looked forward to the investigation. Would he like to talk to the sergeant major first, or should I relate the story for him? His face went slack, and he quickly back-pedaled, saying that everything was fine. I hung the phone up, and reiterated that he was replaced for poor performance, and if he thought I had acted inappropriately, he should file the complaint. If he didn't file the complaint, he should shut his mouth and do his new job. He was now an infantry fire team leader. The issue disappeared.

The lesson? Sometimes the best defense is a good offense. People will sometimes use the threat of an accusation to gain an upper hand in a given situation.

Fast forward a few years, and I was working at a company where a guy I interacted with on a daily basis had poor social skills. He continuously erupted at me (and most people) in open office areas. My manager mentioned that my issues with this guy - let's call him Derk (rhymes with Jerk) - was causing tension in the office. I asked if I had ever been unprofessional when dealing with Derk. I was told no, but I needed to resolve the issues. We were both at the same level, so I didn't get why I was being asked to resolve this, but when I am assigned something, it gets done.

The next day I asked Derk to meet with me in an office, and with the door closed, told him how much I enjoyed working with him. I valued his skills, and thought it would be best if we didn't engage in any disagreements in the public areas of the office. Derk then proceeded to tell me that he didn't like me, never would, and I should leave the company. I'd never last there anyway. He related how he is involved in all down sizing decisions, and would make sure I left the company anyway. I thanked him for his candor, and left the office.

I walked to my boss' office and related what I had done to resolve the issues, and what Derk's reaction had been. I then asked for advice on how to manage this issue, since my positive confrontation of the issue had failed. I was met with a face that looked like a screen saver. There was no help offered for the situation I was in. My boss then confessed that Derk was a jerk, and told me not to worry about it. Maybe knowing this up front would have guided me to modify my approach. Derk's stock began to fall.

I went on with my work, and a few months later Derk left the company after almost a decade there. I not only noticed that my job satisfaction increased, I also noticed that the office attitude in general became more positive.

Sometimes the best defense is a good offense. Sometimes we are used by our bosses to do the hard part of managing difficult people for them. But this latter topic will be covered in a future blog post.

How have you dealt with office conflicts? What is your favorite approach to dealing with difficult colleagues? What is your worst failure in terms of managing a conflict?

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