The Two Faces of I

“I” is a very powerful pronoun, but it has two distinct personalities – no doubt you have observed both.

“I” can be used to convey power and significance to the subject at hand – the speaker is going all in as the poker players would say – infusing their knowledge, experience, and reputation into the statement. They are signaling commitment and purpose. Some examples:

I know (personal knowledge)

I learned (personal experience)

My (I) vision (path to the future)

I will (personal commitment)

I promise (personal assurance).

Used in this fashion “I” creates a spotlight and the speaker is center stage – everyone else is outside the circle of light – in the shadows, unnoticed. “I” is inclusive of you and exclusive of all others.

Thus, the second personality – as strong as the pronoun is to focus attention on you, it is equally as powerful for excluding the others from being acknowledged. Please consider the message in the following:

I grew the revenue

I won the contract

I increased sales

I launched the new product line

I developed the new service.

If you were leading a successful team, department, division, or organization, your “I” contributes to the outcome but the accomplishment of others are significant factors in achieving the great results. Using “I” ignores the others, even when their participation is assumed or implied.

The use of “WE” is inclusionary, bringing the other contributors into the picture, sharing credit for attaining the goal.

Great leaders are mindful that the effective use of “I” can can build credibility with customers and stronger team bonds without diminishing leadership effectiveness or awareness.

The leaders' adage is: share the credit for success, but be first to accept the blame for mistakes. The corollary is “I” is a solo spotlight, but “WE” shares the glory.

To illustrate the two faces of “I”, recall the reaction to an organization's leader who repeatedly says “I” while speaking about the success of the organization; now recall the reaction when listening to a leader who talks about how “WE” achieved superior results. Which approach is more effective? For customers; for employees?

Great leaders share the spotlight with sincerity and avoid the ego trap of rhetorically claiming sole credit for success.

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Leadership Is Actions and Words

Even when he was a little guy, my son had picked up some mannerisms and used some phrases that mirrored mine. I first made this discovery when he had a vocabulary of only three 'words': ma, da, chit – he learned the latter term when I got to the bank after the drive-in window had closed for the weekend (long before ATMs).

Our kids are like a sponge – they absorb everything and are constantly observing parents for the standard of how to do and act.

I was under constant scrutiny – my actions and conversations were a model for my son's development – it was an inspiring (and scary) realization for me – for him, I was a role model.

Actions and words of a leader have a similar impact on their followers and others outside the organization.

George Washington was a masterful leader in words and deeds. Notable examples are how he retained the army for the second crossing of the Delaware and the Cornwallis surrender.

A pivotal point in the Revolutionary War was the crossing of the Delaware for the battle of Trenton – unfortunately, the commitment of virtually all army troops had expired before the operation could be launched. General Washington got no takers when offering to pay the soldiers, but got an overwhelming response when he spoke with the troops, saying that they would never have another opportunity in their lifetime which would have such a significant effect on the future of the country and their freedom, as was facing them right now – and that he would be honored to have them fighting by his side to succeed in winning the battle – leading by example and appealing to the higher purpose.

The Army defeated the British in the seige of Yorktown, General Cornwallis sent a message that they wished to surrender and wanted to present his sword to General Washington to complete the process.

Washington refused to accept the sword, instead indicating his second in command, Benjamin Lincoln, would be the recipient. Lincoln had been defeated by Cornwallis in an earlier battle and honoring Lincoln in this manner would salve the pain of that loss, as well as signify Washington's continuing confidence in his Second. Also, this would make the defeat more memorable to Cornwallis, when his sword was not received by the leader of the Revolutionary Army.

As with a parent and child, the leader's actions are always being observed, his or her words are listened to and interpreted, and the leader's consistency in saying what they do and doing what they say is constantly monitored. Success is determined by the collective results – which achieved by the words and actions of the leader and the reception and implementation by the followers.

A leader who keeps in mind the effect of actions, words, and the consistency of the two may be successful in avoiding the equivalent of a three word vocabulary which includes an inappropriate word.

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Management Reports

Management reports remind me of the peephole in my front door. I seldom see anything I recognize.

Management reports are backward-looking documents, rehashing the recent past. Often used as part of a roll-up, by people charged with repeating others’ reports, usually without understanding them. (See GIGO)

At best, they represent 90 minutes of diversion condensing the last 50 hours/30 days/90 days of work.

Worse is a response of “Let’s discuss,” which turns into hours of the dance of gray fantasy, “Tell me what you want, I’ll agree.” A smart economist told me last month, “You don't torture a dataset until it confesses.”

If the right answers were available, don’t you think I’d have put ’em in there? I wrote one of these reports last week.

Ever notice that when the right answers are available, they are no longer worthy of the report? We’ve already moved to a next stage.

“Just checking, did we get through the next gate when I wasn’t paying attention?” It’s a management fantasy, like being on a cruise ship and waking up in a new port.

If you weren’t going to use management reports to reverify known history again, or trying to change reality to observers’ preconceptions, what might you do?

I’ve always found management reports are light on senior commitments, “When I come down the trail, hotly pursued by the entire population of hostiles, you’re sure you will have that skyhook rented and ready?” 

“I assure you, we’ll really try our best!”

Or what about celebration? The middle of a project can get kind of dreary, or it can be wonderful. That’s up to manglement. Which do you think gets you better work product?

Heck, something good must have happened, otherwise how will we remember what good is?

If you’re just going to roll up your GIGO, how about supplying some top down information that improves strategy, speed, or safety? Best practices are either blindingly obvious or they’re fiction. Best practices are hard work, a lot like blogging, and that’s why we pay the top guys the big bucks.

How would you improve this list?

Tips 4 The Big Chair – Goodness that will curl your toes!

Backhoes and Bureaucracy

We use tools because they make us more efficient, able to get more done, with less effort.

I use tools a lot, for construction, software development, management, leadership, organizing, travel, and I appreciate mechanics who can really use a tool.

I worked a summer with Sterling Guthrie, backhoe artist. He had a totally different way of thinking about work and a more creative relationship with gravity than did men who stood on the ground. He would use his backhoe for up, down, sideways, and twist, saving hundreds of man hours and increasing the production and safety of our crew. Sterling got more completed work out of his backhoe than any man I’ve known.

I was remembering Sterling last week while I was on a Caribbean cruise. Every time we left or came back on the ship we ran a security gauntlet. Ship’s crew, mainly from the Philippines and Eastern Europe, ran us through a scanner at a brisk pace, 100% document check, speaking to each of us by name, actively looking for signs of “not right.” They were smiling, because smiling increased their engagement with each passenger, they were engaged because they were going to be on the ship if anything went wrong, they were establishing personal connections because that is what experience professionals do.

For that cruise, we started from the Port of Baltimore, saving time, complexity, and the security-by-threat of air travel. That was a major bonus.

While I was on the cruise I got to think about why our government had shut down my municipal golf course, memorials, cultural institutions. How had they ever gotten authority to spread that misery?

I remembered a conversation with an in-law a couple of years ago. He was explaining the healthy pay bump he got from carrying a gun to his job, “I’m not a toll collector, I’m a bridge guard!” I couldn’t help myself, “Really? How many get away?”

When we came back, we went through US Customs, after 6 runs through private security screening that week. This time there was no engagement, no encouragement, with a crew who had decided our security was best protected by being unhappy and uninvolved.

Providing negative reinforcement, making no reinforcement the desired state, misses half the available reinforcement response. Our official customs experience was a little less efficient than an open doorway.

I used to accept the occasional government foul up as a part of being a citizen. As business and social groups have gotten more efficient, the government I interact with has lowered their successful completion baseline, while increasing their citizen-threat behavior.

A bureaucracy is a tool, just like a backhoe. If the operator can’t provide value while delighting the customer, it’s time to get another operator.

Sometimes you have to Drop The Other Shoe

Logistics

A Full Bird in the Pentagon said, “All computing is logistics.” Since he was a customer, he wasn’t wrong. The customer may not always be right, but they are never wrong.

Figuring that code is the record of culture, perhaps logistics is more.

Jack and I are watching the crash-and-burn of four organizations. Previously successful efforts, crashing vigorously.

They are each useful, fill a need, and are leaving a lot of anxious customers.

In each case, management got bored with logistics, the blocking and tackling of doing the business. They started focusing on something grander.

A couple of years ago, United had a commercial, black and white, about a manager saying business was down. And they were going to come back. So he started handing out airline tickets to go see the customers. And things were going to get better.

I liked that commercial. I see too many people with an intense internal focus.

Reports aren’t work. Reports are reports of work.

How much of your day adds value? Do you even have a working definition of value?
“Um, good coffee. Tasty!”

Perfecting logistics can make a healthy organization.

What Happened To The Management Pyramid?