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How to Be Build Resilience

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Are you a program manager or want to be one?  Salespeople and program manager “seller/do-ers” have to be courageous, determined, and persistent people.  Are you persistent and determined?

Persistence is defined as “continuing in a course of action, without regard to difficulties, obstacles, or previous failures; see: ‘relentless’ “.   I particularly like that last bit:  “see: ‘relentless’.”   People and events that seek to sap your courage and persistence are relentless, aren’t they?   We shall strive to be relentless in return.

A COMPLIMENT

I’d been with Radian Corporation about a year.  My team had recently won an environmental clean-up and construction project from Chevron Chemical in Los Angeles.  I was having a good run.  An experienced construction manager was interviewing with Radian; the program managers were meeting to vote on the candidate.  One of the regional managers summed up his view of the candidate, “He’s a strong contender.  But he’s no Eva.”  Bob gave me that beautiful compliment in 1992 and I have never forgotten it.

RELENTLESS PERSISTENCE

I believe Bob was referring to my persistence and determination to win.  Quoting Webster’s definition above, I worked then, and I strive to work now, to persist in a course of action “without regard to difficulties, obstacles, or previous failures.”  It’s that last bit – “without regard to previous failures” – that hangs us up the most.  But why should we let them?  If you’d known the perfect solution to the problem, you’d have done it already.  You didn’t know.  You didn’t know.  If you knew, you’d have done it already.  Keep going straight ahead.  Be relentless.  Be persistent.

Bob said I was persistent.  I wonder if he thought of me as “relentless”.  I hope so.

Thanks, Bob.

 

 

Want To Improve Your Performance?

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Did you know one of my favorite techniques to teach people is “Ask, don’t tell”?  (My clients call it “ADT”.)  Sounds funny, doesn’t it?  It means “ask the person a sincere question; don’t just keep telling them your opinion.”

When you are trying to help someone see your point-of-view, when you’re trying to get someone to see beyond their own opinion, or to agree with you, asking a question, then another question that builds on their answer, is a quick, clever, and very polite way to get their minds to start opening up, and maybe changing.

ADT is also one of my go-to methods when I absolutely must calm down and get my frustration or anxiety under control.  Pausing to ask a question is what does the trick.

If you’d like to strengthen your self-awareness, self-leadership, and resilience, “Ask them; don’t tell them” helps form every one of those skills in you.  Pausing to form a question means you’ve paused, and we know how essential the pause is in bringing your best cognitive brain into the conversation.  Pausing helps you settle yourself into a calm, aware state and to take a micro-second to restate to yourself what you are best intending happen in this conversation.  Pausing is an essential self-leadership technique, and “Ask, don’t tell” (ADT) is what to do when you pause.

Now, three new potent questions have come on the scene.  Imagine a crucial conversation with your boss after a client meeting and you’re asking for feedback….. imagine a crucial conversation with a co-worker when you’re earnestly – finally – trying hard to cultivate teamwork. Imagine yourself asking these questions:

  • “How can I do better next time?”
  • “What am I doing that I don’t even know I’m doing?”
  • “What am I not doing that I don’t see?”

Those potent, beautiful questions work just as well with your husband or your estranged sister…

These questions are courtesy of Sheryl Sandberg, in her 2013 book Lean In, page 83. I recommend all the other pages too.

Have you had a chance to read Sandberg‘s book?  What do you think of her three questions?  Please leave a comment.

Most Important Step To Resolve Conflict

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Do you have conflict at work? Do you wish people understood things more clearly, and more often from your point of view? Then here’s your most important first step.

The Conflict

At home it’s time to do a semi-major housecleaning. Every time Handsome Husband (HH)  and I clean house together I get a little agitated. I make a list of things for HH to do for us: clean the porch furniture, wash windows on the outside, clear up the garage, get the cobwebs, wash the doormats, etc. He does his list willingly and cheerfully, but I wish he’d do it more quickly. Doesn’t he know his list is a lot shorter and less complicated than my list? Can’t he tell I’d like him to go faster, then help me?

Resolving The Conflict – a Simple Example

He cheerfully does his list. I, not so cheerfully, do mine. I act agitated, full of conflict. Why is there conflict? Because I want him to finish his shorter list and help me; that is my objective for him. He has his own objective. He doesn’t know I have one for him.

Objectives We Do Not Share

A wise person once said, “Conflict arises when people are in pursuit of objectives they do not share.” Bingo! We are pursuing two different objectives. He doesn’t even know I have one for him.  No wonder I’m muttering.  I haven’t told him my objective for him let alone asked him to agree with it.  We are in pursuit of objectives we do not share.

“Share” Doesn’t Just Mean “Tell”

Please note, “share” in this axiom doesn’t mean “tell”, as in, “let me share this with you”.  In this axiom, “share” means to “hold the same opinion”, to “hold in common”.  HH and I were in pursuit of objectives we do not share, do not hold in common. Next time, I’ll have to own up to the fact that I have an objective for him (sometimes we hold these objectives subconsciously and have to force them out into the light).  I have to ask him to agree to my objective for him. He might not, so then we’ll use fact-finding, give-and-take, trade-offs, compromise, prioritization, scheduling, “ask, don’t tell” and other methods of coming to agreement.

Conflicts At Work

This is a simple example of different objectives remaining unspoken, unagreed-to.  But aren’t a lot of the conflicts at work just as simple? Conflicts caused by different objectives, remaining unspoken?

The objectives themselves may not be simple, getting agreement may not be simple, but it’s simple to see why you’re in conflict. You want two completely different things, but you haven’t discovered that yet.  The conflict is not personal, it’s not vindictive, the other person’s not stupid or hard-headed.  Rather, you are in pursuit of objectives you do not share.

You Can Resolve the Conflict

A friend of mine says “sometimes we’ll be the only ones in the room who know what’s going on”.  Do you see how that advice can work here?  Really look at the conflicts around you and you’ll see it’s the objectives that are in conflict, not the people.

Discover The Objectives

Have everyone in the conflict speak their objective, namely, their preferred outcome and preferred method.  Everyone will be surprised at how different the objectives are.  Everyone might also be surprised at how easily and well the objectives can be melded together and all satisfied once they’re spoken aloud.  It’s a particular pleasure when one objective influences another, makes it clearer, asks hard questions, or makes the other one easier to achieve.  It’s a pleasure to watch the two people in conflict have a lightbulb moment.

What If They Can’t Be Resolved?

Some objectives can’t be melded together or won’t be satisfied by the final agreement, but perhaps they can be deferred and satisfied later. Or pursued in parallel by another group. Or more fact-finding will show one’s unnecessary or redundant.  One thing is for sure:  the ways to satisfy the objectives can only be found when the objectives are spoken.

Please remember it’s often true that, when two people are in conflict, all it means is that they are in pursuit of objectives they do not share. Now I’m ready to get HH to agree to hurry his list and help me with mine.

I’ve seen this first and most important step to conflict resolution work very effectively at the office and at home.  Do you think it would work at your office?  Please click “comment” above and tell us how you would put it to use. 

What do you think will be the best way to make sure others speak their objectives out loud?

 

My Competition Gave Up Today

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I was on the hot seat.  I’d already burned through $50,000 in overhead budget.  The Executive Vice President had flown 1500 miles to question me face-to-face because I had asked him for another $50,000.  He asked, “Are you going to win this?”  I answered, “Sir, it’s already won.”

Confidence and Risk

He gave me the $50,000.

We Had Already Won

My mind was saying: “…because our competition gave up today.”  The Air Force had issued the Request for Proposal (RFP) months before; the three-volume proposal writing was already wearing everybody down.   The prize was a $35-million-dollar five-year contract to provide engineering services to the Air Force.

The Air Force was not making it easy on the bidders.  The Air Force procurement office had just released the third RFP “amendment”.  In government contracting “RFP amendment” means “drop everything and get ready to change your 300-page proposal”.  The Air Force had shown signs there would  be more amendments.  We needed more overhead budget to keep going.

Was I Going To Give Up?

I believed “my competition gave up today”.  Either that day or sometime soon during what would turn out to be eight amendments over eight more months, I believed my competition would give up.  If they didn’t give up publicly and withdraw, I knew that one or more of them would at least give up mentally.  They’d become less diligent responding to the amendments.  Or they would not have the guts to ask for more overhead budget to keep going this long.  Or they’d be unsuccessful at getting more budget, since they couldn’t be convincing to themselves or their bosses that they could win the $35 million.

Not like I could be.  Because our evidence told us we’d already won.

You Need Endurance and Grit

We could endure because we’d already won.  But we’d already won because we’d already endured.  We had already done the longest, hardest work of the project:  knowing the deep, often unspoken, needs of the client, and satisfying that need.  Even when it was hard to do and required endurance and grit.  (You’ll enjoy what the latest research has to say about grit.)  We had endured and already done the hardest work.

Because Endurance Makes the Risk Less Risky

As the months passed, we kept looking for unspoken needs.  We kept satisfying the client.  We endured.  But we knew we were well thought of by the clients, both the user buyer and the purse-strings buyer, so it made enduring easier and the risk less risky.  [The technical buyer stayed a wild card; you can hear about “Dan the Contracts Man” in my TEDx Talk of 2014!]

It was all a humongous effort, but it was worth it because…

My Competition Gave Up Today

You’re not going to give up, are you?  You won’t give up just because the process got more uncertain, will you?  It was always uncertain, but you worked your plan to obtain more data and act on the data.  Are you still doing that?   Still working your plan?  Still satisfying the deepest needs?

You won’t give up just because the process got longer, will you?  Don’t be silly.  Either you’ve won this thing already, or you have a plan to close all the gaps, knock down all the red flags, and satisfy the clients’ deepest needs.  In which case, you’ve already won.

Don’t give up.

And by the way…

We won.

Click “comment” above and tell us about a time you didn’t give up. 

Or about a time you did give up but you remember the lesson you learned.   I look forward to the chat.

 

Do Your Action Steps Include Throwing Up?

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My tightly-wound coaching client had a problem that she was just now bringing up.  Like many tightly-wound people, she has trouble making decisions at home, including decisions about organizing her house.

Personal Leadership Works At Home Too

She was doing well at reaching the work goals she’d set during our coaching; she firmly grasped the logic behind taking “baby steps” toward goals and was baby-stepping her way to success at work.  Home disorganization was another matter; she’d never tackled it.  She told me she had a walkway through her living room, stacked with papers and stuff on either side of the walkway.  She decided to start with the kitchen…

The 8-Minute Life Saver

She knew my coaching suggestions for taking on big projects in small, sometimes very small, chunks (“baby steps“).  The crucial ingredient I add to that technique is to work on the baby step for only eight minutes.  For eight minutes, you may work on the task, or think about working on the task, or stare at the wall; it doesn’t matter.  After eight minutes, you may walk away from the task.  You can go on working past eight minutes if you wish, but you don’t have to.  You’ll work on it again tomorrow for eight minutes.  If you go on working on it today, you may do so only after asking yourself, out loud, “Shall I work on this a while longer?”  and answering “Yes”.   The easy “8-Minute Technique” really works.

Courage and Grit Can Come In 8 Minutes

She decided to work on just the junk drawer in the kitchen; she’d open it and work on it for eight minutes.  She opened the drawer, looked down at it, and promptly threw up in it.  That day she got to walk away before her eight minutes were up.  (She cleaned up the mess later but wasn’t required to deal with the junk; she’d already done her assignment for the day, rather spectacularly.)

The next day she opened the drawer, looked down, and threw up in the drawer.  She walked away and cleaned it up later.

The next day she opened the drawer.  She emptied it.  She completely organized it.  She put away items that belonged elsewhere, and put the duplicates in the box in her hall closet marked “Donate”.  (A baby step she’d done earlier.)  I congratulated her.  She moved on to organizing everything else, using the same steps.

Grit Means We Endure

The courage and resilience to do the task were already inside my dear client.  They had to be; they didn’t just materialize in two days.  But she had to activate her courage and resilience.  She had to send them a message that it was time to show up.  She did that by enduring.

We can only benefit from our own courage and resilience when we endure.  My client endured; she returned to her frightening task three times, then watched her own courage change her life.

Courage and resilience are both marked by endurance and grit.  Endurance and grit share a part of their definition: “the firm resolve to stand, and go on standing, in the face of aggravations and fears.”

Courage and resilience are inside you too.  And not just about the kitchen junk drawer.

It doesn’t matter if your baby steps include throwing up.  My baby steps used to include a minute of tears from the fears mounded up inside me.

But it didn’t matter. What matters are courage and resilience, endurance and grit.  What matters are that my client and you show a “firm resolve to stand, and go on standing, in the face of aggravations and fears.”

You can do this.  Just ask my client Sharon.

What do you think of the 8-Minute Technique?   What kinds of Baby Steps have you used?  Please comment. We can all use the help!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is This The Right Kind of Magical Thinking?

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Haven’t you been warned to avoid magical thinking? The kind of thinking where you make up the story you prefer, and then believe it; as in “My expense report is due but I won’t fill it out tonight.  Rick the Boss will understand why I’m late again when he sees what I worked on instead.”  or  “It’s my business if I raise my voice behind my closed office door.  I don’t care what my supervisor said; he’ll understand when he finds out what Accounting did.”

Your Brain Is Listening

The danger of course is not only that your magical thoughts aren’t true and will likely get you into trouble, but by announcing your magical thought to yourself, your brain accepts it as true, and acts like it’s true. Your brain will tend to call similar thoughts true, if they’re consistent with the one you made up.  The entire scenario slips farther away from what’s true, and you allow yourself to behave in ways and defend statements you make that have no basis in truth.  Magical thinking can seriously harm you, and all the time you think you’re right.  It can be tough to pull back from.

Recognize Magical Thinking

You must train yourself to recognize and root out this kind of magical thinking.  I teach my clients to avoid magical thinking like this: “List the things in this situation you can independently prove are true. Say to yourself: ‘This list alone is the truth. I agree this alone is real.  I do not believe anything not on this list and I discard it.’ ”  Try it; I promise it works.

But There’s Another Kind

But there is another kind of magical thinking.  The right kind.  Like the other kind, it ignores reality, but still, I recommend it.

My desk was lost under a snowdrift of books and papers. I felt I should take an hour to clean it up before I could hope to get any work done.  I couldn’t afford an hour, I didn’t want to do it, and I knew that trying to straighten my desk was like entering a black hole of time-wasting.

Magical Thinking To The Rescue

So I decided to use magical thinking. I told myself my desk was clean and I had all the space I needed to get right down to work and get a lot done.  So I did.  I got right down to work and got a lot done.

As we already know, starting a task and keeping at it is the hardest part and is most of the battle. I used magical thinking to take away my excuse for not starting the task. I used magical thinking to prevent procrastination. I shoved the pile aside and got a carload of stuff done.

Later I felt so good I cleaned off my desk.

What do you think?  Can you see a use for this kind of magical thinking in your life?  Please comment – I’d like to hear about it.

How To Motivate and Engage Your Team

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This is the story of how I did it wrong.  I was a Program Manager and Business Developer, selling engineering projects right and left, choosing Task Managers and task teams, and having kick-off meetings.  I opened kick-off meetings explaining the project and its importance to the client.  I thought that motivated my team members.

You Can’t Motivate That Way

I also thought they were motivated by the same thing I was, namely, the business of our business:  find and develop clients, develop and sell projects, do high-quality work, provide high-quality solutions, make profits, grow the company and its teams, everyone gets promoted and paid.  Repeat.  I thought they knew that as intimately as I did and that it motivated them, as it did me.  But I don’t know for sure that it motivated them; I never asked them.

It Gets Worse

What I was doing was insufficient for motivating my team.  Journal articles told me I was doing a bad job, but work was coming in so fast, times were so exciting, that I hoped time and the amount of work would make everyone happy and would cure everything.  Or that I would figure it out later, when there was more time.

Lessons Learned About Motivating

I’ll cut right to the chase and tell you what I have learned, what I know now for sure.

#1 – I should have asked them individually what would motivate them to do their best work.  I couldn’t guarantee I would deliver everything they wanted in every project, but my record with them would have been a lot better than it was.

#2 – On any individual project, may I recommend that you tailor the project work so that it delivers one or more of the following benefits to your task team members.  Be sure and express the project work in the terms below.  In broad strokes then, and in order from “probably not that motivating to me as a person, but it’s sort of cool” to “very motivating to me”, explain at the kick-off meeting how their work on the project:

  1. Solves a crucial problem for the client
  2. Provides them job security if that’s what they wish; profitable work secures their job and allows them to be promoted
  3. Solves a problem that hasn’t been solved before
  4. Solves a problem that is so difficult  it will require their very, very best work; it will seriously stretch them
  5. Gives them the chance to lead task-level work now, and lead large programs sooner
  6. Gives them the chance to work one-on-one with you, in a mentor-mentee relationship
  7. Creates new, portable, resume-building knowledge and accomplishments for them
  8. Provides them collaboration they’ll enjoy and learn from
  9. Allows them to be part of something larger than they are, that they can be proud of, and that they could not have produced on their own

Motivate Them By What’s In It For Them

We know now that generational differences dictate some of what motivates our teammates, and my list reflects some generational differences you can choose from.  After your interviews with your individual teammates, you can point out to them what other benefits to them the project offers.  Look at Item 2 and Items 4 – 9; unlike in decades past, we are motivating some employees entirely by what’s in it for them.   There’s nothing wrong with that; the motivation still brings out their best work and leads to successful project outcomes.

On Their Own Terms

I don’t have to tell you how important it is to engage our teammates on their own terms.  I don’t have to tell you that most of them are undaunted by the prospect of finding work at other firms if you fail to engage them.

Engaging them on their own terms, especially when it’s exciting material like Items 4 – 9 in the list above, is exciting for us too.  A lot more exciting than the boring stuff I used to try that didn’t work anyway.

Communicate On Their Own Terms Too

Engage your teammates on their own terms, and have conversations with them on their own terms too.  I have my friend L.L. to thank for tutoring me to not mind it when I only see the tops of my colleagues’ heads when I speak with them.  She reminds me that people now find it correct and efficient, not rude, to interrupt me to answer my question from their phone data before I finish speaking.  She says I should welcome the answers, and I’ve decided to.

You Decide

Have you decided to motivate and communicate with your team only in ways meaningful to them, even if the style is very different from your own?

What’s your best tip about motivating or communicating with your teammates? 

Please comment above and tell the rest of us.  We can sure use the help!

 

 

 

Which Emotion Does Your Company Sell?

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A plumber sells family peace and quiet and a lack of embarrassment.

A hairdresser sells that winning feeling of gliding into a room knowing that your.  hair.  is.  shining.

A t-shirt printer sells the emotion of free speech.

What Emotion Does An Eco Company Sell?

A maker of green products would say he’s selling you a smaller ecological footprint.  I say he’s selling you the emotion that you’re helping, that you’re part of something larger than yourself, something you can be proud of.  He might then say he’s selling you the emotion that you’ve discovered a new partner to join you in the fight to protect the planet.

Writing these is fun; which ones can you add?  Let’s see…

What Emotion Does Apple Sell?

Apple sells minds gone wild with the power of searching and seeing and choice.

Nike sells hope.

Go Deep

Financial planners say they sell “peace of mind”.  That’s a good start.  I’d like to suggest that what they sell is the look on your face when they tell you you have enough stashed away to quit your job and start your own company.

As of Aug 2014 I’m not selling anything on this site, but through my words I sell successful days at work for business developers and risk takers.  I strive to fulfill a brand promise where my readers, at the end of the day at work, take a breath, offer up a slight smile, and have this emotion:  “I took that risk and I did well.  This was a successful day.”

What Emotion Does Your Company Sell?

What emotion does your company sell?  You might answer “peace of mind” or “confidence (in their refrigerator)”.  That’s a good start.  But “peace of mind” and “confidence” are everyone’s answer.  So take a moment and dig deeper.

What emotion does your company sell?  The answer is wrapped up in an emotional way with your company’s brand and your brand promise.

Or an easy way to pin down the emotion your company sells is that it’s the same as your brand.  Have you ever thought of it that way?  Some people may not respond well to the statement that your brand is “that winning feeling of gliding into a room”, but phrases exactly like that are what we can build a brand experience on.

Can You Sell Her More Time?

If you’re at an engineering firm, you sell your client not just engineering solutions at a fair price.  I hope you sell her the feeling of a worry-free, easy day at work with more time to work on her other projects.  How do you do that?  Because your solutions always work and are always on time and on budget.  Because you submit your reports as a few slides, already in the style she likes to use for her presentations.   (All details, calculations, etc are in separate brief attachments on stick drives she can pass out.)

Sell Her An Easy Day

You make her day easy and give her the emotion of free time when your solutions are easily implementable, when you send along a highly usable, extremely brief training program without being asked and whenever it’s needed, complete with webinar slides with a few bullets each waiting for her in the cloud  (it didn’t cut into your profits much because it’s THAT short, which is how the client wants it anyway).

You give her the feeling of an easy day when her coworkers compliment you to her saying that your team gives prompt, concise, easily understood answers and that you’re a pleasure to work with.  She feels good because she chose you.

By the way, this exercise applies just as much to non-profits as it does to any other firm, just as much to bloggers as to architects.

What emotion does your company sell?  An easy day?  A feel-good day?

Please comment.  Please add to our list of what emotions people sell to you.  What emotion does your company sell?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do This To Make The Big Risks Smaller

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When you face risk, one way to go forward is to work to get more data that will let you reduce the risk in your mind and gain comfort.

It Comes Whether You Want It or Not

Another way to look at a risky situation is that, in an uncertain terrain, more and more data will be coming at you.  You can’t stop it from coming.  You CAN watch for it, take it in, reject nothing, compile it, assemble it, deduce from it, learn from it.  Risk = more data inbound.  Always.  If you’re watching.

What If The Risk Is Still Too High?

If the risk remains intolerably high, it might mean you don’t have enough data.  You may be at the point of needing the last data, and they’re hard to come by.  Your competitors probably don’t have the last data either.  What will you do to win the project?

You Win

When you’re smart enough to isolate the last data you need and obtain it, your risk falls.  But your competitors’ risk stays the same, and they may decide not to play.

If they play, they will make untenable claims in the proposal because they don’t know how else to address the risk.  Your client might see through their claims.  Use your meeting time with the client before the decision is made to point out the “risky” areas in the scope of work, point out how you solved the problem in your proposal, and how others might not have.   In the end, you win because you knew that risk is just data.

Does this help how you think about risk?  How can you make your next proposal easier and make it more likely to win?  Please join the discussion.

 

Do You Know This One Basic Goal Of A Leader?

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A leader’s most important goal and most important action, in my opinion, is to maximize her free time, her discretionary time.  That’s right.  To increase the time in her day that has no obligations on it, except what she puts there herself.

What Distinguishes Leaders

Maximizing her discretionary time and choosing what to put into that time – the actions, the thinking, the drilling down into causes and cures, the setting of strategies to effect cure – is what distinguishes a leader from everyone else.  It’s what can distinguish you from everyone else.

The Ability To Do The Hard Work

Here’s another way to express it:  what divides leaders from everyone else is what I call “doing the hard work”.  It’s thinking.  That’s right – thinking.  That’s the “hard work”.  Thinking about making advances and making change.  Thinking of, then writing down plans that are truly workable and implementable, whose results are easy to measure.  Plans that practically make the team get up and ask for a kick-off meeting so they can get to work.  That’s a leader.

Who Will Give You The Time?

No one.  No one’s going to give you the time to formulate plans like those.  You take the time, literally wrest it from the hands of those who want your time.  You carve it out, make more of it, maximize it.  The company and shareholders are paying you to make time to think.  That is what a leader does.

Do you wish your leaders would do more of that?  Do you look forward to doing it more and more as you become a stronger leader?  Please “comment” and share.

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