Forget For Success - 12/7/2008

In a  “Walk The Talk” handbook written by Eric Harvey and Steven Ventura there is a part entitled “Forget For Success: Walking Away From Outdated, Counterproductive Beliefs and People Practices.” In it there’s a chapter that says forget that people need to be managed. 

Processes need to be managed, money needs to be managed, priorities need to be managed, and so on, but people need to be led as in that leadership stuff that leaders do.  Look up the word manage in any dictionary or basic business text and you find the same general definition: to administer, to control.  Look up the word lead and you will find a very different meaning: to show the way, to inspire. 

Now compare these sets of definitions.  Which seems to be more appropriate for building a climate of commitment and productivity?  Which is more likely to bring out the very best in people?  Which approach do you respond best to?  Being managed or being led?  Forget any thoughts about managing people and you’ll free up the brain space necessary to focus on leading them. 

Need some clues on how to be a good leader?  Start by completing the following sentence:  I do my best and most effective work for leaders who?  Once you’ve identified the characteristics and behaviors of leaders who inspire you, follow their lead.  So what do you do if you encounter one of those very rare problem people who just won’t respond to good leadership?  Fight the tendency to try and control them.  Just show them the way or the way out.  As long as you don’t hear from me, you’ll know that you’re doing okay; a.k.a., no news is good, news silence is golden. 

Yeah right, uh-huh, forget it.  This is a case of good intention being camouflaged with nonsense.  The hidden good intention, do your job well and I won’t bug you.  The nonsense, by me saying nothing you’ll know exactly what I’m thinking and feeling.  Unless the people you work with are clairvoyant, you can’t flush this one away. 

The only time people really know what you’re thinking is when you tell them.  Short of that, they’re left trying to figure out what’s on your mind.  Can you think of a time when you had a problem with someone, but because you were busy or angry or uncomfortable addressing the issue, you said nothing?  Ever had someone a little steamed at you, but you didn’t know about it for some time?  Of course.  The fact is that silence is not approval and it is not golden.  It’s just silence.  Purge this one from your cerebral cortex and you make room for better more productive ideas.  Like bothering with folks when they do good work and when they don’t.  Like letting folks regularly hear from you. 

That’s feedback and far too often that’s rare.  Forget values are important to know.  Close but no cigar.  Place too much emphasis on knowing your organization’s values backwards and forwards and you’ll miss their point, and the boat.  When it comes to mean knowledge or lip service, forget it. 

Before going on, write some answers to the following:  What is the purpose of organizational values?  What are practice values?  Why do they exist?  Now, look at what you wrote.  Did you say that values exist just to give people something to know and talk about?  We bet not.  Chances are you concluded that values exist to provide direction, to guide individual and group actions and decisions. 

Correctamundo and the keyword here is actions.  Forget just knowing about your organizational values and you will be likely to focus on what’s truly important.  Focus on walking the talk.  What specifically are you and others doing to bring your values and good intentions to life?  That’s what you really need to know.

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