Topics related to leading others as well yourself.
I spent time this week with my boss and peers reviewing a difficult situation that we had to face. I am betting that you have had a similar circumstance – one where many people over a long period of time have made many mistakes that now culminate into one much more difficult problem. You really can’t point at one person and say this is why we are here today.
At the end of the conversation my boss looked at us and asked
I was thinking back to a point 15 years ago when my kids were 2 and 3 years old. I thnk the first word they learned was “mine.”
That stuck-in-my-head memory came as a result of listening to two managers talk about moving an employee from one group to the other. I was fully expecting to hear “I’ll let him join your group if you give me a bushel of corn and a couple of otter skins.”
What is it about being a manager that makes many of us so territorial and possessive? It’s almost as if deep down we feel we own our employees, as if our value and importance rises by the number of people we manage. Continue Reading…
If you are in your forties or later you probably remember that little 3 minute cartoon from Schoolhouse Rock on Saturday mornings. Three indeed is a magic number.
Did you know that the triangle is the only shape that cannot be deformed without changing the length of one of its sides? This is why the triangle is the basic element of structures called trusses used in bridge design as well as construction of house roofs. If you need strength, three is your number.
The human brain tends to remember things more effectively in groups of three as well. Writers learned this long ago and developed a word for it – the tricolon.
“Vini Vidi, Vici” – Julius Caesar
“Government of the people, by the people, for the people.” – Abraham Lincoln
Even famous quotes like Churchill’s “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” are pared down and remembered as blood, sweat and tears.
Photographers don’t use the Rule of Fourths, you never hear Old Fashioned Love Songs come down in four part harmony and Christians don’t worship the Holy Quad.
Three is a big deal. Continue Reading…
I was a huge fan of Whose Line Is It Anyway, the British and later US improv comedy show. Those guys and gals were amazing. Having watched a lot of bad improv I can appreciate how difficult it must be to pull this off successfully so I wanted to learn the secrets of the trade.
Using the search phrase “improv comedy rules” I found that nearly all of the sites list the number one rule as “Do Not Block”. Blocking is when one actor sets up a line like “my you are a fine looking rooster” and the other doesn’t like the setup so replies with “I’m not a rooster, I’m a penguin” because he knows that penguins are funnier. This is never funny, it insults the previous comedian, and actually makes the newly self-titled penguin look weak – he wasn’t up to the task given to him.
It dawned on me that I see the same roosters and penguins conversation daily at work; Continue Reading…
I never really understood the obligatory post-game handshake between two football teams. Here are two teams that just finished the last three hours beating the snot out of each other and now they are expected to raise a smile and say “nice game”. While they will eventually get to that point, I am pretty sure that they don’t feel it at that moment.
Don’t get me wrong, I totally believe in sportsmanship and dealing graciously with winning and losing. I just don’t know how one can expect such a dramatic change in two minutes.
That’s because you can’t – and it is no different in the business world or any other part of life. We all have what a friend of mine calls “take-up time” If you want to lead others with a new idea you have to really understand this simple piece of human psychology. Continue Reading…
If you can’t help people grow you aren’t likely going to be worth much as a leader.
Unfortunately it is one of the areas that I see managers most often fail. Growth is one of the critical components that separates the two.
Developing people is hard; it often involves taking someone from a place of comfort to a place that is very unfamiliar. It’s like trying to convince someone reading their favorite book in a big comfy chair next to the roaring fireplace that they need to put on a blindfold and go for a car ride in the dead of winter. Why would anyone want to do that?
There are two parts to helping someone grow. First you have to understand the natural loss they will feel leaving the comfort of their chair. Second, you have to convince them that where they are going is of value to them.
One of the reasons people have a hard time moving from one stage to another is that we all have a built in psychological equation that values loss twice as much as gain – this is called loss aversion. In a well known study by Amos Tversky it was shown that people feel twice as much unhappiness from losing $100 as they do joy from winning that same $100. Continue Reading…
I love those stirring moments in a movie when all appears lost and the soon to be hero of the movie fights with everything they have to not give up. It’s those feel good moments that reach deep inside and tug at our emotions so powerfully that we continue to dole out $11 a person to watch it play out time and again.
But is “never say it’s over” always the best philosophy? How do you know? Continue Reading…
