Passion, People and Principles
A manager I once worked with said that his key talent was not listening to people, but WATCHING them — clients, colleagues, superiors and subordinates — and understanding them better than other people would be able to do just by listening.
I was reminded of this insight as I reflected on my experience as a juror. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had been put into a strange situation for me. For the 5 days of the trial, I was forced to be an OBSERVER, not a participant.
Until the time came to deliberate on the verdict, I could not ask questions, I could not intervene, I could not discuss things. I was forced to be a WATCHER as well as a listener.
It taught me a lot. I earn my living through words, but I am increasingly coming to believe that we don’t best reveal ourselves (or judge others) through words, but through other means.
I’ve never been trained to “observeâ€, I’ve never read a book on it, and I don’t have a natural proclivity for it. My wife can be with people at a party or family gathering and tell you things about what they are feeling that were never said out loud. She just “notices.â€
Try this exercise: Just watch people in a meeting and see if you can answer these questions about them:
- How self-confident is this person?
- How would you describe their level of optimism or pessimism?
- What emotional needs do they have?
- What type of role would they function best in?
- Is this someone you would trust?
- Would other people want to work with this person?
Even if you’ve never been trained in psychology and never read a book on body language, I’ll bet you’ll get very close to the truth.
Which raises a series of interesting questions:
- How good a watcher are you?
- What makes someone a good observer?
- Can YOU figure someone out by observing them?
- What do YOU look for?
post # 318 — February 28, 2007 — a Careers, General post
Penelope Trunk, in her wonderful blog Brazen Careerist , launched a discussion about going out of your way to show interest in (or learn about) things that don’t necessarily interest you (such as popular culture or sports) “just†as a means of being able to relate and interact with those around you.
It’s a great discussion, and it got me thinking a lot about “fitting in†and how hard one should try.
Should you, as many of Penelope’s commenters suggest, learn a little about sports (even if, like me, you have zero interest) just to be able to relate to clients? Is that just being sensible (or sociable) or is it “pandering†and “phony†to pretend to interests you don’t really have?
Penelope uses the example of college teachers telling us we “should†read Homer’s Iliad because “well educated†people will have read it, and we wouldn’t want to be left out, would we?
Oh, how I remember that challenge when I first went to college! I remember being completely overwhelmed at the extent of my ignorance. Not only had I never read Homer, but I knew nothing about poetry, politics, philosophy, art, classical music, public affairs, literature, history, let alone the ‘popular’ culture topics — as I said, I knew nothing about sports.
How intimidating it all was! Where do you start? Or do you?
I recall with memories that still sting that, (especially in class-sensitive Britain), making choices among these things was a serious topic. By choosing to “get up to speed†in certain areas, you would be placing yourself in one social group or another. Was I going to make myself into an “intellectual?†Was I going to be a ‘trendy’ who knew all about Jazz and the Beat poets? Was I going to be “one of the lads / guys†who knew all about football and the latest pop releases? Was I going to like — or pretend to like — classical music?
These choices scared the heck out of me because they involved — it seemed to me then and seems to me now — an act of conscious self-creation. It was about choosing one or more social circles, and learning enough to “fit in†to that social circle.
Since I had no idea who I “really†was, nor who I wanted to be, I took the “Cliff Notes “ approach — I learned a little about a lot of things. I used to read the introductions to novels, rather than the novels themselves, so that I could understand what they were about without having to invest the time (or learn to enjoy) them. I read biographies and histories, so I could recognize the names of all the major philosophers and give you a one-liner or two about most of them. I learned to name a couple of Mozart’s operas, and so on and so on. I learned enough to pretend to fit in with a wide variety of social circles.
In one sense, I suppose that’s good. You meet a lot of different kinds of people as you go through life. But on the other hand, it felt superficial and, on many occasions, a lot like “faking it.†Who was I really? Where did I fit in really?
I have found that this challenge exists throughout life. As Penelope said, you probably kind of have to know a little about a lot of things to relate to people.
For example, here’s a quiz. If you went to a dinner party, could you keep your side of a conversation going on:
- Local politics?
- National Politics?
- International affairs not directly involving your own country?
- The latest tech gadgets
- The latest fiction best-sellers?
- The latest non-fiction best-sellers?
- What’s hot on television?
- The latest art exhibition to open in your town
- The popular music charts?
- Yo-yo Ma’s latest album?
- What’s good on Broadway this season?
- The latest movies?
- Local sports teams?
- Sports events not involving local teams?
- Latest theories of child-rearing?
Should you know about all of these things? Where, if anywhere, is your “obligation†to keep up?
And, to relate it back to the business and management specifics of this blog, could you, at the lunch or dinner breaks in a business meeting:
- Talk about what’s on the cover of the latest business magazines, from Forbes to Wired?
- Talk about the other stories there?
- Discuss what’s been in the Wall Street Journal recently?
- Compare and contrast the views of three or four of the recent best-selling business authors?
- Say something sensible on the business consequences of, say, globalization, the continued war for talent, web 2.0, who the emerging business heroes are and who doesn’t deserve his or her reputation?
I don’t know about you, but I still can’t do ALL of this, and find myself doing what I did in college: furiously skimming headlines and summaries so I can pretend to participate in conversations. My intentions, I hope are good, and I don’t mean to misrepresent myself, but, just like in college days, it feels like I’m only skating the surface and “faking it†a lot of the time.
It’s an uncomfortable feeling, and I don’t know the solution, except maybe to have the courage more frequently to say “Sorry, I don’t know about that.â€
post # 317 — February 27, 2007 — a Client Relations post
Musical performers always thank their audience for “being a wonderful audience.”
They often do this even in mid-performance, not just at the end of their act.
What’s going on here?
It often comes across a phony and false modesty. After all, it’s the performer’s job to entertain US.
Do they really think the audience is being “wonderful” or are they just flattering us into liking them (the old reciprocity trick)?
Should those of us in business be copying the approach?
In the middle of an assignment should we say “I want to thank you for being a wonderful client / boss / subordinate?”
post # 316 — February 26, 2007 — a General post
While learning to network is essential to your success, it is difficult for many of us (myself included!) to get comfortable with the topic of promoting ourselves.
In a previous Business Masterclass podcast episode, Cultivate the Habits of Friendship, I offered some thoughts on one slice of this topic by arguing that each one of us does indeed need to develop what I called friendship skills – the ability to earn relationships and build our network of people with whom we have sincere friendly relations.
In today’s podcast, Self Promotions, I dig deeper into this topic, examining why self-promoting and networking are sometimes the hardest thing for professionals to do, and exploring tips and techniques you can use to get past your resistance and tap into your potential for success in self-promotions in any context.
Timeline
00:48 — Two examples of self-promotion from opposite ends of the spectrum
01:08 — The common awkward approach to self-promotion
01:46 — The alternative effective approach you can model
02:22 — How our personality affects our own self-promotion
04:11 — A short quiz on self-promotion
05:06 — DavidMaister.com readers on self-promotion
05:12 — Joerg Weisner on going against childhood conditioning
05:51 — Bryan I. Schwartz on the fine line at the end of humility
06:18 — Jordan Furlong on acting with class
07:53 — Heidi Ehlers on belief in a product or service as the fuel for promotion
09:21 — Shaula Evans on the analogy between self-promotion and cold calls
12:27 — Deborah Katz Solomon on offers vs requests
13:41 — Steve Roesler on delegating promotions to an expert
You can download Self Promotion or sign up to receive new Business Masterclass seminars automatically with iTunes or other podcast players. (Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to subscribe.) My seminars are always available for download at no cost.
post # 315 — February 22, 2007 — a Managing post
Here’s a question about performance appraisals:
We are in the midst of generating year- end reviews for our associate (ie non-partner) lawyers. We have moved away from a standardized report and have been coaching all year. The report we will give them will merely be a re-cap of all the coaching sessions for the year. We will of course be addressing monetary rewards and we are in a heated debate about one issue. Should we address the billing amounts of each lawyer at this review? Should one be congratulated over the others for doing more individual billable hours? Isn’t there a risk that we will set up an unhealthy competition and seem to encourage less teamwork?
I have a few responses:
- If you have been coaching all year, why do you need a year-end review?
- If there is a need for something year-end, shouldn’t it be less of a “review†and focus almost entirely on looking ahead as to what each person can and should be doing to enhance their career? What’s the point of looking back?
- In a law firm, aren’t the number of billable hours determined by what the partners assign to the juniors? If so, what do high personal billable hours reflect? Popularity among the partners? A more dependable person? Someone too dumb to hide out when they are already busy? I’d discuss the personal billable hours and try to understand them, but I would stay away from using them as a performance metric.
post # 314 — February 21, 2007 — a General post
Having mentioned I served on a jury, I received an email asking me to reflect on my experience as a juror.
I’m afraid I don’t have much to say that is profound. The case involved a laborer who was asked by the pastor of his church, he claimed, to perform some basic renovation work on a recently purchased building to make it fit to hold services. There seemed to be no argument that some amount of work was done, but the laborer claimed that all his receipts were stolen (along with his tools) from his truck, and hence could not submit them to the pastor (or the court). We had to decide whether the pastor had promised to pay the laborer, and how much the laborer was owed.
The plaintiff’s case was presented very efficiently by his attorney, supported by testimony from some of the assistants the laborer had hired to help with the work. The lawyer told us what he planned to contend, and called witnesses to back up those specific contentions.
Things started to drag out when the defendant’s attorney took over. As jurors, we were confused as to what it was and what it was not that he was contending. He seemed to taking scattergun potshots at whatever he could think of.
Astoundingly, for a case where less than $80,000 was in dispute, this whole thing dragged on for five days (9am to 1pm).
If there lessons to be learned, they were these:
- If a parishioner is suing the pastor and you want us to believe the pastor, have at least one other parishioner appearing court on the pastor’s side
- Don’t be mean, attacking witnesses as to whether they have ever been arrested, or ever had a drink of alcohol. It backfired.
- If you’re trying to make a case, tell us up front what you what you are going to try to prove. We get lost easily.
- If you don’t contest an issue, topic or fact, we the jury are going to assume you concede the point.
- It’s amazing how the lack of organization – fumbling through papers – affected our view of a lawwyer’s credibility .
- Body language mattered – the defendent slumped and scowled and dozed throughout the plaintiff’s case. It turned the jury off
- In post verdict discussions, all the jurors agreed we had formed a strong opinion on the character of the individuals involved within the first 30 minutes of the 5-day trial.
I know this is all obvious stuff, that’s all five days out of my life offered me. What a waste!
Does anyone else have (more informative) lessons from their jury experience?
post # 313 — February 20, 2007 — a Strategy post
Back in August of last year, I posted a blog about Corporate Strategy and Personality Profiles. The basic argument was (and is) that many firms are incapable of firmwide strategy because the key players have not agreed either to (a) collaborate or (b) invest in their mutual future.
I have now expanded my thoughts into a full-length article (Are we In This Together? The Preconditions For Strategy), which has been posted on my website and can be read or downloaded now.
The article describes four kinds of people
- Type 1 is the solo operator who values independence, wants to make little investment in the future, but is willing to bet on his (or her) ability to catch fresh meat each and every day. I call this the Mountain Lion approach. “Pay me for what I do today (or this year.)”
- Type 2 is the individual who prefers to act in coordination with others, but doesn’t like to invest (or defer gratification) too much. I call these people (collectively) the Wolf-Pack. “If we act together we can kill bigger animals, but it had better pay off soon or I’m joining another Pack!”
- Type 3 is the individual who wants to be independent, but is interested in building for the future by investing time and resources to get somewhere new. Such people remind me of Beavers building dams to provide a home for their (own) family.
- Type 4 are individuals who want to be part of something bigger than they can accomplish alone, and have the patience, the ambition and the will to help the collective organization invest in that future. I call this group “The Human Race” since one of the rare things about Homo Sapiens that differentiates it (at least in scale) from other species is its ability to act collectively to build and develop. (It’s called civilization.)
I don’t have a precise metric to measure the differing orientations described here, but I have found two proxy questions to be useful.
On the issue of independence versus team-play, I ask people whether, in general, they would prefer rewards in their organization to be based (compared to the current arrangements) a little more on individual performance or a little more on joint rewards for joint performance. I then ask whether, compared to the current arrangements, people would like their firm to invest more in its future, even if this meant they would have to accept less current income in the form of salaries and current bonuses.
These two (imprecise) questions tend to cause people to reflect on their true preferences. The underlying issue is not really about pay schemes, but phrasing the questions this way tends to crystallize the issues for many people.
The article then explores the question: what can be achieved if you have a mixture of all types in your organization?
post # 312 — February 19, 2007 — a General post
Stop and ask yourself: over the course of your career, what will you be recognized for? At any given point in your career, there is a need both to understand what kind of role you are specializing in, and, if you wish to progress, how the skills for the next role in your career differ from those that brought you to where you are.
This week’s podcast episode, What Kind of Provider Are You?, discusses a paradigm of four distinctive roles you may play on your path to greatness: the Pharmacist, the Nurse, the Brain Surgeon, and the Family Doctor; along with a guide for how to pick the best role for yourself, and how to nurture your resulting competitive advantage.
Timeline
- 00:43 — 5 critical career distinction points
- 02:25 — The 4-role model: Pharmacist, Nurse, Brain Surgeon, Family Doctor
- 02:57 — The Pharmacist
- 06:12 — The Nurse
- 07:46 — The Brain Surgeon
- 08:53 — The Family Doctor
- 10:08 — Towards a deeper understanding of the differences between these important roles
- 13:23 — The importance of focusing on your competitive advantage
- 17:17 — How to determine which role is for you
You can download What Kind of Provider Are You? or sign up to receive new Business Masterclass seminars automatically with iTunes or other podcast players. (Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to subscribe.) My seminars are always available for download at no cost.
post # 311 — February 16, 2007 — a General post
I’m sitting as a juror this week in a (civil) trial, and it made me reflect on an old Albert Brooks movie called “Defending Your Life.”
The main character goes to heaven and has to bring witnesses to make the case that he has lived a good life.
Who would testify for you?
Who would testify against you?
How comfortable / confident would you feel that your “jury” would find in your favor?
post # 310 — February 15, 2007 — a General, Strategy post
This (true) story was researched by Julie McDonald O’Leary, my former business manager.
She interviewed a property management company, whose client was a hospital. In dealing with government agencies regarding hazardous waste, the paperwork submitted has to be exact. In many cases, the paperwork is incidental to actual importance of cleanup work being done, and it can be more time consuming and costly than the actual work itself. However, it’s more than required — it’s mandatory.
The property management firm (let’s call them Acme) realized there was a mistake in the paperwork regarding a specific cleanup for the hospital. Basically, the paperwork said that waste was dumped in one particular site when it actually went to another. Both sites were the same type, but a clerical error had been made. No actual harm done because both sites accept the same type of waste—but in these situations paperwork is supposed to be exact.
This was Acme’s mistake, but it would be a costly one to rectify. The team involved knew that they could say nothing and no one would ever know and there would be no actual harm done.
They asked their CEO what to do, and he said: “We will meet with the hospital and take it on the chin. We’ll look like fools—it’s a silly error. The hospital has had a lot of bad press lately and the last thing they need is any kind of environmental error going to the press.â€
Up until now, the relationship with the hospital had been a great one (representing a $0.5 million account) and admitting this mistake could become a real thorn in Acme’s side, making them look incompetent. They could lose the account and the word of mouth publicity that would follow would hurt future business in health care circles.
Acme’s CEO decided to meet with the client, bringing along to the meeting the whole team who had worked on the project — fom the most senior person to the most junior. He revealed the error and told the client that action was already in progress to fix the error. The meeting lasted 4.5 hours, adjourning with no outcome.
The next day, the CEO received a call from the client saying that they had discussed it further and that it was obvious to them that Acme could have swept the whole thing under the carpet and the hospital would never have known the difference.
They also said that they recognized that Acme made a lot of extra work for themselves by honoring what they knew the wishes of the hospital would be and that is to fix it. They said “We totally trust you to do the right thing.â€
Another firm may have elected to go honest route as well, but may have been reluctant to do so with their juniors as an audience. By witnessing all of this first hand —lessons in professionalism are usually learned first hand this was better than any training session. The juniors had a taste of what “owning the problem†really means.
Acme’s young workers saw first hand the meaning of “ethics in action.†They saw the CEO “take it on the chin†rather than be anything less than completely excellent to very high standards. They also saw that because of this, they had probably obtained a client who will work with them (and advocate them to others) with total trust.
Now here’s another interesting question. A CEO might take the decision to handle things this way, but would a middle manager inside a company ever feel empowered enough to make a similar decision (absorb a significant expense to make right an error that no-one outside the company would ever know about?)
Or is this kind decision, which requires guts, courage and ethics, always kicked upstairs? Are any companies so “ethical†that a middle manager wouldn’t need to ask permission to “do the right thing?â€
Comments?
Would your CEO do this?
Has your CEO ever done this?
What about your “middle manager?â€
What about you?
