taking giftedness for granted

Every organization has them...people who are gifted at what they do.  They make amazing things happen with limited resources; they seem to do their work effortlessly; they can wait until the last minute and their work is still awesome; they are often lauded for their work more externally then internally; and they are the ones who bring attention and recognition to the organization.  As leaders, we are giddy over their performance and do anything we can to keep them happy and motivated.  But is it enough?  And what is it that gifted people most need to stay engaged at their highest level over a long period of time?  Here is my attempt to answer that question.

1. Gifted people need to be supported...it is not enough to pay them and expect them to do their job.  The extra pats on the back and "atta-boys" are often enough to keep them going for a few more months.  Consistently praising them, both privately and publicly, goes a long way in keeping them happy and productive.
2. Gifted people need to be rewarded...this goes so far beyond the monetary side of rewards (though that is a part of this).  People who produce want to have the tools they need to produce more and better, and are happy to keep producing at a high level when they know that they can have access to what they need.  The organization that rewards its gifted individuals will keep getting more and more from them over time.
3. Gifted people need to be protected...these people are often incredibly focused and think about one thing, and because of that focus can tend to frustrate others in the organization.  Leaders need to help these gifted individuals broaden their horizons and help others understand how the gifted individual thinks.  Running interference for the gifted people in our organizations is part of the job of leaders.
4. Gifted people need to be fed...while giftedness may come naturally to many, it also comes as a result of hard work, and these people are always wanting to learn more so they can do more with their gift.  Sending them to conferences, introducing them to other gifted people, and giving them room to grow as they need to grow are all important for the feeding of their gift and talent.

There is always a dark side to giftedness, thus the reason many gifted individuals burn out or burn bridges behind them.  Setting limits, developing structures, and regular conversations can help our gifted workers navigate these issues and keep them from hurting themselves and others.  Take time today (and during the weeks and months ahead) to care for these people who mean so much to your organization.

leadership workouts

Part of my routine is to workout 3-4 times a week for 45-60 minutes, lifting weights and walking on the treadmill.  At the end of each workout, I determine success by what I call the sweat and soreness measure...how much have I sweated and how sore am I over the next 24 hours?  If I achieve a high sweat and soreness score over a period of time, I feel better and am in better shape over the long haul.  So it is with leadership...to get better at what I do in this role, I need to consider my sweat and soreness measure as a leader.  Let me explain:

• When was the last time a presentation made you sweat because you had opened yourself up to questions and were not sure what the next one would be?
• How often have you walked out of a meeting feeling a little beat up because you allowed your team to be open and honest with you?
• How often do you find yourself sweating because you are making decisions of which you are not sure of the outcome?
• When was the last time you sweated having to deliver bad news...and hurt a little bit because you actually delivered that news?
• How often are you reading something that makes your brain hurt?
• What new thing are you trying that makes you hurt in places you never imagined existed?

Here are two caveats to the sweat and soreness measure of leadership:

1. Many people find that exercising in groups holds them more accountable and is actually more fun...be sure to include your team in your workout.
2. The higher my sweat and soreness measure after a good workout, the better I feel about myself - the same is true for leaders.

Enjoy your next workout!

why hire a consultant?

As we finished the two day retreat with our consultant this week, the question of why would anyone hire a consultant plagued my mind...could we have done this ourselves?  why are we spending money on this?  are we a better institution now than we were before they arrived?  Upon further reflection, I realized that our consultants had been worth their price in gold - and that by using them and taking advantage of what they brought to the process, we were not only better today but we would be much better in the future.  So...why hire a consultant?  Here are several reasons that come to mind:

• Believe it or not, there are people smarter than us.  As someone recently reminded me, "If you are the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room."
• Very few executive teams have all the skills that they need to get the job done.  Finding someone to come alongside and help fill in the skills gap makes sense.
• COULD we have done the work ourselves? Perhaps.  WOULD  we have done the work ourselves? Maybe. And would we have done the work ourselves in such a TIMELY MANNER?  Probably not.  Consultants can bring focus and urgency to a process.
• Consultants have worked with similar institutions and can provide feedback based on what those institutions do - or don't do.  Having such a comparison helps move the process forward.
• It is easy to be distracted from what's important to what is urgent.  An outside consultant and partner can help keep the focus on the important rather than only the urgent...if you let them.
• Having a trusted partner outside of the institution can give perspective to the leader and the team.  Seeing them as a partner rather than a vendor goes a long way in ensuring completion of the project.

Hiring a consultant is only part of the work...listening to the consultant is another part of the work...using the consultant in an on-going relationship is yet another part of the work.  And finally, the organization has to DO THE WORK itself, or the work of the consultant is in vain.  Why hire a consultant?  To help the organization do its work in moving the mission forward.

leadership and belief

Yesterday afternoon I concluded my day at Concordia University Texas having a conversation with Dr. Carl Trovall, our Dean of Liberal Arts, about the topic of leadership and belief.  He is in the midst of writing a new course for our Educational Doctorate program entitled Leadership and Faith Traditions, and our discussion centered on which texts he would include for students to read.  We ranged from the Book of Job to the Tao Te Ching to The Meditations to The Analects to Shakespeare to Niehbuhr to Plato to Kiekegaard...and if you know Dr. Trovall, you know that the conversation was far-flung and incredibly engaging.

So why think about or write about leadership and belief?  The essence of philosophy is that one's thoughts and beliefs shape one's actions...and if that is the case, then leaders should be thinking about what they believe, why they believe what they believe, and how that belief shapes how they lead.  A couple of random thoughts on this concept for a Friday morning:

• People often tie together their beliefs with their faith traditions - and in many cases that may be true.  However, even when one confesses publicly, "I believe..." they should ask the question of why they believe what they confess to believe and how might that square with their experiences in life?
• If one's confessed belief does not line up with their life experiences, they might begin to experience a cognitive dissonance, forcing them to wrestle with right and wrong.  This wrestling allows them to consider what might be truth and how that truth lives itself out in their lives.  Such thinking allows people to consider and embrace the power of paradox, one of the thinking patterns that allows leaders to function more effectively.
• Belief is shaped by many experiences and thought practices throughout one's life, often creating a "voice in the head" that dictates how one acts.  Examining those voices is critical in leadership development, and only by thinking about one's beliefs and examining other's beliefs can the voices be identified.  Of course, the more difficult part is the willingness to modify or discard those voices if they are harmful to one's leadership (or life).
• There could exist in some faith traditions the thought that reading the texts from other faith traditions might be harmful to one's personal beliefs. For me, if I know what I believe and have confidence that it is the truth, then reading these other texts should only strengthen what I believe to be true, especially when they begin to align with one another.  Having another way of thinking about what one believes provides a bigger tool box for future actions.
• On the flip side of that, when I come across those areas of other faith traditions that disagree or conflict with what I believe to be true, I begin to gain a greater understanding of how others think and how their beliefs lead to their actions.  My understanding of "the other" is a key piece to transformational leadership.
• Finally, I cannot leave this blog without promoting the great literature of the world as some of the best leadership development available.  Great literature is written from a place of belief of how the world works and what makes up the essence of life.  Reading Homer, Shakespeare, Dante, Austen, Tolstoy, and Hemingway (and feel free to add your own writer or text here) allows one to enter into the belief system of others AND allows the reader to consider their own beliefs.  What better way is there to think about and shape one's leadership?

leadership and voice

Last night I attended Bocon!, a drama by Lisa Loomer and put on by Concordia's theater department.  One of the great lines in the play was "If you don't have a voice, you can't tell your story."  As I quickly wrote out that line on my program, I was struck by how much it applied to those in leadership roles...and the importance of both voice and story to accomplish the task of leadership.

There has been much written about story telling and leadership...how great stories inspire others; how stories allow people to place themselves wherever they need to be within that story; how stories help others to understand vision; and how stories connect people to one another in multiple ways.  I am a fan of telling stories - I can say more about Concordia with a good story than I can with multiple facts and figures.  But what about voice?  What is it about one's voice that makes the story even possible? As I think about that concept, several thoughts come to mind:

1. One's voice is a part of one's history...what I have experienced throughout my life shapes what I think and believe, thus causing my voice to be one way or another.
2. One's voice is a result of one's belief...the deeper my convictions, the stronger my voice.  So I better know what I believe and why I believe that way.
3. One's voice takes time to develop...my voice has changed over time (including much more than moving from soprano to baritone as a young teenager).  The more I learn and the more I experience the more different my voice becomes.
4. One's voice develops through dedicated practice...the more I think - and the more I speak - allows me to use my voice more effectively.  Malcom Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule might apply here...and that practice needs to be done in an environment where I can get feedback on how I am using my voice.
5. One's voice can get stronger or might diminish with age...depending on the circumstances I have faced and the feedback or encouragement I have received, my voice will either get stronger or weaker.  Recognizing that (and using it to my advantage) can make all the difference.
6. One's voice should always have a consistent message...what is it that I want people to know, believe, and act on?  Does my voice support that?  And do they hear it on a consistent basis?
7. One's voice is shaped by what he or she reads and thinks about...the phrase "garbage in - garbage out" might apply here as I think about what I spend my time with, especially when it comes to what I read.  There is a reason Shakespeare is still around after almost 500 years.

Understanding one's voice can lead to better story telling...and my encouragement is that as leaders we pay attention to both.

disappointment and leadership

Two weeks ago I wrote about leadership lessons and baseball, focusing on the dramatic winning streak my Chicago Cubs had been on for the past several months.  All of that came to a crashing halt less than a week later, when they were swept in 4 games by the hated New York Mets, allowing the Mets to continue and sending the Cubs home for the winter.  Needless to say, I was disappointed, once again having to resort to my never-ending phrase of "wait until next year."  And so it is with leaders.

Life is full of disappointment, especially for those who take on leadership roles.  Two phrases come to my mind as I think about this idea: 1) leadership is about people; and 2) people disappoint.  If both of those statements are true (and I believe they are), then leadership will have its share of disappointment and most of that will be around people and the decisions they make.  Disappointment occurs when:

• someone you recently hired turns out to be a non-performer
• someone you mentor and put your energy into takes a job at another company
• someone you trust shares a confidence after you have asked them not to
• someone who has promised to change their behavior engages in the same manner over and over again
• someone whom you promote to a position of greater responsibility does not live up to your expectations
• someone who has the ability and authority to complete a given task  fails to do 
• someone who has been in a position for a long time has a lapse of judgement and acts in an unethical manner

Disappointments can also occur outside of people - missed goals, mechanical failures, and other items which are external to the organization.  And then there are the disappointments with oneself - missed opportunities, saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, treating others poorly, not taking care of oneself, and wasted hours.

Disappointments are a given...how one deals with them is the true test of leadership.  Do you run around blaming others?  Do you act as if the sky is falling?  Do you immediately try to fix it without getting at the root cause of the problem?  Do you fly off the handle, yelling and screaming at others?  Do you retreat into your office and hide?

OR...do you accept disappointments as part of the job?  Do you stop and think about what might have caused the issue?  Do you deal with it head on, making appropriate decisions?  Do you go and talk directly with the person, believing the best rather than assuming the worst?  Do you stay even-keel so that others see you understand the situation?  Do you act quickly when needed, so that others see you understand the situation?  Do you do a follow up so that you and others learn from what happened?

AND...do you continue to have HOPE that things will be better tomorrow?  Do you continue to have HOPE that people really want to do their bests at all times?  Do you have HOPE that the organization is strong enough to withstand this disappointment?  Do you have HOPE that you and your team have enough fortitude to weather this moment?

"...and HOPE does not disappoint us." (Romans 5:5)

baseball and leadership

In my lifetime, my team has never been to the World Series...they have only won two post-season series...they seem to make a run in the early part of the season and then fade once the summer begins (or they make a run until the very end and then fail miserably)...they are often referred to as the lovable losers...they are the Chicago Cubs.  This past week was a milestone in my life as I watched my team WIN a post season series (only their second since 1908) AND for the first time ever they won it at home in Wrigley Field.  I was exhausted by the end of that series, and am now resting up for what I hope will be another series which they win (note: for me this is a grudge series since we lost out to the Mets during the last month of the 1969 season).  So what does this have to do with leadership?

1. Napoleon once stated that "leaders are dealers in hope" - Cubs fans are the ultimate people of hope...for 56 years I have been saying (and believing) WAIT TIL NEXT YEAR!
2. Winston Churchill's famous speech of "never give in, never, never, never, never" rings true with Cubs fans - until we are mathematically eliminated each season, there is always a chance...unlike some of my Cardinal friends who gave in before the final out was made Tuesday evening.
3. Leaders build talent from within - the nucleus of this year's team came through the Cubs farm system (unlike other years when they tried to buy their way into contention),  Watching these young men play for THEIR team is a joy and pleasure!
4. Leaders hire other great leaders - Theo Epstein (the Cubs GM) hired the best manager he could (and quickly replaced the former manager as soon as the current one became available)...always be looking for the best talent out there and be ready to bring them aboard when the time arises.
5. Leaders know what their team needs - Joe Maddon took a group of young players and kept them loose all season...he knew what they needed to be their best from the beginning to the end.
6. No one is irreplaceable - when Addison Russell strained his hamstring, Javier Baez came in and knocked a game winning home run (while he was not as good defensively, he used his strengths to assist the team)...leaders build a bench of people who can step in at any given time.
7. Building a strong team takes time - the past 3-4 seasons have been hard, as the Cubs often fought for last place in the Central Division, believing (and HOPING) that the time would arrive when we would compete...and we did!

I'm sure there are many more analogies between baseball and leadership, but it is time for me to go and rest up for tomorrow evening's game - GO CUBS GO!