Bernard Shaw once remarked, “If you teach a man anything, he will never learn.” Shaw was right. Learning is an active process. We learn by doing. So, if you desire to master the principles you are studying in this book, do something about them. Apply these rules at every opportunity. If you don’t, you will forget them quickly. Only knowledge that is used sticks in your mind.
—Dale Carnegie
Leadership principles are blueprints for everyday life. Blueprints, plans, and theories are necessary, but there comes a time when the rubber meets the road. You can’t get a driver’s license merely by passing the written test. You have to get behind the wheel and apply your skills on the street. As a leader, you live in a results-oriented world. You need to navigate it with speed and skill.
While strategies are the blueprint, actions are the hammers and nails of building leadership mastery. If you want to build a superior organization and develop your own full potential as a leader, the tactics and techniques presented in this session can be invaluable. They consist of a set of tools you will never want to be without.
We will first look at decision making, one of the defining points of leadership mastery. Despite much conventional wisdom on this subject, the key to effectiveness here is not so much in making the decision as in following through on the decision you make. We are all faced with tough calls in our careers and in our personal lives, decisions with clear pluses and minuses on both sides. Sometimes there seems no better way to make a decision than by simply flipping a coin. Faced with situations like these, too many people just freeze up. A kind of mental paralysis sets in. In larger organizations, the final decision itself may even be avoided entirely and set aside for further study.
Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, is one of the most admired corporate leaders in the world. With a Ph.D. in engineering, he is certainly a long-range thinker with a strong practical orientation. Of all the innovations Jack Welch brought to General Electric over his twenty-year tenure as CEO, the one he considers the most important was the decision-making process known as the workout. When a group of employees at any level of the company identify a problem, they meet to discuss it and arrive at a proposed solution. They then submit both a description of the problem and the suggested remedy to their supervisor. The supervisor must then give a yes or no response within twenty-four hours, with no further discussion permitted.
Welch believes that the workout technique has thoroughly transformed GE’s corporate culture. It empowers people. It gets them thinking proactively about what they can accomplish. It cuts through the bureaucracy and red tape that encumbers many large organizations. After all, if the individuals who must deal with it have carefully thought through an issue, then more time on the part of the leader would unlikely be helpful.
If the proposed solution is accepted, then both morale and efficiency stand to benefit. If it is rejected, the group retains the power to revisit the problem and arrive at a better solution. From a leadership point of view, the key element in the workout process is the removal of the leader from the discussion phase. There is no need for a leader at this point because everyone has learned self-leadership. Even a few years ago this would have seemed inconceivable in many organizations, yet it has proven its worth in one of the most successful companies on the planet. In the opinion of Jack Welch, it is literally worth millions and even billions of dollars.
As a leader, what can you learn from GE’s workout process? Whether or not you choose to implement it in your own organization, it can tell you something about the benefits of team involvement, decisiveness, and follow-through. The truth is that the real challenge of a decision begins only after the decision has been made.
Our second tactic would seem to be pure common sense. Ignoring it causes breakdowns in communication, frustration on the part of both leaders and team members, and lost opportunities at all levels of an organization. What is this seemingly self-evident leadership technique? Very simply, letting people know what is expected of them, and being clear about what they can expect from you.
Here is a case in point. Meg Legman owns a small chain of retail party supply stores in southern Florida. A few years ago she hired Lindsey to do all of the window and in-store displays. Meg was immediately impressed with Lindsey’s initiative. She convinced Meg to clear space in the center of their largest store for a table and chairs. Lindsey wanted to fill the table with products from the store’s inventory so customers would feel like they were walking right into a charmingly decorated party scene.
Meg gave Lindsey the green light and the idea was a solid hit. Lindsey changed the theme every month. Customers loved it and sales figures went up. People left the store full of ideas, and their full shopping carts reflected their enthusiasm. When Meg decided to develop a Web site for her retail chain, Lindsey seemed the ideal choice for the job. Meg wanted the Web site to be a fully interactive party consulting service. Customers would get help from the planning stages of a party all the way through the last detail. It was a great idea and Lindsey seemed perfect for making it work. That’s when problems started.
Lindsey began staying late each night working on the computer graphics, researching the competition, and ironing out bugs in the concept. She even took work home. She liked the project, but at the same time she began to resent the additional responsibilities Meg gave her. Lindsey wondered if she was being taken for granted. No one new had been hired to help with her prior responsibilities and now her workload was much heavier. Tension between Lindsey and Meg began to intensify. Finally, about a month before the Web site was ready (and right after the Thanksgiving rush), Lindsey abruptly quit her job. Meg was left to scramble through the rest of the holiday season without a key employee.
Since that incident Lindsey’s return has been negotiated, but it was a critical lesson for Meg. Without Lindsey and without the Web site, she lost the additional Christmas business she had banked on. A great year ended on a sour note. The lesson is this: Make sure that people know exactly what’s expected of them. If those expectations change, make equally certain that the outcome is manageable. Lindsey started out with one job description, did well, and her job grew. This is usually a healthy sign of talent and hard work. The problem was that Meg and Lindsey never sat down and considered the meaning of these changes in terms of hours, qualifications, and increased responsibilities. These things were eventually addressed, but not until considerable damage had been done. Whether dealing with a new hire or a veteran employee taking on a new responsibility, a leadership master clearly needs to define responsibilities and expectations. What’s more, those expectations need to be reevaluated and redefined on a regular basis.
Third, be very careful about making promises. When you make one, be sure to keep it, especially if it’s about salary, a bonus, or any money-related issue. A peculiar fact about human nature is that very few people ever forget a promise that has to do with money. Whether it’s money loaned, money borrowed, the promise of a raise, or other commitments, you can be sure it hasn’t been forgotten, even if it is never verbalized.
An important element of responsible promise-keeping is the ability to avoid ambiguity and confusion. Be very careful to make a clear distinction about what constitutes a promise and what does not.
Suppose a general contractor tells the head of one of his crews that he can probably get him his check by the next business day. This is heading into the gray area where things can easily be misunderstood. The crew chief is likely to count on the check, and if it does not arrive, frustration or anger will likely arise. This is an example of a very serious form of miscommunication. Regardless of how the employee reacts, the ultimate fault lies with the leader. He needed to be much clearer as to whether he was extending a promise, or just speculating about an outcome. Choose your words carefully, as carefully as you choose your promises.
Tactic number four is: Use humor generously and appropriately in leadership situations. Laughter really is the shortest distance between two people, so why take the long way when the shortcut is so much more fun? This technique is best, of course, if you happen to be a genuinely funny person, but it can be used by almost everyone. Even people who are not known for being great wits have their own brand of humor they can cultivate and use to their advantage. Remember to simply be yourself. Humor can be defined in a hundred ways, and all of them equally effective.
For one manager it might be the weekly posting of a Dilbert cartoon on the bulletin board outside of his office. For another, it could be sharing an appropriate anecdote or joke at the start of a board meeting, or sending a humorous e-mail around the office.
Some years ago there was a newspaper editor in Chicago who was famous for his mischievous sense of humor. About once a month, with a very straight face, he’d assign some unsuspecting reporter a gag story that didn’t really exist. Since he didn’t want his editorial staff spending too much time pursuing false leads, regardless of how funny they were, he’d give the writer a contact to go along with the assignment. The reporter would dial the number of the contact, but it wouldn’t be a legitimate news source. Unbeknownst to him, the editor’s friend (who was in on the joke) would be at the other end of the line. After about five minutes of strange conversation, the reporter would inevitably burst into laughter, realizing he had been tricked. Much to everyone’s amusement, the editor would give his latest victim a quick salute, and then get back to work. Fifteen years later, reporters who worked in that newsroom still remember it as a great place to work.
Never underestimate the power of a smile or humor. When it comes to humor, work with what you have. Your team will appreciate the atmosphere you create.
The subject of humor brings up an old question on the philosophy of leadership: “Is it better to be liked or to be respected?” The fact is the vast majority of people in leadership roles would rather have the respect of their team over their affection. Surprisingly, this is the wrong answer. More to the point, it’s even the wrong question. Framing affection and respect as an either/or dilemma is a misperception of how leadership actually works. Can you really like someone for whom you have no respect? Doesn’t lack of respect generate a fair amount of anger?
There’s a good chance that the separation of liking and respecting is a false distinction. Even if we accept it as valid, though, most leaders who say they want to be respected really mean that they want to be feared. This may be because they themselves are in some way frightened or uncertain. So encourage yourself to think differently on this issue. Being liked and respected are simply two dimensions of leadership mastery. Understanding and implementing this insight is tactic number five.
Tactic number six is as important for leadership as it is for making the NBA. You need to master the game of one-on-one. Private, face-to-face conversations are supremely important when communicating and connecting with members of your team. Many leaders tend to devote much more thought and preparation to public speaking than to engaging employees in private interactions.
You may be an orator on the level of Winston Churchill, but when you are sitting alone with a member of your team, you must shift gears for a very different kind of communication, one that has its own guidelines and pitfalls.
By the very nature of the personal setting, what passes between the leader and the team member will be important. It is not for public scrutiny. It is a chance to see one another up close. If you are not exactly under a microscope, you are at least under a magnifying glass with both your strengths and your weaknesses magnified. The more pressure in a workplace environment, the more important it is for a leader to handle these encounters effectively.
In the towers of high-volume airports, traffic controllers are responsible for hundreds of flights and many thousands of lives each day. Peak performance is maintained largely through peer pressure and careful observation by the supervisor. When pressure begins to show itself in a controller’s performance, the first response by the leader is a one-on-one talk with the individual. The purpose of the conversation is to relieve stress, but it is also a chance for the leader to determine whether the problem is a temporary one or one that could endanger people’s lives. This calls for mastery of personal interaction. A mistake in this situation could lead to a more destructive mistake later on.
Leaks are the little holes that appear in the image of yourself that you’re presenting. In this game of one-on-one you definitely want to avoid leaks. Here are a few to steer clear of in particular. Do any of these sound familiar?
• First, don’t sneak a glance at your watch. You won’t get away with it.
• Second, if someone who’s supposedly more important walks by, do not let your eyes wander.
• Third, don’t take unnecessary phone calls, and don’t confuse the game of one-on-one with that other game, one-upmanship. When someone shares a problem with you, don’t launch into a story of how you have solved a similar problem that was even tougher.
Mistakes are amazingly common in individual encounters, and the leadership master walks away from them unscathed.
1. As a leader, how good are you at making a decision and keeping it? Do you vacillate too much before coming to a final conclusion? Do you second-guess yourself, and change your mind frequently? Do you avoid making decisions until the eleventh hour? What can you learn from GE’s workout process? List at least two things that you can do to improve your decision-making skills.
2. Ambiguity and confusion, especially around money, can be detrimental to both you and your organization. Are you clear around the exchange of money? Do you always sign contracts before entering into work obligations? Do you sometimes make promises that you cannot keep? Write a list of ways that you could improve the clarity of your communication. Then make a point of incorporating those skills into your daily routine.
3. Instilling humor into a working environment can benefit everyone. You were provided with a couple of ideas on ways to do so in this chapter. Write out a fun or humor action plan for your organization, including at least five steps that you can implement. Give yourself permission to have fun and think outside the box. Then put your ideas into action in your organization. After all, besides uplifting spirits, laughter reaps greater enthusiasm, connection, and productivity.