Succeed With Your Critics!

Photo by Yusmar Yahaya

Why Can't They...?

It's happening again.

You have a great idea...you're trying to get a new project implemented...you're proposing a change that's better for everyone.

And that person starts asking questions:

• Have you thought about what will happen when...?
• Do you look at the data behind this?
• Did you consider this explanation?
• What if the problem is really caused by...?
• How will we resource this?

When confronted by a regular skeptic, many new leaders and managers groan (hopefully internally, but I've seen it happen aloud). These frustrated visionaries ask, "Why can't they just support an idea for once??"

The Faithful Critic

Allowing this frustration to get the better of you will deprive you of one of your best friends.

Effective leaders and managers learn to value faithful critics who challenge their ideas and help them sort out exuberance from real life.

You want your idea to succeed, right?

So try developing your ideas with folks who will do their best to make sure it's an effective solution with a strong foundation. Learn to anticipate their concerns and refine your plans in ways that address their relevant criteria. Every team can benefit from one faithful critic who is willing to ask tough questions.

The hard truth is that if your exciting plan can't survive a little scrutiny from those closest to it, then the plan probably isn't ready for implementation.

Faultfinders

I've been using the term "faithful critic" - that skeptic who wants to be sure things have been thought through and requires some evidence to make a decision. These are valuable team members.

In contrast, there are faultfinders - people who've never met an idea they liked, are critical by nature, and there is nothing you'll be able to do to win their support.

How to tell the difference? Generally, one question can help you tease out whether you have a faithful critic or a faultfinder: "What would it require for you to support this idea?"

A faithful critic talks about exploring options or looking at resources, data, and outcomes - things that strengthen the concept.

No matter what idea you discuss, a faultfinder denies there is a problem or refuses to give support under any terms.

Next Steps

Spend time with your faithful critics. Keep them close. Build ideas with them.

Educate faultfinders to the nature of the problems involved. Try to help them understand. If they remain faultfinders, don't spend extra energy on them and help them find teams / work where they will be happier.

Take care,

David M. Dye

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David shares twenty years experience teaching, coaching, leading, and managing in youth service, education advocacy, city governance, and faith-based nonprofits. He currently serves as Chief Operating Officer for Colorado UpLift and enjoys helping others discover and realize their own potential.

15 Tips Every New Leader Needs

Photo by cobalt123

If you're new to leadership or a veteran looking to build on a strong foundation, here are 15 tips to get you started. Each of these is something I learned early in life and I hope they are helpful to you on your journey!

1. Your first job is to build your replacement

Leaders invest in others. If your goal is to change the world, you simply can't do it on your own. Leaders build leaders. In addition, you cannot assume more responsibility if you're the only one who can do what you're doing.

2. Never believe your own press release

Success can easily turn sour if you start to assume all the good things you hear about yourself or your organization are automatic...that things will go well because they have in the past. Enjoy accolades when they come, but remember the work it took to get there. That work usually takes place where no one sees it.

3. People don't argue with their own information

It is critical to involve stakeholders in problem solving. We are all more likely to implement solutions into which we've had input.

4. All of us are smarter than one of us...(sometimes)

Crowd-sourcing has demonstrated this one in many ways. No one person has all the answers or knows all the facts. I say (sometimes) because crowds can also make pretty dumb decisions. Your job as a leader is to set clear criteria and a vision of what we can accomplish. Leaders help all of us to be smarter than one of us.

5. The greatest are the least

Humility is fundamental to leadership success. Humility can take many forms, but at its core:

humility says "we are both human beings with value"
humility says "I know enough to know I may be wrong"
humility says "I'm here to help"
humility says "Come and do this with me" not "go do this for me".

People intuitively know if you think you are better or more valuable than they are. No one follows that.

6. We, not I

Leaders say "we", not "I". It's not about you, it's about the team.

7. Bring people with you

Once I was leading a group of fifty or sixty people from outside an arena through doors, around the concourse, and down to a bank of seats on the arena floor. We each put a hand on one another's shoulder and I set off. When I got to the chairs, however, only three people had made it with me. I had gone too fast and the entire team did not arrive. I was a great scout that day - I found the chairs. But leaders take people with them.

8. No responsibility without authority

This one I learned very early in life. I was the oldest of six and was asked to make sure the house was clean by the time my father returned home. I was given responsibility...but I was 12 - not a lot of authority there. Effective leaders try only to take responsibility where they also have or can create authority. Likewise, leaders do not give responsibility without also giving authority to go with it.

9. Say Thank You

No one has to do anything for you.

They choose to.

Acknowledge it!

10. Apologize

When you're wrong, own it, apologize, and make it right.

11. Flowers bloom in their own time

As a child I would be so eager for the first spring roses or peonies to bloom that I sometimes "helped" them along. I would pry open the green leaves covering the blossom and try to coax the interior petals into the semblance of a flower.

Of course it ruined the whole thing.

Flowers bloom when they are ready and you cannot force them. People also have natural seasons and you can frustrate or lose good people by moving too quickly. Sometimes you have to go slow to go fast.

12. Honey, not vinegar

An early leader of mine was fond of saying, "you can catch more flies with a teaspoon of honey than a barrel of vinegar". Generally, encouragement and kindness (honey) are more effective leadership tools for drawing people in and helping them to grow. Criticism and anger (vinegar) are effective for tearing something down.

13. Learn everything you can in the time available

You'll never know everything about anything...but effective leaders use the time available to get as much relevant information as they can before making a decision.

14. Protect people's dignity

Extend worth to everyone. Celebrate their contribution to the world. Do not partake with those who detract from another's dignity.

Even in difficult situations such as ending someone's employment, extend dignity. There is never a reason to belittle or make someone feel small. If you do, you will lose credibility as well as lose the person and their network.

15. Stay healthy

Your health - physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social - is the foundation from which you lead. If you are not leading yourself, you cannot effectively lead others.

Most of these are lifetime practices - some I've made a habit and others I continue to work out each day.

Be patient with yourself and focus on just one thing at a time - don't try to pry open those flower petals!

Take care,

David M. Dye

Know someone who would benefit from this post or the entire blog?

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****

David shares twenty years experience teaching, coaching, leading, and managing in youth service, education advocacy, city governance, and faith-based nonprofits. He currently serves as Chief Operating Officer for Colorado UpLift and enjoys helping others discover and realize their own potential.

The Garden of Ingenuity

Photo by tobyleah

Despite our frustration at running into limitations on our behavior, those same limitations can be the rich soil that produces an entire garden of ingenuity and innovation.

There is a wonderful scene in the movie Apollo 13 where the engineers back on earth confront a major problem: their astronauts, floating through space in a damaged ship, are breathing too much carbon dioxide. The astronauts are doomed unless the engineers can find a way to improvise a connection between two different air scrubbers.

The scene culminates with a team leader spreading materials out on the table and laying out the problem: You've got to make this (a round filter), fit into the hole for this (a square filter), using nothing but that (the materials in the ship).

Ultimately, the engineers succeed in crafting a solution and relaying the instructions to the astronauts. It's an inspiring moment of ingenuity and teamwork.

In my opinion, the creative solution was made possible because the team leader was very clear about the limits their solution must satisfy. With anything less than absolute clarity about their boundaries, it is doubtful the team would have constructed an adequate solution.

Often, when we are working with a group that is going in circles trying to solve a problem, it is because the solution criteria are not clear. Effective leaders and managers can help teams craft solutions by clearly stating the limits the solution must satisfy.

There are a number of basic solution constraints. They include:

1) Time - when must a solution be delivered?
2) Money/Material - what financial or material resources are available and from what sources? (Often teams can creatively find other sources with which to expand the resource pool.)
3) People - who can be involved in the solution?

Solution Criteria:

4) What must the solution accomplish to be satisfactory? (Reduce carbon dioxide levels!)
5) How long must the solution last? (Long enough to return them to earth.)
6) Who needs to give their approval to execute the solution? (Managers can often serve their teams by getting approval limitations before problem-solving begins.)

When made clear, limits and constraints on problem solving can produce creativity. Next time you're problem solving with a team, help everyone to clearly define the playing field and desired outcomes, then free the group to optimize results.

For more on solution-focused leadership, read: Where Are Your Eyes?

David M. Dye

If you know someone who would benefit from this post or the entire blog, please retweet, like, share, +1, or email it on. Thanks!

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David shares twenty years experience teaching, coaching, leading, and managing in youth service, education advocacy, city governance, and faith-based nonprofits. He currently serves as Chief Operating Officer for Colorado UpLift and enjoys helping others discover and realize their own potential.

Get Out of Your Way

Photo by Jeffrey Beall

Secrets. Of. The. Universe.

When I taught high school students, we often talked about "secrets of the universe" - those enduring, but not always well-known, principles of success. You can ignore them if you want, but they're still out there.

One such "secret of the universe" goes something like this:

Causes produce effects. When we focus on effects, rather than causes, we trip ourselves up.

Some examples of this principle include:

• You gain respect by being respectable, not by focusing on others giving you respect. (Cause: being respectable, Effect: respect)
• You become trusted by being trustworthy, not by focusing on wheedling secrets out of others. (Cause: being trustworthy, Effect: trust)
• You pass classes by truly learning the content, not by focusing on grades. (Cause: learning, Effect: grades
• You make friends by being a friend, not by focusing on how many friends you have. (Cause: being a friend, Effect: friends)
• You live by savoring life, not by focusing on being not-dead. (Cause: living, Effect: life)

Effective leaders and managers understand that real influence requires credibility and that real credibility is developed through authentic commitment to people, competence, and results.

Many leaders limit their effectiveness because they focus on the effects of leadership: achievement, influence, reputation, image, power, accomplishment, respect, security, etc.

However, all of these are effects. They are outcomes of an authentic focus on being a role model, sharing vision, building a team, encouraging others, and solving problems. Leaders cannot lead effectively while focused primarily on their own image.

In the short term, authentic leadership can feel risky...when faced with an opportunity to invest in their team or to immediately look good to others, many leaders take the path of immediate gratification. In the long run, however, when the problem is too big they won't be able to rally a skilled and committed team.

This is a basic life lesson, but one it is easy to forget in the middle of leadership and management challenges.

How do you maintain your focus on "causes" and not get caught up in "effects"?

For more on this topic:  It's Not About You

David M. Dye

If you know someone who would benefit from this post or the entire blog, please retweet, like, share, +1, or email it on. Thanks!

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David shares twenty years experience teaching, coaching, leading, and managing in youth service, education advocacy, city governance, and faith-based nonprofits. He currently serves as Chief Operating Officer for Colorado UpLift and enjoys helping others discover and realize their own potential.

It's Not About You

Photo by cobalt123

Have you ever found yourself intensely frustrated or angry at a team member?

Frequently, this happens because we take what they said, did, or didn't do very personally. Consequently, we start saying to ourselves something like, "How could that little so and so treat me like this!" It is not long before we're mired in anger and adrenalin.

Every emerging leader and manager I've worked with (and not a few veterans!) has experienced this. It takes many forms depending on our own reactions to frustration, but the pattern is the same: someone else does something we don't like and we conclude that they did it to us.

However, effective managers and leaders understand an important secret: it's not about you.

Most of human behavior is not intentionally designed to irritate you, to be disrespectful, or to make you angry. (For everyone starting to shout exceptions - please read on to the end.) To the contrary, most of an individual's behavior is about them - their problems, their needs, their pain, and their view of the world.

A quick example: It is common for a new manager to become frustrated with a team member who does not perform as the manager expects. Often, the manager assumes the employee doesn't respect them or that they're intentionally trying to undermine the new manager. However, the employee may not have performed as expected for any number of reasons:

• They might not have understood expectations.
• They might have had competing expectations from another source or previous employers.
• They might not have the skills to perform the task.
• They might not have adequate time given other demands.
• They might be in a position unsuited to their skills.
• They might have had a bad day personally. The day I found out my wife had cancer, my performance was not up to normal.
• They might not realize their behavior is off-putting or inconsiderate.
• They might not understand the importance of the task and so lack motivation.
• We might have inadvertently hurt them and they lack the skills to deal with this productively. (A partial exception to the "it's not about you" rule.) 

And so on - you can add many more items to the list. The point is that effective leaders and managers are able to step back from their tendency to personalize someone's behavior and investigate why it is taking place.

Please understand, these are not excuses for team members to under-perform. We want to help the individual either acquire the skills and motivation to succeed in this role or to help them find a role more suited to their skills and motivations. You simply cannot do this effectively if you're caught up in personalized anger.

Finally, yes, I know there are rare times where individuals are truly malicious, mean-spirited, and personally disrespectful. In these instances, however, it is often still about them. They have their own reasons, dysfunctions, and pain for acting the way they do. If we refuse to personalize these attacks, reinforce expectations, motivate, and equip for change, we still have acted with compassion and helped them - even if it ultimately means they need to leave the team.

David M. Dye

If you know someone who would benefit from this post or the entire blog, please retweet, like, share, +1, or email it on. Thanks!

Subscribe today or join the discussion at: http://davidmdye.blogspot.com/
Twitter: @davidmdye
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****
David shares twenty years experience teaching, coaching, leading, and managing in youth service, education advocacy, city governance, and faith-based nonprofits. He currently serves as Chief Operating Officer for Colorado UpLift and enjoys helping others discover and realize their own potential.

Book Review: Getting to Yes

Recently, I observed two business professionals get locked into a heated exchange that went something like this:

A: "I want you to give me cookies."

B: "We don't give out cookies."

A: "If you don't give me cookies, I won't work with you."

B: "We don't give out cookies. I have repeatedly found it is bad for business."

A: "Fine, I'm leaving."

I've replaced the actual subject matter with cookies to illustrate a concept known as positional bargaining. Rather than focusing on what both parties really wanted, the focus was on a position - the cookies. They reached an impasse and their discussion rapidly deteriorated.

Overcoming this challenge is one of a number of important concepts discussed in this week's book review subject: Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Fisher, Ury, and Patton. This book is a classic. First published in 1981, it has continued to sell and serve people in all walks of life.

All of us find ourself in negotiations of one sort or another. Getting to Yes is a guide to successfully navigate those negotiations as well as to diagnose when things are not going well and take steps to correct it. One of the most valuable lessons in Getting to Yes is to focus on interests and not positions. In the example above, Person A's interest in having the cookies is never stated. Had the reason behind the request been made clear, the two of them could have focused on addressing the issue and explored solutions that could meet both their interests.

I just want to tease some of this subject matter - my goal with these book reviews is always to encourage leaders and managers to read and absorb the material. The book itself gives a much deeper explanation and is full of additional useful tips. I highlight one of the most important.

One criticism I've encountered Getting to Yes is that it is too idealistic. These critics will often poise a scenario:

Person A: I want you dead.
Person B: Well, I want me alive.

Hmm...is this an irreconcilable difference of position? Maybe...but not necessarily. Again, what are person A's interests? If they truly are mutually exclusive with Person B staying alive, then sure, negotiation probably won't work. But in my professional life I have very very rarely encountered anything approaching that kind of scenario. In general, people do have interests that can be met if they will put the work in.

I recommend Getting to Yes for team leaders, managers, and anyone involved with regular negotiations of any kind - and yes, that includes all of us.

Happy Reading!

David M. Dye

If you know someone who would benefit from this post, please retweet, like, +1, or email it on. Thanks!

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David shares twenty years experience teaching, coaching, leading, and managing in youth service, education advocacy, city governance, and faith-based nonprofits. He currently serves as Chief Operating Officer for Colorado UpLift and enjoys helping others discover and realize their own potential.

That Didn't Work Out

Photo by Sally Cummings

My wife and I recently sent our daughter off to her second year of college...and her first year living in on her own in an apartment. She texted yesterday to tell me she was baking macaroons for the student group she leads. She wanted to know how I thought they would taste dipped in caramel.

Now, I love macaroons and have been known to bake a few myself. I love them plain and I love them dipped in chocolate. But I've never had them dipped in caramel. I've never even thought to try them in caramel. This is something I respect about our daughter - she's creative and will try all sorts of things I wouldn't dream of - as long as I don't screw it up.

Many leaders and managers, in their desire to be helpful (or show off their vast knowledge) give quick answers when team members ponder "what ifs". When we act as if we must have all the answers, we prevent natural learning from taking place. Real learning grasps the essential elements, it understands "what happens if". It makes new connections, finds new solutions, and creates new visions. Be careful not to squelch creativity and risk-taking by trying to help when exploration is needed.

I got lucky this time and did not rush in with my own opinion about caramel-dipped macaroons. Later that night, I asked how she liked them. "That didn't work out - I prefer them simple."

Nothing I could have said would be as poignant or as lasting. (But I still want to try one!)

David M. Dye

If you know someone who would benefit from this post or the entire blog, please retweet, like, +1, or email it on. Thanks!

Subscribe today or join the discussion at: http://davidmdye.blogspot.com/
Twitter: @davidmdye
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David shares twenty years experience teaching, coaching, leading, and managing in youth service, education advocacy, city governance, and faith-based nonprofits. He currently serves as Chief Operating Officer for Colorado UpLift and enjoys helping others discover and realize their own potential.