Some Leadership Tips: Evolving Chapters in the Book
Fix The Problem, Not The Blame
By making mistakes you can learn, and only by doing things can you make mistakes. On the flip side, by doing nothing you can ensure that you will make no mistakes.... but you will also not learn anything. In playing with fire, or trying to do things, you can sometimes burn your fingers. It is this fear of failure, or of being burnt, that causespeople to refrain from doing something. They are afraid of doing it wrong, making a mistake and being blamed. It reminds me of the man that took Arthur Murray dance lessons for years, but was so scared about taking a mistep that he never danced.
We used to call this "paradigmatic blindness". At grad school some students would research, study and research more, but they would never write a thing. They could't write anything, because they may get it wrong. So off to the library they would go again. The most important thing is to get an initial draft. From an initial draft things always evolve. For some reason I don't think that War and Peace was a first draft.
There is always the one in the crowd that gets by without making a mistake. They are also, in most cases, the ones that don't do anything. They sit back and criticize, but don't do anything themselves. The tactic of not being project manager in The Apprentice and always slipping-by as a good team member only gets you so far. To truly succeed, to truly be The Apprentice, you need to be PM lead and manage, make the mistake, create a problem and then fix it. The same is true in any leadership or management position.
The person who makes the problem shouldn't be blamed, but should be thanked for creating a learning opportunity from which all can learn, and a improvements made.
Tell People What You Want, Not How To Do It
I supervise a group of experts who have way more technical skills and knowledge than do I. In most cases, a manager or leader may have been promoted through the ranks, but by the time they are supervising staff, they no longer have hands on skills. The experts want to show their stuff and make it happen. Rather than trying to know it all, and devolve into becoming a mircomanager. Lay out for the experts the situation and let them come up with the solutions. The experts know what can be done and how to do it. As the leader define the starting place and set the destination. Provide the experts with the resources (i.e. time, people and money) and they will faciliate the journey. Once you allow people to control their work environment, and they are enabled with resources, it will amaze you how goals are achieved.
Get out of your office
Stuck on my office computer are the words, "Make the 20 minutes." I don't recall where I read the hint, but somewhere it said spend at least 20 minutes a day out of your office listening and talking with staff. It maybe water cooler chat about The Apprentice or The World Juniors Hockey tournament, but what matters is that you are out and about. Our office has a poster that says "Manage through walking and talking". At first I didn't get it and thought that when I left my office it was important that I was "walking with a purpose." It took some 15 years, but now I know that just spending time with people is so important. It doesn't matter what you chat about, but what is important is that you are there.
posted by Pete at 9:53 AM
