After a fifteen-year on-again, off-again quest, I found a copy of a book I remember from my early childhood, I Decided. Rereading it after more years than I care to share with you, the story was just as I remembered. A little girl goes shopping with her mother and is allowed to pick one toy. She weighs her options, thinks through the possibilities, and makes an informed decision. She can’t wait for her father to come home from work so she can tell him about her choice. I loved that book and made my mother read it over and over until I could read it for myself. It described my decision-making process to a T. Have you ever thought about how you make decisions? Before you can answer this question and explain your decision-making process to someone else, it might be helpful to spend some time reviewing exactly how you do make decisions.
The employees who ask you (or who would ask you if they thought they could), How do you make decisions? are trying to understand what goes on behind the scenes so they can better understand the decisions you make. They will learn to make better independent decisions if you help them envision the kinds of things you consider as you make decisions. You could share what kinds of decisions are hard for you and which ones are easy. You could share with them how you gather data as well as how much data you gather before you feel confident of the facts behind an issue. You could let them know under what circumstances you go with your gut feeling and when you need logic to prevail. You could share how you decide who you go to in order to bounce ideas and possible solutions around.
You could, if you’re really brave, talk about bad decisions you’ve made and how you came to make them. Even better, you could talk about how you learned from a bad decision and how you changed your decision-making behavior because of it. You could ask the person questioning you how they make decisions and what they’ve learned about decision-making in their previous jobs. You could assure them that organizations are stronger when different people employ many different ways of making decisions as long as everyone does their homework before they decide. You could challenge them to become better decision-makers.
In a crisis this question will mean different things to different people, and that’s perfectly okay. Some people will assume that you’re asking about their physical well-being and will answer from that perspective. Some will assume you’re asking about their mental state and will answer that way. Still others will give you credit for thinking and caring about both. They’ll answer with that interpretation in mind. No matter which question they believe you’ve asked, their answers will be valid.
In times of crisis, people look to their leaders for clues to the behavior that’s expected. The last thing a leader should do in emergency situations is to disappear. If you disappear, your people will create reasons for your absence, none of which will be particularly favorable to you or your leadership. Your organization, your leadership team, your people, or, in some situations, the public, can’t afford for you to disappear, hide behind spokespeople, stop making eye contact, or utter repeated No comments. (There are ways of not making a statement without saying No comment. Learn how from a professional.) The bigger the crisis, the more visible, approachable, and accessible leaders need to be. No excuses. No exceptions.
Okay, maybe one little exception. If you’re facing a major crisis, one that seriously limits your ability to spend time with each person you need to ask this question of, appoint people to ask and listen in your place. Gather them together and explain that “The first thing we need to do is to check on our team. I want each of you to talk and listen to as many of our people as you can by asking them if they’re okay.” Then, plan your timetable, send the group out to ask and listen, and regroup to discuss the responses and plan your next actions. This exception does not extend permission to disappear from the eyes of the people who look to you for leadership. I’ve granted you permission to ease up on the approachability and accessibility, but not the visibility.
If this isn’t making sense, let me try one more time. Does thinking about Mayor Giuliani’s conduct after September 11th make the picture clearer?
I used to do customer service training until I started viewing poor service as a bonus event that would provide me with more material, a greater sense of job security, and a reason to celebrate. That’s a perverse worldview, so I changed the focus of my work.
There was an exercise I did in those workshops that applies here. Since everyone has been a customer, I asked participants to share the worst customer service they’d ever experienced. Then we compiled a list of the characteristics that made those encounters unbearable. I scribbled their answers onto a large flip chart and then told them not to be guilty of any of those behaviors themselves. This technique worked quite well I might add, because we’ve all been a poorly treated customer and can identify how the transaction went wrong. The same technique can apply to leadership, especially when you apply it with a positive spin. When you ask, What did the best leader you ever had do? you’re asking a new leader to identify the good leadership behavior they’ve experienced. We’ve all been led by others and can identify what worked. Listening to their answers and supporting the behavior choices they’ve made also gives new leaders a sense of confidence about their potential as leaders. Asking new leaders to adopt positive leadership behavior they’ve experienced and have chosen as beneficial is much more effective than burying them with a laundry list of your own notions of effective leadership.
As your leadership dialogue with new leaders deepens over time, these initial behaviors can be the ones you question them about. As they grow more confident as leaders and as you have more insight into their leadership strengths and development needs, you can suggest other skills that they might want to work on as well as ways to learn and develop them.
This question is very specific, and it might not apply to you, but if you have any input on employee benefits or if you have responsibility for benefit recommendations or decisions, ask away.
Over the years I’ve noticed a small, common behavior between partners in successful and happy long-term relationships. When a holiday or birthday approaches, they have a conversation that starts something like this: “What’s on your list this year?” I wish I could convey the warm tone of voice that’s behind this simple sentence. Don’t allow yourself to read it with disinterest or sarcasm because that’s not the way it is said by these partners. Don’t jump to the conclusion that it’s said at every gift opportunity either. These partners haven’t abandoned the notion of a surprise, but they have come to realize that gifts that are grounded in real needs are better investments.
What does this have to do with employee benefits? A lot. Years ago our workplaces were filled with a fairly homogeneous group of people. Deciding on a new benefit was fairly easy. But, in case you haven’t looked recently, things have changed. In one department you probably have a Baby Boomer looking at retirement issues, an older GenX with young children, a younger GenX looking for opportunities to learn and develop new skills either with you or someone else, and a GenY starting their working life. Your employees are increasingly divers different races, ethnic backgrounds, and life experiences. The Vietnam War and protests, the assassination of JFK, and mornings with Captain Kangaroo are seminal events and icons for some and ancient history for others. Desert Storm, the Challenger explosion, and MTV hold the same positions for others. One size does not fit all in this group; in truth, one size doesn’t even fit most!
As you work to provide benefits for your employees while being a good steward of your organization’s resources, you need specific information about the people in your organization. Benefit programs that don’t meet the varied needs of your employees are a waste and reflect poor leadership. Asking this question won’t make these decisions easy, but it will make you a better decision-maker.
One of the most often identified roles of a leader is that of barrier buster. Leaders get into trouble when they fall into a pattern of doing the jobs of the people who report to them rather than creating an environment that allows the right people to do the right things. Successful leaders are eager to help their people find ways to be productive by coaching them appropriately. They let their teams know that if they encounter a barrier that is beyond their ability to tackle, the leader expects that the team will ask for help. That is the moment when leaders need to roll up their sleeves and get to work on behalf of the team.
But what happens when the leadership team is the barrier? Asking What does our leadership team do that gets in the way of you doing your job? requires persistence and courage.
Persistence because the first time you ask this question, you are most likely to be answered with a quick “nothing” or “they’re doing okay” response. Don’t miss the internal dialogue that will undoubtedly be running through the answerer’s mind. “What kind of a fool does this person take me for? Like I’m going to answer this question!” And honestly, can you blame them for thinking that? So, ask the question, but don’t expect quality answers the first time around. The more you ask other questions and handle the answers appropriately, the more likely it is that when you ask this question again, you will get more truthful answers.
Courage because the responses you get might be painful to hear. It has been my experience while working with leaders that the farther up you are in the hierarchy, the less likely you are to receive an accurate picture of the organization’s day-to-day workings.
Unless, of course, you’ve been asking questions long enough to be trusted. You may hear things about your team’s behavior and maybe even about your own behavior that will require some soul-searching and change on your part. Don’t ask this question if you’re not ready to hear and act on the answers. By the way, if you’re not ready to act—get ready fast!
Back to the money stuff. Well, one could argue that most of business is about the money stuff, but asking about the money often gets you to something more valuable. This question does that. Leaders ask this question to investigate, challenge, and assign responsibility. They use it to investigate the forgotten areas within their control but not in their view, to challenge people to think for themselves, and to let people know that they are expected to engage their brains on the job. Look at it this way. Pretend you don’t do the grocery shopping in your household. In fact, you very seldom even go into a grocery store. The balance in your checking account is running lower than usual, and you notice that the checks made out to the grocery store represent a significant percentage of your monthly expenditures. So you sit down and develop a strategy to lower your grocery cost and present your plan to the family shopper for implementation. If you had to guess, how’s that going to work for you?
Okay, try this approach. You catch the shopper as you walk through the kitchen and say, “You’re spending way too much at the grocery store. I expect to see smaller checks in the future.” And as you walk out of the room you add, “By the way don’t let the quality of our meals suffer.” Is that better?
Please tell me you didn’t think that either of these approaches would work well. Please tell me that, as you read the last two paragraphs, you were shaking your head and grinning. Unfortunately, we act that way at home way too often. This behavior (as expressed about grocery shopping, punishment for children, and other areas too numerous to mention) has far-reaching implications—ask any-one you know who’s gone through a divorce. Don’t kid yourself. If you do it at home, you do it at work.
The problem with this behavior (in case you’re not certain) is presuming that you know better than the person closest to the issue does. When you ask about saving the company money, you send a message that you expect and value your employees’ expertise because they’re the ones who do the work, day in and day out. Of course, the reasoning goes, they have ideas and I want—no, need—to hear them. The more you ask this question, the better the answers you get will be.
Fear is a powerful emotion. It can paralyze you in times of crisis, cause you to cower in the face of an adversary, or lash out in an inappropriate direction. Fear will keep you silent when you should speak. Fear will open your mouth when it’s better left shut. And, worst of all for a leader, fear will convince you to back off and hide just when you need to be most visible.
You don’t, however, need to eliminate fear in order to be a leader. If that were the case, only idiots could become leaders. Fear, in addition to being a powerful emotion, is a necessary one. Rational fears cause us to think carefully and research diligently before we invest large sums of money in a project. Intelligent fears propel us to have a tough conversation before promoting a marginal job candidate. Gut-level fears remind us to forgo a walk on a dark street in an unfamiliar neighborhood. Eliminating any of these fears would be just plain stupid. Think about fear this way—you just need to make sure you control fear rather than letting fear control you.
If you approach leadership with a great deal of fear, your behavior will be influenced. If you’re afraid that you’ve been promoted beyond your competency, you’ll be hesitant to ask questions that might show your ignorance. If you’re afraid that people think you don’t deserve to be a leader, you’ll avoid necessary confrontations. If you’re afraid to make a wrong decision, you’ll second-guess yourself into a really bad decision or, even worse, make no decision at all.
A leader’s fears must be self-diagnosed. You need to spend time thinking about what you fear. Your task isn’t to search out your fears in order to eliminate them. Your job is to think through how those fears might influence your leadership behaviors. You might want to discuss your conclusions with a trusted advisor in order to get a fresh perspective on how fear might be influencing your actions.
Don’t let fear get in the way of your development as a leader. What am I afraid of is an important question to ask yourself and an even more important question to answer honestly. Don’t let fear keep you from doing just that.
