Getting Comfortable
According to Mike Abbot (General Partner in Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield and Byers) we all need to get comfortable being uncomfortable. The point was made in response to emerging research that indicates most of us will have completed 11 jobs by the time we are 50. With this rate of churn, by implication you are facing a lot of time ‘being uncomfortable’(in the sense of not being fully sure of what you are doing). It’s no longer a case of studying hard for 4 years and ‘milking it’ for the next 40. So, how good are you at being uncomfortable? Take a little test by answering the following questions:
- How long since you’ve been to college i.e. when was the last time that you formally ‘studied’ something?
- Do you actively solicit feedback on your performance and how you are seen internally? (some managers see feedback in the same light that Dracula views a crucifix).
- Do you have an active PDP (personal development plan) and are working to close the gaps? Really?
Back to School: If the answer to the above is ‘ages, no and no’ you might be in deep Kimchi (as they say in South Korea). The burning question: By swimming in the shallow end of the pool, are you afraid to go deeper, to stretch yourself and upgrade those skills? You might well have graduated ‘top’ of your accountancy class in 1995 – but there’s been a lot of change in financial services (and engineering, HR, technology etc.) since. To paraphrase George Bernard Shaw: ‘The single biggest problem with education is the illusion that it’s finished.’
Tuning Up: You may or may not know that guitars need constant attention. Every month, or so, they need new strings. That’s about 20 minutes and €20.00. Just like those guitars, we all need constant tuning to play at our best. While you are thinking about what skills to upgrade and where to do it, here’s a simple, zero-cost idea that you can begin to work on immediately. Find out how you are seen right now!
Straight Talk: One of the stated values in Pfizer Inc. is ‘Straight Talk’. It means what it says – productivity increases in direct proportion to being straight. Going ’round the houses’ in terms of communications is unauthentic and a waste of energy. In geography, the shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line. So too in communications. Taking a leaf from Anthropology 101, the company minted a physical coin with the words ‘Straight Talk’ etched into the metal. While not everyone uses the coin, the central idea borrows from a tradition deployed over centuries by many tribes. The ‘straight talk’ coin/concept essentially gives permissionfor people to have real conversations. Sometimes it’s difficult to do this internally, because people want to ‘save face’ or because there’s more politics where you work than in the Kremlin i.e. blood on the Parquet floor. If that’s the case, you need to find someone external who can provide real feedback. And, not your best pal Tony, who continually waffles on about how great thou art!
The Eulogy: It’s often said that the Irish don’t speak ill of the dead. When someone dies, the tributes start to pour in. Well, here’s a funeral story heard recently. A man who lived just around the corner from where I grew up in Cabra West, passed away. He was a hard man on the beer, almost single-handedly keeping the local pub open (against stiff competition). At his funeral, his friend was tasked with delivering the eulogy and spoke in such high tones that it seemed like Jesus himself had come down off the cross to walk among us. The Widow, listening to the litany of achievements of this great man, said to one of the kids: ”Pop across the aisle and check who’s in the coffin. I think we might be at the wrong funeral.” It’s too late for straight talk at that point. Best bet: Get someone to conduct a 3600feedback exercise on you. Now. It’s uncomfortable. Embrace it.
The following simple questions might assist…
*Describe Mr/Ms X…leadership at its best? What strength should he/she not lose?
*Which are the most critical Leadership Challenges Mr /Mrs….is currently facing that may hinder him/her from managing his area successfully? What could she/he do? What should he/she not do?
*We all have developmental issues. What 1 or 2 critical things should Mr/Ms do differently to be more effective?
*People react differently under pressure/stress. When Mr/Ms X is under pressure, what does it look like? (What does he/she do or not do?). From your perspective what seems to triggers this behaviour?
*If you had to characterise Mr/Ms X’s current leadership style, what metaphor or picture would you choose?
*Please give me a rating of Mr/Ms X overall effectiveness as an executive/leader. It’s a 10-point scale where 5 is average and 10 is outstanding. Briefly explain your rating.
*What single message would you like to pass on to Mr/Ms X as part of this development process?
War Story: In the South Sea islands they use the term ‘Mokita’: The rough translation is ‘the truth which everyone knows and no-one speaks.’ In your organisations you already have an existing ‘brand image’ which may be putting a glass ceiling on your efforts to get promoted. Here another real-life war story. I was working with a senior executive. Good guy. Warm interpersonal skills. Highly intelligent. Hard working. But, somehow, his career seemed to have stalled. It was difficult to explain – but the fact was that he’d undergone several internal interviews but always received a ‘Dear John’ letter afterwards. What was going on? We conducted a formal ‘data gathering’ exercise. Turns out that he was seen ‘not to be able to manage his wife’.Yes, you read that correctly, even it it’s not PC. There were a couple of instances where he’d ‘gone home early’ to deal with some domestic crisis (one story about a mouse in the kitchen had become a legend in the organisation). The perception: he ‘couldn’t manage his house – so how could we trust him to manage an entire operation’? Sexist? Yes, absolutely. Unfair? Perhaps. But very real. We figured out a way to ‘overturn’ that perception and he successfully moved on from that role (it took about 12 months). Central point: don’t allow yourself to be blocked by invisible barriers. Solicit feedback. Getting comfortable in being uncomfortable is often a way to climb the mountain.
Have a good one.
Paul
PS Itchy Scalp: David, my brother-in-law was complaining for some time about having an itchy scalp. His wife told him to stop moaning and get on with it (she is a graduate of the ‘we all have our cross to bear’ school of counselling!). It turns out that she’d mistakenly put a new dog shampoo (nice packaging!) into the upstairs bathroom and he’d been using it for weeks. I’m delighted to report that his hair now looks particularly shiny and David has zero fleas!
PPS: Sick Bay: Need to get a couple of ‘sick days’ off work for whatever reason? Try the following….
*Page yourself over the intercom (Don’t disguise your voice).
*Come to work in army fatigues and when asked why, say: “I can’t talk about it”.
*Send email to the rest of the company telling them what you’re doing. For example “If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the bathroom.”
*‘Hi-lite’ your shoes. Tell people that you haven’t lost your shoes since you started doing this.
*Put mosquito netting around your cubicle.
*Every time someone asks you to do something, ask if they want fries with that.
*When someone hands you a piece of paper, feel it, and whisper huskily, “Mmmmmmm, that feels soooooo good!”
* Put your garbage can on your desk. Label it ‘IN.’
*Walk sideways to the photocopier.
*Say to your boss, “I like your style”and shoot her/him with double-barreled fingers.
*Reply to everything someone says with “that’s what YOU think?”.
*Kneel in front of the water cooler and drink directly from the nozzle.
*Finish all your sentences with the words “in accordance with prophesy.”
*TYPE ONLY IN UPPERCASE. (don’t use any punctuation either)
*Repeat the following conversation a few times: “Do you hear that?” “What?” “Never mind, it’s gone now.”
*As much as possible, skip rather than walk.
*Ask people what gender they are.
*Sit in the car park at lunchtime pointing a hair dryer at passing cars to see if they slow down.
*Wear a hands free phone headset in all meetings. Every once in a while drift off into an unrelated conversation, such as: ‘I don’t care if there are no Dwarfs, just get the show done!’
*Respond to a serious question with: “I don’t know what to say, obviously I’m flattered, but it’s all happened so fast.”
*At meetings, pull out a large roll of bank notes and count them demonstratively.
*Produce a hamster from your pocket and suggest throwing it to one another as a means of idea-exchange.
*Use a large hunting knife to point at your visual aids.
PS Final Lighter Note: A touching story from John McGlynn…
A small boy named Hamed lived in a village in Morocco. None of his classmates liked him because of his stupidity, especially his teacher, who was always yelling at him “You drive me crazy Hamed!”
One day Hamed’s mother came into school to check how he was doing. The teacher told his mother that her son was a disaster, getting very low marks. She had never seen such a dumb boy in her entire teaching career. The mother was shocked at the feedback and withdrew her son from the school & even moved to another town.
25 years later, the teacher was diagnosed with an incurable cardio disease! All the doctors strongly advised her to have an open-heart operation, which only one surgeon could perform… Left with no other options, the teacher decided to have the operation, which was initially successful.
When she opened her eyes after the surgery she saw a handsome doctor smiling down at her! She wanted to thank him, but could not talk. Her face started to turn blue, she raised her hand, trying to tell him something but eventually died!
The doctor was shocked and was trying to work out what went wrong, when he turned around he saw our friend Hamed, working as a cleaner in the clinic, who had unplugged the oxygen equipment to connect his Hoover.
Now, don’t tell me you thought that Hamed became a doctor! Are you nuts!
Confessions of a Consultant 