Got energy?

Leadership

Some people become leaders no matter what their chosen path because their positive energy is so uplifting.  Even in tough times, they always find a way.  They seem to live life on their own terms even when having to comply with someone else’s requirements.  When they walk into a room, they make it come alive.  ~Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Influence and information have been attributes many times associated with creating high performance.  But influence and information don’t come close to energy.  “Those who positively energize others are high performers.  Position in an energy network is 4 times the predictor of performance compared to position in information or influence networks.” [Kim Cameron, PhD, in Positive Leadership]

Who are these positive energizers?  Well, it’s not dependent upon their position; anyone in an organization can have positive energy.  Kim Cameron’s research revealed that energizers are the people who “create and support vitality in others.  They uplift and boost people.  They leave others feeling elevated and motivated.  They have been found to be optimistic, heedful, trustworthy, and unselfish.”  

Cameron’s study also determined that “Positive energy is not a personality attribute, inherent charisma, or physical attractiveness.  It’s nota matter of merely being gregarious or outgoing.  It’s notcorrelated with being extroverted.  It’s a learned behavior.”  In other words, we can all become positive energizers, it’s a choice.

The affects of positive energy are staggering.  The research concluded that “High performing firms have 3 times as many positive energizing networks than lower performing firms.  Not only do these people affect business and employee performance; employees’ families are significantly influenced for the better by positive leaders.”

So, if the affect of positive energy is so significant, why aren’t there more positive energizers, especially among leadership? 

I think the answer to that question is exposed in the attributes of positive energy: heedful [thoughtful, careful, attentive], trustworthy, and unselfish.  Cameron adds to the list qualities of a positive climate: compassion, forgiveness, and gratitude.  Not exactly what we many times think creates energy (charisma, extremely outgoing, bustling, shaking things up, etc.).

I heard Cameron speak at an executive roundtable last week; he was joined by business owner and author, PaulSpiegelman.  Both the academician and the practitioner emphasized that these attributes need to be part of your policies, practices, and personal behavior in order to create a positive climate.  Within that positive climate more positive energizers will emerge.  It really can be a learned behavior.

In the coming weeks I’ll go more deeply into compassion, forgiveness, and gratitude and what that can look like, practically, in organizations.

In the meantime…got energy?  Are we creating positive energy through compassion, forgiveness, and gratitude?  

A purpose-driven life, really.

Leadership

If we let our problems define our situation we are unlikely to see the opportunities that come when we focus on “purpose.”  Clarifying our purpose can lift us out of our problems and give us meaning, direction and energy.  ~Robert Quinn

Ten years ago, Rick Warren wrote The Purpose Driven Life, which became the bestselling hardback non-fiction book in history, and is the second most-translated book in the world after the Bible.  I’ve often wondered how much the name of the book influenced its sales.  Are we all clamoring for purpose so much that we’ll collectively catapult a book to the top of the bestseller list if it will give us a glimmer of life with purpose?  I’m certainly not disregarding Warren’s writing ability or insights, but that name—Purpose-Driven Life—did it strike a chord with us because we’re not quite sure how to get from a life focused on problems to one focused on purpose?

Learning to go from problem to purpose, as Robert Quinn suggests, may be the ideal way for all leaders to start a new year.   

Quinn believes that we need to be asking, “Is it a problem or a disrupted expectation?”  A disrupted expectation is exactly what it states.  In any given situation, we expect things to go a certain way, but sometimes they don’t and then we’re faced with a different situation, or a “disrupted expectation.”  If this really matters to us and it’s difficult to close the gap between our expectations and the reality we’re facing, then we tend to label this as a problem.  This implies that our response should be to solve the problem or to restore the situation to its expected state.

Solving a problem is a reactive state.  Sometimes reacting is the right thing to do.  If my refrigerator stopped working, then I should react and attempt to solve the problem and restore the frig to its working state. 

But not every situation is a problem to be solved, many times it’s really a disrupted expectation and our expectations need to shift.  Quinn quotes Robert Fritz who many years ago suggested that we move to a creative state (as opposed to reactive) by asking the question, “what result do I want to create?”  By refocusing on results and creating, it changes our expectations, creating new purposes.  We’re now positioned to take purposed-center action.

I recently discovered a very applicable example for this idea in my own work.  A client suggested a book to me entitled, Who Do You Want Your Customers to Become?  In consulting, we tend to focus our thinking on helping clients solve problems.  But, what if I shifted my thinking from reacting, to creating, and asked myself, who do I want my clients to become?  That brings a level of meaning, direction and energy (to quote Quinn) to my work that isn’t even in the same ballpark as merely “solving problems.”  It puts the focus directly on “what result do I want to create” or purpose.

Rick Warren says that he meets a lot of people who are very smart and say, “why can’t I figure out my problems?”  Well, maybe that’s the key; what if they are not problems but disrupted expectations.  When I think of people who have risen to great heights of leadership, they are people who are asking, “what are the results I want to create?” and then they move forward with purpose and are lifted out of their problems.  A purpose-driven life?  Yes, really.

Will you be predictable in 2013?

Leadership

The absence of predictability makes everyone more cautious.  People tend to prioritize safety over speed.  ~Dov Seidman
I had a bit of an epiphany this past week.  Over the past few years more and more people have been suggesting and arguing that strategic planning is no longer relevant or helpful.  Many times the argument is predicated on the belief that because we live in a period of ridiculously rapid change, that trying to “plan” or develop a “plan” is of little use.
Given that a good chunk of my work is in strategic planning, I’ve been contemplating this entire idea and approach to organizations.  Is it time for a change?  Maybe, but I certainly wouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Here’s why. 
One thing that nearly all authors, theorists, researchers and consultants agree upon is that trust is more critical now than it has ever been.  That’s because the higher the degree of trust, the more quickly an organization can respond to change.  As Dov Seidman so appropriately states, “people tend to prioritize safety over speed.”  If people don’t feel safe, or don’t fully trust their leader, they are going to be more cautious and therefore adapt to change more slowly. 
Trust is beyond critical.  It’s vital to survival if our organizations are going to keep pace with the rate of change in the breakneck race in which we are all participating, by choice or by default.  Again, read a number of authors who claim to be an authority on creating trust and one of the commonly repeated key attributes of trust: predictability.  Are you predictable?  Without it, you are going to struggle to generate trust.
Here’s where the epiphany comes in…focused, clearly articulated strategic plans demonstrate predictability.  A strategic plan is a tool that can generate predictability, therefore trust, which in turn will enable organizations to turn on a dime.  A good strategic plan isn’t irrelevant; in fact, it could accelerate your ability to adapt to change.
Maybe our strategic plans need to change.  Maybe they’ve been too complicated, too detailed and too static.  Maybe they need to focus more on establishing unquestionable clarity of the mission, vision and values.  Maybe they need to emphasize priorities more than quantifiable goals so in the midst of change we don’t lose sight of the direction by getting lost in the muck and mire of formulas and decimal points.  And maybe strategic plans need to communicate how we will make decisions as opposed to whatspecific decisions we will make so we will be trusted when uncertainty sneaks around the corner.

For the sake of full disclosure, I’m somewhat of closet statistician and numbers geek myself.  I’m frequently quoting Drucker, “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”  So not holding quite as tightly to the “measurement” piece of a strategic plan is a paradigm shift for me, personally.  But, using a strategic plan to establish predictability, and therefore, trust, makes a whole lot of sense to me.  Maybe it shouldn’t be a strategic plan but a strategic direction.  

How will we be predictable in 2013 so we can create the trust we’ll need to maneuver through the unpredictable changes certain to occur in the next year?  Is our strategic direction irrefutably clear?

Leaders think twice.

Leadership

Our situation influences our decisions enormously.  One of the mistakes leaders make is the belief that our decisions are independent of our experiences.  ~Michael J.Mauboussin from Think Twice

While glancing through Michael J. Mauboussin’s book, Think Twice, I came across a study that I found fascinating.  The purpose of the study was to determine to what extent the situation and our experience influences our decisions. 

In a store that sold wine they had a display of French and German wine, the two wines were displayed next to each other.  For two weeks, they alternated what music was being played in this section of the store.  On some days the music was clearly French and on others it was distinctly German.  The result: when French music was being played 77% of the sales were French wine, when German music was being played 73% of the sales were German wine.  When questioned following their purchase, 86% of the customers denied that the music had anything to do with their decision.

This same phenomenon has been proven time and again in a variety of studies.  Yet, we still try to deny the conclusion that our experience (or lack of) really does have a significant influence on our decisions.  What if we just accepted this truth?

Reading this study caused me to think about the coming New Year.  What experiences should I intentionally pursue? What situation would enable me to make better decisions?  By better, I mean decisions that encompass a broad range of perspectives and align with my values.

One example that immediately came to mind was the number of clients I’ve worked with who say that diversity is important.  It may even be one of their espoused values.  However, when you look at their executive team it reflects a very homogenous group of individuals.  Because their experience does not include a great deal of diversity, they continue to make decisions that don’t really reflect diversity as a high priority.  If we want to make decisions differently in the future, then maybe we need to change our situation and expand our experiences.

A number of authors make the case that some of the most effective leaders are always learning something new, moving into a completely different industry, engaging in something others would consider adventurous.  They are constantly broadening their experience and, in a sense, expanding their situation.  Could this rich assortment of experience allow them to approach decisions differently than someone who is living more routine and habitual with a fairly narrow worldview?

If that’s the case, then in 2013 what should we be doing to modify our situation or expand our experience?  Who are our primary mentors and confidants, do they need to change to include different perspectives?  What books are we reading?  Or maybe, are we reading?  What authors are we inviting in to our thinking?  When was the last time we learned something completely new and different? 

My intent was not to make 2013 sound daunting; but instead, to think about 2013 intentionally.  To embrace the fact that whatever experiences we choose and situations we create, they will have a significant influence on the decisions we make in the coming year.

Life itself is grace.

Leadership

Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.  ~Frederick Buechner from Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation

I had selected this quote before the tragedy of December 14 in Newtown, Connecticut.  But of course now it feels even more poignant.  I chose this quote this week because I live within a community that has experienced an unusual amount of death and tragedy over the course of the past month or so.  A friend posted on Facebook the quote, “Life itself is grace,” commenting about some of the recent and sudden tragedies and how this emphasizes the fact that, “Life itself is grace.”  Then only days later, this same individual found himself also swept up in the tragedy of sudden and unexplained death of a close family member.

And now as a nation, we’ve all been swept up in the tragedy of Newtown, Connecticut.  It’s not hard to find individuals at Sandy Hook Elementary who were not only leaders but heroes.  The principal and the school psychologist were shot as they tried to tackle the gunman in order to protect the students.  A 27-year-old teacher shooed her first graders into closets and cabinets when she heard the first shots, and then, by some accounts, told the gunman the youngsters were in the gym.  She had put herself between the gunman and the kids.  She lost her life protecting the children.

These individuals knew, and lived, as if “Life itself is grace.”

Does it really take tragedy of this magnitude for the rest of us to live as if “Life itself is grace”?

There are many definitions of grace and I certainly don’t want to spark a theological or intellectual debate.  But given the events of the past week, I like the definition that grace is generous, free and totally unexpected and undeserved.  Life is free and totally unexpected and undeserved.  What if we were leading, every day, from the vantage point of grace?

We’d be more grateful.  We’d be more generous.  We’d be more forgiving.  We’d be more appreciative.
Chuck Swindoll says “Grace isn’t picky. Grace doesn’t look for things that have been done that deserve [recognition].  Grace operates apart from the response or the ability of the individual.  Grace is one-sided.”
The children who walked away from Sandy Hook Elementary and into the arms of their parents were recipients of one-sided grace.  They received something free, totally unexpected and undeserved, while their teachers sacrificed their lives.
As we’ve all witnessed in the past week, “in the last analysis all moments are keymoments, and life itself is grace.”   Swindoll says, “Believing in grace is one thing, living it is another.”  As leaders, are we living grace?