Month: January 2013

#224 improvised lessons

January 11, 2013by leadership dots by dr. beth triplettLeave a comment

We recently did an improvisation exercise in one of my staff meetings. We attempted to tell the story of the Wizard of Oz by having each person tell one section of the story. The concept revolved around using the terms “yes, and” — so you would tell one part of the story, stop and pass it along, and the next person would say “yes, and XYZ happened”, until the story ended with the last person.

Some lessons from this exercise:

> We did OK in getting the general idea of the movie. If you didn’t know the story at all, you would have a good sense of the plot and major characters. We left out many of the details, including the Yellow Brick Road and (intentionally) the (creepy) flying monkeys, but the main point was made.

> Utilizing the concept of “yes, and” allowed the story to progress in a short period of time. Rather than refuting the facts, admonishing what the previous person left out or spending time on debate, by accepting the story as it was allowed for creativity and forward movement.

> While the exercise was designed to showcase the improv concept and the use of the “yes, and” technique, it also served to illustrate the different styles of people and management that are in a group. Some were quite content that we captured the “gist” of the story and were even pleased with the unintentional embellishments to the original plot. Others were uncomfortable about the inaccuracies and missing details; they would have opted for accuracy over creative license.

Conducting your own improvisational story telling may be a good creativity exercise for your next meeting. Yes, and you may learn something about preferred styles as well.

— beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com
@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com

#223 alignment

January 10, 2013by leadership dots by dr. beth triplettLeave a comment

A very helpful exercise to conduct with direct report staff is what I term as an alignment questionnaire. I ask staff to complete four questions and use their answers in future conversations to gain alignment of our priorities, expectations and style. Later I refer what evolves from our conversations for use in the evaluation process.

The questions are as follows:

1. How do you conceptually see your job and your role in this organization? One way to frame this is to pretend you are presenting this to the board to explain your unit. Another way to look at it is to acknowledge that if you could be cloned, you could keep both of “you” busy in this job. Since there is only one of you, what parts are most important? This can be shared through a model, story, statement, etc. — anything to help me understand your philosophy about how you define your work. (in writing, one page maximum)

2. A maximum of five, specific priorities for the next year. These can be your priorities or priorities for your office, but absolutely no more than five specific items.

3. Part of my role as your supervisor is to help you facilitate change and help you to be successful. What do you want me to know in this respect:
— What ideas are in the incubation stage?
— What is your key strength as a unit/department?
— What needs do you have (now and in the future)?
— What challenges/barriers do you face?
— What do you need from me?
— What seeds do you want me to plant to support you/your work?

4. What advice would you give me to help me be an effective supervisor for you?

Many productive conversations have been stimulated by these questions, the first one in particular. I can recall several situations where the employee had one idea of what the job was (eg: individual ombudsperson/problem solving role) and I had another (eg: systemic changes and data sharing). Our conversations led to alignment and employee success going forward.

Whether you do it formally or informally, I recommend that you spend the time aligning philosophy with your direct report staff. The stars will shine more brightly if you do.

— beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com
@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com

#222 evolution

January 9, 2013by leadership dots by dr. beth triplettLeave a comment

The Secret Service was not established until 1865 — nearly a century after the country was founded. Initially, its primary purpose was not protection, but instead it developed out of a need to reduce counterfeit money. At the time, money was printed individually by the nation’s 1600 state banks, and it was estimated that one-third of the nation’s currency was counterfeit. Even though printing was antiquated compared to today, there was such variety that many people did not know what money was supposed to look like!

What started as a component of the Division of the Treasury evolved into presidential protection duties and eventually became a portion of the Department of Justice where it is housed today.

How many areas are in your organization that are like that? Departments start out with one purpose and instead of being eliminated, somehow morph into doing an entirely different task. The new job may be legitimate and necessary, but are the same skills required for both? Would you expect a top notch counterfeit investigator to be the same type of person who would take a bullet for the president? Is your best teller the one who can lead the computerized division that oversees ATMs? Would Socrates and his questioning model of teaching been a star in an on-line module?

Before you allow/force/cajole people into acquiring wholesale new responsibilities, stop and think of whether or not you would be better stopping one and starting another. Sometimes evolution is not the best way.

— beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com
@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com

#221 power

January 8, 2013by leadership dots by dr. beth triplettLeave a comment

Car-buying is probably #1 on the things-I-hate-to-do list, so I am quite happy tooling around town in my 2005 vehicle. It is in great shape, well-maintained and has served me well for 107,000 miles.

Friday night as I pulled into the gas station, the red battery light went on. “Drat!” I thought, “guess it is time to deal with getting the battery checked.” I mentally added that to the to-do list for Saturday and proceeded to drive home. Within one mile, my headlights started fading on and off and by the second mile I virtually had no electrical power remaining. No lights, speedometer, signals, heat, radio — zip. Fortunately, I was only two miles from home and was able to drive there in this condition (even though I couldn’t power open the garage door when I got there!)

What happened? How did I go from driving with no troubles to dead in the span of ten minutes? I dutifully did my 100,000 mile check-up — this shouldn’t be happening to me!

My car probably has more computing power in it than the first rocket, yet it failed to measure the right things. Instead of a your-battery-is-dead light, what I really needed was a your-alternator-is-dying light — ideally to go on last week when I was at my Acura dealer in Illinois anyway.

If we measured everything, we would be lost in a sea of data so deep that we would have no time to do anything except read reports. But in your organization, as well as in your car, you need to find ways to keep tabs on the critical elements that keep things functioning. A great battery, clean interior, full tank of gas and new tires mean nothing if the alternator burns out. We often pay attention to the obvious — what’s lurking below the surface that could cut the power to your ambitions?

— beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com
@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com

#220 we

January 7, 2013by leadership dots by dr. beth triplettLeave a comment

When we work in a multi-layered organization, we understand the differences and specialties of the various areas. Department A is very distinct from Department B and we know that.

What we forget is that people from outside the organization don’t know that. They see the organization as a whole, and expect you to act like the whole instead of acting like just a piece of it.

One of my favorite saying for encapsulating this thought is “We ARE They.” Anna Parkman used this to encourage people to take ownership of the problem rather than passing the blame elsewhere. If people have problems with an area other than ours, it is easy to say “They messed up” rather than saying “WE messed up” and trying to solve the issue. It is easier to blame someone else for extra procedures, rules and regulations rather than seeing the organization as a whole and accepting ownership for the bureaucracy.

Try to banish “they” from your vocabulary when working in customer service. WE need to be the ones to fix the issue, first in the short term and then from the more systemic view.

— beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com
@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com

#219 10-4 big buddy

January 6, 2013by leadership dots by dr. beth triplettLeave a comment

Think of how the world of over-the-road truckers has changed. It used to be country 8-tracks and CB radios. Now there are GPS systems, iPhones with FaceTime, podcasts and a host of other gadgets that have altered the fraternity of hardship on the frontier.

Have other things gotten harder as well? The rising cost of fuel. The dangers of other drivers texting while behind the wheel (or the temptation to text themselves). The traffic and weather.

Each occupation has its own sets of tools and tolls. Assess your organization to see if you are keeping up with the pluses and minimizing the minuses that impact how your staff can do its work. Roger that?

— beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com
@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com

#218 the bottom

January 5, 2013by leadership dots by dr. beth triplettLeave a comment

A consultant friend occasionally does long-term assignments that result in staff changes (aka firings). It always improves the organization to have the low-performers or toxic personalities out of the system.

Yet I am reminded of a mantra that he and I shared in when doing some work together: someone is always at the bottom.

Just firing people and moving select people out is never the long-term answer. Even when the deadwood is gone, someone else automatically assumes the lowest rung.

Supervisors need to pay attention to getting the full potential from all of their staff — coaching the weaker performers into achieving closer to capacity; allowing their stars to thrive in an intrinsically rewarding way.

There are clearly people who are detrimental to the organization and whose performance or attitude warrants a departure. Just don’t rely on that as your sole strategy or it will be a continuous revolving door.

— beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com
@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com

#217 educational lessons

January 4, 2013by leadership dots by dr. beth triplettLeave a comment

When I saw my sister over the holidays, she lamented that she was “behind” in selecting a kindergarten for my niece — it was a decision that she had to make in three weeks and “hadn’t gone to any open houses or done any research at all!” In her area, hotels host fairs of kindergarten options for parents to peruse like a college fair, just 13 years earlier.

When I went to kindergarten, I am fairly certain that I had no option at all. I would suspect that we got a letter in the mail telling my parents that I was assigned to the “Morning Kindergarten” or “Afternoon Kindergarten” and that’s all the differences there were. No agonizing over charter schools, public or private or any number of academies that boast different teaching methods and outcomes. You got what you got and that was it.

I do not doubt that different learning environments are more suited to different personalities and learning styles. But one of the things I learned in my no-choice education was that you made the best of what you had. Kindergarten literally means children’s garden and there we learned that some of our “crops” were more fertile than others. You learned when you were the smartest kid in the subject and you learned when you needed to rely on classmates for help. You learned that sometimes life thrust circumstances upon you and you could deal with them.

There isn’t a perfect kindergarten out there any more than there is the perfect college, job, spouse or life. I hope that where ever my niece ends up that she learns that having choice is a wonderful thing, and learning to make the best of whatever choice we make is an even more valuable life lesson.

— beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com
@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com

#216 singular or plural

January 3, 2013by leadership dots by dr. beth triplettLeave a comment

One more thought from the Civil War series —

Writer Shelby Foote commented that before the Civil War, people everywhere referred to the United States as a plural, and thus used the grammatically correct “are”. The united states are engaged in a discourse….

It actually took the war to unite the country, and after the altercation ended the nomenclature changed to how we know it in present day. It became singular; the United States is. The United States is one of the greatest countries on earth.

How do you refer to your organization and its many components? Is it singular in mission and language or are there fragments that portray you as a set of parts? Even if your parts are united in name, they aren’t truly united until it becomes an “is”.

— beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com
@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com

#215 reconciliation

January 2, 2013by leadership dots by dr. beth triplettLeave a comment

I spent several evenings during my holiday break watching the 1989 Civil War series that Ken Burns directed for PBS. I chose it from the library since I am still moved by the Lincoln movie I saw earlier in December. Up until that time, I had been to the Lincoln Museum in Springfield and walked the stairs of his monument in Washington, DC, but I had not really studied much about the man. Now I am having a hard time figuring out why not.

When Barack Obama ran for his second term, I wondered why anyone would want the job. Yet Obama has it easy compared to what Lincoln faced upon his re-election — a country in a fourth year of a Civil War, succession of 11 of 36 states and mounting casualties. But Lincoln won re-election with 55% of the vote. Maybe it was because people could see his passion for preserving the Union and his ability to embrace the members of the Confederacy after the conflict ended.

One his more famous quotes comes from the closing of the First Inaugural Address:
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory … will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

As we begin the new year, I encourage you to invoke the better angels of your nature to reconcile with someone with whom you have a strained relationship. Offer the olive branch, invite someone to coffee, extend an opportunity to partner with a department that has been challenging to work with, or do something that draws upon your similarities rather than differences. The Union doesn’t depend upon it, but the angel within you will be glad.

— beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com
@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com