It’s Effectiveness Over Efficiency
If you’ve never thought about the difference between efficiency and effectiveness, you’re not alone. The fact is that most use these terms interchangeably. Yesterday, I heard it said that, “It’s effectiveness over efficiency.” Understanding the difference between these two strategies can help initiatives succeed. Peter Drucker said, “efficiency is doing things right, effectiveness is doing the right thing.” Ideally we want to be both efficient and effective—after all, everyone wants to do the right things right. Efficiency is the ability to produce an intended result in the way that results in the least waste of time, effort, and resources. Effectiveness is the ability to produce a better result, one that delivers more value or achieves a better outcome.
Effectiveness is actually more sustainable than efficiency. That might sound counterintuitive but effectiveness emphasizes getting something done well as opposed to getting a lot done. While efficiency might get more done using less resources, an organization is only sustainable if we effectively fulfill a need make an improvement, or solve a problem. It really comes down to focus. We must decide what to focus our energy and resources on.
Finding Someone A Level Better Than You
I made a new friend last evening who was telling me stories of his pool (billiards) playing days. He said, “Son, you have to play people who are a level better than you to improve in the game.” He went on to tell me that, “Watching and thinking through what the better opponent is doing gives you the model for improvement.” This was a wise man reminding me of an important lesson – there is always room for improvement. We’ll never get to the point where we’re not able to learn from someone. Everybody you meet has something to teach you if you’re willing to listen and learn. Those better than us can serve as our teachers and mentors.
This week I have been doing facilitation work in Washington D.C. for the National FFA Organization as part of the State Officer Summit. I have taken many notes and learned new facilitation strategies from watching and getting to know others. They are challenging me to get better. I love it! The biggest apology I could ever owe anyone is to myself for the times I chose not to push myself and be the best me I could be. We all need to strive to not need to make that apology. So, no matter what your doing, let’s all go find that person that is a level better.
My Experiences
Yesterday I had the opportunity to facilitate a session during the National FFA Organization’s State Officer Summit on preparing national officer candidates by 2016-2017 National FFA President, David Townsend. He was incredible. One of his beginning slides had this disclaimer: “These perspectives are based on my experiences.” I loved this on so many levels. I believe it is an awesome way introduce space where our own opinions are being used based on our own experiences. And each of our experiences matter. Telling stories of our own experiences are important. These stories of our experiences have a way of transporting us away from our realities, and our mind opens up to new experiences and perceptions of other people and how they think, feel, and act.
“To argue with someone else’s experience of reality is futile…To add their experience to yours is possibly useful.”
Unknown
I believe we can use David’s model to understand the fact that others’ stories help us to learn to empathize with other people as we come to understand their point of view. When we hear another person’s experiences, we step out of our own reality and place ourself in someone else’s shoes, and get to experience their perspective and engage in their emotions, actions, and decisions. These experiences being shared allow us to learn from other people’s experiences.
Egalitarian Leadership
Yesterday during the first gathering of a new leadership development group I am working with, one participant said she was intimidated because of only having three years experience. I quickly told her that her experience was important to the group. Either the three years experience or only having three years experience will matter. Relative inexperience and experience do matter. The point here is that valuable insight and great ideas can come from anywhere, and the status of the person proposing it isn’t a reliable indicator of its worth.
In the case of education, first year teachers can have great ideas and principals can have terrible ideas. It can go the other way too, of course. This because ideas are egalitarian. We need to look to the team for ideas and direction when faced with a decision, plan or project that needs a consensus. In the case of our group yesterday, we had 329 years experience in the room. With that much experience a simple “What do you think?” what do you think is a great place to start for insight and ideas. Never forget that your organization’s community will be even more invested in seeing positive results if they have taken part in the creation and development of whatever happens to be going on.
It’s As Easy As ABCD
As I dive into the second half of Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways To Be A Servant Leader and Build Trust, Making Common Sense Common Practice, Ken Blanchard and Randy Conley, I’m thinking about how trust is a word we use a lot without always thinking about how trust works and why it’s so important in our lives. It really is a bridge or social glue that allows us to be vulnerable and become comfortable with doing something differently, trying something new, or dealing with uncertainty. In Simple Truth #28, “Building Trust Is A Skill That Can Be Learned And Developed,”Randy told us that trust is about learning and using the right behaviors, and then becoming better at building trust with practice.
I’ve heard Brené Brown say that trust isn’t built in grand gestures, but in the small moments that people treat what is important to you with care. This goes right along with the ABCD Model introduced in Simple Truths of Leadership to foster and grow relationships and communities built on trust. Here is the model (p. 77):
- Able: demonstrate competence
- Believable: act with integrity
- Connected: show care and concern for others
- Dependable: honor commitments
All these skills/qualities contribute to the degree of trust people have for each other. All can be developed and honed. Trust is an ongoing and symbiotic relationship. We need to keep working to get better at our close bonds of trust.
Trust Is An Outcome
As a person who is driven by outcomes, I loved this statement: “Trust is an outcome, a result of the behaviors we use in our interactions with others” (Randy Conley, p. 72). I started the second half of the great book Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways To Be A Servant Leader and Build Trust, Making Common Sense Common Practice, Ken Blanchard and Randy Conley. In this half, Randy takes the lead discussing trust in leadership. In Simple Truth #27 entitled “Leadership Begins With Trust” Randy told us that when trust is established, “Creativity, innovation, productivity, efficiency, and morale flourish” (p. 75). That’s why I love that Randy calls trust an outcome, because it is so tangible. When trust is there we feel it and when it is not we really feel it.
While some organizations and leaders still use the so called, golden handcuff (showing up with cupcakes, pizza in the break room, or the kitschy trinkets) approach for attempting to get employee satisfaction and engagement, I believe that building a culture of trust is what makes a meaningful difference. It is an outcome. One of the challenges with the random perks approach is that these perks are being given by someone who is not taking the time to build relationships and trust. It comes down to walking our talk, keeping our promises and aligning our values with our behaviors. If we do this we should be constantly growing the trust of others. The old adage “actions speak louder than words” applies here.
Subtracting Shows Competence
Last year I read the great book Subtract: The Untapped Science Of Less by Leidy Klotz and described the book as changing my life. Learning from the book also ends up in many of my blog posts, like Don’t Always Saticfice. Last evening I had the honor of facilitating a discussion between Leidy Klotz and National Teacher Ambassadors of the National FFA Organization. As part of their training, the teacher ambassadors received a copy of the book and Leidy was gracious enough to spend time with the group. Leidy spent some time discussing what led to the research and ultimately the book, which was fascinating, and then had a very open discussion with our teachers.
One of the points Leidy made last night, that I have heard him make before is that, “Subtracting shows competence.” We all need to reflect on this. Whether as a school principal, we show competence to remove the things teachers have to do that don’t really have anything to do with student learning, or myself as a policymaker continuing to advocate for reducing the number of standards having to be taught/tested. Or, just the competence it takes to reduce that email from four paragraphs, which by the way no one reads, to a couple of sentences. I’m sure you can think of thousands of other examples.
Leidy taught us not to focus on what we can’t get done and want/need to subtract, but focus on what we will be able to do better because of eliminating those mundane tasks that create marginal value at best. Those of us in education can really relate to this. It’s not easy. As Leidy pointed out, adding more is highly visible and easy to promote and subtracting either goes unnoticed or becomes controversial. I loved this advice from Leidy: “Give yourself a definition for what you are setting out to accomplish. This will help narrow down the necessary from the unnecessary.” Dr. Klotz’s job is to create and share knowledge and he did a great job of schooling us on subtracting.
Formula For Success
Ulysses S. Grant’s first in person meeting of Abraham Lincoln was when he was raised to Lieutenant General and given command of the entire National military operation of the Civil War. According to General Ulysses S. Grant in his autobiography, Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, President Lincoln told him all he (Lincoln) wanted was someone to take responsibility and act. In return, Lincoln would give all the support afforded to him by his position in government. Grant said that Lincoln, as a self taught military strategist would give him his ideas, but left the use of the ideas up to Grant. This was the perfect ethos for Grant. No one wants a leader who sits back and watches as their team does all the hard work. A responsible leader rolls up their sleeves and is involved in projects. No matter the size of the project or how long it’ll take to complete, a leader should want to be a part of it to help in any way they can.
It was a liberating concept for Grant. The responsibility was his, and it started with developing a belief or habit of mind that he, as an individual, was accountable for the quality and timeliness of the outcomes of the rebellion battle campaigns. Grant owned the obligation to take action and deliver results. But he also knew that President Lincoln would support him in every way he could. This was a formula for success. Grant had a results-based view of his own leadership role. No matter how great a military strategist he was, his effectiveness was ultimately defined by the results of all military entities. The responsible leader ensures the group successfully drives for results.
In a world where everything continues to become more and more complex, determined and innovative problem-solving will need to come from those who are ready to take responsibility and act. Living with responsibility can make us stronger and more action-oriented individuals. It’s up to all of us, because everyone is a leader, to make change and take responsibility for outcomes in our personal, professional, and global lives. Are you ready to get started?
Linked Lives
You all know I am a very reflective person. Holidays always seem to become days of reflection for me. On this Fourth if July holiday I am reflecting about my son growing up, our relationship changing from dad and lad to dad and man, and whether my dad knew how great a job he did for prepping me for life and how much I appreciated it. Circumstances have allowed me to get to be at my son’s house in Madisonville, Kentucky near where he is interning for Cal-Maine Foods, every weekend for the past five weekends in a row. Dream come true, because I love spending time with the boy, now man. I make a point of saying, man now, because he is just that. And what’s more the father-son links are now converting to an adult relationship and I am loving every minute of it. Everyone who knows me knows how close Heath and I are. I’m always in a funk for a couple of days after spending time with him.
Last weekend I had the chance to meet my son’s boss and have a great conversation. In the course of the conversation he gave me one of the greatest compliments a dad could hear. He said that he could tell how close Heath and I were and that I had not left raising him and giving him the experiences necessary to succeed in life to anyone else. He said, “All the responsibility you gave him and the modeling you did for him on the farm growing up has prepared him for this moment and his life’s work (I just teared up repeating that). I quickly deferred much of the credit to Hope, my wife and Heath’s mother, but then was very thankful that he recognized that. When Heath was born, I made a commitment that I was going to spend every moment I could with him – and I did. I had watched other people leave much of this responsibility to grandparents or hired people and I just wasn’t going to do that. I know some very wealthy and allegedly successful people who never really got to know their kids. Sad! I am so blessed to have taken Heath on so many FFA trips with me and all the time we spent working side-by-side here on the farm. Some said it was too early to have him in Washington D.C. at six months old or out helping me with horses and livestock from the time he could walk, but the research would now suggest I was on to something. My goal was to have had him in all 50 states by the time he graduated high school. We did not quite make that goal but have made it to 46 and Canada twice. This year is his senior year in college, so I have a year to get him to Utah, Idaho, New Mexico, and Alaska before he graduates from college.
Please do not take this post as a criticism of others’ parenting because it is not meant to be. It is meant to highlight the concept of “linked lives” introduced in Parent Nation: Unlocking Every Child’s Potential, Fulfilling Society’s Promise by Dr. Dana Suskind. All members of the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) were given the opportunity to receive a copy of the book. So glad I got my copy! I am reading the book right now and have been inspired, as a policymaker and education leader, to want to shepherd and cheerlead the concepts introduced in the book. For example, I was recently told that some schools no longer allow their agriculture teachers to take their own children on trips. This would have seriously limited my time with Heath. At a time when teachers a seriously exploring alternative career options, shouldn’t we be finding (exploring) ways to help our teachers stay linked to their own children? In the book Dr. Suskind said, “The lives of children and parents are intertwined” (p. 139). As a policy-maker I recommit to doing all I can to create environments where parents can be all they can be. I hear parents say they appreciated the extra quality time that they had during the pandemic. Let’s learn from this and find creative/flexible ways to help.
Also, we need to think both quantity and quality. More time with our kids is great, period. So that is a start, but quality of that time really thinking about brain development is also critical. I think back to my own upbringing by two of the greatest parents of all times. I was linked to their lives. Dr. Suskind also said, “The experiences we have in childhood, as mediated by our parents, will be reflected in much of what happens years later” (p. 139). At my mom’s passing I blogged about our link in Leadership Lessons From My Mom and I am reflecting on my dad this morning and all he did to prepare me for all the moments I have been blessed with; including raising an incredible lad turned man. My dad passed away when I was 25. My hope on this holiday morning is that he knew the great job he had done at linking our lives.
Counting The Wolves
“Grant, how many wolves do you think there are in that pack?” Knowing where he was from, and suspecting that he thought I would over-estimate the number, I determined to show my acquaintance with the animal by putting the estimate below what possibly could be correct, and answered: “Oh, about twenty,” very indifferently. He smiled and rode on. In a minute we were close upon them, and before they saw us. There were just TWO of them. Seated upon their haunches, with their mouths close together, they had made all the noise we had been hearing for the past ten minutes. I have often thought of this incident since when I have heard the noise of a few disappointed politicians who had deserted their associates. There are always more of them before they are counted” (chapter V). ~ General Ulysses S. Grant. I love this story from General Ulysses S. Grant in his autobiography, Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant.
It is always interesting how someone will say there are lot of people complaining, unhappy about something, not approving of something, or not wanting a change. I always ask, “give me a list of everyone.” Nine times out of ten the many becomes one or two. Thus affirming General Grant’s point – “there are always more of them before they are counted.” This is also why I believe it is important to look at actual numbers when reviewing surveys and polls. For example: if one person out of 17 gave a ranking of “unsatisfactory” would show up as 6%. The data becomes much more useful when we know the actual numbers with the percentages. We need to count the wolves.
Byron's Babbles 
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