Don’t Be A Courage Crusher
Courageous Cultures: How to Build Teams of Micro-Innovators, Problem Solvers, and Customer Advocates by Karin Hurt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A courageous culture becomes a community where individuals are engaged and finding, developing, and using their full potential. I love that “courage crushers” were called out by Hurt and Dye very early. Sadly, I have worked in organizations with these types. These are toxic environments, as you pointed out. Also, I loved the thought of creating a courage oasis.
I have always been big on the point of there needing to be clarity. This became very evident during the pandemic. As Hurt and Dye pointed out, there cannot be curiosity without clarity. It was also discussed that with clarity of goals, processes, and roles and responsibilities comes a safe place.
Finally, I loved all the tips and real examples sprinkled throughout the book. For example, I loved the example of the “magic button” for employees to use to provide feedback and give ideas. If we truly want organizations and communities where everyone is engaged, we must provide safe place where those we serve can be courageous. Everyone needs to read this book, but if you are a “courage crusher” PLEASE read this book!
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Turning Talk Into Reality
To go from talk to action is a journey. We better support ourselves and others when we understand what the journey to proficient implementation really entails. Yesterday my son and I were in Screven County, Georgia for an annual event with the Screven County FFA. Last June I had told the agriculture teacher and National FFA Ambassador, Nancy Sell, that I wanted to be a part of the event. We walked the talk and made it happen. Once I got clarity about the exact date, what else would be going on at that time, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera; I was able to say, “Yes, I’ll be there.” Then, there was no backing out. If YOU SAY IT, DO IT! As someone commented yesterday, “We turned the talk into reality.”
How many times do we hear people say, “I’ll be there.” Then, they won’t be, and you knew all along they would not be. Or, even worse, “I’ll take care of this and __________will happen.” Then when it doesn’t you get the, “I’m sorry, so and so said we can’t do that” “Or, I didn’t know…” This really is a case of faking it. Or worse yet, lying. Michael Fullan (2001) called this “false clarity.” False clarity occurs when change is interpreted in an oversimplified way; that is, the proposed change has more to it than people perceive or realize” (p. 77). The problem with false clarity is we know less than we think we do. We can relate this to walking the talk or turning talk into change/action. So many times leaders see talking as doing. The real work begins when the talking ends. Successful teams make decisions that impact behaviors and produce visible results.
Bottom-line here is that successful leaders move through talk to action!
Fullan, M. (2001). The meaning of educational change (3rd ed.). New York: Penguin Group.
How Do You Play Leader?
This past weekend at our Indiana 3D Leadership Gathering, we did a toy activity that involved Lite Brites®. Participants made a picture that represented how the Lite Brite® could be used for great leadership. The activity was called “How Do You Play Leader?” The groups did a great job with their pictures. While they were sharing out I wrote down a few notes. Check out what I wrote down here:
I was particularly struck by the statement that “Great leaders really don’t have to try!” I asked the person to dig a little deeper into that comment. She said that a leader who is authentic and is himself or herself instead of trying to be someone else or copy someone else is much more effective. Great leaders find a system that works for her or him, rather than trying to force oneself into a prescribed notion of a what a leader has to be. If we know ourselves well enough, we can take steps to go about leading effectively. Situations change what we need to do, but should never change who we are. We need to make sure we’re treating all team members as we would want to be treated. We need to be genuinely interested in learning something new every day from our team, and they will follow you. It’s all about relationship building. I blogged about this in Let’s Have Lunch Together!
There was also a deep discussion about how teams are most times brought together by a certain amount of randomness and disorganized connections. Great leadership connects the randomness. Leaders should be the key connectors of team members. Support them them to understand their value in the organization. Leaders need to respect all team members. Respect comes in different forms: respecting time, respecting opinions, respecting diversity, respecting the culture, and more. When we trust and respect our team members and connect with them, they will respond with dedication and enthusiasm. Because of this, our connected team members will see clarity, levels of engagement across the organization, a positive culture and community, and most of all, improvement in communication. Remember, trust builds through connections with people and forms the bedrock of a team. Teams are built on human cooperation. Without relationships, we’ve got no team.
Preaching From The Office
Last night we had a great 3D Leadership gatherings in Indianapolis. One of the cool things we did was have a good leader/bad leader discussion. With this we discussed good leadership traits and bad leadership traits. Then by writing good leader traits on the right wing of gliders and bad leader traits on the left wing and throwing them to each other, we developed a top 5 good leader traits and top 5 bad leader traits.
One of the top 5 bad leader traits was “Preaching From The Office”. Bottom-line: the pull to stay in the office can be great. It takes a love of the people and the work to throw oneself into the work, for leaders to leave their offices. The best leaders, according to the teacher leaders I was working with last night, get out of their offices. Here’s why:
- When we get out of our offices we give encouragement to those we serve.
- When we get out of our offices we discover the amazing people in our organizations. This enables us to get to know those we serve.
- When we get out of our offices we collaborate. This allows us to see the organization from all vantage points. Thus we would avoid making decisions in isolation.
- When we get out of our offices we see where the vision has leaked, excellence has slipped, and communication has faltered.
- When we get out of our offices we are able to tweak and make changes with knowledge, clarity, and credibility.
As you can see this bad leader trait has serious implications. The good news is, it is easily fixed. Get out of your office. You will gain insight and those you serve will love having you in the trenches.
Leading With Clarity
Clarity First: How Smart Leaders and Organizations Achieve Outstanding Performance by Karen Martin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Clarity is so important in today’s world where we need to be constantly changing, resisting the status quo, and having agility for meeting our stakeholders’ needs. This book teaches us that clarity requires a highly focused effort for a person to give clarity to others in the form of clear communication. This clarity must also be seen in the living of the vision, mission, and core values of the organization. Clarity is also explained In this book as something you receive from others when they communicate clearly with you. I have said many times that, as leaders, we can’t always give certainty, but we must always provide clarity. This great book shows us the way to providing this clarity.
What is Clarity?
The following is an excerpt from Clarity First by Karen Martin
What Is Clarity?
By Karen Martin
The simplest definition of clarity is the quality of being easily and accurately understood. Clarity in a business context goes deeper than that, however, since it exists in multiple forms: as an organizational value, a state of being, and an outcome.
When clarity exists as a value, individuals and the organizations they work for operate in a way that places a premium on clarity and rewards the people who seek it. In that environment leaders and team members pursue clarity in their daily activities and cultivate an expectation of clarity throughout the organization. An example of clarity as a value can be seen in Alan Mulally, the former CEO of Ford, who applauded members of his team when they called attention to drops in performance or other areas of the business that needed attention instead of staying silent.
Alternatively, organizations can operate in a way that dismisses clarity and penalizes those people who seek it. At Wells Fargo, for example, employees were fired when they tried to report wrongdoing when they saw their peers opening false accounts in order to meet new account targets. Opening unauthorized accounts was reportedly condoned by bank leadership, and employees who refused to comply or actively worked to call the practice to light were penalized.
Wells Fargo is an extreme example of how clarity might be discouraged or dismissed. More commonly, organizations are benignly ambiguous, operating with a lack of clarity because it seems to be easier and safer in the short term. Remember, ambiguity is the default stage—it is what happens automatically.
Clarity, in contrast, requires work for a person to achieve it as a state of being, and it requires focused effort for a person to give clarity to others in the form of clear communication. Clarity can also be something you receive from others when they communicate clearly with you. In this sense, clarity exists inside a person’s mind, as well as in the space between that person and another with whom he or she wants to share information.
What does clarity as a state of being look like? Clarity exhibits many qualities, the most important of which are coherence, precision, and elegance. Clarity as coherence comes through information that is both purposeful and logical. Precise information is succinct. Elegant information is crisp and easy for the intended recipient of the information to grasp.
Despite the multiple forms and multiple qualities that clarity possesses, there are also things clarity is not. Clarity is a close cousin to truth, for example, but they are not one and the same. A person or an organization can issue untruthful statements that are received as true because they have the coherence, precision, and elegance of clear communication. There is even a term for this— agnotology—coined by Stanford Professor Robert Proctor as the study of the willful act to spread ignorance or doubt.
Clarity is also a close cousin to transparency, but they are not identical either. One can be clear with the information he chooses to share while withholding some of the details. Likewise, one can believe she’s being transparent without being clear. Transparency is a noble goal in many situations, but it’s not a “one size fits all” virtue. There are good reasons why the Healthcare Insurance Portability Protection Act (HIPPA) precludes healthcare providers from sharing private patient information outside the patient’s direct care team, for example, but those reasons don’t apply to doctors writing clear orders or providing clear direction to their patient’s treatment team. Generally, though, transparency serves efforts to operate with greater clarity.
Finally, clarity is different from certainty. Certainty is not always possible, but achieving clarity nearly always is. For example, companies can’t always predict when a competing product will rob them of market share, when a natural disaster will cut off access to a key supplier, or when political priorities will shift so that what they thought was tomorrow’s concern becomes today’s crisis. But organizations can improve their predictive powers and the speed with which they respond by gathering information, interpreting it, and communicating findings clearly. In this way, both clarity and uncertainty can coexist in the same environment. Similarly, certainty is a dangerous mindset in the early stages of problem solving, but it’s essential to operate from a clear problem definition.
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Karen Martin, president of the global consulting firm TKMG, Inc., is a leading authority on business performance and Lean management. Her latest book, Clarity First, is her most provocative to date and diagnoses the ubiquitous business management and leadership problem―the lack of clarity―and outlines specific actions to dramatically improve organizational performance.
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