Tuesday, May 27, 2008

"Can We Talk?"

The central nervous system of any organization--whether it be a church, a small business, a non-profit grassroots community group or a multinational corporation--is communication. The thing about communication--which I define as the sharing of information from one or more persons to one or more other persons always occurs. Even if an organization has no formal means of communicating, it will happen--spontaneously. It is well-known that in the Hanoi Hilton in North Vietnam during the war in Southeast Asia that the prisoners of war there were not allowed to talk to one another. However, it is also well-known that those prisoners invented ways to "talk" to one another, one of which was by tapping on walls. Ex-POW Wayne Ogden Smith said, "It was a 24-hour-a-day exercise. We tapped a huge amount of knowledge through those walls. The key was, we wanted to make sure that we ... leaned on each other and kept our spirits up. We wanted to make sure that we were positive. Your well-being was the first order of business."

Communication is absolutely essential to humanity. In the movie Cast Away, the main character Chuck Noland, played by Tom Hanks, was stranded alone on a desert island (an updated Robinson Crusoe) in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. His only companion was a volleyball that washed up on shore which he named Wilson after the manufacturer. Chuck spoke often to "Wilson" and even yelled at "him." So strong is the need for communication, the movie seems to be saying, that a person will talk to even an inanimate object.

When a leader fails to communicate appropriate content clearly, consistently, and concisely then his followers will communicate with one another in the absence of knowledge--which we often call rumor. The rumor mill gets going because official communication channels are obstructed.

Communication is the real work of leadership
. Often leaders underestimate the power and necessity of communication. I learned this lesson in my first job out of college. I was working for Visa International (yes, the credit card company) in Baltimore, Maryland as a quality analyst in their Emergency Card Services Center. We were told by senior management that a new performance appraisal system was going to be instituted. That was mediocre communication. But it got worse. Not much communication occurred after that so in the absence of official communication the rumor mill started humming. There was talk that pay was going to be slashed by up to 25% and there was talk that everyone was going to get up to a 25% pay raise. Other rumors started that claimed pay was going to be tied performance--which was partially true--so an employee's pay could go up (or down) by several percentage points each year--which was untrue. The performance appraisal system that was eventually rolled-out was not much different than what was already in place. Some employees got small pay raises and some (including me) had a small drop in pay due to the fact that our skill set did not match the job duties. Needless to say I did not stay with Visa for very long after this.

The Visa management problem was that they did not keep the employees informed during the development of the performance appraisal system. Even at that early stage of my leadership development I knew intuitively that one vitally important aspect of leadership is communication. Leaders must be transparent in communication to the greatest extent practicable.

Currently I am experiencing this same problem in two very different settings. One is in my church denomination and the other is in my place of employment. While I will try to convey the essence of the issues, I will leave out specific names of people, places, and organizations.

First, my church denomination. The leadership of my denomination decided to sell a piece of real estate that has been in the hands of the denomination for over 160 years--since the denomination's initial organization in the 1840's. The property and its buildings have become increasingly expensive to maintain and donated funds for the upkeep have been dwindling for years. Many other issues have also contributed to the demise of the property including inept business management. As a result the denomination has had to utilize funds from other sources to keep up the property and its buildings. This application of funds while not unethical (the funds come from a general account) constitutes the metaphor "robbing Peter to pay Paul."

As you can expect, there have been many accusations, counter-accusations, calls for resignations, authoritative decrees, erosion of trust, etc. The environment has been heated to say the least. However, if, as John Maxwell (who interestingly enough is a former church leader) says, "everything rises and falls on leadership" then the responsibility for this current crisis is laid squarely at the feet of the denominational leadership. Regardless of how the situation developed or the subsequent actions of the people, the leadership takes the blame (or credit) for the status of things.

One major failure point of the denominational leadership is their mismanagement of communication. The real estate problem itself was never clearly, consistently, nor concisely communicated to the people. Then when the only alternative was to sell the property the leadership did not engage the people, build consensus, nor listen to the concerns of those who opposed to selling the property. All of this is part of communication.

The second example is my place of employment. I have previously blogged about the project of which I am currently a part. Whereas my church denominational leadership has mismanaged communication with the people, the project leadership at my place of employment has intentionally kept communication to a minimum. In one instance the project manager was not invited to a meeting between the project sponsor and the project technical leader. There have been many other instances where project team members have been left "out of the loop" by project leadership. Well, as a result there is little trust between the different project teams, the environment is politically charged and the rumor mill is functioning at full capacity.

As I stated at the beginning of this post, communication is the central nervous system of every organization. In the human body the central nervous system carries messages from the brain to all the various parts of the body just as the various parts of the body send messages to the brain. Each talks to and listens to the other. The parts of the body listen to the messages the brain sends, such as "raise right arm." At the same time, the parts of the body send messages back to the brain that the brain listens to, such as the hand telling the brain, "the stove burner is hot" or the foot telling the brain, "the floor is wet." In order for the body to function normally, the brain must communicate clearly, consistently and concisely with the parts of the body and the body must do the same with the brain. Why do we think organizations would be any different?

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Of Wizards, Hobbits, Crystal Balls, and Pulled Hamstrings

There is a small statement made by Gandalf, the wise, old wizard in the The Lord of the Rings trilogy (LOTR) that caught me upon re-reading the trilogy a few years ago. I did not catch the statement the first time I read LOTR when I was a 13 year-old back in 1984--probably because 13 year-olds are immune to or not skilled enough to understand the many subtle, but important things going on around them.

In the second of the three books, The Two Towers, Gandalf states, "the burned hand teaches best." He made this statement in reference to something the young hobbit Pippin had done. Pippin, the ever inquisitive and mischievous hobbit, had picked up a Palantir (something like a crystal ball that allows users to communicate at a far distance with others who also are using one) and immediately came in contact with the Satan-like being Sauron. The powerful Sauron held Pippin in his gaze and attempted to extract information from Pippin about the intentions of his enemies. Gandalf came to the rescue of the young hobbit since he was unable to break away from the Dark Lord. Pippin's hands, due to grasping the Palantir and being held by Sauron were burned.

Gandalf's point to his statement, "the burned hand teaches best" indicates that experience is a powerful, if sometimes painful, teacher. Unfortunately humans do not often learn from the mistakes of others, often we learn the best from our own mistakes.

On Monday, May 5 I learned a couple valuable lessons through a "burned hand" experience. I did not burn my hand, I pulled a hamstring playing on my company's softball team. The hamstring pull was excruciatingly painful, one of the worst pains I have experienced in my entire life. I visited my family doctor early the next morning and was told the pulled hamstring was not too bad (yeah, she was not the one hurt) and would be healed in a few days. She said I should take 4 ibuprofen every eight hours for a few days as well as use alternating ice and heat.

So, what did I learn from this experience? I learned at least three things: 1) proper preparation reduces the risk of adverse outcomes occurring; 2) it is important to know when to swing and when not to, even if it is a strike; and 3) there are occasions when not expending 100% of effort is best.

First, proper preparation reduces the risk of adverse outcomes occurring. I simply did not properly warm-up ahead of time. I stretched some before the game, but I did not warm-up my legs by jogging around the field and moderately sprinting to ensure that my legs were not cold when I had to run. What was the result? Leg muscles that were not stretched-out and warmed-up when I needed to sprint to first base.

What does this mean for leadership? It means that leaders must be prepared when called into action. I learned this truth many years ago when I was in the Boy Scouts; their motto is "be prepared." While I knew this truth, I did not apply it to the softball game. Had I done that, I probably would not have suffered a pulled hamstring. Leaders must be prepared. No matter how much skill, confidence, or knowledge a leader has, it means nothing if he is not prepared when it comes time to lead.

Second, it is important to know when to swing and when not to, even if it is a strike. The first pitch to me was a ball. I swung on the second pitch even though it was high and probably also a ball. As a result I hit a dribbler down the third base line but in fair territory. I knew I hit it bad and thus had to try and run it out. Had I not swung on that ball the worst thing that would have occurred was my first strike. Interestingly, I played in a softball game yesterday, Monday, May 19 (my first game back) and noticed that one of the best hitters on the other team never swung at the first pitch. He laid the bat on his shoulder and just watched the pitcher and the pitch. I guessed he was sizing up the pitcher and seeing what he could throw. He didn't care that 3 out of the 4 times he was at bat he started off his at-bat with a strike. He waited patiently for his pitch and when it came he crushed the ball.

Discernment and judgment are two skills great leaders have. Great leaders just have a sense (call it intuition) about making the right decision. A great leader will pass up a good opportunity because he seems to know a better one is coming--even if it means he may not look good at first. He knows his pitch is coming and when it does he crushes it.

Third, I learned there are occasions when not expending 100% of effort is best. As a result of my first two mistakes--improper preparation and lack of discernment--I tried to run-out a bad hit, I gave it my all. This led to certain disaster. I only got about half-way to first when I felt my leg give-out. I took a couple more steps and then fell head-long into first base--out by a country mile. I gave 100% effort when I should have cut my losses. There are occasions when giving-up in the short-term leads to long-term success. What was my reward for giving it my all when clearly the risk of injury far outweighed the potential for success? Excruciating pain, inability to exercise for two weeks, and sitting on the sidelines for one game. Obviously the risk outweighed the benefit.

Part of the mission of this blog is to share my experiences in the hopes that others will learn something from them as I have. Experience is a good teacher, but it is better to learn from the experiences of others than having to "burn your hand" in order to learn.

Saturday, May 3, 2008

"Hey Lady, Your Baby Is Ugly!"

Ok, we have all been there. Your good friends Bob and Sue have their first baby. You and your spouse, being good friends, go to the hospital to visit the proud new parents and their bundle of joy. You walk into the room and see mom has just finished feeding the baby and is now burping him. While she pats his little back you engage in small talk.

Then the time comes; the burping is done and mom asks if you like to "see" the little bundle of joy. "Sure," you say. She hands over the baby and you stare....in disbelief. You are now looking at the ugliest baby you have ever seen.

You are faced with two choices: one, you can lie and tell the proud new parents how beautiful their baby is, or two you can tell the truth and let them know their baby doesn't hold a candle to a gorilla's off-spring.

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, you will do the right thing and lie! You will gulp, and say something like, "oh, how beautiful!" Or, if you are really inventive you might say something like, "oh, what a precious, special baby!"

The one thing you never, never, never do is call someone's baby ugly.

Well, I and my fellow developers did just that to another group of developers one a day a few weeks back after they demonstrated their application to us. They acted like proud parents and we compared their little Jr. to the off-spring of Frankenstein. We let them know their application looked like a Windows version of an IDMS mainframe application; we called it old-school and claimed it was not user-friendly. The truth of it is--we were right. It is an awful application; it is not user-friendly and many potential users of the application have let us know that.

However, just as you never, never, never call someone's baby ugly, you don't do the same thing to someone else's application. We offended people we need to work with and since then the relationship has been strained to say the least. Both development teams are part of a larger project team that is building a multi-site, integrated system which will handle finance, project management, procurement, and inventory. The development team we offended is the lead technical team and the whole system is based on their application.

We do not like their application and we think using it as the base of the much larger system is a bad idea. However, since we have no long-term relationship with this other development group we have no influence or credibility with them. As a result, our feedback about their application was not well received and it "ruffled their feathers" so to speak.

You can't criticize other people with whom you have no trust relationship and expect them to take it well. Teams are held together only by the glue of trust. The problem is trust is not an easy thing to repair once broken. We violated that trust before we even gave it an opportunity to build and we may never fully be able to repair it since we broke it so early on.