I Want to Be a Power Strip

If you want to make yourself popular in airports, be the traveler with a multi-outlet power strip in your briefcase.  Its arrival brings sighs of relief from fellow travelers, making you an instant hero as you multiply the outlets available for others to use.

We would be wise to think similarly in our leadership efforts.  Whether you oversee a small project or an entire organization, more of your attention needs to focus on enabling others to act, one of the five leadership practices from The Leadership Challenge.

When we are in positions of leadership, our attention must focus on building the organizational culture and supportive policies and systems that make it easier for others to act in pursuit of our mission, vision, and goals.   We break through barriers, help dismantle obstacles, and introduce accelerators to progress.  This is our work ... helping others do theirs.  It is clock-building, not time telling as described by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in Built to Last.

No doubt right now some of your colleagues have ideas in need of a little power boost to get in motion.  You could be (or bring) the outlet they need to jumpstart their efforts.

The Delicate Dance of Permission

It took only a minute of watching to know that this was one smart 3-year-old. 

In the middle of a busy airport, where her parents clearly wanted to keep her at their side, she had learned just how far she could run ahead of them without eliciting a chase.

We all should be so wise.

Personally or professionally, we all encounter situations where others prefer we conform to a standard more restrictive than we might set for ourselves.  This is particularly true when it comes to trying new ideas and innovating.

The next time you find yourself loooking to others to approve an idea or path you want to pursue, ask yourself this simple (yet strategic) question:

What's the most significant action I can take to advance my idea that doesn't require any approval from others?

Then take it, and you'll soon be off and running.  And while you're in motion, you may as well move with the unadulterated pleasure of a 3-year-old delighted by freedom.

     

WWIF #16: Sharing Works in Progress

You're standing over the stove, adding some more garlic and basil to your marinara sauce.  You dip in a spoon and pass it over for a taste to your spouse, partner, puppy, roommate, best friend, or stranger off the street upon whom you try out new recipes.

And you ask the most critical of all survey questions: So?

And based on their feedback you tweak the sauce until it is ready to serve.

It used to be difficult to share prototypes of products or drafts of documents with others, but that's no longer the case.  Yet too often we still work like the Wizard of Oz, toiling away behind the curtain and only revealing the final product to our loyal subjects.

That should change.

We ask people to test drive a new web site design, so why don't we ask them to test drive the proposed schedule for the upcoming leadership conference?  As part of a volunteer task I accepted, each month ASAE's Associations Now magazine staff sends me a 5-minute survey assessing the appeal of various article titles and descriptions.  It's a fun creative break for me, it hopefully provides useful input to the editorial and design teams, and it makes me rethink some of the language I use in my own writing efforts.

Technology makes it easy to share works in progress and to rapidly get feedback from a broad range of people who ultimately with vote with their feet and their wallets on the value of our creation.  Web sites abound that no nothing more than offer consumer reviews about products.

The old adage is that people support what they help create. Being asked to provide input is a small invitation to be a part of the creative process.  As author Patrick Lencioni has said, "Weighing in is often the prerequisite for buying in."

So let's draw on others' unique perspectives, invite their perceptions and feedback, and refine our efforts accordingly.  We're asking for their voice, not their vote, so the ultimate choices you make about a program or service aren't necessarily tied to the feedback you receive.  What input you get, however, is likely to positively inform the final choices you make and how you introduce any changes or new initiatives to your stakeholders.

__________

Note:  Wednesday What If is a weekly feature applying the "what if" mindset associated with abductive reasoning or logic in an effort to stretch our thinking about what is desirable and very frequently, quite doable.

Making Contributions vs. Winning Competitions

I received a Member Get a Member pitch in the mail yesterday, exhorting me to get people to join one of my professional associations.  Doing so I was told would register me to win prizes and have my named added to the Wall of Recruiters.  Not a single line of text used any appeal other than the competitive aspect of participating in the campaign and the possibility of extrinsic rewards.

It didn't speak to me at all.

That's not to say that the chance of winning prizes or being honored as one of the top recruiters wouldn't attract others.  But too often we appeal only to the competitive motivator and forget an equally powerful enticement for many others: making a contribution.

I'm not exciting about chalking up new members for fame and prizes, but I do believe in sharing with others the value I've received from belonging to this particular association and in growing the community of professionals it serves.  By not attempting to tap into that intrinsic motivation, this association lost out in two ways: (1) it did not get me to engage in any new member recruitment, and (2) it failed to remind me of why I am still a member myself.

Instead its marketing efforts left me feeling as if I was being solicited to turn into a late-night pitchman on QVC, hawking that extra special value deal, but only if you respond in the next two hours.  I doubt ... at least I hope ... that's not what was intended.

WWIF #15: An Idea for Entry

Many organizations conduct food or clothing drives in conjunction with some of their events.  Example:  a local theatre asks people to bring a canned good to certain performances of a play.

While often conducted with no participation incentive offered, in some cases people are given a discount or other reward for their charitable effort.

Let's keep doing these drives to benefit others, but let's also appropriate the concept for our own internal efforts.  Let's make offering an idea part of the price of admission to an event:  perhaps the annual conference or maybe the monthly staff meeting.  The idea solicitation could be open-ended or input could be sought for specific strategic organizational goals or thorny issues needing solutions.

And if you want to reward people for participating, it wouldn't take much.  Offer $5 off annual dues invoices if payment includes an idea for improving the association.  Annual meeting registrants who submit an idea on their registration form are entered into a drawing for free hotel nights.

Incented or not, let's make the ongoing collection of ideas from everyone part of the way we do things around here.  Then let's publish them for everyone to see and invite people to vote for their 5-10 favorites.  Then let's invite people to volunteer to help make the favorites a reality, contributing their time or money.  Or let's recruit sponsors who commit to fund an idea and bring it to fruition.

The ideas are already being shared ... just not with leadership.  Members and customers talk among themselves all the time about their ideas for programs and organizations:  "If only they would ... "  "I can't believe they never ... "

What if we break down the false we-they wall once and for all and make everyone a part of idea generation, prototype iteration, and final product implementation?  Good things are bound to result.

More Why Behind the What

Always low prices.

For many years that was the Wal-Mart value proposition and commitment to its customers.  And it's not a bad one.  But if I was a Wal-Mart employee, I'm not sure it would make me get up every day and go to work with a smile on my face and a spring in my step.

Save Money.  Live Better.

This is their new tagline.  The prices are still low, but now we see the purpose behind the promise.  Shop here because we save you money so you can live better.

Living better was always implied, but now it has been made explicit.  As an employee I'd take a bit more pride in my company and my work if I know we cut costs and save money so people can live better.

More meaning behind the mantra as innovation evangelist Guy Kawasaki would say.  A powerful purpose that drives internal motivation as Dan Pink asserts in his new book, Drive.  So elegantly simple, yet so often absent in organizations.

What do you do for a living?  I help people live better.

Do you (and your colleagues) have similar clarity about the impact of their work?

WWIF #14: Early Adopter vs. Early Adapter

We all know that the early bird supposedly gets the worm, but many organizations don't want to be the first to assume the risk or investment that might be associated with a breakthrough innovation.

It's a perfectly acceptable strategy for many groups … watch and learn… gain insights from others' efforts to increase the likelihood of successfully adopting them.  The problem is it is too easy to become complacent and watching and learning can rapidly digress to just watching, if even that.  Eventually you've waited too long to get in the game and others have claimed attention, interest, and investment that rightfully should have been yours.

What if instead of thinking only of adopting others' innovative approaches we focused on more rapidly adapting them to suit our own purposes?

Too often we engage in wholesale acceptance or rejection of an idea another organization has implemented, be they from our own industry or another.  "That will work perfect for us."  "That would never fly around here."

Most innovations succeed because of the context and target audience for which they have been designed.  Instead of  adoption, we should more frequently embrace adaption.  In doing so we constantly scan credible sources for innovative possibilities; examine all the elements of their innovations; identify the core concepts behind the specifics of the product, service, or system; and then consider how these concepts might be modified to work in our own environment.

So let's not completely quit looking for ideas we can outright adopt, but let's more frequently shift the question from "Will this work for us?" to "How could we adapt this idea so it would be successful for our members or customers?"


Note:  Wednesday What If is a weekly feature applying the "what if" mindset associated with abductive reasoning or logic in an effort to stretch our thinking about what is desirable and very frequently, quite doable.

WWIF #13: What If It Went Away?

I can count on it.

Maybe it's your favorite restaurant where you're a regular.
Maybe it's the e-newsletter that always has a great tip to implement.
Maybe it's that decent CD rate from the credit union.
Maybe it's the barista at the coffeehouse around the corner.
Maybe it's the sitcom that makes you laugh weekly.

Whatever it may be, we all have elements in our lives that we assume have almost permanent status.  At some point after something being present for so long, you quit thinking about the possibility that it might disappear.

I've been doing Wednesday What If Posts now as a weekly feature for three months, 12 consecutive weeks.  And this week's post is about not having a weekly what if post, a "non-post" of sorts.

At some point in our lives—personal, professional—or in our organizational offerings, things have to be eliminated, replaced, cut, edited.  My ego is sufficiently in check to know that if my weekly what if posts were discontinued your life would go on just fine.

But what are the things you would miss most if suddenly discontinued or eliminated and are you engaging with them accordingly?  It's great to talk about how much you love that little cafe down the street, but if you don't patronize it enough, you'll no longer have it to talk about or enjoy.  And you may have lots of wonderful people in your personal or professional network, but if all your interactions with them are past-tense, there may not be much a future in the relationships.

And organizationally, which of your products and services could disappear without hardly anyone noticing or reacting?  Which would require unrest similar to TV shows fans who rally when their favorite program is on the bubble for cancellation?  And if you can't answer that question, why not ask and see what you learn:  What's one thing we do that, if eliminated, would cause you to experience a tremendous sense of loss? 

What we would most miss are the relationships, events, or activities in our live that hold great meaning for us.  You need to understand the meaning that your members and stakeholders associate with and derive from your organization's efforts.  Otherwise you may have to confront the worst possible what if question: What if nothing you do matters to enough people for your organization to be sustained?

Insufficient Recognition

Companies and associations tend to recognize individual achievement at the beginning and the end of the career path.  But what about the middle?  What about the individuals demonstrating excellence who are too experienced to be considered new professionals, but not yet ready for lifetime and career achievement awards?

It's an inexcusable gap.  Two examples I recently encountered offer possibilities for filling it:

The outstanding television, stage, and film actress Viola Davis was just honored by The New York Drama Critics' Circle for sustained achievement.  What a wonderful thing to recognize: sustained achievement.  Think of people in your own organization who have demonstrated excellence in many efforts and made important contributions to the success of your organization and/or profession over long periods of time.  How are you acknowledging such achievements?

The other possible model for thinking different about recognition is the list.  The current issue of TIME features their annual list of the world's most influential people in four categories: leaders, artists, heroes, and thinkers.  Lists allow us to meaningfully recognize diverse achievements of many people at one time.  Many of the names on TIME's list were familiar to me, but dozens of them less so.  In reading about those less known to me I learned of some of the amazing work being done by people not often in the general spotlight.

In Dan Pink's most recent book Drive, he asserts that people are intrinsically motivated by working toward a compelling purpose, developing mastery in the skills of their chosen profession/position, and having sufficient autonomy to do their work.

I have no doubt that like the TIME 100 or Viola Davis, every profession or organization has individuals deserving of recognition because of the purpose they pursue, their achievements in doing so, and the example their mastery inspires and offers to others.  Though they may indeed be internally driven, it's time we offered them some external recognition that they do indeed make a difference.