Archives 2020

On May 5^th, 2016, a wildfire tore through Fort McMurray with a ferocity so intense the fire was nicknamed the ‘Beast.’ Hundreds of firefighters, police and heavy equipment operators fought a running battle with a formidable foe to save the City. In the end, 80,000 people were evacuated, and 2,400 structures were incinerated.

A leadership responsibility that was once unimaginable was suddenly real.

Responsibility without authority is one of the worst situations any leader can face, and natural disasters are the epitome of responsibility without authority. In a case such as this, someone has full responsibility to lead, but the authority belongs to Mother Nature. In the Fort McMurray Wildfire Operations Centre, people who had the moral, ethical and responsibility to protect their community, but zero authority to impact what the ‘Beast’ would do.

What were my takeaways?

I had the privilege of working with and watching these people put herculean efforts into evacuating the residents, protecting their community; and, then planning how to get 80,000 people home.

What can you use to lead with confidence when authority is entirely outside of your control?

Here are five suggestions:

1. Own the problem. Like it or not, the problem is yours, so step up to the plate. Nobody asked for the fire, but they had to deal with it. That means you must publicly and privately embody the handling of the crisis and recovery.

In the days following the battle to save Fort McMurray, the Fire Chief made an emotional public statement to say that this had been the worst days of his professional life, but that the community would recover.

2. Intervene early and often. You must rely on your team, but if they fail to meet the mark, you and your organization are at risk. Insert yourself into the process, pepper managers with questions, exercise your good judgment, make changes to plans if needed, and make sure they know that you are on top of the situation.

Click to read about micromanagement.

During the response, the Operations Director challenged plans relentlessly for validity and that they were the best work that could be done. This is precisely the time when measured micromanagement is required.

3. Become the face and voice of leadership. Make sure to communicate relentlessly and honestly to your people throughout the event. The reassurance of seeing a leader, taking things firmly in hand, cannot be overemphasized.

During the fire, the Premier took a steady hand on the leadership. While she relied on her experts to provide technical briefings, she communicated clearly that the Province was in charge; the situation was perilous; people were to evacuate; and, everything was being done to tame the Beast and get people home.

4. Mind your messages. Think through your messaging carefully and ensure your leadership team reinforces and complements what. Urge prudent behaviour. Never blame once the crisis hits, even if someone failed to follow your advice. Be there to reassure, to solve, to support, but never to chastise or to leave folks to their own devices.

Throughout the fires, all levels of government and non-governmental organizations spoke with one voice and message. There were few, if any, missteps. This was vital to provide confidence and clear, unambiguous messages to the evacuees.

5. Show humanity. In the same vein, it is up to the leader to show not only strength and impact but also compassion and kindness. Tell stories, honour heroes to encourage people to help one another, and then reward them for it.

You would have thought I would have been smarter!

I was hired as the Chief Administrative Offer for a small town in Canada’s arctic.

During the hiring process, I specifically asked about labour relations and organizational health & culture. “Don’t worry,” I was assured, “we have a great team.”

Read about a new boss as an organizational change

I should have recognized the lie and I later found out I was hired to solve problems.

The organization was top-heavy with 7 Directors for a team of 25, and the residents had unmet needs. Stories about missed opportunities and hints of a toxic culture had drifted upward to the Mayor and Town Council.

All those factors had prompted the decision to replace the out-going CAO with someone from the outside, and I seemed to fit the bill. I had a record of accomplishments in leadership, turning around broken teams and implementing wholesale changes in business models.

But in taking on this new role, I faced a common challenge: I didn’t get to handpick the people who would be working with me.

Rather, I inherited the team that had created the situation I was hired to fix.

It was like fixing a plane in midflight.

You can’t just shut down the plane’s engines while you rebuild them—at least not without causing a crash. You need to maintain stability while moving ahead.

I needed a framework for taking over this team to:

• Assess the human capital and group dynamics they have inherited;
• To reshape the team according to the organization’s goals; and
• Accelerate performance.

Read about surviving the first 90-days as a new boss

What Qualities Are You Looking For?

Like most leaders, you may have a “gut” sense of what you look for in people.

But different situations and challenges call for different strengths.

This exercise will help you better understand and articulate your priorities when you take on a new team.

Assign percentages to the qualities below, according to how much emphasis you think each should receive, given your current circumstances and goals. Make sure the numbers in the right column add up to 100.

Those numbers will be rough, of course. For some team members (say, your head of finance), competence may be the top priority; for others (say, your head of marketing), energy or people skills may be equally or more critical. The importance of the role and the state of the business may also affect your estimates.

Your requirements will depend partly on the state of the business. In a turnaround, you will seek people who are already up to speed—you won’t have time to focus on skill-building until things are more stable.

If you are trying to sustain a team’s success, however, it probably makes sense to develop high potentials, and you will have more time to do so.

To conduct this assessment, hold a mix of one-on-one and team meetings, supplemented with input from key stakeholders such as customers, suppliers, and colleagues outside the team.

Also, look at team members’ individual track records and performance evaluations.

Depending on your style, these meetings might be informal discussions, formal reviews, or a combination, regardless you should approach them in a standard way.

Then What?

Prepare.

Review available personnel history, performance data, and appraisals. Familiarize yourself with each person’s skills. Observe how team members interact. Do relations appear cordial and productive? Tense and competitive?

Create an interview template.

Ask people the same questions and see how their insights vary. For example, What are the strengths and weaknesses of our existing strategy? What are our biggest challenges and opportunities in the short term? In the medium term? What resources could we leverage more effectively? How could we improve the way the team works together?

And my favourite question … If you were in my position, what would you do to make things better?

Read about using silence to talk

Look for verbal and nonverbal clues.

Notice what people say and don’t say. Do they volunteer information, or do you have to work for it? Do they take responsibility for problems, make excuses, or point fingers at others? Look for inconsistencies between people’s words and body language, this can signal dishonesty or distrust of management.

Pay attention to topics that elicit strong emotions, this provides clues to what motivates people and what kinds of changes would energize them.

Summarize and share what you learn.

After you’ve interviewed everyone, discuss your findings with the team. This will demonstrate that you are coming up to speed quickly. If your feedback highlights differences of opinion or raises uncomfortable issues, you’ll also have a chance to observe the team under a modest amount of stress. Watching how people respond may lead to valuable insight into team culture and power dynamics.

Reshaping the Team

The next task is to reshape the team within the constraints of the organization’s culture, the leader’s mandate, and the available talent.

You want people to be able to share information freely, identify and deal with conflict swiftly, solve problems creatively, support one another, and present a unified face once decisions are made.

Composition.

The most obvious way to reshape a team is to replace underperformers and anyone whose capabilities are not a good match for the situation.

But this can be difficult culturally and politically, and in many cases, it’s simply not possible.

Spend the first few months observing employees in critical roles who clearly cannot do the work, or for truly toxic personalities that are undermining the enterprise.

Alignment.

Ensure everyone has a clear sense of purpose and direction.

To get everyone aligned, the team must agree on answers to four basic questions:

1. What will we accomplish? You spell this out in your mission, goals, and key metrics.
2. Why should we do it? Here is where your vision statement and incentives come into play.
3. How will we do it? This includes defining the team’s strategy in relation to the organization’s, as well as sorting out the plans and activities needed for execution.
4. Who will do what? People’s roles and responsibilities must support all of the above.

Get your team discussion guide here

Accelerate Development

Energize team members with some early wins.

Start by setting challenging goals for the next three months. Specify the work involved and who was accountable for it, and develop messages to share your team’s successes.

Once the team had those successes in place, it kept building on them.

The result is a cycle of achievement and confidence.

I recently read a terrific article on www.fastcompany.com by Lydia Dishman. She writes we all probably talk too much. She notes humans, being social animals, use communication to survive and thrive. This would not be a problem except for the fact 60% of our conversation is spent talking about ourselves.

Sadly, few of us are interesting enough to keep others that engaged 60% of the time. How Do we:

• Keep people engaged?
• Get the information we need out of them?
• Get our message across?

… By using Silence.

Silence is an unlikely source of power. With Silence, we can hear what is being said but also what is not being said. With Silence, it can be easier to reach the truth.

Use one of these tips to use Silence to improve your conversation skills:

1. When someone has answered a question, pause.

Just as nature abhors a vacuum and rushes to fill it, most people cannot stand Silence, and they will quickly fill those silent parts of a conversation with talk. You will learn the most remarkable things if you just let people talk.

Everyday immigration officers prove this at the border. They ask a question, you answer, and then they go quiet and look at you. Most people prattle on about their trip, how much extra booze or smokes they have brought home, or they fidget and give off body language that says to the officer that they are hiding something.

2. Are you losing control of a conversation? Ask a question and shut up.

Studies have shown that a person can think twice as fast as they can talk. So when you need to buy yourself some time, ask an open-ended question and allow the person to answer.

Invest that time they are talking into thinking the issue through to move the conversation towards the outcome you want.

3. When someone asks you a question, pause silently.

 Nobody likes a know-it-all. When you answer too quickly, people think you have not truly considered their question. Even if you are 100% sure of the answer… Pause. Then answer.

You are showing respect for the other person by appearing to consider what was asked and thoughtfully responding.

Click here to read about walking the talk.

If you are spending all day filling the Silence with your voice, you are, in effect, answering your questions. If you are answering your questions all day, who else is working?

Use the power of Silence—no matter how long—until someone gives you the answer you need, and the people on the other half of the conversation will feel empowered and valued.

Then, they will begin to lead themselves.

If you are soon to take over a ‘new-to-you’ department or organization, I expect you are feeling pretty good about yourself.

I know I always did.

Whenever I was taking on a new team, I’d thought about what I wanted to be as a leader, what I wanted my legacy to be, and how we would be successful.

Our experiences define what kind of leader we will be and how we will operate.

I now look back on my leadership growth, and I think about what I got right and wrong.

In hindsight, I have two observations on the role of a front line and middle manager.

1. What got you here won’t get you further.

To get to lead a team, you have had to prove you were successful with those jobs that came before.

But simply applying what you learned in those jobs isn’t enough to make you successful at the next level.

Remember that what you’ve learned so far won’t automatically make you a great boss

2. Beware of doing the job of your subordinates.

At this point in your career, you’d make a great team leader.

You’d undoubtedly be the best front-line supervisor in your company.

But that’s not your job.

If you try and make it your job to be great at your subordinates’ jobs, you’ll fail.

They won’t grow, and you won’t be able to do your actual job.

Three Differences

Don’t throw your experience out of the window but understand that being a senior leader has differences from your previous roles.

Success is about understanding those differences and acting accordingly.

These are the three differences that I observed and have reflected on:

1. Define success

Your new role offers an unprecedented level of freedom to get to define success.

When your people complete a task with a glance of an eye, you can deliver instant and visceral feedback.

So how you define success is critical and powerful. 

Your criteria for success should include a combination of performing your mission, developing your people and building your team.

Even more importantly, it should have medium- and long-term elements.

Measuring success is about how your team performs during your tenure, and whether or not you leave it in a better place than when you found it.

How you will define success will have a significant effect on your organization.

Read about success

2. Set the culture deliberately

Once you know what your ‘success’ looks like, you can set about creating the culture that will deliver it.

This is a deliberate act.

When you are planning those ‘team cohesion’ events, make sure they are underpinning the stories and messages at the heart of the culture you are trying to build.

For me, it was about being an inclusive, learning and improving organization that unlocked people’s potential to better the whole organization and not just your part of it.

Decide what culture you want then set about reinforcing it as a series of deliberate actions.

3. It’s different now, so communicate differently

For everything I’ve said above, the most significant difference between an organizational leader and being a frontline leader is about how you communicate.

You should be able to remember the faces and names of all of your employees.

But you will have a tiny amount of direct influence over your people will be face to face.

Now you will have to project your leadership through you’re the people on your leadership team.

This means that when you interact with your leadership team, you must always think about the effect of that interaction on your front line people.

They won’t hear you.

They will hear someone’s interpretation of what you said and feel the effect of your message, not the words.

Similarly, the face to face interactions you have with those outside the team will be less regular but more significant.

You will touch people’s lives less often, but the fingerprints you leave will be much deeper.

The most junior employees will remember what you did and how you made them feel infinitely more than anything you said.

Read about nail polish & coloured pencils

Enjoy the ride

As a leader, you have no choice but to lead through others.

It’s also where you gain autonomy.

These are what define its difference.

Understanding culture and communication is important to every leader.

Defining where the team is going and then creating the environment in which your people can get there is a significant part of your job.

It is all underpinned by consistent, constant communication that is designed for second-order effects.

There is, of course, much more than this.

Nor did I got everything right.

I missed opportunities.

I  controlled when I should have loosened the reigns.

When things went right, it was because I had given my people the freedom to use their initiative and rectify my mistakes.

When I got angry I always regretted it.

My biggest regrets are from when I didn’t look after my people as well as I should have done.

That said, it was a wonderful experience, and I would recommend you enjoy the ride.

You’ve likely heard all about the importance of vulnerability in being a leader.  

Vulnerability is the ability to acknowledge a mistake, to admit a weakness, to ask for help when you need it, even to put a crazy idea out there. Most importantly, you need to know that you can be vulnerable without fear of judgment.  

Vulnerability is a crucial ingredient in allowing teams to perform at an epic level. 

Most leaders say that they want a high level of openness and honesty on their teams, yet the up-undermining vulnerability.  

Leaders frequently allow these three actions to kill vulnerability. 

#1: Confusing “being supportive”… with “being efficient.”

When someone comes to you with a project they’re struggling with, what do you do?  

The natural tendency is to be efficient in solving the problem and say, “Thank you so much for being so vulnerable!  Now let me take that away from you and give it to someone else more capable.”  

Reassigning ownership discourages vulnerability. You’ve taken away something that your team members enjoyed and wanted to be successful.  Now they won’t have that chance.

Instead of efficiency, be supportive.  Ask how you can help, and don’t assume that changing owners is the answer. 

I worked with a CEO recently who had someone on the team who was having some real challenges.

I coached the CEO that instead of jumping in with a solution, to respond with, “You still own this.  What can we all do to help?” This led the executive team to a fantastic conversation that allowed them to all pitch in with their input and expertise, while still encouraging her to keep going.

Read more about asking good questions

#2: Fostering a spirit of internal competition.

I get it. You have a competitive spirit.

Your competitiveness likely contributed to your successes.

You want to crush your competitors, and you want people on your team to have that same attitude.

But competitiveness pushed too far becomes the enemy of great collaboration by encouraging the focus on individual goals, individual owners, and personal achievement.

Read more about competing priorities

3:  Setting clear expectations … and not telling anyone

Lack of clarity around what the leader expects is one of the biggest detractors to vulnerability on a team. 

Lack of clarity invites fear into the party, and fear brings along defensiveness.  

Be transparent, explicit, and clear.  

On a truly great team, everyone knows exactly where they stand at any particular point in time.  

The very best leaders that I’ve worked with have been able to improve trust and vulnerability with their teams by consistently holding them accountable to their expectations.  

Sometimes that requires giving them what we call the “kind truth.”

It’s easy to be nice, but sometimes being kind means being honest. 

Read more about communicating with clarity

Final Thoughts

Even great leaders will occasionally slip up and negatively impact vulnerability on their teams.  

It happens.  

We’re human.  

But, interestingly enough, so are the rest of your teammates.  

Encourage vulnerability, and you’ll be sure to get the most of every one of them.