mantra

Lead, Follow or Get out of the way

October 20, 2011 by Rosa Say

You have heard this phrase before, I’m sure. You may even have said it yourself, or at least thought it… I admit that I’ve said it, and thought it several times when a younger, more inexperienced manager (politics tends to push me into that thinking still… sigh).

I do try to catch myself now, and bite my lip if necessary! At work I go for even better: I will rephrase LFOGOOTW to give people a more welcoming “we” choice, to deliberately eliminate the GOOTW sarcasm. When I sense my team has reached a degree of clarity with an issue, I ask, “would you like to lead this one, or work within your followership?” genuinely feeling that both choices have merit, just different energies, and that each person can make each choice relative to the variables at hand.

Replace innuendo with Culture-building

I’m not the only one who feels that way; it’s in our culture. Our team has talked about followership enough to know that Following is NOT a Passive Activity. Following can often go the What/How way of the managing verb (as compared to the Why/When leading verb), a great thing.

As for “…or get out of the way,” that’s not one of our options. We can’t afford bench-warming (and nobody likes it).

The trick to timing the question of lead or follow, is one of sensing people are ready for action, and feeling we’ve talked about it quite enough — at least in that stage of the project. The “lead or follow?” question turns people loose when both choices have been established as good choices in a workplace culture. Neither has that cynical dig in it (“if not, get out of the way.”) which is very un-inclusive (i.e. un-Kākou).

join the QuEuE by Maldita la hora on Flickr

However is that enough?

In Managing with Aloha cultures, we do go for the “and” instead of the “either/or.” LFOGOOTW is a good case in point with advocating the “and” embrace, for as Dan points out in the comments, “lead, follow, or get out of the way oversimplifies things a bit.”

I remember a wonderful comment from Stephanie when we had talked about the LFOGOOTW phrase within the value-mapping we’d been doing at MWA Coaching, with the value set of Alaka‘i, Kākou, and Lōkahi:

The more I read, the more apparent it becomes that for as long as I can remember, I have been looking for others to provide me with clear answers rather than developing them on my own. In fact, I am truly grateful to the gentleman who inspired [this conversation string on “Lead, Follow, or Get out of the way.”] since I often get stuck thinking about mantras as law.

So what does this have to do with leadership? For me, the lead or follow mentality seems limiting. Much like in partnerships, where only two people are involved, it’s about taking turns. In other words, it’s about being a team-player, just like you expressed [with the value of Lōkahi]. The best leaders understand this and know when to stand down.

In an environment where all members are respectful the leader rises to the occasion with ease. Nurturing an environment that enables every member to shine is not always easy, but that is certainly my goal.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with looking to others for help with answers; in fact, learning from their lessons is quite wise. And taking turns can help — don’t think it simplistic and dismiss it. We seldom work alone or in a vacuum, and collaborative and synergistic work is what great teams engage in and thrill to.

And I love what Steph had observed, that “In an environment where all members are respectful the leader rises to the occasion with ease.” The goal she had to nurture such an environment was outstanding — truly Kākou behavior with that Ho‘ohanohano demeanor of respect.

I think about it again today (thus this post) as I wonder what direction the nascent #Occupy movement will start to take.

“Rise to the occasion” with Lōkahi

How do we allow leaders to rise to the occasion with ease as Steph says, while we continue to shape our own more progressive and proactive behavior?

Let’s revisit the Lōkahi connection: Lōkahi is the value of collaboration, harmony and unity. The pairing of Kākou and Lōkahi are the MWA values of teamwork. They are the value-drivers of the followers that leaders dream of inspiring, and having on their team.

From Managing with Aloha, under a section heading called “the role of the individual” (hardcover page 107);

“Most of the Hawaiian values really speak to personal endeavors, and the concept that all starts from within you. We are responsible for our own attitudes, our own choices, our own happiness and our own success. While Lōkahi speaks to the behavior of people within a group, its core assumption is that the group’s effectiveness comes from the choices made by the individuals within it.”

“Lōkahi asks these questions: Are you a bystander or are you truly engaged? Does your reach include the entire team, and are you being cooperative? Do you seek to understand everyone’s opinion while sharing your own? Are you looking for mutually beneficial agreement or are you settling for negotiation or compromise? Do you understand the role of every person, and are you respectful of their participation and involvement? Are you fulfilling your own role and responsibility, so that you make the contribution that is expected of you? Are you supportive and positive?”

In other words, are you a team player? Will you be the best you can be on the team that your leader of choice champions? When called upon to do so, will you be able to take your turn leading too, building upon the involvement you have had all along?

Lasting movements (progress) requires clear, directional Change

In that conversation string I pulled Steph’s comment from, we’d reconvened to talk story about self-leadership in our value-mapping process. We spoke of how our leadership vocabulary could be sharpened, and thus strengthened as “Language of Intention” (MWA Key 5).

Then we asked each other, “What is self-leadership?” and tried to focus in on it in regard to effecting change. I recall it now (and looked up our conversation archive), because of all the dissatisfaction in current affairs — something’s got to give, and people say they want change: What will it be, and how will it happen?

Nothing changes until something shifts or moves. Self-leadership is what gets us to move.

Determination - Barrel Racing - Parada del Sol Rodeo by Alan English on Flickr

For the most part, I like change because it is vibrant and alive; it defies stagnation. I say ‘for the most part’ because there are times for calm and for stillness, but those are times for the reflection which leads to rejuvenation, and for fortifying our energies for the next leaps of movement.

That’s because nothing changes until someONE shifts or moves.

That someone is the self-led, the person who chooses self-leadership first, so they need never depend on the leadership of another to free them from any stagnation or inertia; they do so for themselves. That someone may emerge to be the leader, or one of them, but for the time being they have their own work to do.

The person who chooses self-leadership as their first experience, can then empathize with the needs of others they will eventually ask to join in, or to follow their lead. Often they need not ask; it just happens because leadership is so attractive and compelling. It’s magnetic and contageous.

The self-leadership of the value of Alaka‘i is about strong, self-impelling initiative.

It is the ability to self-energize so you always have reserves to call upon when you need them.

It is the ability to self-motivate, for motivation is an inside-job: If we’re completely honest, we will admit that no one can motivate us; we must do so for ourselves.

Self-leadership is a quest for learning more about what is possible. Therefore, there is an impatience and sense of urgency about self-leadership, for those who quest know that something bigger and better exists to be discovered or created.

The self-led have the burning desire to be the one who will do that discovering or creating.

Is that the person you are, or the person you hope to be?

I do believe that at some point in everyone’s life, they can answer, “Yes.” As Steph helped us see, it becomes our turn.

Alaka‘i may not be the most consistently called-upon value that we choose when it comes to our personal values, but I do believe it may be one that we universally share much more than others. We each have it: It’s more a question of when we choose to invoke this value, and about which of our passions, and about whether that passion is one we champion or choose another leader for.

talkingstory_header_09

Postscript: You will notice that the 1st few comments below are from August of 2009: This is a refreshing and reframing of this post when originally published then. I am doing what I encourage you to do in workplace culture-building: Repeat what you stand for to keep your language of intention alive and well. Refresh it and reframe it when necessary, and you keep it Kākou too – not everyone will have heard it the first time (or will have retained it). If it is important, put it back on stage: Alaka‘i ABCs: What do you stand for?

So I invite you to weigh in again: Let’s talk story.

If you are newly joining us, Alaka‘i was subject of the posting before this one too: Alaka‘i Leadership, Chiefs and Indians. Sections include:

Leadership delivers an affirmation of our values
What do we do, when leadership fails us?
Alaka‘i Leadership is a concept of abundance

What are you leading?

May 11, 2010 by Rosa Say

We’ve taken one look at managing (What are you managing?) so how about giving this question a turn” What are you leading?

Best case scenario, the two questions do go together

Leading will define the overarching why you bother to even ask the 5 Whys which drill down for root cause in the first place: You lead to be an evangelist, and to champion a cause you feel deeply committed to. You don’t want that cause to be sabotaged by poor work, mediocre work, the work of irrelevancy, or some other disastrous draining of the energies you value — the energies which keep your team on course.

So it might be helpful to ask the question another way:

What’s the charge you’re leading, and why do you bother?

Then talk about your answer in your next team huddle. Present it as the why of your workplace.

Your “overarching why” is why hard work should matter — why all work should matter. Everyone in a workplace can use reminders of the bigger mission you stand for, a mission that gets repeated with passionate intention.

For instance, it might sound like this: Imagine a workplace huddle where a manager talks about why a certain process is taken nice and slow, so it’s not rushed, and gets maximum care and attention to detail, one customer at a time.

“We take these extra efforts because we know our customers don’t get this care from anyone else but us: They remember the extras. They talk about them, and when they do, they remember our names and they remember us, because what they’re really talking about is us, and who we are, and what we’re all about. They tell stories about what happened when we served them, and those stories are where our reputation comes from, a reputation we can feel good about because we earned it. They come back, and they’ve become friends and raving fans who are still customers, voting in support of us with their dollars and not just their compliments and stories. They become the customers we like having around, and enjoy serving, and all because we took our time and care about this one process.”

Wouldn’t it be great if everyone considered that, or a similar statement of your passionate “why you bother” to be their Why they work in your workplace? It also becomes why they work for you. For as we well know, following is not a passive activity.

What you lead is your Passionate Why

Passionate whys will get repeated as the language of intention of your culture, and they will play out in the workplace. They replace those emotionless responses that can be traded among worker bees in hushed tones — the ones who aren’t blessed with evangelist bosses who lead as vocally, wearing their own passions on their sleeves” responses like, “We do it this way because that’s the way work is expected to be done here.” That may be a true statement too, but it doesn’t have that same zing to it, does it. It doesn’t move you, or cause you to lift your head up, and leading needs to move you.

perfection is a tied up beagle puppy — “I thought this was so we could go somewhere, not so you could tie me up!”

Ka lā hiki ola; it’s the dawning of a brand new day.

I think that redefining our leadership whys is one of those silver linings in the dark clouds of these recessionary times. It is easier to make mantras again, and rise up out of our past routines because we know we must — those past routines hadn’t worked as well as they should, and everyone knows it. We aren’t held back as much, and reined in as we used to be.

And we can lead with small, everyday details just as much as we can lead with big, earth-shaking ideas. Call it ‘informal leadership’ if you prefer: Leadership in smaller doses is very appealing.

So what are you leading, still committed to it, and still very passionate about it?

For many, the answer is, “I’m leading my own life in an entirely new way.” And that is a fabulous answer, an ‘Imi ola answer! It certainly appeals to me, and any Alaka‘i Manager would see it as their opportunity to say, “That sounds so exciting and promising! Please tell me more: Give me some details, and tell me what I can do to support you.”

Photo credit: tied up beagle puppy by greenkozi on Flickr

Discover the power of 5 Minutes: A book excerpt from Managing with Aloha

Decking the Halls of my Head Space

December 3, 2009 by Rosa Say for Say “Alaka‘i”

Let’s talk story about mantras

Funny how some mantras just come to you, seemingly out of the blue, but they really are very perfect.

All we need to do is stop when we get in the flow of things (we feel the energy pulsing through us), and just capture the moment so that small voices in the background can speak up louder because we’ve turned off the other noise. When you have those ‘whoa, I managed to slow down and pay attention’ times, you can also have those “Well, of course!” moments of decision. Those are when you don’t question impulses because they aren’t impulsive at all; they were meant to be.

That happened for me earlier this week. Such a great feeling!

It started with me simply thinking about the turn of the calendar page to December 1st, and my writing up Surf the December Tidal Wave.

Then I found that great photo by Helder on Flickr, and thought to myself, ‘amazing… it couldn’t be better than that!’

Then the Listening Challenge I am now guiding for Ruzuku led me to this very timely blog posting by leadership coach Susan Mazza: 5 Ways to Lead the Way to Holiday Miracles and it struck me as so completely in alignment with what I’d written about at Surf the December Tidal Wave, and in a very positive, immediately useful way – an example the blogosphere seemed to offer up to me, because I had ended my own post by saying to you, “We’ll see where this leads, and I’d love to hear your suggestions!”

I highly recommend you read Susan’s post. A snippet to give you the feeling of it:

I can think of no more important place for our leadership to make a difference than in our families. The Holiday Season is a particularly opportune time for us to lead the way for something new and maybe even miraculous to show up. Wherever in the world you may live the holidays have a way of amplifying the best and worst of our family relationships, add to our stress levels in both good and bad ways, and heighten our emotions.

I appreciated Susan’s list of 5 ways, but I actually got the most out of the tip in her preface:

You might start with creating an intention for the season. What do you want this season to be like for you and for your family this year? Last year my intention was to “stop sweating the small stuff and really enjoy the important stuff”. In the spirit of that intention we declared no more adult gifts. Instead of running around shopping for each other the days before Christmas we spent time together at the beach.

That word, intention, does have a Ho‘ohana way of speaking to me… Therefore, I left this comment for her, and comment-wrote my way into a holiday mantra for myself!

Susan, I really love this idea of having an intention for the holidays. This year it will definitely need to be “Christmas is in my head first, arriving with me wherever I am, all month long” for it will not be the actual day” the only time we will be able to get our family all-together in the same place will be between the 14th and 18th of the month, and away from home. I know it will be wonderful, yet that also gives me another thirteen days to New Year to fill joyfully rather than allowing them to fall flat in the aftermath. Your post is getting me to be more inventive yet still focus on that mantra of decking the halls of my head space!

Personally, I fully intend to nalu it (go with the flow and surf it) with this new mantra I am seizing for the rest of my December: I will be decking the halls of my head space.

Are you paying attention?

The question I will ask you again – in a different way than Surf the December Tidal Wave did two days ago – is this: Have you made room for those small but highly significant aha! moments to grab hold of your attention?

Intention, and Language of Intention (which I am very fond of coaching) need not be big and scary. The best ones start pretty small, so there is room for happy coincidences, and then they gain steam.

The book I am reading right now is by Marcus Buckingham. I will tell you more about it later, so we don’t get too far off track right now, but he has a line in there that is getting to be very sticky with me because I believe it is utterly true. He says, our “attention amplifies everything.” Actually, I did mention it before if you’ve been paying attention… (number 11.)

I know that where my attention goes, I go. It is where I will choose to manage or lead, be thoughtful and reflective, or active in diligent follow-up. This month, “decking the halls of my head space” can be my small start of intending to be positive, and intending to enjoy the holidays, allowing those two things to eventually gain steam and be that leading the way to a holiday miracle like Susan says it can.

I know, without needing to know all the detail of it yet, that “decking the halls of my head space” will turn out to be very, very powerful for me in the coming days and weeks. I just know it, because my aloha spirit tells me so, and I choose to believe in my own good intentions.

What will you choose for your mantra, and choose to believe this holiday season?

Took this at Macy’s last year, and it seems appropriate!

My mana‘o [The Backstory of this posting]
Each Tuesday I write a leadership posting for Say “Alaka‘i” at The Honolulu Advertiser. The edition here on Talking Story is revised with internally directed links, and I can take a few more editorial liberties.

Great Mantra: Make it Easy, Make it Hard

June 30, 2009 by Rosa Say for Say “Alaka‘i”

Quick review:

We’ve been talking about banishing mediocrity (because it is THE biggest sin committed in business) and about creating energy instead (because energy generates to Ho‘ohana power). Energy is the greatest resource managers (who both manage AND lead) have at their disposal.

No energy, no action. No action, no business life to speak of.

And in my view, business, whether the business of work, or the business sensibility of life, is a great playground to Ho‘ohana within.

Let’s dig into this a bit more. I’ll share one of my favorite mantras with you from an Alaka‘i leadership perspective today: Make it easy, and make it hard.

Make it easy for your Customers

Here’s a quote for the day:

“I’m so tired of watching us lose our customers. Just because we work for the government doesn’t mean we shouldn’t run the operation like a business.”
— Joan Capinia

You’ll never guess where Joan works. Reinvention can happen where you least expect it. Came from this older article about the US Postal Service, but it’s still relevant today (and hope the mindset stuck with the USPS).

The reputation that government and much of the public sector is saddled with has to with something that is an even bigger sin than mediocrity, for it equates to chronic mediocrity which is now regulated and institutionalized: It’s Bureaucracy.

Rules. Antiquated, or just plain stupid rules.

Red tape. Loop holes. Both are negatives: Loop holes are normally thought of as idiotic, as cheating, or as the tacit approval of stupid rules. Both red tape and loop holes have to do with jumping through hoops versus acting like a dignified professional (or an honored customer.)

Inconvenience no one seems to care about, saying/thinking “Just put up and shut up and deal with it; that’s the way it is.” can be a sneaky part of bureaucracy too.

Perception, reality and your reputation

Yeah, I’m starting to squirm uncomfortably and get irritated thinking about this too. Every business needs to figure out how to make it easier for their customers, and how to make processes streamlined and just plain common sense (and in business it’s all a buying process when you think about it).

Though the private sector can be just as bad, the public sector is a very easy target with this; think about the last time you might have visited a City & County office of any kind on any island. Personally we all feel for those affected by the current furlough discussions; we empathize with them as human beings in similar tough spots. However we all have heard (or said) the whispers between friends along the theme of “Could be a real good thing” maybe now they’ll be forced to improve and strip away all the red tape. I’ve never been happy paying taxes to support such thick-as-thieves bureaucracy.”

Perception is reality, and reputation is about that combination of what your customer experiences, and what they think they experience, especially if they feel they have been greatly inconvenienced, taken for granted, or abused or wronged in some way.

Great Alaka‘i leadership creates visionary pictures of how the future will be easier for the customer, an easy which delivers great experiences (and for both internal and external customers.)

Make it hard for your Business Partners

By ‘business partners’ I mean your employees, staff, co-working peers and your vendor partners; anyone and everyone who is responsible for delighting the customers who create cash flow. Hard ups the game, and fires up the energy.

Hopefully there isn’t anything which is unreasonably hard for anyone, but if push comes to shove, the hard stuff should get taken care of by those associated with the business, not the customer.

Remember this? Fulfill the biggest need:

There are two things business owners are focused on right now, and they go together:

a) Boosting cash flow quickly

b) Making customers deliriously happy

Said another way, cash is King and a paying customer’s loyalty is Queen.

We talked about it before in terms of creating job worth (Job-hunting? Don’t apply and fill, create and pitch) as the advice given to job-seekers: Position yourself to fulfill the biggest need of the employer.

Same goes for this discussion: Those associated with the workings of a business ”“ any business, no exceptions —must position themselves to fulfill the biggest need of the customer.

And customers want you to dazzle them, and exceed their expectations. Today, they expect you to Lead the Slow Charge, and they are happier when they do not have to share your limited attentions with other customers!

What that means, is that of course it will always be harder for you! Hard is a good thing in this context, for it is not normal —and we had said that excellence is not normal. (Review the section called “2. Avoid the Middle and Work on the Edges” within our last talk story here: 3 Ways Managers Create Energetic Workplaces).

Bring ‘hard’ into your Language of Intention

What Alaka‘i leaders will do, is reinvent the internal vocabulary of what ‘hard’ for your business partners means. In this mantra, “Make it easy, make it hard,” hard is pure excellence.

However we use the word ‘hard’ instead of excellent because we want that association with energetic effort too: Hard means with vigor, with strength, and with force to be reckoned with. Hard resists cracking under pressure because it is sure, it is intently confident. It is virtually flawless and exceptional.

In work cultures managed and led with Aloha by Alaka‘i managers, hard is about constantly learning to improve so everyone can live better, work better, be better. Hard has good kaona: Small word, big meaning.

Get hard to be about an exciting challenge, one which requires —what? That’s right: Increased energies. Mediocrity-banishing energies.

Get hard to mean rock-solid goodness —no stupid rules, no red tape, no loop holes, no basic standards, just extraordinary ones (we talked about that last time too; it was the 3rd way that managers create energetic workplaces.)

On Thursday we’ll get into the management side of the “Make it easy, make it hard” leadership initiative. Hope to see you back for, What the heck do you mean by ‘Achievable?’

Let’s talk story.
Any thoughts to share?

Photo credit: Bonzai Wannabe by Rosa Say.

For those who prefer them, here are the Talking Story copies of the links embedded in this posting:

~ Originally published on Say “Alaka‘i”
June 2009 ~
Make it Easy, Make it Hard

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