Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Managing People

Don’t Manage with Fear

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The ability to rouse fear has forever been an essential tool of management. Fear can be an effective mobilization tool in the short term. But fear breeds complicity, not commitment.

Instead of fear-based tactics, try soft power. Build trust and gain influence using these methods.

  1. Develop an inspiring vision. Work hard to follow through on implementing that vision and celebrate even little accomplishments along the way.
  2. Communicate expectations. Ask, “How can I help you do your job better?” Follow up. No need to keep everything too close to the vest. You needn’t tell everything you know, but what you say and do has to be true.
  3. Solve problems quickly. Push for results. Set aside some time for review and create options or actions that are apt for your team’s situation. Be tough where you must be, kind where you can be.

Idea for Impact: Don’t take the fear approach with employees. With motivation, fear works—up to a point. Understand how your people view your leadership style and ensure your behavior doesn’t cross the line between pushing them hard and pushing them away.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Teams That Thrive make it Safe to Speak & Safe to Fail
  2. The Difference between Directive and Non-Directive Coaching
  3. Why Your Employees Don’t Trust You—and What to Do About it
  4. Listen and Involve
  5. To Micromanage or Not?

You Always Have to Say ‘Good’

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“How are you?” is usually meant less as an actual question and more a greeting-on-autopilot—a casual call-and-response.

The unwritten rule of conversation is that you’re expected to reply with nothing more than a declaration of utter satisfaction with life.

People aren’t usually interested in hearing the real answer. Responding with a “Well, to be honest, I’ve been kind of down today. Had a bad day at work” could be a faux pas. You aren’t supposed to burden every interlocutor with your situation, particularly with people who aren’t close.

So “how are you?” isn’t a bad thing to say at all—most of the time. But, there’re occasions, readable with empathic awareness, when you shouldn’t ask someone how their day is going unless you’re going to listen to their response with genuine respect and interest.

Idea for Impact: Showing that you care about people can do wonders, but if you don’t care, don’t feign that you do—people can see through it.

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  2. Here’s How to Improve Your Conversational Skills
  3. Signs Your Helpful Hand Might Stray to Sass
  4. Avoid Trigger Words: Own Your Words with Grace and Care
  5. Office Chitchat Isn’t Necessarily a Time Waster

How to Lead Sustainable Change: Vision v Results

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In the Drucker Foundation’s Leader to Leader (1999,) Harvard Business School professor John Kotter proposes one of my favorite visuals on the essence of noticeable results that bear witness to a leader’s vision of change:

This illustration encapsulates why some organizational change initiatives succeed while others never get off the ground or break down after a while. Kotter observes,

Results and vision can be plotted on a matrix that has four dimensions. Poor results and weak vision spell sure trouble for any organization. Good short-term results with a weak vision satisfy many organizations—for a while. A compelling vision that produces few results usually is abandoned. Only good short-term results with an effective, aligned vision offer a high probability of sustained success.

Idea for Impact: The only way a leader can produce a well-paced, sustainable, and transformational change is by mobilizing the people around her to appreciate the benefits for them in her vision of the desired future. Ongoing results oblige visibility into progress and will catalyze the organization’s commitments.

Read Kotter’s Leading Change (1996,) an influential missive on change management.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Don’t Push Employees to Change
  2. A Guide to Your First Management Role // Book Summary of Julie Zhuo’s ‘The Making of a Manager’
  3. How to … Lead Without Driving Everyone Mad
  4. Direction + Autonomy = Engagement
  5. To Inspire, Pay Attention to People: The Hawthorne Effect

Direction + Autonomy = Engagement

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The best way to achieve results as a manager is to give your team clear objectives and then allow them to approach the tasks in whatever manner that makes sense. You can suggest deadlines, schedule check-in appointments, and make yourself available for questions. People tend to take more pride in their work when they aren’t micro-managed. Delegate results when you can and interfere only when you must.

Observe the strengths and weaknesses of each employee and assign tasks based on what will allow each individual to thrive. When employees feel invested in a task, whether because they volunteered for it or because it employs their strengths, they are more likely to take ownership of their work and excel on the project. Have faith in your employees’ ingenuity and give them much latitude in how they do things.

Idea for Impact: Often, the most potent motivator for employees isn’t money—it’s the opportunity to learn, expand responsibilities, contribute and gain appreciation, and be recognized for achievements.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Don’t Push Employees to Change
  2. A Guide to Your First Management Role // Book Summary of Julie Zhuo’s ‘The Making of a Manager’
  3. How to … Lead Without Driving Everyone Mad
  4. Fostering Growth & Development: Embrace Coachable Moments
  5. Never Criticize Little, Trivial Faults

What to Do When Your Friend Becomes Your Boss

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Sure, there’re many examples of the double-dynamic working sufficiently well. But the friend-and-boss/employee relationship implies a power structure that complicates every aspect of your friend’s jurisdiction over you—answerability, promotions, raises and bonuses, vacations, desirable assignments and implied favors, and managerial feedback.

The boss-employee relationship comes with complications and tensions that hitherto didn’t exist. The perimeters of professional associations are more pronounced than between friends. When things don’t go how you expect, you’ll sense the subordination and betrayal.

When a close friend becomes your boss, avoid the complications, awkwardness, and potential for the relationship to sour. Choose which mutually exclusive relationship element is more significant to you—friendship or your job. Have a candid conversation with your boss and clear the air regarding your choice. Delineation will beget immense relief.

Idea for Impact: Friendship and managerial relationships simply don’t mix.

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  2. Don’t Be Friends with Your Boss
  3. Good Boss in a Bad Company or Bad Boss in a Good Company?
  4. A Boss’s Presence Deserves Our Gratitude’s Might
  5. How Not to Handle a Bad Boss

Learning from Bad Managers

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It’s always nice to have great bosses who’ll teach you many things the easy way. However, you’ll have a boss who’s bad for you at some stage in your career. Bad bosses come in all forms: tyrants, abrasive, unprincipled, insensitive, indecisive, inconsistent, unfair, uncaring, arrogant, insensitive, quick-tempered, manipulative, apathetic, and so on.

If you’re perceptive, you can learn more from these bad examples than you’ll from the great bosses you’ll work for. Remember the axiom: “No one is totally worthless; you can always serve as a bad example.”

When you have a bad boss, ask yourself, what things about this boss will you commit to never doing? Make a list and refer to it occasionally. Avoiding doing these things will help you be a better boss—and be a positive role model for others.

Idea for Impact: Bad bosses can become useful teachers precisely because they provide some of the best lessons in what not to do that you’ll ever be offered. Take it upon yourself to never be like your bad boss.

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  2. The Hidden Influence of Association
  3. Lilies and Leeches
  4. What to Do When Your Boss Steals Your Best Ideas
  5. 20 Reasons People Don’t Change

Why You May Be Overlooking Your Best Talent

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Many organizations have a hard time articulating their culture. They can’t explain what they mean when they evoke the phrase “culture fit.” Sometimes it’s just an excuse to engage employees better whom managers feel they can personally relate.

Affinity bias is a common tendency to evaluate people like us more positively than others. This bias often affects who gets hired, promoted, or picked for job opportunities. Employees who look like those already in leadership roles are more likely to be recognized for career development, resulting in a lack of representation in senior positions.

This affinity for people who are like ourselves is hard-wired into our brains. Outlawing bias is doomed to fail.

Idea for Impact: If you want to avoid missing your top talent, become conscious of implicit biases. Don’t overlook any preference for like-minded people.

For any role, create a profile that encompasses which combination of hard and soft skills will matter for the role and on the team. Determine what matters and focus on the traits and skills you need.

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  2. The Unlikely Barrier to True Diversity
  3. The Duplicity of Corporate Diversity Initiatives
  4. The ‘Small’ Challenge for Big Companies
  5. Penang’s Clan Jetties: Collective Identity as Economic Infrastructure

Employee Surveys: Asking for Feedback is Not Enough

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Nothing undermines employee trust faster than inviting employees to provide feedback about their work experience and then not following up.

Don’t take the employee satisfaction survey results at face value. Don’t discount the importance of the findings by brushing them off, “the data were what we expected” or “there were no real surprises here.”

Show that you’ve listened to what employees are saying. Initiate strategic conversations with selected employees and explore critical issues in more depth. Establish cross-functional teams to react to the survey’s findings. Let the team consist primarily of non-senior employees. A senior manager could sponsor and support—not manage—the team and see an action plan through.

Idea for Impact: Employee surveys, focus groups, and discussions that don’t change how an organization functions ultimately undermine employees’ faith that their leaders really care what the employees think. Close the communication loop.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Employee Surveys: Perceptions Apart
  2. Should Staff Be Allowed to Do ‘Life Admin’ at Work?
  3. Fire Fast—It’s Heartless to Hang on to Bad Employees
  4. Giving Feedback and Depersonalizing It: Summary of Kim Scott’s ‘Radical Candor’
  5. Can You Be Terminated for Out-of-Work Conduct?

The Good of Working for a Micromanager

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One of the defining qualities of a good manager is a willingness to dig into the details. Effective managers choose to engage differently with different kinds of details. In other words, they are selective micromanagers.

Micromanagement is simply the consequence of a desire to engage with selective details. Sure, some leaders struggle with prioritizing and building trust, even over unimportant details. But it never goes away. It’s part of the package. Some are great micromanagers and some are poor micromanagers.

Working for a micromanager has its challenges; but, often, it’s a blessing in disguise. Be aware of the details your manager cares about. Expect to be micromanaged—but, as part of the process, expect to learn a lot. Selective micromanagers tend to be better at developing talent. Their intimate knowledge of the business and their deep involvement can enable you to learn important information about the business.

Idea for Impact: Think of “micromanagement” as simply an excess of attention that you must manage. It’s a good sign that your boss is interested in your work—it means she cares enough.

But if you are being singled out for micromanagement, it’s time for you to look inward. The degree of micromanagement is inversely proposal to a manager’s trust in your competence. In the fullness of time, if micromanagement doesn’t, consider if your work is of lower quality or quantity without your boss’s watchful eye. Improve how you’re converting your manager’s feedback into learning.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Don’t Be Friends with Your Boss
  2. A Boss’s Presence Deserves Our Gratitude’s Might
  3. You Can’t Serve Two Masters
  4. No Boss Likes a Surprise—Good or Bad
  5. Good Boss in a Bad Company or Bad Boss in a Good Company?

The Secret to Happiness in Relationships is Lowering Your Expectations

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Happiness depends not on how well things are going, but on whether things are going better or worse than expected. (A case in point: under-promising and over-delivering is a sure way to build customer loyalty.)

Right-size what you can expect from others. You’d be happier to accept other people’s difficult behaviors when you expect less from them. The instant you feel disappointed because another person didn’t come through for you, remind yourself, “It isn’t for me to have those expectations on her.”

The definitive purpose of moderating your expectations of other people isn’t to give them some sort of pass. Instead, it is to help you take off your rose-colored spectacles and appreciate the being-as-is. This change of attitude helps you moderate the constant frustration—even anger—from those around you.

Idea for Impact: If you have high expectations of other people and they disappoint you, you’re giving them permission to dictate how you’ll feel. That’s a lot of power to give to others.

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  2. Change Your Perspective, Change Your Reactions
  3. Affection Is No Defense: Good Intentions Make Excellent Alibis
  4. Release Your Cows … Be Happy
  5. The Surprising Power of Low Expectations: The Secret Weapon to Happiness?