Tag Archive for: Articles by David Irvine

Don’t Fix People; Fit People

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Recently my administrative assistant (also my wife) was on a holiday in Europe with our daughter. In her absence, I’ve been attempting to keep up with all of the administrative demands in the business and at the same time run the business. Big mistake – to not get administrative support during this time.

I learned years ago that if you don’t have an administrative assistant, you are one. I’ve been an administrative assistant for the past two weeks, and I’ve been a lousy one. And I’m exhausted. But I’m not exhausted from the hard work. In fact, it has been extremely good for me to appreciate the load that Val carries. And I’m not afraid of hard work. But I’m exhausted because I was attempting to take on work that is not within my sphere of unique capabilities. Some people are actually meant to be in the role of administrative assistant. But, not me.

Now that Val is back home, I’ve taken some time to reflect on the experience. With so many people exhausted these days in their work, it makes me think. Why? Because we don’t have balance in our lives? Because we are working too hard? Because we need to work less? If you are exhausted, my hunch is that it’s because there is some misalignment going on. You are doing too much work that is energy-consuming for you, rather than energy-giving. It’s not about hard work, it’s about not being aligned.

Take an inventory of where you are spending your time and it’s effect on your energy level. Be honest with yourself. If I had a performance review by a boss during the past two weeks, I would have failed miserably. I would have been marked as incompetent, in need of some “motivation” and “fixing.” I know that I didn’t need to be “fixed” during the past two weeks. What I needed to do instead was delegate the administrative work and to stick with what I do best.

Don’t fix people; fit people.

What’s The Difference Between Servant Leadership vs. Pleasing Leadership?

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I see many leaders trying too hard to make their direct reports happy under the auspices of “servant leadership.” Entitlement is bred in this kind of culture, thinking that we are obligated to give our employees everything they ask for. It’s like parenting, trying to do too much for our children, trying taking away all their stress. This doesn’t lead to responsible kids and it doesn’t lead to accountable employees. And it creates burned out leaders.

The servant leader’s job is to identify and do all you can to meet the needs of their staff to ensure their success. This is servant leadership. Pleasing leadership attempts to meet all the wants of their people. Pleasing leaders become their employee’s slaves  -by allowing their employees/kids to do whatever they want. We all need an environment where standards are set and people are held accountable. We may not want this, but we need it. We don’t do anybody favors by running undisciplined homes or departments. Don’t settle for mediocrity. People need to be pushed to be all they can be. Again, this may not be what we want, but it’s what we need.

Another example: If you pay people what they want, you’ll be out of business and won’t be able to give them what they need: stable, long-term employment.

When politicians make their policy decisions based on the most recent Gallup poll, they are giving people what they want, but probably not what they need.

How do you distinguish between wants and needs?

A want is a wish without regard to long-term consequences.

A need is a legitimate requirement for one’s survival or success.You have to know people (starting with yourself) very well to understand the difference.

Start by making a list of the needs of the people who depend on you. Make a list of what you need.

Thanks to Jim Hunter for your inspiration behind this blog. He wrote a good book called The Servant.

What’s your experience with the difference between serving and pleasing?

Jumping Out Of Bed: Creating An Inspired Workplace

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“Going to work is a chore. It’s just a job. A necessary evil. A prison sentence. Doing time. Collecting a paycheque. I hate it.” How often have you heard someone talk about his or her work in these terms? Perhaps you have spoken this way yourself on occasion. Perhaps you speak this way more often than you’d like.

While we all may feel this way at times, what if most of your life was spent hardly waiting to get to the office? What if your workplace inspired you rather than depleted you? What if you jumped out of bed to get to work because you were so excited about getting there?

My passion is to make this world a better place to work. Work is so vitally important to our well-being, and life is far too short to spend these  hours in misery. We will all spend thousands of hours at work so why not have a great workplace culture?

So whose responsibility is it to make your workplace great? It is my notion that organizational culture starts with you, not your boss or your boss’s boss. While bosses set the tone, create the environment, and establish the culture, you are the one who actually creates the culture. Every employee is responsible for the culture within and around them. You make the difference.

And just how can you create a great culture in your workplace?

  1. Be authentic. Engagement comes from being who you are. Bringing your values, your aspirations, your passion, and your unique talents to work lights a fire inside you. Work is a tool to create and express what matters most. When you have a purpose for coming to work and clear values with a commitment to serve others through your role at work,your energy will soar.
  2. Build trust. Trust is the foundation of every relationship. Without trust, work will be a miserable place. And trust starts with you. Start by identifying your “Significant Seven,” the top people or groups of people you depend on or who depend on you, and make trust your number one priority with them.
  3. Be accountable. Accountability is the ability to be counted on. Being dependable with others starts with being dependable to yourself. Do you keep commitments to yourself? Do you see yourself as a person who is accountable?

What is your way of ensuring that  you jump out of bed in the morning to get to work? How do you create an inspiring workplace for yourself and others you work with?

How Do You Know If You Are A Good Enough Leader?

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Recently I had tea with good friends who are parents of a beautiful and energetic eighteen-month-old boy. They are at a challenging stage, trying to build a business together, parent a toddler, keep their relationship strong, and get it all “right.” It brought me back to my early years of parenting.

At one point in the conversation I was asked, “How would you know if you are a ‘good enough’ parent?”

After parenting for more than thirty-two years, I’ve become less sure about more things, and more sure about less things. One of those things that I am more sure about is that the effect that parents have on children is not as great as what we are lead to believe. No doubt, parents do impact their children. But children also impact their parents. Children come into the world with their own temperament and spirit and destiny. Parenting is as much about teaching parents as it is about teaching our children. Our children are on their own journey. As Kahlil Gibran said, “…we may house their bodies, but we do not house their souls… Our children come through us but they belong not to us.” I love how parenting has helped me in so many ways: to develop the capacity to continually see things another way, to be more patient and compassionate, to be more courageous and clear about what I expect, to name a few.

The best test of whether you are a ‘good enough’ parent essentially comes down to one question: Are you enjoying yourself?”

I’m sure you could find exceptions to this simple rule. There may be a few incompetent parents who enjoy themselves, just as I’m sure you’d find very good parents who are quite stressed. But my advice, after thirty-two years of parenting, is don’t try to be a better parent by trying to be a better parent. Try to be a better parent by finding ways to enjoy parenting more. The outcome will be that you will be a better parent. Parents who set clear limits and stick to them and who love their kids and enjoy finding ways to connect with them through a listening heart and common interests and aren’t always trying to impose their will upon them, are parents who find ways to enjoy the experience of parenting – and naturally seem to be better at it.

Could this also be a test of competence in any leadership role? What if, as a leader, you stopped trying to be a “better” leader, and simply decided to find ways to enjoy leading? Take time to connect and listen to your staff. Have conversations about your expectations, your passions, your values, and your goals. Talk about how you can support each other to be the best you can be. Try just hanging out and learning together on the projects you are working on. Sure you have to be tough sometimes, and that’s part of the learning together too.

How do you know if you are a good enough leader? I’d love to hear your take on this question.

Where Does Commitment Come From? How To Inspire People

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Leadership is about creating cultures that inspire people, build commitment, and harness energy. As I sit on the plane returning from San Francisco this weekend, I reflect on some of the critical factors I have found in creating an engaging culture. Having just finished re-reading James Kouzes and Barry Posner’s book, Encouraging The Heart, I got inspired to write this blog. After you’ve read this blog, I’d love to hear how you inspire others.

Values

Years of consulting with organizations have taught me that clarity of values is the force that determines an individual’s commitment to an organization. Personal values matter most. To inspire people, you have to get to their core values. Living according to other people’s conditions virtually guarantees that we will not be giving our all.

How many executives go on a retreat, create a corporate values statement, print it on posters, publish it in the annual report, hold training classes to orient people to it, post it beautifully in the headquarters’ lobby, and then wonder why commitment isn’t skyrocketing?

These efforts are a huge waste of time unless there is an equally concerted endeavor to help individuals understand, through dialogue and discovery, their own values and examine the fit between their values and the organizations’. I’m not saying that organizational values are not important, but they are only one side of the commitment equation. Commitment is a matter of fit between the personal and the organizational values.

Personal Vision

The vision of reaching the top of the mountain gives energy to the climber and makes the experience of climbing worthwhile. With no summit in mind, we are aimlessly wandering through rocks and trees, irritable and discontented. Vision keeps us on track. It helps us prioritize the demands, clarifies what we need to say “no” to, and gives us purposeful action. Vision gives us focus, energy, perspective, power, and significance, especially during moments of discouragement.

Alignment

Human beings simply don’t put their hearts into something they don’t believe in. Energy, passion, commitment comes when there’s a fit, when there’s alignment between personal and organizational values. Employees are much more likely to be engaged when they know their positional leaders are committed to them. Loyalty begets loyalty. This can only be accomplished with careful and meaningful dialogue. Here are three useful questions to ask employees to help move you toward alignment:

  1. What matters most to you? Where does work fit into the broader context of your life?
  2. How does this organization ensure that you bring your values to work?
  3. What do you need from me as a leader to ensure that there is alignment between your values and ours?

Culture Trumps Talent

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The key challenge for any hockey coach is to create the necessary bonding, team chemistry – or what I call culture – to get the job done.  In other team sports, we have seen superstars with enormous individual talent come together for the olympics, for example, but were not able to gel as a team, either because of their egos, their inability or unwillingness to play as a team, or simply the inability to bond as as group to get the necessary chemistry. The gold medalist for this tournament will not necessarily be the team with the most talent, but rather the team with the best culture. Culture trumps talent.

I’ve been watching culture in action in the development of my daughter’s soccer team. Eleven years ago, on a U8 team with barely enough players, Chandra moved out of recreational soccer to a competitive team. But, the team wasn’t very competitive to say the least. Not only did they not win a game, they scored one – that’s right – one single goal that year. It happened in one of the last games of season. Their team performed so poorly that scoring one goal resulted in so much cheering you’d have thought they just won the championship!

That was eleven years ago, when their coaches, Andy and Deedee Cook, began devoting themselves to developing a team out of this group of girls. Culture began that year, several seasons ago. While not always explicit, the values, and thus, the priorities, of this couple and of the team they built were abundantly clear:

  • Fun – in everything they did
  • Friendships – among every player and
  • Fundamentals – of both soccer and of character

It was always clear that on this team it is more important to be a good person than a good soccer player. These amazing coaches understand that the game is a tool for something far more important.

In the seasons that followed, the values remained consistent as the friendships grew and the skill levels developed. It wasn’t much about winning in the early days. If they lost, they were more interested in where they were going to go eat after the game. The parents seemed more attached to the win/loss records than the girls ever were. What mattered most was the effort they put in, not the scoreboard. There have been times over the years where they won by a large margin but the coaches were not happy with their effort or application of the skills they had learned,  just as there were games they lost where the coach was thrilled with their execution.

Over time, with these values clearly in place, and as the girls kept having fun, bonding with each other through social events, hard work and discipline, plus strategic coaching and technical sessions for skill development, the team has became an attraction to soccer players and coaches around the province. The team is now attractive, not just because they are winning, but because they are connecting. The are also attractive because of the power of their presence: respect for themselves and others, a commitment to put the team above their self-interest, a positive attitude in everything they do, and a bone-deep commitment to excellence and integrity on and off the field. The coaches have relentlessly modeled this strength of character and have this expectation of everyone. They know how to assess and build on the strengths of every player, creating an environment where every girl knows they belong and contributes to the success of the team in their own unique way.

Over the years this core group of girls have stuck together and grown into a U16 team that is absolutely magical to watch. From a small town with essentially the same group of girls for sixteen seasons (eight years of indoor and outdoor), this team now beats teams from the cities where upwards to 100 girls may try out for the team. This year they are in the midst of an undefeated season in the second highest division in the province, and are currently in the process of progressing to Tier 1, where they will compete with the best players in the province in their age group. Deedee and Andy frequently get calls from girls in the city who would be willing to drive a great distance just to have a chance to play on this team. They are drawn to the culture of this team. Strong, aligned cultures are an attraction. At this stage, it’s all about winning, and, simultaneously, not at all about winning.

Fun, friendships, and fundamentals: culture trumps talent… in sports and in life.