“I always have a choice.”  A simple, bold declaration begins my personal philosophy of choice that includes both personal and interpersonal axioms in it.  This is bold because on a subjective level it oftens feels that I have no choice.  But the deeper truth is that I really do.  In a cascade of consequences, everything flows out from fundamental choices that I make.  What I choose to focus on becomes more vivid and real.  If I pay attention, I become more aware of all that’s happening.  I cannot always understand the choices of others, but I can choose whether to see them with empathy, and I can really choose how I see people–either as competent or pitiful.  I came across the essay by Catherine Royce recently.  She speaks a similar message very poignantly, arising from her own life experiences.  Recently, a close friend of hers told more of this story.

I have seven axioms in my personal philosophy of choice, and these guide me when I get confused or bewildered or just need perspective.  What about you?  Do you have a personal philosophy of life and are you willing to share any of it with us?

I always have a choice, and I’m going to make sure I make better choices today from greater awareness and wisdom.

Groan…  Yes, we’re going to talk about performance appraisals/annual reviews.

Why do we dislike them so much?  Common reasons:

• The process feels awkward.
• It doesn’t yield meaningful information.
• Bosses don’t do it well.
• Employees experience great anxiety.
• It seems so subjective or unfair

How can we do a better job? (more…)

I see a lot of hand-wringing going on around me these days.  “What will happen in the economy?”  “When will things get better?”  The causes for worry and uncertainty are endless, but I have a simple way to respond.

(more…)

Today was a momentous day for the US and the world with the inauguration of Barack Obama.  In my opinion, the most meaningful line from his speech was when he invoked “a new era of responsibility”  and talked about the need to put childish things behind us and do some growing up.  This looks like a much-needed dose of reality and “tough love”  by an emerging leader who now has a very difficult and challenging job to do.

Leadership and change always begin with personal responsibility and truth-telling.  If you want to develop top talent, start by leveling with people.  Tell them the truth and enlist their help in being part of the solution.  Now is the time for responsibility and assertive (yet humble) leadership.

I had a colleage ask me today about talent management and my experience with how employees respond to talent management efforts at work.  Here’s some of what I shared with her.

From the employee side, there is a natural concern about fairness and favoritism; will Talent Management (TM) be administered fairly and give everyone an equal chance to succeed?  Will it be a cover for leaders who are championing/grooming/promoting their own favorites?

Also, most TM efforts or programs have some kind of measurement included with them.  Some of those include personal profiles or talent assessments.  Some people have a natural fear about how those will be viewed or used by management.  Other measurements are more tied to performance management or productivity or contribution to the company.  Some employees don’t like the additional scrutiny that comes with measurement–period.

Honestly, a lot of “talent management” efforts are really HR-sponsored drives that are modest in their goals/design and don’t have real staying power.  Employees have a legitimate right to question if TM is a “flavor of the year” hobby that will be eventually abandoned in 12-24 months.  That often seems to be what happens unless management is fully committed to it and is willing to make it a robust, long-lasting change in how the organization thinks about and practices talent management.

Of course, I encourage leaders who are committed to developing top talent to exercise some empathy and think first about how their efforts are going to be received by employees.  It can avoid a lot of pain and waste later on.

If you want to create change, one of the better strategies you can adopt is to get an accurate instrument and place it (along with some training on how to use it) in a prominent location where you (and other people) can’t miss it.  Real-time feedback allows you to make small changes and fine-tune your results.

MPG Instrument

I recently bought a new car and it has a sensitive gauge that tells you how many miles-per-gallon you are getting at the present time.  I’m already paying more attention to this gauge and it has helped me in changing my driving habits for the better (to be more fuel-efficient).

Apply this to people in an organization–even a small one–and it becomes obvious that equipping people with a new tool is much more likely to yield change than talking about change, management lectures or internal communication initiatiaves.  These other activities are useful too, but I’ve seen too many leaders and companies rely on them and end up with very little meaningful change.

Like any new tool, you have to learn to use it properly.  When I took training to be a pilot, I initially spent too much time looking at the instruments-I assumed that’s how you fly the plane.  My instructor had to emphasize to get my head up and look outside the airplane.  The great majority of pilots of small planes fly visually by looking out the window 90% of the time.  Only instrument-rated pilots and airline captains fly solely by reference to the instruments, which is a much more mentally taxing activity that requires extra training, practice and licensing.  So here’s my caveat: when you get an instrument for measuring real-time performance, beware the tendency to stare at it and miss the other information and contextual clues about what is going on around you.  If you can learn to do that (and it is possible), you will be much better positioned to build a high-performing organization and drive results and accountability further down to the individuals that actually do the work.

I’m often asked this question.  My answer often surprises the leader who asks it. 

If you want to develop people better, you will first have to look at your own leadership.  My friends Steve and Jill Morris make a distinction between lead management and boss management (the type of authoritarian/power-based leadership that is all too common).  Lead management is about leading people to lead themselves, to develop their own skills and abilities, to be self-evaluating.

This notion of lead management is based on Choice Theory and the work of William Glasser.  It is spelled out in a short but powerful book called “Leadership Simple” that was one of the most impactful books I read last year.  I encourage all leaders to take a look at this.  

A true leader makes choices deliberately after doing a careful self-evaluation.  They define what they want, they own their perceptions of what seems to be happening (without projecting that on others), and they lead others to do the same. 

It should be a relief to leaders that you don’t have to figure out how to develop each one of your people (they are all unique, afterall).  You do need to be deliberate and aware of what you want, what they want, and know how to lead people through a process of change that is of their own choosing.

Every day at work there are opportunities to make things happen, and also ways to avoid the action.   I think the basic difference comes down to this:  If you want to make things happen, take responsibility.  If you want to stay out of the action, avoid accountability at all costs.

Too simple?  Think about it for a minute.  Regardless of whether a person has been given “authority”, if you just look at those who are consistently effective you’ll notice that they demonstrate initiative, a can-do attitude, and they step up in a responsible way when something needs to be done.  You’ll also notice that people who shy away from the work or who usually have a ready explanation for why something wasn’t done or can’t be done usually point somewhere else for the cause.  It has nothing to do with them.  

Now amplify that into a company or a whole organization.  If the overall attitude is “We’ll find a way to make it happen!” or “I’ll get right on it” (and you see the follow-through) there’s usually a strong culture of accountability in place.  We’ve all seen the opposite as well:  lots of excuses, finger-pointing, justification and rationalizing. 

Here’s the point of it all:  a strong leader takes responsibility for bulding a culture of accountability and modeling it personally through their words and actions.  They are a living example of what a difference a single committed person can make, and they aren’t content to stay alone for long.  They inspire confidence, a can-do spirit and taking responsibility in others.

I was reminded yesterday of someone who took such a position and inspired many people through his life:  Buckminster Fuller.  What inspires me about Bucky’s life is the turnaround he experienced at age 32.  Earlier in life he had been expelled from Harvard for “irresponsibility and lack of interest”.  Bankrupt and jobless at the age of 32, he lost his young daughter to polio and meningitis.  He felt responsible and wanted to commit suicide.  However, on the bridge he was going to jump from he decided to begin an “experiment to find what a single individual can contribute to changing the world and benefiting all humanity.”  He became accountable to a higher purpose and that changed everything.  Over the next 50+ years this independent visionary designed and invented things like the geodesic dome, wrote 30 books, received 28 patents, and dedicated himself to working on behalf of all humanity.  There’s an institute dedicated to disseminating his ideas where you can learn more about this original thinker.