Abraham Maslow

Self-Inflicted Wounds

The nub of the issue is this; human nature is instinctual, visceral and human organizations are thereby “instinctual institutions.”

Many leaders unknowingly run their companies in ways that are instinctual, natural and comfortable for them.

And pay a terrible price, for so doing.
Of course, you should always try “do what you are”, except of course, when you shouldn’t.

Two CEOs: Jimmy and Jenna

Jimmy and Jenna are each CEOs of two young but progressive companies.

And both have very different personal styles, very different.

Each of their organizations is still small enough to need direct involvement/management from their respective CEOs.

Both are facing issues with their executive team that are very frustrating, but neither realizes how they (their personal, management style) are the primary cause of the complexity bedeviling and afflicting their organizations.

Jimmy the Straight Shooter

Jimmy (he owns and runs a software firm), is a rather direct, task-driven, no-nonsense guy, who does little to foster team play in his organization.

He doesn’t hold regular staff meetings and in fact has little patience for meetings in general, preferring one-on-one sessions, phone calls, and e-mail.

As a result, his managers often find themselves bumping into one another when their goals and priorities conflict.

Jenna The Collaborator

Jenna (she owns and runs a food packaging company) has a very different style.

With her emphasis on strategic thinking and teamwork, Jenna feels that bringing her group together ensures that everyone will understand the overall picture and contribute to the decisions about how to move forward.
What Jenna doesn’t realize is that because of her leadership style, so much time is spent sitting in meetings, analyzing data, and hearing the latest consultant study about market and consumer trends that little is left for tactical planning and execution.

The Complexity Blind Spot: Too Much of a Good Thing

If you told these two leaders that their style of leadership was the primary cause of the very complexity, they detest, both would be shocked, if not appalled.

For example, Jimmy sees Jenna as someone who spends too much time in meetings with her people.

He calls them “Kumbaya sessions” and “group gropes” and has suggested to her that she be more directive with her managers.

Jenna, on the other hand, is convinced that Jimmy is so directive and autocratic that his people have to depend on him to resolve conflicts and issues.

They don’t have the relationships and trust needed to work things out on their own.

The reality, of course, is that both Jimmy and Jenna are right…and wrong.

Even CEOs Have Blind Spots

There are tendencies we simply do not see in ourselves, that are glaringly apparent to others.

Unless, acknowledged and checked, these blind spots lead to blame others.

In short, we end up merrily “overdoing” our strengths and “underdoing” our weaknesses (areas of discomfort) because that is what is most comfortable for us.
Our weakness lies not in what we do, but in what we “over-do.”

The Double Whammy

This, (overdoing their strengths and underdoing their areas of discomfort) is the dirty little secret of unnecessary complexity in organizations.

Instead of looking in the mirror, it’s easier for leaders to attribute communication problems to their employees’ inability to grasp the point.

Notice on the next two pages a diagram of the brain with its’ four major cognitive functions (to analyze, conceptualize, organize and personalize) and where (which cortical or limbic quadrant) each is located in the brain.

People generally and leaders specifically are generally more comfortable with one or two more of those functions than the others.

To become the fulsome, powerful and complete leader you need and want to be, I recommend the following.

Study the four functions closely and ask yourself which of these four functions is your least favorite.

After asking if you could firstly automate or delegate the function you don’t like doing, ask yourself:

1. “What are my best strengths and currently, where am I using them too often?
2. Why should I consider changing my approach in these situations?
3. For these three occasions, what behavior should I use?
4. How will I go about doing that, substituting new behaviours?
5. What will be the most difficult thing for me (emotionally) in trying to master this function?
6. If I make this change (less overdoing of my strengths), what benefits, (in other words, less complexity) should I expect to see happen?

The Brain Has Four Cognitive Functions

The Brain’s Four Thinking Styles: Pros and Cons

Written by Gary “Buddy” Burge, Ph.D.

Author Of:

Get Unstuck, Stay Unstuck and Do What You Are

Why People Do What They Do in Your Organization and what You Can Do About It.

Buddy is one of the country’s leading empowerment experts and among North America’s most prominent and successful authorities on Organizational Wellness and Leadership Excellence.

Since 1986, over 450 entrepreneurial CEOs and senior leaders have personally entrusted to Buddy their most intractable and complex business issues.

A masterful workshop facilitator and a powerful and unusually entertaining platform speaker, his unique ability to tailor more than 150 sessions a year to his client’s specific needs, shrinking markets and changing workforce, keep Buddy in constant demand as a keynote speaker, seminar leader and executive coach.

Some of his over 500 satisfied corporate clients include Nike, Symantec, Magna International, Bell Canada, the CIBC, SAP Software, the Royal Bank, Metroland Media, and the Eaton Centre.

Buddy has authored 23 books on corporate leadership and a 400-page doctoral thesis on organizational communication that took another 5 years of research. 

As a discipline, the management of organizational change has been in existence for more than 50 years; yet nearly three-quarters of all such endeavors fail miserably.

Not only do companies fall well short of their financial targets, but untold psychological damage is done, both to those who lose their jobs, and those who don’t.

Traditionally, the blame for all this has been laid at the door of employees. The presumption has been that the leaders “did the right things,” but that try as they might, managers couldn’t get the people to “do things right.”

And it’s still widely believed that it is the employees who do all they can to maintain the status quo, through insubordination, absenteeism and, to a certain extent, sabotage.

The evidence, however, doesn’t support this conclusion. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

The primary reason that change fails to occur in organizations is because the leaders have created a culture that resists it. In other words, the internal structures and operational policies of companies are designed to prevent the very change they claim that they want.

Fundamentally, leaders attempt to obtain the benefits of change by leaving things more or less the way they are. This is perhaps the central reason why employees are less than enthusiastic about programs that are supposed to bring changes to their companies. They know from past experience that after all the fanfare, eventually everything will settle down, and things will return to normal.

In order for change to occur, two things were necessary:

The first one was that the goal had to be desirable. In other words, it had to be something that people, individually or collectively, really wanted to see happen.

The second thing was that people had to believe that they could do it. If they lacked the confidence in themselves, then it didn’t matter how desirable it was.

If, and only if, those two things were in place, people would then put forth the effort to make it happen.

Now, this is where the problem arises.

On the face of it, there appears to be two questions: 1) Why don’t employees want their organizations to change, and 2) Why don’t they believe that they’re capable of it?

There are two perspectives at work.

Leaders are focusing on the first question, while the employees are concerned with the second.

Leaders are busy trying to find ways to get people to want to change, but those that they’re supposed to be following don’t believe anything will actually change. And if you don’t believe that change will occur, why put forth the effort? Why knock yourself out and make more work for yourself if, at the end of the day, it won’t make any difference?

Great leaders recognize this. They acknowledge that it has been their policies and actions that have led to thoughts and behaviors that their employees have now. They realize that in order to get their people to embrace the changes they want, that they, as leaders, have to alter those policies.

They have to break down the resistant organizational structures, especially the infighting and politics that comes from competition which they themselves have encouraged within their own companies. And they know that, if it’s going to be successful, then it’s essential to get everyone to work together towards a positive end.

So rather than blaming others for the failure of organizational change, great leaders take personal responsibility for it.

Organizational change will not occur unless the organization itself changes first.

You can attack the fringes all you want to; but unless the process occurs at the core, everything will eventually go back to the way it was.

Which of the following is the right thing to do?

·      Should you always tell people the truth, or only when it is expedient to do so?

·      Should you always keep people informed on their future, or should you only tell them when you think they need to know?

·      Should you keep your people in the loop, or should you keep them in the dark for as long as possible?

As a leader, your answers reveal a great deal about your attitude towards communication. You can talk all day long about the need for transparency and openness, but unless you are willing to do it, no one else will either.

To look at this another way, the people whom you seek to lead will choose to follow your example when they want to. They won’t mimic only those things that you want and ignore the rest; instead they’ll imitate those behaviors that are consistent with their values. In other words, they’ll copy the parts in you that appeal to them.

This is one reason why consistency is so important. If you can only be trusted some of the time, then you will be mistrusted all of the time. That’s because people will be unable to figure out where you are. They won’t know what your “mood” is from one minute to the next.

And if employees are having to second-guess what you’ll do next, then productivity will be affected, too. It will slow down, or even stop.

Here’s an exercise to help you understand this.

Pick something that you know concerns people in your organization. It doesn’t matter what it is. Make a note of how much time or the percentage of time you think they spend dwelling on it each week. Multiply that figure times the number of working weeks in the year, and then by the number of employees in your company.

Now get the HR folks to give you the mean value of the money paid in salaries and wages for everyone and multiply it by that big number that you reached in the last step. Chances are that you’re in the millions if not tens of millions of dollars.

While this may not be an entirely realistic cost in the loss of productivity, it does give you some idea of the extent of the problem. That’s because no one can be 100% focused on the task at hand while at the same time worrying about whether his or her boss is scrutinizing every movement or will suddenly decide that what was okay yesterday isn’t today.

The truth is that you don’t want the attention of those in your organization to be any more divided than it is already. People will come to work thinking about domestic problems. That’s life. But you don’t want to add to them by being unpredictable because you’re not trustworthy.

So how can you avoid this? How can you keep the morale high and increase momentum in your employees? It’s by trusting them.

This lies at the foundation of all relationships, and that’s what we’re talking about: building a relationship with those who you lead or want to lead. When you trust them, you’re giving them a reason to follow you. You’re saying, “I would like to spend time with you. I’m interested in you. I share your concerns. I’m confident that you’re up to the task. I want to help you.”

When you communicate that message, then people lower their defenses. They no longer work in fear that you’ll be upset with them. When they relax, they’ll become more creative, too, and that’s when productivity will really begin to increase.

Let’s going back to the questions at the beginning of this article. When you hide information because the news is bad, or because you’re afraid you won’t get the result that you want if you tell people the truth, or because you think (erroneously) that it makes you more powerful, then what you’re really saying is that “I don’t trust you.” And when that happens, you’ve taken away the most important reason why they should trust you.

You are the leader; so lead. It’s not up to your employees to trust you first and then you’ll share a bit of information here and there when it suits you. As a leader, you have to do it first. Then, when others see by your example, that you are worthy of the name, they will trust and follow you.

It’s been said that if you’re indispensable, then you can’t get promoted. While there’s some truth to that, promoting yourself too much can also backfire. You have to find a balance. It must be handled in the right way.

No one likes someone who is in love with him- / herself. Psychologists call that narcissism. We all have something of a bent in this direction, but some people stand out as being more inclined in this way than others. Those who are like this don’t get promoted because they lack the diplomatic skills that are needed with additional responsibility. If you’re only ever looking out for yourself, then there’s no interest, time, or energy left for anyone else. And the funny thing is that this is all too apparent to those who could promote you.

On the flip side, there are those who take things to the other extreme. Their level of humility is such that they become occupational chameleons who blend into whatever background they happen to be in. They don’t want to stand out or be recognized as different from their peers. The thing is that, like those who promote themselves too much, they don’t advance either. That’s because no one knows they’re there.

If you want to get ahead in your organization, then you have to find a balance between promoting yourself too much and not at all; and the extent to which you lean one way or the other will be different for you than it will be for everyone you know.

Some people can “get away” with more than others; that is, some “wear” self-promotion better than their peers. They are able to do it with panache. Like anything else, however, you have to play to your strengths. There’s an old saying that, “If you’ve got it, then flaunt it; if you don’t, then flaunt it anyway.” But you can ruin your chances of promotion if you brandish your qualities and accomplishments, but lack the finesse to pull it off.

So how can you find this balance?

There are several things that you can do. Pick the ones that you can do well – better than anyone else, in fact, and ignore those where you won’t shine

1. Keep your boss in the loop.

Make sure that he / she knows what you’re working on and the progress you’ve made. It’s probably worth keeping a record as well if only because time passes quickly, and you will want to know if you’re accomplishing as much as you feel like you are.

2. Increase your productivity

If you find that you routinely don’t have enough to do, then ask your boss for more responsibility or more projects. If you know that there are none available, then exercise some initiative. Think seriously about what you could do to create more value for the organization. Maybe you could get an MBA, or learn a programming language, or design an improvement for the business, or undertake to transform a process. The main thing is that you can’t wait to be told. You have to figure it out. Then if anyone asks you, you’ll be able to explain what you’re doing and why.

3. Demonstrate your expertise

There’s more to proving you’re an expert than asking the odd question or making a wise statement in the occasional meeting. You want to strive to be the “go to” person in your area of expertise.

It’s also worth developing a wider field of know-how. For example, you could become the most knowledgeable person in your immediate office when it comes to the software that your organization uses. Then, instead of people having to call the IT folks to fix a problem, you could. This is not beyond the realm of possibility. Many people don’t know how to undo inadvertent keystrokes that suddenly create a catastrophe in their document.

4. Think strategically

You may think that you do this already; and maybe you do. But the thing is that in order to be promoted you have to demonstrate that you’re already thinking at that level. And so that means that your strategic thinking has to be above what is required for your current job

One way to do this would be to look at what your boss does and then try to find ways to improve what he / she does; not so that you can offer advice, but so that you can practice doing it yourself by incorporating it into the work that you do already.

5. Manage more effectively

If you have no subordinates, then this may mean that you manage only yourself. What beyond your expertise could you improve that would make you look more promotable? Would weight loss or fitness help? If so, then quietly undertake the discipline to deal with this.

If you do have subordinates, then undertake to develop them as much as you can. Help them to be as successful as they possibly can be. It’s been said that if you help enough other people get what they want, then you can have what you want. Although that is normally considered in the context of sales, it’s also true when it comes to the management of others. If you help them to get ready for greater responsibility, it will prove that you have what it takes to move up to the next level yourself.

The balance in self-promotion lies in doing rather than in talking. If you can get results without bragging about it and without trampling over others, then when the time comes, you’ll get the promotion that you seek.

Leadership through Communication

Which of the following is the right thing to do?

• Should you always tell people the truth, or only when it is expedient to do so?
• Should you always keep people informed on their future, or should you only tell them when you think they need to know?
• Should you keep your people in the loop, or should you keep them in the dark for as long as possible?

As a leader, your answers reveal a great deal about your attitude towards communication. You can talk all day long about the need for transparency and openness, but unless you are willing to do it, no one else will either.

To look at this another way, the people whom you seek to lead will choose to follow your example when they want to. They won’t mimic only those things that you want and ignore the rest; instead they’ll imitate those behaviors that are consistent with their values. In other words, they’ll copy the parts in you that appeal to them.

This is one reason why consistency is so important. If you can only be trusted some of the time, then you will be mistrusted all of the time. That’s because people will be unable to figure out where you are. They won’t know what your “mood” is from one minute to the next.

And if employees are having to second-guess what you’ll do next, then productivity will be affected, too. It will slow down, or even stop.

Here’s an exercise to help you understand this.

Pick something that you know concerns people in your organization. It doesn’t matter what it is. Make a note of how much time or the percentage of time you think they spend dwelling on it each week. Multiply that figure times the number of working weeks in the year, and then by the number of employees in your company.

Now get the HR folks to give you the mean value of the money paid in salaries and wages for everyone and multiply it by that big number that you reached in the last step. Chances are that you’re in the millions if not tens of millions of dollars.

While this may not be an entirely realistic cost in the loss of productivity, it does give you some idea of the extent of the problem. That’s because no one can be 100% focused on the task at hand while at the same time worrying about whether his or her boss is scrutinizing every movement or will suddenly decide that what was okay yesterday isn’t today.

The truth is that you don’t want the attention of those in your organization to be any more divided than it is already. People will come to work thinking about domestic problems. That’s life. But you don’t want to add to them by being unpredictable because you’re not trustworthy.

So how can you avoid this? How can you keep the morale high and increase momentum in your employees? It’s by trusting them.

This lies at the foundation of all relationships, and that’s what we’re talking about: building a relationship with those who you lead or want to lead. When you trust them, you’re giving them a reason to follow you. You’re saying, “I would like to spend time with you. I’m interested in you. I share your concerns. I’m confident that you’re up to the task. I want to help you.”

When you communicate that message, then people lower their defenses. They no longer work in fear that you’ll be upset with them. When they relax, they’ll become more creative, too, and that’s when productivity will really begin to increase.

Let’s going back to the questions at the beginning of this article. When you hide information because the news is bad, or because you’re afraid you won’t get the result that you want if you tell people the truth, or because you think (erroneously) that it makes you more powerful, then what you’re really saying is that “I don’t trust you.” And when that happens, you’ve taken away the most important reason why they should trust you.

You are the leader; so lead. It’s not up to your employees to trust you first and then you’ll share a bit of information here and there when it suits you. As a leader, you have to do it first. Then, when others see by your example, that you are worthy of the name, they will trust and follow you.

At one time, before technology toys ruled the roost, it was suggested that much of what children received for one Christmas could be re-wrapped and put under the tree the following year. That’s because they would have lost interest in those toys within a few days of the first holiday and by the next one would have forgotten about having received them at all.

Many adults do exactly that to themselves every year. Come January 2^nd, maybe before, they decide that next year will be different. That whatever it was they hoped to achieve, but failed to do so, will happen in the New Year. Unfortunately, for 90% of them, it doesn’t happen. For whatever reason, the urgent overtakes the important, or the less important supersedes the most important. Instead of gaining ground, they lose it. Instead of standing out, they continue to blend in with everyone else.

You may be among those who have tried to stand out, away from your peers, in the past. Maybe you started last year, or perhaps you’re one of those who have been starting over every year for a decade or more. It doesn’t matter. It’s never too late to start again. As the saying goes – Today is the first day of the rest of your life.The difference, of course, is that to get ahead it isn’t enough to keep up. You have to go beyond that. You have to stand out.

Think of it like this. Most people are staying abreast of their colleagues. They are like runners in a pack. The winner, however, leaves the pack behind. That’s what you have to do.

How do you do that?

You have to set yourself up to succeed. That may seem obvious until you realize that most people play not to lose. There’s a difference. To play to win, you have to plan to win. To play so that you don’t lose is to plan to finish somewhere other than first. It’s a subtle, but critical distinction.

A good place to start is with your professional development. You must learn to recognize that it is a journey. We call it lifelong learning. If you see it as the endpoint, then you are setting yourself up to be second best. That’s because there will always be those around you who are playing to win. While you’re pulling back just short of the tape, they are running through as if they had another ten or twenty meters to go.

There are two kinds of learning: structured and unstructured. Most people engage in unstructured learning. They read and “study” online all the time, but it is entirely self-directed; and the problem with that is that they tend to work on the things that interest them, while overlooking the topics that will do them the most good. The things that are the most interesting tend to come easily and those that don’t require more effort.

If you want to develop professionally so that you can stand out, then you need to find out how to structure your learning so that nothing important is left out. You can spend years on unstructured learning and never get what you really need to enable you to advance the way you want to.

The next thing you should do is to make it easy for you to stick with your plan. It’s been said that most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year and underestimate what they can accomplish in a decade. Maybe you don’t have ten years or would rather not invest that much time to take the next step. You may have a choice or you may not. The point is that you’re setting yourself up for failure if you try to accomplish too much within an insufficient period of time. It’s better to achieve less without being overstressed than to have a nervous breakdown while trying to do too much. Make sure that you build in extra time, not only for the unforeseen events in your life, but also for the rest and relaxation that’s necessary to recharge your physical, mental, and emotional batteries.

There’s a third thing you can do is to make sure that you’re doing something that you really want to do. Psychologists talk about the pressure that people put on themselves. They refer to them as “should have, could have, and would have.” The fact is that you will have no problem making the effort to do something that you really want to do. Your schedule and your checkbook already demonstrate that. The problems arise when you try to sustain enthusiasm for doing something that doesn’t hold your interest. So while on the one hand you need to have structured learning so the important topics aren’t overlooked, on the other you need to be studying those things that hold your interest. Otherwise you’ll get distracted or be tempted to give up altogether.

If the professional development that you’re pursuing is something you’d rather not do, then it’s possible that you’re trying to go in the wrong direction. A more sensible approach might be to stop, back up, and evaluate what your goals are. Then decide on a more suitable professional development program that will lead you to them.

Remember that fewer than 10% of people accomplish any new thing that they set out to do each year, so the temptations to give up are very strong indeed. It’s not that they’re unwilling to change. Instead, it’s that the pain of doing so is greater than maintaining the status quo.

If you want to stand out in your career, then you have to be willing to do more than your peers. To quote a cliché, “You have to go the extra mile.” That extra distance is an uncrowded path. Once you know the direction you should be going in, create a plan that you can follow, and then give it all you’ve got.

Listening is a lost art. Few people know what it means; never mind how to do it.

If actions truly speak louder than words, then the absence of the latter proves the former. Sitting in silence demonstrates that the purpose of doing so is to profit from whatever the other person has to say.

Contrast this with what modern day listening has become. Conservations consist of people interrupting and talking over one another, and finishing the sentences of others. It’s not about learning; instead it’s about using the time while another speaks to gather your own thoughts so that you can express your opinion as soon as possible, whether someone else is speaking or not.

If you truly listen to learn, then you are to be congratulated, because you also expect to gain something by it. That alone puts you in the minority.

What is the purpose of listening to customers?

Why do you listen to your customers? Perhaps a better question would be, “Do you listen to them?”

If you should eavesdrop on a conversation or two, you’d discover that many salespeople don’t. They want to get to the sales process as quickly as possible. They have missed the fact that selling is about finding a solution, and in order to do that they need the customer’s cooperation. That is an essential part of it.

And that changes the dynamic of listening. If the purpose is to benefit from what another says, then what you’re being told should be considered as feedback. In other words, the conversation should not be seen as a competition to see who can get his / her point across. Instead, it should be appreciated as an opportunity to learn.

If you’re willing to listen, which means that you have no agenda to promote, you will be amazed at how much your customers will tell you. That’s because they will recognize that you actually care about what they have to say.

If, however, they get the impression that you’re not that interested, then they won’t tell you any more than what you can see for yourself. You won’t come away from the experience with more than a surface understanding.

Clarity

When you’re willing to sit and listen, and to respond when you’re asked to, rather than chomping at the bit for the next opportunity, the avenues of communication are opened to clarify any ambiguities that have arisen. And you can take care of these things on the spot. There’s no chance that such misunderstandings will be allowed to fester. That’s because of the mutual respect that you have for one another; the certainty that what the other person has to say is more important than what is on your mind.

It takes considerable humility to behave like this; but doing so will set you apart from your competitors. That’s because the majority of them have failed to grasp this idea of listening for the purpose of learning about the needs of others.

When we think about it like that, it seems so obvious that we wonder how anyone could possibly miss it; and yet the problem is so chronic that it takes an article like this to point out the “obvious” solution.

If we watched a video of you speaking with your customers last year, what would we see? Would it be a series of conversations where you said little and took a lot of notes, or would you be dominating the dialogue.

This year, decide that you will encourage your customers to do most of the talking. Think about questions you can ask that will help them to do so. Listen with purpose; and then brace yourself for a flood of feedback that you didn’t even know was there.

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.” So says Cassius in Shakespeare’s play, Julius Caesar.

Although you’re not debating in a Roman portico, much of what is said by Cassius applies to you in your job and ultimately, in your career.

That’s because your future is not determined by your stars, but by you. And only you can decide what goal to aim for.

Your current job may be much less that you’d like it to be. It may even feel like a dead-end. More probably, it’s a stepping-stone to something else, though this is easily overlooked.

While managers have a habit of demotivating their employees, you are responsible for motivating yourself, whether it’s at work or not.

In a job, where the shine has worn off, this can be a challenge; but it’s not an impossible one provided that you have three things.

1. Purpose.

Your more immediate purpose might be to make a living; but by itself, it will not make you want to do outstanding work or stay with it for very long.

Instead it will continue to be a form of drudgery that’s laid upon you by the stars.

And so to overcome that you need to have a “higher” purpose; one that transcends all others.

Your purpose has to be bigger than yourself: Much bigger. It has to take you outside of yourself.

Some of the greatest causes in human history began life this way.

2. Belief

You need to believe that you’re capable. You need to be absolutely sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that you could do it if you knew how.

You’ve probably heard the saying that “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.”

The same thing holds true here. When you have a compelling purpose, the resources to achieve it will seemingly come out of the woodwork.

Many successful entrepreneurs will bend over backwards to help another budding entrepreneur.

Resources can suddenly appear, too.

The reason for that is that so many people have no purpose; and so they’re attracted by those that do.

Think of all the volunteers that work the telephone lines in an election to put someone they believe in into the government. The vast majority of them will never have a job in the White House, so why do they do it?

It’s because they share the purpose of the candidate.

3. Reward

You must also have a reward at the end of it all that makes it all worthwhile to you.

This, too, can be a challenge.

If you’re overweight, then it’s unlikely that you’ll treat yourself to a meal when you reach one of your goals.

The reward needn’t be complicated. It could be something as simple as feeling better about yourself because you did it.

So what steps can you take right now to get yourself motivated? You need focus on those things that you can do, rather than on those that you can’t.

Stephen Covey, in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People talks about the Circle of Influence and the Circle of Concern. The two make up a whole: 100%, if you like.

Most people live in the Circle of Concern. They’re constantly thinking about what they can’t do. And that means that, over time, they have less and less influence.

The few who live in the Circle of Influence concentrat on what they can do. And the more they think about it, the more they find that they can do.

It’s not a false belief made up of morning affirmations.  It’s faithfully doing what you know you can do.

If you get into the habit of thinking about what you can do and get on with it, then you’ll have less time to mull over your limitations.

And when that happens, you really will kindle the excitement of realizing your purpose. You’ll see the job that you’re doing right now as the means, rather than the end.

Probably the most effective way to get the results you want from someone is to give quality feedback.

What does that consist of? Two things. The first is that it must be timely. The second is that it must be appropriate.

Timely feedback

Whether you have children or not, you know that the best time to give them feedback on their behavior is at the time you observe it. You praise them for good work and correct them when it isn’t up to scratch. And you know that they have understood what you said by what they do the next time.

But imagine for a moment what it would be like if you waited a year to say anything. Depending upon their age and / or circumstances, they might not even remember what happened. Not only would you have to remind them of it, but they would have been left completely in the dark with respect to your approval or disapproval. In other words, they wouldn’t know if they had behaved or misbehaved in your judgment. And that means that they probably would continue to act in that way until you finally did say something. This sort of thing can lead to behavioral problems. Kids will push their boundaries until they get enough resistance to change course.

Employees are much the same way. They need timely feedback from you. It’s unfair to them and ineffective for the organization if you wait until appraisal time, for example, to say anything about their work.

Appropriate feedback

Appropriate feedback is constructive. It may include criticism, but it is not limited to it. In order to provide this kind of feedback, you need to prepare for it. How do you do that?

There are five steps.

1. Know the goal before you start.

Let’s pick something that is the bane of many drivers: Speed traps. What’s the goal? To those who are caught, it is a means for the city to make money. But the truth is that speed limits are for the protection of the public. As speeds increase, reaction time goes down. The difference can be between a serious accident and a near miss. Most drivers, however, think that they have more skill behind the wheel than they actually do. Speed limits increase the margin for error.

The point is that when speed traps are used, it is because someone has decided in advance why they should be put in one place rather than another.

Before you give feedback to anyone, you need to have a clear idea why you’re giving it. The desired outcome should always be positive; that is, your goal should be either to get more of what you’ve observed or to correct it so that you can get the results that you want.

2. Listen

When you give feedback, listen to what the other person has to say. Unless he /she is overly optimistic or pessimistic, your thoughts and his / hers should closely align. This will set the stage for what you have to say.

Whatever you do, you don’t want the person to come away from the time of feedback dejected and demoralized. That’s because instead of improving the behavior, you instead may remove the little hope the he /she has. When the situation is hopeless, then there’s no point in trying. So you have to make every effort to avoid doing more harm than good, which is the opposite of what you intend.

3. Make the feedback a conversation

Rather than following the usual baloney about being positive, then negative and then ending on a positive note, make all of what is said a discussion about the topic at hand. That way it won’t feel contrived. The person won’t be waiting for the bad news or trying to balance it against anything good you may have to offer.

4. Learn your scripts

The scripts you need to learn are all the things you admire in that person. You need to know these cold. That’s so that you can talk about them freely, in a relaxed fashion, and with confidence. It’s so that you don’t choke on your words.

Sincerity is essential. That’s because if you can’t say it like you mean it, then no one will believe you, and your feedback will have been detrimental as well as a waste of your time.

5. Forget your scripts

The scripts you need to forget are those cleverly worded phrases that you think sound so cool. These rarely come off as well as you think they do even when on those rare occasions you say them as you should. They, too, sound contrived. That’s because you’re looking for a place to say them, and that prevents you from being spontaneous. Spontaneity is essential to a genuine conversation.

In psychology we say that you get the behavior that you reinforce. The feedback that you give is how you bolster those actions. If you give it in the right way, then both you and your organization will benefit. Otherwise, you’ll suffer for your ineptitude.

In 2009, David Meerman Scott revealed the 325 most commonly used words and phrases found among more than 700K press releases issued by North American companies in the previous year. These expressions he termed gobbledygook because their meaning had become so diverse and watered down that no one could be certain what was intended.

Pride of place went to the word “innovate” with more than 51K uses. Thus, this idea of organizational innovation led by an innovative leader is obscure at best. In truth, it can mean almost anything; and so before we think about what leaders need to do, we need to understand first of all what it is that we want.

Historically, the word innovate was been associated with change, and change by its nature means doing something different. But modern usage has altered it to something else; to the idea of doing something that’s new. Newness, however, is in the eye of the beholder. There really isn’t anything new “under the sun.” All we really do is come up with different ways to explain what we’ve forgotten from one generation to another.

What is the goal of an innovation leader?

The goal of any leader, whether the term is prefixed by the word innovation or not, is to influence others. Influence implies change; either to do something different or to refrain from doing anything else. The adjective qualifies which one – in this case, to do something different, to be creative so that new ideas are generated, new products are invented and old ones are improved, and new services can be offered to customers and prospects.

All of this sounds very desirable, doesn’t it? What leader wouldn’t want these things for his or her organization?

But there’s a problem.Why isn’t it happening?

There would be no need for an innovative leader if organizations were already doing the things that such a person desired.

Is it because no such person has ever been at the reins of the organization in the past or that the need has suddenly arisen, and the company has moved into high gear to recruit the best person for the task?

These questions don’t seem to address the problem. They simply dance around the issue.

What’s the central problem?

It has to be something within the organization itself; that has been there all along. There has to be a root cause, and until that is dealt with, no one will be able to stimulate the innovation that he, she, or the organization longs for. It won’t happen because it can’t.

 Why don’t people innovate?

In order to get the right answer, you have to start with the right question. If you ask who we should hire so that people will innovate, then you’re asking the wrong question. That’s because it presumes that to date no one has had that ability. This is unlikely because the success of any company depends on it. If you had never been able to do it, then you probably wouldn’t have survived this long. That means that something has happened to take you from a state where you did come up with new ideas, products, and so on, to a stage where you’ve stopped. This is rarely because of one person. And that’s why asking who you should hire is the wrong question.

So why is it that people don’t innovate?

Broadly, there are two reasons.

The first is that the status quo has become acceptable. What that means is that everyone has become comfortable. Things are ticking over. The company is in profit. There’s neither too much work, nor too little. On those occasions when a new idea is expressed, you hear things such as, “Don’t rock the boat” or “We tried that, and it didn’t work” or “That’s not your job.”

The second reason is that the internal organizational structures prevent innovation.

How do they do that?

The chain-of-command is one way. Although there are fewer layers of management in most companies today, the attitudes that came with them are still rife. Employees are discouraged from going outside of their chain in order to get information from another.

Micromanagement is another way. Employees can be smothered by a manager who is constantly looking over their shoulder. Creativity follows an erratic and unpredictable path. Micromanagers won’t feel comfortable letting those they supervise act in this way.

The problem doesn’t end there.

Creativity involves failure, much more than following the status quo. Keeping things as they are can be done with minor “course corrections” – the kind that you’d use to drive on a straight road for 500 miles. Creativity is what is required to drive a 4 x 4 through an uncharted wilderness.

Thomas Edison, inventor of the first practical and affordable light bulb for use in the home, is attributed to have said that he didn’t fail 10K times – and that’s how many experiments he conducted – but rather than he had found that many ways in which what he was trying to do didn’t work.

Few companies are willing to allow people to fail enough to find the success they’re looking for. If a solution isn’t discovered right away, then the project is abandoned altogether.

General Colin Powell is famous for saying that “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to ask permission.” In organizations that penalize innovation rather than promote it, the risks are too high for most employees to take any initiative.

This is why there is little if any innovation: the culture promotes stagnation and the organization supports it.

No leader, however innovative, can fix that.

How can you become an innovative leader?

Having read this far, you shouldn’t need to be told. The key is to change your internal structures to support the attitudes you want. The order is crucial. You can’t expect people to shift into a creative mode without providing them with the right environment. There has to be a perceived freedom to think differently, and your employees need to know that it is safe for them to do so. In other words, they need to be convinced that their jobs and promotion opportunities won’t be at risk if things don’t go according to plan.

In addition, you need to reward those who are willing to go down this path. Not everyone will want to do this; but for those who do, training in new skills and professional development should be offered to them.

When these things are in place and functioning as they should be, then you’ll be able to “feel” the difference.

And if you listen carefully, you might be able to “hear” the mental wheels of innovation beginning to turn.