Spring Break Rewind #5 - 'I will get in there and mix it up'

Note: It is Spring Break week here in Western New York, (for the school-age kids anyway), and while I will still be working and traveling to New York City to present at a conference, this week will be busier than most. So this week on the blog I'll be re-running some pieces from the last 12 months or so. Yes, I am being lazy. Cut me some slack. Anyway, if you are on Spring Break this week, I hope you have a great little vacation!

This piece - 'I will get in there and mix it up', originally ran in October 2012.

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What?

Another sports-themed post!

That's three this week!

Write what you know, or at least what you can reasonably pass off as knowing, some smart person once said, so yes I am wrapping up a tremendous week on the blog with a little Friday diversion, and once again it is taken from the world of sports. If you don't like it, ask for your money back :)

This story is about sports, but it is also about chasing a goal, making a commitment, and not letting other people define you, and perhaps more importantly, what you are capable of achieving. And no, it is not about the 'jump from space' guy, that guy is just crazy.

Submitted for your review, the story of 76-year-old Don Wiberg, and his attempt to land a coveted roster spot for the basketball team the Santa Cruz Warriors of NBA D-League, (the 'D' stands for 'Developmental', think of the league as a minor league feeder and place where raw talent can refine their skills to be better prepared for the NBA).

Catch the video below, (Mr. Wiberg enters at about the :50 second mark, email and RSS subscribers click through), and see if you caught the most imporant line in the clip.

So did you catch that? Here's the important part of Wiberg's assessment of his own skills:

'I can't say that I can run or jump or shoot because I can't, but for a guy who can't run or jump or shoot, I'm a decent passer, and I'll get in there and mix it up.'

Think of every job interview you've participated in, and whether as the interviewer or the interviewee, I would bet either way you'd be lucky to have such an honest presentation and assessment of a candidate's skills to be considered. It hits the 'What's your biggest weakness?' question, and simultaneously presents what the candidate will bring to the table.

And in this case what Wiberg offers may be more important to long-term success than any job-specific skills you are looking for.

Sure, in professional basketball there is only so much willingness to 'mix it up' that can compensate for a lack of basic, essential sports skills and physical requirements that a 76-year-old will just not be able to produce, but for the vast majority of the roles in our organizations those same physical skills are either not relevant, or can be learned.

And for those, that willingness to 'mix it up', might be more important than all the other skills combined.

I'm out - have a great weekend all!

Spring Break Rewind #4 - I'm not really properly motivated

Note: It is Spring Break week here in Western New York, (for the school-age kids anyway), and while I will still be working and traveling to New York City to present at a conference, this week will be busier than most. So this week on the blog I'll be re-running some pieces from the last 12 months or so. Yes, I am being lazy. Cut me some slack. Anyway, if you are on Spring Break this week, I hope you have a great little vacation!

This piece - 'I'm not really properly motivated', originally ran in August 2012.

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Most readers who are parents would likely agree with me when I say that of all the challenges we face in various parts of our lives, that convincing a stubborn kid to do something, (or more likely, to continue to do something so as it becomes a habit), is probably right up these on the frustrating and maddening scale.

When the kids are really young, say less than 5, logic and reasoning are (mostly) useless as negotiating tactics, and once they get a little bit older they develop a pesky ability to apply their own forms of logic and let's say unique world views to bat back most of your well-reasoned and completely reasonable demands. Never mind that as parents we almost always give up really fast trying to actually see the problem from the kid's perspective, after all, it is the one time in our lives when we have (pretty much) absolute power in the negotiation. And breaking out 'Because I said so' or 'Because I am the parent and you are the kid' might both be fully valid, accurate, and successful ways to put an end to any discussion around behavior modification, they also feel kind of hollow and depressing to have to rely upon, at least too frequently.  Dilbert.com

Whether it's a reluctant kid who can't see the inherent wisdom in simply doing whatever it is you want him/her to do, or a pesky colleague, manager, or subordinate at work that for some reason is having trouble seeing the brilliance (or at least the logic) in whatever fool idea you are pushing, it seems to me it is getting more important all the time to appreciate the absolute value of being able to have your ideas, if not adopted wholly, at least understood and maybe, maybe even supported by collections of folks that have their own ideas about how things should go. Like the kid who does not seem enthused about mundane activities like 'room cleaning', the truth is most folks won't naturally or willingly see the value to them of listening to you, making the 'I'm the boss/parent/teacher/coach' your all-too-frequently uses fall back position, and discussion-ender.

I know all contentious debates do need to come to an end for any progress to be made. The kid's room has to be cleaned, homework has to get done, the TPS reports have to go out, and on and on and on.

But how the debate ends I think is important, and how the accumulation of these endings over time begin to impact the ability of any type of leader, be it a parent, manager, or coach, to get people around them working towards mutually beneficial ends matters.

As a parent, if you keep pulling the 'Because I'm the Dad' line, it is probably a sign of some other kind of problem, perhaps a little bit of a lack of seeing their point of view. As my 11 year old explained to me recently, 'It's not that I don't want to, it's just that I'm not really properly motivated'.

Sure, I could have trotted out the 'Tough luck kid, I am the Dad', (I actually think I did), but there certainly was the feeling that I should not have had to go there. That the kid should have intuitively understood the wisdom/logic/importance of whatever it was I wanted him to do. And the fact that he did not, well, that was completely and totally his problem or failing, not mine.

That's how it works when you are the boss, right?

Spring Break Rewind #3 - How many ways can an object be moved?

Note: It is Spring Break week here in Western New York, (for the school-age kids anyway), and while I will still be working and traveling to New York City to present at a conference, this week will be busier than most. So this week on the blog I'll be re-running some pieces from the last 12 months or so. Yes, I am being lazy. Cut me some slack. Anyway, if you are on Spring Break this week, I hope you have a great little vacation!

This piece - 'Fun with job requirements: How many ways can an object be moved?', originally ran in June 2012.

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I have a friend in a job search and last week he forwarded to me an online posting for a position he was considering applying to, and wanted some feedback from me about the job, the organization, and whether I felt it was a potential fit for him. I took a quick look and it mostly seemed pretty standard, a technical system admin-type job working on company systems, some different programming languages they were looking for, working on-site in the company offices, etc. Again, nothing really noteworthy or quite frankly interesting about the listing until I got to the end.But can you do this?

This 'requirement' is taken word for word from the job description in the 'Physical requirements' section of the posting:

"Primarily sedentary work with the need to exert up to 10 pounds of force occasionally to lift, carry, push, pull or otherwise move objects."

For some reason, this requirement just about made me spit coffee all over the keyboard, if nothing else for its surface absurdity, but also the thought of someone sitting down, perhaps even having a conversation with a colleague or the hiring manager, when it came time to draft the language for this requirement.

Perhaps it went something like this:

HR/Recruiter -Ok, we have the skills, education, job duties down. How about any special physical requirements for the job?

Hiring Manager -  Well, it is a computer admin job. Just normal work on a computer, you know, typing, working a mouse, that kind of thing.

HR/Recruiter -Would the person have to lift or carry anything?

Hiring Manager - Not really, I mean the occasional report or print out. Maybe a technical manual now and

then.

HR/Recruiter -Ok, so lifting and carrying are needed.

                         How about pushing or pulling? Any pushing or pulling involved?

Hiring Manager - Uh, I don't know. Maybe. Sometimes we move the chairs and tables in the conference room around for meetings. 

HR/Recruiter -Ok, I better add pushing and pulling too.

                          Anything else?

Hiring Manager - I can't think of anything. I mean, how many different ways can an object be moved?

Classic. Maybe I am being too hard on the HR person here, maybe the conversation went the other way around and the Hiring Manager insisted the nonsensical requirement made the copy. Either way, the idea at some point, a conversation like the above might have actually happened was enough for me to take notice. Good times.

I'll sign off with this question - Lift, carry, push, pull - what other ways can an object be moved? 

Have a great Tuesday!

Spring Break Rewind #2 - Tuesday, rain, and playing the long game

Note: It is Spring Break week here in Western New York, (for the school-age kids anyway), and while I will still be working and traveling to New York City to present at a conference, this week will be busier than most. So this week on the blog I'll be re-running some pieces from the last 12 months or so. Yes, I am being lazy. Cut me some slack. Anyway, if you are on Spring Break this week, I hope you have a great little vacation!

This piece - 'Tuesday, rain, and playing the long game', originally ran in September 2012.

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Ever since Malcolm Gladwell pitched his now famous 10,000 hours theory, it cemented into our awareness what most everyone has known for a really long time - overnight success is usually not overnight at all, and the long, slow grind of experiments, failures, refinements, learning, and disappointments is what (mostly) leads to what only seems like overnight success.Johns - Figure 4

Even the 'Gangnam Style' guy has been plying his craft in one form or another for over 10 years.

We all know this to be true, it isn't novel, we were usually taught this in school starting in about 3rd grade, or whenever it was we ran face first into that first subject or concept that we didn't just 'get' right away. Maybe it was fractions, maybe sentence structure, adverbs, or long division - once that first bit of frustration with not understanding hits, we generally realize pretty quick the only (ethical) way forward is long, boring, hard, and largely unsatisfying effort. Unsatisfying until we do finally 'get it' and say things like 'It's all been worth it', or in the case of calculus, 'I'm glad I'll never have to go through that again.'

So while the 'you have to work really hard for a long time to become great at anything' isn't news, it still is a sentiment or guide that still bears repeating from time to time, (at least for me). And rarely have I seen it expressed as well as in a recent piece on the ESPN True Hoop blog called 'The long game is the only game', by Henry Abbott, (I know you are shocked, a basketball site).  

Here's the money quote from Henry:

It may appear that NBA games are won with big moments when everybody is looking -- dunking over people, blocking shots, hitting a momentous jumper. And once in a while that does happen. But the reality is that many more careers and games turn on getting things right in the millions of small moments when nobody is looking. The big moments will always dominate the Hollywood version of events. But in real life, if you want to do the most you can to get the best possible results, it's a long game of putting together one solid day of training after another.

You want to know who's going to have the best NBA career? You could do worse than to simply figure out who puts in the most work to prepare.

Maybe in the NBA there are some exceptions to this, there are some supremely talented and physically gifted guys where the need for the day-in, day-out slog is not necessary to have successful and even legendary careers. But those guys are extremely rare, often work and practice much, much more than they let on, and often are looked back upon as not making the most of their physical gifts.

For the rest of us, who can't dunk a ball, or for whom irrational number theory never came naturally, we have to continue to grind away. 

I got up early today, it's Tuesday, it's cold and raining. The kind of day that is pretty easy to fold to, to simply go through the motions,  and come back tomorrow.

But that never gets it done.

Spring Break Rewind #1 - People, Process, and Productivity Killers

Note: It is Spring Break week here in Western New York, (for the school-age kids anyway), and while I will still be working and traveling to New York City to present at a conference, this week will be busier than most. So this week on the blog I'll be re-running some pieces from the last 12 months or so. Yes, I am being lazy. Cut me some slack. Anyway, if you are on Spring Break this week, I hope you have a great little vacation!

This piece - 'People, Process, and Productivity Killers', originally ran in May 2012.

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Last week an interesting piece called '5 Ways Process is Killing Your Productivity', ran on Fast Company, a look and take on how overly rigid productivity systems, (like Six Sigma or TQM), can potentially have a detrimental effect on organization productivity and potential for innovation. As someone that has always balked or at least held a cynical point of view when productivity systems based in traditional manufacturing models were attempted in non-manufacturing environments, I thought the piece raised some excellent arguments, particularly when we think about the application of soft or people processes inside organizations, whether for performance management, development, or even for methods of collaboration.

I won't re-cast the author's entire point of view here, I'd recommend reading the full piece on Fast Company, but I do want to pull out the five productivity reducing ways that over-reliance on process methodology can have on performance and productivity, and ask you to think about them in the context of your organization and your initiatives, challenges, and opportunities as a talent or human resources professional.

1. Empowering with permission, but not action

HR example: Tell employees 'they own their career development', but offer no support at all, (time off, funding, guidance, suggestions), as to how they might pursue development opportunities

2. Focus on process instead of people

HR example: Did all the mid-year performance reviews get done? 100% in? Success!

3. Overdependence on meetings

HR example: Actually this is not limited to HR, most organizations still rely on the formal meeting, with way more than necessary attendees, to move along projects and initiatives. Just look at it this way, how do you typical react when a meeting suddenly gets cancelled? If you are like most, you revel in the 'found' hour or two back in your day. Meeting cancellation is like a mini-Christmas.

4. Lack of (clear) vision

HR example: Sort of a larger point to try and cover here, but certainly you can relate to being buried in the process or function of people management, legally required and self-imposed, that we simply miss or fail to articulate, (and then act upon), a bigger vision for how we can enable people to succeed and execute business strategy. This is the 'in the weeds' feeling you might be experiencing since it is Monday. But does it really ever go away?

5. Management acts as judge, not jury

HR example: Obviously, earned or just unfairly ascribed, the position of HR as police or judge has a long and not easily remedied place in many organizations. HR can't and shouldn't always be an advocate for the individual employee at the expense of the needs of the organization, but when the function is viewed as simply punitive, or even just indifferent, the chances for HR to effect meaningful and positive impact on people is certainly diminished.

I think one of the essential conflicts that arise in interpersonal relationships is the conflict between people that prefer or need strict rules and order, and the more free-spirited folk that see rules and strictures at best as more like broad guidelines, and at worst as mandates set by people that lack their own creativity and vision and can be safely ignored.  Or said differently, between people that have to clean all the dinner dishes before bed and those that are happy to let them sit in the sink overnight. Both are 'right' of course, which leads to many of these kinds of 'process vs. freedom' kinds of arguments. 

What do you think?

Have processes or set-in-stone rules you may have imposed in your organization helped?

Have they allowed people the room they need for creativity and innovation?

Do they keep you in the role of HR police far too much?

Happy Monday!