Learn to use a flip chart!

I was immediately blessed when entering federal service to share an office with the chief of our office. Dave had been detailed from another agency so was experienced in the ways of bureaucracy. We were a brand new agency and seating was in flux. I was just fortunate, temporarily, to find a desk in his office and thus be able to observe a real pro in action.

I overheard every phone conversation as well as his face-to-face meetings with staffers. I saw the perfect example of how to get things done in a bureaucracy. But I also learned that his competence was his undoing, that stupidity at the top can have tragic consequences.

Dave was such a great leader that staffers who were assigned elsewhere in the new agency came to his meetings and volunteered for assignments simply because the work was so necessary and interesting. And because of his leadership ability.

Part of Dave’s secret was his use of a flip chart whenever more than two persons were planning something. He would listen to the conversation, then post a word or phrase as shorthand for something we wanted to consider. Once we were clear on what needed to happen we would generate a list of tasks which he would post on the left side of the sheet, leaving room at the right for three columns: Specific Result, Who Is Responsible (with an L beside the leader’s name) and the Date the product was due.

Sounds so simple, but I had never seen it down before. We read the legislation creating our office, figured out what we needed to produce, and within two months created all of the documents necessary to fully implement the requirements of the law. (You can do this with any assignment.)

We put all the documents needed for signature by the big boss into a loose leaf binder, along with some notes on implementation.

I was so convinced of Dave’s planning method that I began to carry a flip chart into meetings, even those called by other people. I even had one blowhard tell me to “get that flip chart outta here!” You can imagine what his meetings were like.

Not long after we sent our product up the line for sign-off Dave walked into the office pale as a ghost and sat staring at the floor head in his hands. “What happened?” I asked. Then he told me the story.

Dave’s supervisor said that when he handed the binder to the big boss, he replied: “Do you expect me to read that? I spent more time writing my dissertation than it would take me to read that crap,” and threw the binder back at Dave’s supervisor.

Of course Dave and all of us were thunderstruck. Was this the reward for competence and purposeful effort? But the worst was to come.

A few weeks later, Dave got a call from his old agency. They informed him that the action making Dave a permanent employee in our agency had been denied on the grounds that he was incompetent for the position! His old agency invited him to return—with a promotion.

It took two years to gain approval of the documents as we fed the contents of the binder one by one up the line for signature.

This glimpse of bureaucracy so shook me that I explored how I might return to my old job back in North Carolina. But I was making a good salary, had just moved to Washington DC, and had a wife and three young children. I was stuck.

Lesson: Many bosses fear the competence of their underlings. Try to find out if you are working for a maniac and keep a low profile until s/he moves on…and be sure, they will move on.

Write for your life

If your job requires any kind of writing, think of it as a key to your future instead of an unimportant and unsatisfying part of the job.

I discovered early in my career that faceless bureaucrats never signed their name to the correspondence they drafted. We would prepare the draft for signature by a higher up. As close as we came to being known as the author were the initials we placed on the carbon copy before it went upward.

But that was enough. I figured that if I did a good enough job on the original draft I might someday get noticed for having half a brain, even a tad of creativity. By golly, it worked. Everyone once in a while I’d get a note from one of my superiors saying “nice job.” Eventually I got promoted.

You may not be drafting correspondence, but whatever you write on the job, even work orders or trip reports, is going to be noticed—for good or ill. You may feel it has little to do with your real work. But it has everything to do with it.

When you’re writing on the job, put real thought into it. Load it with important information that others need to have. In other words, show that you’ve put careful thought on it. And if someone else is signing what you write, give it extra care. After all, it will make her/him look good signing it.

You may not like writing; it’s hard work for anyone. The only way to learn how to write, as many experts have pointed out, is to write. Practice, practice, practice. Write letters to friends and loved ones. Keep a journal of your experience. There is a writer in you.

A great resource for improving your writing is http://lifejournal.com. Also for increasing your word power look up every new word you encounter and use a thesaurus to find words closer to what you are trying to say.

Sooner or later you’ll be a star!

Personality: On and off the job

I survived in bureaucracy by studying human behavior. I would bring books to work and analyze everyone around me. I looked kind of weird staring at people, examining the book, then looking back again at the person I was studying like I was drawing a portrait. In meetings colleagues would give me funny looks.

But I learned a lot about other people’s personalities. I could almost figure out what they would say next. In the process I became more tolerant of various personalities, realizing how different we are from each other.

It took me a while to learn that more important than figuring out others was to figure out myself. The Greeks had it right: the secret is to Know Thyself!

You can get to know your true self with two powerful tools for studying personality types. One is the Myers-Briggs Personality Type. It includes a questionnaire that helps you to understand how you take in information or perceive what’s going on around you and also tells you how you make decisions about what you perceive. People are very different in these respects. A good website for taking the test on line is: http://www.yourlifespath.com/. The site also includes the Strong Campbell Interest Inventory which points you toward specific careers that fit your true interests.

A deeper personality tool is the Enneagram. It describes nine personality types, each with, not only its strengths, but also its challenges. As you learn about these types and cultivate your “inner observer” you come to a deeper understanding of what’s driving your behavior. You see, we walk around on “automatic,” controlled by our personality instead of being present with who we really are. The place to learn more about this and use the questionnaire is http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/.

Of course, every person is unique, so be careful not to pigeon hole folks and write them off as a particular personality type. Above all, remember, the purpose of these types is not to analyze others but to help you know yourself. Every person decides what her/his type is and it’s a lifelong endeavor to really know.

Many organizations are using these tools to enhance relationships between workers. Take a look. You might want to recommend these instruments to your teammates.

Watch out for chatterboxes

We had a guy in our outfit that always came around wanting to chat about last night’s ball game, political developments, adventures on his way to or from work, you name it, even favorite foods and recipes.

He would go from desk to desk or cubicle to cubicle in a very engaging manner. It was hard to ignore him and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

Eventually I realized what he was up to. He felt so purposeless, powerless, bored, and frustrated that he unconsciously invented a way to get back at the organization for all his suffering: take time away from his work by chatting with colleagues. And to hand the outfit a double whammy, take other people away from their work at the same time!

Having friendly pals at work is clearly essential, and that takes some conversation. But it can become an unconscious obsession to punish the agency.

You might want to rehearse a few phrases that will send your chatterbox on her/his way, like, “sorry, I’ve got to finish this work before lunch,” or “the boss is waiting for this”, or “lemme catch you later.” Or you can just look real intently at what you’re working on and they may catch the hint.

Good luck!

Taking Creativity off the job

We wrote recently about what to do when it seems there are no options for improving your situation on the job. One thing you can do is remember that leadership is always changing in organizations, so you wait it out. “This too, shall pass.”

But what to do while you are waiting? Answer: develop an artistic outlet, whether it be art, writing, cabinetry—something you do with your hands, heart and mind. Psychologists say expressing one’s artistic creativity is essential to mental health. If you can’t be creative on the job, take your creativity elsewhere.

So, take lessons, find a mentor, and practice. Events in my life led me to a class in water color painting. I had never held a drawing pencil or painting brush in my life. But I get a kick out of mixing watercolors, seeing them blend and then watching closely as the brush delivers the paint to the paper. You can find references for your projects by Googling “watercolor landscapes.”

There’s lots of how-to info on the web if you Google “watercolor painting.” Of course, the web has just about any kind of help you need in exploring artistic outlets. Thank God for Google!

There’s not much time when you’re working 8 hours a day or more. And you don’t want to neglect your family. But you CAN turn off the TV; it’s so depressing anyway.

Give it a whirl!

The problem with mergers

These days we see a lot of organizations merging with each other to reduce costs or to combine resources. This means mixing the cultures of two separate outfits, which is not easy. It takes special effort by leaders to get everyone to sign on to a revised mission, goals, strategies and working relationships.

I remember when we had a change of leadership at the top of our agency. The new boss brought in his own henchmen who immediately closed the door to decision making on the part of anyone they inherited from the folks already there…the very people who had the wisdom, experience, and commitment needed for success.

Merging cultures is similar. The dominant organization can ignore the wisdom of those from the acquired company. It takes time for veteran employees to feel like they belong to the new management—to share the same values, goals and behaviors.

It becomes doubly hard to become appreciated for your contribution. Here again, as we mentioned earlier, despite your resentment, you can look around for opportunities for interesting tasks with the new bosses.

Since leadership is always changing we just had to wait for the next changing of the guard. While you’re waiting, explore some off-the-job hobbies or arts and crafts that allow you to take your creativity elsewhere.

Rewards

A bit earlier we spoke of rewards as a motivator for high performance, and job satisfaction, but watch out! Take a look at Punished By Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes by Alfie Kohn.

The trouble comes by singling out individuals for praise or “other bribes” instead of rewarding teams. After all, if there are winners, there are losers. So singling out “”winners” can produce a whole bunch of losers.

There are only a few great pleasures in life, e.g., eating, sleeping—you can name most of them. The one we often miss is being on a team. It’s the best antidote for complaining or negative peer pressure. Join a team and you get the right kind of influence…to do your best for the team.

Effective teams rely on two things: being clear about their purposes and being able to manage the conflicts that are sure to arise.

So team building involves first of all clearing the air of any gripes, then setting goals and objectives, and finally deciding who will do what to reach the objectives. That way, members also get clear about what’s expected of them—another antidote for suffering in bureaucracy.

Being in an organization offers an opportunity to join a team. If there is not one in sight, why not suggest one to the powers that be.