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.

Peer Pressure

Peer Pressure

We usually think of peer pressure in connection with kids who feel they have to have the same brand of sneakers as their friends. But peer pressure is an equally important influence in organizational life. It almost ruined mine.

Every day I was going to lunch with the same co-workers and EVERY conversation amounted to constantly criticizing the boss, or the boss’s boss. “Did you get a load of Herb’s sox today?” it would start. “And that tie! Ugh!”

From there it would descend into criticism of the way our outfit operated, the incompetence of our supervisors, and various complaints about life in the bureaucracy. It became a group norm for us never to say anything good about anything or anyone in the agency. And when it came to work, you dared not invest too heartily in any assignment.

The effect was to prevent me from doing my best work, from being positive with my superiors and from having a good feeling about myself and my performance. Overtime I became very depressed and saw no way to escape from my peers.

Then one weekend I went camping with my son and his scout troop. I discovered that you can cook anything with boiling water. Aha! On Monday I walked in with my new electric teapot and a package of dried soup and announced to my colleagues that from now on I would be eating at my desk.

I felt great relief at being my own person again. This experience taught me the dangers of succumbing to the influence of disgruntled peers. So another rule for surviving, even succeeding, in the bureaucracy: find colleagues who feel their work is important and have good things to say about the organization and its people.

Of course, we need to vent to trusted friends when things go wrong, but be careful it does not become a habit.

Money is Not a Motivator

Money is Not A Motivator

Does that surprise you? Well, Fredrick Hertzberg (be sure to Google him) traveled all over the world interviewing workers in a variety of climates. He asked them what factors motivated them most toward high performance.

He named at least four factors: rewards, recognition, feeling responsible, and above all, having interesting work. By rewards, he was not referring to cash bonuses. He meant the informal rewards of happy customers, service to others, recognition of one’s efforts and accomplishments.

Feeling responsible is an important motivator. I had a supervisor once who cared little about our work. I received an assignment to design a conference of our constituents, but I had little interest since my supervisor appeared to care less. But one day HIS boss came into my office and said, “Dwight, you are the person responsible for the success of this conference.” It changed my attitude and I did my best. So when unsure, find out what you are responsible for…and add to it.

But interesting work is the real key. You must do whatever you can to make your work interesting. A friend of mine carried it to extreme. He worked in an auto plant, lifting cutouts of dashboards from a machine and placing them on hooks traveling overhead to the next spot on the assembly line. How boring! But he made it fun by imagining it was a game of horseshoes. He would wait until the hooks passed nearly out or reach and then would pitch the dashboard just in time. Of course, he dropped a few which had to be sent back for reworking. So try to avoid any such sabotage when you try to add interesting wrinkles to your job. Do be careful of adding steps or angles that reduce the excellence of the result. Remember, producing excellent results, whatever the task, is the real key to your future.

What would make your job more interesting? Are there other jobs in the organization that appeal to you? You might even volunteer with other supervisors to take on limited tasks that interest you without reducing your effectiveness in your current assignment.

Managing Conflict

Managing Conflict

One of the things I learned early on the job is the inevitability of conflict. Whenever two or more people are engaged in an enterprise, there is bound to be conflict. Face it--conflict is inescapable in life and in any organization.

There are several kinds of conflicts: disagreements over strategies for accomplishing objectives, differing views about the objectives themselves, and times when people are in conflict over their personal values. Conflict over values are the hardest to negotiate. But a determination to manage conflict creatively is an important value in itself.

There are three ways organizations deal with conflict: a) avoid it, b) try to overpower the opponent, and c) invite the opponent to join a creative problem solving effort to solve the problem and thereby manage the conflict.

Too often people in organizations try to deny or avoid conflict. The disputants turn to tactics and passive-aggressive maneuvering which produces all kinds of dysfunctional behavior unrelated to the conflict, thus burying the real problem from constructive action. Efforts to overpower the other party always end with winners and losers, as parties consciously or unconsciously seek ways to get back at each other. How better to kill creative effort in behalf of the organization's goals!

Next time you find yourself in conflict you might offer a series of steps to first clear the air and then move to a creative problem solving approach to manage it. In fact, see what you can do to encourage a method for managing conflict that is widely known and accepted throughout the organization. Notice I did not say it would end the conflict. Conflict is inevitable. It is a source of energy for people who care about the enterprise. The key is developing an agreed upon method for managing it.

Some steps for managing conflict are:

1. Include only the parties to the dispute, no onlookers.
2. Agree on the steps you are about to take.
3. Dump the garbage, i.e. invite the parties to say how the issue and the other person’s behavior has affected them. Let each person speak without interruption or rebuttal.
4. Repeat or say back what you think you are hearing from the other party and let them correct what you think you heard.
5. Describe (and agree) on the problem.
6. Brainstorm possible solutions, even if they sound crazy at first. (This is the creative part.)
7. Jointly select and agree on the most promising solutions and what the parties agree to do.
8. Write down the agreement so it can be later reviewed and modified if necessary.
9. Review the agreement periodically to see if it’s still working.

When the conflict is serious enough a third party mediator can help the parties hear each other and engage in constructive steps to manage it.

Any enterprise succeeds on two bases: shared goals and the ability to manage conflict.

What do you think? Please click the comment icon below and let me know.

The number one cause of suffering in organizations

The number one cause of suffering in organizations

Bureaucracy has lots of ways to make people suffer. But the worst suffering we bring on ourselves.

In a word, it’s role ambiguity, as in, “What the hell do you people expect of me??!!

When most of us are uncertain about our role, we refuse to talk about it. Instead, we stuff that uncertainty, and live silently with it. And that’s where all the ulcers, heart attacks and mental and physical ills come from.

Being clear about one’s role, and feeling good about, is at the core of comfort in any setting. But what happens when somebody requests some action dealing with an area that seems to be beyond our job description? Or we look around and discover someone carrying out a task that we thought was our exclusive responsibility. That’s called role intrusion.

Then there are situations where the role is clear enough, but we don’t want to carry it out. That’s called role conflict.

All of these situations have us asking, “What in the hell do you people expect of me?” And instead of saying it out loud, we stuff it. And then the suffering really begins.

The solution is a process called role negotiation. Here’s how it works. Make a list of everything you do on your job, from the minute you enter until you leave. If you start by watering the flower pots in the office, put it on the list. Make the list as complete as you possibly can, listing every action separately.

Then place a “K” beside those tasks you want to keep doing. Put a “G” beside those you’d rather give to someone else to handle. Finally, add some tasks you do not now do but would like to carry out, even though that might require some orientation or training. Usually these items would tend to make your work more interesting to you.

Then take the list to your boss. Most bosses (not all) want employees to be happy in their work, and they are eager to learn how employees believe they can increase their contribution to the organization.

The boss’s job is to talk to others who might be willing to take on the “G”s on your list. If there are no takers, then s/he needs to look for ways to redesign the task itself to make it more attractive. For example, if the undesireable task is stuffing envelopes, make it more fun by placing the stuffing table at the front door where extroverted employees are able to chat with customers while they stuff.

I’ve seen role negotation done publicly in groups of employees, each with his or her own list. Interestingly, I’ve seen people volunteer to take on tasks objectionable to others.

Above all, don’t stuff your uncertainty about what’s expected of you. You’ll suffer in ways beyond those you may be conscious of.

The Cruiser

The Cruiser

Of course, when starting any new job you want to know who’s the boss and how to please her or him. My buddies and I were seated at desks all in a row, while supervisors had their own private offices (not much bigger than a cubicle.)

Our boss was a guy named Joe. He had maneuvered a transfer to this new agency, probably because his former agency was about to throw him out. Part of our job was to answer correspondence, referred from the higher-ups. After all, faceless bureaucrats do not get mail directly.

Some came from citizens asking questions about our programs. Others came from different offices asking us to perform some task.

Joe would walk by our desks, plop the missive on somebody’s desk, and walk on. We would glance at the letter and holler at Joe as he disappeared into his office, “Hey Joe, What do you want us to do with this?”

His response every time was “fellas, let’s not agonize.” So we were left on our own as neophytes in bureaucracy to discover the hard way…by life’s only teacher: experience.

We came to call Joe “The Cruiser.” And we figured out a way to work around him, i.e., seek guidance from his boss. Of course, he eventually moved on.

If you have a boss like this, remember, leadership in organizations is always changing. So keep saying, “this too shall pass.”