Chapter 6

The Power of Relationships

Relationships are the fulcrum of action in successful organizations. They provide connections, communication links, feedback loops, and high-speed data analytics to fuel the performance of your people.

ACHIEVING ENGAGEMENT

Much is written about relationships, yet many relationships wrestle with unnecessary friction. Necessary disclaimer: Yes, no good relationship is always smooth. It's not about whether there is friction, but whether the expectation is that the friction will be resolved. Unresolved friction blocks the power of relationships out of fear, but the expectation of resolution enables attempts to resolve both the problem and the friction. The guidance is to seek rapid resolution while maintaining the debate. The challenge is that trust enables action, even resolution, pulled along by mutual drive to reach shared goals. Where trust is tenuous, what's an alternative?

Negative Engagement

Leaders as far back in history as the Roman Empire relied upon a threatening “outside enemy” to rally their people to a common cause. The relationship was more about the enemy than the team, but it worked. Even today, leaders can rally their people despite disagreement if they can frame “outside” (company) goals that everyone can support. This action narrows activity to paths to reach the outside goals despite personal friction. This could be labeled “negative engagement” because it's not about resolving personal differences but about mutual goals.

A classic example of this is in the departmental friction between sales and production, or production and engineering. Each pairing has built-in friction points by job definition. Sales will push for orders and be pulled to make promises that are tough to fulfill, such as shipping dates, order quantities, or even certain product specifications. Production will try to stretch shipping dates, reducing inventory or managing production schedules to meet their own objectives. Engineering will focus on product performance to the detriment of “manufacturability” or will reject a potential supplier because of inadequate quality-control systems when that supplier's product is essential to meet a production goal.

This friction is the natural result of the departments’ drive to meet their goals, producing friction inevitably in the usual course of business. It's not about evil motives or even greed. It comes from a combination of strong drive to succeed and little emphasis upon shared solutions. It's not that they don't talk about it; it's that their leaders aren't required to be accountable to company goals. Instead, departments are measured, recognized, and sometimes paid on their individual performance, with little incentive or informal pressure to resolve friction damaging to the company.

If your people are doing this, there are three actions open to you:

1. Ignore it, hoping that the noise will subside. Your results likely will follow the noise.
2. Ask the leaders of colliding departments to get together and work it out. In many cases, stating the problem clearly with both in the room and telling them that it's their job to resolve it will be enough. Make it clear that you're available to help if they wish.
3. Initiate a work session with the two and lead the discussion. A client CEO described a meeting where closet finger-pointers are put in a room with their boss, asked to frame their concerns, and then asked to resolve them to the good of the company. It usually works, but the key is the executive who calls both to the room, owns the responsibility to frame the discussion, holds it as tension rises, and asks each to find an alternate path that returns to progress instead of fighting. Here is how to do this procedure yourself, step by step:
   • Decide to defuse. Demonstrate clear benefits to the discussion before it is set up. If the benefits are small, skip it. Not all problems should be solved.
   • Interview individually. Even if you think you understand the people and the disagreement, do this step because if you skip it, the odds of continuing friction go through the roof.
   • Ask targeted questions of each person, and take notes. Pull back from your frustration and harness your empathy. You need to have it and exhibit it to help make this approach work.

Sample Script

Let a pause live while you count to twenty-five. It might take a minute or two for the conversation to continue. If there's a flare of feeling, acknowledge it: Bill, this is tough for you to sit through. If one won't offer a solution after three minutes of silence, say: You know, it sounds like there's more here than meets the eye. Pause for up to three minutes.

Your state of mind and behavior matters in this. Being their boss may be of little value in unlocking the jam. Instead, try deference.¹ Deference means that you show respect to a person and even submit to their preference where possible, as though they are your superior, even though they are not. It doesn't equate to weakness. It shows the highest possible respect for their position, and strangely, when you do that, you are more likely to be pulled into a valid discussion of what their position really looks like from inside their head. Instead of reciting to yourself all their annoying habits, lean back upon deference to allow them to bring their ideas into the room. Once there, the ideas can be discussed and supported, changed, or moved to the side. Until they are in the room, they exist beyond your reach at full temperature.

This approach is powerful, if you're willing to own your own power, which is substantial. Your power is in your willingness to invite the conversation and let it flow with minimum guidance. It is likely that when the real reasons appear, you'll find that the path to resolution will emerge from questions like these: What would that look like? How would we start that? What do you want to do first? Now you're on the way to a lower temperature and smoother solution.

PROVIDING EMP OWERMENT

Forgive me, but I don't know a better word. “Empowerment” needs to be sent away, along with useless appendages such as “curated” and “artisanal,” as examples of words flogged until empty. Let's rebirth “empowerment” as other people's ownership of their personal power. Imagine the surge in performance if most folks used most of their gifts most of the time!

How many of us know someone (besides ourselves) who seems to hold themselves back, either through shyness, guilt, or a misunderstanding of humility. It is naïve to think that someone will discover your secret good works or to dissemble when praised, “Oh, it was nothing.” Here are four steps to help people begin to own their power.

Empowerment Step 1

When you spot a good job, say so out loud or in a brief note. If the person who did the work dissembles, immediately respond to right the ship. Say, “It was something, and it helped a lot. Thank you!” Move on, and don't chew over it anymore. Instead, teach him (and onlookers) that it's good to do a good job and okay to accept praise with your head up. Sometimes it helps to put it into words: “When someone says that you did a good job, say thank you!”

Empowerment Step 2

When you find what looks like a problem, ask, “What happened?” Look for facts. Never mind who did it. Instead ask how it happened and what can be done to prevent it next time. Stop there. If you keep the focus on a problem that can be repaired, you'll avoid criticizing the person, which seldom yields improvement. Even when the person made a mistake, say something like, “Well, that didn't work very well, did it? What should we do next time?” We all know that we make mistakes, but if we're personally degraded when the inevitable happens, we burrow back into our self-doubt and step away from the risk of trying something unfamiliar. One of the common company myths is that everyone knows more than I do. In fact, most people are learning some portion of their job, which means that they haven't mastered it yet. If your stance is that we're all learning, then your questions will be about learning and doing better, instead of about who did the dumb thing.

Empowerment Step 3

Avoid taking credit unless it clearly and entirely was up to you. If you helped, give credit to the other person first. Be known as a person who looks for solutions instead of one who looks for recognition (or worse, avoids blame). See that credit goes to the person or team that deserves it whenever possible. Shift your picture of yourself from powerful leader to a person around whom things happen. The connection isn't always clear, but it seems that your teams and initiatives do well much of the time.

Empowerment Step 4

When there is a cross-department problem, be a coalition builder instead of a provocateur. Go to individuals who will be key to find a solution and implement it (sometimes these are different folks), and ask if you can work with them on the project. Asking permission is a way of showing respect. Once you've collected the team in this way, you can suggest a work session and begin to ask questions to move the project forward. In general, “askers” get support more quickly than “tellers” because they must attend to the other opinions in the room. This approach also frequently is a faster path to a better solution.

EMPOWERMENT IN ACTION

In a manufacturing company where I worked, the CFO was also in charge of operations. He was a stellar person, but his dairy farm background led him to measure people by how many hours they worked—and he was skeptical of most people's intentions. He tried to use “routings” (job timings) to schedule work and measure productivity. He knew that his production people changed the reported times to be easier on themselves, so he changed them back to make the standards produce good earnings. Translation: If you add up the standard times to produce a product, they should equal the actual hours to produce it. They never did, and his projections were wrong; he and the crew didn't trust each other, and results were lousy until a new production manager measured actual hours and stopped using the distorted routings. The connection: He “asked” how long it should take, measured it, and asked what would make things work better. His assumption was that his team wanted to do better. They did.

Empowerment may be best described as the bicycle and driving technique. In both cases, a young person learns when they get on the bicycle or behind the wheel, not by listening in class (although that helps). What works is letting them try, gently correcting only when necessary, and letting them see the result of what they did.

As a leader, I can't “give” people power or force them to use their gifts. That is a bit like making a rose grow. I can plant in the right soil with the right amount of sunlight, water, and fertilizer; I can prune and spray. I can invite, encourage, and, especially, create a good environment for that plant, but I don't make it grow. People are at least as individual as plants.

Empowerment is individual, even among teams. An unspoken error is expecting that team-building will enhance the empowerment and performance of everyone on the team. It won't. Empowerment is like a booster shot for team-building. It won't hurt those fully engaged, but it will lift the saggers and give them the energy and even excitement to be powerful contributors too!

Likewise, many commonly prescribed leadership behaviors will lift the minimum performance of most people, but today's volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous (VUCA) world² that jumbles only adequate organizations, demands more in unexpected ways. Minimum acceptable isn't acceptable anymore, and the bar continues to rise.

Empowerment Inventory

Empowerment requires empathetic understanding of what each person needs to thrive. We've already reviewed empathy, of course. The question here is: What is the shortest list of things that this person needs to thrive? Once determined, this individual list can then provide clues to what many others need. Just as there are types of fertilizer that work on large groups of roses, certain behaviors will click with many people, even though each person is different from all others.

Here's the process:

1. Discover specific behaviors or situations (influencers) that encourage a person to thrive.
2. Look at and talk with the person to find out what helped provide the lift in their outlook.
3. Ask what else would help them.
4. Observe their work group and others to spot folks who aren't thriving.
5. Ask one of those folks how they are doing, and what would help them.
6. Listen and watch closely.
7. When they light up, write down what they said.
8. Use the thing that lights them up (igniter) explicitly in informal feedback sessions to help them see their strength and look for places to use it.

This process can help spot training needs or folks who need to move to a different position and decode what's behind their slumping performance.

When Oregon Symphony president Scott Showalter joined the organization, its attendance, morale, and financials were sliding, like most symphonies across the country. Three years later, ticket sales are up 55 percent, budget has increased 35 percent, and the number of classical concerts has risen 20 percent. Community engagement expanded dramatically with 20 percent of audiences attending their first concert.³ What made the difference? Empowerment.

Scott discovered a brilliant show creator stuck inside the limits of his tiny budget. Scott to this person: “Let me worry about the money. You get us programs that will fill the house.” They started groundbreaking successes, like screening Harry Potter movies with live sound played by the orchestra, a Stravinsky piece animated by dramatic “puppets” made by the man responsible for The Lion King Broadway show's puppets (now in its twentieth year), and more.⁴

MAKING THE TOUGH CALLS

The tough calls are never about financials. They are always about people or your personal pride. The personal pride part can be handled in a frank discussion with your best advisor. (If you don't have one, stop now and get one. No great leader works alone. All seek wise outside observers who care enough to think deeply, and who know enough to contribute effectively.) After talking with your advisor, immediately sit down with your boss or lead investor, and tell him or her where you are with the problem and what you're thinking of doing. Do not wait for a perfect answer. The delay usually costs more in money, personal misery, and organizational mess. As someone said, “Put the dead mouse on the table.”

The people part is usually easier outside of yourself than that part inside of yourself. Use this approach:

• Confront your guilt about a problem that you apparently can't solve. It's almost always there, so look at it and dump it.
• Check to see if it was there before you. If so, you clearly didn't start it. Maybe you can fix it, and maybe not.
• Use your advisor to rough out an approach to the outside problem. It will calm the little person inside you that's screaming some form of “You just can't do this job after all!”
• Allow a rough plan to help you shift to the outside problem. You can always come back and work on your pride, but it usually retreats in small steps, not at full gallop (although we sometimes wish for the gallop).

Outside of yourself: Look first at the business situation. Use this business power question: What does the business need? Make it part of your toolkit. It isn't permission to cut corners in any way, but rather to clarify what matters to the business, or not. Sometimes the people problem is just annoying to you but working fine in the business. That's not uncommon and can tell you something about yourself. If you discover that it's mostly annoying, check to see if it's getting in the way of what the business needs by distracting others. If so, address it directly and kindly. If not, move on.

Look beyond the person in question to the system that they function in. The problem may be large and involve other leaders in the company, customers, or technical problems. Take your pick. If necessary, sit down with the person and ask, “What's the problem? What's the problem behind it?” Problems that matter are almost always broader than just one person, and that broader problem may be your next stop.

If the person's job is to find a way to fix the situational problems, and they haven't done that, go to the next stage. Ask if he sees what you see. Let him talk, but describe what you see and its impact as clearly as possible. It's about the business results, not about who's mad at whom. Don't let juicy gossip get in the way.

Now, if after all that, it's still clearly the person that's the problem, here's your action roadmap. Do you train the person, or replace them?

Train folks who want to do the job but lack the tools, skills, experience. If you're unsure, ask their supervisor or one of their coworkers who's proven to report what she sees. Give the benefit of the doubt to the employee if you're not sure the training will work. You can't read minds; you may save a good future employee, and all the other employees watch to see what happens to folks who struggle. You want to be a place where folks who struggle are supported and rewarded, instead of a place where struggle produces pain and job loss. That will gut the enthusiasm and willingness to try new things that undergird great companies.

Replace folks after providing:

• A clear warning, in writing, that their work is unacceptable.
• A period to improve and specific review dates with a supervisor.
• Personal training that's worked well for others.

Except for behavior that's considered “termination for cause” (theft, lying, fraud, breaking the law, and so forth), look first for a job inside the company. When it's for cause, get your HR professional to frame a termination process, and do what they say. It will save you time and money.

Replacement means moving that person to a different job. Sometimes it's within the company, sometimes it's outside of it. If the person has failed in two or more assignments within the company, a compelling reason is required to give him another try; otherwise, he needs to move on.

The logic for replacement is that all people have skills and gifts. It is a waste of their one life to have them struggle to do a job they can't do or won't learn. Instead, do what you'd do for a friend: help them out of the dead-end job to one where they can contribute and tell them so.

Finally, when the news you bring will be upsetting, always bring another person with you as a witness (if possible, someone trained in HR). Hand the employee a letter and ask him to read it right then. It will help him through the rush of feelings that can derail the best-planned discussion. The letter should say briefly that his current job is no longer available to him, but that you are offering him a choice of job X within the company or a chance to find another one outside the company. Outline separation terms in another document approved by your HR professional. You may be mumbling that this is all simple and widely known. That may be true, but you'd be amazed at how frequently it's not done (likely in your company as well).

In a company where I worked, one of the machines chopped off pieces of metal to precise dimensions. Yes, “chopped.” It had been operated safely for many years and was safe if operated properly. One of our new employees was trained (hands-on by an experienced supervisor) and watched closely until he seemed to be reliably safe. Soon after, he cut off part of his finger. After surgery and healing, he returned to work, had a great deal more training and supervision, and still managed to cut off part of another finger. He was moved to another part of the operation, away from anything that could injure him. Well, after I left the company, things slowed down, and he was part of a large layoff. He next appeared with a lawyer in a deposition, claiming that he hadn't been trained. The company won the lawsuit. The point: This stuff matters a lot. It's vital to closely assess capability and performance, even when it's tough to do.

The path I just described works well in almost any company. It takes more effort than most folks choose because they're swamped with their regular jobs. These processes matter so much because your employees know just about everything that goes on, even the confidential stuff. They do. Instead of trying to hide things, behave as though they know everything. Communicate the reasons behind every tough decision except personnel moves. Personnel moves should be explained as matching people's skills with job needs, period. If there is attitude, personal friction, laziness, or other acting out, people will see it, which negates the need for public explanation.

When there are tough choices because of the financial situation, tell the truth to everyone as soon as you tell the bank. They will appreciate your confidence in them, and they'll surprise you with their ideas and willingness to step up. In the year when I made zero dollars in the real estate business, I admitted to my teenage girls for the first time that I wasn't currently making any money. It was impossibly hard to admit that, but to my surprise their response was, “It's okay, Dad. We'll figure out a way to spend way less money.” And they did! Amazing that it took me so long to ask for their help.

When you go dark with the bad news, it grows like a poison weed in the fears of your people. Be known for telling it like it is, promptly.

CHANGING TIMES REQUIRE CHANGING TALENT

Retention isn't what it used to be. That's not because the job market is strong or weak but because accelerating change demands different solutions. Remember VUCA? You're swimming in it but likely barely notice it. Doubt it? When did you get your first computer? How does yours compare today? Facebook is the single largest advertising source in the world in ad dollars. Even if your personal life isn't much different from ten years ago, your world is dramatically different. I dare you to think of something in your life besides vital relationships that hasn't changed in the last ten years.

It matters because your customers live in this changing world and use it as a yardstick to make choices. Your lousy commercials that worked so well in the past are now boring at best, damaging at worst, raising doubts about the competence of your product or service. Your customers measure you against what they see today, not where you've been.

The talent problem is to have folks with the right skills in the right jobs when you need them. A terribly destructive myth is that the best companies seldom “lose” an employee. A walk around reveals folks who “have been with us” for fifteen, eighteen, twenty-one years. Those folks are essential for their unwritten knowledge and commitment to getting the work done. What's new is the requirement that more and more of your team are learners, that they like to learn, will choose an employer because of their chance to learn, and will value that learning near the top of their job preference list. Unless you're a start-up or early stage, most of your employees are maintainers instead of learners. The trick is to change the percentage of maintainers to learners from 80/20 toward 30/70. Yes, I did the numbers right.

Learners are folks who like to learn (mostly) and are willing to risk a new job or project that requires them to learn at firehose speed. You can discover learners by asking questions like:

• What are you reading?
• What concerts or movies have you seen (other than TV or YouTube)?
• What video games are you playing? (Someone on your team can tell you which are the “puzzle” games and which are point-and-shoot. Look for the “puzzles.”)
• What organizations are you in, and what do you do there?

Ask two of your best learners what they do in their free time. Choose one in their twenties and one in their late forties. Add their activities to your question list. You also look for evidence of persistence and grit (persistence through tough times) to avoid learners who are jumpers: learn and leave.

Here is a grit story from Bruce Cazenave, CEO of Nautilus, when he was a product manager at Black+Decker in the early 1990s:

Note the three things that drove this success:

1. A powerful new brand idea and strategy.
2. The persistence to make the case to top management.
3. A new leader who had a different perspective.

The story of grit and brand are appealing, but the igniter was the new person, not the strength of concept or plan. The point is: When the current team is experiencing a road block, the leader's job is to unblock the talent or bring in a new coach to accomplish it. The talent shift isn't always down in the organization. In fact, if the talent team isn't keeping up with the world, the business must either change the leader's perspective or change the leader to survive.

Surfing looks smooth and graceful. In person it's violent, permanently unstable, and just barely possible even in good conditions. Grace is great, but skill in riding the board decides whether the run ends at the end of the curl or the board drops the rider onto the coral. The ocean is the ocean, and the changing world is the changing world. Your surfers must be able to ride today's surf.