Hitting the Reset Button

Posted on February 16, 2012 by William Gould

Imagine for a moment that you have allowed yourself to settle into a comfortable routine. You are so comfortable that you have actually become resistant to opportunities to improve what you do, or how you do it. Your day runs on autopilot, and deviations from the norm tend to escalate into irritations. What you once loved has become mundane. Maybe that is not too hard to imagine.

Leaders Are Not Immune

As a father, leader, coach and HR guy, I frequently have conversations with others to help them get unstuck. I help them step back, reframe challenges, consider alternative perspectives, and make the behavioral changes necessary to get moving again. I do a lot of listening. I ask a lot of questions.

Helping others to get unstuck is one of the most satisfying roles of a leader. But, when I find myself in that situation, it is much more difficult to do. It takes patience, reflection, and honest feedback from others. It requires quiet contemplation, and persistence. If you ask yourself enough questions, your brain will search for answers.

Reset

HR Soot has been gathering cobwebs over the past couple of months as I have worked through a highly introverted process for getting myself unstuck. It is satisfying to reconnect with passion and purpose.

My Moleskine journal is not only filled with writing ideas, it is not bulging from the Post-It notes that are protruding from between its pages. I have plenty to write. Thank you to those who have asked about my silence. Silence is sometimes a necessary part of rejuvenation. I have successfully hit the reset button.

How do you get yourself unstuck?

Mistaking Strategy for Purpose

Posted on December 2, 2011 by William Gould

One of the highlights of my job is the opportunity to facilitate courses on Crucial Conversations. If you’re not familiar with this material (based on a best-selling book), it provides skills for identifying where we are stuck in our work, our relationships, and our lives, and teaches us how to identify and handle the crucial conversations that are at the root of our frustrations. If I had to name one training program that has helped me more than any other in my career – or my life – this is the ONE.

Purpose versus Strategy

One of the principles of Crucial Conversations is the importance of seeking mutual purpose when we find ourselves at an impasse with others. The reason we have conflict is often our mistaking strategies for purpose. In other words, you and I may both want the same outcome (purpose), but when we attach emotions to our conflict, we tend to argue for our strategies and lose sight of our purpose (this is pride). The key to getting unstuck is often a commitment to seeking a mutual purpose.

A Crucial Conversation with Myself

I recently had a crucial conversation with myself. No, this is not part of the course materials, and may be an indication that a mental health intervention is warranted. I had mistaken my own strategy for purpose. This resulted in stress, and a high degree of frustration.

After I was diagnosed with diabetes in March, I made a commitment to change my lifestyle. This meant a strict diet, regularly checking my blood sugars, and making exercise a priority in my life. To facilitate the exercise commitment, I signed up for the Disney World half-marathon in January 2012.

My on-and-off, love-hate relationship with running has transformed into an obsession. The purpose of running was to lose weight and to help regulate my blood sugars. After the first couple of months of running very consistently, I transitioned from someone who ran periodically because I knew I should, to having to run because it felt great. In the long run (pun intended), this is a great place to be.

The problem started when my strategy shifted from a regular running schedule to specific goals related to my upcoming race. I was getting faster (by my standards), running a lot longer, and I set specific targets and expectations for my first half-marathon time. Yes, I do have a tendency to fixate on goals.

Reality Check

I couple of weeks ago I was 8 miles into a run when I suffered a deep muscle cramp in my calf. Not a big deal, I used to get them all the time when I was much younger. I was 3 miles away from home, and rather than call my wife for a ride (that would be too logical), I stretched it out and finished the run that was in my schedule.

That was a stupid decision. The deep muscle bruising has taken my off of my training schedule entirely. I’ve been angry about my inability to train at a critical time, which directly threatened the goal time that I had established.

Then I noticed that my blood sugars were getting higher, more inconsistent, and eventually out of control. My purpose for running is to control diabetes. My strategy for staying motivated to run was a half-marathon. My highly-competitive nature intervened and caused me to mistake my strategy for purpose.

Back on Track

I was able to do an easy 4 miles on the treadmill without pain. I know that I already have the endurance to complete 13.1 miles next month in a respectable time. I am now able to get back to regularly exercising for the sake of getting my blood sugars back under control. I have committed to reconnecting with my purpose, and have reset my strategy for getting there.

What About Leadership Strategies

All of this has caused me to think about how my work strategies (and goals) might also be interfering with my leadership purpose. That one is a little harder to digest right now.

How have you mistaken strategy for purpose?

It’s Not You, It’s Me

Posted on November 16, 2011 by William Gould

Before you dive into this post, I want you to pause and place your fuzzy, warm thinking cap squarely on top of your melon. Think about the most pathetic breakup line you’ve ever heard? Perhaps it is a line that YOU have used to end an intimate relationship? A line that boggles my mind is the proverbial, “It’s not you, it’s me.”

Now think about the most pathetic breakup line you’ve heard in an employee-employer breakup. Please tell me that it is not one of your’s. The most pathetic termination line I’ve heard of – outside of anything discriminatory – is, “we are going in a different direction, and your services are no longer required.”

Photo Courtesy of nuttakit

In either case, the breakup lines say absolutely nothing! We’ve ended relationships with people who have been an important part of our lives/organizations, yet have managed to give them no feedback, reasoning, rationale, or explanation for our decision. In a word, this is “cowardice.” But, what if it is true?

Employer Breakups are Easier to Do

When the decision to end an employment relationship is our’s as employees, we tend to sing a different song. How many disgruntled employees do you know who have written, “it’s not the company, it’s me” in their bitter letters of resignation? When we leave a job, particularly out of anger or frustration, we almost always put the blame squarely on our employers. In fact, we are quite effective at rationalizing why the sour relationship wasn’t our fault. It is clearly ________’s fault.

The Grass Isn’t Any Greener Over There

I have hit the wall a few times in my career. These are times when I become profoundly frustrated by my inability to get things accomplished. While I am as happy as anyone with swimming in abstract ideas, and visioning grand plans to solve employee engagement issues forever, in the end I need results – that’s what I get paid to deliver. I always expect to accomplish that which I set out to do. I take pride in delivering measurable organizational results. And, when I am unable to deliver results, I become frustrated.

Like many, I have been quick to blame others for the barriers and resistance that have prevented me from achieving my goals, and initiatives. I have broken up with employers. The funny thing is that given enough time, the same frustrations inevitably appear in subsequent roles.

Hindsight is Always 20/20

The common theme in my times of frustration is that they occurred during times of change. Conspicuous organizational changes (e.g., mergers, CEO changes, organizational structure redesigns) have always precipitated my periods of frustration. I’ve blamed organizations, leaders and colleagues for creating these unnecessary barriers. I am a master of narrating elaborate stories to justify my vilification of these good people – privately, of course.

What if my frustration had less to do with outside changes, and more to do with my inability, or unwillingness to change my leadership approaches to achieve results in a new environment?

That Question Just Sucks!

What if it really isn’t them, and it is me? Simply asking a different question forces our brains to search for a different answer. If it is done honestly, we sometimes won’t like the alternative answers that we realize. I’ve learned that just because I am an HR leader, experienced in organization change, and knowledgeable about helping others through change, it doesn’t mean that I am personally exempt from the same change experiences. I now understand that many of the times I have blamed organizational dynamics for my woes, it was really about me.

I would love to hear some of your best breakup lines!

Photo Credit: nuttakit at freeddigitalphotos (dot) net

The Elegance of Simple Fixes

Posted on November 10, 2011 by William Gould

I had a problem over the past several weeks that needed resolved. I had been running without music. I acknowledge that this was not the end of the world. While I found that it is sometimes peaceful to run without the likes of Disturbed screaming in my ears (i.e., it gave me time to think), I also missed the the invigorating pulse of semi-angry music to push me through the end of my long runs.

The root of the problem is that I had managed to rust out my “running” headphones. Yes, I literally rusted them out. The sweat-induced corrosion had eaten through the speakers, and into the wires (I actually dissected them to discover this). I am either the only person in the world who sweats in his ears, or this was a design problem – I’ll go with the latter.

What I needed was a pair of earphones that would withstand sweat and corrosion, and that would actually stay in my ears when I ran. In addition to being the only person who sweats in his ears, I must have the oddest shaped ear canals in the world because earbuds NEVER stay in when I run – they rarely stay in when I am sitting calmly.

The Social Solution

I read a post on a running blog I only recently started following. katieRUNSthis mentioned in one of her recent posts a product called Yurbuds, which claims to be a product for athletes, developed by athletes. The website said that the simple technology of medical-grade silicone, and the unique, ergonomic design combined for a fit that was guaranteed to stay in place during the most rigorous physical activities.

While I tend to lean more toward skeptical regarding advertising, I found myself at BestBuy last Saturday purchasing a pair of Yurbuds. On Sunday I put them to the test with a 9-mile run. Yes, my ears did sweat profusely. The result? This product absolutely rocks!

So What?

In a day when innovation is king, I was excited to find a simple product that managed to meet my simple needs. The innovation in this case was not the design of a product that I didn’t know I needed until I had it in my hands (e.g., my first iPhone); it was a significant improvement on an existing product that had yet to fully satisfy my wants.

Simple is Elegant

This has caused me to think about innovation in my work. Like many, I tend to think largely about creating the next great innovation to meet the needs of my organization, even if our people don’t yet realize that they need it. Don’t we all want to design the next iPhone?

What I realized is that my time and energy would be better spent redesigning existing systems to better meet the current needs of organization, and our people. I wonder what sweaty-eared employee need could be met with a simple, yet elegant redesign?

What kind of innovation are you scheming?