How to eat an elephant...

You've all heard the old saying "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time." That reminds me of new years and resolutions. When we look at what we want to do, sometimes we set overly ambitious goals and sometimes we set a lot of goals. Either way, we set ourselves up to fail. Most of us lack the ability to be successful at everything on our radar, all at the same time. There is a sense of optimism and renewed hope that comes with most new year resolutions. It causes the gym memberships to increase and the healthy aisles at the local market to be more crowded. Unfortunately, and somewhat inevitably for most, those resolutions become nothing more than good intentions within the first 6 weeks of the new year. 

As leaders, we can learn something from typical new year resolution failures. It involves the concepts of focus, simplicity and effective vision casting. We sometimes over complicate things or try to tackle too many things at once. It often leads to not completing work with quality in mind, missing deadlines or at worst, failure. For whatever reason, I have often found my role at work to be one that consists of multiple projects, multiple responsibilities and work that is of a critical nature. I can confess that recently, I found myself in the mental trap I just described. My new role involves so much work on a daily basis that it can overwhelm a seasoned employee quickly. As work came from all angles and in all magnitudes I found myself starring at what seemed to be a never ending list of things that need attention. In practical terms, in order to lighten the load and allow my team to be properly cross-trained while coming up for air, these things need to be done. Luckily for me, it only lasted a few weeks for me and I was able to recognize the volume of work and the sense of it being overwhelming was just me looking at the size of the elephant rather than which part I wanted to start with. 

I had some time off between Christmas and New Year's and instead of resolutions this year, my wife challenged me to find a word or a theme that would define my year. My word this year is refine – but I don't have time in this post to go into that yet, maybe another post in the near future! I am choosing to apply the word to every aspect of my life - including work. So I thought about how the team could keep it simple and how we could refine the work that was starring us in the face. The first week back in 2017 at our team meeting, I introduced a concept I am calling "one thing". Each team member, including myself, finds one thing that will provide some sort of relief to our team, our department or our customers in some way. Each person lets me know when their one thing is and owns it until it is successfully implemented. It's not over though, when the first "one thing" is done, each person is to pick their next "one thing" and the concept continues. Nearly every member of the team seems excited to identify and deliver their first "one thing", even myself. In fact, I had a chance to write some code for the first time in a while that will in effect save my team at least 8 hours per week. My code goes into production later this evening J. 

When you focus on the size of the work in front of you, sometimes it can be overwhelming. Keep it simple, grab the low hanging fruit that will provide as much value as possible and start moving forward. Some things will have to wait. Lead your people with clear, concise and simple strategies that will keep everyone moving in the right direction - toward the larger and more strategic goals.

It's personal

The great philosopher Charlie Brown once said “Humanity I love. It’s the people I can’t stand.” How do you feel about people? When frustrated, I myself have been known to mutter the phrase “work would be awesome if you didn’t have to deal with people.” Of course, that’s neither realistic nor feasible. It comes out when I am frustrated because I know that dealing with people is incredibly difficult, but it is just as incredibly important.

Leadership and relationship often are seen as two things that cannot co-exist. I can see both sides of the argument for and against the concept. I land on the side that believes the two can not only co-exist, but must exist in order to get the most from your team. I’ve written before about trust – something that is only built over time with consistent behavior. I’ve also written about influence – which is a byproduct of trust, but requires a level of personal investment to really be effective. The best leaders understand that a healthy work environment and a productive team are the result of good leaders that have spent time investing in their people. I can personally attest to meeting regularly with each of my employees. I try my best to never cancel that one-on-one time with any of them. There are times I have to reschedule, but I try to never miss one. It is in those meetings that I get to know each and every one of my people and hear about as much of their personal life as they want to disclose as well as hear their desires for involvement in certain systems or to be part of a particular project or where they want to be in their career in the near future. Those are important conversations that let them know that I care about them as people. As a leader you cannot be so task focused that you are only getting in touch with someone when you need something! We should not use our position to build our own career, but rather use our position to build our people. Think about it, would you rather work for someone that only cares about what you do or someone that cares about who you are?

I’m not saying that we sacrifice tasks or productivity so we can just be nice to each other. There are people I have worked with for over a decade that I have had to have difficult work related conversations with. If they know you care, those conversations (although never easy) aren’t so difficult because the other party ultimately knows that it’s not personal, it’s about accountability and responsibility. We all deserve corrective criticism when it is necessary, so we all have to be willing to give it and take it! There is a difference in telling someone they are doing something wrong and inspiring them to do right.

I’ve already told you that everyone is a leader. It may be at work, it may be at home, it may be somewhere else, but everyone has some level of leadership in their life. There is a quote form one of my favorite leadership authors (Andy Stanley) that speaks to the responsibility we have as leaders. It goes like this, “Leadership is a stewardship, it’s temporary and you are accountable.” As a leader, you are entrusted to the responsibility that comes with leading others. You will not always have the same level of leadership or responsibility – it may increase or decrease over time. In terms of accountability, follow through is one of the most important aspects of leadership. If you sit and listen to someone express their desires but do nothing to help them get to where they want to go, you lose credibility as a leader. We have to follow through and see our leadership opportunity for what it is – something we have been temporarily entrusted with and are responsible to ensure we do the right thing. The right thing to do and the hard thing to do are usually the same thing.