Peeling The Onion...

Did this title really bring you here?  I’m guessing it wasn’t because you thought I would teach you how to correctly peel an onion with out crying.  (Although I know how to do that as well.)  

You’ve no doubt heard the expression “peeling the onion” back farther to reveal a deeper underlying root cause, instead of just the surface symptoms. Or, perhaps we venture out in life being very good at “peeling the onion,” by asking why, and why, and then why again, until we have gone as deep as we can go in getting answers.  

My Grandson Mason mastered this technique.  Mason, don’t run down the stairs, I would yell.   Why not Run Grandpa?  Because you’ll fall and get hurt.  Why fall Grandpa?  Because your legs are too short for the stair height.  Why legs so short Grandpa?  Because you’re only 3 years old Mason.  Why 3 Grandpa?  Whew...by this time he was down the stairs safely, but I was worn out.  He won.

As adults, and as Leaders we need reminders that many situations warrant digging deeper than others typically do. In today’s high speed technology driven world of diverse people and generations, we often feel pressured to “finish” one task and quickly move on to another.

Why is Tom failing Debbie asked me?  He seemed perfect when we hired him.  He has a good undergraduate degree, and an MBA from the best business school in the Midwest.  Tom’s 10 years experience in very specifically related tasks seemed to qualify him well.  His references all checked out.  The onion skin had now been broken and peeled back, revealing a very shiny aubergine layer.

How has Tom done in his first year, I asked?  Well, you know, it is the honeymoon time being new on the job, and the markets have been really tough.  And then we lost a big client.   But I thought Tom was doing pretty well, until...Now the second layer of the onion was about to be pulled away.  A subtle symptom of a failing employee fell to the floor. 

Well, until one of our key employees began to complain.  Now I really trust Barb.  She’s a legacy employee.  She’s loyal, and smart, and has no reason to make things up, so I listened Debbie said.  Barb told me Tom had not been truthful on performance reviews.  Everyone was getting a similar above average rating.  Another layer of the onion fell away.

When Debbie subsequently asked Tom about the performance reviews, Tom was a bit uncomfortable, and seemed to have a pretty good answer to every question.  It didn’t add up to Barbs concern.  Another layer came away.

Debbie carefully peeled away yet another layer of not so subtle symptoms, and reviewed all the performance appraisals herself.  Barb was correct.  These are all vanilla.  Tom was lying to me, Debbie thought to herself.

When Tom came in Barbs office, he could see the reviews stacked on Debbie’s desk.  He knew the topic of the hour.  Debbie began her questions.  but this time she was prepared.  She had peeled enough layers of the onion away to be near the truth.  After the normal course of who, what, where, when, and how questions, Tom was as worn out as Grandpa was from Mason.

Debbie told me how pleased she was to have continued to probe, peeling the onion to discover the truth about Tom’s failing performance.  Now, she wanted advice about what to do next with Tom.  She was prepared to fire him.

I asked her to peel the onion even further.  After peeling away the final layers, and taking a closer look, and Debbie summarized she discovered Tom had supervised people before, but not such a diverse work force as this.  At his previous employer, the culture was quite easy going and laid back, while here, we are driven and accountable to metrics and goals.  And, when finally arriving at a place of personal trust with Tom, he confided, that he had an aversion to conflict.  

Debbie had now found the core of the onion.  If Tom could receive some help understanding the rules of engagement within this culture of accountability, and learn to use the available tools to manage conflict, he just might be come a better manager.  

So it really wasn’t about Tom failing to document performance.  It was about her own failure to assess and recognize the culture differences and conflict aversion issues Tom has had all along in his career.  She had focused on the last of the “C”’s (Craft), and missed the Core and Character “C”’s in the hiring process.  [see “Hiring Up” http://bit.ly/gdPQvG from March 22, 2010]

The Rare Leader™ today must accept the Ambiguity of the workplace.  Knowing when and how to peel back the onion at the same time as juggling lots of balls while maintaining focus, will help to view micro and macro details fitting into the big picture.  

And sometimes, when we peel back the onion, we need to realize we find ourselves at the core.

1. Who is at the core of the onion in your conflict?
2. What can you do to make certain you have peeled away every layer of the onion?
3. Where can you discover the onion in an issue facing you?
4. When will you begin to peeling the onion to discover core issues?
5. How can you learn the skill of peeling the onion?

If you want to learn more about the Rare Leader™ in you, 

or if you are interested in retaining Steve as your Executive Coach, 

Contact Steve Riege via: twitter, or his website.

I have people skills, I am good at dealing with people...

The Rare Leader™ is always interacting with people.  The Rare Leader™ is able to utilize intuition to sense what people are feeling and thinking.  The Rare Leader™ has the ability to interact positively, actively listening, understanding, and responding to different behavioral styles.  The Rare Leader naturally proves he or she can focus on others rather than self.

"Well, look, I already told you. I deal with the #*@#$% customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills! I am good at dealing with people! Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?!"... Tom Smykowski responding to Bob Slydel - Office Space

Tom was a leader of the Software Engineering Team at Initech, a company plagued by excessive management.  When pressed, Tom really felt his number one skill was “dealing with people”, because had “people skills”.  

Now, I don’t know about you, but when I think of people skills, unfortunately I think too many times about managers like Tom, who really do think their people skills are second to none.  Even though Tom is a fictional leader, from a fictional company, from a movie, it is in fact, rare to find real leaders from real companies with great people skills.  The reason Tom felt his people skills were so strong, is that he was so focused on himself, rather than the Team members he was leading.

Great relationships with people do start and end with the skills and behaviors you show in establishing powerful, long lasting, relationships of trust, collaboration, and shared success.  

Do you have great intuition?  Can you connect the dots of what you observe about the people you lead?  To properly observe, you need a keen ability going beyond what you might easily see, hear, or touch.  Intuition takes you inside the character of the people you lead, to sense and understand what they are thinking and feeling.  What does the connection tell you?  Connecting the dots and applying your intuition about people is similar to the skills you find as a visionary, using data and trends to see into the future.  Your intuition should enable you to see the future possibilities between yourself and other people.  

What is your ability to interact with others?  Are your active listening skills refined?  Does it come naturally to listen intently and be able to repeat what you heard...word for word?  

After listening, can you understand what the other person is really saying?  What is their hidden meaning?  What action are they seeking from you?  Do they desire you to offer a response full of ideas, suggestions and directives, or are they merely seeking a listener with empathy?  

What is your response?  Does your response come from truly caring about what they have to say?  Or, is your response quick, to the point, enabling you to move to your next agenda item of your day?

Perhaps the hidden challenge for the Rare Leader™ with relationships is adapting all of these skills to the “human factor”.  After all, like snowflakes, no two human beings are alike.  This gives you great opportunity to develop your intuition, interaction, listening skills, understanding, and response, to varying styles and diversity of people.  This adaption to diversity draws from the Core of your Character.  This adaption to diversity of behavior styles in your Team, is the test of the integrity of your Character.

In the end, your relationships with others have no grounding if you continue to focus on yourself first.  This was really Tom’s issue when self analyzing his number one skill at Initech.  I see this same issue when observing, assessing, and coaching leaders who fail at building positive relationships as a proven characteristic of becoming a Rare Leader™.  The core of these failings continue to look back at a narcissistic self involved, “me first” Leader.  

Who do you focus on?  What is your style?

1. Do you have great intuition?
2. What is your ability to interact with others?
3. Are your active listening skills refined?
4. Can you understand what the other person is really saying?
5. Does your response come from truly caring about what others have to say?
6. Can you prove you do focus on others rather than yourself?

If you want to learn more about the Rare Leader™ in you, 

or if you are interested in retaining Steve as your Executive Coach, 

Contact Steve Riege via: twitter, or his website.

Hiring up

They always said the key to being a successful manager, is being smart enough to hire people smarter than I am. 

You have probably thought this through when hiring new people to work on your Team.  After all, the gaps that appear as we get older are pretty obvious.  How do we keep up with technology?   How do we absorb all of the changing data?  How do we begin to understand every product detail?  

Yes, we become so much smarter when we are willing to leave our ego at the door and bring new people to our Team who are smarter thane we are. But what does “smarter” really mean?  How is “smarter” defined?  

Is it all about the craft of the job?  Is it about engineering, finance, economics, design, marketing, chemistry, and technology?  What about Character?  Does it also make sense to hire people with more Integrity of their Character than we might believe we possess?  

If the theory about surrounding ourselves with smarter people makes us as leaders collectively smarter, than could it be true; that if we surround ourselves with a Team who thinks and acts out of a core belief of morals, values and ethics, that we might grow as a Leader with Integrity of Character?

I have been very fortunate to have worked with enormously successful Teams.  I credit my earlier successes to my Teams.  When challenged, I prided myself at saying...”I’m not sure of the answer...I’m just a school teachers kid”.  I loved the cynical answer I would offer when the brightest and the best of the senior leaders would challenge me, knowing I had much more humble beginnings than they had.  

But, I would always have the answer.  The answer was typically better than correct, and I built a reputation of someone you could count on.  But it was no secret that my Team was the key to my success.  We’ll talk more later on assembling that great team.  

How did I continuously assemble such great teams?  What was my secret sauce?

Here’s the recipe to my secret sauce.  I

 hire by the “rule of three C’s”.  

Core, Character, Craft.

When I set out to hire a new Team member, I focus on a discovery of what the candidate feels is the vitality of their core.  The core is that essence of why they believe they are given this wonderful opportunity to live the life they have been given.  This is where values, ethics, and morals are formed and realized.  That is...the Core of the candidate.  

Character is how the candidate can prove they “walk the talk”.  If they found values, morals, and ethics within their Core, then what choices do they make every moment, to live out this Core of who they are?  This is...the Integrity of their Character.

Craft is the easy part.  This is the intellectual side of the career journey.  Craft is the essence of learning, and experience  achieved through school, training, work experience, and applying aptitude.  The missing portions of their Craft can probably be acquired through additional training and other experiences.  But I have no ability to change Core and Character.  They either have it, or they don’t.  And If candidates do not have Integrity of their Character, I do not want them on my Team.

This secret sauce brings me great team members.  If the theory about surrounding myself with people better than me is true, then I have also surrounded myself with people who have a higher level of Integrity in their Character than I might have.  As a group, we’re contagious with each other, and we hold each other accountable to a new level of success. 

As a Rare Leader™, Integrity of Character is where we begin!

If you want to learn more about the Rare Leader™ in you, 

or if you are interested in retaining Steve as your Executive Coach, 

Contact Steve Riege via: twitter, or his website.