Archives for October 2015

Commitments are critical to leaders. When your people follow through with commitments, things go well. When they don’t, systems, processes and relationships suffer. And ultimately, the customer suffers as well. Unfortunately, there are cultural forces that minimize the importance of commitments, and can damage a company’s performance. In my new book The Entitlement Cure, I explain this problem and its solutions. If you lead, this will help you.

The world is built on commitments. They are the glue that holds everything together, and keep people and organizations in a state of trust. Here are some examples:
• Treaties: how companies stay in a state of peace with each other. When treaties are kept, they are good neighbors. When they are broken, chaos ensues.
• Vows: the commitments people make when they marry: for richer or poorer, in sickness and health, for better or worse.
• Contracts: how organizations structure their deliverable and payments to customers and clients.
• Agreements: how individuals promise to treat each other mutually.

In leadership, contracts and agreements are critical. Simply stated, someone promises to deliver W with X parameters for Y price by Z date. But when an entitlement attitude is present, this is dismissed. The person may think, “I’ve got a lot to do, I can be excused from doing this as promised” or “Why be so anal-retentive? It’s approximately what was promised, if not exactly.” I do a lot of manufacturing consulting, and I can tell you with their requirements for precision, that doesn’t fly!

If you see this attitude in your staff, your leaders, your employees or yourself, you need to change things asap. Take these steps:

• Talk about making inconvenient commitments. Promises are inconvenient for a reason: that’s why they are commitments! To show up on time at a concert by your favorite band isn’t hard. But getting a needed report in, that the team is waiting on, while not fun, is critical.
• Up the ante to “beyond.” Help your organization think about not just keeping commitments, but going above and beyond. Being early. Getting reports in ahead of time. Going the extra mile for your team. Surprising the customer with great deliverables. This makes a difference in the company’s performance.
• Let people know their impact. I mentioned in an earlier article about the value of impact statements. People need to hear how it felt when they cancel a lunch at the last meeting because they were busy, as well as how it felt when they went to some trouble to follow through. We are relational beings, and our impact matters to one another.

Make and keep commitments. Model it, and expect it. Best to your leadership.

When you want to get the best out of your key people, or simply to correct a problem, use what I call an impact statement. This is simply a few sentences letting people know how their actions affect the performance and the culture of your organization.

The great majority of us care deeply about how we affect those around us. We want to know that people see us as adding value, supporting others authentically, and pulling our own weight. An impact statement is designed to draw on this need, as it can drive home how we affect those we are around. There are four types of statements that I train leaders and teams to use with each other:

A positive impact on performance. People need to know that you see and appreciate how they contribute to the organization’s success. You have no idea how much of a difference a brief specific and authentic statement makes: “Traci, I just wanted you to know that I saw your results on the Green account. You knocked it out of the park. Congratulations!”

A positive impact on culture. Research has shown, time and time again, that culture eats strategy for breakfast. A statement to a person about how they are driving relationships and teams well helps guarantee that they will repeat what they are doing: “When I was at your team meeting, I was impressed by how you handled negative attitudes and moved toward them without getting defensive, and then you eventually won them over. Great job!”

A negative impact on performance. People get busy, and they often don’t stop to consider how their actions affect others. The leader has a responsibility to bring that to light, and it helps everyone: “Tom, when you were late again on the report, it derailed all of us and slowed the process down quite a bit. We really need you to make punctuality a high priority, because we’re all depending on you. Is there anything I can do to help?”

A negative impact on culture. Humans matter to other humans, in all sorts of subtle ways: the words we use, our body language and our attitudes toward each other. Leaders often shy away from this one as it isn’t very metric, but you have to do it for yourself and the organization: “My impression is that you’re working in a silo and don’t want to be disturbed. While I appreciate your work ethic, it makes me hesitate about coming to talk with you briefly, as I am concerned you don’t want to be disturbed. If I feel that way, my guess is that your team does too. This slows down the team trust we are trying to develop. How can I help you with this?”

An impact statement does just that: it makes an impact. I have had people tell me years after I mentioned one of these to them, that it made a positive difference in their careers and lives. Use the leadership chair you sit in to employ this valuable tool.

Everyone has faced entitlement issues in his or her relationships, family and workplace. It emerges in poor attitudes, a lack of empathy for one’s impact on others, and irresponsible behaviors. In my new book, “The Entitlement Cure”, which will be on bookshelves and available online this Tuesday, October 6, I define entitlement as two beliefs:
(1) I am exempt from responsibility; and (2) I am owed special treatment. These beliefs cause alienation and frustration and are ultimately destructive to the future of the entitled person.

In my consulting practice, I have seen the cost of entitlement in companies, families and churches, and it is a high one. And God’s path is just the opposite from entitlement. He never takes short cuts and he does things the hard way, for our benefit: “I have set my face like a flint” (Isa. 50:7). The cure for entitlement is what I call the Hard Way, which I define as the habit of doing what is best, rather than what is comfortable, to achieve a worthwhile outcome. And there are specific actions you can take to help things move to a healthier place in your relationships. Here are a few of them, based on the content from my book:

1. Call it when you see it. Entitlement does not resolve itself by silence or infinite patience. While everyone needs grace and respect, the entitled person often also is unaware of the impact of the attitude on family members, friends and work colleagues. If this person is important to you, go to him and in a vulnerable way, say “I’d like to talk about an attitude I see with you that is affecting me and us, and I’d like things to improve.” I have many skills in the book you can recruit the person so.
2. Help the person change his wording from “I deserve” to “I am responsible.” We live in a culture of “I deserve”: anything from deserving a great marriage, to a great home to a great career. The problem is that “I deserve” is a disempowering phrase. It places the power of our success in the hands of others, in the hope that they will do something to provide that marriage, home and career. But when you change your wording to “I am responsible”, you are empowered. You are responsible to do what it takes to be well-married, to live in the right home and to find the career that works for you. You are in charge, and you are the agent of success, not others.
3. Do the next hard thing. I study very successful people to learn how they accomplish what they accomplish. And one trait I always find is that they don’t avoid difficult choices, such as tough conversations, projects that feel like drudgery and administrative tasks that are boring. Instead, they get to those early in the day and nip them in the bud. And they have great energy and mojo for the rest of the day. Good moms never say “Eat your ice cream and I’ll give you broccoli.” That would be a prescription for counseling for that mom! Instead, they reverse it. Do the next hard thing and life gets easier.

You will never regret doing tough things, nor helping others in your life to do that, as well. I hope you enjoy the book. Let me hear from you!