![What exactly is leadership? ,[object Object],” To rule has been the lot of many and requires neither strength of intellect or soundness of judgment. To rule well has been the fortune of but few and may well be the object of an honorable ambition.”](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
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Leadership traits and styles for effective teams
- 24. Increasing Influence No Influence Little Influence Moderate Influence Maximum Influence
- 25. Increasing Influence No Influence Little Influence Moderate Influence Maximum Influence EFFECTIVENESS
- 26. Increasing Influence No Influence Moderate Influence Complete Influence Maximum Influence EFFECTIVENESS
- 27. How Do You Achieve This Effectiveness? Focus on the center of the circle! On the things over which you have the most control!
- 32. URGENCY IMPORTANCE Urgent and Important I Important but Not Urgent II Urgent but Not Important III Neither Urgent nor Important IV
- 33. URGENCY IMPORTANCE Urgent and Important Important but Not Urgent Urgent but Not Important Neither Urgent nor Important
- 34. URGENCY IMPORTANCE Urgent and Important Important but Not Urgent Urgent but Not Important Neither Urgent nor Important
- 35. URGENCY IMPORTANCE Urgent and Important Important but Not Urgent Urgent but Not Important Neither Urgent nor Important
Notas del editor
- Who can give me a definition of Leadership?
- The Art of Manliness by Brett and Kate McKay
- Now just about everyone would tell you that they want to be of service, but you can easily detect a person’s motives from what he does rather than what he says. George Washington is one of the best examples of a person motivated by a desire to be of service or a sense of duty. He did not want the presidency, but he agreed to serve as a duty. He refused to be Grand Master of Masons for the country because he thought it would not be in the craft’s best interest. In an unprecedented move and as a surprise to the rest of the world he turned the presidency over to his successor at the end of his term to prove that the orderly transition of government was indeed possible. It is also important to note that one need not be in an official capacity of leadership to accomplish great things as an effective leader. When I was in the corporate world, I attended a lot of meetings. I discovered that the person sitting at the head of the table was seldom the person actually driving the meeting. I found that I could usually identify the person driving the meeting in less than five minutes after the meeting started regardless of who the official person in charge might be.
- I would also suggest to you that good leaders are almost invariably good followers and that everyone has a boss whether they know it or not; even the congress.
- Before we get into an in-depth study of leadership, let’s differentiate between leadership and management. In general, you lead people and you manage things. Things like your time, your energy, money, and property. There are occasions when it might be proper to say that we manage people when we look at them as a resource like how many people does it take to perform a certain task. In Tennessee we have many universities and there is the question, “How many Vanderbilt scholars does it take to change a tire?” The answer is, “two, one to mix the drinks while the other calls AAA on his cell phone.” The other question is, “How many UT students does it take to change a tire?” The answer is “Only one, but he gets three hours credit for it.” The point is that leadership and management are two different things entirely and require quite different skill sets. I am educated formally as an engineer. Engineers are known for their obsession with efficiency. For instance, I grind coffee beans each morning to brew my coffee. It only takes one hand to hold down the button for 20 seconds that grinds the coffee. I have figured out that there are four other things that I can do with my free hand in the 20 seconds that it takes to grind the coffee. It’s an engineer thing and most people don’t think that way. That’s management of time. When I was promoted to “Management” at the phone company, I discovered that people did not always respond in predictable ways like machines did. You can’t just push their button and expect them to do what you want them to do. I discovered that in order to become effective in my job and to be promoted and get raises, I had to learn how to lead people so, being an engineer, I set about to study the art of leadership just as I had studied to become an engineer. I hope to share with you today some of what I discovered about the art of leadership.
- I have already used two very important and very different words, efficiency and effectiveness. Efficiency means using the least amount of resources to get the most done, but if you do not accomplish your goal or mission, you still will not be effective. Sometimes we confuse the two. Let me give you an example. Our church at one time gave food baskets to those in need in the community each Thanksgiving. Members brought and pooled specific items in whatever amounts they could, and then we had to re-distribute these items so that every basket had the same number and variety of items in it. It takes a good deal of effort to do this for several hundred baskets so the new pastor decided to have a work night one Wednesday after prayer meeting and all those in attendance could get all the baskets ready in one night. He asked my wife and me to organize and prepare for this effort so we devised a scheme where we had tables around the wall with little signs on them like “ham”, “cranberry sauce”, “green beans”, etc. Then we would have two phases. First, each volunteer would pick up a box or bag that had been brought in and go around the room placing the items from their bags on the table with the proper sign. When all the food was on the table, we would ask each volunteer to pick up a basket and go around the room from table to table filling it with the proper number of each item. We had calculated that we could build 300 baskets this way in about 45 minutes. That’s efficiency. We even had printed instructions for the volunteers. The big night came and we assembled all the volunteers, but the new pastor insisted on ignoring our process and doing the whole thing in a manner that closely resembled a Chinese fire drill. The whole thing took about three hours, and as you might imagine, I became more than a little frustrated until it dawned on me that although my goal was to get as many baskets completed as possible in the shortest amount of time, the new pastor’s goal was to have a time of fellowship so that he could get to know some of the people in his congregation. My approach was very effective to accomplish my goal but entirely ineffective to accomplish his. Just remember this; when faced with a choice between efficiency and effectiveness, always go for effectiveness and recognize that they are not the same thing, especially when dealing with people.
- Since leadership deals with people, it is necessary for us to understand a little bit about them. Several years ago Ken Blanchard wrote a book entitled One Minute Manager in which he pointed out the obvious in order to be effective, you need to deal with each person differently when faced with the same circumstances. Let me give you an example that you can probably relate to. This probably happened to you when you first got married. You had a bad day at work and nothing turned out right. You come home, and the lady of the house detects that you are not in the best mood and inquires about it. You say, “Nothing really, I don’t want to talk about it.” She refuses to leave you alone about it and insists on you sharing until you are now irritated with her and just wish she would leave you alone so you can forget about it and watch some TV. Now let’s reverse the scenario. Your wife had a bad day at the office or at home with the kids, and you detect that something is bothering her and ask her about it. She gives the same answer that you did; “Nothing really, I don’t want to talk about it.” Now I’m not here to traduce your wife’s good character, but I can tell you that there is a very high probability that that was a lie. What did you do? You probably said “OK.” and moved on about your business elsewhere in the house. Later you discovered that you are an insensitive, uncaring jackass who did not love your wife at all. How many have had this experience? As another example, how many of you have gone home and your wife tells you about some sort of problem or altercation she had with another person during the day? How many of you immediately started suggesting ways to resolve the problem? How did that work for you? You see, she didn’t want you to solve her problem; she just wanted you to listen to it and sympathize. What you do is just sit quietly listen until she is finished, and sympathize with her. This will miraculously transform you into a sensitive caring husband, at least for a few minutes. This also is a woman thing.
- So we have not only discovered that we need to deal with different people in different ways to accomplish the same task, but that we can sometimes group these people into groups and learn how to identify each group and deal with the people in that group effectively; for instance men and women. There is a helpful way to group people into 4 different groups that we can easily identify and learn how to deal with more effectively. These four groups have been presented as having different names by many teachers and writers down through the years, but the names are not nearly as important as understanding their traits. One lady whose name I unfortunately can’t remember even assigned shapes rather than names to the groups. Now none of these groups are necessarily good or bad, effective or ineffective, but it is necessary to identify into which group you fall in order to know how to deal with people who may fall into another group.
- The first group she called “triangles.” Some of you may have heard them referred to as “type ‘A’” people. These people tend to wind up in positions of leadership and are many times very successful. They do not have a problem with self esteem and do not require anyone else’s approval to feel good about themselves. They know what needs to be done and how, regardless if someone else disagrees. They are not detail people and will not spend too much time in planning. They figure that they should do something and if it doesn’t work out, they can try something else until they get the desired result. On the other hand, they are very organized and efficient. In the extreme, when working with other people, the sometimes tend to take the position that it is my way or the highway. These folks are the people who always get the job done. It’s not the journey; it’s the results that matter. I sometimes refer to these folks as monomaniacs with a mission. They are extremely hard workers, but sometimes take on too much and will simply call you one day and say “I don’t have time to do this job as I had hoped to do so I quit.” They won’t keep beating their heads against a wall if they don’t get timely results. They love to work with other triangles and some of the other types drive them crazy. You want this person on your team. Give him something to do and get out of his way. It is very important that this person receives some leadership training like this first or he will make a lot of people mad who he perceives are between him and accomplishing his mission.
- The second group of people is characterized as “squares” and they are a triangle’s worst nightmare as a teammate. You will find these folks in jobs such as accountants, programmers, actuaries, scientists, or mathematicians. They are detail persons. If you want every “I” dotted and every “T” crossed this is your man. They are also great planners. They can generate elaborate, detailed plans for any project complete with Gant charts and meticulous detailed instructions. Unlike the triangles who believe it is necessary to have other people involved in order to get more accomplished, these squares would prefer to work alone and to be left alone until they are completely finished. The problem is that they are never quite finished. There is always one more detail to be checked and one more possibility to be investigated. They work really hard, but you simply have to go in at the end and pry the finished product from their hands assuring them that it’s wonderfully complete. These folks also have a high sense of self esteem, but are not as likely to force things down your throat as the triangles. They are just simply never satisfied that they have all the facts and that every contingency has been thoroughly investigated. If you are a triangle dealing with a square you must first learn to exercise patience. When you are meeting with them, keep your mouth shut even during excruciating eons of silence or you will never hear what the man has to say. I had a programmer who worked for me once who was an extreme case of a square. I would occasionally look up from my work and there he would be standing. I had no idea how long he had been standing there because he would never announce that he was there. You see, in his mind, he didn’t want to interrupt my focus on what I was doing. I would invite him to sit and then fold my hands on my desk and literally bite my tongue to keep from saying anything at all for about 3 minutes until he decided to speak. You see, if I said anything at all, even to agree with him, he would reset and I was in for another 3 minutes of silence. When he stopped speaking, it was not necessarily an indication that he was finished. In order to ensure that were finished, I would have to wait until at the end of one of his long periods of silence he would say “Thank you, that’s all.” and leave. He was a brilliant programmer and a great asset to the team. If on the other hand, you are a square trying to deal with a triangle, your greatest challenge will be to understand his need for urgent completion of the project and to not take it personally when he beats you up because your part of the project is not ready at this very moment. It is not personal with him. Try not to give him too much detail. That’s like trying to teach a pig to sing. It’s seldom successful and it irritates the pig. You see, he is not interested in the detail. He wants to cut to the bottom line. He really appreciates all the detailed work you do because he doesn’t have to do it, but he appreciates it more if it was delivered yesterday. If the triangle works for you, you may need to insist to get reports on what is being accomplished ore he might go off in a direction other that what you had in mind. Just don’t burden him with too much paperwork or he will quit on you and find something else to do. Both squares and triangles need to work constantly on their people skills to be most effective.
- Now if you are a triangle in an all volunteer organization, this is not a bad guy to have on your team. The problem is that you can’t please everybody, and this makes it hard for the circle to finalize a decision. Also, what is good for the team might not necessarily please all the players? If you are a square or a triangle working with a circle, listen to them and take into account their perception of how your decisions and actions will impact others who may influence your success, but don’t let them talk you out of doing the right thing just to appease someone. If you are a circle dealing with triangles, you need to make a little extra effort to show them that other people’s perceptions of their actions, whether right or wrong, may have an impact on their ability to get their mission accomplished and should be considered. They will not recognize this without your help. Finally, circles need a lot of feedback so take the time to give it to them. It’s not so much that they have poor self esteem, but that it is important to them that you think that they are doing a good job and that you agree with what they are doing. They will be constantly asking “how’d I do?” or “I thought that went rather well; what do you think?”
- The last group is the “squiggles.” Can you tell that these names were invented by a woman? This group has no concept of attaining a mission. Like the circle, they are “people people.” Every meeting is an opportunity for a party. They don’t even have to have a journey, but everybody needs to have a good time all the time. These people are the most valuable at the idea stage, before the planning begins. They are the most creative and will come up with hundreds of “off the wall” ideas. About one in a hundred of these ideas will be a stroke of genius, so don’t let the other 99 cockamamie ideas make you miss the good one. Another contribution that these folks make is that they are great cheerleaders. They are great at making sure everyone knows what a great job they are doing. You might want to assign one of these to each circle in the group just to tell them how they are doing. Do not put this person in charge of something you want done; put him in charge of telling everybody what has been accomplished. Now it ought to be obvious that there are very few people who do not possess more than one of these personality types. Most of us are a mixture of two or more of them. It should also be clear that by understanding what your tendencies are and how you can modify your own behavior to deal effectively with each of the types. Given the same situation, you will want to deal with each person in a different manner depending on your assessment of their personality type. By the way, among your elected Grand Encampment officers, you have three squares, one triangle, and one circle; can you guess who they are? What are you?
- The last group is the “squiggles.” Can you tell that these names were invented by a woman? This group has no concept of attaining a mission. Like the circle, they are “people people.” Every meeting is an opportunity for a party. They don’t even have to have a journey, but everybody needs to have a good time all the time. These people are the most valuable at the idea stage, before the planning begins. They are the most creative and will come up with hundreds of “off the wall” ideas. About one in a hundred of these ideas will be a stroke of genius, so don’t let the other 99 cockamamie ideas make you miss the good one. Another contribution that these folks make is that they are great cheerleaders. They are great at making sure everyone knows what a great job they are doing. You might want to assign one of these to each circle in the group just to tell them how they are doing. Do not put this person in charge of something you want done; put him in charge of telling everybody what has been accomplished. Now it ought to be obvious that there are very few people who do not possess more than one of these personality types. Most of us are a mixture of two or more of them. It should also be clear that by understanding what your tendencies are and how you can modify your own behavior to deal effectively with each of the types. Given the same situation, you will want to deal with each person in a different manner depending on your assessment of their personality type. By the way, among your elected Grand Encampment officers, you have three squares, one triangle, and one circle; can you guess who they are? What are you?
- AUDIENCE INTERACTION AND EXPERIENCES
- Before you can learn to influence others, you have to take a look at yourself. Much of the material contained in the next few minutes can be found in the book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. His first habit is to be proactive
- His first habit is to be proactive. What he means by this is that victims are seldom effective in accomplishing positive things. Unless you believe that you can be in control of your destiny and that of your organization and do so, you will not be an effective positive leader. Even when the leader is in the unproductive role of leading people to be victims, he, himself seldom thinks of himself as a victim. A victim is a person who experiences negative results over which he has no control or at least feels that he has no control. In most cases, people choose to become victims. A proactive person chooses not to become a victim in spite of the circumstances around him.
- You see, the one thing that most differentiates the animal intellect from the human intellect is what I call the decision box. In the animal model you have the Stimulus arrow and the response arrow. Stimulus equals response. If you poke a dog with a sharp stick repeatedly he will bite you
- We human beings have this extra element I call the decision block. If someone punches us in the nose, we can punch him back, but we also have the option to decide to reason with him, to run away, to turn the other cheek or to call for help. We have choices and most of the time, by making wise ones we can choose not to be victims.
- Who was that fellow who won the bicycle race over in Europe after recovering from cancer? Would you say that he was a victim of cancer? I wouldn’t. He chose not to be a victim. What about Jacques DeMolay, do you think he was a victim? I don’t. And yet we see victims every day. Almost every news story you see involves a victim and that very word is used. My wife looks at these “judge” TV shows while she is eating lunch, and they are invariable sponsored by some lawyer. “Have you been injured in an automobile accident? Call Bart Durham, he’s on your side!” “Injured at work and having trouble collecting your workers compensation? See S. K. Wilson and get relief!” How about this one; “I have a structured settlement and I need cash now!” You see crooks are attracted to victims like coyotes are attracted to injured calves and are more than willing to victimize them some more. You know, this may be OK because sometimes I think some of these people actually enjoy being victims. That’s all they want to focus on and I guess it gives them a sense of worth somehow. You can always tell a victim because of the language they use. Someone named “they” is the cause of all their problems. Sometimes “they” is the Grand Commandery, right? Mostly, these people are actually victims of their own decisions of the choices they have made and of those they continue to make. You may not be able to help others to shed their victim status, but you can take charge of your life and realize that it is up to you whether you choose to be effective or to be a victim. Victims do not make good leaders because victims cannot exert a positive influence on others. Are we blaming the blue lodge for our decline in membership when in my jurisdiction, Templars make up less than 10% of the number of Masons? Maybe we should be happy with the Shrine for ensuring that we aren’t getting Templars anymore who are just on their way to the Shrine. Wasn’t that a waste of resources?
- We all have a sphere of influence. Some of our spheres are larger than others. Some of the ways we choose to use our influence are positive and some are negative. Remember the all Seeing Eye? As a leader, you have another all seeing eye. Everyone is looking at you all the time. If we are proactive and in control of our own destiny, and if we all have different sizes of spheres of influence, then it must be possible to control the size of your sphere of influence. Effective leaders have large spheres of influence. How do they manage that? Well in most cases, it’s not “fake it till you make it.” Let me illustrate. The familiar point within the circle is familiar to all masons. Let me rearrange the lines a little and show you how to expand your influence. The circle represents your sphere of influence. That is to say that you exercise influence over everything inside the circle. Now we know in reality that this circle is really many circles. Some things you have a lot of influence over such as how you part your hair or how often you brush your teeth. Some things, you have little or no influence over such as whether Iran is developing nuclear capability or whether you have an earthquake, although Mr. Gore seems to think that he can control our weather by building windmills. He kind of reminds me of the fellow who was trying to drive the windmills away. If you follow this line you move from things over which you have a great deal of influence to areas where you have some influence to areas where you have no influence at all. How many here know what the temperature at the earth’s core is? How much care? It’s like the Commander who asked his Deputy what he thought of all the ignorance and apathy in the fraternity and the Deputy responded, “I don’t know and I don’t care!”
- Now everything over which you may exert some influence lies along this line somewhere. I would suggest to you that you focus your time, energy, discussion, and thought on those important things over which you have the most influence. How much time and effort have you wasted discussing and worrying about things over which you have no control? How much could you have accomplished had you spent the same amount of time and effort on things within your sphere of influence
- If you do this, people will recognize your accomplishments and will actually freely give you influence over more things. Remember the parable of the talents in gospel of Matthew. So remember this the next time you see the point within the circle.
- The second habit is that of goal setting. Remember that all these habits are not things you do only once. You have to do them over and over again until they really become a behavioral habit. Covey calls this one, “Begin with the end in mind.” As I have told you before, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.” and “furious activity is no substitute for understanding.” You have to have a plan or as my old boss used to say, “Plan your work and work your plan.” Plans are developed around goals or objectives and goals are defined by mission. In the military training I had, mission was everything. Nothing got in the way of the mission.
- How many of you are in a Grand Commandery which has a mission statement? How many of you have it written down? How many of you can quote it to me without looking? How many of your Commanders can quote it without looking? Can you do anything about this? Is it in your sphere of influence to make this happen? Grand Commandery officers, if your commanders cannot recite to me your mission for your Grand Commandery, you are not practicing this habit in your capacity as Grand Commandery officer. I am not here to tell you what your mission or goals ought to be. Bill Koon is here to tell you those of the Grand Encampment. I would hope that yours mesh with those of the Grand Encampment and that we are all working toward the same overall objectives. The mission statement should concisely state the future state to be achieved. I have seen some of the goshawfulest mission statements you could imagine in my time. Usually the more they paid the people who were developing them and the more words they had the worse they got. My goal is to make the Knight Templar magazine the most popular and most widely read Masonic periodical in the United States. I didn’t say the most circulated or the most intellectual, or even the most influential. Another way of saying this is that I want people to read it and to enjoy reading it. Goals are different. They are specific achievements that lead to the realization of the mission. While both a Mission and the goals must be clearly communicated and specific. The goals must also be measurable, and they must be measured. The results must be frequently communicated back to the people who are working together to achieve them. Success (not effort) must be rewarded. Failure must be analyzed and the plan modified based on learning experiences. Plans must be flexible. None of them are perfect to begin with. Participants must be encouraged and periodically energized. In order to do this, you have to inject change periodically. Your focus on the mission must be consistent, but the programs need to change from time to time. Western electric tried an experiment in one of their production facilities many years ago. It was a typical assembly line operation. They decided to play music on the line to see if this affected productivity so they put up speakers and began to play what I would refer to as “elevator music.” Sure enough, production went up. After some time they got the idea that if they played peppier music, they might get more production still so they changed the music to jazz and sure enough, production went up. After some time, someone suggested they try country music and to their surprise, production went up again. This was followed by pop music and classical music over a period of time. They found that it was not so much the type of music that they played but the fact that they changed the type that energized the workers. The moral is to keep your goals and mission constant, but vary your approach from time to time to energize your team. Which is the best goal? “ To increase the number of masons receiving the Order of the Temple.” Or (How can we improve on this?) “ To confer the Order of the Temple on 10% of the Master Masons raised in my jurisdiction.” Why? Because it is specific and it is measurable. The plan might involve a Templar presenting a lapel pin and information about the Commandery to each newly raised Master Mason or free educational programs about Templar History and legend. It has sold a lot of books and movie tickets. To wrap up this habit, let me point out that it has been my experience that if I write a goal down and make a point to read it every day for a month, my chances of success are almost 100%. I would also point out that these habits are sequential and consecutive. You must have decided that you can and are going to take charge of the situation before it does you any good to state a mission, formulate goals, and draw up a plan.
- The next habit is to work the plan wisely. Use your time, energy, and any other resources you may have to accomplish your mission. We are now getting into management. The two things that everyone has are time and energy. Most of this discussion will be about time, but the same principle applies to your energy and to other resources. Mr. Covey wrote an entirely different book just on this one subject entitled First things First .
- Let me introduce you to the concept of “Quadrant Two Thinking.” Let’s agree that activities take up time and energy as well as possibly other resources. Let’s draw a graph with two axes and plot our activities on it. The vertical axis is an indication of importance. The more important an activity is, the higher it goes on the chart. Less important activities will go toward the bottom. The horizontal axis is an indication of urgency, the more urgent an activity is, the further left it will go on the chart. Let’s plot a few activities or demands for activities. Your house is on fire and your family is in it. You receive your tax forms in January from the IRS. March 15 th comes around and you haven’t started on your taxes. Your door bell rings. Your oldest grandson calls and wants to chat. You receive an e-mail that somebody in your lodge wants to be your facebook friend. World championship ballroom dancing will be on TV in 5 minutes. Somebody calls you complaining about a decision the Grand Master made about Grand Lodge policy. After you are installed you want to develop a mission statement for your Grand Commandery.
- We can divide this chart into four quadrants. Let’s call this top left one quadrant I for things that are both urgent and important. The one on the top right we will call quadrant II for things which are important but not urgent. Quadrant III is the lower left and contains things that are urgent and not important. Finally, quadrant IV is the lower right and contains things which are neither urgent nor important. Let’s consider the nature of each quadrant. The things you do in quadrant I must be done rather quickly or rather soon. You may also be able to do them very well, but as the number of things in this quadrant increase, the quality of your results is bound to suffer. How many of us feel like you live in this quadrant? Procrastinators decide to live there. The objective is to stay out of quadrant I as much as possible so you can do things well and increase your influence, right? So what keeps us working in quadrant I? Well, it’s the number of items in the quadrant. So why are there so many things in Quadrant I? There are 4 basic reasons. First, they belong there. If your plane goes down and you are trying to get your wife out before it catches on fire, you belong in quadrant I. You can’t do anything about that. It’s outside your sphere of influence. The other three you can influence. Remember how those taxes kept creeping to the left the longer you put them off? You need to knock them out before they get over there in quadrant I. How many of you did like me, stayed up all night, and turned that term paper in on the last day it was due? You really need to be spending most of your time in Quadrant II working on the things which will help you attain your goals and doing it very well. But how do you work in quadrant II if all your time is consumed doing the things in quadrant I? By the way, if you think you are not spending some time in quadrant IV, you are lying to yourself, but if your goal is to enjoy your retirement, smoking a cigar on the deck some afternoon may not be in quadrant IV.
- Do your Quadrants look like this?
- So how do we get out of quadrant I? There are two kinds of activities that we need to look for. The first is the activity that is important and urgent, but it is really important to someone else, not you. Did you ever get a call saying that their guy didn’t show up at the lodge but could you please get dressed, jump in the car and drive 20 miles in time to give the charge in the 3 rd degree tonight? I’m not suggesting that you never do things like this; you just need to decide whether they belong in your quadrant I or your quadrant III based on the number of things you are dealing with in quadrant I. The other major group consists of quadrant III activities that are disguised as quadrant I things. You are working on the goals for your Grand Commandery and the phone rings. Do you let it get into your quadrant I by answering it or do you let the voice mail pick it up. Does our curiosity push you into quadrant I?
- As you eliminate activities in Quadrant IV, move the appropriate things from quadrant I into Quadrant II, minimize your activities in quadrant III by simply not doing them, and spend all that saved time in quadrant II, you will move rapidly toward attaining your goals and your quadrant I will shrink dramatically. Let me give you an example of something I eliminated from quadrant III. When I worked in an office, I used to file every policy memo, announcement and proclamation that came down from on high, because I knew that from time to time I needed to pull them out and look at them. Someone pointed out to me that there are always others in the office who do the same thing and could never be convinced to stop doing it so I stopped filing all that stuff and on the few occasions I needed it, I went to the person who I knew filed everything and read their copy. Not only did it same me time, but it gave the other person a vast sense of superiority since I obviously could never find anything I filed. They were always eager to prove that they could put their finger right on the document in question. Another hint to eliminate things from quadrant III is to eliminate piles on your desk. I struggle with this one. Every time you are interrupted, before you go back to what you were doing, you go through the process of deciding what to do next. Your subconscious looks at each pile, remembers what is in it, and reclassifies its importance and urgency. You don’t realize it, but this takes time and personal energy. Put the piles out of site in a file and make a list of them prioritized according to urgency and importance.
- After we decide we want to take control of the situation, set our objectives, and allocate our resources, we turn our attention to other people which is the essence of leadership. As a habit, always go for the win-win. We are accustomed to the Win – Loose model in sports, politics, financial transactions, and even religion. We view the world as a win-lose place because of our Paradigms. Does anyone here remember a presentation made at this conference by a fellow names Joel Barker? His explanation of paradigms is important to leadership because paradigms cause mental scotomas and mental scotomas keep us from making decisions based on all the true information we have available and, as a result, we sometimes make the wrong decisions. Win-win is a perfect example of this. Because of our experiences in win-lose situations, our paradigm is that these are the norm, so we assume that dealings with other people in potentially adversarial matters must result in a win-lose situation.
- The fellow with the scarcity mentality is always worried that there wont be enough for everyone and that he won’t get his “fair share.” Let me give you some examples of this. $1000/plate political fund raiser Local City Councilman regarding Federal Grants United Way worker looking for ideas Win-win basketball In this context, can anyone tell me the fundamental difference between the stock market and the commodities market?
- Most people work from a scarcity mentality. In our culture, we tend to think in terms of win-lose because of all the sports we watch or participate in. This is a very difficult behavior to teach. I have conducted many training sessions and exercises, and folks almost always lapse back into the win-lose mode even during the training session. Have you ever seen someone who went for the win even though it did not get them what they wanted? This happens all the time. Unless you are focused on what you really want rather than beating the other fellow, it is easy to fall into a lose-lose situation. I am not talking about compromise here. Compromise often translates into lose-lose. The win-lose mind set is usually the result of a “small pie” mentality. These folks think in terms of there being just so much pie and their objective is to get at least their “fair share” and more if possible. Anytime you hear someone use the term “our fair share”, watch out! They are small pie people and they are absolutely ruthless. If you can’t convert them, avoid them. The other side of the coin is the big pie person. The stock market is an example of a potentially big pie mentality. You invest your money which enables a company to buy materials and equipment, provide jobs for people, pay you dividends, and provide products and services to the community. Everybody wins. On the other hand, the commodities market is a win-lose situation. For every person who makes money trading commodities, another person loses. The same is true of gambling.
- Most situations we find ourselves in, however, have the potential to be a win-win. The trick to turning it in is to first overcome everybody’s tendency to beat the other fellow at any cost and then to figure out what each party really needs or wants. What the person really wants is rarely what he says he wants in the beginning. It’s kind of like the fellow who remarks, “I wish I had the money to buy an elephant.” His friend asked, “What would you do with an elephant?” He answered, “I don’t want an elephant; I just want the money it takes to buy one.” For instance, I might say that I want a million dollars when what I mean is that I want to go on an international vacation every year for the rest of my life. Win-wins occur when you get down to the essence of what the two parties really want. You will find that they are seldom mutually exclusive.
- Gung-Ho Does anyone know what this term means? Where did it come from? As long as there are as many as two people on a team, you will have differences of opinion. Remember that harmony is the chief strength and support of all well governed institution, especially this of ours. It is you job as leader to promote this harmony. Synergy is the concept that two people working together can accomplish more than they can accomplish separately. This is the reason we work as teams or groups. How many eyes do you think we could have cured if each Templar set about alone to find and cure them?
- We have covered the interaction with the personality types and the fact that you need to deal with each a little differently, let me give you a few hints that will probably work with almost everyone. As a leader you will encounter some angry people. The angry will always be with us. When this happens, never assume or try to convince the angry person that you know how he feels. Don’t say things like “I can see that you are angry.” or “Why are you mad at me?” because what’s he going to say? – “I’m not mad.” and then he will be even more angry. You want to help them with their problem if you can, but you have to get past the anger first. Sometimes you just have to listen and let them wind down. You don’t have to agree with them, of course, but you don’t have to argue with them either. Often that’s like wrestling with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it. Try saying something like “I’m getting the impression that you are angry with me.” or “I perceive that you are angry at me.” He will probably not admit that he is angry with you but you have left the possibility on the table that you might be wrong, and he will often then settle down and tell you what is bugging him.
- Another difficult situation is when someone is offering you an opinion or trying to convince you of some idea that is completely nuts. Now you don’t get to tell him that he is off his rocker. Let me suggest that you try the term “help me understand.” For instance, you might say, “Please help me understand how you came to that conclusion.” This takes you out of the adversarial role and, who knows? It might just be a misunderstanding. Don’t forget to listen after you say those words, and listen to everything he has to say before you think and then speak. Speaking of listening, how many times during a conversation are we really listening and how many times are we thinking of what we are going to say next? I learned a few helpful tricks several years ago about listening. It turns out that I listen a lot faster than most people speak, at least in my neck of the woods. I think of questions I want to ask. Sometimes when they begin to repeat themselves, I even think of all the other things I need to do or chores that I have forgotten. Then all of a sudden, I realize that I haven’t heard the last three sentences the man said. I always keep a pad of paper on my desk and a pen in my hand in situations like this. If something distracting comes to mind or if I have a question, I just write it down so I can refocus on what is being said. Even if what I write down is the list my wife wanted me to pick up at the grocery, at least the speaker thinks I am so interested in what he is saying that I am taking notes!
- One thing about being the leader is that other members of your team will sometimes disagree. Unfortunately, one of them will often come to you and tell you how sorry or how wrong the other one is. Do not get sucked into this trap. When this happens, before you let it go on for very long at all, you should ask the person to stop just a minute. You then arrange for a meeting between to three of you face to face as soon as possible. This tones down the inflammatory language a good deal. You can then use several techniques to resolve the issue. Surprisingly, many such issues are simply misunderstandings. There are a couple of ways you can handle these issues. One is by simply asking the question “Why?” as in “Why do you feel that way?”, “Why do you think he did that?”, or “Why is that important to you?” Every time you get an answer you get closer to the meat of the issue and you formulate another question beginning with the word “Why?” based on his previous answer. Try it sometime. It is especially helpful in disputes between you and someone else if you really want to get to a resolution that is mutually beneficial. It helps you get right to the root of the matter. Another technique that I have found useful in resolving differences between two other people is to set in place a set of rules at the very beginning as follows. The first person gets to explain fully his position without being interrupted by anyone. Then the second person must repeat back to the first person, in his own words, his understanding of what he heard. If the first person doesn’t agree that the second person repeated back exactly what the first person meant to say, then you repeat the process until the first person is satisfied that the second person understands and has repeated back accurately his position. This rarely happens on the first pass. Then you reverse roles and repeat the process. Many times before you even finish this process, you will have resolved the issue. If not, then you drill down by asking why. By the way, another way to deal with adversarial people is to “mirror” them. What does this mean? If he crosses his arms, you cross yours. If he holds a pen, then you do too. If he frowns then you frown etc. Believe it or not, this will not normally be noticed consciously by the adversarial person so he will not think that you are mocking him. It is noticed by his subconscious, however, and it will send him the message that “Hey, this guy is just like me, I may get to like him.” I know that this sounds bizarre, but it works. The very next day after I learned this technique I had to go by and pick up a part which my son had ordered for his truck. I came into the dealership wearing a tie on my way to work. Behind the parts counter was a typical parts guy, a big burly guy with a couple of tattoos wearing a gray short sleeve work shirt is front of a computer terminal trying to help another customer. I could tell when I walked in that he was not a happy camper today. When it came my turn, I told him who I was, who my son was, what the part was, when it had been ordered, what vehicle it was for, and that someone had called to report that the part had arrived. Well, he punched on that computer for a while and he scratched his head. He wandered off into the back for a while and he punched on the computer some more never saying a word. He had never said a word to me since I gave him the information so I was only hoping that he was actually trying to find my part and not ignoring me. Then I decided to take my life in my hands and to try the new technique. When he scratched his head, I scratched my head. When he crossed his arms and sighed, I crossed my arms and sighed. When he scowled, I scowled. The change was almost instantaneous. He began to apologize for not being able to find my part right away. He asked someone else back there to help. Well he finally found my part but couldn’t seem get the printer to print out receipt. I told him I didn’t need a receipt, took the part, paid for it and left. Just as I was about to pull out of the far side of this big parking lot onto the street, I looked into my rear-view mirror and saw this guy running just as hard as he could across the parking lot toward me waiving a piece of paper. Guess what! My receipt. Enough about conflict resolution.
- Communication. I touched on communication earlier when we were discussing goals and objectives. The effectiveness of a leader is directly proportional to his ability to paint in the minds of his troops a vivid picture of the desired future state. Never waste an opportunity to communicate to those on your team exactly what it is you hope to attain in the organization and their role in getting to that point. Repetition is not insulting or boring in this matter. It lets them know that you are serious enough about the project to warrant effort on their part.
- Be a monomaniac with a mission. Be enthusiastic Be very specific about what you want them to do. Get commitment from them. “I’ll try” or “I’ll do my best” is not commitment and is almost the same as “I don’t think I will get around to that” The worst that can happen if you push for commitment is that you find out who not to waste your time on. Use your supplement space to communicate what you want people to do in a logical and progressive manner from month to month. Tell them how you are going to measure success. Show up at functions they plan to accomplish your goals. Most of what I see in supplements is rambling fluff. “ Thank you, thank you, thank you for giving me this honor” is not humility – it is egotism. Don’t write about me and I; write about what we are going to do together.
- Don’t waste your time in meetings when you can be communicating the vision. How do we waste our time in meetings? Introductions Discussion of things over which we have no control When we just paid a caterer $30 per person for dried up chicken and green beans, why do we give them a round of applause?
- Guaranteed that if used, the audience will not hear another word you say all night.
- When communicating to people, remember that they have 4 basic needs and unless you are meeting one of those needs, you cannot count on their buy in. They are: To Live Health Food Shelter To Love Friends and brothers To Learn Constantly to attain new skills and new information and to learn to use them To Leave a Legacy To do something worthwhile that will live after you