Reputation and Character, two Parts of the Whole

Developing your reputation… Turning negatives into positives in difficult times…

 George Washington once said “Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company”. Coming from a man who was a ruthlessly great leader in times of turmoil and change in the United States, the focus on character and what one should value in difficult circumstances is still key to a good outcome. Everybody respected his reputation, which he built on the timeless tenets of good character.

So if reputation is what others think of you, then character is what you actually are! The following are my own lessons learned in life in managing to stay true to myself through some difficult times dealing with difficult people.

Mental Strength: If something is contrary to your core values, then don’t do it. You may take an initial short term loss, but your courage and mental strength in saying No will be rewarded with interest in times to come. Think of it this way, life without money and influence can be truly happy whereas life without any self respect cannot!

Integrity: Never leave a conversation where the counter-party thinks your integrity is for sale. It does not have to be money, but those with ulterior motives will try to find a way to comprise your integrity to further their own agenda. Respect has true roots in integrity. If you are to gain a good reputation that is sustainable, you need to ring fence your integrity as a prize possession of your character. If someone stamps on it, push back and state how you need to see the world and why. If they don’t like it, then can move on one way or another!

Situational Awareness: With a balanced mind and a calm demeanour, open your mind to everything in your environment. Read it for clues as to what is coming next and if you sense/figure out something bad is coming, don’t stress and panic. Remember, you have the edge as you defeated your counter-party’s element of surprise. Unfairly springing something on you is common when people have traded their integrity for bad practice and a couple of bucks! Try not make their problem yours!

Perspective: Through all bad encounters, it’s hard to keep perspective. Why you are there, what will your reputation be like when the ‘Sharks’ are done with you what impact will it all have on your character??? If George Washington can stay true to himself maintaining his character in most difficult of circumstances, then it befalls on us all to follow suite. We never think about these things through good times and are often ill prepared for the dark times! That said, if you know what to look for, you can keep your perspective and stay ahead of a dark strategy that when known is rather predictable and less impressive than when first encountered.

The above are key to building and maintaining good character. So with this awareness, we are well advised to manage our reputation by:

 Character - per above, never compromise your character. When everything else is gone, it’s all you have. Protect it and it will shine bright in the darkest of nights guiding you to a new dawn!

Discretion - its ok to say ‘no’ to things you find bad, incorrect or just plain wrong! Always be assertively diplomatic and explain why you disagree. If your counter-party elaborates on what is asked of you and your picture changes to where you no longer find it incorrect, bad or wrong, then be flexible. Remember that your interests are not compromised, so why not get back on board?

Fellowship - wisdom is in the eye of the beholder, so a calm and informed view on an issue is a great place to start. Not been afraid to collaborate and ‘admit’ you don’t know something is an opportunity to show your colleagues that you trust them and want their help. The bonds of fellowship run deep in good people that have travelled difficult paths together!

Experience - As my dear brother would say “pick your battles that make a real difference”. If your character shines through in what you stand for and what you allow to pass, then your reputation will follow a similar growth trajectory. Leave bitterness, hate, anger and jealousy in the past for they only serve to educate one to a better state of being. Refine your character with your experience learning continuously how to be a better human being! Such commitment shows in your character and will reflect positively in your reputation.

Wisdom - A great Islamic scholar called Rumi once said “If there is light in your heart, you will always find your way home”. Through times good and bad, we should always remember our experience, knowledge and understanding dwell in our minds, but inhabit our hearts! Keeping our hearts clean will reflect in how we live along with the strength of our character fuelling insights and wisdom on any given day. Our reputation can be built upon those cornerstones!

Our reputation is a mirror that society reflects upon us. It’s the communal view of who we are and adjusts as we do through life. You will notice that those who are honest and strong of character will not see their reputation change much. It’s not easy at times but eventually society will recognise good as good and bad as bad. When our children’s children look back on us many years from now, don’t we want them to remember who we truly were? In staying true to ourselves, we increase the chance of them seeing this and embracing what becomes our legacy, which is a clear and honest picture of our time on this earth. 

Sources/Credits:

Pics;

www.gratisography.com

www.soundofheart.org

www.americanconstemeple.wordpress.com

www.sheknows.com

Credits;

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/g/georgewash135801.html?src=t_reputation

Talent - Does big business know what to do with it?

With Employee Engagement at new lows... What can be done??...

 I took some time over the weekend to catch up with some light reading and was dumbstruck by a 2013 Gallup survey on employee engagement. As a newly minted Software Developer and not so newly minted Marketeer, you can imagine my shock to find out employee engagement overall hit 13% per the 2011-12 period, a 2% rise from 2009-10!! Shocking!

In my prior career, my 12 years of people management and leadership experience was focused on a singular pursuit, which was how to give the best to my people so I can get the best out of them on behalf of my employer? Finding that balance will always be key in my eyes! My adoption of a form of ‘servant leadership’ called consultative leadership drove two way interaction, defining positive impact, giving respect to my subordinates and peers alike along with asserting an air of fairness through good times and bad. In reflection, it garnered respect from good people and contempt from bad ones, whom thought it an opportunity in waiting.

It appears that the challenges I faced as a management professional don’t seem to have abated any, so why can’t employers get THEIR people to believe in them?

Here are my top reasons why:

Hierarchical/Dictatorial Dominance -  If organisational modelling, leadership style dominance and company culture are all tailored to chain communication (downwards only communication), than in practice any dissenting opinions and feedback will be put down by ‘the management.’ It often leads to a culture of do what i say, not what I do… People learn to be timid, submissive or face expulsion from the organisation. With them goes creativity, innovation and ability.

Conflicting Leadership Styles - Too often a company will advertise for staff with a rose tinted set of policies on employee engagement, company culture and how they treat employees. The employee will go into a company and be initially greeted with smiling faces and what they expected from their research into the company. After the honeymoon period is over, the initial phase of enthusiasm by the employee candidate fades. The employee comes to realise that their manager’s leadership style and resulting office politics do not match the collaborative utopia sold to them by the company. Feeling betrayed, they quietly find another job and and undoubtedly, the company’s brand name will incrementally take a beating. People matter, there is only so much room under the carpet for the consequences of bad management.

Bad Boss : Good Employee - One of my top taboos in management is captured in this question. Who wants to work for a manager that puts them down at every opportunity to control them, feeds them half truths to keep them “on board” and shamelessly takes credit for their achievements? As the old saying goes “people leave bad managers, not bad companies”. There is an unhealthy amount of bad bosses out there who are masters of self preservation parasitically living of a company, churning staff and deflecting blame to others for their ineptness as a leader. When arrogance is treated as a virtue, bad bosses flourish at the cost of employee engagement!  

So having a taste of bad management like we all have had at some point, what can be done to improve employee engagement. Here is my list of priorities for management:

Leave your comfort zone - Don’t expect employees to do it for you, if you want to harness the power of people and not treat them as part of the business transaction, you need to understand them, what they can do and embrace them as a key attribute to any success providing the feedback and recognition to them for such. Also, leaders need to deliver positive credit to staff and not “hog the spot-light”. The leader is only the spokesperson for the group that deserves the credit!

Remodel your business to place people at its heart - If you model your business to control the (payroll) “biggest cost code” at all costs, then in addition to what transactions you insist on, you will also get only new transactions for new hires, opportunity cost in lost revenue, cost savings and internal collaboration on new business opportunities. You need to give the best to get the best so place your people organisationally in a position of trust, where they are recognised as a vital part of its success!

Hire to admire, not to fire - If you do a good brand assessment finding out what kind of personalities your company brand (& company culture) attracts, along with a personality assessment of the candidate, then you will have a better level of insight into that person and be better able to hire a good cultural fit for what you want your organisation to be.

Communicate to collaborate - “Do as I say, not as I do” should be thrown into the bin permanently to be replaced by “This is what I want you to do and why...” Allow two way interaction and encourage constructive dissent.

Leaving the past behind - If “it’s always done that way” and staff come up with a newer better way, then do it! Don’t pass over ideas because of a busy schedule. Crushing an idea for convenience is crushing the company’s future on a whim. Document ideas, brainstorm them in group/team sessions and record them as potential projects with rankings for project slots that should feed into a company project management programme for innovation. Let staff into innovation, you would be surprised at how many would enjoy it!

Don’t fear change, embrace it - Creative people love change, always carve out a portion of the week for creative stimulation even if it’s a project review, problem solving session, corporate briefing. If you don’t bring staff with you on your journey in change, you will arrive at your un-embraced destination alone.

Management synergy - Another pet peeve of mine in addition to conflicting management styles is senior management ordering something to be done like a ‘give respect/get respect’ policy for a company and then not standing by the sentiment of their instruction. HR is not immune to office politics and thus should not be the catch all for this type of bad behaviour. The responsibility to embrace, believe in, instruct and deploy such strategic policies lies with senior management only. The goal always should be one company, one vision! As Richard Branson said "I truly believe that if you take care of your employees, they'll take care of your business." 

The good news for those who want to make changes and engage with their employees is also in that same Gallup survey. On 2011-12 period, the percentage of those who were not engaged (but not actively disengaged) was at 63%, up 1% from 2009-10. This tells me that a competitive edge exists for senior leaders with vision who can construct a company, which both embraces its people and develops them into the best version of themselves so that they can contribute to their extended ‘company’ families making it not only sustainable but also the best version of itself through each and every day!  

Sources/Credits:

Pics;

www.visualcron.com

www.linkedIn.com

www.virgin.com

www.unsplash.com

Credits

http://www.gallup.com/poll/165269/worldwide-employees-engaged-work.aspx

Lilli Popper on unsplash.com for her feature pic

The Art of Communication - Do we say more than we think

Building bridges for the future, it’s harder than it looks!

How many of us automatically look to HR or the Sales guy as an example of a great communicator in our company? How many of us use the same comparison to excuse bad communication from others and ourselves? Afterall, if he’s not a Sales guy, he doesn’t need to be a great communicator, right? Good communication is a requirement for everybody at all levels; if a company is going to be successful over the longer term! It’s the glue that binds people, processes and technology together under a single roof.

So what makes a good communicator? Naturally social sales type? Sure… but the fact is that we can all make good communicators no matter how introverted or extroverted we are! All we have to do is package our message, deliver it so our intended recipient can receive it, decode it and most importantly understand it in the manner that it was intended to be understood in!

Seems straightforward but good communication is dangerously deceptive to grasp in companies of all sizes. Bad communication has quite rightly gotten or shared the blame for many things including:

• Strategic errors due to misunderstandings between managers and C-suite executives.
• Poor morale due to poor employee-leader and employee-employee communication.
• Employees leaving managers/leaders due to endemically bad communication on the part of the manager/leader.
• Employee disengagement due to bad corporate communications policy and resulting company culture
• Creation of a fear based working environment
• Workplace harassment, bullying and intimidation. 

So what is the ‘secret sauce’ that creates good and/or great communication in groups and companies alike? I submit that the following should act as key ingredients  to good/great communication:

Listen more than you speak - the art of communication is understanding. To understand your counterparty, you need to listen to them, understand their message in verbals (e.g. what they are saying/how it is said) and non verbals (e.g. body language/context).

Be emotionally discerning - context is important, if you understand your counterparty’s message, be sure to understand their emotional message also. An angry rant about a supplier may on any other day may be an irritated tangent.

Never make a permanent decision based on a temporary emotion - in times of conflict or apparent conflict, counterparties become adversarial and posture aggressively, which is quite literally “fighting talk!” We naturally respond to aggression with aggression, which even at a subliminal level can lead to ‘heat of the moment’ decisions that can irreparably damage reputations and relationships. In such a situation, a good communicator no matter how challenged they are will respond to aggression with assertion valuing protection of interests over protection of position in a conflict situation.

Understand your environment and company culture - too often, a manager with a background in a hierarchical or dictatorial company culture will be placed in a company that has a adhocracy or clan culture meaning a directional manager brings situationally unaware (aka. directional) communication skills with him into an environment that requires consultative leadership. The results unchecked become disastrous over time.

 Know your stuff - knowing what one is talking about is key to good communication. It’s critically important that integrity fills the gap when one does not know or understand something. It’s ok to confirm what was said, ask for a fuller explanation and admit one does not know something. Make it an opportunity to collaborate in search of the missing information. Setting arrogance and ego aside in cases like this defines a professional communicator and wins over an audience. Respect is earned by being professional and following the facts to a logical outcome.

Watch your body language - I have come across many situations where someone would be talking to me in a focused manner but have very aggressive body language. Their words would say “Hey John, when are we expected to deliver on this initiative” and their body language says “Hey stupid, you gonna deliver and make me look good or shall I find someone else to do it after I fire your ass!” Mean what you say and say what you mean. Counterparties will sense deception and even if it’s not meant, your reputation will take a nosedive along with your credibility if you get a name as a schemer/deceiver!

Focus on interests - Leave the posturing and aggression to professional politicians and amateurs. Professional communicators will always set aside positions for interests and treat their counterparty with respect even when they don’t deserve it. In focusing on interests, you set yourself above the rest by simply finding common ground to communicate with your colleagues/counterparties and gain respect by simply giving it, yet maintaining a stance over your own interests and asserting them when needed.

 Now for the art… the self control, thoughtful orientation and situational awareness of the professional communicator will always have an artful agility to their communication style that connects beyond the professional to one’s personal/core values. Those with the artful x factor are charismatic and have the ability to understand their counterparty accurately through what they say, what they don’t say and how they carry themselves. The artful communicator sees a complete picture of who they are and instantly tailors their communication approach to effectively communicate with the individual on an individual basis. Culture, status, power, life stage and social orientation all matter. It’s the artful communicator that can see this in an instant and communicate in a manner leaving the person with a warm feeling that they know them better than they know themselves!

Who you are reflects in what you say, how you say it and what impression you leave with people you communicate with. Make it good by staying true to yourself, your sense of self and how you want to be remembered in this world. For each of us, it is different, but to effectively communicate, don’t be afraid to bring others into your world if even for a moment. Life will be fuller and happier for the effort…

Sources/Credits:

Pics;

www.boboa.com

www.publicdomainpictures.net

www.picturesofbabies.net

www.pixabay.com

Credits;

Petr Kratochvil took the feature photo (family communication) posted on www.publicdomainpictures.net