Category Archives: Accountability

Contain the Steam

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Aspirations are good, but not the best measure of potential success. It’s not the aspiration of a developed skill, but the reality of the lowest capability on the team. You stand for what you tolerate.

When times are good, things are smooth, the flywheel turns over predictably well. We can tolerate a bit of underperformance, even cover it over, make excuses for it and little difference is noticed. It’s when the pressure cranks up, deadlines get tight, specifications to three decimal places, that underperformance emerges with its full impact.

Your team’s ability for success does not depend on your aspirations, but depends on the capability of the weakest, the newbie, the slowest, the person not paying attention.

Do not sing songs of inclusion. Select well, induct, train and test. For one day, the cork will seal the pressure cooker and everything will depend on the weakest seal to contain the steam.

The External Push

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“I am fairly confident,” Marissa supplied. “I know what I want. I have a cause, rather a cause that has me, that I care deeply about. I think I have what it takes.”

“All necessary, but not sufficient,” I replied.

“What am I missing?” she asked.

“You think that, to be successful in your endeavor, all that is required is an internal drive, perhaps a singular focus toward that goal. But, success is more complicated than that. There is not a singular reason, but a multitude of complex elements and events that will determine the outcome. And, you will likely have to respond to most of them in one way or another. You think you have the internal fortitude to meet the challenge. But you will wake up one morning, and not be in the mood. Some one thing will look too difficult. You will go inside and come up empty. All may look lost. In addition to your internal toughness, you must surround yourself with people who will support your journey, who will listen to your story, encourage your spirit and not allow you to falter. This is your inner circle, who you go to for counsel and guidance when what is inside you, is not enough. They will not let you off the hook for the sake of a lame excuse, a bit of trouble or something unforeseen. Look around you. Who are you holding hands with?  You will need them.”

Breakfast for Your Head

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You and I can talk. But, the success of your organization will not depend on our discussion. It will depend on you. It will depend on your thoughts, the way you think and how you think, perhaps fueled by a cup of Natural Mushroom Coffee to enhance clarity and focus.

You can wake up in the morning and feed your brain (breakfast for your head) a buffet of morning news shows curated to lead your thoughts in a well defined prescribed manner, including persuasion to take a drug to lose weight. Or you could spend a few minutes in silent meditation, connecting to those things closest to your own intentions.

You could brace yourself for the onslaught of inquiries, emails, chatter in the coffee room. Or you could think about your next small steps to those things most important to what you want to accomplish.

You could attend a mindless meeting whose agenda was long ago discarded in favor of the update. Or you could sketch out the purpose for that meeting and what you wish to accomplish, before sitting down. When you sit down, you either give permission to others to spend your time for you, or you proceed with your sketched out intentions, your agenda.

How do you start your morning? It depends on the way you think.

Your Contribution

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The competent individual has a firm sense of the capability they possess and capability beyond. Periods of doubt creep in, but that leaves room for growth and maturity. Periods of doubt are painful, as the individual moves from an ordered world to one where there is doubt.

In this chasm, most of the problems we face are self-inflicted. Looking at any problem we encounter, there are the following characteristics. The problem. The problem’s impact. The cause of the problem. The context. And, then, there is you.

You (and we, because I have the same problems as you) are part of the problem. You have made contribution to the problem and its impact. You may be the cause of the problem. If you don’t face your contribution, any solution will leave lingering conditions for the problem to resurface, perhaps uglier than before.

It is always easier to deal with an external problem out there, than an internal problem closer to your heart.

Constructive Discontent

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Too much chaos and we breed internal anxiety. Too much order and we breed boredom. We do not have to tear the world asunder to make improvements. Some improvements will be incremental, hardly noticeable. Some improvements may lead to leaps of understanding requiring a brain scramble.

The aim of lean, six sigma, theory of constraints is continuous improvement. How we think about improvement requires a state of constructive discontent. I describe this as a mental state, it’s a framework that is constant. It’s a feeling in the pit of your stomach. It is discontent, but not anxiety, because it is constructive.

Yes, we achieved the goal, now what?

Competence Distorted

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How we fool ourselves. It’s not a question, it’s an observation. Each of us has a sense of our own competence. And, we have a version we keep tucked inside and a version we portray to the world. Woe to the person whose versions get too far apart.

Others can listen to your version of competence and in short order observe the difference in your story and reality. They may accept a slight space of difference, chalk it up to braggadocios. Or are willing to keep quiet about the distortion as a quid pro quo to their own sense of exaggerated competence.

The competent individual knows exactly what they are capable of and where they underperform or fail. The competent individual needs no distortion because their underperformance is not permanent. Each day, they make moves toward mastery, inch by inch, with a firm grasp of capability in hand, a fixed vision of the goal and the willingness to proceed in the face of failure. The competent individual, most importantly, possesses the competence of learning.

The competent organization, most importantly, possesses the competence of a learning organization.

Are You Lucky?

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In 1995, Red Scott asked me if I was lucky. “Luckier than most,” I said.

Call it luck, call it fate, call it inevitable. Luck happens, good luck and bad luck. The real question, will you be prepared to handle luck when it comes your way, or will you squander it because you were not ready?  You cannot manage luck, you can only manage yourself in relation to luck.

Some people handle luck with ease, effortlessly navigating the twists and turns. It wasn’t because they were lucky. It was because they were prepared. Preparedness goes hand in hand with competence.

Individual Performance, Not Enough

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In the beginning, there was a Founder. Who had an idea to start a company. Perhaps it was a hobby. Perhaps it should have stayed a hobby, but, then that wouldn’t make for a very good story.

There was work to be done, and it was the Founder who was doing the work, there was no one else. And, there was work left over, so the Founder hired some people, mostly friends and family to help out. Each of these people contributed according to their own ability, work organized around each of their talents. And, there was still work left over.

At some point the Founder realized work could no longer be organized around the people. The people had to be organized around the work. Roles emerged, specialized roles for people to play. Individually there were good performers and poor performers, but individual good performance does not necessarily translate into organizational performance. Not only do people have to be effective in their individual roles, but those roles have to work together to create a competent organization.

Organizational structure is simply the way we define the working relationships between roles. Individual high performance is not enough, we have to look at the way people work together.
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Watch Tom Foster on Chris Comeaux’s Anatomy of Leadership.

Work and Competence

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It’s an innocent question at every cocktail party. It’s an icebreaker question. “What do you do?” is a variation on “What do you do for a living?” The intent of the question may be casual, but it may be the most serious question of the evening.

Why this focus on work? And what of job satisfaction surveys? How important is work in a person’s life? And, why does some work suck, and other work engage?

Each person, based on their internal capability, yearns for work that is just within their highest level of competence. Competence is the combination of capability and skill. Skill is the combination of technical knowledge, application of that knowledge and practiced performance. Both capability and skill are required for competence.

Competence is an integral part of happiness. The invitation for every manager is to create the environment where team members are challenged to their highest level of capability leveraging their internal competence.
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Watch Tom Foster on Chris Comeaux’s Anatomy of Leadership.

Why Bother?

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Watch Tom Foster on Chris Comeaux’s Anatomy of Leadership.
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People embark on the path to accomplishment for a number of reasons. Fame and fortune are seductive ends to the journey. Others compete for the sake of competition, to beat an opponent, to win the game. Nothing like a mark in the WIN column. It feels good.

But others pursue accomplishment because they are drawn to achievement as a worthy goal, that without that effort, life would otherwise feel empty. This could be more than the pursuit of meaning in life, this could be the pursuit of experience in life.