organizational development Archives

Lead to Win: Lessons from a Chicago Cubs’ World Series Champ

I’m a die hard Chicago Cubs fan. As much as I love all Chicago sports, baseball is what I grew up watching. I am by no means the longest living Cubs fan, not even close! However, I, like many others, grew up watching them lose a lot, hanging onto every inch of hope that they might just win it all one day. So, when they finally did it this year, I was literally ecstatic. I cried; I admit it; I have no shame about it.

The thing about this current Cubs team though that makes me such a proud fan is its leadership. Being a leadership and HR fanatic myself, its one of the first things I notice in teams. The Chicago Cubs has a lot of great leaders from Theo Epstein to Jed Hoyer to the Ricketts family. However, I am consistently impressed by the great Joe Maddon.

So, here’s what I’ve learned about how to “lead to win” from Joe, manager of the World Series’ Champs, the Chicago Cubs. I’ve titled each lesson after my favorites of Joe’s “Maddonisms.”

“That’s outcome bias.”

Joe often responds with this statement when the media questions a decision he made, claiming that the opposite decision or a different decision could have had a better outcome. In leadership, we often play it safe and if something goes wrong, we constantly waste time questioning “what if” scenarios, attempting to breakdown what went wrong. There is a false assumption that another decision or action would have resulted in a different outcome, when in reality, no one really knows. It could have been the same outcome either way.

The lesson is that just because one decision or risk does not work out, it doesn’t mean that we need to play it safe the next time. We must keep taking chances and pushing boundaries.

“Do simple better.”

Joe is questioned a lot for his way of leading and managing the Cubs. He cancels batting practices and doesn’t hold team meetings. Instead, he believes that he has adults and professionals on his team and thus, he should treat them as such. Therefore, he puts his trust in his team and doesn’t micromanage them. Guess what? They chose to practice anyway and took the World Series in style, coming back from 3-1 games down to win it all. He also prides himself in having one-on-one conversations rather than team meetings.

The lesson for leaders is to stop overcomplicating our roles. If we do the simple things better, we will already have better results. One piece of advice from Joe is to not micromanage every detail of how employees should do their jobs. Be clear with expectations and let them achieve the results on their own. The other relevant lesson is that when someone isn’t performing, have a real, honest conversation with that person rather than holding a team meeting every time to reset expectations in a passive-aggressive manner where everyone feels like they did something wrong but aren’t really sure.

“Don’t ever permit the pressure to exceed the pleasure.”

This is my favorite maddonism! Every Cubs fan knows about the team’s themed road trips. This year, they did eccentric suits day and a pajama party day. Joe also throws little parties in the clubhouse like when he brought zoo animals in for spring training or brought in a mariachi band to serenade his team before a game. The lesson here is to have fun with our teams and let them have fun with each other. Fun brings people together and takes the pressure off.

This maddonism also gets to the heart of success which is that people who love what they do will achieve the best results. Why? It’s not likely that people love doing something they are not good at. People with real passions live and breathe whatever it is that they are passionate about. Leaders hire A players and let those A players enjoy what they do because the pleasure of what we do everyday should exceed the pressure we are under.

What stands out for you and what might you try doing with your teams? I’ve been pondering the “no team meetings” idea. Here’s to the Chicago Cubs, to Joe Maddon, to leadership and to all of you winning with your teams!

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Leaders Execute

I had the privilege of hearing Chip Madera, renowned speaker and organizational development expert, speak again for the second time in one month. This past week, he talked to us about leadership and execution and his message really stuck with me. We were a bunch of healthcare leaders in the audience and if you know healthcare, you know that the industry is going through a boat-load of changes.

But, going through change is not a good excuse for not executing. Leaders need to be the example. As Chip puts it, we are the “keepers of the culture.” It starts with us and it is up to us to lead it. If we don’t get this right, we will not survive because “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” If we don’t keep the culture, our employees will create it anyway and it won’t be the culture we want because if we’re not part of it, they will know that pretty quickly.

We cannot continue blaming employees and trying to hold them accountable without first holding ourselves accountable. I constantly run into leaders who complain about their employees not performing but they never actually do anything about these employees. If we want A players, we need to pick A players, we need to grow A players and we need to be A players. Only when we start looking within ourselves can we start leading and executing for our teams and our organizations.

To lead a culture that people will follow and buy into, we need to connect with them. We need to be able to relate to them and to meet them where they are. As the workplace gets more chaotic and stress levels rise, leaders are challenged with channeling their emotions while maintaining operations and leading people. This is no small task but where leaders often fail is the people part. They begin to drown themselves in the day-to-day and neglect their teams.

Chip challenged us to “fall in love with our people again.” He didn’t mean this literally, of course, but we need to take a step back and remember that we chose to accept leadership positions and that decision comes with specific responsibilities to our people.

So, have you reflected about your leadership lately? What are you going to do to reignite your passion for people and execute, particularly the culture?

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Four requirements of internal branding and why it all matters

There’s a reason that every business degree requires a Marketing class. It doesn’t matter what your job is anymore, you better be a marketer too. In Daniel Pink’s book, To Sell is Human, he discusses the importance of being able to sell in every profession. He argues that we all need to be sales people in order to be successful. I would argue the same thing about marketing. We have to be able to market everything that we do even when our customers are internal to the organization. Examples include support departments such as Human Resources, Finance and IT.

I believe that branding is of the utmost importance when it comes to internal marketing. It’s where everything starts. If you don’t have a good brand, you can’t sell your product, service or value. There are four key requirements to achieving this brand.

Consistency

A strong internal brand requires consistency. My team jokes that consistency is my favorite word in the dictionary. They get it though. Consistency in branding says so many things to our customers, end users or stakeholders.

It says we’re credible. Consistency allows people to actually understand our brand and if they can understand it, they can buy into it. They can appreciate it and believe in it. They can trust it.
It says we’re predictable. Customers want to know what they can expect. Consistency gives them comfort in knowing that there is quality in everything we offer, regardless of the day or time or who on our team or in our organization they encounter when they have a need.
It says we’re confident and if we’re confident, everyone who comes in contact with us and our product or service will be confident too. Consistency means we know what we’re doing, we know what we’re offering is exceptional and we’ll produce the same high quality time after time.

Sophistication and Simplicity

A strong brand must be sophisticated, yet simple. Wait what? I’m contradicting myself, right? How can we be both at the same time? I’m not going to say this is easy. It’s actually extremely difficult to find the right balance between sophistication and simplicity when it comes to our brand.

Our brand has to be smart. It has to meet every criteria our stakeholders are looking for – personalization, versatility, relevancy, wit and much more! Yet, it also has to be simple – consistent (check!), understandable, quick and to the point.

The best way I have found to do this is to keep simplicity at the core throughout the planning process while considering options for incorporating the sophistication. Apple is a great example of this. The company’s brand is always simple, an apple. Yet, they add flares of sophistication and complication by offering different color options for user personalization. They keep it consistent in that every computer operates the exact same way with a dock of icons and every iPhone works by clicking on any icon to open an application. It’s smart and innovative but it’s so simple that users will be able to use Apple products for years and decades (maybe their entire lives) without learning new ways to operate the products.

This is very different than Windows products which requires a slightly more tech-savvy user to be able to operate it without instruction. As a trainer, I’ve witnessed this thousands of times. It used to be a start button with a menu. Then, with Windows 8, there was an entire start screen, not just a button. Now, Windows 10 is a combination of the two. My mother cannot operate her Windows computers if her life depended on it but she’s had three different iPhones and she used all of them like a pro. She asked me just the other day if I knew that she could do everything on an iPhone and there’s really no reason she needs a computer anymore.

Yes, how customers interact with a product or service is part of branding.

Appearance

I hate to say it but looks matter…a lot! Our brand can be consistent and we can win the sophistication/simplicity balance but if our brand is not appealing, neither is our product, in the eyes of our stakeholders at least. We must consider all design elements such as contrasting colors, white space and appropriate font sizes when designing any outward facing elements of an actual product or when designing promotional (or other) materials.

Impression

A strong brand leaves a lasting impression. It elicits emotion and retention. This requires all of the previous three requirements. It’s the wow factor when all is said and done. Do all of the elements of our brand come together cohesively?

It’s important to do a check, a double check and a triple check test before we launch our brand. It is also necessary to pilot our brand, ask for feedback, whatever it takes to make sure it will hit home for our audiences.

Our business, our value and our reputation rely on a strong internal brand and the four requirements of that brand. That should be reason enough to pay more attention to our internal brand!

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Create a Sense of Place for Your Team

A sense of place is actually a fairly common phrase used in geography, landscape design and interior design. It refers to the idea of creating something special and unique where people feel that they belong, perhaps to something greater than themselves. I think of really well planned parks where the design really took into consideration the people who would visit them – meeting places, comfortable spaces to sit, greenery and gardens, convenient walking paths, options for activities and other necessary concepts to create a feeling for visitors that they belong there.

Let’s apply this concept to the workplace. Creating a sense of place for your team does not have to be expensive. It can be but it does not have to be. There are so many ways to make employees feel like they are part of something when they’re at work, like they have a sense of belonging. They should feel meaning when they go to work every day. There is a lot that can play into a sense of place. You don’t have to have all of them to be successful but as many as you can incorporate into your workplace will be beneficial.

Efficiency

Efficiency in this sense is not about how fast you can get a task done. It’s about what makes sense for people at work. Are your workspaces designed so that employees can get to and from their offices with ease? Are they able to move within your organization in a manner that makes sense and does not require a lot of thought? For example, I think of an office space where on one level, there’s a food court in the middle and meetings spaces surrounding it. Then, on the second level, offices surround a community area with games and a patio out to a Zen garden. The two floors are open to each other and you can get to any single point easily and everything is placed logically. It’s easy to grab a bite to eat or a coffee right before or after a meeting when people usually need one of the two. It’s easy to take a break from office work by just stepping outside your door to play a game with a coworker or take a walk in a relaxing atmosphere, the garden.

Life

Workplaces often lack life, green life that is. Studies show that plants, flowers and vegetation can increase energy and focus and lead to a longer life. Purchase plants for your employees’ offices and build a garden together. There are so many benefits to a community garden:

It falls into our category of adding life into the workplace so it can increase productivity by helping your employees focus more.
It gives people something meaningful to do when they just need a break.
It builds on teamwork and can really bring people together for a common cause.
It is a great perk for employees to be able to take home food from the garden.
It encourages employees to cook for each other and share their recipes.
It allows for great conversation in a much safer and comfortable environment, rather than at the water cooler.

Options

People don’t like feeling stuck and if you’re trying to create a sense of belonging, you don’t want them to feel stuck. Build options into your workplace

for where people do their work – offices, open spaces, think pods, couches, etc.
for where people have their meetings – conference rooms, lunch meeting spaces, cafes and fun rooms (exercise balls, stress balls, basketball hoops).
for where people can take a break – gardens, food courts, coffee shops, game rooms or quiet rooms.
for where people can collaborate – training rooms, rooms with smartboards, computer labs and project rooms.

Connectedness

So, it’s great to have work spaces that make sense. What about the human side? Create a sense of place for employees by creating a culture of connectedness. Don’t just build a team; build a community. A community is a group of peers who trust each other, have found commonality despite their differences and feel a bond. They not only work well together but they do everything well together. A great recent example of this is the Chicago Cubs team. Whether you’re a fan or not, you can’t deny the sense of place that Joe Maddon has created for his team. They laugh together, play together, work together, win together and lose together. You never hear the players blame each other for losses or take all the credit for wins. If you watch them in the dugout during games, they are genuinely having fun at work. They’re never as serious as the other team. They goof around with their fans and with each other. They have become something larger, greater and better than themselves.

Celebration

Celebration is not just about throwing a party after a big accomplishment or telling people good job after they complete a project. Celebration is constant, genuine and 360-degrees. If celebration is truly a part of your culture, you sometimes celebrate for no particular reason. Don’t just do payday treats and birthday parties. Those are expected and can feel forced or disingenuous. Some things you can do include surprising your team with treats on totally random days, dropping off little anonymous gifts on their desks before or after they are at work and throwing a thank you party out of nowhere (not when anything important is going on). I’ve done these things for my team and it has paid off ten-fold as they now celebrate constantly. They have fun and do great work. It’s hard to believe sometimes that it’s possible to have both but when you do, it is quite amazing!

Purpose

Give people meaning, not just in the work that they do everyday but at work in general. If people don’t know why they go to work everyday or why they do what they do, you’ve lost the battle. Don’t be confused though. Meaning and purpose looks very different than reason. A good reason to go to work is to get paid. A good purpose for going to work is to serve your team and better the lives of your customers, patients or clients. To really have purpose, your team has to believe in everything: their work, their team, the values of the organization, the people they serve, the physical space they work in, the technology they work with, the product and service they are delivering and the leadership they have supporting them.

Remember these six pillars of creating a sense of place as you look to make positive changes to your teams, organizations and cultures. From my sense of place to yours!

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Don’t beg employees to stay as they leave

Stop begging at work. Quite frankly, it’s really not a good look for you anyway. We’ll get to that. What I’m talking about specifically is when employers beg employees to stay only after they leave, or threaten to.

Whether an employee is asking for a raise or some other work environment change, their supervisors or HR do not usually take them seriously until they are about ready to leave or worse, already left your organization. So, what’s the big deal? Well, it’s actually quite disrespectful.

It’s disrespectful to the employee. When employers don’t consider an employee’s request for something to change to make their work environment better, the employee feels devalued. I’m speaking, of course, about high performers. You may not ever be able to make everyone happy but the worst thing you can do to your highest performers is to make them feel less than what they really are to you. Waiting until they threaten to leave to make a change doesn’t help. It takes a lot of energy for them to look for another job and go through interviewing processes. It is completely disrespectful to them when you make them an offer to stay only when you realize they can go somewhere else.
It’s disrespectful to the other organization that is ready and willing to hire your employee. If you wait until your employee has another offer on the table, you’re wasting the time of the organization that has invested resources in hiring your employee. It takes time, money and other resources – someone to source the applications, a recruiter, a hiring manager, an onboarding staff, trainers, etc. You wouldn’t want this to happen to you so don’t put this burden on others.
It’s disrespectful to your team. Your team is not just going to think that you do not value people but how are they going to feel when they find out you made a higher offer or change for the employee who was leaving? The message you are sending is that the only way someone can get a higher salary or positive change on your team is if they threaten to leave. Everyone will start looking for another job!
It’s disrespectful to yourself. As leaders, you have a responsibility to support your teams and like it or not, you have a reputation to maintain. If you beg employees to stay only after they leave, you look like a fool and that is not a good look for a leader. Respect yourself enough not to do this.

I’m not suggesting you give employees everything they want, not even your highest performers. The point is you need to take off the blurry glasses and at least take a hard look at what’s going on in your workplaces, how you are treating your best employees and consider making meaningful changes before you lose them. Take this as a way to look in the mirror at yourself and do a quick reality check because you often don’t realize the impact of your decisions and actions especially if no one tells you or you’re in the midst of a busy work schedule. Be proactive in making appropriate changes for your team instead of waiting until you feel forced to do it because they are looking for another opportunity.

I get it. Depending on where you are on the hierarchy, you may or may not have as much power as you would like in order to impact change. Before you give up on fighting for your employees though, answer this question honestly: did you even try fighting for them or did you just give up? Ask the right questions to your HR departments. Take the time to put a business case together to present to your senior leaders. Draft a well thought-out proposal for your boss. Use your connections. If you lose the battle, at least you know you went down fighting for what you believe was the right thing.

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Take ownership and stop blaming your predecessors

One of the greatest problems I see in organizations is a lack of ownership. The most popular excuse I hear for this problem is, “[My predecessor] should have done this but didn’t and now it is too big of a mess to cleanup.”

Guess what? It’s your job! Most of the time, I find that the predecessor did not mess anything up but the successor just doesn’t understand how things worked before and why things were done the way they were done, which is a totally separate issue. It’s a complete cop out to blame someone who cannot even defend themselves.

If you don’t like the way things are, don’t just sit there and blame someone else for your problems. Take ownership of your role! But, how in the world are you supposed to do that? Start with five “knows.”

Know that not everything that was done before is bad. Have an open mind and don’t shut everything out and try to change it all just because you wouldn’t have done it that way. This is a horrible epidemic in leadership. Every new leader comes in and changes everything. It’s rarely ever a positive thing. You think you’re making things better but all you’re doing is making your staff suffer. Before you start changing everything, do a diligent evaluation of what is working well and what is not before making a single change.

Know that it’s okay to change and how to do it right. Not everything you inherit will be gold. Once you do a thorough evaluation, begin the change process for things that need improvement. Don’t just sit there and whine about how your predecessor screwed it all up for you and how it’s impossible to change. Do something about it! Make sure to include your stakeholders though, particularly your employees and your customers. A new leader who storms in and just starts tearing things apart is not going to get much support.

Know that you’re not alone so build some relationships. New employees have what I like to call the “freshman syndrome.” They act like they’re in high school again and become paranoid that the more veteran employees are automatically going to pick on them. Well, get over yourselves! If you’re a new leader, I can assure you that your employees are just as weary about you as you are about them so why not make them feel better? You are the leader, after all. Make them feel welcomed and comfortable. Get to know them. Ask them questions, seek their feedback and involve them in changes.

Know that trust is earned – not just trust with you but trust in you. You’re not going to immediately trust everyone you encounter so don’t expect them to trust you right away. Show your team that you’re worthy of leading them. Embrace those who question you and challenge you; don’t punish them for it.

Know that you can make a difference. So, you don’t understand how or why things were done before and it just seems completely backwards to you. Then, fix it. Don’t be afraid to take some risks and turn things around for the better. If you do it right, you and your team can be extremely successful. Don’t blame anyone for the problems you think you inherited. Take ownership of it and you can make a real and lasting impact.

Here’s a bonus piece of advice – people who take ownership don’t flaunt it. They don’t need to talk about it – about their predecessors not doing a good job, about them turning things around or about how hard it is to be them.

Ownership is very noticeable. There’s no hiding it. Take ownership and stop blaming your predecessors!

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Right isn’t always easy

Doing the right thing often means doing the difficult thing. If it was a piece of cake, we would all be doing it. As our work became faster paced and our to-do lists became never-ending, did we forget about ethics in the workplace? Did those values we post around our walls just become blurry pieces of decoration?

We continue to see a lack of ethics training for both front-line staff and leadership. Many of these programs were cut from organizations’ budgets during a recession and have not made an appearance since. We need to invest our resources back into these programs if we want our employees to do the right things.

It goes beyond just ethics training though. It also means having difficult conversations, embracing accountability and developing a culture where people feel comfortable doing the right things.

When we build culture and programs around ethics, morals and values, there are many things to take into consideration. The most common mistake is that organizations focus only on the technical concepts like what’s illegal – sexual harassment training, anti-theft policies and information security protocols.

Helping people to do the right thing requires supporting them to speak up when something is wrong, conduct difficult conversations with others who may not be compliant, and incorporate values into team cultures. Once there is a culture of accountability and ownership, employees will be living out the values of the organization.

Getting companies to do the right thing isn’t always easy. It takes time, energy and genuine buy-in at all levels. But it’s worth it.

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Focus on one: Quick transformations that stick

Have you ever been part of an initiative to make a change and it fell apart, did not last very long or was not enforced (so no one actually did it)? Silly me, right? Of course you have! We all have! Change is not easy. It is something that organizations have been trying to do forever and most have not found anything that works.

First, let’s talk about some methods that do NOT work but many organizations still insist on doing. Let’s save you some time because as my mother says, “You can often learn as much from others’ mistakes as you can from your own.”

Change it but don’t say it. It’s hard enough for people to experience change but to make a change and not tell them about it is even worse. Ask employees for their feedback, include them in the change and inform them throughout the process.
Say it but don’t change it. This happens too. Don’t say you’re going to make a change (especially if it’s a positive one) and then not maintain the change. This happens a lot with process improvement initiatives where organizations will make some efficiency changes and then a few months down the road, everyone resorts back to the way they used to do things. This can be frustrating for the staff who put a lot of work in making the improvement changes. Get buy-in and ownership and hold each other accountable.
Put it in the 3-5-10 Year Plans. Why is everything is a three, five or ten year plan? Successful transformations can happen in a lot less time than that. What usually happens with the 3-5-10 year plans is that by the time the deadline hits, there are new leaders in charge of the plans who end up making brand new 3-5-10 year plans. Therefore, nothing gets done, everything is a blame game and it becomes the cycle of operations.
Change it all. Organizations try to change everything at once. When you have too much change going on or too many initiatives in motion, people get confused. You cannot blame them for not buying in when they can’t even understand what is going on. You cannot change everything and expect it to happen quickly.

So, how do we solve this problem of unsuccessful change management? I have one solution and only one solution for you to try. Transform one thing at a time. For example, if you’re trying to shift the culture of an organization to be more team oriented, start with one department or one manager’s team. Survey only that one team, see if you can get to the root of the problem and implement your solutions with them. The problem is not usually with the plans or solutions that people come up with; it’s the fact that they are trying to implement that plan or solution at too large of a scale.

The same concept works when we’re trying to make transformations, in people or in organizations. If you can get one team to make significant transformations that last, other leaders will be knocking on your door begging you to work your magic on their department or team. Then, the larger impact will be felt and it will last longer. Plus, if you only make one transformation at a time, you can probably do it in less time. Forget the 3-5-10 year plans for change; make 3-6-9 month transformations one at a time. Focus on one to make quick transformations that stick!

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Break the rules, set some standards

I was at the Empower conference presented by CareerBuilder this week and had the amazing pleasure of hearing Coach Mike Krzyzewski, also known as Coach K, speak about the importance of obtaining great talent. Now, let’s get one thing out of the way – as some of you may know, I’m a very proud graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison so there’s no doubt I was rooting for the Badgers to take the men’s basketball championship this year. And, that’s exactly what it looked like was going to happen until Duke made a jaw-dropping comeback.

I’ve always been a Coach K fan even though I’m a Badger at heart but I became an even bigger fan after hearing him speak.

Ownership: You don’t work for something; you are something. – Coach K

He talked to us about how he recruited the best players to Duke, reminding us that hiring for character is just as important as hiring for talent or skill. One of the most important lessons I took away from Coach K’s presentation is that strong teams don’t have rules; they have standards that they agree to. Some of the standards that Coach K has set with his teams include:

No excuses.
Always be on time.
Always be honest and tell each other the truth.

This got me thinking about my own team and field of work and what type of standards I would set with my teams. So, I talked to them. Leading a training team, here are some standards I feel are important:

No excuses; always be on time; always be honest and tell each other the truth. Why wouldn’t I steal those from Coach K?
We don’t always have to be the best but we should always try to be our best. We strive to be better every day.
Never stop thinking. If we stop thinking, we stop creating, innovating and improving.
Share our ideas and our knowledge. No one likes an information hog.
Be proactive about learning. Don’t wait for someone to teach us something but rather, seek opportunities to learn.
Hold each other accountable. Don’t be afraid to call each other out. It makes us better.

Developing standards for a team allows everyone to be on the same page, work towards a common goal and be accountable to each other. What standards would you add to this list for your team?

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Never Settle for Less – Commit in 2015!

We’re about to approach a new year. With that comes New Year resolutions that often fail. Even the most measurable goals tend to fall by the wayside come March. This year, I’m going to try a new kind of New Year resolution!

I’m keeping it simple – one goal, one resolution. That is, I will commit to never settling for less in 2015. It might sound oversimplified or generic but it’s an important concept that too many people lose sight of when they’re busy trying to accomplish all of the other goals in their lives. They focus so much on the end result that they forget to reflect on whether or not they are even going down the right path.

I’m committing that in 2015, I will consistently ask myself if I’m settling for less or not – in my work, relationships, personal goals and other life activities. If the answer is yes, I know I will have to reevaluate and choose a different path.

I’ve learned the hard way that when I settle for less, I’m giving up so much that I could and should have in my life. So, how do you know when you’re settling?

When you become satisfied rather than passionate about something in your life, you know you’re settling.
When you feel robotic in what you’re doing rather than feeling excited, you know you’re settling.
When you find yourself constantly complaining rather than raving about something, you know you’re settling.
When you have to make excuses to convince yourself and others that something is the right decision, you know you’re settling.
When you don’t do something simply because of fear, you know you’re settling.

Take the time this next year to be intentional about reflecting upon your experiences, decisions and goals. Evaluate whether or not you are settling for less and commit to redirecting yourself if you find that you are headed down a path that results in something less than you deserve.

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