Category: Values

Looking down?

Bounding into the hotel this morning on my way to present to the Senior Executive Assistant Roundtable this morning the person walking towards me suddenly stopped, turned away and looked down, frantically texting. The person had been in a dispute I was involved in which, although settled a long time ago, had resulted in some silly stuff fired at my direction for a while after.

The women (yes all women) of the  Senior EA Roundtable were in good form. When you’re running a concurrent session you know people have a choice so it’s great when at least someone turns up! Actually we had lots turn up to hear about personal leadership and management.

We discovered that we all have different core values but there was quite a lot of commonality – family, integrity, freedom and honesty were a sample – and that it can be helpful to take into account someone else’s value when communicating with them. In fact it’s everything – treating others as they wish to be treated.

It just happened to be there in the paper – the pictures from the CCV camera of the woman stroking then dumping the cat into the wheelie bin  – and so we had a talk about that too. What sort of person would so such a thing!?  A cat hater? A psychopath? Maybe he did his business on the woman’s lawn? Whatever was the answer we learned that we can’t always anticipate why people do stuff unless we know about them. In the middle of the room, I suddenly completely and absolutely lost my train of thought. Mindfulness is such an important component of personal leadership – you know what it’s like when you’re in a meeting and someone is texting. Sometimes managers talk about this but Colleen today made it clear and present for me – it’s about respect. Yes that’s it, not hard at all.

And so we moved onto conflict – speaking to the other person’s values, commending, recommending and then commending. The group shared experiences and we heard some great examples of how to communicate powerfully.

As I type this there’s a young woman on the TV who drove drunk and killed the mother of the young man seated next to her.  He has forgiven her and they plan to give talks together. Two young people role modelling what grown ups in business struggle with.

Is your head held high? There’s no use putting your head down if there’s difficult stuff to do. Maybe you’re just not present or maybe you’re hiding. Either way if you interact with others you’ll need to be there. And when you’re there, do they know you? I told the group where my folks lived (you had to be there!), so I hope Mum and Dad don’t mind the occasional visitor! The greatest gift you can give.  Be present. Be yourself.

Defensive Force

Watching Seinfeld tonight Elaine was bemoaning the fact that she wasn’t seen as responsible enough to babysit a friend’s child. “Who wants to be responsible” responded Jerry Seinfeld “Whenever anything goes wrong the first thing they ask is who is responsible”.

It’s a question that has exercised the mind of the auditor general:  why did four Defence Force officers falsely claim allowances while on secondment to the UN. Listening to interviews on the radio on the way to my run this evening I heard “they’ve been disciplined”, “won’t happen again” and “they only claimed what they were entitled to remember” several times. What I didn’t hear was mention of culture and values that the auditor general had identified as underlying causes of the falsities.

At times of crisis, the leaders of any organisation will need to adopt a command and control leadership style, where directions are given and acted upon without question. The Defence business while on operations surely fits into this camp. But what about the rest of the time? Can the culture switch as required or is there just one culture?

We get glimpses of  an organisation’s culture through stuff that pops out externally – staff retention, how problems are dealt with, choices people make about where to work and statements from leaders are the sorts of things where we can pick up clues. So when its said that the culture and values caused the environment that gave rise to the false claims what culture are we talking about? Is this the culture that requires obedience to superior officers in all circumstances, even when illegal?

On the one hand you need to have officers able to unquestioningly respond to orders. But outside of operations you need to have a culture that allows questioning, coaching and responsibility for ones own actions. Sounds like a big challenge.

So when I listened to the radio tonight I heard all the things that one might expect with the organisation top-down rule book approach to “make things happen”.  “I will ensure that it doesn’t happen again”. That’s a fine aim, but you won’t if you don’t change the culture. And you won’t change the culture by doing treating the problem with the same culture that caused it. That dreadful defensiveness that uses rules and structures to avoid the potential embarrassment of having to explore the root causes that the auditor general identified.

So who is responsible? Is that even the right question? I believe that in leadership discovery we need to start with self. You won’t be acting without integrity and blind unquestioning if you’re authentic. But if your leadership paridigm is about finding new ways to control and strategise then you’re not even scratching the surface – you’re still on the command and control, but with fancy words.

Leadership discovery of authenticity. It’s the best defence against a culture that is not right, and the most sustainable way to embed real change.

That’s got a lot of force to it I reckon.

Stephen

How do you value your values?

I wrote previously about values, talking about keeping the curtains open so the burglar couldn’t operate without being seen from the street. A new awareness has grown in me recently about values, especially those that have scant regard for them. Sometimes when we run courses we have the groups define the values that they will live by for the duration of the course. This is a useful check on behaviours and like everything we do on-course, something the participants can take back to home and work.

But what about our own values? Do we write a list of them and make sure we’re living by them? I doubt it and here’s why. They’re deep inside. The true values are us. Like not defining ourselves, we don’t need to record, define or articulate them to ourselves. But like the burglar who sneaks into the curtained back street office  to steal valuables, we need to make sure the curtains are open on our values. By stealth and manipulation, others less attracted to a value-centred life will rip them out if it suits them when you are vulnerable.

So why am I on about this now? In the last month several people we know have been in vulnerable positions financially. This is not uncommon now with the economy in a fragile state and business tight in many sectors. They have, each of them, been separately manipulated into positions through rumour and misinformation where they have had to make business decisions in order to survive. These are decisions that they do not wish to make, they are decisions that go against their own values, but they’ve done it to survive.

I can understand people in dire circumstances of famine commiting offences to feed their family. We see that often in Tsunamis, hurricanes and the like. All is lost and survival hangs by a thread. I do not know the personal circumstances of the people sufficiently to judge whether or not that might be their situation. And I won’t judge. But what I see is sad.

When you allow your values to be stolen for money you better hope that you can afford to buy some more from somewhere else.  I don’t reckon the thief will give you any back. Trouble is though, money can’t buy values. Strange isn’t it – you can sell them, but can’t buy them.

How do you value your values?


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Why is your Whanau not in the Wharekai?

Some random thoughts are swirling around me right now and will hopefully gain some structure as I write. It’s been a big weekend. My teenage son Tim was staying with me although I abandoned him on Friday night for dinner at the Committee for Auckland’s Future Leaders Programme opening held at the Wharekai on the Orakei Marae. I lived in Orakei in the 1990s but had never experienced the spectacular views out, and feeling in, of the Marae.  Children intermingled with the adults and speakers, unimpressed, or should I say unchanged, by our presence.

Saturday morning is my long run-day – Scenic Drive beckoned and so a trot from the shops at Titirangi to Mountain Road and return was done. Saturday evening was for a good friends 40th and a speech in which he declared “The one thing I haven’t been doing right is spending time with each and everyone of you.  That is going to change”.

Sunday morning was back to the Marae where we delivered our introduction to the Programme for the Leadership workshops that the Centre for Innovative Leadership is now privileged to be delivering for this cohort. We talked about trust, about authenticity – “it’s actually a really simple concept” said one participant and then added “but hard”. So we’re excited about the opportunity of working with this group of senior leaders. I very much look forward to growing with them and being a part of their journey.  Go well!

A university get-together at lunch and at 3.00pm I finally set eyes properly on Tim. Selfish? Too busy? Guilty your honour.

This evening I visited Pathways to Manhood to discuss the upcoming retreat that Tim and I are going to go on in April. Whatever we do, feedback, reflection, timeout and sharing quality time with family are important. Yeah, good words, what about the weekend?  “I’ll take Tim to dinner tonight”.  “Is that to make up for the time you didn’t spend with him in the weekend?”

It is actually. Are your Whānau good enough for the Wharekai? Of course they are. Be there. It means everything. Sorry Tim.

Dad.


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