Archive for the ‘Leadership’ Category

Thinking Critically, A Much-Needed Skill

Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010

Seth Godin, author of Linchpin, recently posted something on his blog about the importance of thinking critically . . . professionally, personally, politically, and otherwise. I couldn’t agree more and have begun to challenge myself to think more critically about lots of things, especially things I believe I know a lot about. (I hate to admit it, but when I believe myself to be an expert on something it’s probably a good time to bone up on the subject.) I’m writing about this because I think it’s a skill in the workplace that is underused and, quite often, undervalued.

Let’s start with the definition of “critical thinking”. After finding a few definitions that I thought were really complex, I landed on this: purposeful reflective judgment concerning what to believe or what to do. I liked three words here because I think they are the key to making really great decisions as a result of critical thinking: purposeful, reflective, and judgment. First, critical thinking is purposeful. To me, purposeful means that there is intention to discover, uncover, learn, shift and see things from various viewpoints. When someone purposefully thinks about a subject, they are, in effect, peeling back layers to reveal something beneath. Second, critical thinking is reflective. In my view, reflective means that there is a commitment to ruminating on new discoveries and learning. Reflecting is taking the time to turn an idea around over and over to look at all its facets. Third, critical thinking is making a judgment. Of-course, one must draw a conclusion from the reflection. But, it’s important to note here that judgment must come AFTER purposefulness and reflection. Judgment without purpose and reflection is not critical thinking. It’s plain and simple judging. Therein lies the problem with lots of decisions I see being made (and sadly, have made myself from time to time.)

Decision making skills are really important in the workplace, particularly for leaders. Certainly, decisiveness is often valued in the workplace. But sometimes decisiveness is influenced by short-term agendas when it should be influenced by long-term payoffs. Granted, sometimes a decision just needs to be made because there’s a burning issue to be extinguished. But, after the fire, what kind of analysis is conducted to fix the problem that caused the fire in the first place? And, what if there isn’t anything burning that requires a snap decision? What can we do to think more critically and ensure that our decisions best serve the organization’s vision and mission?

Find evidence. Avoid heresay. Get to the bottom of things yourself.
Ask questions. LOTS of questions.
Get information from a variety of sources. Don’t just consult the inner circle and the usual suspects.
Be willing to recognize a problem. In other words, call it what it is!
Table (or toss) information that isn’t relevent to your issue and prioritize what is.
Notice and recognize unstated assumptions and values. Is there something people aren’t saying that you should know more about?
Suspend your own beliefs and assumptions in order to clear the way for new possibilities.

More than anything, I believe critical thinking takes discipline. All of the actions listed above require discipline, and practice. Some of them require courage because when you’re in the heat of a problem, it can feel a little uncomfortable to say, “Hold on, we need to ask some questions, prioritize information, and suspend beliefs and assumptions.” That’s why I believe leadership role modeling and support in the culture is necessary to make critical thinking valued in the workplace.

What do you think?

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Posted In: Leadership, Organizational Culture

Saying “No”: It’s Not For Whiners Anymore

Tuesday, October 12th, 2010

Last week, I read a blog post by Marshall Goldsmith called Overcommitment: A Happiness Killer. Most everything that Goldsmith writes grabs me. He’s a world-renowned coach and thought-leader on effectiveness and performance improvement. The crux of his post is to “think about what saying yes to that next request will mean.” Really, when you say “yes”, it’s important to think about what you are saying “no” to. I get it. Nonethless, it’s really hard for me to say “no”. And, this got me thinking of some common reasons why people don’t say “no”, especially in the workplace.

We’re afraid to hurt someone’s feelings.
We don’t want to be perceived as something other than a “team player”.
We want to be seen as super-capable and afraid that if we say “no”, we’ll be seen for what we are: human.
It sounds like a really good idea.

Learning to say “no” isn’t taught in business school. Many organizational cultures don’t value saying “no” because it’s perceived as anti-team or pro-whining. But, “no” can be a really good thing. There are lots of reasons to say no, especially in the workplace:

We don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings by saying yes and then not being able to deliver.
We want to be perceived as being a “team player” and saying “no” when we know we can’t deliver builds trust and credibility.
We want to be seen as super-capable so we make sure to say no to something that will do nothing but take our “eye off the ball”.
Just because it sounds like a good idea doesn’t mean it is.

You get my drift.

Saying “no” effectively means thinking critically and keeping the big picture in mind. Here are some questions you can ask yourself (or if you’re a leader, questions you can ask your team) when determining whether “no” is the right answer:

Does the request move your organizational agenda forward? In other words, if you say “yes”, will there be progress toward something that matters?
Is the request in alignment with your role or responsibilities?
Do you have the authority and resources to take on and complete the request? Or, if you need to access shared resources, do you know how?
If you say yes to the request, what affect does it have on other things you’ve said yes to?
Is there someone else in the organization more skilled and able to complete the request than you?

More and more, I find myself talking with clients about why they accepted that meeting notice or how they found themselves on yet another sub-committee. Most of the time I discover that they answered someone else’s call without any questioning or critical thinking. In today’s workplace, resources are scarce at worst or spread too thin at best. People need to be a little more strategic about what they take on, and leaders need to support someone’s ability to ask some key questions before taking on a request that might suck time and energy away from something that really needs their attention.

Marshall Goldsmith had it right when he said overcommitment is a happiness killer. I contend it can also be a productivity killer, an effectiveness killer, and a mission-critical-focus killer.

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Posted In: Leadership, Performance Management

Culture and Values

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

I’ve just finished reading Tony Hsieh’s new book, Delivering Happiness. It is the best book on culture that I’ve ever read. Hsieh is the CEO at Zappos.com, and besides being witty and really funny, Hsieh is incredibly insightful about the importance of culture. He shares EVERYTHING about how they built culture at Zappos.com and gives everyone who reads the book a blueprint for how to do it at other organizations as well. He argues, very compellingly, that without a strong culture that has some teeth behind it, there is no way Zappos would have achieved more than $1 billion in gross sales annually in just 10 years. Key here is the “teeth” behind the culture. Zappos is willing to make hiring and firing decisions based on their cultural values. In other words, if someone won’t fit into the culture, no matter how skilled or competent she is, she won’t be hired. And, on the other hand, regardless of how talented and capable an employee is, if he behaves in a way that is counter to the corporate values, he’ll be fired. There’s just no negotiation when it comes to culture and the values that shape them. The result is a culture with authenticity and consistency.

Building culture starts with identifying an “end game”. What is your company’s purpose? What do you want to build and achieve together? This isn’t just a “touchy-feely” question . . . it’s a strategic and critically important one. Being part of something bigger than you are is inspiring and can yield great results. The purpose can be really simple. At Zappos, their higher purpose is to deliver happiness – to make people happy. And, it’s turned out to be an incredible business plan. The important thing for any organization is to have a clear purpose. What is yours? And, more important, if everyone in your organization was asked about the purpose, would they know what it is?

Next, building culture continues with identifying core values. What guides your behaviors and decisions? Values can help you make sure that your higher purpose is achievable and real. At Zappos, there are 10 core values. There is no magic number – you can have 3 or 5 or 12. How ever many you have, you need to make sure you can live with them and commit to them and have some teeth behind them. If you have too many, it’s easy to lose focus and ultimately, lose the meaning of the values. If they are values you can commit to, and make hiring and firing decisions around them, then they are a solid set of values. The values are the key expression of culture. When you ask employees and customers to describe culture, it’s the values that they’ll speak to because your values are your culture in action.

Finally, building culture means building the expectation into the organization, through things like job descriptions and performance evaluations, that living up to the core values is everyone’s responsibility. By living your values, you’ll build and sustain your culture.

I love doing culture work with clients because it is inspiring and reminds me that there are fantastic possibilities to be explored if we only open our hearts to them. What possibilities are there out there for you, I wonder?

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Posted In: Leadership, Organizational Culture, Performance Management, Uncategorized, Values

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Thinking Critically, A Much-Needed Skill

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