Showing posts with label Ownership. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ownership. Show all posts

July 10, 2019

There is a Place for Border Walls

There is a place for border walls. 

Walls are not bad. 

And neither are all people.

But some people are bad.

And we have the right to be protected from them. 

Walls help to manage the flow. 

Not everyone can just go whatever, whenever, wherever. 

Surely, some people need to move to and fro. 

But we must decide who and when and where. 

Walls define spaces and ownership.

Not every place and thing is everyone's.

People have property rights as do sovereign nations.

Not everything is strictly defined.

There is the commons that we share. 

But also there is a mine and a yours. 

That's how economics functions and how people give and take. 

Walls help separate and secure. 

Bridges help connect and transport. 

They are not mutually exclusive. 

I've never seen a house, company, organization, or government without walls. 

And neither have you. ;-)

(Credit Photo: Michelle Blumenthal)
Share/Save/Bookmark

December 17, 2018

Don't Give A Fire Truck

Sometimes, others can get negative at you in life.

People are unhappy. 

They are being unreasonable.

Complaints are rolling in. 

It seems like you can't do right.

But you have to have a thick skin or as one colleague told me:
You need to be like Teflon and have it all just roll off you.

And this book title reminded me of this:
"The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck"

Yes, we do have to care about doing good in what we do. 

It's just that we shouldn't "give a f*ck" when others are just wanting to tear us down and enjoying it. 

Constructive feedback is good. 

But destructive negativity at every turn is just hurtful.

It's also a way for others to not take ownership.

We all need to do our part to make things better in this world. 

Sure, no one does everything right and no one is perfect. 

But everyone needs to try their best, and when others just want to beat on you...

That's a completely appropriate time to not give a firetruck. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Share/Save/Bookmark

May 29, 2016

Getting A Leadership Washing


So I am reading this book called, "What Your Boss NEVER Told You."

In terms of leadership, a key principle is stated very well here: 


"'What' flows down

And

'How' flows up."

Meaning that as the leader, you set the goal, but you don't tell people how to achieve it.

Micromanagement "stomp[s] out 

creativity, ownership, and commitment."

To give your people the breathing room to innovate and solve problems and feel good about their work, here's the ideal manager:

"Hands-off whenever possible, 

and 

hands-on whenever needed."

And finally the 3 "H's" of leadership:

1. Honor -- doing the right thing (i.e. integrity)


2. Humility -- "give away the credit," but own the responsibility 100%!


3. Humor -- "take their work seriously, but themselves lightly."



Overall, good book to get a clean bill of leadership health. 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Share/Save/Bookmark

April 4, 2015

2 Heads And A House

My daughter took this photo on a trip to Spain. 

In America, in front of the McMansions, it is not atypical to see interesting statues (perhaps of lions or fantasy guard creatures), ancient fountains, and even modern art.

I thought this European house was unique with some busts of a man and woman on each side of the gate to the front door. 

Wonder whether these are actually supposed to look the owners or are just randomly funny.

Also, the color match the orange house and yellow entranceway sort of perfectly.

Either way, it makes you take a 2nd and 3rd look.

Why is the man bust smiling and the woman bust looking so miserable here (or is that just representative of what most "traditional" marriages are about)?

Wouldn't it be sort of funny if every home had busts or large photos or other representation prominently and widely displayed of the family inside. 

No more mystery of who lives there and more warmth and personalization. 

When you sell/buy property, you just have to take all of yourselves with you. ;-)

(Note: no idol worship please.)

(Source Photo: Rebecca Blumenthal)
Share/Save/Bookmark

February 20, 2015

Learning To Compromise

My wife and I decided after living in the same condo for the last 15 years that maybe it was time for a change. 

There is a great area that we hang out in with workout, grocery, pharmacy, public transportation, and--most importantly to my wife--Starbucks--all right there.

So my wife made an appointment for us to look at this rental right above all the action....

The apartment was nice, modern, and best of all in this vibrant neighborhood--but on the smallish side (we would definitely be cramped) and with a substantial monthly. 

My wife, the perennial city dweller, loved it, and I didn't.

Next, my turn up, we went with a real estate broker to see a charm of a house--this was the one we'd "been waiting for," all these years. 

Solid, roomy, castle-like...but it would have some ongoing house maintenance things and was a little distance from public transportation (i.e. we'd mostly have to drive). 

This time, my wife hated it, and I loved it.

Back and forth--argue and debate--getting no where (this is a very egalitarian relationship--my wife tells me what to do!) :-)

Thinking about this, I say "Okay, let's compromise"--let's look for a more upscale and roomy condo that we can make our own but in the neighborhood she really likes (and yeah, I like it too). 

1-2-3, with a little searching, we find something online we like, and back to the real estate broker to make an appointment. 

This story is not over in terms of where (or if) we are going to move to, but along the way we continue to learn as a couple to get along, love each other, and of course, compromise. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Share/Save/Bookmark

February 8, 2014

Take Your Advice And Shove It

Great piece in the Wall Street Journal today on getting and giving advice. 

This was a funny article about how most advice comes not from the wise, but from the idiots trying to push their own agendas, make a buck off you, or bud into your business. 

When people try to tell you what to do, "the subtext is 'You're an idiot for not already doing it."

But who wants to do what someone else tells them to do--unless you a robotic, brainless, loser!

Every manager should already know that everyone hates a control freak micromanager--and that they suck the creative lifeblood out of the organization. 

The flip side is when you give people the freedom to express their talents and take charge of their work activities, you motivate them to "own it!"

Real meaning from work comes from actually having some responsibility for something where the results matter and not just marching to the tune of a different drummer. 

The best leaders guide the organization and their people towards a great vision, but don't choke off innovation and creativity and sticking their fat fingers in people's eyes. 

The flip side of advice not getting hammered on you, is when you have the opportunity to request it. 

People who aren't narcissistic, control freaks seek out other people's opinions on how to approach a problem and to evaluate the best solutions. 

This doesn't mean that they aren't smart and capable people in and of themselves, but rather that they are actually smarter and more capable because they augment their experience and thinking with that of others--vetting a solution until they find one that really rocks!

While decision making by committee can lead to analysis paralysis or a cover your a*s (CYA) culture, the real point to good governance is to look at problems and solutions from diverse perspectives and all angles before jumping head first into what is really a pile of rocks under the surface. 

Does vetting always get you the right or best decision? 

Of course not, because people hijack the process with the biggest mouth blowing the hottest stream. 

But if you can offset the power jocks and jerky personalities out there, then you really have an opportunity to benefit from how others look at things. 

While the collective wisdom can be helpful, in the end, all real grown ups show personal independence, self-sufficiency, and a mind of their own, and take responsibility for their decisions and actions. 

We can learn from others, but we learn best from our own mistakes...no pain, no gain. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Share/Save/Bookmark

September 8, 2013

For Somebody Who Has Everything

What do you get somebody who has everything? 

Well check this out...


You can actually buy acreage on the moon through The Lunar Registry, "Earth's leading lunar real estate agency."


Based on The Outer Space Treaty, no country can own a celestial resource such as the moon, planet, or asteroid, but this doesn't preclude private entities and individuals from purchasing a "lunar land claim."


The Space Settlement Institute, which "promotes the human colonization and settlement of outer space" is lobbying for the U.S. to recognize these space land claims (PopSci).


According to their website, when you purchase real estate through the lunar registry, "your property ownership is permanently registered by the International Lunar Lands Registry in its annual publication, which is copyrighted and deposited in the United States Library of Congress and with international patent and trademark offices."


You can view available properties here, from the Sea of Vapors ("moon on a budget" for $18.95 per acre--near Crater Manilius) to Lake of Dreams ("most popular" for $34.25 per acre and a special "Sweathearts package with 2 acres side-by-side).


Properties can be viewed at The Full Moon Atlas through The Luna Society.


I found Lake of Dreams by its reference in sector B-4, although I couldn't really tell from the atlas whether this was a place that I'd like to settle down or not. 


In real estate, they alway say "location, location, location"--when you're buying on the moon, who the heck knows? ;-)


(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Share/Save/Bookmark

May 15, 2011

Hooray For Motivation

Much has been written about the importance of meaning in driving a productive and motivated workforce.

Already in 1964, Frederick Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene Theory differentiated work satisfiers (aka motivators) such as challenging work, achievement, and responsibility, from dis-satisfiers (aka hygiene factors) such as the absence of status, job security, adequate salary/benefits, and pleasant work conditions.

In other words, motivation is driven primarily by the underlying meaningful and the productive work, not by the context of the work such as the money and fringe benefits.

In that vein, Harvard Business Review in "A Spotlight on Productivity" in May 2011 describes how poor managers "unwittingly drain work of its meaning"--in essence destroying their employees motivation and their productivity.

1) Trivializing Your Workers Input--"managers may dismiss the importance of employees work or ideas." In a sense, this one is about marginalizing employees, their creativity, and their contributions and is extremely destructive to the employees and the organization.

2) Decoupling Employee Ownership From Their Work--"Frequent and abrupt reassignments often have this affect." Also, not assigning clear roles and responsibilities to projects can have this affect. Either way, if employees don't have ownership of their projects, then the productivity will suffer amidst the workplace chaos and lack of ultimate accountability for "your work."

3) The Big Black Hole--"Managers may send the message that the work employees are doing will never see the light of day." In other words, employees are just being forced to "spin their wheels" and their is truly no purpose to the "shelfware" they are producing.

4) Communication, Not--Managers "may neglect to inform employees about unexpected changes in a customers priorities" or a shift in organizational strategy due to changes in internal or external market drivers. When employees don't know that the landscape has shifted and moreover are not involved in the decision process, they may not know what has changed, why, or feel invested in it. Without adequate communication, you will actually be leaving your employees blind and your organization behind.

So while it is tempting to think that we can drive a great work force through pay, benefits and titles alone, the lesson is clear...these are not what ultimately attracts and retains a talented and productive work force.

The magic sauce is clear--help your work force to know and feel two things:

1) Their work--is ultimately useful and usable.

2) That they--are important and have a future of growth and challenge.

When they and their work mean something, they will get behind it and truly own it.

In short: mean something, do something.

To get this outcome, I believe managers have to:

1) Make the meaning explicit--Identify your customers, the services you are providing, and articulate why it is important to provide these.

2) Determine strengths and weaknesses of each employee and capitalize on their strengths, while at the same time coach, mentor, and train to the weaknesses.

3) When workers go "off track," be able to give them constructive feedback and suggestions for improvement without demeaning and demoralizing them.

4) Find the inner strength and self confidence not to be threatened by your employees actually doing a good job and being productive--that's ultimately what you've hired them for!

5) Recognize the importance of everyone's contributions--It is not a one-person show, and it takes a bigger boss to recognize that other people's contributions don't take away from their own.

6) Be a team and communicate, honestly and openly--information hoarding and being the smartest one in the room is an ego thing; the best leaders (such as Jack Welch) surround themselves with people that are smarter than them and information is something to be leveraged for the team's benefit, not weaponized by the individual.

There are more, but this is just a blog and not a book...so hopefully more to come on this topic.

Share/Save/Bookmark

April 5, 2011

Beyond The Blame Game


Blame-game



It's funny, when things go well everyone seemingly wants to step up and take the credit, but when things go badly, therein starts the blame game.


Harvard Business Review (April 2011) presents three categories of people that react dysfunctionally to failure (to which it attributes the responses of 70% of the U.S. population!)


- Blame Others: look for someone to scapegoat, so they don't have to take responsibility themselves.


- Blame Yourself: judge yourself overly harshly or imagine failure where none exist.


- Deny Blame: "deny that failure has occurred or deny their own role in it."


A fourth category, I believe is when people:


- Blame G-d: they ask "why me?" somehow implying an unfairness, injustice, or randomness in the failure.


In all these reactions to failure, there are in my opinion a number of mistakes being made and ways to improve upon them:


- Focus - Instead of concentration on mission success, people may erroneously overemphasize attribution. However, rather than worry about who to blame, think about how to "right the ship;" there are people in the field depending on you!

- Balance - Blaming implies that you are focused on the failure, but usually there are some things that were done right and some things that were done wrong. There is usually more of a balance to every situation that blame does not lend itself to.

- Ownership - When we blame others, G-d, or even ourselves, we basically are throwing up our hands and abrogating control of the situation, when instead we need to take appropriate levels of responsibility and accountability for what we did and did not do (or as they say "sins of commission" and "sins of omission").

-
Learning - Blame is a dead-end--it leads to hard feelings and possibly even despair. The way out is to acknowledge mistakes usually to degrees by all involved and LEARN FROM THEM. A failure can be turned into opportunities for future success, but learning valuable lessons on how to do things better the next time around.

To be honest, we all make mistakes.

In fact, I would worry about someone who seems so perfect on the outside--because I would imagine that they are likely or probably a powder keg, ready to blow on the inside (ever hear of someone "going postal" or the star who seems to have it all--looks, fame and fortune--and then they overdose or drive off a cliff or something?)

No one has it all. No one is perfect. We are all human.

It's not about blame. It is about accountability and responsibility--making things right where we can.

Every day we learn and grow--that is our test and our trust.


(Cartoon Credit: Tandberg)

Share/Save/Bookmark

December 4, 2010

The Human Capital Multiplier Effect


We all know that people respond better to some managers than others—for some, people will go “the extra mile.”


University of Virginia professors teaching a leadership class that I was fortunate to participate in shared lessons on this.


Essentially, studies show that leaders that treat their people with trust, caring, and respect—what I would call the basic elements of human dignity—are able to achieve the multiplier effect.


In simple terms, what you give as a leader is what you get back.

Multipliers—leaders that are “multipliers” believe in their peoplethat they are smart and will figure it out. Multipliers guide them, invest in them, give them the freedom to debate the issues and do their jobs, and they challenge them to be their best. Multipliers are "talent magnets"--people want to work for them, and employees that work for multipliers tend to contribute 200%!


In contrast, those managers that are “diminishers” believe that their employees will not figure it out without them. They are empire builders and micromanagers, who typically act like tyrants, displaying a know-it-all attitude, and they have to make all the decisions. In an un-empowered and disrespected role, employees who work for diminishers withdraw and give less than 50%.


When it comes to motivating our workforce and achieving a multiplier effect, while money and recognition are important, providing genuine autonomy and empowerment to “own the job” and get it done has been found to be the #1 impact on their productivity.


Hence there is a big difference between using technology as a tool to perform a task and doing it in a very directed way (by rules, algorithms, assembly lines, etc.) versus working through real people who have important human needs to work with some autonomy to add value and achieve not only the respect of their manager(s), but also self-respect as well.


When we create a multiplier environment for our employees—one where they can flourish as human beings—they give back rather hold back, and in a highly competitive environment that’s exactly what every organization needs to thrive.


There are two major challenges here for leaders.


One is that leaders who have attained power tend to be reluctant to relinquish any of it to their employees. They don’t see the difference between “empowerment” and their own loss of stature.


The other challenge is that there is always the chance that if you give somebody the tools to build the house, that they will either take a nap in the hammock in the backyard or even try to throw you off the roof!


In the first case, the leader has to have enough confidence to make room for others to succeed. I once heard that Jack Welch said of great leaders that they surround themselves with people who are even smarter than they are.


In the second case, I believe that we need to “trust but verify,” meaning that we provide autonomy and tools to people to do the job, but then if they don’t do it appropriately, that is addressed through individual performance management.


Managing people well is not a favor we do them, but is something that is required for the success of enterprise.

Share/Save/Bookmark

November 5, 2010

Turning Consumerism Into Collaboration

I’m sure you’ve noticed that we are historically and fundamentally a consumerist society.

We spend a lot of time and money shopping and buying things—many of the things that we buy, we acknowledge that we don’t even need—just check your attic lately? :-)

Many compulsive buyers have even self-proclaimed themselves “shopaholics.”

Aside from being somewhat obsessive compulsive in the way we treat buying and owning things, we tend to be pretty wasteful in buying and throwing out things, often from individualized, single use servings—think fast food, as one example.

The result, according the Environmental Protection Agency (per WiseGeek), the average American produces 4.4 pounds of garbage a day or 1,600 pounds a year (and that doesn’t include industrial waste or commercial trash).

On the flip side of all the tossing out we do, are “hoarders” or those with the tendency to keep lots of things, often piled high in every corner of their homes and offices; there is even a show called by the same on A&E television dedicated to this.

So we shop a lot, spend a lot, buy a lot, and then consume it, hoard it, or toss it. And we do this with enormous volumes of things and in ridiculously rapid cycle times—for example, how many times a week do you find yourself in the stores buying things or then taking out the trash generated from it? (I can practically hear the lyrics of the Hefty commercial playing: ”Hefty, Hefty, Hefty—Stinky, Stinky, Stinky…”)

Overall, it’s a crazy system of conspicuous consumption driven by perceived needs for materialism, highly refined and effective marketing and advertising techniques, and people’s feelings of relative deprivation.

Yet despite these, there is movement underway to change from a society obscured by habits of personal ownership and consumption to a more healthy and balanced approach based on sharing and reuse.

And this is approach for sharing is happening not just in terms of personal consumption, but also in terms of our organizational use of technology, such as in service-oriented architectures, common and enterprise solutions, virtualization, and cloud computing.

We see change happening as a result of the huge financial deficits we have piled on individually, organizationally, and as a nation; the depletion of our vital natural resources (including concerns about our future energy supplies and other limited raw materials like precious metals etc.); and the fear of pollution and the poisoning our planet for future generations.

An interesting article in Wired called “Other Peoples Property” (Sept. 2010) talks about how we are moving finally toward a model of sharing through peer-to-peer renting sites like at www.zilok.com (with 150,000 items listed including cars, vacations, tools, electronics, cloths, and more) and other swapping sites for books, CDs, video games, etc. like www.swaptree.com. Of course, Zipcars and property timeshares are other fashionable examples of this new way of thinking!

Further, the article references a new book by Rachel Botsman called “What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption,” about how we are moving to a new consumption model that emphasizes “usefulness over ownership, community over selfishness, and sustainability over novelty.”

With new technologies and tools there is more opportunity than ever to share and reuse, for example:

  • Online repositories of goods and advanced search capabilities provides the ability to find exactly what we are looking for.
  • Embedding everyday items with microprocessors, networking them, and aiding them with geolocation, enables us to get self-status on their presence, health and availability for use.
  • E-commerce, electronic payment, and overnight shipping, gives us the ability to have the items available when and where we need them, and we can then return them for someone else to take their turn to use them.

If we can get over the stigma of sharing and reuse, perhaps, the day is coming when we can think of many non-personal items more in terms of community use and less in terms of mine and yours, and we’ll all be the richer for it.


Share/Save/Bookmark

July 10, 2010

Let Our People Think!

The leaders, planners, architects, and consultants in the proverbial ivory tower have become a poignant metaphor for what ails our organizations.

The elitist “thinkers” go into seclusion, come up with the way ahead for the organization, and then proclaim to everyone else what should be done and how it should be done—to be successful.

How nice. The “know-it-alls” tell everyone else (who obviously don’t know anything) how to do their jobs. Isn’t that empowering (not!)?

Harvard Business Review (July-August 2010) has a great article called “The Execution Trap” about the failure of the traditional strategy-execution model where executives dictate the strategy and expect everyone below to mechanically carry it out.

The strategy-execution model is analogous to the human body, where the brain instructs the body parts what to do. The executives choose what to do and the employees are treated as the brainless doers.

Typically executives take advantage of this separation of strategy and execution by patting themselves on the back for a “brilliant strategy” when results are good, but blaming the employees for “failed execution” when results come in poor.

Of course, in this thoughtless and thankless management model, employees feel disconnected, helpless, hopeless, and “invariably, employees decide simply to punch their time cards rather than reflect on how to make things work better for their corporation and its customers.” In the management model, employees are not true partners with leadership and they know it and act accordingly.

As a result, leadership turns to hiring outside consultants rather than working with their own organization, making what appears as “unilateral and arbitrary” decisions and this ends up alienating employees even further. It becomes a vicious cycle of alienation and hostility, until the entire capacity to strategize and execute completely breaks down.

HBR puts forward an alternative to this called the choice-cascade model, in which executives make “abstract choices involving larger, longer-term investments, whereas the employees…make more concrete day-to-day decisions that directly influence customer service and satisfaction.”

The metaphor here is of a whitewater river, where upstream choices set the context for those downstream. But the key is that “senior managers empower workers by allowing them to use their best judgment in the scenarios they encounter,” rather than just throwing a playbook of policies and procedures at them to follow dutifully and mindlessly—without application, deviation, or even emotion.

In the choice-cascade model, “because downstream choices are valued, and feedback is encouraged, the framework enables employees to send information back upstream” and as such employees play an important role in the initial strategy development.

The big difference in the two models is in the support that we can expect to get from our employees. In the strategy-execution model, where executives pit themselves against employees, you end up with employees that are alienated and do only what they have to do. In contrast, in the choice-cascade model, where executive and employees team to develop the strategy and then empower employees at every level to execute on it—responsibly and with a sense of ownership—everyone not only does what they are told, but they do what needs to be done to be jointly successful.

Which organization would you want to work in?


Share/Save/Bookmark

July 3, 2010

Moving Beyond The Blame Game

Leaders have a choice about the messages they convey to their followers—they can empower people to take ownership and sometimes risk, or they can promote “CYA” as the corporate mantra.

This is the subject of a new article in Psychology Today (July/August 2010), “Just Don’t Do It,” by Dr. Art Markman.

The article provides an explanation of how people fall into the trap of risk-aversion. Essentially, when the outcome of an action causes trouble, the person performing the action is assumed to have negative intentions, and more or less, be automatically blamed. This leads people to assume the stance that “silence is golden” and avoid “trouble.”

Markman provides the analogy of a boy who gets blamed for throwing a ball and breaking a window, while the girl he threw it to averts blame:

- “The boy is definitely going to get in trouble. He threw the ball…what about the girl, though? She watched as the ball passed over her head...perhaps she could have done something that would have stopped the ball from hitting the window.”

- “This tendency to blame outcomes on actions rather than inactions [is called] the omission bias.”

Especially in a tough economy, people can easily get timid in the workplace because of the “omission bias.” Everyone is afraid of losing prestige, power, and even their paychecks, if they but open their mouths or make a mistake. And if leaders do not intervene, the result can be employee complacency and inaction.

This is reminiscent of the saying that “it is better to be silent and have people think you are a fool, then to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”

What a waste of our organization’s most precious asset—people!

Rather than drawing on our employees’ education, skills and experience to promote organizational growth, we squelch them in the name of “going along to get along.” They learn to “toe the line.”

Part of the problem is that organizations frown on failure, which is a necessary component of learning. We blame people for every mistake rather than celebrating their willingness to try.

The result is that we end up with a workforce so cautious and risk-averse that it stunts our ability to compete. Unfortunately then, our people are like rats who have been shocked into a submission that we don’t really want or intend. Then we wonder why it seems like there is a lot of “dead weight.”

So is blame all bad? Of course not, because accountability and the assignment of responsibility go together.

However, there is a tendency to distort the tool of accountability and take it too far. “The blame game” prevents leaders from harnessing people’s creativity and productivity.

We need to ask ourselves what it is that we really want from our organizations. We can improve our organization’s engagement with their people by building trust versus suspicion, inclusion versus exclusion, and action versus inaction.


Share/Save/Bookmark