Part I outlined “Top Ten Obstacles" to improving business performance and profitability – distractions keeping you from taking your business To The MAX: 1) Time Pressures, 2) Stress Overload, 3) Lacking Perspective and Experience, 4) Are You Going the Way of the Dinosaur?, and 5) Underdeveloped Emotional Intelligence. Let’s continue with the final five:
6. Need to Be an Autocrat. This overly controlling, often self-centered leader believes that he alone should make all the company decisions. I’ll never forget doing a program with a company where the CEO was sitting on a throne-like chair, raised off the ground, while everyone else in the audience was in small folding metal contraptions. Talk about a “superiority” complex! Some of the autocrat’s self-aggrandizing rationalizations include:
a. it's our money invested, not yours,
b. the stockholders hold me accountable, not you,
c. you don't know what I know,
d. I'm in charge –- shut up and do the job I'm paying you to do!
e. and the proverbial “My way or the highway.”
And, naturally, this absolute “A” personality (and I suspect you can figure out what the “A” with this Type A really stands for…no, it’s not authority) is clueless when it comes to both the enlightened and dark precepts of the Law of the Loyalty Loop:
1) Those who help plan the battle don’t battle the plan and
2) Those who never want you to answer back always want you to back their answer!
7. Judgmental Bias. Alas, some leaders or owners basically dismiss many employees as “stupid” and “can't be trusted.” This “you don’t seem to realize how important I really am” egotist, adding insult to ignorance, often views subordinates as “inferiors,” or at the least sees them through a “what they lack rather than what they know and can contribute” lens. Assuming employees are satisfied with their lot, he dismisses them to a fixed place or role in the company. It’s time to move from assumption to fact. Research reveals that power brokers are often out of touch, unaware of the biasing impact of their role-status advantages, thereby:
a) confusing access to more in-depth and more timely information with being smarter than everyone else in the room, or
b) assuming people have accepted their vision when, in fact, role-career constraints limit the degree to which the boss’ judgment or strategy is openly or candidly questioned. Clearly, more than intelligence is involved in these disparities. Naturally, when it comes to “good” news, the self-inflated boss quickly locates the reason for success –- not with the supporting cast but with Moi!
Attribution Bias: An Illustration and Explanation
Social psychology research has a theory that explains some of this bias. Let me explain. Attribution theory examines how someone perceives another person’s motives and behaviors. It’s especially interested in perceptual error based on an observer attributing a person’s motives or actions to personality factors instead of situational forces. Here’s an illustration. Let’s say a relatively new colleague at work (whom you don’t know well) has come in late two times in the past week. It wouldn’t be surprising if you (or others) began to start wondering about his or her motives and competencies, e.g., is the person lazy, disorganized, disenchanted with work, or just plain old passive-aggressive? However, if you were to come in late a couple of times, or were asked to speculate about reasons for your hypothetical lateness, research indicates you would likely quickly note, for example, the traffic conditions, needing to get a child to daycare, illness in the family, etc.
Can you see the bias? When explaining our own problematic behavior we first focus on situational or outside conditions affecting intentions and actions, thus providing a rationale or protective cover for any outcomes or consequences. In contrast, while observing others our initial predilection is to judge based on inner personality or motivational traits, not on environmental constraints. An assessment focused on the individual alone, not seen in context, is more judgmental, making it harder to be empathic or forgiving, or even just truly curious. (For example, “I wonder why she behaves that way?” said with obvious tone, is often more a disguised judgment than a question of genuine concern.) And this tendency to broadly, quickly or indiscriminately place personal evaluation over situation is called “Attribution Error.”
Two points to remember: 1) leaders don't realize the vast wealth of ideas and insights their own employees can and would LOVE to contribute and 2) when not conscious or careful, power corrupts, or at least contaminates your cognitive powers!
8. Grappling with Your Intimate FOE. A not uncommon source of avoidance and procrastination is an underlying fear of failure; one is ashamed of being found out as incompetent, slow-witted, unworthy or an impostor. While many try to run from it, you can’t outrun "Your Intimate FOE: Fear of Exposure." And the reason is simple: you carry that FOE around inside you wherever you go.
Of course some try an elaborate cover-up. When grandiose expectations or rigid perfectionism and frigid control comprise the tip of the “Intimate FOE” iceberg, underlying angst, ego wounds and feelings of shame or abandonment invariably form the subterranean base. Critical voices from the past often lurk in the crevasses. (Remember, between your ears you don’t just have echoes of angry or shrill voices; you also consciously and unknowingly absorb both the strengths along with the inner fears and shameful feelings of influential significant others from your childhood and young adult years.) The anticipation of being harshly judged can make it difficult to begin, sustain or complete a project or explore a new path. And ironically, when a business owner aggressively and critically projects this vulnerability onto surrounding team members, in virus-like fashion, the Intimate FOE rapidly infects others. Fewer and fewer will speak up or risk being wrong.
Another troublesome mindset says, “Why take an unnecessary risk when there’s the possibility of things not working out?” This individual believes in preserving the illusion that the issue is simply one of effort and attitude, not aptitude or ability –- anything but being seen as a “loser.”
Embracing Failure along the Path of Mastery
Alas, this leader hasn’t learned that in our 24/7, hyperkinetic world success often depends on being able to fail quickly and often, so that you can actively intervene and rapidly turn a problem (especially a customer concern) into a new trust and relationship-building or business growth opportunity. So consider these mantras: “We’re Learners, Not Losers” and “Strive High and Embrace Failure.” Shoot for 100% yet know you rarely achieve it the first (or even the fourth, or sometimes even the forty-fourth) time around; but, for the prepared mind, falling short provides just the jolt, juice and insight you need to continue on the ever evolving path of mastery. As the Stress Doc ™ once penned:
For the Phoenix to rise from the ashes
One must know the pain
To transform the fire to burning desire!
9. Fear of or Clinging to Success. Sometimes success can generate its own contradictory complications. Can you relate to this internal speculation: “If I/we are successful this time, what might people ask, expect or demand on the next project? And while many say to the business leader, “Just be grateful that you have such a problem,” a fear of being misused, overused or exposed may be hiding in the shadows of success.
Sometimes, though, the dangers of success are self-disguised. For example, strong initial results may convince a leader that he has basically mastered the operational process, product or territory. In reality, the success while not an illusion is more like blinders, keeping the leader and organization on a too narrow (or on a b.s., “be safe”) track. To move from “good to great,” to jump start novel and powerful learning curves, requires a willingness to break up the “solved” puzzle, to once again risk exploring imaginative or controversial designs and approaches. New learning often involves a sense of psychological loss – letting go of at least some of the “tried and once true.” Yet, according to Nobel-prize-winning author and philosopher, Albert Camus, the payoff for a period of mourning, meditating and mental meandering can be truly surprising and liberating: Once we have accepted the fact of loss we understand that the loved one obstructed a whole corner of the possible, pure now as a sky washed by rain.
So remember, your niche of success can turn into the ditch of excess or become a rejuvenating recess: for your customers, employees and organization-business it’s definitely a critical crossroad.
10. Masters of Mendacity. And finally, to cut to the chase…one of the most self-defeating and organizationally destructive facades that some leaders hide behind is their use of deceit, their lack of honesty: these “leaders” give the external appearance that they are a good choice for customers but, for whatever their reasons, motives and hidden agendas, in actuality they are just out to take advantage of their customers and employees. As Jeff Peden decisively declares, these leaders/organizations can never achieve the most important and valuable outcomes for their business or their personal life – the inner satisfaction of stepping up to a performance challenge and the fulfillment that comes from doing good things for their fellow human beings. They never realize the true joy of Taking It To The MAX!
Mark Gorkin, the Stress Doc ™, acclaimed Keynote and Kickoff Speaker, Webinar Presenter, Retreat Leader and Motivational Humorist, is the author of Practice Safe Stress and The Four Faces of Anger. A former Stress & Violence Prevention Consultant for the US Postal Service, the Doc leads highly interactive, innovative and inspiring programs for corporations and government agencies, including the US Military, on stress resiliency/burnout prevention through humor, change and conflict management, generational communication, and 3 "R" -- Responsible, Resilient & Risk-Taking -- leadership-partnership team building. See his award-winning, USA Today Online "HotSite" -- www.stressdoc.com -- called a "workplace resource" by National Public Radio (NPR). For more info on the Doc's "Practice Safe Stress" programs or to receive his free e-newsletter, email stressdoc@aol.com or call 301-875-2567.
Jeff Peden, The Great Ideas! Guy (sm), is an International Speaker and author of Take It To The MAX—The Ultimate Strategy for Maximizing Profits and Growth. He works with organizations on leadership & organizational development, employee engagement, and customer loyalty. Jeff can be reached at jeff@jeffpeden.com.
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