Building trust and intentionally influencing behavior 
 

Ever y leader struggles with the same question - How do I get those people to do what I want?  Of course you can 'beat' them into it - once.  Maybe twice.  But can you get them to do it freely and willingly?  That is what separates frustrated leaders from smiling leaders.  That is our goal - to help you experience leadership as a joy and a privilege - not a spirit-crushing burden.

sincerely,

John
john@winleadership.com
http://www.winleadership.com

Why do you need to laugh at yourself?

You're not that good!  And neither am I!  The sooner your staff know that you have faults... duh-h!  They already know that!  They're quite smart, remember?  You hired them!  What they don't know is if YOU know!  When you can laugh at yourself, you're telling them you know.  By your actions, you are saying, "It's OKAY to be imperfect." 

Watch morale & productivity go up.  Laughing at yourself is your way of saying, you have permission to make mistakes.  Thomas Edison made 1000 mistakes before he perfected the light bulb.  One thousand!  It's a lean, mean, competitive world out there.  If you're not making mistakes, you're probably perfecting yesterday's technology, yesterday's service needs.  Right now, as you read this, your competitor is finding a better way to win clients away from you, or lure away your valuable, well-trained staff.

Laughing at yourself builds trust.  Why?  Because they know if you can forgive yourself for your mistakes, you will forgive them too.  What does that do?  It motivates them to try harder!  Do you think Wayne Gretzky became a great hockey player because his dad expected him to never make mistake?  Trust builds precisely when a person does make a mistake, and the leader handles it wisely - with understanding and with a desire to be helpful to the person for the next time.  That only happens if a leader can rapidly, almost instantly let go of the downside caused by the mistake.  Otherwise, recriminations and negativity are almost certain to surface as they react in the moment.

Here is the acid-test:  Are you comfortable in your own skin?  If so, you will know because you will easily admit and laugh about your own foibles.  A long time ago, a group I worked with gave me a framed piece of tree bark, with an engraved plaque on it that read, "Into The Bark".   They all had a good laugh at what they perceived as my tendency to over-analyze things.  I didn't feel very good about it at the time, though I put on a brave face.  It took me years to accept that, yes, there are times when I definitely over-analyze things!  Once I accepted that as true, not only could I laugh at it right while I was doing it, I also began to understand why I did it and was able to find a much healthier level of analyzing versus "actionizing" - a great career booster!

Non-judgment is the key to laughing at yourself.  When you put yourself under pressure to be perfect, that pressure appears in the form of judgments.  "I should have gotten this done."  "How could I have missed that important detail?!"  "Golly, I'm an idiot"  Self-talk like this means you take yourself very seriously.  Lee Iacocca once said, "Take the business seriously, but don't take yourself seriously."  Right on, Lee, wherever you are.

sincerely,

John Kuypers
 

A friend recently quit his professional job at a large institution that I was quite familiar with.  I asked him how the resignation process went.  He said, "My boss was disappointed.  He wanted to know if there was anything he could do to get me to stay on.  I just told him, no, you can't offer me the entrepreneurial, hands-on opportunity that this new company is giving me."

He grimaced at me. "What else could I say?  I don't want to burn any bridges."

I laughed.  "Like what would you have to say that would burn bridges?"

He responded with a cynical note, " Well, I'd tell them that I think my boss is incompetent, that they stuck him in the job because no one else would take him.   I didn't learn a thing from that guy, but there is no way I'm going to tell anyone that!  You get creamed in that place if you are that honest."

"I know what you mean," I said with some passion.  "Large companies are petrified of honesty.  Everyone is so politically correct, afraid of losing their jobs or hitting a career ceiling!" 

"Oh-h," he groaned.  "You absolutely, positively get punished if you are honest.  I learned that much early on.  So forget it!  You just bite your tongue, and don't rock the boat."

I smiled sympathetically and wished him well in his new position.  Afterwards, I thought, What does a CEO do to change a culture that deeply entrenched in a politically-correct facade?  Is it impossible?!  Someday, I'd love to work with a CEO who has the guts to try.  I don't mean just a quick 'flavour of the month" effort.  Many have done that.  I mean someone ready to go to the wall.  That's what it would take, I'm convinced of that.  Yet the pay-off could be enormous.  Imagine unleashing the energy, imagination and commitment of thousands of employees.   A rare few have done it, such as at Southwest Airlines. In the spirit of Martin Luther King day, this too is a dream that will hopefully come to pass.

John
 

If you wish to be removed from this list, hit your reply key and type 'REMOVE' in the subject line. This is a free service of W.I.N. Leadership  Copyright 2003, All rights reserved. Present Living & Learning, Inc.  905-381-0341  www.winleadership.com  Burlington, ON Canada