Why Behaviors Don’t Represent a Person’s Nature

You can’t trust the outwardly presented behaviors of people to accurately represent their real personality or nature. Often behaviors that look “bad” are driven by something outside of the individual’s control. Look at the scenario below as I reveal more information in “The reality”.

The natural assumption

I was walking out of an attractive office building and saw two people about to enter the entrance to the foyer. The guy flicked a cigarette out onto the large outdoor brick and concrete entryway surface. Wow, I can’t believe that guy just did that. A still smoldering cigarette littering the clean decorative sidewalk. What would this tell you about his character?

The reality

When the man and woman first came into my view, the woman was gazing about as if she was looking for something. The man appeared to be looking at the outdoor trashcan with a puzzled look on his face. Just before flicking the cigarette, he shrugged his shoulders out of what looked like frustration. Neither of them noticed me until they were already inside the building.

The office complex was a smoke free campus, but it was not very well marked on the property. There was no cigarette butt receptacle near the entrance. Clearly the man didn’t want to put his butt in the trash can and risk starting a fire. Both of the them were looking for a safe place to dispose of the cigarette - they were conscientious people wanting to do the right thing.

In business, how we treat people and and their ideas are often influenced by our impression of their personalities as perceived through their behaviors. We can be dismissive, judgmental, and exclusive. None of those are conducive to getting the most creative ideas for improvement and support for change.

When you see “bad” behavior at work, instead try assuming there is an underlying issue driving that behavior and let them prove you wrong. If you are a leader, try to find out the root cause and drive it to resolution. Thoughts?

Personality Strengths and the Pinky Swear

This is a true story about two talented High School gymnasts, Pam and Lisa, and their challenges overcoming  pre-event nerves.

Event

The event is the Vault. What differentiates this event from the others, is the gymnast is scored on two vault runs. They have the option of bailing out at the last minute and not performing on a run if it doesn’t feel right. This obviously can have a negative affect on their score, so it is not desirable, unless there is a safety concern.

Background

Both gymnasts have complicated routines that despite repeated practice, they don’t feel 100% confident in their ability to execute them perfectly. That is where Molly “The Motivator” comes in. Molly is a fellow gymnast, but wasn’t competing because of an injury. Pam and Lisa have grown accustom to relying on Molly, above all the others, to motivate them to victory. I say motivate because each of the two gymnasts responds to completely different stimuli.

Pinky Swear

Molly recognizes the strengths of their personalities and what drives them to perform at their best and she emphasizes those strengths when she cheers them on.

Lisa always repeatedly performs better when Molly psyches her up before the event and cheers loudly and enthusiastically for her through the duration of her routine.

Pam is perfectly capable of a near perfect Suke, but her tall height creates an additional challenge for her that impacts her confidence. She routinely walks off after a run before hitting the springboard. However, unlike Lisa, Pam doesn’t respond to positive reinforcement and cheering. During competition, Molly knows she can leverage Pam’s sense of responsibility by having Pam “pinky swear” that she will complete the run and finish her routine. With their pinky swear in play, Pam consistently performs and scores high as a result.

Leadership Lesson

Molly looks at the strengths of each of the gymnasts and individualizes the treatment to what they personally want and need to succeed. It’s for that reason Molly is considered the “go to” person for getting the most out of the team.

It doesn’t matter whether the subject is sports or business, individualizing communication based on the strengths and personality of the individuals generally delivers positive rewards for all of the parties involved.

*The names have been changed to protect the identities of the people in this story.

What is your Ultimate Professional Subscription?

If they offered a 12 month subscription to any or all the tools to equip you to be the best in your profession, what would it include?

Technology

I recently won a contest where the prize was a one year Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN subscription. For a person that develops solutions using Microsoft technologies, there is no better prize. It is the Swiss Army knife of Microsoft Development. 

Here’s how I described the prize to my sister in terms she would relate to:

Construction

My brother-in-law is a  general contractor who does a lot of custom construction. He is constantly buying some new piece of equipment that he doesn’t have, but “needs” for this special job. If he had a Construction Equipment Ultimate Subscription, it would mean every time he needed a special tool like a spindle lathe, a vinyl siding cutter, or even a Bobcat, he would just take his subscription card to the local construction equipment store and redeem it for whatever non-perishable supply, machine, or equipment he needed that year.

The concept is really pretty Lean; get what you need, when you need it, in the form you want it.

Leave a comment to let me know what your Ultimate subscription would be.

 

photo credit: Jesse Sneed / CC BY-ND 2.0

Ten Reasons to Join a Professional Organization

Definition from Wikipedia:

A professional association (also called a professional body, professional organization, or professional society) is a non-profit organization seeking to further a particular profession, the interests of individuals engaged in that profession, and the public interest.

Reasons to join one:

1. Meet great like-minded people!
2. Opportunity to showcase your experience through peer to peer discussions or public speaking.
3. Bullet item on your resume
4. See what opportunities and challenges are in the industry[ies]
5. Access to experts in the field – speakers, other members, sponsors
6. SWAG – discounts or free books, magazines, access to webinars, e-learning, certification exam vouchers
7. References other than your sister’s husband
8. Free or almost free training - most of the organizations have meetings focused on educational content
9. Meet your competition
10. Exclusive or early notification of job opportunities

As the President of a professional organization, fwPASS, I often hear about job opportunities directly from industry leaders and recruiters looking for their next technical Rock-star or leader. Note: this is not an invitation for head-hunters to spam me. They know that most of the people that regularly attend or participate in our meetings are passionate about their craft and are interested in staying at the front of the pack. In this economy, most organizations can afford to hold out for the best. Position yourself to be one of them!

Organizations that I am involved in or have had associations with:

• Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME)
• American Society for Quality (ASQ)
• Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE)
• Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS)
• INETA
• Association for Operations Management (APICS)
• Project Management Institute (PMI)
• American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)

A more complete list of Professional Associations

Find a local chapter and get involved. If you don’t have any chapters in your area, there is a growing trend toward virtual chapters that utilize technologies like Microsoft Live Meeting and GoToMeeting.

Successfully Working in a Role Outside of your Expertise

In the current economic conditions (actually for the last couple of decades), organizations are trying to get more done with less resources. A common strategy is to assign additional responsibilities to their current workforce, often in a role that is unfamiliar to them. Some examples:

• Engineers acting as Project Managers
• Accountants with IT responsibilities
• Students on their first job
• [insert your occupation and extra roles here]

I once worked with a company with the mission statement of

What’s Required, What’s Expected, “And then some”

I think that is a practical sequential approach to developing an increasing understanding and proficiency in a new role. That approach has served me well in my transition through too many roles to list - while keeping stress at a manageable level. Most of the time you won’t be expected to be the Rockstar of the new role immediately, but you will likely be expected to show ongoing improvement on the road to mastery. You can effectively apply the following simple process to most objectives, roles, or projects*.

1. Gain some basic understanding of the subject matter or responsibilities through research, asking questions, observing others, benchmarking, or other methods.
2. Look for or create an opportunity you are comfortable with to incorporate some of what you learned into the daily work or activity.
3. Review what worked and didn’t and plan action steps to increase the understanding or improve on the process.
4. Wash, rinse, repeat indefinitely.

I liberally and deliberately used the word “some” in the steps above. You will maximize your learning and execution if you don’t bite off more than you can chew. Each application of a process-based approach to improvement will increase your effectiveness and confidence in making your next transition.

 

* Disclaimer: This approach may not be feasible for certain conditions where human safety could be at risk (directly or indirectly).