A521.8.4.RB_LeeDarrell - Making Contact

A couple of years ago, I flew to Nashville to run in a race with a group of my friends. My flight back to New York was supposed to leave the following day. However, about 12 hours after the race, a little snow and ice storm rolled through the area. It wasn’t a huge storm by any means but, due to the fact that there are rarely ice storms in Nashville, everything shut down. Flights were canceled for the new two days and I was stranded. (Ironically, the following year, I left Nashville and once again was stranded in Chicago due to a storm in Atlanta where I was supposed to connect. Perhaps I should not travel to Nashville for this race next year?) While stuck in Nashville, I stayed at the Drury Inn near the airport. Even though I was there by myself, I still seemed to have a pretty good time mingling with other people. I remember playing cards and drinking wine around the lobby fireplace until about 1:00 am with a few other people from around the country that were also stuck there. I don’t really have a hard time meeting new people. I am the kind of guy that has “never met a stranger”. There may have been a time in my life when I was a little bit shy but that was a long time ago. (I think that I overcame my social fears back in junior high/high school when I used to sing in front of an audience on a regular basis.)

McKay, Davis, and Fanning (2009) point out that often people have a fear of strangers. They note that “your fear of strangers may have been influenced by habitual negative thoughts” (p. 205). I think that this is certainly true of a lot of people. We, as a race, tend to be our own worst critics. We tend to always fear the worst when we interact with others. As I am not really familiar with this concept, I sometimes wonder why people are concerned how they will appear to others when they first meet them. Is it pride, perhaps? Maybe just a fear of making a bad first impression? I remember my first time on stage in a large production. I had a VERY minor part in a play. (If you are familiar with “South Pacific”, I played Jerome, the son of  Emile De Becque.) I remember another one of the actors saying, “What’s the worst that can happen? It isn’t like they are going to hit you or anything.” (or something along those lines). That same piece of advice is true in every interaction with strangers in our lives. If I speak to them, it isn’t like they are going to reach out and smack me. The worst that can happen is that they might ignore me but the fact is that they are already ignoring me. I can’t be ignored any more than I already am! McKay, Davis, and Fanning also recommend to “expect to get soundly rejected at least three times a week” (p. 208). I suppose that all may be a matter of perspective. I don’t consider someone continuing to ignore me as rejection. It just means that they are not interested in conversation at that time. That doesn’t mean that they are rejecting who I am.

Kip Tindell, CEO of The Container Store, has built an entire empire by encouraging his employees to be personable. In his book, “Uncontainable”, Tindell (2014) discusses a concept that he calls “man in the desert selling”. The story is basically that the man in the desert clearly needs a glass of water. However, most businesses stop there. A good salesman will realize that the man in the desert not only needs that glass of water but also needs shade, food, a safe place to rest, transportation, etc. He notes that “the reason that most salespeople offer customers only that figurative glass of water and then pat themselves on the back, believing that they’ve offered great service, is because they’re embarrassed by the whole idea of selling” (p. 116). The way that The Container Store pushes the “man in the desert selling” is by ensuring that their employees engage in actual conversations with their customers. It can start with something as small as a compliment. If this concept works for selling a product, why would it not work for selling ourselves to strangers?

On a personal note, I encourage you all to be a little brave when meeting new people. There are multiple benefits to this. First of all, you have nothing to lose. It isn’t like you are going to make an enemy by being socially forward. However, you may make some friends. You never know when you may strike up a conversation with a future employer (or employee) or a client. But there may be even greater benefits. A few weeks ago, I was on line behind a woman at the grocery store purchasing a large quantity of cat food. I asked her why kind of cat she had and what its name was. I went on to tell her about the cat that I used to have name Dmitri Shastakovich (big name – little cat). As it turns out, we live in the same building and I have bumped into her a few times since then. She told me the other day that she recently moved here from a small town in Manitoba and doesn’t have any friends or family here so she is just glad that there is someone with a friendly face in the building. I don’t think that my conversation with her was that significant but it was enough to make her feel just a little bit more at home. You never know who you may be able to uplift.

McKay, M., Davis, M., & Fanning, P. (2009). Messages: The Communication Skills Book. New    Harbinger Publications.

Tindell, K., Keegan, P., & Shilling, C. (2014). Uncontailable: How Passion, Commitment, And     Conscious Capitalism Built a Business Where Everyone Thrives. New York, NY: Grand         Central Publishing. 

A521.7.4RB_LeeDarrell - Secret Structure

            I have mentioned several times before both on my class discussion boards and in this blog that I absolutely love listening to (or watching) TED Talks. There’s just something about them that absolutely captivates me. Almost every idea that you can imagine falls into one of the three categories: Technology, Entertainment, or Design (often “design” meaning the design of society). But what is it about those talks that is so captivating? What makes them so special? Now of course TED Talks are not the only captivating and moving presentations. However, in order to make it to the TED stage, you have to be pretty well vetted first. You have to actually know how to give an amazing presentation. So how exactly does one give an amazing presentation? In her TED Talk, Nancy Duarte, author of Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences, addresses that very topic.

            Duarte doesn’t just give a checklist of things that make a great presentation. It isn’t like, “Oh, first, do this. Then, do this.” There isn’t just a set formula for an amazing presentation but she does have some fresh perspectives that are worth noting. First, she echoes Chris Anderson (2016), curator of TED Talks, when he addressed his “secrets” to great public speaking. You first need an idea that is worth spreading. As that was established in an earlier blog, let’s move on from that point. We will just use that as a given. We have an idea worth spreading. (Check!) So how do we present that idea? Duarte’s (2011) first and perhaps most important piece of advice is to be fired up about your idea! How are you going to call others to action or get others to embrace your idea if you are not fired up about it? She uses a wonderful story about a poster that she once found representing an ironic figure participating in a revolution holding a can of spices. Why was that ironic? The woman revolting was so passionate about her spices that she was willing to go to war for them! (As always, the link is contained in my reference below. I encourage you to watch at least the first few minutes of the video as a point of reference.) We must first be fired up about our own great ideas! All too often, we allow our ideas to die because we are afraid to present them or to fight for them. Make sure that you are passionate about your idea.

            Duarte goes on to say that the most powerful ideas are actually conveyed through the use of stories. Of course the challenge comes with incorporating a story into a presentation. She gave a piece of advice that was very fresh, though. Who is typically the hero of your story when you are giving a presentation? It may seem like the presenter is the logical choice. However, to really connect with the audience, the audience must actually be the hero. Any random person sitting in the audience of your presentation should be able to see themselves in that role. Make them believe it is them. They are the stars.

           

            Another thing to consider is the actual “shape” of the presentation. As she showed a visual of it, it kind of reminded me of binary. It was like “off here, on here”. To have a very successful presentation, you have to show what is (off) and what can be (on) and go back and forth a little. What is. What can be. Off. On. The key is to really amplify the gap. In her presentation, Duarte highlights great speeches from both Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Steve Jobs. They both show the current state but then they leave the audience with a picture of the utopia that is to come. (Perhaps “utopia” is a strong work but strong presentations call for strong words!)  You want to continue to go back and forth with this. Show what is and show what can be. Snap the audience back and forth and highlight that gap. Show how your idea is going to make life better.

            Ultimately, the greatest piece of advice that Duarte gives us in my opinion is as follows: “The future isn’t a place that we’re going to go. It’s a place that you get to create.” (2011). That may seem a little cliché and a bit abstract but, bearing in mind the advice she has already given, when we are fired up, make the audience the hero of the story, and show them what can be vs. what currently is, we can present any idea (worth spreading) in a way that it will not only be accepted but also actioned. And isn’t that the goal? When we spread ideas, we want others to embrace the idea as their own.

References

Anderson, C. (March, 2016). Chris Anderson: TED’S secret to great public speaking.

            [Video file]. Retrieved from                                           http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_anderson_teds_secret_to_great_public_speaking

Duarte, N. (Nov, 2011). Nancy Duarte: The secret structure of great talks [Video file]. Retrieved                   from http://www.ted.com/talks/nancy_duarte_the_secret_structure_of_great_talks

A521.6.3RB_LeeDarrell - High Performance Teams

My definition of a team is a group of people that use their individual efforts to work together toward a common goal. Within an organization, you can also have a high performance team. Denning defines a high-performance teams as ones that “have the characteristics of effective communities: a web of affect-laden relationships; a commitment to shared values, norms, and meanings; a shared history and identity; and a relatively high level of responsiveness to members and to the world” (2011, p. 157). Denning identifies six elements of a high-performance team. High-performance teams:

1. Continue to shape the expectations of those who use their output and strive to exceed expectations.

2. Rapidly adjust their performance to the shifting needs of the situation.

3. Grow steadily stronger over time.

4. Have members that grow individually due to mutual concern for their team mates.

5. Are fueled/inspired by their commitments to the team and its goals.

6. Work with passion.

Larissa Joy, a professional services advisor and Senior Independent Director of the East Thames Group based in the UK, has some striking ideas for creating a high-performance team (2005). She actually has a lot of experience with failed teams and she (and her organization) have applied the lessons learned and mastered the art of a high-performance team. First, there is a very specific time frame for the teams. She recommends six to nine months because that is a timeframe that most people can buy into. The next idea is to also only have a set number of meetings. Her next suggestion is to limit the size of the team. Many teams fail because they are simply too large. She says that seven is usually the maximum size. I am considering some of the problems that I am having within my own team at work. When a team is too large (we have 10), it can lead to cliques and melancholy attitudes from some of the members. By limiting the size of the team, you encourage efficiency. The next suggestion is set a very specific goal. High-performance teams have a clearly defined purpose. She uses a great example of a team that wouldn’t work – a general objective of improving customer service. That team could operate perpetually and never achieve the goal.

Denning (2011) also identifies four patterns of working together. The first is a work group. Work groups are often mislabeled as teams because all of the people involved have similar work tasks and may report to the same overseer. A team is the second pattern which was previously discussed above. The third stage of working together is a community which is a self-organizing entity with loosely related purposes but non-shared goals. Finally, there are networks which are groups that are groups that simply keep each other informed of actions. Consider social networking as an example. It is just the exchange of information.

So let’s look at an analogy here. Consider your favorite sports team. For me, that is the NY Rangers. Some of the people in the Rangers community – even employees of the team – are not on the team. (Even we fans are part of the community.) Consider the press representatives or the group ticket sales agent. Though they work with the team, their goal isn’t for the team to win. They have their own goals. If you look at the Rangers organization as a whole, then, it is more of a work group. So then you have the hockey team itself. All of the players work together for the common goal of winning. Within the team, you have high performance teams. In this case, there are penalty-kill teams that work together for a brief period of time then go back to being regular team players.

We recently tinkered with a high performance team at work. It unfortunately failed but I believe it is because we inappropriately applied the principles of a high performance team. In Army recruiting, we have an overall mission but we also have specific missions. For example, this year we need to recruit at least two band members, two Special Forces contracts, three officers, and seven high school seniors. Here in NYC, the senior market is our hardest to capture. Our company put together a HSET – High School Engagement Team. This team was comprised of one recruiter from each center. Their only purpose was to go to the high schools and capture the senior market. The team was only to exist for one semester. However, I believe that we put the wrong people on the team. The team didn’t actively shape their expectations. They never had a specific goal. Also, their commitment to the cause may have been minimal as the team was not consulted before they were selected. They were just told that they were going to be on the team. Therefore, there was little passion and innovation. Based on the six elements of a high-performance team as noted by Denning, how could this team have ever have hoped to be successful? I would be willing to wager, though, that is we put together the right team, it would be a highly successful team.

Denning, S. (2011). The Leader's Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of         Business Narrative. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Joy, L. (© 2005). Creating a high-performance team. [Video File]. Available from Books24x7             http://common.books24x7.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/toc.aspx?bookid=38349.

A521.5.4.RB_LeeDarrell - Aligning Values

When you think about values within your organization, what comes to mind? In the Army, we may have a huge advantage over other organizations when it comes to identifying our values. We have had 241 years to develop them! The interesting thing is that we don’t necessarily recruit people that share those same values. That doesn’t mean that our values as Soldiers are not in line with that of the organization (the Army). Let me clarify that a little. As a recruiter, it isn’t my job to find people that hold any particular set of values or ethics. My job is to identify and recruit people that are qualified academically, physically, morally, and administratively for service. How is it, then, that Soldiers’ values are aligned with that of the Army? Again, we have another advantage over other organizations in that we indoctrinate our new hires. When you join the Army, your freedoms are temporarily removed. You go to Basic Training where you are totally immersed in organizational doctrine. You either adapt or you leave. It’s a genius method that has been proves to work. However, I’m quite positive that other organizations don’t have the same ability that we do to force adaptation and adoption of values. Can you imagine being hired be JP Morgan or Deloitte and being whisked away for several months to a secluded spot separated from life as you know it? I think not. So how do organizations develop and align their values?

Before I get into this next part, I have to point out that I am working on the assumption that the values of organizations are ethical. I just heard on the news this week that Wells Fargo terminated the employment of 5,300 employees for creating fake accounts to bolster the bottom line of the company. That kind of sounds like something that would have happened at Enron all those years ago. Clearly, to get that many employees to cheat, there had to have been some kind of an accepted norm – a set of values. That doesn’t mean it is ethical. So what is ethical? Denning (2011) notes that there are three basic components to an ethical community. They are trust, loyalty, and solidarity. Trust, to me, is synonymous with faith. I love the definition of faith found in Hebrews 11:1 which says “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (KJV). Trust, therefore, is complete confidence that all members of an organization will act with integrity and ethically in any professional actions. Loyalty is “acceptance of the obligation to refrain from breaching one another’s trust and to fulfill the duties entailed by accepting that trust” (Denning, 2011, p. 133). Basically, that means that I know that no matter what, others in my organization are not only doing what is right but they are going to protect my best interests in the process. The third component of solidarity is so similar to loyalty in that it means that the members of the organization has my back but it also means that I know that others will take care of me even at a personal cost to them. When members of the organization take ownership of one another and start to treat each other as teammates and not just individuals then that is when true solidarity exists. Using these three components – trust, loyalty, solidarity – an organization can construct a set of ethical values.

Values are not necessarily just something that are magically decided upon one day. They are built and refined over time. However, there has to be a conscious effort to ensure that the values are ethical. Again, consider the cases I mentioned above such as Enron and this new Wells Fargo scandal. Both of those organizations started off with ethical values. Through gradual changes, though, and group acceptance of minor variations of truths eventually led to the full on acceptance of unethical values. Part of the key to holding on to ethical values is to bring members of the organization in line with those values. Again, you won’t go to Accenture’s Basic Training or something like that so that makes the job of the HR department that much more important. They must first determine who already shares the values of the organization before even conducting the initial hire. At that point, though, the values set forth must be a team effort and they must be consistently met every day. By allowing any variations or exceptions to ethical policy sets forth a precedence of a gradual moral decline. So the bottom line – the key to the alignment of individual and organization values – is consistency.

Denning, S. (2011). The leader’s guide to storytelling: Mastering the art and discipline of business narrative. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

A521.4.3RB_LeeDarrell - Subtleties of Communication

                Have you ever asked your significant other if they are okay and they say something like “I’m fine” yet you know that in reality they are not? Sometimes what we say doesn’t match what we actually mean. We may say one thing but mean something completely different. What I am talking about isn’t sarcasm. Sarcasm is intentionally distorted and the point being made is obvious. For example, “Oh, I just LOVE waiting in line at the DMV!” Nobody would actually believe that someone loves waiting in line at the DMV. But what if someone said something much more subtle? Perhaps something like, “I am really looking forward to this dinner party tonight”. With a statement like that, what would indicate if I was truly interested or not? In the written text, it is easy to interpret. However, we are always communicating nonverbally as well. According to McKay, Davis, and Fanning (2009), only 7% of what we communicate is in the words that we use. 38% of our communication comes from vocal variances (tone, pitch, tempo, volume, etc.) and 55% of what we communicate comes in the form of body language. As organizational leaders today, we may be losing the art to effectively communicate face to face. I believe that a large part of the reason for that is the reliance on electronic communication. Again, when something is in writing, it is usually easy to decipher the meaning. In written communication, one cannot hear the paralanguage which is vocal part of speech including “pitch, resonance, articulation, tempo, volume, and rhythm” (McKay, Davis, & Fanning, 70). What’s more, it is near impossible to pick up on the metamessages which are messages that have dual meaning – one is the series of words and the other is the attitude and feelings.

                One of my favorite television shows is “The Office”. The old British version was okay but I LOVE the U.S. version. In season 8 or 9, the company has been bought out and a new CEO named Robert California takes over. (The character is played by James Spader.) There’s an episode where he runs into the office and says that his wife is about to walk into the office looking for a job but under no circumstances is she to be hired. The problem is that his body language completely contradicts what he is saying. I found a brief YouTube clip of it if you want to see. Just scroll forward to 6:28 in the video and then again to about 10:56 for the second part (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd8NUVUUuoA). Though it isn’t the whole episode, you can see that his body language and paralanguage were interpreted incorrectly and his metamessage was not received. (Also, I am very proud of myself for incorporating every assigned point of thought for this particular blog assignment into a single sentence. My mother would be extremely proud. And, as she is one that routinely reads this blog, I will just go ahead and publicly give her credit for teaching me how to do things like that.)  

                Do you know where I really think that we lose our ability to effectively communicate as organizational leaders, though? I think it is in the paralanguage. Body language is natural. It is going to happen on its own. Even those that are visually impaired use the same body language as the rest of us when they are agitated, interested, sad, etc. So long as our words are matching our feelings, it is hard to misinterpret that. But where I think that really miscommunicate is in our paralanguage attributes. It’s probably a terrible idea to ever discuss politics at work but we do it all the time. One of my coworkers is extremely liberal and another is extremely conservative and they get going with the politics all the time. With the currently political climate and upcoming election, my coworker that is very liberal loves to get going on the “evils” of Donald Trump and loves to just gloat about how awesome Hillary Clinton is. He gets excited and defensive and his voice goes up by about a third of an octave. His volume raises. His tempo – it’s like he’s speaking a million words a minute. The problem is that he gets so excited and so emotional that he ceases to communicate real messages. It’s slightly humorous because the one that is conservative seems to be so much better at controlling how he communicates. When he speaks, everything becomes calm again. Everything slows down. And my liberal coworker becomes agitated. I really should probably put a stop to it but it is free entertainment. But that is a great example of how we have to learn to control our paralanguage to convey a sense of urgency and sincerity without going overboard with it.

                I will go ahead and close with this. As leaders, we can’t control how others communicate with us but we can control how we communicate with them. Again, I do believe that the body language comes naturally but we have to be aware of it as 55% of what we communicate is with our body. As far as the rest, we can get better with practice. That is why organizations such as Toastmasters International exist. How we communicate man not change overnight but, with practice, we can ensure that we are communicating the exact message that we are meaning to communicate.   

Miranda, J. (2014). Robert California compilation [Video file]. Retrieved September 02, 2016, from                 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd8NUVUUuoA

McKay, M., Davis, M., & Fanning, P. (2009). Messages: The Communication Skills Book. New       Harbinger Publications.