It’s my sister’s fault. As we were discussing our relationships with others, she took me down the road of our past. In our late twenties we both participated in a series of personal growth trainings. We both listened to a lecture about validation and we both brought the same belief away with us. The lecture went something like this: Validation – being the act of letting another know that you believe that their beliefs and/or actions are appropriate or acceptable – can be a trap. Validation can be a trap if your need for validation drives your thinking and your activities. It can be a trap, if the way that you live is to seek validation before proceeding on a course of action.
The inherent trap of validation is seeking the approval of others before making personal decisions. It does not then follow (inductive reasoning) that you have no need for validation. Yet that is what Becky and I walked away from that training believing. We took the concept of being aware of validation and a need for approval and twisted it into – we don’t need validation. As a “strong” person, one can say to oneself “I don’t need others to tell me what I did was right.” Unfortunately – for both of us – that translated into relationship issues with significant others. I can’t speak for Becky, but I spent the better part of two decades humming along on my own strength. This allowed me to form relationships wherein I relied solely on myself for strength and validation.
What that looks like in a relationship is, in retrospect, scary. If my former partner ignored me or “put down” my ideas and philosophy, I simply dealt with it by affirming to myself that I should not need validation from another. My internal validation and strength is plenty enough for me. What follows is a series of any number of all types of relationships where I could receive little or no validation – and no conversation followed – I just accepted it as part of being a “strong person.”
As anyone can imagine, relationships evolved that when juxtaposed against my stubborn need to have no validation, showed me that I really did enjoy and yes, even need validation. What followed is that I became aware of another idea that I carried within myself. That idea is that a “strong person” makes it on their own “and so goes the ego of the strong”. So here I am, finally, maybe understanding that a relationship should include validation for each other. It’s okay to use someone else’s warm and positive regard. It’s okay to need another to tell me that my course of action is correct, or even that who I am is very cool. I can have these needs without diminishing my strength. I can expect validation in my relationships and depend on my relationships to support my decisions. I am speaking to all of my relationships.
I don’t need a boss who ignores everything good that I do and dramatizes my mistakes. I don’t need a man who consistently badgers me about my decisions, pointing to all of the wrongness that is inherent in being human. I don’t need friends who lecture me about what I “should” do. What I need and want in my life are supportive friends who travel the same path as me. If that makes me weak – then so be it…
This isn’t about me. This is about telling you that I love you. I cherish every memory, sometimes reminiscing until the wee hours of the morning. I loved the good times and accepted the bad times. I love my far-away children, I love my far-away grandchildren. Most of all, today is quiet, astoundingly quiet. I am wishing that the structure of my old life still surrounded me, at least for this day. So that, Cadence could be begrudgingly dressed up and Lily could be chasing her and Shawn could be running to get all of the “dollar” Easter eggs and I could see Tommy later in the day… All of the twenty-somethings would be wandering in and out of the house and the thirty-somethings would be on the couch talking about parenting.
I miss my old staff terribly, what a great team we made! We worked and worked and we stayed and stayed. We built trust and hope and faith. We loved people when they didn’t want it, and gave them a soft place to land when necessary. We accepted human beings, but not their situation. And lastly, we grieved together, life being what it is, when you spend that much time together there comes a time when you are forced to grieve. We did that together unabashedly.
Lastly, I hope that once again, in another time and in another place, I can recreate the structure that I had with you. Safe, loved and supported. And in the meantime, I hope that I do not lose you.
As a manager you may turn a blind eye to questionable performance and maybe you do not realize that by doing this you are giving tacit approval to under-performers. This tacit approval sets a standard for everyone. For those staff who are high achievers with an internal locus to control, this kind of “blindness” to low performance is demoralizing. High achievers will accomplish their work, no matter what, but the level of resentment will be high and staff morale will be low.
There is an old saying “The soldier has a right to competent command.” Competence means that as a supervisor, you are completely aware that you have an obligation to communicate your principles, values and ethics to your staff. Your staff must know what your value system is and they need to see you enforcing that value system. Competence means that you understand that you must perform in a visible way. How you act and what you say broadcasts to everyone the kind of behavior that you expect. Not saying anything, communicates volumes about you.
The next time you make disparaging comments about your staff, recall this article and realize that, if you have been with a team for a year or more, you are 100% responsible for how they are performing. No manager in an organization can blame it on the staff. Staff are only a reflection of the kind of manager that you are. They act as a mirror to the top…
If you are a person who wants to be liked and you are a supervisor or manager of people – then I am sorry – but you should resign right now. I am not stating that a supervisor is not well-liked, I am stating that being liked and pleasing people is completely incongruent with the supervisory role. Make no mistake, supervision is a role and the more professional you make the role, the more successful a supervisor you will be. You may be friends with your staff, but only if you are also capable of having the difficult conversations necessary to enforce performance standards. There are a certain percentage of staff members who “get it” and need very little leadership to accomplish the mission. This percentage is small and you should accept that fact. The majority of your staff will need ongoing conversations, some of which will be uncomfortable and confrontational.
Confrontation is a dicey word, lots of people think that it implies screaming and getting into folk’s personal space. That is not what confrontation is. Confrontation is simply the presentation of facts that may be contrary to your staff member’s belief. For example, we all behave in ways that we believe are right and correct. If we are engaging in very negative behavior, you can bet we have an explanation with lots of justification. If you are a supevisor it is your job to state “you’re negative behavior is not okay, I can listen, but the behavior must change, regardless of the reason for it.” You must be willing to have that conversation if you hope to gain high performance behavior.
Most people are uncomfortable with this type of conversation and that is why there are so many mediocre business units. Staff will do what I call “the drift”. At one time they may have been clear about performance standards, but as the day to day business world unfolds, emotions become challenged, the job is difficult and the perspective changes. Some business units have no idea what a performance standard is, these units will normally die a very slow and painful death, with folks complaining and bewildered to the bitter end.
Performance standards are work ethics and practices which support the goals of the organization. Excellent customer service to support expensive equipment purchases is one such performance standard. Selling a certain number of products each business day is a performance standard. Being an effective supervisor means that you will facilitate your staff member’s accomplishment of the performance standard. Staff training is an important initial component of the facilitation process, but it must be followed with staff development and that means follow through for the supervisor.
Management according to Dictionary.com is: the act or manner of managing; handling, direction, or control. Synonyms: regulation, administration; superintendence, care, charge, conduct, guidance, treatment. So let’s start with the bare bones of definition. The act or manner of managing – which of course is not a definition; handling, direction or control. These three words beg the questions: what is the goal, direction towards, what do we wish to control? There are 10s of thousands of companies out there who cannot answer these essential priority questions. There are 10s of thousands of managers who cannot answer these questions, and certainly, the bureaucrats have forgotten (if indeed they ever knew) what the questions is. I don’t mean to be rough here, what I do mean to do is get your attention. If the answer to any of these questions is money, then please, go back to working for a bank or finance company to fulfill your wildest dreams. Even congress will give you money.
However, if there really is a reason for the work you are doing – whatever that reason is – you must go back to the roots of your purpose, find the reason and identify it in a big way. Back in the 80s when we first started doing mission statements you could not participate unless you really felt the purpose of your work. That work did not have to be special in any way – you could manufacture high quality clothing – you could manufacture low quality clothing – you could sell cheap groceries – you could sell expensive groceries – it truly didn’t matter, it just had to be something that you could be committed to, that you could believe in.
The point of the mission statement was manifold, it established a beginning and a goal. It established a living connection between the goals and the people who espoused them. How do you go somewhere that you do not know of? How do you control something if you do not know where you are or where you want to be? Unfortunately, mission statements became trite PR tricks to mollify a public who had participated in the hippy generation of love and flower power. People quit using them or believing in them a decade ago.
It is unfortunate, because with the loss of mission statements, the baby went out with the bathwater. I say “go get the baby”! Each and every manager must, without fail, know the current position of what they are managing, each and every manager must know, without fail, the direction in which they are going. Each manager should know the purpose of the business and each manager must find a way to support the purpose of the business within themselves and in a fiscally responsible manner. I need to reiterate here that if the goal is money – go back to working in a bank or finance company.
Most work is a gift unto itself and must be honored as such. I’m not saying that folks have the choice of their dream jobs, I am simply stating that most find themselves doing work that aligns with who they are and where they are most comfortable. Carpenters will tell you that they like working with their hands, that they like creating, that they like building. You cannot be a barista unless you genuinely like people and love coffee, it’s just not done – for long, at least.
So plain and simple, step 1 of effective management of any type is this: can you, personally, identify the purpose of your work and then identify and align your personal purpose with that of the organization in which you spend your days? Step 2, do you know the current status of what you manage? Step 3, can you identify the goals of your management? Step 4, can you align steps 1, 2 & 3 with fiscal responsibility?
As each article in the series unfolds I will address, in depth, how to ask and how to answer these priority questions… Please stay tuned!
I’ve thought about these two concepts often: independence and interdependence.
My new boss, who has an MBA, peruses management articles and news on the web. He forwarded an article to us the other day, the title is Northwest Flight 253’s Lesson for Leaders. The article came from a blog written by a Harvard Business School Professor: Rosabeth Moss Kanter. In the article she details the many mis-steps that led to the “almost disaster” of the flight. Ms. Kanter first discusses that data was input into a data base about the danger of the terrorist who was boarding the plane, so first lesson: Human Intervention. She believes that far too many people believe that their job is done when they send the message. She says that we must take accountability one step further and follow up and make sure that the message was received and acted upon. This kind of communication is fundamental to interdependence, commununication does not occur without a sender AND a receiver. That kind of action (following up and checking for a response) requires a different way of thinking. The thinking I suggest is strategically opposed to the American way. That kind of action requires that we believe and think “I cannot get my job done without the help of my Team.” Folks don’t like to believe in this. We don’t like to know how dependent we are on the “other” guy. It’s a fundamental dilemma for Americans.
The next concept Ms. Kanter addresses is what she calls “Pattern Recognition” and I quote: If somebody stumbles upon a bit of information but works in isolation, he or she might not see its significance. Here we go again…working in isolation keeps us from seeing the big picture and that’s why there is no, as Ms. Kanter says “pattern recognition”. The central point is that working in isolation keeps us from understanding and comprehending what is around us and available to us. In order to come out of isolation, we must acknowledge each other and begin a discussion. A “rugged individualist” might not think it was necessary to gain another’s input, a rugged individualist is more likely to think that the job can be resolved by the self!
The third concept is “Wider Communication”, Ms. Kanter makes the point that though England had awareness of the terrorist, that awareness may not have been shared with the U.S. Indeed, England put a hold on the terrorist’s student visa in the U.K. Admittedly when we believe that we have protected our own, we seldom look over the fence to see if our neighbor is okay. In this new and dangerous world we live in, it becomes imperative that we actually acknowledge and extend ourselves to our neighbors. Our social system should begin with a concept of “us” rather than “me”. Over and over again stories like Northwest Flight 253 prove to us that it is only through responsibility, caring and communication that we actually do gain success and safety for all of us. That includes checking in on our neighbor, whether our neighbor is the United States or Mrs. Smith.
Ms. Kanter goes on to say ”The lucky passengers on NW 253 subdued the terrorist and witnessed minor fires but no explosion.” I don’t think so, I don’t think those passengers were lucky at all, I think that they cared, they took responsibility and I think that they communicated.
I was lucky to meet a man who not only fell in love with me, but who proceeded to love me passionately for decades. Without a doubt I felt loved and secure for many years. On countless occasions he showered me with gifts. He sincerely expressed himself on every occasion. I had a feeling of being loved and treasured. That feeling has kept me and nurtured me in too many ways to count. My husband and I divorced and then he passed away. He remains, now and always, as a source of feeling loved, of knowing deep down inside that true love is possible and as a standard of care that I must have for myself.
More than anything else, I would like for my adult kids to have this confidence in love by way of experiencing it. I would want to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they feel loved, treasured and cared for. At the end of the day, this requires two things: courage and gratefulness. Courage to risk love and gratefulness to acknowledge it when it is present. As with anything there is a cost, but exceptionally, love is well worth any effort given.