Fighting the Uncivil Office with Agile

The global economy is a rough place. One of the most challenging aspects of the worldwide economy is working with various people who keep it moving. Over my career, I have been amazed at the number of neurotic, damaged, and plain mean people I have experienced in business. It makes me wonder if the business work actively attracts these individuals or manufactures them over time. As I was recovering from my Thanksgiving gluttony over the weekend, I decided it was a subject worth writing about. 

Christine Porath may be a household name, but in 2018, she gave a TED talk at the University of Nevada. The woman who loves me forwarded the video: "She seems to know what you experience daily." She said. After watching the video, I rushed to the TED site and watched the entire presentation. Porath has something to tell us about the unhealthy environment of global business. 

Her thesis is simple. We do not treat people with enough respect in the office. Minor unkind actions lead to more significant problems in the office. Name-calling, disrespect, and othering build up like infectious pus ruining the organization. Eventually, the infection festers into poor performance and aggression. Incivility is a common disorder in the business world. It is a problem that made 80% of employees lose work time, 66% cut back on work efforts, and more than one in ten quit. The network company Cisco estimated the cost of incivility to its bottom line as twelve million dollars. 

Incivility is another form of waste in the workplace. Any good business person should be able to look at this expense and find ways to reduce it. The challenge is that two factors interfere with our ability to reduce this form of waste. The first is we are stressed and overwhelmed. Businesses are demanding that their employees do more work with fewer people. It means more work and fewer people to do it. Also, as work has become more specialized and intellectually demanding, the number of people who can do it well is decreasing. It creates all kinds of pressure in the technology world and gets vented in moments of rage and incivility. The other factor is that we condition business people to think that being a jerk is a path to leadership. 

Stories abound in the business world of leaders who practice a "mask of command." It is an artificial persona that portrays strength and competence but, in reality, often acts as a shield for being a jerk to others because, in the hypercompetitive world of business, nice people finish last. If you are warm and friendly, you are seen as competent and intelligent, inspiring others. The reason more business people do not do this is they "paid dues" in uncivil and exploitative environments. When they advanced, they went from receiving abuse to dishing it out to subordinates. It feels like a form of generational trauma, but it spreads out from the leadership team like pus poisoning the bloodstream from an infected wound. 

Fighting incivility in the office is challenging because it requires changing behaviors and processes instead of shuffling a few numbers around in a spreadsheet or creating an Instagram-worthy office. It means looking at people and understanding what motivates them and how to treat them with respect and dignity. It is not wearing a mask but caring about people personally and holding them accountable. As Kim Scott likes to say, there is a big difference between being a jerk and showing radical candor in the office. 

Uncivil behavior in the office should not be the price paid for a professional career. We should be able to live our lives and experience our careers with a positive measure of respect and dignity. Unfortunately, we do not understand that lesson until it is too late. I dedicate my career to making the office less ugly and uncivil. I hope that others will join me in this mission.

Until next time. 

Do the Difficult Things Now!

One of the strange things about being a business professional is when you take time off; you are not free from your work. Current events in the industry are still present in the news. Recruiters and trainers are reaching out to businesses. Finally, blogs and social media promotions do not write themselves. While I took a week off from work to enjoy the thanksgiving holiday, work seemed to find me in some strange ways. Today, I want to talk about your hard work in silence. 

This week's big news was the FTX cryptocurrency exchange's destruction and the technology industry's continued layoffs. The cynic in me takes some satisfaction in knowing that I avoided the tragedy of losing a boatload of money in crypto. It is a smug feeling of superiority, but people lost life savings thanks to Sam Bankman-Fried and his collective group of crypto kids. The layoffs in big tech also illustrate that the technology business is maturing, so they need to concentrate on business basics instead of growth.  

The drama in the industry is a natural result of the basic rules of global business. Sooner or later, a company needs to have positive cash flow and pay the banks and inverters back. It made me think about all the tough decisions business leaders need to make and how introductory psychology works against that decision-making. In her book Radical Candor, Kim Scott talks about ruinous empathy. The desire to avoid conflict and be well-liked prevents leaders from correcting processes and behaviors because they are afraid of hurting the feeling of others. In truth, problems fester until it is too last to fix them.  

I blame this behavior on the culture of executive leadership. Many business leaders see their advancement based on their appearance to their superiors, so they spend plenty of time ingratiating themselves with those leaders. At the same time, they are attempting to win the loyalty of the people who work for them. It is a petri dish for ruinous empathy because you are kissing up to leadership and failing to hold your team accountable. It creates a situation where it is all fun and games until revenue declines or a customer has an issue, then all the good feelings evaporate. 

Leaders need to do the unpleasant and challenging things early so that the positive experiences are more satisfying and profitable. A poor team member can poison an entire organization, so it is necessary to elevate them to a particular skill level or let them go. I hate planning meetings and coordinating team rooms, but they are required to make my team successful, so I attend. Walking peers through their duties and holding them accountable is tedious, but without that coaching, the entire enterprise will fly apart like a runaway carousel. 

Doing unpleasant and hard things is why others entrust you with leadership. Before a client demo, I go through a mental calculus to determine if I have done everything possible to make the team successful. For the last few years, my anxiety has subsided, but I still want to ensure that the teams have everything they need to succeed. The hard work eventually pays off in the trust of other business members relying on the team to solve problems and deliver customer value. 

The business world contains plenty of distractions. Conferences need speakers, media appearances need to happen, and there are countless opportunities to wine and dine clients. Don't let these fun parts of the business undermine the hard work necessary to generate success. Being liked is a different experience than the respect and trust of colleagues. What makes that difference is the arduous and unpleasant work each business leader must do.  

Until next time. 

Radical Candor is the New Way of Leadership

My mentor at CAPCO Financial says, "Each day, everyone gets up and delivers value." This aphorism provides me with the desire to persevere in my darker moments. As a leader and agile coach, it has become apparent that most of my job is helping others navigate difficult moments. The pressure of working in the global economy is enormous, and everyone cracks under strain. Their ability to deal with daily adversity during work makes people and teams successful. Today, I want to discuss why you should learn the techniques of Kim Scott's popular book "Radical Candor." 

Scott has a simple thesis in her work. For a leader to be successful, they must care personally for the people they serve and challenge them directly to do the best they can. It is not a difficult concept to understand but hard to put into practice. Mistakes cost money, and careers rise and fall based on small details. The demanding needs of customers are exhausting, and business relationships years in the making can disappear overnight. Being a business person requires a certain amount of toughness. The challenge is to exhibit this mental toughness without inflicting it on the people who work with you.  

It is apparent when you challenge people to improve performance or adjust to changing situations. Speaking up is problematic because many people want to be well-liked by others, and telling someone they are failing risks rejection. Scott understands this, so she comes up with strategies that help leaders correct the conduct of the people they serve. In my experience, people want to know if they are doing good work or how to do a better job. To make this approach relevant, you need to care about the people working with you.  

When we talk about caring for people, it means learning about their families, what they enjoy off hours, and listening to what they have to say. I struggled with this skill, and only in retrospect did I realize that not caring personally about the people under my care creates a toxic type of management known as obnoxious aggression. It is when you challenge others but do not care about them. After some time, I had one team member in open rebellion and another dissociated from the work. I was determined to be different in my next leadership role. 

This humility is hard-earned thanks to numerous failures and false starts during my career. Today, I accept my failures and use them as valuable lessons for my next leadership role. Vulnerability is a superpower in today's business world because it helps you connect with other people and proves that when you must be firm, it comes from a place of empathy instead of malice. The world contains plenty of talented jerks, be the radically candid leader. 

Until next time. 

Two Leadership Themes

My leadership will keep on sailing.

I spend plenty of time with other professional people.  We often discuss many subjects, and we often talk about our family lives, careers, and what motivates us.  Occasionally, we talk about deeper topics, but the main topic of our conversations is leadership.  How does a person lead a group of people?  What does a leader do when faced with incompetence or insubordination?  Today, I want to discuss my feelings on leadership.  

The main focus of my career is helping others avoid the mistakes I have made in my career.  I want people to avoid the hardship and disappointment I have encountered during my adventures working as a software developer and project manager.  Failure is the best educator someone can experience in a career.  I want to share the hard-earned wisdom of failure with others so they can avoid the roadblocks and setbacks I have encountered.

Along the way, I have discovered two main themes which have guided my leadership.  The first is servant leadership.  I was exposed to this as a teenager with the help of Marine Corps JROTC.  I discovered leadership is lonely.  It required being a servant for the people you lead.  It also forced me to put my needs on hold while things got done.  I gravitated to leaders who practiced this ethos, and it further shaped me as a person and leader.  

The other is the discovery of Kim Scott and her book Radical Candor.  Her writing and efforts' central thesis is that leadership requires a combination of honesty and empathy to be successful.  Truth without compassion is obnoxious aggression.  Empathy to hide the truth is ruinous.  Kim Scott brings plenty of experience to her writing, and it is bracing to hear her talk honestly about her mistakes.  

I combine Radical Candor and servant leadership to guide how I work with others.  It is not a straightforward approach, but it has given me tremendous satisfaction over my career length.

Until next time.

Set the Ego Aside and Be a Leader

Set the Ego aside and lead.  

Writing about agile, scrum, software development, and leadership is like walking around with a giant target on your back.  The people who know you and work with you are on the watch for you practicing what you preach.  It makes you very aware of what you do and how you do it.  Making matters more complicated is you often tie up your ego in your work, so when others question your leadership, it feels like a personal attack.  We need to talk about ego and leadership.

Being in charge of others is a serious responsibility.  It is also a massive charge to your ego.  People count on you, and they listen to your orders.  Being a boss has plenty of perks.  In reality, the respect, obedience, and ego boost of leadership is an illusion because the responsibilities of leading others are often more significant than the perks.

Additionally, someone above you is expecting a result.  Thus, a leader is pulled in two different directions one by the people he is tasked to lead and the other by the people who lead them.  It is a delicate balance.  It is why I am a big believer in what is called servant leadership.  It is the notion that the best kind of leadership is the kind where you are serving others.  Instead of concentrating on authority and action, a servant leader is a coach and a mentor.  The military has a saying, “Officers eat last.”  The implication is that only when the troops have a healthy meal is it time for the leadership to dine.  It puts the needs of the people doing the fighting and dying over the needs of the people who lead them.  In the civilian world, it means the performance of the team is more important than the ego of the leader.  

In software development, a leader is often in charge of people who are smarter than they are.  It means that advice is coming from a place of knowledge, and it is up to a leader to consider it seriously.  It means setting aside your personal needs and looking out for the team and its mission.  I have only recently come to this discovery.  Set your ego aside and listen to others on how to be a better leader.  Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said it correctly when he said, “Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.”

Author Kim Scott, in her work, “Radical Candor,” further reinforces this mindset.  Ask for feedback and receive it gladly.  Take time out to put that feedback into actionable practice.  Finally, check back with the people giving you feedback because it shows that you care, and you are seeking to improve.  Leadership is not about you or your ego.  Leadership is about the team and getting things done.

As leaders, we need to get over ourselves and focus on improving ourselves and our teams.  It means letting go of our ego and accepting feedback.  When you reach this understanding is when you transition from being a boss to a servant leader.  

Until next time.