Can You Be Great?

This week's blog post comes from Scott Peterson.

Can you be great?

 

You Betcha!!  Absolutely!!  Without a Doubt!! 

I hope that is clear enough. I believe this is true because of one of my favorite quotes. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "Everyone can be great because everyone can serve." I love this quote because it helps me keep my priorities straight.   

The foundation of great leadership is about focus. When you focus on serving your teams and the people that you care about, good things will happen. What does it mean to serve those people? I can't answer that question perfectly, but here are a couple of ideas: 

1. Get to know your team and what they need (which is often different than what they want).   
2. Give them feedback, direction, and share the “why” with them (this helps them feel connected to the big picture).
3. Listen. It sounds really easy, but it can be a tough thing to do, so keep practicing this.  
4. Show them that you care. You've probably heard this quote, "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." (John Maxwell)  This is so true, and it's a great reminder when you're thinking of how you can serve others. 

Overall, I have found that the better I serve the people around me, the better I lead. When I lose that focus, I make mistakes in leading. The right focus allows me to have a positive impact on people, teams, and organizations that are important to me. I hope it helps you too.  

Take two minutes and share a couple of ideas on how we can serve our teams and lead the Interstates way together. 

 

Continue Leading the Interstates Way!

Scott Peterson

Improving Integrity with Clear Expectations

This week's post comes from Doug Post.

Last time We noted that integrity means, "I do what I say I'm going to do . . . every time." We noted Michael Myatt's definition: honesty is making your words match reality; integrity is making reality match your words.

We learned 3 key skills for leading with integrity:

1. You must understand what you have been requested to give your word to.
2. Say "yes" only when you mean it and are willing to act, even at personal cost.
3. Get very good at saying "no," because that is going to be your most common response.

But, if you've tried to live with integrity in the past few months, you have probably failed many times. I know I have. I have double-booked meetings and not set clear expectations with meeting leaders. I've been late to meetings. I've told my co-workers I would get them something by Wednesday, but considered early Thursday morning close enough. I have overcommitted to clients and chosen to sacrifice family commitments to meet the client's expectations. The concept of integrity is simple, but it is difficult to do what we say.

So, then what? Well, we can learn to live with more integrity. Consider these three practices:

1. Recovery. When your "yes" turns out to be a "no," acknowledge the breach. When necessary, apologize. And finally, recommit to integrity. That's it. No excuses. 

2. Clear Expectations and Commitments. Let's consider building skills #1 and #2 (above) by differentiating between statements, requests, and commands. A statement is a description of something or the condition of someone. No response is required, and there is no opening to give your word. A request is an invitation to give your word--either "yes" or "no." Commands are an essential part of high-performance organizations, and the only response to them is "yes." Though not used often, they are the fastest way to get stuff done.  Let's look at some examples:

• Statement: "The garbage needs to go out." OR "Our profits are declining."
• Request: "Will you please take the garbage out before you go to bed?" OR "Will you get me an analysis of why our profits are declining by tomorrow afternoon?"
• Command: "Take the garbage out before you go to bed." OR "Get me the analysis of why our profits are declining by tomorrow afternoon."

         Too many people cloak requests as statements and commands as requests, which
         confuses and frustrates everyone. Commands as requests are an act of cowardice.

         For high performance and integrity we must:

• Discern between statements, requests, and commands.
• Make sure everyone understands that statements don't require responses or actions.
• Make sure people have a right to say "no" to requests without repercussions. High performance companies get this. For example, "Can you complete the report by noon tomorrow?" High performance answer: "No, I need to take my son to the dentist, is 4 p.m. ok?"
• In the rare event that a command is required, the only possible response is "yes." However, stating the tradeoff is appropriate. This sounds like, "Yes, Bill, I will have that report to you tomorrow but know that I will not be making the call to Joe as a result."

Note: Commands are rare and do not only come from the leaders in your organization. For example, an Administrative Assistant might tell the President what he must do before leaving on a trip. Or, an engineer may tell the P.E. when she must have the drawings signed.

3. Say "No."  . . .  We'll consider saying no next time.

            To build your integrity with others, (1) learn to recover from integrity breaches, (2) share
            clear expectations and commitments, and (3) develop the ability to "say no."

How do you struggle with integrity? What helps you improve your integrity?
 

Continue Leading the Interstates Way!

Doug Post

 

External sources: The Primes by Chris McGoff, p. 129-132, 136-139.
Other sources to develop your integrity: The Speed of Trust by Stephen M. R. Covey, p. 66-72, 111-112.  Executive EQ by Robert Cooper, chp. 11

Another Perspective on Servant Leadership

This week's post comes from Jake Ten Haken.

As I look back at the busy basketball season, I admit it was very difficult to have a meal at home with my family, which means I had more than my fair share of opportunities to eat at restaurants. However, when I was in most of those restaurants, not only was I enjoying the food, friends and atmosphere, I was also taking special note of the waiters and waitresses. This curiosity was spurred by a recent article from the Iowa School Board Association’s publication of Dan Rockwell’s leadership blog. I believe the thoughts shared in that blog can easily be related to our work at Interstates. It has me thinking about our roles as servant leaders a bit differently. Rockwell indicates that we should think of our job like a waiter or waitress by putting the interests of others ahead of our own.

1. Commit to create a great experience for others.
As leaders at Interstates, we are always looking for the best way to present a concept or idea.  Sometimes it is to an internal team member, and other times it’s with an external partner. Hopefully we do this in a manner that allows others to feel empowered as opposed to feeling railroaded down a specific track.

2. Watch over; never hover.
PMs, programming leads and engineers need to serve as quasi-parents many times. It can be tough to give our less-experienced teammates independence without hovering over them. We get overly concerned that they won’t do it just right. Or worse yet, they may not do it the same way we would have done it. It is extremely important that we give them every opportunity we can for them to learn on their own and yet protect them.

3. Inquire, understand, and connect.
I’m not sure I need to expound on this concept, because in my opinion, we have this captured with the first half of our vision statement: Understanding Needs.  There is no better way to begin that journey than by asking questions and listening.

4. Don’t intrude or dominate.
As a servant leader, we know “it’s not about us.” This isn’t always an easy task. We all have busy lives and many things on our plate. It is sometimes hard to always serve others, but as leaders at Interstates, we need to never dominate or think only about our needs.

5. Anticipate needs. Meet needs without being asked.
It always impresses me when a waiter or waitress shows up with a refill or tops off my water glass just before I need him to.  That is a great example of what we should be doing for our clients. We need to anticipate their needs and fix them before they become issues.  At a minimum, we need to bring them possible solutions, not simply remind them of their issues.

6. Clear. Get stuff out of the way without getting in the way.
This is about as clear as mud and it is extremely hard. There are always many things vying for the attention of our clients. Sometimes it's the project, and sometimes it’s other items at their plants. The challenge is to clear away whatever the obstacle is that may interfere with our ability to deliver the project for them.

7. Express gratitude for the opportunity to serve.
We need to remember that there are lots of others that would love to serve our clients, and our clients have a choice every time they issue a purchase order or a contract. We need to show appreciation to them that they have trusted us enough to deliver a project for them.

As amusing as it sounds to have a waiter start to butter your bun or cut your steak, I must admit there are times when I pull a #4….I attempt to dominate meetings or intrude on others' agendas. How about you? Take a minute to post a comment about one of the items you are struggling with or better yet, comment about someone you see excelling at modeling one of the behaviors listed above.

Continue Leading the Interstates Way!
Jake Ten Haken

The Struggle Bus - Part 2

So, what did I do??? Did I embrace it, hide it or ignore it? 

I ignored it. 

Just kidding, that would have been a pretty lame story (although it would have been shorter to write).  

I decided to suck it up and take failure as feedback. Easier said than done. I don't know about you, but talking about my personal failures is hard and I don't like doing it. However, I embraced my new-found role as the driver of the struggle bus. I emailed the group, admitted that I led the meeting poorly and provided them with a revised path going forward. What came next really surprised me. This e-mail actually helped to change my frustration and embarrassment into motivation. I could freely talk about the failure and figure out the reasons things went south. I don't have all the answers to why ending up on the struggle bus happened. I am confident that the team will be in a better position to start talking about it now that it is out in the open though. We also have a better chance of being successful in the future.

So my advice to you is the same advice I gave myself: ask the tough questions and ask for feedback about the things you are leading. Also, call it like you see it. If it is going great -- awesome. If it is a struggle bus -- call it a struggle bus. I think it will help you to engage the team and make changes that will help all of you be more successful in the future. 

Embracing your failures is leading the Interstates Way!!! And here's another Paul Harvey quote to wrap things up, "And that…is the rest of the story. Good Day."

Continue Leading the Interstates Way!
Scott Peterson

The Struggle Bus - Part 1

This week's post comes from Scott Peterson.

Have you ever heard the term "the struggle bus"? If not, let me enlighten you. What it means is that a task/event/meeting was more difficult than you had planned and it did not go well (e.g. feels like you are running in mud). Just a couple of weeks ago I was not only on this bus, I was driving it. Not a good feeling. I was leading a meeting that ended up going differently than what I thought (or hoped) it would. The general purpose of this meeting was about brainstorming, exploring and getting feedback from the group. I got caught up in the moment and fell into the trap of "get 'er done" and lost sight of the original purpose.

That night and the next morning I kept thinking about that meeting. Finally, I asked myself, "Should I embrace this, hide it or ignore it?" I also thought back to some encouraging feedback about failures I received from two EIL grads in the last 6 weeks. While talking about failure doesn't always sound encouraging, their examples made a huge difference for me, so I want to share them with you:

1. One person sent me a quote from a fortune cookie that said, "Failure is feedback. And feedback is the breakfast of champions." They included a note that encouraged me to continue pushing people to give and ask for feedback. I also love the idea (even though it's scary) to look at failure as feedback by reflecting on it and learning from it.

2. Another grad shared a story of how they felt like they failed at EIL during a role playing section about corrective feedback and sidetracks. My role was to be the person who needed corrective feedback and they asked me to be defensive about what I was hearing -- so I used my Oscar-worthy acting skills. I ended up derailing that person from giving me the intended corrective feedback during that exercise. More than a year later that person sent me an email to say thank you for that experience; that's because that (perceived) failure allowed them to learn more, be more prepared and ultimately more successful with giving corrective feedback when it really counted.

Back to the question -- Embrace it, hide it or ignore it? As Paul Harvey used to say (for those of you who are a little younger than me, Paul Harvey was a big-time talk radio personality from the 60's-90's), "Tune in tomorrow for the rest of the story….."

18 Things I Wish I'd Known When I Was 18

If you could go back to when you were 18 years old and give yourself some advice, what would it be? Here are 18 nuggets of wisdom from several Interstates team members.

1. Don’t worry so much about what other people think about you – just be yourself.
2. Life isn't always fair; fair is not always equal and equal is not always fair.
3. You will use algebra again in your life. The periodic table...not so much.
4. Your parents are always right, and they are not going to be around forever.
5. Be carefree not careless.
6. It's important to take care of both your body and soul.
7. You won't always be able to eat pizza before bed every night and not gain weight.
8. Take more pictures – especially with your friends and family even if you aren't wearing makeup.
9. 30 is not old. Neither is 40.
10. When the check engine light comes on in your car, STOP DRIVING IT!  It will probably cost more if you don’t!
11. Failing does not make you a failure.
12. Work hard in college, but not too hard. Have fun and make friendships that will last a lifetime.
13. You must boil the water before adding noodles.
14. So much of life is about showing up…showing up for work, showing up for class, showing up for important family functions.
15. You can never spend enough time on the important stuff and any time spent on stuff that doesn’t matter is too much.
16. The mullet is not a good look.
17. Cheerleaders don’t always wear skirts. Part of a leader's role is often to cheer and support others on to victory.
18. Understand just how quickly 35 years can go by.

We want to know what YOU would add. Leave a comment sharing something YOU wish you had known at 18.

A Learning Culture

This week's post comes from Jack Woelber.

When we hire new employees at Interstates, we often share that we are committed to employee development and learning. We want employees to grow, we want to provide opportunities, and we want a learning culture. (And frankly, many new employees tell us we do pretty well at it with our commitment to EIL, education budgets, etc.) What I think might be good for us to reflect on is the question, “What is a learning culture?”

I’d like to suggest that when we think of Interstates as having a learning culture, we place a lot of emphasis on the individual, and the individual receiving “the learning.” I believe there is more to it than that. I believe if we want a learning culture, we need to create a curiosity in each individual to figure out how to make the organization better. It is the combination of educating the individual as well as the organization that allows us to get better and continuously improve. 

Recently I was reviewing a book written about Jack Welch and GE. Welch was the CEO of GE from 1981 to 2001. There was a paragraph in that book that stood out to me:“Building a learning culture has put pressure on GE’s leaders. Steve Kerr says, ‘Sometimes the leaders have said to me, ‘I have a best practice, and Jack Welch is coming to visit. Help me move the best practice around the company. I don’t want to get caught with it alone when Jack arrives.’  The point is that the manager understands there will be no reward for having a good idea, only in sharing it with others.” 

How good are we at sharing “it” with others? Whether the sharing is between team members or across the Interstates Companies, do we really make it a point to share our best practices and ideas? Do we feel a sense of responsibility to make sure our good idea is available to others so they can implement something similar or improve on our idea?

As the Interstates Companies, like GE, we have a great opportunity to find better ways of doing things. We have peers and counter parts all across Interstates that are great resources to help us learn. At times, I think we do very well at collaborating and sharing ideas. However, I know we (myself included) have a lot of opportunity to continue to grow in this area.

I have two challenges for you:
1. Be open and curious as to what others are doing from which you might learn.
2. Think of one thing you are doing that might be worth sharing with someone else that they might learn from you. 

Continue Leading the Interstates Way!
Jack Woelber