"Camp Character"

The kids may hate this, but we're about to spend some vacation time doing what we are calling "Camp Character".  The summer "Camp" starts on Thursday and lasts about 10 days.  We'll be staying in town and will have some fun at the pool, movies, etc., but we're going to spend perhaps 3 hours a day making a breakthrough in our family dynamics.

We have a 12 year old boy and a 14 year old boy.  We're at the point where they can absorb concepts about assuming responsibility for your life, cultivating a positive attitude, active listening, building trust in relationships, doing the most important things first, etc.  It would be awesome if these types of things became deeply ingrained values, if this could be a common family language and set of principles we could always refer back to and reinforce as the years go by.  This seems like the right time to make a breakthrough.

We're going to do this by working through Sean Covey's book The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective Teens.  In addition to this book, we bought 2 copies (one per kid) of the companion workbook The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens Personal Workbook.  Each day, we'll read a chapter and each child will get through the exercises for that chapter in the Workbook.  We'll discuss what they wrote and our own perspective on the subject.

We're telling the kids that we expect "Camp Character" to make our family act more like a team with much less strife and that it will help them succeed with friendships, school, dating, work, and everything else in life.  I've told them to think of it as similar to the Bar Mitzvah that their friend went through last year.  In a Bar Mitzvah, the boy prepares for the event with hard work and study.  After the ceremony, they are expected to maintain a much higher level of personal responsibility for the rest of their lives.  It is a transformation in what is expected from the boy.  Coincidentally, it happens at age 13, and our boys are right near that age (12 and 14).  So it seems the time is right.

Reputation is not enough

One of the main "ah-ha's!" that hit me when I heard Stephen Covey speak about The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything is that people don't trust you deeply based on reputation alone.

I think I have a good reputation for being a nice guy and for being very good at what I do.  But if I want to LEAD people--if I want them to work long hours for our project, to this work above competing priorities, to advocate for our project at their site even if their boss is just lukewarm about it--then reputation will not be enough.  Only my BEHAVIOR will generate this loyalty.  To take these risks and fight these battles, they need trust that I will listen to them and that I care about their needs in their work environment and beyond.  They'll only gain this trust if they see me behave this way with them or with other members of the team.

Why trust the Speed of Trust?

I became a disciple of The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything? after hearing the author speak for just 3 hours.  Why did I so quickly buy into the message?

Before I heard the author, Steven M. R. Covey speak, I had already been noticing things that supported his argument.  I already had tuned into the ebb and flow of energy and engagement in my team meetings and conference calls.  I had noticed that conference calls alone were a waste of time.  None of my team contacts were effective or engaged unless I talked to them 1 on 1 and asked them for their ideas and their concerns.  The behaviors that Covey recommends to build trust are the same behaviors that have been helping me get my team members engaged and eager to contribute.  Today, I cancelled a bi-monthly team meeting because I get more out of calling the 4 team members one at a time.  It takes more time for me, but it gives me more results because the person I speak to feels as if I care about them, I respect their needs and the pressures they are under, and I want their input.  In a group setting, at least not until we become a high functioning team, they would never express these needs so we would gloss over everything that really matters.

I think our corporate habit--and my personal habit--has been to designate a group of people to be a team, have meetings, expect instant collaboration and mutual support, and then get frustrated by the lack of progress.  What I've realized is that I need to transform my approach.  I need much more 1:1 discussions with all the team members, even if these have to happen by telephone in our decentralized organization, to build trust, clarify expectations, work through issues, etc.  Only then will the group meetings become energetic and effective.

The Speed of Trust

Today, at a corporate leadership seminar, I was inspired by a lecture by Stephen M. R. Covey, the author of The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything.  (Note that this is NOT the Stephen Covey who wrote "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People".  This is his son.  But he was just as inspiring to me today as his father ever was.  Given that my heroes are people who write books to help others improve their lives, I was like a kid at a rock concert who gets to meet the rock star, especially when I had a few moments to speak to Mr. Covey and have him autograph my copy of his book.

The "Speed of Trust" is about how central trust is to relationships, both inside and outside of work.  Where it fits for me right now is my struggles at work to collaborate with people across multiple sites who don't report to me. I've blogged before about how I'm trying to keep them engaged, trying to see what I might be doing wrong in conference calls that contributes to poor attendance and low energy.  I know that it's partly because they don't work for me.  Their bosses have different priorities and work for plant managers who's priorities may diverge from those of my boss.  Also, it's tough to delegate heavily to people who all live hundreds of miles away from me.  But I can't focus on the things I can't control.  What can I do differently to engage these folks, to make them excited about our project, to make them look forward to our conference calls and make them want to volunteer for responsibilities?

Trust seems to be the key.  This is trust in a much broader sense than most people think of it.  They already trust me in the narrow sense of believing that I'm honest, that I want what is best for the company, and that I'm a nice guy.  But that isn't enough to make them want to go the extra mile for me and for my projects.  Do they trust that I'll listen to them?  Do they trust that they can influence the strategies of the project, that I'll give them interesting, challenging assignments that take advantage of their strengths and interests, and that the work they do in this project will advance the interests of their plant site and their personal and career goals?  That is a higher level of trust that demands more than my reputation as a nice guy who knows what he's doing.  To gain this kind of trust, their is no substitute for 1:1 discussions where I SHOW them that I will listen, I ASK them about their skills and how they would like to contribute, I ASK them about their priorities, and I LISTEN to their input on the project plans.

Some of the other books I've been reading such as Stomp the Elephant in the Office: Put an End to the Toxic Workplace, Get More Done -- and Be Excited About Work Again have also emphasized listening and gaining input to get team members to own the strategy.  But I find the "Speed of Trust" to be more explicit about HOW to do this.

My heroes

For the last 35 years, my heroes have had one thing in common.  They are all people who have learned something about how to improve your life, have become passionate about what they learned, and have shared their teachings as widely as possible in the hope that the ideas will help others succeed.

It started in early high school.  I was trying to work through many issues, as most of us do in those years.  What worked best for me was to read self-help books.  Dale Carnegie (please don't roll your eyes!) became one of my early heroes, as I studied "How to Make Friends and Influence People" and "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living" and would journal about my experiences trying to apply these principles.  There've been countless other books and audiotapes I've studied since then on a variety of topics from spirituality to parenting to running effective meetings.  As I've read, I've always sensed that each author has vowed to share whatever has helped them succeed in life in the hope that others also gain from it.

Some of my interest in Buddhism, apart from intellectually agreeing with most of the core principles, is that Buddha is also a hero for me.  He was just an ordinary man, but he is my hero because he struggled for years to find spiritual happiness, learned a way of life that led to happiness,  and then devoted the rest of his life to teaching others this way of living.

I write this blog to mimic, as much as I can, the behavior I admire in my heroes.  I seriously doubt I'll ever reach as many people as even the least well known of my heroes, but it feels good to do my best.

Ask them to change behavior not feelings or attitudes

In the The Power of a Positive No: Save The Deal Save The Relationship and Still Say No, the author cautions that, in negotiation, if you ask for something from the other person, you should ask for a change in behavior--something that you can see--rather than a change in feeling or attitude.

As parents of teenagers, Chris and I sometimes will say, "Can't you be more considerate?" or "I wish you'd think more about others!"  This isn't describing specific, desired behaviors, so are we wrong to say this?  I don't think so.  I think we can talk about desirable emotions and undesirable emotions as long as we also make specific behavior requests.  For example, we might say, "We're concerned because we think you aren't empathetic or considerate.  This can cause you problems throughout life if it isn't addressed.  So, from now on, with few exceptions, the whole family will spend at least 2 hours per day together, working on common goals.  Also, we'll do volunteer work as a family once per month."

If we take an approach like this, we're not ignoring the obvious and serious emotional or attitude issue--the lack of empathy or thoughtfulness toward others.  But we're not making the mistake of just yelling, "BE NICER!"  We're asking for behaviors that will naturally tend to cultivate teamwork and concern for others.  The first great American psychologist, William James, once wrote:

"Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not."

As parents, we may want some of our kids feelings to change, but we should heed James' advice:  Pick behaviors that match the feelings we want our kids to have.  Then be patient.  Wait for the feelings to come.

The worst "no" you can remember

I was struck by something I read in William Ury's book:  The Power of a Positive No: Save The Deal Save The Relationship and Still Say No
Mr. Ury gives many seminars on negotiating, and, as a class exercise, he asks the students to describe the worst, most unpleasant experience in their lives that involved being told "no".  The point of this exercise is to show the contrast between the way these "no's" were stated and the more positive approach that Ury teaches.

Ury says that, most of the time, people taking his class--people in their forties, fifties, sixties, or seventies--vividly remember the frustration of a time when their parents or other adults told them "no" when they were teenagers.  Sometimes it was their parents abruptness, their tone, or--most often--their refusal to explain.  "Because I said so" resulted in feelings so bitter that they remained strong decades later as adults looked back on their teenage years.

This hit home for me because sometimes, like most parents of teenagers, I've been guilty of something similar.  I think I remember even reading or hearing from parenting "experts" that you should just state the rules and the consequences with minimal explanation.  Apparently, William Ury would not agree.  The rules and consequences might be non-negotiable, but Ury would say you absolutely should discuss the positive intent of the rules in as much detail as your teenager needs to understand what good purpose you are trying to achieve.