October 17, 2013 (Powerhomebiz.com)NOTE: WE ARE PUBLISHING THESE PITFALLS IN INSTALLMENTS OF TWO PITFALLS EACH DAY. Contemporary management theory and practices have ill prepared us for calibrating our enterprises to be competitive in the modern business world, which is making tectonic shifts from even a few short years ago. Sadly, most business leaders are meeting these changes with puny, incremental or entirely misdirected responses.
One critical thing modern leaders must do is develop a new way for them to think about waste—where “waste” is not a thing but an assessment or an interpretation. In other words, waste is not trash to be thrown out; it refers to the events, phenomena, experiences, and features that diminish our capacity to do what matters to us. In the business world, waste kills productivity and profitability. Wastes are particular to specific concerns and moments in time. What was wasteful yesterday may or may not be wasteful tomorrow. The wastes the business world has been concerned with for the last 50 years (e.g., scrapped material, wasted movement, wasted time, and wasted resources) were invented in the traditions of the Industrial Revolution, manufacturing, and mass production. We are no longer living in that world. We must now focus our attention on eliminating these six “modern” wastes – the new pitfalls of productivity and profitability:
1.Degenerative Moods
2.Not Listening
3.Bureaucratic Styles
4.Worship of Information
5.Suppressing Innovation
6.Modern Indentured Servitude
Read on to learn why these modern wastes are silent killers to be reckoned with.
Pitfall #1: Degenerative Moods
A mood is a predisposition for action. As human beings, we are always living in one mood or another. This is an inescapable aspect of life. We are mood-driven creatures, and our moods are the foundations from which we assess and move in the world. Moods come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but they all fall into one of two categories: generative and degenerative. In other words, they do (or do not) generate possibilities, and it is in the world of possibilities that new futures are invented. However, too many organizations today are in the grip of degenerative moods—with a workplace culture marked by some combination of distrust, resentment, resignation, cynicism, arrogance, and complacency. These degenerative moods can lead to a wide range of unproductive behaviors, which in turn consume or waste vast quantities of resources while leaders are forced to work around or attempt to correct them.
Degenerative or unproductive moods are tremendous, yet invisible, killers of productivity and profitability. People simply cannot or will not perform to their potential when their work environments are negative, unhappy places to be. Yet contemporary management theory rarely recognizes the importance of moods and the impact they can have on productivity and profitability. While much has been written about morale, which is closely linked with mood, the current common sense has little to offer beyond motivation and engagement work, both of which have proven to be largely ineffective. Today, a whopping 71 percent of American workers are “not engaged” or “actively disengaged” in their work, according to Gallup. This means they are unhappy with their organizations, emotionally disconnected from their workplaces, and less likely to be productive. In fact, Gallup reports that employee disengagement costs American companies about $350 billion annually. Mood is everything. It isn’t the only thing, but it is everything, because if you don’t get this right, nothing else you do is going to matter. There is no structural or process change that can overcome deeply entrenched degenerative moods.
Shift Your Understanding
In this newly-emerging business world, one key component for generating competitive advantage is being able to consistently design and deploy the generative moods of ambition, confidence, trust, and esprit. The success of future managers will depend on their skill at “mood management”—which means recognizing that the conversations taking place in the organization are not trivial utterances but are, in fact, the lifeblood of the enterprise. As such, it becomes imperative to develop competence at knowing how to listen for, design, and intervene in the critical conversations of the business as they literally shape the future. Most current management practices tend to devalue anything that can’t be measured. Traditional leadership wisdom treats mood as the dreaded “touchy feely” soft stuff. However, to be successful in today’s business world, one must know how to coordinate and collaborate with a diverse group of people—inside and outside our organizations. Thus, many of the skills that were once derided as being “soft” are now key drivers for success. And a lack of competence around designing and managing moods will seriously limit one’s career prospects—now and in the years to come.
Pitfall #2: Not Listening
To truly listen does not mean merely hearing or paying attention. Listening is a specific type of active interpretation that shapes our realities. This largely unknown and certainly unrecognized skill is critical in the new business world. By blindly creating and/or tolerating working conditions in which people do not and often cannot effectively listen to one another, we kill productivity and profitability. This lack of listening can be the result of degenerative moods (e.g., institutionalized mistrust, resignation, or resentment), technology addiction (which can make it difficult for some people to actually talk to others), or a simple incompetence for speaking and listening. Regardless of the reason, if people are not listening to each other, accomplishing anything significant becomes extremely expensive, and making effective changes becomes all but impossible. According to the International Listening Association, more than 35 studies indicate that listening is a top skill needed for success in business. Yet, less than 2 percent of all professionals have had formal education or learning to understand and improve listening skills and techniques. Too many organizations today have created and tolerated a range of practices in which creativity, innovation, and the fundamental expressions of our thoughts and feelings about our work and our futures are ignored or spurned. This lack of listening is a tremendous source of waste.
Shift Your Understanding
If the popularity of social media has taught us anything, it is that people like to be heard. As human beings we value our own opinions, and we want others to value them as well. The same is true in business. Our clients, customers, partners, and employees expect us to listen to them. Rather than being told what they want, they expect us to listen as they tell us what they want. We must now shift our actions toward collaboration with customers, suppliers, and investors to create mutually beneficial relationships. All of this means knowing how to truly listen. We attune ourselves to other people, and together we build competence for speaking, listening, and building trust.
This will require a dramatic shift in the way we train our leaders, managers, and team members, but it is the key to inventing new, more powerful futures together. Instead of tired practices like “active listening” (whereby one is taught to parrot back what someone says, which only shows that you heard what was said, not that you understood), our teams must develop a new set of competencies in which they learn to clarify what they interpreted in a conversation, not what they heard. Their interpretations are what matter, as their actions will be driven by their understanding of what they hear, not just the words.
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About the Expert (long form bio)
Chris Majer, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Human Potential Project, is the author of “The Power to Transform: Passion, Power, and Purpose in Daily Life” (Rodale), which teaches the strategies corporate, military, and sports leaders have used to positively transform themselves and their organizations in a way readers can adept to their own lives and professions.
Previously, Majer was Founder and CEO of Sportsmind. He began the company in 1981 and began working with athletes to isolate the elements that led to consistent winning performance. Success with individuals and teams led to working with the military, and the company designed and delivered a series of programs to elite Army units, Navy SEALS, and the Marines. SportsMind then transitioned to the corporate world and delivered large-scale organizational transformation projects. Under Majer’s leadership, the firm grew to a company of over 80 professionals working globally. He was the principle architect of organizational transformation projects for such corporate clients as AT&T, Cargill, Microsoft, Intel, EDS, Allianz, Itron and Capital One. Throughout his professional tenure, Majer published no less than 20 white papers.