Dedication in Difficulties

Thomas Edison once said, "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." 

Dedication in difficulties means not giving up when the going gets rough. Giving up can take many forms, but it is your attitude that counts, not only your actions. Actions produce results and measure success, but your attitude determines your actions.

If your attitude toward the difficulties surrounding you is a defeated one, then you are defeated, even if you succeed in meeting your goals. However, if you dedicate yourself to accomplishing the task at hand, to the best of your ability, you have won, even if your full goals are not achieved immediately.

How can we develop dedication? First, you have to know what you are dedicated to. Set a goal and commit to accomplishing it. Share your goal with someone who will hold you accountable. Then do it. Don't give up even if you've failed more than you care to share.

If you fail to keep your goal, admit it and recommit. If you are to fail, then fail trying. If you fail trying, you can always try again and that is winning. However, failing to try is defeat.

Managing in Difficult Times

by Jan Rutherford

1. Welcome

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Managing through difficult times can be a formidable task, but tough times are what separates managers from leaders. Hi, I'm Jan Rutherford. I entered the US Army at age 17 weighing 114 pounds, and 18 months later became an Army Green Beret. I'm an author, coach, facilitator, and lead wilderness expeditions with executives and special operations veterans all in an effort to help leaders and teams achieve heroic aspirations. In this course I'm going to take you through what it takes to lead and manage effectively through difficult times. I'll share with you how to become catalysts for change, ways you can inspire and focus your organization, and I'll cover communication strategies so you can gain true commitment and game-changing solutions from your team. One thing I learned in the military is that contingency planning ensures mission success. When you're going through difficult times, your preparation for the future is as important as your performance in the present. So watch how to management in difficult times to achieve your heroic aspirations.

"One thing I learned in the military is that contingency planning ensures mission success."

2. Drivers of Change

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When my clients are experiencing a difficult time, they often tell me "We have ineffective leaders", or "We're in a tough market", or "We need to lower costs to compete", and it's true that these elements are contributing factors. But the reality, is that these are symptoms. The root cause is more often internal. If you're in the middle of a difficult time, you want to look internally to identify the real issues. I like to call the root cause of difficult times drivers of change. There's four, and I'll talk about each one. Number one, people. Two, process. Three, rewards, and four, structure. Before we break these down, keep in mind that you want to focus on fixing the system to create an environment where people can do the right thing most of the time with minimal supervision, no matter the threats. The first driver of change, people. First, be crystal clear on expected behaviors, and ensure there are consequences. Catch people doing things right. Make sure the positive feedback is timely specific, and personalized. Great job doesn't cut it. Conversely, when needed, ensure you have the unpleasant conversation about someone not performing, thereby letting the team down. It doesn't need to be a long conversation, but it should be timely, private, and focused. For people to feel they have been treated fairly, make sure your ratio of positive to constructive feedback is three to one. Adopt the mantra people support what they help create. Next, is process, which can make us more productive and efficient. It can also be used to drive behavior, especially when the coordination of tasks is critical and the work is of a routine nature. Conversely, think about where process can be eliminated to allow for autonomy and flexibility when it comes to meeting customer needs. Then, we have rewards. Ensure there are real consequences for meeting expectations, and exceeding expectations. This doesn't have to involve compensation. This can be as simple as ensuring people receive some sort of praise and recognition every week. Also, ensure there are no indirect rewards for failing to meet minimum standards. A casual comment like no worries should be banned from your lexicon because it basically says mediocrity is okay. Finally, the last driver of change, structure. Ensure your structure supports a strategy, not the other way around. Strategy comes before structure always. Resist the urge to reorganize before you've thought through how all levers are interdependent. These four drivers of change, people, process, rewards, and structure, help you focus on where the opportunities lie in your organization to change the future. Ask yourself, which driver, or drivers, stand out to you most as a root cause of your difficulties. When you identify the root cause systematically, you most definitely will drive productive change.

"If you're in the middle of a difficult time, you want to look internally to identify the real issues."

"I like to call the root cause of difficult times drivers of change."

"Number one, people. Two, process. Three, rewards, and four, structure"

3. Looking through your employees' eyes

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Author Stephen Covey famously said, "We must seek first to understand, then to be understood." Once you truly understand your audience, your employees, your team, you can best be positioned to be understood. To activate your team through difficulties you have to first see reality from your team's point of view. Can you see what needs to be done from your employees' perspective? Do you understand all the forces at play? Do you have the courage to act to make things better? When it comes to seeing what needs to be done, author Jim Gilmore considers the power of observation as a neglected art. He describes successful observation using six metaphors. Binoculars are for surveying and scanning. Bifocals show contrasting views. Magnifying glasses allow you to pinpoint the main thing. Microscopes help you scrutinize the details. To see what could be, it's rose-colored glasses. Finally, a blindfold, which allows you to recall all you have seen with your mind's eye. Ask yourself, which of these tools do you need to better utilize in your day-to-day interactions with employees? Maybe you're great at understanding contrasting views, but you could be more positive and try on your rose-colored glasses to imagine what could be. Next, it's important you understand all of the forces at play. For example, imagine you're in a meeting, and the speaker is constantly deferring to someone else. Maybe they have an ineffective manager. Maybe they don't have good relationship with others in the room. You need to ask your employees questions to understand their point of view. Their values, assumptions, beliefs, expectations, and perspectives can't be observed like behavior. But inquiry allows you to infer the causal effects between what you see and what it means. So seek to understand by asking your team open-ended questions. It's as simple as asking "Why?" or "Walk me through your thought process." Great questions help you gain insight and develop empathy. Finally, the courage to act, to make things better, is essential. It's all about taking what you learn and having the courage to act to influence change for the better. It's also about creating an environment where your team has the courage to act. Look through a number of lenses to see your team's point of view. Then, you have a great chance for them to see what you see, and could be. With your employees' point of view, you can create a culture where your employees are emboldened to demonstrate courage in their everyday actions. That's where you want to be. That's where you need to be.

"We must seek first to understand, then to be understood."

4. Eliminating Multitasking

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I love football. In football, nobody makes a roster by working hard. What matters is performance. That they can run fast, tackle, catch the ball, and make the plays. It's the same way in business. You want to focus on value creation and performance, just like in professional sports. Value creation is determining which initiatives produce a return on investment and staying focused. Whether you're a sales person, coder, or a manager leading your team in difficult times, you always want to consider what value you're creating through your activities. There are many priorities competing for your time and that of your teams. The noisiest issues, problems, and challenges shouldn't necessarily be the ones that get your attention or the investment of your team's time. One thing's for certain, none of us are capable of multitasking. The unessential activities that occupy your time could be marketing events targeted to the wrong audience or IT projects that don't have the customer at the core. They might be processes that can be automated or reports no one reads. There are plenty of examples of low-value work. To determine which activities bring real value, look at your data before making decisions. First, consider the numbers associated with operational costs. What are all the costs associated with your operation, and what is the return on those costs? It may seem obvious, but the payoff should exceed the expenses. Second, ask yourself which activities contribute to revenue generation and create real value? There is a big difference between effort, often measured as activity, and effectiveness, which is real value. Don't make the mistake of confusing the two. And don't make the mistake of rewarding effort, when performance and real value is what counts most. Third, what are your business drivers? For example, which customers are choosing your products, from what demographics, for what features. Is there a common problem you solve through your offering that you are unaware of? Lastly, do your front lines understand how to deliver value to customers every day? If they don't understand the value of their contribution, it's up to you as the leader to ensure everyone understands that the sum of individual activities leads to the overall value the organization produces. If they all understand their value, let them know by catching people doing things right and spread the good stories. We all have a personal responsibility to contribute more than what we cost. Help your team eliminate unnecessary steps, busy work, and low value bureaucratic activities to create value across your organization. Remember, we can spend time, or we can invest it. Invest your time in meaningful initiatives that produce real value and create the environment where your team does the same. That's what this is all about. Focusing on what is truly essential, especially during tough times.

"One thing's for certain, none of us are capable of multitasking."

5. Placing People at the Core

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When the going gets tough, the tough need the head, heart, and spirit of the team. Difficult times are difficult because we perceive a loss of control. During uncertainty, employees may choose to explore other job opportunities, or you, as the leader, may think about downsizing as a first option to rest control from the situation. When either of these things happen, they have a negative affect on morale, innovation, and competitiveness. During difficult times, there are five approaches you can take to place people at the core and stay focused. First, you can change compensation and institute across the board cuts. The pain is shared but it's not strategic, because all employees don't contribute the same way and it could hurt the most productive areas and people of the company. Second, you could make cuts to non-essential areas of the company and outsource certain departments, for example, accounting. The downside is making a mistake with regard to what are essential areas which may actually be a key organizational core competency. Outsourcing also carries risk with regard to control, quality, etc. Third, offer early retirement, but know that your most able will be the first to leave along with substantial institutional knowledge. Fourth, flatten the organization and remove layers of management. The downside can be a lack of control and chaos. Too often we hear about the need for one company, which is really an indication that there is misalignment and team dysfunction because of inefficiency and poor communication that results from silos, divisions, dotted lines, antiquated rules, tone deaf departments, and turf squabbles. Push decision making to the lowest level. It will have a positive affect on overall adaptability. Be mindful that it could also eliminate institutional knowledge and over-burden the managers which could lead to higher employee turnover. That can lead to higher cost for town acquisition, onboarding, and training. Lastly, drop a product or service line to focus on the most profitable aspects of the business. This makes the most strategic sense, but be wary that the offering eliminated won't interrupt or interfere with your core business. For example, you might focus on a software line and cut consulting services not realizing that software sales are dependent on a high touch and personal approach. The bottom line is that there are alternatives to staff reductions. Cutting pay versus people and encouraging alternative work arrangements may very well be more cost-effective and productive in the long run. Consider that even when you downsize, there is an even greater need to invest in the growth and development of the people who stay at the organization. That is, the survivors. I like Benjamin Zander's advice: "Be a relentless "architect of the possibilities of human beings." With a common purpose built on trust, groups of humans can accomplish some pretty amazing things.