In a recent training on Creating Customer Intimacy, I tabled the idea that all the communication tactics in the world would never enhance your ability to have customer intimacy. Most of us live in a world where we think we have no customers. But as long as you have to work with at least one human being in the world, that person is considered a ‘customer’. It could be a team member, your family, a boss, a friend. At the end of it all, we have to be very clear that in order for customers to want us, we need to make a special change to the way we do things.

In my personal view, there are three kinds of relationships you can build within any organization. The first is the relationship with the world. This is what a lot of people want to do. They go on Facebook and add friends. They create an advertisement to communicate with their intended customers. They build products to sell. These are external customers, whom we are obliged to deliver maximum service and value to.

The second is the relationship within the organization. They are your team members, bosses, peers and partner vendors or suppliers. The relationship here still needs to be clear: we have to build a partnership with each of them in order for the external customer to be satisfied, and to maximize their value. However, it is often not recognized that we are expected to maximize service to our internal customers.

The final core of this entire model is simply the concept of the self. You have to have  a relationship with yourself in order for you to know yourself better. There are many aspects of this that I have written about already, but the truth is most of us don’t know ourselves intimately because it is easier to hide from our emotions, beliefs, negative thoughts and patterns of behavior.

But if you were to see how the world is behaving, you’ll realize this: everyone wants the dollar, the bottomline and they focus on the external world. What if this doesn’t work? You aren’t getting your dollar, you aren’t building your followers, you aren’t creating the success you aimed for in your goals? It’s simple, really. It basically means the core of the executor – You – is not well grounded. You have not gone to the core and begun the process of deciding what you stand for.

From a personal development standpoint, this is crucial – we cannot ignore the impact of personal development on team leadership and business strategy. I know so many people out there who crave to start a business, want to make a difference, but they stumble upon so many different problems in their life that the fruits of their laborious labor are not worth consuming.

Recently, I posted on Facebook that a few of my graduates of my public programs had taken ideas, logos and frameworks that belonged to us, and had used it for their own profit. A number of very sympathetic people commented that we should take steps against them to protect our intellectual property. Of course, this is not the only time this has happened. But what makes me reluctant to threaten or sue is simply that I am using the same energy to take them down that they used to steal our ideas. It’s somewhat counter productive. It’s like this: the husband blames the wife for spending too much money. The wife blames the husband for not loving her. The husband gets angry and says the wife is irresponsible. The wife shouts at the husband saying he is unreasonable. Okay – you know very well that his kind of match is “who has the fittest lungs wins”. It’s silly, we know, immature… and yet millions of people do this every day!  I have to relook my own approach in training to promote the idea of partnerships because in many cases, past participants who want to do the same thing as us have forgotten that stealing is wrong. Stealing destroys trust and it prevents partnerships from ever happening. It’s like this: you date this person, and you don’t show up. You not only don’t apologize, you say that your date should be more reasonable to know that you are busy sometimes. You’ve just asked the person to trust you to do the right thing, then you stole that trust away. The next time you ask that person on a date, you can be quite certain that the relationship has changed.

If you always have the problem of quarrels and arguments in your business, it may be a sign that you are already doing things ineffectively. But to throw the blame to someone else, justifying that you are hurt, unhappy and disappointed is going to be just jaw-droppingly stupid (in my humble opinion). Partnership is the key and trust is the driver. In order for trust to take place, a sincere and clear communication must be made. Seriously, if you built all the trust you wanted but your level of competence is low, don’t expect the customer to say “yes I want your service”. If you created lots of competence but you break your customer’s trust, you may be great the first day, but not the subsequent days.

Balance this by looking inside, because unless you are congruent with the external world, it’s going to be hard to strive to achieve goals. Sure, we all have this “superhero complex” sometimes. Get over it! The world does NOT revolve around us and our dreams all  the time.

As Zig Ziglar once said, you can get anything in life you want, if you help enough other people get what they want. True partnership requires sacrifice, giving, not expectations and taking. It is this Beast inside of us that needs to bend, to change. Maybe we’ve been constantly thinking we were always right, aggressive and caring more about ourselves. But change is necessary. That’s when the Beauty takes notice and changes along. And then, the spell of Evil can be broken, and the Beast be transformed back to the handsome prince he once was. The classic story ends but our new journey begins with a question: can we make our partners fall in love with us and keep loving us?

I was recently texting a friend and she told me that she wanted lots of things, and wanted them all to be perfect. I guess that’s the first thing I want to talk about today, followed by the idea regarding our expectations.

In many instances, it is a little difficult to put a finger on perfectionism. Not everyone can say it’s a good thing, but we all know for sure that it can’t be a bad thing in most cases. When it comes to making things happen, though perfectionism has a few drawbacks.

First, it prevents you from actually taking action. A perfect plan? Gee… We all know that’s just something for a fairy tale. There was a time where I had that idea too, making plans for things that I couldn’t really predict or control. In most of those cases, I found myself basically getting into trouble because I just ended up with a lot of stress when things don’t go my way.

Second, perfectionism tends to suck dry the resources where attention is concerned. Consider this possibility: you’re so focused on the plan or the way you are doing something that you forget to pay attention to other things that might be vital in the moment.

Where Perfectionism Could Be Useful

I love it when there is a vision for a perfect world. I really do. It’s idealistic and paves the way for idealists like me to gain lots of motivation. I guess there are at least a handful of people who are like that. We’re the kind of people who get turned on by world peace (heh).

I also believe that by visualizing the future in its most ideal form, you get a chance to at least see what is possible. If you’re a skeptic, then you might cringe at doing something like this. But it does require a person with far-sighted vision to offer something groundbreaking to the world. Leaders don’t aspire to “make sure we’re all normal people” – they are motivated by achieving the unachievable and really believe it.

Solution for perfectionism?

So, is there a problem for those of us who have our perfectionistic moments? Is perfectionism a problem in the first place? I think we all need to be well balanced in order to ensure that the vision of the future corresponds with our ability to take action.

• Perfect process, imperfect result. You can go ahead to ensure you have a perfect process. In other words, execute stuff well instead of dreaming of the best results only. By being focused on honing the process, you get a chance to work toward perfection. I’d like to say that being perfect is not as good as having the perfect time working toward that end outcome.
• Perfect flexibility. We all know that one of the most important qualities of any leader would be to have behavioral flexibility. The last thing you want to hear an army commander say is “dang it, they must be around here somewhere” instead of executing a contingency plan when the enemy isn’t where he thought. Behavioral flexibility is a neat skill that is often overlooked in the world of leadership development because we’re so used to ‘standard operating procedures‘ and stuff like that. I’m not saying axe the SOPs, I’m saying develop greater flexibility so that your SOPs act as guidelines for the baseline of results you should work toward.
• Failure is not the same as shame. I find some people have an uncanny ability to feel guilty and ashamed for not getting things done they way they expect. I’ve had participants in my training programs come back after a long while and tell me the training doesn’t work. So I ask what they mean, and they reveal to me that they couldn’t get to their goals. But after inquiry, I realize that they went about executing this the wrong way, with insufficient information and a lack of clarity on their goals. No wonder they don’t get to their goals. Failure is fine (repeat that in your head) if you learn from it. Instead of denying it, or blaming yourself, accept responsibility for it so that you can move on.

So it seems that there is a lot to do. The best metaphor I can have is that of the sword smith forging a new blade. The master craftsman is able to hammer the impurities out in order to craft a strong blade. Through the perfect process, the blade is constructed. If the blade is maintained by the owner daily, it remains in its pristine condition or rust and mold set in. You are the  sword smith. The metal is your very being. Unlike a slab of steel, you will take years to hone and weed out impurities, but make it an endeavor beyond just a training program or two.

In my lifetime, I’ve walked around different night markets and handicraft stores to see very intricate items that are on sale. Surprisingly, things like these items are not very expensive. I believe that the reason why they were created were not because they want to be wealthy, but simply because they had a passion for doing the craft. And for people like this, the craft comes naturally. They are makers and creators.

One of the Five Tasks of Leadership is to be a maker and creator. Here are some of the things you have to create:

• create a vision or purpose for your organization
• decide on a direction as to how this organization will achieve its purpose
• set a few guiding principles as to how an organization should function.

Although it may seem easy, it will take a fair amount of experience to even build a vision. The vision is created as a result of visualizing what the future would be like. An ideal is often formed by thinking of the place and time the organization would be at its optimum, considering the workplace, how it’s employees behave, the action they take, the values these people live by, and then the kind of customers who come back to them again and again. Without this, you will end up running an organization that focuses its requirements only on certain areas and neglect others.

This will have a tremendous impact on people who are going to fit in to the organization when you start to hire them. Can they see the same vision? Is it clear enough to them? Does looking at this future image increase their desire to want to continue to do what they are required to do?

The Craftsman create something that is interesting, that cause people to want to know the story behind the craft or work. This is what engages people and mesmerizes them. It is the soul of the craftsman, and a leader at every level will need to understand the story behind that piece of work. Just remember that not everyone will like what you create. Chances are, these people will not be the ones who will cherish and love what you created, and may not necessarily fit into your organization.

I have met lots of great leaders in business. But it really isn’t just about the skills they hunt for in their HR strategy that makes then great. As far as I can tell, they know how to maximize their profits. This isn’t so hard you might think. Of course it will be easy to look at the way they do it and assume it was an overnight thing. However, to be able to do this requires more than just common sense. It takes clarity of thought and persistence of direction.

This is simply because the road to profits can be achieved in a million and one ways. How does leadership really factor in? Personally, I see leadership as the single factor that turns the tide in your favor.  Archimedes once mentioned “Give me a lever long enough and singlehandedly I will move the world”, which basically describes the concept of leverage.

Leadership is the organizational catalyst for anything you want to do. Properly done, it serves as the single most important thing that your organization can do to improve performance and profits. Poorly done, and it works in the opposite direction. People get disgruntled, feel that things are unfair, and cease any affiliation for the organization.

I basically characterize the leadership competencies in five broad categories.: (1) Crafting, (2) Systemizing, (3) Performing, (4) Maximizing, (5) Rewarding.

So, how does this factor as a process? Basically, a leader needs the ability to Craft the business, just like an artist would. The visioning, culturing, missioning. Next the leader has to go to the science of systems. You need more than just an idea to run the business: you know you need the system so the ‘craft’ can function. Next, you go into the action or performing mode. This is where you discover what works and what doesn’t. You must definitely have a decent agenda to track your performance as well. It’s the feedback element in the business process that enables you to reflect upon what you achieved. Is it tangible and valuable? Then, you take the next step of maximizing, which is to optimize the system, weed out weaknesses in your performance and clarify the goals more effectively. Finally, once the tasks have been accomplished, you move into the rewarding part of leadership.

Although this looks like it only works as a process, there are other parts of these that will allow individual leaders to function well, and this process can be reconfigured as long as they are competencies that leaders take seriously.

So I’ve been training leadership programs for the last few years and looked at my participants. Firstly, not all of them are leader material to begin with. Why do we develop them? Secondly, not all of them need leadership because they already have it. I’ve also been working with, as some of you might know, the Army in various capacities. What strikes me is that the motivated workforce in a reservist camp carries much different energy than leadership in an average MNC. I believe it is all about leadership competence.

Here’s what I’ve discovered in leadership competency development.

1. Good leaders know what they need to do. They may not be given the bible of standards to follow, but they think through it and understand it thoroughly in order understand their task at hand. This guides them in their ability to solve problems and make decisions (it’s always in relation to what goal needs to be achieved).
2. Good leaders know what skills are required to achieve what they need to do. They begin to consider the team and human elements as well as the technical requirements to get their task achieved.
3. Good leaders know how to win over what they require. This means that their level of persuasiveness is high on the scale. They enroll people into their vision of the future and excite them through their language. In order to win people over, the leader also needs to listen and understand constraints. He needs to identify if the gaps are reasonable and whether changes need to take place.
4. Good leaders find innovative alternatives to gaps. It’s not always possible to find a direct solution all the time. Often, it requires a constraint to help a good leader move in an alternative but plausible direction.
5. Good leaders look at the global scale systemically. They not only have an eye for vision, but also have an idea about other things that have an impact of the achievement of their goals. They are wary about the things that influence their goals negatively and take measures to correct them. They do their best to identify things that support their goals.
6. Good leaders make things happen. It’s easy to be a leader on the ground but you wait for things to happen. If a goal is there to achieve, leaders are the ones to guide the way. This basically includes everyone in an organization because leadership is not a “position” – it’s a sense of responsibility and good leaders across the hierarchy recognize this.
7. Good leaders make their intentions known and valid. They know how to argue the right way, support things well and ensure that people get the idea. They seldom use force to impose their ideas. They want to be predictably clear and this allows the people around them to be open to them. Their intention allows people to have clear direction and be empowered toward whatever needs to be done.
8. Good leaders learn fast. They learn from others, and learn from mistakes. Both are good, because the leader implements new ideas based on learnings and enjoys sharing them for others to learn from as well. A good leader learns fast so that he enables others to learn as well. If they need to pick up skills, they do it.
9. Good leaders build better leaders. Through their experience, they help to hone the leadership capabilities of other people within their team.
10. Good leaders do less but achieve more. They don’t have to be present in a project or event for it to be successful. They have already empowered their team to achieve this willingly and reap their rewards accordingly. If the reward is not available within the organization, they look outside of the organization to offer rewards to deserving people.
11. Good leaders take on big goals and move toward them. In fact, they let people know they are doing it and shamelessly let people know how they are doing.

You’re in the workplace and you encounter a really nasty person.

Wow! What did you do to deserve such a person, you think! Almost immediately, you might have vindictive thoughts or possibly think of a therapist (such as me haha) to refer him or her to for anger management therapy!

Actually, wouldn’t you be jumping the gun if you did that? You won’t know what’s happening in the mind of the other person, and maybe what’s worse is that you don’t really care. Perhaps, when you want to learn to deal with difficult people, you need to first understand them first. That would be, in my mind, the best first step.

Why should you “understand” the other person?

Well, let’s do a quick experiment.

Think of the last time you burst out in anger. Was it solely because of the person that you blew your top, or because of an associated series of events?

Chances are, if you think properly, most of the time when you blow your top, you’re really reacting to the straw that broke the camel’s back. However, you did have a series of things that were bugging you and that really affected you. Here’s an example.

Jim is angrily shouting at his subordinate for not getting his job done on time.

Now, logically, there’s really no explanation for Jim’s behavior. You could think he was a really unreasonable person. However, let’s review some build-up mechanisms.

• his grandmother, who was his primary caretaker in his younger years, passed away a few weeks ago;
• he is in the middle of handling a bad tiling job by his contractor for his new house;
• his 15 year old daughter has just been bullied by a classmate with bruises on her arms to prove it.

Well I don’t quite care how much EQ you’ve got, sometimes a series of these events can trip people up mainly because they’re human.

As a team member, you can easily shirk your responsibility by believing that understanding others is not your job. But do remember that team dynamics begins with the relationship that team members have with one another. Difficult people sometimes appear that way because you’ve uncovered a minefield of past memories that affected them. Just because they got upset with you doesn’t mean that they are against you. It may simply mean that your ability to connect with them is not good enough.

Perhaps you might think that it is the other person’s responsibility to take charge of the feelings, right? Heh… so you tell me – when you are angry, what level of logic do you have control of, and how well can you “take charge” of these feelings? In short, be realistic of what you expect others to be able to do. Since you’re the one who’s more emotionally grounded, it should fall on you to be able to pick it up and connect with that team member. Mind you if you did that, they will look out for you next time as well!

Here are some simple tricks to empathy:

photo credit: lumaxart:

• Be patient. Not everyone opens up to a question like “why are you so angry”. Offer an open door, or a listening ear if they find it tough to speak up, and any other form of emotional support where possible.
• Stand in their shoes and reflect on the feelings you feel before you communicate with them. It can be difficult to stand in another’s shoes because you’ve never really had training in that (of course you can attend my Life Coaching training and you’ll get there!) but nonetheless it will be good for you to be able to give it a shot to understand where they are coming from.
• Don’t judge or add further expectations. This would probably destroy the relationship because it simply doesn’t show your support for such a person. Don’t even provide “feedback” unless you have investigated and understood the other person’s input first, lest they think you are simply jumping to conclusions based on what others say.

I’m not sure if you’ve heard about rapport building. In the context of NLP, rapport building is a great way to initiate and maintain positive interaction with others. Which brings me to the point on why leaders need to understand it in the first place.

photo credit: DaveBleasdale

Problem #3: Inability to read other people’s intent

Have you ever had a time where you wish someone could see your point? Where they seem defensive and speak as though you intended to offend them? Well, welcome to the inner world of individual differences. Everyone has a different mental model.

If both parties don’t recognize that it’s a difference with the mental model, it means they are blind, and will most likely never be able to reach a resolution. It’s the “my way or the highway” mentality.  If both parties do recognize it, then it is going to be easily resolved. Both parties acknowledge each others’ differences, learn to understand them, and then a way forward can be charted.

This really is the essence of rapport building – understanding someone else so that you can learn what they really want and need and vice-versa.

The trouble happens when, as a leader, you are unable to shift to view a different perspective. In NLP, we call this the ability to take on different perceptual positions, and is easy to adopt.

First Position: You’re considering from a first person’s point of view. You can actually imagine yourself as another person and adopt their point of view.

Second Position: You’re looking at someone and observing what they do, adopting second person point of view.

Third Position: You’re looking at two people interacting as a bystander, or a third party. Useful to consider what was being said as objectively as possible.

Why is this useful?

Gone are the days where people will do whatever you say based on your position. Times change, and leadership strategies need to change too.

By being able to know what a person actually intends, it helps you to anticipate what it is they are really saying. There’s always a hidden layer of information there. Putting yourself into their position allows you to read, to a great extent, the reasons why they say what they say. By understanding their agenda, you can navigate your way to an agreeable outcome.

Here I continue from by previous post on the psychology of leadership. We delved into Problem #1 – The inability to listen.

Another major issue we have to explore in leadership is the ability for a person in power to be a people person.

photo credit: rftrudeau

Problem #2 – Not Being a People Person.

It doesn’t surprise me that a lot of leadership really is about building interpersonal skills and communication capabilities. Nor should it surprise you. Yet, most people think good leaders are those who are articulate.

(Some of the most articulate people I know use their tongue to destroy people rather than build them up.)

Generally those of us who are brought up in a technical environment may find it difficult to express ourselves well. It’s imperative to develop these skills of communication, but more importantly the ability to really bond and connect with others that sets apart good leaders from average ones.

Connection and Emotional Intelligence?

Conversely, a leader is supposed to know how to detect emotional fluxes, not just in oneself but in others as well. It’s a skill that can most definitely be learnt through various NLP strategies, but maintaining it requires practice. This ability to detect emotional differences allows you to initiate contact. If you know someone is down, you can now ask them about it and act as a guardian to help resolve this issue.

It is easy for someone to just say “do this” and expect people to do it. In this day and age, with the advancement of technology and the illusion of economic abundance (my opinion is everyone chases the economic dollar without considering the holistic impact on themselves and their family members, leading to scarcity rather than abundance), people demand more of others, but few demand more from themselves so that they can contribute to the well-being of others.

But why should this be an important factor in leading?

Well, the truth is leadership can be a thankless job. A leader has to acknowledge that no matter what kind of contribution he or she makes, it can easily be ignored or belittled. It is in times like these that the emotional reading and management ability for a leader comes in: to simply treat antagonists as little children who don’t really have the ability to appreciate what is being done, and do their best to educate and nurture the children no matter how rebellious they might be.

It comes back down to the individual leader to reflect upon the worth they have contributed to the world through their actions. Perhaps, the result may not be seen immediately, but the long-standing impact of someone who trusts in others, nurtures them and brings out the best in them is far more than just a job. It’s a calling, and leaders need to know that they touch the lives of people everyday.

Leadership development is one of the most important skills a working individual should build on if they intend to improve their standing in the working world. I believe that leadership is really the ability to convince and win people over.

photo credit: The U.S. Army

I was in my reservist training recently and a senior commander commented that once he went into the higher echelons of leadership, it was no longer about rank, but about the ability to persuade people, including your superiors about the merits of your plans and ideas.

So, I recently reflected upon the working relationship I had with some leaders and I realized some interesting things about good leaders in relation to those who were not effective.

Problem #1 – The inability to listen.

Ok, I don’t mean to appear like I’m giving a motherhood statement because I really want to explore the real root cause of the inability to listen. I believe everyone has their own point of view, right? It is when people hold on to their point of view alone without enabling other people to understand the merits of such view that makes a difference.

When do you feel like you have been listened to? It’s when you feel understood and possibly accepted – as a person. Even if your point of view is rejected, but the other party is able to understand the positive intent and merit of your point, and be able to show you how the alternative point of view is more advantageous, a rational person wouldn’t mind the rejection of that point of view.

The only time this counts as a problem is when the person you’re convincing is emotional. All the more so, leaders need to have the ability to dive into more than just the logical rhetoric behind a conversation. They need to understand the psychology of individuals.

…TBC…