Four Riders: Blame, Contempt, Defensiveness, and Stonewalling

Benjamin West - Death on a Pale Horse, 1817

In a post on the HBR Blog, Monique Valcour referred to a piece of work done by John Gottman, called the "A-BCDs", or "the four horsemen of the apocalypse"**.

I had not run across this before, but was quite struck by the idea of these four riders to help us keep conversations tracking well. Gottman outlines this as Avoiding the following behaviours in meetings: Blame, Contempt, Defensiveness, and stonewalling. What a quartet (quintet really, as avoid is counted).

The HBR "Management Tip of the Day" emailer contained this fraction of Monique's article, and it was so clear, I decided to record this so that I don't forget it. What HBR's mailer said was (8 November 2017):

• Blame. Try not to make assumptions about what your colleague is thinking, and don’t make groundless accusations. Keep the conversation focused on facts.
• Contempt. Acknowledge when you’ve lashed out in exasperation, and do your best to avoid making judgments.
• Defensiveness. Take responsibility for your part in the conversation. Are you open to input, or do you interpret new ideas as criticism?
• Stonewalling. Commit to listening and contributing with an open mind, instead of avoiding an unpleasant topic or refusing to participate fully in the conversation.

After reading this list, I felt that in my main education sector work, we tend to get stonewalled in meetings. Decisions have to be made so far up the food chain that we rarely know when something finally gets put in play. However, it also reassured me that the other behaviours don't tend to happen, and that is quite a cultural boost.

We can probably build some checks and balances around the stonewalling though, so we track progress. We have little influence over how long decisions take, but we can be the squeaky door which gets the most oil :-)

Let's mind our A-BCDs out there.


Sam

References:

• HBR (8 November 2017). Management Tip of the Day: Avoid These 4 Behaviors That Derail Conversations. Retrieved 8 November 2017 from https://hbr.org/newsletters/management-tip?spMailingID=18412516&spUserID=ODI5MDQxMTUwS0&spJobID=1140238203&spReportId=MTE0MDIzODIwMwS2
• Valcour, M. (22 May 2017). 8 Ways to Get a Difficult Conversation Back on Track. Retrieved 12 November 2017 from https://hbr.org/2017/05/8-ways-to-get-a-difficult-conversation-back-on-track?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_campaign=mtod&referral=00203&spMailingID=18412516&spUserID=ODI5MDQxMTUwS0&spJobID=1140238203&spReportId=MTE0MDIzODIwMwS2

** should be gender neutral as "the four riders of the apocalypse" I feel. And yes, language does matter :-)

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Six procrastination-beating tips

Procrastinating? Can't get started on a project? Try these strategies for getting moving when you are stuck.

I was just reading a HBR Blog post by Chris Bailey about procrastination, which had some great tips for those of us who get side-tracked, and need some tools to help us through, over or around whatever is halting your progress. Chris logged all his tasks, and found, to his horror, that he wasted 6 hours a week on procrastinating. If you are time poor, then procrastinating can be very costly. It can stop you having a day off. He is a bit of a productivity guru, having written a book, Productivity Project: Accomplishing More by Managing Your Time, Attention, and Energy.

Apparently we procrastinate when things are 'boring', frustrating, hard, ambiguous, unstructured, the process is not rewarding, or it doesn't have personal meaning for us. We need to be self-aware enough to work out which of those might be the factor, and try to inject something else into the task to overcome the draw-back. Such as if we find the process of doing our GST return not rewarding, we could instead consider how much better shape our finances are in at the end of getting the return in, and therefore how much we save at the accountants. To find that out, all we need to do is to call the accountant and find out how much it would cost us for them to do the work.

As Chris pointed out in his post, getting work done is "rarely as bad as we think. Getting started on something forces a subconscious reappraisal of that work, where we might find that the actual task sets off fewer triggers than we originally anticipated". He proposed some strategies to help us avoid procrastination:

• Noticing. Start observing our own behaviour. When do we procrastinate most? With new tasks? Or boring ones? If we know what tasks are those that we put off until the deadline looms hugely, we can build a strategy to get us into better habits.
• Compete. Make a competition out of writing a report: see how many words you can crank out in a set time. Try to beat your own record.
• Plan. Create a template to plan our projects, laying out all the steps we need to take, and the deadlines we will set. Use this when we get becalmed during a project. Report to someone on whether we have taken our steps when planned.
• Micro-tasks. See what the ideal bite size of time is to work on our project, and decide to just do [x] minutes. Sometimes half a day is daunting, but 15 minutes is do-able. If we start, and have to stop, we are more likely to be able to continue on later, as thoughts and improvements to do with the task will keep surfacing.
• Cost. Write down what procrastination costs us; like an early completion bonus, or a missed deadline penalty. Chris also suggested that - while we are at it - we could go wide on what we procrastinate about, including things like "ways procrastinating on retirement saving could affect your social life, finances, stress, happiness, health, and so on".
• Disconnect. Go off-line. Close social media, email, turn our phone reminders off for periods of the day to eliminate possible distractions. This will help us not get tempted away from the key job. I do this when I am marking. I become 'not available' for chunks of the day.

It will still be a journey of exploration to find a fix that will really work, but a start to the journey is progress!


Sam

• Reference: Bailey, C. (4 October 2017). 5 Research-Based Strategies for Overcoming Procrastination. Retrieved 10 October 2017 from https://hbr.org/2017/10/5-research-based-strategies-for-overcoming-procrastination?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter_weekly&utm_campaign=weeklyhotlist&referral=00202&spMailingID=18248922&spUserID=ODI5MDQxMTUwS0&spJobID=1120528806&spReportId=MTEyMDUyODgwNgS2

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Deliberately Accounting for Bias

(Kinane, 2017)

Recently I read a great little post from Harvard Business Review's daily mailer, "The Management Tip of the Day", for deliberately reducing bias in decision-making. This simple technique was proposed by Thomas Redman, and further, will not add much time to the process.

Confirmation bias is our very human trait of assuming new evidence aligns with what we were expecting to see. This is a hear hooves; expect horses, not zebras thing (Woodward, 1950).

We all know that it is impossible to have either enough time or enough data to make a perfect decision. We tend use the Pareto principle (Sanders, 1992), and make up our minds when we have about 80% of what we need. However, often that 80% may be all stacked up on the "reasons why we should" side of the ledger. We forget to carefully consult the another side: reasons why we shouldn't.

Thomas suggests that we put on the devil's advocate hat, and "Gather the data you would need to defend this opposite view, and compare it with the data used to support your original decision. Reevaluate your decision in light of the bigger data set. Your perspective may still be incomplete, but it will be much more balanced" (HBR, 5 July 2017).

What a simple idea. Not too difficult to do; not too time hungry. It helps us build in the 'what ifs' in our decision-making process as a habitual step, instead of simply skimming over the "consider alternatives" stage of the process.

Remember to include the "reasons why we shouldn't" in your decision-making.


Sam

References:

• HBR (5 July 2017). To Avoid Confirmation Bias in Your Decisions, Consider the Alternatives. https://hbr.org/newsletters/management-tip?spMailingID=17583325&spUserID=ODI5MDQxMTUwS0&spJobID=1060187336&spReportId=MTA2MDE4NzMzNgS2
• Kinane, A. (2017). Legends Rocking Horses images. Retrieved 5 July 2017 from http://www.legendsrockinghorses.co.uk/
• Redman, T. C. (10 March 2017). Root Out Bias from Your Decision-Making Process. https://hbr.org/2017/03/root-out-bias-from-your-decision-making-process?referral=00203&utm_source=newsletter_management_tip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tip_date&spMailingID=17583325&spUserID=ODI5MDQxMTUwS0&spJobID=1060187336&spReportId=MTA2MDE4NzMzNgS2
• Sanders, R. (1992). The Pareto Principle: its Use and Abuse. Journal of Services Marketing, 1(2), 37-40. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb024706
• Woodward, T. E. (1950). "When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses not zebras". http://www.zebracards.com/

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The Ingredients of Great Leadership

Harvard leadership historian, Nancy Koehn, outlines "The Ingredients of Great Leadership" in this video clip.

Nancy explores the many ideas, including that leaders are made, not born; what characteristics make up great leadership; committing ourselves to actually getting involved; and being persistent and focused in seeing the work through to completion.

Sam

• Reference: Koehn, Nancy (6 January 2017). Whiteboard Session: The Ingredients of Great Leadership. Retrieved 20 January 2017 from https://hbr.org/video/5272934227001/whiteboard-session-the-ingredients-of-great-leadership

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Keeping up in the Management field

On Forbes earlier this year, an article by Matt Symonds explored some ideas for keeping up in the management field.

I found it interesting that Matt's first port of call was HBR. 

While I do check in with HBR, it is only one of my 'stops' on my management commute each month. 

I get tweets from The Economist, am signed up to a daily news feed from Google, have a weekly update for some keyword searches in Google Scholar, receive a monthly update from the Ministry of Education library, get all the Academy of Management journals, hear about the webinars from the International Leadership Association, eMarketer, and Josh Bersin, subscribe to s+b and McKinsey, am signed up to a number of LinkedIn groups (though, over the past eight months, I am finding these less and less useful), and have regular updates from a range of MOOCs: edX, FutureLearn, Udemy and Coursera. Oh, and TED talks.

Of course, I am subscribed to HBR blog as well. Just not 'only'.

While my membership of the Academy of Management and the International Leadership Association and the Career Development Association give me access, the rest of these great sources don't cost me anything.

And the range is spectacular.


Sam

• Reference: Symonds, Matt (24 February 2016). Where Can You Keep Up With Management Ideas? Retrieved 25 February 2016 from http://www.forbes.com/sites/mattsymonds/2016/02/24/where-can-you-keep-up-with-management-ideas/#5fe0a6752130

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Getting sticker with telling stories

We humans love stories. While in general it doesn't matter if they are fact or fiction, if we want to use a story for learning, we are strongly biased to fact (my case study research shouted that one loud and clear).

Whenever we want to teach, to persuade or to change others, if we can tell a clear story within our pitch, we are much more likely to be successful. We will have a 'sticky' story: one that sticks in the memory of those who hear it. Green (2004) cites an Indian proverb “Tell me a fact and I'll learn. Tell me the truth and I'll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever” (p. 1).

On the HBR Blog, JD Schramm recently published some fantastic tips for creating a compelling and sticky story for your listeners. Here are five of them:

• Parachute in. Drop your audience into the action straight away, capture their attention and detail what the lesson is later.
• Use powerful startings & endings. We don't need to know our story verbatim, but "great leaders know the first and final words cold … and can deliver them without hesitation". Strong anchor brackets will aid the listener's recall.
• Use the “Goldilocks” maxim. Test your story with others to check what is “just the right amount” of story to tell. Too much detail and your listener drowns, not enough and they don't get your message.
• Use poetry. Using strong imagery, cadence and simplicity is much more punchy than something less well-crafted. It will take more time - you may well have read the Blaise Pascal quote, 1657, “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead” (often mis-attributed to Mark Twain) - but it will be more effective.
• Use silence. JD reminds us that composers place rests within scores for emphasis. Silence allows your listeners time to think. Silence allows "others to fill the void, adding their own interpretation and impact. [...] Limiting information engages the imagination" (May, 2014).

Let's be sticky out there.

Sam

References:

• Cannon, Carl M. (2012). Putting Words in Mark Twain's Mouth. Retrieved 4 December 2014 from http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/12/10/fake_twain_quotes_and_other_hazards_of_twitter_116376-3.html 
• Green, Melanie C. (2004). Storytelling in Teaching. Observer. The Association for Psychological Science, April 2004, Volume 17, Number 4 (pp. 1-7)
• May, Matthew E. (2014). The Most Engaging Ideas Leave Something Out. Retrieved 4 December 2014 from https://hbr.org/2014/10/the-most-engaging-ideas-leave-something-out/ 
• Schramm, JD (2014). A Refresher on Storytelling 101. Retrieved 3 December 2014 from https://hbr.org/2014/10/a-refresh-on-storytelling-101

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Your Leadership Bookshelf

image borrowed from
http://proteusenterprises.com.au/
centres/proteus-speak/leadership-bookshelf

Today I read an HBR blog article detailing a 'must read' list of leadership books, entitled "If You Want to Lead, Read These 10 Books" by Whitney Johnson.

It was an interesting list. Now, the post was a couple of years old, so there weren't the great new books, like Adam Grant's book, Give and Take (which I would definitely have on my bookshelf). But I was really surprised that there were no theory books listed.

You see, I find that the theory is the first place I turn when I come across something new. First I want to see how it goes together, then I want to see what it does. Then I want to see if I can take it apart and put it back together again. Then I want to test it.

Tinker, tinker, tinker.

So my personal list of leadership books would start with a primer. I would have either Richard L Daft's "The Leadership Experience" or Gary Yukl's "Leadership in Organizations" for a good dollop of underpinning leadership theory. I strongly believe that without a sound understanding of models, styles, rationale and principles, we are destined to recreate the mistakes of the past. I would also want a book to guide my leadership study. I would take Brad Jackson & Ken Parry's "A Very Short Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book About Studying Leadership".

From there, I would be adding - as the article's author did - Carol Dweck's book on "Mindset", Brené Brown's "Daring Greatly" and Clayton Christensen's "The Innovator's Dilemma". They are all awesome pieces of work.

I would also have "Leadership can be Taught" by Sharon Daloz Parks, based on Heifetz's work, Adam Grant's book "Give and Take", and Daniel Goleman's book on "Emotional Intelligence". All great, and all well underpinned by theory, careful thought, and research.

Surprisingly, Jim Collins' books didn't make it onto Whitney's list. I would definitely be including "How the Mighty Fall" or "Good to Great". I would think about including something by Seth Godin and something by Malcolm Gladwell... and probably Dan Ariely's "Predictably Irrational". However, all three of those might not make the cut, because they are more about social science in general than about leadership in particular.

Whitney's article also made me laugh. She enjoyed Les Mis, and thought that it was a great tale of leadership. However, it left me totally cold; I felt little connection with the protagonists. And when it comes to leadership, in general I want reality. So I would swap that out for a 'real' (in my humble opinion) leadership book. I would choose Amanda Sinclair's "Leadership for the Disillusioned". It asks lots of very uncomfortable questions, which I find insightful.

I was also dubious about some inclusions; two I felt were just plain silly as leadership books. One was "We" by Robert A Johnson, the other was "Warren Buffett Invests Like a Girl" by LouAnn Lofton. I felt that these were both pop-psych books in their time, now consigned to my remainder bin.

There are also some other books which I feel help guide me when I lead (no, I can't stop at ten books!!). They are Robert Greenleaf's "The Power of Servant Leadership", Geert Hofstede's "Culture and Organizations" and Bill George's "Authentic Leadership". Lastly, I would have to include Donald Schön's "The Reflective Practitioner". Without thoughtful reflection in our practice, we have no perspective for our actions, and little chance to improve.

Some of the books that Whitney suggested I hadn't heard of, so they have gone onto my reading list. This includes Jane McGonigal's "Reality is Broken", Marcus Buckingham’s "Standout" and Eric Ries's "The Lean Start-Up". Once I have read these, I will write up what I got from them :-D 

• Reference: Johnson, Whitney (17 October 2012). If You Want to Lead, Read These 10 Books. USA: HBR Blog. Retrieved 17 April 2014 from http://blogs.hbr.org/2012/10/if-you-want-to-lead-read-these/

Sam

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