Author: William H. Berman

Scott Kirby, the CEO of United Airlines, spoke on CBS This Morning yesterday about the steps they have taken regarding vaccine mandates, managing unruly passengers, and rewarding employees for their commitment and engagement. Throughout his interview, he demonstrated perfectly the three rules of great leadership:

Give your people:

• Something to believe in
• Someone to believe in, and
• Someone who believes in them

All of the airlines are struggling with the issues linked to vaccines, employment shortages, systems maintenance, and passenger disruption. And clearly some are faring better than others. Southwest has had the most obvious recent challenges, but many of the major airlines are under water regarding their staffing and logistics.

Not United. In a short eight weeks, they have vaccinated the overwhelming majority of their employees, and given all employees a $1,000 bonus.  In contrast to the other major airlines, a mere 232 United employees are continuing to refuse to get vaccination. Kirby’s rationale was clear. He watched dozens of employees die from COVID and wrote a letter to each family member. But then, “The second time I got notified of an employee [dying from COVID-19] …I walked around for half an hour and finally called our team and said, ‘enough is enough,'” he told CBS. “We can do something about this, we believe in safety. And weeks later, we got 99.7% of our employees vaccinated,” he said.

Why is United doing so much better than their competitors on vaccination rates? His description of the initiative his company has launched was on the mark (I’m paraphrasing): “If you treat people with respect, if you listen to their concerns, and explain to them why the steps we are taking are in the best interests of them and the company, the overwhelming majority do the right thing for safety.”

And for the company, it seems.

Kirby is not just asking for things from his employees. He has also banned 700 passengers from flying on United for life for refusing to wear a mask on a flight. He has trained his flight crews to de-escalate the situations but has made it clear there are consequences for not following the company safety guidelines. Kirby is also investing in the company. In June, they purchased 270 new jets, for something in the range of $15 billion.

United has struggled over the past few years, coming in in the bottom half of major airlines for reliability (Bureau of Transportation Statistics). Kirby has taken the challenges created by COVID-19 and is clearly using it to rebrand and re-position the company to put its customers and its employees at the top of the priority list. A leading indicator is the recruiting advantage Kirby has created by mandating the vaccine.

Building a brand and a reputation is critical to the success of any organization. The best way to do this is by demonstrating personal integrity, commitment to the mission and the people, and a clear path to the future.  Based on Kirby’s actions in the past few months, he is making the right moves, for his people and for the company.

Lucy Kellaway (http://podcast.ft.com/s/listen-to-lucy/, “Why we prefer nasty bosses to be horrible all the time”) has a great little talk about an interesting finding – apparently, people are less unhappy with a boss who is consistently irritable than one who is unpredictable. Now, you coaches out there, don’t get the idea that we should encourage our clients to be obnoxious all the time if they are obnoxious part of the time. Rather, we want to help them be more consistent in their approach to their employees. And barring that, provide clear information about what they can expect from you today. I know one client who put a sign on her door saying, “Maybe ask me later?” if she was stressed. Keep in mind that being able to predict your environment (e.g., assimilate information, for your cognitive development buffs) is a more comfortable state than feeling like you don’t know what you are walking into. The latter makes it hard to create a mental model of work, which means you are constantly having to process all the information, rather than fit it into your “script.” Feel free to share with friends, colleagues, or your local newspaper – another way in which consulting psychology helps.

Rick’s Experience

One of my clients named Rick was brought into a finance organization that for all intents and purposes was broken. The company had grown rapidly through both acquisition and organic growth, and his predecessor had paid attention primarily to internal workings and processes. As a result, no one in the broader organization was satisfied with the contribution of finance, and the responses to their needs and expectations were fragmented, function-centric and always urgent. Rick had experience in a global organization, and chose to spend the first months of his job literally flying around the globe, personally meeting with regional business unit managers and global teams, understanding their needs and addressing urgent problems while creating a structure, building a strategy and creating a plan. He relied on brute force and lack of sleep to get it all done.

After six months, his manager told him that he had done a phenomenal job of winning back his customers, and had built enormous good will and confidence in his ability to solve the problems that neglect in finance had caused. He and the rest of the executive team couldn’t be more pleased with his achievements, Rick was told. Now, however, his manager wanted Rick to focus some of his energy on his internal team, which the manager had learned was feeling lost at sea and unattended to.

Sphere of Influence

Managers (both new and existing) have the challenge of dividing their focus of attention in two directions.  The first, “Up and Out,” involves attending to the needs of their peers, managers and customers. Emphasis on Up and Out builds a customer-focused approach in which understanding and meeting the expectations of the internal and external customer takes precedence. The second, “In and Down” involves organizing, structuring and building a team that can respond to the needs of the company and customer. In the In and Down world, creating the focus, building the structure, and emphasizing the systems and processes creates the foundation for delivering the results.

Both sides of a manager’s sphere of influence are essential. You can’t meet the customer needs if you don’t know what they are. And you can’t meet the customer needs if you don’t have the support of your team. But the vast majority of managers are drawn toward one side or the other. Like Rick’s situation, some business scenarios require more attention to the external world, and some require more attention to the internal world. At the same time, some managers are more likely to focus on the external issues, while others are more likely to focus on their own team. The most effective manager divides his or her attention and builds both aspects of his or her sphere of influence. There is rarely a time when you divide your focus 50/50. Most of the time, you need to and should pay more attention to one than the other, just as new managers tend to focus their attention on problem areas before success areas.

What should I do?

Identify your biggest challenge. Do you and your team know enough about your customers and stakeholders? How allied or alienated are you with them? If there is damage to repair, you may need to focus a large amount of attention on the external customers or stakeholders. On the other hand, if your relationship and understanding is good, you want to focus more attention on building the structure and strategy of your team.

Take your pulse. Are you focusing all your attention on your team or your organization? If so, make a shift and get out to see customers. Or make time to meet with your peers and internal stakeholders.

Change it up. Make sure that you do not spend your time doing what is safe, familiar, or easy for you.

Get feedback. If in doubt, ask your manager, your peers and your team. If you have done your job, they’ll give you good advice and will help you clarify where you need to focus.

“Your biggest problem as a leader is you spend time trying to explain why you missed your targets, and that feels a lot like justifying. Like you are making excuses for missing. As an executive on my team, I need you to own your failures, full stop. Then, explain to me how it will be different next quarter. We can’t do anything about last quarter.”

These were the words of a CEO, “Danielle,” to my coaching client, “Sandy,” about ten years ago. I was coaching an executive who was generally quite successful. He had run his business effectively, meeting many of his revenue targets and profit and market share goals for a year. However, he had recently run into some difficulties, and missed his revenue targets two months running. In the meeting with Danielle, Sandy’s efforts to explain the causes of his commercial challenges led to Danielle’s sudden and direct feedback. Sandy took in the feedback, and we moved on to other parts of the coaching. After the meeting, Danielle told me that this is, in her experience, a common problem with developing executives. As an individual contributor, she stated, this may be the right answer: “You are learning, and your manager needs to know how you got there so she can coach and train the person effectively. As a business leader, I assume you know how to do the nuts and bolts. I don’t need to coach you on running your business day to day.”

Over the subsequent years, I have had dozens of clients for whom some form of this advice was invaluable. One person described having been “beaten up” by his manager, because he missed his target by “only $100,000.” His manager said curtly, “A miss is a miss.” Planning his next quarterly business review, he was once again at 99.2% of his target revenues. This time, rather than saying “I almost made my number,” we agreed he would simply say, “I missed my number by 80 basis points.” His manager’s reaction? “Yeah, but not by much.”

Hillary Clinton has encountered this problem throughout her career. Even given the context of repeated partisan investigations and extensive, unsuccessful efforts to find smoking guns in her record, she at times struggles to take full ownership for her actions or statements. While she does take ownership, she often goes on to provide explanations and context that only cause more problems. The recent fallout from her interview with Chris Wallace is a case in point. During the interview, Secretary Clinton stated, “Well, Chris, I looked at the whole transcript of everything that was said, and what I believe is, number one, I made a mistake not using two different e-mail addresses. I have said that and I repeat it again today. It is certainly not anything that I ever would do again.” Had she limited her comments to that, perhaps she could have then moved on and no more would have been made of it other than what her opponents usually do with her statements. Because of additional explanations in an effort to “provide context,” however, she put herself in the position to be the target of further attacks and criticisms.

The reality is, most people are providing rationalizations and justifications in an effort to preserve their self-esteem. Successful executives, however, need to take responsibility for their decisions and move forward. If there really is a separate context that requires attention, that discussion should happen at a different time. As one executive said, “So I should just suck it up, huh?”

To paraphrase Jim Collins, “The most effective leaders confront the brutal facts, but never lose faith in a positive outcome.” My advice is, in almost all situations:
• Own up to what the facts of the situation are without explaining, justifying, or providing context.
• Then explain how you will change the situation going forward, and how the future will look different.

Ann Bowers-Evangelista has recently written that owning up to mistakes is the best path. My years of coaching experience have proven that taking ownership of your situation, even if you didn’t make a mistake, will lead to better outcomes, and greater faith in a leader’s capabilities from those who matter. What have you found? Does context or explanations help, or hurt an executive’s cause? I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the subject.

Alana was a brilliant scientist with a history of developing big data techniques and leading successful academic research teams. A global pharmaceutical firm recruited her as they were developing products based on data, information and insights regarding pharmaceutical usage. She was an ideal candidate to push the business through a difficult and urgent product development shift. When she arrived, she found an organization that was years behind the field in terms of technology and approach.

Immediately, Alana began shifting resources, reorganizing her team of more than 100 people, and informing other executives how she was planning to make the shift. To do this, she took over various resources and projects. Her message was that she would lead the company into the 21st century of big data. Not surprisingly, most of the executives and other employees considered her a “bull in a china shop.” They saw her as overreaching her authority, undermining their teams, lacking in focus, and disrupting years of work. Sadly, after a year in the role, she had accomplished few of her business objectives, alienated a number of people, and caused her team to stall. Moreover, she was angry that others were getting in her way. As a result of coaching, she was able to turn around her performance and make breakthrough developments in data products for the pharmaceutical industry.

Alana was guilty of one of the most common mistakes for business leaders: she confused the intent of her communication with the impact of her communication. She had generally good intent, as do most of the leaders with whom I have worked. Most executives intend to motivate their people, build the business, and grow the talent. Yet, oddly enough, the message they give others is often the opposite of what they mean to give!! For Alana, her intent was to accelerate change, but her impact was to slow things down, alienate others, and create internal strife rather than collaboration.

Let me give another example. Danny was the CEO of a global consumer products group (Note: both scenarios are real, but the names and industries are changed) who had a powerful intellect and enormous curiosity. He knew his organization needed to explore many ideas and evaluate their potential benefits, even if they did not ultimately follow through on the vast majority of them. His intent was to find the best ideas and pursue them, discarding others – even very good ones – when there were better ideas. The benefits were so clear to him that he assumed everyone else understood this as well. After conducting a 360 survey for him, I told him despite his intent, his impact was that people saw him as shifting direction or emphasis, and creating pointless work for others. This caused people to be less motivated to explore ideas because they felt the effort would be wasted. He shifted his approach, creating an internal innovation group dedicated to exploring new ideas and opportunities. For the rest of his team, he defined the critical few initiatives that remained consistent over longer time. This made them feel productive and effective, improved morale, and yielded more innovative ideas.

Why does this happen? Quite simply, people perceive their own behaviors very differently than others perceive them. We see our own behaviors as situationally based, while we attribute other people’s behavior to personality or character (known as the fundamental attribution error). In addition, what motivates one person may cause stress for another. In both of these situations, the leader saw the value of change and flexibility, while many of their team members valued stability and consistency.

How do you find out when your intent and your impact conflict?  This is always a challenge, so a few different steps are worth trying:

• Most important, remember that other people do not see things the same way you do, do not feel the same as you, or interpret the world the way you do. Consider different people’s perspectives on things like change, drive, structure, process, big picture, and small details.
• Ask your team for feedback on the things you are trying to accomplish, and listen to their answers. If you think they won’t be completely candid, ask your HR partner to collect the data and summarize it.
• Ask yourself, “Am I frustrated that things aren’t moving in the direction I want, despite my best efforts?” If the answer is yes, then you may have an intent vs. impact
• Imagine if your manager said what you are saying? What would you think? How would you feel?
• Try a thought experiment (or maybe even a real experiment) – Imagine doing the opposite of what you have been doing and consider what would happen. If you have been pushing people hard, what would happen if you rewarded what they have already done? If you have been advocating for a point of view to no avail, what would happen if you listened to others’ points of view? If you have been promoting change, consider what would happen if you emphasized what in their environment is staying the same.

Feel free to share your experiences of intent vs. impact conflicts. I’m happy to discuss them with you to look for solutions.

Twice in the same day last week, clients told me that they felt they needed to “get out of the weeds” and “focus on more strategic issues.”

So, what stops them? We have all heard the justifications:
• “I need to make sure that what we deliver is right.”
• “I know this material so much better than my team, it will take much longer for them to do it.”
• “My team is already so overworked, I don’t want to overburden them.”
• “I was given the materials at the last minute, so I only had enough time to make the edits myself.”

Take Dan, for example. He had recently been promoted from a role he had held for several years, with a team of about 30. As a result of his successes, he was promoted to run a team of about 300, responsible for essential aspects of a global sales force. He sought me out because he was overwhelmed, and frustrating his new team members, because he wanted so much detail. Similarly, a general manager of a $300MM business, was considering promoting Erin, the head of logistics, to the head of global operations. However, the promotion kept getting delayed, because Erin was so personally involved in problem-solving that she tended to jump and tended to jump in to solve problems because she was so immersed in the specifics of a situation. The GM was worried Erin would not be able to handle the volume of work in the new role.

For people like Dan and Sandy, their deep subject matter knowledge and technical expertise has made them, and their teams, successful. Both could provide direction and advice for their team members, and were valued by their managers and colleagues as experts. Their depth of knowledge, however, began to get in the way. Sometimes, they become a bottleneck, as they had to approve or review everything. Other times, team members did not give 100%, because they assume that their work will was going to be edited or revised by their boss, regardless of what they did. Moreover, their managers weren’t getting Dan’s or Sandy’s attention at the level needed; neither could see the forest for the trees.

How do you make sure that you have the time to think strategically and contribute at the higher levels you need to support your manager and develop your own career? The question is not whether you are in the weeds or are thinking strategically. The real question is, how do you both make sure the details are right, and see the bigger picture? How do you both ensure the work is right, and help your team members develop capability and autonomy?

The solution is simple: Practice being incompetent. Stop being the most skilled person on the team. Do not be the expert marketer, or the brilliant finance director. Even if you know the right answer, pretend that you do not. Even if you have more information, context or experience than your people, forget that. Once you do, you will have to push your team to get those answers, and they will then have to solve those problems themselves. When a team member gives you a deck that is only 70% of what you need, send it back for a revision. When you get a proposal with holes in it, ask questions that will highlight the gaps, and send it back. Plan your schedule so that you get materials for review with enough time to revise if needed. Hold your people accountable for the work they do, and give them the responsibility and the autonomy to get it right. This will help you grow, and help them grow as well.

So let me ask you: How do you get out of the weeds? What tricks have you learned to help you balance your focus between the operational details and the strategic demands of your job? Please post some ideas as to how you are able to make that shift! How do you do that, and still maintain sufficient understanding to be confident the business is going in the right direction?

I recently had the opportunity to ask an HR Executive, responsible for talent development in a large investment bank, what she looks for in a coach.  She said (and I’m paraphrasing),

• Someone who is practical. I don’t want someone to just let the client explore something until they figure it out on their own – most of these people need to learn what to do. Sometimes you just need to tell someone, “Don’t do that, do this.”
• Someone who gets the nuances. The problems aren’t simple (well, usually) because the person wouldn’t be where he/she is if it were simple.
• Someone who gets our culture. Not just [our industry] but our specific business. You have to spend time here to get it, but someone who focuses on that.

I spoke to several talent leaders over the next few weeks and all of them told me essentially the same thing – what they look for in a coach for their senior leaders is someone who can get to a solution quickly that will work within their business context, and will work with the client to implement that solution.

Are they right? Is it our job to be pragmatic rather than exploratory?  The answer is, “Sometimes yes, sometimes no.” It depends on the model of coaching that is called for in that particular case.  I wrote about different types of coaching several years ago.  Those different types of coaching call for different approaches:

• Developmental coaching: If the client needs to develop new skills, get control of derailers, or shift their focus and priorities to be more effective, then yes, we need to be pragmatic.
  • These leadership challenges are practical problems that should be solved by practical tools and known activities.
  • Certainly there are times when the question, “How can you find out more about that?” or “Are there resources in your company that can help you address this problem” is the right thing to do.
  • More often, our clients are looking to us as experts in leadership and behavior change to help them find the answer.

• Strategic guidance: If the client needs to articulate a new strategy, shift the organizational structure, or improve operational efficiencies, then we need to be pragmatic in helping them find a solution.
  • If we, as coaches, have expertise in these areas, then we can bring that to bear.
  • If not, then we do need to ask thoughtful, challenging questions, and help them find ways to answer them, including other resources (team members, colleagues, consultants, etc.).
  • And we probably should learn more about business to augment other skills.
  • One client of mine took over a business that would, eventually, become a niche business rather than its current mainstream state.  I helped him find a strategy-consulting group that could lead that strategic effort, and then I stepped away.

• Professional growth:  When a client has to make decisions about goals, priorities, or career direction, they may need a more exploratory approach.
  • If they need a thought partner to think through complex business decisions, then our role is likely to be less pragmatic and more reflective.
  • Here, our value comes from listening carefully, understanding complexity, tolerating ambiguity, and challenging our client to weigh options and develop their own insights and judgment.