They are “in the front, with the team,” and truly understand the business.

But what is the main purpose of spending time in the front? Is it about learning how to do the jobs of the frontline folks? Is it about knowing the intricacies of the operations?

Yes, and.

As a leader, when we spend time in the front, we have the opportunity to hone a few unique leadership skills:

1. UNDERSTANDING and ASSESSING the performance of the processes and people through observation, inquisition, and participation (in addition to reports and updates)
2. VALIDATING their understanding of key messages
3. REINFORCING the consistency of their understanding of key messages
4. CONVINCING the team that you are here to help them enjoy their job more and you CAN help them enjoy their job more.

So next time when you get onto the sales floor, or show up at the setup of a roadshow, challenge yourself to …

• Become more effective and accurate in understanding what they are doing and assessing how they are doing (performance)
• Be able to hear clearly what they are hearing
• Bring consistency to what they are hearing
• Have the answer to the question “What is the 1 thing I can do, ONLY I can do, for them?”

Because I have joined an on-demand coaching platform.

And this is the #1 suffering I have witnessed – “My boss does not appreciate me.”

I have had many conversations where my clients were in tears. 

They felt humiliated, ignored, unappreciated, unwanted. 

They questioned their self-worth.

They felt injustice AND helpless. 

These feelings spilled over into their lives outside of their offices …

Because a manager made a careless comment, or neglected a budding rift amongst the team, or weaselled out of a difficult conversation …

Bosses, we are bosses, and we have bosses. That means we already know what it feels like to have a good boss, that we actually know how to be a good boss. We just need to work harder to not be a bad boss. 

Base on all the coaching conversations I have had, here are 3 things “good bosses” can do, so then you don’t slip into becoming a “bad boss” and wreck souls:

1. Shut up for a tad longer, when you feel the urge to speak.

2. Involve a tad more, when you feel the urge to leave it to the team.

3. Stay in a conflict a tad longer, when you feel the urge to run away.

Go. Just try to be less of a bad boss. You will be surprised how much contentment you will be able to bring to others. Trust me.

That you couldn’t land on a decision without disappointing someone?

That you wondered if you were too “democratic?” Here is an approach to lead through this.

Often when we discuss strategies and actions, we tend to focus on what’s possible: 

• What are ways we can execute the plan?
• What are ideas to go after our quarterly goal?
• Let’s brainstorm on all the different execution plans!

When there are many options or ideas on the table, things get tricky because of the interpersonal dynamics: 

• Teammates are invested in their options and ideas
• All the peer-to-peer and peer-to-boss dynamics come into play
• Most critically, you the boss are now forced to have to juggle between the perception of being “democratic” and “autocratic” 

One way to steer the discussion towards a more actionable direction is to move away from the POSSIBILITIES and move towards the PROBABILITIES:

• What is the likelihood of “Plan A” achieving our goals? 
• What are the probabilities of this option failing? Base on what supporting facts? 
• What additional information do we need to verify this probability?

Lastly, a thought to continue the thinking: 

How do possibility and probability relate to being in the present?

We were in Xiamen and we got into trouble with the local police.

It started with an altercation between a few teammates and a Japanese client. The police was called but they decided to not arrest the client. Our team felt injustice and decided to surround the police station to protest.

More teammates joined the protest and screamed, “Traitors! You are allowing foreigners to insult our motherland!” In the midst of unrestrained testosterone flying high, a teammate shoved a policeman. As a result they swamped the crowd, cracked everything down, and arrested that teammate. The press picked up the news. I was the most senior person on the ground and I had to deal with it.

I wish I could glorify this story and say the team trusted my decisions, I trusted my team’s ability to execute, everyone trusted each other in doing their parts towards a shared goal, high fives, group hugs.

Nope.

I could not convince the team. I micro-managed. I stalled the execution. Everyone was protecting their own arses.

So what’s the LinkedIn-appropriate lesson I could conjure up from this humiliating experience?

Crisis management is trust.

To max out the potential of your team, apply the “Flywheel Effect” in your people.

This concept is developed in the book “Good to Great.” 

A flywheel is a heavy revolving wheel used in large machines. It is difficult to push from a standstill, but once it starts spinning it builds momentum, which enables the wheel to turn by itself and create even more of its own momentum, creating a self-reinforcing loop. 

In the business context, here’s the Flywheel of Amazon:
“Lower prices led to more customer visits”

“More customers increased the volume of sales and attracted more third-party sellers to the site” 
 
“That allowed Amazon to get more out of fixed costs like the fulfilment centers and the servers needed to run the website” 

“This greater efficiency then enabled it to lower prices further.”

The beauty of the flywheel effect is you can accelerate the spin by pushing any part of the loop.

So what is the flywheel you can use for your people?

The “Empathy -> Trust -> Intrinsic Performance Flywheel:”

1. “I see the awesomeness in you”
2. “boss sees the awesomeness in me”
3. “Boss, witness my awesomeness”

1. “I see the awesomeness in you” …

Or create movements.

Here are 3 things you can do to herd cats and lead change:

1. Give it a name

Cheesy as this might sound, but giving the initiative a name make it much easier for people to refer to, relate to, to share, etc. “Project Beanbag” is far easy to refer to than “that secret project, you know, that one?”

2. Tell everyone about it, talk about it, over and over

The key here is make sure you rehearse and finesse your pitch. Listen to presidential candidates, or authors on book tours. They are very good at succinctly making their pitches. Even comedians are good examples to learn from. They are particularly good at delivering the same jokes DIFFERENTLY every night.

Reward it, often, out loud, publicly, precisely

This is the most important. You must reward behaviours that support the initiatives in order to maintain the momentum. This is particularly hard because the difficulties lie not within the act of rewarding, but in accurately identifying the right behaviours.

How many of you are filling out weekly reports?

Why do so many of us have to endure this pain in the task?

All weekly reports started from a pure, rational, and meaningful place:

Boss up the food chain wants to review the business thoroughly, and wants to hear from the ground up.

• A subordinate of Boss needs data from her team to inform Boss
• She needs these data to be consistent. She needs the data weekly
• So she creates a form disguised as a report

She asks her lefthand man to create this report (aka fill out this form):

• Lefthand man needs data from his team, consistently, weekly
• So he creates a form disguised as a report and gives to his team

This continues downstream, and now it has reached you.

I call these “Slow Scope Creeps.”

• We carelessly allow the scope of our work creeps into our teams’ scopes.
• These slow scope creeps spread quickly through the org.
• Once they colonise the org, they are extremely hard to remove, because everyone depends on someone to fill out a form.

There is nothing much you can do about it, except one thing:

Boss, before you create another “report,” just think for a sec-

is this one of those “slow scope creeps?”

As a Bruce Lee worshiper, I use his teachings to approach my work life.

1st, Bruce Lee on “correct posture:”

Correct posture 1 = To be “mechanically favorable for the next move:”

What does “favourable” mean in the people, systems, and processes of my business?

How agile are they?

Which of those can I afford to lose?

Correct posture 2 = Maintains a “poker body” that reveals no more of its intended movements:

Do my actions distract?

Am I showing more than what’s needed in a sales pitch?

Am I probing too much when I meet someone new?

Am I under-sharing when trying to poach a superstar?

Correct posture 3 = Create tension most favorable to quick reaction and high coordination:

What combo of metrics (e.g. sales per hour + NPS?) empower us to choose quicker AND better?

How long does it take us to argue ferociously and effectively?

Are we uncomfortable enough?

Do you tend to focus or distract your team?

We are all familiar with the typical distractions …
– Boss’ rants
– Drawing attention to ourselves
– Derailing the agenda with poorly timed statements – “Let me jump in.”
– Asking your team if they have liked your #bossbetter LinkedIn posts

There are two types of distractions I have found particularly disruptive:

– Excessive reviewing -> Dragging the team to dwell on what has already happened
– Obsessive planning -> Wasting the team’s attention on what is about to happen

We all have tendencies. For example, I tend to be overly anxious and tend to ove rplan. My teams hated planning with me (my god this is the fifth time he is asking about what we should do with our left hand). 

What about you? 
Are you more “signal” or more “noise”?
What are your tendencies? 

Let me finish this with a quote I have found helpful:

“The greatest lapses in concentration come when we allow our minds to project what is about to happen or to dwell on what has already happened.” (W. Timothy Gallwey, The Inner Game of Tennis)

Is this quote “signal” or “noise”?

“I guess not.” 

He was respected by many. I found him manipulative. 

He was the kind of bosses who would go full-on “Maya Angelou” and preach, “It’s how you make people feel!”

Yet somehow, I would always feel good after chatting with him, after being in meetings with him, even after being chewed out by him.

I didn’t like to being jedi-mindtricked so predictably. “You cannot escape your destiny. You must face him again.” My ego whispered …

“Do you think about how you want people to feel when they interact with you?” He asked.

“Yes of course.” 

“How do you want people to feel?” He probed.

“Well, it depends, of course, but most of the time, respected, positive, er, hopeful.” 

“What is your process?” 

“Process?”

“Yea, the process of how you manipulate someone to feel the feelings you describe – respected, positive, hopeful.”

“Er …”

“Tell me a tweak you’ve made to improve this process.” He pushed.

“I get it. I don’t actually have a process. This approach sounds so robotic and unauthentic?” I relented.

“Well, we can try a different way, a way that is undoubtedly less manipulative and very direct in conveying emotions. Let me know if that works better or not, cool?” He said.

“Ok.”

“I love you?” He asked. 

“I guess not.” 

#bossbetter