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Practice the Platinum Rule

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While guesting with the fabulous Frankie Picasso on her Mission Unstoppable Podcast recently, we got to talking about what kind of behavior impacts engagement. She reminded me of the Platinum Rule.

Now, you might be thinking…I know about the Golden Rule (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you) and, although it may have emanated first from a holy book, it’s as universal as having a nose. But, what about the Platinum Rule?

When I am facilitating the Leadership Mastery series, I teach about this all of the time and, frankly, I had forgotten there was actually a rule about it. Happy for the reminder, I’m here to remind YOU.

The Platinum Rule is simply, “Treat others as THEY want to be treated”. This seemingly simple rule, kept or broken, can significantly impact engagement – so long as you are using it correctly.

Let’s dig in.

The Golden Rule is actually a problem we create in the workplace (or the world) without even knowing it. When we treat others as we would want to be treated, we have taken the focus off of the other and bounced it back to ourselves. We are saying, “Let me show you how I would prefer you do it in order to PLEASE ME”. The rule is a good start in terms of respect and regard but it stops short of what is needed today for connection and recognition.

The Platinum Rule is all about connection. You cannot execute this rule unless you truly know what the other person requires, what they like, what makes them tick. A risk, wafting off of the previous rule, is to make assumptions about what we think the other person wants. Can’t you see how that is still all about YOU?

The correct way to do this is to — wait for it—- here it comes—- ASK! Ask your employee, your co-worker, your boss, your wife. Ask what they prefer and what they want. And then, step two, LISTEN. Finally step three, take ACTION.

There is a positive outcome for executing this rule. Engagement, discretionary effort, good work attitude and enhanced communication are all positive effects of practicing this way of customizing personal communication.

Here is one example:

A large company I was working with questioned the effectiveness of the performance review process. This process, in it’s standard iteration, is all about MY assessment of YOU. In light of what we are talking about, can you see that would be problematic?

The team took a full year to create and perfect a new kind of review, the Talent Conversation, that shifted the conversation from assessment to inquiry. This “review” had a little more “preview” in it and perhaps there was still a bit of assessment but, the assessment was initiated from the employee. More important, the conversation focused on what the employee wanted to learn, perfect, grow and clearly articulated what success looked like from the company’s point of view. The process changed from the traditional look at lag measures (what has happened in the past) with a greater focus on lead measures (what can be created in the future). Most important, it was a robust conversation, creating connection and consideration of what kind of plan and ongoing interaction would support the employee for the growth they envisioned and desired. It also gave the manager personalized insight into what would support or diminish engagement. It busted assumptions and created data.

  • In this particular organization, the rate of internal promotions doubled. They are tracking for even more in 2018 as the organization is focused on where people want to grow and why they want to grow there.

You don’t have to re-do your performance management system to create this. You simply need to be willing to suspend your agenda and have a conversation with true intent to understand what the other person wants. Not everybody is motivated by the same thing. You can’t always give everyone everything that they want…but you can find out what makes people tick, what motivates them.

Maybe you want to start with one-on-ones with your employees. Good rule of thumb is to ask the associate to prepare the agenda and then let them talk 80% of the time. Scan yourself and you will likely see that you are doing most of the talking. How can you hear what is needed if you are doing all of the talking?

Or maybe you can start with rewards and recognition and kick the standardized, one-size-fits-all program to the curb in favor of fun and different ways of celebrating.

Wherever you start, begin with the OTHER in mind. Humans are complex and wonderful creatures and your natural sense of curiosity can really be satisfied when you practice the three steps of the Platinum Rule:

  1. Ask
  2. Listen
  3. Then, and only then, take customized action.

Stay Inspired!

Who is Your Leadership Lifeline

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I liked Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. It was exciting, surprising and nerve-wracking to witness who would roll the dice, what they knew and when they needed help. One of my favorite concepts was the “lifeline”. When stuck, the player could cast a lifeline to someone in their life who they felt could offer the BEST support in this situation.

Who is your leadership lifeline?
This is a special kind of friend or colleague who will not argue for your limitations. Rather, they will call you to a higher place of wisdom and action. They will not let you sit in a victim mentality for long. Instead, they will help you find your contribution and your creative way to solving your issue. They will not rescue you or pity you. What they WILL do is compassionately hold space or wisely ask the right questions to get you moving again.

How many times do we get triggered by a person, place or thing (think your politically-opposite relative at the last family gathering)? Human nature says to sit in the trigger, justify the feelings, judge the other and be righteous in our own mis-guided feelings. When we are unconscious, we will seek out those friends and colleagues who will agree with us, help us justify our position, pat our heads, sit in judgement with us and help us stay stuck in our righteousness. OK, be real…you know you have either done this or been THAT person.

The person who is Your Lifeline won’t play the justification game with you. That’s why they may be the THIRD OR FOURTH person you reach out to. You reach out when you are tired of feeling like a victim or if you are on to yourself and really want to win this game of Leadership Mastery. If you are lucky or committed to practicing your EQ on a daily basis, perhaps they are the first call you will make. You see the worm-hole you are about to descend into and need that extra boost to stay the leadership course. Thank heaven for the lifeline friends!

What about you? Are you willing to be a Lifeline for the people in your life.

Lifeline Tips:

  • You are neutral and don’t take on the other person’s issue or point of view.
  • You stay open to their experience without judgment of the feelings they are having.
  • You neither agree nor disagree with their point of view.
  • You hold an intention that they are greater and more powerful than the trigger they are currently experiencing. You hold that intention STRONGLY.
  • You ask great open-ended questions that help them to make leadership decisions.
  • When appropriate, you offer wisdom or feedback directly and without leading them to your own agenda.
  • You never take credit for the outcome, remembering you are a vehicle – a lifeline – for them to create their own powerful outcomes.

Being a Lifeline for another leader requires a high level of Emotional Intelligence.

  • You are willing to acknowledge that you and the other person have feelings and judging those feelings is not useful.
  • You accept your own feeling and triggers and learn to manage them well, knowing in that action you become a beacon of hope for others still navigating these tricky waters.
  • You are committed to practicing key skills of listening, inquiry, feedback and finding an internal neutral place so that, overtime, you are not only a Lifeline, you are a JEDI-MASTER Lifeline.

There is no greater honor than to be asked to support another person’s emotional growth. The key to mutual success is to know how to and BE an Emotionally Intelligent Leader.

Stay Inspired!

What Does Success Look Like?

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While moving into a new office recently, I stumbled upon four boxes of unused staples that were more than 30 years old.  Flash back to my first business.  I certainly knew my craft, but I hardly knew how to manage a business, yet alone how to manage a team.

The details.  I had a business – my first.  This was before computers and cell phones were the norm.  This was a time for AT&T land lines, receptionist or answering machines and you certainly couldn’t conduct business from your home (or the beach or your camper….).  My first of three employees was Bev.

Bev was earnest, wanted to make a difference and needed to be kept busy. I didn’t have the first clue how to set success measures for her.  So, without a plan to successfully manage the organization as I practiced my craft, I ended that business. I returned to a corporate environment with boxes full of file folders, file labels, legal pads and STAPLES!!”

Without a success rudder and left to her own devices, Bev thought she was doing what the business needed by ensuring we would never run out of office supplies!  Needless to say, my lack of ability to articulate a clear plan with success measures for each person on the team led to the business’ demise and the beginning of my journey on how to be a great leader and manager.  This was my fault, not Bev’s.  She was doing the best she could with what she knew.  I didn’t help her to know any better.

Moral of the story…you must teach your people what success looks like, make sure the training and resources are there and then check in on the progress to inspect the expectations.

Here is what I’ve learned along the way:

  1. Expectations begin with the first interview.  Plan your behavioral interviewing questions to ascertain a fit for your environment.  In doing so you also plant the seeds of expectations for success.
  2. On boarding is all about letting your new employee know what success looks like.  From the lay of the land in the office, to introductions to important work partners, to how the welcome tone is set…each of these becomes implicit measures of success.
  3. First week to 30 days of training are for naught without clearly communicated success measures, pointing to the resources available and agreeing on what the check-in process looks like.
  4. Inspect your expectations.  When you have the check-in process articulated, do it!  Check-in and use this time as celebration or re-calibration.
  5. Use feedback and coaching wisely to continue the successful outcomes, redirect the unsuccessful and to re-negotiate or introduce new success measures.

As managers and leaders, we are often lost in our own unconscious competence and we fail to communicate what success looks like.  We assume people know or will figure it out.  Left to their own devices, they may turn into the best purchasing clerks in the world and you, too, could find four boxes of staples thirty years later.

 

Stay Inspired!

 

Be The Bridge of Communication

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You are a bridge.  As an emotionally intelligent leader, able to navigate emotions and needs, you provide a bridge to those who have diverse styles of communicating. You know how to meet people where they are. You are at one end of the bridge and at the other end of this very long bridge somebody needs to receive your message. If you deliver your message in the same way time and time again, you’re only going to meet a quarter of the population as three-quarters of the population receive information in a different manner than the way you’re communicating. The world needs your message, let’s make sure you are heard.

Communication is behavior and behavior is observable, situational, flexible, dynamic and based on your thoughts and beliefs. That means communication can change by your own conscious choice.

Think about the diversity of communication and its impact on how you do or don’t get along with certain people. If you were to make a list of people who were easy to be with and people who were difficult to be with, you would see that the people who are easy to be with are similar and those more difficult are different than you. Your styles are similar or different and when you don’t know how to shift your style to meet the need, hardship and pain are the result.

The Four Behavioral Styles

For the sake of simplicity, let’s morph all the many behavioral profile results and distill them down to four behavioral common styles.  You will be able to recognize yourself and others in your work and life as we discuss the four styles.

Pretend you’ve drawn a cross in the middle of the page.  At the top, you have outgoing and on the bottom reserved. You have someone task-oriented on the left side and you have someone people oriented on the right side. Which one is better?  None are better than the other, they simply are. They are ways that you are wired and show up, and all four parts of the matrix are absolutely needed and invaluable in running a business.

One style of communicator is the Driver. The driver is task-oriented and outgoing, they want to drive an agenda, they want to make things happen and they do it through tasks. They see the world as filled with problems that need to be resolved. They easily take risks and move rapidly.

A second style is the Seller. The seller is outgoing and enjoys being in the spotlight and being at the front of the class.  They are people oriented and want to lead a team that wins with people. They are very verbal and often charismatic. Relationships are important to them so they will accomplish their tasks through people.

The Analyzer is reserved and task-focused. They don’t need to nor do they want to be in the spotlight. They are too busy focused on getting a task accomplished by analyzing facts and data and historical information. They ask, “why?” and make certain that key corporate metrics are achieved correctly. They avoid conflict and look at the world from the prism of standards.

Our final style is the Team Player who is reserved, yet people-centric. They don’t necessarily want to be in the spotlight yet they’re also very people focused. They’re committed to making sure that the team wins together. Steady eddy types, they accomplish task with stability and harmony and don’t like change.

With that cursory description, can you guess who you are? Are you a driver? Are you a seller? Are you an analyzer or are you a team player? It doesn’t make any difference which of the many behavioral assessments you may have taken, you’re generally going to fall into one or two of these four styles

Pick Up the Clues and Customize

Now that you’ve seen all four of these folks, what does it mean for you? Take what you see about yourself and then pick up the clues on other’s behaviors and customize your leadership communication. Each guest, client and associate is unique and they all have a preferred method of communicating.  Without conscious thought, most selling or managing is based upon the behavioral style of the seller or the manager. If you truly are the bridge for communication, you will see that this is backward. Know thyself and adapt to serve the person on the other side of the bridge.

Conflicts in style can result in tension, discomfort and lost opportunities so adapting your approach to the needs of the others will improve your chances of collaboration and results, simple as that.

Put It into Action

To sum this up and make it actionable, follow these tips:

  • Recognize your responsibility to create the bridge so that your message is received.
  • Understand where you fit in the behavioral matrix and how you prefer to communicate.
  • Pick up the clues from those around you to determine their preferences.
  • Adjust your style to meet their needs
    • Bottom line for drivers
    • Create connection with sellers
    • Provide details and data to analyzers
    • Create a clear playing field for team players
  • Rinse and repeat until this all feels natural to you.

The Ideal Leadership Team

There is a distinct benefit of having all four styles on the team. The ideal leadership team is comprised of the driver who generates the ideas and insists on the results and the seller who will go out and promote the ideas and generate the enthusiasm and the team players who make certain that ideas are carried out and bring stability to the group and then finally the analyzers who make certain that key details are covered and that the project is done well. You need all four. There’s not one right and there’s not one wrong. Drivers, sellers, team players and analyzers, they complete the puzzle so you need to customize your style to their preferences. That creates your leadership choices of how you will communicate.

Emotional Intelligence is strengthened with practice and consciousness. The idea of communication diversity, creates an expanded playing field for the EQ leader and, in turn, creates a diverse customer service experience, stake-holder experience and employee experience. It pays dividends to customize your communication.

Stay Inspired!

 

Leader or Manager?

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“Bad leaders care about who is right.  Good leaders care about what is right.”
– Simon Sinek

Per the Gallup Organization, 75% of workers who leave jobs do so because of poor relationships with their boss (aka – manager).

Assumption. Everyone reading this is a manager of people, process or project. Even if you are a sole business owner, you’ll sit in the management function because you must run your business. Management is the job of running the business.

  • Needed?…
  • Yes. 
  • Coveted?…
  • Sometimes.

In our signature system, Leadership Mastery™, we always begin by sorting the behaviors and characteristics of managers and leaders to understand the distinction. Imagine a sheet of paper with a line drawn down the middle and on the left side is manager and the right side is leader, what goes in each category?

Manager versus Leader

Managers are responsible for executing and delivering the strategy either through people or process. Your list may include P&L’s, defining goals, hiring and firing, inventory and other executable tasks. You own the daily list; the monthly list; the annual list of things that move your business forward. This is needed in any kind of a business. From a sole entrepreneur to a fortune 500 company, there must be a management process in place.
The Leader board will be different. Here is where you will find inspiration, vision, listening, motivation, and coaching. These are all characteristics that define a quality of being.

There is a distinct difference. Managers are doing and Leaders are being. 

Do you have to be manager to be a leader? No.  A leader can bubble up from any strata of any part of any company. Think about a line level employee who, without title, has a group of people willing to follow their lead?

Positional Power

Here is the important question – have you ever been managed by a manager (maybe this was you) who did not have leadership qualities? This is the manager who has a title and has not yet developed the necessary skills or attitudes to lead, but rather uses positional power to maneuver.

The manager who has not been trained or encouraged to adopt leadership behaviors is trouble waiting to happen.  You might be feared and maybe respected, but never fully followed. When you top-down manage by relying on your title, your employees may never own their own power and never be fully accountable for their own outcomes.  Positional power kills engagement.

Versus Personal Power

A leader works from the inside out with personal power. A leader moves people into action with influence, understanding and managing emotions, empathy and clear communication. The result is that employees are led to their own outcomes, there is a greater likelihood of accountability and people are willing to function as a team.

Now imagine your management duties imbued with leadership qualities. The outcome is likely engagement, satisfaction and enhanced discretionary effort (results!).

The manager tells and the leader influences. Those who are told are taught to be dependent and those who are influenced are taught to think for themselves from a place of purpose.

What kind of business team would you like to manage?

Leadership Tip

If you are ready for a leadership upgrade, take stock of how you are showing up in your business. Make a list of the leadership qualities that are strong in you and those that are not.  From that list, choose an action to practice for the next few weeks to elevate your leadership ability.

Stay Inspired!

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