look for reasons to criticize

There is no end to the creativity, ingenuity, and tenacity of those who look for reasons to criticize. They cannot seem to release their grip on grudges. They gossip and find fault with others. They nurse wounds for decades, taking every opportunity to tear down and demean others....

We have a choice. We can seek for the bad in others. Or we can make peace and work to extend to others the understanding, fairness, and forgiveness we so desperately desire for ourselves. It is our choice; for whatever we seek, that we will certainly find.

Dieter F. Uchtdorf

"Looking for the Good" Liahona. March 2011

don't throw me out of the boat!

When I think of crisis I think of the story of Louie Zamperini as told by Laura Hillenbrand in her book, Unbroken. While on a rescue mission, Louie’s B-24 crashed into the Pacific Ocean. The three survivors (Zamperini and his crewmates, pilot Russell Allen "Phil" Phillips and Francis "Mac" McNamara) end up in a life raft with minimal food, trying to make landfall. One night, in an act of panic, Mac ate all of the chocolate bars (approximately 6) as the other men slept. Mac’s actions put the other two at significant risk. Louie and Phil were discouraged by Mac’s actions, but they didn’t throw him overboard.

Later, the three men are spotted by an enemy fighter pilot, who strafes the small raft – puncturing the boat. Hillenbrand writes:

Phil’s raft had been slashed in two…. [T]he ruined raft… didn’t sink, but it was obviously far beyond repair…. Each time one of the men moved, air sighed out of the chambers and the… raft sat lower and lower in the water. The sharks whipped around it, surely excited by the bullets, and the sight and smell of men in the water, and the sinking raft,

As the men sat together, exhausted and in shock, a shark lunged up over a wall of the raft, mouth open, trying to drag a man into the ocean. Someone grabbed an oar and hit the shark, and it slid off. Then another shark jumped on, and, after it, another…. As they turned and swung and the sharks flopped up, air was forced out of the bullet holes, and the raft sank deeper. Soon, part of the raft was completely submerged.

If the men didn’t get air into the raft immediately, the sharks would take them…. The men hooked [a pump] up to one of the two valves and took turns pumping as hard as they could. Air flowed into the chamber and seeped out through the bullet holes, but the men found that if they pumped very quickly, just enough air passed through the raft to lift it up in the water and keep it mostly inflated. The sharks kept coming, and the men kept beating them away….

Louie began patching… As Louie worked, keeping his eyes on the patches, the sharks kept snapping at him…. Hour after hour, the men worked, rotating the duties, clumsy with fatigue. The pumping was an enormous exertion for the diminished men…. All three men were indispensable. Had there been only two, they couldn’t have pumped, patched, and repelled the sharks. For the first time on the raft, Mac was truly helpful. He was barely strong enough to pull the pump handle a few times in a row, but with the oar he kept every shark away.

I think of those three men, struggling to survive in the boat. Surely, if Louie and Phil had thrown Mac overboard for eating all of their food, they wouldn’t have survived the sinking raft and attacking sharks. Mac had the opportunity to act during this crisis, and his heroic efforts saved the lives of the men. Mac was necessary to avert disaster.

While we’re in crisis situations, stress levels rise and it’s easy to find fault with one another. Encouragement is more important than criticism when the team is truly up against it. Are you inspiring the troops, or busy trying to throw them overboard when the going gets tough?

Adam Dibble

"Don't throw me out of the boat!" leadershipYES 2/24/2016

and make sure to read:

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand. Random House. 2010.

toxic leadership

[Tony] Fadell’s reputation for being intense, very animated, and prone to raise his voice (not necessarily in anger) spilled over to push the Nest team. Carr wrote, "A meme is floating around the office comparing Fadell's style to that of the Mountain in Game of Thrones, the towering brawler known for beating his opponents to a pulp. But surviving as a startup consumer electronic brand requires just that sort of attitude." Another anecdote reveals: "When one employee failed to live up to his standards, Fadell ordered a manager to fire the employee, saying, "You gotta Glock Glock that dude," as he mimed shooting off a handgun. He was joking, but unapologetic."

All of that fist-banging and hard driving for perfection is supposed to bring out the best in his employees, according to his cofounder Matt Rogers. "But at the same time, he is incredibly caring and passionate about their development," Rogers said.

You can’t develop much of anything under such circumstances, according to workplace experts. As psychologist Paul White notes, toxic leadership may appear successful for a while. "Over the long term, their attitudes and actions catch up with them," he says, "Trust and teamwork deteriorate in their areas; they have a high turnover rate in their department, and they will eventually destroy the health of the organization."

Lindsay McGregor and Neel Doshi, co-authors of Primed to Perform, underscore the importance of total motivation and how it erodes or boosts bottom line results. "In one company we surveyed, salespeople with positive "total motivation" produced 28% more revenue than their more negatively motivated counterparts."

Lydia Dishman

"What's Going On At Nest?" FastCompany. 2/17/2016

focus on dreams instead of failings

“If everything worked out perfectly in your life, what would you be doing in ten years?”

Such a question opens us up to fresh possibilities, to reflect on what matters most to us, and even what deep values might guide us through life. This approach gives managers a tool for coaching their teams to get better results.

Contrast that mind-opening query with a conversation about what’s wrong with you, and what you need to do to fix yourself.  That line of thinking shuts us down, puts us on the defensive, and narrows our possibilities to rescue operations. Managers should keep this in mind, particularly during performance reviews.

That question about your perfect life in ten years comes from Richard Boyatzis, a professor at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western, and an old friend and colleague.  His recent research on the best approach to coaching has used brain imaging to analyze how coaching affects the brain differently when you focus on dreams instead of failings. These findings have great implications for how to best help someone – or yourself — improve.

As I quoted Boyatzis in my book Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence,  “Talking about your positive goals and dreams activates brain centers that open you up to new possibilities. But if you change the conversation to what you should do to fix yourself, it closes you down.”

Daniel Goleman

"When You Criticize Someone, You Make It Harder for that Person to Change." Harvard Business Review Blog. 12/19/2013

passionately remind them

Most of us know this instinctively, but in the heat of the moment, it's easy to forget how powerful an insight it can be. In an experiment at Harvard in the early 2000s, for example, psychologists gave a math test to a group of college students, all Asian American women. Researchers randomly split the group into two. Before being given the test, one group was subtly reminded that they were women; the other that they were Asian Americans. What happened? The first group performed below average; the second group, above it. The lesson: Perceptions--in this case, that women are weak in math and that Asian Americans excel in it--can have a huge impact on performance. Other studies have found the same thing. In the 1970s, researchers at Harvard asked subjects to take a math test, then paired them up to role-play a boss and an assistant. Then they were given another test. The scores of the assistants dropped an average of 50%.

As the leader of a company, of course, you are constantly faced with employees who do not perform up to expectations. What should you do? The single worst thing is to call them lazy and attempt to shame them into taking action. Instead, employees need to be reminded of what they are capable of accomplishing, even as you observe that they are falling short of their potential.

Which brings us back to Sir Winston. In his early days as Prime Minister, Churchill also had to exhort a war-weary military, Parliament, and public to stay the course. In a make-or-break speech to the House of Commons, Churchill acknowledged "the darker side of our danger and burdens" and went on to say, "It is in adversity that British qualities shine the brightest, and it is under these extraordinary tests that the character of our slowly wrought institutions reveals its latent, invisible strength." The speech has been credited with helping to revive Britain's sagging spirits and gradually changing the course of the war.

So if your people seem to have lost some of the passion they once had for their jobs and your company... why not take a page from Churchill and passionately remind them about the light within them? Who knows what possibilities you may create?

Hitendra Wadhwa

"What Would Winston Do?" Inc. 5/29/2012

he had gone too far

As he began forging his political ambitions, Lincoln recognized the power of words to weaken and even destroy his opponents, and so he started to attack them with powerful volleys of criticism and mockery. Upon provocation at a political gathering in 1840, Lincoln mimicked and ridiculed his opponent, Jess Thomas, to uproarious cheering of the crowd. Thomas, who was present at the event, was reduced to tears, and for years afterwards, the people referred to it as "the skinning of Thomas." 

Lincoln was also in the habit of writing anonymous letters to newspapers to sharply criticize his adversaries. On one occasion in 1842, for instance, he used the fictitious identity of "Rebecca" to castigate and deride the state auditor, James Shields, calling him "a fool and a liar" in a letter, and making mock-allegations of an unflattering conversation that James had had with Rebecca. 

But the Lincoln we know as president was not this brash, impulsive politician who launched personal attacks on his opponents. What made him change? All along, something had been stirring within him. Right after the "skinning of Thomas" in 1840, one of his friends reported that "…the recollection of his own conduct that evening filled [Lincoln] with the deepest chagrin. He felt he had gone too far and to rid his good nature of a load, hunted up Thomas and made ample apology," according to an excerpt in Benjamin Thomas, Lincoln's Humor: An Analysis. 

This inner stirring intensified when some of his verbal attacks drew unfavorable consequences for Lincoln himself. In fact, when the letter he signed as "Rebecca" was published, the recipient of his reproach, Shields, was so enraged that he forced the newspaper to divulge the writer's identity, and, when he was told that it was Lincoln, accosted Lincoln and challenged him to a duel. Good sense prevailed on both men just moments before they were to commence this fight-unto-death. Having learned a lesson by coming so close to an inglorious death, Lincoln never wrote such anonymous letters again. 

Gradually molding his character this way, Lincoln also became highly attuned to the feelings of others, including his enemies, and highly measured in the way he communicated in adversarial situations. This was a crucial quality for leading America at a time when the nation was so divided, and the wounds of a Civil War had to be rapidly healed. Once, as he and his wife Mary Todd Lincoln were approaching Washington in a carriage, she remarked, "This city is full of enemies," Lincoln injected, "Enemies? Never again must we repeat that word."

Hitendra Wadhwa

"Lessons in Leadership: How Lincoln Became America's Greatest President." Inc. Magazine. Feb 12, 2012.

banish the but

[Frances] Hesselbein says the number one element of listening is “banish the but.” She writes: If we want people to listen, we must banish “but” from our vocabulary. How many times have we had someone tell us how well we performed—and we were feeling good about the feedback, listening carefully—then we heard “but,” and the positive, energizing part of the feedback was lost in the “but” and what followed it. “But” is nobody’s friend—listener or speaker. “And” provides the graceful transition, the nonthreatening bridge to mutual appreciation, the communication that builds effective relationships. 

Michael McKinney

"Frances Hesselbein: To Serve is To Live." Leading Blog. 2/16/2011

the art of the critique

Harry Levinson, a psychoanalyst turned corporate consultant, gives the following advice on the art of the critique, which is intricately entwined with the art of praise:

• Be specific. Pick a significant incident, an event that illustrates a key problem that needs changing or a pattern of deficiency, such as the inability to do certain parts of a job well. It demoralizes people just to hear that they are doing “something” wrong without knowing what the specifics are so they can change. Focus on the specifics, saying what the person did well, what was done poorly, and how it could be changed. Don’t beat around the bush or be oblique or evasive; it will muddy the real message. This, of course, is akin to the advice to couples about the “XYZ” statement of a grievance: say exactly what the problem is, what’s wrong with it or how it makes you feel, and what could be changed.  “Specificity,” Levinson points out, “is just as important for praise as for criticism. I won’t say that vague praise has no effect at all, but it doesn’t have much, and you can’t learn from it.”
• Offer a solution. The critique, like all useful feedback, should point to a way to fix the problem. Otherwise it leaves the recipient frustrated, demoralized, or demotivated. The critique may open the door to possibilities and alternatives that the person did not realize were there, or simply sensitize her to deficiencies that need attention – but should include suggestions about how to take care of these problems.
• Be present. Critiques, like praise, are most effective face to face and in private. People who are uncomfortable giving a criticism – or offering praise – are likely to ease the burden on themselves by doing it at a distance, such as in a memo. But this makes the communication too impersonal, and robs the person receiving it of an opportunity for a response or clarification.
• Be sensitive. This is a call for empathy, for being attuned to the impact of what you say and how you say it on the person at the receiving end. Managers who have little empathy, Levinson points out, are most prone to giving feedback in a hurtful fashion, such as the withering put-down. The net effect of such criticism is destructive: instead of opening the way for a corrective, it creates an emotional backlash of resentment, bitterness, defensiveness, and distance.

Daniel Goleman

Emotional Intelligence. Random House LLC, 2006. 358 pages, p.153, 154

does this need to be said?

There is this idea that people are meaner than they used to be because of the internet... People are no meaner than they used to be - people have always been #@*%&! #@*%&!'s... What happens is that the technology is just faster.... You have this crazy idea, a crazy angry thought, "I've got a crazy angry thought!" and clickety click click click and boom! - it's out. And you don't have time to slow down and ask yourself the three things you must always ask yourself before you say anything, which is: 

1. Does this need to be said?

2. Does this need to be said by me?

3. Does this need to be said by me now?

Three #@*%&! marriages it took me to learn that.

Craig Ferguson

"Does This Need to Be Said?" 2011.