In this issue: THE CRITICAL CONFLUENCE: THIS BREAKTHROUGH PROCESS CAN TRIGGER BIG RESULTS IMMEDIATELY. CAN YOU AFFORD NOT TO USE IT?
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“Authority is a poor excuse for leadership. Poor leaders order people to do a job. Action leaders have those people choose to be the cause leaders of that job -- for more results faster, continually.” –Brent Filson
Vol. 3 Number 1 -- January, 2005
Publisher: The Filson Leadership Group, Inc.
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IN THIS ISSUE:
SECTION 1: The Critical Confluence
SECTION 2: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.
SECTION 3: Points of Light.
SECTION 4: Message from Brent Filson: Our Post-Election Divide Is A Great Thing!
SECTION 5: News.
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SECTION 1: The Critical Confluence.
The Leader’s Fallacy lives! In fact, it’ll never die. From here to eternity, there will always be leaders who live by the Fallacy, not knowing that in the races one runs as a leader, the Fallacy is the equivalent of being equipped with lead boots.
We subscribe to the Fallacy when we believe our enthusiasm about a particular leadership challenge is automatically reciprocated by the people.
If ignorance is bliss than those leaders going around blithely dictated to by the good offices of the Leader’s Fallacy have cornered the market on happiness.
Let’s get this straight: Reciprocity is baloney. Don’t trust it. It’s more productive instead to trust in INVERSE RECIPROCITY: i.e., whatever motivates you, “DE-motivates” the people.
That’s particularly true for leaders who are trying to motivate the people to be better than they think they are. You’ll never know how good you are as a leader unless you are engaged in that endeavor. In doing so, you’ll always be getting at least some of the people angry. As you should! Many people resist being challenged to move out of their comfort zone. But if you intend to get great results, people have to be pushed and to push themselves. So, if you’re not experiencing the law of inverse reciprocity, if you’re not getting some of them angry because they are being forced out of their status quo, you’re not being the leader you should be.
This doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t have the people share in your enthusiasms. Of course, you can. Just don’t think it’s automatic. Think instead that you have to go through a rigorous process to make it happen. In this ezine, I’ll provide you with the process. It’s outcome is called the CRITICAL CONFLUENCE, the confluence of your enthusiasms and theirs. In other words, if you apply the process in the right way, they’ll become as enthusiastic as you about meeting the challenges you face.
After all, leaders must be motivated about those challenges. If you’re not motivated, you shouldn’t be leading. But your motivation is irrelevant simply because it’s a given. Here’s what’s relevant: Can you transfer your motivation to the people so they are as motivated as you are? Most leaders get this wrong. Get this right, and you’ve dramatically increased the effectiveness of your leadership now and throughout your whole career.
Here’s the idea: everyone has major needs that shape their thinking and their actions day in and day out. If you want those people to take action for you, you must get at those needs in such a way THAT THE ACTION YOU HAVE THEM TAKE BRINGS THEM CLOSER TO FULFILLING THOSE NEEDS.
By the way, the critical confluence is not “win/win”. As you’ll see, it’s much deeper and richer relationship than the self-limiting “win/win”; for unlike “win/win”, the critical confluence is an on-going relationship process from which flow mutually beneficial expectations and solutions.
I’ve already discussed some ways to make this transfer happen.
http://www.actionleadership.com/ezine/v2n4.html
The critical confluence is a 7 step process.
(1) RECOGNIZE. Recognize that whatever results you’re challenged to get, you must first get a critical confluence. And the best way to get one is to apply this process.
Clearly, you can avoid the process and simply order the people to do a job. Order leaders don’t need the critical confluence. But I submit that order-leadership ultimately gets limited results. Great results only happen with truly motivated people. And you can’t motivate people consistently without recognizing the importance of this process.
(2) DEFINE YOUR GOALS AND THEIR NEEDS. Last month, I dealt with defining the people’s needs.
http://www.actionleadership.com/ezinev2n11.html
I suggest you read that issue again to make sure you understand how defining their needs is done in the right way.
In this ezine, I’ll use a generic example of “going to the mountain.” In order to trigger a critical confluence, you must define organizational goals in precise terms, i.e., We must go to the mountain. Going there will have us stand out from the crowd. No other organization has been there before. It will give us more market share. Doing it will make us more competitive. It will attract great people to our organization. It will give us greater profit margin.
What are the goals of your particular organization? Clarify those goals using the SAMMER test. It’s one of the greatest leadership tools of all.
http://www.actionleadership.com/ezine/v2n8.html
Next, define their needs in precise terms. Let's say their needs are simply to go to the hill. They don’t want to go to the mountain. They say, “The mountain’s too far away. It’s too high. There’s too much risk. It’ll take too much effort. We don’t have enough resources to get up there. Let’s stick with the hill. We know how to get there. It’s easy to get there. We’re comfortable with the hill.”
So, the issue is clear. You and your organization need to go to the mountain. They want to go to the hill. You’re confronting a big gap between your goals and their needs.
Don’t be discouraged by the gap. The gap you’ve identified is reality. If you were thinking they automatically reciprocated your enthusiasm about going to the mountain when they really wanted to go to the hill, you’d be in trouble; you’ll be saying and doing things that had no connection to their needs.
But knowing the gap exists, you can do something about it. By the way, if you want to get great results, you must identify and close every gap separating your goals and their needs. You cannot get great results as long as the gap exists. The next five steps involve closing the gap.
(3) TEST. The word “test” comes from a Latin root meaning an earthen pot with a lid. In other words, when you test something, you apply specific pressure to it within a confined space.
So, you test your need to go to the mountain. And you also test their need to go to the hill. In both cases, you apply specific pressure to what you’re testing within specific parameters.
My testing mechanism is price/values/rewards.
* Price test: Define clearly the price of attaining the organization’s goal, price in terms of the expenditure of time, resources, and personal commitment. Are you yourself willing to pay the price to get it? Is your organization willing to pay the price to get it? Is the price worth the benefits you achieve from reaching the goal? Get down to basics: What’s your organization about? What results must it get? How do you validate those results? To help you answer these questions, read these two ezines:
Rewards:
http://www.actionleadership.com/ezine/v1n3.html
Results Are Limitless.
http://www.actionleadership.com/ezine/v1n4.html
For example, is the mountain worth the time and trouble to go to? What will the organization really achieve by going to the mountain?
Clearly, you may be asking questions that are not in your purview to answer. Higher ups in your organization may be struggling with the answers to the questions. Or they may have answered the questions and are not asking for your input at all, simply your compliance.
The point is that if you are going to make a critical convergence happen, you must understand the price needed to be paid to obtain the goal. Maybe that price is simple compliance with no questions asked. Or maybe the price is open to negotiation with upper management. Whatever the price is, it must be clearly and precisely understood by all parties involved in reaching the goal.
The critical confluence cannot be triggered if you and the people have differing views of price, for such views often lead to their not trusting you.
Next, what is the price the people expect to pay going to the mountain? Mind you, this is not the price YOU believe they should pay. It’s the price THEY believe they should pay. At this point, do not be involved in defining their expectations. Do not judge the price they feel they must pay. At this point, you are simply an observer.
* Values' test. Don't let price drive out values. Values provide the adhesion for common ways of feeling, thinking and acting. People feel strongly about values. And it is in the crucible of strong feelings that culture is formed. What value or values does your obtaining the organization’s goal communicate? For instance, going to the mountain involves persistence, organization, teamwork, and courage. Are those the values you want to instill in your team?
Likewise, what values do they espouse in wanting to go to the hill? Are they the values you want them to espouse? Are they the values they are proud to espouse? Are they the values that will help them help the organization do well?
* Rewards test. What are the rewards? Are the rewards worth the price? Are the rewards tied to values? Also: What are the PENALTIES for not achieving the organizational goal.
This is a critical area for stakes’ gaps. In this case, what are the stakes involved in going to the mountain? What are the stakes involved in going to the hill? People cannot be motivated unless you and they agree on the stakes of a challenge you face.
Also, know that the most powerful rewards are tied to their needs.
Make sure that you reach agreement with them on the importance of the rewards to them. This can be done by having them lead a process that identifies the rewards and defines their value. If the rewards do not have value to them, they will not be committed to paying the price to achieve them.
(4) LIST. This is a vital step. Do this right. Convergence begins here.
List the benefits of your needs. For instance, you may say that going to the mountain will help make your organization the most competitive in the industry. You may say having the organization be highly competitive will enhance job security for all the people.
On the other hand, they say that going to the hill will allow them to avoid dangerous and stressful exertions. They say they know how to go to the hill. They say, “Why fix something what’s not broke?” They say they would rather do the old things they know even if they are wrong than the right things they don’t know, even if those things are right. In short, they give you the “status quo pep talk,” – a rousing communication for keeping things as they are.
At this stage, do not try to compare and evaluate your findings. Simply list them on a sheet of paper, one column for you and the other column for them. Come to an agreement with them as to precisely what they are. Do not list them on their side if they do not agree they should be listed.
YOUR BENEFITS: THEIR BENEFITS:
* Be more competitive. * Work at what we know.
* Achieve more rewards. * Don’t fix what’s not broke.
* Greater job security. * Maintain status quo.
(5) PRIORITIZE. Have each person, or each representative of the organization and of the people, draw up a priority list of the benefits.
But here’s the important thing: THEY MUST DRAW UP A LIST NOT OF THEIR BENEFITS BUT OF THE BENEFITS ACCRUING TO THE OTHER SIDE.
The priority must be in descending order of importance with the most important at the top.
In other words, the organization people or their representatives, who want to go to the mountain, draw up and prioritize, the benefits of going to the hill. The people or their representatives, who want to go to the hill, draw up and prioritize, the benefits of going to the mountain.
This compels both sides to take a hard look at the other side’s challenges.
Caution: This won’t work if either or both sides distrusts the other and/or doesn’t respect the other’s abilities. In matters where distrust is endemic, the critical confluence process won’t work.
(In a future ezine, I’ll talk about how to establish or re-establish trust in a deteriorating leadership situation.)
(6) INTEGRATE. Identify those high-priority benefits that you share a common need for. It’s been my experience that at the top of both lists will be needs that are practically identical. For instance, job security is a key benefit that nearly everyone can share. So is career advancement and good pay.
What if the lists drawn up by both parties did not identify common needs? Then you’ll know that making a critical convergence happen will be tough. But at least knowing it’ll be tough gives you an edge. Going blindly forward without that knowledge, as many leaders do, is failure in the making. The point is that before you can go forward with the critical convergence you have to identify and agree upon common needs.
Going to the mountain will enable you and them to have better job security -- going to the hill, less.
(7) MOTIVATE: Persuade them of the overwhelming necessity of your benefits. Do that by showing the benefits as solutions to the problems of their major needs.
Let’s say in this case, both parties listed job security and good pay as a top priorities on both sides. Then it is up to you to show the “hill side” how going to the mountain will enable them to have better job security and better pay (THEIR NEEDS) than simply going to the hill.
Furthermore, you should aim for more than simple persuasion. Aim instead for them to actually be motivated to go to the mountain.
http://www.actionleadership.com/ezine/v1n5.html
From that motivation, you can outline action steps that they can take to make it happen. Enlist their advice in developing the steps.
The critical confluence can only be developed through common values and benefits. Don't try to integrate disparate needs -- i.e., integrate the mountain and the hill -- instead, integrate the values and benefits, and the combined needs will naturally emerge. Clearly, you must go to the mountain. Yet the people whose need was the hill can be motivated to go to the mountain only when they see that the benefits of the mountain-needs are much greater than the benefits of the hill. That small change in perspective makes a big difference in people's commitment.
Finally, making a critical confluence happen is no walk down the primrose path. Don’t look upon it as a magic bullet that will solve your motivational problems. It’s a process, a single process. There are many other processes you can use to get the critical convergence. But this process can be a beginning.
Sometimes, you’ll come to a dead end in this process, especially in steps 5 & 6. You might want to try other approaches and come back to the process later. Just keep working the process. Think of your activities as being like a stream of water going down hill. When it comes to an obstruction, it goes around it or under it or over it, but it just keeps going. So it is with the critical convergence: like a stream of water, be gentle, be persistent, be irresistible, be continuous. Keep making progress no matter how small or little noticed that progress may seem. Make the critical convergence a way of life, and you’ll find it gives you unexpected rewards at unexpected times.
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SECTION TWO: The Good. The Bad. The Ugly.
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The Good:
Oswald Avery, the Canadian-born bacteriologist, who was one of the founders of immunochemistry and conceived important contributions to DNA, worked for many years in a small laboratory at the hospital of Rockefeller Institute in New York City. A great many of his experimental predictions turned out to be wrong. But he was renown for never getting discouraged and seeing his errors as positive lessons. He had a saying, “Whenever you fall, pick up something.”
That’s a motto for the critical convergence. Like Avery, you will “fall” often; but keep working the process. Always be willing to “pick up something.”
The Bad:
When the great English poet Alexander Pope was lying on his death bed, his physician told him that his pulse was stronger, his breathing more even, the complexion in his cheeks rosier, and various other encouraging symptoms. “Here I am,” replied Pope, “dying of a hundred good symptoms.”
In leadership, we can “die through a hundred good symptoms” by believing in what we conceive are the many good signs of the Leader’s Fallacy.
The Ugly:
Anaxagoras, the great Greek philosopher and friend and teacher to Pericles, was accused of impiety by the Greek jurists and banished, despite Pericles’ efforts to save him. He took refuge at Lampsacus on the Hellespont, and the Athenians condemned him to death in absentia. When he heard the news, he said, “Nature has long since condemned both them and me.”
Since we will all be dead in the long run, and some of us in the short run, your leadership should take into consideration Anaxagoras’ observation. Being mortal, must we not work on what is really important in our life? And what is more important than how we help each other?
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SECTION THREE: Points of Light.
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“Nature has given to men one tongue, but two ears, that we may hear from others twice as much as we speak.” –Epictetus
“Consideration is half conversion.” –Brent Filson
“You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.” –John Morely
“Conversion is not implanting eyes, for they exist already; but giving them a right direction, which they have not.” –Plato
“There is no eloquence without a man behind it.” –Emerson.
“I do not teach, I relate.” –Montaigne.
“An excellent means of gaining the heart of others is to submit and trust in it.” –Montaigne.
“Men freely believe that which they desire.” –Julius Caesar.
“Though reason is important in developing a critical convergence, that convergence is always, ultimately, an act of faith.” –Brent Filson
“It’s amazing how nice people are to you when they know you’re going away.” –Michael Arlen
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SECTION FOUR: Our Post-Election Divide Is A Great Thing! By Brent Filson:
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America’s political divisions, made sharper by the recent presidential election, strengthen not weaken our nation.
Our secret weapon in this war on terror is NOT that we are a nation united, but that we are a nation DIVIDED.
As long as we come out of such a bitterly contested election as this one with our democracy strong and functioning, we’ll win this war much sooner than pundits are speculating..”
It’s important to keep in mind that our republic has been beset, since its inception, by rancorous elections. In the election of 1800, for instance, passions between the Republican and Federalist parties were so inflamed, the survival of our democracy was in question. Federalist newspapers howled that if Jefferson were elected ‘the teaching of murder, robbery, rape, adultery, and incest would be rampant’. Remarkably -- miraculously even -- the Federalists peacefully handed over power to their hated rivals, setting a precedent that has guided American politics ever since.
The crucible of the American electoral process promotes rigorous testing of the issues and the leadership capabilities of the candidates. For instance, the closeness of the race forced Bush out of the presidential bubble in which he had been giving canned speeches to canned audiences throughout most of his presidency and made him -- especially in the last few weeks of the campaign -- address audiences spontaneously from the heart. He is much the better man and better leader for the campaign experience -- and hopeful, if he doesn’t retreat back into the bubble, will be a much better president.
We’ll come to see that our nation is far better at waging the war on terror having gone through this divisive campaign.
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SECTION FIVE: NEWS:
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Brent’s latest leadership book, The Leadership Talk: The Greatest Leadership Tool, is available in bookstores. You can also purchase copies by calling 800-403-5368. Mention this e-zine and you’ll receive a free wallet card with the Leadership Talk processes. If you purchase the hardcover book, you’ll receive a free copy of Brent’s new book, 101 Ways To Give Great Leadership Talks. In addition, you’ll be eligible to receive a set of Brent’s previously published books at half price.
Listen to Brent being interviewed recently on Audiomotivation.com.
http://audiomotivation.com/go/brent-filson1204.htm
Since Memorial Day, Brent has been interviewed on more than 100 radio shows. If you are interested in having him on your show or at your meeting, go to the Action Leadership website and click on either the “meeting planner” button or the “press room” button.
The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. is putting together a CD collection of interviews with leaders, called the “Leaders Speak” Series. It will begin this month and can be found on the Action Leadership website. Click on “Leaders Speak CD Series.” Brent says, “I want to interview leaders from a broad spectrum of human endeavor to be represented. Don’t be surprised to find landscape contractors, gang leaders, horse trainers, sports coaches, as well as business and political leaders. Leadership is practiced by practically everyone, and we will bring it to you on the CDs in all the richness of human relationships.” For more information, call the F.L.G. headquarters, 413-458-4403 or email Brent at brent@actionleadership.com
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