#darkknightquotes

[etheraltheft-blog]

Mr Wayne i’m sorry they took all your money 

[lnhollinshead]

What Have I Learnt In 4.67 Years?

When you’ve spent the last 4.67 years of your life doing the same thing, it seems appropriate to reflect on what you’ve done; what you could have done better and what other people might learn from your experience.

I’m going to spell out what those things are right now.

1.       Management does not equal Leadership

I probably knew this before, but I’ve reaffirmed what I thought. People in management positions are not leaders, or at least not always. The idea of management and hierarchy gives people the false belief that because they are at the top that - naturally - that would mean they are leading the way. In the words of Les Dennis though, our survey says ‘XXX’.

During the last 4.67 years, I’ve seen leaders emerge from unlikely places and not a single one of them was a manager at the time. It may have been a contributing factor in them becoming managers later on, but it was definitely this way round – leadership first, then management.

Leadership as a concept works because it’s beneficial to both leaders and followers. Leaders get to enjoy the benefits of being at the top, which in this context means a senior title and more money. Followers get to enjoy the comforts of having a leader that protects them, and they are happy to sacrifice the benefits of being at the top for this kind of security.

Far too often, leaders fail on their part. They take all the glory but when the going gets tough – guess what, the followers pay the price. Followers do not stand for this and quickly turn on their leader, ousting them in some way or another. The best example of this is with the banking crisis – fat chief execs (the leaders) cashing in their massive bonuses, while all of their workforce (the followers) loses their jobs. In times of struggle, the leader should be the one making the sacrifice for the good of their followers, just as the followers have sacrificed for the leader to be in that position.

I’ve seen this happen far too many times over the last few years, where the followers pay the price, and the trust in management (the leaders) has completely fallen off a cliff. They scratch their heads at why there is an unmotivated workforce; why turnover is so high and why productivity is low. It’s because they have no trust in the direction of the leader because they know that when things go south, they will be the ones to suffer.

2.       Change is inevitable but widely resisted

I’ve seen so many initiatives go down in flames because somebody is unwilling to embrace change and the possibility of something better. Change is not always good, but it is inevitable, and people need to be more willing to accept this so they can make the best of it, rather than putting all of their energy in to preserving the status quo. It is a complete waste of time.

The people that embrace change and take risks are the ones who win. It’s very easy to look at the level of success you have now and assume that everything is going great, so there is no need to change. It’s a short term view and the success will be short lived – look at the bigger picture and what success means in the long run, and then go gung-ho on those changes.

3.       Values are the key to effective decision making

If you take the strategy of putting all of your decisions through your value system, you will always make the right decision. If you claim to be fair, open and honest – all of your decisions should have been assessed against these values, and people will have something to believe and buy into, because they know what you stand for and you’re consistent in the way you act. I think too many people negatively equate consistency with predictability, as if it’s a negative to know how something will behave in a given situation – it isn’t, it’s a good thing; it’s good for your customers and it’s good for your employees because they know what they are going to get. It is possible to be consistently good.

If you don’t go through this process, your values mean shit. You can’t be fair open and honest some of the time, when it suits your interests, you have to be willing to stand by those even if it doesn’t go in your interest. You have to be willing to turn down that short term opportunity that goes against your values for the longer term success you will get by sticking with them.

4.       Money isn’t always a motivator, but it is a hygiene factor that needs to be addressed

Not everybody needs or even wants to earn huge amounts of money. It is perfectly possible to live a happy life without millions in the bank – in fact it’s probably easier- and whilst some people are willing to give up every hour they have in the pursuit of more cash, some people aren’t.

The problem is that whilst money might not be motivating, it’s still necessary. Nobody is going to say you can live without money – they’d be deluded. There needs to be a point where money is not an issue for anybody; a base level where people can feel comfortable in the knowledge that they can continue to live. After this point, people can decide for themselves whether they are motivated to pursue more money by putting in more hours, more effort, more more,more,more or they can choose to be content with the money they have, knowing that they are safe. Take that issue off the table, do not keep people living from month to month wondering whether they can survive.

5.       Be prepared to ruffle some feathers – do not become a yes man

Early on, it seems wise to agree with everything your peers and superiors say. You don’t want to stand out from the crowd too much. In time though, this is the wrong decision. You must be prepared to disagree – as this gives people the opportunity to question why they believe what they believed in the first place. This is another critical element in the decision making process. A room full of people simply agreeing with each other will ultimately be wrong. Ask the questions, people will be thankful in the end.

6.       Gratitude is important above all else

You must be grateful for every opportunity that you are presented with and for every piece of help you receive. If you appreciate the time and effort that people have put in for you, they are more likely to want to do it again in future. Part of being gracious then is also to be willing to give something back. People quickly realise if they are being taken advantage of.

7.       Choose your mentors wisely

A mentor should be someone who has taken the path you wish to follow. Learn from their story, from the mistakes they made, and don’t repeat them. If you are arbitrarily assigned a mentor, whilst you might gain some value from their insights, over time it will be fruitless if you don’t want to go the same way that they have been.

8.       Maintain a network of connections for the best results

The more diverse your connections are, the better your output is going to be. The benefit of diversity is the same as having one naysayer in a room of yes men – it makes your question your position and consider the alternatives.

You are very unlikely to build deep relationships with a lot of people – the effort would be unmanageable – but you can nurture a high number of connections with just a small piece of regular communication.

Bill Clinton is always the famous example used here, with his 10,000 note cards on all of the people he’d met. I’m not suggesting that we should all have our own dossiers on every person we met on the bus once on the way to a meeting, but there is a lot of value in developing a system like this, so we can know who to call and when.

9.       Give people the what, let them decide the how

Creativity gets stifled when people try to spell out every step of a process and impose this on somebody. If you know what the outcome is, you should leave it to the person carrying out the process to determine how they get there.

Micromanagement is the death of creativity and productivity; the creativity will be yours, and the productivity will be the micromanagers. It’s very easy to spot this kind of relationship – the micromanager will claim to be busy (all of the time) and yet you will see little if any output from them. All the while, the employee will be sat wondering why none of their ideas matter and why they can’t be more helpful in alleviating some of the pressure.

If you delegate a task to somebody, make them believe that you trust them to complete it and then leave them to get on with it. I’m not saying you should wash your hands of it, be around for support absolutely, but do not impose yourself on the process.

10.   Die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain

There are so many good quotes from The Dark Knight aren’t there?

Always know when to get out – I’ve learnt this the hard way. I look back over the last few years and there have been times where I have felt like the hero; I’ve made a significant improvement to a process or way of work and the praise has come in floods.

Perhaps I’ve suffered from egotism here, because in times where that praise has dried up, I’ve felt like the villain and have been more concerned with what other people think about me and my work than the work itself.

The real learn from this may not be to know when to get out, but to be always focussed on what you can control; your work, your effort, your beliefs; and less about the externals, because they will change constantly and to live for praise and recognition is to die at the folly of others.

For me then, on to the next challenge and to put the systems and processes in place to avoid these pitfalls again.