feeling is first…

On By Lexi EmmonsIn LeadershipLeave a comment

During a discussion with my wife about an issue at work, she dropped one of the touchstones we share. All she said was, “Feeling is first,” from a poem by E.E. Cummings.

But why am I talking about a poem in a space about leadership and customer experience?

Because you will never be a better _________ than you are a person. You can fill in that blank with any role you play. You will never be a better leader, boss, spouse, parent, coach, or teacher than you are a person. You have to invest in yourself, and in your whole person, to be the best you can be at any other role.

And I do mean a whole person. Granted, you get to define what a whole person means to you personally. But it’s pretty easy to agree that a whole person is more than just their corporate role and more than just their trade. I have met plenty of individuals who are well-steeped in the business books of their field. But their knowledge is almost entirely comprised of other people’s ideas in a limited domain. They are robbed of the cross-interactions of ideas and the synergy of different perspectives.

...although he had never sought power, he had always had it... it was a power born of excellence, not manipulation. -Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card

I read and watch a lot of science fiction. To me, good sci-fi brings us face to face with a “what if”. That “what if” has helped me to be open to new ideas. While it’s hard to draw a line from a sci-fi book to a specific business initiative, it’s easy to draw the line to the perspectives I hold that shape the way I lead. I learned the power of excellence from Ender’s Game. I learned that unpredictable outcomes are a result of complex processes from Asimov’s Robot series. I don’t just know these concepts from a textbook–I feel them.

So, to be a better ______, invest in yourself. Be a better person by resisting the need to tie your specific pursuits to a business pay off. Accept that you are worth the investment in yourself. No one can prescribe what that investment in yourself looks like for you, but I can give you a few of the things that helped me.

  • Art – I am fortunate enough to live in a city with a great art museum. I make it a point to get immersed there several times a year. To be honest, much of the art I view is beyond me, but I never walk out of a gallery quite the same as I walked in. For a quick dip, check out: Google Arts and Culture
  • Literature – It’s important to read for business, but it’s important to read for you too. I alternate between the business book I’m currently reading and something to feed my person. Audiobooks are a great alternative if sitting still and reading doesn’t work for you.
  • Activity – Do something you enjoy that is active. But I’m serious, enjoy it. Many of our greatest thinkers have been advocates of long walks. Skating keeps me sane. Find your active passion.
  • Media – Watching YouTube videos gets a bad rap. While you can certainly waste time there, some of the best and most intriguing material is on Youtube. If you are not watching Crash Course, well, you should be.
  • Sleep – If you aren’t getting adequate sleep, and you can only do one thing from this list, sleep is the priority.

Strive to be the best person you can be and to continue to improve yourself. The rest will fall into place.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/emdoyle/4885068759/in/photolist-8rFfKr-8uAvyu-pkzUfr-8EzG3X-6wXtpo-9pX56q-azD89r-naEHF1-9mwEnZ-8uAr4G-8uxGjv-5pE9vx-7hhZ2K-8uAv5s-adP8Ju-pkAQi7-aCtGnh-5pDPcK-a5N4oS-8uAvob-pkBtiX-5uJAiQ-nMcqWM-8uArTo-9HHssZ-f6Kxc7-8EzFcz-8Cpt72-2Wibov-8uAtGY-2WfWZR-J7rTVd-8uxGon-7c7yB5-8zaUS2-kKtc6C-8uxsc2-6mXjt1-5pCJxR-9ihYfi-6wTqwc-8uAt5q-WuZ2bU-djcCNb-8uAQfj-9mzL9b-9mAkoq-9vsgpp-fMFZU1-8muG6g

Yeah, You Can Train That.

On By Lexi EmmonsIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

I laced up my new skates. It wasn’t the first time I had ever been on them. I had shuffled and wobbled around my local skating rink a few times, and I had been on roller blades for about two years. But this was different. These were quad skates. And this was the gritty sports track of a derby floor.

I stood up gingerly, pushed off, and encountered the first major challenge of my derby life. Taped neatly to the floor was the rope that defined the derby arena, and I needed to skate over it. Gently, carefully, I judged my speed. I shuffle-stepped up to the rope, lifted one foot, and promptly fell on my butt.

Fast forward less than a year later. It’s a warm, humid day in Boston, and I’ve taken my skates with me on a business trip, because that’s how I roll. I left from my hotel and skated to Harvard Square on unknown roads. Urban skating had become one of my favorite things to do. I loved the challenge, the thrill, the uneven ground. I loved the risk of falling, though I rarely ever did.

How did I go from Bambi on Ice to Mad Max? There is no secret here. I got training. I practiced. I screwed up. I got coached. I practiced. I lost my motivation. Coaches found ways of motivating me. I was propelled by desire. I practiced.

And then, not all at once but eventually, I put my skates on outside and just flew.

We have an amazing capacity to learn anything. I’ve learned to skate, ride a bike, juggle, and do algebra. I have a working understanding of a car engine and can tell you more than a little bit about Newtonian Mechanics. None of that came preloaded.

And you have your own portfolio. Things you learned, odd bits of trivia. That weird dance move only you can do. Your passable Spanish that you learned back in high school.

Why am I going on about something obvious? Because people keep telling me, “You can’t train that.” Yes, you can. You can train everything, or at least so much that the exclusions don’t matter. Anything you know, you learned. Sure, you might have a predisposition to like or be good at something, but you still have to learn it.

people keep telling me, “You can’t train that.” Yes, you can. You can train everything

Leadership is a skill until it becomes an art. Customer service is a skill. The skills can be taught to and learned by anyone. You don’t get to write anyone off. In a world where employees act as free agents and have the power to move from job to job, you simply cannot afford the luxury of waiting for just the right ones. You’ll pay for it in time, you’ll pay for it in salary, you’ll pay for it in opportunity.

Another way of thinking about it as a leader: our people are the agency by which we get work done. It’s a poor craftsman who blames their tools for defects in the results.

Of course, have good hiring practices. Look for the best-qualified candidates. Use unbiased and inclusive processes to increase your hiring pool. But be objective about the level of skill and skill sets you can acquire in your market for your budget, and prepare to train what you need but can’t get on Day One.

Leadership isn’t merely finding great people and setting your ship on autopilot, it’s continually investing in your opportunities to get bigger payoffs. Your biggest opportunities are always your people.

That rope boundary on the derby track? It’s not an obstacle for me anymore.

Train and coach your people, and the insurmountable obstacles of Day One will become afterthoughts.

Assets and Allies

On By Lexi EmmonsIn LeadershipLeave a comment

It’s just you and me, let’s be honest. It’s fun to have an archenemy. Someone who is opposed to you and all that is good and just. Someone you can have a righteous cause against. Enemies make us feel alive and give us purpose. It’s important to have enemies.

But here’s the thing, no one at work is your enemy if you are a leader. Making an enemy out of a person is wasteful, and you can’t afford it. Even that person who undermines you or costs you a promotion–not your enemy. The real people you work with are not all good or evil. They have their own priorities, their own desires, their own context. I’m not saying they are saints, and they may even be a genuinely “bad person”, but that doesn’t make them your enemy. That story is too simple. Beware of simple stories.

Instead, the people you work with fall into two categories: assets and allies. Allies will spend some of their capital or resources to help you achieve what you are after. It is assumed that you’ll do the same for them, but it’s not a tit-for-tat relationship. Where to find allies, how to build them, and how to pivot with them is a separate discussion. You will have precious few in your career. Value them.

Everyone else is an asset. They have different goals both personally and professionally. They have different values and codes. They have different methods of pursuing and achieving their results. It is your job to understand each of these and use them to your advantage. When you know the intricacies, you can add a portion of their resources to your own.

Three Scenarios:

Win  / Win: This is where you want to live most of the time. You understand your own goals and your assets’  goals. You arrange things so that achieving your goal in whole or part helps them achieve their goal. This is made even more effective if the inverse is true at the same time, i.e. if your asset fails to support your goal, it will harm their own objective.

Win / Lose: This happens when your goal and your assets’ goals are mutually exclusive. If you are willing to be creative, this is rarely the case. There is almost always a way to turn a situation into a win / win. If you find yourself in win / lose often, you’ll lose your assets quickly, as this situation always strains your relationship and spends political capital. If the situation has to be a win / lose, you need to take active steps to help your assets save face and mitigate their losses. Total surrender, total defeat is indelicate. Save your assets.

Lose / Lose: In some situations, you and your assets are both going to lose. External forces have conspired against you. Much as before, this is about saving face and mitigating loss. Prioritize saving the most capital you can. Sometimes this means every person for themselves, but more often small expenditures on your part in times of crisis can accrue favors that pay off later, multiple times over.

Enemies are a luxury you can’t afford to permit yourself. Value your allies, protect your assets.

Get Your Gear

On By Lexi EmmonsIn LeadershipLeave a comment

On a cold December Monday right before Christmas, I rushed to get to practice after work. When I got to the meeting place, I didn’t see any other vehicles parked out front. I worried that I had missed a memo or practice had been canceled. As soon as I parked and stepped out of the car, the side door to the warehouse opened and my coach stepped outside into the cold night air.

“Looks like you are the only one here,” she said.

I was eager to practice, eager to get better, eager to belong. But asking my coach to stay for two hours on a holiday week just for me felt like an imposition. I didn’t want to ask for too much. I didn’t want to take up the space.

I began to backpedal. “Oh, you don’t have to stay for just me.”

Her response was quick, “Do you want to practice?”

Still retreating but trying to be honest, I repeated, “Well yes, but you don’t have to stay for just me.”

She paused a beat, quirking her lips. Then she looked at me dead on and said, “Get your gear.” She turned and walked inside.

I scrambled to get my gear and followed her.

Roller derby women are some of the toughest women I know in mind and body. It was easy for me to lean into my feelings of not belonging, of being an imposition, and of feeling like the space wasn’t mine to be in. My Coach jumped past that argument, assumed my right to be there, and moved me toward action.

There are many ways we amplify each other’s voices and make space for each other. We can do one better than making a place at the table for each other by letting them know that we assume their place is with us at the table.

It was one of the best practices I ever had. The one-on-one attention accelerated my learning curve at a crucial moment when I was eager but before Derby was sticky to me. More than that, I began to understand that I belonged and that I was expected to show up and take my place.

If you are trying to be a leader but you doubt your place, you are reading this. And you belong here.

Get your gear.

Get your gear.

Pick Fewer Battles

On By Lexi EmmonsIn LeadershipLeave a comment

Pick your battles. Pick fewer battles. No, fewer than that.

While it is difficult to quantify, managerial talent is a limited resource. As a manager, you cannot observe, counter, and address all behaviors. You have to choose.

Further, the people you lead cannot make changes on multiple fronts at once. Most of the time, all of us, however ambitious, can only make small and incremental change.

The task of a manager is to identify which changes lead to the most positive outcomes and iterate through the process as rapidly as the recipient can manage.

Contact center work provides easy illustrations of this. A common case is an employee who takes too long to process calls compared to the norm and at the same time fails to provide the customer experience your organization expects. Coach to both and fail at both.

The better path lies in identifying behaviors that are likely to improve both the employee’s efficiency and customer experience delivery while having a conversation that’s focused on a single goal. For example, “John” needs to take additional time understanding the needs of the customer by listening more. You know this will likely lead to more efficient answers delivered correctly the first time as well as improved customer experience. But if you tell John they need to give better customer experience and speed their calls up by 2 minutes, John is likely to become more curt rather than more engaging.

But let’s be clear: John needs to fix both. As a manager, you must iterate quickly to reach the goals. A coaching plan is going to look aggressive with nearly daily contact.

Monday AM Coaching conversation – 30 mins. Identify behaviors, secure commitment to attempt modified behavior
Monday PM Evaluate effectiveness – 30 mins. Did John try? Did it work?
Monday PM Deliver feedback – 10 mins. Reset expectations if needed, praise for accomplishments in effort and outcome
Tuesday AM Reset intention with John – 10 mins.
Tuesday PM Evaluate effectiveness – 30 mins. Did John try? Did it work?
Tuesday PM Deliver feedback – 10 minutes. Reset expectations if needed, praise for accomplishments in effort and outcome

Keep it up. By Wednesday or Thursday John should be getting this down so much it’s a habit. It would be harder for them to go back to their old ways than to keep doing the new behavior. As soon as the first behavior is secured, start on the next one.

And you have to do this with multiple employees simultaneously. So you need to think carefully about who gets your managerial bandwidth and what you can accomplish with it.

Think about all the opportunities to coach and develop your employees. Write them all down in order of most impactful to least, then tear off the bottom two-thirds of your paper and put it in the shredder. What you’ve got left, plan it out and follow through.

The value you have as a leader is often determined not by what you do but by what you choose to leave undone.