ARGHHHHHHHH!

I just spent time writing about the glue that connects people to an organization.
I liked it. I was articulate and passionate--the kind of moment that doesn't always happen.
AND I lost it, deleted it, sent it to some cloud. And my response is ARGHHHHH!

Could I receate it? Probably. Will I? No. Not now anyway.
But it made me remember the ARGHHH feeling that top leaders experience and learn to live with as a very regular part of their job. The ability to manage an organizational ARGHH moments is a CEO skill that separates you from the rest. It may be fundamental.

What does a solid CEO do with AARGH moments?
--Sees that it is indeed an unredeemable event
--Quits fighting the facts
--Gets mad and sad (yes, sad) with one or two trusted colleagues
--Stays quiet and thoughtful for awhile--ie. shuts the door, goes and touches the daily business
--Sighs, breathes and lets go
--Gets good perspective before action
--Keeps stable (there is a CEO attribute if ever there was one)
--Weighs the common good
--Creates a new path
--Moves on

This process can take an hour or a business quarter or a year.
Most of us are too fast or too slow and get stuck on one of the steps.
It is the art of the CEO to know what to do in the ARGHHHHH moments in their company and how to move through them.

And I will come back to the glue that holds a company together.
Just not now. I'm still fighting the fact.

ARE YOU JADED?

Before I started I  had to a self check to see if I was jaded. I'll tell you why. 
I checked my digital account of HBR and didn't want to open the magazine.
--How to Win and Keep Customers
--Where to Find Hypergrowth
--What Keeps CEO's Awake at night
--Building a Workforce for the Future
--Diversity
--How to Learn From Failure

Well, OK. Valid topics but same ol' same ol'. I worked on these same topics for 25 years. 
I began to hear, "blah, blah, blah" in my ears.
Not good. These same topics used to excite me and I actually did great innovative work with my colleagues on each of them. Is it the grinding sameness of what goes on in any business?  Or, has their been no breakthrough thinking about business. Or does breakthrough belong to the new smaller millenial businesses.
I do remember the jaded responses of some of my bosses when I was new in Organizational Development  and had endless enthusiasm about what could be done along with a dose of naivete-- both of which helped me do very bold work in all the above areas.  

I write in the middle of a blizzard in New England so I have some time for musing due to wonderful, wonderful cancellations. So here I sit. And I begin to get interested. 
--Win and Keep Customers sounds like they are objects you use to win a game. 
  Food for thought there. What if we changed that to liking our customers, glad to see customers
  knowing them intimately
--Why Hypergrowth?  What if we don't have room for growth as the ultimate answer. What if rightsizing 
  actually meant something and was the optimal size for maintaining good enough profits over a long time.
--Building a Workforce for the Future. What if workforce needs are universal across age cultures and so are NOW not the future--like meaning, using talents, flexibility, engagement in team production, recognition of contribution, authenticity in leadership to name a few.

So now I'm interested. How did that happen?  
--I had time to be dissatisfied and think without the need for resolution or action
--I had irritation that let me think new thoughts about perennial topics
--I started by being against not for and it spurred my interest
--I used other's thought to jump start my own

So it didn't take an expensive week long event to begin to have "fresh" eyes again.

So maybe You may not be jaded but it is something that creeps up on top leaders.
Think about it. I use to call them the 'salty dogs'. 
  

WHO/WHAT IS THE AUTHORITY IN YOUR COMPANY?

I'm thinking of the turmoil in our world
It's hard for the center to hold with so many of our institutions in chaos and in need of transformation
It is so tempting to turn every event or disruption into a dramatic life or death moment. And, yes there are some that are life or death. You have to know the difference.
A fundamental question in any culture is, "Where does authority reside?"
In God?  In the top leader of the country? In the law?  In money?
(Sometimes in the US I think authority resides in celebrity and fashion)

But for your company, the authority should be in the customer
They are the boss, the power and the  the decider of life or death in your business
When politics knocks at your door--focus on the customer
When moral duty calls --think about your customer
When civic duty pulls--follow your customer
When you get entranced with your own personal power--bow to the customer

The customer is your authority. Stay grounded in that awareness. Be humbled by
The demand to serve customers well
Let your customers be the rudder to guide your company through the churning in the world around you
Stay steady in that focus.

ARE YOU HAPPY? WE NEED HAPPY CEO'S

As you drill down to get granular to control the bottom line (pardon my business babble) things can get grim. Punishing sales budgets. Grim. Anxious to be perfect Board Meetings? Grim.
Grinding along meetings focused on the present, not the future? Grim

How on earth to be happy?  Start by:

—letting enough extraneous thoughts, topics and interests into the room so that you can find human humor

—steppping back and acknowledge some of the absurdity that goes on

—telingl the goofy stories of the past

—getting over yourself--Ceo's aren't that important!

—enjoying and allowing the funny person on your team to be funny with no disparagement about not being  serious enough about the business

—letting the atmosphere be social while being productive

—starting with being happy yourself regardless of situations; then you will be contagious


Happiness is good energy. Hopeful energy. Contagious energy. Optimistic energy. Energy that gives an extra boost to do what seems impossible. Grim doesn't make work work. 
One of the things I most remember is the laughter of the Executive Committee. It kept a kind of lightness and carbonation in the atmosphere that often needed it to make the tough decisions.

DON'T UNDERESTIMATE PRUDENCE

Yes, I am arguing for prudence. I who have spent much of my professional work enabling organizations to be looser, more authentic, more spontaneous, more direct, and daring.

And that is still my stance. Tightening and bureaucracy tend to come over time and after

facing continuous competition with not much free space in the market. Massaging the organization into freer creativity and fluidity of action is better than agressively exploding all systems into chaos.

At this moment in time, we tend to think communication and change can happen immediately. Or so it looks. Communication, maybe. Real change, no. You can get fake, cosmetic change on the surface of your company while the dead weight of resistance and chaos goes on below.

In other words, you can not Tweet your company into a new reality. Or you create resistance.

Yes, I do base this on watching the elections and the impact in the United States but also through out the world.   And I don't like it as a model for business. Or change. The right amount of prudence sits squarely on the CEO desk.  I view it as a business and financial wisdom, not as scared caution.

SOMETIMES, BUSINESS HAS TO HELP FORM SOCIAL CULTURE

Once upon a time, when I was new to Maine and new to the role of Director of Organizational Development, I had a dream. I wanted there to be a formal US holiday to commemorate Martin Luther King. Before we used the term "diversity" and "inclusion" I was the head of EEOC and Affirmative Action efforts in my OD role. I worked with a progressive CEO who felt the same.

Let's just say we were idealistic. We had the Birmingham Jail letter of Dr. King reproduce for every employee of The Central Maine Power Company—and it is one long letter and costly to produce (no email for all at this point).
And we gave a half hour of paid time for people who chose to,  to read it over a cup of coffee in break rooms or offices.

It took ten minutes for most of the letters to hit the trash cans and then spend time denigrating the contents of the letter. Later people would tell me how impactful the moment was because they all heard their fears and injustice with no opposition. The opinions hung in the air and began to change as they new, trusted and respected the CEO and as they saw I cared about fairness for everyone in the workplace. John Rowe, the CEO went on to become an important leader in energy distribution and in his work in diversity. 

I cringe at our innocence and lack of paving the way for the action we took. But I cringe more at what could have been our guilt and fear of a bold symbolic action that had us do nothing. Business resides in the  larger culture of its time. Usually it is prudent to stay a merchant only with your eye on what the customer wants. However occasionally, It is important to help shape the broader culture to keep it healthy and transforming.  

THE TIMES DEMAND AN ODD CEO SKILL

How to manage anxiety. That's it. That's the skill.
We live in an anxious time, personally and in our companies.
In fact, we are like the frog in the boiling water.
We often don't sense or feel the anxiety, but it is there.

What is involved in the skill of managing anxiety?
—Recognize your own anxiety. Know what helps you manage it. Physical
   exercise, stepping away from your workplace to a neutral location, 
   having a non-organizational confidante, having a work buddy that laughs 
   with you about how crazy tough things are all help.

—Create ways to let the organization express anxiety. I know this is taboo and
   runs against the demand for optimism in leadership, but denying reality is the
   biggest contributor to anxiety and causes much larger problems, like lack of trust
   and being afraid to tell the truth and diluting engagement.

—Give big picture context to all associates so that the challenges you face make
   sense. Give anxious energy a place to go like wanting to clobber your competition.

—After coming up with plans, goals, let people talk about barriers to meeting them and 
   then make plans for the barriers. Fantasy goals create huge anxiety based on 
   fantasy budgets.

—Get out and touch your people. This is the time to make contact. It is common for top
   leaders to begin to hide in the office or corporate headquarters during times that creat
   anxiety (ie. acquisitions). Don't. Be visible. You don't have to have answers. You do have to
   let people know you are in charge and real and accessible. 

—Here's an odd suggestion and it works. Do active listening. It can feel really awkward. 
   So what? It works. Reflect back to people what they are saying. Do it literally or in different
   words but exact same meaning. Anxiety goes down when people feel heard and when people 
   feel heard, they tell you more. We, as leaders, often stop listening too soon. Reflective listenig
   will put you in touch with the undercurrent of your company

—Remind people and yourself that you are not crazy to experience anxiety. We live in an anxious  
   world of economic insecurity, of random acts of violence, of concern for our  planet's health,
   for an atmosphere of anger and hate and polarity. We, you, are not crazy to be anxious.
   It is often the correct response. The skill is how to manage it.

   PS--Things don't get bigger when you name them. Their impact gets smaller.