6 year olds and a Process Oriented Approach

I am having a wonderful experience this fall in being an assistant coach to my 6 year old son’s football team. I have been truly amazed at just how much they can learn and do at such a young age. While I’ve coached many different sports teams with my sons, this was my first exposure to coaching football.

On a parallel track, I’ve taken on a new position at work as the PMO Director for CDC/NCPHI. Once again this is another new experience. The same week I started my new position the leadership of our organization completely changed. In the process the new director was asking for a landslide of information about the projects within the organization. This request became a significant challenge within the organization, one that would end up falling on my plate.

So how does coaching a 6 year old football team and taking a new position with organizational change relate to one another? It all falls in the category of “what works and what doesn’t”.

Let go back to the football team. If you take 18 6 year old boys and put them on a grassy lawn what do they do? PLAY, not too bad when your 6. (or 40 for that matter). How do you get them to play football? Repetition! Everything our head coach teaches our team is done over and over and over again. He created a standard repeatable process and continuously repeated it, allowing time for process adjustments and continuous improvement. Wow, that sounds familiar!

Back to my new position, when the data call when out to our organization five different groups started to collect the data, organize, and format it in five different ways. By the time I got a handle on the request everyone was upset with all the different messages they wanted to turn in their own work and be done with it.  My group stepped in and started to apply a process to the data collection, developing a standard repeatable process to the data and worked with the data owners and in less than a day, we took all the scattered data and formatted it in an easy to understand format that was useful to our new director.

Whether it’s football (any age) or business the principles are the same, develop a standard repeatable process, allow for performance adjustments with a component of continuous improvement.  It is a formula that works.

Book Review: The One Minute Manager by Kenneth H. Blanchard

This was a quick read, a short fable discussing a fictional “One Minute Manager” and what makes him good.  This came down to several points:

• Set expectations (One Minute Goal Setting)
• Provide feedback both positive and negative (One Minute Praising / Reprimands)
• Show employees respect
• Separate the individual from the performance

This is not the greatest book on management or leadership, however it did have some nuggets of quality tools, nothing new, but useful.

I do take exception that a manager’s mold is set in a similar fashion for everyone (Everyone becomes a “One Minute Manager”).  Each successful manager must find their own methods for utilizing leadership and management tools.

Networking or NetWeaving?

Have you heard the term NetWeaving?  I had not until recently; it is a form of networking that focuses on the concept of helping others rather than yourself.  The movie from a few years back called “Pay It Forward” was a similar concept.  When someone does something nice for you rather than paying back that individual, pay it forward to another person (or three others in the movie). 

To be honest, this is the way I’ve thought of networking for quite some time.  If you are always willing to help others out, then when it comes time that you are in need (hopefully a rare occasion) others will be there for you.  Bob Littell is the one who formalized the NetWeaving process and has worked with the author of “Pay it Forward” in a collaboration effort.

Most of what I am talking about here can be found at http://www.netweaving.com (Bob Little’s website)

The concept is simple and yet very effective.  Being the giver of assistance and career advice will provide countless opportunities for growth.  I know that without knowing what it was called, I’ve been the recipient of NetWeaving from my mentor.  He has shown this kindness to countless individuals.  His goal?  To help others in their career path.  What benefits does this do for him?  Well, if I count, me…I have stuck with my current organization in large part due to his “NetWeaving”.  Am I the only benefit?  I’m sure not, but it is a small example of how his unselfish caring efforts were a benefit.

NetWeaving has a 5-step process: (this is directly from the NetWeaving website: http://www.netweaving.com/steps.html )

1. At any meeting or social outing you attend, try and meet (max 3) people whom you would like to get to know better. Make sure to write some words or comments on their business card about what you discussed.
2. Followup NEXT DAY with a Note/Email summarizing several key points you heard and why you would like to get to know him/her better (if you can’t think of any good reasons, pass).
3. Schedule a One-on-One Meeting at which you talk a little about NetWeaving and why you like it; ask the other person the key NetWeaving questions (see Article).
   1. Is there someone I know who would benefit knowing or meeting this person?
   2. Could this person provide information and/or resources to someone else I know?
   3. Has this person impressed me so much that I need to get to know him or her better, and if they continue to impress me with their exceptional quality, make them a part of your Trusted Resource Network?
4. At either your first or second One-on-One Meeting, discuss “hosting and referrals” and commit to “hosting” a meeting for each other (see Article)
5. At the end of the Hosting Meeting you ask each of the persons to PIONTTO– Pass It On To Two Others (see Article).

I have not taken this out to the full five steps, but it does sound intriguing.   Giving back or even giving first is the nature of the Golden Rule and it has always payed to follow.   

The Measure of Success

What is the measure of success? For a project manager it may be bringing the project in on time and on budget, for a football team is may be considered a victory. I would challenge that both of these views are limited and somewhat short sided.From a leadership standpoint the measures of success should be set at a much higher level. While these events are significant milestones, are they real success? I would say not always. So if these are not the true measure of success, what is?Here is what started my thoughts on this subject. My son decided this year to play football. It has been a thrill for me, because he has put everything into this team. He is a first year player and so does not have the experience, but works his tail off. Well, the league rules state that every child must play a minimum of 10 plays per game. During the first game (which we lost) at least five players did not get the required number of plays. I made a huge issue of this with the head coach and he promised both my son and I that it would not happen again.

The second game, every player got their plays and even though we lost, the team was in much better spirits. Winning did not make the difference to these 10 year old boys, being part of the team and participating made the difference.

As a leader sometimes we are challenged with employees who have not defined their own measure of success, leaders can help these individuals make the choices to characterize success, if the employee is willing to take those steps. The most difficult challenge is when an employee’s goals are to get out of work at all costs, but that is a different blog altogether.

I have found the best definition of success comes from identifying one’s own values and principles. True success comes in the areas of our lives that mean the most to us; this may be family, faith, career, or whatever. By obtaining a core value success we establish our own personal happiness, and in the end happiness, true happiness, is what we are here for.

Leadership Qualities

I am fortunate enough to have been invited to belong to a Mentoring Circle; this is a group of leaders and emerging leaders in the Coordinating Center of Infectious Disease at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) where I work. I was invited to join the group by our Chief Management Official, Reggie Mebane an incredible leader.

At the last meeting we watched portions of a Federal Express Leadership video that discussed five qualities of a great leader:

1. Challenge the process
2. Inspiring a shared vision
3. Enabling other to act
4. Modeling the way
5. Encouraging the heart

Since then I have been have been observing leaders who I admire at work, church, and other places and watching for these qualities and steps. It is interesting to me that the ability to utilize these qualities consistently is present in very case of those I consider to be great leaders.

The other aspect that Reggie discussed during the meeting was the fact that these are not business specific qualities, that they are universal and applicable in every aspect of life, from work, home, church, and every little league.

Being a great leader requires one to look those you are leading more than yourself. That is what these qualities encourage. The greatest leaders get the most discretionary effort from those they lead and ensure that those they lead get recognized for this effort. By making others they lead look great, they in turn look great too!

Leadership Motivation

I recently had the opportunity to attend a leadership seminar given by a gentleman by the name of Ray Sluk from Exponential Business Improvement L3 Inc, This was one of the best seminars I have attended. He discussed the qualities and character that a high quality leader should have.One area that I have always felt was the mark of a great leader is the ability to raise the level of performance of their employees. This trait is evident when your staff looks to you as a mentor and a guide for their career. The greatest pride I’ve had as a manager/supervisor is when I leave a position and I have trained someone in my group to take my place. Ray made the statement “Only hire people you want to work for someday.”

The other interesting point that was presented during the seminar was the methods of motivation. Ray stated there were three forms of motivation:

1. Fear
2. Reward
3. Love

What I liked about this is the fact he used the term “love”, most people couch this as respect or loyalty, but when it comes down to the base value love is the best terminology. I have started using the techniques I learned from the seminar, not only at work, but with my family and have seen significant positive results in all areas.