Conduct Yourself With The Utmost Integrity

It was a late in the day phone consultation with an upper level manager in a large company. As always, I asked “How are you doing this week?”

“I am hanging in there” was her reply. She then explained to me that the problems she was dealing with were overwhelming. For example, her division was experiencing extremely high turnover amongst new employees during the first 90 days of employment. They were now just trying to fill shifts and deliver appropriate care. The company also was restructuring a wide variety of departments but no one knew why, when, or how it was going to impact service delivery.

Meanwhile, she was trying to figure out realistic goals for her division and to make sure they were in alignment with the new strategic plan. With lack of input and connection with the current strategic plan, this made her plan seem abstract and not in touch with the day to day reality of the current service delivery problems.

Furthermore, her own health challenges were getting worse due to long term stress. She was just trying to figure out how to create a healthy family life in the midst of a never-ending global pandemic.

Her question to me that afternoon was simple and direct: “Where do I begin, and what do I do when it all seems like too much?”

“I am so sorry you are going this,” I replied. “There are no quick fixes with problems this big and complex. Therefore, in the beginning and through it all, you must conduct yourself, professionally and personally, with the utmost integrity.”

We don’t talk much about integrity, character, and authenticity these days. These words seem like they are from a different century, a simpler and less complex time period. Still, the wisdom and words from the past can be applicable and helpful to us in the present.

For example, let’s explore the word integrity. “The word integrity … comes from the Latin word integer, which simply means intact,” writes Martha Beck in her book, The Way of Integrity: Finding The Path To Your True Self (The Open Field/A Penguin Life Book, 2021). “To be in integrity is to be one thing, whole and undivided…. [it reflects a] complete alignment of body, mind, heart, and soul.”

When I reflect on the leaders I know who are people of integrity and have moved through or are currently moving through times of complexity, their ability to stay aligned, body, mind, heart and soul, is reflected in the way they listen, communicate, and act. Their personal core values are never compromised. They treat everyone with respect. They aspire to do their best even on the days that they are feeling overwhelmed. By living, acting and role modeling integrity, they are making a choice. As Stephen Covey wrote years ago, “A moment of choice is a moment of truth. It’s the testing point of our character and competence.” 

This week, choose integrity. It is the right way every time no matter what is the situation before you.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Letter to a Young Consultant

Introduction

When I first began this journey, I was not trying to grow a business. I was mostly focus on making ends meet for my family. We had bills to pay and I had a role in providing for them.

In the beginning, I had grand ideas like leading a trip to China, hiking along the bottom of the Grand Canyon, or taking a group to Santa Fe. They were big ideas, but, in the end, no one signed up or was willing to pay. I needed to refocus.

One of the most important and powerful gifts my wife gave me was a nautilus shell cut in half so I could see the inner pattern, a spiral moving out from the center. She told me to grow my business one chamber at a time. Dreaming big was fine, but growing the business locally, one relationship at a time, was where to begin. It was a transformational moment that I have carried with me for 30+ years.

Focus On Building Relationships

Being a self-employed, consultant, executive coach and trainer is an interesting pathway. I have witnessed many people walk the same path and struggle. Some focus on the products they offer and others focus on the knowledge they will provide. Some even profess to have the right formula to solve everything.

In my journey, I did not have the products or the secret knowledge to solve all problems. I did have one thing, namely the ability to listen, to share, and to build relationships. The best leaders I know and the best consultants I have met all understand that the work we are doing is happening within a relationship economy. And the goal is to build genuine relationships.

As a result, I visit now with many people over the course of each month. They come from all walks of life. They come with many different perspectives. I value this part of the work.

Years ago, I read an article about Princess Diana, and an interesting choice she made each day. At the end of the day, she would sit down and think about all the people she had visited that day. And then, she would write a thank-you note to quite a few of them. She focused on something specific that they shared and was grateful for the interaction.

I have done this for many decades. I start each morning reviewing who I saw the day before and then I write them a note. Sometimes, I share some follow-up thoughts and other days I just thank them for listening to me, or for sharing with me. In the beginning, these were hand written notes. Now they are e-mails.

The focus of this communication is on being present to the relationship and being genuinely appreciative of the connection. I have received some of these notes myself, and I can always tell when the note is per functionary and just one more thing checked off a list. The goal is heart felt authenticity.

Find You Voice, Own You Knowledge, & Keep Learning

“If you haven’t read hundreds of books, learning from others who went before you, you are functionally illiterate - you can’t coach and you can’t lead.” - Jim Mattis

In the beginning, I taught stress management seminars for nurses. It was part of their nursing continuing education process so they could maintain their license. I didn’t know much about nursing, but I did know a lot about being stressed out and ultimately burned out. I even knew a few things about recovery.

So, when I stood up in front of a group or sat down with someone at a one to one level, I shared my knowledge and a lot about my experiences. It was from the heart more than from an academic framework. I shared the nexus of my personal experience and what I had learned from others.

Finding my voice was not easy but it was important. I didn’t know everything about the psychology or physiology around stress management. I just knew how it felt when I was overwhelmed, stressed out, or burned out. Starting from my own inner clarity and blending what I had learned from others and numerous good books, I could expand my perspective and share more holistically. It was a constant process of new beginnings.

But people routinely ask me how I got from teaching stress management for continuing education credits for nurses to leadership, strategic planning and organizational change. First, all the people who kept coming back to the seminars and workshops were people in healthcare who held leadership, management, and supervisory positions. Second, the source of their stress revolved around three specific subjects, namely leadership, strategic planning and organizational change.

The interesting element was that these three subjects really interested me. I was deeply curious about them because I had experienced great leadership and poor leadership, great planning and very poor planning, great changes and complete messes.

So, I started to listen to people very carefully about what was and what was not working. I shared my own lessons learned about working on teams, planning and communication, but mostly I listened a lot and read. I approached it as if I was in college or graduate school. I read everything I could get my hands on. I just read and read and read. I also took notes on everything I read, too. 

Then, I did something that I realized later no one else was doing. Every time I visited with someone in a management or leadership position, I asked them the same question: “Read any good books recently?” What fascinated me was that they were all reading books on their own, and often the same titles. I then would go out and read these books. And after taking notes on them, I would go to the back of the book and see if there were any recommended readings, or if they cited other books as foundational to their book. Over time, I amassed a collection of good books and good articles. They created a framework for me to share my own experiences, explain certain ideas, and share the wisdom of others. In short, the more I read and the more I spoke, the more I found my voice, and owned my knowledge. And I was wise enough to stay humble along the way, and just keep reading.

Find Your Kitchen Table Cabinet

Consulting can be a lonely profession even if you are part of a group. As a self-employed person working from home, I had no team around me. I just had family and they needed me to be a dad and a husband more than a consultant and executive coach.

So, over the course of many years, I started building relationships with people outside of work who could offer me perspective, share insights, and ask great questions. I called this group my Kitchen Table Cabinet.

They are individuals from a wide range of backgrounds, ages and professions. The key for me is whether they can listen well, share openly, explore ideas creatively, ask insightful questions, and role model constant learning. Once I found someone who fit this category, I invested time and energy into the relationship. They are important people in my life circle.

For me, these people are not family. I separate family and business as best I can. I have a great life partner who does all of the above and many family members who do likewise. We are connected at the personal and private levels. My Kitchen Table Cabinet are people who I connect with at the professional level and at times the personal level. In short, I need both groups in my life, good professional friends and great family connections.

Be True To Yourself & Live A Good Life

Finally, in the beginning and for many years, I struggled with maintaining the balance between work and home. I kept trying to frame it up as a balancing process and it never felt balanced.

Then, one day I was visiting with a farming friend of mine and he talked about farming as a way of life, a choice to live in a certain way. He acknowledged that there are business aspects to farming, but that living a good life was more important than many other things.

I realized at that point that my life had drifted into a series of check lists with work being the center of every list. And over time, I was a starting to loose my connection with the ones I loved and the life I wanted to live. 

This was a wake-up call on many levels. I needed to not make work the focus of all I did. Instead, I needed to be true to myself and what was most important to me in my life. When I did this and made time for this, the other pieces fell into place. 

Over time, the business grew and I grew. The relationships became meaningful and the outcomes became successful. In essence, I discovered that living a good life and being true to my core values and beliefs was a great foundation for living and working. I choose to live a good life and along the way I created a marvelous 36 year journey of being self-employed as a consultant, executive coach and trainer in the fields of leadership, strategic planning and organizational change. 

Simple Is Never Easy

One of the most interesting elements of this decades long journey is that all of the above sounds pretty simplistic, if not quite easy. All we need to do is a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and then we will become a successful consultant. How I wish that was the case. 

What I have learned over time and through many challenging experiences is that what appears simple is never easy. The positive outcomes we seek take great discipline and  attention. It is never a one and done effort. Instead, it is a on-going commitment to the fundamentals. When we focus on building authentic relationships, finding our voice, owning our knowledge, and being committed to life-long learning, we create a foundation for sustainable living and working. When we find our Kitchen Table Cabinet and then commit to maintaining and deepening these key relationships, we are choosing a pathway to being true to ourself and to the ones we love. In time and with a disciplined commitment to these fundamentals, we will live a good life, and can make a positive difference in the world. And that is the sole purpose of this great journey we call life.

© Geery Howe 2022

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Cohesive Teams Achieve Collective Results

“If an organization is led by a team that is not behaviorally unified,” writes  Patrick Lencioni in his book, The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business (Jossey-Bass, 2012), “there is no chance that it will become healthy.” As he continues, “Becoming a real team requires an intentional decision on the part of its members…. teamwork is not a virtue. It is a choice - and a strategic one.”

I think Lencioni is spot on with his comments about behavioral unity and team work being an intentional choice. After many decades of doing this work, I have observed this happening. It is the one thing that separates the good teams from the best teams.

Yet, when we dig deeper into Lencioni’s writing and research, we gain an important insight about why this is such an important choice. As he writes, “The reason that behavioral accountability is more important than the quantitative, results-related kind has nothing to do with the fact that it is harder. It is due to the fact that behavioral problems almost always precede - and cause - a downturn in performance and results.” The point he is making is that by building greater trust, learning to engage in unfiltered discussions about ideas, making a commitment individually and collectively, plus holding each other accountable, we are able as a team to do one very important thing, namely to achieve results over time.

I think most people miss this important point. They believe that cohesive teams just feel better about each other. And this is true but the key is that teams that have behavioral unity are much more likely to achieve results over time and to nip problems related to achieving results before they become toxic or malignant to the organization.

This week, create a plan to become more cohesive as a team. This strategic choice will make a difference in performance and results.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Focus On Team Processes and Team Relationships

I have read books and articles on leadership and organizational change for many decades. I especially have been interested in teams and team work. The interesting thing after all this reading is that not everyone agrees about how to help teams improve. 

In an interview by Diane Coutu, J. Richard Hackman commented in the article called “Why Teams Don’t Work” (Harvard Business Review, May 2009) that “Most executive coaches focus on individual performance, which does not significantly improve teamwork…. We found that coaching individual team members did not do all that much to help executive teams perform better.” Hackman continues that “teams need coaching as a group in team processes - especially at the beginning, midpoint, and end of a team project…. For the team to reap the benefits of coaching, it must focus on group processes…. Team coaching is about fostering better teamwork on the task, not about enhancing members’ social interactions or interpersonal relationships.”

I smiled when I read Hackman’s comments because seven years earlier Patrick Lencioni in his book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (Jossey-Bass, 2002) wrote about the importance of building healthy team relationships, especially the need to build trust amongst team members and to engage in unfiltered conflict around ideas.

Lencioni followed up on this line of thinking in his book, The Truth About Employee Engagement: A Fable About Addressing the Three Root Causes of Job Misery, formerly The Three Signs of a Miserable Job: A Fable for Managers (and their employees) (Jossey-Bass 2007). In this book, he explained that people cannot be fulfilled in their work if they are not known. He especially focused on how team members need to know that their job matters to someone. And that all employees need to be able to gauge their progress and level of contribution for themselves.

Years ago, when teaching the From Vision to Action Leadership Training, I had a student come up to me after class one day and ask an interesting question: “Why do you have us read so many books and articles in this class?” 

“For the simple reason,” I explained, “that not everyone looks at the subject from the same angle or comes to the same conclusions. The goal is for you to have a deep understanding of the subjects we are exploring and for you to choose the right solutions given the factors involved.”

And this is how I feel about Hackman’s comments and Lencioni’s writing. Each author brings up an important point. Some days, people helping teams get better should focus on tasks and processes. Other days, these same individuals should focus on improving relationships and building trust amongst all involved. One is not right and the other is not wrong. The key is to figure out when to do one or the other. Helping improve team work is both a science and an art. A well read person can always make the right choice. As Jim Mattis and Bing West wrote in their book, Call Sign Chaos: Learning To Lead (Random House, 2019), “If you haven’t read hundreds of books, learning from others who went before you, you are functionally illiterate - you can’t coach and you can’t lead.” And I agree 100%.

So, this week, focus on improving team processes and team relationships plus keep reading and learning from others who have gone before you.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

An Insight Found In Ancient History

When we think about improving performance at the individual and team levels, we often focus on whether or not things are getting done. This approach defines the world of teamwork into three categories, namely inputs, processes, and outcomes. 

The standard inputs are the team leader, the team members, the way the team works as a whole, and the environment within which the team operates. The processes all relate to team and individual based actions, and the outcomes are threefold, namely the team performance, the individual performance, and the overall team experience.

While I recognize that this is one way to define performance improvement, the upshot of this framework is that it all boils done to a binary definition, namely done vs. not done. And in most cases, we do not focus on the team experience as an outcome.

Having done this work for many decades, I have come to the conclusion that organizational culture becomes real at the team level. As Marcus Buckingham wrote years ago, “all work is teamwork” because they “help us to see where to focus and what to do.” 

During these challenging times, many leaders are focused on getting more things done with less resources. We forget that people really care about which team they are on. People genuinely want to be on a team that works well and works in a professional manner through the normal challenges that surface when two or more people come together to accomplish a challenging project or goal.

Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall in their book, Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World (Harvard Business Review Press, 2019), note that there are two categories of experience, namely we experiences and me experiences. As they write, “… what distinguishes the best team leaders from the rest is their ability to meet these two categories of needs for the people on their teams. What we, as team members, want from you, our team leader, is firstly that you make us feel part of something bigger, that you show us how what we are doing together is important and meaningful; and secondly that you make us feel you can see us, and connect to us, and care about us, and challenge us, in a way that recognizes who we are as individuals.” 

They also explain that “… local experiences… are significantly more important than company ones.” These “local experiences” come in two versions, namely local individual experiences and local collective experiences. The combination of the two is what makes the company culture become real or just an abstract notion and fancy poster on some wall near the senior level of the organization.

So, what is the desired individual and group experience we seek as leaders?

The answer can be found in Verse 17 of the Tao Te Ching written by Lao Tzu, in 400 BC. As he explained,

“Leaders are best when people scarcely know they exist

Not so good when people obey and acclaim them,

Worst when people despise them.

Fail to honor people, they fail to honor you.

But of good leaders who talk little,

When the work is done, the task fulfilled

People will all say: ‘We have done this ourselves!’”

The desired outcome is actually a desired feeling, namely “We have done this ourselves!” It is the moment when confidence, clarity, competence and connection with others becomes one. It is the feeling of being respected, understood and cared for by the team and by the team leader.

As you prepare for the coming eighteen months, focus on how to create more moments when people will say “We have done this ourselves!” This will result in many successful outcomes over time.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257