Spud-tacular and A-mash-ing!

The next time your team is faced with an “impossible” goal, try using this visual object lesson to help challenge their disbelief.  You will need a large potato (raw) and a sturdy straw (not the bendable kind) for every person on your team.  Once everyone has a potato and a straw, go through the following steps to impress and amaze:

• Tell your team that not everything that looks impossible really is.  For example, you hold that it is possible for every one of them to put a straw through a potato (gasps indicating shock and awe!).
• Ask each team member to stand and hold the potato at naval (that’s your bellybutton) level with their non-dominant hand.  (Fingers should go on the sides of the potato and not on the top or the bottom.  Neglecting this detail could result in an equally neat but somewhat messier object lesson.)
• Have them hold the straw with their dominant hand.
• Ask them to put their thumb over the top opening of the straw.
• Have them visualize the straw going through the potato in their mind’s eye.  (They may need to do this several times in order to squash all unbelief.)
• When they are ready, have them quickly thrust the straw through the potato.  It should go through cleanly.  (More gasps and some fainting.)
• Point out that just like they put the straw through the potato, they can accomplish the “impossible” goal.  However, it won’t work unless they believe they can do it and fully commit to making it happen.

I could explain the complex physics behind the demonstration, but why?  Isn’t it enough that it works and has the power to elevate you to legendary status among the dynamic leaders of the world?

 

The Motivation Killer

A group of young boys regularly stopped by an old man’s house on their way home from school.  Whenever the old man was out in the yard, they would insult him mercilessly.  One day, after enduring another round of jeers about how ugly and old and stupid he was, the old man came up with an idea.  He called out to the boys and met them at the sidewalk.

“Boys, this might surprise you, but I find your jokes at my expense quite funny.  In fact, for anyone who comes back tomorrow and insults me, I’ll pay one dollar!”

The boys were surprised but excited about the prospect of making a dollar.  They showed up early the next day and insulted the old man loudly until he came over and gave them their dollar.

“That was great, boys, but I’m afraid I’ll only be able to offer you a quarter for coming by tomorrow.”

A quarter wasn’t a dollar, but it was still enough to impress the young boys.  Faithfully, they came back the next day and dutifully delivered their insults until the old man came over and gave them their quarter.

“Ah, boys, those were the best yet!  Unfortunately, all I can reward you with tomorrow is a penny for your efforts.”

“What?  A stinkin’ penny!  Forget it!”  And the boys never came back again.

This story is funny, but it also teaches an important lesson about human nature.  When we are rewarded for doing something, we often lose the enjoyment that the task originally brought just for doing it.  It’s almost as if we make the decision that “if they have to bribe me to do this, it must not be worth doing.”  In psychology terms, extrinsic rewards (incentives, bonuses, awards, gifts, accolades…) kill intrinsic motivation (enjoyment of the task for its own sake).

In other words, when we say, “do this and you’ll get that,” our focus is shifted off the “this” (the task) and to the “that” (the reward).  It’s a counter-intuitive bait and switch.  The purpose of the reward is to get better performance, right?  But instead, what often happens is that performers see the task as an obstacle to the reward.  Before long, they are taking the quickest route to completion in order to claim their prize.  Unfortunately, the quickest route is rarely the highest quality route.

Could it be that some of our reward systems are sabotaging the improved results they are intended to create?  Don’t be so quick to offer incentives.  Some work is worth doing in and of itself.  Maybe all you need to do is help the performer see and understand the rewards that are already there.

Clever Hans

Kluge Hans (better known as “Clever Hans”) was a most amazing horse!  He had the ability to add, subtract, multiply and divide by tapping out the answers with his hoof.  He could tell time and name people.  He could spell and solve problems involving musical harmony.

His owner, German mathematician Von Osten, began showing him to the public in 1891, and for years, Clever Hans amazed even the stoutest critics.  The horse could perform his tricks for randomly selected people with or without his master present.  It seemed impossible, but no one could deny the horse’s accuracy.

It wasn’t until 1904 when researcher Oskar Pfungst finally figured out how Clever Hans did it.  By testing the horse with a variety of constraints, he learned that Clever Hans was not so clever if he couldn’t see his questioner.  Also, if the questioner did not know the answer to a question, neither did the horse.

Following a hunch, Pfungst started observing the questioners more than the horse.  Soon, he discovered that Clever Hans was responding to subtle non-verbal cues from the people asking the questions.  They tended to tense their muscles until Clever Hans tapped out the correct answer with his hoof.  When he did, the questioner relaxed, signaling to the horse that it had reached the correct answer.  The horse could detect slight movements of a person’s eyebrows or a change in head position or an approving facial expression.  Clever Hans could even pick out a slight dilation of the questioner’s nostrils.

In the end, Clever Hans was most clever when people expected and wanted him to be clever.  Their anticipation of his correct answer provided him all the non-verbal feedback he needed to reassure their trust in his abilities.

Think about the implications for our human relationships.  If a horse is perceptive enough to read our non-verbals with such accuracy – even non-verbals that we are oblivious to sending – isn’t it possible that other people can pick up on them, too (if not consciously, then subconsciously)?  If you have high expectations for someone, it gets communicated in more than your praise.  If you have low expectations of someone, it leaks into every interaction you have with that person.  What you think about a person often creates a self-fulfilling prophecy in your relationship.

When you have negative expectations about someone, you can try to fake your feelings when you are around them, but most people will see through your plastic efforts.  The only real way to make sure that you don’t communicate negative expectations is to change how you feel about that person.  In order to do that, you are going to have to change the story that you tell yourself about them.  You need a positive story to replace the negative one.  This is much easier said than done, but here are some suggestions:

• Assume positive motive. Maybe the person is the way he is or acts the way he does, because there is a good reason for it.  Maybe he means well and is doing the best he knows how to do.
• Consider that there may be extenuating circumstances. There may be factors outside of her control – things like the way the person was raised, the limitations on what they know or are able to do, the situation that they are currently in or other people and their behavior toward her.
• Examine your own accountability. Is there anything that you are doing that is making your interactions with this person worse?
• Get more information. Don’t make up your mind about someone or about the way someone behaves without first making sure that you have enough information to make an opinion.  Legion are the embarrassing stories where someone reacted to a small amount of information and later learned that they were missing the most important parts of the story.
• Lower your expectations. If the person can’t or just won’t change, lower your expectations of him.  You will be happier, because he won’t let you down all the time.
• Tell a bigger story. Maybe your story is too small.  For example, you are distracted by your teenager’s sloppy appearance and can’t help but comment on it each time you see her.  But how important is how neat she looks compared to the health of your relationship with her?  Maybe you could tell a story that says the health of your relationship is bigger and more important than your irritation over her appearance, and you are going to overlook her clothing choices in order to preserve open doors of communication with her.
• Pray for the person. Nothing is more effective at changing your heart toward another person than prayer.  Even if you struggle to be sincere with your prayers, make a commitment to pray for him or her until God gives you His heart for that person.

Change what you think (your story) about those around you, and you will change the relationship.  You might even find that your negative story has been the whole reason for the problems between you.  Change your story; change your world.

Urgency Addiction

Remember the days before text messaging, cell phones, Palm Pilots and “Crack-berry’s?”  Me neither, but it did exist didn’t it?  I mean, we used to communicate face-to-face in entire sentences without someone reaching for their holster.  Ah…those were the days.  People actually listened to each other – really listened and focused their entire attention on the other person.

But those days are gone.  Now we just have the illusion of focused attention.  As soon as ring tones sound or the belt starts to vibrate, we’ve lost our audience.  Even if they continue to pretend to listen to us, it’s obvious that their mind is on the incredibly urgent message that is just arriving.  You can tell by the vacant stare, followed by the eye-twitch.  If they don’t check their message soon, their eyes roll back in their head and they eventually lose consciousness.

What happened to us?  It’s simple, but it’s serious.  We’ve developed an advanced case of urgency addiction.  It’s understandable.  If someone needs us urgently, it makes us feel important.  We love being the problem solver.  And our teams, our peers, our bosses…they all love having us around even when we’re not around.  We are the poster children for dedicated, selfless team players.

Unfortunately, we’ve overlooked an important principle, and many of us are paying the price for it.  The principle is:

Today’s extra effort is tomorrow’s expectation.

In the beginning, everyone thought it was kinda neat that they could reach us whenever they wanted.  They appreciated our dedication when we took their call on our way home from work.  They apologized for contacting us during our training workshop.  They thought twice before using our cell number while we were on vacation.

But over time, our willingness to be accessible whenever and wherever raised the bar.  It’s no longer okay for us to get back with them after the meeting.  Now, they expect an answer within ten minutes or less.  If they can’t reach us by Blackberry, they call us.  If we don’t answer, they e-mail the person sitting next to us in the meeting.  If that doesn’t work, they call 9-1-1 and file a missing persons report.  When they find out we haven’t been kidnapped, they are indignant: “Where were you?  We ran out of paper clips, and work had to come to a halt until we found your key to the cabinet.”

This cycle never slows down.  The more accessible we are, the more accessible they expect us to be.  And like any other addictive disease, urgency addiction is progressive.  Our expectations get higher and higher.  We’ve developed a tolerance, and yesterday’s response time no longer satisfies.

And while we are busy being the hero, the dedicated team player, the always-accessible one…we don’t realize some of the negative side effects of our good deeds:

• Our direct reports are developing a dependency on us and becoming incapable of independent thought.
• Our boss, peers and customers (both internal and external) are making more and more invasions into our private lives.
• We are growing increasingly resentful of the demands on our time.
• We are actually creating more work for ourselves as we send out our responses that generate their responses that require our responses…
• We are polluting our time – never being fully present for any event.

We’ve got to slow down!  The long-term prognosis for urgency addiction is not good.  Burnout, fatigue, increased errors, disillusionment, resentment, damaged relationships…  These are just a few of the ultimate consequences.  The longer you wait to break the habit, the more difficult your detox will be (for both you and your enabling codependents).  Good luck.  (I’ll say a “Blackberry Prayer” for you during my next conference call.)

Passion and the Process

When famed composer Johannes Brahms was in his latter years, he announced that he would no longer compose.  His friends and adoring public were shocked and saddened by the news.  “Why?” they asked him.  “Why, when you still have so much beautiful music left to write?”

He explained that he was old and wanted to spend some time enjoying his last years. Who could blame him?  He had already given many years to his craft, making music that blessed so many.

And so, Brahms laid down his pen and spent his time visiting friends and pursing hobbies.  Those who were close to him said that he definitely seemed to have more spark since stepping away from the demands of being in the public eye.

And so it was that everyone was totally surprised a few months later when Brahms announced that he had just completed a new work.  “But we thought you were going to retire…” they declared.

“I was!  I was!” he said, “But after a few days’ leisure, I was so happy at the thought of not writing that the music just came to me without effort!”

Ever been weary of well-doing?  Sometimes the pressure to do the thing you love to do takes the passion out of the process.  Everyone’s expectations for faster, better, more have made you forget how much you enjoyed doing a task just for the sake of doing it.

Maybe all you need is a break.  Can you take a time-out for awhile, go on a vacation, delegate the day-to-day part of the task to someone else, get someone to take a piece of it that you don’t like?  Maybe you need to lower your customers’ (internal or external) expectations.  Tell them that you’ll no longer be completing the task each day (or week, or month).  Let them know that you are going to scale back on the quality, quantity or speed a little.   Often times, you’ll find that you only thought they needed it at the level that you were producing it.

It’s important that you maintain your passion.  If you don’t, the quality, quantity or speed are going to suffer anyway.  You’ll find yourself resenting all the extra effort you put into it.  You’ll feel trapped by your own standard of excellence.  Before that happens, step back from the task and create some new boundaries for it or step away from the task so that you can get a clear perspective.

If it’s worth doing and it’s worth you doing it, we’ll wait for you to sort it out.

(S – Parts adapted from Braude’s Handbook of Stories for Toastmasters and Speakers, Jacot M. Braude, editor, Prentice Hall)

Yesterday’s Extra Effort

One time when I was working in a corporate environment, I got a new boss, who made it a point to fight for bigger annual bonuses for her direct reports.  Because my department’s bonuses fell under the heading of “discretionary,” they were typically rather, well…let’s just call them “modest.”  (Big enough to super-size your lunch for a few days but not big enough to start your retirement.)

However, this particular year, they were considerable.  My bonus was so large that I could have added all my other bonuses together and multiplied them five times without reaching the total.  In fact, when my boss called and gave me the number, I was sure I had heard her wrong.  Those types of incentives were reserved for the production departments – not for training.  But sure enough, when the check came, it was the number she gave me.

Do you think I was motivated by my boss’ generosity?  Absolutely!  I was ready to walk through walls for her.  I was prepared to volunteer for every project that came up, and I probably did….for about three months.  After that, a funny thing happened.  I forgot about the bonus.  The money had been spent almost as soon as I had gotten it, and the thrill of cash in the bank account had been replaced by the dread of credit card bills and car payments.

But that’s not the worst of it.  Fast-forward to annual performance review time at the end of the year.  My boss called me to tell me that I again got a bonus and to let me know what I could expect.  I was pumped!  I couldn’t wait to hear the number, and I just knew it was going to be a significant increase over the previous year.

Imagine my disappointment when the number was actually lower.  Now mind you, it wasn’t much lower – about the size of one of my previous bonuses lower – but I was so upset that I thought about quitting my job.  I’m ashamed to say that this was my attitude even though I still could have multiplied all my previous bonuses by five and fit them into this new one.

I’ve shared this embarrassingly ungrateful side of my personality to make a point.

Yesterday’s extra effort is today’s expectation.

This is true for most of us, not just spoiled rascals like me.  Let me give you a few examples to prove it.  Have you ever brought breakfast in for your team?  I bet you were met with smiles, appreciation and compliments on what a great manager you were.  But continue to bring that breakfast in on a regular basis, and it won’t be long before your team is complaining, “Glazed donuts again?  Couldn’t you get some jelly donuts or something hot?  What, no Starbucks coffee?”

Yesterday’s extra effort is today’s expectation.

Or how about when you put in extra hours at the office?  At first, your boss and all those who benefit will comment on your incredible work ethic.  They will commend you for your dedication and self-sacrifice.  But try to scale back to your regular hours and see what happens.  Suddenly, you’re “not as accessible as you used to be” or “you’re performance seems to be slipping” even though it’s just as high as it was before the extra hours.

Yesterday’s extra effort is today’s expectation.

Taking some liberties with the motivation theories of Frederick Herzberg, the phenomenon I’m describing happens because of the difference between Satisfiers (Herzberg calls them “Hygiene Factors”) and Motivators.  Satisfiers are things that have the ability to satisfy us but not to motivate us.  In a sense, they are the price of admission into that arena of motivation. Motivation starts where Satisfaction leaves off.  This graphic ought to help make the idea clear:

When someone is 100% satisfied, it opens the door to motivation, but it doesn’t go in.  100% satisfied is not necessarily motivated, but it’s where motivation often starts.  For example, I’m satisfied with my level of pay, but I’m not motivated by it.  I don’t get up in the morning thinking, “I can’t wait to get to work to earn this salary I’m making!”  On the contrary, I feel like I deserve it.

If you want to motivate me, you’ve got to do it some other way – through recognition or meaningful work or incentives…  Now, if you pay me less than I feel I deserve, I’m easily dissatisfied.  You’ll find it very difficult to motivate me with any motivators until you’ve addressed my dissatisfaction issue.  Make sense?

What makes using this information tricky is that Satisfiers and Motivators are moving targets.  Let’s say that I’m perfectly happy with my level of pay, but at lunch one day, one of my peers lets it slip that he’s making a little more than me.  Do you think I will still be satisfied?  Nope.  Now, I’m highly dissatisfied.  Why?  Because my level of expectation just increased.  To satisfy me, you have to pay me at least what he’s making (and apologize).  Using the graphic again, here’s what has happened to what I need to satisfy me:

Do you see what changed?  Now it takes much more to satisfy me.  When expectations increase, so does what it takes to satisfy me.  Are you starting to see why yesterday’s extra effort becomes today’s expectation?  In my previous example, the really large bonus increased my level of expectation.  I didn’t know it was possible to get a bonus that big before, but now that I knew, nothing less would satisfy me.  In fact, even just a small decrease created dissatisfaction.

These changes aren’t limited to pay and things related to work.  We change our expectations in many areas of our lives.  A friend of mine owns a very nice house.  It’s much larger and nicer than most of the houses my other friends have.  But he and his wife recently visited some neighbors who have a one-million-dollar house.  As soon as they got home, everything they had started to look smaller and less appealing in comparison.  Their level of expectation was raised.

Or here’s another example.  Remember when your kids were young?  Every little thing they did was a surprise and a delight, and you made sure to let them know how proud you were.  But as they have grown, so have your expectations of them.  If you find that you spend much more time criticizing them than praising them, it’s because it takes a lot more to motivate you to praise.  (I wonder what would happen if we started to lower our expectations in areas where we could afford to do so.)

So what lessons do we take away from this?  I have a few:

• Before you start to hand out expensive motivators (like bonuses and costly incentives), consider that their motivational power has a shelf-life.  It will increase the performer’s level of expectation, and you’ll find that the motivator has to get better and better or bigger and bigger to continue to motivate.

• Consider internal (or intrinsic) motivators first, because they have a long shelf-life and do not increase levels of expectation.  Internal motivators include things like pride in work well done, sense of contribution, learning and growth, challenging and meaningful work…  These are harder to use well, because you have to know your team members well enough to know what charges their batteries.

• Before you commit to giving more and more of yourself to your job, your ministry or your community, count the cost.  You may not be able to scale back in the future without some heartburn.

• If you find that your expectations are too high in some area of your life, lower them.  Believe it or not, you can just decide to be satisfied with less.  I’ve found that this strategy has really improved some of the most important relationships in my life.

As a general rule, expectations increase.  We tend to want bigger, better and faster.  Unless you intentionally slow their progress, you might find it difficult to keep up with them.

Harder Than It Has To Be

I went bowling a few days ago with my youngest son.  We played a tendon-stretching seven games before calling it quits and abandoning our last three paid-for games.

When we started, I asked my nine-year-old if he wanted me to have them put up the bumpers.  (No way!  Bumpers are for babies!) Game one – 34 points.  Game two – 26 points.  (Sure you don’t want the bumpers, son? – No, Dad.  Bumpers are for babies.) Game three – 22 points.  (How about those bumpers, buddy?  Nope.  Bumpers are for babies.) Game four – 7 points.  (I think the bumpers would be a good idea, son. – Uh uh….bumpers are for babies.)  Game 5 – 6 points, made in one, lucky roll sandwiched between 19 gutter balls.

His body language said it all.  Discouragement.  Frustration.  Defeat.  I tried my best to pep him out of it, to give him some pointers that would help – nothing did.  But sometimes it just takes a third party’s permission to help us see the alternative.  One of the bowling alley attendants saw my son’s struggles and offered to put up the bumpers.  (Sure, I guess…)

Game 6 – 100 points.  Game 7 – 96 points.

His body language said it all.  Excitement!  Enthusiasm!  New life!

Sometimes we make things harder than they have to be.  We set up “bumpers are for babies” rules and force ourselves to live by them, but they lead us into failure after failure.  A wife has a rule about having to be the house cleaner her mother was even though it’s not her strength.  A husband has a rule about being the handyman that his dad was even though it’s not his gift.

• “I must make straight A’s.”
• “I must do it all myself.”
• “We can’t ever have an argument.”
• “Our kids have to be perfect and impressive like the Johnson kids.”
• “I have to be a size 8.”
• “Everyone has to like me.”
• “I’ve got to live up to my brother’s reputation.”
• “I have to prove myself to them.”

All these rules make life so difficult and discouraging.  They define failure and success in unrealistic ways that ignore how we were created.  Everyone can be good at something, but it’s not necessarily what your parents or your neighbors or the world says it should be.  It would be so much easier if we could just come to terms with our weak areas and start investing more time into our strengths.  It’s no fun trying to measure up to someone else’s yardstick.

Why is it that bumpers are only for babies?  Who says?  Why do I care what they think anyway?  Am I “bowling” to earn their approval or to enjoy the game?  I only get one trip to this bowling alley.  Why should I waste even a minute of it trying to be something I’m not?

If you’re rolling gutter ball after gutter ball in any area of your life, give yourself permission to throw up the bumpers.  Hire someone to clean your house or do your handywork.  Cross some unrealistic goals off your list.  Lower your expectations, and learn to like yourself exactly the way God made you.  Save your energy and your efforts for what you do best.  Your new motto is: Bumpers are Brilliant!

Reset the Zero

Believe it or not, heating water from -1/2^OC to +1/2 ^OC (1 degree) requires 80 times the energy that is required to heat water from +1 ^OC to +2 ^OC (1 degree).  Why so much difference?  It’s because changing ice to water (-1/2^OC to +1/2 ^OC) requires a change in state.  When water changes state (from ice to liquid water or from liquid water to steam), all the energy (80 calories) goes into the state change.  None goes into heating the water.

When heating water, it takes 80 times the energy to go from a negative to a positive.  It’s not much different when you are working with people.  For example, consider a scale that ranges from -5 to +5 and measures influencing skills.  If you are coaching someone who feels he is a “-3” on the scale, he’s saying that he feels like he has none of the skill.  He’s so bad at it, that he’s in the negative range.

To coach him to the point that he feels he is on the positive side of the scale is going to require enormous amounts of energy on his part and yours.  He will actually have to go through a “change in state” – from someone who has no influencing skills to someone who has some.  That’s a mental leap across a wide chasm.

But what if you could show him that he already had some of the skill?  (as he most certainly does)  What if your reminded him that he already uses influencing skills when he’s talking to his peers about a common project or when he comes to you to ask for a better assignment.  Then, he doesn’t need a change in state.  He just needs to increase what he’s already got.

With water, once you change from ice to liquid water, all the hard work is done.  It only requires one calorie per degree to heat the water.  With people, the hard work is convincing them that they aren’t working from a state of lack.  They already have all the skills they need; they just need to increase them.  In effect, what you are doing is resetting the zero on their mental scale.  The same amount of influencing skills expressed this way would look like the scale below:

A +2 in the skill is much easier to build on than a -3.  Now, he’s got something to work with.  There’s an influencing skill muscle in there – he just needs to exercise it to make it stronger.

I frequently hear people make statements of lack such as, “I can’t speak in front of people;” “I can’t ever remember names;” “I’m not a people person;” “I don’t have any leadership ability.”  Statements like these allow people to abdicate responsibility for trying to develop these skills.  After all, if you don’t even have the raw materials for the skill, it’s not possible to ever have it.

Show them how they already have some of the skill, and you help them make a huge paradigm shift.  Instead of “strengths and weaknesses,” they start thinking in “greater and lesser strengths.”  Help them to reset their zero, and their eyes will be open to their potential.

(S – http://www.school-for-champions.com/science/heat_ice_steam.htm)

Dirt Mining or Gold Mining?

Interacting and working with people is a lot like mining for gold.

Gold miners must move tons of dirt to find a single ounce of gold. At the risk of overstating the obvious, they are never looking for the dirt. The gold is much more valuable.

Sometimes the good in people is hard to find because there is so much “dirt.” Negative behaviors, poor attitudes, sin, disappointments, miscommunication… The dirt may be all we can see. But that’s why miners have to dig for gold. It’s rarely just waiting for them on the surface.

With some people, the gold is deep down, but it’s guaranteed to be there. God never makes garbage; every human being has something (and usually a lot of somethings) to offer. You might be the first person to have the patience to dig for it. That means that it’s going to take some serious work to find it, but it also means that the payoff will be really worth it. You might find gold that the individual doesn’t even know he or she has.

People with less wisdom and less character go digging for dirt. Once they have made up their mind about an individual, they start to look for confirming evidence. They search diligently to find all the negative aspects about the person. What’s worse, they often tell others about the dirt, and then those people go dirt mining, too. With everyone kicking up dirt around a person, it’s unlikely that the gold will ever be found.

So which will it be for the people around you? Are you digging for dirt… or for gold?

Checkers or Chess?

A few years ago, Marcus Buckingham, SVP of The Gallup Organization, and Donald O. Clifton, past chairman of the same, published their book Now, Discover Your Strengths.  Based on 25 years of research at Gallup, the premise of the book is that every person has a unique combination of strengths and that a performer’s greatest opportunities for improvement are not in developing his/her weaknesses but in honing his/her strengths.

To that end, they encourage managers to have “strength discussions” with every employee.  The purpose of a strength discussion is to identify what those unique combinations of strengths are and then work to give performers opportunities to operate in those strengths.  Their research has shown that most managers never have these kinds of discussions with their team members.  Instead, they manage their teams as if they were playing a game of checkers (with each employee representing an individual checker on the board).

They assume that if a group of employees are performing the same role within the organization that they only have a limited and identical number of moves that they can make to accomplish their objectives, i.e. the employees can only move forward diagonally on the same-colored squares.  If this is true, then training, supervising and motivating become easy and predictable.  Treat everyone the same, and you’ll get the same results with everyone.

On the other hand, the most successful managers were found to treat their team members as if they were pieces on a chess board.  The managers knew that each person had a different set of moves (strengths) that he/she could use to accomplish objectives.  If the manager tried to make a knight move like a rook, it would frustrate and confuse the knight.  He would be forced to operate in his weaknesses rather than in his strengths.  So, like master chess players, these managers spent time learning each person’s strongest moves before deploying him/her toward the objective.

If this is true, why don’t more managers operate from the “chess” model of management?  Simply stated, it’s because the “checkers” model is so much easier and takes much less time and effort from us.  Most of us mastered the basic strategies of checkers as children, but it takes a lifetime to become a master at chess.

P.S. Parents, I think there is wisdom here for us in how we help our children discover their strengths, too.

(S – Buckingham, Marcus & Donald O. Clifton.  Now, Discover Your Strengths.)