Why Don’t They Reply To My Emails?

Kevin loved his job. As he sat waiting his turn to sit with his supervisor, he couldn’t help but think how lucky he was. In fact, he couldn’t believe he left his apartment every morning and went to work a Bell Labs. It was his dream job and one he had worked for all through high school, college and grad school. Throughout his academic career he had proven himself over and over again and sure enough all that hard work had paid off when Bell Laboratory had recruited him. His department had already experienced incredible results with almost every project they had been involved in so why did he have this nagging little knot in the pit of his stomach. Oh sure, it was the BIG second year 360 degree evaluation, but, surely his intellectual prowess was obvious to everyone so, “don’t sweat it,” he said to himself. In fact, the only frustration he had at work was the inability of his team to match his levels of competence. The more he thought about it, the more eager he became to get the evaluation over with so some of the deadwood would be sloughed off. That was the norm in Bell’s highly demanding culture and it was why he liked it here.

Finally, the door opened and Roy, his team leader, invited him in.

“Hello Kevin,” Roy said, “Have a seat please.”

“Hum,” Kevin thought, “that was a bit formal, no pleasantries or small talk, at all.”

“Kevin,” Roy began, “This is one of the most difficult evaluations I have had in my career….”

Kevin sat in a stupor, mind reeling, not able to process what he was hearing, in fact, hardly able to remember much of anything after that opening sentence.

His drive home was surreal. He kept going over in his mind the comments Roy made, “Kevin your research is impeccable, it is scholarly, well documented and has been invaluable to the team. Normally that alone is enough for continued tenure here at Bell.”

So what was the reason he had to let me go, some gibberish about my Emotional IQ? Goodness, that same old mantra Roy kept chanting. Could he really mean that foolishness he spouts over and over about the need for his team members to be able to make the people around them want to work with one another?

“Well,” he thought to himself, “I am sorry I have to leave Bell but if this is the kind of people they want, so be it. I’m glad to be rid of them. I certainly will find another research lab that will value my intellect alone and not bother me with insisting that I somehow “get along” with everybody.”

We also hope Kevin will find that place, but odds are, Kevin will find very few career opportunities like that.

I share this story and the study below, which was part of a seminar I attended, conducted by the Society of Organizational Learning, in order to highlight the importance of a strong emotional IQ. The study, conducted by students at MIT’s Sloan School of Business, was simple and designed to identify the reasons why of the 1,000+/- researchers at the Bell Lab, only about 200 consistently produced results. Many demonstrated incredible research skills and all were the cream of the crop in terms of scholastic credentials, but what made those 200 super stars tick.

So MIT enlisted the help of GE and on a late Thursday afternoon they asked a Division Head of GE to email all the researchers at Bell Lab a frantic request for solutions to an urgent and potentially catastrophic problem. Their ideas had to be in the Poughkeepsie, NY’s Office of General Electric no later than the following Tuesday morning.

They then sat back and simply monitored the email traffic from the researchers at Bell. Sure enough, most, if not all the researchers, emailed their network of colleagues immediately that afternoon. Over the next twenty four hours a pattern emerged. I bet some of you can already guess what that pattern might have been.

You know those 200 superstars I spoke of, well, their emails were replied to almost immediately, most that very evening, while the other 800 or so drifted in slowly over the next few days and some got no replies at all.

After exhaustive post study debriefings and interviews, MIT concluded that the top producers all demonstrated a similar trait, the uncanny ability to build networks of colleagues who enthusiastically responded to their requests because they wanted to help them. Comments such as “he is fun to work with,” “she would do the same for me,” “I like to work with her, she makes things happen,” or “he has saved me more than once, I couldn’t wait to return the favor,” were repeated over and over.

So maybe what Kevin doesn’t understand yet is that no matter how “smart” he is, his low tolerance for others and inability to be a “team player,” has a very negative impact on the performance (synergy) of any group he becomes part of.

Kevin suffers from a lethal combination of an incredibly high intellectual intelligence quotient and an incredibly low emotional intelligence quotient. The good news for Kevin, if he’ll listen, is that, unlike intellectual intelligence, emotional intelligence can be learned.

If you would like to get more information about emotional intelligence and activities you can use to improve your emotional intelligence competencies, email or click the comment tab and request them.

And again, please share any experiences you have had with friends, colleagues or anyone in general with either high or low emotional IQ’s. The stories you share are what our readers find so helpful.

“We Have To Decide This Right Now!”

In keeping with the pattern we have established of one week reading a story about individual change and the next week a story about group change, this week’s story is about a group’s experience with change.

In this case, we hear from the senior management team of a company I will call Yankee Supply. And in order to ensure the proper level of confidentiality, I will identify the team members as Paul, Tim, Sandra, and Ralph.

One problem this team faced was the inability to speak with one voice when attempting to introduce new strategies to the employees. You see, each team member, in their own way, had carved out specific areas of responsibilities which allowed them, for the most part, to act independently. However, when market conditions forced changes within the company that required them to compromise their individuality and act as a single unit, things frequently got more difficult. Because of their experience and tendency to be decisive problem solvers, each could usually arrive at solutions within a very short time. Their problem was settling on a solution they could all commit to. This group had never been able to find a process of decision making which respected their individual personalities.

And it is under these conditions, we visit them in the board room.

The pressing issue today was that they had been losing market share to competitors at an alarming rate, and the sales manager’s solutions were making no impact at all. The team had been brainstorming solutions for several meetings. During this process, the solutions seemed to fall into two categories: cutting expenses or increasing sales revenue. They didn’t think they could do both without creating too many distractions. On the expense side of the issue, they came up with a couple of things. One, reduce the sales force or two, reorganize the internal structure of sales by working on the friction that exists between the outside sales people and the inside sales support staff and hope this would reduce errors and cut costs. On the revenue side of the issue, they came up with three options: raise prices, replace personnel, or put some teeth into the performance management system for the sales people.

At this point it is easy to see why these business leaders were successful.

They were all dedicated to the company, bright, experienced and determined to succeed. Their brainstorming efforts had produced logical, well thought out, tactical solutions, any of which had the potential to solve their problem.

Let’s join their discussion at the point where a decision has to be made.

Sandra, who is determined to convince the group they need to cut costs, begins, “I am not going to go through another attempt to get the sales people to sell more. We all know Sam (salesperson) needs to go. Let’s just do it, that alone will save us $4,000 a month.”

Ralph, who also happens to be the sales manager, responds, “That is not your decision to make, if the decision to fire a sales person is made, it is going to be made by me.”

Sandra, “Wait a minute, I thought we were trying to decide together what choice to make.”

Ralph, “Yes, and notice the first choice you recommend is to get rid of my salesperson. Why don’t you look at the mess in inside sales that you’re supposed to be running? If they did their job better, we wouldn’t have to replace Sam.”

Sandra, “So now it’s my fault.”

Paul jumps in, “Here we go again, blaming each other. Why don’t you two just put your petty bickering aside and concentrate on doing the right thing.”

Ralph points his finger across the table at Paul, “Don’t you dare suggest I am not trying to do the right thing.”

Tim finally jumps up, “I’m sick of this, I’m done, and I don’t care what you decide. Do it and let me know,” and stomps out of the room.

Paul looks around the table and says, “Lets take a break, we’ll decide this later.”

Everyone leaves quietly.

And now we can see why the company will continue to struggle.

The management team is unable to make quality decisions, by consensus, in a timely way. So problems fester. Employees become frustrated over the lack of decision making, their moral continues to drop and at best they go “through the motions,” demonstrating little interest in the company beyond their paycheck.

This story has no happy ending. I, as a person interested in systemic changes, would push the leaders to work on a shared vision hoping they can find goals that will reignite their passion. Goals that are so attractive that the leaders will refuse to let their personality traits get in the way of their responsibility to make timely and effective decisions. Others might look for a more pragmatic short term solution and push the team to take the time necessary to create and practice an effective decision making process. In any case, I expect that at some point, due to a change in the leadership team or a crisis that endangers the company’s very existence, Yankee Supply will find a solution.

Odds are, they will continue to survive, but sadly not anywhere near the level of productivity they are capable of.

What’s your guess?

Have you experienced similar situations at your workplace? If so, I encourage you to share your story.

“No Matter How Good My Idea Is, She Won’t Like It”

Jenny loved her job. And today should be her best day since she started at Side Road Realty. As she waited patiently for the always notoriously late General Manager, she couldn’t help thinking back to first time she sat there. That day she was just hoping for a job, any job, even cleaning the office would at least get her foot in the door and that was the best she could hope for.

Wow, who would have guessed just ten months later she would be presenting a new filing system for all the offices to the General Manager. Oh my gosh, just the thought of speaking to Katherine sent shivers down her back. This woman was famous for her sarcastic and demeaning retorts to new ideas. She could reduce the most charismatic, dynamic sales person to a sniveling, apologetic wimp if she chose. Maybe this was a bad idea. After all, when she was hired as the front desk receptionist, she was told, in no uncertain terms, to “just” answer the phone and greet visitors, any more than that would be asking for trouble.

But the more she thought about it, the more determined she became. She had done a great job and had soon earned the respect and praise of everyone, everyone, that is, except Katherine.

She knew her new system was a tremendous improvement, and everyone she had shown it to agreed, and they were the ones who would be using it.

So, she thought to herself, bring it on, Katherine, she was ready.

The next thing she remembered was standing in front of Katherine, working her way through her presentation. Suddenly, she noticed Katherine arch her eyebrows and purse her lips as she looked down at her watch. She knew it, this was not going well. To heck with it, she didn’t care, she’d get through regardless of the fact Katherine hated her idea. After all, nothing changed around the office unless it was Katherine’s idea. That women just couldn’t stand to give anyone else credit for anything. The more she thought about it, the more hopeless this seemed. She could tell that Katherine was about to interrupt. Best bet, at this point, she thought, was to just finish. Finish as fast as she could and get out of there. Maybe if she was abrupt enough, she’d be gone before Katherine could unload.

The last couple of minutes were full of frantic “thanks for listening” (ya, right), “got to go,” “sorry to have taken so much of your time,” but at least she avoided the ridicule and now she was back in her car on her way to meet Barry, her boy friend, for a drink. Boy could she use one.

So it was no surprise that she woke-up the next day with a hangover and a dread of going into work that was close to debilitating. And if that wasn’t bad enough, when she pulled up to the office and looked through the front windows, she shuddered. There was Katherine, waiting at her desk, drumming her fingers impatiently.

Well, to make a long story short, what started to be probably the worst day of her career ended up to be a most memorable one. Katherine, although curious and full of questions about what had happened to Jenny in the middle of the presentation, was actually there to congratulate her for coming up with this terrific new system and offer her a promotion.

How could Jenny have been so wrong?

Well it’s called “Climbing the Ladder of Inference” (see The Ladder of Inference, Part 4, Section 35 from the book “Fifth Discipline Fieldbook” by Peter Senge, Art Kleiner, Charlotte Roberts, Richard Ross, Bryan Smith).

Jenny was climbing the proverbial Ladder of Inference. First rung, observing behavior (watching Katherine’s every movement), second rung selecting data from what she observed (the arched eyebrows and pursed lips), third rung, she added meaning (she knew of Katherine’s reputation), forth rung, she made assumptions (Katherine hated her idea, just as she had all the others), fifth rung, she drew conclusion(Katherine was going to reject her idea), sixth rung, she adopted beliefs (Katherine knew a receptionist could never have a good idea), seventh rung, she took action based on her beliefs (She had to go before Katherine ripped apart her idea).

Jenny was lucky, she got the new job, despite the rushed presentation. The quality of her idea obviously outweighed the botched presentation. But climbing the "Ladder of Inference," more often than not, leads to very negative consequences.

This is a tendency we have all falled victim too and it can be a major factor in missing opportunities to change and grow.

Have you ever climbed the "ladder." If so, I would love you to share the experience.

If you would like some tips to avoid the "climb" or how to approach someone you sense has climbed the "ladder," let me know how to get in touch and I'll share some ideas.

“Hey Guys, How About This?”

Sam was possessed. His company, Do It Perfectly Manufacturers, kept him thinking every moment of everyday and quite often woke him from his sleep. Things were going great, but he couldn’t help thinking his employees could do more. He was a generous and determined owner and the one absolute in his life was his conviction that his employees could do better. His obsession had served him well over the past three years helping to bring his little start up company into the big time. DIP now boasted several hundred employees and was rapidly becoming the leader in its market.

He was really excited today because as usual his three o’clock in the morning waking had produced a truly inspirational solution to a nagging employee performance problem.

He rushed into work and pulled his “management team” from their offices to hear his plan. His enthusiasm was infectious and as usual his “guys,” the term he used for the men and women in the senior management team, eagerly embraced the idea and couldn’t wait to execute the details. Everyone felt this just could be what sends them to the next level. After all, Sam had proved himself over and over. He had the proverbial “golden touch.”

So within two weeks, the team was putting the final touches on the plan. The morning the plan was to be introduced to the staff Sam, joined today by his wife Millie, pulled the management team from their work again and informed them of a last minute change they came up with. So we needed to make the adjustments, simple as that. Well in any normal company this would have sent the senior management team into shock, but this group was well rehearsed in last minute changes and they simply went into hyper mode and by the time the staff came back together, they appeared unruffled, confident and eager for the presentation to begin. And, as usual, the presentation was done well and the staff left the conference room excited and anxious to get the new program started. This truly was an exciting group of people to be around.

There is a lot to be said for constantly challenging the status quo. In fact it is generally accepted that if you are not preparing for “what’s next” while things “right now” are working great, you will be unable to adapt quickly enough to the “what’s next” when it comes.

But as the weeks went by, the managers and staff began to struggle with what seemed to be the steady stream of “oops, didn’t see that one coming,” or “why are so many customers so unrealistic” kind of problems. A growing tension seemed to be building within the company. Something they couldn’t put their finger on, but distracting none the less. However, they were good at picking up the pieces and getting on with it, so wasn’t it just business as usual? And anyway, despite these distractions, they couldn’t keep up with the demand for more and more product, so they were obviously doing something right, right?

Wrong! To make my point, please consider the following two arguments.

One, being so absorbed with, “trying to do their work better and faster than anyone had ever done it before,” made it impossible to find the time to really prepare for the inevitable changes in market conditions. Oh sure, they had the “well, this should take care of any surprises, short sighted, untested, Pollyanna, we’ll be OK no matter what, plan,” on the shelf. A plan, which in fairness to the team, had taken a lot of hard work to develop.

But, none the less, it was a plan based on devastating assumptions (see reference to Mental Models in last weeks blog). These assumptions allowed them to develop confidence in a plan that was simply inadequate for the wrenching market changes they would face.

And two, the introduction of “a new plan,” again and again and again, eventually dimmed the focus, lowered the competence levels, and dulled the passion toward the plans in the very people trying to carry them out. And, as they learned, focus, competence, and passion are the three critical components to success (see “Sticking To It, The Art of Adherence” by Lee J. Colan.) So instead of the intended results, Sam and those incredibly talented DIP Manufacturing employees suffered a tragic unintended consequence, a complete collapse of their revenue stream and the inevitable closing of their doors.

For more information on either The Fifth Discipline, tools and techniques to plan effectively, or ways to measure your ability to stick to your plans and discover what parts of your organization to focus the planning on, email me at stu@simplegrowth.com or click “comment” and request.

Daydreaming Doers

"There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other."
~ Douglas Everett

Neil is one of the most unforgettable characters you will ever meet. Neil was the finance officer at an automobile dealership when I met him (I am sure by now he is anything he wants to be). For those unaware of this, the finance office is second only (sometimes number one) to the sales department in generating revenue for a dealership. It takes a special individual to man that desk. The good ones can engage a customer, push his or her products, think on their feet, and consistently close the deal. Neil was all that and more. He was one of the most focused and determined individuals I have ever met. My first meeting with Neil was unforgettable. I was at the dealership to work with the senior managers on increasing the overall performance of the company, kind of tighten things up a bit. So as you might expect, to many I wasn’t the most popular person in the world. Not Neil though, he seemed open, friendly, eager to hear what I had to say and willing to try anything that would improve the “bottom line,” as he said.

When I first went into Neil’s office to talk I couldn’t help but notice he rarely sat with his feet under his desk, instead he chose to sit sideways or backed away somewhat. After a few minutes of conversation Neil paused and said, “check this out.” He motioned me to come around the desk and look underneath. To my amazement Neil had a full size tire under his desk, wheel and all, just sitting there. Amusing. “OK,” I said, “I’ll bite, why do you have a tire under your desk?” With all the enthusiasm of a circus barker, Neil excitedly explained that the tire was a real tire to a real car he loves to drive, just one he doesn’t own yet. Neil claims that tire doesn’t allow him, for even a minute, to give up on his dream. And if that wasn’t enough, he pointed to the calendar behind him which had a picture of his “new” car pasted to the date he is going to purchase it. Clearly, Neil is a driven man, somewhat obsessive maybe, but definitely a person who will get what he wants out of life.

I share this story with you in an attempt to convince you that people who have not given up on their dreams are more than likely to achieve them.

I am convinced many adults have given up because they have been brainwashed into thinking most dreams are unrealistic. To those I say, shame on you. Think back to when you were a child and try and remember how much fun it was to dream and role play all kinds of fantastic things. I know at 11 years old I was one of the best pilots to ever fly. In fact, there was a stretch one summer, of weeks and weeks, when everyday my buddies, Steve and Harold, climbed the same old big pine tree, settled into the pilot seats (big fat limbs), took the controls of our bomber (weird shaped limbs sticking up from the big fat limbs), and flew in total bliss for hours on hours. You know, although I never did actually fly, all that play acting did make me think about all the things I needed to know if I ever decided to actually do it. For a while there I had a plan, at least in my mind, for actually becoming a pilot. Yup, a plan to be a pilot, that is, until my neighbor, Bobby, brought his cousin, Gloria, with him over to play. I never did think much about flying after that but that’s OK, my daydreaming abilities grew even stronger.

But anyway, I know the power of dreams. I have seen it over and over, both personally and in people like Neil. If for no other reason than its fun, take a few minutes and allow yourself to dream. Be selfish about it, dream big. No one will know what you’re doing and I bet while you’re dreaming you’ll enjoy it. That should be reward enough, but if your fear of facing reality, after the dream, prevents you from even trying, please reply under comments and I will tell you ways to overcome those fears.

Speaking of daydreaming, I find myself doing it a lot when driving. The other day I’m in “my own little world,” tooling down the highway, when behind me a gorgeous new Mercedes pulls out to pass me. But instead of cruising by, it pulls up alongside, toots, and sure enough, sitting there behind the wheel is Neil with a grin on his face that would bring tears to a mother’s eyes.

Email me at stu@simplegrowth.com for some great planning tools.

Poetic license runs rampant, but all in the spirit of the message.