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Change managers fail storming humor

Managers cannot unless workers want to

You might not know this, unless you’re a serial sportster, so I’ll tell you.  The third largest sporting event in the world is currently taking place.  Twenty national teams, including the USA, are competing for the Rugby World Cup.

I don’t think sports teams make good models for business teams to copy.  However, in 1997 something happened in rugby that managers might find helpful.  The British rugby team won a game they were expected to lose.

Apparently they won because the players drew up their own code of conduct.  Weird, I know, so I’ll let Mister Cotton, their manager at the time, explain:

"We could have handed out the rulings and thoughts to the players ourselves, but it would have had none of the impact.  As management we can create an environment but we can't make it happen.  The players have got to want to do it themselves."

Managers cannot make it happen?  Workers must want to?  How quaint!

Fail to deliver wrong order

Here’s what happens when managers cannot (be there) and workers don’t (want to).  One day I watched a waitress wave her cleaning wand over a table and chairs.  Although she did a magical job, she ultimately failed to prepare the site for the next patrons.

As with much in life, it’s all in the order of things.  Sequence matters.  In the beginning was not the end.  The waitress I watched appeared not to know this.

She cleaned all the chairs, first.  Very nicely, I do admit.  Then she wiped the table.  Again, nicely done.  Except, and it’s a big ‘except’.  Many of the crumbs and some of the grub previously on the table were now scattered on the previously cleaned chairs.

Here’s the real magic in that moment.  She did not notice.

Because she got the order wrong, excuse the pun, she failed to deliver.  Thanks to her, I am very aware that unless we check the order of things, we will fail to deliver.  No magic in that.

The sound of one brain storming

When trouble looms or problems multiply, what do the brave do?  No, they don’t deliver order.  They brainstorm.

Well, I don’t like the typical brainstorm.  A brainstorm session can be exactly that – the sound of one brain storming.  With a bit of luck a few brains might share a few ideas.  With much luck, a few other brains will polish the few ideas.

Instead of a river of radical ideas to riff on, you end up with a trickle of tame themes.

Here’s how to get every brain to storm.  Before the meeting, send out key questions to trigger thoughts; collect and collate those thoughts; share results with participants. This way every brain has had a private storm in anticipation of the collective storm.

Or even simpler, at the start of the meeting, get all brains to formulate their ideas in writing, before they may utter a word.  Now all brains are storming, not only the loudest ones.

The U in humor

Please note, the loudest (canned) laughter does not prove the (funniest) joke.  I’m not British, but I enjoy the British sense of humour.  After almost 10 years in the USA much of American humor is still lost on me.  As they say in the classics, I just don’t get it.

∞

Want to take the 'u' out of my humour?
Click here to deliver your brainstorm.

∞

They Make Nonsense Work #2

What is your claim to fame?  More importantly, what do others think is your claim to fame?  As far as I am concerned, Lynn Spitzer’s claim to fame is this: She is and always will be the first American business woman I met on American soil.

(Actually, her real claim to fame is that her intuition about me, before we had even met, led to my first long-term client in the USA.  Ultimately, that first ‘chance’ meeting with Lynn resulted in my family being awarded permanent residence status.)

Although that is more than enough to earn her a spot in my heart, it is not necessarily enough to earn a seat in the Nonsense Hall of Fame.  So why does she qualify?  She never hesitates to shout ‘nonsense’ when I lose the plot.  (To say the least, I’ve lost the plot many times since I landed here in 2002.  Americans are so . . . different.)

Time and again Lynn has helped me ‘re-find’ and refine the plot in my consulting, my coaching, my presentations and in my writing. 

Someone else once said this about Lynn: “I have known Lynn for 20 years.  I was her boss.  She used to say I was her mentor.  Now I call her for ideas.  You should, too.”

Welcome to our side of the nonsense divide

Attraversiamo