Traveling Light Blog

Last week, I was concluding a team-building series with a dynamite business team leader and his carefully selected team, which blended the best of the former team with newcomers from other companies and industries. We’d been focusing on understanding each other on a more personal level, with each team member sharing what he or she believed to be a common stereotype about their personality and why it wasn’t true.

The team had immersed themselves in a rich discussion getting to know the complex and competent individuals with whom they worked. Not a single text was checked. No laptops were opened. After two hours of completely absorbing discussions, it couldn’t have been clearer that personality type is a starting point for understanding yourself and each other, and not about putting one another into tidy, sanitary little boxes with no room for individual development, growth, expression, or differences.

The team was in a very good place that day. They’d done exceptionally well coming together as a team to turn around sinking sales figures, and even surpassing their quarterly goal a week early. Improving their interpersonal relationships was one of the keys to that improvement. They had worked hard at it and were still working hard at it and aiming even higher.

It wasn’t because the relationships were bad. They weren’t. They team already got along fine. It was because they realized that by getting to really know each other and understand their differences, they could leverage these to be stronger as a team, and build an enormous edge over their competitors, where each sales person was little more than a commission-driven island.

Still, in the midst of all this zippy, cheerful energy, the leader’s brow suddenly furrowed. We’ve worked together a long time, and I knew that look. Every time he reaches a goal, he looks back to see how to make to make the process more efficient. And like many TL readers, he’s not above having a little fun along the way. No wonder he is so successful. I could see that the process of improving interpersonal working relationships would be no exception.

Sure enough, out came the question, “So, Jennifer, how do you get better at this without practicing it a million times?!” Wow, a million times. I’m pretty sure I can improve on that. That’s a pretty low efficiency bar. But why do it myself? We put our heads together, and today I’ll share with you what we came up with, and one addition of my own.

How do you get better at this without practicing it a million times? What are your thoughts? Please join the conversation at www.jenniferselbylong.com.

It’s a miracle! Anyone who knows me knows I just hate documentation and paperwork, so it should come as no surprise that:

• 18 years after becoming certified to administer the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®
• 2000+ instrument interpretations later
• after authoring the first research paper on how personality influences our relationship with money, and co-authoring the second paper with the publisher of the MBTI®
• and best of all, after leading the global professional association founded by Isabelle Myers herself

I finally finished my Master Practitioner documentation.

Yes, I can officially let the world know that I am in fact, a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® Master Practitioner.

Hey, better late than never, right?

I always knew wine had medicinal value.

>Here’s a brilliant and artistic Goth rendering of Dr. Kathy O’Donnell, Chair of the Department of Marketing at San Francisco State University, alongside Yours Truly.

O.k., maybe it’s just a candid photo with particularly bad lighting. Nonetheless, seeing Dr. O’Donnell reminded me of a fascinating study I’ve been wanting to share with my readers. Some members of our Traveling Light community may even qualify to participate.

Are you an awesome Bay Area bargain shopper? Do you love to tell others about your great deals?

If so, Dr. O’Donnell and her colleagues would love to talk to you about possible participation in their shopping study. Those who qualify and participate will be compensated with a $75 gift card, which I think is a particularly thoughtful gesture.

Please email them at odonnell@sfsu.edu if you are interested in learning more.

On January 4, I recommended making one small change per month this year to become one of the best listeners in your organization and reap the rewards of better collaboration, higher trust, and improved teamwork.

If you’ve been participating, then pat yourself on the back because you are already one-quarter of the way there. If not, please join us now. It’s never too late. Just jump in and enjoy the adventure.

The challenge for March was to “Focus. Look at the speaker, or imagine the speaker’s face if you are on the phone. Maintain eye contact. Concentrate on what he or she is saying.”

How did you do? Pop over to (http://jenniferselbylong.com/?p=573) and let me know how it went.

Now, your listening challenge for April, if you are willing to accept it, is this:

“Suspend judgment. Don’t think about whether you agree or disagree while the person is still talking. This leads to thinking about what you will say in response while the other person is talking, which is the opposite of listening.  If you feel your mind formulating a response while he or she is still talking, bring your attention back and say, ‘Could you repeat that?’”

Let me know how it’s going, share your thoughts, and ask your questions any time at: http://jenniferselbylong.com/?p=573.

Is there such a thing as acquisition season? It seems that I have been in a lot of conversations about potential, pending, and actual acquisitions since the weather started to turn warmer. Even though acquisitions are more common than many people think, they are still notoriously tricky to pull off.

Leaders often begin an acquisition integration process by using the same methods that made them so successful in leading their organization on a day-to-day basis. Unfortunately, this just doesn’t work well for acquisitions, because an acquisition can be a big change, and change means you need to change many of your underlying assumptions.

In fact, you may need to change your assumptions about everything from long-standing customer and competitor relationships to who are your partners in the supply chain and what are the employees’ daily job responsibilities. The trick, of course, is not in the acquisition itself, but in the effective integration of the acquisition into the business.

Let’s review five of the most common deadly assumptions well-meaning leaders make about acquisitions, and what you can do to accelerate the integration process and produce a better and more synergistic integration.

Accelerating integration is no small task, but make sure you and your team chase off the five deadly assumptions, and you’ll begin to gain the momentum you need.

Last week I had the honor of serving on a pitch feedback panel with open source tech guru Allen Wirfs-Brock and Mozilla Labs director David Ascher. Mozilla’s start-up incubator, WebFWD, sponsored the event during the launch of their third cohort of amazing entrepreneurs.

What a talented bunch! Most of them are, oh, just the tiniest bit younger than I am, and they inspire my faith in the future. Check out their extraordinarily diverse products at https://webfwd.org/portfolio/.

While I usually don’t stray far from business in my recommendations, this TEDx video by my esteemed colleague makes the cut: Jane Kise Neuroscience, Math, Type. Jane Kise is the world’s foremost expert on how psychological type influences math learning.

Anyone who teaches, trains, has school-aged children will both enjoy and benefit from hearing what she’s learned through her research. Her TEDx talk is completely accessible and you do not need any knowledge of MBTI or Jungian psychology or brain science to follow it.

I also found parallels between her key points on teaching and leadership, since the best leaders facilitate and encourage learning every day. You can view the talk at: Jane Kise Neuroscience, Math, Type.

Jane will be in the San Francisco Bay Area March 9, leading workshops in Intentional Leadership and Polarity Thinking. Get more information at www.baapt.org.

It happens to nearly everyone at least once. You find yourself working for an ineffective boss whose issues impact you and your team. While it’s certainly disappointing, it doesn’t have to be an unstoppable force of destruction.

There are three mistakes I see talented professionals make time and again when they find themselves in this unfortunate situation:

Instead, try one or more of these techniques to view the situation from a different perspective and address it in the way that’s right for you.

Step back from the situation and size up the degree to which his or her incompetence affects you. Sure, it’s disappointing when your boss routinely lets you down, but what is the actual impact? Slowing down your professional growth for a few months isn’t in the same league as your entire bonus being on the line or your personal reputation being put in jeopardy with people you respect. This reflective exercise looks very different for different people at different times in their lives. However, doing this exercise calibrates the situation to your unique needs. I’ve seen clients come to the realization that several years of minor ineffectiveness have added up to something much bigger than they realized, and that they needed to take stronger action. I’ve also had clients realize that their situation is short-term and that they just wanted to stop letting it bother them so much.

Assess if you are in a politically messy situation and if so, begin basic defensive action. Employees have lost their jobs due to ineffective managers who failed to protect them and in some cases, gave them the ax. If you sense any risk and it’s important to keep your job, document conversations, agreements, and open items in follow-up emails after conversations. Try to have fewer 1:1 conversations and more group conversations, if this is appropriate to the work. Maintain your composure no matter how absurd a conversation becomes. One of my clients found himself receiving the wrong performance review from a general manager who couldn’t keep her direct reports straight in her own mind. She launched into the review thinking he was another guy on the team. He maintained his composure and told her that the objectives she was covering were for the other guy’s projects. He also made sure that accurate data about his performance was in writing. You don’t have to become ultra-paranoid or stop trying to build a positive working relationship, but you do need to anticipate that trouble could come your way and take simple (though admittedly, tedious) steps to protect your team and yourself.

Consider multiple ways to deal with the situation. If the ineffectiveness is entrenched or the result of a bevy of bad bosses on up the line, you may need to simply go find yourself a better boss at a better company. However, if your ineffective boss is new to the role and having a bumpy transition, you could choose to ramp up your compassion and figure out how to help him or her be better at the job. Consider options like going out of your way to ensure that the team achieves its goals while the boss gets up to speed on new responsibilities, or offering to help out in an area which your boss doesn’t enjoy and doesn’t do well. This can be something as simple as initiating a team-building outing or helping to validate a project plan.

Honestly ask yourself if you are resisting adapting to a change. For example, it’s painful to admit that you might be overly critical of the boss because you applied for her job and were rejected, or that your expectations are too high because you’ve had three bad bosses in as many years, or that even if his strategy is sound, you just plain hate it. If you do recognize that you are resisting adapting to a change, you may decide that adapting is a better choice, or you may decide to voice your concerns about the change and commit to making it successful, or you may even decide that the change is not for you and go find another job. Whatever you decide, at least it will be an informed choice, made after self-reflection, rather than a choice driven by unexamined and unconscious feelings.

Look at the trend. Ask your spouse or a close friend what trend he or she sees. Have you been complaining about this incompetent boss for a long time? Frequently? Do you seem to complain about every boss, or is this a one-off? Is there any pattern he or she sees? I have lovingly and firmly told friends that they are no longer allowed to complain to me about their bosses because they needed to either get a new boss or get a new attitude. Have you asked your confidantes for their feedback? Their perspectives can help you gain insights impossible to gain on your own, and make better decisions about what to do.

Finally, many people have asked me the secret to avoiding an incompetent boss in the first place. The intent of the question is spot-on. However, the truth today is that you can’t do much to prevent it. Markets change quickly, and companies change structure and direction quickly in response.

For many of you, this means you will be hired by one boss and within a matter of months, teams will be restructured and you will be working for a different boss. Likewise, you may find that your terrific boss isn’t so terrific once promoted too quickly to a role he or she can’t handle and won’t master for quite some time. The same applies when your company announces that it’s been acquired and the next day you report to someone from the acquiring company.

I believe we are about to see much more mobility in the job market as well. For leaders and professionals, the job market of today is a far cry from just two years ago, and an alarmingly high percentage of these highly-skilled individuals are disengaged and eager to leave their companies. You are likely to change bosses this year simply due to better offers elsewhere.

Businesses have become far more dynamic and far less stable and structured. The opportunities in this environment will be amazing for those who can be more dynamic in how they view, assess, and deal with challenges.

On January 4, I recommended making one small change per month this year to become one of the best listeners in your organization and reap the rewards of better collaboration, higher trust, and improved teamwork.

February’s challenge was to “Welcome the other person. You don’t need to do this formally, though you can if it suits you. Smile (even if it’s a phone meeting), stop what you are doing, and if it’s an in-person meeting, ask him or her to sit down.”

Now, your listening challenge for March, if you are willing to accept it, is this:

Focus. Look at the speaker, or imagine the speaker’s face if you are on the phone. Maintain eye contact. Concentrate on what he or she is saying.