Extraordinary Influence E-Book

Tim Irwin

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 264

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

The age-old question for every leader--how do we bring out the best in those we lead? Anyone who has run a company, raised a family, lead an army, or coached a team struggles to find the key to help others excel and realize their potential. It is surprising how often we resort to criticism vs. an approach that actually results in a better worker and a better person. What if we could speak Words of Life that transform those under our influence and ignite fires of intrinsic motivation? What if those we lead found great purpose in what they do and worked at their jobs with all their heart? Isn't that what leaders, parents and teachers really want? Ultimately, don't we hope to foster intrinsic motivation so that the individuals we lead become better employees, better students or better athletes? Recent discoveries of brain science and the wisdom of top CEO's that Dr. Tim Irwin interviewed for this book give us the answers we've long sought. In most organizations, the methods used to provide feedback to employees such as performance appraisal or multi-rater feedback systems, in fact, accomplish the exact opposite of what we intend. We inadvertently speak Words of Death. Brain science tells us that these methods tend to engage a natural "negativity bias" that is hardwired in us all. Science in recent years discovered that affirmation sets in motion huge positive changes in the brain. It releases certain neuro chemicals associated with well-being and higher performance. Amazingly, criticism creates just the opposite neural reaction. The most primitive part of the brain goes into hyper defense mode, compromising our performance, torpedoing our motivation and limiting access to our higher-order strengths. How do we redirect employees who are out-of-line without engaging our natural "negativity bias?" Leaders must forever ban the term, "Constructive Criticism." Brain science tells us that we can establish a connection between the employee's work and his or her aspirations. This book calls for a new approach to align workers with an organization's mission, strategy and goals, called Alliance Feedback.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Foreword

Part I: The Science of Extraordinary Influence

1 The Blue Suitcase Phenomenon

Where Does Your Organization Eat?

The Conundrum

Task-Driven Leadership

Macho Management

Bring Out the Best in Others

Notes

2 Words of Life

Pulled by Purpose

Our Brains Love Affirmation

Not Really Affirmation

Affirmation—The Means to Influence

Notes

Part II: How Extraordinary Influence Works

3 Tactical Affirmation

How Do We Affirm the Style of Those We Seek to Influence?

Style and Receptivity

Competence

Why Affirm

Note

4 Strategic Influence

What Is Our Core and How Do We Reach the Core of Another Person?

Words of Life

What Are Words of Life?

Under What Conditions Can We Give Words of Life?

Notes

5 Words of Death

Words of Death

The Social Workplace

Shame Speaks Words of Death

The Worst of All Legacies

Can a Leader's Fundamental Style Change to Become Less Critical?

Join My Crusade

Notes

6 Alliance Feedback

Alliance Feedback

Caveat Emptor: This Approach May Not Work

Notes

7 Extraordinary Influence for Underperformers

True Story 1

True Story 2

True Story 3

The Three Stories Called for Three Different Remedies

How Do We Make These Judgments That Have Such a Huge Impact on People's Lives?

To Whom Should We Direct Our Limited Developmental Resources?

How Much Compassion?

Resistance to Dealing with a Problem Person

The Him or Me Card

The Virtue of Redemption

Part III: Special Applications of Extraordinary Influence

8 Extraordinary Influence for Teams

The Three Levers

A Team's Collective Core

Extraordinary Influence on the

It

—the Mission or Quest of the Team

Extraordinary Influence—Healing the

I

,

We

, and

It

of the Broken Organization or Team

Conclusion

Notes

9 Motivating High Potentials

A Great Test for Leaders

Four Transformational Actions to Bring Out the Best in HiPos

Notes

10 Performance Appraisals that Lead to Extraordinary Influence

What Must Any Reinvention of Performance Feedback Include?

Notes

11 Special Counsel to Parents, Teachers, and Coaches

Courage to Fight for Our Children's Well-Being

Words of Life—The Fuel to Reach a High Orbit

The Tragedy of Words of Death

College Football: An Amazing Laboratory Experiment

Alliance Feedback for Children

The

I

,

We

, and

It

for Families

The Conundrum of Hardship and Adversity

Final Counsel to Parents, Teachers, and Coaches

Notes

12 What Would Happen If We Put This into Practice?

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Index

End User License Agreement

List of Illustrations

Chapter 3

Figure 3.1 Three Faces of a Leader

Figure 3.2 How Tactical and Strategic Influence are Applied

Chapter 8

Figure 8.1 Balancing of the “I, We and It.”

Chapter 10

Figure 10.1 Dilbert Cartoon

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

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E1

Tim Irwin hits a needed reset button in Extraordinary Influence. He compels us to consider the power of our words, to build up and to tear down. From my observations in 50‐plus years of business leadership, this book's focus on “affirmation” is right on target as the central ingredient in building a dedicated team and productive work environment. It is rich in uncommon wisdom and immediately applicable in your spheres of influence.

John D. BeckettChairman, The Beckett CompaniesAuthor: Loving Monday and Mastering Monday

Combining fresh insights from neuroscience and behavioral psychology with a lifetime of real‐world experience with CEOs and other leaders, Irwin gives us a template to “help bring out the best in others.” Many of his teachings are counter‐intuitive and challenge traditional leadership guidance. That's when Tim is at his best.”

David W. Miller, PhD,Director, Princeton University Faith & Work Initiative;President, The Avodah Institute

Prepare to be disrupted. Tim's latest book challenges decades of accepted approaches to the motivation of others. Any of us who lead an organization want the members of our organizations to flourish. Tim uses his experiences, the latest science, and the wisdom of highly effective CEOs to guide us into a better approach. This book is a must read for anyone serious about improving their leadership.

Greg BrownCEO Learfield

If we, as leaders, are only as good as the people we lead, it behooves us to bring out their best. In Extraordinary Influence, Dr. Tim Irwin provides a practical and intuitive guide, backed by science, on how we can bring out the best and motivate others.

Jim LindemannExecutive Vice President, Emerson

There are many people today offering insights about leadership, but few are as engaging and interesting as my friend Tim Irwin. In Extraordinary Influence he reminds us that the best leaders are those who are invested in the betterment of those around them. It's a powerful book!

Jim Daly,President – Focus on the Family

There is so much polarization in our country at the present time, with verbal barbs ever present in our political and economic debate. Into this context comes a timely book, that if taken seriously by enough people, can result in healthier and more productive workplaces. It can result in more efficient government. It can result in happier and more stable families. The power of words is something we do not think about nearly as much as we should and Tim Irwin has made a compelling case for the power of words of affirmation that are timely and truthful.

Howard DahlCEO, Amity Technology CorporationChairman, Astarta Holding N.V.

Don't we want to bring out the best in our family, the members of our team, our employees and those in our circle of influence? Dr. Irwin reiterates throughout the text, just how much words matter. He eloquently and scientifically explains how both “Words of Life” and “Words of Death” can affect another's core (that part of us where beliefs are stored, opinions formed, and feelings happen). “Words of Life” ‐ spoken authentically to another person ‐ have the power to positively transform that individual's life. If you want to leave the people in your life better than you found them, Extraordinary Influence is a must‐read.

Lisa Nichols,CEOTechnology Partners

It is said that great employers create an environment where their associates can bring their full selves to work. In many respects, that is a fundamental aspect of building an engaging workplace. But what if we could create something even more impactful? Dr. Irwin points out that both the art and science of great leadership proves that by speaking words of Life into our people, there is both an emotional and physical response that literally changes who we are and leads us to even greater levels of performance. A culture of high performance demands what this book brings to the table.

Scott MacLellanCEOTouchPoint Support Services and Morrison Community Living

In his new book Extraordinary Influence Dr Irwin zeroes in on a little understood key to inspirational, powerful leadership, the ability to influence. He dissects the nuances and elements of influence which can empower leaders from all parts of an organization, democratize the ability to lead, and flatten the leadership hierarchy of effective organizations.”

Kevin RaceExecutive Vice PresidentConsumer OperationsSunTrust Bank

Extraordinary INFLUENCE

How Great Leaders Bring Out the Best in Others

Tim Irwin, Ph.D.

Copyright © 2018 Dr. Tim Irwin. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Names: Irwin, Tim, 1949–

Title: Extraordinary influence : how great leaders bring out the best in others / Tim Irwin.

Description: Hoboken : Wiley, 2018. | Includes index. |

Identifiers: LCCN 2017058808 (print) | LCCN 2018000083 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119464440 (pdf) | ISBN 9781119464433 (epub) | ISBN 9781119464426 (hardback) | ISBN 9781119464440 (ePDF)

Subjects: LCSH: Leadership. | Personnel management. | BISAC: BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Human Resources & Personnel Management. | BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Leadership. | BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Management.

Classification: LCC HD57.7 (ebook) | LCC HD57.7 .I793 2018 (print) | DDC 658.4/092—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017058808

Cover Design: Wiley

To my Clients, from whom I have learned so much over the years.

FOREWORD

Tim Tassopoulos

President and Chief Operating Office, Chick-fil-A

I am grateful that one of the mentors who has wielded “extraordinary influence” in my life is Dr. Tim Irwin. Tim is a consultant to many of America's most respected organizations and Fortune 100 companies. His faith is evident, his love for family and friends is unshakeable, and his commitment to developing others is impressive. That's the heart behind this book.

My relationship with Tim started over 30 years ago. Tim was an advisor and consultant to Chick-fil-A founder, Truett Cathy, and Chick-fil-A president, Jimmy Collins. As the generations of Chick-fil-A leadership changed over time, Tim's insights, counsel, and active consulting about talent management, organizational effectiveness, leadership development, and culture have made a tremendous contribution to our company and its leaders. I encourage you to read this book to glean your own insights as a leader, teacher, coach, or parent, from Tim's broad and practical book.

Smart people have different definitions of leadership. Warren Bennis defined leadership as the capacity to “translate intention into reality and sustain it.” Marcus Buckingham, author and consultant, says that leaders “rally people to a better future.” John Maxwell, pastor and author, says, “Leadership is influence—nothing more, nothing less.” I find value in each of these perspectives, but Tim Irwin's definition of leadership as “extraordinary influence” aligns with my own personal definition. Extraordinary influence is ultimately how one person positively impacts others through choice and not through forced compliance. This is real leadership—not the power or prestige that is often confused with strong leadership.

What is the one, essential quality of a leader who wants to make an impact in a positive way? What matters most for the leader who wants to leave a meaningful legacy for the next generation? What capacity should a leader develop most to fuel their leadership engine? The answer to each of these questions is the same—extraordinary influence.

I encourage you to read, reflect, and apply—put the leadership principles found in this book into practice, as I have. Become an inspiring leader known for extraordinary influence. Develop your character as a leader. Then, dare to lead!

Part IThe Science of Extraordinary Influence

1The Blue Suitcase PhenomenonMany Leaders Create an Effect They Did Not Intend

A few years ago, a group invited me to speak to their annual leadership conference in Europe, and they included my family on the trip. A month or so before our departure, my wife, Anne, told me about a lifelong dream to visit Portugal and wondered if we could stop in Lisbon on the way to the meeting. Our travel agent told her that our airfare would change only slightly, so I said somewhat distractedly, “Fine with me.” Anne made the hotel arrangements, and I moved the departure date up on my calendar.

Just days before we left for our trip, the hotel confirmation arrived. I went into shock when I saw the exorbitant charge for our hotel stay in Portugal and asked Anne with visible irritation, “How can we afford this? There is no way we have enough money to stay in that hotel.” Anne calmly explained that she was upset, too, but it was the only hotel that had space available. She then shared her plan to save money by bringing our food with us. Anne brought down the old blue suitcase from the attic and filled it with food for our four days in Portugal. At that point, it was too late to change our flights without a significant penalty, so we moved ahead with her plan.

After flying all night, Anne, our two sons, and I checked into the beautiful Hotel Estoril del Sol, a magnificent beachfront property in Lisbon and ate our first breakfast from the food Anne packed in the blue suitcase. I opened a miniature box of cereal with my Swiss Army knife and squirted it with room temperature milk from a small carton that needed no refrigeration. My father always described his two grandsons as “appetites with skin stretched over them,” and you could tell from the faces of our two sons that the Blue Suitcase Plan was not getting off to a good start! The view of the Atlantic Ocean was beautiful, but the breakfast was dreadful. Anne noted our grumpy moods and suggested we change clothes and begin our tour of Lisbon.

On the way down, our elevator stopped on the mezzanine level. As the doors parted, we looked straight into the hotel dining room. It looked like a spectacular movie set. With a backdrop of the bluest ocean I'd ever seen, linen-draped tables were laden with magnificent food. Large ice swans and flowers decorated the tables as pleasant servers attentively bustled around. What I noticed most, however, was how happy everyone in the dining room seemed to be. I knew the reason they were happy—they were eating breakfast in that beautiful dining room!

Sensing trouble, Anne pulled my arm and led us down the stairs out into the bright Portuguese sunshine. After several hours of sightseeing, we stopped for lunch in a park with a shady bench overlooking the magnificent bay. Anne handed me a can of tuna fish with a pull top ring and some saltines—our lunch. I felt grateful for her resourcefulness, but these types of meals went on for four days. Our boys bordered on hostility and aggression after being denied their normal caloric intake for that long. They were in that preadolescent growth phase when they ate constantly and only became taller.

The night before our departure, I stopped to check our bill with the front desk clerk. As I turned to leave, she said pleasantly, “Mr. Irwin, may I make your breakfast reservation in the hotel dining room tomorrow morning before you leave for the airport?” Not understanding the comment, I turned and asked her to explain. “Of course, all of your meals are included in the room fee.” In a millisecond, it all became clear! The reason the hotel was so expensive was that our meals were included in the price of the room. We had just spent four days eating the most awful food I could remember, when we could have been eating in the beautiful hotel dining room with all the other happy guests. The bitter irony was that we had to leave for the airport the next morning before the restaurant opened, so we even missed the one meal that we still had coming!

In defense of my incredibly smart wife, Anne had asked about meals when she made the reservation. Something obviously was lost in the translation between the hotel and our travel agent.

Where Does Your Organization Eat?

It is always surprising to me how so many organizations eat out of the blue suitcase of mediocre performance when both the leaders and the workers themselves long to eat in the beautiful dining room of exceptional performance. What's the difference between those organizations that eat out of the suitcase versus in the dining room? While economic conditions and strategic decisions on how best to capitalize on market opportunities make a huge difference, ultimately, the performance of the people in the organization determine its fate.

We see some organizations with happy, motivated employees solving problems, delighting customers, and working hard to reach goals. We observe others with a dreadful culture of rude employees who transfer us to the wrong department, or when we call their 800 number for customer support, the person on the phone acts as if we were a complete idiot. When I call in for computer support, that depiction may be justified—I just don't want to be treated that way.

Engagement surveys should dishearten any of us who want our organizations to prosper. Gallup reported that 67% of workers are disengaged in the workplace. Even more disconcerting is that in the disengaged group, 17.2% are “actively disengaged,”1 meaning that they seek to work as little as possible.

We've watched Office Space and laughed at the scene where Bob, the consultant, interviews Peter, one of the workers at Initech.

BOB SLYDELL:

Y'see, what we're trying to do here, we're just trying to get a feel for how people spend their day. So, if you would, would you just walk us through a typical day for you?

PETER:

Yeah.

BOB SLYDELL:

Great.

PETER:

Well, I generally come in at least 15 minutes late. I use the sidedoor, that way Lumbergh can't see me. Uh, and after that, I just sorta space out for about an hour.

BOB PORTER:

Space out?

PETER:

Yeah. I just stare at my desk but it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch, too. I'd probably, say, in a given week, I probably do about 15 minutes of real, actual work.

2

We laugh but also quietly wonder if Peter works for us. While Office Space seems farcical on its face, it also touches a nerve. The Gallup and other data suggest there are more Peters in the workplace than we might assume.

Many view their jobs as a penalty box between weekends. They find little to no hope that their work will ever provide more than a paycheck to pay some bills and to enable the pursuit of fulfillment elsewhere.

I frequently speak to groups of senior executives and often ask a question. “How many of you feel that maybe not all, but many of the employees working in your organization are capable of making a higher contribution to the organization than they currently are?” It's rare when I do not get close to a 100% “yes” to that question. I then ask a more difficult but related question. “If they can make a higher contribution to your organization, then why aren't they?” What corporate leader, what parent, what coach doesn't want to release the extraordinary potential of the employees, players, students, or children under their influence? Isn't it a critical part of our job to figure this out?

The reality is that this challenge extends far beyond the corporate environment. What parent hasn't agonized over how to get a seemingly unmotivated child to care about school and their future? What teacher hasn't begun his or her career with the idealistic aspiration of stoking the flames of intrinsic motivation and transforming their lackluster students into talented academic performers? What coach hasn't longed to find the key to unlock a gifted but underperforming athlete's potential? Scout leaders, religious, and other community leaders and anyone who seeks to make a difference in others' lives wrestles with the question, “How do I get another person to rise above the daily-ness of their lives to perform beyond what anyone thought possible?”

The age-old question for every organization—how do we bring out the best in those we are responsible for leading? How do we get them to care? How do we ensure productivity, quality, timeliness, and great attention to customers? How do we help them love their jobs? These represent the most pivotal questions that should keep any competent, conscientious leader awake at night. What makes this especially vexing rests in the reality that the answer to the above questions seems to vary widely among different employees.

Do we know anyone who says I want to go work today and see how badly I can screw up? Do we know anyone who says I really want to work for a firm which embarrasses me when I tell others where I work? My sense is that employees long to eat in the dining room of excellence as much as their leaders. Most want to be proud of their work and the reputation of the organizations they serve. Despite the inherently positive predisposition of many workers, think about how many organizations languish with terrible customer service, high turnover, and marginal engagement in the work.

The Conundrum

Like most young families, my wife, Anne, and I looked for age-appropriate chores that could be assigned to our two sons for teaching responsibility and self-discipline. Anne took the lead on asking our sons to take out the kitchen garbage every day. There is very little difference between getting children to take out the garbage and running a Fortune 500 company—well, maybe scale and complexity, but some of the fundamentals are the same. How do you motivate another person to do something with quality, speed, and consistency? For some odd reason, the fact that the boys' allowance (their weekly salary) was predicated on getting the garbage out and doing some other chores didn't seem to make that much difference. Neither did the fact that Anne was the parent. As I tell CEOs quite often, position power is not all it's cracked up to be. Anne often resorted to nagging, occasional yelling or fearsome threats, like no TV for a week, which produced short-term results but certainly nothing sustainable. None of these management techniques accomplished anything that transformed our two young sons into conscientious, happy, quality-insuring garbage taker-outers.

How we motivate another person or group of people to do something and do it well is a conundrum. Anyone who has raised a family, led an army, run a company, or coached a team struggles to find the key to motivate an individual person to excel, to realize his or her potential, and to get an important job done well. It is surprising how often we resort to a default position of a negative consequence for not doing something versus an approach that actually results in a better worker and a better person.

Ultimately, don't we hope to foster intrinsic motivation so that the individuals we lead become better employees, better students, or better athletes, and so on. Anne wanted the garbage taken out for sure, but what she and I really wanted was for our gangly teenagers to mature and to eventually have responsible jobs and healthy, accomplished families of their own. She and I longed for our sons to pursue some high and noble purpose with their lives and to make a difference in the world. Maybe running a Fortune 500 company is easier after all!

Task-Driven Leadership

Let me speak to skeptics. Over the years, I've interviewed thousands of leaders, many of whom were hard-driving and task-focused. While giving intellectual assent to the relational aspect of work, these leaders often disparage the soft skills of management. Even as an organizational psychologist, supposedly an expert on the soft side of management, I admit that some of the stuff I read is way too spineless for me, as well. For those readers who are skeptics, try to remain open as I attempt to make a case for the major thesis of this book—we gain an extraordinary ability to transform others when we affirm them versus when we apply what might euphemistically be called constructive criticism. Hopefully, you might adopt recommendations from this book strictly out of pragmatism, if nothing else.

Many of the things we do to motivate others, in fact, accomplish the exact opposite of what we intend.

I have consulted with hundreds of organizations during my career. I've heard many task-driven leaders espouse their philosophy of leadership, often in short pithy phrases. Several weeks ago, I sat with a senior leader, who said with great fanfare and sincerity, “I believe people don't do what you expect, they do what you inspect.” She smiled at me looking for affirmation that she had finally unlocked the secret to motivation. I didn't want to deflate her and explain how many times I'd heard that hackneyed phrase over the years. Certainly, it is true that inexperienced workers need more direction, structure, and feedback, but this involves a lot more than inspection.

Here are some other phrases we hear routinely from the task-driven style of leadership.

“I'm going to hold his feet to the fire.”—Origin: a method of torture to force heretics to recant in the Middle Ages.

“I need to light a fire under her.”—A phrase originally used to motivate chimney sweeps who feared climbing to the top inside a high chimney.

“I'm going to hold you accountable.”—

Accountable

is derived from the Old French word

acont

, such as counting money. The connotation is the thinly veiled threat that you better do what I said to do. We are reminded of the not-so-jolly aspect of Santa's personality—“keeping a list and checking it twice.”

“One throat to choke.”—On a given initiative, the idea is that you need one person who is accountable for the results.

“There's nothing so clarifying as a good public hanging.”—When someone does not perform according to expectations, his firing can be used as an example for what happens to those who don't achieve targeted results.

“He needs some fire in the belly.”—The source of the expression is not known, but it's conjectured that this metaphor for motivation comes from stoking a potbellied stove.

“I got in his face.”—A direct and aggressive management style intended to provoke action.

“Next time I'm going to write you up.”—A common practice in some organizations thought to intimidate workers to comply under the inherent threat, “You do this again and you're fired.”

“I'm going to work you so hard, your [private parts] will sweat.”—I overheard this profane expression used ostensibly to motivate a mid-level manager in a Fortune 500 company, which prided itself on forward-thinking human resource practices.

Macho Management

We have all heard many of these commonly used phrases and maybe even said them ourselves. I like to think of this approach to motivation of employees as Macho Management. “I'm tough-minded and in control. I will get you to do what I want done.” If we take out the often good intentions behind the statements, aren't they a bit self-righteous? Aren't they a bit patronizing? Aren't they assuming the worst about human nature?

Do most leaders brazenly act this way? No, it's typically a more subtle management style. The inherent belief reflected in these sayings is that I'm going to get you to do something you are fundamentally resistant to doing. If we look under the hood of Macho Management, it suggests that workers or students or players or children are lazy, irresponsible, lacking ambition, and less intelligent, and therefore require constant scrutiny to ensure that work gets done. We might say, “That's a bit harsh.” True, but in our drive to get results out of the people we manage or teach or coach or parent, we may adopt methods that appeal to our fundamental need to control outcomes. A question that should keep us up at night is whether there is a way to transform those we lead so that they are internally motivated to achieve excellence without all that brash fanfare. No one who's been a leader believes it's easy to get someone to change. No one who has parented, taught, coached, or led people into battle thinks those jobs are easy, either.

Common practices in management today are strikingly different from what new science teaches us and should not be ignored even by those with a track record of success.

If you are a corporate leader, you likely reached your lofty perch by performing your job well and getting others to perform theirs. Many task-driven leaders excel at getting things done. Their demanding expectations achieve results; however, it's now clear from a growing body of research that for a leader to be effective, it's vital that we spend time and energy in both task-oriented management as well as a framework that values the