What level of faith (belief in something that is real, but unseen) do you have in your business? How about your people? Do you act on this faith even if the brilliance is not seen by many?
The answer to the three questions I posed will tell you a lot about the soul of your business and its true health.
This is the "hard" in hard work.
Welcome to our 5 Questions Series. These are interviews I'll be putting out there in the coming weeks for your digestion and inspiration. There will be a variety of interviews with thought leaders from many different walks, so buckle in.
I'm honored that Lois Kelly is our first interview. I've known Lois for some time now and she never ceases to inspire me. The following conversation is no exception. Enjoy!
Why do rebel thinkers so often feel miserable inside of their organizations?
Three overwhelming reasons. Restlessness, loneliness, and self-doubt.
We’re a restless bunch, always seeing new ways to do things better, easier, faster, better. Yes, I say better twice because we’re wired to keep raising the bar on excellence. Needless to say our ideas and relentless energy often exhaust or threaten our colleagues and bosses. So people often keep us at arm’s length, even those who appreciate the value we bring. This can feel lonely and lead to self-doubt, “Why aren’t they moving now on this idea? Am I off base? Am I not communicating the value well enough? Is it me or is it the idea? Why can’t I just slow down and take it more slowly like everyone else? Do I belong in this organization?”
What value do most rebel thinkers bring to the table?
Rebels have the courage to name the elephants in the room, see new ways to solve problems, bring outside ideas into the organization, and be the first to try new approaches. My research has found that rebels call out problems others are afraid to (92%) and challenge assumptions and sacred cow practices (92%), both of which are essential to real innovation, but often shunned in organizations.
The other overlooked value rebels bring is devotion to duty. Rebels care more about their organizations than most people. That’s why we ask the difficult questions that most people feel more comfortable avoiding, and risk being snubbed for suggesting unpopular ideas. We want our organizations to be the very best and we believe that our colleagues and we have what it takes to achieve more than our competitors.
(see the following chart for more)
Why are many managers afraid/intimidated by rebel thinkers?
We tend to trigger three threats that are wired into every person’s pre-frontal cortex, including those of our bosses. Our ideas often threaten managers’ sense of status, certainty and autonomy.
An overwhelming number of managers believe that they are supposed to create the strategy and have the answers — and employees are meant to execute on those ideas. Not question them. I’m the boss. I’ve got the senior vice president title. Hence, I know more and you should respect me for it. It sounds silly in this day and age of empowerment and collaboration, but protecting our status can lead all of us to act in illogical ways.
We humans are also wired to crave certainty. So when we rebels present innovative ideas that have no best practice precedents or haven’t been Six Sigma’d we trigger fears about certainty. Managers worry, “How will we know this will work? What if we make a mistake?” You get the picture.
The last threat is autonomy. Our managers like doing things their way. To suggest something different is to violate their sense of control and autonomy over what they know and like.
What are the consequences of not engaging with the rebel thinker?
Missed opportunities, a complacent corporate culture, and a talent deficit.
Rebel thinkers see risks and opportunities earlier than most people. This is a tremendously valuable competence in age of such rapid change and smaller windows to seize and capitalize on opportunities. One way to look at rebels is as your “intrapreneurs” bringing entrepreneurial thinking, speed, and competitive instincts inside the organization. They spot ideas and see ways to make them real.
The other consequences are that shutting out rebel thinking sends a signal to the organization that creativity, diversity of thinking and change are not welcome. When that happens, your best talent usually leaves, and the culture becomes complacent. Not rocking the boat. Accepting good enough as good enough. In today’s hyper competitive world, few organizations can survive with a “good enough” approach.
What is most surprising about corporate rebels?
Rebels are not motivated by formal recognition or financial incentives, nor are they “troublemakers.” They’re self-motivated to want to make a difference to their organization and to solve things that are not working as well as they could. My research found that just 27% want formal recognition. What they do want is to be asked their opinions more often and be invited to work on teams to solve specific issues. They don’t want to just talk about ideas, opportunities and problems, the want to make things happen.
The second surprising thing is how many closeted rebel thinkers there are in companies. People are yearning to do more – and they know more about what to do than most executive teams realize.
About Lois
Lois Kelly is an international marketing strategist, organizational change facilitator, successful author and dynamic speaker. She’s passionate about helping leaders at all levels make innovative ideas real, and serves as a creative outsider, igniting organizations to see new ways to accomplish important goals.
Convinced more and more that our search needs to be toward scarcity. In such a way that our abilities, talents, strengths, etc. are called upon to remedy the need for what is scarce. Economics reveals this too, but we can apply across platforms. Your ability to change the world for the better is linked here.
This assumes, like me, that you want to shake things up where you're at.
I'm all for profit, wished I had more. And I'm very into meaningful work. The problem is found in the collision of profit motive and meaningful work.
The problem rears its ugly head when the profit motive starts taking greed steroids. Meaningful work exits when this happens. I wish this scenario was rare, but you and I know it's not. The crazy part is profit and meaningful work can coexist and thrive.
In many ways we live in a tale of two cities. One city is a place where management (entry to executive) is focused on profit, expenses, quarterly news, and the like. The other city is a place where the employee is looking and longing for meaningful work. They're not immature children or idealistic dreamers, just people who understand that life is a limited time offer and they desire to make the most of the time given. This is the reality and the reason we're in such a mess, relating to how we do and live out our work.
So why are the two at odds?
I've always been about people-for better or worse, so I'm not writing to offer solutions on how to fix corporate America. In the spirit of giving you a place to start, a place to begin discovering where meaningful work may be found, I want you to take a look at the following video clip:
I spoke with a friend yesterday about the role of her manager in her job. He's an advocate for her and a buffer. The buffer part was what struck me. He's a buffer between my friend and senior management. Sadly, senior management in this organization is living in an alternative reality, so they need someone who is deft at translating this reality into real world application. This happens a lot in the corporate world.
This post is not a defense of the middle-manager, nor is it a rant about how bad they sometimes can be. In the spirit of balance I want you to consider 7 things your manager wants you to know:
If there is any statement I would want a manager/leader to understand, it would be the following:
"Your people are smarter than you think."
I feel sorry for those organizations that promote, deify, and plain flatter the pants off of management candidates and new hires (including senior management). I feel even sorrier for those individuals because most of the time they are not prepared to lead. It's often a case of letting words on a resume or some performance metric around revenue generation that leads to this ride to hell.
On face of it, you might say congratulations are in order for the recently hired or promoted. I wouldn't want to stop the celebration and I certainly applaud those who desire to lead people. The problem rests in not taking time to explain some key and essential truths. And one of those is:
"Your People Are Smarter Than You Think."
So You may be wondering why the emphasis on that statement? Here are the reasons why:
We've all encountered organizations who have systems that seem to work smoothly. For example, in banking, Chase will probably get 99% of their transactions right today. Accenture has a process that will react when a company puts out an RFP. But as great as their processes may be, if the leaders inside lack heart, there is something fundamentally wrong.
Leadership starts with the heart. Indeed, indeed.
Great organizations (small or large) begin from the heart. Their business models are full of art. That kind of art that solved a problem, made a customer smile or inspired a child to dream. No guarantees of success I know, and certainly you've got to have a business model that can make/raise money. But if you listen to music don't you want the melody along with the rhythm? If the organization only has one side of the equation and not both, then you're looking at a hollow endeavor.
The great warning goes out to organizations that abandon the heart, thinking the head can do it all.
Rare is the organization that can look past the transaction. Often, they're so fixiated on sales and sales forecasts. The better idea here is found in the faith-based (not speaking about religion) approach to selling and relationship-building. The belief in your product or service in such a way as to having faith that it will solve a problem or create a desired breakthrough.
This is tough work and it requires a steadfast reliance on the mission. A career, a transaction-based business model or protecting market share will never do.
So the next time you look at that client or prospective client, do you see a transaction that benefits your business model? I hope not. You should see someone who has a problem you can solve and a relationship to be built. There's no substitute for the latter.
I don't desire the end of Wall Street or capitalism in general. The protests happening in NYC got me thinking. I heard an interview last evening with a successful wealth creator, who discussed the the difference between an entrepreneur and an opportunist (gambler in many respects). If I may paraphrase, he said that entrepreneurs create something and thereby create wealth for many. The opportunists primarily seek to enrich themselves or a few only.
I don't want to overstate my opinion on the impact of power and greed, but those two cousins have often been left unchecked in our world today. I'm not talking about passing a law to stop them. But I would like to see the culture of our businesses and the schools address power and greed for what they are. More progress would come if we stopped ignoring it.
Many an organization (profit and non-profit) have entered into something with good intentions, only to find themselves the slave to a hideous master. Namely, power and greed. Never forget that power and greed are living, breathing things. They have a desire to rule you and the culture (work, politics, etc.). The question is whether you will let it and what will you do to control it.
Has anyone in your organization ever sat down with you and discussed how to handle power and greed, before there was a problem? I often wonder that about Wall Street and those who lead there. If you're a part of most organizations the answer is no. I think its important enough to evaluate and discuss, considering how impactful it is on other human beings.
I never became self-employed because of some ache to be my own boss or the next producer of a killer app. Far from it, I had a mission and corporate America had no interest or desire to fund it.
Most people I know who are great at entrepreneur pursuits have a mission. I mean they have this burning in them that won't go away. Even after trying to kill it, they continue onto the unknown, scary and sometimes insane world that is the mission.
So in the end self-employment is merely a vehicle.
This past week two big things came down the pike for me. First, Steve Jobs stepped down as CEO of Apple and Andy Frank thanked me for some unintentional advice. Andy's thank you was the bigger of the two. Andy is working on his "thing" and was lamenting the process of incorporating. I told him that only a mission could make it worth the price paid. It was like holding up a mirror to my own face. A gut check with gusto.
I am on a mission.
For clarity, let me explain my thoughts on the difference between the idea and the reality of self-employment: