Managers are people who do things the right way while leaders do the right thing—Warren Bennis
As I sit at home with my oldest boy who is eight and isn’t feeling well (and now, the next morning, with the second oldest boy, six, sitting on my lap, who also does not feel well), I am thinking about the second most important Essential Element of Leadership: Care and Feeding. After talking with you about Setting the Example, this Element follows naturally for me, especially as I sit with both boys and care for them. CTA1 Christine Cartmell, recently retired, used to tease me and say that if she didn’t hear me talk about “Care and Feeding” at least once during the day, then I wasn’t myself! How well she knows me.
You may be wondering where this phrase comes from or what it’s all about. To someone who has lived by this idea for many years, it occurs naturally, especially now when I provide leadership for training or mission work as I travel. However, I’ve never really put this idea on paper before and only talked about it with my wife and my teammates, and actually have just done it. In my heart of hearts, I know what it means and I’ve seen others do it. Here’s what I think about: Do I have a place to put my stuff that I am hauling around? Do I have a place to sleep? Can I find something to eat? Can I get to where I need to go easily enough? Do I have all the things I need? Am I ready? And so on… Now this may not seem like much to someone who is not in the military, and may seem to occur naturally without thought in some ways, but to a Navy person, the vital thoughts are: A place to put personal belongings, to have a place to sleep and to find something to eat. And maybe even more so the key question is, “When do I get paid?” Someone may have a more refined explanation of why these thoughts occur, but when I began to think about Care & Feeding, I thought back to my Psych 101 course in college to what I learned about the Humanistic Psychologist, Abraham Maslow, and what he said about basic needs for humans. (I knew college would pay off someday!) Abraham Maslow believed that humans have a hierarchy of needs. He believed that this hierarchy was natural and ordered from the most to least pressing, or, from the most basic need to most powerful: physiology such as food, water, sleep, air (obviously!); safety; next, to be socially accepted; then self-esteem; and finally self-actualization, or the need to develop a person’s life or potential fully, which he believed lead to a rich and meaningful life. Some may interpret this to say that when you are self-actualized, you are the best at what you can do. Maslow thought people would question which need was strongest and would cause them the most energy and most time to satisfy, and then move up in the hierarchy, or to the next most important. He thought that only when all of these needs would have been satisfied could a person realize their self-actualization improving their situation and realizing they can achieve great things. Yeah right. That is a bunch of theory to swallow, and I am glad college is over. But somehow, internally, I already knew this, even when I was in college without putting the “Care & Feeding” label on it. (Maslow must have been in the Navy!) It doesn’t take a rocket scientist, or a Humanistic Psychologist to know what’s at the heart of Care and Feeding. As a leader I know this, and as a follower, I have experienced it directly.
I was just reading my new book, The Customer Comes Second by Hal F. Rosenbluth. His whole book is about Care & Feeding. He believes in a people-first attitude as a foundation for his company where he puts people “above everything else”. He says that his employees “are cared for, valued, empowered, and motivated to care for their clients.” What a concept! This idea goes against the mainstream of thinking in business when a lot of companies are all about customer service first. I remember Maslow’s hierarchy of needs but I never really expected to think about it in a "real-time" environment such as this. Hal Rosenbluth realized this when he first took over Rosenbluth Travel and proceeded to transform this company into 7,500 % growth in revenue over 15 years and maintained his profitability! (p. 9, 10) He does this by: cultivating happiness in his work environments; finding the right people; training them for their entire career in the best way possible; providing the employees with the best tools and technology; by looking for opportunities where, as a company, they can “invent the future of our industry” (p. 41), much like inventing their own rules; creating a culture of happiness; encouraging and cultivating new ideas. He goes on to say his company is only as good as its people, which provide its true competitive measure. People, service to clients, profits. Profits are the end result. People, are the first result.
And there is another person who considers Care and Feeding to be a pivotal part of their corporate culture. His name is Max DePree. He is another of my favorite leadership authors. He has written several books, my favorite being Leadership Is An Art. Now Max has a slightly different philosophy about this idea. Having been the Chairman of the Board for Herman Miller, Inc. he has led his company to some pretty impressive results. (These results are somewhat dated; however, I believe they stand on their own.) I’ll summarize: They manufacture the Eames chair, which is in the permanent collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the Louvre’s Musee dess Arts Decoratifs; in 1983, this company was chosen as one “the 100 Best Companies to Work for in America” by Milton Moskowitz and his associates (p. xii); Herman Miller’s employees are considered to be among the most productive, as measured in terms of net income per employee (p. xiv); Fortune magazine, in 1988, picked this company as one of the “ten most admired companies”, first in its industry, fourth out of all U.S. companies in the category of “quality of products or services” (p. xviii) and has regularly been ranked among the top 25 firms; if you had stock invested in the company in 1975 and had calculated its growth to 1986, you’d have had an annual growth rate of about 41%, where the company was ranked seventh in overall total return over ten years, as ranked among the Fortune 500 companies (p. xiv); 100 percent of all regular employees having worked at Herman Miller for a year, or more own company stock (p. xvii); and finally, in 1986, this company introduced Silver Parachutes for all employees, that’s right, all employees that had over two years of service to the company! And they only have about 1000 employees! What? A Silver Parachute for all employees? My “silver parachute” starts when I’m 60 with over 20 years in the Navy. Here’s how Max and his company exemplify Care & Feeding. He believes the art of leadership is “liberating people to do what is required of them in the most effective and humane way possible.” The leader becomes the servant of his followers. The leader removes obstacles. The leader enables their followers to realize their full potential. (p. xx) As Robert Greenleaf says in his book Servant Leaership, “the great leader is seen as servant first ”where this person is the guiding spirit of the organization and ”sustains them with his spirit and his song”. (p. 7) And all the while those he or she leads may not, in fact, realize they are being lead.
With Maslow’s thoughts about psychology needs, Rosenbluth’s people-first ideas, and DePree’s liberation of people in mind, how do we as leaders go about Care and Feeding? I can explain. John Maxwell pretty much sums up what I believe, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” And I’ll follow this with something my wife said to me yesterday when we were talking about this idea, “The more you give, the more you get back.” (My wife is going to have a field day with this being quoted next to Maxwell!) The people you lead need to know you care about them in every way. Besides Setting the Example, this is the most important Element of leadership in any Leadership toolbox. I think of it along these lines by asking myself a basic question: “How can I create a successful environment for people to work in?” And then I closely follow it with “What can I do to help you be more successful?” The first time this last question was asked of me I nearly fell over. A former Commanding Officer, Capt Ray Winslow, and a former Executive Officer, LCDR Tom Midtvedt, both asked me this question at the same time. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! In fact, I was so stunned I couldn’t answer with what I did need since I’d never, ever thought about this before! Someone was actually asking me what I needed? Since then, I continue to ask both of these questions and I continue to think about what Maslow, Rosenbluth, and DePree say about leadership. LCDR Raquel Gladieux and YNC Catherine Kutzleb, both of RIA-10, in charge of the Minnesota Joint Reserve Intelligence Center where I work, always end any “Care & Feeding” conversation with these words, “Whatever you need”. Now that’s pretty open-ended, and I would never presume to take this statement to an extreme; however, it exemplifies what leaders need to do to practice this Element. We need to satisfy followers immediate needs, get them feeling comfortable about what they are doing, and then motivate them to the point where they ask, “What’s next?” To help you understand this idea, I am going to ask you to shift yourself into the world of being a follower, and try to consider what followers need, especially from leaders. To help you, ponder these Care & Feeding words, phrases, and thoughts: the need for rest; the need for comfort; to be satisfied; to be accepted; to be respected; to be fulfilled; to be cared for; to be valued; to be optimistic and happy; to question; to be enabled; to be liberated; to be empowered to be free: to be given wings; to have self-control from our leaders, and from ourselves; to have consideration for well-being; to have thoughtfulness; to be loved; to be shown affection; touch; to have an unselfish attitude; to have leaders who listen with their eyes and see with their ears. What really hits home for me is what Max DePree says in his book Leadership Jazz. He talks about where leadership and ethics “intersect” in what he calls “the common good”. He says “Leaders learn how to become abandoned to the needs of followers” where he says “The needs of the followers can never be at odds with the true interests of a leader.” He goes on to say that as followers we need to have the right opportunity to reach for our potential while being held accountable for our work. In order to do this we need leaders who exemplify fidelity, who are visible, who have competence, compassion, and fairness. And finally, leaders who deal with reality and who “do not fear truth—seeing it, accepting it, and telling it!” (p. 137, 138) Now the thought I love the best. It comes the Native American Iroquois Confederacy and ties together all previous ideas. The Iroquois believe that the impact of their decisions affect seven generations around them; their decisions affect generations that precede them to their great grandparents, the current generation, and the three that follow, to their great grandchildren. They feel that they are bound by a “moral duty” to care for these Seven Generations. Awesome!
Care and Feeding is making a connection with people in the simplest and most basic way possible. It feeds off our values and ethics in the relationships we build with those we lead, and those we follow. It affects everyone around us more that we realize. It satisfies basic human needs first. It comes before profits and it liberates people. It cares for people. It causes leaders to abandon themselves to the needs of those they lead to allow followers to reach for their potential. It is founded on a philosophy of being a Servant-Leader, and a Servant-Follower where people make it their business, their raison detre, their reason for being, to search out the needs of people, to listen, to serve first. And finally, it is founded on trust. The kind of trust formed in a good marriage, or with a good friend, or on a team when you “just know” what they will say or do and you can feel it; you know that you will be taken care of. If the most basic needs of those we lead aren't met, how can they ever be expected to do the work asked of them? If these thoughts are present, the mission will follow.
How are you? What can I do to help you be more successful? What do you need from me? Let me know.
No comments:
Post a Comment