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By: Dr. Sandy Gluckman PhD.
Author of ‘Who’s in the Driver’s Seat; Using Spirit to Lead Successfully’
Have you ever sat in the reception area of a company and let yourself absorb the culture of that company? Have you ever watched how the members of the company behave and checked to see whether this behavior is living evidence of the company’s brand? It was a chilly Monday morning and I arrived 15 minutes early for my meeting with the CEO so I decided to use the time to see if what the company said about its brand was brought to life by the way the employees behaved. After all, employees are the custodians of a company’s brand.
“I love your accent,” she said. “Where are you from?” I asked her to guess, because I have an accent that most people do not easily identify. This led to a fun conversation about how British I sounded and yet I heralded from South Africa ….about what brought me to the United States… about whether there were elephants walking in the streets where I came from…This is relationship building!
She then went off saying that she would return for me in a short while. As she walked away, she turned back and suggested that she was going to prepare a copy of the organizational chart because she had a feeling that the CEO may want this for our meeting. (I was certainly going to ask the CEO if I could see an org chart!) This is taking personal accountability! And resourcefulness!
Being on the receiving end of branding come alive in this way, had a great impact on me. I felt energized; I felt recognized; I found myself smiling. It was a good feeling. I couldn’t help thinking how different this experience was from the meeting I had several days ago. From the moment I entered the reception area, the staff were stiff and impersonal. The employees did not communicate easily or spontaneously with each other; there was a sense of discomfort hanging in the air and evident in the body language of everyone I saw. It was as though every person I met made all the right gestures and facial expressions… but their tone of voice was flat. I had the distinct feeling that they did not really see me. I remember how de-energized I felt when I left.
For a complete list of Dr. Gluckman’s keynote topics, training programs and other offerings, please contact us at:
Phone: (972) 758-1246, Fax: (972) 758-7837
Soon Sylvia was back. I followed her to the CEO’s office and as he greeted me, I knew exactly why this company’s brand was so evident in everyone’s behavior – he was a dynamic role model of all the company’s values! Everything about the CEO epitomized the corporate brand – how he was dressed, the way he treated his assistant, the way he greeted me, and his warm, engaging style of communication. Guess why he had called for this meeting – “Sandy,” he said, “Our values have created shareholder value! We have achieved our strategic goals for the year, even though it was a huge stretch! I would like to explore what we need to do to take this company to the next level!”
You would be amazed what you can learn about an organization simply by sitting in the reception area, watching the receptionist and employees as they pass through. You can begin to see elements of the company culture and values coming through by the way people speak to each other and by their body language, tone of voice, the way they express themselves, the connectivity between people, the noise level, the level of interpersonal warmth or coolness. Sitting in the reception area you will soon be able to sense the level of energy and passion that permeates the company, the degree of corporate pride; you will soon know something about the level of professionalism and caring, about how people relate to each other, how they feel about themselves and the company.
I looked around. Plastered around the walls of the reception were several banners and beautifully framed vision and mission statements. A huge framed graphic, with many leadership and employee signatures on it, boldly pronounced the corporate values to be: building relationships, exceeding expectations; taking personal accountability and resourcefulness.
So I began to look for living evidence of these great statements, hoping that they would not turn out to be corporate value cliches of the kind that appear in Annual Reports. To my utter delight, I soon began to see that the brand was alive and well in the way the employees behaved!
To begin with, the receptionist come out from behind the imposing reception desk and walked towards me. She said that since I was early for my meeting perhaps I would like a cup of freshly brewed coffee. I gladly accepted, upon which she disappeared and promptly returned with a cup of steaming coffee on an elegant tray bearing an elegant napkin and a small plate with 2 cookies.
She then went back to her desk to greet someone who had arrived. Just as I began to sip the coffee, the CEO’s assistant appeared through the side door, approached me and said, “Oh I see that you have already been taken care of. I am Sylvia, the CEO’s assistant. I knew you were waiting so I came to see if you would like something warm to drink.” She then checked with me that the flip chart and the laptop and LCD projector were all the equipment I needed (she had sent me an email the day before requesting to know what I required for my meeting with the CEO). This certainly exceeded my expectations!
Organizations are now giving serious attention to an unnecessary expense that is hurting their bottom line. Fifty-three percent of businesspeople estimate that ego costs their company 6% to 15% of annual revenue; 21 percent say the cost ranges from 16% to 20%. If we work the math, using the lowest estimated figure of six percent, the annual cost of ego would impact the revenue of an average Fortune 500 company by $1.1 billion– as estimated by the people working to produce that revenue.
The following is the introductory chapter to Dr. Sandy Gluckman’s recently published book, Who’s in the Driver’s Seat – Using Spirit to Lead Successfully. Sandy cuts through all the myths about leadership and reveals the real meaning and fundamental basis of leadership. The book is being purchased in bulk by organizations who are making it mandatory reading for their leaders.
How can we switch them on?
A prominent leader was once asked how many people worked on his team. “About half of them,” he promptly replied. Was he just being funny or had he read the latest research? According to the Gallup organization, more than half of today’s employees act in ways that create positive customer experiences and business success for their organizations! That leaves about 22 million switched-off employees, costing the American economy as much as $350 billion a year. This challenging reality is causing leaders at all levels to ask themselves:
How do we build a switched-on organization?
How can we connect with our teams so they energetically embrace the organization’s goals as their goals?
How can we spark a passion for accountability and superior performance in every member of the team?
‘Who’s in the Driver’s Seat’ provides a roadmap to switching on employees to achieve superior performance…and superior, sustainable results. When employees feel switched on, they will enhance their organization’s success in numerous and measurable ways. They “get” the vision and make a commitment to quality and growth. They feel good about the future, love the work they do, produce more, are better communicators, enjoy challenges and switch customers on. Switched-on employees are accountable for their role in making the customers happy and become valuable assets to your organization.
Since 70 percent of all buying decisions are based on a positive human interaction, switched-on employees play a critical role in building and sustaining a loyal customer base.
Switched-off employees, on the other hand, create switched-off customers. Employees who feel emotionally switched-off cannot be accountable. Their determination to succeed and desire to engage is also switched off. They feel tired and lethargic. The little energy they do have goes into finding ways to cope. Their vision is survival. They don’t optimize their intelligence and their talents. Instead they go through the motions, feeling disconnected from their colleagues and organization’s goals.
SPIRIT IS THE KEY
So what gives switched-on teams the edge? What makes them capable of superior performance? What do they have that switched-off employees don’t have? They have spirit. When they work with spirit, they take their performance to the next level.
Let’s use a familiar analogy: Think of the great spirit found in a winning sports team. The players are focused, forceful, determined, courageous, skilled, gutsy, confident, and yet, humble. They envision themselves as winners, have supreme belief in their own talent and the talent of the other team members and are driven to achieve a shared dream. They cheer each other on every step of the way. These players are totally switched on and play as one. Their spirited selves are in the driver’s seat.
When we work or play with spirit in the driver’s seat, we are filled with positive emotions. We are optimistic and enthusiastic. We feel switched on and energized!
It’s different with losing terms. Unable to pull together, these team members play with ego, not with spirit. The members of losing teams are self-serving, pulling in different directions. Each is focused on his or her own personal agenda. Their egos create petty distractions and negative emotions, which get in the way of winning. They are switched off from their powerful, spirited selves. Losing teams have their egos in the driver’s seat. No matter how gifted these players may be, they don’t have the “mojo” that comes from spirit.
Switched-on teams are spirited teams, and spirited teams have special abilities that produce extraordinary performance resulting in spirited customers. Spirited customers become fans of your organization and spend more money with you. They also love to tell others about your products and services.
Just as a spirited team wins games and fans, so a spirited work force creates loyal customers and boosts sales.
More than ever before, leaders know that the ratio between switched-on and switched-off employees is a key indicator of company performance. Knowing how to switch others on is no longer an option. It’s a critical leadership competence and ability that will set your organization apart from your competition.
So how do leaders switch their teams on?
Surprisingly, it’s a simple and common skill, but one of the most underused in the leadership toolbox. Connect with employees and others in a way that creates positive emotions. In fact, a study by Gallup found the most productive workgroups had at least 3-to-1 ratio of positive to negative interactions. Anything less than 3-to-1, and the group’s productivity decreased significantly. So what does this tell us? A team with 3-to-1 positive to negative interactions, or better yet, a 5-to-1 or 10-to-1 ratio is clearly switched on.
Why is positive emotion the key to switching others on?
If we deconstruct the word, ‘emotion,’ we find that emotions create movement, emotions make things happen. Here’s how it works: Positive feelings convert into positive energy. Positive energy is spirit. Spirited employees think and act in in-spirit-ed (inspired) ways. To use the words of the famous football coach, Vince Lombardi, spirited teams have “the will to win and the will to excel.”
So why do so many leaders lack this spirit and switch off their employees? The answer is ego.
Ego is the enemy of spirit. When ego is in the driver’s seat, spirit becomes a passenger. Ego-driven leaders create negative feelings, which switch off others. When we are switched off, we are dis-spirited. Dis-spirited people are incapable of delivering positive results.
There are millions of employees who have been switched off by leaders who drive with their egos in the driver’s seat. Most of these employees have great potential, but without spirit, they cannot convert their potential into positive performance. No matter how educated and experienced we are, as leaders, if our ego is in the driver’s seat, we are switching others off and we have given up the right to expect superior results from those we lead.
In every single interaction we have a choice:
We can choose to respond with
The Ego Self or The Spirited Self
Just as every coin has two sides and only one side can be up at any one time, each of us has two sides. One side of our being is the spirited self – courageous, potent and real. The other side is the ego self – a non-authentic, self-protective public image. Only one of these two sides can be in the driver’s seat at any one time.
When our spirited self is in the driver’s seat, we connect with others and create positive emotions – like optimism, exhilaration, enthusiasm and determination. However, when our ego is in the driver’s seat, we will do and say things that cause others to feel cynical, skeptical and discouraged. The ego makes employees feel angry, sad or afraid. To cope with these negative emotions that the ego-driven leaders triggers in them, employees shut down and then switch off.
Most people are familiar with IQ and EQ. IQ is how the logical mind thinks. EQ is how the emotional mind thinks. Exciting new research recently discovered the brain possesses a third intelligence called SQ. SQ is how the spirited mind thinks and is the basis of in-spirit-ed (inspired) thinking.
The moment we become aware the ego is driving us and we consciously shift our ego into the passenger seat, we automatically activate spirit. Now, our in-spirit-ed intelligence SQ – is engaged and we find ourselves capable of producing extraordinary results.
Ego sees the world as limited, narrow, polarized and threatening. SQ converts our limited, ego interpretation of events and information into a 360-degree view, revealing possibilities that ego with IQ and EQ cannot compute. SQ is free of black-and-white either/or right-or-wrong thinking. These are boundaries imposed by ego.
With spirit in the driver’s seat, we think beyond these boundaries. Now we have the mental and emotional stamina to put our challenges into a broader perspective and see what new opportunities this brings to light. Then we have the courage to change the rules, transform the situation and create an environment that encourages and supports progress.
This remarkable intelligence is available to everyone, regardless of education or experience. But we can only access our SQ when our spirited self is in the driver’s seat and our ego is in the passenger seat.
Spirited leaders make the most of all three intelligences. They gather the facts and figures with IQ, apply their EQ to manage the emotional issues and use SQ to inspire spirit in others. SQ also facilitates inspired strategic and tactical decisions, brings about inspired conversations and rives inspired action and accountability.
THE COST OF EGO
The cost of ego shows up every moment of every day in every office, every meeting room, around every boardroom table, at the water cooler – any place where people gather. Ego costs can be measured in wasted time, underutilized talent, loss of information, poor decisions, lost opportunities and in the cost of medications for physical and emotional distress.
A 20-year study of more than 400 decisions made by top managers revealed50 percent of all business decisions failed.
One-third of these failed because of ego. In his book, Good to Great, Jim Collins writes: “In over two-thirds of comparison cases (average/good companies), we noted the presence of gargantuan personal ego that contributed to the demise or continued mediocrity of the company.”
In this book, we’ll explore what happens to organizations and teams when leaders have their ego or their spirit in the driver’s seat. We’ll also show how ego and spirit have the power to switch employees on or off. Every leader is responsible for understanding how spirit and ego impacts others and, in turn, directly impacts their organization’s performance.
Who’s in the Driver’s Seat offers practical actions to create and hone Spirited Leadership. With spirit in the driver’s seat and ego in the passenger seat, spirited leaders can create switched-on work force, one that enthusiastically takes responsibility for delivering remarkable performance.
Get ready to discover “Who’s in Your Driver’s Seat!”
 By Sandy Gluckman PhD
Author of ‘Who’s in the Driver’s Seat; Using Spirit to Lead Successfully’
The concept of spirited economics refers to the ability of organizations to achieve extraordinary profits and obtain the projected economic outcomes by putting the spirit of the people to work.
One of the core issues of spirited economics is asking and answering the question, ‘how do we gain the greatest economic value from the talent of the people who work for us?’ To address this we would need a brief physiology discussion. Our brains have 2 parts – referred to as the left brain and the right brain, or left and right hemispheres. Each of these hemispheres functions with different frequencies which mean that each side of the brain receives, processes and interprets information differently. The best solutions and execution of tasks are those that enlist the information from both sides of the brain.
So what’s the problem? We all have an inborn physiological preference for thinking with one side – either the left or the right brain. (A small percentage of the population do not have any preference.) This does not mean that we will only use one half of the brain – it means that thinking with the less preferred side does not feel so comfortable and so we will do this as little as possible; unless we decide to consciously force ourselves to think with both sides. And particularly when we are under stress and pressure, we will automatically resort to thinking in the way that feels most comfortable for us.
So it becomes vitally important for us to know what our personal preference is because we will then know what information we will include in our thinking and what information we will leave out of our thinking. The left brain is logical, rational, analytical, linear and theoretical. Language and numeracy are specializations of the left brain. When we think with the left brain we will think in an ordered, sequential, detailed fashion. How we use this side of the brain determines our IQ.
The right brain, on the other hand, thinks laterally and creatively…so we will get an idea, feel an emotion, intuitively know something or imagine an innovative possibility that breaks the mould of the old way of doing things. The right brain allows us to empathize with others and to connect with others in a meaningful way. Using the right brain we create mental pictures. With the left brain we are able to plan how to implement the pictures we see. The right brain is our EQ – emotional quotient.
Traditionally business and even educational institutions, in fact society in general, has emphasized the value of the skills of the left brain only. For several decades the “knowledge worker” has been prized. The right brain was perceived as being somewhat ‘soft’ and ‘flaky’ and of little importance in the serious corporate world. This is changing. It is becoming evident that the traditional mostly left brain thinking has outlived its usefulness, when not integrated with the right brain. A new respect is developing for the conceptual, intuitive, imaginative and interpersonal abilities of the right brain. As Daniel Pink says in his book, A whole New Mind, ‘We are moving from an economy and a society built on the logical, linear, computer like capabilities of the Information Age to an economy and society built on the inventive, empathic, big-picture capabilities of what’s rising in its place, the Conceptual Age.
There are many good reasons to understand and incorporate the talents of the ‘whole brain,’ for more effective thinking and planning. But for me, the most important benefit of using the right brain is its ability to provide us with emotional information about ourselves and others, and its ability to help us understand the subtleties of human interaction.
We can develop the most competitive, leading edge strategies but if we do not know how to inspire and galvanize the employees, it will remain a strategy that is great on paper alone – a strategy that could not be taken from conception to execution.
Understanding the interpersonal and emotional dynamics empowers leaders and individuals to communicate and interact with others in a way that will switch them on, instead of switch them off. This right brain information and the ability to act on this information is vital for business leaders who need to activate and inspire employees to enthusiastically offer their greatest talent for the achievement of the corporate goals.
(For a detailed description of how whole brain thinking and communication works, as well as the tools and skills of whole brain thinking, see my chapter in the book, Mission Possible.)
The question is how do we make full use of the less preferred brain if we are not physiologically inclined that way?
The first step is to know what our own thinking style preference is. Being aware of this will alert us to what our personal thinking style could mean to us in terms of the kinds of decisions we will make in our lives. We actually have an excellent assessment tool that will tell you whether you are left brain or right brain dominant, what you will think about and what you will leave out in your planning and decision-making. When we use this with the executive team, they are fascinated by their personal and team profiles. They understand fully for the first time how they are making biased (otherwise known as ‘half-brained’) decisions.
Remember the right brain provides us with intuitive and emotional logic. It is where our ideas come from. It is how we are able to see another way or to envision the future or see the total picture. It also lets us know how to enlist the full attention and abilities of others. For right brain dominant people thinking like this comes naturally. Just as, for left brain dominant people, analysis, theory, concepts, finance, details, come naturally.
The second step is to decide what you are going to do about this, based on the fact that whole brain thinking, communication and execution is superior to using ‘half the brain.’
So what do right brain dominant people do when they need the information from the left brain and vice versa?
There are just 2 options here. We can either attend courses to learn how to integrate our own 2 brains. Or we can create a whole brain team. This is a complementary team consisting of individuals with different brain preferences and therefore with different thinking style preferences. This means Identifying those people in your personal life, your teams and departments who have a different way of thinking to yourselves, incorporate them in your meetings and planning sessions and consciously include their differing perspective in your decisions. As long as we keep an open mind, they will assist us in thinking differently…and we will do the same for them.
Oh No! Here comes the ego again! Not only do we have the challenge of our brains wanting to interpret the information our personally preferred way, but our egos are also inclined to deny a different reality to ours.
And here is where the Who’s in the Driver’s Seat: Using Spirit to Lead Successfully concept of ego and spirit becomes critical. If the left brain person’s ego is in the driver’s seat, guess what? They will discount the amazing ideas the right brain person comes up with – the ‘not created here’ response. The right brain person, whose ego has the wheel, will switch off from the immensely important details of the left brainer – the ‘boooring’ response.
So how do my team and I build a whole brain team that does not sweat the ego stuff so that we can think, plan, communicate and interact in a way that translates into exceptional performance and great results?
1. Obtain an assessment of the team and individual’s whole brain profile – how does this team think/how do I think. (Answer the question: Is this team left brain dominant or right brain dominant or balanced and what are the implications of this?)
2. Teach the team to recognize when their ego is driving
(Answer the question: Who’s in my driver’s seat now?)
3. Teach the skill of putting the spirited self in the driver’s seat and the ego in the passenger seat. (Answer the question: Can I truly hear and actually incorporate different perspectives in my decisions?)
This brings us full circle back to what I call spirited economics. At the end of the day, we all know that business is about economics – people are working in the same organization to help the company make huge profits. Yet their brains work differently and their egos want to sabotage this goal.
You would think how difficult can it be to stop for a moment and really listen to and incorporate another perspective that may, in fact, have huge benefits to ourselves and the companies we work for? It’s not a difficult thing to do, is it? Yet we don’t do it. It’s not as if the other side of our brain has died. We have two brains, and yet we fight to maintain our own reality.
It’s the ego that gets in the way. It would seem to me that ego is the root cause of all forms of opposing and resisting forces in organizations. It makes sense then to address this root cause which will then eliminate a huge array of dysfunctional symptoms.
John Kotter, a Harvard Business School professor believes that, “The central issue is never strategy, structure, culture, or systems. The core of the matter is always about changing the behavior of people.”
The challenge is that people will not change their behavior while their ego is in the driver’s seat. Knowing how to shifting the ego into the passenger seat then becomes a critical and fundamental skill if organizations are going to be able to make and implement decisions that produce extraordinary profit. Combine this with an understanding of how to integrate the two brains – and you have one very powerful team or organization!
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By: Sandy Gluckman PhD.
Author of ‘Who’s in the Driver’s Seat; Using Spirit to Lead Successfully’
The ability to make and execute profitable decisions, in a consistent and aligned fashion, is the basis of sustainable growth. Leaders at all levels are accountable for making decisions, large and small, strategic and tactical. Collectively, these decisions will move the company forward, keep it in neutral or move it backwards. The trick is to get leaders, throughout the organization, to make financially profitable and strategically aligned decisions from boardroom to backroom, keeping the company moving in the agreed strategic direction.
A profitable decision is defined as a decision that is made in an efficient manner; that involves vigorous dialogue; that includes a wide diversity of input and perspective; that is strategically focused ; that is based on fundamentally different thinking and that leads to significant revenue enhancement. In this sense the term ‘profitable,’ as applied to decisions, refers to the return on investment on time, talent, strategy and intelligence– as well as financial outcomes.
When the non-productive behaviors of ego are built into the leadership style and culture of an organization there is a significantly increased probability that decision-makers, at all levels in the organization, will make mediocre and misaligned decisions that are non-profitable and that do not move the organization forward or, even worse, poor decisions that cost the company money.
In their extensive study on the impact of ego on making good financial decisions, Roy Baumeister and Liquing Zhang concluded that when ego is involved, people make ‘less optimal decisions as judged from the standpoint of financial outcomes.’ After two decades of research with hundreds of organizations Dr. Paul Nutt of Ohio State University discovered over one-third of all failed business decisions are driven by ego.
To make vision-directed, strategically-focused, revenue-enhancing decisions requires that the decision makers have the integrity and strength of character to lay personal agendas aside and put the company’s goals first. If we are ego driven, this is unlikely to happen. Since the central purpose of ego is to protect us and take care of ‘me, my and I’, it is difficult, if not impossible to lay personal agendas aside, when the ego is in the driver’s seat. The result is that ego-driven decision-makers tend to make defensive, short-term, self-serving, and strategically inappropriate decisions, regardless of whether it’s right or wrong for the company, profitable or not.
Decision-Making with Ego as the Driver and the Spirited Self as the Passenger
Think of all the meetings in which people are afraid to challenge the status quo, in which there is low participation, low ownership and accountability, little enthusiasm and energy, lip service,, thinking in linear terms, accepting the assumptions of old standards, no creativity and passing the buck. Count the hours of these meetings per month, include how many people on average attend a meeting, take an average salary, and calculate the cost of a lack of spirit. Multiply this across the organization and the cost becomes frightening.
Teams that are ‘sweating the ego stuff’ see the world as limited, polarized and threatening; they use black and white, either-or, right-or-wrong type of thinking. For them decision-making is about someone winning and someone losing, which excludes the possibility of integrative, holistic solutions where several parties can win.
Spirited Economics™ is the art of making decisions with the spirited self as the driver and ego as the passenger
Spirited Economics ™ is about knowing how to use the spirit of the people as a measurable asset in decision-making. This is a dynamic and more profitable alternative to ego. Being ‘spirited’ refers to any behavior or communication that demonstrates:
- Authenticity.
- Being boldly in integrity with who we really are, what we think, believe, want, know and perceive.
- Combining all of the above with humility.
In spirited meetings the team members are not intellectually superior nor do they have higher education or greater experience – they do have the ability to take ego out of the equation. This frees them to challenge themselves, each other, their perceptions, assumptions, behaviors, and intentions. Their dialogue is fast and furious, honest and confronting. The energy is high. This kind of spirited debate and the courageous, authentic interaction between them frees them to use their intelligence to look beyond themselves and scan the horizon for new possibilities. Spirited teams look for what others in their market cannot see, which then leads them to make innovative and profitable solutions, based on that broader vision.
How do they do it?
They Create a Culture of Spirited Economics™
Instead of spending many thousands of dollars fixing the huge range of symptoms that our egos create, let’s go back and fix the problem where it starts – by teaching leaders and their teams how to use spirit as a business asset and shift the ego in the passenger seat.
Without this fundamental, foundation step, teaching any kind of skill will be like attempting to ‘attach wings to caterpillars.’ The metamorphosis must first take place and the great leader will emerge.
The Missing Link
I highly recommend that when an organization invests in leadership development programs, or team building initiatives, they first undertake a fundamental transformative initiative:
- Educate the team/organization about Spirited Economics™ and the liability of ego.
- Assess the Spirit-Ego Profile of the (and each individual). This will identify the specific behaviors and ways of communicating that are a barrier to success.
- Measure the current financial implications of this profile. Choose a measurement of success delivered by agreed changes in behaviors and communication.
- Teach the team the principles of Who’s in the Driver’s Seat: Using Spirit to Lead Successfully; Coach the team:
- To strengthen their spirited behavior and communication skills.
- To minimize the ego behavior and communication.
- To apply the process for profitable decision-making.
Spirited skills are easy to learn. The tough part is having the personal courage, self-confidence and humility to openly face the topic of ego and spirit as a leadership imperative with major economic implications. Ego is not a bad thing as long as we recognize how it shows up for us, when it shows up for us and how to keep it in check by replacing it with spirit. In fact just the act of being aware of our own egos automatically strengthens our spirited self.
I would recommend that we all re-think our embarrassment and discomfort in owning our ego behaviors and language so that we can enjoy our true genius and offer this to building an organization that has the capacity to successfully rise above the challenges it faces.
For a complete list of Dr. Gluckman’s keynote topics, training programs and other offerings, please contact us at:
Phone: (972) 758-1246, Fax: (972) 758-7837
Or by email at: mail@gluckmangroup.com
So there I am in a meeting room with Fred and five members of his team. Fred had invited me to sit in on a meeting and evaluate what was happening. He said that the team was stuck; that they were completely unable to pull in the same direction. As their leader, accountable for their performance, Fred was at his wits end.
What I saw was in the next hour was something that I had seen countless times, in countless meeting rooms, literally around the globe. And, as always, it saddened me. I saw how Fred’s ego began to run the meeting. And the more he did this, the more the team members shut down and lost their winning spirit. I know that Fred does not do this deliberately – he is a great guy! He just does not understand that the enthusiastic, spirited, focused, determined, accountable behaviors he wants his team to demonstrate are the very same behaviors his ego crushes.
Fred is unaware of the demeaning language his ego uses, and of how patronizing and self-righteous he sounds. He would probably be surprised to know that the reason why his team is stuck and their meetings are a frustrating waste of time, is that his ego is switching his team off. Fred really wants to succeed and yet his ego is sabotaging him.
I thought to myself, ‘what a great opportunity Fred has here! If he would be willing to recognize when his ego shows up and learns how to manage this, he can, quickly and easily, revolutionize his leadership style and his team’s performance’.
I came out of my daydream and noticed that everyone had caught the ego bug! The more switched off the team became, the more judgmental and closed-minded and self-righteous Fred became – which then caused the team to become even more defensive. The interesting thing is that every person in the room has been hand-picked for their intelligence, their educational achievements and their technical experience. And yet, in the next sixty minutes I watched as the ego game neutralized the powerhouse of combined intelligence that existed in this team. They were wasting their time and talent on being defensive, engaging in avoidance and denial, trying to squelch the bad feelings they experienced, and working hard to hide how vulnerable they really feel. While they were doing this, they were unable to think and dialogue intelligently and innovatively. While their ego was in the driver’s seat, their genius was in the passenger seat. (See my book, Who’s in the Driver’s Seat: Using Spirit to Lead Successfully)
So let me describe what I saw. Perhaps you will recognize some of these behaviours. The scene plays out as follows. The first point on the agenda is a potentially sensitive issue. Everybody knows that there is an elephant in the room but no-one is prepared to address it. The matter is intellectualized and rationalized and distorted out of all shape. They move to the next point on the agenda to everyone’s relief, although the issue has not been dealt with and everyone knows it will return.
Not much later, someone in the room takes personal offense at something that was said and defensively and sarcastically rejects the contrasting viewpoints that have been expressed. Another team member uses the tactic of becoming territorial and playing the blame game – it’s their fault that he was unable to deliver on time!
By this time, the dynamics in the room leave each member of the team with a personal choice – either I show some spirit and challenge what is going on here, or I play it safe and withdraw. In this scenario the team members decided it is safer to withdraw. I watch as they visibly shut down, become minimally involved, participate only when absolutely necessary, go through the motions, and show little connection to the organization’s goals or to each other. The energy in the room plummets. Negative emotions hang thickly in the air.
The team has become distracted and unfocused in their thinking. Few new insights are brought into the mix. Fred either doesn’t pick up on the fact that people have withdrawn; or he does, and prefers to ignore this.
Fred and the team leave the meeting with a poorly thought-out solution, based on unquestioned fundamental assumptions and outdated perspectives. There has been no change in perceptions, attitude, behaviors, tactics or strategies. In addition they leave with unresolved differences and the mistrust that this breeds.
I knew I had to give Fred feedback and show him how to manage his ego. The trick was to be able to find a way to do this without Fred’s ego becoming defensive and resisting what I had to say. I knew that if he could remain open enough to listening to me, he could choose to make some changes to his behavior and his communications that would enhance his life and the lives of his team.
I walked to Fred’s office thinking about the fact that companies spend so much time and money recruiting top talent and then they proceed to squash their spirit and compromise their talents by allowing leaders and managers who cannot manage their own egos, to manage their people.
Just look at these incredible statistics showing the cost of organizational ego!
· 53% of businesspeople estimate that ego costs their company six to 15 percent of annual revenue.
· At 6% the annual cost of ego would impact the revenue of an average Fortune 500 company by $1.1 billion.
· 63% of businesspeople say that ego negatively impacts work performance on an hourly or daily basis
I knocked on Fred’s door. ‘Come in’ he called. As I walked in he said, ‘Did you see that! They just don’t get it! If it were not for them I could make great things happen.”
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