Greg Tracy

I had a discouraging conference call recently. The kind of call that makes you want to run for the hills, give up on your ideological dreams, and resign yourself to living within the system and never trying to make a difference.

The problem was that I ran into a wall builder. Not a single wall which could be scaled, but a system that was designed to continuously build walls meant to prevent progress.

Inevitably, people get tasked with "looking out for the best interest of the organization", but where these individuals fail is in the execution of that mission. They forget about the big picture. The best interest of any organization is not to protect themselves. The goal is to make progress. Build the best product, delight customers, advance research, or make new discoveries. The individuals need to be shepherds but too often act as gatekeepers locking everyone inside and refusing to stick their neck out.

The very best shepherds are the ones that have the most creativity. They find solutions in the face of restrictions. In essence, they become adept at scaling walls and overcoming obstacles. They don't use words like "can't" and "won't". They articulate concerns and encourage solutions. And perhaps most importantly, when presented with a problem, the shepherds understand it is more important to listen then to talk.

Locking the gate and throwing the key away is the easy way out. When you block progress or maintain the status quo, you fail. And you piss a bunch of people off along the way.

Do you pave the way for others? Offer help and advice? Or do you just build barriers?

A great look at motivation. I wonder if it's possible to instill this
in our kids or if its simply one of life's lessons that needs to be
acquired through age.

Google Reader (via Andrew Chen) percolated Bob Sutton's "17 Things I Believe" list for me yesterday. He recently updated the list (it use to be 12 items), but I hadn't seen it before.

A lot of the items on this list resonate with me. As I reflect back on organizations I've been a part of, and organizations I've been personally responsible for, many of the challenging moments can be bottled up into one of Bob's items. I found it remarkable how accurate the list was for me, but not all of them hold true, and there are others that I would add.

The result is the following hybrid list of the 19 things I believe. Bob's list has been shrunk down and are represented in the first twelve items of my list. The remaining items make up my additions.

What does your list look like?

1. Sometimes the best management is no management at all -- first do no harm!

2. Indifference is as important as passion.

3. In organizational life, you can have influence over others or you can have freedom from others, but you can't have both at the same time.

4. Saying smart things and giving smart answers are important. Learning to listen to others and to ask smart questions is more important.

5. You get what you expect from people. This is especially true when it comes to selfish behavior; unvarnished self-interest is a learned social norm, not an unwavering feature of human behavior.

6. Avoid pompous jerks whenever possible. They not only can make you feel bad about yourself, chances are that you will eventually start acting like them.

7. The best test of a person's character is how he or she treats those with less power.

8. Err on the side of optimism and positive energy in all things.

9. If you are an expert, seek-out novices or experts in other fields. If you are a novice, seek out experts.

10. Sutton's Law: “If you think that you have a new idea, you are wrong. Someone else probably already had it. This idea isn’t original either; I stole it from someone else”

11. "Am I a success or a failure?" is not a very useful question

12. Strive for simplicity and competence, but embrace the confusion and messiness along the way.

13. Making assumptions about someone else's intent follows the 80/20 rule. 80% of time you're wrong. And the other 20% of the time you'll have actually made the situation worse with your assumptions.

14. Surround yourself with people that fix problems rather than fixing blame.

15. Surround yourself with people that make conversation. Walk away from people that question every word that comes out of your mouth. Being challenged is a good thing, but being badgered is a waste of your time.

16. The ability to defer judgement is the single biggest asset for groups trying to brainstorm.

17. Don't treat every conversation like it's a negotiation. You may win something in the short-term, but the long-term damage is unavoidable.

18. When you reward people, they reward you.

19. Don't ever underestimate the power of a thank-you note or these three words... "I was wrong."

You can find Bob's original list here:

http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/05/17-things-i-believe-updated-and-expanded-.html

... make yourself dispensable — what greater accomplishment is there than the organization running well without you? It means you picked great people, prepared them and inspired them. And if executives did this, the world would be a better place.

Read the entire Guy Kawasaki interview at the New York Times.

I was working with an artist type yesterday and I became a huge fan of his iteration process. Each time he got to what seemed like the end goal, he repeated the phrase,

We can do better

It wasn't said in a negative or arrogant tone. He was simply reassuring everyone that we were striving for the best, and we hadn't gotten there yet. It was both motivating and uplifting, and eventually, we got there.

I think I'm going to steal this and use it myself!