Imitations

"Rudeness is the weak person's imitation of strength."

                                                                --Eric Hoffer

The power of "IWI"

If you look around (do it...) just about everything you see began with someone saying, "I wonder if...."

Every chair. (I wonder if we could enter the chair market....)

The paint on the wall. (I wonder if a yellowy-greenish-pink would sell....)

The song playing on the radio/stereo/mp3/i-something.

All of it.  An ordinary person, asking, "I wonder if...."  

So...what are you wondering?

bullet points

Some bullet points to remember or reflect upon:

• Listening is hard work.  Sometimes your partners just need some listening. 
• Regular and sincere encouragement is like water to a plant.  If you want someone to flourish, water the plant.
• Call yourself out--sometimes it'll be after the fact--when you've been out of line.  Admitting your own failures is powerful.  Followers need honesty.
• Take time to "build into" people.  [That term is courtesy of Tony Dunge.]  The payoff is a long time coming, and the payoff isn't for you.  It's for them, and those who will be affected by your impact on the individual.  It's like planting a tree; mostly it's for future others, but you get the satisfaction of knowing you've planted a tree.

errors

So, what do you do when your organization is...wrong?  Has made an error?  Blew it?
When there are problems with performance--say, an individual DID something or DIDN'T do something they should have--I often ask myself whether there was a COMPETENCY error, or a SYSTEM error.


In the medical field, it seems that about 90% of errors are system errors.  The competency errors are often simple gaps in knowledge, but sometimes they're more willful incompetence.  I'm pretty sure I'm dealing with willful incompetence when the person I'm talking to begins their explanation of the situation with, "I've been doing this for XX years...and I know how it's done!"


There is nothing...NOTHING, in the practice of medicine that has not changed in the last 20 years.  Some industries may not change much (say...classical violin).  Most other industries change.  


But still, most of my effort goes in to dealing with system errors.  If you're not more-or-less continuously redesigning your processes, then you're

• lucky to be in a business where the external environment doesn't change
• not paying attention

belief

Why I hire people who don't work out....

Because I believe things about them.  I believe in what they CAN do, and see my needs they CAN fill, and then I'm off to the races.  I find myself reinterpreting the person's past deeds (or lack thereof) in light of what I hope they CAN do in the future.  

Hope springs eternal.  Problem is, the spring's sweet water is littered with stinky leaves and some pond scum.

The best antidotes provide only a modicum of (useful) relief.  What I need to do better is focus on what the person IS (current skills and traits) and HAS DONE (past accomplishments, training). 

I gotta get better...!

aloneness

It works.  Well. 

Great and wild idea: 
You don't have to lead alone.  Mayo uses the "dyad" approach--a physician paired with an administrator.  Physicians, left to their own leadership devices, will run the programs in such a way that they provide great care, and the place goes out of business.  The businessmen (administrators) will run it in a way that makes good money, and quality suffers. 

Sharing power is hardly new.  In republican Rome, the Senate elected two consuls, who led the government as co-equals.  Yes, there are times that approach breaks down (study your Roman political history, and find the original meaning and utility of a "dictator.")  But overall, it works more often than it fails.  

Nota bene: The study of history is the study of what worked and what didn't.  As such, it's really an operator's manual for the present.  Just sayin'.