Red Pill Leadership: Wake up and be a better leader

Last night’s episode of The Office was a bit depressing with Michael having money troubles, Dwight in despair over his break-up with Angela and a general sense of “doom and gloom”. However, there was a business lesson to be learned. In the midst of Michael’s money troubles he enlists Oscar’s help in analyzing his debt. Oscar suggests to Michael that he should speak with his girlfriend, Jan, about their poor fiscal health. Michael doesn’t want to reveal the truth. He wants to hide from Jan. He’s afraid to tell her. Eventually, he decides to run from his troubles; by hopping on a train that isn’t moving.

At work, we are faced with decisions each day. Some decisions are made easily and others take a bit of thought. Sometimes, a decision we make is the wrong decision and an error is made, money is lost, a client is upset, or a document goes missing. In my opinion, it is always best to admit a mistake or failure early in the process. I’ve seen too many people hide a fact from their boss hoping it will go away and all it does is get worse. Eventually, the person’s boss finds out about the mistake and the boss’ first question usually is, “Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier?”

This does not mean that you should run to your supervisor for every issue or that you should not try to rectify the situation on your own. You must be proactive and find solutions to problems (that’s why you’re getting paid for what you do!). If the error is “fixable” then fix it and inform your boss of the error, why it occurred, how it was remedied and what you are doing to ensure it does not happen again. If there error is significant in nature, it might be best to inform your boss first, gain insight, and partner for a solution. Being open and honest is always a good policy. Hiding information, especially negative information, just festers and eventually winds up getting worse and making everyone upset.

For leaders out there, it is critical that you welcome openness and honesty. Team members will make mistakes and it is far better for employees to inform you of their mistakes earlier in the game than later. Let them know that mistakes happen and when they do you expect to be notified, you want them to document the issue, how they will fix the situation, what they learned from the experience and what they plan to do so the mistake doesn’t happen again. Be a coach. Be a mentor. Teach your team to be a high performing, learning team.

Similar to situations in your organizations where a mistake was made and “doom and gloom” permeates the air, The Office ended on a note of hope. Dwight is back to his old self thanks to good deeds from Pam and Jim. Angela has accepted a date with Andy and Jan opened up to Michael and took their relationship to a new level. Despite the mishaps, there is always that silver lining. There’s always hope in the midst of hopeless situations.

In last night’s episode, Dwight Schrute was on a mission to outsell the new Dunder Mifflin Infinity website. The Dunder Mifflin Scranton branch is not known for being highly productive. In fact, while watching The Office I often ask, “What do they do all day?” But last night, Dwight had a renewed passion for his job. He sought to sell as many reams of paper as possible in an effort to dominate his digital rival.

What drove Dwight to become a sales animal for an eight hour period? He probably sold more in one day than he has in the past few weeks. The answer of course is motivation.

Let’s review what drove Dwight to outsell the website.

1. He thrived on the competition. We know from last week’s episode that he sides with Michael in terms of selling the “old fashion” way. He despises the web site.
2. He enjoyed the public victory. Every time he made a sale, Andy would blow the bear horn.
3. I’m sure he knew it annoyed Jim.
4. If he achieved his goal he would earn Michael’s respect. Dwight is always seeking Michael’s respect for some odd reason.

But the true motivation behind all of this was his love for Angela. He wanted to impress her. In fact, he says to her, “I did this for you.” I would argue that if it weren’t for this motivating factor, he may not have been as passionate as he was.

As you can see, there was more than one motivational factor behind Dwight’s actions. Every person reading this blog is motivated by a variety of factors; and those factors may change each day. If you are a manager, you have the difficult task of motivating your staff. Of course you cannot directly motivate them, but it is your responsibility to create an environment where intrinsic motivation flourishes. You will obviously need to provide extrinsic motivators such as bonuses, higher pay, and more time off, but the successful manager will know how to tap into each employee’s intrinsic motivators as well.

Those who are intrinsically motivated work with a sense of purpose, take pride in their achievements, are passionate about their work, feel empowered to make decisions, take responsibility, and will usually help others achieve their goals. Having an intrinsically motivated staff increases productivity, morale, and makes for happier employees.

How do you build intrinsic motivation? You can’t. However, you can help cultivate it. I’ve tweaked some suggestions by researchers Thomas Malone and Mark Lepper to provide you with some tips as to how best to cultivate intrinsic motivation.

1. Make sure each person in the organization (department, work team, etc.) knows how they fit into the larger picture. Make sure they know they have a purpose for being there.
2. Provide challenge by jointly setting aggressive yet realistic goals.
3. Give them the tools and training they need to succeed.
4. Try to build curiosity and creativity into work.
5. Give employees decision making authority and allow them to make choices. If they ask for your advice, first ask what they think and what course of action they would recommend.
6. Make work as fun as it can be.
7. Build a climate of service and cooperation.
8. If possible, figure out how to map work related activities to personal goals. For example, Pam is a receptionist but her passion is art. Ryan asked her to create a new set of corporate logos and she was thrilled.
9. Recognize achievement with a sincere gratitude. Gratitude is more than saying “thank you”. Gratitude is showing appreciation and respect for the person, not just the tasks they perform. However, when you do say “thanks” be specific. Don’t just say, “Cindy, thanks for work on the annual report.” Say “Cindy, thank you for the work on the annual report last week. Without you, those charts would have taken three times longer to create”. State the specific contribution the person made.

Finally, you as the manager must be a model. Discover what motivates you and re-assess the way you motivate yourself. Show your staff your enthusiasm and demonstrate what it looks like to be motivated to do great work.

Dwight, thanks for the great lessons learned this week!

Finally, I leave you with the best quote of last night. Ryan is explaining the success of his website and uses a plethora of modern office lingo and business jargon to explain it.

“At the end of the day, apples to apples, flying at 30,000 feet, this is a paper company and I don’t want us to get lost in the weeds or into a beauty contest. Convergence, viral marketing, we’re going guerilla, we’re taking it to the streets while keeping an eye on the street; Wall Street. I don’t want to reinvent the wheel here. In other words, it is what it is.”

Hi-Tech or “Hi-Touch”? That was the question posed in last night’s episode of The Office.

I’ll assume you saw last night’s episode (Season 4, Episode 2) but here are the basics. Ryan, the former office intern now corporate uber-manager pays a visits to the Dunder Mifflin Scranton branch. His primary purpose is to communicate the new corporate vision of using cutting-edge technology to reduce costs and become more agile. This will allow them to compete with the “big box stores”. Michael, however, is firmly against this new hi-tech approach. He prefers the “old-fashion” methods of selling and serving customers (by giving out gift baskets). Of course Michael goes on an escapade of frivolity in order to prove that the “old” way is better than the “new” way. He ultimately fails, of course, in true Michael fashion.

The episode did an amazing job at challenging the way we do work in the information age. Michael Scott said, “Life and business are about human connections.” I agree. As our organizations implement the newest technologies, we cannot lose sight of the human element. Employees and customers are people. Give these individuals the tools and technology necessary do business with you better, faster, and cheaper. However, make sure you are serving their needs personally. Make sure you have a relationship with them that transcends their email address.

Instead of sending a thank you email, mail a thank you card. Instead of sending a calendar appointment, call the person first and then send the appointment. Try to meet face to face when possible. While at lunch with an employee or client, turn off your Blackberry. Focus on the person you are with at the moment. Try to find ways that add a personal touch to your business.

Despite the advances in technology we are still human. Go cutting-edge. Go bleeding-edge. Just don’t forget your employees and customers in the process. It is possible to be both hi-tech and “hi-touch”. I don’t believe it is an “either/or” proposition.

I leave you with another Michael Scott quote from last night’s show. After imparting great wisdom about life and business being about the human connection he states, “Computers are about trying to murder you in a lake.” Typical Michael Scott.

The Office season premier was last night on NBC. First, it was hilarious as expected. Second, and more importantly, I picked up one business lesson from last night’s show. Well, it is not so much a business lesson but a productivity lesson.

At a certain point in the show Michael Scott, the boss and fearless leader of the Dunder Mifflin, Scranton Branch, states (and I’m paraphrasing), “Great work everyone. Go home, take it easy. Great productive day.” The irony is the fact that Michael Scott and his staff don’t do any work. In the course of the day in question he hit an employee with his car and organized a 5K race to raise “Rabies Awareness”.

Have you ever had a busy day but accomplished nothing of importance or value? I have. We all have. Productivity is not about doing lots of stuff. Being productive is about doing a few important tasks well.

I’m not going to spell out tips for being more productive as I’m not an expert in that area, but I will provide some resources for you to investigate. Here are some excellent books:

Our modern workplace doesn’t make it easy to be productive. There is information and “stuff” begging for your attention all the time. You can try to act on all of it but that will lead to stress and burnout. You can ignore most of it but that will just lead to failure. Somewhere in the middle there is a balance. The books listed above will help you find that balance.