Necessary Endings (16 page)

Which brings me back to my earlier point about the kind of person you are. Your problem may be that you deal with people in the same way that works for you. Here is what I mean: if you are a loving and responsible person, when there is a problem with your performance or when someone has an issue with you, you want somebody to come to you and tel you. You want people to let you know if there is something you can do better or if you are hurting them in some way.

And when they do that, what do you do? You listen, feel sorry about your performance or your treatment of them, and take ownership of your performance, results, or behavior. You observe yourself, you listen to their input, and you change. The outcome is that trust is built, the relationship is strengthened, and you have gotten better for the interaction. Therefore, you value input and see it as the way to deal with people.

And that’s the problem. Because that works with you, that is what you natural y do with others when there is an issue or a problem or when things are not going the way you’d like them to go. You address the problem, and you expect others to have the same kind of response when you are in their shoes: you expect them to own up and make a change.

That is a great plan, and you can expect everyone to do exactly that—on Mars. But on Earth, it does not always work, and that is why you cannot deal with al people in the same way. They are not al like you. What works with you wil not work with everyone, and it is imperative that you figure out what kind of person you are trying to get to change. Otherwise, you wil just assume that al are responsible people who wil respond to your feedback.
And the ones who are not will cause you more and more trouble as you continue to give them feedback so they can change.
With them, you need a different strategy. So let’s look now at the three kinds of people so that you wil know what to do with each.

Wise People

I was asked by the chairman of the board of a company I consult with to accompany him to a lunch with the CEO of their organization. So I could better understand what was going on, we met beforehand, and he told me of the concerns that he had with the newly placed leader. He said that he’d been chosen for his operational strengths, which were real y needed in the environment at that time in this particular industry. It was a time to organize the chaos, set up new structures, and right the ship. He was perfect for that assignment.

But, the chairman said, he was concerned that the CEO did not seem like a visionary to him, and he knew that at some point, visionary leadership would be important. The operational crises would one day be over, and the company would then need someone to give it a longer-term vision and be able to get everyone on board to realize that vision. He did not see the new guy as being real y able to do that. In fact, he had recently watched the CEO handle some current issues poorly, losing opportunities for internal messaging and communication of values, strategy, alignment, and the like. The chairman’s concern was that he was operating wel but not leading in the ways that would be required for the long run. So we came up with a list of issues to talk to him about at the lunch.

The chal enge for the chairman was that he was stil feeling the effects of working with the previous CEO, who had been very difficult to deal with in a lot of ways, particularly when it came to receiving feedback about his performance. As a result of that experience, the chariman had a lot of trepidation going into this lunch, fearing more of the same kinds of defensiveness and denial. He wanted me there to help structure the conversation, to serve as a facilitator or extra voice if needed, and probably to offer moral support in what could be a tough conversation. To say to a new CEO that you are concerned that he is not acting like a leader is a course fraught with potential land mines.

Depending on whom you are dealing with.

The chairman began by tel ing the CEO that he was glad to have the opportunity to talk to him in this setting, informal y and not with the whole board, as he was going to have to say some things that might be difficult to hear and wanted to discuss them before they got to the level where board involvement might be necessary. At this point, it was just informal feedback to see what the CEO’s thoughts were on some issues.

It was clear that the CEO could tel that this was not going to be a lot of happy talk. The tone of the lunch got a little more serious—not contentious, but the mood had clearly been set: we are here to talk about some important stuff, and it is not al good. The entrées were on their way, and I found myself wishing he had saved his prologue at least until after I had gotten to enjoy my lunch.

The chairman then went into a pretty awkward presentation of a list of ways he had noticed that the CEO was not acting “leaderly,” as he put it.

He named several instances in which he felt he was acting like a manager, not a leader, and said he thought that to make it as a CEO, he was going to have to do differently. If I had not known better, from the content list as he laid it out, I would have thought he was firing him. I braced myself for the response, putting myself in the CEO’s shoes, thinking how difficult that feedback must have been to hear. (
Where is my entrée?
I remember thinking.
This could go bad.
)

What happened next literal y caused my eyes to water. The CEO looked up, nodded slowly, and said, “You have just given a great list of the things that I need to learn how to do to be a great CEO. Those are definitely my opportunities to grow. I would like to get better in those areas. Can you guys help me?”

I don’t exactly know how to describe it, as it was not a business response that was wel ing up inside of me. It was a human one. My heart was seeing, right in front of me, something that is good and pure about the best of people. The CEO heard frank feedback about himself and how he could do better, received it, and desired to make the effort to grow. Also, I think I was being moved by the very virtue we have been discussing: hope. I was seeing hope emerge before my very eyes. There is hope for people who are receptive to feedback and who take ownership of where they need to grow. This man would do fine. He would learn, and he would grow. And not only was I seeing hope for him, but also for the organization that he led. I saw good things in their future.

We went from there to talking about how the chairman and I, along with some leadership training, could be helpful to him. We came up with a structure for his development over the fol owing year. He applied himself, and we found that he actual y had the gifts and abilities to do what the chairman had been asking for, but he never had real y seen those things done before and just needed a little coaching. He stepped up and did wel .

Now, years later, he is thriving in his role. Why?
He is wise.
And wise people learn from experience and make adjustments.

Wisdom certainly means many things. If you examine the various ways that wisdom has been discussed in philosophy, religion, and the behavioral sciences, they al involve a coming together of knowledge, understanding, insight, and discernment so that a person knows what is good and what to do. The bare definition can sometimes make the wise sound like the sage who knows it al , but another key ingredient of wisdom puts the others in perspective:
experience
. Wisdom comes from experience, either the experience of others or of oneself. And to let experience do its work, a person has to be open to receiving the lessons that it has to teach.

That is why I knew that the CEO would do fine. The person who ultimately does wel is the one
who can learn from his own experience or the
experience of others
,
make that learning a part of himself
,
and then deliver results from that experience base.
And that requires being open to feedback. This CEO was doing that. He was listening to feedback regarding his own experience, his performance, and where it was lacking, and he was gleaning insights from the experience of this seasoned chairman and a consultant. As a result, he would become better as he learned what he needed to do. He would use his natural strengths and gifts to implement what he was hearing, and he would do wel . It was the wisdom of listening to feedback and learning from experience that ensured this.

Which brings us to the key diagnostic of the wise person:

When truth presents itself, the wise person sees the light, takes it in, and makes adjustments.

You have heard it said of people that they “saw the light.” Wisdom is a stance that people take wherein they are open to hearing the truth, so when it comes, they listen to it and make the necessary changes to be aligned with that truth. Such people take feedback, correction, and training wel . When you tel them something about their performance that is accurate, they hear it. They respond to it positively, and they apply it. You don’t get resistance or a fight. In fact, they see it as a gift.

The result? They learn and they get better as a result of feedback. Wise people wil always grow and get better, and as a result, when you are dealing with one, you have good reason to hope. If something is wrong, they can learn. They don’t resist the truth that they have to align with. As the phrase goes, they “take it to heart.” No defensiveness.

Now, there is something very important to realize here:
wise
does not mean smartest, brightest, most talented, most gifted, most charismatic, or charming. While wisdom may coexist with al of these traits, it is completely unrelated. It is very possible, as we shal see, to have bril iant, charming fools in your midst whom you or others have been fooled by precisely because they were so smart and gifted. More about that later. But for now, understand that this diagnostic is about one thing and one thing only:
a person’s ability to take feedback and make the adjustment
. With people who can respond to feedback, given that they have the gifts and abilities that you need in your context, there is always hope.

The mature person meets the demands of life, while the immature person demands that life meet her demands. You can see how wisdom plays into maturity, as the wise person would take in the truth and adjust herself to meet whatever change truth is demanding of her. But without that ability, the demand would go unmet, and the person would remain unchanged as a result of the feedback, none the wiser. That is why the proverb says, “Correct a wise person and he wil be wiser stil .” Feedback
helps
the wise. They value it.

Traits of Wise Persons

Here are some traits of the wise:

• When you give them feedback, they listen, take it in, and adjust their behavior accordingly.

• When you give them feedback, they embrace it positively. They say things like, “Thank you for tel ing me that. It helps me to know I come across that way. I didn’t know that.” Or “I real y took what you said to heart, and here is what I did.” Or “Thanks for caring enough to bring this to my attention. I needed to hear this.” There is some sort of appreciation for the feedback, as they see it as something of value, even if it is hard to hear. You might hear them offer a response like, “Wel , this was tough to hear, but it is good. It wil help me even if it hurts.”

• They own their performance, problems, and issues and take responsibility for them without excuses or blame.

• Your relationship is strengthened as a result of giving them feedback. They thank you for it, and see you as someone who cares enough about them to have a hard conversation. They experience you as being for their betterment.

• They empathize and express concern about the results of their behavior on others. If you tel them that something they are doing hurts you, you get a response that shows that it matters to them. “Wow, I didn’t realize I had hurt you like that. I never would want to do that. I am sorry.” Or they are concerned about how their performance is affecting the company or the team. “I am sad that I have been letting us down. I want to do better.” Or “I wil not let that happen again.”

• They show remorse. You get a feeling that they have genuine concern about whatever the issue is and truly want to do better.

• In response to feedback, they go into future-oriented problem-solving mode. “I see this. How can I do better in the future?”

• They do not al ow problems that have been addressed to turn into patterns. They change. They adjust and fix them. It does not mean that change wil be instantaneous. There are few instant cures with no slips, as a goal is always being approximated until one gets there. That is why surgeons in training start on cadavers. But they listen and learn and eventual y are wise enough to cut living people. Wise people likewise address their faults, and you see changes in actions and behaviors instead of patterns that go unaffected by the feedback.

Strategies for Dealing with a Wise Person

I have said that the pruning moment happens when we get to a good state of hopelessness, in which we know that more time is not going to help.

An ending is needed because more time is not going to make that good bud the best bud, or the sick one get better, or bring the dead back to life.

So what does knowing if you are dealing with a wise person have to do with hopelessness?

It tells you whether or not more time is justified in finding out if someone can get better.
If you have a performance problem with a person or in some way he is not being the best, which you know is demanded for the position, then you have an important question: do I fix or do I replace? If you remember, that was Jack Welch’s pruning command: “fix, close, or sel .” Whether or not a person has the traits of wisdom wil likely tel you if they wil be fixable or not. You cannot fix people who wil not take feedback, because from their perspective, they do not have a problem. So as far as they are concerned, there is nothing to fix. That is why they do not change.

But if a person can take feedback and coaching and use it, there is a real reason to have hope. It may not mean success is certain, as she could take it al to heart and stil not have the gifts or abilities needed for the job. But then you would know for sure that more time would not help and your decision would be clear. Both of you have tried your best, and it just did not work. You gave help, she used your help, and stil the fit was wrong.