Resistance Is...

by Scott Airitam

President, Scott Airitam's Leadership Systems, LLC

As I was coming in from taking my youngest to the bus stop this morning, a friend tells me that she has to go to the dentist. I actually cringed. Then, the measure of self-awareness I've been blessed with kicked in and I started asking why I was having that reaction to the dentist. Sure, I've had unpleasant and uncomfortable visits to the dentist's chair, but my life would be so much worse if I hadn't gone through those experiences. Stopping to think about it rationally, the short-term pain or discomfort of visiting the dentist (let's label it 1% of my time) makes the rest of my life (let's call it 99% of my time) much higher in quality.

With that being said, another side of me kicked in after all of that and I started making the reasonable parallel that many adults react to training in that way. Of course, I had to ask why. So, now you have a blog to read.

So, in my experience, there is a healthy percentage of people who do not want to be there in most of the classes I facilitate. This generally has nothing to do with me or my company, it would exist regardless of who created or delivered the session. They resist the very improvement opportunity that would make them better. Now, if they stopped and thought about it rationally, they might change their approach, but, I'm not mad at them for their resistance. Their reluctance to learn, grow, develop, and to better themselves isn't always born of a lack of desire for those outcomes, instead, it is often much more deeply rooted.

You see, many people resist because they want control. As adults, they have a lot of responsibility, and, the surface level excuse for their lack of enthusiasm is that they don't have time for the training class. They've got important stuff to do. I try very hard not to take that one as an insult. Anyway, that's often all surface talk. I know it is because I've honed my craft to a point that most people who spend any time at all in a Leadership Systems class forget that they didn't want to be there within the first hour. What it really boils down to is control.

Most kids don't like to go to school for the same reason. Other people, who claim to know what's best (parents, teachers, school administrators, even politicians and police) FORCE children to go to school, regardless of what they want to do. I'm not questioning whether kids should go to school or not, of course they should. But, for every action there is a reaction, right? In this case, by forcing someone to do something for so many years, when they are an adult and can choose, they often choose to go against that which was forced upon them. Regardless of how good it is for them.

So, we meet adults who can certainly benefit from the sessions we offer, but, have a compulsion not to...because they can.

Organizations are only as good as the talent they bring in and the synergy they can create among the people. When organizations foster an attitude that self-improvement and team-improvement are not priorities, those organizations are weakening their position in their market space.

For this reason, we purposefully develop all of our sessions based on an adult learning model that engages people--that's why I can say that people forget that they were forced to be there inside of an hour. People let down their guard in our sessions, mainly because our sessions don't feel like school at all, even though we are conscious of the learning milestones that are being reached. We look to actually create behavior change. It has to be this way, or those who resist continue to throw up passive or active roadblocks to their own learning in the classroom. For this reason, I can't fathom how training organizations that aren't proficient in experiential learning, accellerated learning, and adult learning continue to thrive. They do mainly because they find clients who just want to document that training hours have been made available. I guess there are some companies out there that just want to check the box.

For me, though, helping people to learn, grow, and develop is important. Helping organizations to come together and take the next step is a passion. I would love a world where people were conscious about getting better, being better employees and better people, and where everyone's self-awareness kicked in and made them inquire of themselves, "why?"

To Tear Down? Really?

by Scott AiritamPresident, Scott Airitam's Leadership Systems, LLC

It's really interesting to me that after my last post, I've had four outside conversations with people that want to get me to say that we should leave the door open to use The Last Man Standing Approach.

One of those conversations was pretty brief because there was a misunderstanding--the person was trying to apply it to hiring. So that one doesn't count.

Nevertheless, I cannot say that there is prudence in leaving yourself an out to use a destructive practice.

In each of the conversations, the common denominator was that the person I was talking to had a true need behind the desire to "have permission" to use The Last Man Standing Approach. That need was that they felt they would be setting themselves up to be weakened by not being able to be direct.

What they weren't able to see at the beginning of those conversations was that Leadership allows for directness. It calls for directness when it is appropriate and needed. Sometimes that comes in course correcting someone, other times it is needed when there is no time to allow for "learning by trying" and instead the Leader has to step in and make the decision.

The other side of the discussions revealed another need. In two of the people, the habit of venting anger and frustration on employees is so ingrained that they were having a hard time imaging not being able to do that. The success of the last blogpost is that it made these people think, and, to some degree, question what they have been doing.

The Leader will shield his people from as much of the junk that obscures productivity and development as possible. This includes the Leader's moods as well as high level politics, dysfunction in other groups, lack of tools necessary to do the job, and quality co-workers. In short, the Leader is going on the offensive against anything that might tear down productivity and development of his or her people.

I've worked with too many groups where the head person brings me in to "fix" the group, and, after analysis, it's either the obstacles that person is throwing in the way of their people or the lack of removing obstacles that is the real problem with the group.

Holding onto that crutch is not a way to build up--it is a recipe for tearing down.

The recipe for building resides in developing more capable Leaders. I've worked with groups such as National Air Traffic Controllers Associations, Southwest Airlines, and Lake Pointe Medical Center because they are interested in building up their Leaders. All have seen significant success from the process because it is holistic and it doesn't bring any negative side effects other than hard work and discipline.

If those were my organizations, that is the "negative" side effect I'd sign up for as well.

Careful! Sometimes Instincts Stink

by Scott AiritamPresident, Scott Airitam's Leadership Systems, LLC

I wonder how many of you ever got hurt trying to learn to catch a baseball or softball. Really think back. I can remember taking more than one baseball to the face and head learning to catch a fly ball.  Now, watching little kids learn, I watch coaches get exasperated with those kids whose instincts tell them to turn their back on the ball.  Or, sometimes, run and get the heck out of there!

How many times have we heard that a wild animal (be it dog, bear, or otherwise wild) can smell our fear and the worst thing we can do when confronted by them is run.  But, isn't that exactly what our instincts tell us to do? I mean, crazed dog or giant bear--my brain is saying, "don't walk, RUN!"

Some people can overcome their instincts when the situation calls for it. Others cannot. The problem is that our instincts are not always correct. Yet, our brain is sending signals to our body, in exactly the same way it does when our instincts are correct. And, our body is conditioned to get a message from the brain and go with it.  The difficult part, then, is to keep the logical, rational part of our brain going during these times of perceived "danger."  People old and young, have kept their brain from making them run from softballs and baseballs.  Instead, they raise their hand and catch the ball. There have been many people who, when confronted with animals, don't run, in spite of the fear.  Instead, they calmly execute techniques that save their lives.

So, I'll give you some insight into how this works and how to apply it to your world of work.

Now, it's amazing to me how we can see, in the above examples, that instinct clearly isn't always right.  Nevertheless, we defer to instinct in our Leadership roles at work all the time.  One clear example is in my line of work.  My company is used to seeing organizations that are going through tough times cut back or eliminate training.  

This is instinctual, and bad instincts to be precise.  Think about it.  This represents the type of insticts that will make an organization extinct.

If we just consider clear need, and answer a few questions, we can see the logic behind what I'm saying here.  First of all, when is it that organizations have the higher need to increase productivity...when they are doing well or when they are having troubles?  When is it that organizations have a greater need to improve communication...when they are doing well or when they are in trouble?  When is it that organizations have more of a need to elevate their Leadership abilities...when they are doing well or when they are in trouble?  Arguably, you could answer that the need is there in both cases, but, the questions posed are clearly looking for an answer that talks about a higher need.  With that being said, here's one final question. When is an organization more likely to cut back on training its people...when they are doing well or when they are in trouble?

Instincts will tell us that we need to stop training people and just increase results when things are in trouble. Unfortunately, these instincts are wrong.  If it were that easy to turn the faucet on, why wasn't it done sooner?  Specifically, raising the level of ability, increasing knowledge, and providing additional tools for people can only help a struggling workplace.

When circumstances pin you into the corner, don't turn your back on the ball and don't try to run and hide from your problems, instead, take them head on and make the situation into what you want it to be.  This means anticipating this problem and preparing for how you want to react to it. 

From my perspective, it's frustrating to watch organizations that I've developed a relationship with decide that their investment in their people is not a priority when things become challenging for the organization.  It is difficult to argue against the "we'll just push 'em harder and faster" mentality that organization leaders sometimes move toward during the tough times. The fact is, that approach doesn't work.  Building up the people-side of business does work.

To be clear, I'm not saying that an organization shouldn't weigh its decisions carefully.  Investing in people when times are good is very smart.  When times turn, though, what I'm saying here is that many organizations pull the people-side development down to nothing.  I am saying that although that is what instinct tells us to do, it is not the smartest thing to do.

So, in our example, the counter-instinctual response would be to increase the level of training and development in an effort to counter some of the negative effects of the troubles the organization is dealing with.  During difficult times you have the opportunity to increase the efficiency, productivity, morale, and commitment of your people.  By strengthening your position instead of weakening your position during these tough times, it stands to reason you can improve your chances of coming out of those times in a better position.