© 2012 Pat Lynch. All rights reserved.

Why is taking care of oneself so important? The analogy I use to answer this question is one that’s familiar to anyone who travels by commercial airline. During the pre-flight instructions, passengers are told that in the event of an emergency, they must put on their own oxygen masks first before trying to assist others. While most work environments don’t qualify as “emergency” settings, the lesson is relevant here: if you are gasping for breath (literally or figuratively) and/or losing consciousness, you cannot possibly help anyone, including yourself.

With this point in mind, the workshop focused heavily on self-care as a pre-requisite to being able to lead others effectively. In fact, we identified and discussed 31 tools and practices for self-care. With a nod to the multiple 11s in today’s date (11/11/11), here are 11 of those suggestions. For those who are interested in learning more about these concepts and/or in seeing examples, there are links to some of my articles that provide more details.

1. Watch your self-talk: is it life-affirming or energy draining? The way we talk to ourselves (and others) creates our reality, which is key to being able to choose how to experience the situations in which we find ourselves. You may find examples of affirmative self-talk in my article Transformative Self-talk.

2. Paint a picture of how you want to live your life, and use it as a touchstone for making personal and professional decisions.

3. Surround yourself with people who infuse your life with positive energy.

4. Distinguish clearly and realistically between things you can control and things you can’t. Focus on the former and release the latter. An easy exercise you can use to make that distinction is described in my article Begin to Take Control of the Quality of Your Life. Suggestions about how to release people and things that no longer serve you well, or that you cannot control, are provided in my article How to Release Things You Cannot Control.

5. Focus on your strengths and talents, not on your shortcomings.

6. Make a conscious choice about how you will experience each day by identifying one perspective you intend to take. Using the statement, “Today I choose to ___,” fill in the blank with one intention such as “feel compassion for myself,” “accept myself for who I am,” “be inspired by those around me,” or “feel worthy.” You may find a long list of suggested transformative choices in my article Transformative Choices: What’s on YOUR “To Do” List?

7. Attending to all aspects of your being – physical, mental, emotional, spiritual – enables you to ensure you are addressing all the important elements that go into self-care. Just as organizations use a balanced scorecard format to ensure they are measuring all important aspects of their business, so individuals can devise a personal scorecard to keep their self-care on track. You may find an explanation and example of such a tool in my article Creating Balance in Your Personal Life: What’s in YOUR Personal Scorecard?

8. Look for opportunities in every situation rather than obstacles.

9. Be kind to yourself. Imagine your best friend is in your situation. What would you do to support and nurture him/her? Do those things for yourself.

10. Reward yourself on a regular basis. You may find suggestions about how to do this in my article How to Optimize Your Personal Rewards/Recognition ROI.

11. Zealously guard your time. One tool that works exceptionally well in putting things in perspective is a simple question. Ask yourself, “Am I the only person in the world who can do X?” Most the time the answer is “no.” When that’s the case, delegate X (the task) to someone else.

As a leader, you have tremendous responsibility, and often are expected to produce results even in the face of challenging situations. You will be best equipped to rise up to meet those expectations when you take care of yourself first, then teach others to do the same. I invite you to choose just one of the above self-care suggestions and incorporate it into your life. Isn’t improving the quality of your life worth that effort?

© 2011 Pat Lynch. All rights reserved.

First, generational differences are only one type of difference; the workplace is rife with others. Leaders must educate themselves about other kinds of differences as well. Second, and more important, focusing on differences, whatever their source, is unproductive at best, and destructive at worst. Here are eight reasons why this is true:

1. Differences foster an “us vs. them” mentality, dividing people rather than enabling them to collaborate and work productively.

2. Differences often encourage distrust, which cripples collaboration and productivity.

3. Differences generally are based on traits that cannot be changed – e.g., age, race, gender, ethnicity – and that usually are irrelevant to the task at hand.

4. Focusing on differences doesn’t allow people to see what they have in common or to discover what they can learn from one another.

5. Making employment-related decisions based on some of these differences is illegal in the U.S. – not to mention that doing so is a bad management practice.

6. Focusing on differences emphasizes what WON’T or DOESN’T work rather than on what DOES work.

7. When we seek differences, we find them. Too often, forward momentum then comes to a screeching halt.

8. Differences often are seen and treated as obstacles to success instead of as enablers of greater outcomes.

Would you want to work in an environment with those characteristics? What if, instead of focusing on differences, leaders kept the spotlight on what people have in common? Here are just a few of the reasons why emphasizing how we are alike makes good business sense:

1. Changing the question from “How are we different?” to “How can we be successful together?” opens the door to entirely new and actionable answers.

2. Commonalities allow people to move forward by focusing on opportunities instead of on obstacles.

3. When we seek opportunities we will find them, which means the sky becomes the limit. While we won’t always reach the stars, we will get much closer to them than if we had set our aspirations much lower.

4. Differences among people are not going away, so sticking your head in the sand won’t change things.

5. Commonalities “seasoned” with differences create immense learning opportunities and unleash creativity and innovation.

6. The emphasis is on what WILL or COULD work.

7. Emphasizing commonalities opens the door to the best of all worlds, allowing us to move forward by learning, adapting, and growing as individuals and as organizations.

8. Commonalities are seen as enablers – of action, creativity, innovation, collaboration, and knowledge sharing.

While it’s important to learn about what makes people different so we can understand others’ perspectives, it would be a mistake to dwell on those differences. Consider what a difference it would make in the work environment if leaders emphasized what’s common across human beings – i.e., that people generally want to succeed, to be respected and feel valued, to be part of something bigger than themselves, and to enjoy what they do. Imagine what could happen in YOUR organization if people focused on what unites them rather than on what divides them. In which environment would your employees be most productive, engaged, and committed? The choice is yours. What will it be?

© 2011 Pat Lynch. All rights reserved.

By “political budget cutting” I mean a process in which politicians and administrators resort to ineffective resource allocation tactics such as engaging in “proportionate sharing” or choosing to retain programs and services that are popular with constituents but non-essential, instead of setting priorities and making the tough decisions that they were elected or hired to make. One reason why the proportionate sharing tactic is ineffective is that it lumps essential and non-essential services in the same basket, and subjects them to the same percentage cuts without considering the fact that providing public safety and infrastructure are the only reasons government exists, whereas things like staging parades or providing pretty hand-printed proclamations to constituents are not core government functions. If public safety is, in fact, the top priority of a city or county government, then why do those whose job it is to allocate resources treat it exactly the same as they treat services that clearly do not represent life and death matters?

I am not ignoring the fact that public safety costs represent a major component of many, if not most, local government budgets. There is no question that the levels of fire and police pensions have become unsustainable in many areas. (At the same time, let’s not forget that when pensions are negotiated through a collective bargaining process, as most are, both parties have to agree to the terms and conditions of the contract. Public sector employees are not the “bad guys” simply because they accepted the very generous pension and benefits terms their politicians offered them.) It is clear that unsustainable public sector pensions must be addressed. More immediately, however, let’s focus on how we can ensure that public safety is treated as the top priority by politicians who must cut budgets, rather than as collateral damage.

Everyone has a role to play to ensure that public safety is treated as a top priority rather than becoming collateral damage. Here are a few suggestions:

Fire departments and police departments:
- Educate the public and decision-makers about what you do, how you do it, and most importantly, the impact your actions and choices have on public safety. Things that are obvious or second nature to you because your training is in the fire service or law enforcement are not on the public’s, or too often the politicians’, radar screens. You have a moral responsibility to educate people on the likely consequences of actions that affect public safety. Don’t make them find out through experience. And don’t allow politicians to hide behind the excuse that they didn’t know what the consequences would be.

- Educate your stakeholders in ways that are personally meaningful. By that I mean, describe to them specifically what the impact on public safety will be if a given service is taken away, or delayed, or partially provided, or reduced in quality. For example, one of the proposals in Long Beach is to reduce the number of firefighters on engines from four to three. Some people seem to think that this is a reasonable to response to budget cuts in tough times. Those are also the people who have no idea how that change affects public safety. Citing dozens of studies that show why this idea has a serious negative impact on safety is not helpful in making your case. Instead, explain the likely consequences in personal terms so people can “get” it. Few people know that if they are trapped in a burning house and an engine with only three firefighters arrives on scene, federal law prohibits those first responders from entering the house until a fourth person shows up. It’s your job to tell them.

Politicians and administrators:
- Instead of focusing primarily cutting dollars, begin by deciding what level of public safety you choose to provide to the community. To do otherwise is to shirk your responsibility and put the public in jeopardy. Articulate that decision clearly to the public. Tell your law enforcement and fire service managers what you want the public safety “picture” to look like, and let them inform you what resources are required.

- If the necessary resources are not available, ask your public safety experts for options that come with clear explanations of each one’s impact on public safety. For example, how is “actionable” response time affected by each option? (By “actionable” response time I mean the amount of time it takes for officers or firefighters or medical personnel to arrive and take immediate, effective action to resolve the emergency, not merely the amount of time it takes for them to arrive on scene and wait for additional personnel and/or equipment.)

- If you SAY that public safety is your top priority, make sure your decisions and your actions match your words.

- Prioritize the services you choose to provide given the available budget. I am NOT advocating that public safety comprise 100% of the budget – far from it. Quality of life is an important issue that should be considered in the mix. The question is, where should it rank on the list of priorities relative to public safety?

The public:
- Lean about what public safety providers do to keep us safe, what changes are being proposed, and how those changes will impact the safety of our communities.

- Consider the big picture. Times are tough, and government isn’t able to afford all the “nice to have” services it has provided in the past. Decide where public safety should be on the list of priorities.

- Ask questions – of public safety officials and of politicians and administrators. Engage in constructive dialogue with others in the community.

- Let’s not forget that politicians are in office because a majority of those who voted cast ballots for them. It’s up to us to speak up and tell them what level of public safety we want and are willing to pay for.

- Become active advocates for what we believe, and back up our beliefs by voting for politicians whose actions match their words. If they are acting out of personal interest rather than out of the community’s interest, it’s up to us to hold them accountable and vote them out of office. Otherwise we are enabling their “me first” behaviors.

The bottom line is that public safety is everyone’s business. We all have a stake in ensuring that our communities are safe, and each one of us has a role to play. When any one party abdicates its role, especially in times of extraordinarily tight budgets, public safety is in danger of going from top priority to collateral damage. It’s up to all of us.

What will YOU do?

© 2011 Pat Lynch. All rights reserved.

Here are three reasons why adopting the “doing more with less” approach is a mistake:

1. It’s counterproductive: surviving employees, already demoralized by layoffs and furloughs, perceive that they are being asked to pick up the slack without being compensated for doing so – and they’re right!

2. Doing more with less is not sustainable long-term. There’s only so much you can add to existing workloads before people and systems begin to break down.

3. Employees become disengaged, burned out, resentful, and cynical – and they will leave the organization the first chance they get.

In addition, I’ve found that when they try to “do more with less,” people start seeing everything as a priority. And of course, when everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority.

Here are two ways you can avoid falling into the fallacy of “doing more with less:”

1. Embrace the concept of doing LESS with less

This actually increases productivity: employees know you are being realistic and they appreciate your honesty so they reciprocate with good performance. Employee commitment is likely to increase when you’re truthful about what you’re asking your workers to do. If you would like to learn more about this issue, here are two articles that go into more detail:

The Fallacy of “Doing More with Less”

How to Prioritize: Doing LESS with Less Effectively

2. Set priorities effectively, and allocate available resources accordingly

Let’s be clear about two facts about priorities that people often ignore. First, priorities are what you DO, not what you say you will do. Realistically, you can only have a handful of priorities at any given time. (That’s ONE handful!) Second, priorities involve choices about time. By saying you don’t have time to do something, such as going to your kids’ soccer game, you effectively are saying that other things are more important to you at the moment.

A few years ago, I developed a straightforward process for setting priorities. Here it is in a nutshell:

First, identify clearly your organization’s vision or mission. Beginning with the end in mind is the first step in organizational success.

Second, use that vision to categorize everything you do (e.g., evaluate performance, develop products and services) as critical, very important, or important.

Third, devise a realistic formula for allocating resources based on the above three categories. For example, while you might decide to allocate 100% of your resources to items in the “critical” category, it’s probably more realistic to devote 70-80% of them to the critical priorities, 15% to very important items, and 5% to important items.

If you would like more detailed, step-by-step information about this process, you may obtain the template, Pat Lynch’s Process for Prioritizing Organizational Services and Programs, by clicking here and checking the appropriate box on the list from my web site. You will receive the link to the template immediately via e-mail.

What are your thoughts or experiences about doing LESS with less? Let us know!

© 2011 Pat Lynch. All rights reserved.

I recently conducted a one-hour free teleseminar, 7 Strategies Executives and Business Owners Must Know for Organizational Success in Today’s Economy, in which I identified and described time-tested concepts, tools, and techniques that can make your life much easier and put your organization on (or back on) the road to success. Here are a few of the topics we covered:

• How to set priorities and allocate resources
• Techniques to increase employee engagement
• Why insisting that your employees “do more with less” is a mistake
• How to align employees’ interests with organizational goals
• No- or low-cost tools and techniques that ensure organizational success

If you are struggling with the challenges caused by having to produce the same results with fewer resources, then I invite you to invest one hour of your time in listening to this free teleseminar. Then let us know which strategies you found most useful in helping to make your organization more successful!

© 2011 Pat Lynch. All rights reserved.

That strategy seemed to work: for the first time in anyone’s memory, the legislature passed a budget on June 15, 2011. Everyone celebrated, most of all the legislators, who believed they had saved their paychecks.

The celebration was short-lived: Governor Jerry Brown vetoed the budget the very next day, saying that it was not a balanced solution to the state’s financial woes. In fact, he was quoted as saying that the budget that was passed contains “legally questionable maneuvers, costly borrowing and unrealistic savings.”

Personally, I call that budget the “Save our (California legislators’) paycheck” budget.

Legislators reportedly were outraged. After all, they passed a budget, didn’t they? And didn’t it show that revenues matched expenditures?

Well, not exactly. The Governor had promised voters a “gimmick-free” budget this year, and in his view, this budget did not pass the “no smoke and mirrors” test. In fact, his assessment of a gimmick-laden budget was backed up by the State Controller’s analysis, which found that while the budget committed the state to spending $89.8 billion, it only provided revenues of $87.9 billion, leaving a shortfall of $1.85 billion.

Oops.

Now legislators are REALLY mad: the Controller’s assessment came with the news that because the budget was not balanced, their pay and per diems would be suspended until they pass a budget that does meet the “gimmick-free” criterion. One Los Angeles Assembly member was quoted as saying, “I now have to explain to my wife and daughter that we won’t be able to pay the bills because a politician chose to grandstand at our expense.”

Welcome to the world of tens of thousands of Californians, whose financial situations are fraught with uncertainty each year when the legislature engages in its own form of grandstanding when it chooses not to meet its constitutional mandate of passing a balanced budget by June 15th. Institutions that rely on state funding, for example, have been forced to pass their own budgets without knowing how much money to expect from the state – if any. In the past few years, the state actually decided to issue IOUs in lieu of cash because the budget had not been passed. How well do legislators think that asking one’s landlord or bank to accept an IOU in place of a rental or mortgage payment will go over? Now they have an opportunity to find out themselves.

There are at least two related lessons to be learned here:

1. Be very specific when asking for what you want or need.

In this case, the voter-passed initiative said the budget must be balanced. Alas, it apparently did not define the term “balanced” in a way that made it crystal clear to legislators that their constituents would no longer tolerate their annual “smoke and mirrors” approach, but instead must pass a budget that actually balances when held up to the light of day.

2. Be careful of what you ask for.

By putting legislators’ pay at risk (as it relates to passing a balanced budget), voters caused lawmakers to focus on passing a budget. This seems to be a good thing, doesn’t it? Unfortunately in their haste to save their paychecks, the legislators neglected to take care of a few critical details. According to the State Controller, for example, the budget relies on a variety of fees and taxes to raise revenue – but lawmakers didn’t pass the legislation necessary to collect that revenue. Apparently the initiative should have said that intentions don’t count – there actually must be mechanisms in place in order for the budget to be balanced in reality.

So we’re back to smoke and mirrors. At least the legislators are not getting paid to not produce a balanced budget, which may jolt them back to reality. In the mean time, Californians across the state are suffering – again – because lawmakers –again – aren’t doing their constitutional duty.

I can’t wait for the next step: perhaps an initiative that makes the failure to pass a truly balanced budget by the constitutional deadline a terminable offense? No waiting till the next election either: no balanced budget, no job.

What’s your suggestion for getting the message across to politicians?

© 2011 Pat Lynch. All rights reserved.

During city/county/state budget negotiations, the primary questions generally are:

1. How much must we cut so that our city/county/state has a balanced budget?
2. How much must each agency cut so we can achieve this outcome?

The problem is that these are the wrong questions. Instead of focusing on money, politicians and administrators need to begin with the end in mind – i.e., the services to be provided. Here are the questions they should be asking instead:

1. Is this service something that (city/county/state) government should provide?
(If it is not, stop it!)
2. If it is, what level of service do we (decision-makers) choose to provide?
3. What is the best way to provide this service?
4. How much are people willing to pay for it?

Using public safety (i.e., fire departments and police departments) as an example, here are the questions decision-makers should be asking:

1. Should the government provide public safety services?
2. What level of public safety do decision-makers choose to provide?
3. What is the best way to provide this service?
4. How much are people willing to pay for it?

When the conversation is all about cutting the budget, then guess what becomes the #1 priority? (You are correct if you said “cutting the budget.”) Focusing on cutting the budget can lead to dysfunctional behaviors (e.g., proportional sharing) and outcomes (e.g., ineffective resource allocation). (Elsewhere I explained why the tactic of proportional sharing as a budget cutting tactic is an ineffective way to allocate resources.) As a result, the public loses. In terms of public safety, for example, there may be fewer fire fighters, emergency medical personnel, and police officers available to respond to calls. Fewer civilian staff as well as outdated equipment and infrastructure also are consequences of cuts to public safety budgets. Together these results mean longer response times in situations in which seconds or minutes matter. Are longer response times okay with the public? If so, then there’s no need to change the question. But if public safety has taken a hit because of misdirected questions and stakeholders are not okay with longer response times, then it’s time to insist that decision-makers stop asking and answering the wrong questions.

The bottom line: if you want different answers, you have to change the questions you ask. If the public is at greater risk due to budget cuts and the heads of fire departments and police departments are not okay with that, it’s time for them to re-direct the conversation by changing the questions. While re-focusing the discussion won’t change the reality of scarce resources, it can ensure a much more effective resource allocation process.

What are you waiting for?

© 2011 Pat Lynch. All rights reserved.

How can leaders stop trying to square a circle and face their situations realistically? In no particular order, here are six suggestions to begin that process:

1. Realize that assumptions have expiration dates.
Since the environment has changed, it’s safe to say that the bases on which leaders made decisions in the past have changed. This is a great time to take a close look at what your organization is doing, why it’s doing those things, and how it’s doing them.

2. Recognize that the things that enabled the organization to be successful in the past won’t necessarily work now or in the future.
Begin by taking a step back and defining “success” for your organization and painting a clear picture of what it looks like. Then find new, viable ways to achieve that success.

3. Stop putting your head in the sand in the belief that ignoring reality will keep it at bay.
Having a strategy to guide the organization is one thing; sticking tenaciously to it in the face of major change is another. Living in denial about changes that are occurring all around you does NOT make them disappear. Make sure your strategy is realistic in light of the current environment.

4. Develop multiple contingency plans.
Situational agility is key to success in this world of permanent “white water” conditions where the only certainty is change. In this age of global interdependence, the sources and types of change can come from anywhere. As Dorothy said in The Wizard of Oz, “We’re not in Kansas any more, Toto.” Look beyond the immediate environment for other points at which change may derail your organization’s success.

5. Embed accountability processes into the organization.
One reason why people cling stubbornly to the past even when it doesn’t serve them well any more is that there is little or no accountability for mediocre or even poor performance. When situations and environments change, there must be mechanisms in place that demand appropriate adjustments to keep the organization on track for success.

6. Have a strategy in place and implement it.
Although situational agility is important, there must be an overall framework that provides the boundaries within which it operates. Developing a strategy that requires leaders to articulate a clear “big picture,” identifying the measures of progress and success, and adjusting the plan as necessary puts the leaders at the helm of the organizational ship rather than leaving its fate to the vagaries of the storms that it encounters.

© 2011 Pat Lynch. All rights reserved.

1. Lack of a common “big picture.”

The biggest obstacle to success for any organization is the failure of leaders to articulate and/or communicate the “big picture” – i.e., the value that the organization provides. Without this information, it’s impossible to set effective priorities, which means that one person’s claim on resources is just as valid as another’s. How can leaders allocate resources effectively when there is no overall direction to guide them?

2. Leaders’ inability or unwillingness to establish and enforce priorities.

One of the critical responsibilities of all leaders is to set and enforce priorities. In the public sector, setting priorities often is challenging because of the complexity and variety of stakeholders whose interests conflict with each other, and sometimes are diametrically opposed. In some cases, leaders simply don’t know how to set priorities – a serious deficiency, but one that can be remedied. In other cases, public sector leaders are unwilling to set and/or to enforce priorities because they know that some stakeholder group(s) will be unhappy with them. Too often, for example, we see scenarios in which politicians demand “proportional sharing,” or equal budget cuts across agencies. Or they identify some priorities, only to change them when confronted by stakeholders who wanted a different outcome. How can an organization be successful when its leaders shirk one of their most important responsibilities?

3. A dearth of courageous leaders.

I define courageous leaders as people who focus relentlessly on the big picture, even when they pay a personal price for doing so. Although such leaders are a critical success factor in all organizations, public sector agencies and units in particular desperately need individuals who are willing to focus on the greater good, setting priorities that serve the big picture, and allocating resources in ways that support those priorities. While it’s easy to point fingers at public sector leaders and label them as self-serving individuals who are only looking for ways to be elected to their next jobs (or to keep their current jobs) – and there are many who fit this description – let’s not forget that the public also bears responsibility for the lack of courageous leaders. Specifically, accepting mediocre or poor performance or results enables the behavior that caused it in the first place. We are setting organizations up for failure when we don’t support and nurture courageous leaders.

4. Ineffective resource allocation.

Successful organizations use their resources wisely. The ability to allocate scarce resources effectively requires these critical success factors: (a) a clearly articulated and communicated big picture, (b) specific priorities that support achievement of the big picture, and (c) courageous leaders. In short, the things that need to be in place for effective resource allocation are precisely those that public sector organizations often lack.

5. Inexperience in questioning assumptions.

Because assumptions have expiration dates, it’s good business practice periodically to assess the assumptions that serve as the foundation for decisions and practices. Yet public sector leaders often fail to do this. My experience is that they tend to layer things on top of each other, seldom taking the time to ask whether what’s underneath still is necessary for the success of the organization.

6. Willingness to settle for mediocrity.

Acceptance of mediocrity runs rampant in the public sector – e.g., mediocrity of service levels, of employee performance, of politicians’ decisions and actions. For years, the public has looked down upon those who work in the public sector, decrying the mediocrity – yet accepting it. Having worked as an employee and as a consultant for years in public (and private) sector organizations, I know that this embrace of mediocrity is not limited to outsiders: it’s all too common within organizations as well. When mediocrity is the standard by which performance is gauged, how can organizations possibly be successful?

7. Accountability run amok.

Imagine that accountability is a continuum, with “no accountability whatsoever” at one end and “extreme micromanagement” at the other. Now imagine situations in which you have stakeholders who reside at or near the “no accountability” end, and public sector leaders who work mostly at or near the “extreme micromanagement” end. What you have is a recipe for mediocrity at best, and failure at worse.

8. Bureaucracies that block organizational success.

The words “government” and “bureaucracy” often are used interchangeably. One result of layering things (e.g., regulations, programs, processes) on top of each other without considering whether any have outlived their usefulness is dysfunctional behaviors and outcomes. For example, RFPs (requests for proposals) from government agencies and entities tend to be hefty documents that can run well over one hundred pages. Whatever the size, my experience is that the actual description of the project is dwarfed by the blizzard of forms that document the myriad of requirements with which successful bidders must comply. (My favorite “You’ve got to be kidding me!” example of such a compliance issue is the City of Los Angeles’ insistence that contractors sign a document attesting to the fact that neither they nor any of their ancestors ever owned slaves.) How many stakeholder interests are being served poorly or not at all because of irrelevant restrictions and rules? And let’s not get started on how many people are required to process all this paperwork – before any real work can begin. Bureaucracy is a death knoll for success.

How many of these issues resonate with you? What will you do to address them? In a future post I will share some of my own suggestions about how to minimize these obstacles.

© 2011 Pat Lynch. All rights reserved.