a Series of 10 —Authority Without Noise

By my count I am 6 blogs away from having written 500 blogs on my two websites. I thought it might be an interesting idea to write these remaining blogs based on the common threads that have woven themselves through the last 494 I have written — and with that said, “a Series of 10” will continue with a blog on authority, and maybe even leadership.

I want to start with a layman’s definition of authority — it’s the recognized power or expertise to control and/or influence people. It is generally categorized as either Traditional Authority (custom, inheritance), Charismatic Authority (personal magnetism) or Legal-Rational Authority (law, bureaucracy).

Basically, authority comes with a title or personal magnetism and is validated with power or expertise. The clearest authority is when you are blessed with being a monarch or a VP of Operations because it’s on your business card (one of the reasons people get hung up on titles when they get a promotion). Charismatic authority is where most of us play because there are so few Lords and Ladies and even a VP of Operations gets fired occassionally.

Charismatic authority has muddied the waters with regards to what true authority or expertise is because there is a confusion that visibility, noise, showmanship and good production values are a proxy for authority (and particularly expertise) — if they look good, and they say all the right things, as well as being a little entertaining, they must know what they’re talking about. Right? Not at all.

There is a truism that says, and I am paraphrasing: validation of real authority is action and the success that comes from what you are doing — how does that old saying go again? “Less talking and more doing”. If you want to stretch your authority, take action that will move your objective forward. The more you are noticed for accomplishing successful things, the more you will be asked to do more. Ultimately your expertise and influence expands because of this.

Remember when you are striving for authority to raise your hand and volunteer, propose ideas to meet objectives, meet your deadlines, take on challenges with solutions not complaints, and network and build relationships to get things done — these are some of the good habits of authority.

Robin Sharma wrote a book called “The Leader Without a Title” which in this context is a nice reminder that you can have authority without officially having the authority. For me, quietly and with intention, driving action is a means to authority. Trust me, people will notice the quiet woman in the corner who is garnering everyone’s attention because she gets things done — particularly the attention of people who can help make things happen and champion the efforts.

And hey, if you want to be noisy about it, just make sure you are doing something other than making noise.

iamgpe

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a Series of 10 — the seduction of optimization

By my count I am 7 blogs away from having written 500 blogs on my two websites. I thought it might be an interesting idea to write these remaining blogs based on the common threads that have woven themselves through the last 493 I have written — and with that said, “a Series of 10” will continue with a blog on the seduction of optimization.

This is somewhat counter intuitive for me because I have enough Six Sigma training under my belt to be annoying in meetings — I love the DMAIC model for solving problems, enjoy a good Fishbone diagram and can get lost in developing a process map. Reducing errors, streamlining processes, driving efficiency and optimization is very seductive, as well as very satisfying.

I am not suggesting optimization isn’t a crucial activity in whatever you are doing, be it optimizing a production line or optimizing your health but there may come a point where diminishing returns come into play and maybe even stagnation. Optimization focuses on what you are familiar with and can be very action oriented — it will keep you busy and it’s easy to illustrate effort. Quietly, it’s perceived there is no real consequence or risk from optimization because even the most minimal improvement is a victory.

The siren’s call of optimization becomes a concern when it’s preventing you from addressing the possible problem that the thing you are trying to optimize is so broken, too dated or simply misaligned with your goals. Optimization can’t address these situations in any material way because that is not the issue.

Is the seduction of optimization preventing you from seeing the need for change? Change brings risk, uncertainty and consequence, and it is messy — something that optimization is not (remember all of those efficiency models). I am suggesting that focusing on optimization may prevent you from questioning why you are doing what you are doing — is there an alternative to what is being done or should you even be doing what you are doing?

I call it questioning the Sacred Cow. This line of questioning is about ensuring optimization doesn’t stop us from asking the simple question, “Should we even be doing this and is there a better alternative?”.

iamgpe

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a Series of 10 — when experience becomes a liability

By my count I am 8 blogs away from having written 500 blogs on my two websites. I thought it might be an interesting idea to write these remaining blogs based on the common threads that have woven themselves through the last 492 I have written — and with that said, “a Series of 10” will continue with a blog on experience.

I love having experience under my belt because there are so many advantages:

• I know things and have a foundation of skills that serve me well.

• I have seen things that offer insights and perspective.

• I know success and failure — both extremely valuable. And as time goes on, there is more success than failure in my experience (pun intended).

• I’ve developed pattern recognition and the ability to solve problems quickly.

• I’ve earned some awards and recognition along the way as I leveraged my experience.

To be honest, if I’m not careful I could (and maybe have) developed a bubble or maybe even a personal dogma that has me believing that if I am good at one thing I’m also good at everything else (overconfidence bias or arrogance). I could also be losing the realization that knowledge and circumstances are not static and what has worked in the past may not work in the future. I may have become arrogant.

There is a concern that experience, and all the value that comes from the hard work to achieve it, could become a liability and slowly detach me from the ever-present reality of progress.

There are mountains of examples where “experience” just does not apply anymore, and even worse, situations where my experience somewhat applies but I’m haunted by mistakes because of assumptions based on skills or insight that just doesn’t quite fit anymore. Doing a DIY project using old tools when there are modern and more efficient ones available — using a ratchet wrench instead of a classic wrench comes to mind when you have a large number of bolts to tighten.

Again I will stress, I love having experience but it’s better to think of it as an innate skill that I have developed and must remember that nothing is static. Progress is happening even when I myself may not be progressing and I must stay fresh with new ideas and situations. It is better to rally behind the characteristics that helped develop the experience in the first place then rely on the experience itself.

• Curiosity — search out new ideas, information and situations to develop your knowledge base; if it’s new, explore it.

• Tenacity — work hard, take challenges on, and be comfortable with being uncomfortable.

• Flexibility — figuratively be able to pivot from being correct to being incorrect; if your way of thinking is not generating results, change it. Right and wrong are constructs that keep you from solving the problem.

• Cooperation — never is anything solved by one person. You need others to help do what you need to get done.

• Adaptability — a cousin to flexibility. Situations will change so you need to change with the situation.

• Trustworthiness — this is a quiet characteristic that people rarely talk about. If you are trustworthy, opportunities will be presented to you that lead to continued experience development in areas that you may never have appreciated.

Experience is a reflection of the past and potential for the future — resting on your laurels and experience just gets you left behind.

Be humble,

iamgpe

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