Breathe

a post about struggling, re-focusing, and restarting

I wrote a new blog post this morning. Some of the earlier subscribers know that I committed to blogging once a week - others may recall that writing is something I used to do a lot that I’m trying to get back into. The post I wrote was fine. It’s technically accurate, barely controversial, and probably something I’ll post next weekend or the weekend after that.

But I didn’t want to post it. It’s important and it’s accurate, and maybe even educational, but I had this weird feeling just as I was about to post it where I thought, “I should write about something different”.

So I am.

Struggle

I’ve had a hard time staying focused this week. Between watching friends and co-workers getting laid off, watching egos and politics get in the way of good decision making, and witnessing blame and finger pointing, my productivity and engagement have taken a hit. I feel bad - I know I could be doing a better job taking care of people around me who are seeing the same things, but it’s been a struggle.

And yes - I know these feelings are normal. Brent and I talked about it on our podcast recording yesterday, and I appreciate everyone who has checked in with me. The support helps, but as I re-read the book about healing the wounds of layoffs, I know things will get better. In regards to the other stuff I’m seeing with egos and blame, I’m reminded of advice I give often. In times of stress, people revert to their core self. It’s not an excuse for poor behavior, but when people are under pressure, stress, or their own grief, they often are not their best selves. Some act out to fuel their egos, and other, like me, sort of shut down.

Refocus

I can’t ignore the world forever, and I have to believe that refocusing on the things that matter the most is a good way forward. For me, that means I double down on the things I care about in team culture - Transparency, Accountability, and Psychological Safety. All of these may be worth a full post, but for now it’s worth diving a bit into what these terms mean to me as a leader.

Transparency

It’s hard (impossible?) to do your best work when you don’t know why you’re doing it, who it’s for, or why it matters. In fact one of the biggest drivers of engagement is just knowing why your work matters. Too often, organizations have secrets - often unintentional secrets or knowledge that isn’t share just because it’s more convenient not to share it.

Denise Morrison from Campbells has said,

“The single most important ingredient in the recipe for success is transparency because transparency builds trust.”

…and I could write for pages on the importance of trust. What’s worth mentioning today, is that in times like these, it’s easy to lose trust and important to always be working to improve it.

In addition to trust, transparency does wonders to build relationships, collaboration, and provides clarity to organizations on expectations and outcomes, which leads to…

Accountability

Putting accountability on this list is probably going to disappoint a few people. Too often, accountability means blame and deadlines and other things people don’t like. To me, accountability means that you walk the talk - that you deliver on what you say you’ll do, and that you take responsibility when you don’t. I prefer a culture where people have the autonomy they need to be effective, and are empowered to make decisions. Accountability balances autonomy and decision making. I think that everyone in an organization should provide leadership at the times when it makes sense for them to do so. Some people tell me that they only want to be “information providers” - that the decisions are best left to “management” or someone else. I believe that decisions - and other aspects of accountability should be an opportunity that everyone in the organization can use to grow. Of course, with accountability, you must have…

Psychological Safety

Because it would be impossible for me to write an entire blog post without dropping a you-must-read-this book, this is where I mention The Fearless Organization by Amy Edmondson. This book is a every year or two re-read of mine, and every time I rediscover it, I find new nuggets and ideas.

As Edmondson puts it, “psychological safety is about creating a safe space for people to speak up, make mistakes, and bring their full selves to work.” Accountability doesn’t work if people are afraid to say they’re going to be late with a project, or that they made a mistake in communication. At it’s best, we celebrate mistakes, because they provide opportunities for learning. Psychological Safety on teams is proven to correlate with high performance - largely, in my experience, because it generates trust and opportunities for more transparency.

Something like this -

These three aspects of leadership are the core, or you could say my principles of leadership. There are certainly other ways to approach leadership, but in the spirit of transparency - I’m sharing mine.

Restart

If you’re not sure what to do, go with what you know. Posting the above is, in a way, a reminder to me to stick with the things I care about, re-focus, and start over in a way. There are still a lot of things I think I want to do, and today seems like a good day to start working on those things.

I’ll post a dumb article about bug backlogs next week.