It is 5:34 in the morning, and I am opening my front door to welcome a 17-year-old from Costa Rica. She’s seen her parents and brother off at the airport to return home, but she is staying. She will be living with us for almost three months.
We first met her when she was a sweet seven-year-old who spoke better English than I will ever speak Spanish. Over the course of ten years, we’ve grown to love her family and the prison ministry work they do in Costa Rica. On our trip to Costa Rica last summer to visit, she mentioned she was interested in studying psychology, and I told her she was welcome to come stay with us and see some of our work at HPC before starting college in the Fall.
When I share with others our plans to have her live with us, I typically get one of two very different responses. One: “That’s great!” or Two: “Why would you do that?” The gut response most likely speaks to the person’s level of openness to experience or some other personality trait. And I appreciate the candidness.
And if I’m honest, I feel both of these responses all at once as I literally open the door to my home-This is going to be great! Right along with, What the heck are we doing? All before the sun even comes up.
I think she feels the same things too. All at once.
And I think such is the way of opening the door to anything worth doing. Worth learning from. Opening the door takes effort. There will be good and bad. Mistakes and joys. Excitement and exhaustion. All at once.
As we chose “Open the Door” as our 2024 theme at Horizon Point, we were trying to point to just this. The duality of so many things. Each one of us will spend the next month writing a blog about what this theme means personally. But I think we all agree opening the door is the way to let light in. And we are all about some light at HPC. It is who we are and who we strive to be.
So today for me, opening the door literally means opening the door. No metaphor, no hypothetical gesture. Plan action.
And what a pretty morning it was, as the sky opened to light a few minutes after the door was opened.
Who or what do you need to open the door to today?
As we begin our series on the theme for the year, “Open the Door”, we realized it was important to also consider that in order to open doors, you also need to know how to close them. The first step in effective delegation is to identify where closing a door for one person or organization is opening one for another.
As we sat around a table brainstorming our 2024 theme at our annual company retreat, we realized we were all in somewhat of a state of transition and so were many of our clients.
We often work with people, organizations, and communities that are in a place of “what gotcha there, won’t getcha here,” and we help them make the necessary steps to move to the next level of success. Whether it is coaching a middle manager to make the transition to an executive, working on organizational processes and culture to transition a company from a small one to a larger one, or helping a community understand things like wage rates and labor participation and how that is impacting their workforce landscape, we are often walking alongside people in the middle of a paradigm shift. And oftentimes we have to remind them, you are going to have to say no to something to say yes to something else. This is where growth lives.
And so are we as a business and as individual team members- working to embrace growth by opening some doors and closing others. Each of us are masters and some things, novices at others, energized by some tasks and drained by others. Seasons come and seasons go, and as a team we sat at the retreat and realized some specific plans needed to be put in place in order to do so.
Delegation has to be intentional for everyone involved in order for it to work successfully, so we embarked on an exercise where we worked to get intentional with our transitions and delegation plans. If you or your organization is in a season of transition, here are steps to think through closing doors and opening others:
List all of your service offerings up on the wall (literally).
Have everyone identify the areas they feel fully skilled at doing, the areas where they want to grow, and the areas of work they would like to divest in doing.
Discuss things you aren’t offering that need to be offered and how you will go defining and executing them. For example, we’ve realized that we have been called upon to do one thing for clients that then turns fully into another. We are calling this something along the lines of “Talent Development/Workforce Strategy” and we are taking the first half of this year to be able to fully articulate what this means and market it.
Identify a team leader for each line of business. This is ideally someone who is both fully skilled at the area and also energized by doing it and teaching it to others or is drained by doing it and wants to offload it but is interested in teaching it to others.
Give the team leader the full reign to execute the line of business and equip others to get it done. Identify a timeline for doing so. Is it going to take three months, a year, etc. to allow enough time for the person(s) to open the door to the task so another person(s) can close the door to it?
Capture the plan in a document or spreadsheet where you will remember who is doing what and can track progress.
Use the document you created to check back in regularly on the transition of the skills from one door open to one door closed.
When we did this activity on our retreat, we identified a lot of opportunities for us all to learn from one another. We identified ways to energize ourselves around work and transition things where people were fatigued or bored by certain types of work. This doesn’t mean that we all don’t have to continue to do “laundry” as we call it- stuff no one really wants to do- to keep the business running and our clients happy, but it does mean that we are being intentional about opening doors and closing them, all for the sake of both individual and organizational growth.
How do you know when to delegate? Do you have a process for doing so with intention? What are you looking forward to closing the door on in order to grow?
One reason we roll our eyes when people start talking about values is that everyone talks a big values game but very few people actually practice one. It can be infuriating, and it’s not just individuals who fall short of the talk. In our experience, only about 10 percent of organizations have operationalized their values into teachable and observable behaviors that are used to train their employees and hold people accountable.
Ten percent.
If you’re not going to take the time to translate values from ideals to behaviors—if you’re not going to teach people the skills they need to show up in a way that’s aligned with those values and then create a culture in which you hold one another accountable for staying aligned with the values—it’s better not to profess any values at all. They become a joke. A cat poster. Total BS.
So how do we convert “professing” into behaving? Here are four ways:
Set Expectations Based on Values: Design your employee development and evaluation tools around your values and specify observable behaviors that are needed in order to meet and/or exceed expectations. If you are having trouble getting behaviors down or understanding how to put a behavior into language, Brown’s reference list of behaviors may help you.
For example, one of our clients values is “Service” and one sub-component of that value where they have to rate a person’s performance in the evaluation is: “The employee acts with empathy, kindness, patience, and honesty in all interactions and shows respect for those that he or she works with, including, but not limited to, co-workers, clients, vendors, and community representatives.”
Then, the person performing the evaluation has to input behavioral based information to support that rating such as, “Jane Doe exhibits our service value when she answers the phone at the front desk. She answers the phone with a positive greeting and tone of ‘Good morning, this is Jane Doe. Thank you for calling today! How may I direct your call or assist you this morning.’ She does this consistently regardless of mood or type of call or time of day. She is also friendly and welcoming at the front desk when all employees come in as well, greeting each person when they enter and exit with personalized exchanges.”
Give Feedback in Values Based Language: Whether you are giving feedback in formal evaluation or in an ongoing developmental way, good and bad behavior should always be framed by putting your values into language.
To continue with our example above, you’re Jane Doe’s supervisor and you hear one of these positive phone interactions. You could immediately respond with, “Jane, I appreciate you being empathetic, kind and patient with the person you just spoke to on the phone. I could tell it was a difficult call, but you never lost patience or made the caller feel inferior. Thank you. You are demonstrating our value of Service and I appreciate it.”
Decide Based on Values: Values really begin to become operationalized when you use them as the basis of all decision making, big or small.
Continuing with our example, let’s say you are deciding if you should even have a person answer the phone or automate it either because of budget constraints or because it just doesn’t seem like the modern thing to do because no one else is doing it anymore.
Based on your value of service, you may ask yourself and others: Does making this cut diminish our ability to show service? Does having a live person answering the phone differentiate us in the marketplace? Does and/or could it bring us a competitive advantage? If we get rid of it, what positive or negative outcomes could come of it based on all our values?
Ask Based on Values: As a leader, using values to help people make decisions and guide their development is a great way to do all three of these things. When someone comes to you with a problem or a decision to make, ask them, “How do you see this decision in light of our organizational values? What do our values lead you to think is the next right thing?” Help them learn to think in terms of values which will help them act on them.
Resolutions, Goals, Plans, and Turning Over A New Leaf. This is the stuff that New Years are made of. For individuals and organizations, the new year is always a natural place to think big and aim high. And there is nothing wrong with this.
As 2023 came to a close, a theme we saw over and over again was the challenge many people were having in leading well. They were aiming high, but totally missing the mark. They had lost the people they were leading as well as themselves in the process, chasing some ideal they couldn’t even name.
So many of the conversations and client engagements we found ourselves in were due to this struggle. As we examined it closer, we realized that the key and consistent challenge was that people had lost touch with who they were, what their organizations stood for and how to get back to these things.
They had lost sight of their values, if they had ever even named any, and it had taken them to a place of shooting at a bullseye that was meaningless and also miserable.
So, as 2024 opens and you’re aiming high, I’d encourage you to name or rename your values. What I mean by the word “value” are not moral values in a universal right or wrong sense, but values in what leads to your competitive advantage as an organization or a human being. What makes you unique, and therefore something of worth?
As you think about this, two resources I’d encourage you to explore are:
Brene Brown’s work in Dare to Lead. Read or listen to Part 2: “Living Into Our Values” and use her pdf list of values found on her website to help think through your core values. I would highly encourage you to listen to her words in an audio book format before using the pdf to begin action.
Based on Dr. Henry Cloud’s work, found in Boundaries for Leaderson team trust and defining operating values, create and examine two past case studies of your organization or personal practices: one that went exceptionally well and one that went horribly wrong. What consistencies do you see in the good and the bad? You can use this tool we’ve created based on this work to help you develop your case studies.
What we typically see is that the bad reflects the opposite of what creates uniqueness. It is what you are most ashamed to be or do because it is so opposed to your values. The exceptional is what makes you feel most alive and yourself when you are living into them- the value creates value. For organizations, it is what makes people want to “purchase” from you instead of a competitor.
As we begin a new year aiming high, let us first reflect on if it is where we want to aim to begin with. Once we’ve done so, we can steer our behaviors towards the right bullseye.
What are your values and how will you aim for them in 2024?
On November 15th of this year, Mary Ila was asked to speak on Character and fostering workplace ethics at the BBB Torch Awards. Her topic was inspired by our Horizon Point book of the year named Hidden Potential by Adam Grant. Mary Ila wasn’t able to attend, but Jillian showed up and presented in her place. We hope that you enjoy this special treat from this year’s event.
Thank you for the opportunity to be here today. The BBB team across North Alabama does a tremendous job in fostering workplace ethics and we are happy to be a part of the organization as members, as Taylor, one of team members serves on the board, and for the chance to spend a few minutes talking with you today.
Robin asked me to speak to the first criteria of the Torch Award application- Character.
The question in the application states: “As CEO, President, Owner or Executive Director your leadership character sets the tone for your entire organization. As a leader, explain how you behave intentionally and communicate with your leadership team, employees, customers and stakeholders in a way that is consistent with your beliefs.”
When we at Horizon Point have applied for the Torch Award before, I haven’t felt qualified to answer this question on my behalf, my team has answered it. And today is no different. In my quest to try to leave you here feeling energized about character, I asked them all what they thought.
And each one of them were spot on in living into one of our values- continuous learning and improvement- to breathe into our individual and collective learning about character. I’d like to use that learning to challenge your assumptions. And that is that character is not a static trait; it is a process that must be practiced.
In Adam Grant’s new book Hidden Potential, he describes what makes up culture. He says, “In organizational psychology, culture has three elements: practices, values, and underlying assumptions. Practices are the daily routines (I would call them behaviors) that reflect and reinforce our values. Values are shared principles around what’s important and desirable- what should be rewarded versus what should be punished. Underlying assumptions are deeply held, often taken-for-granted beliefs about how the world works. Our assumptions shape our values which in turn drive our practices.”
When we talk about the most desirable leadership traits we often cover practices and values, but we often neglect to understand or even see our assumptions and assumptions are the base of the pyramid. The base impacts our thinking, feelings, and behavior at all other levels.
And at the base of our pyramid on character, two assumptions largely define, at least in America, how we frame the character:
One: Character is innate. It is a fixed characteristic. You are born with it or you aren’t. Putting this another way, character is a will issue not a skill issue. We talk about skill and will alot in the work we do and often say, hire for will (because it is static, innate, not changing) and train for skill (because it can be learned and people can acquire and grow in skills), but what if character is a skill? What if it is malleable and we can learn and grow at it? This is a key premise of Grant’s book that he backs up with a lot of research.
Two: We assume and behave like character is binary. You are either right or wrong. If you are acting with character, you can put a label of “right” to it. If you are acting contrary to character you are “wrong” and it is easy to identify and label it. You know it when you see it. But what if character lives in the gray? What if at one time one behavior in one situation is acting with character, and in another set of circumstances that same behavior demonstrates the absence of character?
This isn’t fun thinking because our brains want us to simplify things. Right or wrong is much easier, it takes less energy to sort through. But exercising anything requires energy and practicing the assumption that character is a skill that must be actively practiced takes energy. Sometimes a whole lot of energy.
As Brene Brown says in her book Dare to Lead, “the mark of a wild heart is living out these paradoxes in our lives and not giving into the either or BS. It’s showing up in our vulnerability AND courage and above all else, being both fierce AND kind.”
Character lives in:
Showing grace AND holding people accountable
Leading AND following
Deciding AND seeking input.
In choosing to show up AND choosing not to.
It’s not about choosing one thing that on the surface seems on the opposite end of a spectrum, it’s about choosing to embrace and live out both all at once through the lens of our values.
Of the paradoxes I find hardest to navigate in this season of my life, it is showing up AND not. I live in the space of such privilege that I have an endless amount of choices on how to spend my time. You see, anytime you or I decide to show up for something or someone we are also making the choice to not show up for a million other things. I’m in the season now of leading a team and a business while also leading, along with my husband, three children ages almost thirteen to four. Embracing this AND is my biggest challenge and also my greatest opportunity to grow in character by actively practicing the skill.
For example, our middle child- the cream of our cookie as she likes to call herself- is the greatest guilt tripper on the planet and she likes to lay it on THICK. I think this guilt tripping comes from the guilt tripping she does to herself more than anyone else. This is the child that has won the student of the month for initiative and/or leadership since Pre-K and she thinks she needs to be and do all for everyone in order to lean into who she is. And she expects others around her to do the same. But she can take this too far. She is her mother. Bless her.
She wants me to be at EVERYTHING, participating in everything at school, like she sees many of her friend’s mom’s doing. Earlier in my life, when I made most of my parenting mistakes with my first born- bless his soul, I hope he forgives me one day- I would have felt like it was a character flaw within me to miss something he wanted me to attend. And if my oldest had laid a guilt trip on me at age nine because I was missing something because of work, I probably would have said something along the lines of, “Your daddy and I work to put food on the table and a roof over your head. Quit complaining! I can’t be at everything!” I would have taken my guilt and turned it into shame for him.
But as I’m learning and growing I’m trying to flex and grow the muscle of character and realizing that sometimes I need to show up for my kids AND sometimes I need to show up for someone else. And that by actually showing up for someone else sometimes, I’m really showing up for my kids too.
I missed the cream of the cookie’s annual soccer tournament between 4th grade classes because our work team was on a retreat to celebrate many things- a birthday, a work anniversary, a marriage, and a great year as a company. I intentionally decided to do that (even though she did lay the guilt on thick) and used it as an opportunity to talk with her about living in the AND in the best way I knew how. Instead of getting defensive, I communicated, explained and hopefully conveyed that she is important, but the world does not revolve around her (a lesson many of us still need to learn) and that my team at work was important too. I tried to teach her and remind myself of the value of People First, our first value at Horizon Point and in my life, by having a conversation with her. I tried to remind her (and me) that there is no way for her to be everything for everyone at all times and to also ask her questions about why she might be upset about why I can or can’t attend something.
I’ll be at her annual Turkey Bowl game and have said no to half a dozen other appointments in order to be there. She’s the co-captain of her class’ football team and I hope she leads them with a People First mindset.
In thinking about this, how many of you really didn’t want to show up to this today? It’s okay, you can raise your hands, I won’t be offended. Whether you were willing to admit it or not, the choice you made to show up today could be based on a variety of factors. But I hope your decision to show up here AND not show up somewhere else was done with intent. And based on your values. Your beliefs.
In a world where a lot of us grit and bare our way through life and we don’t stop to think about why and what to show up for, I think character can be found in sometimes showing up AND sometimes not. And in flexing the muscle to think it through. Only you can answer whether or not showing up to this luncheon today was the leaderful thing to do based on your commitment to character. Coming here may have been an escape or an excuse from what you really needed to do. And trust me, I am seeing that a ton right now in the leadership and executive coaching and training we do. Leaders not showing up to do the hard things. I think this largely stems from being uncomfortable with embracing AND. You know, as Brene Brown said, the “kind AND fierce” kind of AND.
Coming here may have been the very best possible thing that you could do on a Wednesday at lunch for fostering workplace ethics. Only you can decide, but I hope you do discern it through your values. And that you are constantly challenging your assumptions.
In the words of Maya Angelou, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
I don’t know what you have next on your agenda for today. Maybe it is having a difficult conversation you’ve been dreading, or avoiding it. Maybe it is picking up your kids from school or visiting an ailing parent. Maybe it’s going home and taking a nap or going to the gym. Any number of these things could be the next right thing you can and should do to build your character. Whatever you decide to do for the rest of the day, I hope you choose to behave in a way that grows you in your skill of character. And yall, sometimes that truly is taking a nap. It’s a lot harder to practice character when you are tired or burned out.
The beauty of growing in your character skills is that through your modeling and influence you will help others flex their muscles to grow in character skills as well, and that’s what leadership is all about.
