I love Mondays. I love Mondays because this is when we switch from low gear into high gear and talk about all the work we’re going to accomplish in the coming week.
Since we started doing #180in120, I’ve added an hour to that meeting – at the beginning – to work on strategy. Awesome plan. I’m that boss who invests in my team, asks for input and is highly collaborative. Four gold stars for me. My Dad would say “Don’t hurt yourself trying to pat yourself on the back.” And Dad, once again, you would be right.
Last week’s Monday Morning went so well. I had an epiphany the night before that we needed to get to the root issues, which basically has to do with a code of conduct in the office, so I found this incredible list and shared it with everyone. I was so excited because I knew it would help me and I thought it would make everyone feel safer at work and trust would grow and all these incredible things would happen if we could live this way. Here’s the list and it comes from Beth Moore.
All of these things will limit your effectiveness in ALL areas of your life:
- Gossip
- Lying
- Profanity
- Perversity
- Rudeness, unkindness, or disrespect
- Criticism
- Breaking a confidence
- Negativism and Complaining
- Inappropriate humor, including off-color jokes or humor that demeans people
- Misuse of God’s name
One would think that within a professional services firm, these things wouldn’t happen but they do. And I’m as guilty as anyone. I can curse like a sailor, for example. My Mother is mortified. My sister does it too. It’s a somewhat recent thing actually and I blame our culture. We’ve all become far too casual and it needs to stop because it’s just awful.
Like any good and strong leader, I started out by saying “I need to change. For us to be more effective, I need to clean it up and can we agree that we all have done some or most of these things at one time or another and our code of conduct must be above all of this?”
I work with really smart and awesome people so naturally, heads nodded in complete agreement.
The Code of Conduct sounded somewhat military-like and trust me on this, that’s not us, so I said let’s come up with another list. This one is called “House Rules”.
Here’s the first draft of our house rules which were inspired in part by one of our team members’ refrigerator rules for her toddlers.
House Rules
- Use your words to build others up.
- Help each other as much as you can.
- Treat each other kindly.
- When you’re frustrated, talk it out.
- Talk health, happiness, and prosperity to everyone.
- Think only the best, work for the best and expect the best.
- Be so focused on improvement of self that you don’t have time to be critical of others.
- Remember the mission.
- Serve well.
- Focus on the solution, not the problem.
- Try to make everyone’s job easier.
And then we dove head first into client work. Awesome. We’re moving in the right direction, right? Yeah, not quite. I noticed something. Somebody at the table wasn’t saying much and so I did what any smart boss does, I noted that and thought I would circle back to her later.
So we put our focus on the week and the physical move of the location and all the related details and by all accounts, it was time well spent.
The moving company came to do a walk thru and provide an estimate in the afternoon and a client stopped by. Normal day by all accounts. I collaborated with somebody on my team about the #180in120 brand look for the blog. All was well.
Towards the end of the day, I asked the person who seemed really quiet why.
And boy did I get an answer.
It turns out that something I said publicly about her several months ago got back to her. And it wasn’t positive. In fact, it was crushing. Not to get into any details but there was an email fight and it escalated and I was frustrated and I said something I wish I hadn’t. I was wrong.
Yup. The boss who is leading change and up to a bunch of good in the world is a hypocrite. I actually said it to her to save her the effort. She was already way out there on a limb.
Now I should say that we all blow it except maybe these really amazing attorneys I’ve met from time to time. They must have some sort of special training at attorney school that helps them avoid this kind of thing. They always seem to be in control. I’m not. Creative people tend to be more dramatic anyway – either outwardly or through their art – and I’m no exception to that rule. I’m not writing it off – I’m just saying.
So, way back when, I had said she was dramatic in this interaction with another employee as well as a few other things. And suffice it to say, she said it right back to me and to my face.
This just got real, didn’t it?
Later she said I did a good job staying in there with her and using empathetic statements. I didn’t defend myself. I owned it. I’ll give the statements to you in a link below though because they are super useful. I read a book called Crucial Conversations a few months back and that’s what I was plugging into in the moment because I had went from having a safe and normal convo to a risky one in a matter of seconds. Moments like this can literally determine our fate.
But here’s the thing. She actually did me a HUGE favor. She let me know in no uncertain terms how I had failed her in that moment. And I had.
She also gave me a fair amount of grace despite the fact that she was spitting nails. She acknowledged she doesn’t know what it’s like to try to keep this all moving every single day from a financial perspective or otherwise. She said she appreciated the work, the job and the opportunity. She knows I’m trying to figure it out. She gave me a gift, in reality. A priceless valuable gift. One that very few have cared enough about me to actually give to me.
Why would I say that? Because most people wouldn’t have said anything. They would have quit and moved on, costing us far more. She didn’t do it for altruistic reasons or because she’s independently wealthy or anything. She needs this job. She did it because it was the truth and she couldn’t sit there for one more minute blowing smoke when the place was on fire. God bless her.
So here’s what I did. I died a little inside as I acknowledged that she was right and then apologized. I felt like running but I stayed. I doubted myself with every fiber of my being. I wondered if I was cut out for this job.
And then I called my mother and ate something at about 8:00 PM. I hunkered down with my email and wondered what I was doing. I’m a first-born. We’re really hard on ourselves.
I thought I might as well do something for someone else because then I wouldn’t feel so worthless so I funded a Kickstarter campaign for my friend Nate Curran. You should too. He’s so talented. He’s doing this super cool album called “The Madman and the Poet” – it’s about a mountain and the journey. I funded him because I had wanted to and also because I needed to do something that would make me feel good. I felt horrible.
I wrote Nate and said he and I aren’t that different even though he writes music and performs and lives in his RV and I run a business. We’re the same. Both trying to bring art and commerce together so we can make a living doing what we love, using our giftedness to make a difference. Both roadies in some ways – never really knowing if the audience will love us or not. And we’re both getting up today and trying again because there’s something inside of us that says we must, which if we don’t something inside of us will die, that even if we fail at least we do daring greatly.
Business isn’t for wimps or whiners or people who throw pity parties for an extended period of time. I give myself 3 or 4 hours at most and then it’s just time to get back on the saddle and ride that horse.
You can probably relate in one-way or another otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this.
And then I did what my Mother said I should do on days like this. I went to bed. And I woke up the next day after processing all night long and wrote this all down.
I’m glad I had the conversation with my team. I’m glad I learned these things about myself. I asked for it. I really did.
Slow death or deep change – the choice is ours.
What will you choose? I’m choosing to change. Gandhi was right when he said “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Part of being a leader means you get to go first. Lucky me.
#180in120
Resources:
Empathy List – https://thecreativecompany.tumblr.com/post/119373290123/the-emotionally-intelligent-leaders-listening
Nate’s New Album and Kickstarter Campaign for the Madman and the Poet –https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/natecurrin/the-madman-and-the-poet-a-new-album-by-nate-currin
Crucial Conversations by Joseph Grenny –https://www.vitalsmarts.com/crucialconversations/