Andree@R-Leadership

Next posts will guide us back to the main road of the Recon Leader superpowers, but before that, let’s follow one more rabbit trail that relates to prioritizing people.

The question is:

What’s your (be)cause?

If you are a business owner, C-suite leader, or just feel very in-tune with the mission, vision, and values of the organization you lead, you likely can rattle off your list of causes.

As a philanthropist, social activist, or even from a personal space, it is probably easy to also list your causes.

But as an R-Leader, you know that a cause is more than your cause.

Recon Leaders are focused. Like the R-Leadership bird, the Shoebill, R-Leaders are steadfast in what they want. They will work at it and worry with it, wrestle it and wrangle it, until the goal is attained.

Here’s an interesting fact about Shoebill parents: they may have more than one chick at a time but will observe which one is strongest. That strongest chick is the one they feed and support.

Before you gasp in horror, think about the projects that cross your desk. Which ones do you give life to, dream into existence, talk about to anyone who will listen, or seek support for?

The strongest project in your view, wins. It’s the one that gets nurtured. The other projects have to fend for themselves or die trying.

Just like a Shoebill baby, your projects must show their strength to survive.

How then does all that relate to your (be)cause?

In fact, what is the (be) in (be)cause, you might be wondering?

While a cause is great — necessary in fact — a (be)cause is so much larger.

A (be)cause is one that exhibits a key component, a major element of DNA, that makes it visible to you as one to champion.

Brazenly evolutionary.

The Shoebill chick that gains the attention of its parents is feisty. It’s larger, louder, stronger. It shoves its way to the edge of the nest to be fed before its sibling can get there, going so far as to step all over the other chick. When the adults aren’t around, the larger baby might bite the smaller one. Brutal, but true. There’s something in the baby that, through its evolution, has given it an advantage.

Recon Leaders always have a (be)cause, a something that is brazenly evolving into something new and exciting.

It might be the way they run meetings, or maybe it’s a product they want to bring to market that others believe it because of that leader’s enthusiasm. Maybe it’s their gentle but firm, lead-from-behind methodology, their way of working with their teams.

I remember the first time I heard of a certain airline that had been advertising like crazy: the motto was that this airline offered inexpensive flights to just about anywhere. I checked out their processes, which were different — there were no assigned seats. Even if a passenger paid for upgraded seating, that meant they got to board first. There was no ‘first class’ or ‘business class seating’ either. My first thought was that I was witnessing the development of an airborne bus service.

Seriously — the idea reminded me of what it was like to ride long-distance on a bus: buy a ticket and stand in line, hoping you might be able to dash on and grab something far enough from the bathroom and not end up with the person who always gets car sick when riding and has to tell everyone about it.

A family emergency occurred and I ended up buying a ticket for a cross-country trip on this particular airline as it was the only one that could get me where I needed to go in time. My images of a bus ride continued, until I got on the plane. It was spacious, comfortable. The flight attendants were … attentive.

But the best thing of all was that they were entertaining. They smiled and laughed in a way that didn’t feel contrived. The pilot told jokes over the intercom. I think the whole bunch of us who had been crammed in the flying tube for six hours together were all pretty stress-free and happy when we walked into the terminal. And not a I am so glad to be off that thing sort of joy, but a wow was that a good flight feeling.

The leader of that company had a (be)cause that customers can feel. It’s a (be)cause that gets at the heart of why people hate to fly: there’s nothing pleasant about being mashed into the least comfortable seat you can imagine, with access for 400 people to about two bathrooms no bigger than a portable toilet (the other two bathrooms are for the 20 people in first class, after all), as the people in the curtained off section in front of you eat from custom china plates. Or something.

The (be)cause focused on people first: the customers and the team who serves them. In October 2021, one of the top leaders at the airline said that a general key to success was not taking oneself too seriously. Another mentioned was being humble. A third was recognizing that things aren’t always perfect.

One of the founders of the company started it on the premise that people come first.

People were the baby who got fed first, and from that decision came a company whose ratings have remained near the top of the heap.

People-focused is the best (be)cause of all, and it’s one that R-Leaders live by, every day.

Need help identifying your or your organization’s (be)cause? Feel free to connect.

The journey through the R-Leader superpowers will resume soon, but it’s time to park at one of the main focus points of this work. It is the bedrock on which all other elements of Reconnoiter Leadership rests:

Prioritizing people.

Notice the home page and the ‘motto’: prioritizing people over process to make progress.

You might be asking, ‘How does that work? Sure, people are important, but our company has processes. When we follow the processes, we make progress!’

But do you?

The short answer is of course, ‘yes’. Processes are vital to a well-functioning organization.

However, an organization that doesn’t put people first ultimately disappears. It dies a painful death of leakage and atrophy.

Leakage and atrophy may take various forms but typically have the same outcome. People feel slighted, unimportant, like what they do and how they do it really don’t matter. There are several writers, philosophers, and coaches who make reference to this concept: people who feel like they don’t matter recognize that they might be seen only as a ‘human doing’ and not a ‘human being’.

People who get tired of not being seen for their human-ness will take one of several paths:

• Grudgingly remain: they continue to work, but what they do is … lackluster. They stop contributing in meetings. They spend more time surfing social media than finishing the spreadsheets. They collect their check at the end of the pay period, skip out the door and into their weekend, and shuffle back in at the start of the next (think: Pink Floyd … ‘another brick in the wall’).
• Zealously engaged: opposite the grudging colleague is the one who believes in the organization and what it does. Maybe they have a real heart for the constituent. Whatever the situation, they want to change the environment, so they immerse and invest in their job duties. They come in early or stay late, volunteer for projects, offer ideas at every meeting.

The end result though is leakage and atrophy. People who don’t feel seen within an institution are usually easy to spot: they are the ones who slip supplies or other company property out the door in their briefcases at the end of the day. That is an extreme and tangible form of leakage, but it shows up in other ways. The grudging colleague spends their time on social media, sending text messages, or playing WoW at every opportunity; they are late to work often, with or without reason; they are the first to take time off for vacation; they don’t volunteer to cover another colleague who is out; they don’t contribute during meetings.

In some situations, the grudging colleague shares that they are using their talents elsewhere. When asked what they did over the weekend, their face lights up as they describe an event they held for their (fill in the blank: faith community, social club, fraternity or sorority) and everyone listening can hear the joy as the person describes their leadership role, which never evidences during the workday — skills gained inside are only used outside.

Inside … outside … sounds like descriptions of prison in a way, doesn’t it? For some team members who don’t feel like they are being treated as people, work is like their open-door prison.

The zealous colleague’s leakage might be similar or it might not be so obvious. They might just come in on time instead of being the first one in every day. They might stop volunteering ideas as often. They end the fiscal year with less and less vacation time to carry over because they are taking it more and more through the year.

Use of skills and energy in this way is a form of intangible leakage.

Atrophy is the next step and can be summed up in three words: the resignation letter.

Both types of colleagues described here point to a possible atrophy situation. The grudging colleague might be recruited during one of their weekend events, where someone sees them as a person with value and acknowledges it, thus drawing them away from their current role.

The zealous colleague will give until it hurts. Sometimes literally: they use themselves up, only to fall into painful emotional or physical states (depression, anxiety, to name two) because their efforts are not recognized. They aren’t offered an opportunity to present a new idea. They don’t get the promotion. They grow weary and leave, sometimes for a new position and sometimes not — they take a pause, just to catch a breath and hopefully find their joy again.

By prioritizing people over process, Recon Leaders put their energy into recognizing human value. They understand that by giving respect and attention to the team, they open the door to increased member engagement and buy-in.

An R-Leader who takes time to know their colleagues as people first is able to take a pause, hear them, and identifies ways to support their ideas. The R-Leader is able to see the big picture because they are focused on the process — on the organizational plan — and recognizes when a team member’s idea fits somewhere in it.

Recognizing the people means seeing the people: asking about their family, the pets, how they are and how they’re feeling. It’s remembering that one person has a child in their life who is a soccer phenom while another one raises exotic parakeets. And asking about them from time to time.

Prioritizing people over process leads to progress. While the progress may not seem to happen as quickly as when process is prioritized, the R-Leader recognizes the illusion.

Think of it in terms of finances.

A new product hits the market at a high price point. People line up for it, can’t wait to get their hands on it. The product is a success, flies off the shelves, and the company makes money. The success of the product and the organization is all over the news. Champagne and caviar all round.

But then the next quarter hits and sales are down, so the scramble begins for the next big thing. And on and on and on.

However, there are oodles of products that don’t make the headlines but bring steady progress to the organizations that make them. I think of companies that make … I don’t know … spoon molds. You know, the thing that the metal or whatever is poured into to make the spoon. While the shape or design might change every few decades (invention of the spork, anyone?), the general mold is what it was a zillion years ago probably. The price point to buy a spoon mold likely hasn’t changed, generally speaking.

There’s no research behind that last paragraph, but follow the logic: think of something more intangible, like the services provided by organizations like the ones who bring hot food to seniors in their homes. As far as I know, they continue to make progress. But they don’t focus on the newest and shiniest containers with logos and bells and whistles to make their product work. They grow through a focus on people. The individuals who drive and give the meals out feel good about what they do. They are often featured on the company website and in newsletters. The people they serve say nice things. The leaders encourage the teams, even then things look bleak like they did during the heaviest times of the recent (current) pandemic.

A Recon Leader recognizes that sometime growth is holding steady rather than increase. Why do you think there is a car company out there with a ‘motto’ of ‘like a rock’? Sure, the image is of something tough and long-lasting. Catch that last bit: long-lasting.

A long-lasting team is one that holds steady and ultimately their work results in progress.

Prioritizing people over process takes time. It is a genuine act of caring. It is where the tortoise excels and the hare is left in the mental and emotional dust. It is something the R-Leader does from the heart because they have reconnoitered the landscape and can envision the future, recognizing that success doesn’t typically happen overnight. And the success that does is often fleeting because the horse it rode in on was as fast as a super-car with one tank of gas.

R-Leaders realize that prioritizing people can’t be faked but it can be learned.

If you’d like to learn more about how to prioritize the people in your organization over (or more accurately, alongside) the processes so you can make better progress, reach out. Let’s connect.