The More Someone Protests, The More There May Be To It

The adage "Thou protestest too much," often referred to someone making repeated denials that often appeared disproportionate to what was being asked. While sometimes, someone is "thin skinned," and thus reacts to any type of criticism in a demonstrative manner, it is quite often that when someone has done something, either wrong, in error, or not as well as he should have, that he protests loudly and vehemently.

As disconcerting as that obviously is in personal matters, it often has far more serious and far- reaching impacts and ramifications, when it comes to organizations. While most individuals who ascend to leadership positions in organizations are generally well meaning and well intentioned, I have, unfortunately, seen numerous examples of these individuals who are either "in over their head" because they are ill-prepared for the necessities of the position, and very often unwilling to admit their shortcomings. These individuals very often get "defensive" when questioned, and become "territorial" in their dealings. Their continued "state of denial" often leads to a "crippling" effect on an organization, because many organizations are so heavily dependent on their volunteer leadership.

This situation more often than not becomes even more "toxic" because the untrained, ill-prepared individual is often swayed by someone who comforts him, and "shuts down" against someone who is more confrontational and questioning. Since relations between volunteer leaders and paid staff are often quite fluid, with certain leaders becoming "friendly" with staff, while others are more demanding that paid staff do what they are supposed to be doing. One of the greatest challenges, and weakest links in this whole procedure, is so few of these individuals even know what to realistically search for.

Loudly protesting something doesn't make the protester's position or point of view any more valid. My experience has been that those that are always complaining and protesting that they are being treated badly, or without sufficient respect, often do not warrant the respect that they seek. One of the most common complaints by these types of individuals is often that someone does not give them enough credit for knowing what to do, or that they are "grown up," or that they don't need advice, or complain that they are being "micromanaged."

Leadership consultants eventually discover that it really is not micromanagement if the individual doesn't have sufficient grasp on what needs to be done.

Real Savings Comes From Small Savings

Having created hundreds of budgets for corporations and organizations, and consulted regarding finances to even more, I have observed that one of the most prevalent mindsets is that saving a little bit of money is insignificant, because of the overall size of the financial picture. However, merely because that is a prevalent attitude does not make it either correct or accurate, and in the cases of either reducing or closing deficits, or balancing budgets, is absolutely inaccurate.

It is quite rare, unless an organization decides upon "Draculean" cuts in a specific area, or discontinued certain limited time or one time expenditures, that most of the cost savings can be found by making large "cuts." In my experience, I have found that a large number of small reductions in numerous areas, while "counting nickels and dimes" is indeed the most effective way of developing a dramatically reduced amount of total expenditures.

In my more than three decades of involvement in this activity, I have almost routinely been able to save enormous sums merely by evaluating every expense, and seeing if there is a better way, a more effective way, and a less expensive way of achieving a goal. Many fiscal officers of organizations, because they are predominantly untrained or inadequately trained in the fiscal necessities of organizational management, appear to fail to grasp both the simplicity and methodology required.

I have been often asked if this is so simple, and it works, why don't more fiscal leaders utilize this technique? There is never a simple reason to explain why individuals do or do not do something in a specific way. I, however, tend to believe that the "small multiple cut" method requires more evaluation, more effort, and a greater amount of understanding than looking to just make big cuts. Many years ago, one of my bosses, who was the Executive Vice President of a financial services company, enjoyed using the adage, "You know how you eat the elephant? One bite at a time!"

I have written and spoken for many years about the dire need for organizations to prioritize and emphasize leadership training, development and qualification. As essential as overall leadership development is, it is far more dangerous when fiscal officers are ill-prepared than when others are. Organizations without control of their finances, and without financial and fiscal stability, rarely flourish.

Management And Leadership Are Not A Style

For over three decades, I have been given numerous explanations by multiple individuals in positions of organizational leadership, as to why they did or did not do a specific thing. One of the most intriguing aspects of consulting is that it provides one with the opportunity to actually sit back and impartially view "leaders" in situations where one is not directly involved. It provides the consultant with the ability, therefore, to objectively and impartially evaluate performance, action or inaction, and results.

While no two "leaders" handle situations in precisely the same manner, there are certain basics and/or fundamentals that are musts to be an effective leader. The vast majority of the greatest blunders I have ever observed in these three decades are "leaders" who continuously fail to take decisive action, yet will consistently explain away their reasons for their inaction. However, to me, the least acceptable explanation that I can be given explaining either acting or not acting is when the "leader" uses expressions, like, "It's not my style," or "It's not my leadership style," or "I have a different style of leading." Management and leadership is not about one's style, but about vision, action planning, decision making and decisiveness, and ethical and moral behavior. Invariably, when I have heard someone in that position explain something as a matter of style, I know that they are not at all effective.

Speaking about style would indicate a belief that popularity is one of the most effective traits of leadership. While popularity may be a politically advantageous asset, it is often the antithesis of leadership, because one should not govern to be popular, but to be effective.

Far too many people who ascend to officer positions in an organization end up clearly demonstrating the "Peter Principle," which, of course, is that each and every person ascends to their own level of incompetency. Unfortunately, since so few organizations have anything resembling effective leadership training, very few volunteers who ascend to positions of responsibility are adequately prepared for the vigors, or requirements of these positions. Until organizations demonstrate a willingness to commit to professional training for the leaders and potential, future leaders, the situation will continue, and ill-prepared individuals will continue to speak in terms of style.

What To Do When You Hear, "I Want To Think About It"

Many of us have been in a scenario similar to this one. You have just given what you feel is a great presentation, and given numerous compelling reasons why someone should avail themselves of a particular service or product, and the person you are speaking to says to you, "I want to think about it."

One of the biggest errors that most presenters do at that point is "let the person off the hook," by responding that you'd like them to think about it, and you'll get back to them, or they should get back to you. In most sales- type situations, your greatest chance to "close the sale or deal" is when you are giving the presentation, because at that moment, you possess more control over the situation than at nearly any other point. How you react to their "I want to think about it" often makes all the difference.

A time-proven and effective technique is to calmly respond, "I can perfectly understand that, but what exactly is it that concerns you that you need to consider?" The next step, however, is the most crucial. Instead of anxiously continuously and trying to immediately respond, force yourself to "zip the lip" (Z.T.L.) The Z.T.L. method states that the next person to speak is in the weaker situation, and the one that keeps his lips zipped, generally ends up victorious.

Often, after a delay, the other person will respond something indistinct like, "I'm just not sure." If that, in fact, is the response, then your response should be a calm, "What may I clarify for you? What questions do you need answered?" Of course, it is then imperative to resume your Z.T.L. strategy.

Human nature, being what it is, makes this a far more difficult thing to do than it sounds like. We are all tempted to over-explain, and interrupt. Many of us fear questions, because we often lack confidence in our ability to explain an issue in detail.

Regardless of what the objection might be, one should always follow some variation of the following five steps:

(1) Repeat the objection to be sure you understand it. Say something like, "In other words, you're concerned about . . . "

(2) Then it is essential to empathize. Empathy is putting yourself in the other person's "shoes," as compared to sympathy which is feeling sorry. Never sympathize at this stage, but empathy is essential. The easiest way to do that is by stating, "I can perfectly understand the way you feel. I felt like that and most people I know felt the same way, until they realized a few things."

(3) Many people tend to try to skip this next step. You now must have listened effectively to the other person's concerns, so that you can now able to give the most compelling reasons why it should be the other person's priority.

(4) Once you've given your reasons, you must recreate the need, by stating, "In light of the reasons we've just discussed (and list them),"

(5) Finally, you must re-close the deal, by saying, "Doesn't it make sense to . . .?"

If all else fails, and you have done all the above steps, there is one additional thing to attempt. Calmly ask, "May I make a suggestion?" Again, Z.T.L., and Make a compelling, yet brief restatement of your case.

These are easy techniques to follow, but like all other things, requires practice and confidence, and then, finally, doing it.

Leaders Always Find It Harder When They Can't Trust Their Co-Leaders

One of the greatest disappointments, and initially one of my biggest surprises, that I have encountered in my more than three decades training leaders, is that quite often, the harder working, most visioning, best trained and most capable leader is confronted by far more obstacles than those that are merely "leader by ascension." When I refer to "leaders by ascension," I refer to the great majority of organizational leaders that are ineffective, untrained, procrastinate, and lack the vision of a true leader.

I have surmised that the reason for this situation is that the most dedicated leaders often become disappointed in, and begin to lack confidence in, their co-leaders. Many ineffective leaders make a commitment to do something, but then follow the path of least resistance, often blaming others, over-delegating to unqualified or untrained individuals, refuse to pay attention to necessary details, or unwilling to "rock the boat."

For most otherwise effective leaders, this can create a considerable amount of stress, often causing the individual to waste valuable time dealing with personality conflicts, or issues that develop because something that another committed to was not in a timely and/ or a correct basis, thus often exacerbating what should have been a somewhat minor issue into something major.

My examination into leadership teams at most organization indicates that by the end of the time that the team works together, there is usually very little friendship or understanding, far less respect of each other than when the term began, much contentiousness, often anger, blaming, and even sometimes resorting to juvenile "name calling." I have come to believe that it is due, in part to frustration, and largely to the fact that most people in leadership positions are either unqualified, or untrained to be in that situation.

When there are situations where there are volunteer leaders and paid staff, it us usually even worse. Some leaders have a higher opinion of the staff than others, some try to befriend instead of being their "boss," and some merely do not understand how to effectively deal with and train staff, in order to achieve optimum performance.

It should be no surprise that there is so much "burnout" amongst volunteer leaders, because the positions generally require a larger than anticipated amount of time, effort, and commitment. These people should try to relax, and simply be proud of the fact that they've done their best, and you can't have expectations of other people based on what you do.

Organizations Need To Create And Use Best Practices

While most of us train our children in certain behaviors and teach them one method to brush their teeth, etc., and we even train our dogs in terms of what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior, and attempt to be consistent in these situations, the vast majority of organizations insist on constantly "reinventing the wheel."

For the past three decades, I have been teaching and training organizations and their leaders on how to create a series of best practices, so that those aspects of running the organization that are repetitive from year to year, can be readily and easily duplicated, so as to run seamlessly. However, the vast majority of organizations often find a need to change things up, often without any true rhyme or reason. While I have often spoken about, and written about, the importance of organizations to evolve, there is a tremendous difference between evolution and widespread revolution. Although I have observed a few organizations where revolution was probably called for, in most cases it is simply a matter of tweaking slightly the way things are done, in order to adapt to changing times, changing economics, changing member needs, etc.

Organizations that have any type of annual meetings, events, conferences or conventions, should develop in-depth, step-by-step manuals, so that each year, the organizers or chair people of the event, do not need to recreate everything. While there are always a few things that need changing, having the overall guide is very helpful. However, the concept of best practices includes each year's chairperson to make comments and evaluations as to what worked, what did not, and any suggestions. Too many organizations create a manual, but rarely update it, so that it becames outdated, and thus lack any useful purpose.

Organizations with paid staff should create annual calendars so that the staff knows what needs to be done, and when. This should have deadlines for each step, and the review processes needed. I have heard from far too many that this was unnecessary because they have paid staff that take care of that, but the reality is that there is generally at least some turnover in personnel. Paid staff should also be thoroughly trained and fully understanding their duties, and what is expected of them. Without this, there is often a misunderstanding as to what the expectations are, and generally one side feels that too much is expected, while the other believes that not enough is being done.

Similarly, volunteer leaders must be fully aware of their duties and expectations. Existing leaders should annually (if not more often) tweak the "Job Description" sheet, so that a new leader can be better prepared. Obviously, the few organizations that effectively have real leadership training fare better in terms of this than the majority that do not.

Concerns Need To Be Addressed On A Timely Basis

Organizations and their ineffective leaders are often their own worst enemies. In more than three decades of consulting, I have observed repeated occurrences when effective leaders would have taken decisive action to address a concern before it became a larger issue, but that untrained, unskilled and ineffective leaders refrained from responding, using excuses like, "I don't want to blow this out of proportion," or "It's just a misunderstanding." As bad as those excuses are in terms of competent leadership and management, it is even worse when someone in a leadership position states that they will find out what's going on, often using cliched expressions like, "I'll get to the bottom of it," and then neglect the issue entirely.

Effective leadership is a hands-on exercise. If someone does not want "to get their hands dirty," they probably should avoid leadership roles. Procrastinating on taking action when there is a first indication of a potential issue, generally results in the issue becoming more and more difficult to resolve.

One of the first warning signals of potential issues is when their is consistent tardiness, in terms of getting promised items completed. If deadlines are constantly missed, errors are constantly made, etc., that usually indicates that something is going wrong. While there will always be some errors made, when that becomes the norm, there should be an indication that their is a potential wider issue.

If I received even a small amount of money for every excuse I have heard both volunteer leaders as well as paid staff use in the past three decades, I would never have to work again. Those that often do not take heed of issues, or say that they "don't want to rock the boat," or that they will "wait and see, and let it work out" often come back later, with a bit of revisionist history, stating that they were against something or wary of it for a long time. Individuals who do not act on concerns are not part of the solution, but rather perpetuate an issue into turning into a problem.

Having assisted numerous organizations in interviewing, qualifying, and recommending paid staff, as well as having served as both a Director of Operations as well as a Development Director for a few not-for-profit organizations, I can certainly state with certainty that most staff members are ill-prepared for their positions, and that most volunteer leaders do not even fully understand what their needs are. Because of this, when staff under-performs, it takes many of these volunteer leaders far too long to properly handle the situation.

There are many sports stories about coaches that considered players late if they did not get to team meetings at least fifteen minutes before it was scheduled for. Without timeliness, issues develop, and are far more difficult to resolve because by the time they are acted on, it is quite late.