I attended a baby shower last weekend and as I was dutifully observing the soon-to-be-mother opening gifts and reading cards, when one of the sayings on the card struck me. It read something like:
“… being a mother is to have your heart walk around outside your body.”
This BLOG isn’t as much about raising children as it is about leadership in a small business, but it is interesting that the “SuperNanny” web site and the January Special Issue on Leadership of Harvard Business Review have more commonalities than differences.
The “SuperNanny” Web site talks about routine, teamwork, discipline and reward. And I’ve watched the show enough to know that they are not really talking about the kids. In most cases on “SuperNanny” it’s the parents, not the children, that are the target of the lessons in routine, teamwork, discipline and reward. Without saying so, the “SuperNanny” knows the “problems” all start at the “top”.
While the relationship between parent and child is different than the relationship between leader and team in a business setting, the principles a leader and a parent should ascribe to are not so different.
As I compare the January 2007 issue of Harvard Business Review about Leadership to the SuperNanny Web site there are striking similarities. HBR articles talk about Humility, Energy, Intuition, Vision, Perspective, Learning, Control, Guidance and Communication. The overwhelming theme is the same as the “SuperNanny” site: “Leader, know thyself”.
The point is: Success as a leader or success as a parent depends largely on one’s own self awareness. As a leader I feel I must cultivate the ability to look inward and be self-critical in an objective, constructive, and charitable way. When I take the time out to do that, I know I’m better able to effectively evaluate strategy, tactics and guide the team through complex scenerios, difficult relationships, growth and disasters (external, internal, client-related, terrorist-related, nature-related…you name it). The HBR article, “What to ask the Person in the Mirror?” by Robert S. Kaplan (Harvard Business Review, January 2007) mentions seven key questions that help leaders self-assess their performance. A synopsis of the topics and some questions follows:
Vision and Priorities
Are you effectively communicating your vision and priorities for the company?
Managing Time
Is how you spend your time in line with the vision and priorities for the company?
Feedback
Do I give timely, direct, appropriate and actionable feedback to the team? Does my team feel comfortable telling me things I may not want to hear?
Succession Planning
Am I coaching a successor?
Evaluation and Alignment
Is the design of my company aligned with the key success factors for the business?
Leading Under Pressure
What types of events create pressure for me? How do I behave under pressure?
Staying True to Yourself
Is my leadership style comfortable? Does it reflect who I truly am?
I used the questions above to do a self-evaluation. It was very enlightening. One of the things I identified by going through this process that was not mentioned in either the “SuperNanny” site or the Harvard Business Review article was fear. I envy those people that are cool, calm and collected in the middle of a raging fire engulfing the house they spent years building. I would add that to make sure pressure doesn’t turn into downright fear, or, worse yet terror, is important.
Fear is ugly. Terror is, well, terrifying.
My thoughts on fear were crystallized as I worked through the “leading under pressure” evaluation. Fear is behind many of the decisions parents and business owners make that seem crazy to the rest of us. For example, parents sometimes decide to “home school” their kids because they are exposed to sex and drugs in the high school. It seems crazy to me because you can’t “hide” your kid from American culture, it’s all around us. Do these parents take away TV, radio, magazines, the Internet, and friends? And if you do, is that a good decision?
And in business, I had a colleague who felt her business was failing and was contemplating about whether to proceed or not. I asked her what the revenue projection for the next three months was, her answer: “We’ll see.” It is an unacceptable answer for many reasons. It is also a fear-based reaction—or inaction. Ignorance really is bliss when facing an overwhelming fear.
Fear will affect every one of your reactions and actions—it can even turn actions into reactions. Fear will affect the “staying true to yourself score.” Fear also affects sleep, personal relationships, feedback, visioning, and time management in one way or the other.
Managing fear is more critical in the small business sector. The HBR-brand of CEO’s don’t put their money or their kids’ college fund on the line when they become leaders. In fact, more often than not, they are compensated in such a way that it makes the pressure somewhat easier to bear. At the very least their vodka martinis are shaken or stirred with premium “hootch.”
A friend once gave me a set of tapes (that I never returned) called “Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway.” The book is a self-help classic written by Susan Jeffers. I admit, I never read the book or listened to the tapes, but the title has been a guideline of mine over the years. Every so often I give myself some time alone just to “feel the fear” and quietly have an inner dialogue about what’s causing the fear and whether the fear is reality-based and actionable or irrational and something to let go. It seems to help keep fear at bay, but it is always lurking—waiting for acknowledgement. Fear is like a chronic illness, you can manage it, but there is no cure.
My mother tells the story of my brother when he was two or three. He saw monsters in his room and wanted to sleep with my parents. My mother read Dr. Spock and divined that she and my brother would make the monsters smaller and smaller until they went away. After about a half an hour of shrinking and disappearing monsters, she was very pleased with her success. Pleased, until my brother perked up, pointed at the closet and said, “There’s another one!!” I don’t think the fear ever disappears—you can shrink it or manage it, but never get rid of it.
If you are thinking about starting a business and even think you might lack the ability to manage the fear of personal and financial insecurity, then, please, think again. If the fear of failure sends you to the nearest bar, think again. And if you can’t even face the vision of failure, think again.
But never forget, fear can be a healthy indicator of a threat and…“just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not after you.”
It may seem grim. This BLOG was written with every intention of scaring you. After reading it, if you still, “can’t not do it,” then welcome to small business leadership.
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