Progress In Work

Patrick discusses the recent implosion at Basecamp and what lessons leaders can take away from this situation. Referenced in this episode: Jason Fried's announcement Casey Newton's summary of the situation The Stakeholder Theory of Leadership This episode was a reading of a blog post published here.

If we all hate meetings, why aren't we doing anything about it? Today's episode is a reading of Patrick's most recent blog post about rethinking how we use meetings at work. Mentioned in this episode: Amazon's pre-reading policy

Patrick tells you why most interview advice is terrible and why he wants to try to give you the last advice you'll ever need to hear about interviews

Patrick talks about the one thing everyone over looks when interviewing for a new job or looking to make a career change: what does the person who's hiring you actually need you to get done.

Patrick asks the question: are we as leaders supposed to care if our employees act horribly outside of work?

This episode was a reading of a blog post published at www.patrickfigures.com. In today’s episode I also reference SBI feedback, an excellent way to give constructive feedback to anyone. The biggest mistake leaders make when trying to motivate their employees is thinking that motivation comes from carrots and sticks. Real motivation is internal and the only sustainable way to get real motivation from your team comes from helping them find purpose in their work, ensuring their immediate needs are met, and giving them flexibility in how work gets done. Despite what our favorite sports movies might show us, there’s no magic switch for motivation. How do we know this? Because we, as leaders, aren’t motivated through moving speeches or carrots and sticks. And you might be thinking: “Patrick, surely there’s something I can do or say to give my team a boost when we’re in crunch time?” It’s natural to be interested in finding the magic beans that will grow a giant beanstalk of motivation for our team. But where others may advocate for byzantine bonus models, a merch store, or other easy “implement and forget” solutions, the best nudge you can give your team comes from somewhere far more human. If we understand motivation to be internal, then the only way to boost motivation is to help someone feel more internally motivated. Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all model for leadership – a ton of what we do is situation, person, and context dependent. Everyone’s internal motivation is different. However, there is one technique that universally boosts motivation of any team: recognition and appreciation. Never underestimate the power of a sincere “atta boy”. Everyone responds to having their contributions acknowledged and appreciated by their manager. We’re most inspired when feeling a part of something larger than ourselves (a subset of purpose), and this feeling comes from participating in a community that values your contributions. Visibility matters to everyone, regardless of role and background – you’re not going to find anyone that says “I don’t want to be appreciated”. What does it sound like to work with a leader who excels in recognition and appreciation? “I’ve noticed that you’ve been going above and beyond lately with [thing they’ve been doing]. It’s really shown up in [outcome]. Not sure if people have told you but it’s made a big difference for the team.” “Something that makes me proud to be a part of this group is [specific characteristic]. It shows me how much you all are invested in [shared set of values].” “Really impressed by [things they’ve been doing]. It’s had a real impact on [outcome] and I appreciate the work you’ve put in.” Sincere recognition and appreciation follows the SBI model for giving effective feedback. It’s specific, relevant, and focuses on behaviors instead of broad character traits (hard-worker, team-player, etc.). Being better about recognizing the contributions of your team isn’t going to feel very sexy, because it’s built around what’s most impactful for the team and not what feels best for you. The best ways to motivate your team have nothing to do with you. Sustainable motivation is about them, the people you’re leading and putting the work

Expanding on the topics from this blog around young professionals and their reluctance to be proactive when it comes to their development and getting more involved.

A reading of a blog post published at www.patrickfigures.com

A reading of a blog originally published here. Everyone has a story about working with someone incapable, inconsiderate, or otherwise impossible. Unfortunately, we don’t get to reshuffle the cards just because we don’t like the hand we’re dealt. And while we can’t choose our coworkers, what we can choose is how we respond to their aggravations. Just because we work with that make us crazy doesn’t mean we can (or should) respond in-kind. If you want better outcomes and a better feeling about your work, projects, or environment, then you need to focus on behaviors within your control that can lead there. By understanding the source of your frustration, what specifically you want from this situation, and how to speak your mind, you’ll transition from focusing on the things out of your control to the things within your control. Identify the source of your frustration Imagine there’s a member of the finance team that you don’t like working with, let’s call him Frank. Frank’s perfectly polite and friendly, but you and he don’t seem to “click”. You’re happy to interact socially and share pleasantries, but you hate needing Frank’s help because he never holds up his end of the bargain. You’ve started calling Frank “absent-minded” and “distracted” to others when you explain why he frustrates you. “He’s a perfectly nice guy, but he can’t seem to be bothered when I need something from him.” Why do you feel this way*?* It’s the most important question you can answer for yourself when trying to unpack this tension. The #1 mistake we make when getting frustrated with other people is that we make it about their character instead of about their behaviors. By calling Frank “absent-minded” or “distracted” we’re not describing behaviors, we’re (unintentionally) attacking Frank’s qualities as a person. Avoid taking actions that annoy you and extrapolating them into character flaws. Work backwards to identify the behaviors and actions that are causing you grief. What did Frank do that made you think he was distracted? What does he do that makes you think he “can’t be bothered”. There’s nothing Frank can do to fix our feeling of his distracted-ness if we’re not more specific. By addressing behaviors and actions it gives the other person something to work with. If we dig deeper into the source of our feelings, we might find out that Frank zones out when we talk to him and we often hear him typing when we’re on calls, giving us the impression that he’s multi-tasking. About 50% of the time he blows right by our agreed upon deadlines for work and we have to follow up with him to make sure we get what we need. This type of detail is more helpful in describing the problem (to ourselves and others) and gives us someplace to start. What outcome would satisfy you? Sticking with our Frank example, what exactly would make us happier and less frustrated with him? You’ve already acknowledged that you want to fix this problem and are invested in a better outcome. So what exactly does that look like? Do you need to just stop working with Frank? Do you need him to do more of something? Less of something? Articulate this clearly to give yourself a concrete objective. Do we really need Frank not to multitask when we talk to him, or is that just a minor annoyance? If he would consistently get you the work you needed when you agreed to it, you might not even think about the multitasking. Take some time to frame fo

On this (delayed) episode of PIW, Patrick reinforces the value of being a strong listener at work and explores the common reasons that listening is ignored as a leadership tool.

A reading of a blog post published here. I’ve written frequently about listening. As a leader, working closely with other people means being responsive to the preferences of others, how they work, and what motivates them. Consistently, the best way to learn these things is to listen effectively – being guided to better understanding by letting people tell you directly. This sounds simple, but the biggest barrier to listening is that we often do the wrong kind of listening. Too many of us think that good listening simply means not talking, so we skip the learning and understanding meant to come from the best kind of listening. We foolishly use listening as a way to think of what we’re going to say, distracting ourselves away from the ability to connect with what the other person is offering. So instead of listening being a pathway of allowing someone to be heard, it often comes across as fake or ineffective. In order to be a better listener, it’s important to understand how easy it is to fall into less effective forms of listening and what each form of listening sounds like. Through better understanding, we give ourselves the best chance to use listening effectively. Listening to fix The plague of the beleaguered sitcom husband, listening to fix is the easiest to identify. This type of listening surfaces when the speaker expresses a problem or tough situation and are met with the often reflexive response from the listener of: “I know the answer here!” This form of listening is common for habitual rescuers. Since we have a sincere desire to help and offer advice, simply “listening” doesn’t feel like enough for us, we have a bias towards acting, towards doing something about the problem. Unfortunately for us, not every problem is one that needs to be fixed. Like a good friend who shows up at your doorstep unannounced, if you’ve invited yourself to solve a situation when you haven’t been asked, you’re not likely to be welcome. Things we say when we’re listening to fix: “Have you tried…”“If I was in your shoes I would…”“My advice would be…” Listening to fix makes sense when someone explicitly asks for your help. “Hey, I’m having a hard time with something, I’d love your help/advice”. If you’re unsure, you can float a simple “I appreciate you sharing that with me, let me know if you get to a point where you want my input or advice.” Be sure you’ve been invited in before you treat the other person’s contributions as a problem to be fixed. Listening to win Anytime you challenge the perspective of the speaker (intentionally or unintentionally) you’re listening to win. Anyone who’s ever met a one-upper or someone who likes to debate facts and details has experienced this. It’s incredibly frustrating when someone skips over the substance of what you’re saying to instead focus on minute details. Listening to win is the listening of arguments. We hear what’s being said and before the other person can finish talking, we’re already thinking of counterpoints and holes to poke in their logic. Listening to win is the listening of debaters, lawyers, and marital discord. But, like listening to fix, this type of listening can also come from a place of good intentions. Overcoming this type of listening can be especiall

This week, Patrick talks about why the most compassionate leaders often sacrifice their own well-being in service of others and give more to other people than they give to themselves.

A reading of a blog post published here. When you manage others, it’s easy to get spread too thin. Our compassion and desire to be good leaders causes us to sacrifice our mental and emotional well-being in service of our employees. Employee problems become our problems and, over time, employees learn to delegate-up, leaving their struggles and questions at our feet and absolving themselves of the responsibility that comes from doing the hard, important work themselves. We normalize these unhealthy boundaries and soon find we have little to no time for our own responsibilities. You’re no good to your employees burned out. An essential part of being a great leader is learning how to prioritize your well-being and setting appropriate boundaries for yourself. This means learning to support your employees without allowing yourself to fall into the trap of coddling them. You shouldn’t insulate them from the healthy stress that comes from figuring things out on their own. By struggling and challenging themselves with their work, your employees grow and evolve. If you’re truly committed to their long-term success, you have to be willing to look at the big picture and give up the immediate gratification of feeding them fish to gain the larger satisfaction of teaching them to fish. Being more intentional about your availability to your team will mean choosing not to get involved with employee concerns and struggles when you don’t need to. It will mean answering employee questions with questions of your own (you’d be amazed at what a “what do you think the answer is here?” or “if I weren’t here what would you do?” can do for you). You’ll go through the hard work of transforming yourself from a rescuer into a coach, by offering selective guidance without allowing employees to hand things off to you. The easiest way to start this transition is to develop a personal framework for deciding the kind of support your team needs when an issue comes up and socializing this new mindset and practice with your team. Develop a framework for when you should be directly involved What every leader should develop is a mental framework for when they feel like their help is needed versus wanted, and you’ll have a clearer picture of when to get directly involved and when your employee should be allowed to challenge themselves. Every leader is going to have a different standard for when to offer their time and assistance. What types of projects? What level of urgency? Your goal is to find a balance between being infinitely available and infinitely unavailable. You want to be available for the right kinds of support, as determined by you, with consideration to the feelings of your team. For example, my framework is if an employee a) can reasonably be expected to accomplish the task independently b) has the necessary skills and training and c) can’t irreparably harm a project or initiative if they get it wrong – then I’m comfortable challenging them to work without my direct involvement. Share the framework with your employees in a way they can understand Having boundaries is useless if no one follows or respects them. And people can’t follow them if they don’t know about them. After you develop your framework for where you’re willing to support your employees, take the time to talk with each employee about it and integrate it into your on-boarding for new employees. Frame this new approach as a way to ensure employees are growing and developing into independent contributors; by being more empowered they’ll need less oversight and gain more independence. This persp

Our lives are full of paradoxes, ideas that seemingly don’t belong together but are essential to our sense of balance and equilibrium. Leadership has it’s own paradox – that it’s far easier to manage others when you manage yourself.

A reading of a blog post published here on August 4th, 2020. Leaders get the teams they deserve. Our teams are reflections of us – our strengths are their strengths, and so are our weaknesses. But when seeing these weaknesses reflected back at us, we often fail to understand their origins; we accuse our employees of lacking focus, of not working hard enough, or of underdeveloped skills, unaware that they inherited these flaws from us. Recently, a professional leadership coach shared with me the immense amount of time he spent on self-improvement before starting his career, saying: “before I could seek to work on others, I felt I needed to work on myself.” It is far easier to focus on the sins of those around us than to spend the necessary time contemplating our own contributions. We’ve all had experience with people who consistently point fingers and cast blame. These are the “do as I say not as I do” managers, whose hypocritical approach breeds mistrust and resentment. Your team is built around you, how you show up, your character, the issues you’re focused on – all of these things have an outsized impact. You set the pace. In order for your team to do their best work, you have to do your best work. In order for them to be great, you have to be great. An ounce of energy spent on personal development is worth a pound of energy spent on developing your team. And while there are many ways to focus on self-improvement, you can start out with some basic steps. How should you be spending your time? What’s the best way for you contribute within the team? How can you show your unique value? What’s your superpower? If you start there, you can ensure that you have the biggest impact and are spending your effort on the things that are most useful to the team. Once you’ve found this, fill in your team’s contributions around your work. If you’re focusing on business development and recruiting, then you might need your team to be synced on operations and execution. If you’re focusing on internal culture and a new product, then you might need your team focused on financial stewardship. By starting with the work you are best suited for, you’ll make it easier to understand where the gaps are for your team to fill in. This simple, clear vision for how work should be distributed will give everyone a sense of responsibility and purpose around what they should be doing. You’ll also have a chance to show your value and contribution to your team, motivating them to match your output. Be the change (in behavior) that you want to see in the world What behaviors or actions do you want to see from your team? How are you modeling these behaviors? If you believe strongly in showing up to meetings on time or using certain productivity tools, then you need to lead by example. Use tools and methods that you want others to use and show off your output. As you build aptitude and success, your team will naturally follow your example. This can apply to your peers and executives too. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so if you’re able to connect your wins to specific behaviors – specific excel skills, quantitative methods, etc. – you’ll soon find that others around you are looking to better understand your secrets. Instead of telling people what they should be doing, you’re getting further by showing them. Be open about your progress Share your journey of self-growth and development with your team. When appropriate, let them know the ways that you’re trying to sharpen and improve yourself. This will have the dual impact of subtly

In this week’s episode, Patrick explores the reason we avoid having hard conversations. References from this episode: Crucial Conversations The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

Have you avoided a hard conversation recently? If so, I wouldn’t blame you. No one’s really any good at them. It’s one of those things you hope to be “not terrible” at. Even the best leaders struggle when confronted with opposing opinions, strong emotions, and high stakes (the best hard conversation definition from the book Crucial Conversations). To make things worse, these conversations are often “make or break”. You only get one chance to fire someone, to ask for a raise, to confront someone you care about regarding a sensitive issue. There’s no reset button if you screw up. So naturally, we avoid these conversations. We do nothing. Not because we want to do nothing, but because it’s the safest thing to do. In turn, the situation festers, making it that much harder to address later as the stakes get higher. To overcome this, you have to develop the tools to address these conversations early and tactfully, thus empowering yourself to be proactive about these difficult situations. What’s the best way to do this? Ensure that you keep the other persons mind open about having a challenging conversation. You want them to a) be willing to have the conversation and b) to be open to hearing your perspective. To achieve this, you need to have a clear idea of what you want, an understanding of why the other person would want what you want, and a script that communicates this neatly. What do you want? Before the conversation even starts, take a minute to reflect on the outcome you’re looking for. What are you hoping to accomplish? If you’re asking for a raise, talking to a spouse about finances, or confronting a coworker about shoddy work – what’s the range of outcomes you would be satisfied with? If you don’t have a clear objective, you won’t be prepared for the natural curves in the conversation. Make your ask specific and be prepared to be open and honest (and potentially vulnerable) about where you’re coming from. Also consider the other person’s perspective. What push-back might they give you? What would prevent them with agreeing with what you’re asking for? Why should the other person care what you want? Why is what you’re asking for important? How does it affect the other person? How are they served through this conversation? In any hard conversation, it’s important to find common ground that both people can stand on. If you’re asking for a raise, it’s highly likely that you and your boss both want the thing that’s behind the request – your desire to feel adequately valued. That’s the common ground you share and serves as a good jumping off point for your conversation. If you’re working through spousal disagreements around money, your common ground might be that you both want to be in a stable and healthy financial situation. If you’re talking with a disruptive coworker, your common ground might be that you both want to have a productive working relationship. By understanding this approach, you’ll find that it also helps you to empathize with the other person’s perspective. If we all want the same thing, then the person disagreeing with me isn’t “out to get me”, they just feel differently about how to get that thing. It becomes a discussion about tactics and prioritization, not a discussion about values. You and the other person are actually on the same team. Know exactly what you’re going to say Equipped with a clear understanding of what you want and the common ground you’re working from, combine all of these elements into an opening statement. Your statement should be brief, cl

Today’s episode explores the best metaphor for describing management, Frederick Taylor, the father of the scientific theory of management, why extrinsic motivation is an undependable way to motivate your employees and why Patrick thinks of orchestra conductors as the best metaphor for leadership. Topics referenced in today’s episode: Frederick Taylor Do You Have the Will to Lead?

A reading from a blog post published on 7/7/20. Leaders rely on their teams not just to get the job done but to get it done with excellence. This means having motivated, driven employees who don’t need micromanaging for great results. Unfortunately, no one gets high-performing employees handed to them. They’re built and cultivated over time. This is easier said than done and many leaders are left asking a simple question: what’s the best way to motivate unmotivated teams? “We should simply inspire them!” would be the Disney-movie answer. But let’s be honest, there’s no easy-button for motivation. Anyone that’s worked entry-level management can speak to the levels of exhaustion and resentment from trying to inspire unmotivated employees. Too many leaders still use extrinsic motivation for employees, poking and prodding them with carrots and sticks. This fossil of early management theory (popularized in the early 1900s) puts a wedge between management and labor, with leaders lording over the lowly employees. Conversely, 21st century thinking has led to an uptick in intrinsic motivational styles – characterized by making work more meaningful and purposeful to your employees. Intrinsic motivation is a perpetual-motion machine. Empowered employees motivate themselves and need less oversight. In turn, they’re more likely to produce outstanding results. By embracing intrinsic motivation and encouraging initiative in your employees – a balance of responsibility and flexibility – you’ll teach them to light their own fire and create a positive feedback loop that breeds success. Responsibility Our first instinct as managers is to shield our employees from important decisions and the larger responsibilities of the job. Sometimes it’s a selfish desire to preserve our sense of importance and authority. Other times, it’s a sincere reflection of having context and skills unavailable to frontline employees. Regardless of the reason, it’s wise to be conscious of when you’re being paternalistic with your employees and perpetuating their ignorance of everything that goes into running the department. As often as you can, enroll your employees in the decisions that impact them. By giving your employees a stake in the decisions that matter to them, you naturally increase buy-in and their sense of ownership of their environment. Depending on their tenure, expertise, and maturity, experiment with letting a group of employees get more involved in making larger decisions. This has the dual benefit of giving you a sounding board and helping your team to feel like they have the full context for why/how decisions are made. Rolling out a new software system in the department? Put an employee committee together to make recommendations on specific processes to focus on. Your department setting goals for the year? Use this same group to come up with new ideas and keep them informed on departmental milestones. Give your employees as much say as you can. Stretch yourself to the edge of your comfort-level. Their voice should have weight and their decisions should stick, even (and especially) when you disagree. It’s important that they see that you’re serious about letting them make decisions about how the department is run. This has the subtle impact of shifting the burden of responsibility from you to them. Instead of blaming you for everything, they’ll have to wrestle with their own role in departmental problems. The more empowered someone is, the more they have to take ownership of the outcomes. Flexibility Rules and structure are like clothing. If you force ill-fitting

Whether we like it or not, every company is being put under a microscope on race and inclusiveness. Now is the time for leaders to show courage and empathy by engaging with your employees on this difficult topic. On this episode we explore this topic and challenge the assumption that it’s best to avoid all “controversial topics” in the workplace.

This week, I want to talk to you about employee coaching and why so many leaders fail to coach and grow their employees (you can read my blog on this topic here). As a bonus, I also discuss building relationships with your employee, and how that serves as the foundation for a coaching conversation.

Welcome to Episode 1 of Progress In Work, a companion podcast to www.patrickfigures.com about leadership in the workplace. This week’s intro episode features a recap of the Imposter Syndrome post from the website with some additional discussion and reflection afterwards.