Leadership Lessons On the Road: 17 Days In a Hotel!
Posted: Saturday, August 22, 2009
by Todd Dewett
TVA Inc
It is now day twelve and I'm growing weary. My wife and I recently sold our house and went for the upgrade. Though we lost our shirt on the sale, we feel we have more than made up the difference with the great buy we just made. However, in an effort to be kind to the couple who bought our home and the family who is moving out of our new home, we needed to stay in a hotel for a total of 17 days. We chose one of the nice extended stay hotels multiple rooms, mini kitchen, etc. nice! Not really. It is day twelve and I'm tired. The wife is cranky, the boys need more room to run around, etc.
Believe it or not, I see leadership lessons in just about everything. Here are five of the most useful leadership lessons picked up from the stay in our two room temporary abode:
1. Be careful what you ask for. When we explored which type of hotel to use we quickly became a fan of the extended stay hotels. Free food! Imagine the hundreds we might save by eating the breakfast provided by the hotel every day, 7 days a week. So easy, so fun! In reality, I am now so sick of scrambled eggs that I may never eat another egg for as long as I live. In addition, I've gained over 10 pounds. The food just sits there, calling to you very difficult to resist. How this relates to work: with all great opportunities there are great risks. In fact, they tend to be proportional. Did you get the big promotion? Wonderful a new title, more status and power, a hefty pay raise! You are also under a bigger microscope, have larger numbers of constituents evaluating your work, and have a larger number of people directly working for you or affected by your decisions. Did I mention the stress and longer hours? This might all be completely worth it, but the point is valid and important be careful what you ask for.
2. Beware the crutches you lean on. In life we all have them, little crutches and vices less than ideal behaviors that somehow help us cope and get through the day. I certainly have a few. For example, I like to drink alcohol. Even if not an abuser, in the hotel I am getting a lot more questions and comments from my six year old than I otherwise would about why daddy likes alcohol. The confined space where we currently live forces me to be more vigilant about the example I provide to my children. How this relates to work: your team ideally should have some form of balance such that members of the team are very capable in a few areas you are less capable that's the beauty of a good team. The danger is that when unexamined, balance can become overreliance. A personal weakness can become a much larger personal weakness. Do yourself a favor and perform an occasional audit of your skill set, and your team's skill set. Ask yourself whether your organization has the performance management systems and the training and development systems required to continually challenge and renew key skill sets. Without your periodic audit and quality support systems those crutches can become a significant problem.
3. Poor resources are sometimes worse than no resources. Our hotel room has a pull out sleeper couch. The boys won't have to sleep with us! Night one: the boys fall asleep with mommy and dad is unexpectedly stuck with the pull out bed. My back is still recovering. I would have been better off sleeping on the floor! How this relates to work: The classic work example here is hiring to "fill a hole" versus hiring to fill strategic needs. Sometimes we need to replace someone or we need to add to the team due to growing responsibilities. But we face a dilemma: fill the slot quickly and risk not finding the "best" person or take as long as needed to find the "best" person but shoulder increased workloads until the hole is filled. More often than you'd think, we choose the first option. Depending on where you work, it can be next to impossible to fix poor hiring decisions. Never forget that poor resources can be worse than no resources at all.
4. People know more about you than you think. Every day a hotel employee enters my room when we are not there. They see what we eat, what we drink, how clean or messy we are, what books we are reading... and they make assumptions about us as a result. What messages are we unknowingly sending them? Should I care? How this relates to work: at work, you had better care! The goal: professional transparency. People affected by decisions you make at work learn a lot about you they know more than you think. Your goal is to be as transparent as possible so that any assumptions they hold about you are based on an understanding of the facts. Believe it or not, whether others view you as autocratic or democratic hinges less on the quality of the decisions you make than the quality of the explanations you provide. By the way, the more you offer simple and honest explanations for your actions, the more others tend to accept them (even if they don't completely agree with your position). Nice to know.
5. Last one - you better practice what you preach. The hotel where we are staying raves about how much they love service. Good news for me and my family they have backed it up every day we have been there. When I need something (more towels, the garbage taken out, a new room key, more food, etc.) they consistently fill the request in a positive and timely fashion. How this relates to work: great rule - the amount of respect an employee has for you is inversely proportional to the size of the gap between what you say and what you do. Saying potentially useful things (e.g., goals, behavioral standards) is only worth your time when your personal behaviors match the ideas you are preaching. When you fall short of the goals and standards you offer others, your employees will hold you doubly accountable. You are the boss, they can't reprimand you, but they can: smile less at work, come in late, leave early, stay quiet in meetings, mentally discount what you say, etc. The list is long. Good tip: don't shy away from positively preaching needed goals and standards but be willing to admit when you sometimes fail to reach them.
Dr. Dewett is a nationally recognized leadership expert, professor, author, professional speaker and consultant specializing in all aspects of organizational life. As quoted in the New York Times, BusinessWeek, CNN, the Chicago Tribune, MSNBC and elsewhere. He is the author of Leadership Redefined. Podcasts, blog, free newsletter and more at http://www.drdewett.com . Copyright 2009 TVA Inc.
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