It triggered a memory of a training manager from an agency where I worked eons ago. I don't recall much about this man-his hair color, what he wore, his likes and dislikes. What I do remember is this. No matter what you asked of him, he would pause and then say, "I can do that." And he'd shortly describe back to you the aspects he could deliver on. Sometimes it was the whole request, sometimes a part. His "I can do that!" response became part of the agency's lore. (What a nice legacy.)
Many of us wish we were surrounded by more 'can-do' people - including the little voice that speaks to us inside our own head. What causes us - and our organizations - to often appear 'can't do' in nature? The above quote summarizes a major reason. We're letting what we cannot do interfere with what we can.
In a recent client engagement, one of my partners, Peter Hutchinson, was helping (actually prodding) an agency leadership team to create new HR strategies and plans of action. The need was there, but they simply couldn't get started. One speaker after another complained... about the unions...about Civil Service... about the lack of resources... about the lack of good candidates.
Peter was desperate. And from that desperation came inspiration. He called a halt. He told them he was going to create a whining zone for a duration of 90 seconds. During that time, ALL of them were to simultaneously state every reason why they couldn't possibly do a thing. They did just that-talking over each other, louder and louder -- until they had to stop and laugh.
From that moment on, this team was able to switch gears, generating idea after idea of what they could do. They came up with impressive, and startlingly different, plans. They even adopted plans to address those areas they had previously said they couldn't do anything about! Here's a partial list:
- Improve and sell our work conditions!
- Positive work environment in appearance
- Free, safe parking
- Family centered work - part-time for spouses; telecommuting
- Flexible and alternate work schedules
- Summer work for kids; day care services
- Overtime $$; great benefits
- Improve our recruiting skills and capacities
- Describe our jobs using language recruits can understand
- Put exams and vacancies on web - with style and pizzazz
- Create a recruitment coordinator
- Experiment with group interviews, allowing for mutual interviewing by candidate and employer
- Enlist current employees' help in finding candidates (i.e. signing bonuses)
- Create meaningful, short-term assignments, such as internships at the senior management level
- Sell the work
- Access to state of the art equipment
- Interesting assignments and control over assignments
Wow! And the ideas go on...These managers had been freed from the "woe is us" attitude that had been preventing them - literally - from seeing what they could do.
Any one of us can employ this same cool idea. In our mind's eye, we can visualize a 'bull's eye' target comprised of three rings:
The outer ring - those things we cannot influence nor control
The middle ring - those things we do not control, but can influence
The inner ring - those things we can directly impact
Then we can start each team meeting, each day, each project, by working those two inner rings. On those occasions when you find yourself, or members of your team, wasting precious organizational time stuck in that outer ring, try the 90 second whining zone time-out, before pulling back to the winning zones!
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