The Ultimate Corporate Entrepreneur

Killing Innovation: How Passive-Aggressive Organizations Get It Wrong

The odds are pretty good that you'll work in a passive-aggressive culture at some point in your career. In 2004 the landmark study (PDF) conducted by Booz & Co. indicated that 30 percent of the managers, employees and executives surveyed believed they worked in unhealthy, passive-aggressive organizations.

Would it surprise anyone if these numbers weren't substantially higher given the Great Recession and workplace dynamics now associated with it?

I've experienced passive-aggressive behavior in corporate settings, but it's an entirely different experience depending on your view of the playing field: employee, supply partner or consultant.

One of my first consulting engagements over a decade ago was leading an "orphaned" team whose leader had bailed four months previously, delaying the launch of their product. 

At first blush, team members looked to be one big, happy family. No one disagreed during meetings and members never directly discussed concerns or asserted their needs. Instead, they would come at you from behind or attack in pairs like nimble Velociraptors. If I asked the right question in just the right way (and the stars were aligned), I would get the needed answer, but never from the person who I had asked the question!

One team member divulged the family secret: members were betting how long I would last (I was the third "turnaround consultant" in less than two months.)

Although we successfully launched the product, I'll always remember what the company was leaving on the table by embedding this passive-aggressive behavior into its culture. It doesn't take a math wizard to see how this experience multiplied hundreds of times could negatively impact the business.   

Got Innovation?

Robert Brands and I were discussing his soon-to-be-released book Robert's Rules of Innovation (Wiley, March 2010) and got to chatting about how exponential growth for companies must come from introducing innovative products and services, not cutting spending to the bone or acquiring start-ups as the sole source of innovation.  

Corporations need their entire workforce to innovate and not only their R&D, New Product Development teams, or special assignment "innovation pods".

The elephant in the room? Innovation and passive-aggressive behavior don't mesh.

Of course, the process for changing a culture begins by knowing where your organization is in its stage of evolution. Booz & Co. offers a simple online DNA Profiler to get you started.

The Musical Chairs Dilemma

Thousands upon thousands of unemployed people in the U.S. alone include those who learned how to survive and thrive in passive-aggressive environments. Government, academia and private industry need to partner in retraining people to innovate in healthy environments, otherwise we're just changing the sheet music and slapping a coat of paint on the chairs.

We need gutsy leaders who "get it" and who know how to build effective partnerships both within their organizations and beyond its walls in order to drive deep cultural shifts. 

[Are you a leader who's raising the bar in changing your organizational culture? Contact me if you're interested in a guest slot for an upcoming radio segment here.]

The ability to innovate is a career differentiator. Professionals have a chance to rebuild and reinvent on a more solid foundation. Step back and assess your own behavior for signs of "PA creep" and take proactive steps to learn new ways of doing business. 

Let's make healthy workplace behavior a required "soft" skill for the new world of work!

Win-Win Negotiations: Only for Wimps and Losers?

I recently participated in a discussion at a women's networking event about how guys always seem to play hardball during negotiations.

One of the women asked if striving for a win-win outcome could be perceived as a sign of weakness?"

The assumption was that women have a tendency to leave money on the table during negotiations because we're taught to "play nice" and want only to be liked.

No one considered that, perhaps, these women hadn't yet differentiated between "playing nice" and building / managing effective business relationships. They hadn't "learned the ropes", so to speak, of being tough and fair and likable.  

Along the same lines of the hardball theory are the "bad ass" types who aren't really effective negotiators, as much as they're hiding behind an aggressive communication style. (Ironically, aggression in either gender is the easiest behavior to leverage during negotiations because they're wearing emotions on their sleeves.)

Do Your Fieldwork (Age-Old Rule)

I know, no one enjoys homework. But this is where playing hardball comes in and where you can stand out and differentiate yourself during negotiations. Company professionals, small business owners, and micropreneurs tend to leave money, crown jewels, and long-range potential on the table during negotiations because they get L-A-Z-Y.

In fact, it's harder to prepare for a win-win outcome than it is to walk in with the attitude of slapping the other party around to get your way (500 lb gorilla). You can be tough and play fair and still get more of what you need (and want) in the bargain.

1. You come prepared knowing your primary needs/wants.
2. You feel comfortable knowing what your counterpart will ask for during the unfolding scenario.
3. You create nuggets of information gold; needs/wants combos that when taken together result in something more powerful than what you could accomplish on your own (Optional, but nice to have).
4. Your preparation allows you to remain open to developing combinations during negotiations. 

Even in the case of someone coming in with the intention of knocking you off the seesaw, you can come in prepared with enough information about their strengths, primary needs and wants and still aim for a win-win.

But never feel that walking away from a bad deal is a wimpy move. It's a smart move. Even in tough economic times, do you really want to do business with someone or work for a company that uses strong arm tactics to get (only) their way?

Of course, you won't know what a bad deal looks like if you haven't done your due diligence in the first place.

[Want to learn more about negotiations? Our self-paced 3-hour audio program Harness the Power of Your Natural Negotiating Style comes with an eWorkbook and full transcript. We take all the risk out of the deal by offering you a 90-day 100% guarantee!]

Mastering Reinvention: 7 Character Traits You'll Need Along the Way

No one can deny that growth, changes, and new beginnings are a way of life. Why, then, do so many of us go to great lengths to avoid the inevitable? We open the door to pain when we work so hard to avoid the ebb and flow of our lives.

True success comes from your ability to reinvent yourself--personally and professionally--for different stages of your life. Doing so allows you to redefine success on your terms.

The good news is that it's less an art form than it is a series of 7 character traits that you can develop and strengthen with practice.

We can’t always control what happens in our life, but we can reframe how we view it and how we use it. One way to smooth out uncertainty is to look backwards then forwards.

A career setback? It gives you a chance to look back at the "theme" that runs through your life. So often, my coaching clients want to skip this process because it seems so unproductive. However, it's only after they've discovered the common threads of their lives do they become truly free to explore and try something different.

When was the last time you were truly curious about something? What process did you use to satisfy your curiosity? What did you learn about yourself? What did you discover along the way?

Curiosity and exploration are forward actions that we all have a need to satisfy. Curiosity fuels creativity, which fuels innovation, but only if we take action. Learning how to color outside the lines is a form of exploration that we can re-learn as adults. When was the last time you colored outside the lines?

Today's workplace often requires that you learn to manage ambiguity. Now, I'm not talking about forced ambiguity, where someone leads without direction, which is different from entrepreneurism.

Forced ambiguity is driven by a need to destabilize the status quo while entrepreneurial leadership is driven by a need to disrupt the status quo in order to innovate.

Change happens whether you embrace it or not, however, entrepreneurism increases your choices and the quality of your options. How flexible are you in adapting to changing situations and circumstances? Can you list five ways that you willingly changed to adapt to a situation?

Negotiating Style: It's More than a Poker Face

San Jose was dealt a pokermania hand this past week as the city drew in nearly every major player -- and a few celebrities -- to pull up a chair at Bay 101 for the World Poker Tour Shooting Star Tournament. 

In poker it’s about knowing your opponent. Contestants don’t always know who they will be playing against, but they can prepare for different types of poker players.

In a similar manner, you can prepare for negotiating with different styles and behaviors. The aggressive, in-your-face type of person attempts to use intimidation to gain the upper hand during negotiations. Others might show little emotion and no facial expression when negotiating – the proverbial poker face.

Finding the H.U.M.O.R. in Fear

I’ve used a simple process for years that helps me find the H.U.M.O.R. in fear. 

It’s based upon a 5–step process that takes the emotion out of fear by "chunking" it into manageable pieces. Once I break apart the fear it’s easier to face and even easier to do something about it.

Facing your own fear straight on dilutes the power it holds over you. Go on! Give it a try the next time you’re faced with an uncomfortable challenge or stretch goal.   

Harness your courage.

Ground Yourself. This is all about getting yourself in the right physical and mental state to take on your emotional work. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that fear-based feelings aren’t emotional. 

Harness Your Natural Negotiating Style

[Harness: To bring under control and direct the force of something.]

It’s not uncommon for professionals interested in honing their negotiating skills to first read an assortment of how-to books, and maybe attend a class or workshop. 

Focus on building out your negotiating style first if you want to speed the process of mastering negotiations.

Your negotiating style becomes your calling card; however, because you’re designing the style from the inside-out, your negotiating persona becomes more than a compilation of strategies, tips, and tactics.

Four key areas comprise your negotiating style:

• Philosophy
• Boundaries
• Social Style
• Leadership Style

Philosophy

Your belief system – community and personal values – and principles represent who you are as a person and what’s important to you. Therefore, it makes sense to be aware of “what makes you tick” . 

Belief systems and principles come with their own set of blind spots and vulnerabilities. To build out your negotiating philosophy is to be up front and honest with yourself first. Not as judge and jury, but as compassionate interviewer.

What type of negotiator do you want to become? What underlying motivations would you need to satisfy before calling an outcome a win-win situation?

We don’t really separate who we are when we walk into the workplace – we bring it in with us!

Boundaries