Aug 2007
"positively negative"
Saturday, August 25, 2007 Filed in: deep thoughts
PROLOGUE
sometimes people say to me, "hey… you're into all that leadership crap, right?" i say back to them, "yes, i am." anyway, because i am, i sit around and think about things like this all day.
POSITIVELY NEGATIVE
in early 2007, Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, Inc, was faced with launching a new device that had the potential to revolutionize an industry. this device was, of course, the iPhone. Jobs knew that the tech reviewers could make or break the success of this device. he had three options. he could simply launch the device, wait for the reviews and ignore any critiques that might come. he could sacrifice his integrity and ask the reviewers not to print anything negative about the phone. (or even threaten them for being negative afterward.)
or he could take
another approach. the month before the biggest
product launch of his career, Jobs sent iPhone demo
units to the top tech reviewers in the country. over
the course of the next month, he personally kept in
daily contact with each of these reviewers. he
welcomed their questions, concerns and complaints
about the device. he explained things that needed
clarifying and he had changes made to the device
based upon their suggestions and experiences. because
he made these people valuable parts of the process,
when the iPhone launched, it did so to rave reviews
and the product launch was a huge success.
there's been a lot of talk about negativity lately. this is especially true in the church (and my experiences in the education system a few years back). the basic things that i keep hearing from people in positions of leadership are that people are too negative and need to stop being so because negativity destroys unity and makes things more difficult. and while, on the surface, that sounds great and true, most of these leaders are totally missing the point and a huge opportunity as well.
leaders (especially church ones) often say that negativity is wrong and use this to ask (or demand) that people would stop expressing their negative feelings. from the start, this is false thinking. negativity is a feeling. it is a feeling very much akin to anger. from a Christian perspective, we can look to Jesus' experience in the Temple to see that negativity (and the demonstration of it… especially in one's local religious establishment) is not something to condemn. Jesus saw that people were abusing the purpose of the Temple and He got angry and showed that anger. i'd say He was feeling pretty negative about the situation when He overturned those tables. however, it's true that negativity doesn't usually help cohesion or unity within an organization. so what is a leader to do?
leaders have three options when it comes to dealing with negativity in their organization. they can ignore it, attempt to squash it through confrontation or they can address the issues behind it. assuming that the goal is to extinguish the negativity in the end, the first option is obviously not going to help attain that goal. interestingly enough, most leaders seem to choose the second choice and squash the negativity through confrontation.
in this situation, the leader might call the person into his or her office, confront the behavior and ask (or demand) that it stop. what is the result of this? the person feels devalued and the negativity generally grows exponentially. in fact, the negativity tends to spread much more quickly because now the person feels personally devalued. see, the problem with this approach is that it's all about the leader and not about the person who has a problem. this approach says, "i care about me and the way you're making me look." because of this, it also says "i don't care about you, your thoughts or opinions or the way you feel."
the last option is to address the issues behind the negativity. the thing about feelings in general is that they are symptoms of a problem. feelings and emotions are reactions to something. so, while most leaders will go around and try to deal with each individual reaction or symptom, they're still not dealing with the root issues that are causing those symptoms. they may be putting out the fires (temporarily), but they aren't stopping the fire starters. addressing the issues behind the negativity is the answer to this.
in this scenario, the leader takes a genuine interest in the negative party or parties, seeks them out (they don't wait until the those involved approach them) and asks them why they feel the way that they do. they make themselves available to clarify what needs to be clarified (you'd be surprised how many times these things are due to miscommunication) or they listen and take the thoughts, feelings and opinions of the upset party (or parties) into consideration. they also take responsibility for mistakes they have made. whereas the second option says, "i want you to be quiet because you're making me look bad" and is all about the leader, the third option says, "you are a valued member of this organization and your opinions and feelings are important." it puts the focus on the member of the organization instead of the leader. in the end, not only have you accomplished your goal of extinguishing the negativity, but you have followers who feel valued and are more likely to be supportive in the future. Steve Jobs found this out with the iPhone launch. he realized that he'd rather have his critics working for him than against him and made them a valued part of the process. would it have been easier to simply ignore them or ask them to shut up? of course. his choice took much more time and effort, but in the end, it was more than worth it.
sometimes people say to me, "hey… you're into all that leadership crap, right?" i say back to them, "yes, i am." anyway, because i am, i sit around and think about things like this all day.
POSITIVELY NEGATIVE
in early 2007, Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, Inc, was faced with launching a new device that had the potential to revolutionize an industry. this device was, of course, the iPhone. Jobs knew that the tech reviewers could make or break the success of this device. he had three options. he could simply launch the device, wait for the reviews and ignore any critiques that might come. he could sacrifice his integrity and ask the reviewers not to print anything negative about the phone. (or even threaten them for being negative afterward.)
there's been a lot of talk about negativity lately. this is especially true in the church (and my experiences in the education system a few years back). the basic things that i keep hearing from people in positions of leadership are that people are too negative and need to stop being so because negativity destroys unity and makes things more difficult. and while, on the surface, that sounds great and true, most of these leaders are totally missing the point and a huge opportunity as well.
leaders (especially church ones) often say that negativity is wrong and use this to ask (or demand) that people would stop expressing their negative feelings. from the start, this is false thinking. negativity is a feeling. it is a feeling very much akin to anger. from a Christian perspective, we can look to Jesus' experience in the Temple to see that negativity (and the demonstration of it… especially in one's local religious establishment) is not something to condemn. Jesus saw that people were abusing the purpose of the Temple and He got angry and showed that anger. i'd say He was feeling pretty negative about the situation when He overturned those tables. however, it's true that negativity doesn't usually help cohesion or unity within an organization. so what is a leader to do?
leaders have three options when it comes to dealing with negativity in their organization. they can ignore it, attempt to squash it through confrontation or they can address the issues behind it. assuming that the goal is to extinguish the negativity in the end, the first option is obviously not going to help attain that goal. interestingly enough, most leaders seem to choose the second choice and squash the negativity through confrontation.
in this situation, the leader might call the person into his or her office, confront the behavior and ask (or demand) that it stop. what is the result of this? the person feels devalued and the negativity generally grows exponentially. in fact, the negativity tends to spread much more quickly because now the person feels personally devalued. see, the problem with this approach is that it's all about the leader and not about the person who has a problem. this approach says, "i care about me and the way you're making me look." because of this, it also says "i don't care about you, your thoughts or opinions or the way you feel."
the last option is to address the issues behind the negativity. the thing about feelings in general is that they are symptoms of a problem. feelings and emotions are reactions to something. so, while most leaders will go around and try to deal with each individual reaction or symptom, they're still not dealing with the root issues that are causing those symptoms. they may be putting out the fires (temporarily), but they aren't stopping the fire starters. addressing the issues behind the negativity is the answer to this.
in this scenario, the leader takes a genuine interest in the negative party or parties, seeks them out (they don't wait until the those involved approach them) and asks them why they feel the way that they do. they make themselves available to clarify what needs to be clarified (you'd be surprised how many times these things are due to miscommunication) or they listen and take the thoughts, feelings and opinions of the upset party (or parties) into consideration. they also take responsibility for mistakes they have made. whereas the second option says, "i want you to be quiet because you're making me look bad" and is all about the leader, the third option says, "you are a valued member of this organization and your opinions and feelings are important." it puts the focus on the member of the organization instead of the leader. in the end, not only have you accomplished your goal of extinguishing the negativity, but you have followers who feel valued and are more likely to be supportive in the future. Steve Jobs found this out with the iPhone launch. he realized that he'd rather have his critics working for him than against him and made them a valued part of the process. would it have been easier to simply ignore them or ask them to shut up? of course. his choice took much more time and effort, but in the end, it was more than worth it.
|