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Leaders Lead, Laggards Lag
The reason a "result" is not a useful leadership tool is that it is
"following" the action and based on the emotions.
The reason focus is on “lagging” indicators is akin to
a bad joke in which a guy asks a fellow on his hands and
knees looking for something about why he was doing it.
The fellow responded and the guy quickly again asks
naively, “where did you drop it” and the fellow answers
“over there!”. The guy now confidently asks (since he
thinks he’s solved the problem), “why on earth are you
looking here then?”
Whence the fellow of clearly
equivalent intellect scornfully answers, “because the light
is better over here.” The streetlight effect is a type of
observational bias where people only look for whatever
they are searching by looking where it is easiest. The
lagging indicators are easy to find and see and yet
there is more wrong than just misplaced focus.
What is the “heart” of the problem then?
A good result sends the heart soaring and a bad one breaks the heart
and both affect effort levels with no practical means nor thought of
balancing with focus. “A result is a motivation and never should
be a focus yet often it is.” Claiming this misrepresentation is not
"hocus pocus", and yet real science that can be proved easily time
after time and in many different systems and scenarios. Results are
in the realm of motivation, and the heart of emotions and specifically effort. Properly balanced with a focus on the process at hand, effort
is a key performance control that leaders use - a precursor of
consequence.
An improperly focused effort to affect results by noting
and applauding good results or scolding bad ones is a
completely avoidable imbalance yet a widely accepted
and prevalently repeated one.
Focus, likewise, is inherently flawed as a performance indicator or
tool to lead since it is a function of the mind whereas intense focus
is needed at times and it requires effort from the heart of
emotion. Simply noting focus of the carpenter on the head of the nail
is silly unless the balance with which the effort to "hold" the focus and
draw back the hammer and strike is considered of primary
importance.
Balanced focus and effort is the key to confidence.
Confidence inspires spirit that emanates knowledge of the fact that
balancing focus on impact with the effort to deliver the "blow" is key
and works to ensure the nail is driven in straight and quickly with no
bent nails nor smashed thumbs. Focus on the point of the nail going
into the wood rather than the head of the nail the hammer strikes, is
the cause of “bent” nails and “smashed” thumbs. Proving this is no
major task and the exact opposite of magic that utilizes distraction
from concealed efforts as opposed to focused efforts. There are
many physical examples of this in the world we live in high
performance and malfunction due to misplaced focus.
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Focus with no effort is unmotivated.
Effort with no focus is undisciplined.
Undisciplined effort does not learn.
Unmotivated focus does not aspire.
Energy flows where focus goes
How can undisciplined effort learn since it is unaware of the cause of
failure?
“Since its focus is on the result and NOT the cause, undisciplined
efforts fail twice because they do not learn from mistakes.” Note
a recent headline:
One reason that some people seem unable to learn from
their mistakes has been pinpointed by scientists.
A spelling mistake in the DNA of a gene within the brain
seems to impair the ability of a person to improve their
performance based on knowledge of earlier errors.
The findings may also help explain why this same variant
has previously been linked to addictive and compulsive
behaviors, according to the German team that reports the
discovery today.
When people inherit this variation of the gene, called A1,
they make fewer docking points in the brain for a
chemical called dopamine, one that carries messages
between brain cells and plays a key role in movement,
balance and in reward and pleasure circuits.
The discovery, reported in the journal Science, was made
by Tilmann Klein, Dr Markus Ullsperger and colleagues of
the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain
Sciences in Leipzig, Germany and Max-Planck-Institute
for Neurological Research, Cologne, with colleagues at
the universities of Bonn and Giessen.
This is absolute nonsense and simply excusing misplaced focus
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“spelling mistake in the DNA of a gene within the brain”
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“reward and pleasure circuits”,
“addictive and compulsive behaviors”?
Obsessed focus on results!
A widely professed “MBA style” performance control.
Focused efforts to affect precursors of consequence garner data
our minds triangulate, and calibrate into precise trajectories on
paths to successful results. Think of a cannon firing at certain
trajectory say, “40 deg”. The focus is on the precursor or
trajectory. The result calls for an altered trajectory - up or
down. Undisciplined focus is akin to simply moving the cannon up or
down without noting the precise angle (40 deg). As dumb as it
seems, results based performance controls are akin to simply plotting
where the projectile lands each time and proclaiming, "missed",
"missed long", "missed long again", and perhaps then, "you're ranked
last" and "you're fired". This is "the tail wagging the dog", at its worst.
"I have not failed. I've just found 10000 ways that won't work."
Thomas Edison
Discipline and precise focus is defined as knowing “ways that won’t
work”. “Meanwhile we muddle along ‘spotting’ and ‘reporting’ mere
‘results’ as if we are anything except promoting a magic show of
befuddled employees concealing incidents, and pulling numbers
out of hats if someone ‘wants’ improved results beyond their
discipline to achieve it correctly” Why not? Who gets “left holding”
the bag of bad results and guess who (hint: imprudent insiders aka
“bad managers”) “reaps” the bag of good. Its a low incident, high
consequence, inexplicably complex, industry we work in and risk
takers and gamblers alike can see the odds are on their side yet
against the public that must except the most easily understood
coherent and plausible story – “it was the guy left holding the bag that
is responsible.” This is not leadership. Everyone knows that leader.
Leaders make followers feel safe because they protect them from
bad results of honest mistakes that are simply paths to success if
focus is on precursors of consequence.
Impact is a direct result of the fact that “Energy flows to where the
focus goes”. In no arena is this principle more clear than in sports
where velocity of swing is maximized at the point where the eyes are
focused. This is the reason that the best hitters in baseball try to see
the ball hit the bat. Even though some claim it is impossible, Ted
Williams, the greatest hitter of all time, claimed he could see the
baseball hit his bat. The analogy to this “impact focus” and the focus
needed on the task at hand rather than the “results” is clear. Ted
Williams would not have been the greatest hitter of all times if his
focus had been on the place the ball would travel to (the target and
result desired), while hitting. In fact the ball would have most likely
never reached the target he was looking to hit, since he would have
swung and missed the ball entirely, due to misplaced focus and
“swinging blind”. They fact that the swing velocity is maximized if the
ball is seen hitting the bat is the proof that, “Energy flows to where the
focus goes”, and is the universally held belief by hitting coaches
around the world. This principle works for engineers focusing efforts
on the tasks and not the targets/results. Let’s distinguish always
between targets/results and points of impact in our operations.
Keeping people inspired to desire worthy goals, while effort fully
focused on tasks before them within competent processes, is
the key performance control leaders refer to as CONFIDENCE.
Confidence is a spirit and can also be an inspiration and yet is also
can be detected, measured and communicated in relatively
measurable terms. Ask someone if they are confident and we quickly
get indicators from their body language that might belie their desire to
answer favorably. This is because everyone knows that confidence
is the key to good performance. We can see someone answer “yes”
while shaking their head, “no”. We can ask them, “okay, tell me on a
scale of 1-10 the level of your confidence?” and get a more honest
answer. Confidence helps us survive periods of less than stellar
results and this is because confidence is a spirit that motivates
effort. A spirit will survive heartbreaking setbacks and is easily
reconnected with in order to re-motivate them.
We’ve all seen the inspirational speeches of coaches
after a setback. Without the inspiration of confidence,
there is no inspirational speech after the setback and
there is no “miraculous” comeback from a newly inspired
and motivated team. These coaches are “leaders”. They
are “leading” efforts and “leading” focus. They are basing
the need to lead on confidence levels clearly assessable.
They can clearly see their team has either lost their focus
or is demotivated by RESULTS. The coach will INSPIRE
them to “forget about the score, let’s remember WHY we
are here in the first place!”. The coach will then direct the
team to focus their renewed inspired and motivated
efforts by saying, “now let’s go out there and play like we
know how!”. The team then roars back onto the playing
field.
This is leadership. This is not charisma. This is not talent. This is
using the precursors of consequence to re-focus the efforts of a team
on the task at hand. Now that we see the benefit of inspiration over
motivation lets understand why inspirations that maintain confidence
also really on carefully positioning a disciplined focus on precursors
of consequence in the tasks that lead to results.
By definition confidence cannot exist if the result is certain.
con·fi·dence
ˈkänfəәdəәns/
noun: confidence
1 the feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something; firm
trust."we had every confidence in the staff"
2 synonyms:
3 trust, belief, faith, credence, conviction "I have little
confidence in these figures"
The word origin of “confidence” is built on the Latin Fides
Latin
Etymology 1
From Proto-Indo-European *bʰidʰ-, zero-grade of Proto-IndoEuropean *bʰeydʰ- (“to command, to persuade, to trust”). Cognate to
Latin fīdō (“I trust”)
Noun[edit]
fidēs f (genitive fideī); fifth declension
4 faith, belief
5 reliance
confidence, trust
The common understanding of faith or trust is not that the result is
certain and yet that if we focus efforts on doing right things the results
will be favorable in the end.
The team that is faced with unfavorable results has a crisis in
trust and faith and thus loses its focus and then perhaps is
broken down and it is affecting their effort. They are in a sense
“demoralized” because they had faith that if they gave 100%
focused efforts, in the end, the result would reward them. The
problem is, the game isn’t over and yet their efforts have
stopped because their focus has shifted to obsession over the
shortterm results instead of having faith to persist and
persevere through effort and focus to the end. If the team had
been focused on their ways and actions then they would have
been learning and able to make minor adjustments that might
impact the game.
It just so happens that trust is not only about focus and efforts of an
individual and yet there are biological and psychological implications
on teamwork.
One animal study recently looked at the effects of the
brain chemical oxytocin on trust formation in voles.
The researchers compared monogamous prairie and
pine voles, and polygamous mountain and meadow
voles, which mated more promiscuously. They found
that the monogamous voles had higher-density oxytocin
receptors in many areas of the brain than did the
polygamous voles. This meant more-trusting
partnerships occurred between the animals whose
brains had better oxytocin uptake. Researchers later
found that when human beings were given oxytocin
nasal spray, they, too, were more likely to trust their
partners.
The link to confidence and trust is now shown to:
1. Assess a balance of efforts and position of task focus.
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Focus our efforts on the tasks at hand.
Maximize and stabilize our effort motivated by inspiration.
Ensure and Increase trust and teamwork.
Maximize the impact of our actions.
Be the precursors of consequence by leading.
It is hoped that this article leads others to see that the
leadership “precursors of consequence” of high performance
are to monitor and maintain confidence built on a balance of
effort and focus on the tasks at hand. It is also hoped that
while there is a time and place to “look at” results, they are a
motivation and yet should align with inspiration and values and
never be the focus of efforts and yet simply the motivation of
efforts.