Grumpy Coffee

“You come in 3 to 5 minutes late to every meeting. You bring a fresh coffee. You sit down without saying a word to anyone. What message do you think that sends?”

A talented leader, new to a team that had been neglected and poorly led for years was having significant challenges with one of her senior staff. He didn’t seem to be on side, but also wasn’t contributing to decisions and discussions. The new leader has injected a bunch of care and support into the team, but she’s also brought a much higher standard of accountability. It’s better and it’s confronting.

When the new leader started the conversation above (in private) the initial reaction was defensive. But after a while it got around to exploring the impact of the senior staff's seemingly inconsequential actions. Ultimately, they explored shared responsibility for creating a more cohesive and effective environment for the team.

Notice how specific her feedback is. 100% clarity. What’s less evident in print is how the question was asked. It was asked in a genuinely curious way - no accusation, no blame. 

Since then, she's backed it up with several observations about changed behaviour and positive team impact that the other leader is now having. He’d never thought about his role in that way before. That short conversation has a massive, enduring, positive impact. I’m imagining he’s enjoying his work more, and his team will certainly be enjoying his presence more.

Better feedback makes better teams. How could you improve your ability to ask for and give great feedback? 

Time - A False Economy

“Thanks for the Crafting Space article. Our workplace is so busy we dont have time to craft space.” 

“Your message was too late. I didn't craft space and it ended horribly. It's hard to find the time to do it well”

I got several messages like this after last week's blog.  It clearly hit a spot. They are right - Crafting Space takes time. And time is tight. Life is so jam packed, that we get fixated on the next action and it's hard to look ahead.

But how much time does it take to fix it when it goes wrong? 

Often when I'm coaching leaders, around 20% of their time is spent reacting to situations that could easily have been avoided with a little more upfront thinking and effort combined with more timely action. For around 5% more time invested up front, they get that 20% back. Net 15% gain. Investing the time up front is worth it.

The challenge is working out where those gains can be made. Sometimes we are too close to our own workload to see it clearly.

Crafting Space

Facilitation and feedback both share an important ingredient - the 'space' in which they happen. In my experience, the space is a precursor to quality moments where the right conversations can emerge. In these spaces, cohesion and results flourish. String enough moments together and culture propagates and flourishes.

Each time we create space some of its conditions preexist from spaces past, allowing more direct paths to where we want to be.

As leaders, we can be forgiven for thinking we need to focus solely on content ‐ What needs to be said, to who and for what outcome. If we neglect the space, content falls like seeds on concrete.

When we try to give feedback (especially if it’s corrective) it’s much more likely to ‘land’ in a well intentioned space. It’s a natural human response to feel confronted by feedback. For many, that is compounded by a string of past negative experiences of feedback. Craft a good space, get better results - it’s not just about what you say.

What are the feedback spaces like in your work place? How effective are they? Do people relish feedback and actively seek it? What could you change?

Flip the Risk

What do you do when faced with a big decision? Do you consider the risks? How does perceived risk factor into deciding for or against?

During the past week I've worked with people contemplating large and small decisions. Some are strategic, some opportunistic, others reactive. Risk has been a core part of every conversation. Many of us seem to be pretty good at considering what could go wrong and reasons not to act. Sometimes that holds us back from deciding yes to something worthwhile.

Flipping risk is a useful way to level up the thinking. Asking ‘what's at risk if we don't?’ immediately shifts your thinking to the potential downside if you pass something up. This week, flipping risk has led to a company more assertively owning its space, a difficult but necessary HR decision, a bold adventure, creation of a new entity to explore a bold collaboration, a challenging but wise personal decision. In each case, the decision would have been ‘No’ before flipping the risk.

Flipping risk won't change every decision, but it will help you see it more clearly. There are a lot of great opportunities just waiting for a different perspective. What's at risk if you let them pass you by?

Bringing your best self

Bringing your 'best self' to situations is not always easy. When I'm tired, wired or uninspired, my best self sometimes takes a hike. But practice under pressure improves our ability to show up well

I was recently on The Real Biz Life Chronicles  podcast with Tracy Fryer. This is what she said about our conversation, “How do you become your best self in a world that won’t stop shifting?

Mike House has spent over two decades pushing high-powered leaders beyond their perceived limits, guiding them through discomfort, uncertainty, and pressure until they reach the most elevated version of themselves.

His secret? Teaching people to face hardship with a clear mind and to find the silver lining in any situation, not by accident, but by design.

This episode teaches you how to lead through the chaos with clarity.”

Watch full episode on You Tube

Or listen on Spotify

Low Tech Large Language Models (LLM’s)

Image Credit: WIll MCTighe

The working world is abuzz at the moment with discussion about LLM’s like ChatGPT. What are they good for? How should we use them? What about job security? Etc.

Long before LLM’s became high tech, they were low tech. Low tech but immensely powerful. And they are still at our disposal.

In simple terms, an LLM is a computer program that has been fed enough examples to be able to recognize and interpret human language or other types of complex data.

The low tech version is culture. Culture is built via language, images and symbology. Now more than ever, what we say and how we say it has a direct impact on our experience together. The reference from Will McTighe has great examples of why to choose some words over others.

The low tech LLM of a work culture is just this - what we say to each other. It sets the tone for future interactions and allows people to make decisions and form responses in new situations. What Will doesn't mention is that how we say it is just as important. The green ticked words are great choices, but if they are not backed with genuine intent to listen they’ll be less than useless. The combination of actual words, plus intent creates the message.

What does your cultural LLM look and feel like? What are you doing as a leader to enhance it?

Trust - Stopping Erosion

I love visiting gorges. The carvings made by water, etched into the landscape over millions of years, are breathtaking. Water doesn’t seem significant enough to work its way through hundreds of metres of solid rock, but over time it has its way. Observing a given moment, the erosion is imperceptible. Once you understand the mechanism, it’s obvious.

There’s a similar pattern with trust in workplaces. Like water, there are forces that erode trust. Viewed in a moment, they seem insignificant. Over time they wear trust down. They multiply and the erosion gets deeper and harder to fix.

Here are three and what to do about them:

1. Open loops. When people make suggestions, ask about progress or for a decision, they often don’t hear anything back. Even if they ask many times, there's still no reply. It doesn’t mean nothing is happening. I talk to many busy leaders who are working hard, with good intent to make stuff happen. But in the busyness, it’s easy to forget to update people. It erodes trust, because it seems like there's neither care nor action. Close those loops.

2. Talking behind people’s backs. Even if we don’t consciously notice it, someone bad-mouths someone else, we wonder what they are saying about us when we are not around. We become more guarded. Address issues early and often.

3. Agreement without agreement. In a meeting everyone agrees, but then agreement is undermined in practice. Have robust conversations to reach agreement, and then back the agreement. Sometimes this means living with something that is different from the choice I personally would have made. That's OK.

In places where there are already deep gorges worn into the landscape of trust, it takes time and intentional effort to rebuild. It is possible, and can be surprisingly rapid if there’s willingness to do the work.

What does the trust landscape look like where you work? Is it effective or ineffective?

Making the Shift

A few people asked how to make the shift from a policing mentality to a mentoring one. One of the main reasons people have for ‘policing’ something is that they care about the outcome. We have different reasons for caring. Some of us care because we are deeply passionate about the work. Others because it’s part of a bigger vision. Perhaps for work ethic, or a future dream. There are as many motivations as there are people.

To shift from policing to mentoring, you’ve got to find out why others care, and make that connection stronger. If they don’t care, help them discover why that works for them. 

Ripping a new one!

How do you respond when someone acts like they are policing the workplace? They pull people up using policy, procedure or previous communication and let them know why and how what they are doing is wrong. More often than not, the response is defensive, aggressive or dismissive. I know that’s how I respond. How about you?

But I’ve been on both sides of that coin. As a leader, we are often accountable for significant regulatory and compliance issues in our area. Sometimes, the consequence of getting that stuff wrong is career or organisation damaging (And possibly ending). Lack of knowledge, or attention to detail from other members of a team adds risk and stress to the leader's shoulders.

A heavy handed policing approach rarely gets people on the same page - we humans avoid that stuff like the plague. Most of us get a heart rate spike if we see a police car on the road, even if we are doing nothing wrong. It's the same in the work place. 

Leading that way causes push back, excuses, blame, and clumsy work arounds. They make you feel as if more policing is needed, which causes more defensive reactions - and around it goes. 

A better approach is to act like a teacher or mentor. Help people discover and understand why those pieces of compliance are so important. Even better if you can help them see a connection to their own work priorities. Share your knowledge and experience. 

Where do you act like police at work? How could you change that this week?

Do you ever lament the gap?

You know the one... it exists in many  “betweens”:

Decision - Action

Learning - Wisdom

Problem - Solution

Seeking - Answers

Plan - Outcome

People - Team

Idea - Product

Head - Heart - Hands

When I decided to do my solo survival walk, the gap before I could start seemed unreasonable. There was no short cut. There were skills to learn, planning to do and logistics to organise. 

The gap was filled with mundane work less appealing than the challenge. Part of me wanted to rush to the start line.

I was coaching a leader this week who was lamenting the gap between her heart knowing it was time to move on from her role and how long it took for her head and hands to catch up. There was pain in the gap, but also growth and value. 

Our world of instant everything downplays and devalues the gap. The gap is precious. Lean in.

Where are you finding a gap? What value is it creating?

When the Track is Poorly Defined

Way back at the start of my professional career, I trained as a youth worker and spent some time working with at-risk young people on the street. It was challenging work. It was almost impossible to plan a day. I’d show up and the work I did would depend on who was around and what was happening. There were clear objectives for the work, and many individuals where ongoing work was being done. 

Outcomes and KPIs were clearly important, however, they were also challenging to define and apply on a shift-by-shift basis. 

Every organisation and type of job I’ve worked with since has had elements of work like this — important, but somewhat difficult to define/measure. The challenge is amplified in situations where judgement and creativity are required - situations where what worked yesterday may not work tomorrow.

For leaders and teams working in spaces like these:

• Direction is more important than detail. Getting very clear about where you are heading and why allows flexibility to create and use opportunities as they arise.

• Link direction to a bigger picture. Purpose, mission, and values are some of the ways this can be done. 

• Have regular conversations about what went well and what could have been done better. These build team understanding of what good work looks like, and recognises progress. 

What aspects of your work are difficult to plan and measure?

Sound Bites Don't Like Nuance

That sounds like a sound bite with nuance to me. What do you think?

I was listening to a podcast interview between Katie Hair and Digby Scott. Great conversation BTW and well worth a listen. 

Katie offered up the sound bite that became this week's title. Initially, I totally agreed with what she said, but on further thought I reckon it’s nuanced.

Sound bites can be very blunt instruments, and can certainly be used to polarise camps and opinions. They are often deliberately weaponised, especially in social media. 

Right - Wrong, Black - White, Us - Them

But, the most effective leaders I work with have well thought out sound bites which they repeat often, and to great effect. They use them to focus intention, set direction, define standards, build culture and more. The sound bites themselves don’t have much nuance - they grab your attention. Then if accompanied by nuanced examples, they can guide very nuanced decision making and behaviour. More importantly, they can ensure some consistency in doing so. 

I reckon a sound bite is a bit like a sharp blade. What it does will depend on whose hands hold it. It could brutally slash, but also carve intricate patterns or execute precise surgery.

I wonder, have you seen sound bites used in nuanced ways?

Just Wait

Have you ever had the feeling that you had more than one boss? There’s the person you report too, but another who actually calls the shots. It’s a confusing and unsettling place to be, especially if the 2 people are giving significantly different directions.

The first time I experienced it, a well-intentioned senior leader used to interrupt work that was well advanced and started throwing challenges and questions at the team. He’d usually finish the conversation with a strongly stated preference for how the work should proceed. It was always a significant departure from what had been done to date and involved a lot of rework.

After a while the team would get direction from their immediate boss, but rather than start work, we’d wait until the senior leader made his position clear. The team, and our immediate leader second guessed themselves. The senior guy wondered why no one was showing any initiative, and started directing us in increasing levels of detail. No one was enjoying the dynamic, and it was incredibly ineffective and inefficient. When Hierarchy Hopping like this takes hold, people effectively have 2 bosses. They will always defer to the more senior, because that has the least risk attached.

“Just wait” becomes BAU, everything gets slower and less innovative.

Have you experienced Hierarchy Hopping? Next time we’ll look at the picture from the perspective of that senior leader.

Trying Too Hard

“My work seems irrelevant”

“I feel like a glorified admin”

“No one is listening to me”

“I think I might lose my job”

These are some of the things that middle managers have said to me when  Hierarchy Hopping is happening.

Many of them overcompensate. They work really hard to prove their competence, or exert their authority. Worst case - They overreach and ignore the expertise of their team and the guidance of their leader. Their efforts to be relevant further fuel the Hierarchy Hopping where people above and below them “hop“ over their role for solutions and tasking. They feel even less relevant so try even harder. The people above and below them start to feel that they are a bad fit, even if their skills/experience are a great fit.

I have only ever seen 3 outcomes:

• The team recognises what is happening and gets clear about roles, responsibilities, delegated authorities and expectations. They have robust conversations as their collective understanding of how to work well together evolves.

• The “new” person in the middle leaves, or if they are particularly insistent on hanging in, their team starts to fragment and leave.

• The person in the middle gets performance-managed out.

In all but the first option, the team is left with baggage that makes it even harder for the next person appointed to the middle role.

Have you experienced Hierarchy Hopping, or its impacts?

Piggy in the Middle

Take a well-respected, competent, and confident crisis management specialist. Put them in charge of an operational team. Give them a clear mandate to lead, and 6 months to make a positive impact on team cohesion and results. What would you expect the results to be?

I expected great results and a tight-knit team, but instead I found:

• A new leader who felt irrelevant and undervalued.

• The operational team feeling micromanaged and like they weren't trusted.

• A senior leader who was feeling overwhelmed with details that he thought the new team leader would have been taking care of.

• An increasingly toxic environment where trust was diminishing.

How could it go wrong so quickly - especially when everyone involved was technically good at their job, committed to the team, and the work they did together?

It’s a pattern I’ve seen often enough that I call it Hierarchy Hopping. If there are 3 (or more) layers, and middle layers get bypassed, chaos ensues. A senior leader bypasses their operational lead and directly tasks the team. People on the frontline bypass the operational lead and go to the senior leader to fix problems.

Hierarchy Hopping

Why would it happen? Clearly there is a need for the additional layer, otherwise the role wouldn’t exist. 

For the senior leader there’s often comfort and familiarity in the ‘tools’ of the layer one down from them. Plus, if the layer is new, they’ve previously been responsible for fixing the problems and tasking the team. Handing that to a new person can feel unsettling. The new person can do the job, but the newly leveled up leader feels disconnected from what is happening and so returns to what is familiar. The new person is unintentionally sidelined and the frontline people now have 2 direct bosses.

They’ll hesitate to act until the more senior person's view is clear. You’ll hear them saying, “We are supposed to work on X, but every time we get started, the boss comes down and the direction changes. Let's just hold for a while until they tell us which way to go.” Over time this reinforces itself. The new Ops leader is getting no traction or buy-in, so starts to second guess themselves or throw their hands up and say “what’s the point of my role?”. The frontline shows less and less initiative as they wait for clear direction from 2 bosses.  The senior person experiences even more load/stress than before the new ops manager was around. The person works hard at demonstrating their value, often overstepping all sorts of boundaries in an increasing effort to do the job they were hired for. The senior person feels that if they are not involved at the front line, it will all fall apart. 

Uninterrupted, it starts to get toxic. People play the 2 leaders off against each other, and start assigning blame to others. The team becomes less effective and more fractured. There’s lots of unhelpful talking behind each other's backs and factions forming. 

Over this series, we’ll look at ways people at all levels can avoid it, and/or fix it if Hierarchy Hopping starts.

Challenging Conversations

If you are a leader, difficult conversations are part of the territory. Done well they can significantly enhance relationships, cohesion and results. But they can also do the opposite. Whether it’s feedback, a piece of bad news, conveying a controversial decision, resolving conflict or negotiating, challenging conversations show up over and over.

They are difficult because you care about the outcome (and possibly the people involved) and there’s some emotional connection to it. If you didn’t care about the people or out come and had no emotional stake in it, the conversation would either not be needed or would be easy.

It took me years to learn that challenging conversations are better had as early as possible. There’s usually more options and less consequences the earlier you have them. Delay or avoidance might feel easier in the moment, but it inevitably adds to the original problem.

What conversations are you avoiding? What is the cost of delaying having them?

Skippering a Yacht - 5 Lessons from the Water

Last week, I refrained from drawing leadership parallels from my week long yacht skippers course over the summer, but several of you asked me to share them.

• Solo is challenging. While possible, single-handedly managing a yacht requires exceptional preparation and places the entire burden on one person. Fatigue and workload become critical factors, as does the need to oversee every system onboard. There's immense value in having a skilled crew.

• Clarity is Key. Success hinges on a well-defined plan, along with clear communication of roles and expectations. Ambiguity breeds errors which bend boats and people.

• Preparation Prevents Panic. When things happen on a yacht, they need fast, precise and coordinated action, often on several parts of the boat simultaneously. Preparing people and equipment ahead of time reduces pressure in the moment. Checking that the team is ready to go before a manoeuvre is executed makes it more likely to go smoothly.

• Trust Your Team. During critical moments, the skipper's job is to drive the boat smoothly and accurately. Focus on that. Let the crew do their work. Most of the time you are too far away and too occupied to physically help. Often you can’t even see clearly what they are doing. Second guessing their actions or making suggestions rarely helps at that point. Trust the crew and keep communication short, minimal and clear until the pressure has passed.

• Reflect and Improve. Once the action is complete, there's a period of relative calm to tidy up and discuss how things went. Reviewing the action, reflecting on effectiveness and extracting lessons for next time is a great way to build experience and confidence. Ask for feedback too.

These lessons are universally applicable to leadership, regardless of the context. The beauty of learning in a physical environment like a boat is that everything can be seen, cycles are short and there are clear start and end points. For most of our leadership work it's more opaque and ambiguous. The time frames can be epic. That makes it harder. Throughout my mentoring experience, these five themes consistently emerge as pivotal factors in team dynamics, cohesion, and overall effectiveness. Which of them could you work on with your team? How will you do that?

Learning Outside the Box

Each year I deliberately seek an opportunity to learn with 2 criteria. 

1. It will be new.

2. It will be challenging.

This year I did a yachting skippers ticket. I could write a post about what sailing taught me about business and leadership, but I can already imagine your eyes rolling! Sure there are some parallels, and mostly they would be either naff, obvious, or wonky long shots.

The most useful part of deliberately challenging ourselves outside our comfort zone and usual area of operation are:

• It helps us stay adaptable and fresh

• It provides a platform for looking at transferability - What do we already know/do that serves us well in a different environment? What can we learn from that environment that translates back to our ‘real world’? What assumptions do we usually make that either serve or hinder us?

One of the biggest confirmations for me on the course was to make objectives and communication as clear as possible. Hunt down ambiguity and break things down as much as needed. Oh, and when things go well, say so, it really lifts team focus/morale and sets the bar for what comes next.

Where and how can you test yourself in 2025?

Connection Tales

John leads a small team in a role that is heavy on logistics. Lots of loading and unloading. Lots of making sure the right resources are available at the right time. Lots of planning ahead, and also responding to unplanned, urgent jobs. John told me the team didn’t show much initiative and often sat on the sidelines waiting to be tasked with something. John finds that frustrating and often takes over jobs himself, or criticises the lack of action. He reckoned the situation was getting worse.

We talked in more detail and it turned out that the team also does lots of good and timely work. John started to connect with the good work the team was doing. He started recognising efforts and thanking the team for them. Over a couple of weeks the team has become much more proactive. John has connected with what’s good about his team, and what motivates them. The team is responding.

A senior leader described dealing with a serious complaint. It didn’t go well and escalated in unhelpful ways. As we talked though it he could see a lack of connection between the people involved and with the problem. The person making the complaint felt dismissed and disrespected. Why? Probably because the conversation went too quickly to solving the problem. There were some unavoidable constraints. He explained those in detail. When we do that before we really hear and understand the problem, it feels dismissive and defensive. Connecting with what matters for the person, taking the time to deeply listen and understand, gets us to a place where a solution can be properly discussed.

In both examples the leader is trying to get a good outcome as quickly as possible. That’s understandable and desirable. There’s an enormous amount of time and task pressure for most leaders. Sometimes we need to slow down, connect and then go for the outcome. It feels slower, but connection ultimately gets us there quicker and the outcomes are more sustainable.

Where and how could you do a better job of connection? Who do you know who does that really well?

Thank You, NFP Leaders,

NFP Leaders, especially those in NDIS or aged care have had a tough year. Sending them some encouragement and support as the year closes out. If you know someone in this sector, send them a message of support. They do critically important work in our community.