everything that was close
is on the horizon now
and fading into the distance

i only ever learned
to walk backwards
and away from things

more frustrating still
is knowing how to move forward
and
not
taking
the
steps…

I am
a point in a dotted line
……………………………………………..

the wind is white noise through the trees
screaming soft like a hoarse and wordless whisper
and sedentary is a good thing today
(or maybe sedimentary who’s to say);
how many times can i look to the blue
and sit in the golden spill across my body?
again and again and again without complaint.
time has taken restless, ill-advised activity
and turned it to restless, ill-advised words
that spill ceaselessly into bright, sharp being
like untamed whips with wills of their own
projecting my painlovejoyhateglory to the world.

i am awake early
that my nearby star
might warm me
while my love
strips away
the evening fog

Without distinction these days those who self-identify as liberals rally very quickly around leaders who espouse liberal values and those who self-identify as conservatives do the same with gusto.

The rabid priority is ensuring key policy stances and buzzwords are intact with little to no regard for almost any other aspect of the person.

Caught on tape telling people he literally grabs women “by the pussy” not a big deal because he promised immigration reform.

Specifically promises to move country away from fossil fuels during the election and then has the country buy an actual oil pipeline for $4.5 billion…let it go, he is a strong supporter of equality.

Complained ceaselessly about previous president’s golf outings…spends more time golfing in one year then previous president spent in eight. Yeah but he’s got a great policy against gun control.

Explicitly promises during election to end first past the post electoral system in Canada and then immediately abandons commitment after election. OK, sure but he has a fantastic record for investing in social and heritage programs.

It really is remarkable that we have found ourselves staunchly in an age where people’s like or dislike of a leader is about as thoughtful and well-researched as a decision to eat a donut.

Increasingly a decision to support one leader over another is driven (manipulated) by emotion, cheap shots, and empty promises. All this does is fuels the division the fuels the attitude in the first place.

Look past the crap journalism that focuses only on the sensational elements of a person for the sake of attention and sales. Look past the propaganda of “the other side” for a moment and look to the reality that a leader is one person on a team of dozens to hundreds.

Recognize the complexity of things and stop over-oversimplifying decisions because it’s easier than doing the work to understand.

1. If the market doesn’t like your stuff it’s your fault not the market’s.

That’s pretty much it really. I thought there’d be more but there aren’t. This one rule sums up all of the rules of marketing.

You need to meet the client where they are and/or bring them to where you are. You. This is what marketing is about. Stop blaming the market for problems with your messaging or the product/service.

 

i am but snippets and broken sentences,
incomplete echoes of other people’s screams
shouted, at best, incoherently

i am thoughts the come and go
with no sense of a narrative flow,
just flashes of light in absolute absence

where is the continuity to it all?
lost in my impermanence;
a radio beacon turned on for a bit
and then gone.

If you want to succeed as a business, municipality, not-for-profit, etc. over the long term here is one key thing you must do (among many things):

Find out where the world is going and get there first…and by first I mean get there on time.

Timing is everything.

If you get there too soon the world will not be ready and you will be left adrift amidst a market that does not understand or value what you are offering yet no matter how earth-shatteringly amazing it is.

Electric cars are a good example of this.

There have been electric cars since the late 19th century but only in the past decade or so has the market been prepared and ready to adopt it. Tesla would not have stood a chance as a business in 1942 no matter how ahead of the curve they would have been.

Where is the world going (roadmap) and when is it going to get there (schedule). Get these two things right and you have a big part of what will make you successful.

We have all been there at one point or another. Placed in a position of authority over others and responsible for ensuring the delivery of a product and/or service we immediately feel the evil tug of micromanagement.

It starts really early.

Two five year old siblings set up a lemonade stand on the curb. One of them seems a little more vocal and hands on then the other. From a distance we would look at the two and say that the loud and decisive one is clearly more of a “leader” than the other.

But on closer inspection what we find is a person who doesn’t believe anyone else can implement their product better than they can. The extra person is just that, extra. They are along for the ride and might serve a purpose to lift and move things but otherwise they had best sit still, shut up and let the real leader handle things.

Sadly things do not seem to change much from the five year old and the adult tasked with similar, albeit greater, responsibilities at a business or in government.

The temptation to micromanage is everywhere. It is in the home, the workplace, in houses of worship, in book clubs, sports teams and of course, in government.

Something inside of people cannot fathom that others can assist in implementing a strategy, product or service in a way that ensures a quality end result. In fact it might even lead to an end result better than the person imagined.

The compulsive micromanager is a generally a small-minded, insecure individual who tends toward a “my way of the highway” attitude and an inability to trust. They are fearful of negative consequences, unwilling to experience failure and quick to blame others when failure all to often happens to them. They do not see themselves as part of the big picture – they are the big picture – and everyone else is raw material to be used, abused and discarded at their whim.

The good news is not everyone is a micromanager. In fact while most of us understand the temptation there are ways to avoid falling into the sin.

First and foremost a leader understands that they play one of many important roles in the ongoing delivery of product and service. The leader knows that to attempt to do or micromanage everything turns them into a bottleneck that stifles productivity, creativity and ultimately a quality end-result.

Part of being a good leader is surrounding yourself with talented people, generally people more talented than yourself in areas that are strategic to your goals, and actually letting them do their work.

Trust is probably the first skill a leader should learn to develop because trust is the enemy of micromanagement. Now we are not speaking of blind trust here but a trust that is built on the foundation of good hiring practices and a solid understanding of the goals of the organization.

If you want to know if you are a micromanager simply ask the people around you and the people who work for you. I’m serious. Staff can smell a micromanager coming a mile away. If you ask for genuine, honest opinions and some examples you will be obliged.

By doing this you exercise the trust that a good leader employs.

Nobody likes a micromanager – and I mean nobody. This is not an exaggeration. The career micromanager hears this and says to themselves and anyone else who is there to listen that “I didn’t get into this to be liked – I got into it to make sure stuff gets done”.

While there may be truth in this statement it is disingenuous because it is designed to deflect. It is the fallback of a person who struggles to learn. A good leader is humble and willing to learn.

To avoid the sin of micromanagement is to understand that people are your friend. You have staff who have been hired to accomplish certain tasks – some specialized, others generalized, but all for a purpose.

You need to let them do their job.

In order for them to do their job well you need to be a good communicator. A strong, well-written job description, regular performance evaluations, constant feedback and opportunities for free and open communication (staff meetings etc).

Of course for all of this to work the leader must exercise another critical skill – that of listening.

Listening is what causes a leader to leave their door open and make themselves available. Listening means not talking and not interrupting while staff are presenting ideas, struggles and concerns. Listening takes patience and time…something the micromanager struggles to employ.

A good leader seeking to avoid the sin of micromanagement focuses on enabling staff to do their jobs. Leaders set expectations, then they remove obstacles and provide support to enable staff to accomplish their goals.

A good leader does not simply have an outcome in mind but a road map to the outcome that outlines the necessities along the way – this might be a project plan or a strategy but whatever you call it, it keeps people on track. This should be created in consultation with the staff expected to assist in completing the project. Having this in place can help a leader avoid falling into micromanagement.

What happens when people do not meet expectations?

This is part of any workplace. For all sorts of reasons outcomes are often not achieved the way we would want. A lot of these reasons are not, in fact, your employee’s fault and you should be able to tell the difference. Your employee could not have anticipated the tornado that came and destroyed the lemonade stand. Sure they could put in place certain conditions to mitigate this risk such as selling the lemonade out of a tornado bunker but then you sacrifice valuable client visibility and as such the best bet is to take the risk.

If you have the correct tools in place – the good job description, the project plan, the open and clear communication, you can identify when the employee genuinely misses the mark and can implement strategies to ensure success. If it keeps happening the employee is asked to leave and someone new comes in.

In these circumstances the micromanager panics and blames the employee for the failure of the project. They hear a loud and repetitive voice in their head which says “I told you you should have done it yourself” and nothing changes.

Micromanagement turns your organization into an organization of one person with a lot of wasteful spending on everyone else. It creates a bottleneck and inefficiencies sky rocket leading ultimately to collapse.

You don’t have to be a micromanager. Sure the temptation is almost always there. We all look at a marketing design or message, a product strategy or a service delivery plan and think to ourselves “hmmmm”. The trick is to remind ourselves that we have good people in place to do these things and we need to trust they know what they are doing.

mum is here
entirely and completely
just quieter now than before
but maybe not so much
she is here in my mirror
staring back at me
and in my skin and in my mind
she is a silent presence
a promise complete
drifted off to sleep