You Can't Lift Up by Putting Down

Surely or hopefully it makes sense to accept that you cannot lift someone up by putting them down.

Unfortunate as it is, there are people who believe that the intellectual "put-down" is the most effective method to motivate. These are the self aggrandizing individuals that likely consider themselves to be a hammer. When you think you are a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.

Consider for a moment the most valuable aspect of the hammer and nail relationship. The hammer is used to place the nail in the desired location. When placed properly, the nail holds things together. There are a lot of things that will work as a substitute for a hammer; a rock, a shoe, a pair of big pliers.  Hardly anything can sufficiently replace a nail. The nail, with its very specific characteristics, is basically irreplacable. Nails are tough, but if you hammer too hard on a nail it might bend. A hammer without a nail, has little value and a bent nail will not work properly. Even if you are able to straighten the nail out, the place where the bend occurred is weakened, forever.

People that "put-down" attempt to ingratiate themselves to leaders and peers by believing there is great intellect demonstrated by criticizing folks and ideas that are not their own. These people really do not care how much damage they do to others, they are all about themselves. Hurting anyone in order to help yourself is not smart at all and will not, in the long run, pay dividends.

Professor Teresa Amabile of the Harvard Business School published an experiment entitled "Brilliant but Cruel". Her findings showed that people who gave negative book reviews were perceived as less likable but more intelligent, competent and expert than people who wrote positive reviews of the same books. She summarized he findings by stating: "Only pessimism sounds profound. Optimism sounds superficial".

Criticism cuts to the bone, but sincere and truthful encouragement heads straight to the heart and the heart is where true motivation is found. The heart is where change takes place. When you approach any situation with a sincere desire to make a positive contribution you will find a way to make a valid point without damaging the folks you are working with and in doing so, you will improve your own status and deservedly feel better about yourself.

Hope This Doesn't Hurt

I sure hope this doesn't hurt too much, but it ain't about you, nor is it about me!

(I am going to have to use I far too often in this piece because I will be using personal experience to make the point I want to make.) 

Guess by now you have all heard that there is no I in Team. That is because there isn't an I in Team and for very good reason. No person is an "I" island.

I learned this important lesson the hard way. More accurately, the importance of "I", was taught to me in what I like to characterize as an overly harsh and stunningly blunt manner. 

After several years at a my first profession and one that would last for over 35 years, I decided to take my first vacation. 

My clients and the business would be placed in grave danger. 

You see I was the only self serving person I knew that could handle my clients and additionally, keep the sales team together. No one in the history of this 100 year old business was as, or had ever been, as capable as I was in preforming these mission critical functions. I handled my clients better than they had ever been handled and my voluntary and selfish absence, although it would be for only a week, might create panic amongst my clients and prove fatal to the business. 

Without my daily leadership, my clients would fail to breathe and the sales team would likely disintegrate or at the very least be severely damaged and beaten back to the point of stone age mentality. When I returned we just might have to start over. Talking a much deserved and needed vacation might just end the professional world as I knew it! The risk I was taking was almost beyond description. 

Independent of these very real "I" dangers, I took my first vacation. 

When I got back from my first vacation,  I was shocked to find everyone still working and the business seemed normal. My client's welcomed me back but not one of them had any horror stories abut how they were mistreated or how lost they felt without my irreplaceable involvement. 

The sales team, and in fact the entire business, was humming right along as if I had never left. Imagine how I felt. I simply could not believe what I was seeing. I was stunned. 

I didn't even have any "While You Were Out" calls to return. 

Thankfully, that is the day that I learned; it ain't about me. It is about the business and the team. But more importantly, it is all about the clients. The business is bigger than everybody including me or "I", as I liked to put it! 

Fortunately, and with our any fanfare, I humbly accepted that it had never been about me, it had rightful been about we!