#004 - The Seven Deadly Leadership Sins: Lust

Robert Greiner 0:08

Hey, Tiffany, how's it going?

Tiffany Lenz 0:09

Good. How about you?

Robert Greiner 0:11

Yeah, doing really well, I'm glad we could make time to talk today.

Tiffany Lenz 0:14

Me too.

Robert Greiner 0:15

So you just gave a presentation on the seven deadly leadership sins and how to get to the good place?

Tiffany Lenz 0:22

Yes.

Robert Greiner 0:23

And so we thought it would be a great idea to dig into those individually to spend a little bit more time on them. The analogy that I meant to use earlier, but I don't think I got to it was the presentation is the play by play. This is the color commentary on that, that's what we're going to look to do today. And the first deadly sin is what

Tiffany Lenz 0:43

Lust.

Robert Greiner 0:43

Okay, so last, what does that look like in a professional environment,

Tiffany Lenz 0:48

Backing up just a little bit, what I really like to get across to people with this presentation, regardless of how much time we have to do color commentary on any particular deadly leadership sin is the goal is always improvement, there is always opportunity to improve. And we're all really busy people. So there's nothing theoretical here. There's nothing abstract. This is about finding signals in the noise. So what we're doing is listening for certain triggers, listening for key phrases, a certain set of behaviors that should then as leaders trigger us to say, oh, something's off here. And I need to pay attention. It's not about remembering the sins that's very tongue in cheek, it's more about paying attention to hearing something that starts to sound unhealthy in your team. So with each one of these, it's always good, I think, to talk about actual quotes or things that we hear and then talk about what healthy what a healthy version of that sounds like. Is that cool?

Robert Greiner 1:45

Okay, great. Yeah, that sounds good. So what does lust look like in a professional leadership setting?

Tiffany Lenz 1:51

Okay, so lust, the way I describe it, I call it inflexibility or inflexible expectations. So the way it tends to sound to me is I set a high standard or a high expectation one that's artificially high. This should never be taken carte blanche, because we do have expectations and needs and requirements and stakeholders that need to be part of what we're doing. But when a leader starts to observe a team slowing themselves down and grinding to a halt, and they hear things like, we'll need all of your requirements before you can, we can start on release one, or they hear quotes, like, Oh, we can't have those meetings, because we can't have everyone at the table. We're just not able to get started without everyone. And when I hear those kinds of things, I'm always wondering why the inflexibility, it was there not any discussion on a better way, a more streamlined way, a partial way, anything that can get some momentum going. So I view those as inflexible expectations. And that's what I call lust in our first deadly sin.

Robert Greiner 2:59

as you were describing that I had this really vivid picture popped into my mind from a client that I was at. And I haven't actually thought about this in years. But there were these two senior leaders who did not get along at all. And what would invariably happen is when one would come to the table saying, okay, we need to, we need XY and Z so that we can deploy this new, let's call it e-commerce feature, the other one would immediately jump in and say, okay, we need all of this security testing. And we needed this. And I need to know, all of the people that need access up front. And it was just really what amounted to four or five people's worth of work for two months just piled on and piled on. And it was basic, like when you can get me those things, then maybe we can talk about the possibility of getting an approval. And the fact that you didn't come to me with those things already means that you don't respect me as a person. And it was just a way to turn around and get some fo moral high ground. Is that kind of what you're talking about here?

Tiffany Lenz 4:04

That's exactly what I'm talking about. It's what you just depicted is this crazy, out of control combination of creating false dependencies, so that one can have excuses to not get things done, so that one can then blame shift so that one can then become a victim, you just tied together, actually a whole bunch of deadly sins into one person's behavior and that bad behavior had to start somewhere. These kinds of things snowball all the time. So what if a leader who had been that person's boss at a formidable time in their career had noticed a smaller pattern of behavior and they had pointed it out and said, Wait a second, did you notice that every time we start to kick something off, you have eight reasons why it can't be started and how that becomes a personal offense? Or did you notice that whenever I asked you to start a project, you instantly focus on only the dependencies and not any remedies or mitigations or ways forward, I believe that if someone had worked with that particular person, you're illustrating at an earlier time, they might have been able to cut that nasty behavior off when it was very small.

Robert Greiner 5:18

before. It's gonna break when: 1000

Tiffany Lenz 6:24

That's exactly right, Robert. What you're describing another way, I would say that is there's this critical moment in various phases of our careers, where we are encouraged to be critical thinkers, and knowing you the way that I do, you are a very critical thinker. So if one's critical thinking behaviors are encouraged in a healthy way, they're encouraged such that you keep asking questions, you keep bringing up concerns, but do come with some thoughts around how to solve that problem, you may be wrong, that's why you have a leader above you, because they should know more than about how to fix things. However, part of critical thinking is always, in my opinion, in my experience, healthy solutioning, or even the attempt at solutioning. Versus taking critical thinking into a negative path, which is just throwing down roadblocks, creating scenarios that can't seem to be powered through. Because there's too much noise that leads to blame shifting, it just leads to stagnation. And good leaders can't allow that to happen. One thing to think about, there might be the way one fosters a healthy environment for critical thinkers, and how to get positive, efficient, effective outcomes from critical thinkers.

Robert Greiner 7:40

So we've talked a little bit to or think we hinted on it, or this idea of also moving the goalposts, you set an unreasonable standard or are a little bit inflexible. Maybe because the person you're working with has, wants to extend an olive branch or something like that, they go and do the things you asked and then you come they come back and then you have a whole nother laundry list of things. And I think that's a really easy position to take in a professional setting. Because there's always stuff you're always making trade offs, there's always stuff that you have to do less of so that you can focus on what's important. So if you just redefine in the moment, what's most, or what's the highest priority for an organization, then you can all of a sudden work back these other people into a corner that ultimately makes them scramble and by your own defined unrealistic standard. They're just not cutting it.

Tiffany Lenz 8:36

So there's a number of threads to pull on there. One of the reasons I give this talk and and speak to leadership teams and budding leaders and executives, all different permutations there is that we need to be fostering healthy environments, building trust with one another so that we are more effective and more efficient. I know constantly throughout this because we're both such believers in Patrick Lencioni will reference the Five Dysfunctions of the team pyramid and the bottom of the pyramid being trust. When you're describing that example you just gave. I hear all sorts of just generally unhealthy human interaction that will lead to either the one side of that partnership, resenting working with the other, not wanting to bother going the extra mile to get things done, just expecting the worst, because they've been trained to expect the worst every time I show up with X, they want Y, Zed and beyond. None of those are healthy behaviors that lead to good, solid, efficient, effective outcomes that allow us to have strong relationships so we can run an effective business.

Robert Greiner 9:52

I was also reminded of the first rule of improv, which is the yes and idea and maybe as a way to if you're not sure what to do. When someone comes to you with an idea with a proposal, even if in your mind, you don't think that it would work, you can think of a million reasons why it wouldn't. Maybe you start with, okay, how might we make this happen, and to take what is thrown over the wall to you, and try to feed something back over. So you can play this game of tennis, the problem solving tennis, where you're not just trying to take the ball and go home, it definitely takes a collaborative and coordinated effort to solve these problems. And if you are constantly digging in your heels and being inflexible, things just aren't going to go anywhere. And I think over time, people are going to be wise to the games that you're trying to play here, if that's your, if that's your MO, and ultimately will result in disciplinary action result in people not wanting to work with you, missed promotions, lost jobs. And frankly, just over time, I think it would, behaviors like that kind of turn you into a miserable person, right, like just being so negative day in day out, viewing the world as being out to get you as against you taking things too personally, that can lead to some pretty unhappy days.

Tiffany Lenz: 11:11

Yeah, it ultimately does lead to this victim thinking that then just feeds on itself in such a negative way. And another just more bad outcomes that can come from that are when we should always be looking for partnerships. So if one's actions are not bringing two people, two colleagues together in a way that they can function faster and more effectively, like a well oiled machine, then then there's a break there that needs to be fixed. I have another personal belief that to foster a good partnership, you have to make one other look good. So I should be thinking, to your point of Yes, and how can I listen, and just bring even a willingness to collaborate with this person just be a good listener and a good sounding board if I don't have any ideas how to help them. But in my one of my previous jobs, we had a kind of a saying that was one of the biggest compliments you could give to someone which was, I would want to work with that person again. And that just encapsulated a lot of what we've been discussing of, if I say that about you, Robert, to your boss, or my boss, we know we're talking about the same thing, like this person is a real partner. They're a collaborator, a thinker. They care about outcomes, it doesn't mean that we even necessarily get along. It's more about, we can work really well and effectively together.

Robert Greiner: 12:38

That's a really interesting way to think about colleagues, people, you'd hang out with socially, people, you wouldn't hang out with socially, people that you would work with again, and people that you wouldn't work with again. And you definitely I think teams that gel, the best leadership teams a gel the best are ones that you would hang out with socially and would work with again, you said, when somebody said this about another person, we all knew what that meant. What kind of behaviors really led themselves to want themselves to actually having someone say about you. Yes, I would work with Tiffany, again,

Tiffany Lenz: 13:12

Collaborative nature, good listening, open mindedness, willing to see someone else's perspective, the kind of the belief system of want to seek first to understand when we're trying to problem solve, or trying to actually listen to someone's ideas and see if we can test them out, as opposed to saying it can't be done. Because really, at the root of it, an inflexibility of expectations is it can't be done. That's really what you're saying. So if a customer comes to you, and internal or external stakeholder, boss, whatever comes to you and asks for something, and you have this litany of reasons dependencies, blame shifting, whether it's in phases, like you've described before, or if it's all at one time, what you're really saying is, it can't be done, don't talk to me about it, go talk to someone else. So there's, that encapsulates right there into some into a person that one would not want to work with, again, if that happens over and over again. So in my past life, those were some of my behaviors that I was given positive feedback on. But there are many others as well that just cause a draw to a person who helps one be productive.

Robert Greiner: 14:28

That makes a lot of sense. I think we all have a tendency to dig in when other people are doing the same. But tit for tat game theory type approach, and I kind of get that way to where I'm very competitive. And so it could be easy for me it has been easy for me will be easy for me in the future to to engage in some of these behaviors of inflexibility as a way just to say, hey, forget you. I'm going to do my own thing. You made me mad earlier. I'm dwelling on the past. I'm going to make it hard for you. And I keep reminding myself over time of there's a line in the Ranger code Army Rangers that says I will shoulder more than my fair share of the load without complaint. And I think that's a really wonderful way to look at life and professional life, personal life fits into your I would work with this person again mentality. And the thing that really helps me there is, as a leader, especially if I'm competitive, I need to check, I can't turn that off, and I just bottles up and explodes. You can't shut off, you can't rewire who you are. But you can direct that energy. And so if there are times where I have simply said, I'm just going to, I want to be the person that when I go to bed at night, I feel like I've done the most on the team, not necessarily for the recognition. But because that was a way to channel competitive energy. And it's in pursuit of an outcome, which is the team winning. And I tell people this all the time, it's Hey, I don't care what you feel internally, you can go home and complain to your spouse complain to your partner about how much of an idiot the person that you're working with is. how incompetent your team is, I care about the behaviors you demonstrate when you show up to work. And those need to be aligned away from the seven deadly leadership sins that we're talking about and towards achieving team oriented goals because this world's hard enough as it is you don't need the people around you making things infinitely harder.

Tiffany Lenz: 16:30

That's so good. I really I like that Ranger quote it right? It's reminiscent to me of just any version regardless of one's religion or non religion, there are good practices that go back centuries before us that all feel and sound a bit like the golden rule, treat others the way you would want to be treated. Care for another, concern for another because that's built from a sociological standpoint that's built strong societies. Since humans were starting to work together to hunt and together to farm and together to establish a civilization like these. There's a reason why these principles embed themselves in such in critical places at different points in time. And I do a military example, because there's no time for, for in battle, there's no time for complaining or overthinking or making excuses. It's like we're trying to protect ourselves and each other. So that's really good.

Robert Greiner: 17:23

And on that note, as well, whether you're, you're viewing your competitors at you're in a war with your competitors, or when we're in a war with this pandemic situation, you can always view some kind of external force as you being at war with. And one of the fundamental strategies of war is disinformation and sowing and fomenting distrust and misinformation within a team. And so if you find yourself in these inflexible situations, you might also stop and think about, is there a, can you name an external force that is manipulating you, or even an internal force to behave in this way? Like I'm competitive, it's helpful to know that about me, even though I still overdo it at times, sometimes every now and then I'm able to short circuit and adjust my behaviors accordingly.

Tiffany Lenz: 18:14

Yeah, and another reason why we need teams, right? Because it's, they're called blind spots for a reason. So competitiveness is a good thing. And then it has a tipping point, critical thinking, a good thing, and then it has a tipping point. And you're illustrating another That is, there are things you just won't know or won't be able to see about yourself? So you do need someone who has your back. That's why we work on partnerships and try to be have good collective thought with one another.

Robert Greiner: 18:39

Yeah, definitely. Okay. So I think we've pretty clearly set the landscape of what is the first deadly leadership sin around lust around being inflexible? What does that look like? We've covered that in detail. What are some things that we can do one, as leaders with our peer group, to make sure that we don't fall into this leadership trap? And then secondly, when we see those behaviors within our teams, what are things that we can do to shut that down, provide solid feedback, and hopefully build the future generation of leaders to not fall into this trap as well?

Tiffany Lenz: 19:17

Yeah, that's a great question. So I think the first one, what can I do with my peers? That's probably to me the same answer as when I see it as a leader in my own right, what do I stop? If the behavior sounds like it can't be done? Because x? I think that any member of a team and especially the leader of the team, can completely eliminate that phrase and replace it with other phrases. And the two key ones for me would be why not or but what if it could, and this is not any sort of ambivalence or no lack of reality here that we have constraints and issues, but I have as I have tried this experiment myself, I've found that if I bring that sort of attitude to my team, it's very empowering. What I'm doing is I'm giving them permission to set aside constraints for a minute inside a conversation and just start to blue sky ideate, around what they would do if they could, or, but why can't we, and start to see a completely different landscape. And later, there's always time to layer on the constraints. But this idea of not breaking rules, we've lost this or even thinking about what not breaking rules would be like, we've lost this so many places, in teams in corporate America, we've just put people in boxes, literally put them in cubicles, or maybe we've put them in little tiny team rooms, and then created more and more processes and more and more red tape, where we've taken a lot of their creativity away. So what if it could is one of my favorite remedies for this, it can't be done mentality. I think just to illustrate that, if COVID has taught us anything, it would be that it did break all the rules. So many things we said couldn't be done, whether it be processes, people working from home, remote access, security, all these there were any number of excuses for why that type of action couldn't happen in the workplace. And then we have a catalyst, COVID. And suddenly, we actually can provide good service remotely, we actually can be in secure environments, we actually can communicate effectively, we've had to adjust a lot of behaviors, but COVID has really taught us that we can break the rules when we have to. And I would like to see leaders bring that kind of thinking to their teams, without a crisis like COVID.

Robert Greiner: 21:48

So you hit on an interesting point there. And this definitely applies to your peer group, or when you're dealing with your bosses or their bosses, which is, in order to engage in these kind of behaviors. It requires you to be vulnerable first. And I think if you recognize those negative behaviors, like you mentioned, what are the words people are saying around inflexibility. And you feel that one way, one feeling that could help you know that you're on the right track towards remedying lust remedying inflexibility is being vulnerable in the moment and allowing, it's being the first person to say, hey, what if we did this and giving those around you permission to participate with you as well.

Tiffany Lenz: 22:30

I love that concept. I think people mirror what they see. So if as the leader, you are willing to be the first person to be vulnerable, the first person to be willing to look stupid, throw out ideas that you know, won't work, just to get creative juices flowing, you're actually doing your team a great service, because you're creating a very safe space for them to be vulnerable for them to make mistakes for them to continue to walk in your footsteps. So breaking rules is a piece of that. And it does require quite a bit of vulnerability.

Robert Greiner: 23:01

Yeah, definitely. Okay, so what about if the people that report to us, our teams are engaging, inflexible behaviors.

Tiffany Lenz: 23:09

So I would try the same technique, I actually would go about applying an idea of observing, giving direct feedback to an individual first, and then attending a team meeting myself and throwing out some suggestions. If that felt a little bit like it would restrict or constrain the conversation, then I would plant that idea as a request with a team member who would be there already, and just ask them to be willing to be vulnerable and try a different technique. And said, play that one by ear a little bit.

Robert Greiner: 23:47

Yeah, great. I certainly the feedback thing I think makes sense. You've hit on an interesting idea around planting the idea where you're taking a situation that would be one to many, you being one going and pushing your ideas to the many there are situations, especially when projects are behind or tensions are high, where that strategy might make it look like you're coming in and attacking other individuals, and I'm speaking from experience, because I've done that in the past, and it's not gone so well. And we are going more one to one, someone on your team that you trust that is aligned with the direction you're trying to go and say hey, what if you go and push this idea? Let me know what happens there. Can you go look at this, I think is a great way to subtly tip the scales in your favor without actually going in and getting specifically intentionally involved because that has its own complexities as well.

Tiffany Lenz: 24:47

It does. It goes back to this concept from the book Atomic Habits by James Clear where there are different groups of people that influence us and for whatever reason, whether we like it or not one of those groups is the powerful. And so being aware of one's influence would is important here because it may lead to an inauthentic exchange in that team meeting, which is also no good, would be much better to plant a seed and have someone else lead that discussion and just almost coach them from the background. Because again, servant leadership, this isn't about me being seen as the hero here. It's about helping the team collectively break a bad habit and replace it with good with a set of good habits. So that may be planting a seed, and then letting someone else gradually lead the team into that set of better behaviors.

Robert Greiner: 25:37

Yeah, that's great. And then we haven't really touched too much yet on agile but the whole methodology around delivering in increments getting rapid feedback seems to be a bit of an inoculation against inflexibility. Have you seen that in your experience?

Tiffany Lenz: 25:53

Absolutely. It is an inoculation. It's also a mindset of doing the simplest thing first, the simplest thing possible, the straightest line to a solution. So you can get feedback, it's not agile is not going to make this behavior. Because this is a human behavior. Agile isn't gonna make this completely disappear. But it is going to help the scenario it's going to help frame a mindset of flexibility as opposed to inflexibility. Now, that said, there's never, there's never a bad time to be clear and say, we have some we actually have some very clear requirements we need, we actually can't take on more work because of X, Y, Zed, that what we're talking about here is a brewing set of behaviors, not having clear boundaries and clear expectations in a healthy way. If that, does that make sense?

Robert Greiner: 26:53

Oh, yes, there's always a dichotomy. And we're talking about the overcorrection of inflexibility, there is a time to hold your ground, there is a time to be firm, there is a time to have a tough discussion. But to your point from earlier, even when you have to have those discussions. There's a right way and a wrong way to do it. And I think that digging the trench, digging your heels in, setting these unrealistic standards, being hyper inflexible, and essentially saying I can't move forward until you do these four things, is not the right approach. But you could have a very open and frank discussion around, hey, the team is overtaxed as it is. We have this regulatory requirement coming up that we could get sued if we don't meet. Let's talk about how we might fit these things in. Can we have some resources from over here? Can we delay this thing over here? And you can have a much more collaborative discussion instead of just No, I can't do it. My hands are tied. How dare you ask me those kinds of things?

Tiffany Lenz: 27:49

Mm hmm. Yep, we're right back to. But what can we do? I've been a consultant for almost 20 years, which seems unbelievable to me. But I've been in different situations where even like, going to a client site, and one of the requirements was you're going to have hardware for us to work on and then showing up and there not being any, what do we do? Do we like march out the door in a fury? Or do we sit down and say, okay, great. Let's use the whiteboards we have what kind of things? Can we talk about what sorts of can we discuss risks and issues and start to get anything captured around ideation? So we can use this time wisely. If there's almost always something of value that can be done. Even when you do have extreme scenarios, we have to meet this regulatory expectation.

Robert Greiner: 28:30

Yeah. And it's funny, you mentioned that because I remember a conversation where we have a pretty solid back office, here at our company, and some of the questions coming up around COVID. When we all went, we went on a bit of a hiring freeze. And those kind of things were, well, what are these people doing? And I love their response, which was like, there was such a backlog that we had over here that we, we thought we would never get to and it's all stuff that is quality of life. And there's business cases around improving efficiency over here. And we're going to do this thing to save money over here. And we're going to help everyone level up in this space. And we're going to provide these extra resources. And it was just such a nice response to a crisis. But also it showed if you're a recruiter, and you're on a hiring freeze, that doesn't mean that you have no work to do. There's always stuff to go and do. There's always a backlog of tasks. And so from personal experience, I've seen this almost hyper flexibility where people twisted themselves into professional positions that you didn't think were even on the table but yet they found a way to make it work, and we're better for it. And the disruption of trying to erect staff size in such a short turnaround would have been catastrophic if we made some kind of terminal move there and and so I really liked that. We didn't just try to survive a storm like we thrived through it and that comes back to the anti-fragile idea where you have a piece of glass, you have a glass vase, you stick it in a box, you throw the box off a two storey house, the vase brax, that's fragile. You can put a hammer in the box and throw it off the house. And that's robust. But very few things. When you go through a catastrophe, you get stronger on the other end. And it's really cool to see organizations can definitely be anti-fragile. And it was cool to have a front row seat to that. Because now as we're skyrocketing out of this thing, we have clients who cut too hard to fast now they need help, we're in such a better position to provide that. And that has to do a lot with this foundational layer that really became hyper flexible in the face of a crisis.

Tiffany Lenz: 30:49

That's awesome. That sounds like a kind of group of people that I would like to work with again.

Robert Greiner: 30:53

You'll have plenty of opportunity. So what about I do want to maybe pull on one more thread? What about the fact that we're in this crisis? You talked earlier about COVID has illuminated for us the fact that things are possible that we thought we once thought were impossible. If you take this idea of inflexibility, we have a few examples already. Anything else you want to share in that vein around understanding getting through this mindset of we can't do that that's impossible,

Tiffany Lenz: 31:22

I would just encourage leaders to keep looking forward for where the outcomes they want and where they want to go, as opposed to being embroiled in the crisis of the moment. Because the the kinds of behaviors you and I are talking with the good place from the positive ones are the ones that create that act as a force multiplier, the example you just gave is an excellent one, ready to respond at the end of the crisis, ready to provide better service, ready to be better teammates, having built a new brand new set of skills, those are all very good outcomes that as a leader, I would want to be able to maximise on what I've done is I've leveled up my whole company, and then created even more opportunities in the middle of a crisis. Just keep looking forward, keep looking at what's two years out look like? What's three years out? Look, am I still as even if it's even if it's in like, microcosms? am I creating the right kinds of behaviors that I want on the other end of this?

Robert Greiner: 32:22

Yeah, and I keep coming back to this idea of the hero's journey where if you take a book like Lord of the Rings, Frodo's objective was to throw the ring in the mountain. But there's a whole trilogy around how hard that was to do. And each experience along the way, in this crisis mode, made him and his group better than they were before they experienced it. And so there is certainly a price to pay as you go through a crisis. But the biggest shame would be to pay the penalty of the price, the tax of the crisis and not have leveled up because of it. And so as leaders, that's our job is to encourage people to face this head on to keep moving forward. We can't know the future, but we can certainly take our level best action today and adjust later if we need to. So I really like that ultra flexibility idea, especially in times of crisis.

Tiffany Lenz: 33:20

Yeah, me too. I've just learned this over time, that it's such a better way to reflect and learn and grow than the alternative. So I'm going to pick flexibility.

Robert Greiner: 33:30

Yeah, definitely. Okay, great. This wass a fantastic conversation. Thanks for making the time today.

Tiffany Lenz: 33:35

Yes. Thank you.

Robert Greiner: 33:37

Have a good one. Bye.