Lighthouse Leadership Weekly #98: The power of Reciprocity, Pigeonholing, a new Book of the Month, and more…

by Jason Evanish, CEO Get Lighthouse, Inc.

Leadership lessons are all around us if you pay attention.

Continuing the story from last week, I did successfully return my boots. However, it was unfortunately on brand that they accepted the return, yet never even asked for why I was returning them.

I don’t know if it’s because looking at them it was obvious, or they just didn’t want to have a discussion, but I was a bit surprised at the combination of instant, full refund, and not asking why.

After failing to find another pair I liked at the store, I decided it was time to head to another place.

Fortunately, this street had a Tecovas store half a block away, so I walked in there.

What a different experience:

I was greeted as soon as I walked in.
As soon as I picked up a boot on display, someone came over and asked me if I’d like to try it on and what size.
They had an impressive radio system so someone ran shoes from the back out to their front store staff to hand to me to try.
While we waited for the shoe runner, they offered me a beverage of my choice.

And that last part is super clever and worth learning from.

Reciprocity is powerful.

One of the easiest ways to win someone over is with a small gift. It causes people to want to reciprocate.

It’s why the Hare Krishna likes to give out little booklets or flowers before asking for a donation.

It’s also how a study showed giving people a free soda made them more likely to buy raffle tickets later.

And as a leader, you can win over a little goodwill from your team by doing the same.

For example, I used to do walks and talks for 1 on 1s with some of the Lighthouse team when we were all working together in San Francisco. We used to go to the CVS just down the street and I’d buy them a beverage of their choosing from there.

That $1-$3 on a green tea, soda, or Vitamin Water did wonders.

Not only did it seem to break the ice, but you’d be surprised how helpful a pause, taking a sip, and then talking about something hard seems to help.

How can you bring a little reciprocity to your team?

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This week, we take a look at how pigeonholing is holding you back, introduce our last Book of the Month of the year, request your feedback, and have a post for you on mindfulness to read.

Let’s dive in…

🥘 Food for Thought

I was listening to a recent episode of Lighthouse friend Mark C Crowley’s podcast, and right near the end was a total gem for leaders:

“…there's latent potential in a lot of the people around you.

If you pick someone up from their job right now, and you just move them over and drop them somewhere else, they're not always the same. They don't always behave the same. They don't always perform the same.

How many people are you looking at in your company, in your organization, and assuming that they are what they are, without thinking…hey, you change the circumstances, you change the person a little bit.

…I think that's actually a specific leadership issue…we pigeonhole people all the time and just go, that person's maxed out, that person is tapped, that person is not going any further, and a new manager comes in and gives them a new assignment, then all of a sudden you're like, wow, what happened there?

I think we underestimate that.”

- Henry Oliver, guest on the Lead from the Heart Podcast on “the Essential Guide to Late Blooming Success”

Who are you pigeonholing?

It’s so easy to do. In fact, I think it’s default human nature.

What you see someone do often, and what they’re good at, is how you see them.

In general, that’s a useful heuristic. If you know your friend Joe is great at fixing cars, remembering to call him when you have a question about yours makes sense. The same is true if your friend Tina is an accountant; you’d call her with a tax question.

But at work, you can end up pigeonholing your own team, harming everyone:

The person becomes limited in how they can advance in their career.
You miss out on unlocking new/hidden talent on your team.
Your company misses out on the gains from their talent and growth.

And as we talk about often, you also risk turnover of your best people, because they want to grow; if you don’t give them that growth, they’ll join another company that will provide it.

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”

Seeing your team for what they do today is the steady and safe route. You know who you can count on, and what you can count on them to do well.

Yet, if you want the biggest and best possible outcomes for you and your team, you need to think bigger.

To get new and better results, you have to consciously make an effort to stop pigeonholing your team and start thinking about everyone’s hidden potential.

How do I do this in a safe, low-risk way?

Okay, so this all sounds nice. It makes you feel warm and fuzzy. But how do you actually do this in a way that has a high enough success rate that you’re not hurting your projects, nor putting people in positions to fail?

Remember: It’s your job as a leader to avoid setting your team up to fail. If you see someone with potential, you don’t blindfold them and shove them in the deep end of the pool.

Instead you:

Start small: Give them a chance to prove themselves and earn independence and new responsibility over time. (Remember Task Relevant Maturity? Use it!)
De-risk opportunities: You know those projects no one seems to get around to? Or those things that would be nice to do, but don’t have to happen right now? Those are exactly the projects to give people that are trying something new. That way, if it fails or sputters a bit, it’s not the end of the world.
Do your part: As a leader, you should be coaching your team regularly. That’s especially important for new challenges like this. Spend more time with them answering questions, showing them key methods, and giving feedback to help avoid any big problems from happening in the first place.
Recruit mentors: You don’t have to have all the answers. Finding a mentor for them is a great way to give them support you lack the experience and time to provide. And best of all, mentoring is a great way for someone to develop leadership skills that could later make them a good manager or team lead.

Now that you can see this doesn’t have to be a huge production, the other question is how to spot this talent and where to find it.

Let’s take a look at what that entails, too.

Where can you find latent potential?

Ever since I was the one desperately trying to be recognized early in my career and lamenting the same with some of my talented friends, I’ve had a knack for spotting talent with lots of upside and potential.

While it seems obvious to me, I’ve learned that isn’t how most people see it.

Here are a few of the places I love to look for high-potential, high-upside talent:

People in hands-on, customer-facing roles: Whether it’s QA, Customer Success, Junior Salespeople, or Customer Support teams, they all have potentially smart, talented people who can do more than their current role. Look for those that go the extra mile, know your product inside and out, and are always asking for more responsibility or tasks.
Very experienced internal team members: Do you have a team that solves internal problems often (like internal engineering tools, or operations)? People on those teams that are dependable and adaptable could have the potential for a lot more. And with their view of your company, I bet they can even tell you what teams and projects interest them, if only someone (you) would ask.
Team members with relevant hobbies and passions: Who likes to hack on projects in their free time? Who is going to hackathons or other startup events? Who is always reading books and learning new things? Sometimes the answers are right in front of your face if you just pay attention to books on their desk, events they talk about, etc.
Passionate problem solvers: Sometimes it’s less about a skill you didn’t know they had, and more about their passion for the specific project. If there’s a lingering problem or frustration on your team, and someone is standing out as really hungry to solve it, they can be a great candidate. Empower them to give it a try, while monitoring and supporting their work at a level appropriate to their experience level.

I bet if you run down these 4 bullets, you can think of at least 1 or 2 people you should talk to about their potential beyond their current, pigeonholed role.

This is easier, higher impact, and more valuable than you think

This Food for Thought is not meant to be something you think about and quickly forget. It’s a call to action that will help YOU most.

When you start spotting potential, putting those people to work developing those skills, and capitalizing on their passion, a few things will start happening, that are win-win-wins for you:

More projects get done: Watch as you see your high-potential team members tackle projects that otherwise no one got around to, all with getting the rest of their work done.
More energy and positivity: When you have a boss who believes in you and helps you grow, you enjoy work a lot more. Don’t be surprised if the attitudes improve for everyone you do this with.
Big reputation boosts for you: In doing this, YOU become known as someone who can spot diamonds in the rough…and you build great loyalty with those kinds of people, a great double win.

So take a pause this week and think about who on your team has potential, and how you can harness it.

If you have questions on how to do that in your situation, reply and I’m happy to help you.

📚 Book of the Month

The end of the year is a great time for reflection.

Whether you want to look back at the year that was, or prepare your goals and vision for the new year, it’s a great habit for both your personal and professional life.

And as part of that, it’s a great time to reflect on how you’re doing on the fundamentals.

I can think of no better fundamentals to work on this time of year than the ones in this book:

The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz

I read this the first time because I heard Tom Brady reads this every year. And now I understand why he does.

The simple, fundamental truths are always worth another review. I always find something I want to really focus on that will improve me and my life.

And best of all, this is a very short, simple read. It’s perfect for reading on a flight for the holidays. In fact, it’s so short, you’ll want to bring a second book for your return trip.

Yet, if you take time to think and reflect on each of the four agreements, you’ll be occupied for days; these four ideas touch every aspect of our lives and challenges us to be better every day.

Join me in revisiting The Four Agreements, or read it for the first time now here.

📖 Your Leadership Long Read on Mindfulness at Work for Managers

A great companion to the Four Agreements is to improve your mindfulness.

You’d be surprised how much easier it is to manage even difficult emotions when you are able to step outside yourself and observe what’s happening. Even simply seeing something for what it really is often is enough to lighten the weight of it on you.

And that’s why, as we head into stressful times with family, travel, end of year deadlines/goals, and performance reviews, we look at the keys to practicing this kind of mindfulness.

As we typically do, this post is all about action.

We give you 3 practical approaches you can use starting this week, so you don’t just think, “oh that’s a nice idea” and instead can start trying it out in real life.

So what are you waiting for? Raise your EQ, relieve a heavy emotion faster, and be more present with our post this week:

https://getlighthouse.com/blog/mindfulness-at-work/

❓ Poll of the Week

Last week, we asked you about the difficulties of managing remote teams:

As you can see, there was a clear winner. Communication is by far the hardest part of managing remote teams.

And I suppose it’s not that surprising. You miss out on so much that is easily communicated when you’re one desk or one hallway apart from each other:

Turning quickly to speak with them
Overhearing another conversation between team members
Easily grabbing someone (literally!) to join in a key discussion in a nearby conference room
Simple rapport building over lunch, coffee, or a snack in the break room or cafeteria
Making it easy for them to walk over and talk to you when they see you’re at your desk

In theory, all of those can be replaced with different activities when you’re remote, yet anyone who has led a remote team knows you need to be proactive.

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This week we take a look at a classic question that is one of the most fundamental for managers: How often to have 1 on 1s with your team:

This one seems to have gotten managers’ attention, because we already have a big response. Help make this our biggest poll yet and see what others are saying by taking the poll here.

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Jason Evanish

As the founder and CEO of Get Lighthouse, Inc, Jason and the Lighthouse team have helped managers grow their leadership skills in dozens of countries around the world. They’ve worked with a variety of companies from non-profits to high growth startups, and government organizations to well known, publicly traded companies. Jason has also been featured in publications including NPR, the Wall Street Journal, and Fast Company.