Janet Britcher talks about her book, Zoom Leadership, and the four lenses that leaders look though, with Kevin Price on the Price of Business radio show.
Kevin Price: I’m Kevin Price, you’re listening to the Price of Business nationally syndicated on the business talk radio network. Really excited about today’s program. Of course, I always am, we have such a great lineup of fabulous guests. And I’m looking forward to our conversation here today with our first guest. We’re going to get started with her right away. Janet Britcher is with us, and her website is transformationmanagement.com. Janet, a little about yourself, kind of give us the elevator speech about yourself, and give us some background, but also what you do.
Janet Britcher: Sure, I’d be delighted to. What I do is help leaders be really good leaders, and you might have, sometime along the way, heard of someone that did not have a great boss. I got interested really early on, as an undergraduate, in the workplace environment, and what we can do to make that even better.
The first two decades of my work, I was the head of human resources. And in that role, I did what I could to have benefits be more competitive, compensation be more generous, and policies be more fair. When I left corporate 20 years ago, I decided that my own business, which is executive coaching, should be focused on helping leaders be great.
Kevin: Yeah, very good. You know, I was looking at some of the notes in anticipation of the show, and one of the things you talk about is being over-focused, and that that problem of being over-focused undermines leadership. Talk a little bit about that.
Janet: That’s right. Well, there’s a lot of credit given to managers who are decisive, and really focused, and goal oriented. And those are good qualities. But, like any great gift, if you overdo it, you’re losing out on the opposite, on the less-developed end of that polarity. The classic example is the stock market, where companies are over-focused on quarterly earnings. And in that example, the cost of that is often R&D as well as other developmental things such as leadership development, employee training, benefits. So the over-focus on quarterly earnings can cost, in the long term.
And the same can happen in day-to-day management. If you’re over-focused on having someone, let’s say, complete bureaucratic forms that report information, and those can be quite useful, you need some kind of dashboard or quantitative updates, but if you’re over-focused on that, at the expense of innovation or collaboration or teamwork, then you can incur unintended costs.
Kevin: Yeah, basically an organization becomes suffocating and you even forget why you’re doing what you’re doing, because you’re too busy doing things that really take away your passion. And I would also think over-focused leaders — when we think of most leaders, we don’t necessarily think of them as up-tight on specific things, they are usually macro thinkers and leave the micro for those that work under them. That’s at least been my experience. And I think that’s very indicative of me — I surround myself, you know, my personality type from a Myers-Briggs perspective, is an INTJ, you know, Introverted, intuitive, Thinker, Judger. You know, and so my admin is an ISFJ, which means she’s extremely detail-oriented. You know, I would be in jail, probably, if it weren’t for her, because I’m always trying to push the envelope. And she tries to keep me contained in an envelope, and I guess it’s a good balancing act. But the problem is, if you’re over-focused, is that you often can’t see the forest for the trees, because of that. Talk a little bit about that.
Janet: Exactly right. So, the book I’ve written is called Zoom Leadership, and it talks exactly about the “forest for the trees”, and the words that I use for that are “zoomed in”, because we kind of all have a very visual image of what I mean by “zoomed in”, whether you think of a camera, or a video camera, or a map. Zoomed in would be the “tree” level, and zoomed out of course is “forest” level, and you know the benefits of each — as an “N” in Myers-Briggs you’re going to be “big picture” and relying on people who are more zoomed into the details. And that makes a good partnership with the person that you mentioned who’s very good with detail, an ISFJ.
I think both are important, and I agree with you. As people go up the ladder, they tend to be more strategic, and need to have someone really good zoomed in on the details, to look at the other aspects that you might overlook. And it’s appropriate to be able to balance that, as long as everything goes well.
Now, what can sometimes happen is big-picture thinkers can overly depend on a detailed person, and not be checking in. So, as long as you check in and make sure they’re on track, and aren’t getting off-track, then it works really well. If you’ve got a long-term relationship, if you done work together for a long time, and you know you can trust the quality of their work, then that works out well. But sometimes with a new hire, I find managers overly rely on trusting a professional to do the right thing, and they may very well intend to do the right thing, but without certain checkpoints and milestones people can get off track even if they’re good workers, well-intentioned, and skillful.
Kevin: Yeah. Very interesting. You talk about four “lenses” that leaders look through. Kind of cover that.
Janet: Sure. The four lenses I talk about start with “Think”, because very often my own clients are in that Think lens first, and when I meet with leaders — and my role is to help them be more attuned to their own dilemmas, their own skills, their own strengths — very often they are starting in the logic lens, the “think”, the “analysis”. And zoomed in, that Think lens is things like a budget, or a spreadsheet, or a pro and con analysis, and zoomed out the Think lens might be strategy, or scenario planning.
And the second most common lens that we start with is “Act”. So they’re going to do something. Zoomed in, that might be pick up the phone, return a call, send an email, hold a meeting, have an interview. And zoomed out, Act might be acquire a division, or have a layoff, or develop a partnership with some alliance company where that would make sense.
The third lens, the “Feel” lens, has gotten a little more credibility over the last couple of decades, since much research has revealed that emotional intelligence is as big, if not a bigger, indicator of success and happiness. So you are more professional, you get better results as a leader if you are emotionally intelligent, and you have a happier life. Zoomed in, that begins with “how do I feel”, and many executives forget to start there, thinking “Oh, feelings may not count”, but they do because they are a very good barometer of how satisfied or unsatisfied you are with what’s going on, and it stops you from projecting your feeling on others. The next zoomed in effect of Feeling is to make sure that you’re listening to and attuned to, empathic with, the feelings of others. In a zoomed out way, the Feel lens might include “what kind of culture do I want in my group”, “what kind of culture do I want in my company”, or “what do I want my brand to elicit from customers in the marketplace”. So those are the first three lenses.
Kevin: Yeah, and I lost you a little bit on the third one, but I think people are getting a sense of what you’re talking about. You’re very thorough, which is great. I lost you there just for a second, but I think the listener captured it. Really quick, running out of time, talk about the fourth one real quickly.
Janet: So, the fourth lens is “Witness”, and that’s self-reflection, you could call it mindfulness or presence. And zoomed in, that’s the relationship between two people. Zoomed out, Witness might be “what kind of a community citizen do I want my business to be”, or “should I partner with a high-school to help bring along young people or help them modify the kind of training and education they get, so that they can be a better employee of my company”.
Kevin: Right, or a future entrepreneur themselves. And also, I think that part of that zooming in, would be our relationship with ourselves, you know, “how do I feel about myself”, “what kind of leader am I”, “what are my character defects”, “what are my strengths”, you know, “what am I grateful for”. You know, I think it’s out of the largess of those things that we’re able to zoom out and exude those to others. Your thoughts?
Janet: I think that’s exactly right. That kind of self-awareness provides a leader with deep roots and confidence, without being overly confident, or ignoring the input of others, but rather provides that deep confidence, and yet remains open to information or tweeking, or to realigning with another direction. So I think that’s exactly right.
Kevin: Yeah, very good. Yeah, I do a daily inventory — good, bad, and not so sure. You know, stuff to keep an eye on. And, when you talked about that, it made me think of just that. I really enjoyed my conversation today. Really interesting, and again, Janet Britcher, she’s been our guest. And her website is transformationmanagement.com. I encourage you to learn more about her and what she’s doing over there, and her book. Also, do want to remind you, as we wrap up this segment, we’ll be back after the break, but the Price of Business is on 24/7 at priceofbusiness.com where we have archived shows, videos, brand new articles added daily, and so much more. Like us on Facebook, follow on Twitter. The Price of Business is nationally syndicated on the BizTalk Radio Network.