Bob Brooks of the Prudent Money Radio Show interviewed Janet Britcher of Transformation Management, about her book “Zoom Leadership: Change your Focus, Change your Insights.” They discussed attention and focus, and their role in helping managers to make decisions and problem solve effectively.
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Bob Brooks: Well, as a leader, how do you problem solve effectively? Today, we’re going to take a look. Stay tuned for Prudent Money.
Good afternoon, and welcome to the Prudent Money Radio Show. I’m your host, Bob Brooks. Thank you so much for joining me today, you know I do appreciate it. Well, listen, great leaders must be able to devote enough attention to problem solving and innovation. Yet, with this sheer quantity of information that’s available, attention has become our scarcest resource. Well, Janet Britcher is here to change all that with her book, Zoom Leadership: Change Your Focus, Change Your Unsights. Janet, welcome to Prudent Money.
Janet Britcher: Thank you so much, Bob. It’s great to be here.
Bob: Janet, I know that you do a great deal of coaching and consulting with companies, and individuals. What are you seeing over and over again that motivated you to write the book Zoom Leadership?
Janet: What motivated me is [that] my clients, who are leaders, are faced with, as you said in the introduction, more and more information. Information overload. Very often, where leaders get stumped is when they have a dilemma between two options. I could hire somebody, or I could lay someone off. I could expand my business, or shrink it. I could raise my price and hope I’ll get more revenue, or I could lower my price and hope I get more clients. In looking at that, I found that when I offered them a new angle on their own dilemma, it opened up their own creativity and innovation to consider new options and new outcomes. That approach is through each of four lenses, the think, act, feel, and witness lens. Then, the idea of getting closer, zooming in, or getting further out, from a strategic perspective, zooming out — by changing your perspective, you can come up with new innovative solutions and it can unstuck a leader when they’re faced with a dilemma or a decision.
Bob: Janet, I always wonder how much of a factor is that fear factor that comes into the process of, “Boy, I don’t want to make a mistake.” How much of that just freezes the decision process?
Janet: Well, that’s exactly right, Bob. It’s a good question because what we now know from the research in what’s called the Neurology of Leadership, when we’re faced with a decision, or fear, our brains constrict. Anyone who’s ever lost their keys when they’re right in front of them knows what I’m talking about. [laughs]
Bob: Can’t relate. [laughs]
Janet: When you’re hurrying, when you’re trying to get out the door, even simple things in front of you become invisible. The main key then, when you’re stressed, is to reduce the stress so that you have more access to your own intelligence, and your own wisdom, and insights. If you can do that by saying, “Oh, wait. There are some other options here. There’s another way to look at this.” Then, that can reduce the stress which automatically opens up new options and gives a leader more access to their own good ideas.
Bob: Janet, it dawned on me as I was preparing for the interview that, obviously, the book is about leadership in corporate roles that sort of thing. It dawned on me that we play all kinds of leadership roles as employees, as spouses, as parents, you name it. This book to me has great implications, broad based implications, through really all types of life scenarios.
Janet: Well, I’m glad you brought that up, thank you. I agree with you. I think, in many ways, it’s as much a decision tool as it is a leadership tool. Of course, we’re all faced with decisions every day; how to spend our time, how much time to spend at work or with family, how much to spend. What do we want to spend money on next? Do we want a new roof or a new car? I think you’re right. There are so many aspects of decision making and so many aspects of leadership. Whether or not you carry the title leader, you’re faced with being a leader in many civic, and community, and family roles.
Bob: Let me ask you this, Janet. As you talk to many people through the years of working with companies and individuals, if you had to guess, what percent of the people that you’ve dealt with are just natural born decision makers. They’re good at it, it’s a skill set. Then, there are the rest of the world that really has — it’s a learned skill.
Janet: Yes, I would parse it maybe even into three buckets. I think when we think of leadership, per se, my anecdotal position on that is maybe 60% of people can be trained and educated to be good leaders and maybe 20% or 30% are born leaders. Then, another 10% or 20% really shouldn’t be in that role because that doesn’t optimize the kind of contribution they make. When it comes to decisions, I think it gets more complicated. I think of it more like a matrix. In other words, there’s some people for whom, let’s say, financial or numeric decisions are easy but for whom emotional decisions might be more challenging. There are some for whom individual decisions, that you make on your own, are easy but for a group or a community that might be a bigger challenge.
I think it does get complicated when you look at some of the dimensions of decisions. If it’s, let’s say, in your field of expertise, let’s say you’re an engineer or a lawyer, decisions in that arena get easier and easier the deeper your expertise goes. But then, if you have to run your business, that’s a really different skill set, a different set of decisions that you’re faced with. You could be a great lawyer, or a great accountant, but now you’re running a business of lawyers and accountants. Those decisions might be more challenging. It’s a good question because it gets more and more complex when you look at the different factors.
Bob: Yes, that’s interesting. I’ve always thought of it from the standpoint of decision making is a skill set that is one that — there’s thousands upon thousands of books written through the years, or about it through the years, but, yet, people don’t really think about it from that standpoint. That’s one of the reasons I really appreciate your book, Zoom Leadership. You can find out more information about Janet and her book as well at www.transformationmanagement.com. As I mentioned in the introduction, you state that attention has become our scarcest resource. With all the resources and information that we have at our fingertips, how do you know what information to give your intention to?
Janet: It’s really such a challenge for all of us, isn’t it? I think there are more and more demands. Every time we open a website, or the news, there are more and more visual and text overwhelm in a way. I think that capacity to focus becomes even more important. I think that remembering your priorities and your values is really what grounds you. If you know your values, let’s say, growth in your organization, then that helps you focus on those things. If you know your values are developing staff and developing employees, then that might help you in your trade-off of time. Do I want to spend my time in growth or on employees? Of course, they can be compatible, they can both be met in that way. If your values and goals are only profits, then you might make different decisions along those lines. So, my personal reference point would be to be quite reflective and deliberate about identifying your own values because that will help you bring focus to the kinds of decisions and the ways that you want to spend your time.
Bob: That’s so true, Janet, and so many people miss that. It should be the foundation starting point of every decision that you make because you just really can’t make a mistake filtering through your values.
Janet: Yes, I think that’s right.
Bob: You’ve mentioned it earlier about the video cameras zooming in and zooming out. I love the fact that you’ve written a relatable book, as you say in the book that you go beyond the industry jargon. You use this example of a video camera. Talk about how that works.
Janet: Well, I did want a tool that people could grab in the moment when you’re stressed, or when you’re pressured, and when it’s something where you could remember at least one of the aspects of this model. This zoom aspect is quite simply to zoom in, let’s say, using the think lens, which is the first one of the four lenses I proposed. To zoom in, that would be something like analyzing a pro and con list, or evaluating a budget, or making a decision about how much to spend on something, or how to price something, would be zooming in on something analytical at the detail level, at the ground level. Then zooming out, let’s say, through that think lens would be bigger picture strategic issues. For example, where are we headed, do we open a new geography, do we add a product line, do we enhance our software. Zooming out through the think lens would give you a big picture and maybe even a longer time frame too. Zooming out can be strategic and it can also be time related. Then, that same idea applies to the other lenses. The act lens, which is the second most common when I deal with leaders, as their job is to do something. So, zooming in, taking an action, could be something as simple as scheduling a meeting, sending an email, interviewing a candidate, and zooming out on “act” might be participating in a conference, or opening a dialogue about an alliance partnership. So, using that close-in idea of zooming in and zooming out. And when you have a big decision, sometimes all it takes is moving one part of your perspective in order to open up new options. You might not need to go through all four lenses, or the zooming in and out of each one, but remembering to alter perspective in itself will open up new ideas and new insights.
Bob: This is Bob Brooks. You are listening to the Prudent Money Radio Show. Thank you so much for joining me today. Our special guest is Janet Britcher. We’re talking about her book Zoom Leadership: Change Your Focus, Change Your Insights. One of the reasons why I wanted to have Janet on about her book is this is a great tool for just really any aspect of life where we all have to make decisions. She goes through every aspect of that process and more than that in her leadership book. If you want more information, go to transformationmanagement.com. That’s the website to go to. You know, Janet, obviously, problem solving and innovation is going to involve people and relationships. How can the solutions you write about in the book improve relationship skills?
Janet: I love that question, because I’m such an advocate for employees, and good corporate cultures that foster innovation, and collegiality, and participation, and good ethics with your vendors, with your clients, and dealing with employees. The third lens, actually, is the feel lens. That one, of course, is the emotional intelligence, the empathy, the relatedness, being able to connect with others. I think, in terms of engaging employees, zooming in through that feel lens would be something as simple as, “how do you feel about your job?” Do you feel motivated? What’s motivating you? Do you need a new project, a new assignment, to feel a little more engaged? Do you need a bigger perspective so you know how your contribution, your part of the contribution, matters in whole? Zooming out from that feel lens, of course, is about building a culture where employees will thrive. I have a personal bias, that when you feel good at work you bring that home, you bring that energy home, you share that with your family and your community. And when you don’t have a good boss, and you don’t have a good day, you bring up home as well. I think a good day work not only enhances a person’s job, and department and profits of the company, but it makes our world a better place.
Bob: Yes, absolutely. I would totally agree with that because as the day goes, so does the evening. In relationships as a leader, or really any type of relationships, we want to be heard sometimes versus seek to try and understand. Which reminds me of that old Stephen Covey principle. How can this help us be better active listeners in relationships?
Janet: Well, that’s the fourth lens. The “Witness” lens is one where — I know witness is not really a corporate word, I know I’m stepping out on a limb with this lens. But I feel so strongly that that witness lens can include mindfulness, which is being aware of your own body and sensations and reactions. It can include presence, which is the ability to share with somebody that you’re really with them and you’re not thinking about the traffic and the errand on the way home. It can include the capacity for observing. You know how sometimes you’re in a meeting and you’re kind of swirled in the drama and you can’t get out and see it. On other days, you’re almost observing a meeting as if from a balcony, standing apart from it, and then noticing what’s going on. That capacity to observe, and to be a witness, it’s so powerful. I’m reminded of an anecdote that Scott Peck tells in his book The Road Less Traveled, when he was a new, very young minister and one of his parishioner’s husband had died. He went to her home and he had no idea how to be of service to her, how to be helpful. And he sat with her, and he sat into the night, and he sat into the dawn, and he sat thinking, “I have nothing to offer her. I have no idea what to say.” Finally, in the morning, as the sun rose, the widow thanked him and he left. Years later, she came up to him and said, “You have no idea how much that meant to me.”
Bob: Powerful story. Well, obviously, in an organization, as a leader, you experience emotions of all kinds. Let’s talk about maybe the toughest one to manage as a leader, which is anger. Talk about how you use anger to your advantage in the workplace.
Janet: Well, I think that with anger — I think, for the most part, our vocabulary for emotions is really small. We’ve got happy, angry, sad. Really, we should develop our vocabulary viscerally, and I don’t just mean linguistically but viscerally, about feelings to 30 or 40 words so that we can explore the nuance. Because in anger, usually it’s a cover for another emotion. That emotion that you’ve been insulted, or omitted, or shunned, or left out somehow, or that you don’t belong. Being aware of your anger, and its source underneath the cover story of anger, can help. And then, again, I go back to values.
If you’re feeling angry, let’s say, because you are left off of an e-mail distribution list. People can’t foresee the implications of being omitted from important decision making groupings. Then, if you dig under the feeling of anger to the value of participation and contribution and understand its source, then in my experience it doesn’t drive the bus. Now, you can engage in a dialogue with yourself and ask, “Oh, okay. I was left out of that. What can I learn? Was that a simple omission? Was that because I behaved badly? Was that because the decision was outside of my scope?” It lets you do some reflection in a way that can then become constructive.
Bob: Well, Janet, listen. Congratulations on your book. Once again, it’s called Zoom Leadership: Change your Focus, Change your Insights. If you want more information on Janet’s book, go to transformationmanagement.com. Janet, thank you so much for coming on the program today.
Janet: Thank you, Bob. It was delightful to be here.
Bob: This is Bob Brooks. You are listening to the Prudent Money Radio Show. Thank you so much for joining me today. Once again, the name of that book is Zoom Leadership: Change your Focus, Change your Insights. One of the reasons why I wanted to have Janet on is, really, it’s primarily a book about decision making, the heart of it is about decision making.
I think it’s something that’s important. If you think that you’re not a good decision maker, that you take it the time to develop that skill set and really work on that because it’s something we have to do and it’s a very important skill set to have. Once again, Zoom Leadership, transformationmanagement.com.