AnnMaria's Blog http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/ Spirit Lake Consulting's vice-president, Dr. De Mars', blog on technology, disability, small business and work with Indian nations. You may learn something useful here - but I wouldn't count on it. en Copyright 2010 Fri, 05 Mar 2010 01:40:37 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification Ethics isn't a technique, damn it !
One story in particular stuck with me, it was about a man who complained that no matter what he said, his wife was always worried that he was cheating on her when he was out of town. His job required travel and he wanted Dr. Covey to tell him what he could say to his wife. In their discussion, it turned out that he had met his wife while on a business trip when he was married to his first wife. They had an affair, he divorced and married his current wife. Covey's advice was priceless. He said,

"You can't talk yourself out of problems you behave your way into."

I know a manager who has read all the books. She does all of the things that Dr. Longie talks about in his ethics course. She makes sure that her new employees get an orientation when different co-workers are assigned to take the new person to lunch, explain different parts of the organization. Each person has a written job description and a semi-annual evaluation. She makes it a point to stop and speak to each of her employees on  a regular basis.

However ... it is all a complete fraud. The first time or two the employee might be fooled into having a conversation, but after a few minutes, the manager is visibly impatient to be on her way. Soon, they learn to just say hello and make a comment about the weather or the local sports team, and then she is on her way to "talk" to the next employee.

The evaluation forms are designed exactly like Dr. Longie recommends, with measurable goals, a meeting with the supervisor to discuss these, regular meetings for 'monitoring' with written follow-up. The problem is that those employees who meet their goals and those who consistently fail at them receive the exact same response - none. No one loses their job. Everyone gets the same raise each year. Promotions are given to whoever the manager feels most comfortable working with, regardless of performance.

On paper, this manager looks like the most ethical, competent person around, but she is just going through the motions.

It reminded me of a saying an old coach of mine used to have,
"It's all about the want-to ."

He said you could give an athlete all the skills in the world, you could train until the cows came home but in the end of a match, it all came down to did that athlete really want to win badly enough to pour heart and soul into it.

This manager has good technique, but the truth is that she doesn't really care about her employees. She cares about herself getting ahead and has down pat all the techniques to appear to be an ethical manager, but it isn't working for her.

Because you can't talk yourself out of problems you behave yourself into.
]]> http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2010/03/ethics-isnt-a-technique-damn-i.html http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2010/03/ethics-isnt-a-technique-damn-i.html Fri, 05 Mar 2010 01:40:37 -0500 Does Anyone Believe in Honesty ? "Commitment from the top is very important on this because this is what sets the tone of the company." Furthermore, he warns that if the commitment by top management isn't genuine, then an ethics program will not succeed. "If there's the slightest indication of cynicism on the part of top management," he cautions, "then it's all over."

This extremely true statement can be found about two-thirds of the way through the page from the Center for Ethics and Business at Loyola Marymount University, then the author goes on to another topic. Points for Dr. White for bringing this issue up, he is one of the few. However, he joins everyone else in the world in not giving this crucial fact nearly as much attention as it deserves.

If honest commitment to an ethics program is such a key point, and I agree that it is, why doesn't every consultant, every book, begin with that? My guess is that if they did that they would get a lot fewer payments from upper management. Almost everyone seems to want to believe that he or she is the most ethical person in the room, so no consultant wants to risk a large fee telling the director that if an ethics program fails it is probably his or her fault. In fact. while I hear managers and board members say that, as the people in charge, they take full responsibility, I am pretty sure they are thinking to themselves,
"I am smart and ethical and if the people working under me were not such bozos none of this bad stuff would have happened."

It's very interesting that the exact company mentioned in the case study by Dr. White is General Dynamics, which, in 1985 was found guilty of some not just unethical but criminal practices which resulted in members of senior management being indicted and the company suspended from federal contracting, not once, but twice. It's interesting because I used to work for General Dynamics and I left there in 1985.

I'd be very curious to know how this whole wonderful ethics program supposedly worked out with all of the same people there. I left, just coincidentally, because I was getting married, moving to another city and starting graduate school. There was no mass exodus of people from the company.  So, although the studies I read, written by consultants and professors at universities that would like to get donations suggest that the program has been successful, I remain skeptical.

A handful of senior managers did not defraud the government of hundreds of millions of dollars all by themselves. Hundreds of people knew about it, or at least suspected it. I was just a new, young engineer and I heard people voicing their suspicions. Many of the older managers joked about the over-charging and charging to the wrong contract. I am pretty good with computers (remember this was before Excel existed) and when I ran through some numbers and mentioned what I had discovered to management (what you're supposed to do, right?) only one person was shocked and surprised. He took it to his boss, he told him to drop it. He quit the company on the spot. I ended up married to that man, by the way.

So, now, all of a sudden a new "Vice-president for Ethics" is appointed and all of those people who looked the other way are now completely honest and ethical.

Excuse me for being skeptical.

]]> http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2010/03/does-anyone-believe-in-honesty.html http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2010/03/does-anyone-believe-in-honesty.html ethics honesty management Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:40:53 -0500 Don't Throw the Tribal Baby Out with the Bathwater I have worked on reservations since 1990 - that's twenty years of teaching, consulting, working as an evaluator, grantwriter. That certainly doesn't make me an Indian but it means that I can see b.s. most of the time - as in some people may have been discriminated against but other people didn't get their grant renewed because they wrote a terrible proposal, putting in half the time that would have been required and ignoring the instructions. (Hint: The federal government is pretty anal-retentive about people following instructions.)

It also means I have seen both the good and the bad. Over the past couple of decades I have seen more and more people getting higher education, including graduate degrees, and that is good. There seem to be more people getting professional jobs off the reservation, and then coming back home to work, bringing their skills with them. That is good, too.

Lately, a lot of "management expertise" is being promoted in the workplace and that can be both good and bad. Understanding balance sheets, standard accounting principles, all of that is not only good but it keeps you out of federal prison for misuse of funds.

HOWEVER, some of the latest management gurus I think just are not worth listening to. On this score, I may differ from Dr. Longie.

I get really fed up with those articles about delegation, for example, that tell managers they need to delegate repetitive tasks, detail work, information gathering and attending meetings because they need to save their valuable time. Native Americans of a great many tribes are rightfully known for their generosity. There are over 400 federally recognized tribes so there may be some known for their stinginess.  I can only say that I haven't encountered them.

This generosity takes many forms. One is giving of attention, treating each person's opinion as worthy of notice. As Erich has pointed out many times in his courses, a major difference between Sitting Bull and Custer styles of leadership is equal treatment. While Sitting Bull definitely led the Battle of Little Big Horn there is nothing to suggest that he believed he was superior to his people. Quite the opposite, he slept where they slept, ate what they ate. This lack of a rigid hierarchy is another quality I consider positive in many tribal organizations and why I have enjoyed working with them.

In keeping with these traditions, I would suggest that really effective delegation should help your employees as much as you. Tasks which are repetitive to you may be completely new to a less experienced employee. Being trained on something with a set procedure may allow that person to learn new skills, succeed and gain confidence. Sending an employee to a meeting in your place should also give that person a chance to meet other managers and get recognized for his or her knowledge, get experience running a meeting or in public speaking.

I am starting to think this more and more -  management strategies without ethics like generosity and honesty are not effective. More often, employees will see right through you, no matter how many management books you cite.
]]> http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2010/02/dont-throw-the-tribal-baby-out.html http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2010/02/dont-throw-the-tribal-baby-out.html generosity Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:55:11 -0500 What Kind of Furniture was in Sitting Bull's Office?
Too many managers act as if they and their workers aren't the same species. They employ expensive consultants (hey, that's us!) to tell them how to motivate their employees - praise, support, involvement, autonomy. What makes them think that the people who work for them are so different from themselves?

In the book, The Genius of Sitting Bull, the authors point to one of Sitting Bull's strengths as a leader, that he lived among his people. He knew exactly how ready his troops were to attack. He ate what they ate, slept where they slept. Living among them, he also had the same information they had. Custer, apart from his men and disdaining to listen to information from scouts was fatally uninformed.

Today, I walked through a building where the managers all have offices while their workers are in cubicles, some of them no more than a desk with a few inches of "wall" on each side. The managers have nice oak or cherry furniture while their workers have prison-grey steel desks and bookcases. I am sure this saved the organization a lot of money. Everyone is expected to work exactly eight hours a day and the lowest level employees are even required to ask their supervisors if they want to use the restroom. I asked someone, who was a very competent worker who had been there for years, to help me. As we passed his boss, he stopped briefly to explain why he was away from his desk helping me, a client !

In the tribal managers course, Dr. Longie quotes management researchers who stress the importance of "autonomy, support, recognition" in motivating employees. The managers I walked past today would argue they do all of those things. In fact, the very employee who was helping me had a certificate in his cubicle recognizing him as a "team player" or something.

As my children would say - I call bull shit on you.

Honestly, if you are a manager, you have designer furniture in your office while your staff are working with no privacy and you give them a ten-cent piece of paper you printed out on your printer as "recognition" and email them "atta-boy" three times a month - are you any different than Custer who referred to his men as "cattle"?

If you are a manager, take this quick quiz:
1. Name three people who work for you.
2. Now name three people who work for THEM who are doing a good job.
3. For each of those people list what is important to that person. What does he or she really like about the job? What does that person dislike the most?

I know a person who is head of an organization of about 300 people and very proud of the fact that he knows the name of every person working for him. What the hell difference does that make? This same person doesn't have a clue about the problems his employees face because he seldom leaves his office unless it is to meet with others at "his level", accompanied by one or two of his favorite employees who are constantly gushing about his brilliance and hands on approach. As you might guess, he has a very big, very nice office.

If you have an open door policy, how many people who are two or more levels below you in the organization ever actually walked through your door, sat down and talked to you about anything? Why not?

My first suggestion is to throw away half of your management books and look at what motivates you. If you have a great deal that your employees do not, you might ask yourself why you expect them to be so motivated.

My second suggestion is to quit reading management books and ASK your employees from time to time what concerns them. Don't do this in a carefully scripted public relations approach where the president meets with a large group of employees who "can ask me anything". Rather, invite workers to meet with you one on one and really listen to them.

After all, isn't that what you would want?



]]> http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2010/02/what-kind-of-furniture-was-in.html http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2010/02/what-kind-of-furniture-was-in.html management motivation Wed, 24 Feb 2010 01:58:51 -0500 Strength of Character, on Boards and Beyond
Character is a better description to me of what the Tribal Leaders Institute is about, doing the right thing every day to the best of our abilities. One "pillar of character" is perseverance. Josephson discusses this under "responsibility".

As a board member, you need a thick skin. The more involved you are on a board, as chair of a committee, on an executive committee or president, the thicker skin you are going to need. It may seem unfair - in fact, it probably IS unfair - that the more work you do the more criticism you will attract. Very, very few decisions will be appreciated by everyone. It may happen that a person has a completely wrong reason for criticizing you. The Director of the After-School program continually came in drunk. Last week, he was found passed out on the floor by two of the kindergarten students. So, you fired him.

Today, everyone is getting a note from a fellow board member saying that you don't care about youth because you have no children of your own, that money only goes to the elder programs because your mother needs assistance, and proof of how uncaring you are is that you cut off $60,000 in funding for the after school program.

The $60,000 happens to be the line item for the director who is the board member's brother. Your only child died seven years ago and your mother is in poor health. How could someone be so hurtful as to bring this up?

When you confront the board member she says,
"I am only telling the community the truth. You did vote for money for more programs for the elderly. I am sure you are concerned about your mother but that doesn't make it okay for you o cut funding for youth programs. Joe being my brother has nothing to do with it. I am just doing my responsibility as a board member to let people know the truth."

How do you deal with situations like this? Four answers that have worked for me:
  1. Be prepared. Realize this will happen again and again. Persevere. Remind yourself every day that perseverance is needed as a board member.
  2. Generosity. Try to consider whether the other person does have a point. Do you focus more on elderly programs? Is there a need for more funding for the youth programs? Have they been neglected.
  3. Don't take anything personally. This is often hard for me, but as I make a deliberate effort at it I am getting better. Those same people who are complaining about your actions would complain if someone else had made the same decision. When people are running you down it says more about them than about you and most people realize that. However, some people will believe the critics. Don't take that personally either.
  4. Take heart from people who are better than you. This one works for me a lot. I look at people who have survived and excelled in so much greater challenges than I do. Senator Max Cleland is one such example. After losing three limbs during a battle in Vietnam he went on to become a senator and spend a career in public service. Erich often discusses role models in Native American history, such as Sitting Bull. The tribal leaders wiki has articles added on more contemporary leaders, such as Wilma Mankiller. Whether it is President Obama or Tillie Black Bear, most of us don't need to look very far to find someone who has devoted ar more to public service than we have and be far more unfairly criticized. There is value in both learning from those role models how to handle adversity and in realizing how petty our own personal issues usually are.
]]> http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2010/02/strength-of-character-on-board.html http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2010/02/strength-of-character-on-board.html boards Criticism native americans Mon, 15 Feb 2010 14:07:06 -0500 How to Keep Your Honesty When Those around You are Losing Theirs
Susie had been at her new job for just over a year. Employees received 12 days of vacation the first year and 12 sick days. Guess what? Everyone was sick exactly 12 times each year.

As the end of her first year approached, Susie mentioned to her co-worker, Joe, that she had 12 days of sick leave and would start losing sick days if she did not use them by next year. Joe said,

"You must be stupid. Haven't you noticed that everyone takes one day of sick leave a month? Even the boss takes his 12 days a year!"

Talking to her cousin, Sam, she received the same advice,

"Why on earth wouldn't you take your sick days? Those are yours. You get those because you are a good employee and they want to keep you happy. It's not because they love you. Take next Monday off."

Susie decided that they were right. She had been working very hard lately and she was going to stay home from work next Monday. When she came in on Thursday to find that both Joe and her boss had called in sick, she was even more determined to 'quit being a sucker' as Joe called it. She even planned to get some shopping done.

Thursday night, her young son asked if he could stay home from school the next day to play with his new video game. Susie said,

"No. You're not sick. If I tell the teacher you're sick, that's lying. If you go back to school on Monday and say you were sick, that's lying. Lying is wrong."

Saturday morning, Susie was visiting with her dad and asked  him what he thought about taking sick leave. He put his coffee down, leaned back and said,

"Well, when I retired, I had 39 days of sick leave left. They were good to me so why would I want to &*!@ them over? What difference does it make if everyone else in the place is taking sick leave when they're not sick? That's their choice. You need to make your own choice. I got paid enough to take care of you kids. I had my vacation time. If I got sick, I took my sick leave. Why would I lie and take advantage of a policy? My sick leave was there if I needed it but I was lucky enough to be healthy.  Over the years, those other guys, they ended up getting two day suspensions here and there, getting written up, getting fired.  Remember when your grandma was sick? I said I needed two weeks to go to take care of her and when she passed on I called and said I needed another week and my boss just said to come back when I was ready. If you do right, people do right by you. Even if they don't, it's all about what kind of person you want to be."

Monday, as Susie was leaving for lunch, she happened to look over at Joe's empty desk. He was out sick again. On the way out, she stuck her head in the boss's office,

"Would it be all right if I come back a little late from lunch? My son just got a perfect attendance award and I promised to run into town and buy him another one of those video games he's crazy about."

The boss waved,

"Don't worry about it. Things are slow here. Take the afternoon off.I can manage by myself."

Leaving the building, Susie was thinking her dad would be proud of her and patting herself on the back for being a good example to her son. And Joe? She wasn't thinking of him at all.



]]> http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2010/02/how-to-keep-your-honesty-when.html http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2010/02/how-to-keep-your-honesty-when.html attendance honesty sick leave Fri, 05 Feb 2010 03:16:35 -0500 How Not to Become the Board Member You Ran Against Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

[Over a year ago, Erich wrote a blog on self-honesty/ self-awareness. He asked why, when most tribal members clearly know right from wrong do they engage in unethical behavior. He argued that part of it is unethical environments. When you see everyone coming in late, and it is hard for you to get up in the morning yourself, you start sleeping in. You have a lot of personal tasks to get completed (who doesn't) and everyone else takes an hour or two for lunch instead of half an hour. Why not you? It's a slippery slope. Initially, you compare yourself to others and say I'm ethical, I'm not like Joe who comes in an hour late and takes a two-hour lunch' Be careful because a few years from now people may be justifying their behavior by comparing themselves to you!

Where does this apply to board members? The new board comes in and they have friends who want positions, who want favors. There are people who have 'done them wrong' in the past and this is a chance to get even.

Why is this new president telling them they can't do that? Why did John get to put his friends in positions and give them favors and now that I am  a board member and my friends are much better and more qualified people than John's, you're telling me that I can't put them into positions? John paid his way to Hawaii from board funds and you want me to pay my own hotel room for the board meeting off site. How unfair is that?

Is it any wonder that soon the people who voted for us are saying that nothing has changed? The key is, as Erich points out, relentless self-honesty.

Here is an example from today. A board member, let's call her Louise, had continually been disparaging the director of a project, "Sam", and there had been other issues. When I mentioned to Sam some of  what Louise had been doing, Sam directed her to follow the chain of command and not take action without his approval. Louise was furious with me and said a lot of things I thought were pretty unnecessary. When I spoke to Erich about this he asked,

"Why didn't you just talk to Louise yourself?"

I replied,

"I did, so many times I am tired of it. This has been going on for a long time with her trying to undermine Sam."

Erich said,
"Then, the reason you did what you did wasn't necessarily that it was the right thing to do but because YOU were tired of dealing with Louise. So, maybe Louise is right to be mad at you. Maybe the right thing to do was to keep dealing with Louise even though you are tired of her. It sounds like a lack of perseverance on your part."

I started to protest that Sam had not deserved the lack of support from Louise but Erich cut me off with a story...

"I watched a movie once where these prisoners ended up mixed in with a group of rich people. One of the prisoners asked,
'We're bad people. We're supposed to act like this. What's your excuse?'

My point is that we have to show the proper respect and consideration even toward people who might be behaving badly at the moment. Talking behind someone's back, subverting the chain of command, ignoring policies and procedures - none of those things a person might do makes it okay for YOU not to confront the person directly, deal with him or her fairly and try to resolve the conflict. The hell of it is that person probably won't appreciate it and may be just as mad at you as if you had not continued to try to treat her fairly. That's not the point. The point is you have to treat everyone right. If it was a friend of yours, if it was me, would you have been too tired of dealing with it or would you have approached me yourself?"

RELENTLESS self-honesty. When someone hollers at you at a board meeting or outside of one, when people attack you, ignore the venom, ignore the shouting and try to honestly answer whether somewhere in there you are completely blameless. If you are at fault, try to fix it and if you can't fix it at least try to do better in the future. ]]> http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2010/02/how-not-to-become-the-board-me.html http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2010/02/how-not-to-become-the-board-me.html board members self-honesty Wed, 03 Feb 2010 01:34:31 -0500 Generosity vs. being a putz
jennsmall.jpg
My daughter, referred to in our family as "The Perfect Jennifer", is very smart. Today, I was discussing with her a question I have been wrestling with, that of being generous as a board president versus having the courage and honesty to remove people from positions when they are really not the right people. I asked,

"Where do you draw the line between being generous and just using generosity as an excuse not to make the hard decisions? I know people who say they are trying to build bridges with the opposition when I am pretty sure they are just too cowardly to face the conflict that would come up as a result.

On the other hand, I don't want to take it out on people just because they backed the other side in an election. It's like that blog I read the other day, talking about generosity of spirit, where she said that she resolved to try to understand other people's intentions and to realize that people on the opposite side may feel hurt and unhappy over conflict, too...

But, then, some people really DON'T have the best interests of the organization at heart, really do have selfish agendas. "

Jennifer said,
"You know, Mom, it sounds like you are trying to say where is the difference between generosity and being a putz. I say it is this... if what the person is doing is going to harm you personally or harm the organization, then they have to go. If it is just annoying, nagging at you, complaining or whining about your policies, and they happened to be on the side that voted against you, then you need to just let it go."

[If you didn't know what a putz is,  I wasn't sure either. I had to look it up. It is a yiddish word for an ignorant person, a person with poor judgment, a fool.]

So, I think there is your line. If this person is not damaging to the organization but is just critical of you personally, even if you think the criticism is unfair, let it go. Listen. There may be an element of truth in it. Respond kindly as best you can. If your opponent is being critical and negative because she or he feels hurt and not listened to, kindness is needed and warranted. Even if the person is being critical out of a general miserable, bitter personality, that's not the kind of person you want to be and so you don't want to respond in kind.

As with most ethical decisions, one of the main beneficiaries will probably be you. After all, wouldn't you rather fill your days with listening, generosity and kindness than the reverse?


]]> http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2010/02/generosity-vs-being-a-putz.html http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2010/02/generosity-vs-being-a-putz.html board members generosity president Tue, 02 Feb 2010 01:46:19 -0500 Learning to Give: A lesson for board presidents
"When you have won a victory it is time for you to be magnanimous."

Generosity. That's one of the four Dakota virtues Erich stresses in his ethics courses. In the book, The Genius of Sitting Bull, 13 Heroic Strategies for Today's Business Leaders, the authors state that Sitting Bull was a "healer", not in the medical sense but in the sense of healing conflicts among their people. They state,

"Leaders bestow beneficence, generosity and compassion upon their people. "

The first lesson, then, for a new board president is not to "out to get" those who voted against you.

  • Don't publicly embarrass them. Be honest with yourself, were you opponents really evil, incompetent people, or did they just want the same job as you? If they have good qualities your organization could use, emphasize that. Thank your supporters but don't disparage those who supported your competition.
  • If a person is qualified for a job, put him in it, whether he supported you or someone else.
  • Try to see the other person's point of view.

In a really interesting blog on generosity of spirit, Seraphine mentions the tendency in any conflict situation to focus on how others have hurt us and forget that there is more than enough hurt to go around. In fact, since your opponents lost, they are likely hurting more than you.

Seraphine resolves to "think the best of other people's intentions .. Even if their decisions are problematic or hurtful, I want my first assumption to be that they had a reason for what they did that seemed important. "

Following her advice has already helped me a little, in that I don't respond immediately to people who attack me as board president. I do try to understand their point of view and why they have taken such a position.

The next step is to follow Sitting Bull's model of healing the divisions within the group. That step, I think, is going to be harder.
]]> http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2010/02/learning-to-give-a-lesson-for.html http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2010/02/learning-to-give-a-lesson-for.html board members generosity president Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:30:43 -0500 Advice to Board Presidents: Look in the Mirror ! "You have to begin with changing yourself. That means having the self-honesty to look at what in yourself needs to be changed. No one's perfect."

Yet another one of those things easier said than done. No one's perfect. Who could argue with that? Dr. Erich Longie has a lot more experience being a successful board president than I do, so I tend to listen to him.

What do you want as board president? One thing is you want your fellow board members to trust you. BUT do you trust them? Here's Erich again:

"Sometimes as a president you don't communicate with your fellow board members because you don't trust them. That might be because you just don't know them well enough, in which case you need to have the generosity to give them the benefit of the doubt. Or you might have a reason to mistrust them in which case you need to be honest about it. Tell them you aren't giving them this information because you DON'T trust them."

Ouch.

Why don't we tell people what we honestly think about them? A lot of different reasons, I would imagine. We don't like conflict. We want people to like us. We want to be seen as a team player. In truth, we just don't want to face the consequences.

Yet, like the ACLU board member I quoted in my last post said, what is it that we are really afraid of, it's not like they're going to send you to Guantanomo.

So.... I will be honest and say here are what I think are my biggest faults as a board president.

  1. I don't trust my fellow board members very much. Sometimes it is for a good reason, e.g., they have leaked confidential information. Other times, though, it is just because I have been disappointed many times in life by completely different people who are not on this board. Because of this, I don't always share information with the other board members.
  2. When someone does something I consider unethical or incompetent, I seldom confront them about it. My reason is that I don't think it does any good and just causes conflict. Instead, I just ignore that person in the future. Maybe there is a way to turn those people around and get them back on track but I don't know how to do it. I am really fortunate that most of the people I work with are ethical and competent.
  3. Because I am not particularly trusting,  I try to do too much myself and don't delegate enough. I am happy to say that I am making some progress on that. The great part of it is that not only are other people stepping up and really showing their talents but it also gives me more time to do things like read books or go to the movies with my 11-year-old daughter.
  4. I sometimes blow things out of proportion.  I probably made the most progress on this one. My friend Bruce gave me a really good perspective when we were talking about a non-profit organization giving a certificate to someone who hadn't done much other than donate a lot of money. I said that it implied the person had more knowledge than they did. Bruce said,
"So what?!! Good! You have one rich idiot trying to impress a lot of other rich idiots showing off a piece of paper that costs your organization fifty cents. Then maybe his rich idiot friends will donate, too. Babe, what is the possible downside of that?"

I have found that by having the courage to face what are my biggest weak points as a board president has been half of the work of changing and becoming more effective.

And it only hurt a little.








]]> http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2010/01/trust-begins-at-home.html http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2010/01/trust-begins-at-home.html Mon, 11 Jan 2010 23:18:19 -0500 Worst Instincts: You CAN Learn Ethics from Books
The latest book I read, Worst Instincts, is about boards, particularly, the ACLU board.

The author, Wendy Kaminer, opens with a story from her childhood. A group of kids decided to steal another boy's notebook and destroy it, knowing he would get into a lot of trouble. Even though she knew it was very wrong, she went along with it, and when the boy came asking door to door if anyone had seen it, she was too ashamed to confess. What was she so afraid of that she would not  Fast forward many years and she is on the board of the American Civil Liberties Union. She asks this question,

"If you were on a golf team playing in a tournament where the winning team got a large donation to the charity of its choice and you noticed that one of your team members was cheating, would you do anything about it?"

Ms. Kaminer argues that most people would not turn in their teammate, justifying it by the fact that the charity would get money if the team won, the player would be embarrassed if disqualified, etc. She points out, though, that most people exaggerate the benefits and underestimate the costs of their failure of the courage to be honest. If your team was disqualified, some OTHER charity would get the money, it wouldn't be spent on programs supporting drug dealing. Yes, your teammate would be embarrassed  - but so what.

On to the issue of boards. Ms. Kaminer talks about her experiences as an ACLU board member. When she criticizes the board president, several other board members send her private emails praising her bravery.

The author is puzzled by this. She says,

"It's not as if I was going to be sent to Guantanomo (for criticizing the board president). "

In fact, she points out, all that was at risk was an unpaid position on a non-profit board. There are plenty of good non-profit organizations in this country working toward worthy causes. The worst outcome is that she would end up helping another organization instead of this one.

Given those facts, why do we so often see people display their worst instincts? Why do they fail to stand up against wrong actions by fellow board members? One example given by Kaminer is an agreement the board president signed regarding a violation of privacy. In short, it seemed that somehow information in the ACLU computer had not been kept as private as people expected. The key point was, though, in the legal settlement he signed the president agreed to share the information on this security violation and the settlement with the board within 30 days. He did not do it. In fact, he didn't do it until five months later when a board member confronted him about it.

The arguments Kaminer reported are the same ones we always hear,
"What's the big deal?"

She says that it IS a big deal when a board president does not share information with the board members even after signing a legal agreement to do so. 

I am president of a board, and having listened to a lot of Erich's lectures on self-honesty lately I got to asking myself if I always share all of the information with our board as expeditiously as possible. The truth, I have to say, is no. Like anyone, I am closer to some people than others, know some of my fellow board members more than others, trust some more than others and some people I talk to no more than I have to.

I gave it more thought and the hard truth came to me that what Erich is probably right when he always says that if you want change, you need to start with yourself.

Smart people, smart books. Guess that is how you learn.

]]> http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2010/01/worst-instincts-you-learn-can.html http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2010/01/worst-instincts-you-learn-can.html Mon, 11 Jan 2010 22:43:14 -0500 That's Just Stingy !
Erich said,

"I wouldn't call it false pride. That would just be stupid."

So, I tried another example I see often at meetings, where one person dominates the conversation. No matter what the subject, this person is continually putting himself or herself forward. This board member goes on at great length about MY opinion on this issue, MY ideas for how to deal with it, ME as chair of this committee, etc. It is not that these people don't have anything to offer. They are often knowledgeable, intelligent people. What they are missing, though, is the fact by completely dominating the attention of the group they are keeping other people from being heard, people who can have other ideas that may be equally good or better, people who can also make contributions.

Erich exclaimed,

"That's just stingy !"

I laughed because I think stingy is the most negative thing Erich can ever call anyone. While I have often thought of honesty and courage as being the most important ethical values, I have come to agree with Erich that all have their place. I think stinginess - the opposite of generosity - the small, petty, mean acts that take place within organizations can also cause failure. It's sort of the "death of a thousand cuts" where each act of gossip or stinginess just reduces the respect for the organization a little bit, just makes other board members or employees a little bit less interested in working for the organization. The irony of it is that those "stingy" people really do believe that they are the best thing to ever happen to their organizations.

So, maybe false pride and stinginess really are the same things sometimes?


]]> http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2010/01/thats-just-stingy.html http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2010/01/thats-just-stingy.html Sat, 02 Jan 2010 23:34:05 -0500 How Do You Say "Mean People Suck" in Dakota?
Once you become a board member, you will be giving of your time and talents to the community. Good for you! That is why you were elected or appointed. There is a reason it is called public service. I am going to assume that you are doing a fine, even an outstanding job. Unfortunately, I have seen people like you get burned out and discouraged by mean people. You can learn what to do through experience, your own or other people's. Try to learn through other people's experience whenever you can. It is less painful.

As a board member and consultant to boards, on and off reservations, I have had my experience with generosity, and with its opposite - meanness.

Most of us think of the common definition of "mean" as small-minded or not treating people decently. There is an older, related definition, though - stingy or selfish. You will come to learn as board member that your children are correct. Mean people really do suck.


Avoid Mean People

For some people, no amount you give will ever be enough. For example, I had someone send me an email on Christmas - demanding an answer. His question wasn't an emergency. He just wanted me to drop whatever I was doing on Christmas with my family and answer him because he wanted me to do it. What did I do? I made Christmas cookies with my daughters. (Well, actually they made them, but I ate them so that counts as a family activity, right?) 

This person will probably speak out against me at the next board meeting and say that I am unresponsive. That's okay. If people you serve as a board member don't believe you should be able to have any time to yourself, not even on Christmas, then those people lack generosity and are probably not the type of people you want to associate with.

 Other people demand 100% agreement. You can vote on the same side as them 99 times out of 100, but that 100th time, when you vote with the opposition, they are outraged and the next thing you know, they are trying to get you recalled.

Decisions about Mean People

Sometimes mean people can sound almost reasonable. (Imagine this said in the most whiny voice possible ... )

"I called you because you are on the board. People like you are supposed to be providing a public service. If you did not want to help people out why did you run for the board instead of letting somebody who is really committed have that seat?"

Notice the person doesn't even acknowledge the fact that it is 11 p.m. on Saturday night.

You are on a board to serve your community but you don't owe any one person or even the whole community your entire life. If this was a regular job, you would have holidays off, sick days and not be expected to work 24-7 .  If you can, simply do the best you can and don't give these people another thought. Turn off your cell phone after 10 p.m. and go back to baking Christmas cookies. Odds are, the majority of the people you serve appreciate your efforts and appreciate how generous you are with your time, and they, in return, are not overly selfish n their demands.

If you are in an organization or on a board that consists of mostly mean people, consider quitting and going somewhere else. Maybe that sounds like quitting - well, it is quitting, I just used that word, didn't I?  In the book, "Business as a game" one of the best chapters has the title, "Never play with a stacked deck."

One way mean people take advantage of others is by playing on those very ethics, the generosity that motivates you to give of yourself, the perseverance that makes you unwilling to give up.

If you find yourself the minority in a group of mean people, there is no win for you. They will keep demanding more and more from you than is reasonable to expect you to give. As Erich always says in his ethics courses, you can't change other people, you can only change yourself.

Walk away.  Left behind you will be a whole group of takers, each trying to get the others to do more for ME, to please ME, to agree with ME.  Can that group ever succeed? No.

Does this mean that you are letting down people in the community who you could help? No, again. Someone with your willingness to give of yourself for the good of the community will be welcome many places. Find one of them and leave the mean people behind.

When I gave a very frustrated young man this advice, he protested,

"But, Dr. De Mars, that way, won't the mean people win? And won't I lose?"

I asked him,
"Do you really think so? What exactly do they win? What exactly do you lose?"

Think about it.

]]> http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2009/12/how-do-you-say-mean-people-suc.html http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2009/12/how-do-you-say-mean-people-suc.html Sat, 26 Dec 2009 01:39:26 -0500 Life Goes to the Slowest Winner
Certainly those who are are unethical persevere. Erich and I were discussing this today and he pointed out that people who have an unethical reason to be on a board, whether they are taking a salary, paying a relative, misusing the expense money or just for the ego of it, will fight hard to stay in that position.

In a podcast a year or so ago, What if we succeed?, I asked Erich what would happen if the Tribal Leaders program worked and everything was exactly as he desired. He said,

"We would put aside all the petty fighting that we are doing right now and we would take a place in society that is rightfully ours. Right now, we are kept .... at the bottom of the totem pole because we don't have these values. "

What do you get from living those values - honesty, courage, perseverance and generosity ? If you ever read the Tribal Leaders Forum section on Susie Sainte, you'll see that it doesn't win you prizes every day. Sometimes the Susies of the world are fired, quit, turned down for a promotion, because they refuse to compromise with unethical behavior. Erich has written a number of posts about calling lying what it is , but that doesn't always win you friends. It's callled being "abrasive" or "uncompromising" or "not a team player".

In the long run (and I am old enough to have  had a pretty long run), character counts. Erich mentioned having people support him for a position,
"Because they knew from my reputation that I had more integrity than the  other person."

Several years ago, Erich and I had worked as partners on a number of grant evaluations, and I was also, on my own, having a lot of success writing grant proposals. A couple of people came to me and told me that I would get more business if I didn't work with Erich, since he had made some political enemies at the time. I just shrugged. Erich and I are friends. He had been a support for me my first year teaching at the tribal college, when my husband died and many times I don't even remember any more. It was an easy decision. If I made $10,000 or so less that year, oh well. In the long run, both Erich and I have made many times that amount. And I have the integrity of a person who does not sell out her friends.

It is not just money. I was thinking of what I might want to do as the next step in my career. My husband said, "Well, what do you like to do the most?"

It occurred to me that what I like to do most is spend time with people I really enjoy and care about. I have a LOT of good relationships, with friends I have known for ten years or more, with my adult children, with my husband. Those relationships are built by perseverance. My children are a journalist, an Olympic athlete, a graduate student at a top university and a middle school student who makes the honor role and is on the student council. As every parent, I have made my share of colossal mistakes. It's not the fact that you screwed up once this week (or today) that is crucial; it is the sum of the thousands of times you put your children first, were honest with them, had the courage to say no, the generosity to give them your time.  (Let me add that I have had my days - sometimes years - with each of my children !) It is the perseverance to never give up on them.

That business cliche "at the end of the day" - I hate that. It's not at the end of the day that counts. It's at the end of childhood, career, in the middle of your life, at your 25th anniversary, that's when you can see that ethics wins out.

]]> http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2009/12/life-goes-to-the-slowest-winne.html http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2009/12/life-goes-to-the-slowest-winne.html Sun, 20 Dec 2009 00:16:47 -0500 Cobell: A role model in perseverance
The major event was the U.S. Department of Interior settling for $3.4 billion the claims of 300,000 Native Americans who were owed payments on trust land. As the article said, this claim lasted through four secretaries of the Department of the Interior, for thirteen years. Elouise Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet , was the lead plaintiff in the case. How many times could she have wondered whether it made any sense to go on. Here she was taking on the federal government with its enormous funds for lawsuits, buildings full of lawyers. She didn't give up for 13 years. That is amazing.

retirement_rocks.jpgErich talks about "four tradition values of our ancestors", of courage, honesty, perseverance and generosity (actually, as I remind him sometimes, those are his ancestors. My ancestors are from the Caribbean, where the four values are rum, tropical vacations. Miss Universe and oil.) Often, it seems to me that we emphasize two of those values more in our courses, courage and honesty.

Yet, here in Cobell's case we see the great importance of perseverance. The saying, "You can't fight city hall" might be based in this idea that they can just keep on going for what seems like forever. They can have more hearings - 192 trial days - keep requesting documents - 3,600 filings over A MILLION PAGES of documents. And yet, she didn't give up. Ms. Cobell is my new hero.

Two lessons are to be learned here. One is the great importance of perseverance but the second is that unethical people can persevere as well.

The smaller issue that came up was on a board of which I was a member. There had been concerns about people getting promoted because they had connections, knew the right person (sound familiar?). The new promotion committee was charged with enforcing policies, no matter what, and were told the board would be behind them. When they turned down someone close to a board member for promotion, that was brought up over and over by the member. The majority of the board supported the committee.

Here is where I screwed up. That member asked me about bringing the issue back to the committee and my response was,

"It couldn't hurt. You can approach the committee and give them your side of the story."

Now, I realize, I was wrong. The committee acted on what they believe was right. The board supported them. What I should have told this board member was,

"No! The committee made a decision, the board supported it and that is final."

Unethical people show perseverance as well and we need to show perseverance in standing up against them.
]]> http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2009/12/cobell-a-role-model-in-perseve.html http://www.spiritlakeconsulting.com/intranet/blog/2009/12/cobell-a-role-model-in-perseve.html Sun, 13 Dec 2009 23:23:06 -0500