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LSB: Oh, yes. And then you have the personality of one or more of the parties – they were what they were when they chose to be an engineer. In other words, they were a left-brain person. And now they are in a situation where they need to resolve conflicts on a project, and many times it may not have anything to do with engineering. CAM: And that’s part of what the partnering process is all about, right? Learning, or re-learning how to resolve conflicts quickly to keep the project moving. LSB: I found at ADOT, and many other large organizations, that they need to spend more time talking about and learning about and teaching leadership so that they understand how to do these things. Don’t get me wrong, there were and are many great leaders at ADOT and other large organizations. But it needs to be widespread. This isn’t just survival of the fittest. This is about people helping other people do what needs to be done. A theme of mine, in my classes, is that if you can’t teach, you can’t lead. CAM: It seems like we don’t hear the word “teacher” much in supervisory classes. LSB: Think of it this way: If I’m your leader, and I’m about to send you on a task about which you don’t know everything there is to know about it, but I do, then I need to be able to teach you and coach you to motivate you to go out and complete the task successfully. But it’s not as easy as it sounds. CAM: But organizations don’t always think that way, do they? I’ve seen plenty of examples over the years of topdown, command-and-control management. LSB: Let’s talk about big organizations for a minute. One of the big mistakes many of them make is sort of a systemic approach. They equate people and resources with achieving the mission. In other words, the more people you have under you, the higher grade you are. Isn’t that generally correct? CAM: Yes. Particularly in government. It often seems like the answer to every question is “more funding” or “more people” and, of course, more taxes to pay for it. Within a bureaucracy, it is sometimes called “empire-building.” LSB: Right. And then when you convince somebody that your workload has grown, you get more people, and you also need an assistant. It starts with self-interest, and things get bigger, and so-forth. CAM: So, we’re not going to cure world hunger in this article, or even reinvent government. But what can be done at the office level, at the branch level? How do we make sure we have the right people in the right slots? Give us an example of deploying leadership. 26
LSB: Let’s say we have a group of electrical engineers. Now I have a vacancy and I’m leaving and I need to select my replacement, so I select the best electrical engineer from among my group. But he’s not the best leader. He doesn’t know people, but, boy, does he know electrical engineering! So he takes charge. He says, “We’re going to do it my way” and “you can’t do it that way, I’ll show you.” He is the smartest of the bunch. He is the best electrical engineer, so if they’re going to be all they can be, he’s going to work with this one and that one, and everyone has to do it “this way.” Pretty soon you become bogged down. Now you are going slow. I wrote this book called “Partnering Leadership Keys,” and the idea comes from golf. In golf you have to have “swing keys.” If you don’t have swing keys in golf, you won’t make it. Well, some of those swing keys are also leadership keys. And one of those is a loose grip. In golf you have to have a loose grip. That same is with people. So getting back to the electrical engineers, this new guy has a pretty strong grip because he’s got to. He’s got to keep his reputation, so he has a very tight grip on his people. Well, he’s controlling his people. The problem is, control is an illusion. In the 1990 movie “Days of Thunder,” Nicole Kidman’s character says to Tom Cruise, “Control is an illusion you infantile egomaniac.” She was letting him know, there’s really no such thing as total control, even though we sometimes like to think there is. CAM: A classic movie line! LSB: When I heard that line I want back to my ADOT managers and I told them about it. That’s the key point. To continue the racing theme, champion race car driver Mario Andretti once said, “If everything seems under control, you’re not going fast enough.” So, this hypothetical young man, who is the world’s greatest electrical engineer, he’s controlling his people far too much, and they are turning out a product, but probably later than it needs to be, and not as good as it could be. So he needs to loosen up. He’s got to have a loose grip. He’s got to understand that their “good way” is just as good if not better than his “good way.” He’s got to coach them and teach them, and accept some mistakes along the way. CAM: To that point, isn’t it scary for the person who has been the “super worker,” when they were solely responsible for their reputation, and then to step into the role of a “supervisor,” when their reputation is in the hands of others? They have to learn to trust others. LSB: That’s well said. CAM: But it requires relinquishing control, which can be very uncomfortable for many people, especially at first. [ Continued on page 28 ]
California Asphalt Magazine • 2016 Leadership Issue
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