Let’s talk about an overlooked and somewhat misunderstood area of problem-solving: attitude. Yes, yes, life is whatever-percent of what happens to us, and whatever-percent of how we deal with it. Got it, thanks. And yes, people seem to be labeled as either positive or negative in terms of their perspective. Someone is either a “glass is half-empty” person, or a “glass is half-full” person. Right now you might be labeling me as negative because I listed “glass is half-empty” first (see how I messed with you like that?). In all seriousness, I am neither half-full nor half-empty. Instead, I consider myself a “flat-tire” person.
Think of a time when you had a flat tire. You were undoubtedly on your way to somewhere important like work, a meeting, or the grocery store. Perhaps your vehicle was loaded to the top with vacation gear and your family, and you ended up playing Frogger on the interstate while dealing with a flat. Regardless of your destination or the timing, you obviously had to get somewhere or you would not have been in the car in the first place. Therefore, a flat tire is always a big problem. The tire goes flat, and you go through the range of reactions and emotions, standing there with your hands on your hips while staring at the flat – perhaps letting fly a few choice words as well. It’s human nature. Eventually, you realize that it’s not going to fix itself, so you get busy changing it – or calling someone else to come do it for you. Either way, it’s up to you to rectify the situation. While lost in that moment of flat-tire funk did you ever stop to consider how fortunate you are that you have air in the other three tires? One is down, sure, but the other three are ready to roll. Of course not. You’re a leader, and it’s your job to solve problems – who has time to appreciate the three good tires?
I think this is a big miss for leaders. We tend to be so focused on the problem, challenge, or task at hand that we completely whiff when it comes to recognizing the positives. This is me and my leadership style in a nutshell. I constantly find myself zeroing-in on the next hurdle and how I am going to attack it. When that happens, I do not usually take time to recognize the good things that are happening around me. Not only does this affect my perspective and psyche as a leader, but it also affects the perspective and psyche of my team. How? Because every organization takes on the personality of its leader. If my staff sees me only focusing on the flat tires and not celebrating the good stuff, they will ultimately do the same. Over time, we’ll find ourselves drifting dangerously closer to “half-empty” territory, inadvertently creating a negative work environment. It’s odd to me that it doesn’t take much effort to slip into a half-empty mentality – yet it takes intentionality to maintain a half-full mentality. Personally, I have to be intentional about stopping to smell the roses with my team, or it won’t happen.
That’s why I like the flat-tire mentality – it allows for a realistic perspective on every situation by forcing you to fully acknowledge the ugly within the context of the beauty that surrounds it (and vice versa). If you only look for the bad in every situation, you will only find the bad. Conversely, if you only wish to see the good in every situation, that’s all you will see. Either way, you will be left with a distorted view of reality that will affect the decisions you make for your organization. So take the time to recognize the good with your team, then get to work changing that tire – you won’t get far until you do.
You may know someone in your life who is beyond half-full, someone who is more “overflow” than anything. They are so full of sunshine that you want to throw up whenever they start talking about how wonderful everything is. They won’t acknowledge it in your presence, but you just know there are problems in there somewhere. You may have referred to that person as a “Pollyanna” because of their sickeningly-positive outlook. I once worked for a leader who fit that mold perfectly. In a moment I will give you some examples you can learn from, but first I want to clear-up a misconception about good ‘ol Pollyanna.
In case you don’t know, Pollyanna is a character from a novel written in the early 1900s, made and remade into a movie many times. Pollyanna only saw the good in every situation, mostly ignoring every possible negative. She called it the “Glad game”. Her attitude was so positive, she eventually influenced those around her to only see the good. Everyone she met basked in the rainbows and unicorns that flowed from her over-the-top attitude. This is where we get the term “Pollyanna”, referring to the unbalanced “positive” perspective on things. Do you think being a “Pollyanna” is healthy for a leader? Based on what we just read, probably not. But there is a critical part to the story that most people do not address.
One day, Pollyanna loses the use of her legs due to a terrible accident. She is faced with a sobering reality, and her once sunny attitude dramatically changes. Rather than playing her Glad game, she fully recognizes her “problem”. She also finds herself surrounded with encouragement from the people in her life that care about her (more on encouragement later). In time, she learns to find the good in her situation by being glad that she once had legs that worked. She also recognizes that the remainder of her body works like it should. Then she gets down to the business of fixing her problem, and learns to walk again.
When we look at the full story, we see that Pollyanna is a flat-tire person, is she not? Honestly, she would have driven me crazy early on, had she been my leader. But once she acknowledged her problem and began to tackle it head-on, I would have been first in line to follow her.
I once followed a leader who only had the first half of Pollyanna’s perspective. Everything was wonderful even when it wasn’t. Every single positive was accentuated ad nauseam. Most problems were ignored or disregarded. His style was the definition of “whistling past the graveyard”. It was impossible to get a straight answer from him on the status of anything because everything was terrific in his view. If you objected or asked pointed questions (like I often did), he either said nothing or told you what you wanted to hear. But nothing ever changed. Over time, I either stopped asking or simply tuned-out because the words simply didn’t matter anymore. In my eyes and the eyes of many others, his credibility as a leader was hanging by a thread. Even worse, his refusal to outwardly acknowledge financial problems with his staff - and hold them accountable for their part - ultimately resulted in downsizing the staff and all but abandoning a multi-million dollar project. Ouch.
It’s perfectly fine and extremely important to acknowledge the positives as long as it’s done realistically – and you are willing to balance the positive by facing (and fixing) your problems. And yes, I think in certain situations there could be value in shielding your people from terrible news. However, if you hired the "right" people, shouldn't you be able to creatively and collaboratively include them in your problem-solving exercises? You'd be foolish not to.
Pretty much everything worthwhile goes forward under semi-chaotic conditions, mostly because you just can’t flip the business switch to "OFF". Like a hockey team, you have to change on-the-fly in real time. Your people don’t need a cheerleader for that: they need a leader who can cheer them on as they celebrate the good while smoothing bumps and removing barriers.
Picture yourself driving a carload of passengers while one of your tires is flat. You can pretend it's not flat, but everyone else knows the truth. It's pretty hard to lead effectively if you aren’t honest with your followers, especially if they know the reality of the situation, yet see you continuinally ignoring it.
Thanks for reading.
J.
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