Griggs: Lead with talent, don’t manage by torment

Fresh from school and new to the high tech industry, my boss approached while colleagues and I chatted in the hallway. He leaned into the group and said with dry grimness, “Griggs, I’d like to see you in my office.” As he turned and walked away, eyebrows raised and heads slowly turned. My work buddies predicted a sour outcome.

Too many leaders manage by torment. My fists and teeth gently clench each time I’m trapped at the projector or in the lunch line during a consulting or training day. Many of the whispered and truncated stories go like this: the leader is causing the problem; we’ve tried everything; we don’t have performance measures and; they’ve done this before.

Good books are like good leaders — they’re honest and filled with integrity. Great books are diligently written, edited and proofed. And then, there’s the re-writing, re-editing and re- proofing. Like good leadership, a book may take years until the product is well-refined and appropriately delivered to a specific audience. Here are some refreshing leadership stories.

Presence — A director at Lucent Technologies flew 2,000 miles to show executive presence at a training class I delivered to one of his teams. He had no other priority other than to show support and enthusiasm for what his people were learning.

Courtesy — The plant manager at Anheuser Busch InBev thoughtfully asked my permission to join in on a training class wanting to ensure his presence would not interrupt the flow of the day.

Attendance — A director at Hewlett-Packard registered himself and his entire team for a 10-month leadership mastery academy. He had near-perfect attendance except for a single family emergency.

Participation — The maintenance manager at La Sierra Academy allowed student employees to select the parts of projects they would like to use for personal learning. He built in the learning curve and reasoned that happy, productive student employees would more than pay for gentle delays.

Teams — As department head with the city of San Ramon, Calif., this manager understood team building and team development. She allowed her team to get to know each other over bowling, ball games and chili cook-offs. This team building had no specific work goal other than to let people know and understand each other. Her team development programs used exercises and simulations to polish defined work skills.

Transparency — The executive director of the American Animal Hospital Association listened to specific vendor complaints, brought together all parties and aired the issue with total (almost uncomfortable) transparency. He kept the loyalty to his employee while honoring the vendor’s perceptions.

Foundation — During the early days and prior to starting classes, cisco Systems (with a small “c”) gave their professional development consultants thorough tours of the manufacturing facility. This close look at their unique assembly process allowed the trainings to align with the plant’s mission and vision.

Humanity — A young division manager at Apple Computer had tight goals and a fast pace. He reasoned that this made it all the more important that he take his people off-site and provide them with life enhancing skills that would serve them well as individuals and protect their health.

Honor — The leadership at Lam Research purchased a startup run by three entrepreneurs. After the acquisition, Lam provided flexibility and control to the three founders such that their original motivation intensified and continued to innovate as part of a larger team.

Following my bosses hallway utterance, I gingerly sat in his office awaiting disaster. The replay in my head scanned what I’d done wrong, said wrong or how I’d been wrong. He sat and cheerfully said, “Hey, I just wanted to chat with you. How’s it going.”

Rick Griggs is the former Intel Corp. training manager and inventor of the rolestorming creativity tool. He speaks on mastery, balance and innovation. rick.griggs83@gmail.com.

on Facebook on LinkedIn