Effective Leadership: Dogs, elephants and snow banks

The area in which I live was pummelled with snow over the past few weeks. Since December 18th we've recieved over 60 inches of snow! Needless to say, that's alot of snow. Most of us lucky homeowners have spent much of the last few days shoveling off our roofs in the hopes of avoiding a collapse. Well all of this roof clearing means nearly all the homes in my neighborhood are encircled by five-foot berms that, after daily thawing and nightly freezing, are now impenetrable, rock-hard mini mountains.

My dog Brandy, a shepherd/husky mix, has discovered that the chank link fence in our back yard which is about 4 1/2 feet tall without snow is now effectively about a foot high. She just scampers up the snow mound and hops right over the fence to freedom. Here's the funny part. Brandy would have never thought of jumping over the fence if the snow mounds had not provided her the opportunity. I've removed all the snow from the part of the fence where she's been escaping but guess what? she can still jump over the 4 1/2 foot fence! She could have been jumping over the fence for the past two years that we've had her but the thought never occurred to her. She WAS conditioned to stay within the confines of the yard. But now she sees that that measley little 4 1/2 foot fence need not keep her from exploring the big wide world! All thanks to the lousy snow!

This reminds me of a little story I've heard about training elephants. (I'm not positive it's true but it's a great analogy so stick with me.) When training baby elephants the trainers will cuff a large chain to the elephant's ankle. The other end of the chain is fastened to a large stake which is pounded deep into the ground. The chain and the stake are so strong that there is no way the baby elephant can escape. The little elephant learns very quickly just how far he can walk until the chain stops him. As the elephant grows he is conditioned to being staked. By the time the elephant is fully grown the trainer no longer has to use a big chain and stake. In fact he can use a flimsy rope barely nailed into the ground - anything to just remind the elephant that they are restrained. That elephant's brain is conditioned to believe he can't "escape" because he's staked - even if that stake is so flimsy he could pull it out with little effort.

Do we as leaders ever negatively "condition" our employees? We probably wouldn't do it intentionally, but I think we probably do it more than we realize. How might we be conditioning our reps? It might sound like this: "Oh, nobody's ever been able to achieve that! Maybe you'd better rethink your goals." Or maybe there are operational or process issues that condition our employees. I remember a former employer of mine would always have a "fire sale" at the end of every quarter. They were always short of hitting their quarterly sales figures so they would offer deep discounts. Both the reps and the customers were conditioned to expect big promos and discounts at the end of each quarter. Why should an agent try to hold top margin when he or she knows the company is going to slash prices at the end of the quarter? Whey should a customer cut a purchase order now when they know they can get a much better price by merely waiting until the end of the quarter?

Think about ways in which your organization might be negatively conditioning its employees and what you can do to help change that trend. Me? I'm going to go find my dog who is roaming the neighborhood at this very moment...

From the bookshelf....

Over the weekend I read Ayn Rand's Anthem. If you happen to be a fan of the rock group Rush you'll notice that drummer/lyricist Neil Peart "borrowed" from this book quite heavily for the band's concept album 2112. This is a great book and really makes you think about the concepts of individualism and collectivism. I'm sure there's a leadership lesson to be learned from Anthem also...but I'm too tired to think about it right now. Anyway, this is a great introduction to Rand's works. (I highly recommend the Rush album as well!)