Loss of a Mentor

Loss of a mentor.

Recently an old mentor and former high school teacher passed.  I've thought a lot about crucial moments in my life, single points that cascade and create your life and my experiences with Sergeant Major Gunter is such a point.  

Over twenty-six years ago a frightened young man walked into a class room on his first day of high school.  There stood a man who may have only been five foot six actual feet but commanded a full seven feet in presence.  A Vietnam War veteran and Green Beret who wore his class A uniform with a pair of jump boots that shined like liquid glass.  

I learned so many valuable lessons from him over the next twenty six years of my life.  He taught me more about leadership in three years of high school than I have learned since.  Leadership is self control; how true this seemingly simple sentence is.  I've learned as a leader that control, external control that is, is largely an illusion.  As leaders we allow ourselves to believe we are in control but it is a lie we tell ourselves.  In fact all I can ever control is myself.  

As a supplemental lesson he would tell us, "relax to the point of self control".  I used to have an incredible fear of heights and part of our class involved rappelling.  The act of hanging onto a pair of strings and hang off the side of a rock or building and jumping down to the bottom.  Learning to rappel was about more than just tying knots and Swiss seats.  It was about learning how to relax  to the point of self control.

Rest in Peace Sergeant Major.

The measurement or the measured.

I've thought a a lot recently about metrics.  I've heard the phrase, if it can't be measured it isn't worth doing. While I don't disagree what I have found is, when you focus only on the measurement the important thing we are measuring is lost.

The activity matters more than the measurement. The measurement should reflect the activity and provide meaningful insight.  Rather too often we just focus on the measurement because it is easier. There are so many things to measure.  Technology allows us to measure more and more each day.  We have so much data that we don't even know where to begin or what we are actually measuring. Meanwhile managers get smarter on manipulating the measurement, so that the measurement becomes meaningless. We are measuring how well managers can manipulate the measurement process not how well the manage the process.

As leaders we should focus instead on what measurements are important and ensuring we communicate this to our management teams. The value of the measurement is in assessing the efficacy of the process. We have to allow our managers the ability to report bad metrics free of fear, confident that leadership will help address the underlying process issues. Otherwise we are lying to ourselves and worse creating am environment where we encourage our managers to become dishonest.

When we focus on putting the right people in the right place with the right process and the ability to react the measurement takes care of itself.