Take the High Road in Office Politics

If you haven’t worked in the military or alongside the military as part of a larger operation, you may think that the danger of being in a warzone or the importance of the overall mission may supersede the political games people often play in organizations.

I wish that were true. 

I was part of NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan (NTM-A) from December 2012 to December 2013. I quickly learned upon my arrival was that NTM-A comprised myriad types of people from myriad groups around the world. In general, however, there were three groups: the military and members of national police forces (from many countries), U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) civilians, and civilian contractors. Many of the DoD civilians were part of a group known as Ministry of Defense Advisors, or MoDAs. 

The MoDAs were participants in a special program that trained experienced government civil servants and retired military personnel to be advisors to the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan.
 
Doug (not his real name) was a MoDA. He was a GS-15, which refers to the U.S. government pay grades for civilians. It also means that he was roughly the civilian equivalent of a U.S. Army colonel or U.S. Navy captain. That’s important because it means he outranked me at the time by two levels. Doug was also former military, so he knew about rank structure, and he frequently used it to his advantage. 

Being a relatively friendly (I think) person who advised Afghans in similar areas as Doug, I would sometimes discuss matters with Doug and work with him on various issues. One of my main areas that I was working upon was literacy, because about 70 percent of the Afghan National Police either couldn’t read at all or couldn’t read at a level high enough for them to do their job. That makes it kind of hard to enforce laws and be a good police officer. 

The Afghan police colonel whom I advised—a friendly, animated, jet-black-bearded man in his 40s or early 50s of Pashtun ethnicity—needed his boss at the Afghan Ministry of Interior to authorize him to do anything related to literacy training for the police. This highlights one of the many frustrating aspects about working within the Afghan governmental structures: Everything was highly centralized. That means that decision-making happened at a much higher level than is typical in most U.S. organizations. 

Instead of a colonel just “getting things done,” he’d need to get his boss to approve, and often he’d need his boss’ boss to approve. One wrong misstep would cost the colonel his job, and maybe more. This fact made progress slow and significantly concentrated power at higher levels within the Afghan bureaucracy. 

Doug’s job was to mentor my Afghan colonel’s boss, who was an overweight, clean-shaven lieutenant general of Hazara background who had a habit of avoiding direct eye contact and often looked rather sleepy.  Because Doug mentored him, I could sometimes get my Afghan colonel to do things by asking Doug to tell his Afghan lieutenant general to tell my guy to take action. So Doug and I had a limited-yet-amicable history of working together. 

The problem was that Doug had the habit of often trying to get people who didn’t directly work for him (like me) to do work that he should be doing himself. One week in late July 2013, Doug mentioned to me that his Afghan lieutenant general would be convening a “literacy working group” on the following Saturday to address literacy training issues within the police. I replied that it sounded like a good idea, and that he should tell his lieutenant general to be sure to invite my Afghan colonel. Although he didn’t directly say it, Doug implied that I should be at the meeting as well. 

The problem with me attending that meeting, however, was three-fold. First, the meeting was at the Ministry of Interior, a location to which my unit didn’t typically travel. So going there would present a logistical issue in terms of transportation. Second, if I attended the meeting, I would be implicitly reinforcing the notion that NTM-A would do most of the work—work that needed to transition to the Afghans. Third, and most importantly, being present at the meeting would perpetuate the notion—both on the Afghan and NTM-A sides—that literacy training for the police was an issue to be relegated to one single, relatively powerless Afghan colonel. Instead, the lieutenant general at the Ministry of Interior, Doug’s guy, needed to own the program for it to be successful. 

As such, Saturday came and went. I didn’t attend the meeting. I fully expected that Doug would be annoyed that I didn’t do what he wanted, but for the good of the program overall, I was fine with that. I also fully expected Doug to confront me on my lack of attendance the following day. I discussed this on Sunday morning with my Dutch officemate, a friendly major with an equal appreciation for cigarettes and coffee. Sure enough, within the next 30 minutes, my phone rang. I could tell by the phone number that appeared on my phone that it was Doug. 

I looked over at my Dutch colleague and said, “Watch this.”

“Good morning, Doug! How are you doing, my friend?” I said with over-caffeinated exuberance. 

Silence. 

An awkward pause. 

“Lieutenant Commander Baran, we missed you at the meeting yesterday.” I could tell that my friendliness had taken him off guard. “Oh, wow, Doug, I didn’t know I was invited.” 

Another awkward pause. “Well, your guy was there, and it was all about literacy, which is your thing.” 

“So, Doug, is this literacy working group going to meet again?,” I said. “Because if so, it really needs to be driven by your guy’s office.” 

“Yeah, I’ll let you know. I think they have another meeting planned soon.” 

“Sounds great, Doug. Keep me in the loop for sure. Have a great day.” 

“You too, commander.” 

Click. 

The conversation took less than 45 seconds. If I had gone with my default attitude—my initial evaluation of the situation—I would have most likely been annoyed and somewhat confrontational. That would have come through in both what I said and how I said it. The conversation would have likely turned out poorly, and my working relationship with Doug would have suffered. 

More importantly, our mission with the Afghans would have suffered as a result. 

But because I deliberately chose to shift my attitude toward something positive, it caught Doug off guard. Much like a jiu jitsu fighter uses his opponent’s momentum to win the match, taking the high road with a positive attitude can quickly shift how people react to us. 

Doug and I continued to have a productive working relationship after this small incident. I’m confident that it had much to do with the attitude that I chose to own as it pertained to him and our work together. 

Don’t get me wrong—it’s hard to choose your attitude in situations like this. I’ve failed in this exercise far more times than I’ve succeeded. 

But being the “bigger person” frequently involves swallowing your pride and truly considering the long-term implications of how you interact with and treat those around you.       

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About Ben Baran
Ben Baran, Ph.D., is probably one of the few people in the world who is equally comfortable in a university classroom, a corporate boardroom and in full body armor carrying a U.S. government-issued M4 assault rifle. Visit: www.benbaran.com.

Ben is also the author of the e-book, The Navy’s 11: Reflections and tips for leaders everywhere based upon the U.S. Navy’s Leadership Principles. It’s full of ...

• Leadership guidance, based upon the U.S. Navy's Leadership Principles, which have been used to create and sustain the greatest navy known to humankind;
• Real-world examples, based upon my nearly 20 years of experience with the U.S. Navy and a decade of academic research combined with business consulting;
• Actionable tips, meant to help you implement the leadership principles in your daily life and work; and
• Much more!

Click here to get your FREE copy today.

What Leaders Can Learn From Mr. Olympia

Imagine that you’re about to interview for the job of your dreams. Or that you’re about to give a high-stakes presentation. Or take an important test. Or simply focus on getting a few things done in the next hour. 

What are you thinking? What are you telling yourself in your mind? 

If you’re anything like 8-time Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman, you’re telling yourself, “Ain’t nothin’ to it but to do it.” 

Coleman is widely considered one of the greatest bodybuilders of all time, which is impressive enough, but what I find compelling is how he talked. In particular, how he talked to himself. 

You can find plenty of evidence of this on YouTube, and in addition to being interesting, it’s often entertaining. He’s funny. He’d be kicked out of Planet Fitness in about 0.3 seconds. 

And Coleman’s “self-talk,” as it’s called in the psychology literature, is easy to spot because he often does it aloud. 

When approaching a massive weight that he was about to lift, he’d say things like:

• “Yeah, buddy!”
• “Nothin’ but a peanut.”
• “Light weight!”
• “Ain’t nothin’ to it but to do it.”

And then he’d go lift something about as heavy as my car. 

But what’s really compelling is how our internal monologue—our self-talk, or our “mindchatter” as my friend Bill Gentry of the Center for Creative Leadership calls it—influences our performance as leaders and managers. 

A few years ago, I was part of a research team that specifically looked at how executives talked to themselves. In our study, we analyzed a few hundred letters that senior executives wrote to themselves at the conclusion of a leadership development program. We then took our ratings of their self-talk in those letters and analyzed how it compared with how their own bosses and followers rated their leadership. Lo and behold, the best leaders had self-talk patterns that were positive, reflective and constructive in nature. 

The ineffective leaders, on the other hand, tended to have pessimistic, negative self-talk. They also tended to report being more stressed than their positive self-talking, effective counterparts. 

Much of the scientific research on the outcomes of self-talk comes from the world of sport psychology. And the findings in that realm tend to support what we found in the business world—positive self-talk is productive and useful. 

So what might self-talk “look like?” For that, let’s turn to a study that constructed a measure of self-talk for athletes. They categorized self-talk into eight groups as listed below.

• Psych Up: Let’s go, Give 100%, Do your best
• Anxiety Control: Relax, Calm down, No stress
• Confidence: I feel strong, I can make it, I believe in me
• Instruction: Concentrate, Focus on your technique, Focus on what you need to do right now
• Worry: I’m wrong again, I cannot concentrate, I am not as good as the others
• Disengagement: I want to stop, I want to get out of here, I am fed up
• Somatic Fatigue: I am tired, Today I “suck,” My body is not in good condition
• Irrelevant Thoughts: I am thirsty, What will I do later tonight, I want to take a shower

If you truly reflect upon your own thoughts, I bet you’d be able to find examples from most if not all of these categories. We all “talk” to ourselves. The question is whether we’re positive and constructive or negative and destructive in our patterns of self-talk. 

Regardless of whether we’re trying to do our best running a meeting or preparing for a tough conversation at work, it behooves us to be mindful of our self-talk. Literally forcing ourselves to use positive patterns of self-talk helps change our attitude and our mood, allowing us to do our best. 

Because no matter what situations we face in this crazy life, we always have control over how we react and our resulting attitude. And a big part of changing our attitude is controlling what we allow to go on in our minds.

So the next time you face a tough management moment, I encourage you to first stop and think, “Ain’t nothing to it but to do it.”

Find this thought provoking? Leave a comment, like and share!

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About Ben Baran
Ben Baran, Ph.D., is probably one of the few people in the world who is equally comfortable in a university classroom, a corporate boardroom and in full body armor carrying a U.S. government-issued M4 assault rifle. More at www.benbaran.com, www.agilityconsulting.com and www.strategicagilityinstitute.com. 

The Power We All Have But Rarely Use

“Hey, you did a really great job in a tough situation. They’re lucky to have you.” I heard the gentleman in front of me say these two simple sentences to the United Airlines flight attendant as we exited the plane. It was a flight that normally takes about one hour, but it turned into more than three hours for all of us aboard the aircraft due to weather considerations. The flight attendant’s reaction to this unsolicited positive feedback, as you can imagine, was one of delight and appreciation.

“I want you each to say something that you appreciate about everyone else on the team. Say it to them directly, not to me.” After a long day of working through a tough problem-solving session, my colleague Mike Richardson (who is also simply a brilliant, wonderful human being) pushed us all into a simple exercise that illuminated our individual strengths and collective appreciation.

“Let’s share our ‘flowers’ and ‘weeds’ for the past year. Let’s be grateful.” A few years ago, my father-in-law, Bill Hawke, started the tradition of sharing our annual highs and lows within the family during New Year’s Eve celebrations. We’ve all found this ritual to be one of our favorites, as it breathes new life into our plans for the future by situating those dreams within the context of where we’ve been.

Regardless of what happens to us—be it a rotten plane ride, a frustrating team session, personal health issues, or anything else—we always have the power to choose how we react. We always have power over our attitudes. And if we react by finding something positive and then sharing that positivity with others, we can exercise a powerful force not only in how we see the world but in how the people around us view themselves, us, and their circumstances.

Try using the power of gratitude and positivity intentionally this week.   Find one thing that someone does that helps you, others, or your organization. Then, make a point to tell them that you noticed and that you’re grateful.

I can guarantee that their reaction—you guessed it—will also be one of gratitude.