character development – Page 3

My kids recently discovered the movie, the Croods, which is about a family of cavemen who have to leave the safety of their cave due to a series of earthquakes and other eruptions. Mid way through the father, quite bewildered by his family’s behavior, tells his daughter, I kept you safe. To which his daughter replied, we weren’t living, we just weren’t dying, there is a difference.

The Croods8 (Photo credit: TheCroodsGame)

It is very easy to confuse leadership with management. In the case above, the father was a great family manager. He was able to assess each of their strengths and weaknesses and as a result they were able to hunt for food as a team. They all shared in each other’s success and when the food supply ran short, the father did the noble thing by skimping on his ration so that his children could grow stronger. He also went out of his way to protect them from dangerous threats such as sabre toothed tigers and other weird creatures I am glad aren’t around today.

But he was a terrible leader. Why? Because he was so focused on ensuring that all were aware of the near certain danger, his family wasn’t able to rally around an image of a better future. Without the ability to visualize the future, the family accepted the threats at face value and never tried to find ways around them. They were well-managed, but they were stuck in a dark cave, ignorant of the larger world, and would have remained there as the land collapsed around them had it not been for an injection of fresh ideas in the form of a stranger.

That same stranger never showed whether or not he had managerial chops. He cared about the teenage girl, and eventually bonded with the father, but never went out of his way to really get to know the others. He gave them some nice tools and shared innovative survival strategies, but really in the end only made them more like himself rather than try to capitalize on their individual potential. He had no assurance that there would actually be a better tomorrow, and could just as easily placed the group in an even riskier situation like a Pied Piper. He proved you can be a great leader, but also be lousy manager.

Great leaders are champions of change and not afraid to take risks, they pull their teams along with them. They are the hunters. Great managers are efficiency experts and nurturing by nature, they minimize risk and push their teams into situations where success is achievable. They are the gatherers. Whether you are a great leader or a great manager you are going to get a workout.

A word of caution though. There is a reason that there is usually a trusty sidekick in every hero story. It is nearly impossible to be both the leader and the manager at the same time. The mentality is just too different.

So breathe. You don’t have to be both. It’s actually a lot less stressful for everyone if you simply pick one role and be the best possible version of that singular role you can be. Look in the mirror long and hard and figure out which route is best for you. Then go out and find your compliment. Recruit or train up. You can also still find your leadership or management balance in the form of a trusted business advisor. Self employed or other team of one? It’s still worth recognizing your strength and building up on those skills, with any luck they will come in handy before you know it.

Personal style that mangers adopt to ensure success (culckommares4712910.wordpress.com)
Prove Your Thought Leadership Strategy’s Worth: A Caveman’s Tale (business2community.com)
Movie Thoughts: 20 Entrepreneurship Lessons From The Croods (feedproxy.google.com)

As I’ve mentioned previously writing is only one of the many hats I get to wear on a daily basis. Unfortunately as I was changing out my desk calendar I was reminded today that the party is over. I need to put on my boss hat and get started working on the dreaded performance reviews.

Yes, I do have direct reports (no I didn’t force them to buy my book), and yes I do dread the performance review as much as they do or more. Why is that? Because my work requires us to complete reviews in a one-size-fits all format which can put people on the defensive. Additionally my office is not very large and so I am very familiar with why an individual did or did not complete their annual goals for the year without the need for another meeting.

The part I dislike though most about the process is where the manager is expected to provide constructive criticism. The trick is presenting it in such a way as to motivate the person towards changing the behavior in the long-term rather than instigating a finger-pointing war. There was a Dilbert carton recently which showed the pointy haired manager reminding himself to criticize the behavior, not the person. In typical Dilbert fashion, he failed miserably. Hopefully though I’ve offered suggestions to my staff throughout the year, making this requirement on the form redundant.

You have to be able to first identify what motivates the individual and then how to best leverage that trigger into their work. However it is just as (or even more) important that the person being reviewed respect the reviewer, otherwise there will be no change. As an aside, I would expect that the majority of my protagonist’s from An Uncertain Faith reviews haven’t gone so well as of late.

Authors should be able to relate to this concept as much of the same work goes into effective character development. When I was developing my character notes, I had to describe to myself what was this person’s core needs? How did they respond when under stress? Some of these notes made it into the story verbatim, some were probably less obvious to the reader, but helped when it came to dialogue. I didn’t take the time to properly sit down and review my characters on previous writing attempts definitely contributed to my writer’s block and ultimate failure on those attempts.

It is much easier to write what should be done when preparing and conducting performance reviews than it is to actually do it. In my case there is a generational gap between myself and some of my staff. It didn’t take me more than a week on the job to recognize that what motivates me professionally is vastly different from what motivates a person closer to retirement or one just entering the work force. I would recommend that anyone attempting to write about a character vastly different from themselves study up on how to motivate those not like you or managing different generations.

Ten Biggest Mistakes Bosses Make in Performance Reviews

Performance Reviews – Why bother?

Performance Reviews and Keeping your Self Worth

Motivating Others to Change is an Art and Science

Know your Characters