So you managed to escape from thinking about work over Christmas and the New Year – well, almost.

Well done you!

Now you just have to muster the will to engineer the reverse exercise. This is when you find out whether you are, what some people refer to as, a ’self-starter’. The magic property which enables you to get on with it all by yourself.

Me? I completely failed to start learning to touch type and I am now having to resort to the loser’s tool of choice: the New Year’s Resolution. My current excuse for five-finger-typing-whilst-watching-the-keyboard-and-still-misspelling-every-third-word is that my friend Tom who promised me a superb, ‘best in class’ book on the topic has not delivered, and frankly, until he can, I’m stuck. Job done. No need to continue with that one.

Part of the problem for me of course is that there’s no one giving me stress about my productivity; I just type, work and play at my own pace. I turn up to work when I feel like it and stop when I like. But, alas, like any company owner/diligent employee, I do far too little skiving/goofing off/resting. I don’t take breaks much, I often forget to have lunch, consider train journeys to be golden times to work on things and have to make conscious and specific efforts to stop having ‘brilliant ideas’ at weekends. But then, I’m lucky. Very, very lucky. I really like my job. So the most damaging aspect of not having a constant boss (I have as many transient ones as I have clients) is that when it comes to something that isn’t important to me, or at least important/urgent enough, I delay or just drop it from the list. So, I seem to have it taped. Lucky me. Well not quite actually. My self-starter approach has come with a high price: there are many things that I just haven’t stretched myself to do. I could say that I haven’t, until now, been very brave and so have played things rather safely. Here is where mentors come along.

I, like everyone else, need someone sometimes to chivvy me along; to help me to get into a difficult, higher gear. Some people depend on their manager to help more than others in this respect either because of the way they are or because of the circumstances in which they live and work. Many of us would show up to work only reluctantly if things were going wrong at home or if work was getting on top of us; repetitious or stressful jobs exact a personal toll which I can only guess at. In these circumstances we positively need leadership. And people who want to be stars at anything (think: athlete, ace pilot, politician, top academic etc.) also need some sort of leadership or at least people around them who perform elements of leadership on them – even when not requested.

We need to know there is someone there looking out for us, giving us an outlet for discussing work-based problems and the occasional home-side catastrophe. We also need someone to give us feedback (a nudge, or stronger) when we are about to take a backward step. So some of us need a leader to get us out of bed, others need one so that they can excel and still others need a leader for self-preservation: because of what the job takes out of them.

So what do we need this precious leader to provide us with under any of these circumstances?

Many things, but a few critical ones are:

  1. Set the vision and communicate it to us
  2. Determine direction and strategy and pass it on
  3. Facilitate progress – make it as easy as possible
  4. Provide consequences

Were you expecting number 4?

If you stumble across a poor performing team or a place where morale really stinks it will almost certainly be because there are few consequences to either good performance or poor.

Just reflect upon how you feel when you’ve done something really difficult and no one says anything.

How does it feel, when a little while later, someone fails to do something or gets it wrong (the notion of ‘fault’ is not relevant here) and there is no response, no consequence?

Even those of us who profess to be utterly self-sufficient and to not require formal leadership need consequences to our own actions if we want to get anywhere special. And we want to see consequences for those around us whose actions affect us.

Without consequences events and outcomes just don’t make sense. Fulfilment is never achieved, the will to improve or alter something doesn’t materialise within us. The worst consequence of the lack of consequences is that we give up trying because, when things are really difficult, anything bearable will do. The consequences provide the point. No consequences; no point.

So, I still can’t type and it’s a big waste of time and energy; I get tired and frustrated. I get documents done but without the satisfaction of doing it quickly. I waste brain power on doing corrections instead of using it to be creative, to write better. So the lack of external consequence for me not learning to type, far from freeing me up to remain a free agent, binds me to a situation I don’t like. It’s not big, but then again, it is a bloody pain. My only hope is that Dr Bill Baker will call me to embarrass me about his virtuoso Ukulele playing. At lunch, a few weeks ago, the deal struck between us was: “you learn to play and I learn to type”.

So what does all this mean to you and your team?

You might give them 1-3 as above and much besides. But if you don’t provide consequences for good and poor performance they will never, ever perform anywhere near their best, if you are lucky. If you are unlucky, they may give a lot less than that because they will assume that it really doesn’t matter to you. And if it doesn’t matter to you, they will find a way to cope: making it not matter to themselves (cognitive dissonance).

So what are you going to do about it? That is up to you.

What am I going to do? Well, since my boss refuses to administer any consequences of note, I’m going to call Bill and get myself a consequence that I care about: his good opinion. That should nail it.

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