Dispel the People Myths That Most Affect Your Company

“The School for Animals” is a fable written by George Reavis in the 1940s and that has been retold in various forms many times since. It’s a fun story illustrating some basic truths about assessing strengths and weaknesses. It goes like this.

Once upon a time, some animals decided to start a school. The teachers met and agreed to provide a standardized curriculum, consisting of swimming, running, flying, and climbing. In order to receive a well-rounded education, all animal students took all subjects.

Across the board, the ducks excelled in swimming; in fact, some were truly gifted. But most of the ducks made only passing grades in flying, and all were very poor in running. To compensate, the ducks stayed after school for remedial running practice. After a few months, the ducks were so tired that soon they were only average in swimming, but average was acceptable in this school, so that was fine.

The rabbits started at the top of the class in running, but they were very poor swimmers. Also, the rabbits insisted on hopping around, and the teachers were concerned about their hyperactivity—so they made the rabbits walk everywhere instead of allowing them to run. Some were diagnosed with ADHD and put on Ritalin, and all of them had to come in early for special swimming classes.

The squirrels were excellent in climbing and running; in fact, when tasked with climbing a tree, they were the very best students. But the squirrels had trouble in the flying class. They wanted to first climb the tree, then spread their paws, and finally glide to the ground. (After all, that’s the way squirrels fly.) But their teacher made them start on the ground instead of at the treetop, and the squirrels were not mastering the course material. So, every day a flying therapist took the squirrels into the gym and made them do front-paw exercises to strengthen their muscles so they could learn to fly the right way. This proved to be so taxing that some of the squirrels ultimately failed climbing.

The eagles were a constant problem. In climbing class, they beat all the others to the top of the tree, but they insisted on doing it their own way (which, naturally, involved flying). The eagles argued that it was the goal, not the method, that mattered, and because they were quite stubborn about this, the school psychologist diagnosed them as having oppositional-defiant disorder.

The obvious moral to the story is that we should be working on, not in our areas of weakness.

The 8 Most Common People Myths

When you think of how you could be more effective in life, where does your mind go first: working on improving your strengths or fixing your weaknesses? If you’re like most people, you want to focus on your weaknesses first. However, I’ve never yet worked with someone who succeeded because they had a well-honed set of strong weaknesses. This may seem obvious, but considering how many people myths have become conventional wisdom, I’m going to take some time to debunk the most common of them, one by one:

1. People’s basic weaknesses will change if they’re coached.

2. The point of coaching is to help people manage their weaknesses.

3. Coaching will change the behavior of stubborn, poor performers.

4. Tough conversations damage relationships.

5. Being successful is about making sweeping life changes.

6. All age groups are motivated in the same way.

7. The person with the best qualifications wins.

8. When someone’s personal life is in tatters, it doesn’t necessarily affect his work.

1. Myth: People’s Basic Weaknesses Will Change if They’re Coached

Leopards don’t change their spots. People should be coached and mentored, but you need to recognize that the best-case scenario for any employee is that he will become a better version of who he already is.

Though a wise person learns and develops skills and talents throughout the course of his life, his basic temperament won’t change much. He’ll have the same basic strengths and weaknesses at 50 that he had at 20.

If you like the basic package of who your employee is now, know that he will only get better in the future when you help him with coaching and training. However, if you don’t like the basic package of who he is today, you’re not going to turn him into a different person once you’ve spent all that development time, effort, and money on him. As the old English proverb says, “What’s bred in the bone comes out in the flesh.”

2. Myth: The Point of Coaching Is to Help People Manage Their Weaknesses

Everyone has weaknesses, including your star employees. Although it’s true that her weaknesses will kill her if she can’t tame them to some degree, the focus of coaching should be to capitalize on a person’s strengths, not manage her weaknesses. When I’m coaching a person and we’re discussing weaknesses, I’m hoping for four main outcomes:

1. That he will increase his self-awareness. Not many of us have a high degree of self-awareness. People are often unaware of how their areas of weakness affects others. My first goal is to help them see how others perceive them so they understand what they’re best at, and what collateral damage is caused by refusing to work on controlling their areas of weakness.

2. That she will own her areas of weakness and confess them to her team. I’m a big believer in sharing areas of weakness with your colleagues—not to inform them of what they are (believe me, they already know), but to let them know that you know. People can forgive you for your weaknesses if they know you’re aware of them and are at least trying to get better. But if you don’t even know what they are, people laugh behind your back. As my brother says, “The difference between a sage and a fool is self-awareness.”

3. That he will adjust his role so that he can take advantage of his greatest strengths. When coaching someone, I don’t expect him to change the basic construct of who he is, because I don’t believe that sort of change is sustainable over time. Neither is controlling weakness a winning strategy. You win by finding out your unique talents and gifts, and using them for most of your workday. As to your weaknesses, a better strategy is to get so amazing at what you’re already good at that people will forgive you for your weaknesses.

4. That her newfound self-awareness will lead to some changes in her behavior. She needs to focus on her strengths. I don’t necessarily mean tasks that she’s good at—we’re all good at some things that drain and exhaust us—but finding those tasks that make her feel alive and excited, and give her energy, areas in which she can achieve more than anyone around her, because she was born to do those things. Once she identifies her natural talents, focuses on them, and builds skills around them, she will achieve far more than she ever thought she could.

3. Myth: Coaching Will Change the Behavior of Stubborn, Poor Performers

When was the last time you tried to make a grownup try to do something that she didn’t want to do? It doesn’t work. Unless she wants to do the task you’re asking her to do, you’re wasting your time.

A good test of your poor performer is to mention the possibility of receiving coaching. If her ears perk up and she expresses interest, maybe there’s hope. If she doesn’t seem enthusiastic about it, don’t waste your time with elaborate, ongoing coaching efforts that go beyond the basics.

4. Myth: Tough Conversations Damage Relationships

Ironically, more often than not, just the reverse is true. When there’s an elephant in the room and you have the courage to address it with kindness, it very rarely turns out as badly as you think it will. In fact, the great majority of tough conversations I’ve had have resulted in very positive outcomes.

Star leaders are able to have difficult conversations without making enemies. They earn respect and loyalty because they’re willing to tackle these issues. They also approach tough talks from a place of care, not judgment, wanting to make the situation better for everyone.

One of my favorite CEOs had an employee who didn’t show up for work. He missed a full day, then two, then three, and finally the entire week. He didn’t call (or email or text) to say where he was. He also didn’t respond to any communication.

The following week he came in and told my friend he had attempted suicide. My friend, the CEO, listened to him with a lot of sympathy and understanding. He advised the employee that the company was going to stand by him through this difficult time and would pay for him to see a counselor. He said the employee could take off any time that he needed to get back to health.

Then my friend changed direction, telling the employee that he (my friend) was going to “put on his boss hat,” and informed the employee that he would be giving him a written warning that would appear on his employment record for skipping a week of work without any notice. He was incredulous. So my friend asked, “How do you think your absence affected your colleagues and customers?” The employee hadn’t given it any thought, so my friend informed him that deadlines were missed, customers were inconvenienced and shorted, some of his coworkers had to work late, and everyone in his department was put under a lot of stress. The employee saw the truth in this, and accepted both the care and the reprimand.

Several years later this CEO assembled the staff to announce that he was leaving. The man who had attempted suicide was teary-eyed because he knew that the CEO cared personally about him, and was also willing to have the tough conversations necessary to make the business run properly.

I don’t relate this story to recommend this as your course of action in a similar situation, but to illustrate the fact that difficult conversations can turn out well if they come from a place of respect and trust.

5. Myth: Being Successful Is About Making Sweeping Life Changes

Typically, sweeping changes are short-lived. Real change happens more gradually and takes more enduring effort. Each day is a choice to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and stay running in the right direction.

A successful coaching engagement is more like a marathon than a sprint. At the beginning of a marathon, participants are excited and enthusiastic about running. They feel fresh, they’re rested, and they’ve trained for months. A new day is dawning, and tremendous energy from spectators and other runners surrounds them. The situation changes, though, when they’re into the third hour of the race. There isn’t any cheering, the pack has thinned out, and they feel alone. Those who complete the race are the ones who keep on running at mile 19, even though it’s hard.

Here’s the encouraging news for anyone who’s trying to make a life change: If you get 1 percent better every three days, in seven months you’ll be twice as good as you are today. If that feels too difficult, maybe you can get 1 percent better each week. At that rate, you’ll be twice as good as you are today in about a year and a half. It doesn’t take a super achiever to do that. All it takes is someone committed to getting a little bit better each day and to finishing the race.

It is also worth noting that we typically overestimate what we can accomplish in six months, but underestimate what we can accomplish in three years.

6. Myth: All Age Groups Are Motivated in the Same Way

Members of different generations tend to view the work-place differently and tend to be motivated by different things. If you use the same approach with everyone, you’ll be missing the mark. Here is a general view of loyalties at work by generation:

Generation	Born	Loyal To
Traditionalists	1925–1945	The company
Baby Boomers	1946–1964	Their own advance-ment (career, money, and promotions)
Generation Xers	1965–1985	Their manager
Millennials	1986–1999	Their coworkers—not to the organization, not to their manager, but to their friends
Generation Zers	2000–2017	People who take the initiative to build relationship with them

Maybe you belong to one of these generations and don’t value any of these things. I realize this chart paints with a pretty broad brush, but it is a helpful guide to working with different generations.

TRADITIONALISTS

Traditionalists are mostly absent from the workplace today. They still occupy board seats and retain ownership positions, but they occupy fewer and fewer operational seats as the years go by.

They were very dedicated workers; they won World War II, and built the country and many companies that we work for today. If you don’t care about the country or the company, they don’t have a lot of time for you.

BABY BOOMERS

Baby Boomers still dominate the workplace, and they tend to care very much about advancing and achieving. They are the generation that remade our culture. They embraced the sexual revolution and rock and roll, and rewrote the social contract in North America.

In the workplace, they have no intention of merely advancing the company’s interests. They want to achieve, and to receive the money and status that achievement brings. As a result, they’re willing to make sacrifices for their career without giving the matter too much thought. They believe in progress and like the language of achievement.

GENERATION XERS

Generation Xers lived through the fall of the Soviet Union, survived disco (barely, in my case—it nearly slayed me), and embraced the need for change in the world. They like justice and social causes. They witnessed the public disgrace of leaders in almost every major sector of society—such as the political scandals of Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, the public fall of the televangelists and the abuse scandals of the Catholic Church, the tainted blood scandals of the Red Cross, scandals in the military, and corporate criminality symbolized by the bankruptcy of Enron.

Generation Xers are cynical about leaders in general, and so tend to place a lot of trust in their immediate manager, whom they know personally. The manager holds the key to their salary, working conditions, and promotions, and they will often follow a manager from workplace to workplace.

MILLENNIALS

Millennials may be educated, socially conscious, liberal in their thinking, family-focused, and interested in lifestyle and experiences. They care a lot about having opportunities to build friendships at work and developing strong relationships with their coworkers.

When working with Millennials, you need to care about building a positive culture that treats everyone fairly and well; this is what they value and require to be happy and productive. They tend to side with each other, not necessarily with you or with the company. Use that to your advantage by making team-based incentives and rewards. Communicate well and often so that they feel cared-for and included.

GENERATION ZERS

Sometimes called “Post-Millennials,” Generation Zers have grown up immersed in the internet and technology. Whereas older generations view technology as a tool, for Generation Z, it’s the water they swim in. It’s how they shop, socialize with each other, entertain themselves, and learn about the world. They’ve lived their lives in the shadow of terrorist threats, and have been shaped by the “great recession.” They have no memory of a time when these factors were not an issue in the world.

They show early signs of being a responsible generation, with lower teen pregnancy rates, less substance abuse, and higher graduation rates.

In his 1982 bestseller, Megatrends, John Naisbitt first developed the idea of “high tech, high touch.” He believed that in a world of technology, people would long for personal, human interaction. It’s one of the few predictions from futurists of that time that have proven to be true, no more so in the case of Generation Z. Because of their extreme internet dependence, I believe they have a hunger for human contact. They need older, wiser, caring people to speak into their lives. They want a work environment that provides stability, unlike the unstable world they’ve grown up in. Mentor your Gen Zers. Give them feedback. Shape them into a team in which they can find a place to relate, contribute, and belong.

7. Myth: The Person With the Best Qualifications Wins

Qualifications alone don’t guarantee that a person is going to be a fit for your company. This truth is borne out by the fact that I’ve made some unlikely hiring recommendations that turned out really well. How about an academic serving in the president’s office of a university, never having sold anything in his life, being hired as a sales team leader? Or a career leader of a millwork business moving over to run an agriculture company with a global marketplace?

These hires might not make sense at first glance, but these unlikely moves were successful because the academic was bright, people-savvy, and eager to learn and grow; and the millwork manager was a natural-born leader with incredible drive, vision, and a keen eye for quality. Though they didn’t precisely “qualify” for the jobs on paper, they had all the right “fit” characteristics. They both shared values with the companies that they transitioned to. All they had to learn was how the new businesses ran. Within a year, both were at full gallop.

Skill is needed, but if you have to weigh skill against fit, choose fit every time.

8. Myth: When Someone’s Personal Life Is in Tatters, It Doesn’t Necessarily Affect His Work

I don’t believe this to be true. Although we all go through hard times personally and keep things together at work in the meantime, we’re also deeply affected by what’s going on at home. At the end of the day, your personal and professional lives are the same life. If your work life is going badly, your loved ones feel it at home. If your home life is in turmoil, people often feel it at work.

It’s not your job as a coach to help people fix their home lives. It’s your job to help them understand that what’s going on at home can affect their coworkers, and to learn and manage this important principle: leave your personal life at the door. This means that when an employee enters the door of the work site, she does her best to shake off what’s happening at home. Coworkers shouldn’t feel compelled to be counselors, nor should they endure poor treatment because things at home are tough.

Bad behavior that spills over from personal to work life needs to be addressed.

People Action Steps

• Sit with each of your direct reports, help them identify their greatest strengths, and brainstorm with them about how they can capitalize on those strengths in their roles.

• Stop pouring time into people who aren’t interested in growing. Instead, focus your time on coaching and developing those who are eager to move ahead.

• Develop your team’s self-awareness by having them identify their own greatest areas of strength and challenge in a group setting. Lead the way by going first and being very honest. Laugh. Make it okay to have both.

• Help each of your direct reports set one small, achievable goal that takes advantage of their strengths and provides something they can focus on for the next three months.

In Summary

• Leopards don’t change their spots, and the person that you are coaching will one day be just a better version of who he already is.

• You should coach people primarily to build on areas of strength, not just control areas of weakness.

• You can never make a grown-up do something she doesn’t want to do.

• Tough conversations from a caring boss strengthen, not weaken, the relationship.

• Getting 1 percent better every week through consistent coaching means that you’ll be twice as good as you are today in about a year and a half.

• Each generation is motivated differently, and a wise coach treats them accordingly.

• Hire for fit; train for skill.

• Though a person’s personal and professional life are the same life, a professional will do his best to separate the two, and not over-burden coworkers.