Are you someone who sees the status quo inside your business and has an overwhelming desire to shake things up? Do you get frustrated by the often glacial pace of change and feel the need to speed it up? Do you exhibit a relentless and courageous ability to point out elephants of all sizes lurking in the room? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, you are an Agitator. Don’t worry, that’s a good thing. If anything, organizations should appreciate the true agitators they have in their midst. Not quite sure? Read on…

What is an agitator? When you hear the term agitator get thrown around, it’s usually done in a pejorative sort of way. It gets easily confused with words like rabble-rouser and inciter. But the true agitator has a noble mission. Consider the agitators who fought for independence and equality. Or think of agitation as an act of nature: it’s agitation that creates the rare beauty of a true pearl. Here are some key qualities that define an agitator:

Principled
It’s crucial that you agitate with principled purpose. Else you’ll just be a whiner that no one takes seriously or an ornery crank that no one wants around. Remember to keep the ‘why’ behind your agitation firmly in your mind.

Tenacious
Being an agitator is can sometimes be about as comfortable as being dragged by a horse down a gravel road. It takes a steely determination to see the end result, believe it’s worth pursuing, and remain focused on getting there.

Flexible
But with tenacity comes a somewhat paradoxical commitment to flexibility – it’s a bend, don’t break mentality. I like Bob Sutton’s mantra of “strong opinions held loosely.” Just remember that always being an unyielding jerk will not only cost you allies, but credibility and influence down the road.

So, what are the benefits of agitation? What goodness do agitators bring to an organization? Here are just a couple of the benefits:

Disruption
The status quo is death to today’s companies. The current level of change isn’t going anywhere…actually disruption is the new norm. Now, most organizations talk a good game about not adhering to the status quo, but often what they say does not match what they do. The agitator rocks the boat (and flips it over when necessary). But an agitator is also emotionally connected with her or his surroundings. They know how to adjust organizational forces to keep the proper level of pressure.

Perspective
Ever been in a meeting where the communication barely skimmed the surface? The real root issues that needed to be addressed were being ignored? Noticed that a small herd elephants were hanging out in the corner of the room? An agitator calls bullshit on all of this and surfaces the things that need to be dealt with for the good of the organization.

Having an agitator at the senior executive level is fine. But what happens if you’re a manager and have an agitator on your team? Don’t be like 9 out of 10 managers and banish the agitator to the basement. Here are some suggestions:

Bring Them Closer
Integrate these individuals into the organization rather than push them further out. Listen carefully. Agitators are engaged folks who want to make a difference.

Get Okay With Discomfort
One of the complaints I hear most from managers about agitators is that they’re perceived as negative and combative. I always respond, “And what does this say about you?” This complaint usually stems from a manager’s unease with conflict and intense personalities.

Build A Culture Of Agitators
Finally, don’t make agitation a strange behavior, but bake it into your organizational DNA. Make it a prized characteristic and reward it accordingly. Agitators shouldn’t piss you off, it’s the silence, passive acceptance, and blind followership that infiltrates common organizational discussion that should get you hot…and worried. Francois Gossieaux at Emergence Marketing offers a very powerful reminder of the price organizations pay by not honoring agitators. He writes:

Most of us have been in organizations where it is politically unacceptable to speak openly about what is going wrong – only to see projects fail because of weak sponsorship, unreasonable constraints, unmotivated team members, or plain old politics. It is sort of ironic that while not speaking up will eventually kill the organization in which you work and thus your current job prospect – it is job preservation that drives this behavior.

What most organizations do not realize is that this is not based on individual behavior, but rather on social behavior. Fixing this problem will not happen by focusing on changing individual behavior first, but instead by changing the social norms that drive the social behavior – and that is not a trivial task.

So, what is your organization doing to encourage this crucial role of the agitator? Anyone have experiences to add? Or if you’re an agitator, any frustrations to share?

A little while back at the Employee Engagement Network, David Zinger posed a question to the group about important engagement statistics. He writes:

In an interview about the book StrengthsFinder 2.0 for the Gallup Management Journal, Tom Rath discussed the strong link between a leader’s focus and employee engagement. Here were the 3 powerful conclusions from Gallup’s research on conversation, engagement, and strengths:

If your manager primarily ignores you your chances of being actively disengaged are 40%
If your manager focuses on your weaknesses your chances of being actively disengaged are 22%
If you manager focuses on your strengths your chances of being actively disengaged are only 1%

The point of the statistics is to show the importance of management focus on employees’s strengths rather than their weaknesses. Makes sense. But, I guess the surprise for me is that (only?) 40% are disengaged if their manager ignores them. There’s probably some nuances behind this stat, but it does make you wonder who that other 60% is doesn’t it?

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Once upon a time, the Washington Post had a feature in its Sunday edition called Life As Haiku (they may still have it, but I can’t find it easily online). Each week, the WaPo published vignettes from the everyday life of two individuals. They’d typically be no longer than a couple of paragraphs, but contain some extremely fascinating slices of modern life.

Two paragraphs…not too tough. But Jodee Bock just raised the challenge by asking for a life story in six words. She was influenced by a new book called Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure. The title pretty much says it all. So, here’s my stab at a six word memoir. We’ll title it Chris Bailey.Simplified:

Wandering journey for calling. Enjoying scenery.

I like the exercise and may return to this idea as I think about it more. There’s some magic in thinking simply about who I am at my core. So, what ya think? Think you can distill a bit of who you are down to six words?

Jodee Bock offered some insight that’s worth sharing: “It’s always interesting to me how people, no matter what occupation or what length of time they’re been in the workforce, can always relate to Dilbert. Why is that? Haven’t we learned enough yet to get rid of that mentality?” I guess the real question may be…”When will organizations aim to NOT replicate the Dilbert experience?”

Best Practices. Even the term sounds like easy success, doesn’t it? What could possibly go wrong if you implement what works for other organizations in your own organization? Yes, the lure of proven strategies has a very strong appeal. But I’m going to challenge folks to stuff some beeswax in their ears when they hear the sirens sing of the temptations of best practices. Like Odysseus discovered, the song is enchanting until you realize that it leads to a grisly demise.

You may be asking whether I’m overblowing the dangers of best practices. You may have used best practices in the past and they’re working out just fine for you and your organization. To you I say “Congratulations!” and then, “Where’s your next great idea coming from?” Far from encouraging organizations to embrace their inherent uniqueness and potential greatness, best practices merely condone a smallness that’s ultimately uninspiring to your customers and employees.

Best Practices encourage the belief that there is just one true path.
Ever hear a consultant or industry peer tout best practices like they were written in stone and brought down from the mountain by Moses himself? They preach that all someone has to do is simply install these practices into their organization and they’ll score easy rewards. They’ll argue quite strongly that to ignore best practices is to needlessly “recreate the wheel” and waste valuable resources. It’s enough to make you feel like a sucker if you don’t immediately sign up to learn as many best practices as possible. But let’s be frank…the sucker turns out to be the blind adherent to the religion of best practices. Hopefully, this isn’t you.

One typical response I get from folks in favor of best practices is that you can take a practice and then blend it into your organization’s unique situation. This may be true, except how many times do organizations really put this notion to work? It’s kind of like buying an antique dresser that needs some hard work to really show off its value. You get it home but instead of immediately getting to work at stripping, sanding, and staining the piece, you leave it in the garage as a “someday” project because all of that refinishing work is time-consuming. Five years later, you donate the dresser to Goodwill in the same state in which you bought it. So much for that “valuable” purchase.

Best Practices instill the notion that solutions are out there.
As someone who strongly believes that most organizations grossly underutilize the expertise and knowledge of its employees, the notion that innovative new ideas and answers to thorny problems exist out there drives me crazy. This lack of confidence in and understanding of the organization’s internal resources is a chronic failure of management. Rather than wondering what new practices a competitor is using or new ideas a leader in another industry is generating, get curious about building innovation inside your organization.

So toss away all those advertisements that want you to learn how to do things the Toyota way. Guide your consultant toward the door if they insist that their new program works for companies like Microsoft, Proctor and Gamble, and Home Depot. And for goodness sake, stop focusing so much of your time on benchmarks just so you can compare your organization to others in your industry.

Encourages mimicry and mediocrity.
Finally, since when does being the best mean being just like everyone else? When you buy into best practices, you’re accepting the notion that it’s advantageous to your long-term business health to do things like everyone else. And you’re damning your business to a legacy of ordinariness. How long do you think you’ll last with that type of mentality?

Instead, consider the hard work of being remarkable. One of my inspirations in my own attack on best practices is Jeff De Cagna. A few years ago, he wrote a great blogpost called Be Original. It’s aimed at non-profit professional associations but the core of his message applies across any organization: “True success and true greatness come from daring to do what others can’t do or won’t try.”

So, the next time someone approaches you with the benefits of best practices, ask yourself, “Do I want my organization to be replicable or remarkable?” Your answer will speak volumes about your own leadership.

Admit it. Unless you’ve found your soulful work, there are days when you come home from the job and toy with the idea of ditching it to move on to something better. But is ditching your job the best answer? It all depends on your circumstances.

A few days ago, CNN published a (somewhat surprisingly) insightful article called Look on the bright side of a bad job. Based on this title, I didn’t have high expectations. I rather expected the writer to admonish his readers to just “buck up” and find their shiny, happy selves. Instead, there are some pretty good ideas in the article…in particular the last one under their category of Wisdom.

If you’re unhappy, examine why. Do you dislike the people you work with or is it the actual work? Are you in a dead-end position? Think back to your interview and see if you missed any warning signs that this job might not be the one for you. Use your experience to avoid falling into the same predicament in your next job. If the situation didn’t turn sour until after you’d been with the company for a while, you know to stay attuned to shifts in attitudes and practices…Making the best out of a bad job situation doesn’t mean being complacent. A positive outlook shouldn’t replace your plans to move on (emphasis mine).

This is brilliant advice. I know from personal experience and from coaching clients that when the crapstorm at work starts to get wild, there’s a strong impulse to jump ship. Yes, there are times when it’s necessary to move on (say, when our health is at stake or the situation has become toxic), but it’s not always the best plan for our working future. Most times, these bad jobs are chock full of learning that we need to absorb in order to make better future decisions that will help us find work that has meaning and purpose. Or else, we risk falling into the same situation again and again (think Bill Murray’s plight in Groundhog Day).

If you’re in a spot where you’re edging toward the end of the plank and thinking about leaping for another ship, take some time to answer the questions posed above. Take full advantage of the wisdom and experience that this experience is offering you.

Also posted at Career Hub…read more articles at the #1 HR Blog according to HR World.

I love Guy Kawasaki, but today he broke my heart. A couple of weeks ago, I pitched him the idea of a careers site at his new venture, alltop.com (yeah, yeah…I’m sure others pitched him as well but I’m feeling particularly self-centered today). I even made it easy by showcasing the PageFlake I built called Work Redesigned. So today I go to alltop.com and find a new site called career.alltop.com. I’m thinking, “Yippee!, my blog is surely there because me and Guy are tight like peanut butter and jello!”

Except, no Alchemy of Soulful Work (though it is a pretty good list…and I am happy to see many of my friends there like Rosa, Phil, and David). So, do me a favor and let Guy and the others at Nononina know that Alchemy should be there to inspire others who may not know about this blog and my work. You can email them at info@alltop.com.

Thanks a bunch!