Twenty-five years ago, Dr. Robert Mager helped to improve performance improvement efforts by stating what should be obvious.  There is a difference between can’t do and won’t do. We can provide skills enhancement and coaching to help the can’t do. No amount of training can correct the won’t do.

I always loved the simple yet dramatic guidance he gave. If you held a gun to someone’s head and they couldn’t do what was asked, it is probably a can’t do.  Now, I don’t endorse using a gun to the head as a motivation technique, but it is good to be reminded of the difference.

I run to keep my body and mind in some type of reasonable shape. I have learned proper running techniques that have made it more enjoyable and allowed me to complete distances I couldn’t imagine five years ago. My body decided to teach me the difference between can’t and won’t a couple of nights ago by a recurrence of an old Achilles tendon injury.

I can’t run at the moment. No amount of reading Runners World or watching training videos will change that. The desire is there. Intensely. Every time a take a step my leg breaks down. I can’t. I will be able to with rest and recuperation, but not until then.

I am reminded how many times I have been called in to assist with performance problems on the job. I have been surprised how often the client hasn’t asked this question first. Can they? Or won’t they?  I am seldom asked to help with someone that genuinely won’t do something they could. My clients don’t often invest the development of people that won’t do.

I usually find out quickly that the person having the difficulty desperately wants to perform. Just as I want to run. They honestly can’t.  The focus then becomes on developing their skills and moving them along towards the improved performance with coaching and reinforcement. Just as rehabbing my tendon will take time, so will development of their competence and confidence.

Leaders need to recognize the difference. I believe many, if not most, assume that performance problems are too often “won’t do’s”.  They expect quick results by making it clear they had better perform, or else.  Real results happen when the barriers causing the can’t do are removed.

Believe me, if it was as simple as threatening my Achilles to support my leg, I would.  But it can’t.

Long before Google, I learned to love encyclopedias and dictionaries. I was fortunate to have teachers that placed a premium on being able to find the answers rather than merely know the answer. My brain, and I suspect yours, is simply not large enough to hold all the answers. I am comfortable letting Google handle the stored knowledge thing!

I was also blessed to have a wonderful teacher/mentor/boss while a new supervisor at United Parcel Service. Don Karns was a remarkable leader cut clearly from brown cloth. Don was not a product of formal education. UPS’s policy of promoting from within valued Don’s education gained growing up in tough neighborhoods in Cleveland as much or more than a piece of parchment. He was a little gruff, but he understood people and knew how to move them to action. He taught me that a manager has to be well informed, but wasn’t expected to have all the answers. I can still hear him saying. “Go look” when he asked me a question about the operations I couldn’t answer. He had taught me where to look for the answer. Usually that meant asking the people that worked for me.

He made it okay not to be the one with all the answers, but instead learn to be one who felt comfortable asking those closest to the work for the answers. Having the freedom to say “I don’t know, but I know where to find out”, made me a better leader. My team members engaged more when they knew they were a vital part of the answer.

I think about this today as I wrestle with a coaching assignment. The person I am working with has all the raw ingredients for greatness. His knowledge and experience should serve him well. His Achilles heel is an insane belief that he must have all the answers. I fear that when he doesn’t have them, he makes something up. He is putting the very foundation of his leadership at risk, his credibility. Layering falsehood upon falsehood is a slippery slope. It doesn’t end well.

He is also alienating the very people that will make or break him in his new endeavor. His answers are more important than their answers, even if their answers are correct. I don’t mean to be unkind to him. I understand the pressure he feels. He wants to appear that he is in command of this new assignment. He wants to produce some swift results to validate his selection for this new role. He has a boss that demands results, now! He is in a company that reveres smart people. He doesn’t want to blow it. But blow it he will unless he learns to “go look.” I don’t recall who said it first, but I believe in business, no one of us is as smart as all of us. The answers to the toughest business questions are out there. Shouldn’t we all make it okay to just “GO LOOK!”

I got up very early this morning in a show of solidarity for all the neighborhood kids beginning the first day of school. Labor day here was marked by beautiful weather, a perfect last day of summer vacation for them. Some were excited, some were anxious, and some were just short of dread.

Two other events led me to think about our education system. First, the outrage over the President’s remarks to school children. I read the speech and it made me think the negative reaction from some is good evidence that our schools have failed. I apologize if I offend, but there are many dumb, misinformed people out there.  Granted, the Department of Education’s video, especially the last 30 seconds, was flat out stupid and someone should be looking for work elsewhere.

The second event was the viewing of the HBO documentary, The Last Truck, about the closing of the Moraine assembly plant. Workers were asked what they were going to do now, and many started their response with “I don’t know, I only have a high school education.”  The truth is for most of them the fall from the middle class will be fast, and permanent. My instinct tells me a college degree is now a necessity for those aspiring for the comforts of a middle class life.  Back to the President’s comments, “stay in school and study hard.”

I don’t raise my concerns about the state of education in the US as a matter of histrionics, but instead, economics. We may be putting the whole idea of middle class in jeopardy with the quality of the future generation of workers. Globalization is real and not going away. Our organizations are going to have to compete with others that have a workforce currently more prepared to leverage the technology necessary to be competitive.

The recent report, The Condition of Education,(http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/2009/analysis/) produced by our own government’s National Center for Education Statistics found that our children are woefully behind in math and science. “The U.S. 15-year-old students’ average mathematics literacy score of 474 was lower than the OECD average of 498, and placed U.S. 15-year-olds in the bottom quarter of participating OECD nations, a relative position unchanged from 2003.” Bottom quarter!!  Not much better for science. “U.S. 15-year-old students’ average science literacy score of 489 was lower than the OECD average of 500, and placed U.S. 15-year-olds in the bottom third of participating OECD nations. Fifteen-year-old students in 16 of the 29 other participating OECD-member countries outperformed their U.S. peers in terms of average scores.”

I don’t claim to be the most educated or smartest person out there. I think I understand one simple conclusion. If we are not number one in education, we won’t be number one in economics. Leadership in the global economy is not a birthright of Americans, it needs to be earned. We will certainly lose our historic place in the world economy unless we turn those numbers around, now.

The neighborhood is just starting to stir as I watch the lights come on in the houses around me. I have no school age children of my own to help get ready. I try my best as a good neighbor to encourage and support the kids to do their best in school. I want them to have the best future possible, they are good kids. I have a selfish reason as well. I believe the next five to ten years are critical for our nation’s continued prosperity. We need smart kids to become smart leaders in our businesses. The global competition is going to be fierce and focused.  Parents around the globe want their children to enjoy a better life than they had. According to the statistics, 75% of them are doing a better job of preparing them than we are with our children.

Good luck kids.  Oh, and as our President said, stay in school and study hard.

I have always considered the human capital in the organization as the ultimate renewable energy source. We need energy to accomplish our goals, to do the work that matters to us. When I visit a client I keep my receptors open to the energy level of those I meet. Are they animated when I talk to them? Is there a bounce in their step? Do I see a sparkle in their eyes? Or do I get the feeling I ought to be checking for a pulse? Are they like my computer that has gone into the sleep mode to conserve energy?

My clients tend to focus on outcomes.  They should. The correct metrics are necessary to direct resources and assess plans. If we look below the metrics, we see the causal factors that lead to gains or losses. Primary among these factors is how much effort and energy is expended to produce results.

It strikes me that there are three types of energy I come across. Positive, negative, and dormant.

Positive energy focused on the same goals leads to achievement and even excellence. When the goal is something we really want, this energy seems to be like a nuclear chain reaction.  Each small accomplishment fuels the next. You can feel the excitement!

Negative energy can be just as powerful in blocking achievement. It maybe an expression of frustration. It could, and sometimes does, reach the level of anger. It happens when goal oriented people feel they cannot overcome barriers to gaining their goals. It happens when people feel disenfranchised and not included in decision making. It happens when they are treated without the dignity and respect we all demand.

One might think that negative energy is the true culprit behind the lack of success in any organization. I think not. Expressions of negative energy show there is still passion. People still care. It becomes the leader’s job to understand the negative energy and redirect it towards a positive outcome.

The real culprit is the energy that lies dormant. I sense that too many in the workforce have gone into the “sleep” mode, conserving energy and just trying to get by in these tough times. I understand this reaction, but it bugs me. It is a sign they have given up, they are powerless and at the mercy of forces outside of their control. They are hopeful that if they just power down, the tough cycle will pass and they will be ready to go. Nonsense. If this dormant energy becomes a norm, an organization will be at a true competitive disadvantage as the economy begins the upward movement.

A leader’s job is to inspire, even excite people towards a better tomorrow. They need to establish meaningful team goals and help their team to see how their individual goals can be accomplished within these shared goals. They need to build effective circuitry that maximizes the energy output by having the right practices, policies, and procedures in place. They need to provide the fuel to keep the energy levels up by providing recognition for jobs well done.

When I worked in the nuclear field, there was always an excitement when the reactor went critical during a start up. We knew once we reached that level we became productive and produced results. As I write this morning, I keep thinking that it is time for leadership to bring that latent human energy in their organization to the critical level. Once we get there the results will flow.