The 5 Drivers of Wimpy Behavior

I found some interesting stuff thumbing through the revised edition of Lee Thayer’s book, Leadership: Thinking, Being, Doing. He pulled no punches in Chapter 7, when he discussed the “Five Drivers of Wimpy Behavior.” You can’t be a leader if you act like a wimp, and truth be told, from time to time I’ve displayed the behaviors he wrote about, and I’ve seen them in others often enough that I thought it was worth sharing Dr. Thayer’s thinking. Here they are:

• Wimpy Driver #1: Habits. People see the world and behave according to their habits. Habits serve to enable our accomplishments or become obstacles to achieving what we want to accomplish. Too often, we make ourselves prisoners of our habits; they deaden us, taking us where they want to go, not where we need to go. Once formed, habits persist as drivers of our thoughts and actions. As hard as they are to come by, they’re even harder to change. Changing means you can no longer be who you are. Thayer challenges us to reject the habits that inhibit our chosen future and replace them with habits that enable us to achieve that future.
• Wimpy Driver #2: Routines. Habits grow into routines, the second driver of wimpy behavior. Routines are the way people go about doing workaday things. In organizations, routines are the way things get done; they are habits writ large. What makes routines so resistant to change is that they become part of a culture that is larger than the individuals involved and become barriers to making improvements.

Routines also allow people to function on autopilot. When this happens they perform without being engaged mentally or emotionally. Those who are not engaged in their work won’t be the ones who see or implement ways of improving the processes by which work gets done. Routines are the enemy of engagement; Dr. Thayer says they “displace life.” What do you suppose he means by that?

Wimpy Driver #3: Bureaucratization. I wasn’t sure this was really a word. Bureaucratization is a problem when the rules for how to do things take precedence over results. In too many companies, rules, or “policies and procedures” become ends in themselves. When people get rewarded for following the rules instead of achieving results, there’s a problem. Far too few leaders (and companies) have learned this lesson. As Thayer says, “Great performance requires the accomplishment to take precedence over the rules.”

Wimpy Driver #4: Comfort Zone. This one is my favorite; working with small and midsized businesses as I do, I see it fairly often. Comfort zone refers to our propensity to act in “habitual, safe, familiar ways of thinking, feeling, seeing, acting and reacting.” Staying in our personal comfort zone makes us content with the status quo and resistant to change even when we know changing will make us better leaders. When snuggled safely in our comfort zone, we dismiss good ideas out of hand and ignore or disagree with anything that would rock our boat. Years ago, I worked with a guy we called the “abominable no man.” He could chill a good idea in just one monotone sentence; that sentence inevitably began with the words, “Yes, but…”

Wimpy Driver #5: The Knowing Mode. I call this one “conventional wisdom” or “we’ve always done it this way.” To learn, to receive wisdom, a person must be wise enough see it for what it is and accept it. For most of us, a good conversation is one that doesn’t touch on anything relevant, never challenges us and never takes us out of our comfort zone. Thayer says that when we’re in knowing mode, “What drives our knowing is what we already know, what drives our feelings are feelings we already have in our repertoire, what drives our interpretations and explanations are the ones that seem to have worked recently, and what drives our life is the way we were yesterday.”

The opposite of the knowing mode is the learning mode. In learning mode we are curious; we’re asking questions and we’re open to new ideas and new ways of seeing, feeling and acting.

Now you know about the drivers of wimpy behaviors; I hope I’ve triggered a commitment to get outside your comfort zone to address a habit, or routine to avoid being a wimp. Thayer says, “You won’t change if you aren’t dissatisfied with yourself.” How dissatisfied are you with your wimpy behaviors? Dissatisfied enough to change?

If you thought this blog was interesting, check out Lee Thayer’s book. It’s not an easy read, and he’s the best leadership thinker you’ll come across. I’ve learned from the book, been engaged by Thayer’s thinking and I’ve profited from the book by sharing its lessons in my one to one executive coaching sessions and leadership group meetings.