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“Ann! I’m so sorry I haven’t reached out. I have been so busy!”

My stepdaughter texted me these words while I was on my latest cycling adventure.

I could only laugh.

She is 12. She was on summer break. She has no job, no schoolwork, no chores, and her only obligation was going to the beach every day with her friends.

(Good thing she is so cute!)

After wondering if she was practicing to be a 40-year-old with three kids and a full-time job, I realized that she was merely parroting what she hears from people in her life.

“I have been so busy!”

Isn’t it ironic that we are never too busy for things that are important to us? The operative words being “important to us.”

We are never too busy:

* to get married
* to have kids
* to take a vacation
* to workout
* to watch every episode of The Blacklist
* to go to the latest movie or read a page-turning book
* to go out to a nice dinner
* to update Facebook/Twitter/ Instagram
* to walk the dog
* to sleep in on summer break and then go to the beach

We make time for things that we deem a priority.

What we could say is, “I have a lot of priorities right now and that (or you) is not one of them.” or “My priorities are a bit messed up right now since I’m not making time for you.” or “I want to do that but I need to re-prioritize.”

That would be audacious, refreshingly honest, and even radically candid.

Seriously. Nobody is “so busy” … isn’t it just a matter of priorities?

Imagine my delight! I’ve been on a soapbox for years begging leaders to replace WIIFM with WSIC. Then I discovered that the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published recently a paper that affirms my rant!

What’s WIIFM?

What’s In It For Me. With WIIFM people expect something in exchange for their efforts. I’ll do this if you give me that. But WIIFM is unsustainable, because it requires you to keep giving to me in order to keep getting from me. And after a while, I will want more for the same effort.

The following structures are fueled by WIIFM:

• Sales commissions
• Health benefits
• Union contracts
• Bonuses
• Pensions and other retirement benefits

What’s WSIC?

Why Should I Care. With WSIC, while people have to work for money, they show up because they know it matters. They’re passionate about the work or the impact of their work. They are self-motivated to contribute, take initiative, work hard, succeed, and progress. They know that their efforts make a difference.

WSIC drives many people to:

• Non-profits
• Start-ups
• The Peace Corps
• Teaching
• Performing arts (actors, musicians, dancers, artists)
• Social Work
• HR
• Practice medicine (doctors, nurses)
• Manage projects and lead teams

The Research Paper

Amy Wrzesniewski, associate professor of organizational behavior at Yale School of Management and Barry Schwartz, professor of psychology at Swarthmore College studied 11,320 cadets entering West Point over a 9-year period. They asked the cadets to rate the influence of various motives for attending the academy – some instrumental (ex: desire to get a good job later in life) and some internal (ex: desire to be a trained leader in the Army). They discovered that the stronger the internal motives (WSIC), the more likely the cadet would graduate and become a commissioned officer. Surprisingly, they also discovered that cadets with strong internal motives (WSIC) and strong instrumental motives (WIIFM) were less likely to graduate, less outstanding, and less committed. The presence of WIIFM actually thwarted success!

Why aren’t more leaders focused on WSIC?

We’ve been led to believe that people need commissions, bonuses, rewards, prizes, benefits, pensions, and retirement to show up to work, let alone stay motivated. But those instrumental motives (WIIFM) create merely fleeting motivation. They’re like bribes. When those motives are gone, so is the motivation. So, what will incentivize people to take action? A reason to care.

A Leader’s Job is to Influence WSIC

First, stop believing that you can motivate people. You can’t. They can only motivate themselves. You, however, can influence people to shift their focus from WIIFM to WSIC.

How?

• Ask people what they love about their job.
• Make it your responsibility to discover and know each person’s passion
• Find out why they chose their career and their job
• Ask: “What makes you show up to this particular job every day?”
• Share with people how their work matters to the team, to the company, and to the clients
• Give people opportunities to make a difference
• Regularly recognize their efforts and contributions
• Help people grow and progress so they are prepared to contribute and continue to make a difference

And don’t forget to intentionally shift your own focus from WIIFM to WSIC!

(Above is a picture of me and my good friend Alan at the border of Nevada and Utah. Alan joined me for part of my cross-country bike ride in 2011. I pedaled 4,240 miles to put my finger on WSIC and then produced a documentary showcasing what people love about their jobs.)

“There is a culture of complacency among the agency’s middle management,” said Rep. Jeffrey Miller (R-Fla.), chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee (HVAC). “These mid-level managers are evidently willing to just wait out those of us who are trying to change things.”

Not only is that statement riddled with assumptions, it’s laden with its own complacency.

But there’s even more in this game of blame.

Many in Congress argue that the problems in the VA stem from slipshod, incompetent middle managers who are not held responsible for outcomes in their medical facilities.

And yet, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported a year ago that the VA routinely rewards these managers with bonuses in spite of enduring poor conditions. According to the performance pay policy, managers can earn bonuses and advancement by reducing veteran wait-times. Those who fail suffer downgrades. The GAO noted, however, that the policy neglects to specify an overarching purpose that the goals are to support.

Lazy Blaming

So now it feels merely convenient to place the blame on the shoulders of the VA middle managers. By doing so, we don’t have to answer any of these questions:

• Why would the managers need to manipulate wait-time data at all?
• Why did leaders award managers bonuses in spite of festering poor conditions?
• What was the point of the performance goals and the draconian consequences?
• Why didn’t the leaders take any action in light of the GAO 2013 report and countless veteran complaints and VA whistleblowers over the years?
• And what could possibly be written in the government employee contract that is preventing everyone from taking different actions to fix the enduring problems?

Imagine Being a Manager at the VA

You get offered a new job. You’re excited. You’re filled with enthusiasm, hope and possibility to progress your career, make a decent salary with nice benefits, and make a difference serving the people who served our country. (I highly doubt you’re excited about taking this new job because of the opportunity to manipulate wait-time data…)

But then, instead of helping veterans, you are hit with an onslaught of red tape, office politics and inane policies, union contracts, arbitrary performance goals that threaten your salary and benefits, a lack of resources to meet those goals, deaf-eared leaders, and ignorant politicians. All of which suddenly makes it impossible for you to make a difference.

And now you’re not only feeling helpless, you’re feeling resentment. That resentment shifts you from ‘I care!’ to ‘Why should I care if you don’t?’ And now you’re so busy trying to save yourself, you have no time to save a veteran.

The policies and politics are driving your behavior. You have long forgotten your initial enthusiasm, hope, and possibility of making a difference for veterans.

WYGIWYT (what you get is what you tolerate)

As leaders, it’s easy to blame managers for being incompetent and lazy.  Just like it’s easy to blame your kids for being rude and disrespectful or your dog for not listening.

But it’s hard for leaders to accept the responsibility that you created it and you tolerate it month after month, year after year.

The bureaucracy, the manipulated wait-time data, the fraud, the waste, and the abuse… these are just manifestations of underlying, unaddressed issues. But those issues require the commitment of leaders to help their managers make a difference, not throw them under the bus in the midst of an election year.

United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki resigned under pressure last week. As a former United States Army general, he knows that failure flows up the chain of command. Too bad it skipped a few chain links on the way up.

I have trained Lulu to expect a gift every time I visit. And she never forgets, regardless of how many months pass between my visits. My niece is a precocious 5-year-old.

When I visited in January, two weeks after my Christmas gifts arrived, I negligently handed her a gift to share with her brother. And not a good one. It was a deck of cards with puzzles, challenges, and word games to prepare them for 1st grade.

She did not find this amusing one bit.

She said incredulously, “That’s all you brought?”
I nodded sheepishly, knowing immediately I had failed.
She said, “I don’t like that gift. What else you got?”
I said, “That’s all I have, sweetie.”
She said, articulating every word, “No really, I don’t like that gift.”
I was speechless.
She wasn’t. “I want a Barbie. Do you have a Barbie in your suitcase?”
I said, “Nope. No Barbie. Sorry.”
She ended the conversation emphatically, “No. Really. I hate that gift.”

It took all I had not to laugh out loud. My feelings weren’t hurt. I knew I had blown it. But I wasn’t going to next time. Lulu told me exactly what I needed to do to secure my role as “Best Aunt on the Planet.”

Now when I visit Lulu, I make sure to bring a back-up gift. Rather than consider her to be rude, I find her incredibly refreshing. (Perhaps I’m a bit biased.)

Why can’t we be so transparent at work?

Wouldn’t it be refreshing to know where you stand with your boss, your employees, and your peers?

Boss: “Here’s your project.”
Employee: “Is that all you’ve got?”
Boss: “Yep.“
Employee: “I don’t like it. What else do you have?”
Boss: “That’s it.“
Employee: “No really, I hate that project.“

Employee: “Here’s the report you asked me to complete.”
Manager: “Is that all you’ve got?”
Employee: “Yes“
Manager: “I don’t like it. What else do you have?”
Employee: “That’s it.“
Manager: “No really, I hate that report.”

While it was entertaining when my niece said it, it is rather rude in my work example. But wouldn’t such transparency eliminate the endless games in which we constantly engage where we’re left wondering what the other person thinks?

In situations where we aren’t guaranteed unconditional 5-year-old niece love, consider an alternative to help you lift the communications fog while maintaining the relationship:  permission.

Simply ask permission.

“Would you be open to some feedback?”
“Do you want my perspective?”
“Would it help to hear what my experience of the situation is?”

There’s obviously a lot more that goes into the art of giving feedback, making observations, and providing constructive criticism. But it would be an enormous step if we started offering feedback instead of avoiding it, and if we started preparing others before jolting them with a dose of Lulu-like honesty.

It’s not a concept Lulu will get right now. While she is endearing, she’s clearly not ready for corporate America. But that’s OK, because corporate America is not ready for Lulu.

I admit it. I have a leader crush on Arkadi Kuhlmann, the founder of ING Direct.

I have gushed about Arkadi previously when he was interviewed for Corner Office in the NY Times. I became a fan then. But now I’m reading about him in Mavericks at Work and I am an evangelist.

Here are some highlights from Arkadi’s service as CEO of ING:

• He recruited from outside the banking industry to infuse the industry with fresh ideas to combat those of grizzled veterans.
• He painted a white line outside the headquarters so employees know that crossing it signifies leaving the sleepy world to enter a different kind of place.
• He posted a sign above the exit for employees to read before they leave “Did today really matter?”
• He asked his associates (he didn’t call them employees) to vote yearly whether he should serve them as CEO for another year – he never wanted to serve as the leader unless they wanted him to.
• He prided himself on constantly raising the bar for the company. He says “It’s not about getting people stressed. It’s about getting them full of conviction.”
• He says, “We keep increasing the intensity, the passion, the goals. It’s very hard to work here and not ask yourself, ‘Am I up for this or not?’”

Who wouldn’t want to work at a place that tramples mediocrity like that?

As a leader, what can we do to inspire conviction like Arkadi?

• Start with your own conviction (the banking industry needs to be recreated)
• Create a vision for the people on your team (ING is going to be advocates for our customers)
• Pepper physical reminders of that conviction throughout (the white line, the sign, the orange buildings)
• Demonstrate the conviction (audacious publicity stunts, torrid PR moves)
• Ask people to hold you accountable to that conviction (the yearly CEO vote)

I want to inspire conviction like Arkadi. Who wants to join me?

In the Corner Office in the Business section of the  New York Times, Ilene Gordon, CEO of Ingredion, took the opportunity to pay tribute to mentoring then and now.

The Impact of a Mentor

Following business school, Ilene was responsible for acquisitions at Tenneco when a self-appointed mentor saw potential in her. He recognized her intellect, ambition, and focus, and challenged her to run those businesses she was acquiring. He put her in a job bigger than her and committed to helping her hone her business skills. Today she is on Fortune magazine’s list of 50 Most Powerful Women in Business as the President/CEO of a Fortune 500 company with $6.2 billion in net sales.

Ilene’s Commitment to Being a Mentoring CEO

Ilene excites people with opportunity as her Mentor did for her. She is committed to:

• Seeing potential in others where they don’t see it themselves
• Stretching people who demonstrate talent, people skills, and drive
• Putting people into roles they’re not quite ready for
• Allowing people to grow into those big roles
• Offering young managers an opportunity to share with the board how they’re creating value for the company

Her Belief in the Lasting Impact of Mentoring

Ilene believes that people carry their mentoring experiences with them. “I’m not just hiring the person sitting there. I’m hiring the four people who mentored him. I don’t think there’s anybody who’s successful in their role today who hasn’t been mentored by somebody.”

In each interview, she asks:

• Who mentored you?
• Who did you learn from?
• What was their expertise?
• What companies did they work for?

What can we do to become a Mentoring Leader like Ilene?

• Make a list of your own Mentors and acknowledge their influence on your success
• Discover people’s list of influencers
• Work to earn a spot on their list
• See what they don’t see in themselves
• Take a risk on their potential
• Push people into their uncomfortable
• Allow people to surprise you

It takes courage to leverage the spotlight of the NY Times spotlight to mentor aspiring, inspiring, and expiring leaders everywhere. Thank you, Ilene, for influencing each of us to make a difference by leading with a mentoring mindset.

Who do you know who leads like Ilene Gordon?