My eleven-year-old daughter unearthed a new, highly technical business term: the mollusk. While preparing for a science test she asked me if I knew what such a creature was. Because I’d fallen asleep in 10^th grade science class (I didn’t tell her this), I replied, “Nope. Do tell.”

“It’s an invertebrate, meaning it has a hard outer-shell and no backbone.”

Unbeknownst to my daughter, in that moment she helped me prepare for a test – an important leadership exam. Recently, I had made a mistake at the office, and rather than owning up to it I was being defensive. And I was delaying, delaying, delaying the steps needed to rectify the situation.

Translation: I had the outer shell: defensiveness. And I had no backbone: I was unwilling to take action. I was an office mollusk.

Mollusks turn into big elephants for a lot of teams, evidenced by the fact that so many organizations move at a snail’s pace. (Those who didn’t fall asleep in science class caught the intended pun: The snail is a mollusk.) Teams with mollusk-mania often hear these phrases:

• “I could never have that conversation with him. He’s my boss.”
• “Let’s ensure we have 32 meetings to discuss this before we make a decision.”
• “I didn’t do anything wrong. He’s the butthead.”
• “Don’t even try. The budget will never get approved.”
• “I wouldn’t say anything if I were you. CYA, baby.”

It’s time to lose the defensive shell and grow a backbone. Here are the words our team will hear me utter more often:

• “I take responsibility for this.”
• “I recommend we…because…”
• “What can we do to move this forward – faster?”
• “These are the facts…and here are possible solutions.”

How strong is your backbone? Will you pass your leadership exam today?

Where will you lead – where will you stomp elephants – today?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 at 7:31 pm and is filed under Character, Leadership. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.