tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47931304200969321112024-02-01T21:07:36.476-06:00Tuesday MorningsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger172125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4793130420096932111.post-88038692341242620862014-11-17T16:18:00.000-06:002014-11-17T16:18:45.349-06:00Please follow me to a new blog platformBlog followers,<br />
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I have migrated my blog to a new platform. Follow the link below and sign-up to receive email notices each Tuesday Morning.<br />
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<a href="http://greystoneglobal.com/?page_id=48">New Blog Platform</a></div>
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Please email me if you have any problems. I am <i>not</i> a technology expert; therefore, I chose not to try and transfer the Blogger followers to the new platform.</div>
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You can also find my blog which is now embedded within the Greystone Global website at <a href="http://www.greystoneglobal.com/">www.greystoneglobal.com</a></div>
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Thanks so much for following!</div>
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Dr. Kathryn Scanland</div>
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scanlandk@greystoneglobal.com</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4793130420096932111.post-38406841883193550792014-11-10T18:30:00.000-06:002014-11-10T18:30:00.872-06:00Veterans can teach us, a lot, about leadership.<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="background: white;">How do you build a sense of shared purpose among
people of many ages and skill sets? By
listening and learning—and addressing the possibility of failure. ~</span></b><span style="background: white;">Four-star
General Stanley McChrystal<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj10NOnWhjvqgPc6_nnPq0xJYkRkmNBevN4Uf_J-PwRczlctdJfi1IegLbHc8AOIWj8iywlchX4A8Wwn6M1uTPeuZczE440aknmMGpJLjIp2gC_lblvYiSrRD8nD4XPw-o1hwZ0MK3vSsw/s1600/military.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj10NOnWhjvqgPc6_nnPq0xJYkRkmNBevN4Uf_J-PwRczlctdJfi1IegLbHc8AOIWj8iywlchX4A8Wwn6M1uTPeuZczE440aknmMGpJLjIp2gC_lblvYiSrRD8nD4XPw-o1hwZ0MK3vSsw/s1600/military.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;">Given it is Veteran's Day, it
seemed only fitting to learn about leadership from a Four-star General. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;">Because of the many military images that have
been burned into our minds from Hollywood, when we think of military leadership
we tend to think of officers shouting orders and rank dictating process and
strategy. Like much of Hollywood, this
doesn't reflect reality but it certainly drives revenues.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;">On a number of occasions I've
done research and searches on servant leadership for various clients. What still seems to catch me off-guard is the
number of servant leader examples from the military. Actually, most of the real life examples I
find are from our armed services. Simon
Sinek's most recent book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1591845327/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=38972542970&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1571147116491583480&hvpone=17.05&hvptwo=&hvqmt=e&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_2qc7phv0wt_e"><i>Leaders Eat Last,</i></a> is based upon military leadership.
It's even in the title, officers always let the enlisted men and women
eat first. In the military, it's common
practice for officers not to eat until everyone else does. They sacrifice personal interest and
self-serving actions to support their team.
This is symbolic of what drives many of their decisions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;">In that same spirit,
Four-star General Stanley McChrystal delivered a <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/stanley_mcchrystal">TED Talk</a> that I use periodically
in leadership training to dissuade the idea that servant leadership is a "weak" form of leadership. The following was excerpted
from <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/stanley_mcchrystal">McChrystal's talk</a>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"><br /></span></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">Instead of
giving orders,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">you're now building consensus</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">and you're building a
sense of shared purpose.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">I probably learned the
most about relationships.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">I learned they are the sinew</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">which holds the force
together.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">I grew up much of my career in the Ranger regiment.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">And every morning in the
Ranger regiment,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">every Ranger – and there are more than 2,000 of them – says
a six-stanza Ranger creed.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">You may know one line of it, it says,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">"I'll never leave a
fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy."</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">And it's not a mindless
mantra,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">and it's not a poem. </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">It's a promise.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">Every Ranger promises
every other Ranger,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">"No matter what happens, no matter what it costs me,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">if you need me, I'm
coming."</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">And every Ranger gets that same promise</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">from every other Ranger. Think about it. It's extraordinarily powerful.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">It's probably more
powerful than marriage vows.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">And they've lived up to it, which gives it special power.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">And so the organizational
relationship that bonds them</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">is just amazing.</span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">I came to
believe</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">that a leader isn't good
because they're right;</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">they're good because they're willing to learn and to trust.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">This isn't easy stuff.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">And it isn't always fair.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">You can get knocked down,
and it hurts</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">and it leaves scars.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">But if you're a leader,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">the people you've counted
on</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">will help you up.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">And if you're a leader,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"> </span></span><span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">the people who count on
you need you on your feet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="talk-transcriptfragment"><span style="background: rgb(247, 247, 247);">Well said,
General McChrystal! </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: #f7f7f7;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: #f7f7f7;">Not only do we
owe a thing or two to our veterans regarding our knowledge of leadership, but we
owe them a huge debt of gratitude for our freedom. Let's each go out of our way this week to
thank a veteran for both their service </span><i>and </i><span style="background-color: #f7f7f7;">what they've taught us about leadership.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4793130420096932111.post-18462321497894819352014-11-03T18:30:00.000-06:002014-11-03T18:30:00.431-06:00The pain of incompatibility!<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Only when
our pain gets excruciating are we willing to humble ourselves and consider new
actions that might allow us to successfully progress in our new situation.</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"> ~Robert E. Quinn<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnw59H7m-QrgkFgkk3MSfIxOTkdxd5Ze7Fsx9KgzkM_DOi2aB7YLhI7n5TJoIbe9qTg5qZcnhnVJdn_5DlKH3oI7F6praFlYBn9ERFZxEUe-XrWnzb9AmGmW_tvoz1QtaKe3kwxunuzuU/s1600/incompatible.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnw59H7m-QrgkFgkk3MSfIxOTkdxd5Ze7Fsx9KgzkM_DOi2aB7YLhI7n5TJoIbe9qTg5qZcnhnVJdn_5DlKH3oI7F6praFlYBn9ERFZxEUe-XrWnzb9AmGmW_tvoz1QtaKe3kwxunuzuU/s1600/incompatible.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Dreaded incompatibility!
I recently experienced technology incompatibility and discovered a
number of parallels with organizational incompatibility. I had a fairly long stretch, four
years—especially in technology years—of having no compatibility issues. Then it happened. I have several old laptops that I use for
travel and making presentations. So I
don't make it a priority to upgrade the software on those computers. Well, the operating system on those computers
is Windows XP, and as of the end of October, Microsoft no longer supports XP
which means those computers are now more susceptible to viruses, etc. and any
new software likely won't be compatible, which I'm already beginning to
experience.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">I could try to fight these circumstances and call Microsoft
and demand that they support XP, indefinitely.
I'm fairly confident that approach would have no success
whatsoever. For me to get beyond this
season of incompatibility,<i> I</i> need to
change. <i>I</i> need to upgrade my laptops to Windows 7. However, I can't be overly aggressive and jump
to Windows 8 because I've already heard from a client that their LCD projectors
aren't compatible with Windows 8. I need
to find that <i>compatible sweet spot</i>
and then hope I can make it last for another four years. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">We've all heard the statement about the 21<sup>st</sup>
century, "the one constant is change." And organizations are at the heart of this phenomenon. That means organizations too, find those
moments when they reach the point of incompatibility. It could be the transition away from a
founder, trying to grow too fast, responding too slowly to market trends,
mission creep, lack of focus, a generational shift in the workforce, etc. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">It's clear the organization has reached incompatibility
because it's simply no longer working.
The incompatibility may be visible in low morale, a lack of trust, financial
challenges, apathy, or scapegoating. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Like my technology incompatibility issue, at one time Windows
XP was the most current operating system and all worked wonderfully well. But what once enabled my technology to thrive
has become the bottleneck of not only progress but basic functionality. The only way beyond it is for <i>me</i> to change. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">I see organizational leaders reach this point of
incompatibility and try, sometimes desperately, to change everyone or everything
else. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Robert Quinn in <i>Deep
Change</i>: <i>Discovering the Leader Within</i>
provides a different perspective. Quinn
says, "The real problem is frequently located where we would least expect to
find it, inside ourselves. It means
someone must be enormously secure and courageous. Culture change starts with personal
change. We become change agents by first
altering our own maps. Ultimately, the
process returns us to the 'power of one' and the requirement of aligning and
empowering oneself before successfully changing the organization."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Technology incompatibility or organizational incompatibility, they both require <i>us</i> to change. </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4793130420096932111.post-76472174479197284162014-10-27T18:30:00.000-05:002014-10-27T18:30:02.349-05:00Do you have the 10 critical talents?<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Entrepreneurial
thinking and doing are the most important capabilities companies need from
their employees. As the competitive pace
increases, it becomes more and more critical.</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">
~Reid Hoffman<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZmg6Bi_RtMx2B-2S1zguWQGiDfHiH8HGHnExAgZajQjTeQLUoYi01aXSELuIR27JXHoAF7OkBbbsipxQR-KDDP4-RgZI3C0oZCZ8YL_7JGhmU8EcyTTTr1r8S08j9vV3w0Z1BaLm7WaM/s1600/entrepeneur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZmg6Bi_RtMx2B-2S1zguWQGiDfHiH8HGHnExAgZajQjTeQLUoYi01aXSELuIR27JXHoAF7OkBbbsipxQR-KDDP4-RgZI3C0oZCZ8YL_7JGhmU8EcyTTTr1r8S08j9vV3w0Z1BaLm7WaM/s1600/entrepeneur.jpg" height="257" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">I don't have to look far to find studies and statistics
claiming that we continue to have a talent shortage, even though unemployment
has not yet returned to levels prior to the 2008 recession. I wonder if part of the challenge is that the
type of talent we all seem to want and wish for is far rarer than we realize.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Reid Hoffman recently wrote in a LinkedIn Talent Blog, "Entrepreneurial
employees possess what eBay CEO John Donahoe calls the <i>founder mind-set</i>. As he put
it to us, 'People with the founder mind-set drive change, motivate people, and
just get stuff done.'"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Gallup has studied this phenomenon in more detail and
recently published the book<a href="https://www.gallupstrengthscenter.com/ESF/en-US/About"> <i>Entrepreneurial StrengthsFinder</i></a> to help all of us better understand exactly what we are
looking for and why it's so hard to find it.
Gallup reported:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">The single most important factor for America's economic
survival remains as mysterious as life on Mars.
But maybe that's because it's so unusual. Preliminary Gallup research discovered that
high entrepreneurial talent is much rarer than high IQ: Only about five in 1,000 people have the
aptitude for starting and growing a big business. In comparison, 20 in 1,000 have IQs high
enough to be accepted into Mensa.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">The 10 talents of successful entrepreneurs are:</span><ul>
<li><b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Business Focus</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333;">: You make
decisions based on observed or anticipated effect on profit.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Confidence</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333;">: You
accurately know yourself and understand others.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Creative Thinker:</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333;"> You exhibit
creativity in taking an existing idea or product and turning it into something
better.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Delegator</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333;">: You
recognize that you cannot do everything and are willing to contemplate a shift
in style and control.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Determination</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333;">: You
persevere through difficult, even seemingly insurmountable, obstacles.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Independent</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333;">: You are
prepared to do whatever needs to be done to build a successful venture.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Knowledge Seeker</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333;">: You
constantly search for information that is relevant to growing your business.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Promoter</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333;">: You are
the best spokesperson for the business.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Relationship-Builder</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333;">: You have high
social awareness and an ability to build relationships that are beneficial for
the firm's survival and growth.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Risk-Taker</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333;">: You
instinctively know how to manage high-risk situations.</span></li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">We may not be lucky enough to be one of the five out of a
thousand to possess all 10 talents.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Gallup
says to increase your likelihood of success, identify strategies to manage
areas of weakness, or acquire skills and knowledge to deal with your lesser
talents.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Or best of all, form
partnerships with people who have a different set of entrepreneurial talents.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">In the old economy</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 16.8666667938232px;">—</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">the stable one</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 16.8666667938232px;">—</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">efficiency was the cardinal virtue. In the new economy of fierce competition and rapid technological change with markets constantly shifting, entrepreneurial thinking is the new gold standard.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4793130420096932111.post-63548214917380355132014-10-20T18:30:00.000-05:002014-10-20T18:30:00.960-05:006 Ways to Appeal to Millennials in the Workplace<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">My career
will be more about enjoying the experience than earning money.</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"> ~Millennial employee<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe9jynGGP3YqUiANJ9qvInt974wdCmytc5waHIWJQOoRYaCqlUBnEMuKcFQp12DZDXiZ5ijYnK9DANhJkPL7HOqajqNze5HZsv7OG-NZvFCNudvW58a28hklQ3WvMJvV7X9gFxJ-LZCjA/s1600/millennials.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe9jynGGP3YqUiANJ9qvInt974wdCmytc5waHIWJQOoRYaCqlUBnEMuKcFQp12DZDXiZ5ijYnK9DANhJkPL7HOqajqNze5HZsv7OG-NZvFCNudvW58a28hklQ3WvMJvV7X9gFxJ-LZCjA/s1600/millennials.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">This week I
conducted two training sessions at a manufacturing plant. The first was with a group of emerging
leaders and the second was with the leadership team. Or, said another way, the first was with
mostly millennials and the second was with mostly baby boomers. And this represents many, if not most, of the
organizations I work with today.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">According
to HBR, in two years <u>millennials—the people born between 1977 and 1997—will
account for nearly half of all employees worldwide</u>. So it's time we baby boomers started to make
an effort to understand the differences and provide a workplace that is
welcoming to <i>both</i> of these
generations. Following are a few key findings
from a study conducted by PWC entitled <i><a href="http://www.pwc.com/en_M1/m1/services/consulting/documents/millennials-at-work.pdf">Millennials at Work: Reshaping the Workplace</a></i> that I found helpful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Help
millennials grow</b>: Managers need to really understand the
personal and professional goals of millennials. <u>Put them on special rotational
assignments more frequently</u> to give them a sense that they are moving toward
something and gaining a variety of experiences. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Feedback, feedback and more feedback</b>:
Millennials want and value frequent feedback. Unlike the past where people
received annual reviews, millennials want to know how they're doing much more
regularly. <u>Give honest feedback in real time</u> — and highlight positive contributions
or improvements on key competencies. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Set them
free</b>: Millennials want flexibility. They work well with clear instructions
and concrete targets. If you know what you want done by when, why does it
matter where and how they complete the task? <u>Give them the freedom to have a
flexible work schedule</u>. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Encourage
learning</b>: <u>Millennials want to experience as much training as possible</u>. If your
organization is more focused on developing high potentials, or more senior
people, then you could risk losing future talent if you fail to engage
millennials with development opportunities. Consider allocating projects to
talented millennials which fall outside their day job. Let them connect,
collaborate, build their networks – and most of all innovate.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Allow faster advancement</b>: Historically, career advancement was
built upon seniority and time of service. Millennials don't think that way.
They value results over tenure and are sometimes frustrated with the amount of
time it takes to work up the career ladder. <u>They want career advancement much
quicker than older generations</u> are accustomed to. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Expect
millennials to go</b>: It's inevitable that <u>the rate of churn among millennials
will be higher than among other generations</u>, especially since many have made
compromises in finding their first job, and this should be built into your
plans.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It's a new day in the workplace; a day that embraces and encourages
millennials to become the leaders of the future. The way of the baby boomers worked for the
baby boomers. But our time is passing,
quickly. We need to make way for the
millennials and equip them to lead, their way.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4793130420096932111.post-18689030730743059872014-10-13T18:30:00.000-05:002014-10-13T18:30:01.509-05:00What Got You Here Won't Get You There<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">One of the
greatest mistakes of successful people is
the assumption, "I am successful. I behave this way. Therefore, I must be
successful because I behave this
way!" The challenge is to make them see that sometimes they are successful in spite of this behavior.</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333;"> ~Marshall Goldsmith</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkP4zZ2YWfhsgsUDaLzwNtSLj2prUtYEL62EEQ3Vz82Rk1546lhM7Nre6mqHYKgE_z2tHItxozLyG_yMcyF8jHfSOIOzIH7dVzYxFzi19rsD54y6-Bs-Ryg_LDZhsSJ9mC7LIJ0hLXO74/s1600/mean+behavior.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkP4zZ2YWfhsgsUDaLzwNtSLj2prUtYEL62EEQ3Vz82Rk1546lhM7Nre6mqHYKgE_z2tHItxozLyG_yMcyF8jHfSOIOzIH7dVzYxFzi19rsD54y6-Bs-Ryg_LDZhsSJ9mC7LIJ0hLXO74/s1600/mean+behavior.jpg" height="220" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">One theory (I'd like to say fact but I'll withhold that
temptation and stick with theory) nearly everyone agrees upon is that the most
effective leaders don't have a specific behavioral profile or personality
type. The most effective leaders are
those who know how to <i>adapt</i> their
behavior to given situations and circumstances.
That's why when researchers and psychologists make a list of the U.S.
Presidents and assign a behavioral profile to each one, there is no
pattern. The profiles are all over the
map.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><a href="http://www.marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com/html/marshall/Marshall-Goldsmith.html">Marshall Goldsmith</a>, without a doubt, is one of the most
credible authorities on this topic. He's
the author or editor of 34 books, has written two <i>New York Times</i> bestsellers and a <i>Wall Street Journal</i> #1 business book of the year. He's a top-ranked executive coach and one of
the top ten most-influential business thinkers in the world. So when Marshall Goldsmith says things like, "I
tell my clients, 'it's a lot harder to change people's perception of your
behavior than it is to change your behavior,'" it's got a boatload of
reliability behind hit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">If all of this is true, and I'm going to assume that it is,
then why do so many leaders resist or outright refuse to better understand how
they are perceived and look for ways to change their behavior?! I've had both MD’s and PhD’s refuse to
complete some type of personality or behavioral profile. I've had president's of organizations refute
the findings of employee satisfaction surveys and 360 assessments with
rationale like, "the survey was completed at the same time they may have been
filing their taxes so they must have been in a bad mood." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Who we are is who we are.
It is not good or bad, helpful or hurtful. However, if we don't recognize that because
who we are remains somewhat constant as the situation or circumstances around
us change, we are going to run into trouble.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Example: someone who is highly detailed and scrutinizes
everything may be great in an entry-level accounting or finance position. But, once promoted to manage others, that
same behavior, if still practiced with the same intensity, could be viewed as
micromanaging and severely hinder their ability to manage and lead others. We must adapt. And, we won't know how to adapt if we don't
let others tell us how our behavior is perceived. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">If we want people to change their perception of our behavior,
then, we need to change our behavior.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">It's
both that simple and that hard.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Sometimes
we're successful in spite of ourselves.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Image what we could accomplish if we willingly welcomed a better
understanding of the impact of our own behavior!</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4793130420096932111.post-46622630701199735852014-10-06T18:30:00.000-05:002014-10-06T18:30:01.267-05:00Would you join me in a social experiment?<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">A word of
encouragement from a teacher to a child can change a life. A word of encouragement from a spouse can
save a marriage. A word of encouragement
from a leader can inspire a person to reach their potential.</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"> ~John C. Maxwell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEU1j4iIhvi6jqNntEePn-A1-B2LkyIU6Wq9ZHnguVvHZPv1AkZnQHm3X7SnwiOB5Tp3GmljUXLV-rnUA7NO1l1oYSw0x3AlcP9Ic2xkCvVRWPVcdlYNuvIm1IxLUFaRGnTRV0rsiEWi4/s1600/experiment.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEU1j4iIhvi6jqNntEePn-A1-B2LkyIU6Wq9ZHnguVvHZPv1AkZnQHm3X7SnwiOB5Tp3GmljUXLV-rnUA7NO1l1oYSw0x3AlcP9Ic2xkCvVRWPVcdlYNuvIm1IxLUFaRGnTRV0rsiEWi4/s1600/experiment.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This week I heard someone describe what happened when they
intentionally took a break from watching the news. After taking a hiatus from the news for a
number of days, when he returned to watching the news, he was overwhelmed by
all of the "bad" news. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That made wonder, what if we did an experiment. When I watch the national news I intentionally
watch it to the end so I can hear the "feel good" story, or the "good" news. What would happen if the news was
flipped? What if the "good news" was the
first 20-25 minutes and the "bad news" was the final 5-10 minutes?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don't know what would actually happen, but it makes me
ask, have we become a culture that craves the negative, or the bad news, more
than the good news? I have to believe
that ratings influence what we see on the news, so we play a role in this. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And since it's also election season, could that be why
politicians run so many negative ads against their opponent? Because they know it's the negative or "bad" stuff that we are wired to remember?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What does this have to do with leadership? Well, are most organization leaders also
falling into this bad news/negative trap?
What do employees hear from their leaders? Do they hear the "good," or is most communication
they hear from leadership filled with the "bad?" A number of years ago I recall a leader in a staff meeting say he was going to present the good, the bad, and the
ugly. What did the employees remember
after that meeting? The ugly, that's all
I heard about for several weeks.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I'm not suggesting that leaders should be Pollyannaish in
their communication. But what we
remember most, what we respond to (i.e., TV news ratings) is the "bad
news."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Actual research has been conducted around this very idea. <span style="background: white;">Based on psychologist and business consultant Marcial Losada’s extensive
mathematical modeling, 2.9013 is the ratio of positive to negative interaction
necessary to make a corporate team successful.
This means that it takes about three positive comments, experiences, or
expressions to fend off the languishing effects of one negative. Dip below this tipping point, now known as
the Losada Line, and workplace performance quickly suffers. Rise above it—ideally, the research shows, to
a ratio of 6 to 1—and teams produce their very best work.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white;">Imagine what
might happen to organizations, and dare I say countries, if we all started
following the premise of the Losada Line?</span><span style="background-color: white;">
</span><span style="background-color: white;">So for the next week, will you join me in intentionally out-weighing the
bad with the good at a ratio of 6 to 1?</span><span style="background-color: white;">
</span><span style="background-color: white;">Let's try it and see what results from our counter-cultural social
experiment.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4793130420096932111.post-35241138231957178192014-09-29T18:30:00.000-05:002014-09-29T18:30:01.587-05:00It won't make any difference because...<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="background: white;">It all starts with the leader!</span></b><span style="background: white;"> ~anonymous person talking on the phone while
on the sidewalk<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf-20lI1mAA8XPgay94mneVrldYSDMilXdfj7Y8mDXLRaN1ZqqVYIa5wwvXo04BWHl8NlhprNF1TcmgZCxdpPH4ow1fb6jzKy-b2IpfFm71OliaKzj7GPIeVkGpUqd23e-P_Gg22Mar6U/s1600/talking+on+phone+while+walking.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf-20lI1mAA8XPgay94mneVrldYSDMilXdfj7Y8mDXLRaN1ZqqVYIa5wwvXo04BWHl8NlhprNF1TcmgZCxdpPH4ow1fb6jzKy-b2IpfFm71OliaKzj7GPIeVkGpUqd23e-P_Gg22Mar6U/s1600/talking+on+phone+while+walking.jpg" height="179" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;">"They want to have an off-site retreat
with leadership, but it won't make any difference because it all starts with <i>the leader</i>." This is what I heard today from a passerby
talking on her phone while I was walking back to the office from a breakfast
meeting. I didn't mean to overhear, but she was talking rather loudly and I
could certainly sense her frustration.
Based on her comment (and tone) I drew the conclusion that this leader
isn't aware of the impact they are having on their leadership team.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;">Her astute observation reminded me of
something I read recently on Forbes.com.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The National
Advisory Council of a prestigious west coast business school was asked <u>what
single quality they thought would be most valuable for their graduates to
acquire as they graduated</u>. <u>The answer was self-awareness.</u> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
For us, the most important element of self-awareness, especially for those who lead organizations, <u>is a clear understanding of the impact they are having on the people around them</u>.</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;">I've come across a number of definitions
of self-awareness, but this definition seemed so obvious that I had overlooked
it. And it reflects the frustration of
the young woman this morning who seemed quite aggravated that the "leader" she
was referring to does not have a clear understanding of the impact they are
having on the people around them. And, she's
right; an off-site retreat probably isn't going to change that a whole lot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;">Authors Bolman and Deal describe it like
this in <i>How Great Leaders Think</i>:<i> The Art of Reframing. "</i>One of the most basic and pervasive
causes of leadership failure is interpersonal blindness. Many leaders simply don't know their impact
on other people. Even worse, they don't
know that they don't know. They assume
that other people see them pretty much the way they see themselves, then they
blame others when things go wrong."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;">How do we know if we need to work on our self-awareness? Here's something I've tried with leadership
teams and I now use it as one barometer for self-awareness. I challenge them for the next week, or two,
to look for situations where their interaction with someone could benefit from
them leaning in to the other person's strengths. Said another way, observe your own behavior
and the impact you have on another person.
Then alter your behavior so the other person realizes a greater benefit
from having had contact with you this week.
Then I send them off. Those who
struggle to find any scenarios where they could have changed their behavior for
another’s benefit are those who may need to work on their self-awareness.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white;">If you, as the leader, aren't self-aware
(</span><i>the single most valuable quality for a
leader</i><span style="background-color: white;">), all of the off-site retreats you can pack into your schedule
aren't going to change your team's effectiveness.</span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4793130420096932111.post-49997731752516189532014-09-22T18:30:00.000-05:002014-09-22T18:30:01.159-05:00What's the key to unlocking potential?<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">The way
forward is to name it, reframe it, and provide support to improve it.</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"> ~Michael K. Simpson, author of <i>Unlocking Potential</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Have you ever wondered why there are pockets of an
organization that really excel and then others that just seem to struggle or
feel stuck? Both extremes seem to have
the same basic knowledge or skills so what's created the chasm of performance between
the two? Two things that get overlooked
or simply under-valued: <i>behavior</i> and <i>attitude</i>. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Michael K. Simpson, author of </span><i style="color: #333333;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Unlocking-Potential-Transform-Individuals-Organizations-ebook/dp/B00IO7QAI2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411416805&sr=8-1&keywords=Unlocking+potential">Unlocking Potential: 7 Coaching Skills That Transform Individuals,Teams, & Organizations</a></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> describes it like this:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Every organization contains pockets of great performing
teams, but interestingly, no discernible difference exists in the basic know-how
of the good performers versus the great performers. The <b>key
differentiators boil down to two things great performers have been coached to
do: execute well and concentrate on
reducing inconsistency in bad behavior.</b></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">The best predictor of future performance is mostly determined
by past performance. Identify the
existing islands or pockets of excellence within an organization. To leverage top performance, leaders should
find out what the top performers or high-performing teams are doing to produce
high-quality results. <b>Leaders must not only capture their
strategies but uncover the key competencies, the new and better behaviors, and
the attitudes of those who are fully engaged.</b> Using examples and stories of what excellence
looks like can inspire and educate others.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Ask team members how they can improve their strategic
performance, and then <b>provide feedback
and support</b>. Establish an
environment in which leaders are trained to coach individuals and teams in ways
that build upon their strengths and passions.
If an individual or a team is stuck, talk about the problems, give
appropriate feedback, and address options and opportunities, rather than allow
the issues to fly under the radar. <b>The way forward is to name it, reframe it,
and provide support to improve it.<o:p></o:p></b></span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Gandhi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world." We could modify that slightly and say, "Be
the change you want to see in your organization." If pockets of an organization have differing
behaviors and attitudes, I would venture to say that at least 90% of the time those
pockets are modeling their leader. The person
leading a department, division, team, or entire organization, can't coach
toward one type of attitude and behavior and then model another. Well, they can, it's just not going to have
the outcome they were hoping to achieve.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">By all means, I agree with Simpson, that the way forward is
to name it, reframe it, and provide support to improve it. However, I might add one more tweak. I would suggest <b>the way forward is to name it, reframe it, <i>model it</i>, and provide support to improve it.</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">What issues are flying under the radar at your organization?</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">What needs to be named so you can begin the
way forward and unlock potential?</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4793130420096932111.post-75635548612244622642014-09-15T18:30:00.000-05:002014-09-15T18:30:00.938-05:00Be competitive or achieve success?<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Individual
commitment to a group effort—that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society
work, a civilization work.</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"> ~Vince
Lombardi<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRVOmQp9DaESLNgBMEwhO33iFiFBCw1615L1I0VywV4tXV3vn33fe_1y26tDwdNQQIhG8M1szBuriXBu3qtAxYwwNc7f_q4xvf-wAEH-tGLe7iHm8kr3jx9c8wShHI6DwdIapRDVE0W5c/s1600/ice+bucket.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRVOmQp9DaESLNgBMEwhO33iFiFBCw1615L1I0VywV4tXV3vn33fe_1y26tDwdNQQIhG8M1szBuriXBu3qtAxYwwNc7f_q4xvf-wAEH-tGLe7iHm8kr3jx9c8wShHI6DwdIapRDVE0W5c/s1600/ice+bucket.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">This week I heard a story on NPR that did, and didn't,
surprise me. It was a follow-up to the
now infamous and wildly successful ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. As the story reported, it's been 75 years
since baseball great Lou Gehrig was diagnosed with the disease. But there is still no cure or even hopeful
treatment, only experimental trials. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">The story reported, one of the possible reasons why there
still remains little hope for those with this disease is the "hypercompetitive" nature of the research field. "Many
excellent grant proposals get turned down, simply because there's not enough
money to go around. So scientists are
tempted to oversell weak results.
Getting a grant requires that you have an exciting story to tell, that
you have preliminary data and you have published. In the rush, to be perfectly honest, to get a
wonderful story out on the street in a journal, and preferably with some
publicity to match, scientists can cut corners."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">While listening to this interview I also learned that
scientists tend to keep their failures to themselves. If a study doesn't prove successful, it's not
worthy of publication or of sharing with the broader research field. That means instead of systematically ruling
out what doesn't work; we may very well keep researching and trying the same unsuccessful
experiments over and over. Because staying
individually competitive has taken precedence over collective success for the
field to find a cure or treatment for ALS.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">I wasn't surprised by this because a number of years ago I
did some work for a leading research scientist for HIV/AIDS and heard a similar
story. Data wasn't being shared or
collected on a massive basis in order to more quickly rule out what wasn't
working; hence, making the process for success slow and cumbersome.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Being competitive or achieving success is not always a mutually
exclusive choice, but sometimes it is. I
frequently hear leaders say they believe their organization benefits from internal
competition. Maybe that's true, but
maybe it's not. If it means staff are individually
withholding their failures or are overselling weak results, then I'd have to
ask if that's really helping or hindering the organization's overall collective
success?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Maybe this perspective especially caught my attention because I know
someone who recently passed away due to ALS.
It made me wonder, if we could get over our own individual competiveness
and really focus on collective success in the field of ALS, could that have
made a difference for her?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">What's more important to you, to be competitive or achieve success?</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4793130420096932111.post-45422992968645181432014-09-08T18:30:00.000-05:002014-09-08T20:16:38.243-05:00How to garner extraordinary buy-in!<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">If you want
to go fast, go alone. If you want to go
far, go together.</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">
~African proverb<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkecKGyy0n1EsghSoE_w_zSZ_1MMxXGZ4K957Aq6s6g380gubZwO3IG2vQUhGMyOs_bCZpxSFSJUtSiiMcOgH5mGUgRNAskslwz8N6ke1hTXUPpijgu8jx8jX3ispQEiW41NOkJY6HuSU/s1600/check.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkecKGyy0n1EsghSoE_w_zSZ_1MMxXGZ4K957Aq6s6g380gubZwO3IG2vQUhGMyOs_bCZpxSFSJUtSiiMcOgH5mGUgRNAskslwz8N6ke1hTXUPpijgu8jx8jX3ispQEiW41NOkJY6HuSU/s1600/check.jpg" height="75" width="400" /></a><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Now and then I experience something personally that I just
have to blog about, and this is one of those instances. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Sunday, the </span><i style="color: #333333;">extraordinary</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> happened. Way
back in 1978, my church, along with three other churches, invested in a mixed-income
housing project across the street. It
was important to these churches to provide affordable and mixed-income housing
options in what was then a neighborhood close to Cabrini Green. This property is now being re-developed and
the churches sold their portion to the developers (with the requirement that it
would include even more affordable housing options) and we received our portion
of that sale, which was $1.6 million!
But wait, that isn't the </span><i style="color: #333333;">extraordinary</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">So, here's a medium-sized congregation (~300) with an annual
budget of less than $1 million who now has $1.6 million in cash. How do we determine the best way to use
these funds? The leadership wanted <i>everyone</i> to truly participate in this
process and for it not to end up being a decision made by a few on behalf of
the entire congregation. They also felt that
it was important, as a church, to tithe the first 10%, or if you do the math,
$160,000. What does it look like for a
church to tithe $160,000? Well, this is
how we did it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Here's the <i>extraordinary</i>…on
Sunday, it was announced that we would all have a part in determining where
that first $160,000 would go by giving each of us (yes, everyone) a check for $500. We would each then determine where to give
our $500 and simultaneously join one of a dozen or so groups to begin the
discernment process for the remaining $1.4 million. The checks were distributed at a catered lunch following the service. Not surprising,
one of our most well-attended lunches in quite some time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">I’m sharing this <i>extraordinary</i>
story because it’s a remarkable example of how leaders can garner buy-in. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Numerous research studies have been conducted that conclude
that when people have input in a decision as opposed to being told what to do,
they are 5X more likely to follow through.
For example, in one study two groups of people were given a lottery
ticket. One group was given their
lottery numbers; the other group was able to choose their own numbers. Then, both groups were asked to sell back
their lottery tickets. Keep in mind, the
group who could select their own lottery numbers had a lesser chance of winning
because their numbers could be duplicated.
However, the researchers had to pay this group 5X the other group to get
their lottery tickets back. Because they
got to choose their own numbers, they were 5X more invested in the process.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">As leaders, many times we become impatient and want to make
all the decisions. We don’t want to <i>wait</i> for buy-in. It's true, many times what a group of people
decide might be the very same decision the leader would have made much faster. However, we're being short-sighted if we
think the impact and momentum we can gain from collective buy-in isn't worth
the wait.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Over the coming months, I'll return to my church story and provide updates on our progress. We'll see if our intentional effort to <i>go together</i> will enable us to truly <i>go far</i>.</span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4793130420096932111.post-9867076465155566752014-09-01T20:01:00.000-05:002014-09-01T20:01:39.644-05:00Little League Leadership<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Celebrate
the incremental achievements, not just the final results. This communicates progress, inspires others,
and reinforces successful, repeatable behavior.</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"> ~Gary Burnison, <i>The Twelve Absolutes of Leadership</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijXR4nu93mYu5ljxkmIMz0moKwZ4ZnJyN71s_UpSlnnKVut1uI6aJ0dzLVl1ItfvdPhWbsEFbitjlqaJK5YDEE_w1JZNcD93h0tbkWXPUCtjAIH8ZMyDi7he3opwkRy6L-ShYAazzcHQM/s1600/Jackie+Robinson+West.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijXR4nu93mYu5ljxkmIMz0moKwZ4ZnJyN71s_UpSlnnKVut1uI6aJ0dzLVl1ItfvdPhWbsEFbitjlqaJK5YDEE_w1JZNcD93h0tbkWXPUCtjAIH8ZMyDi7he3opwkRy6L-ShYAazzcHQM/s1600/Jackie+Robinson+West.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">In the midst of heightened security alerts, continued violence,
and gruesome massacres, last week the city of Chicago was given a reason to
celebrate. Jackie Robinson West, a
little league team from the south side became the National Little League
Champions and lost the World title in the finals to South Korea. The south side of Chicago has been in the
news almost exclusively for the violence that continues to plague that part of
the city. That made this Little League
National Championship even more worthy of a celebration.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">These 11 and 12-year-old boys played their hearts out but had
no idea how their victories were impacting an entire city. When they arrived home and entered the
airport they were greeted with thunderous applause and cheers. Then there was the parade ending at
Millennium Park with 10,000 fans supporting these boys who were honored by the
Mayor. That was followed by appearances
at a Cubs game and a Sox game. In
between there were numerous TV interviews and next weekend I believe the entire
team is off to Disney World for continued celebration. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">As the adults nearly forced their exuberance onto these youngsters,
when the boys were interviewed and asked what they looked forward to most, the typical
response was "sleep." These boys were
exhausted; but it was clear, the city wanted and <i>needed</i> a celebration. I
would even go far as to say the city was <i>desperate</i>
for a reason to celebrate. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Several years ago when I began a program to become a
certified coach, I thought the practice of beginning every training session
with the opportunity for anyone to share any recent victories or reason to
celebrate was sort of a waste of time.
But, I soon realized that we don't do nearly enough celebrating. We focus on what's bad, wrong, not working,
causing us frustration, etc. and take far too little notice of what is worthy
of celebrating. So now I've actually
incorporated the practice of beginning with celebrating whenever I do
leadership training.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">I'm not arguing that we ignore the negative or problems that
need to be solved. But I am suggesting
that we find ways to tip the scales a bit more on the celebrating side of the
equation. Dwight Frindt, co-author of <i>Accelerate</i>: <i>High Leverage Leadership for Today's World </i>says, "Acknowledgment
and celebration are essential to fueling passion, making people feel valid and
valuable, and giving the team a real sense of progress that makes it all
worthwhile."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">In honor of Labor Day (and Jackie Robinson West), let's all
find a way to celebrate our labor this week.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4793130420096932111.post-51313994371048174882014-08-25T19:28:00.000-05:002014-08-25T19:28:33.536-05:00How do you decide?<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Life always avails
the option of seeing the truth, no matter how blind and prejudiced we may
be. And if we have the courage to
respond to the option, we have the power to change ourselves profoundly. Only through the truth do we come to grace.</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"> ~<a href="http://mitsloan.mit.edu/faculty/detail.php?in_spseqno=41415">Peter Senge</a>, <i>The Fifth Discipline<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsYJqZv2GllsA20wN6YhIJYJVzxLGtGAmNmHElNkipssMjrrpBwQi4RRrOvCz9d1mm16UJOKskSuV05ZJ4z3BqLoON0Bll4ppawTpW26akZ_m2TFZv4t52oJNZiigtOL2B5xP7oBk6c4Q/s1600/Decisions.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsYJqZv2GllsA20wN6YhIJYJVzxLGtGAmNmHElNkipssMjrrpBwQi4RRrOvCz9d1mm16UJOKskSuV05ZJ4z3BqLoON0Bll4ppawTpW26akZ_m2TFZv4t52oJNZiigtOL2B5xP7oBk6c4Q/s1600/Decisions.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Making and executing decisions is a substantial part of
leadership. Yet, what I see frequently
in organizations are leaders choosing to take the hard road as opposed to the
high road when it comes to decision making.
Here’s what I mean.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">What I see frequently is a decision making process that looks
something like a) decide, b) debate, and c) demand. We go into discussions having already decided
what we think should be done. Then we
debate with one another and debates tend to have winners and losers based on
the belief that there is a right and a wrong answer. That's followed by demanding that our view be
the option that is implemented. Sound
familiar? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">The alternative to decide, debate, and demand is to a) discern,
b) dialogue, and then c) decide. In all
organizations – large, small, for profit, not-for-profit – we've veered off the
path of discernment and dialogue <i>before</i>
we make a decision. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">What does it mean to really discern? One of the definitions of discernment I've
come across is <i>perception in the absence
of judgment with a view to understanding.</i>
Another way I've heard it stated might be "am I willing to say that I
could be wrong." In<a href="http://mitsloan.mit.edu/faculty/detail.php?in_spseqno=41415"> Peter Senge's</a> book <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0385517254/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=33026090888&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=5006367121478217687&hvpone=16.13&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_3z55v2f0g0_b">The Fifth Discipline</a></i> he describes
preparing for dialogue by "suspending your own assumptions." He suggests that we visualize our assumptions
about an issue as if they were suspended in the air, available for both us and
others to observe and assess. If we are
in a state of true discernment, we are more likely come to a decision through
truth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Then instead of engaging in a hearty debate, we create a pool
of shared meaning through dialogue. <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Conversations-Tools-Talking-Stakes-ebook/dp/B000OV1BNA/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1409005664&sr=1-2&keywords=crucial+conversations">Crucial </a></i></span><i style="color: #333333;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Conversations-Tools-Talking-Stakes-ebook/dp/B000OV1BNA/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1409005664&sr=1-2&keywords=crucial+conversations">Conversations</a></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> provides an example
of dialogue with the acronym, STATE, to </span><i style="color: #333333;">state
</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">your path. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ol>
<li><b style="color: #333333;"><i><u>S</u></i></b><i style="color: #333333;">hare your facts</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Earn the
right to share your story by starting with the facts.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Facts lay the groundwork for all delicate
conversations.</span></li>
<li><b style="color: #333333;"><i><u>T</u></i></b><i style="color: #333333;">ell your story</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Why share
your story in the first place?</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">It's the
facts plus the conclusion that call for a face-to-face dialogue.</span></li>
<li><b style="color: #333333;"><i><u>A</u></i></b><i style="color: #333333;">sk for others' paths.</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Encourage others to share both their facts
and their stories.</span></li>
<li><b style="color: #333333;"><i><u>T</u></i></b><i style="color: #333333;">alk tentatively</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">State your story as a story – don't disguise
it as a fact.</span></li>
<li><b style="color: #333333;"><i><u>E</u></i></b><i style="color: #333333;">ncourage testing</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Make it safe for others to express differing
or even opposing views.</span></li>
</ol>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Once we've spent time in discernment and dialogue, we can
make a collective decision that is laced with truth and grace, as opposed to
the casualties of debate: winners and losers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4793130420096932111.post-77945122110565538572014-08-18T18:30:00.000-05:002014-08-18T18:30:01.228-05:00The key to organizational succession: millennials and women.<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">One of the
things we often miss in succession planning is that it should be gradual and
thoughtful, with lots of sharing of information and knowledge and perspective,
so that it's almost a non-event when it happens.</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"> ~Anne M. Mulcahy<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4r7FJkIej30d7GnK9skttlCPv5ZVuyclJ5HSQh3JoGJM4X99TMRfytmQ7CUAwxYdaOQZhnaHFTNYFCQDwvaS8-kQUNqdKCp-taaKRe6wP3HjEpzIzlHYNRFAeMDypnbrs1OgCXMrVcmE/s1600/Millenials.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4r7FJkIej30d7GnK9skttlCPv5ZVuyclJ5HSQh3JoGJM4X99TMRfytmQ7CUAwxYdaOQZhnaHFTNYFCQDwvaS8-kQUNqdKCp-taaKRe6wP3HjEpzIzlHYNRFAeMDypnbrs1OgCXMrVcmE/s1600/Millenials.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Succession planning, a term used frequently in
organizations. But what if we were to
take the meaning of the word <i>succession </i>seriously? Synonyms for succession include: series,
sequence, chain, and progression. When
I've come across organizational "succession" plans, they feel more like these
words: replacement, understudy, substitution, and interruption.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Why does <i>succession</i>
feel like a clunky substitution instead of graceful progression? I think there are a couple of key factors
that make succession either graceful or clunky.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">First, we've created a culture that encourages leaders to
focus more on their personal legacy than the organization's future as they near
retirement. For example, how many
leaders could we all name who wanted to retire from the organization with
grandeur? Maybe build a few new
buildings, launch a new program or product, raise more money or increase
revenues more than any of their predecessors.
I'm guessing that more than a few individuals come to mind. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">This means that while leaders are creating a personal exit
worthy of notice, the organization falls off the edge of a cliff because no one
was being mentored, coached, or groomed to truly take the helm and lead the
organization forward. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">So what if our entire view of succession for leaders looked
more like a peak followed by gradual downward mobility that was supporting others’
upward mobility? It could be something
that looked more like a seamless series or progression rather than an abrupt
end and reboot for the entire organization.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">A second factor that could improve succession planning is
thinking more broadly about who can really lead. We are now well into the 21<sup>st</sup>
century yet many organizations are still being led by men over 50 years of age. If you're looking for organizational growth,
then look to the millennials. <i>Fast Company</i> recently reported that "Companies
with a 30% proportion of young people in higher roles saw 'aggressive growth.' When it's more like 20%, the companies see 'little
to low growth' rates."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Another demographic underutilized in leadership is
women. In the same study, "companies in
the top 20% financially had almost twice as many women in leadership roles, as
well as more high-potential women holding those roles."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">It's 2014, it's time for the boomer men to </span><i style="color: #333333;">gracefully</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> step aside, mentor and coach millennials
and women, and then take pride in leaving a thriving organization
well-positioned for continued (and seamless) success.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4793130420096932111.post-49893056322353455122014-08-11T20:35:00.000-05:002014-08-11T20:35:21.520-05:00Are you hiring employees or people?<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">We thought
we hired employees, but people showed up instead.</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"> ~Unknown<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9SKrftBTbbSfOdQNTgx4ZRhshyphenhyphenj0rv65m6-izeDBhYwhXP_I-ExP6P2IJa2PbVEiMGBWtdMrTVwuAOZcYUkW2WutpROS9b7JBtaTHGuzb3FceCQwZYeZhJybStDh5vDVOMOD-fPi51L0/s1600/employees.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9SKrftBTbbSfOdQNTgx4ZRhshyphenhyphenj0rv65m6-izeDBhYwhXP_I-ExP6P2IJa2PbVEiMGBWtdMrTVwuAOZcYUkW2WutpROS9b7JBtaTHGuzb3FceCQwZYeZhJybStDh5vDVOMOD-fPi51L0/s1600/employees.jpg" height="166" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">I've used this quote frequently with clients; unfortunately,
I don't know the original source. But
the sentiment has resonated with clients on many occasions. While it states the obvious, that the
employees we hire are people and consequently bring along all of the talents
and trials of working with human beings, we still hope for "employees" to show
up on Monday morning.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><a href="https://www.startwithwhy.com/">Simon Sinek </a>takes this concept one step further in <i><a href="https://www.startwithwhy.com/Books.aspx">Leaders Eat Last</a></i>. He asks, "If you were
having a hard year, would you get rid of one of your children"? Sinek says, "Being a good leader is like
being a good parent. We want to give
those in our care opportunities, education, discipline when necessary, all so
they can grow and achieve more than we could for ourselves."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Many of you may be in agreement with all of this, so
far. The example Sinek uses to make his
point is a mid-size organization. When
their economic foundation shifted along with every other organization, they
chose to look for alternatives to layoffs.
They instituted a four-week mandatory furlough for every employee, top
to bottom. The CEO introduced the
strategy and said, "It is better for all of us to suffer a little than for some
of us to suffer a lot." Much like a
family wouldn't get rid of one of their children.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">I'll admit, I've worked both with and for organizations that
came upon hard times and I couldn't see another option but to reduce the workforce,
which they did. So I was a little
cynical about Sinek's perspective
(pardon the pun). If you've never had
the pressure of creditors hanging over your head, then it's much easier to say
there are alternatives to layoffs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Then, I read a book that altered my perspective. In <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Why-Good-People-Cant-Jobs-ebook/dp/B00850ZOKI">Why Good People Can't Get Jobs</a></i> <a href="https://mgmt.wharton.upenn.edu/profile/1307">Peter Cappelli </a>describes a hiring process
problem more than an unemployment problem.
We've taken that "employee" mindset so far that we believe we can craft
a detailed and specific job description, run it through a database of hundreds
of candidates, and find a perfect match, the perfect <i>employee</i>. And, since there's
a plethora of unemployed people looking for jobs, we can hire and fire, almost
as if <i>employees</i> are disposable. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">The term <i>employee</i>
is still fairly recent, relatively speaking.
<i>Employee</i> was first used in the
U.S. in 1854 referencing railroad workers.
Labor unions began forming soon after, and in the early twentieth
century we began using the term "human resources." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Getting back to Sinek's analogy of getting rid of one of our
children, is it time that we start hiring <i>people,</i>
and consequently view them more like <i>family
members</i> instead of <i>resources</i>? In some regards that's counter-cultural,
because we've been taught to<i> </i>think in
an <i>employee</i> mindset. However, many, if not most of our
organizations in the 21<sup>st</sup> century require a <i>people</i> mindset in order to function effectively. It's as if our mental perspective hasn't
quite caught up with reality. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">We can keep hiring employees, but </span><i style="color: #333333;">people</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> are going to keep showing up!</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4793130420096932111.post-44427157034971646762014-08-04T18:00:00.000-05:002014-08-04T18:00:00.899-05:00Are you an empathetic leader?<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">At its very
heart, a business is the beauty of bringing together people and things to make
the community better off—these are the businesses we admire. Empathy is one tool that makes it all happen.</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"> ~Angel Cabrera, President of George Mason
University<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJdX60aj3Fy02iXxhuP65dLJ4Ngz2AjQtpGokHnch5qeRMxlKXZOlKb3-LBw2F8bKhF9dXi0lUwycVKIkIztXfxeQPoRzowqZNninKAk3DxX7sw7cJPMedqAjILMitNiC5NkJdG1tVp70/s1600/empathy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJdX60aj3Fy02iXxhuP65dLJ4Ngz2AjQtpGokHnch5qeRMxlKXZOlKb3-LBw2F8bKhF9dXi0lUwycVKIkIztXfxeQPoRzowqZNninKAk3DxX7sw7cJPMedqAjILMitNiC5NkJdG1tVp70/s1600/empathy.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><a href="http://ritamcgrath.com/about/">Rita McGrath</a>, professor at Columbia Business School recently
authored a post on the <a href="http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/07/managements-three-eras-a-brief-history/">HBR Blog Network</a> that very succinctly summarized the history of management
into three eras, leading up to the current era of <i>empathy.</i> The following few paragraphs
I excerpted from her blog post.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">With the rise of the industrial revolution, management
changed. Along with the new means of
production, organizations gained scale. The
focus was wholly on <b><i>execution</i></b> of mass production, and managerial solutions such as
specialization of labor, standardized processes, quality control, workflow
planning, and rudimentary accounting were brought to bear.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">The next major era of management emphasized <b><i>expertise</i></b><i>. </i>The
mid-twentieth century was a period of remarkable growth in theories of management. Statistical and mathematical insights were
forming the basis of the field that would become known as operations management. Peter Drucker, one of the first management
specialists to achieve guru status, was representative of this era.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Today, we are in the midst of another fundamental rethinking
of what organizations are and for what purpose they exist. If organizations existed in the execution era
to create scale and in the expertise era to provide advanced services, today
many are looking to organizations to create complete and meaningful
experiences. Management has entered a
new era of <b><i>empathy</i></b><i>.</i></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">This would mean figuring out what management looks like when
work is done through networks rather than through lines of command, when "work" itself is tinged with emotions, and when individual managers are responsible
for creating communities for those who work with them.</span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">So what is empathy? Empathy
is the ability to experience and relate to the thoughts, emotions, or
experience of others. Simply put, empathy
is the ability to step into someone else's shoes, be aware of their feelings,
and understand their needs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">If you're thinking that this view is held by McGrath and few
others; I challenge you to do a search on leadership and empathy and you may be
surprised at the results. Here are just
a few examples of others who support McGrath's perspective.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">"Leadership is about making a positive difference and you
cannot do that without empathy." ~Carly
Fiorina (CEO of Carly Fiorina Enterprises and former CEO of HP)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">"We are living in a world that, more and more, is driven by
rapid change; a world in which every individual needs to be a changemaker. You cannot afford to have anyone on your team
who isn't a changemaker…and one of the qualities you need as a changemaker is empathy." ~Bill Drayton (CEO and founder of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public and former
director at McKinsey & Co.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">This week, let's each make a greater effort to "walk in
someone else's shoes" and join the movement toward 21</span><sup style="color: #333333;">st</sup><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> century
leadership.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4793130420096932111.post-65825913918925793592014-07-28T19:02:00.000-05:002014-07-28T19:02:05.086-05:00How well do you love?<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">The process of becoming a leader is, if
not identical, certainly similar to the process of becoming a fully integrated
human being</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #222222;">.</span> ~Warren Bennis<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZzOYeiGa6DpjhpbptCVTHtBWtP1RuzLgDBbL-zutJx5PSeAO1kKGwWCfiRfPbzI6kjlqFRkot725auXMWEl1S1lvsvuHjVPI8NX5RT7EYnpgm-l-8mTUyiuVsTpmxkZSxwOltY2JxG20/s1600/human+with+DNA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZzOYeiGa6DpjhpbptCVTHtBWtP1RuzLgDBbL-zutJx5PSeAO1kKGwWCfiRfPbzI6kjlqFRkot725auXMWEl1S1lvsvuHjVPI8NX5RT7EYnpgm-l-8mTUyiuVsTpmxkZSxwOltY2JxG20/s1600/human+with+DNA.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">I discovered Joel Manby in <a href="http://www.matttenney.com/">Matt Tenney's</a> recently published
book <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Serve-Great-Leadership-Monastery-Boardroom-ebook/dp/B00JRY5BKO/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406580599&sr=1-1&keywords=serve+to+be+great">Serve to Be Great</a>.</i> Here is how Tenney describes Manby's
perspective on leadership.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Former CEO of Saab USA, <a href="http://joelmanby.com/">Joel Manby</a> points out in his book <i>Love Works</i>, many organizations are great
at measuring what he calls <b><i>do goals</i></b>—the success of the customer
experience, employee satisfaction, safety results, brand strengths, and
financials. But very few measure what
Manby calls <b><i>be goals</i></b>—those we set for how we want our leaders to treat each
other and the members of their teams while they are working to accomplish the "do" goals. In essence, the "be" goals measure
how well a leader lives the core values and fits in with the culture. Manby believes that leaders should not only
be measured on how well they achieve the "do" goals, but their performance on
the "be" goals is also important. In
fact, their compensation should be directly tied to how well they do on both;
in order to even qualify to be a senior leader a person must excel at both.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">To get the best measure of the "be" goals we set for our
leaders, we should consider gathering anonymous, 360-degree feedback from
employees and peers, and getting feedback from seniors in person. We can ask questions such as:</span><ul>
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">How well does Bob listen?</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">How willing is Bob to help others?</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">How important to Bob is the happiness and success of the
people he leads?</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">How kind is Bob?</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">How compassionate is Bob?</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">How well does Bob live core value A (repeat for each value)?</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">In essence, we're asking "How well does Bob love his
team?" Of course, we're not talking
about some romantic feeling that people often confuse with love. We're talking about <i>acts</i> of love—extending oneself for others' benefit and treating
them with kindness and compassion. This
is what it takes to be the ultimate leader.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">When we commit to measuring how well we love those around us,
and how well the other leaders in our organization love those around them, we
can dramatically improve the business outcomes for our organizations. </span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">The idea of having both "do" goals and "be" goals reminded me
of <a href="http://www.warrenbennis.com/">Warren Bennis</a>' definition of a leader—a fully integrated human being. How can someone be "fully integrated" if they
only have <i>do </i>goals and not <i>be</i> goals as well? And, how can someone be "fully integrated" if
they do not love well?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Leadership and loving well, a not often thought of
combination, but far more interdependent than many of us may be willing to
admit.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4793130420096932111.post-9870147561731287292014-07-21T18:30:00.000-05:002014-07-21T18:30:01.866-05:00Fear your strengths!<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Coming to
grips with the need to modulate your strengths is some of the hardest
developmental work you will ever do.</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">
~<a href="http://fearyourstrengths.com/">Robert E. Kaplan and Robert B. Kaiser</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8t850HTiVmeIr6WfeearsbAvnOYGg5TV2OuxP5x7-IBlCqdHqcTyXbWDux9E80N4H0bUrV068VLcOqQpQWoDJH5pB5P0gqOp81mhTNLzEgy6e6kYepZeN3REwFJbZsxmdGM20RVwBStg/s1600/muscles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8t850HTiVmeIr6WfeearsbAvnOYGg5TV2OuxP5x7-IBlCqdHqcTyXbWDux9E80N4H0bUrV068VLcOqQpQWoDJH5pB5P0gqOp81mhTNLzEgy6e6kYepZeN3REwFJbZsxmdGM20RVwBStg/s1600/muscles.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Fear your strengths?
Really? Yes, really. First, I'll share my own example. I've completed many different personality
profiles. I need to be aware of what
instruments and assessments are available for my work, so the best way to learn
about them is to take them. And, there
is some consistency across all of my profiles.
One of the consistencies is that I'm a perfectionist. There are a number of strengths that go along
with being a perfectionist. I'm
principled, I’m always looking for ways to improve things, and I'm an advocate
for change, to name a few. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">However, when I focus <i>too
much</i> on being a perfectionist, it can also mean that I may procrastinate
because if I can't do something perfectly then I may not want to even try to do
it at all. It also means that I'm
evaluating myself and consequently beating myself up when I didn't do something "perfectly." I may have done it really
well, but for me "well" isn't good enough.
In my world, everything requires perfection. So I try even harder.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">That's when I realized I needed to find a different way to
look at my strengths and tone down my perfectionism. I took note that one of the personality
assessments described my "type" as <i>reformer</i>,
which has perfectionist characteristics. Looking at my work and life through the lens of a <i>reformer</i> as opposed to a <i>perfectionist</i> creates a much different
view of the world. As a reformer, I just
need to know that I helped to make a positive change; that I truly did help
improve things. I don't need to be able
to show that I blew the top off of the perfection meter. I didn't abandon my strengths or who I am. I did some recalibrating to allow my
strengths to once again, truly be my strengths and not the thing that was
actually preventing me moving forward.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">I see this in leaders.
When organizations aren't going as well as their leaders would like;
they try harder. And many times trying
harder means giving an extra boost to their strengths, not realizing that too
much of a good thing may actually contribute to the problem, not resolve it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">In the book <i><a href="http://fearyourstrengths.com/">Fear Your Strengths</a></i> authors Robert B. Kaiser and Robert E. Kaplan describe a study they
completed with leaders. Most leader assessments
structure questions assuming that "more" is always "better." Instead, Kaiser and Kaplan use a scale that
ranges from "too little" to "the right amount" to "too much." And their findings are quite revealing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">The more pronounced your natural talent and the stronger your
strengths, the graver the risk of taking them to counterproductive
extremes. There is a clear correlation
between having talent in certain areas and overdoing behaviors associated with
those talents. For instance, leaders
whose StrengthsFinder results indicated such talents as "achiever," "activator," or "command" were more often rated as doing "too much" forceful
leadership. Similarly, those who had the
talents "developer," "harmony," or "includer" were more often rated as doing "too
much" enabling leadership. Overall,
leaders were five times more likely to overdo behaviors related to their areas
of natural talent than areas in which they were less gifted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Taking your strengths too far has consequences. Kaiser and Kaplan's study showed a
relationship between leader behavior and employee engagement, team
productivity, and effectiveness. In
every case, these outcomes are lower for managers rated "too little" on the
leader behaviors, peak for those rated "the right amount," and drop back down
for those rated "too much." Overdoing it
is just as ineffective as underdoing it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Maybe it"s time to think about recalibrating your strengths?</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4793130420096932111.post-63411023293026578952014-07-14T18:00:00.000-05:002014-07-14T18:00:03.418-05:00Are you headed toward self-destruction?<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">The capacity
for self-reflection and self-correction can keep us from the path of
self-destruction.</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"> ~Gayle
Beebe<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieNA1RjdeOEAYl4Fk9JOI7xpy9ur0I9pmBNREEq0h4XVCm-UJudnM6mmxsFRVWhyphenhyphenqR73WXsfGIiKcDvTUWBOVj0-JItVlWypCmW7E4A_sA7N89c-S3H20n2CMp55VjKS-vA4TBbE9OveI/s1600/self-reflection.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieNA1RjdeOEAYl4Fk9JOI7xpy9ur0I9pmBNREEq0h4XVCm-UJudnM6mmxsFRVWhyphenhyphenqR73WXsfGIiKcDvTUWBOVj0-JItVlWypCmW7E4A_sA7N89c-S3H20n2CMp55VjKS-vA4TBbE9OveI/s1600/self-reflection.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">It's a privilege to quote a client. <a href="http://www.westmont.edu/_offices/president/">Dr. Gayle Beebe</a> was a client while he served
as president of Spring Arbor University.
He has since moved to Westmont College and continues to serve in the
role of president. He authored a book
entitled <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Shaping-Effective-Leader-Principles/dp/0830838201/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405375483&sr=8-1&keywords=the+shaping+of+an+effective+leader">The Shaping of an Effective Leader: Eight Formative Principles of Leadership</a></i>, which I highly
recommend. It wasn't until reading this
book that I learned he studied under <a href="http://www.druckerinstitute.com/link/about-peter-drucker/">Peter Drucker</a> and <a href="http://richardjfoster.com/about-richard/">Richard Foster</a>, two
minds I greatly admire. Following is an
excerpt from <i>The Shaping of an Effective
Leader</i>.</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">So often what distinguishes great leaders from also-rans is
whether or not we can develop a capacity to self-correct. Leaders get off track. We overreact.
We walk into situations and do not respond as we should. This in and of itself is usually not a
problem. It becomes a problem when we
cannot recover from our mistakes.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">One of the great examples of how to develop the capacity for
self-reflection and self-correction is taken from the famous scene in
Shakespeare's <i>Hamlet</i> where Hamlet
reenacts the murder of his father in order to "catch the conscience of the
King." What this passage so poignantly
demonstrates is that the capacity for self-reflection and self-correction can
keep us from the path of self-destruction.
Otherwise, left to our own devises, we will fall into patterns governed
by self-interest that come to rules us.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Often, our own moral awakening results from our confrontation
with the fact that we are completely out of sync with our deeply held
convictions… Once we recognize that we are out of sync and need to improve our
performance, we can engage in the sort of development that inspires people to
follow us.</span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Can I get an <i>Amen</i>?! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">In my experience, it feels like many leaders have replaced
self-reflection with self-interest and certainty. One of the basic (and critical) aspects of
leadership (as Dr. Beebe learned from Dr. Drucker) is the ability to
self-reflect and self-correct. Yet, I
meet leaders, frequently, who are adamantly opposed to, or even refuse, any
kind of self-reflection. Why? I think it's because they believe that
self-reflection is a sign of weakness or uncertainty, and opens them to
vulnerability. Well, yes, that's because
vulnerability is the path to change and growth.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">One of my favorite chapter titles is from the book <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Deep-Change-Discovering-Jossey-Bass-Management/dp/0787902446/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405375682&sr=8-1&keywords=deep+change">Deep Change</a></i> by <a href="http://www.bus.umich.edu/facultybios/FacultyBio.asp?id=000119677">Robert Quinn</a>. Chapter 1 is entitled <i>Walking Naked into the Land of Uncertainty</i>. Quinn says, "Most of us build our identity
around our knowledge and competence in employing certain known techniques or
abilities. Making a deep change involves
abandoning both and 'walking naked into the land of uncertainty.' This is usually a terrifying choice…"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">So we come to a fork in the road. Become vulnerable and walk naked into the land of uncertainty through self-reflection and self-correction, or continue to walk blindly and risk self-destruction.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4793130420096932111.post-10233131271429957282014-07-07T18:30:00.000-05:002014-07-07T18:30:00.374-05:00Snowmobile in the desert.<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">The only
thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture.</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"> ~<a href="http://mitsloan.mit.edu/faculty/detail.php?in_spseqno=41040">Edgar Schein</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjznulkWhdxPdzaMY1uelKhOE8O2jx54jtbO3NZTX6Qqm-nN1M86lw2Iec5BXpnYN_GsPtBIicrtEnMVGXnmvg9nKGWAodStkoVXCxKDi80cY18vUd1f8583pClQ6W3H8SrqOGeQDrnKyk/s1600/snowmobile+in+the+desert.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjznulkWhdxPdzaMY1uelKhOE8O2jx54jtbO3NZTX6Qqm-nN1M86lw2Iec5BXpnYN_GsPtBIicrtEnMVGXnmvg9nKGWAodStkoVXCxKDi80cY18vUd1f8583pClQ6W3H8SrqOGeQDrnKyk/s1600/snowmobile+in+the+desert.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">I'll admit I go from an obsession with one author to an
obsession with another. My current
obsession is with <a href="https://www.startwithwhy.com/">Simon Sinek</a>. He's
young (Gen X), studied anthropology and has applied those concepts to
organizations, and consequently has one of the top-viewed TED Talks. One of the things we tend to forget is that
organizations are made up of people. One
of my favorite quotes (unfortunately I don't know who to credit) is, "We
thought we hired employees but people showed up instead." Simon very insightfully puts <i>people</i> back into organizations. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Simon's most recent book is entitled,<i> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Leaders-Eat-Last-Together-Others/dp/1591845327/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1404744452&sr=8-2">Leaders Eat Last</a>, </i>which I highly recommend. The following paragraphs are excerpted from
the chapter entitled, "Snowmobile in the desert."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">If the human being is a snowmobile, this means we were
designed to operate in very specific conditions. Take that machine designed for one kind of
condition—snow—and put it in another condition—the desert, for example, and it
won't operate so well. Sure, the
snowmobile will go. It just won’t go as
easily or as well as if it were in the right conditions. This is what has happened in many of our
modern organizations. And when progress
is slow or innovation is lacking, leaders tinker with the machine. They hire and fire in hopes of getting the right
mix. They develop new kinds of
incentives to encourage the machine to work harder.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">…the machines will, indeed, work harder and maybe even go a
little faster in the desert. But the
friction is great. What too many leaders
of organizations fail to appreciate is that it's not the people that are the
problem. The people are fine. Rather, it's the environment in which the
people operate that is the problem. Get
that right and things just go.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">…trust is like lubrication.
It reduces friction and creates conditions much more conducive to
performance, just like putting the snowmobile back in the snow. Do that and even an underpowered snowmobile
will run circles around the most powerful snowmobile in the wrong conditions. It's not how smart the people in the
organization are; it's how well they work together that is the true indicator
of future success or ability to manage through struggle.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Just as we can't simply tell someone to be happy and expect
them to be happy, we can't just tell someone to trust us or to commit to
something and expect they will. There
are all sorts of things we need to do first before someone will <i>feel</i> any sense of loyalty or
devotion. </span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Please take note: loyalty and devotion is the consequence of
a <i>feeling</i>. Not a compliant response to a memo or a
mandate. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">In my work, I frequently see leaders tinkering (sometimes
desperately) with the snowmobile, when they should be focused on the
conditions—figuring out how to get the snowmobile out of the desert and back in
the snow. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><a href="http://mitsloan.mit.edu/faculty/detail.php?in_spseqno=41040">Edgar Schein</a> is one the leading authorities on organizational
culture.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">When he said, "The only thing
of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture," I believe
he was saying, "Spend less time tinkering with the snowmobile and focus more on
keeping it in the snow."</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4793130420096932111.post-12872905442740973132014-06-30T18:00:00.000-05:002014-06-30T18:00:00.894-05:00NBA Commissioner does it again!<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">The greatest
test of our integrity and character is the way we treat other people.</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"> ~Peter
Drucker<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilaRVZSs1hwCJ1lfiNLfwlJPOHMomOGLYHAe3zboVrIpFBUmyY893Epb0v3FDYJwbem3GOeuNOpNNlKlGJ8TPC-nxd6zV5AmcmPUWReT2g00GW73xBZWhbq-XU3oNIYNmOVBpH9svmnfc/s1600/adam+silver+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilaRVZSs1hwCJ1lfiNLfwlJPOHMomOGLYHAe3zboVrIpFBUmyY893Epb0v3FDYJwbem3GOeuNOpNNlKlGJ8TPC-nxd6zV5AmcmPUWReT2g00GW73xBZWhbq-XU3oNIYNmOVBpH9svmnfc/s1600/adam+silver+2.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Several weeks ago I wrote a blog about NBA Commissioner Adam
Silver, regarding both his decision and communication about banning Donald
Sterling, owner of the LA Clippers, from the NBA for life. That was a clear act of leadership, and I
wondered, will we hear from Adam Silver again or was this more of a leadership one-hit
wonder. Thanks to a friend who shared a
post on Facebook, since I don’t follow the NBA, I learned that Adam Silver,
once again, demonstrated real leadership during the NBA draft. Borrowing from ESPN here's a snippet of the
story.</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Four days before the 2014 NBA draft, Isaiah Austin—a 7-foot-1
center out of Baylor projected to be a late first- or early second-round
selection—learned he'd never play professional basketball. On Thursday night, he learned that wouldn't
stop him from being part of the NBA.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Midway through the first round of Thursday's draft, NBA
Commissioner Adam Silver pressed pause on the proceedings and made the best
pick of the night.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">"Before we continue tonight, I want to take a moment to
recognize Baylor center Isaiah Austin," Silver said, eliciting applause from
the crowed at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. "You may have heard about Isaiah.
He is one of the nation's best collegiate players, and was expected to
be picked tonight before the discovery just a few days ago that he had a
genetic disorder called Marfan syndrome and is no longer able to play
competitive basketball. Like the other
young men here tonight, Isaiah committed himself through endless hard work and
dedication to a potential career as a professional basketball player, and we
wanted to make sure he fulfilled at least this part of his dream." "So it gives me great pleasure to say," Silver continued, "that with the next pick in the 2014 NBA draft, the NBA
selects Isaiah Austin from Baylor University."</span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Of course the crowd erupted with a standing ovation as Isaiah
walked across the stage. What Silver did
demonstrated real character. There was
no <i>need</i> for Silver to recognize
Isaiah, but I dare say it not only changed Isaiah's life but also impacted the
thousands in the Barclays Center and the many more, like me, who've learned of
his gesture through layers of social media.
Using Drucker's test of integrity and character, I think the way that
Silver <i>treated</i> Isaiah showed
tremendous character and integrity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Now and then I come across organizations where the leadership
is disappointed with how their employees are treating one another. And sometimes I'm even asked how we can
change the way that <i>they</i> behave. When leaders ask this question I've found it's
typically an indicator that the leaders are modeling a less than desirable type
of behavior and employees are modeling what they see. If leaders want to see their employees treat
one another differently, then maybe they need to first look in the mirror. How are members of the leadership team
treating one another? Are they modeling
the character and integrity of Adam Silver?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Maybe this week, we should all take the Drucker test and look
really hard at how we are treating others.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Based on how we treat others, would we be considered leaders with
character and integrity?</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4793130420096932111.post-20613192625470815712014-06-23T18:00:00.000-05:002014-06-23T18:00:01.552-05:00You can't handle the truth!<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">The truth
that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">. ~Herbert Agar, <i>A Time for Greatness</i> (1942)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieeMBa3e0RmP1HzyLSmXA8BHkb-ErlGIalrU6nOFYxsG0L-ZbeKH3qKSZ_Z-QLuUTJOUOTFHSWVg2pfkhMnTzSKBzVyJttHMwuj4X53d6rbmmpDHuhtnReg0zSWv4qYV5Jqt0sLNadaWk/s1600/Jack+Nicholson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieeMBa3e0RmP1HzyLSmXA8BHkb-ErlGIalrU6nOFYxsG0L-ZbeKH3qKSZ_Z-QLuUTJOUOTFHSWVg2pfkhMnTzSKBzVyJttHMwuj4X53d6rbmmpDHuhtnReg0zSWv4qYV5Jqt0sLNadaWk/s1600/Jack+Nicholson.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">The infamous line by Jack Nicholson—"you can’t handle the
truth"—in the movie <i>A Few Good Men</i>
went through my mind this week. I was
facilitating a corporate training session on professional communication for a
large global organization. The 17 or so
participants in the class were quite diverse.
Not only did their responsibilities range from IT, to design engineering,
to marketing, to administrative support, their ethnic backgrounds included
Czech, German, Indian, Polish, Middle Eastern, and of course American. So, put this combination together in a room
learning professional communication and it becomes an interesting
experience. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">It didn't take long before I discovered that many times these
individuals were in meetings and didn't understand what was being said or
presented. The lack of understanding was
stemming from the overuse of acronyms, differing languages, and too much
technical talk. Then what really struck
me was their collective apprehension to ask questions in meetings. They feared appearing ignorant or
incompetent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">I stacked this reality of everyday misunderstanding on top of
the fact that many leaders aren't good at accepting personal feedback (or even
refuse), and that's when I thought, it's because "they can’t handle the truth."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">I came across a white paper by James O'Toole, one of the
leading academic authorities on organizational culture. He shared this story.</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">I was invited by a
large media corporation to meet with their top executives to discuss their corporate
culture. I started the process by asking
the group for a few short, descriptive phrases that would best describe the
culture of the company. Silence. I asked again. More silence.
Finally, I was passed an unsigned note that read "Dummy, can't you see
that we can't speak our minds? Ask for
our input anonymously, in writing." I did
so, and for the next two hours I would ask them a question about their culture,
they would write down their answers; then I would collect them and read the
responses back to the group.</span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">You can probably guess how that story ends, not well. I've actually found myself in similar situations,
although not quite as extreme, but I have been asked to allow everyone to
respond in writing, anonymously, in order to actually garner
participation. There was a fear of
expressing their perspective, out loud.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">It's kind of amazing, when you think about, the amount of
organizational dysfunction and inefficiency due to leaders who simply <i>can't handle the truth</i>. Employees don't feel comfortable asking
questions in meetings, when chances are, they aren't the only one in the room
who doesn't understand. Even something
so basic as being able to comprehend what's being presented in a meeting, isn't
encouraged.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">As leaders, if we want to improve our organizational effectiveness, we all might consider learning how to handle hearing the truth, no matter how trivial or significant.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4793130420096932111.post-39796068232928529132014-06-16T17:30:00.000-05:002014-06-16T17:30:00.430-05:00Are you an anxious leader?<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">The function
of a leader within any institution: to provide that regulation through his or
her non-anxious, self-defined presence.</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">
~Edwin H. Friedman<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7cLOU9RxXT-2TqPfB-fpyHzVkzavvr6hBouEhbQD_g6ET6eg-sCNXSkxnnGAoZ2wQxNLkgogRDAwVSgVCTFjWu5iihyaPZ3odpg_ECV2qJsDiwFxwPcEW31EByUaTcwWZz9pGFNXcvwg/s1600/anxious.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7cLOU9RxXT-2TqPfB-fpyHzVkzavvr6hBouEhbQD_g6ET6eg-sCNXSkxnnGAoZ2wQxNLkgogRDAwVSgVCTFjWu5iihyaPZ3odpg_ECV2qJsDiwFxwPcEW31EByUaTcwWZz9pGFNXcvwg/s1600/anxious.jpg" height="214" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;">A number of years ago, I was asked to be
the driver for an author who was speaking in Chicago. I knew who he was, but I didn't really <i>know</i> him, and I was semi-familiar with
some of his books. I discovered that
this man, who I had just met, possessed something I wanted to somehow <i>label</i> and better understand. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;">I am an introvert and I typically do not
get to know people quickly, or at least as quickly as an extrovert might. But while driving this author to various
obligations I discovered that I was sharing more of myself with him with far
more ease and comfort than what I would consider to be characteristic
behavior. Why was I doing this?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;">As the author began to speak at the
event, it suddenly became quite clear to me.
He began talking about leading people through a tumultuous transition by
being a non-anxious presence. That was
it; that was the exact label I was looking for—a non-anxious presence. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white;">I've since discovered a presentation
given by <a href="http://www.fresno.edu/faculty/jay-pope">Dr. Jay W. Pope</a> that concisely outlines the definition and traits </span><span style="background: white;">of a
non-anxious leadership presence. </span><span class="apple-converted-space">Pope defined a non-anxious presence
with these characteristics:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ul>
<li>Temporarily putting our wants and needs on hold for the sake of listening to, relating to, and understanding someone else</li>
<li>Being fully engaged and present in a situation</li>
<li>Not threatened by intimacy</li>
<li>Can suffer with others without becoming lost in the suffering</li>
<li>Surrendering our tendency to emotionally react to others based on how we think their words affect us</li>
<li>Choosing to not be threatened by the feelings of others, even if what they say hurts us</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Dr. Pope also identified these traits of someone with a non-anxious presence:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ul>
<li>Self-aware</li>
<li>Secure</li>
<li>Centered</li>
<li>Excellent listener</li>
<li>Deeply committed to understanding others on their terms</li>
<li>Grace-giving</li>
<li>Suspends judgment</li>
<li>Forgiving</li>
</ul>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
You don't have to look far in organizations to find anxiety. Anxious leadership, according to Friedman, is manifested through someone who is reactive, displaces blame, seeks a quick-fix, etc. Anxious leadership only exacerbates the already anxiety-ridden culture. But a leader with a non-anxious presence who is self-aware, secure, centered, an excellent listener, grace-giving, forgiving, and suspends judgment can move an organization through challenges and uncertainty with ease and confidence.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This week, let's each try to be a better listener, seek to understand others on their terms, be a bit more grace-giving and forgiving, and not so quick to judge others. Then observe the response to our reassuring non-anxious presence.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4793130420096932111.post-36278488382950629082014-06-09T18:00:00.000-05:002014-06-09T18:00:02.396-05:00Stop yelling and start jelling!<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Coming
together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is
success.</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"> ~Henry Ford<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLjqFdVAI6vuFbQiX4zdh4nTP1ZxFr3iWZhCwdKhAazFqBduWBpYCXfFEoJAWR1Z0CluT41zCjMe6jDTn29k12niTy7EuesHiPA5t5MnRZO_pBzrCUQdF1TCCb3kgqw9ZAL-r84OcwqYg/s1600/teamwork.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLjqFdVAI6vuFbQiX4zdh4nTP1ZxFr3iWZhCwdKhAazFqBduWBpYCXfFEoJAWR1Z0CluT41zCjMe6jDTn29k12niTy7EuesHiPA5t5MnRZO_pBzrCUQdF1TCCb3kgqw9ZAL-r84OcwqYg/s1600/teamwork.jpg" height="217" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">I've been preparing for some corporate training that I'll be
facilitating next week and part of the client's training program focuses on the team
development concept of forming, storming, norming, and performing. This may sound familiar to many of you;
Tuckman first suggested this idea in 1965 and it continues to be used in many
training programs around team effectiveness and teamwork.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">As I worked through the material what struck me was that this
concept has been around for nearly 50 years, yet there are key aspects that
very few organizations actually implement or follow. For example, many teams struggle most with
the transition from storming to norming.
The titles are fairly self-explanatory.
When a team is in the storming phase anxiety develops, people start
setting boundaries, members are pushing for power and position, cliques drive
the team, there may be personal attacks, etc.
In the norming phase the team will begin to create "norms." The purpose is well-defined, feedback is high
and well-received, hidden agendas are now open, etc.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">One of the action steps to get to "norming" is creating clear
roles, agreements, and rules for behavior.
I'll be the first to admit, when I'm on a team I typically want to jump
right into the challenge or task that we've been assigned. I want to "get at" the work. By doing that, I'm greatly increasing the
odds that we're going to experience conflict and subsequent "storms." For others, they may want to skip over this
step because they believe that the roles or rules of behavior are obvious, so
it would be a waste of time to talk about it.
Some may think that roles and rules of behavior sound elementary or
simplistic and isn't necessary. Whatever
our reason, chances are we're all wrong.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Team conflict is not a bad thing or something to be avoided
when creating the roles and rules for behavior.
In fact, many authors argue that in order to be effective, teams need to
have conflict; but it needs to be healthy conflict. No, that's not an oxymoron. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">A team can arrive at healthy conflict much more quickly and
with far less angst, <i>if</i> they have
established roles and rules of behavior from the get-go.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">From my own observations, it seems to me that these rules of
behavior can be fairly simple and straightforward. Examples might be: don’t be defensive, only
one person can get angry at a time, stay focused and on topic, end the meetings
with action items and clear agreements so there will be no meeting after the
meeting, etc. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">The key, I believe, is to take the time to write down your
roles and rules of behavior, agree upon them, and then include them on a
separate sheet or at the top of your agenda for every meeting. This now gives every member of the team
mutual accountability. So when you go
off track, every member of the team not only has permission, but is expected,
to call it out. As a team, you are now
confronting the issue before it escalates into unhealthy conflict. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Even as I write this I'm thinking, this sounds so obvious and simplistic. Maybe that's why we so often skip over it and then pay the price later. The obvious and simplistic could be the saving grace of your team. Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4793130420096932111.post-12648510098408560512014-06-02T18:00:00.000-05:002014-06-02T18:00:02.595-05:00Maya Angelou: courage, character, and leadership<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">A leader
sees greatness in other people. He nor
she can be much of a leader if all she sees is herself.</span></b><span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"> ~Maya Angelou<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Maya Angelou left us this week, but her words will continue
to guide us and inspire us for decades to come.
She was a woman of great courage and spoke of courage often. Her life was a colorful tapestry of divergent
experiences. Borrowing from Wikipedia, I
learned this about Angelou's background.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">At the age of eight, while living with her mother, Angelou
was sexually abused and raped by her mother's boyfriend, a man named
Freeman. She told her brother, who told
the rest of their family. Freeman was
found guilty but was jailed for only one day.
Four days after his release, he was murdered, probably by Angelou's uncles. Angelou became mute for almost five years,
believing as she stated, "I thought my voice killed him; I killed that man
because I told his name. And then I
thought I would never speak again, because my voice would kill anyone…" According to Marcia Ann Gillespie and her
colleagues, who wrote a biography about Angelou, it was during this period of
silence when Angelou developed her extraordinary memory, her love for books and
literature, and her ability to listen and observe the world around her.</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">She became a poet and writer after a series of occupations as
a young adult, including fry cook, prostitute, nightclub dancer and performer,
cast member of the opera <i>Porgy and Bess</i>,
coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and journalist in
Egypt and Ghana during the days of decolonization. She was an actor, writer, director, and
producer of plays, movies, and public television programs.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">And this week the <i>Washington
Post</i> featured a number of memorable quotes from Angelou. These are two of my favorites—one on courage
and another on how she worked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">One isn't born with courage.
One develops it. And you develop
it by doing small, courageous things, in the same way that one wouldn't set out
to pick up 100 pound bag of rice. If
that was one's aim, the person would be advised to pick up a five pound bag,
and then a ten pound, and then a 20 pound, and so forth, until one builds up
enough muscle to actually pick up 100 pounds.
And that's the same way with courage.
You develop courage by doing courageous things, small things, but things
that cost you some exertion – mental and, I suppose, spiritual exertion.</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">I have kept a hotel room in every town I've ever lived
in. I rent a hotel room for a few
months, leave my home at six, and try to be at work by six-thirty…I never allow
the hotel people to change the bed, because I never sleep there. I stay until twelve-thirty or one-thirty in
the afternoon, and then I go home and try to breathe; I look at the work around
five; I have an orderly dinner—proper, quiet, lovely dinner; and then I go back
to work the next morning. Sometimes in
hotels I'll go into the room and there'll be a note on the floor which says, Dear
Miss Angelou, let us change the sheets.
We think they are moldy. But I
only allow them to come in and empty wastebaskets. I insist that all things are taken off the
walls. I don't want anything in
there. I go into the room and I feel as
if all my beliefs are suspended. Nothing
holds me to anything.</span></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">When faced with life's challenges, may all leaders have the
courage and discipline of Maya Angelou.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0