Conversations for Executives

Context is Decisive – Really Decisive

2012-01-25T17:39:00.000-05:00

We have been trained to focus on actions and outcomes – do, do, do, and more do. We have been trained to believe, if you want different outcomes, take difference actions – it's that simple. Yet the day-to-day reality of trying to produce different, and what most want breakthrough outcomes, is illusive at best.

At this time of year the focus is on what we did not accomplish in 2011 – with all our reasons and explanations, and what we plan to accomplish in 2012 with all our strategies, plans and KPI. Even bolder plans and more audacious KPI's as evidence that this year will be different – and of course better. [Does that have a familiar ring to it?]

And, of course, the focus is on new actions and new activities – so people need to step up. As if that is what will change our fortunes.

Before I go on, have a read at this:

A newspaper is better than a magazine.

A seashore is a better place than a street.

At first it is better to run than to walk.

You may have to try several times.

It takes some skill, but it is easy to learn.

Even young children can enjoy it.

Once successful, complications are minimal.

Birds seldom get too close.

Rain, however, soaks in very fast.

Too many people doing the same thing can also cause problems.

One needs lots of room.

If there are no complications it can be very peaceful.

A rock will serve as an anchor.

If things break loose from it, however, you will not get a second chance.

I suspect that the paragraph made little or no sense for you.

Scroll down and read it again.

Kite

A newspaper is better than a magazine.

A seashore is a better place than a street.

At first it is better to run than to walk.

You may have to try several times.

It takes some skill, but it is easy to learn.

Even young children can enjoy it.

Once successful, complications are minimal.

Birds seldom get too close.

Rain, however, soaks in very fast.

Too many people doing the same thing can also cause problems.

One needs lots of room.

If there are no complications it can be very peaceful.

A rock will serve as an anchor.

If things break loose from it, however, you will not get a second chance.

Just adding the context Kite, and it makes sense. Extraordinary performance, innovation and creativity, a la Apple, is all about context.

Working with a client last week I used this example to illustrate the extent to which context is decisive! Depending on the context leaders set things will or will not make sense to employees. When leaders are not getting the results they want, they need to create a new context, they do not need to add new content – given context shapes what we see, how what we see occurs to us, the actions that automatically follow for us, and therefore our outcomes.

When context is missing, content makes little or no sense and evokes nothing by FUD, as I suspect was the case with the first reading when the context, Kite, was missing.

So leaders, speak your vision with passion and commitment. Tell everyone with every nuance and detail, the importance of your mission, the importance of getting rid of all the obstacles to unleashed brilliance, the importance of.... Enroll and engage people in your passion for your mission – without that the rest is just stuff people need to do, and boring stuff at that.

People Are Naturally Geniuses, But...

2012-01-22T17:24:00.000-05:00

In most organizations, notwithstanding the fact that we are nearing the end of January, executives are at work on establishing accountabilities and KPI's for their reports.

As I have been coaching some of these efforts, I have been reminding executives of several perspectives that I hold to be true:

That their people are naturally geniuses: they are naturally creative and innovative. If you don't see that in your organization it is because you have trained into your organization whatever it is you are getting. And if you doubt the fundamental nature of humans to be brilliant have a look at what the alum of an extraordinary school are doing – these are rural women and men – many of them illiterate – they've become solar engineers, artisans, dentists anddoctors in their own villages.
People are committed to doing a good job, they want to outperform expectations. They arrived on day one with that intent. If you are getting no accountability and low performance with great justifying excuses – have the point of view that that is exactly what you are training your people to give you.
People want to be part of something larger than themselves – they are moved and inspired by an audacious mission and by leaders who lead with integrity and authenticity – that is part of what explains Apples' genius and is more accessible that most executives realize.
We don't have to know how to to authentically commit to produce results in the future. Most leaders say, I want innovation and creativity to come out of the KPI's people take on. Yet notice, at the same time you want them to explain how they are going to produce the outcomes that will clearly need a breakthrough to pull off! Duh! If they could explain, what they are taking on it would not be a breakthrough. Be inspired by the Hole in the Wall Project – give people freedom to explore, to experiment, to get it wrong, to collaborate, and most important of all to learn, make discoveries and be the geniuses they want to be. People are being trained to play safe, avoid failure no wonder the expectations for innovation is not being realized.
Context is critical without a nurturing context for genius, innovation, creativity, collaboration, learning, team work - all the things leaders say they want – none will show up.

So have the point of view that what you are getting in your organization is a direct fit for the context you have created and continue to reinforce, and stop externalizing the source of any lack of performance or any unwanted behaviors to employees,

Reinventing Life At the Threshold of a New Year

2011-12-30T17:15:00.007-05:00

Each of us, from time to time, have private conversations with ourselves. Some of these conversations touch us to our core, as if we had connected with some fundamental, even sacred truth about ourselves – about the meaning and direction of our lives. Mostly these insights are fleeting and are too easily displaced by day-to-day routines and concerns.

Periodically, usually because of some life changing circumstance, the conversations are nagging, urgent, and disturbing. Disturbing, mostly because the questions that are surfaced at these times seem to be unanswerable: where is my life going? What do I do next that will give me a sense of meaning and some joy? What's the point of my life? What do I want? What will make me happy and give me a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment? How am I supposed to express my leadership and have people follow me when I am unclear where I am going and what I am up to?

These are not easy questions with ready answers. Google, Wikipedia and all our usual sources of ready responses to questions are not going to help with these questions. Because the answers to these fundamental meaning and purpose questions are so illusive we often abandon them – leave them unaddressed – and just get on with what's in front of us each day. But the questions inevitably return – and the start of a new year is just one of those times when we re-look at meaning, mission and direction – as we wrestle with answering the perennial year end question, "what am I committed to for 2012, what am I going to accomplish?".

Brain science tells us that we know things – unconsciously know, intuitively know, see sense and feel know – before our rational minds knows that we know. We have all had experiences that validate what science is now beginning to explain for us. So, informed by no more than that, how do we access our unconscious knowing about these important questions?

For a start run some experiments. But first, put the rational mind, that internal editor, that judger and evaluator that always want to chip in with a critique – put it on hold. We don't want to get any input or feedback from that source for some time!

First experiment: get yourself a God Jar a really beautiful and inspiring one like this one. Take a leaf out out Julia Cameron's book, The Vein of Gold and write brief notes – one note for each thought – about: what you want, what you love, what you want to do with your life, the difference you want to make, what you are passionate about, who you want in your life ... Cover every aspect of your life – and no editing.

Write the notes as if you were sending prayers aloft. And notice the themes that particularly excite you or capture your imagination.

Don't worry yet about action plans, or goals and objectives – they will be cold water for the spirit of imagination and creativity.

In parallel, the second experiment is also designed to capture the subconscious sacred yearnings and bring them to consciousness. This one, in parallel with the God Jar, uses a Moleskine notebook like this one.

In this iteration of surfacing the subconscious yearnings we write them in the notebook – writing from front to back – just short phrases or a word to two to capture what it is. Again, no editing. Just to be sure the internal editor is off duty add something you know is a bit – out there.

To keep the part of our mind that wants to look at issues and obstacles occupied and satisfied, capture these thoughts too – this time writing in the book from back to front.

Again, just short phrases or a word or two to capture what it is. Again, no editing.

From time to time look at what you have put in the God Jar and what you have written in the Moleskine notebook and discard those items that you clearly do not intend to do anything about, or are clearly pipe-dreams. For me, replace my car with a Bentley Flying Spur Speed is one in my pipe-dream category – not the wildest one, but one.

Paradoxically, without doing any action planning or goal setting, you will begin to notice that actions are being changed, new interests are being engaged with, historical complaints do get resolved or just disappear.

Just the regular practice of connecting with our sacred yearnings and putting notes about them in the God Jar and writing notes in the Moleskine notebook, makes it possible for us to access our subconscious knowing about what we are passionate about and the mission of our lives.

Another Year Winds Down. We're Older! And Wiser?

2011-12-27T15:52:00.006-05:00

Wouldn’t it be great if we actually did get wiser as we got older? However, I don’t experience that learning, or new insights or wisdom even, is an automatic function of life being lived and time passing. As far as I can tell from my own experience, learning and new insights need to be sifted out of day-to-day experiences much as early gold prospectors sifted grit and dirt for the bits of gold they craved.

I have often reflected about how extraordinary our lives, our organizations and our society would be if we had, as a natural human way of being, a craving to learn, to grow, to be a better version of ourselves, our organizations and our society as each year passes.

Yet some people seem to do just that – they grow in stature, in competencies and in wisdom as each year passes. I know people, not headliners mostly, just ordinary people who are clearly sifting life for its gold. I meet them mostly through my work as an executive coach and consultant. I get to see them first as business people, people focused on making the part of the organization they are accountable for be more closely aligned with their vision and intentions. But I also get to know them through the larger dimensions of their lives – as musicians, athletes, parents, hobbyists of all stripes, and members of their communities. In each aspect of their lives what I see are committed people striving – striving to make today a better version of all their yesterdays.

What do we know from observing these lifelong learners? What are they doing that works? Who are the being that works? Here are a few places to start the inquiry:

Reflection works – stopping every now and then to pause and take stock – where we are going, what are we up to, what are we striving for, what are we trying to make happen, who are we striving to be... That works! Lifelong learners are up to something much bigger than themselves and the pursuit of that something gives them who they need to be, and what they need to be acting on, and what they need to be producing
Observation works – being conscious about what is happening. It is so easy to operate out of habit, to be on automatic pilot. In that mode a lot goes by and we don't see it, for example.
Lifelong learners are awake, aware, conscious and observant. That does that mean they don't have blind spots and miss things like the rest of us. The difference is they know they do and are constantly on the look out to discover what their blind spots are, and what they are not seeing. They use buddies, trusted friends, coaches, mentors, anyone who can help them be more awake and aware
Being non-judgmental works – stuff happens! However, labeling it good/bad, right/wrong, should be/shouldn't be and so on, or being upset with what happens doesn't work as a learning step. Invalidating ourselves does not work either. Further, it shifts our whole being from the excitement of creativity and self expression in the pursuit of the gold, even when stuff happens
Discernment works – being able to sort out the gold from the grit really works. Scientist run experiments. In the process they have lots of failed experiments. The point of experimenting in the first place is to discover what works. By discerning what works we can now consciously and deliberately replicate it, we can show others what works – we have expanded our conscious competence [a nod to Maslow's stages of learning]. With hindsight we will also discover what did not work, what was missing that had it been in place we would have has a different outcome, or what was present and in the way we need to remove so as to have the outcomes we want
Practices work – establishing practices makes becoming wiser as time passes much easier – for example, doing a regular after action review as part of a discipline to learn from experience.

It often puzzles me when I see great ideas, practices, and behaviors, working beautifully in one part of an organization and they are being ignored by another part of an organization. How come? Or when I see people afraid to try anything new in one part of an organization and in another part people are experimenting and innovating like crazy. How come?

The principle reason I speculate is that life long learners have developed a very empowering relationship with questioning, with not-knowing, with ignorance, with experimenting and failing – they are excited by exploring, experimenting and the discoveries they stumble on along the way.

RFK distinguished those who settle for the status quo from those who are constantly in pursuit of new insights and wisdom this way, "There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?"

I Am Not a Fan of the Language of Goals and Goal Setting

2011-12-05T16:31:00.004-05:00

I am not a fan of using the language of "goals" and "goal Setting", mostly because of the experience most people have of the baggage that comes with them – success/failure, good/bad, reward/punishment (even if neither are explicitly in the mix, implicitly they are for most people). If people have, even the slightest fear of the negative consequences that come from failing to meet their goals, they will under-promise, or worse, not promise outcomes at all – not what is wanted and needed in most organization in our fragile economy.

So I have a different approach:

Get people in action first – get them to make dents, make an impact – have them use their best intelligence to make something useful happen
If they are in action already, then up the anti, do more stuff, more quickly - more dents, make a bigger impact, make more useful stuff happen
Eliminate good bad or right/wrong or should/shouldn't, good/bad, ... from your lexicon – they kill spontaneity, creativity and initiative
If people have the concern they will be judged and evaluated based on whether they meet goals or not, are doing the right thing or not, they will subconsciously operate out of CYA and underperform.

And don't worry that the seemingly unfocused – just be in action and make something happen – instruction will lead to chaos, it won't. There is enough intelligence in the organization and in individual contributors for them to know what will and won't work, what will contribute and what won't – if we trust people to unleash their genius at work, they will.

To raise everyone's game and start focusing activities so that they have an intention to produce specific outcomes in time – outcomes someone wants, here are some recommendations:

Start with getting people to list the activities/actions they intend to engage in for the week, or even for a day – just what are you going to be doing - a big to do list. Best done before the week starts, say Sunday evening, or the evening before if it is being done daily [Column 1 of document attached]
Then the next step is to have people say what result/outcome they are intent on producing as a result of their doing/activities, item by item – each outcome to be specific and measurable [Column 2]
Then say by when they want to have that outcome produced – a specific date/time [Column 3]
Finally, say who the outcome is for, who is expecting it, waiting for it, and do they expect it by a particular time/date? – name a specific person and specific time if there is one [Column 4].

Then follow up: this part is designed to support people discover what has them deliver on their intended outcomes, and how come them fail to deliver. The context for the follow up is curiosity and learning – the intent is to discover, with the benefit of hindsight, what worked, what did not work and what was missing from most recent actions, to make subsequent actions more effective in producing desired outcomes. The follow up steps are:

When the activity is complete, check – did it produce the desired outcome: Yes or No? Encourage people to answer that for themselves – with no reasons, explanations, justifications, ... The coaching is, it is not good if the answer is Yes and bad if it is No – it is just what's so
If Yes, did the outcome get produced in the timeframe you said… Yes or No? Again, encourage people to answer that for themselves. Again with the coaching it is not good if the answer is Yes and bad if it is No – it is just what's so
Was the person who was expecting the outcome (#4) satisfied – did you meet expectations (M), exceed expectations (E) or fail (F) to meet expectations?
When the activity is complete, or time has run out, do an after action review so they can learn how to improve performance for subsequent iterations
I recommend that after action reviews be conducted often; after a meeting, a day of work, at the end of a project... this is a very effective practice to continually improve performance.

I find it useful too to encourage people to start noticing – again without judgement of evaluation – where they notice they are acting inconsistently with their intentions or commitments. In the beginning just notice, without trying to fix or correct anything, and notice too the reasons and explanations they give themselves. I wont say more about this for now.

In a collaborative and supporting relationship a manager, or colleague, can encourage people in their network of dependencies to experiment with taking on more audacious outcomes, or outcomes with shorter execution times. In a context where failure is not something to be avoided, but rather a learning opportunity, it is a low risk game and one with very high rewards in enhanced capability to reliably deliver on ones intentions.

Tom Watson Sr of IBM, used to say, "if you want to double your results, double your failure rate". I concur, what's more, I agree with him.

Some Elements of The Culture of A Learning Organization

2011-11-26T08:49:00.001-05:00

Curiosity and inquiry are part of the way of Being in the organization – more than espoused values but the way people actually related to each other and the world.

What works is communicated widely and particularly to those who can use those insights in forwarding their accountabilities.

People listen from what can I discover? What is there for me to learn here?

Failure is an occasion to discover and learn. Watson Sr. of IBM is reported to had said, "If you want to double your success rate, double your failure rate", so failure is not an opportunity for recrimination, blame, make wrong, What it is though is an opportunity to discover what worked – even in failure there are many elements that worked – so that it can be replicated as part of a robust process. With hindsight, to discover what did not work so it can be removed from subsequent actions, and to discover, again with hindsight, what was missing, so that can be put in place.

Knowledge is to share which means we are looking to give away what we know, and we are encouraging colleagues to give us what they know that they suspect we don't know

Ignorance management is nurtured as a learning support structure. Everyone has their own set of problems to solve and everyone has a clear appreciation of the areas where they don't know, the conscious areas of incompetence. And, they are on the look out for the areas where they don't know they don't know the unconscious areas of incompetence. Having problems to solve and not knowing is not considered an inadequacy, it is not something to hide, instead it is evidence of being on the edge of insights and discoveries.

Part of everyone's accountabilities are projects and outcomes that cannot be accomplished with current levels of knowledge and experience and each person will have a learning and development plan and will have access to mentors, coaches and buddies as part of the support structure to produce breakthrough outcomes and new learnings.

Everyone is opening to coach and to being coached.

There are lots of experiments going on virtually everyone has got an experiment of some sort going on to improve performance of just to make things work better and more elegantly.

Experts and expertise are valued and respected and they are clear expertise is a fleeting phenomenon so they are constantly working to maintain their status.

Acknowledgement, appreciation, celebration, fun, passion and self expression are words people use to describe the culture.

Some Perspectives About Empowerment

2011-11-24T15:18:00.000-05:00

Any conversation about empowerment in an organization that is not yet operating inside a stand, a committed future, a mission, or a strategic intent, is a conversation that can only produce mischief:

To empower people when there is no clear and aligned on mission and strategic intent is to give people freedom to do stupid things faster, and with more freedom and permission
Or, it is to give people permission to advance their own agendas, recruit followers, resist opposing points of view, create factions, create winners and losers, and to dominate others and use whatever force they can get away with, to avoid the domination of others ideas and ways of doing things
It is also the quickest route to breakdowns, upsets, frictions, sub-optimization of the resources and possibilities of the organization - and in its worst case, it is a recipe for chaos and the eventual collapse of the organization.

Leaders and managers, by attempting to empower people before there is a context, a shared mission and strategic intent, have in effect, unintentionally created a condition in which they have little or no room to intervene when things happen they don't want, or when things are not happening that they do want, without being accused of not trusting people and of being disempowering.

So, most often, to avoid accusations of being disempowering leaders and managers most often abdicate. They don't intervene. Which implicitly means they choose to vacillate between complaining about no or insufficient results, at the same time they provide little to no leadership or direction. Worse, out of frustration with the way things are going, they intervene with their solutions which people have to accept - a reversion to what most leaders know best – command and control – or as I prefer to call it, organizational bullying.

Because these imposed solutions most often do not include the input or engagement of the people who have to implement them, leaders end up creating the opposite of what they want – a low morale, disengaged, disempowered, high turnover and underproducing workforce.

Paradoxically, the very best way to unleash the genius, creativity and passion of people at work is to let them into the process of articulating the organization's mission. If the mission is long standing and well established – then give them the opportunity to understand it, digest it, assimilate it and make it their own.

Then let people in on the process of creating the strategic intent, and their own function or team's strategy. And when that is done, then, and only them, empower them to use their best intelligence to make the strategies work and to move the organization closer to realizing its mission.

The bottom line a very tight control of the mission and values of the organization and a loose control over the strategy, practices and behaviors to realize the organization's mission and live the values.

If we have the view that an organization is a complex, adaptive, intelligent, human social system then all we need to unleash its full potential is a compelling mission and freedom of self expression – and a few simple rules and tools.

Steve Jobs 1995 - 2011

2011-10-06T16:03:00.005-04:00

"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new." Steve Jobs 2005 Stanford Commencement Address.

Your family and close friends, to say nothing of your Apple family, and the family of Apple supporters around the world were not ready for you to be "cleared out" - so way before your time.

Steve made a difference - one that impacted the world we live in far beyond products, or apps or animated movies. He put in people's hands the means to communicate and make a difference which multiplied exponentially the difference he himself made.

The outpouring of love and appreciation for Steve will, I hope, be some small comfort to his family. It is evidence he lived his advice to the Stanford class of 2005, " Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

President Obama got it right when he said, "The world has lost a visionary. And there may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented."

Most Executives Want Innovation, Yet Don't Give Themselves or Their People, Permission to Fail - How Nuts is That?

2011-09-26T12:45:00.003-04:00

We hear a lot of talk from most C-Suite executives about the importance of innovation to stay competitive. Such talk is part of most of their public pronouncements from press releases, to shareholder meetings, annual reports and even the executive summaries of their business plans. It is hard to imagine an all company meeting in which executives did not say something about the need for creativity and thinking outside the box as the best way to keep a competitive edge.

Even goals and objectives in most organizations have BHAG’s built in with the expectation that setting stretch goals will drive creativity and innovation – and mostly, they don’t.

How come? because most organizational culture and day-to-day practices contradict the rhetoric about the importance of creativity and innovation – and worse, it undermines the executives’ authority and the credibility and the authenticity of their organization.

Think about it – being innovative and creative implies doing things and producing outcomes that have not been produced before. It requires a discontinuity from the way we have done things in the past – a break with “the way we do things around here” – and in most organizations there is a low tolerance for that, or, more accurately, a low tolerance for the consequences of allowing widespread tinkering with established norms.

Why? because most companies and most executives are organized to get things right, to succeed in the existing context, they are not organized to fail. They don’t give themselves permission to fail.

In our day-to-day speaking we confuse failure with carelessness or incompetence. For example in the recent firing of HP’s CEO the dominant conversation is the failure of Leo Apotheker, when the real issue was, more likely, the carelessness or incompetence of the board in appointing him in the first place.

We treat failing as something bad or wrong that needs to be avoided in the future, even worse, we treat people who fail as problems – and the remedy, a negative performance review, remedial training or, as in Apotheker’s case, removal from the organization.

A necessary part of being innovative, of being creative, is that not everything we attempt will succeed as we intended – we don’t expect every experiment to work, or the result of thoughtful tinkering to be, “the next big thing”. We expect failures – or, that would be the appropriate response were it not for the way we have been trained to frame failures.

So what to do:

Make a clear distinction between carelessness and failure – the former the result of overlooking or neglecting to follow proven processes, protocols or procedures, a lack of due diligence; the later an attempt to do something never done before. That's why it's an experiment, trial and error, thoughtful tinkering - we want to discover what works and what doesn't
Acknowledge and reward those willing to experiment and tinker and fail - fear of change will reduce with each acknowledgement
Use each failure as a learning experience - do after action reviews regularly, institutionalize what works, eliminate what doesn't and put in place what was missing
Design failures in to everyone's goals and objectives – create areas/projects where you expect/want there to be failures
Report on failed experiments as well as successes
Attract different people and care for the people you attract. "We attract a different type of person—a person who doesn’t want to wait five or ten years to have someone take a giant risk on him or her. Someone who really wants to get in a little over his head and make a little dent in the universe. From Steve Job's quotes
Eliminate anything that is abusive to the human spirit – gossiping, undermining, sarcasm, agreeing/counter-arguing, intimidation...
Finally, be really, really, really clear what the organization's purpose and values are and live them - live them boldly, and with passion.

Leadership: The Source of an Organization's Future

2011-09-13T16:43:00.004-04:00

What distinguishes great leadership from those who are leaders by title is the way great leaders speak to their various constituencies – a way of speaking that generates possibilities, an enthusiastic following and a mood of excitement, an itchiness to get into collaborative action and make things happen – yes, even a cult like following making great things happen. (Think Apple)

It is a speaking that sources, or generates, or brings into existence a new bold future for his or her organization, and everyone the organization touches – and, it is a future the leader really, really, really wants.

It is a speaking that engages and compels - one that redirects the trajectory of the organization’s impact in the market. It is a speaking we all have access to in those moments when we are in touch with our passions, vision and commitments – in those moments when our connection to our passion, vision and commitments is so visceral it has pushed aside conversations about feasibility, practicality, pathways… blah, blah, blah, that, so often derail even our most passionate intentions.

Great leaders recognize the default mode of most speaking is descriptive. They know the discussion in most meetings, or the exchanges of most commentators is simply the point-of-view, or opinion of the speaker, being spoken as if describing facts.

Leader’s speaking is sourced from the stand they are, independently from how they think/know people will react. Great leaders have mastered how to respond to peoples’ reactions to the future they want after they speak vs. conditioning their speaking before the fact so as to avoid push back or the clamor for certainty and agreement that follows the, “Yea but…” – they know how to reframe concerns and connect people to shared passions and commitments.

Reflect briefly about the leaders you admire and respect most – your Great Leaders Through History – and check for yourself:

Were they shaped by circumstances or their commitments?
Were they resolute in pursuing their vision or reasonable in the face of resistance?
Were they shaped by organizing principles or were they practical (political), going along to get along?
Were setbacks and excuse to change course, even give up, or were setbacks fuel for more imagination and creativity?
...

Leaders Operate With Myths and Illusions Rather Than Reality

2011-06-17T10:31:00.000-04:00

A disturbing fact worth remembering – leaders operate with myth and illusion more that with the realities of the world.

The financial meltdown is more evidence than we need for the validity of that assertion.

So an ongoing practice to surface the beliefs, and theories we have that are not valid is a must, especially given we have a bias to look for evidence to confirm that we are right, even when we are not.

It is worth asking, "What happens if some of our beliefs and theories about leadership, organization, management and work are just plain wrong – and how would we know?" Compare these assertions with your own beliefs:

Forecasting and planning are not reliable strategy development tools – especially if the intention is to be a market leader innovating market altering products and services
Command and control is out of date – if you are still getting away with it, it's because you have succeeded in suppressing the initiative and creativity of your people
You are not the smartest person in the organization, really – get over it
Change is part of the world you now live in, it is unlikely to be a predictable world ever again (if it ever really was)
You are dealing with autonomous intelligent people, not machine parts or boxes on an org chart – forget it and the price is paid in lost creativity, lost talent, and ultimately descent into irrelevance
Uncertainty and confusion is not evidence of something wrong – just an appropriate and natural response to an unfamiliar and complex, ever changing, world
Complex problems/dilemmas have single solutions
360s and annual performance review processes are out of date and don't acknowledge the realities of real time, all the time, interconnectedness
Knowing is over-rated and not-knowing is hugely underexploited
Failure is an underexploited opportunity for new learning and for breakthroughs.

So the question becomes, "What practice will you initiate that will help you surface unexamined assumptions, out-of-date theories, limiting beliefs and constraining perspectives?"

Seek Out and Promote the Disruptors & Out-of-the-Box Thinkers

2011-06-15T16:24:00.001-04:00

Most of us have grown up in life, and especially in life-at-work, in which the unspoken, and often spoken, mantra is conform – don't rock the boat, be a team player, our way or the highway...

Starting from kindergarten or earlier, with advice like "don't paint outside the lines!", to work, with onboarding advice like "this is the way we do it around here", and instructions like, "follow the rules", it is a wonder to me that we have as many disruptors as we do. And yet, in organization after organization we see evidence that we don't have enough disruptors. We see too many instances where being called a disruptor is not a validation of what is wanted and needed but a criticism of behavior that needs to be corrected.

In spite of the rhetoric, we see too many managers and leaders who discourage thinking and acting outside-the-box. They discourage it by the way people are incentivized; by the way new ideas are dealt with; by the way the organization responds to failed experiments, and in so many other implicit and explicit ways.

Isn't it interesting that so many significant market disruptions do not come from the market leaders, for example:

Zipcar with car sharing. The obvious contenders for new ways to serve car rental customers were Hertz, Avis and Enterprise. However, when you have an unquestioned paradigm that includes things like rentals by the day, from a company authorized locations, with document signing before taking the car, and so on, it is not surprising that Hertz Connect and Enterprise WeCar were late to the Zipcar model and are now followers.
Apple has caused so many disruptions that they are now without equal: We would have expected the music industry to have created iTunes; or Sony to have invented the iPod; or Motorola or Nokia to have invented the iPhone; or HP or Dell to have invented the iPad...

So if there is a commitment to nurture and develop disruptors are there any useful things to do to increase the odds that your organization will be the one that creates the next breakthrough in your market? We think so, here are a few:

Make sure everyone in your organization understands the paradigm you operate in – yes you operate in a paradigm not what most people call reality. Make sure people know that paradigms include a host of elements that, left unexamined, will limit and constrain what people can see and what people can do
Have regular and rich conversations for possibility and make sure people understand the difference between possibility and pipe-dream
Design the mission and strategy in such a way that it calls for breakthroughs – and together, they are an unequivocal invitation to people to invent, generate and discover how to realize the strategy as a means to make the vision a reality
Connect people with their passions, their vitality, their enthusiasm, their hunger to make a difference, to contribute, to be acknowledge as players in a game really worth playing – unleashed you'll have genius
And remember, organizations are not mechanisms – you are not dealing with head-counts, with bodies, or any of the other dehumanizing HR speak – organizations are complex, adaptive, intelligent, human, social systems. So practice being less or a controller and more of an attractor for out-of-the-box ideas that translate into a market altering impact that brings your collective vision closer to realization.
Oh, and make it a fun experience!

Free People to Express Their Full Contribution - The Organizations Vitality Depends On It

2011-06-05T17:29:00.002-04:00

If we keep in mind that organizations are complex, adaptive, intelligent, human, social systems and not mechanism we are on the right track.

Karl Popper the philosopher had a wonderful admonition that leaders would be wise to take to heart. He said, don't confuse clock with clouds. To paraphrase him, he said clocks you can take apart, examine, rebuild, make bigger, more complicated with more features... Clouds on the other hand don't work that way, they need be dealt with as a whole, they are complex, self-organizing, adaptive systems not mechanisms. You can't deal with clouds with the same thinking and methods as you deal with clocks.

Any system that includes people needs to be thought of more as clouds than clocks. This is how we will unleash/harness the complex, adaptive, intelligent, human social system to self-organize around the organization's mission, strategic intent and values. Do this well and the system is ever expanding to take advantage of opportunities in the market and will be self-repairing in the event of loss of key parts (people) of the system – knowing that a clockwork/mechanistic approach wont do it.

In the last few months I have been in conversations with clients about succession planning. My counsel:
don't waste time on these kinds of planning exercises. Instead create a culture and a set of practices for ongoing talent development so that you are home growing people to step into new accountabilities as the business needs them to.

Here are sone perspectives I work with that will take the conversation about talent development and succession development from the theoretical to the day-to-day very practical.

LPR's perspective is we need to think from a different place about talent development and about succession, even about how we organize to get things done – here are some examples:

Have the dominant organizing model be a network of accountabilities not roles and responsibilities inside a hierarchy of people in boxes.
In an accountability organizing model each person is accountable to a specific person to produce specific measurable desired results in time – all cascaded from the CEO – and all in service of the mission, strategic intent and values
Functions (the roles in boxes) stay in place but as a subordinate operating model - principally as centers of excellence, example, finance, HR, manufacturing. Authorities and responsibilities that usually go with a role in a function are now part of specific accountabilities
Individuals ability to contribute to an organization (and advance in importance and stature) and in turn have more of a share of voice and a larger share of rewards becomes tied to the range of their accountabilities and the importance of those accountabilities. Promotion opportunities are no tied to the possibility that a box in the org chart will become vacant
People are supported and encouraged to expand their accountabilities – each person will have a personal development plan – they will also have a coaching plan, a coach, mentor and a number of supporting buddies
The personal performance and development plan is one vehicle to identify areas for personal expansion alongside a practice of regular after action reviews and performance reviews some, like this example, initiated by the accountability holder and some by the person to whom they are accountable – in most settings still called manager.
This means, in an accountability framework, everyone at some point is a manager – they are managing their accountabilities and the people they are counting on so as to be able to fulfill on their accountabilities. So the CEO and the President will be being held to account by people who in a hierarchical organization would only engage with the CEO and President in a one way authority/command and control, top down mode.

Talent development is a part of everyones accountabilities – everyone is accountable to see that every outcome they are accountable to produce - both the qualitative and quantitative ones - can be effectively carried out by one or more people they have trained. Everyone has, as part of their accountabilities, to be a coach, mentor, and buddy to people they are developing to assume their accountabilities when called on to do so.

The traditional regular (annual of bi-annual) performance review and succession planning events, become more a review that talent development and succession development is on track - even a certification point if that is a practice that is empowering.

There are a series of other cultural perspectives that either forward or constrain an accountability based talent development model I will develop later. For example:

Augmenting knowledge sharing/knowledge management with ignorance management – the practices for surfacing areas of ignorance to be the trigger event for ideation
Distinguishing carelessness events from failure – the former to be minimized to 7 sigma or better the latter to be encouraged - the access to learning, growth and development
Existence systems – to manage requests, promises, and offers as part of supporting individuals become more reliable in taking on and delivering every larger accountabilities
Practices to improve the performance of teamwork and collaboration – managing dependencies become even more important
How to effectively surface and deal with conflict – both the conflict built in to strategy and the conflict generated as a function of differing perspectives and personalities
How the organization goes about declaring breakdowns and moving the breakdown to breakthrough
How to have difficult conversations with colleagues
How to managing multiple commitments (accountabilities) in time to an array of stakeholders
The need to surface and eliminate structural (mostly historical) constraints - policies, rules, and procedures that no longer serve their design purpose, or the design purpose is no longer relevant or useful

Change the Conversation and You Change Behaviors and Outcomes

2011-04-20T17:45:00.003-04:00

What do executive do, really?

What is the nature of executive work? When all is said and done what do executives get paid for? Well, as you know already there is a huge literature dedicated to answering that questions--yet for many, while the prevailing perspectives are interesting they don't alter actions or outcomes.

Just as there is a huge literature on personal fitness and weight loss while we are probably the least fit and most overweight in our history, so it is with perspectives about being an effective executive--lots of insights, and little correlation to altered behavior and outcomes.

I have a particular bias in thinking about this question given my own work for the last 25 years has been working with executives with two specific intentions in mind: the first, to help executives be clear about what they really, really, really want beyond predictions from the past; and second, to help them realize what they want so that they get results consistent with their intentions and not, what they so often have to contend with--resignation from thwarted ambitions.

I every case, going from what is predictable or able to be extrapolated from the past, and what executives really, really, really want calls for a transformation. A transformation in:

Their operating context: about what is possible and impossible, reasonable and unreasonable, feasible and infeasible; about how strategy gets formulated and goals get established; about how agreements are made and disagreements are handled; how failures are dealt with and successes...
Their ways of being: how values are established and lived; how trust is established and maintained; how moods and emotions are expressed; how competition and rivalries are handled; how disappointment, upsets and complaints are dealt with...
Their operating practices: for dealing with accountabilities, roles, responsibilities and authorities; for dealing with the unexpected; for sustaining the engine of growth and profitability; for inventing and discovering new business models and opportunities...

What executives are doing as they are speaking and listening all day, whether in person, in emails, and the myriad other ways they communicate is, they are--generating and managing a network of conversations. Conversations that:

Create new possibilities--possibilities that will, in all likelihood, threaten some as they excite others--especially if they are conversations that are designed to create a new future, not just extend and expand the ways of the past
Conversations that cause action and desired outcomes--specific demands, requests and promises rather than equivocal conversations that include things like, try, do my best, with a bit of luck, if all goes well...
Conversation that surface and deal with difficult issues--the elephant in the room, the sacred cows, the uncomfortable topics...
Conversations that...

Executives who are really effective use language with the same precision that a surgeon uses when using his surgical instruments. They understand the design purpose of their conversations--and they observe the correlation between what they intended to produce and what actually got produced--and they know how to correct in the instances when they miss the mark.

A useful question to keep in mind is, what's the design purpose of the conversation I am generating or managing? And the follow on question, is that purpose being forwarded or not?

What Do You Say Is The Reason That Consistently You Are a Far Exceeds Performer?

2011-04-19T16:24:00.008-04:00

It is hard to imagine someone coming to work intending to get a does not meet expectations rating. For too many though there comes a point when they realize, "I'm never going to make it...around here...with my boss...in this job...with these goals and objectives..." and resignation begins to set in. When that happens everything they need to do becomes an effort and a struggle – enthusiasm wanes to non-existence. Boredom and a loss or interest and enthusiasm kick in. Complaints and friction rise, and with it a general level of stress and tension. The joy quickly gets sucked out of work.

So it is especially heartwarming to come across people who love what they do and are great at it. Given my own interest in exceptional performance and nurturing places to work I am drawn to interview (some would say cross examine) these people.

Here is a snippet from a recent interviewees response – this was from an exceptional performer, and I've been on the receiving end of his work:

You've got to be interested – if you are not interested in being great and doing a great job, it's just not going to happen is it
You have got to be curious – how does it work, how can I make it better, how can I improve, how can I... about everything, you have got to be curious about how you can do a really great job. Isn't that what we all want – to be a hero to someone, to be really great at something...
Got to be willing to explore – who's got a better answer, who knows more than I do, who can help me, where can I find solutions, mentors, expert sources... Where can I find new opportunities...you've always got to be looking and exploring
You've got to be willing to make mistakes, and know its safe to try new things and fail. It's hard to go for far exceeds performance if stretching and failing gets you into trouble. And if you are not learning from your mistakes, that's dumb
You got to be a continuous learner because things are changing so fast that if you are not continuously learning you'll soon be toast
And you have got to take charge of your own performance by seeking out feedback from colleagues, bosses... anyone who sees your work and results. And it's up to me to make sure I get acknowledgement and appreciation when I deserve it – and I mostly deserve it.

So I recommend you make it a practice to spend time with the exceptional performers – the members of the far exceeds club. Get their secret sauce. Encourage them to share what they have discovered about exceptional performance with the people they work with. And make the process of being acknowledged and appreciated easier for them by laying it on.

How Do You Instill A Higher Purpose In A Modern Corporation, And Should You?

2011-04-11T11:26:00.014-04:00

Is the dichotomy real? You know the one:

The design purpose of the modern corporation is to maximize the returns they produce for shareholders however they can, period – the common good, not our concern; the environment, not if it adds to our costs; sustainability, look Wall Street's focus is this quarter, this year maybe, and that's about how sustainable we need to be to attract and/or maintain investors
Corporations need to pursue a social mission, a higher purpose, as their primary focus, with the best return they can for shareholders a close second if they are to build a vibrant and viable business and survive over the long haul? And, they need to be socially responsible, take care of their environment – you know, the triple bottom line.

With corporations like Apple, Google, Facebook and many many others, the question is almost a non sequitur because they each have a very clearly articulated higher purpose that is part of what draws the almost fervent following these companies enjoy. Those who are exposed to these companies services either love them or hate them – code in my book for, they support the higher purpose or they don't.

I am clear that the corporations with the strongest cultures, and the most dedicated followers and employees, are also the corporations with a clear mission and a clearly articulated higher purpose – a purpose that is beyond meeting the numbers and making good returns on investments – essential as growing the business and providing a good return to investors is for the long term ability to keep operating from and for a higher purpose.
In companies operating from a higher purpose, economic returns are measures of the company's health as it pursues its purpose, not the end game. Howard Schultz of Starbucks spells this out clearly in his new book, Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life Without Loosing Its Soul. He also outlined his perspectives in an interview he conducted with McKinsey Quarterly. In it he describes how just going for same store sales and profits nearly killed Starbucks.

We know from our personal experience, from anecdotes and from scholarly research that people work for more that a pay check – people need to find meaning, a higher purpose, in what they do for a living – they need intrinsic rewards even more than extrinsic rewards – if they are to love their work, be healthy, innovative, creative and productive. Sadly, far too many people look outside their corporations to family and personal life goals for meaning and a sense of purpose. What they do for a paycheck just has to be endured – it doesn't have to be that way.

But the big question is how do we find meaning and higher purpose in our work? Especially if we are working for an organization that is contributing to:

The production of junk food that contributes to obesity, diabetes, heart disease and any number of other unhealthy side effects
Polluting the environment by putting noxious, carcinogenic chemicals into our air and water
Causing economic hardship by predatory lending practices that we have seen in the mortgage and finance industry – practices that most agree were the major contributors to our economic crisis of the last few years
Externalizing a large part of their real cost of doing business on the local community, the environment and larger society – which a vast number of companies do.

In my advice to corporate leaders I am agnostic about what their higher purpose should be, just clear they should have one, and have one that each of their employees own and can wholeheartedly support. I am also clear that it is important to be open, honest and transparent with employees about what the real purpose of the organization is – it's the what you actually do vs. what you say you value.

Some years ago a consultant friend had a major tobacco company as a client. They were clear what their higher purpose was, and most of their employees were enrolled in it, to the point they had, "thank you for smoking" signs on their desks and would stop smokers in the street with a warm, "thank you for smoking" acknowledgement. Much as some of us do with our military personnel when we say, "thank you for your service".

Now, some years later, much of society has decided whether the purpose of having everyone be smokers is one we want to support, given the extent of the costs which we now know we have been, and are bearing – economists call this frequently used practice of corporations putting large parts of their costs on to the larger society, externalities.

It is not my role to be judgmental about one higher purpose over another. What I do advocate, as I've said, that we need to be open and up front about what the higher purpose is, so employees, customers, investors – all stakeholders make fully informed choices about participating with that organization and buying their products and services.

Ask yourself, what is the higher purpose of the company you work for?

If it weren't for the paycheck would you want to be part of what they are doing?
What would be missing from society if the company you worked for disappeared, and would it matter?
In what way does your company make a difference in society – it would matter if your company disappeared – and does everyone who works at you company know that and does it shape their actions and decisions?
Did you know the higher purpose of your company when you joined it, and was that a major part of decided to join?
What costs does your company pass on to the local community and larger society in pursuing the higher purpose? And, is there a conversation within the company to eliminate or mitigate these costs?

Organizations are an essential part of human society. We could not accomplish much that we take for granted without them. And, they also have the potential to be harmful to the common good as they benefit the few.

How organizations function, especially in our socially connected world of blogs and tweets is up to each of us - not just the C-Suite executives, and shareholders. What we have seen in the larger world of social activism will eventually be what members of organizations will confront if they forget the interests of all in the service of the interests of the few.

Would I Be Accurate If I Said You See Examples Of Your Failure To Act Consistently With Your Commitments?

2011-03-22T10:48:00.005-04:00

Would I also be accurate if I said it is much easier for you to see this failure to act consistently with your commitments in your colleagues actions and behaviors than in your own?

High performing individuals and organizations have a super sensitivity to the things they do that are inconsistent with their commitments, and they have a set of practices and disciplines to correct quickly.

So what do the rest of us do that keeps us from being high performers? Well the first part has many variants:

Firstly, we don't make many commitments – we are reluctant to put ourselves at the risk of failing (more about that another time), or looking bad
We are mostly process or activity oriented, not outcome oriented, so the attention is on the to do list, or action items, or the process, not the outcome or result that is wanted and needed
Even when we are clear about the result we settle for reasons, explanations and excuses as a substitute for results. So the formula looks like, no intended result + good reason or excuse = the result we'll settle for. Look at something as simple as being on time for meetings. The formula looks like this: late + an excuse = as acceptable as being on time. And we settle for that. The advanced state of this bad habit goes straight to putting up with. We don't even bother with the excuses part and go straight to putting up with and settling for the condition. So, in the late to meeting example, we just accept lateness as part of the way we do things around here. You can be sure that same lack of discipline shows up equally unnoticed and unchallenged in many other parts of the business
We allow ourselves, and others, to pass off unspecific vague statements of activity or aspiration as commitments we are skilled at making these statements vague, but sound good – many of your KPI statements will likely fit this description. By being vague about exactly what is to be produced by whom, by when, means we deny ourselves the opportunity of seeing things as consistent/inconsistent with our intentions
We speak equivocally: I'll do my best, I'll try, subject to... In other words we don't make promises.

The Second part has to do with missing practices, or bad habits.

We don't make sufficient (if any) promises
A bad habit in many organizations is to default to reasons and explanations rather than promises – yes, we need the facts, we need to know what did or didn't happen, but not as a substitute for results. The best generator of actions that will produce desired outcomes/results is to promise – what, by when to whom
Another bad habit is overt or covert wrong making. The background conversation and often the foreground conversation too is, "there's something wrong we me, him/her, them it" when something unwanted happens. This keeps us on the defensive, justifying and excuse making rather than in action committed to produce the desired outcome
A missing practice is regular after action reviews.

My header question is a very difficult one for most of us to ask of ourselves (never mind ask of others), because we have been trained to related to our failure to deliver, to live up to our commitments as evidence that we are somehow bad or wrong, somehow flawed, somehow insufficient. We fear being exposed as not up to the job – exposed as incompetent in important areas, masquarading as overall effective executives.

After all good people keep their commitments – right? Effective executives deliver – right? Well maybe... A longer conversation for another day.

So the first step in examining the question is just to notice where you see that your actions are inconsistent with your commitments and values – just notice:

Resist the temptation to judge and evaluate
Resist the automatic tendency to make an assessment about what it means that you acted inconsistently with a commitment or value – just notice
Counter-intuitively don't try to fix anything – just notice
If you MUST do something then keep a count, that's all, – just count
Well, maybe one thing more – keep a log, keep a record of what happened that was inconsistent - just keep noticing.

HEALTH WARNING: DON'T GO DOWN THE "MAKE WRONG" TUNNEL – THERE IS NOTHING USEFUL THERE.

When Did You Have Your Last New Idea – And What Impact Has It Made on Your Business?

2011-02-06T15:44:00.004-05:00

I am reading Steven Johnson’s Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation and at the same time reflecting on the extent to which I see, or more accurately don’t see, idea generation as a natural part of most organizations culture. Sadly, it is far from the norm.

Sure ideas get generated, but mostly they are met with a litany of reasons and explanations that pretty much guarantee that ideas will go nowhere. We’ve all heard the idea killers:

We’ve tried that, it doesn’t work
That’s a good idea but it won’t work here
We don’t have the budget, the time… to be distracted with that
We have enough on our plate at the moment, can we table that for the moment
Good idea, make sure it gets in the minutes – code for that going nowhere, but thanks for sharing
I’ll run it by… and see what the reaction is
You add your favorite idea killers…

Most executives spend too large a portion of their time managing their core business – their production engine – the source of their place in the market and their profitability – not to mention their bonuses and their pathway to promotion, or even their job security.

In most organizations too much time is spent maintaining the status quo and not enough time is spent generating new ideas that will transform the business and industry. We all know the examples of business after business that lost out defending their traditional paradigm only to see an Apple or an Amazon or a Google completely change the game.

Part of the reason that companies like Apple, Google, for example, get so much press is that that are superb at idea generation and turning those ideas into new business and they are several standard deviations from the norm. Johnson tells of the launch of Google News, which went from an idea that was generated by Krishna Bharat in his 20% time to shipped product in one year.

Ideas are not scarce that is the irony – what is scarce in far too many companies is a culture in which ideas can thrive:

Where being a maverick and thinking differently is valued
Where experiments are encouraged
Where failed experiments are valued for the insights they produce
Where there are open doors, open networks and open minds
Where collaboration and exploration is an all the time way of interaction
Where boundaries are porous – inside the organization and outside.

It is disquieting to see in Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s 2010 listing of the 50 Most Innovative Companies that the majority of the top 25 companies come from outside the United States.

My bottom line, from years of working with organizations: to get a transformation so that idea generation is the norm, the culture of the organization has to be reinvented.

The culture of most organizations is not designed for new ideas, especially ones that could create a new future for the organizations. And most executives have been trained, I’d even say indoctrinated, to reject ideas that do not fit with their existing paradigm:

Do I agree with this idea – code does it fit my existing paradigm?
Do I like it – code will it impact my bonus, career, job even?
Am I certain it will work – code does it fit my existing paradigm?
Will others buy in – code does it fit their paradigm?

The paradox, innovative ideas by definition do not fit the prevailing paradigm – if they do fit they are just more, maybe better, and maybe different than the past – but still the status quo.

Complain, Withdraw, or Be in Action and Make a Difference

2011-01-25T01:26:00.005-05:00

It is not difficult to look around our organizations, or our communities, or even the larger society and see things that do not work.

Sometimes we opt for complaining and blaming the ubiquitous “they” who should be doing something to correct the situation aren’t. We get to be righteous and the “they” get to be irresponsible and wrong and the butt of our frustration and even anger.

Sometimes, maybe out of our frustration or hopelessness, we give up in resignation and withdraw – best to just shut our eyes and get on with our lives as best we can and just put up with it.

And other times we take the initiative, marshal all our reserves and collaborators and get into action and make things happen.

There is hardly a major city in the world that does not have some version of infrastructure problems, traffic congestion, and road rage as frustrated road users struggle to get to where they are going in intolerably congested conditions.

I discovered during my stay in India that CyberCity, Gurgaon is no exception. But just look at what a few committed individuals are doing to make a difference.

And there is hardly an organization, division, function or team, in the world that does not have some parallel frustrating condition that wastes time, energy and resources and disempowers the people involved – until, that is, someone or some small group of people, like the members of the CyberCity Welfare Society, step up and declare, enough!

What and where is your traffic congestion – your CyberCity?

Then, ask yourself, who do you need to enroll and engage to get your traffic moving, and are you going to opt for complaining and blaming, or action and desired outcomes?

In the process keep in mind Margaret Mead’s much quoted observation – "Never doubt the power of a small group of committed people to change the world, in fact, nothing else ever has".

Go for it!

Are You Nurturing People Who Are Skilled And Compliant But Without The Audacity To Be Great?

2011-01-18T11:30:00.002-05:00

David Brooks in his NY Times Opinion Page column on January 17, gave some advice to Amy Chua author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and, in the process, included some very useful insights for those of us responsible for developing managers and leaders. Here's the part of David's advice we all need to be well grounded in:

"Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon have found that groups have a high collective intelligence when members of a group are good at reading each others’ emotions — when they take turns speaking, when the inputs from each member are managed fluidly, when they detect each others’ inclinations and strengths.

Participating in a well-functioning group is really hard. It requires the ability to trust people outside your kinship circle, read intonations and moods, understand how the psychological pieces each person brings to the room can and cannot fit together.

This skill set is not taught formally, but it is imparted through arduous experiences."

Coming to the workforce after performing well at school will get you on the first rung of the promotion ladder. Being effective at completing tasks, will keep you employed. Working well in teams, and learning how to manage and lead them is a wholly different competency.

David's indictment of Chua's wimpy coddling of her daughters belongs equally to many managers and leaders who insulate their people from situations where they might fail, situations where they are "not qualified", instead of creating opportunities for them to make it on their own in the organizational equivalent of the school cafeteria.

Where Do Your Managers Learn How to Manage People?

2011-01-18T10:57:00.002-05:00

David Brooks in his NY Times Opinion Page column on January 17, gave some advice to Amy Chua author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and, in the process, included some very useful insights for those of us responsible for developing managers and leaders. Here's the part of David's advice we all need to be well grounded in:

This skill set is not taught formally, but it is imparted through arduous experiences."

David's indictment of Chua wimpy coddling of her daughters belongs equally to many managers and leaders who insulate their people from situations where they might fail, situations where they are "not qualified", instead of creating opportunities for them to make it on their own in the organizational equivalent of the school cafeteria.

Secrets of the C-Suite – Talk Innovation & Breakthrough, But Plan for Improvement

2010-12-30T14:36:00.004-05:00

Really, the truth is it’s all about the status quo improved a bit. Whatever is said about innovation and breakthrough performance, for most C-Suite executives it is just business-speak – and that is code for baloney. Most C-Suite executives suffer from what is known as status quo bias and don’t admit that, or worse don’t recognize their condition. Further, they are victims of the sunk cost fallacy – after all the time, effort and investment in creating the way we do things around here, we are reluctant to write any part of it off and do things differently.

Over the years I have had the privilege (and fun) of working with executives who fit all the clichéd descriptors of great leaders – bold, visionary, charismatic, audacious, enrolling, courageous… and there are many executives who justly earn all the accolades they enjoy.

However, the truth is most C-Suite executives are neither bold nor audacious. Nor are they visionary and enrolling. They have too much invested in the way they do things now to even think about making radical changes, besides they like agreement, certainty and predictability too much.

In the Discovery Audits we (LPR) do some executives are up front enough to admit that a lot of their talk of innovation, breakthrough and transformation is just that, talk. They say things like:

Why else do you think we spend so much money on market research – so we are not caught off-guard by change we didn’t predict
Why do we spend so much money on pols and lobbyists – to increase the chances that nobody rocks the boat on us
We talk about innovation and change a lot but we are organized and compensated to avoid risk and simply grow and improve – we just want to pass the good enough test.

Sure we all know that most change efforts fail. And, it doesn’t have to be that way. Run some simple experiments each day to discover how you unconsciously maintain the status quo, and then make a few simple changes. For example:

Does every meeting have to be an hour – really? Make just a few 42 minutes and see what you can accomplish in what used to take an hour
Does every simple suggestion or proposal your people make have to be met with your questioning and a debate? Practice letting people use their own initiative and do what they think will work
Find a policy, procedure or habit that your people complain gets in the way of their productivity, or reduces their ability to make autonomous decisions and change it
Go looking for the useless and demotivating work that your people are doing and stop it – even set up an incentive scheme so people go looking for you
Go find someone to acknowledge for their contribution, for the pride they show in their work, for their enthusiasm…

What if you could just identify a few status quo things to change each day and then made it a practice to make the changes – things that made a difference, that forwarded your vision and values – would that increase the likelihood that your change efforts might just succeed?

Now if you don’t have a clearly articulated and widely shared vision and a set of values to help shape day-to-day actions and outcomes – that’s because the status quo bias is getting its job done.

When is Failure Acceptable?

2010-12-04T16:21:00.004-05:00

I am frequently struck by the paradox of executives who say they want breakthrough performance, and yet suppress the very people they are relying on to produce it. How come?

I am pretty confident we can all come up with a mental picture of a boss we know, or have known, who is constantly chanting from the breakthrough performance hymnal: we want best in class performance; we need to outperform our competitors; delighting our customers is job #1 – and so on, yet does loads of things that thwart breakthroughs.

Among other things, they punish failure, create a risk-averse culture, impose constraining rules and regulations, micro-manage with, “I don’t trust you” as the sub-text, seldom acknowledge and appreciate employees outstanding tries and results, allow gossiping and undermining, and even worse design compensation systems that by capping payout seem to be designed to maintain business-as-usual-improved-a-bit, not breakthroughs.

I don’t doubt the sincerity of the intentions such executives espouse – to be an organization that reliably produces breakthroughs and exceeds customers’ expectation all the time – just puzzled that they don’t see the extent to which they undermine themselves.

Here are some of my perspectives about how come this paradoxical condition exists:

We confuse failure with carelessness. Failing, after attempting to do something that has never been done before, is treated the same way as screwing up, or carelessness by not doing properly things that we know how to do. Both are considered to be equally unacceptable, and depending on the severity of the consequences, earn a ding or can be severely career limiting. To nurture a breakthrough culture the former should be rewarded and only carelessness should have disciplinary consequences.
We confuse risk and uncertainty and, as a consequence think of both of them as risk. We should reserve the label risk for those things that could, if they do not work out as we anticipate/want, kill or cause serious damage from which it will be hard/impossible to recover. And we should create a new and empowering relationship with uncertainty – as no more than new and unknown territory; the very territory, when explored, will likely reveal breakthroughs.
We relate to trust as something to be earned, so we put in checks and balances to find out if people are trustworthy – from the start signaling we don’t trust them. We then gather evidence to prove we are right. Much smarter to declare everyone trustworthy from the get go, and then hold them to account when they do things that are inconsistent with being trustworthy.

If executives just realized they are creating the conditions they complain about instead of being victims of those conditions they would make much faster progress towards the organizations they say they want.

Failures of Leadership - Lessons Learned

2010-08-04T15:12:00.003-04:00

In 25 years working with executives and executive teams I have rarely heard an executive or executive team raise the question, "Where are we failing as leaders?" of "How come we can't get the results we need from ...?"

So I ask that leaders stop externalizing the source of ineffectiveness – wherever and around whom it is showing up. Have the point-of-view that your leadership is where the problem is and where your focus should be.

Wouldn't it be great if leaders were willing to stop at regular intervals and review their own leadership performance. Which would mean we would have to give up the prevailing implicit assumption that leadership is not the problem, it is the people who report to us, and the folks that report to them, and ... that is where the problem is. Every explanation but confront the fact that we may be a major contributor to our organization's ineffectiveness and lack of progress as much as we are the source of all the brilliant things the organization does.

From our experience here are some of the key failures of leadership that get uncovered when the inquiry is conducted – failures that thwart the espoused intentions and commitments to the future we say we want.

I Can't Get My Reports to Behave the Way I Want!

2010-08-04T14:45:00.002-04:00

If I have heard executives complain about their reports once, I have heard it thousands of times. For me, these complaints are another example of executives externalizing the source of the difficulty – and, by-the-way, making themselves powerless in the process.

In these situations I ask, "Have you given your reports some guidelines about how to work with you so they are successful around you?" You may be surprised to know the answer is usually no.

We expect a users manual when we buy a car or any other potentially complicated purchase. So why not something similar for our reports, for a potentially much more complicated relationship that with an inanimate machine.

So here's what I recommend, lay out some simple guidelines. For example:

Be focused on specific measurable desired outcomes – not activities or process
Relate to each months budget or reforecast, whichever is the higher, as a promise – as in. “I promise to deliver X result in Y time and less than my promise will not do”
Reasons, explanations and excuses are not acceptable as a substitute for less than required results (budget or reforecast budget whichever is greater)
Which does not mean don’t present the facts. Know what happened in your area of accountability, as facts, not as justifications of anything
Flag risks as soon as they become apparent. Surprises may be career limiting
Know your business – have your KPI’s at your fingertips
And, don’t substitute knowing with invention.

There is clearly more ... but you get the idea. So the first step is to be clear what agreements do you want your reports to make with you, and what agreements will you make with them?

All upsets are a function of unmet expectations. We relate to our expectations as if we have had an implicit promise made to us. And, nothing is further from the truth. So make expectations explicit, and be clear whether or not you have someone on the other end promising to give you what you want. Failing to complete this basic step is at the source of frustration, disappointment, the negative assessments we make about others – and a whole host of unproductive and unhealthy behavior.

Silencing the Voice That Says You're a Fraud - Is that Even Possible?

2009-06-17T11:21:00.005-04:00

In helping executive transform their organizations we ask them to have the perspective that an organization is a network of conversations. We ask them to have the point of view that their access to their organization, to cause change, is the network of conversations of the organization - change that and the organization changes.

Our coaching then is, "to be a powerful leader, manage the network of conversations". Which means:

Build on all the conversations in the organization that are consistent with your vision, values, intentions, priorities and commitments. Acknowledge them, tell stories to reinforce them, make heroes out of those who speak them, ...
Notice all the conversations that are inconsistent with your vision, values, intentions, priorities and commitments. Don't engage with them, as in counter them or argue against them. Instead speak for what you want. Gossip, complaining, undermining, negativity and excuse making all fit in this category. Remember the Cherokee grandfather's advice to his grandson - its all about which conversations are you going to feed?
With your vision, values, intentions, priorities and commitments as a context keep asking, "what conversations are missing, that if they were in place we would be closer to a one-to-one fit with our intentions?" As you see what's missing put that conversation in place with structures and practices to make sure it stays in place.

Now that said, there is another network of conversations at play with each and every one of us that we need to be aware of and take into account - our internal conversations. Our internal conversations are our ongoing conversations with ourselves about everything, and everyone.

We need to take them into account because these conversations run the show, and much more than most of us are aware of. They are always there commenting about everything. If we start paying attention we will see that we have an internal commentator constantly assessing, evaluating and judging everything and everyone - not least ourselves.

These internal conversations are the filter through which we see the world, see other people, see possibility and opportunity. If part of what we are listening to when we are in a conversation with a colleague, is our critical or negative internal conversation, then the possibility in that relationship is limited.

If the internal conversation we have about ourselves is critical - which it mostly is - we are limiting ourselves. We are limiting our possibilities, our opportunities for successful relationships, our happiness and the possibility of personal peace and contentment.

The challenge in managing the internal conversation is to identify what the conversations are - so listen up. Then the next challenge is feeding the empowering conversations and starving the negative ones by changing the conversation on ourselves when we hear a negative one.

At one time or another just about every successful person I have worked with has shared that they think they are a fraud and are scared stiff about being discovered.

Who created that conversation, "I'm a fraud?". Who gives it head room? And who can change it? - only we can. And it is as easy, or difficult, as choosing which conversation to feed. But just know the default operating state is to feed, or engage with the negativity.

Twitter and Social Media as Leadership Tools - Really?

2009-06-03T11:12:00.012-04:00

In their most recent edition of the Welch Way, Jack and Suzy Welch wrote an intriguing piece, Why We Tweet.

Now these are two people (who need no introduction) who are highly intelligent, successful, accomplished, engaged in many things - you get the picture. Not folks who fritter away time, who engage in idle nonsense. I say idle nonsense tongue in cheek, as someone who is not addicted to sports, I could accuse those who are ... Maybe I shouldn't go there.

I am frequently asked about the value of Twitter and social media in general. Is this something C-Suite execs should invest time and energy in?

In responding to questions about the welter of social media and networking sites that are around, and the extent to which we are daily bombarded with a constant stream of techno-distractions, to borrow from a savvy friend, I have a few things to say to execs and a few bits of coaching. For example:

Notice the extent to which you are in a state of continuous partial attention as another tech savvy friend of mine expresses it. We live in a state of partial fragmentation of attention - we flit from a conversation in progress which we interrupt without even thinking to look at our PDAs, or to switch to a cell phone conversation, or an incoming email, or an alarm reminding us of a meeting, or CNBC constantly on in the corner ready to pull us off. Whatever we are doing it is with partial attention. Which means that Twitter et al can be just one more source of distraction.
Notice the extent to which all the things you engage with are, or are not, part of a narrative theme - a vision, a mission, a clear purpose, a clear set of organizing principles and values.
In today's world especially, we cannot live in an unmediate fashion. We have to have some way to distill or filter inputs and we have to be clear what we intend to generate as outputs.

So Twitter is both another tool for effective focused people to extend their range and impact - which is how I coach executives to use it, and every other piece of technology, to reach and move people in furthering their mission, vision and values. And, it has the potential to be just another means for the unfocused to be yet more distracted. It's a choice!

Sweat the Small Stuff - Seriously!

2009-05-29T11:20:00.018-04:00

Take care of the small stuff and the big stuff takes care of itself - or so it seems.

Because when you think about it big stuff is just huge amounts of small stuff.

I had a meeting scheduled with a senior executive this week - guess what, because of a lot of small stuff was dropped, or mismanaged, the meeting did not happen.

How come so many executives let the small screw ups, or seemingly small moments of carelessness go by without comment? Here are some of the responses I have had over the years:

I don't want to be overly picky
If I paid attention to every small thing that is screwed up that's all I be doing
I feel like I am being petty or pedantic when I focus on small stuff.

Well my coaching is get over your concerns and intervene - sweat the small stuff. Lower your tolerance for putting up with, settling for, making do with, and compromising - that behavior sabotages your intentions and undermines anything you say about what your values are.

The frustrating thing about the small stuff is that everyone knows what it is. So do we think it is inconsequential just because it small? Or is it that we just have a high tolerance for carelessness and forgive it as just being human. Whatever the explanation, failing to pay attention to the small stuff is costly. Here are a few examples of small stuff that everyone knows about yet all to frequently carelessly, or unconsciously, drop:

Being late is late, period. Whether its late for a meeting, a call, with a promised report, .... the list can go on and on. And remember, a good reason, explanation or excuse for being late does not equal being on time - even though most executives except one as a substitute for the other. How nuts is that? And, BTW, being late, its not so small stuff. If you were to calculate the cost of all the wasted time, opportunity and money caused by giving a pass to being late, it would be huge
Convening a meeting and/or letting it start without a clear intended outcome, and the right people in the room
Leaving a meeting without clarifying the who, what, by when, to ensure decision are executed on. Or worse still, leaving a meeting with no decisions or discernable outcome
Letting people off the hook when they fail to keep a promise or act consistently with some agreed on practice or value.

Why it's important to sweat the small stuff? Because our unconciousness, or carelessness, is the moment-by-moment, day-by-day opportunities we get to learn, improve and correct. To fail to take advantage of these correctable moments is to implicitly commit to undermining our espoused purpose and values.

So, as I said, sweat the small stuff - seriously!

How Women Are Redefining Work and Success

2009-05-23T11:19:00.006-04:00

Business Week report in their Work-Life Balance segment that, "Women are using their increased economic power to bring about more creative, manageable work schedules."

The article features broadcasters Claire Shipman, of ABC News' Good Morning America, and Katty Kay, of BBC World News America, and how they each struggled prior to deciding to turn down promotions and plum assignments so they could tend to their families.

As the BW article notes, "It wasn't that they weren't ambitious, they just weren't interested in the grueling climb up the corporate ladder. They yearned for a path to success based on results, not hours clocked." They tell tell their story in their book Womenomics: Write Your Own Rules for Success.

Shipman & Kay show the increasing impact of professional women on companies' bottom lines, and give practical advice on how to create "a more sane" work life.

In the BW piece their is an excerpt from the book that looks at the trade-offs many employees are willing to make to get a better work-life balance, and how companies are reacting.

This is a topic that will, hopefully, generate a lot of thoughtful inquiry and a rethinking of our long standing models or organization, management and work.

Surfacing and Dealing With Conflict: An Essential Competency of Leadership

2009-05-21T14:54:00.009-04:00

The way in which leaders express their intentions for the future of their organization, whether in the form of a strategic intent or a BHAG what is explicitly or implicitly expresses is we are not preserving the organization of years ago.

We are going to be at work building the organization for the future - we will be putting the future first
We are going to be creating milestones – part of a necessary and ambitious support structure to realize that future
We will retain and build on all that works that has been created over the years
We will be dismantling and leaving behind what doesn’t work - what is insufficient or inappropriate for the future we want
We will be building what is not here yet that we will need for the future we want.

In the process of realizing our intentions there will be conflict. There will conflict.

Some conflict will be intentionally built into accountabilities, for example - the CFO will be accountable to tightly control costs and the CMO, R&D and others will have accountabilities that will make more demands on resources than are available.

Some conflicts will be a by-product of missing processes and practices, or unclear accountabilities, or poor communications, unclear policies and procedures, insufficient training, mentoring and coaching.

Other sources of conflict will be a function of interpersonal relationships when individual personalities find some others difficult to deal with. Mostly when we think of conflict this is the one that most people immediately think of.

One of the things to get about conflict is that it is not evidence of something wrong. Conflict managed well will be the source of innovation and creativity - if we learn how to surface and deal with conflict powerfully

So it will be essential to create a set of practices and disciplines to surface and deal with conflict and have those practices be as automatic and and frequently used and say, using email.

Some benefits to be derived from conflicts being surfaced and then handled well:

We discover conflict is constructive, it forwards values, goals and intentions, especially when the outcome includes a focus on important values, commitments, problems to solve and issues to resolve
Authentic communication is a by product that deepens relationship - to values, commitments, colleagues...
Self-expression that is part of the process releases tensions, expresses emotion, unleashes passions, and defuses anxiety, and stress
Collaboration and cooperation expands
in itself learning to deal with conflict is social skill building
It accelerates innovation and idea generation rather that stop and block it
And it Increases individual self-confidence and the confidence of the organization as a whole
Finally, the give and take of dealing with conflict ends up maximizing outcomes with finite resources.

Most People at Work Under-Perform! How Come? And, What to Do About It.

2009-05-20T13:59:00.012-04:00

We at The London Perret Roche Group have the point of view that almost everyone at work underperforms – almost everyone!

Many executives have their own perspectives about how come, and their own ways of dealing with under-performers.

In a recent article, Life at the Bottom: How to Handle Underperformers the author quotes the often cited example of Jack Welch's practice when CEO of GE: "Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, implemented a strategy of annually eliminating the bottom 10% of his company’s employees. This effective strategy is one of the keys to GE’s long-term success."

When 3M CEO George Buckley was asked in a recent interview, "Jack Welch recommended firing the bottom 10%. Do you agree?" He answered, "I think the concept is right, but it's a little dehumanizing." However he went on to say, "When you have identifiable poor performers, it's in the best interest of the organization for them not to work there." Bottom line: dehumanizing or not they have got to go.

Few executives would argue that poor performers, after all the training and development efforts have failed to produce a transformation in performance need to be let go.

However, don't stop there. That is dealing with the effects of a problem not the source of the problem. I recommend as part of the after action review that hiring, and the initial training induction procedures, be re-assessed to discover whether new employees are going to be performers. Far too many potential under-performers get hired because of missing or inadequate initial screening. Hiring manager take note.

New employees are often dropped into their new jobs with no support, no coaching or mentoring, insufficient feedback from supervisions, insufficient clarity about what it takes to excel, insufficient acknowledgement and appreciation, and most of all insufficient excitement and enthusiasm for the mission, vision and values of the organization - if they even have discovered from leaders what it actually is. So under-performance is an indictment of leadership as much as it is a failing of an individual contributor.

It would be worth taking a leaf out of Zappo's play book and learn Why Zappos Pays New Employees to Quit--And You Should Too as one place to start introspection about your own role in being the cause of your peoples' under-performance.

President Obama's Commencement Speech at Notre Dame

2009-05-18T15:03:00.015-04:00

Is there anything to learn about leadership from the events that surrounded President Obama's invitation to Notre Dame, his acceptance of the invitation and how he spoke about the controversy?

Obviously I think so.

Without taking sides on the issue of abortion, the appropriateness of Notre Dame extending an invitation to the President to give the commencement address, and their decision to confer an honorary degree on him and any of the other issues of contention there are some aspects of leadership that should not get lost.

1. The decision of Notre Dame's President the Rev. John Jenkins to invite President Obama in the first place. In his own words he expresses the areas where he is aligned with, supportive of and even an admirer of President Obama while at the same time distinguishing where they have different position in important areas.

Leaders can and do speak for their commitments and values without vilifying or alienating those who hold different, even opposing commitments. They recognize that differences can only be reconciled in respectful relationship and open dialogue.

Leaders are informed by opposition and resistance, but in matters of principle, commitment, and values they are not shaped by it. The Rev Jenkins was at the receiving end of a lot of opposition, often expressed with emotion, and with the conviction of righteousness. Through all of it, he presenced himself with grace, tolerance and compassion for the views of those who wanted him to make different decisions yet remained steadfast in following through with what was, for him, the right course of action given his principles, commitments and values.

2. The decision of President Obama to accept the invitation, in the face of what was clearly going to be a heated debate on a very polarizing topic, with a lot of organized and vocal resistance is another expression of leadership. Leaders do not shy away from controversy. They do not minimize, or attempt to neutralize resistance. They do not demean, or attempt to marginalize the resistors, or the validity of their perspective, or in any way invalidate them. Leaders meet the opposition to their principles, commitments and values head on, and look for aspects of agreement, areas of common cause, and ways in which affinity, respect and dialogue can be pursued and honest disagreement respected as the context for further discussion not as and excuse for alienation and conflict.

3. Leaders do not shy away from facing the facts, especially those that conflict with "our better angels". In his commencement address President Obama said clearly that, "...part of the problem, of course, lies in the imperfections of man..." and that, "...bringing together men and women of principle and purpose -- even accomplishing that can be difficult." Leaders are both grounded in the facts of their condition and rooted in their principles, commitments and values.

4. Leaders are in action making decisions and plans and rally their followers and opponents alike, "So let us work together to..."

Regardless of our views about individual leaders there is always something to learn from them.

Generosity as an Aspect of Leadership

2009-05-15T14:43:00.002-04:00

Generosity is a "way of being". It is an expression of our humanity at its finest. It is an expression of self - for its own sake. Generosity does not have an "in order to" element to it . As in, in order to get a payback, in order to look good, in order to be seen as a "good" person, or in order to get along.

Paradoxically, leaders who are generous - with their time, with their knowledge, with their relationships, with the way they respond to and deal with peoples' concerns do get huge paybacks.

Their people are more loyal, they are in better shape, they have the experience of being supported and cared for, and so much much more - all of which at some point shows up in behaviors that benefit the leader's intentions for his/her organization.

"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give" Winston Churchill

Where Do You Want to be When the Recession is Over?

2009-05-13T16:03:00.005-04:00

Most executives recognize that the world they lived in before the recession will not be the one they return to when the recession is over.

There will be repositioning, rethinking priorities and strategies. We will see executive teams work to reexamine their assumptions, many of which they'll discover turned out to be invalid and is part of what got them (and the whole economy) into trouble this time round. Things like, debt ratios, risk tolerance, growth expectations and so on.

For some the task will be easy - they will focus on their core purpose and fundamental organizing principles and values, and get back to work with renewed intention and vitality. These folks will see change as an opportunity and will move fast to take advantage of it. Cisco under John Chamber is a good example of this way of responding to change and Chambers and Cisco have a track record.

For others there will be a period confusion, uncertainty, mistakes, even disintegration. New leadership will be critical. Leadership in which the leaders reinvent themselves, and create a reinvention process for their organization. Paraphrasing Einstein, they will recognize, we can't solve today's problems with the same thinking that created them in the first place.

So the good news is the current meltdown is a call to transformational leaders to settle for nothing less than a transformational change of their organizations.

We are not going back to business as usual so: rethink, reinvent, rebrand, reenergize and recommit the the core purpose, organizing principles and values of your organization and get to work.

And if core purpose, organizing principles and values are not clear start there. Pile on all the help you can get until the "what you are up to" is clear. Alignment, collaboration, teamwork, and all the other building blocks of great organizations can't we put in place until this step is complete.

Take Care of Employees You Let Go

2009-05-06T10:29:00.002-04:00

You would have to be living in a cave to be unaware of the extent of job losses in the US and around the world over the last year or so. And, as a C-Suite executive or senior manager, it is highly likely that you have had the task of telling people that they are to be let go.

Most organizations have rigorous practices in place to handle all the procedural and administrative steps the take an employee of the payroll and off their premises. Sounds pretty cold when expressed like that.

Keeping morale up after a round of layoffs, and doing all the necessary things to make sure that the company recovers and continues to grow is often challenge enough for most executives. That said, I recommend that attention is paid to the now former employees too. And that practices and disciplines be put in place to support them find their next jobs. I can make a case for doing so simply on the basis of generosity and compassion. If you like, the golden rule in action.

And there are other practical reasons for taking care of people who have been laid off: they may end up with suppliers, with customers, with competitors, they may be people you would want to rehire when the economy recovers, so it also makes good business sense. See Business Week 5/4/09, You're Fired - But Stay in Touch

So I recommend you do everything possible to ease the transition for fired employees from their current job, to no job, to a new job. Give them some practical coaching:

Do what you can to ensure they leave you with, as the TV commercial says, “You’ve got to have a plan!” And, what can you provide to support them execute against the plan? As BW reports many companies have put up support web sites. A job search requires focus and discipline, especially in a crowded job scarce market. Prepare employees, many of whom may not have been in the job market for years, for how much work will it take? Encourage them to plan for more than they think it will take.

Make sure they fully appreciate that until they find paid employment “job hunting” is their full-time job. This means they need to approach their job search with the same rigor and discipline their future employer will expect. If you can't find any other context for putting in the time and effort to do this then put it down to corporate brand building, or to existing employee morale building, or to future employee recruitment incentives.

We have worked with clients who have set up alumni support groups to help former colleagues transition to their next career move. The payoff for everyone involved is much much higher than any investment in time effort or other resources.

Here are a few elements of a plan we recommend that you support fired employees leave with. Some daily activities or action items:

1. Day 1 Create an Action Plan:

a. What outcomes will you produce and by when – be specific. You need the specific outcome to know what actions are needed. For example: speak to ten people every day and let them know I am looking for a job; have my resume ready by X date

b. Create a tracking mechanism for the plan, for example who to contact, title, company, when contacted, when you sent a resume, meeting scheduled and so on. DO THE MATH – HOW MUCH ACTIVITY DO YOU NEED TO ENGAGE IN TILL YOU GET THE DESIRED OUTCOME – YOUR NEW JOB? AND PLAN FOR MORE RATHER THAN LESS.

2. Day 1 Continued: And Every Day Till An Offer Is Accepted:

a. Tell everyone you know you are looking for a job – have a specific number in your plan.

b. Post on all your social networks: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Alumni sites, and so on, that you are looking for a new job. If your former employer has a support web site use it

c. Ask all your contacts for one or two referrals and ask them to put the word out to their network, don’t rely on them to think to do that

d. Stay in touch with your contacts on a regular basis remind the people you have already told about your job search that you are still looking. Ask if they have thought of new referrals, or heard of any suitable openings, or have any advice for you. Ask is the operative word

e. Speak to X number of contacts or referrals ideally in person, or on the phone, to arrange exploratory meetings or interviews. Remember that most people find jobs from loose ties. See The Strength of Weak Ties

f. Research: visit job sites, post on job sites, read trade press, go to networking meetings, job fairs and trade conferences

g. Send your resume to all your search contacts

h. Do an after action review at the end of each day and prepare the plan for the next day.

Some Questions for Leaders to Mull On

2009-04-22T17:35:00.006-04:00

Some questions are design to give a specific answer. For example: what's the cost of distribution as a percentage of sales? The answer needs to be precise and accurate. And, the answer closes the question.

Other questions are open - there is no precise or accurate answer, and the interim answer may well be different at different points in time, or under different circumstances.

Here are some useful open questions to mull on:

1) If there were the ghost of a dead idea haunting the organization, what would it be?

2) What does the gap look like between what you are currently accomplishing (and settling for) and what you want?

3) In what way do you show your openness to conversations that highlight the gap?

4) To what extent are you willing to deal with the disturbance that addressing the gap will cause?

5) What results can't you get around here?

6) What mechanism do you have for opposing views to be expressed, and in what way does that allow for better decisions?

7) What are the good things you do today that you would resist changing?

8) About what topics is your speaking and actions misaligned - where you don't walk the talk?

9) What are you afraid others might find out about you?

Where to Look to Determine the Value You Provide as a Leader

2009-04-22T15:54:00.006-04:00

My assumption is that every leader wants to improve his or her effectiveness in causing specific measurable desired results in his or her organization as part of a commitment to profitably grow their business.

So where to look to get evidence that your leadership is effective, and where not to look:

1) Look for the insights that get generated and acted on by the people you lead - not in what you say, no matter how brilliant you think it is

2) In having your people discover the belief systems that are not valid - not in the ideas you generate or the advice you give

3) In seeing your own actions that are inconsistent with espoused commitments and values and correcting, because people pay more attention to what you do than what you say - not in pointing out the inconsistencies and inauthenticities of others

4) In the specific measurable results that are being produced and in the behaviors of your people - not in your opinions, your story, your feelings or thoughts

5) In your capacity to forward a possibility you have committed to - not in your ability to get agreement (or lip service)

6) Your ability to identify and resolve problems, conflicts and breakdowns - not in your ability to diplomatically smooth things out

7) Your ability to enroll others, to gain alignment and cause coordinated action to build high performing teams - not in you power to command and control

8) Your ability to acknowledge, praise, validate and appreciate actions, outcomes and ways of behaving that are consistent with your intentions - not in focusing on complaining, correcting and chastising.

THE most effective leaders see their organization's performance as directly correlated to their own leadership effectiveness. If the organization is underperforming then so are you.

Establishing the ROI of an Executive Coaching Engagement

2009-04-20T15:25:00.011-04:00

If engaging an executive coach is considered by an organization's leadership to be an investment in particular executives, or an executive team, rather that an expense, then how is the return on that investment to be measured and tracked? And how is the payoff of the investment to be assessed and validated?

Some executives will admit to being skeptical that arriving at a measurable ROI for executive coaching is doable. A legitimate concern expressed is, "how do we distinguish the impact of coaching from the myriad of other factors that can and do impact change in an executive or team's performance, and therefore the ROI of a coaching engagement?"

My speculation is that because this question not asked, and answered, is the principal reason that every executive does not have a coach as a matter of course. Every executive who has a P&L accountability, or who leads a team, or who is accountable for innovation, for..., in fact any specific desired outcome - is without a coach is because the question of the return on investment is not clear.

Short of not being able to afford an investment in executive coaching - not the case for most large organizations - the only other reasons to not have executives coached are:

1) A belief that a particular executive, or the executive team, is not coachable - which begs the question, "And you retain people who are not coachable because...?

2) An assertion that our executives will not discover anything they don't know already from being coached. Our executive know it all already

3) The question of return has not been asked and answered, leaving the sense that coaching is an avoidable expense with unquantifiable benefit rather than an investment with a return.

So how do we go about measuring ROI? Here are some key steps:

1) Establish the executive's accountabilities - expressed as what specific measurable desired results (not activities), are to be delivered to whom, and by when?

2) Establish the resources the executive will have at his/her disposal

3) Forecast the likely results the executive is likely to produce: given history, and plans and projects in place, expressed as the most likely case and best case predictable outcomes

4) Create (by declaration) a set of outcomes, beyond the most likely case, as the context for coaching. And outcomes, that if/when achieved would show an ROI of ... - complete that sentence

5) These outcomes that will be expressed as a coaching plan: with milestones, tracking and reporting mechanisms.

In effect the outcome to be achieved, that when achieved, will produce a return on investment that makes the investment worth while, is established at the outset of the coaching relationship. With the ROI criteria established it is a relatively easy monitoring and tracking process to determine that the anticipate returns are being met.

How to work in this declarative, future first, context is part of the content of the LPR coaching program.

It's the Culture Stupid!

2009-04-15T15:13:00.005-04:00

"It's the economy stupid!" focused everyone's attention on what was THE key issues in the 2000 general election.

Leaders who are committed to causing a transformation in their organization would be smart to get THE key area where they need to focus - "It's the culture stupid!"

The literature of failed change programs is extensive. The list of failed acquisition and merger integrations is also extensive. Competent and successful executives moving to new organizations find that what worked for them in corporation X where they built their reputations does not work in their new organization. What's going on? "It's the culture stupid!"

What is culture anyway? There are almost as many interpretations about what culture is, and how important it is in our lives, as there are experts speaking and writing about it. This is what we (LPR) say that culture is.

Even when culture is clearly understood, at least intellectually, the biggest mistake leaders make is that they do not invest themselves in coaching and training people to live the organizing principles and values - pretty posters with value statements that don't reflect what actually happens will kill most organizations.

Look at Zappos core values and how they inculcate them in the organization. They engage people in creating the culture and training new employees in the culture, for example, here in this culture training class.

They even have a 400+ page Culture Book, in which employees express what each value means for them and how they see it being expressed. It is the best expression of a culture I have seen in 25 years of working with organizations to build strong cultures. It is a culture in which there is integrity between what is espoused and what is lived.

So to build a vibrant, healthy, growing company with a personality and a following, "It's the culture stupid!"

Listen For Commitments and Values

2009-04-13T22:00:00.001-04:00

Every action, I repeat every action, is an expression of our commitments and values! Said another way, our actions are not random, arbitrary or capricious - they are shaped by an underlying set of commitments and values. A bit like the coding in a computer's operating system which we don't see, but nonetheless dictates what a computer can and cannot do, we too have an equivalent set of operating principles, expressed as commitments and values.

Some commitments and values are explicit. If asked what we are committed to, and what we value, many of us would be able to recite them without difficulty.

Having said that, we are not always conscious of all the commitment(s) that shape our actions. And, if asked, we could not say, very easily anyway, what we valued that has us do this, or say that.

In a meeting for example when there is argument and counter-argument, when there is upset or withdrawal on the part of some folks , when there is collaboration and agreement - each of these ways of being are the expression of commitments and values.

Knowing what shapes peoples' actions is just as important a leadership competency as knowing how to decipher the coding of a computer operating system is to an application designer.

Ask us to walk you through the design elements that source action. Producing breakthroughs and creating a culture of collaboration, team work, empowering relations, open communication, innovation, alignment, integrity, respect and fun, will no longer be a mystery

Design Accountabilities to Stretch and Grow People and Organizations

2009-04-13T17:12:00.005-04:00

In 25+ years of coaching executives one of the areas where I see huge personal and organizational growth opportunities, opportunities that are being lost, is in the area of establishing and managing the organization as a network of accountabilities.

Firstly, in most organizations we have worked with there is no shared understanding of what it is to be accountable. Mostly we hear people speak about roles and responsibilities and accountabilities using these words interchangeably. The bottom line is the focus is on activity, "just doing my job", "as long as I keep my boss happy, everything is fine".

We have yet to see a network of relationships structured around who is accountable to whom, for what specific desired results, in what time frame. A network of relationships with a set of structures, agreements and disciplines around interacting, dealing with breakdowns, handling conflicts and celebrating accomplishments.

Instead we have who reports to whom, organized by function, with tenure, hierarchy and task as the organizing principles. We have task assignments with goals - much more an activity plan than a set of accountabilities. And we have incrementally extend/improve the level of past performance as another organizing principle.

Individuals and teams thrive and grow on relationships, on challenges, on the opportunity to "go where no one has gone before". Leaders need to challenge their people if they are to stand any chance of unleashing creativity, energy, collaboration - and have any chance of breaking out of business-as-usual.

So first off, create a culture in which accountability is understood by everyone. A culture in which an observable characteristic is that everyone is in a network of relationships based on who is accountable to whom, for what, by when.

Second design accountabilities in such a way that a significant percentage of each person's set of outcomes to produce requires/calls for personal growth and development, new learning and new levels of relating to colleagues and customers.

If this is not in place, people have no room to grow and neither does the organization.

Great Teams and Great Companies Have One Thing In Common

2009-04-13T15:51:00.005-04:00

Great teams and great companies have many things in common, one in particular is they know how to communicate.

I was working with one CEO recently who expressed his frustration, with all the histrionics of a prima dona, when a Discovery Audit we had conducted in his organization clearly uncovered that most people in the organization could not say what the organizations strategy was. His frustration became anger and disbelief when we further revealed that even many of his executive team were not clear what the strategy was.

When he calmed himself he asked, almost plaintively, "how is this possible, I have been talking about the strategy for six months?"

There was no doubt he had been broadcasting for six months. He had several town hall meetings in which he talked at people. It was frequently reported that he even talked over people who wanted to stop his presentations with questions. In smaller groups he frequently talked to people about their strat plans - as in "I haven't seen your strat plan yet, where is it?"

What we heard over and over was he never talked with people, engaging them in his thinking, inviting their questions or contributions, encouraging them to build on the strategy, to be co-authors with him, explaining to them how strategy impacts day-to-day actions, investments and decisions of all kinds.

For most people the strategy was the CEO's thing unconnected to their daily concerns. They did not even understand what was required of them in producing the much asked for "strat plans" as the communication was all one-way. Without doubt a failure of communication - but all too common.

So here are a few things things that great communicators have in common:

They talk with people - a two-way exchange of ideas, commitments, excitement, fun, and the nuts and bolts of who, what, when, how and why its all important

They are open, honest and straight - no games, no secrets, no hidden agendas

They know the difference been facts and opinions and opts for the facts when they are available

They actively support each other and look for openings to assist each other - they don't gossip and undermine each other

They acknowledge, appreciate, praise and coach each other all the time, and in real time. They don't postpone feed back for blind 360's or annual reviews

They don't miss any opportunity to celebrate successes

They are not afraid of, or disempowered by, failure. They recognize that when they are pressing to accomplish things that have never been accomplished before - there will be failures.

They miss no opportunity to learn from failure and then share what they have learned with everyone who can benefit from the insights

The signal to noise ratio is very very high, 90+%.

Look For Teachable (Coaching) Moments

2009-04-13T12:50:00.004-04:00

In every interaction with reports and colleagues look for teachable (coaching) moments.

There will always be opportunities to acknowledge somebody's performance or way of being. This acknowledgment will help people see their implicit, and even automatic, behavior - it makes it explicit. This means that that person will now be able to do what they do - the things that you have acknowledged - more consciously. And that in turn means they can now improve their performance and, they can now teach others - because they explicitly know what they are doing that works.

Also, in addition to acknowledging people, look for ways to help them improve. If you see ways in which people can improve by building on their strengths, or by stopping things that get in their way, and you don't tell them, you are in effect conspiring to have them perform sub-optimally. Not much of a friend or colleague. And worse, implicitly, not much of a commitment to the team or organization improving.

Be an example by looking for learning moments yourself. For example: ask colleagues at the end of a meeting, "What did I do during the meeting that worked or added value - just one or two things?" and, "What could I have done differently that would have given us a better outcome, or more easily, or more quickly?" This is, in effect, a brief after action review.

For teachable moments to be a rich part of an organization culture there needs to be high levels of trust and a proficiency in open generous communication.

Failure as a Necessary Component of Breakthroughs

2009-03-20T12:15:00.005-04:00

In most organizations failure is implicitly, sometimes explicitly, understood to be career limiting.

Regardless of the rhetoric, and I have heard loads of it over the years of working with senior executives. They will say things like: "it OK to fail around here"; "we value failure as evidence of pushing the envelope"; "no success without failure" and so on. The truth is failure is not acceptable in most organizations.

Now if we distinguish between carelessness and failure we may have an opening for a new freedom to invent, create, discover, and take responsible risks - and in the process make major advances, even breakthroughs.

Carelessness I distinguish as not paying sufficient attention in performing in task that has a proven and established process or methodology to ensure the desired outcome. This thoughtlessness in executing a step or missing a step means that the desired outcome is not produced. And, in all likelihood what is produced has unwanted consequences.

Failure on the other hand is the consequence of trying to produce an outcome where there is no clear path or process. Where there is no precedent for a successful outcome.

In every set of accountabilities there should be a component that requires invention, experimentation, and discover so as to produce a new level of performance. People cannot be free to be fully expressed in this area of their accountabilities if failure is taboo. Innovation and creativity will be stifled.

Also see, Some Perspective on Success and Failure.

Helping Employees Cope With Change

2009-03-18T18:14:00.003-04:00

What is it about change? Sometimes we love it and thrive on it and other times were are threatened out of our minds by it.

Some years ago I worked with an executive who had been a tenured professor of computer science, with a wife who was a school superintendent, and three children in high school. He was the fourth generation of his family living in his mid-western city and, what's more he lived in the original family home.

He was lured to silicon valley excited by the opportunity to do the work he loved, with more money, intellectually stimulating colleagues, oh, and a great all-year-round climate. After a relatively brief family council they all decided - Yes! let's go for it, let's move. A major change for the whole family, and it went off smoothly. And, after the fact, everyone was happy they made the jump.

Fast forward six month: over a weekend the facilities people moved his office, one of a row of identical offices, one closer to the corner office of the CEO. Everything was photographed before the move and put in exactly the same place in the new room - just one closer to the corner office. After the office was moved, apart from the fact it was closer to the corner of the building no one could tell a thing has been touched - everything was exactly as it had been in the room from which it was moved.

No one thought to tell my client. They did not consider it a big deal; if anything, they thought it would be a pleasant surprise to be one closer to the corner office of the CEO.

On discovering what had happened my client went berserk. He stormed out of the office ranting and raving and door slamming. For two days he was unreachable. He refused to answer the phone, the door, emails - he'd gone to ground. When the CEO did finally manage to speak with him all my client wanted to do was resign.

My question to him when he finally agreed to speak was, what happened? I am curious I said, you made enormous changes to you life and the life of your family coming out to CA with no upset, and yet here you are as mad as hell over an office move that few could even detect had happened - what happened, how come you are so upset?

After a lot of wrestling and introspection on his part, he said the simple difference is I chose to make the change in coming to CA. Changing my office was imposed on me. That's what has made me mad - they imposed change on me and did not even think to consult me.

So the lesson is clear, include people in authoring changes. And I don't mean get their buy in - but a genuine authorship of changes that are wanted and needed.

If change is imposed, expect unhappy, stressed and mad employees. Now most don't have the luxury of displaying upset and anger as my client above did. That said, they wont cope with it any easier.

Musicians' Brains Keep Time – with one another

2009-03-17T06:50:00.001-04:00

In a Scientific America article, "German scientists report in BMC Neuroscience that they measured the brain waves of eight pairs of guitarists using electroencephalography (EEG) while they played a modern jazz piece calledFusion #1 (by Alexander Buck). The researchers found that the guitarists' brain waves were aligned most during three pivotal times: when they were syncing up with a metronome, when they began playing the piece and at points during the composition that demanded the most synchrony."

One has to speculate this same synchrony is in play with high performing teams, teams focused on producing specific measurable desired results in time.

So is it the very existence of the organizational equivalent of a metronome, and a jazz piece to play together, that allows for aligned, coordinated action, or synchrony?

Most of Your People Are Focused on Activities Not Specific Measurable Desired Results

2009-03-16T19:18:00.003-04:00

When I make the assertion to senior executives that 60+% of their peoples' efforts are wasted - that is they do not produce specific measurable desired results in time - most senior executives counter that may be true in generally, but is definitely not true in their organization.

To support their assertion that I am not accurate in their case, I usually get variations of: we have goals and objectives, we measure and monitor, we have regular performance reviews, we have rigorous training programs, coaching, mentoring and we exit non-performers. An impressive list. And I am not persuaded.

I say that most people are focused on activities not outcomes. Try running these experiments and test my assertion for yourself:

1) In your regular walk-arounds stop in to your folks offices, cubes or wherever they are at work and casually, very casually, ask these questions:
Q: What are you working on?

A: I'm doing XYZ (will usually be expressed as an activity)

Q: What result are you trying to produce?

A: (Listen carefully and you will hear a variations activity - finish XYZ)

If you do get a result the person is working for, then ask them:

Q: Who is waiting for the result? And when is it due?

60+% of the time in these casual questionings, you will discover that people are focused on activities. You will discover they are not clear what desired result their activity is designed to produce, and invariably, they will not be specific about who is waiting for it, and by when its due.

2) Drop in on meetings in progress, again casually ask: what result are you all working on?

Mostly you will get activities, an agenda item they are dealing with or a project they are working on - but seldom a specific result, by a particular time, for a particular person.

So what to do?

Start making promises; create a culture in which making promises to a specific person, to produce a specific, measurable, desired result, in time is a core competency of the organization. Such that everyone gets your capacity to succeed is a function of you capacity to make and keep promises - not just the explicit ones in contracts and agreements, but also the implicit ones.

It is the broken implicit promises that are the source of dissatisfaction and complaints. So it would be smart for everyone to have a way to surface what they are.

But that's a topic for another post.

Collaborate, Cooperate and Give Up Command and Control- no REALLY!

2009-03-13T14:59:00.003-04:00

Advice is often listened to more when the source of the message has undisputed credibility.

So, does John Chambers of Cisco have credibility? In spades!

Listen to him talk about "smart management for tough times". Then be coached by him, make some commitments about who you are going to be as a leader - then choose what you are willing to promise Without some commitments, and some bold promises, John's video will be interesting, and will fade from memory soon, and make no difference.

And that would be a failure of imagination, and a lost opportunity for you, your business and your people.

How to Increase Desired Results and Reduce Wasteful Activities

2009-02-04T09:44:00.004-05:00

Now more than ever before the demand on everyone - for survival even - is on reducing wasted effort, all wasted resources, and increase our capacity to produce specific, measurable and desired results. And results that will be a breakthrough for the individual, team, and organization.

The problem is that in many instances we tolerate as much as 80% waste because most of each person's activities (80%) do not produce desired results – which means a lot of wasted effort, time, resources of all sorts. People do not have a reliable set of practices to produce desired results.

If this assertion seems exaggerated, run this simple experiment. Wander the halls of your organization. Stop by anyones office or work-station and, very casually ask these questions:

What are you working on?
The answer will, invariable, be in the form of an activity. After a brief pause, casually ask
What result are you trying to produce?
The answer will usually be a restatement of the activity the person is engaged in. Again, after a brief pause, casually ask
So what result are you trying to produce? Invariably the conversation gets bogged down here because the individual is not clear what result they are trying to produce. However, if you get a result that is specific and measurable, casually ask
Who's waiting for it and when's it due? Invariably the answers here are fuzzy, less so maybe about the who, invariable about the when.

A “best in class”, high performing organization would be one in which the success rate, or reliability, in producing specific measurable desired results is better than 90%. Which means there is minimal avoidable wasted resources - particularly time and effort.

Here are some action steps to increase desired results and reduce wasted time and effort:

Start by being clear what specific measurable desired result do you want, really want: whether the occasion is a brief meeting, a large-scale project or the formulation a multi-year strategy. And what you want, really want, does not mean the best case you can settle for or what is reasonable.
Say by when the desired result is to be produced, and who is on board to produce it. The by when needs a declaration not a prediction. It needs to be a stretch so as to create the possibility of a breakthrough.
Create milestones back from the future - the by when the desired results are to be produced.
Forecast from the present the likely/predictable result continuing with current projects and activities
Map the the predictable results #4 on to the desired future results #2, in the process identifying the "gap" to be closed
Regularly, daily if necessary, invent, generate and discover how to close the gap.
Measure constantly - visibly display milestones and actual results.
Publicly acknowledge success in meeting milestones and failures.
Do regular after action reviews so as to build on what works, stop what doesn't work and discover new things to try, learned from the benefit of hindsight.
Your capacity to succeed as an organization is a direct function of your capacity to make and keep promises.

How do we Reduce Assets - When it Means People?

2009-01-21T15:47:00.005-05:00

Unemployment statistics are rising all over the country. In New Jersey, where my firm is located, the December ’08 unemployment rate was 7.1%, the highest level in nearly 15 years.

Which has many people question the assertion that executives make about people being their most important asset. And, it has me encourage executives to review some of the practices and procedure they have vis-à-vis their people – are they appropriate for our times and consistent with their values and intentions? For example:

At what level are hiring decision made? And does every person who hires know the values, strategies, priorities and desired outcomes that each employee will need to sign up for to be a value added contributor?
Does your employee hiring process meet the same level of standards, inclusion and review as financial assets, for example?
How are employees trained, developed and coached? Do executives who mange people know to what extent are their employees an appreciating asset? Who is accountable for this asset appreciation, and at what level of seniority is this asset management review carried out?
Is there are well thought out process and set of practices for letting people go, other than the simple expediency of cutting costs?
And, finally, are their practices and procedures in place to maintain the morale, energy, creativity and commitment of the people who remain after some of their colleagues have been let go?

I encourage executives, when they have thought through my questions, and their own that surface in the inquiry, to communicate as transparently as they know how, about both their commitments and the circumstances they are dealing with that threaten their commitments.

I have seen sufficient examples of employees contributing to solving “people problems”, and with solutions that many executives considered employees would never “go for” to have faith that when employees are included, maybe, just maybe, we could find ways to staunch, even reduce, unemployment.

Some Perspectives on Success and Failure

2008-11-04T15:07:00.004-05:00

The context in which any given outcome is considered to be a success or a failure is some prior agreed on set of values, operating principles, commitments or goals (“intentions”). Conversations for success and failure are only likely to occur, are only valid and useful, in the context of “intentions”. The corollary is that if there is no conversation for success and failure then it follows that there is no particular intention being prosecuted.

When the allotted time for a particular "project" has elapsed, or the allocated resources are used up, we either realized our “intention(s)”, or we did not realize them. When the “intention” is unequivocally articulated there is no ambiguity about whether to declare the outcome consistent with “intentions” (a success) or inconsistent with “intentions” (a failure).
The fuzziness that often exists around “intentions” makes it is possible to avoid acknowledging and confronting failure. We have been trained to see failure as bad, wrong, career limiting and to be avoided. We have not been trained to see failure as an access to learning, discovery, growth and development. Or, as Charles F. Kettering put it, "Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success." (Ex GM and founder of the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research)
Mostly our relationship with success is weak. We have not been trained to acknowledge and celebrate success. We speak about the power of learning organizations yet we do not dissect successes for the insights they contain. As a consequence we do not make the design of success readily available to all – in effect miss the learning opportunities.
It is useful to have the view that an organization is “a set of promises to a set of constituencies”: shareholders, customers, employees, suppliers and so on. Some of these promises are explicit – in value statements, contracts, budgets, accountability statements and so on. Some of the promises (most) are implicit – given by precedent, the nature of the business, stakeholder expectations and so on. Keeping promises, or delivering more than promised, is success; failing to keep promises (or delivering less than promised) is failure. Stakeholders are thrilled with performance when promises are kept, and upset when in their view promises (explicit or implicit) are broken.
It is essential to acknowledge success, and in doing so, distinguish “what worked”, so that behaviors and practices can be shared and reliably replicated.
It is equally essential that failure be acknowledged. Example: we said we would do X in Y time with Z resources - we did not do that, we failed. In an “after action review” we can learn from the failure, (see separate notes on this practice). Learnings from these reviews need to be shared so as to alter behaviors and initiate new practices.

Some Useful Practices

At regular intervals - at least once a month - review performance against key milestones: a) What were our intentions: review metrics and milestones (KPI's)? b) What happened: - the facts only, "we said we would do X; we did X+, we succeeded; or, we said we would do X, we did X-, we failed." c) Do an after action review, d) Acknowledge and appreciate individuals and teams for the outcomes they have produced and their ways of being that are consistent with intentions.
From what is learned doing after action performance reviews, check: a) what existing practices must not be dropped - they are critical to success? b) Do any existing practices need to be changed? c) Do new practices need to be established? d) Are any practices either redundant or even thwart intentions and need to be removed? e) Decide who is going to do what, by when, to improve practices.

Some Elements of a Senior Executives Multi-Facetted Role

2008-10-27T09:43:00.003-04:00

In a recent conversation with a senior executive he started to outline some of the things his Board expected of him. In the course of the conversation he started to list the things he in turn expected of various members of his leadership team. Over several conversations, which included his team, here is some of the list. Keeping the list in the forefront, with specific measurable outcomes to be produced in specific time periods, was a structure this team chose to help keep themselves focused – and sane. Here are a few highlights:

Produce specific measurable results, equal to or better than budget - and learn how to keep doing that
Enroll customers and prospects in new possibilities so that business relationship are strengthened and continue to grow
Have all our reports with clear accountabilities, development programs and continually improving their performance and sharing with all who can benefit from insights about what works and does not work
Surface and deal with conflict quickly – there will always be conflict: because of competing priorities, demands on finite resources – learn to use them to forward the team's objectives
Leave people in better shape than you found them – relationships are critical for performance, a result at the expense of a relationship is temporary and costly
Keep speculating about likely futures and keep inventing and creating desired futures, the tension between the two is the place to bring innovation and creativity to bear
Constantly watch out for waste – and don't forget wasted effort, unproductive work
Make decisions – even when facts are uncertain and circumstances are changing. If the decision turns out to be wrong, correct, learn and move on – and don't play the blame game
Know stakeholders expectations and be explicit about whether or not they will be met
Being in control is an illusion – organizations are complex, adaptive, intelligent human systems. Learn to live with complexity and deal with what is actually occurring not what "should be".

This team has started to make explicit, for everyone in their business, their organizing principles, their business model, the practices they have created to keep themselves on track and the behaviors that work and those that don't work in contributing to realizing the future they want for their business.

Committed to Results? Then Create an Equal or Greater Commitment to Relationships

2008-09-17T10:39:00.000-04:00

In 1973 Mark Granovetter wrote one of the most widely circulated, and most frequently referenced, papers in the social sciences, The Strength of Weak Ties. To grossly oversimplify, he makes a compelling case for us to rethink our perspectives about relationship and relating. In the process he dispels some myths with compelling research findings.

Originally he was studying how people find jobs. The myth was close friends are your best bet. Not so! Weak ties - friend-of-friends, or even friend-of-friends-of-friends - that's what he discovered about how people actually found their new jobs.

The implications of his insights go way beyond job hunting to discovering everything and anything we want - new insights, great places to vacation, great new customers or vendors... The bottom line, it becomes even clearer to us the importance of relationship and relating. Even more, the possible limitations and opportunities in the different kinds of relationships we have. For example, we are less likely to get new breakthrough insights from our familiars, those close ties, our community, family and close colleagues, those who see the world pretty much as we do. On the other hand, those people we have weak ties with, acquaintances, some employees, customers, vendors, external advisers, casual encounters, and so on, are much more likely to have very different views and insights and are therefore more likely, if given the opportunity, to be the catalysts for breakthrough thinking, new opportunities, and consequent innovative outcomes.

Most executives - this is an accusation I really want you to consider and not casually dismiss - are not very competent and relationship building and day-in-and-day-out relating. Let's be honest we have been trained to be transactional. Most of us did not even know such a phenomenon as EQ existed. Some still don't! My evidence for this assertion, the horrible way people are dealt with in corporations all over the country every day. As a coach and consultant to senior execs I have horror stories you would not believe.

The world is changing - no news flash there. Speed of change is increasing - yea, yea!

What we have not yet grasped, especially in the CSuite, is the importance of relationship and relating - and I don't mean the "so as to" transactional stuff we all do, and are good at, that happens to have people in the mix.

I mean the practice of connecting with people, discovering who they are, what makes them tick, their passions, concerns, commitments. Herb Kelleher was a great businesman and airline exec. But what he is most known for by the people who worked at Soutwest and the who he interacted with is his extraordinary capacity to get to the inards of people - he cared, he was interested, he understood the importance of relationship and relating. My perspective is that Southwest's success has less to do with all their process brilliance and fuel oil futures savvy, and so on, the technical stuff, and more to do with their brilliance and relationship and relating.

How many conversations do you have with your people that have no other agenda but to relate, to get to know them better, to find out what turns them on? In a head to head with the guru of relationship building Keith Ferrazzi would you have your own insights and stories of your prowess in this area? If not, I recommend an urgent crash course in the importance of a rich and diverse network of relationships. Read Never Eat Alone, create some practices and disciplines to build out your network - and remember, because we do forget, everything we accomplish is accomplished through and with other people - our network of relationships - which means the weak ties as much as, if not more so than the strong ties.

What are the questions you don't have an answer for right now?

2008-09-16T14:48:00.001-04:00

Summer is over. The holidays are over.

And if we did not get sufficient R&R during our vacations then too bad, because with the ever worsening economy, and the pressures to survive, let alone grow and prosper, mounting, we are being confronted with more and more questions we simply do not have answers for.

The other evening I was talking with an executive who is accountable for the Americas for his global corporation. Here are just a few themes from the conversation: acquisitions and mergers have left us with fewer larger customers who are putting us under huge price and performance pressures; competitors have also merged so we have one big competitor in most markets; and suppliers have merged so we have fewer sources for raw materials and, in any case raw materials have sky rocketed. We have never had these conditions to deal with before. What are we to do to retain customers and win new ones? My people and I have never experienced a business environment like this before. We are struggling trying to work out what to do.

Well one first step is to come clean, give up the pretense we do know what to do, or "should" know what to do. I know, most of us did not get into our leadership positions by announcing we don't know how to deal with the demands of our jobs, or the competitive conditions at hand. Yet the truth is we can't engage everyone in the major challenges confronting most of us today - whether the challenges are inside our organization or outside - if we cannot acknowledge we don't have all the solutions, and we need help.

Here is just one recent example from a pair of executives who were willing to acknowledge they were stumped and needed help. First, a component vendor who needed a price increase to survive, and second his customer who needed a cost reduction for the same reason. Neither knew how to come up with a win-win answer. Their story is standard fare in the best run companies - they identified the problem to solve, with all the conditions that a satisfactory solution needed to have. Then they included a slew of people with different perspectives to help invent a solution - which they did.

I frequently ask leaders to show me the list of their "problems to solve". Problems that they don't have the answers for. Too often I discover they don't have such a list - except scattered around the organization in individual's heads. And those that do have a list don't have it on visible display for all to see. And, they don't have a set of practices or processes to continually engage people in addressing the list and solving their problems.

So here is a simple process:

Gather every problem to be solved that needs more than two people to solve it into a master list: a) What's the problem? b) What conditions does a solution need to meet? c) By when to we need the solution?
Display the master list, and categorized sub-lists, in an "ops room" - a physical and virtual room - so that everyone can see them
Designate a person to be accountable to solve the problem
Train the problem-solving accountability holders in networking, ideation, conversation management - real-time and virtual, surfacing and dealing with conflict, ...
Create a virtual work space - a wiki or other community board and communication practices and disciplines
Build in problem solving space into peoples schedules - inviolate time that nothing will displace
Nurture organizational energy, mood and morale - and celebrate wins
And remember problems are not to be avoided, they are THE access to innovation and breakthrough, satisfaction and accomplishment.

Being an Executive = Clear Thinking, Rational Decision Maker, Right?

2008-07-22T11:12:00.000-04:00

Executives are clear thinking, rational and logical decision makers, yes? They see what needs to be done, what needs to be accomplished and, as if triggered by some internal starter's gun, are off into immediate and full-out focused action to the finish line and the win they wanted.

Yea! And there are fairies at the bottom of my garden too.

Notwithstanding the mythology, executives – even highly accomplished ones, as anyone who saw Jamie Dimon being interviewed by Charlie Rose at Aspen will attest, have things on their to-do lists that they know they need to get on with yet they procrastinate, postpone, review, gather more data – everything but decide and get into action. None of these delaying tactics will produce results in the real world. We all know that and yet…

So how is your, “reviewing my options” going? If I can borrow a tag line from CapitalOne, “what’s in your wallet – on your ‘to be decided (I am procrastinating really) list’?”

What ever it is, I hope the process of reviewing also comes with some reflecting. Reflecting that, in itself, is useful in giving you insights into your commitments and concerns, and insights into the areas where you are in action and producing results, and where you are hesitant and/or stuck.

Here is a little additional decision making test. Ask yourself, item by item on your list, to decide as you toss a coin – heads yes, tails no, and pay attention to your reaction; thoughts, body sensations, relief/tension..., as you see which way the coin has come down.

Shall I … fill in the blank? – heads yes, tails no. If the coin toss is a no, observe your reaction, relief or disappointment; you agree that’s the decision or you disagree... If you are clear your “real” decision is no just say so and move on.

If yes, get into action – stop procrastinating, get on with it. You can’t score sitting it out on the bleachers. And, please, no stories about your decision making process…

Here are some questions for you to mull on – this is you talking to you in the privacy of your own head. You know you do that, right? OK, the questions:

When I am “reviewing my options” what are the key things I think about to help me choose? Are there consistent factors no matter what the choice is about?
When I am making decisions what criteria do I always automatically consider?
When I postpone decision making, what’s the most frequent reason I use? Is there a consistent “issue(s)” I am reluctant to confront? (Example: I don’t want my decisions to upset people)
Do I really want (as in committed to having) the outcome a decision will give me?

What is the upside I see – what vision or commitment is forwarded, or what concern handled?
What is the downside I see – some possible risk/discomfort I want to avoid, something underneath/reason for my hesitancy?

These Q’s are just to give you an additional insight into your own thinking/values/priorities/questions/concerns.

New Technologies as a Medium for Feedback and for Inventing New Futures

2008-07-02T11:13:00.000-04:00

Earlier this year Business Week had a very interesting article with the provocative title, Social Media Will Change Your Business. Most of us are beginning to get the extent to which information is much more available and from so many sources - sources many in the c-suite are either unaware of, or are not using to the extent they could, to get feedback from customers, employees, users, opinion formers - in fact any number of sources.

One reaction is overwhelm as we deal with, or try to control, what I have hear called infotensity. Well get over it, the days of control are over. The genie is out of the bottle and there is no putting it back in. So we have to master how we manage, and lead, and change, and create new futures in a world where access to information, and the means of distributing it, is in the hands of just about everyone - and we cannot control them.

We are becoming familiar with the notion of citizen journalists and the extent to which their journalism and accompanying You Tube videos change attitudes and outcomes very quickly - just ask George Allen about is macaca moment. Yet how many c-suite execs have used the notion of citizen journalists - the access to information and the means to distribute it - as a way of getting feedback and generating ideas for improvements, or even another input to chart new directions?

I wrote yesterday about 360 feedback instruments. Are we keeping up with new technologies, with things like wikis, blogs, IM, Twitter and so on as ways of getting real time feedback?

Or the possibility of using Second Life as a medium to create an ideal culture, or a new strategy for the future, or to role play how to surface and deal with conflict, or how to coach a colleague?

One possibility for c-suite execs to consider is having a board of advisers on emerging technologies. No, not the tech industry gray beards but pre-teen and early teenagers. The "kids" who are following, or being sucked into, the latest developments like location based games using GPS phones. Who knows, they may even propose that execs use games and fun to get key ideas communicated and/or to shape new behaviors.

OK, I know, I got it, I've gone too far - games and fun, and kids, in business! What was I thinking?

What's Missing with Most 360 Feedback Processes?

2008-07-01T14:18:00.003-04:00

I should put my perspective about 360's, and feedback processes, on the line to start off with.

I don't use them. I don't recommend them. And, for the most part, in my view, they are an insufficiently useful tool to support executives in validating or changing their behavior...

Most people read feedback results through a pre-existing filter that I label "our self-protection mechanisms". They include background conversations like: I agree/disagree; I like/don't like; that's right/that's wrong... (You will even notice that mechanism at work as you read my post).

Mostly, when we are presented with "facts" that support our point of view we love them and think the person who brings them to us is a savvy person. However, when confronted with "facts" contrary to our own point of view, or our reality, we operate from one of a range of responses - firstly, denial, resistance, justification and explanations - some variant of: I am right and you/they are wrong and I can prove it; I know how things are, and you/they just got it wrong. They just don't get it - me, my situation, what I am dealing with, ...

In this self-protection condition there is no other available response but argument and counter-argument… There is no possibility of an altered state, a transformation of reality or behavior in this paradigm. Worse, the prevailing paradigm is strengthened and reinforced by the exchanges of opinions and perceptions.

If? If the person getting feedback gets to acceptance - and I don't mean submission - a significant step up, then a secondary problem with most 360 feedback processes is that they provide no, or insufficient, pathway or support for the changes that the originators of the feedback surveys want. Especially true in instances where the feedback tells more about an executive's behavior problems than contributions.

I have a recent instance where a CEO got feedback about his "behavior problems" and he defaulted to two typical reactions: 1) who said that? - clearly so as to invalidate the "unreliable" source 2) to get a "PR" campaign going - corporate communications is not getting their job done explaining me. Understandable responses when we default to victim vs. being responsible - I am right and they are wrong.

Such negative feedback that executives do acknowledge as valid, for the most part, makes no difference. Sure they have others' opinions, but that "information" does not, in most cases, give them any access to alter their behavior. ... very few peoples' actions are changed as a result of this kind of "knowing". And, if the organization also has psychological profiling as part of their repertoire of tools and techniques we will likely hear, "I am not a bully, I don't dominate people, I just have a type A personality, I am an E, we shouldn't hire so many of these timid I's. That's the problem."

My principle objections to 360's are:

They are anonymous
They are not specific, what happened, when did it happen, who was involved or observed or can validate - because that usually blows the anonymity
People opine, but with no shared context to make the opinions mean anything beyond their personal point of view. For example, they are not assessments about how well, or not, someone is performing or behaving against some pre-agreed set of values, principles or standards
Such information that is useful is put into the hands of the very person who is least able to do anything useful with it - the person with either some set of problem behaviors and/or some set of qualities and attributes that others would benefit from emulating. By "useful" I mean, transform themselves. We can't. That is why a coach is so indispensable. We can't see ourselves as others see us - there's the rub!

Here are my recommendations about soliciting feedback and giving feedback. The first level is the easiest to implement. The third level requires more maturity and a supportive environment.

The first level:

The person about whom (for whom) feedback is being sought asks for it from a defined group of people. And says in the request for information how come they want it - as in what set of values, commitments and objectives they are working to forward that would be helped by some honest, straight, feedback. Feedback about what to stop because it thwarts the stated intentions. What to keep doing because it is consistent with intentions. What to start doing that would accelerate or enhance intentions. And, what to do differently so as to be more effective.
That person says they want frank direct feedback, with specifics: what happened? When? How did you feel? What was your experience? Again in the context of #1.
The requester asks that the feedback not be anonymous. Recognizing that that might be perceived as risky he/she asks that it be sent to a trusted third party - trusted because that person can be relied on to keep confidences and protect the source of the feedback. Equally, they can be counted on not dilute the delivery of key messages in passing feedback on.
The trusted third party may seek amplification and clarification from those providing feedback, then distills the messages ready to present to the requester. The trusted third party then works with the requester in two key areas: a) Make sure they "get" the communications without argument or resistance - these are messages from people intent on making a contribution, don't argue with or discount what is being offered, and, b) Make sure there is some coaching with the messages - what to do - as in what structure of support to put in place, how to do it, how to change ones behavior and the perceptions of colleagues.

The second level:

In addition to the first level the "trusted third party" engage those providing feedback in an inquiry to uncover how come they have been/are unwilling/reluctant to give the feedback directly to the executive who is seeking it. For leaders committed to transforming the culture to one of open, direct, honest, supportive, real-time feedback, there is a mine of useful insight about current barriers to open communication uncovered in this inquiry

The "trusted third party" gently probes with those giving feedback to see if they are willing to repeat their observations directly to the executive seeking feedback. If they are, request (lightly) that they do, with a by when. If not, ask if they would be willing to share how come? What the reticence is?

The third level:

At this level feedback is given in real-time, all the time. It is as natural as saying, "the picnic was great, and here's how come" or, "... and here's how we can improve it for next time..." In this model, half-year and year-end reviews are, for the most part, memorializations of highlights from feedback given throughout the year: acknowledging changes, identifying work in progress, and raising the bar for even more learning, growth and development.

In my view, we have designed our current anonymous 360 feedback process so as to avoid the more difficult challenge of creating a culture of openness, trust, mutual support, contribution, learning, growth and sharing. A culture in which teamwork, collaboration, win-win is lived and breathed.

Maybe, our current model of 360's were designed to be the first step - an acclimatization if you will - to giving feedback on the way to real-time-all-the-time direct feedback. The problem is, in most organizations, we have not taken any further steps. Worse, the 360 process, as usually administered, has devolved in to a perfunctory, time-consuming, check-off-the-box thing to do that frustrates most and adds value to very few.

Some useful questions - for inquiry and reflection

2008-06-17T09:17:00.000-04:00

One of the challenges of executive life is the huge demands made on finite time, energy and resources. Many executives have shared their anxiety about balance, keeping pace, staying healthy and keeping on top of things.

In this fast paced world there will be no time for reflection, for noodling on open-ended questions, for speculation about other possibilities for organizing work and life unless the time is allocated for that purpose. The "found time" can be in the car, the shower, on a plane, wherever - the important thing is to engage with questions, not for THE answer, but for the insights the question provides. These are the kinds of questions that can be revisited for new insights and new perspectives - that's the value of inquiry and reflection.

For example, considering a coaching relationship? Here are some questions to noodle on:

Why would I want to engage in a coaching relationship - what value would I want to get from being coached?
Is it my choice to engage in a coaching relationship - is anyone "encouraging" me that I "should" have a coach?
If I did get a coach and the coaching relationship works our well, what would I want to accomplish – both qualitatively and quantitavely?
What do I want to accomplish in my career and in my relationships at work that is not currently predictable – like I could not promise that outcome any time soon – and I want it?
What am I dealing with – that is on my plate right now – that isn’t moving as fast as I want – where my intentions are being stopped blocked or interrupted?
What have I been told about my results, my ways of being, my ways of dealing with people, that does not work?
Where do I find myself constrained, thwarted, resigned or stopped?
What have I been told – or just know about me – that works?
When I am backed into a corner, or when I am under pressure, what technique do I use to get what I want and get out of difficulty - my winning play-book?
What kind of people, or situations, do I have difficulty dealing with, or avoid altogether - that if I could deal with I would be more effective in my work, life?

Conditions for a Successful coaching relationship

2008-06-16T10:48:00.000-04:00

Every successful relationship has, as part of its foundation, a set of agreements, or understanding, which are understood, shared and shape the day-to-day interactions. The same is true for the relationship between and executive and his or her coach. The best executive coaching relationships are partnerships. They are collaborations with a level of authenticity, mutual respect, and shared commitments that is rare in corporate life.

Mostly in our relationships understandings and agreements are implicit - we have just come to know the other person over time, and they know us - it just works.

Before a coaching relationship starts there needs to be some explicit understandings. Here are a few:

The executive being coached is committed to an outcome, which appears to be beyond his or her grasp, given historical performance.
The executive considering a coaching relationship is authentically open to being coached, and not because it is the ‘thing to do’ or because someone else thinks it is needed or a good idea.
The executive to be coached has a choice of coach such that they can say to a coach, “I am open to be coached, and coached by you”.
The coach is committed to the executive he or she is coaching and can relate to their commitments like they are his or her own.
The coach is competent in the area where coaching is requested.
The coach wants to coach this particular executive.

When the executive and coach are clear they want to work with each other - when they are clear there are the conditions in place for a successful working relationship, the next step is to develop a set of operating agreements.

Executive Coaching - NOT for every executive!

2008-06-16T10:31:00.000-04:00

Every executive coach should have some non-negotiable conditions that need to be in place before a coaching relationship starts so that it has the greatest likelihood of realizing its intended outcome. Here are some that my colleagues and I share:

The executive wants to be coached – wants to be coached because there is a result (a future) the executive is committed to that is a risk – it cannot be authentically promised and delivered drawing on past-based knowledge and experience. Or, current events or circumstances are stopping, blocking and thwarting the executive’s efforts in realizing of that future.
The executive is willing to “try on” the coaches’ perspective – and think and act from that perspective and see what transpires – even (especially) when the coach’s perspective seems illogical, unreasonable, infeasible – or just plain wrong from the executive’s point of view.
The executive needs to be grounded in the realities of his/her world. Which means a finely tuned sense of whether he and his organization is exceeding stakeholders’ expectations, meeting expectations or failing to do so.
The executive being coached needs to demonstrate being in, and committed to, his/her own game. He/she knows the key registers of performance (KPI’s), and is responsive when there are variances. The executive is engaged with all the key elements of the business (accountabilities, project, assignment) that he/she is working with – as in hands on.
Being accountable is essential. Operating from, “I am accountable”. Holding him/herself and others to account. Being willing to look at what is present, and in the way, and what is missing, that needs to be provided. Being his/her word – keeping promises and holding others to account for their promises.
The willingness to make “unreasonable” promises is critical – with the authentic intention of acting consistently with the promise. And when time has elapsed review “what happened” so that what works can be distinguished and built on, what does not work can be distinguished and eliminated, and what is missing can be identified and put in place.
Executives who are unwilling to “interrupt the flow” of business as usual and, by doing so, put themselves at risk of failure – by making unreasonable promises and requests – are not candidates for coaching.

Manage the conversations, not people or things

2008-06-13T10:00:00.000-04:00

I have the view that the folks we have been calling "leaders", whether designated as such with that role and title or not, are in fact "conversation generators and managers". That’s what they do, they bring new conversations into existence, nurture and manage them till they are sustainable, and displace, or take out of existence, existing conversations that are inconsistent with or thwart the conversations they generate.

Before I go on, a bit more of the framework my colleagues and I work with: Context (the sum of our conversations internal and external) shapes the way we see the world; the way we see the world shapes the actions that are available for us to take; the actions we take shapes the outcomes/results we produce.

Which means, if we want different outcomes we need to change the context – which means put a new conversation into existence and/or take an existing conversation out of existence.

It is not hard to see the impact of new conversations on behavior and outcomes. Some politicians and marketing folks are brilliant at what we call “conversation management”. Look at the impact of Google and uTube, to say nothing of the Internet - powerful examples of new conversations - and new behaviors and outcomes from those who engage with these conversations.

What we, as leaders (conversation generators and managers) have available to us now is a technology, that is getting more sophisticated as we speak, to disseminate conversations – virally multiply them – till they are “the way people see the world, which shapes their actions…” We are now able to troll the Internet for particular conversations – to give them more mass, and therefore power to shape behavior - or to delete them, with the same intent in mind.

Part of what some people complain about in this emerging real/cyber world is their sense of dislocation as the form and content of “conversations” they were familiar with are changing or don’t mean anything any more. So-called leaders complain that what used to work for them in getting people to do what they want doesn’t anymore. They don’t appreciate how come a conversation in a private meeting is all over their organization, or even the Internet, in minutes because someone sent an instant message – a what? Or how come an off-hand remark can have such devastating results. In the US we even have a new way to speak about the phenomenon – a macaca moment - thanks to a former US Senator, George Allen, who was recorded on video making an off-hand derogatory remark, which got lots of play on TV and uTube.

We only have to look around us to see the power of conversations on the collective behavior of a group, organization or society. For example, I suspect there are few in the world who are unaware that the US has a presidential campaign under way. Here are some implicit/explicit conversations in the US about what a candidate must believe to be fit for the role:

You have to believe in god – with a capital G, (a Christian God). If you are an atheist or agnostic, or believe in some other god don’t apply – or, be very good about faking being a believer
Guns are like children, they’re ours – don’t even think about taking them away. And you better show you are for them – guns and children that is.

Staying with the US for a moment. Much of the world may have been perplexed that a second or two of Janet Jackson’s breast being exposed – which most people did not see until the instant replays – could have ended in senate hearings, the Federal Communications Commission issuing new broadcast regulations and fines. And broadcasters instituting new practices the insert time delays in their broadcasts so they can edit out “indecencies”.

Anyone who doubts the power of conversations in shaping actions and outcomes only needs to reflect on some examples like these that are all around us. Any anyone who is unsure of the power of technology to amplify and disseminate “transformational” conversations is not paying attention.

You Just Don’t Listen!

2008-06-10T14:40:00.000-04:00

One executive I have recently started working with has a constant complaint about the members of his team that, "they just don't listen!". His evidence for that assertion is that things he (thinks) he has communicated clearly are just not understood or acted on by people.

When he started to examine who listened to him and who didn't, he was not sure. What he was sure about is that his messages were not getting through - most of the time. "You see, the problem is, they just don't listen. You need to help them listen better".

Putting aside for the moment the "externalizing the source of the issue", what is accurate about the accusation? Is it accurate that, "they just don't listen"?

It is a familiar accusation for sure, familiar perhaps because we often make it of others – “the problem with John is that he just doesn’t listen”. How is it that so many of us can claim to be good listeners and yet, at the same time there is this general and pervasive accusation that people don’t listen?

The truth is however, we do listen. We are listening all the time. In every conversation, in every interaction, we are listening. The big question that is worth serious inquiry is, “to what are we listening?”

The easiest answer and the one that most people give is, “well I am listening to what is being said of course”. That is accurate for sure. However, if we press the inquiry we will soon discover that the “what is being said of course” that we are listening to is being said by us, to ourselves, in what I call our background conversations – the conversations that go on in our own heads.

As far as I can tell these conversations are going on non-stop, sometimes more loudly than others, but non-stop nonetheless. If that the notion of background conversations is not something you are familiar with, at this point stop reading, and for about 30 seconds and just listen.

It won’t take long for the internal commentary to start up: “What am I supposed to be listening for?” , “I don’t hear anything!”. Whatever the content was, what you were listening to was your background conversation - the constant commentator.

What we will begin to discern, when we start listening to our background conversations, is that we have an opinion about everything. We are constantly commenting on everything that is going on around us. We will even notice that frequently we are commenting on our own comments. We are constantly expressing our likes and dislikes, our judgments and evaluations, our preferences and prejudices; this is why we get accused of not listening. Because in fact, we seldom actually hear what is being said to us – the "just what is being said to us" - because we are also listening to our own commentary about what is being said, it as if we are trying to listen through a filter of interference that keeps interrupting what is being said to us that we are trying to listen to.

Often, and more often that we know, this filter of interference, is our own internal commentary. And often it is louder and more insistent than was is being said to us by those who are trying to get a message through to us.

We even have a whole repetoire of techniques to cover up the fact we were listening to ourselves and not the person speaking to us, for example, "can you just say that more more time, I want to be sure I heard you accurately?"

So it is really important for leaders to pay more attention to what is being listened, than what is being spoken. Too many "leaders" broadcast rather than communicate.

"What's the difference?" my man asks.

"Well, that's your first inquiry - Oh, and start from the perspective that you are the problem, not your people. A useful starting perspective, don't you think? Given there are ten people on your team not listening (they are the problem) and one person on the team not being listened to, who thinks he's not the problem".

Can executive coaching really make a difference?

2008-06-09T14:23:00.000-04:00

For the most part business executives are a pretty pragmatic lot; results, ROI, being competitive are just a few elements of their lexicon. Accountants, lawyers, marketing people, strategists, technologists are just a few of the people that make up an executive team. Rarely though, do you see the team coach as part of the line up - as you would if we were talking about football, basketball, or baseball.

How come that just about every sport, and all the performing arts, have the notion of coaching, and being coached, as a normal part of the structure and disciplines of their profession - but not for most executive teams?

Is there a huge opportunity for enhanced performance being missed here? One would think so.

The image of a particular coaching scene sticks in my mind when I think of what would be possible if executives were coached the same way sports professionals or performing artists are.

Some years ago I saw the Kirov Ballet in rehearsal in front of an audience of about 2500 people in the London Coliseum. I don't remember the ballet being rehearsed, or who the prima ballerina was. What has stayed with me is a series of exchanges between the ballet master and the prima ballerina:

The stage is empty but for the ballet master, who signals to the orchestra to play, at which point the prima ballerina makes a dramatic entrance from back stage right and traverses the stage to front stage left, dancing in a way I cannot describe, except to say it was breathtaking
When she came to a stop the audience, mostly mothers and daughters, and clearly ballet enthusiasts, broke into thunderous applause
At which point the ballet master pounded the stage with a long staff, like a broom handle, silencing the applause. He wagged his index finger like a high speed windshield wiper and, in Russian rapid fired a series of, "niet, niet, niet's", issued some instructions and at then pointed to the back right of the stage. It was not difficult to deduce that some powerful coaching had just been given
The prima ballerina walked to the back of the stage, the orchestra was instructed to play again, and the prima ballerina repeated her performance
When she finished this time the audiences response was still enthusiastic though a little less thunderous
The ballet master repeated his pounding, his wagging, his niet's and his pointing to the back of the stage. The tension in the audience was palpable
As before, the prima ballerina walked to the back of the stage, the orchestra was instructed to play again, and the prima ballerina repeated her performance
When she finished this time, the audience was silent, the atmosphere was tense
After a brief theatrical pause, the ballet master turned to the audience and said in a loud strong, accented voice, "Now!" and the audience exploded in applause, as much to relieve tension no doubt as to show appreciation. He then turned his attention to the prima ballerina and was clearly showering her with praise and appreciation as her delight was obvious.

I have often thought, "what would be possible for organizational performance, for work satisfaction, for relationships, and so on, if that kind of rigor and discipline was a regular part of work? If that commitment to each others' best performance was what characterized relationships at work?"

For me, that is the possibility of coaching.