Minding Gaps

The Problem With Engagement Surveys in the Workplace

2013-05-15T14:50:47-05:00

By Thomas J. Lee

You're familiar, I presume, with those two old chestnuts of workplace wisdom: "What gets measured is what gets done" and "You can't manage what you can't measure."

Both pay tribute to the importance of measuring what we value in our work. And for the most part both have more than a faint ring of truth.

The trouble is that measuring some things is not as simple and straightforward as it sounds. You need a clear conceptual foundation: an understanding and consensus as to what exactly you're measuring. Then you need a gauge or scale or metric that applies sensibly to the thing you're measuring. Then you need a reliable means of measurement. Some things can only be measured subjectively, by perception, and you need a way to measure the perceptions without tainting the results.

That's just for starters.

Of course, measurement is relatively easy if you know what you're measuring and how, and if everything is plainly apparent in the same way to everyone who looks. So if you're counting money in the till at the close of business, or taking an inventory of boxes on a shelf at the end of a quarter, it's a simple matter.

On the other hand, if you're measuring something as ambiguous as, say, employee engagement, you have problems right from the start. People think they know what engagement is, but everyone has a slightly different notion. Moreover, it's hard to measure something we cannot tangibly count. We can only rely on perceptions, and perceptions are notoriously individualistic. What one person notices, another person can easily overlook or undervalue, and vice versa.

Not only are perceptions individualistic, but they are highly sensitive to context and highly subject to hidden bias. The context is vulnerable to slight day-to-day variations in workplace circumstances: perhaps a personal slight or a new, burdensome assignment. The bias has many sources as well, most importantly the innate desire to protect one's job by appearing fully engaged.

One of the most popular engagement surveys in American business, for example, relies (for its core, anyway) on only twelve questions, and some of those questions are just this side of laughable. The most ridiculed question asks employees whether they have a best friend at work. How that affects employee engagement is beyond me.

Many employers who think they are accurately measuring engagement are, in fact, measuring something else, a different aspect of positive mental attitude. They may be measuring morale or job satisfaction, or loyalty, or commitment, or alignment, or general attitude and just calling it engagement. Or they may in fact be measuring the engagement they intend to measure.

At the root of the problem is ambiguity over the term employee engagement. There is no universal consensus as to what it means. Does it mean enthusiasm? Does it mean productivity? Does it mean technical expertise? Does it mean a spirit of can-do camaraderie? Does it mean satisfaction with current compensation and working conditions? The reality is that no one knows.

You can't just look up the phrase in a dictionary, either. It isn't there. If you look up the word engagement, you'll find all kinds of definitions, but none having to do with what you want. You'll find definitions for an agreement to get married, and for military battles, and for appointments or meetings, but none for attitudes in the workplace.

Moreover, to my knowledge, no one has gone to the trouble of drawing a fine line between engagement and its cousins: commitment, dedication, loyalty, morale, satisfaction, and alignment. If we are to know what one of those terms is to mean, we must know what the others mean. Then we must pull ourselves out of the muck of using any of those terms as synonyms for any of the others.

Together all these labels fall under the rubric of positive mental attitude, a phrase coined by the late insurance magnate W. Clement Stone. Having grown up reading Horatio Alger stories, Stone became a rags-to-riches multimillionaire who believed that one's attitude toward work was critical to success. (His name for cold calls was "gold calls.")

Positive mental attitude takes many shapes and forms. Perhaps the best that can be said for most engagement surveys in the workplace is that they're attempting to measure PMA in one respect or another and just calling it all engagement. Even at that, most of them fail.

We would be much better off if we could find some common ground as to what each kind of PMA actually is and why it's important. That way we could zero in on this thing or that thing and obtain some sense of what we should do. As it stands, we don't know.

Near as I can see, there are five different kinds of PMA. Three of them are really-nice-to-haves. The other two are absolutely-must-haves. (Before you come out swinging at the really-nice and absolutely-must taxonomy, read through to the end.) Let's begin with the really-nice-to-haves.

The first really-nice-to-have is commitment and dedication. I cannot see much, if any, difference between commitment and dedication, so I lump them together. I think it's fair to regard them as exceptionally hard work. The definition we came up with is this:

Rising to the level of courage, real commitment and dedication in the workplace is doing whatever it takes, and more, to satisfy the customer (or other stakeholder) within the constraints of safety, the law, and ethical decency.

It should go without saying that commitment and dedication are very, very important. The success of many businesses has rested on their shoulders alone.

The next really-nice-to-have is loyalty. To me, loyalty has to do with remaining at the employer's side, even through adversity, and giving the employer or manager the benefit of doubt. Our definition is simple:

The disposition of employees to continue serving the needs of their employer and its customers in an honest, productive manner in exchange for agreed-upon compensation and security.

In other words, loyal employees don't jump from employer to employer for a small raise. If unionized, they don't file ridiculous grievances. They place a premium on the relationship, and they want to work together. Strictly as a pecuniary matter, that saves an employer money and time (not to mention headaches) by reducing personnel turnover.

The third of the three really-nice-to-haves is morale and satisfaction. I can't see much difference between morale and satisfaction, either, so we also lump them together. Here's our definition:

The degree of happiness or contentment that people derive from their employment, as a function of compensation, workplace conditions, personal and professional relationships, employment security, and opportunity.

Maybe morale and satisfaction doesn't translate into economic benefit as easily as commitment and dedication or loyalty does, but I sure would rather have a lot of happy and satisfied employees than a lot of unhappy and dissatisfied employees. I don't need to measure the value of that.

Good so far? That leaves us with the two absolutely-must-haves: alignment and engagement. These are two different things.

In both cases, these mission-critical forms of positive mental attitude show up as patterns of workplace behavior. It's easy to see them because they are so obvious and so very important. Ultimately, if you go about it in a methodical way, that fact also makes them surprisingly amenable to measurement.

We can define alignment as follows:

The reliable performance of duties necessary for the organization to meet the pre-determined expectations of its known stakeholders.

Most commonly, those expectations belong to customers. They may take the form of product quality, delivery and service requirements, production and sales quotas, and work processes. In return, customers show their approval or disapproval through consumer demand, repeat patronage, recommendations to friends, product returns, and, in the worst instances, defections to competitors or even boycotts.

More broadly, expectations also belong to other stakeholders such as investors, employees, strategic partners, consultants, labor unions, government regulators (such as the SEC, EPA, IRS, and OSHA here in the United States), state and municipal inspectors, vendors and suppliers, NGOs, courts, the news media, landlords, and society at large, whose expectations take the form of laws, cultural norms, and nowadays even trending social media.

Collectively all these expectations are important because they enable us to stay in business. We make various agreements and commitments, or they are made for us and imposed on us, and we must follow through on them. Fulfilling those agreements and commitments is the business of alignment. That's why it is an absolutely-must-have.

Finally, we turn our attention to engagement, which we can define as follows:

A culture of discretionary, positive, extra effort—focus, curiosity, passion, and courage—that employees bring to their work in support and service to the organization, its purpose, and its stakeholders.

If alignment is what enables you to stay in business, engagement is what enables you to grow your business. Think of alignment as the work of today, and engagement as the work of tomorrow. No engagement, no tomorrow. That's why it is an absolutely-must-have.

But the thing is: engagement is fundamentally discretionary. In other words it's entirely up to employees as to whether they will engage. Though an absolutely-must-have, engagement always remains optional to employees, which is why it is so rare and so vital.

Employees who consistently show engagement often climb the ladder of success, but the opposite isn't necessarily true. People who don't show engagement, far from being dismissed, usually manage somehow to retain their jobs, at least until the next downsizing. Even then, cutbacks often seem to target certain units or skill sets or salary bands or demographic cohorts more than engagement profiles.

(Incidentally, another problem with engagement surveys also has to do with the common fact of downsizing. Many such surveys foolishly use first-person questions. Savvy employees are naturally tempted to say they are more engaged than they truly are, if only to avoid being seen as problem children. The supposed anonymity of surveys doesn't help, because employees assume their surveys are identifiable through computer coding or demographic data.)

Finally, you'll also notice four key words in our definition of engagement: focus, curiosity, passion, and courage. We'll address them each in upcoming newsletters.

The Birthplace of Cynicism Is an Iceberg

2013-05-01T18:12:07-05:00

By Thomas J. Lee

Companies and other large organizations—agencies or administrations of government, universities, non-profits, hospitals, museums, and the like—typically go to great lengths to craft their formal strategic messages.

These organizations appreciate the importance of carefully defining their mission and regularly communicating with key stakeholders like customers, employees, investors, and others who want to be kept abreast of their progress. That's what the formal voice is for.

It can veer off course, however, and sometimes it does. Leaders may neglect or ignore communication outside and beyond the realm of formal messages. Two other voices—the semi-formal and the informal—account for well over half of all the messages that key stakeholders receive. These messages can wreak havoc if left unmanaged.

The semi-formal voice consists of explicit and implicit messaging from the institutional management tools an organization uses to operate: things like budgets, procedures, policies, its hierarchy, agendas, requirements, quotas, and more. For example, who gets hired and who gets promoted send loud signals as to what kinds of behavior are expected and rewarded.

The informal voice (not be confused with water-cooler chitchat) consists of explicit and implicit messaging drawn from workplace experiences touching on integrity, respect, dignity, pride, teamwork, inclusion, trust, and so forth. These experiences define the employee's social relationship with the employer. As a practical matter, they commonly involve the interpersonal relationship with one's manager and with his or her manager.

Like the submerged bulk of an iceberg, the semi-formal and informal voices can sink the ship if they are not managed. For when the formal voice is saying one thing, and either or both the semi-formal and informal voices are saying something else, the formal voice instantly loses credibility. It's never a tie. It's never close to a tie. The ship always lists to the same side.

Moreover, the louder the formal voice is, the more noticeable the erosion of credibility is. That's often the case, because the formal voice alone has the amplification of marketing, publishing, broadcasting, and web presence.

At the risk of mixing metaphors, you can think of an iceberg as the birthplace of cynicism in large, complex organizations. When the semi-formal and informal voices fail to confirm and corroborate the formal voice, the distance between them is a credibility gap.

In the military, the difference between the formal voice and the semi-formal and informal voices is known colloquially as the official truth and the ground truth. Whenever the difference rears its head, the cynicism of the troops is bound to grow. No successful organization can tolerate that cynicism more than minimally.

To ward off such cynicism, it's imperative to include the semi-formal and informal voices in strategic communication planning, and it's imperative to include communication planning for key stakeholders in any strategic planning process.

Think of it this way. You can keep the upper hand by doing your best to manage the communication about your organization—formal, semi-formal, and informal—or you can let unmanaged communication gain the upper hand. Which makes more sense?

Leadership Is for Introverts (and Ambiverts), Too

2013-04-30T09:04:41-05:00

By Thomas J. Lee

Are you an introvert?

Or are you, perhaps, somewhat more introverted than most people think you are?

Or are you—don't laugh, the term is well-established—an ambivert, someone in the middle between an introvert and an extrovert?

If you are any of these, and if your job or your aspiration calls on you to lead people to a better and brighter tomorrow, don't fall into the trap of denying yourself the opportunity to lead simply because of your quiet nature.

Leadership is for you, too. In fact, some of history's greatest leaders have been introverts: Lincoln, Gandhi, and Mandela to name just three.

The reality is that extroverts have their own shortcomings. They tend to listen too little, and they often want to seize the limelight too quickly and too much. They may act impetuously. They also have difficulty connecting with introverts like you.

Charisma in leadership is overrated. Many charismatic personalities may initially attract followers, but they often leave things a mess. Even when their judgment is keen, their organization is often incapable of sustaining change when the charismatic leader moves on.

Introverts, on the other hand, often take a more thoughtful, careful approach to change, and their legacy is more affirming and constructive as a result.

By learning to take advantage of your own hidden strengths and talent, you can actually leverage your introverted personality to become a better leader than your outspoken colleague.

In response to queries, we have launched a telephone-based coaching service for select individuals who regard themselves as introverts and ambiverts and who want to lead more effectively.

All conversations are completely confidential, between 45 to 60 minutes in length, and typically take place weekly.

To inquire about this service, just call us at 650-464-1770 or write to us at info@arceil.com.

What Leaders Can Learn from the Best TV Commercial Ever

2013-04-20T19:45:57-05:00

By Thomas J. Lee

You may be too young to remember the best TV commercial ever. If you’re not, don’t blame me for reminding you of the fact.

As far as we’re concerned, the best TV commercial isn’t necessarily the cutest or the funniest. It isn’t necessarily titillating or provocative. It doesn’t necessarily have terrific cinematic or artistic qualities. It didn't necessarily run during a Super Bowl.

It’s the best TV commercial ever simply because it makes its point so well. As proof of that, just about any American old enough to remember it can, almost 25 years after it first aired.

And it’s the best TV commercial ever because it hammers home a business case for the service it is selling, which, for our purposes, just so happens to reinforce important insights of value to any manager or leader. Even today, you occasionally hear people citing that TV commercial in business discussions. Nothing rivals face-to-face human contact, they’ll say, and they’ll be right.

Here it is, and here is a little background to it. Do you remember it?

The best TV commercial ever was produced by the legendary Chicago advertising firm of Leo Burnett for United Airlines, and it began airing in 1989. It was filmed in dramatic hues of black and white to intensify the warmth of the characters. It featured Ben, a beleaguered manager whose company was just fired by a longstanding and highly valued client.

The spot has Ben, in shirtsleeves and vest, convening a quick management meeting to announce the news. His message is blunt and compelling. The company is losing touch with its clients. It has to reinvigorate its lifeblood of relationships.

An assistant hands Ben a stack of United tickets—back then they were on card stock—and Ben begins handing them out to the individual managers. A manager objects: "But Ben, that's more than 200 cities." Ben is unmoved. Someone asks Ben where he’s going, and he replies: “To visit that old friend who fired us this morning.”

You’re smart enough to draw your own conclusions and applications from this commercial for your work. What are they?

Here are mine: Don’t lose touch with people. Don’t rely on email and telephone. Don’t think of social media as synapses or nutrients of relationships; they are neither. Remember that human beings thrive in community with other human beings. The more you nurture and strengthen that sense of community, the better your leadership will be.

Trust Is Foundational to People Engagement

2013-04-14T07:54:49-05:00

By Thomas J. Lee

Lest any corporate executive, department head, plant manager, team leader, or any other administrator believe they can do whatever they damn well please with no adverse consequences on the engagement of people, consider some stunning correlations turned up by a St. Louis market research firm:

Among people with strong trust in the management where they work, 63 percent would be happy to spend the remainder of their careers with that organization; among employees with weak trust, only 7 percent would.
Among people with strong trust in management, 51 percent would invest their own money in the organization if they could. Among people with weak trust in management, the corresponding figure is only 6 percent.
Among people with strong trust in management, 50 percent look forward to coming to work every day. Among people with weak trust in management, only 3 percent do.

Those are dramatic and determinative correlations. They are well beyond any statistical test of significance.

These numbers do not mean that executive authority must or should shirk difficult decisions that people will find hard to accept. That is not the point.

Rather, they mean that decisions must be accompanied by a great deal of honest and forthright communication, both verbally and behaviorally, explicit and implicit, and, more than anything, decency and sincerity of intent. You cannot and must not assume that people will understand and accept a decision that you haven't explained and justified, morally as well as legally or strategically.

Maybe there was a time when fast talk and double talk could fool people, and maybe there was a time when no talk was acceptable and expected, but that was a long time ago. People are far too sophisticated today, and they insist on being treated with respect.

Always remember that the talent and skills on which you depend are in bodies with legs. Those legs can walk.

When Strategy and Culture Collide

2013-04-10T13:31:50-05:00

By Thomas J. Lee

As most of you are aware, Ronald B. Johnson was sacked Monday as chief executive of J.C. Penney. A retail marketing wunderkind whose high-profile credits included Target and Apple, Mr. Johnson was hired in 2011 to lead a turnaround of the venerable middle American department store.

Instead of turning it around, however, he sent it reeling. In just seventeen months the chain's annual revenue plummeted from $17.7 billion to $12.9 billion, and its net income dwindled from a profit of $1.63 per share to a loss of $4.49 per share. Not surprisingly, the company's ticker teetered and tumbled from the mid-30s in early 2012 to the mid-teens this week—all during a bull market in which its rivals Kohl's and especially Target have been performing quite well.

Now I do not present myself as either a stock analyst or an expert in retail sales, and I do not pass judgment here on Mr. Johnson's turnaround strategy. However, I do know a thing or two about leadership and its challenges in large, complex organizations. One of the things I know is this: When strategy and culture collide, one of them will win and the other will lose. The same one always wins: culture. If there are exceptions to that rule, they are few and far between.

In our Master Class workshops, we put it thus: Culture is the judge, jury, jailer, and janitor of strategy. No strategy, however well designed, can survive a clash with a culture than doesn't embrace it. No amount of shouting and demanding by senior management can change that, either. Instead, senior management must begin with the culture. Ignore that reality and you ask for failure.

Now I am a big fan of both Target and the Apple stores that Mr. Johnson helped create. According to experts on retailing strategy, his approach to reviving the fortunes of J.C. Penney was creditable. He wanted to upgrade the merchandise and make the store something of a first among equals in its category. That kind of a strategy has worked elsewhere.

Mr. Johnson's big mistake seems to be a condescending attitude toward the people of J.C. Penney and their values. He often ridiculed them, and he quickly replaced many of the senior managers he inherited. He never moved to Plano, Texas, the company's headquarters, but instead spent long weekends back in California. Soon the sarcasm that frequently came flowing out of the corner office was volleyed back at it. The strategy didn't stand a chance.

A smarter approach to leadership is to begin with the culture. Initiate a discussion as to who we, the people of this organization, are: what we know to be true, how we think, what we value and believe, and how we behave, especially in times of stress. Explore the legacies we inherited, and build a consensus around our destination. Show everyone what is possible, and then bring them along on a journey of change.

It will take longer, but it will pay huge dividends in cohesion. You can ignore that hard work of leadership, but you cannot expect to reap the benefits without doing the work.

Can Managers Ever Manage Change? Is Change Even Possible?

2013-04-08T18:45:34-05:00

By Thomas J. Lee

A few years ago The New York Times asked the chief executive of a big Silicon Valley company—you have probably bought or sold something on its popular site—what he had learned through all his years in senior management. His answer both startled me and saddened me.

He replied, and I paraphrase, that he had learned an immutable fact of life: Real change was unrealistic because you cannot change people.

His response startled me because, in a curt statement, this CEO revealed himself to be blithely abdicating the hard work of leadership. He was implying that he saw himself not as a leader—rising to the challenge of inspiring big change, market-shattering innovation, and breakthrough performance—but as a manager responsible for meeting budgets, quotas, and deadlines. And in fact, during his tenure, the company has changed little while other high-tech companies continue to reinvent their business and while other whole industries not especially known for innovation do likewise: energy and retail to name but two.

His response saddened me because, after 20 years of working in the vineyards of leadership and communication, I was meeting another executive who just didn’t get it. There are altogether too many of them. They give lip service to leadership and communication, and then they shrink themselves to the quotidian tasks of administration. They are better at saying no than yes, better at rolling out programs and restructuring departments than articulating and pursuing a strategic destination, better at buying companies than bringing their own new products to market, better at maintaining market share than growing a customer base.

Perhaps all this shouldn’t surprise us. Most senior executives were educated and trained to manage, not to lead; and they have always been rewarded and promoted for managing, not for leading. So it’s only natural that they think like managers, not like leaders.

Major business publications like the Harvard Business Review, Fortune, and The Wall Street Journal compound the problem by glossing over the differences between managing and leading, and by broadly referring to senior executives as “leaders” and to the executive suite as "the leadership" of a company, as if leadership were a function of a hierarchy, as if when you get a promotion you suddenly become a leader.

We would do well to take a step back, and we would gain a lot of clarity if we instead understood leadership and management as work—not as people in a pecking order, but as responsibilities, tasks, and, especially, communication.

Up, down and across an organization, anyone with accountability for a team's performance and culture must both manage and lead. Front-line supervisors must bear some responsibility for collateral leadership, and even the CEO has some basic managerial tasks.

The work of management is all about ensuring steady, reliable, consistent performance. A manager who is managing well ensures that a team performs to certain predetermined expectations held by stakeholders such as customers, investors and lenders, regulators and inspectors, senior management, the employees themselves, and myriad others: vendors, recruiters, the courts, visitors, agencies, job applicants, the news media, neighbors—a list of this sort is practically endless.

The predetermined expectations, too, are variable. If an expectation involves spending money, we call it coming in under budget. If it involves completing a project by a specific date, we call it meeting a deadline. If it involves doing or producing something within acceptable parameters, we call it complying with a standard—quality, perhaps, or safety, or emissions. When it involves making or selling or checking or issuing enough of something, we call it clearing a quota. There are many other kinds of similar challenges around production processes, contractual obligations, legal procedures and requirements, ethics standards, cultural imperatives, and more.

When successful, the work of management creates alignment, which is the deliverable or the work product of good management. It is the equilibrium of expectation and performance. Alignment is a good thing; misalignment is bad. But remember: Alignment is not the product of good leadership. It is the product of good management.

The work of leadership is altogether different from the work of management. Leadership is all about change. A leader who is leading well is successfully bringing about a particular big change, either culturally or operationally.

Leadership entails envisioning, articulating, inspiring, and supporting change—attitudinal or behavioral—or a breakthrough performance of some sort, typically requiring the discretionary and self-sacrificing efforts of people, and often in an environment of uncertainty and risk to oneself.

The change or breakthrough may involve launching a new product, or expanding geographically, or merging cultures after an acquisition, or fending off a unionization vote, or adopting a new technology, or meeting the changing needs of customers. There are many kinds of such challenges.

When successful, the work of leadership creates engagement, which is the deliverable or the work product of good leadership. It is the predicate of change. Engagement is a good thing; disengagement is bad. But engagement is not the product of good management. It is the product of good leadership throughout the organization.

Alignment is critical to meeting the needs of the present. Companies and other organizations—associations, governments, universities, charities, teams—make commitments they must fulfill. Alignment is necessary to fulfilling those commitments.

Engagement is critical to meeting the needs of the future. Companies and other organizations must always adapt to changing circumstances, environments, and opportunities, lest they wither and die as so many erstwhile giants that failed to adapt have withered and died before them. Without engagement, organizations cannot survive long into the future.

It is another big mistake to use the tools of one to accomplish the goals of the other. Companies often try that, and they routinely fail, whenever they launch a “change management” initiative while overlooking the need to lead change, which is something entirely different. Similarly, an energetic and charismatic leader without an eye for detail can lose sight of the basics.

Management and leadership differ most dramatically in the purpose, substance, style, and tone of the communication that supports them.

Communication for the sake of managing is authoritative, directive and influencing. It carries an implicit “stick” of accountability. It says don’t worry about tomorrow, just do this thing now or else.

Communication for the sake of leading is visionary, collaborative, energizing and inspiring. It carries an implicit “carrot” of opportunity. It says believe in the future, and come along on an exciting journey that will make everyone better off.

I like to draw two concentric circles to illustrate. I label the inner circle management and the outer circle leadership, to convey the point that good management is at the core of good leadership. That is because good managers must lead themselves, and paradoxically they do so by managing themselves. Good leaders are their own first followers. They show the way so that others know the way.

Many companies and other organizations are well-managed. They meet the needs of the present just fine. But they are not necessarily well-led. Thus they are duly anxious about the future. They are anxious not because they are unable to predict the future—no one is able to predict it—but because they are not ready for whatever it may bring. They are not ready because they know so little about change, about engagement and ultimately about leadership.

Managing and leading are two different things, and so are alignment and engagement. Both are important. Both are necessary. They’re just different. Quite dramatically different at that.

Important Reading on Servant Leadership

2013-03-28T08:12:25-05:00

By Thomas J. Lee

I don’t often use this space to trumpet articles from the general news media, but this is an exception.

For any and all of you with an interest in servant leadership, this article is must reading.

In our Master Class workshops, we devote a great deal of attention to servant leadership. As a closing summary, I like to ask each class how many people like to think of themselves as go-getters. Invariably, almost everyone raises a hand.

Servant leadership challenges that ethic. Instead of championing go-getters, it celebrates go-givers. It recognizes and rewards the act of giving, especially among managers to and for the people on their team.

The linked article, by Susan Dominus, will appear Sunday (31 March 2013) in the magazine of The New York Times. Do read it, and let me know what you think. (Then, sign up for Master Class!)

Four Kinds of Informal Authority That Can Stymie Change

2013-03-23T06:13:56-05:00

by Thomas J. Lee

It's natural, perhaps even inevitable, for managers and leaders to assume that they hold the authority in an organization. After all, even a junior manager commonly has the power to hire and fire, and senior management can merge, sell, or even shutter a company. That is real authority.

Alas, it is only one kind of authority: the legal authority to run the company. There are other kinds of authority, distributed throughout the organization, that also bear heavily on whether, when, and how anything gets done and on whether, when, and how anything really changes.

Managers who neglect these informal centers of authority often delude themselves into thinking that their mission or strategy is fully deployed, that people up, down, and across the company are acting in accordance with the strategic direction. The managers are surprised when the results don't bear out the promise of their strategy, and they wonder why things apparently just hit a wall.

Savvy, successful leaders approach things differently. They look for these gates of leverage and then recruit the gatekeepers to support the strategy. They realize that each gatekeeper can determine whether a strategy slows, stops, or proceeds through the gate. The more gatekeepers a leader has in the fold, the more likely the strategy will move through these gateways.

Here are four kinds of authority—each its own strategic gatekeeper, if you will—well beyond the legal authority that managers already have:

Economic authority is the power of the purse. Externally, economic authority rests with customers who decide whether to buy the product of a change. Two legendary case studies in business school are the decisions by Ford Motor Co. to introduce the Edsel in 1958—it would last only three years—and by Coca-Cola Co. to change the recipe of Coke in 1985. In both instances, customers rejected the new products. Internally, it is whoever exercises practical control over spending, which typically depends on the size of an organization, its controls, and its authorization levels. It can reside with the receptionist who holds the key to the petty cash drawer, or it can be the auditors who wave a flag on p-card abuses.

Technical authority resides with holders of any unique competency that a strategy or change requires. It can range from engineering (the design of packaging or manufacturing equipment, say) to supply chain to legal counsel, and more. Any of these gatekeepers can open or close their gate. When it closes, so do the prospects for a strategy or change initiative.

Functional authority belongs to anyone who is in an informal position to close a gate and thereby stymie a change. Some years ago I stopped at a high-tech store—one of a nationwide chain—only to discover a complete absence of sales personnel on duty. Customers were just milling about. The sales team was upstairs in the store manager's office loudly protesting a new compensation system. All afternoon, customers came and went without buying anything, as there was no salesperson to make a sale. The sales personnel were exercising their functional authority. It's little wonder the company declared bankruptcy shortly afterward.

Social authority is informal influence among others that rests on personality, social order, and networks. Some people have outsize influence over the thinking of their peers. When it comes to a business strategy or change initiative, they can put the brakes on without the leader's knowledge. Generally speaking, it isn't the office cynic who has the most influence, as many employees just discount that person's constant quibbling. Nor is it the office cheerleader, whose enthusiasm grates on nerves. Rather it is the sober, thoughtful person in the middle whose voice others seek out and respect.

There are other kinds of authority, as well: moral authority, political authority, and strategic authority, just to name a few. The wise manager is alert to all of them.

The need to recruit these critical gatekeepers comes back to the crucial differences between managing and leading. Managers have official command of their team as a matter of the organization's hierarchy; people are assigned to a team and to a manager. Leaders must earn their influence, because the people they would lead have a choice as to whom they will follow. To lead successfully, leaders must enroll as many supporters as they possibly can.

Lao Tzu and an Ethic of Leadership

2013-03-12T10:57:25-05:00

By Thomas J. Lee

Lao Tzu, the ancient Chinese philosopher, left a veritable canon of wisdom on leadership. Many of his observations and insights are as vital today as they were when he lived twenty-six centuries ago.

Here are a few you will recognize:

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

A leader is best when people barely know he exists;

when his work is done and his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.

If you do not change directions, you may wind up where you are heading.

He who does not trust enough will himself not be trusted.

And here is one that may not be familiar to you. It may also puzzle you:

Anticipate the difficult by managing the easy.

What do you think Lao Tzu meant by this?

Take a moment to think about it. Turn the statement over in your mind a few times: Anticipate the difficult by managing the easy.

As you play with these words, you begin to realize that even the most daunting challenges in life are merely a series of easier tasks you already find simple and straightforward. On a macro scale, that was true of sending astronauts to the moon, of inventing the computer, of transplanting the first heart or lung. On a micro scale, it is true of getting a college education, of losing those 40 pounds that came out of nowhere, of raising a family, of managing a team of people.

Once we begin to see the large and complex as just a myriad of the small and simple, we can make real progress. We can anticipate meeting the difficult challenge by preparing to manage it as a lot of easy things.

As a foundation for leading people, this is a penetrating insight. It points us toward the importance of managing ourselves for the purpose of leading others toward something important for us all. It reminds us to be our own first follower.

Let me know what you think. Drop me a line at tom@arceil.com or leave a comment below.

'Just kidding—I was fired today'

2013-03-03T19:08:32-06:00

By Thomas J. Lee

There's so much gobbledygook and doubletalk spewing forth from corporations every day, you get in the habit of blithely ignoring it—in spite of the fact that it demeans and insults all the most important stakeholders: customers, employees, and investors, all both actual and prospective.

Thus, when an executive of a publicly traded company has the courage, self-awareness, and humility to tell the truth with self-deprecating humor, it grabs your attention. Just such a thing happened a few days ago.

No, we’re not speaking of Warren Buffet, whose annual shareholder newsletter was published Friday, although Buffet has been refreshingly telling the truth for decades. He is a happy exception to the rule. We expect plain talk from him.

Rather, the executive whose truth telling was startling and invigorating was Andrew Mason, who was deposed Friday as CEO of Groupon, Inc., the e-commerce company he co-founded.

Usually in an executive shuffle, the dearly departed say nothing. They just disappear, and the company’s mouthpiece issues some verbal pabulum to explain the change. The worst of these anodyne comments asks us to believe that the executive wants “to spend more time with his family” or has chosen “to pursue other opportunities.”

Mr. Mason needed no corporate mouthpiece. He could speak just fine for himself. In a farewell letter to employees, he began with a nod to the cliché and then—well, read it for yourself:

After four and a half intense and wonderful years as CEO of Groupon, I’ve decided that I’d like to spend more time with my family. Just kidding—I was fired today. If you’re wondering why, you haven’t been paying attention. From controversial metrics in our S1 to our material weakness to two quarters of missing our expectations and a stock price that’s hovering around one quarter of our listing price, the events of the last year and a half speak for themselves. As CEO, I am accountable.

That alone was refreshing. Mr. Mason went on to pay tribute to the company’s employees and to voice support for both the board’s strategy and the board’s decision to fire him. “It’s time to give Groupon a relief valve from the public noise,” he wrote.

Then he used a metaphor to help people understand. Metaphors are often terrific rhetorical devices. Never underestimate the value and power of an apt metaphor. In this case, he invoked the old video game Battletoads and poked fun at himself:

I’m OK with having failed at this part of the journey. If Groupon was Battletoads, it would be like I made it all the way to the Terra Tubes without dying on my first-ever play through. I am so lucky to have had the opportunity to take the company this far with all of you. I’ll now take some time to decompress (FYI I’m looking for a good fat camp to lose my Groupon 40, if anyone has a suggestion), and then maybe I’ll figure out how to channel this experience into something productive.

He closed by reminding his former employees always to think first of the customer, something that seems increasingly foreign and hostile to the priorities of so many CEOs, who pay obeisance to investors first and everyone else a distant second. Then he said something truly phenomenal.

This leadership change gives you some breathing room to break bad habits and deliver sustainable customer happiness—don’t waste the opportunity!

I will miss you terribly.

Love,

Andrew

Did you see that? He used the L word: love. In a business letter!

Frankly, I have long had my doubts about Groupon and its business model, but now I’m thinking that I will keep an eye on young Mr. Mason. Go lose those 40 pounds, sir, and keep us posted as to your whereabouts.

Yahoo's New Remote-Work Policy Needs Flexibility

2013-02-26T14:27:25-06:00

By Thomas J. Lee

Yahoo’s new chief executive, Marissa Mayer, has moved quickly to turn around the company’s stolid culture and position it for change. Within days of her celebrated arrival last summer she purchased thousands of new iPhones for employees. That was only one of several initiatives intended to make the company more innovative and productive.

So perhaps we should cut her some slack on Yahoo’s new policy regarding remote workers. Like many other large companies, Yahoo has encouraged employees to work part of their time or all of their time from home. That has had a number of people-affirming consequences. It has enabled couples to balance two careers more readily, and it has facilitated child care for working moms. It has also saved corporate funds on real estate.

Yahoo’s support for remote working will end in June, according to reports on All Things D, a website devoted to the technology and digital industry. (You can read the two stories here and here.) Citing the need for more and better collaboration, and in the hope of nurturing more innovation, Ms. Mayer is requiring all Yahoo employees to work physically in offices alongside their their colleagues.

While there is an argument for people to work together in the same space, Yahoo’s new policy strikes me as overreach. I say that for four reasons.

First, any large company has multiple offices—not uncommonly in an array of countries and time zones—and therefore remote collaboration is already a way of life. Yahoo itself has offices in Bangalore and Beijing. The drawbacks of remote working are part of business in the 21st century, and that isn’t going to change any time soon.

Second, a significant number of high-value employees have made major life decisions on the basis of the prior policy. Home ownership, spousal employment, and court-ordered child-care arrangements are not easy things to change in a matter of several months. Moreover, as a matter of simple equity, some employees have undoubtedly left prior jobs and joined Yahoo in part because of the flexibility and freedom of its remote-working policy.

Third, like a layoff or any other management decision with tectonic consequences, this policy shift is likely to divert the focus of Yahoo employees away from business strategy and operations to the policy change itself, at a time when Yahoo can least afford the diversion. In some cases that kind of collateral damage is unavoidable, but when it can be avoided or minimized, it should be.

Fourth, in my own experience, remote working is every bit as productive as office-based working is—perhaps even more so. I personally work with several executives of Fortune 100 companies who maintain home offices, and they are some of the most efficient, productive people I know.

There is some potential middle ground here, and if my voice were heard in Sunnyvale, it would say this: In-office work arrangements are indeed conducive to collaboration and innovation, as opposed to sheer efficiency and productivity, which seem to thrive in remote arrangements. When people work together, they run into one another and share ideas in the cafeteria, washrooms, corridors, and elevators. People also develop more appreciation for one another’s special expertise by working in their presence. All that is good.

But that can be accomplished equally well by bringing remote-working teams together for a few days every month or every quarter, by having regular online conferences in between, by coming together for sophisticated professional-development programs, and by using several new programs and apps to facilitate remote collaboration. As an aside, companies should be budgeting more for airline travel and meetings anyway. That is money and time well spent.

By modifying the new policy, Yahoo can avoid the trauma of forcing high-value employees to choose whether husband or wife is able to keep a job or remain on track for an MBA, and it can demonstrate that new policies need not take the form of Draconian reversals that rattle everyone.

Just my two cents.

Master Class: Communication for Servant Leadership

2013-02-24T08:19:00-06:00

Venue for Master Class: Communication for Leadership

“Communication is the real work of leadership,” says Harvard Business School dean Nitin Nohria. We emphatically agree.

We have been saying it for years: Successful leaders communicate their vision or concern or priority with clarity, with coherence, and with credibility. People know what the leaders think, what they feel, and what they believe. There is no doubt, no confusion, no vacillation.

Think of Ronald Reagan at the Berlin Wall. Think of Martin Luther King Jr. on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Think of Abraham Lincoln himself at Gettysburg. Think of Nelson Mandela emerging from 27 years of imprisonment. Think of England's legendary King Henry V, memorialized by Shakespeare, rallying his outnumbered and outgunned troops at Agincourt.

Think of any coach or teacher, any sibling or parent, any doctor or writer, any volunteer or political candidate, any manager or entrepreneur, anyone at all who influenced and ultimately inspired you to want something or do something or become something more.

Think of any influential, inspirational leader—at any time, in any place—and you will probably envision that leader in the act of speaking with conviction, clarity, and credibility.

Successful leaders communicate with whatever mechanism they can. They have a message they passionately believe in, and they speak it. Their message is one of aspiration, of need, of confidence. They describe, they declare, they demand. They cite examples. They tell stories. They ask questions, a litany of them, one after another on a single theme. They craft memorable aphorisms, little ditties, or clever quotations. They cajole. They persuade. They needle.

More importantly, they engage in dialogue—lots and lots of dialogue—and they repeat themselves over and over and over again.

Finally, and most importantly, they live their message. They are their message. They offer themselves as a working example of the leadership they preach. Their behavior and their decisions are part and parcel of their communication. They become their own first follower.

It's for this very reason—the fact that communication, both explicit and implicit, both verbal and non-verbal, sometimes even latent, is the real but difficult work of leadership—that we throw such a bright spotlight on communication in our Master Class workshops, and it is why we offer a system to ensure that your leadership messages are clear, compelling, and credible.

* * *

Master Class: Communication for Servant Leadership is a sophisticated, high-level look at the real energy of leadership. Far from typical training, it delves deep into relationships: the live-wire connection that makes leadership possible. Appropriate for any experienced manager or executive, regardless of level, it will reawaken and reignite the leader in you.

What makes Master Class stand out?

First, it approaches leadership not as a position on the org chart, and not as a function of static traits, but as hard work that anyone with responsibility for the work of others should do. The hard work focuses on the clarity, credibility, and cogency of communication—its substance, its style and tone, its frequency, its practical applicability, and its stickiness, or memorability.

Second, Master Class recognizes communication as anything that conveys information or creates meaning for people. That includes many kinds of silent, or behavioral, communication, as well as conventional, verbal communication. It’s up to every manager to manage not just the messages he or she is sending, both spoken and silent, but also the metamessages that people are receiving. As any manager knows, they may or may not be the same.

Third, Master Class takes a close look at people engagement. If there is one thing that enables a company to define the future, it’s the full focus, curiosity, passion, and courage of employees. That's engagement, and it is NOT the same thing as alignment, morale, loyalty, or commitment. Engagement is the deliverable, or work product, of leadership. You must know how to cultivate and grow engagement if you are to lead people to a new and better tomorrow.

Fourth, Master Class introduces and explores the powerful concept of servant leadership: the doctrine that leaders lead best by serving first, as opposed to expecting to be served. We call it 5th Degree Leadership. Modeled on the late Robert K. Greenleaf's trailblazing work, Master Class broaches difficult challenges of empathy, humility, self-awareness, vulnerability, and more. We're no longer surprised that this chapter is among the most memorable and well-received of the entire session, even among technically trained managers such as engineers and scientists.

Fifth, Master Class shows the hidden differences between communication for the sake of managing people and communication for the sake of leading them. The two differ profoundly in terms of their purpose, their content, their style, and their tone, yet few leaders understand or appreciate it. Use the wrong kind of communication, and you get the wrong result. This is a common phenomenon in business, and it goes a long way toward explaining why so many change initiatives fall flat on their face.

Finally, Master Class is filled with case studies and practical examples that will rivet your attention. People tell us they remember our stories for years and years, and that they share the stories with friends, colleagues, and even relatives. One of the highest compliments we receive, and it comes to us surprisingly often, is that our course even helps families come closer together. That isn't our strategic intent, but we're glad to be of help.

Master Class is taught by Thomas J. Lee, an expert on leadership communication who has been working with companies of all sizes for more than twenty years. A former journalist and executive speechwriter, he has benchmarked nearly 30 major corporations for their best-practice secrets. He has spoken and taught throughout the United States, across Canada, and in a dozen other countries in Europe, South America, and Africa. He blogs at www.MindingGaps.com.

Master Class has been a staple of corporate training programs at many Fortune 500 companies. Now, on a trial basis, we are offering it by open enrollment. You can register by yourself, or you can sign up several of your colleagues as well, for a fast-paced, two-day immersion or for a three-day session with a special chapter on leadership for introverts.

We have seats available in Master Class sessions scheduled for the following dates:

July 24-25, 2013 (two-day immersion)
August 7-8, 2013 (two-day immersion)
September 11-12, 2013 (two-day immersion)
October 15-16, 2013 (two-day immersion)
October 22-23-24, 2013 (three-day with a special unit on leadership for introverts)

In addition, we occasionally schedule executive briefings over breakfast to introduce the program to corporate executives. Reserve a place or two at the next breakfast by calling us at 650-464-1770.

All sessions (including the executive briefings) take place in a charming, old Tudor-style hotel in an affluent, lovely North Shore suburb of Chicago. It's as far-removed from a cookie-cutter chain hotel as you can imagine, and we have negotiated favorable lodging rates just for you. The site is easily accessible by car or commuter train from the Loop, and it is just 45 minutes from Chicago's O'Hare Airport or 60 minutes from Milwaukee's Mitchell Field. Registration for Master Class includes continental breakfast and lunch both days, so you'll have additional opportunities to get to know your peers at other organizations.

Take a moment to read this course description of Master Class. Then let us know (by emailing us directly at info@arceil.com or by telephoning us at 650-464-1770) how many places we should hold for you and on which dates.

The two-day Master Class immersion has these benefits:

Bottom Line Value. Research shows that between 2.1 and 2.5 percent of an organization’s revenue is lost to the active disengagement of people. That’s as much as $2.5 million for every $100 million of revenue, and it is just for active disengagement. (Passive disengagement is more pervasive and adds still more to the cost.) Recover it, and it goes straight to the bottom line. Few such professional-development programs pay for themselves so easily. This one clearly does.

Big Ideas, Big Impact. Leadership and management are two different things. So are engagement and alignment. The communication that drives leadership and engagement is different from that which drives management and alignment, too. Use the wrong one, and you get the wrong result. Master Class brings clarity and explanation to these critical distinctions. Executives will come to understand the importance of distributive leadership—after all, no one can be everywhere—and managers will learn why they must stand as collateral leaders of the enterprise.

Case Studies. We have scoured top-tier companies for best practices, and we bring them to you. You will see practical examples from companies like Harley-Davidson, Levi Strauss, Nordstrom, Starbucks, Hewlett-Packard, Lockheed Martin, BP/Amoco, Federal Express, and many others. You'll remember the vivid stories for years to come.

Analysis of Engagement. Master Class identifies five levels of engagement—creative engagement, active engagement, passive engagement, passive disengagement, and active disengagement—and then analyzes each for its consequences, behaviors, and antecedents.

Simple, Powerful Models. Our flagship models, the Rainbow and the GearBox, have been used by major companies to get a fix on their level of staff engagement. The Rainbow Model identifies unintended, and previously unnoticed, credibility gaps: mixed messages, muddled messages, mute messages. The GearBox serves as both a structure and a self-assessment tool at the intersection of strategy and employee engagement. We guarantee you will find them both enlightening.

Managing the Metamessage. Master Class acknowledges the obvious: what people hear you say isn't necessarily what you said. It's one thing to choose your words carefully, and you certainly should do that. But if you neglect to manage your implicit communication, you still have a problem, and you haven't begun to address it. We'll show you how you are communicating 24/7 through your semi-formal and informal voices as well as your formal voice.

Quantitative Data. Master Class presents hard, factual, quantitative data to explain the power and value of communication around business strategy. You and your managers will get facts and figures on change, trust, engagement and disengagement, perceptions of managers by employees, ROI, message clutter, employee frustrations, rumors, and so much more. Most importantly, we realize that data always tells a story. Discerning the stories in the data is critical.

Trust in Leadership. Remember trust? Everyone pays lip service to it, and yet compromises to trust are all too common. Surveys show that senior management teams routinely and dramatically overstate the level of trust in their organizations. For leaders, trust is the product of their personal and institutional honesty, their professional competence, their presence and accessibility, and the affinity that people on their teams perceive in terms of common interests, needs, and concerns.We'll show how tenuous all these factors can be, and what you can do about it.

Practical, Proven Strategies. We have distilled our teaching down to neat lists of strategies and tactics. They all make abundant good sense, but many of these strategies never occurred to managers beforehand. Master Class puts them in your hands.

Our alumni include executives and managers from top-tier companies whose products you see and use every day. Evaluations of these workshops are consistently high. After sitting in a class for two or three full days, more than 95 percent of participants recommend Master Class for their peers and superiors.

Here’s what past participants have said about Master Class:

“This was a top-notch program directly geared [to] the success of managers. It was a continuing education program among peers.”

—a senior manager of a Fortune 100 consumer-products company

“I have worked for this agency for 25 years, and I have never had a day of in-service training as valuable as today’s.”

—scientist, agency of the U.S. government

“Excellent presenter, measured pauses, superb, enthusiastic, thought-provoking, excellent material, first-rate, will definitely recommend.”

—a guest participant

“I have gone through a lot of leadership training. This is one of the two best. The other was at Carnegie Mellon, and this workshop is more applicable to my day-to-day work.”

—senior engineer, aerospace company

“Tom is terrific! Original, enthusiastic, motivating . . . the lessons are applicable, useful, and real.”

—senior manager for an international food and beverage company

Tuition for the two-day programs is just $1,695 per person (or $1,495 by the early-bird deadline, 30 days prior to a class); add $500 for a three-day session. Registrations are non-refundable but fully transferable to a later date or to a colleague. We offer substantial scholarships for schools, for non-profit organizations, and for small businesses and entrepreneurs. Also, be sure to ask about our attractive packages, which offer substantial discounts for groups of five or more registering at the same time (they may attend different sessions).

Call us (at 650-464-1770) or write to us (at info@arceil.com) to indicate your interest, and we'll get back to you right away. (Note that payment can only be made by credit card over the telephone, as our web presence is not yet secure.)

Why Smart People Are Poor Listeners

2013-02-20T11:55:56-06:00

By Thomas J. Lee

At this very moment, you are reading this, and therefore you are bright.

I'm not being sarcastic, and I'm not being fulsome. It's true. If you're reading a blog like this, chances are that you're suffering from a condition known as above-average intelligence.

Okay, now that's a little over the top, I admit.

Still, there's some truth to it. Smart people have a lot of advantages, but they also have a couple of large disadvantages. One big disadvantage is the inability to listen as well as people of average or even below-average intelligence can listen.

That's right. It may come as a shock, so I will repeat it for emphasis: The smarter you are, the more difficulty you probably have listening to other people.

Yes, there are exceptions to this rule, but if you're leaping to the conclusion that you are the exception, then you're very likely a worse listener than your peers.

Why are smart people poor listeners?

Well, by definition, intelligent people absorb information fast. Researchers have found that intelligent people think at the rate of 500 to 700 words per minute. Even fast talkers speak at only 175 to 200 words per minute.

That's a lot of time—at least 36 of every 60 seconds—for you to be mentally doing other things while people leisurely finish their own sentences.

What are you doing for those 36-plus seconds of every minute? Lots of things.

You're thinking about the agenda for tomorrow's meeting. You're sorting through candidates for the staff vacancy. You're remembering to get arugula at the fresh market. You're debating which movie to see tonight. You're wondering why this person is taking forever to make a simple point.

Most of all, you're deciding what to say in response.

Bright people also tend to make judgments—lots of them, in rapid fire. So as another person is talking, you are making judgments about her intelligence, her knowledge, her diction, and maybe a few other things we won't go into here.

Finally, smart people are typically busy people. You probably have a lot of issues and decisions you need to address. It is tempting to think through these things whenever you have a few seconds.

Given the ubiquity of smart phones, you may also be itching to send someone a text message or to scroll through your email or to check weather.com. You may even think you can multitask successfully. Hey, we're all a little delusional.

The big problem with all this is that people do notice it. At this very moment some of them are silently complaining to themselves that you don't listen. They may even be complaining aloud to one another. From that, they easily conclude that you don't care about their ideas.

Now if you're as smart as you think you are, you'll identify listening skills as an opportunity for self-improvement, and you will do something about it. There are lots of resources out there: books, tapes, videos, coaching. Our Master Class is one of many; we describe four levels of good listening, and we set forth an eight-step process for what we term affirmative listening.

The important thing is to do something. Otherwise people will get the sense that you think you already know everything, and you and I already know that isn't the case. We do, don't we?

As a Leader, Be Like Mike

2013-02-18T11:00:58-06:00

by Thomas J. Lee

As alumni of our Master Class will recall, we identify three general models of leadership—transactional, transformational, and a hybrid of those two—each with four common faces. One face of the transformational model is the heroic leader.

Heroic leaders do their leading by example and then some. They offer themselves as paragons of discipline, rectitude, or restraint. Their behavior speaks for itself. Note: We’re not asking for perfection here; heroic leaders are fallible like the rest of us. But heroic leaders rise to the challenge of offering a splendid role model in one or more facets of their personality and character. That is the gist of their heroism as leaders.

Some of history’s greatest names were, or are, heroic leaders: Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Joan of Arc, Mahatma Gandhi, Rosa Parks, Oskar Schindler, Aung San Suu Kyi, George Washington, Liu Xiaobo, and Jaime Escalante, to name a few. Others are less well-known or even obscure. All around, you can find parents, coaches, teachers, and clergy who are genuinely heroic leaders.

Against such a spectacular firmament, it may seem odd to nominate a professional athlete. But I think it is justified, especially in an era when so many professional athletes have compromised themselves and their sport by the scandalous use of performance-enhancing drugs, and in spite of the fact that most of them are extremely well-compensated. The few who succeed by dint of hard work and self-sacrifice deserve the fanfare of trumpets as well as their paycheck, and we can learn from their example.

Tuesday is Michael Jordan’s fiftieth birthday. For the three persons on the planet who cannot place the name, Jordan is the best basketball player of all time. He played for the Chicago Bulls from 1984 to 1998, with three years out to follow a fantasy of becoming a major-league baseball player. On the basketball court, he led the Bulls to six world championships.

Few of us have our first AARP cards so publicly noted as Jordan’s fiftieth birthday has been. Sports Illustrated’s latest edition is devoted to the 50 issues on which he has graced its cover. Blogs, radio, television, and newspapers are similarly preoccupied with this milestone.

The testimonials to Jordan’s work ethic and his devotion to his teammates are legion. A couple of them stand out.

In the National Basketball Association championship series of 1993, the Bulls took a lead of three games to one into the fifth game, at home, but blew the opportunity to close it out right there. The next day they had to fly back to Phoenix for the sixth game and, if they lost again, the seventh game. The coaches and all the other players packed for a four-day trip, just in case. Not Jordan. He boarded the plane with a small valise. “Gentlemen, this is all the clothes I brought,” he told his teammates. “We’re not going to be there long enough for me to have to change.” Sure enough, the Bulls won the sixth game and came right home with the trophy.

Four years later, on June 11, 1997, Jordan awoke with a serious bout of the flu before the fifth game of the NBA championship series. The Bulls were tied with the Utah Jazz at two games apiece. The trainers told Jordan he was too sick to play, but everyone knew that his absence would imperil the team’s chances. Jordan insisted on going in. His presence alone inspired his teammates. Jordan scored 38 points that night, 17 of them in the fourth quarter, including the game-winning three-point shot. At the buzzer he collapsed into teammate Scottie Pippen’s arms. Two days later the Bulls won the next game, as well, to take the championship, four games to two.

Anyone who knew Jordan, or who played with him or against him, seems to have stories like this. I never met the man, but I did watch him play pick-up games with ordinary middle-age men like me at a Chicago gym where I used to work out. He was always a paragon of propriety, always a gentleman.

So yes, athletes can qualify as heroic leaders, and I can think of no athlete who better qualifies than Michael Jordan. Happy birthday, sir.

John Kerry and the Diplomacy of Valentine's Day

2013-02-14T07:45:37-06:00

By Thomas J. Lee

John Kerry, the new U.S. secretary of state, appears to know a thing or two about diplomacy—on the home front. Bosses everywhere should take heed.

According to Politico, the new diplomat-in-chief issued a warning to his team this week. "Thursday is Valentine's Day," Kerry said, "and I want you all out of here" at a reasonable hour. No late meetings!

That was Tuesday. Wednesday, in another staff meeting, Kerry forgetfully suggested a meeting for this evening, Valentine’s Day.

Someone called his attention to it, and he scratched the idea. "Can't break my own rule," he said.

In all seriousness, our work lives would be a lot more successful if we paid just a little more attention to things like being home on the evening of Valentine’s Day.

A Little Fable From James Thurber

2013-02-13T10:36:37-06:00

By Thomas J. Lee (with apologies to James Thurber)

The late James Thurber crafted many wonderful fables with wisdom for the generations.

Here is one of my favorites. It is short and playful. Titled The Weaver and the Worm, it has a sweet moral on communication for leadership. (Note: The word gudda has largely faded from use. It meant nasty or mean.)

The little fable goes like this:

A weaver watched in wide-eyed wonder a silkworm spinning its cocoon in a white Mulberry tree.

“Where’d you get that stuff?” asked the admiring weaver.

“You want to make something out of it?” inquired the silkworm, eagerly.

The weaver and the silkworm went their separate ways for each thought the other had insulted him. We live, man and worm, in a time when almost everything can mean almost anything, for this is the age of gobbledygook, doubletalk, and gudda.

Moral: A word to the wise is not sufficient if it doesn’t make any sense.

Think of yourself as the weaver, and think of the people in your organization or on your team as the silkworm. Know that what you say and how you say it—especially if you resort to jargon, acronyms, and neologism, and most especially if you don’t know beforehand what you really think or why you think it—runs a high risk of being misunderstood or distrusted, or both, by the silkworm.

The only way around that is first to know what you think, and why you think it, and then to speak in plain, old-fashioned English. Look people in the eye. Take time to understand and be understood. Speak what you truly believe, and explain yourself.

Be empathic. Ask people what they heard, what they think, and how they feel. Listen patiently. Respond with your heart as well as your head. Listen for perspective and purpose as well as simple position.

Speak the essence of your truth over and over again. Explain yourself over and over again. Draw pictures. Tell stories. Give examples. Then start over.

Remember: A word to the wise is not sufficient if it doesn’t make any sense.

After 54 Years on the Job, She Is Finally Retiring

2013-02-09T18:22:40-06:00

Carole DiSalvo

By Thomas J. Lee

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

I recalled that wise old aphorism on reading the wonderful Dallas Morning News story of Carole DiSalvo, an American Airlines flight attendant who finally retired two weeks ago after 54 years on the job.

You read correctly. Ms. DiSalvo joined American in 1958 at the age of 20. Only now, at the age of 75, is she turning in her wings. In an era when people commonly have several careers and multiple employers, she remained in a single job with a sole employer for more than one-half century.

When, as a young woman, she began flying, American Airlines had a fleet of airplanes with propellers. Its first jet aircraft, the Boeing 707, wouldn’t be delivered to American until the next year. Non-stop coast-to-coast and trans-Atlantic flights were still in the future. Commercial aviation was heavily regulated: everything from connecting cities to departure times, from ticket fares to pilot salaries, was determined by federal bureaucrats. Flying was a special experience, so passengers wore their best suits and dresses for a flight. They lit up cigarettes after the pilot turned off the no smoking sign, and they got decks of playing cards just for flying.

Flight attendants were called stewardesses in those days. Women had to be attractive, single, and young to be hired. Becoming a wife or a mother was cause for termination. So was reaching the age of 32. Prior to submitting an application to American, Ms. DiSalvo applied for a job with rival TWA, but that application was declined because her nails were too short.

Expecting to marry at some point, Ms. DiSalvo was looking forward only to a couple of years as a stewardess. One-by-one the rules changed, just in time for her to continue working. Her seniority kept rising, so she could lay dibs on better flights. Her final flight, in mid-January, took her to Shanghai, an unthinkable destination for her first fifteen years on the job.

There were good days and bad days in her long career. Her passengers included Richard Nixon, Adlai Stevenson, Marlon Brando, and Neil Diamond, who sang “Sweet Caroline” to her on a short layover. Two tragedies still haunt: the 1979 crash of an American flight on takeoff at O’Hare Airport, and, of course, the hijackings of two American and two United flights on September 11, 2001.

Reading between the lines, we notice something atypical about Ms. DiSalvo. Through most of her career, she was probably working not so much for the financial compensation as for the psychic and social satisfaction. Her husband was a well-paid patent attorney, and she has qualified for both Medicare and Social Security for ten years now. So she was apparently working for the joy of it, and thus she must have brought joy to many.

Now obviously most of us need to earn a living, and work is the honest way to do it. No money, no work. But in the unrelenting urge to make more money, we tend to lose sight of the sheer joy of work. Given a choice of working with someone who is on the job only because he has to be, and who will stay only as long as he has to stay, or working with someone who would be there even if he didn't have to be, I'll always take the latter.

There's something to be said for stability and continuity, and all the more to be said for it in an age of instability and discontinuity; and there's something to be said for psychic satisfaction, and all the more to be said for it in an age of money, money, money and gimme, gimme, gimme.

We take a bow to Carole DiSalvo. Congratulations. You are a paragon for a society desperately in need of paragons like you.

When Should You Manage, and When Should You Lead?

2013-02-07T19:30:08-06:00

By Thomas J. Lee

You may be a front-line supervisor in a factory, or a mid-level manager, or a senior executive in a large corporation like IBM or Microsoft.

You may be the principal of a school, or the president of a community bank, or the nursing administrator of a hospital. You may be the managing director of a law firm, or a commissioned officer in the military, or the editor of a newspaper. Or you may be the head of a research team at a pharmaceutical company.

You may be the conductor of an orchestra, or the associate dean of a college, or the vice president for manufacturing of a mid-size company. You may be an entrepreneur with dreams of an IPO, or a small business owner who just wants to meet a payroll.

Whatever you do and wherever you do it, if you have responsibility for the performance of other people, you wear two hats.

One is the hat of a manager. The other is the hat of a leader.

That is true regardless of whether you have the word manager or leader in your job title or your job description. You must function as both a manager and a leader. It is even true if you merely aspire to responsibility for the performance of other people. You must learn to manage and lead, both.

Both hats, both roles, are important, but they are important in different ways. It’s imperative that you understand how they differ, lest you make the mistake of doing one when you should be doing the other. If you make that mistake, you can wind up with unintended results.

The two roles, manager and leader, are often confused. In part that’s because of simple-minded slogans. One classic slogan is: "Managers do things right, and leaders do the right thing." Another is: "All leadership is influence, and all influence is leadership." Both are leaky boats.

It's also in part because the two labels, manager and leader, are often mistakenly understood as jobs, as boxes on an organization chart. No less than The Wall Street Journal and Harvard Business Review routinely use the term "management" to refer to an organization’s broad official authority and the term "leadership" to refer particularly to an organization’s senior officers and executives.

By doing so, they place narrow boundaries on the purview of leadership, and that ultimately hamstrings an organization. No wonder so many executives have given up on change—the whole point of leadership—and now just wish everyone would do as they're told. That's an immature, egocentric approach to managing, and it doesn't come close to the magic of leadership. Unfortunately, it's common.

Instead of falling into that trap, think of managing and leading as work, and especially as particular kinds of work. Just that little conceptual shift will bring clarity to the murky confusion.

With this new clarity you will be able to see the path to becoming a better manager and a better leader. For up and down and across any organization, anyone with responsibility for the performance of other people must do the work of both managing and leading. That means wearing both hats, the hat of the manager and the hat of the leader.

Let's go into more detail.

Wearing the hat of the manager, you seek to meet the pre-determined expectations of acknowledged stakeholders. My definition of stakeholder is simple: anyone who can make my life difficul if his expectations are not met.

One stakeholder is the organization's senior executive authority, for it has certain expectations of its own. Other stakeholders can include customers both current and prospective, the owners or investors in a business, employees, certain government agencies and authorities, and, depending on your circumstances, perhaps also labor unions, the news media, subscribers and donors, and vendors and suppliers.

All those stakeholders have present-day expectations, which the stakeholders expect you will meet. The work of meeting those expectations is the work of management.

When management is successful, it creates alignment of people with those expectations. Thus you can think of alignment as the work product, or the deliverable, of managing well.

Wearing the hat of the leader, you are seeking instead to bring about a breakthrough in performance or a change on a large scale. The change may be strategic or tactical. It may be operational or cultural. It may be vertical (as in a hierarchy) or horizontal (as in areas of activity and responsibility).

Here's the big difference: Instead of meeting predetermined expectations, you are identifying new expectations. Instead of replicating something you have done before, over and over again, you are doing something new and different. Instead of valuing reliability and consistency, you are valuing agility and creativity. Instead of seeking compliance, you are seeking innovation.

These are the needs of tomorrow, so leadership is inherently oriented to the future. The work of forging new expectations is the work of leadership.

When leadership is successful, it creates engagement of people. Thus you can think of engagement as the work product, or deliverable, of leadership.

When should you do which?

The answer to that is a little complicated, because you must always be managing yourself in order to lead other people. How you conduct and present yourself—which is to say how you manage yourself—is the beating heart of your leadership. It determines the degree and nature of your credibility as a leader: whether, how much, and in what ways people trust you to do right by them.

Beyond yourself, you must also manage people when the situation calls for meeting those pre-determined expectations we discussed.

Examples abound. You may have a revenue target or a budget to meet. You may have a production quota or a sales quota to meet. You may have a regulatory inspection coming up. You may face a due-diligence process for a pending merger or spinoff. You may be under an order of some sort to do this or that by the first of next month. You may have a design parameter or a quality standard to meet. Whatever the expectation is, if you already know it and you are responsible for meeting it, you are really doing the work of managing.

On the other hand, you must lead people when you are venturing into new territory, and there are no pre-determined expectations are that you must meet.

Perhaps you are designing a new product, and its features are yet to be determined. Perhaps your organization has merged with another, and you must forge a new culture from the legacies of two cultures. Perhaps you are taking over a troubled department, and the people are looking to you for a new vision and energy. Perhaps your organization is moving into a new territory, where you are an unknown quantity. Perhaps something in your community is wrong, and you are speaking up.

In all these and in countless other similar situations, someone must step forward and lead. If that someone is you, the work you face is the work of leading. Do that work, not the work of managing.

For further reading, we recommend these previous posts:

Engagement and Alignment Are Two Different Things on February 12, 2012.

Core Competencies in Communication for Leadership on April 1, 2011.

How Great Leaders Communicate on December 17, 2012.

What You Can Learn from the Super Bowl Blackout

2013-02-04T09:10:40-06:00

By Thomas J. Lee

Hundreds of millions of people enjoyed perhaps the greatest Super Bowl ever yesterday. At halftime it looked like a blowout, with the Baltimore Ravens leading, 21-6, over the San Francisco 49ers. Moments later, after the Ravens returned a kickoff for another touchdown to make it 28-6, the New Orleans Superdome lights went out. The blowout was now a blackout.

The lights remained out for 34 minutes, and that gave the 49ers time to regroup. When play resumed the game was altogether different. The 49ers soon caught up. Both teams were playing against the clock. It was a terrific, exciting game down to the final minutes.

I see four good lessons in this game for leaders everywhere.

One, only a prideful fool counts on momentum to continue. Momentum is like lady luck. When you have it, it's great. When you don’t, it is difficult to find optimism.

But momentum, like luck, often turns unpredictably. In sport, a fumble or an injury or a missed block—or an electrical outage—can change everything. In business, a competitor can introduce a new product, or two rivals can merge, or the economy can collapse.

The only thing you know about the future for absolutely, positively sure is this: It will be different from the present. It always is. You just don't know how the future will be different, or when things will change. So never say "if present trends continue." The one thing you know for sure is that they won't.

Two, you are never in control of all the variables. In fact, you typically have much less control than you think. That's all the more true if you have a position of official power.

Moments before the Super Bowl electrical failure, no one would have predicted that the lights would go out. Then they did, and it changed the dynamics of the game in unforeseeable ways. Suddenly the 49ers were playing as if they believed they could actually win. They didn't win, but they certainly came close.

In business and in life generally, you never have the control you want. All kinds of things happen that you cannot control. Don’t assume otherwise, even if you are a CEO or a general or a president. Especially if you are a CEO or a general or a president.

Three, when things go wrong, and they will, people will naturally want to know why. Too often a leader’s first instinct is to explain what went wrong. The what is simple. The why is difficult.

After the Super Bowl blackout, Entergy, the electric utility for New Orleans, offered a classic what explanation: that “a piece of equipment that is designed to monitor electrical load sensed an abnormality in the system. Once the issue was detected, the sensing equipment operated as designed and opened a breaker, causing power to be partially cut to the Superdome in order to isolate the issue.”

Maybe that explanation satisfied an electrical engineer, but it did nothing for the people who were literally left in the dark. For them, it only added to the confusion. It didn't explain why the “abnormality” happened. People want to know why.

Four, as exciting as the game itself was, Super Bowl audiences are always paying attention to ancillary things: to the halftime entertainment, to the national anthem, and especially to the television commercials. This particular Super Bowl also had other human-interest angles, such as the fact that both head coaches (John Harbaugh of the Ravens and Jim Harbaugh of the 49ers) are brothers. All these things diverted attention from the play on the field.

The same thing happens in business and in life generally. People are always distracted and sidetracked by other things: food, money, romance, weekends.

One of the central tasks of leadership is to create and sustain a strategic focus. That is rarely easy. It requires communicating the group's purpose, plan, and priorities repeatedly, energetically, and memorably. In this Super Bowl, it was especially difficult for the coaches to do this during the 34-minute power outage.

There's one more lesson in all this, too. Even when the lights go out, you can keep on learning.

Why You Shouldn't "Light a Fire Under" Anyone

2013-01-30T11:08:31-06:00

By Thomas J. Lee

Have you ever given a moment’s thought to the imagery of fire in leadership?

Fire comes up surprisingly often as imagery for the work of leaders, especially in business. When I speak of fire, it's the noun for combustion I have in mind—not the verb for dismissal.

In a bad case, you may look back on a busy day of little crises and tell a friend you were “putting out fires all day.”

Or you may anticipate stakeholder reluctance by saying you expect “a firestorm of opposition” or "a firestorm of criticism."

In better circumstances, you may come back from a terrific workshop or conference all “fired up” to put some new ideas into practice.

If you are trying to persuade a lot of people to embrace a new product or priority, you may speak of “lighting a prairie fire” of support for it.

I have found two other fire-related images particularly helpful. That is because they draw such a vivid contrast between a popular but ineffectual approach to motivation and a less popular but spectacularly successful approach.

The imagery for the popular, so-so approach is to “light a fire under” a person. Essentially, that refers to motivating someone from the outside in. Follow the logic, and you are soon relying on extrinsic inducements for people: rewarding Jones with a bonus and penalizing Smith by sidelining her for a promotion. Both, of course, are common. But while they may affect the work that people do, they rarely lead to extraordinary and sustained levels of engagement.

The imagery for the spectacularly successful approach is to “light a fire inside” a person. It refers to motivating someone from the inside out. Follow the logic, and you find yourself reaching for intrinsic inducements: the joy of camaraderie, the excitement of working with talented peers, the satisfaction of reaching an ambitious goal, the beauty of work well done.

Now, be forewarned: The better approach does come with some risk. The risk is convincing yourself that the intrinsic reward is real when it isn't, when people don't actually feel the satisfaction but instead feel neglect because they didn't receive any reward, intrinsic or extrinsic. That's an easy error for leaders to commit, so easy it happens almost by default. On the other hand, if the intrinsic satisfaction is genuine, it can be a very, very powerful motivator.

You actually know all this from your own experience, and so do I. Moreover, if you have gone through one of our Master Class workshops, you'll recall that we like to begin by asking everyone to describe the coolest project or team they ever worked on. Nine times out of ten, they describe something that gave them enormous pride and satisfaction. It's rare for anyone to speak in terms of a monetary bonus or a raise or a promotion as part of the cool factor.

Under. Inside. Just two words, two prepositions, themselves unrelated to fire, but when coupled with the imagery of fire, they are enough to separate an uncommonly good approach from a commonly bad one.

Don’t try to light a fire under people. Instead, light a fire inside them. You'll be glad you did, and so will they.

Sonia Sotomayor Offers Powerful Insights on Persuasion

2013-01-28T19:50:41-06:00

by Thomas J. Lee

I was lucky enough to be first in line at my local public library to borrow Sonia Sotomayor’s new memoir, My Beloved World. In a word, it’s fabulous. After starting it late Saturday afternoon, I raced through it and turned the last page over coffee this morning, scarcely 36 hours later.

Sotomayor, for the benefit of our readers abroad, is the first Latina to sit on the United States Supreme Court. Growing up with diabetes in the hard-scrabble poverty of South Bronx, she found escape in the books and rigorous expectations of a parochial school, and she won a full scholarship to Princeton. She graduated at the top of her class, and she went on to Yale Law School, where she earned a prestigious seat on the law review.

Impressive as all that was, it wasn’t enough for a judicial clerkship or an offer from a white-shoe law firm. So she settled for a job as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan. That turned out to be the proverbial cloud with a silver lining. Soon she had a couple of mentors and several dear friends who taught her important lessons in law and in life. All the while she held her real ambition to herself: She wanted to be a judge. Fortunately, one thing led to another, and today she is at the pinnacle of the American judiciary.

Two of the important lessons she learned as an assistant DA are relevant to anyone who aspires to lead other people. Both involve the art, even the alchemy, of persuasion.

First, she learned that a prosecutor must acknowledge that juries are reluctant to convict a criminal defendant. Jurors realize that a conviction and consequent imprisonment will very likely wreck a family. So they need a powerful reason. Providing that reason requires the prosecuting attorney to see the situation as fluid through the eyes of the jury. Although the law doesn’t demand a motive for conviction of a crime, a jury often does. That means the prosecutors must meet this need, and they must do so in a way that jurors can accept.

Second, she learned that persuasion is as much a matter of emotion as of logic. Perhaps any car salesperson or Madison Avenue copywriter knows as much, but for an attorney whose Ivy League education stressed documented facts and impeccable, linear reasoning, it was a startling revelation. Once the young assistant DA came to these realizations, she never again lost a case. That’s saying something, right there.

I suspect these insights will come as a surprise to many MBAs as well. Quantitative analysis undergirds so many strategies in business that companies regard data-driven decisions as self-evidently conclusive. But strategic decisions aren’t necessarily self-evident to the employees who must make them come alive. People need to feel viscerally the importance of the workplace priority or policy.

My Beloved World is heartwarming, gritty, tender, inspiring, authentic, even eloquent. It is a celebration of family, work, and love in a world of despair, drugs, death, and disappointment. I cannot recommend this book enthusiastically enough. Do, do, do read it.

P.S. I just learned that My Beloved World will break onto The New York Times Bestseller List next Sunday as No. 1. Frankly, that doesn't surprise me in the least.

Leadership Lessons From Rookie Quarterback RG3

2013-01-01T15:42:21-06:00

By Thomas J. Lee

If you, like me, watched football, some more football, and still more football over the last few days, your head is probably swirling with scores, overwrought play-by-play announcers, goal-line stands, instant replays from multiple angles, and silly TV commercials. Mine sure is.

Most of the excitement took place in the college bowl games. But if you saw one pro game in particular, the Washington Redskins defeating the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday evening, you were very likely struck by both the athleticism and the leadership of Robert Griffin III, the rookie quarterback of the Redskins who is fondly known to fans as RG3. The victory was the seventh consecutive win for the Redskins, and it gave them a berth in post-season play beginning next weekend.

Griffin, a first-round draft pick who won the Heisman Trophy as a junior at Baylor, has quickly earned the esteem of his teammates. A few weeks into the season, they elected him team captain, an honor that comes with a C sewn onto his jersey. Surprisingly, it hasn't gone to his head. By all accounts he is as humble now as ever.

Remarked cornerback DeAngelo Hall: ‘‘For a guy to win the Heisman Trophy, be the top pick, the savior of the franchise, (to) come in here so humble—from Day One he came in here working—that’s why he has that C on his chest.’’

This was my first chance to see Griffin play. At one point he almost danced his way into the end zone. Still sore from a sprained knee, he let a fellow rookie, Alfred Morris, get most of the credit by running for three touchdowns and setting the team's all-time season scoring record.

The larger story of Griffin’s impact on the team is off the field. Still only 22 years old, Griffin has already demonstrated a preternatural ability to lead his teammates. Keep an eye on this young man. He is going places.

Now to be sure, the National Football League has a bounty of gifted first-year quarterbacks this season. In addition to Griffin, you have Andrew Luck of Stanford playing for the Indianapolis Colts, Ryan Tannehill of Texas A&M playing for the Miami Dolphins, and Russell Wilson of Wisconsin playing for the Seattle Seahawks. All four are talented throwers and fast on their feet, too.

For readers abroad and anyone else who doesn’t understand American football, the role of quarterback is central to any team’s fortunes. Every offensive play goes through the quarterback, who can choose to hand the ball to a running back, throw it to a receiver, or keep it and run for daylight on his own. More to the point of this analysis, the quarterback is often the de facto leader of a team.

That role has fallen on Griffin's young shoulders. As a rookie, he was joining a team with many experienced players. That created a high hurdle for him. Could he be taken seriously as a leader? How?

"My strategy was to come in and try to lead by example first,” RG3 told a Washington Post sportswriter. “Being a rookie, you don’t want to come in talking right away. You can rub a lot of guys the wrong way. . . . One thing you can’t do as a leader is come out and say you’re the leader."

That is a key insight, and it cannot be emphasized too much. In business, managers have legal and official authority to exercise power. The company assigns people to departments or work teams with the explicit understanding that the manager is calling the shots. When a new chief executive moves into the corner office, everyone assumes he or she is in charge.

But that doesn’t mean the manager, or even the CEO, is a leader. No one can be assigned or told to be led by anyone else. Accepting someone’s leadership is a discretionary act.

Leadership is work, the hard work of encouraging people to accept you as a leader and offering them purpose and meaning for their work. Think of it not as a noun but rather as a verb.

Grammar aside, leadership is a matter of doing and saying certain things that bring people closer and of not doing and saying certain other things that push people away. By doing or by not doing these things, you begin to be known and appreciated as a leader. People naturally want to be led by you.

Most of us have to learn how to do this by trial and error. Every once in a while, someone like RG3 comes along and shows the rest of us how it's done. That, too, is an act of leadership.

Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf: Grizzly Bear or Teddy Bear?

2012-12-27T21:09:06-06:00

By Thomas J. Lee

Mensa, the high IQ society, just lost one of its brightest stars. Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf died this evening at the age of 78.

Schwarzkopf was best known for commanding the Western coalition that invaded Iraq in the Persian Gulf War, which came to be known as Operation Desert Storm. Long before that, however, he was earning a reputation the hard way as an officer who served his men, while other officers expected to be served by their men.

The difference, of course, is huge. It goes to the heart of what we mean when we talk about servant leadership.

The general described his approach to leadership in a memoir, It Doesn't Take a Hero. He recounted an incident in Vietnam that severely tested his commitment to his men.

One day in 1970, on learning that troops in his battalion were pinned down by land mines, he rushed to the scene. There he found soldiers still trapped in the minefield. He urged them to move out slowly, just inches at a time, but one soldier took too big a step, and another mine exploded. Schwarzkopf, a lieutenant colonel at the time, crawled through mines to the men and helped them escape.

Blessed with genius-level intelligence, Schwarzkopf had two character traits in particular that I admired, and neither had anything to do with his intellectual candlepower.

One trait was his appreciation of emotion as a driving force of leadership. For him emotion could cut both ways, occasionally as anger but more often as love.

As anger, it earned Schwarzkopf a reputation for a hot head. As love, it earned him a reputation for genuine accessibility and dedication. He was both a grizzly bear and a Teddy bear. Indeed, he kept a Teddy bear on his Army-issue cot while on deployment in the Persian Gulf, perhaps to encourage himself to err on the side of softie.

The other trait was integrity. In an era when so many leaders disappoint, Schwarzkopf was ever there: a rock when we needed one. He was the epitome of character, always doing the thing that needed doing. Moreover, he spoke the truth regardless of whether you wanted to hear it. At least you knew where things stood: where he stood, and where you stood with him.

If he sometimes saw things in black and white, with no gray hues of nuance, he was rarely if ever misunderstood, for he was plain and clear. He said what he meant, and he meant what he said.

Nor did he brook excuses. "The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do," Schwarzkopf liked to say. "The hard part is doing it."

Indeed it is, and it always will be. Yet in Schwarzkopf we had a living, working model of the hard part, of the courage and perseverance and self-discipline it takes to be the person we say we are, or the person we want to be.

The general may have departed, but his example will live on.

How Do Great Leaders Communicate?

2012-12-17T18:24:00-06:00

By Thomas J. Lee

A couple of weeks ago in this space we expounded on the fundamental differences between managing people and leading people, and we pointed to corresponding differences between the deliverables, or work product, of management and leadership: people alignment for managing and people engagement for leading.

Now let's turn our attention to the differences between communication for the sake of managing people and communication for the sake of leading people.

These two things, both nominally communication, differ greatly in terms of purpose, substance, style, and tone.

Other differences can also come into play, depending on the urgency of a situation, the sophistication of the people involved, the culture at play, the familiarity of the manager or leader, the degree of opposition to change, and other factors. We don't have the space here to explore all this in depth, but we can offer an overview.

Before we dig in, we should take a moment to recapitulate the differences between management and leadership.

It's very, very important to view them both as work—not as a function of position, title, or status; nor as a matter of traits or attributes; nor as a kind of trophy for success. Both are essentially work, and anyone who does the work of managing or leading can rightly be regarded as a manager or a leader, regardless of their position (chief executive or team supervisor, for example) or their traits (salt-and-pepper temples, an air of self-certainty, perhaps an echoing baritone) or their trophies (the large corner office, say, or the stripes on a uniform).

Managing is the hard work of meeting pre-determined expectations of acknowledged stakeholders: customers, investors, employees, senior officers, perhaps government regulators. These expectations may take the form of quality standards, sales quotas, budgets, deadlines, year-end bonuses, compliance with the law, and more. Managing sets out to ensure predictable consistency. When it is effective, managing creates the alignment of people.

In contrast, leadership is the hard work of inventing or reinventing the future. It articulates an ideal future and inspires people to strive to achieve it, often in spite of uncertainty, self-sacrifice, risk, or even despair. It's all about change, either operational or cultural. When leadership is effective, it creates engagement of people.

With this fundamental distinction in mind, we can proceed to the differences in communication for managing and leading in terms of their purpose, substance, style, and tone.

In terms of purpose, communication for the sake of management seeks to control or influence the day-to-day activities of people, so that the expectations of stakeholders will be met with certainty. Communication for the sake of leadership seeks to excite and inspire people to attempt more than they ever dreamed or thought possible: literally and figuratively to travel to the Moon or abolish apartheid or dismantle the Berlin Wall, or, on a smaller scale, to lose weight or go back to school or give up smoking.

In terms of substance, communication for the sake of management is typically detailed, explicit, static, and pedagogical, inasmuch as it teaches people what they must do to meet the expectations of stakeholders. Communication for the sake of leadership is more general, implicit, dynamic, and homiletic, inasmuch as it encourages people to come along on a journey of change.

In terms of style, communication for the sake of management is all about compliance and constancy, and it is incremental. You are seeking to replicate something you have done well or to refine something you must do a little better. Communication for the sake of leadership is all about large change. Because it depends on the discretionary involvement of people, you set out to build a high level of focus, curiosity, passion, and commitment to a big ideal, for those are the stepping stones to the engagement you need.

Finally, in terms of tone, communication for the sake of management is often impersonal, authoritative, and commanding, and it often uses the second person ("You must do this now.") Communication for the sake of leadership is usually personal and collaborative or collective, and it usually uses the first person plural (though not always: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" is a famous exception).

Both are commonly in the imperative mood, but the imperative differs; for managing, it reflects a looming accountability, whereas for leadership it offers opportunity and hope.

There's a lot more to this topic, and that is all the more reason you and your colleagues should join us for a Master Class.

Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" Has Big Lessons on Leadership

2012-11-11T22:27:16-06:00

by Thomas J. Lee

More books have been written and more movies filmed about Abraham Lincoln than anyone else in modern civilization, and for good reason. His life and his presidency offer timeless lessons in leadership, character, and communication. Steven Spielberg’s new, eponymous movie captures it all with color and verve. The film is excellent, and I urge everyone to see it.

Lincoln opens nationwide on Friday, but it is already showing in a handful of cities, including here in Chicago. So a few days ago I took time out of my workday to see it. My commute to the theatre included a Chicago River “water taxi” ride, which floats right past the site of the old Wigwam (on the river at Wacker Drive and Lake Street) where, in 1860, the nascent Republican Party nominated the Illinois prairie lawyer for the presidency. Of course, little could anyone at the time imagine the historic repercussions of the selection.

Like many of you, I have long been fascinated by Lincoln. This year alone I have read two full biographies of him, Lincoln by David Herbert Donald and A. Lincoln by Ronald C. White, both of which are masterful (if you read only one, choose the White volume), as well as three lesser works about his presidency and assassination. Anyone who studies leadership as a calling should devote a great deal of attention to Lincoln.

Spielberg has said he wanted to make a movie about Lincoln for more than a decade, but he didn’t know how to squeeze so much material into a couple of hours. He got his answer when he read Team of Rivals, the marvelous book on Lincoln’s bipartisanship by Harvard historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. The final two chapters of that book focus on Lincoln’s single-minded advocacy, in early 1865 just weeks before his assassination, of the Thirteenth Amendment, which would ban slavery. (As a point of history, the constitutional amendment was necessary because the Emancipation Proclamation two years earlier had been a wartime measure, and therefore it would be of dubious legality after the war’s end.)

But here’s the crux of the matter: Lincoln’s re-election in November 1864 had long coattails. He would enjoy larger majorities in Congress beginning in March 1865. The commonsense thing to do was wait till then, when approval of the Thirteenth Amendment would be easier. Lincoln refused. He insisted on moving quickly. As he declares in the movie (portrayed exquisitely by Daniel Day-Louis), he wanted Congress to act “now, now, now!”

That is one of six insights on leadership that I drew from the Spielberg production: Bring a sense of urgency to the important. If it’s important to do tomorrow, it’s important to do today. Do whatever you can now. Don’t wait, even when waiting would make things ostensibly easier. Do what you must do, do what you can do, and do it now.

Here are five other lessons I took from the Spielberg movie:

Communicate through storytelling, analogies, example, and anecdotes of personal experience whenever possible. Lincoln, like other leaders before and since, relied heavily on storytelling. Stories are powerful tools, because they give people a vivid way to remember a theoretical point. Our ancestors have been telling stories for millennia. We are hardwired to love stories. Lincoln knew it. Spielberg and Goodwin know it. As a leader, you must know it.

Go to the people whose support you need. Listen to them first, and then appeal to their nobility. Do not wait for people to come to you. Do not expect them to come to you. You must go to them, and you must listen before you speak. Then speak to their concerns and issues. As a general rule, when you speak publicly, invoke their values and beliefs. People want to be about something larger than themselves. (It is true, as the movie illustrates, that Lincoln was not above scratching backs for votes. He knew his power, and he used it when he had to.)

Recognize and accept practical limitations, and work within them. “Politics is the art of the possible,” Lincoln’s contemporary Otto von Bismarck would say a few years later. That is not a license to do nothing. Rather, it is worldly acknowledgement that the perfect can be the enemy of progress. In the movie, Pennsylvania Congressman Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones), who knows that people are inherently equal, is forced to say in House debate that he favors equality of legal rights only. Had he claimed more, the Thirteenth Amendment might very well have lost.

Know that ideas have consequences, and the consequences can be grave. The movie is filled with poignant scenes. One of them involves the president’s son Robert watching soldiers dump a barrow of human limbs in a mass grave. Another shows the president on horseback touring a battlefield of human carnage. There are more. For us, too, even in our day-to-day business, even in comparatively modest endeavors, ideas can have consequences from livelihoods to security in retirement to more. Never dismiss an idea as “merely a theory.” Ideas matter.

Abandon the pretense of perfection. We are all human. Few historical figures rival Lincoln for integrity, but even Lincoln was an imperfect man. There is evidence he fudged on an expense account as a congressman, and he could stretch the truth when he wanted. He pulled rank as commander-in-chief to discourage his son Robert from joining the military; and when he lost that argument, he inveigled General Ulysses S. Grant to give Robert a safe sinecure. This is not to excuse or justify such behavior, only to acknowledge the imperfectability of the human animal.

As you watch Lincoln you will doubtless come to your own insights. Please capture them in a note to me (at tom@arceil.com), or click on Comments below and share your thoughts with other readers. Whatever you do, don’t miss this movie. Be sure to take your kids, too, and talk about it afterward.

A Worm In the Apple: Tim Cook's Apology for iPhone's Lousy Maps

2012-10-01T16:03:46-05:00

By Thomas J. Lee

By now surely everyone knows that Apple's new iPhone 5 has a map function that leaves something to be desired. The Washington Monument is on the wrong side of Constitution Avenue, for one thing. The Battersea Bridge in London looks eerily like the infamous Tacoma Narrows Bridge that collapsed in 1940. Satellite views everywhere are obscured by cloud cover.

But an odd thing happened Friday. Apple's CEO apologized for the mess. Even more astonishing, he recommended that iPhone 5 buyers use online maps from rivals Google and Microsoft until Apple fixes things. It was a little like that scene in Miracle on 34th Street, when Kris Kringle advises Macy's shoppers to see if Gimbels has the item they want.

Now a few weeks ago we devoted this blog to the problem of executives who say the wrong thing in very public ways. In passing, we briefly discussed the public apology: whether and how executives and other well-known persons should fess up.

The standard is: Are their apologies prompt? Are they voluntary? Are they sincere? Are they humbling? Are they reassuring? Are they credible?

The acid test for any apology is whether the offended person (the apologee, to coin a word) accepts it on its face. That question usually answers itself intuitively and emotionally: whether the apologee wants to have anything more to do with the offending person.

This question is always for the apologee, never for the rest of us, to answer. It is only the apologee who can weigh the pain of the offense against the relief of the apology.

A widely cited example was Hillary Clinton's acceptance of Bill Clinton's apology after the Lewinsky scandal. Many people believed at the time that she should not have accepted the apology as she did. But it was not their decision. It was hers and hers alone. Only she could decide.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, a leader who is apologizing for saying or doing the wrong thing must remember that he is never the judge of his own apology, any more than he is the judge of his own leadership. Rather, it is the people with whom he is communicating who cast judgment on his communication; just as it is would-be, could-be followers who decide whether to recognize or reject the leader’s leadership.

The apology from Apple CEO Timothy D. Cook is a case in point. Last week, in an effort to make amends for bringing the iPhone 5 to market with an inadequate and inaccurate maps function, Cook publicly apologized and suggested that consumers try alternative services from Google and Microsoft. "We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers," Cook said. "We are doing everything we can to make Maps better."

My own sense of things is that Cook's apology met the standards that people need an apology to meet. It was prompt, not delayed. It was voluntary, not forced. By recommending services from competitors, it certainly was sincere. It struck me as humbling and reassuring, too. All in all, pretty good.

I'll let my money do my talking, though. My current cellular contract is expiring soon. I have been inclined to get an iPhone 5. If the Maps function appears to be improving, then Cook's apology will be self-evidently credible, too. So will my acceptance of it.

What do you think?

Before You Speak Up, Answer These Five Questions

2012-09-18T20:27:00-05:00

by Thomas J. Lee

A newspaper reporter called the other day for my thoughts on business executives who have spoken first and thought second, only to regret it, in very public ways. Politicians do that all the time, of course, but they're in the public spotlight all the time. Most executives are in the spotlight only when they seek it, so the ensuing flap seems more sensational.

The comments in question were all widely reported when they occurred, so I won't quote them here. Suffice to say that they all qualify for lifetime membership in the Foot in Mouth Club.

So the question was rather simple: When should a business executive speak out publicly about something, and when should she keep her mouth shut?

I'll tell you what I told the reporter. Generally speaking, leaders should say only what they think, and think all of what they say, which is to say they must believe and feel the truth of everything they say.

However, there are five important boundaries on that advice. I call them the 5Rs. You should speak only when your thoughts are "5R Ready."

Before you say what you think, ask yourself these five questions:

Is what you are about to say real, which is to say based on observable facts and familiar experience?
Is it relevant to the challenge at hand?
Is it respectful of all people and their dignity?
Is it relationally constructive, not destructive?
Is it reasonable and rational, by which we mean both within the bounds of reason and logically derived by reasoning?

If it isn't all five of these, you should be asking yourself some tough-love questions as to why you're even thinking such things. They may be toxic to you and everyone else. Before you speak, get your head together.

Executives and other leaders should also remember that they are never the judge of their own comments, any more than they are the judge of their own leadership.

Rather, it is the people with whom they are communicating who cast judgment on the leader’s communication, and it is the would-be, could-be followers who decide whether to recognize or reject the leader’s leadership.

What Americans Know About Leadership

2012-09-04T10:13:21-05:00

By Thomas J. Lee

By now you're either tired of the U.S. presidential campaign, or you are living abroad, or you are masochistic, or you're just an inert gas of some sort. I cannot imagine an alert, sentient American who is eager for more political campaigning.

Yet here's a paradox: Our elections keep us young. They keep us receptive to change. We know how to hold elected officials accountable, and we know how to vet aspiring leaders. Indeed, we Americans know a lot about leadership. We're always hiring and firing leaders.

Here are six things I believe most Americans know intuitively about leadership that people elsewhere may or may not know or fully appreciate. Few people anywhere actually think about this stuff, but most Americans have a spiritual or visceral recognition of it. (Note to readers outside the United States: I am confining this essay to Americans not because I am disparaging you but because I have lived my entire life in the United States.)

First, we know that successful leaders work for us. The titular leader cannot lead without us, without our assent. The irony is that a so-called leader's "followers" are effectively the real leaders, for they decide how much moral and practical authority a leader has, and whether the leader can truly effect the change she seeks. In public office, of course, voters cast their ballots in elections and thereby determine who occupies the Oval Office or the governor's suite or whatever. In other circumstances—in business or recreation or the commercial marketplace, for example—we don't cast a formal ballot, but we do "vote" inasmuch as we decide whom we listen to and whose vision or priorities become our own.

Second, we know that leadership is about change. In any election, the central question is whether voters favor change or favor the status quo, and if they favor change, whose change they prefer. Any leader worth his salt must be able to answer this simple question: What is my agenda, my purpose, my program? A leader who cannot answer that simple question has a name we will not remember tomorrow. This is as true of leadership outside an electoral system as it is within.

Third, we know that the agenda must be about the well-being of the common enterprise, not about the aggrandizement of the leader. The common enterprise can be a unit of government or of a business, or it may be something else altogether: an army, an orchestra, a hospital, the Red Cross or the PTA. In all cases, the agenda must advance the collective interest of everyone, and it must be perceived in such a way. Otherwise all bets are off.

Fourth, we know that leadership is work. It is not a title or a trait or a trophy. It most certainly is not a snap of your fingers. Just because someone occupies a supposed position of leadership doesn't mean that she can or will deliver on change. She may have been saying what she thought we wanted to hear. She may not be willing to do the hard work of mustering support for change. She may be taken with the accouterments of her office or with her name at the top of the org chart. She may not care what anyone else thinks or how anyone else feels. For uncounted reasons, putative leaders can be unwilling or unable to do the hard work of leadership, and thus they surrender the mantle of leadership to someone else—perhaps even without realizing it.

Fifth, we know that, just as no human is perfect, so no leader is perfect or even perfectible. Whether and to what extent we decide to follow someone will always take into account the chinks in their armor. In the current presidential campaign, for example, voters will choose between an incumbent with a checkered record and a candidate with a checkered background. We all live in glass houses. That is as true for our leaders as for the rest of us.

Finally, we know that our best and brightest moments have always accompanied our best and brightest leadership. Whether it's the founding of our republic, or the abolition of slavery, or the creation of national parks, or victory in World War II, or putting men on the moon, we are at our best when we choose noble leadership and follow the lead that it offers. We are at our best when we call on leaders to call on us.

All this, we know to be true. When we remember it, when we apply it to our own day-to-day leadership, things tend to go well. When we forget it, when we neglect to apply it, things tend not to go so well.

Neil Armstrong (1930-2012)

2012-08-27T17:25:47-05:00

by Thomas J. Lee

Sad though it was, the news of Neil Armstrong's death on Saturday recalled a time when Americans were cohesive and enthusiastic about something—a time when we were proud of a historic, heroic achievement and appreciative of the leadership that had made it possible.

It brought us all back to the incredible day in 1969 when, thanks to Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, the impossible became reality. Only two generations before, scarcely anyone had thought it was even remotely possible for people to fly, let alone travel through space. But here, in my grandmother's lifetime, we had progressed from a pair of brothers at Kitty Hawk to a pair of astronauts on the surface of the moon.

We could see it for ourselves: Two human beings were walking, or bounding, on the dust of another heavenly body. We could see them with our own eyes and hear them with our own ears. It was one of those few moments—and one of even fewer good moments—that everyone alive would remember as long as they were alive. No one could possibly forget it.

As it happens, only a few days before Mr. Armstrong died, I was thinking about him and his legacy, as I finished reading Cronkite, Douglas Brinkley's splendid new biography of Walter Cronkite, which talks at length about the space program and the lunar landings. I found myself wondering why the first man on the moon had chosen such a quiet life for himself in the decades that followed.

As you may know, Armstrong lived out his life on a farm outside Cincinnati and in the classrooms of the estimable University of Cincinnati. He was a picture of grace, dignity, and humility. He gave occasional talks on technology and space, and only last year testified before Congress on the decline of NASA, but for the most part this humble, unassuming gentleman spurned the mantle of large leadership that could have been his, and its legacy ours.

In contrast, his fellow Ohio astronaut, John Glenn, became a highly regarded U.S. senator and, at one point, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. Glenn's public persona cast a long shadow over Armstrong. Glenn aspired to large public leadership, whereas Armstrong did not.

Let us be careful with our words here, as my intent is not to disparage Armstrong's life and accomplishments. To the contrary, I wish to honor them, to recognize them, and also to put them into a meaningful context, from which we can draw lessons for our own lives.

Leadership takes many forms. There are visionary leaders, moral leaders, custodial leaders, tyrannical leaders, and more. The only thing they have in common is the allegiance of people who choose to follow their lead. To have that allegiance, they do the work of leadership, which is to build the engagement of people around a concern and a cause.

One need not be famous to do this. Millions of parents, coaches, and teachers do it all the time, with little or no recognition. Indeed, I have no reason to believe that Armstrong wasn't doing this very thing with students in his classes on a smaller scale.

But he could have done it on a large scale. He could have led the charge toward American technological superiority in a way that few others could dream of. He could have given speech after speech, written book after book, created a foundation or an institute, all to marshal support for space exploration and technology. He could have provided the face and the voice that the cause of STEM education—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—so sorely needs.

That he chose not to do so is no reflection on him or his character, and I certainly do not wish to impugn either. It is, however, an object lesson in the nature and challenge of leadership.

Leadership is neither a title nor a trait, nor in the case of someone like Armstrong is it a trophy. It is, rather, work; and it is hard work at that. One need not choose to undertake this work, and that is fine. But one cannot leave a legacy of big change without it, either.

Neil Armstrong was a hero, a hero's hero. They don't get much bigger than taking mankind's first steps on the moon. I applaud him and his courage, along with the extraordinary technological prowess of his fellow astronauts and their thousands of colleagues back on Earth. But a part of me wishes that Armstrong had also risen to the challenge of leading a new generation of exploration and discovery through technology. A part of me wishes that Armstrong had been not just a hero but also a leader.

Two Leadership Lessons from "Invictus"

2012-07-31T13:11:00-05:00

by Thomas J. Lee

There's a marvelous scene in Invictus, the Oscar-nominated 2009 movie chronicling the remarkable come-from-nowhere victory of the South African Springboks in the World Cup of rugby in 1995. It's a true story, and all the more riveting for the light it sheds on leadership.

The Springboks of 1995 were a mediocre team, as always. In fact, the only reason that South Africa was competing in the World Cup is that it was hosting the tournament; the host team always gets a free pass. Everyone expected the Springboks to bow out early.

Alas, because the team symbolized the country's white minority, the millions of recently liberated black South Africans didn't care about the outcome of the tournament. That is, with one exception: South African President Nelson Mandela. To him, the Springboks were a potential tool for cultural reunification.

If you have never seen Invictus, pick a night soon to stay home and stream it. It is a moving film. Even if you have seen it, you may want to watch it again for the powerful message on leadership it offers.

At one point in the movie, Mandela (portrayed magnificently by Morgan Freeman) invites the white Springboks captain François Pienaar (Matt Damon) to his office for tea. Mandela asks Pienaar a provocative question: What is his philosophy of leadership? Pienaar replies that he likes to lead by example. Mandela agrees, but he pushes for more. He wants to know how Pienaar inspires people to overcome long odds, to accomplish the seemingly impossible.

I won't spoil it for you; suffice to say that the answer to Mandela's question forms the crux of the whole movie. Exactly how do leaders inspire people? What role does a leader's example play? How far can you take it? How does power affect it? How can a leader go beyond the immediacy of example, to reach for the stars? What repercussions can all this have on ordinary people?

In business, largely because of traditional tools of management, and also because of asymmetric power structures, there's a tendency to rely heavily on the legal authority of position. Your boss tells you to do something and you do it.

But no one feels inspired or led in such a situation. Motivated by the threat of a kick in the pants, yes. Motivated by an ennobling, inspiring vision of the future and the opportunity to help make it happen, no. Not at all. Not close.

Managers in business typically shy away from the emotion inherent in inspirational leadership. It's one thing to see passion in the depiction of products in advertising, quite another to see it in the demeanor of a company's management.

Moreover, power and example are often at odds in leadership. There is a tension between them. Managers face a basic choice: Do you lead by the example of power, or do you lead by the power of your example? Can you do both?

Leaders are often in a situation where they must exercise power. What they rarely appreciate is the fact that the very exercise of power can reinforce their impact as a leader, or it can do just the opposite: it can compromise it, even undermine it. Which it does depends on context, intent, and clear, compelling, credible communication.

Everywhere and always, people will resent and reject the wanton example of power when exercised for selfish or reckless or ignoble ends. But everywhere and always they will notice, heed, and remember the deliberate power of a beneficent, purposeful, honorable example.

Imagine If Everyone Were As Focused as This Young Man

2012-06-20T09:30:18-05:00

by Thomas J. Lee

My old next-door neighbor was a wide receiver in the National Football League. One evening, while we were both grilling out, he and I got to talking about football. He began describing for me what it was like to play professional football before thousands and thousands of people. Then he said something I will never forget.

Carl had so honed his craft, so thoroughly ingrained it, that when I asked how it feels to catch a pass in a game, he had to take himself physically through the motions to be able to respond. It was comical in a way.

At one point, standing on the patio, he had his arms outstretched, as if he were catching a pass over his left shoulder. He remarked that, as he is running to reach the pass, he cannot hear the stadium crowd.

That just stunned me.

I found that incredible. Think about it: Fifty thousand, sixty thousand, maybe seventy thousand fans in the stadium, most of them screaming their throats dry, and he cannot hear them.

Carl went on. He said he can hear his own footsteps, and he can hear his own breathing. But he cannot hear the crowd. As the ball falls gracefully into his arms, almost in slow-motion, his only focus is on wrapping his fingers around it, pulling it in and keeping it close, and then reaching the goal line with it. Those are the only things that matter. Everything else, including the crowd, ceases to exist. It just isn't there.

Now that's focus.

Imagine, just imagine, if the dozens or the hundreds or the thousands of people in your organization all had such extraordinary intensity of focus around your business goals and strategy. Most certainly they, and you, would be performing at a level you have only dreamed about.

There are tools and techniques to build that kind of focus. But the master key that unlocks it is your own focus. For you cannot ask of others what you have not demanded of yourself. If you yourself, as a leader, are not truly focused on strategic imperatives, no one else will be.

Begin with this simple question, and answer with a bucket of ice-cold honesty: What is it that you are most concerned about? Let's agree to net out the personal stuff: your kids, house repairs, aging parents, weekend plans. As you come to work each morning, what is it about the business that is most on your mind?

If you're like many managers, and probably most, execution of the business plan isn't front and center. Nor is realizing a long-term vision. Living out the company's values isn't close. While your monthly nut and year-end bonus are probably right up there, chances are your day-to-day focus any given morning is on a personnel issue, or a conference call at 9, or a dysfunctional staff department, or a draft marketing plan, or an OSHA inspection, or performance reviews, or squeezing another 1 percent from next year's budget, or any of a thousand other things that compete for your time and attention. That's the reality of life in management.

Because your focus is on these front burners, it is only natural to put truly strategic issues on the back burner. We quietly tell ourselves it is only for a day, only for the week. We'll get to the important stuff next week, next month.

Meanwhile, anyone and everyone with whom we come into contact immediately senses our real priorities, our real focus. We cannot hide. Every question we ask, every comment we make, betrays our real interest, our real concern. Because our real priorities and real focus are something other than the organization's strategic vision and long-term goals, the vision and the goals slip to second place, and then to third, and then off the grid altogether.

We all know that the hardest person to manage, and the hardest person to lead, is one and the same. You say hello every morning in the mirror. Only you can change that person's priorities, and therefore it is you who must.

Tomorrow morning, and for just one day at a time, shift your focus. Throw a spotlight on the strategic. Let the little things fall into place on their own. They will, after all.

For just one day, focus on the truly important things. Govern your questions and comments so that most of what you say, all day, creates energy around your strategic imperatives. Don't neglect or even diminish the lubricants of human relationships, of course. But let any substantive remark about the business revolve around the organization's vision and strategic intent.

Imagine you are Carl, running out and in. Reach out your arms. Look for the ball. Run to it. Listen to your own footsteps, your own breathing. Let the ball fall into your arms, as if no one is watching. It's just you, the ball, and the goal line.

Chances are the game will change.

Servant Leadership: The Secret Sauce of Extraordinary Cultures

2012-06-02T15:44:45-05:00

By Thomas J. Lee

The concept of servant leadership has been around for more than a generation now, but too few businesspeople understand and embrace it. That's a shame.

I like to think of servant leadership as the secret sauce that accounts for the towering differences between shopping at Macy's and shopping at Nordstrom, between flying on United and flying on Southwest, between having lunch at McDonald's and having lunch at Chick-fil-A.

Nordstrom, Southwest, and Chick-fil-A have all publicly declared servant leadership as a pillar of their cultures. They have woven it into their leadership fabric. So have SAS, Wegmans, AFLAC, Zappos.com, Marriott, the Container Store, REI Outfitters, U.S. Cellular, Yum Brands (KFC, Taco Bell, A&W), Herman Miller, Kaiser Permanente, Darden Restaurants, and the U.S. armed forces, among others.

In a nutshell, servant leadership turns the tables on the relationship between leaders and the led. It moves from command to collaboration, from control to stewardship, from narrow accountability to broad opportunity. It lights a fire not underneath people but inside them.

Perhaps the best way to approach servant leadership for the first time is to recall President John F. Kennedy's famous words in his 1961 inauguration address: "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."

Now tweak those words just a little. Substitute your people or your employees for your country: "Ask not what your people can do for you. Ask what you can do for your people."

Servant leadership will admittedly rub old-school, 20th century managers the wrong way. They will bristle at the thought of it. They will regard it as an abnegation of their rights and duties as managers.

In fact just the opposite is true. I have had the pleasure of working for a couple of genuine servant leaders over the course of my career, and I can attest to its power. Because they were serving me, I was able to accomplish things that otherwise would have remained beyond my grasp. The companies grew and prospered as a result, while our competitors were stagnating.

The 21st century is not the 20th century. Times have changed. People are different. They want different things. Companies that don't realize this core truth, and respond to it, will continue to have difficulty finding the right people and attracting them to their organization.

Our new Master Class features a robust introduction and overview of servant leadership in business. Scroll down three posts (or just click on Master Classes above) for more information, and then join us on June 26 for a special one-day seminar.

Three Common Myths of Leadership

2012-05-18T06:46:02-05:00

By Thomas J. Lee

In one way or another, I've been working in the vineyards of leadership for most of my career. I have interviewed senators and presidents. I have worked with CEOs of big companies. More recently, I have taught thousands of managers how to lead people.

Through all these experiences, the subject of leadership keeps getting more and more fascinating. The more you dig into it, the more golden nuggets of truth you find—and the more fool's gold of misunderstanding you find, as well.

Today I'd like to address some of the common misunderstandings around leadership. They are so pervasive that they color everyone's grasp of the subject. You can call them myths. Let's briefly explore just three of these myths.

Myth Number 1: Leadership is a position on the org chart. This belief is so entrenched that The Wall Street Journal and the Harvard Business Review both commonly use the word "leadership" as a synonym for "senior management." Rarely does either publication use "leadership" to describe the hard work that goes into taking people along on a journey of change.

Leading and managing are actually both hard work, but they are fundamentally different kinds of work. Moreover, in both substance and style, different kinds of communication drive the two things. Finally, and this is key, the work of leadership must extend far into the ranks of any company that wants to grow and prosper.

Think of managing as the hard work of ensuring compliance with predetermined expectations: deadlines, budgets, standards, laws, quotas. In contrast, think of leading as the hard work of imagining, describing, and bringing about a new and better tomorrow, often in periods of uncertainty and risk.

Those new and better tomorrows are vital. They mean the world. Companies that don't embrace the challenge of change, that don't continually reinvent themselves, gradually disappear. Look at TWA, Maytag, Gillette, Schwinn, McDonnell Douglas, Oldsmobile, Wyeth, Ameritech, Amoco, and many more. Some of their brand names survive in the marketplace, but all these companies have disappeared in the last fifteen years. Just disappeared!

Few managers regard themselves as collateral leaders of the enterprise, and few executives provide for the professional development of managers into leaders. And because so many successful managers were schooled as managers, hired as managers, promoted as managers, and rewarded as managers, they are trapped in a default state of only managing things.

They even invoke the phrase "change management" to describe what should be the work of leadership. They can do better.

Myth Number 2: Communication for leadership is rudimentary, easy, and simple, and it need not be a strategic concern. After all, senior managers assume, they have been talking ever since they were toddlers, and they have been making presentations since they were management trainees. What could be simpler?

The reality is that clear, credible, compelling communication for leadership in business doesn't come naturally and intuitively to most managers. It involves all kinds of implicit, non-spoken messages that you send by means of decisions, habits, standards, assumptions, attitudes, schedules, and so much more, as well as explicit statements and questions that may inadvertently convey messages you don't intend.

Indeed, your unintentional communication can easily overwhelm your deliberate, intended messages. When you think of communication as only the stuff of PowerPoint presentations or email messages, you miss the impact of most of your communication. That's self-defeating.

Good communication for leadership requires a great deal of time, effort, and skill. Most of all, it requires sensitivity to people. But the investment is worth all the work. It pays huge dividends.

Myth Number 3: The mark of successful leadership is full alignment. Again, not true. The mark of successful leadership is full engagement. Alignment and engagement are not the same thing. In fact, they are almost opposites.

You can think of alignment as the work product, or deliverable, of good managing. You meet the pre-determined expectations that I mentioned a moment ago by aligning people and other resources with results.

Engagement is completely different from alignment. Think of engagement as the work product, or the deliverable, of good leading. It is all about people who are focusing on the right things, who are constantly searching for solutions, who are excited and enthusiastic, and who have the backbone to change themselves and to insist that others change as well.

Thus it is true that the mark of successful managing is alignment, but as we have already seen, the work of managing and the work of leading are two different things.

Companies need both good management and good leadership, and it follows that they also need both alignment and engagement. They need alignment to meet the challenges of today. They need engagement to meet the challenges of tomorrow.

Unfortunately, companies often get low marks for engagement on employee attitude surveys, but the companies don't understand engagement well enough to know what to do. So they keep on focusing on managing the company. Next year, they survey employees again, and they get similar scores. Surprise, surprise.

We discuss all this, and much more, in our celebrated Master Class workshops. We have an inaugural, one-day, open enrollment Master Class scheduled for June 26. Call us (at 847-247-2241) today to register.