Phil's Leadership Blog

Letters to the President: keeping in touch with what's real

2009-10-26T18:17:00.002Z

Every day, President Obama reads ten letters from the public in order to stay in tune with America's issues and concerns. This clip reminded me of the importance of communicating, unmediated, with customers and employees to stay in touch with what's really happening. Yes, OK, from the clip you can see that there is some mediation going on in how the letters are selected. But, what I mean is that if all the customer information you receive comes in the form of market reports and all the employee insight you have comes in the form of employee survey results, then you aren't really in touch with what's really happening. Because it's only when your emotions and your feelings are engaged that you get real insight. And that comes from personal real stories, not from aggregated statistics.

Who are you? In six words or less.

2009-10-07T16:59:00.001+01:00

Ernest Hemingway was challenged to write a story in six words and eventually sent this in to the magazine that challenged him to do it:

For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.

Isn't that evocative, sad, moving, all in just six words?

It's prompted a couple of people since then to use this 'six-word' exercise to focus you sharply on how you see yourself - who you are and how you lead.

The latest is John Baldoni, who in his Harvard Blog, says this:

"Clare Booth Luce once told President Kennedy that "a great man is one sentence." It may feel impossible to sum up your accomplishments in a handful of words but it's a good exercise in self-reflection. Ask yourself what you want to be remembered for, whether you left the organization or the world better than you found it, and how you influenced others. This exercise can guide your decisions about what you want to achieve and help you understand more clearly what work means to you."

I remember Dan Pink doing something similar on his blog recently, prompted by the book "Not quite what I was planning: six word memoirs by writers famous and obscure". He collected a whole load of comments from people summing up their life so far in six words or less.

How you apply it to distilling the essence of how you lead / how you live/ who you are is a neat challenge. What would yours be? Here are a couple of thoughts to start you off:

I'd like my legacy (though that sounds pompous) to be, maybe

"Brought out the best in others."

Or, phrased in terms of my purpose, to...

"Bring out the best in others".

Actually, I really like:

"Extraordinary performance levels from ordinary people"

...as I think that's what we are all here for - to inspire 'ordinary' people to realize they are capable of extraordinary things. That includes ourselves.

But, I also always want to bring out the best in myself (it's lurking in there somewhere), so those words aren't the complete picture. They are also a bit generic and could apply to anyone. Maybe that's the limit of a six-word thing - it won't cover everything.

I had to do a 'three word' exercise once. The profile field I was filling in on an online community said "Three important words." For me, the answer was "No-one is ordinary."

If you apply the six word exercise to famous leaders from history, it's actually easier, as you are summing up their legacy and achievements. So, Baldoni reports that Peggy Noonan, the columnist, says Lincoln's six words would be:

"Preserved the Union. Freed the slaves."

One that popped into my head this morning is Julius Caesar:

"I came. I saw. I conquered."

In Latin it's down to three words - Veni. Vidi. Vici.

So, what about you? Who are you or what do you want your legacy to be - what people would 'label' you as when looking back on you - in six words or less?

Here's the John Baldoni blog to prompt your thinking.

Here's the Dan Pink blog where lots of reader comments contributing their six words should jog your brain cells into coming up with six words for yourself.

Why you have to practise leadership

2009-10-05T12:59:00.001+01:00

"There is an ancient saying that knowledge is only a rumour until it is in the muscle."

I noticed that on the 'Embodied leadership' course description over at Roffey Park's centre in the UK. I don't think I posted on it here before. Hope not.

It's true isn't it: it's in the doing that we cement the knowing. Leadership talk is not nearly as important as leadership doing.

An additional thought: a psychologist friend of mine who specialises in habits says it takes up to seven weeks of consciously trying a new leadership practice (even something as simple as expressing appreciation) to engrain it as a habit.

What's the point of life?

2009-10-02T11:32:00.004+01:00

"We are here to add what we can to life, not to get what we can from life."
- William Osler

Just came across that and it's a reminder of something good leaders know and do - contribute and serve. The ridiculous attempts to save 'bonus cultures' and other old-think approaches to life and the world - "My role in life is to accumulate and consume as much as possible" - that are going on all around us at the moment may be the last throes of a primitivism we are moving away from, with the climate debate prompting us to shift how we think of our lives away from accumulating and consuming.

For leaders, Ken Blanchard puts it this way - That we have too many self-serving leaders and not enough leaders who serve.

It's the move away from a scarcity to an abundance attitude that we are all inching towards (those of us who are comfortably off, that is) - from waking up thinking 'What can I earn/accumulate today to stave off...what, starvation?' to 'What can I contribute today?'

As people know who love their work, when you go out determined to contribute, you find people queuing up to buy your services anyway.

Or I may be a fanciful old hippy.

101 way to be a remarkable leader

2009-09-14T10:52:00.000+01:00

Kevin Eikenberry has a nice free short-read pdf '101 ways to become a remarkable leader' on his website. As you'd expect, you have to fill in some info to get it. Each of the 'ways' is just one headline, so not a great time-consumer.

First ten of his 101 Ways, to whet your appetite, are:

1. Observe things around you.
2. Be curious.
3. Keep a journal.
4. Capture lessons learned from any project.
5. Ask for feedback.
6. Offer feedback.
7. Make quiet time to think.
8. Read for personal/professional development each day.
9. Turn off your email for a couple of hours at a time.
10. Play more.

Kevin's website is here: www.Remarkable-Leadership.com

The link to fill in details to receive the '101 Ways' is here. It's part of a campaign to sell access to Kevin's Bronze level of his Remarkable Leadership series with $748 worth of free material that he charges you postage for. So, that's an option on the same page. The 101 ways form is at the bottom of this page: http://remarkable-leadership.com/campaigns/rl-bronze-launch/

Purpose and motivation

2009-09-03T14:24:00.006+01:00

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the people to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea"
Antoine De Saint-Exupery, author of The Little Prince

I've long been a fan of Saint-Exupery, but it took Henry Stewart to spot that quote buried in among Netflix's rather long slideshare on its values. I've long been a fan of how Henry runs his business, too. He's the founder of Happy. Henry is the only person I know who set out to run a company along the lines outlined by Maverick author Ricardo Semler. And how successful have they been? Here are some of the awards they've won:

2009 Best in UK for Health & Well-Being
2009 World's Most Democratic Workplaces
2009 IT Training Company of the Year, Gold (Institute of IT Training)
2007 Best Workplaces (Financial Times): No. 2
2006 Most positive Impact on Society of any small business in UK (Business in the Community)
2003 Best Customer Service in UK (Management Today/Unisys Service Excellence UK Overall Winner)

Here's Henry's Happy@Work blog.

And here's Happy's website.

Why giving is leading

2009-08-23T10:52:00.003+01:00

Nice post here showing a short clip from a talk given at Brigham Young University - Why Giving Matters by Arthur C. Brooks.

In the extract Barch has chosen for his blog, Brooks outlines research that shows people who give are seen by others as natural leaders.

Since many leaders are all about acquiring - power, control, influence, bigger office, bigger salary - this is a good reminder of the principle of servant leadership - you got to give before people will really see you as a leader. It's about recognizing selflessness. People who give will tend to be driven more by principle and what's right than by what they can get out of something. Therefore others will trust them more as leaders.

Click here for the one minute clip

High Performing Teams - The essence in 60 seconds

2009-08-16T13:19:00.003+01:00

Forming or re-forming teams is an essential part of re-organization and restructuring. Teams are a bit like a music group - the economist Kjell Nordstrom likes to describe the Rolling Stones as the perfect team: each member knows what the other is about to do almost before they do it, instinctively, and they collaborate towards a common end (the song, the performance).

That's fine if your team has been together for 40 years and is at the top of its industry. But, in today's workplaces, teams form and re-form frequently. So, you need to get your team up to peak performance as fast as possible and keep it there. Here are some quick tips to help, from Katzenbach and Smith's book The Wisdom of Teams:

What is a team? “A small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable."

What are the four elements that make a team effective?

1. Common commitment and purpose
2. Performance goals
3. Complementary skills, and
4. Mutual accountability

At the heart of effective teams are shared values. "Teamwork represents a set of values that encourage listening and responding constructively to views expressed by others, giving others the benefit of the doubt, providing support, and recognizing the interests and achievements of others.

"Such values help teams perform, and they also promote individual performance as well as the performance of an entire organization."

Adapted From: The Wisdom of Teams, by Katzenbach and Smith. More thoughts from them on how to build high performing teams in this short briefing on the Harvard site (about three to five minute read and thinking time needed) click here: The Discipline of Teams

How are you doing? 60 Second Leadership Health-check

2009-08-07T11:04:00.002+01:00

This is a useful quick exercise to refresh your leadership, from Stewart Friedman, Professor of Management at The Wharton School. May be particularly useful when you are thinking about your Personal Development Plan:

"1. First, identify the most important people in your life at work, at home, and in your community.

2. Then ask them what they want and need from you.

3. Finally, describe your expectations for your own performance.

Look for patterns you may have missed about how the different parts of your life affect each other. You're probably overestimating what they really expect from you; you might even be missing a major priority of theirs, or putting effort into something that doesn't matter to them at all! Talk with your key stakeholders to verify and, where it makes sense, change those expectations."

More from Friedman here if you want more than one minute on this.

Phil

The worst part of work

2009-08-05T14:12:00.003+01:00

More Savage Chickens on: www.savagechickens.com

PS But, it's true, tho', isn't it. Even moreso in a recession, when people (you?) feel obliged to cling onto the job they've got.

What would your 'leadership letter' say?

2009-08-04T17:12:00.003+01:00

My daughter-in-law (I mentioned this once before - sorry if you read it then) managed the children's department of a book store. It ran fine under its previous boss. But, no-one knew what she did. When my daughter-in-law took over, she found ring binders full of procedures. For a few weeks, she was terrified of doing anything but follow them.

Then she thought "Wouldn't this bit be better, if...." and changed it. People were pleased. She changed a bit more. They were more pleased with the results. She ended up changing a whole lot more, having shaken off the fear that this was some clockwork mechanism and if you tinkered with it the whole thing would fall apart.

She was rewarded by being offered a higher level job. All good so far, but what impressed me was the lack of ego in what she said to her successor (my daughter-in-law is an Aussie and I find the ego that is a part of UK management style is often absent with Aussie managers. Discuss).

She handed over to her successor and talked through with her all the (changed) procedures for managing the department. She said she did that so that her successor wouldn't be left in the dark and clueless as she felt herself on walking into that job. And then she said the best thing: "When I come back in a month to visit, you need to show me what you've changed to make the department run better. If you haven't changed at least one thing I used to do and replaced it with something better, I'll be SO upset."

Wow. How do they get that wise, that young?

Art Petty has a nice blog post over on his website called "Things I wish someone would have told me when I became a leader."

How children, and cats, mislead us

2009-08-02T17:54:00.006+01:00

Pic credit: http://www.obeythepurebreed.com/

Overheard in the supermarket yesterday: Three-year-old sitting in shopping trolley/cart, says to his dad as I walk past them - "Wassat? Olives? I like olives. Get olives, dad." Clunk goes olive jar as naive dad puts it into cart.

Five minutes later, on the other side of the supermarket, I pass the same leader and his dad. "Wassat?" says the driver as I pass them. "Purple hair dye," says dad,suddenly aware of what's coming next. "I like purp hair dye. Get purp hair dye, dad."

As I looked over my shoulder, dad was suddenly realizing that half the contents of the trolley/cart would have to be put back due to mis-direction. Like many of us at one time or other, he'd been badly-led. And also like many of us, had no-one to blame but himself.

It's not just kids who have mastered leading us where they want us to go. Cats apparently have learnt a particular new kind of purr to 'enslave' their owners, according to scientists. When we hear this particular purr (or you do, if you have one - our cat is under a little cat statue in the garden and has been for years, so we don't any more) it triggers us to dish up food.

In The Leadership Hub this week, some things that you might like and find useful. No mis-leading cats or mis-directing babies, honest:

1. Hub TV: Ken Blanchard on leaving a legacy. What are the three things you want to be remembered for? Then it's simple: consistently behave in a way that fulfills those three things and you will be (remembered for them, that is. Sorry, my syntax is turning to sand before my/your eyes).

2. Tom Schulte on 'How to lead like cheese?' What makes the cheeseburger a role model for leadership? It's funny. And there's a point at the end.

3. Oliver Mack, of the wonderful Common Purpose, on the problem with labels - how developing people as leaders shouldn't be about training people to take up positions of authority: "It's about creating people who can lead from wherever they are, regardless of position, or hierarchical power." Amen to that, Oliver.

Oh, and our new quotes section is coming along nicely. The Architect has added one I've always loved*. Feel free to add your own. And use the new 'events' section to let people know of any events you've got coming up.

You can find all the above by clicking on this link www.theleadershiphub.com

*"The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant" - Max De Pree

Alan Alda, the curious leader

2009-06-28T17:40:00.005+01:00

Photo credit: Andy Carvin, flickr

There are people designated as 'leaders' in organizations - the CEO and the top bosses usually. There's the politician as 'leader'. And then there are people out there, in the culture, without a formal position in a hierarchy, who never call themselves a 'leader' but people follow them. They set agendas, make us think differently.

The actress Emily Blunt was working with Alan Alda on a new film recently and said in a newspaper article last week, "He is infectious and wise and impossible not to follow around." She and her co-star Amy Adams, says Blunt, just loved to be near him, so much so that he would look up and see them following him and call out: "Leave me alone, I wanna eat my lunch."

I have an Alan Alda quote on my wall. It goes:

"Be brave enough to live creatively.
The creative is the place where no-one else has ever been.
You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition.
You cannot get there by bus; only by hard work, risking and by not quite knowing what you are doing."

Yes, that Alan Alda - Hawkeye from Mash. But, you see, he's also the co-founder of the annual World Science Festival, author of 'Dear Albert', a play about Einstein, and when I switched on BBC Radio 4 recently someone was explaining how particle physics works and I thought "Why does that guy sound like Alan Alda?" Because it was Alan Alda, of course.

He also hosts and facilitates major seminars on subjects like 'What it is to be human?'

Natural leaders just attract and hold our attention with new thoughts, new ideas, a clarity of explanation, a warmth and enthusiasm in Alda's case, that almost defy analysis. It's a form of leadership by curiosity, by asking questions, by wanting to learn.

People like Alda are rare natural leaders. They are, as Blunt says,"infectious" or, as Richard Dawkins would say, "memetic". They are like a human equivalent of the internet - medium, message and amplifier all at the same time. They kind of get your molecules to vibrate a little faster.

Different people need or are attracted to different forms of leadership, I think. All I know is that when I hear Alda's voice or see him on TV, I want to stop what I'm doing and see what he has to say next.

I can't say that happens when I see an official 'leader' on the TV or hear them on the radio.

CEOs hamper the recovery. And the flying bunch of bananas

2009-06-23T09:00:00.002+01:00

Apparently, US consumers are bored with the recession and out in force wanting to spend. (I'm not so sure about that. I think it's the ones who still have their jobs. But, anyway, that's what some US commentators are saying...) But 71% of US CEOs are stuck in last month's or last quarter's mindset and are too timid to take advantage of it. In fact, 71% of American CEOs are helping the recession continue, as they plan more layoffs and to horde cash.

The suggestion that CEOs are holding us back from recovery by being over-cautious shows a marked lack of leadership if it's true. Slipping into 'hunker down recession' mode prolongs the downturn. The argument is put by Forbes' publisher on the company's talkback video site. The link is below. It's an interesting point, weakened, unfortunately by a flying bunch of bananas.

I used to be a press officer many moons ago. And one of the things we always told interviewees going in front of the camera was - beware 'flying bunch of banana syndrome'. That's when your hand suddenly appears on the screen and completely distracts the viewer from what you are saying, as they are instead thinking "Whoa: looks just like a bunch of bananas flying across the bottom of the screen".

Forbes' media advisor needs to have a quiet word with the publisher before he does the next one of these talkback 'to camera' pieces. Those bananas are flying all over the place.

Here's a link to the clip.

Normal service will be resumed

2009-06-22T16:24:00.002+01:00

Well, excuse the interruption to this blog yet again. I juggle work with managing a care team that looks after my wife, who has Huntington's Disease, and with raising a teenager. My wife's illness has taken a nose dive the last couple of months and the care team has struggled to keep up with it. So, I've been frantically trying to reconfigure the care system we have to get back on top of that situation. 24-hour live-in carers look like the option, so I'm pursuing that and should be able to blog more often as that situation gets under control again. That plus a major contract has kept me stretched and away from this blog. Apologies.

What you can learn from comedians

2009-05-21T10:20:00.004+01:00

Interesting article in the Sunday Times, drawing partly on Roger Edwards Jones book 'What Can Chief Executives Learn From Standup Comedians?' It's not about introducing comedy to the workplace - though there is a role for humour that is too often ignored or seen as 'not serious' and therefore unconfident leaders and managers avoid it.

The learning points don't just apply to chief executives. They include:

Preparation. Good stand-up performances appear totally spontaneous, but the reality is quite different. Comedians spend hours honing those routines. The harder you work on a presentation, the more relaxed it sounds.

Less is more. A comic’s messages are not long-winded, but tight and concise. Presentations benefit from fewer, more focused, words.

Confidence. Although they may suffer horribly from nerves, a comedian must exude a natural authority or die. Equally, bosses need to think about the impression they give and may have to project an air of confidence.

Responsibility. The stage is a lonely place. When they bomb in front of an audience, comics know there is nobody to blame but themselves. It’s the same for bosses – but they may not always realise that they have to take the flak for failures as well as the rewards for success.

Courage. Comedians are constantly pushing themselves further from their comfort zone as they progress to bigger performances and new material. All executives can benefit from re-examining their comfort zones and pushing outside it now and again.

You can read the full article here

Roger's pocket book (It's 64 pages) on Amazon.co.uk is here

Keynes was wrong and Obama is a communist

2009-05-18T12:07:00.005+01:00

Well, that's what my Californian friend Janice tells me is the Republican mantra at the moment. Since unfettered free market economics with its unhidden hand - greed - brought us a global market collapse, it's a shame people still line up in opposing camps - pro or anti Keynes. With people choosing a position based entirely on their political dogma.

We're in a different place now, it seems to me. The imagination of the financial idiots savants who came up with derivatives and other complex financial instruments was the equivalent of the warped imagination behind the 9/11 attacks. The unreal, unimaginable, became real. The old rules don't seem to apply. If they ever did.

What theories of economics - including Keynes's General Theory - fail to recognize is that capitalism evolves. We've never been at this stage of capitalism before. Consumer and what might be called post-consumer behaviour isn't predictable. But, some things - on the supply side of the equation - are. It just suits us to look the other way or not believe.

There is massive over-supply in the car industry globally, for example. And there has been for years. I used to write about the car industry and couldn't understand how on earth it could continue disguising the fact that it was making more cars than the world would want to buy.

The big US car giants have been heading towards a cliff for at least five years. Now they've fallen off it. Their business models and plans for continuous growth in the face of too much supply were faulty because they were backward-looking, based on what worked before, patterns of demand and growth that existed before. Where's the surprise that denial failed and reality bit them hard?

Similarly, those who label the public sector pumping money into the private sector as 'communist' are walking backwards into the future: their view of how the world works is shaped by patterns from the past that no longer apply.

Having said that, there is a smart piece in Forbes on 'Why Keynes was Wrong'. I don't agree with it. It still has an 'Obama is a communist' sub-plot lurking in the distant background. But, at least it's smartly argued. And doesn't caricature Keynesian economics. Here it is:

Forbes Magazine: Why Keynes Was Wrong

Disappearing Leadership Hub

2009-05-11T09:17:00.001+01:00

So, Streamline, The hosts of The Leadership Hub, seem to have decided they don't like it and keep killing the link. Something to do with new database servers. If you use The Leadership Hub, sorry about this as it's off at the moment. We are in deep combat with them to try and get it fixed. They say an engineer is onto it...I see a pig flying past the window.

40 years of research into trust and leadership, in a two minute read

2009-05-04T00:20:00.004+01:00

Pardon the interruption in this blog - couple of weeks of launching something for a client coinciding with wife's carers being on maternity leave or away = overstretch.

Trust and Leadership

D. L. Ferrin and K. T. Dirks examined 40 years of published research on trust in leadership and came to the following three conclusions:

1. For organizations to be effective, you need high trust in the leaders. (D’uh, you might think).

2. Trust in you as a leader develops or deteriorates through changes in psychological states – In other words, external worries about the recession, perhaps worries about the future of the company and their own job can have a lowering effect on the trust people feel in their leaders, even if those leaders haven’t acted in an untrustworthy way themselves. "I'm happy and confident, so I trust you more. I'm worried and anxious, so I trust you less." Levels of trust in you can drop through no fault of yours.

3. Increasing complexity and ambiguities puts a strain on trust – The changes we have to go through as an organization to respond to the recession can create ambiguity & uncertainty. So, again, trust is at risk.

So what does this mean for me as a leader?

Basically, the effect of the recession is to erode trust in leaders, which can lead to a dip in performance (see item 1, above – ‘for organizations to be effective…etc.’). So, just when you need an increase in people's performance, as we are trading through tough times, loss of trust can cause that performance to dip.

So, what can we do about it?

The Gallup Organization has researched over 10,000 people's attitudes to their leaders. Gallup says that since the recession began, particularly since people began to worry about losing their jobs and seeing friends lose theirs, leaders have to raise their game significantly if they are to maintain levels of trust, let alone build the trust needed to sustain high performance.

How to lead when you're not the boss

2009-04-05T16:20:00.004+01:00

In flatter hierarchies, people may be leading cross-departmental project teams at certain times, though their organizational structure gives them no formal authority.

Over on Harvard Management Essentials, Christina Bielaszka-DuVernay summarizes the five steps to leading when you're not the boss, taken from the book that was called Lateral Leadership: getting things done when you're not the boss, but in its latest edition is called Getting It Done: How to Lead When You're Not in Charge.

One may seem obvious. Two and Three seem the 'killer apps' in this list, especially Three (conduct mini-reviews and adapt as you go), which I think is the most powerful advice in here. Five (feedback) is hard to do in the way described if the people you are giving feedback to are technically 'above' you in terms of seniority.

1. Establish goals
People accomplish the most when they have a clear set of objectives. It follows that any group's first order of business is to write down exactly what it hopes to achieve. The person who asks the question "Can we start by clarifying our goals here?"--and who then assumes the lead in discussing and drafting those goals--is automatically taking a leadership role, whatever his or her position.

2. Think systematically
Observe your next meeting: people typically plunge right into the topic at hand and start arguing over what to do. Effective leaders, by contrast, learn to think systematically--that is, they gather and lay out the necessary data, analyze the causes of the situation, and propose actions based on this analysis. In a group, leaders help keep participants focused by asking appropriate questions. Do we have the information we need to analyze this situation? Can we focus on figuring out the causes of the problem we're trying to solve?

3. Learn from experience--while it's happening
Teams often plow ahead on a project, then conduct a review at the end to figure out what they learned. But it's more effective for teams (or individuals) to learn as they go along. Anyone who prompts the group to engage in regular minireviews and learn from them is playing a de facto leadership role.

4. Engage others
Suggest writing down a list of chores and matching them up with individuals or subgroups. If no one wants a particular task, brainstorm ways to make that task more interesting or challenging. Help draw out the group's quieter members so that everyone feels a part of the overall project.

5. Provide feedback
If you're not the boss, what kind of feedback can you provide? One thing that's always valued is simple appreciation--"I thought you did a great job in there." Sometimes, too, you'll be in a position to help people improve their performance through coaching....Offer thoughtful suggestions for improvement, being careful to explain the observation and reasoning that lie behind them.

Click here for the full post on Harvard Management Essentials

Get on or get on with - Getting back up

2009-03-30T08:00:00.003+01:00

Who do you get up for in the morning? Strange question. Robert Hogan says we are driven by two desires - to get on (self-advancement) and to get on with (the need to co-operate to get things done). I think there's an obvious third - helping others get on. Or, in the current climate, get up when they can't see a way up.

There's been a lot of trauma in teams and organizations over the past year. And a lot of dashing of personal aspirations of health, wealth and happiness. Well, wealth anyway.

But, the one good thing about a lot of our material aspirations being curtailed by the change in economic conditions is that it allows us to channel our need for fulfillment in what might be called less selfish ways - helping others get up.

Bill Taylor puts it this way: "The answer to ugly times? Do something beautiful," giving a couple of examples of how random acts of kindness at work lift the spirit and remove a sense of powerlessness - both of which are casualties of the recession, and both of which we can do something about as individuals.

Taylor says:

"Now, I'm not suggesting that we can kill this recession with kindness, or that 'senseless acts of beauty' can cure a truly hideous financial mess. But tough economic times have a way of bring out the worst in our companies and ourselves. So let's work hard to bring out the best in ourselves. It may not amount to a stimulus package, but it may make it easier for all of us to get through the day — and eventually get back to prosperity."

There is a leadership essence at work here. Too often, leadership is about self-advancement - Hogan's 'get on' drive. Steve Farber, in his Extreme Leadership blog, reminds us that no matter what level in the organization you are at, leadership is not about you, with his 'Greater Than Yourself' campaign:

"Instead of wallowing in your own despair, pick someone at work to invest in, with the intent of making that person greater than you are. Be a coach, guide, or mentor in the truest, most personal sense of the words by choosing someone to be your GTY (Greater Than Yourself) project, and see what that does to your own predicament, your own state of mind."

The 6 causes of disengagement. And how the recession makes them worse.

2009-03-24T22:44:00.002Z

1. I can't be engaged if I'm overwhelmed

2. I can't be engaged if I don't get it

3. I can't be engaged if I'm scared

4. I can't be engaged if I don't see the big picture

5. I can't be engaged if it's not mine

6. I can't be engaged if my leaders don't face reality*

Those are the six main forces pulling against employee engagement. And you can instantly see that the recession has a direct impact on each of these causes.

Here are six tips for countering those six effects

1. Overwhelm. Yes, people are more likely to feel overwhelmed in a downturn. Doing more with less adds to people's workloads. Don't just divide up the work if people have had to leave. Help people assess the elements that help deliver your core purpose - that are critical to strategy execution - and those that aren't.

2. Don't 'get it'. Yes, people will be disengaged if you don't explain in a compelling way WHAT we are doing to ride out the recession and WHY we are doing it. Repeatedly.

3. Fear. Definitely, people are more scared in a recession. Get out among them and give them as clear information as you can. Uncertainty breeds fear.

4. The big picture. If people don't have a direct line of sight between their own daily actions and the bigger picture - a clear idea of how the things they do every day contribute directly towards your organization staying ahead of the recession - then they won't be engaged. It's up to you to provide that if it's lacking.

5. 'It's not mine'. In a recession, people feel they are not in control of events, that they don't know what's coming next. Admit it: you do, too. Counter that lack of control over external events by giving people control over what they do at work - make it 'theirs'. Provide clear objectives, make them accountable, but let them run with it.

6. Leaders need to face reality. Use the people closest to the market as your ear to the ground and work out with them, with your own bosses, and with peers what you need to change, and what you need to keep the same, to adjust to the new reality in the market.

*The six main forces pulling against engagement are from Jim Haudan, CEO of Root Learning and author of The Art of Engagement. The six tips for dealing with them are from me.

Job Ownership: The Next Level of Engagement

2009-03-23T09:17:00.005Z

Engaging people behind the organization's core purpose is a if not the key role of leadership. Yet, the recession pulls against engagement massively. I'll post tomorrow on the six ways the recession undermines your 'people engagement' work.

The authors of The Harvard Service Profit Chain, Sasser & Hesketh, with their co-author Joe Wheeler of The Service Profit Chain Institute, have just published The Ownership Quotient: Putting The Service Profit Chain to Work for Unbeatable Competitive Advantage.

The authors argue that the next level for putting the chain into practice is to focus on giving people ownership of their jobs. Their new acronym to add to IQ and EQ (Emotional Quotient - Daniel Goleman's phrase for measuring Emotional Intelligence) is OQ - the Ownership Quotient. To what extent do people feel they 'own' their job?

I am absolutely sure they are right. And this is particularly compelling in a downturn, where people feel external forces are out of their control and they need, more than ever, a strong sense of control at work to keep them engaged and confident.

A timely book.

How to lead now. The four things the best companies are doing

2009-03-19T15:42:00.002Z

Q: What will the best companies do during this recession?

A: 1. They'll get ahead of the curve and conserve their cash.

2. They'll take out frills and focus on the core.

3. And then they'll think of how the market will have changed in two or three years and what innovation they will need to have done to compete successfully...

4. ...and they'll do that innovation now.

Source: Ram Charan, the renowned business advisor, talking to Harvard Management Update about how to lead through the recession.

Charan says you need to lead now "Head in, hands on" - fully immersed in operations, and practising what he calls 'management intensity' - as the situation is so uncertain. Basically he's arguing for a stronger focus on execution.

I'd add beware of micro-management, though. So much is out of your control in a recession that the temptation is to tighten control over the bits you can control, as a kind of compensation. It's an illusion. You'll just choke off people's initiative and drive if you do that too much.

The full interview is here.

The incomplete leader: In praise of co-leadership

2009-03-16T22:26:00.005Z

Whisper it carefully: I don't really believe in 'The Leader'. I believe in leadership, yes, ideally distributed and aligned behind a common agreed purpose rather than a person. But leadership embodied in one person - The Leader - only means one thing to me. I used to be a historian. Work it out.

So, I like Pat Ballin's piece on co-leadership over in The Leadership Hub. Pat kicks off his piece by citing Senge and Co's paper in the HBR in 2007 'In Praise of The Incomplete Leader'.

He could do with some examples of complementary leadership teams and David Straker chips in with Hewlett & Packard as one example.

Pat goes on to suggest this co-leadership coda:

High Shared Power/High Shared Trust = Co-leadership
High Shared Power/Low Shared Trust = Power-Sharing
Low Shared Power/High Shared Trust = Good Deputy
Low Shared Power/Low Shared Trust = Factotum

Co-leadership is an interesting form of leadership. But, what really interests me about it is how it breaks the core myth of leadership - that you have to have a single leader at the top, and that leadership somehow emanates from that person.

You can read more from Pat and David on co-leadership here .