Clever:
Leading Your Smartest Most Creative People

From:

Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones
Boston: Harvard Business Press (2009)

Nine Characteristics of Clever People

1. Their cleverness is central to their identity.
2. Their skills are not easily replicated.
3. They know their worth.
4. They ask difficult questions.
5. They are organizationally savvy.
6. They are not impressed by corporate hierarchy (and they don’t want to be led).
7. They expect instant access.
8. They want to be connected to other clever people.
9. They won’t thank you (Goffee and Jones, p. 21-34).

Clever is available on loan from the Ohio State University Leadership Center. To borrow this resource or any other resource, please go to the resource search page.

Click here to learn how the Ohio State University Leadership Center is strengthening tomorrow’s leaders today.

The OSU Leadership Center is home to a wealth of resources to help you and the people you work with improve your leadership and interpersonal skills. Please check the materials in our Lending Library (available to you for a small annual fee), Leadership Publications (absolutely free), and links to other leadership-related information.

In our change leadership model we teach stakeholder analysis and evaluating reactions from key constituents, then developing specific action plans for addressing these constituents. Learn more about Change Project Management – The Next Step. This applies when leading all types of change – small behavior change for a new procedure, new ways to handle clients, or implementation of huge far-reaching change.

Following solid change leadership approaches facilitates anticipation. Anticipating how important constituents are feeling about the change helps tell you where your solid analysis can be best utilized.

Here’s an example:

You’re responsible for a change to the organization. Like always, there are some members who will experience the change who are not very happy about it. Perhaps there is a bit of real resistance (concern about the impact of the changes) and of course a bit of whining about having to do things differently.

The number one complaint of change leaders is a lack of support from senior management. Well, what can you do about that? There is frequently a sense that you don’t want to gather the executives associated with a change initiative unless there is great news to share. However, this is the best time to congregate the executive team and share solid analysis with them. It is crucial for executives making decisions with the correct (unemotional) information at their finger tips. It’s better to have an executive supporting the project and exerting influence in the way you would like rather than having to react to the fallout caused by uninformed actions.

Back to our example. The resisters will do a good job finding reasons for not implementing the change. They will go to their bosses with their analysis. All things being equal executives will tend to support the opinions of their people in the vacuum of information.

Shouldn’t your analysis that shows your empathy for their concerns, considers all options, explains the reality, and reinforces the reasons for making the change be just as prevalent in the executive’s mind? By the way your analysis should conclude with exactly what you would like the executive to do to support the change. Upon seeking agreement on these action items, you now have a valid reason for follow-up which further opens the lines of communication.

How has communicating with executives worked for you?

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From: Steve Saccone, Relational Intelligence: How Leaders Can Expand Their Influence Through a New Way of Being Smart. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass (2009).

Likeability is a fundamental characteristic of relational intelligence, and we tend to underestimate its effect on our leadership endeavors and everyday lives. Contrary to what some people think, likeability is not about trying to become a professional people-pleaser, or trying to be all things to all people. What makes likeable people relationally intelligent is revealed in a person’s ability to evoke favorable feelings in their “audience” (that is, the person they’re in relationship with), in order to produce a positive outcome that serves others well. Whether people are leading a team at work, at a party with friends, or living their ordinary day-to-day lives, what likeable people do best is establish authentic connections with people that make others feel valued and cared about (Saccone, p. 150).

Relational Intelligence is available on loan from the Ohio State University Leadership Center. To borrow this resource or any other resource, please go to the resource search page.

Click here to learn how the Ohio State University Leadership Center is strengthening tomorrow’s leaders today.

The OSU Leadership Center is home to a wealth of resources to help you and the people you work with improve your leadership and interpersonal skills. Please check the materials in our Lending Library (available to you for a small annual fee), Leadership Publications (absolutely free), and links to other leadership-related information.

Rather than think about the problem, think through the problem.

Your reputation as a leader is very dependent upon your ability to analyze a problem, laying out the best approach to take and the plan for action. There is nothing worse than presenting an issue to a group of executives and letting them brainstorm solutions to your problem. When things get out of control in the meeting because their ideas are all over the map it appears like you are not in control of your issue. Here is a recap of an exchange in a meeting I attended just this week.

Presenter: We previously maintained customer status in the customer paper folder. This folder goes away with our new automation but if the system goes down it’s possible we may charge the customer incorrectly because we don’t know their status, either over or under charging. There are a number of options and none of them are clear winners. Let’s discuss this as a group and reach a conclusion on how we can solve this issue.

Participant: How often will the system go down?

Presenter: It’s impossible to know although we expect minimal downtimes with the new software.

Participant: How long on average are the downtimes?

Presenter: I don’t know.

Participant: Why don’t we print out a list of customer status for every staff member?

Participant: But, that will be out of date and still won’t make sure we’re accurate.

Participant: What percentage of customers at any given time receive a discount?

Presenter: I don’t have that information with me.

This went on for 40 minutes with a variety of solutions being suggested and a number of requests for more information. No solution was reached and the presenter looked unprepared. The perception of the presenter is not strong. There was very little leadership on this issue because of the lack of preparation.

How to handle situations like this:

• Use a solid problem solving method (see the Personal Brilliance Problem Solving Method) that allows you to get to the root cause of the issue. Clearly state the problem, identify the root causes, and then completely analyze each potential solution.
• Identify every possible solution, no matter how crazy. These are the ideas that will be thrown at you in the group setting.
• How do you identify every possible solution that may be recommended at the meeting? Ask. Ahead of time. Meet individually with a good cross-section of attendees and get their initial reactions to the defined problems and solutions they might offer. Yes, this takes more work and time. You can’t do your homework the night before. (Never said this would be easy.)
• Completely analyze every possible solution looking at consistency with strategy and culture, financial impact, potential side effects, and degree of difficulty.
• For the executive group clearly indicate what you want from them: a decision, a sign-off, ideas, any missing cross-functional perspectives, etc. Have a goal. Give them parameters.
• When presenting the issue to the group, state the problem and then lay out the chronology of the analysis: who was involved, what was considered, research done, synopsis of the backup data used, and the point scoring weighting system used for the various options. There should be no question about your methodology. This gets mixed up in the discussion and you get way off track quickly.
• Present each of the solutions in a high level overview and make the case for the conclusions your analysis reached.
• Honor each input during the meeting but be sure to stay on track.
• Identify next step action items from the group.
• State the conclusion to the issue or what will be done in the near future and agree on how you will report back.

It is crucial to your individual success and the success of the organization that problems/opportunities be handled efficiently. The best way to do this is with solid analysis before the meeting.

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From:

How: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything…
in Business (and in Life)

by Dov Seidman
John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey (2007)

• Rules are external – They are made by others. They present us with a puzzle to be solved and loopholes to be found.
• We are ambivalent about rules – We know we need some and we want others to play by them, but we say, ‘Rules are meant to be broken.’
• Rules are reactive – They respond to past events.
• Rules and bother over- and under-inclusive – Because they are proxies, they cannot be precise.
• Proliferation of rules is a tax on the system – Few people can remember them all. We lose productivity when we stop to look them up.
• Rules are typically prohibitions – They speak to can and can’t. We view them as confining and restricting.
• Rules require enforcement – With laxity, they lose credibility and effectiveness. They necessitate expensive bureaucracies of compliance.
• Rules speak to boundaries and floors but create inadvertent ceilings – We can’t legislate ‘The sky’s the limit.’
• The only way to honor rules is to obey them exactly – They speak to coercion and motivation. The inspiration to excel must come from somewhere else.
• Too many rules breeds overreliance – We think, ‘if it mattered, they would have made a rule.’ (Seidman, 2007, p. 90).

How: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything is available on loan from the Ohio State University Leadership Center. To borrow this resource or any other resource, please go to the resource search page.

Click here to learn how the Ohio State University Leadership Center is strengthening tomorrow’s leaders today.

The OSU Leadership Center is home to a wealth of resources to help you and the people you work with improve your leadership and interpersonal skills. Please check the materials in our Lending Library (available to you for a small annual fee), Leadership Publications (absolutely free), and links to other leadership-related information.

From: Joelle K. Jay, The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership. Santa Barbara: CA, ABC CLIO (2009).

To better understand the practice of tapping into your brilliance, it is helpful to understand the philosophy on which it is based: a strengths approach to leadership.

A strengths approach brings your brilliance to life. In order to be your best, you maximize your strengths and manage your weaknesses. Then you are emphasizing the elements of you that are enduring and unique. You are growing in the areas of your inherent strength, where the possibilities for your potential are greatest.

If you want to be your best, you need to build on what’s brilliant about you. You can develop an approach to leadership that uses all of your attributes in the most advantageous way. You save time, energy, and effort. You get better results, because you are doing things in a way that works best for you. You discover what it truly means to achieve success with quality of life, because they are one and the same. Best of all, you do this not by changing who you are, but by becoming more of who you are. Because who you are is brilliant (Jay, p. 89).

The Inner Edge is available on loan from the Ohio State University Leadership Center. To borrow this resource or any other resource, please go to the resource search page.

Click here to learn how the Ohio State University Leadership Center is strengthening tomorrow’s leaders today.

The OSU Leadership Center is home to a wealth of resources to help you and the people you work with improve your leadership and interpersonal skills. Please check the materials in our Lending Library (available to you for a small annual fee), Leadership Publications (absolutely free), and links to other leadership-related information.

There is a lot to the work environment and many times we’re limited by budget or physical space but there are many things you can do to enhance your environment using little resource. Don’t underestimate how the environment you create can support your leadership goals.

The key thing about environment though is congruency.

My friend Nido Qubein teaches the concept of Intentional Congruence. Have you watched his interview on ELCircle yet? (membership required). Click here. Intentional congruence in simple form means making each action you take congruent in support of your goals and mission.

How does this apply to your space?

As a young punk I joined a fabulous team. We built a very successful consulting firm and had a championship run. My first desk – a card table in a corner. My first day – on an airplane to a client site. What message did this send? – hungry, focused on clients, focused on work, getting important things accomplished is more important than where we sit. I immediately had a “back in the old days” story. I fit in and I bought in. If my values said, “I need an office” it wouldn’t have been a fit. We would have both known right away. By the way, our upgrade was to a cool house-like office in the woods, then to a more traditional space. But we always maintained that utilitarian feel in perfect synch with our style, in contrast to our money center bank client’s digs. We always felt good about coming ‘home’ and working really hard.

If you’re a cutting edge marketing firm your space should scream creativity. If you’re a manufacturing firm a little nuts & bolts is perfect. The key is consistency – congruency.

What does your work environment say to the world? Some to dos and to think abouts:

• Go and stand in the middle of your space. Look around. Use all your senses. Breathe in the environment. Are you inspired? Does it say what you want it to say? Is it efficient? Does it flow? Can you think here? How would those interacting with the environment react to this test? Same as you?
• What does the space say to customers who visit? Any possible misinterpretations that might come up based on what they see?
• What does the space say to your vendors? They are a big contributor to your reputation in the industry.
• Are your staff members getting the right message based on your space? Does the space promote their work? How many team members are not a fit with the space? Why?
• Let your team design and build the space with your participation. The design process allows for a lot of teaching and reinforcement of the culture you want. Explaining ‘why’ or ‘why not’ can be a great opportunity to teach your vision of the culture.

We can go on, but please add your experiences and ideas as a comment.

Click here for a more esoteric view of space from Seth Godin.

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Photo Credit: jnyemb

From: P. M. Forni, The Civility Solution: What to Do When People Are Rude. New York: St. Martin’s Press (2008)

Maybe familiarity does breed contempt. But it also leads to care, affection, and love. Although it is true that closeness does not confer immunity from rudeness, we tend to behave better with people we know or with whom we have even a very loose connection. If the fender-bending driver who rearranges your morning commute turns out to be your next-door neighbor, patience and poise will come more easily. By getting to know those around you, you expand the group of people whom you treat particularly well and who treat you accordingly (Forni, p. 42).

The Civility Solution is available on loan from the Ohio State University Leadership Center. To borrow this resource or any other resource, please go to the resource search page.

Click here to learn how the Ohio State University Leadership Center is strengthening tomorrow’s leaders today.

The OSU Leadership Center is home to a wealth of resources to help you and the people you work with improve your leadership and interpersonal skills. Please check the materials in our Lending Library (available to you for a small annual fee), Leadership Publications (absolutely free), and links to other leadership-related information.

ANTICIPATION!

The reason I can say this is that embedded in each of the 7 Essentials for Emerging Leaders is the ability to anticipate. To be able to look around the corner, to see the future.

Whoa, my job is hard enough. Now I have to also see the future?

Yes, but don’t panic. The best trend spotters simply are open to using their experience and their awareness to anticipate what likely will occur in the future. You do it all the time.

When your team is doing workflow design you can anticipate that we’ll want to identify all of the changes that the new workflow will bring about and communicate around those. Right?

When you assign your slowest talker to present to the hyper, Type A boss, you can predict that conversation in the hall the next time you see the boss. Right?

When you hear that the competitor is laying off customer service reps you can predict that your market share will go up. Right?

Anticipating really isn’t the hard part for an emerging leader. The hard part is doing something about it to head off the disaster or to take advantage of the opportunity. This is where you come in as a leader, offsetting the mindset of the worker.

When in worker mode, the worker is trying to get the task done. They aren’t necessarily worried about the downstream steps. Again, that’s where you come in. For example, your instructions to the workflow team, to catalog the changes separately is necessary or you will be doing rework in a few weeks. Seeing the tea leaves about the competitor possibly dropping the ball in service requires that you inform the sales team about this so they can leverage the information in the marketplace.

Offsetting the worker view (caused by busYness, multiple priorities, habit, etc.) and anticipating the downstream effects of all actions is your job.

LEAD!

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Photo Credit: seanmcgrath

John P. Kotter, A Sense of Urgency. Boston: Harvard Business Press (2008)

When people have a true sense of urgency, they think that action on critical issues is needed now, not eventually, not when it fits easily into a schedule. Now means making real progress every single day. Critically important means challenges that are central to success or survival, winning or losing. A sense of urgency is not an attitude that I must have the project team meeting today, but that the meeting must accomplish something important today.

Urgent behavior is not driven by a belief that all is well or that everything is a mess, but instead, that the world contains great opportunities and great hazards. Even more so, urgent action is not created by feelings of contentment, anxiety, frustration, or anger, but by a gut-level determination to move, and win now (Kotter, p. 7-8).

A Sense of Urgency is available on loan from the Ohio State University Leadership Center. To borrow this resource or any other resource, please go to the resource search page.

Click here to learn how the Ohio State University Leadership Center is strengthening tomorrow’s leaders today.

The OSU Leadership Center is home to a wealth of resources to help you and the people you work with improve your leadership and interpersonal skills. Please check the materials in our Lending Library (available to you for a small annual fee), Leadership Publications (absolutely free), and links to other leadership-related information.