Leaders Notes

Notes #50 John C Maxwell

2021-01-17T10:13:00.000-08:00

Go to any bookstore and in the business section will probably be a whole shelf (or more) of books by John C. Maxwell. His works on leadership and related areas are widely popular. He has been a major writer on not just leadership topics, but also on relationships, attitude, and ‘equipping’. He founded EQUIP and the John Maxwell Company, both of which focus on the training of leaders. And all this while being a minister. YouTube has several videos of his, and I’ll point out a few I found valuable.

A little background on Maxwell. He is an evangelical Christian pastor, author, and leadership trainer. He continues to both preach (tho not full time) as well as write and speak on the concepts of leadership. His faith does color his works, and this may put some people off, so be advised of this.

Another aspect of his works is that he focuses on teaching concepts and more importantly, helping people developing these matters in their own lives. So most of this works have sections aimed at helping people do so. This is something that is frankly rare in other leadership works. Most that do this usually do so in separate (and purchasable) works. He is not what I would call a researcher of leadership, but more of someone who has learned leadership, observed it, and is able to turn around and teach others what he has learned.

Our focus in this Note will be on his major leadership works. Probably his most well known work now is The 21 Laws of Leadership (1998; 2007), which is now in a 10th Anniversary edition. It also has a companion workbook (as noted, several of his works do, aimed at helping people develop the skills covered in the book). Each law is explained by real-life examples. Some of these examples show how successful some have been by following the law, others by what happens when one does not. After the example, we get further explanation of the concept, and then a short piece on how to apply the law into our daily lives. The book itself ends with 2 appendices: one to evaluate yourself and then a section of selected readings to improve yourself with each of the 21 Laws.

Most of the laws should not be a surprise. Maxwell believes that fundamentally, leadership is INFLUENCE (which is pretty much what we said back in one of the first Notes). This is shown in the Law of Influence: the True Measure of Leadership is Influence- Nothing More, Nothing Less. Others are also obvious, like the Law of Empowerment (a concept we touched on in another Notes), the Law of Priorities (which is why time management and goal setting is so important), and the Law of Victory (which is about making sure the team wins).

One of the new Laws in the new edition is the Law of Addition. The subtext may make that one clearer: “Leaders add value by Serving Others”. This is basically the concept of servant-leadership, and is illustrated by the conduct of one of the founders of Costco.

Here is a great video interview about the new edition.

A sort of companion work is The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader (1999). The qualities given should not be a surprise. They include things like character, commitment, communication, focus, responsibility, and vision. Each quality is illustrated, along with usually 4 points about it. Then there is a reflection on it, how to improve it in yourself, and a daily take-away.

With his book The 360° Leader (2006), I wondered if this was a topic that would be of limited interest. I have not gone over the book myself. Its focus is on ‘middle managers’, or people within an organization: not at the top or at the bottom. The concept of “360°” is that the leader would need to work with those above them, their peers, and those they lead. This is a great video that explains the importance of this work.

The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork (2001) and The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player (2002) are Maxwell’s main works on teamwork. They follow a similar style as the 2 works on law/qualities of leaders. Some of the laws are concepts such as everyone having a place (Law of the Niche), the importance of a vision (Law of the Compass) and values (Law of Identity), the issue of bad attitudes (Law of the Bad Apple), and the importance of goals (Law of Big Picture). Similar to the 21 Laws, each section wraps up with a teamwork thought, and a short brief on how to be a better team member and team leader. With the 17 qualities, you have concepts such as committed, collaborative, dependable and the like. The layout is just like the leadership qualities work with its 4 point fleshing out, followed by a reflection, how to improve, and then the daily take away. Please note that this is qualities of a team MEMBER, not a team leader. Too often I find that in speaking of teams we focus too much on the leaders and not the members and their importance to the success of the team.

His Developing the Leader Within You (1993) is actually his first leadership work, and is still very popular. It is in this work that he lays out his foundational views on leadership. He sets down that leadership is ultimately influence, and lays out the 5 Levels of leadership (more fully exposed in a more recent work). Other principles of this work are that integrity is the important part of leadership, and having a vision is the indispensable quality of leadership. In many ways, those wishing to delve into Maxwell’s work would do well to start with this one.

“Developing the Leaders Around You came later, and as the title indicated, is about develop those you are engaged with to become leaders. I have yet to go thru this work.

Here is a video on this work

Leadership Gold (2008) is a recent book, billed as lessons he’s learned from leading. This is not a unified work like Developing the Leader Within You. Each of its nearly 30 chapters are more or less stand alone, and can be used as a learning experience. Some of the lessons include concepts such as the best leaders are listeners, a leader’s first responsibility is to define reality (remember Max DePree?), keep learning to keep leading, people quit people not companies, and more. All follow a basic structure. The concept is given, and expanded upon. This is followed by 3 application exercise and then a mentoring moment.

A video on this work.

The 5 Levels of Leadership (2011) is his most recent work. It expands upon the concept of 5 levels of leadership introduced in Developing the Leaders Within You. This concept should not be confused with Jim Collins’ Level 5 Leadership. In Maxwell’s concept, the 5 levels are levels that leaders can and should be moving thru. All start at level 1. The goal is to get to level 5, tho most only move up a level or two.

5 Levels:

Position
Permission (relationships)
Production
People Development
Pinnacle

What are these 5 levels? Position is that people follow you because they have to. You have the position (job, title, etc). Permission is that people follow because they want to. Here you have built a report with people and so even if you do have the position, it’s the relationship you’ve built with them that causes them to follow you more so then the position. Production is that people follow you because what you’ve done for the organization. You get results and people want to be part of that. With Pinnacle, people following you because of who you are and what you represent.

As noted, this work expounds upon this topic, delving more deeply into each level, giving behaviors and laws of leadership for each level, and what beliefs and grown must be accomplished to get to the next level.

Videos- one and two.

I found on John Maxwell’s site a list of recommended books for young readers, along with a video explaining the importance of these works (and for reading by young readers). The books, instead of being among his leadership works are works in other area. These are the works:

• The Difference Maker
• Talent Is Never Enough
• Failing Forward
• Today Matters
• Winning with People
• Your Road Map for Success

Another good resource is The John Maxwell Company

Overall, I found his works a great asset. The fact that all of it is gear to learning and applying the concept, and less on theory, there is much here that could be applied within any leadership program. Another thing is that a creative advisor could easily use these books for a whole series of lectures or training on leadership. Each law/quality/concept could be a training session in its own right, even if just a short one.

Notes #49 A Look at Leadership Development

2015-05-29T10:00:00.000-07:00

In this "issue" of Leaders Notes, we step back a little at take a more philosophical look at Leadership Development itself. And at how one can approach leadership development. I think this is an important topic to discuss. This series was created to serve as a sort of informal, on-going “supplemental training” in leadership development, highlighting various resources (written mainly, but also videos and courses) that one may use to further their own and others leadership development.

Too often I find that many people, due to not being involved with more then one organization, have never bothered to take a look at how leadership development can be handled. There are many ways one can approach leadership development, and it’s not a good idea to think that only one approach is the “right” one or the only one. As I've been involved in leadership development with several organizations for many years, I've had discussions with others, especially as some of the groups I am involved in have revamped, in some cases extensively, their LD programs.

First off, can leadership be taught? That may seem to be obvious, but I don’t think it is. In a sense, it’s all based on how you view leadership. Do you see leadership as something that is innate to some people and not others? The so-called concept of the “natural leader”. If that’s the case, then one can’t teach leadership, and it’s a waste of time to do so. There seems to be some who subscribe to this notion, with the idea that we as adults working with youth need to identify the “natural leaders” among our youth, focus on them, and the heck with the rest. This is not a view I subscribe to, and I hope others are the same.

So, can leadership be taught? I would say yes, but like any other skill, some will take to it better than others. Just as if you teach music to people, some will be excellent, some ok, and some lousy. So, too, you will get really great leaders, ok leaders, poor leaders, and some just lousy leaders. With training, ok leaders may become great, poor leaders may become better, and maybe lousy leaders can become ok. And there may be some that no amount of training will turn them into leaders.

If leadership can be taught, how then is the best way to do so? Here, too, there are a variety of ways. And some organizations actually uses a few of these methods, as they are not necessarily competing methods.

One method is to have some training followed by putting what is learned into practice and then more training, putting that into practice and keep repeating. This can be done by having levels of training. Some have long used this method with the concept of immediate training (aka “fast start”), basic training, advanced training, and supplemental training. What can be problematic and which can short-change this method is when people try to cram the training in with as little “put into practice” time in between as possible.

Another method deals with “what you present”. Do you present “pure” leadership training, or do you present position-based training, or some mixture of both? In pure leadership training, you present leadership development concepts that any leader in any position would need to know: situational leadership, team development, servant leadership, goal setting/planning, etc (many of the concepts we've covered in this series). As a person moves from position to position, they will need these skills, and can take them with them. In position-based training, you instead train for the position: Advisor, President, Treasurer, Secretary, etc. As the person moves from position to position, they then just need to be re-trained for that new position.

Some organizations I am involved in focus on position-based training. They focus on what is required to do that job. Some organizations ignore pure leadership training, or handle that in separate training. There are advantages to doing it this way, as one can take the pure leadership training, then supplement that with position-based training as one’s position changes.

Another method of training is on “how you deliver the training”. Do you present the training in a workshop format, or something different? What I find interesting about some leadership courses I've done is that the course is run with everyone being organized into an idealized organization. In this way, how the training is run is part of the learning experience, as one can see how their group works. Where this falls down a bit is taking what you learned about the idealized group and applying to the real-life version.

One course I know of takes yet a different take in the “how” of delivery, avoiding the workshop format for a more laid back method of presenting the material layered on other activities.

Yet another method of training is on “how you determine completion of the training”. In most cases, if you sit thru the training, you are considered to have completed the course. You could have been sleeping thru the course, but you will be considered trained. Which is kind of lame, but that’s how it is in most cases. What I do find valuable is the concept of putting the training into use, and only "completing" the course once this has been accomplished. This is a hallmark of a few training programs I am aware of, but one that is seldom used elsewhere. Other courses may include the concept of encouraging participates to set goals and put what they learn into practice, but, unlike those other courses, there is no mechanism to encourage or ensure this happens (no reward or recognition).

There is also the issue of getting people to actually take the training offered. This is something that has always puzzled me: why some would refuse to take training that would help them do their job better. In my professional field (and in other's), training is vital. You take training when you take on a new area of responsibility. You take training to keep your skills up to date, and this training can take the form of formal training, conferences, workshops, reading, on-line webinars and more. If you don’t keep your skills up, you run the risk of being unemployable. Yet, why then do so many refuse to take the necessary training? Worse, they seem reluctant to even pickup the manuals, or read magazines or on-line resources. There have been various methods to combat this. Some is to offer training in a variety of formats, some try a punishment or reward system (reward groups who have a minimum number of leaders trained, or deny renewal of the group if those minimum numbers are not trained). But someone needs to look into the root of the problem as to why some refuse to get trained.

Finally, one can look at how training is delivered, or more precisely, WHO delivers the training. Can anyone be a trainer, or only a select few? And what is that criteria to determine who can train? Is there special training to be a trainer? What if some people have the equivalent training from other organizations? This in itself can be another issue. Too often I've seen in many organizations where the trainers, I believe due to the attitude of having only the best be trainers, turn into an exclusive clique who wind up turning away good people merely because they are known to the clique. Some organizations put in a long running process that people must work thru to be qualified to be a trainer, others do not. Sometimes having to prove oneself as a trainer goes too far, tho it’s usually good to have some kind of method to vet potential trainers.

When you take a look at how leadership development CAN be presented, you have a better understanding of why is being presented a certain way, how it could be improved, or why one method may be better in some cases then in others.

As a challenge to the readers I will say this. What leadership training have you taken already? How, then, have you put what you have learned into practice? What should be your next course of action in your development as a leader: where it’s taking on a new position, taking an addition course, working to develop other leaders? And set a goal for this.

Notes #48 Habitudes

2015-05-15T10:00:00.000-07:00

Habitudes are an interesting series of books (and resources) aimed to help students learn leadership. There are 6 books in the series, which have the full title of Habitudes: Images that form leadership habits and attitudes. These books were developed by Tim Elmore thru his company Growing Leaders, which aims to help students (high school and college age) develop as leaders. Each Habitudes book has 13 images (the communications one has 16 images). With each image is a short article on the leadership concept tied to that image. This is then followed by a short Reflect and Respond section, then a self assessment, then an Exercise. The communication volume uses different terms, but it’s the same purpose.

Additional resources available are teaching materials and a DVD for several of the books.

Be advised that there are 2 version of the books and accompanying resources. One is values-based and the other is faith-based. The faith-based materials are for Christian youth groups and the like, while the values-based is for all others. Keep this in mind when ordering the materials.

The 5 books published are:

The Art of Self-Leadership
The Art of Connecting with Others
The Art of Leading Others
The Art of Changing Culture
The Art of Engaging Communication (For Communicators)

If you work with you, these would be a great resource for you, and a creative youth advisor could use these materials for several leadership reflections programs in meetings and events.

Volume one focuses on the concept of “self leadership”, which we have touched on in other Notes. Self-leadership is about how an individual “leads” themselves. The focus is to improve oneself so that one can be a better leader of others.

The next two volumes are kind of flip sides of each other. One is about connecting with others, and the other is about leading others. Are they the same? No, but they are related, as you can’t lead others if you cannot connect with them.

The fourth volume is on changing cultures. This is a concept we have not really touched on (yet) in this series. Many times as leaders we may need to change the culture of the organizations we lead. Some groups may have cultures or practices that hold them back, and so changes much be done if the group is to move forward and be successful.

A recent video was also released in conjunction with the Communication volume that is making the rounds:

Notes #47 Change

2015-05-01T10:00:00.000-07:00

Change is something that all of us must deal with in our lives. As leaders, not only must we deal with change, but sometimes we need to be ‘change agents’, bringing about change in our organizations. Change can be something that is looked forward to. Change can be something that is feared and avoided. We need to understand how to handle change and how to manage it.

A great quote from Einstein that is appropriate here: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.” What is needed is a change in what you do to get the results you want. If your group is stuck in a rut, keep that in mind.

A work that is commonly used to show how individuals can handle change is Spencer Johnson’s Who Moved My Cheese (1998). This book approached the idea with an allegory, a story of 4 characters and how they differ in their handling of change. In this story, cheese represents what we want and what gives us enjoyment. In the story we have 2 mice (Sniff & Scurry) and 2 “littlepeople” (Hem & Haw). All four characters are in a maze looking for cheese. They find a source of cheese and are content, but then change occurs: the cheese is gone from where they assumed it would be. What to the four characters do?

Sniff sniffs out change early and Scurry scurries into action, and these two start looking for new cheese before the change even happens. Hem & Haw don’t. They, like many of us, are resistant to adapt to change. Hem denies and resists change and is fearful it will lead to something worse (don’t we know many like this in our lives). Haw, however, learns to adapt to the change, especially when he sees it will lead to something better. (which really is what we should be doing).

The big points of the work are shown in the “Handwriting on the Wall”:

There are a couple of other versions of this work to be aware of. This book is mainly aimed at adults, especially those in companies. There is another version aimed at teens and another for kids.

Now, any work that is as popular as this one will have criticism. There have been a few satires of it written and some valid criticism. In this work the attitude toward change places no judgment on whether the change is good or bad. And the big point of it is that one must adapt to change, not fight or resist it. Too often companies pass out copies of this book before massive changes, thru a naive belief that this will solve all the problems with rolling out the change. More on these points later in this Note.

While Who Moved My Cheese? deals with how individuals might handle change, as leaders we also have to deal with the fact that WE may be the ones bringing about change. Often times we see that there are ways we can improve our organization, and so change is needed. Or our organization is in trouble, and change is needed before something drastic occurs. How then can we manage this?

John Kotter has probably been the leading author on the topic of change within companies and organizations. His leading work on the topic is Leading Change (1996) which outlines his 8-step process for managing change within companies. He has also written Our Iceberg is Melting (with Holger Rathgeber, 2005), which presents the same idea but in the form of an allegorical story. In the story he has a group of penguins facing a crisis that only one realizes who must convince the others of this fact and get the group to come up with a solution.

His 8-step process is:

Establish a Sense of Urgency
Create a Guiding Coalition
Develop a Vision & Strategy
Communicate a Change Vision
Empower Employees for Broad-based Action
Generate Short-term Wins
Consolidate Gains & Produce More Change
Anchor New Approaches in the Culture

A different work on change is Ken Blanchard et al’s Who Killed Change? (2009). This work looks at the change efforts that are started in companies and organizes but which fail. He focuses on 13 “suspects”, which are really elements that must come together for a successful change to occur, such that if something goes wrong with any of them the whole effort may be doomed. This topic is expanded upon in his recent Leading at a Higher Level (2009), which first presents 15 reasons why change efforts fails. Then it presents the concept of Leading People Through Change Model. This model builds off Situational Leadership with a 9 strategies model that also ties in the 15 reasons for failure.

A big point of all of this is that change happens and many times we must be able to handle it. That said, one point I think that many of these works miss is that change is not always good. The assumption with all these works is that change is good. Any opposing change are doing so because they fear it (examples are the characters of Hem in “Who Moves My Cheese” or the obstructionist penguin Nono in “Our Iceberg is Melting” or several suspects in “Who Killed Change”) or the like. What is overlooked is that perhaps the change being proposed is a bad idea, would lead to disaster and that those who oppose this understand it. I think the assumption in these models is that bad ideas would be caught early on and rejected, but we have examples of change that has been disastrous, so bad ideas DO get accepted. Many companies & organizations have been damaged or gone under due in part to bad changes. For an example, I can give you two words: New Coke.

The next point I should make is about how we manage change in our organizations. As mentioned, too often the approach is to tell people that change is coming and to pass out copies of Who Moved My Cheese?. The unspoken attitude is “here’s the change, you have no say in it, so suck it up.” This will lead to disaster. People are more willing to accept change if it’s been successfully communicated to them AND they are sold on the value of the change. Change will be even MORE successful if people are made PART of the change process, that they feel they have a say in the matter. We’ve said before that as leaders we should have a vision for what we want of our group. If we want to be successful in leading our group to the end point we envision, we MUST communicate this vision (or this change) to our group and get their buy-in. And frankly, this IS the point of the works by Kotter & Blanchard. You see this with Kotter’s having a vision, communicating it, and getting people on board. In Blanchard’s Model also have similar elements (visioning, communication, collaborating). It seems so obvious, but too often it’s overlooked.

I recently saw this in action with another organization I am a part of that rolled out a new brand identity AND a new logo. They kept the whole things under wraps. Selected leaders within the organization where told of what the changes entailed, but were NOT allowed to share it before the big unveil. So that when the unveil occurred, many did NOT like it. The whole thing seemed a classic example of how NOT to manage change. People were resistant because they did not feel they were included in the change (and they weren't). Instead, it was imposed from on high. The organization did a poor job explaining beforehand WHY the change was needed. And then they spent time AFTER the unveil to sell and explain people about it. This is putting the cart before the horse.

So if you are looking at enabling change in your organization, best to have a clear vision of what you want and be prepared to SELL this vision to your members before you start implementing it. Be open to them wanting to contribute to that vision. Heck, they may improve it. Change may be inevitable, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a say in it.

Notes #46 Goal Setting

2015-04-17T19:11:00.000-07:00

For leaders, there are several "soft skills" that is valuable for them to be comfortable with, both on a personal level as well as to use within their organizations. As we have passed the New Years (and the idea of New Year’s Resolutions), I think it’s important to touch on one: Goal Setting. This skill, along with time management and planning are important for all.

Goal Setting is something we all must face. As individuals we should be setting goals for ourselves. The organizations we are part of should be doing the same. Many groups will have an annual planning session in which they review the accomplishments of the group in the past year, including how well they met their goals, set new goals for the coming year, and make plans for the organization. As leaders, we should be comfortable with goal setting ourselves if we expect to lead our groups in setting and keeping their goals.

When speaking of goals, most use the concept of SMART goals (tho one organization I am part of extends this to SMARTER). If you’ve taken any training on goals, you have probably been introduced to the concept. The letters stand for:

Each letter represents an aspect that the goal should meet. Be advised that some sources give different words for some of the letter.

Specific means the goal must be specific, not vague. Basically meeting the “who, what, where, when, why” kind of questions. Usually “what do you want to accomplish”, “why” are you working on the goal, “who is involved”, “when” is a possible location, and “which”- basically any constraints. Having a goal like “I want to do better” or the like is just too vague.

Measurable means the goal must have some way to measure if it’s been achieved, by qualitative or quantitative means (ie amounts or percentages). We want to recruit 10 new members is a good measurable goal. We want more members is not.

Attainable looks at if the goal is attainable: do we have the means (resources) to attain the goal. It’s ok for goals to push or stretch an individual or a team (they can grow from that), but the goal should not be something difficult to achieve.

Relevant is about the goal being a meaningful goal vs one that is silly or unnecessary. Are you willing to achieve that goal?

And finally, you need to set a time for when the goal should be achieved. This could be next week, next month, or next year. But you need to know when it will be accomplished.

Now, I mentioned that some groups extend SMART to SMARTER. What do the extra letters mean? E is Evaluate. This means that you are evaluating the progress of the goals as you go along. This is important to know that if you are halfway on your timeline that you have achieved what you expected at that point, else you need to put more effort OR take another action. R is for Revisit. This means revisiting the goal and changing it if there is a problem.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you can have different kinds of goals. Some goals may be long term (several months to a year or more). Some may be short term (weeks or months). Some may be in between. Sometimes short term goals lead into long term goals. A long term goal may be to graduate from college. Medium term goals would be the successful completion of coursework to graduate. Short term goals would be the assignments and work that goes into completing those individual courses.

As noted, as individuals we need to set goals for ourselves and work to accomplish them. These goals can be of various kinds. Some may be personal. Some may be tied to work, school, or the organizations we are involved in.

Also, groups should have goals. Goals for groups may deal with growth of the group, meeting the purpose of the group and the like. Many organizations, to help their constituent groups meet goals, will have programs that push their groups to do better. These may be called quality or distinguished programs that are based on recognizing the groups for meeting defined goals. While many people put down these programs, they fail to understand the underlying purpose of such programs. They are all built around the basic goals that those particular groups should be achieving, such as membership group, meeting the purposes of the group for the membership and the like. If only groups would take these programs more seriously, the groups could be more successful.

As with all of the Leaders Notes, I have tried to find works that tie in to the topic, to give people further materials to learn from. But I wasn’t that successful with this. Ken Blanchard in his works touches on goal setting in his original One Minute Manager, but doesn't get into SMART. He does cover the concept in his later Leading at a Higher Level (2006, 2009). Goal setting is also part of Covey’s 7 Habits, but he also doesn’t make use of SMART. If others have some good resources, let me know.

I did find a couple of videos that illustrate this concept that I think may be of use. The first is part of a series- Venture Guide: SMART Goals

The second is an animated video using xtra normal:

Notes #45 Situational Self-Leadership

2015-04-03T10:00:00.000-07:00

In prior Notes, we covered the concept of Situational Leadership, which deals with how a leader needs to change their manner of leadership with a follower as the situation changes, and the concept of Situational Team Leadership, which applies the concept to the stages of Team Development (sometimes these are called the Team Development Model and the Team Leadership Model). With this Note, we ‘complete the trilogy’, so to speak, by covering Situational Self-Leadership. This applies the concept of Situational Leadership to “self leadership”. This concept is covered by Ken Blanchard’s Self-Leadership and the One Minute Manager (2005) as well as in a chapter of his more recent Leading at a Higher Level (2006, 2009).

What is “self-leadership”?? Self leaders are those who take the initiative to get things done. And this means that to be an effective self leader, you need the skills (or seek out those skills) to help enable you to do so. And this may (should) include going to others, including other leaders, to get the assistance to get things done. This means seeking out others to serve as mentors/coaches. This means using skills like assertiveness, self motivation, time management, and others. (and many of these skills and others will be touched on by future Notes).

Now, to Blanchard et al, it is thru self-leadership that makes empowerment work. (which is why I did that previous Notes on that topic. See, there is some logic in the topics I cover). As Blanchard puts it “Empowerment is what leaders give to their people. Self leadership is what people do to make empowerment work.”

First off, Blanchard covers what is called the 3 Skills of a Self Leader. Which are:

Challenge Assumed Constraints
Celebrate Your Points of Power
Collaborate for Success

Challenge assumed constraints is about challenging any belief (assumed constraint) that holds you back. These beliefs are limits that have been mistakenly imposed. Assuming you aren’t allowed to do something, when such a limitation actually doesn’t exist is a perfect example. We see this many times when the youth who think they can’t do something, so don’t even try. We as advisors sometimes have to remind them that yes, they can do that, and we are here to help them do so.

Celebrate your points of power, deals with 5 “points of power”. These are position, personal, task, relationship, and knowledge. Many aren’t aware of these. Position is the job or position you hold. Many positions come with certain power. Personal is about your skills and ability. Some may be innate, some you may develop. Task is about a task or job. Some carry with them a certain power. Relationship is about your relationship with others, and being able to call up them and their points of power. Knowledge is about a special expertise or skill. With these points of power, you are able to get things done.

Collaborate for success is where self leaders take the initiative to get direction and support to achieve their goal. And this is where Situational Leadership comes in, tho here it’s sort of ‘turned on its head’; where the self leader must self diagnose where they are and what support they need. In fact, the SL quadrant becomes a Needs Model.

So, here then, is the “Needs Model”

Here, the left-right axis goes from being task support to directive behavior. The up-down axis goes from relationship to supportive behavior. The four quadrants (1-4) remain the same: directing, coaching, supporting, and delegating.

Readiness levels still exist:

Here, the self-leader is working to improve their task or skill or achieve a goal. And the terms for these levels are a little different:

D1- enthusiastic beginner (low competence, high commitment)

D2- disillusioned learner (low/some competence, low commitment)

D3- capable but cautious performer (moderate-high competence, variable commitment)

D4- self-reliant achiever (high competence, high commitment)

So as the self-leader works thru these stages, he is “collaborating for success” with his leader to help achieve his goal/task:

behavior style

D1 -> Telling/Guiding/Directing

D2 -> Selling/Persuading, explaining

D3 -> Participating/encouraging, problem solving

D4 -> Delegating

But again, the difference here is that the self-leader is initiating the conversation, so to speak. In Situational Leadership, the leader oversees the follower and helps them move thru the readiness levels. In Situational Self-leadership, the self-leader seeks out the leader to help them move thru the levels. In some ways it’s more of a mentoring relationship, then a leader-follower relationship. Further, as I look at both empowerment and self-leadership, these concepts fit hand in glove with servant leadership. Realize that a big part of servant leadership is the leader serving those they lead, helping them develop into leaders themselves. So empowerment & self-leadership is the flip side of this, where the follow is coming to the (servant) leader for guidance/help in developing themselves.

Notes #44 Jim Collin’s Level 5 Leadership

2015-03-20T10:00:00.000-07:00

Jim Collins is a business consultant and researcher who has written (or co-written) several successful works on business, all based on extensive research. His works include Built to Last (1994 with Jarry Porras) which looked at what caused some companies to be enduring successes; Good to Great (2001) looked at what enabled some companies to go from just a “good” company to a “great” one; How the Mighty Fall (2009) focused on what caused formerly great companies to fail; and most recently Great by Choice (2011 with Morten Hansen).

Ok. At this point, most would be asking “so what?” This blog isn't about business books per say. And you’re right. We are actually only going to look at one of these books: Good to Great. And we are doing so for a couple of reasons. One is that the author’s research indicated that it was the leadership of companies is what was helped these companies make the leap from good to great. Secondly, many organizations, including non-profit groups, have been using Good to Great as a model for how they can enable their group to make the same leap. So much so that Collins’ wrote a monograph for Good to Great on its usage in non-profits called Good to Great and the Social Sectors (2005). (“social sector” being the author’s term for non-profit groups).

I should point out that I debated whether or not to cover this concept in this series. The concepts here are more applicable (I think) to large organizations, not small groups like local clubs and organizations (which is more the focus of this blog). But I think that this would be a good intro to these concept that local leaders may be exposed to elsewhere, and the concepts could be applied to organizations at various levels.

Now, at this point I think it’s VERY important to note that when it comes to applying business practices to non-profit groups, that it’s not always a good idea. Some concepts can be applied. Some cannot. The mistake some make is applying what shouldn't be, and not applying what can be. Some concepts (like leadership) can be used by both companies and non-profit groups (concepts such as Situational Leadership). But we need to keep in mind that often non-profit groups are made up of paid employees and unpaid members and volunteers, so even then, leadership must be applied differently for these groups, as their reasons for being there and what motivates them can be very different. Some concepts can NOT be applied. For a business, profits are a measurement of its success. This is not so with non-profits. Many time, non-profits can’t speak in terms of serving customers or customer satisfaction when they don't have customers they serve, but their membership. You need other means to measure success. Other make the mistake of being on the extreme of this, thinking that everything can be applied or that nothing can be. Neither are correct.

Hence, it’s so important that those who want to make use of the concepts of Good to Great make use of the separate monograph on the Social Sector, as it does a good job of showing how the concepts can be used.

So what then are the concepts of the book/monograph?

First up is to define that an organization is Great. It’s important that the right outputs are used as a measurement. Again, with companies, profits are the method. But for non-profits, this does not work. So instead, use “superior performance”, “distinctive impact”, and “lasting endurance” at the output. For social sector, performance is the results and efficiency in delivering on the mission of the group; impact is how the organization makes a unique contribution to the community and does its work with such excellence that should it disappear, its absence could not easily be filled; and endurance is that the organization can deliver results over a long period of time.

To get to that, you do so by applying the “Good-to-Great” framework, which is 4 steps:

Step 1: Level 5 Leadership and “First Who, Then What” (Disciplined People)

Step 2: Confront the Brutal Facts and the Hedgehog Concept (Disciplined Thought)

Step 3: Culture of Discipline and the Flywheel (Disciplined Action)

Step 4: Clock Building, not Time Telling and Preserve the Core/Stimulate Progress (Building Greatness to Last)

These concepts are what are covered in the book and monograph. Let’s take them in these 4 steps.

The concept of Level 5 Leadership is built up of these 5 levels:

Now, these are interesting levels. And the goal is to have leaders at the top who are at Level 5. What is not covered is how do you get people from Level 1 to Level 5? And I find Level 5 very interesting. Because the description of the Level 5 Executive matches the Stage 5 Tribal Leader concept covered in a previous Note AND the concept of the servant leader/humble leader as well.

Now, going back to the 4 steps. First Who is what is referred to as Get the right people on the bus. In other words, get the right people and leaders in charge of the whole thing. And let’s be honest, in many organizations that can be hard (sometimes harder than in a company), as the process of defining who is the leader can be very politicized. Doesn't matter if the leadership is elected or appointed, too often the wrong people will try to control things.

Confront the Brutal Facts is pretty much what it sounds like. If there are problems within an organization, these need to be brought forth and addressed. Too often they are not, with the consequences of such.

The Hedgehog Concept is another unique idea of the work. It’s about addressing what will produce long term results. It’s built on 3 overlapping circles: Passion, Best at, and Resource Engine. Passion is what your organization stands for (core values) and why it exists (mission). Best at is what the organization is uniquely able to do or deliver. And the Resource Engine is what drives the engine of the organization: time, money, brand. And what is important in the Hedgehog Concept is that these 3 circles must connect and reinforce each other. They are not separated.

In a non-profit, you still need to be mindful of where the money comes from. In the monograph is an interesting quadrant chart showing various non-profits in 4 areas, based on where the money comes from: government, private donations, charity with business revenue, and business revenue.

Culture of Discipline is about making disciplined decisions. Sometime groups for various reasons (wanting to “do good” or pressure from donors) get into areas they shouldn't, to the determent of the organization. Make bad decisions. Grow for the wrong reasons. Get involved with certain areas or events they shouldn't. So it’s important to be disciplined and sometimes say “no”.

Turning the Flywheel is another unique idea of this work. It’s about building momentum in the organization, which attracts more momentum. Success breeds success as it also attracts people to it. It’s shown in this way: Attract Believers (time, money) -> Build Strength (First Who, Clock Building) -> Demonstrate Results (Mission Success, Trend Lines) -> Build Brand (reputation, emotion) and so on. We see this in many growing groups. It’s successful and things grow. But something goes wrong and things go into decline.

Clock Building, not Time Telling is a kind of warning that some organizations get complacent. They should be building a sustainable organization (clock building) not focusing on certain projects or coming under the control of a particular leader (and their wants/desires) (time telling). With that the organization needs to Preserve the Core/Stimulate Progress. Again, sometimes organizations get away from their core reason for existing and they need to avoid falling into a rut.

Now, there are criticisms of the book. Nothing this popular can avoid it. Good to Great was built on research with several companies. However, soon after the book came out, a few of those companies went under or had major crises. Some feel that invalided the research. And there is a general concern that the data could have shown different conclusions. It’s not clear what non-profits were used for the monograph on the Social Sectors, but the Girl Scouts of the USA were cited several times. Regardless, check into this further.

Notes #43 Empowerment

2015-03-06T10:00:00.000-08:00

For those of us who work in a corporate environment, you may be familiar with the concept of empowerment, which was almost a fad a couple of decades ago. But is it still relevant, and what does it matter for the people in our organizations? Read on.

Within companies, empowerment was a new way of dealing with employees. The idea basically was that employees would be “empowered” with the ability to make certain decisions on their own, rather than needing to go to a supervisor or manager. There are several works on the topic, but some I feel are useful are by Ken Blanchard. With co-authors, he wrote two books on the topic: Empowerment takes More than a Minute (1996, 2001) and 3 Keys to Empowerment (1999). His recent work, Leading at a Higher Level (2006, 2009), which has been mentioned in previous Notes, also devoted a chapter to the topic. The first book is probably most important, as it introduces the concept and three key elements that make it work. It does so in the style of his One Minute Manager series, with a fictionalized story. The second is a follow on giving further information on implementation.

The important thing to keep in mind is that empowerment is not “giving power to people.” This is (and was) a frequent misunderstanding. Empowerment was always about fully engaging people, allowing them to make use of their own knowledge, experience and motivation to get things done. To allow them to be more than just automatons.

So, what then are the 3 keys? They are: share information with everyone, create autonomy through boundaries and replace the old hierarchy with self-managed teams.

And frankly, these should not be radical concepts. I would even say that if you understand the concept of servant leadership, this works within that philosophy. And in membership organizations, this is how we should be working already.

Sharing information with everyone. By and large, why should any information be kept from members? Now, there may be some information that does need to be kept for reasons of privacy (information about the organization's employees, for instance) or legality (contracts, court cases and the like). But most information should not be kept hidden. Members should know what is going on in the organization. How it is doing? What are the finances? When information is kept from members, this should be a sign that something is wrong.

Create autonomy thru boundaries. Well, what are these boundaries? These boundaries are things like purpose, values, goals, roles and the like. Many topics we’ve covered in past Notes. Organizations benefit by defining these things and making sure everyone knows these. These are done thru items like bylaws, rules & regulations, standing rules, goals & objectives, organizational plans and the like. Again, organizations suffer when they fail to define even basic things OR they define them but then either keep them secret from the members or fail to inform their members of them.

Replace the old hierarchy with self-managed teams. In most companies, you have a top-down “command & control” hierarchy. Many companies have found that by replacing them with self-managed teams and empowered individuals, they are much more successful. Within organizations, the same is true. Having a top-down, command & control structure, where the members have little or no power (other then maybe selecting their leaders), there are problems. When members understand and recognize that it’s the members are the ones who have the power and should be the ones involved in decisions that things are better. Also, most organizations have things getting done by committees made up of these members, allowing for more people to be involved and help make things happen. It has the added value of getting more people engaged and allow the organization to benefit from the diverse talent of its membership.

So, while in general the concept of “empowerment” may seem to apply mainly to a business environment, I think that most of them can also be applied to member organizations, which I tried to illustrate above. As noted, the issue is that in member organizations, the members are the ones who should hold the power, but too often organizations do not operate that way (sometimes this is due to the members not understanding that this is how it should be done). Thus the power is often times taken by those who lead or run the organizations.

Taking a different view of all this, empowerment can also be applied to what is known as “youth empowerment”. Youth empowerment is about enabling youth to have a say in their development as individuals, to give them a voice in the process, and provide them opportunities to grow and develop as individuals. And is that NOT what we should be doing in youth organizations? Youth empowerment takes on several forms as well.

There is the concept of “student-centered learning- approach” within education, where the focus is the needs of the students, rather than what those running the education (teachers and administrators) think it should be. To a degree, the open-ended approach of some youth organizations fits in well here. This allows for the youth to focus on what it is that interests them, and enable them to become more knowledgeable in that area.

There is the concept of “service learning”, which is a method that links learning with service. Instead of just doing service (say a service project), you then link that service to an element of learning and reflecting. So doing a leadership challenge that links in service could fall into it. I’ve heard the term “service learning” of late, but not within the scouting world.

There is the concept of “youth leadership development”, which we should all be familiar with within scouting, as this is seen in our courses such as ILSC, NYLT, NAYLE, Kodiak Challenge and the like. Actually helping youth develop as leaders. We both teach them leadership, and we give them the chance to be leaders, not just within the crew, but with opportunities at higher levels. To use a phase that was briefly used in Wood Badge: “Teach Them, Trust Them, Let Them Lead.”

So hopefully one can see that there is much more to empowerment. Let’s see how we can apply this in our units.

Notes #42 The Leadership Challenge

2015-02-20T10:00:00.000-08:00

The Leadership Challenge by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner is now in its fifth edition (2012). It’s proved to be a very popular work, spawning workshops, a conference, and various support materials, including a 360 degree assessment tool (the Leadership Practices Inventory) and a journal, a workbook and activities book. It’s even lead to a version developed for students, which can be used in high school or college level programs. The Student Leadership Challenge (2nd edition, 2014) has its own LPI and support material. (I plan to look at this in depth in a future Notes) Information on all this can be found at the website www.leadershipchallenge.com, which has a variety of material available.

The authors of the LC set out to research and interview leaders about leadership itself. From this research, which included leadership in both business and non-profit groups, they developed their model of leadership. They make a big point that their work is based on 25 years of research.

The core of their model is a set of 5 practices. These practices enable leaders to get extraordinary things done. The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership are:

These 5 Practices are built on 10 Commitments of Leadership (essential behaviors), basically 2 commitments per practice, with these commitments based on fundamental principles. These are:

More fully, Model the Way is about having a set of values, being clear about those values, and expressing them to others. People then see that the leader is true to the values expressed, they will be more willing to work with the leader.

Inspired a Shared Vision is about have a compelling vision; visualize that and communicating it to others. Part is that is the leader listening to the dreams (visions) of others, and showing them how those dreams can be realized.

In previous Notes, we’ve have covered both the importance of having ethics and values and adhering to them, as well as the importance of having a vision and expressing that vision to those we lead.

Challenge the Process is about being willing to change the status quo and step into the unknown. What is sometimes called “thinking outside the box”: being willing to innovate, grow, and improve. It’s also about risk taking, as the leader often must be a pioneer in doing some new and challenging. This can also require learning from mistakes, as sometimes what is being tried out may not work as expected.

Enable Others to Act is about working with people. Teamwork, collaboration, and cooperation are what it’s all about. The leader must build trust, and be willing to listen to over points of view and treat others with respect. This also includes allowing others to step up and make decisions and support them. (this is what a servant leader does in developing others and mentoring them)

Encourage the Heart is about reward and recognizing others for their accomplishments. While that seems so obvious, it’s a concept that needs to be re-emphasized because some people seem to forget it. The authors have also created additional materials just on this topic such as a book and workbook.

As noted, the LC is a big concept. The support material they have is intended to help people develop these behaviors. I think The Student Leadership Challenge would be a work of value for those working with young leaders to use. The activity book is full of a variety of activities to help develop these behaviors.

The authors also have a fairly new work out, The Truth About Leadership. This smaller work contains 10 “truths” about leadership, all which tie into the 5 Practices. The 10 Truths are:

You Make a Difference
Credibility is the Foundation of Leadership
Values Drive Commitment
Focusing on the Future Sets Leaders Apart
You Can’t do it Alone
Trust Rules
Challenge is the Crucible for Greatness
You Either Lead by Example or you Don’t Lead At All
The Best Leaders are the Best Learners
Leadership is an Affair of the Heart

As this is a shorter work, it may be of value to start with this one, before tackling the larger “Leadership Challenge” work.

Notes #41 Communication & Presentation

2015-02-06T10:00:00.000-08:00

As leaders we need to be communicators. This is important for many aspects of leadership. As leaders we should develop a vision. But what good is that vision if we are unable to convey that vision to those we lead such that they accept and buy in to that vision. In leading people, we must be able to communicate with them, and that includes finding out what they need and want. This communication could be one on one or small groups.

Too often communication is seen as being totally separate from leadership. There are programs and classes on speech and communication, but divorced from leadership. On the flip-side, sometimes people think that leaders must be great orators. Well, yes, some have been, for good or bad. But there have also been quiet people who are great leaders as well, but they still were able to communicate.

And always keep in mind that communication can be written as well as verbal. Can you organize your thoughts, put them down in a form that others can understand? This, too is important.

The recent movie, The King’s Speech illustrates this issue. It’s based on the true story about King George VI of England, who was king during WWII. He suffered all his life with stuttering, which impacted his ability to communicate. Since his older brother would be king, that wasn't seen as too important. It is interesting in the movie how we see his father showing him the importance of the ruler to be able to communicate with his subjects, now thru the medium of radio. When his brother must abdicate the thrown, he then becomes the next king, and his stuttering issue becomes more important. We see in the film how the assistance of Lionel Logue helps him manage and be able to be a better communicator, and thus a better leader.

Often times we can see this with others, when their poor communication skills affects their ability to be a leader, even when it’s at the level of a local club. I've seen this in small groups I’m in, where due to the poor communication skills of the group’s leaders, certain poor decisions were made because of this. There are solutions. A previous Notes I covered some of the programs of Toastmasters that are available to that can help people become better communicators.

An aspect of communications that is important is being a good presenter. This is more than just being a good speaker; it’s about conveying a message. An excellent resource for this is the book The Exceptional Presenter (2007) by Timothy Koegel. This book is a sort of combination of a manual and workbook. There is great information in it, presented bit by bit, but also includes exercises to help practice the concepts being given. Quite honestly, many of the things he covers is also covered in Toastmasters.

The book is built around the idea of OPEN UP! This stands for the six characteristics the presenters must have:

Organized- be prepared, organized, have a clear message that is conveyed well.
Passionate- have enthusiasm and conviction.
Engaging- build rapport with the audience.
Natural- have a conversational style.
Understand your Audience- if you better know this, the easier it is to engage them.
Practice- the only way to improve is practice.

Here is an interesting interview with him on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAd_ScIl0Yw

A recent phenomenon that is growing in usage is the virtual meeting. This can often times take the form of an on-line meeting or webinar, when usually a powerpoint presentation is given, with someone presenting it verbally. There are a lot of differences between this and traditional presentations, as the presenter does not get the immediate feedback from their audience. Koegel’s more recent The Exceptional Presenter Goes Virtual was written to address this. As the cost of being able to do on-line meetings and presentations decreases, we may see an increase of these within our community.

Notes #40 Leadership at the Movies I

2015-01-23T10:00:00.000-08:00

Most people probably love to watch movies. They can entertain. Make us laugh or cry (or both). Many of them have a lesson to teach. It’s in those we want to look at. Often times with leadership, being able to show our students examples of leadership (sometimes good, sometimes bad) can be a powerful way of helping them understand leadership.

Movies are a great way to do so. In several leadership courses I've been involved in over the years, movies (or selections from movies) have been part of the program.

In your own group or organization, showing movies can be very useful, not just for the entertainment value, but from the lessons they show. This will hopefully be the first of several Notes to illustrate movies (and maybe tv shows) that can illustrate lessons of leadership. Doing so should not be strange. In doing some of the research for this Note, I found a few books that are about that, such as Movies to Manage By and Reel Lessons in Leadership. (I have not reviewed these books, but would hope they could be valuable resources).

In looking at any movie for the purposes of teaching leadership, we have to ask ourselves a few questions:

“What is the movie’s message/theme?”
“Who is it appropriate for?” (Is it too young or too old for my audience?)
“What are you trying to teach?”
“How does it tie in with the overall program of your organization or group?”

It’s best to understand these before showing the movie for the whole group. And don’t just show it cold. Prepare some setup. Ask some open ended questions so the members are thinking of these as they watch the movie. Then afterwards have a discussion about what the lessons of the movie were. But always keep in mind to keep this all fun, and not turn it into a boring school lesson.

This time we will look at 5 movies: Mr. Holland’s Opus, Apollo 13, 12 Angry Men, Remember the Titans, and The Emperor’s Club.

Do you know the impact you make in the lives of others? Sometimes we don’t know until much later. The movie, Mr. Holland’s Opus, illustrates this in the 30-year career of a high school music teacher, Mr. Holland (played by Richard Dreyfus). Mr. Holland is a composer, who decides to take up a teaching position to have more time to be with his family and compose. But over time, you see his struggles (and triumphs) in instilling a love of music to his students. In the end, it’s all for not, as he is let go after 30 years. Or was it?

There can be some comparison with the experiences of Mr. Holland and some youth leaders, as well as the students (and what they go thru) with members of your group. He faces some tough choices at times, both good and bad.

Apollo 13 is about the disastrous mission to the moon that almost ended in tragedy. When an oxygen tank in the Lunar Module explodes, the issue isn't that they may not make the moon, but that they might not make it back at all. While the NASA team in Houston and at the Cape work on a solution to bring them home, including an astronaut that got bumped from the flight, Commander Jim Lovell (played by Tom Hanks) must keep his team together so they all come home safely. It’s the effort of both groups that ensures that the effort to get home is a success.

12 Angry Men is about a group of jurors deciding what should be a simple murder trial. The whole thing is set in the jury room (it was originally a teleplay, later made into a movie, remade again, and made a Broadway play). My personal favorite version is the 1957 movie starring Henry Fonda as the hold out juror. This juror has his doubts, which he expresses as “I’d don’t know. What do you think?” By his questioning the evidence, he (and the other jurors) realize that the case isn't so open and closed, and slowly the other jurors come over to his side. More problematic are the ones who made their decision NOT on the evidence, but on some other deep seated issues. These are brought out during the movie and dealt with.

The big point of this movie is bringing a group around to a decision, building consensus without browbeating or coercion, but persuasion. And sometimes people make their decisions NOT for rational reasons, but emotional ones, which must be addressed.

Remember the Titans is a classic movie of the high school sports team genre. Based on a true story, it tells of a high school football team at a newly integrated school. The new black coach of the team is Herman Boone (played by Denzel Washington), who replaces the white coach Bill Yoast (played by Will Patton) who stays on as an assistant coach. Boone needs to build the players, black and white, into a team, which will not be easy. In addition to the issues within the team are the issues outside the team that also try to tear them apart. Yoast, who is up for the state coach’s Hall of Fame, is basically told he can get in if the Titans lose a game. But Yoast rebels against that, as it would hurt the team, at a cost of getting in. But thru Boone’s hard work, the team comes together and is an example for others. This movie is an excellent example of building a team, and you can see examples of team development going on.

The Emperor’s Club is a movie similar in some ways with Mr. Holland’s Opus, as both look at the impact of a teacher on their students, but different in other ways. Here the impact is more focused and the impact is on being an ethical and honorable person.

Kevin Kline plays William Hundert, a professor of classical studies at a private prep school. He attempts to mentor a particular student, and find that the student not only lacks the drive for education, but ethical behavior, which he gotten from his father. Despite his best efforts, Hundert is unable to turn this student around, as is shown years later at a reunion of students from the school. But where Hundert may have failed with this student, he didn’t fail with others.

As noted, I hope this will be the first of several Notes on this subject. Several more movies will be covered in future selections. If you have suggestions for other movies, please post comments on them.

Notes #39 Stephen Covey and his 7 Habits

2015-01-09T10:00:00.000-08:00

There are those works which are so popular that many people just blow them off. The works of the late Stephen Covey fall into that category. They've been around for so long that too often people overlook them. And like most popular works, he has his detractors, who are put off by numbered lists and charts (6 these and 5 those and the like). While his works seem to principally focus on managing your time, which is a skill that all leaders need, there is a lot more to his works then that. There is a lot to his works that require more than a superficial reading.

His first and major work is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (1989, revised edition 2004, 25th Anniversary edition 2013). As the name says, it focused on 7 activities or habits (they are habits, because they are things that we should be in the habit of doing) that everyone should follow to be effective in their life and activities (that can include your job, career, school, or what have you).

What are these 7 Habits? These are them:

The Habits are gathered into 3 groups. The first group is about yourself (Independence), what some call ‘self mastery’. As you are responsible for your life, you need to move from being dependent on others to being independent. Being proactive means you determine what you do, and more importantly, that you take action on it. Proactive people don’t blame others or circumstance for their behavior. They understand that that is something they are responsible for.

Having an end in mind means you have a goal (or goals), what you are trying to achieve. What do you want to accomplish? And once you have this, you can start putting into action what you need to do to get there.

And putting first things first is about managing your time wisely. Time management is a very valuable skill that most of us have never mastered. And it’s not just something that only business people need.

The second group is about working with others (Interdependence). When you think “win-win”, you are working to come up with solutions that benefit all sides. It’s really all about how we interact with others. Conflict often occurs, but if you work to understand the other side and then help them understand your side, this can minimize the conflict, and help lead to that win-win solution. This is the basis for all effective communication. And synergy is about people coming together and by doing so, achieving and doing something greater then themselves.

The third group is about self-renewal. “Sharpen the saw” is about learning and preparing yourself so you can achieve your best. It comes from an old story. Someone is asked to cut down a tree and how long it will take. He tells them 3 hours. 2 and half to sharpen his ax, a half hour to cut it down. It’s the sharpening of the ax that ensures an easy half hour to cut it down. But we often times don’t think of this for ourselves. And this preparation takes several forms: physical, emotional, mental, and social.

Now, for something that is so successful, there are a LOT of add ons to this. Covey and his associates have come up with journals and notebooks and the like for people to use to put this to use. Covey merged his company with Franklin, a maker of planners, so a lot of product should be expected. His younger son Sean has put out a version for teens and another for kids. There is a version for family. There are also books giving success stories (Living the 7 Habits).

A different book is First Things First (1994), which focuses on the issue of time management, expanded on that Habit, something that all of us face. Covey’s method is that all the things we want to do can be categories into one of four groups. These groups are put into a quadrant of urgency & importance:

The idea is that by understand what category something falls, we can better management things. We want to manage our activities so we are doing #2 items at the right time (not allowing them to become urgent). #1 items may come up without our control. By better managing (helped by realizing this) the #3 and 4 items, we can better focus on the #2 items.

This is a great video that illustrates some of his concepts of time management:

Principle-Center Leadership (1990) is Covey’s work on leadership. His view is that leadership should be based on certain principles. Instead of 7 Habits, his concept is built on 4 levels, each with a principle. These 4 levels and principles are:

Personal- Trustworthiness
Interpersonal- Trust
Managerial- Empowerment
Organizational- Alignment

The personal level is your relationship with yourself. Interpersonal is your relationships and interactions with others. Managerial is your responsibility to get the job done with others. Organizational is your need to organize people (recruit, train, compensate, build teams, solve problems, etc).

The principles are characteristics you need to master. And many of them build on each other. Trust builds on Trustworthiness, which is based on character (what you are as a person) and competence (what you can do). If one lacks either character or competence, you won’t be trusted. While not expressly stated, I think that Covey’s “principle-based leadership” has overlap with servant leadership. Just reading over his characteristics of principle-center leaders, you see a lot of matchup.

The 8^th Habit (2004) is a true sequel to the 7 Habits. It adds a new habit to the mix:

8^th Habit- Find your voice and help others find theirs

The purpose of this Habit is to help people achieve “greatness”. Greatness being fulfillment, passionate execution, and significant contribution. This in many ways ties into new attitudes regarding leadership, such as servant leadership. This book may be for some a more philosophical work then the original 7 Habits, but there are some good material in here of interest.

The book also talks of "6 Cancers" that inhibit people's greatness: Cynicism, Criticism, Comparing, Competing, Complaining, Contending.

Covey’s final work is The 3rd Alternative (2011). This work deals with conflict and conflict resolution, and again builds off the Win-Win Habit, but goes much further. The 1st Alternative is “my way” and the 2nd Alternative is “your way”. 3rd Alternative is the one that moves *beyond* your way or my way to a higher and better way—one that allows both parties to emerge from debate or even heated conflict in a far better place than either had envisioned. With the 3rd Alternative, nobody has to give up anything, and everyone wins. But for many of us, it’s hard to get there.

Notes #38: More Games (Sam Sikes, Chris Cavert, Jim Cain and more)

2014-12-19T10:00:00.000-08:00

So here we have one more (maybe final) Notes on games (cooperative, initiative, etc). This one, unlike the prior one, has LOTS of resources. I guess that makes up for the dearth of that one. Here I give a very high level overview of several resources and authors I have come across (not all I have used and read, but when I see the same peoples’ work available from several sources, I have to think it should be of value). So who are these people? In no particular order.

Sam Sikes- founder of Learning Unlimited later left to form DoingWorks. He has authored/coauthored “Feeding the Zircon Gorilla”, “Executive Marbles”, “Raptor”, “50 Ways to Use your Noodle”, “50 More Ways to Use your Noodle”, and “The More the Merrier”.

Jim Cain- website is Teamwork & Teamplay, part of The Adventure Group. One group within this is Adventure Hardware which is a great source of books and equipment, tho Jim points people to Training Wheels (see below) as the source for his books and props. Jim is the author/co-author of “Teamwork & Teamplay”, “Raccoon Circles”, “Teambuilding Puzzles”, “A Teachable Moment” and others. At his site is a free RaccoonCircle document and there are more resources at his site.

Chris Cavert- founder of Fundoing and author/coauthor of “Ricochet”, “Games for Groups” Books 1 & 2, “Games for Teacher”, “Games for Change”, “Affordable Portables” , “Teambuilding Puzzles”, “50 Ways to Use your Noodle”, “50 More Ways to Use your Noodle”, “The More the Merrier”, “E.A.G.E.R Curriculum”, “The Empty Bag” and others.

Michelle Cummings- founder of Training Wheels and author/coauthor of “Playing with a Full Deck”, “A Teachable Moment” and others. Also offered is a free e-newsletter, “The Spokesperson” and a free downloadable sample from “Playing with a Full Deck” if you subscribe. Training Wheels has a webstore (most of the sites do) with lots of resources (probably the most of those noted here). It’s almost overwhelming.

Tom Heck- founder of Teachmeteamwork.com, which is now the International Association of Teamwork Facilitators (IATF), a membership organization. He is the author/coauthor of “Duck Tape Teambuilding Games”, “Teambuilding Puzzles”, “Teamwork Cards” and more. Also offered is a free newsletter, and they have a lot of resources on their website.

Tom Jackson- founder of Active Learning Foundation. He is the author of “Activities That Teach”, “More Activities That Teach”, “Activities that Teach Family Values”, “Still More Activities that Teach”, and “Conducting Group Discussions with Kids”.

Now, as to these works.

Feeding the Zircon Gorilla, Executive Marbles, and Raptor are Sam Sikes' books of team building activities. They have some really neat and fun activities in them. Some need props, others not.

Noodles, for those not aware, are these closed cell foam ‘sticks’ used at pools and on the beach. But they can be used as part of various games and activities. Sam Sikes and Chris Calvert (with contributions from Jim Cain) have put together two books on them: 50 Ways to Use your Noodle, 50 More Ways to Use your Noodle. For these, you’ll need several ‘noodles’, and there are sources out there on-line to get them.

Ricochet, by Chris Cavert, is a book devoted to activities using a weird, multi-knobbed ball called an “odd ball”. You can get this ball from several of the sources above, and sometimes they will sell the book with the ball.

Chris Cavert has a series of four game books. “Games for Groups” Books 1 & 2 are collections of 5-10 minute activities to get groups discussing on a variety of topics. “Games for Change” is actually by Tim and Lisa Dodds, and has more games for groups. These have an added element that these games have a spiritual aspect, for use by faith-based organizations. “Games for Teachers” (written with Laurie Frank), the final book in the series, is a collection of games for teachers to use in a classroom settings to develop pro-social skills like listening, patience, and similar.

Many of the games and activities covered in this and previous Notes need many props or portables. Buying or making them can be costly. So the book, Affordable Portables (2^nd edition, 1999), edited by Cavert, focuses on games that have inexpensive portables. Many of these activities are taken from a wide range of authors. It’s also recommend that one use this book as a supplement to others, as there is very scant information on the process or facilitation of these activities.

The Empty Bag by Dick Hammond and Chris Cavert, is one of several books focusing on prop-less games and activities. I had mentioned Rohnke’s Backpocket Adventures in a previous Notes, and there is also the book No Props from Project Adventure. These are always good addition to your collection of game resources.

Dr. Jim Cain is known for a few major works in this area. The first is Teamwork & Teamplay (1998, with Barry Jolliff). This is a massive book, similar to Rohnke’s “Quicksilver” and “Funn n Games”. Most of the work is taken up by games and activities, but there is an interesting introductory section with recommended reading (something I’ve not seen in other works), and at the end of the book is a long section of recommended resources (books, orgs, and others). Be advised that due to the age of this work, some resources may no longer be valid. Raccoon Circles (2002, revised & expanded 2007, with Tom Smith) is devoted to a ton of activities using a “raccoon circle”, which is a 15 foot piece of tubular webbing tied in a circle. Teambuilding Puzzles (with Chris Cavert and Tom Heck) is another good resource of games and activities for teams. A Teachable Moment (with Michelle Cummings and Jennifer Stanchfield) is also a good resource, with good information on how to facilitate the games. His latest books are Rope Games and Find Something To Do. I have not seen them.

Playing with a Full Deck by Michelle Cummings, is a book focused on activities using a deck of cards. I've come across a few books like that, where the focus is activities that use a certain item (the “Ricochet” and “Raccoon Circles” books above). Others I’ve come across include Duck Tape Teambuilding by Tom Heck and Beaucoup Bandanas by Sara Shaw. These do give you a resource of games using inexpensive props to add to your mix.

I have not used the works by Tom Jackson, Activities That Teach, More Activities That Teach, and Still More Activities that Teach, but have seen them listed at several sites and in several of the books. If it’s not clear, these books have activities to teach various things. There is a combined list of all the activities and their purpose at his site. Some of the activities deal with helping people with alcohol, drugs, and the like. But other activities are to teach time management, communication, decision making and more.

Finally, a word of warning when looking for books and other resources. In most cases, you can’t go wrong using Amazon for getting books (both new and used), and I have included direct links to Amazon. However, for some of these works, I found that Amazon doesn't carry them, so it’s usually other people selling them (new or used) thru Amazon at a much higher price than they should be (ex: asking $60 for a $20 book). You need to check out the various webstores at the above sites (also, check out the website for Woodn Barnes, which is a publisher that specializes in the area of experiential learning and published many of the above works and the website of Kendall-Hunt, which is an educational publisher who has published many of the above works). And you’ll need to compare, as I found in a few cases where prices were different (by as much as $10) between certain sites for certain items. Same goes for looking for props and equipment.

Notes #37: Servant Leadership Redux I

2014-12-05T10:00:00.000-08:00

Every so often in this series I will revisit concepts, maybe delve into them deeper or provide new (or newly found) resources. Servant leadership is a topic that is still expanding with new works or has works that should be explored further. So here are some additional works and some I mentioned too briefly in the past.

First off, here is a great video I found on Greenleaf and the Greenleaf Center:

The Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership , as noted in a previous Notes, publishes works on servant leadership along with selling works by others. Since that Note was first written, they have put out a few more.

There is Servant Leadership in the Boardroom, focuses on servant-leadership with corporate boards, both for profit and non-profit corporations. In some ways this builds on what Greenleaf wrote in “Trustees as Servants”. This is also the subject of one of Max DePree’s works, Called to Serve, tho his work focused only on non-profit boards. (I devoted one Note to DePree)

The Center also publishes a series of essays, these are shorter than the afore mentioned books. This series was originally called “The Voice of Servant Leadership”, and published under the leadership of Larry Spears for 12 volumes. The first 10 of these were reprinted in The Practice of Servant-Leadership. While the series has moved to the Spears Center which has added to the series, the Greenleaf Center is still publishing additional essays as well. (Again, I devoted one Note to Spears and his work)

The first of these new essays is Stephen Prosser’s Servant Leadership: More Philosophy, Less Theory. As the title may indicate, the author looks at whether servant leadership is a philosophy or a leadership theory (like situational leadership), and concludes that it is a philosophy, a way of looking at leadership. A very interesting and thought provoking idea. If you are interested in learning more of the underlying ideas of servant leadership, check this out.

Don Frick’s Greenleaf & Servant-Leader Listening is a more recent essay. It’s about gaining a better understanding of “listening” and how it’s important for a servant-leader.

Another new essay, which is not part of this series, is My Life with Father, which is the first publication of Robert Greenleaf’s last essay, about his father. I haven’t read it, but its description does sound interesting, as in it Greenleaf credits his father with influencing his later work on servant leadership. I should point out that the Center actually publishes about 10 or so of Greenleaf’s most important essays as separate works.

Putting servant leadership into practice can be hard. It’s more than just latching onto the terms, or getting everyone to read Greenleaf. In many cases an organization must create a means of sustaining the practices of servant leadership to make it truly part of their culture. A couple of works on this topic are Seven Pillars of Servant Leadership by James Sipe and Don Fricks and Implementing Servant Leadership: Stories from the Field by Don Fricks. Seven Pillars puts forth and explains seven elements that an organizational culture must implement to promote and sustain servant leadership. Implementing Servant Leadership doesn't touch on these elements, but does give examples of organizations who have implemented servant leadership successfully in their culture. It would serve as a great companion work to Seven Pillars.

Now, you may have noticed the name of Don Fricks in several of the above works. I should point out that he recently wrote a biography of Robert Greenleaf that is supposed to be very good. It’s based on years of research into Greenleaf by the author.

Larry Spears, with Shann Ray Ferch, has created another great introductory work on servant leadership: Spirit of Servant Leadership. This book is a collection of essays, many by major writers in the field of leadership, on various elements of servant leadership. I encourage people to check it out.

Here is a classic video clip of Larry Spears when he was the executive director of the Greenleaf Center and done as part of a Dateline special on the Power of Faith: (quality isn’t as good as I’d like, so if someone knows of a better version, let me know).

Leadership speaker and trainer James Hunter has two good books on servant leadership. The Servant introduces the concept thru a story or parable, similar to the “One Minute Manager” series by Blanchard. Some may not like this sort of format, but it’s a good, short, introduction of the concept that is done in a different way. The second is The World’s Most Powerful Leadership Principle, which gives practical information on how to implement servant leadership in your life and work. The focus is more on the business world, then the non-profit, which is good as there are an overwhelming number of works focusing on the non-profit (or religious) uses of servant leadership. In addition to these 2 books, he has a servant leadership training course available on audio. If you look around, you can find this on CD fairly inexpensively.

James Autry is an author, poet, and former CEO (he was involved in the company that publishes Better Homes and Gardens). He has written several books, include business works Love and Profit: The Art of Caring Leadership, Life and Work: A Manager’s Search for Meaning and the Book of Hard Choices. In the area of servant leadership, he wrote The Servant Leader: How to Build a Creative Team, Develop Great Morale, and Improve Bottom-Line Performance. It focuses on real life use of servant leadership within the business world, giving concrete explanations of servant leadership in action. It also shows you how to remain true to the servant leadership model when handling day-to-day and long-term management situations.

I’ve come across a few articles on servant leadership that criticizes it because it’s somehow "not backed up by research". Well, servant leadership is more a leadership philosophy, rather than a scientific concept like situational leadership (see the afore mentioned essay). But I came across this book on Amazon recently that I think might fit the bill: Servant Leadership: Developments in Theory and Research edited by Dirk Van Dierendonck and Kathleen Patterson and published in 2010. It’s 208 pages of 15 scholarly articles. I just wish it wasn’t about $80-90. So try inter-library loan.

Notes #36: Team Assessments

2014-11-21T10:00:00.000-08:00

We are all part of groups of people working together, whether at work or the various organizations we are part of. But is that group a team? And how good of a team is it? How can you assess that team? Here are a couple of different, but similar models.

Blanchard et al (authors of the various situational leadership concepts we've touched on in past Notes) uses the PERFORM model.

PERFORM is:

Purpose and Values
Empowerment
Relationships and Communication
Flexibility
Optimal Productivity
Recognition and Appreciation
Morale

PERFORM is covered in several of their works. It was first put forth in High Five: The Magic of Working Together and is also covered in Blanchard’s Leading at a Higher Level. The idea of PERFORM is that these 7 characteristics are key for a successful team, what Blanchard calls a ‘high performing team’, which he sees as a result of using situational team leadership (see the Note on that topic). Basically, the characteristics are:

Purpose and Value- what is keeping the team together and moving forward? Members need to have a goal in mind (purpose) and shared values.
Empowerment- members need to be empowered to be able to achieve that common goal. Basically, the authority to act and make decisions.
Relationships & Communications- the members of the team need to communicate together, not just with or only with, the leader. Only then does the team come together as a team.
Flexibility- members of the team need to be able to adapt to changes. This is necessary as each member brings something different to the task at hand.
Optimal productivity- this is what happens when you have a ‘high performing team’. When you have a team dedicated to the goal and committed to high standards, they will use problem solving and decision making to achieve that goal.
Recognition & Appreciation- members are responsible for and deserve recognition and appreciation for achieving both individual and team accomplishments.
Morale- is about a sense of pride and satisfaction in a job well done as a team. We all understand that high morale helps achieve success.

While most of these concepts seem obvious, too often we have to be reminded of them.

Another, different but similar, concept I found is enunciated in the recent book Extraordinary Groups: How Ordinary Team Achieve Amazing Results (www.extraordinarygroups.com). I first read about it in an article in “Toastmasters Magazine” (March 2011) in the article “What Makes an Exceptional Team?” (you can read that article here: http://magazines.toastmasters.org/publication/?i=72188)

The authors of that book have set down 8 traits of “Extraordinary Work Groups”:

Compelling purpose: we are inspired and stretched in making this group's work our top priority.
Shared Leadership: we readily step forward to lead by demonstrating our mutual responsibility for moving our group toward success.
Just enough structure: we create the minimal structure (systems, plans, roles, tasks) necessary to move our work forward.
Full engagement: we dive into our work with focus, enthusiasm and passion.
Embracing differences: we value the creative alternatives that result from engaging differing points of view.
Unexpected learning: we are excited by what we learn here and how it applies to other work, other groups and our lives outside of work/organization.
Strengthened relationships: our work leads us to greater trust, interdependence and friendship
Great results: we work toward and highly value the tangible and intangible outcomes of our work together.

The article touched on some of those traits. I though this list was interesting. Several of them match up with the PERFORM model. Others are additions.

So, let’s get to the heart of the matter, assessing teams. Are the teams you are a part of achieving these points, whether it’s the PERFORM or the Extraordinary Group? As I read thru both of them, and thought about the many groups, large & small, that I've been on at work, in various orgs, etc, I find that those groups that have most or all those traits were more successful, and those that lacked many of them not so much. A lot of this is due to the leadership and vision of the leader (or lack thereof). But also the others in the group and how they are involved also have an effect. When most people in the group took on those traits, the more successful the group was, even in spite of the leader.

I have seen groups that existed because the leader had a vision. He either recruited others who shared that vision, recruited others who had necessary skills and got them to buy in to the vision, and others who agreed with the vision sought out and joined that leader. These groups were almost always successful. A variant of this is the group in which all the members have a shared vision, and due to this vision they came together to achieve it. Usually one among them became the leader, tho sometimes the vision was so strong within the group, that this “leader” was more of a spokesperson for the group then a true leader. These groups also are almost always successful.

Less successful are the groups where, tho the leader had a vision, didn’t feel that the other characteristics listed above were important. They might have succeeded, more due to the fact that the members wanted things to succeed, but they weren’t as successful as they could have been, and it’s certainly wasn’t as much fun (indicated low morale) as it could have been.

I don't know, but it seems to me that groups in some of the organizations I am part of almost have a systematic issue with following some of these traits.

Purpose & Values/Compelling Purpose & Full Engagement is difficult when you have leaders (and members) who aren't committed to what the group is about, and are only there as a reward for past work. (I always say a job is a job, not an award. There should be an expectation of doing the work.) It’s like they are there as a ego boast and not to accomplish things.

Empowerment/Shared Leadership is difficult, when the leader refuses to recruit additional members of the team (or have any team at all), or share leadership (power to a degree, responsibility would be a better idea, which is really what empowerment is) with others on the team. Empowerment is all about the members having the power to act and make decisions. But many leaders, fearing a loss of power, refuse to allow this.

Just Enough Structure is difficult when the leader refuses to recruit others to the team and tries to run it a one-person operation, or the group refuses to setup the structure. You need some structure to get things done, and in absence of any structure, nothing gets done (except by individuals on their own). Of course, too much structure can also be a problem, when you have leaders who build a huge organization of people (with titles), all of whom do nothing and get in the way.

Flexibility/Embracing Differences is difficult when the leader refuses to recruit people who may have a contrarian view of things and may challenge the leader with different views/ideas. Too often the desire to have people of like mind means that those with differing views/ideas are shutout. People should be recruited for their skills and knowledge, not for being “yes” men. Obviously, you don’t want people who are totally against the vision of the group, but someone with a different take on it, or see a different path to that vision is good.

Relationships & Communications/Strengthened Relationships doesn’t happen if the leader doesn’t allow the team to really come together as a team. Again, it could be that fear of losing power. If the team comes together, they may feel they don’t need the leader (or perhaps feel a different leader would be better).

All this then short circuits any chance of getting Great Results/Optimal Productivity. The goal will get done, because there will be members of the group who will want to ensure that stuff is done, but think of how more successful the group could be with better leadership in place? And how much more fun? The work may be hard, but it could be enjoyable hard work.

And when it comes to Recognition & Appreciation, do the members of the team get any, or does it all go to the leader for their own glory? This is especially true, again, when you have “leaders” who often times took on a role mainly for the recognition they would receive. How many people have we seen who took on a role mainly because it would get them a certain high award?

So take a look at some of the groups and teams you are involved in. See how many of these characteristics they exhibit. How might you do something to change it?

Notes #35: New Games & the New Games Movement

2014-11-07T10:00:00.000-08:00

The New Games Movement is something that grew out of the counter culture of the late 1960s. It aimed to provide a new experience for people, one that brought people together, rather than create divides. There is a big element of cooperation to the games. While there may be some competition in some of the games, being a winner isn’t important. (“You won the game, great! You get to start the next one”) And the idea is that EVERYONE is engaged. There are no spectators, and even the referees get in on the fun. One of the first of the New Games was the use of an “earthball”, a large (6 foot diameter), inflated ball with the globe painted on it. It was used at the first New Games Festival in 1973. The motto of New Games, emblazoned on the back of their t-shirts is: “Play Hard, Play Fair, Nobody Hurt”.

Stewart Brand, the man behind such work as the Whole Earth Catalog and related efforts, was the man behind it all. Out of that festival was established the New Games Foundation, which organized further festivals and provided training and more.

Soon, two books were written: The New Game Book (1976), and More New Games (1981). While out of print, these are excellent resources for these games. They provide a wide range of New Games for different size groups, and the first book explains how to organize a New Games Festival. And note that there is some overlap with the adventure games and activities covered in prior Notes, so these games are a good fit into that mix. These games are a great way to bring together a group of people, whoever they are.

The New Games Foundation came to an end in 1990. Those involved with it have moved on to other activities. Only a few still keep the spirit alive, organizing festivals, providing training, and the like.

The main person ‘carrying the torch’ for the movement seems to be Dale Le Fevre . He provides training, DVDs, and books on the topic. While at the New Games Foundation, he was the one who developed and organized the training sessions they provided. You can get a free “starter kit” on New Games at his site. His first book was New Games for the Whole Family (1988), later revamped as The Spirit of Play (2007) (the two books are essentially the same). He also has Best New Games (2002, 2012) and Parachute Games. In addition, he rents and sells equipment, such as Earthballs, and provides various resources at his site, including videos.

Bernie DeKoven is a former director of the New Games Foundation who is still involved in game design and keeps a blog. He has provided New Games training. At his site he sells his books, such as Junkyard Sports (2004), Great Games for Big Activity Balls (2009) and The Well-Played Game (fourth edition, 2013). The first two books are game resources, while the third book is a more philosophical work on the value of play.

As noted, for leaders, these New Games can be a great addition to your resources of cooperative games. And also consider that these can be great programmatic resources for your group.

Here are some videos: Dale Le Fevre on New Games

I'm back

2014-11-03T10:00:00.000-08:00

After too long, am am continuing with new blog postings this week.

Going forward, I will be shooting for postings every 2 weeks, on Friday.

In between, I MAY post other items.

Notes #34: Know thyself: StrenghtsFinder & conclusion

2014-05-23T09:00:00.000-07:00

As leaders, knowing ourselves is an important aspect of leadership that is too often overlooked. Do you have a good understand of what ‘type’ of person you are? Are you an extrovert or an introvert? Do you like working with people or with things? Are you more a thinker or a doer? Have you put any thought into the fact that the people you often like to work with or be around have similar traits to you, and that the people you don’t like to work with have different traits? This is usually all lumped into the broad concept of “personality types” or “interaction styles”, of which here are many models. While many people may get the chance to take a personality/interaction test at work or maybe school, not everyone gets the chance.

In the final in this series of articles we look at another assessment tool: StrengthsFinder

The StrenghsFinder Profile is a newer idea of accessing people, based on finding people’s unique talents or strengths. Based on research by the Gallup organization, led by Donald Clifton, it was first introduced in Now, Discover Your Strengths (2001), which introduced the first version of the profile. More recently, a new version has been released, now called the Clifton StrengthsFinder 2.0, and this was introduced in StrengthsFinder 2.0 (2007) by Tom Rath. A slightly different version of the 2.0 profile is covered in Strengths-Based Leadership (2009) by Rath and Barry Conchie. The associated website is at www.strenghtsfinder.com. Be aware that to fully use these works, you need to access the on-line assessment tool, and you get the code to do so in the books. So if you want access to the 2.0 version of the tool, you need to purchase a NEW copy of either StrenghtsFinder 2.0 or Strenghts-based Leadership (you actually get different tests with each, so be aware). The prior books only give you access to the first version.

There are 34 strengths covered. The strengths are things like Analytical, Communication, Empathy, Learner, Positivity, and Strategic. The assessment tests only tell you your top 5 strengths. The books, along with the report you get from taking the test, explain your strengths and how you can best utilize them.

Why is all of this important?

Again, as leaders, we need to better understand ourselves and others. How do we like to interact? What motivates us? What demotivates us? How can we best work with others? Especially if we have a poor understanding of how we like to work and interact, much less how others work and interact. By learning more of these behavior & interaction styles, we have a better understanding.

The problem, as I see it, its many people who take on leadership position don’t understand this. Especially if their company or organization does not make use of such programs. Too often what happens is that when some people are put in charge of a group, they feel it’s their chance to pick the best people. Ok, that sounds great. But too often they focus on people they like to work with, not understanding that this is due to their interaction styles. And so, people who could contribute to the group or organization (because of their experience, knowledge, talents, and more) are passed over for others who may not have those attributes ONLY because their interaction style is more compatible with the leader’s. This is a mistake. It’s actually to avoid these sorts of things that there exist programs like what has been covered here.

If you are a leader, you need to learn to work with ALL people, regardless of their personality or interaction style. Your selection of members of your team should NOT be based on personality or interaction style, but their ability to get things done. Their skills, knowledge, talents, etc. Many groups talk about “diversity”. How it’s important that the organization be “diverse” and that all kinds of people are welcome in the group. Well, “diversity” should not just about religion or ethnic groups or national origin or gender or the like. It should ALSO be about personalities.

So if you are a DRIVER, you need to be open to working with (and including) people who are AMIABLE and ANALYTICAL and EXPRESSIVE, no matter how much they annoy you.

Notes #33: Know thyself: Social Styles

2014-05-16T09:00:00.000-07:00

In the next in this series of articles, we look at another assessment tool, Social Styles

“Social Styles” was first developed by David Merrill in the 1960s, and is also based on Jung’s theories (like MBTI), but here the focus is on individual’s outer styles or their interactions if you will, similar to DISC. This was later enunciated in Personal Styles and Effective Performance (1981) by David Merrill and Roger Reid. Another set of researchers (Robert & Dorothy Bolton) based their own “People Styles” on this work, but with some differences with the addition of what they call ‘style flex’, which is about how people can modify, or flex, their behavior to be more compatible with people of differing interaction styles. This was covered first in their work Social Style/Management Style (1984), but has been more or less replaced by their later and more accessible work: People Styles at Work and Beyond (2009, 2nd edition). Training based on Merrill’s work is sold thru his company Tracom and the Boltons’ thru their company Ridge Associates. I would recommend the “People Style” work as a more recent and readable intro to the subject, plus it includes a basic test to determine your style. But check out Tracom for some interesting reports that show how “Social Styles” can work with other leadership methodologies.

In Social Styles, people are put into one of 4 styles:

Analytical- thinking oriented

Driving- action oriented

Amiable- relationship oriented

Expressive- intuition oriented

They are oriented around 2 axis. An assertiveness axis on the horizontal, that ranges from ASK to TELL. And a (emotional) responsiveness axis on the vertical, that ranges from CONTROL to EMOTE. Keep in mind that these are scales or axis. You can be anywhere along either of those scales! Putting this all together, you have:

As with DISC, we also find that these styles pairing up, again tied into those vertical and horizontal scales. As it relates to the horizontal scale:

Analytical and Driving are both TASK oriented, they like emotional control. They are typically cool, independent, disciplined and use facts.

Amiable and Expressive are RELATIONSHIP oriented, they emote. They use opinions, are usually undisciplined, warm, and approachable.

But also, these styles are also paired up along the vertical:

Driving and Expressive are part of the TELL side of assertiveness, so they like fast action, taking risks, and being competitive.

Analytical and Amiable are part of the ASK side of assertiveness, so they prefer slow action, avoiding risks, and being cooperative.

You will fall into one of these four areas mainly, but can have aspects of the other 3. Again, this is due to those 2 axis: Assertiveness and Responsiveness.

Of the three personality profiles we've looked at, Social Styles is the one I’m most familiar with, as Alpha Phi Omega has incorporated it into our self-leadership workshop of our LD program. I find it the most useful of the three we've looked at.

Notes #32: Know thyself: DISC

2014-05-09T09:00:00.000-07:00

In the next in this series of articles, we look at another assessment tool, DISC.

DISC is a different set of personality tests (properly behavioral/interaction styles) that was based on the work of William Moulton Marston (who happened to be the creator of Wonder Woman). His basic idea was similar to Jung, with 4 types:

• Dominance - relating to control, power and assertiveness

• Influence - relating to social situations and communication

• Steadiness - relating to patience, persistence, and thoughtfulness

• Conscientious - relating to structure and organization

This is usually put in a grid:

This is done because the top of the grid (D & I) are extroverted aspects, and the bottom (C & S) are introverted aspects, along an assertive-passive axis. Further, the left side (D & C) are task-focused and the right side (I & S) are social-focused, along a guarded-open axis.

In looking at the four types, they are explained this way:

Dominance- High “D”s are very active in dealing with problems and challenges, while low “D”s are people who want to do more research before committing to a decision. High "D"s are described as demanding, forceful, egocentric, strong willed, driving, determined, ambitious, aggressive, and pioneering. Low “D”s describe those who are conservative, low keyed, cooperative, calculating, undemanding, cautious, mild, agreeable, modest and peaceful.

Influence- High “I”s influence others through talking and activity and tend to be emotional. They are described as convincing, magnetic, political, enthusiastic, persuasive, warm, demonstrative, trusting, and optimistic. Low “I”s influence more by data and facts, and not with feelings. They are described as reflective, factual, calculating, skeptical, logical, suspicious, matter of fact, pessimistic, and critical.

Steadiness- High “S”s want a steady pace, security, and don't like sudden change. Low S intensity scores are those who like change and variety. High S persons are calm, relaxed, patient, possessive, predictable, deliberate, stable, consistent, and tend to be unemotional and poker faced. People with Low S scores are described as restless, demonstrative, impatient, eager, or even impulsive.

Conscientious - Persons with High C styles adhere to rules, regulations, and structure. They like to do quality work and do it right the first time. High C people are careful, cautious, exacting, neat, systematic, diplomatic, accurate, and tactful. Those with Low C scores challenge the rules and want independence and are described as self-willed, stubborn, opinionated, unsystematic, arbitrary, and careless with details.

It doesn’t seem that any one group controls DISC, however Inscape Publishing seems to be the largest provider of materials, and they call it “DiSC” (yes, with a lower case “i” is their trademarked version of the tests). Inscape sells both an on-line version of the assessment, as well as a self-scored version (surprisingly, the on-line version seems to cost more than the paper version), but you will probably have to go to other providers to obtain them. Now, with DiSC, it’s not just a matter of being placed in one of four groups. You are tested and scored for each of the four, and this places you in the two-dimensional grid. This was due to further research in the topic, and Inscape calls this the DiSC Classic or DiSC Classical Profile.

I did come across a recent book by the people at Inscape entitled The 8 Dimensions of Leadership: DiSC Strategies for Becoming a Better Leader (2011) that includes a basic DiSC assessment. This is a pretty good book, and I would recommend it for those wanting to look into this further.

Notes #31: Know thyself: Intro & Myers-Briggs

2014-05-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

I should say that I am not a psychologist, and I have no training in this field. I have been exposed to some of these concepts, and have spent some time doing further research for these articles, and so I encourage those who have an interest to seek out some of the resources I mention and take this further if they want to learn more. This will be the first of a series on this topic.

For me, my first real exposure to this was at work when I completed the “L-E-A-D Personality Inventory”, which was developed by Dr. Walter Lacey. It focuses on 4 types: Leader, Expresser, Analyst, and Dependable, and the inventory then ranks these four. (if you are interested in this inventory, it’s available from the Church Growth Institute) In this area of personality/interaction tests, the main 3 tests seem to be Myers-Briggs, DiSC, and Social Styles. In addition, I feel that StrenghtsFinder should also be touched on as many may have also heard of it. We will look at each of these over the next few articles, and wrap things up with the final article.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is probably well known, even among people who haven’t taken the test. The materials are controlled by the MBTI Trust and sold by CCP.

MBTI was developed to make the psychological theories of C. G. Jung understandable. Jung came up with 4 basic personality types, which he called Thinkers, Feelers, Intuiters, and Sensors. MBTI was developed by the mother-daughter team of Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, and attempts to measure a person’s preferences with 4 pairs of attributes. These attributes are Extraversion/Introversion, Sensing/Intuition, Thinking/Feeling and Judging/Perceiving. This gives 16 possible personality types. As noted, MBTI specifically measures personality, not behavior (interaction). It identifies a person’s preferences, not their actions, which is sometimes misunderstood.

So, what are these 4 pairings about?

Extraversion/Introversion- is your focus outwards or inwards?

Sensing/Intuition- do you focus on information you have or do you prefer to interpret it?

Thinking/Feeling- when making decisions, do you base it on fact and logic, or people and situations?

Judging/Perceiving- when dealing with the outside world, do you prefer a decision is made, or be open to new information or options?

Depending on which of each pairing is your major one gives you your personality type, for a total of 16 different possible ones. You may be EIFP or ISTJ or the like.

Of course, to find out where you are, you need to take the test. I’ve tried to find accessible information on this, but wasn’t that successful. Most of the material developed by CCP is aimed at professionals providing testing services. They DO offer an on-line assessment, but it costs money. I tried to find some work that could be read that could help. One I came across that may be useful is Do What You Are (2007, 4th edition) by Paul Tieger and Barbara Barron. It deals with MBTI, and gives a simplified assessment to find out your personality type, then spends time on each one.

Notes #30- 10 More Useful Motions to Know

2013-12-20T09:00:00.000-08:00

Last Notes, we covered 10 basic motions everyone should know. Now we have 10 “More Useful Motions to Know”, which are of several classes of motions, some are subsidiary and relate to the main motion, some are incidental and relate to the pending business in different ways, and some are motions which bring a question "again" before the assembly. Initially it is more important to focus on what is accomplished by the use of the motions listed.

1. CHANGE RULES OF DEBATE. Move to LIMIT or EXTEND LIMITS OF DEBATE. You can move to reduce (or increase) the number of speeches or the length of each speech or you can specify a time limit for debate on a pending main motion. Be aware this will require a 2/3^rd vote! Standard is speaking twice on the same motion for 10 minutes each. You group can change that across the board, setting it as a Standing Rule. This motion allows you to temporarily change this.

2. FORCE CONFORMITY TO AGENDA. Use the device, CALL FOR THE ORDERS OF THE DAY to require the return to the adopted program or order of business. This can be used if your meeting is getting off track.

3. URGENT PRIVILEGE. Use the device, RAISE A QUESTION OF PRIVILEGE, to interrupt pending business to make a request affecting the rights or privileges of the assembly (i.e to point out that the speaker cannot be heard, it’s too hot or too cold, or the like.)

4. SET UP AN ADJOURNED MEETING. Move to FIX THE TIME TO WHICH TO ADJOURN. The adoption of this motion does NOT adjourn the meeting, it really says that when we “adjourn”, we are really “adjourning to meet again at a specified place or time/day”. This is a very confusing motion! Think of it as a really really long recess of the meeting (to the next day), so that the meeting continues and you can conclude business. Usually only seen with organizations that have a multi-day legislative session at a convention.

5. DISAGREE WITH CHAIR'S RULING. Move to APPEAL from the decision of the chair (must be made immediately after the chair's ruling on a POINT OF ORDER).

6. IN DOUBT ABOUT A VOTE? Call for a DIVISION OF THE ASSEMBLY (you can just call out "DIVISION!") when a voice vote seems inconclusive (and the chair doesn't do this); it is a demand for a rising vote (no vote is required on this call) .

7. TEMPORARILY CHANGE RULES. Move to SUSPEND THE RULES if something needs to be done and it’s not in accordance with the regular rules of procedure. (NOTE: Bylaws cannot be suspended!!!)

8. FIRE A COMMITTEE. Move to DISCHARGE A COMMITTEE when a committee has failed to carry out its duties or when it is desired to return a matter back to the assembly. Typically only done with Special/Ad Hoc committees.

9. CANCEL OR REPEAL A PRIOR ACTION. Move to RESCIND if you want to strike out, change, cancel, or countermand a previous action or order adopted any time in the past.

10. REVERSE A VOTE OR CHANGE ADOPTED MOTION. Move to RECONSIDER the vote on the previously adopted motion. The purpose is to permit correction of an erroneous action or to take into account new information.

Again, see the prior Notes on motions for more info on resources.

[this note is based on work by the Plantation Unit of Parliamentarians]

Notes #29- 10 Basic Motions

2013-12-13T09:00:00.000-08:00

As noted, the workhorse for introducing and handling business in your group (or a committee within it) is the MOTION. In the first in this sub-series, we covered how to handle the basic “main motion”. Each member has the right to participate according to their own judgment- to make motions, debate, and vote. The following summary will not tell you everything you need to know, but if you know how to accomplish what you want in meetings, you have made great strides in contributing to effective meetings.   So here we give 10 basic motions that most people will need to know.

1. BRING UP BUSINESS. If you want to propose that your group take an action (ie, make a purchase, plan a service event or social event or a camping trip) you must make a MAIN MOTION. You can only do this when no other business is pending. (see the first in this sub-series on how to do this).

2. KILL A MAIN MOTION. Move to POSTPONE INDEFINITELY. This avoids a direct vote on the main motion and thereby "kills" it.

3. MAKE A MAIN MOTION BETTER. Move to AMEND the main motion. You may add or delete or change, even substitute one motion for another. Don’t withhold a second because the motion isn't quite what you want, instead AMEND it.

4. GET MORE INFORMATION. Move to REFER the motion to a committee. You may even specify which committee or you may define the committee. (that is, assign it to an already existing Standing Committee or establish a short-lived Special Committee or Ad Hoc Committee with specific members just to look at this matter) Very useful if you think the idea has merit, but needs more work by a small group of people.

5. PUT OFF THE VOTE ON A MAIN MOTION. Move to POSTPONE the main motion to a later time or another meeting. The time must be DEFINITELY specified. If postponing it to another meeting, ideally it should be the next one.

6. PUT ASIDE TEMPORARILY. Move to LAY the pending motion ON THE TABLE. Can only be used if an urgent reason to do so. Consideration of the motion continues after adoption of the motion to TAKE FROM THE TABLE.

7. CLOSE DEBATE/STOP AMENDMENTS. Move the PREVIOUS QUESTION. (some groups allow for this to be called "STOP DEBATE"). This requires a 2/3 vote and if adopted the vote is taken immediately on the pending motion.   DON’T confuse the vote on the previous question with a vote on the motion itself!! They are separate!   If you voted to stop the debate, you STILL have to vote on the motion itself.

8. TAKE A BREAK. Move to RECESS. A recess is short intermission (say, 15 minutes or so); the interrupted business is resumed after the recess.

9. CLOSE THE MEETING. Move to ADJOURN. Adjourn is in order even when business is pending and if adopted closes the meeting immediately.   (any pending business is lost, by the way).

10. NEED TO KNOW SOMETHING more about the pending motion? Use the device REQUEST FOR INFORMATION. For example, "Mr. President, Request for Information. How much did we give last year?"

For more resources on motions, see the previous Note.

[this note is based on work by the Plantation Unit of Parliamentarians]

Notes #28 Organization Focus: Project Adventure & Karl Rohnke

2013-11-29T09:00:00.000-08:00

[As part of the Leadership Notes series I will highlight several organizations that may be useful to know or even be involved in as leaders.]

Back in Notes #14, I mentioned a “spin-off” group from Outward Bound (OB) called “Project Adventure” (PA). Project Adventure was established in the early 70s to bring the teachings of OB to everyone. This would be done not with the intense long-term outdoor experience of OB, but with the creation of “challenge courses” (aka “ropes courses”) and initiative games and activities. The purpose of this was to bring groups together, build trust, and break down some of the artificial barriers people build between themselves, and maybe gain a better understanding of themselves as well. While originally focused on high school students, they quickly branched out to other youth, including “at risk” youth, as well as adults. Some of their programs and concepts include Adventure Based Counseling, Challenge by Choice, and the Full Value Contract.

A major figure in much of this is Karl Rohnke. A former OB instructor, he was one of the founders of PA and wrote many works there. He left in 1996 after being director and president, and later co-founded High 5 Adventure Learning Center.

So let’s take a look at some of the terms used. First off, some may dismiss this as just fun activities. Well, they are that, but they do serve a purpose. Some can be used with groups, to bring them together (with the use of “icebreaker” events), to break down barriers within groups (usually with “cooperative games”), and to bring them together in a team (with “teambuilding games”). And teambuilding games can be used to help a group become a team, as well as to help a team leader become a better leader. Some activities are referred to as “initiative problems”, where the team is given a challenge they must overcome (and not just physically, but something they must work out as a group).

As noted, many of these activities have a purpose. A mistake that many of us make is thinking we should explain the purpose before the activity. A sort of “in this activity, you will learn X”. Too often, this is a bad idea, as it can set wrong expectations. In such learning, it’s better to have the activity occur, then afterwards hold a debrief with the group, and using facilitation, asking open ended questions to draw from the participants their experiences and what they got out of it. This often difficult to do for many people, because we are often taught how to present, but not how to facilitate. And facilitation is critical for these activities to work well.

Project Adventure uses some other concepts as well. Adventure Based Counseling (ABC) is a group counseling model that uses a carefully sequenced and processed series of experiential activities to elicit behavior change. This is usually done with people in need of such counseling, including at-risk youth and others. So the aim is not just in a learning experience, but a change in behavior. Challenge by Choice is a cornerstone concept of PA. It’s about encouraging the participant to challenge themselves and participate fully in the experience at-hand, and not force them into the experience. The Full Value Contract is also an integral part of PA’s programs. It aims to create an emotionally and physically safe environment supported by all group members. It asks of the members to: 1) to create safe and respectful behavior that the group will operate under, 2) commitment to that behavior by everyone in the group, and 3) to accept the responsibility to maintain that behavior by all.

Some of the major works by Project Adventure & Karl Rohnke include:

“Cowstails and Cobras”, first published in 1977, and replaced by “Cowstails and Cobras II” in 1991, is their first book (written by Rohnke) on their approach to adventure games and challenge courses, and gives full info on how to implement the program. It’s a good book, but doesn't have the large number of games & activities as others do, BUT does give information on how to use such activities.

For several years, Rohnke published a newsletter called “Bag of Tricks” that gave more games. Out of these several books were published. “Silver Bullets” was the first of these, first published in 1984 and recently updated/revamped with a new 25^th Anniversary edition in 2009, and is one of their classic works on initiative games, adventure games and trust activities.

Rohnke would put out further collections from “Bag of Tricks” (“Bottomless Bag”, “Bottomless Baggie”, and “Bottomless Bag Again”). All of these are out of print, but a revised edition of the last book has been released as “Bottomless Bag Revival” (2004). However, if you have that book, “Revival” is essentially the same work.

“Quicksilver” (1995) by Rohnke and Steve Butler, was created as a sort of sequel to “Silver Bullets”. More games and initiatives, but also included is a leadership/facilitation section that emphasized how they work, and how to apply them. Check out the “Foes & Questors” game in this book.

“Youth Leadership in Action”, ‘written by and for youth leaders’ is a book of cooperative and group games intended for use by youth groups. A great resource for crew or VOA youth leaders to take a look at.

“Islands of Healing” is PA’s main work on “Adventure Based Counseling”, which is their combination of adventure education and group counseling. This is not something I’ve looked into, but if you are dealing with at-risk youth, this may be of use. They have a follow-on work, “Exploring Islands of Healing” as well.

Since leaving PA, Karl has continued to publish works.

“Backpocket Adventure” (1998) by Rohnke & Jim Grout is a small book of games and activities that DON’T need props (or props that would fit in your back pocket, hence the name). That is the thing with many of these games: you need to build up a collection of ‘stuff’ to use in them. Several adventure games sites will sell you the items (you sometimes need things beyond what you will find in your local toy or sports good store), and game leaders wind up with a large bag of such props. But what if you don’t have them? A few books like this one focus on “no props” games.

More recently, Rohnke started a new series of books called “Funn Stuff” to replace “Bag of Tricks”, but only 4 came out. The content of these has been compiled as “Funn ‘n Games” (2004), giving yet another big book of adventure games, initiatives, trust activities, and miscellaneous fun. “Funn”, by the way, stands for “Functional Understanding’s Not Needed.”

Per Karl, he recommends getting “Funn n Games” or “Quicksilver” as the first books to get, as they have lots of games.

As noted, after leaving Project Adventure, Karl helped founded High 5 Adventure Learning Center. Like PA, High 5 provides program and services in the field of adventure games, including training and certification. They have a store with books and equipment for sale.

I recommend that people check out the sites at both PA and High 5, as well as Rohnke’s site. Both groups offers seminars and training, as well as on-line stores with resources (books, equipment, etc). I touched on only some of the works they have available at these 2 sites, the ones I’ve used and am aware of, and didn’t really get into out of print works (check out amazon or alibris). But there are many other works out there from other groups and individuals. Some of the major ones (in my opinion) will be covered in future Notes very soon.

To finish things out, here are some videos. Here is an interesting, if brief, interview with Karl: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeQ4P9A_8cc . A video of a group that went to a No Prop workshop at PA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx5erzi2TLk .

Notes #27 Team Assessments

2013-11-22T09:00:00.000-08:00

We are all part of groups of people working together, whether at work, in our units, in other levels of this and other organizations. But is that group a team? And how good of a team is it? How can you assess that team? Here are a couple of different, but similar models.

Blanchard et al (authors of the various situational leadership concepts we've touched on in past Notes) uses the PERFORM model. PERFORM is:

Purpose and Values
Empowerment
Relationships and Communication
Flexibility
Optimal Productivity
Recognition and Appreciation
Morale

PERFORM is covered in several of their works. It was first put forth in “High Five: The Magic of Working Together” and is also covered in Blanchard’s “Leading at a Higher Level”. The idea of PERFORM is that these 7 characteristics are key for a successful team, what Blanchard calls a ‘high performing team’, which he sees as a result of using situational team leadership (see the Note on that topic). Basically, the characteristics are:

Purpose and Value- what is keeping the team together and moving forward? Members need to have a goal in mind (purpose) and shared values.
Empowerment- members need to be empowered to be able to achieve that common goal. Basically, the authority to act and make decisions.
Relationships & Communications- the members of the team need to communicate together, not just with or only with, the leader. Only then does the team come together as a team.
Flexibility- members of the team need to be able to adapt to changes. This is necessary as each member brings something different to the task at hand.
Optimal productivity- this is what happens when you have a ‘high performing team’. When you have a team dedicated to the goal and committed to high standards, they will use problem solving and decision making to achieve that goal.
Recognition & Appreciation- members are responsible for and deserve recognition and appreciation for achieving both individual and team accomplishments.
Morale- is about a sense of pride and satisfaction in a job well done as a team. We all understand that high morale helps achieve success.

While most of these concepts seem obvious, too often we have to be reminded of them.

The authors of that book have set down 8 traits of “Extraordinary Work Groups”:

Compelling purpose: we are inspired and stretched in making this group's work our top priority.
Shared Leadership: we readily step forward to lead by demonstrating our mutual responsibility for moving our group toward success.
Just enough structure: we create the minimal structure (systems, plans, roles, tasks) necessary to move our work forward.
Full engagement: we dive into our work with focus, enthusiasm and passion.
Embracing differences: we value the creative alternatives that result from engaging differing points of view.
Unexpected learning: we are excited by what we learn here and how it applies to other work, other groups and our lives outside of work/organization.
Strengthened relationships: our work leads us to greater trust, interdependence and friendship
Great results: we work toward and highly value the tangible and intangible outcomes of our work together.

The article touched on some of those traits. I though this list was interesting. Several of them match up with the PERFORM model. Others are additions.

So, let’s get to the heart of the matter, assessing teams. Are the teams you are a part of achieve these points, whether it’s the PERFORM or the Extraordinary Group? As I read thru both of them, and thought about the many groups, large & small, that I've been on at work, in various orgs, etc, I find that those groups that have most or all those traits were more successful, and those that lacked many of them not so much. A lot of this is due to the leadership and vision of the leader (or lack thereof). But also the others in the group and how they are involved also have an effect. When most people in the group took on those traits, the more successful the group was, even in spite of the leader.

I have seen groups that existed because the leader had a vision. He either recruited others who shared that vision, recruited others who had necessary skills and got them to buy in to the vision, and others who agreed with the vision who sought out and joined that leader. These groups were almost always successful. A variant of this is the group in which all the members have a shared vision, and due to this vision they came together to achieve it. Usually one among them became the leader, tho sometimes the vision was so strong within the group, that this “leader” was more of a spokesperson for the group then a true leader. These groups also are almost always successful.

Relationships & Communications/Strengthened Relationships doesn't happen if the leader doesn't allow the team to really come together as a team. Again, it could be that fear of losing power. If the team comes together, they may feel they don’t need the leader (or perhaps feel a different leader would be better).

So take a look at some of the groups and teams you are involved in. See how many of these characteristics they exhibit. How might you do something to change it?