Managing and Leading at Work and at Home

Cynical employees don't share quality ideas because they don't expect anyone to hear them

2012-01-31T11:56:00.005-05:00

At the end of the first class of all the courses I teach, I ask students to write any questions they have regarding the course topic (management, leadership, business, etc.). Usually, students will write things like, "how do I motivate others?" or "how do I get senior leadership to buy into my ideas?"

Their questions help me remember students as individuals, understand what is important to them, and respond to their specific needs. I email an answer to all questions within 24 hours.

Yesterday I received 3 questions that were so broad and/or vague as to be unanswerable. I emailed the 3 students stating this, and discovered that while one person wasn't paying attention when he wrote his question, the other 2 never expected me to read their questions. In fact, one person wrote, "Im surprised that you actually took the time to read our questions. I was going to put gibberish on the sheet at first, since these things are usually left unanswered thus figuring it would never be read."

Gibberish! My first thought is, why would an instructor bothering asking students to write something down that he never intended to read? What would be the purpose of the use of class time and paper? My second thought was, this student assumes his instructors are not reading his work (whether they are or not, we'll never know) based on their inaction.

What's even more interesting is that I'd spent some of our class time discussing the criticality of management follow-up: when managers ask for employees' input on decisions, they must share the decision taken with the employees. They should thank them for their original input and, if it wasn't taken, explain why. Otherwise, the employees will assume the manager is giving lip-service to participative management.

Don't ask a question if you don't intend to listen to the answer.

For these two students, my words about follow-up could not be heard over their (louder) experience of not being listened to.

Do you take the time to listen to your employees? How do you find the time to respond to all their questions, and provide feedback on their ideas? How often do you communicate your organization's and/or work group's purpose and how does this communication influence how your employees commit to that purpose?

While it feels like a poor use of time, we must take into account employees'/students' cynicism and take the time to overcome it with each new person with whom we work. For, why would this manager, when at work or in class, bother to provide well thought-through, clearly articulated ideas to or ask specific questions of a manager who isn't going to listen anyway?

to attend = to be present, to give attention

2012-01-26T14:38:00.008-05:00

I attended a webinar today that focused on teaching ethics. I attend a lot of webinars (on teaching, business, management, and communication), as I believe that when one educates others, one must continually educate oneself.

Doesn't that sound good? A little highbrow, but still, sounds good. Right? Hmmm. . . .

Unfortunately, I noticed something today about the way I usually "attend" webminars: I listen in. I write something in the chat when asked a question. I look at the slides and maybe download them if they're good. I check my email. I check my phone messages. I check my twitter feed. And, oh yeah, I listen in.

This is not attending -- I am not fully present, even if my name is on the attendee list! When I read emails or facebook in a meeting, I'm not learning. Multitasking only works when the tasks don't require full brainpower. So much for high-brow!

I noticed this only because the webinar facilitator asked me a question by name while I was off on my email. "Oh gosh," I thought. "She expects me to be involved here!" In fact, the facilitator, unlike the vast majority of lecture-happy webinar facilitators, asked many open-ended questions. She stopped asking us by name after the first few minutes, but her open-ended questions kept me attending for the rest of the session -- for real this time.

What about you? Do you glance at the status of a recent ebay bid while your peer presents the latest financial data (particularly when in a remote meeting) or check out your facebook page while your child tells you about his day? If not, how do you maintain your attention, even when the subject loses your interest for a short while?

As meeting leaders, what tools or techniques do you use to engage all your meeting participants? Or do you let them attend in body (or computer connection) only?

How should we use power to effect change (if at all)?

2012-01-19T14:47:00.007-05:00

Yesterday I worked with an intact workgroup on understanding and using conflict styles and strategies. One strategy, power-dominance, was at first confusing and later the subject of concern.

The group responsible for reporting when to use and when not to use power in a conflict stated that a leader should use his power when he wants to get a team to change; then they stated that a leader should not use power if he wants to effect change. Hmmm. These ideas were far enough apart in their discussion that they didn't notice the contradiction. When they reported back to the full group, the inconsistency was obvious.

After much discussion, the group realized that many of us tend toward using our power (when we can get it!) when we feel we must push a team toward some change because that team is dragging its feet. "If they'll just make the change," we figure, "they'll see it was worth it."

Intellectually, the group knows that when we use our power to make a team effect a change, we'll get short term compliance but long term resentment. Even if the team later agrees the change was worth it, they may feel a lingering lack of trust in us for pushing them to that change.

Rick Brenner writes in his Chaco Canyon blog, "Using fear as a tool of debate begets compliance, not heartfelt support." So what do we do when we know the change is the right thing to do but our team is dragging its feet?

This group agreed the optimum choice is to pull out all the influence strategies the leader can get his hands on: demonstrate (rather than tell) how the change will benefit the team; get outside voices whom the team trusts to talk up the change; put the change in visual form and get it in front of the team at every chance; ask team members one on one to help you understand their resistance -- find those whose resistance is lowest and once they're persuaded ask them to persuade others; garner incentives that have meaning to team members that will accrue to those who implement the change; find out if there's anything painful about the change and do everything in your power to eliminate or at least reduce the pain; search for the pain in the current way of doing things and bring it up frequently; ensure the team has the ability to make the desired change and train them or otherwise enable them; etc.

These ideas take more time -- and are a use of power, albeit a less resentment-causing use -- but I'm betting less than you'd guess -- particularly if we use all of them rather than one or two. What do you think? When was the last time you had to persuade your team (or teen) to make a change? What was your response when they dragged their feet?

bring energy to your work

2012-01-06T21:25:00.001-05:00

"It's not just the number of hours we sit at a desk that determines the value we generate. It's the energy we bring to the hours we work."
--Tony Schwartz

Communicating is challenging for the best of us

2012-01-02T21:18:00.002-05:00

"Even if you’re the most articulate person who ever lived, you still fail oftener than you succeed.”

Actor Jonathan Epstein in an interview with Harvard Magazine.

how we say what we say is as important as what we say

2011-12-27T21:00:00.004-05:00

(excerpted from an interview with Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, author of Infants and Mothers, by Harvard Magazine): "How did you come to understand that how doctors communicate was just as important as what they communicate?

I learned very early that if you tell somebody what to do, they withdraw, set up defenses, and don’t listen. If you wait until the patient finally says to you, “What do you think?” then you have permission to answer their question and say, “What would you like to know from me?” Then they take control and tell you what they need. Waiting for this moment is the hardest thing to do in medicine, because we think it’s going to take a lot of time. The truth is, it takes less time than you’d think. I found, in my own practice, that if I spent an hour in the first two or three visits with patients, then it would never take me more than five or six minutes from then on for each visit. So in spending time at first, I’d cut down on what it took later on."

Managers, leaders, parents -- I'll assume that if you're reading this, you are asking me, "what do you think?" I am answering: listen to Dr. Brazelton! What is true for a doctor with his patient is true for a leader and his team. Build the relationship. Avoid giving advice unless asked. Take the time up front to coach.

What do you deserve?

2011-12-20T14:50:00.004-05:00

Because we don't have a working television, I don't watch much, so when I recently spent 4 nights in a hotel with a million channels, I watched what is for me a year's worth. I found I was riveted more by the commercials than by the shows. Who knew there were so many things out there we need! Now!

What has struck me recently is how often the word, "deserve" is used, as in: "you deserve this" or "you deserve the best".

So, what makes any of us deserve any specific thing -- be it a new car or a life hardship? The word "deserve" connotes worth and merit. One who deserves a thing is entitled to that thing. To what are we entitled?

While the vacations and cars were benign, the most egregious of these was a commercial showing a person drinking too much, getting arrested for drunk driving, and hiring the advertised lawyers because he "deserves the best legal team." He does? He could have killed someone. Yes, he is owed a trained lawyer for his money, but what has he done to "deserve the best"? In fact, couldn’t we argue that he doesn’t deserve the best?

People complain a great deal that the current college-age generation acts like it is entitled. These students are more likely to complain about an A- or a B+ than students from years past; they ask for lightened homework and delays in due dates. Maybe they've been influenced by the near-constant advertising message that they are deserving.

Yesterday, a group of girls in the Barnes & Noble bathroom were commiserating (loudly) with their friend who's father had insisted that the puppy he'd given her for her birthday also counted as her Christmas present. "That's unfair," protested one friend. "You deserve a birthday present and a Christmas present."

I held my tongue but wondered if the father could count the puppy’s future veterinarian bills as this year's Christmas present: doesn't he deserve credit for that expense?

My in-laws asked how much I earned and upon hearing the (paltry) sum, gasped and my mother-in-law exclaimed, "But you deserve so much more!"

"I do?" I asked, grinning at how much like a recent ad she seemed.

"Of course," she said. "And soon you will earn so much more. Why, they'll pay you twice that when they see what you've done."

Given that I've asked for and been denied a raise in the last 6 months (“you’re an exceptional instructor but you’re earning at the top of the pay range”), a doubling of salary is as likely as a trip to the moon.

How often do people use that phrase with you: you deserve more / better? Does it leave you feeling dissatisfied with something when previously you were not?

Do we not need to merit something to deserve it -- have these two concepts been divorced of each other?

What does society or life owe us? What have we merited?

People don't respond to money but to comparisons with others' money

2011-11-16T08:52:00.008-05:00

People are not rational, and managers who offer incentives based on the false belief that their employees are rational will waste money and effort. In a recent Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge Newsletter, The Most Powerful Workplace Motivator by Carmen Nobel (October 31, 2011) we see new research demonstrating that most of us are motivated not by money itself but by the comparison of how much money we earn compared to our peers. And not by how we perform against a standard but in how we perform relative to our peers’ performance.

Professor Ian Larkin, author of the study quoted by Nobel, observes salespeople giving up the opportunity to earn $30,000 in commissions to earn a gold star on their name tag (and a few other goodies that nowhere near add up to the lost commission) and scholars downloading their own research papers multiple times to ensure they aren’t out-downloaded by peers. There was no extrinsic reward – no tenure, awards, or outside recognition – associated with a higher download count. Just a public number that they and their peers can see.

This puts most managers in a tough position: if we share with employees how they are doing relative to their peers, we create competition, which will limit sharing of critical information and resources. I observed this first-hand when working at a multi-national retailer, whose corporate president thought he would encourage hard work by needling division presidents about how the other divisions were doing that week: "I see sportcoats are selling well in Joe's division; what's going on here?" While I'm sure this lit a fire in that president's belly and boosted sportcoat sales the next week, it led to infighting, failure to capitalize on inter-division synergies, and judgment errors on product focus.

It's best to encourage our employees to see themselves as competing with an external, rather than internal, competitor -- if we can get the data. How much more powerful it would be to say, "hey, competitor X has 10% turnover; why is ours 14%?" Or, "we pay 5% more than competitor X and offer a better work environment."

How are you using performance comparisons to lead to improved performance? How does your company use comparisons?

risk of asking for a behavior change

2011-10-31T10:12:00.007-04:00

I was talking with a group of engineers this week about letting another person know when his behavior is making it difficult for them to do their work. Many of us complain and gossip: "can you believe he's late to every meeting!" "Once again she goes on travel without letting anyone know where she is!" "He's so creepy -- he comes up behind me when I'm working on the computer and rubs my shoulders!"

The outcome of this complaining is that we get solace and comaraderie -- the person or people to whom we complain agree the complained-about person is a creep or an idiot or selfish or whatever characterizing term seems to fit. There is no actual change as a result and our improved emotional state lasts only until the offending person behaves in his "usual" way again.

We have a chance of changing behavior when we let the other person know how his behavior is negatively affecting us and our work. We can say, "we can't make rigorously-analyzed decisions when you arrive late to meetings -- we're missing too much of your input." Or, "when we don't know you're going on travel, we assume we'll be able to work directly with you. It would help our work planning if you'd give us advance notice of travel plans." Or, "I'm uncomfortable when you come up behind me and rub my shoulders. I'd prefer you simply come around my desk and say hello"

Speaking up has the advantages of enabling us to experience ourselves as people with the potential influence to make changes rather than as whiners, providing the other person with the opportunity to change behavior he may not realize is detrimental to others, and limiting gossip, and therefore outgrouping, at work.

One person in the program said, but what if I speak up and the person doesn't change his behavior? Yes, this is a risk. Perhaps the other person's habits are so deeply ingrained that he can't change them, he lacks the emotional intelligence to make changes, or our requested behavior was unreasonable.

I have a student with whom I've talked in person and to whom I've sent several heart-felt emails about arriving late to class. I've talked about what he's losing, what his learning group is losing, and what our class is losing by his missing so much of the class period. He continues to arrive about 30 minutes late. He will not change. That's his choice; a choice that will be reflected in his grade. And if you're thinking, well that gives you positional power, not so fast. This student is the first to complain about course process (often about things he insists I don't do for students that I do at the start of classes which he misses) and I have no doubt he will complain to the department and in his evaluations. These complaints can influence the department about hiring me for future classes and can influence future students' thinking about taking the class. His coming in late will cost me.

I can't change his behavior but if I had not tried I would not have changed his behavior nor would I ask other students to make this change. Yet every other student who habitually arrived late changed behavior after a few words from me. We must see each person and situation as unique. If I stopped speaking up, I'd see myself as powerless and I would become powerless.

When we say nothing, we get nothing.

Can you teach "heart"?

2011-10-27T19:33:00.008-04:00

I noticed this sticker on a student's computer: "you can't teach heart".

I asked him about it -- what does it mean by "heart" in this context? Kindness? Generosity? Empathy? (all of which I believe can be taught)

He said the saying is "absolutely true" and in his context it meant commitment to the sport (jui jit su). So, what do you think? Can you teach someone to be committed to a sport -- to give his heart to it?

I disagree with this quote. While I believe we cannot motivate another person -- that the other person has to be self-motivated -- I do believe we can do things to teach commitment:

model commitment ourselves. We can demonstrate to our employees, teammates, peers, and children our own commitment to our group, company, team or family. We are teaching all the time. Do we give our heart to our organizations or work teams? Do we give our heart to our families? How often do we just go through the motions, get through the day, finish the task? We cannot expect heart when we don't give heart.
actively demonstrate the outcomes of commitment. Oftentimes people don't go the extra mile because they don't see the value in doing so. We think those folks are lazy and lose interest in them. They get less attention and see even less value in giving their hearts, and we've facilitated a negative spiral. We may know why we're committed, but if we haven't shared the overarching goal -- our organization's reason for being beyond making a profit, our team's goal beyond winning the next game, and our family's role in our lives beyond someone to add to the laundry basket -- then we cannot expect anyone else to have that goal at the front of their minds.

I'm sure there are more ways to teach "heart". What ideas do you have?

How to carve practice space out of existing performance space

2011-10-15T21:15:00.003-04:00

You can create a space for practice by ensuring psychological safety on your team and by using the coaching process created by Denis Kinlaw in Coaching for Commitment.

Psychological safety: Develop mutual trust whereby you are all willing to be vulnerable to each other because you assume the others have positive intentions. Your team will trust you when you are authentic, consistent, competent, and principled.

Coaching process: Instead of solving problems for your employees, invite them into a discussion of discovery. Purposefully use your conversations with employees as practice spaces -- encourage them to share what they know that you don't, build on their ideas to make the most of what you both know, and focus on gaining insights rather than on immediate end results.

When your employees know that there are times they can talk out their ideas with you and you will make both the time and the mental energy available to focus on what they have to say, when their words have influence over what happens at work, and when it's okay for them to test theories, raise concerns, stretch for higher goals, make mistakes, and attempt new skills, they gain new and useful competencies. These competencies give them the confidence to stretch for even higher goals, building ever greater competency -- a self-perpetuating upward performance spiral.

When you create a space for practice at work, you enable employees to reach their fullest potential.

Do you create practice space for your team?

2011-10-12T21:01:00.004-04:00

Sports teams practice and perform: 5 or so days a week they get together and experiment with new plays, try out different tactics, push limits, and test theories. They expect some of these won't pan out -- they'll fail -- and they'll learn from what didn't work to determine what will.

Players increase competency by seeing what works and learning from what doesn't, by reaching for more speed or endurance or skill, and by learning how to respond to setbacks. And competency creates confidence, which inspires players to try to reach higher goals.

When game day comes along, they use what they've learned combined with their confidence to succeed.

In some work environments, employees perform all the time. There's no room for trying something new, testing unique ideas, or failing. As a result, confidence wanes, leading employees to be less willing to stretch themselves, less likely to take risks, less comfortable offering suggestions. New competencies aren't developed and existing competencies aren't strengthened.

What can you do to create room for practice at work?

Does fear of vulnerability make us more vulnerable?

2011-10-05T08:14:00.005-04:00

A student expressed concern that if he told people how their behavior affected him, they'd have the power to affect him negatively. The other students responded that few people in his environment were out to get him, and I think that's probably true. Yet, I'm not sure if that was comforting enough for him to risk sharing his concerns with others -- how would he know who to trust with his feelings?

Trust is the willingness to be vulnerable to another person because we expect their intentions and actions toward us to be positive, or at the least, not negative.

So, would it be a bad idea to let someone you don't fully trust know their words or actions cause you hurt or frustration, or in any way limit your ability to do your best work? Yet if we don't trust the other person, and we don't say anything about the negative impact their words/actions have on us, aren't we more likely to be more hurt in the future when they continue that behavior?

And in the end, if they decide not to change their behavior then we know beyond a doubt that we have to change our response to their behavior. After all, we have control over our own emotions; no one can make us feel something. So, perhaps it's better to get it on the table where we can no longer ignore it and hope it will change?

What do you think? Have you ever had someone hurt you more than they had in the past after and because you let them know their behavior resulted in a negative experience for you?

business rationale for a leading up culture

2011-09-20T14:51:00.003-04:00

You've seen in this blog that I promote the value of a leading up culture -- one where leadership expects, and sets the structure in place for, employees to share critical information with those above them on the organizational chart. Leaders cannot know what those on the front line know --what's happening with competitors and customers day to day, what skills and resources are needed to meet customer needs right now and in the future, and an assessment of our own level of these.

Now there is quantitative support for creating a culture where employees are encouraged to speak up and leaders are expected to listen: The Daily Stat, a publication of the Harvard Business Review, reported today that "Companies rated by their employees as being in the top quartile in openness of communication delivered an average total shareholder return of 7.9% over a recent 10-year period, compared with 2.1% at companies in other quartiles, according to the Corporate Executive Board."

Leaders must create a psychologically safe environment, one where employees can share bad news and know that their leader won't shoot the messenger. The Corporate Executive Board's report goes on to say that "nearly half of executive teams lack information they need to manage effectively because employees withhold vital input out of fear the information will reflect poorly on them."

How can leaders surface the critical yet hidden information employees are afraid to share? What can you do to enhance "employee's comfort in speaking up, even when they have negative things to say"? -- the "one (indicator) most strongly correlated with a company's 10-year-returns"?

What are you doing to ensure you hear what needs to be said?

Quotes sourced from: Open Door Policy, Closed-Lip Reality, by Michael Griffin, Executive Director, Head of Global Research, Corporate Finance, Corporate Strategy, and Corporate Services Practices. © 2011 The Corporate Executive Board Company.

Early wins central to employee engagement

2011-09-07T17:22:00.002-04:00

I've talked before about the importance of early wins to building momentum toward a major change.

Today's HBS Working Knowledge demonstrates that early wins create the sense of progress, and that sense of progress is critical to employee engagement. More than cash, awards, and recognition, most of us feel a strong desire to achieve. We want to see progress. Early wins provide tangible evidence of progress. And this leads us to feel more engaged, more committed and therefore more likely to succeed further.

So what to do about early losses? If my team fails to achieve a planned goal, is all momentum lost? Not necessarily. Turn that loss into a sense of progress by taking the time to discuss what was learned. Planning what to do differently next time is progress. Ensure your team recognizes this as progress.

If we never fail, we'd never learn. Something else I've talked about in this blog ;-)

Do more transnational companies mean an end to future war?

2011-08-10T14:43:00.006-04:00

In the research paper, Death of the Global Manager, by Julia Hanna, Harvard Business School professor emeritus Christopher A. Bartlett says. "How does it (a transnational company) move beyond its role as an economic entity and recognize itself as a key player in the sociopolitical environment in which it has responsibility as well as power?"

As we move toward a working environment where many people interact with others across the globe, will there come a time when citizens will prevent (democratically-elected) governments from attacking their coworkers' home countries? In the US, large corporations have tremendous influence over government actions; as organizations grow, will they increase their influence over other governments? As marketers and designers and managers gain understanding of consumers and employees in other countries, could that understanding lead to enhanced relationships among the countries' leaders?

I can hope, right?

confidence without competence a dangerous thing

2011-08-05T22:00:00.001-04:00

"difficulty builds mental muscle, while ease often builds only confidence"*

And then what do we do with that confidence? We act on it. But we haven't built the brain muscle to act appropriately. Self-esteem is good but it seems sometimes we put the cart before the horse when we give people (and ourselves) easy tasks so that they can succeed and feel good about themselves. We've done no one any service when we promote someone who isn't really capable, applaud mediocre work, hand out awards to those who showed up rather than holding them accountable to difficult goals.

Would you expect to be able to run a marathon because you can run around the corner without getting out of breath?

What can we do to encourage others, and ourselves and our children to try the difficult challenges, yes, maybe fail, and applaud the effort while encouraging them/us to try again?

*From: Come On, I Thought I Knew That! By Benedict Carey (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/health/19mind.html?pagewanted=1)

Eliminate time wasting activities

2011-08-02T13:39:00.001-04:00

Now, as for the tasks that you're engaged in that are neither important nor urgent, well, it's time to ask yourself, "why am I doing this?" Listen, everyone needs a little Angry Birds time in his day. But not every day and not for more than 10 minutes -- especially if you also need a little Facebook time and a little Twitter time and a little . . . . well, you get the idea.

Pick one timewaster per day and set your computer's timer or alarm system to go off after 10 minutes. That's about all any of us needs to spend in the fourth quadrant.

Eliminate time spent searching for documents

2011-07-30T13:41:00.003-04:00

Do you spend too much time at the start of a task searching for critical documents? One quick trick: when you put the task on your calendar, also write in the notes section where the document is filed. For example, let's say I set up a marketing meeting regarding Project X in another state with a resource working on a small but critical part of the project for 2 months from today. I know when I set up the meeting that we'll need to discuss the marketing results up to that time and the plans going forward. He may also want some information on the vendors.

When I put the meeting on my calendar 2 months ago, I write in the notes section, "F:/project x/marketing & F:/vendors; bring results & plans".

Now when it's time to pack for my trip, I know exactly where to go to get the several different files I'll need. I also try to match the names on my paper files to the names on my computer files. That way, if I need to grab something that is printed out, I'll know to also get that same file from my cabinet.

Hope this helps!

Eliminate time wasting interruptions

2011-07-27T13:25:00.005-04:00

To open up time in our day for the truly important things -- discussions, reading, and research that enable us to learn new concepts, coaching sessions with our direct reports that facilitate their development and commitment and improve our department's productivity, planning and communications that facilitate the smooth-running of our projects -- we have to eliminate time wasters.

Time wasters include: interruptions on issues that are not relevant to us or our organizations, time spent searching for documents or materials that are not where we first expected them, and time spent on activities that we think relax us but only add to our stress (such as reality television).

How do you handle people who pop into your office for a chat that neither builds your relationship (which is important as good team relationships facilitate work completion) nor supports your work?

Learn to triage all interruptions. After a brief welcome, help people get to their point by asking, "how can I help you today?" Based on their response, determine quickly if the discussion will be about something urgent or not urgent. If not urgent, you can politely say, "I'd love to talk with you about that. Let's meet for coffee, say around 2?" Put it on your calendar and send the chatter on his way. It's okay, you need to take a walk at 2 anyway.

You can preempt some of these interruptions by instituting "quiet time": post a notice on your door (or chair if you have no private space) that says, "quiet hours: M - F 10 - 11 and 2 - 3" (or whatever time might work for you).

Let people know you are available for emergencies, but for non-emergencies they should please stop by another time.

Any other solutions out there?

Yet we keep looking for the easy solutions

2011-07-26T13:45:00.003-04:00

"difficulty builds mental muscle, while ease often builds only confidence"*

I teach an engaging interactive class. Students love being in the environment and report learning a great deal. When I can keep class size to 15, students report that they have to work hard to keep up with the discussion, they can't hide. Bigger than that, and I know there are some folks who, while they are listening and learning, they're not pushing themselves hard to build those mental muscles.

Those who do push themselves build those mental muscles. It's clear in their work products and in-class comments.

Yet, other instructors and often students assume that because they're having fun, the class must be easy. Students seem to feel betrayed when they earn a B or C -- their work floats above the surface, they're not digging deep, and they've earned the grade they've earned. And administrators and other instructors overlook the grade distribution noticing only that students like the class so it must be easy.

What a weird position to be in: I can get people working their brains hard and reward those who dig in and do well, but because they work their brains hard in a way that's engaging, everyone assumes the class is "light". If I stood there and talked at them -- which I think would be a far easier class as I spoon feed them ideas -- everyone would think the class is challenging.

*From: Come On, I Thought I Knew That! By Benedict Carey (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/health/19mind.html?pagewanted=1)

Step two: evaluate time management matrix

2011-07-24T13:16:00.002-04:00

Now you have the data you need to complete Covey's time management matrix:


	Urgent	Not Urgent
Important	Crises Pressing Problems Deadline-driven projects	Prevention, PC activities Relationship building Recognizing new opportunities Planning, recreation
Not Important	Interruptions, some calls some mail, some reports Some meetings Proximate, pressing matters Popular activities	Trivia, busy work Some mail/email Some phone calls Time wasters Pleasant activities

* PC = production capacity
P = production

Source: 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

What percent of an average day to you spend in each quadrant? Is the greatest percent in the second quadrant -- important and not urgent? If not, what we want to work on is moving tasks from the 3rd quadrant -- not important but urgent -- to that quadrant and on eliminating items in quadrant 4 -- not important and not urgent.

More in the next posting.

Step one: keep a daily diary

2011-07-23T13:08:00.005-04:00

Want to get a handle on your to-do lists to ensure you spend less time fighting fires and more time discovering opportunities, coaching your team for future success, and accomplishing more important tasks? The first step is to write down everything you do in a day, and do so for several days.

After you've written it all down, code each item:
1) interrruption -- trivial
2) interruption - important and urgent
3) interruption -- important and not urgent
4) interruption -- urgent but not really important
5) task - urgent and important
6) task - urgent but not really important
7) task - important but not urgent
8) task - trivial

Then sort the items and add up the amount of time spent on each item. Now you have a picture of where your time is going.

In the next posting, I'll share what to do with that information.

Time management training helps people complete important tasks

2011-07-19T12:49:00.004-04:00

Of the 73% of planned tasks that an average R&D Engineer completes in a day, less-important tasks are somewhat more likely to be completed than more-important tasks according to Things to Do Today . . . : A Daily Diary Study on Task Completion at Work by Brigitte J.C. Claessens, Wendelien van Eerde, Christel G. Rutte, and Robert A. Roe.

After all these years of Steven Covey telling managers (in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) to focus on" important but not urgent tasks", for most of us, "tasks that are both important and urgent are more likely to be performed, but tasks that are only important and not urgent are unlikely to be completed."

The authors write that "respondents who were more conscientious and emotionally stable had completed a higher percentage of the planned tasks. Also, those who had participated in a time management program prior to this study completed more of their planned work."

What are some of the things you do to ensure you complete important tasks to prevent the firefighting that accompanies completing urgent-and-important-tasks?

Risks of a narcissistic work force

2011-06-23T11:13:00.002-04:00

Narcissims is defined as: a personality marked by self-love and self-absorption; unrealistic views about your own qualities and little regard for others.
narcissistic personality

According to new research from Appalachian State University (http://jme.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/05/12/1052562911408097), today's college students have "significantly higher levels of narcissism than college students of the past, business students possess significantly higher levels of narcissism than psychology students."

Why? Why would this generation have less realistic self-perceptions and less concern for others? (I blame reality tv, which seems remarkably un-real to me, but then, I'm very old). What do you think?

And why do business students in particular have higher degrees of narcissism? Is it in the self-selection for the career -- you have to think highly of yourself to survive in the dog-eat-dog world of business? Or is it in the way we're educating these students? -- is there too much coddling and have the standards relaxed so much that everyone assumes his A means he's tops?

The researchers go on to say that "narcissists expect to have significantly more career success in terms of ease of finding a job, salary, and promotions." What kind of shock have we set up for these students when they hit real life and all of its challenges? Will their strong sense of self-importance help them weather life challenges or will it lead to confusion or despair?

And most importantly, what do we do about it? For these current students and for our children?

Efficacious email #2 of 2

2011-06-20T10:54:00.000-04:00

Emailing effectively & efficiently

2011-06-16T10:47:00.003-04:00

So much time is wasted with inefficient emailing. How can you improve the efficacy of your emails?

(first of two podcasts)

A healthy diet plan -- for your brain?

2011-06-09T11:03:00.005-04:00

This week I met with a highly educated, very dedicated group of attorneys. Several times throughout our meeting I heard one or another comment on their overwhelming quantity of work. Harvard Business Review has just published a blog by David Rock that states that so many people are overwhelmed that the problem has reached the danger level (http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/06/this_week_the_us_government.html)

Rock recommends a brain diet, similar to the revamped US government's food pyramid, now "choose my plate". Rock's "healthy mind platter" has us balancing focus time with play time and connecting time and so forth, much in the way Steven Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People recommends we plan for all aspects of our lives, not just our work life.

All great advice, but what will help the group of overworked attorneys? Unless we reduce the work quantity, how can they allocate time to other aspects of their lives/brains? While I agree they would be more productive with, and less stressed about, their excessive work load if they took a walk at mid-day, regularly scheduled 10-minute calls with loved ones once a day, and got a good 7-8 hours of sleep each night, ultimately I believe that they'll have to set limits on work quantity.

They'll have to learn to say "yes, and", as in "yes, I can complete the first step in that process by Friday and meet your full request by two weeks from today." Or, "yes, I'd be happy to help you with that research. And if you'd review my other priorities with me, we can find which item could be delayed."

How do you accept work requests?

Interestingly, I know of many employees who are under-worked! When a team mate is producing less than others, the overworked folks not only feel overworked but also angry. Burnout is not due to excessive workload, it's due to negative feelings about the workload. Managers must coach all employees, and communicate about workload openly and honestly, to prevent burnout.

Your thoughts?

Who defines project goals: top management or implementers?

2011-05-18T08:31:00.008-04:00

It matters. When top management defines a project they usually do so because they have information front-line employees don't have: a competitor's new market strategy will affect sales; a new technology will soon be available that may reduce costs; the cost of capital is going up/down which influences the ability to expand.

All good reasons. The risks of a top-defined project: top level managers often don't know enough about implementer constraints and resources: current employee skills do not match the project requirements; current technology can't support project needs; other projects and daily tasks are more critical or salient to the employees' success. Sometimes current employee evaluation, compensation and promotion systems lead employees to focus on goals that are at cross-purposes to the project goals. While this is something within top management control, they rarely acknowledge or even notice it, and therefore it goes unchanged.

When front line employees define project goals, they may do so because they see the need first hand: customer behavior changes, calling for a new service method; access to a supply changes, requiring substitutions; or there's a shift in the labor pool, requiring new training systems.

Again, good reasons. The risks of bottom-up defined project scope are that folks at the front don't have access to or understanding of corporate resources, and may ask for unreasonable funding or management attention. They don't see where the overall organization is headed, and may not realize that their project goals run counter to the strategic direction. And they don't have access to competitive analysis that might require them to speed up or slow down or drop their project.

Ultimately, when project requirements come from the top, the implementers complain that management is being unreasonable: "we can't possibly get this done in that amount of time!" When project requirements come from the bottom, senior managers don't value the outcome and therefore don't reward success and may not supply needed resources or champion-support.

Solution? Communication!

While ideas for projects should come from everywhere, project scope and resource allocation must be defined by a cross-level group. Senior people in the group must recognize that by their very title they may inhibit surfacing of critical information and must therefore make extra effort to create psychological safety within the group. Everyone should recognize what each member brings to the table.

With open communication and clear understanding of each person's limited vision, project goals will be defined more precisely, leading to greater success.

2011-04-12T21:07:00.004-04:00

"Managers help people find and mine the gold that lies within them."

Edward Hallowell. Shine: Using Brain Science to Get the Best from Your People

In-groups and out-groups

2011-04-08T12:16:00.003-04:00

Do you have in-groups and out-groups in your work team? In-groups are those with whom the group leader is most comfortable, while out-group members seem to live on the periphery of the leader's world.

On the one hand, as a leader I know I prefer to work with people who are self-motivated, who are willing to disagree and to do so agreeably, whose work quality is consistenly high, and who either do what is asked or explain why they shouldn't do what is asked. And those not fitting that profile? They end up in the out-group.

On the other hand, there are risks when some members of the group have the leader's ear and others have less influence: good ideas get lost and perceptions of (or actual) biases lead to active disengagement. The full work-group's potential is reduced.

So, is that just the way it is? Because some people, no matter how hard a leader tries to coach a poor performer or communicator, will not get to the level that others achieve we will always have in- and out-groups?

When I teach leaders to coach their employees, I encourage them to focus their energies on those with the greatest potential to improve: taking a B-quality employee to A-quality is like mining gold. Getting a D-quality employee to a C? Well, then you still have a C-quality employee -- what good is that? And at what level of effort and investment of time?

What if the leader eliminates lower-performing employees? Then there won't be out-groups, right? Unfortunately, I see in-groups and out-groups even when employees are working at a high level.

What happens is that leaders, like all humans, are more comfortable with some personality types than others. I might like to talk about my kids but you might like to talk football. I might be into technology and want to show off my latest app, and you might find such talk tedious or vapid.

If you're the leader, TOO BAD! It's up to you to be sure to eat lunch with a variety or employees, take care not to have coffee with the same 1 - 3 people every day, stop by everyone's work space on a regular basis, ensure employees are communicating with each other consistently, and generally be on a friendly basis with everyone equally. Take care to allocate the most visible projects and juicy challenges equitably. Talk up and support all employees when communicating with the higher ups. Close friends are for outside of work.

A leader will make decision-errors if he hears more information or gives more credence to information from his in-group. Take extra care to disband in- and out-groups at work.

Can you change your mind?

2011-04-05T21:33:00.000-04:00

Burnout vs. exhaustion

2011-04-01T08:05:00.001-04:00

People talk about burnout at work as if it's caused by spending too much time doing high stress tasks or in a high stress environment. It is not. That is exhausting, but is not burnout. If it were, doctors, firefighters, teachers and others in these types of environments would be burned out all the time.

Burnout is doing work that has no meaning to you personally. People burn out even in low-stress jobs completed in 8 hour days. I've been overworked and I've been burned out. Burnout is a much worse experience and to be avoided at all costs. Overwork is life for most people trying to do something truly great. That's why there are vacations.

Vacations don't cure burnout yet many people expect them to. If you do work that to you has no value, you will be just as burned out when you return to that work from vacation as you were when you left it.

There are two cures: either redesign your job or get a different one.

What if I do all this and I fail?

2011-03-30T21:14:00.005-04:00

In the last few days, no fewer than 5 people said, in response to my asking them what is keeping them from doing the work they say they need to do to reach the goals they set for themselves, "what if I do all this and I fail?" Now, I've heard this before; most successful people fear failure. However, what is new here is the "all this" part -- it isn't just "what if I fail" but "what if I fail after I've expended tremendous effort or time."

To each I responded, "and then what? What happens if you did all this and failed."

Common response, "then it would have been a waste of energy/effort/time."

And I'm thinking how is this wasted time different from the time wasted watching tv., posting to facebook, etc.? But I don't say this because such a comment would take them to a different place -- defense or shame -- than where they need to go.

Me: "Ok, then what. You wasted some effort or time, so . . . "

Common responses:
1) So, then I would have failed. If I don't try then I can always hold out hope that if I were willing to spend the effort I might succeed. Whereas if I fail, I'll know the truth is I can't do it. Then, I might not try anything like it again.

2) I'd burn out from all the work. I need to conserve my energy.

3) I wouldn't have fun and if I didn't have fun then my life would be really sad.

In the context of my discussions with these folks -- one of helping them develop the capacity to solve their own problems -- I didn't want to lecture them from my perspective and values on these three responses. For the purposes of this blog, though, I want to ask my readers: what do you think about these three responses? If you were to give advice to these folks, what would it be?

Finally, while the "fear of failure" concern comes up frequently in my coaching work, I'd never heard concerns 2 and 3 before. Both were from people under age 25. Is this a new generation thing? Is there some new fear of over-exertion and lack of fun?

What is meaningful to you at work?

2011-03-21T08:49:00.004-04:00

Overhead from an 8th grader's mom: I can't get my son to do any schoolwork. "Why bother, mom", he tells his mother, "I already got into the high school I want to go to."

Well what did she think? Clearly she's taught him that the goal of middle school is to get into a competitive high school. Does she not know that the goal of high school will be to get into a competitive college, then a competitive graduate school. Gee mom, I wonder what he'll do the last semester of high school and college? Learn? Doubt it.

My 7th grader said to me, "I'd rather be in an incredibly difficult chemistry class, working really heard to earn a C but actually learning something, than sitting in this easy class taking my A for doing nothing."

And I felt both pride and a little prickle of fear: if he goes for those high-level classes taught by the self-described "tough graders" maybe he won't get into the top colleges when all the other kids are grabbing the easy A's. On the other hand, he won't feel like a fraud when he does get in: he'll know how hard he worked and he'll know what he learned.

What happens at work? Do we work for the next promotion? Then what? At some point in the vast majority of careers, there is no higher place on that org chart we're going to reach. We either need to start our own business or decide that the work itself is meaningful.

What is meaningful and important to you at work? What do you think is meaningful and important to your children in school?

We are teachers all the time

2011-03-12T22:05:00.003-05:00

If you want your team to treat each other with respect, treat everyone with respect. If you want your team to make ethical decisions, make ethical decisions yourself. But be sure the people you're trying to inspire think of you as "like them" in some way. We are all influenced by the behavior of others: if we feel an affinity with you, we'll behave more like you. If we don't, we just might do the opposite. If you hold yourself apart, you may not have the influence you expect to have.

Francesca Gino and Dan Ariely "gave groups of college students from Carnegie Mellon University a series of math problems and paid them based on how many they solved correctly in five minutes." Gino explains in an HBR article, "We hired an actor who made it clear to the other participants that cheating was possible. The actor was asked to wear a plain t-shirt in one condition, and a t-shirt of a rival university in another. When the actor appeared to be a member of the students' community, participants were more likely to cheat than when the actor appeared to be a member of another group. The actor was setting the norm for whether cheating was acceptable."

What you do is reflected in the actions of others.

What does your team see you do? Do you pad your expense account? Do you order more expensive meals at a business lunch than you would order if lunch were on your own dime? Do you squeeze the supplier you know needs the sale just because you can? What does your team learn?

What do your children see you do? Do you take home pads of paper from the office? Do you sneak your short 13-year-old in to movies with a "12 & under discount"? Are you making little cheats on your taxes? What do your children learn?

Trust is critical to any successful team

2011-03-09T21:28:00.004-05:00

As Peirre Beaudoin tells McKinsey Quarterly, "if you want to make a change . . . You need the people who are willing to make themselves vulnerable, the people who are willing to learn, to work in teams, to promote the leadership skills that we agree are important."

Trust is the willingness to make oneself vulnerable to another based on one's belief in that other's good intentions and/or competency. Bombardier's successful change effort was moved forward because leaders were willing to accept that vulnerability. He goes on to say that those who couldn't do so were let go, even if they had been top performers. They simply no longer fit the culture.

The company had been one where no one was willing to tell hard truths; things were always "great". Silos were powerful, information sharing was poor. To become a culture where privately held information could bubble up from all levels, leaders had to learn to trust one another. How successful has that turnaround been?

"The level of engagement in employee surveys has climbed more than 15 percent since 2004" -- this in a recession!
"recently named the third most admired and trusted brand in Canada in a survey of consumers; the survey also ranked our workplace second most admired.^4"

and for those of you who find #'s 1 and 2 too "soft" how about some hard financial data: Bombardier went :from an EBIT³ margin of 2 or 3 percent to 8 percent, a $500 million improvement."

Ultimately, change takes hard work and a lot of internal trust. Two "soft" things Bombardier has achieved.

Don't underestimate the power of early wins

2011-03-06T21:18:00.003-05:00

As John Kotter teaches, if you want to create change in your organization you have to provide opportunities for early wins and then use those early wins to build momentum. In an interview with McKinsey Quarterly, Pierre Beaudoin, CEO of Bombardier explains how they used early wins to persuade those who weren't convinced: "We started by identifying discrete projects that were small enough to show the organization fairly quickly that if we accepted change, we could succeed. There were five or six. Once these were working, we could take the doubters to see them, and the employees who had been involved in the successes could talk to the others. We believed that if we could involve about 30 percent of the organization that transformed in this way, the ideas would catch on in the whole organization."

When working toward a major change such as that implemented by Bombardier, the organization must have specific, measurable, relevant, timelined and achievable yet challenging goals. Achievable so that you feel confident you'll get those early wins, yet challenging or your detractors will say, "of course they achieved that goal; it was easy."

Groups, and therefore organizations, find themselves in upward, virtuous spirals or downward vicious spirals. An early win can be the push upward. An early loss does not have to push downward; leaders must be quick to identify and communicate what went wrong and plan to overcome the challenge. Then, as the saying goes, try, try again. Create a new stretch goal, and ensure success on which you can build momentum.

Need a little tiger management too!

2011-03-01T09:14:00.005-05:00

Okay dammit, lead from the front already.

Perhaps I've pushed this lead from behind concept too much? Last night my grad students "climbed Everest" (via Harvard B. School Publishing's simulation). Because I assign roles in advance of class, leaders are predetermined (the teams don't get to choose their leaders).

Unlike my undergrad leaders, who seemed to completely lack the ability to lead from behind and yanked their team up the mountain whether they wanted to go or not (some team members have hidden goals to stay at lower camps -- a setup in the simulation), the leaders last night seemed to be working so hard to be nice, neither got a single member to the top!

These students attended my management course and are now in a more advanced leadership course. In the management course I taught them to listen to and coach their teams. But I thought I balanced that with meeting organization and personal goals. One has to listen: honor direct reports' goals while ensuring surfacing hidden information. Then one must make a decision or, if using a participative management style, ensure the team makes the decision based on fully-available information and with full awareness and understanding that some individual goals will not be met. By struggling to ensure each teammember met his individual goals, neither leader came close to meeting group goals.

What about you? Have you figured out how to be the right mix of tiger and participative manager?

We need Nelson Mandela now

2011-02-22T14:33:00.003-05:00

Nelson Mandela said: "a leader is like a shepherd … he stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go on ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind."

Many business consultants and writers encourage leaders to lead from the front. The reality is, most leaders already do this. We need to get leaders to take a facilitator's role at least some of the time. Develop the most "nimble" to lead by letting them lead while you provide necessary support and resources. Get out of the way of your best people.

2011-02-14T15:40:00.003-05:00

Matthew Alexander, author of Kill or Capture, is on NPR right now talking about his role as a Senior US Interrogator in Iraq. He says something important to all of us -- managers, leaders, parents, and citizens: the number one thing that prevents getting good information is stereotypes. When interrogators stereotyped Arabs or Muslims, they took the wrong approach or couldn't establish the trust necessary to form the relationship that would encourage the Taliban member in front of them to share critical information.

For example, if you believe that all Muslims are anti-US, then you are unlikely to look for areas where you share likes and dislikes. Alexander used these connections to develop trust that eventually leads to the capture of senior Taliban.

By the same token, if you assume all lower-level employees care only about their paycheck or have no loyalty to your organization, you won't look for ways to enable commitment that do not involve compensation. If you believe that they're all stupid, you are unlikely to search for underlying causes for specific challenges your organization faces, and therefore you'll be far less likely to solve those challenges sustainably. And if you believe your children only want things, you are unlikely to form relationships with them that will lead to their self-development.

What stereotypes get in your way to being a great manager, leader or parent?

Management lessons from the 4th grade

2011-02-14T08:00:00.009-05:00

In the car today my sons talked about being a safety in fourth grade: safeties are responsible for ensuring children entering and leaving the building before and after school get to their car/bus safely. Here's what my guys had to say:

Captains and lieutenants seemed to have been chosen randomly – and because they were in the position for the full trimester, no one ever got a chance to earn the position
Captains and lieutenants were given the combination to the safety locker (where badges were kept), which led the other safeties to feel as though the school didn’t trust them. Why not give the code to all the safeties?, they asked.
Some safeties seemed to abuse the position, as in, when a safety would do something wrong and another child threatened to tell, the safety might say, “you can’t do that, I’m a safety” as if being a safety granted him/her immunity.
Because everyone became a safety eventually, the kids who were safeties in the last trimester knew they only got chosen because they were left over. And more, this did not demonstrate that school officials saw you as especially capable or dependable, thereby diminishing the honor.

Now I’d like not to get into the debate about how American sports and schools give everyone an award for showing up, but I would like to see how we can take this 4^th grade view of the world and apply it to management and leadership:

Are your team leads chosen carefully, with input from the full team? Does your company have specific promotional plans clarifying expectations and ensuring that all employees both have a chance for advancement as well as a chance not to advance? When a promotion is made, is the choice explained well and using more than one medium (or do you rely on the mass email: “congrats to so ‘n so, chosen for his such ‘n such”)?
Do your employees experience themselves as being trusted? If not, can you expect them to trust you?
Do you have systems in place to ensure that team leads use their positions well? Remember: Power corrupts. So does the lack of power. When abusive power leads to powerlessness, corruption spills over into business processes and eventually the bottom line.
Do you provide meaningful opportunities for development, growth, and achievement? People are motivated by different things – some by challenge, others by esteem, and so on. Managers must provide a variety of outcomes to ensure all employees have the opportunity to self-motivate.

What does your 4th grader have to say about management and leadership?

Have you created spaces where hunches can collide?

2011-02-13T20:23:00.002-05:00

Steven Johnson tells us that great ideas take years to come to fruition during which hunches incubate and collide with other hunches. Today's managers have to create spaces to allow for both of these. By now you've heard about Google's 20% time (when everyone gets one day a week to work on whatever they want) and another company's (sorry forgot the name) 24 hour period where they work on whatever they want and how these "time off" periods have led to some of these companies' most profitable products or most critical fixes to serious glitches.

It seems as though I have so much work that has to get done in so little time, as does everyone working for me and with me, that I don't know how to give up (or at least it feels like giving up) a day of work.

But beyond incubation time, let's think about the "how" of the colliding hunches. Most of the people with whom I work I rarely see F-2-F. So, how do we create spaces for the collision of hunches when we rarely share a cup of coffee and debate ideas? I've been polishing my virtual management / teamwork skills and I've come to realize that sometimes we have to meet synchronously and visually. Skype is nice because it's cheap, although the slight time delay is awkward. Perhaps we can have a Skype coffee?

Ideas anyone?

Do we need individual leaders or is it time for shared leadership?

2011-02-12T21:55:00.001-05:00

"We are part of a culture that glorifies the role of individuals and loves to find the hero in every story, often when achievements are the work of many 'unsung heroes'. I am part of a collaborative research project that connects 20 leadership organizations and 200 individuals who are sharing resources and writing about these questions on a public wiki so please join the fray (www.leadershipforanewera.org). We are asking about the limitations of seeing leadership as the behavior of an individual exerting influence over others, and believe that leadership is a dynamic process through which individuals and groups connect and take action. The situation in Egypt is a great example of the power of collective leadership – and one that shows us that whether we are talking about work places, community life or global issues, we will never reach the scale of change or progress we seek, developing one leader at a time."

Deborah Meehan responding to an HBR article, "Do We Need Leaders?"

Powerlessness corrupts too

2011-02-11T15:15:00.001-05:00

"Powerlessness corrupts as much as power does." -- Linda Hill (professor at Harvard Business School)

Have you had (or been) an employee who had no authority but was held accountable? What usually happens as a result? How do people get around that -- either they take what they have to take or they find a way to squirm out of the accountability.

Have you been in this position? Share the outcome or what you did to overcome it.

Are we really just horses?

2011-02-10T14:39:00.004-05:00

Fewer feet that own more shoes, but basically horses that our bosses can motivate with a carrot in front of us and a stick at our back?

Daniel Pink tells us that carrots and sticks actually demotivate us! What do you think? And how do we implement his ideas at work?

I remember years ago I wanted to increase the sales of a particular product so I ran a contest -- whatever store sold the most each week got a mention in that week's store bulletin, the store with the most sales over the month got an extra bonus to split among the employees and the manager got a bigger bonus for himself, and after 8 weeks the overall winning store got another bonus. Immediately sales went up. But over the course of the contest I noticed that the winning stores kept winning and the losing stores began to see sales drop off. As if, what's the point -- we're not going to win anyway. What should I have done instead?

Why lobster's on the menu

2011-02-06T14:28:00.002-05:00

When it comes to making decisions, we are not as rational as we think we are. Many of our choices are determined by how the options are presented to us. What choices have you made lately? Watch as Dan Ariely shows us how irrational we all really are:

BTW: lobster is on the menu so that the chicken looks like a good deal!

Ted copy use: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

How do you communicate with this kind of finess . . .

2011-02-03T22:39:00.005-05:00

. . . online? :

In person this works great, but in emails? I don't have the hang of it. Any suggestions?

Go to: thisisindexed.com for more great index cards from Jessica Hagy.

People want to be successful

2011-02-03T10:59:00.002-05:00

"People want to be successful, and if you show them the way they will follow." Mike Spracklen, Coach of the Canadian Olympic Gold Medalist Rowing Team

Who picks up trash lying on the floor?

2011-02-01T21:56:00.002-05:00

A "rare responsible person", according to Netflix's HR team, the kind of person they look for, along with "self-motivating", "self-aware", "behaves like a business owner". You have to bring in the right people for your company and the job. It's very difficult to create an open trusting culture, one where rules are limited, when there are people in the organization looking for loopholes. And we want a low-rule workplace because we want people to think and for that people have to be treated like adults. People have to be free to make common sense decisions about when to start and end work, when to take a day off, and when a project should be dumped to make room for something better. Managers and leaders cannot and should not be babysitting.

Most intelligent dedicated people chafe under the constraints companies tend to place on employees to prevent the few who cannot be trusted from taking advantage of the company. Yet, as an instructor, I find myself loading up on rules and requirements because every semester some student finds some way to use the creative freedoms I put in place to serve his own ends -- to demand a grade he really hasn't earned, to demand less rigorous learning, to nibble away at the integrity of the learning objectives. How can I strip away the requirements I've put in over the years so that I can get back to the creative freedom necessary for my students -- and me! -- to bring our authentic selves to class and to free our minds for learning?

Can I teach to the "6"? I once heard a singer say that she used to feel demotivated when she sang in nightclubs --she'd be on stage singing her heart out and most of the people would be talking over her, drinking, laughing. What was the point, she thought, in giving it her all when she was just background noise? A human radio. Then her grandfather advised, "sing to the six" -- there are 6 people out in that audience listening. Sing to them. She was able to renew her love of singing.

I need to teach to the 6, and not let those who seek an easy "A" derail my method. Netflix hasn't had any problems laying off people who don't produce at a high level; no one has sued and remaining employees report that they appreciate working in a place that doesn't hang on to deadwood. Can't fire a student, though. And sometimes it seems you can't even give them a B. What happens when the B-students who scream they want an A get fired? I wonder? I'd bet they don't get hired by the Netflix's of the world.

Is perception reality?

2011-01-29T14:04:00.001-05:00

Don't you hate when people say that? There is an objective reality. Perception is what one person believes to be reality. And we all have our own perceptions, our own views of that reality. What do you see?:

How do you tell your story?

2011-01-28T14:40:00.002-05:00

special thanks to Abhishek Pratap for sharing this video on LinkedIn.

Tiger manager?

2011-01-27T14:53:00.005-05:00

Anyone heard enough about the Tiger Mother book (Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother)? I have decided not to weigh in on the parenting style, but can't help but see if there is any connection to this type of parenting and management. Which is better: telling a person what he or she will be good at, and then pushing that person to practice that skill over and over until he becomes good at it; or trying many different things and seeing where the employee naturally excels, then finding lots of opportunities for him to engage that skill?

Chris Morris, Associate Vice Provost, Continuing and Professional Studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, says, "As a leader, my most important skill set is recognizing the skills and talents of people in my area and designing a structure that allows them to use their strengths and do what they are internally motivated to do in the service of a shared vision."

What do you think? Are you a tiger manager? If so, how is it working for you? Please share your ideas here so that we can all learn.

What is courage?

2011-01-26T19:14:00.005-05:00

Courage, says Brene Brown, comes from the Latin root, cor or heart. Its earliest meaning was: tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.

Many people are afraid to be authentically themselves at work. We wear a mask -- I'm dependable; I'm smart; I'm tough; I'm nice. But that mask, even if it describes a part of who we are, hides the whole truth of who we are.

The cost to ourselves and others is that we find ourselves working to support that mask -- taking care not to do or say anything that might put a nick in it in others' eyes -- while others don't have access to those hidden parts of us that may be supportive of their work. Further, others may be more likely to wear a mask themselves because we do; we've made it de rigueur.

For example, let's say I maintain the nice-guy image at work. What do I do when someone asks me for something that is going to slow down my current projects? What do I say when I'm passed up for a promotion? Most likely, I say nothing. My company loses because I am less productive on my project in the short term and because they are missing the opportunity to fully utilize me long term. And clearly, I lose visibility and promotions.

Are you wearing a mask? What benefit does it provide? Would you be willing to risk that benefit? Why or why not? What would happen if you told the story of who you are with your whole heart?

If you have time:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

How to craft a sentence

2011-01-26T15:38:00.004-05:00

A sentence is not just a series of words strung together. To persuade another person in writing, we must choose words that precisely express our ideas and that flow so well with the other precise words in our sentence that the reader wants to keep reading. Like this:

And the words slide into the slots ordained by syntax, and glitter as with atmospheric dust with those impurities which we call meaning.

--Anthony Burgess, Enderby Outside (1968)

To learn how to craft a sentence, read. Read good writing on subjects that interest you. Over several semesters I've surveyed my students about their reading habits. Those who read consistently earn the highest marks. Doesn't matter if they read Car & Driver or The Economist.

Read.

For more, go to: http://www.npr.org/2011/01/25/133214521/stanley-fish-demystifies-how-to-write-a-sentence

Is failure an option at your organization?

2011-01-24T18:42:00.003-05:00

What happens if you fail at something you try at work? I once made a $5 million error (on paper, thank goodness, not in actual dollars; but still!). I called a favorite professor and asked him if he thought I should resign. He told me the story of a man who lost a million dollar client. When the man went to his company president, hat and resignation letter in hand, his enlightened president responded, "You can't leave! I just spent a million dollars on your education!"But what if failure in your organization isn't an option (and you can tell by the way leaders respond to those who've erred in the past)? What does the organization lose by disallowing errors?

How would your boss respond if you lost a million dollar client, or made a $5 million error?

What would you say or do if your direct report made a huge error (assuming he or she admits it quickly and offers solutions)?

And, what are the likely outcomes of different responses?

If it's in your head, it's hidden to everyone else

2011-01-20T04:08:00.002-05:00

Does your team know the changes you are making to project plans? Often we think because we've discussed something (however long ago), then thought about it and come to a decision on our own, everyone will know our intentions. But they can't read our minds! We have to take that extra minute to communicate our decisions to those affected by them.

What decisions have you made today? Who will be affected by your decisions? How will you let them know? --call, email, IM, other?

What happens when you make changes to a project plan?

2011-01-18T16:11:00.000-05:00

Are you afraid to ask "what if" because others will think you're stupid?

2011-01-15T10:56:00.002-05:00

An HBR article on how successful innovators think states that innovators ask a lot of "what if", "why" and "why not" questions. They then "associate" -- connect their own challenges to other seemingly unrelated ideas -- matching the questions with potential solutions.

How many opportunities do you have today to ask, "what if"? What, if anything, might get in your way of asking?

Rethinking Capitalism

2011-01-10T14:06:00.001-05:00

Watch this interesting video from Michael Porter (HBS professor and strategy expert).

Rethinking Capitalism

What is the purpose of business?

Do corporates have a responsibility to society beyond earning the highest possible profit? Why or why not?

Guilty at home and at work?

2011-01-08T14:51:00.001-05:00

Re, previous post: what if you feel guilty at home and at work? Can you be great at both? According to Dr. Flynn (article here), people who feel guilty at work are more likely to be perceived as excellent leaders.

But will all that dedication to work make it difficult to give your all at home too? This is something I have not reconciled -- and it's why I work part time!

I need your advice on this folks. What is the balance between being an excellent leader at work and excellent leader at home?

A happy brain or a guilty brain

2011-01-05T14:37:00.003-05:00

Hmm, according to Francis Flynn, the director of the Center for Leadership Development and Research at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, the more guilt-ridden you are the better you are at leading others (see the article/listen to an interview here).

Can you be happy (see previous post) and guilty? Given the real definitions of these states of mind, yes! Perhaps the more conscientious we are, the more satisfied we are with our work and therefore our life.

Dr. Flynn demonstrates that people who are dedicated to their work, who care about and take personally work outcomes, and have a strong sense of responsibility are considered to be better leaders by their coworkers. And, interestingly, they are also more satisfied with their jobs and more committed to their employers.

What do you think? What is your experience with guilt and work?

why a happy brain performs better

2010-12-17T15:00:00.001-05:00

Here's an interesting interview. One caveat: he's not talking about happy as in, "joy" or "fun". He's using it to mean "open to positive possibilities". I wish those who studied this field would use a word other than "happy", which generates skepticisim. I took the Positive Psychology course with Tal Ben-Shahar and would recommend it to anyone interested in learning how to develop their own and others' abilities to open the mind, develop new neural pathways, and develop more positive relationships.

When spiderwebs unite . . .

2010-12-14T13:55:00.004-05:00

. . . they can halt even the lion.*

So many of my workshop participants say, "Everyone agrees we need to make that change but no one will stand up and say so." What we often fail to realize is that one person speaking alone is rarely able to make major changes within an organization but several voices together can turn it in a new direction.

Who are your natural allies -- who already agrees but hasn't said anything publicly? Who shares your interests and hasn't given much thought to the change you seek? Who has the ear of the powers that be?

Gather allies and make a coordinated effort to achieve your change goals. Use numerous influence techniques -- don't just talk, take action. Show results. Demonstrate the quantitative and qualitative cost of not making changes and the quantitative and qualitative benefits of the change. Don't hide the risks or you'll limit your credibility, but offer mitigation strategies. Tie the change to the organization's mission, vision, or strategic goals. Gather your spiderwebs together.

* Ethiopian proverb, according to various web sources

We have to expand the pie, even if only in imagination

2010-12-11T13:20:00.004-05:00

Do you know the story of the man who left 17 camels to his three sons upon his death? To his eldest he left half, to the next boy 1/3 and to the youngest son 1/9th. Unfortunately 17 cannot be divided by half, 1/3 nor 1/9 and the sons began to bicker.

Nearly giving up, they brought their plight to the wise woman of the village who said, "I don't have an answer for you, but if you'd like you can have one of my camels."

Now they had 18 camels: the oldest took half or 9, the middle boy took a third or 6, and the youngest took a 9th or 2. What to do with the camel left over? Give it to the wise woman, of course.

Over what resource are you bickering with others? Can you expand the pie, even momentarily, to see if doing so gives everyone enough of what they want?

What is needed to see the possibilities is either 1) an outsider, such as the wise woman or 2) one member of the group to step outside. A wise woman is not always available. We have to be able to step aside from the emotionality of our situation and look around to say, "what are the possibilities? In what way are we seeing this in black and white -- where is the gray? If no gray is obvious, can we create it?"

I was in a class once where the teacher asked, "what is impossible to do today that if it were possible would make a significant positive impact on your achievement of your goals." What is surprising about that is that once one lists the impossibilities and their impact, suddenly ways of gaining even small parts of those previous impossibilities become visible.

Can you step outside your current negotiations or conflicts and see a third way?

Purpose, passion and humility

2010-12-08T08:18:00.002-05:00

Moses is on my mind these days -- my son has been studying the bible chapter beginning with Moses' birth and ending with his first meeting with Pharoah -- so it's no surprise that Moses was first to come to my mind when I read Bill Taylor's blog today:

"if money, power, and fame aren't all they're cracked up to be, what are the resources that allow leaders to make real change and have an enduring impact? I'd nominate purpose, passion, and humility . . . leaders who stand for something more than themselves."

Moses had all three. But, his purpose and passion came from a higher power. How do those of us not in constant contact with the Divine develop purpose and passion in our work? I'm lucky because I am able to do work I love, which enables me to follow my purpose in life, which in turn helps me maintain my passion.

What about you?

And humility? There is a difference between humility and subservience that I think gets lost in educating our children. Many parents fear their child will be walked all over by others and/or will lack self-confidence if he is not frequently praised, rescued from his own errors, and reminded to be a "winner". What do we do to develop humility in ourselves and in our children?

Managing your boss may mean managing yourself

2010-12-03T08:24:00.003-05:00

In its Management Tip of the Day, Harvard Business Review editors advise those whose boss's style doesn't work well for them to look elsewhere for direction and inspiration. Not every manager knows how to coach employees. If yours doesn't, search for inspiration in the work itself and seek out mentors who can guide you in the right direction. Communicate upward to your manager, letting him or her know what you've accomplished. While you should not expect a "great job" to come from that direction, you never know what positive outcome may arise from the boss seeing your work outcomes.

If your boss is a micromanager, they suggest preempting that involvement by inviting it. "He's likely to include himself anyway, and bringing him in increases the likelihood he will support your work."

Stop writing!

2010-11-22T11:49:00.001-05:00

and start using pictures and diagrams to persuade:

"One of the first to use the visual world to navigate numbers was Florence Nightingale.

Although better known for her contributions to nursing, her greatest achievements were mathematical. She was the first to use the idea of a pie chart to represent data.

Nightingale's diagrams were designed to highlight deaths in the Crimea

Nightingale had discovered that the majority of deaths in the Crimea were due to poor sanitation rather than casualties in battle. She wanted to persuade government of the need for better hygiene in hospitals.

She realised though that just looking at the numbers was unlikely to impress ministers. But once those numbers were translated into a picture - her Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East - the message could not be ignored. A good diagram, Nightingale discovered, is certainly worth 1,000 numbers."

published in BBC news article

22 November 2010

Diagrams that changed the world

Influencing without a word

2010-10-22T09:07:00.004-04:00

When not to coach

2010-10-19T09:02:00.000-04:00

While I promote coaching as an exceptional method to build competency, there are times when it is not appropriate to coach. Watch this video for a few hints:

(some material sourced from Dennis Kinlaw's Coaching for Commitment)

Law of Diminishing Intent

2010-10-15T14:51:00.002-04:00

"We intend to take action when an idea strikes us. We intend to do something when the emotion is high. But if we don't translate that intention into action fairly soon, the urgency starts to diminish. A month from now, the passion is cold. A year from now, it can't be found.” -- Jim Rohn

What ideas do you have right now? What are your dreams? Start today! Want to run a 5K someday? Go for a walk today. Want to be a better communicator? Start writing now. Want to know your kids better? Sit with them when they do their homework tonight and listen to their concerns and ideas. Start right now -- don't let that great idea turn cold.

There are physical, emotional, intellectual, and character strengths. Do you know your character strengths?

2010-10-12T09:28:00.004-04:00

Often we are told what our intellectual strengths are early in life: you're good in math, you're a good reader, you're quite the musician. We're told what our physical strengths are: you're flexible, you've got a great throwing arm, you're nimble, you've got great rhythm.

But, what are our character strengths? Are we industrious, socially intelligent, curious, prudent? And what is the value of these strengths?

To best utilize our strengths, we must identify them and then develop them. Identify your character strengths with the online test at www.viastrengths.org.

From the top 10, choose the 5 that best fulfill the “Strengths Criteria”
Choose one character strength and for the following week use the strength in a new way every day
Each night, briefly describe how you used your strength in a new way today and how you intend to use the strength in a new way tomorrow

--from UPenn's course Positive Psychology, 2009

Play to your strengths

2010-10-08T09:24:00.002-04:00

"The real tragedy of life is not that we don't have enough strengths. It's that we fail to use the ones we have." -- Buckingham and Clifton

Many of us spend enormous energy fixing our weaknesses and the weaknesses we perceive in others -- our direct reports, our spouses, our bosses, our children. There is much more to be gained by enhancing and then playing to our strengths. Figure out what everyone around you is best at and then put them to work on that -- utilize those strengths and both you and others will gain. And be far more content in life!

"I'll just explain why it's necessary"

2010-10-05T15:15:00.003-04:00

. . . the answer most people give when asked how they will persuade someone to make a critical change. And yet:

"Two years after receiving coronary bypass surgery to save their lives, 90% of patients are back to old behaviors." -- Dr. Edward Miller, Johns Hopkins University*

Can you imagine a more persuasive argument for changing behavior? "Change your behavior or die"; yet, it doesn't work!

Explaining is not persuading. What else can you do to persuade others to make needed changes?

* as quoted by David Maxfield in his program, Influencing for Change

Human potential is underrated

2010-10-02T23:14:00.001-04:00

My son's class learned about Stanley Milgram's famous "shock" experiments, where nearly 50% of subjects were willing to shock another human being to death because a man in a white lab coat told them to. My son is exceedingly upset about the baseness of human nature.

Here's what I tried to tell him today, summed up much better than I could do by Abraham Maslow:
"“If we want to know how fast a human being can run, then it is no use to average out the speed of a ‘good sample’ of the population; it is far better to collect Olympic gold medal winners and see how well they can do.

If we want to know the possibilities for spiritual growth, value growth, or moral development in human beings, then I maintain that we can learn most by studying our most moral, ethical, or saintly people.

On the whole I think it is fair to say that human history is a record of the ways in which human nature has been sold short. The highest possibilities of human nature have practically always been underrated"

We have to look at our best to see what we can be; perhaps we can look at the worst we can be so that we know what to avoid, yes. But, don't forget to also look at what we humans can do in the face of adversity. Don't forget Lincoln, Gandhi, Dr. King, Mother Theresa, Moses, and others who were the change they believed in the world!

Clarity wins over pretension

2010-09-29T13:02:00.004-04:00

Which of these is more likely to propel you to take action?

"illumination is required to be extinguished when vacating these premises"

or

"turn of the lights when you leave"

What's my purpose for listening?

2010-09-25T15:37:00.002-04:00

Your browser cannot play this video. Learn how to fix this.

Do you use active listening to show you care, or to truly understand?

2010-09-20T08:52:00.001-04:00

Leadership is a team sport

2010-09-15T13:16:00.002-04:00

In my leadership courses and when I conduct corporate training, participants/students often point to great historical leaders' qualities as examples of successful leader characteristics. Yet, follower characteristics are critical to determining the leader characteristics that are most successful within a certain context. Leadership is only successful when followers follow!

Recent research by Adam M. Grant, Francesca Gino, and David A. Hofmann demonstrates that extroverted leaders succeed with passive employees while introverted leaders succeed with proactive employees.

What type of team do you play for? How are you leading that team?

(title source: Trina Soske and Jay A. Conger in HBR article, It's Time to Focus Executive Development on Real Business Issues. Research source: Reversing the Extraverted Leadership Advantage: The Role of Employee Proactivity)

Life is a series of extenuating circumstances. So, are choices ever "just this once"?

2010-09-09T13:02:00.004-04:00

Clayton M. Christensen is the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He writes:

"A voice in our head says, “Look, I know that as a general rule, most people shouldn’t do this. But in this particular extenuating circumstance, just this once, it’s OK.” The marginal cost of doing something wrong “just this once” always seems alluringly low. It suckers you in, and you don’t ever look at where that path ultimately is headed and at the full costs that the choice entails. Justification for infidelity and dishonesty in all their manifestations lies in the marginal cost economics of “just this once.”

I’d like to share a story about how I came to understand the potential damage of “just this once” in my own life. I played on the Oxford University varsity basketball team. We worked our tails off and finished the season undefeated. The guys on the team were the best friends I’ve ever had in my life. We got to the British equivalent of the NCAA tournament—and made it to the final four. It turned out the championship game was scheduled to be played on a Sunday. I had made a personal commitment to God at age 16 that I would never play ball on Sunday. So I went to the coach and explained my problem. He was incredulous. My teammates were, too, because I was the starting center. Every one of the guys on the team came to me and said, “You’ve got to play. Can’t you break the rule just this one time?”

I’m a deeply religious man, so I went away and prayed about what I should do. I got a very clear feeling that I shouldn’t break my commitment—so I didn’t play in the championship game.

In many ways that was a small decision—involving one of several thousand Sundays in my life. In theory, surely I could have crossed over the line just that one time and then not done it again. But looking back on it, resisting the temptation whose logic was “In this extenuating circumstance, just this once, it’s OK” has proven to be one of the most important decisions of my life. Why? My life has been one unending stream of extenuating circumstances. Had I crossed the line that one time, I would have done it over and over in the years that followed."

Does your team share privately held information?

2010-09-06T15:03:00.002-04:00

Is your organization a "best place to work"?

2010-09-03T12:08:00.001-04:00

According to Harvard Business School's Working Knowledge, companies that are on the best places to work lists are also the most profitable in their industries.

Perhaps people prefer to work for profitable companies? Or, are the companies profitable because the culture supports employee innovation and ownership, which in turn lead to employee satisfaction?

What do you think?

Would the people who report to you say they work in a great environment? Why or why not?

source: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5917.html

Finding brilliance

2010-08-30T10:17:00.001-04:00

When people don't think like we do, we think they're stupid:

Okay, maybe these folks are not too bright. Nonetheless, we have to find ways to persuade others who do not think the way we do. One way is to find the brilliance in everyone and speak to that -- are they really good at numbers and not so good with people? Are they great at sports? Computer technology? Find what they're really good at and see if you can approach them from that perspective.

Any ideas?

Leading a team in conflict?

2010-08-10T10:02:00.003-04:00

In today's Management Tip of the Day from Harvard Business School Publishing (sign up here -- http://hbsp.ed4.net/prefcenter/signup.cfm?t=man&l=50163292&/), we are advised that if our team is in conflict, we should "focus on team norms.. . Use team norms to guide behavior."

This is great advice, and it really works! However, it depends upon your team already having norms in place. If you haven't done so yet, call a team meeting -- perhaps bring in lunch? -- and hash out the guidelines you all agree to follow as a team. Some ideas include:
1) we agree to decide most things by majority vote and highly critical things by collaboration
2) we agree to avoid side conversations in meetings
3) we agree to provide all members with meeting agendas 24 hours before meetings
4) we agree that when two members of our team are in conflict, the full team will work together to resolve it
5) we agree to discuss all ideas brought to the table, not discounting any until we've fully explored them

Work together as a team to determine group ground rules so that you and anyone on the team has something to refer back to when challenges arise. It is much more comfortable -- particularly for a very polite or a low-level person on the team -- to say, "hey guys, we agreed that we'd avoid side conversations in meetings; could we focus on our agenda now and then whatever is being discussed on the side can be brought to the full group?" than it is for that same person to say, "hey, stop interrupting, it's annoying!" Most likely, nothing will be said and the behavior will worsen.

What team norms does your team follow and how did you develop them?

does showing your feelings make you weak?

2010-08-05T12:58:00.000-04:00

"Not often in the story of mankind does a man arrive on earth who is both steel and velvet, who is as hard as rock and soft as drifting fog, who holds in his heart and mind the paradox of terrible storm and peace unspeakable and perfect."

Carl Sandburg on 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth

People do not do what you want over the long term . . .

2010-08-02T12:53:00.002-04:00

. . . because you tell them to or because you give them the facts.

If you're still stuck on the "what" of what you want them to do, watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp0HIF3SfI4

Managing people is a balancing act

2010-07-19T11:46:00.000-04:00

"I believe managing is like holding a dove in your hand. If you hold it too tightly you kill it, but if you hold it too loosely, you lose it." -- Tommy Lasorda

We have to balance pushing our people hard enough to get their best and backing off when needed. What do you think?

Image: Matt Banks / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

One right answer?

2010-07-16T12:50:00.000-04:00

In his video, Everyday Creativity (http://www.starthrower.com/everyday_creativity.htm) Dewitt Jones tells us there is more than one right answer.

My students often try to give every possible answer just to make sure they get the one right one. At work, people often argue over the one right answer, digging in their heels and pushing for their solution until relationships are damaged and the solution is watered down to "make everyone happy." At home we worry we aren't finding the one right answer for our children and can get stuck in a sort of paralysis until we're forced to act.

Dewitt is right, though. There are often many right answers. And the key to success is to pick one and make it work, without worrying over making mistakes.

What do you think? In what areas of your life are you searching for the one right answer, always disappointed with yourself for choosing wrong or angry at others for not following yours?

Align your (hidden?) drives with your team's stated goals

2010-07-13T11:09:00.001-04:00

People are committed to organizations that stand for the same ideals. We form team identities with teams that enhance our self-esteem by representing high ideals. And we decide the organization's and the team's ideals by the behavior of the leader -- not by the organization or the team's motto, mission statement, or advertising.

Leaders are people, too, though. And while they support their organization's or team's mission, etc., they, like all people, have unconscious goals and desires. These drive their behavior. And if the behavior doesn't match their stated ideals, it seems irrational to their employees.

As a leader, are you aware of your own internal -- perhaps hidden from yourself -- ambitions, drives, and need for self-aggrandizement?

How might your drives lead your behavior to be different from behavior that would be driven by the organization's stated ideals?

How can you align your personal needs and goals with the organization's?

When leading a virtual team . . .

2010-07-11T21:31:00.006-04:00

. . . communicate, communicate, communicate! Use many different tools to reach people.

In this article, Bob Taccini, a Cisco Systems vice president, discusses his use of vlogs (video blogs), blogs, teleconferencing, videoconferencing, discussion boards and the good old fashioned telephone to communicate with his far-flung team: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/06/leading_virtual_teams_to_real.html.

You'll find a wonderful list of tips for leading virtually in the article as well.

vintage phone image: Daniel St.Pierre / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What can we do as managers/leaders to get this kind of performance from our virtual teams?

2010-07-08T21:29:00.001-04:00

Yet, we keep trying to . . .

2010-07-03T10:31:00.002-04:00

"You can control cheese, or at least you can keep tweaking and tweaking, trying to get it just right, but you can't control people."

--Paul Stephan, owner and head cheesemaker Blue Ridge Dairy Co. Quoted in the Washington Post Magazine (7/4/2010) on why he prefers making cheese over managing a large restaurant.

When to coach:

2010-07-02T10:47:00.000-04:00

In honor of John Wooden

2010-06-28T13:32:00.003-04:00

A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment.
Coach John Wooden
October 1910 - June 2010

When not to coach:

2010-06-28T10:46:00.000-04:00

What kind of challenge are you facing?

2010-06-26T09:26:00.003-04:00

We often throw technical solutions at adaptive challenges. For example: team communications seem to miss the mark. Let's train them on how to have productive meetings and how to use email effectively. But the deeper problems -- cultural, personal -- go left unresolved.

Or, we are overworked because we fail to delegate. Let's get a book on delegation and follow the directions step by step. But the deeper issues -- our identity is wrapped up in doing work, not telling others what to do -- will prevent us from long term quality delegation. Within a few weeks, we'll be overworked again.

When we must adapt, technical tactics will not resolve our challenges. We must find ways to alter our own -- or our team's -- mindsets.

What keeps you from creating the change you would like for yourself?

2010-06-23T09:22:00.001-04:00

What have you been complaining about lately?

2010-06-18T09:20:00.002-04:00

Where Will We Find Tomorrow's Leaders?

2010-06-07T12:31:00.001-04:00

Teleconference tips 4

2010-06-06T08:21:00.000-04:00

Start and end the meeting successfully:

Start: (5 minutes max) if your team is multi-national, assign one person each meeting to share a story or other information from his home country. If not, ask one person each meeting to start the meeting off with something motivational, funny, or a personal achievement (graduation, birth, new home, promotion, etc.)
Review agenda and promise to stick to it
End: "self-propelling ending" (HBS publishing) -- end the meeting with

who will do what by when (any decisions or agreements made during the meeting)
the date/time of next telecon
a statement of the team's purpose and a specific reason why this meeting got the team closer to its purpose ("we've hashed out some difficult decisions on the technical requirements and I thank you for your input and candor. Without that, we could have risked some major problems down the line")