by George Ambler on Sunday, February 21, 2010
Photo by penmachine
Gideon Rachman provides some insight into “The secrets of Malcolm Gladwell”, that is some of the secrets to his great speaking ability. In his post Gideon makes the following observations from his experience of speaking alongside Malcolm Gladwell.
“First, he is a master of the “look no hands” style of speaking. He just stands up there, with a button mike and talks – and it all sounds very spontaneous, with little asides and jokes, and messages tailored to his Mexican audience. Second, he tells stories – there are theories attached to the stories – but the bulk of the talk is made up of charming anecdotes to illustrate rather simple themes…. So how does Gladwell do it? Afterwards, I broke through the autograph-hunters surrounding him and asked him how he managed to time his talk so beautifully – so that it ended bang on 45 minutes, without ever looking at his watch. He answered – ‘I know it may not look like this. But it’s all scripted. I write down every word and then I learn it off by heart. I do that with all my talks and I’ve got lots of them’”
This is a great illustration of what I too have discovered, that nothing can replace thorough preparation when it comes to presenting and public speaking.
Technorati Tags: Communication, Presenting, Leadership, Leader, Management, Speaking, Lecture
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Communication
by George Ambler on Sunday, February 21, 2010
Photo by Anderaz
Don Dodge, a Developer Advocate at Google helping developers build new applications on Google platforms and technologies, wrote an interesting post “How Google sets goals and measures success” discussing how Google goes about goal setting. Don describes the central philosophy to Google’s approach to goal setting is as follows:
The Google goal setting process happens in a 90 day cycle…
“Every quarter every group at Google sets goals, called OKRs, for the next 90 days. Most big companies set annual goals like improving or growing something by x%, and then measure performance once a year. At Google a year is like a decade. Annual goals aren’t good enough. Set quarterly goals, set them at impossible levels, and then figure out how to achieve them. Measure progress every quarter and reward outstanding achievement.”
Don makes the following observations and insights of his experience with the goal-setting process at Google:
- OKRs are Objectives and Key Results. I submitted my Q1 OKRs with what I thought were aggressive yet achievable goals. Not good enough. My manager explained that we needed to set stretch goals that seemed impossible to fully achieve. Hmmm…I said “This is just a 90 day window and we can predict with reasonable accuracy what is achievable. Why set unrealistic goals?” Because you can’t achieve amazing results by setting modest targets. We want amazing results. We want to tackle the impossible.
- Failure is not an option – A while ago I wrote a post about the culture of “failure is not an option” and how, taken the wrong way, that actually conditions people to set modest achievable goals that they are certain they can achieve. Because if they fail…they are fired. Taking great risks, pushing innovation, and striving to achieve the impossible will never happen at companies like that. In that post I discuss how startups definition of “failure is not an option” is completely different. For startups it means they will try 5 or 10 or 20 approaches until they find one that works. They won’t stop until they succeed. Google’s culture seems to follow the Thomas Edison approach which paraphrased is “I haven’t failed, I’ve just found lots of approaches that don’t work, and I am closer to the solution”.
- Achieving 65% of the impossible is better than 100% of the ordinary – Setting impossible goals and achieving part of them sets you on a completely different path than the safe route. Sometimes you can achieve the impossible in a quarter, but even when you don’t, you are on a fast track to achieving it soon. Measuring success every quarter allows for mid course corrections and setting higher goals for the next quarter.
- Rewards For Success – The rewards for achieving the impossible are significant. As you might expect there is an algorithm for calculating engineering bonuses with various multipliers. Google attracts the best people in the industry for many reasons, maybe most importantly because they give people the resources and support they need to achieve the impossible. Financial rewards are significant, but they are not the primary motivator. Working with the best people in the world and achieving greatness is the ultimate reward.
It seems to me this continually striving for breakthrough innovation, by setting BHAG’s and clear objectives is working for them. Too many organisation don’t take this process seriously enough to commit the necessary time and resources to defining a limited set of clear outcomes and committing the necessary resources to ensure it’s achieved.
Technorati Tags: Strategy, Performance, Management, Leadership, Objectives, BHAG, Vision, Goals, Goal-Setting, Execution
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Execution,
Goal-Setting
by George Ambler on Sunday, February 21, 2010
I often find that many people onfuse leadership with positional power. We tend to believe that a person in a position of authority or someone with a title, has their position or title due to their leadership qualities. However, in many cases there is no correlation between someone’s position and their leadership ability. Just having a title does not make you a leader, leaderships is about influence. Title only buys you time to exercise true leadership, and in this time your leadership either increases or diminishes and eventually fails. There is a huge difference between being a boss and being a leader…! Consider the following…
“The boss drives group members; the leader coaches them.
The boss depends upon authority; the leader on good will.
The boss inspires fear; the leader inspires enthusiasm.
The boss says ‘I’; the leader says ‘we.’
The boss assigns the task, the leader sets the pace.
The boss says, ‘Get there on time’; the leader gets there ahead of time.
The boss fixes the blame for the breakdown; the leader fixes the breakdown.
The boss knows how it is done; the leader shows how.
The boss makes work a drudgery; the leader makes it a game.
The boss says, ‘Go’; the leader says, ‘Let’s go.’“
– Author unknown
People follow the boss because they have to if they want to keep their jobs. People follow leaders because of who they are and were they are going. Too many leaders today rely on their position to lead. How about you?
Technorati Tags: Leadership, Authority, Management, Business, Leader, Boss, Power
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Leadership Practices,
Quotes
by George Ambler on Sunday, January 3, 2010
by George Ambler on Sunday, January 3, 2010
Photo by apesara
John Kotter author of “What Leaders Really Do” and more recently “A Sense of Urgency” provides the following definition of leadership from his book “Leading Change”.
“Leadership defines what the future should look like, aligns people with that vision, and inspires them to make it happen despite the obstacles”
Leadership is about bringing about change and effective change requires vision, inspiration and effective communication. A vision that is so clear and compelling that people align to make it happen.
Today more than ever business and society requires leadership that brings about positive and productive change. The results of all this change? More change demands more leadership! Without leadership organisations are doomed to remain stuck in the past. Trapped by their past success. Bogged down by inertia.
The fundamental task of leadership is to bring about the right kind of change.
- What are the three critical changes that your leadership aims to bring about this year?
Technorati Tags: Leadership, Change, Kotter, Leader, Management, Business
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Change,
Definitions
by George Ambler on Tuesday, November 17, 2009
New research from the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) which surveyed 2,200 leaders from 15 organizations, in three countries between 2006 and 2008 produced some interesting findings. The research project was designed to answer the following questions:
- What leadership skills and perspectives are critical for success now and in the future?
- How strong are current leaders in these critical skills and perspectives?
- How aligned is today’s leadership strength with what will be the most important skills and perspectives in the future?
A comparison of the leadership strength from the research contrasts existing leadership skill levels with what skill would be required in the future the results are illustrated below.

The research identified the following seven competencies as most critical for success, now and in the future:
- Leading people: directing and motivating people.
- Strategic planning: translating vision into realistic business strategies, including long-term objectives.
- Managing change: using effective strategies to facilitate organizational change.
- Inspiring commitment: recognizing and rewarding employees’ achievements.
- Resourcefulness: working effectively with top management.
- Doing whatever it takes: persevering under adverse conditions.
- Being a quick learner: quickly learning new technical or business knowledge.

The interesting thing to note from this research is that only resourcefulness is a current top ten skill! All the others rated as important for success in the study are not skills that leaders have mastered today. This means that today’s leaders are not meeting the demands of their organisations. The CLL call this the “Leadership Gap”, referring to the huge gap that exists between the leadership skills organisations have today and the skills they will require in five years time.
Given these findings we need to take personal responsibility and ask ourselves:
- What are we doing personally to improve our leadership skills?
- What are we doing to help others improve their leadership skills?
- If we are taking action, are we doing enough?
Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Research, Change Management, Strategy, Planning, Learning, Business, Future
by George Ambler on Sunday, November 1, 2009
Photo by schoschie
The act and practice of leadership is a risky undertaking. Leadership is the act or bringing about positive change. This requires leaders to initiate, to blaze new trails, to venture into the unknown and unexplored terrain. All of this entails risk. Kouzes and Posner in their bestselling book, “The Leadership Challenge” describes it this way:
“Leaders are pioneers – people who are willing to step out into the unknown. They are people who are willing to take risks, to innovate and experiment in order to find new an better ways of doing things.”
Leaders take these risk because they have a vision, they see a future and a new world that inspires action and makes the risk worthwhile. Leaders are pioneers… not settlers. Great leaders take risk. They push past the edge of their current reality. Striving to bring their vision into today. How about you?
- Are you a pioneer or a settler?
- Are you taking the necessary risks to find better ways of doing things?
Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Business, Risk, Pioneer
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Risk
by George Ambler on Sunday, November 1, 2009
I can across a really stunning post on failure by Tony Morgan, “10 Reasons Why You’re Probably Going to Fail” that is really worth sharing, so here is Tony’s list…
10 Reasons Why You’re Probably Going to Fail
- It’s not your passion. If it doesn’t make your heart beat fast or cause your mind to race when you’re trying to sleep, you’re probably doing the wrong thing.
- You don’t have a plan. You need a vision, and you need to identify specific steps to make that vision become reality. That includes a financial plan. (I happen to believe you need direction from God on this.)
- You’re waiting for it to be perfect. Test-drive it. Beta-test that new idea. You’ll fall into the trap of inaction if you think it has to be absolutely right from day one.
- You’re not willing to work hard. Everything worth pursuing in my life has involved discipline and perseverance.
- It’ll outgrow you. Keep learning. Keep growing. But more importantly, build a team of people including leaders that can be who you’re not.
- You’ve had success in the past. I’ve watched organizations hang on to a good idea for too long. Time passes. Momentum fades. It’s risky to let go of the past and jump on the next wave.
- You’re unwilling to stop doing something else. Complexity is easy. Simplicity takes discipline. You can’t build a healthy marriage if you’re unwilling to give up dating other women. Who/what do you need to stop dating?
- You won’t build a team of friends. Anyone can hire from a resume. You need to find people you want to share life with. In the long run, great relationships will get you out of bed in the morning.
- You won’t have the tough conversations. When breakdown happens (and it always does), someone needs to put on their big-boy pants and initiate the difficult conversation that leads to relational healing.
- You’re afraid of failure. When fear consumes you, it will cause you to do stupid things. You’ll let negativity distract you. You’ll embrace the known, and grow comfortable with mediocrity. The more often you fail, though, the more often you’ll find success.
Tony writes a great blog, worth reading. This is a really great list to work through when embarking on a new and challenging initiative. Any thoughts on what may be missing from this list?
Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Success, Failure, Goals, Business
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Failure,
Success
by George Ambler on Sunday, November 1, 2009
Forbes.com released their 2009 “The Most Influential business Thinkers” results. The consulting firm CrainerDearlove compiled this list of today’s top thinkers, by surveyed 3,500 people and a panel of experts to determine the 2009 edition of the Thinkers 50, the fifth edition of a biennial list of the most influential living management thinkers. This years results are listed below.
| Rank |
Name |
2007 Rank |
Country |
Day Job |
| 1 |
C.K. Prahalad |
1 |
India/U.S. |
University of Michigan Academic |
| 2 |
Malcolm Gladwell |
18 |
Canada |
New Yorker Columnist |
| 3 |
Paul Krugman |
- |
U.S. |
Princeton Academic |
| 4 |
Steve Jobs |
29 |
U.S. |
CEO of Apple |
| 5 |
W. Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne |
6 |
Korea/U.S. |
Insead Academics |
| 6 |
Muhammad Yunus |
- |
Bangladesh |
Founder of Grameen Bank, Economist |
| 7 |
Bill Gates |
2 |
U.S. |
Founder of Microsoft, Philanthropist |
| 8 |
Richard Branson |
9 |
U.K. |
Founder of Virgin, Entrepreneur |
| 9 |
Philip Kotler |
11 |
U.S. |
Northwestern University Academic |
| 10 |
Gary Hamel |
5 |
U.S. |
Co-founder Mlab, Consultant |
| 11 |
Michael Porter |
4 |
U.S. |
Harvard Academic |
| 12 |
Ratan Tata |
- |
India |
Chairman of Tata |
| 13 |
Ram Charan |
22 |
India |
Executive Coach |
| 14 |
Marshall Goldsmith |
34 |
U.S. |
Executive Coach |
| 15 |
S.Kris Gopalakrishnan |
- |
India |
Co-founder and CEO of Infosys |
| 16 |
Howard Gardner |
39 |
U.S. |
Harvard Academic |
| 17 |
Jim Collins |
10 |
U.S. |
Consultant |
| 18 |
Lynda Gratton |
19 |
U.K. |
London Business School Academic |
| 19 |
Tom Peters |
7 |
U.S. |
Consultant |
| 20 |
Jack Welch |
8 |
U.S. |
Retired Executive |
| 21 |
Eric Schmidt |
- |
U.S. |
CEO of Google |
| 22 |
Joseph Stiglitz |
- |
U.S. |
Columbia Academic |
| 23 |
Kjell Nordstrom & Jonas Ridderstrale |
13 |
Sweden |
Speakers and Academics |
| 24 |
Vijay Govindarajan |
23 |
India/U.S. |
Academic in Residence for GE |
| 25 |
Marcus Buckingham |
38 |
U.K. |
Speaker |
| 26 |
Richard D’Aveni |
46 |
U.S. |
Dartmouth Academic |
| 27 |
Rosabeth Moss Kanter |
28 |
U.S. |
Harvard Academic |
| 28 |
Clayton Christensen |
25 |
U.S. |
Harvard Academic |
| 29 |
Stephen Covey |
15 |
U.S. |
Speaker and Author |
| 30 |
Thomas Friedman |
26 |
U.S. |
New York Times Columnist |
| 31 |
David Ulrich |
42 |
U.S. |
University of Michigan Academic |
| 32 |
Roger Martin |
- |
Canada |
Dean of University of Toronto Rotman School |
| 33 |
Henry Mintzberg |
16 |
Canada |
McGill Academic |
| 34 |
Daniel Goleman |
37 |
U.S. |
Author and Consultant |
| 35 |
Chris Anderson |
- |
U.S. |
Wired Editor-in-chief |
| 36 |
Warren Bennis |
24 |
U.S. |
University of Southern California Academic |
| 37 |
Robert Kaplan & David Norton |
12 |
U.S. |
Consultants |
| 38 |
Jeff Immelt |
31 |
U.S. |
CEO of General Electric |
| 39 |
Don Tapscott |
- |
Canada |
Consultant |
| 40 |
Nassim Taleb |
- |
Lebanon |
Academic |
| 41 |
John Kotter |
30 |
U.S. |
Harvard Academic |
| 42 |
Niall Ferguson |
- |
U.K. |
Harvard and Oxford Academic |
| 43 |
Charles Handy |
14 |
Ireland |
Author |
| 44 |
Rakesh Khurana |
45 |
India/U.S. |
Harvard Academic |
| 45 |
Manfred Kets De Vries |
- |
Holland |
Insead Academic |
| 46 |
Tammy Erickson |
- |
U.S. |
Author and Consultant |
| 47 |
Costas Markides |
44 |
Cyprus |
London Business School Academic |
| 48 |
Barbara Kellerman |
- |
U.S. |
Harvard Academic |
| 49 |
Rob Goffee & Gareth Jones |
32 |
U.K. |
Academics |
| 50 |
Jimmy Wales |
- |
U.S. |
Co-founder of Wikipedia |
Source: CrainerDearlove, www.crainerdearlove.com.
All in all a pretty impressive list. I have read many of the books an article by many of the top 50 and I have been impressed by their thinking and insights. All leaders in their respective fields.
Technorati Tags: Guru, Leaders, Top Thinkers, Management, Strategy, Thought Leaders
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Resources
by George Ambler on Sunday, August 30, 2009
Photo by kevindooley
The article “For This Guru, No Question Is Too Big” from the NY Times discusses the work of the best selling business author Jim Collins. Given the popularity of Jim Collins the article discussed how he allocates his time, which is as follows:
“… in a corner of the white board at the end of his long conference room, Mr. Collins keeps this short list:
Creative 53%
Teaching 28%
Other 19%
That, he explains, is a running tally of how he’s spending his time, and whether he’s sticking to a big goal he set for himself years ago: to spend 50 percent of his workdays on creative pursuits like research and writing books, 30 percent on teaching-related activities, and 20 percent on all the other things he has to do.”
This seems to be an odd approach to allocating how to spend one’s time! However, this time allocation suddenly makes sense when you consider Jim Collins “overarching goal,” which is “to produce a lasting and distinctive body of work.”
Besides making wise use of his time in a way that supports his overarching goal, Mr. Collins keeps focused, making sure he is not distracted.
“Mr. Collins also is quite practiced at saying ‘no.’ Requests pour in every week for him to give speeches to corporations and trade associations…”
To achieve meaningful and challenging goals requires “… a willingness to say no and focus on what not to do as much as what to do…”! All leader’s who are passionate about perusing a challenging vision, have to ensure they spend their time wisely and remain focused on their goals. How are you doing?
- Have you allocated your time in a way that support your overarching goal?
- Do you say “no” to distractions?
Technorati Tags: Goals, Vision, Leadership, Management, Time Management, Business, Focus
Tagged as:
Goal-Setting,
Time Management