Sep
24
The three key components of a compelling vision…
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An article "The Vision Thing: Without It You’ll Never Be a World-Class Organization" by Ken Blanchard and Jesse Stoner discuss the three critical factors exhibited by all world-class organisations:
- Clear vision and direction championed by top management
- Trained and equipped people focused on implementation of the agreed-upon vision and direction
- Established recognition and positive consequence systems that sustain the behaviors and performance that the vision and direction require
In their article they focus on the importance of a clear vision for leaders and their organisations, making the following observations:
- Vision and direction are essential for greatness. In world-class organizations, every-one has a clear sense of where the enterprise is going.
- Vision helps people make smart choices be-cause their decisions are being made with the end result in mind. As goals are accomplished, the answer to “What next?” be-comes clear. Vision takes into account a larger picture than the immediate goal.
- Vision is important for leaders because leadership is about going somewhere. If you and your people don’t know where you are going, your leadership doesn’t matter.
- Without a clear vision, an organization be-comes a self-serving bureaucracy. The top managers begin to think “the sheep are there for the benefit of the shepherd.” All the money, recognition, power, and status move up the hierarchy, away from the people closest to the customers, and leadership begins to serve the leaders and not the organization’s larger purpose and goals.
- When people share and believe in a vision of what the organization can be, they generate tremendous energy, excitement, and passion. They feel they are making a difference. They build a strong reputation for excellent products and services. They know what they are doing and why. There is a strong sense of trust and respect. Managers don’t try to control. They let others assume responsibility because they know everyone shares the vision and is clear about their goals and direction. Everyone assumes responsibility for their own actions. They take charge of their future rather than passively waiting for it to happen. There is room for creativity and risk taking.
Three Key Components of a Compelling Vision….
A real vision statement reveals what business a company is in. It identifies not just the products or services offered, but the company’s core reason for existence—its purpose. It focuses organizational energy. A real vision statement provides broad guidelines for how to proceed in fulfilling the organization’s purpose, and a real vision statement offers clear pictures of what success looks like. We have found three elements that constitute a compelling vision:
- Significant purpose: What business are you in? Purpose is your organization’s reason for existence. It answers the question “Why?” rather than just explaining what you do. It clarifies—from your customer’s viewpoint—what business you are really in…… Great organizations have a deep and noble sense of purpose—a significant purpose—that inspires excitement and commitment. When work is meaningful and connected to what we truly desire, we are able to unleash a productive and creative power we never imagined.
- A picture of the future: What will the future look like if you are living according to your purpose? A picture of the end result should not be vague. It should be something you can actually see…… Your picture should focus on the end result, not the process for getting there.
- Clear values: How do you want people to behave when they are working according to your purpose and on your picture of the future? Values provide guidelines on how you should proceed as you pursue your purpose and picture of the future. They answer the questions, “What do I want to live by?” and “How?” They need to be clearly described so you know exactly what behaviors demonstrate that the value is being lived. They need to be consistently acted on or they are only good intentions……. Most organizations that do have values either have too many values or they are not rank ordered. Research shows that people can’t focus on more than three or four values or those values will not really have an impact on behavior. Also, values must be rank ordered to be effective. Why? Because life is about value conflicts. When these conflicts arise, people need to know which value they should focus on.
"A vision is compelling when it helps people understand what business they’re really in, provides a picture of the desired future, and offers value guidelines that help people make daily decisions."
A clear and compelling vision for a leaders and their organisations is of vital importance. Looking at these three components of a compelling vision. How compelling is your vision? How compelling is the vision to those who work for you? How compelling is the vision for your organisation? Is it alive? Is it lived daily? Is it talked about? Is it being passionately pursued?
Technorati Tags: Vision, Leadership, Purpose, Future, Management, Business, Values, Success
Sep
23
Have you defined what success means for you?
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Photo by tonica
"Have you defined what success means for you and for your life? Unless you have thought through the answer to that question, you are at risk of letting others define success for you or trying to keep up with their definitions of success. Only when you can define what is most important in your life can you set the right priorities for your life and become an integrated leader" - Bill George with Peter Sims, True North
Effective leadership requires that we have a clear picture of success. Every morning we’re faced with a myriad of things to do, each one competing for our attention. When we have a ton of things on our to do list, we very quickly loose perspective. And without perspective leaders quickly become ineffective. Unless leaders have a clear picture of success, they have no way of deciding between one task and the next. Without a clear focus, our to do lists overwhelm us, creating a passive response to life and knee-jerk reactions to everyday events.
A clear picture of success and big picture goals help leaders maintain their perspective, keeping their focus on doing the right things, rising above the distraction of the everyday events. Our big picture of success, keeps the focus on what our life is about and what we want it to be. To help shape your vision of success, consider the following questions…..
- What is the "it" that you want? What is the it: Spiritually, Financially, Physically, Family, Mentally, Socially and in your Work?
- What will it look like when you have it?
- What will you be doing behaviourally when you have it?
- Who are you doing it with?
- Where will you be doing it?
- How will your life be different from the way it is now when you have it?
- What aspects of your life do you have to overcome or change in order to get it?
- What must you do to have it?
Technorati Tags: Success , Leadership , Management , Business , Goal Setting , Focus , Action , Vision
Sep
17
Character…. the foundation of leadership
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I found and interesting article from The Josephson Institute entitled “The Character of Leadership” in this article Warren Bennis discusses the importance of character for leaders.
“Successful leadership is not about being tough or soft, assertive or sensitive. It’s about having a particular set of attributes — which all leaders, male and female, seem to share. And chief among these attributes is character…… the noble mission of the leader can’t be used to justify the means. In the leadership arena, character counts. I’m not saying this casually. My convictions about character-based leadership come from years of studies, observations, and interviews with leaders, and with the people near them.”
Most organizations evaluate their executives and managers using these seven criteria:
- Technical competence or business literacy (knowledge of the territory)
- People skills (capacity to motivate people)
- Conceptual skills (ability to put things together)
- Results (track record)
- Taste (capacity to choose terrific people most of the time)
- Judgment (ability to make wise decisions in a fog of reality and uncertainty);
- Character (integrity to walk the talk).
“Of all these, we know the least about judgment and character, including how to ‘teach’ them. That’s a shame, because I’ve never seen a person derailed from a position for lack of technical competence. But I’ve seen lots of people derailed for lack of judgment and character. The stakes are high for the individual, the organization and the country, so it’s worth knowing more about the character-component of successful leadership.”
What is Character?
“Character isn’t a superficial style. The word comes from the ancient Greek verb meaning “to engrave” and its related noun meaning “mark” or ‘distinctive quality.’ Character is who we essentially are. I also believe, however, that our character is continuously evolving. Unlike some of the Freudians, I don’t think character is fixed at age six. I think we continue to grow and to develop. The corollary of this is that the process of becoming a leader, to me, is much the same process as becoming an integrated human being. I see a real connection between what it takes to be a leader and the process of character growth……. one way to define leadership is as character in action.”
Warren Bennis highlights the following important aspects of character based leadership..
Vision
“Leaders create a vision with meaning – one with significance, one which puts the players at the center of things rather than at the periphery. If organizations have a vision that is meaningful to people, nothing will stop them from being successful. Not just any old vision will do, however; it must be a shared vision with meaning and significance…. A vision can be shared only if it has meaning for the people involved in it….. To communicate a vision, you need more than words, speeches, memos and laminated plaques. You need to live a vision, day in, day out — embodying it and empowering every other person to execute that vision in everything he or she does, anchoring it in realities so that it becomes a template for decision making. Actions do speak louder than words.”
Purpose
“I can’t exaggerate the significance of a strong determination to achieve a goal — a conviction, a passion, even a skewed distortion of reality that focuses on a particular point of view. And the leader has to express that determination, or purpose, in various ways….. Michael Eisner once told me that Disney didn’t have a ‘vision statement,’ but rather a strong ‘point of view’ about the Disney culture. When making big decisions, Eisner says, ‘the strongest point of view almost always wins the argument.’”
Trust
“Real leaders, and people of strong character, generate and sustain trust. I can’t overemphasize the importance of encouraging openness, even dissent…. Leaders must be candid in their communications and show that they care. They have to be seen to be trustworthy. Most communication has to be done eyeball to eyeball, rather than in newsletters, on videos, or via satellite. One of the best ways to build trust is by deep listening. People’s feeling that they’re being heard is the most powerful dynamic of human interaction. Listening doesn’t mean agreeing, but it does mean having the empathic reach to understand another…… To trust others, to have confidence in them, people of course also need to see evidence of competence……. Yet another indispensable aspect of character, and leadership, is constancy……. Before they can trust a leader, followers have to know what to expect. So sometimes leaders have to put off their grand ideas or glorious opportunities until they have had a chance to convince their allies of the ideas’ value. In business, as in politics, the effectiveness of a decision is the quality of the decision multiplied by the acceptance of it….. What all these behaviors and skills surrounding trust add up to is integrity, and that means character.”
Action
“What employees want most from their leaders is direction and meaning, trust and hope. Every good leader I have spoken with has had a willful determination to achieve a set of goals, a set of convictions, about what he or she wanted the organization to achieve. Every leader had a purpose. Remember what hockey great Wayne Gretzky says, ‘It’s not where the puck is that counts. It’s where the puck will be.’ Character counts because, in the leader, character is having the vision to see things not just the way they are but the way they should be — and doing something to make them that way…… Leaders have a bias toward action. They have the capacity to convert purpose and vision into action. It just isn’t enough to have the great vision people can trust. It has to be manifest in some external products and results. Most leaders are pragmatic dreamers or practical idealists (even though those descriptions may seem like oxymorons). They step up and take their shots every day, perhaps knowing that ‘you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take,’ to borrow another line from ice-rink philosopher Gretsky…… ‘Strike hard and try everything,’ wrote Henry James. You’re never going to get anywhere unless you risk and try and then learn from each experience. Leaders have to play even when it means making mistakes. And they have to learn from those mistakes….. Companies are the direct reflection of their leaders. All the leaders I know have a strongly defined sense of purpose. And when you have an organization where the people are aligned behind a clearly defined vision or purpose, you get a powerful organization. Effective leaders are all about creative collaboration, about creating a shared sense of purpose. People need meaningful purpose. That’s why we live. With a shared purpose you can achieve anything. And that’s why a central task for the leader is the development of other leaders, creating conditions that enhance the ability of all employees to make decisions and create change. The leader must actively help his or her followers to reach their full leadership potential. As Max De Pree once put it: ‘The signs of outstanding leadership appear primarily among the followers.’”
How do you go about becoming a good leader?
“Figure out what you’re good at. Hire only good people who care, and treat them the way you want to be treated. Identify your one or two key objectives or directions and ask your coworkers how to get there. Listen hard and get out of their way. Cheer them. Switch from macho to maestro. Count the gains. Start right now”
Highly Recommended Reading..
If you haven’t read any of Warren Bennis’s books I would strongly encourage you to do so. He has authored more than twenty-five books, many of them on the topic of leadership. Some of my personal recommendations are:
Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Books, Vision, Character, Purpose, Action, Integrity, Warren Bennis, Business, Meaning, Significance
Sep
15
Strong opinions weakly held…
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The phrase “Strong Opinions, Weakly Held” from a post by Bob Sutton describes an important philosophy for leaders, Bob Sutton describes the importance of this idea as:
“….the virtues of wise people – those who have the courage to act on their knowledge, but the humility to doubt what they know…to deal with an uncertain future and still move forward – they advise people to have ’strong opinions, which are weakly held.’ …… Bob explained that weak opinions are problematic because people aren’t inspired to develop the best arguments possible for them, or to put forth the energy required to test them. Bob explained that it was just as important, however, to not be too attached to what you believe because, otherwise, it undermines your ability to ’see’ and ‘hear’ evidence that clashes with your opinions. This is what psychologists sometimes call the problem of ‘confirmation bias.’”
When dealing with complex and uncertain futures having strong opinions, weakly held is an important philosophy in how to approach the development of strategy.
Strong Opinions…
Strong opinions encourage you to develop strong arguments that support your point of view. Consider the alternative, weak opinions, when we have weak opinions:
- We generally don’t develop robust arguments to support a weak opinion.
- Weak opinions don’t challenge other people to debate and test the validity of the supporting argument.
Take a strong stand, if you’re wrong, acknowledge it and be open to learning along the way. By taking a strong stand, rather than a weak one, will invite the opposition, debate and dialogue necessary to test that validity of the supporting argument.
Weakly Held….
Much of the opinions we hold today, are based on what we see today. While strong opinions encourage you to develop strong arguments supporting your point of view, if those opinions are strongly held we often fail to change in response to other people’s ideas and fail to change in response to new information. Considering the human tendency to actively seek information and evidence that supports our existing point of view. People with strongly held opinions invest way too much time and energy, supporting their existing opinions and fail to observe and respond to new information and feedback.
Having strong opinions, weakly held enables us to observe and rapidly respond to the changing world. Taking a position and developing a supporting argument, then rapidly testing your point of view, whilst being open to learning is a crucial skill required for success in complex and uncertain situations.
Try the following when you’re next faced with a complex issue to resolve:
- What strong opinions do you have about the issue you’re working on?
- Do you have a clear argument to support your opinion?
- Share your opinion with a number people on both sides of the issue.
- Consider how you can incorporate some of the ideas and feedback to strengthen your argument. Or, alternatively should you be changing your opinion?
Technorati Tags: Principles, Philosophy, Management, Strategy, Business, Opinions, Decisions, Leadership
Sep
9
20 Insights from Peter Drucker…
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The Marketing Headerhunter.com discusses the 20 Reasons to Love Peter Drucker taken from The Daily Drucker, a collection of Peter Drucker’s most insightful management observations.
- The critical question is not “How can I achieve?” but “What can I contribute?”
- There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer. He alone gives employment.
- It is easier to raise the performance of one leader than it is to raise the performance of a whole mass.
- Leadership is not rank. It is responsibility.
- An executive should be a realist; and no one is less realistic than the cynic.
- You cannot prevent a major catastrophe, but you can build an organization that is battle-ready, where people trust one another. In military training, the first rule is to instill soldiers with trust in their officers — because without trust, they won’t fight.
- Listening (the first competence of leadership) is not a skill, it is a discipline. All you have to do is keep your mouth shut.
- It is easy to look good in a boom.
- Luck never built a business. Prosperity and growth come only to the business that systematically finds and exploits its potential.
- The one person to distrust is the one who never makes a mistake. Either he is a phony, or he stays with the safe, the tried, and the trivial.
- There are keys to success in managing bosses. First, put down on a piece of paper a “boss list,” everyone to whom you are accountable. Next, go to each person on the list and ask, “What do I do and what do my people do that helps you do your job?” And, “What do we do that makes your life more difficult?”
- Workmanship is essential: In fact, an organization demoralizes itself if it does not demand of its members the highest workmanship.
- A decision is a commitment to action. No decision has, in fact, been made until carrying it out has become somebody’s responsibility.
- It’s much easier to sell the Brooklyn Bridge than to give it away. Nobody trusts you if you offer something for free.
- The ultimate test of an information system is that there are no surprises.
- Until a business returns a profit that is greater than its cost of capital, it does not create wealth — it destroys it.
- The question has to be asked — and asked seriously — “If we did not do this already, would we go into it now?” If the answer is no, the reaction must be “What do we do now?” Very often, the right answer is abandonment.
- Freedom is not fun. It is a responsible choice.
- One can’t manage change. One can only be ahead of it.
- Just go out and make yourself useful.
These are great insights from Peter Drucker. The ones I especially agree with are:
Technorati Tags: Management, Peter Drucker, Leadership, Book, Lifehacks, Business
Sep
8
Bill Hybels has put together a list of leadership “must reads” it’s a great list for anyone looking for a good book on leadership:
- Goals, Brian Tracy
- Authentic Leadership, Bill George
- Tough Choices, Carly Fiorina
- Leadership Can Be Taught, Sharon Daloz Parks
- Winning, Jack Welch & Suzy Welch
- Courage: The Backbone of Leadership, Gus Lee & Diane Elliott-Lee
- Leadership: The Inner Side of Greatness, Peter Koestenbaum
- The 360° Leader, John Maxwell
- Executive Intelligence, Justin Menkes
- The Prepared Mind of a Leader, Bill Welter & Jean Egmon
- Intuition at Work, Gary Klein
- Resonant Leadership, Richard Boyatzis & Annie McKee
- Great Leadership, Antony Bell
- The Leadership Mystique, Manfred Kets De Vries
- Leading in Black and White, Ancella B. Livers & Keith Caver
- The One Thing You Need to Know, Marcus Buckingham
- Launching a Leadership Revolution, Chris Brady & Orrin Woodward
- Leaders: Strategies for Taking Charge (2nd ed.), Warren Bennis
- Paths to Power, Anthony J. Mayo, Nitin Nohria, Laura G. Singleton
- Enough, Juan Williams
- The Leadership Gap, David S. Weiss & Vince Molinaro
- Project Leadership, James P. Lewis
- Leading Quietly, Joseph L. Bodarracco, Jr.
- Ladder Shifts, Samuel Chand
- Taking Advice, Dan Ciampa
- Results, Gary Neilson & Bruce Pasternack
- Execution, Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan
- Leadership Passages, David L. Dotlich, James L. Noel, Norman Walker
- A Bias for Action, Heinke Bruch & Sumantra Ghoshal
- The Highest Goal, Jim Collins
- Primal Leadership, Daniel Goleman, Annie McKee & Richard E. Boyatzis
- Flexible Leadership, Gary Yukl & Richard Lepsinger
- The Ethical Challenge, Noel Tichy & Andrew R. McGill
- Changing Minds, Howard Gardner
- Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Our Choices, Paul Lawrence & Nitin Nohria
- Culture Shift, Robert Lewis & Wayne Cordeiro
- The Future of Leadership, Warren Bennis, Gretchen Spreitszer & Thomas Cummings
- Silos, Politics & Turf Wars, Patrick Lencioni
- Building the Bridge As You Walk on It, Robert E. Quinn
- Leading the Way, Robert Gandossy & Mark Effron, Hewitt Associates
- Value Leadership, Peter S. Cohan
- Business Evolves, Leadership Endures, Andrea Redmond & Charles A. Tribbett, III
- The Next Generation Leader, Andy Stanley
- Grow Your Own Leaders, William C. Byhan, Sudrey B. Smith & Matthew J. Paese
- The Go Point, Michael Useem
- Competitive Strategy, Michael E. Porter
- Integrity, Henry Cloud
- Leadership on the Line, Martin Linsky & Ronald Heifetz
- Nobody in Charge, Harlan Cleveland & Warren Bennis
Technorati Tags: Books, Leadership, Management, Business
Sep
8
Dr. Myles Munroe on Leadership…
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“Leadership is the capacity to influence others through inspiration motivated by passion, generated by vision, produced by a conviction, ignited by a purpose.” Dr. Myles Munroe, The Spirit of Leadership
Technorati Tags: Leadership, Definition, Spiritual, Book, Purpose, Vision
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