Jun
30
The importance of philosophy to great leadership
Filed Under Organisational Leadership, Personal Leadership | 5 Comments
Google has taken time to clearly articulate their business philosophy, described in the article, “Ten things Google has found to be true”. The article highlights Google’s beliefs, values and principles, which guides how they go about growing and managing their business. The ten things that comprise Google’s business philosophy are:
- Focus on the user and all else will follow.
- It’s best to do one thing really, really well.
- Fast is better than slow.
- Democracy on the web works.
- You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer.
- You can make money without doing evil.
- There’s always more information out there.
- The need for information crosses all borders.
- You can be serious without a suit.
- Great just isn’t good enough.
These are the ten things that support Google’s business philosophy and guide Google’s leadership. In the same way, all leaders need a personal leadership philosophy, a set of values, beliefs and principles that influence how they act and lead.
“In order to live, man must act; in order to act, he must make choices; in order to make choices, he must define a code of values; in order to define a code of values, he must know what he is and where he is—i.e., he must know his own nature (including his means of knowledge) and the nature of the universe in which he acts—i.e., he needs metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, which means: philosophy. He cannot escape from this need; his only alternative is whether the philosophy guiding him is to be chosen by his mind or by chance.” - Ayn Rand, 1966, “Philosophy and Sense of Life” from What makes Ayn Rand’s philosophy unique?
Many leaders fail to take the time to think and reflect on their leadership philosophy, the beliefs, values and principles that supports their leadership. A leaders philosophy is grounded in who they are as individuals. A clear leadership philosophy supports consistent action, building credibility and trust with the leader’s constituents.
- What are the ten things that form the basis of your leadership philosophy?
- Do you live your ten things?
Technorati Tags: Philosophy, Leadership, Management, Google, Business, Worldview, Mental-Model, Thinking, Reflection, Values
Jun
29
When Jason Fried from 37signals was asked "How did you create the culture at 37signals?” he answered as follows:
"You don’t create a culture. Culture happens. It’s the by-product of consistent behavior. If you encourage people to share, and you give them the freedom to share, then sharing will be built into your culture. If you reward trust then trust will be built into your culture.
Artificial
Artificial cultures are instant. They’re big bangs made of mission statements, declarations, and rules. They are obvious, ugly, and plastic. Artificial culture is paint.
Real
Real cultures are built over time. They’re the result of action, reaction, and truth. They are nuanced, beautiful, and authentic. Real culture is patina.
Don’t think about how to create a culture, just do the right things for you, your customers, and your team and it’ll happen."
Whilst I agree with Jason’s view, that a) culture takes time to develop and b) the culture is a by-product of consistent behaviour, culture doesn’t "just happen". Culture is the shadow of the leader. If Jason means that culture just happens, if you have the right leadership, then I support his view, and perhaps that is what he is say. The with the right leadership… culture just happens! Organisations that set out to create or build a culture, without changing the leadership behaviours, results in what Jason refers to as artificial cultures.
In the end, culture determines who’s in and who’s out…. Once you have the right leadership in place … then … culture just happens.
- Are you purposefully acting to develop your organisation’s culture?
- Do you have the right leadership in place?
- Are you hiring and promoting people who reinforce the culture you’re trying to develop?
Technorati Tags: Culture, Leadership, Management, Business, HR, Strategy
Jun
24
The Ken Blanchard Company newsletter, Ignite!, for November 2007 has a great article “Keeping a Vision Strong through All Levels of Your Organization” which discusses why vision tends to dilute as you move down the organisational structure.
“In most organizations, when executives create a vision for the entire company, they believe it provides clarity, focus and direction. And it is true that it does, at least for those at the top of the organization. Unfortunately, it gradually loses strength as it works its way to the front lines. In fact, research by The Gallup Organization indicates that senior executives are more than twice as likely to feel that an organization’s mission and purpose inspire them to higher levels of performance as frontline workers… Why the disconnect? Why might senior leaders resonate with an organizational vision while the rest of the company does not relate to it? There are many possible answers, but according to Dr. Jesse Stoner and Dr. Drea Zigarmi, a good place to start is by looking at one or more of the following factors: how the vision is created, how it is communicated, and how it is lived or modeled in the organization.”
The three factors mentioned are critical in getting an organisation’s vision to stick:
- How the vision is created: No matter how you try to get around the issue, the fact is that people only support what they help create. A vision created by top management, will be supported primarily by top management. Unless people feel they have an influence over the creation of the organisation’s vision, commitment to the vision will be difficult to achieve. One way to involve people, as mentioned in the article, is for leaders to engage employees in discussing the vision “senior leaders encourage dialogue about the vision by asking people these questions: ‘Would you like to work for an organization that has this vision? Can you see where you fit in the vision? Does it help you set priorities? Does it provide guidelines for making decisions? Is it exciting and motivating? Have we left anything out? Should we delete anything?’”
- How it is communicated: The communication of vision is critical. Two common mistakes I see in the communication of vision is, firstly, vision is not communicated frequently enough, and secondly, the vision is not weaved into all the organisations communication initiatives. Leaders are the custodians of an organisation’s vision, they are responsible to ensure that the vision is talked about and kept alive. You can never over-communicate your vision.
- How it is lived or modeled in the organization: This is an important finding, vision is a process and not an event. The author of the article makes the following point… “Creating a vision—for your organization or department, for your work, and for your life—is a journey, not a one-time activity…. ‘It is important that all leaders in the company hold themselves and each other accountable for behaving consistently with the stated vision and values. As others see leadership living the vision, they will trust that leaders are serious and will be motivated to join.’” Leaders watched closely by others, their language and behaviour is closely scrutinised by their teams and employees. Unless a leaders actions, align with what they say, people will question the importance of the vision.
If you review your actions and how you have spent your time over the past month how closely aligned are your actions and the way you spend your time with your vision? How often do you talk about your vision?
Technorati Tags: Strategy, Vision, Execution, Leadership, Management, Business, Research, Communication, Collaboration
Jun
24
Tony Mayo, co-author of "In Their Time: The Greatest Business Leaders of the Twentieth Century", discusses the importance of contextual intelligence for leaders. In his post Tony Mayo describes the importance of context for leaders….
"Yes, business leaders need to have certain personal characteristics to be successful, but it is often the application of those characteristics within a specific context that define great success. It’s not only who you are, but when and where you are."
Too much emphasis is placed on heroic leaders, those special individuals with a unique set of traits, CEO’s who turn-around large organisations and political leaders that free a nation. Tony goes on to note that:
“There is far too much focus on individual characteristics of leadership and far too little focus on the situational context. By placing too much emphasis on the individual, we can easily fall prey to the cult of the CEO and believe that any individual who was successful in one setting would naturally be successful in a new setting. The list of once-successful CEOs who have failed in new business settings is long.”
This focus on heroic leadership traits, leads to a number of dysfunctional behaviours, such as:
- The tendency to try and become like our leadership hero’s, instead of seeking to become more of who we are, to be original’s and not copies. What traits and factors that made a leader great in the past, will not necessarily make the leader great tomorrow. This is why you cannot blindly emulate successful leaders from the past and expect to get the same results. What made Jack Welch successful, will not make your successful. We need to leader from successful leaders and not to try to emulate or copy them.
- The tendency to over-estimate the importance of our leaders, and to under-estimate the difference we can make in our daily actions.
- The tendency to relay on past success and limit ourselves from experimenting and trying new things.
Given the importance of context, it’s important for leaders to be able to make sense of the changing environment and then adapt their leadership style, approach and behaviour to ensure they’re effective in the new context.
“Clearly, context is important. Business leaders who have been sensitive to context possess what Nitin Nohria and I call contextual intelligence. Not only do these leaders understand the implications of the contextual forces that surround them, they also have the ability to adapt and change their leadership style and approach as environmental conditions evolve. Success in one realm does not always translate into success in another. Indeed, relying on past models of success without being sensitive to the context of the situation has often yielded major disappointments.” - Tony Mayo, Why Do Some Leaders Have More Influence than Others?
Do you have a good understanding of the context in which you are leading?
Do you know what leadership behaviour and traits will be most effective in this context?
Technorati Tags: Context, Sensemaking, Leadership, Management, Book
Jun
24
Anecdote posted on David Maister’s podcast on earning trust and it’s importance to business. The fact is that leaders cannot lead without trust. Maister identifies four dimensions to trust, the first three can cause trust to increase:
- Credibility - about words - I can trust what he says. This is about tangible, professional expertise.
- Reliability - about actions - I can trust her to do something. Are you dependable and behave in certain ways?
- Intimacy - about emotions - I feel comfortable discussing this with that person. This is about the ability to relate to people one to one. It is the dimension that people fail on most often - it has high consequences if we get it wrong.
The fourth component, self orientation, reduces trust:
- Self-Orientation - about motives - the extent to which we can trust that someone cares about certain things. This relates to the extent to which we can focus on the other person in the relationship rather than ourselves. Selfishness, self-consciousness, need to appear on top of things or to appear intelligent, a long to-do list that distracts us from focusing in the moment etc are all things that keep us focused on ourselves rather than the other person.
These four dimensions are a useful way to assess our own behaviour. Are we instilling trust? Do we have integrity in our words, actions, emotions and motives?
Technorati Tags: Trust, Credibility, Integrity, Character, Leadership, Management, Business
Jun
19
Does Your Strategy Have A Purpose?
Filed Under Leadership Practices | 2 Comments
A the post "Does Your Business Strategy Have A Purpose?" on Idris Mootee’s blog Innovation Playground Idris makes the following point:
…“’purpose’ is bigger than ‘strategy’. Way much bigger. At best, strategy is just a number of smart ideas to take advantage of a market opportunity or re-configuration of the value chain. But purpose is different, it is a journey. Strategies are about means; they cannot be an end in themselves. An end is a reason. Many companies today are not lacking strategies, they lack a reason–they lack ‘purpose.’”
Purpose is something that we need as humans, purpose is what drives us, fuels our passion and gives us hope. Leaders bring more than a set of plans and objectives, they bring purpose and meaning. Having a strategy is necessary, but not sufficient…. You need to have a purpose a reason for the journey… and …it’s purpose that brings meaning to the journey…
- Have you defined your purpose?
- Does your strategy support your purpose?
Technorati Tags: Strategy, Purpose, Planning, Meaning, Leadership, Business
Jun
19
Michael Watkins wrote an interesting post "Demystifying Strategy: The What, Who, How, and Why", he defines business strategy as:
"a set of guiding principles that, when communicated and adopted in the organization, generates a desired pattern of decision making….. A good strategy provides a clear roadmap, consisting of a set of guiding principles or rules, that defines the actions people in the business should take (and not take) and the things they should prioritize (and not prioritize) to achieve desired goals."
In a nutshell, as illustrated below:
- Mission is about what will be achieved.
- The value network is about with whom value will be created and captured.
- Strategy is about how resources should be allocated to accomplish the mission in the context of the value network.
- Vision and incentives is about why people in the organization should feel motivated to perform at a high level.
Together, the mission, network, strategy, and vision define the strategic direction for a business. They provide the what, who, how, and why necessary to powerfully align action in complex organizations.
Technorati Tags: Strategy, Vision, Mission, Value, Business, Goals, Management, Leadership, Planning
Jun
16
Taking time out to think and reflect on what your busy with and what’s your purpose, what are you striving to achieve? Then ask yourself, is what I’m doing directly contributing to my purpose? To remain on track 37signals suggests that to remain effective that we question our work, by asking the following:
These are questions we ask each other before, during, and sometimes after we work on something. That something can be as small as a couple-hour project or as big as something that takes a few weeks or more. Either way, it’s important to ask questions like this in order to make sure you’re doing work that matters.
- Why are we doing this? Ever find yourself working on something but you don’t know why? Someone just told you to do this or that? It’s pretty common I think. It’s important to ask yourself (and others) why you’re working on this. What is this for? Who benefits? What’s the motivation behind it? Knowing the answers to these questions will help you better understand the work itself.
- What problem are we solving? What’s the problem? Are customers confused? Are we confused? Is something not clear enough? Was something not possible before? What problem are we solving here? Sometimes when you ask yourself this question you’ll find that you’re solving an imaginary problem. That’s when it’s time to stop and reevaluate what the hell you’re doing.
- Is this actually useful? Are we making something useful or are we just making something? It’s easy to confuse enthusiasm with usefulness. Sometimes it’s fine to play a bit and build something that’s cool, but it’s worth asking yourself if it’s useful too. Cool wears off, useful never does.
- Are we adding value? Adding something is easy, adding value is harder. Is this thing I’m working on actually making the product more valuable for people? Can they get more out of it than they did before? There’s a fine line between adding value and subtracting value. Sometimes adding is subtracting. Too much catsup can ruin the fries. Value is about balance.
- Will this change behavior? Developers have a tendency to add stats to a screen just because they can. Counts, totals, sums, averages. Numbers can look cool, but do they change behavior? Does it matter if someone knows there are 38 of these instead of 42? Does it matter that someone knows it took 0.08 seconds instead of 0.02? Sometimes it might, but it’s important to constantly ask yourself: Will knowing this information change someone’s behavior? Can they do something useful with this information? Will they make a better decision because of this information? If not, pull it out of the interface. Data without purpose is noise.
- Is there an easier way? There are lots of ways to do things, but for simplicity’s sake let’s say there are two primary ways: The easier way and the harder way. The easier way takes 1 unit of time. The harder way takes 10 units of time. Whenever you’re working on the harder way you should ask yourself is there an easier way? You’ll often find that the easier way is more than good enough for now. Most people’s problems are pretty simple — we just imagine they are hard.
- What’s the opportunity cost? What can’t we do because we’re doing this? This is especially important for smaller companies that are more resource constrained. Limited time makes prioritization more important. If we work on feature A can we still do Feature B and C before April? If not, would we rather have B and C instead of A? Is A really worth the opportunity cost? Ask this all the time.
- Is it really worth it? This one should come up all the time. Is what we’re doing really worth it? Is this meeting worth pulling 6 people off their work for an hour? Is it worth pulling an all-nighter tonight or could we just finish it up tomorrow? Is it worth getting all stressed out over a press release from a competitor? Is it really worth spending $1000/week on Google Adwords? Is it really worth…?
It’s too easy to rush into, work without taking time to consider the why, the what and the costs of the work. Corporate culture today rewards action and results, rightly so. However, in our haste to get results, we often act without taking the time to consider the consequences of our actions or the most effective way of producing results. By stepping back and questioning our work, we can make informed decisions about where we should be investing out time and energy. Yes, action is necessary to produce results, however purposeful and thoughtful action produces far better results and often with half the effort.
Technorati Tags: Time Management, Leadership, Management, GTD, Getting Things Done, Business, Effectiveness, Purpose, Work
Jun
15
The Leading Blog has an interesting post “How to Survive the First 100 Days As the New Boss” discussing the book “The New Boss: How to Survive the First 100 Days” by Peter Fischer. A guide to help leaders to effectively manage leadership transitions, the chart below provides and overview of some of the issues addressed in the book:
Transitions Successfully |
Successful in Transitions |
|
|
Transitions happen to us all as leaders and it’s important to be equipped with the tools and knowledge required to help navigate the leadership transitions effectively. This book help to navigate the most common leadership transition, the transition to be the new boss. Another great book on effectively managing leadership transition which I reviewed on this blog here is the book The First 90 Days.
Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Business, Book, Transition, Boss
Jun
15
The power of commitment
Filed Under Leadership Practices | 2 Comments
As leaders we often underestimate the power of commitment, there is something powerful about being committed, I mean being truly committed to a cause, to a vision or to a meaningful purpose.
"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it." – Goethe
The decision to act on what you’re committed to and passionate about starts a unique journey of discovery. You become more attuned to a new set of events occurring around you, you’re more aware of opportunities, many of these events and situation you would have brushed off and considered as unimportant. Let me explain….
Have you ever noticed that wen you purchase a new car, say a Ford, all of a sudden you begin to notice how may Ford’s are on the road. It’s not that they we not there before, you’re just more aware and have started noticing them! It all started with the decision and a commitment, the purchase of a new car.
“Until one is committed there is hesitancy,
the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness.
Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation)
there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which
kills countless ideas and splendid plans:
The moment one definitely commits oneself,
then providence moves too.
All sorts of things occur to help one that would otherwise
never have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision,
raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and
meetings and material assistance,
which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.”
- W.N. Murray, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition
Have you made a decision about what you want from life? Do you have a clear vision? Are you committed? Are you taking bold action to bring your vision into reality?
Technorati Tags: Leadership, Commitment, Management, Business, Decision-Making, Choices, Execution, Quotes
Jun
15
Photo by eugene
"Time is limited, so I better wake up every morning fresh and know that I have just one chance to live this particular day right, and to string my days together into a life of action, and purpose." – Lance Armstrong
The survey of nearly 1,200 managers and directors by the UK-based Chartered Management Institute has found more than eight out of 10 struggle to prioritise their work, with conflicting demands pulling them in all directions. Effective time management begins with vision and purpose….
It’s astonishing how many leaders fail to use their time effectively. Research by Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal discussed in the Harvard Business Review article “Beware the Busy Manager” found that “a mere 10% of managers spend their time in a committed, purposeful and reflective manner” . In their article they research found that focus and energy are critical elements required for purposeful action. They describe these two elements as follows:
“Think of focus as concentrated attention – the ability to zero in on a goal and see the task through to completion. Focused managers aren’t in reactive mode; they choose not to respond immediately to every issue that comes their way or get sidetracked from their goals by distractions like e-mail, meetings, setbacks, and unforeseen demands. Because they have a clear understanding of what they want to accomplish, they carefully weigh their options before selecting a course of action….. Think of the second characteristic – energy – as the vigor that is fueled by intense personal commitment. Energy is what pushes managers to go the extra mile when tackling heavy workloads and meeting tight deadlines.”
Effective managers and leaders have high levels of focus and energy which the article refers to as purposeful managers. As illustrated in the energy – focus matrix illustrated below, describing the four types of managers.
- How focused are you? Do you have a clear vision and goal?
- How much energy do you have? Have you made a personal commitment to the goal?
- Where are you located on the energy – focus matrix?
- Are you making effective use of your time…..?
Technorati Tags: Energy, Focus, Time Management, Management, Leadership, GTD, Business, Lifehacks, Lifehack, HBR, Lance Armstrong, Execution, Quote
Jun
15
One of the critical leadership capabilities required today is sensemaking, which is defined by Wikipedia as:
“..the ability or attempt to make sense of an ambiguous situation. More exactly, sensemaking is the process of creating situational awareness and understanding in situations of high complexity or uncertainty in order to make decisions.”
The MIT Leadership Center published an article that further describes the five major tasks involved in sensemaking titled “Making a Difference by Making Sense”. Sensemaking is also one of the components of the MIT Distributed Leadership Model, one of the best leadership frameworks, which I have discussed in a previous post. As discussed in the article…
“Leaders learn to compete, survive and change by first understanding the context in which an organization and its people operate….. leaders share a common challenge—the need to quickly assess a constantly changing environment and to continually readjust as they take in new information and impressions. How can they make sense of a world where feedback is unclear and inconsistent? Where the ‘correct’ answer is not obvious? Where they must understand and change their environment simultaneously? This important leadership challenge is called sensemaking: discovering new terrain as you invent it.”
Sensemaking consists of five major tasks:
- Observe: “Sensemakers ask, ‘What’s the story?’ They pay close attention to their environment and look for hints of change. Because the world does not evolve in linear fashion, sensemakers look for strategic inflection points.”
- Question: “… sensemakers ask for help. They are open about problems and gain perspective from outside advisors. Under pressure, people often fall back on their habitual ways of responding. But times of crisis frequently require innovative solutions. That’s why sensemakers must resist snap judgments. When they see similarities to a past situation, they need to step back and think about how the new situation may be different.”
- Act: “Sensemakers use early observations to shape decisions. They look for new ways to lay out alternatives and a better way to understand choices. Then, they take action and see what happens. They are like explorers, dropping a pebble into a pond to gauge its depth.”
- Reassess: “Sensemaking is grounded in an appreciation of what is. Therefore, every conclusion is open to question. Sensemakers realize that yesterday’s choices may not work today. A static model does not work in a dynamic world. Sensemakers have the courage to let go of prior assumptions. That’s why sensemakers never stop. The environment is always changing, so there is no final answer. Sensemakers continually review and update. Because experience informs action, sensemakers change their plans even as they roll them out.”
- Communicate: “Sensemakers are storytellers, and to tell stories they must simplify. Sensemakers help others understand complex situations, enabling the others to act.”
In summary …. “Sensemaking means acting in order to think. Sensemaking (where we are) spawns visioning (where we could be). By understanding their environment, the leaders described here learned how to compete, survive, and change.”
Sensemaking is a skill that all leaders need to develop and hone. Leaders need to be aware of the changing context in which they lead. How aware are you of your changing context?
Technorati Tags: Sensemaking, Business, Leadership, Management, Framework, Observe, Question, Execution
Jun
8
The essential difference between Leadership and Management
Filed Under Personal Leadership | 4 Comments
I have written in a previous posts on the differences between management and leadership and recently I can across an interesting article with an interesting take on the topic.
“Management can be taught. Leadership cannot be taught or learned, it must be earned.”
I like this perspective, it means that leadership is a choice, it’s the result of out attitudes, values, behaviours and our effectiveness. In a nutshell, it’s the results we achieve and how we go about achieving them.
“If one looks at management development literature, it is only over the last 15 - and particularly the last 10 - years that leadership is mentioned at all. Prior to that, leadership was mostly only assigned to historical political figures such as Napoleon, Churchill, Kennedy and so on. These were people who earned the title leader. Leader was never assigned to organisational supremos. Nor was it given to any manager. It seems that some writers, keen to establish what makes a great manager great, settled on the term leadership as a distinguishing factor. Then they tried to define it. Then we tried to measure it. Some of us even tried to teach it! And there our troubles began…… My contention is that one becomes a manager when one signs on for the job, be it head of the country, firm, school, department or first-line supervisor. One only becomes a leader when other people say so….. This definition of leadership, rather than focusing on the inputs, such as personal skills, characteristics, competencies, traits etc, focuses on the outputs. Managers are judged on their status as a leader in the eyes of their followers and stakeholders by what they do and achieve.”
In his research, Bob Selden, the author of “What To Do When You Become The Boss”, found the following four condition required to create the essence of leadership, these are the conditions required for others to follow, there needs to be:
- A shared understanding of the environment - ‘We know what we face‘
- A shared vision of where we are going - ‘We know what we have to do’
- A shared set of organisational values - ‘We are in this together‘
- A shared feeling of power - ‘We can do this‘
What I like about the above four conditions of leadership is that they are shared by the team and the organisation. This view is consistent with Peter Senge who describes leadership as:
"a capacity in the human community to shape its future."
Although the leader makes a choice to create the conditions for leadership, once these conditions are in place, the community becomes empowered to take action towards the shared vision, the result is leadership.
"The wicked leader is he who people despise. The good leader is he who people revere. The great leader is he who the people say we did it ourselves." - Lao Tsu
Considering this perspective on management and leadership and the results of your management over the past year. Take some time to ask yourself the following questions:
- Have you made the choice to lead?
- Have you established the four conditions for leadership in your team?
- If not, what actions can you take over the next few weeks to establish these conditions in your team?
Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Teamwork, Business, Book, Vision, Values, Research
Jun
8
Perseverance: The characteristic that separates the successful from the mediocre
Filed Under Leadership Practices | 1 Comment
More and more I am realising the importance of perseverance to effective leadership. There are so many different obstacles and barriers to attaining our vision and purpose in the world today that without perseverance we will fail to make a meaningful difference in the world. Perseverance is what’s requires to face failure and then to get up again to fight another day. Douglas MacMillan in his article “Why Failures Can Be Such Success Stories” finds that…
“To err is human. But to persevere is a feat that often separates the successful from the mediocre…. In business—as in sports, politics, and the arts—many of the greatest and most influential leaders share a history of failure. Automaker Henry Ford and animator Walt Disney both stumbled badly with early business ventures. Early in his career with General Electric (GE), Jack Welch caused an explosion that blew the roof off a building. Not long after taking Apple Computer (AAPL) public, founder Steve Jobs was ousted by the very man he recruited to lead the company.
Psychologists say it’s not simply the fact that these people learned from mistakes that led to eventual success. It’s also the resilience they displayed in getting past those potholes. Failure can be "informative rather than demoralizing. It tells you what you may need to do to make it," says Albert Bandura, the Stanford psychology professor who in the 1970s pioneered the social cognitive theory of self-efficacy—an inner belief in one’s ability to succeed.”
As you’re faced with the weeks and months ahead make a decision to persevere, to never give up on your vision, to never settle for second best, make the decision to press forwards, to be determined to overcome and archive your purposes. Make a decision to believe in yourself, to believe that you can do what you set your mind to, that despite setback, you will get back up and continue. It’s that fact that you fail, which makes you a failure. It’s when you stay down, it’s when you decide not to get up to try again…… that’s what makes you a failure!
It’s settled then…..
Quitting is not an option!
Technorati Tags: Perseverance, Failure, Fail, Leadership, Self-efficacy, Success
Jun
8
The Myth of Leadership Ability—You Either Have It or You Don’t?
Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
One of the greatest leadership myths I come across is that people believe leadership is an inborn gift or trait possessed by a lucky few. In the post “Leadership Ability—You Either Have It or You Don’t” by Christina Bielaszka-DuVernay discusses the following limitations that people place on themselves by believing this myth:
- It prevents those who exercise leadership from being the best they could be.
- It prevents many other people from even trying to fulfill their leadership potential.
The reality, as pointed out in the post, is that “leadership is about skills and attitudes and behaviors, all of which can be learned.” So why then do we a shortage of leaders in our organisations and society at large? Christina makes the following observation in answer to this question….
“Leadership and purpose go hand in hand. Leadership entails risk—that’s why we don’t see more of it. So a critical first step in becoming better at leadership is to clarify your purpose. What are you willing to take risks on behalf of?
Maybe you’ve decided that sacrificing short-term success is necessary for reaching longer-term goals…… Whatever your purpose, you have to define it clearly before you’ll be able to take risks to make it a reality and before you’ll be able to help others to do the same.”
I think she has hit the mark, we don’t see more leadership because people are afraid to take the risks involved in striving for their vision and purpose.
Technorati Tags: Risk, Myth, Leadership, Vision, Purpose, Skill, Ability, HBR
Jun
4
Great leaders surround themselves with great people. Lone ranger leadership is doomed to fail, there is no one great person that is going to transform an organisation it takes a strong team and a great leader. If you look at the life of anyone who has achieved success, such as Jack Welch, Bill gates and others, you’ll notice that they surround themselves with great people. But! It’s not that easy, the trick is to known what great looks like, "How do you know the great people when you see them?" An article by Peter Carbonara from Fast Company provides help for leaders looking to identify and select the right people for their team.
The proposition is undeniable: you can’t build a great company without great people. But how many companies are as rigorous about hiring as they comfortable evaluating job candidates as they are deciding on an investment proposal? The all-too-common reality, in far too many companies, is that hiring processes are poorly designed and shabbily executed.
Of course, making the commitment to hire great people raises an even more basic question: How do you know them when you see them? Over the last few years, a number of companies have asked themselves that question. They’ve analyzed what separates their winners from their losers, good hires from bad hires. These companies compete in a wide range of industries — from airlines to steel, computers to hotels — but they all arrived at the same answer: What people know is less important than who they are. Hiring, they believe, is not about finding people with the right experience. It’s about finding people with the right mind-set. These companies hire for attitude and train for skill.
The article proposes that by using the following four principles you can improve your chances of selecting the right person…..
- What You Know Changes, Who You Are Doesn’t - Popeye was right: "I y’am what I y’am." The most common — and fatal — hiring mistake is to find someone with the right skills but the wrong mind-set and hire them on the theory, "We can change ‘em." Davidson’s response? Forget it. "The single best predictor of future behavior is past behavior," he says. "Your personality is going to be essentially the same throughout your life." As evidence, he points to U.S. Air Force research on personality types that began in the 1950s. For decades, researchers tracked their subjects by observing their behavior and interviewing their families, friends, and colleagues. The conclusion? Basic personality traits did not change, Davidson says. "Introverts were introverts, extroverts were extroverts. The descriptions were constant."
- You Can’t Find What You’re Not Looking For - Bill Byham, perhaps the world’s foremost authority on hiring, is president and CEO of Pittsburgh-based Development Dimensions International (DDI) . He’s also the father of a hiring methodology that goes by many names ("Targeted Selection" is the most popular) but revolves around a simple idea: the best way to select people who’ll thrive in your company is to identify the personal characteristics of people who are already thriving and hire people just like them. In the Byham model, companies work to understand their star performers, identify their target behaviors and attitudes, and then develop interview questions to find people with those attributes.
- The Best Way to Evaluate People is to Watch Them Work - A few companies take this rule literally — none more so than steelmaking giant Nucor. In many ways, Nucor is to steel what Southwest is to airlines: innovative, fast-moving, eager to break the rules. One of Nucor’s best sources of new steelworkers are the construction workers who build its plants. Managers monitor their construction sites, look for plumbers and electricians who demonstrate the work habits they value, and then hire them. At Nucor, the dirty and dangerous task of building a steel mill is one long interview for jobs running it.
- You Can’t Hire People Who Don’t Apply - Companies that take hiring seriously also take recruiting seriously….. Companies that hire smart usually start their recruiting efforts close to home — with their own people. SGI’s Lane estimates that 65% of his company’s new hires began as referrals from current employees. It makes sense: it takes a certain kind of person to thrive at SGI, and those people tend to spend time (personally and professionally) with people like themselves.
One of the central tasks of leaders is the selection and development of people and teams. Leaders tend to recruit too hastily and take too long to remove those who are under-performing. The key to recruiting great people it to be clear about what you’re looking for in others. What are the characteristics of people who succeed in your team? Do you actively look for those characteristics in the people you’re looking to hire?
Technorati Tags: Teamwork, Selection, Talent, Recruitment, Leadership, Teams, People, Management, Business
Jun
3
How to read a business book
Filed Under Uncategorized | 2 Comments
Having written one of my first posts on “How to Read and Digest a Book!” the post by Seth Godin on How to read a business book, really caught my attention. In the post Seth makes the following observation on how people go about reading a business book…
“…..They cruise through the case studies or the insights or examples and imagine what it would be like to be that brilliant entrepreneur or that successful CEO or that great sales rep. A pleasant adventure…. [however] … There’s a huge gap between most how-to books (cookbooks, gardening, magic, etc.) and business books, though. The gap is motivation….. The fascinating thing is this: I spend 95% of my time persuading people to take action and just 5% of the time on the recipes…. The recipe that makes up just about any business book can be condensed to just two or three pages. The rest is the sell. The proof. The persuasion.”
Given the difference between “how to books” and business books, to be effective we need to read to extract maximum value for the investment we’re making of our time and money. This is the initial reason I wrote the post on “How to Read and Digest a Book!”, in which I recommend that to be effective one needs to have a system to extract insight and plan for their implementation…
Seth Godin, in his post How to read a business book, recommends the following tips which complements and builds on what I have already recommended, making the following points:
1. Decide, before you start, that you’re going to change three things about what you do all day at work. Then, as you’re reading, find the three things and do it. The goal of the reading, then, isn’t to persuade you to change, it’s to help you choose what to change.
2. If you’re going to invest a valuable asset (like time), go ahead and make it productive. Use a postit or two, or some index cards or a highlighter. Not to write down stuff so you can forget it later, but to create marching orders. It’s simple: if three weeks go by and you haven’t taken action on what you’ve written down, you wasted your time.
3. It’s not about you, it’s about the next person. The single best use of a business book is to help someone else. Sharing what you read, handing the book to a person who needs it… pushing those around you to get in sync and to take action–that’s the main reason it’s a book, not a video or a seminar. A book is a souvenir and a container and a motivator and an easily leveraged tool. Hoarding books makes them worth less, not more.
Effective managers hand books to their team. Not so they can be reminded of high school, but so that next week she can say to them, "are we there yet?"
These a great insights and take my thoughts a step further. So, how purposeful are you in your reading? Do you have a system to extract, process and implement the insights you’ve gained from your reading? How many of these insights you actually implemented over the past year?
Technorati Tags: Reading, Book, Leadership, Management, Development, Growth, Business, Execution, GTD, Lifehack, Lifehacks, Getting Things Done, Effectiveness
Jun
3
Six leadership transition lessons from the new CEO of Citigroup
Filed Under Organisational Leadership | Leave a Comment
A leader is likely to be challenged by a number of leadership transitions as they develop and grow their careers. These transitions may be from team member to team leader, from manager to divisional leader or from director to CEO. Other difficult leadership transitions can occur as leaders move between companies or even between industries. Research reported in Management-Issues, conducted across 18 industries and 11 countries by the Institute of Executive Development and Alexcel Group found that the
"ramp-up time for new external hires is worryingly long. Around a third of those questioned said that it takes between six and nine months while a further quarter of respondents said it takes more than nine months… Ramp–up time for those making transfers within the same organization was less, but not by a huge margin. The most commonly cited period was between three and six months, with a quarter saying it takes longer than six months…. Moreover, one in five (21 percent) of executives who make internal transfers fail to meet expectations in first two years."
Given these findings and the risks associated with leadership transitions, it’s of critical importance for leaders, to learn how to transition effectively between different leadership roles. Some great advice on making an effective transitions is provided by Dan Ciampa and Michael Watkins in their post discussing the transition of Vikram Pandit, to become the new CEO of Citigroup and provide the following guidelines to help leaders make manage their leadership transitions.
- Identify the critical alliances. "To transform their organizations, new CEOs must gain the support of powerful internal and external constituencies. Influential players must perceive it to be in their interest to help realize your goals. You must therefore begin to identify them and at least begin to gain their support during the transition."
- Get the right top team in place — fast. "Like most new CEOs, you will inherit a group of senior executives. Some will have the knowledge, skills, and background needed to drive the business forward. Others will not….. The decision to remove a senior-level manager is among the most serious and complicated that any leader makes. But among the most common regrets CEOs have is not replacing senior-level people once it becomes clear they are not the right fit for the situation and for the CEO’s style or vision."
- Secure early wins. "To create momentum, you must secure some early wins. …. This means marshalling resources to focus on issues that meet three criteria: (1) they yield tangible financial benefit, (2) they address issues that employees understand to be important, and (3) results can achieved early in the new leader’s tenure. New CEOs secure early wins by identifying substantial problems that can be tackled in a reasonable period of time and whose solutions result in tangible operational and financial (not just behavioral/attitudinal) improvements in performance."
- Lay the groundwork for effective communications. "New CEOs prepare for derailment when they fail to get their messages about priorities across, to convey the values that they hold as important, or to clearly define expectations. As a result they create vacuums of understanding and emotional connection that undermine their effectiveness. ….. Everyone is parsing your actions and words closely and critically, hunting for signals of direction, purpose, motives, and, especially, for the answer to “who is this person?” Leaders lay the seeds of their own destruction when they fail to gain control of the communication processes of the company. As a result, do not effectively get their messages across to the people whom they most want to influence; nor do they shape the mood or morale of the organization."
- Shape your vision. "…. What we mean by vision is a vivid mental image that depicts your view of the desired future state of the organization in an inspiring way. It is not a statement of mission, a set of objectives, or a list of values. It is a picture of what will be seen, heard, and felt when the organization fulfills that mission, and achieves those objects….. If it’s not inspiring, for the leader and for key people in the organization, then it’s not a vision."
- Build and use a balanced advice network. "…Finally, and perhaps most important, you have to build and use the right kind of advice and counsel network. No leader is an island. …. So its essential that you find ways to accelerate learning about markets, products, technologies, organizational capabilities, team, politics and culture. Identifying and leveraging the best advisors — internally and externally — is the most effective way to do this."
This useful list of guidelines can assist in your leadership transition and compliments a previous post "5 tips on making a successful leadership transition". Another great resource for planning a successful leadership transition is the Harvard Business Review book "The First 90 Days" which I’ve previously reviewed here. Before jumping into a new role or hastily accepting that new leadership position take some time to plan your first 90 days and thereby increase your chances of success……!
Technorati Tags: Leadership, Transition, Business, Management, Planning, Change, Career, Success, HBR
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