Management and Leadership Week in Review for Oct 21, 2011
Filed under: Fresh Voices, Leadership, Management Education, Strategy
Note from Art: Almost every week, I offer a recap of some of the more thought-provoking management and leadership content that I’ve tripped across recently. The selections are eclectic and always intended to stimulate your thinking. This week’s selections include content on The Great Tech War of 2012, ideas for strengthening your coaching skills, insight into three critical leadership skills and a book that offers something for all of us as we try to escape the pull of the past in our organizations.
-From FastCompany, The Great Tech War of 2012, is must reading for any student of strategy and business. And yes, we’re all living in “interesting times” as the saying goes, but the shifting landscape for our eyes and wallets in the tech sector is fascinating to an extreme. The article provides a great view of the battlefield and the combatants.
From the article: “To state this as clearly as possible: The four American companies that have come to define 21st-century information technology and entertainment are on the verge of war. Over the next two years, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google will increasingly collide in the markets for mobile phones and tablets, mobile apps, social networking, and more. This competition will be intense.”
-From Scott Eblin: “How to Be a Really Useful Coach in Five Minutes or Less.” Scott is a true pro in the executive coaching world, and his book, The Next Level, is a must read for anyone seeking to climb to the next executive rank. His short post will take you less than five minutes to read and leave you armed with some timeless and time-saving good questions to use on the move. (For an added resource, check out my Leadership Caffeine Podcast Episode with Scott Eblin.)
-From HBR Blogs, Morton T. Hansen offers: “Three Leadership Skills that Count,” drawn from his work with Jim Collins for their new book, Great by Choice.
The focus is on leading and succeeding in chaotic times and Collins and Hansen identified three leadership skills: Productive Paranoia, Empirical Creativity and Fanatic Discipline, that in their opinion are critical. From the post: “You need all three leadership skills in an uncertain world: Fanatic discipline keeps you on track; empirical creativity keeps you vibrant; and productive paranoia keeps you alive.”
-Book Recommendation: Escape Velocity-Free Your Company’s Future from the Pull of the Past by Geoffrey A. Moore.
See my post and listen to my interview with Geoffrey Moore to understand why I’m a strong supporter of his latest work.
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JUST RELEASED! Check Out Art’s New Book: Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development
Want More: Sign up for the new, Leadership Caffeine e-Newsletter. I’ll guard your e-mail address with ferocity, while sharing ideas to energize and inspire.
About Art Petty:
Art Petty is a Leadership & Career Coach and Strategy Consultant, helping motivated professionals of all levels achieve their potential. In addition to working with highly motivated professionals, Art frequently works with project teams in pursuit of high performance. Art’s second book (an edited, annotated collection of the most popular leadership essays), Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development, was released at the end of September in 2011.
Contact Art via e-mail to discuss a coaching, workshop or speaking engagement.
Guest Marketing Post-Succeeding with Video
Filed under: Fresh Voices, Marketing, Marketing Yourself
Note from Art: Whether you work inside the walls of a corporation or you make your office wherever you can grab a good connection and a great cup of coffee, chances are that you will come face-to-face with the need to appear on camera at some point in time. For many of us, the thought isn’t exactly a welcome one.
I had my first video encounter to promote the launch of my essay collection, Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development, and while painful, in the end after the self-induced stress wore off and the almost-expletives cleared the air and I had regained my ability to say, “action-packed” versus the now classic line captured as “action-paction,” it was fun and I believe beneficial. So much so, that I’ve agreed to start a monthly videocast.
I’m not alone in my video-phobia, and in comparing notes with many of my colleagues, it seems we all struggle with the same issues. We also agree that the benefits of building a video presence strongly outweigh any of the personal reasons for avoiding this. To support our efforts, I encouraged Amber Wallor and Edgar Mourans, the two pros behind Left Hand Marketing and the drive to help small business owners and even hapless actors like me build a video presence, to offer us some guidance.
Like everything else these two great people do, they went above and beyond the call of duty, offering a free e-book filled with tips and brief video clip to show that they are willing to face the camera as well! Use their advice wisely, and of course don’t be bashful in reaching out to them for help. Did I mention they are entrepreneurs! Enjoy the resources and good luck in your small screen careers!
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What causes you to freeze up, mispronounce words, suffer from memory loss, and blabber senselessly about ideas that are normally second nature to you while watching your every move? A video camera!
We are passionate about the effectiveness of video marketing. Video is a powerful tool for businesses and individuals looking to gain an edge against competitors.
Video allows you to showcase what differentiates you while giving people the feeling that they already know you before ever doing business with you. It goes with the old cliché, people like doing business with people they know, like and trust. More so, video brings increased exposure and higher search results. YouTube is owned by Google and is one of the largest search engines; so naturally, Google favors websites with video in its search results. In fact, videos are 53 times more likely than traditional websites to receive a first-page ranking on Google.
Nevertheless, being on camera is easier said than done. We haven’t had one client who hasn’t feared being recorded. For the majority of people, being in front of the camera is quite an unpleasant feeling to say the least. It’s like hating the sound of your own voice but ten times worse!
Here’s Some Help:
To help you with overcoming that fear, we have been inspired to create a mini e-book (and we had fun creating the pictures on the cover) that will guide you in the right direction.
Watch your confidence grow with our list of helpful tips on preparing yourself when it’s time for the lights, camera, and action (or “action-paction” as Art has been known to say)!
It’s truly an amazing sight to watch our clients transform through the camera lens, some even begin to enjoy being on camera! If you find other things that work for you, we’d love to hear from you and add them to future revisions of our e-book.
P.S. We’d like to thank Art for being so great to work with and for being a good sport about action-paction!
In writing a post on the importance of video, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to release a video of our own about the e-book. Hey, we can all use the practice!
Great Ideas: Management & Leadership Week in Review
Filed under: Fresh Voices, Leadership Skills, Professional Growth
Note from Art: My blogging patterns tend to change with the seasons, and now that summer has faded nicely into fall and I’m no longer migrating Up North every Friday, it’s time to bring back the Week in Review posts. Every week (ok, that’s not a promise, but an aspiration), I’ll offer a few articles/posts and an occasional book suggestion, that I believe are worth sharing and worth thinking about and even acting on in our lives. The topics will be eclectic with a slight emphasis on management and leadership. Enjoy!
-Speaking of eclectic, here’s an outstanding essay entitled: “My Years in the Wilderness” from author, Steven Pressfield, that stopped me in my tracks. Pressfield’s historical fiction is remarkable, and I truly love his content on “The War of Art,” applicable to anyone who is striving to achieve something and laboring to fend of what Pressfield describes as, “resistance.” This is another extremely personal essay on “The War of Art,” and while the emphasis is on the struggle to write, the message is broadly applicable to all of our endeavors to create and achieve.
-Jesse Lyn Stoner writing at Harvard Blogs offers us, “Diagnose and Cure Team Drift.” We’ve all been participants in teams or committees that started with a bang and ended with a whimper. Jesse offers us some tools to recognize and deal with the drift. As an aside, if you’ve not checked out Jesse’s work with Ken Blanchard, “Full Steam Ahead, 2nd edition,” you’ve missed the best book I’ve yet encountered on this often abstract topic. Jesse and Ken make it real and practical. (Also, check out my podcast with Jesse!)
-A Book Selection: Beyond Performance, by Scott Keller and Colin Price. This is a research-based book offering some fresh thinking on what it takes to create and sustain high performance over time. While this topic is the equivalent of the search for a unified theory of everything to business researchers and consultants, for the first time in a few decades, I’m optimistic that there’s a work-product here that moves us closer. The concept of Organizational Health, backed by a decade’s worth of research, offers some compelling and actionable ideas and a lot of evidence. As much as I love Jim Collins, I’ve been looking for something to fill that empty gap on my bookshelf, left by my disposal of Good to Great.
-From Tanveer Naseer, a thoughtful and thought-provoking piece on, “What Does the World Really Need from Today’s Leaders?” Tanveer raises some important issues in a world that is seemingly begging for effective leaders and leadership. This merits consideration and discussion, and Tanveer’s mini-manifesto here is a great place to start. Visit for the essay and stay for his consistently great content.
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JUST RELEASED! Check Out Art’s New Book: Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development
More than 80 quick reads filled with ideas to lead teams, manage yourself, survive the tough days and generally improve your performance and success as a professional. This book is ideal for motivated professionals and it is particularly powerful for teams and leadership and performance discussion groups. Take advantage of my group book promotion while it lasts!
Want More: Sign up for the new, Leadership Caffeine e-Newsletter. (publishing in October) I’ll guard your e-mail address with ferocity, while sharing ideas to energize and inspire.
About Art Petty:
Art Petty is a Leadership & Career Coach and Strategy Consultant, helping motivated professionals of all levels achieve their potential. In addition to working with highly motivated professionals, Art frequently works with project teams in pursuit of high performance. Art’s second book (an edited, annotated collection of the most popular leadership essays), Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development, was released at the end of September in 2011.
Contact Art via e-mail to discuss a coaching, workshop or speaking engagement.
Guest Post: Success in Collaboration-From an Unlikely Source
Filed under: Fresh Voices, Life and Business, Management Education, Professional Growth
Note from Art: I’m excited to feature another great guest post from Hay Group here at Management Excellence. As I mentioned in my intro note to the first post with Scott Spreier (The Trouble with Leadership By the Numbers), I was a happy customer of Hay’s in a prior lifetime. I’m thrilled that they’ve reached out to provide us all with a compelling read once again. This one is by Rick Lash is director of Hay Group’s Leadership & Talent Practice in Canada and co-leader of the annual Hay Group Best Companies for Leadership study.
Success in Collaboration-From an Unlikely Source-by Rick Lash, Hay Group
Have you seen the video showing traffic at an unsigned, unsignaled intersection in India? It’s mesmerizing – a portrait of chaos in motion.
An astounding variety of vans, cars of all sizes, three-wheeled auto rickshaws, scooters, motorcycles, bikes and even pedestrians surge back and forth across an expanse of pavement with no lane lines, no traffic lights, no signs – and no apparent rules. The opposing streams of traffic speed up, slow down, bunch up and stop dead as vehicles attempt to thread their way across the intersection, dodging and weaving through the confusion. Drivers make U-turns and occasionally head the wrong way to navigate around oncoming vehicles. You’re certain you’re going to see a terrible collision, yet it never happens. The drivers, riders and walkers all seem to know the unwritten rules that govern this chaotic bit of blacktop, and act accordingly.
I suddenly realized I was watching a primer on how to succeed in organizational collaboration.
Why is collaboration so difficult? Like that intersection, effective collaboration is governed by rules that may not be clear to the inexperienced. Players come and go, challenges and obstacles can appear from any direction, and no one seems to be in charge – or everyone is.
It’s a baffling situation for many managers – and no wonder. Most have earned their success by getting things done in competition with others at their level across the organization. They’ve developed a set of skills and competencies that have served them well in this competitive arena.
When they’re asked to participate in a collaborative effort, they’re suddenly expected to cooperate effectively with people they once competed against, and may again soon. It’s no wonder that many managers approach collaborative assignments with apprehension, fear and a white-knuckled grip on the wheel.
But it doesn’t have to be so. The same unwritten rules that help drivers thread their way across a challenging intersection can help you successfully navigate the challenges of collaboration.
1. Be clear about your destination. When you nose into that “collaboration intersection,” know exactly where you want to end up – and make it clear to those involved in the collaboration with you. Collisions are much less likely if your partners know where you’re headed. And most importantly, know when to get in and when to get out.
As a corollary, be sure that collaboration is the best way to achieve your goal. Not every business challenge requires a collaborative solution – and if you can reach your destination just as quickly without collaboration, go for it.
2. Accept that you’re not the only one driving. For a collaboration to succeed, the partners involved have to achieve a measure of mutual trust. That means not only being clear about your goals, but also understanding and respecting your partners’ goals as well – and being sure that they can mesh successfully. Until you reach that point, proceed with caution. Once you’re all in sync, you can accelerate on your project, dart through the obstacles, and follow through on your objectives.
3. Know when to lead and when to follow. If you’re a leader involved in a collaboration, your natural inclination is to lead – and with a mindful application of initiative and nerve, you can assume a leadership role, even if you have fewer resources than some of your partners. But you also have to know when to take a back seat. Sometimes, following close behind that big truck is the fastest and safest way to get through.
4. Know exactly how fast you can move. Many collaborative efforts are undertaken to accelerate innovation in fast-moving markets. Knowing how quickly you and your partners can deliver – and keeping to your timetable through the process – avoids conflicts and prevents disappointment. Collaborative tools, many enabled by new and emerging technologies, can help speed up the process and keep everyone on schedule.
5. Talk to people who have traveled the same road. If you’re used to managing and controlling your own resources – and competing against your peers to get them – you’re probably going to need a bit of an attitude adjustment. You may have to hone new leadership competencies, or at least recalibrate those you already have.
If you’re new to collaboration, seek the advice of a mentor who has been there. If your partners are new, try to guide them and help set the ground rules that will engender productive collaboration behaviors.
Sometimes, collisions in collaboration are inevitable. But if you know the unwritten rules, you can avoid most of them.
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About Rick Lash: Rick Lash is Director of Hay Group’s Leadership & Talent Practice in Canada and co-leader of the annual Hay Group Best Companies for Leadership study. Rick works with executives to build the leadership capabilities needed to execute their organizational strategy. He specializes in organizational change, succession planning and leadership development; working with leaders and senior teams to refine their capabilities and create lasting change and improved performance.
Leadership Lessons from the High Seas
Filed under: Career, Fresh Voices, Leadership, Leadership Skills, Life and Business, Values
Note from Art: great friend and valued former colleague, Chris Colbert, graciously supplied this wonderful post following his recent experience with his sons and Scout troop at Sea Base. Chris’s brief bio is included at the end of the post.
Leadership Lessons from the High Seas, by Chris Colbert
Just over a year ago, a number of Scouts (including my oldest son) in our local Troop decided they wanted to add a “High Adventure” experience to their Scouting careers. Their choice? … a “Coral Reef Adventure” at the Boy Scouts of America’s Florida Sea Base at Lower Matecumbe Key in Islamorada, FL.
After more than a year of fundraising, our two “crews” (eight each) boarded 41ft. sailboats and embarked on an adventure that was to include snorkeling, fishing, and sailing in and amongst one of the nation’s true treasures – the Florida Keys.
Sailing the Bay of Florida and the Atlantic Ocean in the Keys has a profound effect after a few days, and offers a great deal of time to reflect between stints of snorkeling among coral reefs, trolling for a potential addition to daily meals, preparing lunches and dinners during shifts in the galley, and acting as “Chief Photographer” for the crew.What I found during those times of reflection was that one can see a number of valuable leadership lessons to apply to a career – or simply to life in general – in just a few short days. Here are a few of my favorites:
1. “The captain eats first” – An important reminder that he/she who owns the boat (or for that matter the company you’re working for) gets to set the rules. If you don’t like the rules, start swimming.
2. “Planning is everything” – As a self-professed disorganized person, planning a project more than a year in advance is not part of my personal or professional make-up. Find those on your team who are good at building the plan, and support their every move. While the details early in the process may drive you crazy, it sure makes the end result a smoother sail.
3. “Draw on the experience of others” – The staff at Florida Sea Base were great resources for the inexperienced sailors that made up our crews. Search far and wide for the people in your organization who have the knowledge to make your projects successful.
4. “Make the most of what you have” – With limited storage on a 41ft. sailboat, finding the utensils needed for even the simplest cooking tasks can be a challenge. The same applies to your business. You may not have the perfect IT systems or other business tools, but let your teams improvise and see what they can build – it can be a great lesson in creativity (and a true treat for the palette)!
5. “Watch out for sharks, they want to eat your lunch (literally!)” – Hook into a tuna and you better reel it in quickly. Same goes with those competing against you in the marketplace or even for resources inside your organization. Make a decision, set the hook, and reel like crazy!
6. “Give way to a new captain” – Allow the most inexperienced on your team to steer the boat once in a while and watch what happens! The confidence boost will ensure that others on your team will be ready to step up when you need them most.
7. “The rains will pass” – There may be times in your career that a squall of misfortune, missteps, or matters beyond your control will drench your dreams. Just remember that the rains will pass and you’ll likely get to see a killer sunrise or sunset after that squall. It’s worth weathering the storm. Plus, your team will be tighter than ever.
8. “Don’t be afraid to dive a little deeper” – Things look great at the surface, but the real payoff is when you dive down to see the details. Dive deep and you may discover something you’ve never dreamed of experiencing.
9. “Keep your ‘buddies’ nearby” – If you find yourself in three- to five-foot swells in the ocean while snorkeling several hundred yards away from your boat, make sure you keep your snorkeling “buddy” in sight or you’re likely to experience a panic attack! The same goes in your professional life – find those “buddies” you rely on for mentoring, idea generation, or just moral support and use them when you need a “save.”
10. “Celebrate as a team” – Spending a week in close quarters (especially during the aforementioned squalls during the night!) striving for a single goal has an amazing effect on a team – celebrate even the smallest wins and watch your team grow.
11. “All hands on deck” – The sail isn’t over until the cleanup is done. While the exciting part of a project may be over and you’re ready to move on to the next big thing, getting your boat in order is just as critical for the next crew.
12. “The journey is as valuable as the destination” – Anyone who has been involved with a long fundraising project for a community organization like this – or an extended project in the workplace – knows that the real character building comes in the work the team does before ever setting sail. Remind your team members about the experience they’re gaining along the way that they’ll be able to apply to the rest of their careers.
Wrap-Up:
Many of these lessons can be easily lost on a 14- to 17-year-old who simply wanted to try such an adventure because it seemed that it would be “cool.” But there’s little doubt in my mind that this simple weeklong adventure cemented skills that will make our “crews” better contributors for not only our Troop, but along the paths their lives may take as young men and as future leaders.
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About Chris Colbert:
Chris Colbert is the proud father of two Boy Scouts and an Assistant Scoutmaster for Troop 90 in Altoona, WI. He has lead marketing teams in a number of technology organizations, and currently serves as a Marketing Manager for Realityworks, Inc. – the leading provider of experiential learning technology used in educational and public health settings around the globe.
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e-book-Leadership and the Project Manager - Developing the Skills that Fuel High Performance
