Leadership Caffeine at Information Management and New Newsletter Resource
Filed under: Career, Leadership Caffeine, Management Education
Leadership Caffeine Syndicated at Information Management
As of February 1, 2012, the good folks at Information Management are kindly syndicating selected posts from my blog at their resource rich website: info-mgmt.com under my name and the Leadership Caffeine label.
I am excited about this for a number of reasons:
- Jim Ericson and the team are top flight professionals, and I truly appreciate their interest in extending their already rich and deep coverage of information technology to the leadership and strategic topics so critical for success.
- I have a long history (and some great friends) in the technology space, and it is fantastic to have an opportunity to connect in this forum and continue the dialogue on growing great careers and great businesses.
- I work frequently with some remarkable technical professionals. They are driven, creative, strategic, and almost to a person, passionate about their work in advancing their organizations. I’ve also discovered that many are incredibly hungry for insights into developing as leaders, navigating the challenges and politics of the corporate world and increasing their contributions to their firms as strategists and senior contributors. The opportunity to support their efforts is truly an honor.
Please visit Information Management and checking out the remarkable resources and even more remarkable host of featured bloggers. I’m honored to be in their company.
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Leadership Caffeine e-Newsletter Launches
After drifting a bit from the newsletter, and thanks to the prodding from clients and other fans of the blog, The Leadership Caffeine Newsletter is now in full production. Issue #1 was launched last week, with features on: Strengthening the Leader’s Self-Esteem, Ideas to Stimulate the Leader’s Learning & Self-Development, my Suggested Reading Resources and some perspectives on what I term Critical-Path Career Development.
The content is laser focused on supporting professional development, and is geared for leaders of all experience levels and individual contributors seeking to grow as professionals. The latest content is available for newsletter registrants only. Expect a one to two times per month frequency. And please be assured that your e-mail information is private and never to be shared. You can register at my site (right column) or by following the link below. (Note: I will forward Issue #1 to new Registrants in a follow-on e-mail over the next few days.)
I look forward to serving you with this new and professional development focused resource!
Leadership Caffeine: Change or Learn to Say, “Would You Like Fries with That?”
Filed under: Innovation, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Leadership Skills
Note from Art: Consider this tough love intended to motivate leaders everywhere to rethink and refine their approaches.
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In the prologue to my recently published collection: Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development, I write:
For experienced and developing leaders, the emerging environment is likely to offer a Dickensian world filled with Best of Times opportunities and Worst of Times challenges. Now might be a good time to revise your thinking on your role as a leader and to begin cultivating the skills and experiences required for success during the exciting and perilous journey ahead.
What I Wanted to Say:
I stand behind the words…and in fact, my only regret is that I didn’t say something a little stronger, such as:
Wake up! Change now or become leadership road kill! Either start cultivating the new leadership skills or stand in front of a mirror and practice saying, “Would you like fries with that?” because this may be your money phrase in the not so distant future.
“Hey, Who Moved My…”
Much of the pablum that is passed off for guidance on leading others ignores the reality that the context in which we lead has changed from just a few years ago, and it continues to change faster than any of us can truly understand.
Now before your fingers burn a path to your keyboards to remind me of the timeless nature of and attributes of leading, I get the point in spades. Character always counts, no one ever screwed up by showing respect, your job is to develop people, you better be able to inspire people to act…paint a vision and all that great stuff. It’s good…its timeless and UNLESS it’s blended with the new skills of leading, it may prove to be USELESS.
Context is King. Meet King Context-7 Ways the World of Leading and Managing Has Changed
While it’s a bit disheartening to realize that those of us with some experience and a bit of gray are vestiges of a bygone business era, we truly are. That doesn’t mean we can’t be relevant, but first, we have to understand and accept some of the important contextual changes in our world of business:
1. Our management structures and approaches are products of late 19th century and early 20th century thinking. As Gary Hamel offers, they were designed for another goal…to get people out of the fields and into the factories and to optimize their ability to do the same thing over and over. They weren’t designed to cope with the need for rapid innovation, constant change and frequent disruption. Gary is right…the practice of management must change to cope with a world where exponential change is the norm.
2. Oversight as a core task of those in power is no longer the point, yet it is still widely practiced. I still find managers uncomfortable with the idea that work might actually take place somewhere and sometime when employees are out of sight. Oh, and yes, imagine that it might take place at some point in time when the “normal” work day has ended. My guidance: “get over it.” Control is no longer the point.
3. Technology tools aren’t necessary evils, they are tools essential for survival, connectivity, speed and idea sharing. Too many leaders struggle to know which end of a tablet is up (answer: neither)…much less, how to turn the power on and use it. By the way, if you’ve not purchased an e-book, grabbed your news from Flipboard, tweeted about something interesting to a group of industry peers and used Evernote to capture a few great web sites for future reference in the past few hours, please grab your hairnet and watch out, the grease is hot by those fries. You’ve got to participate in the activities of the day to understand their implications for the world of work.
4. Ambiguity is the order of the day. Get over it. By the time things become clear in most markets, the opportunity is missed. You need to build capabilities in your organization to go from idea to execution to learning to refinement, and to do that, you need great people who are comfortable that you’ve got their backs.
5. The Silos in our organizations are still there and they are still rusting in place. Teams that cross boundaries are now the principal means of getting work done and silo control is a game no longer relevant. Your goal as leader is to help teams form fast, support their efforts to execute and then ensure that they are able to disband and reform on the next opportunity.
6. Your Cultural Intelligence may just be the most important asset that you aren’t doing anything about. It’s a global world…we’re all working across cultures, and chances are your workplace is (or should be), filled with diversity. Learning to tap the different world-views of your colleagues is a critical mission for leaders today…and it takes deliberate effort to learn and understand how to competently navigate across cultures.
7. The most important tool of management you probably don’t know enough about is Project Management. Too many treat it like an administrative process instead of a critical tool to enable value creation, learning and strategy execution. Heck, I struggle to find leaders who even get that project management is so much more than an endless stream of Gantt charts and status meetings. It’s time to dig in on this important new way of getting work done.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Welcome to the leadership blender, where speed and adaptability are essential for survival. Control is something from a 1960’s era sitcom (Get Smart), where ironically and fittingly, Chaos was the primary adversary. Sorry, Chief, but Chaos won. Adapt, or repeat after me, “Would you like fries with that?”
Leadership Caffeine: Warning! Your Words About Change are Falling on Cynical Ears
Even the most credible of leaders have to step up their game when it comes to talking about and promoting change on their teams and in their organizations.
You can trust that a good number of the people doing the heavy lifting inside of your organization have developed a case of cynicism on talk of change emanating from the higher-ups.
They’ve consumed too many “flavor of the month” programs and developed heartburn when the programs died in mid-stream. They’ve watched people in your role come and go, and they no longer hear the siren call or pay much attention to the slogans and signs.
Can you blame them? If they wait a few minutes, this too shall pass, and in spite of their positive view of you, people have been conditioned to wait until the noise dies down and the focus turns back to getting the work done. They also know that you’ll likely move on to something bigger or different before too long.
For some leaders, the institutionalized and individual resistance to change is extremely frustrating and vexing. One leader offered to me, “I’m told that I’m credible, people have responded well to my leadership, I don’t pump sunshine or doom and gloom, yet people are dragging their feet on this new program. I know that it means doing new things and that can be frightening, but why aren’t people more excited and supportive?”
What’s a leader to do?
7 Helpful Steps to Get Started on the Right Foot Talking About Change:
1. Expect Resistance. Start from the assertion that you will run into a naturally occurring level of personal and cultural resistance, regardless of the how much people like and respect you.
2. Construct a Message for Real People. Lead with the facts. Explain the situation. Include your assessment. Avoid corporate and consultant-speak. Openly acknowledge the risks and unknowns.
3. Don’t Pitch the Solution…Share the Problem. Ask for help finding the solution. There’s a profound difference on how people process “here’s the answer,” versus “here’s the problem and we need to find the answer together.”
4. Beware the “Town Hall” Trap. Whether you are leading a company or a team, your inclination is to pull everyone together and to “present” your case for change. Senior leaders in particular fall victim to assuming that because something has been shared far and wide that it is now fact and reality. It’s good to share but there’s no “one-and-done” big group style of communication that cuts through the individual resistance to change. The large meeting is one step of many required for success.
5. Make Your Case One-on-One. The optimal level of dialogue is always one to one. Yes, it’s difficult. It’s also essential. Whether it’s you or those members of your change-coalition, the dialogue (not monologue) must be focused at the individual level.
6. Keep the Monologue Locked in the Closet. The faster people perceive that you are genuinely interested in their ideas and even their challenges to your own ideas, the faster the initiative will build momentum. Listen, acknowledge, adjust based on good input and share the adjustment. And just keep doing it.
7. Model the Behavior. Do as you say…and do it very visibly and genuinely. Nothing shoots a change initiative in the rear-end faster than your words and your actions not matching. The do must match the tell.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Change is inevitable in our world and intuitively, we all know and accept this reality. However, don’t discount the challenges you will face in gaining support for your message on the need to change.You’ve had ample time to process on it, but when your team members hear it for the first time, it’s either noise…or interesting but not tangible.
The only way through the resistance is straight ahead. Your honesty and authenticity are truly important. Your willingness to engage in a dialogue and your humility in asking for input and help are priceless.
Leadership Caffeine-Success One Step at a Time
One of my favorite quotes from the late Peter Drucker reads, “Actions in the present are the one and only way to create the future.”
I talk with a lot of people who have big plans. They want to change or improve or strengthen something about themselves or their organizations. A good number of these people are experts at talking about it, but sadly, very few actually follow through on their own personal change, improvement or growth initiatives.
Too many people fail to overcome resistance and start moving forward. Instead of heeding Drucker’s advice, fear rents space in their minds, creating a never-ending litany of excuses that help ensure that their feet remain firmly planted in place.
Those who do break away from the malaise that mires so many in the muck of their own fears, start small and keep moving, one painful step after another.
I was thrilled to receive a note from an Executive Director at a Not-For-Profit who just experienced an organizational milestone. While the specifics of our conversation had slipped my mind, apparently I offered some of Drucker’s fuel for action, and it made a difference. Instead of thinking about all of the obstacles in her way, she focused on the one step in front of her that would lead to the next set of opportunities to inch closer to her goal. She took that step and it worked. Her fear and frustration have disappeared, replaced by a new-found sense of hope backed by energy and a desire to keep moving.
Actions beget learning and progress. Progress turns hope into determination and fuel for even more forward movement.
If your goal is to write that book you’ve been thinking about for two decades, it’s time to put the first words down and keep moving.
If you’ve resolved this year to become a better leader, what one step can you take today that will help you start moving forward?
If you like so many others in our economy find yourself on the outside looking in, and recognize that there’s no going back…only forward to reinvention and something new, what first step can you take to turn fear and anxiety into motive power for forward progress?
Thinking about change without doing anything about it is toxic.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Most of our inaction when it comes to change can be attributed to fear. Fear of failure. Fear of discovering our limitations. Fear of being rejected. And while all of these fears seem real, they are false demons who taunt us, hoping we’ll forget that the faster we might fail, the closer we are to success.
Another favorite thinker of mine, Frank Herbert, offered in his science-fiction classic, Dune, “fear is the mind killer.”
Both Drucker and Herbert were right. Just for today, push the fear out and do something to move forward, no matter how small. And then just keep moving.
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Art Petty is a developer of leaders and a strategy consultant. Art frequently speaks on leadership and management, and his work is reflected in two books (Practical Lessons in Leadership and Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development) and over 1-million words published at The Management Excellence blog. You can reach Art via e-mail to learn more about his leadership development, speaking and management consulting services.
Leadership Caffeine: For Better Results, Quit Telling and Start Letting Go
Filed under: Leadership Caffeine, Leadership Skills, Performance
The odd quirk that seems to bedevil so many who occupy roles of responsibility for others is their overwhelming urge to tell other people what to do. While a certain amount of “telling” is OK, particularly during crises and anything involving safety or security, for the most part, your communication efforts should focus on listening and asking.
Starting this year, shift the focus to you and your role and your daily habits, and for everyone’s sake, quit telling people how to do their jobs. No one loves a micro-manager, and trust me, this includes those being micro-managed and those above you looking for talented leaders to promote into positions of increasing responsibility.
When You Talk, Make Certain It Counts:
Yes, you certainly owe guidance, encouragement, constructive and positive feedback and help with direction setting and development planning. You also are responsible in many instances for teaching…directly and indirectly. However, the talking stops…or at least the telling stops when it comes to people doing their daily jobs.
Change Your Thinking on the Capabilities of Your Team:
We all know that you think they won’t get it right or that your involvement will ensure optimum results. We’ve all also heard you complain about how frustrated you are that you have to be involved with every little detail and how little time you have for other elements of your job.
Overheard:
Nothing gets done right if I’m not involved.
I can’t trust them to do the work without checking the quality.
Or my (least) favorite:
If my team substituted brains for gunpowder, they wouldn’t have a firecracker between them.
While your own phrases might be different (and much softer), if the sentiments about your team are similar, it’s time to take a close look in the mirror and then to shift the focus of your micro-managing to the person staring back at you. (Of course, if the sentiments are genuine, you need a new team, and no amount of micro-managing the wrong people will solve the problem.)
Nine Ideas for Letting Go to Promote Better Results:
1. Provide direction not instructions. There’s a profound difference.
2. Ask for input on performance targets and work to understand and resolve differences between your views and theirs.
3. Deliberately reduce your direct contact time with your team members. Yes, call this MBNWASM (Management by Not Walking Around So Much.) Give people some room. Everyone will benefit.
4. Recognize that you’ve conditioned everyone to wait for your commands, and that you will need to encourage them to take initiative on their own. This takes some time to sink in for people who have been on auto-pilot for a long time.
5. When the inevitable happens and someone mucks up, count to 10,000 and then have the following discussion: “What did you learn?” “How will you improve next time?” And then say, “Good, go do it.” And shut up.
6. During trouble-shooting situations, talk last. Ask questions, solicit input and if required, offer ideas, but don’t strong-arm people into doing it your way.
7. Start asking people what they need from you in terms of support and resources to help them execute their jobs. And then do something with the input!
8. Try rotating responsibility between team members for elements of operations and quality meetings. You can approve the agenda, but teach others how to lead sessions like this and watch the value of the events go up tremendously.
9. Spend more time figuring out how to help your boss. Seriously.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Just like “telling ain’t teaching,” it’s not managing either. Your primary job is to develop others capable of free thought and independent action in pursuit of supporting firm/team goals. While you might perceive they’re not up to it, more often than not, it’s you that’s the problem. Starting this year, fix the problem!
Note: because most chronic micro-managers spend little time reading about professional development, this post might make a nice print-out and leave-behind! I’ll let you decide whether it’s an anonymous leave-behind.
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Art Petty is a developer of leaders and a strategy consultant. Art frequently speaks on leadership and management, and his work is reflected in two books (Practical Lessons in Leadership and Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development) and over 1-million words published at The Management Excellence blog. You can reach Art via e-mail to learn more about his leadership development, speaking and management consulting services.
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