Make Meaning as a Leader
Filed under: Career, Leadership, Leading Change, Life and Business, Organizational Transformation, Performance
Guy Kawasaki’s “Make Meaning” encouragement for entrepreneurs described in his book, The Art of the Start, and here by Guy himself in this brief video clip, has always resonated with me as a rallying cry for leaders hoping in their own way to make a difference.
Kawasaki suggests that the most successful start-ups aren’t preoccupied on making money, but rather they are focused on changing the world in some unique way…fundamentally on making the world a better place. While he describes his belief as perhaps naïve and romantic, in my opinion, the most successful firms and leaders incorporate a hefty dose of big dreaming as rocket fuel for their efforts.
Dream big and the nature of work changes to the art and thrill of creation. Fail to identify a dream to chase and work becomes a series of endless tasks without meaning.
The best leaders that I know are driven by an internal belief and desire to create something good and significant through their leadership efforts. They are egotistical enough to understand that they want to pursue greatness in some terms, and they are humble enough to know that none of this is about them, but rather it is for and with and by others that this something can be achieved.
They also are confident enough to recognize that the big dream might just be in the mind of a soft-spoken team member or in the collective consciousness of a team that has long wrestled with serving customers. Their job is not fundamentally to create the dream, but rather to extract and form it and make it tangible. Their job is to give meaning to a dream.
Kawasaki offers three suggestions for “making meaning” on a societal scale as an entrepreneur:
- Increase the quality of life
- Right a wrong
- Prevent the end of something good
While the scale may shrink a bit depending upon your leadership view, you will be well served to operate with a “make meaning” mindset and to help your team frame and chase a dream. The alternative is that all of this is just work.
Suddenly, Deming is Relevant Again
Filed under: Career, Crisis Leadership, Current Affairs, Leadership, Leading Change, Management Education, Performance, Professional Growth, Quality Systems Management, Social Commentary, Your Professional Development "To Do" List
If you are a younger reader, the man that I am referencing in this post is W. Edwards Deming, the late and in my opinion, great management philosopher and consultant. Dr. Deming is certainly well known in quality circles (bad pun intended), but scour today’s current management books and if you’re lucky, you might find an occasional reference. Fascinating treatment of a man that inspired and guided the rebuilding of a country (Japan) and that spent his last years trying to “keep American companies from committing suicide.”
Through no fault of their own, my recent informal polling of some really sharp university students (undergraduate and graduate), I found through the “show of hands” method that very few had ever heard of Deming, and those that knew the name didn’t really know much about him.
I refuse to let a group of talented emerging professionals run through any management course of mine without spending some time with Deming, and introduced them via a 15-minute interview that he conducted in 1984, entitled “Management’s Five Deadly Diseases.” I encourage you to do the same. It’s fifteen minutes of pure Deming in his affected, slow and hard to understand speaking-pattern, filled with wisdom for managers that transcends time. I’ve added this and a few other readings to your homework list below.
Following my Tuesday night showing of this video, I caught up with one of my favorite management thinkers, Bret Simmons at his Positive Organizational Behavior blog in a great post, “Toyota’s Quality Mess: What Would Deming Say?” Bret and I exchanged some notes reinforcing the impact that Deming’s work has had on both of us in our careers.
Homework for Your Career:
If you are curious to learn more and improve your understanding of the role of a manager and perhaps improve your performance, consider this homework list:
- Read my post: “Sixty Years of Deming and American Managers Forgot to Pay Attention,” and Bret’s post on “What Would Deming Say?”
- Visit the Deming Institute and learn more about his “Theory of Profound Knowledge” and his “14 Points for Management.”
- Watch the interview above on “Management’s 5 Deadly Diseases.”
- And if you’re really into it, find a copy of “Out of the Crisis” and shudder at the parallels and still relevant lessons.
The Bottom Line for Now:
I’m most definitely in the camp that says that the science and art of management have not moved forward much in the past 100 years and that has to change. I’m also critically concerned about learning from the past and understanding the wisdom of those that came before us. We’ve not yet moved beyond the flaws and failings that Deming saw clearly in the management practices of the industrial revolution. And in fact, the only way that we will move forward is through conscious effort, or should I say, “constancy of purpose.”
You owe it to yourself, your career and your firm to understand and learn from this great man. I’ve outlined the homework. The test results will be visible at the end of your career.
February Leadership Development Carnival
Filed under: Career, Fresh Voices, Innovation, Leadership, Leadership Carnivals, Leadership Skills, Leading Change, Management Education, Your Professional Development "To Do" List
Thanks to Mark Bennett and the great people at Talented Apps for hosting the February, 2010 Leadership Development Carnival. Take a stroll through the Carnevale di Venezia Edition (you’ll have to click over to understand the creative tie-in to the Carnival in Venice) and check out some truly intriguing, inspiring and compelling posts from bloggers old and new. OK, instead of old, perhaps I should say familiar!
I’m honored to be a part of the Carnival and grateful to Mark and team for all of their effort in bringing us this outstanding content from some of today’s most exciting leadership thinkers and writers.
Enjoy!
When Will You Choose to Be Successful? An Irreverent Rant on Personal Motivation
Filed under: Career, Leading Change, Life and Business, Making Decisions, Performance, Social Commentary, Social Satire, Your Professional Development "To Do" List
You can distill an entire shelf of self-help books down to this simple question at the top of the post: “When will you choose to be successful?” Based on my calculation, I just saved you somewhere between $400 and $800 dollars or more at retail on self-help books. Make checks payable to…
It never ceases to amaze me how many excuses people have for not succeeding at something they view as important to them personally or professionally. While behavioral psychologists might label this as an issue of “external versus internal locus of control,” as I listen to the excuses flowing for not getting the job, not losing weight, not saving money, not making it to class, not writing a book, not keeping up with blogging, what I’m really thinking is (in very loud terms inside my mind), “YOU HAVE NOT MADE UP YOUR MIND TO SUCCEED!”
Just a Few Examples:
- Let’s take diets. First of all, we’re all on them. Eating is required for life. The type of diet that bedevils most people is the one that involves doing this less often. To my own knowledge, there are very few incidents reported every year that involve someone force feeding someone else donuts and super-sized gargantuan fast food meals. Given the lack of external coercion, we are left to conclude that free-thinking people with free will are jamming the extra calories down their gullets and then lamenting the struggles of dieting. My suggestion is duct tape over the mouth. For multiple reasons.
- Want to write a blog or a book? It’s darned hard to do without understanding the secret behind S.A.I.C. That stands for “Sitting Ass in Chair.” Quit talking, sit down and start typing.
- Interested in reinventing yourself? This is a common topic during these unpleasant economic times, and a few courageous souls are active in pursuit of this challenging activity. However, more than a few know that they need to do something, but suffer from too much S.A.I.C., and need to apply G.A.O.O.C.a.G.G. That stands for “Get Ass Out of Chair and Get Going.”
- Still smoking? Yeah, big tobacco got you. It’s a plot. It may well be, but why are you committing slow suicide along with your donut eating, super-sizing, friends. Same issue. No one is holding the gun to your head saying “smoke me.” I get the nicotine thing…but find some help and get on with it.
- Would life at work be great if only the boss would hurry up and eat/smoke/reinvent himself out of your life? Get over your boss and focus on yourself and your performance. Some of the best performers and most successful people you’ll meet got that way by using the motivation of a lousy leader to help them push forward.
- Sales down this quarter? The last time that I looked, there’s still a lot of money flowing through the global economy. Someone somewhere is selling something. Why not you? Maybe it’s time to reinvent your approach to getting clients to know, like, trust, try, buy and refer you. (Thanks, John Jantsch…those are part of his Marketing Hourglass terms!). Shameless plug…call me on this one, I can help!
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Just so that you know that I’m an equally opportunity pain in the ass, I’ve got a few challenges on my plate that I’ve occasionally found myself looking around for good excuses to attach to my lack of progress. However, I know better and the excuses only make me realize that my biggest failure on the issues at hand is that, “I’ve not yet decided to be successful.” OK, I’ve decided. Now back to work. Right after I take a lunch-time workout to make some progress on another goal.
It’s your turn. Have you decided?
Team Stuck in the Creativity Deep Freeze? Try “Why Not?” to Start the Thaw
Filed under: Career, Innovation, Leadership, Leadership Skills, Leading Change, Management Education, Performance, Surviving Lousy Leaders, Talent Management, Your Professional Development "To Do" List
Without exception, the healthiest businesses that I work with are those that offer a workplace environment and atmosphere that encourage a free-flow of ideas ranging from outlandish to “I can’t believe we didn’t think of that before.” It is the part of the natural culture of these firms to think in terms of “What if?” and “Why not?”
Creativity is part of the fabric of these firms, and you see and hear and observe it on display in all roles and at all levels. Whether by design or more by a natural evolution fed by leaders that share a similar sense of curiosity and a genuine interest in and respect for the ideas of their employees, the processes and practices of creativity flourish in these environments.
Alternatively, the less than healthy firms that I encounter share many failure attributes, including a complete dearth of creativity and no visible signs of creativity-inducing practices and processes. Walk into one of those firms and you sense it immediately. Spend some time there and the silence from the lack of creativity or the quiet compliance in response to leader mandated creativity is simply deafening. It’s the corporate equivalent of being locked inside a sensory deprivation chamber.
If you have the misfortune to be stuck inside one of those unhealthy firms, or, better yet, if you have the good fortune to be stepping in to turn the firm around, you might start with focusing on reacquainting people with the philosophy of “the possible.”
As an aside, I’m convinced that almost every person in a bad business has a store of ideas on improving things just waiting to get out. You can break the spirits of people through lousy leadership, but the brain keeps working and ideas flow internally, usually straight into the brain’s deep freeze bin, waiting for a future thaw.
Suggestions for Waking the Creative Giant Hiding Inside Your People and On Your Team:
- Start by using the two words, “Why not?” Environments where creativity has been bred out of the culture are filled with people used to understanding what they cannot do. It’s your job to seize every opportunity to draw forth even the simplest of novel ideas and the “why not?” approach is a helpful tool. Respond to the conditioned phrases of, “We can’t,” or “If we could,” or my favorite, “That’s not how we do it here,” with this phrase, and listen patiently as people stammer and struggle to come up with an answer to that question that even they believe.
- Follow-up with, “How would you?” and then shut up and listen. Expect some silence in return as neurons start firing and long-dormant brain connections are made and people slowly realize you are asking them how THEY would do something.
- Finish-up with, “What do you need from me?” and expect to suffer through a minor period of disorientation as people process on the reality that you, the boss, the person in charge, the person that is in their minds supposed to tell then what to do, just turned the entire equation around. Expect some surprised smiles.
- Loop-back with positive feedback. Pay attention, offer encouragement, add support where needed, and in this instance, use liberal amounts of genuine, positive feedback blended with selective coaching to support the effort.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
I run into people all of the time that challenge my basic premise that creativity is rocket fuel for firms and leaders. Last week, I raised the specter of an alternative form of leader identification and selection particularly powerful and useful for project teams, and I took a pretty good beat-down here on my own blog. I met last night with a talented group of young professionals and I received some good-natured challenges as to why one might not be able to apply the creative processes of the design firm, IDEO, to almost any type of firm and environment. Thematically in these posts here at Management Excellence, I’m calling for a quiet, professional revolution in how we lead and manage and run our businesses. The “experts: are quick to point out all of the reasons why these ideas might not work.
My response: “Why not?”
If you’ve lost the sense of adventure in business and in leadership to pursue “Why not?” it’s time to get it back or give it up.
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