Nine Key Professional Capabilities Required By Our Times

January 19, 2011 By 9 Comments

There’s no doubt we live in interesting times…a true Dickensian Best of Times, Worst of Times environment, filled with remarkable opportunities and equally remarkable personal, competitive, societal and global challenges.

Over the past few years and few thousand contacts with professionals on the topic(s) of developing as a professional and developing as a leader, a number of key “capabilities needed for success in these times” have emerged as recurring themes in discussions and group settings. Importantly, these themes or as I describe them, Capabilities, Attributes & Behaviors (CABs) are essential for success at both the individual and organizational levels.

Nine Key Professional Capabilities Required By Our Times:

1. Cultivate Your Authenticity-while arguably never out of fashion, like small collars and narrow lapels, authenticity is back in a big way, and it’s increasingly important for leaders that hope to win the trust of the teams and generations.

This has been a hard decade or so for cultivating trust in leaders, and with the odor of the Great Recession still wafting through our society, fear is all too present in the workplace. It’s more critical than ever to be able to build trust on teams, trust across cultures…and trust as a leader, and the best starting point is to be yourself, let people see your strengths and weaknesses and work hard to get to connect with and get to know those you work with and for.

2. Learn to Adjust Your Altitude-whether you are a solopreneur, an individual contributor or a corporate executive, you need to develop comfort in navigating and connecting the lofty issues of market-forces to the RGM (real green money) issues of serving customers, innovating and differentiating.

I encourage leaders and professionals of all levels to develop the discipline to regularly scan the market environment and to change the nature of the conversations on their teams, by drawing upon this powerful and simple question set:

What does this mean for us? Our competitors? Our customers?

3. Develop Strategies for Coping with Extreme Ambiguity-the scale and scope of global challenges and opportunities coupled with the pace of change all combine to create a remarkable level of ambiguity in our professional endeavors.

Unfortunately, ambiguity combines with fear to paralyze teams and individuals and exacerbate problems. A counter-measure is to first recognize that EVERYONE you know is struggling with the same unknowns. Your competitors don’t know for sure where things are going and your customers need help navigating through all of the noise.

Try flipping the fear of the unknowns around and instead of preoccupying on the risks, focus your energies and your team’s sights on the opportunities that ambiguity affords to create and innovate. Change the nature of the daily conversations and encourage constant use of the key questions outlined above.

Of course, once you’ve discussed questions, it’s time to promote action. That’s where the next attribute proves critical.

4. Improve Your Adaptability-building on the ambiguity theme above, and acknowledging that we tend not to like change (understatement for emphasis), it’s critical for leaders of all levels to foster a culture that encourages experimentation and learning. Easy words, however, recognize that creating an adaptable environment takes time, focus and constant reinforcement.

Shoot one messenger or go off on one failed experimenter and people will revert to their prior fear-driven, hunker-down approach.  As an individual contributor, learn to appreciate the benefits and learning experiences of change. Better yet, learn to be the one promoting change.

5. Leaders: Commit to Creating High Performance Teams-a great place to start is by overhauling your project management practices (or lack thereof), building sponsors with teeth and putting everything you and your leadership counterparts can into helping teams succeed. Again, easy words that only work when backed by consistent, aggressive actions. Given the number of projects and strategies that fail for people and execution issues, we all have a long way to go on this one.

6. Cultivate Cultural Intelligence (CI)-there’s a good probability that your business will become increasingly intertwined with global suppliers, customers, partners, competitors and team members. Developing CI is an organizational initiative, and one that must be pursued in the planning or early phases of your global outreach. If you are increasingly involved in leading teams with contributors from around the globe, you are absolutely on the spot for advancing your Cultural Intelligence. Your results depend upon it.

7. Develop Leadership Adaptability…yours and others. This is my catch-category to remind you that strengthening your skills as a follower is as important as strengthening your skills as a leader. As functional and national boundaries dissolve or at least shrink, your ability to move seamlessly from leader of one initiative to committed follower for another is critical to your success. And your efforts here set an outstanding example for those around you.

8. Don’t Be Afraid to Grow Your Power and Influence. Face it, others choose us to be successful, and there’s everything right with growing your professional network, seeking out important projects and opportunities and appropriately publicizing your successes.  It’s a mistake to think that you’re above the fray of politics and power.

9. Develop an Innovation Mentality-gone are the days when innovation was just for engineers. It’s an innovation-driven world, and the most compelling innovations are occurring in how we work, communicate, market and make money.

If you’re leading others, one of your Key Performance Indicators is how innovative your team is. Their innovation is a reflection of your leadership. If you’re working as an individual contributor, every team and every project needs great ideas. Learn to take risks and learn to sell hard and then prove your ideas.  Build a reputation as an innovative thinker and doer, and the world is yours!

The Bottom-Line for Now:

I’ve just offered a long list of really difficult things to do, without much specific direction.  Awareness is the first step. Audit yourself against the nine CABs above and then take action to strengthen the already strong and improve the weak.  Seek external feedback from those you trust to provide you the unvarnished truth about yourself.  And remember, while others often choose us for success, you own your career and your development.

Filed Under: "To Do" List, Career, Leadership, Leading Change, Management Innovation, Marketing Yourself, Professional Growth, Project Management Tagged With: , , , ,

Want to Change the World? Don’t Forget to Build Your Business Model

January 12, 2011 By 4 Comments

Over the past few weeks, I’ve connected with some brilliant individuals in multiple entrepreneurial organizations.  In every instance, I heard some form of “We want to change the world” as these high-energy individuals described their ideas and their motivation.

I love “change the world ideas” put forth by people passionate about doing something new, doing something better and helping others along the way.

There’s no way I can avoid cheering for these teams. However, I can worry for them.

In particular, I can worry about the part of the discussion that is missing thus far in all of these conversations. The gap in our conversations occurred when the topic of “business model” was broached. And more specifically, the gap was reflected in the inability to clearly define whom they were serving and HOW they were going to make money.

What is a Business Model?

If you mention the phrase, “business model” in a crowded room, a good number of people will nod their heads knowingly, adopt thoughtful and curious looks on their faces and secretly wonder what the heck a business model really is.

For a bit of help in getting on the same page about business models, I am referencing the definitions put forth by both the late Peter Drucker and Harvard’s still thankfully, very alive Clayton Christensen (as described in the HBR article, “How to Design a Winning Business Model”):

Drucker offers that a business model is comprised of the answers to the following three questions:

  1. Who is your customer?
  2. What does the customer value?
  3. How do you deliver value at an appropriate cost?

Christensen indicates that a business model must consist of four elements:

  1. A customer value proposition
  2. A profit formula
  3. Key resources
  4. Key processes

I like them both. Take the time to address Drucker’s questions and Christensen’s four elements and you will be much better armed to go forth and conquer your targeted space in the world.

Unfortunately, a fair number of noble world-changers armed with know-how, communities, content/products and visibility are not yet able to answer Drucker’s questions or describe their business in terms of Christensen’s components with appropriate specificity.

These groups are not alone. We all struggle with this issue in our businesses…and frankly, I continue to wrestle with it several years after launching on my own. The issues surrounding your business model must be constantly re-evaluated.

The world is a difficult place and tends not to change for those that fail to figure out who in specific terms they are serving, and what REAL, TANGIBLE, PAY MONEY TO FIX types of problems they are solving for these customers. The outcome tends to be a great deal of activity with no vector and ultimately no ability to sustain.

The Pitfalls of Not Thinking Through Your Business Model:

  • You have no true strategy..and therefore, almost every idea seems like a good one. You don’t know where to say, “No.”
  • People around you are excited by an appealing vision and offer cheerleading that keeps you energized and focused on producing more of something…content…better mousetraps…huge visibility, but no revenue or profit.
  • You easily get caught up in the trap of, “If I do more of something,” it will fix the revenue and profit problem. You keep doing more, creating more, building more, talking more..but still, nothing changes on the revenue or profit side.
  • You turn to others for advice, and well, everyone has opinions. Some of these opinions include solving the nagging tactical problems that occupy your days. A new website. More technology. More widgets to help extend our visibility.
  • You adopt visibility statistics as metrics, when there is absolutely no meaning behind the statistics. They’re fun to watch, but they don’t answer the important business model questions above.
  • At the risk of being redundant and borrowing from my recent read/review of Wayne Elsey’s, “Almost Isn’t Good Enough,” “visibility isn’t engagement,” and, “no money, no mission.”

A Short-List of Ideas (and a case study) To Help You Think Through Your Business Model:

1. STOP! Take a time out. Quit creating “field of dreams” (build it and they will come) offerings without answering Drucker’s questions.

2. Clarify. Revisit your vision for what the world will look like when you’ve fulfilled your mission.  Clarity is key here. If your vision isn’t crystal clear, no one, including yourself will understand how to build to road leading towards this vision.

3. Resolve. Solve the “my customer is potentially anyone who breathes” dilemma. Sorry, I know that everyone can use your product, but no one will unless you narrow your focus down to a tangible number of people that you know as well as you know yourself. In fact, you should strive to know them better.

4. Describe. Define the “experience” that you want this customer to have, and identify the processes you need to create to develop this unique and differentiable experience.

5. Push back from your desk! Spend most of your time getting to know your customers off of the computer screen and out in places where your customers live and work and hang out.

6. Map the terrain. Move from the customer to the customer’s sphere and map out the influencers, participants, channels, and competitors. Look for people that are interested in the same customers, as these may be people will to pay for, help or support your efforts to address those customers.

7. Show yourself the money. Resist the urge to do more, until you’ve built a plan to fund the business. Without this plan, you are effectively planning to fail.

8. Get creative. Funding can come from more than the end-customer.

A Mini-Case Study:

One of my favorite success stories is a firm that took the old media model of the magazine and successfully adapted it to today’s web-based world.

In the old magazine model, you secured subscribers to interest advertisers. The more subscribers and the more information you could provide/sell to your subscribers, the more you could charge your advertisers.

The owners of the magazine had a mission to bring information to very targeted professionals to help them solve mission-critical data dilemmas for organizations. With the demise of print media, they moved their model to the web, but also identified new ways to build global communities and leverage current social technologies. Today, this organization brings together communities of experts in specific business areas on the web, provides them with a platform to deliver content to targeted (free) subscribers. The subscribers opt in and agree to allow information about the content they consume to be aggregated and ultimately licensed to industry firms.  This information is golden for advertisers that sponsor events, leverage the experts and market to the subscribers.  The industry firms pay handsomely for access and for information, the industry experts build their businesses and the subscribers grow smarter and engage with firms that understand their needs.

As an important note, the former magazine publisher and now web-based community/content provider didn’t invest a single penny until he had defined this business model.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

No money, no mission. We need you to change the world. Just don’t forget to figure out how you’re going to pay for it, and how you’re going to pay yourself in the process. You’ll be much more effective and much happier once you can afford your idea as well as the talent needed to make it happen.

Filed Under: Leading Change, Management Innovation, Strategy Tagged With: , , , ,

Rethinking Idea Generation

January 5, 2011 By 3 Comments

Note from Art: this one is intended to jump-start your thinking. Expect more from me on this important topic.

Idea generation is core to everything we do in our organizations.

We generate ideas to solve problems, serve customers, compete with adversaries, structure our businesses and motivate, inspire and lead our employees. It’s quite possible that idea generation is the most important activity going on inside any organization.

It’s too bad that we’ve been going about it all wrong.

At least, that’s the essence of the article, “How Aha! Really Happens,” in the Winter 2010, Strategy & Business magazine, where the authors indicate that our over-reliance on brainstorming and two-sided brain thinking are just plain wrong.

Mind the Gap:

Think about any typical problem-solving situation. We identify and assess the situation, brainstorm ideas and then develop our action plans. It’s this middle phase, or, the gap between analysis and action, where the authors focus their research and ideas.

If you’ve been in more than a few problem solving or strategy sessions, you’ve likely noted the clumsy manner groups tend to move from analysis to ideation.

Most groups eventually run out of gas on the analysis phase and affect a transition to that most common of all ideation tools: brainstorming. Through some unknown set of mental instructions, we’re supposed to turn off our analytical thinking and turn on the creative thinking. It’s at this point where the authors of Aha! highlight the research that indicates two-sided thinking and traditional brainstorming processes are all wrong. “In other words, our most accepted approach to problem solving is grounded in an incorrect premise about the source of creativity in the brain.”

Crap! So much for the last twenty plus years of brainstorming!

Intelligent Memory Versus the Two-Sided Brain (What a great name for a horror movie!)

The neuroscience of it all says that we develop our ideas based on something called, Intelligent Memory…a combination of analysis and intuition backed by learning and recall. The steps involved in Intelligent Memory, include:

1. Drawing upon examples from history (ours and others).

2. Clearing the brain of expectations of a solution.

3. Experiencing the flash or, the Aha! moment.

4. Achieving resolution…when the Aha! moment provides the catalyst for action.

High Level Take-Aways on What Intelligent Memory Means for Ideation?

  • The Aha! moment is a flash that occurs based on steps one and two above, and most likely at a point in time when our brains are relaxed and allowed to wander. This begs a whole host of potential ideas for getting beyond the structured process of brainstorming.
  • The more examples we have of people, groups, armies or societies solving problems similar to ours, the better prepared we are to create new combinations and generate fresh ideas. The authors use the example of Napoleon, who at the tender age of 24 won his first battle without any previous military experience. He was a student of military history and he combined his knowledge of how others before him had handled past battles, to create his winning strategy.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

There’s a lot going on in this article, from the latest findings in neuroscience regarding Intelligent Memory to the history of strategy in war to some fascinating examples of Intelligent Memory at work in the founding with the founding of Google and in use at GE.

Given the importance of creating effective learning and idea-generating cultures in our organizations, the topic merits significant consideration. The authors do a great job teeing up the logic and examples of Intelligent Memory at work. However, they’re mostly leaving it up to us to figure out how to apply the findings.  Anybody have any good ideas?!

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Art develops and delivers powerful and pragmatic workshops and programs on leadership, professional development and building high performance teams. Contact Art to discuss your needs for a program or keynote. And whether you are an experienced leader seeking to revitalize and develop as a professional, or a new leader looking for guidance, check out Art’s book with Rich Petro, Practical Lessons in Leadership.

Filed Under: "To Do" List, Decision-Making, Management Innovation, Strategy

At Least 3 Reasons We’re Still Raving About Lousy Leaders

November 16, 2010 By 4 Comments

Businessman meditatingNote from Art: As I approach my 500th post here at Management Excellence in the next few weeks (that’s in the neighborhood of half-a-million words on management and leadership) my writing mood is shifting to one of, “let’s get this leadership thing right people.”  The blueprint for effective leadership is not carefully guarded like the secret formula to Coca Cola. It’s on display for all of us to see and to apply. Why then are there so many exceptions?  Read on for my wildly speculative and hopefully provocative thoughts.

Spend any amount of time reading or engaging with the many remarkable individuals that write, speak, teach and coach leaders, and you’re to be excused if you quickly conclude that we’re all in violent agreement with each other.

The principles behind what a reasonable person would agree represents effective leadership are practically universal truths that support an unarguable argument.

I’ll wager a month’s worth of coffee that if you asked everyone that you know to generate a list on what makes an effective leader, the output would be nearly identical. While preferences in styles might vary, (and there would certainly be differences across cultures,) core attributes and behaviors generally remain constant. The only differences will likely be due to memory lapses such as, “Oh, I forgot that one, but you’re right,” versus true differences of opinion.

So if this construct of an effective leader is so readily apparent, why is there a nearly endless supply of disgruntled workers capable of describing lousy leader horror stories to anyone that will listen? Importantly, why doesn’t this intuitive and common understanding of what an effective leader acts like manifest itself with more frequency in our workplaces?

3 Reasons Why We’re Still Raving About Lousy Leaders:

1. As humans and workers, perhaps we’re happy being miserable. While I would be saddened to adopt this viewpoint, it’s easy to see that “the boss” gives us something to work for and rail against and his/her actions and utterances serve as a source of bonding with peers.

Is it possible that we could work for someone with the presence of Washington or the authenticity of Lincoln or Gandhi and be unhappy? You bet! OK, that’s a bit sad, but there’s at least a kernel of truth in there somewhere.

Possible conclusion: we need to accept our own propensity to enjoy our misery. While it’s not as bad as being chased down by a sabre tooth tiger or consumed by the last remaining group of cannibals on the planet, the boss being a jerk gives us something to occupy our minds and mouths.

2. Humans are inherently preoccupied with their own survival and leading effectively requires one to sublimate that core drive. Hmmmm.  Some good psychobabble here, but it’s worth thinking about.  Good campfire fodder when the talk on “are we alone in the universe” runs out.

Possible conclusion: We’re screwed and all of this noble talk is wasting time that could be better spent lamenting our plight and beefing about the boss.

3. Perhaps the predominant management system in use in most of society is horribly flawed in terms of values, motivations, expectations and enabling structures.  OK, I’m warming to this more than the “evil” or “predominantly miserable” theories expressed earlier.

Maybe, just maybe, we’ve not licked this management thing yet. Deming did us a great service in crying B.S. on the Deadly Diseases that he viewed in most organizations. And while his 1980’s view to the purity of the models adopted by Japanese companies may be a bit naïve, listen to the Great Doctor describe these 5 and tell me if they’re fixed in your organization yet. At least a cup of coffee that the real answer is no.

Possible conclusion: Fix the flipping management system. It’s time to move beyond the practices of the industrial revolution and build success, effective leadership and enabling systems into our approach. Oh yeah, and that values part is the foundation to build upon!

The Bottom-Line for Now:

I’ll opt for the fact that it’s time to move management forward and build the new systems around the emerging realities. If innovation, creativity, speed, ability to execute and adaptability are all table-stakes attributes of the new winning organization, then it’s time to move management forward and create systems that breed leaders at all levels and for all types of situations. Note to top leaders: ignore the need to breed and build people that will help you navigate this strange, fast and foreign new world at your own peril. It starts with you at the top creating the right foundation. And hint: the foundation is built upon meaningful, actionable values.

Your thoughts?

Filed Under: Leadership, Management Innovation, Performance, Surviving Lousy Leaders, Values Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

The Leader’s Role in Promoting Innovation

November 13, 2010 By 2 Comments

Note from Art: the blog here at Building Better Leaders focuses on short, powerful tips, suggestions and exercises for leaders at all levels and in all functions and vocations to apply at work, in school and even at home. For Leadership Caffeine posts and other more detailed management content and essays, please visit my Management Excellence Blog.

If the role of a leader wasn’t challenging enough, let’s pile on one more abstract but critical challenge to the heavy lifting already required by leaders in this fast-changing world: promoting a culture of innovation.

Your Role in Fueling Innovation in Your Workplace:

Innovation is one of those big hairy topics with a lot of legs and we will leave the gross majority of it for other posts and for other writers focused on this important discipline. My encouragement here today is for you to recognize your role in fostering a healthy working environment that actively promotes experimentation and innovation.

  • We live and work in an innovation-focused and driven world. Developing the skills, systems and talent needed to fuel innovation is a must for leaders in today’s organization. Time pressures, global competitors and the march of technology, coupled with a baker’s dozen of major global stresses ranging from the economy and environment to natural disasters and sovereign debt crises, all demand that firms find ways to innovate to survive, sustain and succeed.
  • Innovation isn’t just for products...it’s applicable to business models, approaches to serving customers, approaches to structuring organizations and so on.
  • In spite of the myth surrounding the “lone genius,” innovation is the outcome of enlightened trial and error on the part of groups of individuals seeking to solve a vexing problem for a specific audience. These individuals need a workplace free from fear and filled with the spirit of adventure and learning. The task of forming this environment falls on your shoulders.

7 Must Have Conditions to Create a Healthy Innovation Environment:

  1. Leaders must be viewed as having high personal credibility.
  2. The workplace environment must be free from FEAR.
  3. Team members must share mutual respect and they must learn to trust each other.
  4. There must be a culture of accountability that is driven by pride, not fear.
  5. Individuals must be comfortable conducting tough discussions with those above, below and next to them.
  6. There must be a focus and commitment on striving to create high performance teams.
  7. The management systems and practices must actively support experimentation by reducing obstacles, simplifying decision-making and promoting enlightened trial and error.

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How healthy is your innovation environment? Use the checklist of “Must Haves” with your employees to assess the situation. And remember, as leader, you own fixing this one.

Filed Under: Leadership, Management Innovation Tagged With: , , ,
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