Smile, Your Mirror Neurons are Firing Everyone Up & A Homework Assignment

March 6, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Intuitively, it makes sense that leaders that are more engaged and engaging tend to elicit better responses and better results from their teams.  Perhaps nice people can finish first.

Now, the father of the concept of Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman (What Makes A Leader), along with Richard Boyatiz are pushing the envelope by integrating new research in social neuroscience with their studies of effective leaders.  Their recent Harvard Business Review article, Social Intelligence and the Biology of Leadership, is fascinating reading for anyone intrigued by the role that our biological makeup plays in our leadership abilities.

For those of you that like the short-story, without all of the intriguing content on mirror neurons, spindle cells and oscillators and how they fire together and impact groups, here’s the scoop:

“The salient discovery is that certain things that leaders do—specifically, exhibit empathy and become attuned to others’ moods—literally affect their own brain chemistry and that of their followers.”

And

“ Leading effectively is, in other words, less about mastering situations—or even mastering social skill sets—than about developing a genuine interest in and talent for fostering positive feelings in the people whose cooperation and support you need.”

I wonder if Goleman and Boyatiz new my grandmother who would often indicate, “you capture more flies with honey than vinegar.”

With no intent whatsoever of devaluing this very interesting research, those of us who have been insightful enough to focus on honing our own leadership skills over time generally reached the same conclusions as the authors. 

In Practical Lessons and Leadership (2007), I penned chapters that focused on this concept in The Leader’s Charter; Creating the Effective Working Environment, The Power of Paying Attention and Growing Your Leadership Credibility.  Both my co-author and I incorporated the theme of “developing others” as a principle task of an effective leader throughout the book.

In workshops and coaching sessions, I ask the participants to evaluate themselves on many dimensions, including their personal leadership practices.  I also encourage them to ask their team members to complete these same surveys to identify gaps and gain a truer view of the group’s perspective on the leader’s habits, styles and effectiveness.  While simple and non-scientific, the surveys quickly identify issues in the areas that Goleman and Boyatiz now indicate are so critical to a leader’s success.

 Your Assignment:

I’ve included a short, 20-question survey entitled, “Your Personal Leadership Practices,” with this post and I encourage you to take this survey yourself and assess the statements as honestly as possible.  Then, provide this same survey to your team members and have them assess you from their perspective along these dimensions.  For best results, your colleagues should remain anonymous.  (Feel free to use and copy this survey freely.)

Personal Leadership Practices Survey (PDF)

The non-scientific, no intensive studies required approach to gauging and using the results are as follows:

-If your ratings or the ratings of your colleagues tend towards disagree or strongly disagree, you are further away from the empathetic and attuned leader than closer. 

-Look for gaps in perceptions, especially where you believe you are strong and your colleagues indicate otherwise.  That perception gap is closer to the truth than your own opinion. 

-Leverage the results…especially the gaps to identify areas to improve and then do it.  Use these results as a baseline and conduct the surveys again in a few months after you’ve sought additional feedback and adapted your behaviors.  Repeat and rinse. 

-Where possible, leverage objective measures of team performance and monitor those measures/indicators over time.  Also, look for improvements in softer activities, including innovation, problem solving, and group dynamics.

The bottom-line:

I wrote in Practical Lessons that, “It is nice to be nice, but not necessary.”  The context was that you need to have credibility, you need to be respected and you need relate effectively to your team members, but you didn’t need to be everyone’s best friend.  I still stand behind that perspective, with just a bit more resolve on the need to empathize with, pay attention to and laugh with my team members. 

Thanks to Goleman and Boyatiz, we now have some pretty solid proof that those things count on the road to becoming an effective leader.  

Filed Under: "To Do" List, Leadership, Performance, Professional Growth Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Recurring Labors of a Leader or, “It’s Deja Vu All Over Again”

March 4, 2009 By 1 Comment

It seems that Yogi Berra was right (that’s the former Yankee player and manager, not the Jellystone Park character on the lookout for a quick meal). 

One of the reasons that so much business writing and advice sounds familiar is that we conveniently keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again, allowing new generations of pundits to dispense similar advice in new packaging. 

In a short piece entitled Learning from Heroes found in the March, 2009 Harvard Business Review, Jack Covert and Todd Satterson suggest that this recurring pattern in business actually mirrors the hero’s journey found in mythology. 

“Like Hercules, Luke Skywalker and Jack Welch, we struggle with five recurring challenges as we journey through work and life.  We wander without knowing where we are going.  Data and circumstances confuse us.  Fear blocks us from acting.  Change paralyzes us. And despite our intentions, we talk more than we listen.”

Interesting.  It sounds like ancient mythology and popular culture teach us that vision is required to provide context and purpose.  Strategy is necessary to pick a path between where we are today and our ultimate destination.  Along the way, we will battle ambiguity; we will struggle to measure progress and we will constantly be challenged to overcome fear.   And just when we get comfortable, something will come along to rock our world and challenge our premises.  Last and most definitely not least, many of us will stumble during our journey because we grow too prideful and prefer to talk, not listen. 

Covert and Satterson are certainly on to something, as the same challenges that bedevil our ancient and contemporary heroes are the challenges that we face in business and as leaders every day and in every generation.

I’m an eternal optimist and believe that individuals can and do overcome the five recurring challenges.  In many respects, this is what the effective leader must do to help his or her team succeed on their journey.

I’m even convinced that armed with purpose and awareness of these challenges, entire organizations are capable of overcoming the seemingly natural human tendencies to wander, wonder, fear and ignore the truth when it conflicts with our view of the world.

If you as leader are wandering and wondering, imagine the plight of your team members.  It’s time to add some vision and sense of journey and purpose back into your work environment.  Oh, and remember to shut up and listen along the way.  

–

As an aside, I can’t help but imagine how mythology might have changed if Hercules had access to popular literature, reality tv and coaching and management consulting during his 12 Labors.

He might still be mucking the Augean stables or analyzing his options for slaying the 9-headed Hydra.  And I have no doubt that his labor to obtain the girdle of the Amazon warrior queen Hippolyte would have been snatched up by network television and become a hit reality show. 

 

Filed Under: "To Do" List, Leadership, Leading Change, Professional Growth Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Your Weekend Reading Suggestions from Management Excellence

December 12, 2008 By Leave a Comment

OK, I received more than a few comments that last week’s reading list was a bit aggressive.  Given the season and the fact that we want to leave everyone with adequate time to go out and do their part volunteering as well as stimulating the economy, I’ve trimmed the list this week to two great articles in the December issue of Harvard Business Review.

While HBR is a subscription publication (and in my opinion, mandatory reading for all professionals), a number of the feature articles are accessible at no charge during the month of publication.  I know they started this last year to promote subscriptions and it appears to still be the policy.

The first article is Finding and Grooming Breakthrough Innovators by Jeffrey Cohn, Jon Katzenbach and Gus Vlak.  The authors shoot down many of the myths that exist in identifying and nurturing innovators in the organization and offer some powerful and practical suggestions for recognizing and finding innovators and what to do with them once you’ve found them.

The article is framed by the questions most on the mind of board members and executives:  “How can we sustain innovation? And Do we have a plan for developing future leaders who can facilitate this goal?” You’ll leave this article armed with plenty of thoughts on innovation in your work environment and some ideas to put into practice.

Article number two ratchets up the innovation theme with Reinventing Your Business Model by some true heavy hitters.  Clayton Christensen (Innovator’s Dilemma), Henning Kagermann, co-CEO of SAP and Mark Johnson, Chairman of Innosight, an innovation and strategy consulting firm collaborate to help you better understand your business model and how to change it to leverage innovation.

This is a heady article by some sharp people, although I can’t help thinking that the book Tuned In does a better job distilling down the concept of adapting your approach to finding and filling unresolved needs and building your business around your customers.  Read the article for ideas on defining, dissecting and reinventing your business model and then pick up a copy of Tuned In for a slightly more practical approach to a critical issue.

Enjoy your reading time and don’t forget to take notes.

Filed Under: Marketing, Strategy Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

The Pain and Promise of Collaborative Management on Display at Cisco

December 9, 2008 By 1 Comment

Author and consultant Gary Hamel writes in the preface to his latest book, The Future of Management, that, “Management is out of date.  Like the combustion engine, it’s a technology that has largely stopped evolving and that’s not good.”

Hamel challenges leaders and managers to eliminate the toxic effects of legacy management practices and innovate in ways that create “organizations that are capable of spontaneous renewal” and “companies that actually deserve the passion and creativity of the folks who work there, and naturally elicit the very best that people have to give.”

Noble thoughts that I agree with and that I espouse at every available opportunity.  Unfortunately, many firms and many top leaders are still stuck in the Managers Manager and Workers Work era that Frederick Taylor ushered in over 100 years ago.   The number of teams and ideas that I see held hostage to adjudication by these out-of-date, out-of-touch and hopefully, out-of-time command and control leaders is shocking.  Please, set your people free.

One organization and leader that has gained a great deal of coverage for ushering in new approaches to managing is Cisco Systems and its CEO, John Chambers.  The interview with Chambers, “Cisco Sees the Future” in the November, 2008 issue of Harvard Business Review is must-read material for anyone interested in the cutting edge of management innovation as well as some profound thoughts on identifying and exploiting market transitions and disruptions.

Cisco has effectively flattened its organization and now operates with a small executive team and manages its priorities by cross-functional, collaborative councils and boards. Chambers indicates that the impact is: “This companywide council-based leadership model has allowed us to move from taking only one or two cross-functional priorities a year in the past to addressing 22 this year.” He goes on to add, “We think this is what organizations of the future will look like and that this 21st century leadership style will be a major competitive advantage for us over the next decade.”

At this point, I’ll stop quoting the article…it’s worth taking a look at on your own.  However, what I found most interesting aside from the insights into the structure, management and results of the many cross functional teams, was the fortitude that Cisco and Chambers showed in adopting this new management model.  You get the impression that the gains did not come without considerable pain.  Over 20% of the executives washed out of the new collaborative model, and in essence, the entire culture had to change. Chambers even confesses to the challenges that he had in changing his own style from one of command and control, provide the answers and direct the troops to one of letting teams solve problems and then execute.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

Seven years in the making, the results of this new management model at Cisco are encouraging.  Of course, time will tell if Cisco has truly changed, as well as defined and implemented what can truly be called a management innovation.

I suspect that Chambers and Cisco are closer to right than wrong on their approach.  It’s an exciting time to be leading as the pendulum seems to be swinging away from a style of leading and working that minimized the value of the individual to one that emphasizes empowerment, creativity and the freedom for groups and individuals to think and act.   It’s hard to imagine a future where this formula does not produce winners.  Of course, the proof as they say is in the pudding.

Filed Under: Decision-Making, Leadership, Leading Change, Management Innovation, Project Management Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Management Excellence Tips for Tough Times: Rethinking Customer Segmentation

December 1, 2008 By Leave a Comment

(Note from Art Petty: this is the first post at the new Management Excellence blog. If you are receiving this update via e-mail, please take the opportunity to visit the site and check out the new tools and resources.  And of course, the 160 plus posts on Best Practices in Leadership, Strategy and Sales and Marketing from the former site, Art Petty on Management, are all available at the new site.)

Ian MacMillan and Larry Selden writing, “Change With Your Customers and Win Big” in the December, 2008 Harvard Business Review, suggest that firms should look for advantage during an economic downturn by rethinking how they segment their customer groups.

They offer an example of a retailer of premium priced, private-label organic products who instead of viewing their market segment through traditional lenses, might break it into the following segments;

  • Health-conscious consumers who will stay pay a premium for foods that they perceive as having health benefits.
  • Frequent restaurant goers looking to trim expenses that might consider a line of high-quality carry out foods as an alternative.
  • Companies looking to rein in corporate catering costs that might substitute with the firm’s offerings.

Art’s Suggestions:

Many firms preoccupy on cutting costs and scaling back offerings, when they should be doubling their efforts to understand the unresolved problems of their customers. However, breaking the back of conventional thinking about either what to do in a recession or how to view your customer groups is a difficult task for many organizations.  Start by putting your team to work.

Instead of losing precious time and corporate energy to the collective nervousness that paralyzes organizations during tough times, get your team out into the field and into the market where your customers and their customers are.  Listen, ask questions and most of all, observe.  Where are they struggling?  What might help?  How do they use your products?  How do they use other products?  What unresolved problems can you identify?

Bring your observations back and get some help in what creatives like to describe as “ideating.”  We mere mortals call it brainstorming.  Regardless of the label, get your entire organization thinking about and generating ideas that might help your customer address their issues.  If you are looking for a process, pick up a copy of Tuned In and start with the formula that the authors suggest for creating “resonators,” offerings that solve unresolved problems so perfectly that they practically sell themselves.

The Bottom-Line For Now:

Rethinking your customer segmentation model is a potentially powerful approach for differentiating versus key competitors and for finding new needs that you can fulfill with your core capabilities.  Experiment with the various ideas and strengthen your team’s execution skills in the process.  In additional to the potential tremendous upside from solving customer problems, the energy and excitement generated during this process will convert the organization’s “sense of fear” into a “sense of urgency.”

Filed Under: Leadership, Marketing, Strategy Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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