Last of the Summer Shorts and Some Seasonal Reading Ideas
Filed under: Leadership, Life and Business, Performance, Professional Growth
The Labor Day weekend is upon us and that means that it’s soon time to pack up the Summer Shorts in favor of something more seasonably appropriate. But for now, the shorts are out….er I mean on, and here are some quick posts, ideas and links for some quality long weekend and fall reading.
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For a great series (in process) on identifying, understanding and overcoming the limits that we set for ourselves, check out “The Stories We Tell Ourselves,” by Mary Jo Asmus at Intentional Leadership.
Mary Jo has quickly become “must read” content for me with her always thoughtful and thought-provoking posts.
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I truly enjoy reading books by Jim Collins and his latest, How the Mighty Fall (and why some companies never give in) is well worth your time investment. Jim’s research and even his connecting of some of the dots between formerly Good to Great and now DOA companies is fascinating.
The case studies, examples and researched based approach mixed with Jim’s great ability to make business come alive, creates a fascinating, albeit brief read. My only gripe for Jim is, where’s the kindle version?
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My wife and kids have long since accused me of being odd…something that I readily confess to. The particular oddity in play here is that I read seasonal content only in season. This extends to literature, where I can only read Dickens from November through February and Hemingway in the spring and summer.
In this case, it’s football season (yeah!) and I’ve got two that are on my seasonal waiting list:
My son gave me Tony Dungy’s “Quiet Strength: The Principles, Practices and Priorities of a Winning Life,” last Christmas, and although the book is more than football, it is now in season for me. Stay tuned for my lessons learned from this gentleman of a leader.
The other is pure football…it’s, “A Few Seconds of Panic: A Sportswriter Plays in the NFL,” by Stefan Fastis. This is the modern day version of George Plimpton’s Paper Lion (which is arguably the greatest football book ever). I listened to Fastis being interviewed last year on NPR and for anyone that has ever wondered what it is like for a mere mortal to try and hang with the pros and get a few plays in, this sounds fascinating.
Oh, and for my favorite Packer detractor out there, (she knows who she is), if you’re reading, I believe that a new release of Jerry Kramer’s classic, Instant Replay, is available!
The Bottom Line:
Have fun, enjoy the weekend and feel free to drop a note here and tell the rest of us what your seasonal reading habits include! I’m hoping that I’m not the only one with this quirky habit.
-Art
Dumb Luck and Employee Happiness-One Works and the Other Doesn’t?
Filed under: Customer Service, Leadership, Performance, Talent Management
Every once in awhile, my second favorite publication, Harvard Business Review, serves up some fascinating content that leaves me scratching my head and wondering. The April, 2009 issue doesn’t disappoint, offering a couple of interesting but potentially pointless studies in the Forethought section.
One asks: “Are Great Companies Just Lucky?” and the other serves up, “Employee Happiness Isn’t Enough to Satisfy Customers.”
Both articles offer up some interesting premises and are backed by well-pedigreed professionals that seem to have conducted a fair amount of research to conclude that luck is important and employee happiness is not the silver bullet of customer satisfaction.
My reactions range from, “OK, and the point is…?” to “Huh?”
Let’s tackle the article on corporate luck first. The premise is that the “great” companies singled out in studies like In Search of Excellence and Good to Great are actually not great, but lucky.
The authors suggest that “a firm is remarkable only when its performance is so unlikely that systemic variation (random nature) alone cannot account for its results.” They describe an example of students in a class flipping coins, with those that draw tails sitting down while those drawing heads remain standing. At the end of seven rounds, the sole remaining student is declared “great” for having flipped and drawn heads seven times in a row. In reality of course, he was lucky, not great and it’s unlikely that anything that he did resulted in his favorable outcome.
The authors describe their research methodology which ultimately evaluates “287 allegedly high-performing companies in 13 major success studies.” Their final conclusion: only one in four of those companies was actually remarkable. “The rest were indistinguishable from mediocre firms catching lucky breaks.”
Art’s Comments:
Maybe the authors are giving Jim Collins a little heartburn with this article, however, it’s an awful lot of razzle dazzle to go through to tell us that we should not take success stories literally and attempt to apply them verbatim to our own work environments. And I don’t know about you, but somehow the notion that these researchers quantified “luck” and were able to ascribe accomplishments to “lucky breaks” is making my head hurt just a little bit.
And You Define “Employee Happiness” How?
The second study focuses on establishing or disproving a correlation between happy employees and customer satisfaction. The authors highlight their own survey results that “failed to confirm that service businesses with more-contented staff also have more satisfied customers.” Interestingly, at two firms, they highlight finding a negative correlation. “We observed that factors that increased customer satisfaction decreased employee happiness.” Huh?
Art’s Comments:
Aside from the “Huh?” above, between the study on “luck” and this one, I find myself wondering whether it was a tough news month at HBR. Both stories make me rather irreverently suggest that everyone that conducts these studies should spend a few decades actually working in corporations before they are allowed to study them.
We don’t have the benefit of seeing the questions in the latter article, but it doesn’t’ take too much of a leap to imagine that if “employee happiness” was improperly defined it would be fairly easy to connect doing more work to a reduction in the “happiness” quotient. Also, the reliance on companies that have earned “Best Places to Work” awards and then showcasing their lousy results, shows a profound naivete about the veracity of those workplace surveys. They are typically crap put together by groups in pursuit of p.r. accolades.
For the sake of my own study in over two decades of leading, when employee happiness includes being treated with respect, supported for development, receiving honest, timely feedback and being given challenging assignments, then I guarantee that there is a positive correlation with customer satisfaction.
The Bottom-Line for Now.
I usually look to HBR for sage guidance and provocative insights. These articles feel a bit like tabloid journalism backed with pointless research and ending in useless conclusions. Let’s hope next month’s issue is back on track.
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Help Wanted: Visionaries and Dreamers-Safe Return Doubtful
Filed under: Career, Life and Business, Making Decisions, Professional Growth, Your Professional Development "To Do" List
While it has never been substantiated that the explorer and leader Ernest Shackleton actually placed this ad, these few short sentences have taken on a life of their own. They read:
“Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success.”
There are those in this world that run towards these types of opportunities and others that run away as fast as they can. I’ve always been inspired by individuals that look beyond the here and now and issues of the moment to see and seize the opportunity to do something great.
In Monday’s Leadership Caffeine post, I shared excerpts from the recent Jim Collins interview in Inc. Magazine. Collins indicated his belief in the unique number of opportunities and challenges that we now face and he described his perspectives on why some people do great things during tough times. In particular, he emphasized the difference between traditional career choices (“paint by number”) or careers as an adventure (“blank sheet of paper”). Interestingly, in the article, he also indicated the difference between these two approaches, not in the context of risk, but rather as a difference in level of ambiguity.
I long since determined that my career would be an adventure, and I’ve come to find comfort in my good friend, ambiguity. It’s never far behind. Along the way, I’ve learned a number of valuable lessons from several individuals that created some great works of art on their own blank canvasses.
Lessons in Adventure and Ambiguity:
- Fear of failure is a waste of energy.
- The best prescription for dealing with a setback is to take your next step.
- Always have a mission, because at the darkest hour, the mission might be the only thing lighting your path.
- Sitting still is worse than dying. Keep moving.
- Sometime, a long time from now, it might be OK to look back on what you accomplished. But don’t look for too long or you’re liable to step off a cliff.
I’m grateful to these individuals for their inspiration and for instilling a sense of adventure in my approach to business
Especially now in these times when those that are working are fearful of what’s next and those that are not working are fearful of the same, it might just be time to channel a little inner-Shackleton. Perhaps it’s time to dust of those dreams of greatness, put aside your fears and get moving.
Students of history know that Shackleton’s journey met with many mishaps and challenges, yet remarkably, everyone returned safely, in large part due to the sheer will and perseverance of their leader. How strong are you?
These are unique times best taken advantage of by dreamers and doers.
The challenges are so profound and the opportunities so plentiful, that it is hard to look around and not see potential for greatness in every crisis. Perhaps now is your time to shine.
What was it that you always wanted to do? Tick tock.
Dream and Act Big: Leadership Caffeine for the Week of April 5, 2009
Filed under: Career, Innovation, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Leading the Generations, Life and Business, Talent Management, Your Professional Development "To Do" List
This week’s jolt of energy is taken from a great interview with Jim Collins in the April, 2009 issue of Inc. Magazine.
Collins connected with Inc. editor, Bo Burlingham to share views on the state of our world, building great businesses and entrepreneurship. The entrepreneurial focus is relevant for many that have either been pushed into this world through downsizing or are considering it as they grow weary of the uncertainties of corporate life.
The result is a feast of insightful, refreshing and invigorating quotes. Oh, and I’m taking my motivation from Collins with a cup of the always bold and invigorating Sumatra Mandehling Gayo Mountain from my favorite local roaster, Conscious Cup.
Just a few selected quotes and observations from Collins:
-On what the leading entrepreneurs of the past three decades have in common:
“They defined success on a very big scale.”
-Recalling a quote from Steve Jobs in the late 1980’s that captured the noble vision of entrepreneurship:
“We aren’t creating computers, we are creating bicycles for the minds.”
-On the choice that people face on working for others or working for themselves:
“I see entrepreneurship as more of a life concept. We all make choices about how we live our lives. You can take a paint-by-numbers approach, or you can start with a blank canvas. Starting with a blank canvas is the only way to get a masterpiece, but you could also blow up.”
-On the emerging environment:
“We’re heading into a world characterized by big events, big forces, massive storms. We’re going to be vulnerable little specks high on the mountain when the storm hits out of nowhere. And if we’re not prepared, we’re going to die up there.”
-On why he’s not pessimistic in spite of the emerging environment:
“It is only in times like this that you get a chance to show your strength.”
“In the end, I think we need to have absolute faith in our ability to deal with whatever is thrown at us. And we need to have a complete, realistic paranoia that a lot can be thrown at us.”
-On the source of his optimism:
“A lot of it has to do with the young generation.” Quoting a general at West Point, “This is the most inspired and inspiring generation to come through West Point since 1945.”
“I’m hopeful precisely because of this generation of kids. I really think we ought to give them the keys as soon as we can.”
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Art’s comments:
First, bookmark the interview and read it from start to end. The selected quotes above barely do justice to the wisdom and inspiration that Collins has to offer in this article.
Second, consider how his guidance and observations can help you deal with your situation, whether you plan on being an entrepreneur or an intrapreneur.
Great things tend to flow from tough times and when people focus on defining success not necessarily in monetary terms but on a grand scale.
My own real world example in process: I’m working with a group to change the shape of volunteer management and volunteerism in our local community. Our emerging goal is nothing less than to transform Volunteer management practices in this country. Lofty yes, but doable? Absolutely.
The same lofty ambitions can drive for-profit organizations, but it requires thinking beyond success and focusing on significance.
And last and not least, I love his perspective on the younger generation. While the media focuses on what they describe as a: texting-obsessed, trophy-laden, what’s in it for me generation, I am with Collins in seeing the reality to be very different. (See my article: In Hopeful Praise of the Millennials.)
As you have occasion to work with, lead and support the development of this younger generation, perhaps it is time to think deeply about the challenges we have saddled them with and offer our support and hope instead of our criticism.
The Bottom-Line for the New Week:
OK, grab that second cup and go forth into the new week motivated to do something great. The longest journey starts of course with the first step, and the greatest monuments start with the first stone. Take that first step or lay down that cornerstone and dream big!
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