Leadership Caffeine-Bringing Confidence Back

November 2, 2009 By 11 Comments

A Cup of Leadership CaffeineConfidence is a powerful force in the workplace for individuals and for teams.

It’s that extra-added something that allows us to look at the world through eyes that see opportunities to pursue, challenges that exist to be met and new heights within easy reach.

Confidence shows up in the quiet swagger of champions that know before they take the field or set foot on the court that they understand how to win.

While we tend to over rely on the sporting world for leadership examples, it’s easy to see confidence at work for in high def right in front of us every week.  Just watch Favre or Brady or Manning (the one named Peyton) walk into the huddle needing to move the ball 80 yards and score to win the game with 2 minutes on the clock.  The confidence that these players bring with them lifts everyone around them and helps the team find that extra gear needed to win the game.

Unfortunately, given the beat-down that most of the world has been taking for the past year or two, confidence is in short supply in the workplace.

People and teams and entire organizations have grown fearful and as a result move timidly through the days and quarters, hoping simply to not fail.

Focusing on not failing is dramatically different than focusing on winning.

You’ve got to get yourself and your team focusing on finding ways to win once again.  It’s time to bring back confidence.

Fair Warning…Don’t Do This:

One way guaranteed to fail is to heap “win one for the Gipper” speeches on an already cynical workforce that is short on patience.  They’ve had enough of nervous managers egging the troops on to greater performance and then announcing workforce reductions.  Beware the managerial urge to blather false cheer.

7 Actions for YOU to Start Building Confidence on Your Team:

  • It starts with you. Sorry to keep heaping on the sports analogies, but if you are the quarterback walking into the huddle for the two-minute drill and your teammates see fear in your eyes, the game is over and you’ve lost.  Dig deep to find that sense of self-assurance that exudes, “we will find a way.”
  • Use Trust as a confidence catalyst.  Show trust in an individual or team and they will naturally walk through walls to repay your trust. Starting today, look for ways to showcase trust by resisting the urge to second-guess or over manage.
  • Build self-confidence in others by teaching them to trust themselves. A talented professional had the habit of always asking me what I thought she should do when she was faced with a vexing problem.  As trite as it sounds, my response for about a year was “I’m not sure, what do you think you should do?”  Once she responded, I resisted the urge to correct her and instead asked a few clarifying questions and then said, “Great, go do it.”  She grew by leaps and bounds in a hurry.
  • Clarify the mission and ensure that everyone can connect his or her activities to the issues that count.
  • Build energy by celebrating victories…even the small ones.  And remember that part of earning the victories includes suffering setbacks.  Share the lessons learned and resist the urge to make an example out of those that fail.
  • After moving beyond blocking and tackling victories, continue to ratchet up the challenges.  You will know if the confidence is growing on your team when they start to ratchet up the challenges on their own.
  • Focus on your job of supporting people, finding coaching opportunities and assessing and upgrading the talent.  Eliminate the toxic team members and redouble your efforts to coach and provide feedback to those that share the organization’s values and are striving to execute to the best of their abilities.

The Bottom-Line:

There are many other big and small things that you can do to start bringing confidence back, but this short, digestible list of behaviors and actions can make a difference starting today.

Remember, when you walk in the door, the game clock is starting at two-minutes and everyone is looking into your eyes. Don’t let them see anything but confidence.

Filed Under: "To Do" List, Crisis Leadership, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Leading Change, Performance Tagged With: , , , ,

Leadership Caffeine: Dealing with Cracks in the Leader’s Smile

July 20, 2009 By 6 Comments

Notes from Art:

My week has already started with a double jolt of leadership caffeine.  I speak Monday afternoon on one of my favorite topics: “High Performance Trade Show Marketing Practices” at TS2 in Chicago at McCormick Place, based on the content in the e-guide here on this site.

Also, I am thrilled to be featured this week as the guest interview on the popular Project Shrink videocast.  The video interview is entitled “Leadership and the Project Manager,” and came about via my free e-book of the same name. The proprietor of the Project Shrink blog and videocast, Bas De Baar is one of the leading voices on the human side of project management success, and an all around great professional and gentleman to deal with.

Ok enough about me and on to the real point behind these posts…sharing insights and ideas to drive your leadership performance.

Dealing with Cracks in the Leader’s Smile:

I chatted with a valued colleague the other day that indicated that she is finding it increasingly difficult and even awkward in the face of financial pressures and employee strain to keep a cheerleader’s positive demeanor in the workplace.

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard from a leader struggling either to smile or simply maintain a positive outlook in the face of occasionally overwhelming obstacles. One manager indicated to me, “I know that my team reads my mood, but sometimes I feel like I’m out of place smiling and acting upbeat.  It’s like trying to sound positive at a funeral, where the best thing anyone can come up with to say pales in comparison to the reality of the situation.”

While I hope that you don’t feel like your workplace is a funeral in motion, I will offer a few suggestions that should allow you to give the smile muscles a break and keep the team focused on the mission.

  • You can relax the smile, but you need to double the can-do spirit. If you’ve given up on chances of survival and success, it’s time to check out of your job. If you’ve still got some gas in the tank, steel yourself and your remaining team members for the task at hand.
  • Focus on the basics. My manager colleague above is watching as membership slips weekly. Some of it is inevitable as the members deal with their own financial struggles. Some of it may be controllable. Involving the entire team in identifying opportunities to strengthen member relations and improve customer experience may help.  Better yet, get some customers involved in the process as well.
  • Now is a great time to tackle the “Elephant in the Room” issues that we often ignore during better times. A Trade Show Manager indicated to me that given the state of her firm’s situation, she found it easy to walk into her manager’s office and suggest that now was a great time to rethink the firm’s approach to selecting and executing these expensive events. She has since been able to cut costs, improve program planning and execution and actually improve results on a smaller budget. Instead of lamenting her situation, she seized the opportunity and got others involved in making needed improvements.
  • If you’re smiling less, make sure that you do a better job of delivering positive feedback. I spend most of my time teaching people how to deal with the other kind (constructive), but the fact is that well constructed positive feedback will reinforce the positive behaviors you are observing and this type of input is much appreciated.  Keep it genuine and of course, don’t ignore the chances for constructive feedback either.
  • Keep the team up to the minute informed on good and not so good news. Even if it’s bad, they will appreciate your transparency and your respect for their concerns. To most, the fear of the unknown is worse than the reality.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

It’s impossible for you to be upbeat all of the time. In fact, no one expects it. However, it is possible and necessary for you to be confident in the face of adversity and to avoid jumping on to the same emotional roller coaster that many of our colleagues ride. Stay focused on what matters and help your team keep focused on the same. The smallest of victories breed more and soon your team will forget about worrying and focus on doing. And then you can smile…just a little bit.

Filed Under: "To Do" List, Crisis Leadership, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Know Your Mission-More Management Lessons from the Memphis Belle

April 21, 2009 By 2 Comments

Note from Art: Eric Lieberman is back as a guest author with his second installment of Management Lessons from the Memphis Belle.  The “Rules” were created by Eric and his colleague, Paul Byrne, while they were leading a software company turn-around. They were successful!

Students of history and management practitioners alike will find value in these creative, powerful and practical rules for managing and leading.  Enjoy!

KNOWING THE MISSION

For this second installment of the business rules that my friend Paul Byrne and I derived from watching the movie the Memphis Belle (see my first installment: Management Lessons from the Memphis Belle-Rule #1), I am departing from the order in which we originally wrote the rules.

Instead, because it is a concept so fundamental to our success in anything we do, I am jumping to Rules 11, 16 and 19, all of which underscore the importance of being totally “mission aware”. Without a sense of our mission, the rest of the rules are meaningless.

The Story:

First, the story from the Memphis Belle: Leaving their airstrip on the English coast the crew of the B-17 Bomber Memphis Belle knew but one mission: drop their payload of bombs onto the target in Germany which had been assigned to them and the rest of their large flight-group.

As they flew towards the target, this singular sense of mission got them through the in-the-air machine-gun battles with enemy fighter aircraft and sustained them as the enemy anti-aircraft gun fire (“flak”) exploded around them as they neared their target. They knew their mission and they knew they were flying for a cause they believed in. They carried in their mind and hearts the people at home for whom they fought. (Rule 16: Know your mission and for whom you are flying).

When they neared the target, the pilot turned control of the plane over to the bombardier, who would use the sophisticated B-17 bomb-sight to guide the plane into the right position to drop the bombs and destroy the target. The Belle’s bombardier had a particularly heavy responsibility on this flight: because of the loss of another bomber, the Belle had become the lead bomber. The other bombers in the group would be cued to drop their payloads by the action of the Belle.

The cloud cover was so heavy over the target, however, that the bombardier could not see the target through his bomb-sight. The pilot, laser focused on the singular mission of the flight, made the decision not to drop the bombs on anything less than the primary target. He made the courageous decision to circle the aircraft and make a second run at accomplishing the mission. On the second pass, the bombardier was able to spot the target and the bombs were dropped successfully. Missions accomplished! (Rule 11: Stick with the mission – sometimes it requires two passes over the target before the bombs are dropped.)

Having successively completed the first mission, the Belle now had to realize a second mission: get its crew home alive! Suddenly, the crew was not flying for their country, but for their own lives. The 30-caliber machine guns, needed to defend their way into enemy airspace before the bombing run, became unnecessary dead-weight in the attempt to limp home. To lighten their load, the Belle crew threw some guns over board.

Their mission had gone from reaching a bombing target inside enemy territory to reaching home. They had gone from fighting for the cause, their country, to making it home alive. This change in mission required them to let go of assets that had helped them accomplish the prior mission. (Rule 19: The heavy guns needed for the mission may become dead weight for the next mission.)

Applying The Rules in Business: 

As my crew and I salvaged our software company and eventually sold it - we repeatedly had to stop, breathe and ask ourselves: what is our mission? For whom are we flying? Has the mission changed?

I was reminded of our first sense of mission last week when I attended a meeting of business mentors and ran into a partner at a large accounting firm. It was this same accounting firm that I had hired in 1998 to do an assessment of our company and help me with a strategy to reverse its downward direction. After several weeks of on-site investigation the firm handed me a $30,000 invoice with the advice: the only way to save this business is to fire 60% of its employees.

It was advice that I immediately knew I would not follow. It was short-sighted and had nothing to do with the mission I had been handed. My mission went beyond merely being able to pay debts when they were due. No, my mission was two-fold: (1) restore the value of the company for the benefit of its owners, and (2) protect the people – its employees – who were responsible for building the company. (That was one of the goals of its founders.) A dramatic 60% “rightsizing” would send the company into a tailspin from which it could not recover and our mission would fail.

As our conditions improved, our mission went from saving the company to growing the company. Pivotal in acheiving that growth was building a culture that recognized that we were “flying” a mission for our customers. We became zealots about customer satisfaction. We circulated a poster with a photograph of a mythic customer over the acronym: “WIIFM?” – meaning “What’s In It For Me?” That question – that reminder of our mission to satisfy the customer – kept our mission front and center.

Occasionally, while flying our corporate mission, I had to make the painful decision to fire someone, or demote them. This was never easy to do, especially when it involved a person that had been a key contributor and a friend. However, I’d bounce the situation off of Rule 19 – the resources we need for one mission can be wrong for the next mission – and I’d realize that the person hadn’t changed: it was the mission that had changed. This thought would force me to consider whether the person could be used on a different mission, more suited to the abilities and talents that had served them well in the prior mission. This application of the rule gave me confidence to do the things I had to do.

The Lessons:

And so, knowing the mission and sticking with the mission until it is completed are critical parts of being successful. However, equally important is knowing when there has been a change in mission and adapting accordingly. I was reminded of this in a print advertisement currently being run by MIT Sloan Executive Education. The ad (I saw it in the Financial Times)  shows a lizardly looking creature that looks like it has survived through many versions of our planet. Appearing in large type over the head of the lizard are these words: “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change – Charles Darwin.” 

Know the mission. Achieve the mission. Be alert to changes in the mission. Adapt to new missions! 

–About Eric Lieberman: Eric Lieberman writes from his home in Evanston, Illinois and is available for comments and consultations and can be reached via e-mail. by writing ejlieberman@gmail.com.  Click here for Eric’s personal website and resume.

Filed Under: Crisis Leadership, Decision-Making, Leadership, Leading Change, Performance Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Inspiration and Hope: Encouraging Sound Bites in a Challenging World

March 10, 2009 By Leave a Comment

There’s enough negative going around.  Here’s a few worth reading that will leave you thinking and maybe even feeling a bit more upbeat.

I’ll Have Fries with that Strategy and Please Pass the Data

Students of strategy and performance excellence might want to take a closer look at how McDonald’s is using leadership, strategy, customer relations and information to successfully beat back the economic doldrums.

I’ve found it easy to ignore this nearly ubiquitous chain as our family has moved a good decade beyond the Happy Meal phase and as I’ve concluded that my calorie quota cannot afford anything in this class of restaurants.

However, a recent piece in the Wall Street Journal, entitled: McDonald’s Seeks Ways to Keep Sizzling,” has renewed my interest.  The article offers some good insights into doing things right at a time when most competitors are struggling with shrinking consumer purchasing power. 

Highlights:

  • A senior leadership culture that overtly emphasizes finding good people and providing them room to do their thing, the article showcases.
  • The firm’s bold and disruptive (to Starbucks) push into coffee.
  • A relentless focus on cutting operating costs by improving efficiency without adversely impacting quality and customer perceived value.
  • Investments in new store infrastructure at a time when most might hold off. 
  • Effective use of the system-wide investment in automation for business and consumer intelligence to grab data, monitor operations and trends and make appropriate merchandising and cost decisions in near real-time.

Regardless of whether your business involved food of the fast variety (McDonald’s prefers to call it Quick Service), there are some great “nuggets” for you in how this global giant is navigating the downturn. 

Oh, I might just have to stop by and see if the rumors of good coffee are true. 

– 

Innovation Please:

For an extended dose of hope and encouragement, check out the March issue of Fast Company, where the focus is on the world’s most innovative companies. 

I love editor Robert Safian’s “One Hundred and Fifty Nine Reasons (pages) to Cheer” theme and his observation that: “the one incontrovertible truth about this era: only creativity and aggressive innovation in the face of hardship and layoffs and seriously tough choices will fuel a turnaround.”  While I might call that “effective leadership,” I won’t quibble with Mr. Safian’s conclusion. 

My advice, read this one in small sound-bites on a daily basis and let the ideas and examples of the many innovative companies sink-in, rattle around and prompt some thoughts of your own. 

Articles ranging from new product development to fresh perspectives on emerging markets as innovation incubators and the art of setting of modest goals are just a few of the many great and thought-provoking reads here. While it is easy to grow weary of “list” type articles, there are just too many good examples to ignore.

On a side note, I’ve enjoyed Fast Company since its inception in the dot.com boom of the late 90’s, when every issue was jammed full of cutting edge articles and cutting edge ads.  It was cool (best word I can think of) to read and feel like you were a part of the Fast Company community, just like it is to be a part of the Apple community today.  While not attuned to the current financial status of this publication, given the times we are living in and the editorial focus on finding firms and people pushing the envelope, it might just be in vogue to be part of this community once again.

The Bottom Line: 

Take a note from the post today and spread some “can do” and “here’s how they are doing it” wisdom today.  Get people thinking “What if?” and then get them focused on talking and trying and creating.  Safian is right.  Creativity and innovation will fuel the turnaround.  If McDonald’s can get it, so can your firm. 

Filed Under: Crisis Leadership, Decision-Making, Leadership, Strategy Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,