The Five Things That Make a Leader
By Michael Fitzgerald
March 18th, 2008 @ 7:07 pm

The amusingly named Hillbilly PhD blog has a post on the five qualities of leadership:

Don’t let circumstances control your behavior
Be persistent
Assess yourself honestly and thoroughly
Learn from failure
Follow your purpose.

This is my condensation of his entries. As with all such lists, easy to say, harder to do — he cites leaders like Lincoln and Gandhi, people who stand out in history for a reason. For the full discussion of these, head to his site. He says he’ll focus on these characteristics for some time to come.

A New View of Competition
By Michael Fitzgerald
November 12th, 2007

Competition is on the cover of the latest issue of the Wilson Quarterly, the highly readable intellectual smorgasbord published by the Woodrow Wilson Center.

Its four articles focus on how competitive American life has become, with obvious implications for business. Daniel Akst, in an article entitled “Strive We Must,” argues that there are four points of competition that matter, all of which are worth thinking about for business leaders.

It used to be worse. “19th-century business practices were truly red in tooth and claw, while total output per person was so much lower in those days that merely staying alive was a competitive scramble for most people.”

Life is not as competitive as the media might have us believe. “Our cultural elites live with so much competitive anxiety that their lives simply aren’t representative. Most Americans have more leisure than they did a generation ago, even as the highest-paid earners work like maniacs. And competition of all kinds is worst in places like New York and Los Angeles, where real-estate hysteria and preschool panic afflict even the rich and powerful. The media come to us from those places… Reports from these precincts should be discounted by at least 50 percent.”

It’s our nature. He cites the psychologist David M. Buss thusly: “the desire to mate — and the imbalance between the most desirable partners and the many more people who covet them – “catapults people headlong into the arena of competition with members of their own sex,” even if they don’t always recognize that’s what they’re doing – angling for a promotion, applying eyeliner, cracking jokes – is competitive behavior.”

Competition is good for us. It raises standards of living. It’s fairer than it used to be. It can foster cooperation. “The whole basis for the company is that those within will work together to best those without, taking advantage of informational edges and other advantages to compete more effectively. And management specialists now emphasize the need for companies to forge more collaborative relationships with suppliers, customers and even sometime rivals.”

So, whom should one hire in this more competitive yet collaborative world?

Tyler Cowen, in “The New Invisible Competitors,” argues that there are four types of employees who will do well in a hypercompetitive global economy:

Methodical planners or those who love the game for its own sake. They motivate themselves to get ahead of everyone else, and stay there.

Early risers. Those who like to be first will figure out new ideas before competitors.

Nervous folks, or chokers. The digital world means less conflict for them, and thus fewer opportunities to blow it.

Those with good imaginations. New ideas in fields like design and marketing will be more valuable than number-crunching.

There’s also an essay on the savage competition amongst musicians, and whether that detracts from music itself. Finally, a cautionary essay by Benjamin R. Barber, “The Lost Art of Competition.” He concludes his attack on hypercompetition with a comment on the 19th century thinker John Ruskin, saying:

As an enemy rather than an ally of true freedom, competition is not our friend. To live and to flourish, it is the lost art of cooperation that we need to cultivate.

All in all, it’s an effective passage on both competition and a signal of the continuing emergence of collaboration as a force in both our society and in business.

Women Make Better Managers than Men
By Michael Fitzgerald
March 5th, 2008 @ 8:55 pm

The new gender gap puts women in front of men, at least in school. So says Gary Becker, the Nobel Prize Winning economist, in a post on the blog he shares with Richard Posner. Ultimately, says Becker:

Whatever the explanation for the remarkable shift in college attendance rates of men and women during the past 40 years, this shift is likely to have major implications for future changes in the gender gap in average earnings, the fraction of heads of business that are women, and other measures of gender differences in achievement.

Here are four other reasons why the glass ceiling is breaking:

Women adapt better to new situations. Do you want to hire somebody who can hit the ground running or not?

Women make better managers. For instance, women are more likely to delegate and more likely to reward people. And they’re getting better at doing what men traditionally have done well.

Women make better leaders. For instance, women are better able to lead businesses towards transformation.

Women invest more wisely. Several looks at stock investing says you’re better off with women investing the money.

Why keep us men around at all? We have complementary skills.

Gary Hamel’s Ideal Companies
By Michael Fitzgerald
November 24th, 2007

The second segment of Gary Hamel’s “The Future Of Management” features case studies of three companies with unusual management structures: Whole Foods, W.L. Gore and Google. All of them have been written about heavily in the business press over the years, and so some of Hamel’s work may seem familiar (an excerpt also ran recently in Fortune).

Hamel boils down each firm’s management approach into a ‘management innovation challenge’ table, featuring three challenges and three answers.

Thus, for Whole Foods one such challenge was ‘how do you empower people by managing less while retaining discipline and focus?’ The Whole Foods Answer: ‘give employees a large dose of discretion; provide them with the information they need to make wise decisions; and then hold them accountable for results.’

Or, How do you make everyone in your company an innovator? Gore’s answer: do away with hierarchy; continually reinforce the belief that innovation can come from anyone; co-locate employees with diverse skills to facilitate the creative process.

Or How do you speed up the shift from investment in existing projects to new ones? Google’s answer: a formalized process of giving people 30 percent of their time to projects that are not specifically related to their current jobs, and giving people the freedom to do market experiments to build a case for their ideas.

Hamel picked these three companies because they’re big and unusual. They are also, as he acknowledges, companies that started out determined not to structure themselves like typical companies. So the question is whether a typical company can remake itself like one of these firms without killing itself in the process.

Hamel claims the typical company can, and in my next post I’ll look at his prescription for change.

Culture: The Biggest Single Impediment to the Microsoft-Yahoo Deal

Culture: The Biggest Single Impediment to the Microsoft-Yahoo Deal
By William J. Holstein
February 1st, 2008

Okay, let’s assume that Microsoft is successful in grabbing Yahoo and that anti-trust authorities in Washington don’t block the deal entirely.

There’s still a major question mark hanging over the deal–the role of culture. Microsoft’s culture is somewhat inbred, arrogant and totally focused on Windows. Microsoft people have consistently shown that they don’t know how to play any game on the basis of anyone else’s rules. They either play on the basis of their rules (i.e. some version of Windows) or they don’t want to play.

Yahoo has a totally different culture, partly because it is located in Silicon Valley, but also because it’s a much younger company and it is one more given to cooperation across technology platforms. It displays much less technological hubris than the evil empire of the North, i.e. Microsoft.

I think there will be huge problems in integrating these two cultures, which is ultimately the goal even if Microsoft right now says it wants to respect some of Yahoo’s independence. I don’t think it’s irrational to wonder whether if Microsoft every truly absorbs Yahoo, it will kill the patient.

How to Get Yourself on the CEO Track

By William J. Holstein

Despite all the scandals involving chief executive officers, there still seems to be a hunger for insights about how to become one. On the basis of my years of contacts with CEOs, I’d start with these guidelines:

Give yourself a head start. You have to have the idea early in your business life, at least in the back of your head. The reason is that you need to obtain a much broader variety of experience than if you are content to follow a single path, say finance, for the bulk of your career. CEOs need to obtain experience in as many vertical silos within the corporation as possible–manufacturing, sales, marketing, finance and the like. They need to be able to speak the language of these warring tribes.

Get experience abroad. It’s also increasingly clear that to make it to the top, you need to live abroad for a number of years for your company. That’s critical, particularly now that U.S. growth is at risk and non-American markets are where companies are growing fastest.

Workaholics need not apply. There’s also an issue of character development–some people seem to think that if they work 80 to 100 hours a week, as per the recent Fortune cover story they’ll be on the right track. But my analysis is that people who work that many hours lack balance in their home lives and a solid home life is essential to making it to the corner office. Executives aspiring to the top also need to demonstrate some commitment to principles and values, ideally by affiliating themselves with a non-profit organization of some sort. People who are unbalanced, meaning they lack a quality personal life and other interests outside the company, are prone to burnout. They also tend not to inspire others to follow them, which is another essential characteristic of successful CEOs.

Learn to become a team builder. Lastly, a crucial trait that boards are looking for is the ability to build teams. Back-stabbers and raging egotists are not wanted.

So if you’re building your career, ponder these lessons. The chances are that you will spend 20 to 25 years developing yourself before you’re ready to be a CEO, probably in the late 40s or early 50s. And you’ll probably only have four or five years in the hot seat, much like a baseball manager these days. But you could create huge wealth for yourself and many around you if you play the game just right.

TOP TIPS: 10 ways to resolve conflict

Have you ever encountered a conflict of interests at work? For such situations, think about the value of mediation both as a reactionary tool and a preventative measure.

1. Analyze conflict/understand its causes
Surface assumptions by asking as many questions as you can and interview the groups involved. Be aware of basic conflict psychology: people have different belief systems and believe their own position to be the correct one. Acknowledge any history involved between the parties, as this will often be a factor in the current dispute.

Be aware of basic conflict psychology: people have different belief systems and believe their own position to be the correct one.

2. Be proactive and interpret problems
Find “pressure points” in processes or projects. Flag these up for management, who may be blindsided by petty disputes about individual personalities. Even if you don’t prevent a conflict, it will inform your approach when one develops.

3. Use negotiation techniques
Discuss the interests rather than stated positions — avoid the language of conflict. Concentrate on generating options for satisfying interests. Present diplomatically: even if mediation shows a particular point of view wins out hands-down, it’s a solution for all; not a victory for those who always supported it.

4. Ratify agreements and build on them
Record areas of agreement in a document as mediation progresses. Eventually, this will become your “treaty.” Get all parties to agree on a timescale and mechanism for implementation. This is the rewarding part: conflict can lead to progress and even innovation.

5. Build trust always
An environment where trust breaks down is one where strife is likely. Open-up a permanent communication channel between any parties, which have the potential for conflict: e.g. many companies only brief unions when there’s bad news; smarter ones consult them regularly. A neutral (as possible) observer should be present at any negotiations.

Many companies only brief unions when there’s bad news; smarter ones consult them regularly.

6. Establish joint communication mechanisms
What does joint communication look like in your organization? As in #5, it might be a weekly union-management committee, but it could also be a standing joint communication group formed after a merger, for example. The challenge will be to produce credible communications all the group can agree on.

7. Know your key business drivers
What are the productivity, quality or process issues that could cause a conflict and dominate negotiations? (For example, when tackling a specific project, it might be clear your board is customer-focused and your shopfloor more concerned about safety.) Business knowledge will help you to reconcile these perspectives around common goals.

What are the productivity, quality or process issues that could cause a conflict and dominate negotiations?

8. Beware cultural conflicts
Culture clashes are conflict incubators, so make a special effort to understand different culture types and the interaction between them. Map out these factors and look for intersections between different groups. Target your communication efforts here, as these are the pressure points where culture clashes are likely to occur.

9. Prepare for conflict to occur anywhere
Conflict can break out between individuals, teams, or at a structural level. From competitors to merging organizations, to functional groups or individual employees, all will need mediation and solutions.

10. Don’t let communication create conflict
Communication should be used to prevent conflict; it would be a cardinal sin to create it. Practice “air traffic control” to weed out any contradictory messages. It may seem obvious, but avoid any blame-laying or provocative messages. A company once fired staff by email: would you be less or more inclined to go quietly in this situation?

Use tax season to strengthen relationships.

Remember the mantra "health, wealth, and children" from Never Eat Alone? Well, tax season is a prime opportunity to offer some very generous assistance to others in the wealth category.

So do your best to look beyond the stress and hassle we all deal with this time of year and find opportunities to strengthen relationships by helping others -- and yourself -- save a few bucks. Here are two suggestions:

1 - Identify three people in a similar tax situation as yourself and reach out to them to discuss legal and appropriate strategies for tax savings that you might have in common.

2 - Gather those people for lunch with a financial advisor. You'll all benefit from the advisor's expertise (at no charge) and the advisor will appreciate the introduction a new group of potential clients. Also consider holding a series of these lunches with a different financial advisor each time, even after you file your taxes. You'll learn from the varied perspectives and your friends will appreciate the help in proactively planning for next year.

Warmest,

Keith Ferrazzi

Keith Ferrazzi on Relationships for Group Success
Live March 19, 2008 - 11am - 12:30pm EST
Via satellite or webcast

Register for an individual viewing for $249 or register as a team for as little as $1,500.*

How do you regard people? Are they a primary joy in your life, fun to be with? Are they a necessary evil through which you must "'manage" to get work done? Are they toll collectors on your way to success: I'll do a favor for you if you do a favor for me?

Keith Ferrazzi suggests that people ARE your success. Building relationships isn't simply about being nice or extroverted. Being friendly is important, but effectively building relationships requires much more than a warm smile or a firm handshake.

Think of your own company. If yours is like most, sales folks tend to interact with sales, marketing with marketing, R&D with R&D, and so on. Now think of those who have achieved success in your company. Chances are they are also the most connected.

Keith Ferrazzi will share his insights to building successful relationships for group and company success.

Join us and you will learn to:
* Understand the seven stages of relationship building
* Contribute to your firm's success by proactively building relationships with people both inside and outside the organization
* Avoid unconstructive behaviors that prevent you from getting out of your own way
* Leverage this knowledge of relationships for increased employee retention and shareholder value
* Decipher and value key aspects of your professional and personal success





Keith Ferrazzi is one of the rare individuals who discovered the essential formula for making his way to the top -- a powerful and balanced combination of marketing acumen and networking savvy. Both Forbes and Inc. magazines have designated him one of the world's most "connected" individuals. As Founder and CEO of Ferrazzi Greenlight, he provides market leaders with advanced strategic consulting and training services to increase company sales and enhance personal careers.


Ferrazzi Greenlight strategically leverages the insight of its executives, whose careers span the highest echelons of corporate America, along with principles from Ferrazzi's best-selling book, Never Eat Alone. Ferrazzi is a frequent contributor to CNN and CNBC. He has authored numerous articles for leading business and consumer publications, including Forbes, Inc, The Wall Street Journal, the Harvard Business Review, and Reader's Digest.

http://linkage.sgml1.com/Linkagelz//lz.aspx?p1=20594246S481&CC=DISL08-EM4&w=1168

Building a High Performance Business Culture: The Executive’s Role
By Daniel Denison

All organizations create unique cultures as they grow and develop over time. From a small family-owned business operating in their local market to the largest global corporations spanning dozens of national cultures and time zones, each one has a distinct identity. A mind-boggling array of unique factors combines to shape a complex human organization over the years.

The culture of an organization always reflects the accumulated wisdom that comes from the lessons people learn as they adapt and survive together over time. It’s complex! The thousands of little routines that knit together the fabric of the firm translate timeless knowledge in timely action on a daily basis. The traditional habits and customs that have kept the firm alive and well over time speak loud and clear. When uncertainty rears its ugly head, the culture rules! All members of the corporate tribe tend to fall back on their tried and true methods to weather the storm.
So try as we might, the knowledge embedded in our corporate cultures is always yesterday’s knowledge, developed to meet the challenges of the past. What part of the past should be preserved for the future? How should the principles of the past be adapted to address the problems of the future? How should we go about the delicate task of placing the obsolete practices of the past in the corporate museum so that they are not in the path of our best customers?

What is the role of a top executive in addressing these challenges? Should they ignore it all and try to concentrate on their expense ratios, analyst reports, and latest acquisitions? Probably not! Many recent studies show that top executives now see shaping and managing the corporate culture as one of the major challenges. Why? Former IBM Chairman Lou Gerstner gave us the answer in his best seller, “Who says elephants can’t dance?”

I came to see in my time at IBM, that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game – it IS the game. In the end, an organization is no more than the collective capacity of its people to create value. Vision, strategy, marketing, financial management – any management system, in fact – can set you on the right path and can carry you for a while. But no enterprise – whether in business, government, education, health care, or any area of human endeavor – will succeed over the long haul if those elements aren’t part of its DNA.

But where do you start? If, for a moment, we can sweep most of the complexity under the rug, it is important to note that research over the past two or three decades has shown that there are four main ways that an organization’s culture has an impact on business performance: Through an organization’s sense of mission; its level of adaptability; the degree of involvement of the people; and the consistency provided by the foundation. These are the areas that most clearly impact business performance, so this is where we believe the journey should begin.



Over the past twenty years, we’ve studied the link between organizational culture and business performance, trying to understand the cultural traits that are shared by high performance organizations. Out of this research we’ve developed a survey, which is widely used to diagnosing organizations and drive the change process. Here’s what we’ve found about “What Counts.”

Mission. Successful organizations have a clear sense of purpose and direction that allows them to define organizational goals and strategies and to create a compelling vision of the organization’s future. Leaders play a critical role in defining mission, but a mission can only succeed if it is well understood top to bottom. A clear mission provides purpose and meaning by defining a compelling social role and a set of goals for the organization. Our survey process measures three aspects of mission, strategic direction and intent, goals and objectives, and vision.

Adaptability. A strong sense of purpose and direction must be complemented by a high degree of flexibility and responsiveness to the business environment. Organizations with a strong sense of purpose and direction can often be the ones that are the least adaptive and the most difficult to change. Adaptable organizations quickly translate the demands of the organizational environment into action. This trait is measured with three indexes, creating change, customer focus, and organizational learning.

Involvement. Effective organizations empower and engage their people, build their organization around teams, and develop human capability at all levels. Organizational members are highly committed to their work, and feel a strong sense of engagement and ownership. People at all levels feel that they have input into the decisions that affect their work and feel that their work is directly connected to the goals of the organization. We measure this cultural trait with three indexes, empowerment, team orientation, and capability development.

Consistency. Organizations are most effective when they are consistent and well integrated. Behavior must be rooted in a set of core values, and people must be skilled at putting these values into action by reaching agreement while incorporating diverse points of view. These organizations have highly committed employees, a distinct method of doing business, a tendency to promote from within, and a clear set of “do's” and “don'ts.” This type of consistency is a powerful source of stability and internal integration. We measure this trait with three indexes, core values, agreement, and coordination and integration.

This model focuses our attention on a set of tensions or contradictions. The trade-off between stability and flexibility and the trade-off between internal and external focus are basic to the model. The “diagonal” tensions are also important to understand. Achieving both internal consistency and external adaptability is easier said than done, while reconciling mission and involvement requires that firms achieve both top-down direction and bottom-up influence.

Linking Organizational Culture and Business Performance
Our published studies over the past two decades have explored many aspects of the link between organizational culture and business performance. These studies have examined the link between the four basic traits in the model and performance measures such as profitability, sales growth, quality, innovation, and market value. The model has also been used to create a survey-based diagnostic benchmarking process designed to help organizations focus on the issues that need attention. For busy executives, this means that their approach to a “soft & fuzzy” issue like corporate culture can also be a process to drive performance improvement. The results of this process are highly actionable and help an organization move beyond a discussion of employee satisfaction and employee engagement to better understand the actions that they can take to build their organization for the future.
For more information, please join us for one of our presentations at the Linkage’s Best of Organizational Development Summit or join us for the two-day workshop that follows the summit. Or visit www.denisonculture.com.

Common Pitfalls Spoil Leadership Programs


Princeton, N.J. — July 19
Corporate leadership development programs often fail to achieve their objectives because of all-too familiar pitfalls, according to global consultants and trainers BlessingWhite.

“Senior executives go off-site for a team-building program with noble intentions and an ambitious agenda, but weeks afterward, they find so little benefit for their time and effort,” said BlessingWhite Vice President of Consulting Stephen Parker. “Regrettably, this is not unusual for executive development retreats. What surprises us is that many organizations continue to make the same mistakes.”

BlessingWhite identified five common pitfalls:
Urgency overrides preparation. Seeing a pressing need to address key issues, the CEO wants his team to meet as soon as possible, but such urgency may prevent effective preparation. The event becomes so time-driven that top management insists on squeezing it into the schedule, and there is not time enough to involve stakeholders beforehand.
Trendiness triumphs over consequence. Rather than concentrate on real business and strategic matters the program might become occupied with a discussion of the latest management best-seller. Participants might find the discussion diverting, but the substantive contribution will likely be marginal and the application zero.
Participants fail to engage emotionally. Team members might not disagree with the thrust of the program but just as often leave the meeting with no reason to change — although everyone might nod in agreement, they might not necessarily come away caring enough to overcome the discomfort of trying something new.
The CEO cannot contain himself. A leadership off-site seldom begins without the CEO calling upon everyone to “speak up.” But almost inevitably, the CEO mistakes vehemence for leadership and can scarcely keep his forceful personality in check. So, as expected, participants are intimidated, and candor is forfeited.
Awkward issues are not confronted. Not surprisingly, team members are often not inclined to look at their own behaviors and personal flaws or to consider how they might affect performance. Effective leadership calls for self-awareness, as well as willingness to change.

Parker said even the best development programs will fail to have an impact if the organization’s culture is not receptive to change.

“Too often executives want leadership development to be the magic pill, except that if a company’s culture punishes risk taking — or worse, rewards the same behaviors that need changing — then training and development are beside the point.”

Parker also said HR professionals have a tendency to look for the “new” methodology or insight, neglecting classic, proven techniques for maximizing team performance and driving behavioral change.

“With HR in charge, the new and sexy can drive out the good, when all the CEO wants is something that works,” he said.

BlessingWhite is a global consulting firm dedicated to creating sustainable high-performance organizations.

http://www.clomedia.com/industry_news/2007/July/834/index.php

December 07, 2007
5 Pitfalls to Successful Leadership Programs--And How to Avoid Them

You're thrilled to finally get the go-ahead for a leadership retreat, but your excitement dwindles when you learn that the CEO wants the program put together in 2 weeks.

That is one of several common pitfalls that prevent leadership programs from achieving their objectives, says Stephen Parker, vice president of consulting for BlessingWhite (www.blessingwhite.com), a global consulting and training firm.

Parker identifies the pitfalls and explains how HR can help avoid them:
Urgency overrides preparation. The CEO's desire to have the executive team meet as soon as possible is pursued at the expense of effective preparation. In such a case, it's up to HR to push for more time to effectively prepare a program that will achieve the desired results, according to Parker. Alternatively, HR needs to explain what can be achieved in the limited time frame--and what cannot.‑‑‑
Trendiness triumphs over consequence. Sometimes a CEO reads the latest management bestseller and then asks HR to build a leadership program around it, Parker says. However, such programs don't address how to apply the management theory.That's why it's important for HR to ask questions and find out why a book is so appealing to the CEO. HR can then explain that the book would be "a great launching pad" for a leadership program, which should include practical strategies for applying the theory, he says.
Participants fail to engage emotionally. Often, participants will nod in agreement, but they aren't convinced of the need to change the way they lead, Parker explains. HR can help by ensuring that leadership programs include the opportunity for reflection, according to Parker. He says the title of an article by Robert Goffee and Gareth Jones in the September/October 2000 issue of the Harvard Business Review offers the perfect question for getting executives to reflect on their own leadership style: "Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?" Parker says, "The title is stunning. That's the kind of question you want to ask your senior people. It stops them in their tracks."
The CEO cannot contain himself. When the CEO encourages people to speak up, the request may come across in an intimidating fashion, making participants leery of being candid. Parker says HR can help by coaching the CEO in advance that his or her verbal and nonverbal cues can impact how candid participants are. CEOs also should be encouraged to discuss their own challenges to build a sense of trust, he explains.
Awkward issues are not confronted. Executives must be willing to look at their own behaviors and personal flaws and be willing to change. Parker uses the example of an executive who had agreed with participants that they needed to pay better attention to one another and that they should put the BlackBerry® away. Then the executive checked his a few times, but no one spoke up about it. He says it is important for HR to remind participants that they need to hold each other accountable, even though "it can be lonely the first time."

5 Strategies for Effective Succession Planning

This article first appeared on HR.BLR.com December 13, 2007.
Reproduced with permission. HR.BLR.com

Angela Hills believes passionately in coaching high-potential employees to prepare them for their next job — and the next, and the next. She is a vice president for consulting firm BlessingWhite and heads its Chicago office. And, she addressed a packed audience with a packed talk on succession planning at the recent convention of the Society for Human Resource Management.

Why bother with succession planning?

Hills described how the planning process has evolved over time. In "the old days," she said, the CEO simply looked around for someone smart (but not too smart), and accomplished (but not too much), charming (but no more charming than the CEO himself), and malleable. He then groomed his successor personally. These days, she admits ruefully, succession systems can be so elaborate that they're daunting.

At the same time, the process is harder to do than it used to be because:
(1) Globalization has increased the diversity of workplaces and employees, and business complexity has skyrocketed.
(2) Much middle management has been eliminated, so that grooming time is reduced and the gap between one job and the next above it is much larger than it was.
(3) Employees are much more likely to hop from one employer to another, so HR doesn't know who it will have tomorrow.
But Hills feels those factors make a solid succession plan more necessary than ever before. The essentials of a good process, she says, are engaging and developing your targeted high performers. Recruiting and selection are also important, but not as high a priority.


Where do we start?

Hills suggests that the first step for an organization is to identify its core strategy, which may not be the same across the whole company. Do you tend to buy or build? Look not just at whether people tend to be promoted from within (building) or hired from outside (buying). Also review the firm's modes of adding new systems or functions. Are they bought from outside or built inside? Then assess the advantages of each: Hiring from outside can bring in new technologies not available inside, as well as new ideas and ways of doing things. Companies that always promote and develop existing employees can become very insular. But the down side is that acquiring new talent can be extremely expensive.

By going internal, you save money, enhance employee engagement and morale, and gain ample time to get to know promotion candidates quite well. Another good preparation step is to evaluate the organization's approach to two goals: Is it primarily results-oriented, mostly focused on organizational culture, or is there a good balance between the two? Finally, Hills recommends five strategies for effective succession planning.

(1) Measure for the three Cs of fitness. Continually measure potential future leaders on the basis of their competence, connection, and culture. How strong are their business and planning skills? How well do they connect with other people? And how closely, and with how much passion, do they model the organization's chosen culture? Hills suggests that competence and connection are both crucial, though at times at odds. Some leaders are so sure of the rightness of their own ideas and vision that they stifle contributions from others, which eventually weakens the organization. But being too open to others' ideas leads to the perception that the leader is wishy-washy.

(2) Implement tools for development. Magic in the mix is a set of tools for developing those chosen as future leaders. There are three — job experience, coaching, and formal learning. Job experience is not what's on the employee's résumé when he or she was hired, but the job rotations, projects, and special assignments that the individual is given once in the company. Coaching should be done by as many different managers as possible, and top management participation in coaching key candidates is crucial. Formal learning involves identifying personal attributes that the company wants in its leaders — usually soft skills — and bringing high potentials together periodically to learn them. Candidates also use these sessions to network with one another.

(3) Involve talent in the planning. Hills tells the story of a client company that carefully planned to diversify its top management by maneuvering to promote a particular woman to a big job. The opportunity finally came, they presented the promotion to the candidate — who promptly turned it down. The moral of the story is that once selected, candidates should be interviewed periodically about what they would choose as their next job, what they feel they learned most from the past job, and other wishes.

(4) Cast a wider net — in a bigger ocean. Developing a small coterie of candidates to eventually fill a handful of key jobs can be shortsighted. Dig deeper, select more potential leaders, and don't pigeon-hole them. See how each develops and how the business changes, keeping each in mind for any one of several possible slots.

(5) Focus on the future. The talent you need today isn't the same as you'll need in 5 years, so develop both flexibility and vision. Imagine coming business developments — "look around the corner," as Hills says — and then seek the talent that may be needed for the changes

FindArticles > Journal for Quality and Participation, The > Summer 2007 > Article > Print friendly

Which Workplace Habits Do You Need to Break to Become More Successful?
Goldsmith, Marshall

Renowned leadership coach Marshall Goldsmith shares his insights on how successful people can achieve even greater accomplishments.

Higher levels of achievement are attained not only by learning and honing new behaviors or skills, but also by putting a stop to one or more of 21 annoying workplace habits! This excerpt from Marshall Goldsmith's new book, What Got You Here Won't Get You There, can help you identify the behaviors that may serve as a roadblock to higher achievements.

With successful people likely to focus on their successes rather than failures, there are four key beliefs regarding success that actually prevent us from changing our ways and achieving even greater success, as described below:

* Belief 1: I Have Succeeded-Successful people believe in their skills and talents.

* Belief 2: I Can Succeed-Successful people believe they have the capability within themselves to make desirable things happen. People who believe they can succeed see opportunities where others see threats. They're not afraid of uncertainty of ambiguity. They embrace it. They want to take greater risks and achieve greater returns. Given the choice, they will always bet on themselves.

* Belief 3: I Will Succeed-Successful people have an unflappable optimism. They not only believe that they can manufacture success, they believe it's practically their due.

* Believe 4: I Choose to Succeed-Successful people believe that they are doing what they choose to do because they choose to do it. They have a high need for self-determination. The more successful a person is, the more likely this is to be true.

These four success beliefs-that we have the skills, confidence, motivation, and the free choice to succeed-make us superstitious. Psychologically speaking, superstitious behavior comes from the mistaken belief that a specific activity that is followed by positive reinforcement is actually the cause of that positive reinforcement. The activity may be functional or not-that is, it may affect someone or something else, or it may be self-contained and pointless- but if something good happens after we do it, then we make a connection and seek to repeat the activity. Superstition is merely the confusion of correlation and causality. Any human, like any animal, tends to repeat behavior that is followed by positive reinforcement. The more we achieve, the more reinforcement we get.

One of the greatest mistakes of successful people is the assumption, "I behave this way, and I achieve results. Therefore, I must be achieving results because I behave this way." This belief is sometimes true but not across the board. That's where superstition kicks in. I'm talking about the difference between success that happens because of our behavior and the success that comes in spite of our behavior. Almost everyone I meet is successful because of doing a lot of things right, and almost everyone I meet is successful in spite of some behavior that defies common sense.

Identifying Your Most Annoying Interpersonal Issues

What we are dealing with here are challenges in interpersonal behavior, often leadership behavior. They are the egregious everyday annoyances that make your workplace substantially more noxious than it needs to be. They don't happen in a vacuum. They are transactional flaws performed by one person who is relating to other people. These 21 habits, described briefly below, stand in the way of great leaders reaching higher levels of accomplishment:

1. Winning too much: The need to win at all costs and in all situations-when it matters, when it doesn't, and when it's totally beside the point. Winning too much is easily the most common behavioral problem that I observe in successful people. There's a fine line between being competitive and over-competitive, between winning when it counts and when no one's counting-and successful people cross that line with alarming frequency. Winning too much is the number one challenge because it underlies nearly every other behavioral problem.

2. Adding too much value: The overwhelming desire to add our two cents to every discussion. It's common among leaders used to running the show. It is extremely difficult for successful people to listen to other people tell them something that they already know without communicating somehow that "we already knew that" and "we know a better way."

3. Passing judgment: The need to rate others and impose our standards on them. There's nothing wrong with offering an opinion in the normal give and take of business discussions. You want people to agree or disagree freely, but it's not appropriate to pass judgment when we specifically ask people to voice their opinions about us.

4. Making destructive comments: The needless sarcasm and cutting remarks that we think make us sound sharp and witty. They are different from comments that add too much value-because they add nothing but pain. We don't think we make destructive comments, but the people who know us disagree.

5. Starting with "no, " "but, " and "however": The overuse of these negative qualifiers, which secretly say to everyone, "I'm right. You're wrong. " When you start a sentence with "no," "but," "however," or any variation, no matter how friendly your tone or how many cute mollifying phrases you throw in to acknowledge the other person's feelings, the message to the other person is, "You are wrong." The general response from the other person is to dispute your position and fight back. From there, the conversation dissolves into a pointless war. You're no longer communicating. You're both trying to win.

6. Telling the world how smart we are: The need to show people we're smarter than they think we are. This is another variation on our need to win. We need to win people's admiration. We need to let them know that we are least their intellectual equal if not their superior. We need to be the smartest person in the room. It usually backfires.

7. Speaking when angry: Using emotional volatility as a management tool. Emotional volatility is not the most reliable leadership tool. When you get angry you are usually out of control. It's hard to lead people when you've lost control. The worst thing about anger is how it stifles our ability to change. Once you get a reputation for emotional volatility, you are branded for life.

8. Negativity, or "Let me explain why that won't work": The need to share our negative thoughts even when we weren't asked. This is unique because it is pure unadulterated negativity under the guise of being helpful. We employ it to establish that our expertise or authority is superior to someone else's. It doesn't mean that what we say is correct or useful. It's simply a way of inserting ourselves into a situation as chief arbitet or senior critic.

9. Withholding information: The refusal to share information to maintain an advantage over others. Intentionally withholding information is the opposite of adding value. We are deleting value. Yet is has the same purpose: to gain power. The problem with not sharing information - for whatever reason - is that it rarely achieves the desired effect. You may think you're gaining an edge and consolidating power, but you're actually breeding mistrust.

10. Failing to give proper recognition: The inability to praise and reward. This is a sibling of withholding information. In withholding your recognition of another person's contribution to a team's success, you are not only sowing injustice and treating people unfairly, but you also are depriving people of the emotional payoff that comes with success.

1 1 . Claiming credit that we don 't deserve: The most annoying way to overestimate our contribution to any success. Claiming credit is adding insult to the injury that comes with overlooked recognition. We're not only depriving people of the credit they deserve, but we are hogging it for ourselves. It's two crimes in one. This is another sibling of the need to win.

12. Making excuses: The need to reposition our annoying behavior as a permanent fixture so people excuse us for it. If we can stop excusing ourselves, we can get better at almost anything we choose.

13. Clinging to the past: The need to deflect blame away from ourselves and onto events and people from our past; a subset of blaming everyone else. Many people enjoy living in the past, especially if going back there lets them blame someone else for anything that's gone wrong in their lives. That's when clinging to the past becomes an interpersonal problem. We use the past as a weapon against others.

1 4. Playingfavorites: Failing to see that we are treating someone unfairly. The net result (of playing favorites) is manifestly obvious. You're encouraging behavior that serves you but not necessarily the best interests of the company. If everyone is fawning over the boss, who's getting the work done? Worse, it tilts the field against the honest, principled employees who won't play along. This is a double hit of bad news. You're not only playing favorites but also favoring the wrong people.

15. Refusing to express regret: The inability to take responsibility for our actions, admit we're wrong, or recognize how our actions affect others. Perhaps we think apologizing means we have lost a contest (and successful people have a practically irrational need to win at everything). Perhaps we find it painful to admit we were wrong (we rarely have to apologize for being right). Whatever the reasons, refusing to apologize causes as much ill will in the workplace as any other interpersonal flaw.

16. Not listening: The most passive-aggressive form of disrespect for colleagues. When you fail to listen, you're sending out an armada of negative messages. You're saying, "I don't care about you. I don't understand you. You're wrong. You're stupid. You're wasting my time. All of the above."

17. Failing to express gratitude: The most basic form of bad manners. Like apologizing, thanking is a magical super-gesture of interpersonal relations. It's what you say when you have nothing nice to say-and it will never annoy the person hearing it. Gratitude is a skill that we can never display too often.

18. Punishing the messenger: The misguided need to attack the innocent who are usually only trying to help us. Punishing the messenger is like taking the worst elements of not giving recognition and hogging the credit, passing the buck, making destructive comments, and not thanking or listening-and then adding anger to the mix.

19. Passing the buck: The need to blame everyone but ourselves. Passing the buck is one of those terrifying hybrid flaws. Take a healthy dose of needing to win and making excuses. Mix it with refusing to apologize and failing to give proper recognition. Sprinkle in a faint hint of punish the messenger and getting angry. What you end up with is passing the buck. Blaming others for our mistakes. This is the behavioral flaw by which we judge our leaders-as important a negative attribute as positive qualities such as brainpower, courage, and resourcefulness. A leader who cannot shoulder the blame is not someone we will follow into battle. We instinctively question that individual's character, dependability, and loyalty to us. And so we hold back our loyalty to him or her.

20. An excessive need to be "me": Exalting our faults as virtues simply because they're who we are. Each of us has a pile of behavior that we define as "me. " It's the chronic behavior, both positive and negative, that we think of as our inalterable essence. Over time, it would be easy for each of us to cross the line and begin to make a virtue of our flaws-simply because the flaws constitute what we think of as "me." This misguided loyalty to our true natures - this excessive need to be me-is one of the toughest obstacles to making positive long-term change in our behavior.

Finally, the 21st workplace habit, "goal obsession." There's a reason I have given goal obsession a special stand-alone place in this section on our interpersonal challenges. By itself, goal obsession is not a flaw. Unlike adding value or punishing the messenger or any of the other 20 habits, goal obsession is not transactional; it's not something you do to another person. It is, however, often the root cause of the annoying behavior. Goal obsession turns us into someone we shouldn't be.

Goal obsession is one of those paradoxical traits we accept as a driver of our success. It's the force that motivates us to finish the job in the face of any obstacle-and finish it perfectly-a valuable attribute much of the time. It's hard to criticize people for wanting to do things 100% right (especially when you consider the sloppy alternative). Taken too far, however, it can become a blatant cause of failure. In its broadest form, goal obsession is the force at play when we get so wrapped up in achieving our goal that we do it at the expense of a larger mission.

Admittedly, this is a scary pantheon of challenges, and when they're collected in one place they sound like a chamber of horrors. Who would want to work in an environment where co-workers are guilty of these sins? Yet we do every day.

We are all guilty of most of these "sins" some of the time. You may know one person who is chronically guilty of one or two of them, while another person has different issues. Hopefully, you don't work with anyone who frequently exhibits all of these failings! Focusing on one or two key areas for change simplifies the task of helping ourselves - or helping others - get better.

There's more good news. It is imminently possible to remove these roadblocks. The potential to fix them is in the skill set of every human being. For example, the cure for not thanking enough is remembering to say, "thank you." How tough is that? For not listening, it's keeping your mouth shut and ears open. For not apologizing, it's learning to say, "I'm sorry. I'll do better in the future." For punishing the messenger, it's imagining how we'd like to be treated under similar circumstances. And so on.

This stuff is simple. It's definitely not easy, but it is definitely doable! You already know what to do. It's as basic as tying your shoelaces or riding a bike, or any other skill that lasts a lifetime. We just lose sight of the many daily opportunities to employ them and thus we get rusty.

Check yourself against the list. While it is imminently possible you may have been guilty of all of them at least once, it's unlikely that you're facing all of these roadblocks as daily activities. It's not even likely that you can claim six to eight of them as common occurrences. Even if you could, of those six to eight, it's also unlikely that all of them are sufficiently significant concerns that we have to worry about. Some are going to be more serious issues than others. For example, if only one out of 20 people says that you have an anger management issue, let it go. On the other hand, if 16 out of 20 say it, let's get to work.

Whittle down the list to the vital issues, and you'll know where to get started.

This is used with the permission of the author and publisher.

Marshall Goldsmith is co-founder of Marshall Goldsmith Partners. He served as a member of the board of directors of the Peter Drucker Foundation for 10 years. Goldsmith is recognized as a world-class authority in helping successful leaders achieve positive, measurable change in behavior for themselves, their people, and their teams. Goldsmith has worked extensively with more than 70 major CEOs and their management teams. In 2006, Alliant International University renamed their schools of business and organizational psychology the Marshall Goldsmith School of Management. His newest book, What Cot You Here Won't Get You There, isa New YorkTimes best seller and 'Wall Street Journal number one business book. For more information visit marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com.

Copyright Association for Quality and Participation Summer 2007
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved


http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3616/is_200707/ai_n19511366/print

FindArticles > Journal for Quality and Participation, The > Summer 2007 > Article > Print friendly

Which Workplace Habits Do You Need to Break to Become More Successful?
Goldsmith, Marshall

Renowned leadership coach Marshall Goldsmith shares his insights on how successful people can achieve even greater accomplishments.

Higher levels of achievement are attained not only by learning and honing new behaviors or skills, but also by putting a stop to one or more of 21 annoying workplace habits! This excerpt from Marshall Goldsmith's new book, What Got You Here Won't Get You There, can help you identify the behaviors that may serve as a roadblock to higher achievements.

With successful people likely to focus on their successes rather than failures, there are four key beliefs regarding success that actually prevent us from changing our ways and achieving even greater success, as described below:

* Belief 1: I Have Succeeded-Successful people believe in their skills and talents.

* Belief 2: I Can Succeed-Successful people believe they have the capability within themselves to make desirable things happen. People who believe they can succeed see opportunities where others see threats. They're not afraid of uncertainty of ambiguity. They embrace it. They want to take greater risks and achieve greater returns. Given the choice, they will always bet on themselves.

* Belief 3: I Will Succeed-Successful people have an unflappable optimism. They not only believe that they can manufacture success, they believe it's practically their due.

* Believe 4: I Choose to Succeed-Successful people believe that they are doing what they choose to do because they choose to do it. They have a high need for self-determination. The more successful a person is, the more likely this is to be true.

These four success beliefs-that we have the skills, confidence, motivation, and the free choice to succeed-make us superstitious. Psychologically speaking, superstitious behavior comes from the mistaken belief that a specific activity that is followed by positive reinforcement is actually the cause of that positive reinforcement. The activity may be functional or not-that is, it may affect someone or something else, or it may be self-contained and pointless- but if something good happens after we do it, then we make a connection and seek to repeat the activity. Superstition is merely the confusion of correlation and causality. Any human, like any animal, tends to repeat behavior that is followed by positive reinforcement. The more we achieve, the more reinforcement we get.

One of the greatest mistakes of successful people is the assumption, "I behave this way, and I achieve results. Therefore, I must be achieving results because I behave this way." This belief is sometimes true but not across the board. That's where superstition kicks in. I'm talking about the difference between success that happens because of our behavior and the success that comes in spite of our behavior. Almost everyone I meet is successful because of doing a lot of things right, and almost everyone I meet is successful in spite of some behavior that defies common sense.

Identifying Your Most Annoying Interpersonal Issues

What we are dealing with here are challenges in interpersonal behavior, often leadership behavior. They are the egregious everyday annoyances that make your workplace substantially more noxious than it needs to be. They don't happen in a vacuum. They are transactional flaws performed by one person who is relating to other people. These 21 habits, described briefly below, stand in the way of great leaders reaching higher levels of accomplishment:

1. Winning too much: The need to win at all costs and in all situations-when it matters, when it doesn't, and when it's totally beside the point. Winning too much is easily the most common behavioral problem that I observe in successful people. There's a fine line between being competitive and over-competitive, between winning when it counts and when no one's counting-and successful people cross that line with alarming frequency. Winning too much is the number one challenge because it underlies nearly every other behavioral problem.

2. Adding too much value: The overwhelming desire to add our two cents to every discussion. It's common among leaders used to running the show. It is extremely difficult for successful people to listen to other people tell them something that they already know without communicating somehow that "we already knew that" and "we know a better way."

3. Passing judgment: The need to rate others and impose our standards on them. There's nothing wrong with offering an opinion in the normal give and take of business discussions. You want people to agree or disagree freely, but it's not appropriate to pass judgment when we specifically ask people to voice their opinions about us.

4. Making destructive comments: The needless sarcasm and cutting remarks that we think make us sound sharp and witty. They are different from comments that add too much value-because they add nothing but pain. We don't think we make destructive comments, but the people who know us disagree.

5. Starting with "no, " "but, " and "however": The overuse of these negative qualifiers, which secretly say to everyone, "I'm right. You're wrong. " When you start a sentence with "no," "but," "however," or any variation, no matter how friendly your tone or how many cute mollifying phrases you throw in to acknowledge the other person's feelings, the message to the other person is, "You are wrong." The general response from the other person is to dispute your position and fight back. From there, the conversation dissolves into a pointless war. You're no longer communicating. You're both trying to win.

6. Telling the world how smart we are: The need to show people we're smarter than they think we are. This is another variation on our need to win. We need to win people's admiration. We need to let them know that we are least their intellectual equal if not their superior. We need to be the smartest person in the room. It usually backfires.

7. Speaking when angry: Using emotional volatility as a management tool. Emotional volatility is not the most reliable leadership tool. When you get angry you are usually out of control. It's hard to lead people when you've lost control. The worst thing about anger is how it stifles our ability to change. Once you get a reputation for emotional volatility, you are branded for life.

8. Negativity, or "Let me explain why that won't work": The need to share our negative thoughts even when we weren't asked. This is unique because it is pure unadulterated negativity under the guise of being helpful. We employ it to establish that our expertise or authority is superior to someone else's. It doesn't mean that what we say is correct or useful. It's simply a way of inserting ourselves into a situation as chief arbitet or senior critic.

9. Withholding information: The refusal to share information to maintain an advantage over others. Intentionally withholding information is the opposite of adding value. We are deleting value. Yet is has the same purpose: to gain power. The problem with not sharing information - for whatever reason - is that it rarely achieves the desired effect. You may think you're gaining an edge and consolidating power, but you're actually breeding mistrust.

10. Failing to give proper recognition: The inability to praise and reward. This is a sibling of withholding information. In withholding your recognition of another person's contribution to a team's success, you are not only sowing injustice and treating people unfairly, but you also are depriving people of the emotional payoff that comes with success.

1 1 . Claiming credit that we don 't deserve: The most annoying way to overestimate our contribution to any success. Claiming credit is adding insult to the injury that comes with overlooked recognition. We're not only depriving people of the credit they deserve, but we are hogging it for ourselves. It's two crimes in one. This is another sibling of the need to win.

12. Making excuses: The need to reposition our annoying behavior as a permanent fixture so people excuse us for it. If we can stop excusing ourselves, we can get better at almost anything we choose.

13. Clinging to the past: The need to deflect blame away from ourselves and onto events and people from our past; a subset of blaming everyone else. Many people enjoy living in the past, especially if going back there lets them blame someone else for anything that's gone wrong in their lives. That's when clinging to the past becomes an interpersonal problem. We use the past as a weapon against others.

1 4. Playingfavorites: Failing to see that we are treating someone unfairly. The net result (of playing favorites) is manifestly obvious. You're encouraging behavior that serves you but not necessarily the best interests of the company. If everyone is fawning over the boss, who's getting the work done? Worse, it tilts the field against the honest, principled employees who won't play along. This is a double hit of bad news. You're not only playing favorites but also favoring the wrong people.

15. Refusing to express regret: The inability to take responsibility for our actions, admit we're wrong, or recognize how our actions affect others. Perhaps we think apologizing means we have lost a contest (and successful people have a practically irrational need to win at everything). Perhaps we find it painful to admit we were wrong (we rarely have to apologize for being right). Whatever the reasons, refusing to apologize causes as much ill will in the workplace as any other interpersonal flaw.

16. Not listening: The most passive-aggressive form of disrespect for colleagues. When you fail to listen, you're sending out an armada of negative messages. You're saying, "I don't care about you. I don't understand you. You're wrong. You're stupid. You're wasting my time. All of the above."

17. Failing to express gratitude: The most basic form of bad manners. Like apologizing, thanking is a magical super-gesture of interpersonal relations. It's what you say when you have nothing nice to say-and it will never annoy the person hearing it. Gratitude is a skill that we can never display too often.

18. Punishing the messenger: The misguided need to attack the innocent who are usually only trying to help us. Punishing the messenger is like taking the worst elements of not giving recognition and hogging the credit, passing the buck, making destructive comments, and not thanking or listening-and then adding anger to the mix.

19. Passing the buck: The need to blame everyone but ourselves. Passing the buck is one of those terrifying hybrid flaws. Take a healthy dose of needing to win and making excuses. Mix it with refusing to apologize and failing to give proper recognition. Sprinkle in a faint hint of punish the messenger and getting angry. What you end up with is passing the buck. Blaming others for our mistakes. This is the behavioral flaw by which we judge our leaders-as important a negative attribute as positive qualities such as brainpower, courage, and resourcefulness. A leader who cannot shoulder the blame is not someone we will follow into battle. We instinctively question that individual's character, dependability, and loyalty to us. And so we hold back our loyalty to him or her.

20. An excessive need to be "me": Exalting our faults as virtues simply because they're who we are. Each of us has a pile of behavior that we define as "me. " It's the chronic behavior, both positive and negative, that we think of as our inalterable essence. Over time, it would be easy for each of us to cross the line and begin to make a virtue of our flaws-simply because the flaws constitute what we think of as "me." This misguided loyalty to our true natures - this excessive need to be me-is one of the toughest obstacles to making positive long-term change in our behavior.

Finally, the 21st workplace habit, "goal obsession." There's a reason I have given goal obsession a special stand-alone place in this section on our interpersonal challenges. By itself, goal obsession is not a flaw. Unlike adding value or punishing the messenger or any of the other 20 habits, goal obsession is not transactional; it's not something you do to another person. It is, however, often the root cause of the annoying behavior. Goal obsession turns us into someone we shouldn't be.

Goal obsession is one of those paradoxical traits we accept as a driver of our success. It's the force that motivates us to finish the job in the face of any obstacle-and finish it perfectly-a valuable attribute much of the time. It's hard to criticize people for wanting to do things 100% right (especially when you consider the sloppy alternative). Taken too far, however, it can become a blatant cause of failure. In its broadest form, goal obsession is the force at play when we get so wrapped up in achieving our goal that we do it at the expense of a larger mission.

Admittedly, this is a scary pantheon of challenges, and when they're collected in one place they sound like a chamber of horrors. Who would want to work in an environment where co-workers are guilty of these sins? Yet we do every day.

We are all guilty of most of these "sins" some of the time. You may know one person who is chronically guilty of one or two of them, while another person has different issues. Hopefully, you don't work with anyone who frequently exhibits all of these failings! Focusing on one or two key areas for change simplifies the task of helping ourselves - or helping others - get better.

There's more good news. It is imminently possible to remove these roadblocks. The potential to fix them is in the skill set of every human being. For example, the cure for not thanking enough is remembering to say, "thank you." How tough is that? For not listening, it's keeping your mouth shut and ears open. For not apologizing, it's learning to say, "I'm sorry. I'll do better in the future." For punishing the messenger, it's imagining how we'd like to be treated under similar circumstances. And so on.

This stuff is simple. It's definitely not easy, but it is definitely doable! You already know what to do. It's as basic as tying your shoelaces or riding a bike, or any other skill that lasts a lifetime. We just lose sight of the many daily opportunities to employ them and thus we get rusty.

Check yourself against the list. While it is imminently possible you may have been guilty of all of them at least once, it's unlikely that you're facing all of these roadblocks as daily activities. It's not even likely that you can claim six to eight of them as common occurrences. Even if you could, of those six to eight, it's also unlikely that all of them are sufficiently significant concerns that we have to worry about. Some are going to be more serious issues than others. For example, if only one out of 20 people says that you have an anger management issue, let it go. On the other hand, if 16 out of 20 say it, let's get to work.

Whittle down the list to the vital issues, and you'll know where to get started.

This is used with the permission of the author and publisher.

Marshall Goldsmith is co-founder of Marshall Goldsmith Partners. He served as a member of the board of directors of the Peter Drucker Foundation for 10 years. Goldsmith is recognized as a world-class authority in helping successful leaders achieve positive, measurable change in behavior for themselves, their people, and their teams. Goldsmith has worked extensively with more than 70 major CEOs and their management teams. In 2006, Alliant International University renamed their schools of business and organizational psychology the Marshall Goldsmith School of Management. His newest book, What Cot You Here Won't Get You There, isa New YorkTimes best seller and 'Wall Street Journal number one business book. For more information visit marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com.

Copyright Association for Quality and Participation Summer 2007
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved


http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3616/is_200707/ai_n19511366/print

FindArticles > Journal for Quality and Participation, The > Summer 2007 > Article > Print friendly

Unlocking Genius in Yourself and Your Organization
Gregerman, Alan

Trying to engage people in ways that enhance quality, nurture appropriate innovation, and deliver more compelling value to customers? If so, maybe it's time to take a fresh look at what it takes to bring out the real genius in yourself, your colleagues, and your organization...

Picture this scene repeated almost every day in companies and organizations around the globe as groups of all shapes and sizes meet to attack a pressing business problem or unlock an amazing new opportunity.

They gather in conference rooms, boardrooms, lunchrooms, corner offices, hallways lined with pictures of past successes, private rooms at local restaurants, conference or "retreat" centers, or sometimes outside if the weather permits. They are armed with flipcharts, brightly colored markers, Post It® notes, spreadsheets, Microsoft® PowerPoint® presentations, market studies, customer surveys, competitive intelligence, boat loads of important information downloaded from the Internet, props and toys, a trained or untrained facilitator, a sense of urgency and a list of questions quite possibly inspired by Socrates. Each element is intended to spark their creativity, get them "out-of-the-box," free them from the powerful grip of everyday thinking (and their current reality), and lead to a breakthrough that will, at a minimum, ensure their organization's survival and at best revolutionize their world and life as they-and hopefully the customers - know it.

At the epic moment when the late arrivals have finally appeared, received kidding and absolution for their tardiness, secured the essential super-sized mug of caffeine and taken their seats, the leader of the session begins. "We are at a critical point," he or she laments in a tone reminiscent of some classic movies, "when the future of our group, product, service, organization, entire civilization or _______________ (you can fill in the blank) hangs in the balance. The clock is ticking," (which I always assume is a good thing) he or she continues, "our backs are to the wall," (which generally beats having our fronts to the wall since it suggests that we might be able to see ahead) and we must come up with a newer, better, faster, stronger, easier or otherwise more innovative approach"-e.g., we must build a better mousetrap and a better mouse. Then after a dramatic pause, he or she utters the dreaded and overused phrase: "So, who has an out-of-the-box idea?"

Then there's a moment of silence-quite possibly to pay tribute to those who have tried before them. Though more likely it's because everyone in the room has either wrestled with this issue unsuccessfully before, has no idea why they were chosen for this assignment, is less than eager to put the first marginal idea on the table, or is just plain clueless about what to do. Even though they are told, "there is no such thing as a bad idea," those with ideas fear for the silent scorn and cleverly crafted smirks that might accompany the floating of some half-baked thought. Amid the crash of pins dropping the subtle sound of sarcasm quickly begins to fill the room.

"Ohhhh!?!? You want out-of-the-box ideas!" is the quiet yet resounding cry of those who, in an earlier life, would have been the first to step out on a limb or swing from the monkey bars without a net or a parent to catch them. Then after a moment of silent meditation, a spokesperson for the creatively challenged summons the courage to speak.

"Are we talking about totally new ideas here?" he or she wonders aloud. "I mean things we've never thought of before or are we just supposed to come up with a better way of doing what we're already doing?" In other words, should we dust off the same tired old lame ideas that we've always had for solving this problem? (And hope that the customer thinks it's at least a semi-quantum leap forward?)

"Some new ideas would be great," encourages the group's leader. "After all, the world and our market are changing faster than we ever imagined." Which means, without beating a dead horse around the bush, that: "Competitor X has just redefined quality by launching its amazing new self-fixing wismo," or "Competitor Y has just unveiled its new proactive service warranty," or "Competitor Z has just dropped prices 25%" in an insane (and possibly quite effective) move to crush us like a bug, or the "Citizens we serve are about to revolt if we don't figure out how to dramatically reduce response time."

Now the cat, cleverly disguised as a culture of plodding incrementalism parading as a deer in the headlights, is out of the bag. A scary picture in any world, let alone one that requires dramatic change and fresh thinking.

"We need really new ideas," he or she continues. "Breakthrough ideas. Ideas that will shake up the way we do our business. They need to be implementable by the start of next quarter or before the next total eclipse of our bottom line-whichever comes first."

Then he or she scans the room in the hope that someone, inspired by the moment, will say: "In that case, I have a whole pocketful of new, creative, and totally brilliant ideas to put on the table." Alas, it is not to be.

Lacking a better alternative, they do what any group of self-respecting adults would do. They roll up their sleeves, grab their coffee or soda, and get started. Everyone tries to "brainstorm" as hard as they can, which is no small feat given the big-time constraints of their collective years of formal education combined with the time they've spent in this or any other similar organization (that has been systematically sucking the creativity right out of them since the day they arrived).

For a brief moment at the outset there is some hope that the stars will align and the gods or at least the Tooth Fairy will bring forth from their collective knowledge, wisdom, and experience at least one great and novel idea that will light up the white board, gather momentum, and move into the marketplace (after overcoming a host of internal barriers along the way). But beyond the retreaded concepts and modest enhancements to existing efforts, magic rarely ever springs forth from the confines of their home for the day.

Few breakthroughs happen this way. It's hard to be brilliant sitting on our butts.

Breakthroughs Require Engagement and Imagination

Breakthroughs occur when we leave our comfortable confines and engage the world around us with our senses turned on full blast with a real spirit of curiosity and a readiness to notice and question everything. They occur when we find new stuff-ideas, insights, and things that are remarkable- to stir in the pot and when we test the bounds of other people's (and even other creatures') best thinking against the needs of our customers and our industry. They occur when smart and engaged people are challenged to rediscover the wonder and curiosity of their childhood in a focused and passionate way-by wandering purposefully beyond the boundaries of what we already know. Barring this, our best intentions are doomed to fail.

Breakthroughs typically happen when we build on something that already exists-though not always something that exists in our own industry, marketplace, or discipline. Even the most brilliant ideas have always been inspired by something that someone else has done, thought, or dreamed-in another company or organization, another country or culture, another walk of life, or on a walk in the woods, across the jungle, along the shore, through a museum, or down a bustling city street. Burrs inspired Velcro, birds inspired planes, the powerful sound of gospel music in the streets of Memphis and other cities inspired rock and roll, a boot maker with small-town values named Leon Leonwood Bean inspired important thinking about the value of guaranteeing customer satisfaction, a time 150 years ago when milk was delivered to everyone's door inspired pizza delivery today, the idea of eliminating the middleman inspired one of the world's largest personal computer makers, and so on. It is this inspiration that can rarely be reproduced by simply convening and "brainstorming." Like Benjamin Franklin, we have to stand in a storm to truly be inspired (or electrified) by it. But when we do-as individuals and organizations-something starts to click.

They Also Require Us to be Different

Business and organizational success is all about being different in ways that deliver greater value to our customers. We can only do things differently if we see things differently. This sense of "vision" and of seeing new and better possibilities is what makes truly great companies, organizations, and people stand out from the pack. Being different doesn't mean that we have to create brilliant and "valuable" ideas from scratch, though that would certainly be nice. We can win by unlocking the possibilities in someone else's great ideas and being the first (or the best) at adapting them to our world. Our real task is to find the right ideas and make them "ours" in ways that truly matter to those we serve. The only skills we really need are an understanding of what is important to our customers, an open mind, and a sense of curiosity.

Commit to casting a wider net- to hanging out in places filled with inspiration, to reading things you would not normally read, to asking questions you would not routinely ask, to talking with strangers who know nothing about your world but a lot about their own, to walking in someone else's shoes, pursuing a new hobby, or looking at the world with different eyes. Begin with the belief that you can make a compelling difference. Then all you need are a moment of inspiration, the right circumstances, and the right insight.

Getting Started

For a while I have had the unusual habit of looking in our customers' "in boxes" to see what they read, where they hang out, and who and what is on their radar screens. I typically find cause for concern and real insight on why there is a lack of genius and creativity in so many companies and organizations. Most people spend their few free minutes a day reading stuff that doesn't really matter. Or, I should clarify, doesn't really matter if we are trying to provide different and compelling value as individuals and organizations. This stuff is typically about their own industries or their specific fields of expertise.

People in an information technology company tend to read magazines, journals, and blogs about LT. They tend to get invitations to meetings and conferences about LT. Folks who are in human resources tend to read magazines, journals, and blogs about H. R. Talk about corporate and functional inbreeding. The good news is everyone else in your industry or your functional area is reading, hearing, and learning the same things. If you are really good at keeping on top of this stuff you can be just as good as your best colleagues and competitors in other companies who are all keeping on top of the very same stuff-or you can look at very different things.

As leading pharmaceutical companies struggle to discover the next generation of blockbuster drugs, most of their people are reading the same scientific journals, attending the same meetings, and talking about the latest insights from the very same science. After all, they have made multi-billion dollar investments in brilliant researchers, world-class laboratories, and information technology that enables them to slice through data and possible compounds faster and more efficiently than ever before. But this research model is producing fewer and fewer breakthroughs at the same time that the lives of more and more people depend on their genius.

A few enlightened ones are actually taking journeys to places filled with very different inspiration and insight. Everyday geniuses in companies like Novartis are now traveling around the world and back in time to explore the possibilities of ancient remedies in countries like China. Maybe there are lessons to learn from herbs and treatments and acupuncture that we will never discover in the finest labs. Maybe there are equally important lessons about diet, meditation, and exercise that hold some of the keys to success. Perhaps there is an even more compelling lesson to learn in the combination of ideas from different places and different domains. A drug, an herb, some yoga, and regular participation in an aerobics class might be the essential cure for what ails so many of us. Maybe the adage "better life through chemistry" has kept us from seeing the real answer. Could the right combination of ancient wisdom and modern technology be the right approach? Perhaps we should focus our research on a much broader form of curiosity.

Da Vinci didn't talk to humans about how to fly because they had no idea how to do it (though Icarus did make a valiant attempt). Instead he wandered around and studied birds. It would take several more centuries for it to happen, but it wasn't for a lack of thinking differently about the world and the magic of flight.

Start by thinking where your curiosity could lead you, because inside that curiosity is the beginning of what it takes to enhance quality and deliver more compelling value. If you'd like a bit more help getting comfortable with your own amazing potential to explore, think, and create, here are six things you can do today to strengthen your ability and genius and that of your team:

* Expand your reading horizons. Subscribe to and read enthusiastically at least three magazines or journals that interest you. Focus on new ideas that have nothing to do with your company, organization, or job. Then start to broaden your array of books and other sources of information and inspiration. You might also want to make regular visits to your favorite bookstore or library to see what ideas are hot and promising.

* Hit the road in search of new ideas. Take mini-excursions into the world around you to unlock fresh ideas and new ways of doing things. Create a mix of "planned" activities where you go to a specific place that is likely to offer real insight for a particular problem or opportunity and unplanned wanderings with your eyes wide open to any and all possibilities. Pay particular attention to all of the nothings that really seem to matter and all of the promises that are made and kept. Look at signs and billboards along the way and pause to overhear other people's conversations.

* Asking stimuUting questions whenever you have the chance. Start asking more questions in every meeting you lead or are invited to attend. Try to challenge yourself and your colleagues in a positive way, to question everything you are doing with the objective of determining whether there might be a better way. You might even ask people to think about what should be done to be perfect, faster, more responsive, or more remarkable. Think about what it means to create the most compelling performance.

* Become your customer's best student. Hang out with your customers and commit to learning as much as you can about their world and the challenges they face. Then invite them on some of your journeys of discovery to explore and unlock new ideas and possibilities together. Create a new and more compelling conversation together that challenges both of you to anticipate their evolving needs and imagine a more compelling picture of their future success.

* Make friends with unusual people. Talk to strangers whose work and ideas fascinate you and better understand how others use their curiosity and passion to deliver compelling value for those they choose to serve. Befriend people in businesses and organizations you admire. Get to know artists who are constantly trying to stretch our thinking and do something different that matters. Get involved in organizations that are really making a difference in your community, especially ones that bring together people from many walks of life. Tutor a child who will also mentor you on how they see the world. Commit to building the best and most diverse network possible. Nurturing relationships with people who have different interests, perspectives, and ways of thinking about things that matter to them is a great way to keep your own thinking fresh and relevant.

* Cast an even wider net. Look to nature, history, geography, and the genius of other people and other cultures as an untapped source of great inspiration. Dare yourself to understand what other people and other creatures know so clearly and how it might apply to your world and the world of your customers.

By doing each of these things you are likely to strengthen your ability to unlock the genius in yourself and the genius in the world around to deliver greater value for the customers you serve. The greatest skill that any person or organization can possess is a sense of curiosity and possibilities, so stop saying that you are not curious and creative. These are gifts that you and all of the geniuses in your organization were born with, so why not use them? Now is your chance to dust them off and put them to great use!

Note: This article is adapted from the new book Surrounded by Geniuses: Unlocking the Brilliance in Yourself, Your Colleagues, and Your Organization.

Alan Gregerman is the author of Surrounded by Geniuses: Unlocking the Brilliance in Yourself, Your Colleagues, and Your Organization. He is the president and chief innovation officer of VENTURE WORKS Inc., a consulting firm based in Silver Spring, MD, that helps leading companies grow and prosper by bringing out the genius in all of their people. A leading authority on business strategy and innovation, he has been called "one of the most original and inspiring thinkers in business today. " Gregerman can be reached via e-mail at innovate@venture-works.com or by telephone at301-S8S-1600.

Copyright Association for Quality and Participation Summer 2007
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved


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