The Top 10 Emotionally-Intelligent Fortune 500 CEOs

The Top 10 Emotionally-Intelligent Fortune 500 CEOs
Posted by Aoife Gorey on Mon, Feb 06, 2012


Guest post by Chip Conley www.emotionalequations.com

I entered Stanford Business School twenty-nine years ago as a naive twenty-one year old, the youngest in my class. One of my classmates immediately sized me up, asking "So, what did you specialize in before coming to get your MBA?" I said, "Growing up." Not satisfied with my answer, he continued, "No, seriously, what's your area of expertise and why'd they let you in here?" I paused and sheepishly said something absolutely true, but somewhat blasphemous for the times, "I guess I understand people well. My boss this summer told me my expertise is how I use my emotions to my advantage." My classmate couldn't stop laughing and he was on to glad-handing the next person because, clearly, I was a loser.

A decade and a half later, Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence (EI) theory was introduced to business schools around the world. But, this idea - still radioactive to some - that the dominant trait in effective leadership comes from EI (also called EQ), not IQ or the level of one's experience or depth of their resume, took a while to become commonplace language amongst mainstream business folks.

But, while there's still no hard metric for EI, conventional wisdom now favors this fluid ability as compared to the fixed capacity of one's brainpower. When I graduated from biz school, I thought I had to be superhuman if I were ever to be a successful CEO. But after two dozen years of being a CEO, I've come to learn that the best leaders aren't the comic strip heroes, they're just super humans who have developed the four capacities that Goleman outlined for EI: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. As Goleman recently told me, "EI includes a broad spectrum of competencies, and no leader is A+ across the board - even the best have room to improve."

I'm often asked which business leaders are the ultimate examples of Emotional Intelligence, so I decided to do a little research. Limiting my search to only Fortune 500 CEOs of American Companies (so Oprah doesn't qualify), I started asking everyone I knew who they most admired as a role model for EI and then I talked with employees in these CEOs companies and did a deep dive into speeches they'd given and articles that had been written about them. And, of course, I took a look at the performance of their companies while they've been the "emotional thermostat" for their organization. So drum roll please, here's the first annual Top 10 Chief Emotions Officers in the U.S.

1. Jeff Bezos (Amazon.com): With his quirky laugh and self-deprecating style, Bezos doesn't sound like a Fortune 500 CEO and that's probably to his benefit. His obsession with the hearts and minds of his customers and his long-term perspective on relationships (and business strategy) are legendary, as was his YouTube announcement of Amazon's Zappos acquisition in 2009.

2. Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway): "Success in investing doesn't correlate with IQ once you're about the level of 25. Once you have ordinary intelligence, what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble investing." Intensely loyal and relationship-driven, he asks his CEOs to run their companies as if they were to own them 100 years from now.

3. Ursula Burns (Xerox): In tandem with Anne Mulcahy who moved up to Chair, Burns tranistioned to CEO as the first woman-to-woman CEO leadership transition in a Fortune 500 company in what has become a pivotal case study in organizational development. Direct, yet resepectful, her assertiveness is matched by a sense of mission that inspires her employees.

4. Jamie Dimon (JPMorganChase): At Harvard Business School, Dimon said: "You all know about IQ and EQ. Your IQ's are all high enough for you to be very successful, but where people often fall short is on the EQ. It's something you develop over time. A lot of management skills are EQ, because management is all about how people function.

5. John Donahoe (eBay): Donahoe inherited a difficult situation from Meg Whitman with the need to truly alter the company's business strategy. As a role model for Jim Collins' Level 5 and Bill George's "True North" leaders, Donahoe's disciplined self-awareness and his listening ability have created a deeply loyal team and a healthy, evolving culture.

6. Larry Fink (BlackRock): Called "psychologically astute" in a Vanity Fair feature article, Fink created the largest money-management firm in the world based upon self-reflection, teamwork and direct communication. His senior leadership team embraces EI seminars to improve their skills.

7. Alan Mulally (Ford): Walk around Ford's corporate campus and you will see office cubes featuring handwritten notes that Mulally has sent to employees.... praising their work. Great interpersonal skills and a "Clintonesque" ability to make you feel like you're the only one in the room when you're in a conversation with him.

8. Indra Nooyi (Pepsi): Nooyi is a conscious capitalist whose "performance with purpose" agenda has helped move employees from having a job to living a calling. She is acutely aware that being a woman of color means she may receive more attention and scrutiny, but she still projects her personality without reservation - whether it's singing in the hallways or walking barefoot in the office. She wrote the parents of 29 senior Pepsi execs to tell them what great kids they'd raised.

9. Howard Schultz (Starbucks): He says that the main reason he came back was "love": for the company and its people. Very dedicated to generous healthcare benefits - inspired by his father losing his health insurance when Schultz was a kid.

10. Kent Thiry (DaVita): Leaders with high EI/EQ create culture-driven organizations that perform at their peak due to the power of mission and teamwork. Thiry took over a demoralized kidney dialysis center company that was almost out of business and, with a passionate spirit, created nearly 44 percent annual growth in earning per share in the past decade, 6th highest of any Fortune 500 company.

If you want to help your managers develop into outstanding leaders, we encourage you to test drive our Checkpoint 360 assessment - 100% risk free!



About the Author:
In 1987, Chip Conley started his own hospitality company, Joie de Vivre (JDV), and, as CEO for two-dozen years, grew it into the second largest boutique hotel company in the United States. Chip and his company’s time-tested techniques and transformational leadership practices have been featured in every major news outlet including TIME, USA Today, Fortune and The Wall Street Journal. With its brilliantly simple formulas that illustrate universal truths, his book, Emotional Equations is an exciting, new, and immediately accessible visual lexicon for mastering your life challenges.



http://info.profilesinternational.com/profiles-employee-assessment-blog/bid/101717/The-Top-10-Emotionally-Intelligent-Fortune-500-CEOs

The DNA of Diversity

The DNA of Diversity
Howard J. Ross - 2/22/12


The business case for diversity and inclusion is clear to anyone who pays attention. Revolutionary shifts in demographics all over the world have created patterns that directly impact the workforce, workplace and marketplace. The more aligned a company’s diversity strategy is with its overall business objectives, the more it can boost business results.

The bottom-line business case for diversity is that creating a powerful organization-wide diversity culture can increase a company’s market share, productivity and profits. In addition, diversity fuels innovation, resulting in better products and services, and reducing costs associated with employee turnover.

Businesses are investing hundreds of millions of dollars into diversity efforts, and not just to guard against lawsuits. Diversity is often a catalyst to improve community relations, enhance brand and public image and connect with untapped markets. Leveraging global diversity as a core business asset is vital to survive in the new global economy. As companies expand their reach to meet business needs, expand their customer base and reach out to new markets, the realities of global diversity become apparent.

Regardless of an organization’s business, the world is likely the constituency. Leaders must think and act globally, consider best practices and seek opportunities to collaborate, innovate and integrate across nations. The days are gone when top leaders think of diversity and inclusion as solely a legal compliance issue or worse. Most leaders understand that diversity and inclusion are essential to competitive advantage. Yet, it is widely accepted among diversity executives that their jobs and budgets depend upon their ability to demonstrate return on investment. In this formula, the business case for diversity is mainly defined in financial terms. Success or failure is determined by a narrow set of metrics.

Companies need to take a more holistic view. According to an August 2010 IBM Making Change Work survey of 1,500 top executives, most CEOs say they and their organizations execute change poorly. If the purpose is to chase quarterly or short-term profits, the approach will be limited. If long-term sustainability is the goal, successfully embedding diversity and inclusion into an organization’s framework requires longer-term investments such as integrating diversity and inclusion into the overall business strategy, securing leadership buy-in, expanding marketplace segmentation, ensuring that policies and practices enable talent and creating accountability.

A Changing World
Patterns of movement for people all over the world have created a dramatically different human landscape than ever before. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, close to 12 percent of the residential population of the United States is now people who were born outside of the country, the largest percentage since the 19th century.

Similar patterns are occurring in Europe and the Middle East, and the movement of people between countries is happening faster than ever before. Hundreds of millions of people work and live outside of their countries of origin. Data from the National Bureau of Economic Research reveals the Western Hemisphere’s share of the world population has dropped from 33 percent in 1913 to 17 percent today, and its percentage of global gross domestic product from 70 percent in 1950 to less than 50 percent today. Of the 60 most populated cities in the world, only five are in the United States or Europe. In 1955, 75 of the 100 largest industrial businesses in the world were in the United States. By 1996 that number was 24. Estimates are that by 2037 it will be eight.

In the face of these staggering changes in the competitive landscape of global commerce, the notion that diversity and inclusion are only a social agenda is folly. Even if an organization is domestically focused, the large numbers of diverse people within the workforce and marketplace make it necessary to recognize the impact cultural differences can have on a business.

Further, most organizations are increasingly impacted by global business trends: Customers make purchases from companies around the world from their home computers; vendors and suppliers ship across borders and oceans; outsourced labor strategies allow workers to represent a company thousands of miles from their home offices; and businesses operate and sell products all over the world.

It’s simply not possible to be successful in this environment without understanding the impact of diversity and inclusion on business.

The advent of globalism on a scale never before seen calls for organizations that want to have success to be more culturally competent than before. Whether it is a company such as Colgate-Palmolive selling more than 75 percent of its product outside of the United States, or a hospital in Washington, D.C., taking in patients from more than 100 countries in a year, businesses must understand the cultural needs of their employees, customers, patients, vendors and the marketplace.

Diversity executives can identify hundreds of examples of cultural interactions in the business world that mean the difference between success and failure for a business enterprise. Think about how many ways customers and employees from different cultures interact with business. Particular cultural or diverse groups may need or not need certain products or services.

Employees have to understand differences in beliefs, behavior and communication styles among people, both within the workforce and with customers, to effectively service accounts, assist customers or interact on global teams. Further, customers from different cultures may have different expectations regarding interaction with employees, and employees must be culturally savvy when traversing the globe during the course of their work because what’s considered normal business practice in one home office might be considered offensive or confusing to other cultures.

The Need for Culture Development
The challenge is that although diversity and inclusion have become standard corporate language, relatively few organizations have embraced the organizational culture development needed to create true cultural competency. This refers to the enterprise-wide ability to have and utilize the policies, appropriately trained and skilled employees and specialized resources to anticipate, recognize and respond to the varying expectations around language, culture and religion for diverse consumers and employees.

While active, full-throated resistance is seen much less frequently than in the past, in too many places it has become acceptable to use excuses such as budget limitations, time constraints and the illusion of a merit-based organizational culture to resist exploring deeper cultural differences. What is at the root of this resistance? Different motivations for different people. For some it may be fear of the unknown, or fear of a world in which their power and control are reduced. For others it may be a belief that this is social engineering without understanding the business case. Some are just tired of the diversity conversation. Whatever the reason, resisting the impact of reality based on personal dislike or desire is bad business.

The impact of this resistance not only prohibits the advancement and participation of certain groups, resulting in many barriers to full participation for those who remain in the shadows of organizational life, but it also costs organizations millions of dollars in productivity, innovation and market share. Understanding and appreciating the need for cultural intelligence, a developed understanding of the ways in which culture manifests itself in everyday business life, as a true competency is often eclipsed by the concern about diversity “problems,” such as lawsuits or discrimination claims. The notion that diversity is simply about avoiding problems tends to deflect people from thinking about it as a business opportunity.

Inclusion is a business strategy. It is important that leaders have a defined set of values and principles, and demonstrate behaviors, attitudes, policies and structures that enable employees to work effectively cross-culturally to have the capacity to value diversity, conduct self-assessment, manage the dynamics of difference, acquire and institutionalize cultural knowledge and adapt to diversity and to the cultural contexts of the customers and communities they serve. Further, leaders have to incorporate all of the aforementioned skills and characteristics into all aspects of policy making, administration, practice and service delivery, and systematically involve consumers, stakeholders and communities.

In addition to the obvious market-driven realities, similarly impactful dynamics exist to drive business when dealing with an organization’s internal culture. Research shows that original and innovative ideas and unusual connections are formed when people of varying origins, backgrounds and lifestyles work together in teams. New ways of thinking lead to new ways of doing business and new products. Further, diversity can improve an organization’s problem-solving capability by introducing new ways of addressing old problems, or introducing new perspectives that may be able to see and prevent problems. All of this drives productivity, business success and competitive advantage.

A difficult economy requires that organizations get and keep the best employees. GE Corporate Executive Council research from August 2010 indicates employee performance is declining. The number of employees exhibiting high levels of extra effort has decreased by 64 percent since 2005. Further, disengaged employees are 31 percent less likely to quit than in 2006. High-potential employees are more likely to quit. One out of four high-potentials plans to quit in the next 12 months.

A focus on the evolving business case for diversity and inclusion is a roadmap to enhance employee engagement. According to the Hudson Institute’s Workforce 2020 Study, in a market in which less than 20 percent of new entries into the workforce are white, native-born men, a culturally competent, inclusive culture becomes a magnet for the best talent. And when turnover costs can cut directly into a company bottom line, a more inclusive and culturally competent environment creates a greater likelihood the best employees will stick around. It is no accident the companies listed on the “Best Company” diversity lists are usually the same ones that show up on the lists of “Best Places to Work.”

Finally, there are some legalities to consider. Organizations where diversity and inclusion are embedded into the culture often can eliminate or avoid legal expenses where diversity violations are concerned.

The business ROI equation for diversity includes greater innovation, increased work performance, greater job satisfaction and more engaged employees, lower human resources costs, better customer service and wider and deeper market penetration, which equal success at every level at which it can be measured. What more of a business case is necessary to encourage leaders to devote time and resources to creating a more inclusive and culturally competent organizational culture?

During difficult economic times, it is counterproductive to back off from a commitment to diversity and inclusion. Continue to create high performance standards for all employees, including expectations that they will work well with a broad diversity of co-workers. Increase the organization’s awareness of global business. Continue to find ways to enhance customer service standards by expanding awareness of diverse customers’ needs. Develop a stronger focus on employee engagement to retain and continue to develop the best workers. Also, innovate by drawing from the diverse perspectives of all employees.

Inclusion is a business strategy. It is an intentional choice that distinguishes an organization’s brand in the marketplace. Use it.

Howard J. Ross is founder and chief learning officer at Cook Ross Inc., a consulting and training company. He can be reached at editor@diversity-executive.com.


http://diversity-executive.com/articles/view/the-dna-of-diversity/print:1

5 body language moves that will ruin an interview

March 12, 2012 7:51 AM
5 body language moves that will ruin an interview

Dave Johnson


(MoneyWatch) Much of the information that we communicate happens non-verbally via subtle signals we put out with our posture, gestures and attitude. It's no surprise, then, that your success in a job interview depends quite a bit on almost everything except what you actually say. Recently, WiseBread explained the most common body language mistakes people make in interviews -- and how to avoid them. Here are the highlights:


Your handshake makes a critical first impression. Your dad probably taught you how to shake hands and his lesson was more important than you know. Make it firm -- not body-builder-aggressive and certainly not feeble like a dead fish. Also, be sure your hand is dry, so if you're perspiring, wipe it off before you meet your interviewer.

Don't touch your face. People touch their faces instinctively and without conscious thought. But if you want to make a good first impression, you'll need to be very conscious of where your hands are for the duration of the interview. Keep them well away from your nose and mouth, which can be a turn-off to germophobes. And for everyone else, touching your face is sometimes interpreted as a sign of dishonesty.

Don't cross your arms. Even if you only know one or two ways to read body language, you probably know this one -- crossing your arms is a sign of defensiveness and passive aggressiveness. That's not the impression you want to convey, so put your hands on the table where they can't cause you any trouble.

Don't stare. You probably know that making eye contact is a good thing, right? Well, there's a difference between positive eye contact and just plain staring. This is one of those things that should be natural, but if you think too hard about it, it is challenging to do in a natural way. The bottom line is that you want to maintain eye contact in moderation, without letting it devolve into uncomfortable staring. At the same time, don't let your eyes wander around the room as if you're bored.

Avoid nodding too much. You might think it's a good idea to nod a lot, either to appear to agree with your interviewer or to imply you're paying close attention, but the reality is that this can make you come across as sycophantic or spineless. Like eye contact, nod in moderation, and only when it's clearly appropriate.

And while you're honing your interview skills, check out 5 things you should never say in a job interview.

Photo courtesy Flickr user Lars Plougmann.

© 2012 CBS Interactive Inc.. All Rights Reserved.

Photo courtesy Flickr user Lars Plougmann.


http://www.cbsnews.com/2102-505143_162-57395110.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody

The Elastic Enterprise:

The Elastic Enterprise: The first must-read innovation book of 2012

February 29, 2012 | By Chuck Frey | Category: Innovation Books


The Elastic Enterprise: The New Manifesto for Business Revolution, the new book from Haydn Shaughnessy and Nicholas Vitalari, shines a spotlight on companies that have grown and thrived, despite the bleak, unpredictable economic conditions. Organizations like Apple and Amazon have developed growth strategies that appear to be ideally suited for an unpredictable future in an era of accelerating change.

"A new type of enterprise emerged in the first decade of the 21st century and its processes and techniques are repeatable and replicable by companies with ambition. We call this new type of company an elastic enterprise. Elastic enterprises have generated a new generation of competitive strategy and new operating processes that together form a remarkable response to changing economic conditions. Elastic enterprises are a new, more dynamic, and more inclusive approach to wealth creation.

"The most obvious character of elastic enterprises is that, first, they’ve proved themselves to be successful in the bad times. But secondly and significantly they are also operating on a new scale, typically with many thousands of business partners. They are also stepping effortlessly from their core businesses into adjacent businesses, from computing hardware into service platforms and then into mobile devices and apps as Apple did with iTunes and iPhone. Or with Amazon - from books to a broad base of retail products and then into cloud infrastructure and services.

"Elasticity is not really about innovation or agility... While their peers might be focused on innovation or agility, these companies are transformative. They are changing the way business is done."

The book is focused on 6 key concepts:

1. Radical adjacency: The companies profiled in this book have mastered the ability to move into new geographical markets or new product areas that aren't part of the firm's core competencies. "Radical adjacency redefines core competency. It means stepping outside the core and operating in new markets with assurance and ease."

2. Mass differentiation: "In a new global economy companies must elicit market segments from data and customer interaction. Customers are defining their own needs and their own market reference groups. In essence the long tail is becoming the market. That means companies must be capable of offering far more diversity in their product offerings."

3. The new scale economics: "Traditional scale economics were built by growing a company’s internal resources, through capital investment and hiring. Today scale takes place through ecosystems of freely collaborating third parties" - in other words, open innovation writ large.

4. Sapient leadership: "Because growth takes place through business ecosystems, those free floating collaborations of independent businesses and creative people, leadership can no longer be commanding and demanding... (It is) the ability to appear, to an independent ecosystem, as a leader operating on behalf of the mutual interests of the group." So much has been written about open innovation and the strategies of implementing it. It's interesting to see someone finally covering how leadership is handled in complex relationships like these.

5. Active strategy: Unlike traditional business strategy, which the authors characterize as "episodic" - we update our plan once a year, then put it back on the shelf - elastic enterprises utilize a continuous, active approach to strategy that enables them to identify and act upon new opportunities in real time. "Active strategy is also defined by the presence of active strategic portfolio management, a continuous creation of new strategic options, and knowing when to execute or to hold back."

6. The five dynamics of the elastic enterprise: These are business platforms, business ecosystems, universal connectors, cloud computing and sapient leadership.

The authors are convinced that elastic enterprises signal a new era in corporate strategy, driven by accelerating technology, unstable economic conditions and rapid change on many fronts. "Elastic enterprises are forging the operating principles that transition us to a new form of wealth creation. They operate in a profoundly different way from companies that are still using the industrial-service model of operating."

Amazingly, elastic organizations like Apple and Amazon have succeeded in doing something that traditional 20th century firms haven't been able to do - scale without becoming slow-moving, burocratic dinosaurs. This suggests a new model of wealth creation, organizing people and allocating resources that bears a closer look. Growth, which once relied on massive hiring, massive capital expenditures and military-like hierarchical relationships, have been superceded by self-organizing, open ecosystems that are infinitely more flexible and can grow without corresponding increases in overhead and management.

I'm just delved into the first few chapters of The Elastic Enterprise so far, but I can tell this is going to be a very important book for innovation practitioners. I've gotten to know Haydn Shaughnessy during the last year, and I can tell you he's a very savvy person, with a keen eye for business strategy. He's been an invaluable advisor to me, as I consider what steps to take in order to grow InnovationTools.com.

I strongly urge you to pick up The Elastic Enterprise. This isn't just another "me-too" innovation book (you KNOW I see a lot of those at any given time). It describes and decodes an inflection point in organizational strategy that you must understand if you expect to be able to compete effectively in the years ahead.

The Elastic Enterprise is available exclusively in a Kindle edition on Amazon.com (not surprising, considering that the authors are focused on an entirely new model of doing business).


http://innovationtools.com/weblog/innovation-weblog.asp

15 Great Quotes on the Importance of Asking the Right Question

February 25, 2012
15 Great Quotes on the Importance of Asking the Right Question


As an innovation consultant and a facilitator of the creative process, I continue to be astounded by how few organizations have any kind of process is place to PAUSE, reflect, and make sure they are coming up with the right questions. Apparently, I'm not alone...

1. "It's not that they can't see the solution. They can't see the problem." - G.K. Chesterton

2. "There are no right answers to wrong questions." - Ursula K. Le Guin

3. "We thought that we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong." - Bono

4. "Ask the right questions if you're going to find the right answers." - Vanessa Redgrave

5. "Asking the right questions takes as much skill as giving the right answers." - Robert Half


6. "What people think of as the moment of discovery is really the discovery of the question." - Jonas Salk

7. "What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning." - Werner Heisenberg

8. "The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a very creative mind to spot wrong questions." - Antony Jay

9. "In school, we're rewarded for having the answer, not for asking a good question." - Richard Saul Wurman

10. "In all affairs, it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted." - Bertrand Russell

11. "Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." - Pablo Picasso

12. "Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers." - Voltaire

13. "We hear only those questions for which we are in a position to find answers." - Friedrich Nietszche

14. "My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions." - Peter Drucker

15. "He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever." - Chinese proverb

Thanks to Val Vadeboncoeur for locating these great quotes


http://www.ideachampions.com/weblogs/archives/2012/02/1_its_not_that.shtml