Archive for January, 2009
Getting the Outside-In Perspective January 30 2009 no responses
When you’re moving up in your leadership career, it’s a sad but true phenomenon that it’s easy to think that it’s all about you. This really isn’t that surprising since most high potential leaders get a lot of responsibility and positive reinforcement at a relatively early age. If you get rewarded for pushing your agenda through, it’s natural that you’d keep doing that. The long term result, however, can be an inside-out view of the world that starts with the idea that it’s all about you and whatever it is you’re trying to accomplish. (If it sounds like I’m speaking from personal experience, it’s because I am.)
As I discussed in The Next Level, leaders learn to take an outside-in perspective or they quit progressing. This is probably even more true in the current economic environment. You have to shift mindsets from what do “I” want to what are “we" trying to accomplish. Then you need to shift again from what are “we” trying to accomplish to what are “they” doing. The “they” is any external actor that has an impact on your organization (e.g. customers, competitors, governments, foreign countries, etc.) So, the outside-in perspective is about a double shift – from I to We to They.
The Financial Times recently reported on a new way that organizations are encouraging the outside-in approach. A non-profit group called Leaders Quest stages trips to developing parts of the world for high potential leaders in the West. One man who went to China with the program said, “I got to see my own lack of knowledge as contrasted with their broader knowledge in a wealth of areas, so it demonstrated how backward I was in terms of my worldly understanding. Being American, sometimes we think the world revolves around us.” A woman who went to India for a month on a similar program in which she assisted a local business while on a sabbatical from her employer Ernst & Young said, “That feeling of being the one who is different made me think about the people we try to support in our own organization from different parts of the world.”
This article challenged me to look for ways to broaden my own outside-in perspective. What have you done to broaden yours that you could share with this blog’s community?
Blackberry 1(01) January 28 2009 no responses
How many times a day do you check your Blackberry or smart phone? If you’re Barack Obama, you’ll probably be checking it less. As you may have heard, the President gets to keep his Blackberry but, for security reasons, his e-mail list is restricted to a very select few. Still, with the Obama Blackberry story as inspiration, David Shipley, author of Send: Why People E-mail So Badly and How to Do It Better, offered this bit of Blackberry etiquette to the President on NPR’s All Things Considered. It’s 3 minutes long and worth a listen.
Click to connect to the NPR audio.
While Shipley has his tongue slightly in cheek, he has some good advice for any leader using a Blackberry. The misuse of these devices can have an enormous negative impact on your personal, team and organizational presence. Constant Blackberry use can get you so far down into the weeds that you don’t give yourself the space to think about the bigger picture. The Blackberry is the ultimate tool for micromanaging your team because it allows you to stay in constant contact with them. It can be a real image killer as well when people start talking about your propensity to send e-mails at 4 in the morning.
What’s your biggest Blackberry pet peeve? What, if anything, have you done to address it? What’s your favorite piece of advice that David Shipley is offering the President?
Avoid the Loop of Doom January 26 2009 one response
This morning, I’m on my way to Chicago to kick off a new cohort of our group coaching program, Next Level Leadership™. One of the things we do in the first session is review a case study of a newly promoted executive named Amy. While she’s got a great track record, Amy pretty quickly runs into a number of problems after she’s promoted to vice president. One of them is her relationship with Brian, a former peer and high performer himself, who is apparently acting out because Amy got the promotion instead of him.
It’s always interesting to me to hear the range of strategies that our group coaching clients come up with about how Amy should handle her relationship with Brian. They range from “fire him immediately” to “ask him for his help.” One thing I can count on is that our clients always relate to the Brian part of the case study because just about every newly promoted executive has to deal with quickly sizing up the members of their team and developing strategies for leading them.
In a recent article for the Harvard Management Update, IMD professors Jean-François Manzoni and Jean-Louis Barsoux, share some really useful lessons learned from research they’ve conducted on the best and worst practices that newly promoted leaders demonstrate when evaluating their teams.
The worst practices can basically be summed up as creating self fulfilling prophecies. New leaders typically come to initial conclusions about whether their team members “get it” or “don’t get it” within five days of working with them. These initial impressions are frequently wrong but the labels tend to stick. Not surprisingly, those being labeled can intuitively sense how they’ve been evaluated by the way the new leader behaves toward them. The “get its” respond accordingly and live up to and frequently exceed expectations while the “don’t get it’s” lose their confidence and start doing things that people do when they feel threatened or unsure of themselves. The result on both sides of the “get it” equation are self-reinforcing loops. On the “don’t get it” side, you can easily end up with the loop of doom.
Fortunately, Manzoni and Barsoux provide some excellent advice for new leaders who want to make sure they give themselves and their teams the greatest opportunity for wide ranging success. You can boil it down to communicate, communicate, communicate. What follows are the essence of four of their ideas with some editorial liberties taken by me:
2. Get to Know Them: Invest time on the front end to get to know your team members on a personal basis. In doing so, you demonstrate that you recognize them as individuals and not just functions of production.
3. Fight Your Biases: It’s natural to come up with first impression labels. Work to be aware of the labels your creating about your team members and look for behavior and actions that work against the labels. One of my favorite questions for doing this is to ask yourself, “What else could it be?”
4. Deal with It Sooner Rather Than Later: If you see performance that troubles you, call it out early. Focus on the issue rather than the person by asking, “What were you trying to accomplish in this case?” More often than that, you’ll find that the disconnect is around unclear expectations than incompetence or malicious intent.
What about you? What have you learned in establishing yourself with a new team? What lessons learned would you add to this list?
Instant Karma’s Gonna’ Get You January 23 2009 no responses
When I read the news of former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain’s sudden “resignation” from the top ranks of Bank of America, my first thought was, “Wow, what a great example of instant karma.” Here’s a guy, who, a couple of years ago, was perceived as a straight arrow, buttoned down hero of Wall Street. From a top job at Goldman Sachs to chairman of the New York Stock Exchange (following the whole Dick Grasso controversy) to savior of “Mother Merrill,” Thain was viewed a few months ago as a potential CEO of Bank of America, the company that acquired Merrill last fall. Now, he is out on his butt. What in the heck happened?
John Lennon summed it up pretty well in his song, Instant Karma:
Gonna’ knock you right on the head
You better get yourself together
Pretty soon you’re gonna’ be dead.
Dictionary.com defines karma as an “action, seen as bringing upon oneself inevitable results, good or bad… “ That seems to do a pretty good job of summing up what happened to Thain. Since the B of A deal was announced, Thain lobbied the Merrill board for a $40 million bonus (he was turned down), went skiing in Vail as Merrill’s losses piled up in December, spent over $1 million redecorating his office and rushed through $4 billion in bonuses before the B of A deal closed. Last week, B of A had to go back to the Feds for an additional $20 billion in TARP funds to cover unexpected losses at Merrill. As the New York Times reports this morning, all of that caused Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis to question Thain’s judgment. (Gee, you think?) Yesterday, Lewis flew up to New York and, in a 15 minute meeting, fired Thain.
How did this guy run off the rails so quickly? Again, I turn to the wisdom of John Lennon:
A super star?
Well, right you are.
That’s pretty much it, isn’t it? Coming off like an entitled superstar in an era when the zeitgeist has shifted from superstardom to survival is not the best strategy for enhancing your long term leadership prospects. I’m an aficionado of examples of how karma plays out in the business world. One of my favorite examples for the past few years has been Jeff Skilling, the jailed CEO of Enron, who was well known for telling smart people how stupid they were.
But, let’s end on a positive note. I take great comfort from the karmic idea that action brings on oneself inevitable results, good or bad. Leaders take heed. To quote the title of a more recent tune by the New Radicals, “You Get What You Give.”
Dear Mr. President January 21 2009 3 responses
Dear Mr. President (and, wow, does it feel good to call you that) –
Congratulations and Godspeed on this, your first full day in office. There are many reasons why I’m excited about your presidency. One of them stems from my work as an executive coach. Your predecessor, Teddy Roosevelt, called the presidency a bully pulpit. With that idea in mind, my hope is that you will continue to fill the office in the way that you have started – as a role model to leaders in organizations around the world.
As a coach, I frequently ask colleagues of my clients for feedback on behaviors and actions they should keep doing. These are the strengths from which they can build their leadership platform. With that in mind, I’m offering these observations as encouragement to you and with the hope that leaders everywhere will be inspired by the example you set. So, here are some leadership behaviors I hope you keep showing us:
Speaking the Truth: In your inaugural address yesterday, you called it the way it is. By saying that “the challenges we face are real,” you leveled with us and didn’t sugarcoat it. That helps us define the work we have to do.
Offering Hope: You showed confidence that, as you put it, “the challenges facing us will be met.” You painted a hopeful picture of the future when you concluded by saying, “Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.”
Challenging and Engaging Us: By admonishing us that “the time has come to set aside childish things,” you issued a call for focusing on the big things and not the petty things. Your consistent reminders over the past weeks and months that this is not about you, but about what the American people need to do together make the point that a leader’s job is to help the group define the work that needs to be done and to mobilize them to do it.
Seeking Dissenting Opinions: When you took time the night before the inauguration to attend a dinner honoring John McCain you demonstrated that you intend to work with those that hold different points of view and sent a signal that you intend to listen to those points of view.
Showing Respect: In the midst of the pomp and circumstance of your lunch in the U.S. Capitol yesterday, you took time in your remarks to acknowledge and thank the wait staff for their work and to apologize for whatever disruption you caused them while you worked the tables. That kind of connection with the front line goes a long way in building good will for a leader.
Showing Affection: You clearly gain strength and energy from your family and friends and you are not shy about showing how much you care for them. That’s a wonderful reminder for all of us to keep our jobs in perspective and to take care of the people that matter most to us.
Keeping It Real: You come across as a real person. When you spotted Al Roker while walking the parade route, you, to his great delight, shouted out, “It’s warm!” in the 15 degree wind chill. By showing your sense of humor, you make it easy for people to connect with you.
In conclusion, Mr. President, I’m reminded that when you’re a leader, you’re always on stage. You, of course, are on the biggest stage in the world. We’ll be watching you on your good days and bad days and taking our cues from the example you set. We wish you well and safe travels on the journey.
A Leader’s Guide to the Inaugural Address January 19 2009 no responses
For leaders looking for communications role models, tomorrow’s inaugural address by President Obama should be like the Super Bowl, your birthday and your favorite holiday all rolled into one. Given Obama’s track record of delivering stirring speeches at critical moments, the expectations are through the roof. For me, it’s akin to anticipating Michael Jordan’s performance in game 6 or 7 of the NBA finals or Tiger Woods sinking a 50 footer to clinch a major on Sunday.
As I’ve written before, it’s easy to think that as strong as he is in giving a speech that Obama is a natural and it just comes easy to him. As the Financial Times reported on Saturday, however, there is a deep understanding of the art of rhetoric and persuasion behind the impact of Obama’s major speeches.
In a terrific analysis, Sam Leith of the FT explains that Obama uses proven rhetorical techniques that date back to the time of Aristotle. When you listen to the new President’s inaugural address tomorrow, keep your ears open for the following techniques:
- Tricolons: three terms in ascending order such as “I came, I saw, I conquered.”
- Synthetons: balanced doubles of words such as “men and women” or “young and old”.
Leith points out that Obama regularly combines these two techniques as he did in his speech at the Victory Column in Berlin last summer, “As we speak, cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting the ice caps in the Arctic, shrinking coastlines in the Atlantic, and bringing drought to farms from Kansas to Kenya.”
Obama also pays a lot of attention to the cadence and rhythm of his words. Leith reports that the official transcript of Obama’s speech on the night of the New Hampshire primary punctuates his signature phrase, “Yes we can,” as Yes. We. Can. Forethought and planning was given to the way it would sound.
Finally, like the greatest speakers before him, Obama positions not just himself but his audience as part of something bigger – the arc of history. His story on election night about 106 year old Ann Nixon Cooper who lived through segregation in the South and cast her vote for an African American as president illustrates that.
So, tomorrow, I encourage you to listen to Obama’s address on a couple of levels. Listen for the content but also listen for the structure and the delivery. My guess is that neither I nor anyone reading this will be speaking to a global audience of billions anytime soon, but I think there are some things we can learn about leadership communications from our new president.
Pick the Right Mix January 16 2009 2 responses
Earlier this week, Carol Bartz, the highly successful former CEO of Autodesk was recruited to be the CEO of Yahoo. She may be the last, best chance to turn the internet pioneer around. In a New York Times interview, Cisco CEO John Chambers called Bartz the “best player in the draft.” Given his experience with Bartz as a Cisco board member and her track record in growing Autodesk from $300 million to $1.5 billion in revenue during her 14 year tenure, it’s not hard to figure out why Chambers is so high on her.
On the other hand, what seems obvious to some may not be to others. In the same Times article, Christa Quarles, an analyst with Thomas Weisel, said about Bartz, “The most glaring deficiencies are that she has no consumer or Internet or advertising experience. The question is whether she will bring someone in who can fill those deficiencies.”
Come on Christa. What leaders like Chambers and Bartz understand is that the bigger the job, the more it’s about leadership and the less it’s about long term technical knowledge.
A few years ago, a friend of mine who started his career as an engineer and has since been the president of a couple of significant defense related businesses, explained his progression by drawing a picture that looks a lot like this chart:
Obviously, there’s no hard and fast rule about the ratio of leadership to technical skills as one moves into higher level roles. The point, though, is the mix should absolutely change.
In a meeting with a newly promoted C-suite client yesterday, we were talking about exactly this point. He’s doing a great job of transitioning from being the “go-to” subject matter expert to being the leader of a team of “go-to” experts. Has it been easy for him? Not entirely. He’s learning to let go of doing things that he’s enjoyed doing for many years while he’s picking up new techniques and routines for staying informed at the right level for his role. Right now, he’s working on setting up regular pulse checks with his team so that he can advise and stay informed on key issues.
My guess is that Carol Bartz is doing the same thing at Yahoo.
Winging It January 14 2009 one response
In a group coaching session yesterday with a dozen high potential directors, we were talking about the progress many of them have made in being more intentional about their communications. One of the guys in the group told a story about how, up until a few months ago, he would walk into meetings or presentations and “just wing it.” He said this with a smile and a laugh which the rest of us joined in on because everyone in the room recognized that the higher up you move in the leadership ranks, the less likely it is that just winging it will work for you. Effective communications requires some preparation. (See this post from a year ago for more on how to prepare.)
Earlier this week, we saw a presidential example of what winging it looks like. In the last press conference of his administration, President Bush was all over the map. His goal seemed to be defending his record, but it didn’t look like he had given a lot of thought to the most effective way to do so. As Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post points out, while the President was intent on defending things he described as “disappointments” (e.g. not finding WMD’s in Iraq), he spent no time pointing out many of his accomplishments (tackling the AIDS epidemic in Africa).
The most fascinating aspect of the press conference was Bush’s body language. The man did not seem to be either aware of or intentional about how he was showing up. Apparently, most every newspaper in the country noticed this as most of them ran multiple shots of Bush lined up next to each other in their morning editions (The Post ran nine of them.) If you want to take a look at a video summary of the press conference, check out this clip from The News Hour.
Years ago, Albert Mehrabian ran research at UCLA that showed that the impact of spoken communications is dependent on three things: content, body language and tone of voice. Of these, content is responsible for only 7% of the total impact. The other 93% is body language and tone of voice.
If you were the president’s coach, how would you have helped him prepare for this last press conference? If it was me, I would have started with two questions. Mr. President, what’s the result you’re trying to create and how do you need to show up to make that likely?
What approach would you have taken?
What Kind Of Example Do I Want to Be? January 12 2009 2 responses
A couple of weeks ago, my blogging friend, Dan McCarthy of the Great Leadership blog, wrote a simple and compelling post on leadership. Noting how easy it is to find examples of poor leadership in government and business these days, Dan makes the point that we should not overlook the great leaders that maybe don’t get the headlines but are around us every day.
In his non-blogging life, Dan manages the leadership development function of a Fortune 500 corporation. One of the “perks” of that kind of role (both a blessing and a curse actually) is that you are in a position to review the 360 degree feedback of the leaders in your organization. Sensing that the reality in his organization did not square up with the gloom and doom reported every day, Dan pulled out a couple of handfuls of 360’s and started reviewing the comments. If you want a simple and compelling reminder of what it really means to lead well, take a couple of minutes to read Dan’s post.
As is my wont, I looked through the comments Dan shared with an eye toward identifying the common denominators of the great leaders in his company. Here are some of the themes I came up with. Great leaders:
- Listen
- Recognize great performers
- Coach and develop others
- Motivate through high standards
- Stay cool under pressure
- Create a sense of purpose
- Lead by example
That last one, lead by example, was the most frequently used phrase in Dan’s sample. As we start this week of leadership, let’s all ask this question, “What kind of example do I want to be today?” As the list above shows, being a great leader really isn’t all that complex a thing to do. The behaviors are actually pretty simple. The challenge is to groove the behaviors so they become habits. By asking yourself the question, “What kind of example do I want to be today?” you’re giving yourself the opportunity to step back and visualize what’s needed from you as a leader.
Gandhi famously said, “We must be the change we want to see in the world.” I have no idea if he regularly asked himself what kind of example he wanted to be, but I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he did. That level of leadership intention comes from being thoughtful about what’s needed.
Decision Making Role Models January 9 2009 no responses
Yesterday was one of those rare ones where I got to spend most of the day on the balcony in observation mode. I was the guest of one of my client organizations at an all day planning meeting between the senior managers of their U.S. and India operations. Apart from doing a bit of small group facilitation around midday, I was able to watch what was going on.
Here’s a short list of the things I saw that were really encouraging to me that I think are worth the time and attention of executives charged with leading a diverse team to bigger and better results:
- Discussion was data driven. Performance reports were presented on key projects and accounts using a common template that made it easy to compare performance on key metrics.
- People were heard. The meeting was structured in a way that encouraged discussion and debate.
- Respect was shown. The day was a great example of the principle of being tough on issues and easy on people.
- Opportunities were identified. After hearing the performance reports, small groups were formed to identify trends that need to be addressed on a priority basis.
- Next steps were clear. At the end of the day, a short list of key action areas were identified with an owner and team for each area along with the clear expectation of a short term plan including “easy wins” within the next 30 days.
- Appreciation was given. Before leaving, everyone had an opportunity to say what they got out of the meeting, what they would suggest for next time and to thank their colleagues for the effort.
A lot of the good practices I saw yesterday are highlighted in a recently released study by McKinsey and Company on how companies make good decisions. Over 2,000 executives in a wide range of industries and functions participated in the survey late last year. In addition to spotlighting best practices, two common denominators of bad decisions stood out. Bad decisions occur when they are made solely by one person. An example would be the CEO or senior leader who makes a decision to move forward with a pet project without seeking the input and counsel of colleagues who will be responsible for carrying it out. The other common denominator is decisions that are made on an ad hoc or stand alone basis with no consideration given to the overall strategic plan.
You can read the full report from McKinsey here. In the meantime, what stories or insights do you have to share about how good (or bad) decisions get made?
Corporate politics has a bad name, but respondents suggest that the effect of politics depends on the nature of the tactics used. When executives involved in a decision were primarily concerned with its effect on their business unit rather than the overall organization, for example, financial results and all other measures of success were much likelier to fall far below expectations. Simply put, a silo mind-set hurts performance. In addition, slow project completion times are associated with selective information reporting.
Scott Eblin is an executive coach, speaker and author of 
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