Archive for October, 2009

Redskins Leadership Lessons Redux – The Video October 30 2009

Regular readers may recall that I ran a post last week on the leadership lessons that can be learned from not doing what Redskins’ owner Dan Snyder is doing with his organization. In the category of “doesn’t happen every day,” I got a call from a producer at DC’s Fox TV affiliate to ask if I’d do an interview on what I was hearing from fans about the situation. Fox 5 ran the piece on a few of their broadcasts following the Redskins’ Monday night loss to the Eagles this week. Roll the tape:

The original post cited nine things that Snyder and his EVP of football operations Vinny Cerrato are doing that leaders shouldn’t do.  When I went to the Fox studio to do the interview, the producer told me that when she mentioned to her colleagues that I’d come up with a list of nine things, the universal response was, “Only nine?”

It turns out that they were right. There are more than nine. Two new ones that emerged this week are treating your customers like criminals (as reported by the Washington Post’s Dan Steinberg on how Redskins security ripped up the sign of a fan who was trying to send a message of love to her husband in Afghanistan) and playing the blame game in public (see this article on Redskins EVP Vinny Cerrato arguing that he gave Coach Jim Zorn a playoff caliber team).

I will make a promise that I’m not going to turn this into a Sports blog. I’m done (for now anyway) with what we can learn from the Redskins. Thought you might be interested in the rest of the story (so far). 

Learning from the Navy’s Commitment to Leadership Development October 27 2009

The next time you’re feeling challenged about how to reach a goal, think of the sailors from the USS Carl Vinson. As reported in the Washington Post,  30 sailors from the Vinson set a goal to make last Sunday's Marine Corps Marathon their first 26.2 mile race.  More and more people are running marathons these days, but not very many have their training space limited to the confines of a Nimitz class aircraft carrier. The sailors from the Vinson were inspired by the example set by their former commanding officer, Walter Carter, a recently promoted rear admiral who shared his enthusiasm for running with his crew.  Carter has left the Vinson for his next assignment but came back to DC to run the race with his men. Through his own commitment to fitness and his and camaraderie with his team, Rear Admiral Carter is the embodiment of what a positive leadership footprint looks like.

I’m honored to report that I got a first hand account of how the race turned out for the sailors from the Carl Vinson when I was one of the opening speakers last Sunday for the Navy’s annual Flag Officer and Executive Training Symposium at a federal training center in the suburbs of DC.  (This is a week long annual event for the newly promoted admirals and their civilian colleagues in the federal Senior Executive Service. )

The speaker that followed me on Sunday was the head of the Navy’s Fitness program. She was there to brief the participants and their spouses on the range of support available to help these leaders stay fit in their very demanding roles. As she wrapped up her remarks, she read from the Post story and asked if Rear Admiral Carter was in the room. He was indeed and reported that all 30 of his sailors had successfully completed the race and that he had finished it in 3 hours and 36 minutes himself.  Bear in mind that this briefing came about six hours following the marathon.  Let it be noted that the admiral did not have the bearing or tone of someone who had just run 26.2 miles in under four hours.  He pretty much looked fresh as a daisy!

There were a number of  things I took away from the Sunday session that I think are worth offering as food for thought for leaders. Let me share three of them here.

Keeping Your Best Engaged October 23 2009

The tough economic environment of the past year and a half has made organizational leadership an even more challenging job than usual. A recent article in HR Executive Online by Lin Grensing-Pophal reports on a somewhat surprising aspect of that leadership challenge.

Drawing on a recent study conducted by Watson-Wyatt and World at Work, Pophal notes that employee engagement levels during the recession have dropped by nine percent since last year. That’s not so surprising given everything that’s gone on in the past year. The news that leaders should pay extra attention to, however, is that the engagement of top performers is down by a whopping 25 percent.

The combination of economic uncertainty and the need to do more with less can take a toll on everyone. Of course, on both a short and long term basis, leaders need to pay particular attention to the high performers who can deliver results. Pophal offers some good suggestion in her article about how to do that including developmental assignments and flexible work arrangements.

She also mentions connection to the bigger picture as a key way to provide the intrinsic motivation that keeps the best engaged. As I’ve written here before, Bill Bridges’ four P’s communications model is one of the best frameworks I know of for making that connection. Like most good leadership tools, it’s simple and easy to remember:

• Purpose: why are we here and what difference does that make?
• Picture: what will things look like when we’re fully successful?
• Plan: how will we get to that picture of success?
• Part to Play: this is how what you do fits into the plan that creates the picture that fulfills the purpose.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to speak with leaders from GE Energy, the U.S. Coast Guard and Department of Homeland Security, Booz Allen Hamilton and the U.S. Senate. One of the things that all of those leaders have in common is that they’re working for organizations that make a difference. I actually think that most of us work for organizations that make a difference. Leaders often overlook the opportunity to connect people with the larger purpose of what their organizations do. If you’re a leader who wants to keep your best people engaged, I encourage you to give that some thought. What can you say about how what they’re doing makes a difference?

The Power of the Obvious Question October 21 2009

When faced with an intractable or complex problem, it’s easy for leaders to get bogged down in the minutiae when trying to come up with a solution.  Another trap is to go binary – it’s either this or it’s that – too soon in the decision making process.  Rather than opening up options and possibilities, we sometimes try to solve complex problems by settling for the least painful of the most obvious options.

It’s at times like this, that’s it’s helpful to have someone in the room who can step back, get up on the balcony and ask some questions that seem obvious in retrospect but maybe weren’t asked because everyone else was too close to the situation at hand.

There was a great example of this in a recent Newsweek article by Holly Bailey and Evan Thomas on Vice President Joe Biden.  Here’s an extended excerpt that paints the picture:

"Joe Biden had a question. During a long Sunday meeting with President Obama and top national-security advisers on Sept. 13, the VP interjected, ‘Can I just clarify a factual point? How much will we spend this year on Afghanistan?’ Someone provided the figure: $65 billion. ‘And how much will we spend on Pakistan?’ Another figure was supplied: $2.25 billion. ‘Well, by my calculations that's a 30-to-1 ratio in favor of Afghanistan. So I have a question. Al Qaeda is almost all in Pakistan, and Pakistan has nuclear weapons. And yet for every dollar we're spending in Pakistan, we're spending $30 in Afghanistan. Does that make strategic sense?’ The White House Situation Room fell silent. But the questions had their desired effect: those gathered began putting more thought into Pakistan as the key theater in the region.”

There are several things I find instructive in this story.  First, Biden is making his point based on facts that may have been lost in the discussion.  Second, he links those facts to a bigger picture.  Third, he uses those facts and that bigger picture to cause his colleagues to pull up and challenge their assumptions.

What obvious questions do you need to ask to help your team challenge their assumptions?  Are you even the best person to ask those questions or is that role better played by designating someone on your team to play the role of devil’s advocate?  What are the pros and cons of either approach?

Learning What Not to Do From the Leadership of the Washington Redskins October 19 2009

There’s an old, old saying that, “A fish rots from the head down.”  It dates in English from at least 1674 and has probably hung around all these years because it’s true.  The Washington Redskins are one of the latest examples of the truth of this aphorism.

Since the NFL season began, I’ve thought of writing a post on what can be learned about how not to lead an organization from analyzing the Redskins’ owner Dan Snyder.  After Sunday’s 14 – 6 loss to the previously winless Kansas City Chiefs that included a safety in the closing minutes, the time finally seems right.  After all, the Redskins have lost to the 1 and 22 Detroit Lions and haven’t beaten a team this year with a winning record.  As the Washington Post has reported, the team sues its fans who have fallen on hard times and can’t honor their ticket contracts.  They have one of the most bloated payrolls in the NFL and week by week, publicly humiliate their head coach Jim Zorn (a classic example of what I refer to as an NGB – “nice guy, but…”) by removing one more aspect of his duties.  (This week it was play calling.)

Seriously, if we can’t learn something about how not to lead an organization from watching Dan Snyder then it’s probably time to move onto another topic.  What are his secrets for leading a rotten organization?  Here are a few that catch my attention:

The Balloon Boy and the Decline of the American Mind October 16 2009

If you were looking for any news on health care reform, Afghanistan or the President’s trip to New Orleans on television yesterday afternoon or most of last evening, you were out of luck. Everything else was pushed aside by the story of the 6 year old balloon boy, Falcon, flying over Colorado in his dad’s big helium balloon. Of course, he wasn’t actually the balloon boy. Turns out he was the garage boy because when the balloon took off he climbed up into the rafters of his garage and hid in a box. Or, as it may be turning out, (see this update from the New York Times) maybe his dad told him to go hide in the box so they could gin up a media frenzy and regain some of the glory that the whole family was wrapped in when they appeared a few years ago in the reality TV show, Wife Swap.

So, it’s not every day that you have the possibility of a six year old flying along at 10,000 feet in a balloon.  I can see why the cable news channels might run that live. But wall to wall for three hours and then for lots and lots of time after the boy was found OK? Why would they do that? Two words – great video. Anytime you’ve got footage of a giant Jiffy Pop bag sailing across the sky, you’ve got great video. Let’s run it on a continuous loop!

Much as I was after a quick trip to Canada earlier this year, I’m suffering from a case of reimmersion into the American pop news media following a four day trip to London earlier this week. Whether it’s the BBC, ITV or even the SkyNews Sports channel, there’s one word for the Brits’ approach to TV news – sedate. No swooshing graphics, gee whiz maps or sound effects. Just people talking about what’s going on. That’s talking and not shouting or interrupting. A big part of the Sunday morning news shows there consist of the broadcasters sitting together with stacks of newspapers on the tables and floors, reading and commenting on the news of the week. 

One thing I’ve noticed about my British friends over the years is that they all seem incredibly well informed about what’s going on in the world. They usually have an informed point of view on what’s going on in China or Africa or Eastern Europe or just about anywhere. Now I think I understand why. They grew up with print and broadcast media that actually cover those stories and, as such, they developed a knowledge of and curiosity for what’s going on in the rest of the world. I’m not saying that there isn’t any lowest common denominator media in Britain. It seems like at any given time of day there is a Ricki Lake or Sally Jesse Raphael type talk show on TV. (The most popular of these appears to be a British hybrid of Dr. Phil and Jerry Springer called The Jeremy Kyle Show. Truly awful stuff based on the five minutes I was able to withstand.)  My observation, though, is that thoughtful and serious news coverage and conversation seems to be easier to come by in the UK.

So, what does any of this mean for leaders? I’d relate it to one of the basic laws of computer programming – garbage in, garbage out. We need to be careful and aware of the information diet we’re feeding ourselves. The good stuff is out there, we just have to look for it (with the Internet, it’s easier than ever). I think the other thing we have to do is watch out for getting sucked into the noise machine. I don’t realize how easy it is for that to happen until I’m away from it for awhile and come back to it.  

We’ve got a lot of serious work to do in the United States. Approaching that work from a thoughtful rather than a frantic state of mind will be an important determinant of how successful we are. If you’re a leader who wants to make a difference, please don’t let the balloon boy stories bombard your brain. Feed your mind with important and useful things.

British MP’s Behaving Badly: When Appearances Trump the Rules October 14 2009

I’ve been in London this week for a presentation I gave to a group of new executives yesterday. It’s been a great trip with a lot of friendly people and fascinating things to see. One of the things I really enjoy when travelling abroad is immersing myself in the local media to learn what the big stories are and how people think about them.

Well, the story that’s dominating the UK’s headlines and airwaves this week is a controversy over how members of Parliament used their expense accounts for items like housekeeping, gardening and, in one infamous case, the digging of a moat. Sounds sort of outrageous doesn’t it?  The back story, as my cab driver explained it to me the other day, is that when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister she wanted to give a pay raise to the MP’s but knew that wouldn’t fly with the public. So, instead, she adjusted the expense reimbursement schedule for MP’s so it was much more liberal and ended up significantly supplementing their incomes.  That was all going along swimmingly for the past 20 years or so until earlier this year when the husband of the Home Secretary watched a couple of porn movies on the family telly and the cable bill was submitted for reimbursement under the MP expense plan. You can probably figure out what happened next.

So, that brought us to this past Monday which was the first day of the new session of Parliament and my last day in London before heading out to the suburbs to give my presentation. I was taking one last walk around the Thames and was crossing Westminster Bridge adjacent to Parliament when I took the following photos with my iPhone. For those of you who didn’t have little boys at home in the last 20 years, you’re looking at a life size version of that really useful engine, Thomas the Tank Engine.

In case you can’t make it out, the passenger car is carrying 3 or 4 people holding prime minister Gordon Brown masks in front of their face. The sign across the top of the car reads, “All Aboard the Gravy Train.”  As the Brits might say, “Simply brilliant!”

The story has come back with a vengeance this week because as the MP’s returned to Westminster they were presented with letters detailing how much they each need to repay the government for expenses now deemed inappropriate. The PM and the conservative party leader are trying to enforce the repayments but there a lot of members who are pushing back saying that they operated within the existing rules at the time and shouldn’t be on the hook for the money. 

With Thomas the Tank Engine, moats and dirty movies on TV, this story has a lot of comic elements but there’s a serious lesson in all of this.

What’s amazing to me is that many of the MP’s are putting a few hundred or a few thousand pounds ahead of their long term credibility, reputation and effectiveness. They are becoming a laughing stock while they argue over expenses that seem hugely inappropriate to the average citizen. And that is what leaders really have to watch out for. It’s easy to get into a bubble when you’re a leader and pretty soon the abnormal begins to seem normal. One of the executive speakers in the session I spoke to yesterday summed it up really well. There are, he said, rules and there are appearances. There are times when the appearances matter more than the rules. True leaders understand the difference. When the rules you’re following wouldn’t stand up to a smell test with the average person, it’s time to take a step back and upgrade the rules. When it’s all said and done, the most valuable currency a leader has is integrity and credibility.  Maintaining that currency requires an understanding that it’s more valuable in the long run than currency of the paper sort.

How to Handle It When You’re the Smartest Kid in the Class October 12 2009

The range of reactions to President Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize has been really interesting to observe. Depending on which person or group you’ve been watching or listening to, you’ve had the opportunity to witness a full spectrum of emotional reactions from happiness to anger, from satisfaction to surprise. One that I think is out there but perhaps hasn’t been commented on so much is resentment.  There are those who resent the award because they say Obama hasn’t proven himself yet or that others are more deserving. (Obama himself essentially said as much in his remarks just a few hours after the Peace Prize announcement.)

I think there’s another reason that a lot of people resent the Prize going to Obama and it’s one that has a lot of parallels in countless organizations around the world. You’ve probably seen it yourself or have perhaps even been the subject of it. I’m talking about what I call the “smartest kid in the class” syndrome. Whatever you think about Obama, there’s not much point in debating that he is one highly intelligent guy and has had a lot of success at a very early age. He’s probably the most extreme example I could come up with of the “smartest kid in the class.” 

While we may not be around Nobel Prize winners on a regular basis, most of us have had some experience on one side or the other (or both) of this phenomenon.

With this in mind, I came up with some rules of the road for how “the smartest kids” should handle themselves when working with others who might feel intimidated and threatened by their success:

A 4 and ½ Minute Primer on the Future (Heads-up, it’s already here.) October 9 2009

As the late, great Gilda Radner might have said as Emily Litella (I know I’m skewing way old here), “What’s all this I hear about social media?”

If you’ve been asking yourself that question, take 4 and ½ minutes to watch this video.  Guaranteed that there is at least one stat that will blow you away:

The implications for leaders in this new world are endless. Let’s start with the point that in the future it will be more about Dale Carnegie (Winning Friends and Influencing People) and less about David Ogilvy (the granddaddy of Mad Men). In other words a lot more listening and a lot less selling.

OK, all you leaders out there, what are the things in this video that make you go hmmm?  What are the things that make you say, “Holy crikes, I better get busy.”?  What are you changing?  What are you going to change?

It better be something because the future is already here.

What Leaders Can Learn from Brett Favre About Winning Over a Skeptical Team October 7 2009

In the category of “Man, I wish I’d written that,”  my blogging friend Mike Figliuolo had a great post last week called “Ten Reasons Your Team Hates You.”   It was a brilliant piece with so true they might hurt items such as you don’t fight for them,  you micromanage, you’re a suck up and you’re above getting your hands dirty.   It’s gotten a lot of well deserved attention, is definitely worth a read and is a post you’ll likely want to share with others.

So, it was with Mike’s post in the back of my mind that I watched Brett Favre lead the Vikings this week to a 30 – 23 win over his old team, the Packers, on Monday Night Football.  If you follow football at all, you understand why I’m making the connection between Mike’s “Why Your Team Hates You” post and Favre. Even non-sports fans are likely aware and completely sick of Favre’s multi-year act of will he retire or not retire, who will he play for, when will he play, etc., etc., etc. He’s done about as much as he possibly can to make his colleagues skeptical of his motives and intent. And yet, the Vikings at 4 and 0 so far this season seem to be gelling around him. 

If you take the publicity, the uniforms and the bone crunching hits out of the equation, Favre appears to be successfully doing what you’ll likely have to do at least once in your career – stepping in to lead a team that for whatever reason is skeptical of your motives and has their doubts about whether or not you’re the right leader. In spite of all the drama baggage he carries with him, Favre is winning the Vikings over. How is he doing it? Here are a few things he’s doing that I think apply to leaders in fields other than football: