Archive for March, 2010
Video Book Club: Primal Leadership March 16 2010 one response
Coming to you semi-live from the Courtyard Marriott at BWI airport is this week’s Video Book Club installment on Primal Leadership
In this clip, I explain how I use the authors’ model of resonant and dissonant leadership styles to help my clients identify their go-to styles and what else they need to develop to accomplish their goals. Take a look.
What are your tried and true ways of building your own emotional intelligence or coaching others to develop theirs?
Hanging Tough with Your Boss March 15 2010 5 responses
The Washington Post ran an interesting article by Lois Romano last week on how Hillary Clinton is organizing her staff and leading at the State Department. For me, the kicker came at the very end in this passage:
Shamila Chaudary — a self-described "backbencher" — had toiled for years as a faceless expert on the Pakistan desk when one day she found herself invited to brief Clinton. Chaudary, 32, said the two sparred over whether it was prudent to engage non-governmental power centers in Pakistan, with Clinton expressing skepticism.Chaudary held her ground, making the point that "we've been seen as not engaging with them, and it's hurt us a lot." She said that although she and Clinton "didn't necessarily agree . . . she said that it's very important for us to debate like this. . . . This is how she said she wants to do business."
Within 48 hours of their meeting, Chaudary was promoted to a front-line job in the office of policy planning.
Chaudary’s story came to mind the other day when I was talking with a client who’s getting ready to make a controversial pitch to one of the top executives of his organization. If you have enough responsibility and are doing your job well, you’ll eventually find yourself in a situation where you need to tell your boss something she disagrees with or flat out doesn’t want to hear. As Chaudary found out, hanging tough with your boss can be a career changing moment. Do it poorly too many times, though, and it can end up being a career ending moment.
How do you do go head to head with your boss and still maintain the access and credibility you’ll need to be effective down the road? Here are some tips:
Listen and They Will Talk March 12 2010 2 responses
Yesterday, I had a wrap up session with an executive I’ve enjoyed coaching for the past seven months. He was one of those clients who was great to work with because he took his colleague feedback to heart and really dedicated himself to following through on developing a few key skills that have made him an even more effective leader. As we were talking, he asked me what I had been up to lately and I told him I’ve been interviewing a lot of global executives for the upcoming second edition of my book, The Next Level
As I went on with my day, I thought a lot about that conversation and the many clients I’ve worked with over the years who have focused on improving their listening skills. At this point, we’ve had about 500 clients who have been the subject of our Next Level Success Factor 360 survey. A number of the items in the survey deal with listening. The one that has turned out to be the canary in the coal mine that signals a client needs to focus on listening as a key component of their leadership presence is:
- Contributes to creating an environment in which everyone is comfortable engaging in open and honest dialogue.
If a client has a low score on that item, then I usually see lower ranking scores on items related to their own interpersonal effectiveness with their team and other colleagues. I also usually see lower scores on the effectiveness of their team. Clearly, it’s something important for my clients to address when they have low scores on creating an environment where people engage in open and honest dialogue. The question is, what should they work on to create that kind of environment where people talk freely?
Truman Thursdays: Enlisted Personnel on What Makes a Leader March 11 2010 no responses
There are just a few more weeks left of video blogs from my visit to the USS Harry S Truman earlier this year. This week’s installment was shot during a breakfast that the Command Master Chief arranged for our group to have with some of the enlisted sailors on board. We were able to have some long conversations with some terrific folks during the meal. This video provides the perspective of three of them on what makes a leader. The second sailor you’ll hear from (and the one in the screen shot below) was the Truman’s Sailor of the Year in 2009.
The setting that morning was a little noisy because there were lots of good discussions going on in the background. Still, if you tune in on the speakers, you’ll be able to hear what they have to say. It will be two minutes well spent.
Is This Your Best Work? March 10 2010 3 responses
Yesterday, I was talking with a client who is frustrated with the amount of errors he’s receiving in financial reports provided to him by members of his team. When he reviews the reports, he regularly finds obvious errors that anyone with experience in the field should have caught on a simple review themselves.
It’s difficult in situations like this to not blame the team member for sloppiness or laziness. Sometimes those kinds of reasons are the root cause. Oftentimes, though, it’s due to a lack of a process to eliminate errors from the system or a lack of understanding of how the work supports bigger picture objectives.
One of the quick-hit, easy to implement solutions that my client and I talked about was for him to get in the habit of asking his team members, “Is this your best work?” when they pass a report on to him. Of course, that question can lead to all kinds of useful conversations about what the standards are and need to be, why and when someone’s best work is required and what processes would need to be put in place to ensure that the best quality work is being produced. It also has the beauty of putting the responsibility for producing quality work more on the team than the leader. That’s how teams learn and grow in their capacity.
The situation reminded me of a story I’d heard about how Henry Kissinger motivated his staff to do their best when he was Secretary of State. The story is told by retired ambassador Winston Lord in a oral history project conducted at George Washington University:
Video Book Club – Talent is Overrated March 9 2010 2 responses
Have you ever watched a great musician or athlete or speaker and say, “Wow, they must have been born with so much talent, I could never do that.” Well, don’t be so sure about that. As Geoff Colvin explains in his book, Talent Is Overrated
In this week’s Video Book Club review, I show off one of my most prized possessions, my red bass guitar to make a point about why I ended up being a coach instead of a rock star. Colvin actually explains it all in his book. I’ve practiced coaching a lot more than I’ve practiced the bass. The good thing about Colvin’s book is he offers useful advice for how to get better at the things you’re most passionate about.
Once you understand where Colvin’s coming from, you start seeing his point popping up everywhere. For instance, there’s a great special on HBO this month about how Magic Johnson and Larry Bird changed the NBA. It turns out that two of the greatest in the game’s history played basketball none stop from an early age. In Magic’s case, he shot hoops on the playground every morning from 6:00 am to 7:00 am before he caught the bus to school.
So, take a look at the video. I want to show you my beautiful bass and offer a few more tips from Colvin’s book.
The Questions Leaders Ask at DARPA March 8 2010 no responses
You may not have heard of DARPA, but if you’re reading this article, you use at least one of the things they invented. DARPA is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and back in the 1960’s and ‘70’s, they came up with a communications network called ARPANET. Today, it’s a little thing we call the Internet. That GPS device you use to find the nearest Starbucks? DARPA invented that too. Simultaneous translation devices, stealth aircraft technology, and coming soon to a highway near you, self-driving robot cars – all invented by DARPA. Needless to say, they’ve got some pretty smart and innovative people at DARPA.
DARPA hit my radar screen last week when I was in Monterrey, California to speak to a group of high potential commanders and captains at the Naval Postgraduate School. (Ironically enough, the topic was our Life GPS® model – that’s goals planning system, not global positioning system.) At the end of my talk, where, as usual, I tossed out a lot of open ended thought starter questions to the group, one of the participants, Captain Duane Ashton, came up to say hello and offer me his business card. Later in the day, I took a look at Capt. Ashton’s card and noticed that he’s a program manager at DARPA. I also noticed that there were some questions printed on the back. Here’s what’s printed on the back of Captain Ashton’s card:
What Are We Incenting? March 5 2010 2 responses
There was an interesting interview this week on NPR’s Morning Edition with a former assistant secretary of education, Diane Ravitch. Ravitch was a vocal supporter of the No Child Left Behind program that put performance standards in place for school districts across the country. Based on her research and observation over the past several years, she now opposes the policy and has written a book called The Death and Life of the Great American School System
One of the things that intrigued me about the interview was Ravitch’s take on why she thinks the program has failed. She says it’s the combination of measurement and punishment. Of the two, she has no problem with measurement. In fact, she supports it. Her point is that when there is punishment like job loss or school closures associated with the measurement, the players in the system are incented to game the system. According to Ravitch’s analysis, the effect of this in No Child has been for some school systems to dumb down their student testing or to adjust the scoring scale so it looks like their results are better than they actually are.
Her other point is that the measurement and punishment approach encourages competition between systems rather than collaboration and sharing of best practices.
The interview got me thinking about the misuse and misunderstanding of incentives in other domains such as managing organizations. A few weeks ago, I posted a short video on Dan Pink’s new book, Drive
It makes me wonder, though, what would happen in organizations if there was a serious, fresh look at how we incent performance? What are your thoughts and experience on what incents people to perform at their best?
Truman Thursdays: The Air Boss on How It All Works March 4 2010 no responses
During my group’s trip to the USS Harry S Truman earlier this year, we got to spend about 20 minutes on the flight bridge with the Air Boss. Along with his teammate, the Mini-Boss, he’s the guy who leads everyone involved in flight operations on the ship.
In this clip, he talks about how they sequence the planes for landing and launch. There’s a real emphasis on systems in running safe, efficient and effective flight operations. One of the things you notice right off the bat when you’re on the deck of an aircraft carrier is that the crew is wearing different color jerseys – red, green, white, purple and yellow. There’s a systemic reason for that and the Air Boss explains why that’s the case in this clip. He wraps things up with a quick explanation of how the arrest system works in safely landing the planes. That’s a lot in a five minute clip. I think you’ll enjoy it.
Sometimes It’s Better Not to Win March 3 2010 one response
It’s Wednesday and I still find myself drifting back to the gold medal hockey showdown between Canada and the U.S. on Sunday’s closing day of the Vancouver Olympics. Like a lot of other casual hockey fans, I found myself utterly swept away by the excitement of the U.S. comeback to tie the game in the last seconds of regulation and then the game winning shot in overtime by the latest Canadian hockey hero, Sidney Crosby. Equal to the excitement was the emotional experience of watching the Canadian fans in the arena sing “O Canada” with their winning team and all their hearts. (On Monday morning, the New York Times ran a moving article on what hockey means to Canada. It’s worth reading.)
As I watched the Canadians celebrate, I doubt I was alone in thinking that sometimes it’s better not to win. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting for a second that the Americans didn’t play their skates off and give it everything they had. It would have been great to see them win. But, no one wins all the time, and, sometimes, intentionally or not, you serve the greater good when you don’t win.
In the world outside of sports, it’s easy to get caught up in a “must win all the time,” approach and mentality. There are a lot of factors in our culture and in the personality traits of many people who end up in leadership roles that reinforce a reflexive response to win. Especially when you’re in a long term relationship with the other party, it’s important to mindful of other options besides going for the win.
Here are four of them:
Scott Eblin is an executive coach, speaker and author of 
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