Archive for June, 2010
How to Run a Staff Meeting June 30 2010 one response
There’s an interesting video on the New York Times web site that offers a peek inside the daily staff meeting of the team responsible for cleaning up the Gulf oil spill. It’s about three minutes long and is worth a look if you want to see how an efficient staff meeting is run.
I’ve watched it a few times and have concluded that while it probably wasn’t intentional the meeting format could have been based on the old journalism school formula for writing a news story – Who, What, When, Where, Why, How.
Here are some examples of what I mean by that. See if you agree with me that it’s a pretty good way to run a staff meeting.
Video Book Club: A Sense of Urgency June 29 2010 2 responses
If you’re moving too fast to read this post, then you probably need to take a minute and a half to watch this week’s Video Book Club clip on John Kotter’s A Sense of Urgency
Three Lessons from the Longest Serving Senator June 28 2010 no responses
Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia died in the early morning hours of Monday. As reported by Adam Clymer in the New York Times, he was 92 and served 51 years in the U.S. Senate following six years in the House of Representatives. That made him the longest serving member of Congress ever.
I grew up in West Virginia, worked for one of its governors and am a student of politics so I watched Senator Byrd in action for most of my life. Some of us with ties to the state call it Byrdland because it seems like every other building or road is the Senator Robert C. Byrd something or other. Much to the chagrin of many but to the delight of most West Virginians, Byrd channeled over a billion dollars in federal projects to the state when he was chairman of the Senate Appropriations committee.
Like all of the rest of us human beings, Byrd wasn’t perfect. As a young man, he joined and then quit the Ku Klux Klan (and, as Clymer notes in his article, spent years apologizing for and regretting his membership). He became a consistent supporter of civil rights legislation only in the last half of his career. He certainly had an ego as all of those buildings and roads with his name on them will attest. That said, in reading the Byrd obituaries this morning, there are three lessons from his life that I think leaders should consider:
Who’s The Boss? June 23 2010 no responses
If you haven’t read the full Rolling Stone article on General Stanley McChrystal, it’s worth 15 minutes of your time to do so. The RS reporter, Michael Hastings, had pretty much unfettered access to McChrystal and his top aides over the course of a month in Paris and Afghanistan. The result of that is an engrossing article that includes a number of intemperate remarks from the General and his aides which have endangered McChrystal’s career. I took some time to read the article online yesterday and was struck by something that I haven’t seen discussed in the secondary reporting.
Video Book Club: The Discipline of Market Leaders June 22 2010 one response
One of the things that makes a strategy book really useful is when it introduces a model that you can use to organize your thinking for years to come. This week’s VBC feature did that for me. It’s The Discipline of Market Leaders
What Am I Supposed To Be Learning From This? June 21 2010 one response
A long time ago in a land far away, I worked for a year as a first year associate in a now defunct Wall Street investment bank. It was a stressful, but educational experience. What did I learn? Lots of things. Things like the recruiting process is not necessarily the best indicator of what it will be like to actually work someplace.
Or, that you shouldn’t believe everything you read. The firm I worked for had ten corporate values printed in the back of its annual report. Number ten was, “Have fun!” Late one afternoon, about six months into the year, one of my first year colleagues had the temerity to ask Dan, the senior associate who was our drill sergeant, “Hey Dan, one of our corporate values is ‘Have fun!’ When do we get to have fun?” Face reddening, veins bulging, Dan’s reply was “Not until your third year!”
But the biggest thing I learned that year was how not to lead. The senior partners in our department led through fear and intimidation. A typo in a proposal was cause for being publicly called out and dressed down in an all hands staff meeting. Leaving the office before 7:30 or 8:00 pm was seen as a lack of commitment. Yelling at subordinates was the norm. There were good cops and bad cops to keep you on your toes. The threat of firing was always in the air. I often said to myself, “If I ever lead a group of people, I’m going to do the exact opposite of everything they’re doing here.” That actually ended up being a pretty good running start on an approach to leadership in the jobs I had after that one.
My Wall Street days came to mind recently when I was listening to an executive speak to a group of high potential leaders I’m coaching.
Crummy Boss? Sneaky Peers? Let It Go. June 18 2010 5 responses
Every so often, I’ll have a conversation with a client who is really frustrated with someone at work. It could be a really difficult boss or a peer who is only focused on his own agenda. What I frequently see with clients in these situations is a lot of pent up negative energy about the other person. You don’t have to scratch the surface very hard for the client to go off on a bit of a rant about how unreasonable the boss is or how selfish the peer is.
Understandable but not very productive. What’s happening in these situations is illustrated by a little formula developed by leadership coach Tim Gallwey. It goes like this:
Your performance is equivalent to your potential minus the interference. A lot of people mistake the interference for an external factor like the bad boss or the sneaky peer. That’s not the interference; that’s the trigger for the interference. The interference is the story that builds and builds in your head that gets you so wound up, stressed out or ticked off that you can’t think clearly. The next thing you know, all of that internal interference has overwhelmed any potential you have to perform at your best.
So, what can you do about this?
What’s Your Intention? June 16 2010 no responses
A 
s I often do, I spent yesterday with a group of high potential executives in an orientation program. The point of the program was to give these newly promoted leaders an inside look at what’s expected of them and to give them some opportunities to learn and think about what’s going to be different now that they’re in executive level roles. It’s a great thing to do and these leaders are fortunate that their company creates some time for them to go off line and learn from senior executives, each other and a few outside speakers.
I was part of that last group – the outside speakers. My goal was to share some tools and frameworks that would be useful to them for leading at the next level. I had that coveted 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm slot when everyone’s energy level is at its highest (not). In spite of the time of day, we had some really lively conversations. One of them was around the value of visualizing the outcome you’re trying to create in different events and meetings and how you need to show up to make that outcome likely. I asked everyone to identify an important event on their calendar next week and then spend four minutes coaching each other in pairs around three basic questions:
Video Book Club The Gluten-Free Diner June 15 2010 no responses
I know what you’re thinking. The Gluten-Free Diner? I thought this was a leadership blog. Well, it is but as a leader you still have to eat. As a matter of fact, it’s really important that you eat well so you have the energy and wherewithal to show up as a focused and engaged leader.
So, it’s with a great deal of pride and affection that I present my wife, Diane’s new cookbook, The Gluten Free Diner. In case you didn’t know, Diane is an amazing cook and an expert on gluten and dairy free cooking. (You can check out her work at www.thewholegang.org.) Her motto is "good food no matter what" and, with that in mind, created The Gluten-Free Diner to answer the question, “If there were a diner that served all of your favorites on a gluten and dairy free basis, what would be on the menu?” Her cookbook has the answers.
I talk more about it in this clip and share the code you can use to get a special Next Level Blog discount on The Gluten Free Diner by using the link below the clip. Bon appétit!
Could You Get Reelected? June 14 2010 no responses
Here’s a question that might make you uncomfortable or maybe even angry. If you had to run a campaign to keep your leadership job, could you get reelected? In this era of anti-incumbent fever, my guess is that there are a lot of non-political leaders who would be voted out of office if their followers had the chance.
What prompted this line of thinking for me was an article in this morning’s Washington Post about how DC’s mayor Adrian Fenty is being booed lustily at just about every public appearance he’s making lately. This is the reception for a guy who was consistently cheered back in 2006 when he was running for mayor and who, since he was elected, most everyone agrees has improved city services, raised test scores in schools and opened new libraries and rec centers.
He’s gotten some great results, so why the boos as he runs for reelection? He may have gotten great results but he’s blowing the relationships. He’s argued with City Council over baseball tickets, he showed up late or not at all at the scene of major events like Metro derailments and funerals for murder victims, he’s taken unannounced, paid for by others, vacations to places like China and Dubai.
He’s gotten results while ignoring the relationships and is now faced with a serious primary challenger and boos everywhere he goes.
You may be thinking, “So what? That’s just politics; that has nothing to do with my situation. I’m not running for office, I’m doing real work.” And so you may be. But just consider this for a moment. If the people who are following you, working with you and for you had the opportunity to vote on whether or not you get to keep your job would they vote you in or vote you out?
The thing is, even if they don’t get to vote with a ballot, they get to vote with their minds and, ultimately, with their feet. You may be getting stellar results but if you’re not also attending to the relationships you’re losing them. And if you’re losing them, you’re eventually going to stop getting results because they’re going to check out on you.
So, if they were taking a vote on you and your job, could you get reelected? It’s worth thinking about. Because even if you’re not standing for reelection, you’re still running a campaign. It’s just a question of whether you recognize it or not.
Scott Eblin is an executive coach, speaker and author of 
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