Archive for November, 2011

Leadership Lessons from the Eurozone Crisis November 30 2011

If you haven’t been paying much attention to the Eurozone debt crisis, now might be a pretty good time to start. A relatively small crisis that started with Greece not being able to repay its debts, has spread to Italy and Portugal and it looks like Spain and even France are at risk. It’s a complicated story but it makes a big difference because a lot of the big banks around the world hold a lot of European debt. If they have to write that debt off their books, then they have to cut back on lending. It’s a lot like the subprime mortgage meltdown of 2008 only bigger.  The Eurozone could break up as a result leading to even bigger problems.

All eyes are turning to Germany as the only European economy big enough and sound enough to provide the financial assistance that could stop the bleeding.  As New York Times columnist Joe Nocera eloquently explains, the Germans don’t want to do that because they feel like they’ve been prudent with their economy and should not have to bail out the countries who were partying on their credit cards. That’s understandable but will lead to a terrible outcome for everyone including Germany. Its economy is driven by exports and if its primary markets collapse, it’s going to get squeezed hard too. In a sign of how nervous people are about all of this, the Polish foreign minister said this week that for the first time in his life he was more worried about Germany not taking action than taking action.

If you take out the scary implications for the global economy, what’s happening between Germany and the rest of the Europe happens in organizations all the time. One or more parties make bad decisions that lead to bad outcomes while another party plays it by the book and is then asked to step in and fix everything.  It doesn’t seem fair and it’s usually not. It’s understandable that the party that played it down the middle would like to just let the offending party fend for itself. The problem with that, as is the case in Europe right now, is that the let them fend for themselves approach can bring down the entire organization.

It takes a lot of leadership to make the moves that place effectiveness at a higher level of value than being right. Being right can feel good, but what’s the point if everything else blows up? The best leaders understand they and their teams are part of an ecosystem. Sometimes, for the good of the whole system leaders need to suck it up and help out the people who screwed up even if it doesn’t feel fair.

What are your thoughts and experience on this? Have you ever had to hold your nose and do something as a leader that just didn’t seem fair to some of the people involved? What factors and messages did you consider when you did?

4 Ways to Build Your Willpower November 28 2011

It’s Monday morning, so it’s time for me to write a blog post. If you’re a regular reader, you may have noticed that I typically post on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Unless I’m on vacation, it’s three days a week most of the time. That’s been the schedule for about three years now. This is my 574^th post. Since the average post is about 500 words, that’s about 287,000 words. The typical business book is around 50,000 words long. If you do the math, all of those posts add up to five or six books.

All of these stats are prompted by an article I read in the New York Times over the weekend called Willpower: It’s All in Your Head.  In it the authors challenge the point of view that humans have a limited amount of capacity for willpower. They’ve conducted their own experiments and have concluded that if you believe willpower is limited, it will be.  Conversely, if you believe it is unlimited, it will be.  It reminds me of something Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t; either way you’re right.”

It seems like two or three times a week someone will say something to me along the lines of, “I don’t know how you write all of those blog posts.  You must have so much willpower.” Honestly, I hadn’t really thought about it that way. Blogging was something I decided to do and I just kept doing it. After reading the article in the Times, I’ve concluded that maybe there is some willpower involved in blogging consistently (or going to yoga consistently, or keeping up with my work, or avoiding stuff that’s bad for me, or anything else that one does that requires persistence).

So, as is my fashion, I’ve given some thought to the steps I take to build my willpower. I’m not holding myself up as the willpower world champ. I’m not by any stretch. (You should see me rip through a bag of potato chips for instance.) These are, though, some things that I do to follow through on what I commit to doing.  Your mileage may vary.  I’d love to hear what willpower building steps work for you through your comments on the post.

Take the Thanks Giving Leadership Challenge November 23 2011

As Thanksgiving Day approaches in the United States, here’s a personal leadership challenge that could have an impact long after the turkey leftovers are gobbled up.

If you’re a leader (at work, in the community, at home – it doesn’t matter where), take up the challenge to give your true and sincere thanks to someone who deserves it at least once a week for the next year. Here’s how it works:

1. Every week identify at least one specific thing that someone did for you or that contributed to the cause.

2. Get clear with yourself about why what they did mattered to you or the organization. Come up with at least two or three points about what they did and how they did it.  Commit those points to memory.

3. Go talk to that person. If the conversation is in person, square up to them, open up your body language and make good eye contact. If they’re on web cam or the phone, do those things anyway – some of the positive energy will come across over the wires.

4. Thank them for what they did and how they did it. Tell them the difference it made to you. For extra credit, don’t just talk about the impact on results; talk about the positive way it made you feel. Don’t be afraid to make a connection.

5. As you close the thank you, shake their hand, pat them on the back or, if it’s appropriate, give them a hug.

When was the last time the designated leader thanked you in such a way that you really knew they meant it? It felt pretty good, didn’t it? You’ve got the power to do that for others.

Taking the Thanks Giving Challenge is one of those leadership moves that is relatively easy to do and highly likely to make a difference.

If you take it on, please share a story in the comments about how it’s going. What difference is it making to you and your organization? What was the most memorable thank you that you’ve ever received?

What Crabs in a Pot Have to Do with Leadership Presence November 21 2011

Last week, I spent an afternoon sparking a conversation on leadership presence with a group of rising leaders in a well known organization. The conversation turned to how difficult it can be to lead change because there are often a lot of structures and norms in place that create massive barriers to change. That’s where leadership presence becomes so critical. Leaders recognize the resistance and figure out ways to move past it. The first step in doing so is not getting pulled back into the churn.

To illustrate that point last week, I told a story that I don’t usually tell in professional settings but it just seemed right at the time. When I was growing up in Huntington, West Virginia, my best friend was a guy named Ty Neal.  One night when we were in high school, we were hanging out in Ty’s basement when his dad, Ted, got home from a meeting at the American Legion hall.  He yelled down and asked us to come upstairs for a talk.

He began by asking if we’d ever seen crabs in a pot getting boiled. We said sure but weren’t sure where he was going with this.  “Here’s the thing, he said, there will always be one crab who gets his claw up on the rim of that pot and is just about ready to pull himself out of there.  And then the other crabs will grab him and drag him back into the pot.  They’re not getting out of there, but they’re going to make sure he’s not getting out either. Both of you guys are smart and talented. You could go places. Don’t let them drag you back into that pot, boys.”

Mr. Neal shared a lot of wisdom with Ty and me back in the day but the crabs in the pot story is the one that I’ve always remembered. One of the big challenges of leadership is not getting pulled back into the pot. It’s about understanding what the current reality is (i.e.  it’s hotter than hell in here and if we don’t get out, we’ll be cooked) and influencing others to come with you to something better while resisting their efforts to pull you back in.

How to Set Your Tebows Up for Success November 18 2011

He did it again. On Thursday night, down 13 to 10 against the NY Jets, Tim Tebow quarterbacked the Denver Broncos to a win in the last five minutes of the game.  He’s done that so often this season that fans have named the closing minutes of the game Tebow Time. The highlight of the most recent episode came when, on third and four with about a minute left in the game, Tebow picked up on a Jets blitz and ran the ball around the left side and into the end zone for the game winning touchdown.

He’s having a pretty good season for a guy who many thought might be put on waivers a few months ago. Tebow was so far down the Broncos depth chart that for awhile he wasn’t even their third strong quarterback.  While he had led Florida to national championships when he was in college and won the Hesiman trophy, most of the experts thought that Tebow’s playing style was not cut out for the NFL.  Those experts included the new Denver head coach, Jon Fox, and their legendary head of football operations, John Elway. Both of them had a lot of the “he’s a fine young man” sort of praise for Tebow but didn’t express a lot of confidence in his abilities.  Tebow kept working in practice, riding the bench in games and the Broncos started 1 and 4.  With no better options, Fox decided to play Tebow five weeks ago and now the team is 5 and 5 on the season.

Week by week, Fox and his staff have made adjustments in the game plan to take advantage of Tebow’s strengths. You have to give them credit for that because a lot of coaches wouldn’t. There are a few things that executives and managers can learn from the Denver coaches about how to leverage the strengths of talented players who don’t fit the mold. Here are three ways to set your own Tebows up for success.

Lessons in Winning Gracefully from Coach K November 16 2011

In what ended up being a pretty close game, Duke beat Michigan State at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night.  In the process, Coach Mike Krzyzewski set a record by winning his 903rd Division I basketball game.  With the win, he passed his former coach, boss and mentor Bob Knight who was sitting court side calling the game for ESPN.  It was a pretty compelling moment made more so by the way Coach K conducted himself in the minutes after the game.

As you can see in this interview with ESPN’s Andy Katz, the coach showed grace, gratitude and perspective after setting the record.

If you’re fortunate as a leader, there will be times when you can see a big win coming up before it happens.  In Coach K’s case, it was a lock that he was going to break the record this season, it was just a question of when.  By thinking in advance how he wanted to handle himself if he won at MSG in front of his old coach, he created an opportunity to show leaders how to win gracefully.

Here are three lessons from the coach that stood out for me.

Put Your Own Mask on First November 14 2011

If you’ve flown on a commercial airliner, you’ve heard the flight attendants say something along the lines of, “In the unlikely event of a loss of cabin pressure, yellow oxygen masks will deploy.  Put the strap of the mask over your head and breathe normally.  If you’re travelling with passengers who need assistance, put your own mask on first before assisting other passengers.”

That line came up last week in one of our Next Level Leadership™ group coaching programs.  The lunchtime guest speaker was a fantastic executive who shared a lot of personal wisdom and stories about what it takes to make it as a leader over the long run.  She told us that her older brother is a pilot for United Airlines and that, when the demands of life get her feeling a little frantic, he always says, “Remember, put your own mask on first.”

Her point, of course, is that you have to take care of yourself to effectively take care of others.  It’s what I call in The Next Level, picking up regular renewal of your energy and perspective and letting go of running flat out until you crash. In the world beyond the cabins of airliners, the issue isn’t so much a loss of pressure but, rather, the accumulation of pressure.

What does putting on your own mask look like in the rest of the world?  Here are three ideas to get the conversation started.  What taking care of yourself tactics would you add to the list?

Leadership Lessons from Veterans November 11 2011

Over the past couple of years, I’ve had the good fortune to spend time with members of our armed services in leadership training sessions and on board the aircraft carrier, The USS Harry S Truman and the United States Coast Guard Cutter Venturous.  I’ve learned a lot from the service members I’ve talked to about the value of training, preparation and teamwork.  If there’s one thing I’ve heard more than anything else as I’ve spent time with members of the armed forces, it’s been, “Take care of your team and they’ll take care of you.”

In a dinner with retired U.S. Army Colonel Steve Dwyer earlier this year, he shared a great story about how he learned this lesson as a young lieutenant.  I’ve heard different versions of his story again and again over the past year.  On this Veteran’s Day, I spent some time reading the Medal of Honor citations for the five warriors who have received them for meritorious service in Afghanistan.   You can read them here and when you do, you’ll see what I saw.  In every case, the Medal of Honor winner was protecting, saving or recovering his teammates from enemy fire.    Each is a story of a leader, at either a junior or more senior grade, taking care of his team by putting their welfare and safety ahead of his own.

It’s such a simple idea.  Take care of your team and they’ll take care of you.  What difference would it make in the world if this leadership principle was consistently applied in domains beyond the battlefield?

Thank you veterans, active duty and retired, for your service and what you have to teach the rest of us.

What Did He Know and When Did He Know It? November 9 2011

In the days of the Watergate hearings, Senator Howard Baker became famous for asking the question, “What did the President know and when did he know it?”  Today, the same question is being asked about Penn State football coach Joe Paterno and administrative officers at the University.  It’s easy enough to find the details about the horrific sexual abuse allegations and indictment against a former top assistant to Paterno so there’s no need to recap them here.

It is stunning, however, to consider the damage that was done after top officials including Paterno were made aware of eye witness accounts and decided to not turn the case over to law enforcement. One can only assume that the decision to keep the information in-house was to protect the institution and the program. The conventional wisdom is that the cover up is worse than the crime.  If the allegations against the assistant coach are accurate, the conventional wisdom is wrong in this case. The crime is worse, but the cover up is both sickening and instructive.

Paterno has been the head coach at Penn State for almost 50 years. If you’re in a prominent leadership role for that long, the odds are you’re going to be confronted with some tough and ugly issues along the way. Keeping that question from Senator Baker in the back of your mind seems like a good guidepost for tough times. If the question, “What did he know and when did he know it?” puts a knot in your stomach, that’s your signal to get everything out on the table as quickly as possible. You owe it to yourself, your institution and, most importantly, the people who are being hurt to do so.

How to Do Less with Less November 7 2011

As I’ve spoken with groups of leaders over the last year, I’ve often begun the conversation by asking how many of them would say that the results that are expected of them today are significantly different than those that were expected a year ago.  Usually, every hand in the room goes up.  Then I’ll ask the question about future expectations.  How many of you think that the results that will be expected of you a year from now will be a whole lot different than the results that are expected today? Again, just about every hand goes up.

That’s the point where we start talking about what’s going to have to change for them to get different results.  I’ve heard a lot this year about the expectation to do more with less.  A few weeks ago, I was speaking with a group of newly promoted government executives including flag officers from one of the branches of the military.  No one mentioned the line about doing more with less so I asked them if they felt that was what they’re up against.  There were a few moments of silence until one of the flag officers said, “Actually, for a lot of us,  it’s going to be doing less with less.”

Most everyone in the room agreed.  To be honest, I had not really thought about it that way until that moment but it made perfect sense.  To take one example, as Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta notes in an interview with the New York Times this morning, his department will be implementing a $450 billion budget cut over the next ten years.  He and his team will have to consider base closings, reallocation of resources, benefit programs and a lot of other options to make the cuts while still fulfilling the DOD mission around the world.  That’s not easy.

Doing more with less certainly has its challenges (and will likely be the topic for future blog posts).  Doing less with less might be even more challenging because it not only deals with the resource constraints, it also deals with the emotional and intellectual exercises of scaling back expectations.

I’m not suggesting that there are a few easy steps to doing less with less, but here are some thoughts that might help frame the challenge.  I’d love to hear what you think and what you’d add.