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  • Developing your organization: the right people (Active Leadership 7)

    Bob had a successful early career in large account sales, and is now in his second role as leader of a national accounts group. His team sells complex systems integration services to the company’s largest customers. Many of his people have tech­nical and engineering degrees. They are usually quite clever in helping their clients solve complex problems; but they are a bit slower than he would like in developing social relationships that lead to greater business development success over time. Last year, he hired Fred, a candidate from outside the organization, to handle a steady client that appeared to have untapped potential for development. Bob realized that Fred might be a little light on the technical side, but assumed that his winning smile and great social skills would compensate and help him develop the business. As anticipated, everyone responded well to Fred, and he seemed to get a great deal of traction on the front end. But business has actually declined. Although Bob provided him with a more technical exposure and a deeper dive into the complexities of the services the company provides, Fred appears to be out of his element. Bob is now thinking about reassigning one of his other people to help with some of the technical difficulties the client appears to be experiencing. He has a sinking feeling that Fred might not be able to learn what he needs to know to represent the company in a credible manner.

     We all know ascent is fraught with obstacles and dangers: but just getting there isn’t enough. Now the question becomes, “How do I stay here long enough to have a lasting positive impact on this place?” To do so, you must build a healthy, viable company that provides growth opportunities for people. You just can’t do that with toxic people (see the next chapter). A sad fact of life is that some people choose to do harmful things. But let’s talk about good people first.

    In Good to Great, Jim Collins describes the characteris­tics of great leaders as being modest and even self-deprecating, yet also as having an unwavering ambition for the company. They never lose faith in ultimate suc­cess, but also face facts in a brutally direct manner. One of his adages is that success is a function of getting the right people on the bus and getting them in the right seats.

    The leader’s ability to select and develop the right people is crucial to the success of any organization. In addition to Collins’s “First the who, then the what”, other people as diverse as humorist Leo Rosten (“First rate people hire first rate people, second rate people hire third rate people”) and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (“A’s hire A’s, B’s hire C’s”) emphasize the importance of getting the best people. A leader has no higher duty than choosing people who will ensure the future success of the organization.

    What are the characteristics of the right people – those who will be good for your business and help foster a culture of success? Theories of personality can be conflicting and confusing. Some measures of personality lead to typecasting that doesn’t hold up when subjected to rigorous predictive analysis. Competency models used by many organizations to define the desirable character­istics of their people are usually too narrow. They can lead managers to look at the wrong things or ignore important aspects of “the whole person” when hiring or developing their people. Competency models don’t often differentiate between what can be taught and what could be an ingrained trait or ability. Some things simply can’t be changed or developed to any significant extent.

    Having personally conducted many thousands of psychological assessments for business organizations, I still sometimes find it difficult to understand and integrate the multifaceted and often conflicting data gathered in the assessment process. The framework de­scribed in this chapter, however, has helped me stay focused on the most important factors in assessment and in coaching for development. It can also help you make better selection and development decisions in your own organization.

    We can all get better at just about anything. In spite of the fact that there are apparently hardwired traits, abilities, and characteristics, improvement is possible. If we define the right kind of goals, pursue them with the right strategies, and monitor our progress, we can im­prove. Psychologist Heidi Halvorson has offered compelling evidence for the dynamic nature of human ability in her book Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals. This is quite encouraging, and has broad implications for self-development, coaching, parenting, and for educa­tional applications. As with anything worthwhile, progress takes insight, planning, time, and effort.

    Unfortunately, unless you’re running a well-funded early career developmental program, you don’t have the resources or time to bring in raw material and nurture it to full potential. If you’re a typical recruiter or hiring executive, you need competent people with the talents and skills necessary to hit the battlefield in full stride. A quote attributed to Lewis Pierson, businessman and for­mer president of the US Chamber of Commerce in the early part of last century, describes your situation: “Business is like a man rowing a boat upstream. He has no choice; he must go ahead or he will go back.” If that was true nearly one hundred years ago, it’s certainly so now.

    This is not to downplay the importance of good management and leadership practices; but unless you’re hiring for entry-level jobs, you simply don’t have the luxury of providing the long-term nurturance, coaching, care and feeding of new hires necessary to develop them to full potential. At least, not in the time frames you face. Although people have great capacity for improvement and development, for your purposes, your candidates typically need to look more like the finished product than a work-in-progress on certain key factors. They must bring with them the appropriate traits and apti­tudes that enable them to learn, adjust, and make a contribution, in relatively short order.

    The necessary business skills can be learned relatively easily and quickly. It takes more time to move the needle on these more deeply ingrained qualities. Long-term and enduring patterns of behavior are traits. An old nugget of business wisdom is “Hire for trait, train for skill.” But if certain traits aren’t in place, some skills won’t develop, no matter how hard one tries. To hire or promote the best people who can quickly become assets in our organizations, we must act as if some things are innate.

    In previous writings, I have described the I-Competencies: the Intellectual, Interpersonal, Integrity, and Intensity factors. These characteristics are generally hardwired, at least for the context and time frames within which a business leader must operate. Think of them as head, heart, guts and will. These are the foundation competencies: the result of genetics and the values and attitudes one absorbs from early family and societal or cultural influences. They are fundamental, and cannot be developed quickly or significantly by training, coaching, or experience. In this respect, they differ from surface competencies such as formal presentation skills, spread­sheet skills, technical knowledge base, and so forth, which can be taught. Since you cannot change these fac­tors to any significant degree, they should be targeted in your selection process.

    The I-Competencies

     The Intellectual Competency (Head)

    This factor has traditionally been measured by standard­ized tests that predict success in school, but test scores alone aren’t enough. The Intellectual Competency, or general intelligence, encompasses mental agility, quick­ness and creativity, depth of knowledge, logical reasoning, and common sense. This factor is a combination of people’s unique mix of skills and abilities: and how well they use them to solve problems. People who make smart decisions and who use their talents effectively are more successful over time than those who make bad decisions or squander their intellectual resources. After almost one hundred years of scientific research on this dimension, the results are quite clear and unambiguous. This is the best predictor of job perfor­mance available. There are always exceptions to the rule: there are very bright people who never amount to any­thing and there are people of rather average intelligence who work hard and achieve great things. But the correlation between this competency and performance over time is clear and consistent across jobs and occupations. In the story introducing this chapter, Bob deals with the consequences of hiring someone who is not strong enough in this competency into an analytically demanding role.

     The Interpersonal Competency (Heart)

    No matter how clever you are, and how elegant or elaborate your problem solutions, if you can’t communicate them to others and convince others of their merits, it doesn’t matter. People who have good social skills and who get along with other people are much more successful as a group than those who don’t have as many talents in this area. They have greater in­fluence in the group because others like them and feel good about them. The Interpersonal Competency is the key that unlocks the door of influence. It enables you to communicate the worth of your ideas. This competency includes general social and persuasive skills, social in­sight and intuition, likeability and persuasiveness. The Intel­lectual Competency enables you to solve the problem. The Interpersonal Competency enables you to convince other people that your solution is a good one.

     The Integrity Competency (Guts)

    This is broader than just the basic honesty-dishonesty dimension, although that’s a fundamental. This competency is the cornerstone of building trust, one of the primary factors of credibility. It includes general conscientiousness, discipline, and follow-through. People with high integrity meet their commitments within the time frames agreed upon, and according to standards ex­pected, and let everyone know in plenty of time if the commitment can’t be met. Part of this competency includes the ability to focus, and to use your talents and aptitudes with appropriate discipline. This factor holds things together and facilitates trust and consistency of performance. The greater the perceived integrity, the greater the trust.

     The Intensity Competency (Will)

    This is the motivation factor. It includes energy, stamina, drive, and the ability to get fully engaged. People with high intensity are active, not passive. They are driven by a need to get things done and to see results. With proper control and focus, people with high intensity achieve at higher levels than those with only average amounts of stamina and energy. This is the fuel that provides force for achieving goals, and for staying motivated in the face of obstacles. It is often referred to as general drive or motivation. The more motivated you are, the more likely you are to achieve results, and consequently the greater your ability to influence others by virtue of your accom­plishments and general credibility.

     Key Concepts

    Although everyone can improve, some things take too long to change enough to make a difference in the business con­text and timeframe. Therefore, we must select people for specific fundamental and stable traits and aptitudes. These are foundation competencies: intellectual, interpersonal, integrity and intensity. These “I-Competencies” can be thought of as head, heart, guts, and will.

  • eTest — one of the first online assessment companies

    etest

    Many readers of MPG articles and newsletters are also users of the eTest online testing platform*.  As such, they are familiar with the basic report, The Hiring Manager’s Confidential Interview Guide (described below). However, they may not be aware that there are three other types of reports, available from the initial eTest assessment data that can be of assistance in hiring, developmental and coaching activities. Brief descriptions of each type of report are presented below, but there are also endless varieties of customized reports available for unique jobs or organizational requirements.

    The Confidential Interview Guide is a tool primarily for selection. It provides an in-depth analysis of the candidate’s personality and aptitude characteristics as they relate to the workplace. It consists of a narrative description of the individual, a set of Targeted Interview Probes (TIPs) and a profile of scores.

    General personality characteristics can offer insights into how a person might thrive in a wide variety of jobs and company cultures. This report includes information on the “dna of personality,” the factors that are consistent and stable over time and that affect our behavior in a wide range of situations. A broad professional consensus is that people can be described effectively using five major dimensions of personality (the Five Factor Theory, or Big Five):

    • Extraversion (the orientation towards people and the external world)
    • Emotional Reactivity (the tendency to be anxious, high strung or impatient)
    • Behavioral Control (which includes discipline, conscientiousness and detail-orientation)
    • Agreeableness (the inclination to be affable, harmonious and cooperative)
    • Complexity (the orientation towards the world of strategic, conceptual and complex ideas)

    The interview guide includes the candidate’s profile on the Big Five personality factors described above and their sub-scores, job functional similarity (administrative, customer service, managerial, sales, technical, etc.); empirically-derived job-related scales (dependability, motivation, stress tolerance, etc.) and observations about the person’s problem-solving approach, interpersonal style and motivational makeup.  Sample Customer Service Profile.

    The Developmental Report is written for job candidates or incumbents in case you want to provide feedback and or to offer a roadmap for coaching purposes.  It provides a narrative description of the candidate’s personality traits, a set of developmental suggestions and a score profile. It is useful as a standalone tool for further self-reflection and personal/career development or as part of a more comprehensive coaching process. It includes the Personality Profile information from the Hiring Manager’s Interview Guide report, a more developmentally-oriented version of the narrative description and several targeted developmental suggestions. Developmental Report

    The Leadership Report is designed for use as a developmental tool. It may also be used as another data point in selection, but should not be the sole criteria for a hiring or promotion decision. It is a narrative report providing a description of the person’s general style and likely behavior in a position of influence or leadership, to include probable assets, de-railers and developmental suggestions. Leadership Report

    Based on the standard eTest Profile, the Sales Report is the result of rigorous research using real-world data from a wide variety of organizations and sales jobs. There is no one best sales profile for all jobs but there are certain traits and behaviors that increase the chances for success in most sales jobs. Our research indicates that sales people, and sales jobs themselves, can be effectively and usefully described using four major dimensions:

    • General Sales Similarity (an overall scale indicating how similar the person is to people in a very wide range of sales jobs)
    • Account Acquisition (the traditional hunter-farmer factor)
    • Strategic Selling (important in developing complex solutions for clients)
    • Team Coordination (necessary for marshalling an array of resources for the client)

    In combination with in-depth information about the Big Five personality factors and the empirically-derived scales mentioned in the Hiring Manager’s Guide, the Sales Report describes a candidate’s Interpersonal Style, Motivational Makeup, Problem-Solving Approach, Sales Leadership Style, Probable Assets, Potential Liabilities and Developmental Suggestions. Sales Report

    We can develop an almost unlimited number of Customized Reports from the eTest standard battery. Depending on the scope of your hiring needs, you may wish to develop custom reports and job scales. If you’d like to test-drive the system and/or get more information about customizing and validating online assessment tests for your organization, call Cheryl at 800-700-1315 for details. Or email us with a brief synopsis of your needs. One of our licensed psychologists will be in touch shortly to further explore how we may be able to help.

    *eTest.net (established in 1996 by the psychologists of MPG) was one of the first online employment assessment companies. The standard eTest battery was developed from interview and testing data of more than 14,000 people over a ten year period. Over 140,000 people have taken the eTest personality inventory in its current form. See this Prezi for a quick overview of the company.

  • Transitions: anticipating the demands of new roles and adapting (Active Leadership 6)

    Catherine has been fiercely competitive and quite successful in everything she has ever tried to do. She was awarded academic and athletic scholarships, and graduated cum laude with a degree in electrical engineering from a major university. People have always assumed she was destined for greatness. The confidence that came from her many successes reinforced that idea in her mind. She was quickly discovered to be the cleverest technical problem solver on the team in her first job. On recommendation of her bosses, she was assigned to bigger and more complex projects whenever the opportunities arose. She thoroughly enjoyed the work and the challenge of dealing with difficult and multifaceted real world engineering problems. She was known to have exacting standards, and to be quite de­manding of other team members, but she got along well with people.

    Because of her outstanding work, she has recently been promoted to supervise a similar team in another department. Although this was quite a feather in her cap, she was reluctant to give up some of the interesting and exciting engineering problems she found so stimulating and challenging. Now she has a different sort of problem. She is disappointed with the quality of thinking and the general expertise of her new group. Things she had assumed would be in place appear to be severely lacking in this team. She finds herself having to redo their work on a regular basis. Although she is making a valiant effort to bite her tongue, she is rolling her eyes too often. This stuff is really much simpler than the work of her previous group, and she has a hard time understanding why they don’t seem to get it. By now, they should know what they’re trying to do, and shouldn’t need so much help from her. She finds herself wishing she didn’t have to worry so much about other people, especially those who seem so slow on the uptake. Perhaps her path to success should not include having to manage – and babysit – people?

    You don’t need a shrink to tell you change is difficult. There are powerful dialogues and instincts inside all of us that conspire against us. Change involves letting go of something that has been of value, so it automatically triggers our fear of loss. Change can sometimes threaten our self-concept, releasing the previously mentioned forces of the law of consistency. It also involves expendi­ture of energy, to learn something new and to deal with all of the previously described forces of resistance.

    Obviously, as you move up, you need to develop new skills and insights. Although the lessons learned from your previous lives typically work your advantage, they can sometimes work against you. There are certain skills and perspectives one must develop at each new level. Our natural tendencies are to rely too heavily on the knowledge, skills, and behaviors that made us successful in our earlier roles. But if you don’t make the necessary ad­justments in attitude, behavior and focus, you won’t make a smooth transition. For each new level, suc­cess demands letting go of something that was previously of value and broadening your perspective.

    From individual performer to supervisor of others

    Self-management was earlier discussed as one of the three basic tasks of successful leadership (the other two being people and task management). As an individual performer, you are rewarded for being the most knowledgeable, clever, hardworking, and task-focused person you can be. However, when the job involves supervising others, you just don’t have as much time as before to invest in all those other areas. Now, the reward comes from helping others to be successful and relying on them for your own success. But it’s not easy to shift from actually doing the work to getting it done through other people. You must let go of some of the behaviors and activities that made you successful as an independ­ent worker. You now must develop and apply your knowledge of motivation and behavior. This involves helping people settle conflicts, diagnosing performance problems, coaching them to work more effectively, and holding them accountable. Although you still might be responsible for many of the earlier activities, you have broader and more challenging goals.

    This is a very difficult transition for many people, especially those who have a craft, technical, or profes­sional specialty. It’s quite natural for them to feel a loss of security by moving to this level. The idea of losing one’s technical edge is threatening: especially if that person is unsure about the ability to direct and facilitate the work of others.

    From supervisor of individuals to manager of managers

    This transition involves retaining and applying every­thing you’ve learned as a supervisor, while shifting to a broader focus. The new skills required at this level are not quite as obvious as those necessary for success in the previous job. Assessment and selection of talent become more important. At this point, you are far re­moved from being able to be involved in individual contributions. Again, this level requires changes in your time allocation. You now need to analyze how to deploy resources most effectively to the various units under your supervision. What’s more, you need to help define and clarify boundaries between units to help settle con­flicts, to facilitate efficiency and to foster better working relationships among your people.

    Coaching becomes more important at this level, be­cause your direct reports probably have very little formal training about their own new roles. They know how to be great individual contributors. After all, if that were not the case, they wouldn’t have been considered for promotion. Like Catherine, however, most of them are still wrestling with some of the changes in perspective, values, time allocation, and scope of vision you encoun­tered in your own initial supervisory role. At this level, you can’t help people solve problems they encounter as individual contributors. You’re just too far away from that particular theater of operations. One of your major tasks in this role is to help others become more comfort­able and effective delegating work, rather than trying to do it themselves.

    From manager of managers to leader of a function

    Depending on the size of your organization, this may be a position reporting directly to the CEO. Developing new ways of communicating becomes increasingly important at this point. There are now at least two layers of management between you and the individual workers. In addition to this, you might be managing departments with which you are totally unfamiliar. You are inter­preting new data and judging how well it reflects reality. You must also communicate a clear and consistent mes­sage to everyone in the group, to help them understand the mission, values, standards, and goals that are important to the success of the organization.

    The leader of a function must learn to understand and appreciate longer-term strategy. This involves understanding the other functions; and how each con­tributes to the current and future success of the organization. Here, you need to coordinate with your peers to clarify expectations, to facilitate a solid under­standing of what each group contributes, and to define the standards, metrics, and criteria for success. Naturally, politics play a role as well: politics are part of every or­ganization, and tend to become more subtle, yet more intense, as one moves up the organizational hierarchy. At this level, you are generally dealing with competent and ambitious peers, and need to develop even more effective negotiation and relationship management skills.

    From functional manager to business unit leader

    In smaller companies, this is the CEO position. If not, it usually reports to the CEO. In larger companies, it can report to an enterprise manager responsible for several different businesses. This is the P&L level, and here you have a great deal of autonomy and responsibility. In ad­dition to the strategic and cross-functional perspective, now you must consider questions of risk, profit, and long-term results. This is one of the most challenging positions you could ever hold. It requires the ability to maintain a delicate balance of operations, strategy, financial acumen, and ever more complex and subtle communication and political issues. You must learn to be effective making trade-off decisions between the demands of future goals and current operational needs. The time pressures of short-term profit demands add an extra layer of stress.

    Full success at this level requires that you understand and value all staff functions, some of which you might have considered adversarial in previous roles. A common mistake here is to overvalue one’s previous function, and to let old loyalties, alliances, and relationships cloud the judgment and impartial vision necessary for success at the business unit level. This is especially true if you have been promoted from your previous function inside the business you now lead.

    Deeper reflection and analysis become much more important to the success of a business unit leader. This requires a major shift in time allocation. Planning for business success years in the future cannot be done on an ad hoc basis. It requires time for sustained analysis and deep thinking. At this level, you need to be able to con­nect the dots from a very wide range of sources, and to be comfortable with a broader and more far-reaching horizon. This is a major shift in thinking for most people, and it requires a concentrated effort to carve out the necessary time and space to do so effectively.

    This role requires a keen ability to deal with a wide variety of external constituencies. Here, you must de­velop a good balance between internal and external perspectives and focus. You can’t be involved in every internal decision, so you need to be sure you are focusing on the appropriate mission-critical decisions. Now your scope is the organization as a whole:  how it relates and responds to customers; the competitive landscape; the changing technological environment; and regulatory realities.

    Successful internal leadership at this point relies heavily on clarifying your message, ensuring its appropriate communication, understanding and using the power of symbols, delivering good sound bites for message reinforcement, and making sure that your behavior is consistent with your words. It involves creating and maintaining a culture that will facilitate success. This is a complex task, and it takes time. It in­volves developing and communicating a clear and compelling vision, and making sure you have the right people to help you achieve it.

     

    Key concepts

    Relying on the knowledge and skills that made you suc­cessful at one level in the organization will not necessarily help you succeed at the next. In fact, if you rely too heavily on them, they can work against you. The successful journey up the food chain involves letting go of some things that have facilitated your progress so far, learning new skills and perspectives, and making sure you allocate your time appropriately.

  • The Leader as Coach: Active Leadership 4

    Amber’s job interview went quite well. She received a very attractive offer, which she gladly accepted. Her new position offers greater responsibility, more money, and a much more professional and supportive work environment. The interview process was impressive. It was a full day of panel and one-on-one sessions with people who were obviously trying to make sure her skills were a match for the demands of the job, and that she would be a good culture fit. They were also approachable and encouraging of her questions. In casual conversations at lunch, one of her future coworkers asked about the best boss she ever worked for, which was easily the most thought-provoking question of the day. Her answer was probably not what they expected. The person who came to mind immediately was Amy Collins, her college volleyball coach. None of the ten-plus people she has worked for in any company, starting with her first job, even came close.

    Coach, as everyone called her, helped Amber play at a much higher level than she ever thought she could; and she did the same for everyone else on the team. She kept everyone intensely focused on the overall goal of a divisional championship, while also making sure everyone was fully prepared for each game. That the team won the championship was almost secondary to the sheer joy of working with such a dedicated and focused group of teammates, and playing for such an exceptional coach. She always had high standards and quickly let you know if you did not uphold them. She was a tough and relentless taskmaster, but you knew she had your back and you knew she cared. In addition, in spite of her rigid discipline and expectations, she treated each player with respect and with the advice and coaching she needed at any particular point. She was fair to everyone, but her approach with each girl was different, depending on her unique situation, needs and skills. If you were unsure, she helped build confidence. If you got cocky, she quickly brought you down to earth. When things were not going well off the court, she got to the bottom of it, and was always there with willing support. You just knew that if you talked to her, followed her advice, and worked hard, that things would get better. She knew her stuff, you knew that you could trust her and enjoyed being associated with her. She was tough and demanding, but she was also likable and everyone wanted to perform well for her.

    Amber still remembers her with love and admiration. She has a good feeling that leadership in her new company will be much better than at her old place, but she knows there will only be one Coach.

    Articulating clear organizational goals is crucial to leadership success. However, people don’t come in a standard format. We all share certain basic motivations, but all have our own unique individual motives as well. Of course, a basic leadership function is to set the direction and control the process, but effective leaders must do more. They must also find ways to get people to want to follow them. The best way to do that is to be a good coach.

    A good coach understands people

    The best coaches are great judges of talent. The unique makeup and motivations of each individual player have a subtle but often huge impact on the overall performance of the team. A key to success here is to understand a person’s self-concept. Once you know how each person perceives him- or herself, you have a great deal of basic information about how to help them be more successful. If you feel the self-concept is flawed (for instance, if the tendency is to consistently overestimate or underestimate their own ability), your task begins with providing supportive but clear reality checks.

    The law of consistency dictates that people work very hard to maintain a consistent self-image. Unfortunately, this applies to negative as well as positive self-images. A good coach needs effective skills of feedback and critique. If the self-image is too far removed from reality, this process could take some time.

    Once you understand people, their individual basic self-concept and unique blend of motivations, you can begin to help them work effectively towards the achievement of personal goals within the overall framework of organizational mission. Helping your people set realistic personal growth goals is a cornerstone of good leadership. It not only cements the facilitating relationship, but also builds organizational strength. People not in the active process of growth and development don’t add to your bench strength. If your people don’t meet their full potential, you are sure to be at a disadvantage when promotional opportunities come your way. You should always seek a successor: ideally, more than one. One of the best measures of leadership effectiveness is how well you develop others for broader and higher roles within the organization.

    A good coach balances the team

    The same body of research that gave rise to Belbin’s observations on Apollo teams generated other valuable insights about the composition of effective teams. He found that the best performing teams had a balance of team roles in addition to the necessary functional roles. He identified eight such roles that facilitate success. There are the social roles necessary for communication and outreach that enable teamwork; the creative roles that help generate new ideas; the analytical roles that critique these new ideas and facilitate problem-solving; and the operational roles that keep people focused on the task. It’s possible for one person to play a variety of roles, but the function of each role needs to be there.

    The team must be balanced. Too many people with an analytical mindset results in a team that spins its wheels and over-analyses, resulting in lack of progress. Too many people with a social role orientation can distract the team from problem analysis and execution. Too many creative people will result in an idea overload that can cause the team to lose focus. Work teams need people to fill the necessary organizational functional roles such as finance, operations, sales, engineering, and so forth. However, you may have a group of exceptionally talented people with extensive functional knowledge who still fail to function effectively as a team. This is often due to an imbalance of team roles. A good coach will ensure that a team is composed of people with the appropriate skills for each position. This includes team members with the ability to play the more subtle but necessary team roles, as well as the functional requirements.

    A good coach helps define and achieve positive goals

    Executive coaches often use a framework for behavior change that helps people set realistic goals. Many of these are variations of the GROW model for problem solving. This process can be applied to a wide range of circumstances, and can be an effective tool for leaders to help their team members reach full potential. The basics of this model are as follows:

    G – GOAL
    This defines the desired endpoint. It describes where the person ultimately wants to be. Therefore, the goal must be very clear so that the individual knows when it has been achieved.

    R – REALITY
    This is how far away the person is from achieving the goal. It helps clarify the key steps that need to be taken, to help the person achieve the goal, and can also show how far that individual has come.

    O – OBSTACLES and OPTIONS
    To be successful, a person must anticipate problems that might block the way. There are always problems and difficulties; otherwise, the person would already be at the finish line. Once the key obstacles have been identified, the options and resources available to deal with them are defined. However, we can’t predict everything. We must consider Donald Rumsfeld’s “unknown unknowns.” That is, some obstacles will be due to random or unknowable events, so alertness and flexibility are crucial to success here.

    W – WAY FORWARD
    This is the process of development. That is, defining the appropriate action steps identified in the analysis of options and resources that lead the person towards the achievement of the goal.

    Goals are essential to personal growth. Executive coaches often incorporate the characteristics of the effective goal into the acronym SMART. This means the best goals are Specific (clearly defined), Measurable (so that you know how you’re progressing), Actionable (they’re under your control), Realistic (you can achieve them with appropriate effort and resources) and Time-limited (you have a deadline).

    Setting goals is the easy part. The real work lies in achieving them. There is an insidious force just waiting to trip us up and derail our best intentions. An enemy inside all of us keeps us from achieving our goals. Whether you’re trying to write a book, develop an iPad app, lose 40 pounds, start a new business, or achieve a personal growth objective, you have a built-in adversary that will be fiendishly creative and stubborn in finding ways to keep you from your goal. This enemy, Resistance with a capital R, is described rather frighteningly by novelist and screenwriter Stephen Pressfield, in his quick and feisty little book, Do the Work.

    Resistance and its allies – self-doubt, procrastination, timidity, perfectionism, narcissism, our own intelligence and even friends and family – are the powerful forces arrayed against us when we’re trying to achieve any worthwhile goal. By definition, you’re trying to transform something – yourself, a business, a project, the presentation of great thoughts and ideas, or something just as important or personal. This might be a threat to those closest to you, and to your own self-image. The law of consistency can be an ally when we use it for positive influence, but can be an enemy that tries to keep us in our place when we’re trying to do something really different.

    A great coach helps a team sustain belief in what they are doing. When you’re working on a project and trying to accomplish your goals, consider this as your creed. It’s your belief in what can be and what will exist beyond the current reality. Closely related allies are passion, the ability to tap into the natural increase in good ideas once you are on your way, and remembering who you love – that is, who you are doing this for.

    It helps to remember that Resistance arises as a second force in opposition to the idea. The idea, the passion and the dream come first. Resistance is the inevitable shadow that tries to block out the light from these positive energies. The achievement wants to exist. Resistance wants to snuff it out before it gets started.

    Here are some of the steps Pressfield offers to help you succeed, and to help you coach others to do so:

    • Begin before you’re fully ready. That is, don’t spend any more time on research beyond the basics you need to get started.
    • Stay primitive. Keep things on the primal, earthy, and emotional plane rather than trying to be too rational at this point.
    • Swing for the seats. Keep your sights very high, because it gets you a lot further toward your goal, even if you fail at first.
    • Start at the end. Visualize where you want to go, and work backwards from there.

    And always remember that your internal dialogue, your chatter, your “monkey-mind talk” as the Buddhists call it, is nothing more than Resistance.

    Key Concepts

    Good leadership is good coaching. A good coach understands his/her people, balances the team by making sure the appropriate skills are in place (functional roles and team roles) and helps people set positive goals for growth. And of course a good coach supports people as they find ways to achieve their goals.

  • Blocking and Tackling: Active Leadership 3

    Author’s Note — this is the third installment in a serialization of Active Leadership: A Blueprint for Succeeding and Making a Difference.

    Michael is considered smart and visionary. He can see a variety of attractive futures clearly, and usually selects a good path towards their achievement. He enjoys many ideas and explores them in depth. He has the ability to keep his audience spell­bound when he describes his various visions and creative solutions. It was no surprise to anyone that he was selected for an operational leadership role in a unit that was stuck in the mud. He approached this turnaround opportunity with a great deal of enthusiasm. Six months later, he’s also stuck in the mud. The unit’s performance has barely budged, and in some cases even grown worse. This shouldn’t have been the case. He came in with a strategy that impressed his bosses and he had many meetings with his own subordinates and several all-hands sessions, to communicate his vision. People seemed to get it and to be on board. However, he is now frustrated by an increasing number of blank stares. Why can they not see his vision? Why can’t they just do their jobs and move along the path toward success he has laid out for them? His battle cry was “Together we’ll transform this division into the shining star. We can help each other to succeed beyond our dreams.” He knows they were excited about it but now it seems they’re floundering. Things were so clear at the start. He’s beginning to question if his vision for the unit is achievable.

    Skills of influence facilitate a success­ful leader­ship jour­ney. Some other basics are to be considered, however, not the least of which are those of managing people. This all falls under the heading of “common sense.” As a mentor of mine was fond of saying, “There’s nothing common about common sense.” This is simple and obvious stuff that’s easy to overlook when fighting daily skirmishes and obstacles to success in business. Welcome to Management 101.

    Succeeding as a leader depends on your ability to select the right kinds of people. We’ll talk more about that a bit later. But assuming you’ve selected or inherited good people, what should you do to lead and manage them effectively? It should be easier than influencing those over whom you have no direct control, but that’s not necessarily the case. However, if you pay attention to the following ideas, you can make life a little smoother for both you and your people.

    Task, People and Self-Management

    Ralph Stogdill, one of the earliest leadership researchers, began the first comprehensive studies on leadership effectiveness in the middle of the last century. His work at Ohio State, and that of others later at the University of Michigan, focused on the behavior of the leader, rather than the traits necessary for success. Stogdill classified leader behaviors into two broad domains: initiation of structure, and consideration.

    MIT professor Douglas McGregor’s Theory X (the au­thoritarian production oriented style), and Theory Y (the supportive people oriented style) models were direct re­flections of this work. Successful leaders were seen to pay attention to factors related to task success as well as to the needs of the people who must accom­plish those tasks. In the 1970’s, these factors – task focus balanced by people focus – were popular­ized by man­agement consultants in successful books and train­ing programs. Robert Blake and Jane Mouton with The Managerial Grid, and Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard with Situational Leadership, were the two best known of these.

    Some of the key actions and behaviors associated with successful task management (initiation of structure) include setting clear goals, planning, defining metrics, monitoring progress, organizing, delegating, and solving technical problems. Actions associated with success in the people management (consideration) domain include communicating effectively, listening, providing support and encouragement, recognizing and rewarding success, and building and maintaining trust.

    In addition to task management and people management, there is a third important dimension of successful leadership. This factor is self-management, the macro dimension that enables the proper focus on the other two domains. It enables you to strike the right balance between the two while making sure your per­sonal characteristics and needs don’t sabotage things. Insight, and the ability to self-monitor and self-regulate, are crucial to successful self-management. A central component of self-management is self-knowledge. We’re all, in reality, three people – the person we believe our­selves to be; the person others believe us to be; and the person we really are. You need as much congruence between these three people as possible. Good, accurate sources of feedback are necessary to narrow the gaps and enable appropriate self-management strategies.

    Achievement – the fundamental process

    My first exposure to work flow analysis was a university class in industrial engineering. The text defined the tasks of the leader as planning, organizing, and controlling. Well, that’s generally true, but as anyone who has tried to manage people knows, it’s not exactly that crisp. Most of the time, leaders are just trying to hold things to­gether and solve the last unanticipated problem. They usually have little chance to reflect on the process beyond getting through the crisis du jour. However, there is a certain flow of events, which characterizes the accomplishment of work in organizations. This was described by psychologist and leadership behavior re­searcher Clark Wilson, in his presentation of Task Cycle Theory, where work is envisioned as following a generally well-structured cycle of events, from goal setting to celebration of results. Similarly to my original college text, this is a good way to encapsulate and define activities, but doesn’t anticipate some of the real world sloppiness and ambiguity people encounter day-to-day. Nevertheless, it is helpful to illustrate key points about how work is accomplished.

    The Goal

    Your success in getting things done in an organization hinges on one key component – the goal. This is the first step in the cycle and is the key to any accomplishment. The cliché that you must know where you’re going or you’ll end up somewhere else stems from this reality. As computer visionary Alan Kay said, “The best way to pre­dict the future is to invent it.”

    Winston Churchill also weighed in with “The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.” You might invent futures and build empires in your head, but you’ll never bring them to reality without setting clear goals.

    The most effective goals have several things in common. Consider the following examples.

    “We intend to become a world-class provider of IT services.”

    This is a clear declaration: lofty and perhaps inspiring. But how will you know when you’re there? And when do you intend to get there? It demonstrates only the first requirement of an effective goal – that of defining the end result. The lack of defined metrics and time frames, however, clouds the picture. Compare it with President Kennedy’s national goal for the space program, articulated in 1961:

    “We intend to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade and bring him back safely.”

    This illustrates all the requirements of an effective organizational goal – it’s clear (nothing ambiguous about getting a man on the moon), inspiring (people got behind it and supported it – it was an article of national pride) and it provided a timeframe (end of the decade – it actually happened ahead of schedule). It also had a clear quality component (get the man back safely).

    People want the world to make sense; and they need to know what is expected of them. Because of this, the effective leader communicates the overall goal, and the reasons for it, in the clearest and most compelling terms. Our perceptions of reality drive behavior, so be sure your people have good information about that reality. You must communicate the goal, more often than you realize.

    After the appropriate goal has been defined, there are several, sometimes overlapping, steps that define the cycle of progress and accomplishment from that point.

    The Plan

    It’s hard to achieve a goal if you don’t know how to go about it. A plan for achievement might be implicit and obvious in the case of basic and simple goals, or it could be more elaborate and complex, in the case of strategic organizational goals. But it needs to be there. This is of­ten an iterative process. For instance, the basic strategic goal may be to double the size of the enterprise within three years. In this case, plans are developed for the overall goal, then sub-goals developed from those plans, to help move the company toward the big target. There can be considerable overlap between setting goals and planning for their accomplishment.

    The plan must anticipate problems, define likely solutions, incorporate alternatives, define what is needed, and allocate resources. This process may be facilitated by elaborate tools or can be a general roadmap in your head. It offers a chance to explore options and alternatives for goal achievement.

    Facilitation: support with measurement

    Once a plan is in place, the leader must facilitate the efforts of the team to implement it and to measure pro­gress. Here, the skills of encouragement and discipline are important. Some people experience internal angst about holding others accountable while also trying to support them. The most effective leaders realize that little will be accomplished if people don’t have a way to measure their progress, but also that people need more than just yardsticks.

    They need to know what’s expected (clear goals and methods) and how they’re doing (good metrics); and they need the tools for success. These tools include support, coaching and encouragement, feedback and ongoing communication. Here’s where Robert Greenleaf’s concept of Servant Leadership is most readily apparent in observ­ing effective leaders. They act as if they’re there to serve and help people get their work done, to make things better and to grow. One of the most effective questions a leader can ask is, “What can I do to help you succeed?”

    There must be a balance between demanding and supportive leadership behavior. The overuse of either style leads to problems: too far in the demanding direction leads to a critical and autocratic style. Too much support leads to an overly permissive, laissez-faire leadership pattern.

    Staying in control

    Despite the importance of the plan noted here, you can’t act as if it’s etched in stone. Keep in mind President Eisenhower’s comment, “Plans are nothing. Planning is everything.”

    The plan is a roadmap for a changing countryside. It will have to be updated based on data collected as you progress. The better your feedback loops and controls, the better your decisions on processes, systems, and changes of plans will be. If you don’t monitor the process with good, data based, metrics, you won’t be able to tell if you’re off course, or what you should do about it. If you’ve anticipated the range of options that will be avail­able, they should be incorporated into the system of metrics and controls so you know how you’re doing, and so you know what to do if things are not going well.

    Of course, any leader must show support and en­couragement, but you can’t relinquish control. Abdication isn’t an option. You have the ultimate responsibility for success, so you need to maintain the ability to make corrections and tweaks to stay on track. This sometimes means making tough decisions to replace team members who aren’t up to the task. But it more often means consistently holding people to the standards and expectations of behavior, performance, and progress dictated by the nature of the task, and by the organization. Sometimes the systems and processes just need to be tweaked, sometimes there needs to be a com­plete overhaul.

    A good performance management process makes this easier. If you communicate the expectations and stand­ards for performance on the front end, things go more smoothly. However, not everyone will share your motivation, knowledge, experience, or ability, so you must make sure everyone receives helpful corrective and productive feedback along the way. This is fundamental to managing – communicating what your people are sup­posed to be doing, giving feedback about how well they’re doing it, and providing suggestions for how they can do it better. Enforcing consequences if they con­sistently fail to meet standards and expectations is also necessary.

    Completing

    Once you’ve solved all the problems and achieved your current goal, you need to turn around and set new ones. A few important items require attention, however, in the final stage of successful goal attainment.

    First, celebrate it. This is a chance to reinforce good performance and recognize the efforts of the team. People need to feel that their work is important and ap­preciated. There’s no better way to do this than by public and private pats on the back from the boss. This is a great opportunity to strengthen the bonds of the team and to prime them for more successes. Don’t squander it.

    A second important part of the finishing process is to reflect on what everyone has learned. There should be a process of critique. This helps you to understand what you did right, as well as to analyze what went wrong – or at least what could have gone more smoothly. Make it positive. Avoid the “Yes you made an A, but you could have made an A+ if you’d tried just a little harder” syn­drome. A “plus-delta” wrap-up often employed by meeting facilitators is helpful: “What went well? What could have gone better?” This final task is often over­looked in the heat of new demands and pressures, but it’s a chance for true learning. Don’t miss it.

    Making allowances

    Since you usually don’t have the luxury of having every­body undergo a thorough personality assessment on the front end, it’s likely to take a while before you fully get to know the differences and subtleties of the individuals upon whom you must depend. Because of this, it’s im­portant to spend time with each individual, and observe them in team activities, to fully develop and flesh out your deeper insights about them and their motivations and abilities. First impressions are sometimes accurate, but it’s usually a mistake to judge quickly. It’s also a mistake to take too long to figure out who you can depend upon. As with so many issues, the leader must walk a fine line and keep a delicate balance here.

    Of course, we all know that one size doesn’t fit all and that people are driven by an unending variety of needs, motivations and dreams. And they’re enabled by unique com­binations of aptitudes, personality traits, and experi­ences. Some are comfortable being told what to do in a stepwise fashion, while others need to figure things out on their own. Some need constant social interaction, while others prefer to work in isolation. Some will slack off as soon as the boss walks around the corner, while some are tougher on themselves than any boss could ever be. You get the picture – people are different and you can’t manage everyone the same way. Some things, how­ever, do need to be consistent across the board.

    Communication of the goal and plan, helpful feed­back and coaching for better performance, holding people accountable and reinforcing the right behavior: these things are inviolable. The leader must be seen as consistent, regardless of the makeup of the troops. Douglas McGregor’s hot stove analogy is a good metaphor for consistent discipline. A hot stove glows red (every­body knows it’s hot and will burn if you touch it). If you do touch it, the consequences are immediate (it burns you as soon as you touch it). And it is universal (it applies to everybody who touches it in the same way).

    This kind of consistency must be balanced with flexibility. That is, the most effective leaders also make allowances for individual differences in personality, motivation, ability, and background. This is not to say that some people should get special treatment. Leaders are always judged on perceived fairness. However, they are also judged by the efficacy with which they manage and motivate widely varying personalities of individuals in their teams. This is where coaching skills and insights help you achieve the right balance.

    Key Concepts

    Without clear and meaningful goals, nothing happens, no matter how interesting the vision may be. People-, task-, and self-management skills are essential to effective leadership. They come into play in all phases of the cycle of results – goal definition, planning, facilitation, measurement, maintaining control, and celebrating suc­cess. Not only must you balance these dimensions, though: you must also balance consistency with flexibility.

     

    Hodges L. Golson

     

     

     

  • Action Learning: One Stone, Many Birds

    “I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I do and I understand.”     – Confucius

    What if there were a way to fully engage your best people to solve crucial problems quickly and creatively without the usual conflict, ambiguity and inefficiency of typical group interactions? And what if, while engaged in this process, the participants also could gain deeper insights into themselves, develop their leadership skills and learn to function more productively and positively as team members? Further still, what if the technique were applicable to almost any problem, issue or crisis? Finally, what if it could result in significantly higher quality decisions and solutions than any other group problem-solving or strategic planning format? My guess is that you’d say this is typical consulting BS (Blue Sky, of course). Actually, such a technique exists and is widely used by many of the largest and most successful global corporations. There are many variations to the format but it goes by the somewhat less-than-exciting term Action Learning.

    Action Learning is a structured problem solving practice first developed by British physicist, university professor and consultant Reginald Revans in the 1940s. Early in his career, he had the good fortune of working with many world-class scientists, several of whom were Nobel Prize winners. He reported that he was struck by their ability to acknowledge and discuss their own ignorance by questioning and reflection, and then to share their observations with one another. His first application of the insights he gained from these scientists was in the nationalized coal mines of England, where he was able to increase production by an incredible 30%. Since that time, these principles, now known as Action Learning, have been applied worldwide to help organizations successfully improve their performance and solve some of the trickiest and most difficult problems they face.

    Author Jim Collins and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, among many other successful leaders and scholars, have noted that the great leaders ask great questions. They engage people in conversation. Great coaches, therapists and counselors know that the right questions are more powerful for generating deep insight and learning than received wisdom, prescriptions or solutions. This is the core of the Socratic method – asking the right questions to open our minds. Thoughtful and reflective questioning is central to a great conversation and is the heart of action learning. It is an educational and developmental process that encourages dialogue by focusing people on real world problems they experience, not by dealing with case studies describing things others have experienced.

    Action learning provides the platform for people to gain knowledge, insights and solutions through questioning, action, practice and reflection, not traditional educational methods. It doesn’t seek to find the right specific answer (like, for example, Six Sigma). Rather, it is described by authors and Action Learning scholars Skip Leonard and Art Freedman as more like an operating system. That is, it connects inputs (problems and opportunities), applications (tools and techniques) and outputs (solutions). It is central to the idea of the learning organization and continuous learning. It can be a key tool to help change a culture to become quicker, more responsive and better able to deal with crises and quickly shifting business/technology landscapes.

    Action learning is deceptively simple. There are six components and two major principles:

    • Components
      • There is a problem, challenge or opportunity to be addressed. It should be of high importance and urgency to the organization so that it pulls for maximum engagement.
      • There is an action learning team consisting of 4 to 8 people who have diverse backgrounds.
      • There is a specific process of questioning, listening and reflection.
      • Actions are taken in response to the process.
      • There is a commitment to learning. In the short term the process solves the problem. However, there is an important and valuable long-term learning component that helps develop individuals, teams and organizations over time.
      • There is an Action Learning coach, who may be internal or external to the organization, to help keep the focus and to assist in reflection and learning.
    • Principles/Format
      • Statements are made only in response to questions, and questions can be asked by anyone to anyone else.
      • The coach can intervene at any time to increase performance and assist in learning.

    The Action Learning process can be employed in an almost endless variety of ways to solve an almost endless variety of crucial problems and challenges. Types of problems or opportunities that can be addressed by this process include:

    • How to successfully assimilate an acquisition.
    • Determine the best way to cut our costs by $1 million.
    • Figure out the best way to handle a problem employee.
    • Find the best ways to ensure that we get the right parts on the floor on time so that we won’t miss shipping dates.
    • How to create better a performance management and feedback system for employees.
    • Determine whether we should offshore. Or whether we should bring some operations back from offshore.
    • Develop an appropriate strategy for cutting across the silos and getting people to work more collaboratively.

    Michael Marquardt, in his book Optimizing the Power of Action Learning, offers a good framework and insights for introducing and institutionalizing this tool into organizations. Although many of his examples come from large organizations (Boeing, Sony, Lockheed Martin, and Dow Chemical to name a few name a few), these principles can be applied and adapted to almost any type of organization. They work well with cross-functional teams in large organizations to help cut across silo lines and to generate solutions that will work in the real world. However, they also work well with intact executive teams charged with making crucial company survival decisions.

    In fact, this process is particularly useful for executives expressly because they are typically strongly biased towards action and solution generation than towards reflection. Because reflection is crucial to the development, they can learn more about leadership and about themselves by participating in Action Learning than by attending seminars or workshops. As the name implies, this process balances action with learning.

    Action Learning focuses and defines the problem to make sure everyone sees it, understands it and agrees that the right problem to solve. In so doing, it fosters team development. It reminds everyone that their success depends on that of the others. It helps to build trust and it helps to even out participation. The structure makes it exceptionally difficult for one person to dominate the process.It’s very useful for Apollo Teams and teams with one or more smartest-people-in-the-room members, because it enables everyone to be heard and engages everyone in the conversation. And, as many leaders come to realize through painful encounters with reality, when everyone is engaged and participates, the chances for a high quality outcome are greatly increased. When that’s not the case, train wreck.

     

    Hodges L. Golson, Ph.D.

     

    Readings

    Marquardt, M. (2011). Optimizing the Power of Action Learning

    Marquardt, M, Leonard, S. and Freedman, A. (2009).  Action Learning for Developing Leaders and Organizations

    Revans, R. (2011).  ABC of Action Learning

     

     

  • The Swing Thought

    Golfers know about the swing thought. It’s that pithy, focused nugget that helps you achieve a positive outcome. A proper golf swing is one of the most difficult accomplishments in sport. There are so many things that can go wrong. And if you start thinking about them at the wrong time, like in the middle of your swing, you’ll miss the ball completely. By focusing on just one major success factor during the swing, you can avoid many troubles. For instance, my tendency has always been to look up to see where the ball is going. This causes me to lift up just enough so that my club hits the ball high, and sometimes misses it altogether, rather than keeping my posture and head aligned to follow through and finish the swing appropriately. I need to keep my head down and my butt out to maintain the proper angle of my spine, or I’ll have a frustrating and embarrassing experience on the tee. But I’ve found that if I consciously think “head down, butt out” during the swing, I can hit the ball. Sometimes even reasonably well. I don’t always remember it, but the more I can make it my mantra, or “swing thought”, the better I’ll play.

    The swing thought is also useful beyond the golf course. For instance, my “head down, butt out” example was a great way to avoid trouble during the months leading up to my daughter’s recent wedding.

    Joking aside, the swing thought is a way to keep people attuned to the basics that will help them be successful over time. In coaching, we often counsel leaders not to try to do everything at once. If they can focus on just one behavior that needs to change or one thing that needs to happen, their chances for success will be increased. If one is overly introverted, the swing thought “louder” during an important meeting may help him to speak up rather than take a back seat to the more vocal and gregarious extraverts in the room. And someone who usually jumps in with a solution too quickly, shutting off discussion, may keep the swing thought “listen” in mind during that same meeting.

    The swing thought is a practical application of the Buddhist meditation concept of mindfulness. This has to do with focusing intently on the present and paying attention to a specific thought or purpose. But there’s nothing mystical about it. It’s a manifestation of how we’re wired. There is an increasing body of scientific research showing the value of mindfulness in the management of stress, pain, depression and anxiety, and many athletic coaches use it to help athletes focus on the present and consequently perform at their best. If we change the way we think, we can change the way we feel and consequently the way we behave. So it behooves us to choose the thoughts, and swing thoughts, that will help us improve.

    Now about that slice…

    Hodge Golson

  • Influence or De-Rail: Active Leadership 2

    Author’s Note — this is the second installment in a serialization of Active Leadership: A Blueprint for Succeeding and Making a Difference. Much of this material was presented in an earlier work, Influence for Impact. 

    — HLG

    Getting there: influence or derail

    Sam is an exceptionally competent analyst and team member. He came to the group several years ago with stellar academic credentials and a proven ability to get along with people. He is usually the best problem solver in the group. However, he has seen several peers get promoted recently. He has always had great reviews and encouragement from his managers, so he’s having a hard time understanding why people who are far less able appear to be getting quicker opportunities for advance­ment. He has always assumed that keeping his head down and doing great work will eventually get him recognized. He was taught not to brag or to toot his own horn. And he finds it difficult to ask for things or to draw attention to himself in general. He still feels deep down that his results, his willingness to share and his hard work will be rewarded. But he’s also starting to feel overlooked and left behind. He knows he’s the best quant in the unit. But he’ll have to admit that he would like to have the skills of persuasion he senses in some of his colleagues. On the other hand, he’s beginning to wonder if he wants to spend much more time in an organization that rewards such superficiality.

    Research and observation indicate that hard skills (quantitative, data-analytical, technical, specialized knowledge) are important for success early in a career; but that the soft skills (influence, relationship building, and political savoir-faire) are crucial for later success, especially in leadership. People who are rewarded for being the cleverest individual problem solvers tend to assume their good work speaks for them.

    We have conducted many thousands of psychological assessments for business clients since our founding as a professional firm over a quarter century ago. This has allowed us to develop an extensive database of scores, profiles, and characteristics of successful high-level people. Analysis of the profiles of several thousand successful people (MBAs from top-tier schools, people in fast-track developmental programs, COOs, CEOs and a wide variety of top executives in general) revealed con­sistent but rather surprising developmental themes.

    The most frequently mentioned suggestions for further growth and development of highly successful people fell into the following two related categories:

    • Influence and persuasion

    The shortcomings in this category include poor communication skills, tendencies to undersell, marginal self-presentation, introversion, shyness, lack of assertiveness, and so forth.

    • Interpersonal insensitivity

    The problems here have to do with being too dominant, intense, or impatient; tendencies to push people too hard; excessive competitiveness and a lack of political insight and sensitivity, among others.

    If this is true among exceptionally successful people, and among those seen as having high growth potential, the situation is even more acute with people in the ranks, with technologists, and with people early in their career trajectories. Here are two key thoughts to keep in mind for the rest of this discussion:

    • Remember, the world isn’t fair and doesn’t care about your success. If you don’t learn to increase your base of power, others will – and they won’t have your best interests at heart.
    • Brainpower and performance help you to gain power only up to a point. How you play your cards, and who you develop relationships with, are of equal or greater importance as you get closer to the top.

    To be able to influence others, you must have credibility. Credibility is a function of two primary factors: trust and expertise. These are the first two pillars of influence. The first two questions people ask, to decide if you are credible, are: “Do you know your stuff?” and, “Do you have my back?”

    In addition to the individual quality of credibility necessary for effective persuasion and influence, the fol­lowing goals are important to us:

    • Accuracy – We need to make sense of things, so we can know whether they present threats or offer advantages.
    • Affiliation – We want to associate with people we find attractive and helpful. We seek their approval and ac­ceptance.
    • Consistency – We need to maintain a positive self-image. This makes us strive for consistency, and we’ll go to great lengths to appear consistent to ourselves and to others.

    These pervasive human motivations lead naturally to the fundamental laws of influence. A simple listing of them, however, clearly doesn’t do them justice. Books have been written on each of them. These laws are based on a tremendous amount of academic research, but they also can be verified by direct observation.

    The Law of Authority

    We have a strong drive to seek out higher sources of opinion, direction, and advice. People want to comply with and follow authority. People in positions of authority are seen as credible. If you’re not in a position of legitimate hierarchical authority, you should at least project the right image. Dressing similarly to those in power increases the perception of your authority, and we’re strongly influenced by people who project optimism, confidence, and a positive attitude. Learn to project power, not only in your speech and mannerisms, but also in your dress. It’s a learnable skill. Image be­comes reality over time. Establish your credentials to emphasize your expertise, or show that a respected and credentialed source agrees with your position. Don’t forget, though, that there’s no substitute for actually being a good source of information and help for others. Over time, this is what establishes a reputation for expertise, not merely the appearance of authority.

    The Law of Trust

    This is one of the two key components of credibility. Once you lose trust, it can never fully be regained. Every time you make a deposit to your trust asset base, it grows; but once you make even a small withdrawal, the entire account is likely to be wiped out. The keys to establishing and maintaining trust are simple, obvious, and often overlooked. They include: always following through;  not taking credit where it’s not due;  never, ever, betraying a confidence; never overselling or exag­gerating; communicating as fully as possible when you have information that will affect others; and taking the first step by trusting that others will perform as expected.

    The Law of Liking

    Think of the most credible and persuasive people you know. If you make a list of their traits and characteris­tics, close to the top will be something to the effect that they are likable. We’re strongly influenced by people we like. This means that you need to develop a social net­work within the context of your work environ­ment. We like people who are similar to us, who make us feel good, who like us, who are optimistic and cheerful, and who are attractive but not perfect. The classic read­ing in this field is Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. His original principles have been validated by later re­search, and are for the most part as applicable now as they were 80 years ago.

    The Law of Reciprocity

    We strive to keep things in balance. If someone does us a favor, no matter how small, we feel obliged, and are likely to help them out in some way. This is a fundamental law that is at the core of our society, but it is also at the foundation of all free market transactions. This is why cultists give you a free flower or keychain on the street, and why charities include holiday stamps or coins with their solicitations. Such “free gifts” dramatically increase donations. We operate by implicit rules of balance and fair play. With apologies to President Kennedy: ask not what this person can do for you, ask what you can do for this person.

    The Law of Consistency

    We are driven to maintain a positive image of ourselves. To do that, we need to appear consistent to ourselves. This is the basis of the foot-in-the-door technique, and the reason salespeople try to get us to commit publicly that we’ll buy a certain item “if they can only find one”, before miraculously discovering exactly the model we previously thought was unavailable. Once we commit to a small action or agree with some part of a position, we’re much more likely to agree with larger requests or stronger positions in the same direction. We go to great lengths to maintain our self-image of consistency and to reduce the dissonance we feel when we act inconsistent­ly. This is the basis for all rationalization.

    The Law of Scarcity

    We’re strongly attracted to things that are rare, scarce, and limited. Less is more. If we perceive that something might become unavailable, or be in limited supply, its value goes up for us. This is the basis for bidding frenzies at auctions, popular toy shortages at Christmas, specula­tive investment bubbles, snob appeal, and many other examples of seemingly strange human behavior. We are more strongly motivated to avoid losing something than we are by the chance to gain something.

    The Law of Social Comparison

    We take our cues about how to think and act from other people. Psychologist Leon Festinger coined the term social comparison in his research on the factors involved in attitude change and rationalization. This is a fundamen­tal principle: we’re strongly influenced by the groups to which we belong, and by those to which we’d like to belong. We look to others to figure out how we should interpret and respond to new or ambiguous in­formation. We care what the Joneses think, and about what they do. We stop to look up when we see people in the street looking up. We’re more likely to tip the bar­tender if she’s salted the tip jar.

    Stanford professor Jeffrey Pfeffer notes that the ability to influence others is crucial to success in a career, and in gaining personal power. His book Power: Why Some People Have It – and Others Don’t offers useful insights about power in organizations – how to gain it and how to hold on to it once you have it. It’s based on real world observation and research, not on theory, abstraction, or political correctness. As such, some of his observations could be at odds with what you see in the popular litera­ture and press. In fact, he warns that most leadership literature can be hazardous to your health, because it doesn’t reflect the realities of organizational life.

    Some people won’t like his observations, but having done a bit of research in this area myself, I see very little to quibble about. Pfeffer makes the case for trying to ex­pand your base of power because many good things come from it, not the least of which are higher levels of physical health and well-being. Then there’s the money, he notes, not entirely tongue-in-cheek. Listed below are some of the keys to success along the path to power.

    • You need to be noticed, and need to rise above the organizational noise. Make sure people know about your successes. Find a gap and fill it. Reach out and create something. Don’t be afraid to break the rules when you’re just starting out – you’ll be noticed and thought of as innovative. Don’t be stupid about it, though; and if you can define the criteria for success, you’ll have the ad­vantage.
    • Be sure you know what success looks like in your boss’s eyes … and in those of his or her boss.
    • Become adept at some Dale Carnegie skills, and learn to make people feel good about themselves (it’ll make them feel better about you).
    • Flattery works. Even when people realize you’re doing it. What’s more, research shows that more flattery works even better. But be careful here. If you’re too blatant, you’ll develop a reputation as a brown-noser.
    • If you have the chance, pick a department or group with high influence and power. However, sometimes the path to the top can be found through indirect routes, if you develop your alliances and nodes of information, and if you learn to use them well.
    • Ask for stuff. We enjoy helping others. It makes us feel powerful, and it flatters to be asked. We also like those we help. This is where the laws of reciprocity and con­sistency kick in.
    • Networking is important. It is a learned skill, even if you’re painfully shy.
    • Learn to fight and don’t take things personally. Do everything you can to make relationships work, and to be liked. Sometimes, however, you must simply work effectively with a few people you really dislike. Tolerate and become comfortable with conflict; but don’t be a jerk.
    • Get over yourself. Yes, some of this might sound manipulative, and you could be uncomfortable asking for things directly. In reality, though, people aren’t paying much attention to you. They’re generally wrapped up in themselves, so don’t worry too much about how things look. But of course you must protect your reputation for being ethical. You need to build trust for full success, so be careful of anything that could taint your reputation.
    • When you’re at the top, stay vigilant. It’s not para­noia – they really are after you. But stay humble – you are replaceable, and you need to know when to quit. Hope­fully, it will be on your own terms.

    All of these principles work, and they all can be mis­used. If you use them to manipulate or exploit, people quickly figure it out. If people think you’re trying to manipulate them, you immediately lose their trust, the absolute cornerstone of credibility.

    Although the principles of gaining power can allow manipulative and callous people to rise, those traits are also associated with an eventual loss of power. One of the keys to understanding and dealing with the struggle for power is to lose your misguided faith that this is a just world. The good guys don’t always win, and the bad guys sometimes do. Perhaps they often do: but if they’ve made too many enemies on the way up, even if they bring in their staunch loyalists, people find creative ways to even the score. The world might not be just, but people have long memories and they hold grudges. They like to balance things out however they can. If you don’t have much explicit power, you’re likely to find underground ways to resist people you don’t like or trust.

    The core principles of influence – credibility (expertise and trustworthiness) and likability – are im­portant factors that allow a person to hold on to power over time. The most effective leaders realize that power can corrupt even the most well intentioned person, and that you don’t get good feedback when you’re in a position of power. Effective leadership in a high-level position requires the humility to seek out good data. You never know as much as you think you do – and most of the stuff people tell you is filtered. Even though you might realize they’re trying to flatter you, you’re still only human and still subject to believing your own good press. So it helps to have people who can give accurate feedback, unvarnished data, and seasoned opinion. That kind of information usually only comes from people who don’t have a dog in the fight – people who know you in a dif­ferent context, who knew you in previous lives, or who aren’t inside your organization.

    Key concepts

    The laws of influence stem from our basic human goals to understand what is happening, to associate with people of value to us, and to see ourselves as consistent. People who understand and use laws of influence appropriately and effectively – without being malicious or manipulative – are likely to be much more successful.

     

     

  • Intro and Chapter One: Active Leadership

    I’ll upload excerpts from the book periodically. So if you’re patient … and really frugal, stay tuned. Or you could just go out and, you know, actually buy a copy (hey, the paper version is only $7.99 — the Kindle is really cheap at $2.99).

    ——————————————————————————————————————————————————–

     

    Introduction

     

    Do you want to be a successful leader? Then hire smart people who get along well with others, who do what they’re supposed to do, and who work hard. Then set a great example and reward the right behavior. Simple con­cepts: difficult execution.

    Not everybody wants to be top dog: and that’s fine and fortunate, but if you work in an organization, much of your life depends on what the top dog does, so you need to understand the world in which he or she lives.

    Some of this material is based on academic research. The rest is the result of practical observations and in­sights, gained over the course of a career in assessing, coaching, and consulting with top executives in some of the most successful organizations in the world.

    This is a practical roadmap of useful insights for any­one who works in organizations, especially those who must lead and manage. If you use these guidelines actively, you’ll be a more successful leader at any level. Leadership, however, is not about mechanically following a set of instructions to get people to do what you want. It’s about getting people to want to follow you. That’s more about who you are. And how you behave ultimately determines who you are. This blueprint describes the behavior of successful leaders and highlights some of the important concepts to consider in your leadership journey. It presents some of the realities you face, with practical suggestions for succeeding, and staying effective, in any leadership role.

     

    ONE

    Life’s tough: life at the top

     isn’t always easier

     

    John decided early in his career that he wanted to run an organization, or at least to be one of the senior decision-makers. Through a combination of diligent study, hard work, business acumen, interpersonal skill, and sometimes more than a little luck, he finds himself with a seat at the table quicker than he anticipated. He realizes that the top spot might not be in the cards, due to the relative youth of his CEO boss and his own runway. As his limo driver skillfully navigates around various bottlenecks on the way to the airport, he has a rare chance for reflection. Having just been instrumental in highly successful negotiations that will have a major positive impact on the company, he allows himself to feel a justly deserved sense of pride and accomplishment about his career. In reality, he is further along than he ever expected to be, and it’s nice to know that his family will be comfortable and secure no matter what might happen to him now. He enjoys his work and his life. With the maturity and insight that comes from successes and failures, he rarely has those Peggy Lee “Is That All There Is?” moments anymore; but still remembers some of the not-necessarily-pleasant surprises he encountered soon after his “arrival” as a senior leadership team executive.

     

    Unexpected consequences

    If you want to become a top executive, it might be nice to know what it’s like in that role before you get there. Forewarned is forearmed.

    Most executives are too busy trying to stay on top of the severe demands of their jobs to think about some of the unanticipated facts and phenomena of life in a key leadership position. Before embarking on this journey, you need to know yourself:  your strengths and limita­tions. And be careful what you wish for. There are real costs to gaining and maintaining power, so look at what life is really like at the top and prepare for it. The fol­lowing points describe some of the surprises typically hidden from view on the way up.

    The executive amplifier

    As you move up in an organizational hierarchy, your public organizational life becomes a product of sound bites. You don’t have time to build relationships throughout the organization as you move up. People can’t get to know you the way they did when they worked directly with you and saw you more often. So they decide what you’re like as a person and as a leader by what they see in short, infrequent samples of public behavior. And because what you do now can have a major impact on them, they read a great deal into your words and actions.

    If you make an effort to smile and to talk to people, you cultivate the image of being an approachable, con­cerned, and people-oriented leader. If you show no emotion, people see you as detached, or are likely to project things from their own backstories onto the blank screen you provide. If you scowl, snap at someone, or otherwise look unhappy, they see you as negative, irritable, and unfriendly. It only takes a few times, some­times just once, for the image to emerge and stick. Company cultures reflect shared values displayed through the behavior of the leaders of the company. Much of a leader’s impact on the troops is through the symbolism of his or her behavior, even the little day-to-day things. Success requires managing the optics.

    The executive as rock star

    The larger your organization and the less often people see you, the more you become like a celebrity. Some people enjoy this, but many are surprised and uncom­fortable with it. Few anticipate the demands it places on them, or the downsides of the executive fishbowl. Charismatic rock star executives, who really enjoy this aspect of the role, tend to build personality-based cult followings. This doesn’t help the company over the long term. In fact, companies usually suffer in the market­place after the rock star leader has left.

    The executive as energy spark

    People look to the leader for their own inspiration and energy. Your job sometimes includes keeping the troops pumped when your own energy and attitude are waning. Providing the spark for others can drain your own re­sources, especially if you’re not a natural extravert. Extraverts typically recharge their batteries by contact with others, while introverts tend to renew their re­sources by having time to themselves.

    The cognitive elite

    There are plenty of smart people  to be found at all levels of most organizations. But, on average, executives score higher on standardized tests than do people at lower organizational levels. That’s often the reason they’re in the executive role – they’re good problem-solvers. This is not to imply that any one individual executive is brighter than any one individual from a lower level; but as a group, they perform better on measures of general mental ability than people in the supervisory or individual per­former roles.

    An unexpected phenomenon that emerges when there are many clever people at the top is the Apollo effect, described by psychologist Meredith Belbin from his experiences running large-scale management simulations in the UK and Australia. When he stacked the deck by concentrating a disproportionate number of exceptionally bright people on the same team, expecting them to outperform groups composed of a more random assortment of ability, he found that these “Apollo teams” always under-performed compared to the others. They suffered from too many ideas in these groups, too many clever people to find fault with those ideas, analysis paralysis, and too much intellectual arrogance and com­petitiveness. He observed that the most effective groups were those with a great deal of heterogeneity and variety in talents, traits, and aptitudes of their members. This is not to say that you shouldn’t hire smart people (more on that later), but you need to know how to manage them.

    The imposter phenomenon

    This term was coined by psychologist Pauline Clance, in her book of the same name. It refers to the feelings of inadequacy and guilt many successful people encounter because of, or in spite of, their accomplishments. The internal dialog goes something like, “I’m above average, but not particularly special. I’m not sure I really did any­thing to deserve being where I am, and I’m worried that people will figure it out. I sometimes feel like an imposter.” Most people have occasional feelings of inadequacy, but they derail you in a leadership role if you don’t manage them appropriately.

    The paradox of feedback

    The higher you go, the more you require information and feedback. But the higher you go, the less likely you are to get it. People are inclined to tell executives what they want to hear, not what they need to hear. They don’t get many honest reflections of how they really come across. Issues of power (this woman can fire me), politics (I think he’s a lousy leader but he sure responds to flattery), and socialization (kids don’t tell Dad what they really think), keep the executive from acquiring good information. In addition, some aspects of the executive personality interfere with the ability to hear bad news. Executives have been reinforced for knowing the answer and being strong in the face of op­position. A good source of unbiased critique is invaluable for a leader’s development.

    The executive as villain

    Many people assume that if you’re highly successful, you must have cheated. There is a media and entertainment industry bias against business people, especially those in large corporations. The “greed is good” stereotype colors the lens through which many people view the execu­tive suite, and allows politicians to manipulate public opinion. When a few crooks get caught, the press has a feeding frenzy, reinforcing that narrative. The widely shared bias in academia, entertainment, the media, and government is that if you’re in business, you need to be regulated or you’ll do bad things. And the “you didn’t do this yourself” denigration of success is more widely shared than you may imagine at first. Get used to it.

    High visibility but no one to talk to

    Lonely-at-the-top is a cliché, but it’s true. At each succes­sive level, the peer-group support network becomes progressively weaker. Executive group interactions are not typically characterized by openness and trust. Con­sequently, there’s little opportunity for the executive to relax and receive easy give-and-take inter­action, feed­back, and counsel more commonly found at lower organizational levels.

    Ambiguous or non-existent reinforcement

    At this level, outstanding performance is expected. The bar of expectations is raised with every success. Early in your career, you were recognized for your strong per­formance. Each time you are promoted, however, you’re judged by your peers, who were also selected into this faster lane because of their own strong performance. So at each level, you begin to look more and more like the pack. Everybody in the pool is a great swimmer.

    You’re expected to be successful, so no one’s going to notice unless your performance is not outstanding. Most top executives and CEOs provide inadequate reinforce­ment and supportive critique as a matter of course. If you don’t have a clear set of internal standards, and a pretty good sense of your performance against those standards, you’re likely to become anxious in the short haul, and miserable over time in high level roles.

    How to fail

    Knowing what it’s like at the top, to include the potential disappointments, warts, and blemishes, helps prepare you to deal with the difficulties and obstacles you’ll encounter. Knowing what not to do is sometimes as im­portant as learning what to do. This will help you avoid unnecessary heartburn and glitches along the way.

    One of the earliest studies of the causes of executive failure was published by psychologists Morgan McCall and Michael Lombardo. They identified a number of fatal flaws that lead to a person’s eventual derailment on the way up the organizational ladder. As I recall, their initial research sampled males only. However, this seems equally applicable to women. Listed below are the causes of executive failure they identified.

    • Insensitivity to others and abrasiveness
    • Coolness, aloofness or arrogance
    • Betrayal of trust
    • Overly-developed ambition
    • Specific business-related performance problems
    • Over-managing, resulting in the inability to delegate or to build a team
    • The inability to hire good people
    • The inability to think strategically
    • The inability to adapt to bosses with different styles
    • Over-dependence upon advocates or mentors

    It might seem odd to start out on a somewhat negative note, but none of this is meant to scare or de­moralize you. A realistic job preview is one of the best ways to help ensure a good fit. So if the be-careful-what-you-wish-for message hasn’t given you pause, if you’re prepared to avoid things that derail people, if you still want to move up in the organization, and if you feel that the rewards of leadership are worth the sacrifices, keep reading. Next are some first-things-first observations to consider.

    Key concepts

    Life in the executive suite can be quite rewarding, but it also has its surprises, not all of which are pleasant. Being in a high visibility position means you must deal with some of the unanticipated and potentially negative side effects of success. You need to be prepared for them and for some of the pitfalls on the way up.

     

     — Hodge Golson

  • It’s not as bad as you think!

    That’s the subtitle of Abundance, a new book by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler. These are two bona fide seriously smart guys who know what they’re talking about and who have a remarkably upbeat message. You don’t see much of that nowadays. Diamandis is an international leader in the commercial space arena, having founded and run many of the leading entrepreneurial companies in this sector. He is also CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation, which leads the world in designing and launching large incentive prizes to drive radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity (e.g. the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE for private spaceflight and the $10 million Progressive Automotive X PRIZE for 100 mile-per-gallon equivalent cars). Kotler is a best-selling author, award-winning journalist, whose articles have appeared in over 50 publications, including The New York Times Magazine, Wired, GQ, Outside, Popular Science, Men’s Journal, and Discover.

    The message of Abundance is that, in spite of all of the media hype of doom and gloom, things are better now than ever and they are getting better at an increasing rate. Yes, we may have the worst political class ever (although that’s debatable – in the past they were probably doing equally poorly but communications weren’t as ubiquitous and instantaneous). And, yes, just about all we hear in the media is negative (bad news gets attention, good news gets ignored). And, yes, we’ve just been through the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. But there are major forces converging quickly that will help us solve an incredibly wide array of the major problems we face. This sounds like blind optimism, and there are clear precedents that technology can be used for evil as well as good. But, like Ray Kurzweil, Diamandis and Kotler make a clear and reasoned case for optimism based on hard data, facts and history.

    There are many abundance producing and problem-solving breakthroughs happening now and poised to happen in the very near future. Humans think mostly in a linear fashion. But the pace of change in so many areas of technology is exponential rather than linear. Therefore, we don’t realize how fast things are changing and getting better. From smart phones that have allowed Africa to skip an entire stage of landline infrastructure for communications and enabled the emergence of micro-finance as a major force for growth and positive change to a desk-sized device, recently given a great boost by the Gates Foundation, that requires a very small amount of energy to turn anything wet (yes, anything) into pure distilled water, society is evolving rapidly beneath our awareness.

    Diamandis and Kotler make the case that there are four major forces accelerating these innovations in technology from the lab to the consumer. First are tech philanthropists like Bill Gates who believe that technology can help us solve most problems we face. Second is the realization that the Third World and poor people collectively are an enormous and mostly untapped market for those who can make things on the cheap. Third, the open source DIY maker/hacker tools help unleash the creativity of smart people anywhere in the world who have good ideas and the drive to bring them to fruition. Finally, the smart use of prizes (e.g. the X Prize and similar efforts) help focus the efforts of many smart people as individuals or teams to work on major problems. For instance, Qualcomm is offering a prize of $10 million for a mobile app that will provide better diagnoses than most physicians (of course, the Trekkies in the room will recognize this as Dr. McCoy’s tricorder).

    A recent Schumpeter column in The Economist reviewed Abundance and Eric Topol’s The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care. Topol is one of the nation’s top physicians and a leading voice on the digital revolution in medicine. He makes the compelling argument that radical innovation and a true democratization of medical care are within reach, but not unless we, as consumers, demand it.

    On the facing page of that same issue was an article illustrating the point that the number of poor people everywhere is declining for the first time ever in spite of the financial crisis and jump in food prices. The pie isn’t fixed and the rich aren’t riding the backs of the poor. The pie is expanding and everybody’s slice is getting bigger. Although this may not be as proportionally or as quickly as we would like, we’re busy baking more pies. But you’d never know it from the media.

    The fact is that things are getting better on almost all fronts and at a rapidly expanding pace. Progress in technology development is not stopped by political or economic turmoil. Sure, there will be dangers, heavy lifting and “unknown unknowns” along the path, but it’s a good trajectory. Half empty? Half full? More like half full and rapidly filling to overflow. This is a good time to be alive.

     

    Hodge Golson