The Blue Ocean Strategy is a business strategy about capturing uncontested market space, thereby making competition irrelevant. It is also a book written by Professor W. Chan Kim and Professor Renée Mauborgne, from the INSEAD business school.
The "ocean" refers to the market or industry. "Blue Oceans" are untapped and uncontested market, which provides little or no competition for anyone who would "dive" in, since the market is not crowded. "Red Ocean" on the other hand, refers to a saturated market where there are fierce competition, already crowded with people (companies) providing the same type of services, producing the same kind of goods.
The idea is to do something different from everyone else, produce something that no one has yet seen, thereby creating a "blue ocean".
Some examples of companies that created the "Blue Ocean": Cirque du Soleil (unique circus format), Gmail (tons of email storage space for free) and Nintendo Wii (first home game console with movement sensor devices for gaming).
Friday, December 01, 2006
Friday, October 06, 2006
Mark Cuban on Becoming a Billionaire
by Paul Allen
Last night I caught part of Big Idea with Donny Deutsch on cable. Donny was interviewing billionaire Mark Cuban, who is one of the smartest entrepreneurs I’ve ever followed.
The best written article I’ve seen about how Mark turned Broadcast.com into a multi-billion dollar company is the chapter in Net Entrepreneurs Only, published around 2000, to highlight a dozen or so successful online entrepreneurs. The work ethic that Mark and his partner Todd had back then is nicely described there. Mark talked about it again last night. He described a typical work day.
He works from home most of the time. Never lets anyone call him on the phone (except his wife). If they want a phone meeting or if he needs to have a meeting in person, he arranges it through email. His wife has 2 girls, including a 6-week old girl, so Mark describes a typical day as involving playing with his girls, feeding them in the morning, he even mentioned watching the Wiggles and Stanley with his older daughter. He had a great daddy-gleam in his eye as he talked about his girls. He seems to care more about his family than anything else.
I think there are at least three major lessons we can learn from Mark Cuban. (I happen to have almost the exact same approach to work that he does, and is has taken me places, but not nearly as far as Mark. Not even close. So we’ll use Mark as the reason why internet entrepreneurs should adopt these practices.)
He said, and he is 100% right, that most entrepreneurs aren’t willing to do the required blocking and tackling to build a successful company. John Bresee, at BackCountry.com, describes pretty much the same approach in the first few years of BackCountry.com. It was mostly going online all the time, trying to get links to your site, posting in usenet groups, on message boards and doing email. Same thing for the 2nd person at eBay. I remember reading that he used to answers something like 1,500 emails per day.
Most of the internet millionaires I know and the internet billionaires I’ve read about were completely willing to work 12-16 hours a day doing the most tedious possible things, like email and guerilla marketing, in order to get their companies in a position to win in their market.
How many of you are willing to do that? Have you ever spent till 2 or 3 in the morning working on your web site, visiting and posting on message boards, looking for the hundreds of online directories that should be linking to your company, finding email lists to advertise on, and visiting thousands of sites looking for the ones that ought to be your affiliates?
How many times have you done that? Would you be willing to do it many times a week, for several months, or even a year or two, to get your company in a position to succeed.
For some people, it might not be worth it. There is definitely more to happiness than financial success. And sometimes the pursuit of financial success costs people their health, family, friends, and peace of mind.
So it’s definitely not for everyone. But it is an essential ingredient in most entrepreneur success stories.
Another lesson I’ll point out, is that Mark Cuban is an avid blogger, and probably has one of the most interesting and controversial blogs in the world. He is never afraid to say what he thinks, no matter what fine the NBA might throw at him. He is incredibly smart and outspoken.
I have said before that every CEO should blog. It is so healthy for CEOs to be in touch with customers, employees, and to get feedback from everyone. And I love the transparency of blogging. That is healthy for companies.
If you are an internet entrepreneur, definitely check out the Mark Cuban blog regularly. He talks about trends that most people ignore. He got into HD TV when so many people ignored it, partly because he saw computer pricing drop over the years which led to a huge adoption rate, and he saw the same thing coming with plasma screens. He knows that we will all have amazing high-definition screens in multiple places in our homes in the coming years, and so just like with Broadcast.com where he and Todd went on a rampage and signed hundreds of licensing deals for audio content on the interenet in the first years in business, he repeated that approach with HDNet, and he is a leader in that marketplace now.
He has more ideas that he can handle himself, so sometimes he’ll throw things out that he won’t be doing personally, like this post about “3 ideas that are all yours.” Not well received by some of his readers (he has a TON of comments on his blog.)
Last night I caught part of Big Idea with Donny Deutsch on cable. Donny was interviewing billionaire Mark Cuban, who is one of the smartest entrepreneurs I’ve ever followed.
The best written article I’ve seen about how Mark turned Broadcast.com into a multi-billion dollar company is the chapter in Net Entrepreneurs Only, published around 2000, to highlight a dozen or so successful online entrepreneurs. The work ethic that Mark and his partner Todd had back then is nicely described there. Mark talked about it again last night. He described a typical work day.
He works from home most of the time. Never lets anyone call him on the phone (except his wife). If they want a phone meeting or if he needs to have a meeting in person, he arranges it through email. His wife has 2 girls, including a 6-week old girl, so Mark describes a typical day as involving playing with his girls, feeding them in the morning, he even mentioned watching the Wiggles and Stanley with his older daughter. He had a great daddy-gleam in his eye as he talked about his girls. He seems to care more about his family than anything else.
I think there are at least three major lessons we can learn from Mark Cuban. (I happen to have almost the exact same approach to work that he does, and is has taken me places, but not nearly as far as Mark. Not even close. So we’ll use Mark as the reason why internet entrepreneurs should adopt these practices.)
- He reads like crazy and uses email like crazy and has access at his fingertips to all his correspondence for the last 15 years. The way he described it on the Big Idea was really cool.
(I have used Folio VIEWS for 16 years as my full-text database, and now I use gmail for my email archive. Someday I’ll combine the two into a single seach engine.)
Mark dives in deep to any new technology. He learns everything he can about it and talks to all the pioneers in developing it. He knows his stuff. - He is willing to do the blocking and tackling to build a business, even if it means thousands of hours of what others might think is tedious work.
He described launching AudioNet (the precursor to Broadcast.com) and working crazy hours doing nothing but posting on forums and emailing and doing everything possible to generate interest and usage of his internet sports radio channel. - Like Warren Buffett, who claims that being an investor made him a better business man, and being a business man made him a better investor, Cuban obviously does both, does them a lot, and loves them.
He said, and he is 100% right, that most entrepreneurs aren’t willing to do the required blocking and tackling to build a successful company. John Bresee, at BackCountry.com, describes pretty much the same approach in the first few years of BackCountry.com. It was mostly going online all the time, trying to get links to your site, posting in usenet groups, on message boards and doing email. Same thing for the 2nd person at eBay. I remember reading that he used to answers something like 1,500 emails per day.
Most of the internet millionaires I know and the internet billionaires I’ve read about were completely willing to work 12-16 hours a day doing the most tedious possible things, like email and guerilla marketing, in order to get their companies in a position to win in their market.
How many of you are willing to do that? Have you ever spent till 2 or 3 in the morning working on your web site, visiting and posting on message boards, looking for the hundreds of online directories that should be linking to your company, finding email lists to advertise on, and visiting thousands of sites looking for the ones that ought to be your affiliates?
How many times have you done that? Would you be willing to do it many times a week, for several months, or even a year or two, to get your company in a position to succeed.
For some people, it might not be worth it. There is definitely more to happiness than financial success. And sometimes the pursuit of financial success costs people their health, family, friends, and peace of mind.
So it’s definitely not for everyone. But it is an essential ingredient in most entrepreneur success stories.
Another lesson I’ll point out, is that Mark Cuban is an avid blogger, and probably has one of the most interesting and controversial blogs in the world. He is never afraid to say what he thinks, no matter what fine the NBA might throw at him. He is incredibly smart and outspoken.
I have said before that every CEO should blog. It is so healthy for CEOs to be in touch with customers, employees, and to get feedback from everyone. And I love the transparency of blogging. That is healthy for companies.
If you are an internet entrepreneur, definitely check out the Mark Cuban blog regularly. He talks about trends that most people ignore. He got into HD TV when so many people ignored it, partly because he saw computer pricing drop over the years which led to a huge adoption rate, and he saw the same thing coming with plasma screens. He knows that we will all have amazing high-definition screens in multiple places in our homes in the coming years, and so just like with Broadcast.com where he and Todd went on a rampage and signed hundreds of licensing deals for audio content on the interenet in the first years in business, he repeated that approach with HDNet, and he is a leader in that marketplace now.
He has more ideas that he can handle himself, so sometimes he’ll throw things out that he won’t be doing personally, like this post about “3 ideas that are all yours.” Not well received by some of his readers (he has a TON of comments on his blog.)
Friday, May 26, 2006
Anticipating the Career Plateau
By Stephen XavierExecutive coaching engagements typically occur with top-performing executives. In fact, their enduring ability to perform is often the primary force behind their quicker-than-average climb up the corporate ladder. The challenge, however, is for these employees to become good managers or leaders.
There is frequently a major disconnect between a top performer's attitude and the skills required to be a great leader. The former tends toward a know-it-all and just-get-it-done attitude. These individuals tend to believe that they must know plenty to have climbed so high, and so fast.
Because high performers cherish their accumulated knowledge and experience, they have a difficult time understanding why they have now reached a plateau and their careers have stalled.
They've been seen in a positive light for so long because of their ability to perform. As a result, their natural managerial or leadership skills have been wrongly assumed to be proficient when, in fact, they are often quite underdeveloped.
As such, they commonly face these shortcomings:
• They are culturally unaware – This type of "innocent ignorance" comes from never having worked in a culture where self-development and improvement of skills were promoted. Instead they've been in an environment where success was determined by performance alone.
• They have not had the benefit of good role models – When a top performer's direct boss or manager lacks the skills or the foresight to recognize where an employee could improve, it limits the individual unnecessarily.
• They are overly confident – Top performers tend to be egotistical, mainly because they've found a way to rise above the norm and have been celebrated accordingly. Confident of their ability to undertake any task or fulfill any expectation, they eagerly take on any responsibility before realizing they, too, have their limits.
When a company's top performers are promoted to positions that require management and/or leadership skills, it's only a matter of time before their underdeveloped skills become blatantly obvious. Because most top-performing types have had little if any management or leadership training, what happens to the employees who are suddenly deprived of that support? They become bitter and resentful, and, unfortunately, it can go unreported far too long.
Something’s Gotta Give
Inevitably, something has to change, whether it means revoking the promotion or bringing in an executive coach to help the top performer become a stronger leader. When the choice is the latter, it's critical for the coach to be highly respected by all involved.
Some successful approaches that can breed respect and success include:
• Establishing alignment with senior executives – The astute executive coach kicks off an engagement by going straight to the top to identify attitudes about coaching. Coaching engagements simply cannot succeed if they occur in a skeptical environment or if they fall upon dubious minds. Further, having support from the top can ensure even greater success for the coach and client if roadblocks occur – who better to remove them than the CEO, after all?
• Building enthusiastic perception – When a stigma has developed about coaching, senior management needs to instigate a change in the company culture's thinking about the value of coaching. If it doesn't begin with senior management, it's not likely to go anywhere. Also, it's advantageous if coachees do not keep coaching engagements secret. A more constructive attitude is being upfront and honest to direct reports by thoroughly explaining the process being undertaken and its goals. Senior management can begin by highlighting results of their 360 assessments and thanking direct reports for their input.
• Working through the boss to become the coachee's advocate – By working as an advocate for the coachee, an executive coach adds a positive element to the whole engagement. Also, the coach is responsible for working closely with the coachee's boss to ensure managerial support and to make sure the coaching is being referred to in the best light possible.
• Anticipating problems with the boss – Any coach worth his or her salt knows that even mild resistance on the boss' part is a red flag that calls for the coach to take additional measures. It doesn't matter if the resistance is only a function of the manager's style; resistance tends to breed resistance. What often happens is the coachee isn't getting the help needed from the boss. Offering excuses that dwell on the coachee's great performance or autonomy usually tells the coach the boss doesn't know how to manage the person effectively.
• Addressing every last detail – A skilled coach leaves nothing to chance. Additional precautionary steps may also include circulating informative articles about executive coaching and providing management with sample memos and e-mail messages about executive coaching that can be distributed among staff. These communiqués share supplementary information about the purpose for and benefits of the coaching process. Most importantly, a professional coach has a plan that covers all bases and details for each engagement.
• Painting pictures of success – More than anyone, skilled executive coaches know how to identify the face of success in a coaching engagement. They know the "before" and "after" scenarios, and they can describe what success feels and looks like from previous engagements. As such, many have found that painting a picture of success is useful as a tool for gaining additional buy-in from a coachee.
It's that special something about visualizing success that makes someone work that much harder for it. A coach can also offer testimonials from previous clients that describe what it felt like to reach success during their engagements.
Steep and Rapid
After high performers or employees tagged with high potential buy into the process and understand the need for coaching, they typically begin to develop a high level of trust in the coach's ability to support them. Then, it's only a matter of time before they see the value in the coach's skill, knowledge, intellect, experience and political savvy.
The learning curve is said to be very steep at the early stage. Coachees then learn and accelerate that learning very quickly, tackling the challenges they must overcome, and they tend to reach them fast.
The challenge comes when it's time to sustain the newly learned behaviors. Even as coachees embrace a new way of learning, the tendency is to regress to old behaviors as the coaching engagement comes to an end.
That's why it's also important for executive coaches to nurture the relationship over the long haul, even after the engagement has ended. Not only is it the right thing to do; such efforts will also establish tremendous credibility for the coach in the eyes of others in the company, and open pathways for future engagements in that organization.
Commitment to Change
Unfortunately, the changeover to exceptional manager or leader is rarely a smooth, simple or speedy one. Some of the most difficult areas for top performers to modify are those they believe to be their own best practices or strengths. Through coaching, they learn to acknowledge that the skills, attitudes and tools they counted on during their climb to their current level are not always the same skills, attitudes and tools they need to move to the next level and beyond.
Top performers must come to a simple realization: Success requires a commitment to change. If they don't, they are likely to plateau or, even worse, fail miserably. To help top performers become great leaders, it's time they are trained with the management skills necessary to succeed.
The faster they embrace executive coaching as a tool to accomplish this goal, the quicker they can gain knowledge and skills, which in turn translate to higher productivity and, ultimately, to a greater return on investment for the company. USBR
Stephen Xavier is president of Cornerstone Executive Development Group LLC, a global firm based in Califronia. Cornerstone specializes in executive coaching and related leadership development issues. Its clients are Fortune 500 companies that cover a broad range of industries. Contact him at Xavier@cedg.com or visit www.cedg.com.
Thursday, October 27, 2005
How to Delegate: One Key Step Towards Leadership
You've made an unusual discovery - there's not enough time left at the end of the day. The corollary, of course, is your list of important things to do never gets smaller. In any company, the CEO's to-do list has the potential to grow infinitely.
What's a senior executive to do?
This is not simply a personal problem. Your company's future depends on what you do next. As you drive your organization beyond its current plateau, you must change the way you relate to your work. There are three stages to making the transition from chief-cook-and-bottle-washer (CC&BW) to CEO (source of the management and direction of the business). They are:
* Understanding your highest value contribution to your company and focusing on that role.
* Recognizing your position as a leader and owning the job.
* Delegating everything else, and holding others accountable.
Previous articles, Time Well Spent, deals with transition one; Visions of Leadership addresses transition two. This article examines the problem of delegation - giving the work away.
The Issue
You have doubtlessly concluded your next level of company performance requires a managerial change. And hopefully, you have realized the changes necessary are with you. As CEO (or, on a divisional or departmental level - senior executive) your jobs include holding the vision; inspiring your senior management and your staff; fostering key relationships with customers, vendors, investors and the public, etc.
You now need to let go of some cherished things like product design, hiring, perhaps day-to-day sales - many things you handled in the past, often out of necessity - and focus yourself on your role as CEO. What about all these things you used to do? Delegate them. Assign the job to someone else. This doesn't sound like a big deal, why write a whole article on it?
Do you delegate? Of course you do. But do you delegate the important things? The things you "know" you could do better? The things you are "best" at? Probably not. The question is, should you?
Your highest value contribution
Think about your highest value contribution to your company. Which of your activities generate the most revenue, profit, market share, etc.? Where do you get the most bang for the buck? Like most chief executives, your greatest leverage is in mobilizing the forces around you - your senior staff and your employees, plus key customers, prospects and vendors. Everything else becomes secondary to that in terms of impact.
So the answer is yes. You should give away even the things you are "best" at. And then make sure they are done right. Make sure they are up to spec and delivered on time.
The cost of holding on
Now, the thorny part. Many executives refrain from delegating responsibilities they've labeled "critical". They fear the job won't be done correctly. Or no one else can do it as quickly, and it won't get done on time. Or the right attention won't be paid. Or something. Or something else.
Give it up! The growth of your organization will be stifled to the extent that you hold on to critical functions. Your company will suffer in the exact areas where you think you are the expert!
Product design? You hold up the development of a key component, because you are the expert, yet you are away at a customer meeting. Staffing? Two engineers can't be hired because you haven't signed off and are out of town at a meeting with investment bankers. Sales? Negotiations on an important deal are held up because you are in Asia meeting with a vendor.
You become the choke point on each of these vital functions. And you feel - of course - "I have to be involved." No you don't. To the exact degree you have not developed your staff to assume these functions, the growth of your company will be retarded.
Aside from fear the job won't be done as well, there is another, more insidious reason senior executives (particularly entrepreneurs) do not delegate. If you aren't doing the "important" stuff, you become redundant. Dead weight. Overhead. If you have a great VP of Sales, or a Chief Technologist, what will you do?
You feel this way because you haven't completed transitions one and two: you haven't taken the trouble of understanding how you personally create value in your company, and you haven't fully assumed the role of leader. Once you make these transitions, you won't have time for the rest. Delegation, not abdication.
Many executives delegate like this. They say, "John, would you take on this project? It has to be done by next Thursday. Thanks." That's it. Then, when the job comes back incomplete, they are infuriated. What happened? They left out accountability. They neglected the structure for making sure things happened according to plan.
There are five components to successful delegation.
1. Give the job to someone who can get it done.
This doesn't mean that person has all the skills for execution, but that they are able to martial the right resources. Sometimes the first step in the project will be education. Maybe your delegate has to attend a seminar or take a course to get up to speed.
2. Communicate precise conditions of satisfaction.
Timeframe, outcomes, budget constraints, etc.; all must be spelled out. Anything less creates conditions for failure. It's like the old story about basketball - without nets the players don't know where to shoot the ball.
3. Work out a plan.
Depending on the project's complexity, the first step may be creation of a plan. The plan should include resources, approach or methodology, timeline, measures and milestones. Even simple projects require a plan.
4. Set up a structure for accountability.
If the project is to take place over the next six weeks, schedule an interim meeting two weeks from now. Or establish a weekly conference call, or an e-mailed status report. Provide some mechanism where you can jointly evaluate progress and make mid-course corrections. This helps keep the project, and the people, on track.
5. Get buy in.
Often timeframes are dictated by external circumstances. Still, your delegate must sign on for the task at hand. If you say, "This must be done by next Tuesday," they have to agree that it is possible. Ask instead. "Can you have this by Tuesday?" To you this may seem a bit remedial, but the step is often overlooked. Whenever possible, have your delegate set the timeline and create the plan. You need only provide guidance and sign off. As General Patton said, "Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity."
If you skip any one of the above steps, you dramatically reduce the likelihood things will turn out the way you want them to. On the other hand, if you rigorously follow the steps, you greatly increase the odds in your favor. Isn't this more work than doing it myself, you ask. No - it isn't.
The time it takes to
1) establish the goals,
2) review the plan, and
3) monitor the progress,
is not equal to the time it takes to execute. That is how you gain leverage. This is how you multiply your efforts.
(Occasionally it does take longer to communicate something than to do it yourself. Delegate it anyway. The next time will be easier.)
Above, I've referred to projects. This is not to say delegation is reserved for discrete tasks and problems. You also delegate ongoing functions. The process is the same in each case.
As an exercise, ask yourself, what am I unwilling to delegate? Make a list of the reasons why not. (Use our worksheet to identify projects and functions to delegate. E-mail for a free copy.) Identify the best person in your organization - not you - to take on this project or function. Then call a meeting. Begin the meeting with step one, above.
If there is no one to whom you can give away key functions, you have to look carefully at your staff situation. It may be time to hire the right people. If you don't have the revenues to support the staff additions, consider what is restraining your growth.
Review your relationship with your assistant or secretary. Have you let them take on there fair share of the workload? Are you giving them sufficiently sophisticated work to do? Are they ready to upgrade?
Some situations call for you to dive back in. Perhaps you are the only one in your company with some particular technical knowledge, or your insight will accelerate the design process, or you have the long-standing relationship with a vendor or customer. Go ahead, dive. Do your thing - briefly, complete the project and resume your leadership position.
Oh, one more thing.
The only point to delegating something is if it frees you for things which create greater value for your company. Don't give away the hiring function if you are spending your time fiddling with the corporate web site. Don't hire a Sales VP, if you are spending your time on purchasing. The greatest leverage you have is in leading your company. Lavish your time on that.
Paul Lemberg is the President of Quantum Growth Coaching, the world's only business coaching franchise system built from the ground up to rapidly create more profits and more life for entrepreneurs. (http://www.quantumgrowthcoachingfranchise.com) Paul is also Executive Director of the Stratamax Research Institute , a business coaching and consulting firm specializing in helping entrepreneurial companies quickly increase short term profits for sustainable long term growth.
What's a senior executive to do?
This is not simply a personal problem. Your company's future depends on what you do next. As you drive your organization beyond its current plateau, you must change the way you relate to your work. There are three stages to making the transition from chief-cook-and-bottle-washer (CC&BW) to CEO (source of the management and direction of the business). They are:
* Understanding your highest value contribution to your company and focusing on that role.
* Recognizing your position as a leader and owning the job.
* Delegating everything else, and holding others accountable.
Previous articles, Time Well Spent, deals with transition one; Visions of Leadership addresses transition two. This article examines the problem of delegation - giving the work away.
The Issue
You have doubtlessly concluded your next level of company performance requires a managerial change. And hopefully, you have realized the changes necessary are with you. As CEO (or, on a divisional or departmental level - senior executive) your jobs include holding the vision; inspiring your senior management and your staff; fostering key relationships with customers, vendors, investors and the public, etc.
You now need to let go of some cherished things like product design, hiring, perhaps day-to-day sales - many things you handled in the past, often out of necessity - and focus yourself on your role as CEO. What about all these things you used to do? Delegate them. Assign the job to someone else. This doesn't sound like a big deal, why write a whole article on it?
Do you delegate? Of course you do. But do you delegate the important things? The things you "know" you could do better? The things you are "best" at? Probably not. The question is, should you?
Your highest value contribution
Think about your highest value contribution to your company. Which of your activities generate the most revenue, profit, market share, etc.? Where do you get the most bang for the buck? Like most chief executives, your greatest leverage is in mobilizing the forces around you - your senior staff and your employees, plus key customers, prospects and vendors. Everything else becomes secondary to that in terms of impact.
So the answer is yes. You should give away even the things you are "best" at. And then make sure they are done right. Make sure they are up to spec and delivered on time.
The cost of holding on
Now, the thorny part. Many executives refrain from delegating responsibilities they've labeled "critical". They fear the job won't be done correctly. Or no one else can do it as quickly, and it won't get done on time. Or the right attention won't be paid. Or something. Or something else.
Give it up! The growth of your organization will be stifled to the extent that you hold on to critical functions. Your company will suffer in the exact areas where you think you are the expert!
Product design? You hold up the development of a key component, because you are the expert, yet you are away at a customer meeting. Staffing? Two engineers can't be hired because you haven't signed off and are out of town at a meeting with investment bankers. Sales? Negotiations on an important deal are held up because you are in Asia meeting with a vendor.
You become the choke point on each of these vital functions. And you feel - of course - "I have to be involved." No you don't. To the exact degree you have not developed your staff to assume these functions, the growth of your company will be retarded.
Aside from fear the job won't be done as well, there is another, more insidious reason senior executives (particularly entrepreneurs) do not delegate. If you aren't doing the "important" stuff, you become redundant. Dead weight. Overhead. If you have a great VP of Sales, or a Chief Technologist, what will you do?
You feel this way because you haven't completed transitions one and two: you haven't taken the trouble of understanding how you personally create value in your company, and you haven't fully assumed the role of leader. Once you make these transitions, you won't have time for the rest. Delegation, not abdication.
Many executives delegate like this. They say, "John, would you take on this project? It has to be done by next Thursday. Thanks." That's it. Then, when the job comes back incomplete, they are infuriated. What happened? They left out accountability. They neglected the structure for making sure things happened according to plan.
There are five components to successful delegation.
1. Give the job to someone who can get it done.
This doesn't mean that person has all the skills for execution, but that they are able to martial the right resources. Sometimes the first step in the project will be education. Maybe your delegate has to attend a seminar or take a course to get up to speed.
2. Communicate precise conditions of satisfaction.
Timeframe, outcomes, budget constraints, etc.; all must be spelled out. Anything less creates conditions for failure. It's like the old story about basketball - without nets the players don't know where to shoot the ball.
3. Work out a plan.
Depending on the project's complexity, the first step may be creation of a plan. The plan should include resources, approach or methodology, timeline, measures and milestones. Even simple projects require a plan.
4. Set up a structure for accountability.
If the project is to take place over the next six weeks, schedule an interim meeting two weeks from now. Or establish a weekly conference call, or an e-mailed status report. Provide some mechanism where you can jointly evaluate progress and make mid-course corrections. This helps keep the project, and the people, on track.
5. Get buy in.
Often timeframes are dictated by external circumstances. Still, your delegate must sign on for the task at hand. If you say, "This must be done by next Tuesday," they have to agree that it is possible. Ask instead. "Can you have this by Tuesday?" To you this may seem a bit remedial, but the step is often overlooked. Whenever possible, have your delegate set the timeline and create the plan. You need only provide guidance and sign off. As General Patton said, "Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity."
If you skip any one of the above steps, you dramatically reduce the likelihood things will turn out the way you want them to. On the other hand, if you rigorously follow the steps, you greatly increase the odds in your favor. Isn't this more work than doing it myself, you ask. No - it isn't.
The time it takes to
1) establish the goals,
2) review the plan, and
3) monitor the progress,
is not equal to the time it takes to execute. That is how you gain leverage. This is how you multiply your efforts.
(Occasionally it does take longer to communicate something than to do it yourself. Delegate it anyway. The next time will be easier.)
Above, I've referred to projects. This is not to say delegation is reserved for discrete tasks and problems. You also delegate ongoing functions. The process is the same in each case.
As an exercise, ask yourself, what am I unwilling to delegate? Make a list of the reasons why not. (Use our worksheet to identify projects and functions to delegate. E-mail for a free copy.) Identify the best person in your organization - not you - to take on this project or function. Then call a meeting. Begin the meeting with step one, above.
If there is no one to whom you can give away key functions, you have to look carefully at your staff situation. It may be time to hire the right people. If you don't have the revenues to support the staff additions, consider what is restraining your growth.
Review your relationship with your assistant or secretary. Have you let them take on there fair share of the workload? Are you giving them sufficiently sophisticated work to do? Are they ready to upgrade?
Some situations call for you to dive back in. Perhaps you are the only one in your company with some particular technical knowledge, or your insight will accelerate the design process, or you have the long-standing relationship with a vendor or customer. Go ahead, dive. Do your thing - briefly, complete the project and resume your leadership position.
Oh, one more thing.
The only point to delegating something is if it frees you for things which create greater value for your company. Don't give away the hiring function if you are spending your time fiddling with the corporate web site. Don't hire a Sales VP, if you are spending your time on purchasing. The greatest leverage you have is in leading your company. Lavish your time on that.
Paul Lemberg is the President of Quantum Growth Coaching, the world's only business coaching franchise system built from the ground up to rapidly create more profits and more life for entrepreneurs. (http://www.quantumgrowthcoachingfranchise.com) Paul is also Executive Director of the Stratamax Research Institute , a business coaching and consulting firm specializing in helping entrepreneurial companies quickly increase short term profits for sustainable long term growth.
18 Ways to Take Charge -- Fast
There are few career moments as exciting -- and these days, as perilous -- as taking over the top job at a company, business unit, or department. But what exactly do you do once you're in charge? This online guide provides 18 tactics -- and case studies -- to help you take the reigns running.
From: By: Fast Company
This online guide is based on the September 2002 article, "Sudden Impact" But why stop at 18? Don't forget to share your own experiences and advice using our Sound Off! feature below.
1. Begin your transition before you start the job. Use the interview process to get an early jump on learning about the organization. Ask critical questions: How are decisions made? What are the key challenges? Which functions are strong, and which ones need to be overhauled? Use that information to build some initial hypotheses about how you would change things for the better.
Take your cue from Steve Bennett who took over the CEO spot at Intuit Corp. "The interview process is where you start," he says. "That's where you ask all of the questions about what it takes to be successful."
2. Travel widely within your organization, listen carefully, and look for patterns in everything you see and hear. Bruce Patton, co-author of "Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most" and a partner with Vantage Partners, a Boston-based relationship management consulting firm, advises new leaders to spend a lot of time listening and asking questions. Talk to employees up and down the hierarchy. "Soon you'll start to see a pattern about what's going on," he says.
Within his first month on the job, Steve Bennett hit the road and tested the hypotheses that he had formed during his interviews. In 30 days, he visited dozens of locations and talked to hundreds of people, gathering feedback and insight on what was right - and wrong - with the firm's operations.
3. As you ask questions, look for the rising stars whom you want as part of your team. Your listening tour may help you identify the key players whose skills you need as part of your management team. "If you're engaging in high quality inquiry, you'll want to keep people who had good answers," Patton says.
Asking tough questions is a critical skill, but not necessarily a pleasant experience. Patton offers other strategies and scripts for handling tough conversations:
4. Identify the kind of people who will flourish in the environment you want to establish. Even before interviewing people to assemble your team, take the time to identify the challenges ahead -- and the kind of people who are motivated by those situations.
When Scott Lutz was tapped to lead 8th Continent, a soy-milk company borne of a 50-50 joint venture between two corporate giants, DuPont and General Mills, he knew he needed to assemble a team of renegades - people with "the right mix of passion and courage," Lutz describes. "They had to be willing to do things that hadn't been done before."
5. After you've identified the ideal individual, identify the ideal group. Don't stop at finding the type of person you need. Envision how this person will interact with others to get the goals accomplished. Assemble the ideal team. In some cases, literally.
When Pat Gillick took over a mediocre Seattle Mariners club in 1999, he was keenly aware of the kind of group it would take to win a World Series. "Chemistry is unbelievably critical," Gillick says. "If you come into a workplace, and there is inconsistency, there are disruptive employees, or you don't know what to expect, then you won't be a motivated employee." The Mariners' quest for a happy clubhouse includes paying close attention to the wives and kids of the players. Gillick meets with wives early in the season to work out everything from ticketing to security to the potentially inflammatory problem of who sits where.
6. Acknowledge what you don't know. Identify those around you are the experts and don't be afraid to lean on them. No one expects an incoming leader to know everything. And perhaps there is nothing more off-putting to a future team than someone who mistakenly thinks he or she does.
After 15 years as a manufacturing engineer at Boeing, Bruce Moravec had mastered his technical discipline. But when he was promoted to run the 757 Stretch Program, an ambitious mandate to stretch the plane by 24 feet, add functionality, and do it in less than two years, he understood he'd have to gain the confidence of people who worked in areas he knew little about. "I had lots of credibility as a manufacturing engineer and second-level manager. But suddenly I was responsible for tool design, fuselage definition, all kinds of areas that weren't in my background."
7. Don't be afraid to listen to people who disagree. Listen, actively, to the people around you, especially those who challenge your assumptions.
Take it from Carlos Ghosn, Nissan's president and CEO and the engineer of the company's dramatic turnaround. "When I came to Nissan, I engaged in what I call 'active listening' with as many people as I could. I also got a lot of advice from outside the company, most of which was very conservative. People told me, 'You can't go fast in Japan. You can't close plants in Japan. You can't reduce head count.' I listened carefully, even to the opinions that totally contradicted my own beliefs, to make sure that when I made my decisions, I hadn't missed anything."
8. But clean house if you have to. Depending on the situation you step into, no matter how clear your vision is, and how evangelical you are, acknowledge that there may be people - some of whom may have already seen your predecessors come and go -- who are too jaded to follow.
Take Dale Fuller's experience. When he took over an ailing Borland Software, which at one time was a pioneer in developing developer tools, five different CEOs had already come and go in the preceding three years. Skeptics assumed that Fuller was the latest in a series of short-term custodians. Rather than embrace the new direction, they figured that they'd just wait Fuller out. Fuller had other ideas. Within six months, he fired about 400 people, including 60 of his top managers.
9. Establish a way to communicate with -- and listen to -- your entire team. Your strategic course of action is only as effective as your ability to communicate it. Have the pipeline and protocol set up to get your message out there, and don't forget that communication goes both ways.
Dick Brown took over EDS in 1999 and moved swiftly to change old beliefs and behaviors, unleashing a set of practices -- dubbed "operating mechanisms" -- that were designed to create a company-wide culture based on instant feedback and direct, unfiltered communication. One of these practices is the "monthly performance call." At the beginning of each month, 125 of the company's top worldwide executives punch into a conference call that begins promptly at 7 AM central daylight time. Participation is not optional.
10. Don't trash your predecessor, but don't be shy about promoting your own agenda. Do not assume that the prior administration screwed up or lost sight of the big picture. There's probably an element of truth in that. But it's almost certainly true that they had a different disaster that they were working to avoid, Patton says. If you've got a clear vision of what needs to be fixed, by all means, implement it. Then ask yourself what led those really smart people to do what they did in such a way that it made sense to them?
Talk about a predecessor: when Melvin Wearing took over the role of chief of police for New Haven, Connecticut, he filled the controversial shoes of someone who resigned after fathering an illegitimate child with a convicted prostitute. On February 24, 1997, his first day on the job, Wearing moved quickly to telegraph the changing of the guard. First up: a visit to each of the day's four lineups (the roll call of officers that begins each shift) -- a practice that his predecessor had shunned
11. Settle on a few major priorities. You can't fix everything at once. "Typically, you can't do everything you want to do, so you need to make some strategic choices," Patton says. "This is where you begin to align the organization around a common vision for the future."
Perhaps Wearing's most far-reaching legacy will be his focus on quality-of-life crimes -- the so-called broken-windows approach to policing. Just as Rudy Giuliani cracked down on New York's squeegee men, Wearing declared war on New Haven's vagrants and hookers, street-corner dealers, and boom-box blasters. By nipping misdemeanors in the bud, Wearing argues, police may deter more-serious crimes. His approach seems to be working. In 1997, New Haven logged 13,950 major crimes; in 2001, the city had a total of 9,322.
12. Meet the customers. Balance the big picture vision with-front line views. There is no reconnaissance more important than scouting out the territory where your products and services meet their customers. Seeing the customers actually interact provides some invaluable information.
When Gary Kusin took over as CEO of Kinko's Inc., he went into every single one of its 24 markets in the United States, visited more than 200 stores, and met with more than 2,500 team members.
13. Target a few early wins. Momentum counts, and nothing succeeds like success. It's critical for a new leader to create momentum during the transition, say Dan Ciampa and Michael Watkins in their book, "Right from the Start: Taking Charge in a New Leadership Role." Pick some problems the organization has not been able to address and figure out a way to fix them quickly to establish a new direction.
When Jim Berra was promoted to head the Starwood Hotels & Resorts Guest program in July 2001, and like any newcomer to a job, Berra was keen to have a few big wins to energize his new team. "I didn't want to solve world hunger in the first three months, but I was looking for a couple of things that would pay immediate dividends," he says. So he focused on three priorities: First, he had to build better awareness of the company's Preferred Guest program, which lagged behind Hilton and Marriott in visibility despite its unprecedented policies of having no blackout dates and no limit on free rooms. Second, he had to find a way to measure the program's performance. And finally, he had to research customer segmentation for future promotions.
14. Keep an eye on the clock. Faster is almost always better. "Make sure your time is used to its best advantage," says Patton. "When you're new to an organization, many people will want your attention. While it's pleasant to swap stories about each other's golf game, you're better off saving them for the fairway, and using the time in the office to engage in a learning-oriented conversation."
Here's a tip: Create a "Stop Doing" List. Take a look at your desk. If you're like most hard-charging leaders, you've got a well-articulated to-do list. Now take another look: Where's your stop-doing list? We've all been told that leaders make things happen -- and that's true. But it's also true that great leaders distinguish themselves by their unyielding discipline to stop doing anything and everything that doesn't fit.
15. Don't be afraid to make mistakes but be sure to fix them faster than you make them. Any new situation is fraught with hazards, but taking over a top job exposes a new leader to pitfalls ranging from the personal to the organizational. Accept that you can't know everything in your first six months, and even an extensive professional background can't insulate you from making mistakes in an unfamiliar company and culture. The key is to assess yourself and your progress as rigorously as you do your new colleagues and workplace, and to be prepared to make your own course corrections as you go along.
Last year, Lydia Shire and Paul Licari took over Locke-Ober, a Boston restaurant and Brahmin institution founded in 1875. The entire city was watching, and everybody had an opinion. And the first 10 days were a disaster. "You could have put me in front of a firing squad and it would have felt better," Licari shares.
16. Be wary of reckless re-engineering. If you're assuming leadership of a large organization or department, take the time to understand its current trajectory. Making too drastic and immediate a change can derail both confidence and long-term strategy. Stanford Business School Professor, Jim Collins, warns leaders to be cautious. "Why do overhyped change programs ultimately fail? Because they lack accountability, they fail to achieve credibility, and they have no authenticity."
Consider the Warner-Lambert Co. in the early 1980s. In 1979, Warner-Lambert told Business Week that it aimed to be a leading consumer-products company. One year later, it did an abrupt about-face and turned its sights on health care. In 1981, the company reversed course again and returned to diversification and consumer goods. Then in 1987, Warner-Lambert made another U-turn, away from consumer goods, and announced that it wanted to compete with Merck. Then in the early 1990s, the company responded to government announcements of pending health-care reform and re-embraced diversification and consumer brands. Between 1979 and 1998, Warner-Lambert underwent three major restructurings -- one per CEO. Each new CEO arrived with his own program; each CEO halted the momentum of his predecessor.
17. Don't be afraid to look for ideas in unusual places. Don't just read your own industry's trade journals. Cast a wide net for insights -- sometimes the breakthrough idea lies in the triumphs of a completely different industry.
When Rob McEwen, took over an underperforming gold mine in northwestern Ontario, he assumed a tough situation: The gold market was depressed, the mine's operating costs were high, and miners were on strike. His breakthrough - an unprecedented move to make his company's proprietary information public and launching a contest to develop the mine over the Internet - came from learning about the Linux operating system and the open-source revolution.
18. Finally, ask yourself who do you really want to prevail, you or your organization? You'd be surprised by the difference.
Consider this: Jim Collins and his team at Stanford Graduate School of Business and asked, what makes a good company great? They started with 1,435 good companies, examined their performance over 40 years, and then identified 11 companies that became great.
Here's one thing they found: The CEOs who took their companies from good to great were largely anonymous -- a far cry from the celebrity CEOs we read about. Collins believes this is more a matter of cause and effect than an accident. There is something directly related between the absence of celebrity and the presence of good-to-great results. Why? First, when you have a celebrity, the company turns into "the one genius with 1,000 helpers." It creates a sense that the whole thing is really about the CEO. And that leads to all sorts of problems - especially if the person goes away or if the person turns out not to be a genius after all.
Story source: http://www.fastcompany.com/articles/2002/08/suddenimpact.html
From: By: Fast Company
This online guide is based on the September 2002 article, "Sudden Impact" But why stop at 18? Don't forget to share your own experiences and advice using our Sound Off! feature below.
1. Begin your transition before you start the job. Use the interview process to get an early jump on learning about the organization. Ask critical questions: How are decisions made? What are the key challenges? Which functions are strong, and which ones need to be overhauled? Use that information to build some initial hypotheses about how you would change things for the better.
Take your cue from Steve Bennett who took over the CEO spot at Intuit Corp. "The interview process is where you start," he says. "That's where you ask all of the questions about what it takes to be successful."
2. Travel widely within your organization, listen carefully, and look for patterns in everything you see and hear. Bruce Patton, co-author of "Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most" and a partner with Vantage Partners, a Boston-based relationship management consulting firm, advises new leaders to spend a lot of time listening and asking questions. Talk to employees up and down the hierarchy. "Soon you'll start to see a pattern about what's going on," he says.
Within his first month on the job, Steve Bennett hit the road and tested the hypotheses that he had formed during his interviews. In 30 days, he visited dozens of locations and talked to hundreds of people, gathering feedback and insight on what was right - and wrong - with the firm's operations.
3. As you ask questions, look for the rising stars whom you want as part of your team. Your listening tour may help you identify the key players whose skills you need as part of your management team. "If you're engaging in high quality inquiry, you'll want to keep people who had good answers," Patton says.
Asking tough questions is a critical skill, but not necessarily a pleasant experience. Patton offers other strategies and scripts for handling tough conversations:
4. Identify the kind of people who will flourish in the environment you want to establish. Even before interviewing people to assemble your team, take the time to identify the challenges ahead -- and the kind of people who are motivated by those situations.
When Scott Lutz was tapped to lead 8th Continent, a soy-milk company borne of a 50-50 joint venture between two corporate giants, DuPont and General Mills, he knew he needed to assemble a team of renegades - people with "the right mix of passion and courage," Lutz describes. "They had to be willing to do things that hadn't been done before."
5. After you've identified the ideal individual, identify the ideal group. Don't stop at finding the type of person you need. Envision how this person will interact with others to get the goals accomplished. Assemble the ideal team. In some cases, literally.
When Pat Gillick took over a mediocre Seattle Mariners club in 1999, he was keenly aware of the kind of group it would take to win a World Series. "Chemistry is unbelievably critical," Gillick says. "If you come into a workplace, and there is inconsistency, there are disruptive employees, or you don't know what to expect, then you won't be a motivated employee." The Mariners' quest for a happy clubhouse includes paying close attention to the wives and kids of the players. Gillick meets with wives early in the season to work out everything from ticketing to security to the potentially inflammatory problem of who sits where.
6. Acknowledge what you don't know. Identify those around you are the experts and don't be afraid to lean on them. No one expects an incoming leader to know everything. And perhaps there is nothing more off-putting to a future team than someone who mistakenly thinks he or she does.
After 15 years as a manufacturing engineer at Boeing, Bruce Moravec had mastered his technical discipline. But when he was promoted to run the 757 Stretch Program, an ambitious mandate to stretch the plane by 24 feet, add functionality, and do it in less than two years, he understood he'd have to gain the confidence of people who worked in areas he knew little about. "I had lots of credibility as a manufacturing engineer and second-level manager. But suddenly I was responsible for tool design, fuselage definition, all kinds of areas that weren't in my background."
7. Don't be afraid to listen to people who disagree. Listen, actively, to the people around you, especially those who challenge your assumptions.
Take it from Carlos Ghosn, Nissan's president and CEO and the engineer of the company's dramatic turnaround. "When I came to Nissan, I engaged in what I call 'active listening' with as many people as I could. I also got a lot of advice from outside the company, most of which was very conservative. People told me, 'You can't go fast in Japan. You can't close plants in Japan. You can't reduce head count.' I listened carefully, even to the opinions that totally contradicted my own beliefs, to make sure that when I made my decisions, I hadn't missed anything."
8. But clean house if you have to. Depending on the situation you step into, no matter how clear your vision is, and how evangelical you are, acknowledge that there may be people - some of whom may have already seen your predecessors come and go -- who are too jaded to follow.
Take Dale Fuller's experience. When he took over an ailing Borland Software, which at one time was a pioneer in developing developer tools, five different CEOs had already come and go in the preceding three years. Skeptics assumed that Fuller was the latest in a series of short-term custodians. Rather than embrace the new direction, they figured that they'd just wait Fuller out. Fuller had other ideas. Within six months, he fired about 400 people, including 60 of his top managers.
9. Establish a way to communicate with -- and listen to -- your entire team. Your strategic course of action is only as effective as your ability to communicate it. Have the pipeline and protocol set up to get your message out there, and don't forget that communication goes both ways.
Dick Brown took over EDS in 1999 and moved swiftly to change old beliefs and behaviors, unleashing a set of practices -- dubbed "operating mechanisms" -- that were designed to create a company-wide culture based on instant feedback and direct, unfiltered communication. One of these practices is the "monthly performance call." At the beginning of each month, 125 of the company's top worldwide executives punch into a conference call that begins promptly at 7 AM central daylight time. Participation is not optional.
10. Don't trash your predecessor, but don't be shy about promoting your own agenda. Do not assume that the prior administration screwed up or lost sight of the big picture. There's probably an element of truth in that. But it's almost certainly true that they had a different disaster that they were working to avoid, Patton says. If you've got a clear vision of what needs to be fixed, by all means, implement it. Then ask yourself what led those really smart people to do what they did in such a way that it made sense to them?
Talk about a predecessor: when Melvin Wearing took over the role of chief of police for New Haven, Connecticut, he filled the controversial shoes of someone who resigned after fathering an illegitimate child with a convicted prostitute. On February 24, 1997, his first day on the job, Wearing moved quickly to telegraph the changing of the guard. First up: a visit to each of the day's four lineups (the roll call of officers that begins each shift) -- a practice that his predecessor had shunned
11. Settle on a few major priorities. You can't fix everything at once. "Typically, you can't do everything you want to do, so you need to make some strategic choices," Patton says. "This is where you begin to align the organization around a common vision for the future."
Perhaps Wearing's most far-reaching legacy will be his focus on quality-of-life crimes -- the so-called broken-windows approach to policing. Just as Rudy Giuliani cracked down on New York's squeegee men, Wearing declared war on New Haven's vagrants and hookers, street-corner dealers, and boom-box blasters. By nipping misdemeanors in the bud, Wearing argues, police may deter more-serious crimes. His approach seems to be working. In 1997, New Haven logged 13,950 major crimes; in 2001, the city had a total of 9,322.
12. Meet the customers. Balance the big picture vision with-front line views. There is no reconnaissance more important than scouting out the territory where your products and services meet their customers. Seeing the customers actually interact provides some invaluable information.
When Gary Kusin took over as CEO of Kinko's Inc., he went into every single one of its 24 markets in the United States, visited more than 200 stores, and met with more than 2,500 team members.
13. Target a few early wins. Momentum counts, and nothing succeeds like success. It's critical for a new leader to create momentum during the transition, say Dan Ciampa and Michael Watkins in their book, "Right from the Start: Taking Charge in a New Leadership Role." Pick some problems the organization has not been able to address and figure out a way to fix them quickly to establish a new direction.
When Jim Berra was promoted to head the Starwood Hotels & Resorts Guest program in July 2001, and like any newcomer to a job, Berra was keen to have a few big wins to energize his new team. "I didn't want to solve world hunger in the first three months, but I was looking for a couple of things that would pay immediate dividends," he says. So he focused on three priorities: First, he had to build better awareness of the company's Preferred Guest program, which lagged behind Hilton and Marriott in visibility despite its unprecedented policies of having no blackout dates and no limit on free rooms. Second, he had to find a way to measure the program's performance. And finally, he had to research customer segmentation for future promotions.
14. Keep an eye on the clock. Faster is almost always better. "Make sure your time is used to its best advantage," says Patton. "When you're new to an organization, many people will want your attention. While it's pleasant to swap stories about each other's golf game, you're better off saving them for the fairway, and using the time in the office to engage in a learning-oriented conversation."
Here's a tip: Create a "Stop Doing" List. Take a look at your desk. If you're like most hard-charging leaders, you've got a well-articulated to-do list. Now take another look: Where's your stop-doing list? We've all been told that leaders make things happen -- and that's true. But it's also true that great leaders distinguish themselves by their unyielding discipline to stop doing anything and everything that doesn't fit.
15. Don't be afraid to make mistakes but be sure to fix them faster than you make them. Any new situation is fraught with hazards, but taking over a top job exposes a new leader to pitfalls ranging from the personal to the organizational. Accept that you can't know everything in your first six months, and even an extensive professional background can't insulate you from making mistakes in an unfamiliar company and culture. The key is to assess yourself and your progress as rigorously as you do your new colleagues and workplace, and to be prepared to make your own course corrections as you go along.
Last year, Lydia Shire and Paul Licari took over Locke-Ober, a Boston restaurant and Brahmin institution founded in 1875. The entire city was watching, and everybody had an opinion. And the first 10 days were a disaster. "You could have put me in front of a firing squad and it would have felt better," Licari shares.
16. Be wary of reckless re-engineering. If you're assuming leadership of a large organization or department, take the time to understand its current trajectory. Making too drastic and immediate a change can derail both confidence and long-term strategy. Stanford Business School Professor, Jim Collins, warns leaders to be cautious. "Why do overhyped change programs ultimately fail? Because they lack accountability, they fail to achieve credibility, and they have no authenticity."
Consider the Warner-Lambert Co. in the early 1980s. In 1979, Warner-Lambert told Business Week that it aimed to be a leading consumer-products company. One year later, it did an abrupt about-face and turned its sights on health care. In 1981, the company reversed course again and returned to diversification and consumer goods. Then in 1987, Warner-Lambert made another U-turn, away from consumer goods, and announced that it wanted to compete with Merck. Then in the early 1990s, the company responded to government announcements of pending health-care reform and re-embraced diversification and consumer brands. Between 1979 and 1998, Warner-Lambert underwent three major restructurings -- one per CEO. Each new CEO arrived with his own program; each CEO halted the momentum of his predecessor.
17. Don't be afraid to look for ideas in unusual places. Don't just read your own industry's trade journals. Cast a wide net for insights -- sometimes the breakthrough idea lies in the triumphs of a completely different industry.
When Rob McEwen, took over an underperforming gold mine in northwestern Ontario, he assumed a tough situation: The gold market was depressed, the mine's operating costs were high, and miners were on strike. His breakthrough - an unprecedented move to make his company's proprietary information public and launching a contest to develop the mine over the Internet - came from learning about the Linux operating system and the open-source revolution.
18. Finally, ask yourself who do you really want to prevail, you or your organization? You'd be surprised by the difference.
Consider this: Jim Collins and his team at Stanford Graduate School of Business and asked, what makes a good company great? They started with 1,435 good companies, examined their performance over 40 years, and then identified 11 companies that became great.
Here's one thing they found: The CEOs who took their companies from good to great were largely anonymous -- a far cry from the celebrity CEOs we read about. Collins believes this is more a matter of cause and effect than an accident. There is something directly related between the absence of celebrity and the presence of good-to-great results. Why? First, when you have a celebrity, the company turns into "the one genius with 1,000 helpers." It creates a sense that the whole thing is really about the CEO. And that leads to all sorts of problems - especially if the person goes away or if the person turns out not to be a genius after all.
Story source: http://www.fastcompany.com/articles/2002/08/suddenimpact.html
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
IBM's Management Makeover
As its world changes, IBM is studying its top-performing leaders. What do they do differently, and can everyone do it?
From: Success Magazine Issue 88| November 2004 | Page 112 By: Linda Tischler Photographs by: Henry Leutwyler
It was at a client meeting in San Francisco in October 2002 that Sam Palmisano, IBM's new CEO, first unveiled the initiative he hoped would transform his company. His idea: The Internet really did change everything (the crash of the New Economy notwithstanding). In a hyperconnected world, IBM's clients needed to become "on-demand" companies, their every business process exquisitely calibrated to respond instantly to whatever got thrown at them. And to help them, IBM would have to do exactly the same thing.
When she heard about the new strategy, Donna Riley, IBM's vice president of global talent, remembers wondering whether the company had the right managers for its new direction. "If leadership is stuck in the past, and the business has changed, we have a problem," she says. By the spring of 2003, Palmisano and his leadership development team realized the strategy would indeed demand a new breed of boss -- leaders who were as sensitive to changes in their environment as Indian scouts.
For help, Riley turned to the Hay Group, a consultancy that specializes in executive development. Hay had done work for IBM before, most notably in 1994 when, at former CEO Lou Gerstner's behest, the firm had interviewed a group of the company's top managers. As part of his turnaround strategy for the troubled company, Gerstner wanted to develop a new style of leader who could help transform its failed culture. Ultimately, Hay distilled 11 competencies from the interviews that would guide IBMers' performance as they pulled off one of the most remarkable corporate rebounds in history.
In the summer of 2003, Hay Group returned to conduct another set of interviews with 33 executives who had been identified as outstanding leaders in the new on-demand era -- the folks who really got the new strategy and who were on the cutting edge in a high-performance culture. They were drawn from every division of the business, every part of the world, united by their extraordinary ability to get the job done. The plan was to put these top players under a microscope, to divine how they thought about their jobs and the company; how they interacted with clients, peers, and subordinates; how they set goals and went about meeting them -- in short, to extract the best practices from the best leaders to see if they could be duplicated.
In a series of three-and-a-half-hour interviews, the managers discussed circumstances in which they had been successful -- or not. The interviews were supplemented by surveys of the people they worked with. Researchers then combed through the stories and accompanying data, looking for characteristics and qualities that distinguished these high performers.
The results were stunning. "The experts predicted maybe a third of the competencies would be the same, a third would be slightly different, and a third would be brand new," says Riley. "Much to their surprise -- and ours -- we found it truly is a new book," requiring all new skills.
To begin with, the best executives no longer thought of the folks to whom they sold stuff as customers; they saw them as clients. The difference? "A customer is transactional," says Harris Ginsberg, IBM's director of global executive and organization capability. "A client is somebody with whom you have a longstanding relationship and a personal investment." It's no longer enough to sell a customer a server. An IBMer should be so focused on becoming a long-term trusted partner that she might even discourage a client from buying some new piece of hardware if it's in the client's best interest to hold off.
The 33 leaders were also adept at a skill IBM calls "collaborative influence." In a highly complex world, where multiple groups might need to unite to solve a client's problems, old-style siloed thinking just won't cut it, and command-and-control leadership doesn't work. "It's really about winning hearts and minds -- and getting people whose pay you don't control to do stuff," says Mary Fontaine, vice president and general manager of Hay's McClelland Center for Research and Innovation.
For example, Frank Squillante, an IBM vice president, has only four direct reports. To do his job -- devising the strategy for the company's intranet, and then developing and deploying applications for 325,000 people and 100,000 business partners -- he must be a master at cajoling people over whom he has no real power. "I use 'collaborative influence' every minute of every day," he says. "If I tried to pull one of these, 'I'm in charge so you have to do this' maneuvers, the whole thing would break down."
Riley's team is now training IBM's executives in the new competencies. This year, only top management will be assessed against them. The next group -- some 4,000 executives -- will have a year to study the goals before being held accountable. But the new approach has already spurred some more flexible, collaborative efforts. Cross-functional teams from IBM's global services, software, and systems groups have helped Mobil Travel Guides transform itself from a travel content provider to a real-time, customized travel-planning service; a team of staffers from Big Blue's research, software, and consulting services helped Nextel dramatically improve its customer-care services.
In an interconnected world, such horizontal, collaborative networks of people clearly make more sense than rigid hierarchies. And leading in such a challenging environment is an acquired skill. "Leadership is a personal journey for each person," says Riley, "but I think having a culture that says this stuff matters -- particularly when it's linked to your business strategy -- is a very powerful combination."
IBM's New Leadership Traits
If you were a leader at IBM, here's what you would be graded on.
Innovation that matters -- for our company and for the world
Thinking horizontally: Leverages IBM's enterprise capability to address client or market opportunities in new ways.
Informed judgment: Synthesizes disparate sources of information to make an informed judgment regarding a strategic decision with both immediate and long-term implications.
Strategic risk-taking: Innovates to create exponential growth, using multiple resources from around IBM.
Dedication to every client's success
Building client partnerships: Builds ongoing, collegial relationships with key clients based on mutual strategic interests.
Collaborative influence: Creates interdependence, building genuine commitment across organizational boundaries to a common purpose.
Embracing challenge: Proactively builds in others the belief that they can innovate and grow the business.
Trust and personal responsibility in all relationships
Earning trust: Does what is right for the long-term good of relationships inside and outside of IBM.
Enabling growth: Changes systems or processes that impede growth and performance.
Passion for IBM's future: Gets others energized to realize IBM's unique potential.
Developing IBM people and community: Takes accountability for investing in the future leadership of IBM.
Linda Tischler is a Fast Company senior writer.
From: Success Magazine Issue 88| November 2004 | Page 112 By: Linda Tischler Photographs by: Henry Leutwyler
It was at a client meeting in San Francisco in October 2002 that Sam Palmisano, IBM's new CEO, first unveiled the initiative he hoped would transform his company. His idea: The Internet really did change everything (the crash of the New Economy notwithstanding). In a hyperconnected world, IBM's clients needed to become "on-demand" companies, their every business process exquisitely calibrated to respond instantly to whatever got thrown at them. And to help them, IBM would have to do exactly the same thing.
When she heard about the new strategy, Donna Riley, IBM's vice president of global talent, remembers wondering whether the company had the right managers for its new direction. "If leadership is stuck in the past, and the business has changed, we have a problem," she says. By the spring of 2003, Palmisano and his leadership development team realized the strategy would indeed demand a new breed of boss -- leaders who were as sensitive to changes in their environment as Indian scouts.
For help, Riley turned to the Hay Group, a consultancy that specializes in executive development. Hay had done work for IBM before, most notably in 1994 when, at former CEO Lou Gerstner's behest, the firm had interviewed a group of the company's top managers. As part of his turnaround strategy for the troubled company, Gerstner wanted to develop a new style of leader who could help transform its failed culture. Ultimately, Hay distilled 11 competencies from the interviews that would guide IBMers' performance as they pulled off one of the most remarkable corporate rebounds in history.
In the summer of 2003, Hay Group returned to conduct another set of interviews with 33 executives who had been identified as outstanding leaders in the new on-demand era -- the folks who really got the new strategy and who were on the cutting edge in a high-performance culture. They were drawn from every division of the business, every part of the world, united by their extraordinary ability to get the job done. The plan was to put these top players under a microscope, to divine how they thought about their jobs and the company; how they interacted with clients, peers, and subordinates; how they set goals and went about meeting them -- in short, to extract the best practices from the best leaders to see if they could be duplicated.
In a series of three-and-a-half-hour interviews, the managers discussed circumstances in which they had been successful -- or not. The interviews were supplemented by surveys of the people they worked with. Researchers then combed through the stories and accompanying data, looking for characteristics and qualities that distinguished these high performers.
The results were stunning. "The experts predicted maybe a third of the competencies would be the same, a third would be slightly different, and a third would be brand new," says Riley. "Much to their surprise -- and ours -- we found it truly is a new book," requiring all new skills.
To begin with, the best executives no longer thought of the folks to whom they sold stuff as customers; they saw them as clients. The difference? "A customer is transactional," says Harris Ginsberg, IBM's director of global executive and organization capability. "A client is somebody with whom you have a longstanding relationship and a personal investment." It's no longer enough to sell a customer a server. An IBMer should be so focused on becoming a long-term trusted partner that she might even discourage a client from buying some new piece of hardware if it's in the client's best interest to hold off.
The 33 leaders were also adept at a skill IBM calls "collaborative influence." In a highly complex world, where multiple groups might need to unite to solve a client's problems, old-style siloed thinking just won't cut it, and command-and-control leadership doesn't work. "It's really about winning hearts and minds -- and getting people whose pay you don't control to do stuff," says Mary Fontaine, vice president and general manager of Hay's McClelland Center for Research and Innovation.
For example, Frank Squillante, an IBM vice president, has only four direct reports. To do his job -- devising the strategy for the company's intranet, and then developing and deploying applications for 325,000 people and 100,000 business partners -- he must be a master at cajoling people over whom he has no real power. "I use 'collaborative influence' every minute of every day," he says. "If I tried to pull one of these, 'I'm in charge so you have to do this' maneuvers, the whole thing would break down."
Riley's team is now training IBM's executives in the new competencies. This year, only top management will be assessed against them. The next group -- some 4,000 executives -- will have a year to study the goals before being held accountable. But the new approach has already spurred some more flexible, collaborative efforts. Cross-functional teams from IBM's global services, software, and systems groups have helped Mobil Travel Guides transform itself from a travel content provider to a real-time, customized travel-planning service; a team of staffers from Big Blue's research, software, and consulting services helped Nextel dramatically improve its customer-care services.
In an interconnected world, such horizontal, collaborative networks of people clearly make more sense than rigid hierarchies. And leading in such a challenging environment is an acquired skill. "Leadership is a personal journey for each person," says Riley, "but I think having a culture that says this stuff matters -- particularly when it's linked to your business strategy -- is a very powerful combination."
IBM's New Leadership Traits
If you were a leader at IBM, here's what you would be graded on.
Innovation that matters -- for our company and for the world
Thinking horizontally: Leverages IBM's enterprise capability to address client or market opportunities in new ways.
Informed judgment: Synthesizes disparate sources of information to make an informed judgment regarding a strategic decision with both immediate and long-term implications.
Strategic risk-taking: Innovates to create exponential growth, using multiple resources from around IBM.
Dedication to every client's success
Building client partnerships: Builds ongoing, collegial relationships with key clients based on mutual strategic interests.
Collaborative influence: Creates interdependence, building genuine commitment across organizational boundaries to a common purpose.
Embracing challenge: Proactively builds in others the belief that they can innovate and grow the business.
Trust and personal responsibility in all relationships
Earning trust: Does what is right for the long-term good of relationships inside and outside of IBM.
Enabling growth: Changes systems or processes that impede growth and performance.
Passion for IBM's future: Gets others energized to realize IBM's unique potential.
Developing IBM people and community: Takes accountability for investing in the future leadership of IBM.
Linda Tischler is a Fast Company senior writer.
Leadership Lessons from The Apprentice
Make-or-break leadership lessons from The Apprentice: sure, it's "reality" TV. But smart viewers of NBC's hit show learned important rules of business success. Here are four, for starters
Alfred A. Edmond, Jr.
KWAME AND OMAROSA--NO LAST NAMES REQUIRED. Every African American professional knows the Harvard H.B.A. Wall Street investment adviser and the up-from-the-projects former White House appointee who were among the competitors on The Apprentice, NBC-TV's hit reality show. Beginning in January, the show followed the exploits of 16 young entrepreneurs and professionals as they engaged in a "13-week job interview" to get a one-year, $250,000 job with The Trump Organization, and an apprenticeship with the show's executive producer and company chairman Donald Trump. Each week, the group, divided into two teams, competed on a business task assigned by Tromp--selling fine art to renovating and leasing apartments--designed to test the talents and business savvy of each candidate. The winners moved on to the next task. The losers faced Trump and his lieutenants in the infamous boardroom. And as every fan of the show knows: "Somebody's gonna get fired."
At press time, the winner of the competition had not been selected. BLACK ENTERPRISE subscribers will receive this issue as the program's April 15 live finale airs. If Kwame Jackson is still in contention, as he was at this writing (Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth participated in nine tasks before falling to Trump's ax), you can bet that the show's final episode will become must-see TV for African Americans. Jackson and Stallworth represented a study in the duality faced by black professionals in a still white-male-dominated corporate America. African Americans who took pride in Jackson's Harvard M.B.A. pedigree and gracious, earnest professionalism, became increasingly frustrated by his apparent inability to do more than be an affable teammate, and to actually put up a "W" on the scoreboard. (Through Episode 10 of the show, Jackson was the only survivor who hadn't tasted victory as a project leader.) And black professionals--particularly African American women--"who were initially encouraged by Stallworth's assertive brand of professionalism, later became appalled by her transformation into the most negative stereotype of the combative, passive-aggressive, black female co-worker.
Unlike mindless reality shows in which contestants munch on worms or compete to marry a fake millionaire, The Apprentice is a show you can actually learn from. For the last three months, I was among the millions of viewers who tuned in every week to The Apprentice. My job: to identify key business and career success strategies illustrated by Trump and the 16 young professionals vying to be his apprentice on the first hit TV show focusing on competition and collaboration in the world of business. (See our weekly analysis of The Apprentice at www.blackenterprise.com.) Here are just four of the valuable lessons you can apply to your own business and career.
Lesson 1 GOOD IDEAS ARE NOT ENOUGH--FOLLOW THROUGH WITH A PLAN
In business, as in chess, the person who thinks the furthest ahead has the most control over the outcome. As Law 29 of The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene and Joost Elffers (Viking Press: $24.95) states: "The ending is everything. Plan all the way to it, taking into account all the possible consequences, obstacles, and twists of fortune that might reverse your hard work and give the glory to others. By planning to the end, you will not be overwhelmed by circumstances and you will know when to stop. Gently guide fortune and help determine the future by thinking far ahead."
Who got it wrong: Jackson consistently failed to follow plausible strategies with a well-thought-out and executable plan. In fact, in at least one case, he failed to plan at all.
In Jackson's first stint as a project leader for the then all-male Versacorp, both teams were charged with managing the Planet Hollywood restaurant in Manhattan's Times Square on consecutive nights. The victor would be the team that generated the largest revenue increase over the same night the previous year. The opposing, all-female Protege Corporation, led by real estate agent Katrina Campins, was assigned the first night of restaurant operations, giving Jackson's team an obvious advantage--an extra 24 hours to come up with a plan to profitably manage the restaurant the following evening. Did Jackson and his team spend the day visiting restaurants and talking to restaurant managers, reading books or visiting Websites devoted to the restaurant business? No. They focused on team bonding by playing basketball and the Donald Trump board game.
As a result, Jackson's Versacorp team failed to deduce in more than a day what Protege took minutes to discover: Planet Hollywood's bar accounts for 25% of its business. Protege, exploiting this information with a plan focused on generating as much bar business as possible, increased restaurant revenues by more than 31%. Jackson's team managed less than 7% in defeat, proving that the old adage is still true--failing to plan, is planning to fail.
Who got it right: When Protege and Versacorp were charged with running a fleet of rickshaw cabs for a one-day shift in Manhattan, contestant Amy Henry not only came up with the big idea, she followed through with a scheme to ensure its success. Her big idea for Versacorp: selling advertising space on the rickshaws. But she didn't stop there. Once she sold Bill Rancic, her project leader for this task, on the strategy, Henry boosted the odds of success by contacting companies she had already established positive relationships with during the competition (such as Marquis Jet, an advertising client from Week 2) to sell ads.
The result? Versacorp destroyed Protege, delivering $3,680 in profits against a measly $382.68. The difference: Henry's team generated $3,450 in advertising revenue.
Conclusion: A good strategy, is just the beginning. To get the results you want you have to think things through and come up with ways to test and exploit that stratagem. Good leaders plan the work, and then work the plan--not halfway, but all the way to the desired result.
Lesson 2 TO GET WHAT YOU WANT, FOCUS ON WHAT THEY WANT
A major key to negotiating, whether with colleagues, customers, subordinates, or superiors, is the sincere willingness to gain a clear understanding of what the other party wants. It sounds simple enough. Never assume that what's important to you is what's most important to those with whom you must deal. In business, you have to give to get.
Who got it wrong: When contestant Nick Warnock approached a potential buyer, determined to show off his prowess as a salesman, he focused on his own goal: to lead the Versacorp team to victory by single-handedly selling a truckload of Trump Ice. The target of the sales pitch was obviously insulted by Warnock's hard sell. He had to be thinking: "Where am I supposed to store all of this water? Who does this guy think he is?" Clearly, the needs of the customer were secondary, at best, to Warnock's desire to make the big sale. Warnock couldn't convince the client to buy even a case of bottled water, much less a truckload.
Who got it right: Contrast Warnock's approach with the pitch of another job candidate, Troy McClain. He focused on addressing the customers' problem of limited inventory space. Instead of trying to get customers to buy, say, 80 cases of Trump Ice at once, he and his Protege teammates convinced them to order 80 cases, but to take delivery on 20 cases a week, over a four-week period. As a result, Protege was able to place large orders with two distributors for a total of $3,400, earning them a victory over Versacorp.
Conclusion: The cornerstone of all successful careers and profitable businesses is a sincere interest in solving problems and meeting the needs of others--whether they are customers, employers, or colleagues. Those who can achieve this feat will reap huge rewards.
Lesson 3 IF YOU HAVE TO SAY YOU'RE A LEADER, YOU'RE PROBABLY NOT
Too many people believe that all it takes to be a leader is a superior position: a bigger title, more experience, better credentials, a higher I.Q.--or simply being louder, tougher, and more aggressive than the rest of the group. But without the ability to get people to follow you, all the official authority and superior qualifications in the world won't make you an effective leader. As the often repeated adage goes: If you think you are leading, but no one is following, then you are simply taking a walk.
Who got it wrong: All during the competition, would-be apprentices Stallworth, Sam Solovey, Jason Curis, Erika Vetrini, and Heidi Bressler proclaimed they were born leaders--some most loudly and persistently right before Trump dropped the ax on them.
Having to say that you're the leader is usually the first sign that you are not one. It usually means that you can't get people to follow you without some form of coercion. On The Apprentice, the reasons were varied. Solovey was a basket case who freaked out under pressure. Vetrini was an emotional wreck prone to crying and throwing tantrums. Curis ignored the input and expertise of his troops. And Stallworth assumed an air of unearned superiority, constantly pointing to her resume while denigrating those she would lead. All tended to blame others for their failures and evaluate others based on their personalities as opposed to their performance. These are not attributes that inspire loyalty and respect.
Who got it right: Versacorp's Troy McClain and Protege's Amy Henry provided great examples of leading by action, not by proclamation. In fact, they often demonstrated leadership even when they were not the designated project managers of their teams, proving that leadership is about more than having the title.
The most telling demonstration of this was Henry and McClain's respective roles in raising money for the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric AIDS Foundation by negotiating with celebrities for donations. For example, when Jackson and project manager Stallworth's negotiations with hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons were going up in flames, McClain saved the day by "keeping it real" (as in real country), delighting Simmons with his hick-from-the-sticks persona. Henry was just as impressive: Despite the constant disruption of teammate Tammy Lee, Henry stayed focused on coming up with ideas that were enthusiastically received by celebrities, such as television personalities Regis Philbin and Carson Daly.
Conclusion: Henry's Versacorp team defeated McClain's Protege team, raising $40,000 against Protege's $35.000, in the most tightly contested of The Apprentice assignments. Even though Rancic and Stallworth were the project managers of the respective teams on this project, the leadership skills of Henry and McClain were the keys to these successful campaigns.
Lesson 4 DON'T MAKE ENEMIES OF OPPONENTS--OR ALLIES
Like her or not, Stallworth was always clear on where she stood in relation to her fellow would-be apprentices: "I didn't come here to make friends. "True, but you don't want to make enemies either, unless it's absolutely unavoidable. Good leaders don't think in terms of friends and enemies; they operate in a world of allies and opponents, knowing that anyone they encounter can be one or the other on any given day, and sometimes both at the same time.
Who got it wrong: Think about the way Stallworth treated her colleagues, in victory and in defeat, during her tenure on The Apprentice. Did she say one positive thing, publicly or privately, about anyone on either team? Had she deemed any person she met worthy of her respect, and treated them thusly? Is she the type of person you'd want as a boss or colleague?
One of the most memorable examples of Stallworth's persistent negativity toward her teammates occurred as she (as project leader), Bressler, and another contestant, Jessie Connors, faced Trump's firing squad after their defeat in the competition to raise money for the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric AIDS Foundation. "Heidi was fantastic," she responded when Trump asked her to assess Bressler's performance. But Stallworth didn't stop there: "And I will tell you I haven't always been a fan of Heidi. I haven't always felt that she was professional, nor does she have much class or finesse." And that was intended as a compliment.
Who got it right: Stallworth's approach was in contrast to Jackson's, whose behavior was consistent in victory and defeat. He was positive, upbeat, and supportive of his teammates. When Jackson made criticisms, he was direct and to the point, limiting his comments to assessments of performance, not personal attacks.
Most importantly, Jackson never played the victim. When he failed, he held himself accountable, resisting invitations to blame others when facing Trump in the boardroom. While confident in his evaluation of a given situation, he remained open to the idea that he could be wrong, and that others, even a subordinate, could be right. As a result, even after crashing defeats as project leader, Jackson was still embraced as a team member by his fellow would-be apprentices, and he never lost the respect of Trump and his lieutenants. Is it any surprise that Jackson was able to consistently avoid the ax?
Conclusion: The best leaders make people want to be a round them. How? By being as quick with compliments as they are with criticisms. They focus on performance and not personalities, and realize they can't succeed without the support of colleagues, customers, and clients--even those they don't like, or those who don't like them.
The best leaders don't talk about it--they are about it. Those who followed these precepts experienced consistent success on The Apprentice. Those who violated them were doomed to failure--and an elevator ride to the street.
Alfred A. Edmond, Jr.
KWAME AND OMAROSA--NO LAST NAMES REQUIRED. Every African American professional knows the Harvard H.B.A. Wall Street investment adviser and the up-from-the-projects former White House appointee who were among the competitors on The Apprentice, NBC-TV's hit reality show. Beginning in January, the show followed the exploits of 16 young entrepreneurs and professionals as they engaged in a "13-week job interview" to get a one-year, $250,000 job with The Trump Organization, and an apprenticeship with the show's executive producer and company chairman Donald Trump. Each week, the group, divided into two teams, competed on a business task assigned by Tromp--selling fine art to renovating and leasing apartments--designed to test the talents and business savvy of each candidate. The winners moved on to the next task. The losers faced Trump and his lieutenants in the infamous boardroom. And as every fan of the show knows: "Somebody's gonna get fired."
At press time, the winner of the competition had not been selected. BLACK ENTERPRISE subscribers will receive this issue as the program's April 15 live finale airs. If Kwame Jackson is still in contention, as he was at this writing (Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth participated in nine tasks before falling to Trump's ax), you can bet that the show's final episode will become must-see TV for African Americans. Jackson and Stallworth represented a study in the duality faced by black professionals in a still white-male-dominated corporate America. African Americans who took pride in Jackson's Harvard M.B.A. pedigree and gracious, earnest professionalism, became increasingly frustrated by his apparent inability to do more than be an affable teammate, and to actually put up a "W" on the scoreboard. (Through Episode 10 of the show, Jackson was the only survivor who hadn't tasted victory as a project leader.) And black professionals--particularly African American women--"who were initially encouraged by Stallworth's assertive brand of professionalism, later became appalled by her transformation into the most negative stereotype of the combative, passive-aggressive, black female co-worker.
Unlike mindless reality shows in which contestants munch on worms or compete to marry a fake millionaire, The Apprentice is a show you can actually learn from. For the last three months, I was among the millions of viewers who tuned in every week to The Apprentice. My job: to identify key business and career success strategies illustrated by Trump and the 16 young professionals vying to be his apprentice on the first hit TV show focusing on competition and collaboration in the world of business. (See our weekly analysis of The Apprentice at www.blackenterprise.com.) Here are just four of the valuable lessons you can apply to your own business and career.
Lesson 1 GOOD IDEAS ARE NOT ENOUGH--FOLLOW THROUGH WITH A PLAN
In business, as in chess, the person who thinks the furthest ahead has the most control over the outcome. As Law 29 of The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene and Joost Elffers (Viking Press: $24.95) states: "The ending is everything. Plan all the way to it, taking into account all the possible consequences, obstacles, and twists of fortune that might reverse your hard work and give the glory to others. By planning to the end, you will not be overwhelmed by circumstances and you will know when to stop. Gently guide fortune and help determine the future by thinking far ahead."
Who got it wrong: Jackson consistently failed to follow plausible strategies with a well-thought-out and executable plan. In fact, in at least one case, he failed to plan at all.
In Jackson's first stint as a project leader for the then all-male Versacorp, both teams were charged with managing the Planet Hollywood restaurant in Manhattan's Times Square on consecutive nights. The victor would be the team that generated the largest revenue increase over the same night the previous year. The opposing, all-female Protege Corporation, led by real estate agent Katrina Campins, was assigned the first night of restaurant operations, giving Jackson's team an obvious advantage--an extra 24 hours to come up with a plan to profitably manage the restaurant the following evening. Did Jackson and his team spend the day visiting restaurants and talking to restaurant managers, reading books or visiting Websites devoted to the restaurant business? No. They focused on team bonding by playing basketball and the Donald Trump board game.
As a result, Jackson's Versacorp team failed to deduce in more than a day what Protege took minutes to discover: Planet Hollywood's bar accounts for 25% of its business. Protege, exploiting this information with a plan focused on generating as much bar business as possible, increased restaurant revenues by more than 31%. Jackson's team managed less than 7% in defeat, proving that the old adage is still true--failing to plan, is planning to fail.
Who got it right: When Protege and Versacorp were charged with running a fleet of rickshaw cabs for a one-day shift in Manhattan, contestant Amy Henry not only came up with the big idea, she followed through with a scheme to ensure its success. Her big idea for Versacorp: selling advertising space on the rickshaws. But she didn't stop there. Once she sold Bill Rancic, her project leader for this task, on the strategy, Henry boosted the odds of success by contacting companies she had already established positive relationships with during the competition (such as Marquis Jet, an advertising client from Week 2) to sell ads.
The result? Versacorp destroyed Protege, delivering $3,680 in profits against a measly $382.68. The difference: Henry's team generated $3,450 in advertising revenue.
Conclusion: A good strategy, is just the beginning. To get the results you want you have to think things through and come up with ways to test and exploit that stratagem. Good leaders plan the work, and then work the plan--not halfway, but all the way to the desired result.
Lesson 2 TO GET WHAT YOU WANT, FOCUS ON WHAT THEY WANT
A major key to negotiating, whether with colleagues, customers, subordinates, or superiors, is the sincere willingness to gain a clear understanding of what the other party wants. It sounds simple enough. Never assume that what's important to you is what's most important to those with whom you must deal. In business, you have to give to get.
Who got it wrong: When contestant Nick Warnock approached a potential buyer, determined to show off his prowess as a salesman, he focused on his own goal: to lead the Versacorp team to victory by single-handedly selling a truckload of Trump Ice. The target of the sales pitch was obviously insulted by Warnock's hard sell. He had to be thinking: "Where am I supposed to store all of this water? Who does this guy think he is?" Clearly, the needs of the customer were secondary, at best, to Warnock's desire to make the big sale. Warnock couldn't convince the client to buy even a case of bottled water, much less a truckload.
Who got it right: Contrast Warnock's approach with the pitch of another job candidate, Troy McClain. He focused on addressing the customers' problem of limited inventory space. Instead of trying to get customers to buy, say, 80 cases of Trump Ice at once, he and his Protege teammates convinced them to order 80 cases, but to take delivery on 20 cases a week, over a four-week period. As a result, Protege was able to place large orders with two distributors for a total of $3,400, earning them a victory over Versacorp.
Conclusion: The cornerstone of all successful careers and profitable businesses is a sincere interest in solving problems and meeting the needs of others--whether they are customers, employers, or colleagues. Those who can achieve this feat will reap huge rewards.
Lesson 3 IF YOU HAVE TO SAY YOU'RE A LEADER, YOU'RE PROBABLY NOT
Too many people believe that all it takes to be a leader is a superior position: a bigger title, more experience, better credentials, a higher I.Q.--or simply being louder, tougher, and more aggressive than the rest of the group. But without the ability to get people to follow you, all the official authority and superior qualifications in the world won't make you an effective leader. As the often repeated adage goes: If you think you are leading, but no one is following, then you are simply taking a walk.
Who got it wrong: All during the competition, would-be apprentices Stallworth, Sam Solovey, Jason Curis, Erika Vetrini, and Heidi Bressler proclaimed they were born leaders--some most loudly and persistently right before Trump dropped the ax on them.
Having to say that you're the leader is usually the first sign that you are not one. It usually means that you can't get people to follow you without some form of coercion. On The Apprentice, the reasons were varied. Solovey was a basket case who freaked out under pressure. Vetrini was an emotional wreck prone to crying and throwing tantrums. Curis ignored the input and expertise of his troops. And Stallworth assumed an air of unearned superiority, constantly pointing to her resume while denigrating those she would lead. All tended to blame others for their failures and evaluate others based on their personalities as opposed to their performance. These are not attributes that inspire loyalty and respect.
Who got it right: Versacorp's Troy McClain and Protege's Amy Henry provided great examples of leading by action, not by proclamation. In fact, they often demonstrated leadership even when they were not the designated project managers of their teams, proving that leadership is about more than having the title.
The most telling demonstration of this was Henry and McClain's respective roles in raising money for the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric AIDS Foundation by negotiating with celebrities for donations. For example, when Jackson and project manager Stallworth's negotiations with hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons were going up in flames, McClain saved the day by "keeping it real" (as in real country), delighting Simmons with his hick-from-the-sticks persona. Henry was just as impressive: Despite the constant disruption of teammate Tammy Lee, Henry stayed focused on coming up with ideas that were enthusiastically received by celebrities, such as television personalities Regis Philbin and Carson Daly.
Conclusion: Henry's Versacorp team defeated McClain's Protege team, raising $40,000 against Protege's $35.000, in the most tightly contested of The Apprentice assignments. Even though Rancic and Stallworth were the project managers of the respective teams on this project, the leadership skills of Henry and McClain were the keys to these successful campaigns.
Lesson 4 DON'T MAKE ENEMIES OF OPPONENTS--OR ALLIES
Like her or not, Stallworth was always clear on where she stood in relation to her fellow would-be apprentices: "I didn't come here to make friends. "True, but you don't want to make enemies either, unless it's absolutely unavoidable. Good leaders don't think in terms of friends and enemies; they operate in a world of allies and opponents, knowing that anyone they encounter can be one or the other on any given day, and sometimes both at the same time.
Who got it wrong: Think about the way Stallworth treated her colleagues, in victory and in defeat, during her tenure on The Apprentice. Did she say one positive thing, publicly or privately, about anyone on either team? Had she deemed any person she met worthy of her respect, and treated them thusly? Is she the type of person you'd want as a boss or colleague?
One of the most memorable examples of Stallworth's persistent negativity toward her teammates occurred as she (as project leader), Bressler, and another contestant, Jessie Connors, faced Trump's firing squad after their defeat in the competition to raise money for the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric AIDS Foundation. "Heidi was fantastic," she responded when Trump asked her to assess Bressler's performance. But Stallworth didn't stop there: "And I will tell you I haven't always been a fan of Heidi. I haven't always felt that she was professional, nor does she have much class or finesse." And that was intended as a compliment.
Who got it right: Stallworth's approach was in contrast to Jackson's, whose behavior was consistent in victory and defeat. He was positive, upbeat, and supportive of his teammates. When Jackson made criticisms, he was direct and to the point, limiting his comments to assessments of performance, not personal attacks.
Most importantly, Jackson never played the victim. When he failed, he held himself accountable, resisting invitations to blame others when facing Trump in the boardroom. While confident in his evaluation of a given situation, he remained open to the idea that he could be wrong, and that others, even a subordinate, could be right. As a result, even after crashing defeats as project leader, Jackson was still embraced as a team member by his fellow would-be apprentices, and he never lost the respect of Trump and his lieutenants. Is it any surprise that Jackson was able to consistently avoid the ax?
Conclusion: The best leaders make people want to be a round them. How? By being as quick with compliments as they are with criticisms. They focus on performance and not personalities, and realize they can't succeed without the support of colleagues, customers, and clients--even those they don't like, or those who don't like them.
The best leaders don't talk about it--they are about it. Those who followed these precepts experienced consistent success on The Apprentice. Those who violated them were doomed to failure--and an elevator ride to the street.
Friday, October 14, 2005
Leadership Definitions
Leadership is an elusive quality that can be hard to define. Here are a few people who have tried...
" ...leadership is like the Abominable Snowman, whose footprints are everywhere but who is nowhere to be seen" Bennis & Nanus: 'Leaders: Strategies for Taking Charge' (1997)
"[There are] almost as many definitions of leadership as there are persons who have attempted to define the concept." Stogdill (1974, p.259)
"A leader is a dealer in hope." Napoleon Bonaparte, French soldier, statesman, revolutionary (1769-1821)
"A leader is best when people barely know that he exists, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worst when they despise him. 'Fail to honour people' they fail to honour you.' But of a good leader, who talks little, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will all say, 'We did this ourselves.'" Lao Tzu, Chinese founder of Taoism, author (6th Century BC)
"A leader shapes and shares a vision which gives point to the work of others." Charles Handy (1992)
"A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but ought to be." Rosalynn Carter, US First Lady (b.1927)
"As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others." Bill Gates
"Be willing to make decisions. That's the most important quality in a good leader." General George S. Patton Jr.
"Leaders are individuals who establish direction for a working group of individuals who gain commitment form these group of members to this direction and who then motivate these members to achieve the direction's outcomes.” Conger, J.A. ‘Learning to Lead’ San Francisco: Jossey-Bass (1992, p18)
"Leaders are those who consistently make effective contributions to social order, and who are expected and perceived to do so.” Hosking (1988, p.153)
"Leadership (according to John Sculley) revolves around vision, ideas, direction, and has more to do with inspiring people as to direction and goals than with day-to-day implementation. A leader must be able to leverage more than his own capabilities. He must be capable of inspiring other people to do things without actually sitting on top of them with a checklist.” Bennis, W. ‘On Becoming a Leader’ Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing, (1989, p.139)
"Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other." John F. Kennedy
"Leadership is a combination of strategy and character. If you must be without one, be without the strategy." Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf
"Leadership is a development of a clear and complete system of expectations in order to identify evoke and use the strengths of all resources in the organization the most important of which is people.” Batten, J.D. ‘Tough-minded Leadership’ New York: AMACOM (1989 p. 35)
"Leadership is a function of knowing yourself, having a vision that is well communicated, building trust among colleagues, and taking effective action to realize your own leadership potential." Warren Bennis
"Leadership is a process of giving purpose (meaningful direction) to collective effort, and causing willing effort to be expended to achieve purpose.” Jacobs & Jaques (1990, p.281)
"Leadership is a process of influence between a leader and those who are followers.” Hollander (1978, p.1)
"Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal." Northouse (2004, p 3)
"Leadership is an attempt at influencing the activities of followers through the communication process and toward the attainment of some goal or goals.” Donelly, J.H. & Ivancevich, J. M. & Gibson, J.L. ‘Organizations: behavior, structure, processes 5th Ed.’ Plano,TX: Business Publications Inc. (1985 p362.)
"Leadership is an influence process that enable managers to get their people to do willingly what must be done, do well what ought to be done.” Cribbin, J.J. ‘Leadership: strategies for organizational effectiveness’ New York: AMACOM (1981)
"Leadership is defined as the process of influencing the activities of an organized group toward goal achievement.” Rauch & Behling (1984, p.46)
"Leadership is discovering the company's destiny and having the courage to follow it.” JoeJaworski - Organizational Learning Center at MIT.
"Leadership is influence - nothing more, nothing less." John Maxwell, 1998
"Leadership is interpersonal influence, exercised in a situation, and directed, through the communication process, toward the attainment of a specified goal or goals.” Tannenbaum,Weschler & Massarik (1961, p.24)
"Leadership is not a person or a position. It is a complex moral relationship between people, based on trust, obligation, commitment, emotion, and a shared vision of the good." Joanne Ciulla (1998)
"Leadership is that process in which one person sets the purpose or direction for one or more other persons and gets them to move along together with him or her and with each other in that direction with competence and full commitment.” Jaques E. & Clement, S.D. ‘Executive Leadership: a practical guide to managing complexity’ Cambridge, MA: Carson-Hall & Co. Publishers (1994, p.4)
"Leadership is the accomplishment of a goal through the direction of human assistants. A leader is one who successfully marshals his human collaborators to achieve particular ends.” Prentice, W.C.H. ‘Understanding Leadership’ Harvard Business Review September/October 1961 vol. 39 no. 5 p.143.
"Leadership is the art of influencing others to their maximum performance to accomplish any task, objective or project.” Cohen, W.A. ‘The Art of a Leader’ Englewood Cliffs,NJ: Prentice Hall (1990, p. 9)
"Leadership is the art of mobilizing others to want to struggle for shared aspirations.” Kouzes, J.M. & Posner, B.Z. ‘The Leadership Challenge’ San Francisco: Jossey-Bass (1995, p.30)
"Leadership is the behavior of an individual when he is directing the activities of a group toward a shared goal.” Hemphill & Coons (1957, p.7)
"Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” Warren G. Bennis
"Leadership is the incremental influence that a person has beyond his or her formal authority." (Vecchio, 1988)
"Leadership is the influential increment over and above mechanical compliance with the routine directives of the organization.” Katz & Kahn (1978, p. 528)
"Leadership is the initiation and maintenance of structure in expectation and interaction.” Stogdill (1974, p.411)
"Leadership may be considered as the process (act) of influencing the activities of an organized group in its efforts toward goal setting and goal achievement.” Stogdill, (1950, p.3)
"Leadership requires using power to influence the thoughts and actions of other people.” Zalenik, A. ‘Managers and Leaders: are they different?’, Harvard Business Review March/April 1992 p.126.
"Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall." Stephen R. Covey
"People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. . . . The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives." Theodore Roosevelt
"The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind in others the conviction and will to carry on." Walter Lippman
"The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between the two, the leader must become a servant and a debtor. That sums up the progress of an artful leader." Max DePree
"The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers." Ralph Nadar
"The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership." Harvey S. Firestone
"The job of the leader is to speak to the possibility." Benjamin Zander, British conductor, management presenter (b.1939)
"The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority." Kenneth Blanchard, US management author, presenter (b.1939)
"The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers." The Drucker Foundation, 1996
"You manage things, you lead people." Admiral Grace Murray Hooper, US naval officer (1906-1992)
“A leader is the person in a group who directs and coordinates task-oriented group activities.” Fiedler (1967)
“Leaders are those who consistently make effective contributions to social order and who are expected and perceived to do so.” Hosking (1988)
“Leadership is a social process in which one individual influences the behaviour of others without the use of threat or violence.” Buchannan and Huczynski (1997, p.606)
“Leadership is about articulating visions, embodying values, and creating the environment within which things can be accomplished.” Richards and Engle (1986)
“Leadership is the ability to step outside the culture to start evolutionary change processes that are more adaptive.” Schein (1992)
“Leadership is the creation of a vision about a desired future state which seeks to enmesh all members of an organisation in its net.” Bryman (1986, p. 6)
“Leadership is the lifting of a man’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a man’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a man’s personality beyond its normal limitations.” Drucker, P. F. (1955)
“Leadership is the process of influencing the activities of an individual or a group in efforts toward goal achievement in a given situation.” Hersey, P. & Blanchard, K. ‘Management of Organizational Behavior’. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall (1988 p. 86)
“Leadership is the process of making sense of what people are doing together so that people will understand and be committed.” Drath & Palus (1994)
“Leadership: the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” Dwight D Eisenhower (1890 - 1969) US Statesman
“One of the hardest tasks of leadership is understanding that you are not what you are, but what you're perceived to be by others.” Edward L. Flom, CEO of the Florida Steel Corporation, in a speech, May 6, 1987.
“Leadership is all hype. We've had three great leaders in this century - Hitler, Stalin and Mao.” Peter Drucker, quoted in Fortune, 21/02/94
“Leadership is an intangible quality with no clear definition. That's probably a good thing, because if the people who were being led knew the definition, they would hunt down their leaders and kill them.” Scott Adams, The Dilbert Principle (1996)
"Leadership: The capacity and will to rally people to a common purpose together with the character that inspires confidence and trust" Field Marshal Montgomery
"A Leader: A person responsible for achieving objectives through others by creating the conditions in which they may be successful and for building and maintaining the team that he or she is a member of." Jeremy Tozer
"Leadership is a purposeful relationship, which occurs episodically among participants, who use their individual skills in influence, to advocate transforming change." (c) Michael S. Kearns, 2005
" ...leadership is like the Abominable Snowman, whose footprints are everywhere but who is nowhere to be seen" Bennis & Nanus: 'Leaders: Strategies for Taking Charge' (1997)
"[There are] almost as many definitions of leadership as there are persons who have attempted to define the concept." Stogdill (1974, p.259)
"A leader is a dealer in hope." Napoleon Bonaparte, French soldier, statesman, revolutionary (1769-1821)
"A leader is best when people barely know that he exists, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worst when they despise him. 'Fail to honour people' they fail to honour you.' But of a good leader, who talks little, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will all say, 'We did this ourselves.'" Lao Tzu, Chinese founder of Taoism, author (6th Century BC)
"A leader shapes and shares a vision which gives point to the work of others." Charles Handy (1992)
"A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but ought to be." Rosalynn Carter, US First Lady (b.1927)
"As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others." Bill Gates
"Be willing to make decisions. That's the most important quality in a good leader." General George S. Patton Jr.
"Leaders are individuals who establish direction for a working group of individuals who gain commitment form these group of members to this direction and who then motivate these members to achieve the direction's outcomes.” Conger, J.A. ‘Learning to Lead’ San Francisco: Jossey-Bass (1992, p18)
"Leaders are those who consistently make effective contributions to social order, and who are expected and perceived to do so.” Hosking (1988, p.153)
"Leadership (according to John Sculley) revolves around vision, ideas, direction, and has more to do with inspiring people as to direction and goals than with day-to-day implementation. A leader must be able to leverage more than his own capabilities. He must be capable of inspiring other people to do things without actually sitting on top of them with a checklist.” Bennis, W. ‘On Becoming a Leader’ Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing, (1989, p.139)
"Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other." John F. Kennedy
"Leadership is a combination of strategy and character. If you must be without one, be without the strategy." Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf
"Leadership is a development of a clear and complete system of expectations in order to identify evoke and use the strengths of all resources in the organization the most important of which is people.” Batten, J.D. ‘Tough-minded Leadership’ New York: AMACOM (1989 p. 35)
"Leadership is a function of knowing yourself, having a vision that is well communicated, building trust among colleagues, and taking effective action to realize your own leadership potential." Warren Bennis
"Leadership is a process of giving purpose (meaningful direction) to collective effort, and causing willing effort to be expended to achieve purpose.” Jacobs & Jaques (1990, p.281)
"Leadership is a process of influence between a leader and those who are followers.” Hollander (1978, p.1)
"Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal." Northouse (2004, p 3)
"Leadership is an attempt at influencing the activities of followers through the communication process and toward the attainment of some goal or goals.” Donelly, J.H. & Ivancevich, J. M. & Gibson, J.L. ‘Organizations: behavior, structure, processes 5th Ed.’ Plano,TX: Business Publications Inc. (1985 p362.)
"Leadership is an influence process that enable managers to get their people to do willingly what must be done, do well what ought to be done.” Cribbin, J.J. ‘Leadership: strategies for organizational effectiveness’ New York: AMACOM (1981)
"Leadership is defined as the process of influencing the activities of an organized group toward goal achievement.” Rauch & Behling (1984, p.46)
"Leadership is discovering the company's destiny and having the courage to follow it.” JoeJaworski - Organizational Learning Center at MIT.
"Leadership is influence - nothing more, nothing less." John Maxwell, 1998
"Leadership is interpersonal influence, exercised in a situation, and directed, through the communication process, toward the attainment of a specified goal or goals.” Tannenbaum,Weschler & Massarik (1961, p.24)
"Leadership is not a person or a position. It is a complex moral relationship between people, based on trust, obligation, commitment, emotion, and a shared vision of the good." Joanne Ciulla (1998)
"Leadership is that process in which one person sets the purpose or direction for one or more other persons and gets them to move along together with him or her and with each other in that direction with competence and full commitment.” Jaques E. & Clement, S.D. ‘Executive Leadership: a practical guide to managing complexity’ Cambridge, MA: Carson-Hall & Co. Publishers (1994, p.4)
"Leadership is the accomplishment of a goal through the direction of human assistants. A leader is one who successfully marshals his human collaborators to achieve particular ends.” Prentice, W.C.H. ‘Understanding Leadership’ Harvard Business Review September/October 1961 vol. 39 no. 5 p.143.
"Leadership is the art of influencing others to their maximum performance to accomplish any task, objective or project.” Cohen, W.A. ‘The Art of a Leader’ Englewood Cliffs,NJ: Prentice Hall (1990, p. 9)
"Leadership is the art of mobilizing others to want to struggle for shared aspirations.” Kouzes, J.M. & Posner, B.Z. ‘The Leadership Challenge’ San Francisco: Jossey-Bass (1995, p.30)
"Leadership is the behavior of an individual when he is directing the activities of a group toward a shared goal.” Hemphill & Coons (1957, p.7)
"Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” Warren G. Bennis
"Leadership is the incremental influence that a person has beyond his or her formal authority." (Vecchio, 1988)
"Leadership is the influential increment over and above mechanical compliance with the routine directives of the organization.” Katz & Kahn (1978, p. 528)
"Leadership is the initiation and maintenance of structure in expectation and interaction.” Stogdill (1974, p.411)
"Leadership may be considered as the process (act) of influencing the activities of an organized group in its efforts toward goal setting and goal achievement.” Stogdill, (1950, p.3)
"Leadership requires using power to influence the thoughts and actions of other people.” Zalenik, A. ‘Managers and Leaders: are they different?’, Harvard Business Review March/April 1992 p.126.
"Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall." Stephen R. Covey
"People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. . . . The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives." Theodore Roosevelt
"The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind in others the conviction and will to carry on." Walter Lippman
"The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between the two, the leader must become a servant and a debtor. That sums up the progress of an artful leader." Max DePree
"The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers." Ralph Nadar
"The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership." Harvey S. Firestone
"The job of the leader is to speak to the possibility." Benjamin Zander, British conductor, management presenter (b.1939)
"The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority." Kenneth Blanchard, US management author, presenter (b.1939)
"The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers." The Drucker Foundation, 1996
"You manage things, you lead people." Admiral Grace Murray Hooper, US naval officer (1906-1992)
“A leader is the person in a group who directs and coordinates task-oriented group activities.” Fiedler (1967)
“Leaders are those who consistently make effective contributions to social order and who are expected and perceived to do so.” Hosking (1988)
“Leadership is a social process in which one individual influences the behaviour of others without the use of threat or violence.” Buchannan and Huczynski (1997, p.606)
“Leadership is about articulating visions, embodying values, and creating the environment within which things can be accomplished.” Richards and Engle (1986)
“Leadership is the ability to step outside the culture to start evolutionary change processes that are more adaptive.” Schein (1992)
“Leadership is the creation of a vision about a desired future state which seeks to enmesh all members of an organisation in its net.” Bryman (1986, p. 6)
“Leadership is the lifting of a man’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a man’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a man’s personality beyond its normal limitations.” Drucker, P. F. (1955)
“Leadership is the process of influencing the activities of an individual or a group in efforts toward goal achievement in a given situation.” Hersey, P. & Blanchard, K. ‘Management of Organizational Behavior’. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall (1988 p. 86)
“Leadership is the process of making sense of what people are doing together so that people will understand and be committed.” Drath & Palus (1994)
“Leadership: the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” Dwight D Eisenhower (1890 - 1969) US Statesman
“One of the hardest tasks of leadership is understanding that you are not what you are, but what you're perceived to be by others.” Edward L. Flom, CEO of the Florida Steel Corporation, in a speech, May 6, 1987.
“Leadership is all hype. We've had three great leaders in this century - Hitler, Stalin and Mao.” Peter Drucker, quoted in Fortune, 21/02/94
“Leadership is an intangible quality with no clear definition. That's probably a good thing, because if the people who were being led knew the definition, they would hunt down their leaders and kill them.” Scott Adams, The Dilbert Principle (1996)
"Leadership: The capacity and will to rally people to a common purpose together with the character that inspires confidence and trust" Field Marshal Montgomery
"A Leader: A person responsible for achieving objectives through others by creating the conditions in which they may be successful and for building and maintaining the team that he or she is a member of." Jeremy Tozer
"Leadership is a purposeful relationship, which occurs episodically among participants, who use their individual skills in influence, to advocate transforming change." (c) Michael S. Kearns, 2005
Seven Strategies to Manage Your Operation More Effectively
By Rama Ramaswami
As the holiday season approaches, it's time to make resolutions for next year -- and this time around, perhaps the wisest resolution you can make, in today's competitive workplace, is to become a better, more effective manager. According to business strategist Chuck Martin, it is vital for overworked managers to learn to keep things in perspective. Although 95% of executives keep a list of things to do during the workday, Martin says, 99% do not complete the tasks on those lists. In a column written for Darwin magazine, Martin offers these seven practical ways to deliver the results that high-profile corporations demand without caving in to pressure or losing work-life balance:
1. Communicate clearly.
You may believe that you are doing so, but the message may not be getting through. Tough management requires an overabundance of communication that is clear, concise, timely, and truthful.
2. Force the hard decisions.
Most executives and managers say their superiors do not deal with tough decisions right away. Managers need to collect all the necessary information available at the time, make the decision, communicate it, and then move on. The toughest decisions involve people, but they still have to be dealt with in a timely manner.
3. Focus on results.
Tough management requires that every person identify exactly the results that matter most and determine the actions that produce those results. This requires focus, working smarter, increasing productivity, and delegating. It also means being more realistic about what results are being demanded and what tools and time frame must be provided to deliver those results.
4. Remain flexible.
Managers today need to be self-organized to be able to change directions quickly. Tough management requires pushing back and saying "no" at times, as well as morphing to be flexible. It also requires stopping something at work and viewing yourself as more of a "virtual enterprise."
5. Prove your value to the company.
It is essential that you align with your company's values so that you can prove your value inside the enterprise. This means accepting even more new challenges and becoming the person everyone turns to for solutions. However, there is a fine line between proving your value and having the organization take advantage of you. Working away from the office and using commuting time can help focus more on what you deliver rather than on number of hours worked.
6. Force collaboration.
Teamwork at every level is required for tough management. This involves new levels of information sharing and a new willingness to learn.
7. Practice tough management without being a tough guy.
You can deliver quantitative results without being brutal to subordinates in the process. Tough management requires executives and managers to pause if the workload and hours worked are getting out of control, potentially causing lost perspective. It means breaking away, improving employee morale, and taking steps to protect talent. It also involves recognizing people for doing a good job and providing what is necessary for them to do their jobs better.
As the holiday season approaches, it's time to make resolutions for next year -- and this time around, perhaps the wisest resolution you can make, in today's competitive workplace, is to become a better, more effective manager. According to business strategist Chuck Martin, it is vital for overworked managers to learn to keep things in perspective. Although 95% of executives keep a list of things to do during the workday, Martin says, 99% do not complete the tasks on those lists. In a column written for Darwin magazine, Martin offers these seven practical ways to deliver the results that high-profile corporations demand without caving in to pressure or losing work-life balance:
1. Communicate clearly.
You may believe that you are doing so, but the message may not be getting through. Tough management requires an overabundance of communication that is clear, concise, timely, and truthful.
2. Force the hard decisions.
Most executives and managers say their superiors do not deal with tough decisions right away. Managers need to collect all the necessary information available at the time, make the decision, communicate it, and then move on. The toughest decisions involve people, but they still have to be dealt with in a timely manner.
3. Focus on results.
Tough management requires that every person identify exactly the results that matter most and determine the actions that produce those results. This requires focus, working smarter, increasing productivity, and delegating. It also means being more realistic about what results are being demanded and what tools and time frame must be provided to deliver those results.
4. Remain flexible.
Managers today need to be self-organized to be able to change directions quickly. Tough management requires pushing back and saying "no" at times, as well as morphing to be flexible. It also requires stopping something at work and viewing yourself as more of a "virtual enterprise."
5. Prove your value to the company.
It is essential that you align with your company's values so that you can prove your value inside the enterprise. This means accepting even more new challenges and becoming the person everyone turns to for solutions. However, there is a fine line between proving your value and having the organization take advantage of you. Working away from the office and using commuting time can help focus more on what you deliver rather than on number of hours worked.
6. Force collaboration.
Teamwork at every level is required for tough management. This involves new levels of information sharing and a new willingness to learn.
7. Practice tough management without being a tough guy.
You can deliver quantitative results without being brutal to subordinates in the process. Tough management requires executives and managers to pause if the workload and hours worked are getting out of control, potentially causing lost perspective. It means breaking away, improving employee morale, and taking steps to protect talent. It also involves recognizing people for doing a good job and providing what is necessary for them to do their jobs better.
Friday, August 05, 2005
[article] Alphabets for Success
Menurut pakarnya, manusia sukses tidak cuma dari IQ saja. Peran EQ Emotional Intelligence) pada kesuksesan bahkan melebihi porsi IQ. Seorang pakar EQ bernama Patricia Patton memberikan tips bagaimana kita menemukan dan memupuk harga diri, yang disebutnya alfabet keberhasilan pribadi.
A : ACCEPT
Terimalah diri anda sebagaimana adanya.
B : BELIEVE
Percayalah terhadap kemampuan anda untuk meraih apa yang anda inginkan dalam hidup
C : CARE
Pedulilah pada kemampuan anda meraih apa yang anda inginkan dalam hidup
D : DIRECT
Arahkan pikiran pada hal-hal positif yang meningkatkan kepercayaan diri
E : EARN
Terimalah penghargaan yang diberi orang lain dengan tetap berusaha menjadi yang terbaik
F : FACE
Hadapi masalah dengan benar dan yakin
G : GO
Berangkatlah dari kebenaran
H : HOMEWORK
Pekerjaan rumah adalah langkah penting untuk pengumpulan informasi
I : IGNORE
Abaikan celaan orang yang menghalangi jalan anda mencapai tujuan
J : JEALOUSLY
Rasa iri dapat membuat anda tidak menghargai kelebihan anda sendiri
K : KEEP
Terus berusaha walaupun beberapa kali gagal
L : LEARN
Belajar dari kesalahan dan berusaha untuk tidak mengulanginya
M : MIND
Perhatikan urusan sendiri dan tidak menyebar gosip tentang orang lain
N : NEVER
Jangan terlibat skandal seks, obat terlarang, dan alkohol
O : OBSERVE
Amatilah segala hal di sekeliling anda. Perhatikan, dengarkan, dan belajar dari orang lain
P : PATIENCE
Sabar adalah kekuatan tak ternilai yang membuat anda terus berusaha
Q : QUESTION
Pertanyaan perlu untuk mencari jawaban yang benar dan menambah ilmu
R : RESPECT
Hargai diri sendiri dan juga orang lain
S : SELF CONFIDENCE, SELF ESTEEM, SELF RESPECT
Percaya diri, harga diri, citra diri, penghormatan diri membebaskan kita dari saat-saat tegang
T : TAKE
Bertanggung jawab pada setiap tindakan anda
U : UNDERSTAND
Pahami bahwa hidup itu naik turun, namun tak ada yang dapat mengalahkan anda
V : VALUE
Nilai diri sendiri dan orang lain, berusahalah melakukan yang terbaik
W : WORK
Bekerja dengan giat, jangan lupa berdo'a
X : X'TRA
Usaha lebih keras membawa keberhasilan
Y : YOU
Anda dapat membuat suatu yang berbeda
Z : ZERO
Usaha nol membawa hasil nol pula
A : ACCEPT
Terimalah diri anda sebagaimana adanya.
B : BELIEVE
Percayalah terhadap kemampuan anda untuk meraih apa yang anda inginkan dalam hidup
C : CARE
Pedulilah pada kemampuan anda meraih apa yang anda inginkan dalam hidup
D : DIRECT
Arahkan pikiran pada hal-hal positif yang meningkatkan kepercayaan diri
E : EARN
Terimalah penghargaan yang diberi orang lain dengan tetap berusaha menjadi yang terbaik
F : FACE
Hadapi masalah dengan benar dan yakin
G : GO
Berangkatlah dari kebenaran
H : HOMEWORK
Pekerjaan rumah adalah langkah penting untuk pengumpulan informasi
I : IGNORE
Abaikan celaan orang yang menghalangi jalan anda mencapai tujuan
J : JEALOUSLY
Rasa iri dapat membuat anda tidak menghargai kelebihan anda sendiri
K : KEEP
Terus berusaha walaupun beberapa kali gagal
L : LEARN
Belajar dari kesalahan dan berusaha untuk tidak mengulanginya
M : MIND
Perhatikan urusan sendiri dan tidak menyebar gosip tentang orang lain
N : NEVER
Jangan terlibat skandal seks, obat terlarang, dan alkohol
O : OBSERVE
Amatilah segala hal di sekeliling anda. Perhatikan, dengarkan, dan belajar dari orang lain
P : PATIENCE
Sabar adalah kekuatan tak ternilai yang membuat anda terus berusaha
Q : QUESTION
Pertanyaan perlu untuk mencari jawaban yang benar dan menambah ilmu
R : RESPECT
Hargai diri sendiri dan juga orang lain
S : SELF CONFIDENCE, SELF ESTEEM, SELF RESPECT
Percaya diri, harga diri, citra diri, penghormatan diri membebaskan kita dari saat-saat tegang
T : TAKE
Bertanggung jawab pada setiap tindakan anda
U : UNDERSTAND
Pahami bahwa hidup itu naik turun, namun tak ada yang dapat mengalahkan anda
V : VALUE
Nilai diri sendiri dan orang lain, berusahalah melakukan yang terbaik
W : WORK
Bekerja dengan giat, jangan lupa berdo'a
X : X'TRA
Usaha lebih keras membawa keberhasilan
Y : YOU
Anda dapat membuat suatu yang berbeda
Z : ZERO
Usaha nol membawa hasil nol pula
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Handling Difficult Coworkers
From BusinessTrainingMedia.com’s Article Library
Like any social situation, a professional environment is bound to have its good and bad apples. There is no rule that says that once you find a job, you will enjoy working with each of your coworkers. In fact, you are bound to run into a colleague who irritates or even offends you. In these situations, it often becomes your responsibility to maintain a professional attitude. Here are some common types of “nightmare coworkers” and tips on how to keep your reputation intact, no matter what.
1. The Office Gossip – Most offices have one person with a direct connection to the company grapevine. This person has the “scoop” all the time and is not afraid to share it. While it can be fun to be in on the office news for a while, it is best to be cautious when presented with office gossip. The majority of gossip is false and hurtful. If you keep information to yourself instead of passing it on, your coworkers will come to see you as reliable and trustworthy. In addition, deciding not to spread gossip is one of the best ways to keep yourself from eventually becoming the subject.
2. The Constant Complainer – Misery loves company, and some individuals are just not happy in any situation. These employees are not afraid to complain, and do it often and vocally. But in an office environment, negativity often means lower productivity and company morale. Complainers typically seek out others who will share their grief. Your best bet is to listen respectfully if someone approaches you to vent, but not to join in. Sooner or later, the complainer will stop using you as a sounding board and you will not have to risk being labeled a negative employee.
3. The Nosey Neighbor – Many workplaces are set up in an open environment, with employees situated in cubes rather than in offices. This layout is great for employees who love to learn as much as possible about coworkers’ professional and personal lives. If you are faced with a colleague who always knows what is going on in your life, you might want to be more discreet at work. This means keeping personal calls to a minimum, or utilizing a conference room to handle personal business. If your nosey neighbor has truly crossed the line, talk to your manager about the situation. The company may be able to make adjustments in the office layout to provide you with more privacy.
4. The Office Thief – The office thief typically is not known for stealing pens and pencils, but for stealing credit and ideas. You may find that an idea you brought up casually is later presented formally by this individual, with no reference to your input. Unfortunately, you won’t do yourself much good by yelling “that was my idea!” Steer clear of this person, particularly when it comes to brainstorming or sharing ideas and materials. Be professional, but also be guarded in your interactions with the office thief.
5. The All-Around Unpleasant Coworker – While some individuals in the office cause problems without being blatantly offensive, this individual is downright nasty. He or she is rude, arrogant, condescending, and just not enjoyable to be around. There are a couple of tips for dealing with this coworker. The first is realizing that you never know the whole story. This person might have something going on in his or her life that is causing the negativity. Try having an open conversation – privately, of course – to discuss the interactions between the two of you, but be careful about how you approach the conversation. You want to be seen as supportive and open, rather than accusing. Next, talk to your manager or human resources rep about the situation. It never hurts to document issues, and you may be able to decrease the amount of interaction you have with this individual.
Bottom line: If you keep out of the negative situations that arise, you will save yourself a great deal of heartache in the future. Remember that the workplace is an environment that mixes a wide variety of personality types. The trick is staying true to yourself, getting your job done and doing what you can to ensure you are happy at the end of each day, even if it means biting your tongue from time to time.
Like any social situation, a professional environment is bound to have its good and bad apples. There is no rule that says that once you find a job, you will enjoy working with each of your coworkers. In fact, you are bound to run into a colleague who irritates or even offends you. In these situations, it often becomes your responsibility to maintain a professional attitude. Here are some common types of “nightmare coworkers” and tips on how to keep your reputation intact, no matter what.
1. The Office Gossip – Most offices have one person with a direct connection to the company grapevine. This person has the “scoop” all the time and is not afraid to share it. While it can be fun to be in on the office news for a while, it is best to be cautious when presented with office gossip. The majority of gossip is false and hurtful. If you keep information to yourself instead of passing it on, your coworkers will come to see you as reliable and trustworthy. In addition, deciding not to spread gossip is one of the best ways to keep yourself from eventually becoming the subject.
2. The Constant Complainer – Misery loves company, and some individuals are just not happy in any situation. These employees are not afraid to complain, and do it often and vocally. But in an office environment, negativity often means lower productivity and company morale. Complainers typically seek out others who will share their grief. Your best bet is to listen respectfully if someone approaches you to vent, but not to join in. Sooner or later, the complainer will stop using you as a sounding board and you will not have to risk being labeled a negative employee.
3. The Nosey Neighbor – Many workplaces are set up in an open environment, with employees situated in cubes rather than in offices. This layout is great for employees who love to learn as much as possible about coworkers’ professional and personal lives. If you are faced with a colleague who always knows what is going on in your life, you might want to be more discreet at work. This means keeping personal calls to a minimum, or utilizing a conference room to handle personal business. If your nosey neighbor has truly crossed the line, talk to your manager about the situation. The company may be able to make adjustments in the office layout to provide you with more privacy.
4. The Office Thief – The office thief typically is not known for stealing pens and pencils, but for stealing credit and ideas. You may find that an idea you brought up casually is later presented formally by this individual, with no reference to your input. Unfortunately, you won’t do yourself much good by yelling “that was my idea!” Steer clear of this person, particularly when it comes to brainstorming or sharing ideas and materials. Be professional, but also be guarded in your interactions with the office thief.
5. The All-Around Unpleasant Coworker – While some individuals in the office cause problems without being blatantly offensive, this individual is downright nasty. He or she is rude, arrogant, condescending, and just not enjoyable to be around. There are a couple of tips for dealing with this coworker. The first is realizing that you never know the whole story. This person might have something going on in his or her life that is causing the negativity. Try having an open conversation – privately, of course – to discuss the interactions between the two of you, but be careful about how you approach the conversation. You want to be seen as supportive and open, rather than accusing. Next, talk to your manager or human resources rep about the situation. It never hurts to document issues, and you may be able to decrease the amount of interaction you have with this individual.
Bottom line: If you keep out of the negative situations that arise, you will save yourself a great deal of heartache in the future. Remember that the workplace is an environment that mixes a wide variety of personality types. The trick is staying true to yourself, getting your job done and doing what you can to ensure you are happy at the end of each day, even if it means biting your tongue from time to time.
Monday, August 01, 2005
[interview] A Brief Q&A with John Kotter
Leadership: Facing Your Fears… and the Internet
Link&Learn: What is necessary for true leadership?
John Kotter: One, leaders must understand that leadership is not just a job of the person above them in hierarchy. Two, they need to understand what leadership means in their position. Three, they need to draw on their own self-confidence to actually lead. And four, they need to constantly learn from their own experiences what works and what doesn't, and grow as leaders. You can have people in executive positions who know nothing about leadership and do not behave as leaders. Certainly, people in executive positions who do not listen to people below them in the hierarchy-the ones who are closely connected to customers-are increasingly getting themselves into trouble. Good leaders listen very carefully to everything that's happening around them. They never lock themselves in their offices, where they're removed from people and where they just rely on reports and small meetings to know what the heck is going on.
L&L: Tell me more about the characteristics that are necessary for true leadership.
JK: The most common sort of leadership that you see today that is useful are people who challenge the status quo, vacuum up information from all directions, establish-by themselves or with others-a sense of direction, vision, for their little piece of the action, and then create some strategies for making the vision a reality. They communicate that strategy relentlessly to the relevant people around them, both with words and, maybe more importantly, with deeds. They make sure that enough people understand the vision, but more importantly, that they buy into it. Then they do whatever possible to create conditions that will motivate folks to act on that vision. That can be a long list of things, from helping people see the connection between their own aspirations and the vision, to getting rid of things that block action in the organization, etc. That is the most common form of very good leadership that you see today.
L&L: What are the first steps leaders can take to overcome their own natural fears so that they can then create the conditions that encourage the people they're leading to do the same?
JK: That's an excellent question. Let's see. In a funny way, what gets in our way is what Roosevelt said, in the early 1930s: "The only said we really have to fear is fear itself." What that means is, what really scares us is the fear. We fear the fear. And I think, once you get that insight, it helps a lot. A second thought is: I think the more that you get in touch with your own hopes and dreams and ideals, the more that you see the difference or the gap between your dreams and the current reality, the more you're propelled, regardless of fear, to do something.
L&L: That's a tough leap.
JK: Yes. But the bigger the gap, the more people want to do something. It's uncomfortable, not to do something about it. I think a third way you deal with your fears is by testing them against reality. That is to say, looking around, in your own history and others, to see how realistic they really are, and how much you're just conjuring them up, based on a few cases that were very difficult, versus what's rational. And a fourth is, the more that you can see how letting fears run your life does not lead to the life you want, the more you're able to face them and do something about them.
L&L: Has there been a time in your life that you've had to overcome a fear in order to get to where you wanted to go?
JK: Oh, yeah! Not only one time. Good heavens! At one point, I had an extraordinarily difficult boss, who could literally drive you into tears. And it was easy to convince yourself to allow the fear that naturally arose to, if not paralyze you, certainly greatly restrict what you did, and the risks you were willing to take. And I think coming to grips with that was not an easy one.
L&L: Were you able to face your fear?
JK: I decided life was too short to hide in the corner and worry about this guy. And I also decided that I was right, and he wasn't.
L&L: Did you tell him that?
JK: Did I ever tell him that? I may not have. I may have just done what was right. I don't think he would ever admit that he intimidated in a bad way, but he respects me now.
L&L: The arrival of the Internet has greatly accelerated what was an already accelerated rate of change. How can leaders keep up with the change?
JK: Well, you've got to rely increasingly on people other than yourself, and the challenge then is to help everybody collectively move fast enough--and if the organization is larger-- be maneuverable enough. If the organization has more than about 100 employees, much less 50,000, getting the speed and maneuverability is tough. And I think the most fundamental challenge is unleashing the energy potential in enough people to create the power, if you will, to make organizations leap and dodge. We've said for years that the average company gets about 10 to 20% out of its people. Well, that's fine, if you've got 50% of the market and things are moving at 20 miles an hour. It's no good when competition increases, the barriers to entry are smaller, and you're trying to move at 150 miles an hour. Drawing that out of people--or maybe a better way to say it is, helping them to draw it out of themselves--and using that to help organizations leap and maneuver, I think is going to be the critical leadership challenge.
Source: business-marketing.com
Link&Learn: What is necessary for true leadership?
John Kotter: One, leaders must understand that leadership is not just a job of the person above them in hierarchy. Two, they need to understand what leadership means in their position. Three, they need to draw on their own self-confidence to actually lead. And four, they need to constantly learn from their own experiences what works and what doesn't, and grow as leaders. You can have people in executive positions who know nothing about leadership and do not behave as leaders. Certainly, people in executive positions who do not listen to people below them in the hierarchy-the ones who are closely connected to customers-are increasingly getting themselves into trouble. Good leaders listen very carefully to everything that's happening around them. They never lock themselves in their offices, where they're removed from people and where they just rely on reports and small meetings to know what the heck is going on.
L&L: Tell me more about the characteristics that are necessary for true leadership.
JK: The most common sort of leadership that you see today that is useful are people who challenge the status quo, vacuum up information from all directions, establish-by themselves or with others-a sense of direction, vision, for their little piece of the action, and then create some strategies for making the vision a reality. They communicate that strategy relentlessly to the relevant people around them, both with words and, maybe more importantly, with deeds. They make sure that enough people understand the vision, but more importantly, that they buy into it. Then they do whatever possible to create conditions that will motivate folks to act on that vision. That can be a long list of things, from helping people see the connection between their own aspirations and the vision, to getting rid of things that block action in the organization, etc. That is the most common form of very good leadership that you see today.
L&L: What are the first steps leaders can take to overcome their own natural fears so that they can then create the conditions that encourage the people they're leading to do the same?
JK: That's an excellent question. Let's see. In a funny way, what gets in our way is what Roosevelt said, in the early 1930s: "The only said we really have to fear is fear itself." What that means is, what really scares us is the fear. We fear the fear. And I think, once you get that insight, it helps a lot. A second thought is: I think the more that you get in touch with your own hopes and dreams and ideals, the more that you see the difference or the gap between your dreams and the current reality, the more you're propelled, regardless of fear, to do something.
L&L: That's a tough leap.
JK: Yes. But the bigger the gap, the more people want to do something. It's uncomfortable, not to do something about it. I think a third way you deal with your fears is by testing them against reality. That is to say, looking around, in your own history and others, to see how realistic they really are, and how much you're just conjuring them up, based on a few cases that were very difficult, versus what's rational. And a fourth is, the more that you can see how letting fears run your life does not lead to the life you want, the more you're able to face them and do something about them.
L&L: Has there been a time in your life that you've had to overcome a fear in order to get to where you wanted to go?
JK: Oh, yeah! Not only one time. Good heavens! At one point, I had an extraordinarily difficult boss, who could literally drive you into tears. And it was easy to convince yourself to allow the fear that naturally arose to, if not paralyze you, certainly greatly restrict what you did, and the risks you were willing to take. And I think coming to grips with that was not an easy one.
L&L: Were you able to face your fear?
JK: I decided life was too short to hide in the corner and worry about this guy. And I also decided that I was right, and he wasn't.
L&L: Did you tell him that?
JK: Did I ever tell him that? I may not have. I may have just done what was right. I don't think he would ever admit that he intimidated in a bad way, but he respects me now.
L&L: The arrival of the Internet has greatly accelerated what was an already accelerated rate of change. How can leaders keep up with the change?
JK: Well, you've got to rely increasingly on people other than yourself, and the challenge then is to help everybody collectively move fast enough--and if the organization is larger-- be maneuverable enough. If the organization has more than about 100 employees, much less 50,000, getting the speed and maneuverability is tough. And I think the most fundamental challenge is unleashing the energy potential in enough people to create the power, if you will, to make organizations leap and dodge. We've said for years that the average company gets about 10 to 20% out of its people. Well, that's fine, if you've got 50% of the market and things are moving at 20 miles an hour. It's no good when competition increases, the barriers to entry are smaller, and you're trying to move at 150 miles an hour. Drawing that out of people--or maybe a better way to say it is, helping them to draw it out of themselves--and using that to help organizations leap and maneuver, I think is going to be the critical leadership challenge.
Source: business-marketing.com
Sunday, July 31, 2005
[article] It's Hard to Argue with Success
Jack Welch, in my not so humble opinion, is the hands down most successful business leader of the 20th Century. Before I lose any of you entrepreneurs out there who think leading GE is all that different from leading your computer business, construction company or even your hospital, please bear with me for a bit. As you might know, my work covers the gamut of business. Over the years I have come to realize that leadership is leadership no matter the size. Of course there are differences and many of those differences should not be ignored. For the most part, however, if you apply great leadership principles to a small business or even a single department, you are going to get big results, just like Jack did. Each of those big companies and institutions break down into smaller departments and units that need to be managed and led. I consistently preach leadership, management and communication fundamentals to my clients. The reason is that, if the fundamentals are not solid and do not offer a solid foundation, then the house will blow over sooner or later (remember the dot com bust?).
There is not a great leader in business that does not have an eye on the basics of financial management. If you have your eye on the financial ball you can get away with a lot in violating the fundamentals of managing “Human Capital,” but you will not grow like you could and I can guarantee you that your stress level will be in the stratosphere. This is simply because you just cannot control people, nor can you do it all by yourself. Those who try to do so stand in the way of their company’s growth. Holding people accountable goes a long way, but holding them accountable with love and care will really take your business where you want it to be. That is why leadership has room for so many different styles. You can be boisterous, funny, quiet, crazy, hands on, hands off, there, not there or any other way but there is one thing you cannot be and still be a great leader. You cannot be non-caring. Let me remind you we are talking about greatness, we are talking about Jack Welch. Yes, I know Jack was known as Neutron Jack at one point, but if you have ever tried to turn a failing business around then you know that blowing it up is a sure fire way to get on track. When the money has dried up that often is the best solution. If you follow Jack Welch you cannot help but come to the conclusion that he truly cared about people. Tough love might occasionally appear to be non-caring, but if you look closely you will see that there is a truth behind the toughness that is very loving.
Jack has eight principles that are terrific. I will list them here with a brief comment and if you want to read Jack’s commentary pick up his latest book “Winning.”
1. Leaders Relentlessly Upgrade Their Team, Using Every Encounter as An Opportunity to Evaluate, Coach And Build Self Confidence.
Allen – “You have to Coach”- This is only possible by meeting with people on a regular basis. That is what the research tells us the greatest mangers in the world do. If Jack had used my system God knows what he could have accomplished.
2. Leaders Make Sure People Not only See The Vision, They Live And Breathe It.
Allen – Every department should have their own vision and mission that supports the corporate vision and spells out just what you want that department to look like down the road.
3. Leaders Get Into Everyone’s Skin, Exuding Positive Energy And Optimism.
Allen – If you are negative, changing that is not easy, but it can happen with some help. Get a coach and begin the process if you want to experience the difference being positive will make. I am a realist and you can be both. I’ll show you how.
4. Leaders Establish Trust With Candor, Transparency And Credit.
Allen – Well said and let’s not forget to follow up until your direct report proves it is not necessary. You do not need to micro manage, but simply communicate – both ways.
5. Leaders Have The Courage To Make Unpopular Decisions And Gut Calls.
Allen – Get out of your head and learn how to feel. And know that intuition without information can be dangerous. “Fine line” stuff this leadership is.
6. Leaders Probe And Push With A Curiosity That Borders On Skepticism, Making Sure Their Questions Are Answered with Action.
Allen – This is the Coach Approach to Leadership and Management.
7. Leaders Inspire Risk Taking and Learning By Setting The Example.
Allen – The fruit is always out on the limb.
8. Leaders Celebrate
Allen – You should celebrate little wins too. Many leaders are such workaholics that they forget how to have some fun with their employees.
Well there you have it. If you want to get on track with changing your behavior and implementing great Leadership principles into your organization then call or Email me for a free one hour consultation.
Allen Hatton
Principal, Executive Development Group
www.LeadershipThatLasts.com
There is not a great leader in business that does not have an eye on the basics of financial management. If you have your eye on the financial ball you can get away with a lot in violating the fundamentals of managing “Human Capital,” but you will not grow like you could and I can guarantee you that your stress level will be in the stratosphere. This is simply because you just cannot control people, nor can you do it all by yourself. Those who try to do so stand in the way of their company’s growth. Holding people accountable goes a long way, but holding them accountable with love and care will really take your business where you want it to be. That is why leadership has room for so many different styles. You can be boisterous, funny, quiet, crazy, hands on, hands off, there, not there or any other way but there is one thing you cannot be and still be a great leader. You cannot be non-caring. Let me remind you we are talking about greatness, we are talking about Jack Welch. Yes, I know Jack was known as Neutron Jack at one point, but if you have ever tried to turn a failing business around then you know that blowing it up is a sure fire way to get on track. When the money has dried up that often is the best solution. If you follow Jack Welch you cannot help but come to the conclusion that he truly cared about people. Tough love might occasionally appear to be non-caring, but if you look closely you will see that there is a truth behind the toughness that is very loving.
Jack has eight principles that are terrific. I will list them here with a brief comment and if you want to read Jack’s commentary pick up his latest book “Winning.”
1. Leaders Relentlessly Upgrade Their Team, Using Every Encounter as An Opportunity to Evaluate, Coach And Build Self Confidence.
Allen – “You have to Coach”- This is only possible by meeting with people on a regular basis. That is what the research tells us the greatest mangers in the world do. If Jack had used my system God knows what he could have accomplished.
2. Leaders Make Sure People Not only See The Vision, They Live And Breathe It.
Allen – Every department should have their own vision and mission that supports the corporate vision and spells out just what you want that department to look like down the road.
3. Leaders Get Into Everyone’s Skin, Exuding Positive Energy And Optimism.
Allen – If you are negative, changing that is not easy, but it can happen with some help. Get a coach and begin the process if you want to experience the difference being positive will make. I am a realist and you can be both. I’ll show you how.
4. Leaders Establish Trust With Candor, Transparency And Credit.
Allen – Well said and let’s not forget to follow up until your direct report proves it is not necessary. You do not need to micro manage, but simply communicate – both ways.
5. Leaders Have The Courage To Make Unpopular Decisions And Gut Calls.
Allen – Get out of your head and learn how to feel. And know that intuition without information can be dangerous. “Fine line” stuff this leadership is.
6. Leaders Probe And Push With A Curiosity That Borders On Skepticism, Making Sure Their Questions Are Answered with Action.
Allen – This is the Coach Approach to Leadership and Management.
7. Leaders Inspire Risk Taking and Learning By Setting The Example.
Allen – The fruit is always out on the limb.
8. Leaders Celebrate
Allen – You should celebrate little wins too. Many leaders are such workaholics that they forget how to have some fun with their employees.
Well there you have it. If you want to get on track with changing your behavior and implementing great Leadership principles into your organization then call or Email me for a free one hour consultation.
Allen Hatton
Principal, Executive Development Group
www.LeadershipThatLasts.com
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