Archive for January, 2011

Stimulate Your Thinking – What’s Your Leadership Brand?

Monday, January 31st, 2011

Personal branding is serious business these days. Since the 1997 publication of Tom Peters’ “The Brand Called You” in Fast Company, personal branding has gone from a radical idea to a career basic. But how much thought have you given to building your leadership brand?

“Many of us build our professional brand and create a digital identity, but few of us take a clear-eyed look at our leadership brand,” says CCL’s Stephanie Lischke. “People in individual contributor roles, especially, are likely to overlook their leadership brand.”

“Smart organizations are looking to develop leaders at all levels, not just within their management pool,” Lischke continues. “High-performing, experienced professionals are seen as important leaders, as are the up-and-coming high-potential talent.”

Your leadership brand is created by the ways you behave, react and interact. And it is linked to your effectiveness.

Consider the role of a highly experienced professional – what CCL calls a “hi-pro.” These individual contributors play critical roles as engineers, designers, medical professionals, marketing or logistics experts, and so on. They are expected to take on project-management roles or be key players on cross-functional teams. “If you are a hi-pro, you can’t rely on your subject-matter expertise to get the job done,” says Lischke. “You need to be a leader, too, if you are going to influence others, work as a team and get results.”

Similarly, high potentials need to develop leadership skills alongside their professional skills. “While you are going after the experiences needed to take on larger roles and pursue the management track, you should also be building your skill and reputation as a leader,” Lischke notes.

So, what does it take to create a leadership brand that boosts both your career and your organization?

Kim Leahy, portfolio manager of CCL’s Leadership Fundamentals course for individual contributors, shares these tips:

First, think “process,” not “position.” Leadership is a process, not a title. It’s about working with others in ways that establish direction, create alignment and build commitment. Rather than looking for someone else to be a leader, individual contributors need to ask themselves: “What am I bringing to the leadership process?” “How do I fit into the process of effective leadership in my group or in my project team?”

Second, understand your brand. Like it or not, you already have a leadership brand. You have a reputation based on how you get things done and how you interact with others. To leverage your leadership brand or to steer it in a different direction, you need to get a clear picture of how others perceive you today. Start paying attention to how you work – not just what you know or what you accomplish. How do you learn? How do you share information, make decisions and influence others? How do you build and nurture relationships? Just by paying attention to these questions, you’ll gain some insight. You’ll also want to check in with peers, a mentor and your boss – or seek out opportunities for formal feedback or a leadership development program – to gain a better picture of your leadership brand.

Third, take control. You are in charge of your leadership brand, so invest in your learning and development as a leader. Your boss or your organization won’t tell you exactly what is needed or hand you the tools and experiences that will boost your effectiveness.

Take time to think about your current job and future career. How does your leadership brand support your work today? What would happen if you could be more effective? How could leadership help get you there? What do you need to learn or change to improve your leadership skills and hone your leadership brand?

Finally, live your leadership brand. Your employer needs you to be as effective as you can be. Your co-workers do, too. But investing in yourself as a leader brings benefits to you as well. It can improve your job satisfaction and open the door to new opportunities, both now and in the future.

“Experienced managers and seasoned professionals tell us they wish they had developed fundamental leadership skills much earlier in their careers,” says Leahy. “Today, with the shifting, unpredictable economic and employment landscape, creating and living your leadership brand is more important than ever.”

Leadership Fundamentals: Not Just for Managers

If you’re a skilled expert or ambitious top performer, don’t ignore your role as a leader. Leadership development isn’t only for people with “manager” titles.

Individual contributors need leadership skills to work effectively on project teams, to succeed in larger or more complex assignments and to meet strategic objectives.

CCL’s Leadership Fundamentals program is a powerful, two-day course that will increase your ability to:

  • Develop a new perspective on the process of leadership and how you can lead in your current role.
  • Understand different learning styles and use this information to improve communication and relate to others.
  • Improve your interpersonal savvy and influencing skills.
  • Identify and nurture key relationships to be more effective in current and future roles.
  • Hone your personal leadership brand.
  • Create and get started on your personal development plan.

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Vistage Testimonial – Isolation

Friday, January 28th, 2011

If you are running a business and want an independent, honest viewpoint…check our joining a Vistage group

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Vistage Testimonial – Carefrontation

Tuesday, January 25th, 2011

Where else can you find a group of colleagues that care about you as a person as well as challenging you about your business?  Vistage is the only safe place for CEOs to deal with their entire person:

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Defusing Difficult Situations: The Unexpected Response

Friday, January 14th, 2011

By: Michael H. Smith, Ph.D.

We’ve all left uncomfortable and even angry situations and later thought: “I wish I had said X,” a stylish riposte to an unwanted or unwarranted remark. A story about Winston Churchill admirably illustrates the skill we wish we had at times. Seeing Churchill drunk at her social gathering, the host (allegedly Lady Astor) commented: “Mr. Churchill you are drunk, you are horribly drunk, you are exceedingly drunk.” Upon which Churchill replied: “Indeed, Madame. And you are ugly. Tomorrow, I shall be sober.”

Such repartee might earn us style points and may even make us believe we’ve effectively ended the situation, however, such comments don’t resolve underlying issues and usually won’t build or repair relationships. So how can we better respond to uncertain or unwanted comments? How can we quickly and effectively diffuse difficult situations and start problem solving?

An important tool is called an unexpected response. These are responses that the other person doesn’t see coming and that will quickly stop a negative conversation and steer it toward a calmer problem solving focus.

Unexpected Response 1: Humor

One such response is humor. A number of years ago, after the end of a 20-year marriage, I returned to my first house. I had lovingly remodeled it as a single man in my 30s and then had rented it for the 20 years of my marriage. I needed to occupy it again. At the time, I was a much older man and now encumbered by some serious baggage consisting of two disgruntled teenagers.

After a protracted battle to remove the tenant, I inspected the property with the property manager. After briefly listening to my bemoaning how bad the house looked after 20 years, and how my “perfect home” had deteriorated, he directly reminded me “I bet you don’t look like you did 20 years ago either.”

This caused a startled response from me-a rueful laugh and a much more productive discussion on how to make the house livable.

This is an example of humor that worked. It also might have backfired. Humor is a high-risk, high-gain tactic. So it’s critical if you use this tool to know both your humor and that of your audience.

If your humor tends to be sarcastic, very droll, obscure, or cutting, it’s best not to use it. If the other person is very serious, not familiar with English idioms (if you’re speaking English), significantly older or younger or in a different place in the hierarchy than you are, it’s best to reconsider.

It’s safest to laugh at yourself. Even if you don’t believe you’re at fault, a funny, self-deprecating remark can reduce tension. An unexpected funny response could be:

“Wow, that was dumb”
“I must have had brainlock that day”
“Send me home without pay”

It will usually get a laugh and, since you’ve “cut yourself down” a bit, the person may be willing to accept your seeming mea culpa and use it as a basis for a reasonable conversation.

Unexpected Response 2: An Apology

Two statements that are rarely used are: “I’m sorry” and “I was wrong.” Either of these two comments, if said reasonably early in the conversation, are likely to cause the other person to pause for a moment. It’s not what people usually hear right away. In order for the above comments to resolve an issue, some additional comments must follow such as what you are sorry about or why you are wrong, plus a credible promise to take specific corrective action so the offending behavior doesn’t repeat.

And it’s important how you frame the apology. Don’t avoid responsibility by using phrases such as “I’m sorry you were hurt by what I said” vs. “I’m sorry I hurt your feelings.” The first phrase implies that the other person has a problem because most people wouldn’t be hurt by what happened. The second phrase takes full responsibility for what you did, intentional or not.

Agree with Them
Go through the issues and agree with all that you can agree with. List them slowly and specifically. Make it seem as if there is a lot of agreement that has not been given proper notice.

Leave out those issues still to be discussed. When they are raised say that you’re willing to work out the rest and that you’re pleased that you’re off to such a good start.

Say You’d Never Intentionally Hurt the Individual
Appeal to the person’s emotion and your relationship with him or her. This works well if there is genuine caring and an unusual, if perceived hurtful, lapse in behavior.

Unexpected Response 3: Distraction

Distractions are a last resort and are used when emotions are running extremely high and you want to sidetrack a volatile interaction. Upon entering a home with a significant family dispute in progress, and with no hope of getting the parties to be reasonable, I asked them if anyone smelled smoke. Immediately, everyone started checking the house for sources of the possible fire.

After five to ten minutes of searching, we concluded that I had probably smelled car exhaust or a neighbor’s chimney. At this point everyone was calmer and could talk about various problems in a calmer manner.

This intervention can rarely be used with the same person twice. And if used in an organization, word will get out if you use it as a regular practice; but at those times when things are very hot and you’re out of options, it can be useful.

Other distractions that may help:

1. How’s your sick (mother, child)? Someone’s usually sick in a family. And even if no one is sick, you can claim that’s what you heard and you thought it important enough to check it out.

2. Did you see that (point at something outside)? It helps with this approach to have a window with activity going on outside. Walk toward the action and comment on what happened, for example, strange car, suspicious person, and so on.

We can’t all be as clever as Churchill. But we can learn to laugh at ourselves, genuinely apologize, and agree with some of what others have to say. We can even change the subject if real harm may occur. These tools will serve you better for bringing about workplace harmony

About the Author(s)

Michael H. Smith, Ph.D. is an Oakland, California-based organization consultant who specializes in teaching organizations how to resolve conflicts. For more information: mhsmith@michaelhsmithphd.com, orwww.michaelhsmithphd.com

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Are You Two-Faced?

Friday, January 7th, 2011

By: Greg Bustin

You probably know that the Roman god Janus is the origin of the month we call January.

And you’re likely aware that Janus was most often depicted with two faces looking in opposite directions because of his ability to look into the past and see into the future.

But did you know that Janus was frequently used to symbolize change and transitions such as the progression of the past into the future, of one vision to another, and of one condition to another?

It’s this notion of transitioning from one condition to another that I’ll address here.

In the past four years, I’ve been invited to lead 62 planning sessions for the leadership teams of companies of all sizes, ages and industries, including not-for-profit organizations. The CEOs of most of these companies are members of Vistage, the world’s largest CEO organization (www.vistage.com). And I’ve spoken throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe to hundreds more leaders that are eager to improve their effectiveness.

What I’ve observed is that most organizations are two-faced. They constantly transition from one condition – the desired condition – to the actual, less-than-effective condition. You might even characterize this organizational behavior as schizophrenic. That’s because, like Janus, most organizations have one vision of the future that differs markedly from the reality of their day-to-day operations.

The Schizophrenic Organization

As part of my planning and process improvement work with these organizations, we undertake an exercise that uses a model I’ve developed called the Identity Pyramid (you can download the Identity Pyramid shown below for free atwww.bustin.com/resources).

In the course of the exercise – which will take at least a couple of hours and sometimes as long as a half-day – we spend significant time examining how the organizations delivers on its promises.

Every organization I’ve ever worked with – profit and not-for-profit – has cited the pursuit of customer satisfaction as one of the by-products of the organization’s ability to deliver on its promises. There’s often a “Whatever it takes” mindset that comes into play. That’s the promise you and your company make to your customers and prospective customers OUTSIDE the company.

Here’s the problem. Promises being made INSIDE the company – deadlines, commitments, agreements, in effect, spoken and sometimes written contracts that colleagues make to one another – are broken every day. If a missed deadline involves a customer, it means that you, one of your star players or a special group of team members must jump in and through some heroic effort deliver on the promise that’s been made to your customers.

Has this happened in your organization?

A Culture of Accountability
When it does, it’s an accountability issue. Somebody has dropped the ball somewhere. And when that type of behavior is allowed to continue, it becomes the default culture of your organization. This behavior must be called out and addressed during the planning process so that solutions can be developed and consequences – good and bad – can be established to reward the behavior you expect and penalize under-performance.

Such behavior has an even more costly impact on your organization: Heroic events and a “whatever it takes” mindset may make your organization a winner today, but the organization will lose in the long run. Heroic events make it highly unlikely that you will be able to grow and scale your organization because you are managing by exception rather than by objective. And at some point, your star players may decide that it’s not worth their effort to tackle their assignments if they know the level of commitment from their colleagues is lacking.

If this behavior is occurring inside your organization, you have created – by default – a culture of double standards and not a culture of accountability.

The culture of your organization matters. After all, people don’t leave companies – they leave cultures.

So if creating and sustaining a culture of accountability throughout the organization is important to you, you as a leader must be very clear about your expectations up and down the organization.

Start the New Year with a single-minded vision to treat promises made on the inside of your organization with the same regard as those made to customers on the outside. Don’t be two-faced.

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Stimulate Your Thinking: Not Everybody’s a Superstar

Friday, January 7th, 2011

It’s time to take off the type-A blinders and get some perspective; not everybody in the workplace is a superstar or future leader, and a lot of people don’t want to be. They want to work, to get things done, to keep things moving, and to do a good job of it. They don’t have huge egos or need constant attention, validation, public praise, or a corner office; however, just because they aren’t tooting their own horns every time they do a good job doesn’t mean they aren’t as valuable to an organization as any recognized hi-po or future leader.

How organizations value people and their contributions can be a source of toxicity and a serious team killer if not managed well. Moreover, i4cp’s recent study on performance management shows that, more often than not, it’s not managed well. High-performing organizations take the time to do it better, but even among that group less than half (47%) agreed that their performance management processes promoted the desire behaviors to a high or very high extent, and only 42% considered their processes efficient. More telling is that, overall, even fewer employees find the performance management processes to be fair (38%) or valuable (27%), numbers that climb to only 49% and 42% respectively among higher performers.

If you’ve spent any time in the workforce, you know that it’s not uncommon for work groups to be demoralized by a culture that promotes an “either you’re a star or your dead weight” mentality. Instead of acknowledging reliable workers as the core of a company, these people are treated like “low-potentials” for not constantly seeking advancement and attention.  Consider, however, how many times you would have paid more for one good follower than ten wanna-be leaders stumbling over each other to take charge and do it their way. Followers are there to focus on the work at hand and get it done, arguably qualities and skills unto themselves.

I’m not saying that high-potential recognition and leadership development aren’t important, or that these people don’t need a lions-share to stay motivated. It’s not about making everybody a winner or not addressing low performance. A lot of talent and initiative are buried out there, with the only missing skill being the art of self-promotion in the void of substandard performance management. With the sad state of most performance management programs, it’s no wonder that engagement is dropping while voluntary attrition is rising. Perhaps, it’s time to reevaluate priorities in pay-for-performance and work on developing teams rather than focusing the spotlight solely on the stars.

Every superstar needs a manager, a stage crew, a stylist, security, personal assistants, and a cadre of other hard-working people doing what they do best to ensure their success. Think of some of the award show acceptance speeches you’ve seen, specifically, the list of names you’ve never heard before being read off a scrap of paper held by a gushing star-the “little people” that made it all possible.

For more information, visit www.i4cp.com

About the Author(s)

Eric Davis, Institute for Corporate Productivity Eric Davis is associate editor at i4cp.

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2011: A Year to Focus on the Balance Sheet

Thursday, January 6th, 2011

The late Sir James Goldsmith, an outspoken corporate raider in his times, used to humorously call himself the “Ajax” of corporate America.  Claiming that he knew of no well-run company that had been subjected to a corporate raid, he would posit that corporations under attack end up adopting the very ideas advanced by the corporate raider even in cases where the raider does not succeed.  His point was that stagnant corporations become inefficient and complacent unless external forces cause them to change their old ways.  And, he was that external “Ajax” of corporate America.

A depressed economy, such as what we have experienced over the past couple of years, might be a less threatening, but equally painful, Ajax.  Most corporations that survived the economy became more lean and efficient, and are, in some sense, the better for it.  If, as most economists predict, the economy should turn for the better in 2011, your income statements should take a positive turn and a healthy and growing business can forgive a lot of sins.  Watch out.  Don’t let the balance sheet slide.

I am not referring to the financial balance sheet, but rather to the non-financial intangible assets that you have created.  (See Food for Thought: April 2010 for a discussion on this topic.)  A lean operation running efficiently is an intangible asset, not represented in your financial balance sheet.  Further yet, if business gets healthy and begins to grow, make sure you focus on building new intangible assets that will serve you a long time.  Consider a more efficient supply chain or more streamlined business processes.  Invest in your people.  A growing business is the best time and place to grow people.  Give them stretch opportunities.  What non-financial balance sheet goals do you have for 2011?

My friend and colleague, Dave Coreson, who has run global, billion-dollar manufacturing operations, has a simple rune: He wanted new people in old jobs.  So, one time, when he took over a new manufacturing operation, at his staff meeting he asked his staff to stand up, move over one seat and sit down.  He told everybody that they had a new job: the job of the person whose seat they occupied.  Clearly, he had to make some minor adjustments.  But, he sent a clear message.  Both people and positions have to grow.  He always left behind a richer set of intangible balance sheet assets than he inherited in any assignment he undertook.

So, ask yourself how you will be enriching your intangible balance sheet assets in 2011.  While the income statement job might be easier in 2011, it is what you do with your balance sheet that will speak volumes in the years ahead.

We close with an update on our provocative Holiday tradition, advanced in our December 2010 mailing.  Eight of you took us up on our offer to match your charitable contributions.  The names and details of the contributions, as well as an example letter expressing the sentiments we heard from the recipient organizations, can be found here.  Additionally, a number of you wrote to us about how you spoke about the idea to your colleagues and friends during your Holiday events.  Thank you for doing that.  We had promised to send you a New year gift for letting us know.  You should have received your gift by now.

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Values Do Make A Difference

Wednesday, January 5th, 2011

Pitt’s recently hired football coach, Mike Haywood, was arrested over the weekend. Coach Haywood was charged with felony battery of the mother of his young son and then released on bail. His current relationship with this woman is a bit hazy. Pitt immediately dismissed Haywood and began to search for a new coach of its football program.

The good news is that Pitt has its values positioned front and center. Although the course of action seemed apparent for Pitt, most organizations have less clarity with respect to what they stand for. Recently, I dealt with an organization whose purchasing manager couldn’t work because his wife turned him over to the police for domestic abuse. Another project manager exhibited bursts of anger that cost the company a major client. Finally, a seasoned manager neglected the core functions of his position causing turmoil and petty politics to grow within his division. In all instances, management wrestled with what to do. These employees did 90% of their jobs correctly. However, they were not connecting with each organization’s published values. What do you do with good people who don’t “live” your values?

Values are the DNA at the heart of every organization. They give us the ability to develop a culture that reflects what we hold to be non-negotiable. In a world where values seem to be unknown or in question, think what your actions say to your colleagues and employees. I guarantee they take cues from how you act more than they listen to your words. Values can and should drive our behaviors as leaders.

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