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A Dashboard For Managing Complexity

Businesses are becoming more complex. It’s harder to predict outcomes because intricate systems interact in unexpected ways.

Staying on track is much easier with a guide or checklist. Michael Useem, a professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and bestselling author of The Leadership Moment, has published The Leader’s Checklist to create a clear roadmap for navigating any situation. It is presented here in condensed form, with sample questions accompanying each principle:

  1. Articulate a Vision: Formulate a clear and persuasive vision, and communicate why it’s important to all members of the enterprise.
    • Do my direct reports see the forest, as well as the trees? 
    • Does everyone in the firm know not only where we are going, but, most importantly, why?
    • Is the destination compelling and appealing? 

  2. Think and Act Strategically: Make a practical plan for achieving this vision, including both short- and long-term strategies. Anticipate reactions and resistance before they happen by considering all stakeholders’ perspectives.  
    • Do we have a realistic plan for creating short-term results, as well as mapping out the future? 
    • Have we considered all stakeholders and anticipated objections? 
    • Has everyone bought into, and does everyone understand, the firm’s competitive strategy and value drivers? Can they explain it to others? 

  3. Express Confidence: Provide frequent feedback to express appreciation for the support of those who work with and for you. 
    • Do the people you work with know you respect and value their talents and efforts? 
    • Have you made it clear that their upward guidance is welcomed and sought? 
    • Is there a sense of engagement on the frontlines, with a minimum of “us” vs. “them” mentality? 

  4. Take Charge and Act Decisively: Embrace a bias for action by taking responsibility, even if it isn’t formally delegated. Make good and timely decisions, and ensure they are executed.  
    • Are you prepared to take charge, even when you are not in charge?
    • If so, do you have the capacity and position to embrace responsibility?
    • For technical decisions, are you ready to delegate, but not abdicate?
    • Are most of your decisions both good and timely?
    • Do you convey your strategic intent and then let others reach their own decisions? 

  5. Communicate Persuasively: Communicate in ways that people will not forget, through use of personal stories and examples that back up ideas. Simplicity and clarity are critical.
    • Are messages about vision, strategy and character crystal-clear and indelible?
    • Have you mobilized all communication channels, from purely personal to social media?
    • Can you deliver a compelling speech before the elevator passes the 10th floor?

  6. Motivate the Troops, and Honor the Front Lines: Appreciate the distinctive intentions that people bring to their work; build on diversity to bring out the best in people. Delegate authority except for strategic decisions. Stay close to those who are most directly engaged with the enterprise’s work.
    • Have you identified each person’s “hot button” and focused on it?
    • Do you work personal pride and shared purpose into most communications?
    • Are you keeping some ammunition dry for those urgent moments when you need it?
    • Have you made your intent clear and empowered those around you to act?
    • Do you regularly meet with those in direct contact with customers?
    • Can your people communicate their ideas and concerns to you?

  7. Build Leadership in Others, and Plan for Succession: Develop leadership throughout the organization, giving people opportunities to make decisions, manage others and obtain coaching.
    • Are all managers expected to build leadership among their subordinates?
    • Does the company culture foster the effective exercise of leadership?
    • Are leadership development opportunities available to most, if not all, managers?

  8. Manage Relations, and Identify Personal Implications: Build enduring personal ties with those who work with you, and engage the feelings and passions of the workplace. Help people appreciate the impact that the vision and strategy are likely to have on their own work and the firm’s future.
    • Is the hierarchy reduced to a minimum, and does bad news travel up?
    • Are managers self-aware and empathetic?
    • Are autocratic, egocentric and irritable behaviors censured?
    • Do employees appreciate how the firm’s vision and strategy affect them individually?
    • What private sacrifices will be necessary for achieving the common cause?
    • How will the plan affect people’s personal livelihood and the quality of their work lives?

  9. Convey Your Character: Through storytelling, gestures and genuine sharing, ensure that others appreciate that you are a person of integrity.
    • Have you communicated your commitment to performance with integrity?
    • Do others know you as a person? Do they know your aspirations and hopes?
       
  10. Dampen Over-Optimism: To balance the hubris of success, focus attention on latent threats and unresolved problems. Protect against managers’ tendency to engage in unwarranted risk.
    • Have you prepared the organization for unlikely, but extremely consequential, events?
    • Do you celebrate success, but also guard against the byproduct of excess confidence?
    • Have you paved the way not only for quarterly results, but for long-term performance?

  11. Build a Diverse Top Team: Although leaders take final responsibility, leadership is most effective when there is a team of capable people who can collectively work together to resolve key challenges. Diversity of thinking ensures better decisions.
    • Have you drawn quality performers into your inner circle?
    • Are they diverse in expertise, but united in purpose?
    • Are they as engaged and energized as you?

  12. Place Common Interest First: In setting strategy, communicating vision and reaching decisions, common purpose comes first and personal self-interest last.
    • In all decisions, have you placed shared purpose ahead of private gain?
    • Do the firm’s vision and strategy embody the organization’s mission?
    • Are you thinking like a president or chief executive, even if you are not one?

Not all of these questions are applicable to every situation, but it is the questioning that counts.

Whether you are facing a typical day at the office or walking into a crisis, ask yourself and others these questions to inspire correct actions. Only then can you make sense of the complexities you encounter.

 

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Applying Filters to Your Speaking

Have you ever found yourself with the proverbial “foot in your mouth” because of something you said?  We all do that sometimes – and often in situations where we then feel foolish or embarrassed.  I once heard a great way to filter your thoughts before they come out of your mouth, and to consider what you are going to say before you say it.

Before you speak, ask yourself first, “Is it true?”  Meaning, is what you are going to say a truth …. Or is it a rumor, or gossip, or something that you are spreading that doesn’t merit discussion?

Secondly, ask yourself, “Is it kind?”  Who will be hurt if you speak your thought out loud?  Is it a kindness to speak it, or hurtful?

Last, ask yourself, “Is it necessary?”  Do you really need to say it?  What would happen if you didn’t?  Does what you are planning to say create positive action or unintended consequences?

This simple routine for considering what you are doing to say – BEFORE you say it – will ensure that you are always a positive influence to those around you.   Using this simple routine might mean that you stop gossip rather than extending it; that you curb the impulse to share an exaggerated story.  In asking yourself if what you are going to say is true, kind, and necessary, you will also be modeling effective speaking behaviors and encouraging others to do the same.

I have a client who struggles with her place within a management team.   She tends to think faster than most, and as a result also talk first and is often the first to raise her hand or react to an idea in a meeting.   Together, we discussed a new technique that she successfully used when with groups of people.  She simply counts to five before she speaks.   In that way, she can allow the space around her to slow down, she can consider what she is going to say, and she can apply this test as well – is it kind, is it true, and is it necessary?   When she does speak, then, her words serve her well, and she has become known in that management team as someone who is wise, thoughtful, and kind.

Have you considered how you can apply this simple filter to what you are going to say?  How might it make a difference in your interactions?  Let us hear from you!

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Take a Look in The Mirror

Since at least the time of Plato and Socrates some 2400 years ago, mankind has been implored to “know thyself,” in life and in business. Individually, this is often taken to mean knowing your strengths so you can leverage them and knowing your areas of weakness so you can improve them or compensate for them. But it involves much more than this. While at the business level, many organizations struggle with getting more done with fewer people and less resources. As your employees have changed roles or added responsibilities, you need to have confidence that you have the right people in the right positions to get the best possible results.

In some cases you do have the right team members in the right places and in some cases you probably made some wrong choices, as we all have. Companies forced to reorganize made quick decisions resulting in people landing in the wrong roles. Likewise, companies that have experienced significant growth have ended up with similar staffing outcomes. Diagnostic assessments can help you identify performance gaps and help your company effectively understand and align the talents, behaviors, and motivators of every employee. Having the right employee in the right position is as critical to each individual’s success as it is to the success of the entire company.

The first step in bridging performance gaps is for management to commit to a people development process for employees. It should be based on the skills, attitudes, and behaviors necessary for them to do their jobs successfully. If the size of the organization is large enough, it can be implemented by HR. Regardless, the objectives and strategies of developing employees, and how those employees are going to help drive results, needs to be owned by management.

After commitment has been gained and the objectives have been identified, diagnostic assessments can help determine individual performance gaps, since developmental opportunities will be employee-specific. Assessments can also be utilized as an important tool for creating skill development as well attitudinal and behavioral improvement while eliminating employee and organizational resistance to change.

There are a multitude of individual assessment tools available, but regardless of which we utilize, when working with clients we focus diagnostically on the whole person as defined by these three key areas:

  1. WHAT natural talents do your employees possess? An analysis of TALENTS gets at a person’s ability to do things, how they make decisions and interact with the world around them, as well as how they perceive themselves.
  2. WHY are your employees motivated to use their natural talents, based on their personal motivators and drivers? An analysis of MOTIVATORS gets at why people do things. Everyone has their own unique mix of personal drivers and motivators that help guide them toward success. Understanding what really drives a person is a crucial element of success.
  3. HOW do your employees prefer to use their natural talents, based on their preferred behavioral style? An analysis of BEHAVIORS gets at a person’s manner of doing things; how they do things. Since each individual has their own unique preferences and habits for how they like to behave, this understanding is crucial when working with team members as a leader or a manager, or in an environment that requires conflict resolution.

 

Establishing new behaviors requires that the employee feels able to adopt those behaviors and feels comfortable doing so. A well-designed people-development process focused on objectives leveraging diagnostic assessments drives long-term change. After the completion of a development process, we consistently see high levels of adaptable change with sustainable results. To learn how to achieve these types of sustainable results for your people and your business give us a call or visit www.pb-coach.com.

When you are looking in the mirror, you are looking at the problem. But, remember, you are also looking at the solution.

 

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A Winning Team

As children and teenagers most of us have played on a sports team. Can you remember what it felt like to be part of a winning team or a losing team? Remember the elation you felt when your team won a big game and the despair of losing the big game or championship? It is something special to experience being part of something bigger then yourself.

In my experience the concept of a “team based culture” is something a lot of entrepreneurs, business owners and executives want but find very difficult to achieve.  The difficulty begins with the definition.  Plato said that wisdom begins with the definition of terms. So what does Webster’s Dictionary have to say about teams: “a number of persons associated together in work or activity”. Webster’s goes on to describe teamwork as: “work done by several associates with each doing a part but all subordinating personal prominence to the efficiency of the whole”.  This is a good start but does not give us enough practical detail and guidance in the business world. Steven Yelen a New York based Business Coach with over 20 years experience in supporting organizations and teams give us some guidance with his ideas on fundamental principles and behaviors that work.

Fundamental Principles of a Successful Team:

-Common Purpose

-Clear and mutually agreed to working approach

-Appropriate balance of task focus and relationship focus

-Agreement on Measurements and Aligned Rewards

Behaviors that support Successful Teams:

-Push for high quality communications

-Help create a climate of trust

-Play your position and bring talent to the team

-Help drive discipline into the team

-Be prepared to sacrifice for the team-be a good sport

-Help new members make the entry

-Strengthen the leader through good followership

-Play down yourself and build up others

Why Teams fail to deliver results?

The biggest root cause of team failures in business can often traced to the lack of establishment of clear purpose, goals, measurements and rewards. Without these foundation pillars in place trust is often the first casualty followed by a lack of energy and sense of helplessness.  Finally, if the leadership is not walking the talk then you can expect cynicism to spread quickly and undermine any opportunity for success.

Final Thought:

There are many examples of organizations that have achieved excellence and delivered exceptional results by creating a team based culture. Some examples include GE, Motorola, McKinsey and Pall Corporation.   Do your research and look at the top players in your industry and you will often find a team based approach separating the leaders from the followers.

A great resource for helping you understand and build high performance teams can be found in the book “The Wisdom of Teams” by Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith. 

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It Starts With An Attitude

Ever wonder why it seems like th rich get richer and the poor get poorer? It all starts with an attitude.

Scenario One – The Rich Get Richer:

Step 1 – Attitude: Susan has a goal of achieving great things in her business and believes her potential is limitless. Her attitude practically shouts “I believe in myself and I believe in my business!”.

Step 2 Action: Because of Susan’s belief and attitude, she takes massive action. She is an unstoppable machine.

Step3 – Results: Susan’s massive action leads to incredible results.

Step 4 – Attitude – Susan’s incredible results feed her beliefs and make her attitude even stronger.

This stronger attitude drives even more massive action, greater results and the cycle goes on…up and up and up.

Scenario One – The Poor Get Poorer:

Step 1 – Attitude: John has a goal of achieving great things in his business but is pessimistic about his potential in this economy. He sees other around him struggling. Why should he be any different?

Step 2 Action: Because of John’s beliefs and attitudes, he takes little action. He’d rather wait and see when the economy will turn around.

Step3 – Results: Because of John’s lack of action, he sees little results.

Step 4 – Attitude – John’s poor results feed his beliefs and make his attitude even more negative.

This attitude drives even less action, poorer results and the cycle goes on…down and down and down.

What are you doing to feed your attitude today?

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Passion!

My name is Mike Goldman. I’m an executive coach and my purpose in life is to change the world by helping people discover and live their passion.

The purpose of this blog is to help me achieve that purpose by communicating breakthrough ideas and tips to make that happen.

Imagine what your life would look like if you lived your passion everyday. Imagine how it would feel to wake up in the morning and say “I can’t wait to go to work today!”. Wouldn’t it be great if work felt like a hobby.

If you’re a business owner, imagine the impact of your employees feeling that way. What would that do to your company’s performance? What would it do for morale? What would it do for your competitive advantage?

I hope you’ll join me by reading this blog and sharing your ideas. I look forward to our conversation.