FAILURE

December 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I had the good fortune to sit through Mr. Toyoda, CEO of Toyota, Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com and Colin Powell speaking about the economy, business and leadership last week at Cloudforce Tokyo.

My favourite comment was from Colin Powell on failure – roughly paraphrased:

Failure is a part of life, you will fail. So learn to accept it and work through it:
1. Accept it is your failure. Don’t blame others.
2. Fix it
3. Then shake it .. move on. Too many people hold onto that failure, cannot deal with it. Never linger on the failure. You do not drive looking in the rear view mirror. You look ahead

At a school, a young girl stood up and asked a question.  She asked do you fail? He responded yes. It is part of life. You might fail a test. Do bad on a paper. Accept it. Learn from it. Grow and then throw the failure away. Move forward.

Wise words.

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LEADERSHIP AND STYLE

October 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment

 

Years ago in England I learned a great leadership quote that has stuck with me and became part of the leadership philosophies that I follow:

“It is easy to be a bully”.

While discussing that concept with a colleague yesterday he shared a quote from a leader that he respects:

People will forget what you said

People will forget what you did

People will never forget how you made them feel

So true.

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A QUOTE AND A COUPLE ARTICLES

May 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

 

A few items shared with me over the last couple weeks:

  • From John Quincy Adams: “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader”
  • The 5 Qualities of Remarkable Bosses (via INC.) and well worth reading:
    • Develop every employee
    • Deal with problems immediately
    • Rescue your worst employee
    • Serve others, not yourself
    • Always remember where you came from
  • And from the world of the quirky, but actually really good: Five Leadership Lessons from James T. Kirk:
    • Never stop learning: “You know the greatest danger facing us is ourselves, an irrational fear of the unknown. But there’s no such thing as the unknown– only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood.”
    • Have advisors with different world views: “One of the advantages of being a captain, Doctor, is being able to ask for advice without necessarily having to take it.”
    • Be part of the away team: “Risk is our business. That’s what this starship is all about. That’s why we’re aboard her.” (Just don’t be nameless security guy #3 – he always dies)
    • Play Poker, Not Chess
    • Blow up the Enterprise:  ….. We are often, in our roles as leaders, driven by a passion. It might be a product or service, it might be a way of doing things. But no matter how much that passion burns within us, the reality is that times change. Different products are created. Different ways of doing things are developed. And there will come times in your life when that passion isn’t viable anymore. A time when it no longer makes sense to pursue your passion. When that happens, no matter how painful it is, you need to blow up the Enterprise. That is, change what isn’t working and embark on a new path, even if that means having to live in a Klingon ship for awhile.

A few enjoyable reads.

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APPLICABLE TO LEADERS/MANAGERS

November 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

 

The HBR article Selling is Not About Relationships (title misleading) categorizes sales people into 5 buckets:

    • Relationship Builders focus on developing strong personal and professional relationships and advocates across the customer organization. They are generous with their time, strive to meet customers’ every need, and work hard to resolve tensions in the commercial relationship.
    • Hard Workers show up early, stay late, and always go the extra mile. They’ll make more calls in an hour and conduct more visits in a week than just about anyone else on the team.
    • Lone Wolves are the deeply self-confident, the rule-breaking cowboys of the sales force who do things their way or not at all.
    • Reactive Problem Solvers are, from the customers’ standpoint, highly reliable and detail-oriented. They focus on post-sales follow-up, ensuring that service issues related to implementation and execution are addressed quickly and thoroughly.
    • Challengers use their deep understanding of their customers’ business to push their thinking and take control of the sales conversation. They’re not afraid to share even potentially controversial views and are assertive — with both their customers and bosses.

In their analysis, they state that Challengers far outperform others, with Relationship Builders coming in dead last. Not that relationships are unimportant, their point is that the type of relationship is what is important. Challengers push the relationship, to make it better while Relationship Builders focus only on reducing tension.

This made me stop and think: How does this apply to management/leadership? I have often debated the merits of sales people transitioning from sales to management – where they can leverage their relationship skills. What this made me realize is that it is is more than that, the ability to build relationships is important but success will hinge on what type of a person they are. Consider the same definitions applied to management/leadership with a few key words edited (i.e. customer changed to organization):

    • Relationship Builders focus on developing strong personal and professional relationships and advocates across the organization. They are generous with their time, strive to meet everyone’s needs, and work hard to resolve tensions in the internal relationships. (Add: Infrequently progress from manager to leader as they are the keeper of the status quo).
    • Hard Workers show up early, stay late, and always go the extra mile. They’ll make more calls in an hour and conduct more visits in a week than just about anyone else on the team. (Add: It is naïve to think that you do not have to work hard to be successful. You do. But the person who thinks that hard work is enough stay managers. They are great ‘do-ers’.)
    • Lone Wolves are the deeply self-confident, the rule-breaking cowboys of the organization who do things their way or not at all. (Add: Often burn bridges and have difficulty moving from manager to leader as they are not a team player. After all, people follow those they trust)
    • Reactive Problem Solvers are, from the organization’s standpoint, highly reliable and detail-oriented. They focus on follow-up, ensuring that issues related to implementation and execution are addressed quickly and thoroughly. (Add: Great reporting to a leader)
    • Challengers use their deep understanding of the business to push their thinking and take control of the conversation. They’re not afraid to share even potentially controversial views and are assertive — within the organization. (Add: Can build, communicate and execute a vision … in other words, can lead).

As with the sales profiles, I would suggest that the Challenger will outpace the others as they are willing to paint a vision of the future, push boundaries, take risks, face big issues and execute – with relationships, problem solving and hard working contributing to that success.

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KING HENRY V & LEADERSHIP

October 22, 2009 By 1 Comment

I had the opportunity to listen to Jim Fisher speak about leadership a few months ago and he had a few interesting insights, specifically with regard to leadership and managing.

In the 1980’s, the United States was full of ‘well managed’ companies, Kotter and others identified that. But they lacked vision, and their focus on great management (not leadership) lead to process rigidity and a thorough pounding by the Japanese. Those of us who lived in that day and age remember the threat of the Japanese out engineering North America. He made the point that having a plan is not enough. We must have a vision, leadership, a compelling story and a plan to be successful, with the recognition that things change:

‘if we become slaves to the plan, we continue doing things long after they are useful’

A world full of change needs flexibility. We need to have that ‘vision’ of where we can go, and a plan to attain that vision, but it needs to be made out of sand – not etched in stone – ready to change as times change.

He went on to discuss one of his favourite piece of work, King Henry V by Shakespeare (making the point that Shakespeare is a remarkable man, with his plays still achieving more than 50% market share long after his death). In telling the famous story of the English defeat of the French at the Battle of Agincourt, despite terrible odds and an army on the verge of collapse, Shakespeare did it differently than those before him. He painted a picture of a great leader.

From the article ‘Blockbuster Lessons in Leadership’ (Marilyn Linton, FP, August 2003):

‘The first that the king did was have a battle plan’ Mr. Fisher observes, explaining that he knew the business of war and developed an innovative and complex medieval battle plan. His challenge then was to motivate his troops to execute it.

That leadership plan was developed after King Henry spent the night before the battle sitting around the campfires listening to his soldiers and learning how they felt.

‘Stand up and fight together!’ became the simple idea behind the leadership plan. It became evident that King Henry was going to suffer the same as his troops: ‘In real life you don’t always have the confidence your boss has as much skin in the game as you do’ Mr. Fisher says. Shakespeare had the king follow closely the rules of persuasion as taught by many business schools: Be credible, communicate shared benefits, and use vivid language for impact.

‘On the eve of battle, Henry is aware of what he is feeling. He is saying to himself ‘This is terrible. What have I done? I’m weak’. He listens to how how men feel, and he decides, in his speech not to sugar coat the truth.

‘Today, many bosses try to keep the positive spin on things. The fact is people in the trenches know how bad it is long before you do’ Mr. Fisher says.

‘Effective leadership is the combination of having a good business plan with having enough EQ to understand how to motivate people. Too much of the stuff you read about leadership talks about all the motivational things you should do to be ‘leaderly’, but if you are leaderly with a lousy plan, you aren’t going to accomplish anything’

A vision, great leadership .. and a plan. One last interesting quote on the topic of ‘vision’:

‘happiness isn’t about where we are, it is where we are going to be if we are successful … and words can bring that to life’

Agincourt:

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TEN FATAL FLAWS THAT DERAIL LEADERS

August 26, 2009 By Leave a Comment

The June 2009 HBR has an interesting article based on the 360 degree feedback from 11,000 leaders on the shortcomings of the worst leaders. An interesting read (Via), the ten are:

Lack energy and enthusiasm. They see new initiatives as a burden, rarely volunteer, and fear being overwhelmed. One such leader was described as having the ability to “suck all the energy out of any room.”

Accept their own mediocre performance. They overstate the difficulty of reaching targets so that they look good when they achieve them. They live by the mantra “Underpromise and overdeliver.”

Lack clear vision and direction. They believe their only job is to execute. Like a hiker who sticks close to the trail, they’re fine until they come to a fork.

Have poor judgment. They make decisions that colleagues and subordinates consider to be not in the organization’s best interests.

Don’t collaborate. They avoid peers, act independently, and view other leaders as competitors. As a result, they are set adrift by the very people whose insights and support they need.

Don’t walk the talk. They set standards of behavior or expectations of performance and then violate them. They’re perceived as lacking integrity. Another article Infectious Leadership provides good insight on this critical element – we can build excitement or create a negative culture. It starts with the leader.

Resist new ideas. They reject suggestions from subordinates and peers. Good ideas aren’t implemented, and the organization gets stuck.

Don’t learn from mistakes. They may make no more mistakes than their peers, but they fail to use setbacks as opportunities for improvement, hiding their errors and brooding about them instead.

Lack interpersonal skills. They make sins of both commission (they’re abrasive and bullying) and omission (they’re aloof, unavailable, and reluctant to praise).

Fail to develop others. They focus on themselves to the exclusion of developing subordinates, causing individuals and teams to disengage.

The closing note is probably the most important:

These sound like obvious flaws that any leader would try to fix. But the ineffective leaders we studied were often unaware that they exhibited these behaviours. In fact, those who were rated most negatively rated themselves substantially more positively. Leaders should take a very hard look at themselves and ask for candid feedback on performance in these specific areas. Their jobs may depend on it.

I received a great piece of advice two years ago on 360 degree feedback. I was new into a role (4 months) and was not going to add my new teammates to my list as they were just getting to know me and would not have a track record upon which to build their opinions. My coach suggested the exact opposite. Early into a new job is a great time to get candid feedback on how people perceive you and will help you shape the new relationships. I listened to the advice and it was great. I received great insight into how people perceived me and used the feedback in future 1:1s to openly talk about where I was developing.

But the first step is what is noted above ….. you have to be willing to take a hard look at yourself and accept the feedback, not rationalize it.

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HARDWORKING IDIOTS

November 27, 2007 By Leave a Comment

This article was forwarded to me and I had to blog it for future reference:


The German World War II general Erich von Manstein is said to have categorized his officers into four types.

The first type, he said, is lazy and stupid. His advice was to leave them alone because they don’t do any harm.

The second type is hard-working and clever. He said that they make great officers because they ensure everything runs smoothly.

The third group is composed of hardworking idiots. Von Manstein said that you must immediately get rid of these, as they force everyone around them to perform pointless tasks.

The fourth category are officers who are lazy and clever. These, he says, should be your generals.

The full articleis worth reading and applicable well beyond management. An old boss of mine often referred to it as ‘busy work’. He would ask ‘Are you doing busy work or are you selling?’.

Today, too many people feel a sense of accomplishment from having an empty inbox (I admit, it is nice) or from being ‘busy’. Too many people are ‘too busy’ to attend a training course to make them a better manager or sales rep. Too busy, too busy, too busy.

On a personal note, it is something I have pondering over the last week after I received an interesting piece of feedback – that I was hierarchical. Probing found that the person meant that while I was speaking with someone, I rudely broke off the conversation to engage in another conversation when someone higher up the line came by.

Upon reflection (other than realizing that I was a rude jerk for doing that, because I am not hierarchical in nature – far from it), I realized it was due to speed. Chances are I just flipped the switch and went down another track to deal with something not thinking about the casual conversation I was engaged in. My speed (being too busy) results in me shedding some of the finer points of etiquette to execute faster. Sad.

The best sales reps watch movies … time for me to watch a movie …. And taking that advice, I just watched 2 episodes of Supernatural (I really enjoy this show), Battlestar Galactica Razor (BEST show on TV), Transformers (yawn), Evan Almighty (Heart warming) and Live Free or Die Hard (His jumping off the bridge onto the jet was a little too much, but all in all – a very entertaining movie).

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TYLNEY HALL, HOOK, HAMPSHIRE: LEADERSHIP

November 26, 2007 By Leave a Comment

I attended a leadership offsite a few weeks ago at Tylney Hall. Like all of Britain, there are few locations which do not have generations of history and I continue to marvel. The history of Tylney Hall:

Tylney Hall is a Grade II listed mansion with beautiful gardens of significant historic interest. Stroll along the Vista lined with giant redwoods – it offers the longest, uninterrupted view of the Hampshire countryside; inhale the heady fragrance in the Rose Garden; trail your fingers in the exquisite Water Gardens; and enjoy the view of the lake from the boathouse bridge. The current house dates from 1898 and served as a hospital during the First World War, later becoming a private school.

A few pics (via low quality cell phone):

IMG_0103

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The event was well facilitated and I took away a few great leadership / management tidbits to ponder, leverage, implement:

  • The meeting stated with a great slide around ground rules: be present, be bold, be engaged and focus on what we can do.
  • The following quote struck me as very true: ‘Leaders get the culture they behave’. How many times have we seen this come to fruition? I choose a culture of big goals, customer first, competing aggressively, taking risks to innovate – drive breakthroughs and celebrating each other’s success.
    • Ghandi said it well ‘Be the change you want to see’. The question we all have to ask is – what do I need to change first?
  • Another quote struck me: ‘Leadership begins when we stop blaming others and making excuses’ (The Wise Fool’s Guide to Leadership, Peter Hawkins 2005)
    • This was centered around feedback and offered one great little rule – start all responses to feedback with a thank-you. What a great way to ensure that people feel comfortable enough with helping you get better.
    • There was also a point made around leaders. As leaders, if our leader is struggling we need to step up and stop complaining and take responsibility for his/her weaknesses and make them successful. An interesting comment that was once put to me as follows when I was complaining about my manager ‘What are you going to do to make them successful?’
    • On the topic of 360 feedback, the speaker stated that one of the biggest mistakes he sees is when people say ‘I don’t want to do the 360 yet, people don’t know me well enough yet’. On the contrary, this is the BEST time for a 360 – to capture those early perceptions and shape the opinion. Interesting viewpoint.
  • On the topic of corporate gossip, when someone is talking about someone else the speaker suggested you say ‘What did he/she say when you told him?’
    • What a great way to stop corridor conversations and ensuring that people are committed to helping each other. No one benefits if they don’t here about what they are doing wrong.
  • People often come up to me and say ‘I have a problem’ and I will spend a lot of time listening. The speaker made an interesting point ‘The closest person is not always the right person to solve the problem’. To be more effective, perhaps the conversation can be cut shorter by asking ‘What do you need from me to solve the problem?’ Sounds very One Minute Manager like …
    • The speaker went on to say that in most organizations there are too many problems going up the ranks and solutions coming down the ranks. As leaders, we need to be pushing to have those problems solved faster and more efficiently by not coming up the chain (by empowering our people to solve problems, find solutions and close out issues without constant interaction). We need vision and opportunities coming down from the top .. to challenge people to reach that next big growth spurt.
  • The ‘E’ test: Put out your dominant index finger and write an E on your forehead (do it before reading below)
    • If your E faces left it is for others to see, and you are relationship focused.
    • If the E faces right it is for yourself, you are more inwardly focused.

    • My E faced left.

    • At one point we discussed what makes a great leader. Tichy and Devanna (1986) listed transformational leaders as exhibiting the following:
      • They clearly see themselves as change agents
      • They are courageous
      • They believe in people
      • They are driven by a strong set of values
      • They are life-long learners
      • They can cope with complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity
      • They are visionaries
  • As leaders, our most important task every day is motivation – to help people raise their game every day. So true.
    • Filed Under: The Leaders Journey Tagged With:
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