Practical Leadership

Skip the Form Letters, They Are Missed Opportunities

2012-01-06T21:09:00.002-05:00

Recently I wrote an article about how Whitman's candies lost me as a loyal customer due to misleading packaging. They put 12 pieces of candy in a box that could have held 30 pieces. The weight on the label was the only indication of the sneaky packaging. While I wrote the blog article, my wife send a complaint letter to Russell Stover who made the box.

Today, we received a response from Russell Stover. Unfortunately, they missed the opportunity to win us back. Instead of an acknowledgement of the problem we got a form letter explaining that the "box was filled by weight and not by volume," and how the "net weight must comply with all Federal and State regulations." I won't share the whole letter here out of respect for the confidentiality statement they appended. I'm sure such things are not legally enforceable, but I see no compelling need to go against their request.

How should a leader respond to such a customer complaint? Russell Stover was stuck between not wanting to admit wrongdoing and knowing that such packaging is misleading. Rather than defensively explaining how their customer didn't understand their correct actions, a leader can fall back on the truth, even if it isn't a confession of guilt. In this case perhaps, "We understand how you could have felt deceived by our packaging choice. We will convey your concerns to our management. We hope we can better serve you with our products in the future." These are all things that are true and affirming. We would have preferred, "We shouldn't have done that."

Ill Will From Misleading Packaging

2012-01-03T22:08:00.001-05:00

Every year when I was a kid I got a four-piece Whitman's sampler in my Christmas stocking. I've always had a warm place in my heart for Whitman's candies. So I was excited when a friend brought us this large box of Whitman Reserve chocolates. Tonight we opened it and excitement turned to disappointment and disgust. The 2½-inch box had a single 1-inch layer of chocolates in it. Instead of a second layer, it had a false bottom. My daughters said it was "cheap".

I've come to expect the typical packaging tricks. Each of the 12 pieces of chocolate was nestled in its own protective plastic form. The plastic separated each piece by about ¾ inch. That makes up 43% package spacing on the long side and 48% package spacing on the short side. Protecting the bottom of each piece of candy is a packaging buffer of ¼ inch, in addition to the 1-inch false bottom. It's a shame that these kinds of tricks don't surprise me any more.

I looked forward to that beautiful, big box of "Reserve" chocolates. From its size, I expected the box to have two to three dozen premium chocolates. Seeing my beloved Whitman's dream squashed by a meager single layer changed my opinion of the brand.

The box was labeled to contain 7oz., but I have no doubt that the package design is intended to make me believe it contains much more. But what customers like me will take away from this kind of packaging is that the brand I used to value is a brand that is trying to mislead me. That's not a brand I can trust.

It's a shame really; the chocolates were good. I can't be the only faithful customer they have lost with this poor decision. When making cost-saving decisions for your own company, look for ways that don't make your customers feel deceived.

Engineering Camp for Girls

2011-08-20T18:34:00.001-04:00

I wish this wasn't necessary, but it is: GADgET (Girls Adventuring in Design Engineering & Technology). As an engineering manager and a father of two daughters, I find it appalling that there are so few women in engineering. Kudos to the GADgET folks for their leadership in changing this.

Selfishness a Good Career Move

2010-08-26T21:16:00.005-04:00

What should we do with this news? This article on ScienceDaily makes sense, but I still find it curious: Do-Gooders Get Voted Off Island First: People Don't Really Like Unselfish Colleagues, Psychologists Find.

I would be curious if the results are different when teams are engaged in group success. That would be a more enjoyable group to work with.

PowerPoint is Not the Presentation

2010-05-01T14:31:00.005-04:00

I can think of no more practical leadership topic than the use of PowerPoint. This New York Times article about the negative results of the use of PowerPoint by the US military paints a clear picture.

It's easy to be fooled into thinking that your PowerPoint slide deck is your presentation. People say things like, "I can't make the meeting. Please send me your presentation." This causes people to think they have to make their slides speak for themselves. When you can do that, you can skip the meeting.

Your slides are not your presentation. They are a prop you use while you give your presentation. They are a way of emphasizing key points to help get a message across. They are also not your notes to remind you what to talk about. When you present, remember that PowerPoint is simply a tool you use while you give your presentation.

Measurement Dangers

2010-04-29T21:40:00.004-04:00

I have always been a little suspicious of metrics as a way to measure people. We have all seen how people can "game" a measurement. For example, measuring software developers by lines of code written can cause developers to write more "verbose" code. When this happens the measurement stops working since people adjust to meet the goal. Worse though, is when the gaming creates unintended consequences. In our example, senior software developers can stop coaching the junior developers to have time to focus on their own lines of code. That is certainly not a positive result.

An article today on BoingBoing describes Goodhart's Law, which essentially says that once you start controlling something with a measure, the value of the measure diminishes. Some measurement is unavoidable, but where you do measure watch for Goodhart's law and other unintended consequences.

Franklin and Madison: Founding Brothers Leadership Lesson

2010-02-10T20:36:00.002-05:00

This paragraph paints a picture that reminds me of a key value of teamwork. It is from Founding Brothers by Joseph J. Ellis, page 113. The value of teamwork comes not from like-minded people working together; it comes from different people leveraging their complementary strengths.

If Franklin's great gift was an uncanny knack for levitating above political camps, operating at an altitude that permitted him to view the essential patterns and then comment with great irony and wit on the behavior of those groveling about on the ground, Madison's specialty was just the opposite. He lived in the details and worked his magic in the context of the moment, mobilizing those forces on the ground more adroitly and with a more deft tactical proficiency than anyone else. Taken together, he and Franklin would have made a nearly unbeatable team. But in 1790, they were on different sides.

So, as a leader, seek your opposite and value the strength you can bring to each other.

CBS's Undercover Boss a Good Case Study

2010-02-08T20:42:00.004-05:00

I watched CBS's Undercover Boss last night. I'd recommend it as a thought-provoking case study in understanding your business. The first episode showed Larry O'Donnell, President and COO of Waste Management taking on line jobs such as sorting trash at a recycling center, cleaning portable toilets and collecting residential trash.

Let me not spoil the show for you. I'll just say, he gains insight into how upper management policies impact the real people doing the work. While much of this show may be contrived, the simple idea of understanding the day-to-day work of your teams can have great value to your success as a leader.

Disney Turns a Problem into an Asset

2009-11-11T19:37:00.002-05:00

I've written about Disney's customer service leadership in the past. Today I saw a post on the DisneyParks blog about short video games being added to the Space Mountain line. When people think of the worst aspects of theme parts, long lines are near the top of the list. When I go to a Disney park, I find myself disappointed when the lines are too short. There is always so much to see in the line that I can't just rush through the experience.

Disney is so focused on the customer experience that they spend money on making the lines more enjoyable. They take leadership in satisfying their customers. That builds a loyal customer base. That's good for business. Consider the worst aspect of your business, and how you could turn it into an asset.

Crate&Barrel Responds to Product Feedback

2009-10-24T09:08:00.006-04:00

I saw a coffee mug at Crate&Barrel on-line that I liked but noticed the review feedback was poor. Negative feedback on a mug struck me as odd, so I took a look. Apparently the glaze would crack in hot water. So, as long as you didn't drink coffee out of it, this was a great coffee mug.

Fortunately, Crate&Barrel added this note:

Good news. We are pleased to report that after listening to your Crate and Barrel review comments for the Latte Mug, we have worked to improve its quality and are now shipping a new better mug. If you have the original Latte Mug and would like to talk to us, please call 800.967.6696. Thank you for taking the time to write a product review. We read each and every one to help us make our products and services the best they can be. Your feedback is important…and appreciated.

Like many companies on-line, Crate&Barrel lets customers leave feedback, even negative feedback. That takes some leadership courage. And Crate&Barrel took the extra step of fixing the problem and responding to the feedback. Leadership in business means building customer satisfaction and maintaining the company's reputation for quality, not just taking the customer's money.

Simple Employee Messages

2009-09-27T09:28:00.014-04:00

While GM and Chrysler struggle to succeed despite $17 billion in government bailouts, Ford stands out for building success without putting its hand out. Ford claims it started this process by recognizing the industry problems back in 2006 and acting before the crisis.

In 2006, then-CEO William Clay Ford, Jr. recognized his inability to restructure the struggling business. He took the bold act of replacing himself. He brought in Alan Mulally, who had succeeded in restructuring Boeing through its troubles. I imagine that board members "helped" William Ford with his decision, but Ford was able to act on it where other CEOs fight to the death of their companies.

I'm a strong believer in the value of leaders presenting simple messages to their teams. One of the turnaround techniques that Ford is now using is to spread its simple message in a plastic card that employees carry with their badges.

Many people find such things to be silly management techniques. I see them as powerful leadership tools for focusing the team on a simple goal. In each employee that mocks such efforts, you will find an employee who understands the message on the card. They play another valuable role in solidifying the message: They are the first to call out their leaders when they don't act toward the stated goals. Even such mocking acts can serve the goal by acting as a conscience to keep the leaders on track.

As a leader, you could take your first lesson from Ford by having a simple goal for your teams. Your second lesson from Ford is to not be shy about sharing it until your team thinks you are being silly. Here's wishing success to Ford.

Why Samoan Survivors Follow thier Leaders

2009-09-20T19:03:00.007-04:00

Last night I watched the first episode of Survivor Samoa. The participants broke into two tribes and their first task was to pick a leader for each tribe. They elected leaders with a simple ballot, with the highest vote-getter becoming the tribe leader. At this point in the game, they only had visual first impressions to go on. Up to that point, they were not allowed to talk to each other.

I found it interesting that throughout the rest of the episode, each tribe was happy to take direction from their simply-picked leader. The leader had done nothing to deserve the role, but yet the tribe followed them.

So, what can we learn from this. It would be simple to dismiss this willingness to follow as a tactic for staying under the radar in the game. That probably is part of the dynamic. In my experience, I see people relieved not to have to take on the leadership role. Most people are happy to follow anyone who is willing to take the role, so long as they don't abuse the role.

One good example is when a bunch of friends are planning to go out to dinner together. One person says, "Where should we go," and there is silence. What is that silence? It is a pause while everyone avoids the risk of being the leader in that decision. I know that whatever the first person suggests, someone in the group will shoot down. But, most people would rather just follow the leader's choice. After all, the restaurant is not the important part; going out together is.

I think the Samoan Survivors were willing to follow their leaders because someone was willing to be the leader. You might assume that your teams are willing to follow you until you deserve that they shouldn't. Don't be afraid to take the lead. People will appreciate your willingness, even if they don't say so.

Swine Flu Reactions are an Abundance of Caution

2009-04-30T18:58:00.005-04:00

In watching all the news about Swine Flu, the new catch phrase has become "an abundance of caution." Apparently this is a way to say, "Yes we know we are overreacting, but you can't be too careful when it comes to the little children." We have first hand experience because our own daughter and some friends were sent home from school with flu-like symptoms.

The school administration insisted that they be tested for Swine Flu before coming back. The doctor insisted that they didn't have symptoms to warrant testing, and could go back to school. The doctor's office even called the school to try to calm them down, but to no effect. So here we are with an abundance of caution, asking the doctor to run a wasteful test so our kids can go back to school.

It does seem reasonable to take every precaution to protect the health of our kids, but is it? It is important to keep in mind that every action has a cost. In this case the cost of action is kids missing school, parents missing work, and unnecessary health care. Especially in a time of crisis, our doctors and labs should be focused on the hard work of stopping a pandemic and quickly evaluating truly at-risk people, rather than wasting time assuaging a panic.

In your teams, consider the cost of your risk mitigation actions. It's better to live with some risks than to spend the full cost of an abundance of caution.

Diplomacy is Fun Leadership Training

2009-04-30T17:37:00.007-04:00

I just got back from chaperoning a high school trip to Costa Rica. While there, some of the kids put together a make-shift Diplomacy game out of a pizza box top. Playing gave the kids and me fun lessons in leadership and negotiation.

The rules of the game are very simple, but playing well requires players to negotiate alliances. Everyone has to figure out whom to trust and who will stab them in the back.

The simple approach is to make promises to several people and surprise one by breaking your word and attacking them. Too many lies and no one will work with you, then you lose. I was pleased that our team was able to do very well and never told a lie during a negotiation. I was reminded in this short exercise how effective truth can be in building good relationships. We told the truth even if it was only, "It's not in our interest to support you right now."

I'd recommend trying the game as a fun way to practice negotiation and to try out different approaches to working with people. Its a safe way to see what works best for you.

Richard Anderson on Leadership

2009-04-26T22:54:00.002-04:00

Saturday's New York Times has an interview with Richard Anderson, CEO of Delta Airlines, on his leadership approach. I liked his answer to what his most important leadership lesson was, "I've learned to be patient and not lose my temper. And the reason that’s important is everything you do is an example ... when you lose your temper, it really squelches debate and sends the wrong signal about how you want your organization to run."

I have to agree. If as a leader you really want to squelch debate, just come out and squelch it. "Okay, that's enough debate" can work just fine. There is no need to kill ideas accidentally.

The interview is worth a read.

How to Read a Project Stoplight Report

2009-04-07T18:36:00.006-04:00

A project stoplight report is a simple, visual way to show the status of projects. Green shows the project is good, yellow shows it is in danger, and red shows it as in trouble. Unfortunately, that doesn't help much beyond giving a summary. Managers often ask for these reports as a simple way to understand the status of portfolios of projects, and focus on the red and yellow areas.

Project leaders, though, understand that a yellow or red indicator could be taken as showing weakness in their own project leadership skills. In this case, the project leader is inclined to show a troubled project as green and hope they can fix any problems before they are noticed. There is also a dynamic that red and yellow projects require more work from the project manager to explain what is going wrong and to do extra tasks to fix the problems. When the project is already in trouble, this extra work is the last thing the project leader needs. This is another reason to shade projects toward green.

Instead of this, managers could set the meaning of green, yellow and red differently, such that they get more value from the stoplight report. I suggest that green can mean, "The project is going well, we don't need help from management." Yellow can mean, "We are starting to worry about some aspects of the project and want some advice from management about how do proceed." For yellow projects, the project leader should give options to the management team for a decision rather than just present the problems. Then red can mean, "This project is in trouble and needs action from management to fix it." In most cases, red projects should have been escalated to management as soon as they turned red, so if they are still red at the project review, that should mean that the project leader has yet to receive the support they needed from the managers on the project. Red becomes a reminder to the management team that the project needs their help.

With a better use of the project stoplight report, management reviews can become a useful working session rather than a tedious meeting of blame passing.

Tips for Speakers from James Duncan Davidson

2009-03-08T15:43:00.006-04:00

I consider comfort with public speaking to be an important leadership skill. Leaders can not avoid being in front of groups, and they should strive to look comfortable there. Note that I didn't say they have to feel comfortable.

James Duncan Davidson is a photographer who has spent a lot of time photographing speakers, most notably for O'Reilly Media conferences. Being forced to watch both good and bad speakers has given him some insights into what works. I particularly liked this one: "Don't pace aimlessly. ... From the audience perspective, a speaker like this looks like a caged animal."

In public speaking, practice helps, but I've found that careful consideration of what works for others has been more help to me. James' article is well worth a read to help you avoid common mistakes.

Chick-fil-A Is Closed On Sunday

2009-03-01T17:05:00.010-05:00

Seldom do we see corporate America stand behind a principle. Chick-fil-A is a noteworthy exception. The founder, chairman and CEO, Truett Cathy (that's him on the sign), built the business around five principles including "Closed on Sundays:"

1. Climb with Care and Confidence
2. Create a "Loyalty Effect"
3. Never Lose a Customer
4. Put Principles and People Ahead of Profits
5. Closed on Sundays

In spite of, or more likely due to these principles, Chick-fil-A boasts 2007 sales of $2.64 billion and 40 consecutive years of sales increases. With such outward demonstration of principled leadership, it has build both staff- and customer-loyalty. On one visit to our local mall we met a couple dressed as cows as part of a promotion to get a free meal. A free fast food meal is not worth such effort, if you don't also love the company.

Look to Truett Cathy and Chick-fil-A for an example of how valuable treating your team and customers can be.

Leadership Lessons from Lean Manufacturing

2009-02-26T19:30:00.006-05:00

I have been learning more about Lean Manufacturing at work and was introduced to the booklet The Toyota Way as part of the training. The booklet describes the 14 principles of the Toyota Production System also known as Just In Time Production. This corporate philosophy may be a key reason for the success of Toyota.

In looking at the 14 principles, I was struck by how many of them were focused around good leadership. The very first principle, "Base your management decisions on a long-term philosophy, even at the expense of short-term financial goals," emphasizes the importance of having and following a strong vision. Building a strong vision is the first principle of a good leadership approach.

I am always amazed at what I find when I look for lessons outside my normal scope. Take some time to learn some leadership lessons in the 14 Principles of the Toyota Production System.

Positive Experience with BoltBus

2009-02-15T10:01:00.012-05:00

Yesterday I dropped someone off to take the BoltBus from Boston to New York City. The experience was outstanding, and far beyond my expectation for the price. The ticket taker at the gate was extremely friendly and helpful. He chatted with folks in line, efficiently processing new people as they arrived. All the while he answered questions he must hear a dozen times each day, just as pleasant as can be. He mentioned that he was happy he had such a great job, and it was clear that he was sincere.

I think you can tell how good a company is by how much their people like working for them. Despite having a job most people would hate, the BoltBus ticket taker loves his job. You should be able to say the same for all the people on your teams, no matter how unglamorous their job is.

BoltBus is also a marvel of disruptive business models. When I think of modes of travel, taking the bus falls right at the bottom. The ride is uncomfortable; the trip is long; and the companionship is questionable. BoltBus has overcome all three of these issues, while delivering service at half the price of other modes of travel.

BoltBus has found a niche of providing frequent service between just a few hub cities. For $20 they take you from the center of Boston to the center of New York. They fill the bus by creating a sense of scarcity, offering cheaper prices for earlier booking. The first ticket on every bus is only $1. And they attract the younger crowd with great prices and free Internet access.

Compare the BoltBus to its parents Greyhound and PeterPan. Greyhound offers the same trip at $37. PeterPan charges $35, but they do have special on-line pricing similar to BoltBus. The same trip on Amtrak starts at $89. And the cheapest airfare is $152 round-trip on American Airlines. It's unclear why anyone would take a plane from Boston to New York. Getting to and from the airports into the cities, plus pre-boarding time for security makes the trip longer. It's certainly more expensive, and on such a short flight there are no amenities to make it worth it.

BoltBus is worth watching for its business model, but equally worth watching for the culture that makes its staff so happy to work there.

Nordstrom Takes a Stand on Christmas Decorations

2008-11-29T08:48:00.006-05:00

Every year my wife and I comment on how early stores deck the halls for Christmas. I grant that they are trying to maximize profit, which is completely appropriate. Yet there must be a more graceful way. Some stores ease into the spirit with white lights and green garland, which seems like a good compromise. I love how Nordstrom has taken a stand on this issue.

They attack the issue head on, getting extra credit for purposely bucking the crowd. I hope that taking this leadership position is an equally successful way to capture more of my money. I enjoy Christmas too much to have it cheapened a little more each year.

Unintended Consequences of Use-It-or-Lose-It Budgeting

2008-10-17T20:08:00.006-04:00

A caller to a radio talk show shared a story from when he was in the U.S. Air Force. The unit had a fuel budget that they had underspent for the year. They had a use-it-or-lose-it budgeting system. It's a reasonable idea that the budget for next year should be related to the actual spending from the current year.

As frequently happens, fear of scarcity overrides common sense. Instead of losing their fuel budget for the next year, the caller shared, the jets fueled up, flew over the ocean and returned fifteen minutes later to refuel for additional trips.

Although I hope this is an apocryphal story, its plausibility reminds us that even decent ideas can have unintended consequences. We need to keep normal human reactions in mind as an important part of the evaluation of otherwise good ideas.

Organizing Papers as a Sign of Checking Out of a Meeting

2008-10-16T19:29:00.003-04:00

One sure sign that someone has given up hope on the success of a meeting is the paper-organizing move. Let me describe it. It starts with the participant making a final, impassioned plea on some position. This plea doesn't get the response hoped for.

Now our meeting participant does the paper-organizing move:

He turns his body away from the speaker to his pile of papers and notebooks.
He slowly and deliberately organizes them into a neat pile.
Then sets the pile on the table, positioned ever so slightly toward the door.
Clasping his hands together he sits back in his chair, nearly at attention, as if his full focus were on the current speaker.

The paper-organizing move happens too frequently in meetings. It's meaning is clear: it shows that our meeting participant has lost hope in getting what he wants out of the meeting, and he has checked out. Not that all meeting have to end with everyone happy, but I'd call this an unsatisfactory ending. When a meeting has reached this point, it is frequently too late for the leader to do anything to fix it on the spot. Hopefully, though, recognizing the paper-organizing move gives you an opportunity to deal with the issues that caused it.

Senators Show Poor Leadership in Bailout Bill

2008-10-01T19:39:00.005-04:00

US Senators showed the poorest of leadership today by taking advantage of a national crisis. Senators have amended the text of the senate bailout bill, officially titled the "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008," with unrelated acts and special tax incentives.

This is the worst kind of abuse of the leadership we have invested them with, and they should be ashamed. As their constituents worry anxiously about the value of their 401K retirement plans, homes, and talk of depression, their Senators took time to augment the bill with administrative housecleaning and pet projects that might otherwise be difficult to pass. Knowing the importance of the bill at hand, they hide in the shadows of urgency and depths of 451 pages of text to sneak their special interests into law. Notably, the main part of the Act, Division A, ends on page 113, leaving 338 pages of additions including Division B, the ‘‘Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008’’ and Division C, the ‘‘Tax Extenders and Alternative Minimum Tax Relief Act of 2008’’ starting on page 261.

Division A, Section 2 of the Act reads:

The purposes of this Act are— (1) to immediately provide authority and facilities that the Secretary of the Treasury can use to restore liquidity and stability to the financial system of the United States; and (2) to ensure that such authority and such facilities are used in a manner that— (A) protects home values, college funds, retirement accounts, and life savings; (B) preserves home ownership and promotes jobs and economic growth; (C) maximizes overall returns to the tax payers of the United States; and (D) provides public accountability for the exercise of such authority.

Given the last line of the act's purpose, the Senators understand the need for accountability in the exercise of authority. They simply can't show personal leadership in their own use of authority. Here are some items from Division C that they should be publicly accountable for:

Section 308 (Page 279) is a two year extension to an excise tax "cover over" for rum from Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
Section 317 (Page 290) is a two year extension to support "Motorsports Racing Tracks" having a seven year cost recovery period.
Section 325 (Page 295) is a five year extension to special tax incentives for the wool industry.
Section 503 (Page 300) gives excise tax exemption to kid's toy wooden arrows. You could put an eye out with them, but the Senate wants to give them a special tax exemption.
Section 511 and 512 (Page 310) has the distinction of being the only bill that has names associated with it, the ‘‘Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008’’. Apparently their pride overcame their shame.

From a leadership perspective, I look at it like this: In the middle of a raging fire, the fire chief calls his team together to talk about whether they will serve steak or lobster at the station's summer family picnic. Some might argue that it is a reasonable discussion to have, but this is neither the time nor is it respectful of the seriousness of the situation. Someone in the Senate should show leadership and call this out as wrong. We should all expect better of our Senators.

New England Patriots: Win or Be Hated

2008-09-23T07:39:00.003-04:00

Our New England Patriots lost this weekend for the first time in 22 regular season games. Some of the fans booed them at the end of the game. Imagine if you were booed for results like that at work: 21 on-time releases followed by one late release would get you yelled at by your boss, or only getting 21 sales out of 22 sales calls would miss your sales quota.

Unfortunately, I suspect the Patriots aren't the only people who need a perfect record to keep their fans happy. You should celebrate your team's winning record instead of focusing on their most recent failure.

Perfect is the Enemy of Done

2008-09-23T07:37:00.007-04:00

Voltaire wrote "Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien," frequently translated as "The perfect is the enemy of the good." My youngest daughter would laugh at me if I tried to say that in French. Instead, I'll share my leadership variant on Voltaire:

Perfect is the Enemy of Done

This quote comes in handy too often to remind people that we don't get any value from their perfect work until we deliver it.

A Simple Voice Mail Greeting

2008-09-19T21:01:00.005-04:00

My brother-in-law's voice mail greeting is simply "George." It fits with his sense of humor. More than that, though, it's pretty close to perfect. I only need to know two things when I reach voice mail: First, that I've reached voice mail, and second, that I've reached the right voice mail. "George" fills both those roles very well, and as a bonus it makes me chuckle each time I hear it.

Contrast that to the typical voice mail greeting, which starts with "Hello, you've reached the voice mailbox of George." That's pretty obvious. "I can't come to the phone right now." Even if that's true, it's kind of the point of voice mail. We don't need to be reminded. "Your call is important to me." Really? How could he know? "So, leave your name and number at the tone." Again, we've figured this out by now, so why do we feel the need to give voice mail instructions? "And I'll return your call as soon as possible." That is more of a promise than anyone should make to an unknown caller.

We fall into patterns that may have served us in an earlier time, but have outlived their usefulness. It's important to step back and look at those patterns to find better ways of doing things. Now I leave my brother-in-law the message "Ken." He already has my phone number.

Expectations Make A Big Difference

2008-09-11T01:46:00.003-04:00

We dropped my oldest daughter off at college a few weeks back and helped her move in. Her room is on the seventh floor of her dorm, so there is no practical alternative to taking loads of her belongings up in one of two small elevators. What was true for us was also true for dozens of other families dropping off their daughters and sons at the same time. The wait for the elevator was about fifteen minutes long. We made it in three loads, each with it's own wait for the elevator.

While a fifteen minute wait might seem like a huge pain, we were thrilled that it was so short. The school had wisely scheduled drop-offs into two hour windows, and they gave us plenty of warning to arrive early because the lines could get long for the elevators. The event was so well run, it almost had a party feel. Simply setting our expectations changed what could have been a horrible first impression into a customer relations delight.

Common Management Techniques As Sabotage

2008-06-11T20:08:00.006-04:00

The following list of suggestions for sabotage in a business setting comes via Joho the Blog. Joho explains that this list comes from a 1944 OSS booklet "The Simple Sabotage Field Manual."(pdf) The OSS created this manual to describe guidelines for the "ordinary individual citizen-saboteur" to create a "constant and tangible drag on the war effort of the enemy." The OSS was the precursor of the current CIA.

(1) Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
(2) Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate “patriotic” comments.
(3) When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration.” Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five.
(4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
(5) Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.
(6) Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
(7) Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reasonable” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.
(8) Be worried about the propriety of any decision — raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.

Unfortunately, most of us are familiar with these recommendations as everyday realities in our own organizations.

"We have met the enemy, and he is us." - Pogo

Take the Time to Learn People's Names

2008-05-18T17:52:00.003-04:00

On Friday, my wife and I attended an awards ceremony at my daughter's high school. The student presenter went through about a hundred names, and as far as I could tell she mispronounced only two. For one of those, she recognized the mistake and apologized as the student walked across the stage. I was impressed. That was a difficult task. I could not do nearly as well.

In contrast, I was at an employee meeting of a previous company. The head of HR had to give out about fifteen awards. He messed up the names of half the people. I imagine them thinking, "Thanks for the recognition, but could you just learn who I am?"

It is easier to get people to follow you if they know you care about them. If you can't be bothered to learn the names of the people on your team, they can be certain you don't care much for them.

The Seeds of Leadership

2008-05-10T08:21:00.004-04:00

When asked about key leadership traits, I respond with characteristics such as initiative, confidence, big-picture thinking, and pride of ownership. Then I realize that my list describes how individuals approach their personal efforts. These traits don't directly relate to how a person leads others. Nevertheless, I keep coming back to these ideas as fundamental to what I mean when I talk about leadership.

Certainly these types of traits are important to the success of a leader: They provide the motivation for a person to enlist a team to larger successes than they could accomplish themselves, and they are valuable tools to leading others successfully. But, even folks who would never think of taking the lead are more effective personally when they show initiative, have confidence, look at the big picture, and take pride of ownership.

I think these traits may be the seeds of leadership skills; fundamental kernels of approach that engender others to want to follow someone. I have seen many people who have a strong desire to lead others, but somehow have been unable to get others to follow them. They tell me about reading books, studying other leaders, and trying new approaches, all with little success. I see them struggle and fight to get others to follow them on a project. They are often successful through pure drive alone, but their teams don't follow willingly, effectively, or joyfully.

This may be why I keep falling back on these personal seeds of leadership in my descriptions. I have seen group leadership techniques fail, while shy-but-charismatic people can't seem to find time to work on their own projects because their teammates are constantly coming to them for leadership. People with these leadership traits seem to be forced to the front, even though they don't want to be.

So, if you are working hard to become a leader, looking to climb the corporate ladder, or are eager for others to follow your lead, look first to your personal character. The techniques for getting others to follow you grow from your approach to your own work. Leading others can be taught; learning to lead yourself is a more difficult exercise.

If They Gave Me More Power, I Could Really Make a Difference

2008-04-20T17:38:00.003-04:00

In the last week I have heard the following sentiment from two different people, "If they would give me the authority to make the changes I want to make, I could be successful." In other words, "I am currently not successful, and it isn't my fault. Other people are preventing me from doing what I know will work best. If those other people would give me unchallengeable authority, everything would work perfectly."

You should know that even leaders with unchallengeable authority are not effective using their authority alone. To be effective, they need to garner support from the people they hope will follow them. If they don't get that support, they can be successful for only a short while at best. Only if they are proven to be right, will others follow them for longer.

The same is true for you where you hope to lead. Only, one of the groups people you hope to get to follow you are the "other people" who are standing in the way of your success. You need to garner their support if you hope to get the authority you think you need to succeed.

Actually, authority is seldom a part of the equation for an effective leader. Effective leaders need to get support from the people they hope to lead, including those who have authority over them. It is a matter of selling your vision of success so that those "other people" have confidence in your leadership.

Don't let a lack of authority get in your way. Sell your vision by identifying the "other people" in your life and convincing them that you can help the team succeed with your vision. Don't forget to listen to them, too. Those "other people" may know something you have missed.

What You Know is Easy

2008-04-17T21:34:00.002-04:00

I was at a meeting today and someone mentioned that a future product needed to be easy to use. One of the other participants added something interesting: "Easy is what I know. When something is new, and I don't know it, it is not easy. Once I know it, it's easy to me." He wasn't suggesting that the product shouldn't be easy to use. But, we should keep in mind that new things usually seem hard. We can apply this idea to our own leadership tasks, keeping in mind that as we help guide people through change, they may perceive the change as hard, no matter how easy it seems to us.

Bob Schieffer on How We Pick a President

2008-03-06T21:48:00.006-05:00

I heard an interview with CBS newsman Bob Schieffer today on NPR. Commenting on the presidential primary campaign, he said, "The run for president is unlike anything else we vote for. We vote for president according to who we feel most comfortable with in a time of crisis." That got me wondering what characteristics we value in the other leaders around us. There are at least five characteristics I see people gravitate toward in picking leaders:

Vision - People want their leaders to have good ideas for the future
Management Skills - Sometimes they want strong administrative and planning skills
Experience - Often they look for leaders who have dealt with comparable situations
Crisis Management Skills - They want someone who can save them when the worst happens
Charisma - Which was a key aspect of what I understood from Bob Schieffer's use of the word "comfort"

I think there is large value in having leaders with charisma, but I hope that we don't apply a likability test as the prime driver in how we choose our leaders. It's also good to have a leader who can deal with a crisis when it comes up, but I want leaders who can help us avoid a crisis. I want a leader who I feel comfortable with in a crisis but I'd prefer one who brings other skills to the role as well.

Patrick Winston's How to Speak Lecture

2008-02-19T21:35:00.004-05:00

Every year, MIT professor Patric Winston gives a popular lecture on how to give presentations. I have always been an advocate of the importance of public speaking to an effective leader. If you are new to public speaking, and even if you are old hat, this hour-long lecture is well worth your time. While you probably won't see it in person, you can see an old video of the lecture at Cameron Marlow's blog Overstated. (via boingboing)

Assume the Relationship You Want

2008-02-12T21:10:00.003-05:00

The tone of a relationship can be set the first time you meet someone. With that in mind, it's important to set the right tone from the start. You can be a friendly peer, respectful adversary, junior employee, angry customer or possibly the big boss. Before you walk into that first meeting, decide the kind of relationship you prefer to have, then act as if that relationship exists. You may not get your preference to stick, but if you leave the kind of relationship that you form up to the whim of the other guy, you will probably end up as the junior employee. Take the lead in acting the way you want the relationship to form, and you are more likely to make it so.

LinkedIn and Attrition: Part 2

2008-01-22T20:47:00.000-05:00

Back in November, I wrote about how to use LinkedIn to predict future attrition. Recently, a woman I know told me that she connected with an old friend, who proceed to connect with over a dozen other new people a day. Out of curiosity, she did a bit of research into her friend's company and found that it had just gone through a large management reorganization. Obviously, her friend had started a job search.

LinkedIn is growing in popularity, and I am more pleased than ever with the tool. Now they post a daily network activity report on your home page that shows you changes in each of your direct connection's profile, including how many people each has connected to.

You can use this information to notice people who might be on the job market. Perhaps this could be the source of your company's next hire. Oh, and don't forget that your direct connections can see your linking activity, too.

Having the Right Tools for the Job or Getting Them

2008-01-06T10:36:00.000-05:00

I just had to do a small plumbing job at home. As I've done home repairs over the years, I have made uncountable trips to Home Depot to get the right tool to complete the job. It was such a pleasure this time to find that I had everything I needed to do this job already in my toolbox. That was a good feeling.

One feeling that is just as good is getting a new tool and learning how to use it. I don't buy as many tools these days, but it is a new thrill each time I do.

I like to approach leadership with the same attitude. When I come across situations I've encountered before, it is nice to know that I have the tools to deal with them. And, when something new and unexpected comes up, I can enjoy learning the new tools. Instead of fearing the unknown, we can relish the opportunity to learn something new.

Two Christmas Exchange Stories

2007-12-29T09:18:00.000-05:00

Our first stop at the mall yesterday was to Victoria's Secret so my daughters could exchange some pajama bottoms that didn't fit. In the process we discovered that Victoria's Secret's return policy is to give cash for anything under $50, even without a gift receipt, and store credit for anything over $50. Even though the store was crowded and the line was long, they had enough people implementing a simple exchange policy to move everyone through in a flash.

Our second stop was to Eddie Bauer to catch the after-Christmas jeans sale. The woman next to us at the check-out counter was trying to do an even exchange for a coat. She didn't have her receipt, but the cashier was able to look up her sales slip in the computer using her credit card. After some confusion, she rung up the jacket and told the woman she owed ten dollars. The woman explained that she was only looking for an even exchange. Another cashier who was helping with the transaction explained, "The problem is you didn't have a receipt. You know, we aren't required to look up your receipt on the system."

Which experience do you want your customers to have?

The Golden Rule of Management

2007-12-28T11:07:00.000-05:00

Manage unto others as you would have others manage unto you.

Fortune Cookie Leadership Lesson

2007-12-11T19:10:00.000-05:00

I got the following fortune in my fortune cookie last night:

Today you should be the leader. Things will go your way.

I'm choosing to think this means that things will go my way if I take the lead.

10 Great Products from Mistakes

2007-12-03T13:44:00.001-05:00

Scott Ginsberg has a great post on leveraging your mistakes into successes. He describes these ten products that resulted from mistakes:

Chocolate chip cookies
Coca-Cola
Tea
Ice cream cones
Maple Syrup
Penicillin
Ivory soap
Popsicles
Stainless steel
Paper towels

Pragmatic Management Advice on Shorter Task Lengths

2007-11-28T19:04:00.000-05:00

My friend Johanna Rothman just mailed out the latest issue of her newsletter, The Pragmatic Manager. This issue had good advice about reducing the length of development tasks to what she calls "inch-pebbles."

If you estimate in days, you'll be late by days. If you estimate in weeks, you'll be late by weeks. ... If you estimate in months, you'll be late by months.

This latest issue is not yet posted, but you can subscribe here. They are always worth reading. Older issues are posted here.

I also liked this quote from from Johanna:

The schedule is the one way the project won't work.

Is this Integrity or Fear?

2007-11-27T13:55:00.000-05:00

Ester Derby has a post about a senior manager who was unwilling to talk to his VP to modify a commitment. The senior manager committed to deliver a special project, then after evaluating it, recognized that the project didn't make good business sense. The senior manager refused to talk to the VP about changing the commitment, ostensibly as a matter of integrity.

If I were the VP, I would expect the senior manager to give me the new information, so we could make the best decision for the business. I suspect that the senior manager's integrity issue is more a question of fear. Certainly the senior manager's integrity would suffer equally from knowingly making a bad business decision.

Sometimes a leader needs to make the decision to take the personally painful path for the greater good of the team. Integrity demands it.

University of Chicago Study Shows Hard Skills More Successful for CEOs

2007-11-26T13:43:00.001-05:00

According to the study cited in this Wall Street Journal article, hard skills have a larger impact on CEO success than soft skills. The study was done by University of Chicago Graduate School of Business professors using data from ghSmart, a management assessment consulting firm. The sample CEOs were from companies in buyout situations. The research doesn't appear to say if the data applies to CEOs at other companies.

These "hard" skills have the largest impact on success of the sampled CEOs:

Persistence
Attention to detail
Efficiency
Analytical skills
Setting high standards

These "soft" skills have less impact:

Strong oral communication
Teamwork
Flexibility/adaptability
Enthusiasm
Listening skills

I wasn't able to find the primary research paper on-line. If anyone has a pointer, leave a comment so we can dig into the details.

Opportunity to Connect with Your Team

2007-11-19T14:02:00.000-05:00

If you live in the states, the Thanksgiving holiday gives you an opportunity to connect more personally with your team. Holidays like this one give you a safe topic as a personal conversation starter. Show your human side. Ask about the holiday plans of the people on your team. A better connection among the members builds a stronger team.

Corporate Culture Impact on Shopping Experience

2007-11-18T16:53:00.001-05:00

My wife and I went shopping today for a larger-ticket item. We did some comparison shopping, and found some huge differences among the stores we went to. Each store had an obvious niche, and an equally distinct atmosphere and customer experience. In my experience, leadership impacts culture; culture impacts the way the staff treats customers, which impacts the customer experience, ultimately impacting sales.

We saw four kinds of stores:

High-end: Top notch prices in an upscale environment
Low-end: Lower prices but an uncomfortable shopping experience
Middle-of-the-road: Acceptably lower prices, but a pleasant shopping environment
Wholesale: Best prices, but like shopping at a deli

In the high-end store, we were met with high schmooze-factor sales techniques. The sales person felt like everyone's definition of a used-car salesman. She cozied up to us obsequiously. She gave us lots of information that sounded useful, but after we had shopped at other stores turned out to be mostly a smoke screen. Their culture appeared to recognize that they wouldn't win on price, so they had to "fool" the customers either by selling the sizzle, or by selling a false relationship. We walked out as quickly as we could, feeling dirtier than when we entered.

In the low-end store, we also had a sense that the product was overpriced for its quality. It felt like the quality of the product was much lower to match the lower price. The niche appeared to be to set an environment that looked low-end, so that customers felt they were getting a bargain. We got lots of useless information about how to compare their product against the competition. Again, it felt like a culture of "fooling" the customers into a sale.

One particularly low-end store had a sign that said, "All sales final." We didn't even stop there.

The middle-of-the-road store was very comfortable, neither showy nor shabby. Our sales person gave us detailed and relevant information about his product. We felt like we got a valuable lesson in what factors impacted quality, and how to value them. He steered us away from the top end, pointing out why it wouldn't matter to us. The prices were only slightly more than the low-end store, but we felt the quality of the product was much higher. The culture of this store appeared to be based on confidence in the product and fairness of the price. This came across as honesty from the salesman and inspired our trust.

We walked into the deli-like wholesale store, where we literally took a number. The place was shabby but crowded with customers who were buying. Their culture appeared to be optimized toward giving the lowest possible price, but everyone was perfectly professional. They cut corners on customer convenience, expecting customers to come in knowledgeable and ready to buy.

How we were treated by the staff impacted on our confidence in buying from each store. In the end, we bought from the wholesale store, but we will likely go back to them and the middle-of-the-road store in the future. We will certainly not go back to the high-end or low-end stores. The key was our perception of honesty in the different stores.

The leader of each company sets the culture and approach. That translates to what is expected from the sales staff and directly to how customers experience the interaction. In my own small sample size, a culture of honesty and integrity translated to a sale and future business.

The LinkedIn Wave as a Harbinger of Attrition

2007-11-16T14:15:00.000-05:00

I have been a huge fan of LinkedIn for a number of years. In that time, I've noticed a phenomenon about LinkedIn invitations. Every now and again, someone new joins and invites their friends. This causes a short burst, or wave, of new LinkedIn subscribers and invitations. These waves seem to last about three days.

One of the key reasons people start to use LinkedIn is to beef up their networks to explore a job search. If you see more of these waves in your company, you might start to wonder if people are becoming unhappy enough to look around. These waves could be an early warning sign of future attrition.

I may be starting my own little wave here: If you aren't using LinkedIn already, you should be. It is a great tool even if you aren't looking for a job. Once your network is in place you can see the subscription activity in your network by looking at your home page in the tool.

Make the Goal Clear

2007-11-14T21:39:00.000-05:00

This may seem obvious, but I'm going to say it anyway. It should be clear to everyone on your team what the goal of the team is. So my challenge question to you: Is the team goal clear to everyone on your team? Before you say, "of course," how do you know? If I came into your team and asked each member, would they all tell me the same thing?

In the spirit of practical leadership advice: today would be a good day to write down your team's goal. Verify with your team that you have it right and that it is clear. Finally, post it somewhere as a reminder. I bet you find that it's not as obvious as you think it is.

Ways to Tell That You Have Lost Your Audience

2007-11-13T21:21:00.000-05:00

The room has fallen silent - you are getting no feedback
You hear pages turning - people are reading the slides
People are looking around the room at other people's reactions
Everyone has a vacant look on their face - nobody is smiling
Lots of people are getting up to "go to the bathroom"

What can you do about it if you notice?

Don't panic
Be dynamic - move around more
Modulate your voice, tone, and pacing more
Don't just talk louder - project your voice with confidence
Engage the audience by asking them questions
Most importantly, figure out what your audience wants to hear and dump the parts that they aren't interested in

Five Leadership Quotes from Napoleon

2007-11-12T13:01:00.000-05:00

A leader is a dealer in hope.

Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.

Soldiers generally win battles; generals get credit for them.

In war, three quarters turns on personal character and relations; the balance of manpower and materials counts only for the remaining quarter.

Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go.

Survival of the Most Adaptable

2007-11-07T12:44:00.000-05:00

Today at Slow Leadership there is a post about how cleverness and adaptability are more successful traits in a leader than hard-driving toughness.

Species success among birds depends mostly on being clever or adaptable—like starlings, crows, doves and sparrows. Those that need specialized diets and environments, even massive birds of prey, are always vulnerable to extinction.

Give some thought to your company culture and your own approach to leading. Are you able to adapt to changing circumstances, or are you heading toward extinction as your market landscape inevitably changes? The post is worth a read.

Leadership Analogies from Driving

2007-11-01T15:54:00.000-04:00

Next in our series of leadership lessons by analogy: What can we learn about leadership from driving? As always, the interpretations are left to you.

Driving around can be fun, but it doesn't get you anywhere unless you have a destination.
Excessive speeding is very dangerous.
So is tailgating.
Drive defensively.
It helps to have directions, but don't read them while you are driving.
It is better to have a navigator.
Turn signals let those around you avoid bumping into you.
It is better to take the next exit than to swerve across three lanes for the current one.
I shouldn't have to mention the guy backing down the exit ramp.

Papelbon Dance Risk Builds Recognizable Brand

2007-10-31T15:20:00.000-04:00

First, congratulations to the Boston Red Sox. We could get used to this.

If you haven't seen Jonathan Papelbon's dance moves you should take a look. He is remarkable for his passion more than his skill. I'm impressed by the fearlessness he showed the first time he strutted his stuff in front of all those people. He risked looking like a fool, but the reward was a signature that makes him a recognizable star of the team.

Now, everyone loves Papelbon.

It will often be the case for you as a leader that you have to risk looking like a fool to stand out from the crowd. For most of us, the risk is actually quite small. Some folks have difficulty simply asking a question in a meeting. To take the lead and build your own brand, you need to show your own fearlessness and take your own risks. When it feels too risky, compare your fears against dancing a jig on national television.

Thinking Outside the Box - Moose and Squirrel License Plate

2007-10-29T12:28:00.000-04:00

I saw a great license plate the other day that reminded me of the value of creativity and thinking outside the box. It was the New Hampshire plate "&SQRRL." That wasn't so interesting until I noticed that the plate was a special New Hampshire Conservation License Plate depicting a moose on its left edge.

Vanity plates for this program are limited to a mere six characters and symbols. That doesn't feel like a lot of room for creativity. Some out of the box thinking expanded the possibilities. Think about where you should expand your thinking to find solutions outside of the rules you think you are working under. How can you break free from your six-character-limits?

Kudos to Mitre

2007-10-18T08:20:00.001-04:00

I attended the Boston SPIN meeting earlier this week, which is held on the Mitre campus. Mitre donates a large meeting room for this monthly meeting and supports it with security and facilities staff. Mitre is a secure facility and needs to take extra care to register guests and monitor where they go. I saw nothing but smiles and a helpful attitude from both the security and facilities staff.

It would have been easier by far for Mitre not to sponsor these meetings. Instead they are enthusiastic and happy to support them. This shows me a leadership culture of supporting their community in a way that feels sincere. By the way, as we left the meeting we enjoyed music from a small wind ensemble that was practicing in the great acoustics of Mitre's lobby area.

The Impact of Customer Expectatons on Estimates

2007-09-28T14:00:00.000-04:00

I went the September meeting of Boston SPIN (Software Process Improvement Network) and heard a presentation from Mike Cohn of Mountain Goat Software on Agile Estimating and Planning. I was fascinated by a study Mike shared about the effect of customer expectations on estimates.

Mike presented a summary of results from a presentation by Magne Jørgensen and Stein Grimstad: How to avoid impact from irrelevant and misleading information on your estimates. Three groups are given the task of estimating the same project. The control group comes up with an estimate of 456 hours.

The second group is told that the customer thinks the task should take 500 hours. They are also told that the customer has little basis for this, and they should disregard the customer's expectations in their estimate. In effect, this customer input should be irrelevant to the estimate. This second group comes up with an estimate of 555 hours.

The third group is told that the customer expects the task to take 50 hours, but again to disregard the customer's expectation in the estimate. This group estimates 99 hours.

Think about this the next time you ask your team for an estimate. I'm sure we can all hear ourselves saying, "I think it should take about a month" or "I'd like to know if we can get it done by the end of the year."

Outstanding New Innovation Blog

2007-08-31T07:38:00.000-04:00

I like the leadership that Troy Worman at Orbit Now has taken. He has created an award for outstanding new bloggers with a badge they can proudly display on their blogs. Troy leveraged his credibility with his community to have fellow bloggers like me give out the initial round of awards. Troy's leadership builds cohesion in his blogging circle, and gives encouragement (and some additional traffic) to burgeoning bloggers when they need it the most. Well done Troy.

I'm giving an award to Jim Todhunter at Innovating to Win. Jim is a long-time friend and recent blogging colleague. I appreciate that Jim creates meaningful new content in each post, adding to the discussion instead of simply reframing it. Jim, you can display the badge of Outstanding New Blogger:

Speaking Confidently in a Meeting

2007-08-20T12:35:00.000-04:00

I was in a meeting today where the leader asked everyone to give a few words of introduction. Even this simplest public speaking effort strikes fear into people, and you can see the fear in the way each person speaks. One person went from sitting up straight to hunched over, looking at notes, and spoke in muted tones.

When you speak in public, even in these simple situations, you need to project confidence. You don't have to be confident, but you do have to look confident. Most successful speakers will say they are no less anxious than anyone else; they just know how to fake it.

When you find yourself speaking in a meeting, set yourself apart with the following approaches:

Take 10 seconds to prepare a short outline so you don't ramble
Sit up straight and square your shoulders
Use you best radio announcer voice and project
Smile - It changes your tone
Use hand gestures to animate you speaking
Make eye contact with multiple people to engage the whole room

These simple approaches show you as a confident leader. They make a surprising difference in how people listen to you and how effective your message is.

Juggling the Three Balls of Technical Leadership

2007-08-14T15:58:00.000-04:00

What makes juggling interesting is that you have three balls but only two hands. So one ball is "out of control" all the time. Technical leaders also keep three balls in motion: What the customer wants, what engineering can deliver, and what will make money for the company.

There is a relationship between these three balls that makes technical leadership interesting. If engineering overbuilds, the customer is thrilled but the business isn't as profitable. If engineering under-builds, the customer will pay less for the product, or not buy it at all. The business puts pressure on engineering both to deliver more and deliver efficiently. The customers and the market put pressure on the business to give them every feature they want at the lowest price.

Good technical leaders listen to all three constituents and throw ideas for how to satisfy everyone. They act as a translator between what the customer wants and what engineering can deliver, with an eye on the business impact.

All three balls are important. As with juggling, if one ball falls it stops being interesting. As a practical leader, you need to keep an eye on all three areas, in a balance that keeps the customers happy, engineering excited about the product, and the business profitable. And, when you drop a ball, pick it up fast and get back to juggling.

Is Your Workplace Too Nice?

2007-08-07T09:14:00.000-04:00

Lisa Haneberg at Management Craft wrote an excellent article about workplaces that are too inclusive and nice. I've seen this myself. In an effort to make everyone feel included, progress slows to a crawl. Nothing gets done unless everyone agrees.

Yes, people do want to feel included. Effective leaders make sure that this need is met. But, people also want to see their team make progress. And they want their leaders to take on the burden of deciding when there is enough information to make a decision and end the discussion.

Part of the hard job of being a leader is taking the heat for making a decision. That usually includes deciding not to follow the preferred direction of some of the team members. And, that comes with consequences the leader needs to take, normally the disappointment of the team member and possibly outright anger. Leaders need to have the courage to accept those consequences for the team and deal with bruised team members.

No Room for Bad Days

2007-08-06T16:59:00.000-04:00

We all have bad days, get in bad moods, or simply don't feel up to leading. Practical leadership usually doesn't give us this option. Sometimes we just need to brace ourselves, put on a good face and get to the job at hand. Fortunately, as hard as it may be to start, after about fifteen minutes of forcing yourself to lead, your outlook can turn positive again.

The Quickest Way to Demotivate a Team

2007-07-24T08:25:00.001-04:00

I recently saw a team of people attack a particularly challenging task. They were working on it fine, stumbling a bit, but making great progress. It was the kind of task that took a bit of trial and error.

The project leader was off working on another task, but happened to see this team working together. Unfortunately, what he noticed was that they were stumbling. He didn't notice the engaged attitudes, the teamwork or the progress they were making.

He did know how to do the task better than they did. He injected himself in the task with them, taking the central role. They disengaged. The nature of the task required some of them to stand by in minor support roles and watch. Two of them quietly stopped helping and left. The task finished successfully. Was the leader successful?

Review of Johanna Rothman's Book, "Manage It!"

2007-07-18T19:10:00.000-04:00

Even if she were not my friend, I would recommend Johanna Rothman's new Book, Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management. The best way for me to describe Manage It! is as a survey course in project management for experienced project managers.

You could read this book to get a good flavor for what project managers do, but I don't see it as a first course in becoming a project manager. Instead, Johanna is particularly skilled at describing many project management methods. She gives insights into the strengths and weaknesses of each.

Experienced project managers typically have grown up with a particular project management method: Waterfall, phase-gate, spiral, agile, Scrum, XP. While Johanna shows a general preference for agile methods, she gives excellent detail on how to work effectively in each method.

Johanna presents pragmatic tips for many elements of project management including scheduling, estimating, team building, and meeting management. I particularly liked her low-tech advice about building Gantt charts out of sticky notes on a conference room wall.

I think I will come back to this book whenever I feel stymied about how to approach a project management task. Each part gives multiple suggestions about how to be successful in most common project management situations. Don't skip this book because you think you are too experienced for it. Manage It! is packed with great tips for the most seasoned leader.

Writing an Outstanding Meeting Announcement

2007-07-09T17:03:00.000-04:00

My wife just sent out a meeting announcement for a community project we are working on over the summer. It was so effective, I thought I'd share some of the lessons learned.

It started out, "Our 5th (of only 7!) meeting will be at ... ." I think this give a great sense of progress to the team, and a good reminder of the short-term nature of the project. Many of our teams could use the reminder that projects should have an end, and the meetings associated with them should also end.

The next line was simply, "We finish in 18 days!" It is very useful to get this reminder of where we are in the project, so we can gauge our pace against our progress. When the leader keeps people informed about key project dates, it lets the team better focus on their own tasks.

At the end, she added two action items for people before the meeting. This made the meeting more valuable for everyone. We are all used to sending out an agenda. Agendas tend to focus on what will happen at the meeting, but preparatory actions engage the team in the meeting's success.

One more thing added to the value of the meeting announcement. The entire message took up only eleven lines, including spaces. It all fit in the preview screen of a mailer. That meant it was short enough that people would actually read it.

The Effectiveness of Bully Bosses

2007-06-29T18:38:00.000-04:00

Chances are that you have no problem thinking of multiple bosses who are full-out bullies. They are the bosses who yell at people in meetings, threaten to fire people, and use the crack of a whip to get people to work harder, faster and longer. Odds are good that you hate one of the bosses in your own management chain.

The downsides of a bully boss seem obvious: employees leave the company, they are less engaged with the company's success, and they are less willing to put in extra effort. Nevertheless, the problem persists. The reason appears to be that bully bosses are effective.

First, senior leaders promote people whom they see as dynamic and aggressive at delivering. Our culture puts value on the hard-driving leader who gets the impossible job done. Second, the bullying boss really does get people to work harder, faster and longer. Fear gets results. If you look at the heads of many successful companies, you see plenty of tyrants.

All this is true with a short-term focus. Many people will endure a bullying boss so long as the company is growing quickly. As soon as there are better opportunities elsewhere, they will leave as quickly as they can. Finally, consider the impact of bullying even in a growing company. People stop giving the company their all, which reduces the magnitude of success. And, while people may work harder, faster and longer, that doesn't say much of anything about whether they are working better or delivering more value.

Best Leadership Blogs

2007-06-28T00:10:00.000-04:00

Blogger Kevin Eikenberry has created a list of top leadership blogs for 2007. He has invited his readers to vote for their favorite by July 6th. Here is his list:

CEO Blog - Time Leadership by Jim Estill
Dispatches from the New World of Work by Tom Peters
Extreme Leadership by Steve Farber
Leading Blog - Building Community Leaders by Michael McKinney
Leadership Turn by Jonathan Farrington
Management Craft by Lisa Haneberg
Mick’s Leadership Blog by Mick Yates
Slow Leadership by Carmine Coyote
Talking Story by Rosa Say
Three Star Leadership Blog by Wally Bock

Troy Worman at Orbit Now! has challenged people to extend the list by adding three other good leadership blogs. You can see Troy's additions here. And Phil Gerbyshak at Make It Great! has added his three cents here.

Taking up Troy's challenge, here are three leadership blogs that I would add to the conversation:

Orbit Now! by Troy Worman (Not purely leadership, but I get more leadership wisdom here than in most leadership blogs.)
Slacker Manager by Brendon Connelly
The Recovering Leader by David Peck

Thanks for the challenge, Troy.

Convergence of Disney and Leadership

2007-06-25T15:56:00.001-04:00

People who know me know I have a huge interest in all things Disney. More than just the magic, I have been intrigued by Disney's commitment to customer satisfaction. I think this started with my first trip to Disneyland as a kid with my mom and sister.

The trip was a big financial stretch for us. We went to lunch in a cafeteria on Main Street. After we paid, my sister dropped our tray of food. Before my mom could panic, one cast member was cleaning up the mess and another was refilling a new tray for us. That probably made the difference for us not having to leave the park for a cheaper meal. It certainly helped build a set of life-long Disney fans.

Disney's approach was both excellent customer service and made good long-term business sense. Although it may not have passed the scrutiny of an accountant, it fit with the vision that Walt had for the Disney experience.

Today at Re-Imagineering^®, there is a post about Managing the Creative Factory at Disney. It gives a good view of the impact of changing leadership approaches over time there. We can find good leadership lessons in all of our areas of interest.

Use the Right Process for the Right Job

2007-06-20T19:47:00.000-04:00

I'm in the middle of reading Johanna Rothman's new project management book, Manage It!. Johanna presents the variety of project development processes from waterfall to agile. She gives some detail on which process works well in different circumstances. I have six different saws in my garage. Each works best on different projects. I guess I could cut lumber with my hacksaw, but that wouldn't work well. I could also decide to only work on projects that I can do with my jigsaw, but that's not realistic either. I'll keep all six of my saws. Process is like my saws. You need to use the process that works for the project you are working on. Using the wrong process is like trying to cut pipe with a handsaw.

Being a Good Follower

2007-06-20T11:32:00.000-04:00

Think about what happens in a meeting when the leader asks everyone to stand up. People hesitate. They try to figure out if the leader really means it. A group decision gets made about whether they will collectively follow the leader's directions. Some people, perhaps most people, will stay seated and try to wait it out. Even when most of the room stands, a few hold-outs will stay seated trying to look too-cool-for-this.

Now think about the value of two potential outcomes. In one, the leader successfully gets everyone to stand. In the other, the room rebels and stays seated. In most situations, everyone in the room gets more value if the leader is successful. When the leader fails, their plan is thrown off, the group falters, perhaps the whole purpose of the gathering is lost. No matter how silly the leader's gimmick seems, it is usually in the best interest of the group to follow it.

Our role as practical leaders is to help the group succeed. As members of the audience, we participate in the group decision to follow or not. We can influence that group decision by standing without hesitation. That gives others permission to follow as well. We can be good leaders by being good followers.

Defining a Corporate Culture

2007-06-19T21:49:00.000-04:00

Last week I wrote about Michael Duffy's thoughts on the importance of corporate culture. I got some feedback that I should write more about how to define a corporate culture. If you don't understand the cultural dimensions, you can't effectively instill a culture.

Following are a few of the dimensions of culture. While some of these feel black-or-white, you can reasonably fall anywhere along each axis. The right answer for each depends on your company, the industry, and your management styles.

Technology/Business/Customers: Companies tend to identify themselves as primarily focused on one of these three things. You can see it in their advertising and mission statements. Technology-focused cultures say, "We make the world's greatest..." Business-focused cultures say, "We deliver shareholder value by..." Customer-focused cultures say, "We make customers successful by..." Determine what you lead with.

Shareholders/Customers/Employees: Companies tend to value one of these three groups as the primary reason they are in business. It is their primary reason for being. Naturally, all three matter, but when there are trade-offs to make, you should think about which group you naturally favor.

Playfulness: Lots of companies like to say, "We work hard and we play hard." Consider if you want group socializing and playfulness to be part of your company culture. Many people consider this as the definition of a strong culture. Be careful, though, many people are repelled by play at work. They would just as soon spend their social time elsewhere.

Family Friendliness: This manifests in lots of ways, not just hours worked. Will managers call people on weekends? Will they set meetings in the evening? Will they ask about family conflicts before making travel commitments for employees?

Time Spent at Work: Most companies have expectations of the hours that employees will be at work. In some companies if you are not at the office before 8:00 or after 7:00 you are not seen as committed. Technology companies often have core hours, where everyone must be in the office between 10 and 4. I was once in a company where it was bad form to not "look like" you worked over the weekend. In most companies this is not a question of the number of hours worked. I've notice that when the culture expects long hours of attendance, they often get short hours of actual work. Employees figure they are at work so long, they don't need to work as hard during all those hours. They also take longer lunches, run more errands and do more chatting during the day.

Frills: Frills can include everything including private offices, blackberries, fitness centers, cookies at 4:00, free catered lunches, pinball machines, and company cars. These extras can build a sense of specialness that keeps people loyal to the company. Also consider the impact on culture when these frills are only available to certain groups.

Theory X/Theory Y: These are management models of how people are motivated. In Theory X, managers believe people are inherently lazy and need to be closely led and supervised. This is sometimes called a "hard" culture. In Theory Y, managers believe people are motivated toward success and want to help the company succeed. In this "soft" culture, managers need to set up the environment to enable accountability and success.

Lightly Staffed/Heavily Staffed: In a lightly staffed culture, a company believes that no matter the challenge, the team is up to tackling it. They over-commit, work to near burn-out and take pride in the successes. In a heavily staffed culture, the company values having the right people, particularly specialists, to do the jobs that the process demands. These cultures often are more family friendly and put a high value on predictability.

Hierarchical/Flat: This choice says something about the value the company puts on rank, power and politics. It also provides a way to think about delegating authority effectively. Flat organizations can sometimes be a technique leaders use to maintain control and avoid delegation.

Decision Making Model: Some cultures put value on individuals making decision within the scope of their position. Individuals get input from other people, but ultimately are accountable for their own choices. Other cultures value decision making by teams, favoring consensus in the team over individual authority. Still other cultures rely on well-defined decision making processes and sign-offs. The trade-offs are around risk tolerance, speed, individual growth and empowerment.

Honesty/Integrity/Respect: Everyone would claim that these traits are part of their culture. But, companies often behave counter to these values. If you treat you employees dishonestly, they will do the same to your customers. If you tolerate rudeness in the workplace, you get more rudeness in the workplace. The culture will be what you model. Be explicit about these basic human values.

The first step to instilling cultural values is to be explicit about what your expectations are. Spend time thinking through what your values are in these dimensions. Then spend time thinking about the other dimensions you value. Finally, come back and add other value dimensions to the comments so we can all learn together.

In a future post I'll write about implementing your cultural values. Here is a preview: It's a twofold problem. Not only do you have to instill the cultural values, you have to model behavior consistent with those values.

Corporate Capacity for Risk Taking

2007-06-14T20:49:00.000-04:00

Here's one more interesting tidbit from the MIT Enterprise Forum. Panelist George Bell, Special Venture Partner at General Catalyst Partners, shared this:

The capacity of a large company to say "no" is almost infinite. If you are in a little company, you almost always have an advantage because you have the capacity for risk-taking.

The Importance of Corporate Culture

2007-06-14T20:23:00.000-04:00

Last night I attended the MIT Enterprise Forum panel session "People, Money, Markets and Big Ideas." Each of four panelists shared important lessons learned in their careers, and more than a few interesting stories. If you haven't been to a Forum event, I highly recommend them.

One of the panelists was Michael Duffy, CEO of OpenPages. Michael shared his lesson learned on the importance of setting a corporate culture right away. He explained his belief that it is important to "capture people's hearts." For the practical leaders out there, he outlined three key steps to setting and maintaining a corporate culture:

Write down the culture you want and share it.
Put a rewards system in place that reinforces the cultural values.
Hold orientations for all new employees to share that culture.

By the way, another panelist was Monster founder Jeff Taylor. He shared the nugget that the most active time on Monster is Mondays at 2:00. I'll let you connect the dots.

What's Wrong With Front Row Seats?

2007-05-21T22:05:00.000-04:00

The most coveted seats at a concert are the front row seats. So why is it that in other settings nobody wants to sit in the front row? You have seen the empty front row at any big company meeting. The leader calls out, "Plenty of room up front," and nobody moves.

We want the front row at a concert because we value the performance. Apparently we don't share the same value for the speakers at a business meeting. Mostly they bore us. What would it take to become a front-row-worthy presenter? It's probably out of our reach.

On the other hand, we can lead by example and sit in the front row ourselves. Research has shown that students in the front row of class learn more. So, by taking our place right up front, we show how we value the presentation and we might learn a little more.

Jeff Taylor on Office Space

2007-05-16T22:05:00.000-04:00

In the presentation I went to yesterday, Jeff Taylor mentioned that the staff at Eons had just given him an office, but that he didn't know what to do with it. He said his office at Monster was five comfortable chairs and a coffee table. Now that's an open-door policy.

Think about what you use your office for. In general, leaders need to get out of their offices more and go work with people. Very little leadership happens in your office. These days, it's not totally clear that leaders need one. Laptops are portable, files are on-line, and we all have cell phones. But, there is no need to be extreme.

Take the lessons from Taylor: Be accessible and work with the people.

Jeff Taylor on Attrition

2007-05-15T22:20:00.000-04:00

I attended a networking event today that included a Q&A session with Monster founder Jeff Taylor. His newest project is the social networking site Eons for people 50 and over. It is like MySpace for people wise enough to use it productively. Taylor says you can sneak in at 49, but he is still too young to be a member.

Taylor shows a real passion and understanding for this underrepresented Internet demographic. "Retirement is a graduation," he says; not the end of a career, but the beginning of a life the retiree has been working toward for years. Taylor hopes to brand Eons as an exclusive club for those who are closing in on the career graduation rewards.

Taylor, who describes himself as undiagnosed with ADD, engrossed us with story after story from his career. The questions served as mere launching points for a series of fascinating glimpses into the philosophy of this entrepreneur. I'll be sharing more leadership take-aways in future posts.

Taylor started off talking about attrition. He said, "If I know you, I can keep you," adding that he was frustrated after Monster grew larger than 500 people because he didn't know everybody's name anymore. After hearing him speak, I don't believe he was exaggerating. His leadership lesson is that retaining employees depends on you knowing enough about them that you can relate to them as people rather than employees.

He told us a story about Eons employees celebrating the company's first anniversary by jumping into the ocean near their office in the Charlestown Navy Yard. "You have to jump in with your employees," Taylor said of both the celebratory swim and of daily work life. And I believe that he swims in the deep end every day with his team.

Another Great Thomas Paine Quote

2007-05-09T19:43:00.000-04:00

Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.

Lead, Follow, or Get in the Way

2007-05-09T19:17:00.000-04:00

Thomas Paine gave us the quote "Lead, follow, or get out of the way." We hear this old saw when a would-be leader is looking for a convenient way to displace another person who is getting in the way. The quote suggests this fourth choice of: getting in the way. Some leaders just can't stand to be questioned by anyone. Those leaders might as well say, "I'll have no questioning here."

I want to make an argument in favor of getting in the way, with a twist. Getting in the way is an act of not following. It is more deliberately being contrary to following. This non-follower does not like the direction the leader is heading. The non-follower is trying to stop that direction. Oddly, this non-follower is also a leader. Such a person is making a case for a different direction, but often without doing the important step of proposing what that different direction should be. Therein lies the twist: If you are going to be a leader and get in the way, you need to take the extra step of proposing an alternate direction.

Be ready to explain your concerns with the initial proposal. Be prepared to explain why your alternative is better. Make your case respectfully, and if necessary, privately. Since you are expecting the other would-be leader to consider your case, you also need to be genuinely willing to consider a response.

Working together, you two would-be leaders should be able to figure out a good direction for the team. Consider how great it would be if every team had two effective leaders instead of one beleaguered leader and a non-follower.

That Guy With the Nametag

2007-05-08T22:17:00.000-04:00

Tim Milburn over at studentl.inc pointed me to Scott Ginsberg's latest book Make a Name for Yourself. Scott has taken the unusual step of making his book available for free download with the expectation that once you read it you will want to buy it. He is right.

Scott wears a nametag everywhere he goes to be more approachable and make other people friendlier. He is a very encouraging person, and his book is chock full of practical life lessons, including much of value to growing leaders. It is very easy reading and given the price, you have no excuse not to read it.

"Impedership" vs. Leadership

2007-04-29T10:56:00.000-04:00

Dale Dauten writes the syndicated business column The Corporate Curmudgeon. In his February 4, 2007 column in the Boston Globe, he coined the term "impedership" to describe leaders who decrease the productivity of their employees by acting like jerks. "Impedership" not only slows down your team's productivity, but gives you a reputation as a jerky manager that follows you in your career. The folks at ej4, a corporate training company, ran with the idea and created a great video expanding on it. I hope you don't see too much of yourself in the video, but if you do, have the courage to address the problem immediately.

Volunteer for Leadership Training

2007-04-27T19:06:00.000-04:00

In the workplace, leaders have an unfair advantage in getting their teams to follow them: Their employees want to keep their jobs. Hopefully, you aren't the kind of leader who overtly threatens your employees if they don't support your direction. Nevertheless, your employees understand that if they don't follow your leadership, they risk not satisfying you and at best limiting their career options.

On the other hand, leaders of volunteer organizations recognize that volunteers can walk out any time they feel like it. Because of this, volunteer leaders learn how to motivate their teams without the advantage of fear. Success in this arena depends on a leader's ability to understand what will motivate each team member and address those needs.

I gained many of my leadership instincts in college as the editor of our student-run yearbook. I encourage you to take a turn leading volunteers. At the very least, you contribute some of your skills to your community. You may also learn something.

Corporate leaders too easily rely on their power to drive their teams to follow them. Power certainly works, but using only power doesn't give you the hearts of your team members. If you want the hearts of your employees, you need to understand and work with what motivates them to support your vision. Getting your employee's full support is worth putting away the easier, fear-based leadership approach.

Leadership Requirement for College Admissions

2007-04-18T21:24:00.000-04:00

I'm on vacation this week with my family. We are taking my daughter on college tours. The admissions officer at the college we visited today said she looked for two things on an application that I hadn't expected. First was evidence of an ability to take on a long-term commitment. She wants to see that the student is able to participate in anything for multiple years. The second unexpected thing she looks for is leadership experience. The admissions officer explained that leadership experience shows a level of passion that drives you to share what you are passionate about with others. She also explained that only the truly passionate are willing to do the management required for everyone else to participate. There are lessons for us everywhere if we listen for them.

Get Comfortable Presenting

2007-04-09T21:55:00.000-04:00

Most people feel uncomfortable giving presentations. Unfortunately, effective leaders often find themselves in the spotlight. Don't presume, though, that other leaders feel comfortable giving presentations. While some do feel comfortable, many have merely learned to look comfortable. Nevertheless, they don't shy away from getting up front. Here are some hints for feeling more comfortable with public speaking:

Start small - if the best you can do is speak up more at meetings, then do so. The more you practice the more comfortable you will feel. If you can speak comfortably to a group of four people, practice that.
Work up to larger groups - challenge yourself to speak to groups a little larger than you feel comfortable with. Over time, you will acclimate to larger and larger audiences.
Know your material - the root of many people's discomfort is a fear of looking foolish. the better your know your material, the more comfortable you will feel presenting it.
Have a plan - more than knowing your material, you need to have a plan for what you want to achieve with your presentation. Focus your presentation on just those things that you need to present to achieve your plan.
Learn from others - don't just listen to when other people present. Look for what you like and don't like in how they present. This gives you many more opportunities to improve your skills.
Practice, practice, practice - face your fears by seeking out opportunities to speak in public. Call meetings where you might otherwise send an email. Stand up at a whiteboard where you might otherwise run a meeting from a chair. Volunteer to facilitate meetings for peers. The more you practice, the more comfortable you will feel.

Communication is one of our key leadership tools and we can't afford to limit our approaches by avoiding public speaking. You need to learn to get through your fears and develop your skills for standing in the front.

Leadership Analogies from Home Car Repair

2007-04-03T20:40:00.000-04:00

What leadership lessons can we learn from home car repair?

It's worth getting the Chilton guide for your car.
Make sure you have a way to get parts before you disable the car.
You are going to bang your knuckles loosening a bolt.
You are going to bang the same knuckle a second time.
Keep your head to the side and carefully remove the oil plug.
Don't over-torque bolts.
Keep a tray for all the small parts as you take something apart.

As usual, you should use your own imagination to fill out the analogies.

Leadership Analogies from Woodworking

2007-04-02T22:16:00.000-04:00

Here is the second post in my "analogies" series. What can we learn about leadership from woodworking?

Measure twice, cut once.
Sand with the grain of the wood.
Take time to sharpen your saw.
Jigs are a big help when making multiples of the same thing.
Watch your fingers and wear you safety glasses.
The better joints are harder to make.

Again, I will let you attach meaning to these analogies.

Thoughts on The Apprentice: LA, Episode 11

2007-04-02T22:01:00.000-04:00

New lessons have become hard to see in recent episodes. My best advice is to go back and read some of my earlier posts. There is very little new here. This will be my last Apprentice post unless this changes and there is something valuable to add.

Rather than leave you with nothing, there was one interesting new lesson this week. Oddly, it came from the reward. Kinetic's reward for winning the task was a night with a member of their family. No other reward garnered more excitement and emotion from the candidates. This is a good point to remember as we consider the motivations of our work teams.
Lesson: Most people are motivated by time with the people they care about.

Leadership Analogies from Fishing

2007-03-29T21:40:00.000-04:00

A good way to learn is to apply analogies from other fields and see where they lead us. For example, what can we learn about leadership from fishing?

Go to where the fish are.
Different fish like different bait.
You need to be patient to catch fish.
Shh, you'll scare the fish.
There are lots of lures in your tackle-box.
You have to clean your own fish.
You need to be prepared with a container to take fish home in.

I will let you attach meaning to these analogies. [I might just make a series out of this.]

Thoughts on The Apprentice: LA, Episode 10

2007-03-25T23:15:00.000-04:00

At the start of the show, Mr. Trump called James at Arrow and asked him to choose someone to go to Kinetic. This was an awkward spot for James, but one that he needs to be able to handle. First, James asked for a volunteer, but got no takers. Compare that to how eager Surya was to move when he had the same chance. This was an opportunity for one of the team members to shine above the others. I'm disappointed that no one took it.
Lesson 1: Take every opportunity to shine - volunteer.

James narrowed it down to Tim and Nicole because he considered their skills similar to his own. Again he looked for a volunteer, got none, and was forced to pick Nicole. She complained, "James must think I'm weak." Later, after her team lost the challenge, Nicole complained that she was upset at Tim for not standing up to keep her on the team. That didn't go well for James or Arrow.

James had alternatives. Asking for a volunteer was great, but when he didn't get one, he could have expressed disappointment and picked someone unilaterally, "Each of you should be jumping at this opportunity. If I need to pick ... I pick Nicole." Explaining his reasons only made the team question them. As it was, Nicole decided he had picked her because he saw her as the weakest member. Another approach was to build up the team with a joint decision making process, possibly a single-elimination rock-paper-scissors tournament.
Lesson 2: Don't apologize for being decisive.
Lesson 3: Look for ways to turn difficult situations into positives.

The task this week was to sell passes to Universal Studios Hollywood using a human-wearable, point-of-sales device called the Adwalker system. Both teams were set up to sell at the same location. During the sales, Arrow commented that Kinetic's girls-on-skates approach was good. As a result, Arrow started using dirty tactics to steal business from Kinetic, including interrupting Kinetic's sales-in-progress to grab customers. Ivanka called them "competitive" and "ruthless," traits that Trump valued as good business. I think that kind of dealing sets a reputation in the long-term that ultimately turns away customers.
Lesson 4: Sometimes all is fair, sometimes it isn't. Consider the difference.

Kinetic lost the task by a large margin. I blame some of it on being less aggressive than Arrow, but there was some amount of failure in not making a comfortable environment for customers to buy from them. Angela was fired as team leader because everyone on her team did good work, nevertheless Kinetic lost. Angela couldn't give a reason to keep her or fire anyone else.
Lesson 5: Always be ready to make a strong case for why you are great.

Advice on Firing People from Donald Trump

2007-03-19T20:40:00.000-04:00

People know Donald Trump from his signature "You're Fired!" line on The Apprentice. Trump has a post on his blog about how to approach firing people in real life. Fortunately, his advice bears no resemblance to the television show. Given how many people admire and try to emulate Trump, this is welcome moderation. His advice is good, and much better than emulating a television show.

Thoughts on The Apprentice: LA, Episode 9

2007-03-18T23:08:00.001-04:00

The task this week was to create a 45 second web-based soap opera to promote Soft Scrub. Arrow won on the strength of their leader, James, who leveraged the skills of his team. Nicole was a big soap opera fan, and understood the medium. Tim knew how to do the production. James stepped back and let them shine, knowing they were doing a good job. Kristine, the leader of Kinetic, also stepped back, but she did it to avoid a conflict with Muna. Muna wanted to be in front of the camera. Kristine knew that Muna would be hard to direct and hard to understand. She said of herself that she "took the path of least resistance" rather than dealing with the problem she was facing.
Lesson 1: Be willing to stand back and let your team succeed on their strengths.
Lesson 2: Don't avoid your leadership responsibilities because they are difficult.

In the boardroom, the decision came down to firing Muna for being difficult or Kristine for letting Muna be an actor. Both Heidi and Angela had difficulty telling Trump which of the two they would keep on their team. Angela said she would keep Kristine. Heidi nearly got herself fired with her indecisiveness, but also said she would keep Kristine. Muna got fired, but I would have fired Kristine for her unwillingness to manage Muna.
Lesson 3: Be willing to take a stand.

The Game of Go as a Leadership Training Tool

2007-03-17T17:53:00.000-04:00

GO is a popular board game in Japan and China akin to chess in complexity. Fans say it is more complex. The rules are simple. Players alternate placing white and black stones on a 19x19 grid trying to surround and control territory. While marking out territory, players also surround their opponent's stones to capture them and remove them from the board.

Note in the first diagram how the black stones are surrounded by the white stones. They won't be completely surrounded though until the "eye" in the middle is filled by a white stone. When white plays a stone in black's eye, white removes the black stones, essentially capturing the territory occupied by black. In practice, black's stones are considered "dead" and left on the board.

Now consider the second diagram where black has two "eyes." In this example, black is considered "alive" since there is no way white can fill in both spots before black would have a chance to remove the newly surrounded white stone. Play alternates until both players agree that there is not territory on the board that is uncontested. The player with the most territory and captured stones wins.

While the rules are simple, how games play out is anything but simple. Each turn presents a choice of strategic placement or tactical attacks on smaller regions. There may be many unresolved battles on the board at the same time, which often turn out to influence each other. Players trade off losses in one are for greater wins in another.

GO is more than a simple metaphor for leadership concepts; it is a way to practice leadership skills. Playing GO gives you an opportunity to exercise many of the skills you need as an effective leader. GO allows you to:

Practice looking at the big picture
Practice making trade-offs between strategy and tactics
Practice seeing how distant elements can impact each other
Practice trading off a loss for a more important gain
Practice learning when a tactical position is lost, and move onto something more important
Practice learning how being less aggressive can give you bigger victories
Practice stepping out of the task of the moment to look at everything else going on

In real life, opportunities to practice these things come up occasionally, but in GO they happen dozens of times each game. And unlike in life, when you make too many mistakes you just lose the game. Now that's a deal: you can play a game and become a better leader.

Give Sharp Focus to Your Presentations

2007-03-15T21:59:00.000-04:00

The first thing speakers ask after finishing a presentation is, "How did that go?" Most people feel uncomfortable making presentations. They sense that they are not connecting with their audience. They are mostly right.

The best tip I give to nervous speakers is to know what you are trying to communicate. Just as companies need mission statements and teams need goals, speakers need a purpose to their presentations. Before you present, figure out what your purpose is. Many presenters share everything they know about a topic, rather than everything their audience needs to know. It is not good enough to say your purpose is to present all the slides in your PowerPoint deck. Typical good purposes are to teach people something, inspire them to do something, or change their opinion about something.

Once you are clear on your purpose, you need to brutally review your presentation against two tests:

Does my presentation achieve my goals? If not, add what you need to fix it.
Does anything in my presentation not advance my goals? If so, remove it.

Usually, this results in people greatly reducing the material they are presenting. It is a big change from sharing every bit of information you have about a topic. It always results in a better feeling about how the presentation went.

Thoughts on The Apprentice: LA, Episode 8

2007-03-11T23:06:00.001-04:00

Arrow lost this week on the task of promoting GNC at an LA Galaxy soccer game half-time show. This week's lessons are easy; they deserved the loss. They didn't behave as a team. Frank started out the episode saying, "Surya is a phony. I hate him," then he proceeded to mock Surya during the planning phase. The whole team has not supported Surya for a couple of weeks. Someone on the team should have taken the lead to pull Surya aside and address their concerns directly.
Lesson 1: Don't sabotage your own team.
Lesson 2: If you have a problem with your leader, you need to tell them.

Surya has been no better and was fired for it. He never took the leadership role of holding his team accountable for being a team. When team members don't support the team's success, the whole team counts of the leader to fix the problem. In particular, Surya needed to pull Frank and James aside and tell them individually to shape up. Both of them needed to hear that they were off the task if they couldn't support the team.
Lesson 3: You are responsible for unifying your team.
Lesson 4: You have to be direct in dealing with disruptive team members.

A New Blogger with a Crossover Post

2007-03-08T22:22:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine, Jim Todhunter, just started a new blog on innovation. One of his first posts is worth sharing with this leadership community. Jim highlights that to overcome resistance to change the team needs:

A clear problem (some say a burning platform)
A vision of the improved state
A plan for action
The pain of change must be less than the pain of the problem

Welcome to the blogging community, Jim.

Heaviest Known Element

2007-03-05T22:33:00.000-05:00

A friend pointed me to this article on the discovery of the heaviest known material: Administratium. Wikipedia expands the article with discussions of Bureaucratite and Governmentium.

Thoughts on the Apprentice: LA, Episode 7

2007-03-04T23:18:00.000-05:00

This week's task was to create a promotional event for the new Lexus LS460. Kinetic, under the leadership of Jenn, lost the challenge. Their event focused on gimmicks including a magician and go-cart racing. Arrow, again led by Surya, got the win by focusing on the luxury experience of the Lexus brand and directly showing off the features of the car, including its ability to parallel park itself. People were impressed, and rated Arrow's event very highly.
Lesson 1: Avoid gimmicks and sell to your product's strengths.

One notable failing point for Kinetic was their attempt to create banners. Creating banners turned out to be of very small value to the event. Both Angela and Derek spent time coming up with the banners. Angela was indecisive and asked Derek for advice. Derek actively decided to let Angela flounder even at the expense of missing their deadline and doing a good job. Angela did a poor job. Derek should be ashamed of his approach.
Lesson 2: Never decide to allow your team to fail.

Jenn led the Kinetic presentation, but did a terrible job. She lost her place and blamed glare on her presentation screen for her errors. The real problem was that she wasn't prepared to present and didn't know her material well enough. She was flipping through a stack of papers to figure out what to say next. Additionally, with better preparation she might have known that there was a glare problem on the screen.
Lesson 3: When presenting, know your material cold - don't use notes.
Lesson 4: Dry-run important presentations to make sure your technology works as you expect.

In the boardroom, Derek jokingly called himself "white trash" and Trump fired him for the insensitive, wise comment. It seemed like Trump overreacted; as if the comment struck a particular nerve in him. Derek needed to go anyway. Nevertheless, there is no room for joking in an important meeting beyond what you know works with your audience. And I've noticed that self-depreciating humor always seems to fall flat.
Lesson 5: Keep your jokes in business to what you know works with your audience.
Lesson 6: Avoid self-deprecating humor.

Trump continued on to fire Jenn based on her past history and her decision to use go-carts in a Lexus event. This was a good decision. Jenn is a gracious person, going as far as trying to save another team member by suggesting that Derek's firing should be sufficient. She didn't badmouth her team or snipe that she was fired. She showed class, but ultimately was the right person to fire this week.
Lesson 7: Show grace and class in the worst situations.

I need to make two points about Arrow. First, Tim and Nicole's relationship is starting to get negative comments from their teammates. James noted that their "relationship is making them soft." Second, the whole team has started to make a silent coup against Surya. They have started to drive success on their own while denigrating Surya's leadership. The team will see their victory as proof that they were right to work around Surya. I don't think Surya is doing a poor job. I think he is just socially awkward. He lacks comfort, perhaps charisma as a leader. I've seen it before where a leader is so eager to drive the team forward that they loose the respect of the team. I can't see any recovery for him now.
Lesson 8: Skip the romantic relationships with coworkers.
Lesson 9: Don't appear overly eager for progress, your team will mock your naiveté.

Be Available

2007-03-01T21:53:00.000-05:00

A huge part of our job as leaders is to support our teams when they run into roadblocks. While this seems obvious, many leaders are so busy in meetings that they can never be found if a problem comes up. If you are never in your office, you need to change that. Set some office hours, delegate some meetings, or even cancel some meetings. I bet you have some meetings that aren't as important as being available to your team. If you do have to attend a bunch of meetings in the same day, make a point of doing some MBWA (management by walking around) at a break. If they can't find you, you might be able to find them instead.

Recognizing that Your Vision is Foggy

2007-02-26T22:25:00.000-05:00

I came across a great post about how to recognize if your vision is working from George Ambler at The Practice of Leadership. George quotes an analogy from The Leadership Challenge by James Kouzes & Barry Posner. When they ask people what they do when they are driving and run into a thick fog bank, they always get the same answers:

I slow way down.
I turn my lights on.
I grab the steering wheel with both hands.
I tense up.
I sit up straight or lean forward.
I turn the radio off so I can hear better.

This is how people react to the fear of not being able to see far enough ahead to feel safe. This gives us good parallels to noticing if our team's vision is foggy: Our teams become more careful than usual, they search for clarifying answers more frequently, and they seem to tense up. Helping them clarify the vision helps to lift the fog.

Thoughts on The Apprentice: LA, Episode 6

2007-02-18T22:30:00.000-05:00

I still don't feel like we are seeing enough of the tasks to make a good judgment about what either team could have done better. This week the teams had to get people signed up for a Priceline sweepstakes in a mall. Arrow won by a 10% margin over Kinetic. The reason that came up in the board room was that Kinetic didn't properly account for the Spanish speaking demographic. This was a red herring. Neither team addressed the Spanish demographic, and even though Kinetic had two Spanish speaking team members, they still lost. I'd suggest that the real difference was how effective each team was in getting people to the kiosk.

The lessons this week were about loyalty and respect. Let's start at the end. Kinetic's project leader, Aimee, was fired. As she drove away in the limo, Aimee blamed her team for the loss. She showed her future teams just how she will treat them. She just blew her next job interview.
Lesson 1: Don't bad-mouth your old team to your new team.

Our next lesson comes from the beginning of the show. During Arrow's planning meeting, Frank drew a mocking picture of Surya and passed it around to the team. Everyone got a good laugh at Surya's expense. This is not a model of teamwork and respect. It is a wonder that Arrow won given this level of discord. I can't say that team Kinetic was much more cohesive, but at least they weren't overtly disrespectful.
Lesson 2: Show some respect, people.

Our final lesson has yet to fully play out. Frank and Nicole finally broke the tension by kissing around the pool. This was cute on Survivor with Rob and Amber, but has no place in a leadership show. It is very likely that one of these two will be the project leader for the other. Forget how hard that will be to manage and imagine the impact on the rest of the team. Even if they think they can manage their own potential awkwardness, they can't manage their team's awkwardness. This will hurt later.
Lesson 3: You can't have a relationship with a teammate.

Bureaucratic Control as an Obstacle to Reducing Process

2007-02-18T10:37:00.000-05:00

I got the following comment to my previous post:

"There hasn't been a bureaucracy in history that has decreased the number of rules. Half of the bureaucracy derives its power from enforcing rules."

I expect this is true on both counts, but I'll put out the challenge anyway: Can anyone share a story where an organization made itself more successful by reducing its processes?

Power is a fascinating dynamic in organizations. I prefer to talk about it with the less ambiguous word "control." People have a desire to feel in control of their world. As leaders, it is critical that we understand this. With due respect to Maslow, if a person thinks their world is out of control, they will go to extraordinary lengths to put it back in control. Some people seek the power of hierarchy, others the comfort of a process, others laudably the strength of talent, and some rest in the iron-grip of bureaucracy.

You can't push down bureaucracy without filling the bureaucrat's need for control. Bureaucracy happens when people in low-control jobs feel that their world will spin out of control if they don't put process in place to stop it. If you remove the process without addressing their fear, they will quickly force it back in. As leaders, we need to build trust from our teams that we can keep the world in control without the need for controlling process. We can only do this when we exhibit the uncommon traits of listening to concerns, showing a clear vision of how we can be successful, and fixing problems quickly rather than hoping they will go away on their own.

Unfortunately, many of our leaders today are strong believers in bureaucratic control. They see it as an easy way manage their own world; certainly easier than keeping a keen eye out for problems and dealing with the conflict of fixing them. This is what puts us back in the circle of process driving down associate engagement. A big part of the cure is to build fundamental leadership skills in our teams so they can work effectively without bureaucratic control.