Volunteer for Leadership Training

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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:

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

Welcome to the blogging community, Jim.

Heaviest Known Element

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

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

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

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

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

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.

The Process/Associate Engagement Circle

This week I met John Miller of the St Clair Consortium. He has remarkable experience and insight into the value of engaged employees to the product creation process. One of his insights was the difference between "human capital" and "intellectual capital;" two terms that are often used interchangeably. "Human capital" refers to the employees that come to the office each day and do the work of our companies. Many of them follow the processes set before them, but essentially check their brains at the door.

What we want from our employees is not just their hands but also their minds. This is our "intellectual capital." This is reflected in the motto of MIT, "Mens et manus," which translates as "mind and hand." We want our employees engaged in making our projects successful with all of their intellectual capital.

From this distinction I want to highlight a potential feedback loop in our organizations driving associate engagement down. We put rules and processes in place partly as a response to our fears that employees won't be engaged to make projects successful without them. Certainly many of our processes are necessary to run the business, but perhaps not as many as we might think.

The upside of rules and processes is that they remove the need for employees to invent an approach to every problem. They take away the need to think through everything. The other side of this same coin is that they remove the need for employees to think on their own. They make it possible for employees to check their brains at the door. Too many rules and processes tend to drive down associate engagement. Employees resent it when they perceive that the rules treat them as if they are stupid. And they resent it when they perceive that their best work is hindered by following an overly prescriptive process.

The feedback loop occurs as a result of putting more rules and processes in place than people need to do a good job. This leads to disengaged employees, who make more mistakes because they check their brains at the door each morning. Companies can be tricked into fixing this problem with even more process, but this will only make the problem worse.

You need to add one more rule in your systems: "We won't add a rule or a process if we can do better using our intellectual capital." Follow that up by giving your teams permission to propose striking processes that aren't required. Invite your teams to use their minds unless they can succeed better by thinking up a process.

Thoughts on The Apprentice: LA, Episode 5

I liked the idea behind the task this week. The two teams had to harvest honey, design packaging, bottle the honey, and sell it. The task gave the teams a good appreciation of the life-cycle of delivering a product. It promised to be a good week for learning, but fell short. The show was so heavily edited that it was impossible to see why one team might win or lose. Instead of showing us the competition, they spent time setting up Aaron as a timid leader.

Arrow ultimately lost the task and Aaron ended up in the board room. Recall last episode that Aaron didn't say much from the other side of the board table. This week Mr. Trump commented multiple times that Aaron didn't contribute from the power side of the board table. Aaron was fired, and mostly because he wasted his opportunity to show Trump what he could do for him as an employee.
Lesson 1: Playing it safe wastes a leadership opportunity and ultimately isn't safe.

Aimee, on the other hand, was very strong on the other side of the board table. She stepped right up, almost taking over the meeting, and asked hard but incisive questions. Trump commented to Aaron, "Do you like it when Aimee is being tough?" and added, "Maybe too tough." Aimee scored points with Trump, but may have set herself up to be shot at equally hard next time she is in the hot seat.
Lesson 2: Don't be shy, but realize that you will be on the other side of the table sometimes, too.

As Trump talked in the board room, he used strong language a number of times. The editing seemed to be showing him as a strong, hard leader. Instead he came off as crude and somewhat out of control. Firm works for him; vulgar does not.
Lesson 3: There is seldom value to swearing in business.

Two Meeting Leadership Roles

People want their leaders to keep meetings under control. I'm not suggesting that leaders bully through a tightly controlled agenda. Teams want a meeting to move along at a good pace, the leader helping them get past rat-holes. But, they don't want a meeting to go so fast that their own comments gets ignored. Two important roles emerge from this as you lead meetings.

First, you need to provide focus for the meeting. You need to keep track of the goals and the pacing toward those goals. But, don't be overly wedded to the agenda. Listen to what each person says with an ear toward how it advances both the current topic and the goal of the meeting. Be particularly mindful when someone raises a new topic before the current topic is concluded. Your job is to acknowledge the comment, note that it is off topic, and focus back to the current topic. Drive each topic to completion, with a clear summation of the conclusion, even if the conclusion is that the topic was a rat-hole. There is nothing worse than a meeting full of half finished discussions. What a waste of time.

Your second role is to make sure that off-topic comments don't get dropped on the floor. People raise topics that they think are important. You can't afford to just ignore a comment, but you can't allow the meeting to be distracted by every thought that comes up.

When the distracting idea is central to the meeting goal, capture it, but don't let it derail the current discussion. Come back to it when it fits best in the meeting. You need to manage a dynamic agenda, adjusting the steps of the meeting as important ideas come up. The goal is important not the agenda for reaching it.

When the distracting idea is not central to the meeting goal, acknowledge it and agree to cover it in another forum. It takes a moment of active listening to make sure that you understand the idea well enough to declare it off topic, "That sounds like a topic we should cover in another meeting, or am I missing how that relates to what Anna is talking about?" If you ignore their ideas, people won't feel valued. They will stop feeling comfortable raising important issues.

Sometimes the distracting idea is really just a rat-hole of unimportant detail. As the leader, you play the role of noticing it rather than joining in. You are the person the team relies on to say, "I'm sensing we are in a rat-hole. Is this an important detail to get us to our goal?"

The key idea is that as a leader you are not just a participant. You are not doing your job if you are focused on contributing to the discussion. Yes, this takes away from your time to make your own points. You probably shouldn't be dominating the meeting with your points anyway. You have leading to do.

Thoughts on The Apprentice: LA, Episode 4

Finally a loss for Kinetic. They didn't do a bad job, but they were up against Aaron leading Arrow, who did an outstanding job. Aaron will be difficult to beat. He has energy and charisma, but more importantly, he inspires his team to succeed. He makes them feel confident, and that gives them a tremendous edge. Heidi is well organized but doesn't seem to engender enthusiasm.
Lesson 1: Leaders inspire their teams to feel confident of success.
Lesson 2: Confidence helps create success.

I was pleased this week to see the number of volunteers to help Arrow. It is tempting to see this as indicative of the number of good people on Kinetic. I think it shows that the people on Kinetic knew the importance of getting a leadership role. So long as they were on Kinetic and winning, Heidi was not sharing the lead. Her teammates needed to leave to find good opportunities. When Surya left, he couldn't stop sharing his ideas for improving Arrow. I recommended that Heidi delegate leadership before she had problems on her team. Now I'm recommending the same thing to Aaron. Take more of the lead by delegating the lead.
Lesson 3: Lack of leadership opportunities will cause your leaders to look elsewhere for them.

I need to highlight an important error on Heidi's part, one that hasn't played out yet, but I bet will later. Heidi discussed Marissa's performance with the group behind her back. It may have been a good game tactic, but it was incredibly poor leadership judgment. She has created an environment where her teammates know that there is culture of gossip. She should have shut down the conversation the moment Derek sniped about Marissa's chicken suit idea, or at least asked Marissa to join the conversation. The team now knows they can't trust each other.
Lesson 4: Integrity matters.

Marissa was fired this week. She might have been able to avoid it if she hadn't been annoyingly tenacious at every turn. Mr. Trump was trying to give her more chances and might have fired Amy. Instead, Marrissa fought to survive beyond Trump's ability to stand her, just like she did for the chicken suit idea and the Bravado name for the product. While she might have survived this week, she would have never made it to the end.
Lesson 5: You can push too hard.

Why Lead?

People have wondered why I focus on leadership in this blog. I continue to see evidence that some people don't have a basic understanding of what leadership means. They have various ideas about leadership including getting others to do what they want, being at the top of the heap, or getting to set the direction.

Teams of people want to be successful. Unfortunately, they often lack the skill to clarify what success looks like, coordinate their differing ideas of success, agree on the right way to get there, or sometimes even motivate themselves toward action. Teams need help to be successful. A leader's job is to provide this help.

Note that the role of the leader is to help the team find the team's vision, not impose the leader's vision on the team. The role of the leader is to coordinate the tasks the team needs to achieve success, not order them to do tasks. Leadership is fundamentally about making a team successful, not about building the leader's ego. Leadership is a servant role not a boss role.

I write about leadership to help more teams be successful.

The Personal Approach

Imagine you and the other leaders in your organization get an email from your human resources department. It is an offer for free outside consulting time to facilitate some of your project teams. Accepting the offer means chasing down the HR person to get the details, filling out forms, extra meetings, and more people crowding your project than you think you want. It feels like too much pain, but the help will probably be worth it. Nevertheless, I'm guessing you ignore the email.

On the other hand, imagine your HR person stops by your office and makes the same offer, explaining the value and dealing with the obstacles. With this personal approach, you are likely to consider the offer.

If you want results, try the personal approach. One-on-one is usually more effective than dealing with a group. And, face-to-face is better than an email. Don't waste your valuable time sending out an email you wouldn't respond to. As usual, most leadership takes place when you go talk to people.

Sit at the Table

As with most corporations, my company's conference rooms include large tables ringed with chairs, and a few scattered chairs backed against the walls. I am always dumbfounded when someone comes into the room and sits in those wallflower chairs. Even when the table seems full, there is always room to squeeze one more person in.

People seem to sit on the edge for two reasons. Often they perceive the table to be too crowded already. They don't consider themselves important enough to crowd in. Which brings us to the second reason, the don't consider themselves worthy to sit at the table. They defer to the people they see as more important than they are.

Neither of these is a good reason to be a wallflower. When someone sits on the edge of the room, rather than at the table, they prove to everyone that they don't belong at the table. The edge is neither a leadership position nor a follower position. It is a position of inaction.

The only time I recommend sitting on the edge is when leaders need to push their teams to run more effectively without their constant input. Even then it is usually better to not attend the meeting at all.

No matter how low your stature, or how senior the meeting, you need to sit at the table unless you are asked not to. Be presumptive. Push right up with the certainty that you belong there. You can't be a real participant from the sidelines. And, you can't expect to be successful if you don't participate.

Thoughts on The Apprentice:LA, Episode 3

After last week's poor showing, I was worried that this season might start heading downhill. I worried too soon. This was an excellent episode, full of all the drama and armchair quarterbacking we watch for.

Let's get Kinetic out of the way first. Kinetic got to sit out the task this week and instead spent the time enjoying the amenities of the Lowes Santa Monica Hotel. Once again, Heidi squandered her opportunity to strengthen her leadership position. Mr. Trump didn't make this mistake. He used his position of strength to advertise his friend's hotel.
Lesson 1: Take every opportunity.

After Kinetic left for their reward, Mr. Trump asked for two people from Arrow to volunteer to lead teams for the next task. I couldn't believe what happened. I expected to see seven hands shoot up for the lead. Instead, only Aaron stepped up. Mr. Trump asked Michelle if she wanted to lead and she said "yes" because she couldn't figure out a way to turn it down. The fear of accountability cowed them: what a shame. It is no coincidence that Aaron's team won this mission.
Lesson 2: Always volunteer to lead.

This week is the story of Michelle. We saw last week that she had trouble making commitments. She started her leadership reign by trying to build a team of consensus. Time after time, she avoided accountability and asked her teammates to make decisions. The team begged her for leadership, and when she didn't take it, they stopped respecting her as their leader. Michelle wasted her team's time. They responded by checking out of success.
Lesson 3: Teams really want you to lead them.
Lesson 4: Be willing to take accountability for making decisions.

In the board room, Michelle's team struggled to stand behind her, while Aaron's team was enthusiastic in their support. Michelle's team found out predictably that they lost by a large margin. Before either team left, Michelle announced that the program was harder than she expected and that she was quitting. Michelle appeared to be running from the shame of being fired, and in doing so put the rest of her team at risk of being fired later in the boardroom. Mr. Trump summed up the lesson well:
Lesson 5: "You can never be successful if you quit."

Jockeying for Position

A friend of mine shared his recent experience setting up to facilitate a technical strategy meeting. He notice that he was getting three types of email from the team:

• "Here is a list of people to invite..."
• "You don't need to include the following people..."
• "Please don't forget to invite me."

This is clear evidence of lack of true leadership in the team. There may be someone on the team with the leadership role, but they are not exercising it properly. Multiple people recognize the leadership void and are trying to step into it. This is a dynamic doomed to fracture this team.

I am also seeing that some of the people don't trust that the existing leaders will represent them in the meeting. This is a group of people that don't feel secure. I suspect most of their resumes are on the street.

I preferred to see my friend focus on addressing this leadership problem before the strategy session, although this wasn't practical. Instead, he needed to go into the meeting recognizing that he had to step into the leadership role for the session to have any hope of avoiding useless jockeying. This team needs a firm hand to support them toward progress rather than discord. Don't let this team be yours.

Thoughts on The Apprentice: LA, Episode 2

This week's Apprentice was not as compelling as previous installments. Too much time at the Playboy mansion appealing to the more prurient viewers left insufficient time to show the burgeoning leaders in action on their swimsuit design task. I couldn't get a real sense of how anyone did on the task.

Team Arrow lost again this week. They had a poor showing in their male swimsuit designs mostly under the lead of Carey. Carey leveraged his own experience and made suits that would appeal to a limited community. He neglected to consider the broader based market that the buyers were looking to sell into. While this turned out to be a fatal error for Carey, I wouldn't put the blame for the loss on him.
Lesson 1: It's good to take advantage of your personal experience.
Lesson 2: Don't over-rely on your personal experience.

Carey showed an eagerness and spirit that will be missed on Team Arrow. He took a risk, and made a strong contribution. Mr. Trump should not have fired him. His team, and particularly the team leader, Nicole, let him down. They didn't channel his enthusiasm toward a mass appeal product. Everyone on Team Arrow knew that Carey's judgement was clouded by his enthusiasm. Nicole should never have approved Carey's final design.
Lesson 3: As the leader, you own ultimate responsibility for the team's decisions.
Lesson 4: Team members need to support their team mates by helping them see through their own excitement.

In reality, both teams failed this week. Neither team did the advanced marketing required to understand what would sell best. Heidi and Team Kinetic got lucky at best to pull off a victory. As far as I could tell this task was a coin toss that neither team helped to rig in their favor.
Lesson 5: You have to understand your customer.

I am also disappointed in Heidi this week. She didn't leverage her victory last week by delegating opportunities to lead. The seeds of discontentment showed in this episode, and will be fully sowed if Heidi doesn't delegate some leadership. Heidi won't be able to survive a loss if she doesn't win some unconditional loyalty in the next task.

Five Things About Me

I've been tagged by Bren at Slacker Manager. I have been watching this meme with a small amount of dread. If a friend sent me a chain letter, I would throw it away. Shouldn't I do the same thing on the web? Isn't this the same as sending email requesting business cards for Craig Shergold?

I spent some time back-tracing some of the tag chain. Here are some leader-laden places I found and enjoyed while following the chain:

• Behind the Glasses
• Kent Blumberg
• The Coach Approach
• Strategy Central
• The Recovering Leader
• Zinger on Strength-based Leadership

These are all places that were otherwise outside of my circle. Finding them seems like sufficient value to participate in the meme.

Here are five things that are not generally known about me:

1. I collect stamps, cameras and Disneyana.
2. I like to play games like go, Magic The Gathering and competitive Scrabble.
3. I'm a photographer, but prefer Polaroids to digital.
4. I have a degree in mechanical engineering.
5. I cherish my wife and two daughters.

I'm going to try something a bit different in tagging others. I'd like to see if we can pull some celebrity bloggers into the conversation. I tag Malcolm Gladwell, Steven Levitt, Stephen Dubner, Clayton Christensen, and Donald Trump. They won't participate if nobody asks them.

Thoughts on The Apprentice: LA, Episode 1

I have to admit, I love this show. Watching it, I am the armchair quarterback of the leadership football season. The show gives us opportunities to stretch our leadership muscles asking, "What would I do if I were them?" Let's look at some of the more interesting moments. If you haven't seen the show yet, you can watch it here.

Before I start, I'll note that this is television. It is certainly contrived and heavily edited for better storytelling. Some parts are probably scripted and re-shot to that end. The best we can do is take the context we are given as a starting point.

My first observation may be an error of bad scripting. The contestants drive to the mansion four to a car. Each candidate silently contemplates strategies for their opening gambits. Hello, this ride was their opening gambit. The people in the car are both teammates and competition. They all threw away an opportunity to position themselves as leaders. Again, probably scripted. I would have worked the crowd every opportunity I got.
Lesson 1: People are the medium in which we practice leadership. Talk to them.

The first mini-project was putting up a large tent. They all attacked the tent project with the energy of the realization that it probably mattered. But, lacking any defined leader, it started out as bedlam. The dynamics are familiar to all of us: a desire to finish quickly, no stand-out leader, people jockeying for the lead. A decent strategy at this point would be to sit back and let someone else risk being shot down as the leader. The best outcome is to ask for the leadership role and get it. The worst is to ask and be denied.

Heidi stepped up and assumed the lead. The team gave it to her. I'm impressed with Heidi. She managed to take the lead softly, without appearing aggressive. She waited the right amount of time for the team to realize they were not making progress without coordination, but not too long so that someone else grabbed the lead first. The risk paid off. She earned the highly visible first project lead role and parlayed it to a seat next to Mr. Trump in the board room. This is a huge advantage.
Lesson 2: Before risking to take the lead, make sure the team realizes they need a leader. Only after that, take the lead before someone else beats you to it.

Sometime into the tent project, everyone must have realized that Heidi had succeed in setting herself apart. Frank acted to do the same for himself by bullying his way into the lead. Heidi realized she had already won this task. She gave him the lead rather than look foolish by fighting Frank for it. Very well played. Bullying works as a tactic, but fails as a strategy. The team didn't need a new leader. The team gave Frank the lead, but not their respect. He will suffer for this later.
Lesson 3: Nobody respects the bully.

The first real project had the two teams, led by Heidi and Frank, each running a car wash for a day. Frank started the project barking directions in a limited, street-side strategy session. Then he grabbed one of his teammates and ran to a local copy shop to print fliers. Yes, you read correctly: He ran to the copy shop. There is so much wrong here. One, his team was not prepared enough for him to leave them. Two, he could have sent anyone to get copies. Three, you don't need two people to make copies. Four, there must be a better way to get around LA. Five, filers were not an effective way to get cars to pull into the car wash.
Lesson 4: Plan first, act second.
Lesson 5: The leader needs to delegate and stay available for the whole team.

Heidi made early mistakes as well. There came a point where they had more cars in line than they could wash. Too many of her team were holding signs to bring cars in; not enough people washing. Heidi noticed the problem and re-balanced the team so more people rolled up their sleeves and washed cars.
Lesson 6: Be open to changing direction.

Either team could have improved by 25% with better planning and execution. I picked up on a few other lessons along the way. First, both car washes had a staff of experienced people there to help them. Neither team engaged this extended staff in the planning or main execution of the task. The car wash staff in the background seemed to be mocking the candidates in their neatly tailored business suits.
Lesson 7: Your are never too important to ask the line staff for help.
Lesson 8: When there is dirty work to be done, change out of your suits, if only metaphorically.

The big loser of the week was Martin. Martin appeared to be trying to stand out in every way. He dressed oddly. He coupled a weak joke about hugging Mr. Trump with a poorly timed request to go to the bathroom. He tried to take a supervisory role during the tent project. Being so visible is risky, but not a bad plan for getting noticed in this competition. On the plus side, Martin did an excellent job of playing the group psychology in the evening. He effectively, put Frank on the ropes with his team mates as the primary cause of the team's loss. It would have worked if Martin hadn't been such a poor performer in the car wash project.

I'm disappointed to lose Martin. I think he had more skills to show us. Frank on the other hand has already annoyed me beyond what I want to see. I think we have seen all there is to Frank. Although, it may be interesting to see how the others deal with the bully approach. Frank is what I think of as a one-time leader. He gets people to do what he wants one time, but they will never volunteer to work for him again.

Next week Heidi gets to be the project leader again. This is tremendously valuable currency. My advice to Heidi is that she not forget to spend her currency effectively. As the leader, she can subordinate the project leader role to another member of her team. In doing this, she should make it clear that since her neck is on the line with Mr. Trump, she needs to retain some oversight and control. This has two positive values for Heidi. First, she gives someone on the team an opportunity to show their leadership skills. Second, it sets up Heidi as the senior leader for the team, and cements her superior role for the rest of the competition.
Lesson 9: You gain more power by giving some of it away.

For more Trump fun, check out The Trump Blog.

PowerPoint to Poster Boards

I am in the midst of setting up a management review meeting. Rather than parade by a string of project leaders to present the same stale reports, I asked each team to present a poster. I gave each leader one of those tri-fold poster boards that many of our kids use in school and no rules about how to put it together. I frankly expected most teams to paste a PowerPoint presentation onto their board and be done with it. Our kids make these things; you would think it would be easy.

In past reviews, the leaders threw together a presentation the night before the meeting, pulling most of the material from pre-existing slide decks. Some spent time with their teams reviewing the presentation in advance of the meeting, but this was always pretty casual.

This time around, the teams are getting together to figure out the best way to use the poster boards. The new format caused the teams to rethink how to present their material. The teams have engaged more with what and how to communicate.

It is easy to become sloppy in putting together our ubiquitous PowerPoint presentations. Here is a reminder from the AYE Wiki reminding us not to lean hard on PowerPoint as the center of our approach to presenting. Next time you give a presentation, think a bit about what you want to present and what is the best way to communicate it. Don't default to PowerPoint. You might try forcing yourself to use a new medium as a tool to keeping you fresh.

Community Day at Slacker Manager

Brendon Connelly at Slacker Manager graciously opened his blog to guest writers today. I wrote about updating our templates to reflect 2007 in my contribution. I was inspired today after seeing a presentation with a copyright notice not for 2006 but for 2002!

Participate in the community if you get a chance.

My Leadership Philosophy: Part 2

I recently wrote an article in response to George Ambler's post, The Importance of a Clear Leadership Philosophy. I had hoped it would start a wave of business bloggers describing their own leadership philosophies. Unfortunately, it didn't earn a single comment. So goes the blogging world.

Mr. Ambler encouraged leaders to write down their beliefs about people, life and what makes groups effective. I found it to be a valuable exercise. As I've thought about that article more, it occurs to me that there are more elements of a leadership philosophy to write down than those three. The most obvious missing element to me was a philosophy of leadership itself. Here are my beliefs about leadership:

Leadership comes naturally to some people, and can be learned by many people. Although, not all people can be taught to be leaders. The most important thing to teach a burgeoning leader is to have the confidence that they have permission to lead. Leadership is not a matter of rank.

A leader is motivated to take action by a desire to see success. This is not ego-driven personal success, although many leaders have huge egos. Leadership is about making a team successful at reaching a shared goal. A leader needs to be able to visualize the future, and they need to be able to communicate that vision of success to the team. Finally, a leader needs to be impatient. Leaders are made when someone has a vision and becomes impatient that nobody else is moving.

I don't believe that leadership requires charisma. Leaders need to communicate a vision in a way that motivates the team to share the goal. This requires some empathy and insight into how other people think. They also need to inspire trust that they can lead the group to that goal, and then get out of the way. Charisma is helpful, but it can also blind a group to an otherwise poor goal or untrustworthy leader.

Thanks for the encouragement, Mr. Ambler.

Back from Vacation - Happy New Year

I've written about the value of taking vacations before. During this holiday break I took a break from blogging too. Most of you were not reading business blogs anyway. It was good to give my mind a thinking break, too. It feels just as good to be back.

During this vacation I worked on a paper model of Sleeping Beauty's Castle from Disneyland. It is a nice lesson in patience and slowing down. I am about 1/3 finished. So far so good. I highly recommend finding an activity that frees your mind from work.

Here's wishing all of you a wonderful 2007.

Another Practical Leadership Opportunity

For many, tomorrow is the last working day before the holiday break. Don't forget to wish your team a good holiday. Let them go home early if you can. Thank them for the successes of the last year. Don't waste these opportunities.

Happy holidays to you all, my extended leadership team.

Motivation to Lie

I have recently been intrigued by the phenomenon of leaders committing to dates that are obviously too aggressive. Everyone can tell that the committed date is highly unlikely, but the world seems to conspire to force the commitment from the leader and accept that commitment as realistic.

I've been trying to understand what is going on here. The leader must also understand how aggressive and unlikely the date commitment is. While some of these commitments are met, a 10% likely date can only be met one in ten times. Some managers and customers push for this aggressiveness in a belief that the project team is somehow padding their schedules. They believe that the schedule is not really too aggressive if the team would put their shoulders to the task. Their belief is that a good project leader can meet an aggressive schedule.

Another reason managers and customers push for aggressive dates is a belief that they have no choice. Someone else, such as their own managers and customers, are pushing for an aggressive date from them. They said "yes" to their own aggressive delivery, and now are desperate for ways to meet their own overly aggressive commitments.

These factors help to explain why someone might push for an aggressive schedule. Unfortunately, they don't help us understand why a good project leader would agree to an overly aggressive schedule. I have tended to believe that good leaders would value meeting their commitments enough to withstand these pressures.

One thought comes to me: Perhaps it is easier to agree to a date and miss it than it is to set a realistic date and meet it. Leaders understand that there are costs to the team missing their date commitments. Those costs include the re-planning costs, the difficulty of telling the stakeholders about the schedule slip, some loss of credibility and possibly some negative accountability.

On the other hand, leaders understand that there are also costs to not agreeing to an unrealistic date request. In the worst case, the team looses the project to a lower bidder. More commonly, those costs are disappointing the customer, sometimes angry pressure to concede, and spending more time explaining why the date is later than hoped for.

I'm wondering if leaders perceive that avoiding the up-front pain is worth the potential future pain. That is, the prospect of missing the date is less daunting than the prospect of admitting you can not meet it to begin with. This may be a basic inability to evaluate risk and consequences, but I don't think so. It may also be an over-valuing of "hope" as a success strategy, but I think this is more of a result than a cause. I think the cause is that some managers and customers actually make the consequences of not agreeing to a date greater than the consequences of missing a date.

Remember that if the leader doesn't agree to the date, there is a chance the team will lose the project. That is a pretty big consequence. That chance is often much greater than the chance of losing the customer after a date slip. We see this in the number of public works projects that grossly miss their dates, but were the result of a lowest-bid contract.

But I don't think we have to use this drastic example. This problem persists even when there is no chance of losing the job by giving a realistic date commitment. This occurs primarily when the accountability model for missing a date is not really clear. A leader who sees that he or she is accountable for the consequences of a missed date will value making better commitments.

I am not suggesting that we need to set up better punishments. Accountability is simply the other side of the coin of responsibility. The effective leader needs to feel that he or she has to live with the result of missing a date, whether that consequence includes future loss of business, reduced market penetration, or simply lost opportunity cost.

The question we need to ask ourselves is "Do we give our leaders sufficient accountability to motivate them to set dates the team can meet, or do we make it easier to agree to unreasonably aggressive dates?" Would you rather say "no" or be late?

The Whiny Middle Manager Quiz

I have to share Wayne Turmel's tongue-in-cheek management quiz. It's funniest answers sting a bit too hard with truth. Here's the leadership training question:

4) Leadership training is a required part of all managers' development because:

• We believe in growing people from within
• Just on the off chance we see actual leadership, we'd like to recognize it
• We want to spot the troublemakers early on, the darned showoffs
• Everyone else is doing it

My Leadership Philosophy

George Ambler has an article advocating The Importance of a Clear Leadership Philosophy. In this outstanding post, he recommends that leaders write down the philosophy behind their leadership approach including:

• What you believe about people ...
• What you believe about life ...
• What you believe makes groups and organizations effective ...

Let's give it a try:

• All people are good in their own sight. They behave according to what they think is right, just and fair. In disputes, most people see themselves as good and the other guy as bad. This is ego driven by a lack of self-confidence. People who excel in one area tend to excel in many areas. I believe this is also driven by self-confidence. People want to be successful and part of a successful community. They want the safety of a leader they can trust. People who feel self-confident, valued and safe can be mentored to do almost anything.
• Life is a journey in pursuit of happiness. Life's journey is infinite, continuous, chaotic and shared. Because it is infinite, we should strive for lasting happiness. We should value long-term success over short-term. Because life is continuous, we should seek the happiness in our current situation. While we should make sacrifices for greater success, we should not put off happiness for later. Because it is chaotic, we recognize that life includes sadness. Life is not scriptable or predictable. Bad things happen, and we deal with them when they do. Because life is shared, we pursue happiness for our communities as well as ourselves. Those communities include our families, friends, coworkers, larger communities and humankind as a whole.
• I believe organizations are successful when they have shared values, a clear vision of success, motivation to succeed together, and respect for the various roles required to succeed. Shared values help avoid irreconcilable differences. While the vision must be clear, the leadership needs to be flexible. The world changes, and successful organizations need leaders who can guide them through those changes. Every member of the team must be motivated to participate in the team's success, although different people may have different motivations. One of a leader's roles is to understand those motivations and address the needs of the people on the team. One critical shared value is recognition of the importance of every person's role on the team. When people don't feel valued, they loose motivation to support the success of the team.

That was a good exercise. I'm sure I'll revisit it in the future. Thanks for the challenge, George.

Leave Room for a Miracle

This Christmas season, we are reminded of miracles. But that expectant feeling is available to us all year long. All we have to do is set our project schedules for the earliest possible delivery date. Then we can wait for the miracle to happen so everything goes perfectly. If you want that Christmas feeling all year long, leave just enough room for a miracle in your project schedules.

Where Practical Leadership Takes You

Out of curiosity, I did a Google search of where "practical leadership" takes you. Some interesting sites come up:

• First up, an HR consulting firm with the web address www.practicalleadership.com. They list Practical Leadership as a registered trademark. I wonder if I'll get a call from their lawyers.
• A PDF paper titled "Practical Leadership" by Air Force General Thomas Richards. This is an excellent paper. Thanks General.
• Another blog out of the Netherlands with the title "Practical Leadership."
• Multiple leadership courses called "Practical Leadership" such as these from MIT's Sloan School, TMI, ProjectLEADER, Brainstorm Dynamics and Change Masters.

By the way, this blog also shows up.

Criticize in Private

Giving criticism is a delicate dance between being clear and being heard. Most people have a natural reaction to criticism of throwing up defensive and protective walls against potential attacks. This is true even when we present the feedback using all the positive, constructive and nurturing techniques of good communication and leadership. We would like to believe that if we speak truth with a kind and loving heart and a spirit of edification in just the right way, then our message will be received as we intended. This is just not the case.

People do get defensive, no matter what we do to mitigate it. And yet, as leaders, there are situations where we need to give feedback and criticism to the people on our teams. It is critical that we recognize that our role is not to "give" criticism, but rather to "communicate" the criticism. That is, we need to take the leadership of not only presenting the feedback, but making sure it was heard.

One of the ways we make sure feedback in heard, is to remove as many of the obstacles to being heard that we can. One of the biggest obstacles preventing people from hearing feedback is pride. When a person is in a group of other people, they are much less able to hear criticism because of the potential hurt to their pride. They do not want to look bad in front of other people. It is bad enough that they feel bad in front of you, the leader.

I often find myself in situations where I recognize behavior that is hurting the team's ability to succeed. Part of my job as a leader is to bring that behavior to the fore, so we can improve the likelihood of the team's success. For example, when one team member gives a customer presentation, I sometimes see another team member interrupt to correct an error in the presentation. Sometimes this works, but usually it sets a tone of discord in front of the customer that is counter to the team's success. This behavior needs to be addressed.

The worst thing I could possibly do is mention this problem right in front of the customer. That would be doing more of the same. I might consider raising the issues during the group's debrief of the meeting. (You need to have these kinds of debriefs if you don't already.) If it is a pervasive problem across the group, that might be the right solution. But, if the problem is really with one or two individuals, they will not be responsive to the criticism in the group setting.

In the group setting they will throw up their walls of defensiveness. They will argue about the importance of fixing the mistaken information we gave the customer. They may go silent, disagreeing in their heads, and not being open to changing behavior. If you can meet with people individually, you remove pride in front of their peers as an obstacle to hearing and addressing the problem. Your job as a leader is to "communicate" the issue. That means making sure that the issue is heard.

Back to the customer situation: you can always agree in the meeting debrief what the right information the customer needed to hear. If the customer needs an update, you can use it as an opportunity. Use the update to call the customer. Tell them the mistake. Build in them a sense of trust that when your team makes a mistake, they are proactive about fixing it. That is a whole lot better than building in the customer a sense that you have a team in discord.

Testing Your Vision

I won't enter the debate on the distinctions of calling it a vision, strategy or mission. This vision thing is not a magic incantation. It is a tool for leading your team to the successes they want to achieve. Here are some simple tests to see if your vision is a good tool for your team:

• Will this vision motivate me to lead my team?
• Can I clearly and concisely communicate the key points of this vision?
• Can I sell this vision to my team and the other stakeholders?
• Is this vision about the team’s goal and not my personal goals?
• Will this vision motivate my team toward the goal?
• Will this vision allow my team to make progress without direct assignments?
• Will this vision help us prioritize our work?
• Does this vision tell us what not to do?

It comes down to a few simple points: Test that your vision is clear, shared and actionable.

Increase Your Date Granularity

I recently sat through a status presentation. The team lead explained that the project was late and they would complete it in December. That was not the best news, but it wasn't too bad: just about a month slip. Or was it?

What was the project leader trying to communicate by saying December? When we give dates with a month granularity, such as December instead of December 18th, we play a little game with our audience. We are trying to give ourselves until the end of the month, while allowing the audience the hope that an earlier date is possible.

In this case, with the date only a month away, there is no excuse for the project leader not to have a better handle on the schedule and provide finer granularity on the date. Note that with a December date, November is early and January is late. But with a December 18th date, December 12th is early and December 22nd is late.

My challenge to leaders is not to fall back on the trick of giving dates with month granularity. If you want to give yourself leeway to use the whole month, show some integrity and say December 30th. This gives full notice to your audience to object if the 30th is a problem.

You can also extend this to quarter granularity estimates. Rather than saying Q4CY07, say December '07. Note that in this case the date is far enough out that you may really want to communicate that slips are on the order of months not days. By saying December '07, you are communicating that a schedule slip moves you out to January or February. Saying Q4CY07 is not a commitment to get the project done by the end of the quarter at all costs. It sets a granularity of a quarter on the accuracy of the estimate. That is, a slip could be out to Q1 or Q2CY08. A project leader shooting for the end of the quarter at all costs should be giving estimates of either October '07 or November 30th, 2007.

Welcome Your Team Back from Thanksgiving

You have a opportunity for practical leadership tomorrow. Build personal relationships by welcoming your team back from the Thanksgiving holiday. Visit everyone personally, and ask how their weekend went. Care enough to listen to their answers. Personal relationships are important to the success of your teams.

The Cost of Criticism

Those of us in leadership positions frequently find ourselves with opportunities to give negative feedback. We learn quickly that there is a cost to giving negative feedback even when it is completely constructive. That cost comes in the form of a drop in our team member's morale and a reduction in the quality of his or her relationship with you.

Each time you incur this cost you need to pay it off with what Stephen Covey would call a deposit in the emotional bank account. You need to earn back increased morale and a positive relationship. Thankfully, this is something we can earn in advance of needing it. One effective currency is to balance our feedback with healthy doses of positive feedback and appreciation.

The other aspect to consider in giving negative feedback is to decide if it is worth the cost. Not every bit of feedback that comes into our minds is worth conveying to the people on our teams. It is noteworthy that the most trivial feedback often comes at the highest cost. That is because it can come off as condescending and runs the risk of highlighting "stupid mistakes."

Don't be the leader who rides your team with constant trivial feedback. Give them the opportunity to learn on their own, and the respect of believing they can figure some things out on their own. Consider the cost of every bit of negative feedback and make sure you pay back that cost with praise and thanks.

Leaders Need to Follow

There can be leading in following, too. By following, you give other people a chance to lead. When other people in your team have a chance to lead, the team benefits. Most obvious is the opportunity for them to learn, which expands your teams leadership capacity and thereby its ability to deal with multiple priorities. Not only do they learn about leading, they also get a better sense of what is important to the project. Additionally, when other people lead, it gives them a better sense of ownership in the project. There is no better way to engage them in the vision than letting them take the reins on advancing it.

Adrian Savage's Slow Leadership Manifesto

Today, ChangeThis published a manifesto on Slow Leadership by Adrian Savage. Adrian presents an excellent critique of the current business leadership approach of driving ever faster toward quarter-by-quarter results. He recommends that we move toward a more considered leadership approach focused on long-term success. Slow leadership stands on principles of care in decision making and valuing the humanity of the people in our organizations.

I strongly recommend that you read the entire manifesto. There are extremely important issues to consider for today's business leaders. There pervades a strong sense of truth in Adrian's manifesto. I think these ideas are particularly cogent to leaders of public companies.

I'm not ready to leap onto the slow train. I think there are real obstacles to doing so fully. The principles of slow leadership are well worth your time to read, contemplate and apply where you can. Our best leaders do these things naturally.

Bureaucracy Gone Awry

My lovely wife just brought in the mail and showed me a amazing example of stupidity in banking. She had a check from our bank for $15. Apparently, we accidentally overpaid to our overdraft line of credit on our checking account. The line of credit is directly linked to our checking account. There is no chance that the bank couldn't figure out where to move the money if they really needed to clear out the line of credit.

We are very big users of electronic banking. I can't recall the last time I wrote a check. It's a huge convenience and a minor savings in paper, envelopes and stamps. The bank, though, spent the money to cut a check and send it to us in the mail.

There has to be a leader in the bank who recognizes the folly of this. First, it's hard to imagine that the penalty for not addressing the balance in the line of credit would be greater than the cost of mailing us a check. Second, if they had to clear the account, it certainly would be better for them to just move the money to our checking account with a notice in our next statement.

While there may be many such leaders in the bank, I bet they are stymied by bureaucracy gone awry. This effect recently has become much worse thanks to US Senator Sarbanes and Representative Oxley.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, while well intentioned, has become the leash used by overzealous bureaucrats to restrain what they see as the out of control innovations in their companies. I know of one company that put in place an accounting process to track the granting of $100 recognition awards by managers. The new process costs more than the award and requires interaction by three people in addition to the manager and the recipient.

I've started taking the lead resisting this trend by pointing out such over-bureaucracy where I see it. Perhaps if enough of us do this, we can reverse this trend. Hopefully someone in my bank will read this.

Steps Zero, Two, and Three in Crisis Management

Max Leibman practically wrote my next article in his comments on "Step One in Crisis Management". The second step in crisis management is to form a quick plan to address the crisis. The key word is "quick" as opposed to "ideal." Grab anything that will address the problem quickly: better to grab a stack of napkins than get out the perfect towel for the job.

And Troy Worman chimed in with step zero of have a plan. I think that's not quite right for crisis management. In crisis management I think step zero is to be prepared with warnings and options. For example, to prepare for the crisis of a fire, we have the warning of a smoke alarm, and the options of sprinklers, fire extinguishers and a local fire department. In our spilled milk example, we have a roll of paper towels at hand.

Step three in crisis management is to appropriately clean up the mess caused by the imperfection of step two. Once the crisis is averted, you have time to go into regular project management mode. You have the time to address the problem in a more ideal way.

Step One in Crisis Management

"There is no use crying over spilled milk." However, in this simple, and accessible example of crisis management, we all take the same first step. The first step in dealing with spilled milk, and really any crisis management is to get up out of your chair. It seems to be an obvious first step. It comes before get a towel or move papers out of the way. You have to get up. Translating this simple lesson to any leadership situation, especially in a crisis: you have first decide to act, and then prepare to act. You can decide what to do later, but you have to stand up first.

Lead on.

We've Got Windows to Break

Another thought from Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point. We've all seen abandoned warehouses with busted out windows. You may even have thrown a rock or two to try to break the remaining few panes. Why? What makes us willing to break a window on someone else's building. Gladwell calls it the broken window phenomenon.

If no windows are broken, it appears to us that someone cares about the building. We certainly wouldn't be the first to vandalize it. But, once a few windows are broken, and nobody comes to fix them, it appears to us that nobody cares. We somehow feel that we have permission to join in the window breaking fun.

I saw the same phenomenon in practice this weekend. I was driving to a local fair and the traffic was awful. We waited on the same straight stretch of road with cars as far as we could see. After forty minutes, one driver near the crest of the hill gave up, broke out of the line, and turned around. He had no more information than anyone else, he was just fed up with the wait. Within two minutes, four other cars did exactly the same thing. The rest of us moved up five cars and continued to wait.

The other four cars gave up because of the broken window phenomenon. They probably were grumbling about the wait, but they didn't want to look foolish to the rest of the anonymous drivers by being the first to get out of line. Once another driver took the lead, (oh, now you see why I'm talking about this) they were free to do so as well.

When someone else takes the lead, it suddenly becomes permissible, possibly even cool, to follow. Look into your own teams. What windows are they waiting for a leader to break so they have permission to join in the window breaking fun?

As a postscript, when we got about twenty-five yards from the fair entrance another car pulled out of line. Nobody followed it. There's a leadership lesson in that too.

Leadership's Football

I've always loved the story of when Vince Lombardi started coaching the Packers. He wanted to make sure the team had a good foundation so he got them together and said, "Let's start at the beginning. This is a football."

So, let us start at the beginning. The foundation of leadership is to lead. Try to wipe away all the nuance you have in your head about the word "lead." At its foundation, "lead" means to go first. A leader needs to go first. He or she needs to show the team the direction by going there first. Be out in the front of the pack. Set an example of the behavior you want to get.

Instructors have a concept called the six-second rule. When you ask a question in a class, it takes people six seconds to process the question, decide if they can answer, and get up the courage to answer. If I really want an answer in a class I'm teaching, I have to wait the whole six seconds to get it. On the other hand, if I just want to look like I want an answer, I wait just four or five seconds.

Leaders, as a group, don't tend to wait the full six seconds. They tend to answer early. This demonstrates the first principle of leadership: leaders lead. If you want to build a more dynamic environment, break the six-second rule. To do this, you need to break the inhibition you have about going first. You need to get over the fear of leading, that is being out in front. Break all the six-second rules you come across.

Crazy Senior Managers

Sometimes it seems that the more senior a leader is the crazier they act. I've usually attributed that to people having very little insight into the kinds of issues senior leaders worry about. The bigger the gap, the less insight people have into what a senior leader does.

Less kind people claim the Peter Principle as the cause of crazy senior leader behavior. Perhaps that's as good an explanation.

I was talking to someone at work who suggested two other factors. These seemed like plausible explanations as well:

First, the more senior a leader gets the more likely people are to show deference to what they say. After a while, a senior leader may be so used to hearing people say that their crazy ideas are right that they start to believe that all of their crazy ideas are right. We all would do well to guard against this error of self-perception by encouraging (and listening to) real feedback throughout our careers.

Second, and I hope this isn't true very often, senior leaders are more likely to get into competitive situations with their peers. And those peers are more likely to sit back and watch each other fail with their crazy ideas, even hope they will fail. I hope none of us find ourselves in such an organization.

As we advance up the leadership ladder, we will have crazy ideas of our own. Certainly we should guard ourselves against thinking too highly of ourselves or putting our own success ahead of the team's success. With any luck, we'll keep learning and beat the Peter Principle. But if I'm right about people not understanding what their senior leaders do, we need to be extra diligent in communicating the whys behind our actions. People deserve to feel safe under our leadership.

Three Quick Ideas

I'm developing a one day leadership class. I thought I'd share some key thoughts from one of the earlier sections:

Leadership is granted by the team

Management status is given by the organization, but a leader derives his or her power by the consent of the team. The team chooses to follow a leader toward the goal that the team wants to reach along the path that the team is willing to take. Force only works for a while. The leader has to earn the team's follower-ship.

Leadership is about team success

Leadership is not about making the leader successful. Leaders need to get people to follow an idea: the idea of getting to a shared goal along a certain path. The leader's ego is not the driver. Leadership is not empire building. Leaders are measured by the success of the team, not by the number of followers they have.

Leadership continues beyond the current goal

Teams don’t end after reaching one goal. Leaders will need to continue to lead future projects. If you burn out your team on the current project, they won't follow you on the next. Success and failure follow you. They are part of the currency that gets teams to grant you leadership.

Choosing Excellence

Many of us have been reminded about PMA - Positive Mental Attitude. We have a vague sense that this is probably good advice, but nevertheless want to ridicule it. Now, Malcolm Gladwell's new book Blink provides some examples that back up the value of PMA.

In Blink, Gladwell describes the psychological concept of "priming." The idea is that people can be greatly influenced subconsciously by exposing them to concepts like success or failure prior to undertaking a task. One example he gives is an experiment where students were divided into two groups prior to taking a test. The first group was told to think for five minutes about what it would mean to be a professor; the second, about soccer hooligans. The professor-group did 13% better on the test than the soccer hooligan-group. This is a shockingly large difference.

Blink got me thinking about the possibility of self-priming. I've always thought that, to a large extent, a person could choose their emotional state. Further, it seems clear that a leader can help set the tone of their group. I never considered just how big an effect this might be.

Are you having a bad day: Prime yourself to have a good one by thinking about all the good things in your life. That is, choose to have a good day. Is your team in need of success: Prime them to be successful by talking about how great success will be. It certainly isn't all you need to succeed, but what a difference it might make.

Finally, here's the part that feels too wonderful not to try. Do you personally want to succeed: Prime yourself for success by taking time to visualize success, or think about successful role models. Use this idea next time you have a speech to give, or a big meeting with the board. Why think small; how about five minutes of positive thinking at the start of each day.

Suddenly, I feel an urge to mock such cheeriness.

Productivity Verses Hours

A while back I wrote about management's tendency to ask staff to work extra hours. Occasionally people need to work extra hours, but effective leaders should always be mindful of burning them out.

Another issue with people working extra hours is the question of how productive they actually are with their time. My experience suggests that productivity may be inversely proportional to the number of hours a person works. I'm not just talking about productivity as work done per hour; I'm talking about work per associate.

Some managers measure productivity, commitment and loyalty by how many hours their associates work. This drives associates to put in more time in the office, but doesn't drive them to do more work. It may actually make them resentful of the time they spend in the office. I've worked with plenty of 60-hour people. What tends to distinguish them is the amount of time they spend in the halls talking to people or shopping on-line. They do this openly and with impunity as if to say, "I'm allowed; I'm always in the office."

I find these 60-hour people barely get their 40-hour job done. Often they need to put in 80-hour weeks to catch up during crunch time. Along the way they can be a distraction to the people around them. But, they sure can impress their management.

On the other hand, I've had a couple of associates who needed to reduce their time to 32 hours a week. This reduction in hours always comes with in a reduction in pay, but I still take a risk of lost productivity. It's practically impossible to make up the lost 8 hours by hiring someone.

On the up side for me, I've always found that my 32-hour people work steady and hard while they are at the office. Sometimes they even work overtime (but I discourage it). I'm confident that my 32-hour people do more work than most 60-hour people I've known. They even do more work than many of my 40-hour people.

Now I wouldn't go as far as to suggest reducing everyone's hours, but you should be open to supporting associates who have a need. And, I would caution managers against setting a tone that values hours in the office. This might even mean that the effective leader sets the example and goes home early on occasion. Now that's novel.

Honesty is Respectful

I was impressed today with Johanna Rothman's blog entry With Feedback, It's Kind to be Firm. I've always loved the bad-hygiene discussion problem. I completely agree with Johanna's honest and direct approach.

Let me add that this approach is not only most effective, it is also most respectful. While people don't enjoy getting these difficult messages, they will understand the respect you've shown them by being honest and direct. It is a deposit in what Stephen Covey calls the emotional bank account. This respect comes not from what you say, but from what they know you didn't say. By being direct, there is a natural perception that you are not gossiping about them behind their back. It is one thing to hear that you have bad breath; it is quite another to think people have been giggling about it behind your back.

Trouble with Your Vision

I was talking to a manager today who was having problems developing a clear vision with her group. The best they could see was that there was little demand for the group beyond the next six months. My typical advice for vision forming is:

1. Learn all you can by talking to various stake-holders
2. Take your best guess at a workable direction
3. Test the vision on various stake-holders
4. Iterate back to the first step

Notice that there is never the step "Form a perfectly completed vision." Group vision should be an ever evolving process.

Anyway, this approach didn't seem adequate to the short-term problem at hand. They were focused on the metaphorical trees. It was time to step back and look at the forest. My recommendation: think bigger. Instead of trying to find a vision that took the group out to the next year, I recommended that she start by asking, "What do you want the group to look like three years from now?"

This long-term question takes the day-to-day concerns out of the problem. It helps the team focus on bigger questions of success and what the team values. Success creating a long-term vision changes the whole tenor of the short-term problem, turning it into an opportunity.

When Tim O'Reilly saw a downturn in the technical writing market, he set his pool of writers to internal projects with a long-term vision of creating books that could see the company (and a sleepy black lab) through the bumps in future markets. Now O'Reilly is a publishing powerhouse. This vision turned the problem of market dips into an opportunity.

My manager friend should be able to create a long-term vision and sell it to the decision making stake-holders. This lets her team treat downturns in short-term needs as an opportunity to advance the longer-term vision. It lets them see the forest and the trees.

Are You a Manager or a Leader?

Rear Admiral Grace Hopper made a distinction that I find helpful in teaching leadership:

"You don't manage people, you manage things. You lead people."

Deliverables are things that need to be managed. Risks are things that need to be managed. Schedules are things that need to be managed. Budgets are things that need to be managed. You can't lead a deliverable, a risk, a schedule or a budget. People are distinctly different.

You can't follow a set of defined steps to get people to follow you to the goal. This is one of the reasons that engineers have a hard time making a transition into management roles. They have always been taught that "if step A, then step B, result C will happen." This kind of logic doesn't work with people.

Another Grace Hopper quote helps us understand better:

"Humans are allergic to change."

Leading people is a process of moving them from the familiar and comfortable to the unknown. To successfully lead people, we need to make their desire to change overcome their fear of the unknown.

I'm also fond of the ideas of John Kotter from the Harvard Business School. He says that management is about making complex things more predictable. On the other hand, leadership is about making unpredictable things, such as change, more comfortable.

So, are you a manager or a leader? Do you help your people overcome their allergy to change? Do you help your people feel comfortable with the unpredictable? Or, do you treat them as things, and expect them to behave according to an "if A and B" formula? Be a leader.