The Quickest Way to Demotivate a Team

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Writing an Outstanding Meeting Announcement

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

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

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

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

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

The Effectiveness of Bully Bosses

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

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

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

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

Best Leadership Blogs

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks for the challenge, Troy.

Convergence of Disney and Leadership

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

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

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

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

Use the Right Process for the Right Job

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

Being a Good Follower

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

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

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

Defining a Corporate Culture

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Corporate Capacity for Risk Taking

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

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

The Importance of Corporate Culture

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

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

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

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

What's Wrong With Front Row Seats?

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

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

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

Jeff Taylor on Office Space

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

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

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

Jeff Taylor on Attrition

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

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

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

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

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

Another Great Thomas Paine Quote

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

Lead, Follow, or Get in the Way

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

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

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

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

That Guy With the Nametag

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

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

"Impedership" vs. Leadership

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

Volunteer for Leadership Training

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.