Looking Under the Cover
With a real-life illustration, Seth Godin reminds us of the pitfalls of literally judging a book by its cover. It's a cliche you've surely heard so many times that its inference now seems trivial. That's why we all need an occasional reminder.
During The Leading from the Heart Workshop, I break participants into small groups and show them pictures of four individuals. By looking at a snapshot of each person, groups must guess the individual's name, age, race, and family status. They must speculate on each person's occupation, educational background, and hobbies. Just from looking at a picture, they must deduce where each person lives and what make of car each drives. In other words, they must typecast the four pictured individuals by studying their appearance in the photographs.
Try as participants might to suppress preconceptions, their stereotypes are quickly exposed. Participants draw on biases implanted by--who else?--their parents, friends, teachers, and the media. But the ways participants answer two specific questions in this exercise have significant implications for values-based leadership. The first question is: what was the subject's most significant accomplishment? And the second: what is the subject's biggest aspiration?
Almost all participants answer those questions with career-related responses. For example, most typically assume a professional-appearing woman's greatest achievement was receiving her MBA, and that she aspires to becoming a CEO. They consider a young-looking man with earrings, spiked hair, and a chin puff to be proudest of his high school diploma, and lacking any aspirations at all.
But in a video of the individuals telling their true stories, all four subjects describe their real-life achievements and goals in very personal ways. They report their successes in finding a spouse to love, having children, or potty training a two-year-old. Their aspirations are to be good parents and an inspiration to their families, and to give back to their community. Missing is any mention of money, promotions, or a corner office.
The final question in this exercise asks participants to determine how probable it is that they would meet the individuals in the photographs. Most say it is unlikely they will ever meet any of the subjects. In truth, it is doubtful they would want to meet the people they describe in their answers, because those people are the product of their biases. But the people in the video are real. All are interesting, gifted individuals anyone would enjoy getting to know. How many wonderful people do we miss knowing because our biases get in our way?
As leaders, when we make assumptions about our employees' values--when we judge them by their covers--we mistake what employees value most, and miss out on the opportunity to lead effectively.
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During The Leading from the Heart Workshop, I break participants into small groups and show them pictures of four individuals. By looking at a snapshot of each person, groups must guess the individual's name, age, race, and family status. They must speculate on each person's occupation, educational background, and hobbies. Just from looking at a picture, they must deduce where each person lives and what make of car each drives. In other words, they must typecast the four pictured individuals by studying their appearance in the photographs.
Try as participants might to suppress preconceptions, their stereotypes are quickly exposed. Participants draw on biases implanted by--who else?--their parents, friends, teachers, and the media. But the ways participants answer two specific questions in this exercise have significant implications for values-based leadership. The first question is: what was the subject's most significant accomplishment? And the second: what is the subject's biggest aspiration?
Almost all participants answer those questions with career-related responses. For example, most typically assume a professional-appearing woman's greatest achievement was receiving her MBA, and that she aspires to becoming a CEO. They consider a young-looking man with earrings, spiked hair, and a chin puff to be proudest of his high school diploma, and lacking any aspirations at all.
But in a video of the individuals telling their true stories, all four subjects describe their real-life achievements and goals in very personal ways. They report their successes in finding a spouse to love, having children, or potty training a two-year-old. Their aspirations are to be good parents and an inspiration to their families, and to give back to their community. Missing is any mention of money, promotions, or a corner office.
The final question in this exercise asks participants to determine how probable it is that they would meet the individuals in the photographs. Most say it is unlikely they will ever meet any of the subjects. In truth, it is doubtful they would want to meet the people they describe in their answers, because those people are the product of their biases. But the people in the video are real. All are interesting, gifted individuals anyone would enjoy getting to know. How many wonderful people do we miss knowing because our biases get in our way?
As leaders, when we make assumptions about our employees' values--when we judge them by their covers--we mistake what employees value most, and miss out on the opportunity to lead effectively.
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Protect All Your Assets
"Our people are our greatest assets." That proclamation, or some variation of it, appears in countless organizational mission statements. Yet most companies that profess this value fail to protect their most precious assets.Imagine how a company would deal with a manager who abused its equipment. Picture a stressed-out manager, working under an approaching deadline, growing frustrated with a temperamental computer. The closer the deadline gets, the slower the computer seems. Finally, the aggravated manager snatches the monitor off the desk and throws it to the floor, smashing the screen and reducing it to rubble. Before you know it, security personnel arrive to escort the manager to the street. The message is clear: we will not tolerate the destruction of our assets.
What if that same manager, under similar pressure, takes it out on employees instead? In fact, very few managers destroy physical assets, but many do mistreat employees. And sometimes the abuse is extreme. These bullies may use deprecating names for employees, yell at workers for disagreeing, threaten people with job loss, single out individuals for humiliation, or even initiate physical contact. Less extreme behavior includes withholding important information, staring, or giving employees the silent treatment. But where are the security officers then?
People are our greatest assets, as well as our most expensive. But while companies rightly fire someone for damaging a $300 computer monitor, few level any punishment for the costly act of destroying employee self-esteem. Why? Because, if they could, companies would put off addressing either problem. Unfortunately, it's harder to ignore a shattered CRT than it is a broken spirit.
Maybe it's time to merge Human Resources with Security, or as some companies call it, Corporate Asset Protection. In other words, protect your employees the way you guard office fixtures. Otherwise, don't be surprised if some of your most valuable assets withhold their best efforts, or just get up and leave.
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Train Your Leaders, Part II
Gatekeepers: If you're in sales, you deal with them and undoubtedly share my frustration with the obstacles they often erect. Mind you, I admire the valiant administrative assistant, who heroically safeguards the boss's calendar and telephone extension--after all, that's part of the job description. Frustrating to me are the people who are so insecure in their jobs, they deflect opportunity when it knocks on their organization's door. I find that behavior especially prevalent in those individuals paid to train their company's employees.
I can't tell you how many times a CEO, president, or owner has expressed interest in my leadership workshop, only to be "overruled" by someone in organizational development. By overruled I mean the OD person cried foul: "You hired me to handle all the training. Why would you outsource leadership development?" To keep the peace, the boss relents. Of course, I don't like losing business; but even more irritating is the knowledge that many of these organizations never do implement effective internal leadership programs, so their leaders go untrained.
The turf-protecting conduct of some OD professionals is just one symptom of a universal corporate crisis. When Accenture asked business executives to identify the most critical factors for achieving high organizational performance, 65 percent said leadership development is the most important issue. However, only 8 percent of respondents said their organizations develop leaders very well. Why such a discrepancy? Because most organizations are not training their leaders at all!
To be sure, I talk with companies all the time that are exploring the idea of an internal leadership program. They're always at the same stage: OD is in the process of assessing managers' needs. And those assessments expose the earth-shattering knowledge that people want training--in everything. Inevitably, leadership development takes a back seat to technical skills training. In its 2005 State of the Industry Report, the American Society for Training & Development confirms that organizations spend most of their training resources on profession or industry specific content. So while top executives are begging for trained leaders, OD is busy teaching bookkeepers how to use Excel.
From my perspective as a leadership trainer, most organizations are better at teaching skills than developing people. So let your OD experts teach job-specific skills--it's what they do best. But if you want to develop leaders capable of taking your organization to the next competitive level, look seriously at outside resources.
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I can't tell you how many times a CEO, president, or owner has expressed interest in my leadership workshop, only to be "overruled" by someone in organizational development. By overruled I mean the OD person cried foul: "You hired me to handle all the training. Why would you outsource leadership development?" To keep the peace, the boss relents. Of course, I don't like losing business; but even more irritating is the knowledge that many of these organizations never do implement effective internal leadership programs, so their leaders go untrained.
The turf-protecting conduct of some OD professionals is just one symptom of a universal corporate crisis. When Accenture asked business executives to identify the most critical factors for achieving high organizational performance, 65 percent said leadership development is the most important issue. However, only 8 percent of respondents said their organizations develop leaders very well. Why such a discrepancy? Because most organizations are not training their leaders at all!
To be sure, I talk with companies all the time that are exploring the idea of an internal leadership program. They're always at the same stage: OD is in the process of assessing managers' needs. And those assessments expose the earth-shattering knowledge that people want training--in everything. Inevitably, leadership development takes a back seat to technical skills training. In its 2005 State of the Industry Report, the American Society for Training & Development confirms that organizations spend most of their training resources on profession or industry specific content. So while top executives are begging for trained leaders, OD is busy teaching bookkeepers how to use Excel.
From my perspective as a leadership trainer, most organizations are better at teaching skills than developing people. So let your OD experts teach job-specific skills--it's what they do best. But if you want to develop leaders capable of taking your organization to the next competitive level, look seriously at outside resources.
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Train Your Leaders, Part I
"Reducing workforce is the toughest business decision a company has to make," said Duane Ackerman, chief executive of BellSouth, announcing the company's plans to eliminate 1,500 management positions. "We have worked hard to avoid it, but many companies our size and particularly our competitors operate with lower overhead and fewer management layers." Indeed, BellSouth joins a long list of restructured telecommunications companies that have significantly reduced their workforces in recent years. Nonetheless, getting rid of managers, as a competitive strategy, goes against current business wisdom about leadership.
In a recent study, Accenture asked business executives to identify critical factors for meeting competitive challenges and achieving high performance. Respondents singled out leadership development as the most important issue. Nearly two-thirds of the surveyed executives rated leadership development very important to their organizations' future success. So why, at a time when enhancing leadership skills is critical to high organizational performance, would BellSouth elect to eliminate experienced managers?
Certainly, companies tend to pay managers more than non-supervisory employees, so BellSouth's action will have the most impact in reducing "overhead." But perhaps another finding in the Accenture survey offers a better reason. While recognizing the importance of developing leaders, only 8 percent of respondents said their organizations do it very well. In other words, 92 percent of organizations don't think their managers are doing a great job. So why not reduce their ranks?
This raises another question: What makes executives think their organizations' lack the ability to develop their leaders? Only one out of five executives in the Accenture survey said that at least 75 percent of their employees understand their company's strategic goals, and just two out of five said three-quarters or more of their workers see how their efforts contribute to meeting their organization's goals. It's obvious that most managers are failing to communicate their organization's purpose or generate buy-in from employees.
Respondents in the Accenture study have it right: Organizations must develop their leaders. What are you doing to train yours?
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In a recent study, Accenture asked business executives to identify critical factors for meeting competitive challenges and achieving high performance. Respondents singled out leadership development as the most important issue. Nearly two-thirds of the surveyed executives rated leadership development very important to their organizations' future success. So why, at a time when enhancing leadership skills is critical to high organizational performance, would BellSouth elect to eliminate experienced managers?
Certainly, companies tend to pay managers more than non-supervisory employees, so BellSouth's action will have the most impact in reducing "overhead." But perhaps another finding in the Accenture survey offers a better reason. While recognizing the importance of developing leaders, only 8 percent of respondents said their organizations do it very well. In other words, 92 percent of organizations don't think their managers are doing a great job. So why not reduce their ranks?
This raises another question: What makes executives think their organizations' lack the ability to develop their leaders? Only one out of five executives in the Accenture survey said that at least 75 percent of their employees understand their company's strategic goals, and just two out of five said three-quarters or more of their workers see how their efforts contribute to meeting their organization's goals. It's obvious that most managers are failing to communicate their organization's purpose or generate buy-in from employees.
Respondents in the Accenture study have it right: Organizations must develop their leaders. What are you doing to train yours?
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Avoid An International Incident: Lose The Jargon
A leading cause of poor organizational communication is the overuse of jargon, those industrial phrases, buzzwords, euphemisms, abbreviations, and acronyms that compose our professional vocabularies. When everyone participating in a conversation knows the lingo, there's seldom any problem. But, as a story in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal recounts, when participants find jargon confusing, using it can backfire.
When delivering a speech to the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations in September, Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick urged China to address its large trade surplus with the United States and to slowdown its military buildup. In his speech, Zoellick used the popular business buzzword stakeholder seven times. "We need to urge China to become a responsible stakeholder," he said.
While U.S. officials in attendance understood Zoellick's meaning, Chinese translators were befuddled. As it turns out, there is no Chinese equivalent for the word stakeholder, so Chinese attendees were left mystified. Within hours, Washington officials found themselves responding to Chinese delegates who were demanding to know the meaning of the word.
Every year, new words and catchphrases enter our business vocabulary and many leaders are quick to incorporate the latest terminology into their oral and written communications. Suddenly, we must incentivize our workers, resolve disconnects, and yes, consider our stakeholders. But if your organization lists open communication among its core values, overusing jargon will destroy your credibility as a leader.
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When delivering a speech to the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations in September, Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick urged China to address its large trade surplus with the United States and to slowdown its military buildup. In his speech, Zoellick used the popular business buzzword stakeholder seven times. "We need to urge China to become a responsible stakeholder," he said.
While U.S. officials in attendance understood Zoellick's meaning, Chinese translators were befuddled. As it turns out, there is no Chinese equivalent for the word stakeholder, so Chinese attendees were left mystified. Within hours, Washington officials found themselves responding to Chinese delegates who were demanding to know the meaning of the word.
Every year, new words and catchphrases enter our business vocabulary and many leaders are quick to incorporate the latest terminology into their oral and written communications. Suddenly, we must incentivize our workers, resolve disconnects, and yes, consider our stakeholders. But if your organization lists open communication among its core values, overusing jargon will destroy your credibility as a leader.
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Squidoo Is Here
You have got to check out Squidoo, the newest and smartest way of getting information on the Internet. The brainchild of marketing guru Seth Godin, Squidoo lets you discover everything relevant about a subject in one glance, a peek through a lens. A lens is a Web page, a single page, which highlights one person's view or expertise. For instance, visiting the new All Square lens will connect you to everything you want to know about my company, my work, and my views about leadership. The lens for my book, Vital Integrities, shows you reviews, lets you download an excerpt, and tells you how to buy it. You'll find lens about music, business, art, food, games, travel, sports, and everything else. Best of all, you can build your own lens to share your knowledge with the world. The Web just got a whole lot cooler!
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Google's Golden Rules
I've recently started advertising my book through Google's AdWords program. It's a very interesting company that has had a nearly instant impact on the lives of everyone who uses the internet. CEO Eric Schmidt co-wrote an article for Newsweek describing how Google finds and inspires its knowledge workers (a.k.a. geeks). Most organizations could take away something from the article.
My favorite Google approach is to "hire by committee." Everyone who interviews for a position at Google talks to a minimum of six people. They talk to managers as well as would-be co-workers. Schmidt says the committee method may take longer, but it makes the hiring process fairer and raises the hiring standards. "If you hire great people and involve them intensively in the hiring process, you'll get more great people."
Successful companies hire people whose values are in alignment with their organizations. But in their haste to attract workers, company recruiters might neglect to explain their organization's culture fully. The omission gives the impression that the organization has the same values as a candidate's current or previous employer, or is looking for someone to bring new values to the table. That's when misfits happen.
For their part, applicants must be comfortable with an organization's culture to contribute fully. Hiring by committee ensures that someone clearly spells out the company's values and expectations to applicants during the interview process. Only then can a candidate accurately assess if the company's values fit his or her personal needs and ambitions.
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What do you think? Post a Comment
My favorite Google approach is to "hire by committee." Everyone who interviews for a position at Google talks to a minimum of six people. They talk to managers as well as would-be co-workers. Schmidt says the committee method may take longer, but it makes the hiring process fairer and raises the hiring standards. "If you hire great people and involve them intensively in the hiring process, you'll get more great people."Successful companies hire people whose values are in alignment with their organizations. But in their haste to attract workers, company recruiters might neglect to explain their organization's culture fully. The omission gives the impression that the organization has the same values as a candidate's current or previous employer, or is looking for someone to bring new values to the table. That's when misfits happen.
For their part, applicants must be comfortable with an organization's culture to contribute fully. Hiring by committee ensures that someone clearly spells out the company's values and expectations to applicants during the interview process. Only then can a candidate accurately assess if the company's values fit his or her personal needs and ambitions.
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"Hiring by committee" has a LOT of negatives, including:
1. It means that the hiring manager isn't responsible for the quality of his hires. If the new hire doesn't work out, you can't fire the whole team.
2. Any person on the hiring committee who wants to stall the process for whatever reason can and will. S/He may want to hold the position for a friend. Or they find the candidate a threat, so they invent a flaw.
3. The belief that people who get along during the interview will always get along is erroneous. It's immature.
4. Many people don't get ANY training in hiring, beginning with the very managers themselves. Letting people who don't know how to evaluate others is a recipe for disaster. It also makes you overlook people who are FAR BETTER AT THE JOB THAN THEY'LL EVER BE AT INTERVIEWING (as interviewer or interviewee!)
5. Hiring by committee is yet another form of obsession about teamwork. Yet we still hold individual performance appraisals.
1. It means that the hiring manager isn't responsible for the quality of his hires. If the new hire doesn't work out, you can't fire the whole team.
2. Any person on the hiring committee who wants to stall the process for whatever reason can and will. S/He may want to hold the position for a friend. Or they find the candidate a threat, so they invent a flaw.
3. The belief that people who get along during the interview will always get along is erroneous. It's immature.
4. Many people don't get ANY training in hiring, beginning with the very managers themselves. Letting people who don't know how to evaluate others is a recipe for disaster. It also makes you overlook people who are FAR BETTER AT THE JOB THAN THEY'LL EVER BE AT INTERVIEWING (as interviewer or interviewee!)
5. Hiring by committee is yet another form of obsession about teamwork. Yet we still hold individual performance appraisals.
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Don't Shoot The Messenger
When I ask business leaders to describe their biggest challenges, one frequently mentioned concern is "improving upward communication." Specifically, leaders lament that workers fail to report bad news to them until it's too late. Research bears out that complaint and reflects a rampant fear among employees of telling superiors bad news.
According to a survey by Sirota Survey Intelligence, 74 percent of managers say their organizations persuade workers to report bad news upward. However, more than one-third of employees believe that senior management actually discourages them from passing information up the chain of command, even--or especially--bad news. "This means a significant number of both managers and non-managers tend to feel their observations of problems such as faulty processes, missed financial numbers, and even a lack of compliance with standards and moral practices, may not reach the executive suites of their organizations," said Jeffrey Saltzman, Sirota's CEO.
"In some companies, a fear of retribution may be at work," adds Saltzman. Indeed. WorldCom board members who investigated the company's financial scandal found that employees who knew about wrongdoing were afraid to speak openly, because they feared losing their jobs or facing senior management's ridicule. That, despite the company's printed promise of an open culture in which "everyone should feel comfortable to speak his or her mind."
Improving communication requires creating an environment that promotes risk taking and encourages straight talk. It also necessitates living by the values you profess. Otherwise, when you ask for bad news and then avoid it, or reject those brave messengers who bring it to you, you encourage employees to remain silent.
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According to a survey by Sirota Survey Intelligence, 74 percent of managers say their organizations persuade workers to report bad news upward. However, more than one-third of employees believe that senior management actually discourages them from passing information up the chain of command, even--or especially--bad news. "This means a significant number of both managers and non-managers tend to feel their observations of problems such as faulty processes, missed financial numbers, and even a lack of compliance with standards and moral practices, may not reach the executive suites of their organizations," said Jeffrey Saltzman, Sirota's CEO.
"In some companies, a fear of retribution may be at work," adds Saltzman. Indeed. WorldCom board members who investigated the company's financial scandal found that employees who knew about wrongdoing were afraid to speak openly, because they feared losing their jobs or facing senior management's ridicule. That, despite the company's printed promise of an open culture in which "everyone should feel comfortable to speak his or her mind."
Improving communication requires creating an environment that promotes risk taking and encourages straight talk. It also necessitates living by the values you profess. Otherwise, when you ask for bad news and then avoid it, or reject those brave messengers who bring it to you, you encourage employees to remain silent.
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Author George Brymer's comments about the leaders who get it, and those who never will.
