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Great
Teams Never Give Up
Great
teams never give up. In
business, as in sports or any other human endeavor, the very best teams
simply refuse to be defeated.
I
was reminded of this fact several years ago when I had the honor to
coach my daughter Lucia and her 3rd and 4th grade peers in basketball.
Basketball, like business, is a fast-paced, rough and tumble game
that involves lots of strategy and, in order to win, requires high skill
and determination from its participants.
At least at the highest levels of the sport, this is true.
But
for Luci and her pals practices consisted mostly of social time,
laughing, doing each other's hair, taking
bathroom breaks together
en masse, and some basketball. I
tried to teach basic fundamentals, with a focus on teamwork.
They took a vote and decided to call themselves the "Hot
Peppers." I was not crazy
about this team name, but went along.
Did I mention the laughter?
This
was a middling team, at best. During
the regular season we might have won a couple more games than we lost.
No one predicted
greatness for this team.
But
in the annual year-end tournament that determines the overall league
champion, something came over the Peppers.
They pulled together as a unit and demonstrated, almost
heroically, that great teams never give up.
There
was a team that had dominated the schedule all year long.
This team had several girls who were big, strong and skilled.
This team had gone undefeated in the regular season.
Somehow the Peppers got through the preliminary rounds to face
this team in the championship game.
I
knew we were up against it, but wasn't sure if the girls knew.
I did not want to invoke the Holy Bible and cite David and
Goliath but, trust me, my thoughts went there.
Instead, I recalled the recent Super Bowl, where a lowly underdog
had defeated the mighty favorite.
"Did
you girls see the Super Bowl?"
"Yes." "Who
won?" "The team
that wasn't supposed to." "Right."
The
Peppers went out and fought hard. They
were behind most of the game. But
suddenly, the other team started to play not to lose.
They sat back on their heels.
They made mistakes. They
even panicked a bit near the end. The
Peppers came back.
Pretty
soon, with no time left, one of our little gals stepped up to the free
throw line, score tied 15-15, with a chance to win the game.
First shot missed. Second
shot hit the back rim, bounced straight up, and came down through the
hoop. Pandemonium erupted.
The Peppers had triumphed. Dairy
Queen beckoned.
What
are the ingredients that go into creating a team with this kind of
capability? First,
leadership. And not just
leadership of the obvious kind, as important as that is, from the head
coach or the team leader in business.
Leadership can come from any person, at any time.
Our final couple of baskets came from one of our best athletes,
who had played a quiet game up to that point.
Isn't it amazing how your top performers always seem to come
through, demonstrating leadership in the clutch?
The
second ingredient is skill. Several
girls on the Peppers, silliness aside, could put the rock in the
hole when they felt like it. This is where hard work, repetition, and
practice together as a unit
come in. These are essential
fundamentals in business, just as they are in sports.
Finally,
there is the most important ingredient.
This one is the most difficult to describe.
Call it team chemistry, call it trust and confidence, call it
swagger, call it what you will. A
truly great team believes in itself in a way that is palpable.
You can see it in the way such a team carries itself, interacts
together and ultimately performs.
We
are in difficult times right now, but teams that possess that magical
something will survive the trial. They
will emerge stronger than they were before.
What
will your team do in this economy? Will
you play not to lose? Will
you let events dictate what happens to you?
Will you sit back? Will
panic set in? Or will you
look each other confidently in the
eye, take control, count on your leaders, work hard together, trust each
other, and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat?
This decision cannot be postponed.
In 1941 during the throes of World War Two, British Prime
Minister Winston Churchill addressed the students at Harrow School, his
alma mater, outside London. He
said, "Never give in. Never
give in. Never, never,
never, never- in nothing great or small, large or petty- never give
in…" That was good
advice for young people during dark days, but isn't it interesting how
young people can sometimes teach us too?
Occasionally,
when I face a moment of truth in today's tumultuous world I think back,
smile, and whisper to myself, "Remember the Peppers.
Never give up."
Jeff Appelquist,
Blue Knight Battlefield Seminars, www.blueknightseminars.com. He can be reached at
jeff.appelquist@blueknightseminars.com.
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Share
Knowledge and Information In All Directions
I
spoke with an executive recently who told me about the corporate culture
in his company. Secrecy,
withholding critical information, and inconsistent communication were
common practice. My friend was
frustrated to no end. Organizations
that fail to share important knowledge and information up, down and across
struggle in the long run.
No organization achieves perfection with regard to information
sharing, because human judgment is involved.
Obviously, some data is not appropriate for wide distribution.
Sometimes, confidentiality is a necessity.
To communicate well requires time, focus and effort, which are
often in short supply.
Nevertheless
some companies, such as Pixar Animation Studios, excel as learning
organizations that openly and honestly share knowledge.
Pixar is one of the most successful film production companies of
all time. The "fraternity
of geeks" who work at Pixar succeeded in transforming hand-drawn cel
animation to computer-generated 3-D graphics.
The string of movies thus created, starting with Toy Story in 1995, have been hugely popular and critically
acclaimed.
Through
it all, a corporate culture that highly values information-sharing at
every level within the organization has enabled Pixar to continue to
produce one hit after another.
The
September 2008 issue of Harvard
Business Review cited several reasons for Pixar's sustained creative
success. Among other things,
the company espouses a philosophy that "we are smarter than me."
The company believes that everyone needs to be involved in the
creative process and, to that end, communication throughout all levels is
imperative.
Next,
Pixar works to hire good people, to support them, and to foster an
environment where trust and respect are a given.
More specifically, those good people are encouraged to take risks,
knowing that they will inevitably make mistakes.
Talented people will learn from failures and use their hard-earned
discoveries to move forward more effectively on subsequent projects.
Finally,
Pixar's culture is flat, collegial and extremely peer-oriented.
Hierarchies are out, everyone is treated with respect, and both
honest feedback and careful listening are encouraged and rewarded.
One
very specific and practical example of the way information-sharing plays
itself out is Pixar University. Every
employee is encouraged to spend as many as four hours a week furthering
his/her education. Pixar
University offers more than a hundred courses, from filmmaking and writing
to sculpture, painting and drawing.
Randy
Nelson, dean of Pixar University, says, "We offer the equivalent of
an undergraduate education in fine arts and the art of filmmaking."
And this is not just fun time or a way to avoid work, but rather a
critical job expectation. Nelson
says, "This is part of everyone's work.
We're all filmmakers here. We
all have access to the same curriculum.
In class, people from every level sit right next to our directors
and the president of the company."
Pixar
University epitomizes the concept of broad knowledge-sharing.
Nelson asserts, "The skills we develop are skills we need
everywhere in the organization. Why
teach drawing to accountants? Because
drawing class doesn't just teach people to draw.
It teaches them to be more observant.
There's no company on earth that wouldn't benefit from having
people become more observant."
At
Pixar University, employees are also encouraged to try new things, take
risks, and learn from mistakes. The
University crest says in Latin: "Alienus Non Diutius," which
translates to "alone no longer."
Says Nelson, "It's the heart of our model, giving people
opportunities to fail together and to recover from mistakes
together."
In
addition to excellent financial results, Pixar has earned countless
industry accolades for its work, including 22 Academy Awards, four Golden
Globes, and three Grammys. Every
Pixar film produced since 2001 was nominated for a Best Animated Feature
Oscar and four of those movies, Finding
Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and WALL-E,
came home with the little golden statuette.
Pixar
Animation Studios provides an incredibly compelling example of an
organization that sees the critical value in gathering information from a
diverse variety of sources and then sharing it openly up, down and across
the company. Those individuals
who hold information closely would not survive in such a culture.
Pixar's reputation as a place where creative genius thrives is
indeed well-earned.
Companies
like Pixar that set themselves up as learning organizations and follow
through on that commitment tend to be successful.
Other organizations-- where
secrecy, lack of clarity, and generally poor communication all around are
the rule-- suffer in the end.
Where
does your organization or team sit on the communication spectrum?
Do you openly share important knowledge and information in all
directions? Does your culture
foster honest feedback and careful listening?
What do you personally contribute from a communication standpoint?
A human or animal organism needs circulation of blood and nutrients
to all parts of the body in order to have full physical health.
Similarly, freely flowing knowledge and information are the
"lifeblood" of any organization that hopes to achieve robust
business outcomes.
Jeff Appelquist,
Blue Knight Battlefield Seminars, www.blueknightseminars.com. He can be reached at
jeff.appelquist@blueknightseminars.com.
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Actively
Manage Your Career
In a recent interview in the New York Times, Ford
Motor Company President and CEO Alan Mulally was asked to provide his
best career advice. He responded, "Don't manage your career. Think
about just exceeding expectations in every job you do, continually ask
for feedback on how you can do a better job, and the world will beat
down your door to ask you to do more…"
I respectfully disagree. Exceeding expectations and seeking feedback are
important but, in my experience, success and advancement come most
often to those individuals who actively manage their careers.
I spent more than a decade in human resources at Target and Best Buy. I
can't count the number of times that people came to me frustrated over
their perceived lack of career progress. The common theme sounded like
this: "I work really hard. Feedback is positive. Performance
reviews are good. Yet no one seems to notice. The best opportunities go
to others."
What I frequently found was that many of these individuals simply
assumed that if they "exceeded expectations," someone would
notice and ensure that their career moved forward. Also, some of these
folks could not answer the most fundamental question, What do I want to
do with my career?
There may be lots of people- your supervisor, colleagues, human resource
professionals, mentors- who think highly of you and will work to help
you advance in your career. But, trust me, no one is going to do it for
you. You must take personal responsibility for actively managing your
own career.
And if you are going to manage your career, you need to know to what
end. Ask yourself some tough questions, and be honest about the answers:
Am I happy in my current job? Is it challenging and rewarding? Do I have
room to grow, or have I hit a plateau? Where would I like to be one
year, two years, or five years from now? Backing up from those goals,
what affirmative steps must I take now to get there? In short, you need
to be able to clearly answer the question, What do I want to do with my
career?
Don't measure your progress or self-worth solely by money, title, power
or prestige. It is great to be ambitious. We need people in corporate
America like Alan Mulally, who want to rise to the top of their
organizations. But remember, just one person gets to be CEO. For the
rest of us, at some point, we top out. If you are only seeking more
money or the next title, you will be forever unhappy, because someone
else will always be richer or outrank you.
Consider other measures of success. Is your work interesting? Are your
skills put to the test? Are you learning new things? Do you receive
recognition for your efforts? Do you believe in the mission of your
company? Are you adding not just to the bottom line for your
organization, but creating value for society as a whole? Does your work
match with your personal values? Consider the definition of career
success as broadly as you can, with a focus on those internal measures
of satisfaction that are personally important to you.
I do agree with Alan Mulally on the criticality of feedback. In order to
successfully manage your career, you need to be in a continuous cycle of
seeking, receiving, absorbing, and adjusting to constant feedback. Seek
feedback from as many different sources as possible, not just from your
boss. Find those one or two really valuable people who will unfailingly
give you honest feedback on how you are doing. Listen carefully to what
they say. Insist on specifics.
If you are told you lack good communication skills, ask for details. Do
you need to work on written skills? Spoken skills? Ask for examples of
when you have fallen short and suggestions on how to improve.
Make changes based on the feedback you receive. Demonstrate flexibility
and a willingness to learn and grow. Put together a personal development
plan with clear milestones and share it with your boss and other trusted
advisors. Work that plan with seriousness of purpose. Adjust the plan
when appropriate as your career moves forward.
Finally, don't think of leadership or advancement in your career as
simply a matter of managing a checklist, like a boy or girl scout
completing activities to earn a merit badge. Sometimes people would say
to me, "I've done the three things you told me to do… now I'm
ready to be promoted, right?" The very fact that they asked that
question told me they weren't ready. Think of leadership and your career
not in terms of finishing a to-do list, but as an ongoing journey. A
sometimes complex and difficult journey.
Managing one's career is challenging, even in the best of times. These
days, when so many of us are in crisis-mode, reacting to rather than
shaping the reality around us, career management frequently goes to the
back burner. Don't let it.
Remember these suggestions:
• Take responsibility for actively managing your own career.
• Develop a clear picture of what you want to do with your career.
• Measure success broadly, with a focus on intrinsic factors that are
important to you.
• Seek specific, actionable feedback and respond appropriately.
• Put together a personal development plan and work it with energy.
• Consider leadership and career progress as a journey.
With these tips in mind, go forth and have a great career. Enjoy the
adventure.
Jeff Appelquist,
Blue Knight Battlefield Seminars, www.blueknightseminars.com. He can be reached at
jeff.appelquist@blueknightseminars.com.
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more ideas about managing your career click
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Lead
Courageously in a Challenging New World
There
are some positive indicators that we are currently rebounding from the
worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The stock market is
thriving. Manufacturing activity is increasing. Retail sales are up.
With that said, unemployment now exceeds ten percent. Many experts
predict the recovery will be slow and arduous at best. We all hope for a
better future. But I think we also know- regardless of how the future
takes shape- things will never be the same again. To quote the great
philosopher Dorothy Gale from The Wizard of Oz, "We are not in
Kansas anymore." For business leaders, the critical new skill set
will be the ability to lead courageously in a challenging new world.
Survival in a deeply recessionary economy and building for a healthy
future requires leaders to take on two important tasks. The first
involves stabilizing the current situation. The second involves adapting
to a new and uncertain future and seizing opportunity wherever it
presents itself.
The old adage "when you are up to your [posterior] in alligators,
it's difficult to remember the original objective was to drain the
pond," has come to my mind often during these trying times. The
down economy has very understandably caused businesses to focus
attention on the immediate task of survival. Research shows that both
people and organizations are far more highly motivated to take action by
the possibility of loss than by the prospect of gain.
Indeed, it makes sense during tough times to take every reasonable step
to protect the existing business. Is your financial house in order? Are
there opportunities to trim costs or otherwise gain efficiencies? Are
you staffed and organized correctly? Does your product mix make sense?
Is your product or service priced right? Are there opportunities to
divest? These are all important questions that should already have been
part of a rigorous review of your current business model.
The risk in undergoing this kind of crisis-mode analysis involves the
inclination to hunker down and wait out the storm once near-term steps
are in place. All of us as leaders have a tendency to rely on skills and
abilities that have worked for us in the past. We look for recognizable
patterns so we can respond to them just as we have successfully done
before. We want to be able to reassure our teams that things will return
to normal soon. But there is great danger in this mindset because the
future that we face will be unlike anything any of us have ever
previously experienced.
The businesses that will go beyond mere survival and thrive into the
future are those that aggressively seize opportunity. They see lean
times not as a disaster to endure, but as a challenge to overcome.
During the last recession, approximately one in three industry leaders
lost their perch at the top of their fields as savvy competitors
maneuvered skillfully during the downturn. Those who follow bicycle
racing know that in an event such as the Tour de France, the ultimate
winner frequently overtakes the leaders during the mountain phase- the
toughest part of the contest.
Do you have an opportunity to rethink your business model? In the
recession of the early 1990's, IBM experienced its first revenue decline
in over fifty years. Losses mounted year over year. CEO Louis Gerstner
took time during the downturn to seriously reconsider a business model
based on sales of mainframe computers. IBM shifted its focus from
hardware into computer services and solutions, and it flourished.
Are you continuing to think about the future by investing in research
and development? In 2001, the beginning of a two-year recessionary
period, Apple Computer experienced a revenue decline of 33 percent. Yet
Apple bravely chose to increase R&D expenditures by 13 percent, and
continued to maintain that level of investment throughout the downward
cycle. Such innovative technologies as the iTunes music store and
software, the iPod Mini, and the iPod Photo were developed during this
period. Rapid and healthy growth resulted for Apple.
Are you continuing to invest in your people? Remember, even during bad
times, your top performers have other options. Do you have the right
players in place? Are you encouraging them in their development? Do they
see a future with your organization? I believe that one of the most
short-sighted moves that many companies make when the going gets tough
is to immediately cut training and development dollars.
Finally, these pragmatic steps of rethinking your business model,
investing in R&D, and taking care of your people should not just be
one-time responses to a crisis, but rather an ongoing part of how you do
business. In a Harvard Business Review article from 2003, business
authors Gary Hamel and Liisa Valikangas state that the strongest
businesses are those that continuously "reinvent business models
and strategies as circumstances change," rather than just making
singular adjustments in reaction to an emergency. The authors argue that
those companies that work incrementally to try numerous different ideas
on a micro scale- while involving many people in the discovery process-
succeed over time. Businesses "should steer clear of grand,
imperial strategies and devote themselves instead to launching a swarm
of low-risk experiments."
No matter how we cut it, the future is daunting and unknowable. But it
is also richly abundant with opportunity. Those leaders who work hard to
strengthen their organizations in the short run and then courageously
look to the future will end up on top of the mountain when the economy
improves. A continuous cycle of scrutinizing the business model,
investing in lots of new ideas, and developing people will bring success
in a challenging new world.
Jeff Appelquist,
Blue Knight Battlefield Seminars, www.blueknightseminars.com. He can be reached at
jeff.appelquist@blueknightseminars.com.
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Collaborate
Effectively In Decision Making
The
Battle of Gettysburg was the largest battle ever fought in the western
hemisphere and a critical turning point in the American Civil War. The
second day of the battle, July 2, 1863, was one of the bloodiest in
American history, with approximately 20,000 combined casualties (killed,
wounded, missing, or captured). As evening slowly gave way to night at
the end of that terrible day, General George Gordon Meade, commander of
the Union Army of the Potomac, called his entire leadership team
together at his headquarters for a council of war. Meade knew in his own
mind the outcome he desired on the battle's third day, but he also
wanted to hear from his commanders and to achieve consensus regarding
the Union strategy for the endgame. Meade instinctively understood the
critical need, at this dramatic moment in time, to collaborate
effectively in decision making.
Meade and his counterpart, the extremely capable Robert E. Lee,
commanding general of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, were
locked in mortal combat. Several weeks earlier Lee had begun an invasion
of Northern territory and the two mighty armies had met accidentally,
but with unspeakable fury, at the little crossroads borough of
Gettysburg in south central Pennsylvania. By the end of the second day,
after much desperate fighting, the armies lay in stalemate, watching
each other warily across contested ground like two wounded but still
very dangerous animals.
General Meade had established his headquarters in a tiny white farmhouse
owned by the widow Lydia Leister. Earlier on July 2 he had wired his
superiors in Washington D.C. to let them know it was his intention to
"remain in my present position tomorrow…" Nevertheless, that
night he gathered his top generals (eleven in all) to listen to their
assessment of the situation. They assembled in a room no larger than
twelve by twelve feet, illuminated by a single candle, and which was
soon filled with a thick cloud of cigar smoke.
The discussion began informally, and turned to the issues of the dire
condition of the army and the lack of supplies. Meade was quiet,
offering only an occasional comment, and intent on hearing what his team
had to say before offering his own judgment. Finally, with Meade's
concurrence, his chief of staff proposed that the group vote on three
critical questions: 1. Should the army remain in its present position?
2. If the army remains, should it attack or await the enemy's attack? 3.
If the decision is to await attack, how long should it wait? After much
give and take, the generals voted unanimously to stay in their present
position, await attack, and to wait for not much longer than a day.
One of the participants, General John Gibbon, wrote afterward, "I
recollect there was great good feeling amongst the Corp Commanders at
their agreeing so unanimously, and Gen. Meade announced, in a decided
manner, 'Such then is the decision.'" The generals left the meeting
clear in the understanding of their mission and united in their common
purpose to defeat the enemy the next day, which they succeeded in doing.
This stroke of genius-- attaining clarity and consensus during a
critical phase of the fight-- on the part of George Meade may have (more
than anything else he did over the three days) won the Battle of
Gettysburg for the North.
What can modern-day business leaders learn from the historical example
of Meade's collaborative decision making? First, Meade recognized the
criticality of pulling his team together for a face-to-face
consultation. Sometimes, there is simply no substitute for a meeting in
person, and skilled leaders understand precisely when there is a need to
bring everyone into the same room. Ironically, Meade's adversary General
Lee did not gather his commanding generals together for a war council at
any point during the battle, and a serious lack of coordination
resulted.
Next, Meade initiated a process that was perceived by all of the
participants as fair. While it is true that Meade had already indicated
to higher command his preference for remaining in place, he did not
disclose his point of view to those reporting to him. Instead, he
remained quiet and listened respectfully with genuine interest to what
the others had to say. Each person had a chance to weigh in to the
discussion and to vote on a particular outcome. When the members of a
team feel that they have been given ample opportunity to express their
points of view and to influence their leader, even if they disagree with
the final decision, they are much more inclined to buy into the ultimate
direction.
Finally, Meade's council of war provided absolute clarity to every
individual involved as to what was expected of him for the next day. The
fact that the decisions made were unanimous helped in achieving this
effect but, even if there had been disagreement, the rationale for the
chosen decision was clear and unambiguous.
On the morning of July 3, after the famous meeting but before the
decisive combat that would bring victory to his forces, Meade penned a
hurried letter to his wife: "Dearest love, All well and going on
well with the Army. We had a great fight yesterday, the enemy attacking
and we completely repulsing them-- both armies shattered…. Army in
fine spirits and every one determined to do or die." This
determination to defeat the Confederate enemy at all costs was in large
part achieved as a result of George Meade's intuitive comprehension of
the importance of effective collaboration when making a critical
decision.
eff Appelquist,
Blue Knight Battlefield Seminars, www.blueknightseminars.com. He can be reached at
jeff.appelquist@blueknightseminars.com.
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Simplify
and Prioritize
I
know an executive who has a forty-page list of personal action items.
Not forty items, total, on his to-do list. Forty pages, single-spaced,
in a bound notebook. I have had professional dealings with this leader
and I can tell you from personal experience that while he is a terribly
busy man with a lot to do, he gets absolutely nothing done. He does not
follow up on the most basic tasks, like returning phone calls or
responding to e-mails. He cannot be counted on to deliver an outcome on
anything. He tries to do everything, yet he accomplishes nothing. He is
in a position of real power and his organization suffers greatly for his
complete lack of focus. He has failed to adhere to that most fundamental
yet important leadership principle: simplify and prioritize.
Simplifying and prioritizing starts with each of us as individual
leaders. If we don't know what we are trying to accomplish in our own
jobs, then there is no chance that the teams we lead will be any better
focused.
In a recent interview the CEO of Continental Airlines, Lawrence Kellner,
was asked how he manages his time. He replied, "I used to have a
long, long to-do list. At the end of the day, I'd see which ones got
done. Then five more notes might be on my desk, and I'd throw them on
the list. I realized I was often doing what came to me as opposed to
what was really important. So I started saying, 'O.K., what are the
three most important things I need to do today?' And if No. 1 is a
12-hour task, then I'll spend the day working on it. I need to decide
what's the most value-added thing I can do." In short, Kellner
succeeded in taking charge of his professional life by proactively
prioritizing his efforts, rather than simply reacting to whatever was in
front of him. How well do you practice this skill as a leader?
Once we have our own priorities in order, the next task involves making
sure our organizations and teams know what their priorities need to be.
Again, Kellner is a model of good leadership in this regard. He says,
"When I became CEO, I started ending each of my three most
important meetings each month by saying, 'O.K., here are the three most
important things we're doing. Here are the three priorities." His
followers at Continental were no doubt grateful to him for explaining in
clear and concrete terms exactly what he expected of them.
Great leaders instinctively understand that their teams are looking to
them to identify just a small handful of key objectives, three or four
at the most, and to communicate those objectives effectively. William
Green is the chairman and chief executive of Accenture, the global
consulting, technology services and outsourcing company. Green relates a
story about how he was able to simplify things for a group of brand new
employees: "I once sat through a three-day training session for new
managers. I counted 68 things we told them they needed to do to be
successful. And I got up to close the session, and I said there are
three things that matter. The first is competence… The second one is
confidence… The third thing is caring…" From 68 things to
three. Again, this group of Accenture managers surely appreciated their
chief's willingness to help them prioritize in their jobs, and in their
leadership journey.
Cristobal Conde is the president and CEO of SunGuard, a software and IT
services company, and he was notorious early in his career for
micromanaging and making every decision himself. He soon realized the
futility of this approach. He recalls, "That was in the early 90s,
and that experience convinced me that the right way to do it is the
opposite, which is to hold people accountable, to really restrict the
number of things you say to them, and to decide the one or two things
that are most important. You have to do that consistently over a year
before you start having an impact." Indeed, it takes time to hammer
a message home, but if it is simple and consistent, people will
eventually respond and deliver.
Alan Mulally has been the president and chief executive of Ford Motor
since 2006, and has led that company to extraordinary levels of
achievement and value creation in an incredibly challenging time for the
auto industry. Mulally is another leader who stays focused on a few key
objectives. He says, "I've moved to a place where I'm really
focused on four things. I pay attention to everything, but there are
some things that are very unique to what I need to do as a leader. One
of them is this process of connecting what we're doing to the outside
world… A second focus for me is: What business are we in? What are we
going to focus on? The third one is balancing the near term with the
longer term… And then I really focus on values and standards… I'm
the one who needs to focus on those four things, because if I do that,
the entire team will have an understanding of them."
Albert Einstein once said, "Any intelligent fool can make things
bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius- and
a lot of courage- to move in the opposite direction." The best
leaders have an uncanny ability to simplify what is complex. They know
what is truly important and what is not. They can identify the most
critical challenges before them and prioritize those challenges so as to
maximize their precious time. And they communicate these simple
priorities to their team, again and again, in a way that helps people
know how to direct their own efforts and to achieve results. Great
leaders are incredibly adept at simplifying and prioritizing.
Communicate,
Communicate, Communicate
Drew
Gilpin Faust is a noted American historian who specializes in the
history of the South and, in particular, the changing roles of women
during the period before and during the Civil War. She taught for many
years at the University of Pennsylvania and is the award-winning author
of several books. In 2001 she became the head of the Radcliffe Institute
for Advanced Study and, in 2007, she was named the first female
president of Harvard University.
In a recent interview in the New York Times, Gilpin Faust
describes the leadership lessons she learned in transitioning from her
role as a scholar to that of an administrator with responsibility for a
team of people and a large, complex organization. She says, "They
have to do with understanding the context in which you are leading.
Universities have enormously distributed authority and many different
sorts of constituencies, all of whom have a stake in that institution…
I spend a huge amount of time reaching out to people, either literally
or digitally, and with alumni networks all over the world, so that I can
connect. Leadership by walking around- that's a digital space now, it's
virtual space."
Good communication is the key to effective performance, innovation, and
change in any organization. And the message must be hammered home
repeatedly. Gilpin Faust says, "When I came to the Radcliffe
Institute for Advanced Study, many people wanted to help. An alum who
was an expert in turnarounds said, 'One lesson about change in any
organization- communicate, communicate, communicate.'"
Susan Docherty, who heads up the United States sales, service, and
marketing team at General Motors, echoes Gilpin Faust's point of view
concerning uniformity and persistence in communication. Docherty says in
a recent interview, "Whether you have a really small team or a
really big team, communication needs to be at the forefront. It needs to
be simple. It needs to be consistent. And even when you're tired of what
the message is, you need to do it again and again and again, because
everybody comes to the table with a different perspective and a
different experience. The same words mean different things to different
people."
The global consulting firm Watson Wyatt reports in a survey just
released for 2009-10 that companies that communicate effectively
provided a 47% higher return to their shareholders over the five-year
period from 2004 to 2009. The report states, "In challenging times,
companies are forced to make tough decisions and deliver difficult
messages. But our study found that high-performing companies don't shy
away from tough messages. They make communication a priority and use
every tool available to reach out to a workforce in desperate need of
information and direction."
Specifically, the Watson Wyatt study reveals that the companies that
communicate best are very courageous in their employee communication.
Watson Wyatt refers to this skill as "telling it like it is."
Instead of shying away from difficult messages in an attempt to protect
their people, these companies train and encourage their managers to
focus on constant, effective communication, especially during times of
uncertainty. "Highly effective communicators," says Watson
Wyatt, "say more, not less." The study shows that when people
are told what they need to know, even if the news is bad, their
performance actually improves.
The best companies also promote innovation through their communication
plans by encouraging employees to think creatively about work processes,
job tasks, and productivity measures. Even the communication plans
themselves reflect an innovative spirit. They use multiple channels such
as intranet updates, wiki, blogs, and e-mail, as well as face-to-face
dialogue where possible. The report asserts, "… taking the
initiative to try new tools to reach a culturally diverse and
geographically dispersed audience is the hallmark of effective
communication." This is the essence of "leadership by walking
around in a virtual space" that Drew Gilpin Faust describes.
The highest performing companies are disciplined in their approach to
communication. They set direction and measure results to ensure that
employees not only know what they are supposed to be doing, but why.
They make sure that employees are given good direction, but also helpful
context. The result is a more engaged team. Outcomes, both good and bad,
are measured closely and shared with the team.
Finally, the Watson Wyatt report emphasizes that a critical component of
any solid communication plan involves listening to employees. Good
communication ensures alignment, but if companies are not confirming
understanding and listening to feedback, then alignment can be
compromised.
Clearly, those organizations- whether they are a major university or a
small business- that develop simple, consistent messages and repeat them
constantly through multiple channels perform best over time. Gilpin
Faust sums up the point well when she talks about her most critical
lesson in communication: "Someone would say, 'Well, you've never
talked about X,' and I'd say, 'I've talked about it here, here, and
here. I talk about that all the time. Then I realize that all the time
isn't enough. You have to do 'all the time and more.'"
In other words, communicate, communicate, communicate.
eff Appelquist,
Blue Knight Battlefield Seminars, www.blueknightseminars.com. He can be reached at
jeff.appelquist@blueknightseminars.com.
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Succeed
In Learning From Failure
In
the early 1920s a young artist and animator who lived in Kansas City set
out to form his own company, which would specialize in producing
cartoons. He hired his first employee and secured a deal with a local
theater owner to air the cartoons, which were called "Newman
Laugh-O-Grams." The cartoons became popular in the local area, and
soon the budding entrepreneur signed a stable of animators to help his
studio, also called Laugh-O-Gram, to increase production. Unfortunately,
the tiny enterprise became top-heavy with salaries and began to lose
money. The fledgling tycoon had to shut down the business and declare
bankruptcy. This man went on to become one of the most successful and
revered business leaders in American history, but he never forgot the
pain of his initial setback, or what he learned. In later years, as he
looked back on the experience, he said, "It is important to have
one good hard failure when you are young." His name was Walt
Disney.
When I was a young man in my early thirties, I quit the practice of law
to go into business for myself. I formed an S Corporation, opened a
fast-food franchise, and had to rapidly educate myself as to the
ins-and-outs of Small Business 101. It was an incredible learning
experience for me and, long hours aside, I loved the freedom of being my
own boss. But despite my best efforts, I could not generate sufficient
revenue to cover my costs. I stayed in business for about six months and
then, reluctantly, was forced to close up shop. I had a wife and small
child who were dependent on me. I had lost all our savings and was
bankrupt. I was unemployed for seven months. There was no sugarcoating
it: I had failed miserably, in a way that had never happened to me
before. Nevertheless, this incredibly difficult passage from almost
twenty years ago shaped who I am in ways that still resonate to this
day. In its way, it was a much more significant and life-changing event
for me than any of my triumphs have ever been. Painful though it was,
like Walt Disney, I succeeded in learning from failure.
University of Virginia psychology professor Jonathan Haidt writes in his
book The Happiness Hypothesis, "People need adversity,
setbacks and perhaps even trauma to reach the highest levels of strength
and fulfillment. Suffering is not always all bad for all people. There
is usually some good mixed in with the bad, and those who find it have
found something precious: a key to moral and spiritual
development." In his book The Pursuit of Perfect, Harvard
professor Tal Ben-Shahar argues that individuals who risk failure
actually tend to be happier than those who are averse to challenge and
change. Ben-Shahar says, "Successful people are necessarily people
who have failed many times, and therefore are 'better' at failing than
others. When we practice failure, we realize the pain associated with
fear of failure is often greater than the pain associated with actual
failures."
The roster of well-known people who have achieved at a high level in
their lives but who have also learned from failure along the way is
endless. Former President Bill Clinton says, "When I was defeated
for reelection as governor in 1980, there didn't seem to be much future
for me in politics. I was probably the youngest ex-governor in American
history. But if I hadn't been defeated, I probably never would have
become president. It was a near-death experience, but it forced me to be
more sensitive and to understand that if people think you've stopped
listening, you're sunk." Author J.K. Rowling, who penned the
mega-best-selling Harry Potter series of books, was at one time
alone, unemployed, and "as poor as it is possible to be in modern
Britain without being homeless." But for Rowling, "Failure
meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to
myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began directing
all of my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me."
Indeed, these days, many companies actually look to actively recruit
workers who have experienced and overcome adversity in their personal or
professional life. Meridee Moore is the founder of Watershed Asset
Management, a $2 billion hedge fund in San Francisco. When asked in a
recent interview about how she hires, Moore responded, "… if the
person has had a rough patch in the past, that's usually good… if
you've ever had a setback and come back from it, I think it helps you
make better decisions. There's nothing better for sharpening your
ability to predict outcomes than living through some period where things
went wrong. You've learned that no matter how smart you are and how hard
you work, you have to anticipate things that can go against you."
The Great Recession has been a huge challenge for all of us. Many of us
have experienced defeats and even real suffering, both in our jobs and
on the home front. But there can be redemption. The phoenix can rise
again from the ashes. For me, out of my spectacular failure, I learned
many things. I learned to take new challenges seriously, and never to
assume that skills and abilities that have pulled me through in the past
will necessarily pull me through the next time. I learned to worry only
about those things that I can control, and the main thing I control on a
daily basis is my attitude. I get to choose how I want to be. I learned
to appreciate my many blessings, especially family and friends. And I
learned a whole lot about humility.
Professor Ben-Shahar of Harvard summarizes the idea well, "The ones
who will emerge stronger from [adversity]- the resilient ones- are those
who learn to find the opportunity in every setback." In short, they
are the people who succeed in learning from failure.
eff Appelquist,
Blue Knight Battlefield Seminars, www.blueknightseminars.com. He can be reached at
jeff.appelquist@blueknightseminars.com.
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