"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."

                                                  Wayne Gretzky


A couple in their 30's were recently discussing end-of-world scenarios at a bar. Global instability. Emerging threats. The loss of America's pre-eminence. The scope of change makes them uneasy.

I remember feeling the same way during the oil embargo of the 70's. In college, we were told Japanese interests would soon own every major U.S. corporation. The economy was bleak.

Yet people survived those times.

Americans have survived much worse - a civil war, food and water shortages, a world war... and those survivors would tell you the same thing: life goes on. Change always delivers new opportunities, despite the chaos, decay or destruction we experience in the small space around us.

It might seem like the end of the world to some. It's not. It's just change. Another opportunity will emerge somewhere.

Here's what I tell my kids about all this: Don't be afraid, be curious! Take a risk. Travel. Experience the changes going on outside our four corners. Listen. Learn.

Then take your best shot.

Burn the Old Manual

Still using paper manuals to teach your leaders?

If traditional leadership and career tracks are anachronistic, then the traditional leadership curriculum is also dead. Hold a funeral. The only thing sustaining those traditional approaches to leadership development is... traditional thinking.

Consider this: public school systems are starting to compensate teachers for student test results and performance. It's pay for play in academia!

I'm not trying to fry my own bacon, but if public schools are trying this, shouldn't (capitalist) businesses treat their corporate education similarly? That's a scary thought for some corporate educators, but it may become commonplace.

I wholeheartedly support the idea that corporate educators should be paid based upon student outcomes, as long as executive leadership does likewise. If 3rd grade teachers can do it, why not the rest of us?

My thoughts: Shake up your leadership development program. Explore new approaches to learning that reward autonomous assessment and development. Throw out old manuals and start with a clean sheet of paper, or no paper at all!

Design something with impact, a program that excites, challenges, and motivates through meaningful engagement.

Learning About Commitment, the hard way

My first job out of college was with IBM. After training, I was assigned to small business (underscore) and office products. Our area was affectionately known around the office as the "THUMP' district: tattoos, hustlers, undercover, mob, pimps.

I could not imagine any of my potential clients on the south side of town using a typewriter for something remotely related to legitimate work. It was not an easy market.

Before getting THUMP'd, I had fantasies of casually selling $4 million computers to well-heeled executives while teeing off the 9th hole. Instead, I was trying to convince struggling business owners to buy a Selectric III typewriter or slap down $5,000+ to be the first on their block to own a personal computer.

I had some lean days. In fact, I had many, many lean days. After one of those days, my manager took me aside and spent an afternoon helping me understand how to turn my luck around.

"Russ, don't waste your talent with people who don't appreciate you, or spend another day with a company that looks like death eating a cracker." Don had a deep southern accent that flavored all of his down-home expressions. "Just thank them for their time, make a sale if you can, and then commit yourself to the next prospect who can appreciate what you have to offer."

He added another thought that meant the world to me.

"I'm committed to your success - that's why I hired you. Stop in anytime. I'll be glad to go over your progress anytime you want."

It was only later when I got back to my desk that I laughed out loud thinking about his "death eating a cracker" homily. In the end, I was successful, even in that crappy territory. Only much later in life did I realize the two important lessons he had shown me:

1. People respond when someone is truly committed to their success. Through his dedication to me, and my dedication to my territory (and not my products), I was able to create loyal customers who trusted me, regardless of where I worked or what I sold. Through commitment, we both gained success, and my manager gained my respect and lifelong appreciation.

2. We "sell" ourselves everyday, no matter what we do for work. Through our words, actions, and body language, we either invite others to participate with us to achieve great success, or push them away, causing us to work even harder to stay afloat.

Stop getting THUMP'd. Commit yourself to others, and to your customer's success.

Walking the Talk

I hit the streets everyday, for one hour, regardless of where I find myself.

When I travel it’s usually for a client, so the people and places I meet are part of the environment – the client’s audience and community. I like to see their town from a dog’s point of view - walking into local spaces and meeting people I might not see as I ride by or fly over the city.

By walking, I learn firsthand how people view our client. By visiting local coffee shops, I find out what people really think about the community. By using social media I see the challenges their customers are trying to resolve. In other words: I try to get very close to the client community.

Sometimes I hear great feedback. Sometimes I realize that something is missing – a disconnect between organizational values and leader actions, or services that don’t meet real needs. That makes for a challenging presentation, yet I am committed to helping my clients build authenticity and commitment to action in a way that improves the customer experience. Usually, that means bringing leaders physically closer to their audience.

Try it sometime. It’s healthy for leaders to leave “the safety bubble” of familiar acquaintances and places.

Walk across town, visit your customer communities and listen to the feedback. Becoming part of the busy streets, stores and less-frequented neighborhoods where your audience lives can teach you more about their needs and challenges than a survey.

The fish rots from the head down.

My grandfather died when I was very young, yet I remember a handful of comments he made to me. I remember one in particular, as we left a store where a manager had been rude to us.

I must have said something about it because my grandfather's plain spoken response was: Son, the fish rots from the head down.

It sounded funny to me, so I remembered it. But now I understand what he meant: the quality of an organization's leadership is reflected in the actions and attitudes of its individual employees.

Ever walk into a store or office and immediate get a bad feeling, a bad vibe or whiff that something or several things just don't seem right? It could be a general sense of unease, an inability for employees to act with confidence, bad attitudes or a lack of attention to detail.

Whatever the symptom, that stinky smell means something is dead or dying at the top. No real passion for the business. No real commitment to employees. No respect for customers, beyond their ability to make leaders richer. Regardless, don't take it out on the employees, start by evaluating opportunities to re-engage, re-ignite and re-focus leadership.

Leading Change

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

— Theodore Roosevelt, "Citizenship in a Republic," Paris, April 23, 1910

A truly authentic leader is going to stir things up by waving a flag in the face of mediocrity. She is not going to protect the status quo - that's the definition of a manager. He is going to be a catalyst that spurs people to action around a central vision - not just maintenance of a dusty concept. He will help his people proudly answer "why" they work and "why" their work matters. She will continuously plant the flag a little further along the trail than the day before...

The Unvarnished Truth?

Now there are sites where you can rate the people you know, rather than organizations, products or corporate brands.

The concept is not new (ikarma.com, unvarnished.com, Jerk.com) but Unvarnished has integrated tightly with Facebook to attract the largest pool of reviewers possible. This lets people who, supposedly, have worked with someone, post reviews about that individual.

From the site:

“Unvarnished lets reviewers share their true, nuanced opinions without fear of repercussions… Profile owners can manage and build their reputation, by receiving notifications of new reviews, requesting reviews from trusted colleagues, adding resume details, and responding to reviews.”

What do you think?

• Does this type of site encourage leadership or popularity?
• Will it require people to constantly manage their reputation? (or hire people to do so...)
  
• Could it evolve into a useful professional adjunct like LinkedIn?
• Or, will it devolve into a schoolyard filled with bullies and cynical reviews?

The end of publishing?
( learning?... or other concern for next generation here:_____ )




Thanks for sharing this nifty palindrome, Will.

Leadership Lessons: Tips to remember when things go wrong

some thoughts on lessons I have learned, prompted by an article from Bnet.com

1. Relax, you can't control other people’s actions. Your job is to define a vision and expectations and provide the resources to help people achieve goals. Great leaders understand the rule of equifinality (multiple paths - including small failures - can lead to the desired outcome).
2. Empathize without blaming everyone involved: show empathy for those who got things wrong, those who suffered as a result, and for yourself; that’s a leadership quality.
3. Learn from the experience; share the lessons you learn from your failures. Solicit team input on what could have done to prevent it. Record the lessons: adjust policies, processes and procedures to reflect the learning.
4. Inspire confidence in your team by allowing these opportunities for them to succeed or fail on their own, and then help get them back on course. Re-energizing the team is your next step.

A $5 success story

Food for thought... Why isn't every great idea that generates positive change an immediate success? What does it take for others to adopt a new behavior? When we see a successful project or person, do we appreciate the string of failures (or rejection) leading up to it?

In 2004, Stuart Frankel owned two small sandwich shops at a hospital. He came up with an idea to sell his sandwiches for $5 during off hours - $1 below corporate recommended pricing. Sales rose by double digits.

Frankel ceaselessly championed the idea to Subway's corporate leadership amid widespread skepticism and rejection (this wasn't created by corporate leaders…). The franchise board also rejected the idea (Too risky! Labor costs will explode! Profit margins will erode!)

But a few other franchise owners picked up on Frankel's idea and tried it for themselves in locations ranging from Washington to Chicago. The idea yielded positive results. Finally, three years later, the Subway board voted to support the idea.

Subway brought in its ad agency. A national campaign was launched on March 23, 2008. Sales shot up 25% on average. Within weeks, 3,600 videos of people performing the ad's jingle appeared on YouTube. Here's a short sample...

Copycat offers ultimately emerged. Boston Market offers 11 meals for $5. Domino's sells sandwiches for $4.99. KFC has $5 combo meals. T.G.I. Friday's now has $5 sandwiches. It's a $5 value menu explosion.

Meanwhile, back at Subway, the campaign represents $4 billion in additional sales. All this, from a frequently rejected idea created and championed ceaselessly by one man.

Social Learning: the human experience

I ran across this online and it immediately resonated with me: "An important facet of learning within a social context is social proof. Simply stated, when someone just like me does something, I’m more likely to try it myself."

The first person to deviate from the norm is a leader: someone doing something risky (yet positive) that eventually attracts another risk taker, then another, until ultimately many join in to create truly meaningful solutions or memorable experiences.

This You Tube clip illustrates the point. Watch what happens, and think about this in terms of a social learning process. Be patient. Reward your positive deviants. Some will follow right away, others will wait. Many will be inspired. Change happens.

source: www.positivedeviance.org

Attention Deficit Nation?

One more study that seems to suggest we have shifted from an experience economy (one that requires a certain degree of engagement to appreciate) to an attention economy (one that relies of increasing efforts to capture consumer attention for every engagement/experience).

Social learning (with leaders and followers) requires a significant amount of energy expended in an "attention attraction" function.

In this environment, there is growing evidence that workers do not actually manage the surplus of information (distractors). Instead of multi-tasking, they are responding to tasks with a focus deficit, or an increasing inability to focus on detailed topics or lengthy processes.

What does this mean for...Communication? Learning? Work? Relationships? There are certain to be pros/cons to all this. Here's the meat of this particular study. I'll keep chewing on this bone for a while.

According to a new study from Iowa State University, viewing television and playing video games each are associated with increased subsequent attention problems in childhood.

The study, published this week in the medical journal Pediatrics, examined 1,323 kids in "middle childhood" over a 13-month period.

Here's an interesting heads-up on future employment demographics (note: training impact) from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics - Employment Projections: 2008-2018 Summary

• The number of persons age 55 years + in the labor force is expected to increase by 12.0 million, or 43.0 percent, during the 2008-2018 period
  
• The labor force in 2018 will be more diverse (Asian workers +29.8%, Hispanics +33.1%)
  
• Service-providing industries will add 14.6 million jobs, or 96 percent of the increase in total employment
  
• Occupations that require a post-secondary degree are expected to account for nearly half of all new jobs
  
• Short and moderate-term on-the-job training are the most significant sources of post-secondary education for 17 of the 30 occupations projected to have the largest employment growth

What does this mean for...

• corporate talent recruiting & development efforts?
• efforts to make work spaces welcoming for a diverse talent force? 
• support for emerging leaders?
• internal talent development and learning programs?

Here's a great case for why we need new thinking and business leadership with vision, by Yves Smith (Naked Capitalism) and Rob Parenteau, the head of a global financial advisory firm and the editor of The Richebächer Letter.

IMHO, simply selling all the apples on the table while neglecting the tree is a recipe for disaster, not a better pie. Here is an excerpt of their case:

"Over the past decade and a half, corporations have been saving more and investing less in their own businesses..."

"...public companies have become obsessed with quarterly earnings. To show short-term profits, they avoid investing in future growth. To develop new products, buy new equipment or expand geographically, an enterprise has to spend money — on marketing research, product design, prototype development, legal expenses associated with patents, lining up contractors and so on.

Rather than incur such expenses, companies increasingly prefer to pay their executives exorbitant bonuses, or issue special dividends to shareholders, or engage in purely financial speculation. But this means they also short-circuit a major driver of [long-term] economic growth."

The Federal Government can't save the economy, businesses must do this. We need thinkers with a long-term design POV who will Invest in organizational development, withhold a portion of savings for reinvestment, explore new technologies and apply employees to R&D: activity that will pay future dividends beyond any item sold today.

Authentic, Action Oriented and Accountable

William D. Green, CEO of Anderson Consulting, states the organization’s role succinctly when he tells his clients their focus should be less on an emerging leaders’ litany of accomplishments and more on the employee’s character, the way they respond to experiences and if they approach these opportunities with a confident work ethic.

Anderson measures a leader’s character and their work ethic with three “C”s: comprehension, commitment, compassion.

If you find yourself in a company that cares more about process than the 3 “C”s, your best recourse is to seek authentic leaders, people who understand their words and actions cause consequences, and that these consequences either help or hinder a team’s ability to create positive outcomes (profit) for both customers and the organization.

Here’s a $1.2 billion company and the leader that got the equation correct: putting people first creates better profits (www.deliveringhappinessbook.com)

A Rising Demand for Emerging Leaders

The IBM Global Human Capital study surveyed over 400 companies in 40 countries across North America, Asia and Europe. The findings? A lack of focus on leadership development means companies are increasingly unable to plan for the skills needed to remain competitive.

As the baby boom leadership retires, many companies will discover a generation’s worth of experience and talent has walked out the door, and remaining emerging leaders ill-equipped to fill the void.

In the study, the transfer of experience and information from one generation to the next is still relatively isolated by department and geography. Within traditional organizations, there is also a reluctance to advertise individuals as expert talent or allow them to act as internal experts. This occurs despite the fact that organizations first recruit a person based upon their unique talents, abilities and experiences.

However, once inside the organization, many traditional leaders tend to ignore or downplay a person’s experiences – the very reasons they were hired!

Collaboration between leaders, departments and employees is critical for future organizational success. Despite the prevalence of technology that can easily enable this type of sharing, functional silos, misaligned performance measures and work constraints inhibit the practice.

Without effective collaboration, an organization’s ability to identify rising stars, track and reward service champions and chances for improving operational effectiveness are severely limited.

Our solution? Structure leadership development programs to clearly define the challenges emerging leaders are meant to solve (in partnership with customers and employees), let them work on these challenges soon after being hired, and measure that employee’s ability to perform and make decisions, all while providing significant incentives that reward the right behavior.

Flyer, Driver, Walker: what kind of leadership journey are you on?

It's summer, and I found myself thinking about life and leadership in terms of travel, along with some remarks I have heard over the years.

Flyers: Leading by Proxy

“We have seagull leadership – they fly into town, shit on our heads, then fly away.”

VP of market operations

Many people own stock. I do too. Every now and then, shareholders get a notice of an election or vote to be held, along with an invitation to send in a vote, by proxy. In this situation, my proxy stands in as my representative voice, my surrogate, the fake Russ.

Leadership by proxy isn't as helpful. It's fake leadership. It doesn't build the long-term health of the organization or its community, and besides, nobody likes pearls of wisdom dropped on their heads.

These flyers demonstrate very little commitment to community, the customer or employee experience. They fly into a meeting, then fly out, confident they have grasped the situation and set things straight, while a helicopter staff pops in every morning to deliver information and receive updates. Send them back to their home by the beach.

Riders: Leading by Observation

“Our CEO's understanding of the community? About as deep as the tread on his Lexus' tires.”

Manager, field sales

A majority of us experience life as a sequence of trips: we drive to the store, we drive to the office, we drive to our kid's school. Usually, we're only slightly aware of the communities we pass through to get to our destination. But how much can we really learn about customers when we zoom past their houses at 75 mph?

This type of leadership is mixed, at best. Yes, they see some community challenges firsthand, but they are still passengers: they come close to the community experience but they never fully engage in it. It's the average leadership experience. However, I think truly great leaders choose to walk instead…

Walkers: Leading by Experience

"Often I walked without any staff or supporters. As a result, I was able to see firsthand Florida's natural beauty, as well as its people and their challenges."

Lawton Chiles

In 1970, Lawton Chiles decided to run for a seat in the United States Senate. At the time, he was largely unknown outside his district, so he embarked on a 1,003-mile, 91-day walk across Florida, from Pensacola to Key West. He even worked at local businesses as he traveled. It made him a local legend and earned him the nickname "Walkin' Lawton".

I think of a “walker” as the kind of leader who remains close to their community, customers and employees. For them, developing, sustaining and improving the service experience is a daily discipline. Walkers do more than walk a mile in the customer’s shoes, they stand beside their customers and help deliver the experience, as any partner would.

Fly, drive or walk?

Flying around seems energetic and seductive, yet it disconnects leaders from their community.

Ray Bradbury once described the great majority of us as seeing life in a "blur", a general wash of images and color as we speed by. Yet driving through a community like a tourist just seems too passive. Not really the definition of leadership, is it?

I admire walkers like Lawton Chiles, leaders who take the time to lead through daily contact, a step-by-step journey that shapes them and the people they are trying to lead.

Not Your Grandfather's Career Path

Remember the traditional notion of a career ladder? Traditionally, a person began their career in an entry-level job, then moved into team or local management, then on to regional management, and ended their career in C-Level or executive leadership.

This required an employer-employee agreement. Two-way loyalty that, at most organizations, is outmoded or gone. Very few organizations promise lifetime employment or tenure. Some exceptions include government agencies or very large institutions with multiple layers of management.

So what is the new "normal" career?

* flatter organizations, and a "do more with fewer" reality
* new-hires that expect to work as creative agents for multiple employers within their lifetimes
* outsourcing and contracting as a business norm, not some radical experiment
* working from home or remote locations as part of the experience
* workers that leave if they do not enjoy the experience

The 21st Century career is a series of engagements (jobs) and life experiences that ultimately form a person's specialty or focus, that in turn enable them to move up, over or into any number of life experiences. In short, your emerging leaders want a rewarding experience, not a timecard to punch or a cubicle to occupy every day.

One of our clients asks new hires how they can best engage and get the most from them in a 21st Century work arrangement. They listen, modify, then follow up by letting the employees challenge themselves. And, it works!

10 Questions to Ask Emerging Leaders

Gather your high-potential employees together–those employees you have identified as future and emerging leaders–and ask them what they need in order to succeed. Do it now, before they leave.

Here are some questions I might ask your emerging leaders:

1. How do you define success (visualize it five years from now...)?

2. What are the biggest challenges facing employees today?

3. What changes are occurring within your department, and what is needed to address them?

4. How are you improving employee performance and the customer experience?

5. Do you see your personal philosophy and the organization's as different or 100% aligned?

6. In five words or less, how would you describe this organization's leadership experience?

7. If you could work anywhere in the world (doing anything you want) would it be here?

8. What should an emerging leader be required to do, above and beyond any job description?

9. What do emerging leaders like you need from this organization?

10. Anything else...?

Reconnecting the Disconnected

I recently visited San Diego to speak at a conference.

San Diego is a charming and dynamic city. Perched by the Pacific Ocean, it is a delightful patchwork of old neighborhoods, with homes and offices surrounded by parks, ocean waters, clear skies and consistently perfect weather. From most locations, it’s a quick ride west to the seashore where you can enjoy some of the best views in America.

With all this beauty surrounding us I was struck by how many people stayed inside the convention center, typing on keypads, mostly oblivious to their surroundings. During one of my sessions I asked, via show of hands, how many attendees had ventured beyond the hotels to explore the neighborhoods, restaurants or public parks.

About a dozen people, out of a crowd of 80, raised their hands.

Later, I scanned some of the conference materials. “The outsourcing revolution is here!” one piece proclaimed. Other sessions would “explore new options for alternate service delivery options” and one promised to show attendees how to “educate remote vendors to deliver high-touch customer service to customers back home.”

These people aren’t just outsourcing labor, they are outsourcing their childrens' futures.

Attendees unwilling to connect with a host city, even for a few days, while learning how to help organizations move services further from the communities they aim to serve, strikes me as both absurd and ironic.

Just wondering…

Is this way of life in our best long-term interests as a society?

How connected are you to your customer’s experience? Have you outsourced it?

How connected is your leadership? Have you outsourced that too?