Coaching Tip: The Leadership Blog

Change is Hard to Do

Why is change so hard for people and organizations?

We have a world of knowledge about what works and what doesn't work.  Yet, when we try to apply a change process to ourselves or our organization, we often have difficulty turning that knowledge into behavior.

Change is a natural part of life.  Evolutionary change is happening every second of every day.  Revolutionary change happens on occasion, often brought about by some external event.  Revolutionary change happens when the threat is great and the fear is building.

The definition of disruption is "a problem or action that interrupts something and prevents it from continuing."  Before we choose to initiate a change, our thinking needs to be disrupted in some way, usually by an external event.  The essence of a disruption that enables change lies in asking yourself the question: can I afford to ignore this?

A disruptive event is an awakening, an unexpected jolt that gains the attention of your working memory and the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, the brain region linked to self-control.  Disruption is the first step in making change. 

Although it prompts initial discomfort and even confusion, disruption is essential to growth and learning.  Disruptive events build on our self-awareness.  Once you have become aware of a need for change and made a conscious choice to address it, then the next step is to have the desire to achieve it, the belief in yourself that you can do it, and the focus to make it happen.

Determination is absolutely necessary if your are to overcome obstacles in your change journey.  No matter how focused and disciplined you are, you may get sick, have an unexpected work emergency, or experience personal problems that interfere with your progress.  Setbacks will happen, and when they do, you need to have determination (defined as "firmness of purpose; resoluteness").

Resilience is essential in times of change.  You can put some healthy habits in place as a matter of routine that will help you increase your resilience quotient and will stand you in good stead in times of stress caused by change.

Bottom Line: Change takes determination.  However, determination is less about the one grand gesture and more about the small, daily, quiet steps of courage that lead to a larger, more visible result.

Understanding that you will have setbacks and failures in your pursuit of change can be liberating.  Awareness of the process of change and the confusion that is a natural part of any transition frees you to keep focused and determined to achieve your goal.

Source:  Walter McFarland: Choosing Change: How Leaders and Organizations Drive Results One Person at a Time

 John Agno: Ask the Coach

 

 John Agno: Can't Get Enough Leadership

Why Innovation is not "Invented Here"

Have you noticed that harsh non-compete agreements, invention assignment contracts, or strict protection of copyright and patents, are waging an increasingly fierce war over people and their ideas? 

Beyond alarming questions of what is "fair" to the innovators themselves, few have considered how these human capital controls might impact the quality and quantity of innovation--and ultimately economic growth.

In her timely new book, "TALENT WANTS TO BE FREE," Professor Orly Lobel challenges conventional wisdom about competition, secrecy, motivation and creativity to reveal how our "War for Talent" is backfiring on our quest for innovation.  Drawing on original research into motivating creativity, analysis of recent litigation, and empirical data from economics, psychology and network science, Lobel explores how the ways in which we fight over talent can either enhance or inhibit the innovative spirit of an organization.

We have all been trained that the more control we have, the more successful we will be.  That's why on Amazon every management book with the word "surprise" in its title is about how to avoid or prevent the phenomena.  Businesses hate uncertainty.  You can't forecast or anticipate surprises so they're seen as either irrelevant or as threats.

Yet, the power of surprise is necessary to create business breakthroughs.  Something fresh and new produces a significant leap forward.  When we experience a game-changing product or service, we feel positively surprised. 

And, during the process of creating breakthroughs, surprises inevitably crop up along the way.  Success depends on our ability to interpret and respond to unexpected good and bad events, unanticipated customer comments and other surprising experiences.

New Mindsets are the Missing Link

In LEAPFROGGING, author Soren Kaplan reveals why this command-and-control mindset is exactly what stymies innovation.  When it comes to big ideas, leaders search for the inspiration that will transform their business.  Other leaders lament they have lots of ideas but just can't get traction with any of them.  They know something is missing, but they can't pinpoint it.

The leapfrogging life cycle that Kaplan describes in his book is not a step-by-step how to guide.  But it does outline the key phases and dynamics that characterize the process of leading business breakthroughs.  The leapfrogging life cycle traces the path to breakthroughs by describing the leadership and organizational dynamics involved at various phases over time.  The leapfrogging life cycle quite literally depicts the ups and downs involved in creating breakthroughs.

If you want a game changing breakthrough, customers will rarely ask for it....you need to do something that's meaningful for yourself first and foremost.  After you have figured that out, then go and test your ideas with customers and let the surprises roll.

Accordingly, individuals and firms each need strong and weak connections to thrive.  When it comes to finding out about new jobs, new information or new ideas, "weak ties" are always more important than strong ties.  Your friends and fellow workers, after all, occupy the same world that you do.  Your acquaintances, on the other hand, by definition occupy a very different world than you.  They are much more likely to know something that you don't.  Acquaintances represent a source of social power...and...the more acquaintances you have the more powerful you are.

We need diverse social and professional connections to innovate.  In every field, human interaction is necessary to seed the first ideas for groundbreaking inventions.

Forming the next winning team is a matter of having highly networked and experienced collaborators but not necessarily the same ones you worked with previously.  Rather, introducing new blood into a creative team enhances the likelihood of success.

Today, science offers us new tools to test the connections among individuals and their relations to human activity.  The studies of inventor networks finds that the density of a network is highly correlated with the number of inventions in that network.  This means that the more people are in contact, the more creative each person becomes.  The connections between innovators increase the overall numbers of patents as well as the number of co-authored patents in an area.  Put simply, a dense network is more collaborative and more productive as a whole.

Network studies of patent citations (references to existing patents in newly filed patents) also reveal that inventions that start in places that are more industrially diverse receive more than twice the number of citations than those developed in smaller or more homogeneous towns.  If you invent something while working in a vibrant and diverse place, your invention has a greater likelihood to soar and succeed.  This last observation leads us to the importance of diversity and interdisciplinarity in the art and science of innovation.

For example, here in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the University of Michigan is constructing a 600 living suite building for graduate students with diverse interests who will interact within a number of open meeting areas throughout the building so that interdisciplinary conversations may take place.

In the age of the Renaissance, those who were found to be gifted were encouraged to develop skills in all areas of knowledge, both science and art.  Leonardo da Vinci was what we moderns call a Renaissance Man: he was a scientist, engineer, anatomist, botanist, painter, sculptor, architect, mathematician, writer and an inventor.  Da Vinci traveled in Europe throughout his early adulthood, apprenticing with different artists and thinkers.  Along the way he invented, designed and theorized such diverse novelties as helicopters, hang gliders, solar power, musical instruments, cannons, tanks and advancements in hydrodynamics.  Thousands of pages of notebooks record Da Vinci's tremendous ingenuity and amazing range of interests.

Versatility and interdiciplinarity were the hallmarks of the Renaissance.  Even today, the fact that the best breakthroughs occur between technically distant fields echoes the Renaissance emphasis on multidisciplinarity and reinforces its importance.  The payoffs of diversity and multidisciplinarity are real.  Breakthroughs that do arise from multidisciplinary work, though extremely rare, are frequently of unusually high value; superior to the best innovations achieved by conventional approaches.  This means that merging diverse disciplines is a high-risk, high-reward business.

Sources: Orly Lobel: Talent Wants to Be Free

 Soren Kaplan: Leapfrogging: Harness the Power of Surprise for Business Breakthroughs

 John Agno: Can't Get Enough Leadership

 Wayne E. Baker: Achieving Success Through Social Capital: Tapping Hidden Resources in Your Personal and Business Networks

Control Your Emotions

Every day, we are faced with the task of persuading someone to do what we want them to do.  And every day, we expect resistance.

While every situation is different, the basic principle holds true: if you choose to control your emotions--to respond instead of react--you can influence almost every interaction for the better.  In the process of becoming a better leader, controlling your emotions comes before every other step, every time.

Every encounter you have with an angry person, with someone who disagrees with you or criticizes you, and every frustrating challenge you face is an opportunity to create a better outcome.  And the first step in creating that better outcome is to control yourself--the only part of the situation that is in your power to control.

Though the words respond and react are similar, the difference between the two is quite significant.  When you react, you are being controlled by outside circumstances, whether it be a difficult situation or person.  When you respond, however, you are in control of yourself, of your emotions.

The leader controls his emotions rather than letting them control his behavior.  This self-control is important and powerful not only in what it allows you to do but in who it allows you to be.

Short term, you'll find yourself much more comfortable and relaxed knowing that you can handle any potentially difficult situation that comes your way.  Long term, you'll have a true feeling, inside and out, of self-confidence for having handled countless situations that previously would have thrown you for a loop and perhaps, upset your entire day.

So, how do you develop response consciousness?  The same way you develop any other skill; you practice.  Practice responding to normally difficult situations and people throughout the day, taking pleasure in your victories.

Source:  Bob Burg: Adversaries into Allies: Win People Over Without Manipulation or Coercion

 John Agno: Can't Get Enough Leadership

The Gift of Failure

Failure a gift?  At first glance, it seems completely contradictory.

How can there be anything positive about failure?  Is there really a way to "rise from your ashes" of failure?  Gifts, of course, are generally positive.  Failure, on the other hand, suggests a much different story.

Throughout our lives, we've been conditioned to connect failure with something negative.  Failure, however, need not be either fatal or final.  Walter Brunell said, "Failure is the tuition you pay for success."  When your child makes a mistake, consider saying lovingly (with a smile) to him or her, "Great mistake!  What have you learned from that experience?"

If you're willing to learn, willing to risk, and willing to either conduct serious reflection or accept criticism from others, failure is a necessary ingredient of success.  Failure has many wonderful and valuable lessons to teach us; successful people learn that failure is not a dead-end street but just a detour along the highway to success.

Bottom line: It's only when you push the envelope that you discover your limits.  Without raising the bar or pushing the envelope, you'll likely never fail at much and thus never get to make lasting contributions.

Source:  John Shufeldt: Ingredients of Outliers: A Recipe For Personal Achievement

Iva M. Wilson, co-author of "The Power of Collaborative Leadership," says, "I support your notion that Failures are a gift. If you read our book you will see the story of many people, including my own, that are full of failures.  I do not know what others learned from it, but I know I did.  In my humble opinion, we learn more from failures than from successes.  Successes are soon forgotten as we look forward to more.  Failures stay with us as lessons we can use to prevent future failures."

 

Transferable Skills: Results, Vision, Execution

The top five most transferable qualities for executives, according to a survey of 170 search-firm recruiters, are:

1. Leadership

2. Coached to Success

3. Multi-functional experience

4. Knowledge about the new industry

5. Team-building and development

Source: ExecuNet, Norwalk, Conn.

New leaders often fail for a few common reasons: due to unclear or outsized expectations, a failure to build partnerships with key stakeholders, a failure to learn the company, industry or the job itself fast enough, a failure to determine the process for gaining commitments from direct reports and a failure to recognize and manage the impact of change on people.

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Well Connected People Get Results

Unprepared salespeople fail because they haven't done the necessary work in planning their approach to the prospective customer: 

 

 

Once people learn the Right Person-Right Approach method, they don't go back to their old ways.  It is a reliable relationship-building road map for those seeking to achieve virtually any business or personal goal.  Profiling potential contacts to determine who would likely have exactly the right set of knowledge, relationships, personal characteristics, abilities and inclination to provide the information needed to narrow down and access the sea of prospects matters. 

In business, we often hear that it's not what we know, but also who we know that can help us find success. 

As the business world and the Internet become increasingly intertwined, it's becoming apparent just how relevant that platitude is to the success of your career and business.  Particularly when it comes to search marketing, as it is necessary to accumulate inbound links from other sites to your blog, website, LinkedIn and Facebook pages.  Of course, before anyone will want to look at your content, they have to find it, which is why you should also identify widely searched keywords related to you and your niche and then use these keywords in your site's content.

Simply put, success is not only determined by what you know but also by whom you know. 

Formula for Success:  The formula for both personal and corporate success = your human capital  (what you know and can do) times your social capital (who you know and who knows you) times your reputation (who trusts you).

Relationships matter more than anything else.

Your goal is to build and maintain many strong relationships.  That means nurturing those contacts, even after they no longer seem useful.  Make it a practice to connect with people in your networks; both professional and personal.  Use social channels to find out what's going on with them.  It's important to stay in touch with others within our professional circles.

But the most important relationships to nurture are those with current clients--not only because doing so helps us keep their business, but because they are best positioned to refer more great clients.  They know our value better than others since they have received a measurable ROI from our products and services.

Success is all about building relationships.  Once you've done the groundwork to earn someone's trust and friendship, don't waste that effort by neglecting to stay in touch. 

Sources:  Joanne S. Black: Pick Up the Damn Phone! How People, Not Technology, Seal the Deal

 

 Gordon S. Curtis: Well Connected: An Unconventional Approach to Building Genuine, Effective Business Relationships

 

 Wayne E. Baker: Achieving Success Through Social Capital: Tapping Hidden Resources in Your Personal and Business Networks

 

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Insure the Fairness and Integrity of the Financial Industry

Mary Jo White, the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is characterized by friends and colleagues as the most competitive and driven person they have ever encountered.

Today, she blizzards her staff and friends with emails at all hours.  She has had the same cohort of intimate friends since the seventies.  She and her husband, John White, have a tennis court at their country house in Upstate New York where her style of play led her friends to give her the nickname Sid Vicious.  Although she is a sports fan and often invites people to join her at games, she doesn't carry on conversations while the ball is live.  White's life is about working, and winning.

As the country sank into a severe recession, many wondered why the major figures in the financial world, whose firms had recieved billions of taxpayer dollars at the height of the crisis, weren't being punished for their misdeeds.  Because the SEC is an enforcement agency, it became the focus of the frustration.

Mary Jo White took over at the SEC more than four years after the panic of the financial crisis, and just a few months before the end of the five-year statue of limitations on the misdeeds leading up to the crisis.   White says, "The SEC's mission is tripartite: protect investors, facilitate capital formation, and insure the fairness and integrity of the marketplace."

White is the first career prosecutor and litigator to chair the SEC.  She filled the top jobs in the enforcement division right away, with people she knew well.  In a statement that White released to accompany her confirmation hearing, she mentioned three "early priorities" at the SEC.  One was to determine the best way to regulate high-frequency trading.  The second was to engage in "bold and unrelenting" enforcement.  The third was to produce rules for quickly implementing the JOBS Act and Dodd-Frank.

Mary Jo White and her lieutenants project confidence that the SEC and the financial industry can march forward together into a secure and prosperous future.  However, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Source: The New Yorker, November 11, 2013. 

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Trust Issues

Surveys and statistics abound: only 22% of the public trust government...only 10% of employees trust management...50% of a class is suspected of cheating...

It's a difficult time to be a leader.  The majority of employees are disengaged, their discretionary efforts tamed, passions for work fleeting, and ideas tethered.  Yet, we can build trust individually and in groups at our workplace.

Nan S. Russell's book, "TRUST INC: How to Create a Business Culture," shares how you can create a workplace where engagement, passion and great work thrive. 

Broken-Trust Experiences

We all have broken-trust experiences.  We all know the pain, disappointment and anger of giving our trust, only to have it betrayed.  We also know how disheartening and unfulfilling it is to work with or for people you can't trust or who don't trust you.  Yet, that's the reality for most.

Authentic trust, the trust that's broken or missing in most workplaces, fuels innovation and engagement, and ignites passions in those we lead.  Every day, leaders at all levels communicate with their actions that they're not committed to a working relationship with those they lead.  They eliminate resources and positions while still expecting immediate results.  They shut out dialogue and limit open communication, while still requesting candid feedback.  They reward unfavorable behaviors, while operating with myopic interests and escalating bureaucracy.  And then they wonder why those they're striving to engage are alienated, distrustful and fed-up.

Employees know what many leaders haven't figured out: Parental, top-down cultures in today's world are as ineffective as one-size-fits-all, print-only marketing approaches.

Trust isn't about "those" people in senior management; it's about us in our individual work groups.  If someone works for you, it's your trust that matters most to them.  You're the one having everyday impact on their work.

Can they trust you?  Can they count on you?  Are you worthy of their trust?  Do you trust them?  These issues affect both their results and yours.  Don't be naive in thinking trust is only about others.  For the people who work for you, it's about you.

Source:  Nan S. Russell: Trust, Inc.: How to Create a Business Culture That Will Ignite Passion, Engagement

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The Best Kind of Performance Review

"The best kind of performance review is no performance review," says Aubrey Daniels, a clinical psychologist turned management consultant.  "It's a sadistic process for what purpose I don't know."

The biggest problem with reviews, Daniels says, is that they happen too infrequently.  Managers should address issues when they arise, not six or eight months later.  "Think of a sports team: A coach doesn't wait until the end of a season to give his players feedback," he says.

The true goal of the performance review isn't to help the employee--it's to help the company.  "A lot of people won't tell you this, but they don't need to document your good performance, just your poor one," Daniels says.  "That way they have written documentation that'll help them get rid of you without fear of retribution."

Problems may well fester until they explode in an annual review.

For many workers, the annual performance evaluation is “this weird form you fill out every year that has nothing to do with everyday life,” said Robert Sutton, a professor and organizational psychologist at Stanford and co-author of the forthcoming book “Scaling Up Excellence.”  Some companies have given up annual evaluations altogether.

But many businesses feel that they must use formal reviews and rankings to create an objective measurement of performance and goals, so that managers can reward and promote good employees, and give poorly performing ones a chance to improve (while creating a paper trail in case they must be dismissed).

Professor Sutton is wary of rankings and yearly evaluations in general. Many organizations, he said, would be better off if they provided continuous feedback.

Sources: Bloomberg BusinessWeek, November 2013 and The New York Times, November 24, 2013

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The Desire to Learn

The "desire to learn" is the drive or motivation to engage in conversation and understand others--without the desire to engage one another, nothing happens.

Asking questions that you know the answer to is fake talk.  You should only ask questions where you don't know the answer; to engage the other person. 

David Bohm, introduced the concept of "Dialogue": a mode of communicating that emphasizes the necessity of everyone involved placing their "meaning" on the table or into the "shared pool of meaning."  "Shared meaning" does not imply that we necessarily agree, but that we are open to sharing all of our experiences, ideas, and opinions with others without the fear of repercussion in order to achieve the results we seek.

Bohm believed that if people could openly and authentically share their thinking and were willing to explore a diversity of perspectives, then learning would take place.  He used the analogy of a "shared pool" of meaning where everyone involved felt safe to put their perspective or "meaning" into the pool.  Where greater shared meaning is achieved, learning is more complete; change is more easily accomplished; problem solving is improved; decision making is more timely, appropriate, and effective; and accountability is created.

Sometimes, the challenge in a conversation is the other person and not you.  Some people simply do not have the skills to engage.  Others have so much going on in their lives that they may be incapable of engaging at a certain time.  Whatever the reason, some people are not able to engage.  We should respect the situation until they can.

In holding any difficult conversation, we want to initiate by describing the situation, which includes what we are observing and thinking.  We discover by asking questions to gain understanding.  We connect by summarizing to clarify our understanding, and we build by creating a plan and gaining commitment to improve accountability.

These are the skills and phases you learn to create the conversations that will help you achieve results, create respect, and improve relationships--conversations that are above the line.  Using them will help you avoid the fake talk that occurs below the line and fails to achieve desired results.

Source:   John Stoker: Overcoming Fake Talk: How to Hold REAL Conversations that Create Respect, Build Relationships, and Get Results

 

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