Coaching Tip: The Leadership Blog

The Visual Organization Achieves Data Discovery

It's not hard to find truly awful representations of information. 

Some work in concept but fail because they are too busy; they confuse people more than they convey information.  Visualization for the sake of visualization is unlikely to produce desired results--and this goes double in an era of Big Data.  Bad is still bad, even and especially at a larger scale.

Like all sentient beings, we humans have always processed information in different ways, or at least attempted to do so.  Many researchers have proven that there is something unique about how we see information, as opposed to how we hear it.

That humans tend to comprehend visual information quicker than raw data doesn't mean that all visualizations are created equal.  On the contrary, we understand certain types of graphical representations better than others.

The main goal of data visualization (dataviz) is its ability to visualize data, communicating information clearly and effectively.  To convey ideas effectively, both aesthetic form and functionality need to go hand in hand, providing insights into a rather sparse and complex dataset by communicating its key aspects in a more intuitive way.  The long-term aims of dataviz is making better business decisions and even prediction. 

Dataviz shares the same ultimate goal with data mining, business intelligence (BI), analytics and enterprise reporting: to make more informed business decisions.  Contemporary dataviz is primarily a means of exploring data and discovering valuable insights.

Big Data is here, leaving many organizations and their employees overwhelmed.  Fortunately, new data-visualization applications are helping enterprises isolate the signal in the noise.  For instance, through interactive dataviz tools, Netflix discovers trends, diagnoses technical issues, and unearths obscure yet extraordinarily valuable customer insights.  Employees at Autodesk use a remarkable and interactive tool that visualizes current and historical employee movement.  From this, they identify potential management issues and see what a corporate reorg really looks like.

Amidst all the hype and confusion surrounding Big Data, though, a new type of enterprise is emerging: the Visual Organization.  An increasing number of organizations have realized that today's ever-increasing data streams, volumes and velocity require new applications.  In turn, these new tools promote a different mind-set--one based upon data discovery and exploration, not on conventional enterprise reporting.  Interactive heat maps, tree maps and choropleths promote true data discovery more than static graphs and pie charts.

The Visual Organization is largely a positive and forward-thinking book.  In its pages, you'll meet some amazing companies and people who recognize the power of Big Data and dataviz.  They are pushing the envelope and looking at problems very differently than their data-challenged counterparts.  And they are seeing their efforts bear fruit.

Source:   Phil Simon: The Visual Organization: Data Visualization, Big Data, and the Quest for Better Decisions (Wiley and SAS Business Series) 

More on Big Data Visualization at:

http://inspire.blufra.me/big-data-visualization-review-of-the-20-best-tools/ 

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Good Leaders Understand Strategy

Strategy is no longer a once-a-year process that creates a five-year plan to be placed in a three-ring binder and put on the shelf.

The process of building strategies often becomes permanently mired in the endless requirements of daily business operations.  As a result, strategy is often pushed aside because it requires too much time and resources to create an effective one -- and businesses suffer as a result.  In "BUSINESS STRATEGY" author Patrick J. Stroh provides readers with a series of real-world examples and proven methods to create plans, execute them and accurately measure the results.

Business strategy, leadership and general management are all inextricably linked or at least should be.  It takes a successful business strategy to become a great leader.  Strategy starts at the top, as does leadership and general management rules of engagement in a business.  Good leaders understand strategy and good strategists need to be good leaders.  Business strategy, leadership and general management are all inextricably tied together and all are needed in unison to be successful in business strategy creation and execution.

Source:  Patrick J. Stroh: Business Strategy: Plan, Execute, Win!

 John Agno: Can't Get Enough Leadership

 

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What will your life story be?

"Everyone has a story, and everybody wants to tell their story in order to connect.  If no one listens, we tell it to ourselves and then we go mad.  Listening moves us closer; it helps us become more whole, more healthy, more holy.  Not listening creates fragmentation and fragmentation always causes more suffering." Margaret Wheatley

Most of us will spend an average of 117,000 hours of our life tolerating work with the perceived belief that we will have a steady paycheck to take care of obligations.   Our fear of losing a regular paycheck keeps us from developing our legacy or life signature.  Our "life signature" is the tracing of the talents we have been given and how we express them in our life. 

"I'll be happy when...." is the way many people think they are living their lives. Yet, happiness and living your life purpose is not something that happens to you. Happiness and purpose is inside you now. You are motivated from within. You only have to allow this passion to surface.  Happiness = K (knowing who you are) X D (discovering your life's work) X L (learning not to tolerate what's not important). That's the formula for happiness--know yourself, your true calling and that you get what you tolerate.

 "No man is born into the world whose work is not born with him."  James Russell Lowell  

Does your current work allow you to redefine your goals to aspirations, balance to focus, results to commitments, achieving to becoming and outcomes to actions? 

How we think of the hours we spend nurturing our work environment can give us the satisfaction that our life signature will make a difference for ourself and others.

Here are Five Tough Questions that you may want to answer:

1. If you were on your deathbed and you wanted to tell your children -- or the young people to whom you are close -- the three most important things that you've learned in your life, what would they be?
2. What gives you the greatest joy, satisfaction and renewal in your life and how could you do more of it?
3. Who are you without your job, your money?  Describe in detail.
4. What activities could you add to your life that would be a source of richness and joy!
5. Think of someone you admire deeply--and explain why.

Leading with your life signature in mind requires work that you must be willing and able to control inside your heart and mind.  You must be willing to focus on things, without the noise that so easily disturbs our thinking. 

If you approach your work experiences with the thought that you are being forced to work for eight hours a day for purposes that are not your own and in ways that do not support you, your energy will be drained and you will have very little time to think about your life signature.  But if you allow yourself to become a personal best leader at work by taking charge of your career contributions, you will discover a rhythm in your work that will lead you to the realization of greater levels of purpose and meaning.  The only way for you to get there is by being disciplined enough to think and act now.

Two books, Leading with Your Legacy in Mind and Can't Get Enough Leadership, can help bring to life the purpose that goes on inside of you that leads to your life signature or legacy.  These self-coaching guides will help you in your personal efforts to build lasting value in your business and personal life.

The journey begins by practicing discipline, concentration and patience.  The rewards are a life well spent, a meaningful career, a focus on making things better for others and a life signature that demonstrates the differences you have made.

Sources:  Andrew Thorn: Leading with Your Legacy in Mind: Building Lasting Value in Business and Life 

  John Agno: Can't Get Enough Leadership

 

Reference Books for Executives

Today's business world is extremely complex and challenging.

It's easy for even the most seasoned executive to make a mistake or overlook a detail that can lead to utter failure for his or her business.  We have entered a new commercial age.  The business models from the past that relied heavily on size and leverage will no longer deliver returns.

Clearly, regulatory restructuring on a global scale is underway.  Transparency is being demanded from all quarters, which is thus reconstituting the way businesses are run.  In turn, all of this change is informing the design and evolution of the millennium's new economy.

As a result, executives are being tasked to optimize their enterprise's organizational structures, to enhance product and service delivery models, and to blaze new paths to unmatched market reach.  This is not a trivial task in and of itself, but add to that the "need for speed," driven by the continued advancement of technological capabilities, and this generation of business executives just may be facing the greatest management challenge of the postindustrial era.

To be successful in this extremely complex and unstable business environment, executive leaders must do all that they can to simplify.  There is a great deal of meaning and relevance packed into each leadership effort.  The approach to how a given manager performs or oversees each result will vary greatly and be influenced by all sorts of variables that are unique to an organization and a manager's experience.

Therefore, executive checklists and leadership reference guides are in order.  These to-do checklists and reference guides provide a framework to be used to institute overarching, enterprise-wide transformation.

Source:  James M. Kerr: The Executive Checklist: A Guide for Setting Direction and Managing Change

  John Agno: Can't Get Enough Leadership: Self-Coaching Secrets

 

  John Agno: Develop Leadership Skills: A Reference Guide

 

 

To Write or Not to Write?

The advent of computers and cell phones has created a sort of a fast and convenient way to communicate.  But although these communication options are all quick and easy, they're not all created equal.

Before you send a text or an email, or post on a social media website, or make a phone call, or even speak to someone face-to-face, you'd be wise to spend a minute thinking about whether you're choosing the right medium to convey your message. 

One important consideration is that emails and text messages are far more likely to be misunderstood than spoken communication.  The fact that we're usually in a hurry when we're emailing or texting doesn't improve the clarity of our writing.

Another important issue to consider is that any written communication creates a record.  In most cases, this presents no problem. However, if your topic is at all personal or sensitive, you might want to think twice before you put your thoughts in writing.  Remember, "email" really stands for "evidence mail."

The first decision you need to make when you want to communicate with someone is whether you should write at all.

Author Laura Brown has been teaching writing for nearly thirty years to people of all ages.  In her new book, "How to Write Anything: A complete guide," she presents a proven process and shows you how to make it work every time, no matter what you have to write.  She will hold your hand through every conceivable type of writing you might ever have to do.

Source:   Laura Brown: How to Write Anything: A Complete Guide 

Thinking Strategically

The business you lead is built on an idea.

In the turbulence of daily work filled with product specs, customer initiatives, board of director meetings, and hundreds of other items, it's easy to lose sight of that idea.  Over the years, the idea transformed into offerings in the form of products or services that a group of potential customers found valuable and were willing to pay for.  Cash flow, receivables, intellectual property, brands, careers---everything flows from the idea.

The degeneration of one's ability to think strategically and generate new insights limits both individual and organizational progress.  In a 10-year study of leaders at 35 organizations, the primary problem attributed to a lack of success was strategic thinking.  Recent studies on leadership have found that the #1 ranked, most valued skill in leaders is strategic thinking. 

But only 3 out of 10 managers are strategic.  So, why don't companies give more resources to strategic innovation?

Readers of a new book, "Elevate: The Three Disciplines of Advanced Strategic Thinking," will discover a framework to think strategically on a daily basis and gain practical tools to reach their true strategic potential.

Elevate puts forth many proven techniques for leaders to gain insight into achieving greater strategic thinking.  "Excellence is defined as a deviation from the norm," says author Rich Horwath.  "If you are not thinking and acting differently than other companies and other leaders in your industry, you will never excel.  Great strategic thinking creates different and unique value for customers.  Elevate shows executives how to combine strategy and innovation to form a truly competitive advantage."

Source:   Rich Horwath: Elevate: The Three Disciplines of Advanced Strategic Thinking 

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A Reference Guide to Build Leadership Skills

With so much structural change happening within the world economy, people recognize that we need leaders more than ever before.  Developing commitment in a world of "free agents" and "volunteer" talent is not an easy assignment...and… requires effective leadership skills. 

Leadership is basically an interactive conversation that pulls people toward becoming comfortable with the language of personal responsibility and commitment.  

From 1975 to 1995, according to the Library of Congress, books on leadership appeared at a rate of about 24 a year.  In the past 15-20 years, that output has more than doubled.  That's a new book on leadership every week, or enough over the decade to wallpaper every classroom at Harvard Business School.  We've been graced with leadership lessons from everyone from Jesus to Geronimo to Colin Powell.

Over the last few years, The Leadership Blog at www.CoachingTip.com  has been given many new leadership books to review and a number of book authors have agreed to publish their reasons for writing the book on this leadership blog.  Many of those blog postings are republished in a reference eBook, "Can't Get Enough Leadership: Self-Coaching Secrets," divided into the following categories:

Self-Knowledge, Accidental Leaders, Leadership Principles, Leadership Brand, Success and Failure, Interpersonal Relationships, Creativity, Work Life, Knowledge Workers, Leadership Transitions and Leadership Coaching Tips.

Since leadership development is self-development, this reference guide provides leadership skill-building insights along with comprehensive reading sources for people interested in becoming more effective leaders. 

Should you be one of these people interested in building your leadership skills, please consider purchasing this new reference guide. 

Kindle Edition (eBook or paperback): John Agno: Can't Get Enough Leadership: Self-Coaching Secrets 

ePub/Nook format: 

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Cant-Get-Enough-Leadership/John-Agno/e/2940012474339

Buy all eBook formats at Smashwords: 

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/64141

Send new leadership tips automatically to your Kindle:  

http://amzn.com/B0036B9SWQ

 

 Ask the Coach (eBook or paperback)

 

Buy this new Kindle ebook, "Develop Leadership Skills: A Reference Guide" at Amazon.com  

Here is what one reader had to say about this mobile reference guide: 

 

A Well-organized Resource for Busy Executives

When John G. Agno speaks, it’s good to listen and even take a few notes. Not only is he a seasoned corporate executive, but he is an author and management consultant who coaches senior executives and business owners. The wonderful thing for us is he has written an amazing resource for executives called Develop Leadership Skills: A Reference Guide.

 

This well-organized and concise guide is filled with easily accessible and relevant topics for busy executives who want timely answers. From the beginning section on insights, which covers leadership styles and blind spots to an intriguing topic on the advantages of disadvantages, Agno fluidly moves to strategies in developing visions and goals and innovations for shifting perspectives.

 

The personal development section has ways of becoming a better leader, developing interactional skills, and managing office politics. It leads into the business development section on introducing a new labor model, achieving sustainable growth, and branding. The section on teams and collaboration rounds out the book with tips on managing productivity and morale, building trust, and coaching. Agno’s extensive knowledge of the business environment makes this a reference book worth studying over and over again.

 

~ MB Tosi, author of The Solitary Path of Courage

 

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Powerful Insights of Workplace Dynamics

What working woman hasn’t had the demoralizing experience of proving herself again (and again and again) or watching a male colleague get credit for her idea, her comment, her suggestion? What woman — working or not, mother or not — hasn’t felt the sting of an emotional tug of war, subtly shamed or overtly slammed by other women for making choices that seemed right to her?

Deftly combining sociological research with a more casual narrative style, “What Works for Women at Work” offers unabashedly straightforward advice in a how-to primer for ambitious women.

At the core of the book are four patterns, clusters of problems the authors identify as obstacles to success: “Prove-It-Again!,” a descriptive bias that requires women to constantly demonstrate their competence; “The Tightrope,” a prescriptive bias that forces women to find a balance between the competing poles of masculinity and femininity; “The Maternal Wall,” which pushes working mothers to be at home rather than in the workplace; and “The Tug of War,” which compels women to defend their own coping strategies and condemn those of others.

Source: The New York Times, April 13, 2014

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The Cure for CEO Disease

At big companies, bad news travels fast. 

General Motors CEO Mary Barra acknowledged as much in testimony on Capitol Hill this week as congressional investigators sought to find out exactly when GM executives knew that faulty ignition switches in some cars were linked to fatal accidents.

"I cannot tell you why it took years for a safety defect to be announced in that program," Ms. Barra said.  "But I can tell you that we will find out."

It's not just GM. 

The larger an organization gets, the less likely it is that bad news will travel smoothly up the chain.  The mantra at big corporations is "go along to get along."  Stopping work on products vital to the bottom line is often incompatible with pleasing the boss.  Engaging in straight talk with those who lead Corporate America is a rare occurrence.

C-level executives tend to be isolated from their corporate stakeholders because most of the information they receive is filtered by subordinates, suppliers, and consultants. "CEO disease" is a term used to describe the isolation that envelops a leader when subordinates become reluctant to disclose bad news or worst-case scenarios that might trigger a shoot-the-messenger response.

However, that is beginning to change as c-level executives seek a cure for "CEO disease" by participating in interactive conversations through their personal blogs.  Blogs are personal.  They humanize the Web and keep CEOs in touch with what’s going on out in the world.  People feel they can really have a conversation with someone who has a blog.

For example, at General Motors, former Vice Chairman Bob Lutz's "Fast Lane" blog generated 10,000 reader responses in January 2005 and received 4,000 to 6,000 daily visitors.  More than 900 readers asked Lutz, who overseen product development, to revive the Chevrolet Camaro.  Lutz wrote, ".....I will tell you that the enthusiasm shown for Camaro in this forum is a shining and prominent example of the passion that exists for this automobile."  GM was in the process of developing a new Camaro based on a concept car unveiled shortly afterword.

Alan Mulally, CEO of Ford Motor, at a high level meeting was told that by Mark Fields that a technical issue had delayed the launch of a new line of vehicles.  The room went silent.  Then Mr. Mulally started to clap.  The applause was meant to signal that the revelation, while not "warm and fuzzy" news, was welcome.  The Ford example highlights a tension in the relationship between managers and subordinates that can stanch the flow of information.  A CEO's knowledge depends on what direct reports choose to tell him or her.

Sources: The Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2014

 John Agno: Can't Get Enough Leadership

 

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The Culprit of the Crime is Average.

Often, it is employees at the front line who are the first to recognize that Average has slipped in.  Somehow the organization knew there was a way for the employees to let Leadership know there was a problem.

The organization figured out "where to go from here" and came to understand that they must strive for passion, competency, flexibility, communication and ownership; that all five of these qualities were important in their work.  Because of this, Excellence finally returned.  Leadership wanted to do everything that could be done to keep Excellence front and center.  And so he brought everyone together to debrief.  If there was anything they could learn from the crime of Average, Leadership wanted to share the knowledge across the organization.

Attaining and keeping excellence is not for the faint of heart, nor is it a walk in the park.  It takes commitment, courage and hard work to follow The Law of Excellence; by keeping a constant awareness and vigilance to always be your best with Passion, Competency, Flexibility, Communication and Ownership. 

Drawing on years of study and decades of experience, "WHO KIDNAPPED EXCELLENCE" authors Harry Paul, John Britt and Ed Jent zero in on five core qualities of Excellence.  In this entertaining and enlightening new book, they tell how to give and be the best in each of these five critical dimensions, showing how to foster excellence in organizations and in life.

Source:   Who Kidnapped Excellence?: What Stops Us from Giving and Being Our Best 

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