Berger Blog

Development and Coaching

2011-05-22T20:31:00.002-05:00

Lots of talk these days about supporting the movement and development of clients-- meaning how much can we do as coaches to shift complexity people have seeing the world in nuanced, multi-layered ways that hold different perspectives. More to come...

A looming reality

2009-06-30T18:26:00.001-05:00

Before jumping in, I’ve re-done my website, reflecting the changes that have taken place in my business – both in what I’m doing it and where I’m doing it. To see it, go to www.transformational-consulting.com.

A few recent bits of information I’ve come across recently around the continuing shifts in our generationally diverse world.

For one, two different studies have come out recently about Gen Y/Millennials and their workplace habits, especially around social networking. A recent Lexis Nexis study shows that 62% of Millenials and Gen Xers go on social networking sites at some point during the workday, and more than half of these workers believe what they do in their social networking activities is none of the company’s business – even though it’s happening on the company’s dime. The notion is where some take breaks for a smoke or a cuppa, younger employees go on Facebook.

Furthermore, a Deloitte study showed that two-thirds of Boomers think the increased use of technology and internet – Blackberries, iPhones, text messaging, Facebook, etc – is damaging workplace etiquette. The counter argument is that people want to, (and feel the need to) be in contact with friends and family, and this enables them to do so, for reasons that are important to them.

Are any of these things big surprises? Not to most people. However it does point to the continuing struggle that is on the verge of tipping over. In the next 5-10 years, the Boomers will see their share of the workforce shrink even more. As it is, combining the Gen Xers and the Millennials gives a slight majority of the workforce. And while senior managers are more likely to be Boomers, that, too, is changing as Gen Xers are now moving into more and more executive leadership roles.

And if you wanted any other proof that this matter is moving from the interesting to the front-and-center, you should look at his month’s issue of Harvard Business Review. There’s an article in it, “How Gen Y and Boomers will reshape your agenda, drawn out of a big study from the Center for Work-Life Policy. The study is about the “bookend generations” of Boomers who are dwindling but still having an impact and the Gen Yers, who are representing a larger and larger role in the workforce. While the study points out that these two generations share some similar workplace values, one of the central points is that the younger workers are the present and the future, and we’ll have to make adjustments to deal with the ways these younger employees are not like the older, familiar ones.

How are you showing up?

2009-06-18T20:28:00.000-05:00

Lately, the recession has been creating some interesting wrinkles to the practice of leadership. We are witnessing the greatest economic downturn in at least three generations, and despite the recessions that have hit since the 70’s, leaders seem quite ill-equipped to deal with the current economic crisis. It’s quite easy to lead when the economy is growing, but when times are tight, money is scarce, and fear is high. A different leadership presence is needed.

It brings to mind a bit of work I’ve done with some clients around their presence. How are they showing up each day in their role? What lots of senior executives don’t remember is how contagious their moods are to the entire organisation they lead. When the CEO is anxious or gloomy, people see it and smell it. And it spreads – like a germ. The simple question about how a leader shows up each day – calm or anxious, engaging or evasive, open or closed – has a profound impact on every other person in his or her organisation.

The Current State

2009-01-14T20:56:00.001-05:00

The demands on leaders have taken a bit of a turn over the past six months. I was listening to a radio discussion somewhere that was talking about the changes that we’ve seen since last summer. In August of 2008, it was pointed out on the program, when the Summer Olympic Games had begun, the housing issues were barely emerging and nothing on Wall Street had yet garnered any real attention. In Soeul, the Chinese government was worried that their economy was growing too fast.

Not even six months later, a global economic crisis and nationwide employment and real estate crisis are all any one talks about. The Chinese government now is worried about the surging unemployment in industrial centers across China. Living overseas as I have been for the past two years, I’ve been able to be at the edges of the conversations, somewhat involved but not at the center of them. Despite my location, I’ve participated in work with leaders and been in the discussions with them about the new challenges they’re facing.

“How do I lead with so much uncertainty and instability all around me?”

“How can I lead confidently when I’m not even sure about my job?”

“It’s not easy motivating my staff in the middle of all this muck!”

The reality is that all of these worries are grounded. It isn’t entirely about attitude and perspective, as it often can be for a leader. Many leaders, when given the chance to step outside of their normal perspective, they see that their cognitive and emotional states determine their behaviours and results. And that by finding ways to change their thoughts and feelings, they can change their outcomes, without anything “real” ever changing.

In this current state of change and turmoil in the marketplace, the worries and challenges that leaders are working with are more than cognitive and emotional states, however some of this same distancing of perspective and shifts in out thinking and feelings can, in fact, have a tangible impact on how effective and successful leaders can be through these challenging times.

And for some good reading

2007-10-31T20:49:00.001-05:00

…from the Desk of Sheepish Self-promotion, Bea Fields, a colleague of mine, has just published a really good book. “Millennial Leaders” is a collection of interviews from some of the most successful young professionals in their 20s. In addition, there are interviews with a handful of experts in the field of generational matters in organizations. I was included among those experts, talking about how younger people are a bit different than others in the organizational context.

So I recommend taking a look at it at Amazon. I think it’s a good read.

Pessimism or Optimism

2007-09-23T22:39:00.000-05:00

I was having a conversation with a close colleague today in which we were discussing the different ways people react to negative or bad things, even tragic things that happen. There are two ways (probably more) that people react to bad things. The pessimist will experience the event and think that the bad thing was bound to happen, wasn’t a big shock, and is something that will potentially – if not probably – happen again. The optimist will see that same negative event and see it as a fluke, a mistake, something that was unexpected and is unlikely to occur again. The pessimist, just the other. Martin Seligman, a psychology professor at University of Pennsylvania and former President of the American Psychological Association, who wrote, “Authentic Happiness,” and “Learned Optimism,” looks at optimism and pessimism at learned expectancies. That people either expect good things to happen, and to continue happening, while pessimists see the same thing about negative experiences.

To me, I see it as a leadership opportunity. Seligman contends that people can learn – or be led – to stances of either optimism or pessimism. In my mind, it’s about choosing optimism. If a leader is in a situation that has gone poorly or that others think is “jinxed,” then there’s a space to lead people through the pessimism and into an expectation of good things happening next, and next, and next and….

Some new questions emerging

2007-06-07T20:05:00.000-05:00

It’s not about getting the young to act like the old, doing things the way we used to do them or have been doing them for years, it’s about a greater, harder shift that we need to find ways to ease ourselves and our organizations into. The obvious desire it to re-shape everybody to be little mini-me’s – young clones of the older people so things can keep on going once I’m gone. Some of this is about legacy. Some more is about mortality and preservation. Whatever you want to call it, it isn’t the recipe for future success, primarily because it is based on a reality from the past. See this story for a little more on this.

Buying a future

2007-06-07T00:29:00.000-05:00

I came across a story on American Public Radio’s Marketplace the other day that was talking about a new way college students and recent grads are working to get an edge upon graduation. The company, University of Dreams, will find you a well placed internship to get you on the road to professional success. They offer good internships with desirable companies and in desirable locations. What makes University of Dreams different is that, for one thing, there’s a fee, and not a small one. Second, it’s not just about finding you an internship, it also provides room and board, health insurance, transportation, seminars to support the experience, even weekend excursions.

One young co-ed described it as a bit like “sleep away camp.” Now the geezers are saying, “GIVE ME A BREAK!” (I think I can even hear them.) But the younger folks – the Millennials – are saying, “Well that’s a cool idea.” And with Mom and Dad having already spent $100,000 on the college education, what’s another $10K to really seal the deal?

Now the reality of it is that this is a natural piece that’s really just filling the gap. As a generation that’s been painstakingly supported and nurtured (some would say coddled) up through college, this makes sense. These kids have been having their parents advocate for them, provide for them, enable them, and pay for them starting at birth, and continuing through college. You may have seen in this space and in other places how parents have been spotted arguing grades with professors, going on job interviews with their kids, calling HR when the performance review isn’t positive enough for Mom and Dad. This is just another piece of the process.

One thing that it means is that young adults entering into the workforce will be prepared at another level, one that enables them to enter in to the workforce with a bit more of an edge. Another by-product of this slice of reality is that they’re being given yet another skill or experience that takes them farther away from previous Generations, who are likely to say, “I had to work for my opportunities, not have my parents buy them for me.”

And while all of these things are true to some degree, it’s just another example of the way things are different for the Millennials from the previous generations. Neither good nor bad, just what is. Will this be a widespread phenomenon? It’s too early to tell. However, it is another niche that exists on the landscape and will continue for a little while.

Global Millennials

2007-06-01T00:29:00.000-05:00

I had a request the other day from a journalist in Canberra (AUS) to comment about a story that was in the Wall Street Journal recently. The question comes from a story in the Journal that discussed the notion that this current youngest generation – The Millennials (born after 1980 and before 2000) who are now entering the workforce in some greater numbers –are the “most praised generation” in history. The charge is that they need more praise, more positive feedback, more ‘we’re all winners’ sentiment in their work, much as they’ve had in their entire lives up until this point.

The little bit of buzz around this article – a buzz that I saw cross oceans and continents quite quickly, I’ll add – is how much truth is there to this, and more locally, how relevant is this to life in Australia-New Zealand?

From what I know about the Millennials, whether more praise is needed for them or not isn’t really the central question. One can assume that because of the way things have been for them – all of the attention, support, equality that has been forced on them over their years getting to this stage in life – certainly points to the possibility that if you don’t give them the kind of praise they’re accustomed to, then they are going to be confused, at best, and hurt or pissed off, at worst.

The geezers may be saying “Tough Beans!” right now, and the Gen Xers may be saying, “No one was there to give me all that attention,” so there probably may not be so much tolerance for this, but it doesn’t really affect the way the Millennials are going to be experiencing the cold hard truth of the current norm.

If there’s any solace inside of this reality, the need for Boomers and beyond to provide more feed back, and I mean feedback in general, has been something the Gen Xers have been demanding for 15 years. (Whether or not the Boomer managers ever responded to that need is another question.) Now, the breadth of the feed back has simply been expanded.

And as far as a regional truth, there’s some variation on that as well, but not so much. The complaint in the article was that sometimes you need to give negative feedback to young employees and they need to be able to handle that. You can’t give everyone a medal just for showing up, regardless of the team’s record, like the kids experienced in youth soccer. Well, why not? Why can’t more people get recognized for just showing up? “It was great to have your contribution this week, Brendan.” Or, “I appreciate the attention you gave the project this week, Brittney.” Is that unreasonable or is it just a part of the leadership style that will be effective from this point forward? This isn’t about you, after all. It’s about them.

Do we feel it yet?

2007-04-29T20:46:00.002-05:00

“Transformation of an enterprise begins with a sense of crisis or urgency. No institution will go through fundamental change unless it believes that it is in deep trouble and needs to do something different to survive.”

Lou Gerstner, former CEO of IBM speaking at Harvard Business School

All we can do is provide you with a framework, made of up some of the structure and supports you need to be successful in the future, but you need to build that future yourself. No one else can do it for you and the sooner you are able to take responsibility for that building, the sooner your future will become your present.

So what is it that prevents us from seeing the need for the changes that is sitting right in front of us. In the US, the needs couldn’t be any more plainly visible. Public health care and gun control systems that allow for a person to be armed – both psychologically and ballistically – with the weaponry to senselessly kill 32 people and affect thousands, if not millions, of people. A federal budget, national debt, and trade deficit that are more out of balance than any other time in history. An educational system that as American kids falling further and further back relative to our new global marketplace neighbours (or competitors, depending on how you want to think about things.

What is needed is the kind of courageous leadership that can’t be done by one person acting in isolation. Those days are over. Visibility and scrutiny are too intense. Expectations are incredibly high, but so is the level of skepticism. Middle managers and professionals in their 30s and early 40;s want to be enabled. More seasoned employees and leaders want to be respected and valued. The youngest employees want to be inspired and included, but also let and taught with a degree of respect that many older colleagues think is premature. The job leading at the top of this melange of styles, wants, needs, and expectations is difficult one. It’s a challenge that is really beyond the capacity of most leaders in our time. But there is a way through. It’s a way of collaboration, of sharing the control and the power, the spotlight and the spoils. The challenge now is to find ways to accept the reality of the urgency we are facing and the need to look for a new way to lead and succeed. Until that happens, slipping further back and moving further to the margins are the only changes that will happen.

Great questions

2006-12-04T07:04:00.000-05:00

I was having dinner with a friend the other night. He was talking about his son who is in the military. His son was up for an aircraft commander position and was in the middle of the examination process. He had been tested on the technical stuff and the procedural stuff. Now he was being tested for the leadership. "So, you're flying into a storm area to do a rescue of a boater in distress off the coast. You're down a man and "X" isn't functioning. It's starting to get dark," his examiner asked. "What would you do?"

My friend went on to describe a whole bunch of other scenarios his son was put into and asked about. There were issues of leadership, critical decision-making in time sensitive situations, situations where people's lives were at risk, situations of conflicting priorities. I was very interested to hear about the ways that this young man was asked to think and reflect, then act considering so many possibilities and constituencies.

He passed the exam.

BergerBlog now on Technorati!

2006-11-02T09:04:00.000-05:00

Technorati Profile

Engaging and Informing

2006-11-01T10:39:00.000-05:00

I was recently at a conference talking about the Generational lens of dealing with conflict resolution and mediation, and the conversation turned to informing and engaging. We had a pretty good conversation about the different ways each generational group needed to be given information and the different ways each group wants to be included.

A Boomer participant in her mid-50s explained that for her, it was, “Tell me when to show up, tell me what we’re going to do, and tell me where to sign the agreement. Anything beyond that just makes things a lot more difficult to manage.”

The 23-year old Millennial, who had been thrust in to an HR Manager role – while still in Grad School working on her Masters – sat by shaking her head. “You’ve got to be kidding!” she retorted, half-playful, half-horrified. “That would never work for me or for anyone I know,” she went on.

“I want to know what’s at stake. I want to be a part of creating the agreement, finding a time and place I’m happy with,” the younger woman continued. To her, being told when and where to show up and being expected to sign on the dotted line is something that would never pass.

And herein lies yet another example of two of our three major generational groups missing things that are obvious to each of them. It isn’t about knowing that all of the Millennials need to be checking in with and engaged at every step of the process – although that isn’t a bad idea, to a degree. Nor is it to just assume that the needs of the situation will simply be accepted. The reality is that there is a little bit of both.

We need to understand that the “others” have some different needs and different expectations, and to not be aware of those expectations and look for ways to meet them – proactively! – is just going to make things harder than they need to be.

MB

The new reality of Adutescence

2006-07-19T13:00:00.000-05:00

The new reality of Adultescence

A recent posting of mine discussed how some grad programs are faced with the challenge of dealing with students who have very active parents – active in the way that the parents were advocates and watchdogs over their kids from preschool on.

I came across an article the other day that was published last summer in the Greensboro/Winston Salem Business Journal that went a bit deeper in to the issue.  The article is titled, “College Parents:  Be propellers, no helicopters.”   Written by Leo Lambert, the president of Elon College, the article refers to the matter of delayed adulthood, or "adultescence,"  caused by the Baby-boomer parents who have been heavily involved in their children's lives are reluctant to sever those ties at college.

Of course, I continue to get emails and phone calls from colleagues all over the world who experience this reality in the workplace.  The one incident that stays in my mind is the parent who called the HR manager 27 times to advocate on her son’s behalf regarding a position.

Some Baby Boomer executives I work with respond with utter disbelief when I tell them these tails, but the list of HR types and senior managers I know talk about the Parent factor with increasing frequency.  They say to me (especially the older ones) that this is ridiculous.  Ridiculous or not, it is part of the new reality.

Michael Berger

Cultural Creatives: A potential bridge

2006-05-30T10:19:00.000-05:00

This past weekend, I attended a workshop put on by a colleague where he addressed, among other things, some of the emerging social norms that may have some real impact on our society moving forward.

As many readers have seen in this space before, the shifting demographics among the generational groups making up our society has already had a profound impact on how we work, how we play, and what is considered “normal” in our world.  I mean, what percentage of the people did you see walking down the street with a Venti Starbucks in one hand and a cell phone in the other five years ago?  (Of course, today they have a Bluetooth earpiece in their ear so it just looks like they’re having an animated conversation with their coffee!)

The point that my colleague raised came out of a different method of slicing and dicing US society.  Cultural Creatives was written by Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson in 2000, in which he broke society down into three groups:  the Traditionals, the Moderns, and the Cultural Creatives.  He describes the cultural creatives this way:

The Cultural Creatives care deeply about ecology and saving the planet, about relationships, peace, social justice, and about self actualization, spirituality and self-expression. Surprisingly, they are both inner-directed and socially concerned, they're activists, volunteers and contributors to good causes more than other Americans. However, because they've been so invisible in American life, Cultural Creatives themselves are astonished to find out how many share both their values and their way of life. Once they realize their numbers, their impact on American life promises to be enormous, shaping a new agenda for the twenty-first century.

Where this idea is interesting to me is the way that is cuts across the Generational dynamics that I’ve been talking and writing about.  When I describe Millennials as people who have a greater commitment to tolerance, community development and support, and actively work to bring resources together because they know the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, it sounds like they are Cultural Creatives.

When I talk about Gen-Xers who are fed up with the institution because they refuse to be fooled by the Political message and the spin, and are turned off by conventional norms because they see the damage that is being done to the planet, they sound like Cultural Creatives.

Many  Boomers are reverting back to the values and dreams that they had when they were young in the 60s. Of course for many of them, they got sucked into the vortex of their productive years, where they strove to out-earn, out-spend, and out-consume their peers.  But now, they are realizing that they are, in fact, part of the problem and they want to use all of their “success” to become part of the solution. They sure do sound a bit like Cultural Creatives.

The book and the ideas in it are an interesting and different packaging of our society that will not take the place of Generational distinctions, but it provides one of the bridges to build across the Generational Divide.

Still more...

2006-02-19T19:38:00.000-05:00

An interesting article appeared in the Wall Street Journal’s online version a couple of days ago.  It was about what companies and Grad schools are expecting out of the batch of Millennials entering MBA programs in the US.

The article, “Millennial MBAs prompt B-Schools to Shift Gears,” did a very nice job painting a broad picture of what’s already happening in a lot of grad schools and businesses.

In essence, grad schools, recruiters, HR departments, and front-line managers are going to need to be ready for this youngest generation and all of the support and strength that they bring…from their parents!  And I don’t mean the traits of hard-headedness or empathy one of their parents may have passed along.

No, I mean the way their Boomer parents set up school conferences to argue their grades (in elementary school!), the way their parents made sure that their lives were totally structured, supported, and protected, the way their parents showed up for all of the little league games and screamed at the Ump for blowing the call or at the other team’s coach for running up the score.

The way it will be translated as this generation enters the workforce is parents advocating for little Billy’s mid-term grade at the Fletcher School of Business.  Or in disputing Sally’s year-end review that was, in her parent’s eyes, one-sided and biased against her.  There will be parents coming along on job interviews and entrance interviews.  There are other issues about workplace dynamics, technology, collaborating, and job meaning for this generation, but we’ll save that for later.

MB

Gaining Momentum

2006-02-17T14:50:00.000-05:00

A colleague of mine in British Columbia sent me a news blurb that talks about the Generational realities that are emerging inside of organizations with a bit of the force I’ve been awaiting. The blurb, from Knight-Ridder, read:

For the first time ever, four generations are active and critical to the American work force--the Silent Generation (ages 61 to 79, baby boomer (ages 42 to 60), Generation Xers (ages 25 to 41) and Millennials (24 and under). Experts also say that managers and their companies will have to deal with 70 million children of baby boomers joining the ranks of management and supervising workers who may be old enough to be their parents. Many businesses are moving quickly to adapt to these trends, and they are hiring generational consultants to help them do that. Much like a management analyst, generational analysts analyze work environments and recommend changes to improve the effectiveness of an organization's initiatives. Although generational consultants typically convey their knowledge by speaking in front of groups, they sometimes work one-on-one with clients.

While the phenomenon of this is very well known to me, as are the specifics and the implications, what is interesting is how the momentum around this issue is building. I’ve been seeing, reading, and hearing more buzz about the Multi-generational issue in the past four months than I have in the past five years I’ve been working with this dynamic. The dynamic has moved from theory and into reality.

One of the most interesting conversations I had around this recently was with the HR manager in charge of a sales and marketing group for a financial services company. His group was made up primarily of Millennials and the turnover rate in his group was almost 70 percent within 18 months of hire. After hearing his story, I asked him a few questions about what they are doing and made a few suggestions to start thinking about this group of people differently. It was like someone had turned on the light. And once that light was on, the whole scene looked a little differently to him. In this era of ultra competitiveness for market share and talent, some of the little tweaks and changes are what’s going to make a great deal of difference.

MB

Distractions: Friend of Foe?

2006-01-31T13:19:00.000-05:00

An interesting article appeared in Time Magazine two weeks ago.  It discussed the issue about the ways that cell phones, email, and the ever-present BlackBerry is changing not only how effective we are, but also the neurochemical makeup of our bodies.

Are these simply the by-products of our multi-tasking reality of life in the big cities?  Maybe so.  For those people who are driven by the thrill of chaos, who find that the double-latte serves as a relaxant, and who absolutely have to have their headset on all the time, then maybe our current technology and trends make you feel more at home than you’ve ever been.  For the rest of us, who feel forced into this new existence, who see this stuff as the trappings of current reality, you might want to know a few things.

The authors of the article referenced a study done by Basex – a New York City based info-technology research firm – revealed that the interruptions that dot our work day consume – and I mean eat with both hands in a messy way – 28% of our workday.  More than two hours!  One-quarter of the day is spent, maybe wasted even, on interruptions.  With each interruption, it takes the average person 25 minutes to get back to what they were doing.

On top of all this, these interruptions intrusions are creating a new medical condition.  Attention-deficit trait, or ADT, looks a whole lot like its close cousin, ADD.  (Dr. Edward Hallowell, a Massachusetts-based psychiatrist gave this new condition its name in a Harvard Business Review article).  ADT hits you in situations, where the multi-tasking gets too multi.  Then comes stress, anxiety, guilt, depression, etc. etc.

So the answers?  They are different for different people.  One of the things that I’ve thought about is that the Boomers are the ones most likely to be really nailed by all of this stuff.  They, unlike the Xers and Millennials, haven’t been raised with this stuff.  As it is, my 8-year-old daughter checks her email regularly, taking her cue from her Gen X parents, so the interruptions to her aren’t the problem, they’re the norm.  Lots of others in their 20s have the same background with technology.  Nonetheless, what are we doing to help the people who need all of this and what are we doing to help all of those who are hurt by it?

Non-Rocket Science Leadership

2005-11-07T10:47:00.000-05:00

I was talking to a friend yesterday about the leader of her team.  They are ten, highly-educated people in a non-profit  R&D and Training shop.  They recently had their former boss kicked out of the group because she was such a bad leader for them.  Let’s call the former leader “Wendy”.

Wendy had a way of being really in-authentic to the group.  She seemed to be constantly serving her own agenda, while never taking any responsibility or accountability for what she did wrong  She was quick to take credit whenever vaguely possible, and even quicker to dump the blame on the nearest person.

It had gotten to the point where trust had eroded to nothing in the group.  Morale was at rock bottom.  Collaboration ceased to exist.  The experience was just awful for everyone.  Two team members had left, and others were threatening.  But this was all to change.

After the mutiny and Wendy was kicked out, a new leader was appointed from within the team – let’s call her “Clara.”  Clara didn’t necessarily want the job, but she had been on the team for longer than most, knew the systems quite well, and had a sense of the political landscape in the larger organization.  Additionally, she was liked and respected, both for her intellect and her actions.

What makes Clara a great leader is not her formal training, her MBA in management, or her years of experience leading this kind of group.  The reality is that she has none of these things.  What she does have, though, is a sense of appreciation for each team member and for the process of being a leader – treating her colleagues with respect  and openness.

Now, she isn’t the end-all answer to leadership.  Like many leaders – all of whom happen to be real live human beings – she doesn’t love conflict, but she doesn’t avoid it altogether.  She uses her judgment to pick and choose the “battles,” and is mindful about what else is going on for the individual in question and the team, in general.

Is this stuff rocket science?  Absolutely not.  It amazes me that simply listening to people – whether they are colleagues or subordinates – is often the biggest piece to enrollment and engagement of a team.  It has to be listening that isn’t  just hearing, but listening with an open mind to the things you might not know or that you may not entirely believe.  But listening to others, integrating their thoughts into the larger sense of what’s what, showing others that they’ve been heard, and then taking a slightly different action or stance, based on the thoughts and ideas of the others is a huge piece of one kind of leadership.  This is a form of leadership that is more and more in demand today, but that so many leaders at all types of organizations are unable to take on.

Seeing the ways that Clara is this kind of leader is powerfully refreshing.  It’s also powerfully effective, both within the inner workings of the team and with the external results they produce.

MB

A good effort We'll see what happens

2005-09-30T14:04:00.000-05:00

I’m working with a new client group – a West-coast based marketing company with some stake in the marketplace.  This company created an internal program that identifies the high-performer/high-potentials, sticks them together, and tells them to be the company’s leaders of the future.

Interestingly enough, the execs told them nothing else.  They gave them little other direction, little other visible support, and no expectations.  Not surprisingly, little has emerged from the project.

What this situation calls for is a bit of a gut check where the old guard senior partners pony up to the table and determine what they are in the game for.  I mean, I really have seen how hard it is for the 58-year old senior exec to take his (high) 6-plus figure salary – and all of the power and trappings that comes with it – and turn some of that over to a 24-year old kid who finished his or her MBA two years ago.

In my work with senior and junior leaders in companies, I try to get a couple of key points across.  For one, letting a younger person in on the “top secret” discussions and decisions that happen behind the board room doors isn’t immediately followed by corporate anarchy, and then the senior exec who let the kid in initially getting fired.  As true as that may seem for some of you, it’s just false.

Secondly, when you give younger people a little taste of power and wisdom, they don’t jump ship to your closest competitor where they can leverage their insider secrets into a fat salary with stock options.

Actually, just the opposite happens more often than not.  By you letting some younger folk into the fold, you are actually doing everyone a service.  The younger person gets a boost of commitment and support in continuing to work hard for your company, your company gets some fresh insight and perspective that is in woefully short supply at the senior leadership level -- face it, there isn’t a single person in upper management who doesn’t remember the time before CDs (the music ones, not the money ones).  Also, you may be seen as the genius who is willing to take some risks in ensuring the company’s future.  Additionally, when you let people in the process that way, they are more likely to become  more committed to you and your company, not less.  They are unlikely to jump ship and take their secrets with them

--MB

Being "Great"

2005-09-02T10:23:00.000-05:00

I was talking with a client the other day about the team she manages.  She is the leader of a team of about 10 managers/directors for a consumer products company on the West coast.  She just inherited four managers from another division that was merged into her group.

She wanted me to come in and do some work with her and the whole team – your basic teambuilding kind of thing.  I asked her if she was worried about creating a safe environment for the discussion about what’s working and what’s not, as well as the roles people need to play in order for the team to be successful.  She said she really wasn’t

“No, we have a lot of really open and frank discussions in my group and in our meetings,” she told me.  “People really say what they think without being afraid.”

“Really,” I said with a noticeable amount of surprise.  I realized in that moment how accustomed I’ve become to the presence of fear and mistrust with just about every team of people I work with.

“So, what has made your team function so ‘normally,’ without the same baggage of fear being dragged around into every single conversation, email, and interaction,” I asked.

She thought for a moment.  “Well, I guess that I created it.”

It was that simple.  I probed a bit further into her perception of the safe team and heard what she had done to make this possible.  What it came down to, in my assessment at least, was her openness to being wrong some of the time, knowing that other people on her team saw things differently than she did, that they had ideas that may be different and better than hers, and that she was truly, genuinely committed to the group and the company’s success, as opposed to her own.

Jim Collins, in Good to Great, talks about how the leaders of the historically top-performing companies look at themselves when searching for answers as to why things went wrong and look out the window (at other) when searching for the reasons why things went right.  My take on this is that great leaders are open to their own accountability, as well as understanding that many outside people and forces need to play a role in achieving success.

It was a great reminder to me to see someone who was really doing things right.  It’s unfortunate that so many leaders get caught up in being closed to others, in looking to reap the big reward in success and cover their own asses in defeat.  Of course, I usually want to know why – what else is going on that forces this protective dynamic, with my eye on figuring out how to create an environment where things can go right.

MB

Mean Guys Finish First?

2005-07-11T14:53:00.000-05:00

This story seems to turn the old saying upside down. I was reading in Reuters today about the latest news of the comings and goings in the C-suite.

The now-former co-President Stephen Crawford, one of Phillip Purcell’s strong supporters during Purcell’s tenure, decided to step aside, leaving with a cool $32 million severance package in his bank account. This comes on the heels of Purcell’s $113 million severance package

All of this money is being handed to a guy and his right-hand man who drove the quality of Morgan Stanley into a downward spiral – both from stock performance and from a management perspective.

Purcell’s leadership – that of fear, intimidation, closed-mindedness, and of surrounding himself with people like Crawford who supported whatever Purcell stated – seems to have served Purcell quite nicely.

So what is the message here? Be a bad, ego-centric leader and you’ll come out ahead? It almost seems that way.

What surprises me is that there are so many leaders in organizations who fit the same mold that Purcell came from and who are making so much money while they’re at it (and after they are forced out!). The logic that I use – that good, engaged, open leaders produce better results over the long term – feels a little bit challenged when I read another story like the Morgan Stanley saga.

Now, the end of this story hasn’t yet been written. One thing that I do know is that another bad leader was, in fact, pushed out, “punished” for his bad leadership style. However, with all of the money now in his coffers, I doubt Mr. Purcell will be looking to change his ways anytime soon. Yet, he is still out of a job, with articles and blogs like this confirming that his way doesn’t work any more.

Not what I had expected

2005-05-04T13:42:00.000-05:00

The piece that caught my attention today is a local item with a universal issue at its heart. In today's Washington Post, there was a story about how the DC-Metro area's largest grocery store chain is consolidating and streamlining (read: layoffs) courtesy of the (relatively new) Dutch ownership group, Royal Ahold NV. It seems that making your own bread and ice cubes is an overhead item that doesn't make the cut in Holland.

So the story goes that about 500 people, mostly in the distribution and wharehousing parts of the company, are going to be losing their jobs.

"I feel let down and betrayed by the company," said Steve McCabe, 46, who works at Giant's health and beauty care warehouse, now slated for closure. "We thought this was a safe haven. You do your 35 years and you're out."

Okay Steve, what year was your quote from? I mean, you've been in the work force for ALL of the corporate downsizing era. You aren't a dock worker or a letter carrier from the 50's. You don't work on the shop floor in Detroit? Talk about Generational Time Warp. And which 35 years are you talking about? Did you start paying union dies when you were at 15?

Okay, enough about Steve, although his comments do point to an interesting, curious, and still-present dynamic: Job security.

I was working with some executives from a leading global financial services company earlier this week. What made them interesting, relative to this conversation, was that they were about the same age as Steve, and they had all been laid off recently. Was there bitterness about their early departure from their jobs? Sure. Were they worried about what was next? Absolutely. Were they complaining about thinking that they had a job for life? Not a chance. They didn't like it, but they are among the millions of Boomers who are beginning to accept the new -- albeit unfortunate -- reality. Job security exists only for those people still living in the Generational Time Warp.

MB

Copyright 2005 – Michael Berger, Transformational Consulting. Reprinting or reproduction without permission is prohibited

The Corporate Compromise

2005-04-26T06:30:00.000-05:00

I had a conversation with a the leader of a large division of a major media company the other day – I’ll call her Kira. We were talking about situation that I am working on with a senior member of her staff – I’ll call him Perry.

Perry has been on Kira’s team for about 18 months, and by all accounts, it’s been a pretty stormy time. One of the big problems with their relationship is that Perry wants to move up the corporate ladder and enter the vast pool of Vice Presidents. While there isn’t that much to be gained strategically, it does provided some increase in power, but brings more pay, more stature, and more influence outside the walls of the corporations. It’s something that Perry feels is long overdue and that he deserves.

Kira sees things a little differently. One quality that has kept Kira from making this promotion happen is her belief that Perry doesn’t “get” the Corporate Compromise. – the proverbial drinking of the Kool Aid. According to Kira, there are times when the message comes down for the Powers that Be, and that you, as one of the field generals, need to support that message, even if you don’t buy in to it.

For me, personally, this is one of the great challenges that we can slice and dice in lots of ways. Kira, who is in her late 40’s-early 50’s, is a baby boomer. Baby boomers make the corporate compromise – a compromise in their values or a justification of something that goes against their beliefs – in the name of success.

“It’s about playing the game,” Kira stated. “It’s about being able to decide when you want to fight it, when you think you can influence it, and when you think it is something you can or can’t live with.”

She said that she asks herself a few key questions when faced with a situation that forces her to make the Corporate Compromise.
1. What is at stake?
2. What am I being asked to do?
3. Can I still do my job?
4. Can I do what I have been asked?
At this point, Kira explained, you need to decide Am I in, or Am I out. That it isn’t about work-arounds or what-ifs. It’s about playing the game or passing.

To the Boomer, especially one who can draw a very thick line between work values and personal values (a notion I don’t totally buy), this can work. To a different person, maybe a Gen-Xer or a person who isn’t so comfortable with one set of rules for his or her work life and personal life, this system doesn’t really hold up.

Now, I’m not going to poke my values any more into this debate. However, I will put forth the notion that there are many leaders who are making this kind of compromise every day, and I believe that it is a compromise that is going to be supported less and less, and by fewer and fewer people as we move forward. Right now, ethics are the big buzzword and some leaders are going to make the ethical choice NOT to drink the Kool Aid for fear of being splashed across the pages of the Wall Street Journal.

However, another dynamic is beginning to unfold. People like Perry are going to continue saying, “Forget it. I think that this kind of compromise is a crock.” Will people like Perry be forced to stay in positions lower on the food chain than they deserve or will they have to leave their companies? Some may, but only in the short term. The days of the Baby Boomer corporate compromise are numbered.

Copyright 2005 – Michael Berger, Transformational Consulting. Reprinting or reproduction without permission is prohibited

Generational Hindsight or Blind-sight?

2005-04-10T11:22:00.000-05:00

A colleague of mine was sharing a story about a company she was working with recently. The company is in the transportation business – shipping really big things across long distances in the United States and Canada. Since China has become such a huge trade partner, lots of goods are coming in to the West coast and need to get all over the continent. The industry hasn’t seem a boom like this in many years. She told me they are hiring people as fast as they can.

The work she was doing recently involved some training with senior leadership of the business. As they were talking, she asked the managers she was with, “So, how many years do you have here?” One said 25 years, another said 28, a third said 32, and a fourth said 24. “Oh, the baby in the group,” she replied. “No, just 24 years here. I had ten at a competitor before coming here,” was his response.

So just at one table, there was more than one hundred years of experience. The significance here is that while all of these people were building up the years, this company hired no one. Literally, no new people. Over the course of 17 years, this company had brought in almost no new people at all. And today, they are hiring like crazy.

As these managers were talking about the issues that are facing the company, it was clear that an entire generation had been skipped. When these managers start heading out the retirement door -- and some already have – there is no one to take over their jobs, just a bunch of 20-somethings with fewer than a year’s time on the job.

And now, they need to do something to make the next 5-10 years work.

A view from a different seat

2005-04-05T12:23:00.000-05:00

I just returned from a vacation to a dude ranch in Arizona and had some amazing insights, sitting perched atop a horse, of all places.

So here I am, trying to control something that is much bigger than I am, something that could harm -- or even kill -- me, and something that knows I'm not really the boss. How many leaders feel the same way about the team or company they are trying to lead?

For one thing, I learned very quickly that if I gave no other information or instructions, that the horse would either not go anywhere, or it would simply follow the pack and do what those around him did. When the horse did follow the other horses, there was clearly leadership happening, I just wasn’t the one providing it. Talk about humbling!

When I did begin to feel a little comfortable in my new position of power, I realized that I was way over-doing it. The horse needed just gently nudges or tugs to do just what I wanted, not the hard kicks and strong pulls on the reins I was giving. It took a little time, but I began to learn the subtle nuances that were needed for this situation.

One other fascinating insight I got was watching the ranch's wranglers -- men and women who understood horses better than I ever will and who have spend thousands of hours in a saddle. Despite their expertise, despite their wisdom, despite their ease with these huge animals, it was clear that they were never entirely in control. They could lead as best as they could, in whatever style worked for them, but it was never absolute control. There was a certain degree of latitude they had to allow for all the time. And they knew it. To try to absolutely dominate their horse would have been damaging, to the horse, to their relationship to the horse, and to how well the horse performed for them.

How about that for a lesson in leadership?

Expanding my thinking

2005-01-18T11:04:00.000-05:00

Generational differences within an organization’s structure – and the inability or unwillingness to confront them – is beginning to be one of the un-examined causes of the failures of systems. Many Baby Boomers are moving closer to retirement while others are just digging in to leadership roles, while the next group – the Gen X-ers – are ready to step up as well. Trouble is that they haven’t been involved in the bridge-building process across the generational divide that is critical to the long term success of organizations (and the company’s retirement portfolio!). Complicting things, the next group -- the Millenials -- are entering into the scene with their own outlook and style. Many feel that this group is the one that will set the tone for the business world much in the way the Boomers did in the 60s and 70s. We build awareness and understanding for all of these generation groups to build the capacity of both current and future leaders to communicate, work, and evolve into the future that awaits us all. Are you thinking about how messy this is about to get? Will we manage this and not get in our own way?

YIKES!! How about a little leadership?

2004-12-28T20:18:00.000-05:00

Most likely, you've heard or read (hopefully not experienced) the Christmas debacle brought to you by USAirways, in which 30 flights and thousands of mis-directed suitcases plagued the struggling airline on the second-busiest traveling weekend of the year.

Customers were angry. Airline employees were frustrated. Family members were left shaking their heads and waiting -- wondering, even -- when their family members or their belongings (and presents!) were going to arrive.

In steps Bruce Lakefield, CEO of USAir to offer his 2-cents on the situation, as reported in The Washington Post.

"I have seen lots of excuses for why people took it upon themselves to call in sick, such as low morale, poor management, anger over pay cuts and frustration with labor negotiations," Lakefield said in a memo to employees. "None of those excuses passes the test. We all have our jobs to do."

If I were a USAir employee and had just received that in my email inbox, I'm sure my moral, belief in management's wisdom and expertise, and general anger and frustration would have really improved.

So, I think that I know a little bit about how to work with people who are pissed off. I feel confident to say that Mr. Lakefield has a thing or two to learn about leadership. Like, lesson one: Don't do or say something stupid that will make a bad situation even worse.

And that one was on the house!

And, Happy New year.

Integrity on parade

2004-12-08T11:10:00.000-05:00

Integrity. An easy thing to say you have. A wise thing to represent in your speaking and positioning, but a really hard thing to actually live. A recent article in Fast Company’s Leadership series speaks to this point, outlining the need to have integrity in all of your aspects of your business – mission, function, team, compensation, security. All really obvious things to say. Much harder to do.

Today, I’m not going to give my answer on how to deliver all of these things. What I am going to do is name just how hard integrity (in any or all of these things) really is to attain and maintain.
The external forces on leaders and their businesses are unbelievable. Between shareholders, customers, and the media, you slip up one time and your either facing a sell off, a drop in market share, or a front page story telling how much of a bastard you are.

Add your employees to the mix, and you have to worry about quality and efficiency of output, and then morale, and ultimately your competitive edge.
It’s easy to say you have integrity as a leader, but are you telling the truth? Either to yourself or all of those around you? We have seen examples of high profile leaders who can look you straight in the eye and lead you to believe that they are doing to best thing and the right thing for everyone, and then end up indicted for embezzling, faking the figures, and lining their offshore accounts with company and shareholder dollars. They, thank goodness, are the aberration, not the norm.

That leaves the rest of us. I truly believe that nearly every leader and manager with whom I am working is genuinely doing the best that he or she can for reasons that are generally good. Most people are not out to advance themselves at the expense of everyone else. But even for these people, I push them to really question themselves about what their personal definition of integrity is and check in to see if their actions and words line up with their statements of integrity.

How would yours do?

Crossing the Divide

2004-12-03T14:51:00.000-05:00

Success or failure. What is it going to be for your company? Some of the factors that will determine this are out of your control. The economy. The strength of the dollar versus the Euro or the Yen. Legislative decisions made behind closed doors.

Fine. I say don’t deal with things that are beyond your realm of influence. But there’s a lot of other stuff left. One piece that I actively advocate for is preparedness for the eventual changes that are guaranteed to take place. Changes are happening and will continue. How ready are you – and the rest of American companies -- for the evolutionary shift in leadership that we are literally standing at the edge of?

Do you want to hear more?

Some of the Right Stuff

2004-11-15T19:24:00.000-05:00

I had an amazing opportunity last week to hear a informal post-dinner speech from a very senior level executive -- one of the top 20 execs at Fortune 50 company.

His company, like so many at the top of the corporate food chain, has been facing some internal and external turmoil, some pretty serious stuff. In listening to him talk to this group of 20 or so upper-level managers for the company, he spoke of expansion and contraction, shifts in the company, and the possibility of big-time mergers. But none of that really struck a unique chord, neither for me nor anyone else in the group.

When he moved to some of the less Wall St. Journal talk to the more intangible elements of the character of business, the heads came up and leaned in, while the eyes of each person in the group focused in on this leader a bit more sharply.

"We need to move away from this orientation toward making decisions in business according to the rules and the laws, and move more closely to the position of operating from principles." He said that American businesses have seen their reputation in the world market tarnished because other countries and other markets know that if an American company can do something that is technically legal, they will do it, regardless of how hard it smacks in the fact of good business values or principles.

Some people say that behind every bad business decision is a good loophole. In plenty of circles of American business execs, there is the unspoken knowledge -- arrogance and cockiness, really -- that if people are stupid enough to put up their cash and there is a loophole to jump through at the point of legal collapse, then shame on the sucker who just lost his life savings.

Eventually, one would like to think that time will catch up to those who are gaining at the expense of others. But before that happens, what meaning is sent out to the people -- sometimes the thousands of people -- who go to work for that leader every day?

I think about the people who work for the companies that show up on the cover of the New York Times or the Journal and have to face the embarrassment of their leaders' bad or self-serving judgment. What would it look like if these leaders operated from a place of principles versus what they could get away with? We can only wait to see if this leader I saw speak -- or any other leaders in corporate America -- start working from this place of Principles. It would be amazing to see what would happen.

Breathing the Fresh Air

2004-09-13T20:10:00.000-05:00

When I have really good experiences in my work, I find that I feel like writing about them. Over the past four days, I’ve had the great fortune of having preliminary meetings with potential clients. Not just any clients, but big, successful, profitable clients who are both at the tops of their respective industries.

What made these meetings so good – aside from the fact that everyone on their own in business wants new clients – was the engagement that both of these companies have with supporting the growth and development of their organizations – and the people who work there. They are both looking to tap into the resources that they currently have on the payroll and figure out what these dedicated, talented people need to excel to higher levels –levels of greater responsibility, greater productivity, and greater success.

On the airplane trip to this meeting, I was sitting next to a regional sales rep with a major specialty clothing company – a company whose name you would recognize right away. After talking about what I did, he started telling me about all that has started going wrong within his company. He told me how managers have made it pretty clear that when the reps are hearing presentations from the product development group, the reps should keep their mouths shut. He went on to explain the ways this has eroded the quality of these meetings, as well as compromised the finished products coming from development because there is no space for debate, dissention, and eventually, better products that will be easier for the reps to sell.

Blending these three experiences together – my two potential client meetings and my airplane conversation with my sales rep friend – I see a picture of stark contrast. I see a picture of organizations moving in two different directions.

It is so much work to confront, to engage, to challenge ourselves and each other to really ask the hard questions of what we can be doing to make our work and our companies better? It is much easier to pretend that nothing is wrong, to stay quiet, and to bottle our opinions and ideas up inside? This is a question that needs be asked of every leader in every organization, big or small.

Right under our noses?

2004-09-08T05:18:00.000-05:00

An intriguing article appeared on Business 2.0’s website today that talked about targeted advertising in video games. The article, “Quick-change ads for the joystick generation,” talked about how in 2007, advertiser are projected to spend $45 million on product placement ads appearing in video games, up from about $10 million in 2002.

Aside from the, “Wow, that seems ridiculous” response that I initially had, it got me to thinking about how this is an example of uncovering opportunities for something new, different, and potentially effective that hadn’t thought about or noticed before. So my disbelief quickly turned into impressed.

What this makes me wonder about is where are the opportunities to ______ that are right in front of us? Given the direction my nose points me, I fill in that blank with “lead.” In organizations and in society, where are we missing the opportunities to provide clear and powerful leadership? What opportunities for this lie right in front of our noses, and probably aren’t that complicated to implement?

A colleague of mine was talking about a client he has that is frustrating him a great deal The situation rings of this same idea. The client recently went through a reorganization that touched many parts of the company and many key leaders. What the CEO did was, for the most part, isolate herself from a lot of people who could have helped her make some tough and important decisions. By providing a kind of stoic, independent leadership, she has missed an opportunity to use some great thinking that was available to her.

What she continues to do, though, is to miss the boat to lead by inclusion and involvement. The decisions will always be ultimately hers to make. How she does it will dictate what the impact of her decisions are and what lasting feelings and impressions will linger long after the decision is made.

According to my colleague, her company is one that struggles with autocratic leadership, where the leaders have, themselves, decided that a more team-based, collaborative process is what is needed and valued. This opportunity to lead (from the top) in a way that supports this fledgling commitment was blown. Plain and simple.

What this example shows is not only a missed opportunity that was right under the CEO’s nose, but the more complicated piece that comes in about how hard it is to break out of our regular way of acting, responding, and behaving.

It isn’t that leaders are deficient in their vision or in leadership. Those qualities are what got them to the top of their food chain in the first place. The challenge is expanding that vision and leadership into new domains, new perspectives, and new paradigms.

When companies were first asked about ad placement in video games, they made the quick assumption that they were going to be marketing to a bunch of pre-adolescent boys who didn’t care much beyond the games and the associated paraphernalia. Once companies saw that the demographics that 60 percent of males aged 18-35 play video games – and watch less television because of their gaming! – companies changed their tune. What they had to do was challenge their assumptions and expand their paradigm. What they thought was true was not and the video game advertisers (much to their own benefit, mind you) provided a kind of leadership that demanded a change. And this was all right under everyone’s nose the whole time.

Missing the generational boat

2004-08-25T13:06:00.000-05:00

I pay a lot of attention to generational issues -- in organizations, in the community, in society. And I've been thinking about where leadership and generations come together.

Of all the stuff that rattles around in my brain, one thing that comes through painfully clear is the way gap that I see where leaders (or potential and aspiring leaders) totally miss the boat leading across the generations. The most glaring example that comes screaming across the headlines every day is in the US presidential race. You would either think that every American voter is a Baby Boomer (born between '46-64) or older or that the campaigns are blowing it when it comes to two entire generational groups (with more than 100 million people of voting age being ignored).

Now, I realize that there are certainly some thing the parties are doing to pay some attention to Gen Xers (born between '65-'80) and Millennials (born between '81-'00). But not much. And many businesses and organizations are guilty of the same thing.

The reality is that the majority of the wealth and power in our society right now is in the hands of the Boomers and the Traditionalists (born before '46). Another reality that I know from years of work with leaders and businesses is that people lead in the same ways they like to be led themselves. So a Boomer leader is likely to lead others in ways that suit him or her.

However, we have reached a breaking point in the generations. As of 2005 (that's next year, folks), the numbers of Xers and Millennials workforce will begin to surpass the number of Boomers and Traditionals. And while that balance of power isn't likely to shift quite yet, that shift is on the horizon, and its not so far off.

The result of this lact of attention to the younger generations is certainly evident. In campaigns, we have to endure the MTV appearances of candidates wearing sweaters. In organizations, it creates subcultures within the population that contribute far less to the bottom line than they could. The creativity, the connection to a huge part of the population, the leadership that most companies are totally blowing is almost too big to imagine.

Now is when we need to take some new steps to engage this 100+ million person group. There are distinct differences between the Xers and Millennials, but there are some common themes, like they did not serve in Vietnam, they do not have any illusions of corporate permanence and ethics, and they do not want to be ignored.

What steps can you think about taking?

If the blog fits...

2004-07-24T07:16:00.000-05:00

It is kind of amazing, now that the blog is less of a phenomenon and more of a staple of the leading edge. An article in like homedepotsucks.com) have been around for a while, but it may be that companies are taking this phenomenon and doing something useful with the incredibly rich content – other than hiding from it, that is.

One of the hardest things to get from people inside of organizations is honest perspective. Their truth, for all of its glory and pain, its insight and cutting acuity, is one of the things that I need to really work at to get – and I’m really good at it! In many controlled settings, people are afraid to say what they think to the people who really need to hear them. Fear is a real factor for businesses and organizations. People think that if they say what they think, their boss will get pissed off at them and either (more overtly) fire them or (more covertly) use passive aggressive techniques to let them know not to speak out again.

But the blog is not a controlled environment. It is, for the most part, free. You can post, opine, orate, and flame with a fair degree of anonymity and a potential for HUGE reach. What’s great about this Wired article, is that the powers in question are facing the music, and looking for the messages they can use for positive change.

I have found that while lots of leaders say they want to get the feedback and want to change (“I have an open door policy”), they really don’t want to hear it, don’t want to change, and don’t want to be made to look stupid or suspect in their judgment.

With this newer medium, it seems as though a few people are getting the message that they can choose to continue running from the critiques – to absolutely no avail, mind you -- or they can face it and do something.

I’ll be paying real close attention to see where this moves, especially as the phenomenon part of the blog continues to make its way further and further into mainstream and starts showing up on more execs’ computers. Are we moving to a place where flames become feedback and public criticism becomes one of the CEO’s best friends and competitive advantages?

Are we calling this complaining?

2004-07-15T20:41:00.000-05:00

There was an article the New York Times last week that talked about British society's shift toward complaining, reporting that "Britain’s Stiff Upper Lip is Being Twisted Into a Snarl."

Essentially, the writer pointed out the ways that the Brits are whining and suing like the best of us on this side of the pond. While this may speak to a shift in a cultural stereotype, for me it speaks to a broader reality that confronts cultures and organizations alike.

People aren't just going to sit by and take what is given, reacting with passivity or powerlessness as those "leaders" in power sometimes wish the "followers" or the little people would accept.

Are we talking about a cultural revolution? Not necessarily. Challenging authority was wildly fashionable in the late 1950s and through the '60s. When we got to the "Me" times of the '70s and '80s, we stopped worrying about challenging and started worrying about our own gratification. A generation later, we have experienced the riches, the unthinkable growth in prosperity, and now we are feeling the next part of the cycle. However, with many people living through this entire cycle, and many in the workworld only participating in the last 20+ years, people are left saying, "Forget this! I can serve me and I can do it in a way that isn't totally selfish, but it isn't totally self-less either."

What does that mean? I think that it means that people are going to want to be a part of the bigger whole -- society, the company, the workgroup, etc. -- but not following blindly. More and more of us are willing to confront the Status Quo and try to make it smarter and more sensible for the present and for the future.

With changes is market, geopolitics, economies, and technology moving as rapidly as they've been for the past 15 years, the pressure to challenge has never been greater. Similarly, never has the resistance, at least in some sectors and in some organizaitons.

And here lies the divide. Which side do you fall on? Are you gently with the tide? Are you riding the crest of the wave? Are you treading water nearby, watching it flow ahead of you? Or are you moving where you need to go, using the forces that exist outside of you along with your own ability to move yourself? The reality is that neither choice is Right or Wrong. They are all choices. Each with an impact, both positive and negative, on the individuals within the system as well as the system itself. More than preaching a direction -- which isn't that useful unless I understand much more about the individual reality -- I ask for you to be curious.

What's the benefit of each of the different stances? What is the impact of staying put? What's the impact of really pushing again the status quo? What do you think is possible that isn't seen by others? What do you think is impossible that may not be?

Is this whining or compaling? That's a way to look at it. Or is this pusing that boundaries. Probably. And to what end and for whose benefit? Also critical questions to ask.

Yes, in my opionion, Americans do look for ways to complain or sue for reasons that sometimes seem like only self-promotion, and at the expense of others. But that's not always the case. There are lots of people and lots of situations where a healthy dose of questioning and complaining -- as long as it is brought with ideas and a different vision of the future -- is exactly what is needed.
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Digging for the keys to change

2004-07-08T13:35:00.000-05:00

This week, I was working with a senior executive board that I do some regular work with. The group – and the company – is facing some real hard challenges that are pushing them to take an honest look at the way they have been functioning and leading their organization. There are some big organization-wide issues on the table. My belief is that these need to be confronted. The leaders of the company need to step forward and look for the ways they have played key roles in the creation of the current state the company.

It’s so easy – especially when you are standing fairly detached from something – to say, “Don’t you see how your behavior is leading to this result? Now, go fix it!”
I also isn’t that hard to get someone to see this – to see his or her role, the actual words or behaviors that support or act out that role. Also, I’ve been able to get executives to answer my question, “So, what else might you have done in this situation?” to begin to see something by looking at the path not taken.

However, when the reality hits, it isn’t easy at all. People don’t see what they have created. They don’t see what their roles have been in the creation (or perpetuation). And they aren’t all that interested in doing something different. (“That would be like me saying that I was wrong!)

There are some key questions that I have to focus on. When people are facing a change, I try to find out
- What are you committed to protecting?
- What are you committed to holding on to?
- What are you unwilling to give up in order to allow you to move to a new place or a new perspective?

When you can open the doors or remove the “cover” off of the hidden commitments, new possibilities emerge. And these aren’t rational things either.

For a manager who has her staff shaking in fear all of the time, that manager may be protecting the fact that she feels way over her head. She may feel that if she doesn’t come off so strong and so authoritative, then she would be overrun by her staff, who, she thinks, really know more than she does anyway.

For the manager who feels he is under scrutiny of senior leadership, every move he or his team makes has to be perfect or he’ll get nailed. Therefore, micro-managing is the only guarantee of success.

Each of these hypothetical managers has a commitment that is not what it appears. I tell people all of the time that their boss didn’t come to work each day to make their lives miserable (One person actually thought her manager did!). They are people who are trying to do the best they can in the face of fears and challenge and pressures. This is true for front line staffers, EVPs, and CEOs alike.

What is needed is a little bit of pushing. Figure out what the underlying commitments are, and then see what you can do to honor those and gently move to a new commitment.

Peace

Are we willing...?

2004-07-02T21:56:00.000-05:00

I was talking with a close colleague about a developmental program she facilitates. The program takes participants a full two-years to complete, with participant meeting monthly as a large group, weekly in small groups, and with two intensive two-week sessions in summers. It takes time. It takes attention. It takes energy. Both from the participants and on the facilitators.

She is just finishing with one cohort group and starting with another. The goal is a broad-based shift in the way the participants see themselves in the world, relative to their organization, relative to the people who work with and for them, and relative to themselves.

Their perspective changes.

Their language changes.

They change.

When I think about my own practice and when I talk to others who work on changing individuals and changing organizations, there is always a tension that is present. How much time will it take to really help people see the changes they report to want? What factors are keeping the people from seeing and making the change? Will the client give me the time to see this through? These are very legitimate questions that are always hanging around.

I spoke with her more about the outgoing group. They had written a final paper, of sorts, that gave them the time and the space to reflect – in fairly clear ways – about what the changes were they saw in themselves. By and large, it was a transformational experience. My colleague said that she really began to see a pronounced shift in people after the first year. The second year was there to push further and to build in this new space these people now inhabit.

A year. A year. How many organizations are willing to invest this much time? Actually, more than you think. But not enough. We are asking so much of people now – of leaders, of managers, of staffer. We are asking them to do more, think more critically, be more daring and creative, but expect them to rise to a new level after a week of leadership development or a few sessions with a strategic coach.

Are we ready to do more to help the people move to where they need to go to make a real difference in the future?

Getting out of your own way

2004-06-29T16:10:00.000-05:00

I'm thrilled about a meeting that I have with a client next month. She is the director of a self-contained group that holds a great deal of responsibility for a key strategic piece in her company. The reason I am so thrilled about meeting and working with this director and her team is because she is willing to ask the hard questions. And once she gets them on the table, she's willing to confront them -- with openness, with honesty, and with humility.

It's a simple core challenge -- I might even call it a personal and professional value of hers -- that is at the root of all of her actions and behaviors.

One of the questions that I try living with, both for myself and for those with whom I work, is What is it that enables her to ask those hard questions and bravely face the answers? Likewise, what is it for people that prevents them from doing the same?

Now, let's be clear. I'm not a clinical psychologist, nor am I on this planet to judge anyone. But I am here to be curious.

I can only answer the part of this question that I know. This particular director is driven to succeed, and going so with everyone else's success guaranteed. She will not lay the blame for X or Y failing at the feet of some other (potentially deserving) person. She will not pretend that a certain critical factor is out of her control, therefore sabotaging success. She will not let herself, nor any member of her team, avoid responsibility or accountability.

It's a hard way to go through the business world. Has she been burned in the past? Absolutely! There are people who do not share her same conviction to build success for herself by building success for all. Yet, she remains standing, with successes lining the road of her past.

I'm just thrilled about this meeting.

The speed of the market

2004-06-24T10:09:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite topics -- really my favorite current challenge -- is the reality everyone working today is facing. The speed at which markets change is faster than any company can keep up with. The product side is pressured by global economies, political climate changes, and shifting consumer tastes. But that's only one side of the story. What about the people -- or the human capital - side? A friend of mine forwarded me a link to an article by Kevin Wheeler, founder and president of Global Learning Resources. In the article, he talks about the ways it is impossible to plan for and stay ahead of the shifts, from a training and development standpoint.

Wheeler offers an interesting central point: "...it will be impossible to "plan" the workforce of the future in any meaningful way for more than perhaps three to six months out."

As a person involved in development and training within organizations, I know that reality dictates that it may take this long to plan a training program, much less execute and support one. And even less to be ready to put any new skills or perspectives into use in a functional way.

No, planning and traditional training are not the best answer about how to keep up with the moving target that is a prepared workforce and a prepared organization. (It is one answer, but not the best.)

Wheeler does offer a strategy to be better prepared in the current reality, outlined in four steps:
1. Anticipate the challenges you will face. To educate and guide hiring management, you must gain a thorough knowledge of both your supply chain and your current employees' capabilities and skills;

2. Focus on Employee readiness, not succession planning that prepares a wide range of employees ready for any needs that arise, versus the traditional succession planning organizations normally use;

3. Rapid Response that occurs once a need is identified, enabling you to fill the arising needs very quickly;

4. Taking a new look at jobs, -- which means admitting that the concept that a job is a more or less static set of skills and competencies -- needs to be replaced with accepting that job descriptions and titles need to have built-in flexibility around the skills required to get a piece of work done. This provides for more internal staff who can be used, and broader set of external candidates that may be qualified. By keeping jobs narrowly defined, we limit not only our ability to hire quickly but also the potential for creativity and change.

The bottom line, at least to me, is that we are in a period when transition and movement is the norm. No longer can we expect the old systems and structures to exist, not if we are going to be competing in the current and in the future.

Stating the Obvious?

2004-06-21T20:22:00.000-05:00

I spend a lot of time scanning the landscape for things that I believe are powerful or relevant or important. I believe that discovering different ways to help people see something a little bit differently -- often something they already know -- can have a great deal of power.

I was scanning Fast Company's site and come across a series of pithy quotes about what Leadership is from a gathering of names in today's corporate world.

What struck me was not the actual things that these people were saying. Yes, they all had some great, concise words of wisdom and definitions of what (successful) Leadership can be. What struck me was how simple and how obvious so much of what they were saying really was.

..."Communicate..."
..."Listen..."
..."Get out of the way..."
..."Define and declare your vision..."
..."Inspire followers. Make decisions. Give recognition. Open doors..."
..."Walk the talk..."

I mean, how complex are these messages?

Yet, so many leaders that I work with and that colleagues of mine work with struggle with some, if not all, of these things.

In my coaching, I spend a great deal of time and energy helping leaders get out of their own way. Their ego or their fear closes off their ears, retards their judgment, an inhibits their vision. By helping people free their own gifts, by helping them slow down -- even for just a minute -- so much more becomes possible. For them. For the people who work with them. And for the people in their organizations.

Integrity in Leadership

2004-06-18T11:26:00.000-05:00

Integrity in Leadership is a concept that keeps coming up in my work and non-work world of late. When I think about what this means, I realize that there are many ways to make meaning of this -- and all of them are right! (at least to some extent).

One very recent example: There's a client group I'm working with right now, and their struggle is that they have truly great ideas about how to do what they do, better, faster, and more effectively. They feel that their leader has asked them to learn more and take on more initiative, by marrying their experience with their technical knowledge, and adding in their creative energy. When reality evolves, they find that they work harder, do their jobs better, but aren't recognized, either publicly or monetarily. To them, their leader has failed them. He lacks integrity. He lacks understanding. He lacks compassion.

Having worked with this leader, I know that none of these charges are true. If anything, this leader is compassionate and understanding, almost to a fault. He is a person with great integrity. Despite my experience or perspective, the team's opinion will not be changed.

I ask the leader, "What would it mean to you if people question your integrity?" The response is first frustration and defensiveness, but we move gradually to curiosity. He wants to know why this group feels this way. He wants to know what he needs to do in order to understand the group's "reality" better, and then what to do to change it. The What he does is not the most critical point to his leadership. It is the How he does it that is just as important. His integrity can grow and spread through his own willingness to be curious and open to how others see what he may not see about himself, and then take action to create a different result.