While there are many skills that contribute to being an effective leader, most people tend to isolate a few skills that are the most critical. In my work, I have been able to talk to many people and do extensive research about these critical skills. Additionally, during my training sessions with a wide variety of people from different backgrounds and skill levels, I have repeatedly asked people to identify those skills and behaviors that they see as important in the people that they look up to as leaders. Many of these people have repeatedly identified very similar traits and skills in the people that they admire and respect.
These are skills that can be learned. These are behaviors that can be learned. These are the behaviors and skills that we use in dealing with people.
I am not talking about some of the more internal things about who we are. There are certain things that are either in you or not. The most common of these is honesty. Are you honest or not? I assume that most people are. But I’m not sure that I can train someone to be honest. Most of the time, I deal with adults, fully formed adults. These are not people that I can reform in terms of their internal compass for right and wrong.
Certainly, you can learn new skills in the same way that you can learn to use a new software program or a new technology.
I need to point out that many of these skills are skills that we already have within us, to a certain extent. For example, all of us are communicators, effective communicators, to a certain point. Some us, of course are better than others. However, that does not mean that you cannot improve your skill level. We can all become better public speakers, learning new techniques, new approaches, new ways of reaching an audience.
The same thing holds true for virtually any skill that can be learned over time. And there is a key point that needs to be kept in mind at all times. It is important that you learn about these skills, but is just as important that you practice and improve upon the skills. These are not one time trainings that remain unchanged. These are skills that can be improved constantly. Improvement comes with use and practice. I would urge you to use the skills as often as possible, but to also improve upon them as often as possible.
The list of skills that have been identified as being the most critical are:
• Communication skills
• Think and act strategically
• Be creative
• Take action, risks and initiatives
• Motivate
• Manage yourself
• Handle conflict
• Build teamwork
• Persevere
I have put these more less in order of importance. The first one, communication skills, I think is the most critical. Before you can do anything, you have to be able to share it with the people around you. That is essential. Being able to communicate is the start of leadership. You must be able to communicate your ideas, revisions, plans, intentions and goals. All of these are important. It is also important to be able to listen to people. Not just to talk to them, but to actually listen and dialogue. It is the one where you have to start.
In future posts, I will discuss each of the Nine skills in more detail.
Let me know if you think I’ve left a particular important skill out.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Friday, February 26, 2010
Strategic Leadership
When I met John Hofmeister, then-president of Shell Oil, about four years ago, I asked him what he actually did. He paused for a second and then responded, “I spend about 60 percent of the time looking outside the company. I have to see what is going on around us with other companies, the government, society and across the world.”
He went on to explain that he needed to keep the company focused on its goals. That’s what his staff did. He also needed to keep the strategic view always in mind with long term focus, the 60 percent of the time he looked outside. I understood that he saw strategic thinking as being critical to his job responsibilities.
I was reminded of that this week when Bloomberg BusinessWeek.com and the Hay Group released their annual list of Best Companies for Leadership.
The survey also asked what skills the companies valued the most. The top 20 companies valued strategic thinking (67.6 percent) above execution (47.6 percent), inspiring leadership (37 percent), decision making (31.5 percent, and even teamwork (31 percent).
The top 20 are:
1 GENERAL ELECTRIC
2 SOUTHWEST AIRLINES
3 3M COMPANY
4 PROCTER & GAMBLE
5 ACCENTURE
6 WAL-MART STORES
7 NESTLE
8 COCA-COLA
9 MCDONALD’S CORPORATION
10 INFOSYS TECHNOLOGIES
11 IBM
12 CISCO
13 UNITED PARCEL SERVICE
14 IKEA
15 ABB
16 ZAPPOS
17 HEWLETT-PACKARD
18 GOLDMAN SACHS
19 UNILEVER
20 GENERAL MILLS, INC.
Strategic thinking is what keeps you moving forward. How fast and how far depends on your vision.
He went on to explain that he needed to keep the company focused on its goals. That’s what his staff did. He also needed to keep the strategic view always in mind with long term focus, the 60 percent of the time he looked outside. I understood that he saw strategic thinking as being critical to his job responsibilities.
I was reminded of that this week when Bloomberg BusinessWeek.com and the Hay Group released their annual list of Best Companies for Leadership.
The survey also asked what skills the companies valued the most. The top 20 companies valued strategic thinking (67.6 percent) above execution (47.6 percent), inspiring leadership (37 percent), decision making (31.5 percent, and even teamwork (31 percent).
The top 20 are:
1 GENERAL ELECTRIC
2 SOUTHWEST AIRLINES
3 3M COMPANY
4 PROCTER & GAMBLE
5 ACCENTURE
6 WAL-MART STORES
7 NESTLE
8 COCA-COLA
9 MCDONALD’S CORPORATION
10 INFOSYS TECHNOLOGIES
11 IBM
12 CISCO
13 UNITED PARCEL SERVICE
14 IKEA
15 ABB
16 ZAPPOS
17 HEWLETT-PACKARD
18 GOLDMAN SACHS
19 UNILEVER
20 GENERAL MILLS, INC.
Strategic thinking is what keeps you moving forward. How fast and how far depends on your vision.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Let’s disagree about consensus
Let’s say your customers, or at least some of them, are demanding certain products or changes to your products. You know your products are not quite what they should be. You want consensus on what changes need to be made.
Internally, your staff and board keep going back and forth. Maybe we need to make some changes, maybe not. If we do make changes, what should those changes be? Should we do it incrementally or do a drastic rebuild? Should be do it now or just hold off? The debate goes on. Time goes on. Your customers keep getting more frustrated. The debate continues. Your staff and board start to take it personally. The subtle and not so subtle name-calling starts. Then your customers get in on the debate and the name-calling.
You’re sitting at the top, with your executive committee, hoping something breaks loose, hoping all the discussion and debate leads to some compromising and rational discussion. You keep sitting, waiting and waiting. You send out memos, urging everyone to keep the goal in mind, to keep working, to reach consensus. You send out more memos, month after month. Every once in a while, you hold large staff meetings where you urge everyone to keep the goal in mind, to keep working, to reach consensus.
You and your executive committee keep waiting. So do your customers.
Whether you’re running a convenience store, an engineering firm, NASA, a hotel or the U. S. government, it’s all the same. At some point, you have to make some tough decisions. As much as I think consensus is important, there are times when you have to take action whether you have consensus or not. Inaction is more dangerous than the lack of consensus. In the end, your customers really don’t give a flying fig whether you had consensus or not. It makes absolutely no difference to them. They just want you to do something, anything. But, you’re waiting on consensus.
My immediate example is health care. I don’t really see any break in the logjam. The Democratic leadership (the President, Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader) can get this approved without the Republicans, but they seem to be stuck trying to appease the Republicans and middle of the road Democrats.
It’s been a year and still no real action on the legislation.
The fact is that the person whose child needs a life-saving medical treatment doesn’t care whether health reform passed by 100 votes or one.
Ask your customers whether they care if you reach consensus on all your decisions. Ask them whether your internal consensus really makes any difference to them as far what products they buy at your convenience store, use your surveyors, use your space shuttle or stay in your hotels. They don’t really care about your internal decision-making process.
They want their services to be better.
They want their child to get the medical treatment they need.
That’s all they care about.
Internally, your staff and board keep going back and forth. Maybe we need to make some changes, maybe not. If we do make changes, what should those changes be? Should we do it incrementally or do a drastic rebuild? Should be do it now or just hold off? The debate goes on. Time goes on. Your customers keep getting more frustrated. The debate continues. Your staff and board start to take it personally. The subtle and not so subtle name-calling starts. Then your customers get in on the debate and the name-calling.
You’re sitting at the top, with your executive committee, hoping something breaks loose, hoping all the discussion and debate leads to some compromising and rational discussion. You keep sitting, waiting and waiting. You send out memos, urging everyone to keep the goal in mind, to keep working, to reach consensus. You send out more memos, month after month. Every once in a while, you hold large staff meetings where you urge everyone to keep the goal in mind, to keep working, to reach consensus.
You and your executive committee keep waiting. So do your customers.
Whether you’re running a convenience store, an engineering firm, NASA, a hotel or the U. S. government, it’s all the same. At some point, you have to make some tough decisions. As much as I think consensus is important, there are times when you have to take action whether you have consensus or not. Inaction is more dangerous than the lack of consensus. In the end, your customers really don’t give a flying fig whether you had consensus or not. It makes absolutely no difference to them. They just want you to do something, anything. But, you’re waiting on consensus.
My immediate example is health care. I don’t really see any break in the logjam. The Democratic leadership (the President, Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader) can get this approved without the Republicans, but they seem to be stuck trying to appease the Republicans and middle of the road Democrats.
It’s been a year and still no real action on the legislation.
The fact is that the person whose child needs a life-saving medical treatment doesn’t care whether health reform passed by 100 votes or one.
Ask your customers whether they care if you reach consensus on all your decisions. Ask them whether your internal consensus really makes any difference to them as far what products they buy at your convenience store, use your surveyors, use your space shuttle or stay in your hotels. They don’t really care about your internal decision-making process.
They want their services to be better.
They want their child to get the medical treatment they need.
That’s all they care about.
Friday, December 4, 2009
One of the truths about “teambuilding” activities
In my work, I do leadership training and development, among other things. I was once asked to do some teambuilding activities with the staff for a law office. The person who contacted me had seen me work with another group and was impressed with how quickly that group had bonded after a long day of activities. Then I had to tell them one of the truths of teambuilding: a group can come together as a team if they want to; if they don’t, they won’t.
In my experience, people who do not regularly do teambuilding with their group believe that they can overcome conflict by having a few activities to smooth over troubles. I have found that not to be the case. If this is a group that is just recently started to work together or who have not been working closely previously, then teambuilding activities would help.
However, if this is a group that has been working for a while and has been having trouble, then it won’t necessarily work. Conflict is rarely a group thing, us versus them kind of thing. Even when you have do have groups or factions formed, it mostly comes down to a couple of people who have the initial or central conflict. Then it becomes an issue of their friends and cohorts getting involved.
If you can isolate that and deal with it separately, then you can move on. For most leaders, the question comes down to how publicly they want to take of the problem – and it IS the leader’s problem. It can be done during a teambuilding/conflict resolution session. The advantage is that it can be taken care of once and for all so that everyone understands that the conflict has to be over with. However, some group shy away from such public confrontations. It can also leave one or more people publicly humiliated. In a private discussion, the leader has more control of the situation and avoids public embarrassments. However, outside the private meeting, people can still talk and push rumors one way or another.
People have to attend a teambuilding session with the attitude that they want to truly work better as a team. Most people do, most of the time. It is the leader’s job to know that before hand or to work on developing the individual members until they are ready to be team members.
In my experience, people who do not regularly do teambuilding with their group believe that they can overcome conflict by having a few activities to smooth over troubles. I have found that not to be the case. If this is a group that is just recently started to work together or who have not been working closely previously, then teambuilding activities would help.
However, if this is a group that has been working for a while and has been having trouble, then it won’t necessarily work. Conflict is rarely a group thing, us versus them kind of thing. Even when you have do have groups or factions formed, it mostly comes down to a couple of people who have the initial or central conflict. Then it becomes an issue of their friends and cohorts getting involved.
If you can isolate that and deal with it separately, then you can move on. For most leaders, the question comes down to how publicly they want to take of the problem – and it IS the leader’s problem. It can be done during a teambuilding/conflict resolution session. The advantage is that it can be taken care of once and for all so that everyone understands that the conflict has to be over with. However, some group shy away from such public confrontations. It can also leave one or more people publicly humiliated. In a private discussion, the leader has more control of the situation and avoids public embarrassments. However, outside the private meeting, people can still talk and push rumors one way or another.
People have to attend a teambuilding session with the attitude that they want to truly work better as a team. Most people do, most of the time. It is the leader’s job to know that before hand or to work on developing the individual members until they are ready to be team members.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
The Myth and Paralysis of Unintended Consequences
During the last 12 months, much has been said and written about the dangers of taking one action or another to address any number of critical issues impacting the region, state, country and world. There is one troublesome caution: beware of unintended consequences.
Regardless of what solution is proposed, there is always someone who will obstruct some proposed solution with the warning that, “We don’t know what unintended consequences might arise from that.” Of course, that’s just an obstructionist tactic. Everything has unintended consequences!
Throwing out the specter of unintended consequences has the unspoken demand that you craft a perfect solution and that you have complete knowledge of the future. How stupid is that assumption?
Everything has a series of consequences and reactions further on down the road. Nothing is completely isolated. No one can guarantee that something does not have unintended consequences.
However, my response to an unintended consequences argument would likely be, “I sure hope so. Otherwise, it’s such a minimal action that we’re taking here. In fact, I hope we have great unintended consequences.”
For a second, let’s look at three examples of unintended consequences in the real world.
One pharmaceutical company was testing a new drug, sildenafil citrate. However, after a few human trials, it looked like it was not really as effective as they hoped. Stopping the tests, they tried to collect the remaining pills they had given their test patients. Some of them were upset. They wanted to keep taking the drug. It wasn’t helping their heart condition, but they wanted it anyway. You would know the drug by its commercial name, Viagra. The unintended medical consequence: it helped treat erectile dysfunction. The unintended consequence for the company, billions of dollars in unexpected profits.
An industrial products company had its engineers working on a better product than what it already had. Sadly, one of its engineers came up with a new product that was actually worse than what they had been offering. It was a complete failure. The company wanted something that was much stronger than what they had. The new discovery was actually way, way weaker than what they were already selling. So, it was shelved. Most companies would have trashed all that research and forbidden people to ever mention it again. Ten years later, that engineer saw a new way to apply his discovery: the adhesive that makes Post-It Notes easy to put up and take down and put up again. The unintended consequences for millions of office workers: an easy way to mark things without tape or glue. The unintended consequence for the company, millions of dollars in unexpected profits.
The last example is perhaps the biggest unintended consequence in history and one you are quite familiar with, Christopher Columbus. He was on his way to India but landed in the Americas. The unintended consequence for Spain, billions of dollars in new wealth that helped make it a world power. For you and me, the unintended consequence is the New World with all its opportunities and challenges.
Regardless of what solution is proposed, there is always someone who will obstruct some proposed solution with the warning that, “We don’t know what unintended consequences might arise from that.” Of course, that’s just an obstructionist tactic. Everything has unintended consequences!
Throwing out the specter of unintended consequences has the unspoken demand that you craft a perfect solution and that you have complete knowledge of the future. How stupid is that assumption?
Everything has a series of consequences and reactions further on down the road. Nothing is completely isolated. No one can guarantee that something does not have unintended consequences.
However, my response to an unintended consequences argument would likely be, “I sure hope so. Otherwise, it’s such a minimal action that we’re taking here. In fact, I hope we have great unintended consequences.”
For a second, let’s look at three examples of unintended consequences in the real world.
One pharmaceutical company was testing a new drug, sildenafil citrate. However, after a few human trials, it looked like it was not really as effective as they hoped. Stopping the tests, they tried to collect the remaining pills they had given their test patients. Some of them were upset. They wanted to keep taking the drug. It wasn’t helping their heart condition, but they wanted it anyway. You would know the drug by its commercial name, Viagra. The unintended medical consequence: it helped treat erectile dysfunction. The unintended consequence for the company, billions of dollars in unexpected profits.
An industrial products company had its engineers working on a better product than what it already had. Sadly, one of its engineers came up with a new product that was actually worse than what they had been offering. It was a complete failure. The company wanted something that was much stronger than what they had. The new discovery was actually way, way weaker than what they were already selling. So, it was shelved. Most companies would have trashed all that research and forbidden people to ever mention it again. Ten years later, that engineer saw a new way to apply his discovery: the adhesive that makes Post-It Notes easy to put up and take down and put up again. The unintended consequences for millions of office workers: an easy way to mark things without tape or glue. The unintended consequence for the company, millions of dollars in unexpected profits.
The last example is perhaps the biggest unintended consequence in history and one you are quite familiar with, Christopher Columbus. He was on his way to India but landed in the Americas. The unintended consequence for Spain, billions of dollars in new wealth that helped make it a world power. For you and me, the unintended consequence is the New World with all its opportunities and challenges.
Monday, October 5, 2009
An Effective Interview
I was watching "Morning Joe" last week when Irshad Manji, Director of the Moral Courage Project at New York University, came on to talk about the importance of "moral courage." While I was certainly impressed by her ideas, I was more impressed with her presentation. The video shows what a great presenter she is.
She was bright, enthusiastic, personable and engaging. I enjoyed just listening to her. She disagreed in a very nice, polite way. It is a great example of how to do this type of public presentation for any good leader. I would look for her again. Actually, she would be a great addition to the show! I think she could be on Fox and handle them well!
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
She was bright, enthusiastic, personable and engaging. I enjoyed just listening to her. She disagreed in a very nice, polite way. It is a great example of how to do this type of public presentation for any good leader. I would look for her again. Actually, she would be a great addition to the show! I think she could be on Fox and handle them well!
Thursday, September 24, 2009
When does the leader have a conflict of interest?
I saw an item on the Internet about a study of doctors’ attitudes about ordering treatments and conflict of interest. I don’t have a link to the item, but I will keep looking for it and hopefully link it later on.
Here is the essence of the item. Some doctors were asked to decide on a treatment for a fictional patient. They were given a set of symptoms and test results. They were given the option of two treatments: one a tried and tested approach; another a new therapy that did not have a significantly greater likelihood of succeeding but that they could bill for a higher amount. Which did they choose? Overwhelmingly, the more expensive therapy. Okay, now, the question was posed with their spouse as the patient. Which did they choose this time? Overwhelmingly, the first one. I don’t know if it was the same group of doctors or a different one.
So, when they have no personal connection to the patient, they chose the one that will make them more money, even if it does not help the patient any more than the other one. When they have a connection to the patient, they go for the tried and tested. Clearly, if doctors have a monetary interest in the way they decide what treatment patients get, then it becomes a conflict of interest.
We trust our doctors but we don’t really know what challenges they face in who treatment to order. We don’t know what conflicts they have along the way. The point I want to make, however, is that we are all conflicted to some extent. Our leaders are especially conflicted. They must often decide whether to do something that is good for the organization versus what is good for them. We have our own battles with those types of challenges.
When I do training, I have to balance how much effort to put into any given session versus how much I’m going to get from it. However, the trainees don’t know that. They don’t know if I have given them everything I could or did just enough to get by. The real test of leadership, in this case, is to figure out what to do when no one else knows. As the old saying goes, integrity is what you do when no one is looking. As patients, we don’t know whether the doctor is ordering something for us because it is the best thing for us or for his checkbook. Likewise, we don’t really know if our organization’s leader is ordering us to do things because it is what he/she thinks is best for us (the organization) or for them.
This just goes to reinforce that trust is part of what keeps people working with you and that your integrity is what they hope keeps you there, too.
Here is the essence of the item. Some doctors were asked to decide on a treatment for a fictional patient. They were given a set of symptoms and test results. They were given the option of two treatments: one a tried and tested approach; another a new therapy that did not have a significantly greater likelihood of succeeding but that they could bill for a higher amount. Which did they choose? Overwhelmingly, the more expensive therapy. Okay, now, the question was posed with their spouse as the patient. Which did they choose this time? Overwhelmingly, the first one. I don’t know if it was the same group of doctors or a different one.
So, when they have no personal connection to the patient, they chose the one that will make them more money, even if it does not help the patient any more than the other one. When they have a connection to the patient, they go for the tried and tested. Clearly, if doctors have a monetary interest in the way they decide what treatment patients get, then it becomes a conflict of interest.
We trust our doctors but we don’t really know what challenges they face in who treatment to order. We don’t know what conflicts they have along the way. The point I want to make, however, is that we are all conflicted to some extent. Our leaders are especially conflicted. They must often decide whether to do something that is good for the organization versus what is good for them. We have our own battles with those types of challenges.
When I do training, I have to balance how much effort to put into any given session versus how much I’m going to get from it. However, the trainees don’t know that. They don’t know if I have given them everything I could or did just enough to get by. The real test of leadership, in this case, is to figure out what to do when no one else knows. As the old saying goes, integrity is what you do when no one is looking. As patients, we don’t know whether the doctor is ordering something for us because it is the best thing for us or for his checkbook. Likewise, we don’t really know if our organization’s leader is ordering us to do things because it is what he/she thinks is best for us (the organization) or for them.
This just goes to reinforce that trust is part of what keeps people working with you and that your integrity is what they hope keeps you there, too.
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