Influence & Insight | December 2022

Leadership Story | Live Your Leadership Philosophy

A dear colleague and friend purchased a copy of Dr. Joe Dispenza’s Becoming Supernatural for me recently. Only after sharing that another unexpected book had arrived, and that it wasn’t clear whether or not I had asked the author for a copy, did it become clear it was an intentional gift. It’s a powerful book I’m intentionally taking my time with. One of the chapters delves into quantum mechanics and the power of energy coherence. The writing appealed to me on a variety of fronts, taking me back to university study during a time of exploration into semiconductor lasers. The chapter coupled energy coherence with gratitude, leading to the ending question on this month’s book review.

The chapter also prompted reevaluation of a portion of my leadership philosophy. For about two decades I’ve mapped my personal energy levels to specific daily activities. It’s a lifetime project, and is perhaps a keystone habit by now. Anyway, before reading Dispenza’s book, a portion of my leadership philosophy read: “Use energy wisely, aligning it daily with purpose and strategy.” I shared the updated sentence “ Use energy coherently, aligning it daily with purpose and strategy, and embrace the resulting gratitude.” with my colleague and we both believe it’s an improvement.

This process took about two weeks. The chapter initially made me think of my leadership philosophy, but I procrastinated. After about a week or so, I had to add the new thoughts, particularly that of gratitude. How do you daily reflect or refine your thoughts about leadership and purpose?

Live Your Leadership Philosophy.

Great Leaders Ask Questions | Book Review

Do you know the three of four events of their lives
that have shaped who they are today? (p. 26)

Asks Cheryl Bachelder in Dare to Serve. How well do we know each other, or how do we gain insights into someone's instinctive or motivational needs? We learn from our Energize2Lead (E2L) profiles that without understand our hardwired tendencies, we're unlikely to make fundamental leadership connections.

Bob Tiede's concise work gets right to the heart of the matter: Leaders coach. Leaders listen. Leaders do this by asking questions. Unfortunately, active listening is not natural for many of us, and even when attempting to hear others, we're often waiting to speak rather than shifting our focus from what we want to what others are saying.

Consider the mindset leading to the three forms of feedback: Appreciation, evaluation, and coaching (thanks to Shiela Heen). When we feel thankfulness or gratitude, appreciation is a very natural response. In our modern, technical world we're comfortable with measurable processes. Engineering is a great example. It naturally follows that if we can readily measure something, it's easy for an evaluative mindset to form. That leaves us with coaching. What leads to coaching? Perhaps coaching is an expression of agape love, which may sound soft and squishy. We seem less comfortable with this less objective, less measurable mindset.

Consider a spectrum of questions: Passive, Active and Trigger (see Marshall Goldsmith) or Power, spanning from ineffective to possibly life changing.

Passive Questions

An easy way to think about passive questions are those which may be simply answered ''yes' or 'no.' More significantly, no mental energy or reflection is required to answer. Similarly, the question frequently results from a passive or uncaring mindset. A thoughtless, wasted exchange of words.

Active Questions

Active questions, on the other hand, are not readily answered 'yes' or 'no,' requiring consideration and thought by the respondent. When in a leader role, we should replace passive questions with active questions. If we're used to passing along orders or evaluating, this may feel uncomfortable at first. Here's several of Tiede's questions we may consider active.

How can we do this in a way that will guarantee its failure? (p. 7) A very fun question, a pre-mortem question useful for identifying key success factors in advance.

What can I do to help you be more effective? (p. 16). A classic coaching question, and an expression of caring and support. We may receive tough, yet sincere feedback when asking this.

I hear your complaint? What is your request? (p. 19). Coaching judo. This question redirects negative energy to a positive approach for improvement.

What are three things that you could do in the net ninety days that would make a 50% difference in where you'll end the year? (p. 33). A more focused coaching question, utilizing the Pareto Principle (20/80 Rule), or what we call High Payoff Activities (HPAs) in our Setting Leadership Priorities workshops. This very active question usually requires one to challenge assumptions, especially how much control we really have over a given situation.

Trigger/Power

Trigger questions go beyond an active response are are intended to spark insight or inspiration. Tiede uses an equivalent term - Power Questions. Here's a couple good ones:

Would you please tell me your story? (p 8) Great question for a new leader. Create the right setting allowing for an extended answer. Take notes.

What's on your schedule? Who's on your heart? How can I pray for you? (p. 15) These questions, especially the latter two, may require strong relational capacity before asking. In a safe environment though, the response could be transformative.

Who has opened doors for you? What doors can you open for others? (p 31). Pay it forward. When we challenge others to develop others, we're forming a leadership pipeline, and creating an environment of continuous improvement and likely, innovation. A most powerful leader question.

A very tough question regarding toleration & accountability: What is the one thing you know you need to do to remove this energy drain, and when will you do it? (p. 45) This is a question that may require repetition, especially if addressing an organizational sacred cow. First rate coaching.

Maybe my favorite: What are your dreams? (p. 52), like the Personal Dreams and Goals assignment from our Aligning and Accomplishing Goals workshop.

Summary

One of Tiede's favorite questions: What do I believe is impossible to do in my field but if could be done would fundamentally change my business? (p. 59). Imaging yourself launching a series of follow-on coaching questions allowing someone to turn their own impossible dream into reality. That's powerful. My parting question. 

What triggers gratitude in you? 

Note: Bob Tiede generously provided a copy of his book for review.

Coaching Story | Leaders Understand Strategy

A long-term client invited me to their headquarters recently, after several years of Covid separation. The client is a very successful and rapidly growing private company. Most of my interaction has been via the Chief Information Officer (CIO) office. This time, however, the Human Resources (HR) team extended the invitation.

Like many other companies, this one is quickly growing, yet challenged in a tight labor market. Picture a relatively new HR team composed of recruiters, mostly new hires, including fresh out,  new college graduates. Couple this support team with a group of usually old-school professionals who are used to seat of the pants small company decision-making yet now part of a billion dollar company. 

A key leader from the HR team attended the recent Tampa Leadership Excellence Course and immediately requested additional Energize2Lead (E2L) profiles for the HR team leaders. Grateful for the invitation, I brought E2L team sheets and over an extended lunch we performed a deep dive into what energizes the team. Turns out their challenge wasn’t so much within HR, the challenge was how can HR best support the rapidly growing segments of the company, such as warehousing.

Recall in the seminal HBR article Why Strategic Execution Unravels — and What to Do About It only 9% of managers say they can rely on colleagues in other functions and units all the time and that commitments from these colleagues are typically not much more reliable than promises made by external partners, such as distributors and suppliers. The HR team was encountering exactly the same issue.

We quickly identified a meeting action item: Create an E2L team sheet for the most junior recruiter with all of the senior leaders the HR team supports. It was promptly delivered. Now the brand new HR team member understands how the leaders she supports like to work, how to approach them, and their motivational needs. Human Resources teams seem frequently ignored. This HR team won’t be, with a dynamic leader, with an eye on strategic execution. 

Leaders Understand Strategy.

Influence & Insight | November 2022

Leadership Story | Leaders Love Rock Stars

Smart high level product experts. Masters degrees in engineering. 20-30 solid years in the organization. These are among the team member descriptions offered by a client recently. Maybe you’ve used one like this: A very solid performer not necessarily gunning for the next promotion or supervisory role. The client also share the quote “Good athletes don’t make good coaches,” and my thoughts turned to Kim Scott’s Radical Candor.

Recall when Scott encountered the McKinsey 9 Box Matrix — perhaps like this one:

She was aghast at an evaluation capable of concluding a person has little or no potential, and for her own sanity, replaced the word potential with growth. It felt like my client concluded what Scott realized years before. There are many intelligent and capable people in our organizations, Scott calls them Rock Stars. However, most Rock Stars aren’t interested in becoming Super Stars (the top right position in the 9 Box).  Likewise, Superstars are frequently bad at Rock Star roles. 

Another client shared an internal promotion interview question: “What have you been able to accomplish through others?” It’s a great question to ask someone looking for the next promotion, but primarily known as a solid individual contributor - or Rock Star. The quote about athletes and coaches sounds about right — and I’ll have all of this in mind during the next month’s coaching sessions.

Leaders love rock stars.

The Man Who Fed The World | Book Review

In The Population Bomb, published in 1968, Paul Ehrlich had written
that it was "a fantasy" that India would "ever" feed itself. By 1974,
India was self-sufficient in the production of all cereals. (p.90)

Leon Hesser's authorized biography of Norman Borlaug, offers us many leadership lessons, especially how much our worldview and values shape our future actions. Subtitled And His Battle to End World Hunger, Borlaug was the only person during the twentieth century who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for work in agriculture and food (p. ix).

This review focuses on Borlaug's values, offers differing contrasts between abundance and scarcity mindsets, and showcases very good examples of John Kotter's Eight-Step change process - occurring over decades.

Values & The Knowing-Doing Gap

Recall in Pfeffer and Sutton's The Knowing-Doing Gap, the best way to cross the Knowing-Doing Gap is learning by doing. Or the authors' First Principle: If You Know by Doing, There is No Gap between What You Know and What You Do.

Borlaug's grandfather Nels would explain how important it was to help other people in times of need (p. 4). We could call that a bias for action. Borlaug's early start in farming extended to academics. "I worked for awhile with a veterinarian, another time with an entomologist. (p. 22) Those experiences helped round out my education." This combination led to experimenting, reminiscent of Edison-level curiosity. New races were formed through hybridization on barberry bushes -- the alternate host of the disease (rust) (p. 25). At the time, rust was a devastating plague on cereal crops.

Abundance & Scarcity

The world was at war (World War I). Mexico, in America's backyard, was critically short on food. India and China were losing the battle in their attempts to match food production with population growth (p. 28). The timing was perfect for a pioneer who had worked in the field overcoming rust to expand his curiosity and techniques regionally. The results: In 1933, less than 1 percent of corn planted in the US Corn Belt was hybrid. Within ten years (p. 29) the percentage rose to 78 (& in Iowa, 99.5 percent).

Borlaug set up dual-site experiments in Mexico, and during his first weeks there it was clear that hopelessness pervaded the lives of most people (p. 39). He began to realize his challenges were not just agricultural, they were psychological as well. Borlaug's habit of learning by doing was the opposite of the prevailing manager/farmer paradigm: "That's why the farmers have no respect for you." (p. 43) - a manager was designated as a "limpio saco," or clean shirt, unwilling to get dirty working alongside farmers. A respected farmer from Sonora wrote: "Perhaps it is the first time in the history of Mexico that any scientist tried to help our farmers." (p. 53)

Upon succeeding in Mexico, or demonstrating abundance through creativity and persistence, challenges remained in much of the world. After visiting Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India (supported in part by the United Nations) Borlaug mused that half of humanity was going to bed hungry (p. 68). Why was so little done at the national levels of government?

"They were government servants with secure jobs
and little incentive to address farmer's problems." (p. 68)

Malthusian thought -- unchecked population growth always exceeds the growth and means of subsistence -- was reawakening. Many biologists and economists were siding with Malthus (p. 79). Borlaug was undeterred, essentially transplanting his success in Mexico to greater Asia. His Kick-Off approach addressed technical, psychological and economic factors in such a way as to achieve rapid results (p. 81).

Innovation appears one of the greatest measures of abundance. During the 1969-1970 crop year, over 55 percent of the six million hectares sown to wheat in Pakistan and 35 percent of the fourteen million hectares in India were sown to Mexican varieties or their derivatives. Never before in the history of agriculture had a transplantation of high-yielding varieties, coupled with an entirely new technology and strategy, been achieved on such a massive scale in so short a period of time with such great success (p. 101).

Opposition? The critics comprised a broad spectrum, from academia to business to government organizations, from both the developed and developing nations (p. 102).

Key Success Factors | Leading Change

Borlaug's successes align well with Kotter's Leading Change model.

Establishing A Sense Of Urgency

When Borlaug first arrived at University, his off-campus observations caused him to be determined -- somehow -- to do what he could to improve the lot of fellow human beings pp. 17-18).

Forming A Powerful Guiding Coalition

In 1943 the Mexican Government-Rockefeller Foundation Cooperative Agricultural Program became America's first foreign agricultural assistance program (p. 32). This was only possible after years of success, and did not pre-ordain acceptance when expanding to 1968 Pakistan: Even the immutable stolid bureaucrats were slightly infected by the virus of change (p. 98).

Creating A Vision

Don't tell me what can't be done. Tell me what needs to be done -- and let me do it (p. 50). Borlaug early in a career arguing with a colleague resisting his plans.

Communicating The Vision/Planning For And Creating Short-Term Wins

Within a decade after arriving in Mexico as a thirty-year-old scientist, Borlaug had embarked on three innovations that formed the foundation of a wheat revolution in Mexico and ultimately fostered the Green Revolution in Asia (p. 41):

1) He painstakingly crossed thousands upon thousands of varieties and move forward with a few that were rust-resistant.

2) He started "shuttle breeding" program that cut in half the time needed to get results, and;

3) He changed the architecture of the wheat plant from gangly tall to a short-strawed structure that was suitable for machine harvesting and was responsive to heavy applications of fertilizer without falling over.

Consolidating Improvements And Producing Still More Change

Borlaug sought an enduring, successful, program. An intensive intern-training component was an integral part of the research program, targeting a new generation of Mexican scientists even as they were assisting with the research program (p. 63). The development of a competent corps of Mexican agricultural scientists and scholars was the most valuable permanent contribution of the revolution in agriculture (p. 64). Trustees of El Centro Internacional de Mejoramente de Maiz y Trigo (CIMMYT) stipulated that all its data and materials be available worldwide, to any country, free of charge (p. 73). CIMMYT crossed the Knowing-Doing Gap!

Institutionalizing New Approaches

The cooperative effort (Obregon research and seed program) in collaboration with Borlaug continued for twenty-seven years (p. 62).

Summary

Borlaug's dream, that this book:

"Will serve as an inspiration to young people to devote thought,
energy and focused effort toward scientific and allied pursuits aimed
at alleviating hunger and poverty throughout the world." (p. xiii)

Coaching Story | Leaders Return to Values

I’d guess up to 40% of 2022 coaching session clients have expressed the desire or an actual plan to change jobs, up from maybe 25% pre-Covid. So it wasn’t a surprise earlier this year when via LinkedIn a client informed me of a new position - a remote role at a notable Silicon Valley technology company. No need to move from the East Coast. Interestingly within just a couple months, the client returned to the original company, wishing to restart our coaching sessions. According to the client, the silicon valley job offered:

• a director level role
• opportunity to lead a team
• higher pay
• a great benefits package

So, what happened? Many of us have watched Dan Pink’s quirky video about what motivates people. He informs us the best use of money is paying people enough so that they’re not thinking about money, rather they’re thinking about the work. At this point, Pink reveals that autonomy, mastery and purpose are the three top motivational factors. My client, in her own way, seemed to describe the combination of the three motivational factors together as “culture,” and it sounded pretty lousy. She described being disinvited to a “venting meeting,” an icy reception during a trip to San Francisco, and that by week eight a departure/quitting daily countdown had begun. Since many leave lousy bosses I asked “What percentage of your decision was based on the boss and what percentage was based on the [toxic] culture?” The answer: Boss 20%, Culture 80% - the Pareto Principle at work again.

When asked for advice, journaling came to mind, and reflection on corporate values. My client, and those of you who have shared this experience, have a valuable experience and perspective. Start with the question “Why did I return?” or “What did I miss the most?” Chances are the answers lead to company values, and the organizations true culture. That’s worth thinking about, writing about, and sharing with talented people interested in joining your company.

Leaders Return to Values.

Influence & Insight | October 2022

Leadership Story | Leaders Embrace Abundance

During recent Graduate Leadership Course introductions and shared reflections, we openly discussed scarcity and abundance mindsets. One attendee, both colleague and friend, emotionally described a two year journey from a scarcity mindset, reinforced for decades as a Certified Public Accountant, to a CPA embracing an abundance mindset, which his most enduring clients are drawn to.  It was a powerful, memorable story.

One of the greatest stories of an abundance mindset worth discovering  is that of Norman Borlaug, aka The Man Who Fed the World.  In the authorized biography by Leon Hesser, we discover Borlaug was the only person during the twentieth century who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for work in agriculture and food, credited with saving hundred of millions of lives. We’ll take a closer look at his story in an upcoming newsletter.

We also reviewed the three forms of feedback: Appreciation, evaluation and coaching, from Sheila Heen’s Thanks for the Feedback. Our CPA colleague revealed that he’s spent 30 years in a primarily evaluative mindset and business environment. Interestingly, now in a sole-proprietorship practice, he now realizes his strongest business connections are those made by focusing on people and results. Not just the traditional, transactional-based accounting/financial environment anymore.

Leaders Embrace Abundance.

Daring Greatly | Book Review

"Who we are and how we engage with the world are much stronger predictors
of how our children will do than what we know about parenting." (p. 216)

What does an authentic leader look like? Dr. Brené Brown not only answers that question in her autobiographical portrait, she candidly models her personal, inspirational path. Brown admits all of my [her life] stages were different suits of armor that kept me [her] from becoming too engaged and too vulnerable. Each strategy was built on the same premise: Keep everyone at a safe distance and always have an exit strategy (p. 7).

We can recall from our Feedback (communication) workshop that leaders ultimately make connections; likewise, Brown realizes connection is why we're here (p. 8), and that we often fear not being worthy of connection.

Brown has a terrific term for authenticity, wholeheartedness, or a way of engaging with the world from a place of worthiness. In The Gifts of Imperfection,  Brown (pp. 9-10) defined ten "guideposts:"

• Cultivating Authenticity: Letting Go of What People Think
• Cultivating Self-Compassion: Letting Go of Perfection
• Cultivating a Resilient Spirit: Letting Go of Numbing and Powerlessness
• Cultivating Gratitude and Joy: Letting Go of Scarcity and Fear of the Dark
• Cultivating Intuition and Trusting Faith: Letting Go of the Need for Certainty
• Cultivating Creativity: Letting Go of Comparison
• Cultivating Play and Rest: Letting Go of Exhaustion as a Status Symbol and Productivity as Self-Worth
• Cultivating Calm and Stillness: Letting Go of Anxiety as a Lifestyle
• Cultivating Meaningful Work: Letting Go of Self-Doubt and "Supposed To"
• Cultivating Laughter, Song & Dance: Letting Go of Being Cool and "Always in Control"

We can think of these guideposts as preparation for creating a Personal Leadership Philosophy. Over the years, Brown has found that ... everyone from C-Level executives to the front-line folks talk to me about disengagement, the lack of feedback, the fear of staying relevant amid rapid change, and the need for clarity of purpose (p. 15).

This review summarizes how eliminating common myths and embracing real communication & feedback allows us to dare greatly, or become a unique, authentic leader. 

Myths | Scarcity & Vulnerability

In her book The Soul of Money, Lynne Twist refers to scarcity as "the great lie." Brown likewise describes how scarcity also creates a passive mindset (think of Marshall Goldsmith's revelations in Triggers) disabling progress in ourselves and others. This passivity leads to disengagement and is reinforced

by (p. 26) often comparing our lives, our marriages, our families, and our communities to unattainable, media-driven visions of perfection. 

Brown also challenges four vulnerability myths:

Myth 1 | Vulnerability is Weakness

Is stepping up to the plate after striking out a sign of weakness? NO. Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage (p. 37). Think of an After Action Review, where groups bravely seek the truth, driven by passionate, continuous team improvement, and then make commitments (at the individual level) expecting to be held accountable. That's courage.

Myth 2 | I Don't Do Vulnerability

"I'm an engineer -- we hate vulnerability." "I'm a lawyer -- we eat vulnerability for breakfast." "Guys don't do vulnerability." (p. 43). This reminds us of the Conflict Leadership workshop where a win/lose mindset leaves our compromise (win-win) and collaboration (gain-gain) outcomes off the table.

Myth 3 | Vulnerability Is Letting It All Hang Out

Brown envisions trust is built one marble at a time (p. 49). This reminds me of the wonderful term "relational capacity" as taught by Flip Flippen, or the Karma Wheel mindset of pioneering company Switch. It doesn't happen overnight or as simply the result of a poster or sign. Trust is a product of vulnerability that grows over time and requires work, attention, and full engagement (p. 53). Think of our Energize2Lead (E2L) profiles, especially the lower (instinctive) colors. By connecting at an instinctive level, trust is possible, allowing unprecedented levels of performance when our mutual needs are both understood and nourished.

Myth 4 | We Can Go It Alone

When we attach judgement to receiving help, we knowingly or unknowingly attach judgement to giving help (p. 54). This may be why evaluation is frequently confused with coaching. Think about it this way: When we become so hung up on possibly being judged (evaluated), the fear can overcome our desire for actual improvement. That's debilitating. Brown realizes ...the people I really depend on, were never the critics who were pointing at me while I stumbled (p. 56).

Authentic Communication & Feedback

Recall sharing our personal dreams and goals from the Goal Setting workshop- and how we really learned deeply about each other. This goes against the grain of the image of the perfect leader. Peter Sheahan, CEO of ChangeLabs doesn't buy it: "This notion that the leader needs to be "in charge" and to "know all the answers" is both dated and destructive (p. 65).

Shame frequently holds us back. Dr. Brown's definition:

"Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing
that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love or belonging." (p. 69)

Brown found that men and women with high levels of shame resilience (moving from shame to empathy) have four things in common pp. 74-75),

1. Recognizing Shame and Uncertainty in Others
2. Practicing Critical Awareness
3. Reaching Out
4. Speaking Shame

Brown notices it appears that believing that we're "enough" is the way out -- giving us permission to take off the mask (p. 116):

• I am enough
• I've had enough
• Showing up, taking risks, and letting myself be seen is enough 

Ask yourself whether your leadership philosophy invites or welcomes this level of communication and openness.

Culture & Values

Dr. Brown shares that she can tell a lot about the culture and values of a group, family, or organization by asking these ten questions:

• What behaviors are acceptable?
• Where and how are people actually spending their resources?
• What rules and expectations are followed, enforced, and ignored?
• Do people feel safe and supported talking about how they feel and asking for what they need?
• What are the sacred cows? Who is most likely to tip them? Who stands the cows back up?
• What stories are legend and what values do they convey?
• What happens when someone fails, disappoints, or makes a mistake?
• How is vulnerability perceived?
• How prevalent are shame and blame and how are they showing up?
• What's the collective tolerance for discomfort? 

It's a great list. Chances are leaders or organizations we admire practice use of questions like that during meetings, or more specifically, in coaching sessions.

Application | Dare Greatly

Brown defines a leader as anyone who holds her- or himself accountable for finding potential in people and processes (p. 185). Sure sounds a bit like the choinque leadership definition. Going further, she states no corporation or school can thrive in the absence of creativity, innovation, and learning, and the greatest threat to all three of these is disengagement (p. 187). In a way this is what Pfeffer and Sutton found out in The Knowing-Doing Gap, that  knowledge sharing is key.

Brown cites Sir Ken Robinson in Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative (p. 188)

"An organization is not the physical facilities within which it operates;
it is the networks of people in it."

This is exactly what Stanley McChrystal learned and incorporated into the  construction of his new operational headquarters in Team of Teams. Or put another way: A daring greatly culture is a culture of honest, constructive, and engaged feedback (p. 197), where vulnerability is at the heart of the feedback process (p. 201)

The unwillingness to engage with the vulnerability of not knowing often leads to making excuses, dodging the question, or -- worst-case scenario--bullshitting (p. 207). We've all been in meetings like this where an insecure leader "filibusters" rather than risk being asked a tough question or entering a crucial conversation.

Takeaway | Lifetime Leadership

Dr. Brown brings her findings home: How we help our children understand, leverage, and appreciate their hardwiring, and how we teach them resilience in the face of relentless "never enough" cultural messages (p. 217), is a great reminder that leadership doesn't stop at the office. It's a lifetime responsibility.

Engagement means investing time and energy. It means sitting down with our children and understanding their worlds, their interests, and their stories (p. 237).

Coaching Story | Leaders Learn to Share

A number of recent coaching sessions included clients sharing academic accomplishments:  Several clients received cybersecurity credentials, the Covid environment allowed an Atlanta-based colleague accelerated Ph.D. completion, and several are exploring or have recently achieved Project Manager Certifications (PMP).

Recall that effective coaches are both optimistic about human nature and are continuous learners. An abundance mindset is an optimistic one, asking what additional is possible and positive, rather than believing that one person’s success necessarily comes at the expense of someone else. 

Most of us have been encouraged and rewarded for individual academic accomplishments like the ones listed before, and in many cases, form the basis for promotions and career growth.

One of the coaching clients revealed that rather than accumulating another credential, it was more important for him to share the new knowledge, especially as a coach to several recent hires. Sensational! It’s easy to continue focusing solely on our own continued accomplishments, and become a competent manager or subject matter expert. A leadership-based, or abundance mindset can be more powerful and more enduring. We should ask what can be done for others, and for our organization, when we learn something new. Another good question: Is this mindset captured in our Personal Leadership Philosophy (PLP), perhaps in a description of the environment we wish to create?

Leaders Learn to Share.

Influence & Insight | September 2022

Leadership Story | Leaders Anticipate the Future

A recent client situation: “We’ve reached our Strategic Planning expansion goals.  How will our company grow another 50% beyond that?” Especially in a tight labor market in an industry where retention can be a thorny issue.

We spent a full day off site addressing the question. Here’s what it looked like: First, we looked at Stanley McChrystal’s Team of Teams - appreciating that sometimes looking at things differently is required. Recall in the book, McChrystal found that most of our current management practices are based on extreme efficiency, not people, perfectly captured by Frederick Winslow Taylor:

“[A laborer] shall be so stupid and so phlegmatic that he more nearly resembles in his mental make-up the ox than any other type… the workman who is best suited to handling pig iron is unable to understand the real science of doing this class of work. He is so stupid that the word “percentage” has no meaning to him, and he must consequently be trained by a man more intelligent than himself into the habit of working in accordance with the laws of this science before he can be successful.”

Just as McChrystal required scaling small, yet capable teams (think military special operators), we needed a method for improved communication between groups separated by geography, function, or a combination of the two. We chose a specialized Energize2Lead Workshop, teaching everyone on the executive team what everyday activities most energize each other, the ideal method for approaching each other, and perhaps most importantly, what behaviors each member exhibits under increasing stress. Application of this shared knowledge allows for more open and candid knowledge sharing, a key approach which led to McChrystal’s vastly improved teams. A fun thing we found out was that two of the executive team members loved research type tasks and were ideal team leaders for any such future assignments. Another sub team was likewise ideally suited for learning and development thrusts.

We extended this instinctive shared knowledge with an afternoon workshop centered on Crucial Conversations, which may be thought of as important conversations usually occurring under high stress conditions with significant repercussions if not handled well.

One solid day. Now it’s time for building a new future with the new tools in the toolbox.

Leaders Anticipate the Future.

Master Your Core | Book Review

This book will show you how to focus on your core as a powerhouse
of physical, emotional, and spiritual power. (p. 215)

Dr. Bohdanna Zazulak, while researching why so many women get injured in sports and everyday activities, encounters many findings aligned with multiple Academy Leadership workshops and influential leadership authors focused on holistic principles rather than everyday managerial techniques.

In short, this review answers the question why we should read Dr. Zazulak's work, assess ourselves, and apply our findings.

Alignment
Take a look at the Life's Compass Rose used in the Aligning and Accomplishing Goals workshop:

Notice how many of these sixteen points are not related to the workplace or career. When workshop participants self-evaluate relative satisfaction levels, one of the top improvement areas shared is physical. In the past few years, or during the Covid environment, open discussion of additional topics such as relationships and work/life balance have appeared more frequently.

Let's review another seminar, the Leader's Compass workshop. Energy is explicitly called out as the fundamental currency of high performance, and further that full engagement requires drawing on four separate but related dimensions of energy: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. These four factors are likewise cited in Tony Schwartz's The Power of Full Engagement as essential.

Know Yourself

Chapters one through eight are similar to the first day of a Leadership Excellence Course, in that we must learn deeply about ourselves. Research has forced scientists and medical professionals to recognize the importance of the mind-body connection for optimal wellness and injury prevention (p. 10). Similar to an effective communication or feedback process, the first step is to connect with each of your core muscles by learning to find them as they work, since you cannot strengthen a muscle that your brain is not using (p. 14).

It's as though we've focused so much on modern systems, knowledge acquisition and productivity, we've forgotten about any adverse human effects. For example, our modern lifestyles often force us into a position where our necks are craned forward, our shoulders are shrugged up toward our ear, our backs are rounded, and our hands are out in front of us (p. 28).

Consider two useful terms: Static Posture = Position & Dynamic Alignment = Action (p. 46), especially if often sitting in front of a computer monitor. Focus less on maintaining rigid posture and more on dynamic core alignment to stabilize your body without compromising your breath or creating muscle tension and stiffness (p. 51). Dr Zazulak shares an interesting discovery (p. 59) that hormones may influence neuromuscular factors, such as proprioception, balance, and agility, and that these factors are the ones that predispose women to suffer more injuries (p. 59).

In Mark Crowley's Lead From the Heart, he posits Engagement is a Decision of the Heart. This isn't new age psychobabble, it's physiological. Zazulak finds the same. The vagus nerve, the key player in regulating heart rate, is the longest nerve in your body and it connects your brain to many other important organs (p. 89). She offers an insightful term: Vagal tone, which  lowers the resting heart rate, regulates mood, provides relief from headaches, improves immune function, provides mental clarity, and creates an overall feeling of peace and happiness (p. 90).

Application | BASE

Chapters nine - thirteen are application-based on the following process:

Breathing deeply with dynamic stretches to align and awaken your inner core.
Awareness of your mind-core connection through meditation, kinetic learning, and nervous system training.
Stability of your core as the control center of your body.
Empowerment of your core through alternative philosophies and activities that will help you make core stability part of your lifestyle (pp. 7-8).

Think of awareness as keeping a leadership journal. The listed tables capture all of the recommended exercises:

Table 1       The Core Stretching 7             p. 143
Table 2       The Core Awareness 7           p. 162
Table 3       The Core Balance 7                 p. 171
Table 4       The Core Med Ball Exercises   p. 176
Table 5       The Core Stability 7                p. 181
Table 6       The Core Plyometric 7             p. 186
Table 7       The Core Suspension 7          p. 191
Table 8       The Core Score                       p. 217

Summary

Interestingly, Dr. Zazulak expresses the value of gratitude at the end of her work. We may likewise share our findings in our Personal Leadership Philosophy as we progress through our self-discovery. 

Breath training will increase the recruitment of core musculature,
improve functional biomechanics, and create new
neural connections throughout your brain and body,
all of which will protect and empower you (p. 124).

 Jessica Sy kindly provided a copy of Dr. Zazulak's book for review.

Coaching Story | Start with Self-Learning

A common pattern during recent coaching sessions aligns well with our review of Dr. Zazulak’s book.

One client shared a two step process described as  “know self then observe.” A summary of events two weeks after our recent Leadership Excellence Course:

• Two weeks - course lit a fire under me. Got approached with additional responsibilities.
• Chronic procrastination
• Recognizing patterns
• Get the first big thing done

It’s as though the client discovered her own version of John Boyd’s OODA (observe-orient- decide-act) Loop.

Another client unexpectedly learned a great deal about herself, admittedly unexpectedly:

“This has been a self-reflecting course, which I did not necessarily expect. Not only did I learn a whole lot about becoming a leader, but I learned so much about myself. This class has opened up an avenue of my future career that I may never would have never gotten to without this experience.”

As a result the corresponding follow-on Action Plan includes:

Putting people first is a must, if a project is going to succeed you must understand your team's needs and wants. Getting to know my team will help me become a better leader and realizing what they may need from me.

How interesting that these findings occur the same month we share Master Your Core, focused on physical self-discovery which may lead to many other forms of self-improvement, including growth as a leader.

Leaders Start With Self-Learning.

Influence & Insight | August 2022

Leadership Story | Leaders Serve From the Heart

It seems the time is right for more empathic, caring leaders. My colleague Dr. Leon Jablow’s US Naval Academy class of 1991 attest to this trend while sharing their stories of agape love (servant leadership) and empathy.

Two additional, recent examples also come to mind. First, let’s examine what prompted  author Susan Packard’s third book, The Little Book of College Sobriety: Living Happy, Healthy, and Free. When Susan briefly shared her personal stories of struggle in her first two books, strong feedback, not always positive, motivated even deeper sharing (no spoilers). That takes moral courage.

A few months ago, Mark Crowley reached out with a fun question while writing an updated version of Lead From the Heart. Turns out Mark’s publisher thought he should move forward the current Chapter Four, Engagement is a Decision of the Heart to Chapter One.  In quick agreement, I reminded Mark my 2016 review called out, for numerous reasons, Chapter four as the soul of the book.

Across this spectrum of highly trained military and senior corporate leader perspectives, a common need and desire for authentic leadership, rather than management or processes, has emerged. How wonderful! Perhaps when looking back at the Covid era, we will recall a renewed focus on people, on the heart, as one of the positive outcomes.

Leaders Serve From the Heart.

'91 Voices | Book Review

Leadership is ultimately about understanding and caring for
people which is why we believe that servant leadership, a style that puts
the well-being of employees or team members at the forefront,
is what we should teach to all young people (p. 9).

Although Dr. Leon Jablow IV doesn't explicitly endeavor to define leadership or the traits and characteristics of leaders (p. 3), his shared classmate stories perhaps compose a composite Leadership Philosophy. Many of the book's contributors shared what leadership means at a personal level, but the seven other components of a leadership philosophy: Personal values, operating principles, expectations, non-negotiables, priorities, personal pet peeves and commitment to feedback also surface.

Consider as a capture statement for the United States Naval Academy (USNA) class of 1991:  Serve, love, coach.

USNA Class of 1991 Leadership Philosophy

Leadership is about inspiring people to be the best version of themselves (p. 76), and requires you to sacrifice of your time, talent, and your resources (p. 34). Of all the desired qualities of a leader, the most inarguably essential is love (p. 35). The best leaders are team captains, shoulder to shoulder with their teams on the field (p. 31).

We lead with our example, our attitude, our devotion to and love for the team and not by trying to be the hero of each game (p. 131). This allows buy in at a much deeper level and - know we're empowered (p. 11). Inspiring people through respect and compassion will foster a growth environment like no other (p. 12).

A leader strengthens relationships (p. 62).

Ours is a culture where we develop decision-making without having a fear of making mistakes, and correcting someone as privately and gently as possible (p. 52). It is about over-communicating and not over reacting (p. 39). The area that is most missing, across the board, is moral courage (p. 36). Understand your team's talents, life, and motivations (p. 54).

Invest in people before processes (p. 64).

True leaders often are quiet, unpretentious and care for their subordinates (p. 44). Think of leadership as an opportunity to always learn something (p. 49). Have humility to allow yourself to be imperfect. Have the courage to build a team to buttress your weaknesses (P. 41). The highlight of leadership is the ability to recognize your own ignorance on a topic enough to ask for help (p. 18).

Let's seek to build a better machine (p. 89). Let's fuel a fire that will not extinguish (p. 109). This will help others on their journey to grow into leaders themselves (p. 56).

Common Service Branch Values

A central part of the The Talent War (pp. 106-107) reveals 85% of the attributes the SOF (Special Operations Forces) community seek in new recruits are common; such as teamwork and adaptability/resilience.

Leadership is about making yourself as smart, physically strong,
and empathic as you can be in order to provide guidance to everyone
in the command, while accomplishing the mission (p. 155).

The USNA Class of '91 service branches likewise share these values along with physical courage, like the Navy SEALs.  Leadership is about making yourself as smart, physically strong, and empathic as you can be in order to provide guidance to everyone in the command, while accomplishing the mission (p. 155). A holistic sense of energy management is also evident. Create a care plan centered around Mind, Body, Spirit for each Marine (p. 106). At the core, leadership is a sense of team identity. Leading by example, soliciting input, gaining consensus with others, and articulating the desired outcomes are team building basics (p. 128).

Summary

Jim VanderMeer summarizes well guidance provided to nearly every leadership course, webinar, or talk given the past several years:

Leadership is a verb, not a noun (p. 85).

Dr. Jablow generously provided a copy of his book for review.

Coaching Story | Leaders Practice

Executive presence, strategic thinking, influence stakeholders, coaching. These are among the most popular desired leadership areas of improvement shared during course sign up for recent Leadership Excellence Courses. Here are four ways to think about and improve each of the areas, in no particular order:

Listen rather than wait to speak. When we do this, we’re learning from others, not just knowledge, but what is important to that person, what they like and maybe how they wish to be approached. We can display curiosity with the 2+2 rule (thank you Mindy Hall); identifying two questions and two items to share before ANY meeting. Aligning our questions with the values and direction of the company (strategic plan, SEC shareholder reports) develops our brand as a strategic leader over time. 

Perform rather than compare. Have an abundance mindset. The world’s knowledge is at our fingertips and growing exponentially. Prudence suggests sharing knowledge wherever possible with teams while aligning them with organizational goals. The more sharing, the more open environment created, the more innovation and insights surface.

Show humility, not perfection. In a knowledge-based economy, what value does a static, self-perceived know-it-all contribute? Accountability begins with our vulnerability to own up to mistakes, ultimately learning from shared mistakes rather than average organizations that gripe while repeating them.

Coach rather than evaluate. Maybe the hardest habit to break. We’ve probably been encouraged and rewarded for individual achievement most of our lives. If we’re talking we’re not coaching, likely evaluating or comparing instead. How would you respond to the interview request: “Tell me about two or three people who you’ve helped to elevate and grow within an organization based simply on your own initiative.” (hat tip Mark Crowley) What we do on average for a direct report, or protégée, over time, is ultimately our report card as a leader.

Four terrific tools for our toolbox. Leaders Practice.

Influence & Insight | July 2022

Leadership Story | Leaders Focus on People

Thank goodness for LinkedIn. Have you noticed how many people are using the platform for announcing job transitions? HR departments must be working overtime. One of my favorite authors Mark Crowley shared a link to the World Economic Forum Workforce and Employment survey:

The Great Resignation is not over: A fifth of workers plan to quit in 2022

Maybe there’s something to the LinkedIn transition postings. Some interesting survey findings:

• Although most are seeking higher salaries, over two-thirds say they are seeking more fulfillment in the workplace.

From my own coaching sessions, I wonder whether employees are seeking growth and opportunity, not necessarily more money for the same job. 

• The survey concludes that companies “must tailor their workforce strategy to the unique needs of their workers” if they are to succeed in today’s challenging environments.

How well do you communicate the WHY of your organization? When sharing your leadership philosophy, does it come across as inspirational or does it sound more like project management guidelines? 

It’s a great leadership challenge. Creating a fulfilling and dynamic work environment, and communicating the message every day. The WHY.

Leaders Focus on People.

Start With Why | Book Review

Leadership is the ability to rally people
not for a single event, but for years. (p. 29)

Simon Sinek's popular and engaging stories showcasing pioneering companies such as Apple and Southwest Airlines is an excellent companion to Jim Collins' BE 2.0. Sinek reminds us that most people in the world are HOW-types (p. 141), or highly skilled subject matter experts. Why focus on HOW rather than WHY? It's easier to do, and the danger of manipulations is that they work. And because manipulations work, they have become the norm, practiced by the vast majority of companies and organizations... (p. 33).

An engaging talk highlighting several of Sinek's stories would perfectly set up a Leader's Compass or Core Values Alignment workshop. Sinek also provides physiological arguments in support of focusing on WHY, which bring our Energize2Lead (E2L) profiles to mind. Accordingly, we can apply his findings to the two unique Academy Leadership workshops.

Personal Leadership Philosophy | Core Values

Sinek shares his Golden Circle on page 37 and explains by WHY I mean what is your purpose, cause or belief? (p. 39)

Apple is Sinek's most frequently cited company, whose messaging starts with WHY, a purpose, cause or belief that has nothing to do with WHAT they do. Sinek also describes later in the book that company founders are often driven by WHY and organizations may lose their WHY after an inspirational founder leaves.

Recall Jim Collins in BE 2.0:

“The number one responsibility of a leader – is to catalyze a
clear and shared vision for the company and to secure commitment
to and vigorous pursuit of that vision.” (p. 90)

On Collins' page 91, we find a powerful visual diagram breaking down VISION into three components: Core Values and Beliefs, Purpose and Mission:

We can substitute Sinek's WHY with Collins' PURPOSE, which are based on unchanging Core Values and Beliefs. Recall the first portion of a leadership philosophy answers the question What Does Leadership Mean to Me? Our answer to that question can intersect with our WHY. Examples: Empowering every child in the world through educational opportunity or providing reliable energy or clean drinking water to as many people as possible.

Sinek explains our desire to feel like we belong is so powerful that we will go to great lengths, do irrational things and often spend money to get that feeling (to feel like we belong - p. 53). When we succeed at this we create an ecosystem. Cultures are groups of people who come together around a common set of values and beliefs (p. 88). Notice the source of the culture is unified people, not posters from the marketing department.

There exists this special partnership between WHY and HOW, and
this relationship starts to clarify the difference between a vision
statement and a mission statement in an organization. (p. 142)

Sinek emphasizes leaders should work on aligning WHY and HOW, or hiring people who understand the WHY and know HOW to carry out the mission, strategy and tactics.

Energize2Lead Profile (E2L)

Remember the biology of The Golden Circle. The WHY exists in the part of the brain that controls feelings and decision making and WHATs exist in the part of the brain that controls rational thought and language (p. 158). The WHY sounds a lot like our instinctive needs described in the lower dimension of our E2L profiles, and the WHATs corresponds to our non-emotional preferred, or upper dimension.

When we don't understanding another person's instinctive needs we won't know what motivates them and we probably won't know when they're under great stress. Like on a date, it is exceedingly difficult to start building a trusting relationship with a potential customer or client by trying to convince them of all the rational features and benefits (p. 77), or the WHATs rather than the WHY. Think of a great coach. Trust begins to emerge when we have a sense that another person or organization is driven by things other that their own self (p. 84). Consider this:

Historically, trust has played a bigger role in advancing
companies and societies than skill set alone (p. 104).

Summary

In the seminal Knowing Doing Gap, Pfeffer and Sutton share the importance of understanding the underlying philosophy of what organizations do and WHY. Sinek reaches the same conclusion:

The idea that copying WHAT or HOW things
are done at high-performing organizations
will inherently work for you is just not true. (p. 166)

Coaching Story | Leaders Make Connections

During a graduate leadership course follow-on coaching session, a very conscientious client shared feedback from her boss. We have great processes. Processes aren’t everything. In your new leader role please focus on vision and strategy more. Sound s a bit like Simon Sinek’s WHY, doesn’t it? The bigger picture, the purpose.

The Project Management Institute (PMI) UK Chapter hosted a Leadership and Networking webinar his month, which was a lot of fun. You can view it here if you are curious. 

One of the topics in the webinar was strategy execution challenges. The March 2015 Harvard Business Review has a great article addressing this challenge: Why Strategy Unravels — and What to Do  About It. A key finding: When we ask about commitments across functions and business units ... only 9% of managers say they can rely on colleagues in other functions and units all the time, and just half say they can rely on them most of the time.

Focusing on our own team, our own function isn’t enough. Consider making stronger connections, at least one connection to every functional group and business unit. Then encourage everyone on the team to do the same.

Leaders Make Connections.

Influence & Insight | June 2022

Leadership Story | Leaders Coach and Champion

“The next day my supervisor offered me a promotion to [insert promotion title here].”

This was the most common takeaway during coaching sessions the past few weeks. Sounds pretty great doesn’t it? There’s one small issue though. Each time the supervisor offered the promotion, it was in response to a letter of resignation. That’s right, a response, a reaction, or a countermeasure. 

Think about that for a moment. What are we communicating to a subordinate when the most common time for a promotion offer is a reaction to a resignation? It reminds me of the [typical] exasperated supervisor right after Thanksgiving stating:

“December always sucks. I have to complete performance evaluations for
all of my direct reports and I don’t have any time for that.”

By the way, in almost eery case the client took the new position, essentially ignoring the counteroffer. Kind of gives the impression that unlimited funds and opportunities are available in reaction to a resignation, but not before. Seem backwards, doesn’t it? At least in one case, the client received a promotion and a pay raise while staying within the company. That particular case was the exception rather than the norm.

This recent pattern suggests a weak or non-existent coaching culture in organizations. Perhaps the Covid environment has left many employees feeling unappreciated, an indicator of poor leader feedback. If coaching isn’t your dominant form of feedback in a supervisory role, you better  have HR as a favorite contact number on your smart phone. They’re going to be making a lot of promotion offers - as your people disappear.

Leaders Coach and Champion.

From Strength to Strength | Book Review 

Use things.
Love People.
Worship the divine.
(p. 215) 

Arthur Brooks' deeply personal reflections chronicle his journey from super individual achiever to a wiser, happier older adult. He posits there always exists the ability to redesign your career less on innovation and more on instruction as the years pass, thus playing to your strengths with age (p. 28). 

Consider life (Indian culture) in four stages (pp. 149-151):

• Brahmacharya - the period of youth and young adulthood dedicated to learning
• Grihastha - when a person builds a career, accumulates wealth, and maintains a family
• Vanaprastha - when we purposively begin to pull back from our old personal and professional duties, becoming more and more devoted to crystallized intelligence, teaching and faith
• Sannyasa - the stage totally dedicated to the fruits of enlightenment 

This book is for the leader as coach or mentor, or  "One who desires to adopt the third order of life, vanaprastha, [who] should enter the forest with a peaceful mind." (p. 158) Let's set up a construct how to do this. In 1971, British psychologist Raymond Cattell distinguished two types of intelligence that people possess, but at greater abundance at different points in life (p. 25):

• Fluid intelligence, the ability to reason, think flexibly, and solve novel problems, associated with both reading and mathematical abilities (p. 26).
• Crystallized intelligence, the ability to use a stock of knowledge learned in the past, which tends to increase with age through one's forties, fifties, and sixties -- and does not diminish until quite late in life, if at all (p. 27).

Application | Coach and Mentor

An ideal application of crystallized intelligence is coaching and mentoring. Let's weave Brooks' findings with those in our Academy Leadership Coaching to Develop Leaders workshop:

Characteristics of Effective Coaches

Base Coaching Relationship On Trust

Imagine a profession or life without relational capacity. Loneliness at the top comes from an inability to make deep human connections at work as a result of the leader's position (p. 123). Not surprisingly, the top two loneliest professions, according to Harvard Business Review, are lawyers and doctors (p. 120).

Optimistic About Human Nature

First let's recall what makes people unique. Humans are naturally interconnected -- biologically, emotionally, psychologically, intellectually, and spiritually (p. 113). Second, consider our instinctive, or motivational needs. My brain hadn't been wired to be motivated by passion, meaning, and purpose (p. 90).

Encourage People To Take Risks And Learn From Their Mistakes

Recall in our Setting Leadership Priorities workshops, the opportunities created when focusing on the genuinely important yet not urgent. Clayton Christensen calls this allocating time well ahead of time (pp. 138-139).

Provide Candid Feedback In The Right Size Dose

A common individual or coaching challenge is the Reluctant to Delegate Subject Matter Expert (SME). You must state your desire to lighten your load with pride's opposing virtue: humility (p. 61). Once freed from being the endless expert, we can celebrate short-term wins. Each present moment, in turn, provides small satisfactions we miss when the focus in only on bigger and better (p. 167).

Cultivate Personal Accountability

Our Energize2Lead profiles inform us we each have multiple energy dimensions, including instinctive or motivational needs. When we're aware of and share our sources of energy: Physical, emotional, mental and spiritual; We can greatly improve the quality of feedback with each other. Golden nugget: Women generally base friendships on social and emotional support, whereas men are more likely to base friendships on shared activities, including work (p. 132).

Know Their Strengths And Limitations

Consider one of Brooks' three good questions (p. 48): Do you fail to reserve part of your energy for your loved ones after work and stop working only when you are a desiccated husk of a human being? A empathic coach explores the entire person and their relationships both at work and at home.

Are Continuous Learners

Very early in the work, Brooks reveals that people maintain and grow their vocabulary -- in their native languages and foreign languages -- all the way to the end of life (p. 24).

Mentors:

Model Mastery In Professional Areas That Others Wish To Obtain

Knowledge sharing may be the most underrated leadership behavior. Little by little, however, he settled into this role and came to love the fact that sharing what he had learned in life was creating significant value (p. 202).

Guide Others To High Performance In Changing Scenarios

We live in a time of continuous and perhaps accelerating change; technology is just one example. A mentor's wisdom can offer a broader aperture. Even unwelcome transitions are usually seen differently in retrospect than they are in real time (p. 194). The Baby Boomer era of "One job, one career," is long gone. Consider Spiral careers, more like a series of mini-careers -- people spend many years developing in a profession, then shift fields seeking not just novelty work but work that builds on the skills of their previous mini careers (pp. 209-210).

Advocate, Critique And Extend Corporate Culture And Wisdom

Brooks cites Kant: As soon as a person becomes an Object of appetite for another, all motives of moral relationship cease to function (p. 53). We should consider this an early warning against a scarcity mindset, or envy. It remains true today, as researchers have long found that social comparison lowers our happiness (p. 59). Gratitude and appreciation may lead us out of this trap. Satisfaction comes not from chasing bigger and bigger things, but paying attention to smaller and smaller things (p. 92).

Endorse And Sponsor Others Without Having Formal Power Or Having Control Over Them

Perhaps the golden rule of coaching: It's not about us anymore. Brooks offers an improved definition of satisfaction (p. 86):

Satisfaction = What you have ÷ you want

He urges we shrink the denominator during our vanaprastha stage.

Facilitate Professional Development And Organizational System Development

Given multidimensional and rapid change, continuous training and development are warranted. When we think of our identities as fixed and unchanging -- we're shutting ourselves off from many of life's possibilities (p. 169). Evaluation can be much more than identifying shortcomings. Weakness is also an opportunity -- to connect more deeply with others; to see the sacredness in suffering; even to find new areas of growth and success (p. 187).

Summary

Cicero believed three things about older age:

First, it should be dedicated to service, not goofing off. Second, our greatest gift later in life is wisdom, in which learning and thought create a worldview that can enrich others. Third, our natural ability at this point is counsel: mentoring, advising, and teaching others, in a way that does not amass worldly rewards of money, power, or prestige (p. 31).

The most transcendent of all the Greek concepts
of love is agape: the love of man for the divine. (p. 145)

Thank you Jennifer Meyers for leading me to this book.

Coaching Story | Leaders Understand the Power of Feedback

In our Academy Leadership workshops we distinguish between three forms of feedback

• Appreciation
• Evaluation
• Coaching

based on Douglas Stone & Sheila Heen’s Thanks for the Feedback. Ask yourself the following: When describing your direct reports, or your overall team, to others, how much of your description is appreciation, how much is evaluation, and how much is coaching? There seems a tendency toward the evaluative, especially when we’re technically proficient, or the proverbial Subject Matter Expert (SME). Let’s illustrate this pattern as a pie chart:

We can call this the typical Manager or SME feedback profile. Most of us are pretty decent at giving and receiving appreciation. So let’s leave that area alone. What does an effective leader do differently? As we transition from manager to leader, our focus on self falls away, and genuine interest in others grows. This also accelerates learning. Arthur Brooks describes this very well as transition from grihastha (career building life stage) to vanaprastha (devotion to crystallized intelligence and teaching life stage). 

Let’s propose an improvement, a Leader as Coach feedback profile:

Notice the coaching and evaluation ratios are swapped, while appreciation remains the same. 

So the next time you are with a subordinate, or describing your team to a colleague, ask yourself what your feedback profile looks like. Better yet, ask your direct reports what your ratios appear to be. Sheila Heen reminds us that we’re usually much better at giving feedback than receiving it. 

Ever wonder why so many of us dislike gossip? We can think of gossip as uninformed evaluation, perhaps the worst form.

Great Leaders Leaders Understand the Power of Feedback.

Influence & Insight | May 2022

Leadership Story | Words Worth Living By

Arthur Brooks’ conclusion to From Strength to Strength includes seven words encapsulating all the lessons he has learned and now strives to live for:

Use things
Love People
Worship the Divine

Powerful words. Consider switching the first two: Use people and love things. How much of our lives have we used people or imposed on others, particularly in pursuit of individual success. How much do we focus on material acquisition? Seems we frequently celebrate and idolize ambition and acquiring more. How much of our trained management behaviors correspond to these actions? The overwrought phrase:

“Our people are our greatest asset.” 

may be the best example yet, in the pursuit of worshipping success. What’s our first reaction when the Human Resources department is looking for us?

The path from manager to leader corresponds well to shifting our priority from things to people. In the workplace we can likewise correlate the divine with a vision or purpose greater than ourselves. Maybe that’s why writing a personal leadership philosophy is a lot tougher than writing a management or compliance manual.

Thank you Arthur Brooks. Indeed these are Words Worth Living By.

The Power of Moments | Book Review 

Purpose trumps passion. (p. 218)

 Chip and Dan Heath focus on two goals:

Identify the traits defining moments have in common, and show how you [we] can create defining moments (p. 5), in this terrific work ideally suited for leaders and coaches. The authors characterize a defining moment as a short experience that is both memorable and meaningful (p. 12), created from one or more of four elements (pp. 12-15):

ELEVATION: Defining moments rise above the everyday.
INSIGHT: Defining moments rewire our understanding of ourselves or the world.
PRIDE: Defining moments capture us at our best – moments of achievement, moments of courage.
CONNECTION: Defining moments are social: weddings, graduations, baptisms, vacations, work triumphs, bar and bat mitzvahs, speeches, sporting events.

Clinics are included for each of the four sections (pp. 37, 89, 134 & 196), and are essentially real-life examples of how we may create defining moments. This review ties each of the four defining moment elements to Academy Leadership workshops, generating multiple methods for creating lasting moments.

ELEVATION | Important not Urgent

In our Setting Leadership Priorities workshops we discuss Tyranny of the Urgent, finding false urgency is frequently based on mistaken appearances. The Heaths identify that research has shown, again and again, we tend to obsess about problems and negative information (p. 60), or Quadrant I important and urgent activities.

Recall Quadrant II, or important not urgent activities tend toward:

• Opportunity
• ProActive
• Planning High Payoff Activities
• Success

The authors envision opportunity as positive variance, or welcoming humanity and spontaneity into the system (p. 77). More simply, surprise is cheap and easy (p. 71). However, we’re unlikely to notice any of this when in a primarily reactive environment.

We may become more proactive by doing three things: First, boost sensory appeal. Second raise the stakes. Third, break the script (p. 61). This may be challenging for the subject matter expert (SME), used to explaining details, not realizing they didn’t need their colleagues to understand something, they needed them to feel something (p. 80).

The authors also share “School needs to be so much more like sports (p. 51),” leading to academic breakthrough stories. Consider our workplace. In sports, coaching and deliberate practice are easily accepted and understood as keys to success, however many organizations relegate genuine coaching to thinly veiled evaluation usually leading to expulsion. 

INSIGHT | Cross the Knowing-Doing Gap

During Feedback workshops, the Johari Window reveals that when we simultaneously solicit and give more feedback, insights may occur. The Heaths are fans of insight that comes from experience (p. 116), similar to the First Principle “If You Know by Doing, There is No Gap between What You Know and What You Do,” described in The Knowing-Doing Gap.

Additionally, the authors discover very few of the [significant learning experiences] answers are content focused (p. 109), instead they tend toward experiential. Lea Chadwell’s bakery story teaches us:

“To stretch is to place ourselves in situations that
expose us to the risk of failure.” (p. 117)

And the promise of stretching is not success. It’s learning (p. 131). 

PRIDE | Feedback | Appreciation

Appreciation, evaluation and coaching are the three forms of feedback cited in Academy Leadership Feedback workshops. The authors repeatedly cite evidence in support of appreciation:

•… it’s usually having our skill noticed by others that sparks the moment of pride (p. 139).
• Of all the ways we can create moments of pride for others, the simplest is to offer them recognition (p. 145).
• Over 46 years, only one factor was cited every time as among the top two motivators: “full appreciation of work done.” (p. 145)
• The top reason people leave their jobs is a lack of praise and recognition (p. 146).

The Heaths take us further, beyond just appreciation, embracing gratitude. Expressing gratitude pleases the recipient of the praise, of course, but it can also have a boomerang effect, elevating the spirits of the grateful person (p. 155). We seemingly place far too much emphasis on evaluation, crowding out positive, performance-based coaching and appreciation in the process. This instinct to notice and commemorate achievements is oddly lacking in many areas of life (p. 166).

Consider appreciation and gratitude as elements of your leadership philosophy. Or, by multiplying milestones, we transform a long, amorphous race into one with many intermediate “finish lines.” (p. 175)

CONNECTION | Shared Purpose

Core Values Alignment workshops emphasize values alignment before launching typical annual strategic planning or similar events. Likewise, a Crucial Conversation cannot begin without mutual purpose.

Consider the authors’ findings that our relationships are stronger when we perceive that our partners are responsive to us (pp. 231-232), encompassing three things:

Understanding: My partner knows how I see myself and what is important to me
Validation: My partner respects who I am and what I want
Caring: My partner takes active and supportive steps in helping me meet my needs

We typically applaud following one’s passion. However, when people had high passion and high purpose, they were stars (p. 217).  How well does your leadership philosophy unify toward common purpose? When you understand the ultimate contribution you’re making, it allows you to transcend the task list (p. 221). Sounds like a great recipe for breakthrough performance and goodness.

Summary

Interestingly, the Heaths were struck that 6 out of the 10 most important events all happen during a relatively narrow window of time: roughly age 15 to 30 (p. 84). We now have a user manual for additional defining moment creation – a lifetime extension. On pages 267-268 the authors share access to additional free resources.

Coaching Story | Let’s Share Who We Really Are

Multiple coaching sessions recently revealed an interest in the Academy Leadership Motivation Form, as a way to understand and support team members better. Recall the motivation form solicits:

• Family Data
• Hobbies and Interests
• Work History
• Formal Awards
• Education and Training
• Skills
• Professional Dreams and Goals - near, mid and far term
• Personal Dreams and Goals
• Primary Motivators and Demotivators based on E2L profile

One client sent an email to a direct report requesting completion of the motivation form and did not receive a response. We chatted about this and came up with a better idea. Consider jointly sharing motivation forms and Energize2Lead (E2L) profiles in a safe and open setting, with particular emphasis on the E2L instinctive dimensions.

A brief review of Instinctive Needs elements:

• Motivational Needs
• Learning Style
• Survival Instincts
• What we LISTEN FOR

There’s great overlap between our motivational and instinctive needs. Plus our learning style links well with educational growth, both inside and beyond the workplace. Imagine the possibilities when we share and support personal dreams and goals.

Rather than relegate the motivation form to an impersonal compliance exercise, we can genuinely build relational capacity with others, one at a time, creating a unique environment based on mutual purpose.

Let’s Share Who We Really Are.

Influence & Insight | April 2022

Leadership Story | Leaders Deliberately Engage

Seems there’s a lot of confusion, if not conflict, regarding why and how to Return to Office.

Chances are, you’ve discovered rhythms and practices working from home that seem more effective than working in an office for eight to ten hours or more. Let’s examine some of the reasons why your observations are likely valid, in the hope you may replicate these patterns regardless where you work.

Malcolm Gladwell got a lot of us thinking that doing something for 10,000 hours will lead to world-class ability. It’s a great way to reinforce the idea that spending a lot of time at work (read: in the office) is good. We must dig deeper though, and uncover the late Anders Ericsson and his pathfinder work in Peak. Ericsson introduces us to deliberate practice, which is far different that just practicing for practicing’s sake. That’s why many of us may exercise, play golf, etc. without getting noticeable better. Ericsson defines purposeful practice as a step toward deliberate practice, which:

• Has well-defined, specific goals
• Is focused
• Involves feedback
• Requires getting out of one's comfort zone

Pretty different than just punching a clock for attendance. He goes further, using the London Taxi Driver licensing process as example. Learning  a new skill is much more effective at triggering structural changes in the brain than simple continuing to practice a skill that one has already learned. Ericsson is telling us that the goal of deliberate practice is not just to reach our potential, but to build it, to make things possible that were not possible. Doing that for 10,000 hours, not just going through the motions, is what leads to world class performance. Genuine deliberate practice is done for short, intense periods, quite different than slogging for endless hours. You probably found that out working from home.

Let’s consider engagement an an alternative to attendance. Tony Schwartz summarizes in The Power of Full Engagement that to be fully engaged we must be physically energized, emotionally connected, mentally focused and spiritually aligned with a purpose beyond our immediate self-interest. Ask yourself whether that is more likely to happen in a custom environment created at home or at a sterile workplace? Rather than the old paradigm of:

Manage time
Avoid stress                                     
Life is a marathon                               
Downtime is wasted time                      
Rewards fuel performance                       
Self-discipline rules
The power of positive thinking  

you’ve probably discovered elements of the new paradigm:

Manage energy
Seek stress
Life is a series of sprints
Downtime is productive time
Purpose fuels performance
Rituals rule
The power of full engagement

We’re going to have our first virtual Energy Management Workshop soon, going over these and other findings during a half-day of self-discovery. You may wish to do the same, transplanting elements of the new paradigm, likely discovered the past two years, upon returning to the office.

Leaders Deliberately Engage.

How’s the Culture in Your Kingdom? | Book Review

Dan Cockerell’s Disney Leadership Journey offers a personal testament to the power of a Personal Leadership Philosophy (PLP). He reflects: The single realization – that self-leadership is paramount to team or organizational leadership – was the most valuable lesson I learned in almost three decades at Disney (p. xiv). This is precisely the focus on day one of an Academy Leadership Excellence Course.

Chapters 7 and 10, Setting Expectations and Organizational Vision, respectively, directly align with PLP elements. Further, Cockerell pierces the fiction that leadership stops at the office parking lot: 

“First and foremost, we should all remember that we don’t
have a personal life and a professional life. We have
one life, and we should address it holistically.” (p. 46)

It is your responsibility as a leader to define this vision and make it vibrant and dynamic, not just a dusty framed quotation on the wall (p. 111). Let’s replace the prior word vision with philosophy:

• Keep your vision simple and memorable
• Make it part of your decision-making
• Turn your vision into a common purpose
• Communicate your common purpose
• Regularly reassess your vision 

This review maps Cockerell’s leadership story with eight PLP elements and shares ideas how we may live our philosophy.

Personal Leadership Philosophy

What Does Leadership Mean to Me?

Cockerell’s definition centers on relationships, development and an abundance mindset: 

• On the other hand, an organization led by a growth-mindset individual will benefit from a leader who commits to bettering him – or herself and also in developing people (p. 24).
• I wanted to dig deeper into their personal stories: what jobs and experiences they had throughout their careers; and their families, passions, and personal goals (p. 78).
• While training imparts skills that immediately benefit the organization, development allows the individual to grow over a long period of time (p. 140).

Personal Values

Cockerell believes deeply in authentically harnessing the power of teams:

• Some leaders shy away from [showing who they are] – because they are afraid to be found out (p. 75). Be authentic.
• The diversity of talent is necessary to the team much like in any business team. It takes an assortment of strengths to be successful, and a great leader must have the ability to identify and recognize everyone’s talent (p. 56).
• A leader can create great communication with one simple act: becoming accessible and approachable to everyone in the organization (p. 151).

Operating Principles

Cockerell creates space for dreaming big:

• Eisenhower matrix on page 48 -- This is where you can focus on big decisions, strategize prepare for big projects, look for improvement to your operation, consider and plan for the future, and generally do your best thinking (p. 50).
• As a result, I managed to forge a relationship based on mutual respect for everyone’s contributions (p. 32).
• See beyond our own preconceived ideas and enlarge the scope of talent (pp. 62-69):

• Identify the right skills
• Identify passion
• Identify attitude
• Build a diverse and inclusive team
• Create plans for retaining new talent

Expectations

Let’s be curious, and create windows of opportunity:

• By involving all the stakeholders – no matter the job title – in the evaluation of a process or idea, leaders can gain a much clearer picture of the outcome… (p. 170).
• The idea of a growth mindset only strengthens the need for becoming a lifelong learner (p. 24).
• Block out time on your calendar, and defend that time like you would defend an important meeting (p. 9).

Non-negotiables 

Cockerell admonishes:

• You can impart the right skills, not the right attitude (p. 61).
• Focusing on Process More Than People (p. 182)

Priorities

People first:

• Simply put, I kept windows of flexible time in my schedule to address whatever would be thrown at me, be it helicopter landings or multiple Dopeys (p. 47).
• I wanted to know their career aspirations, learning needs and interests to help them prepare for future roles (p. 141).

Personal Idiosyncrasies

Take risks:

• I also happen to have the optimistic point of view if we stick our necks out and are willing to take ourselves out of our comfort zone, something good will happen (p. 25).

Commitment

Help me:

• To improve self-awareness, nothing is more important than candid conversations with people you trust and who will provide you with honest feedback (p. 29).

Applying Your Leadership Philosophy

A terrific phrase in many PLPs is Be Present. Cockerell similarly understands we can improve self-control by practicing mindfulness – the ability to focus on the present and acknowledging a variety of feelings, sensations, and thoughts (p. 31).

Receiving feedback is a tough, learned skill for most of us. Cockerell shares the necessity of objectivity, and resisting tendencies toward unnecessary personal judgement (pp. 104-105):

• is about behavior, not character
• find the right voice
• get the facts right
• make sure feedback has landed [feedback loop]
• goal is getting better 

We’re rarely the smartest one in the room. But more often than not, ideas emanate from the employees who are on the frontline (p. 168). Enjoy the ride. Spontaneous recognition meanwhile, creates an element of surprise that can increase motivation and make coming into work more fun (p. 93).

Golden Nugget

Similar to Marshall Goldsmith’s Triggers questions, Cockerell observes many of us wake up each morning to take on the day without asking ourselves the important questions:

• Am I well prepared?
• Am I giving myself the best chance to succeed?
• What does success look like?
• What will it take to get there? 

Summary

As leaders, it is within our control and our responsibility to create
the right culture for our organizations. It is also the most important
thing you can do for the success of those with whom you interact.
(p. xvii)

Note: Dan Cockerell generously provided a copy of his book for review.

Coaching Story | “What Do I Really Want?”

Recall Clay Scroggins’ concept of our identity, or in Crucial Conversations, the idea that we create our own stories. During a client coaching session, a great example of story mastery unfolded.

In our first session a few months ago, the client expressed considerable frustration with a high-pressure work environment, even though the company is a terrific organization. Her company is often recognized as a Great Place To Work. We could say this client created a helpless story - “there’s nothing I can do.” We can call this an Eeyore Story, where our self-image is passive because we believe that nothing we do will ever work. 

So, what happened between our first two coaching sessions? It was pretty clear the client noticed her behavior and got in touch with her feelings - maybe realizing she was offering herself a false, or fool’s choice in the role as victim: 

1. I can stay and suffer and be miserable, OR 
2. Leave and have a healthy work/life balance.

Classic victim created Sucker’s Choices. A terrific way to escape a Sucker’s Choice is using the word AND. The client probably asked herself instead:

How can I stay at  the company I really enjoy, AND
Have a healthy work/life balance?

Something like this must have happened, because in under two months she:

• Completed her Project Management Professional (PMP) certification
• Transferred to a different program
• Connected with others in the company who have achieved work/life balance
• Learned it’s o.k. to say no to requests

At the heart of many crucial conversations, or stressful situations, lies the question “What Do I Really Want.” It’s a great question we may ask before indulging tendencies toward silence or violence. Can’t wait for our third coaching session with this client, and listening to a continuing mastery of her stories.

Great Leaders ask “What Do I Really Want?”

Influence & Insight | March 2022

Leadership Story | Leaders Want to Know

A few weeks ago, we held a virtual Energize2Lead (E2L) Workshop, as a relatively new team wished for everyone to know each other better. This new group has already, mostly in a virtual environment, hosted several social “icebreakers.” So, the group had to dig a bit deeper when asked “Tell us something important to you that nobody on the team knows.” Here’s a sample of what we found out:

• Structure is very important to me.
• Outside of family I have three best friends. Lifelong friends. Especially the guy, like brothers and sisters. I have an important little sister.
• I voluntarily go to jail periodically -  in support of restorative justice. Provide facilitation courses. For 12 years now.
• I have nieces and nephews that look up to me.
• Exercise important part of my life.
• My dog is a big part of life.
• I like reptiles. Lizards and chameleons.

This is a pretty fun exercise, especially if one shares reptile and exotic animal affinity. There’s another reason, one that helps us as leaders. Recall that our most primitive human needs, essentially hard-wired by an early age, are our instinctive needs. Our E2L profiles sometimes produce red, green, yellow or blue colors in our instinctive dimension that don’t surface in either our preferred or expectations dimensions. 

When that happens, we may call these isolated colors our hidden instinctive needs. Think about that. These colors displayed only on our lower dimension tell us and others something important to us — yet are not readily visible. Sounds a bit like the workshop introduction, doesn’t it? Our Covid environment has made such sharing more difficult, perhaps explaining many requests for E2L Workshops recently, both in-person and in virtual environments.

Our isolated situation has many of operating in our instinctive dimension regularly, an indicator of increased stress. How well do you know your own instinctive needs, or the needs of those around you, at work or at home?

Leaders Want to Know.

How to Lead When You’re Not in Charge | Book Review

Clay Scroggins is a pastor whose unique life story offers timely leadership lessons for all of us, especially those of us who might think leadership is the exclusive domain of supervisors, or those with titles or in formal positions of authority.

“Leaders who wrap themselves in the security blanket of
‘If I were in charge’ or ‘When I’m in charge’ as an excuse
for poor performance and lack of initiative
will most likely never be in charge.” (p. 11)

Let’s think of Scroggins book, subtitled Leveraging Influence When You Lack Authority, as an antidote for passive behavior. As we discover during Academy Leadership Leader’s Compass workshops, influence always outpaces authority (p. 33).

In three parts, Understanding Our Challenge, The Four Behaviors, and Challenging Authority, we can challenge our own mindset, and highlight recommended actions consistent with those forming an Action Plan after a Leadership Excellence Course or similar experience.

I | Understanding Our Challenge

In Crucial Conversations, we share and learn about mastering our stories. Scroggins offers a similar term, our identity. Leading well without formal authority has less to do with your behavior and far more to do with your identity (p. 39). Imagine identity as our own definition of ourselves, which we are free to choose. Scroggins identifies three common identity traps (pp. 41-46):

• Choosing from multiple passports
• Using a fake ID
• Misrepresenting height and weight on a driver’s license 

These traps appear related to authenticity, or a combination or self and external honesty. Perhaps the two are driven by fear, or more specifically, fear of receiving feedback. A common fear in many workplaces is Fear of Speaking Up (FOSU). 

Every time we respond to fear, we miss an opportunity to lead,
and this failure of leadership is an issue of identity. (p. 59)

A great practice in meetings is sharing relevant observations (not evaluations) and asking good questions, both of which strengthen our influence and our identity.

II | Four Behaviors

Scroggins shares a great Jim Collins quote “Truly great [leaders], no matter how successful they become, maintain a learning curve as steep as when they first began their careers.” (p.100) It’s an ideal example of leading one’s self. Does your leadership philosophy include expressions of curiosity or welcome knowledge sharing?

Researchers … found that the satisfaction employees have in their job is directly correlated to their ability to see how what they do fits into the big picture (p. 116). How well do we align with or provide a positive, inspirational future vision?

Trust-fueled, hope-filled, forward-thinking people can always push
through anything that gets in the way because their eyes are fixed
on more than what’s directly in front of them. (p. 122)

An effective, or engaging leader taps into all four energy dimensions: Physical, emotional, mental and spiritual (The Power of Full Engagement).

Scroggins concluded the same: The greatest benefit I bring my team is not my talents, gifts, experience, or education. It’s my energy (p. 124).

In our Feedback workshops, we usually find that evaluation and coaching are frequently confused in the workplace. We confuse the two at the individual level also. Scroggins recommends four subtle influencing shifts (pp. 138-145):

• Stop thinking as an employee, Start thinking as an owner.
• Stop stacking your meetings. Start scheduling thinking meetings.
• Stop being critical. Start thinking critically.
• Stop giving others a grade. Start lending them a hand.

The last two are terrific ideas for shifting from an evaluative mindset to a coaching mindset.

One of the most dangerous temptations we face when we’re working for someone else is passivity (p. 151). Language matters. Try counting the number of times leadership is used as a noun rather than describing an action (a verb) in your workplace. You’ll probably notice a high correlation with victim or helpless identities:

“I’d run that past leadership, but they always say no.”

Scroggins quotes his friend Tim Cooper “You will never passively find what you do not actively pursue.” (p. 165)

III | Challenging Authority

A high percentage of Leadership Excellence Course attendees wish to “coach up,” or influence their supervisors. There are three significant reasons why it’s difficult to challenge others well (pp. 174-179):

• Challenge brings change, and change is inherently challenging.
• The more personally your boss relates to his job, the more personally your boss will take your challenge.
• Any change to the present system will be perceived as a criticism of past leadership.

Think about the second reason. How much of your boss’ identity is tied up in their position. Maybe they’ve only worked at one place their whole life and don’t have a college degree. That’s a recipe for a challenge to any (threatening) idea.

Think of the term relational capacity. …Scroggins’ equivalent definition: Challenging up requires a bridge of relationship that is strong enough to handle the weight of the challenge (p. 183). Make sure it’s real, not an identity trap!

The most powerful reason to challenge the status quo is to make it better (p. 203). We can think of mutual purpose (from Crucial Conversations) or deliberate practice (from Peak).

Summary

Junior leaders, ask yourselves: What do you want people to say about you when you are finally in charge? (p. 213).

Influence has always been, and will always be,
the currency of leadership. (p. 27)

Coaching Story | Results or People?

A recent client engagement affirmed our tendency to focus on results rather than on people. Of course project management reviews and financial reporting are vital to any business. 

Before our large Energize2Lead, or E2L, workshop, I was invited to give a talk based on Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner’s Everyday People, Extraordinary Leadership. This was the first speaking engagement based on the book, yet it felt vital — including findings from Counter Mentor Leadership, that is, Matt Lieberman’s Harvard Business Review article Should Leaders Focus on Results, or People?

Attending a regularly scheduled program review, which also included financial performance results,  seemed to validate Lieberman’s work suggesting we tend to focus on one or the other, results or people. Maybe it’s because focusing on people isn’t an analytical, quantitative exercise. 

Recall Lieberman’s findings that we’re viewed as a great leader:

12% of the time when we focus on people
14% of the time when we focus on results
and 72% of the time when we focus both on people and results

The kicker: Less than 1% of leaders focus on both. Wow.

I’m happy to report that during the several hours of project review reporting, one of the presenters ensured a direct report shared the stage showcasing her skills and progress since hiring. Maybe there was a bit of focusing on people as well as results!

What is your corporate culture? How much does focusing on people lead to promotions compared to focusing on results? Or how much does values-based decision making lead to promotions compared to financial results? 

Regardless what the marketing department or company web site declares, everyone in the organization knows what is genuinely focused on, what is rewarded, and what the demonstrated values in the organization really are.

Great Leaders Focus on Both People and Results.

Influence & Insight | February 2022

Leadership Story | Be a Leader not a Boss

“It’s Return to Office, not Return to Work!”

Declared a recent attendee during our [virtual] After Action Review (AAR) workshop. A prior program cohort attendee also provided an insightful topic for all of our practice AARs:

How we adapted to Covid

Interestingly, each of the four cohorts uncovered and discussed positive aspects while working from home they wish to retain after returning to their offices, which by the way, are no longer dedicated offices. Rather, an Office Hoteling, or elimination of dedicated individual office spaces, environment now exists. 

Consider one of the newer cohort’s experiences offered during our final AAR workshop. The new team member, who works from another state, was recently employed by a different university. After Covid struck, employees were instructed to work from home, and a satisfaction survey was launched soon after. Approximately 90% of work from home responses were positive. Likewise our final cohort group found working from home positive, offering:

• Flexibility
• Work/Life balance
• Can do more things outside of work
• No commute time
* More productive
• Ability to step away
• Option to walk around a bit
• Better problem solving

Downsides included difficulty in “shutting off” and tendency to be on-line working at night.

In spite of such positive responses the new team member’s prior group was requested to “return to work” not long after the survey. Unsurprisingly, within a few months half the returning team quit.

Lisette Sutherland’s Work together Anywhere findings suggest who may leave an organization first. In her prescient work, Sutherland exposed, prior to our pandemic,  that in multiple disciplines, not offering a remote work option means one does not seek the top echelon of talent in that field. The best won’t work out of a corporate office. It’s not a big stretch to believe that in our Covid environment, top talent (with more options) will jump ship first.

Have you ever found yourself thinking or using the term “Return to Work?” Old habits die hard.

Be a Leader, not a Boss.

The Compassionate Instinct | Book Review

Dacher Keltner, Jason Marsh and Jeremy Adam Smith have compiled a trilogy of Greater Good Magazine essays applicable to contemporary findings during our Covid pandemic.

Subtitled The Science of Human Goodness, we may think of eudaimonia, or Aristotle’s description of living well.

“This research challenges some long-held notions
about human nature, revealing that the good in us is just
as intrinsic to our species as the bad.” (p. 6)

This book review selects several essays from the first two of three parts: Scientific roots of goodness, cultivating goodness at work and home, and goodness in society and politics, which we may apply to our Personal Leadership Philosophy.

Recall Matt Lieberman’s findings that few leaders focus on people as much as results. Our selected essays may motivate us to focus more on each other.

I | Scientific Roots

In the Compassionate Instinct (p. 8), Keltner reveals that helping others triggered activity in the caudate nucleus and anterior cingulate, portions of the brain that turn on when people receive rewards or experience pleasure (p. 10). So we might think about compassion as a biologically based skill or virtue (p. 14). Or, thinking about our leadership philosophy, in that virtue is  a value in action.

In The Forgiveness Instinct (p. 51), Michael E. McCullough recalls a very tough story illustrating a horrible car accident, an awful life or death decision, and ultimately a profound act of forgiveness. Evolutionary science leads us squarely to the conclusion that the capacity for forgiveness, like the desire for revenge, is also an intrinsic feature of human nature (p. 53). Consider differing approaches to safety violations, where one company may declare a goal of no reported infractions, unintentionally creating an environment of non-reporting or “sweeping things under the carpet.” In contrast, another company may promote forgiveness, or early reporting of events or activities which might lead to a significant safety violation.

A favorite phrase heard during leadership philosophy workshops: 

“Let’s learn from our mistakes rather than repeat them.”

A genuine expression of forgiveness rather than a more typical finger-pointing habit or culture.

In Pay it Forward (p. 77), Robert A. Emmons explores gratitude. So, why is gratitude good? For two main reasons, I think. First gratitude strengthens social ties. It cultivates an individual’s sense of connectedness (p. 83). What a timely value for today as we near a third year of Covid separation! Interestingly, Emmons doesn’t correlate gratitude with altruism. Second, gratitude increases one’s sense of personal worth (p. 84), in that when we are the recipient of gratitude, another person is deeming us of value. Consider the simple phrase promote gratitude, as either an operating principle or expectation in your leadership philosophy.

II | Cultivating Goodness

In the Part II introduction (p. 97), the three authors reveal an opportunity:

Gratitude is another seemingly simple skill that just doesn’t seem to
fit into contemporary American society, or we see gratitude as a
basic form of politeness, like chewing with your mouth closed (p. 98).

This observation seems related to our tendency to say “I’m sorry,” rather than “Excuse me” -- both examples misusing a powerful expression for superficial situations.

At the beginning of an Academy Leadership program, we discuss journaling as a habit common of many successful leaders. In Stumbling Toward Gratitude (p. 118), Catherine Price affirms our findings. So, how do positive psychologists recommend that you increase your level of gratitude – and therefore happiness? (p. 119) Price recommends keeping a “gratitude journal,” where you record a running list of things for which you’re grateful. We may also capture instances of gratitude throughout our team or organization, raising morale and a sense of common purpose.

In Compassion Across Cubicles (p. 133), Jill Suttie explores relationship quality, or relational capacity. These days, it’s rare to find people who consider their workplace “special” and feel close to their coworkers, let alone call them family (p. 134). Recall our discovery of the term “cultural oasis,” especially when in a large and/or indifferent work environment. Including the term in our leadership philosophy may capture simultaneous focus on both people and results:

“All supervisors have to balance the needs of the corporation –
which is all about money, earnings per share, and profitability –
with the needs of the worker.”  (p. 137) Renee Knee, Senior VP | SAP

In Are You a Jerk at Work (p. 140), Robert I. Sutton provides a great leadership litmus test. I believe the best test of a person’s character is how he or she treats those with less power (p. 141). Our leadership report card.

Summary

Compassion, forgiveness, gratitude, cultural oasis. Great candidate expressions, and actions for all of us as leaders, especially in the age of The Great Resignation. Consider a revision to your leadership philosophy.

Coaching Story | Leaders Walk the Talk

Two recent events reminded me of organizational core values. Not fancy plaques on a lobby wall or carefully crafted statements on a company web site. 

In the first, a Zoom coaching session, a client was talking about the expectation to work past 40 hours per week. Listening to the story, it sounded as though the supervisor’s role was to assess how much time an employee spent at home taking care of family, kids, etc, then essentially declaring all remaining time should be devoted to work.

That is, if you ever wanted a promotion. That’s the culture.

Interestingly, the client actually appreciated the supervisor’s clarity of expectations. It’s also safe to presume that this client will faithfully meet many of the supervisor’s expectations, perhaps even reaching for the next promotion.

While at the same time looking for the first opportunity to transfer location or quit in search of an organization that actually recognizes quality of life and work/life balance.

The second event was a recent Graduate Leadership Course, which includes a Core Values Alignment workshop on the third day. During the workshop, we watched a video that included Jim Collins and Tony Hsieh. 

Collins answers the common question:

“How do you get people to share core values?” We don’t. 

Collins explains we can’t install new core values, but we can seek and find people who already have a predisposition to sharing our values.

In our workshop, we discussed core values, and created definitions and eventually descriptions of the values in action, or normative behavioral statements. Tony Hsieh describes a similar process in Delivering Happiness. While doing this at Zappos, the initial core values statements were considered first drafts, and were then circulated throughout the company. Everyone had an input, in essence aligning the draft statements with the values that already existed in the company. This took some time. Zappos core values are not inscribed tablets handed to the masses by “Leadership.”

Think about that.

Maybe that’s what’s going on at my client’s company. Values created and mandated from the top. Alignment throughout the company. Maybe not so much.

Leaders Walk the Talk.

Influence & Insight | January 2022

Leadership Story | Lead From The Heart

Early last year, we called out Jim Kouzes’ Everyday People, Extraordinary Leadership both as Book of the Year and an enduring reference emphasizing that leadership is ultimately a relationship, rather than a position or title. During this holiday season a personal reflection seemed appropriate both for you the audience and for our enduring pandemic environment.

MP339. That’s actually not the name of the family, but it was a combination of two initials and a family identification code. My way of remembering.

You see, even in challenging times gratitude and caring for others, or empathy, matter. My wife Cheryl, and I don’t know how she does these things, found an anonymous family in need she wished to help out during the holiday season. Apparently the number suggests hundreds of families in need and the letters may be the mother’s initials. We’re not talking about sending a check or making an on-line credit card donation.

Recall from Kouzes that leadership at the core is a relationship. It’s also a relationship we may create without even knowing who or what we may be influencing. Not title, not position, and not about us.

Cheryl knew the number of children in the family, and I believe a bit of detail about each which guided her shopping. When she retuned home after hours of, yes, in-person shopping, she excitedly pulled out a calculator and gleefully showed me none of the kids would receive a gift more expensive than any of the others. Needless to day, I’m still thinking about this, and what we can all learn from her actions. Multiple values certainly appear on display, at a minimum compassion and empathy, likely based on a sense of gratitude.

Perhaps 2022 will be the year of the empathic leader, fingers crossed.

Lead From The Heart.

BE 2.0 | Book Review

“Hire Diverse Talents, But Not Divergent Values.” (p. 244)

Declares Jim Collins and William Lazier (RIP) in the chapter on innovation near the end of his updated book, Beyond Entrepreneurship (BE 2.0). But how? Ultimately, our role as leaders centers on alignment, which we focus on during our Core Values Alignment workshop, drawing on findings in Collins’ Built to Last.

Recall from Built to Last we may define Core Ideology as Purpose + Core Values. Also, a useful Hierarchy of Guideposts from top to bottom:

Purpose
Values
Vision
Mission
Goals
Objectives

Reminds us of the significance of purpose-led decisions. Let’s consider an Academy Leadership Core Values workshop and initial development of our Personal Leadership Philosophy as stage one for organizational and personal transformation. BE 2.0 is a blueprint for a second stage, and in that light, this book review focuses on Chapter 4, Vision, further refining our definition of purpose, and Chapter 3, Leadership Style, suggesting ways we may better define both our organizational purpose and our individual self as a leader. The numerous stories and experiences spread throughout the book offer reinforcing examples that Collins’ models, such as The Hedgehog Concept (p. 160) and The Flywheel Effect (p. 161) are effective once we are operating first from a well-defined purpose.

Vision | Improved Definition

Collins informs us:

“The number one responsibility of a leader – is to catalyze a
clear and shared vision for the company and to secure commitment
to and vigorous pursuit of that vision.” (p. 90)

On page 91, we find a powerful visual diagram breaking down VISION into three components: Core Values and Beliefs, Purpose and Mission:

Tom Watson, legendary IBM CEO reflects: “If you want to do more than just make a lot of money – if you want to build an enduring, great company – then you need a vision.” (p. 92) Similar to considering the launch of a leadership development initiative, we may believe something as lofty as a vision statement is reserved for mid-size and larger organizations. Collins’ research indicates the opposite:

“…in every case, the vision was laid in place
when the company was still small.” (p. 94)

 Consider four benefits of a corporate vision, particularly in our enduring Covid pandemic environment (p. 95):

1.   Vision forms the basis of extraordinary human effort.
2.   Vision provides a context for strategic and tactical decisions.
3.   Shared vision creates cohesion, teamwork, and community.
4.   Vision lays the groundwork for the company to evolve past dependence on a few key individuals.

These benefits tie directly to our findings in Aligning and Accomplishing Goals and Creating a Motivational Climate workshops. In the former, we share personal dreams and goals and in the latter we discover that motivation is tied directly our our deeply embedded instinctive (Energize2Lead) needs. 

Leadership Style | Leadership Philosophy

Collins defines effective corporate leadership as the combination of leadership function and leadership style (p. 40) and we’ve already defined the primary function (responsibility).

If we view leadership style as a combination of common skills plus individual components, we’ve effectively created a worthy method of examining our leadership philosophy allowing identification of missing elements such as individual traits or quirks worth sharing.

Pages 45 – 89 illustrate through stories seven elements of leadership style: 

1.   Authenticity
2.   Decisiveness
3.   Focus
4.   Personal Touch
5.   Hard/Soft People Skills
6.   Communication
7.   Ever Forward

Let’s tie each of these elements to the eight components our our leadership philosophy, as a self-improvement exercise. Are you authentic, or do your actions mirror your words? How comfortable are others offering you feedback, especially when you are not seeking it? How decisive are you, especially when defending individuals or organizational core values? Will you make an instinctive decision, even if it may turn out incorrect?

A frequently challenging part of leadership philosophy drafting is articulating priorities, or focus. Are your energies directed primarily to a project or financial result -- does it also include a focus on developing people? What in your leadership philosophy tells others what type of person you are – or, are any of your core values distinctive, such as empathy? Our stated operating principles and expectations may convey forms of communication (e.g. one-on-one always preferred, don’t hide behind email) and welcome an open, safe and collaborative environment.

Finally, our leadership philosophy should be uplifting and point a unified, aligned team toward our positive forward vision. Consider two bookend statements, one launching our philosophy and one affirming at the end.

Summary

Collins book is a valuable, recommended reference for any leader who wishes to ‘go deeper.” BE 2.0 is also an excellent companion for effective strategic planning, once we’ve effectively communicated our vision.

“There is a spiritual side to all of us.
We are speaking of the higher side of people…” (p. 88)

Coaching Story | Leaders Connect

What lessons does the Covid Pandemic offer us in a leader role?

Let’s take a peek at reflections from a recent in-person Leadership Excellence Course, or LEC:

“I have spent way too much time in my instinctive needs which has
stressed me out and has me on the cusp of burning out. I need to eliminate
some of my independent workload. I have put too much on my plate to
handle at one time. I need to take care of myself first so that I am able to
efficiently and effectively lead others.”

This action plan entry was indicative of the personal sharing which occurred over three days, perhaps because our group was physically together, a welcome in-person week after nearly two years of a working in a virtual environment.

Let’s also consider the title of a Recent Wall Street Journal article:

American Workers Are Burned Out, and Bosses Are Struggling to Respond

Workplace stress is rampant and resignations have risen; employers are trying
four-day workweeks, mandatory vacation days and other new ways of working.

Perhaps the word “Bosses” is a clue. Notice neither the title nor the subtitle indicate any interest in learning the point of view of “the employee, or workers” Recall Stanley McChrystal’s finding (quoting Frederick Winslow Taylor)  in Team of Teams:

“[A laborer] shall be so stupid and so phlegmatic that he more nearly resembles in his mental make-up the ox than any other type… the workman who is best suited to handling pig iron is unable to understand the real science of doing this class of work. He is so stupid that the word “percentage” has no meaning to him, and he must consequently be trained by a man more intelligent than himself into the habit of working in accordance with the laws of this science before he can be successful.”

Even at the end of pandemic year 2021, with many virtual employees struggling with purpose or work/life balance, Taylor’s mindset continues influencing the managerial mindset. Recall that day one of an LEC is about self-discovery and day two is focused on deeply learning about and connecting with others. It appears that rather than attempting new workplace routines, a leadership mindset focused on each of us as individual people may be the simpler, yet more elusive solution.

Leaders connect.