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Phil's Leadership blog

Leading in a recession: Absorb their uncertainty

Mar 3rd, 2009 | Leadership | 0 Comments »

I like this, which is an extract from a post by Columbia Business School Professor Rita McGrath. A link to her complete post is at the end of this.

In a downturn, uncertainty freezes people. So, your job is to absorb their uncertainty. Below are five tips to help you do that.

So ask yourself:

  • 1. Am I providing a clear set of assumptions for people to operate on, with the understanding that they may change as more information becomes available?
  • 2. Have I made sure to reach out to people who seem badly affected…?
  • 3. Am I moving quickly enough to help people get past the current situation to focus on the future and what is coming next?
  • 4. Have I made clear to the people who are deeply valued by the organization that they have a promising future?
  • 5. When a decision will affect someone negatively, have I personally delivered the bad news, dealt with the fallout in a fair and transparent way, and made it clear to observers why the decision was made?

Source and read more: The five points are from a piece by Columbia Business School Professor Rita McGrath, called Absorb Their Uncertainty – and get your people unstuck . Click on the title (‘Absorb Their etc.’) to read her full blog post, which takes about three minutes.

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Darwinism and Leadership

Mar 2nd, 2009 | Leadership | 0 Comments »

The BBC has now had three, at my count, TV programs/programmes on Darwin and his legacy, one presented by David Attenborough, one by Andrew Marr and a whole mini-series presented by a French biologist with such perfect English that you found yourself spending the whole time trying to catch some evidence of the evolution of his own language by listening for a hint, even a hint, of French mispronunciation. I didn’t find any.

All were excellent, but all told the same story and it does make you wonder about whether left hands knew what right hands were doing.

Anyway, the main thing in our head is often – usually – not the main message in the learning. Between Darwin and popular consciousness some switch is tripped that sends our train off along the wrong track.

So, it is with ‘survival of the fittest‘ that has become a mantra for tough-edged management and leadership in commercial organizations the world over.

It’s not about brute-ism and a ‘take no prisoners’ approach to capitalism.

What Darwin actually said was it’s those that are most ready to change that survive, not those that are most rigid.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.”

Carmine Coyote has a nice post on this – Management’s False Darwinians – over on his Slow Leadership blog.

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There is no such thing as a boring job

Feb 17th, 2009 | Leadership | 0 Comments »

I don’t think Ziggy the Dustman, as this guy was nicknamed (he used to dance past my daughter-in-law’s bookshop in Chiswick High Road, West London), is doing this for anyone other than himself. We think his real name is Billy, but aren’t sure. He’s Polish.

If you study the Fish! phenomenon (Pike’s Place Fish Market in Seattle) and other places in which people with apparently dull but high profile (in terms of visibility) jobs suddenly turn the whole company from looking mundane to looking, from the customer’s point of view, like an exciting, life-enhancing place to do business with, then you can see from Ziggy/Billy that even the most mundane job can be turned into something that inspires and delights.

We learn from extremes. I’m not saying everyone on your front line has to dance. But, can you see the light in their eyes? If not, look at what Ben Zander says (search for him in www.theleadershiphub.com and there are several learning points in there ) about how the leader’s job is to allow people to shine, and look at how people like Tony Hsieh, CEO at Zappo’s, lead, to learn how to do it.

“People are like stained – glass windows.
They sparkle and shine when the sun is out,
but when the darkness sets in,
their true beauty is revealed
only if there is a light from within.”
– Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

It’s part of a leader’s job to spot the light in someone’s eyes and allow them to shine. Particularly in a downturn when it’s dark outside and everyone’s worried. If the light isn’t there or is wavering, then it’s a leader’s job to help the person find it and release it. I know it’s a big ask. What, you think this stuff is easy?

So, how do I action this?

Here’s one question to consider asking people at the end of a work day to help with this ‘light’ thing: “What did you enjoy about today?” If you’re really brave, you could write into people’s job expectations or job descriptions a three-word expectation “Enjoy your job”, and then work with each person who reports to you to figure out what you and they need to do to make that happen.

There is no such thing as mundane, other than we let it become so.

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The 20 Best Companies For Leaders

Feb 16th, 2009 | Leadership | 0 Comments »

According to The Hay Group and Chief Executive Magazine, these are the 2008 Best Companies for Leaders, with their 2007 positions in brackets.

1. 3M Company (15)
2. Procter & Gamble (2)
3. General Electric (1)
4. Coca-Cola (5)
5. HSBC Holdings (14)
6. ABB
7. Southwest Airlines
8. IBM
9. Hewlett-Packard (10)
10. PepsiCo (7)
11. Nokia
12. Accenture Ltd.
13. FedEx
14. Infosys Technologies Ltd.
15. McDonald’s Corporation (18)
16. Caterpillar
17. American Express
18. Cisco Systems
19. Oracle
20. Intel Corporation

Hat Tip: George Ambler’s blog The Practice of Leadership

PS And what do these great leaders do?
“When asked what organizations value the most in leaders, 83 percent of the best in class organizations said “execution.” “

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Zappos Culture Book

Feb 16th, 2009 | Leadership | 0 Comments »

I could have posted this in The Customer Blog just as easily. Zappo’s, the online shoe shop with the billion dollar turnover and the great reputation for customer service, publishes its own culture book once a year, written by its employees.

The HR guy, about halfway into this clip, which explains the book, says “What it says for Tony (Hsieh, CEO of Zappos) is that we are all leaders here. It’s not up to him to lead us. It’s about us leading each other.”

That’s Distributed Leadership my friends. It’s how you get to be a great company today. If you don’t understand it, watch the clip. You probably still won’t understand it completely, but it’s a start.

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Leaders who rap?

Feb 12th, 2009 | Leadership | 0 Comments »

You have to admire the, er, energy of the top leaders at the Singapore Media Development Authority. Click on the triangular ‘play’ button, below, to see what I mean. But, be warned: if you listen to all four minutes of this you won’t get the tune out of your head.

If you are viewing at work and your employer’s policy is to block access to YouTube, you won’t see anything in the panel below. If so, copy and paste this link in an email to yourself and watch it at home or somewhere where YouTube isn’t blocked:

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FREE HBR Papers from Jim Collins, Daniel Goleman, Marcus Buckingham

Feb 11th, 2009 | Leadership | 0 Comments »

Microsoft are sponsoring Harvard Business Review so that you can download a number of free leadership papers that you would otherwise have to pay for.

They are classics and include:

Daniel Goleman on what makes a leader (EI, he says, not surprisingly)

Jim Collins on Level 5 Leadership

Managers and leaders: are they different? (Before you read this, beware that it’s a false polarity. You have to flip backward and forward between ‘managing’ and ‘leading’ many times every day if you are doing your job properly. You need to be both).

Why should anyone be led by you? (A damn good question)

Marcus Buckingham on What Great Managers Do

Here’s the link. You can download them but don’t share them, as that breaches copyright. Just point people at the link as I’ve done here: FREE HBR Papers, sponsored by Microsoft.

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Tough Times Call For Uncertain Leaders

Feb 9th, 2009 | Leadership | 0 Comments »

One of the (many) paradoxes of leadership is that, yes, a lot of people value certainty of direction in uncertain times and it’s a leader’s job to harness the collective will to a particular direction – core purpose, prime directive, whatever you want to call it. But (you saw that ‘but’ coming, didn’t you)…

Too many people in leadership positions think they therefore have to show certainty all the time – be a rock in uncertain, turbulent times. Sorry, wrong. Be uncertain. Openly uncertain. Often.

“Of all the qualities in a leader conducive to innovation and initiative, a degree of uncertainty may be the most powerful.”

That’s from a new clip in Hub TV from Jack Hayhow. The most creative organizations, he says, citing Ellen J Langer’s research, have leaders who are confident that the job will be done, but without any certainty about how it will get done.

You can view the 1 minute and 45 second clip on the Home Page here: www.theleadershiphub.com

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A Time to Laugh

Feb 4th, 2009 | Leadership | 0 Comments »

Do people laugh at you? At work, I mean, rather than point and titter as you walk past in the street.

You don’t have to follow cricket to appreciate this story: The new captain of the England cricket team was giving a press conference this morning and kept stumbling over the word ‘shipshape’. There were gales of laughter from three people at the back of the room.

The three cricketers who couldn’t control themselves included the previous captain who had been ousted, and with whom it was widely predicted the new captain would have a hard time. Also, one other former captain was among the gigglers, a precocious talent who sometimes saves the day, sometimes doesn’t, depending, apparently on how motivated he feels.

Things must be fine in the England camp, said the commentator in passing. They are laughing at the captain.

Herb Kelleher, when he was CEO of Southwest Airlines, said “I love it when people make fun of me.” Take the job seriously but not yourself is a pretty good rule of thumb for leaders to follow.

In case you think that doesn’t make him a serious CEO, under Kelleher’s watch (and, just as important, after he handed over to Colleen Barrett, too) Southwest Airlines was and is the most consistently profitable airline in US aviation history and, for a large part of its existence, has been worth more than the stock market value of every other domestic US airline added together. That’s serious business.

With people losing jobs and worried about the future, this isn’t the time for comedians. But, this IS a time to forge closer relationships and a sense of purpose. And nothing does that like laughing together.

Don’t forget Victor Borge’s memorable line, stolen by Primal Leadership author Daniel Goleman

Q: What’s the shortest distance between two people?
A: Laughter

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Leaders are Givers, not Takers

Feb 3rd, 2009 | Leadership | 0 Comments »

I can’t help myself. I like Dr. Alan Zimmerman’s Tuesday Tips. Even though I don’t know what he’s a ‘Dr’ in and he hard sells to me in between the interesting bits.

I’m a bit late, but this is an example from last week, with a link to his site at the end:

From Alan Zimmerman’s Tuesday Tip

“No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.” – Calvin Coolidge, 30th U.S. President

I’ve noticed that people fall into one of two categories: givers and takers.

I’ve also noticed that the takers are the unhappiest people on Earth. And it’s no wonder. When their entire focus is on “What’s In It For Me,” they’re bound to offend their coworkers, customers, friends, and family members and have problems with them.

By contrast, those who experience the most success in their businesses, their teams, and their families are givers.

So I ask you … “Are you a giver or a taker?”

Abigail Van Buren, the syndicated columnist, gives a great way to answer that question. She said,

“The best index to a person’s character is:
a) how he treats people who can’t do him any good, and
b) how he treats people who can’t fight back.”

A taker ONLY treats people well when he’s out to get something from them. A giver treats people well ALL the time.

To be a bit more specific …

1. Takers seldom think about others

They’re self-absorbed … with their interests, their desires, their wants, and their needs.

They’re kind of like the father who was asked by a young man if he could marry his daughter. The father asked, “Can you support a family?”

The young man said,”Yes.”

“Good,” replied the father. “There’s six of us.”

Alan then goes on to look at leadership styles – givers or takers. Here’s the link:

Givers or takers – Alan Zimmerman’s Tuesday Tip, January 27 2009

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