Ron’s Short Review: Kiel does a really good job of answering the age old question, “Is there any Return on Investment (“ROI”) from Character? He makes a strong case that “ROC” may provide the greatest ROI of any factor.
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I was having coffee this morning with an old dear friend. He has lived a life so rich and diverse and global that it would astound most people. He also has a heavenly view of this world that helps him see things in a simple framework that brings clarity to very complex issues. And yet he said to me today that he regrets career choices that he made many years ago and feels he missed (to some degree) not living as meaningful of a life as he could have. I must admit that I was shocked by his revelation but I also believe that on this topic he was in complete error.
Twenty Years Ago
I shared with him an old Chinese proverb (or at least my paraphrase of it): “When is the best time to plant a tree? 20 years ago!”
When is the 2nd Best Time?
My friend contemplated that statement and agreed he had “missed the boat” 20 years ago. But there is second part to the proverb, “When is the second best time to plant a tree? Today!” Just because you didn’t do it 20 years ago doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it today. In fact, a tree planted 20 years ago can be for your own pleasure, a tree planted today will likely bring pleasure to others.
One of the talents of my friend is his technical brilliance. He was teaching us about “Big data” and “cloud computing” before they even had names. And he has an incredible talent for explaining it in simplistic terms that the non-technical person understands. This talent is needed today more than it was 20 years ago. I watch business leaders every day trying to understand the technical side of the business well enough to make good business decisions.
Now is the Time!
Whatever your passion and wherever you find it, now is the time to plant the tree. No regrets only learning.
Creativity coach Ericl Maisel says that when people asks “How can I find the meaning of life?” They’re asking a completely useless question. He says: “we have to construct meaning in our lives based on everyday choices.”
It’s your choice today. Plant that tree now or continue to regret not planting it 20 years ago.
Commitment involves rising above our own needs and perspectives to grab hold of a greater good. As psychiatrist and author M. Scott Peck reminds us:
“People are searching for a deeper meaning in their lives.”
The leader who understands this and who responsibly presents a great cause to followers will turn a key in many hearts and unlock vast reservoirs of creativity and productivity.
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Standing for something greater relates directly to the values and vision of an organization. A leader’s stance for something greater not only meets his or her personal desires, but it strongly resonates with peers, direct-reports, and others who have a stake in the organization.
History presents many examples of great men and women who understood the need to lift up allegiance to something great. These people stood their ground and had the controlled strength to remain focused on the ultimate objective.
Susan B. Anthony was such a person.
She found her “something-greater” cause, a passionate pursuit that would claim most of her attention and energy for the rest of her life. She worked tirelessly to keep the issue of suffrage before the public by speaking, petitioning Congress and state legislatures, and publishing newspapers.
In 1872 she put feet to her convictions by defying the existing laws and casting a vote in the presidential election. What a scene at shortly after 7 A.M. on Election Day when Susan and several other women marched to their polling place.
The three young men supervising registration initially refused to let Susan and the others register, and a heated argument ensued. After an hour of debate, a frustrated Susan finally got the inspectors to relent when she told them, “If you refuse us our rights as citizens, I will bring charges against you in Criminal Court and I will sue each of you personally for large, exemplary damages!” This threat turned the tide, and the women were grudgingly allowed to register.
On election day Susan was allowed to fill out the paper ballot and cast her vote for presidential candidate U.S. Grant. But that was not the end of the matter. Later Susan was arrested and charged for casting an illegal vote. Hoping to gain more public attention for the suffrage cause, she refused to post bail (her lawyer paid it out of his own pocket).
At her trial the arguments were long and passionate on both sides. After the prosecution and defense were heard, in a surprising turn of events, the judge told the jury it must return a guilty verdict.
Susan and her supporters were outraged and claimed the trial was a farce.
Later, after reviewing the case, the U.S. Supreme Court decided women still could not vote. Unwilling to abandon her great cause, Susan fought on faithfully until her death in 1906. It wasn’t until 1920, with the ratification of the nineteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution, that women were finally given the right to vote in the United States.
The self-sacrifice of women like Susan B. Anthony and their vision for something greater than themselves led to significant cultural changes in the United States. Today, many take it for granted that women can attend college, work in any chosen profession, and have access to every right available to men. This was not the case in 1872.
People in organizations can be caught in a similar trap. They don’t see anything past Friday’s paycheck. The organization offers them little vision, few or inconsistent values, and little or no opportunity to achieve. Granted, not every situation embodies a culture-altering, transcendent cause like woman’s suffrage. But trusted leaders know how important a higher goal is for individual and organizational well-being.
They always point the way to something greater.
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Almost all of my clients (all successful business leaders) are in their mid-forties to mid-sixties. That means they were born between 1950 and 1970 and developed their approach to leadership at their first jobs in the 1970’s and 1980’s.
Think about what was making our businesses strong and prosperous during that era and later:
- Constantly increasing productivity
- Getting as lean as possible
- Creating ever-increasing efficiencies
- Precision in operational systems
- World Changing logistics
Change and innovation in this environment is risky. Corporate boards and investors don’t have much stomach for anything beyond the list above. And, by the way, get better at each of them every quarter! This doesn’t leave much room for trying something new, bringing forth a new idea or innovative approach or certainly launching a disruptive product that is going to be self-disruptive.
In a meeting the other day, one VP said, “I think we can reduce the number of jobs in one area and then use the saved headcount to put toward some change initiatives.” The second VP immediately responded with “I’m pretty sure if we found out how to reduce headcount, we would simply make the reduction in order to get the cost savings. We don’t have any other choice.”
He’s probably right. Reducing the headcount this quarter and for the next three quarters will be highly rewarding but I’ll guarantee you that someone, somewhere is launching a disruptive idea today that has you in the crosshairs four quarters from now.
Change and innovation is hard, really. Lack of change and innovation is deadly, really.
What restraints have you seen that makes it difficult to change and innovate?
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Is there a surefire, can’t-fail approach to mentoring effectively in an organizational setting? Probably not. But that should not come as a surprise because, after all, we are talking about relationships between people. However, here are some ideas, principles, and goals that will help illumine your path to a satisfying and successful mentoring experience.
1. Be an encourager
Encouragement is one of the mentor’s most powerful tools for leading another person to higher levels of personal growth. The Greek word for encouragement means “coming alongside.” This means helping another person by being right there, offering whatever assistance is required.
All of us need encouragement—a word from somebody who believes in us, stands by us, and reassures us. Encouragement renews our courage, refreshes our spirits, and rekindles our hope. Encouragement goes beyond appreciation to affirmation; we appreciate what a person does, but we affirm who a person is. Affirmation does not insist on a particular level of performance, and it is not earned.
2. Be patient
Mentoring requires a good amount of patience from both parties. The endurance factor is quite important when the person with whom a mentor is working reacts with what might be considered a silly response (in words or actions). It takes patience to watch someone grow and develop into a better person. It takes patience to see missteps and not immediately go in and either change the behavior or solve the problem.
Thomas was the CFO of a large organization, and he took a new hire under his wing. Early on, the new hire, a COO of a smaller division of the same organization, made several mistakes. The CFO remained patient and diligent. They learned together and solved many of the issues. One of the methods used by the CFO was laughter. He never made the new hire feel inferior or guilty. He simply reflected on the COO’s actions, taking them for what they were and using them to create an open dialogue for training and learning.
3. Be trustworthy
As a mentor you must exhibit integrity. The person you are mentoring will be open and vulnerable only after watching you live a consistently ethical life. Trustworthiness means being reliable, faithful, and unfailing. Trustworthy leaders are honest and transparent, committed, dedicated, and keep promises and confidences. They also have the moral courage to do the right thing and to stand up for what they believe even when it is difficult to do so.
4. Be an opportunist
A good mentor is always searching for mentoring opportunities. The best mentoring happens in “teachable moments.” These impromptu opportunities to share insights and experiences require no formal agenda or time schedule, just a willingness on the leader’s part to be available and recognize moments when the other person needs help. This should flow naturally and not be contrived or forced. The protégé may not even realize that a “mentoring moment” has occurred.
Mentoring is a life-changing part of development. The goal is to coach and guide people through life transitions and structures, focusing on the “being” rather than the “doing.”
You need genuine concern, patience, and a great sense of humor, when mentoring an employee. But it’s worth the effort. People committed to growing together through thick and thin accomplish great things.
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Steven Tyler of Aerosmith and I have at least two things in common:
- We were born on the same day, which makes us early Baby Boomers.
- We both have lovely and talented daughters. (I have two.)
I hope you can meet my daughters someday. They are indeed lovely and talented.
But in this blog, I want to talk about one of the interesting aspects of being (and experiencing the life of) an early Baby Boomer.
Living through four “ages”
We’ve now lived through at least four identified “ages.” I grew up in a small rural town and during high school, it was not unusual to see more tractors in the parking lot than cars and trucks. We were at the end of the agricultural age when chores had to be attended to before school and livestock and fields had to be tended after school. We grew up in a very different age.
But we were also in the prime of the industrial age. For the first time in history, you could work a career on manufacturing assembly line and live a comfortable middle class life. That opportunity ended in this century when middle class wages for assembly work now require higher technology skills.
Information Age
And so many of us have made our careers working in the information age: finances, legal, information technology, and engineering. We’ve moved information and data around which has proved to be very valuable over the last 30 years.
Beyond the Information Age
But, we have now moved beyond the information age and into the conceptual age (named such by Daniel Pink in A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future
And the cycle of change? The agricultural age lasted about 12,000 years. The industrial age about 250 years, the information age, about 40 years, and the conceptual age? Maybe it’s already being replaced and we haven’t recognized or named it yet. But what’s obvious is the increased pace of change and how much that’s going to force us (individually and corporately) to re-invent ourselves on a regular basis.
Are you ready for that much and frequent change? I think my generation (And Steven’s) is the last to actually have a choice.
My lovely, talented daughters and their spouses won’t have that luxury.
Ron’s Short Review: This was a re-read for me. First published around 2007. Like many of these “observation of change” books, the author seemed to see it coming but the points of the book are really hitting us now, a few years after the original publication. Worth rethinking as the future unfolds.
In my previous blog on the book “American Icon” by Bryce Hoffman, I commented on the leadership style exhibited by Alan Mulally as he led the Ford Motor Company through some of their darkest days. He exhibited two key characteristics, Humility and Endurance that are hallmarks of great leadership and may have helped him save Ford.
Photo credit: John Spooner, Creative Commons
Dedication to Teamwork
But it may have been his dedication to teamwork that was equally important to the survival of Ford. The auto industry and Ford in particular were not pillars of teamwork at the top. While I’ve worked with many great teams within the auto companies, the warring chiefdoms of the larger corporation often seemed to be the culture de jour.
Self-Selection
When Mulally first arrived in Detroit, both the existing leadership team and the outside community (mainly the press) assumed there would be a clean sweep as Alan brought in his trusted team members from his years at Boeing. But, Mulally surprised them all when he answered one of the first reporters that his team was already in place, meaning the previous team members of Bill Ford’s team. He commented with a very particular statement that I have shared with many of the leaders that I’ve worked with through the years. Build the right vision and culture and the people who don’t belong there and won’t work out in the end will self-select out. Once they realize that you, as a new leader, are truly taking the team or company in a new direction and you endure through all of the setbacks, they’ll either get on board (as Mark Fields did in the book and is now the current CEO of Ford) or they’ll realize they don’t belong and figure out how to save face and move on.
The Tyranny of Competence
This may be the more difficult issue to deal with when creating great teams. The Tyranny of Competence is a title Chapter in Robert Quinn’s book Deep Change. Quinn states that “It is fairly easy to find an extraordinarily competent person who plays a particularly powerful role in the organization.” “The person often argues, ‘The only thing that should matter is how well someone does the job.’” In Mulally’s case, it happened to be the Chief Financial Officer (CFO). This was not only a powerful role but a critical role. Hoffman writes of the CFO “[He] had devoted his life to Ford and worked as hard or harder than anyone else in the building to save it. But he was dividing the company at a time when it needed to be united like never before. He had to go.”
The Darkest Moment
In this darkest moment, when you would think that you need all of the hard working competency you can find, Mulally decided that teamwork was more important than experience and hardworking competency. And he acted. Mulally, was not looking for blind loyalty, he had demonstrated time and time again that he preferred to hear contrary opinions and radical ideas. But the CFO was making decisions on his own that were contrary to the team decisions and enforcing them in spite of where the team and Mulally thought they should be going. This was not going to work. Teamwork was more crucial in the darkest of days.
What have you seen or how hard have you worked at really building team? A lot gets written about teamwork in companies. What are you actually experiencing? Share some stories with us.
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Three things were born in 1948.
Two of them have dramatically changed the world. The third has been a very interested observer.
One—the transistor. It came out of bell labs and Wikipedia describes it as, “The fundamental building block of modern electronic devices.”
Two—the bit. Short for binary digit is the basic unit of information in computer and digital communication.
Three—Ron Potter. Substantially less impactful than the first two.
For whatever reason, I have long felt to be a part of and intertwined with this growing digital world. The programmable microprocessor (which made the PC possible) was born the year I graduated from engineering school.
But in spite of this fascination and enjoyment of this gadget world, I have been more interested by the human mind, spirit and soul. Who we are and how all things human work together is much more fascinating and complex than anything man made.
Alvin Toffler wrote the book Future Shock
The advantage provided by the instantaneous, world-wide communication that these technologies have brought won’t work if we don’t build trust and stay connected as human beings.
In fact, without building the human connected trust required, these high-tech solutions can actually turn destructive. We’ve all seen reputations and relationships damaged or even destroyed through electronic communication.
Be careful. Get to know and understand people. Build trust. We’ve been identified as human “beings,” not human “doings.”
If you’ll build the relationships, trust, understanding, and respect needed for a great team to work, the high technology can greatly enhance everything. Without trust it can quickly become destructive.
Build trust!
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Adirondack Golf Courses
I really related to the opening section titled “Golf and Life.”
“The main idea in golf as in life is to learn to accept what cannot be altered and to keep on doing one’s own resolute best whether the prospect be bleak or rosy.”
Life, like golf has its ups and downs. In golf if you can approach your “situation”, be it sitting just right in the middle of the fairway or stymied behind a tree, with a calm approach to do the best you can, you will experience the most success and the most enjoyment in your game.
I need to add another observation I’ve had through the years. Playing golf in Scotland, the home of golf, is different than playing golf in America. In America golf courses have been designed, built and manicured for the purpose of playing the game of golf. In Scotland, the old courses grew from natural conditions. They were usually on ground that was useless for any other purpose and developed into locations where people play the game of golf. Because of this difference, Scottish golfers seem to have a different (and I think healthier) attitude about the game.
To the American golfer, if I stand on the tee, execute a very nice swing, send the ball flying down the fairway, I expect to be rewarded by finding the ball in a good place on a manicured fairway, perfectly situated for the next shot. But Scottish fairways are different. After that “perfect” drive I may find my ball in a deep hidden bunker right in the middle of the fairway. Or, because of all the natural moguls in the fairway, I may find that my ball landed in the middle of the fairway but hit one of the moguls and bounded into the gorse of the rough.
Now to the American mind, That’s Not Fair! “I hit a good drive, I did everything right, I should be rewarded with a good result!” The Scottish golfer would say “Why are you complaining? This is golf (life). Find the ball and do your best to hit it again.”
In life, and especially corporate life, we can do everything right and still experience less than desirable results. But the best leaders and performers live by that original quote “Accept what cannot be altered and keep on doing one’s resolute best whether the prospect be bleak or rosy.”
In my executive coaching work, both with individuals and teams, one of the most useful techniques is bringing alternate or multiple perspectives. We so easily get entrenched in our own perspective, it can be difficult to see solutions or other possibilities.
I recently experienced heart bypass surgery. During one session in the post op process, I was lying in the hospital bed with the doctor on my right, his physician’s assistant on my left with my two nurses at the foot of the bed, and my wife over my shoulder.
At one point when the pain was severe, even the nurses had to look away. I thought, “I’m not sure how much the human body and psyche could stand more pain than this.”
But my mind immediately shifted to my father, lying in a muddy field hospital, (I’ve seen some of the hospital photos.) 4,500 miles away from home with no family around, with doctors and nurses who I’m sure cared very much, but had no time to spend comforting a patient, having his leg amputated.
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My conditions, while seeming extreme, were nothing compared to what my father had experienced during WWII. My change in attitude and experience at that moment were such that even the doctor noticed and later asked me about what happened.
Nothing really, just a change in perspective. Perspective is very powerful. It can even change the level of pain we’re experiencing.
The next time you’re in that extremely “painful” corporate situation, see if you can help yourself and your team gain a different perspective. It often takes a jarring experience or question. “What would this look like to a chimpanzee? How would this be viewed from a four person jazz band? How about a 100 person symphony orchestra?” None of these questions make sense or they certainly are all out of context. But that’s the point! Get out of your context. Look at this from a new perspective, not just a different point of view from the same context; “How would our competitor view this issue?” Shake it up! Gain a new perspective.
Tell us about the last time that four year old child asked you a question that shook your perspective? Share with us a story or two.
Have you ever noticed that the dirtiest public bathrooms are the ones with the log pasted to the wall with the signature of the person who cleaned it and when? In fact, the log itself looks so nasty that I usually give it a wide berth for fear that something contagious might jump off the page and infect me.
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Why is this so? This culture obviously has rules and regulations and a check list system for accountability and yet the place is filthy! But that’s exactly the point. Is your culture built on rules, regulations, guidelines, and check lists for accountability to make sure people are doing what they’re told? Or is your culture built on ingrained values like, “We want our customers to experience a cleaner bathroom than they would at home!”?
Unfortunately, I’ve seen too many annual review processes work like that bathroom log. The annual review starts with the check list of goals that was created the previous year. Then we check to make sure the employee signed off on each item of the list and the date of accomplishment. There, goals accomplished, bathroom clean!
No discussions about innovative approaches they tried to take to make sure the bathroom stayed cleaner longer. No discussion about lessons learned from failed attempts at trying something new. No discussion about new approaches they are proud of that did work. No discussion about where they would like to apply some of their ideas elsewhere.
Are you really inspiring your employees with values and visions or are you expecting them to do their job and check off their list? How clean are your bathrooms?
Tell us some stories from both perspectives – leaders evaluating people with annual review processes or being the victim (sorry) recipient of an annual review process. What made it great? What made it suck?