Coaching Tip: The Leadership Blog

Compelled to Lead

"There's something unique and different that makes a leader, and it's not about creativity or courage or integrity," says Marcus Buckingham, author of The One Thing You Need to Know...About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success (Free Press).  

As important as they are, you can have those attributes and still fail to be a great leader.   A leader's job is to rally people toward a better future. Leaders can't help but change the present, because the present isn't good enough.  They succeed only when they find a way to make people excited by and confident in what comes next.

"For a leader, the challenge is that in every society ever studied, people fear the future," says Buckingham.  "The future is unstable, unknown, and therefore potentially dangerous.  So in order to succeed, leaders must engage our fear of the unknown and turn it into spiritedness.  By far the most effective way to turn fear into confidence is to be clear -- to define the future in such vivid terms that we can see where we are headed. Clarity is the antidote to anxiety, and therefore clarity is the preoccupation of the effective leader.  If you do nothing else as a leader, be clear."

"Four years ago, I was at a dinner with Bob Nardelli, who left General Electric after he was passed over for Jack Welch's job.  He had just become CEO of Home Depot, and all he talked about was how exciting it would be to take on the challenge of building a better future for Home Depot.  And I remember thinking, 'This guy hasn't had retail experience in 20 years, he's going into a situation where people are expecting him to fail, and he's following two founders -- Arthur Blank and Bernie Marcus -- who were beloved.  Why is he doing this?'"

"But listening to him that night, I realized that once he'd seen a better future for Home Depot, every other consideration became irrelevant. He couldn't stop himself.  With leaders, the future calls to them in a voice they can't drown out. The future is more real than the present; it compels them to act."

For this and other self-help books on developing your leadership skills click on: leadership books

Source: The Clear Leader in FastCompany

Senior Executive Focus

The higher up you go in an organization's hierarchy, the value of your technical and functional skills decline while the value of your interpersonal skills increase.

Firms that direct senior executives to spend more time on their non-core job roles, see higher levels of performance, according to a recent survey by the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business.  According to the survey of 378 Michigan-based executives, the average participant spend about 45 percent of his or her time on core job responsibilities and 55% in other areas: in project-based teams, enhancing individual career skills, developing innovative ideas or processes and working to support the overall company.

Those who spent just 36 percent of their time on core roles actually managed a higher-performing company than those who spent 50 percent of their time on core roles, according to the study. 

"Leaders are pulled in various directions and that is why executive coaching is such a popular service these days, " says Jim Mitchell, senior vice president and general manager of Lee Hecht Harrison in Michigan.  "If you don't take risks and are concentrating on those core roles that have an executive at his or her desk all day, you might be missing some good business opportunities."

Source: Michigan Business Review, www.mbizreview.com 

Looking outside for executives

Filling senior vacancies by looking outside for the best candidates can help to spark new ideas but grafting in new leaders has its risks.

Leaders in new positions often fail for a few common reasons: due to unclear or outsized expectations, a failure to build partnerships with key stakeholders, a failure to learn the company, industry or the job itself fast enough, a failure to determine the process for gaining commitments from direct reports and a failure to recognize and manage the impact of change on people.   Onboarding coaching of the newly recruited or promoted executive can turnaround this high rate of failure.

Yet, if companies don't seek fresh blood periodically, they can become dangerously insular, warns David Ulrich, professor at the University of Michigan business school.  "At fast-growing or fast-changing businesses," he adds, "you may find that existing managers can't scale up or transform what they do."

Looking outside is a natural choice for certain staff positions, such as general counsel or chief financial officer, where those skills transfer well to new settings.  Picking an outsider to launch a new strategic push helps in setting provocative new agendas and commits the company to living with some turmoil when middle management pushes back.  Turning to a newcomer to lead an area where homegrown managers have repeatedly stumbled also makes sense.

Onboarding coaching helps the executive more quickly adapt to the employer's culture, create rapport with his or her immediate team and find productive ways to achieve necessary goals. 

Despite years of experience making complicated, far-reaching decisions, top-level managers can use some guidance when they find themselves in new situations where little, if anything, is familiar.  Because as many as 40 percent of new leaders fail in their new roles to meet an organization's expectations, purchasing executive insurance in the form of "onboarding" or assimilation coaching helps a company ensure that an important investment pays off.  Onboarding involves an intense, protracted period of coaching that's designed to help a new employee--often a senior-level executive or manager--not only adjust to a new environment, but establish a set of priorities.

When going outside or promoting within, it is always a good idea to evaluate the leadership style and capabilities of the job candidates. 

There are a number of leadership self assessments available at the Self Assessment Center at www.SelfAssessmentCenter.com and directly from assessment publishers.   Research reports on leadership styles are also available for you to review to get a feel for the best leadership personality for the job at hand.  Here is a link to one research report that may prove helpful if you are looking for an early stage turnaround leader:

http://maxwideman.com/guests/rightstyle/abstract.htm

"© R. Max Wideman http://www.maxwideman.com 2006

With the permission of the author, the material at this link is offered to individual readers who may use it in connection with their project work. It may not be used by commercial or non-commercial organizations without permission."

Nurture Tames Nature

In a very real sense, a child's innate disposition--solemnity--elicits a certain parental behavior--harshness and lack of warmth.  Genes, in other words, create an environment.

Genes seem to create environments throughout life.  An unresponsive child elicits less affection from parents, reinforcing her innate lack of sociability.  Impulsive, aggressive kids elicit threats and coercion, reinforcing problem behavior.  On a happier note, a sociable and verbal child is a delight to talk to and read to, reinforcing his inherent cognitive edge.

This one-two punch can lead to the worst outcome, says Dr. David Reiss, director of psychiatric research at the George Washington University Medical Center.  Studies hint that when solemn babies reach school age, they have a greater chance of developing conduct disorders, especially oppositional behavior.  These are the kids who become bullies and firebugs.  They also have a higher risk of anxiety disorders, which can pave the way to depression and substance abuse.

But new research suggests that none of this is inevitable.  If parents resist responding to a dour baby with harshness, the genes that underlie solemnity in infancy and oppositional behavior in the teen years may go quiet.  "We're talking about the genome as a product of social interactions," says Dr. Reiss.  "Genes are fully expressed in some social environments, while in others they never get expressed."

That is a fundamentally hopeful message, because it suggests that genes are not destiny.  If parents understand that this instinctive response is the very environment that can reinforce a genetic tendency, they have an incentive to respond differently.

Source: Science Journal, The Wall Street Journal, February 24, 2006

New Job Coaching

The new partner, hired from a prestigious strategy firm, looked like the ideal candidate to build a major new practice area.

His new firm, best known for its operations and technology consulting, was delighted to get an experienced leader with a record of revenue generation, publications, and C-level client relationships who could bolster its historically weak strategy brand. From the new partner’s perspective, he would be operating on a broader platform that included stronger implementation capabilities. A win-win combination.  And yet, what seemed like a perfect scenario quickly became a perfect storm.   Click here for the complete story.

Leaders in new positions often fail for a few common reasons: due to unclear or outsized expectations, a failure to build partnerships with key stakeholders, a failure to learn the company, industry or the job itself fast enough, a failure to determine the process for gaining commitments from direct reports and a failure to recognize and manage the impact of change on people.

Onboarding coaching of the newly recruited or promoted executive can turnaround this high rate of failure.

Source: Getting Plugged In, Consulting Magazine, www.ConsultingMagazine.com 

C-level Blogging

A good blog is an example of good leadership; people take their cues from your blogging just as they do from your leadership style.

C-level blogging is becoming just as important as C-level speeches, telecons and PowerPoint presentations.  These blogs say volumes about the executives' style and substance or lack thereof.  As C-level business leaders, their blog should be living examples of using digital tools to become more effective executives.

What do you want people to be talking about and doing after reading your blog?

Come up with decent answers to that question and you'll have a better blog.  You'll have a blog that creates conversation.  The trick is to recognize that business blogs aren't self-indulgent, self-expressions about what you think is important, but interactive invitations to get others to appreciate what you think is important.  Blogs are about deciding what kinds of conversations, connections and communications you want to encourage.

Truly dynamic blogs are about truly dynamic linking.  Blogs are about the opportunity to link your insight with someone else's and have them link their insight to yours.  You want your blog to be seen as a hub where employees and vendors can meet and network on the Web links that you have pointed to.

Source: Michael Schrage, codirector of the MIT Media Lab's eMarkets Initiative, in CIO magazine, February 15, 2006, www.CIO.com 

Creativity within the rules

Constraints shape and focus problems and provide clear challenges to overcome.  Creativity thrives best when constrained.

But constraints must be balanced with a healthy disregard for the impossible.  Too many curbs can lead to pessimism and despair.  Disregarding the bounds of what we know or accept gives rise to ideas that are non-obvious, unconventional or unexplored.  The creativity realized in this balance between constraint and disregard for the impossible is fueled by passion and leads to revolutionary change.

Constraints can actually speed development.  For instance, we often can get a sense of just how good a new concept is if we only prototype for a single day or week.  Or we'll keep team size to three people or fewer.  By limiting how long we work on something or how many people work on it, we limit our investment. 

Speed also lets you fail faster.  A limited investment makes it easier to move on to something else that has a better chance of success.

Henry Ford once said: "If I'd listened to customers, I'd have given them a faster horse."  True creativity makes the impossible possible.

Source: Marissa Ann Mayer, vice president for search products and user experience at Google, in BusinessWeek, February 13, 2006

Consulting versus Coaching

John G. Agno is a recovering management consultant.  At some point it seemed to me that solutions for client problems seldom became a permanent fix...especially, when leadership blind spots prevented seeing why the problems arose in the first place.  So, I began doing more business coaching, helping executives and owners fix their own business problems.

Consulting is about "telling:" applying analytical brain power to gather data, hypothesize alternative solutions and present the best solution to the client.  So what is professional coaching and how does it differ from consulting?

Download and listen to this MP3 recording of a recent interview of Coach Agno for the answer to that question.

Executive coach David Peck, founder of San Francisco-based Leadership Unleashed, says, "Coaching is asking.  'What are you finding most effective and least effective about your situation?  In what ways are you getting in your own way?'  Telling people what to do shuts them up and shuts them down.  A little bit of coaching goes a long way toward getting them to do what you want them to do, and it's sustainable over time."

Looking back, Peter F. Drucker (1909-2005), had a huge impact in establishing management as a discipline and built the foundation for coaching as a leadership skill and practice.  "He approached consulting out of his profound wisdom and insight," says Ron Daniel, Managing Director of McKinsey & Company (1976-1988).  "Peter let his ideas speak for themselves and was a very laid-back individual.  He was very wise, his ideas were very forward-looking, and he was a good listener, despite the fact that he liked to talk and articulate ideas."

Jon Katzenbach, a former director of McKinsey & Company, says, "Drucker was trying to stimulate thinking and get you to think about questions that you had not thought about.  Drucker was really trying to stimulate management thinking."  Drucker went down the road of thinking more about the frontline workers and the knowledge workers; how you get energy, productivity and creativity out of a bunch of employees.  He made us realize that managers were professionals whose job it was to bring collective value out of people.

Warren Bennis, distinguished professor of business administration and founding chairman of the Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business, tells a story about a conversation he had with Drucker about 25 years ago, "I asked him, 'Peter, off the top of your head, if you had to design ideal experiences in education for someone you were mentoring, what kinds of things would you.....?'  He interrupted me and said, "Oh, my dear Warren, you violate Drucker's first principle, which is that there's no such thing as 'ideal' or 'good.'  The question is: 'Good for what?'  And then: "Good for whom?'" 

"He really did believe in the idea of individual autonomy and honoring individual differences.  He was very much a pragmatist.  His primary question was 'Good for what?'  And this is what led to his discussion about management by objective.  It's all about the result.  It's all about what it is you want.  It's all about purpose.  That's the distinguishing feature of Drucker.  Everything else is a footnote." 

Today, consulting and executive education schools recognize the power of coaching and the need to integrate it into analytically based consulting and management practices.  Now everyone appreciates that business solutions are not sticky when the consultant walks away with the knowledge of why the problem arose in the first place.

Source: Consulting, January/February 2006

 John Agno: Can't Get Enough Leadership ($2.99 ebook formats, $20.87
paperback edition)

Why Customers Return

Customer service is the best way to make sure customers come back.

A survey by the National Retail Federation of 7,000 consumers conducted with BigResearch found that 85% of all consumers spend more and return more to retailers that provide good service.  And of that 85 percent, 82% said personal service was the number one reason they would recommend a retailer to friends and family.  The 2005 winner for best customer service: Nordstrom.

You can measure customer loyalty by asking one simple question rather than relying on lengthy satisfaction surveys:

"On a scale of zero to 10, how likely is it that you would recommend us to your friends or colleagues?"

Measuring the difference between the percentage of customers who give high responses and those who give low ones, correlate closely with a company's revenue growth. 

Interested in tracking your company's customer loyalty scores?  Here is how a new book, 'The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth' (Harvard Business School Press) by Fred Reichheld, founder of Bain & Co.'s loyalty practice, recommends using this technique:

Keep it Simple: Lengthy surveys often lower the number of responses.  Ask yourself, "Would customers recommend the product or service?"  Then give them a chance to offer open-ended feedback.

Watch for Bias: If pay is tied to results, employees may be tempted to urge customers to rate products or services highly.  Have a third party collect the data and then audit the results.

Remember the Goal: Don't obsess over the scores themselves.  The ultimate goal is motivating front-line people and keeping the focus on the customer's experience.

For more on improving the customer experience, go to:
http://home.att.net/~coachthee/Archives/attractiveness.html

Love and the Attraction Paradox

In love and marriage, most of us believe that opposites attract.

However, Dr. Neil Clark Warren, founder of the online dating service eHarmony.com, is not a big believer in the concept that opposites attract.  Even if they do, he argues, they won't last.  As a marriage counselor, he says, he performed hundreds of "autopsies" on failed relationships and realized that most of the people didn't belong together in the first place.

So eHarmony.com and other online dating services are offering compatibility questionnaires to determine where a potential match exists.  Yahoo! Personals has developed personality tests that put like-minded members together.  And Match.com is offering dating advice from TV's Dr. Phil McGraw.

Increased competition in the half-a-billion-dollar-a-year online dating industry has slowed to 6% from 70% a few years ago.  "It's a sign of maturity of the category," says Nate Elliott, online dating analyst at Internet research firm JupiterResearch.

More than a third of all online daters are over 45 and 19% make more than $100,000 a year, says Hitwise.  Industry pioneer Match.com reports that 7% of its 8 million members call themselves executives (while the government classifies 4% of the workforce as managers).

They're more likely to be divorced (36%), have dogs (30%), and enjoy wine tastings (20%) than other singles.  They tend to list their eyes as their best feature.  As expected, Manhattan has the highest percentage of execs (29%) who find power a turn-on; Las Vegas has the biggest share (22%) who say money is.

And yes, older men want younger women (even though younger women just aren't into them).  Match.com says male execs in L.A. typically seek women 13 years younger.  About 25% of eHarmany.com's men over 55 are interested in women 40 or younger.

For more on this thing called love and the half-a-billion-dollar-a-year online dating industry, go to: www.WhatisLove.info   

To test for Love, go to: www.TestforLove.com    

Source: BusinessWeek, February 20, 2006