Coaching Tip: The Leadership Blog

The Power of Relationships

Relationships between people or institutions are based on exchange in which all parties have a mutual understanding of their rights and obligations.  Relations between members of an immediate family or between spouses are based on obligations such as obedience or respect.  Relations can be forged through gifts or personal favors and bring with them obligations and expectations. 

For every action, something is expected in return.

Those who do favors are highly esteemed; they are recognized as people who have respect for those around them.  Every previous or current situation produces expectations for future behavior on the part of the giver and gift recipient.

"One of the most potent of the weapons of influence around us is the rule for reciprocation. The rule says that we should try to repay, in kind, what another person has provided us."  Robert B. Cialdini, author of The Psychology of Persuasion (William Morrow, 1993)

In Wayne Baker's business bestseller, "Achieving Success Through Social Capital" (Jossey-Bass), this rule of relationships in the workplace is described as the "law of reciprocity."

The law of reciprocity is not what can best be described as 'transactional reciprocity'.

Baker says that, "Many people conceive of their business dealings as spot market exchanges--value given for value received, period.  Nothing more, nothing less.  This tit-for-tat mode of operation can produce success, but it doesn't invoke the power of reciprocity and so fails to yield extraordinary success."

Baker explains, "The lesson is that we cannot pursue the power of reciprocity. When we try to invoke reciprocity directly, we lose sight of the reason for it: helping others. Paradoxically, it is in helping others without expecting reciprocity in return that we invoke the power of reciprocity. The path to reciprocity is indirect: reciprocity ensues from the social capital built by making contributions to others.

The deliberate pursuit of reciprocity fails, just like the pursuit of happiness. 

Acts of contribution, big and small, build your fund of social capital, creating a vast network of reciprocity.  And so those who help you may not be those you help. The help you receive may come from distant corners of your network."

Make Mistakes, Please!

Failure coexists with success.

Take the case of Sheryl Sandberg, Google's vice president of global online sales and operations, who recently committed an error that cost Google several million dollars.  "Bad decision, moved too quickly, no controls in place, wasted some money," is what she'll say about it.

When Sandberg realized the magnitude of her mistake, she informed Larry Page, Google's co-founder.  "God, I feel really bad about this," she told Page, who accepted her apology.  But as she turned to leave, Page said something that surprised her.  "I'm so glad you made this mistake," he said.  "Because I want to run a company where we are moving too quickly and doing too much, not being too cautious and doing too little.  If we don't have any of these mistakes, we're not taking enough risk."

Page and his co-founder had a head start on learning how to fail quickly and recover fast at work.  They know if Google's engine is running fast, then is also running hot.  That sheds light on all kinds of blunders which Google likes to explain away as its 'Googley' approach to business.

Source: FORTUNE October 2, 2006

The Conscientious Consumer

A conscientious business is good business.

It's not about giving money away.  Connecting with customer consciousness makes money and keeps key customer groups loyal.  "Investors are paying more attention to scoioenvironmental causes and business ethics.  Employees are paying more attention.  Most important, consumers are paying attention," says Mike Hoffman, professor at the Center for Business Ethics at Bentley College.  "There are a lot of reasons why this all makes sense, and it certainly is a hotter issue than it was a year ago.  I mean, it used to take six months to order a Porsche.  Now, it takes six months to get a Toyota Prius."

Part of the approach to connecting to customers' consciousness comes from a top-down commitment to track and measure the shifts in what customers are thinking, as well as what they're spending. 

Customer intelligence has changed.  In the past good customer intelligence filled a spreadsheet with numbers.  Now, it's about listening to changes in intrinsic values, such as the environment and social responsibility.  These changes can revolutionize entire business models.

Source: 1to1 magazine, September 2006, www.1to1.com

Another Tale of Two Cities

Charles Dickens described his classic 1859 novel as, “a picturesque story rising in every chapter, with characters true to nature, but whom the story should express more than they should express themselves by dialogue.”  His “A Tale of Two Cities” was a story about the themes of redemption and rebirth, love and violence during the 1770s.  Those events embodied the same social ills that plagued both France and England as the Industrial Revolution, swept through Europe in the late eighteenth century.  The rapid modernization of the English economy involved a shift from rural handicraft to large-scale factory labor. Technological innovations facilitated unprecedented heights of manufacture and trade, and England left behind its localized, cottage-industry economy to become a centralized, hyper-capitalist juggernaut of mass production. 

Seattle

Our “Tale of Two Cities” is about the structural shift from large-scale factory labor to a knowledge-based economy without borders. 

The story begins almost forty years ago in Seattle, a struggling manufacturing town where unemployment is high.  The Boeing Company has ended a supersonic transport government contract, lost a jumbo transport military contract and is modernizing its commercial product line.  The company’s newest commercial aircraft, the 727, is experiencing too many crashes on landing and a new large aircraft, the 747, requires significant capital to build the country’s largest manufacturing plant.  Employees are overworked but afraid to take vacations because they have seen those who did come back to an empty office.  The bright spot is Boeing Computer Systems where excess mainframe computer capacity and information technology expertise is being sold on a time-sharing basis to other companies.   

In 1969, while Bill Gates is in junior high school, 24-year-old Alan Mulally arrives in Seattle with aeronautical and astronautical engineering degrees in hand to begin work at Boeing.  During the next three decades, Gates becomes a computer software entrepreneur and Mulally focuses on aircraft engineering and program-management assignments as Seattle experiences a structural economic shift from a manufacturing town to a hub of information technology. 

Today, Seattle is ranked as the most literate city in the United States, by Central Connecticut State University, based on such things as the number of booksellers, libraries and newspaper circulation---as well as educational attainment.  Many brainy people have flocked to the Seattle area to work in what's called the "knowledge economy."  Companies headquartered there and in surrounding towns all use heavy doses of information technology.  Even the area's biggest employer, old-line Boeing, is a glutton for technological solutions.

Detroit

Fast forward to 2006. 

While Gates stays in Seattle to focus on philanthropy, Mulally begins a second career in Metro Detroit to help Ford Motor Co. restructure its automotive manufacturing operations.  At Boeing, Mulally had adopted automotive repetitive manufacturing methods to cut in half the time and number of people it takes to make most of its jetliners.  Regarding his new challenge at Ford, Mulally says, “It feels to me, with everything I know now, that Ford is in the very same situation.”  But he also added: “I don’t know yet what I don’t know.”    

Metro Detroit has experienced high unemployment because more than one-third of manufacturing jobs lost in the U.S. between 2000 and 2005 occurred in seven Great Lakes states.  Yet, in Ann Arbor from 1995 through 2005, total employment grew 12%, just shy of the national average, even as manufacturing jobs fell 30.4% giving the city one of the highest manufacturing-job losses among Great Lakes cities.  The lesson learned: Growth in knowledge-based jobs is necessary to speed up Detroit’s transition from a manufacturing-driven economy.

Second Careers 

The involuntary retired in Detroit are now asking the question, “What am I going to do with the rest of my life?”  These later-in-life career changers don't care about taking it easier and often will work as hard or harder than they did in the manufacturing jobs they left behind.  A Merrill Lynch & Co. retirement survey of more than 3,000 Baby Boomers reported that 83 percent intend to keep working and 56 percent of them hope to do so in a new profession.

The good news for Detroit is the transition to a knowledge-based economy won’t take as long as it did in Seattle.  Both General Motors and Ford Motor are offering buyout packages to give exiting workers many options to go back to school or change careers.  Going back to school with free tuition and a reduced salary provides an opportunity to learn new skills necessary for knowledge workers.  Second careers are like Baby Boomers’ second marriages--you are prepared to make better choices on what you want to do and whom you want to do it with.

“With children gone, corporate jobs eliminated, little retirement savings and the best years of their life beginning, Baby Boomers are ready to move on to a second career and downsized home more suited to their current and future needs,” says John G. Agno, business coach and Baby Boomer Tips blogger at www.SoBabyBoomer.com

Agno says, “We are all knowledge workers today and many boomers are walking away from employers with tacit knowledge intact. The experience gained in career number one will be selectively applied in a second career---allowing boomers to do what they do best, where and when they want to do it.”  

A cure for CEO disease

Engaging in straight talk with those who lead Corporate America is a rare occurrence.

C-level executives tend to be isolated from their corporate stakeholders because most of the information they receive is filtered by subordinates, suppliers, and consultants. "CEO disease" is a term used to describe the isolation that envelops a leader when subordinates become reluctant to disclose bad news or worst-case scenarios that might trigger a shoot-the-messenger response.

However, that is beginning to change as c-level executives seek a cure for "CEO disease" by participating in interactive conversations through their personal blogs.  Blogs are personal.  They humanize the Web and keep CEOs in touch with what’s going on out in the world.  People feel they can really have a conversation with someone who has a blog.

At General Motors, Vice Chairman Bob Lutz's "Fast Lane" blog has generated 10,000 reader responses since January 2005 and receives 4,000 to 6,000 daily visitors.  More than 900 readers asked Lutz, who oversees product development, to revive the Chevrolet Camaro.  Lutz wrote, ".....I will tell you that the enthusiasm shown for Camaro in this forum is a shining and prominent example of the passion that exists for this automobile."  GM is in the process of developing a new Camaro based on a concept car unveiled in January of this year.

Source: September 16, 2006 Boston Herald ( wwwBostonHerald.com )

CEO Succession Planning

"Obviously, this decision was a hard one for me to make.  Why talk about this today?  It gives us the time to make a strong transition," said Bill Gates when announcing his departure from a day-to-day role at Microsoft Corporation.

CEO succession gets a lot of attention because leadership transitions affect organizational continuity and robustness, talent retention, customer retention and shareholder returns.  Boards of Directors are focusing on building a process that creates visibility, accountability and greater control and alignment for all involved. 

Here are six things to do in structuring a leadership succession planning process:

1. Start early.  At least a minimum of three to five years prior to the expected CEO transition date.  It is even better if your start as soon as the new CEO takes charge---when it's less personal.

2.  Know what you need.  Directors are becoming more definitive about the qualities they expect in the CEO.  These expectations are driven by strategy and the strategic requirements for the organization.  It is essential that the board and CEO work together to review and discuss the selection criteria.  When directors work with management to define strategic requirements, everyone gets in tune with the process.

3.  Create the right experiences.  Firms with a clear talent development strategy have an edge in developing a good pool of candidates.  The next CEO candidate might be in his or her 40s, and his or her successor could be in their early 30s.  Giving the potential candidates assignments to broaden his/her experience develops the versatility of the future leaders---and pressure-tests them for additional responsibility.

4.  Build talent architecture.   Succession planning, talent assessment and talent development are "in."  More explicit and well-managed talent management processes include multigenerational or pipeline thinking, strategic external sourcing and specific development opportunities for the top executives.  The processes blend strategic engagement, education, feedback, mentoring and executive coaching.

5.  Stay connected.  Consistent "get-to-know-the-candidates" in a range of settings provides informal connection and helps directors understand the capabilities compared to the expected and required strengths.  Onsite visits provide directors with a better sense of who the candidates really are.

6.  Use the process to build influence and capability.   Staying connected creates alignment.  Engagement and knowledge improves the ability of all parties to contribute and make a difference.  The effectiveness of a CEO succession process depends a lot on what the CEO is doing or not doing.  If the CEO is not out ahead of the succession process, the board has to ask that it be done.

Source: Consulting July/August 2006

Building New Job Networking Momentum

Executive recruiters won't tell you that it’s long been known that some of the “best” candidates for a job are usually not actively marketing themselves. 

Their resumes are not posted for the world to see and it is only through a personal connection that a company finds them. While they have the right quota of experience, drive, contacts, knowledge, credentials and qualifying background, they are passive candidates not looking for a job. At the same time, most plum positions are not advertised either, but are sourced through inside company contacts who let the word out to their network connections.

So how does a company find such a prospective new hire?  How can a candidate discreetly approach select employers? 

The short answer is by being introduced on a confidential basis by an expert professional acting as their representative.

This professional liaison manages the contact process, deals with corporate gatekeepers’ interference and establishes a mutually convenient time and location to share ideas and get to know each other in order to build trust and confidence, essential to closing a job offer.  For the employer, the notion of a highly qualified candidate approaching them directly is not only appealing but a good business proposition, financially speaking, since it is not encumbered by the usual high recruiting expenses. 

Debra Feldman, www.JobWhiz.com, assists senior level executives to Network Purposefully™ by connecting them with specifically targeted individuals who possess attractive affiliations and whose personal contacts can open doors and pave the way for meaningful conversations that may produce new career opportunities now or in the future.  By connecting with target employers before specifications for a position are carved in stone and given to HR or an outside headhunter to fill, assertive candidates can create a new career challenge for themselves where they want to work that is tailored to their strengths and skills so that they are the perfect solution, the first choice candidate.

A personal talent agent can help not only to guide and facilitate the introduction and networking process, but also to actually establish strategic connections and promote high value mutual interests between the candidate and decision makers.  In fact, the candidate’s agent can vet prospective employers, provide insights and research about employer circumstances, conduct an anonymous job search campaign and maintain networking momentum while a candidate is busy working and traveling for their current job.

Personal connections drive the executive job market (Grenovetter, Harvard Business School and CareerXroads, Sources of Hire 2006).  In fact, research shows that over 80% of hires are made outside the advertised job market by word-of-mouth through networking leads.

Personal Touch of the Web

The Web has become deeply embedded in our daily lives, for business and pleasure. Today, 71 percent of American households have Web access.  Americans, ages 13 to 24, now spend more time online than they do in front of the TV.

Weblogs, or 'blogs', have exploded: There are 50 million of them, and two new ones are launched every second.  Blogs are so cheap to create and operate that a lone blogger with the ever-expanding reach of the Internet, can amass vast audiences and generate levels of profit on a per-employee basis that traditional media companies can only fantasize about.

Blogs offer a personal touch in the mediascape with small sites becoming our guides to a content-saturated world.  As such, their recommendations are highly valued by readers--which naturally has made advertisers take notice.  Says, Thom Campbell, head of media strategy for Intel, "The audience on blogs is the cream of the crop."

The monetization of blogging can trace its roots to late 2002, when Google created a revolutionary system that allowed anyone with a website to run ads like those on this blog.  The technology, called AdSense, matched ads with a site's content.  Each time a visitor clicked on a licked ad, the site's owner got paid (a model now referred to as cost-per-click advertising).  At the same time, display ads--the banners, buttons and skyscrapers that had fallen into disfavor with the bursting of the Internet bubble in 2000--began to make a comeback on major destination sites such as Yahoo and MSN.  Marketers pay for those kinds of ads based on a formula know as CPM, which stands for cost per 1,000 impressions.

The blogging-for-advertising-dollars phenomenon is only in its infancy, and already blog ad spending is roughly twice what it was last year.  With the overall Web advertising expected to grow by 50 percent to $23.6 billion in 2010, it's certain that more and more ad dollars will land on blogs.

Source: Business 2.0, September 2006

Effective Blogging Tips

Here are seven coaching tips for creating effective blogs that will generate income:

Focus on a narrow niche....one whose audience has a predilection for high-margin products.  That will appeal to advertisers.

Set up your blog so each post gets its own permanent URL/permalink and heading.  Write descriptive, keyword-heavy headings and be sure the homepage and all archives have links on every page.

Think of your blog as a database.  Archives posts that are easy to find through Google and Technorati and cite authors and publications by name.  Use tags, categories and keywords consistently.

Blog frequently and regularly.  If possible, blog at least five or six posts per week before lunchtime when many readers take a break from work and check out the blogosphere.

Use striking images in your posts.  They liven up the page and attract readers...and...if you use captions, you'll gain additional traffic by search engines.

Enable comments and interact with readers; cultivate your audience---that's what advertisers will be paying you for.

Make friends with other bloggers, online and off.  Link to their posts, and they'll return the favor.  Other blogs may well send you most of your traffic.

Source: Saheli S.R. Datta, Business 2.0, September 2006

What it takes to succeed

All the brains and connections in the world won't matter unless you also have the bullheaded determination it takes to get things done.

That resilience is especially crucial for small businesses.  As one study of 29 small firms operating in depressed regions of the United States found, some companies are great at making something out of nothing, while others aren't.  The difference between success and failure among companies in the study came down to either accepting resource constraints and giving up, or seeing possibilities others didn't.

As you think about your team's leadership qualities---and your own---take seriously that other philosophical nugget, from Woody Allen: "Eighty percent of success is showing up."

Source: Jeffrey Pfeffer, professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, in the September 2006 issue of Business 2.0