Coaching Tip: The Leadership Blog

Developing Leaders at All Levels

Leadership isn’t just for leaders anymore.

Top companies are beginning to understand that sustaining peak performance requires a commitment to developing leaders at all levels.  Management experts Drs. Paul Hersey and Kenneth Blanchard have defined leadership as “working with and through others to achieve objectives.”

To meet the demands of today’s fast-paced and competitive business environment, people at all levels are being asked to step up and assume leadership behaviors.  As retired Harvard Business School Professor John P. Kotter explains in the Summer 2004 issue of strategy+business, this means we must “create 100 million new leaders” throughout society.

Companies are investing millions of dollars annually in leadership development training to meet this challenge.  Results are positive: Studies show companies that excel at developing leaders tend to achieve higher long-term profitability (Marc Effron and Robert Gandossy in Leading the Way: Three Truths from the Top Companies for Leaders, John Wiley & Sons, 2004).

But it seems there are as many approaches to leadership development as there are leadership developers.  An Amazon.com search for leadership development books ( books on becoming a more effective leader ) reveals 12,580 titles. Most leadership programs have a half-life of only a few days or weeks after sessions end.  Few incorporate adequate transfer mechanisms to bring leadership skills back to the office.

Programs offer everything from whitewater-rafting trips and bungee-jumping to encounter groups and 360-degree assessments. Executive coaching is a popular development tool, and companies are increasingly investing in these individualized programs.

It is necessary to ask if any of this is working—and, if so, how?

Subprime Crisis: Blindfolded Risk Management

For their lending business, banks hire dull people and train them to be even more dull.  But this is just for show.

If they look conservative, it is because their loans only go bust on rare, very rare, occasions.  There is no way to gauge the effectiveness of their lending activity by observing it over a day, a week, a month or even a decade.

In the summer of 1982, large American banks lost close to all their past earnings (cumulatively), about everything they ever made in the history of American banking.  They had been lending to South and Central American countries that all defaulted at the same time--"an event of an exceptional nature."  So it took just one summer to figure out that this was a sucker's business and that all their earnings came from a very risky game.

All that while the bankers led everyone, especially themselves, into believing that they were "conservative."  They are not conservative; just phenomenally skilled at self-deception by burying the possibility of a large, devastating loss under the rug.  In fact, the travesty repeated itself a decade later, with the "risk-conscious" large banks once again under financial strain, many of them near-bankrupt, after the real estate collapse of the early 1990s in which the now defunct savings and loan industry required a taxpayer-funded bailout of more than half a trillion dollars.  The Federal Reserve bank protected them at our expense.

Today's subprime loan crisis proves, once again, that when "conservative" bankers make profits, they get the benefits; when they are hurt, we pay the costs.

Source: "The Black Swan" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Random House)

Nassim Nicholas Taleb: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

I.Q. and the Achievement Gap

"The mind is much more like a muscle than we've ever realized," says James Flynn, a social scientist at the University of Otago in New Zealand and author of 'What is Intelligence?' (Cambridge; $22).  "It needs to get cognitive exercise.  It's not some piece of clay on which you put an indelible mark."

The lesson to be drawn from black and white differences is the same lesson learned from the Asian-American success story: I.Q. measures not just the quality of a person's mind but the quality of the world that person lives in. 

When an I.Q. test is created, it is calibrated or "normed" so that the test-takers in the fiftieth percentile--those exactly at the median--are assigned a score of 100.

The Black and White Differences

If I.Q. is innate, it shouldn't make a difference whether it's a mixed-race child's mother or father who is black.  But it does: children with a white mother and a black father have an eight-point I.Q. advantage over those with a black mother and a white father.  And it shouldn't make much of a difference where a mixed-race child is born.  But, again, it does: the children father by black American G.I.s in post-war Germany and brought up by their German mothers have the same I.Q.s as the children of white American G.I.s and German mothers.  The difference, in that case, was not the fact of the children's blackness, as a fundamentalist would say.  It was the fact of their Germanness--of their being brought up in a different culture, under different circumstances.

The black and white gap in the United States differs dramatically by age.  Flynn noted that the tests we have for measuring the cognitive functioning of infants, though admittedly crude, show the races to be almost the same.  By age four, the average black I.Q. is 95.4--only four and a half points behind the average white I.Q.  Then the real gap emerges: from age four through twenty-four, blacks lose six-tenths of a point a year, until their scores settle at 83.4.

The steady decline, Flynn said, did not resemble the usual pattern of genetic influence.  Instead, it was exactly what you would expect, given the disparate cognitive environments that whites and blacks encounter as they grow older.  Black children are more likely to be raised in single-parent homes than are white children---and single-parent homes are less cognitively complex than two-parent homes.  The average I.Q. of first-grade students in schools that blacks attend is 95, which means that "kids who want to be above average don't have to aim as high."

The Asian-American Success Story; may confuse causes and effects

Is this success story a question of whether Asians have a genetic advantage in I.Q.?

In a 1975 study in San Francisco's Chinatown using something called the Lorge-Thorndike Intelligence Test, the Chinese-Americans produced high I.Q.s.  However, this test was normalized in the nineteen fifties and would have been a piece of cake for children in the nineteen-seventies.  When the Chinese-American scores were reassessed using up-to-date intelligence metrics, Flynn found, they came in at 97 verbal and 100 nonverbal--slightly lower I.Q.s than white Americans.

The Asian-American success story is based upon children not succeeding because of higher I.Q.s but despite their lower I.Q.s: the Asians were overachievers.  Among whites, virtually everyone who joins the ranks of the managerial, professional and technical occupations has an I.Q. of 97 or above.  Among Chinese-Americans, that threshold is 90.  A Chinese-American with an I.Q. of 90, it would appear, does as much with it as a white American with an I.Q. of 97.

There should be no great mystery about Asian achievement.  It has to do with hard work and dedication to higher education, and belonging to a culture that stresses professional success.  Then success breeds success.  The children of that first successful wave of Asian-Americans really did have I.Q.s that were higher than everyone else's--coming in somewhere around 103.  Having worked their way into the upper reaches of the occupational scale, and taken note of how much the professional value abstract thinking, Asian-American parents have evidently made sure that their own children wore scientific spectacles.

Source: None of the Above; What I.Q. doesn't tell you about race. by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker, December 17, 2007

Is Your 401(k) Plan Healthy?

Just 36 percent of workers had savings in 401(k) or similar retirement plans in 2004, with participation practically disappearing among the lowest-paid workers, the Government Accountability Office reported last week.  For those who had such retirement savings, the typical account balance was $22,800, the study found.

Policymakers increasingly are focusing on the adequacy of 401(k) and similar savings plans because they have become more common than traditional pensions, which guarantee set monthly payments in retirement.

The study was based on a Federal Reserve survey of consumer finances, using 2004 data.  Among the weaknesses it highlighted:

• Low-income workers are largely left out of the 401(k) system.
• Savings levels often are not sufficient to finance retirement.  The typical account balance rises to $50,000 for workers between 55 and 64.  But a 65-year-old who bought an annuity with this amount could get just $4,400 a year in income, researchers said.
• Account balances often are reduced by pre-retirement spending.  Of the 21 percent of plan participants who had gotten lump-sum distributions from a former employer, 47 percent cashed out completely and 4 percent spent part of the money.

The study found that, under current trends, 401(k) and similar plans will be able to replace an average of 22 percent of the income of workers who retire in the middle of this century.  That figure is far below the 70 percent to 80 percent often recommended by financial planners for a comfortable standard of living in retirement.

Source: The Los Angeles Times

Subprime Greenbacks

While shoppers from overseas are flocking to U.S. shopping meccas to exploit the weak dollar, some are playing the greenback online.

At eBay's U.S. auction site, sales by Americans to buyers in Australia, for instance, jumped 80% in October from a year earlier.  Sales to Canadians jumped 45%.  In Britain, where the pound has hit a 26-year peak against the dollar, visits by individuals to U.S.-based online stores rose 92% from June to October, according to British research firm PriceRunner.

While some U.S. ecommerce sites and eBay sellers won't ship outside the country (because it requires a mountain of paperwork), foreign buyers have found a way around the problem.  They use private forwarding services, which receive goods at U.S. addresses and send them on.

Here in the U.S., the season may seem, well, subprime.  It's hard to keep up calm composures...Totting up last week's foreclosures, nor do sunken CDOs inspire hearty ho-ho-hos.

Add to those a plunging buck: How long will it be out of luck?  But for a nanosec, what say we stow the doom and gloom away and summon better times, not worse.  With this, a modest yuletide verse.

For us working stiffs, well, peace, and no more U.S. debt, increase.  A White House race that's not just ads or faux debates or hanging chads.  For readers, Web or otherwise, a font that doesn't strain your eyes.  And no more news of Britney Spears for 10, no, make that 50 years.  For well-behaving girls and boys, a sleigh of not-from-China toys.

Us fortysomethings hope we gaze on an every-swelling IRA.  And may well-heeled retirees, survive those 401(k) fees.  Have a happy celebrate...and see you in 2008!

---Abstracted from 2007, Christmastime by Marc Miller, BusinessWeek, December 24, 2007

Uncoachable Women Executives

Zoe Cruz appeared to be surviving the credit crisis that has roiled Wall Street...but...Ms. Cruz's departure from Morgan Stanley came abruptly last week.

The Morgan Stanley co-president's response in the aftermath of the firm's $3.7 billion in losses helped fuel her ultimate fall.  The 52-year-old executive didn't take personal responsibility for the losses at Morgan Stanley, according to a report in the December 1, 2007 Wall Street Journal.  Instead she lashed out at fellow employees in a series of meetings about the losses, raising questions about her management style.  She also had pushed some big organizational changes that some executives thought of as arbitrary and ill-informed.

As a result, Morgan Stanley Chief Executive John Mack lost confidence in Ms. Cruz, whom he had repeatedly backed in the face of opposition from senior executives, these people say.  Even before the mortgage-trading losses surfaced, Ms. Cruz's leadership style was an issue. 

After Mr. Mack backed Ms. Cruz upon his return to the firm, he thought he could help Ms. Cruz improve her management style, and a personal coach was retained to work with her, people familiar with the firm said.  But she didn't always display harmonious teamwork with her co-president, Mr. Scully, sometimes contradicting him in presentations.

Where is Zoe Cruz now?

Since the culture at most companies has been shaped over time by male executives, women are at a disadvantage when it comes to gender-based differences in communication styles.

A report, 'Women and Men in U.S. Corporate Leadership: Same Workplace, Different Realities?', by Catalyst, a New York-based nonprofit, found that 81% of women said that 'adopting a style with which male managers are comfortable' is an important or very important strategy to advance one's career.

Communication styles rooted in childhood training or unconscious beliefs can be tough to change.  A first step is becoming aware of how you talk at work.  Here are some pitfalls that women especially can encounter in the workplace:

--using too many words to deliver serious messages
--downplaying your contributions
--using vague language
--phrasing statements as questions
--using an upward inflection at the end of statements, which indicates doubt.

Working with an executive coach can help you to be clear on the communication style at your level within the company and to confidently practice this style so you will be heard at work.  Of course, you must agree to be coachable before deciding to work with a personal coach.

If you know women executives in your organization who need to become better and more creative leaders, suggest you point them toward: www.CareerWomenCoaching.com

Confidence or Cockiness?

It's not hard to become cocky when you're very good at something.

Somewhere along that mystical self-development path you learn the difference between cocky and confident.  John Agno, an executive career coach in Ann Arbor, Mich., has a lot to say about confidence and cockiness. "Confidence is powerful but subtle," he says, while cockiness is often based on an inflated or false sense of your own abilities.

Confident people are better prepared to deal with others, according to Agno.  Based upon constant interaction, they've learned how to read people, size them up and, most important, manage them to achieve goals.

Confident managers bring out the best in others. They know how to "employ strategy to get a desired action," Agno says. "They know what questions to ask in order to gather information to make sound, well-thought-out decisions. They've learned how to anticipate obstacles so they can sidestep potential roadblocks in order to reach their objectives."

Cocky people, on the other hand, have a tendency to shoot from the hip and often make rash, illogical decisions. "They don't understand the impact their forceful personalities have on others," Agno adds.  One of the biggest mistakes cocky managers make is failing to listen to others, Agno says. If you can't listen to what others have to say, you won't be able to ask good questions and gather and evaluate information so good decisions are made.

Agno says confidence is built through self-discovery and awareness. An aware person is in touch with himself and his surroundings.  He doesn't take anything for granted.  He's learned to observe and monitor his feelings and reactions before he acts.  A cocky person often will act rashly and impulsively and not think about the consequences of his actions. He'll rely more on his instincts than his intellect, whereas a confident person has learned to employ both intellect and instinct and keep his emotions in check.

Source: Abstracted from "The Difference between confidence and cockiness" by Bob Weinstein, Special Sections correspondent, The Tampa Tribune, December 9, 2007

Employee Development in 2008

The U.S. Department of Education has stated that 60 percent of the skills needed in the future are possessed by only 20 percent of the current workforce.

If you are not attending to your talent and keeping them longer, you will be losing extremely vital knowledge and human capital.  Your organization will continue to experience significant upheavals in staffing, development, recruiting and retention in 2008.

With advancing technology and an impending labor crisis on the horizon, there will be a greater need than ever to find and nurture the talent within our organizations.  Three trends will require stronger commitment and increased capacity.  Leaders will be required to:

1.  Re-recruit talent regularly

2.  Drive succession planning wider and deeper

3.  Encourage transition planning with pre-retirement boomers (www.SoBabyBoomer.com).

In succession planning, organizations have focused engagement and retention initiatives on the top 10 percent to 15 percent--the "high potentials."  But in the process it has been easy to lose sight of another critical segment of the workforce--the "massive middle"--the solid corporate citizens, the bulk (60% to 70%) of the workforce.  These are the people who you will continue to count on to show up every day and do their jobs.

While methods will vary and will be customized for each population, there are two complementary focus areas that will provide an engagement edge with the massive middle: career self-management for employees and career coaching for managers.

Source: Human Resource Executive, November 19, 2007

The Slippery Slope of Happiness

Steering the Law of Attraction in the positive direction of happiness, rather than in the negative direction of things, takes some attentive driving talent.

Americans report being generally happy but they are less likely to feel good when positive things happen and more likely to feel bad when negative things befall them.  Put another way, a hidden price of being happier on average is that you put your short-term contentment at risk because being happy raises your expectations about being happy. 

When good things happen, they don't count for much because they are what you expect.  When bad things happen, you temporarily feel terrible because you've gotten used to being happy.

The study, in the October 2007 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, offers a new twist on an old idea.  Previously, psychologists said that people's day-to-day satisfaction was the sum of the positive and negative things that happened each day.  Researchers had found that people need a certain ratio of positive to negative events to be happy.  But according to the new study, led by University of Virginia psychologist Shigehiro Oishi, people who report a large ratio of positive to negative events also seem to derive diminishing returns from additional happy events--and ever larger adverse effects when they encounter negative events.

By contrast, Oishi found that even though Japanese people were less happy overall than Americans, they needed only one positive event to regain their equilibrium after experiencing a negative event.  European Americans needed two positive events on average to regain their emtional footing.

Oishi's research also provides an intriguing window into why very few people are very happy most of the time.  Getting to "very happy" is like climbing an ever-steeper mountain.  Additional effort--positive events--doesn't gain you much by way of altitude.  Slipping backward, on the other hand, is very easy.

Source: "Is Great Happiness Too Much of a Good Thing?" www.WashingtonPost.com October 1, 2007   

So, keep thinking happy thoughts to remain very happy.  What you think, you get.

Near-Death Experiencers

Death, as we are frequently reminded these days, is a taboo subject...there is an unspoken resistance to any talk of leaving this life and of what might happen next.

"Once the fear of death is transcended, life becomes a transformed experience because that particular fear underlies all others.  Few people know what it is to live without fear--but beyond fear lies joy, as the meaning and purpose of your existence surfaces."  Power and Force, The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior by David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D.

Near-death experiencers (NDErs) are thrust suddenly into spiritual consciousness without any preparation and then returned to a community in which such experiences are not valued.  We in the West are largely gripped by a pathological fear of death.  This is far less the case in many non-Western cultures, where the ethos of death is often more mystical, more clearly understood and more integrated into physical life.

Once regarded as meaningless hallucinations, near-death experiences (NDEs) have become the subject of serious study by medical and various other researchers in recent years.  NDEs continue to be reported by individuals who were pronounced clinically dead but then were resuscitated, by people who in the course of accidents or illnesses feared that they were near death, and by some who actually died but were able to describe their experiences in their final moments ("deathbed visions").

Raymond Moody, the psychiatrist who coined the term "near-death experience" in the mid-1970s, identified 15 elements that seem to recur in near-death experiences: ineffability, hearing oneself pronounced dead, a feeling of peace, hearing unusual noises, seeing a dark tunnel, being out of the body, meeting spiritual beings, encountering a bright light or being of light, a panoramic life review, a realm where all knowledge exists, cities of light, a realm of bewildered spirits, a supernatural rescue, a border or a boundary, and coming back into the body.  After further study, he added four recurrent aftereffects: frustration upon relating the experience to others, broadened or deepened appreciation of life, elimination of the fear of death, and corroboration of out-of-body visions.

NDEs generally have a profound and apparently lasting impact on many who experience them, often precipitating a significant change in values and attitude toward death and a new sense of purpose or meaning of life.  Long before Moody coined the term, I personally experienced a NDE during an automobile accident while a student at the University of Florida.  I found myself in a dark tunnel and encountered a bright light in the distance, experienced a fast yet comprehensive life review, had a feeling of peace (discovering that the process of dying was comforting) and being out of the body.  After that life changing experience, I no longer fear death and have been open to taking risks in living a life of passion and meaning. 

NDErs do not subsequently attend church more often or participate in other modes of formal religious worship.  Even though NDErs expressed indifference toward organized religion, they also described "an overall tolerance for all ways of religious worship."  The moral assessment that takes place in the life review provides NDErs with an experiential moral order that is based on "empathic resonance" with other people, meaning the direct perception of an intrinsic interconnectedness and interdependence among all living beings.  Near-death experiencers know firsthand how their thoughts, feelings, and actions affect others.

At the very least, near-death experiences should foster spiritual growth by leading us to question some of our basic assumptions about mind and brain, about our relationship to the divine and about the universe and our role in it.

Source: Shift: At The Frontiers of Consciousness, December 2007