Leadership: The Power of "The Pause"

Note: Dwight is currently out on leave so we are running some “best of” blog posts from his writing for the Vistage Executive Street blog that you may not have seen before. Enjoy!

Culturally, we are in a hurry, particularly in business. There is a huge driving force for results, for achievements, for action. Often just being busy looks like success. It’s gotten to the point that, as researcher Brene Brown says, “exhaustion has become a status symbol.”

The problem is new research is emerging and it looks like all this multi-tasking, fragmented attention and “busy, busy, busy” isn’t actually healthy or the recipe for success. Being in a constant state of reacting to “incoming” and jumping to respond to everything that comes your way is not leadership and constantly driving people and yourself relentlessly forward is not necessarily great leadership either.

We want to remind you of “the power of the pause.” This is a step that can be made anytime, anywhere and requires no special tools or equipment. Being able to stop yourself, gather your energy and breathe is actually an incredibly powerful and masterful leadership move that is deceptively simple.

We aren’t talking about shutting down, withdrawing, hiding or freezing. We are talking about returning to your center and a place of balance. We are talking about allowing yourself to exhale fully, (since at the pace most of us go we are halfway holding our breath), and just being thoughtful and reflective for a minute or two.

If you doubt the power of this consider the interview Oprah Winfrey did with Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook. (Click here to view.) Apparently she has a policy at her company for twice per day mandatory meditation time. As she says in the interview, many people are overwhelmed by the idea of meditation so she asks that they at least unplug, and take quiet time for reflection. Whether or not you are an Oprah fan or consumer of her programs and magazines is not really important here. She is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the US and has been so for many years. It is of note that someone who has built such an empire puts so much value on reflection and quiet time that she has made it a mandatory workplace policy.

We know of one coaching client that was so overwhelmed at the idea of any stillness, quiet or reflection that he wanted to flee the building just considering it. He finally agreed to set the alarm on his watch for 1 minute each hour to stop, breathe and just slow down. After committing to this practice he absolutely loved it and was able to create specific segments of time to gather his energy and pause.

So we ask you to consider incorporating “the pause” into your repertoire. Even just a couple of minutes per day has value. You might be surprised how changing your pace creates new avenues for creativity, intelligence and other positives to emerge.

Creating a Culture That Delivers

Note: Dwight is currently out on leave so we are running some “best of” blog posts from his writing for the Vistage Executive Street blog that you may not have seen before. Enjoy!

“When every resource in your organization is efficiently and collaboratively working toward a desired end state, without leader involvement in daily activity, you have an execution culture.” - Stuart Orr

In his presentation “Executing Strategy: Unlocking Your Organization’s Market Potential,” Stuart Orr of vision2execution, addressed one of the greatest opportunities for productivity gains in our economy today. He calls it the “vision gap” and cites two powerful quotes to drive his point home.

“The average firm achieves about 63% of its strategic plan.”

 - McKinsey & Harvard Business School study

“Only 5% of large-scale changes actually work.”

- John Kotter: HBS author of “A Sense of Urgency”

Stuart digs deeply and delivers practical ways to organize your thoughts and actions so that the team delivers at high levels and has a meaningful experience in the process. What was most exciting to me was how his ideas speak to the question we have asked leaders for years, “what time could you go home if everyone in your organization simply came to work, did their job, and went home.” What’s your answer?

The piece I want to add to Stuart’s approach is that it all starts with you as a leader and your willingness to challenge your own ways of thinking and being in very fundamental ways. If you are not willing to allow deep intervention into your historic assumptions and beliefs, all of which reside in your own mind, his very sound and practical approach will not be heard or processed in a way that leads to new outcomes.

The challenge is neither easy nor a one-time occurrence. Like going to gym, it’s all about repetition and consistency. It is also unlikely you can do it completely by yourself. You already know what your own self-referential thought processes produce – the way that it is and is not for you and your interactions right now.

This is why peer groups like Vistage are so important and perhaps is the explanation why members stay in Vistage groups for 20, 30, and even 40+ years. Having a group of competent people around you who you don’t control and yet who are deeply committed to your success and well being keeps you exploring possibilities versus holding on to past ways of thinking and speaking that are no longer serving you and those around you. If you are not a “group person,” it’s important to do one-to-one work with a coach or some other type of outside support professional.

If you don’t yet have access to a Vistage group, and aren’t ready to hire a coach, download a set of our Operating Principles by clicking here. (These Principles have been developed and road tested with hundreds of people for success during the last 20 years.) Ask yourself, “what might be possible in my interactions and the outcomes I am working on with my team if we were living these principles?”

So as a leader, how much do you want a culture that delivers – an “execution culture?” Are you willing to really challenge your existing mindset? Please be slow to answer…it is not necessarily comfortable. It will take real courage. If you want a culture that delivers it starts with you.

The Myth of The White Knight

Note: Dwight is currently out on leave so we are running some “best of” blog posts from his writing for the Vistage Executive Street blog that you may not have seen before. Enjoy!

When big issues arise, it is tempting to immediately jump to “I’ve got to replace our current person with someone better,” or more fashionably, “we’ve got to get the right person on the bus.”

When the decision is made that it’s time to bring someone in, shiny new applicants with fabulous resumes are methodically interviewed and eventually one is deemed “the white knight” that will ride in and solve the problems – “when {insert name here} gets here, all will be well.”

The problem is white knights are concepts from mythology. Any new hire is like the rest of us, human, except we don’t know them, we’re infatuated, and we haven’t yet noticed their warts. No one person, at any level, is going to come in and single-handedly fix core issues in an organization.

What leaders who turn to white knight solutions generally overlook is that every organization has its own culture and team dynamics. The new hire will inevitably be pulled into the dynamic of whatever has been going on. In the worst case scenarios, the new hire will be quickly driven off by other team members or deemed a failure by the hiring executive and “chased off.” In less aggressive scenarios they hang on and are absorbed into the existing condition.

Even heroic efforts rarely fix everything the white knight was originally expected to fix. The new hire fails because expectations were unrealistic, the key connections necessary for collaboration are not made, and the team is not supportive.

Unfortunately, what has often happened is that leadership has failed to understand the real underlying or driving issues, has been unwilling to address them, or has dismissed them as irrelevant or even non-existent.Problems were seen through the lens of people and talent rather than systems and teamwork.

Trying to solve deep business issues or problematic team dynamics can be tricky and time consuming. In many cases everyone is so busy they don’t have time to pause and reflect on what’s really going on. Just because people are high results producing team members, it does not mean that they have the perspectives, personalities, or interests necessary to be detectives and problem solvers. Most often systems and processes are the real issue rather than a failure to have enough heroes in the organization. Real breakthrough solutions may be beyond the skills of “those on the inside.”

If you find you want to bring in a new person to fix things, why not pause and take the time to reflect on what’s really going on? Perhaps bring in a pair of fresh, expert, consulting eyes and ears to reflect, inquire, analyze, and redefine the issues with you before you go down the firing/hiring track.

Vistage group members provide this type of feedback for other members at every monthly meeting. There are also a variety of coaches and consultants that can help you diagnose, confront, and solve real issues that are going on…even if the real issue is you.

Are You Shadow Boxing or Leading?

Note: Dwight is currently out on leave so we are running some “best of” blog posts from his writing for the Vistage Executive Street blog that you may not have seen before. Enjoy!

One of the Operating Principles we developed at my firm 2130 Partners that is fundamental to the functioning of any group we facilitate, every course we deliver, and the materials we create is,“Confront and deal with the real issues.”  Closely related is another Operating Principle, “Explore truths – mine, theirs, and ours.”

This past week I participated in a Board meeting of another company and we deliberated a very difficult and critical decision for the company’s future. We had to determine our response to a proposal that represented a serious relationship breakdown with what had been a strategic partner. In addition, we had to arrive at an immediate action plan among several unpleasant choices. Decisions and courses of action had to somehow be accomplished in light of what gave us the best chances to deliver on our strategic intentions.

Instead of getting right down to productive work on real issues, (as in the first Principle above, “confront and deal with the real issues”), we began “boxing with shadows.” A very vigorous conversation launched immediately that was totally dominated by various members’ opinions and judgments about the strategic partner’s intentions and their emotional reactions to all the meaning they were each placing on the communications that had been taking place. Such clear and thoughtful articulations as “bash him in the face,” “kick his ***,” and “he’s a liar and a crook and has been all along,” were bandied about as if they were thoughtful insights that were relevant to quality decision making. So the Principle of “explore truths – mine, their, and ours” was definitely not in effect.

Now, it’s important to understand that the Board members are otherwise very bright, articulate, experienced and highly committed business leaders. So how can such ineffective, emotionally aggressive conversations have taken place? As is often talked about these days, the “old brain” or “survival brain” can’t tell the difference between a physical threat and a threat in language. When the other party’s language occurs as a threat, whether he or she meant it to be so, the limbic system of the brain immediately takes over and it only has four available strategies to choose from: fight flight, freeze, or appease. It’s easy to see which one took over for a significant part of our board meeting because there was a feeling of “threat” within the group due to the communications from the outside party.

One of the ways to get out of such a survival-based and dysfunctional mess is to ask a question that the “old brain” can’t answer like “how will your approach help us succeed on our strategy?” At that moment the cerebral cortex or “thinking brain” has to take over and intelligent conversation can resume. Fortunately, in our case, we were able to get the Board members focused on creating alternative go-forward scenarios and that got the thinking and productive conversations back on track. We arrived at a very good, (and very difficult), solution set and the management team left the meeting empowered.

As a leader have you experienced these types of shadow boxing conversations vs. solution conversations? Our Operating Principles are road-test and developed over more than 20 years of working with Executives. Try them out and see if they might help your leadership conversations get and stay on track.

Time For A Leadership Revolution

Note: Dwight is currently out on leave so we are running some “best of” blog posts from his writing for the Vistage Executive Street blog that you may not have seen before. Enjoy! “Organizations with the highest quality leaders were 13 times more likely to outperform their competition in key bottom-line metrics such as financial performance”.

- Global Leadership Forecast 2011, DDI

DDI, (Development Dimensions International, Inc.), recently released their 2011 Global Leadership Forecast. This comprehensive report based on survey responses from 14,320 leaders and HR professionals from 74 countries is titled “Time For A Leadership Revolution.”

The study overflows with shocking data on the dismal state of leadership and leadership development efforts around the world. It illuminates attitudes about the fundamental issues and suggests many dramatic changes to be made if firms wish to be successful. We will focus on one of the many important points from the report in this post. We urge you to measure your own leadership against the recommendations.

The study found the top three leadership skills most valued in the past were:

1) Driving and managing change

2) Executing organizational strategy

3) Coaching and developing leaders

The prioritization has shifted to new priorities going forward:

1) Driving and managing change

2) Identifying and developing talent

3) Fostering creativity and innovation

The report then points out the “dismal picture” for leadership painted by about 1/2 the leaders who reported that they are not proficient in any of the top critical skills for the next three years.

There is a big incentive to invest heavily to alter this picture as the Boston Consulting Group (2010) reports that, “those who focus on innovation enjoy up to a six-fold advantage on total shareholder return versus their industry peers.”

A bright spot is the point made in the DDI report that “leaders themselves don’t have to be highly creative to drive a culture of innovation. (We take exception to the context created by the word “drive” – more on that later.) Instead, leaders need to set and model ideal conditions for innovation.”

“Therein lies the rub” as Shakespeare would say!  If leaders don’t have the skills to deliver on the top capacities, where in the world will they learn to shift a whole culture from command and control to one of shared vision, unleashed creativity, collaboration, and freedom to make mistakes? (As researcher Brene Brown has said, “One of my findings from interviewing entrepreneurs and leaders: When “Failure is not an option” neither is innovation.”)

The report suggests that leaders must address “four critical obstacles: lack of stakeholder understanding, lackluster ideas, aversion to risk, and failure to execute.” Further, they must deal with “personality derailers…risk aversion, distrust, and approval dependence.”

In our view, that means creating an organizationwhere courage and risk taking are rewarded andshared vision connects people to their passion, unleashes their innovation, and calls them to action rather than somehow “driving them” to be innovative.

We are very excited about the findings in this report as they present a powerful case for leaders to commit to developing themselves as leaders which is what we are most passionate about. Some ways to do this are to participate in Vistage groups and also to engage in learning paradigm creating skills available through our work in 2130 Partners. If you are wondering how to “safely” get started on the trail of developing your skills for the new leadership priorities, try reading our book “Accelerate: High Leverage Leadership for Today’s World.”

Creating Empowerment or Evasion

As you can imagine, with the Olympics in London, business leaders in the UK were very concerned about the impact of the Games on their businesses from a variety of standpoints. Employee engagement was a big issue. Would there be traffic problems that made it difficult for employees to get to work, particularly in London? And most importantly, would workers be distracted by the Games and find ways to “skive?” (British slang for evading work). The Institute of Leadership and Management based in London has released a report based on a survey of over 1,000 managers about the impact of the Games on their businesses. The results are surprisingly positive. You may well say, “So? The UK has a different culture, the games were ‘across the pond,’ and a one time effect is not necessarily a new paradigm.” However, some things in this report really caught my eye as particularly relevant to all leaders of organizations, not just those in the UK.

A percentage of the companies surveyed took the Games as an opportunity to test various flexible work schedule options. To quote the report, “It is encouraging to find that businesses took the opportunity to trial flexible working practices and those that did found it far from being ‘a skiver’s paradise.’ Their people were productive and motivated. We hope that organizations continue to offer more flexible working which, when properly managed, is a powerful motivator and helps to attract and retain talent.” I see several key takeaways from this:

People rise, (or fall), to the level of expectations. Rather than being “evaders,” expecting people to perform well when given flexibility worked. Employees rose to the occasion and were responsible with their flexibility.

Providing flexibility is empowering and motivating. Giving people a chance to watch the Games and to work their schedules around traffic issues and such helped to raise morale and made them feel empowered.

The notion that everyone needs to be at their desk 9am – 5pm, Monday through Friday is simply outmoded.

Many U.S.A. leaders are already employing or seriously looking at flexible ways for employees to work. It’s empowering, creates increased productivity, and can solve some staffing issues by being able to access quality employees who can’t or won’t work regular hours every day in an office. Working moms and house husbands, for example, are great sources of talent and can feel very empowered by flexible hours, working from home and working partial weeks.

Since most surveys show that pay is not a motivator over time, perhaps shifting your beliefs and practices around how people work in your organization can give you access to a breakthrough in productivity. To fully access the opportunity offered, investigate your own limiting beliefs about trust, how people behave when you are not watching, what motivates them, and how accountability actually works.

If your head is in an empowering place and you are still reluctant to unleash people, investigate your policies and processes for determining whether work is getting done and how much is to be done by whom and by when. Fill in any missing procedures. Learn about “Self Generated Accountability,” (which we maintain is the only real accountability anyway), and how linking it with good tracking may give you the freedom to change how people work in your organization for the better.

Leadership: Speaking in "Woulds"

"How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?" This old tongue twister is a light-hearted approach to something we have been noticing more and more recently. What we are seeing is a phenomenon of  clients speaking in "woulds.”  Instead of speaking in a direct and declarative way, e.g. “It’s time to deal with this issue, take action on this task, etc.," we are hearing people say “What I would say about that topic is…”  It seems to have become a fairly common way to speak in meetings and such, yet it leaves me wondering what is actually going on with the speaker? It seems very similar to when people speak about a personal experience using “you” to explain it. For example, “well, you know, when you’re cold and tired…” except they are speaking about their own hiking adventure or experience.  Whether you are “speaking in woulds” or “speaking in yous,” in both cases you are subconsciously distancing yourself from your own experience and turning a valuable opportunity for real connection and sharing into just distant story or removed opinion.

The issue for leaders is that if you are speaking in a distant or disconnected fashion your team and co-workers feel it and know it. In order to be able to follow a leader in a truly committed and positive way, teams need to feel some level of safety. (We know there are many leaders who are followed by using a bully stick and that’s not the type of leadership we are talking about here.)

If you are really going to lead you must declare yourself. You must be able to put a stake in the ground. This does not mean being aggressive, antagonistic or being a bully. It means being clear about your point-of-view and being able to articulate it clearly from a place of being open, present and connected with those to whom you are speaking.

Take a minute to self-observe. Have you been a “would-chuck?”  When you hear a “what I would say…” come out of your mouth, what’s going on?  What we believe is that it boils down to the level of safety within a group so how safe do you feel with the group you are in?  How confident are you of your own authentic perspective on the matter?  Are you sending up a “trial balloon” to see if it gets shot down?  After all, if it does, it was only what you “would say,” not anything you really said with your own heart and soul and commitment behind it.  No one would expect to hold you to a mere trial balloon would they?

To raise the stakes and accelerate the action in your conversations, try cleaning up your speaking by using “I” statements without “woulds” and other caveats. Say what you really mean with commitment behind it.  You may notice the “pucker factor” goes up when you speak this way.  So will the productivity and effectiveness of your interactions.

One word about self-observation. We all have to make it on our own 99% of the time, even if we have one or more great coaches and we’re regularly in courses and programs for personal development.  This means, to gain the leverage we want in our leadership conversations, we will be self-coaching most of the time or just repeating our regular level of effectiveness.  Self-coaching means listening to the words that come out of your mouth and noticing how they land with others. You must learn to recognize your impact and, as we have said before, “the emotional wake” you leave behind. (Credit again to Fierce, Inc. for the “emotional wake” terminology.)

When you can hear it/see it happening in the moment, only then will you actually have a real choice to shift. You will have a real moment to coach yourself to high leverage leadership.

Dare to Dream Your "Impossible" Dream

During a recent conversation with one of our CEO clients, I saw more deeply into something that I’ve been puzzling about for a long time that was both helpful and a bit entertaining for him.  My puzzle has been ‘what makes it so hard for most of us to fully articulate and then share our real dreams with those around us? ‘ What came clear out of our conversation is that there is great personal risk in fully speaking a dream, even to yourself.  Our histories, (which we fondly refer to metaphorically at 2130 Partners as “File Cabinets”),  have lots of evidence stored in them about things that haven’t turned out, limiting beliefs, and circumstances that will prevent success.  These “historical files” may well be aggregated under the section tab called “Impossible.”

Even getting close to speaking about really big dreams often brings up despair and resignation, given the weight of evidence in most people’s “File Cabinets” against these dreams ever coming true.

To avoid the risk and pain of certain failure, people often start to speak predictions, which are dramatically reduced versions of real dreams. These reductions are ones that can likely be realized and if they don’t work out, won’t hurt very much.  These reduced dreams can usually be shared with others without fear of ridicule or rejection. Some of us even predict, and work hard to produce more of the same in our lives, since we know we survived our past o.k. - the known is less frightening than the unknown.  (A note: Predictability -  that’s the middle line of our Leadership Choice Point Model for those of you who have done our programs or read our book.)

So what would really happen if you started sharing the biggest, boldest, riskiest dream for your life that you possibly stand to say out loud? What if you shared it with friends, trusted advisors, and as many others as you can?  What if you used the process to discover the worst of what you are afraid will happen if you fall short? Since much of our file cabinets contain beliefs and decisions made in childhood, ask your adult self if you can stand this.

We would suggest that if you do this investigation, the worst case scenario will be something like this: everyone is gathered at your funeral and, when it’s time for your eulogy, the speaker enumerates all the ways you failed to reach your goals and dreams.  The audience breaks out in laughter that turns to boos.  They are kicking you out of the club!  They are going to go off to play without you! Worse, someone shoots a video of the whole scene on their Flip camera and puts it on YouTube for the whole world to see.  Soon the whole world is laughing at what a failure you are.

When written out it seems ludicrous doesn’t it? Could the worst case really be anywhere near that bad? Is something like this really what you are afraid of at some deep, dark level?

Is it truly worth it to sell yourself and your life short for some fears, that when faced, are so unlikely to come true? Are you ready to chase this boogieman out from under your bed and start sharing your bold goals and dreams?

Leadership and Lazy Labels

In a workshop the other day, 2130 Partners’ co-founder, Suzanne Frindt, (who is also my wife), usedthe term “Lazy Labels” to capture the instant, automatic, and unexamined statements many, if not all of us make on a fairly regular basis. These statements could also be called “knee jerk reactions.” In this highly charged season of political sound-bites, such Lazy Labels seem to be flying everywhere!  What we notice about “Lazy Labels” is that they seem to be a convenient way to suppress complex topics you don’t actually understand, don’t want to examine, or have “already made up your mind about.”  The issue with this is that their use diminishes your effectiveness as a vision-focused leader. Let me explain. Lazy Labels often have the effect of “shutting things down” like diagloue and conversations. If you stop dialogue, healthy inquiry, and curiosity-based listening with one of those quick labels/statements, you and those around you, will never learn more about each others’ knowledge, perspectives and feelings. In fact your brain has a mechanism to be sure you don’t learn anything that disagrees with your Lazy Label.  You won’t be learning anything new about the subject at all.  You will only see evidence that agrees with you. As we have written about often, we believe this is the era of collaborative leadership. We need each other’s skills, competencies, knowledge and perspective now more than ever, so shutting yourself and/or your team members down is dangerous.

Scotoma example

Lou Tice of The Pacific Institute in Seattle, WA teaches about “scotomas“ which are our blindness to data that doesn’t match our beliefs about the world.  (Scotomas are literally an area of diminished vision within the visual field, a blind spot. It comes from the Greek word skotos (to darken) and means a spot on the visual field in which vision is absent or deficient.) What we are talking about here are “mental scotomas,” meaning a figurative blind spot in a person’s psychological awareness, the person being unable to gain insight into or to understand their mental problems; lack of insight. There are many great examples of how we can’t see things right in front of us that we are not open to.  A common example is when you get a new car and then suddenly see similar models everywhere. Where were they yesterday?

I am going to suggest that the scotomas created by your Lazy Labels protect you from the discomfort or flat out fear of stepping into the unknown. After all, if you drop the Lazy Label and actually engage in a real dialogue about a subject with someoone, you may hear things that may make you uncertain, uncomfortable, or downright scared. If you open up to, and actually consider ideas, perspectives, and data that differ from your previous ideas, you will be in unknown territory.  You may even be permanently changed by the interaction.

If that happens, you might find yourself in a complex web of relationships and agreements built on who you were and how you thought before you opened up in this new dimension.  Before you even get the chance to find your new footing you will have to get to work in new conversations with many people.  You might even run into resistance, mocking or rejection.  (No one ever said leadership growth would be easy…)

Even if you believe you are more evolved than I am describing, what about the folks that work with and for you?  Are you getting a sense of how some of your great ideas for change may land with some of them at times? Do members of your team react to you with Lazy Labels?

We have posted on a number of occasions about being present, being with the unknown (courage), and making the choice to work from a shared Yonder Star, (or shared vision).  In a recent post we looked at the assertion that “anything you can’t be with owns your life.” Now we are upping that challenge.  We are asking you to look newly under your Lazy Labels when you hear them come out of your mouth and encourage those around you to do the same.

If you are willing to get serious about kicking yourself into a new learning orbit, start making lists of Lazy Labels you have for family members, people and programs at work, “the government,” community servants, religious groups, scientific data and theories, etc., etc.  Engage with and learn from people on the other side of those Lazy Labels. Be intentionally slow to understand. In this era of “faster, faster, faster’ it will be a challenge, but it will be worth it.

What If Pavlov's Dog Had a PDA?

In the 1920s Ivan Pavlov conducted a series of very famous experiments in which he taught dogs to salivate at the ringing of a bell. If PDAs had been invented, he could have taught the dog to salivate when his cell phone received a call, email or text. He might have even taught the dog to bark so he would never miss an “incoming!”

Much of what we observe in the behavior of those around us looks very similar. Despite frequent complaints about the number of emails and the expectations of immediate responses, PDAs are everywhere and constantly being checked. In our executive groups, members used to talk with each other at breaks. Now they all tend to get on their PDAs, and a good number are peeking throughout the meeting as well.  Are you a victim of your PDA? What in the world is it all about?

According to Wikipedia, “classical conditioning, (also Pavlovian or respondent conditioning, Pavlovian reinforcement), is a form of associative learning that was first demonstrated by Ivan Pavlov in 1927. Associative learning is the process by which an element is taught through association with a separate, pre-occurring element.”  In the case of the dog’s brain, that pre-occurring association was the smell of meat powder. What are your (probably multiple) prior associations that cause you to frantically and fanatically check your mobile device? A good friend, Brian Stuhlmuller of Distinctions, Inc., points out that most of us are unconsciously afraid that one of those emails in that unmanageable onslaught of incoming that we get every day, (and generally don’t get to all of), “is going to get us.” Failure to respond will cost us a deal, a relationship or something we highly value. It’s “the boogeyman just below the window on your iPad screen.”

I have been reflecting on myself in this regard and can see that I have unconscious concerns that someone is going to be mad at me, think I’m a flake, or perhaps even drop me from their circle. A client might have asked for something important to them and decided I’m unreliable or worse, irresponsible. I even see that there are some old beliefs in my group of associations like “in a well run office, people answer the phone in two rings or less.”

If you recognize you have your own version of Pavlov’s dog, and would like to break out of it, take bold action. For example, delete all of your inbox at midnight on New Year’s Eve and on regular dates throughout the year. If that’s too bold, go “off line” for significant parts of your day and week. Listen to your mind. Log the internal dialogue. Discover the associative learning that runs your life around email and texting. Self-observation is the key to freedom.

If you can recognize what’s driving you, you are at the Leadership Choice Point™. Perhaps it’s all fear that has you dancing to your PDA or maybe it’s just trying to manage your circumstances so you can survive another day. Is that really any different? You are either on the Red Line or the Blue Line of the diagram.  Choosing to pursue your vision/intention and your own priorities over reacting will start you up the Green Line.

Which path will have your life more productive, satisfying, and fulfilling? If you are leading a company or a team, which way will have your associates be more productive and less stressed? What are you waiting for?

The Myth of Time Management

A Google search for time management blogs produces more than 20,000,000 results. Charles Kettering’s well known phrase “a problem well stated is a problem half solved” gives us a clue as to why so many people are writing and speaking about time management and yet we see a huge percentage of our clients suffering trying to manage their time. We believe the problem neeeds to be “well stated” or reframed. The “Frindt Correlate” to Mr. Kettering’s thoughtful phrase is “a problem misnamed is a problem stuck!”

If you think about it for more than a second or two, it’s clear that you can’t manage time! Time passes tick-tock. In our normal world, (excluding quantum physics from this discussion), it does not go faster or slower and no one has more or less of it than you do. If you want to push that examination to another level, notice that it is always and only ever now. Even when you get to that concept you call the future it will still be now.

Language is the software that drives our brain’s problem-solving efforts. As a result of misnaming, the brain is working on the wrong issue and the pain continues. So how can you think about this subject in a way that produces more valuable outcomes, reduces your stress, and allows you to lead an integrated life?

First, be accurate in your thoughts and spoken words. Describe what you can actually manage. You can, for example, manage your priorities. You can manage which ones you act on and how much time you spend on them. You can manage your conversations, both the ones you have and with whom you have them.

To gain real power in the aforementioned management steps, create a vision, or what we would call a “Yonder Star” for yourself and share it with your teams – or in your family for that matter. This step will give you a sense of direction and allow you to sort out your priorities in a meaningful way. In the absence of a vision or goal, and alignment with those around you, “any road will get you there…” or, as the Zen Master said, “if we don’t change directions, we will likely end up where we are headed.”  In the case of many unexamined lives, that is mostly around in circles.

It is important to examine the associative learning you have that drives your current behavior. You may find that you will be required to have a number of difficult conversations with some of those around you to gain control of the ability to set your priorities or at least to freely choose priorities that are imposed by others. If you discover that too many of those types of priorities are driving your life and that they actually conflict with your own authentic priorities, it will be time for a career decision!

The Operating Principles that we employ in our engagements, and aspire to live by in our personal lives, will be important to keep in mind as you engage in shared priority conversations.Our book, Accelerate, was created to empower you in such pursuits, as is our e-course, and new materials that we will be launching over the next few months.

Take action, log your thoughts so you can manage your brain more productively and be at the Leadership Choice Point more frequently.  Notice how, with practice, you are spending more time on what’s important to you, feeling less stressed, have more free time, and are experiencing fulfillment.

Are You In Your Comfort Zone?

The term “comfort zone” has become a popular way to describe how we are feelingabout various activities we are taking part in – “that pushed me way out of my comfort zone,” or “that was not in my comfort zone,” are pretty common phrases these days.

When we talk about our “comfort zone” what we are talking about is our personal orbit, our range of personal activities. Each of us has a daily routine, a weekly routine and perhaps even a monthly or yearly routine. Generally speaking we are creatures of habit and we develop comfort zones we like, and of course, feel comfortable in.

Often, even when we do try to venture out of it, we are quickly pulled back in to it. There is a dynamic called “homeostasis” which is critical to this. Homeostasis has both psychological and physical implications and what it’s pointing to is the fundamental and biological drive for equilibrium and stability in a system, (and yes, we are including human beings as systems). In effect, homeostasis helps create and regulate our “comfort zones.” This is a very important phenomenon to understand. It works for us in critical ways. For example, it helps keep our body temperatures stable. As we know, we all have a set-point for body temperature that is on average 98.6 degrees. The homeostasis in our bodies helps insure that when our temperature fluctuates, it comes back to this comfortable set point. The downside is that when we challenge ourselves psychologically and emotionally in various ways, there can be a “homeostatic back lash,” and a strong pull to go back to our existing comfort zone until we have solidly established a new set point.

So our comfort zone is somewhat like a thermostat. Unconsciously it has been set at a particular point and when we change it, it takes some time to “heat up or cool down” to the new set point.

An amazing example of this is the research that has been done on lottery winners. It has been found that generally, if someone was poor before winning the lottery, they will end up poor again. If they were middle class, they would ultimately end up middle class again and so on. This is a powerful example of what happens when our set points or comfort zones are radically and unexpectedly challenged and how powerful homeostasis can be.

As we discuss comfort zones, set points, etc. we want to be clear that this is not a piece about people who plod along and move slowly or people who seem risk averse. If you are a fast-paced, “go go go” type of person that is your comfort zone. What if you had to slow down, be more reflective, bring your energy “down and in” instead of being an “up and out” kind of person? What if you had to take on a meditation practice? Would you still be in your comfort zone? What if you are a thrill seeker and look for ways to “push the envelope” all the time? What would happen if you lived a more mundane existence and had to experience the ordinary? Would you still be in your comfort zone?

The thing is, if you want new outcomes, bigger results and to achieve your vision are you ready to expand your comfort zone? Are you ready to alter your personal orbit? Are you fortified and prepared for the inevitable backlash that may come from inside you, but also from those around you who may feel threatened or unnerved by change? If you are part of their system, their orbit, their comfort zone, and you change, what happens to their comfort zone? If you aren’t ready to expand your orbit, how can you expect your colleagues, team, or employees to do it?

Is There A Common Language For Leadership?

Have you ever wondered whether there is any common language that exists for all humans and, if so, how knowing about that language might help you be a more effective as a leader? Well, there is and researchers have called it “deep metaphors.” In the November/December 2008 issue of Spirituality & Health magazine, Managing Editor Betsy Robinson’s article, “Our Common Language,” offers a very insightful summary of work done by Harvard Business School professor and sociologist Gerald Zaltman, Ph.D. and his team across 12,000 in-depth interviews in more than 30 countries.

Dr. Zaltman and his son, Lindsay Zaltman, have described their research in their book Marketing Metaphoria: What Deep Metaphors Reveal About the Minds of Consumers. While the consequences for marketing are dramatic, today we are more interested in how a working understanding of these metaphors will assist you in your leadership, your skill at conflict resolution, and your understanding of and ability to clear upsets.

According to Robinson, these deep metaphors are unconscious, universal, basic frames or orientations we have to the world around us. In the language of the work of 2130 we’d call it “the instant, automatic, and largely unexamined context or paradigm in which you live your life.” The researchers have identified seven main lenses:

1) Balance – justice, equilibrium, interplay

2) Transformation – change in state, status, substance, circumstance

3) Journey – meeting of past, present and future

4) Container – connotes inclusion or exclusion

5) Connection – relating to oneself & others

6) Resource – source of support

7) Control – sense of mastery, vulnerability, well-being

and four subsidiary ones:

1) Movement or Motion – related to journey

2) Force – power that can compel or constrict

3) Nature – not from humans, growth and evolution

4) System – gives order

If you’d like a visual experience of these lenses, check out this video: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2exh6i6T6tg[/youtube]

Two very important dimensions of this work are the emotions and beliefs that we have connected with each of these deep metaphors and the fact that we cannot express ourselves without using the metaphors. Put simply, our conversations are full of phrases, which arise out of these metaphors, and they all have emotional baggage with them. Since we all use the same deep metaphors when relating to the same situations, it is the emotions that we have historically attached to each that yield the connecting or conflict that arises from each conversation. In our 2130 Partners’ language, this is the “stuff that fills our File Cabinets.”

Your ability to resolve conflicts, dispel upsets, and be an effective, productive leader will all be greatly enhanced by learning about and observing these deep metaphors in the situations you encounter. Robinson offers several helpful practices and exercises:

1) Make a list of the emotions and beliefs you have associated with each metaphor.

2) When you are in the middle of conflict, realize that there are deep metaphors at work and the parties have differing, perhaps extreme, emotions and beliefs associated. Find a way to appreciate the others’ basis in the conversation.

3) Find a way to sketch out a shared vision for the parties – what would life be without the conflict? In 2130 Partners we call this finding a Shared Yonder Star for the conversation and the relationship. Where will we be when it all turns out? Build a productive conversation from that commonality.

While it may seem difficult or awkward at first, viewing your encounters through the lens of deep metaphors and appreciating the generally unconscious, unexamined and often differing emotions and beliefs associated will almost certainly increase your conversational capacities and your ability to lead effectively.

Give Me Liberty!

Demand for more creative freedom, self-expression, greater distribution of power, and a strong say in how things are done, (which is being driven by younger workers in particular), are just some of the changes that are taking place in business. Although a rebalancing of the business paradigm to include new ratios of these elements is in process, the importance of liberty, freedom, and individualism are forces that have long been fundamental to our overall culture, and have been evolving in Western Europe and later in America for centuries.

St. Augustine asserted around 400 that “…we do by our free will whatsoever we know and feel to be done by us only because we will it.”  St. Thomas Aquinas confirmed that idea and declared, “A man can direct and govern his own actions…” around 1250.

Those Europeans who left home, family, familiar surroundings and all the trappings of security to come to the “New World” were clearly the most passionate among their peers about seeking freedom. Early American flags and symbols included the Gadsden Flag and the first Navy Jacket which both bore the inscription “Don’t Tread On Me” along with the image of a rattlesnake.

Clearly, a core element of what it is to be an American has been a fierce sense of independence and personal freedom.  In business a very high percentage of entrepreneurs found their companies to escape the perceived tyranny of having bosses and “confining” structures and processes.  This is where things get tricky. These same fiercely independent creative visionaries then often want to control those around them in their own organizations. Part of this is certainly to create and maintain the quality of the products and/or services they offer, and to insure the execution of their vision, but part of it is certainly to maintain their own freedom. Collaboration requires that the idea of complete autonomy by a leader be “given up.” How do leaders think they can maximize performance of a modern organization with top-down initiatives, myriads of centrally generated goals, constant demands for conformity with corporate directives and HR policies, and regular “Performance Reviews?” As we have seen one of the most foundational elements of our culture is personal freedom. The expectation that employees will give theirs up and conform is almost ludicrous when you think about it from the larger cultural push for independence and freedom. True collaboration requires that strong-minded business owners and entrepreneurs have a deep respect for others and recognize that while they have strong opinions theirs is not the only perspective nor the only way. This can be a very difficult pill to swallow. Often entrepreneurs become successful, (or at least think they do), due to their ”single-mindedness.” However, this approach is not sustainable long-term in the new business paradigm that is emerging.

We are not saying we have all the answers to what appears to us to be a major “fatal flaw” in many of the leadership/management teams’ thinking that we encounter.  Being an ostrich about such a fundamental problem with traditional corporate thinking does not, however, move us forward at anywhere near a fast enough rate to compete successfully in the modern business world. It is important that leaders recognize the powerful, cultural forces at work and that their own desire for freedom also exists in the hearts and minds of their employees and co-workers.

Obviously in the space of a blog it’s not possible to go deeply into all the issues around collaboration. We have proposed a number of ways to maximize freedom, initiative, creativity, and productivity in our book, “Accelerate: High Leverage Leadership For Today’s World” available here. We encourage vigorous inquiry and discussion and would love to hear your ideas on the subject!

Bravo For the Naysayers!

Many business owners, entrepreneurs, and professionals are “visionaries” – independent minded self-starters with lots of creativity and ideas. They often have a deep belief and confidence in their own point-of-view. If you are one of these people and have been successful, these traits have served you well. The challenge is that, at some point, to increase your level of productivity and success, it will take a team around you. “My Team Are My Hands and Feet.” – Do you hire people as extensions of yourself? Meaning, you want them to just execute what you have in mind without questions - just to be an “extra pair of hands and feet.” If you have not developed the ability to clearly articulate your vision and goals in a way that is inclusive, everyone else is left wondering and waiting for you next set of instructions. This reinforces your sense of “I should just do it myself,” or, “if I could just do it myself.”

Rather than looking for more hands and feet, the real high leverage opportunity is to hire people who have their own skills, talents, and intelligence to bring to the table. Find people with approaches and styles complementary to your own. Develop your ability to explore their perspectives on what and how to do things. Be slow to understand rather than cutting them off or assuming you already know what they will say. Learn to create a shared vision or Yonder Star with them and them give them the power to execute based on their competence and understanding. If, as a leader, you can’t tolerate, let alone lead, people who think for themselves, bring added dimensions to the party, or approach things differently than you, you will drastically limit your organization’s growth and pay a lot of money for very minimal results.

“Wet Blankets and Naysayers.” – As your team grows, there will inevitably be people who ask questions, ask for clarification, ask for more information and potentially challenge ideas. Do you interpret these folks as “wet blankets,” “naysayers,” or “whiners.” Do you resent having your vision and creativity questioned? Perhaps that is not what is actually happening. Consider the following:

1. People have different styles of learning, understanding and processing information. Rather than questioning you as a person, they may well be going through their process of understanding your thinking.
2. The larger the team, the further you are as a leader from doing the actual work. During the “ideation phase” your team is likely to bring up important potential issues and consequences that are best thought through well in advance of jumping into execution. Since they are closer to the action than you, these conversations can present valuable intelligence and probably avoid serious mistakes later.
3. Some people are just excellent at identifying obstacles. Rather than brushing them off or assuming they are being “negative,” pay attention. A good “obstacle finder” is actually a great addition to the team. They can save you valuable time by helping you identify and address issues in advance.
4. Most of all, remember that what surfaces as a complaint or negativity is generally an access to what the individual is truly committed to and how they feel thwarted in that commitment. Flip the complaint over to a positive statement and you may be surprised by what you learn.

“What Are You Really Good At?” – No matter how gifted, talented, and intelligent you are, you still have a “zone of excellence,” (as author Gay Hendricks would say), and zones of competence and incompetence. Your highest and best use is your zone of excellence.

Richard Strozzi-Heckler of The Strozzi Institute talks about what he calls a “rhythm of excitement.” It is a rich topic that he reviews in his book, “The Anatomy of Change.” To paraphrase and simplify, essentially there are 4 stages where people feel energized or “excited.” The stages are Awakening, Increasing, Containment, and Completion. People tend to be energized largely in one of these stages. “Awakeners” are “idea people.” “Increasers” are people that tend to grab on to ideas and make them even bigger. They fill the ideas out. “Containers” take ideas and say, “let’s move on it.” “Completers” implement and get things done. There are very important skills and strengths in each area. Awakeners and Increasers tend to be entrepreneurs and business owners. This is their “zone of excellence.” It’s important to know where you are energized, know what you are good at, and then fill out your teams with the other stages. Find people you respect and trust who have the skills you are lacking, listen to them, and organize in such a way that each team member is in position to contribute their highest and best.

Are You A Self-Referencing Leader?

In the process of growing up and becoming a successful leader, you most likely put together a set of well-developed values, beliefs, experiences, and capacities. You have probably done well at suppressing your emotions and demonstrating your rational thinking. Being successful means your mix has served you well; you have been rewarded, “bonused,” and encouraged along the way. You have probably learned to rely on the way you interact, solve problems, and produce results to the point where the basis of your thinking, (your “paradigm”), is now instant, automatic, and unexamined. To paraphrase the Peter Principle, you can expect to be promoted to your level of incompetence, (if you haven’t been already).  This means that at some point,”the success train” of your career is coming to a halt. If you happen to own your own business, and are already at the top, it is likely to happen in the form of business expansion. In other words, your business will expand to your level of incompetence.

How does this happen?  Our belief is that as your work requires broader and broader reach and impact, the very traits and skills that got you rewarded and promoted to your next level of accountability, (or allowed you to create a successful business), can be what defeats you. You will be working with many more people who differ in their perspectives, learning styles, ways of processing information, and ways of interacting with others the bigger your career or business gets. In order to make the leap past the Peter Principle, you will have to expand your own skills and capacities.

Einstein’s oft-quoted statement “problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them” applies here. If you continue to rely solely on your own thinking and way of operating, (and why shouldn’t you since, after all, you are successful and you got here, didn’t you?), then you are in a place of “self-referencing leadership,” and that means the Peter Principle is “in effect.”  To continue to lead successfully, you will be required to think in new ways and benefit from the thoughts and perspectives of others. In other words, cherished self-reliance becomes obsolete. Collaboration, inclusion, openness, the ability to continue learning, respect of others’ skills, expecting others to contribute - these are the traits that are critical to develop.

To collaborate successfully will require opening up to creativity, inspiration, and empowering others. Doing this will require developing the added dimensions of intuition, (gut feel), and heart-centered knowledge to your already highly developed intellect. (See last week’s blog post on using all of your intelligence if this is a new concept.)

So bottomline, when success is at hand, and all the skills you currently possess have gotten you there, it’s time to push yourself to expand. You must increase your capacities to collaborate with others and your “capacities of intelligence” if you are going to overcome the Peter Principle and continue to be a successful, and not merely self-referencing, leader.

Do You Use All of Your Intelligence?

This may seem like a funny question, but do you know the answer? Are you using all of your intelligence? We don’t mean “business intelligence” in the sense of consumer data, research and business results. We are talking about your own personal intelligence. You probably believe you “give it your all” and use all of your capacities and capabilities – but are you sure?

The fact is, there are three ways that we as human beings detect, receive and process information. There are three centers of intelligence – the head, the heart and the gut.

Our culture primarily values the head or intellect. Ever since the time of the philosopher, mathematician and physicist, Rene DesCartes, (“I think therefore I am”), the intellect has been prized as the center of our understanding, intelligence and knowledge.

However, at some level, we all know this belief is not quite accurate. For example, we know the heart provides us with key information. We have all heard the phrase, “I followed my heart,” and we all immediately understand what that means. Think about that phrase for a moment. If the heart didn’t provide us with information, how could we follow it? And if the information wasn’t powerful, why would we follow it? It turns out that scientific studies about the power of the heart show there is an extaordinary amount of energy and information coming from and through the heart. In fact, there is now evidence that a type of neural tissue is present in the heart which indicates the heart and mind work together to process information. The Institute of HeartMath has been studying the power of the heart for years and we recommend looking into their work to find out more.

When it comes to the idea of the heart as a center of intelligence, there is some cultural ambivalence. On the one hand, we are suspicious. Isn’t the heart “emotional?” Emotions ”shouldn’t be followed.” They are “irrational” and that’s not a good thing. Right? However, at the same time that we have this cultural concern, there has been alot of work done in the realm of emotional intelligence and its importance. Some have even stated that being “emotionally intelligent” is more important than having a high IQ. So although in some ways we are suspect of the heart’s information, we also seem to understand its value.

How would you rate your EQ or emotional intelligence? Are you able to tune in to your emotions and what they might be telling you? Are you able to recognize what your heart has to say?

The third center of intelligence is our gut. We have all heard the phrase, “I had a gut instinct.” Similar to the phrase about the heart, we all know what “having a gut instinct is” and what it means when someone says that phrase, whether we personally tune in to our gut or not. The gut actually has an extraordinary amount of neurological tissue and activity in it. So much so, that physicians regularly refer to our gut as having a “second brain.”

We can all think of examples of stories where people followed a gut instinct and it was either critical to their survival, or it changed their life, or drove them to make an important business decision. When people are tuned in to that gut information, and they are asked how they knew something or why they did what they did, the response they give is, “I just knew,” and we can tell by the emphasis that the knowing came from a deep and solid place. Being able to tap into our deep-seated inner knowing is something fundamentally human that our culture does not overtly value highly.

How familiar are you with your gut instincts? Can you think of times it has served you well? Are you able to tune in and hear what your gut is telling you?

People have varying degrees of connection to their three centers of intelligence. Some rely almost exclusively on one center. Some may even use two or all three, but much of this reliance can be unconscious. Processing information and decision-making is often very automatic and unexamined.

We suggest you do a little experiment and self-reflection. Watch your decision-making processes this week and see which center(s) you use. If you find you are not using all three, then the fact is, you are denying yourself valuable information. The world has become so complex and difficult to navigate, we all need all the help we can get. Your body gives you three different ways to receive and process information and these centers of intelligence may even have different perspectives on the same issue. Taking time to tune in and listen to yourself is a skill we can all develop. It is likely that if you are disconnected from a center of intelligence it will be your heart or your gut. You can actually build this connection and it’s not terribly hard, it just takes practice. If you want to find out what your heart has to say, sit quietly, put your hand on your heart and ask the question you need answered. This may seem incredibly simple, but it has the effect of dropping our attention and helping us connect. The same will work with the gut.

As leaders, we can’t afford to dismiss or ignore key information. And frankly, who would deny themselves the opportunity to “become more intelligent?”

Does Your Organization Have a Cultural Strategy?

(This post is an edited version of an article by Suzanne Mayo Frindt. To get the complete text click here.)  Excellent companies have Financial Strategies, Operational Strategies, Marketing and Sales Strategies, and commensurate Resource Allocation Strategies (including People, Time, Money, Equipment/Assets, etc.) How many companies actually have a Cultural Strategy? Yet all companies have a culture, implicitly if not explicitly developed on a historical basis. A company culture can be defined as “a cognitive framework consisting of attitudes, values, behavioral norms, and expectations’’ (Greenberg and Baron, 1997), “the collective thoughts, habits, attitudes, feelings, and patterns of behavior’’ (Clemente and Greenspan, 1999), and “the pattern of arrangement, material or behavior which has been adopted by a society (corporation, group, or team) as the accepted way of solving problems’’ (Ahmed et al., 1999).^[1]

A company’s culture dramatically impacts the success or failure of all other strategies, and yet little if any attention is consciously placed on the care and feeding of a productive, learning culture. It is the invisible glue that binds together ever more diverse workforces including people from many cultures and generations. Most executives are not conscious of culture or of the implications of their decisions on the development of or degradation of culture. Without a culture strategy, where are they aiming anyway?

All development and training is built on the platform of culture. It is the ‘context’ that determines whether the financial, operational or marketing strategies succeed or fail. A human resource focus on recruiting, retention and succession planning by definition focuses on the experience and skill building of individuals and often misses the broader perspective of the cultural influence and implications. And whose job is it to develop a conscious strategy for culture? Whose job is it to continually feed and nurture a productive culture? We would say it lands squarely with Leadership!

What is a Learning Culture and How Does it Get Developed? A Learning Culture is one where the individuals and teams consciously invest in growing and developing themselves. In a Learning Culture executives are purposeful about the impact of decisions and strategies on the fabric of cultural development. There is a focus on reducing friction and waste in communications and developing productive working relationships. People know there is an expectation for growing and learning. Hiring decisions are made with an interest in an individual’s ability to learn, adapt, grow and shift. An atmosphere of curiosity, forward thinking and ‘how can we learn from this’ thinking permeates. It becomes the foundation or platform on which everything else is built.

What Are The Payoffs of a Learning Culture? For an organization, this type of culture provides much more innovation, creativity, agility, and expedited problem solving capabilities.

For individuals, it provides opportunities for learning and growth. It also provides forums to be challenged, to add value, and to contribute at a high level.

How Can We Develop a Learning Culture? There are many books and articles about learning organizations including work by Senge^[2] and Argyris^[3] that explain in depth about the what and how of learning organizations. Our 2130 methodology, (and terminology adaptation in some instances), ties to the 5 aspects of a learning organization that are generally accepted by leadership ‘gurus’ as follows:

1. Systems Thinking: Understanding how things influence each other as a whole. Our view is that executives and organizational leadership are accountable to the entire organization and all stakeholders for this larger view, including strategy development, planning, implementation, review and adjustment. In addition to a responsibility for systems thinking on an individual executive basis it is also critical that the entire executive team itself operate as a productive, learning system.
2. Shared Vision/Values: “A vehicle for building shared meaning” from Peter Senge’s “Fifth Discipline.” Unfortunately, this often looks more like the version from Dilbert “A long meaningless statement that proves management’s inability to focus.” Over the last 20+ years we have worked with organizations to develop Vision, Mission and Values in our methodology ‘Vision-Focused Leadership’. Absent a shared vision, individual agendas rule the day and gaining personal power becomes a major executive focus.
3. Productive Mental Framework: We talk about busting mental barriers, increasing mental agility and increasing capacities to deal with the unrelenting pace of change and increased complexity of issues facing leadership today. It is critical to become aware of our blind spots and biases to be able to think clearly in the present to make the best decisions in a complex business environment.
4. Personal Mastery: This is the commitment of every person in the organization to improve, develop and challenge themselves to be more than they are today. Individuals who insist on status quo and structural barriers to communication usually self-select out of a Learning Culture.
5. Team Mastery: Organizations must realize that groups of people, (of any size of 2 or more), create yet another ‘entity’ with its own dynamics and productivity levels. There are group skills and developmental opportunities that build on, yet are distinct from individual capacities. When groups develop these capacities we call that increasing their collaborative capital.

So What Will You Do Now? Take stock of your culture. What are the stories being told about your organization by employees, clients and vendors? What stories would you like to be told? Where are the gaps? Are you willing to commit to your role in your organization’s culture?

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^[1] From  “Developing a Corporate Culture as a Competitive Advantage”;  Golnaz Sadri and Brian Lees

^[2] Peter Michael Senge is an American scientist and director of the Center for Organizational Learning at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is known as author of the book The Fifth Discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization from 1990 (new edition 2006). (Courtesy wikipedia.com)

^[3] Chris Argyris is an American business theorist, Professor Emeritus at Harvard Business School, and a Thought Leader at Monitor Group.[1] He is commonly known for seminal work in the area of “Learning Organizations”. (Courtesy wikipedia.com)

Leadership Language: From Delusional to Powerful

In our current blog post for Vistage International's Executive Street, we look at the word and concept of "try" and its lack of power.

However, there are even more statements and phrases common in business today that are unproductive and prevent forward momentum. Many of the conversations that pass for "normal" are filled with words and phrases that have no power and fill the conversational space with the false implication of action. This type of communication seems to keep the speaker from being present to his or her own experience and commitment, (or, more likely, lack thereof).

Let’s start with the word “like.” Admittedly this overused word is mostly in the younger set. It seems to be a substitute for being articulate enough to share one’s own experience accurately and authentically.  As an example, the phrase “it’s like I’m cold,” – does that mean you are? You aren’t? Why not just state “I am cold?”  Including “like” seems to allow a lot of talk without much real connection to personal experience. The words speak to an experience that is similar or “like,” rather than a statement that owns one’s physical state in that moment.

Another set of words and phrases we hear quite regularly are: “try,” “need to,’” “want to,” “should,” “ought to,” and “would be nice if…” Our view is that these, and many more phrases like them, occur constantly in every day management conversations and are worse than meaningless. In fact, it could be said that in these types of conversations both the speaker and the listener are “deluded.” They are deluded because there is an implication of action where there will most certainly be none. We call these words and phrases the “said” portion of a statement. Underneath the “said” is that which is “unsaid.” We find the ”unsaid” is usually some version of, “but I can’t.”  For example, the “said might be” – “we should put a budget together on that.” The “unsaid” might be, “but we don’t have time.” Another example of the “said” might be –  “I’d love to go with you guys.” The “unsaid” might be, “but my wife would never stand for it.”

The third, even subtler phrasing we hear is some version of “my opinion would be…” or “my idea would be…” Said in this way, the speaker never seems to be questioned and yet, what does he or she mean?  “”My idea would be…” but, it turns out what they’re saying isn’t really their idea? Or is it? Another example is “my opinion would be…” So does that mean it’s that person’s opinion unless it meets with criticism in which case they’ll change it? As listeners we really don’t know where the speaker stands. It’s easy to wonder if the speaker knows their own point-of-view or whether they are just testing the waters to see what is acceptable, popular, or meets with approval from the top of the hierarchy in the conversation.

It seems the culture of many organizations today encourages this type of “soft pedal” speak. It leaves people latitude to shift to what is acceptable and to recover more easily if they “step in it.” The issue is that people aren’t encouraged to have a real point-of-view, nor are they encouraged to articulate it if they genuinely have one. From a leadership standpoint, we don’t believe this builds leadership skills, confidence or a healthy cultural paradigm in which team members can bring all that they are and have to the table.

The antidote to all of this unreal or deluded conversation is taking the risk to say directly and succinctly what you are really experiencing/feeling, what your truth is, what you are committed to, what you promise, and what you can be counted on to do. If you are a leader and you begin to communicate in this way, those around you will recognize the authenticity of it. You will likely build more trust within your team. Particularly if you encourage them to also take on this style of communication. An important key is that it will only succeed if people see that they will not be punished, criticized, embarrassed or shamed for doing it. A strong leader builds a safe container for those around them to bring their best thinking knowing they can articulate it and it will be received with respect even when others disagree.

If you take this on and find yourself uncomfortable, make note of what your mind is saying is going to happen to you or how your internal dialogue is criticizing you.  Use your self-awareness skills and you will likely find what’s stopping you is a limiting belief.  Once identified, you can go to work on letting go of it.  Check out Kimberley Heart  or Morty and Shelly Lefkoe  if you need help working through your limiting beliefs.

To become a clear, powerful, and intentional leader, listen to your statements over the next few days and make a record of all the times you say things from one or more of the above groupings.  You probably have your own favorite versions of each!  If you are having trouble self-observing, keep going for it and also start recording what you hear others saying.  What is the “unsaid” in each conversation? Are you willing to restate your comments with real self-awareness, authenticity, and commitment?

This is an opportunity to multiply your and your team’s productivity and effectiveness!

Is It The End of Management?

In a Wall Street Journal article, “The End of Management,” Alan Murray makes a compelling argument that "modern management is nearing its existential moment.”  He focuses on the last 100 years or so when large organizations developed to organize people and allocate resources for tasks that seemingly could be done much more effectively than individuals contracting with each other. Graduate business school programs have evolved, largely to educate large numbers of people to fulfill the needs of these organizations to deliver on that promise. One of the responsibilities of many, if not most, of the people in these organizations is to increase certainty or predictability with the intention of increasing quality and on time, on budget, performance.  An unintended consequence of those efforts is to make the organizations resistant to change and seemingly even resistant to the dynamics of the market itself.

As the rate of change and market disruption accelerates to the pace we see today with the advent of things like social networking and smart phones, this sets up “a destructive clash between whirlwind change and corporate inertia.“ Murray argues that some of the classic failures of once market-leading companies has not been a result of “’bad management," but because they follow the dictates of ‘good’ management. They listened closely to their customers. They studied market trends. They allocated capital to the innovations that promised the largest returns. And in the process they missed the disruptive innovations…

Murray traces the development of managed corporations back to a 1937 book citing the importance of lowering transaction costs.  We’d like to step even further back for a moment to the very origins of capitalism and organized business. Rodney Stark in his book “The Victory of Reason” provides a very detailed history of the evolution of business, as we know it.  Activity started shifting from barter to cash in the 9^th century and great monastic estates began hiring labor forces to perform complex, well-organized activities.  By the 13^th century, religious and societal issues around profits, property rights, credit, and vending had been resolved. Italian city-states began expanding trade into Europe and the rest of the Mediterranean.

Banks and management evolved to address the issues first of facilitating transactions over these greater distances and then lowering their cost.  By the 14^th century Italian schools were organized to teach required administration and management skills.  Accounting, compound interest, double entry bookkeeping, and insurance were invented, all to facilitate transactions. As trade expanded to England, a nation of shopkeepers and manufacturing entrepreneurs sprang up and, as they say, “the rest is history."

Fast forward back to today with this historical perspective and we can see that everything we take for granted as we do business today was originally invented by someone to facilitate trade, which in turn was driven by thousands of entrepreneurs in all regions where they were allowed to operate and were not taxed out of existence. Modern management is just a relatively late development to solve the “recent” problems of large operations scattered over great geographic areas and allow them to continue to facilitate trade and lower its cost. Much of the value of that management has been in gathering, organizing, and dispensing information needed by large numbers of people in far-flung operations to get their work done and make the transactions happen.

Now, with the advent of instant worldwide communication, essentially free information, and the ability of large numbers of people to organize and collaborate without hierarchy, creativity and innovation can move far more rapidly than it can through a traditional organization. Individual entrepreneurs are again empowered, as they were in the middle ages, by these “new fangled inventions,” to start and build businesses. To survive and continue to add value to society, existing firms will be called upon to facilitate their employees ability to think and act like entrepreneurs and to find ways to make their collaborative efforts more valuable than “free” individuals can create through open source collaboration.

Bottomline: The game is on! Is your company addressing this enormous historical shift that rivals that which happened in the 9^th to 13^th centuries? Are you recognizing this new game? Are you “all in”?