“The leaders we need are already here.” These magic words come from Margaret Wheatley, co-founder of the Berkana Institute (www.berkana.org). The Institute is a worldwide community of people who recognize the need for change in communities, organizations and nations and who offer their leadership to help resolve the most pressing local problems.
Of leaders, she says, “We define a leader as anyone who wants to help, who is willing to step forward to make a difference in the world. We know that the world is blessed with an abundance of these leaders.”
These are good words to live by in our own organizations too. In yesterday’s model, leaders were singular and appointed. Leaders were at the top of the heap by virtue of title. Others were deemed followers. Leaders were expected to know all the answers and by force of will to get followers somewhere. By virtue of this model leaders held power and followers did what they were told.
Today’s leaders can emerge from any part of an organization. Rather than being given the title, leaders choose for themselves to make a difference and take action to do so. They see themselves not as experts but as learners. Rather than focusing on heroism and control they focus on enabling others to succeed.
This brings us back to Margaret Wheatley. About 15 years ago she began writing about the connection between living organisms and organizations. “Every living thing seeks to create a world in which it can thrive. It does this by creating systems of relationships where all members of the system benefit from their connections,” she wrote. “As the system develops, new capacities emerge from … working together. Looking at what a self-organizing system creates leads to the realization that the system can do for itself what leaders have felt was necessary to do to the systems they control.”
Wheatley urges leaders in self-organizing systems – and, by the way, all organizations are self-organizing — to abandon the fear-based practice of command and control. “We have to ask ourselves, “How much trust do I really have in the people who work here?”
And what is the reward for embracing a more participative approach? “Those leaders…tell of their astonishment,” she says. “They are overwhelmed by the capacity, energy, creativity, commitment and even love that they receive from the people in their organization.”
It sounds like Utopia. Trusting leaders can bring about an astonishing array of positive results. And anyone can be a leader. If, as Wheatley says, “the leaders we need are already here,” what are the attributes of today’s leaders? How can we prepare ourselves to become a leader? How do we step forward and nominate ourselves for the job? Stay tuned.
By Elise Roaf
The number one thing great communicators have in common is they possess a heightened sense of situational and contextual awareness. The best communicators are great listeners and astute in their observations. Great communicators are skilled a reading a person/group by sensing the moods, dynamics, attitudes, values and concerns of those being communicated with. Not only do they read they environment well, but they possess the uncanny ability to adapt their messaging to said environment without missing a beat. The message is not about the messenger; it has nothing to do with messenger; it is however 100% about meeting the needs and the expectations of those you’re communicating with.
So, how do you know when your skills have matured to the point that you’ve become an excellent communicator? The answer is you’ll have reached the point where your interactions with others consistently use the following ten principles:
1. Speak not with a forked tongue: In most cases, people just won’t open up those they don’t trust. When people have a sense a leader is worthy of their trust they will invest time and take risks in ways they would not if their leader had a reputation built upon poor character or lack of integrity. While you can attempt to demand trust, it rarely works. Trust is best created by earning it with right acting, thinking, and decisioning. Keep in mind that people will forgive many things where trust exists, but will rarely forgive anything where trust is absent.
2. Get personal: There is great truth in the axiom that states: “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Classic business theory tells leaders to stay at arms length. I say stay at arms length if you want to remain in the dark receiving only highly sanitized versions of the truth. If you don’t develop meaningful relationships with people you’ll never know what’s really on their mind until it’s too late to do anything about it.
Most importantly, it means letting go of any preconceived notion of finding “the one right way” to communicate change. No “transformation formula” lasts forever. In fact, the best change-communication techniques aren’t found in any single source or strategy. The most effective guidelines evolve in response to a series of questions:
Question #1 – What is the employees’ perspective?
Front-line employees deal regularly with customers and observe first-hand the issues, challenges, and successes of those they serve. The IT department sees advances in technology before the rest of the organization has adapted to the last update. Professionals throughout the company attend association meetings and have access to experts in their field. Your organization has hired the best and the brightest – and your task is to tap their expertise, points of view, and concerns. The first question to ask is: “What do employees think?”
Question #2 – Did you “set the stage” for change?
The best time to discuss the forces of change is well in advance of an organization’s response to them. Everyone in the organization needs a realistic appreciation of the precursors of change and transformation – the impact of globalization, market fluctuations, technological innovations, societal and demographic changes in the customer base, new products/services of competitors, new government and regulatory decisions. And here technology can be a great asset. Although it certainly shouldn’t be the only medium, the intranet can be a timely vehicle for competitive and industry information.
Question #3 – How will you track employee perceptions?
Employee interaction and feedback loops help communicators track the level of workforce comprehension. Whether you supply an email box or a phone number for individuals to ask questions about the change, use online surveys to query a sampling of the workforce, or create Communication Advisory Teams to represent their fellow workers, the greatest advantages come when organizational feedback is gathered immediately after the delivery of an important message.Question #4 – Do you have honest answers to tough questions?
Not only can employees tolerate honest disclosure, they are increasingly demanding it. And when it comes to change, employees want straight answers to these tough questions:
* Will I keep my job?
* How will pay and benefits be affected?
* How will this affect my opportunities for advancement?
* Will I have a new boss?
* What new skills will I need?
* What will be expected of me?
* How will I be trained/supported for the new challenges?
* How will I be measured?
* What are the rewards or consequences?
Question #5 – Can you answer the most important question: What’s in it for them?
There are personal advantages to be found in almost every change, but people may need help discovering what the advantages are. Sometimes employees just need to be guided through a few questions: What are your career goals? What are the skills you would like to learn? What job-related experiences would you like have? In what ways might this change help you to fulfill some of your personal objectives?
Question #6 – Have you narrowed the “say-do” gap?
Organizations send two concurrent sets of messages about change. Formal communication is what companies “say” to employees about the organization and its goals. Informal communication is what the company “does” in terms of rewards, compensation, training, leadership behavior, organizational structure, etc. to demonstrate and support what it says. For today’s skeptical employee audiences, rhetoric without action quickly disintegrates into empty slogans and company propaganda.
Question #7- Who’s vision is it?
Effective communicators understand the power of vision to imbue people with a sense of purpose, direction and energy. But if the vision belongs only to top management, it will never be an effective force for transformation. In the end, people have to feel that the vision belongs to them. The power of a vision comes truly into play only when the employees themselves have had some part in its creation. So the communicator’s role moves from crafting executive speeches to facilitating interactive events.Question #8 – Can you paint the big-little picture?
Vision is the big picture, and it is crucial to the success of the enterprise. But along with the big picture, people also need the little picture so they know where their contribution fits into the corporate strategy. And here’s where first-line supervisors can be the most effective communicators. In face-to-face discussions with their team members, supervisors become a vital link in turning the organizational vision into practical and meaningful actions.
Question #9 – Are you emotionally literate?
People have to understand the rationale for change – the business case, the marketplace reality. But change is more than just the logic behind it. Large-scale organizational change almost invariably triggers the same sequence of emotional reactions — denial, negativity, a choice point, acceptance, and commitment. Communicators who track this emotional process design strategies that help people accept and move through the various stages.
Question #10 – Are you telling stories?
Good stories are more powerful than plain facts. This is not to reject the value in facts, of course, but simply to recognize their limits in influencing people. People make decisions based on what facts mean to them, not on the facts themselves. Stories give facts meaning. Stories resonate with adults in ways that can bring them back to a childlike open-mindedness – and make them less resistant to experimentation and change.
Question #11 – Do you know how change really gets communicated?
Town hall meetings in which senior leaders speak openly about change, great stories that embody the spirit of change, well-designed intranets filled with pertinent information about the forces and progress of change, interactive “transformation sessions” in which a cross-section of the organization co-creates a vision and develops the strategy, online employee surveys that query and monitor a work force as it deals with the nuances of change, icons and symbols and signage that visually reinforce change, and (especially) first-line supervisors who are trained and prepared to engage their direct reports in a dialogue about what change means to them – these are (and will remain) vital tools for communicators. But, as powerful as they are, these are formal communication channels operating within the organizational hierarchy. And a single informal channel, the company grapevine, can undermine them all.In the hallways, around the water cooler or coffee pot, over the telephone, as part of a blog, in rouge web sites, and through e-mail messages, news is exchanged and candid opinions are offered. It is during these “off-line” exchanges and daily conversations that people decide whether or not to support change. Want to dramatically improve the effectiveness of your change communication? Then find ways to identify, involve, and enlist your organization’s social networks and informal opinion leaders.
Question #12 – Are you positioning change as an event or a corporate mindset?
– Carol Kinsey Goman
6-1-05
By the year 2011, the leading edge of the Baby Boom workforce will be 65 years old – eligible for full retirement. And that generation’s collective wisdom will leave with them unless it has been transferred to younger employees. Which in turn makes succession planning and knowledge sharing increasing important to an organization’s financial strategy.
Effective leadership is a crucial source of competitive advantage, and corporations can’t just wait for leaders to arrive, fully developed. Organizations must actively seek out people with leadership potential and find ways to nurture and develop that potential. It takes a serious commitment of both time and resources to do it right. But that is the key to what separates great companies from good companies. Great companies make developing leaders a priority.
Here’s how . . .
The process begins with the early identification of leadership talent, and the realization that under certain circumstances, leadership potential is easy to spot. In an area of complex problems or in times of crisis, there are people who organically rise to the top. They are proactive, reliable, thoughtful, and they automatically take control. These natural leaders speak up – and other people listen to them because they’re providing solutions, not just stating problems.
Joseph Pieroni, president of Sankyo Pharma, notes the emergence of informal leadership in his organization: “Every time we are in a tough situation, people point to the same two or three individuals because we feel confident these ‘leaders’ will go well beyond their area of responsibility – and do whatever is needed.”
Identifying new leaders is something that all current leaders should be responsible for – and that policy is most effective if it starts at the top. CEOs and presidents need to spend time focused on this issue, assessing leadership strengths as well as current and future organizational requirements. And leadership development should start early. Ten or fifteen years before a person is expected to be at their full potential, current management should be discussing how to develop this individual. The most valuable conversation will center on how people use their time: How can their skills be leveraged in new ways? Who needs to know these people? Who should be working with them, coaching and mentoring them? What experiences would be the most advantageous?
Spotting potential leaders is also a smart move for managers who want to advance their own careers. As one savvy leader told me, “The minute I begin a new assignment, I start looking for people who can be groomed as my successor. I know that I won’t be able to take the next step until someone else can take over my current job.”
The head of Ketchum’s brand practice, also the associate director of their New York office, was offered the director position in Atlanta as a way of rounding out her expertise. That was a decision made to advance her career, and looked at from the standpoint of what would add the most value for her. Another example from Ketchum is a director from the San Francisco office who was moved to a leadership role in London so that he could gain international experience.
But leadership development isn’t only about acquiring business skills. It’s also about effective mental preparation. According to Bob Dilenschneider, CEO of The Dilenschneider Group, the key is learning to keep a sense of perspective: “Keeping your balance at all times can be extremely difficult. Since leaders play the game at the highest and lowest levels, they experience the glory of the victories as well as the disappointment of setbacks and failures. The trick is not to let the glory go to your head nor let the disappointments devastate you.”
I agree with Bob. Giving people the freedom to succeed and fail – and the guidance to help them deal with both – may be the best leadership development strategy of all.
What I have below is clearly not exhaustive, but they are the ideas that really resonated with me as a recruiter. Also, as we all know, many vital corporate communications skills are clearly timeless and I’ve tried not to put too much overlap of them here.
Increased Importance Of Ethics And Corporate Social Responsibility Considerations.
The concept of transparency as it pertains to the modern enterprise is relatively new and hugely transformational. Because of current and future technology, our organizations are going to be transparent whether we like it or not. We’re all living, or will shortly be living, in glass houses. As a result, it’s going to be largely up to the top communications leaders within the company to make sure this fact represents an opportunity and not a restriction. The silver lining of the existence of the challenge posed by transparency from the communications person’s point of view is that, if it’s within her purview, it gives her a lot more leverage for influence internally — and should mean even greater access to and cooperation from C-level executives.
Greater Flexibility In Writing And Speaking Style.
My PR friends tell me that in many cases the press isn’t the primary audience for their press releases anymore. More often they’re writing them for the end users, or they’re presenting the information in a short, web friendly video. As a result the savvy communications pro is very careful about balancing the use of conversational-style writing and speaking with the more formal, “professional” style. Use of the proper voice and tone in the company’s various channels of communication is key, and while it’s a task that in and of itself may not be that hard on a case by case basis, we have to remember that it all has to be integrated seamlessly with the overall messaging and marketing activities.
More Metrics And Quantitatively Oriented.
There is clearly debate about the extent to which lead generation and lead nurturing could and should play a role in what PR people are going to be asked to do in the near future, at least as it pertains to their role driving social media initiatives for their companies. What’s really not debatable is that the need to analyze what people do on the web (and how much they do it) will continue to grow. That means looking at numbers, data, statistics — web analytics. There’s no escaping it. Communications experts are going to need to know their stuff here, especially if they want to gain respect and get more influence with top management.
It takes a village – or at least a workforce. Over the past 23 years, I’ve worked with a variety of very talented leaders, and one thing I know for sure: As talented as a leader may be, he (or she) can’t transform an organization, a department or a team without the support and engagement of others. Whether the change involves creating new products, services, processes – or a total reinvention of how the organization must look, operate, and position itself for the future – success dictates that the individuals impacted by change be involved in the change from the very beginning.“I think that people will challenge any leader who states, ‘here’s where we’re going!’ before asking the question ‘where do you think we should be going?’ The most powerful leadership strategy is to allow the group to come to their own conclusions about what the challenges and solutions are.”Joseph P. Pieroni, President, Sankyo Pharma
Visioning is a team sport. Today’s most successful leaders guide their organizations through transformation not through command and control, but through a shared purpose and vision. Leaders adopt and communicate a vision of the future that impels people beyond the boundaries and limits of the past. But if the future vision belongs only to top management, it will never be an effective force for change. The power of a vision comes truly into play only when the employees themselves have had some part in its creation.
“We created a vision for the future by engaging everyone in that conversation. Vision facilitators guided the process for the national organization, at each and every affiliate, and among the different constituents — medical directors, clinic directors, educators, etc. Although my views were strongly represented, everyone’s input was considered. The result is a cohesive vision that is owned by the entire organization.”
Gloria Feldt, President, Planned Parenthood Federation
Diversity is crucial to harnessing the full power of collaboration. Experiments at the University of Michigan found that, when challenged with a difficult problem, groups composed of highly adept members performedworse than groups whose members had varying levels of skill and knowledge. The reason for this seemingly odd outcome has to do with the power of diverse thinking. Group members who think alike or are trained in similar disciplines with similar bases of knowledge run the risk of becoming insular in their ideas. Instead of exploring alternatives, a confirmation bias takes over and members tend to reinforce one another’s predisposition. Diversity causes people to consider perspectives and possibilities that would otherwise be ignored.
The following is excerpted from a letter to Marriott managers from the Lodging Director of Diversity:
“We must begin to see diversity as an asset to our business and encourage the special talents and diverse perspectives of each associate to produce quality service of superior value for all of our customers.”
Answer: Location, location, location.
Answer: Communication, communication, communication.
Which is not to say that the top-down cascade communication strategies of the past are sufficient. They’re not. What is taking their place is a broader, more inclusive definition of communication. Here are five ways to add strategic value to your change communications.
1. Don’t just recite the facts – interpret them.
Facts are neutral. People make decisions based on what facts mean to them, not on the data itself. What people really want to know is, “What sense do you make of this? What is the conclusion? What does it mean to us?”
2. Utilize the power of symbolic communication.
There are a thousand ways to communicate symbolically. There are ceremonies, awards, logos, icons, drawings, and metaphors. Best of all, there are real-life leadership behaviors that “speak” volumes.
Folks at BBC still remember when Michael Grade, then controller and now director-general of BBC One, visited the news department one day when they were short-staffed. He pitched in and acted as a junior researcher to cover a shipwreck incident, finding a member of the coast guard to interview. That example raced through the company grapevine to become a positive symbol of corporate culture change.
3. Tell more stories.
Storytelling is an important tool to connect with audiences on an emotional level. In communication terms, storytelling is a “pull” strategy, in which listeners are invited to participate in the experience and to imagine acting in the mental movie that the storyteller is presenting. Stories resonate with adults in ways that can bring them back to a childlike open-mindedness — in which they are less resistant to new and different ideas.
4. Turn first line supervisors into first-rate communicators.
There’s little doubt that one’s direct boss is a crucial link in the change-communication delivery system. Who better to align employee efforts to the change goals? But most first-line supervisor are lacking a key communication element.
While consulting for a utility company in New York, I was observing several supervisors delivering a change message to their teams. As you would expect, there was a great variety of styles and expertise on display: Some managers were glib ad-libbers while others were stilted and read from a script. Some were well liked and others were barely tolerated by the people they managed. But all the supervisors had one weakness in common. Not one of them had the training or skills to turn a monologue into a dialogue.
5. Harvest the grapevine.
Research suggests that up to 70% of all organization information circulates through the grapevine, yet few communicators have taken advantage of the informal channels in their organizations. Gossip moves through people who gravitate into an intermediate position, making connections between individuals and factions. Those who control the gossip flow hold a lot of power.
Further investigations were made, and finally it was discovered that the statue had been sculpted by forgers in Rome. The teams of analysts who did the 14 months of research turned out to be wrong. The historians who relied on their initial hunches were right.
I especially like this story because it aligns so strongly with my research in organizational creativity. Whether they call it a hunch, a gut feeling, or a flash of insight, thousands of successful managers and executives make business decisions using their intuition. Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and Conrad Hilton are famous examples of executives who relied heavily on intuitive business decisions. A story about Conrad Hilton highlights the value of what was referred to as “one of Connie’s hunches.” There was to be a sealed bid on a New York property. Hilton evaluated its worth at $159,000. and prepared a bid in that amount. He slept that night and upon awakening, the figure $174,000 stood out in his mind. He changed the bid and submitted the higher figure. It won. The next highest bid was $173,000. He subsequently sold the property for several million dollars.
At the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Douglas Dean studied the relationship between intuition and business success. He found that 80 percent of executives whose companies’ profits had more than doubled in the past five years had above average precognitive powers. Management professor Weston Agor of the University of Texas in El Paso found that of the 2,000 managers he tested, higher-level managers had the top scores in intuition. Most of these executives first digested all the relevant information and data available, but when the data was conflicting or incomplete, they relied on intuitive approaches to come to a conclusion.
Computer whiz Allan Huang had puzzled for months over a recurring dream in which two opposing armies of sorcerers’ apprentices carried pails filled with data. Most nights, the two armies marched toward each other but stopped just short of confrontation. Other times they collided, tying themselves into a big red knot. Then one night, something different happened – the armies marched right into each other, but with no collision. Instead, they passed harmlessly through each other like light passing through light.
In all of our brains, there is a powerful subconscious process, which works to sift huge amounts of information, blend data, isolate telling details, and come to astonishingly rapid conclusions. Our job is to better understand that process so we can nurture it, trust it, and use it!
Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. is the author of nine books including CREATIVITY IN BUSINESS and “THIS ISN’T THE COMPANY I JOINED” — How to Lead in a Business Turned Upside Down. She delivers keynote speeches and seminars to association and business audiences around the world. For more information or to book Carol as a speaker at one of your events, please call: 510-526-1727, email: CGoman@CKG.com, or visit her website: http://www.CKG.com.
Here’s my view on “leaders.” I believe that everyone can – and should – lead from wherever one is inside an organization, irrespective of level, title, or whether one manages others or not.
To survive today, every organization needs people willing to lead at every level and in every position. What’s more, leading is one way in which everyone can continue to contribute and more importantly grow.
It’s a win-win.
The trick is being able to use your influence to get others to follow you. One can’t be a leader – no matter the definition – without followers.
In what ways do you lead, and how can you get more followers?
Michael Dell simply gets it. He understands that businesses can no longer afford to rest on their laurels while the digital bazaar transforms the world around them. More importantly, however, Dell understands that in order to promote change he must lead by example. No executive has all the solutions to the many questions surrounding the shifting corporate landscape, but at least Dell isn’t afraid to look for the answers.
Using Dell as our model of forward-thinking leadership, I offer these seven traits of what it takes to be an affective social executive. Fidelman has expertly identified the traits of those executives unafraid or incapable of changing with the times, but now it’s time to seek out the antidote.
#1 The Malleable Mind
Think of the “Malleable Mind” as the counter to Fidelman’s “Short Sleeve Fat Tie Executive.” Whereas Fat Tie Execs expect to be sole originators of all ideas, cruelly dictating company agenda from the confines of their office, Malleable Minds value the input of their employees. They aren’t threatened by change—in fact they’re often excited by it, and actively encourage an environment of new ideas and approaches. Malleable Minds recognize that employee initiative and collaboration are essential cornerstones of the social business, and they encourage their workers to utilize social media and discuss new ideas that might improve day-to-day operations. Malleable Minds know that you can’t keep a good idea down for long, and see it as their job to absorb information and help put ideas into motion.
Identifiable Traits – Malleable Minds understand that they’re not the only ones with good ideas. They are unburdened by ego, actively seek feedback on their own initiatives and welcome the opinions of others. They understand that respect is earned not through an iron fist, but through and open mind. They may be the boss, but they do not take their positions for granted.
The number one thing great communicators have in common is they possess a heightened sense of situational and contextual awareness. The best communicators are great listeners and astute in their observations. Great communicators are skilled a reading a person/group by sensing the moods, dynamics, attitudes, values and concerns of those being communicated with.
So, how do you know when your skills have matured to the point that you’ve become an excellent communicator? The answer is you’ll have reached the point where your interactions with others consistently use the following ten principles:
1. Speak not with a forked tongue: In most cases, people just won’t open up those they don’t trust. When people have a sense a leader is worthy of their trust they will invest time and take risks in ways they would not if their leader had a reputation built upon poor character or lack of integrity. While you can attempt to demand trust, it rarely works. Trust is best created by earning it with right acting, thinking, and decisioning. Keep in mind that people will forgive many things where trust exists, but will rarely forgive anything where trust is absent.
2. Get personal: There is great truth in the axiom that states: “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Classic business theory tells leaders to stay at arms length. I say stay at arms length if you want to remain in the dark receiving only highly sanitized versions of the truth. If you don’t develop meaningful relationships with people you’ll never know what’s really on their mind until it’s too late to do anything about it.
By Elise Roaf
“The leaders we need are already here.” These magic words come from Margaret Wheatley, co-founder of the Berkana Institute (www.berkana.org). The Institute is a worldwide community of people who recognize the need for change in communities, organizations and nations and who offer their leadership to help resolve the most pressing local problems.
Of leaders, she says, “We define a leader as anyone who wants to help, who is willing to step forward to make a difference in the world. We know that the world is blessed with an abundance of these leaders.”
These are good words to live by in our own organizations too. In yesterday’s model, leaders were singular and appointed. Leaders were at the top of the heap by virtue of title. Others were deemed followers. Leaders were expected to know all the answers and by force of will to get followers somewhere. By virtue of this model leaders held power and followers did what they were told.
Today’s leaders can emerge from any part of an organization. Rather than being given the title, leaders choose for themselves to make a difference and take action to do so. They see themselves not as experts but as learners. Rather than focusing on heroism and control they focus on enabling others to succeed.
This brings us back to Margaret Wheatley. About 15 years ago she began writing about the connection between living organisms and organizations. “Every living thing seeks to create a world in which it can thrive. It does this by creating systems of relationships where all members of the system benefit from their connections,” she wrote. “As the system develops, new capacities emerge from … working together. Looking at what a self-organizing system creates leads to the realization that the system can do for itself what leaders have felt was necessary to do to the systems they control.”
Wheatley urges leaders in self-organizing systems – and, by the way, all organizations are self-organizing — to abandon the fear-based practice of command and control. “We have to ask ourselves, “How much trust do I really have in the people who work here?”
And what is the reward for embracing a more participative approach? “Those leaders…tell of their astonishment,” she says. “They are overwhelmed by the capacity, energy, creativity, commitment and even love that they receive from the people in their organization.”
It sounds like Utopia. Trusting leaders can bring about an astonishing array of positive results. And anyone can be a leader. If, as Wheatley says, “the leaders we need are already here,” what are the attributes of today’s leaders? How can we prepare ourselves to become a leader? How do we step forward and nominate ourselves for the job? Stay tuned.
Excerpt from an interview with Bob Pozen, author of Extreme Productivity: Boost Your Results, Reduce Your Hours.
In this hyper-connected world, it’s easy to get distracted. How do you recommend workers stay focused?
Email and mobile phones can be great contributors to productivity, but also great detractors by wasting lots of time. So I urge you to ignore a large chunk of your emails and then use OHIO—short for “only handle it once”—for the important ones. If an email is important, respond to it immediately. If you wait a few days, you will forget it or take several minutes to find it again. As to your cell phone, I strongly urge you to get a separate ring tone for your boss so that you can easily ignore all other after-hours calls if you so desire. And make an agreement with your boss that you’ll be unreachable during certain times—such as family dinner. Don’t be afraid to “unplug”—turn off your phone, and close your laptop.
What is the best way to efficiently use your time at the office?
To use your time efficiently at work, you need to prepare in advance. First, you should write down your goals for the next week and the next year, and then carefully consider which ones are most important to you and your organization. Next, you should each night go over your schedule for the next day and see if it is consistent with your highest priorities. You might find that your schedule is mainly reactive to the needs of others, rather than your own goals. To better align your schedule with your priorities, don’t be afraid to decline invitations to unnecessary meetings, and recognize that certain tasks only require a quick and dirty effort.
Read full interview by Dan Schawbel in Forbes
My class at HBS is structured to help my students understand what good management theory is and how it is built. To that backbone I attach different models or theories that help students think about the various dimensions of a general manager’s job in stimulating innovation and growth. In each session we look at one company through the lenses of those theories—using them to explain how the company got into its situation and to examine what managerial actions will yield the needed results.
On the last day of class, I ask my students to turn those theoretical lenses on themselves, to find cogent answers to three questions: First, how can I be sure that I’ll be happy in my career? Second, how can I be sure that my relationships with my spouse and my family become an enduring source of happiness? Third, how can I be sure I’ll stay out of jail? Though the last question sounds lighthearted, it’s not. Two of the 32 people in my Rhodes scholar class spent time in jail. Jeff Skilling of Enron fame was a classmate of mine at HBS. These were good guys—but something in their lives sent them off in the wrong direction.
Management is the most noble of professions if it’s practiced well. No other occupation offers as many ways to help others learn and grow, take responsibility and be recognized for achievement, and contribute to the success of a team. More and more MBA students come to school thinking that a career in business means buying, selling, and investing in companies. That’s unfortunate. Doing deals doesn’t yield the deep rewards that come from building up people.
I want students to leave my classroom knowing that.
Create a Strategy for Your Life
A theory that is helpful in answering the second question—How can I ensure that my relationship with my family proves to be an enduring source of happiness?—concerns how strategy is defined and implemented. Its primary insight is that a company’s strategy is determined by the types of initiatives that management invests in. If a company’s resource allocation process is not managed masterfully, what emerges from it can be very different from what management intended. Because companies’ decision-making systems are designed to steer investments to initiatives that offer the most tangible and immediate returns, companies shortchange investments in initiatives that are crucial to their long-term strategies.
Over the years I’ve watched the fates of my HBS classmates from 1979 unfold; I’ve seen more and more of them come to reunions unhappy, divorced, and alienated from their children. I can guarantee you that not a single one of them graduated with the deliberate strategy of getting divorced and raising children who would become estranged from them. And yet a shocking number of them implemented that strategy. The reason? They didn’t keep the purpose of their lives front and center as they decided how to spend their time, talents, and energy.
It’s quite startling that a significant fraction of the 900 students that HBS draws each year from the world’s best have given little thought to the purpose of their lives. I tell the students that HBS might be one of their last chances to reflect deeply on that question. If they think that they’ll have more time and energy to reflect later, they’re nuts, because life only gets more demanding: You take on a mortgage; you’re working 70 hours a week; you have a spouse and children.
For me, having a clear purpose in my life has been essential. But it was something I had to think long and hard about before I understood it. When I was a Rhodes scholar, I was in a very demanding academic program, trying to cram an extra year’s worth of work into my time at Oxford. I decided to spend an hour every night reading, thinking, and praying about why God put me on this earth. That was a very challenging commitment to keep, because every hour I spent doing that, I wasn’t studying applied econometrics. I was conflicted about whether I could really afford to take that time away from my studies, but I stuck with it—and ultimately figured out the purpose of my life.
Had I instead spent that hour each day learning the latest techniques for mastering the problems of autocorrelation in regression analysis, I would have badly misspent my life. I apply the tools of econometrics a few times a year, but I apply my knowledge of the purpose of my life every day. It’s the single most useful thing I’ve ever learned. I promise my students that if they take the time to figure out their life purpose, they’ll look back on it as the most important thing they discovered at HBS. If they don’t figure it out, they will just sail off without a rudder and get buffeted in the very rough seas of life. Clarity about their purpose will trump knowledge of activity-based costing, balanced scorecards, core competence, disruptive innovation, the four Ps, and the five forces.
My purpose grew out of my religious faith, but faith isn’t the only thing that gives people direction.
These three tips gave me a big lift in energy (and overall performance):
- Commit to an hour of exercise a day: In the book Younger Next Year, I read about a plan calling for an hour per day of exercise, six days per week. I started this plan a year ago, and the payoff has been an extra one and a half to two hours of peak energy per day, which keeps me focused and productive.
- Set your priorities: You’re a leader; you know how to get things done. So decide what your real priorities are, and then make sure you make time for those–and skip the less important stuff.
- Eat better, whenever you can: You may not always eat well, but you probably know already which eating choices you should change. The trick is to avoid the “all or none” mental trap. If you can’t sustain an eating regimen for the rest of your life, then by default it is a fad diet for you. Better to make better choices that you can make forever.
Read full article via inc.com
Good little inspirational reminder that it’s way to easy to stay busy doing good work. But good work only keeps you in the game. It takes great work to change the game, so focus and take some risks. Watch video
Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. is an executive coach, leadership consultant, and international keynote speaker at corporate, government, and association events. She’s a expert contributor for The Washington Post’s “On Leadership” column, a leadership blogger on Forbes.com, a business body language columnist for “the Market” magazine, and the author of “THE SILENT LANGUAGE OF LEADERS: How Body Language Can help – or Hurt – How You Lead.” To contact Carol about speaking or coaching, call 510-526-172 or email CGoman@CKG.com. To more information or to view videos, visit Carol’s website: http://www.SilentLanguageOfLeaders.com.
4. Walking the stage
Jobs is famous for “prowling” the stage, and it is an effective communication strategy because the human brain is programmed to pay attention to movement, and it keeps an audience from becoming bored.
You can expect Cook to also walk the stage while speaking. But notice if he moves constantly. He shouldn’t. He’ll be most effective combining movement with physical pauses in which he stands absolutely still to highlight a key point.
5. Showing passion
Like all great speakers, Jobs uses hand gestures to underscore what’s important and to express feelings, needs and convictions. And he keeps most of his gesture between the waist and shoulders.
7. Keeping it visual
Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. is an executive coach, change-management consultant, and international keynote speaker at corporate, government, and association events. She’s an expert contributor for The Washington Post’s “On Leadership” column, a leadership blogger on Forbes.com, a columnist for “the Market” magazine, and the author of “THE SILENT LANGUAGE OF LEADERS: How Body Language Can help – or Hurt – How You Lead.”
There has been some lamentation of late for the apparent “decline of the internal communicator”, a mere decade since the “rise and rise” of said species was proclaimed in London headhunter Nick Helsby’s “The Rise of the Internal Communicator.” Indeed, with a supine employment market and an increasing preference for junior or implementational practitioners for organisation-wide IC roles, one could get a sense that the profession is in a state of inexorable decline.
But such a view belies both the role of the “social media revolution” and greater sophistication within organisations about the relative value of specific internal and external audiences.
What we are starting to see in organisations is a shift in strategic emphasis from one-size-fits-all internal and external messaging towards communication approaches that target and engage smaller but higher-value audiences. On the external side, instead of focusing on 10 reporters, the focus is beginning to shift towards, perhaps, 100 or 1000 decision-makers and high impact stakeholders. Communication is becoming more direct, and also more mediated. But the mediation is less through broadcast sources, and more through individuals who have social or peer credibility within these higher value audiences.
In truth, this has been how many internal comms practitioners have been operating for years, perhaps even while seemingly maintaining their channel mixes as their “day jobs”. Certainly, change communicators ignore the existence of smaller, higher-value, “tribal” audiences at their own peril as these are the main constituencies capable of giving change velocity and credibility. While social media did not by any means invent the smaller, higher-value, tribal constituency, social tools now make those audiences far easier to identify, reach and mobilise today than before.
Indeed, the application of social tools make clear that external audiences behave much more like internal “tribes” than traditionally thought – with complex interrelationships, clearly acknowledged leaders, and common interests, values and ambitions.
If we are moving from an emphasis on audience spread (broadcasting) towards one on audience value (narrowcasting, targeting and relationship building), then the future actually augurs better for more sophisticated and even more mature internal communicators than some currently think.
For internal communicators have had both the opportunity to analyse and prioritise elements of their employee masses through stakeholder mapping exercises, and have held a variety of formal and informal tools with which to engage their stakeholders directly. Even if those skills are less part of the job definition for a “Head of Internal Communication” today (a role which is likely to become more general and tactical), they will become more in demand for roles dealing with specific internal and external agendas – change communication roles internally, social communication roles internally and externally, and external stakeholder management.
At the same time, recruiters are often the last people to get the memo on such things, which is why the market may well trail these trends for a while. But the trend towards a focus on audience value is borne out both by what is happening in the industry and by the adoption of social communication technologies – focusing on fewer people who have greater impact. Those who can do this are those most likely to succeed, and it’s an area where internal communication pros have the edge.
Mike Klein is Communication Partner at Maersk Oil in Copenhagen and is the author of From Lincoln to LinkedIn – The 55 Minute Guide to Social Communication. His thoughts are his own and not necessarily that of his employer.
