There is so much written about leadership and so much information, so it’s helpful to have some indication of useful topics and resources to explore further as you have the interest and need. Included here are:
Reading List: Books Pages 2-3
Quotes: o Leadership Quotes: Pages 4-7 o Team Quotes: Pages 8-9 o Change Quotes: Page 10 o Delegation Quotes: Page 11 o Courage Quotes: Page 12 o Creativity Quotes: Page 13
A selection of articles on leadership topics from the AskRoxi Monthly Newsletters and National Publications. Pages 14-25
Template for a “Letter to Myself” that you may find useful reading in about 3-‐6 months from now. Page 26
The www.AskRoxi.com website will continue to evolve with new topics, connections to other leaders, new courses, new articles, and more.
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I applaud you for investing in yourself and I thank you for trusting me to help guide you on your leadership journey.
Today and tomorrow and tomorrow… lead like it matters, because it does!
Leadership Self-Insight: 1. Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-‐Deception 2. Arriens, Angeles, The Fourfold Way 3. Dotlich, Cairo, Why CEO’s Fail 4. Finkelstein, Sydney, Why Smart Executives Fail 5. Goldberg, Natalie, Writing Down the Bones 6. Goldsmith, Marshall, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There 7. Goleman, Daniel, Emotional Intelligence 8. Goleman and Boyatzia and McKee, Primal Leadership 9. Jaworski, Joe, Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership 10. Klein and Napier, The Courage to Act 11. Koestenbaum, Peter, Leadership: The Inner Side of Greatness 12. Miller, John, Personal Accountability 13. Leider, Richard, The Power of Purpose 14. Pink, Daniel, A Whole New Mind 15. Sandberg, Sheryl, Lean In 16. Scott, Susan, Fierce Conversations 17. Tieger, Barron, Do What You Are Leadership Models and Insights: 18. Abrashoff, D. Michael, It’s Your Ship 19. Bennis, Warren, On Becoming a Leader 20. Bennis, Warren, Leaders 21. Block, Peter, Stewardship 22. Covey, Steven, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People 23. DePree, Max, Leadership is an Art; and Leadership Jazz 24. Feiner, Michael, The Feiner Points of Leadership 25. Kouzes and Posner,The Leadership Challenge 26. Magretta, Joan, What Management Is 27. McDaniel and Napier, Measure What Matters 28. Pfeffer and Sutton, The Knowing-‐Doing Gap 29. Ruben, Brent, Pursuing Excellence in Higher Education 30. Useem, Michael, Leading Up; and The Leadership Moment 31. Watkins and Mohr, Appreciative Inquiry Teams and Groups: 32. Johnson, David and Frank, Joining Together: Group Theory and Group Skills 33. Katzenbach, Jon, The Wisdom of Teams 34. Hackman, John, Groups that Work and Those that Don’t 35. Hewertson, RB, How to Build a Space Station 36. Loehr, Swartz, The Power of Full Engagement 37. Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, Switzer, Crucial Conversations 38. Reina, Trust and Betrayal in the Workplace
Organizational Change: 39. Argyris, Chris, Overcoming Organizational Defenses 40. Bunker and Alban, Large Group Interventions 41. Collins, Jim, Good to Great 42. Conner, Daryl, Managing at the Speed of Change 43. Covey, Stephen, The Speed of Trust 44. Gladwell, Malcolm, The Tipping Point 45. Kotter, John, Leading Change 46. Kotter and Heskett, Corporate Culture and Performance 47. Napier and Gershenfeld, Groups Theory and Experience 48. Napier and Sidle and Sanaghan, High Impact Tools and Activities for Strategic Planning 49. Owen, Harrison, Open Space Technology 50. Senge, Peter, The Fifth Discipline; and The Fifth Discipline Field Book 51. Schein, Edgar, The Corporate Culture Survival Guide 52. Weisbord, Marvin, Productive Workplaces 53. Wheatley, Margaret, Leadership and the New Science Leadership and the Heart: 54. Greeleaf, Robert, Servant Leadership 55. Kohl, Donelan, Leading from the Heart 56. Terry, Robert, Authentic Leadership: Courage in Action 57. Vaill, Peter, Learning as a Way of Being 58. White, Davyd, The Heart Aroused 59. Sidle, C. Clinton, The Leadership Wheel
LEADERSHIP QUOTES Roxi Hewertson: When a leader whispers, it is often heard as a shout. Don Juan: The difference between an ordinary person and a warrior is an ordinary person will consider a challenge a burden, while an extraordinary person will take it on as an opportunity Eleanor Roosevelt: The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. Victor Frankl: We detect rather than invent our missions in life. Georg WF Hegel: We may affirm that absolutely nothing great in this world has been achieved without passion. Dr. Joyce Brothers: The person interested in success has to learn to view failure as a healthy, inevitable part of the process of getting to the top. Harriet Tubman: Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world. Harriet Tubman Mahatma Gandhi: Be the change you wish to see in the world. Carl Jung: We discover ourselves through others. Reinholdt Neihbur: Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference between the two”. Sister Mary Lauretta: To be successful, the first thing to do is fall in love with your work. Albert Einstein: Try not to be a person of success, but a person of value Helen Keller: Many people have the wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-‐gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Anita Hill: I did what my conscience told me to do, and you can't fail if you do that. Wayne Gretsky: You miss 100 % of the shots you never take. Albert Einstein: A perfection of means and a confusion of aims seems to be our main problem. Aristotle: We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Simone de Beauvoir: One’s life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others through friendship, love and compassion. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least. Martin Luther King: The time is always right to do what is right. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: It does not matter so much where we are … as the direction we are moving. Indira Gandhi: My grandfather once told me there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to be in the first group – there is much less competition. Winston Churchill: Play for more than you can afford to lose, and you will learn the game. William James: The great use for life is to spend it on something that will outlast it. Lily Tomlin: Trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat. (Leroy) Eldridge Cleaver: You’re either part of the solution or part of the problem. Ella Baker: Give light and people will find the way. Robert Louis Stevenson: Don’t judge the day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you plant. Mary Parker Follett: The most successful leader of all is the one who sees another picture not yet actualized. Emerson: What you are shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say. Helen Keller: Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind. Oliver Wendell Holmes: What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. Peter Drucker: Management is doing things right, leadership is doing the right things. Virginia Arcastle: When people feel secure and grounded in their beliefs, it no longer seems necessary to whittle down others in order to seem bigger in comparison. Ralph Waldo Emerson: That which we persist in doing becomes easier – not that the nature of the task has changed, but our ability to do has increased. Ken Blanchard: Good treatment of workers results in similar treatment of customers.
Oprah Winfrey: Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment. Henry Ford: A business that makes nothing but money is a poor kind of business. Elizabeth Kenny: He who angers you, conquers you. Albert Einstein: The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. W. Somerset Maugham: It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. Booker T. Washington: Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which one has overcome while trying to succeed. Rosa Luxemburg: We will be victorious if we have not forgotten how to learn. Nikki Giovanni If you don't understand yourself, you don't understand anybody else. Florence Shinn: The game of life is like a boomerang. Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us sooner or later, with astounding accuracy. Plato: All learning has an emotional base. William Butler Yeats: Education is not the filling of the pail, rather it is the lighting of a fire. Tao Te Ching: When the master makes a mistake, she realizes it. Having realized it, she admits it. Having admitted it, she corrects it. She considers those who point out her faults as her most benevolent teachers. Chinese Proverb: Give a man a fish and you can feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Kahlil Gibran: If the teacher is indeed wise, he does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own. Anita Roddick: If you think you are too small to have impact, try going to bed with a mosquito. Erich Fromm: There is no meaning in life except the meaning man gives his life by the unfolding of his powers. Martin Luther King: The ultimate measure of a person is not where they stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where they stand at times of challenge and controversy. Shirley Hufstedler: If you play it safe in life, you’ve decided that you don’t want to grow anymore.
Confucious: Choose work you love and you will never work another day in your life. John Maxwell: The pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist expects it to change, the leader adjusts the sails. Edith Wharton: There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle, or the mirror that reflects it. Warren Bennis: By examining and understanding the past, we can move into the future unencumbered by it. We become free to express ourselves, rather than endlessly trying to prove ourselves. Marian Wright Edelman: Never work just for money or for power. They won't save your soul or help you sleep at night. Angeles Arrien: Self esteem is enhanced when we walk the mystical path with practical feet. Peter Drucker: The best way to predict the future is to create it. Lachlan McLean: You can only lead others were you yourself are willing to go Chinese Proverb :Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand. Eleanor Roosevelt: No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. Sathya Sai Baba: Some say knowledge is power, but that is not true. Character is power. Marian Wright Edelman: We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.
Roxi Hewertson: Lots of people have different ideas from mine, and I’d be a fool not to listen to them. John D. Rockefeller: I will pay more for the ability to handle people than for any other talent under the sun. John C. Maxwell: Leaders must care for people before they can develop them. Althea Gibson: No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helped you. The key to being a successful skipper is to see the ship through the eyes of the crew. Captain D. Michael Abrasoff Jack Welch: A company cannot distribute self-‐confidence. What it can do, what we must do is to give each of our people the opportunity to dream, risk, and win, and hence earn self-‐confidence. Andrew Carnegie :Take away my people, but leave my factories, and soon grass will be growing onthe factory floor. Take away my factories, but leave my people, and soon we will have a new and better factory. Audre Lorde: It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences. Will Schutz: Everyone is responsible, and no one is to blame. Mark Sanborn: In teamwork, silence isn’t golden, it’s deadly. Dr. Jack Weber : The bottom line is that leadership shows up in the inspired action of others. We traditionally have assessed leaders themselves. But maybe we should assess leadership by the degree to which people around leaders are inspired. Margaret Mead: Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. Dwight D. Eisenhower: It is better to have one person working with you than three people working for you. Lee Iacocca: A major reason capable people fail to advance is that they don’t work well with their colleagues. Babe Ruth:The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have
the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime. Lewis B. Ergen: The ratio of We’s to I’s is the best indicator of the development of a team. Swahili Proverb: It is amazing how much people accomplish if they do not worry about who gets the credit. Doug Floyd:You don't get harmony when everybody sings the same note. Mother Teresa: None of us, including me, ever do great things. But we can all do small things, with great love, and together we can do something wonderful. Mark Sanborn: The greatest danger a team faces isn’t that it won’t become successful, but that it will, and then cease to improve. Casey Stengel: It’s easy to get good players. Getting them to play together, that’s the hard part. Japanese Proverb: A single arrow is easily broken, but not ten in a bundle.
CHANGE QUOTES Roxi Hewertson: I eat change for breakfast – as long as it’s my idea! Charles Darwin: It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. James Baldwin: Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. Benjamin Franklin: When you're finished changing, you're finished. Captain D. Michael Abrashoff: Stasis is death to any organization. Evolve or die: It’s the law of life. John F. Kennedy: Change is the law of life. Those who look only to the past or the present are sure to miss the future. Maya Angelou: All great achievements require time. George Bernard Shaw: Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. Thomas Carlyle” By nature man hates change; seldom will he quit his old home till it has actually fallen around his ears. Norman Vincent Peale: Change your thoughts and you change your world. Margaret J. Wheatley: The things we fear most in organizations—fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances—are the primary source of creativity. Will Rogers: Everything is changing. People are taking the comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke. Roseanne Cash: The key to change is to let go of fear.
DELEGATION QUOTES Roxi Hewertson: I don’t treat people the way I want to be treated, I treat them they way they want to be treated. Timothy Firnstahl: Delegating means letting others become the experts and hence the best. Captain Michael D. Abrashoff: I found that the more control I gave up, the more command I got. John C. Maxwell: People tend to become what the most important people in their lives think they will become. John C. Maxwell: People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care. Mary Kay Ash: There are two things people want more than sex and money and that is praise and recognition. Albert Schweitzer: Modeling may not be the best way to teach; it may be the only way to teach. Chinese Proverb: Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand. Kahlil Gibran: The teacher, if indeed wise, does not bid you to enter the house of their wisdom, but leads you to the threshold of your own mind.
COURAGE QUOTES Roxi Hewertson: If it scares you a little or even a lot, that’s where your work lies. Aristotle: Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts. Clare Booth Luce : Courage is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount. Dorothy Thompson: Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live. Ralph W. Sockman: The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority. Charles Dubois: The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are, for what we could become. John Maxwell: If we are growing, we are always going to be out of our comfort zone. Mark Twain: It is curious—curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare. Edward Gibbon: In the end, they wanted security more than they wanted freedom. (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) Adlai E. Stevenson: All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions. Edmund Burke: Evil triumphs when good men do nothing. Bob Dylan: I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom. Win Borden: If you wait to do everything until you’re sure it’s right, you’ll probably never do much of anything. Chinese Proverb: Consider the Turtle: She makes progress only by sticking her neck out. Lachlan McLean: You can only lead others were you yourself are willing to go.
Roxi Hewertson: If anyone, I mean anyone, tells you you’re not creative, they are lying fools. You were born creative – just think about how many thousands of ideas and solutions you’ve had in your life. I rest my case! Charles Mingus: Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple. Edward De Bono (adapted):Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns to look at things in a different way. Mary Lou Cook: Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun. George Kneller: Creativity, as has been said, consists largely of rearranging what we know in order to find out what we do not know. Hence, to think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted. Anna Freud: Creative minds always have been known to survive any kind of bad training. Sir Cecil Beaton: Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-‐it-‐safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary. Coco Chanel: When I can no longer create anything, I’ll be done for. Edwin H. Land: The essential part of creativity is not being afraid to fail. Gail Sheehy: Creativity can be described as letting go of certainties Arthur Koestler: Creative activity could be described as a type of learning process where teacher and pupil are located in the same individual. Thomas R. Dewar: Minds are like parachutes: they only function when open. Unknown: He who never walks except where he sees other men's tracks will make no discoveries. Voltaire: Originality is nothing but judicious plagiarism. Alan Ashley-‐Pitt: The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd. The man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been.
FIVE THINGS GREAT AND FAILING FINANCIAL LEADERS DO
Financial leaders need to know if they are an “at risk,” or “effective leader” as much as their peers in other disciplines. Success depends entirely on the integrity of their work and their word, and by extension, the work and word of the people they lead. A CFO who fails to effectively lead his/her people, puts the entire organization at risk.
Attitudes and behaviors are the biggest differentiators between great financial leaders and failing ones. They demonstrate the four well-‐researched core emotional intelligence metrics: Self-‐Awareness, Self-‐Management, Social Awareness and Relationship Management. These four factors are directly correlated with leadership attitudes and behaviors that greatly impact a leader’s success or failure.
These five do’s and don’ts focus on attitudes and behaviors that most financial leaders’ training leaves out. They are trained to be star individual contributors, not leaders of other individual contributors. These skill sets are as opposite as credits and debits. Being proficient in numbers, logic, and objectivity ignores the fact that a leader’s success is completely dependent on others’ contributions.
Five Things Great Leaders Do
Read/understand emotions and recognize the impact of them on self and others. By developing an accurate view of, and aptly managing, one’s own emotional responses to situations, the rest of the leader’s skills and talents are magnified and leveraged. These leaders pay close attention to their impact, regularly seeking feedback and acknowledging when their impact and intent are out of synch.
Know one’s strengths and limits. The best leaders understand they can never know and do everything…and don't pretend to. Instead, they recognize what they are good at and leverage those skills. They surround themselves with people who are smarter and more experienced in areas of their own personal gaps, and then listen to them.
Know and have a good sense of one’s own self-worth and capability. There is a big divide between confidence and arrogance. Confidence comes from a strong sense of self-‐worth and self-‐awareness. Arrogance comes from fear in many cases, and a sense of entitlement in others. The best leaders are confident about themselves based on an objective, not assumed point of view.
Think and act with optimism -- see the "upside." There are two kinds of world view attitudes people project in the world—those who think and act through the lens of abundance, and those who think and act through a lens of scarcity. Great leaders go for solutions, new ideas, and silver linings, even in the worst of times. They may change course, but they never give up. They thoughtfully navigate their staffers to a better place—often to places their direct reports didn’t
See and seize opportunities for contributing to the greater good. Despite conventional thinking, great leaders have low ego needs precisely because of their solid confidence and self-‐worth. By not wasting time and energy shining up their image, they free up energy and time. The CFO whose integrity is without question, who is willing to partner with others on her/his team, who listens with an objective ear, and contributes to the greater good of the organization... is the leader who stands out amongst his/her peers.
Five Things Failing Leaders Do
Discount others' emotions and perspective. Failing leaders don't pick up on other people's signals. Or, if they do, they don’t care, demonstrating a fundamental lack of empathy. This emotional intelligence skill relates directly to social awareness. One cannot be a good leader without empathy, period. If the leader has blinders on, he/she will miss important information, ideas and perspective. Such leaders fail while scratching their heads wondering why.
Miss key organizational clues, norms, decision networks and politics. These “leaders” are mostly clueless and leading in name only. They have very little emotional intelligence in terms of self-‐awareness and organizational awareness. They have “organizational blindness.” They miss clues, don’t develop a wide network and they operate like as individual contributor vs. a leader.
Blame others for outcomes. Failing leaders don’t ask; they tell. They need to make someone wrong to be right. The difference between accountability and blame is the way the issue or problem is approached. Asking questions to understand how or where things went wrong allows the leader to "own" the problem and have a candid discussion about the situation and the solutions.
Avoid dealing with and resolving conflicts. Failing leaders avoid dealing with conflicts, or to provide constructive feedback, and they duck key relationship issues. They often think, “If I ignore it, it will go away." Often the conflict grows exponentially until it's a toxic, smelly mess. In short order, this leader will lose credibility as a leader.
Isolate self and/or team from others in the organization. These are the lone wolves who think they—or they and their team—are better/smarter/righter than everyone else. They see themselves in an “us vs. them” proverbial shoot-‐out at the OK Corral. They are happiest in their “silo,” rarely sharing resources or knowledge. They believe no one understands them and if anyone interferes with them, it will dilute their agenda, work, image or results.
Hewertson concludes, “Most leaders can learn, develop and increase their own emotional intelligence. It takes assessment, self-‐motivation, learning, awareness, practice and feedback. Improving one’s emotional intelligence is a life-‐long journey—one that great leaders choose to take!” END
CONNECTIONS = SYNERGY Synergy may be defined as two or more things functioning together to produce a result not independently obtainable. The term synergy comes from the Greek word synergia συνεργία from synergos, συνεργός, meaning "working together.” Without connecting, we can’t have synergy and if we have synergy, we must have connection. Simple to say; not so simple to do. Competition for ways to utilize our time has never, in the history of human kind, been so intense. Yet, if we fail to make time to connect in authentic and meaningful ways with other people, we cannot lead well and our business results will suffer dramatically. Whether the people are your direct reports, your boss, your customers, your peers – your degree of connection and synergy dramatically impact the bottom line. Here are three (3) things you can do to gain loyal followers and customers, influence your peers, improve your relationship with your boss, and have a happier home life (at home, just insert the family members into these examples). 1) Ask don’t tell. I listen to leaders and followers carefully. What I hear much too often is people “telling” others what they think, what they want, what they know. Stephen Covey rightly says – “seek first to understand, then seek to be understood.” This wisdom comes from the native peoples throughout the world and is found in every scripture known to human kind. It’s not surprising that it resonates as truth with all of us. Yet, we are often in too big a hurry to do this simple thing, simply. For example:
Next time you are in a meeting, ask open-‐ended questions that start with “how or what” rather than launching into your own personal agenda about the topic or asking “yes/no” questions.
Next time someone is “venting,” don’t try to “fix” them or shut them up, instead ask them
what they need.
Next time someone tells you they want you to do something that should be their role, ask them what they would do in your place. Look for and find the wisdom between you and make better decisions together.
2) Manage by walking around. This is not a new idea. There really aren’t any new ideas, but there are ways to implement good ideas more easily. When you walk around and take in the “air” around you, you will discover much more than you will by sitting in a chair behind a wall or cubicle or door. You will discover what people have placed in their workspace that matters to them, you’ll hear conversations you’d never hear otherwise, and you’ll be PRESENT. When you do this often, people will get used to you wandering around, they will be more authentic, and you will learn a great deal about your people, peers, colleagues – IF you go with the intention to observe and IF you are open to hear and see and respond to others. For example:
Next time you look at your calendar, randomly book 30 minutes a week or even twice a
week to wander-‐ with no agenda, no plan, no goal. Just wander and come back to your work space and write down what you observed and learned. Be careful not to jump to hasty conclusions – just note your observations and check them out the next week you wander around.
Choose and schedule, again randomly, people to meet with in their space, for lunch, for a walk around the office(s). If you have direct reports, invite them for one on one, no agenda, no goal, chat time. Do this regularly enough and with a heads up so people don’t get scared or worry about your reasons. Tell them you want to learn about them and what matters to them one on one from time to time.
Next time you have a conflict with someone, make time to sit with him or her in a non-‐confrontational moment and place to sort things out and build or rebuild your relationship.
3) Find common ground. It is very rare indeed when two people have nothing in common. You may think you are opposites in many ways, and you will be if you continue to believe that way. However, in my experience, when two people or two groups take a bit of time to look more deeply, they can find common ground, and that powerful foundation will help set the stage for trust and collaboration down the road.
Next time you walk around, look for things in common you have with others –goals, values, family, books, artwork, background, education, experiences…look for them, you’ll find them. ASK questions and LISTEN to the answers.
When you’ve made a connection with someone, build on it. Allowing yourself to share
some vulnerability will give them permission to do the same. The more authentic you are with a person, the more authentic they can risk being with you.
Sometimes the best place to grow connection and common ground is with people you
disagree with. When people have a common goal, a common enemy, a common dream…they can be strange bedfellows and help each other through the synergies created far more than on their own, and often more than if only working with people who had the same ideas and feelings. So…next time someone disagrees with you, how about you ask them something like this: “Help me understand why you feel/think the way you do? Please give me examples and suggestions about what I can do to learn more about your point of view.” END
THREE THINGS TO DO IF YOU WANT ACCOUNTABILITY FOR PERFORMANCE
Expectations Measurement and Feedback Acknowledgment of Performance
Utilize these 6 steps in your CONVERSATION: 1. Nothing about someone’s performance should be a surprise. All year long, you should be having conversations – real conversations – about what’s working and what’s not working with your employees. 2. Remember you do NO ONE any good, not the employee, other team members, or the business, by avoiding the CONVERSATIONS about performance. 3. Ask the employee what they think is working and what’s not working about his/her performance. Often they know, but if they don’t, talk about each area of their job responsibilities and the competencies and behaviors needed to succeed. Be clear, be objective, be honest. 4. Focus on success. Make sure you are very, very clear about your expectations on the job, deliverables, attitudes, and outcomes/results. Share where their results are not meeting your expectations. 5. Discuss and plan a pathway for success for this person. Perhaps the job or part of the job is not a good fit for their skill set. If so, they need development or they need to be doing another job that better suits them. 6. Make sure you continue to document successes and failures clearly and in a timely fashion so the employee is 100% informed and involved in their own future. Employees are responsible for their own performance, AND you, as their leader/supervisor are responsible to monitor, discuss, and adjust accordingly. One last thought – you need to be open to learning of blocks you or others may be inadvertently creating that could be preventing this person from doing their job well. Do they have the tools, resources, and support needed to succeed? If so, then it boils down to having the important conversations about performance against expectations and you owe it to yourself, the employee and everyone else to make sure those conversations happen and happen well. END
THE CONVERSATION ABOUT YOUR RAISE/PROMOTION Think about it this way -‐ you lose nothing by advocating for the pay and position you deserve. If the answer is no, then you'll be where you are now except you will know a lot more about whether or not you should stay or move on. In being your own advocate, you will need to reframe your thinking. This isn't about YOU as much as it is about the JOB. Yes, you certainly have everything to do with the way the job is being done every day. No question. There is much more. When you take all the emotion out of it and depersonalize it, you are simply talking to your boss about the business value of the job you happen to be doing. This should be a data driven conversation, not an emotional one. Always, always, speak to results -‐ behavioral and business. Your behaviors are critical to your success; do you "play well with others?" What about your business results? What value are you adding that deserves to be tangibly rewarded? This dual question -‐ behavior and business results -‐ will help you gather the data you need. For example: Let's say you sorted out a serious problem resulting in a big customer choosing to stay on board with your company. Say you did this without shaming, blaming, or gaming anyone else. That means you knew how to calm the waters with the internal people end of the business AND you kept that big customer in the boat with you. Win-‐Win-‐Win. Examples with good data like these help your boss remember and help make your case for a bonus, a new job title (since it wasn't your responsibility but you did it anyway) or...? When you reframe for yourself this way, you can be far more objective, detached even, and then develop your conversation as if you were making the case for someone else -‐ only this time the someone is you. 5 TIPS to help you self-‐advocate without pain -‐ -‐ because your story is clear, clean, and compelling. Know yourself. Make sure you are 100% sure that the job you are doing IS actually a great job. You need DATA. Ask for feedback about what you are doing well and what you can do better from your boss, peers, customers, and if you have them, direct reports. Write down what they say and keep a log. Another part of knowing yourself is knowing what you are and are not willing to do for that promotion. Are the hours longer, is there travel, do you have to manage others? All of these factors will impact your personal life. So before you go for a promotion, consider what your values are and what matters to you most right now in your life, then go for whatever that is. Know your stuff. Make sure your work is adding value to your company/organization and be prepared to prove it with simple, clear words and business and people results. Get the facts about what others doing your job are being paid. The law is on your side if you are being paid less than a man in your position, with other key factors, like education, longevity, and performance being equal. Know your people. Make sure you know how your boss needs to hear things. Does he/she like just the facts, conceptual framework, objectivity, ideas? What's the best way to speak to your boss or to ask your boss about anything? If you don't know, you're
missing the train. HOW you ask is as important as WHAT you ask for. And know your timing. Don't have this conversation in the midst of a crisis, on Friday afternoon, or just before you or your boss go on vacation. Have it when you are prepared, he/she has a heads up (bosses don't like surprises) that you'd like to discuss changes/new expectations/results in your role with her/him. Make it your ONLY agenda item and keep the conversation clear, clean, and objective. Remember, it helps to imagine you are advocating for someone else -‐ who deserves this raise/promotion. Know your system. Make sure you know how your company/organization and when they allow for raises. Is there a new job description needed? Is there a pay scale system that can back you up? Are raises only given once a year or are there bonuses, added responsibility methods, etc.? Talk to your HR people to learn the ropes for salary increases -‐ what is possible in your system. Know your options. Make sure you are aware of your and your job's value in the market place. Search Salary.com, Glassdoor.com and job sites like Monster.com, Snagajob.com for a similar job to yours or the job you want to be doing. Identify the education/experience/ competencies needed to be qualified, and then do some "mining" of the data that's out there on the internet. If the actual job you are doing is paid, on average, and at market rate, more than you being paid, you now have more data -‐ and it's objective, not subjective data. Finally, if you feeling undervalued and underpaid, ask yourself some hard questions about exactly why you feel this way. Is it the way you are treated by your boss, or is it the actual pay? Sometimes we confuse these. Getting objective will help. Is it relationship or money or both? When you know the answer to this, you are ready to make your plan for changing what you need to change -‐ your boss, your job, your company, or yourself.
How to Use Failure as a Strategic Tool By Roxana Hewertson
Six staff members piled into their leader’s office late in the afternoon, insisting that she listen to their “BIG problem” and assign the necessary blame and, above all, “fix it.” They were upset, pointing fingers and saying the ball had been dropped.
After listening to their stories, she said, “Clearly, as the leader of this project, I must have blown it, and I apologize. I must have missed something and made an incorrect assumption about who was doing what. This is my responsibility, overall, so how can I correct it going forward and help each of you get back on board?”
Six sets of eyes were riveted on her, and six mouths dropped open. She waited. Then they started falling over themselves telling her that she really wasn’t on the front line of this so how could she know. After all, they should have seen the first signs of a breakdown in communication. One at a time, they took back every piece of the responsibility for what had gone wrong. Better yet, they decided it wasn’t that serious once they looked at it together. The six of them understood what had to be done and away they went. Sweet!
The moral of the story: As a leader, it can be a smart strategy to take ownership for failing to lead in the way people thought they wanted/needed and then engage them to get things right.
There are organizations that celebrate “failures” every week in bright lights on their internal announcement board. Their intent is to fail fast and fail often so when they win, they win big. It works for them because the creativity and innovation that happens amongst their people is off the charts. That may sound way too risky for some, but the risks they take are reasonable as well as time and money bound.
They use a “pilot it” model of measured risk. This model allows unexpected issues to be identified while real time evaluation occur every step of the way. There is wisdom in having more eyes and minds on a process or product because it can lead to improvements or even a rejection in favor of something that is actually a better solution.
Accepting the joy and learning that come from failures can be uplifting and even motivating. People learn what works and what does not work. When the right evaluative process is in place, failures can save bucket loads of resources -‐-‐ human and otherwise -‐-‐ the next time.
When mistakes are not a crime and innovation is deeply imbedded in the culture, “happy accidents” happen. Post-‐It Notes from 3M is one of the most famous examples. Failure is a known fact of life for artists, doctors, scientists, architects, engineers, writers…truly, any profession; it’s how people respond and what they do with “happy accidents” that matters.
The only question ask is, “Do we embrace mistakes or ignore and hide them?” When learning from mistakes is welcomed and honored within the culture, people are more to be candid,
leaders are not kept in the dark, and learning happens. Without a culture where failure and mistakes are seen as part of the growth and innovation process, people keep secrets. Before long, the “emperor has no clothes!” The best leaders make sure they know the truth, they don’t shoot messengers, and they definitely don’t fear failures. END
We talk, text, email, write letters (well some of us still do!), and use sign language. Our basic human need to connect and converse with each other dates back to our origins. Every species communicates in some way(s) to warn of danger, collect food, mate etc. All of us need to communicate to survive. It's no accident that humans show disapproval by ignoring or making "invisible" the wayward members of our "tribe." And it turns out, the quality of our conversations has HUGE impact on our business success as well as our personal lives. The good news is that the quality of our conversations is our choice and within our control. And, as you already know, there is a lot going on beyond the spoken word. Often cited research by Albert Mehrabian (1972) tells us we can expect 93% of communication about attitudes and feelings to be occurring in three ways:
• 7% in the actual words that are spoken. • 38% in vocal (pitch, speed, volume, tone of voice) • 55% in visual (body language, eye contact, stance, movement)
Not everyone agrees his research proves the point or includes all conversations. Yet, even the doubters agree that the vast majority of communication is non-‐verbal. Regardless of HOW we communicate what we think, feel, want, need, or believe... conversations happen. If we want our relationships to be successful, we need to be mindful of the quality of our conversations. LEADERS need to pay even closer attention. Think about the last time you had a two-‐way conversation with someone. Did you come away saying, "Wow, that was an amazing conversation!" or "I could have done without that conversation." or "I wanted to hear more." or "I should have paid closer attention." or...? How did the conversation impact you, them? And what impact might that conversation have on your relationship now and in the future? During any conversation we may be doing many things: listening, telling, asking, negotiating, arguing, pleading,discovering, positioning... etc. In every case, we are making continuous decisions about what we will say, to whom, and how we will say it. It's fast and furious sometimes -‐ in fact, a good practice is to SLOW DOWN the conversation so the quality and understanding can go up. Becoming truly conscious of our own habits, tendencies, behaviors, and approaches to conversations = being conscious of our relationships. This month, I urge you to pay close attention to your habits/behaviors and the habits/behaviors of others during conversations, even casual ones. Decide what you want to keep the same and what you'd like to change. END
WHEN LEADERS SHOULD STAY QUIET It’s not that “leaders should be seen and not heard,” but it is fair to say that they often should be heard less and seen more. That’s because people believe and “listen” to the actions of leaders more than their words. It is a balancing act for leaders to know just how much to talk versus when to listen. Extroverted leaders have a particular challenge because they talk to think as an important part of processing information and ideas for them. They risk grabbing too much airtime and shut others down. Conversely, introverted leaders think to talk and are often challenged to communicate enough information at a frequency that is conducive to their followers’ needs. Consider these ten tips for leaders to stay quiet when:
1. It’s emotional – people need to believe they are being heard. Ask how you can help rather than assume you know.
2. You come in during the middle of a story – no need to embarrass yourself!
3. You are wondering if what you’ll say is offensive – if you have to wonder, then it probably is.
4. You are tempted to “fix” the person’s problem.
5. Someone asks you a question that you should not or cannot answer fully or accurately.
6. You think your idea is the best thing since shelled walnuts.
7. You ask a question. It is a good idea to wait and listen for the answer.
8. You feel yourself jumping to conclusions without much information – not a good way to
get your exercise!
9. You’ve been drinking, partying, etc. and someone from work calls you. Better yet, stay off the phone.
10. You are angry or upset. First, take time to figure out why you feel the way you do and then
determine the best course of action to resolve the problem. It’s remarkable how much one learns when one stops talking and begins listening. Most communication is non-‐verbal, making it critical to learn how to follow the “lay of the land” so as to be able to lead appropriately to meet the situation. Leaders make fewer wrong assumptions and decisions when they ask more than they tell. For
example, consider the leader who was unable to say he did not know. He gave anyone an answer on any question asked of him. It would have been so easy – and so correct – to say, “I don’t know the answer to that, but I’ll find out and get back to you.” Instead, he simply made it up along the way. When was wrong, his credibility and reputation nose-‐dived. He wasn’t stupid, just misguided about what is expected of a good leader, including telling the truth. Consider a different leader who asked questions and listened intently to the answers. People told her the truth because she honored them and their stories by active listening and thoughtful responses. She observed, was rarely fooled, and did not claim to have all the answers. Her credibility and reputation were beyond reproach. Of course, leaders need to speak, engage others, share ideas and make decisions. It’s not an accident that the ratio of “listening” body parts to “speaking” body parts is 4:1 (ears and eyes: mouth). That’s why wise leaders sense, know, and understand when it’s time to listen and when it’s time to talk. END
A LETTER TO MYSELF It’s been about 3 months since I completed “Leading with Impact: Your Ripple Effect.” I made myself a promise to check in with myself to see how I am doing. I told myself I would like to grow stronger in these ways: 1)___________________________ 2)___________________________ 3)___________________________ I remember the most important thing I learned about myself was ______________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ And that in working with others I should remember, _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________. ______________ and _______________are people I can look to for support. I have reached out to them ______________times in the last 3 months. I also want to remind myself to learn more about And I’m going to do that by: ___________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ No later than_________________________ Sincerely,
