Sandy Schwan at Evolving Strategies, LLC

Using Values to Guide Business Strategy, Keep Employees Engaged and Grow Your Business

"The Cause is Hidden, But the Result is Well Known."

Ovid, Roman Poet (43 BC - 17 AD)

People today are focused on the global economic crisis, but Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter sees also a global crisis of business.

Has the model of American capitalism that worked so well to raise the fortunes of millions of people last century hit a wall? In its place must arise a new model of the company, one that serves society as well as rewarding shareholders and employees, Kanter argues in her new book, SuperCorp: How Vanguard Companies Create Innovation, Profits, Growth, and Social Good.

Kanter, one of my top tier strategy and organizational change visionaries that I follow and learn from, shared key points and great stories at a leadership learning session I attended with my esteemed colleague from the Northern Trust Company, Jill Nabonsal:

1.  Start with a Sense of Purpose. Lead with Your Principles and Values. Think about how you can apply your products and services to address the many unmet societal needs.

2.  Be Open to Discussions. It is Not Your Words But Your Conversations that Matter. Allow for self-organizing, -governing -policing where possible. Give your employees a voice and you may be amazed what transpires.

3.  Value Relationships. A Sense of Purpose Forms a Strong Basis for Your Relationships and Conversations. Start with 'Who I am, what I believe and what is important to me.' Speak of values first. Think of meeting others' needs before your own. (And you may be surprised how your own needs end up being met way beyond your expectations.)

4.  Use Values to Reduce Risk. Having Values at the Core of Your Solutions Reduces Risk. Your standards seem too high? Help your clients reach the higher standards that you may set. Who wins? Who benefits? Your clients, your clients' clients, your team, you.

Here is a more detailed summary of the book if you are interested in learning more.

But can doing good keep employees engaged and grow your business? You bet it can. Stay tuned for my next post.

Loss: A Learning Opportunity with a Specific Purpose

"Should you shield the canyons from the windstorms, you would never see the beauty of their carvings." Dr. Elisabeth Kubler Ross, 1926-2004, Swiss-born psychiatrist and author

I have friends and family that are experiencing difficult losses of family pets. I've been revisiting Kubler Ross' five stages of grief to help me get a better sense of where these folks are in the grieving process so that I may better support them through each stage.

Brushing up on this model reflects what some of what my clients are experiencing. A merger of two companies with two distinctly separate cultures into one company and one culture doesn't happen overnight. People need to experience the Denial – Anger – Bargaining – Depression – Acceptance of the 'death' of their original company before accepting and embracing their new company.

Remembering to include organizational change frameworks and time to allow employees to move through this process. Don't fault them for their feelings. Instead take the time to learn how to assist in guiding them through the stages, if appropriate.

I'll end with another impactful quote from EKR:

"You will not grow if you sit in a beautiful flower garden, but you will grow if you are sick, if you are in pain, if you experience losses, and if you do not put your head in the sand, but take the pain as a gift to you with a very, very specific purpose."

ACTION: If you are experiencing an organizational change, develop a list of ten possible purposes / opportunities for you to learn in this change. The purpose is there...and it is up to you to find it.

Trust Your Instinct...& the African Hornbill Bird & Dwarf Mongoose

"Both work together, or network, to accomplish their individual objectives." Is this quote referring to the success of a recent merger? Not quite. The author was referencing the relationship between the dwarf mongoose and the African hornbill bird.

Check out William E. Boswell's book Success by Instinct: Use What Animals Already Know to Boost Your Career. Boswell, a former senior executive with BP America, and one of the company's highest ranking African Americans, presents an thought-provoking approach to managing change, including personal career development. Instead of the usual dos and don'ts, Boswell offers 14 practical principles based on the instincts found in the animal kingdom which are also used by businesspeople, sportsmen, and world leaders alike to tremendous success.

Here is a sampling of Boswell's principles for success through instinct:

Acknowledge that adaptability is essential for an effective transition, organizational shift or change

Establish goals to add direction, purpose, focus and meaning to the change you are facing

Recognize that teamwork is essential to accomplish goals

Maintain knowledge of organizational environmental issues, and ensure compatibility with your personal values 

By the way, going with your gut does not mean that data and research are not important. Trusting your instinct means considering factors that may not always be easily quantifiable but are still quite important. Depending on the situation, you will need to be careful to avoid the confirmation bias trap. More on confirmation bias in my next posting.

Try not to get stuck in the analysis paralysis. Be quiet and listen to your gut instinct.

A N.I.C.E. Solution to Challenging Times

“Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”
~ John Wooden, author of Wall Street Journal Best Seller Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization (2005) and American Basketball Hall of Fame member (player and coach)

Uncertain times - initiated by an organizational change or market turbulence - present an opportunity to stay focused on what you can change / control and what you cannot.

I'd like to share with you an acronym used by Jana Schreuder, president of Northern Trust Corporation's Worldwide Operations and Technology group - Be N.I.C.E. 

Never panic. Innovate. Communicate. Execute.

ACTION: Consider how you might be able to apply this acronym to help your team or organization remain resilient during uncertain times. I've included one of my interpretations below to get you thinking:

N	Never panic. How can you instill confidence in your team, your organization, your family, your clients, your suppliers, the community the marketplace?
I	Innovate.  How can you help leaders understand how to navigate their teams and themselves through challenging scenarios in interesting, creative, and likely cost-effective ways?
C	Communicate. How can you ensure that those people being affected by a change properly know what is going on impacts them, and if / what tools or ideas do you have to assist them?
E	Execute. How can you 'keep on keeping on'  - and even grow! - while also stepping out of the way to attend to urgent matters that may arise?

Keep asking, "Given the business reality that exists, how can we make the most positive, possible difference in our future?" The solution: Be NICE...and I am not just saying 'be nice' because I am from the south! :)

Have You Smiled in a While? The Role of Optimism in Organizational and Team Performance

"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears it is true."

James Branch Cabell, (1879-1958), author of fantasy fiction and belles lettres

If you've ever experienced organizational change - and I don't know anyone who hasn't, I'll bet you can identify people who fall into both the optimist and pessimist camps. Is one approach better than the other? Let's approach this question from an athletic and organizational perspective.

Learned optimism guru Martin Seligman made some interesting predictions for athletes and team sports on this topic. Assuming that all other factors affecting performance are equal:

1.  The athlete with a more optimistic attitude will succeed or win because s/he will try harder
2.  An athletic team with a higher level of optimism will win. 

Seligman says that once an athlete changes his/her attitude from pessimism to optimism, s/he should succeed better or win more, again particularly under pressure. Thus, the optimistic and pessimistic attitude of the whole team may produce either victory or defeat, respectively.

Let's bring that train of thought into an organization or organizational team. According to Seligman, talent is not always enough – especially in ‘high-defeat’, ‘high-stress’ occupations requiring persistence and initiative. An optimistic employee produces more, and that even an extraordinary talent may amount to nothing unless a firm belief in one’s chances to succeed is present.

On the other hand, team pessimism (general pessimistic attitude among team members which spreads and grows inside the team as an epidemic outbreak, preventing the team from performing to the best of its ability and potential) may be a severe inhibitor of team alignment. For a team to recuperate as a united whole when adversity strikes, team pessimism needs to be addressed properly. The path to optimism should be the clear marching orders.  

Ready for more optimistic news (pardon the pun)? Optimism can be taught – on a personal and team level.

ACTION: Recall a time when you approached an organizational change from an optimistic point of view. Then, recall a time when you approached an organizational change from an pessimistic point of view. Keep thinking: going into these changes, did you perceive the change to be positive, negative, or neutral? How was your / your team's performance? Were you able to shift your attitude in either a pessimistic or optimistic direction? What was the result?

Follow the link above to take a short quiz and learn where you fall on the learned optimism scale.

Ah - so patience - AND optimism - are both real virtues. 

Adapted from Martin C. Westerlund, Theory of Constraints Revisited – Leveraging Teamwork by Systems Intelligence, 2004

Struggle and Beauty

"One day in retrospect the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful."

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Austrian psychoanalyst

More later. For now, welcome Sienna Marie!

Crafting Leadership via Ram Charan

Books. Books. Books. I am scanning lots of sources to pick out some of my 'must read' leadership books for next year. And, we all know that the world - and my book shelves - is full of books, manuals and courses on what it takes to be a great leader. Do I really need another one? Right or wrong, the answer for me will be a resounding yes, simply because I enjoy the learning process and I believe we can all continue to improve. I've just learned of a new book by business productivity guru Ram Charan that details the key characteristics of great leaders. Ram Charan is also the coauthor of Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done and author of What the CEO Wants You to Know. Known as one of the world's most influential business advisors, Charan has lent his expertise to such corporations as Verizon, General Electric, DuPont and KLM. In his forthcoming book, Know-How: The 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform From Those Who Don't (Crown Business, January 2007), Charan outlines the key attributes of truly great leaders, based on more than three decades of hands-on experience. An excerpt follows: A person may possess the entire panoply of personal traits that everyone admires, but without the know-hows of running a business, that person can be a recipe for disaster. Let me describe for you the eight know-hows that are the bedrock of success. 1. Positioning the Business to Make Money. You have to keep the business in sync with your customers at all times, and ahead of the external environment. Figuring out what to add, what to take out, what new opportunities might arise for profitable growth and which technologies to adopt are among the most demanding requirements of the twenty-first century leader. It is a challenge, for example, now facing publishers of magazines and newspapers as they see their decades-long stable positioning shattered because of the Google phenomenon and the resulting decline in advertising revenue. 2. Connecting the Dots by Pinpointing and Taking Action on Patterns of External Change. Your success depends on your ability to detect emerging patterns of change clearly and precisely. You have to look at the business very broadly and from the outside in and have the tenacity and imagination to fill in the gaps until the foggy picture becomes clearer and more complete. This know-how is how you get ahead of the curve and on the offensive instead of constantly putting out fires. 3. Getting People to Work Together by Managing the Social System of Your Business. Your biggest untapped opportunity for success is shaping the way people work together. Your own performance depends on your ability to get other people to coordinate their actions and work toward a common goal. Managing what I call the social system is how Bob Nardelli was able to transform Home Depot from its "stack it high, watch it fly" culture to one that delivers on its new performance requirements. 4. Judging, Selecting, and Developing Leaders. You need the right people in the job, but getting the right match depends on your ability to judge people accurately, based on the carefully observed patterns of their decisions, actions and behaviors. 5. Molding a Team of Leaders. You may have stars working for you, but the next challenge is persuading them to submerge their own agendas in the interest of delivering overall results. Molding a team of leaders is a huge multiplier of your capability for making better decisions and getting things done. 6. Determining and Setting the Right Goals. Too often, goals are chosen by looking in the rearview mirror and adding some incremental adjustment. Goals must be set relative to the opportunities that lie ahead, and the organization's ability to achieve them. 7. Setting Laser-Sharp Dominant Priorities. The right priorities keep the truly important things from being driven off the radar screen. When the priorities are unmistakably specific, people know what should be getting their attention and follow-through, and what distractions they should ignore. 8. Dealing with Forces Outside Your Control. Anticipate which outside forces might throw a monkey wrench into the forward movement of your business. Prepare for the issues outside constituencies raise, and judge the risks they may pose to your business model. From: Know-How by Ram Charan. Copyright 2006 by Ram Charan. Published by arrangement with Crown Business, a division of Random House Inc. Sounds interesting, and this text may make my initial list of books to consider. I'm still on the fence though, so I'd welcome any feedback from others who have read or will be reading this book.

Leading Leaders: How to Manage Smart, Talented, Rich, And Powerful People

Justin Valentine, a friend of mine at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University recently recommended that I read a book by one of his professors entitled 'Leading Leaders: How to Manage Smart, Talented, Rich, And Powerful People’ by Jeswald W. Salacuse.  Mr. Salacuse is the Henry J. Braker Professor of Law at The Fletcher School*.

In my current role as an assessor, coach, and developer of leaders across all levels, he knew I would find this book intriguing and spot on in many facets. [By leaders, the author refers to people who have an independent power base outside their organizational roles. That power base might be the marketability of their own talents, their network of contacts, their stature within their professions, their wealth, their ability to access clients/funding sources.]

The most valuable people in and around an organization are often the most difficult to manage. They are the "elites" -- executives, highly educated professionals, investors, board members, experts in critical functions, and others -- whose special talents or positions give them unusual power and independence from those who seek to lead them. These influential individuals are not motivated by visionary speeches, by teambuilding sessions, or by a need to prove themselves (or keep their jobs). They are important assets to the company -- but only when their strengths can be harnessed and aligned with organizational goals.

Leading Leaders shows the reader how to develop one-on-one, up-close-and-personal relationships with these movers and shakers, and how to leverage their expertise for better decision-making. Rather than top-down processes that might apply in a typical leadership hierarchy, the book establishes processes that resonate with these special "followers," including negotiation, strategic planning, brainstorming and more.

Salacuse's core idea is that you must discover the interests of those you wish to lead and then make it clear to them that you are serving their interests. This requires listening, personal attention, framing your objectives in their terms, and respecting their freedom and autonomy.

Leading Leaders breaks the challenge down into the Seven Daily Tasks of Leadership, and shows you how to carry out each task when you have to manage other leaders:

Task 1: Direction - Negotiating the Vision. How do you negotiate a vision for the organization that other leaders will buy into?
Task 2: Integration - Making Stars a Team. How do you make stars a team?
Task 3: Mediation - Settling Leadership Conflicts. How do you resolve conflicts over turf and power among other leaders so the organization can move forward?
Task 4: Education - Teaching the Educated. How do you educate people who think they are already educated?
Task 5: Motivation - Moving Other Leaders. How do you move other leaders who already seem “to have everything” to do the right thing for the organization?
Task 6: Representation - Leading Outside the Organization. How do you lead your organization’s outside constituents while still leading leaders inside?
Task 7: Trust Creation Capitalizing Your Leadership. How do you gain and keep other leaders’ trust, the vital capital that your own leadership depends on?

Drawing on the author’s own leadership experience as well as his research in the corporate, political, academic, and professional worlds, Leading Leaders answers these questions with a clear set of effective rules for all managers to follow in successfully leading other leaders.

- - -

*Jeswald W. Salacuse is Henry J. Braker Professor of Law at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. Formerly Dean of the Fletcher School and of the Southern Methodist University School of Law, he has practiced law with a Wall Street firm, directed a research institute in the Congo, been president of professional organizations, and served as a Ford Foundation executive in the Middle East and Africa. He has been a consultant to multinational corporations, universities, law firms, and international organizations. Salacuse is a member of the Steering Committee of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, president of an international arbitration tribunal, and an independent director of several mutual funds listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Portions of above adapted from publisher.

A book for your consideration: The Cycle of Leadership by Noel Tichy

THE CYCLE OF LEADERSHIP provides the keys to creating companies with strong values, speed and the intelligence to sustain success, year after year. The book describes how you can build a world class "teaching" organization - one that develops leaders at all levels who, in turn, develop other leaders. This creates knowledge while simultaneously aligning your leaders around a set of shared business ideas and values.

In his previous book, THE LEADERSHIP ENGINE, Tichy argued that leaders at all levels must have a "teachable point of view" so they can develop other leaders. He now adds a critical dimension to the execution: Leaders must teach in an interactive, high-energy way that enables them to learn while they teach. The core DNA of a teaching organization is constant, two-way learning, or what he calls "virtuous teaching cycles."

Enjoy!

Mergers and Stars

I attended two wonderful events in Chicago last night. First, Debra Snider read and spoke at the Senior Business Women's Forum at the Mid-Day Club in the JPMorgan Chase Tower. Debra's new book, A Merger of Equals, offers insight into how business women think. Some key take-aways from her talk:

• Finding your passion isn't a luxury; it is a requirement.
• You don't get to define success for yourself, you have to define success for yourself.
• When considering a change, ask yourself: Do the irritations outweigh the exhilarations? If yes, change something - procedure, perception, something. Or, move on.
• Success and talent are easier to recognize in packages that look like themselves. [Challenge: Look beyond the obvious.]
• Half of a life is not a life.

Then, off to another great i.c. stars event. The passion that is generated around this group is simply awe-inspiring. The who's who [companies and people] of the Chicago technology community always shows up big for these events. And, I was able to spend more time with the superstars who build my blog - Brandies Dunagan and Shana Robinson.