| |
Posts Tagged ‘leadership’
Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012
Okay – here we go, my first ever blog post that will appear on www.drdewett.com and on www.fuel4leaders.com. What topic is important enough to kick off the blog at Fuel4Leaders.com? That’s an easy one: communication.
To be honest, I’m fascinated sometimes that my career is even necessary. I spend a lot of time helping others become more self aware and more skilled interpersonally. Quality communication and interpersonal skills are the heart and soul of great leadership. I love what I do whether it is on stage, with a client group, or with my awesome students, but… isn’t it odd that so many of us are in need of education and coaching on these basic fundamentals?
Odd or not, here is our reality: we spend the vast majority of our education time on route memorization of facts and tools. This is true for kids in elementary school and for graduate students in MBA courses. It does not change much at work. We spend the vast majority of our training and development dollars on issues other than communication. We continue to fail to realize one profound truth: no amount of knowledge will add value to your life unless you know how to communicate effectively!
Think about life at work for just a minute. Is there a shortage of people with sharp functional skills? Usually not. Look hard enough and you will find many flavors of competent functional specialists. Yes, but are you surrounded by spectacular colleagues, teams, and bosses? Likely not… We have many skilled people yet few great communicators. That equates to massive wasted potential for you and your organization.
Here is my quick advice. Start by actively observing the quality of the communication and interpersonal skills around you at work. Try not to cry. If you run a team, make the decision to stop neglecting this issue and make it 1) something you regularly talk about, and 2) something you add to your training efforts. Next, for your personal professional development, don’t rely only on what your organization does for you. Proactively seek out communication-related blogs, articles, books, courses, and other resources (e.g., www.fuel4leaders.com) – you are in charge of your professional growth! Finally, please do us all a favor as we look down the road to future employees – spend time working with your children to ensure they understand how to communicate effectively! So many smart people and smart teams underperform due to poor communication skills. Don’t waste your smarts!
There, I feel better. As always, if you know of someone who needs to hear this rant, please send it along!
Friday, December 9th, 2011
The Washington Post has seen fit to feature a review of my book, The Little Black Book of Leadership (LBBL). They were quite unimpressed! Here is the link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/leadership-books.
I have two quick thoughts to share…
First, thank you Washington Post for the publicity!!!!!!
Second, the review misses the point. I’ve been accused before of being simple and targeted towards the basics and/or new leaders, as opposed to more senior folks who need more advanced training and coaching. However, as opposed to my critics, I have been inside hundreds and hundreds of organizations and worked with or spoken to many thousands of professionals. This includes front line leaders and experienced top executives. Guess what I’ve found? The very simple basics are ALWAYS the issues that need to be addressed, team after team, organization after organization. Most leadership books take one or two slices of the leadership pie and go into extraneous depth. None of them, outside of traditional textbooks, contain a broad take on the fundamental basics using a field guide approach. By design, the LBBL is a fast practical reference to keep on your shelf and use regularly. No entertaining stories (that’s what I do live…), just blog style bullets that might actually help you with the people-related issues you face.
There, I’m done crying in my beer. Go finish your last minute shopping and enjoy Christmas with your family and friends!!!
Thursday, March 17th, 2011
(An excerpt from my book The Little Black Book of Leadership. What? Your team has not read the book? Choose to maximize your performance – read the book!)
Why should you care about engaging the difficult process of conflict management? Quite simply, you must manage it, otherwise it will manage you.
An inability to effectively deal with conflict can derail your career.
In terms of dealing with conflict, there are generally three types of people.
The passives (70% of people). They habitually avoid conflict. Negative conflict that is avoided almost always resurfaces later – and it usually grows. When you avoid conflict, you tell others about your will and character. When positive conflict is avoided, improvement potential is lost – possibly forever.
The potentials (20% of people). They understand the potential of positive conflict. However, they fail to adequately check the emotions and they do not possess strong conflict-management skills. Best of intentions aside, they make things worse.
The professionals (10% of people). They understand the potential of positive conflict and they have at least decent emotional intelligence and strong conflict management skills. This is the small group of people whom you should aspire to join.
CHALLENGE:
Successful leadership teams are 10/20/70, not 70/20/10. What is your team?
Your career success depends on your joining the “professionals” group. Leaders are hired and promoted based on their ability to successfully engage in various types of growth through creativity and innovation. Inevitably, this involves dealing effectively with conflict.
If you believe in the 80/20 rule and the power of positive conflict, you have to consider the possibility of sometimes dealing with people whom you would rather avoid. If you cannot view the following in a positive light, you will not enjoy leadership roles:
You will always work with people whom you do not like. Unless you work in complete solitude, this is a simple fact of life. How you view it is up to you.
They know and do things you need. Not only do you not like them, but they have skills you need in order to be successful. Thus, your career growth requires them.
You must find a way to productively co-exist. In fact, you must move past mere tolerance towards genuine appreciation. How you feel about a professional colleague cannot be “all or nothing.”
Happy leading!
Thursday, September 23rd, 2010
Two quick thoughts and then, unfortunately, I will spend the rest of the day in meetings! I hope your Thursday is more action packed than mine. 
First, a fun picture from a great gig the other day with 25 or so wonderful HR pros…. Bet you wish you knew why they are all standing in their chairs… Sorry, you have to hire me to find out that trade secret!
As if standing in chairs is not silly enough, consider the picture below. It is a testament to my mother, God rest her amazing soul. About 16 years ago she decided she wanted me to draw a picture for her. She recalled that as a child I was an avid artist and so for no particular reason she said she wanted me to produce a drawing just for her. I thought about it and decided I would draw something a little off color. I knew mom would get a kick out of it and I also knew that if it was off-color she would not display it publicly and embarrass me! Boy was I wrong. She loved it so much, she had it framed and it hung in her bathroom for the next 16 years (ok, that is not too public…). Now that she is gone, it hangs in my office at the university for all visitors to enjoy – come on by!
The point of today’s post? Pretty simple actually: while you are working your butt off chasing your career ambitions, don’t forget to have a little fun along the way. Happy Thursday.
Wednesday, June 9th, 2010
(Yet another excerpt from the forthcoming book The Little Black Book of Leadership)
The common mantra is diversity = good. However, that is not terribly accurate or useful. The truth is diversity always hurts before it helps.
Diversity has the potential to broaden perspectives and enhance our creative decision making capacity. However, that potential is not realized as often as should be the case.
The workforce is increasingly diverse in terms of race, gender, age, and socioeconomic background. There are many bases of diversity. However, in the end, these categories of differences are not useful.
What is useful is how they contribute
to a diversity of thought.
To harness the power of diversity, understand that:
- Diversity makes people uncomfortable. A huge self-protective left over tendency from the cave days is to react less than positively to those who look, think, and act differently than we do. It was useful then, not so useful now.
- Diversity can help if leaders model the way. When leaders move past the rhetoric and thoughtfully act in a manner supportive of diversity, others begin to follow suit.
- Diversity can help if the team has decent conflict management skills. When you follow the rules and guidelines noted above, diversity moves past a focus on differences and towards being a catalyst for improved performance.
- No amount of diversity training trumps thoughtful conversations within a group. Training might build sensitivity, though it is often hurts as much as it helps. Real change related to embracing diversity begins with words and actions within the group on the job.
To be clear, diversity is an amazing asset and an increasingly unavoidable reality. Build up your appreciation and tolerance and conflict management skills and soon enough you will see how diversity can enrich your team.
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010
(Another excerpt from The Little Black Book of Leadership – out by July!)
There are thousands of ways to recognize and reward your employees. The problem is not finding ways to say thank you.
The problem is that we
usually recognize and reward
people too much.
Since we all recognize the importance of the basic notion of motivation, it is easy to see how, in fact, we might over recognize. We send out emails touting others’ successes, we select the employee of the month, we have quarterly recognition ceremonies with food or gifts.
The profound rule we too often
neglect is that all recognition
and rewards should be
provided contingent on performance.
Not for showing up. Not for average performance either, but for providing clearly above average efforts and for achieving clearly above average outcomes.
CHALLENGE: Do a quick count in
your head. How many people in
your office have received that
certificate from the office laser printer
that says High 5 Award, or
Super Achiever, or Team Player?
If you have trouble naming the people who have not yet received the award, you know exactly what I mean.
Under such conditions, the award will soon cease to have any positive effect. In fact, it can have a negative effect. Rewarding people because they are mediocre or because they simply meet standards is bad practice.
When you reward mediocrity, you
get more of it – and you really
upset your high performers.
At work we have “A players” (by far the most capable employees; usually about 20% of the employee base), “B players” (the worthy and reliable 70% of most organizations), and “C players” (the underperformers who snuck through the cracks in your hiring process; about 10%).
Treating B players like A players makes the B players think they are A players. They quickly grow an entitlement mentality. The A players rightly feel underappreciated and either 1) stop trying so hard, or 2) leave the organization.
Treating C players like B players by making sure they all receive the quarterly High Five award at some point is a sure way to kill the morale of all of your A and B players.
From Dewett’s Rules you will recall that the Golden Rule is not always helpful at work. We need to reward and recognize people legitimately based on their performance and then reward the rest by genuinely maintaining a positive and transparent work environment.
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010
I’m coming clean. I can’t hide it any longer. I’m tired of acting like I am something I am not. My name is Todd and I love tattoos. There I said it! I pledge to never again “cover up” professionally merely because others don’t enjoy or understand my ink. There is hope for all of us:
A friend of mine recently started a group on Facebook called “TATTOO acceptance in the workplace” that quickly grew to over 500,000 members! (please join) Funny how slowly things change. More than 1 in 4 people in the US have ink and yet a stigma remains? Seems hard to believe, but it’s true. Take my word for it. [Background for those who don’t know me: I’m a management professor and professional speaker and trainer.]
True story: I was sitting at bar a few years ago, wearing a t-shirt and jeans. Tattoos were visible on my arms. The bartender delivers the beer I ordered and chats me up for a second. I tell him I am waiting for friends. Little did he know, I was working for Ernst & Young at the time and was waiting for several colleagues. A few minutes later he approaches and informs me that my friends had arrived. I followed his gaze to a corner table. Who were being seated around the table? A group of skin heads! I politely informed the bartender that I was not with them. He grimaced, fearing he’d just blown his tip.
Things like this happen all the time – and it happens at work more than in social situations. Here is my proposed solution: MORE OF US HAVE TO COME OUT OF THE CLOSET! The more we share our ink the more normal it will become. I do a lot of speaking and thanks to my decision to come out of the closet, I have decided, for better or worse, to never to hide my ink again. I no longer wear a jacket and I roll up the sleeves! It’s a part of who I am. Our ink is part of our very fabric, more so than the clothes we wear or the hairstyle we choose. Say, why is it ok to show off so many incredibly bad doos at work? Why is it ok to show off bad dye jobs and comb-overs, but showing great ink is a problem?
Pay attention. The workforce is changing rapidly. In a few short years, those without ink will be a minority…
Look out world – I’m out and I’m proud. Who’s with me?
Friday, April 23rd, 2010
ANOTHER EXCERPT FROM THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF LEADERSHIP…
Every leader needs a great second in command, a lieutenant, a go-to person, call them what you like. It is important that this be an informal understanding, not a formal position. This person is a hedge against the fact that you can’t be in two places at once. They provide vital current operational support and fill several other roles as well, including:
- Standing in for you when needed. Time is limited and you can’t court every customer or attend every meeting. The lieutenant can help, thus keeping you in the loop while building new skills for them.
- Initiating followership in tough situations. Sometimes when tough decisions have been made it is difficult to mobile support. Once one person shows support, others are more likely to follow. The lieutenant then becomes a catalyst for support when needed.
- Serving as a conduit for feedback. Leaders face information filters that can deeply skew the messages they receive. A solid lieutenant has one foot in the followers’ camp and thus can serve as a source of unfiltered feedback.
- Being your personal devil’s advocate. A good lieutenant is someone willing and able to privately question your assumptions when needed. You should grant them this right.
It is also important to note what a good lieutenant is not:
- A clone. They do not have to be the leader’s opposite. Some overlap in skills, experience, personality, and background is okay, but with too much similarity, the lieutenant is likely to lose the objectivity required to be a good lieutenant.
- A “yes man.” Yes men tell the leader what they believe the leader wishes to hear. They don’t care about great feedback nearly as much as making the leader feel good about his or herself by offering inaccurate or inappropriate comments or feedback.
- A future leader. A good lieutenant may or may not occupy a formal leadership position now or in the future. Some may want to follow your path. Others are more content to be world-class lieutenants instead of shouldering the extra challenges associated with formal leadership roles. Both kinds are acceptable – what matters is that they can meet the criteria noted above.
CHALLENGE: Can you identify your lieutenant?
Monday, April 19th, 2010
Another excerpt from The Little Black Book of Leadership!
The three major types of goals are performance goals, leadership goals, and life goals. Don’t think merely in terms of “goals” – get specific!
Performance goals are focused on the “hard side” of the organizational equation – the actual tasks and projects to be completed. They concern your work accomplishments over a specific time period. They include these different flavors:
- Functional. Goals related to one or more of the major business functions of the organization (accounting, marketing, operations, sales, etc.).
- Task / Process. Goals related to core processes and their components within one function (e.g., Accounts Payable within the Accounting function) or across multiple functions (e.g., New Product Development).
- Level. Goals concerning your vertical position in the hierarchy. Are you providing an input to a team managing a process? Do you want to lead the team? Do you want to lead multiple teams, processes, or departments? Do you want to be an executive?
Focus the first third of your career on becoming a financial professional (functional goal) with strong capital budgeting and investor relations abilities (task / process goals) while mapping out a path towards becoming a Vice President of Finance (level goal).
Your approach to the back two thirds of your career depends entirely on your personal interests, need for achievement, and tolerance for stress: either gain new functional and task / process abilities or focus more heavily on level. There is no perfect path.
The objective is to define an individual path that will make you happy.
Leadership Goals are focused on the “soft side” of the organizational equation – the areas of professional expertise and knowledge that either help or hurt your pursuit of performance goals.
The most important leadership skill areas include effective communication, goal setting, problem solving and decision making, motivating others, and the rest of the major topics in this book.
Goals in this area also include any and all educational objectives, achieved via educational institutions, various forms of training, mentoring, or self-study.
No amount of hard-side skill will compensate for poor leadership skills.
Life Goals concern your long-term happiness. It is monumentally important to include life goals in addition to performance and leadership goals. They include major financial milestones, work / life balance, leisure needs, geography preferences, family considerations, and any other important life matters you wish to address.
What good is career achievement without life achievement?
Your life goals should be designed to ensure that you are as healthy and happy as possible after having pursued your performance and leadership goals. They are the ying to your career yang. What they are is up to you, though one is absolutely mandatory: career “fit.”
Pursue your passions and interests and maximize the use of your strengths.
This represents your best chance to be happy and successful. Unfortunately, too many people pursue occupations and careers based on the desires and beliefs of others – don’t be like them!
Wednesday, April 7th, 2010
YOU HAVE BEEN DUPED
There are many not so useful leadership myths floating around that you should dismiss immediately. The biggest include:
- Leadership is complex. Not true. Nearly all leadership ideas and methods are simple. However, people can become complex to facilitate effectively. Nonetheless, the list of things to do and tools to use are not, in and of themselves, complex.
- Leadership is about “Great Men.” For many years there has been a love affair with iconic leaders who move mountains with their personality and will – “heroes.” Bunk. Charismatic leaders are fascinating, but most successful leaders are not charismatic. The quiet, smart, and predictable leader can be just as successful. The trick is to understand your personal strengths, instead of trying to be something you are not.
- Leadership is defined by big moments. The big moments do often receive more attention – the key decision made amid a crisis, the brave decision to change strategic directions, the eloquence of one great speech. Unfortunately when we focus on these big moments too much we lose sight of what is most important – high quality DAILY leadership. How your team reacts to you is determined by the daily average more than the big moments.
- Leaders are born and not made! Complete hogwash. It is true that intelligence and personality play an important role, but they only provide the foundation. How high you stand on top of that foundation is determined by how hard you work and the skills you develop. They call them leadership skills for a reason, because skills are not things you are born with, they are things you learn.
Thus, a definition: It is not complex. It is not about “great men.” It is not about big moments. It is not about being born with particular traits. Successful leadership is a daily set of skills – a way of thinking and behaving – resulting in personal and organizational success. Great leadership is about the cumulative effect of many small things done correctly over time. Importantly, this set of skills is within the reach of anyone willing to invest the needed time.
Monday, April 5th, 2010
Here’s the thing – everyone feels quite confident that their take on ethics is the right take. Trouble is, we all have to attempt to work together positively and productively.
At one extreme you have the “my morals and values are my compass” perspective. This is admirable to say the least. Strong personal convictions, drawn from religion or elsewhere, are often inspiring. Personally, I admire folks with such clarity.
At the other extreme you have the “ethics are edicts my boss picks” perspective. Not nearly as intellectually sexy, but an honest comment about the reality many face. Their boss is unethical, a little or a lot, and attempts to co-opt them in unethical behaviors. Sadly, this is not uncommon.
My prediction: if you follow either extreme exclusively your career will stall out quickly. To follow the first extreme is to ignore group norms and standards of conduct which may deviate from your ideals, but which nonetheless may be quite legitimate. To follow the second extreme is to be completely void of character and integrity.
Successful people happily struggle to find an acceptable balance between the two extremes.
Friday, April 2nd, 2010
Wouldn’t it be useful for all leaders to agree to some type of statement of purpose? Medical doctors have the Hippocratic Oath. There are far more leaders than doctors, so what should the leadership oath look like? Here is my first take – let me know your comments. Wouldn’t it be amazing if most leaders tried to adhere to these standards? Ok, raise your right hand and repeat after me.
I believe that being a leadership is a noble endeavor. Thus, I resolve to:
- Improve myself and my organization, to better the professional lives of those whom I lead, and to productively impact the larger community.
- Be helpful, work extremely hard, and be fervently positive.
- Respect my people as important individuals and to be open to their input and feedback.
- Achieve based on my performance, never looking for special treatment.
- Admit when I am wrong and learn and grow as a result.
- Pursue learning as a life-long ideal.
- Believe deeply in personal responsibility and individual integrity.
- Be held accountable, just as is the case for anyone whom I lead.
- Be proactive when change is needed – be a part of the solution, not the problem.
Above all else, I pledge to always add value.
Thursday, April 1st, 2010
I am supposed to be a leadership guy, but once in a while I have a personal experience concerning related business areas and I just have to comment. Today was amazing. It took longer than usual to get my Harley this year out due to my wacky schedule, but I finally hit the road today. Seventy-five degrees, wind in my face – nothing like it.
However, first I had to go to my local Harley dealer to purchase a new battery. Recently I moved, thus my local Harley dealer is actually new to me. Before I go any further, please note that as a business person and as a customer I give high marks to Harley Davidson, both corporate and out in the dealerships. I’ve been to dozens of dealerships in many states and have almost always had top notch customer service. It is one of the key aspects of my relationship with Harley that helps me accept their high prices!
Back to the story: I walk in, no one greets me, says hello, notta. Ten minutes later as I am wandering around looking at bikes, after having been seen by multiple employees, still no attention. Finally, I go to the parts counter and ask for a battery for my bike. The man kindly tells me that they are out and will have them in one week. He then began to walk off, even though I was the only customer. I stopped him and asked if he could take down my name and number and call me when they arrive. Begrudgingly, he did so.
While he was writing, I realized I might find what I need elsewhere and asked him if another dealership in the area might have the particular battery I needed. He told me there was a national backlog and that I would not find one anywhere right now. I read people for a living – it was obvious he was trying to make sure I did not call another dealership. I thanked him and headed out the door.
I immediately jumped on my trusty iPhone, found the number for my old dealer and called the parts department. They informed me they had exactly what I needed. When I walked in this dealership twenty minutes later, the woman behind the counter smiled warmly, said hello, and asked if she could help me. I told her I was headed to the parts counter and I smiled back. The gentlemen at the parts counter was busy with a customer, but when I approached he smiled, said hello, and told me he’d help me in just a minute.
While waiting, another customer walked up and plopped down several items and began waiting, hovering over the counter as if in a hurry. I was standing back a few feet looking at the beautiful bikes on display. When the parts guy finished with the current customer, he help up a polite hand to the new customer hovering over the counter and motioned to me. “You were first sir. What can I do for you?” He gave me my battery, explained the warranty, and rang me up – all while smiling, looking me in the eye, etc. A very pleasant experience.
The two experiences were night and day. Looks like my old dealership might become my new one again. Let me ask you – IS ANY OF THIS PARTICULARLY DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND? No! That’s what struck me the most. Very similar to my work with leadership and people-related issues at work, this just isn’t that complex. Yet the variance across business transactions is so apparent. Which means you, dear reader, can make sure you get it right and reap the rewards of high customer loyalty.
Keep in mind that something not terribly different happens when you interact with your colleagues every day. Whether your know it or not, people are thinking of you as a customer and making decisions about whether and under what conditions they will continue to interact with you professionally. At a Harley dealership or with work relations, there is no excuse – nail the customer service!
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010
I have a radical idea for HR this year. Hopefully it will not offend too many of you. Keep in mind, I’m not an HR guy – which is why I don’t feel odd saying “HR” as opposed to “Human Capital” or other newer labels in use. I’m a leadership guy who really loves my HR brothers and sisters, but I think you need some strong feedback. Here it goes. For years you’ve been talking about getting a seat at the strategy table, becoming more about people instead of resources, etc. I think you have made some progress – that is certainly undeniable. However, HR is still too stigmatized, still too bureaucratic, still too timid. There are many reasons why, but the biggest is how you choose to structure HR groups. It’s a choice like any other and you continue to make the wrong choice.
There are 3 types of folks in most HR groups: compliance people (did everyone complete the training yet?), administration people (they, for example, are kind enough to ensure we are all paid correctly), and, finally, people people (who work on improving individual and group performance, organizational development, talent management, leadership training, etc.). The compliance people are all about CYA. The administration people are about facilitating the status quo. The people people are addicted to shaking things up and creating various types of positive change. My idea in a nutshell: get the compliance and administration people the hell away from the people people immediately. The people people will only start to cause massive improvement when they are operationally removed from the stigmatized “personnel” past.
Mr. or Mrs. executive – here is your incentive to take this idea seriously. Realize that there is a good bit of truth to the statement “if you build it, they will come.” Reactive organizations think in terms of recruiting talent. Progressive ground breaking organizations focus on building organizations that are sought out by great talent. Yes, no kidding, you do not have to pay industry leading wages to secure the best talent. You simply have to have the people and the best culture to attract even more great people. Get to work making the right choices – and start by genuinely setting the people people loose.
|
|
