I read another article the other day that referred to an "organization’s DNA". The context was that the organizational DNA couldn’t be changed and that if something was part of that DNA it was considered a permanent part of how the organization functioned. It seems that we as individuals and businesses are blaming more and more of our choices on genetics. There may be some truth to that as individuals, but let’s be clear, businesses don’t have genes. Organizations are made up of the collective choices made by the people that lead them and the people that make them up. The so-called DNA is simply a result of who you hired, how you trained and coached them, and the culture you created by how you went about building and leading the business. There’s no question that organizations fall into patterns in terms of the kind of people they hire, the approach they bring to the marketplace and the strengths and weaknesses they develop. What’s important to remember though, is that with the right efforts and a well-defined approach, all of that can be changed. There are many examples in the marketplace. You could look at IBM’s transformation from mainframe hardware supplier to e-business consulting firm or Target’s shift from a…
I’ve worked with several leaders who struggle with the conflict between what they feel like they have to do for the business and what they sincerely enjoy. Sometimes there is even a difference between what the business needs from a leader and the kind of leader they want to become. Let’s face it, leadership is an ambiguous term to many and there are limitless interpretations of what it actually means. Changing how we lead means a certain amount of self-change and that can often be a battle between what we want and what we need. When passion meets reality, choosing the right path can feel a lot like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall. Sometimes you need change management for yourself. The real issue revolves around strengths and beliefs. Do the things I think I am good at, and enjoy doing, align with what I believe my business needs to be successful? When the answer to that question is yes, everything feels like it’s on the right track and momentum is on our side. When it becomes no, that’s when we face this inner battle of how to adapt, hire to compensate, or even think about a different business or role. The challenge has many solutions, and which one is best for you depends on several things: How big is the gap? If…
I recently finished reading the book They Call Me Coach by John Wooden. It had been on my list for some time and while I have read several interviews and articles with Wooden as the centerpiece, I had never read his book. When he passed away recently at the age of 99, I renewed my commitment to learn more about him and how he was able to accomplish an amazing track record of success. It’s Wooden’s track record that was so intriguing to me in the first place. This man won 10 NCAA basketball championships in a 12 year span. Think about the challenge of keeping your business in an elite position for a decade. Now think about doing it when you have to turn over 100% of your team every 4 years as Wooden did as a college coach. What this told me was that Wooden hadn’t just mastered one aspect of coaching, he had become an expert at the entire process and could replicate it with different players, different personalities and different skillsets. I think about how many leaders I work with who are very effective at getting the best out of one kind of employee but struggle mightily with others. Most of us are effective at communication and coaching when people think like we do. It’s those “other” people that we struggle with.…
I worked with a leader once who would make her mind up and then spend lot’s of time and other people’s effort finding and creating data that would support her decision. Virtually any piece of information that backed up her thinking was showcased, while any competing statistics were quickly dismissed by her, and anyone who wanted to continue to work in her organization. Her actions were limiting growth of the business. She wanted to be right, more than she wanted to lead. Many of us climb to the top of a business, or start our own, for the very same reason. It’s more fun to be in charge and get to make the decisions than it is for us to be told what to do. Lot’s of executives will argue that it’s harder at the top. More responsibility, more sleepless nights, more headaches, but you very rarely see one of them abandoning their role in for something further down the food chain. For the most part, leaders rise to the top based on their energy, passion and drive to make a difference. Sometimes though, arriving at their planned destination can cause a shift in their focus. They are no longer climbing the ladder; they are now trying to protect what they have achieved. Some recent work in psychology tends to back up this…
In a study conducted in 2009 by the Center for Creative Leadership, one of the key findings was this: Leaders are not adequately prepared for the future. Today’s leadership capacity is insufficient to meet future leadership requirements. The four most important future skills — leading people, strategic planning, inspiring commitment, and managing change — are among the weakest competencies for today’s leaders. My experience has been that the study gets it right. In far too many cases we can look at the leaders in an organization and conclude that they are ill prepared to lead the business into the future. Those important future skills, by the way, weren’t chosen by the researchers, the 2,200 leaders surveyed for the study cited them as the most important. So the question becomes, why? Why is there a huge gap between what most people agree leaders should be capable of and what they are actually good at? What causes this chasm between what organizations need from leaders, and what they actually get? There are many reasons but here are some of the key drivers of the disconnect: Fear I’m not talking about the sweaty palms wake up from a nightmare fear. I’m talking about the subtle fear that my boss controls my…
Last night, as I was telling the kids goodnight, I noticed that the movie Tin Cup was on television. I’m not a huge movie buff but that’s one of the classics in my opinion. I happen to walk through the room just at the beginning of the scene where Roy McAvoy, with a chance to win the U.S. Open golf tournament, decides to risk it all to make the shot of a lifetime rather than playing it safe to preserve the win. The scene is here if you care to watch it, it’s a great one. No one could understand why McAvoy was throwing away the win, but he simply had a different definition of success. What success means to us determines how we live, how we work and how we interact with others. In McAvoy’s case, he valued the immortality of doing something that had never been accomplished more than he valued winning the tournament, a feat duplicated every year. As leaders, do you think we operate differently if our definition of success is building a global enterprise rather than simply making a comfortable living? While both are admirable, they create two very different paths. It’s easy to adopt the definition that others around us have if we haven't already established one for ourselves. Many leaders experience a time when success…
Why does your business exist? No matter what kind of organization you are leading, whether you are an executive in a huge corporation or a solo entrepreneur, you have a concept of what your business is about. How you think about that question will greatly determine what your business looks like a year from now. In simple terms, you either believe your business is here to become better at what it does today, or to accomplish something different tomorrow. The nature of your business is either to perpetuate its current function, or to grow into a new one. You as a leader are either focused on the future, on innovation, creativity and risk or you are focused on process, precision, and attention to detail. While some extraordinary leaders have acquired the ability to be good at both of these things, it’s rare that one kind of leader can stand to live the other life for long. Most leaders either have the mindset of let’s build something great on this land or let’s go conquer new territory. It’s important to know which leader you want to be and which path is more invigorating for you. If you are longing for new frontiers and find yourself charged with improving execution of a current process, it feels a little like playing…
Watching culture change happen within a business is something that makes a lasting impression. There are many organizations that don’t understand why culture is so important and many more that want to change it but don’t know how. I've even read articles like this one, that suggest it may not even be possible. Culture change, to most business leaders, seems too big, too unwieldy and too slow to be worth the trouble. That’s why many resort to more familiar tactics like, re-organization, re-engineering, a new performance management process or a training program, anything to avoid tackling culture change. At least if those things don't work,(and the research says they probably wont) they failed in a conventional way, rather than trying something rash like changing the culture. When you get to watch it happen, and even be part of it, you understand that if you want to take an organization to the next level of growth and create sustainable success, changing the culture isn’t optional. I’ve been working with a business that has started that cultural transformation and the improvements are already obvious and welcome to the people working there. I’ve had the opportunity to engage with three levels of leadership in the company…
I was working with a leader recently who wanted the people on her team to treat their relationship differently. Because she was approachable, compassionate and empathetic to her team, they began to share every trouble, woe and bit of drama in their lives with her, often when there were pressing business issues that needed to be discussed instead. The question so many leaders face is how do I build a productive relationship with my team so that I can learn about the things that are important to them and what their goals and ambitions are without setting up a situation where they share the details of every life struggle with me. People don’t just give up their personal goals and life’s desires to just anyone and without an understanding of those, our coaching will be ineffective. But we really don’t want to spend critical work time hearing about the meddling sister or the friend who was rude to them over the weekend either. The solution is in a concept I like to call “chalking the field.” If you think about the grounds crew preparing for a sporting event, they have to establish the limits of the playing field by where they place the chalk lines on the field. Once the chalk (or in some cases paint) is placed on the field,…
Most of the companies I work with dedicate some percentage of their revenue toward developing the leaders in their business. One of the discussions we often have up front is the difference between spending money to train leaders and investing to grow them. I spend money on a nice dinner; I invest in my retirement. So what’s the difference when it comes to leadership? The difference is creating a system that ensures that you will have leaders growing in your business every day and learning to contribute more, develop stronger teams and drive employee engagement. That’s investment. Spending is when you come across a training program that will create some good will in the short run, but soon, like the nice dinner, it’s value is gone. Consider this; would a business invest in technology that they knew would be useful for only a few weeks or even days? Would it invest in an advertising campaign that lasted less than a week? Developing leaders is among the most important success factors for any business. The decisions they make, the culture they create, the growth, or lack of it, that they cause has more impact on sustainable business success than almost any other factor. And yet, we tackle their development in fits…