Blog - Just Ask Leadership, Executive Coaching - CO2Partners

Curse of knowledge

gcohen@co2partners.com (GCohen) — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 19:56:00 +0000

You work so hard, for some it is easier no doubt, to become knowledgeable. You learn to speak, to emulate you parents beliefs - religious, political, cultural, to understand relativity, quadratic equation, the system of government and how it was designed to work and then how it actually works. You become successful and you are sure the success is deserved and repeatable. In fact if you are not sure at first, you will be when the University asks you to speak to a batch of new students or when the industry publication has your picture on the cover. You so desperately cling to the idea of order and predictability that when in your heart you can attribute much of your success to randomness. It is not that your not smart or that you did not work hard to be successful but you know, had you not sat next to that person on the first day of school you would likely never been business partners, Chief of Staff at the White House, hired for that job only to become CEO. How often is it said that those you meet the first day of school become your closest friend. Random, luck, fate, you call it. (more to follow)

Let the Crazy Out a Little at a Time!

gcohen@co2partners.com (GCohen) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 03:07:00 +0000

All leaders bring unique characteristics and histories with them on the rise to the top. Like you and me, they're human. Sometimes, though they want to forget or hide parts of their past, of themselves--the parts they find embarrassing or unbefitting their current position. The more they try to hide or forget, the more potential there is for damage--to themselves and, perhaps, others. The more they bottle up, the farther the cork flies and liquid spills.

Rather than having an "I am who I am, and I'm never going to change!" explosion, I let the crazy out just a little bit at a time. It honors the shadow side of myself, yet prevents my aberrant behaviors from showing up at the wrong times.

We're all capable of change and growth. Still, by keeping some of that craziness with you throughout the change, the beautifully unique you will remain.

Is Your Leadership Encouraging Screen or Face Time?

gcohen@co2partners.com (GCohen) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:48:00 +0000

Is your obsession with order driving your company to input more data and generate more reports? Is it distracting your employees from delighting your customer?

Yesterday, a hundred megabyte drive was sufficient storage; today it's in the terabytes. The drastic reduction of costs associated with data storage is allowing companies to save, compile, and sort to discover incremental performance of their people. This incessant need to measure, control, and create predictability within the business may be having a counter-intuitive effect on the company and its staff's abilities to serve the customer, however.

In order to successfully use all this data, it needs to be converted into actionable information. Which means someone is entering the data, another is determining the relevancy, and your managers are reading it to take actions. What used to be a single document is now a dashboard full of meters, indicators, and controls. And it's eating up lots of your organization's energy and time. While you're all assessing the data piles, who is serving the customer?

It might be helpful to think of this as Screen Time (data collection, information assessment, and dash board controls) verses Face Time (human-to-human interactions). What is your Screen Time to Face Time ratio? What is it for your front-line employees and their managers? If you're like many companies, your supervisors are becoming less capable of managing people (Face Time) and more capable of managing information (Screen Time). Here's the problem: As you try to move all this information to action, your people can no longer effectively engage customers. They have stopped building their people strengths by spending too much time on Screen Time.

Dan Pink - Interview on Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

gcohen@co2partners.com (GCohen) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:57:00 +0000

Gary B. Cohen: Dan, thank you for your willingness to share your thoughts with the readers of the Just Ask Leadership Blog. Your new book, Drive: The Surpising Truth About What Motivates Us, is a terrific read. I will be doing a full review of the book later this month for our next CO2 Leadership Newsletter. In your book, you introduce the concepts of Motivation 2.0 and Motivation 3.0. How would you describe the difference between them?

Dan Pink: Motivation 2.0 is built around our reward-and-punishment drive. It presumes the way that people perform at the highest level is by offering them carrots for the behavior you seek and sticks for the behavior you want to deter. That approach -- that motivational operating system, if you will -- can be effective for certain kinds of tasks. But for complex, creative, and conceptual tasks, it's usually a bad idea. The better approach there is Motivation 3.0, which is built around another of our drives -- our innate need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.

Gary B. Cohen: What do autonomy, mastery, and purpose have to do with motivation?

Dan Pink: These three elements are at the heart of this newer, more effective approach to motivation. If we really want high performance -- especially on complex, creative, and conceptual work -- people have to have freedom to do work their own way. They must be able to make progress, to get better at something that matters. And they're more likely to really excel if what they do is in the service of something larger than themselves.

Gary B. Cohen: My book, Just Ask Leadership, examines how leaders can increase alignment, engagement, and accountability by asking more and better questions. How might this approach align with Motivation 3.0?

Dan Pink: It aligns extremely well. One of the simplest pieces of leadership and management advice I give is this: "Listen more, talk less." Asking questions is a way to hone your listening and hear other voices rather than just your own.

Gary B. Cohen: It is not unusual for the science of a subject, in this case motivation, to appear far in advance of implementation. Is there anything particular to our culture that will affect this lag time, specifically as it relates to how we practice motivating others?

Dan Pink: Interesting question. I'm not sure, actually. But cycle times for everything are accelerating. So there's a chance, I guess, that once the science is exposed and revealed a little more clearly, organizations may move somewhat more quickly than in the past.

Gary B. Cohen: What is the danger for those of us who continue to only use the carrot-and-stick approach or move to only intrinsic motivation?

Dan Pink: The danger of using only carrots and sticks is that they're ineffective for many types of work. What's more, they can bring a cascade of other negative consequences -- locking people in to short-term thinking, tamping down creativity, and even enticing some people to cheat. The danger of using only intrinsic motivators is overlooking that money is a motivator. If you don't pay people enough -- if they're not being compensated adequately or if they can't support their family -- you're not going to get any motivation at all. The idea that intrinsic motivators can somehow substitute for fair pay is a colossal mistake.

Gary B. Cohen: What five tips do you have for organizations wanting to switch to Motivation 3.0?

Dan Pink:

Understand the limits of carrots and sticks -- and use them only where they're effective.
Do whatever you can to provide employees with more autonomy over their time, their team, their task and their technique.
Encourage people to supplement traditional performance reviews by doing their own performance reviews -- setting out their monthly goals, for instance, and self-evaluating at the end.
Take a day when people can work on any idea they want -- then show the results to the rest of the company the following day. These one-day sessions of intense autonomy -- known as FedEx Days, because people have to deliver something overnight -- have proven incredibly productive.
Infuse the workplace with a purpose larger than simply making the numbers or increasing earnings per share by two cents this quarter. Supplement the profit motive with the purpose motive.

If you want a well writen book that brings a fresh perspective on what drives you and your teams based on our current understanding of motivation, pick up Dan Pink's Book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.

Related Blog Post: Motivation Video by Dan Pink

Great Leader vs. Great Manager Is There A Difference?

noreply@blogger.com (John LeTourneau) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:32:00 +0000

When you are confident that you are a good Manager, does that mean that you are automatically a good Leader? Leadership should not be considered to be the same as management. They are different, yet not in the way most people presuppose. Leadership is not something that requires a specific personality profile, such as one requiring charm or a sense of inquisitiveness. Leadership is not a replacement for management nor is it to be thought of as being even better than management. Leadership and management are two distinctly different systems that must both be alive and complimentary in every successful organization. Management is more about system interactions, processes and accountability that keep the organization running. Leadership is directly responding to change and the use of it applied to improving or supporting others.

The challenge is to combine great leadership with great management, skillfully balancing the two. Do you see your company as being over managed and under led? Are you developing your leadership capacity? Additionally, have you identified someone within your organization as the next leader?

Questioning Tips: Let Go of Your Answer

gcohen@co2partners.com (GCohen) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 03:48:00 +0000

If you are a teacher before you show up for class you will have prepared yourself to insure you know the material. As a leader of an organization, department,or group you likely are thinking about the subject deeply before beginning to ask about it. You may have even rushed to a solution or conclusion before a question leaves your mouth. If you start down this path you will spoil an opportunity for others to engage and find their own vision of possibilities or conclusions. Your voice will detour their journey.

Let go of your answer when asking!

Questioning Tip: killing questions

gcohen@co2partners.com (GCohen) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 03:33:00 +0000

You ask the question: "What has brought you to your knees?" A pause fills the room like when you're giving a speech and you have a momentary lapse. That lapse may last only 5 seconds, but it seems like 5 minutes, so you say, "Ahhhhh." You feel compelled to break the silence so you begin to speak and it takes away the possibility, the opportunity for discovery.

Try not to rush yourself and others. After you ask a question, pause. As you look at the other person, reveal with your eyes that you're not impatient for an answer. Share the silence until they are ready to share their story. They will appreciate the time to collect their thoughts, and you will appreciate more thoughtful and better-formed answers.

After you ask a question, give pause and listen deeply to the other.

Minneapolis Job Market Flat

gcohen@co2partners.com (GCohen) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 20:31:00 +0000

LinkUp’s February Jobs Report Shows Modest Gains in Job Listings on Corporate Websites.

Minneapolis, MN – February’s jobs report from the Department of Labor is scheduled to be released later this week and based on data released this morning by LinkUp, Friday’s report will show that the job market was essentially flat in February, making only modest gains in job growth.

LinkUp, a job search engine that indexes jobs from over 20,000 company websites throughout the U.S., reported that new job listings on company websites rose by 10,201 (2%) from January. Total job listings on company websites in LinkUp’s job search engine increased by 7,740 (1%). While the slight increase is certainly welcome news in an otherwise painfully slow and rocky recovery, February’s job gains pale in comparison to January’s blistering gains in new and total job listings of 69,082 (18%) and 34,525 (4%) respectively. January’s strong LinkUp numbers may have been strong enough to indicate solid job gains across the nation last month.

Find complete press release attached or on JobDig

Can't Hurt To Ask - CFO Magazine

gcohen@co2partners.com (GCohen) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:35:00 +0000

Recent feature in CFO Magazine (Jan/Feb 2010 issue, page 30). Read Full Article

More Economical to Manufacture in US over China

gcohen@co2partners.com (GCohen) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:12:00 +0000

Dean Bachelor, founder and CEO of the Platinum Group in Minneapolis, says the reasons for the U.S. manufacturing advantage is because of the exchange rate of the dollar and the productivity of our workforce. Jean Taylor, CEO and President of Taylor Corporation, says he's finding fewer quality issues in US manufacturing.

Log Jam in Congress on Tax Laws

gcohen@co2partners.com (GCohen) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:08:00 +0000

Beth Kieffer Leonard, Managing Partner at LBLCo, says, "tax laws are all about incenting behaviors." The fact that congress has log-jammed our country means that we're not being incented to behave in the way we need to be.

This country has a great and energetic workforce; we just need to move them in a productive way.

The panel at Allied Executive Symposium urged business leaders to reach out to congress!

Panel Discussion on Economic Outlook for 2010

gcohen@co2partners.com (GCohen) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:13:00 +0000

http://www.alliedexecutives.com/
GeoTagged, [N44.97292, E93.27363]

Keynote Speaker: Narayana Kocherlakota, President of The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

Panel included:

Dean Bachelor - CEO Platinum Group
Scott J. Dongoske - President Winthrop & Weinstine
Al Gerhardt - COO Kraus-Anderson
Elliot Jaffee - TC President US Bank
Michael Lacey - CEO Digineer
Beth Kieffer Leonard - Managing Partner LBLCo
Cary Musech - managing Principles Tonka Bay Equity Partners
Jean Taylor - CEO Taylor Corp.
Scott W. Wine - CEO Polaris

John P. Palen - CEO Allied Executives

Most of the panelists predict that revenues will hold steady this year or experience some growth. The construction industry, which has 25 percent unemployment, is an exception. That industry doesn't expect improvement until mid-2011. The technology companies see greater growth than others based on 4qtr of 2009 and 2010. Law firms believe the bottom has hit. Taylor Corp sees change as moving into more technology, as well as a move to an operational excellence model. Taupe says this is the year of revenue growth. Polaris echoes that sentiment. Polaris is focusing on sales. For Platinum group, being in a turnaround business, the phone has not stopped ringing.

How are these companies changing?

Polaris does not see cutting costs as a strategy; it is about reengineering products to offer more for less. Taylor is focusing on return on investment. Tonka Bay talked a lot about its strategic competitive advantage. Oftentimes business leaders talk about what we have rather than thinking more strategically. Tonka Bay is out looking for talent and deals. First Bank started annual business reviews with customers. Krause-Anderson believes we should never waste a good crisis.

A tactical solution is moving to teleconferencing. Winthrop is closing deals in the middle of a blizzard becase of its use of technology in video web conferencing.

Taylor is looking at partnerships with what would have been competitors in the past. They are deciding to focus on what each does well and how each side can have greater leverage.

The panel's take on banking issues: Banks have not taken time to understand the customer. Because of this, we are all learning what we have to do to support customers. Credit is available to those that have credit-worthy ventures for those banks that have the liquidity. If you are feeling like you're experiencing unfair treatment, it may have nothing to do with your business but it might be the bank. Talk to your bank often and early. Start planning you loan agreements 6 months ahead.

One panelist described a business that was doing a telemarketing campaign and, due to a technological glitch, called and hung up five times on a customer. The customer tried to call back, but was not able to get to through. The company was able to connect with this customer through Twitter, though. The executive who relayed this story was proud of the multiplatform coverage. He should be, but not if some of the older platforms are prone to such glitches. Not many customers would be able to look past the five hang-ups.

President of the Federal Reserve Bank speaks about the Fed's Authority

gcohen@co2partners.com (GCohen) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:39:00 +0000

Narayana Kocherlakota is President of The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. He was the keynote speaker today at the Allied Executives Symposium & Business Expo for CEOs & Business Owners.

"No matter how bad things are, it could have been much much worse," Kocherlakota said about the banking and mortgage crisis.

For the Fed, it may get worse. Congress is currently considering retracting some of the authority of the Federal Reserve. One of the greatest powers of the Fed is its ability to regulate risk with its own supervisory authority. This authority helps control quantity and allocation of liquidity. It was the use of these mechanisims that led to a 200,000% increase in loans to banks in 2008.

The purpose of these loans is to ensure insolvent firms fail and solvent firms survive. Today the fed can turn to its supervisory authority to make or withdraw such allocations. If that was taken away from the Fed, would the Fed be able to act in time to avert risks? The bigger problem is that today if the Fed gives a bad loan, it shows up on the Fed balance sheet. Under other terms, it would not have the same accountability, nor would a secondary regulatory authority.

It took the Fed two months to conduct the financial stress test. With less authority, how much longer would that test have taken?

Congress is thinking of keeping the authority over large banks, but not small banks. What's to prevent small banks, collectively, being a disruptive force in the future?

An audience member asked, "Why should we trust the Fed after the events of the past two years?"

Kockerlakota said that the economy is on the mend--not as quickly as we'd all like, but inflation is under control and there are other hopeful signs. He noted that we need to be more concerned in the future with the gravity of incentives, which have a big impact on the effectiveness of regulations.

Has "Telling" Crippled Your Leadership Effectiveness

gcohen@co2partners.com (GCohen) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 20:12:00 +0000

Many leaders grow up knowing the answer or how to find the answer. It starts in early childhood and all the scaffolding in school and the workplace simply supports this model. You seek out the approval of others by getting the answer right. This feeling of approval becomes addictive.

If you are feeling that pull to be the smartest in the room, the most informed, the one ready to provide the answer, you must first admit you are suffering from this intoxicating high before you can discover what many great leaders have discovered. It is all about the question! Shouldn't you start asking?

Post Code:ZSDEJGYB68ZX or CZ8HT56VEY2X

Two Fold Increase in Alignment, Engagement & Accountability

gcohen@co2partners.com (GCohen) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:48:00 +0000

Visionary Leadership - Are you heading to the same place?

gcohen@co2partners.com (GCohen) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 15:08:00 +0000

Yesterday, my daughter, who is driving with her permit, headed towards a destination she envisioned. She asked me what lane she should be in, and I answered, "The right." I detected a micro-change in her physiology, but said nothing. I then encouraged her to move over one more lane to the right. And she asked, "Why? That one exits and we want to go downtown." It was then I realized we had two different visions of where we were heading. I thought we were going to the middle-school campus and she thought we were heading to the upper school. How often does that happen in your organization--where people are trying to behave in alignment with the vision they have and it is different than yours? Ask questions to find out if you are all operating with the same vision. Assume little.

Are You An Impostor?

gcohen@co2partners.com (GCohen) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 14:04:00 +0000

Many leaders in their quiet moments (who ever has those?) think that they are impostors. This is a phenomenon that prevents people from accepting their own accomplishments. They feel that somehow they bluffed, got lucky, or deceived others on their way to the top and never feel confident of the decisions they are making or how they are leading others. What would amaze many employees, and many citizens, is that this is not uncommon.
Perhaps more amazing is that most of these leaders are anything but impostors. They have worked hard, taken calculated risks, and made many smart decisions in their rise to the top. And despite their lack of personal confidence, they continue to be successful. Perhaps it is not in spite of, but because of, the way they see themselves that they are able to rely on others more easily for help and demonstrate great leadership by not going it alone.
If you are interested in learning if you you suffer from this and are not sure you can take a quick assessment at LaliMunro.

Meeting Tips: Do you give adequate time to the important things?

gcohen@co2partners.com (GCohen) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 13:37:00 +0000

At the end of the year, I was shopping for a new laptop (I'm a bleeding-edge technology junkie) to take advantage of some tax benefits. I must have spent hours sorting through the labyrinth of possibilities. And part of this selection process was to maximize value. I put more time into this $2,000 purchase than I put into much more important decision I needed to make.

I will spend 30 minutes driving from Costco to Target to save $25 dollars on a new telephone, while I would easily spend $2,000 on an additional option on my car just to make the transaction easier.

There is a real gap for people and organizations in how they allocate time against the importance of a decision.

You may decide to acquire a company, rush to the purchase, and spend more money than you have made as an organization since you have been in business. Even if it took you ten years to make that much money, you might not contemplate the oddity of your expediency.

I was speaking with a superintendent of a very successful school district the other day over lunch. And he shared with me how school boards can take five minutes to discuss and approve a $50 million budget and then spend 30 minutes on a $1,200 item three weeks later. This is likely not surprising to any of you that have led an organization and handled a role with P & L responsibilities. It is still very disturbing.

When faced with minor decisions, move on. Don’t waste your time; it is too valuable! When faced with important, significant decisions, however, take the time to consider the impact even if it means walking away from the deal. What is often missed is all the regrettable outcomes that are unforeseen when you rush your decision making.

Every Rule Has an Exception. Especially this One!

gcohen@co2partners.com (GCohen) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 02:21:00 +0000

For every rule, it seems like there’s at least one exception—and often many.

The rule in book publishing: If you have one success, repeat it until it is no longer profitable to do so! Your audience expects a certain style and expertise from you, and will generally be disappointed if their expectations aren’t met. And sequels often succeed (at least financially) if the first effort was well-received, so authors have substantial motivation to continue in the same vein.

The co-author of Just Asked Leadership, Eric Vrooman, and I have been looking for an interesting topic for our next leadership book. We could go deeper into the “how to” of Just Ask Leadership; we pretty much have all the content developed from the training program we created. But if you follow in the footsteps of others, it doesn’t really feel like your path.

We’re not only thinking about being exceptions to the rule, we’re thinking about writing on that very subject. What are notable exceptions to the rule? And, more specifically, when is it a good idea to break from convention?

I watched a TV drama recently where a genetic specialist, who was charged with helping people get pregnant, raised her daughter to be pro-life. When her fifteen-year-old daughter gets pregnant, however, she pleads with her to get an abortion. Abortion is, of course, a polarizing subject—too big and weighty to reduce to a single case—but clearly there was an exception here to the genetic specialist’s rule: every life is sacred and must be protected at all costs.

The other day, my daughter was writing a paper for school regarding her feelings about WWII. She began the paper by explaining her rule: War is bad. Then came the exception: When a psychopath takes control of a country and attempts to take control of the world forcibly, war is necessary. My other daughter has a teacher who gives a backpack full of homework on a daily basis and expects it to be done on time. Does this rule apply to her, the teacher, when it comes time to meeting her own grading deadlines? Regrettably, no.

Rick Diamond (CEO Breathe Laser) and I had rules about expenses for our employees at ACI, and we had exceptions to the rule for the owners: not a very good idea, we learned.

What are the consequences to violating rules—conventional ones and the ones you set for yourself or loved ones? When do exceptions reveal problems with the rule and when do they reveal problems with the rule’s followers or enforcers? And what exactly is at stake? Respect, certainly. But does the pregnant daughter respect her mother less (for violating her own teachings) or more (for demonstrating her love and concern for her daughter)?

To what degree are rules the product of values and beliefs?

What is the point of having rules if exceptions are bound to come up?

What rules do you follow, what exceptions do you make, and how do you justify them?

We’re still feeling out if this subject is book-worthy, and would love to hear your thoughts and stories.

Meeting Tips: Time is Money

gcohen@co2partners.com (GCohen) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 01:36:00 +0000

If you earn $50,000 per year, your per-minute rate is approximately $0.40 cents.

$100K $0.80
$200K $1.60
$300K $2.20
$1 Million $8.00

These figures start adding up. The total cost of a meeting for a small-to-midsize organization might be $1,000 per hour. In larger companies, the compensation packages of the leadership team alone can reach $10,000-plus an hour.

Why is it important to know these figures? Simply put, time is money, and per-minute figures help clarify whether a meeting is worth it, how long it should be, and who should attend. The per-minute figures help ensure that the organization's most valuable employees are not wasted--not even for a minute.

Are you and your team clear about the purpose of the meeting? Has the agenda been properly scrutinized and honed? Are the meetings kept on track? Is it essential for everyone to be present for the entire meeting? These are questions you ought to ask, so that the cost doesn't exceed the potential benefits.

When is the Right Time to Tell a Secret? (Shhhh don't tell anyone)

gcohen@co2partners.com (GCohen) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 23:21:00 +0000

How can you be telling me this now? I was counting on you! If you had only told me this when you first knew! I can't believe you waited this long!

It's never fun learning a secret that's been kept from you.

It's not fun holding onto a secret either that will leave others (coworkers, friends, loved ones) disappointed and, in all likelihood, angry.

When, if ever, is it a good idea to keep secrets? And when is the best time to reveal them?

Let's locate this discussion in a few specific scenarios.

Scenario #1: You intend to leave the company in six months and have begun preparations to move into another state and workplace. When is the right time to tell your boss you're leaving? Do you give your boss two-weeks notice, a month, or more?

To what degree does the relationship you have with your current employer matter? If it's an adversarial relationship, you might be tempted to wait until the last minute to reveal your secret, but that's bound to create even more bad blood (and impugn your reputation). But does that mean you should tell your current employer the minute you know for sure you're leaving? What if that resulted in your firing and several months without paychecks?

Even if you're in good standing with your current employer, does honesty serve both parties? Will it lead to an uncomfortable six months?

Scenario #2: You are the CEO and owner of a business, and you plan on retiring in three years. You've begun your 5-year strategic plan with your staff. When do you tell your senior team and then the whole company that you're leaving?

Scenario #3: You're going on maternity leave and you don't intend on returning to work afterward. When would be the right time to let your company know?

"When is the right time?" This question has bothered me for years! The scenarios above all revolve around leaving an organization. There are many more secrets people keep from their coworkers and employers naturally, but few have as much impact. The end of a relationship--even a professional one--dredges of emotions and issues of worth and appreciation.

A few factors to consider:

#1: There's a window in which secrets can be revealed without violating trust between individuals. It's a short period of time really. A week maybe.

#2: The longer the secret is kept, the more likely trust will be violated.

#3: The longer a secret is kept, the harder it is to know when to reveal it. You may feel like the window has passed.

#4: When a secret is revealed, the party that's been kept in the dark will want to know how long the secret has been held--so that they can better assess the level of duplicity/dishonesty and their interactions with you during that period.

#5: Mental fatigue comes from holding onto a secret--and from creating lies or untruths to preserve it.

#6: How much will you need to rely on others to maintain your secret? Are they capable of doing so? And is it fair to ask them to do so?

#7: If you tell one person, do you need to tell everyone?

#8: Do you tell people individually or collectively?

There's a reason why people keep secrets! Revealing a secret isn't simple. It involves a lot of calculations, which is why, I suspect, people get paralyzed and fail to make a decision. Then time passes and they feel it's too late to reveal the truth.

What do you think is the right thing to do? When has this happened to you? Please leave your comments and see if we can get to greater clarity on this...

The “Double McTwist 1260” Leadership Model

noreply@blogger.com (John LeTourneau) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 20:31:00 +0000

Tell me you did not just overflow with pride as the world watched Olympian Shawn White dance with excitement as he stood on top of the halfpipe in Vancouver this week. He learned he won gold before he’d even taken his final run.

Live coverage allowed the world to be up close and intimate with the processes and decisions that were being made between Shawn and his coaches. Why had they come to Vancouver? To win gold for the second time, right? Or was it about performance and delivering the best product? "Once you're at the top of the pipe," he said, "everything changes." Quickly the decision was made that the gold medal level-winning run that he’d delivered earlier simply was not enough, "I always felt like I wanted to put everything on the table. That's what that last run was about: showing everyone in the world on this big stage what I could do." Despite all the emotion of the moment, his values and the values of the team drove them to the simple conclusion: Go for it, put down the move, and stick the landing.

I see patterns here that show up in how other good leaders conduct themselves daily. Expecting exceptional performance and celebrating achievements are very important, but Just Ask Leaders look beyond the current situation for the questions that will push themselves and others to the next level, discovering new challenges that will elevate them and their teams to a higher sense of accomplishment.

Shawn rose to the new challenge. He soared into the pipe, generated adrenaline with his first four moves, and then nailed the Double McTwist 1260, with big air, full rotation, and a clean landing. Saucy! Later, Shawn said: “"I could have just run straight down the middle of the pipe, which would have been cool. I took the other route."

As a leader, how often do you consider the “other route”?

Consider including the Double McTwist 1260 in your leadership model.

Shorten the Sales Cycle - Michael Boylan Accelerant - Book Review

gcohen@co2partners.com (GCohen) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:28:00 +0000

Book Review Michael Boylan-Accelerants
Michael Boylan's book, Accelerants, masterfully delivers a methodology to ascend from the trench that was, for most, 2009. He explains how to increase top line sales, compress sales cycle, and reduce the cost of sale.

Does everyone on your sales team believe in the benefits that your offerings provide? How does their level of buy-in affect their ability to close business in a timely manner? How much is an extended sale cycle costing you? These questions and more are addressed in Boylan's book.

Accelerants shows you how to shorten the sales-time-to-close rate. Start by offering products with a clear and unique value proposition. Clients want vendors to be confident, decisive, and articulate about how much the offering will benefit their organization. Your sales team will be more confident, decisive, and articulate if they truly buy-in to the product and the unique value proposition. They will hold the line, close the deal faster, more efficiently, and with less cost.

To learn more, please join us for CO2's February 23 installment of "Eat the Book, a CEO Roundtable Discussion." Michael Boylan will be on hand and provide the topic of discussion.

Michael Sandel - Harvard Professor Teaching Justice

gcohen@co2partners.com (GCohen) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 14:40:00 +0000

Two summers ago my wife and I attended the Aspen Institutes Ideas Festival with my mother. One of the many great take a ways was a keynote dialogue with Michael Sandel in typical and great Socratic fashion. He opened with the well know Trolley Dilemma.

"A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are 5 people who have been tied to the track by the mad philosopher. Fortunately, you can flip a switch, which will lead the trolley down a different track to safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied to that track. Should you flip the switch?
A utilitarian view asserts that it is obligatory to flip the switch. According to simple utilitarianism, flipping the switch would be not only permissible, but, morally speaking, the better option (the other option being no action at all).
While simple utilitarian calculus seeks to justify this course of action, some non-utilitarians may also accept the view. Often the problem is stated with a mad philosopher initiating the dilemma. Opponents might assert that, since moral wrongs are already in place in the situation, flipping the switch constitutes a participation in the moral wrong, making one partially responsible for the death when otherwise the mad philosopher would be the sole culprit. Additionally, opponents may point to the incommensurability of human lives.
It might also be justifiable to consider that simply being present in this situation and being able to influence its outcome constitutes an obligation to participate. If this were the case, then deciding to do nothing would be considered an immoral act.
Some critics argue that the actual fact of producing an all inclusive moral theory, capable of addressing with clarity such staged or otherwise very real dilemmas, might not be attainable after all.

And...
As before, a trolley is hurtling down a track towards five people. You are on a bridge under which it will pass, and you can stop it by dropping a heavy weight in front of it. As it happens, there is a very fat man next to you - your only way to stop the trolley is to push him over the bridge and onto the track, killing him to save five. Should you proceed?
Resistance to this course of action seems strong; most people who approved of sacrificing one to save five in the first case do not approve in the second sort of case. This has led to attempts to find a relevant moral distinction between the two cases.
One clear distinction is that in the first case, one does not intend harm towards anyone - harming the one is just a side-effect of switching the trolley away from the five. However, in the second case, harming the one is an integral part of the plan to save the five." - Wikipedia

What Michael Sandel is teaching us is the difference between Consequential Morality and Categorical Morality. Consequential Morality is when the consequences of actions, making inseparable from context. i.e. when we are given certain events our circumstances can change how we act - the trolley driver diverting the train to kill one to save five, verses Catagorical Morality is always described as principally being a function of how an act impacts the affected i.e. in the trolley dilemma killing 1 to save 5 is wrong.

10 Questions to Ask to move to Results Oriented Work Environment (ROWE)

gcohen@co2partners.com (GCohen) — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 21:40:00 +0000

Previous Interview Part 1
From interview with Cali & Jody

Gary Cohen: What are your top 10 questions you ask your clients to move them forward toward ROWE? The questions organizations need to ask themselves in order to move toward ROWE are based on the 13 Guideposts:

Cali & Jody
1) Are people in your organization able to make common sense decisions about what they work on and what they don’t work on, as long as they reach their outcomes? [And not just the “senior” people, but everyone]
2) Do you have core hours? Why?
3) Is every meeting in your organization optional? EVERY meeting?
4) What time is it on the clock when people are “coming in late” to your office? What time is it when they’re “coming in early”?
5) How many hours do you expect people to work – in a day? In a week? Why?
6) If someone is going to not work on a Thursday, do they submit vacation time?
7) How are your employees available when they’re not working?
8) Who do your employees need to tell if they’re going to leave the office for 3 hours and go to a movie?
9) How clear and measurable are your employees’ goals and expectations?
10) How do you know if your employees are reaching their outcomes?

Gary Cohen: As a leader what are the questions that I was likely asking before Rowe to align, engage, motivate, & hold co-workers accountable? And what do those questions change to in the new environment?

Cali & Jody: As a leader, there are questions you might be asking today that you think are engaging and motivating employees, and helping them to hold each other accountable. However, the ROWE mindset might change them. Here are some examples:

Pre-ROWE: “Let’s get everyone together next Friday for a barbecue.” “Let’s plan an off-site teambuilding event.”

ROWE: Team socialization is driven by the team, not the manager. If a team is experiencing low engagement in the work, it won’t be solved by spending more time together – it could, in fact, make the situation worse!

Pre-ROWE: “Let’s congratulate Eric for the great job he did on his last project. He actually gave up Thanksgiving dinner with his family and came in last weekend to meet his deadlines.”

ROWE: “Let’s congratulate Eric for the great job he did on his last project. His outcome was to deliver a system for delivering our product that would improve customer satisfaction by 10 points. The system he created has done just that!” [No mention of time, hours, or effort – the praise is for the end outcome]

Pre-ROWE: “I’ve noticed that you’ve been falling short on your expectations over the last few months. Let’s have you come back into the office vs. working at home and see if things improve.”

ROWE: “I’ve noticed that you’ve been falling short on your expectations over the last few months. What can I do to assist you? Are you clear on the expectations?” [No reference to where the work is happening]

Continue Interview

Related Blog Posts:
Why Work Sucks! And How to Fix it. Interview with Cali & Jody - Part I
Why Work Sucks! And How to Fix it. Interview with Cali & Jody - Part 2
10 Questions to ask to begin a Results Oriented Work Environment - Part 3
13 Guide Posts to a Results Oriented Work Environment - Part 4