Leadership Mail 

Gary B. Cohen
Executive Coach

CO2 Partners, LLC
612-928-4747
CO2Partners.com

Book Of The Month:

As you know I usually write my own book review. This month I thought Jim Collins, author of "Good to Great," did such a terrific review for Business 2.0 on the book, "Swanson’s Unwritten Rules of Management" written by Bill Swanson, Chairman and CEO of Raytheon Company, that I am letting Jim do the book review this month.

This book will take you all of 25 minutes to read cover to cover - I call this a commuter flight book. If you take a flight that takes off from Minneapolis you will be finished when you land in Duluth, Minnesota . This book is available free by clicking on this link:

Swanson's Book

As I read this book I thought Swanson does a great job of creating the formation and sustained culture of Raytheon by insuring all employees know what he stands for as a leader. What would you write, to build the culture you want to create?

Read Jim Collin's book review bottom of the right column below my dear readers letter.

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December 13, 2005

People often walk into my office with a problem. If I am in a good place, I will ask many questions and help them solve their own problem, so they can feel good about themselves. If I am in a bad place (low self-esteem, for example), I will ask many different questions that would help me solve the problem for them, so I can feel good about myself. The nature of the questions change because the same questions that would help me solve the problem may be very different from the questions that they would need to hear.
 

When we are solving someone else's problem, we are likely to need all the background on the subject. After a lengthy fact-finding mission, we will use our own experience as a filter to assess if we have seen this sort of problem before and try to formulate a solution that we have used successfully in the past. Unfortunately, this process is usually doomed to failure. Why? Because we can't possibly know as much as the person with the problem.

If I asked you to describe yesterday to me, you would probably summarize your day in about five minutes. If you are a good storyteller, you might go off on a tangent for five more minutes. If pressed, you might be able to add another twenty minutes of detail. The likelihood of you taking an entire day to describe what you did, saw, observed, and thought would be remote at best. Okay, let's return to the person with the problem. No matter how many questions you ask, they will not be able to effectively or efficiently relay to you all of the knowledge or information that they have on the matter. The only person truly qualified to make the decision is the one who lives in the situation every day.

Lester Crown is Chairman of Henry Crown and Company. This is an investment firm that owns or has stakes in a large collection of business assets. These holdings include stakes in General Dynamic, Maytag, Hilton, Alltel as well as the New York Yankees and the Chicago Bulls. As a mentor, he helped cure me of my desire to solve others' problems. He told me that you can never know as much as a person who spends forty-plus hours a week on the subject. And they can never relay to you all that they know.

Want more proof? Has this ever happened to you-you are trying to make a decision for your subordinate and each time you start to formulate a solution they say, "Yes, that would work BUT I forgot to tell you about...." Be prepared for a lifetime full of these stops, starts, and stutters if you don't mend your ways.

So, if you are not the right person to make the decision and yet you are the one ultimately responsible for the outcome of the decision, how can you best assist your subordinates? Ask questions that help unblock them and give them perspective, not bring you up to speed. Ask them to explain the problem in light of the organization's overall goal. Ask them how their goal is aligned with the organization's overall goal. Ask them what information they need to solve the problem.

Dear Readers,

In response to my last newsletter, a number of readers emailed their own stories of how learning differences helped propel them into positions of leadership. Others called me courageous for me speaking about my personal challenges in such a public forum.

Once we become leaders, we expect a transformation, as do others. With all the accolades and achievements, our vulnerabilities and insecurity will disappear. Our egos will be stroked by those we lead. And we will, miraculously, become faultless and strong.

But when we reach the top of the hill, there isn’t a magical transformation. We are still who we were.

At the peak of our company’s growth, I mentioned to a friend that I wanted to be known as a high-profile business leader in Minneapolis. After some discussion, he made me aware that, indeed, the business community saw Rick Diamond (my partner) and me in such a light. This revelation didn’t summon angelic trumpets, gold goblets of wine, and the bestowing of gifts. Sure, I got seated at the best tables in restaurants and important people started returning my calls, but all the vulnerable parts inside of me still needed affirmation.

It took a long time to realize that I didn’t need to be overly self-confident and controlling. Like many of the leaders I read about in Forbes and Fortune, my skills at organizing and problem solving were first-rate. But I didn’t feel like I was leading in a fulfilling way. Only when I let go of my ego’s needs and began focusing on others’ needs did this happen.

Once I humbled my ego, I realized that I could connect more with those I led. I could reveal weaknesses and vulnerability, but still earn their respect. In fact, I noticed that I earned more respect that way—in part because it demonstrated to my team members that I could relate to the problems they faced. I, too, received more satisfaction from my leadership role. I could take pride in not only my accomplishments now, but also in the accomplishment of others.

David Meyer of Rider Bennett Law Firm answered last month’s question correctly. Beginning in 2007, Daylight Saving Time in the U.S. will occur on the second Sunday of March and end the first Sunday of November.

Best Regards,

Gary B. Cohen

Guest Book Review

Are Swanson's Rules Good to Great?
By Jim Collins

At age 22, I sat in a conference room atop a glass tower in Tulsa, Okla., the junior researcher on a McKinsey & Co. case team. I'd been asked to join the meeting to answer questions about the valuation of a company our client wanted to buy. The client, an imposing figure with cowboy boots and a belly that spilled over his belt buckle, drawled a question at me: "Now, Jim, why does the target company have its headquarters in Chicago, when it operates mainly in California?"

Everyone turned to me, and my mind raced. I had no idea! But I recalled something I'd read in the corporate history about the company being founded near the Chicago World's Fair. "Uh, I think it is because of the World's Fair in 1893," I sputtered.

No one asked me any more questions that day.

On the flight home, the McKinsey partner sat down next to me and said, "For the future, Jim, 'I don't know' is a perfectly acceptable answer." Thus I learned one of Swanson's rules the hard way: Learn to say "I don't know" -- especially when you don't know.

As I flipped through Swanson's booklet recently, I found myself nodding approval. Yet I wondered, how would his 33 rules stack up against the behavior and leadership styles of the successful CEOs profiled in Good to Great? I quickly developed a rudimentary rating system to catalog Swanson's rules, based on how well they fit with the characteristics of good-to-great CEOs. I found that 21 of Swanson's rules ended up in the positive column -- meaning they exhibited a positive fit with the operating philosophy of the good-to-great CEOs. Only three of Swanson's rules showed up in the negative column. (For the remaining nine, I simply had no information one way or the other.)

This was just a basic exercise, so I wouldn't put too much stock in my numbers. Still, the overall fit appears quite positive.

I was struck in particular by Swanson's imperative to "look for what is missing," so I thought it might be interesting to turn it back on his list. What management lessons from good-to-great CEOs don't show up in his rules? A few jumped out right away, such as this one: Practice the window and the mirror. (In other words, point out the window to credit others when things go well, but point in the mirror to accept responsibility when things go wrong.) Other missing ideas: A "stop doing" list is more important than a "to do" list. Skills can be learned; core values cannot. People are not your most important asset; the right people are. Give people responsibilities, not jobs. Do not confuse celebrity with leadership.

Of course, no piece of writing -- not even the collected works of Peter Drucker -- has all the answers. Overall, Swanson's booklet will do much more good than harm. Indeed, it could have helped prevent a terribly embarrassing moment when I was 22. To paraphrase a former Supreme Court justice, one ought not to reject wisdom merely because it comes late. Come to think of it, that's a pretty good rule as well.

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