Catching the frisbee – A leadership behaviour

Support & Challenge is a funny subject for leaders, as intellectually everyone understands that too much:

• Support becomes suffocating and creates dependency
• Challenge dominates and subjugates free will
• No support or challenge leads to apathy and indifference

All of these though can and often do, lead to varying degrees of disconnection; interestingly though teams can benefit from a kind of ill-fated connection of “we’re all in this together”, which is not a strategy I suggest. Working with senior teams gives me the privilege of observing behaviours and interactions in real time scenarios around the board table and one of the biggest indicators of the health of a team is the ability to calibrate the level of support and challenge that is given to each other.

Think of how your team poses questions, ideas, thoughts, questions, praise and conflict, when these things are placed into the conversation do they receive high levels of support and challenge as appropriate, people sit there not participating or are they overly supported and challenged. When teams get the balance right, which usually takes frequent review to calibrate impact, then people are given a license to operate that stretches the capacity of the team to handle issues, tasks and thoughts in a truly adult and productive way.

Consider this like throwing a Frisbee into the middle of the group, the right level of support and challenge keeps the Frisbee afloat, the wrong level sees it falling to the ground.

Consider the dynamics of your leadership community and how they catch the Frisbee.

Executive Coaching – ‘Knowledge vs Know How’

Executive coaching is without a doubt an art form all of itself, that art is made up two distinct areas.

1. Knowing what to do.
2. Knowing how to do it.

Like any area of valued endeavour, there is something intangible about the capability of an individual to read the moment, sense the thought, pull on the right experience and frame a question or offer an observation that impacts on another individual enough for them to change a perspective and re-frame a behaviour.

Though that is coaching and like any other skill, that is honed to a high level, the art form, the mystic, the value is often made easy around something that is not.

When looking for a great executive coach:

1. Consider the whole person, the depth of their life experience.
2. Are they comfortable in their own skin.
3. Can they be a confidante, will they challenge, be an advocate, inspire, coach and mentor.
4. Do you feel a connection (not friendship)

Simple things that point to whether or not you are prepared to enter into an adult relationship as opposed to a commercial one. Simple things that go beyond a certifate of competence and into your instinct about whether or not the balance between knowledge and know how sits before you.

Leaders set the cultural tone: In their lives and those around them

“I have come to the frightening conclusion…

That I am the decisive element.
It is my personal approach that creates the climate.
It is my daily mood that makes the weather.
I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous.

I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration,
I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.
In all situations, it is my response that decides
whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated,
and a person is humanized or de-humanized.

If we treat people as they are, we make them worse.
If we treat people as they ought to be,
we help them become
what they are capable of becoming.”

 - J.W.Goethe

Goethe (1749-1832) may well have been ahead of the curve when it comes to personal awareness and the impact  we have on ourselves and the cultural climate that we operate in. As a novelist, philosopher, playright, diplomat and civil servant (he obviously didn’t have a television to disturb him or email), he seemed to have a keen and lucid line of site on humanity and this in term enabled him to reflect on his own behaviour and pen the above.

If you are reading this as a business leader, there is possibly no other work on the topic of ‘dignity at work’ or ‘cultural dynamics’ that you’ll ever need to consult again, this says it all, “I am the decisive element”, the choices we all make ultimately become manifested in our own environment as an exec coach one of my primary roles is to enable people to understgand and value the gap between ‘Stimulus[GAP]Response’ if I ask you what do you think sits in the gap between those two words, what would you say?

The answer is simply ”Stimulus[FREE WILL]Response’, it’s just that for some of us the [FREE WILL] gap is very small and in fact is more of a reaction than a space for us to control. Teams and complete business cultures often have little awareness of their ‘capacity’ to either be the controller or the controlled in regards to the execution of Free Will.

How often do you see  individuals, teams or the business swallowed up in a response of  ‘happiness through to despondency’ that is often a trigger response that has been created by an outside source? If you have understood my question (and I asked it right) then the answer is ‘a great deal’, as a leader the hardest thing to do is recognise that as a primary part of the business ecology; how much you are responsible for the ‘daily mood that makes the weather….a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration’?

Goethe in his own personal observation in the 1800’s set a question that can now, not only apply to ourselves but also to teams and overall culture.

Leaders authenticity – Back to the floor undercover boss

Stephen Martin the CEO of Clugston’s has just finished 10 days undercover within his construction company on the UK based TV programme Undercover Boss and what a relevation he just had! First of all praise to the man for doing it, as like with any reality based television endeavour, you are only ever a hairs breadth away from looking a complete wally.

But he pulled it off with just the right balance of humility, wit, intelligence, commercial awareness and humanity (his board on the other hand, probably due to editing, looked less alert to the whole concept of the programme).

To quote Steve, “I think every boss really needs to do something like this, but I’m not convinced they want to hear the truth”, how completely true that is, the true ability as Gerry Roche of Heidrick & Struggles would say, is for the executive to be able to ‘feel the clothe and have the merchants touch’ in regards to the human sensitivities of managing human beings.

What was fabulous about this 60 minute programme was the sheer humanity of the people that work within a very hard industry, they may not have MBA’s but by god they can tell the truth through the eyes of those that live the reality of their industry on a daily basis.

• Les Parker the 20 year old temporary worker, still living at home and saving for a deposit. All he wants, is to learn and work hard, this kid just shows the true gumption that exists out there.
• Dick the site manager who’s worked for the business for 36 years, loves the job, the company and the industry. The first time in his life he’s met the boss, just sitting across the table from the ‘boss’ was almost an overwhelming experience for the man.

Steve was touched by all the people he met, in fact you could really sense he’d made a human connection to the numbers on the spreadsheet and as he was touched by them, in turn they were touched by him. Steve isn’t overly polished, he’s no ‘city slicker’, but what he does have as well as the obvious intelligence to run a company was a sense that out there within his business was a human story that went from an intellectual exercise to an emotional connection. Neither he or his business will be quite the same again.

1. Steve realised very quickly that you’ll never get the truth, from people in fear of their job or the position of the person asking them, so in his own way he created a way of connecting to the workforce .
2. He really listened, there was no PR exercise in his actions with the business, he experienced, listen, observed.
3. He quickly translated his observation into tangible changes, that he saw through himself, rather than delegated.
4. Steve quickly aligned his experience of the show, his gut instinct to strategic business drivers.

The Executive Coaching Guru knows a smart cookie when he sees one.

11 reasons that leaders fail

The brightest and the best leaders often fail, strangely (for them) not because of a technical inability but because of behavours that detract from their capacity to deliver.

Timothy Galleway author of the Innergame of Work came up with a simple equation P=p-i (Performance=Potential-Interference) and it this interference that often dilutes a leaders capacity to succeed.

I am slightly shifting the equation as Mr Gallwey in his book is referring to ones inner voice as supplying the interference, whereas I am referring to a leaders behaviours as creating interference for those who interact with them. A global consultancy called DDI, reckon that 1/3rd of all internal promotions fail, purely based on ineffective leadership behaviour, that’s substantial.

As an executive coach I come across a great many senior managers and have become a fan of the following list of derailers found in the work of Dolitch and Cairo in their book Why CEO’s Fail:

1. Arrogance: You’re right and everybody else is wrong.
2. Melodrama: You always grab the center of attention.
3. Volatility: Your mood swings drive business swings.
4. Excessive Caution: The next decision you make may be your first.
5. Habitual Distrust: You focus on the negatives.
6. Aloofness: You disengage and disconnect.
7. Mischievousness: Rules are made to be broken.
8. Eccentricity: It’s fun to be different just for the sake of it.
9. Passive Resistance: Your silence is misinterpreted as agreement.
10. Perfectionism: Get the little things right even if the big things go wrong.
11. Eagerness to Please: Winning the popularity contest matters most.

Any of these ring a bell? Often I am called upon to work with senior managers who are in danger of being sacked if they don’t get back on track, which is probably the most challenging time to be working with someone. At the end of the process I have a simple message for the business and the individual; and that is to make sure there is a mechanism for getting anonymous, honest and regular feedback.

Which will ultimately mean 360 Degree Feedback which when brought into the business not as a performance tool, but as a development tool, will deliver timely information to an executive team that often struggle to look in the mirror and see a true reflection.

Charlie Duke Jr, Apollo 16, Astronaut and Moonwalker

Charlie Duke Jr

On the 25th March 2009, Lords Cricket Ground, London I am in the audience of a conference with the topic of performance and leadership; the key note speaker we are all waiting for is Charlie Duke who in 1972 was the 10th man to walk on the moon (which pretty well trumps anything else I could pretty well think of).

Charlie’s speech wasn’t particular about anything in particular, it was in essence ‘just a story’; told with a level of honesty (about the errors), pride and selflessness that didn’t need any funny stories or the 10 Steps to Success are…moments.

Charlie told a story about people that believed in somethign that was greater than their own individual needs, something that they could all believe in, align to and aspire to represent. It was in fact a story not really about leadership, but a story about how sometimes it’s about the outcome, not the people; but interestingly it was also about the fact that the people often in hindsight become the story (think Neil Armstrong).

Working in FTSE businesses has enabled me to observe the motivators that exist for people and of course you have all the usual suspects: money, promotion, recognition. What I have come to recognise is that often it is the rather mundane reasons that are the foundation of a sustainable business platform: belonging, caring, teamwork.

Looking at the behaviours that have ushered in the credit crunch, you get to see that the need for leadership now is a simple one: “Create reasons to belong and to contribute” whilst at the same time creating a leadership culture that: “is directly rewarded for the development, demonstration and advocacy of a culture that enable the workforce to care and thus supports high levels of discretionary effort”

So Charlie Duke may not of spoken about leadership, but he spoke about incredibly motivated individuals, some joining the programme and waiting 19 years before they got their opportunity. So this sounds easy for something that is as sexy as putting a man on the moon, but maybe that’s what you are being paid for, not just adjusting the P&L, but finding that reason for people to believe.

Fred ‘the shred’ Goodwin vs. Gordon Brown demonstrating the leadership spectrum

On the one side we have a man who ran a commercial enterprise with a reputation of ’shredding’ the cost out of a business and on the other we have a man who is in public service.

Fred ‘the shred’ Goodwin’s salary £3million’ish vs. Gordon Brown’s salary £187k

Now the Executive Coaching Guru makes one observation that the one refuses to relinquish any of his £693K per annum pension, whilst the 2nd shut parliament for a day in order to honour a colleague who has suffered the horrible loss of his child.

They are of course different scenario’s, but they do I think indicate the fundamental line of variance that exists in the market place.

For me the next decade will see a swing towards the ability of a leader to not only run the show, but do so with a level of humanity that is present in the behaviour of Gordon Brown, but not Fred Goodwin.

The business you lead in today, whether you recognise it or not is made up of people that are witnessing a huge shift in the drivers that propel our wealth generation. The banks WILL be different, reward will be for ’sustainability & legacy’, not the quick turn around.

If ever there was a time for the individual to consider their role and responsibility as a leader then this is it, your people are ready for the kind of leadership that sees the value in the person, not just the dollar.

Women leaders less tolerant of same sex than male counterparts

A recent study by Professor Joyce Benenson and her  team from Emmanuel College in Boston ‘found that men were far more tolerant of other males when it came to showing more understanding and empathy towards workmates of the same sex, the research suggests women will quickly form a negative opinion of female peers who make a mistake or under perform.’

I am not sure if this is one of those things that falls under the heading of ‘well it’s scientific so it must be true’ or ‘well they can prove anything they want to can’t they?”, however what a fabulous bit of research to get the discussion flowing; I have to say there is a part of me that wants to voice an opinion on this, but then again I have another part saying ‘keep your trap shut buddy!’

There is one thing I do know and that is that even if this is right, both men and women in this current age are pulled towards making calculated judgements as to the value of association to another person, in order to calibrate their own ‘brand’ in relation to who they associate with. Frankly this is a shame, because the more we grade, evaluate and grid our relationships, as opposed to just allowing them to have their natural place, the more we incrementally find ourselves planning who we do or do not ‘connect with’.

So take a little notice of the research, but not too much and ask yourself, “How often do I calculate a persons value to myself by way of the value of the association, as opposed to merely having this person on a long list of colleagues I engage with (each in their own different and unique way).