Monday, October 28, 2019

How do effective leaders do goal setting and execution? - part #2

When preparing to set goals, zoom out and remember the following key information. First, engaging in goal setting and goal execution is an exercise in “disciplined optimism”, referencing the work of Oren Harari in his book, The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, McGraw-Hill, 2002.

Next, Bill Conaty and Ram Charan in their book, The Talent Masters: Why Smart Leaders Put People Before Numbers, Crown Business, 2010., note that much of the work of goal setting is done through role modeling. As they write, “Leaders establish the code of conduct through their own actions, questions, and openness to differing opinions in the struggle to pin down each leader’s unique blend of traits, skills, judgement, relationships and experience.” Specifically, leaders role model urgency, i.e. a belief that the goal is worth working toward.

Third, successful leaders who help others set goals understand two things:

- “Goals should build on one’s strengths, not one’s weaknesses.” - Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis and Anne McKee. Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence, Harvard Business School Press, 2002.

- “Clarifying goals involves making sure that people understand two things: first, what they are being asked [to do is within] their area of responsibility - and second, what good performance looks like and the performance standards by which they will be evaluated.” - Ken Blanchard, Ken. Leading At a Higher Level: Blanchard on Leadership and Creating High Performing Organizations, Prentice Hall, 2006.

Fourth, effective leaders ask the following four questions when helping people prepare for goal setting because as Robert Cooper points out in his book, The Other 90%: How to Unlock Your Vast Untapped Potential For Leadership & Life, Crown Business, 2001, we have to overcome “our natural resistance to growth or change:

- What’s the most exceptional thing you've done this week?

- What the most exceptional thing you will do next week?

- What did you do this week that made you the proudest?

- Given the above answers, where did your goals fit in to these outcomes/results?

The above questions create an opportunity for in-depth reflection and understands that exceptional action is often connected to exceptionally well written goals.

Finally, Hermina Ibarra in her very good book,  Act Like A Leader, Think Like A Leader, Harvard Business Review Press, 2015, notes that effective leaders “set learning goals, not just performance based goals.” They understand the link between constant learning and continual improvement.

This week, reflect on all of the above insights and ask yourself if you and your team are ready to do the in-depth work on setting goals that will be understood, owned and executed well. If not, take the time to get better prepared for goal setting.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Monday, October 21, 2019

How do effective leaders do goal setting and execution? - part #1

Three leaders and I were sitting around the dinner table discussing the challenges of leading in a very large and growing company when the person to my left asked me the following question: “When we get big, i.e. cross a certain size, what do we need to pay attention to that we are not currently paying attention to?” It was one of the best questions I have been asked this year.

As I explained that evening, a growing company can become intensely focused on project management at the operational level. This will result in a lack of strategic clarity and strategic development.

Second, senior leaders in companies that grow quickly will only be told what people think we want to hear, not what we should be hearing. This in combination with less and less connection and communication with front line staff and front line supervisors is a dangerous combination.

Third, quoting Ron Heifitz, “leaders die with their mouths open.” With growth, leaders can get caught in a constant information send mode and not spend enough time listening, learning and reflecting.

Fourth, many leaders of growing companies get so busy that they do not stay in touch with their mentors, their families or their friends. The result of which is that they loose access to perspective, love and support.

Finally, many leaders of rapidly growing companies forget that goal setting is the master skill. And the goal of a growing company is to set goals that people own, understand and will execute!

From my vantage point, goal setting has become more and more problematic during the last couple of years. The first problem is that the word “goal” means so many different things to so many different people. There is rarely consensus on the meaning of this term. And when we use a word within a group that is interpreted in many different ways, the outcome is confusion and frustration.

Next, everyone talks to me about the importance of having SMART goals, i.e specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time based. However, awareness about SMART goals does not mean we actually set SMART goals. Many times our SMART goals are not very smart.

Third, for someone to be successful in creating and executing a goal, there needs to be two things in place: an understanding of why this is the goal which is not very common, and ownership of the goal. The later is equally rare because ownership only happens if there is a safe space for ownership to take place. 

We as leaders have to recognize that safe spaces for goal ownership have to take place long before we set a goal. We also have to remember that executing a goal will requires us to step outside our comfort zone, and in this place the first thing we often feel is uncomfortable and incompetent. Now there is a loosing combination of feelings.

So, this week as you begin setting goals for the coming new year, think about goal setting as a four step process, namely preparing to set a goal, setting a goal, executing a goal, and evaluating a goal. This framework in combination with the above thoughts is the first step to effective change and long term success. 

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Monday, October 14, 2019

How do leaders successfully deal with accelerated change, chronic uncertainty and rampant complexity? - part #4

When dealing with accelerated change, chronic uncertainty and rampant complexity, leaders need to role model not getting caught in silo based thinking or decision making. They also should not tolerate it when others do it. Instead, they need to make important choices.

David J. Snowden and Mary E. Boone wrote an excellent article on this subject called “A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making” in the November 2007 issue of the Harvard Business Review. As they explain, “As in the other contexts, leaders face several challenges in the complex domain. Of primary concern is the temptation to fall back into traditional command-and-control management styles - to demand fail-safe business plans with defined outcomes. Leaders who don’t recognize that a complex domain requires a more experimental mode of management may become impatient when they don’t seem to be achieving the results they were aiming for. They may also find it difficult to tolerate failure, which is an essential aspect of experimental understanding. If they try to over control the organization, they will preempt the opportunity for informative patterns to emerge. Leaders who try to impose order in a complex context will fail, but those who set the stage, step back a bit, allow patterns to emerge, and determine which ones are desirable will succeed. They will discern many opportunities for innovation, creativity, and new business models.”

One element of these choices is create and maintain a learning culture. Given the recruitment and retention challenges in companies across the country at this time period, a learning culture creates the capacity to promote from within and to create spaces where people can gather, share and expand their perspective about what is happening and how to proceed.

If we as leader reinforce and support mono-cultures of the mind, we are bound to repeat the same problems over and over. There are many paths to innovation, creativity and effective action. Expanding the capacity of people to think and learn is crucial to our success. 

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Monday, October 7, 2019

How do leaders successfully deal with accelerated change, chronic uncertainty and rampant complexity? - part #3

This morning I have been thinking about an interaction I had at the Spring 2019 From Vision to Action Executive Roundtable. Myself and another person were walking down the hall toward the conference room where the Roundtable was to take place. I turned to the other person and asked “How long have we been working together?”

He replied, “Since November 1999. Do you remember when we first met?”

I thought for a moment and said, “I am sorry to say I don’t.”

He continued, “It was November 1999. You keynoted a conference that I attended. I was a first time CEO and I asked you after your presentation what I needed to know and do as a new leader. You told me to read the book, Flight of the Buffalo: Soaring To Excellence, Learning to Let Employees Lead  by Belasco and Stayer, and then to call you to discuss it.”

I smiled.

He continued the story by saying, “I did read the book and then I called you.” And with that, he quoted two of the most powerful lines from this book:

“Transfer ownership for work to those who execute the work.”

“Create the environment for ownership where each person wants to be responsible for his/her own performance.”

In times of accelerated change, chronic uncertainty and rampant complexity, we want people to own the work they are doing. We also want these same people to have a clear picture inside of them about what is a “great performance”. And finally, we want all the systems and structures to align and support that “great performance” at the individual, team and organizational levels.

As I wrote last week, I believe the foundation upon which ownership, clarity and alignment is built starts with the senior leadership team. The challenge for us at this time is to realize that within complex change the leader’s job with their team and the organization as a whole is to engage in active inquiry. 

Many years ago Stephen Covey explained it this way: “seek first to understand; second to be understood.” Active inquiry is based upon persistent and thoughtful inquiry through questions.

This past summer I worked with many different leadership teams as they began planning for the future. In particular, I was working with a senior leadership team where I asked three foundational questions:

- What is going right?

- What shouldn’t change as you execute a new strategic plan?

- What does growth mean to all of you?

In one particular circumstance, every single senior leader at the table would make a statement. No one asked questions. The CEO was stunned. There was no thoughtful inquiry.

At the end of the day, the CEO asked me for my analysis of the day’s meeting and I respond with “I don’t know if you can get there from here with this group of people. The day was all posture and no dialogue. They are senior managers but there was little senior leadership behaviors displayed at the individual or group level.”

Upon considerable reflection, I have figured out that complex times and changes require more interactive communication at multiple levels within the organization. The goal of which is to create understanding, trust and a level of dialogue where by we may discover “positive deviance”, i.e. a solution or set of solutions that may already working within the organization itself, rather than looking to outside people and companies for best practices or clues about how to proceed. Furthermore, interactive communication can redirect our attention from “what’s wrong” to “what’s right” 
 
This week, sit down and do your own reflecting. Ask yourself the following two questions: 

- Where are we building safe, respectful, and trusting work environments so all involved will commit to decisions and plans of action? 

- Where are we building time and space into our daily lives so we have the courage to hold one another accountable to delivering those plans?

Now is the time to work for a better future.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257