What is the connection between organizational history, culture and meaningful work within successful organizations? - part #2

Recently, a long term client and I were reviewing their latest strategic plan. She had asked me to give her feedback about the current strategic plan and where problems will happen in the execution. Having done this for the last 4 strategic  plans, it was an interesting process. During the time we were together, we discussed lessons learned from many years of working together. The result of which was that I am more convinced than ever that we must start to teach and share organizational history. 

There are days we get so busy that we forget that by understanding history we understand what got us to this point. Teaching others about the past big picture and how that resulted in past strategic plans helps all involved understand that strategy is evolutionary. When we share our memories about that history, i.e. oral history, this builds clarity and ownership for our current choices.

I have spent many hours over the course of my career sharing meals, cups of hot beverages and occasionally an adult beverage, discussing the past, the present and the future. I have listened to people’s journeys with the organization, and I have shared my own journey with the company. When people feel safe enough to share their story, the outcome of this depth of sharing is that we build bonds and we recognize that history is real rather than some distant past. 

What great leaders understand is the following written by James Kerr is his delightful book, Legacy: What The All Blacks Can Teach Us About The Business Of Life, Constable, 2013: “Leaders are storytellers. All great organizations are born from a compelling story. This central organizing thought helps people understand what they stand for and why.” This combination of understanding history and sharing oral history makes the work more meaningful. 

While reading The Christian Science Monitor Weekly last fall (I read a diverse collection of resources and find the essays in this weekly new magazine interesting), one section talked about how Millennials “put such a premium on pursing careers that hold meaning for them.” Nothing new here on one level.  

The same essay also reported that according to Gallup only 33 percent of US workers feel truly “engaged” while on the job. “That’s up modestly from 26 percent in 2000 and 28 percent in 2009. Some 16 percent of workers are disengaged or unhappy in their jobs, while fully half of the workforce is in a neutral zone, committed to essentially just showing up.” Another poll, by payroll firm ADP, finds that nearly two-thirds of US workers are actively or passively looking for other jobs.” Also no surprise on one level.

For leaders in key position the big question is the following: How do we respond to this news? Along with sharing our history which gives us perspective, I think we need to create new and more empowering stories. One problem we are experiencing right now is that we are letting others define our story. It is time we define our own story and write or renew the empowering parts of it.

As I teach in the From Vision to Action Leadership Training, successful leaders are architects of meaning. As Joel Kurtzman in his excellent book Common Purpose: How Great Leaders Get Organizations to Achieve The Extraordinary, (Jossey-Bass 2010) points out: “Strategic leaders are people within organizations who plot the course... Strategic leaders generally can think far into the future...The best of these people understand where the future is going and how to get there.

The role of operational leaders is quite different from those of strategic leaders. Operational leaders make certain the trains run on time, the manufacturing processes are adequate, the logistics systems work, the technicians are well trained, and the the trucks are where they are supposed to be.... like strategic leaders, operational leaders are vital to an organization’s success.”

Leaders who are architects of meaning routinely confront paradoxes and wrestle with deep questions of identity and direction. They are comfortable asking the following questions:

- Who are we? 

- What do we believe or stand for?

- Where are we going?

- How are we going to get there?

Then, they seek shared answers to these questions on the strategic and operational levels. They remind all involved that each day we are building our legacy by what we are doing. The best leaders understand that we are constantly preparing the organization to be handed over to those who will follow us, hoping they will it do it even better.

The outcome of sharing past history and sharing our stories plus answering the above important questions is coherence, i.e. the quality of becoming integrated. And given all that is happening in the world right now, coherence is something we all need. This week, share your history and lessons learned with others. It will restore perspective and build connections in very important ways.

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

Summer Reading

Recently, a lot of people in leadership positions have asked me what I am reading. The answer is simple: “Lots, and always.” In particular, people want to know which books. So, here has been my summer reading to date.

I started my summer reading the book, Coop: A Family, a Farm, and the Pursuit of One Good Egg (Harper, 2009) by Michael Perry. This non-fiction book is a humorous and heartfelt memoir of a young man and his family living in a ramshackle, northern Wisconsin farmhouse. With 37 acres of fallen down fences and overgrown fields, Perry is informed by his pregnant wife that she intends to to deliver their baby at home. So, Michael Perry searches through his unusual childhood of being raised by city-bred parents, who took in 60 or so foster children while running a sheep and dairy farm, for clues insights and solutions about how to proceed as a farmer, writer, husband and father. With his trademark humor, I read the book because the man is an excellent story teller. As one who uses stories extensively in my training and executive coaching, it is always good to read the work of other people, particularly fine story tellers. I find it educational and inspirational. It helps me on so many levels. And besides, it was a fun book to read.

Next, I read Christopher McDougall’s latest book, Natural Born Heros: How a Daring Band of Misfits Mastered the Lost Secrets of Strength and Endurance (Alfred A. Knopf, 2015). McDougall, the bestselling author of Born To Run, explores the secrets of ancient Greek Heroes and realizes that are still alive and well today on the island of Crete. In particular, the book revolves around the story of a band of Resistance fighters in WWII who plotted the daring abduction of a German general from the heart of Nazi occupied Crete. In particuclar, the author talks about the physical challenges of being a hero and doing heroic feats, including natural movement, extraordinary endurance and efficient nutrition, along with the mental challenges. I enjoyed reading this book because it reminded me to think holistically when helping leaders tackle complex and challenging, adaptive problems. I also enjoyed reading it because I am a former history teacher and it was a good story.

This week, I finished reading Marshall Goldsmith’s latest book called Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts - Becoming the Person You Want To Be (Crown Business, 2015). Considered to be one of the world’s most influential leadership and business thinkers, a top rated executive coach, and author of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, Goldsmith points out that our reactions do not happen in a vacuum.  They often are the result of constant and relentless triggers in our environment. Still, he notes that we have a choice in how we respond. 

At the same time, he acknowledges that change is hard. We are superior planners but inferior does in an environment that influences us constantly through out the day. Our best intentions and discipline are often drained like water from a leaky bucket. 

His solution comes in the form of daily self-monitoring, hinging on what he calls “active” questions. These questions measure our effort, not out results. As he explains, there is a difference between achieving and trying. We can not always achieve the desired result but we can try on a daily basis.  In particular, Goldsmith offers six “engaging questions that can help us take responsibility for our efforts to improve. They are as follows:

1. Did I do my best to set clear goals today?

2. Did I do my best to make progress toward my goals today?

3. Did I do my best to find meaning today?

4. Did I do my best to be happy today?

5. Did I do my best to build positive relationships today?

6. Did I do my best to be fully engaged today?

For those of you who are actively involved in coaching people and working on improving employee engagement, then this book needs to go to the top of your reading list. Practical and thought-provoking, I found his insights very helpful. This is a book I will be rereading during the coming weeks so I can continue to grow from his insights. I strongly encourage you to read it as well.

Happy reading to all of you this summer, and if you discover a good book, please remember to share it with me. Thanks!

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

Two Key Concepts For Success as a Middle Manager

When seeking to become a better middle manager or to coach someone into becoming a better middle manager, there are two key concepts to review.

The first is to understand the difference between leadership and management. The best way to do this is to review the following key material by Marcus Buckingham in his delightful book, The One Thing You Need to Know ... About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success, Free Press, 2005. As he writes, “To excel as a manager you must never forget that each of your direct reports is unique and that your chief responsibility is not to eradicate this uniqueness, but rather to arrange roles, responsibilities, and expectations so that you can capitalize upon it. The more you perfect this skill, the more effectively you will turn talents into performance.

To excel as a leader requires the opposite skill. You must become adept at calling upon those needs we all share. Our common needs include the need for security, for community, for authority, and for respect, but for you, the leader, the most powerful universal need is our need for clarity. To transform our fear of the unknown into confidence in the future, you must discipline yourself to describe our joint future vividly and precisely. As your skill at this grows, so will our confidence in you.”

In order to become a better middle manager, the first step is to clarify roles, responsibilities and expectations.  While this sounds easy, it is most often forgotten in the daily rush to just get stuff done. A good executive coach can make a profound difference in helping this process take place. They can ask questions and share insights which build awareness and understanding. So, in review, to understand the difference between management and leadership is vital to long term success in management positions. When we manage well and lead well, we create capacity within the organization at a whole new level.

The other key concept is to recognize the power of building on strengths. As Tom Rath, author of StrengthsFinder 2.0 (Gallup Press, February 2007), noted, “If your manager primarily ignores you, your chances of being actively disengaged are 40%. If your manager primarily focuses on your weaknesses, your chances of being actively disengaged are 22%.  If your manager primarily focuses on your strengths, your chances of being actively disengaged are 1%.” 

The above numbers related to engagement are stunning. Yet, we as managers and leaders have to recognize that we often get stuck focusing on what is wrong and trying to fix it, rather than building on people’s strengths. While building on strengths takes time, it also results in longer term commitment and success.

Putting the two concepts together is the key to being a successful middle manager. In the beginning, you must recognize the unique talent in each of your direct reports and then to build on these strengths. When we do this, then we will achieve a greater level of engagement and performance by all involved.

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

Making the Right Choices

When I first started out as a consultant and a trainer, I got invited to teach a stress management workshop to carpet sales men and women. The audience was polite but not overly responsive. Halfway through I realized that the sales people just wanted to sell carpet, and the seminar was mostly for their boss. She was totally overwhelmed and really needed one to one coaching. Nevertheless, when it was all done, a nice older sales person came up to me and shared that the essence of successful work and living was to “plan your work and then work your plan.” It was good advice 20+ years ago and it is still applicable today. The challenge for many this month is that they do not know the plan for 2011, or even have a plan for the next 90 days. The other challenge is that they are not making the right choices.

Having begun my career in the world of non-profits and education rather than sales, working with small and then larger for-profit companies was a steep learning curve. One day during my early adventures, I was talking with a woman sales executive about why her teams were struggling (mostly a problem with trust and role modeling related to conflict resolution) when she gave me a lecture on sales. “There are three initial variables to sales,” she explained. “They are price, time and quality. You, as the customer, only get to pick two of them. We as the sales organization control the third one. For example, if you pick low price and high quality, then we both know that I control the time element. If you choose fast and cheap, then quality may not be the best. If you want high quality and fast, then you will have to pay the price. They key is to know which variables the customer wants and which variables you can control. After that, the rest of the sales business is about building and maintaining a healthy relationship with the customer.”

Decades later and I still smile when I remember her comments. She was right then and she is right now. Knowing the variables and understanding the importance of maintaining healthy relationships with customers is pretty simple and very basic, but profoundly astute.

Based on my own experiences over the years, I would add to her formula one other element, the quality of the people who work for the company. William J. McEwen in his book, Married To The Brand: Why Consumers Bond With Some Brands For Life, Gallup Press, 2005, states that the initial relationship between a customer and a brand are typically influenced by the quality of the product plus the place, promotion and price. McEwen also notes, based on his research at the Gallup Organization, that the number one driver of customer intent to return to a specific brand is the level of employee engagement. As he writes, “engaged employees help produce engaged customers.”

Yet, if we dig deep into the subject of employee engagement, we always come back to the quality of the people in executive, management and front line supervisory positions. As Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman wrote so many years ago in their book First, Break All The Rules: What The World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, Simon & Schuster, 1999, people join companies for what they represent but they stay or leave based on their relationship with their supervisor. Healthy relationships between employees and their employers makes a profound impact on customer service and sales.

However, I am now seeing one problem start to surface in multiple organizations which worries me. Many people in these influential leadership positions do not know about the key variables related to sales and even fewer know what the plan is for 2011. And paraphrasing the carpet sales man I met many years ago, if you do not know the plan, it is hard to work the plan. Therefore, if we want to position our organizations for a strong first quarter in 2011, I recommend we spend the next couple of weeks helping people understand the variables, know what the plan is for 2011, and help them to build and maintain relationships with each other and their customers.

Thinking ahead,

Geery

P.S. Thanks to all of you who recently signed up as followers of this blog. I appreciate your doing this. I also appreciate those of you who are sharing these blog entries with others. Again, thanks.

Geery Howe, M.A.Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer inLeadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational ChangeMorning Star Associates319 - 643 - 2257

Retaining Key People

Tuesday morning: November 9, 2010

Dear friends,

“When push comes to shove, we’ll deal with that problem.”

I hear this nearly every week now when working with executives regarding strategic planning. The phase when “push comes to shove” means that a problem will be confronted when it reaches a certain level or crucial point. Originally the term came from rugby in the 1950’s, where, after an infraction of rules, forwards from each team face off and push against one another until one player can kick the ball to a teammate and resume the game.

Today, we have a problem that has reached a crucial point. We must retain key people in key positions or the pressures of this economy could cause an organization to enter into a very difficult and extended period of decline.

Weekly now, I talk with these key individuals and discover that they are very frustrated with their organizations. The reasons vary from place to place, but they report to me that they are frustrated by the lack of leadership, effective communications, operational excellence, or strategic vision within their organization. But what ever the problem, these key people all end up at the same place, a feeling of dissatisfaction and disengagement.

Joel Kurtzman in his book, Common Purpose: How Great Leaders Get Organizations to Achieve The Extraordinary, Jossey-Bass 2010, shares six different ways to retain leaders. He recommends that we “identify them early, and make sure they know it,” “celebrate their accomplishments,” “educate them about the organization and its capabilities,” “give them access to the team at the top,” “respond quickly with a counteroffer if they plan to leave,” and “reward them with new challenges, not just more money.”

But as I review this well thought out list, I always think about the subject of coaching. In a chapter called “Recruiting Supportive Coaches: A Key to Achieving Positive Behavioral Change” from the book, The Many Facets of Leadership by Marshall Goldsmith, Vijay Govindarajan, Beverly Kaye, Albert A. Vicere, Marshall Goldsmith presents the results of an extensive literature review about the effective strategies involved in helping successful people get even better. As he writes, “Successful people are much more likely to accept coaching from those whom they respect and whom they see as successful.” Furthermore, “successful people are less likely to value coaching from those whom they do not see as successful.” As he continues, “This phenomenon tends to occur even if the content of the coaching from the less successful people is very similar.... This made us realize that when dealing with successful people, the source of the coaching can be as important as the content of the coaching.”

At the same time, Goldsmith explains, “Another clear finding of our literature search is that positive behavioral change is much more likely to last if the individual who is trying to change has a "support group" (or at least "support person") who is assisting in the change process.” As he continues, “Your best coaches may often be people whom you respect and who impact your life on a daily basis.”

With the above in mind, we as executives must come to understand that the degree of commitment in the work force reflects the degree of respect within the work place and the degree to which people believe they are part of the team. But in a business world that is focused on pursuing growth, promoting innovation, maximizing efficiency and getting things done using procedures, systems and process discipline, the concepts of respect and team spirit seem pretty old school, if not ancient history.

Nevertheless, these softer skill sets, from my perspective, have a great impact on retaining key people. For in the beginning, middle, and end of organizational change, we at times forget that people bond with people before they commit to plans or great ideas. And right now key people are experiencing a high level of dissatisfaction with the lack of respect and team work within the work place.

One solution is to teach people to become better leaders. By educating them about how to take the long view or bigger picture perspective along with how to successfully manage the details related to strategic implementation, we help them to build a work environment based on respect and team work where employees want to contribute. This kind of education is unique and very effective.

In the late 90’s, I created just such a training in order to help key people become better leaders and to help key leaders retain their best people. It was called The From Vision to Action Leadership Training. This in-depth, year long training course encompasses four quarterly sessions, and helps participants gain valuable skills, knowledge and perspective about leadership, strategic planning and execution, and implementing organizational change.

For more information about how to register for this unique opportunity which starts in March 2011, including cost, dates and location, I encourage you to click on the following link: http://www.chartyourpath.com/VTA-Leadership-Training.html.

From experience and the extensive amount of well-written books on the topic, we know that retaining leaders is vital to short and long term success. Before push comes to shove in your organization, now is the time to invest in those individuals who can create a work environment where we retain and attract the talent for today’s challenges and tomorrow's opportunity.

I hope you can join this level of learning in 2011.

My best,

Geery

P.S. For those of you who are wanting to improve employee engagement throughout your organization, look no further than this recently posted article (11/2/10) at the on-line Gallup Management Journal web site called “Leading Engagement From the Top” by Jennifer Robison: http://gmj.gallup.com/content/144140/Leading-Engagement-Top.aspx

The article reports about the recently conducted research by Sangeeta Agrawal, a Gallup Consultant and Jim Harter, Ph.D., Gallup’s chief scientist of workplace management and well being, about the impact of executive engagement on managers. In a well written two page article, the researchers discover through detailed analysis what are the specific ways senior executives can improve managers’ engagement. Without copying the entire article word for word, the first thing is to concentrate on mission or purpose.

From my perspective, the best have known this for years. It also is exciting to see Gallup confirm this through their research. As we look to 2011, we must education more managers and help them become leaders who can understand this research and make similar choices in their circle of influence. This is, where I believe, the 2011 From Vision to Action Leadership Training can make a profound difference.

Geery Howe, M.A.Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer inLeadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational ChangeMorning Star Associates319 - 643 - 2257