Leadership
In 1992, neuroscientists in Parma, Italy, were studying cells in a monkey’s brain that fired only when the monkey raised its arm. One day, a research student walked into the lab with an ice cream cone. When he absentmindedly raised the cone to his mouth, the monkey’s brain cells for raising its own arm were triggered, and its arm lifted along with the arm of the student.
Researchers have since found that the brain is filled with neurons that mirror not only the actions, but also the emotions, of those around us. These mirror neurons operate as antennae, allowing us to pick up signals in our social world. When we detect the emotions of another person through their actions, our mirror neurons replicate those emotions.
Your team is not immune to the stress reported by 56% of Americans over today’s political climate. Regardless of the midterm election results, some members of your team (possibly even you) will be very unhappy with the results.
During times of uncertainty, it is the leaders’ role to bring order to chaos, calm nerves, and manifest a non-anxious presence. Here are three things you can do during this election season to keep yourself and your team focused:
1. Do a walkabout. Leadership builds confidence. Leaders routinely make important decisions — often under conditions of uncertainty — that affect many people over a long period of time. Operating under those circumstances helps leaders navigate the peaks and valleys that come with the job. But, your team members may not have built skill around decision-making. The stress of deciding who to vote for, or of deciding not to vote, can leave them with action anxiety.
Make sure that you build time into your day to do a walkabout. Letting your team see you in the halls will serve as an instant stress reliever. You’ll remind them that they are not alone, and you will get through this together.
2. Focus on Your Core Culture. Research shows that diverse teams are more innovative. Having a diverse workforce could, however, cause some tension during an election season. Team members who are encouraged to openly share opinions and challenge one another’s assumptions could quickly find themselves at an impasse when it comes to debating political issues.
This is the time to remind your team about what binds you. The organizational values, your mission, and solving customer problems can re-ground your team members and eliminate the drama coming from outside of the office. Find examples of your culture in action and reward those behaviors.
3. Talk about the Johnson Wax Company. In 1886, Samuel Curtis Johnson was a parquet floor salesman in Racine, Wisconsin. One day, he realized that there were more floors than there were products to keep them clean. He mixed his first batch of Johnson’s Wax in his bathtub, abandoned the flooring business and started selling wax as fast as he could make it. Since then, five generations of Johnsons have led the now $10 billion company, making it one of the oldest family-owned businesses in America. Last year marked SC Johnson’s 100th anniversary. The company has weathered the Great Depression, World War II, the Civil Rights era, 9/11, and 24 presidential administrations.
As you go about your day during this election season, your team will be picking up on your signals. Remember that both your verbal and non-verbal patterns are being imitated. Stay grounded in what unites and provide context that will help them withstand the political peaks and valleys of the time.
Question: How can picturing a monkey, an ice cream cone, and an Italian graduate student help you lead your team through election anxiety?
Driven by the premise that excellence is the result of aligning people, purpose and performance, Center for Executive Excellence facilitates training in leading self, leading teams and leading organizations. To learn more, subscribe to receive CEE News!
Strategy Execution
Stand up if you can locate a copy of your organization’s strategic plan in less than five clicks from your desktop (or in a 3-ring binder on your bookshelf). Now keep standing if you’ve opened that file (or binder) in the last quarter.
Most likely, your organization is going through another season of strategic planning this time of year. But, if you haven’t cracked open last year’s plan, then the hours and hours of work you’re about to repeat will likely become another waste of valuable time and effort. To be relevant, strategy must be both planned and executed. Here are four ways to make your strategic plan come to life:
1. Make your goals short and clear. Fuzzy goals are easy to agree on but hard to execute. Fuzzy goals are open to interpretation and a waste of valuable resources. The outcomes need to be empirically verifiable. Everyone involved needs to be able to gauge whether the target has been met.
2. Assign individual responsibility for each goal. It may take a team to achieve each goal, but if everyone is responsible, no one is accountable. Clarifying responsibility will lead to accountability. Bonus: don’t assign most goals to the top executives. The further down the org chart goals are owned, the more likely your organization will be aligned for success.
3. Measure twice. Cut once. Take the time up front to establish the best way to set targets for goal achievement, then report monthly on target-to-actual measurements. If you’re measuring something that your organization hasn’t executed before, look for industry benchmarks to set targets.
4. Review performance monthly. Execution-focused leaders meet regularly to review target-to-actual performance. When performance slides, ask this series of questions:
a. Why is performance sliding?
b. Keep asking “why” until you get as close as possible to the root cause.
c. What are we doing to fix the problem?
d. Do we need to put a cross-functional team on this to improve performance now, or is this an anomaly that will correct itself next month?
When leaders create explicit goals, assign individuals responsible, agree on achievable targets, and revisit performance every month, they are more likely to stay connected to strategic plans — and those plans are more likely to become reality.
Download our Balanced Scorecard fillable template to help you with your 2019 Strategic Plan!
Question: What is your organization doing to move from strategic planning to strategy execution?
Driven by the premise that excellence is the result of aligning people, purpose and performance, Center for Executive Excellence facilitates training in leading self, leading teams and leading organizations. To learn more, subscribe to receive CEE News!
Purpose
Cheryl Kilmer is a leader on a mission. At the age of 17, Kilmer was a psychology student working at a state hospital for children near Ann Arbor, Michigan. What she saw there was horrifying — children were being warehoused, neglected, and forgotten. One such child, Yvette Champagne, sat motionless all day in wooden wheelchair with no physical stimulation, no encouragement to build social skills, and no hope. Yvette had cerebral palsy. She also had a bald spot on the back of her head from rubbing against her wheelchair.
“The only good thing about Yvette’s life was her name,” recalls Kilmer blinking back tears as she reflected on that transformative experience. “I wasn’t able to save her, but I knew that, as a society, we could do so much more for children like Yvette and others who suffer from disabilities.”
Fast forward to San Diego over four decades later. Kilmer and her team of more than 500 dedicated professionals and volunteers serve over 850 children and adults with developmental disabilities. They do this through the nonprofit called TERI (for Technology, Education, Research, and Innovation). Led by their enigmatic founder and CEO, TERI has been recognized as a model for delivering the highest standard of care and uncompromising quality of life to its clients.
That level of care cannot come soon enough for many families. With a 200% increase in the diagnosis of autism in the last decade, the need for quality services and programs dedicated to the developmentally disabled falls far short of the need. It is a need that extends far beyond San Diego. 1.2 million children are born with congenital disabilities in China alone each year. Delegations from China and many other countries around the world have heard of TERI’s success, which they are eager to replicate in their own countries.
Doing so, according to the indefatigable Kilmer, means first building a campus where TERI’s quality standards can be centralized and codified before they can be scaled. Today, TERI offers everything from speech programs and vocational support to equestrian therapy and performing arts productions. These services are provided from several locations strung primarily along north San Diego County. When it comes to tackling the physical, mental, and emotional needs of its clients, no challenge is too big for TERI’s team. But Kilmer’s vision far exceeds the local impact that TERI is providing. “We can do better, and we can teach others to do better,” says Kilmer.
TERI’s Campus of Life, a 20-acre site nestled in the warm hills of San Marcos, California, is the launching pad for global impact. With the help of over $13 million in community donations, TERI purchased the site and completed a state-of-the-art therapeutic equestrian center. Today, clients learn to trust the world around them and build confidence in their own talents and strengths while interacting with and caring for a stable of six horses.
The next phase of the Campus of Life is the key to unlocking Kilmer’s ultimate vision – to build the world’s first place where the entire community can learn, create and thrive side-by-side. When completed, the master plan will include 111,000 square feet of facilities for a theatre, art studios, galleries, music production studios, all available for use by both clients and the community. A fitness and wellness complex with three pools will be key to emphasizing the active lifestyle that is crucial to TERI’s emphasis on health and self-esteem.
It’s an ambitious plan that requires vision, an uncompromising commitment to quality, and tenacity on the part of Kilmer, her team, and the community. The Campus of Life will be Kilmer’s legacy inspired by the memory of one little girl who spent her days in a wooden wheelchair. As a result, millions of lives around the world will be improved for decades to come. Yvette Champagne would have loved it.
If you would like to learn more about TERI and how you can help by donating your time, talent, or treasure, contact development@teriinc.org.
Question: Can the story of two girls who met in a mental institution in the 1970’s forever change the world for millions?
Driven by the premise that excellence is the result of aligning people, purpose and performance, Center for Executive Excellence facilitates training in leading self, leading teams and leading organizations. To learn more, subscribe to receive CEE News!
Leadership
Can you feel it in the air? For the past few weeks, everything around us has been changing. The sun is setting earlier. Leaves are changing in color to vibrant reds and deep yellows. There’s no denying that fall is here and winter is just around the corner. As humans, we are hard wired to accept the inevitability of seasonal changes. Although we can manage extreme weather changes of four seasons a year, why are we so resistant to organizational changes?
If you’re engaged in the effort to set a new direction, orchestrate innovation, or mold a culture, here are six universal truths that can guide you along the way.
1. People don’t resist change. They resist being changed. As management guru Peter Senge suggests, resistance is greatest when change is inflicted on people. If you can give people a chance to offer their input, change is more likely to be met with enthusiasm and commitment.
2. A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Big goals can seem overwhelming and cause us to freeze. This simple truth, attributed to Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, is a reminder to get moving. Take the first step, however small it may seem, and the journey is underway.
3. If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there. Many change efforts fall short because of confusion over the end goal. In the Lewis Carroll classic, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice asks the Cheshire cat which road she should take. The cat’s response reminds us to focus on the destination first, then choose the best path.
4. Change is a process, not a decision. It happens all too often. Senior executives make pronouncements about change, and then launch programs that lose steam. Lasting change requires an ongoing commitment to the process reinforced by constant communication, tools, and milestone recognitions.
5. Do not declare victory prematurely. In his book, The Heart of Change Field Guide, author Dan Cohen suggests that short-term wins do not necessarily equal long-term success. Cohen writes, “keep urgency up and a feeling of false pride down.”
6. Be the change you wish to see in the world. These famous words attributed to Gandhi reminds us all — executives with associates, political leaders with followers, or parents with children — that one of our most important tasks is to exemplify the best of what the change is all about.
Any form of change requires an adjustment period, and some are easier than others. While seasonal changes are predictable and tend to go over smoothly, organizational changes cause more chaos. Leaders trying to implement changes in the workplace can take heart in these truisms, settle in and enjoy the journey.
Question: Chances are, you’re going through a change effort now. Which of these truths can you apply today to help you succeed?
Driven by the premise that excellence is the result of aligning people, purpose and performance, Center for Executive Excellence facilitates training in leading self, leading teams and leading organizations. To learn more, subscribe to receive CEE News!
Letter from the Founder
Welcome to the thirty-eighth issue of CEE News!
For those of you who have been reading CEE News lately to hear about my summer travel exploits, I’ll save you the anticipation: no family feud broke out on the Alaskan cruise. (If you have no idea what I am talking about, you can catch up here).
We did not discuss the subject of global warming. My brothers (all from Texas) did not tease me about the ban on plastic straws in my state (California). No one called ‘fake news’ on anyone else.
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