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Leadership
(Join me live on April 27 in San Diego where I will be co-hosting The Re:Imagine Leadership Summit with Dr. Tony Baron. Registration closes April 25).
Last week, Disney returned to the story of The Jungle Book to the delight of yet another generation. The new release is a visual marvel that will thrill audiences of all ages.
This coming of age classic is based on the collection of stories published by Rudyard Kipling from 1893-1894. The stories center around a human child, Mowgli, who is adopted and raised by wolves in an Indian jungle. Unlike the Disney versions, Kipling’s stories offer rich prose from which Mowgli learns the ways of the world and his place in it. And they are layered with leadership wisdom.
Kipling devoted much of Mowgli’s conflict on defending his “wolfness” and his rightful place in the animal kingdom. When challenged by his tutor, the black panther Bagheera, Mowgli insists,
I was born in the jungle. I have obeyed the Law of the Jungle, and there is no wolf of ours from whose paws I have not pulled a thorn. Surely they are my brothers!
When he is first exposed to humans, Mowgli begins to question his identity. He struggles to accept that he is human because he is appalled by the greed and destructiveness of men. Mowgli can identify with the savagery he witnesses among some members of the animal world, because each animal remains true to its nature. But the self-indulgence of humans is beyond his understanding. Through a series of adventures in which he must defeat his sworn enemy, the tiger Shere Khan, and overcome many obstacles, Mowgli eventually comes to accept his humanness.
What does it mean to be human? Like Mowgli, we must accept that humans have both positive and negative qualities. We try our best to deny or cover up our flaws. Yet, one of the most beautiful gifts we can receive is the love of others who cherish us in spite of our imperfections.
These are powerful lessons every leader must come to accept.
First, we are humans and every person we will ever have the privilege of leading is a human with both positive and negative qualities.
Second, we must accept the entire package, and create a culture in which every member of our pack can be — not perfect — but whole.
Question: As a leader, do you create a culture that accepts the humanity of others?
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Leadership, People
(Join me live on April 27 in San Diego where I will be co-hosting The Re:Imagine Leadership Summit with Dr. Tony Baron.)
For 25 years, Great Place to Work® has studied the link between organizational culture and business performance. Last week, throngs of people from around the world poured into San Diego to attend the 2016 Great Place To Work® annual conference. Keynotes and breakouts were given by leaders who shared the secret to how they achieved a spot on coveted lists like Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For.
Companies that make the list have nearly half the voluntary turnover of their peers, and perform nearly 2x better than the market average. So what’s their secret? In a word, trust.
Here are three distinct examples shared about how to create a high-trust organizational culture:
1. Define Your Company’s Purpose and Connect People To It. Keynote speaker Robb Webb, EVP of CHRO at Hyatt Hotels, confided that employees used to have to memorize scripts when dealing with guests. Instead of getting a human conversation, guests were put through a rigid set of questions and answers at check-in. That Q&A was designed to collect data and generate a higher profit:guest ratio, rather than improve the guest experience.
“Today,” Webb said, “we tell employees to throw away the maps (or the scripts) and use a compass to find true north (our purpose).” Hyatt’s purpose is simple – We care for people so they can be their best. To achieve that purpose, Webb asks colleagues to follow 3 simple rules:
1) Be in the moment
2) Be yourself
3) Meet the guest where the guest is in the moment.
Simple. Human. Effective. That’s the secret to how Hyatt has achieved several GPTW list rankings, including #47 on Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For 2016.
2. Get Your Values Off the Walls. In 2002, Atlassian co-founders launched an enterprise software company with no sales force. From Australia. Their strategy was to make great software, price it right, and make it available to download from the internet. Their hope was that people would build great things with their software and tell their friends, and so on. Along with Atlassian’s unconventional business model, is an unconventional set of core values that shape its culture and its products.
Breakout leader Jeff Diana, Atlassian’s Chief People Officer, shared the company’s core values (including ones like “Open Company, No Bullshit,” “Build with heart and balance,” and “Play, as a Team”). Diana described how the values serve as the foundation that directly impacts employee performance from Day 1. “48 hours before each new employee begins the job,” Diana said, “they get a welcome box delivered to their home.” Among the items in the box are temporary tattoos for each of the company’s core values. “We encourage new employees to show up to work wearing their favorite value tattoo,” said Diana, “It’s a great conversation starter about what our values mean and how we use them every day to make business decisions.”
Among its many GPTW listings, Atlassian most recently ranked #6 in Best Workplaces in Technology 2016.
3. Give Employees a Voice. In 1999, San Diego-based Scripps Health was losing $15 million a year, and employee and physician confidence had hit bottom. That was the scene when Scripps tapped new President & CEO Chris Van Gorder to restore Scripps’ fiscal and cultural health. Van Gorder responded with a transparent, co-management style, configured an award-winning executive team, streamlined business operations and focused on workplace culture to lead a landmark turnaround.
“An integral part of the turnaround strategy,” Van Gorder told guests at a Scripps Health site visit, “was to enlist the staff directly in the planning of the Prebys Cardiovascular Institute – the largest provider of cardiovascular medicine, research and training on the West Coast.” “We had a voice in designing every detail from the size of the elevators to the configuration of the patient rooms,” said Chief Nurse and Operations Executive Cindy Steckel. The staff tested their designs in rooms marked “Day In the Life” to assess patient safety, staff circulation, and infection control.
Listening to the voice of the employees is just one of many ways that Van Gorder helped Scripps achieve multi-year GPTW spots, including #42 on Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For 2016.
If you look over these three examples carefully, you’ll notice that these organizations have found ways to treat employees like adults. They give them inspiration, motivation, and the tools necessary to get the job done – then get out of their way and trust them to deliver results.
Question: Would your employees say that they are treated like trusted adults?
Join me and Dr. Tony Baron on April 27th in San Diego for The Re:Imagine Leadership Summit
Discover how to create a culture that can respond swiftly, communicate freely, encourage experimentation, and organize as a network of people motivated by a shared purpose to meet the demands of the 21st century business environment. To learn more or register, go to: executiveexcellence.com/reimagine
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Leadership
(Join me live on April 27 in San Diego where I will be co-hosting The Re:Imagine Leadership Summit with Dr. Tony Baron.)
“Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.” – Colin Powell
Today is the birthday of the legendary public statesman and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Since his retirement from public office in 2004, Powell has spent much of his time sharing his leadership knowledge with the business community. In his 2012 book, It Worked For Me, Powell attributes his success to hard work, straight talk, respect for others, and thoughtful analysis.
At the heart of the book are Powell’s “13 Rules” — ideas that he gathered over the years that formed the basis of his leadership principles.
Powell’s 13 Rules are listed below. They are full of emotional intelligence and wisdom for any leader.
- It ain’t as bad as you think! It will look better in the morning. Leaving the office at night with a winning attitude affects more than you alone; it conveys that attitude to your followers.
- Get mad then get over it. Instead of letting anger destroy you, use it to make constructive change.
- Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it. Keep your ego in check, and know that you can lead from wherever you are.
- It can be done. Leaders make things happen. If one approach doesn’t work, find another.
- Be careful what you choose. You may get it. Your team will have to live with your choices, so don’t rush.
- Don’t let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision. Superb leadership is often a matter of superb instinct. When faced with a tough decision, use the time available to gather information that will inform your instinct.
- You can’t make someone else’s choices. You shouldn’t let someone else make yours. While good leaders listen and consider all perspectives, they ultimately make their own decisions. Accept your good decisions. Learn from your mistakes.
- Check small things. Followers live in the world of small things. Find ways to get visibility into that world.
- Share credit. People need recognition and a sense of worth as much as they need food and water.
- Remain calm. Be kind. Few people make sound or sustainable decisions in an atmosphere of chaos. Establish a calm zone while maintaining a sense of urgency.
- Have a vision. Be demanding. Followers need to know where their leaders are taking them and for what purpose. To achieve the purpose, set demanding standards and make sure they are met.
- Don’t take counsel of your fears or naysayers. Successful organizations are not built by cowards or cynics.
- Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier. If you believe and have prepared your followers, your followers will believe.
Colin Powell’s rules are short but powerful. Use them as a reminder to manage your emotions, model the behavior you want from others, and lead your team through adversity.
Question: Which of the 13 rules have you mastered? Which one can you work on today?
Interested in receiving some one-on-one leadership coaching?
Check out our Leadership Development services or email
snasim@executiveexcellence.com directly to set-up a free 30 minute consultation.
Join me and Dr. Tony Baron at our next Re:Imagine Leadership Summit April 27 in San Diego! Success doesn’t happen by luck. It’s intentional. Without a leadership roadmap, your team will wander aimlessly through shifting priorities leaving them confused about the purpose of their jobs. Come to a one-day immersion in transformative leadership crafted to inspire and engage you.
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Leadership
Most leaders are naturally high achievers. Their schedules are busy, they keep long hours, and their drive is tireless. Unfortunately, they may also be overscheduled, buried under their work, and on the edge of burnout. Over time, both the leader and the organization can suffer.
Successful leaders know what needs to be done and how to leverage the talents of their team. They know how to broker work to the right people, in the right proportions. In short, they delegate.
As Stephen Covey observed,
“Effectively delegating to others is perhaps the single most powerful high-leverage activity there is.”
But delegation can be tricky. It can be used as an excuse for everything from dumping workload onto subordinates, or as a dynamic tool for motivating and training your team to realize their full potential. Below are four levels of work distribution. Ask yourself which level you are on.
Level 1: Doing. Many people get their first leadership titles because they are Doers. Action, initiative, and productivity are part of their toolkit. They deliver high quality results quickly with no drag from others. The benefits of working at Level 1 are knowledge, growth, and reward. The danger comes when we’ve done so much so well for so long that we begin to burnout. Here are some symptoms of burnout as described by Dr. Herbert Freudenberger in his book, Burn-Out: The High Cost of Achievement.
Level 2: Dumping. Level 2 is a coping mechanism from too much Doing. Frustrated by doing it all, leaders begin dumping work on others. They unload menial tasks on their team. The good news is, they’ve gained a little breathing room. The bad news is, team members spend more time doing mundane, repetitive work. This limits their ability to take on added responsibility and grow. Healthy team members will not bear this kind of environment for long. No one likes to get dumped on.
Level 3: Delegating. By Level 3, leaders have gained the ability to plan ahead and determine how to best delegate projects. They find people with available time and suitable talent. Skilled delegators take the time to match the individual’s development level for a given assignment with the appropriate leadership style. This delegation style is also known as Situational Leadership. Work gets done at a healthy pace and no one burns out, but it’s still not the highest level to be achieved.
Level 4: Developing. Successful leaders know that there is a need beyond creating a highly productive team. At Level 4, leaders invest their time, energy, and thinking into growing others as leaders. They gauge each team member’s potential for growth and leadership. This practice compounds success, because bringing out the best in a person works as a catalyst for bringing out the best in the team. At this stage, production becomes secondary to outcome. As author Tom Peters notes, “Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders.”
It’s true that delegating something the first time can take more time and effort. You could do it faster and better yourself. But if you want to avoid burnout and take your organization to the next level, you’ll find the investment is worth it.
Question: As a leader, what level do you choose to get the work done? What would it take to move to the next level?
Interested in receiving some one-on-one leadership coaching?
Check out our Leadership Development services or email
snasim@executiveexcellence.com directly to set-up a free 30 minute consultation.
Join me and Dr. Tony Baron at our next Re:Imagine Leadership Summit April 27 in San Diego! Success doesn’t happen by luck. It’s intentional. Without a leadership roadmap, your team will wander aimlessly through shifting priorities leaving them confused about the purpose of their jobs. Come to a one-day immersion in transformative leadership crafted to inspire and engage you.
![Two Leadership Lessons from The Jungle Book]()
Leadership, People
In the past, business success was all about size. Today, it’s all about speed. But with speed, comes change, and change, as we know, creates fear. People don’t like change because it’s disruptive. Employees begin to disengage as they struggle to define where they fit in or fear that they may become obsolete.
Disengagement doesn’t come cheap. Each year, companies spend nearly $75 billion in an effort to improve an estimated $350 billion annual impact to the U.S. economy in lost productivity. The latest research by Gallup shows that nearly 70% of American workers are disengaged. Clearly, the dollars being thrown at this issue are making a paltry impact at best.
From productivity to profitability, from safety to shrinkage, clearly employee engagement is not a philosophical exercise. It has bottom line implications.
Employee engagement is both potential and kinetic in nature. You likely recall potential and kinetic energy demonstrated by Wile E. Coyote in his thwarted attempts to capture the elusive roadrunner. Potential energy is stored by an object – perhaps a giant spring or over-sized mousetrap. The object is loaded and ready for action. Kinetic energy is related to the object’s motion – like a coyote arrow launched by a bow.
The same is true of employees. Engaged employees have both stored and activated energy. Stored energy comes from having both meaningful work and aligned goals. Activated energy is an employee’s ability to tap into his or her strengths and the learning and growth afforded on the job. Together, they make up four pieces of the engagement puzzle. Here’s a breakdown of each piece:
1. Meaningful work. Do your employees know the value your organization brings? Regardless of whether you are a non-profit or for profit enterprise, everyone in your organization should be passionate about your why. As Simon Sinek argues in his popular TED Talk, people want more than a paycheck. They want to be a part of something greater than themselves.
2. Aligned goals. Next, employees need to move from the why to the what. The sooner you can connect your strategic objectives with employee goals and rewards, the better chance you have of turning your strategic plan from theory into reality. Help employees see how their daily jobs impact goals such as profit margins or market share.
3. Strengths-focused. At this point, your employees are spring loaded and ready to move onto the how. Depending on whether you focus on improving employees’ weaknesses or leveraging their strengths, you can either thwart their enthusiasm or thrust them into action. Gallup research shows that the best way for employees to grow and develop is to leverage their natural talents to perform at their highest potential.
4. Learning and Growth. Employees under the age of 25 rate professional development as their number one driver of engagement, and workers up to age 35 rate it as the number two priority. As employees get older, their focus on development shifts away from mobility in favor of aligning a job with long-term career goals. Create an environment that gets people engaged and keeps them engaged by providing opportunities to grow and advance.
While 90% of executives understand the importance of employee engagement, fewer than 50% understand how to address this issue. Design an organization that thrives on turning potential energy into kinetic energy by focusing on the four pieces of the engagement puzzle.
Question: In which of the four pieces of the engagement puzzle does your organization excel? Where could you use improvement?
Download our infographic:
From Buzz Phrase to Business Case: Why Employee Engagement Really Matters
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Leadership
“Thirty years after women became 50 percent of the college graduates in the United States, men still hold the vast majority of leadership positions in government and industry. This means that women’s voices are still not heard equally in the decisions that most affect our lives.”
That was the opening salvo in Sheryl Sandberg’s 2013 best-selling book Lean In. The book sparked debate about gender equality and urged women to expect and demand more for their careers.
But Sandberg’s book certainly wasn’t the first to challenge women to reach for greater leadership roles. In keeping with Women’s History Month, we’ve compiled the most compelling titles on the subject, and offer our top picks that are well worth the turn of the page.
1. I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai and Christina Lamb
What it’s about: When the Taliban took control of Pakistan’s Swat Valley, one girl fought for her right to an education. She almost paid the ultimate price when she was shot in the head at point-blank range.
Why pick it up: Malala reminds us that the change we want begins with us, and to be absolutely fearless in our pursuit.
2. Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff
What it’s about: The last queen of Egypt and one of the most intriguing women in the history of the world.
Why pick it up: Cleopatra has gone down in history for all the wrong reasons. This book captures the intellect and wit of the woman who reshaped the contours of the ancient world.
3. Rising Strong: The Reckoning. The Rumble. The Revolution by Brené Brown
What it’s about: A profound truth: Vulnerability — the willingness to show up and be seen with no guarantee of outcome — is the only path to more love, belonging, creativity, and joy. But living a brave life is not always easy: We are, inevitably, going to stumble and fall.
Why pick it up: When we deny our stories, they define us. When we own our stories, we get to write the ending.
4. Madam Secretary: A Memoir by Madeleine Albright
What it’s about: A national bestseller since its original publication in 2003, Madam Secretary is a riveting account of the life of America’s first woman Secretary of State.
Why pick it up: It’s an account of one of the most powerful and admired women in U.S. history, including her upbringing in war-torn Europe and the balancing of career and family.
5. A Fighting Chance by Elizabeth Warren
What it’s about: An unlikely political star tells the inspiring story of the two-decade journey that taught her how Washington really works — and really doesn’t.
Why pick it up: Warren shows why she has chosen to fight tooth and nail for the middle class — and why she has become a hero to all those who believe that America’s government can and must do better for working families.
6. Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie
What it’s about: A portrait of an obscure German princess who became Empress of Russia, and one of the most remarkable, powerful, and captivating women in history.
Why pick it up: Never underestimate the power of a cold, calculating and unaffectionate mother to inspire ambition in her child.
7. Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Bring, Wisdom, and Wonder by Arianna Huffington
What it’s about: On the morning of April 6, 2007, Arianna Huffington was lying on the floor of her office in a pool of blood. She has collapsed from exhaustion and hit the corner of her desk on the way down, cutting her eye and breaking her cheekbone in the process. Thrive is the journey of her wakeup call.
Why pick it up: Don’t just go out there and climb the ladder of success. Instead, redefine success. Because the world desperately needs it.
8. Mindset: How You Can Fulfill Your Potential by Carol Dweck
What it’s about: It isn’t just our abilities and talent that bring our success – but whether we approach our goals with a fixed or growth mindset.
Why pick it up: It’s vital to seek out opportunities to stretch so that you are challenged. But as a leader, it’s vital not to regard your followers’ abilities as fixed, but rather to believe that those you lead can change, adapt and grow.
Some of these books are historical. Some are contemporary. They all remind us that when a woman honors the feminine within herself, she honors it around the world.
Question: What books have helped you along your leadership journey?
Join me and Dr. Tony Baron on April 27th in San Diego for The Re:Imagine Leadership Summit
Discover how to create a culture that can respond swiftly, communicate freely, encourage experimentation, and organize as a network of people motivated by a shared purpose to meet the demands of the 21st century business environment. To learn more or register, go to: executiveexcellence.com/reimagine
