The Audacity of Hope

I have written quite a bit over the last few weeks about engagement and personal competency among other things. I actually think that these two things have the opportunity to contribute pretty significantly to the issues we face.
To support my position I would point out the $200 billion annually that the American Mental Health Association says we are losing to "presenteeism". I would also point out that organizations that successfully embrace and implement an engagement strategy enjoy competitive advantages in productivity, profitability, and sustainability. Only 30 percent of organizations have implemented such a plan. Maybe they can do more for us than relying exclusively on government support from the stimulus package.
I think the time has come for us to look at new models and new partnerships. The old models aren't working.

I had some positive things happen this week that cause me to believe that we may come out of this ok.
I had the opportunity to accompany my son on an interview of a colleague I respect very much. This gentleman and his family represent an old fashion sense of values that " to whom much is given, much is required". They have quietly, but methodically provided leadership in their community for five generations. It was especially rewarding to hear him discuss how his personal leadership model had evolved and how he had embraced "engagement" as a model for community development. He told my son that "people support what they build and own" and how he had come to a place of recognizing his role as a "visionary" and explorer, but the most important part of that role was to pass ownership of the vision and its outcomes on to others. It wasn't his success that was critical, it is the success of the vision.
What was even more exciting is that he had asked his nephew to participate in our discussion. His family was not only personally "paying forward" in the community, he was providing the role modeling and the expectation to the next generation that the same would be expected of them. His nephew seemed absolutely committed to that prospect and prepared to embrace it as well.
Quite bluntly those values are not being taught in most of our business schools. While we revere explorers- we teach mapping. We focus on data and systems, not communications and engagement. Technology and information are important, but they don't create engagement. It is good to know that they are being taught.

I had an opportunity as well to catch up with a former protege. He has demonstrated the capacity and capability to lead and I am pleased to see an organization recognize that. It was really meaningful to hear him discuss taking conversations we had and problems we had worked on in a previous "life" and use them as learning opportunities for his current staff. He too recognizes and embraces the concept of "paying it forward". It was also great to hear him talk about a multi year strategy to move the organization from compliance to commitment. He recognized both what needs to occur and that it is a process rather than an event.

I have commented before that I think the current generations or not as complacent or disloyal as we describe them. They just reject a lot of our models.

Our current models encourage people to exchange personal competency for "security". Unfortunately we can't provide security anymore either. A lot of people "grew up" in an environment where the employer provided their health care and their retirement. We took those competencies away from them. Now we want to either give the responsibilities back or have the government manage them. When we began losing ground in productivity our first reaction was protectionism and the second was off shoring. Neither of those sound like personal competency either.
We are angry at the financial services organizations and the automobile manufacturers, but haven't we been complicit there as well? We took the loans and we bought the cars.

The young people I had a chance to interact with said a couple of things that stuck with me. You must role model the behavior you expect and you must hold yourself personally accountable. They seem to get it. They also seem to recognize that people need help seeing a different way to do things, especially when it was never expected of them or encouraged.

I am hoping that our current crisis provides the catalyst to explore a different model between employer and employed and between government and citizen. Let's not be enablers, let's be partners. I think that is what the Founding Fathers had in my mind when Madison suggested a central government to deal with the issues of the "great and aggregate". One could make an argument hat considering where we are as a society with health care, education, and productivity the government has a role, but that role should be limited to catalyst and facilitator.

So my "hope" springs from two sources; the courage and commitment of my colleague and people and families like his, and the "emerging" leadership I see willing and able to explore a new model.

Negotiating the Rapids

Well it has been another interesting week. The market is lower, some folks are already declaring the stimulus package a failure (I think it's a little premature) and businesses and people are very nervous.
The next few months are what I am referring to as the rapids. We are going to be facing challenges that we haven't faced before and how we navigate has long term implications. Here are some of my thoughts:

• Act, don't react. Many organizations are going to look at rapidly softening markets and look for actions to take. Action is good as long as there is thought around it. Organizations will be in a position of looking at their staffing requirements, marketing expenditures, training, etc . In our service economy "payroll" is one of our largest expenses. It is necessary and appropriate to adjust our workforce from time to time. Do it carefully and methodically. Things like across the board cuts, hiring freezes, etc. are all tactics. Be sure they are the right ones. If you don't have a strong performance management and measurement methodology now might be a real good time to implement one.
• Clarity is king. I have quoted Marcus Buckingham multiple times on the most important role of leadership as being clear. At times like these the need for clear confident leadership becomes even more critical. Your employees are going to want to know that you see a future, that there is a plan.
• Involve your team. This is a time when a management team can really gel or come apart. I believe that when we are making critical decisions we need to involve all levels of management. You don't have to involve them in the same way, but retreating to a place where you make all the decisions or in larger organizations all the decisions are made at the C level does a couple of things, neither of them positive. Number one, it says we don't think you are smart or competent enough to participate. Number two, it puts them in a position where they can not explain or share accountability for the decisions that are made.
• Make adjustments to your budgets and your staff surgically. I talked with a client this morning who is struggling because they reduced the majority of their "production" staff earlier. Now they have brought in some significant orders and are struggling to meet their commitments because they don't have the staff. You may have a situation where you literally need to add staff in one area while reducing in another.
• Think before you slash training or marketing budgets. One of the first casualties I see in many downturns is training followed by marketing. My concern in this area is that as I have written previously less 30% of the organizations in the world have what could be labeled high engagement workforces. The most important part of high engagement is trust and communications. We don't do a good job of teaching that in our colleges and B schools. We need managers who are highly capable in that area. You also send a message to your high performers that you are reducing investment in their skills development and potential. Similarly with marketing if you are not looking for "blue ocean" or refining products where is your future business going to come from? I have seen organizations so consumed with a downturn or a singular initiative that they "take their eye of the ball" in other areas. The world doesn't stop, your competitors are monitoring your vulnerabilities.
• Play your game. I wrote a piece last week where I talked about best practices among other sacred cows. They may be best practices- for somebody else! Don't blindly follow "what we have always done" or "the industry best practices". This way sound overly simplistic, but after the second guy implements it, it isn't the best practice any more; it is the standard practice.

I am an optimist by nature an explorer if you will. I believe that this downturn may be the catalyst to make us re-examine many things that we have done and change them.

I have written a lot about personal competency. Personal competency is the idea that employee and employer are partners in achieving organizational and individual goals. This downturn is making us realize that our current model of corporate codependency where we "take care of employees" can't continue. Corporate America can't fund it and neither can the government. People are going to have to get involved with decisions about their health care, their retirement, and their future. Trickle down economics didn't trickle down.

I find it somewhat interesting how outraged some politicians are about the stimulus program, but they didn't say much about our "investments" in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

So, wear your life jacket, plot your course and you will survive this trip!

Tipping Your Sacred Cows

I had a chance to do some reading from three different sources this week and all three in their own way examined some "sacred cows". Sacred Cows are those written or unwritten things that we just won't consider changing or even discuss changing.

One of my colleagues and mentors, Ty Warren of Savium, wrote a great book he titled White Hat Leadership. While it is a great book and I recommend you read it all, I especially liked Ty's discussion of two different personality and leadership styles: Explorers and Mappers. The concept of the explorer is pretty self explanatory. These are the idea people, the people who defy convention with charisma and the "big" ideas.

People like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates would probably be described as explorers.

Mappers on the other hand are those individuals who follow the map or implement the direction. They are the stabilizers.

In my experience few people want to be a mapper. We have almost defined leadership and explorer to be the same. Ty and I disagree with that premise. Both of us, he in his book White Hat Leadership and I in mine Managing Whole People, talk about the concept of transition. By that we believe that particular leadership styles and competencies are not only valuable, but critical depending on where the organization is in its life cycle and operating environment. We also talk about how while we adore the concept of explorers most of our succession models are based on Mapping. Look at how many of our CEOs are drawn from finance or engineering. Those are mapping disciplines! I was a practicing HR executive for years. HR practitioners worship concepts like consistency like a sacred trust. Sounds like mapping to me!

I want to make two points here; first, I am not advocating that only explorers should lead. In fact to the contrary explorers become restless and impatient. In many cases their role should be transitional.

My second point may seem contrary. We are in one of the worst economic declines we have ever experienced. Doing what we have always done contributed to getting us here. Do we want to count on that to get us out? This may be the season for explorers.


My second reading came from some articles on BNET. The first one dealt with re engineering management. The authors suggested five ideas to consider:

• Management's work should serve a higher purpose. Oh my, management should actually look beyond the bottom line and market share! They go so far as to say it should concern itself with achieving socially significant goals. Could they be talking about health care, education, homelessness, and other related things?


• Reconstruct the philosophical foundation. These gentlemen suggest that executives broaden their parameters to include theories and models as diverse as theology, philosophy, anthropology and others- not just business concepts. My son shared with me some of the writings of John O'Neil, who works with executives and suggests that many of our corporate leaders have lost their balance and sense of fulfillment because they don't allow time for family, social responsibility, and related activities. They have lost their essence.


• Redefine leadership and its product. They suggest that rather than being heroic decision makers exclusively (can you say explorers), that leaders should be societal architects who foster and model collaboration, innovation, and participation.


• De structure the organization. In this context they talk about small, malleable units. Large centralized structures inhibit shared, efficient decision making.


• Empower the renegades. We need to empower the employees who are passionately committed to our values and mission. They describe it as emotional equity, I refer to it as commitment or engagement. Recent studies that I have talked about in my articles The Business Case for Compliance to Commitment and The Spillover Effect describe the economic and productivity benefits of instituting these practices far beyond their philosophical or intrinsic value.

My last reading debates the merits of yet another management "sacred cow", Best Practices. The author cautions us not to leap to the conclusion that practices and models used by large, big names firms are applicable for us "regular" guys. He even takes a poke at my profession; consulting, and how many big name firms make their living schlepping these models from client to client. His point is to be sure that model or practice works for you! He suggests you examine some basic concepts and constructs:

• Timing and market conditions. Is the environment the same as it was when the "best practice" was created? He uses the example of mass media advertising to create brand. With cable, the Internet, and social networking has mass advertising become spam?


• Different Rules. If you are a well established "brand" major deviation from that brand position can cause you to alienate your core market and not capture new share.


• Differentiation is key. Unless you are ubiquitous why would people choose you over a competitor? If all your "best practices" were invented by them unless you offer a significant cost or location advantage why should people buy from you.

His point and mine is not to learn from the best, it is don't just plug it in. It needs to be tuned to your culture. I tell clients a lot; I have a model, but the implementation of that model is different for each client. It is tailored to their culture and norms. I go so far as to reject clients because they are looking for a "plug in"!

I have focused my career on creating engaged environments. The good news is that organizations that develop, implement, and maintain engaged cultures outperform their peers in every segment across a broad variety of metrics. The bad news is that engagement is a culture and a system. It takes time and energy to create and commitment to maintain!

We are in a time and place where I think we may want must recognize that many of the conventional wisdoms, (sacred cows), are going to have to be re-examined. Maybe it is time for a big ole Texas style barbecue? I heard once that sacred cows make the best hamburgers! What do you think?

Turtle or Hare- Part Deaux

Last week I talked a little about organizations in this spiraling economy determining whether they wanted to be a "turtle"; retreating into their shell, or a hare seeking opportunity. I wanted to continue that theme a little bit.
The official "prognosticators" have grimly stated that our current economic situation is 1) likely to get worse before it gets better and 2) likely to last at least twelve moths. So what do we do with the time? Here are some of my suggestions:

• Plot your strategy. How many "overnight" successes have you met that spent years refining and executing their strategy whether personally or professionally. In my last position we took some time to reflect and refine our strategies and then launched a multi point strategy with excellent results. (see my case study- a New Paradigm for Credit Unions). Several competitors commented to me later- we thought you guys had given up- you were massing for D -day!
• Examine your team. Anybody else tired of hearing everybody parrot Jim Collins about getting the right people on the bus? You can't just talk about it, you have to do it! If organizations are cutting budgets or slashing product launches and cutting marketing expenses before looking at the performance metrics of your organization and assisting the bottom 10 -15% off the bus you aren't doing what you need to do!
• Look for "blue ocean". Are you proactively looking for new opportunities and new markets? Are their opportunities to bring your product or service into a new sector?
• Examine your systems. I agree with Collins; the enemy of great isn't bad or awful, it is "good" as in "good" enough. Do you have efficient systems in not only data management, but in business intelligence? Is the data being turned into meaningful action plans and being disseminated to the right people?
• Do you have clarity? Marcus Buckingham tells us the most important role of leadership is clarity. Clarity of purpose and vision. Richard Rumelt of UCLA tells us that the key role of management is to remove or minimize ambiguity. Employees need to understand their role in the organizations plan, especially at times like these.
• Do you have an engagement strategy? If you don't you are not alone, but here are some arguments why you should start now. In my article on "presenteeism" I shared with you that we lose $200 billion annually to productivity drain from people who are not fully engaged, are dealing with personal concerns, or just taking up space. In my series on Compliance to Commitment(TM) and engagement I shared the corollary- organizations with high engagement enjoy 21% higher per capita productivity rates, 60% lower turnover, and outperform their peer group averages by 100% on key financial metrics. Their employees see themselves as part of the solution and actively participate in creating solutions, not whining or abandoning ship.
• Are you playing as a team? When business get in trouble or experience tough times I typically see the executive team "huddle" in a conference room making all the decisions: what do we cut, who do we cut, what do we do? Here is a tip- employees at all levels support decisions that they participate in much more consistently than decisions that are imposed on them. I am not suggesting a vote, but giving employees an opportunity to participate in the how if not the what or at least informing them and getting their input conveys respect and value. If your management team and staff can't contribute to these kinds of decisions you might ask yourself why they are part of your team.

I remember hearing that Native Americans ate when food was plentiful and rested when the opportunity presented itself. I also read in Malcolm Gladwell's latest book the difference between a "rice" culture and a "wheat" culture. A rice culture is not seasonal, when you are not planting and harvesting you are preparing for the next growing season. In our "wheat culture" we spent the winter months inside - sounds a lot like "turtling" to me.

So I hope that I have given you somethings to consider. Comments always welcome.

People in Your Foxhole

Over the past few months I have had an opportunity to meet some fascinating people who have taught me a great deal. We have formed kind of a coalition to change the world and how we do things.

We call it Nemawashi- or building a new foundation. We have decided to take on some pretty interesting "truths"- like what defines leadership, loyalty, commitment, and a few other terms that seem to inspire a lot of discussion.

One of our group shares some great military metaphors- one of the best is the concept of "who has your six". At it's most basic the concept means covering each others back, especially your blind spot. The deeper meaning is a commitment to each other and something more than you. I think based on the information I see about engagement people want and need that. He also had a great metaphor about "Pete" the painter. As a leader your job is provide context and direction and to remember that each "canvas" requires a different brush.

Another colleague is trying to help organizations understand the importance of congruency and shared values in inviting people to join your organization. Why are we so cavalier about this and then so surprised when we don't get the results we are after.

Yet another colleague and I are trying to help people recognize that there is a natural symmetry to certain concepts that we tend to overlook- kindness and excellence. Respect and performance that meets our expectations. Clear expectations and feedback and trust. These things all go together.

We are also doing some work with definitions. It is interesting how social norms determine "truths". I saw two different editorials this weekend that were interesting to me regarding President Obama's speech. One said that President Obama was not being appropriately inclusive when he said "God bless America". I wonder if he meant to exclude the Buddha, Allah, or others? Is it important what we call our God, or just that we are willing to acknowledge the presence of a higher power?

The other person took umbrage that President Obama has been overly apologetic to the Islamic community and didn't include consideration for the actions taken in Serbia and other places during past administrations or the fact that we don't see public demonstrations against Muslims on the anniversary of September 11. I am probably too simplistic, I don't see what happened on September 11 as the actions of Muslims, but rather of terrorists. I think Timothy McVeigh considered himself a "Christian" didn't he? I thought the President was reaching out to rebuild trust.

What I share with these folks and others is a sense of engagement. These are some of the people I have in my "foxhole", those who have my "six" as I have theirs. Who have you invited to your foxhole?