Category Archive: Leadership Development

Performance Review Systems

Posted by on July 13, 2009

All of us at some point in time have waited with anxiety for that wonderful time of the year when we receive our annual performance review.  Even if you know that you have had a great year you are never really sure what is going to be said and how pleased management is with your performance.

To a great degree this whole process is a major problem within most organizations.  On the one hand poor performers are not dealt with on an ongoing basis and sometimes they are even given good reviews because their direct supervisor does not want to admit that they also have failed.  Sometimes employees think things are going great only to have the big bomb dropped with no real explanation as to why they were not told before.

On the other extreme top performers are left in the dark about what they are doing well and they only get the one time a year serious conversation about where they stand and what is next in the area of development.  The bottom line there should be ongoing informal times for evaluation and at least twice a year if not quarterly a brief review of exactly where everyone stands in regards to expectations.

I have seen performance reviews that are literally 20 pages in length with a tremendous amount of worthless information.  Most in my opinion should not be more than two to three pages that only deal with key objectives and some type of quantitative analysis on success.

I also prefer some type of 360 feedback system in place so that in a non-threatening way immediate supervisors can be told what they need to do to help improve their direct reports performance.  This should be a time where an honest exchange of information takes place so that everyone knows what they need to do to improve day to day performance and lay out a clear plan for professional development for all involved.

We really need to change the culture of the performance review process from going to the dentist mentality to meeting with my coach who I know has my best interest in mind and is passionately committed to helping me reach my potential.

 

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Faith vs. Trust

Posted by on July 7, 2009

In the Christian life we are taught from the very beginning the importance that faith plays in our lives.  Without it we cannot know God on a personal relationship level and we cannot reach our potential in this life without putting it into practice every day.

Faith allows us to not only believe that God exists but that everything He has promised us in His word is true.  Beyond that the core issue is that God is able to do what He has said and there is nothing too hard for Him.

If faith answers the question Is God able then trust answers the question Is God good?  Trust goes beyond faith and believes that everything He has asked me to do is not only for His glory but also for my good.

When suffering comes faith will help you to believe that God is able to deliver you out of your trials but trust helps you to rest in the fact that if you are not delivered His grace will still be sufficient.

Most Christians are no longer afraid of what God is going to do to them because they have the complete assurance of their salvation.  However, the major problem is that we daily walk in the fear of  what God might do with us if we fully surrender our lives to Him.

There is no greater deception for the believer than to fear the One who loves you the most.  Yes God is able but far more than that He is also good.

 

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The Building Blocks Of A Strategy

Posted by on July 6, 2009

One of the best books I have read on developing a strategic plan and all that is involved in the execution of that plan was written by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan called Execution.  It is a must read for any organization that uses teams to accomplish planning and execution.

A strategy is the key steps or methodology that you are going to use to accomplish your goals or mission.  Many times the goal seems to be clear and necessary but the breakdown occurs at the point of determining how we are going to accomplish what we want to do.

In this book he lists several critical questions that should be answered during the development of your strategy to ensure a high probability of success:

1.       How good are the assumptions upon which the plan hinges?

2.      What are the pluses and minuses of the alternatives?

3.      Do you have the organizational capability to execute the plan?

4.      Are the short term and long term balanced?

5.      What are the important milestones for executing the plan?

6.      Can you adapt the plan to rapid changes in your environment?

The two most important questions are do you have the organizational capability to execute the plan?  Just because it is the right thing to do may not mean we have the right people in place and this is the right time for implementation.  If we add something major to our process without additional manpower it must be assumed that something else needs to go.

The last question is even more important in the culture we live in today.  Just because something looks great as a strategy today and even works for awhile does not mean that it will be viable in the next twelve months.  This means that nothing must become so sacred that it cannot be changed if necessary when a better plan is discovered.

 

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Practicing Feedforward

Posted by on July 1, 2009

Almost every serious organization uses some form of feedback to evaluate the performance of their top leadership team.  This usually works best in a 360 type environment where the person receives feedback from superiors, peers and subordinates as well.

The concept of feedforward was developed by Marshall Goldsmith in his best seller What Got You Here Won’t Get You There about how to coach senior executives.  He encourages every leader to identify core behaviors that need to change through feedback.  Then apologize for your mistake and commit to change that character quality in the future.

The primary way he recommends to accomplish this is through the four disciplines in feedforward:

1.       Identify Target Behavior—choose the one behavior that your colleagues have told you about that you consider to be at the top of your list for change.  The number one issue among the thousands of people he has worked with is to be a better listener.

2.      Enlist Accountability Partners—the key here is to secure a personal commitment from as many people as possible to help you in this particular area.  This should include family members as well as various levels of people within the organization where you work.  They will all commit to help you focus on this one specific area and help you with ongoing feedback.

3.      Solicit Specific Suggestions—ask everyone in your accountability circle for at least two suggestions that might help you achieve a positive change in your selected behavior.  The key ground rule here is that there should be no mention of mistakes in the past but every comment is about the future.

4.      Practice Active Listening—take appropriate notes if necessary but make sure you are really listening to each and every suggestion to the point that you can put it into practice.  Also it is very important regardless of the quality of the input to be sure to graciously thank everyone involved who will take the time and emotional risk of telling you what you really need to hear.

 

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Level Five Leaders

Posted by on June 30, 2009

In my opinion the best organizational leadership book that has been written is Good to Great by Jim Collins.  It proves beyond any doubt some things we have always know about effective leadership but he discovers some key principles that fly in the face of everything we have been taught in the past.

One thing that is really not new but clearly prioritized in his book is the importance of character in the life of any leader.  Character ensures that the motives of the leader are always focused on what is best for the people they are leading and not for themselves.

The most significant myth that this book destroys about great leaders is that they all must be very outgoing cheerleader type personalities and that they have to lead with an authoritarian dictatorial style to be effective.

According to Collins, “Level 5 leaders display a compelling modesty, are self-effacing and understated.  In contrast, two thirds of the comparison companies had leaders with gargantuan personal egos that contributed to the demise or continued mediocrity of the company.”

This personality type should never be mistaken for laid back soft leaders who don’t have the strength to make the hard calls.  As a matter of fact they combine humility with an incredible strong will to make sure the right things are getting done.  If they have to they would fire their mother if that is what was necessary for the long term benefit of the organization.

They also give credit to others when things are going well and when they are not they assume personal responsibility.  This combination of personal humility and professional will make for the type of leader anyone would want to follow.

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Crisis Management

Posted by on June 29, 2009

Every individual and organization at some point in time will face a crisis and the way they respond will determine if the situation potentially becomes fatal or they experience a complete and total recovery.  I have learned a lot from personal experience on this subject over the years and probably the most important lesson is to be incredibly proactive and not stick your head in the sand and hope it will get better.

In Jack Welch’s great book Winning he gives some great advice on how he dealt with crisis situations at G.E.  These are his five guiding assumptions:

1.      The problem is worse than it appears—No matter how hard you might wish and pray; very few crises start small and stay that way.  The vast majority are bigger in scope than you could ever imagine with that first phone call and they will last longer and get more ugly.

2.      There are no secrets in the world, and everyone will eventually find out everything—Information that you try to shut down will eventually get out, and as it travels, it will certainly morph, twist and darken.   The only way to prevent that is to expose the problem yourself and tell the truth.

3.      You and your organization’s handling of the crisis will be portrayed in the worst possible light—The very nature of a crisis means that you and your organization will be portrayed in a light so negative you won’t even recognize yourself.  Don’t hunker down.  Along with disclosing the full extent of your problem you have got to stand up and define your position before someone else does for you.

4.      There will be changes in processes and people—Crisis requires change.  Sometimes a process fix is enough.  Usually not because the people affected by the crisis demand that someone be held responsible.

5.      The organization will survive, ultimately stronger for what happened—There is not a crisis you cannot learn from, even though you hate every one of them.  After a crisis is over the tendency is to put it away in a drawer.  Don’t, teach its lessons every chance you get.

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What’s Next?

Posted by on June 24, 2009

This phrase became the mantra on the award winning series The West Wing.  After every serious issue that had to be dealt with not matter how long the conversation or difficult the task the president would always ask what’s next?

That is a very good question that all of us have to answer each and every day regardless of whether we realize it or not.  Inherent within the question is the intention to find the most important things on our must do list and place them at the top.

Most of us allocate a considerable amount of time to plan our weeks and certainly each individual day with pre-determined goals and priorities.  However in today’s wired culture we are constantly receiving new information throughout the day that must be processed.

David Allen is recognized as one of the nation’s leading experts on time management and personal productivity.  In his book Getting Things Done he list four key criteria about processing new information that help him to answer the what’s next question:

1.       Context—A few actions can be done anywhere but most require a specific location or having some productivity tool at hand, such as a phone or a computer.  These are the first factors that limit your choices about what you can do in the moment.

2.      Time available—When do you have to do something else?  Having a meeting in five minutes would prevent doing many actions that require more time.

3.      Energy available—How much energy do you have?  Some actions you have to do require a reservoir of fresh, creative mental energy while others need more physical horsepower.

4.      Priority—Given your context, time, and energy available, what actions will give you the highest payoff?  This is where you need to access your intuition and begin to rely on your judgment call in the moment.

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Law Of The Inner Circle

Posted by on June 23, 2009

This by far is one of the most important principles identified by John Maxwell in the realm of leadership.  The simple definition of the law is that a leader’s potential is determined by those closest to them.

As any organization continues to grow the leader cannot continue to spend equal time with every person on staff because of time constraints alone.  This means that eventually the majority of a leader’s time will be need to be spent with the top 20% of their leadership team.

It is a proven leadership principle that they in turn will produce at least 80% of the desired results because of the scope of their impact throughout the entire organization.  The leader is incredibly dependent upon this inner circle because they are responsible for providing the best information possible upward for decision making and they are also responsible for the downward execution of all planning.

Leaders of large organizations should still spend some time managing by walking around and maintain some personal contact with all levels of staff.  However the purpose of this interaction is for personal encouragement and visibility and not for problem solving and day to day decision making.  The leader can be involved to some degree with everyone but they must invest themselves only in the inner circle because they are the key to continued growth and outstanding performance.

 

 

 

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The Power Of Momentum

Posted by on June 15, 2009

There are very few things more difficult to deal with in your personal or professional life than a loss of momentum.  It can be brought on by some major tragedy or a series of small compromises over a very long period of time.

Eventually we get to a place where we start worrying about things outside our control and that drains us of what little emotional energy we have left.  Also because we are so focused on the negative we stop doing the things we should and can do and that brings even more despair.

The only way to break this cycle is to start doing what you can do and build some small daily wins into your life.  This principle works with individuals as well as organizations.

With every small win comes movement and that generates confidence that things are finally headed in the right direction.  When we regain our confidence then we attempt even more things that product even bigger wins and the power of the momentum begins to put the wind back in our sails.

It is very ironic that when we get to the places of greatest difficulty in our lives it is the very smallest of things that can break the downward cycle.  We are desperately searching for the big answer that is going to solve all our problems when the solution was right in front of us all the time.

The good news is that the power of momentum works in a positive way to an even greater degree than it does toward the negative.  When you repeatedly do what you can do daily the positive flow of your life moves you beyond all the negative issues that may still be there but now they are in the proper perspective.

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Clock Building Not Time Telling

Posted by on June 12, 2009

The days of all decisions being made solely at the top with a few people involved are fading fast.  Throughout the Industrial Age of leadership during the last half of 20th century this was the only model of leadership.  The overwhelming percentage of the workforce was for the most part simply telling time based on the clear instructions that were given for them to follow.

Today we are leading from an Information and Idea Age model of leadership.  The entire development process has been delegated to various teams so that everyone who can contribute will be involved.  In essence people are now being asked to help build the clock.

Most people think the changing role of the top executives is by far the most dramatic shift that has occurred.  In a sense of scope that may be true.  Key leaders today do not have to know all the answers to all the questions they only need to know what are the right questions to ask? 

There primary responsibility today is to make sure they have the best possible people on their team because the quality and success of the clocks they are making will determine the future success of the entire organization.

The most dramatic shift in leadership today certainly from a standpoint of scale is not at the top but in the middle of organizations.  There is a big difference in telling time compared to building clocks.  Today people are daily being asked what do you think and what would you recommend?

Many organizations are caught in the middle of this transition and seem to be stuck.  The problem could be that you are asking people who only know how to tell time to build clocks and they are not capable of making that change.  Don’t give up on clock building just find the right people who know how to build great clocks and you will be fine.

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