Leading Effectively Series
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In an earlier post I mentioned four Rs - Responsiveness, Respect, Results and Responsibility. In an interconnected world just having the technical and managerial skills aren’t going to cut it. Of course, the fundamentals still apply. But there are also new skills to learn, or maybe it’s new ways to apply old ideas/skills; I’m not sure. I do know we’re working in environments and with people different from what we’ve known in the past. It’s not totally different; it is different enough to matter – that’s where Responsiveness, Respect, Results and Responsibility come in.
To some degree mutual respect is about achieving and maintaining mutual well-being and thus, being responsive to differences. When we disconnected ourselves from our work and the consequences of our actions became more distant; our sense of responsibility (as individuals and organizations) became more muted. The distance between cause and effect grew and a lot of potential causes and effects came into play – things got complicated and complex. The messiest of the messes we face are not short on who or what to blame. Blaming doesn’t lead to understanding or solutions; it leads to more fractures between ideas and people and motivation to defend versus motivation to solve.
We’ve done enough dismantling; it is time to put things back together. It’s time to talk about what we want to achieve, why it matters, and how to do so in a way that won’t result in finger pointing, but in collective pride and progress.
It’s time to lead in a way that is responsive (to people and to environments), that is respectful (of ourselves and others), that gets desired results, and that is responsible(which means looking at results from different perspectives and making trade-offs that create and sustain mutual well-being.)
It has not been that long since we split ourselves into "work" roles and "life" roles. I think the work-life split grew from the same seed as the Cartesian split. For some individuals compartmentalization of these roles was (and probably is still) helpful – I’m not asking that they give it up. But I do think organizations need to give up the notion that everyone wants to live/work that way and the notion that it is a good way to do business. I am an expert in knowing when I do my best work and where I do my best work. My peak hours of productivity are not scheduled between 8 and 5.
When I’m collaborating with someone across the globe – what difference does it make if I’m in the office or at home? I’d rather leave midday to go see my step-son’s school play and work later or take a break to walk around if I’m trying to figure something out. That way, I avoid the guilt (and the negative effect that has on productivity), make better use of my peak working times, and I am more loyal to my organization. More and more books are starting to plow the old fields of ideas about work, which is promising (Interested? Read Ellen Kossek and Brenda Lautsch’s CEO of Me or Cathleen Benko and Anne Weisberg’s Mass Career Customization).
I once had a colleague who was the kind that arrived promptly at 8am and left exactly at 5pm – with one hour for lunch in between. Upon my arrival to the office around 9am, she chided me “vacation day, huh?” It got to me. I was tired. I tried to get my point across in a joking way “Sure, if working until 2am last night counts as a vacation – then yeah. You know when youleave at 5pm, not everyone’s day stops. And not all work happens at work.”
The days of managing by doing a head-count periodically throughout the day are gone. Being in the office is not a good proxy for getting work done. We have to get clearer about results and the value we create as individuals and organizations. And that means paying attention to both the individual and the organization in new ways.
'The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.'
These are the words of the Greek poet Archilochus, made famous by the philosopher Isaiah Berlin.
Are you a fox or a hedgehog?
Berlin suggests that leaders can be divided into two categories – hedgehogs, who lead by expertise and mastery, or foxes, who are versatile in multiple areas and yet masters of none.
Berlin’s categorization is an interesting one. Consider how we select or evaluate leaders – do we favor one type over the other? What type of leader would be better served to lead an organization through troubling times?
The expert hedgehog or the versatile fox?
I would suggest neither. There are clear strengths and trade-offs for each type.
I believe that organizations need leaders who are a cross of both. Leaders with the laser-like mastery of the hedgehog, combined with fox-like versatility and openness to possibilities.
Berlin suggests the Russian thinker Leo Tolstoy as an example. Tolstoy was one who “was by nature a fox, but believed in being a hedgehog.” Imagine that!
Similarly, any leader who is disposed to and excels in one approach can start thinking and acting his/her way towards the other.
The term "T-shaped leaders" describes people who posses deep capabilities in a core function (the vertical part of the T), with broad capacities in diverse areas (the horizontal part of the T) – just like Tolstoy, though the T was not named after him.
While leadership is often seen as a vertical progression of mastery, it is equally important for leaders to seek experiences that would widen their horizons, challenge their perspectives, and develop fox-like agility.
With this in mind, how can we develop T-shaped leaders?
What part of the T are leaders lacking in organizations today?
When organizations merge and the cultures clash, what do you do? I just returned from the 2009 MiL Days International Conference conference in Sweden, at our CCL partner MiL Institute, with a side trip to Gothenburg, where I spent time talking with leaders at the Volvo Car Company. Volvo Car you may remember was acquired by the Ford Motor Company in 1999 when Ford was the world's most profitable carmaker.
Big culture clash: Ford is about the values of efficient operations and production discipline. Volvo is about community and the values of respect and trust. Ford was the buyer, so Volvo had to take it on the chin. They had to make some dramatic adjustments. Among these was removal of slack in the production process. Volvo had always encouraged ongoing experimentation with the manufacturing process. Workers were encourage to find and implement solutions to problems locally and then spread the knowledge. Ford on the other hand solved problems through centralized expertise, comprehensive analysis and standardization. Under Ford’s ownership, the world at Volvo got colder and more impersonal, and less like the Swedish national culture that gave birth to Volvo.
Now, Ford may sell Volvo Car. Where would that leave Volvo? Some of those I spoke with think that Volvo can come out of this with a stronger culture. Two developments are especially interesting. First is that Volvo got a fresh influx of cultural DNA from Ford. Volvo has learned some important lessons about accountability and efficiency. Even more importantly, Volvo learned that its culture can change without breaking, and some of that change can be for the better.
Volvo Car is now creating leadership development in which “the culture goes to school.” In other words, leadership development at Volvo is focused beyond just individuals and teams, deliberately developing shared beliefs and behaviors that fit the changing strategic direction of the company.
This is a lesson of merit for almost any organization: Take your culture to school and shape it to fit your strategy.
The Center refuses to define leadership - that is as it should be. But it will define creative leadership as enabling people to move beyond obstacles to accomplish more than they thought was possible.
Creativity defined this program, and the Afghans, Americans and interpreters were certainly creative during it.
As the Afghan officers arrived for the program, many were what I pictured – hardened warriors, surviving not only years of war, but also seven testy years of uncertain peace. These men were the ones who were left, after thirty years of fighting an external enemy, then internal strife, then oppression, and now insurgency – these men had met and mastered the challenge of being true warriors. But could they lead an Army?
The classroom was within the historical Bala Hissar fortress. Those familiar with Afghan history will recognize the role the fortress played in every major event in Afghan history since the 12th Century. It was known as a place of torture, of great pain, and of transition. It was where the Afghans first defeated foreign forces, and it is where they assassinated elected presidents following coups. The irony did not escape me that we were using this same ground in an effort to move the country forward, using the positive nature of democratizing leadership to help prevent the Bala Hissar from being used the same way again.
Believing that to be success, this program had to run with the quality of CCL program on any campus. We began with the fundamental idea that CCL could not teach them anything about leadership – but it could provide an environment within which they could learn to be better leaders. I told them that I was in Kabul to learn from them – that people who teach do so because they are so excited about learning.
Then I tested them.
The national hero of Afghanistan is Ahmad Shah Massoud – he was the leader of the Northern
Alliance until his death the day before 9/11. He is revered in Afghanistan with the reverence reserved in America for George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
I wanted to get them thinking out of the box quickly, so I asked them a simple question – “What made General Massoud a good leader?”
When I saw their eagerness to write, their earnestness in their answers, and their shock that this was going to be about Afghans and Afghanistan, I realized that CCL had not only done the right thing, but we were about to do something very real and very permanent.
For the next three days, the Afghan Officers and their mentors endured the same challenges, revelations, bonding and cohesion that are the hallmark of a CCL program. At first skeptical, they drew their leadership windows, describing what made them good leaders and what they wanted to learn about leadership. They chose images from Visual Explorer that defined leadership ‘in their hearts and in their heads.’ They survived the Blizzard exercise and created consensus through teams – something many believe is close to impossible. And they mastered the helium stick activity, working together as teams to communicate and break down barriers.
At the end, one of our students, the nephew of General Massoud, commented to our American Sponsor, with his hand over his heart ( a gesture of great sincerity in Afghanistan), “..thank you for brining this to Afghanistan – we needed this training…All Afghanistan needs this training...thank you…”
Then I realized that in spite of the danger, the location and the population, we were not doing anything different from what CCL does every day – act on its beliefs, its principles and its mission:
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All people are leaders and simply need to find the best way to lead.
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Anyone can learn to be a leader if they want to stretch and try new approaches.
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When provided support plus a safe and secure environment, people, regardless of background, will experiment with new ideas and create new opportunities.
In addition, I realized why CCL exists – "to advance the understanding, practice and development of leadership for the benefit of society worldwide."
Moreover, I felt lucky to have had the chance to show this ideal to a small group of Afghans and Americans, locked in a struggle with an enemy that abhors the essence of that mission.
A lot of things have changed and continue to change in the world. New challenges and opportunities are at our doorsteps just about everyday; to avoid the anguish and to reap the rewards we also have to change in response to our environment.
By “we” I mean us as individuals and as organizations (or any other collective you can think of). While there are still plenty of goods being manufactured, there’s also this whole global knowledge economy thing. I’m not sure if is it easier or harder in terms of leadership; I do know it’s different, not completely different, but different. We’ve pretty much buried the 30-years, same organization, gold watch, retire career. But have we replaced it yet? I don’t think so. We’re still figuring out the situation.
A massive economic meltdown is a pretty good chance to make some changes. Business as usual is not going to work – not for us as individuals or as organizations. We have to focus on results, and we have to think about results differently.
What do we want and how do we want to get it? Metrics like the numbers of hours spent in an office of the price of a stock are fine – but do they really matter – or are they proxy measures, perhaps ones that have become disconnected from the real value we seek? By focusing too much on the parts we can easily measure – we miss the big picture. Too much big picture talk leaves us wondering what we’re supposed to do about it.
Clearly, we’re off balance, distracted, and confused. And in a way that makes sense. Our sense of ourselves and of our world has changed. It’s time to change how we respond, how we lead.
I don’t have the answer and I doubt any one person does – but I’m thinking about a new take on the three “Rs” (reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic) – adding Four New ones - Respect, Results, Responsibility, and Responsiveness*.
*This list is very similar to the Four R's of Inclusive Leadership by Edwin P. Hollander which I reviewed after I wrote this. Even though our lists differ by one item, they are similar enough that I want to give him credit for publishing the list before I did.
 CCL-Kabul began at the CCL campus in Greensboro, North Carolina. Working with a huge team of designers and researchers, we considered the challenges surrounding how someone might learn leadership in Afghanistan.
We would have to deliver in Dari. We would be working with a population that although very intelligent, and may not have a had a great deal of formal education. Every one we would be working with had served in war, with the Northern Alliance, the Mujahadeen, or even the Soviets. Some of these men had actually fought against each other, on opposite sides, at different times.
They were already good leaders – what can we do to help them become better, think differently about themselves, and their organization? How can we possibly help them think through the obstacles and focus on a vision for themselves and their country?
We decided to build on a program called Leadership Essentials, combined with the successful Leadership Beyond Boundaries design used so effectively by CCL in developing countries in Africa, as well as India. This provided a history of success when working with this type of population.
But, as everyone who has been there will tell you, Afghanistan is different. We would need to take this proven design and integrate an Afghan quality to it – one that builds from Afghan society’s foundation of family, tribe, ethnicity, and pride. And, of course, we want to integrate our training into the training already being conducted by the Training Command in Afghanistan. They work daily with the Afghan Army to produce a national army for the country – one that can serve as the unifying element, a role model of tolerant diversity.
Big goals, yes – scary goals actually. But if you don’t start working towards your goals today, when will you begin? As one old Afghan hand put it, ‘you have to start somewhere…’
So we began putting together CCL-Kabul. Just like any other CCL program, the participants would sit in groups, not Soviet-style in classrooms. Each table would have a mentor, and thanks to our friends in Kabul, each table would have an interpreter. We would treat them just like every other valued participant, with the exception that we would not do psychometric assessments like MBTI.
Instead, their discussions and use of questioning and a tool called Visual Explorer would provide the necessary level of self-disclosure needed to allow individual understanding and reflection as the launching point for leadership awareness and action.
In Kabul, support for the program had reached a tipping point. At first, support was hard to gain in spite of the desire for change. When the program design arrived, along with program slides, the client had a change of heart. They began discussing this across the command – building support with the Afghan Army for participating in the program.
Knowing we had the support of the leadership in both coalition and Afghan commands, we mailed the boxes of program materials, and I jumped on a series of planes that would take me to Kabul.
Stay tuned for Part III...
After an 8-iron to inches and a tap-in birdie, Kenny Perry had a 2-shot lead in the Masters with 2 holes to play. Minutes later, he lost a stroke on each hole and fell back to a tie after regulation, went to a sudden-death playoff, and lost on the 2nd playoff hole to Angel Cabrera. Arguably the biggest tournament in golf, Perry lost in a playoff.
Was this a classic choke-job on the golf course, or a triumph? It really depends on what your goals are.
A year ago, Kenny Perry’s main goal, his only goal, was to make the 2008 Ryder Cup team, which was played in his home state of Kentucky. To qualify for the team, he had to concentrate more on his game, put every effort into winning a few tournaments or finishing high in the money. He fulfilled his dream of making the team, played well, and led the US to victory. I found a quote of Perry’s in late 2008 that read:
“[T]he Ryder Cup to me was a dream. It wasn't really attainable, either, but I achieved it. I just proved to myself that I need to set more goals. I'm not a real goal-oriented person, never have been. When I wrote that goal down to make the Ryder Cup team on Jan. 1 [2008]… it came true.”
At the Masters, he reiterated that the Ryder Cup was his biggest goal, his biggest accomplishment of his career, and any major championship would be icing on the cake.
Two points you as a leader should take away from Kenny Perry:
1) Leaders need to be goal oriented.This is what CCL teaches in our programs, it’s one of the pillars of development. Leaders must set difficult, yet attainable goals. Leaders must write their goals down so they can see them and be reminded of them continuously.
2) Have short, medium, and long-term goals, and even longer-term goals. Kenny Perry definitely had a goal in mind: to make the Ryder Cup team. It was difficult, yet attainable. It was written down. But, when he achieved that goal, what was next? Many times, leaders set goals they think will never be accomplished, but they happen. Then what? A let-down may occur. Instability, confusion, resting on laurels, all of those things can happen. Leaders will become ill-prepared for the next major hurdle or next major opportunity if they don’t have another goal past the one that was a long-shot. Goal-oriented leaders, those best prepared, will have a much more forward- or future-thinking orientation, and have a goal to accomplish even when the most difficult, long-term goal is attained, so they can continue to strive towards excellence. Leaders must have other goals just in case they actually accomplish their life-long dream so they won’t get stale from a developmental standpoint.
In a sense, some would call falling short of winning the Masters a choke, but others would call it a triumph. It really depends on how you view goals. I was pulling for Perry on Sunday, I liked the storyline. He’s 48, would have become the oldest player ever to win a major. Watching him on television Sunday, his age, and nerves, started to show on those last 2 holes. After defeat, I wondered whether he was truly happy just in almost winning a major because in reality, his goal was already achieved last year. Or, if just making the Ryder Cup team and not having that longer-term goal set him up for short-term success but long-term ill-preparedness?
With leadership, one is inevitably confronted with paradoxes that challenge the limits of familiar solutions.
The word paradox originates from the Greek words para (beyond) and doxa (belief). Examples of paradoxes faced by leaders include the paradox of continuity and change, planning and action, equality and efficiency, and between leading with certainty and doubt. In leading across boundaries, leaders are confronted with multiple paradoxes – between cultural forces of individualism and collectivism, achievement and ascription, long and short term orientation, low and high power distance. Such paradoxes can be daunting for leaders who are often trained to lead with fixed solutions and models.
Unlike distinct and solvable problems for which an either/or decision may be chosen, paradoxical situations require leaders to see situations from multiple perspectives. As Jim Collins and Jerry Porras observed, it requires leaders to reject the ‘tyranny of the OR’ and embrace the genius of the AND” – a boundary-spanning mindset as opposed to a bounded perspective. A boundary-spanning mindset views paradox, not as a problem to be resolved, but as generative force for learning and change. It accepts both ends of a paradox, even though they seem contradictory ,and seeks higher unifying principles to understand it.
The great Danish scientist Niels Bohr exemplified this mindset. A winner of the 1922 Nobel prize, Bohr has been described as a leader who has made one of the most influential advances in quantum mechanics. In a biography on Bohr, Ruth Moore describes how in a situational impasse and heated debate with his peers, Bohr proclaimed,
“How wonderful that we've met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making some progress!"
The process of working through paradox can help leaders overcome isolated perceptions and identify new ways of integrating different goals and perspectives.
By embracing a boundary-spanning mindset, leaders can tap into the generative potential of paradox for change.
 Cochon was the 3rd restaurant I called. We were embarked on an apparently hopeless task: getting a table for 4 in New Orleans on a Friday night in April. We were aiming for 7 pm (I know how crazy that sounds...it was already 6:30 pm) and no one had anything before 9 pm.
At Cochon it was the same story:
“Can you take a party of 4 anytime around 7?”
“I can take you after 9 pm, nothing before.”
“Oh,” I sighed.
“You could take your chances, I suppose. We have tables outside and there might be something in the bar, but no guarantees.”
“Maybe we’ll try that. What’s your name?”
“Why do you want my name? Do you think you’re going to get me in trouble? I’m the assistant manager...no one gets me in trouble!”
“I never say anything bad about the people who feed me.”
(pause)
“Honey, you come right over and I’ll take care of you...we’ll get you a table somehow!”
Good as her word, Audrey had let the hostess, Elaine, know we were coming and a table was waiting right in the middle of the dining room.
I always assume that underneath the role there’s a person. If you can get through to the person, you will often find a solution that works for both of you. Sometimes it takes a little humor (“I never p.o. my food server”) and sometimes it’s merely genuine solicitude for someone who’s been on his feet too long. Either way, we’re both better off if we refuse to let our roles define us or others.
Your always-nice-to-the-waitress friend,
Doug
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