Wednesday, December 9, 2009

A Foundation of Heritage

In the 1830s, a 19-year-old Vermont blacksmith resettled in Grand Detour, Ill., to establish himself in his trade. In the course of his work, he perfected a tool that would revolutionize agriculture and, literally, open the American Prairie and begin the settlement of the West.


John Deere’s 1837 invention was the steel plow – “The plow that broke the plains.” He formed his eponymic company in Moline, Ill., to manufacture and sell it. The company grew rapidly to become what it is today: the world’s largest farm and construction equipment company.


Imagine a line worker at a Deere manufacturing facility today. I wonder whether that hourly employee knows the origins of his company and, if so, what it means to him. If I were a manager there, I would use two recurring quotes in my internal communications.


The first would be the anchor phrase: “The plow that broke the plains.” It is the foundation on which the company was built, the pride of its founder, and the basis for its launch and initial success.


The second quote would be from John Deere himself (photo). From the beginning, he placed special emphasis on quality. He once said, “I will never put my name on a product that does not have in it the best that is in me.”


That attitude, no doubt, is what drove the company to its long-term success and what has sustained it through good times and bad.


That quote should permeate the company’s internal communications. Every employee should embrace the attitude it evokes.


Deere’s face to the public, to its customer audience, is: “Nothing runs like a Deere,” a clever and enduring pun that evokes reliability. That’s fine and that’s how it should position itself. But for the internal audience, there is incalculable value in connecting everyone’s work to the founder’s unequivocal attitude towards quality, in connecting everyone to that same fundamental value and the company’s heritage of that simple steel plow.


Numerous other companies can brag of a deep legacy like Deere’s. General Electric was founded on Thomas Edison’s invention of the lightbulb and related electrical generation and distribution equipment, as well as his unparalleled work ethic. IBM was built on the fertile mind and entrepreneurial genius of Thomas J. Watson.


McDonald’s was a local San Bernardino, Calif., short-order restaurant until Ray Kroc bought it and turned it into the world’s largest fast food eatery based on his “QSVC” principles — quality, service, value and cleanliness. Hewlett-Packard Development Company has enshrined the Palo Alto garage where, in 1939, William Hewlett and David Packard developed the company’s first product, an audio oscillator.


I’ll bet your company has a remarkable founding history, too, no matter how young or old it may be. Twenty-year-old entrepreneurs are dropping out of college every day, it seems, in a rush to bring their cutting-edge ideas to life. If they work hard enough and are persistent, their companies may become tomorrow’s IBM, General Electric or McDonald’s.


Over the weekend, a friend told me the exciting story of his company, a new business just getting off the ground on the basis of a compelling original idea. As he explained it, I jealously wished I had thought of it. It, too, will become a great company one day if he and his partners are persistent and work hard, and I’m sure they will.


All companies have histories – or, “stories.” By telling and retelling these histories, people can connect to, feel and understand the mission, values and passion that have built, grown and sustained their companies. Corporate brands reflect their company’s heritage. With successful brands, the pride and emotion they generate are shared with new employees like family heirlooms passed along from one generation to the next.


In a sports context, devoted fans honor the memories of their teams’ greatest stars and great moments of victory. The Yankees provide an excellent example, with their century worth of countless all-stars, and 27 World Series championships. Green Bay Packers fans recall the era of Vince Lombardi and Bart Starr, when they were invincible. Boston Celtics fans hark back to Bill Russell, Larry Bird, Bob Cousey, Bill Havlicek, and the team’s 17 NBA championships as they root for the latest edition of the Celtics.


In a time of radical shifts, as companies try to respond and adapt to the evolving marketplace, a company’s heritage provides a valuable foundation, a benchmark to guide the people through uncertainty.


Sometimes it’s a person and his/her performance, like John Deere, Babe Ruth or Thomas Edison. Sometimes it’s an event or point in time that gave birth to the company, or marked a significant turning point, such as the break-up of AT&T in the early 80s that gave birth to eight new companies. Maybe it’s the 1982 Tylenol poisoning case that changed the way that Johnson & Johnson engaged its customers.


Every company must hang onto and tap into its founding vision, its heritage so that employees can connect to its essential meaning. It gives employees a stronger sense of belonging, of continuity with something larger than themselves. It adds significance and value to what they do and their contributions to the larger whole.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Ready. Aim. Aim. Aim...

"There is more risk in not doing something than in doing it," a friend told me, complaining about a frustrating situation at work. The global head of his company's IT department was balking at a major system-wide software upgrade he was urging because there was "too much security risk involved," she claimed.

He was told to get back to her when "the risk factor was zero."

"Some people say they have a zero-tolerance for risk. That's impossible," my friend grumbled. "There is no such thing as zero-tolerance of risk. If you get on a plane, it could crash. Zero-tolerance of risk
means you'd never leave your house because you could get hit by a bus."

I emailed hi
m this timely Dilbert cartoon featuring a recurring character: "Mordac, the Preventer of Information Services."

A lot of people are operating like Mordac these days, as their companies are mired in a difficult economy. It's caution bred by fear of making the wrong choice. Yet in today's circumstances, risk is unavoidable if a business is to get a leg up on the competition and thrive in the long run.

A baseball player batting .333 is exceptional. Yet that batting average also means that for every three at-bats, he failed twice. The better .333 hitters maximize even their outs, "working the count," fouling off countless pitches, tiring the pitcher while giving his team the opportunity to get insights into the pitcher's style they can take advantage of later.

If Apple Inc. were a baseball player, it would be batting close to 1.000 - and that's after taking a lot more risk than stepping in against a Major League fastballer. In the 10 years since Steve Jobs rejoined the company, Apple has shaken up numerous businesses (desktop computing, music, and mobile communications), and created entire new niches with its iMac, iTunes, iPod and iPhone product lines.

And now Silicon Valley is abuzz with rumors that Apple is about to reinvent the publishing industry with some kind of electronic tablet/reader (see "Answers to Unasked Questions" below). Based on what they've achieved in the past 10 years, I believe the rumors. But even if nothing comes of it, Apple will manage to "work the count" as the rumor mill keeps the competition guessing and scrambling.

Apple is willing to take risks like that, even in the face of a lousy economy - or perhaps because of it - since no one else is really stretching. Look at the copycats they compete with: Microsoft, Dell, Motorola, Sony, Nokia, Palm, and RIM. When was the last time one among that group took a serious risk and introduced a truly original idea?

The problem that plagues those companies is the fear of failure and its implications, a fear that usually originates at the top. The risk-aversion is passed down the org chart. Employees mirror the way managers think and operate. If they see managers operating in a risk-averse manner, they withdraw and keep their heads down.

This is ultimately about communications. Leaders' and managers' behaviors and actions communicate far more than their words, and if leaders and managers demonstrate a distaste for risk, they are communicating it clearly.

Risk-taking defines Steve Jobs and his Apple culture; so changing the game is not a risk to Apple. In a time of constant change, a business unwilling to create and drive change like Apple will itself ultimately be overwhelmed by external changes forced upon it.

To Sony, Microsoft, Motorola and others, risk is anathema. They act on proven concepts. Sony and Microsoft launched their retail stores only after Apple had paved the way with its enormously successful Apple Store. Sony came out with a desktop PC that's "built into an elegant widescreen LCD panel." Hmmm, looks like an Apple iMac. Motorola rolled out its Droid, an iPhone wannabe that, I predict, will flop. Microsoft introduced its latest "game changer," Windows 7, another Mac OS rip-off.

Businesses are founded by people who take risks - often huge risks with their own personal savings. The irony is that once those companies become successful, grow and add people, risk-taking becomes a foreign concept. Management moves from quarter to quarter, seeking to sustain a certain level of revenue growth, usually by doing the same things, adding little flourishes to make the old seem new. Few will make the big gamble to reinvent themselves or an entire industry the way Apple keeps doing.

Meanwhile, as my friend noted, his best people are leaving, running from the cautious culture. The better people in any organization want to be challenged. They want to be able to take risks, to try their new ideas. They don't want to have to keep their heads down.

American businessman and oilman T. Boone Pickens once said, "Be willing to make decisions. That's the most important quality of a good leader. Don't fall victim to what I call the 'ready-aim-aim-aim syndrome.' You must be willing to fire."

At its heart, that's what risk is all about: people willing to make decisions, to say "yes" to risk. Many of us have experienced the corporate environment where "everyone has the power to say 'no,' but no one has the authority to say 'yes'."

This is a time for leaders to say "yes," to encourage their people to pursue cutting edge ideas, risks that might fail, but that might also succeed and reinvent their companies, opening new realms of opportunity.

"Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward.
They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Monday, November 16, 2009

Dining Out on a Reputation

Whether your business involves medical devices, automobiles, professional services or fine dining, one core rule applies. If your front-line people – those who interact with customers – are out of synch with your vision of the business, then trouble is brewing.


The thought occurred to me recently while I was out dining with friends at a fine restaurant. No matter what you’re buying, if the prices are steep, then your expectations justly are, too. And our hosts’ expectations that night were not met, for reasons too complex and numerous to go into here.


Complaints were voiced and the manager spoken to. But the bottom line is, neither our hosts nor any of their guests are likely to return. It’s also likely that they and we will not speak well of this establishment to friends.


That kind of experience tends to discourage repeat business. People go once and don't come back. These customers’ dissatisfaction is usually shared with others via word-of-mouth, but rarely with the restaurant owner. So when the restaurant sees an increasing number of empty seats night after night and eventually goes out of business, the owner wonders why.


On the flip side, visit a pricey restaurant that’s thriving, where it’s difficult to get a reservation, and you’ll likely also see the owner in the dining room, visiting with patrons to determine their satisfaction with the food and service. He/she will observe the pace in the kitchen while making sure dishes are being prepared to the restaurant’s standards, and assure that the servers are attentive, responsive and courteous.


The owner sees each meal served as an extension of him/herself and is dissatisfied with anything that falls short because it is a poor reflection on him/her. Over time, with repeat business and positive word-of-mouth, the restaurant thrives, building a loyal clientele and a strong reputation for good food, a pleasant ambience and superb service.


But beware the restaurant that dines out on its reputation without consistent, ongoing vigilance to assure that its reputation stays earned. In a people-intensive business like a restaurant that takes its eye off the ball, the flaws are soon on display for all to see, especially for the customers.


While the same truths apply to any business with employees, it’s often not so readily apparent to the owner/manager of a larger enterprise.


For instance, a national sales organization with a couple dozen field sales people scattered around the country is a different proposition altogether than a single restaurant where the person in charge can get real time, first-hand insights into what’s working and what isn’t.


Twenty-four different people without day-to-day contact with the organization or a guiding vision can soon become mavericks, each operating independently with their own unique sense of what the company stands for. Pretty soon, the company stands for little or nothing.


It also applies to franchise retail businesses built on a founding vision of someone like John Mackey of Whole Foods, Howard Schultz of Starbucks, or the late Sam Walton of Wal-Mart. Larger businesses like these have thrived because of the ability of their owners/founders to communicate their vision effectively and consistently to employees and managers as the business expanded and opened new franchises.


To Sam Walton (and the founders of other such organizations), vision was what he saw that Wal-Mart could become if he and his people tended to the drivers of that vision.


Last year, I read a comment made by a Wal-Mart board member. When the board deadlocks on a difficult decision, he said, the fallback position is often to ask, “What would Sam do?” (This is in spite of the fact that Walton has been dead for 17 years.) It is a standard question that most managers and employees also ask to reconnect to that foundation of Sam Walton’s vision. In that way and others, Wal-Mart has successfully maintained its focus on its founder’s personal imprint.


Conversely, a large business with an international footprint can coast for a long time on the inertia of a reputation it built over decades. Consider, for example, General Motors, which has been on a path toward failure for at least 10 years – some would argue longer. The ultimate failure of an organization like GM is far slower than a single restaurant or small business. But the causes and effect are the same.


As a business, you’re on the road to failure if you take your eye off the ball, dining out on your reputation without constantly refreshing and reinforcing it by keeping your people engaged in the business’ core vision.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Reality Bites Back

Can employees be “educated” about the realities of the marketplace? It seems that among a lot of corporate leadership these days, there is a belief that “education” is the path by which employees will be helped to “see the light” as to what’s going on outside the company, to help them put their internal reality into context.

The ultimate goal is admirable. It's the approach and attitude that's wrong.

“Educate” suggests an attitude that sees employees as less worldly than they ought to be – at least less so than the managers who speak in those terms. Big mistake. It is an assumption that often betrays an environment where, up until a crisis hits, management basically keeps the general employee population in the dark.

As a paper mill worker once told me about his company, “They just want us to check our brains at the door when we punch in for the day.”

There often comes a time, a crisis point, where it’s critical that the internal audience have a clear awareness and understanding of the external realities that are forcing radical changes on the organization. This innate awareness and understanding give employees a firm foundation on which to operate. But if corporate leaders reach that crisis point and find themselves scrambling to bring the internal audience up to speed, it’s too late.

Reality bites back.

Let's go back to the ultimate goal: to raise awareness and understanding among employees about the realities of the business so that they are better equipped to put their own work and responsibilities in the larger context.

Yes, employees need to have a full awareness and understanding of the external world and its many impacts on their organization and their very livelihood. But it is an awareness and understanding that come with time and deliberate action. It is not something like a snow blower, brought out of the garage when the blizzard hits.

Awareness and understanding are achieved through on-going cultivation, through a deliberate effort to foster dialogue and discussion - even debate when appropriate - inside the organization. This requires an attitude and accompanying behavior of openness and engagement that starts of the top of the organization.

If the CEO consistently engages her/his direct reports and other managers in open dialogue, discussion and debate about the issues and opportunities facing the company, it's clear that it is an acceptable and appropriate behavior for the organization. Having been engaged in such a manner by their managers, middle managers in turn do so with their direct reports, and supervisors with theirs.

In this era of reduced manpower, where employees are increasingly being asked to assume greater responsibility without constant supervision and support, it is best that they have a firm foundation of understanding of how their manager thinks - and why - so that they can infer the right choice in a split-second decision.

That foundation is built over time, under the guidance and clear-headed thinking of a focused management team that not only knows the company's vision but the route by which they will achieve that vision, and how best to communicate it to the organization.

Communicating that vision is not achieved through "education." It is done through engagement: discussion, dialogue and debate. The successful organization focuses this engagement on the outside world around questions such as these:


  • How is the economy affecting our customers?
  • What do our customers need and expect from us in this climate that's different than before?
  • How are our competitors responding to the evolving marketplace?
  • Where can we anticipate the market to go next?
  • Who are our future competitors, companies that we don't now perceive as competitors?
  • How can we beat those future competitors before they get started?
  • What are the potential markets for our products/services where we don't now compete?

These kinds of questions and the dialogue they stimulate are valuable on a number of levels, not the least of which is engaging employees in the business. Managers often learn more from their employees than the other way around. People on the ground, so to speak, often have unique insights that those in the C Suite don't. Most important, though, this kind of dialogue engages employees in the real business of the company: its future.

Employees' stake in the game becomes obvious to them. Their commitment and best thinking follow.

Reality is alive and well in an organization that engages employees like that, and never has a chance to bite back.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Answers To Unasked Questions

Imagine being a buggy whip maker 100 years ago. Orders are falling year after year as your customers are starting to buy automobiles and no longer need your product. What's the answer to your revenue drop?

Do you cut costs? Create a better buggy whip? Do you shut down? Or do you diversify into a new field, say, the burgeoning auto industry?

Answering that question now with 20/20 hindsight is easy. But flash forward to 2009. A lot of people are facing such dilemmas today. Circumstances demand that they respond quickly with answers to questions they haven't yet learned to ask.

What got me thinking about this was a recent rumor that Apple Inc. is close to introducing a "tablet." Brian Lam, who writes an astute technology blog called Gizmodo, broke the news last week in a detailed entry full of quotes from unnamed inside sources.

Whereas, Amazon.com's Kindle tablet is fairly static with limited capabilities, the Apple tablet sounds like it will be much more dynamic, more interactive and, most important, will seek to redefine print media. This will not be a Kindle copycat. Based on how Apple reinvented the music industry with iTunes and the iPod, my bet is that they'll do the same thing to print media.

Think about the state of newspapers and magazines today. Those that haven't already folded are moving in that direction. The Rocky Mountain News, one of the nation's oldest papers, shut down last spring. Just this week, Condé Nast announced that the venerable old cooking magazine, Gourmet, would soon cease publication.

According to the Oct. 7 Boston Globe, Platinum Equity, a Beverly Hills buy-out firm, "broke into the news business last May, acquiring the San Diego Union-Tribune for a reported $50 million... [T]he firm's executives have turned to a familiar playbook, laying off 28 percent of the paper's employees, or 304 people, including seven of its top nine executives." Platinum, as the story notes, is rumored to be interested in buying the Globe.

Few newspapers and magazines are making a profit these days, and nearly all are laying people off, reducing the news hole, and examining every corner of their operations for potential savings. In short, the managers of this modern day buggy whip industry are trying to stay in business by producing their buggy whips more cheaply.

Apple is telling them there's another solution.

According to Gizmodo, Apple has been holding surreptitious meetings with newspaper publishers like The New York Times, textbook publishers like McGraw-Hill, and magazine publishers like Condé Nast. Lam writes:

"The eventual goal is to have publishers create hybridized content that draws from audio, video, interactive graphics in books, magazines and newspapers, where paper layouts would be static. And with release dates for Microsoft's Courier set to be quite far away and Kindle stuck with relatively static e-ink, it appears Apple is moving towards a pole position in distribution of this next-generation print content."

Recall the introduction of iTunes in January 2001, which preceded the iPod. Apple introduced iTunes as a new feature of the latest iteration of its operating system, Mac OS X. Mac fans loved it immediately, uploading their music collections, which enabled them to listen to music at their desks. So when the iPod came out 10 months later, Mac owners were predisposed to buy iPods - hence, the record-setting sales year after year.

Brian Lam says in Gizmodo that Apple is talking to publishers about putting their static content on iTunes for downloading onto customers' iPhone and iPod touch. If you have one of those devices, you know that their two-by-three-inch screen is good for a lot of things, but probably not textbooks and such.

Sometime in the near future, Apple will roll out the new technology that will - guess what - perfectly suit these content providers, enable them to grow and monetize their offerings. All the while, they will be reinventing themselves in an entirely new medium, regaining their audiences by engaging them differently.

While some in the publishing industry will likely bristle at Apple's intrusion into their business - as did the music industry moguls over iTunes - the smart ones will climb aboard and move forward with this new technology.

From today's vantage point, it's difficult as outsiders for us to envision where this new technology will take us - just as we couldn't have foreseen where the iPod would go and what it would mean to professional musicians, the music industry, and music aficionados.

The answer may lie in the key phrase in the Gizmodo blog: "hybridized content." Business reporter Dan Lyons, who moonlights as "Fake Steve Jobs" in his satirical but insightful blog, The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, writes:

"[N]ew technology spawns new ways to tell stories. That's the really exciting thing here. Not the tablet itself but what it means for news, for entertainment, for literature... There is no point in moving to digital readers if we're just going to do what we did on paper... We're talking about an entirely new way to convey information, one that incorporates dynamic elements (audio, video) with static elements (text, photos) plus the ability for the 'audience' to become content creators, not just content consumers."

If I were a reporter at a major metro daily, losing sleep and anxious about my job, I'd see this impending development as a real positive. It would certainly look more promising than the slashing and burning going on in that business now.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Gaining Value From Meetings

Like the weather, everyone complains about meetings, but no one does anything about it. But can they?

Meetings are huge consumers of the business day, whether in-person around a conference table or over the phone using a web conferencing service. Many people consider them mostly a waste of time - often justifiably. And that's unfortunate, because they don't need to be.

In that communication is the ongoing exchange of ideas, information and insights among people that leads to better understanding, meetings can and should be the most effective form of communication in a business environment. Unlike bouncing around emails or leaving voice mails and then waiting days for responses, meetings enable the right people to get together to share ideas and information and make necessary decisions on the spot.

Unfortunately, it doesn't always work out that way. Some meetings are poorly planned and executed. Key people straggle in late. Participants digress. People come unprepared. Meetings run late. Decisions are postponed repeatedly.

No wonder so many people think they're a waste of time.

Some meetings may not be necessary. Establish rules and a litmus test to justify meetings, and urge everyone to abide by them. Following are some rules and guidelines I've found helpful.

  • One person takes charge, coordinating and securing the meeting time and location, identifying the right attendees, assuring they are invited and informed of the meeting's purpose and agenda, managing the discussion, and handling any necessary follow-up.
  • One-hour meetings seem to be the norm, but if your agenda is long and complicated, extend it. Better to plan long and end early than to run over. Ending ahead of schedule is "found" time for participants.
  • What is the meeting's purpose? It should serve as an efficient means to exchange information and ideas among three or more people on the way to reaching understanding and decisions. The purpose should be clearly spelled out in the invitation.
  • Though most meetings' purpose is to reach decisions or agreements, that's not a requirement. Information exchanges can justify get-togethers, where attendees bring ideas, insights and information from different corners of the organization for the benefit of all. Informational meetings also help bring newcomers and outsiders (e.g., consultants) up to speed quickly.
  • Who should come? Are all invitees necessary? If you've been in large meetings, you know a meeting's effectiveness decreases and its duration increases with each additional person. Do all attendees have something to contribute, either in terms of information and ideas or decision-making authority?
  • If others require information from the meeting but would have little or nothing to contribute, don't invite them. Inform them later of what came from the meeting in terms of decisions or actions to be taken, and whether (and how) they impact them.
  • Establish an agenda, distribute it with the invitation, and abide by it. In addition to discussion topics, the agenda should include both starting and ending times. Hold firmly to that so that attendees can plan their own time accordingly.
  • Stay on topic. If participants digress or spend too much time on one subject, re-center the discussion and suggest a second meeting later for those people. Discourage side discussions.
  • Never close a meeting without consensus on clearly delineated decisions and/or actions, with assigned responsibilities.
  • Finish the meeting on time.
  • A follow-up meeting may be necessary if incomplete information prevented a decision. If so, identify the people responsible for gathering the necessary information and assign a deadline. Schedule a second meeting (if necessary).
  • Follow up. Keep minutes and distribute them to attendees, with emphasis on unfinished business and action items.
  • Reconnect later with those who've been assigned action items. Make sure they are able to meet their deadlines. If they require additional resources or time, help them get the necessary help and inform the other participants of the need to postpone the follow-up meeting.
Those whose daily business lives are filled with meetings may find these rules and guidelines obvious. But your colleagues and managers will hold you in greater esteem if you consciously apply them to your own meetings. And, your organization will operate more effectively.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Hands-On Leadership

When I was young and new to the business world, I thought that the higher one rises in a corporate hierarchy, the easier it gets. Boy, was I wrong. I was probably thinking myopically about executive perquisites – the C-Suite, the corner office and all that goes with it. In fact, the opposite is true, as any senior-level manager will tell you.


In many ways, rising through a corporate structure doesn’t relieve you of unpleasant tasks. It just adds more. It means you learn how things work and what makes an organization excel. Sometimes, you have to get your hands dirty, even if you’re at the top. In fact, leaders who disdain the dirty work likely will fail because they grow out of touch with the organization they purport to run. I’ve seen instances of that, and they were not pretty.


A large component of the counsel I provide clients is based on those experiences – both good and bad leaders I’ve been exposed to. Business books that are full of real world anecdotes also provide valuable insights.


So when it comes to business books, I’m partial to those on leadership where the core message concerns the merits of good communications and hands-on leadership. That’s one reason I like John Kotter’s books on leadership so much. He recognizes the central importance played by consistent, relevant and continuous communications, and how hands-on leadership is the most effective kind of communications.


In that regard, among the best I’ve read are “Shackleton’s Way,” by Margot Morrell and Stephanie Capparell, “Inside Steve’s Brain,” by Leander Kahney, and anything written by John Kotter. To this category, add a new one: “Walk The Walk,” by Alan Deutschman.


Deutschman’s counsel leans heavily towards hands-on involvement by leaders, and the truth of the expression “actions speak louder than words.” This book is full of relevant and telling anecdotes about real world business leaders who excel at direct involvement and communication.


One of my favorites concerns Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald’s. Deutschman relates how Kroc visited franchises frequently and, as he approached the restaurant, would pick up trash in the parking lot before even setting foot in the place.


Cleanliness was Kroc’s central tenet. He rightly believed that clean restaurants would appeal to his customers, bring them back for repeat visits, and build loyalty. Of course, he was right. He demonstrated his abiding belief in this truth by actually attending to it himself. As the CEO, he could have come into the restaurant and told the manager that there was trash in the parking lot. Instead, by demonstrating his willingness to do it himself, he elevated the importance of the task. Implicitly, he was saying that if something is important enough for the CEO to do himself, then it must be pretty darned important.


The chapter I found most insightful was the fourth, titled: “You Share The Struggle And The Risk.” Deutschman writes, “Sharing the struggle is vital for anyone who aspires to leadership, whether it’s the CEO of a company with hundreds of thousands of employees or a front-line manager with less than a dozen people.”


He cites Southwest Airlines, where supervisors are considered to be “player-coaches,” helping at times to get the job done, from handling baggage to serving as agents at departure gates. Even the founding CEO, Herb Kelleher, was known to pitch in. He notes that the arrangement has “strengthened the feelings of loyalty coming from teammates, who appreciate the extra help when they’re in a crunch, and it’s made the supervisors become better coaches because they understand the work’s pressures and challenges first-hand.”


Deutschman adds, “Leaders can’t fully grasp the situation until they’ve shared the struggle.”


He quotes a Whole Foods manager who spoke a core truth of successful management: “People don’t work for companies, they work for people.” That simple observation reveals much about successful leadership. The manager or leader who falls back on the vague concept of “the company” to drive loyalty and hard work rather than his/her personal and direct involvement has lost sight of the fact that the organization is, in fact, people working together toward a common goal.


To that point, he concludes the chapter by writing about the “royal visit,” where the “CEO and top executives drop in to see their workers or perhaps toiling in a front-line job on a single day a year, for a few hours at most.” Of such behavior, Deutschman writes, “The real difference comes when a leader is obsessive about getting the firsthand view,” unfiltered by those with an axe to grind, rather than putting on a show of being involved.


The impetus for such involvement must be first and foremost to learn from the first-hand experience, not to pretend to care. Believe me, employees can spot a phony a mile away. They know the difference between a leader who truly wants to learn something and one who just wants to fly the executive flag. If a leader’s reason for the front-line visit is the latter, he/she would be better off just staying in the corner office.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Ask for Help

The field house was hot last Sunday afternoon as the incoming freshmen and their families gathered inside. The new students were to be officially welcomed by the university president. It had been a long and tiring day for our son as we moved him into his dorm room. Unfortunately (though understandably), he nodded off during the most helpful part of the speech.

"I have nine words of advice for each new class," the president said. "Go to class. Do the work. Ask for help." The last three words, he explained, were the most critical in assuring their success in the coming four years. He added that they shouldn't think less of themselves for needing help. The anecdote he told to illustrate his point hit home.

After sharing those same words of counsel with a new member of the university's board of trustees, the new trustee in turn shared with the president his own version of "Ask for help."

He had founded two successful companies and had always believed in asking for help, no matter its source. In one particularly difficult challenge, he recalled, his company was working with a client when he recognized that the most talented person working on the project was an employee of the client company.

Rather than struggle on, he requested the temporary reassignment of this skilled person to his team "to be sure we delivered the highest quality solution." He saw nothing wrong in asking for help. In fact, he saw it as a requirement of the job.

Such counsel flies in the face of the "not invented here" attitude, an approach that says, if you're the outside expert, your solution is always going to be best, regardless.

I've never believed that and I loathe working with people that do. In a similar vein, I have occasionally found that a client's approach works well. Why fix what isn't broken? My counsel after examining the situation closely is usually that they continue in that manner, though I may suggest a modification or two, as well as an appropriate follow-on methodology.

Managers and outside counsels should be honest enough to know when their solution is no better than another approach. Or, like the trustee's story, they should recognize when someone else is better qualified to drive towards the highest quality solution, and then seek their help.

We see this in play both within internal teams and when outsiders are brought in. In an internal environment, this can play out in a number of ways. Petty jealousies among peers can lead to a situation where, in pursuit of greater reward and recognition, the stronger-willed person downplays, denigrates or nit-picks a teammate's more elegant solution.

Sometimes, a manager wants to take credit for solving a problem, casting him/herself as the most talented and experienced person on the project, perhaps ignoring an employee's more appropriate solution or that person's superior talent. As I noted in a blog entry nearly a year ago:

The late great sportswriter Red Smith remembered his days at the old (and defunct) New York Herald-Tribune. Sports editor Stanley Woodward returned from World War 2 and set about building what was then and probably still is the best collection of sportswriters ever. "He was scouting for the best men he could get," Smith recalled. "Stanley was the best department head, perhaps the best all-around newspaperman I've ever known. Some sports editors, especially if they write a column, are afraid of competition. They want to be the big man of the paper. But Stanley's rule was, 'I don't want anyone who can't outwrite me'."

Those are sound words of advice, whether applied directly in regard to a manager's relationship with his/her direct reports, or in the case of the outsider. The important thing is the end. We should all be seeking the best possible solution
- no matter the source - to the challenge at hand so that we can achieve the organization's business objectives.

Mature people - whether in business or in school - should take to heart the president's elaboration of his counsel as our son began his university education:

Recognize when you need help. Don't be so proud that you won't or can't ask for help. Know whom to turn to for help. And when you get that help, take advantage of it.

(By the way, we let our son know the wise advice he'd missed. My wife even wrote it on an index card and pinned it to his bulletin board.)

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Technology Blurs Line Between Work and Home

In the "good old days," bringing your work home was pretty rare. Usually, it meant after-dinner perusal of proposals or a few pieces of correspondence you hadn't gotten to during the day. Perhaps it was a client dinner with your spouses, or a Saturday morning round of golf with the boss.
       Today, bringing your work home is standard operating procedure, in light of leaner workforces, spawned by multiple lay-offs that pile additional demands on everyone. But our extended work hours are also being fueled by the proliferation of PDAs and the Internet, which enable round-the-clock communications with everyone in the company, no matter where in the world they may be at any given moment of the day, or day of the week.
       In fact, you'd better have a good reason for failing to respond to an important weekend email. Saying you hadn't checked your email won't wash.
       Vacations used to be sacrosanct and so would serve as a valid reason for being out of touch, as did being on an airliner at 35,000 feet. Today, about the only airtight excuse is being unconscious in an ICU.
       The issue came to mind with a recent New York Times story: "Breakfast Can Wait. The Day's First Stop is Online." That, and a back-and-forth email exchange with a friend who queried me about my thoughts on the article, which concerns the impact of the Internet, PDAs and laptops on people's personal lives.
       The featured families discuss their adapting and coping mechanisms, and rules regarding use (and non-use) of the Internet at home during family time. They also reminisce about the times when the breakfast table meant starting the day together, sharing the coming day's plans and expectations, instead of starting the day with emails, Twitters and blogs.
       It's amusing to see people on vacation staring into a BlackBerry, tapping their responses, while lounging in the sun on a beach. We've all heard the anecdotes of how BlackBerrys have intruded on deeply personal occasions like weddings and funerals. And, we know of spouses who lay down the law about "no emails" while on vacation.
       I had to laugh at a former boss who once called me on his cell phone while on a Caribbean cruise with his family - because he could.

      Me: "Why are you whispering? I can't hear you."

      Boss: "So my wife won't hear me. I'm not supposed to be calling the office."

      Me: [LOL]

Modern technology's advance runs on parallel tracks with our expectations as to what it can and should do for us. The archetypal story - perhaps apocryphal - concerns the young businessman who happily discovers he can now email while flying to his destination. He's thrilled and immediately is tapping away on his laptop. Suddenly, he loses the connection. He's outraged, as though it's an entitlement withdrawn.
       This ratcheting up of expectations demands perfection. It also manifests itself when, during a teleconference (true story), someone actually apologized - as though it was their fault - because their Internet connection was down and they couldn't access the materials being distributed online during the call.
       The ability to send and receive email at all times and most locations also means that underlings strive to impress the boss (and one-up each other) by staying in touch during vacations and family emergencies, or emailing the boss in the wee hours of the morning.
       This is getting out of hand. Technology has made it too easy for our work lives to encroach on and dominate our personal lives. But t
he increased access technology provides is not a license to intrude, nor does it lessen the critical and central importance of healthy personal lives, particularly if they involve other people like spouses and children. So managers - especially senior managers - must be proactive and explicit in defining the boundaries between their employees' personal lives and the business.
       As my friend pointed out in our email exchange, yes, people need to be "fluent in new technologies," but managers must "still respect their employees' personal space."
       That means prohibiting email contacts during personal time, except when dire circumstances demand otherwise. Each business is different and that boundary may necessarily be vague.
       The point is, the blurring of the line between our personal and business lives has a potentially adverse impact on the quality of our work. We can't be effective in our jobs unless we are whole persons, with unique interests and drives. And we can't be whole without that clear distinction between work and home.