Minding Gaps

Does Accountability Actually Thwart Your Potential?

by Thomas J. Lee

Probably every business manager regards accountability as an invisible but veritable whip, which ensures that people actually do what they're supposed to do.

Without accountability, the assumption holds, managers would have no way of enforcing standards of any sort. Things would be a big mess.

That certainly seems logical. But what if we were to substitute an ethic of opportunity for our reliance on accountability? What if we were to make more use of the carrot and less use of the stick?

On a large scale, what if we were to think and talk more about our potential and less about our problems? If we were to get away from "the burning platform" and instead dream more of "the promised land"?

Would people necessarily ignore deadlines, budgets, blueprints, recipes, parameters, or instructions of any sort? Would they refuse to change?

For now, it's just a hypothetical. But give it some thought.

My instinct, and perhaps yours, is that it would indeed create some real headaches. It would complicate and confound things.

But here's the thing: My experience is different. I have a hunch my instinct is wrong.

In my experience, people want to be about solutions. They are drawn to big opportunities. Daniel Burnham once declared: "Make no little plans, for they have no magic to stir men's souls." That does indeed seem to be true, and it holds important lessons for anyone who aspires to lead.

In the workshops I run, we always ask the managers in the room to describe the coolest project or team they ever worked on. They are free to cite any example from their entire life, as long as it is true. It can be something in business or something in their personal life.

Their examples are fascinating. Most of them are from business, but some are from coaching Little League teams, or singing in a church choir, or starting a business of their own, or raising up a child, or earning an advanced degree, or serving in a military conflict or on an emergency rescue.

The thing that all the best stories have in common is a large, quasi-spiritual reward, a huge emotional return that people experience from accomplishing an ambitious goal, or from being of service to the community, or from finding an inner fortitude they didn't realize they had, or from simply working on an important project with other dedicated, talented people.

They remember these experiences in detail forever. Forever!

Moreover, few managers use negative words to describe the experience. Few dwell on the problem they encountered and set out to solve. Nor do they cite the application of technical expertise or the availability of ample resources. They don't talk about those things. It would be too small, too mundane.

Rather, they choose to speak of the achievement itself, of the resourcefulness or creativity or perseverance of the team, or of the collaboration they experienced on something so big.

Maybe, if we were to focus more on opportunity and less on accountability, we would all go a lot further together. Just maybe.

 

Coming on Monday

25 Years of Incredible, Exhilarating Change

 

©  Copyright 2011    Thomas J. Lee    All rights reserved.

What We Measure When We Measure Engagement

by Thomas J. Lee

As companies come to recognize the importance and value of the full engagement of their employees, they are increasingly inclined to measure it, chiefly by means of surveys.

However, unless and until they agree on a workable definition of engagement that ties it to their strategic priorities, companies cannot be certain just what it is they are measuring. That must change.

I favor a four-part definition of engagement as the discretionary effort—the focus, the curiosity, the passion, and the courage—that employees may or may not bring to their work in support and service to the organization's purpose and its customers. Further, I regard engagement as the deliverable, the work product, of good leadership.

Thus, when we measure engagement properly, we are measuring the extent to which the people of an organization:

• are recognizing, acknowledging, and focusing on a leadership direction
• are exploring, thinking through, and grasping the implications and repercussions of that direction on their work
• are embracing and championing that direction, and
• are adopting it as their own responsibility, their own mission, their own opportunity, and eventually their own legacy.

Ultimately, we are thus measuring the extent to which the people of an organization are engaged in the strategic work of the enterprise.

To my thinking, a survey instrument that doesn't return data on these four variables isn't really doing the heavy lifting that a company needs. Just my two cents. 

 

Coming on Friday

Accountability versus Opportunity

 ©  Copyright 2011    Thomas J. Lee    All rights reserved.

Big Lessons in Leadership from 'I Love Lucy'

 

Madelyn Pugh Davis died on Wednesday, April 20, at the age of 90. Together with her collaborator Bob Carroll Jr., she wrote every episode of the legendary television comedy I Love Lucy. Original episodes of the Emmy Award-winning program aired from 1951 to 1957. Sixty years after it premiered, reruns of this pioneering situation comedy continue to be broadcast around the world.

For the uninitiated, I Love Lucy depicted the misadventures of a wacky New York City homemaker whose husband was a Cuban-American bandleader. It starred Lucille Ball as Lucy Ricardo, Dezi Arnaz as her husband Ricky, and Vivian Vance and William Frawley as their neighbors and landlords Ethel and Fred Mertz.

In 1998 I wrote an essay for the Journal of Employee Communication that celebrated I Love Lucy and teased out some truths about leadership and organizational communication from three of its episodes. Here, in commemoration of Ms. Davis, is a condensed and updated version of that essay.

—TJL                

 

 

  
 

by Thomas J. Lee

Probably everyone remembers the episode of I Love Lucy in which Lucy and her pal Ethel go to work on an assembly line in a candy factory.

Their job is simple. As candy comes down a conveyor belt, they must wrap each piece of chocolate in paper and place it back on the conveyor.

Their boss is a humorless drill sergeant of a manager with no tolerance for mistakes. The dour supervisor warns that if even a single piece of unwrapped candy gets past them, they’ll both be fired. Then the boss bellows: “Let ‘er roll!”

Suddenly the conveyor belt begins moving, and it rapidly picks up speed. Trying to keep up, Lucy and Ethel work faster and faster. But they fall further and further behind.

Growing desperate, they clumsily hide the evidence. Unwrapped candies go in their pockets, under their caps, into their mouths, down their blouses—anywhere they can think of.

The scene is hilarious, and untold millions of viewers have chortled over it. First broadcast in 1952, the episode has frequently been rerun ever since. Other Lucy shows are equally precious, the work of comic genius.

So novel and popular were those early episodes of I Love Lucy that Manhattan traffic actually fell quiet each Monday evening when Lucy came on. Telephones around the United States went silent. Marshall Field’s, the grand Chicago department store, shifted its evening hours from Monday to Thursday. “We love Lucy, too,” the sign on its doors said.

Today only the eggheads among us would dare attribute anything remotely philosophical or high-minded to such a wonderful, light-hearted program. Yet it must be said: I Love Lucy was truly more than comedy. Between its lines lay bright little nuggets of wisdom on issues of leadership communication.

Indeed, more than a half-century after Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz invented the live-audience situation comedy, a selection of I Love Lucy episodes can be viewed not solely as terrific television comedy, which they surely were, but also as provocative reflections on how people in organizations attempt—and so often fail—to communicate for some higher purpose. 

Several well-known episodes of I Love Lucy offer lessons in this regard, though many of the situations are dated and, by today’s standards, arguably sexist or at least quaint. Here is a look at some insights or lessons you can draw from three of them: "Kleptomaniac," "Lucy Tells the Truth," and "Job Sharing."

 

"Kleptomaniac"

First broadcast in April 1952, “Kleptomaniac” has Lucy concealing from her husband, Ricky, the fact she is chairman of the annual bazaar and in charge of holding onto prizes prior to the event.

Ricky discovers a wad of currency in her purse and a closet full of valuables. Later, he and Fred catch Lucy apparently red-handed in the act of stealing. Without any other information, they conclude that she is a kleptomaniac.

Of course, Lucy could just as easily have told Ricky she was chairman of the bazaar. Instead she decides that he doesn’t really need to know, and she appears oblivious to any sense of risk associated with withholding the information.

Forgetting the wad of currency, she even tells Ricky to check her purse for cab fare, whereupon he discovers the money. Then she proceeds to lie about it.

Her gambit is necessary to set up some television laughs, of course. But for us, decades later, it’s terrific grist for some second-guessing about "need to know" communication.

The episode raises a number of issues. Why, and why not, should people share information? Who ought to know information of what kind? What compels a person with information not to share it? What happens when people glean incomplete information for themselves? How does one form impressions on the basis of incomplete information? What happens when people reach too far in attempting to verify a hunch?

 

"Lucy Tells the Truth"

Another episode, “Lucy Tells the Truth,” raises issues such as applying spin, dodging the bullet, and telling the complete truth even to the point of hurting people.

In this episode, which first aired in November 1953, Lucy enters into a $100 bet with Ricky, Ethel, and Fred that she can tell the absolute truth, and nothing but the truth, for 24 hours. (Two movies—Nothing But the Truth (1941) starring Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard and Liar Liar (1997) starring Jim Carrey—were based on a similar premise.)

Of course, that isn’t easy for a gal like Lucy. Telling the whole truth at bridge club the next day, she roundly insults each of her partners. They get revenge by forcing Lucy to confess her age, weight, and original hair color. Lucy complies but offers: “It feels good to tell the truth. You should try it. We’d all be much better friends if everyone told the truth.” To which Ethel retorts: “Somehow I doubt it.”

Sure enough, Lucy, having already unburdened herself of the truth, becomes brutally frank and nearly loses all three friendships. The particular issue raised by this show, and I think worth discussing in a management team, is the appropriate role of truth—the whole truth and nothing but the truth—in organizational communication.

Naïve appeals for complete candor imply there are no circumstances warranting discretion or self-restraint, and we certainly know better. On the other hand, the rule in most organizations seems to be excessive reticence, even to the point that, at one large international corporation, the director of employee communication learned of a billion-dollar merger involving her company as she drove to work one morning, listening to her car radio. The question is: Who should know what? When? How?

Moreover, does “spin” really serve any legitimate purpose? Some would argue that, by selectively reporting or distorting facts even a little, it invariably backfires. Every manager should remember that employees are always there to see the truth for themselves. Indeed, they are constantly on the alert for any sign of hyprocrisy, and when they find it, they do not soon forget it.

 

"Job Switching"

I save the best for last. “Job Switching”—the episode that puts Lucy and Ethel in the candy factory—is surely one of the funniest ever, and it offers more grist for discussion than Lucy and Ethel’s shenanigans alongside the conveyor belt would suggest.

Dating back to September 1952, the program raises questions of communication in teams and of misunderstandings about the work and contributions of coworkers.

In this episode Ricky and Fred exchange roles with Lucy and Ethel. The two men begin cooking and keeping house while the two women go to work in the candy factory. Ricky and Fred, obviously too self-confident to bother reading written instructions and follow directions, turn out to be terrible housekeepers and even worse cooks.

Ricky makes sure he uses “plenty of starch” in laundering Lucy’s hosiery. Fred’s seven-layer cake comes out less than one inch tall, and the two men agree that a pound of rice per person is “just about right” for dinner that night. The volcano on the stove erupts just before Lucy and Ethel get home. The women don’t fare any better. Lucy is assigned to make chocolate dough balls alongside a stoic, stone-silent coworker. Obviously unskilled, Lucy cannot get the assistance she needs, for want of any communication.

At one point, spotting a fly buzzing around, she slaps her chocolate-laden hand first into the chocolate dough, then against the face of her coworker, who goes tit-for-tat. More than hilarious, the slapstick underlines the importance of collaboration.

Lucy and Ethel, having each failed at other assignments, get one last chance, wrapping candy. The speed of the conveyor belt is a little metaphor for the increasing expectations that management holds out for workers. At first, Lucy and Ethel are able to keep up appearances, if only by hiding the evidence.

The supervisor returns, judges everything all right, and declares: “Fine. You’re doing splendidly.” Then she calls to the conveyor belt operator: “Speed it up!”

By day’s end Lucy and Ethel have eaten more chocolates than they ever wanted. Before the credits roll, Ricky and Fred predictably acknowledge a newfound respect for Lucy and Ethel’s work, and vice versa.

Though formulaic, the story works; and it prompts us to ask whether, in the workplace, we truly do appreciate the contributions made by other individuals and departments. What with all our silos and rivalries, the answer is plainly no.

There’s another moral to this story, too. Lucy and Ethel must feel the way that contemporary employees feel as they are constantly pushed to produce more and perform better without adequate or appropriate training, support, or understanding. Better and more communication can bridge that gap between the needs of employer and employee. So it should. So it must. 

You could take a similar analytical look at many other episodes of I Love Lucy (or of other television programs, movies, and plays) and find many more insights on organizational communication and leadership. Or you could just sit back and watch these comedies for the purpose they were intended: as harmless fun.

Either way, it's reason enough to rediscover the many reasons we all loved Lucy.

 

Coming on Wednesday

What We Measure When We Measure Engagement

 

©  Copyright 2011    Thomas J. Lee    All rights reserved.

Precisely What Is Employee Engagement? And What Isn't It?

by Thomas J. Lee

Many companies have begun to take the engagement of their employees as a serious strategic imperative, and that's a good thing.

I fear, however, that quite a few companies regard engagement as just another kind of "positive mental attitude," in the words of the late American insurance magnate W. Clement Stone. These companies are not yet perfectly clear as to just what people engagement is, how it resembles and differs from other kinds of PMA, and why it is so very, very important.

Until we gain clarity around the definition and singular importance of engagement, the imperative of engagement won't sink its roots deep into the work and ethic of leadership. Rather, it will be widely regarded and marginalized as "soft" stuff, not truly material to the company's success. It will likely be seen as the next closest thing to a fad, and it will be in danger of fading as quickly as it arrived. That will be tragic.

So as a public service, we are here to clear up the confusion. Today we will distinguish between engagement and other kinds PMA—all of which are better than their opposites, of course. In particular, we will distinguish engagement from commitment, loyalty, morale, satisfaction, and especially alignment. They're all good things, but they aren't the same.

Trumpets, please:

• You can think of real commitment in the workplace as doing whatever it takes, and perhaps more, to satisfy the customer and therefore the enterprise within the constraints of safety, the law, fairness, and ethical decency. People who demonstrate commitment make sure they follow through. They do what they say they will do—no excuses.
• In contrast, loyalty is the disposition of employees to continue serving the needs of their employer in an honest, productive manner in exchange for agreed-upon compensation. It is the unwritten workplace contract. Employees who are loyal are generally not devoting much time and energy to looking for new opportunities, unless they have a reason (a pending merger or staff reduction that imperils their job security, for example).
• For our purposes, employee morale and employee satisfaction are synonymous; if there is a distinction between them, it is so subtle as to be meaningless. We think of both morale and satisfaction as the degree of happiness or contentment that employees derive from their employment. That may be a function of their compensation, benefits, workplace conditions, stress, personal and professional relationships at work, employment security, and the opportunity to learn new skills and take on more responsibility. It may also reflect their personal circumstances such as financial security, home life, health, activities, spirituality, and fitness.
• By employee alignment, we mean the reliable performance of duties necessary for the organization to meet the expectations of its customers, most commonly in terms of product quality, delivery and service requirements, production and sales quotas, and work processes. We think of alignment as the deliverable, or work product, of good management.
• Finally, we define people engagement as the discretionary effort—the focus, the curiosity, the passion, and the courage—that employees may or may not bring to their work in support and service to the organization's purpose and its customers. When we see commitment in action, we often call it "going the extra mile." We think of engagement as the deliverable, or work product, of good leadership. Often, and most significantly, the work of leadership involves asking and inspiring employees to mount this discretionary effort in times of great uncertainty and in circumstances of considerable risk to the employee's personal security and well-being.

To grasp fully the distinction between alignment and engagement, we recommend you read our February 16, 2011 post. You will find it here, or just scroll down a few pages.

To appreciate the importance and value of building employee engagement, we recommend you read our posts on March 7, 2011, on January 14, 2011, and on September 3, 2010. 

 

Coming on Monday

Leadership Lessons of I Love Lucy

 

Coming on Wednesday

What We Measure When We Measure Engagement

 ©  Copyright 2011    Thomas J. Lee    All rights reserved.

Counterfeit Currency of Leadership

by Thomas J. Lee

Just as money is the medium of exchange for any transaction, so communication is the medium of exchange for any transformation in business.

Apart from barter, no transaction can take place without money. Apart from fiat, no transformation can take place without communication.

Moreover, just as the money that enables a transaction must be credible and legitimate, so the communication that enables transformation must be credible and legitimate.

In either case, anything that is not is counterfeit.

For leaders, counterfeit currency in communication buys only alienation, denial, cynicism, and resistance. That's a bad deal at any price.

 

Coming on Friday

Precisely What Is Employee Engagement?

 ©  Copyright 2011    Thomas J. Lee    All rights reserved.

One Year Later, a Persistent Reminder and Prodding to BP

 

On the eve of the first anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, we call BP's attention to our special report and comment of August 18, 2010, outlining a comprehensive approach to best practice in leadership and integrated communication for workplace safety.

We believe it continues to be timely and relevant.

 

©  Copyright 2011    Thomas J. Lee    All rights reserved.

{Numbers} Silicon Valley CEOs Work in Glass Houses

 

Numbers, a twice-monthly feature, regularly presents business data that is noteworthy, puzzling, alarming, widely misunderstood or misinterpreted, or otherwise deserving of explanation, comment, or clarification. We accompany it with thought-provoking questions or commentary for reflection and discussion. It appears on the first and third Monday of each month.

Since its inception two years ago, Numbers has presented data on a wide variety of issues: employee engagement, organizational culture, trust in business, information overload, strategic communication, CEO compensation, layoffs, job satisfaction, Internet usage, nonverbal communication, fear in the workplace, and many other variables.

You can read any or all of those posts (and hundreds of other short essays, as well) whenever you wish, just by scrolling through the archives. For a particular subject, use the search button atop the right column.

by Thomas J. Lee

Glassdoor.com compiles data on compensation, cultures, and chief executives at companies around the world. Anyone can access the data for almost any company of significant size.

Oddly, the employee approval ratings for CEOs of high-tech companies are the only ones that regularly make news. That creates public accountability for one industry. However, it leaves employees, investors, and customers of companies in other industries to do their own research. You can do it, but it's laborious.

In the most recent period, outgoing Google CEO Eric Schmidt ranks highest among his Silicon Valley peers: 96 percent of Google employees approved of his performance as chief executive. Apple CEO Steve Jobs, on medical leave, is right up there, too, at 95 percent.

In contrast, Steve Ballmer at Microsoft came in at only 40 percent, a decrease of six points from his approval one year earlier.

Yahoo's Carol Bartz saw her approval drop the most, from 77 percent to just 50 percent. John Donahoe of eBay improved the most, from 24 percent a year ago to 46 percent now.

A few questions to reflect upon:

• How would well-publicized employee approval ratings of leaders in your company affect their leadership?
• Have you checked your CEO's approval rating on glassdoor.com?
• Should leaders make decisions in fear or favor of employee approval? 

 

Coming on Wednesday

Counterfeit Currency of Leadership

 

©  Copyright 2011    Thomas J. Lee    All rights reserved.

My Love-Hate Relationship With Wikipedia

by Thomas J. Lee

If anyone should love Wikipedia, it is someone like me. I have long had a passion for reference books in general and for atlases, dictionaries, and encyclopedias in particular.

Moreover, as a blogger and an author, I am constantly consulting reference works. I used to be on first names with a reference librarian at my local library. Now I have Wikipedia to keep me company.

But it's time I come clean. I am addicted to Wikipedia, in a dysfunctional way, but I actually hate it. It is true. I loathe it, even if I use it all the time. I curse it constantly. The best you can say is that I have a love-hate relationship with it.

Wikipedia is admittedly easy to use. It does serve as a nice, quick reference. It has far more entries than any other reference work. But it is replete with errors of fact and with glaring omissions in material that I know well—more than the news media and vastly more than any other reference work. You simply cannot rely on Wikipedia for accurate or complete information. Moreover, it is probably the worst-written, worst-edited, and worst-organized reference resource ever published.

For these reasons, Wikipedia is extremely frustrating. The world needs a resource that is equally comprehensive in subject matter and instantly accessible, but that is also well-written, well-edited, well-organized, and, above all, accurate and complete. Wikipedia isn't it, and I doubt it ever will be.

For the last few weeks I have been collecting excerpts from Wikipedia to document my argument. It has been easy. Probably every other entry I check has a grievous error or omission of some sort, or an editorial tic that is weird or exasperating or both. Here are just a handful:

 

Coming on Monday

{Numbers}   Approval Ratings of Silicon Valley CEOs

 

© Copyright 2011   Arceil Leadership Ltd.   All rights reserved.

 

Accountability or Missed Opportunity? FAA Official Is Out

by Thomas J. Lee

The New York Times is reporting that the U.S. government's official in charge of air traffic controllers for the Federal Aviation Administration has resigned after night-shift controllers at five airports were found to have been asleep on duty.

As severe an issue as this is, the official's dismissal (and that's really what it is) raises three important questions:

• Is this a powerful example of accountability or an equally vivid example of scapegoating?
• Should we expect and even demand that heads roll in situations like this?
• Or should we dig deeper in search of systemic causes that may otherwise persist long after the official's departure?

In the wake of these incidents, the FAA has already changed its policy to ensure that each of the busiest airports in the United States will have at least two air-traffic controllers on duty at night. Previously it was just one controller working alone. The solitude and darkness were too much for some of them to stay awake.

Microvision Statements for Collateral Leadership

by Thomas J. Lee

Many of us regard vision statements as the province of the CEO and the board of directors. That's only natural, as vision statements set forth an ideal future state for their entire enterprise. 

But collateral leaders throughout the organization can use microvision statements to advance their own leadership, too. By microvision statement, we just mean a vision statement with a tight field of view. It paints a vivid picture of an ideal future for only a part of an organization.

Any leader at any level of any organization can use a microvision statement to describe an ideal future state for a subset of the enterprise, be it a division, a department, a team, even an individual—perhaps for the leader himself or herself.

Don't confuse microvision with micromanagement. Microvision is useful and conducive to leadership, and the best people on your team will generally appreciate the effort. Micromanagement—a manager's overbearing and distrustful meddling in the day-to-day work of individuals—is destructive and corrosive to leadership. The best people on your team will resent it.

Micro or macro, a good vision can be worth gold. While the worst vision statements are riddled with clichés and rhetorical flatulence, the best are noble, inspiring, even glorious. They are very, very powerful, too.

For one thing, a well-crafted vision statement brings everyone together on the same page, and it gives everyone a mental image of success. That imagery enables people to order their work around a crystal-clear picture that energizes and directs them. It's like having a compass, a battery pack, and a talking map all in one.

A good vision does more than that though. It gives you a means of testing your stated values against a picture of the future. Does your vision rest on the bedrock of your values as applied in the real world? It should. If it doesn't, then it's just counterfeit currency.

Moreover, a good vision lets you deduce the appropriate strategies and tactics that can make the vision a reality, and it inspires you and your colleagues to go to extraordinary lengths on its behalf. Finally, it serves as a useful landscape for milestones that help you measure and assess your progress.

To do and be all that, a vision must be specific to its business and social context. It must get beyond the boilerplate that so many organizations settle for. It must reach for the stars, but more than that, point to the North Star as a beacon. That is true for macrovision and microvision statements alike. 

Microvision statements need not be florid or evocative, and they most certainly should not be replete with clichés, as many of their bigger siblings are. Indeed, these small-bore vision statements may not be narratives at all. They may come closer to a matrix, a little spreadsheet, or even a Gantt chart than to a descriptive narrative.

To begin thinking about a microvision for just a piece of the enterprise, take the bigger enterprise vision statement (the macrovision) and extract its essence. List its key phrases and translate them to real day-to-day work. Look for parallels here to the work you and your team do or can be doing. Then imagine, or envision, what the result of that work would be. Describe it in detail. Now give some thought to exactly how you and your team make it real. In other words, what does the enterprise vision become in your hands?

See? It's easier than you thought.

Before you go too far, make sure you understand the difference between a vision, a goal, and an objective. To borrow a metaphor from sports, the vision is tantamount to the visual image of players hoisting a trophy and parading down Main Street after winning the championship. In contrast, a goal is winning more games than the other team. The objective is winning today's game or even just scoring a point.

Now some of you may prefer a structure to the traditional narrative of a vision statement. That, too, is fine. Here's a structure you can use for a microvision.

On a single sheet of paper, draw a 3x3 matrix with each of the nine cells large enough for 25 to 35 words. Across the top, label the three columns with years. Choose the years that make sense for you and your team. Young people and mature organizations (trust me, that isn't the paradox it may appear to be) will want long-range years—say five, ten, and twenty years out. Older people and startups or turnaround companies will want short-range years—perhaps one, two, and three years out.

Down the left side, label the three rows Have, Do, and Be. Thus the top row captures what you or your team want to have (that you do not already have) by each of the years you listed. The middle row describes what you want to do or be doing (again, that you have not already done) by each year. The bottom row identifies who you want to be (that you are not yet) by each year.

Invest a lot of thought in this. Let it evolve. Give yourself permission to change it over time. As it does change, however, be sure to think critically about why you are changing it. Is it because you are growing? Because you have shrunk from your challenges? Because your interests have changed? Because other people have come into your personal life or joined your team at work? Because new opportunities have opened up?

One final point. Allow your vision, even a microvision, to be large. Let it be big. Let it be grand. That is what a vision should be and must be so that it can inspire. Small things are just small, but something big must be reckoned with. It demands to be.

Just be sure to do the work that follows, the work of bringing your vision down to earth. Give it legs. Then get on with the work of making it real.

 

Coming on Friday

My Love-Hate Relationship with Wikipedia

 

© Copyright 2011   Arceil Leadership Ltd.   All rights reserved.

The Hidden Barriers to Change

by Thomas J. Lee

Many business leaders have convinced themselves that real and sustainable change is impossible, that people just won't change.

Fortunately, they are wrong. People will change. They do change.

The evidence is all around. Any of you who are parents of high-school seniors know just how eagerly they were awaiting word on admission to their first and second choice of colleges last month. Any of you who have found yourselves a little chubby weeks before a class reunion are familiar with that four-letter word d-i-e-t. Any of you who have fallen in love have looked forward to your wedding day.

People take up new hobbies and sports. They take out 30-year mortgages for a house. They earn graduate degrees in the evening and on weekends. They quit smoking. They buy used cars. They have children. They sign up for Facebook.

That doesn't mean large-scale change in business (or other organizations, for that matter) is easy. It does mean that change is possible and even within reach.

Still, there are hidden barriers to change. So very often, those barriers lie within us.

They are the reluctance to let go, to delegate, to trust. They are the refusal to listen to unpleasant information. They are overweening confidence, bordering on arrogance. They are the inability or unwillingness to manage ourselves in such a way that we authenticate the change we have articulated.

If, and when, we identify and overcome these hidden barriers, we will finally be able to connect with people and engage them on a journey of change. We will, that is to say, finally be able to lead. 

 

Coming on Wednesday

Microvision Statements for Collateral Leaders

 

© Copyright 2011   Arceil Leadership Ltd.   All rights reserved.

Sydney Lumet (1924-2011) and My Favorite Movie

by Thomas J. Lee

Sidney Lumet, the legendary Hollywood director whose 12 Angry Men is nothing less than an American masterpiece, died today at the age of 86. His passing gives us the occasion to comment, once again, on a magnificent movie that should be studied by everyone with an interest in leadership.

I have watched 12 Angry Men dozens of times, owing to the fact we often use it in a workshop on leadership communication. Even after so many viewings, I continue finding more nuances and insights on leadership whenever I watch it again. It is my favorite movie of all time.

Regular readers may recall my 2009 essay on 12 Angry Men. Of the 400-plus essays residing on this blog, it is easily the most frequently accessed of all. Every day, people all over the world read it.

Allow me to quote myself: 

To my thinking, no film captures the challenge and opportunities of leadership better than 12 Angry Men, especially the original 1957 black-and-white movie, based on the play by Reginald Rose, directed by Sydney Lumet, and starring Henry Fonda and a cavalcade of other stars: Martin Balsam, Ed Begley, Lee J. Cobb, Jack Klugman, E.G. Marshall, and a half-dozen more.

This taut drama—from start to finish, it runs only 96 minutes—is set entirely in a sweltering jury room of the courthouse in a big American city. The story itself is thrilling, and the acting is masterful. But best of all, 12 Angry Men is a case study in Socratic leadership—in other words, leadership by means of asking provocative, probing questions that compel people to rethink their assumptions and beliefs. . . .

The movie is all about leadership through effective communication. Indeed, many organizations use it to facilitate discussion around these issues. (One shortcoming is the exclusively white male cast. At the time this movie was filmed, U.S. trial juries were commonly so selected.) I strongly recommend viewing it.

When you watch the movie, notice that Juror No. 8 has no official authority beyond that of the other jurors. He isn't even the foreman. Yet he persuades his peers to reconsider. That is a good reminder that leadership doesn't require a title.

Then observe that the strength of his argument arises not from overbearing, omniscient certitude but rather from intellectual humility. What he doesn’t know is every bit as important as what he does know. His earnest reservations, rather than his earnest presumption of guilt, give energy to his argument and cause the other jurors to think more critically. His rhetorical technique consists largely of questions. We term this approach “inquiry-led dialogue.” It comes to leaders as a counterintuitive but powerful tool.

Lumet's production of 12 Angry Men is especially compelling for its illustration of empathy, an underappreciated but critically important instrument of leadership. Empathy enables a leader to understand the position, perspective, and ultimately the purpose of people who may choose to acknowledge and follow a leader—or not. It is no exaggeration to say that the deepest connections between leader and led absolutely require empathy. 

Lumet knew that the first duty of any moviemaker was to entertain, and he did that splendidly. But he also preferred to produce movies that went "one step further," as he put it. They are movies that force viewers to examine their own conscience in search of greater truth. No one did that better than Sydney Lumet.

Do, do, do watch 12 Angry Men again soon, and if you have never seen it, do, do, do make it a high priority.

 

Coming on Monday

The Hidden Barrier to Change

 

© Copyright 2011   Arceil Leadership Ltd.   All rights reserved.

The Road from Obligation to Opportunity

by Thomas J. Lee

Whenever you feel burdened by an obligation, simply reframe it as an opportunity.

Set aside your misgivings about the obligation. Disregard any questions as to whether this obligation really belongs on your shoulders.

Instead, view the situation as an opportunity to make a lasting impression, to lend a helping hand, to rise to the occasion, to be someone special, to make the world a better place for us all.

You will find it to be a liberating experience. It removes the oppressive weight of must, and it lifts your spirit with can.

Suddenly, as if by magic, the burden and weight of obligation disappears, and a bequest, a fortune, of glorious opportunity presents itself. You quickly realize that the world is indeed a better place, in no small part because of you.

 

Coming on Monday

The Hidden Barrier to Change

 

© Copyright 2011   Arceil Leadership Ltd.   All rights reserved.

The Masters, Golf, and Other Bad Metaphors for Business

by Thomas J. Lee

This week the best golfers in the world converge on Augusta, Georgia, to compete in The Masters. It is a special event in sports. You need not be a golfer—I myself haven't swung a driver in 22 years—indeed, you need not even enjoy sports to find special beauty in the magnolias, dogwoods, and azaleas of the Augusta National Golf Course and in the glorious traditions of The Masters.

There's just one problem with major golf tournaments and with golf in general. They give license to so many executives to use this wonderful game as a metaphor, absurd though it is, for business performance.

Sooner or later almost every manager will find himself in a town-hall meeting or a skip-level luncheon or an after-dinner speech when a senior executive—his own boss, perhaps—begins to wax eloquent on golf as the perfect comparison for business. Maybe the speaker will even step away from the lectern and pretend to size up that 20-foot putt for a birdie on the 18th hole, and then go on to expound on the parallels between golf and business. That's what we mean by using golf as a metaphor for business.

By metaphor we are not referring to clichés, which are another problem altogether. A cliché is just an overused and typically tin-sounding word or phrase that has lost whatever zest it once had. Business is full of clichés, too: walking the talk, win-win solution, thinking outside the box, synergy, paradigm shift, pushing the envelope, today's highly competitive marketplace, proactive, a perfect storm, leverage—and we're just getting started. There are hundreds of them, Lord help us all.

In contrast, metaphors can be good or bad. A metaphor (and its like-as cousin, the simile) is a comparison for the sake of shedding light on something. Executives who use golf as a metaphor for business success are trying to be creative, and that is fine. We like creativity.

Some common metaphors in business work well. Low-hanging fruit refers to easy, early solutions. A well-oiled machine suggests an operation running smoothly. Tip of the iceberg conjures up a superficial observation. What these metaphors lack in creativity they make up in clarity and color.

Golf, however, is a perfectly awful metaphor in business. It is awful because there are no real parallels between performance in business and performance in golf. What matters in business has nothing to do with what matters in golf. Looking for parallels between business and golf is like looking for similarities between mollusks and molecules. 

I do realize that millions of people enjoy golf, and that is certainly their privilege. They may think of it as a social sport because they golf in twosomes and foursomes, and afterward they enjoy lunch or drinks and dinner. Moreover, many parents (including my own) have taken delight in teaching their children to golf, and it becomes a wonderful family activity. All good.

But the sport of golf is a solitary enterprise. It requires intense concentration, hushed silence, and perfect form, and it is so very leisurely. It isn't noisy or messy, and it certainly isn't fast. It does not require collaboration or innovation or engagement or teamwork or agility or communication of any sort—all of which are essential components of business performance. Conducting an orchestra comes closer to running a business than golf ever can. For that matter, a Saturday night jazz quartet is more like a business than a Saturday morning foursome is.

Another bad metaphor is "human capital." Companies commonly refer to the people who work for them as human capital. Please.

I understand the different kinds of capital: economic, physical, intellectual, social. But something repugnant, thoroughly repugnant, happens when we juxtapose the words "human" and "capital."

Substitute the word "chattel" for the word "capital" and you begin to see it. Then take another small step to "indentured servitude" and—well, you can see where I am going with this. As every youngster in the United States learns in school, the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment were supposed to put an end to thinking of people as capital. It's about time business caught up.

Similarly, many companies think they are saying something good and decent and noble when they tout employees as "our most important asset."

I am all in favor of declaring that people are important, but they are not and never can be an asset. An asset is something you own and control. No business owns its people, and when a company thinks it can control people, it is in for a rude surprise.

The fact is that any employee can quit and go to work for the competition any day of the week. A machine or a forklift or a trademark cannot do that. They are assets. People are people. People have legs and pride and souls, and they can walk across the street. They do, too.

One other metaphor, so innocent and even noble in its intent, is actually problematic as well. It is likening the people of a business to a family. "We're just like a family around here," so many CEOs are in the habit of saying.

This metaphor has the same issue as golf has: It just isn't true. An office or a factory may feel like a family because you spend so much time with the same people, and perhaps everyone even has everyone else's back. That is fine as far as it goes, but sooner or later the similarities end.

Here's the bucket of ice water: Families are forever. Companies are not. Families thrive on love and devotion. Companies thrive on revenue and income.

It is true that divorce can ruin a family just as bankruptcy can ruin a business. But companies must make tough but honorable decisions that can have devastating repercussions for some employees. Families make tough but honorable decisions so they can stay together, laugh together, love together. The two are not and cannot be the same.

I probably sound like a curmudgeon today, and that is not my intent. I applaud anyone who struggles with articulating a vision or values or the essence of a workplace. It isn't easy, I know.

But all four of these metaphors are bad because they are emphatically untrue or because they inadvertently undermine the dignity of people or because they promise something they cannot always deliver. With just a little more thought, you can do better.

So enjoy The Masters this week. Enjoy as much golf as you can this summer. Just don't think of this wonderful sport as a metaphor for anything in business, especially performance and success. And the next time someone uses one of those other metaphors, give him a link to this blog.

 

Coming on Friday

From Obligation to Opportunity

 

© Copyright 2011   Arceil Leadership Ltd.   All rights reserved.

Are You More Controlling or Collaborating?

 

by Thomas J. Lee

Some of you are the type of managers who want to make sure everything is just so. You know better than anyone else, or at least think you do, how things should be, and you insist on making them just that way. Nothing out of place. Nothing awry. Everything perfect.

Others of you are the type of managers who recognize you cannot possibly attend to every detail, and you cannot possibly know everything about every situation anyway. You make sure other people know your vision, your values, and your priorities. From there you trust them to use their good judgment.

If you put the first type of manager at the left end of a spectrum, and the second type of manager at the right end, which are you closer to?

What does that say for the impact and resilience of your leadership?

 

Coming on Wednesday

Golf and Other Bad Metaphors for Business

 

©  Copyright 2011    Thomas J. Lee    All rights reserved. 

{Numbers} A Quantitative Look at Collaboration and Teamwork

 

Numbers, a twice-monthly feature, regularly presents business data that is noteworthy, puzzling, alarming, widely misunderstood or misinterpreted, or otherwise deserving of explanation, comment, or clarification. We accompany it with thought-provoking questions or commentary for reflection and discussion. It appears on the first and third Monday of each month.

Since its inception in mid-2009, Numbers has presented data on a wide variety of issues: employee engagement, organizational culture, trust in business, information overload, strategic communication, CEO compensation, layoffs, job satisfaction, Internet usage, nonverbal communication, and fear in the workplace, among others.

You can read any or all of those posts (and hundreds of other short essays, as well) whenever you wish, just by scrolling through the archives. For a particular subject, use the search button atop the right column.

 

by Thomas J. Lee

Many companies use the term "individual contributor" to refer to employees who do something other than manage or supervise the work of others. Over the last ten or fifteen years, however, the term has become something of an oxymoron, or the next closest thing.

According to research by Kroll Inc. and Steelcase, the office furniture maker, 82 percent of knowledge workers partner with their colleagues, almost half of them constantly.

The ideal size of a team is three persons. Only 9 percent prefer groups of two and 27 percent prefer groups of four or more, while 54 percent prefer groups of three.

An interesting gender-based and age-based dynamic surfaces. Women more than men (51 percent to 40 percent), and younger people more than older people, enjoy working in groups to learn from others. Men more than women (36 percent to 25 percent), and older people more than younger people, prefer working in groups to complete tasks.

 

Coming on Wednesday

Golf and Other Bad Metaphors for Business

 

©  Copyright 2011    Thomas J. Lee    All rights reserved.

Core Competencies in Communication for Leadership

by Thomas J. Lee

For years now, many large organizations have devoted the time and money it takes to figuring out just what successful leadership looks like to them. They have carefully listed, described, and in some cases also determined the metrics and value of particular traits and activities they believe account for success as a leader.

I have looked over quite a few of these leadership competency frameworks, and to my thinking they come up short on a key variable: communication. Many of them reduce everything that goes into effective communication to a single, curt phrase. They define it in colorless, prosaic terms, and they gloss over the specific challenges, talent, and even the soulful sensitivity it demands. Astonishingly, some leadership competency frameworks ignore communication altogether. They don't even mention it.

Good communication is the very life energy of leadership. Take away communication, and leadership withers and dies. Leaders can accomplish nothing without clear, compelling, credible messages that inform, influence, inspire, and involve people.

Moreover, as most of us intuitively know, communication is far more than speeches and PowerPoint presentations. Many of the most important messages in an organization are unspoken, implicit, and behavioral. They reinforce or undermine what the leader is saying verbally. They are also commonly unintended, entirely inadvertent, and therefore unmanaged. Still, they are powerful. So if we are going to take communication seriously, we need to address the subject comprehensively.

Finally, as any self-aware leader fully understands, communication that energetically engages people around a coherent vision is very, very difficult. Many try; few succeed. If it were easy, there would be no such thing as Dilbert comics, and companies would routinely report employee engagement scores at levels they only dream of. The pervasive reality of mixed, muddled, and mute messages would be the exception rather than the rule.

For all these reasons, I am offering here a fuller list of competencies that together account for effective communication as the all-important energy of leadership. You should know that I am thinking mainly of leadership in the context of business, but my framework would probably apply just as well in a governmental agency, a nonprofit association, a fraternal organization, a political campaign, a sports team, or something like a museum or orchestra or military battalion.

You will notice that certain competencies on our list go well beyond conventional, verbal communication. That's because of something we have learned over and over in focus groups with rank and file employees.

These workers repeatedly told us that they derive important messages from what they observe and experience firsthand, and that they are constantly on the watch for clues to the sincerity or hypocrisy of their leaders. The old adage that actions speak louder than words is never truer than in leadership communication. So we treat these clues, these implicit messages, as very real communication, and we regard the ability to manage them as a competency itself.

I list the competencies by level—basic, intermediate, and advanced—reflecting not the hierarchy of leadership in an organization but rather the maturity and depth of leadership typically associated with a particular competency.

Regular readers will recall two convictions I have written about in the not-too-distnt past.

One, I argue that any organization needs good leadership up, down, and across its management, not just at the very top. Few have it. Most organizations need to develop solid collateral leadership in their secondary ranks of supervising authority: middle management and the front line.

Two, I assert that leaders cannot be perfect, and that we err in insisting on strict accountability for perfection. That's just unrealistic. So the framework that follows is an ideal. The closer you get to it the better. But don't be yourself up for falling short. We are all on a journey.

I welcome your comments; please address them to me at tom@arceil.com.

 

Basic Competencies

All leaders should demonstrate these basic competencies:

Nature of Leadership. Knowing how the work of leading and the work of managing resemble and differ from each other. Accepting the opportunity to both manage and lead as necessary. Seeing engagement as the deliverable or work product of leadership, and seeing alignment as the deliverable or work product of management. Choosing an appropriate style and determining the appropriate substance of communication for optimal engagement.

Value of Communication. Understanding and appreciating communication as the energy of leadership. Devoting the time and resources necessary to communicate the strategic vision, direction, priorities, and progress to that part (or whole) of the organization for which you are responsible.

Intellectual Patience. Regarding effective communication as a richly collaborative dialogue. Refraining from interrupting others and from multitasking while others are speaking. Making appropriate eye contact in conversation. Listening to other viewpoints before volunteering your own opinion to avoid intimidating or pressuring others into voicing a similar view.

Affirmative Listening. Listening with the sincere intention to learn and take action. Encouraging subordinates to speak up without fear of favor or reprisal. Granting good faith to people bearing a challenge to authority. Concentrating on what is being said even in chaotic circumstances.

Dignity and Respect. Conducting yourself with dignity in all circumstances. Acknowledging presence of others, even in passing. Initiating conversation whenever possible and appropriate. Showing respect for diverse viewpoints. Delivering unpleasant or unfortunate news with candor, dispatch, and sensitivity. Avoiding or objecting to humor at the expense of demographic minorities, underprivileged, or otherwise challenged people. Never ridiculing other people inside or outside the organization.

Balanced Temperament. Being slow to anger and quick to praise. Thinking carefully before reacting to bad news. Never blaming the messenger for the message. Demonstrating equanimity in the face of provocation. Maintaining composure in trying situations.

Ethical Compass. Speaking and behaving in accord with the organization's values and with commonly accepted norms of decency. Refusing to take shortcuts that compromise or appear to compromise ethical principles. Giving credit where credit is due, even when it is due to competitors or stakeholders with opposing priorities. Assuming more than your fair share of accountability when things go wrong.

 

Intermediate Competencies

Maturing leaders should increasingly demonstrate these intermediate competencies as well as all the basic competencies:

Immediate Relationships. Building, nurturing, and sustaining close working relationships with immediate colleagues and direct reports to ensure frequent, prompt, and candid feedback. Appreciating the courage required to speak truth to power. Receiving criticism as an opportunity to refine your style and enhance your impact as a leader.

Straight Talk. Favoring substantive straight talk over common "talk traps" that leaders often fall into: small talk, sunny talk, scare talk, sweet talk, smart talk, simple talk, song and dance talk, slick talk, snarky talk, or self talk. Showing confidence in the dedication and decency of the people in the organization by treating them as the colleagues they are and as fellow employees who, like any good leader, want the best for the organization.

Robust Credibility. Appreciating that the credibility of leadership is large because the commitment a leader asks of people is large. Embracing a threefold construct—the intersection of authentic trust, organic respect, and the bond of affinity—of credibility lest the flame of leadership begin to flicker.

Implicit Communication. Recognizing that many leadership messages are perceived by people as implicit and often inadvertent. Managing time, visible behaviors, day-to-day decisions, and other elements of the informal voice as important implicit communication that bears heavily on the judgments, perceptions, and conclusions of people. Recognizing that yours own day-to-day choices reveal your genuine priorities and are at the heart of leading with integrity and impact.

Presence and Accessibility. Appreciating importance of physical, intellectual, social, and emotional presence and accountability. Frequently making yourself visible and available to people for casual and spontaneous conversation. In group settings, making sure that large numbers of people can approach you.

Focused Inquiry and Dialogue. Initiating dialogue with stakeholders that brings attention to high-priority strategic issues. Asking creative questions to drive broadly collaborative thinking. Demonstrating receptivity to ideas from anyone. Listening patiently to diverse points of view. Freely giving credit to worthwhile ideas and observations regardless of their source.

Style and Substance. Understanding the differences between the work of leadership and the work of management, and seeing engagement as the deliverable of leadership and seeing alignment as the deliverable of management. Recognizing the differences in both style and substance between the kind of communication that works for leading people and the kind of communication that works for managing people.

Empathy with Constituents. Demonstrating keen sensitivity to the organization's impact on others. Assuming sincerity and decency of other people regardless of their place or orientation on issues. Eagerly soliciting feedback. Avoiding assumptions that marginalize and minimize others. Reaching out to offer support. Asking open, reflective questions. Allowing for silence to give people time to think deeply.

Servant Leadership. Searching out problems and opportunities to provide support or remove barriers to high performance. Regarding a leader's highest calling as service to others. Striving to serve more than to be served. Constantly looking for ways to enable people to perform better, to identify a rich future for themselves and the organization, and to make them feel better about themselves.

 

Advanced Competencies

Veteran leaders should demonstrate these advanced competencies as well as all the basic and intermediate competencies:

Healthy Culture. Nurturing a healthy culture of communication that prizes clear, credible, coherent, constructive, candid, civil, and concise discourse. Recognizing the importance of robust credibility requiring high degrees of trust, respect, and affinity as support for a leadership vision.

Inspiration. Regarding leadership not merely as influencing people to behave in a predetermined way, but as inspiring them to think for themselves and to act constructively on behalf of a central purpose without frequently consulting with management.

Visualizing the Future. Imagining a different, bigger, and better tomorrow. Describing the vision in colorful, visible terms that people can see and embrace. Avoiding clichés and boilerplate rhetoric that reduce the vision to banal platitudes.

Narrative, Metrics, and Metaphor. Constructing an overarching narrative for the organization that first identifies its unique principles and fundamental purpose, then charts a path to realizing those principles and purpose, and finally makes choices for their application. Using creative metaphors to convey the narrative with impact. Identifying metrics to measure progress. (Note: Financial gain is never part of the narrative's fundamental purpose and should not be a metric. It is rather a result that is necessary to sustain the fundamental purpose. Go deeper than material considerations here.)

Eloquence and Oratory. Being able to speak with confidence, grace, and clarity before sizable groups, both internal and external, especially under pressure. Responding to interruptions and antagonistic questions without losing composure.

Importance of Emotion. Appreciating affirmative emotion as conducive to change and action. Presenting a leadership agenda in terms of its emotional as well as its factual and rational appeal to people.

Humility and Self-Deprecation. Balancing your own dignity with humility and self-effacing tribute to others. Taking yourself and yours work with utmost seriousness but also occasionally laughing at yourself. Selectively and gently offering yourself as a case study in development.

Distribution and Inclusion. Recognizing that an organization of any appreciable size and complexity requires collateral leaders throughout. Eagerly sharing the role and responsibilities of leadership with others. Working to create a culture of inclusion. Remembering that your success depends on people more than their success depends on you.

 

Think of this as a working paper. I expect to modify it from time to time, so it may not be precisely the same when you check back weeks or months from now. Feel free to suggest any additions, deletions, or refinements. I will take all suggestions under serious consideration.

 

Coming on Monday

{Numbers}  We Have the Data on Teamwork

 

Coming next Wednesday

Golf and Other Bad Metaphors for Business

 

© Copyright 2011   Arceil Leadership Ltd.   All rights reserved.