Arceil on Leadership: Posts from June 2011

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Posts from June 2011

The Eight Habits of Highly Effective Listeners

We have been on our annual study and renewal period throughout June. During this time we have reprised some of our favorite posts of the preceding twelve months. Now that we're turning the calendar to a new month, we'll return with all-new essays beginning on Friday.

—TJL

by Thomas J. Lee

For most managers, listening to people is a significant challenge.

Part of the problem is you are just so busy. You have so much on your plate, and you have so many accountabilities, that you often just want the information you need—"the data that matta"—right here and right now. Any further explanation feels burdensome. A long, rambling conversation is like a Sunday stroll in the park when the temperature is 105 F. and dark thunderheads are gathering on the horizon. You just want people to get to the point and, frankly, to get out of your way so that you can get some real work done.

But that's only part of it. Another big part of the problem is your own intelligence. That is true, and I am not being patronizing. By and large, managers are bright people. But here's the rub: Smart people are worse listeners, not better listeners, than most people are.

That is because smart people process information faster than other people do. Smart people think approximately three times faster than most people talk. You take in more information, you churn it faster, and you come to more conclusions. Then you look for more information to churn, and the process continues.

Now you may think that someone who absorbs information so fast and so well would be a terrific listener. But smart people are constantly evaluating and judging others. You yourself do so much evaluating and judging, and you do it so routinely and so instinctively, you don't even notice. You have already been doing it about me and about this very essay less than 250 words into it. (You're thinking: Gotcha! It's "fewer than 250 words into it!")

Listening is something I myself struggle with. My friends will tell you that I often drift into what they call a zone. To become a better listener, I am using an eight-point checklist to remind myself of some basic requirements of deep listening.

Here's the eight-point checklist I have been using. Maybe it will help you, too:

In any conversation of any sort, have a predisposition to learn something of importance and consequence. Avoid thinking of conversations as random, purposeless activities that just clutter your day. Rather, look at everyone as a potential teacher, and regard yourself as an eager student. The fact is that everyone does have something worthwhile to teach you.
Turn away from all distractions. (This is a particular challenge for me personally, as my friends will tell you.) Thrust yourself into the conversation with the entirety of your body, mind, heart, and soul. Be fully engaged. By body, I mean making full (but not scary or intimidating) eye contact, and having a pleasant disposition of your physical bearing. Do not multitask here. By mind, I mean being intellectually curious. By heart, I mean acknowledging the decency of the other person. And by soul, I mean having a constructive, affirming purpose for the community of persons in the conversation.
Suspend evaluation, and grant good faith to everyone involved in the conversation. Be on their side, and let them be on yours. Assume they have entered into the conversation not for their own advantage but for the sake of creating value for everyone. For the next few minutes, everyone is an angel, and everyone's purpose in angelic. That includes you: Do not play the devil's advocate, even for a moment. Instead, be the angel's advocate.
Probe for detail, and seek real-world examples. It is one thing to discuss a situation at a theoretical level, quite another to notice how it plays out in real life. Here is where the data that you usually seek takes on situational context and greater import. Notice what has actually happened, how people have reacted or coped, what the antecedents or causes were, what the effects and consequences were, and so forth. Don't overlook what hasn't happened that you might surmise would happen in such circumstances.
Absorb and synthesize information, intuition, and insight. Notice the presence or absence of connections to important concepts and doctrines (such as your company's values and mission or purpose). Remember the examples as illustrative of the larger ideas. Use them as grist in the future. Remember, data will always tell a story. You just need to be open enough and alert enough to read the narrative before your very eyes, as it is, which may or may not be as you want it to be.
Ask relevant, open, and constructive questions—and then stop talking. For the uninitiated, a closed question seeks a specific fact: a date or an age or a name, whether the flight is on time, when the meeting begins, who your brother is marrying. In contrast, an open question doesn't preclude the range of responses. It often begins with how, what, or why. Craft your questions in such a way as to build more potential intellectual capital. Then, after asking each relevant and open question, be quiet. Enjoy the stillness of the moment. Let your silence lift the conversation to a higher plane. Then think about what has been said. Record any important observations or reflections in a journal you carry with you for that purpose (and keep its content clear of day-to-day minutia like telephone numbers, reminders, and so forth).
Clarify the meaning of it all, and translate the implications. Figure out where the conversation has taken you. What have you learned? What didn't you learn that you might have? What additional information do you need, and where might you get it? Does the situation require action? If so, immediately or at some point further in the future? Are there issues of personal safety and security here? Is there a question of ethics? Of business strategy? Are the data coherent and cohesive? What matters and what doesn't?
Promise and deliver a response by a certain date. Do not, do not, do not offer a substantive reply of which you are not certain. Do, do, do take the time you need to get whatever additional information or authority you need to respond with credibility and clarity. Resist the temptation to go to closure unless it is something you definitely want; unnecessary closure can be a roadblock to continuing exploration and even greater understanding. Give the other individuals a sense as to when you will get back to them, and be sure to follow up.

That's my list. Surely you can improve on it. Send your additions and refinements to tom@arceil.com or telephone me at +1-847-247-2241. I enjoy hearing from Minding Gaps readers.

Coming on Friday

Ron Tidwell on Primitive Communication

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Intelligent People Have a Problem

We are on our annual study and renewal period through June 30. During this time we are reprising some of our favorite posts of the preceding twelve months. We'll return with all-new essays beginning Friday.

—TJL

by Thomas J. Lee

Most of our regular readers are successful business managers, and they, which is to say you—you regular reader, you—are smarter than the average dormouse. If you aren't necessarily a card-carrying member of Mensa, you certainly aren't a member of Densa, either.

What you probably don't realize is that your above-average intelligence—the sheer power of cognitive discernment that helped get you this far—is a problem for you. Yes, a problem.

That's because your intelligence interferes with your listening. It is quite a paradox, but it is true. Intelligent people have greater difficulty, not less difficulty, in listening to other people.

Why is that? By definition, intelligent people are quick to absorb and process information. The brighter you are, the more you tend to think analytically and evaluatively.

Strictly as a quantitative measure, you can listen intelligently at the rate of 400 to 500 words per minute, perhaps even more, all while analyzing the message you are hearing and evaluating the speaker.

Meanwhile, the speaker is in the slow lane. He is probably speaking at 125 to 150 words a minute, or 175 to 200 words a minute if he is talking fast. The bottom line: Listeners are always faster than speakers, and smart listeners are especially fast.

That isn't good. It means you are probably missing some or perhaps even much of the robust information, the subtlety, the emotion, and the crosscurrents of what is being said. You're reading the headlines and maybe the first couple of paragraphs, and then you're psychologically turning to the comics page.

In coaching leaders, I nudge them toward what I call intellectual patience. Be slow to understand, I counsel. Be very, very slow. You will find yourself more reflective, more appreciative, and more nuanced, and therefore wiser than you otherwise would be.

Intellectual patience is just a predisposition of cautious, deliberate exploration and discovery. Imagine yourself walking in the dark, as if you have awakened in the middle of the night and are stumbling to the kitchen for a glass of water. Without a night light, you need to walk slowly, lest you trip over a child's toy on the staircase (as I once did, seriously).

That is how you should listen. Be quiet. Pay rapt attention. Do not preoccupy yourself with judgments about the speaker or with your own list of things-to-do. Don't interrupt. Don't think of what you are going to say next. Just listen.

Listen patiently, and let the speaker finish, even if you are busy. Enjoy the balm of silence on your psyche. Reflect before asking a good, thoughtful question, and then let silence work like yeast. Finally, given a choice between interpreting a message harshly or generously, let yourself be big.

Maybe, just maybe, your intelligence will get out of your way, and you will actually hear what the other person is trying to tell you. You may even understand and accept it.

Coming on Monday

Eight Habits of Highly Effective Listeners

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A Great Tool for Collateral Leaders: Microvision Statements

—TJL

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 Monday

The Special Problem That Intelligent People Have

Coming on Wednesday

The Eight Habits of Highly Effective Listeners

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Emotion Is Central to Leadership and Thus to Change

—TJL

by Thomas J. Lee

Have you ever noticed the difference in tone between a company's marketing communication and its leadership communication on business strategy? Especially in the consumer-products sector, but elsewhere to an extent, it can be dramatic.

Advertising is often unabashedly emotional. TV commercials for new cars, for example, commonly appeal to the pride of ownership and, at the holidays, even the joy of giving. They play down or ignore things like horsepower or trade-in value. Advertising for life insurance tugs at the heartstrings of family, and 30-second spots for beer invoke friendship and fun.

In contrast, a company's employee communication on business strategy is typically straightforward, sober, and matter-of-fact. There is little emotion. Yes, you see sporadic articles and photographs in newsletters on dedicated employees or extraordinary service. But the fundamental purpose of business is often reduced to quarterly goals, and the bulk of information is on new procedures and controls.

Canadian neurologist Donald B. Calne observes: "Reasoning leads to conclusions. Emotion leads to action."

Conclusions are important. Facts and logic have an important role. But action is essential. If emotion brings us to the brink of action, then it is an essential component of employee communication. We neglect it to our peril.

Always be mindful of the fact that people find a great deal of motivation in positive, affirmative appeals of emotion. Employees need straight information, of course. But they also need to hear the emotional cause for working hard, doing the right thing, persevering through adversity, scratching the creative itch, and taking risks. They need to hear of pride, service, loyalty, and so much more. Anyone who has ever succeeded at anything knows the importance and the truth of this.

Coming on Friday

Microvision Statements for Collateral Leaders

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The Business Case for Communication on Change

We are on our annual study and renewal period through June 30. During this time we will reprise some of our favorite posts of the preceding twelve months. We'll return with all-new essays on Friday, July 1.

—TJL

by Thomas J. Lee

Over the last few days I have been involved in two discussions—one as an observer in an online forum, the other as a participant in an exchange of emails—regarding the necessity for communication in support of leadership and change.

It appears some people out there are not yet convinced that communication matters.

Frankly, I find that astonishing. The factual basis is so solid, and the logic is so compelling, that I cannot understand why any serious business executive has any doubt. The evidence is both quantitative and qualitative, and it is conclusive.

Surely we can stipulate that the world is always changing. Technology changes. Economies grow and shrink. Older people retire, and younger people with new ideas come along. The market for goods and services changes as consumers and businesses decide they want and need different things. Companies merge and spin off. Trade barriers come down. Management fads come and go. Innovation creates new competition. Companies form and enter the marketplace. Always, things are changing.

Now, follow along with me. Wouldn't you agree that:

Companies cannot control the changes around them, but they can control (a) whether and how they initiate change and (b) whether and how they respond to external change. Both the direction and the pace of their own change are variable, and both are controllable.
Organizations that fail to change will invariably become irrelevant. Then they will whither and die. From the British Empire to the Pickett Slide Rule Company and AOL, history is filled with the bones of giants that failed to adapt.
If what made you good is alone enough to make you great, you would already be greater than you are. In fact you will always need new ideas, new competencies, and new practices to grow and meet the demands of the future. That's life, and life is change.
The work of leadership is largely the work of envisioning, articulating, and supporting change, commonly requiring discretionary effort and even self-sacrifice by many people, often in a state of uncertainty and risk. That fairly describes the business world of the 21st century, doesn't it?
Communication is the energy of leadership and thus of change. You know this to be true because all of history's great leaders, those individuals who have brought about the greatest change in the most trying of circumstances, have consistently been articulate and inspiring communicators. Think of Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln and Nelson Mandela. The reason this is true is equally obvious: People cannot act in concert with a leadership vision and agenda unless they have the big ideas, the information, and the incentive to do so, and they get all that through communication.
Every organization is always communicating with itself—thinking out loud, as it were. People talk. Rumors spread. Leaks occur. The communication may be managed well or poorly or not at all. It may be clear, credible, compelling, constructive, collaborative, continuous, civil, and concise, or it may not be. The degree to which it is managed well and purposefully is the degree to which the organization can change in accord with the leadership vision and agenda and thereby determine its own destiny.

Now forgive a little hubris, but executives who choose to deny these propositions are denying some very obvious truths, perhaps because it is comfortable for them to remain in denial. After all, it is easier to deny the need for communication than to assume responsibility for communicating and perhaps even to confront some long-festering professional competency gaps.

Executives who acknowledge these facts, and we hope this includes you and your colleagues, will properly ask what they should do first. I would suggest they consider the possibility that a systematic process of integrated strategic communication just may be the missing piece of the puzzle. At the very least, they should get moving on a needs assessment to better understand their situation and the opportunities it presents. Remember, every problem in life is an opportunity.

Call us. The number is +1-847-247-2241. We can help if you call, but not if you don't.

Coming on Wednesday

The Role of Emotion in Leadership

Coming on Friday

A Great Tool for Collateral Leaders

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My Dad, a Humble Profile in Leadership

A year ago this weekend, the Chicago Tribune published my Father's Day tribute to my late dad. We reprise it today.

—TJL

by Thomas J. Lee

A fellow blogger posed an interesting question online, in anticipation of Father's Day. He asked: What kind of leader was your father?

I had to think a moment. My dad, who passed away in 2007 at the age of 93, was a wonderful man. But probably most people did not regard him as a leader. He wasn't an elected official. Nor was he a high-powered executive. Nor was he active in politics or community affairs.

Yet leadership is not only for the powerful and the prominent. Millions of people offer profoundly inspirational leadership in their everyday lives. So it was with my father. He lived a life of humility, decency, authenticity, and commitment.

Naturally outgoing and happy, he exercised quiet self-control even in the face of considerable adversity. He didn't lose his temper. He didn't curse or cheat or lie. He didn't gamble or drink to excess. He hated war, but he went, and his unit liberated Dachau. In 75 years of driving a car he never had an accident, not even a fender bender. He never even got a traffic ticket. In short, he was a rock, always there when it counted.

Most important, he knew how to love, and he did. The late Ann Landers, who could tell us a thing or two about families, often wrote that the greatest gift a father can give to his children is to love their mother completely, deeply, and unconditionally.

My four brothers and I were the beneficiaries of just such a gift. For more than six decades, probably from the moment he first noticed her at another soldier's wedding in Chicago, my dad loved my mom, and he let it show. He loved her completely. He loved her deeply, and he loved her unconditionally.

I have a particularly warm memory, framed like an old faded photograph in my mind's eye. When I was 10 or 12, I would wander into the kitchen before dinner, only to find my dad and my mom in a bear hug of an embrace while potatoes simmered on the stove.

Such a warm sense of security washed over me. Some of my friends had parents who yelled at each other. Others had parents who brooded in silence. Not I. Not my brothers. We had a security blanket up over our shoulders and snug under our chins. We had the luxury of never, ever worrying.

My dad always loved my mom, and my mom always loved my dad, and that's the way it was. It was just that simple and it was just that wonderful and it was always just that way.

Only a few weeks before my mother died in 2004, I visited the two of them in their apartment in Florida. What I witnessed on that visit was like a scene out of an old black-and-white movie starring Jimmy Stewart and June Allyson or Donna Reed.

My mother sat at the kitchen table, her days so very numbered, and yet with a smile of calm, divine peace across her face, as my dad, a gifted tenor who had once aspired to the operatic stage, sang love song after love song to her. He must have sung for an hour, maybe two, and he sang from his heart. He sang: "Everybody loves my baby, but my baby don't love nobody but me." My mother died a happy woman, for she was loved.

Most of all, I remember Dad as a man who worked hard, who made the most of what he had, who lived his life with passion for his art as well as for his wife, who humbled himself and honored others, who recognized duty, and who devoted himself to the things that matter, which is to say, to the people around him.

Will you abide one last anecdote? It is from the day I learned to swim. I tell it because it says so much about the man my father was.

There was to be a kind of commencement exercise at the old YMCA pool in my hometown. All the kids would swim the length of the pool, and then, one by one, we were to be called up by name and given a certificate.

Now it's odd what we remember from our childhood. Of that day, I remember a feeling of anxiety, knowing that my mother was home with my little brothers, and my dad was at work.

Back then, Dad always had to work on Saturday mornings. So the other kids would have families in the gallery cheering them on. But not I. I was on my own. That would be okay. I could handle it. I would be fine. I would just buck it up.

So one by one, in alphabetical order, the instructor called the names of all the swimmers. I remember hearing the instructor call out Ade, and Bobby, and Mike, and Steve. And one by one, each of them walked over to get his certificate as the gallery erupted in cheers.

The closer the instructor got to my name, the more alone I felt. I braced myself for a little polite applause from the other parents. The instructor called my name. I got up, walked over, and reached out for my certificate.

Sure enough, the applause was polite. But just then a voice rang out from the gallery, loud and clear and echoing around the pool: "Way to go, Tommy!"

I looked up. It was my dad. Somehow, he had got off work, and he had made it over to the YMCA to watch me get that certificate.

Ever since, whenever I have needed some encouragement, I have harked back to those few words, and I have picked up the pace and tried a little harder. My dad's voice is never far away. He is my cheerleader, even now, after he is gone.

By my measure, this is certainly the stuff of leadership. My dad was an ordinary, everyday hero. His achievement in life wasn't winning an election or getting a big promotion or living in a fancy house. Rather, it was leading a fine, long life and filling it with honor and love.

And so now, for another Father's Day without him, it's my turn, and I just hope he can hear me: "Way to go, Dad! Way to go!

Coming on Monday

The Business Case for Communication on Change

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What Are They Saying About You?

We will be on our annual study and renewal period through June 30. During this time we will reprise some of our favorite posts of the preceding twelve months. We'll return with all-new essays on Friday, July 1.

—TJL

by Thomas J. Lee

Every workplace is a conversation. The nature of the conversation—its content, its tone, its energy—reflects the degree of engagement or disengagement of the employees.

The conversation is about the organization, its purpose, and its leadership. To the extent the conversation understands and appreciates the nobility of the organization and of its leadership, the employees will be inclined to follow the lead of leaders.

If and when the conversation cannot find the nobility, or if and when the conversation determines that the supposed nobility is a lie, the employees will be disinclined to follow the lead.

It’s pretty much that simple.

Coming on Friday

A Humble Profile in Authentic Leadership

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Finding Strength in Uncertainty, Because of Uncertainty

—TJL

by Thomas J. Lee

Are you often sure of yourself?

Are you often certain you are right?

I confess that I am. I dislike that about myself.

Not that I announce it loudly, or at least I don't think that I do. But I feel it. Often it is stirring in me as other people are talking. I quickly find myself concluding—prematurely, on little evidence—that I know more and have thought more about the subject at hand. Rarely is that true. I just think it.

It is an omniscient self-certainty, and, even when it is talking quietly to me, it is obnoxious. It is arrogant. It is corrosive to thoughtful, reflective leadership.

You see it in politics all the time. Tune in either of the two more dogmatic cable networks here in the States (that's Fox News for the right, MS-NBC for the left), and you cannot go an hour without coming across it. All the pundits and politicians are absolutely, positively convinced of their own point of view.

I fear their arrogance is contagious. More and more, people are just so certain of their own viewpoint—so certain that they have no time for anyone else’s.

Justice Learned Hand once wrote: “The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.” That is just so profoundly true.

Many years ago, when I wrote a weekly newspaper column, I confessed to my own doubts about the Vietnam War. In one column, I told of a high-school class reunion that I had recently attended. Before dinner, we had memorialized a classmate who died in Vietnam. His parents were there with us. His mother told us that she was always so patriotic, but that she still couldn’t quite understand exactly what her son died for. Neither could I.

After the column appeared, I received a thoughtful, gentle letter from a conservative reader. He wrote to comfort me. He said: “I wish I were as certain about anything as some people are about everything.”

Indeed. Indeed.

Coming on Wednesday

What Are They Saying About You?

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Suddenly, a Great Need for Immediate Change

—TJL

by Thomas J. Lee

One balmy evening after dusk I was relaxing on the patio with my legs outstretched. Crickets had begun to sing, and Venus was slipping toward the western horizon. I had enjoyed another productive day. Everything was perfect. I wanted nothing to change.

Just then I noticed a small animal of some sort off to the right. It was already dark, so I couldn't quite make out what it was. Slowly approaching me, the furry thing waddled right up to my shoes and stopped.

You can imagine my horror when I realized the animal wasn't a neighbor's kitten, and it wasn't a squirrel. Nor was it a raccoon or an opossum. It was a skunk, a polecat. I kid you not. For minutes

that seemed like hours, it sat on its haunches just inches from my feet. I was never so perfectly still in my entire life. I didn't breathe. I didn't swallow. I didn't blink.

In an instant I went from wanting nothing to change to wanting everything to change, immediately and radically. Yet I could do nothing. If I had so much as burped, this little beast would have fouled the entire neighborhood. Everything within a quarter mile would have stunk for days. I could only wait it out, in perfect stillness and utter silence.

Eventually the skunk moved on, and I could exhale and blink again. Five minutes later I felt a sneeze coming on, and I prayerfully thanked the heavenly stars that I had not sneezed while my uninvited guest was sniffing at my feet.

This incident occurred two or three autumns ago. I recalled it this week when the subject of change came to mind. I've noticed that, for some people and some companies, the thought of change can bring about such anxiety they react with terror and paralysis.

That isn't a problem in the presence of a skunk, figuratively or literally; the paralysis suits you just fine. But if the challenge you are facing requires that you change for the sake of innovation, or personal growth, or subject-matter mastery, or credibility, or a behavioral correction, or relational empathy, or anything else of importance or value, it most certainly is problematic. Your paralysis is part of the problem.

Regular readers will recall that a couple of my recent posts (here and here) focused on helping people to identify the need for change and to muster the will to change. Indeed, change is a continuing theme of the MindingGaps blog, for change is the currency of leadership.

In my own experience, most companies do want to change either their culture, or their operations, or their performance. Yet few actually change as much or as fast as they wish.

It is true that some recognize no need to change, so they never even set out to change. Others say they want to change when they actually do not. Many others genuinely want to change but do not know how. And many, many others seek to control and constrain their path of change, rather than create a culture of self-energizing and self-sustaining change that can redefine their marketplace. Over-engineering change can have the effect of stifling it altogether.

In any case, companies that are most in need of change but refuse to do anything about it are those that most risk being forgotten or marginalized in the years ahead. Anyone my side of 40 can name brands or products that are scarcely known to young people today—CompuServe, the Sony Walkman, Oldsmobile, Pan-Am, Schlitz, the DC-10, Zenith, Gourmet, camera film and slide projectors, DEC computers—and dozens of companies that are now subsidiaries or mere historical footnotes: Maytag, Gillette, TWA, Amoco, McDonnell Douglas, NCR, Ameritech, Warner-Lambert, A.G. Edwards, and so many more.

Even among extant companies, the tales of coulda-woulda-shoulda read like ghosts from a Dickens novel. I think of Xerox, whose share of the copier market plummeted from 90 percent in the 1970s to just 20 percent in the 1980s after Japanese manufacturers began selling better machines at lower prices. I think of IBM, which was so busy selling Selectric typewriters that it took a pass on the operating system and applications for personal computers, and instead let a couple of college dropouts start a cute little company they called Microsoft. I think of Blockbuster and Sears and Border's, whose stores today are almost empty.

On the other hand, there is Apple, which has changed radically, and there is Google, whose culture is all about innovation, and there is Ford Motor Co., which is leading a resurgence of American auto manufacturing, and there is Amazon, which is becoming an online main street. American Express and Wells Fargo both got their start running stage coaches across the West, and today they are vibrant and dynamic. Even IBM has learned from its mistakes and reinvented itself.

The CEO of a Fortune 25 company put it well in an inspiring 1993 speech to his senior leadership team: "We need to embrace change—not for its own sake but for our sake. We must understand that the world isn't standing still and that we can't stand still either. People and organizations that delude themselves into thinking they do not need to change are on a course of self-absorption and self-destruction. From the British Empire to the Pickett Slide Rule Company, history is full of giants that failed to adapt."

The choice we face isn't merely between changing and not changing. The choice is between changing and dying. Indeed, in these times of rampant mergers and acquisitions, the choice is as much between changing and being eaten alive for breakfast by a competitor.

It's just that sometimes, the mere thought of change is so intimidating, it is paralyzing. I know. I have been there.

Coming on Monday

Finding Strength in Uncertainty

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Ten Tactics and Tips for Better Power Point Presentations

—TJL

by Thomas J. Lee

Relax. You aren't alone. No one else can understand a PowerPoint slide like this one, either. We have all seen too many of them, haven't we?

Recently I sat through yet another PowerPoint presentation that left me numb. Three weeks later I still don't know what the speaker, an official of a major university, was really trying to say.

He was knowledgeable, to be sure; he certainly had the academic credentials and the impressive position to deserve our attention, and his topic was compelling. But he left just about everyone shaking their head. In particular, his PowerPoint slides were a mess. They were worse than the slide you see above, which is just something I stumbled across on the Internet.

Like many presenters, he apologized for the tiny fonts and cluttered layout, but that didn't solve the problem. The members of the audience were squinting their eyes, and one woman told me she had a migraine just trying to decipher the slides.

This phenomenon is all too common. I don't blame the technology, as some people do. Long before there was PowerPoint, there were boring speakers who used overhead projectors. Long before there were overhead projectors, there were boring speakers who read their speech in a droning monotone.

Rather, I point to priorities. Many executives and managers place a premium on data at the expense of connecting with people. Thus, they see little need to invest in and master the art of speaking.

I have no illusions about changing the world. Still, I am offering ten tips and tactics to help the busy executive or manager with presentations. There's a lot more to meeting this challenge, and I stand ready to help. But this will get you started.

I actually hope these tips and tactics are not helpful to you, that you are already well beyond them. But in my experience, few executives are. Just about all managers and all executives need training in public speaking. Alas, according to data published in The Wall Street Journal, few managers think they need any instruction or coaching in communication.

Here are ten tips and tactics you may find helpful:

Know your audience. Make an effort to talk with some of the people beforehand, even if only over coffee or lunch, especially if it's a new or special group. If it's a conference, get there early and mill around. Try to gain a sense of the audience's knowledge of the topic, their disposition toward your subject and toward you, their willingness to learn, their inclination to be influenced, and their overall expectations. Then speak to people where they are, both cognitively and emotionally. Take into account the time of day and whether you are speaking immediately after a meal. If the audience appears lethargic, ask people to stand for a moment before you begin. (If your session is long, take a short break every 75 to 90 minutes.)
Don't speak down to people, but don't use acronyms or jargon that some persons may not know, either. Present your message and explain yourself without patronizing anyone, but remember that members of an audience can vary enormously in terms of education and experience. Give real-world examples that everyone will understand. Here, specificity is your friend.
Know that you have the “curse of knowledge” working against you. Because you are expert in your subject, you are probably taking certain facts and logical relationships for granted that other people will not. Look at your presentation with a fresh eye. Ask someone who is unacquainted with the material to glance at it, too.
Do not prepare or use your slides as talking points. Rather, have talking points on the lectern if you need them. Use the slides mainly for illustrations and mnemonics: pictures, graphs, simple tables and maps, quotes, oversize numbers, and so forth. Slides should never be a substitute for a Teleprompter.
Avoid data dumps. Don't try to capture much detail at all in any one slide. Complexity will smother and overcome your message. If you have detailed information to convey, distribute it on paper at the presentation or, better yet, by email attachment beforehand. Complex diagrams and data-heavy tables are especially toxic. Avoid them. Use your oral presentation to explain, persuade, and inspire. Find one or two on-point stories to tell that capture the essence of your message. People remember good stories for a long, long time. Twenty-five years later, you can probably still recall a couple of stories Ronald Reagan told.
Prepare the slides so that people in the back row can read them without squinting and that people in the front row can read them without getting a migraine. That means using a large, sans serif font with colors chosen specifically to be easy on the eyes. My preference is navy blue type on a white or off-white background, at least 18 points, preferably larger. It also means using few bullet points and few words on each line.
Face the audience. Never turn your back and read from the slides. Speak loudly and assertively, with your lungs full of air. Present yourself with confidence. Give your voice some energy and range. Before you get up to speak, breathe deeply for two or three minutes. Pause whenever you need to. Vary your tone and timing. Make brief eye contact with individuals as you speak.
Avoid the hackneyed opening of saying "Good morning" or "Good afternoon" and then repeating it, only louder. Instead, jump headlong into your material. Give two or three riveting facts, or ask a succession of unsettling questions, or quickly relate a relevant anecdote. By the same token, make sure any technology you are using is ready to go beforehand. You should never be fiddling with it while people wait for you to begin speaking.
If it's necessary or expected to distribute your presentation, consider doing so as a narrative rather than a succession of bullet-point slides. This way, people will get your message, and you can freely concentrate on the context and core assertions. Set aside more time than usual for questions and answers. Place a high premium on dialogue. Truly listen to people who ask questions, and show that you appreciate their initiative and even their courage. Be especially welcoming of the "elephant in the room" question that everyone is thinking about but few are bold enough to ask.
Finally, remember that your slide deck isn't your message. You are. Make yourself and your thinking, not your slides, the focus of everyone in the audience. Avoid distracting slide transitions or anything else that draws attention away from you and your presence. Remember, connecting with people is more important than delivering information. Everyone will feel it and know it if you succeed, and people will remember it as one of the few good presentations they have ever seen.

One more thing: Be sure you practice, and try to memorize your opening lines.

In all my years in business, I have seen very few truly powerful PowerPoint presentations. That doesn't mean it cannot be done. It can, but it takes discipline, creativity, and work.

Call me if you need further advice. I'll be glad to help.

Coming on Friday

Suddenly, a Great Need for Immediate Change

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{Numbers} Who Works the Longest Hours?

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

Who works the most?

You may be surprised by the answer.

If you assume it is the hourly laborer who racks up the most hours, you would be wrong.

According to Gallup, almost half of self-employed Americans (49 percent) work more than 44 hours a week, compared with only 38 percent of Americans who work for companies or the government and 30 percent of those who work for non-profit associations and institutions.

But across all those categories, it is people who earn more than $75,000 a year and people with advanced degrees who work the most. Some 53 percent of each group report that they work more than 44 hours a week.

Coming on Wednesday

Ten Tactics and Tips for Better PowerPoint Presentations

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Let's Break Out the Champagne!

I was still sleeping at the time, but just before 4 a.m. Central (U.S.) Daylight Time today, Minding Gaps welcomed its 50,000th reader.

Almost all of you are looking for insights to help your leadership in business, government, nonprofit associations, churches, fraternal clubs, social networks, and advocacy organizations.

We hope you are finding what you are seeking, and we are humbled that so many of you have placed your confidence in us. Thank you.

Minding Gaps has nearly 500 original essays on various aspects of leadership, communication, staff engagement, and change in the workplace. Take your time and scroll through our archives. And be sure to click on Subscribe so that you will automatically receive our new posts, three times a week.

At any time you aren't finding what you want, or if I can serve you in any other way, please write to me directly at tom@arceil.com.

Thomas J. Lee

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A Leadership Lesson from Elvis

—TJL

by Thomas J. Lee

I'll take a lesson in leadership wherever I can find it. The other day, I found one while listening to a golden oldie on my iPod, and it came from Elvis Presley.

The song was "Suspicious Minds," written by Mark James, who also wrote "Hooked On a Feeling" for B.J. Thomas and "Always On My Mind" for Willie Nelson. Of course, Elvis burned "Suspicious Minds" into our collective consciousness. It is one of the truly great popular songs ever produced.

You can probably sing the lyrics from memory:

Why can't you see

What you're doing to me

When you don't believe a word I say?

We can't go on together

With suspicious minds

And we can't build our dreams

With suspicious minds. . . .

Now, plainly these lyrics have to do with a rocky romance. But with a little imagination you can see striking parallels to a dysfunctional corporate culture, too.

In many industries, the collapse of the implied contract after decades of widespread downsizing and offshoring, along with sporadic instances of financial malfeasance and chicanery, has decimated the trust, confidence, and affinity in business that everyone took for granted a couple of generations ago. (Other institutions, particularly government, have fared even worse. That's another issue altogether.)

Perhaps your industry and your company have emerged relatively unscathed. Nonetheless, the social carnage that other companies have left in their wake is problematic for you. All companies find it difficult to enlist the enthusiastic support of employees who suspect they are getting, or who expect to be getting, the short end of the stick. (Note: Whether or not employees are actually being shortchanged is irrelevant, for perceptions and expectations are everything. The only objective reality is someone's subjective reality; the perception or expectation of distrust is the fact of distrust.)

Any organization whose culture is characterized more by suspicion than by trust, confidence, and affinity is not likely to succeed for long at much of anything. In a strong economy, it can float on a rising tide. But when times turn difficult, or when competition or innovation redefines the marketplace, the same company will very likely encounter more than its share of difficulty.

Further, for a couple of very compelling reasons, a culture of suspicion can readily grow out of the managerial process itself. It's a little like noxious weeds sprouting in a well-tended garden of rich, fertile loam.

For one thing, good managers will focus on meeting pre-determined expectations: a budget, a quota, a deadline, or a standard. So they are usually on the lookout for any early sign of failure, in order to correct it in time. But their constant, anxious vigilance can be seen by employees as doubt or even distrust in them. Some employees will take it personally and return the volley with doubt and distrust of their own. Their distrust can become a contagion.

For another thing, many managers rely on the legal authority of their position, and the asymmetrical power it reflects, for their moral authority. These managers are often disinclined to invest the extra time and attentiveness it takes to nurture relationships with subordinates, especially at the ground level. Goodness knows, managers are already too busy. But the absence of frequent, casual, authentic face-to-face conversation is another dynamic that can breed a sense of distance and suspicion among employees. Again, what goes around comes around.

Managers and employees alike would both be better off to acknowledge the difficulty but also the enormous value of trust in the workplace. As the song goes, you can't build your dreams with suspicious minds. In a culture of distrust, everyone loses.

Elvis may have left the building, but his voice is ever echoing off the walls.

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Four Rules for Growing Engagement

We will be on our annual study and renewal period through June 30. During this time we will reprise some of our favorite posts of the preceding twelve months.

—TJL

by Thomas J. Lee

Here are four important rules any organization can follow to build a culture of engagement, so that employees welcome change and can break on through to the next level:

Make sure everyone on your staff knows and understands the strategic direction, customer expectations, competitive pressures, operating sensitivities, and day-to-day priorities. Insist on clear line of sight between everyone's job and the organization's strategies. Use the word "customer" only in reference to the ultimate, external customer, and make certain that the customer's reasons for choosing your organization over a competitor in the marketplace are clear. Share metrics and strategic information promptly and directly.
Create an atmosphere of critical and creative thinking about the business. Encourage collaboration and the open, free exchange of ideas and suggestions. Be certain there is a safe harbor for tough questions that can even strike you as impertinent. Ask deep, probing questions about the business, and invite everyone to a dialogue around them. Above all, avoid any implication of punishing the messenger for the message.
Recognize that people find motivation both in reasons that reach their mind and emotions that touch their heart. Communication that enables an organization to meet its commitments is usually the stuff of prose: dry, factual, logical. Communication that enables people to reach their full potential is often the stuff of poetry—not of poems per se, but an inspiring and evocative narrative that celebrates and encourages ordinary people to go to extraordinary lengths for something important to the soul. People want and need this.
Prize fresh thinking. Maintain a safe harbor for suggestions and tough questions about the business and even your own leadership. Welcome unorthodox ideas. Teach everyone how to build on someone else's kernel of creativity. Ask not just why something should be done by why it couldn't or shouldn't be done. Encourage people to experiment. Remove barriers to the casual, quick exchange of information and insights. Always be looking for the next big thing.

By following these four rules, you will find yourself creating much more focus, curiosity, passion, and courage in the workplace. That's important, for, as we have said over and over in this space, nothing of much significance has ever been achieved, and nothing of much value has ever been invented or developed, without a lot of focus, a lot of curiosity, a lot of passion, and a lot of courage.

Coming on Friday

A Leadership Lesson from Elvis Presley

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