Start with Why

It used to be tough enough to pick a few columnists to follow, but when blogging grew into a hydra it became impossible to pick "just a few." 

Indeed, even if you wrote off the millions who when you saw what they were doing you wished for a universal block & report spam button, there was still so much "good" stuff that one could not begin with any organized approach, and even if there were a "system" I am too undisciplined to have followed it.

I have to say that despite all the issues we face in the country on more levels than I can count, I am encouraged by what seems like a never-ending stream of creative, thoughtful, and often very insightful writing that I come across either by chance or because someone sends me a link because they think I would be interested, which, thruth be known, has turned out to be Dave's "search engine" of blogs that interest me.

So, such was the case when I discovered Matt Youngquist's blog which he calls Career Horizons The Blog.  Given that I am a recovering HR person of some 40+ years and the fact that ExecuNet is deeply committed to the career and business challenges of the senior level executive, that I would want to check out a blog with Career Horizons as its moniker is no surprise.  If you haven't had a chance to check it out, I would.  You can tell by the way Matt writes that he is a "giver" not a "taker" which by definition makes me a fan.

Anyway, last week he ran a piece he called Leadership, Wherefore Art Thou? and among other links he included to help him make his point was one that took the reader to the TED site and an 18 minute talk given in 2009 by Simon Sinek called How Great Leaders Inspire Action.  His talk was the result of a book he wrote around his theory called Start With Why.  My guess is that many readers here have heard of it and/or read it.  If not, put it on your summer reading list, or if you want the cliff notes, listen to the TED talk.

I think that most of us who find ourselves in leadership roles either by happenstance or design struggle with the challenges, and maybe this is the reason why Senek's approach resonated so profoundly and reminded me of exactly why it is that people so often have said to me "boy Dave it is really clear that you are passionate about what you do!"  And usually when they say that, I can't figure out what they have seen or heard that makes them feel that way.  When I listened  to Sinek's talk, I realized again where all that comes from.  What they sense and feel is (for good or ill) so much a part of who I am, that I don't even think about it which is why I am surprised when they say it. 

It doesn't come from what we as a company do or how we do it, although for sure both make me very excited and proud.  But that is hardly unique.  I am sure that any business leader would feel the same way.  So where does the inspiration/passion come from?

If you have listened to Sinek's talk you already know, if you haven't better you should listen rather than my trying to put it into words here.  He is far more eloquent.

It is indeed all about the why.

One Story At A Time

The fact that an article that was written in June of 2009 has just found its way to my consciousness is probably as good an indicator as anything in terms of how unorganized and not on top of things I am.

I have no excuse, however, if I were to try to conjure one up it would be that I am not technologically proficient enough to get my information filters properly in place and as a result, if whatever it is does not show up above the fold in Google News, it stands little chance of surfacing in my world.

Okay, maybe a little bit overstated, but at least it will give you some idea of the "issues" I have in trying to time manage between dealing with the day to day goings-on at work and wanting to more about other things that tweak my interest.

In any event, the awakening to the soon to be two-year-old piece came about because I am a member of a LinkedIn group started by Karen Armon who, among the many interests that spring from her MarketOne Executive consultancy, also has hosted and facilitated ExecuNet networking events in the Denver metro area for a number of years.

The article she had posted in her LI MarketOne Executive Group was one by management guru Peter Bergman which appeared in the online HBS business review- as indicated nearly two years ago. The piece is called A Good Way to Change a Corporate Culture, and since this has been a subject of interest to me for a long time, and it appeared to be very short, I continued with my totally disorganized approach to life and stopped what I was doing to read it.

If you, like me, are somewhat fascinated by how organizations continually wrestle with their cultures and the impact that they have on where you work and /or your role as a leader in those organizations, I suggest you take 10 minutes and read what Bergman has to say. 

If you don't have the 10 minutes, then here's the gist:

While for sure there are plenty of things that go into creating a culture, one of the most profound is the "stories" that come out of the organization as it grows, and these stories do much to cement the expectation we all have of what is expected of us as we consider becoming part of that culture or as importantly, if the "stories" we heard that attracted us in the first place turn out to be fact or fiction

As the economy continues to improve and the talent marketplace begins to turn once again into a "sellers" market (and it will) - our ability to continue to attract and retain the "A" players will turn on their feeling of whether those stories are indeed fact or fiction.

Hint: We live in a non-fiction world.

This Just In

By now, I would guess that the article that was in the New York Times
a couple of weeks ago that went by the catchy and attention grabbing headline of  Google's Quest to Build a Better Boss has probably been passed around every HR department in the continental U.S. along with as Walter Winchell used to say "...and all the ships at sea."

In addition to that, after they read it, there are probably a lot of pretty big-name consulting firms that are wringing their hands thinking that their cover has been blown, and that their 2011 revenue forecasts are going to go down in flames because an icon organization has discovered for itself something that has been known to anyone who is been in the working world since time began had discovered after a couple of weeks on the job - i.e. at the end of the day when someone decides to leave it is more likely that they are leaving because of their boss then anything else.

If for some reason you were so totally absorbed in March madness that you actually did not read this piece, for anyone who's interested in what retention is really all about its well worth the 10 minutes or so to check it out.

On the off chance that you don't have the 10 minutes or you don't want to read it because you figure Google has done it to us yet once again and I don't dare, you can breathe easier because after thousands of hours of data gathering in an effort to determine what really does make managers better, they have come to the earth shattering conclusion that among other things, demonstrating genuine interest in the people who work for you is like really important.  It's enough to leave one speechless in amazement.

So as I said, if you don't have time to read all, here are a couple of CliffNotes from the article:

People typically leave a company for one of three reasons, or a combination of them.

The first is that they don’t feel a connection to the mission of the company, or sense that their work matters.

The second is that they don’t really like or respect their co-workers.

The third is they have a terrible boss — and this was the biggest variable.

Google, where performance reviews are done quarterly, rather than annually, saw huge swings in the ratings that employees gave to their bosses, and this was the biggest variable.  

Armed with these shocking data I can now understand why the picture of Google's head of People Operations Laszlo Bock (see above) shows him "recovering".  After all, it had to have taken some time for him to absorb such a profound revelation.

The list of what in today's vernacular might be termed "best practices" reads as the article says "...like a whiteboard gag from an episode of “The Office.”  An apt description for sure.

Okay, I know that the cynicism is beginning to pile up here at a fairly rapid pace, but I really can't seem to help myself.

To be honest, as I have reflected on this for the past couple of weeks I've been trying to figure out if there really was any kind of a redeeming "learning" or take away from the work that Google did.

I'm not sure there is other than it's nice to have confirmed yet once again that what is commonly referred to as the Golden Rule has been and continues to be the key driver of what makes each of us decide to stay or leave.

So there you have it!  Keep this in mind and you can save your company some big time bucks on consulting fees, and if you're a manager, yourself a lot of grief.

Leadership Freak

I wish I could come up with whatever it was over the past 45+ years that I have been running around the working world that has fueled my interest in leadership but the fact of the matter is I can't, or least haven't been able to so far.

And if the truth be known, if I am going to come up with, "the" reason then I had best get my act together because with 45+ years worth of running and wondering behind me, I am now at the "walking" around the working world stage so I may not have the chance to look in too many more places.

Be that as it may, anyone who reads this blog knows while I do write about other things as well, the DNA of leadership is a subject that surfaces fairly frequently in this space, and this post is another of those times.

With the convoluted paths one travels in cyberspace, unless you keep really detailed notes (which I don't and which is but one of many glaring gaps in my organizational and self-discipline resume) it is hard to say how it is that you discovered yet another source that you feel not only has something to say, but an interesting and compelling way of saying it - the latter, of course, being what makes you come back.  So, I would gladly give credit and thanks where it's due, but alas I can't.

Such was the case for me when I came across a blog called Leadership Freak (great name don't you think?) that is authored by a fellow named Dan Rockwell. I am not going to take up space here with his background, etc., you can check that out here, but to give you an idea of his attention getting gifts for turning what many would think is a pretty unexciting topic into something that provides real insights, he recently had a post entitled: Britney Spears on Leadership. (There's another one of those really clever headlines!) I haven't really checked Dan's background too deeply, but I wonder if copywriting played any kind of a role at some point?

Anyway, the last time I checked, Dan has just under 40,000 Twitterites (?) following him, and the skill with which he writes and/or tweets suggests that they just might well follow him anywhere and for good reason.

Much more importantly, by having won the audience he has, he serves as a model for leadership on a number of levels, not the least of which is that certainly part of the meeting the criteria of "leader" is one has to have (and keep) followers.

It is one thing to talk about something. That's the easy part. "Walking the talk" as they say is a far different deal and this would seem to be a case where the numbers do, in fact, speak for themselves.

Point being, anyone with that many "followers" and blog hits of 271,000+ strongly suggests that if he has not yet achieved what Leadership Freak's tag line says is its goal: "Helping leaders reach higher in 300 words or less" he is certainly well on his way and I, for one, am happy to tag along.

The Why of Work

For the past several years, we have worked with any number of thought leaders and practioners who are experts in a wide variety of fields and subjects.  With ExecuNet being both a career and business network the opportunity to learn from these folks has and continues to be a terrific experience and a major perk.

A couple of weeks ago, I got a chance to experience this once again when I hosted a program for our members that featured Dave and Wendy Ulrich, authors of  the national best-seller The Why of Work. 

When the program had ended and Dave, Wendy and I were chatting afterwards, one of the things I told them was how incrediably timely I thought the timing of this book was because as we continue to come out of the recession, executives, be they currently in transition or not, were going to be doing some super serious thinking about not just what they put "into" work, but more importantly to both themselves and their employers what they are getting "out of work." 

It is a question that is critical not only for companies who are going to be faced with retaining key players but equally critical for those who are faced with job offers and trying to decide if this is the move they really want to make.

In trying to help the listeners think about all this, the Ulrich's built their presentation around the following list of quesrtions: 

1. Identify: What am I known for?
2. Purpose and Direction: Where am I going?
3. Relationships and Teamwork: Whom do I travel with?
4. Positive Work Environment: How do I build a positive work environment?
5. Engagement/ Challenge: What challenges interest me?
6. Resilience and Learning: How do I learn from setbacks?
7. Civility and Delight: What delights me?

I still can't believe how much they packed into the 60 minutes of this program, but I was particularly taken with their remarks around #6 on their list (Resilience and Learning). 

I am not exactly sure why this particular section stuck in my mind expcet maybe as I thought about where we are in terms of the recovery and more importantly where we have been.  Talk about "setbacks" both collectively and individually! 

It is so easy to get discouraged, especially when there isn't a lot of postive stuff coming your way, and this is true for the company trying to sustain itself through tough times, or an indiviudal trying to fight their way back in a job market that is much more about rejection than acceptance.

If you are a member of ExecuNet and didn't get a chance to listen in to this program, it is, as are all our programs, available to you on demand, but member or not, this is a book you will want to have going forward as I think you'll find its content a roadmap for the role you're in or one that you are considering taking on.

Oh, and if at any point you feel like you have been knocked down more often than is "fair", the Ulrich's reminded us all of some of the stuff that a certain A. Lincolon had to deal with:

His parents were forced out of their home. He had to work to support them.

1. His mother died.
2. He failed in business.
3. He ran for state legislature and was defeated.
4. He lost his job. He wanted to go to law school but couldn't get in.
5. He borrowed money from a friend to begin a business and lost it all by the end of the year. 
6. He spent the next 17 years paying off his debt. 
7. He ran for state legislature again and won. 
8. He was engaged to be married when his sweetheart died and his heart was broken.
9. He had a total nervous breakdown and was in bed for six months.
10. He sought to become speaker of the state legislature and was defeated.
11. He sought to become elector and was defeated.
12. He ran for Congress and was defeated.
13. He ran for Congress again and won. He went to Washington and did well.
14. He ran for re-election to Congress and was defeated.
15. He sought the job of land officer in his home state and was rejected.
16. He ran for Senate of the United States and was defeated.
17. He sought the Vice Presidential nomination at his party's national convention and got less than 100 votes.
18. He ran for the U.S. Senate again and was defeated.
19. He ran for, and was elected, President of the United States

I don't know about you, but I can't tell you how glad I am that he kept on 'truckin.

Dave Kearns

I am not sure at what age the obit page becomes a section that you check every day, but as I was going through the NY Times today I realized that whatever that age is, I was there.

I also realized that when I read of the passing of David T. Kearns, former CEO at Xerox that aside from the respect I had for him when I worked at Xerox, I was reminded that some of the passion I feel around the need to fix our public education system (e.g. Trickle Down Education) came from Dave. The connectiion was something I had not thought about for a long time.

I also thought that if I were to do a word cloud analysis of the topics in these postings over the past five or six years, words/phrases like "education", "business leadership", "executive leadership" and "value systems" would show up a lot, and in reading Tom Zeller, Jr's article on Dave my memory was refreshed again as to why.

Now for sure Dave Kearns was not the only factor in how or why I came to be so concerned about the challenges we face on the education front. 

Certainly my parents played a big part (my father was a teacher and  research scientist while my mother a voracious reader).  In addition, I was lucky enough to have attended Hopkins School in New Haven at a time when someone with my suspect commitment to study could still get in and it was not until I was well into trying to earn a living that I came to realize just how important those years we in saving my "educational" and hence my "economic" life, but I digress. 

In 1971, the only thing Dave Kearns and I had in common was that we both came to Xerox in the same year.  Of course, he was bringing with him a very successful track record from IBM and I barely had a record, much less a successful one.

In 1977 Dave Kearns was the COO and he became the CEO in 1982 and for anyone familiar with Xerox history over the years, to say that Xerox was in trouble would be an understatement.  The Japanese were eating our lunch big time or as Kearns said at the time in a Times interview: "We are in the proverbial soup."

To this day, I vividly recall Kearns' quote when he became the CEO and was asked how he would like his tenure to be remembered in years to come and he said "...as the one who beat the Japanese."

Easy to say, but very hard to do as this was back in the day when Japan was leading the world in product design and manufacturing efficiency and quality.  Heck, it was Edward Deming who showed them how, but back in USA we were too lazy to make the effort.

Dave Kearns did lead Xerox back from the brink, and as Zeller points out in the article, one of the key things was that Kearns saw "...the Japanese approaches to both business and education as models for American reforms."

For someone to keeping pushing for what they think is important takes an enormous amount of passion and energy.  Dave Kearns had both as I had the chance to learn personally when I was at corporate headquarters for much of the same time Dave was there.  I saw that energy and heard the passion on many occasions as we often ran side by side on treadmills in the fitness center in the morning.

Now I don't know if Dave's passion regarding education came out of that his experience during that time or not, I never thought to ask him, but whatever it was, it stayed with him long after he left Xerox and this is well detailed in the Times article.  He stuck with it for more than 20 years including during the years when he was fighting sinus cancer which is what finally brought his life to an end.

Leaders like David Kearns don't come along all that often.  It was a privilege to have known him.

That Time of Year

I live in a town just outside of Providence, RI. Of course, now that I think about and given the size of RI, I guess almost any town in RI is "just outside of Providence.

Be that as it may, I am happy to report that despite its size, Providence still has a daily newspaper; actually a pretty good one by my "lay person" standards which are pretty much made up of a criteria that includes large print, very little coverage of the Yankees, the virtually daily stories reporting with great color commentary which local politician has been arrested for what, and really good forecasts as to when the blues will be running.

There is also a columnist named Mark Patinkin who is syndicated around and about, but happens to live in Providence. Not that his living there is of any real import, just something for us to get puffed up about and living in RI, hopefully readers will understand that we need all of that we can get.

Anyway, to the crux of the post; Patinkin recently wrote a piece called Best advice? The simplest which as you might guess it being this time of year was what he called his own "low-key guidance".

I don't want to spoil it for those who might want to check out the whole column, but how far wrong could anyone go by knowing things like: "..Life is easier if you hang clothes instead of stuffing them in drawers" or "..It's all right to ask for a fork in a Chinese restaurant."

By this point some of you may be wondering where the business/career leadership point is since much of what I post here ends up in that arena in one form or another. Well, I thought there really was one.

Mr. Patinkin also had a couple of other pithy "tweets" that anyone who aspires to a leadership role in the years ahead or who may be in one now could do well to keep in mind:

- "A key test of character is how you treat salespeople."

- "It doesn't count as listening if you're thinking what you going to say next."

- In both hockey and life, skill matters but it matters more to really want the puck."

I think this sort of stuff applies equally well to the classes of '10 as much as it still rings true for those of us of with rings from '61.

Learnings from Leaders

There is a column in the Sunday New York Times called "Corner Office."

Essentially it is a structured interview with various and sundry luminaries (mostly CEOs) who talk about their management styles, how they approach different types of organizational challenges and their "learnings" and "beliefs."

One of the things that is neat about structured interviews, of course, is that you get to see how different people respond to the same set of questions. It is often both interesting, instructive and enlightening, especially when those questions are things like:

How do you hire?
Tell me about your most important leadership lessons.
How are you a different leader today than you were 5 or 10 years ago?
What’s your best career advice?
How do you manage your time, besides working a lot?
What should business schools teach more of, or less of?
How has your leadership style evolved?
Is there anything unusual about the way you run meetings?

And that's just a sample.

If you have not checked out this column I certainly offer it up as a great source of "Learnings from Leaders" and for the 5 minutes or so that it takes to read each segment, the ROI in terms of stimulating thought is as good an intellectual business investment of time as I think is out there.

This past week, the guest executive was Guy Kawasaki.

Not sure if executive is even the right moniker. Maybe it is more appropriate to label him as last week's guest "brand" for if anyone has built himself a brand on Web 3.0 he has.

I think he "tweets" more than any human being on the planet, and most of what he shares via Twitter is information not breakfast menus. Where he finds time to do anything else I have no idea, but then maybe his staff comes up with the links and tweets for him for all I know, but that doesn't change the fact that he is a brand.

Anyway, if you would like a sample from the Corner Office buffet, here's the link to the Kawasaki interview. Enjoy.

Jamie Oliver's TED Speech

I know there are some who think Jamie Oliver is a bit over the edge when it comes to his crusade re: obesity.

I also know that there are those who have both good and not so good things to say about the TED Awards, speeches, etc.

Indeed if you are one of the thousands (millions?) of Tech Crunch followers you probably saw the back and forth over the speech given by shock stand-up comedienne Sarah Silverman.

Be all that as it may, I came upon Jamie Oliver's speech because someone posted it on Twitter and thought it was something people should check out, so I did. I would give her credit here as well, but I have since lost the message.

Anyway, the reason I make reference to it here is twofold:

1. I have a lot of respect for what Oliver is trying to do and the commitment he demonstrates in trying to fight for change that he feels is critical on all sorts of levels.

With his background, and success, he could be spending his time and energy on lots of other stuff. He has chosen not to.

2. I also think that if you take the 18 or so minutes to hear what he has to say that as a result you will come away with some of the same feelings I have expressed above, and as a business leader, admire the passion he brings to those he hopes to influence to act.

After all, that's one of the key things leaders hope to do. Inspire people to follow. Oliver has his way of trying to achieve that, and each of us has ours.

Just watching him in action helped to renew my energy; something we all need from time to time.

No matter what needs renewing in your life, maybe Jamie's passion will help do that for you as well.

Invent, Invent, Invent

Okay, I admit it, I am a Tom Friedman groupie and if you fall into that category then you will instantly recognize the title of this post as being the title of the Op Ed piece that Friedman wrote for the Sunday NY Times at the end of June.

If you haven't seen this piece then as both as a business leader not to mention a concerned citizen I very much suggest you check it out.

If you don't have the time, the gist of the article is about what Friedman (and others) feel is needed to overcome our current economic woes.

Essentially, the point he makes is that the benchmark UVP that the U.S. has is its creatvity, especially in the creation of breakthrough technology. Not that this by itself is "the answer" as we all know, but it is certainly an essential element.

To help underscore his point, there is what I thought was a great quote at the beginning of the piece in which Friedman quotes Craig Barrett, the former chairman of Intel, who when Tom asked him what he thought the "way out" was said: "Any American kid who wants his driver's license has to finish high school. No diploma - no license. Hey, why would we want to put a kid who can barely add, read or write behind the wheel of a car?"

A tad of an over-simplification for sure, but an attention grabber that helps us to foucs on what I think is the real elephant in the room - the state of education in our country.

If you buy the argument that the world is well into a knowledge driven economy then you would certainly get the point that Barrett was making and one with which I am sure Friedman agrees.

A sample for those who like stats:

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development places the United States 18th among the 36 nations examined, USA Today reported ...

Headed to the top of the heap is South Korea where 93 percent of high school students graduate on time compared with the United States where 75 percent receive their diplomas.

And these are just percentages and say nothing about the "quality" of each. I often wonder if in many high schools they don't give away as many diplomas as are really earned.

I also often wonder why it is that the American business community and most especially those with global footprints don't do far more to lobby and $upport an education system that is desperately deficient.

To say that it is in their self-interest is the understatement of week!