Harvard Business Review 5 years 2004 – 2009
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- Leadership that gets Results
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| Managing Oneself by Peter Drucker
Most people think they know what they are good at. They are usually wrong. More often people know what they are not good at - and even then more people are wrong than right. And yet, a person can perform only from strength. A planner may find that his beautiful plans fail because he does not follow through on them. Like so many other brilliant people, he believes that ideas move mountains. But bulldozers move mountains; ideas show where the bulldozers should go to work. Manners - simple things like saying 'please' and 'thank you' and knowing a person's name or asking after her family - enable two people to work together whether they like each other or not. Bright people, especially bright young people, often do not understand this. It takes far more energy and work to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than it takes to improve from first rate performance to excellence. And yet most people - especially most teachers and most organizations - concentrate on making incompetent performers into mediocre ones. Energy, resources, and time should go instead to making a competent person into a star performer. Do not try to change yourself -you are unlikely to succeed. But work hard to improve the way you perform. And try not to take on work you cannot perform or will only perform poorly. "Yes I will do that. But this is the way I should be doing it. This is the way it should be structured. This is the way the relationships should be. These are the kind of results you should expect from me, and in this timeframe, because this is who I am." In the late 1960's no one wanted to be told what to do any longer. Young men and women began to ask, what do I want to do? And what they heard was that that the way to contribute was to 'do your own thing.' Very few people who believed that doing one's own thing would lead to contribution, self-fulfilment, and success achieved any of the three. But still, there is no return to the old answer of doing what you are told or assigned to do. Knowledge workers in particular have to learn to ask a question that has not been asked before: What should my contribution be? To answer it, they must address three distinct elements: What does the situation require? Given my strengths, my way of performing, and my values, how can I make the greatest contribution to what needs to be done? And finally, what results have to be achieved to make a difference? Today, most work is knowledge work, and knowledge workers are not 'finished' after 40 years on the job, they are merely bored. It is important to develop a second major interest (maybe philanthropic) early (say late 30's). No one can expect to live very long without experiencing a serious setback in his or her life or work. In a society where success has become so terribly important, having options will become increasingly vital. In the knowledge society we expect everyone to be a success. This is clearly an impossibility. For a great many people there is at best an absence of failure. Managing one-self demands that each knowledge worker think and behave like a chief executive officer. To shift from manual workers who do as they are told to knowledge workers who have to manage themselves profoundly challenges social structure. Almost Ready, How Leaders Move Up by Dan Ciampa
More organisations go outside their own ranks to hire designated successors - but disturbingly, once hired, only one-quarter of these candidates were successful at either being named CEO or at staying in the CEO job for more than two years. Although 40% of the polled chairmen and CEOs planned to retire within four years, 55% of the ones aged 61 or older had not settled on a succession plan.
CEOs receive little actionable feed back once they become designated successors, so they must sharpen their self awareness as well as their sensitivity to the wants and the needs of bosses and influential peers; they must learn to conduct themselves with a level of maturity and wisdom that signals to boards as well as CEOs that they are ready - not just almost ready - to be chief executive. He is unlikely to reach his goals until he stops blaming others and considers what he did or did not do to cause his predicament. Many candidates neglect to see that they need other people's help to succeed at this level and that the test is to embrace a new culture, finding value in it, and appreciating perspectives other than your own. Understanding who must be won over to your point of view is a key part of managing the succession process.
He didn't understand that it was more important for him to develop a relationship with his boss than it was for his boss to create one with him. He needed to be perceptive and flexible enough to adapt to his boss's style. She was just jumping in to solve the problems rather than making sure her people solved them. Doing things herself was the way she had gotten ahead, but she didn't understand that at this level it was going to drag her into too much detail.
You need to be concerned with what is best for the whole company. High-level managers give credit to others involved in successes without diminishing their own recognition. Being a leader among peers is what all senior executives have done to get where they are; elite executives have learned how to do it so that their peers become better performers.
How to Play to Your Strengths by Laura Morgan Roberts & Co-writers. While people remember criticism, they respond to praise. The former makes them defensive and therefore unlikely to change, while the latter produces confidence and the desire to perform better.
You may have more to gain by developing your gifts and leveraging your natural skills than by trying to repair your weaknesses. Compose your own self portrait which you can use as a reminder of your previous contributions and as a guide for future action.
Once you discover who you are at the top of your game, you can use your strengths to better shape positions you choose to play - both now and in the next phase of your career. The new road To the Top by Peter Cappelli and Monika Hamori
Only 26 % of the top Fortune 100 1980 were still there in 2001. Loosing industries were Automotive 6.9% - 2.4%, Manufacturing 17.3% - 1.1%; Steel 5.4% - 0.7% and winners were Financial services 0% - 16.6%, Retail 2.6% - 14.4%, Health Care 0.7% - 5.3%, Computers 2.6% - 8.9% and Communications 3.4% - 9.1%. While women filled just 11% of executive positions in 2001, that's a substantial improvement; in 1980 the figure was zero.
There are huge advantages to work for a growing firm. Executives are much more likely to be promoted in firms with healthy growth rates than in stagnating companies. Younger firms offer faster advancement, perhaps because of their tendency to have flatter hierarchies.
Through the 1970's, marketing was the preferred track into the executive suit, but the results here suggest that finance now offers by far the best path. Research suggests that the odds of advancement fall as a person's tenure in a job grows.
The most important experiences and the hardest to get) will increasingly be those that involve hands-on responsibility for profit and loss. Managing your boss by John I. Gabarro and John UP. Kotter
Effective managers make a point of seeking the information and help they need to do a job instead of waiting for their bosses to provide it. Managing a situation of mutual dependence among fallible human beings requires the following:
1. You have a good understanding of the other person and yourself, especially regarding strengths, weaknesses, work styles, and needs. 2. You use this information to develop and manage a healthy working relationship - one that is compatible with both people's work styles and assets, is characterized by mutual expectations, and meets the most critical needs of the other person.
Managers who work effectively with their bosses seek out information about the boss's goals and problems and pressures. The boss is only half of the relationship - you are the other half, as well as the part over which you have more direct control.
Bosses don't have unlimited time, encyclopaedic knowledge, or extrasensory perception; nor are they evil enemies. Overloaded Circuits / Why Smart People Underperform by Edward ME. Hallowell Modern office life and an increasingly common condition called "attention deficit trait" are turning steady executives into frenzied underachievers. When the frontal lobes approach capacity and we begin to fear that we can't keep up, the relationship between the higher and lower regions of the brain takes an ominous turn. Thousands of years of evolution have taught the higher brain not to ignore the lower brain's distress signals. In survival mode, the deep areas of the brain assume control and begin to direct the higher regions. As a result, the whole brain gets caught in a neurological catch-22. The deep regions interpret the messages of overload they receive from the frontal lobes in the same way they interpret everything: primitively. They furiously fire signals of fear, anxiety, impatience, irritability, anger or panic. These alarm signals shanghai the attention of the frontal lobes, forcing them to forfeit much of their power. Because survival signals are irresistible, the frontal lobes get stuck sending messages back to the deep centres saying, 'Message received. Trying to work on it, but without success.’ These messages further perturb the deep centres, which send even more powerful messages of distress back up to the frontal lobes. Meanwhile, in response to what's going on in the brain, the rest of the body - particularly the endocrine, respiratory, cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, and peripheral nervous systems - has shifted into crisis mode and changed its baseline physiology from peace and quiet to red alert. The brain and body are locked in a reverberating circuit while the frontal lobes lose their sophistication, as if vinegar were added to wine. In this state, EF reverts to simpleminded black-and-white thinking; perspective and shades of grey disappear. Intelligence dims. In a futile attempt to do more than is possible, the brain paradoxically reduces its ability to think clearly. The neurological event occurs when a manager is desperately trying to deal with more input than he possibly can. In survival mode, the manager makes impulsive judgments, angrily rushing to bring closure to whatever matter is at hand. He feels compelled to get the problem under control immediately, to extinguish the perceived danger lest it destroy him. He is robbed of his flexibility, his sense of humour, his ability to deal with the unknown. He forgets the big picture and the goals and values he stands for. He loses his creativity and his ability to change plans. He desperately wants to kill the metaphorical tiger. At these moments he is prone to melting down, to throwing a tantrum, to blaming others, and to sabotaging himself. Or he may go in the opposite direction, falling into denial and total avoidance of the problem attacking him, only to be devoured. This is ADT at its worst. The more isolated we are, the more stressed we become. The bottom line is this: Fostering connections and reducing fear promote brainpower. When you make time at least every four to six hours for a 'human moment,' a face to face exchange with a person you like, you are giving your brain what it needs. Take physical care of your brain. Sleep, a good diet, and exercise are critical for staving off ADT. Though this sounds like a no-brainer, too many of us abuse our brains, by neglecting obvious principles of care. Sleep deprivation engenders a host of problems, from impaired decision making and reduced creativity to reckless behaviour and paranoia. The complex carbohydrates found in fruits, whole grains, and vegetables are good for you. Physical exercise induces the body to produce an array of chemicals that the brain loves, including endorphins, serotonin, dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine, as well as two recently discovered compounds, brain-derived neurotropic factor (BDNF) and nerve growth factor (NGF). Both these promote cell health and development in the brain, stave off the ravages of aging and stress, and keep the brain in tip-top condition. To stave off the symptoms of ADT while you're at work, get up from your desk and go up and down a flight of stairs a few times or walk briskly down the hallway. These quick, simple efforts will push your brain's reset button. Helping people work to their strengths is not just a mark of sophisticated management; it's also an excellent way to boost worker productivity and morale. What's Your Story? by Herminia Ibarra and Kent Lineback
Creating and telling a story that resonates also helps us believe in ourselves. Every effective story must elicit: "What happened next?"
Telling them well involves baring some emotion. You have to let the listener know that something is at stake for you personally. We must invite questions about who we are and whether we can be trusted.
If you can make your story of change and re-invention seem coherent, you will have gone far in convincing the listener. Coherence is the solid ground under our feet. Failure to acknowledge a large degree of change will put off listeners and undermine trust. Incorporate learning and self-discovery into life stories. Be damn sure that you are doing what you want to be doing.
If you can create a sense that your life hangs (and will hang) together, you'll be free to incorporate the dramatic elements of change and turmoil and uncertainty into your story that will make it compelling. The Best advice I Ever Got by Daisy Wademan
People are the only thing that matters, and the only thing you should think about, because when that part is right, everything else works. Real happiness comes from striving to do something that isn't easy - and then succeeding in doing it.
Trust in others is implicit in all of my interactions; I don't run around doubting the people who work with me. Trust brings out the best in people: If they sense they are trusted, they will rise to the occasion. Do Your Commitments match Your Convictions by Donald N. Sull and Dominic Houlder
Many successful people feel a disconnect between their daily activities and their deepest desires. If your values and your day-to-day commitments are closely aligned, we congratulate you: many people find it difficult to strike and consistently maintain this balance. Some of us experience commitment creep. We often commit ourselves without really thinking about what we are taking on. Notes by Frank Olsson 24th January 2005
HBR December 2004 Best way forward by Jeffrey F Rayport and Bernard J Jaworski It is about face. As the focus of competition shifts from what companies do to how they do it, the new frontier of competitive advantage lies in the quality of interactions and relationships companies can establish with their customers and markets. So it is indeed fortunate that frontline service is undergoing a revolution of its own. Advances in service technology have opened up new possibilities for how companies can create value not only through improvements in productivity but through better interactions with their customers. Now with both motive and means, businesses must change fast to embrace these new realities. Reengineering the front office will eliminate and displace many jobs, but it will also inevitably create new opportunities for human labour. Getting the balance right will require business leaders to develop a subtle understanding of how to manage the intelligent division of labour between people and machines. A company’s interface system works best when it combines the best of what people and machines can do. This task of managing interfaces and interface systems will prove strategic imperative for many companies. Those who crack the code of interface systems will own the competitive future. Leading Change When Business is Good. IBM CEO Samuel J. Palmisano interviewed by Paul Hemp and Thomas A. Stewart. You just can’t impose command-and-control mechanisms on a large highly professional work force. I am not talking about our scientists, engineers, and consultants. More than 200,000 of our employees have college degrees. The CEO can’t say to them, “Get in line and follow me.” Or “I’ve decided what your values are.” They’re too smart for that. And as you know, smarter people tend to be, well, a little more challenging; you might even say cynical. IBM was traditionally viewed as large, successful, “well managed” company. That was a compliment. But in today’s fast-changing environment, it’s a problem. You can easily end up with a bureaucracy of people overanalyzing problems and slowing down the decision making process. The challenge has shifted. Instead of galvanizing people through fear of failure, you have to galvanize them through hope and aspiration. You lay out the opportunity to become a great company again. If most people in our company get dedicated to our values and what we are trying to accomplish I can be confident about the future. The key values are: “1. dedication to every client’s success; 2. innovation that matters – for our company and for the world; 3. trust and personal responsibility in all relationships.” The Path to Corporate Responsibility by Simon Zadek. The five stages of Organisational learning. 1. It is not our job to fix that. (Denial) 2. We will do just as much as we have to. (Compliance) 3. Incentives and measures need to be ‘environment’ friendly. (Aspiring to look good) 4. It gives us a competitive edge. (making it work for you) 5. We need to make sure everybody does it. (responsible practices important for the whole industry). How to Grow Great Leaders by Douglas A Ready Competition has changed as has customer expectations. Leadership development has not kept pace. Many companies have created new organisational structures to accompany the need for a broader perspective on the business, but the vast majority of leadership development initiatives still take place in the very silos the organisations are trying to transform. When people are trapped in business units, functions, or regions, they’re at risk of becoming prisoners of zero-sum thinking. The responsibility for solving problems rests primarily with a company’s senior executives. Only they have their hands on all of the necessary levers to change. Top managers must work tirelessly to break down their silos and forge imaginative career paths. They must create robust venues for managers to openly discuss the tensions that are a natural by-product of managing complexity. They must realign reward systems and motivate managers to lead according to the realities of today’s competitive environment. And they must acknowledge that there will be no easy answers and take decisive action instead of running from the ambiguity surrounding the challenge. The Things They Do for Love by Leigh Buchanan. Some organisations are enjoying up to 20 % higher levels of employee performance not because they pay more or provide better benefits but because they let each employee know how important they are to the success of the business, give them lots of opportunity to contribute, and help them believe in the worth and credibility of the organisation. Employee engagement is not only crucial to building a high-performing work force, it is also an essential defence against attrition for all companies worried about tightening labour markets. HBR November 2004 Go for a business that any idiot can run - because sooner or later any idiot probably is going to run it. Peter Lynch - ex manager of Fidelity's Maggellen Fund. Enough Leadership by Henry Mintzberg. Good leaders care more than they cure, they connect a lot more than they control, they demonstrate a lot more than they decide - not least through their own compensation and the retention of their people. These leaders are not perched on the top. They work throughout. We talk so much about knowledge workers and networks yet remain so enamoured with top management. A manager who sits on top of a network is out of it. Unhappy is the land that has no heroes," says a character in a Bertol Brecht play. "No," replies another. "Unhappy is the land that needs heroes." It is time to bring management and leadership back together and down to earth.
To be successful, negotiators must recognize that signing a contract is just the beginning of the process of creating value. The very person everyone thinks is crucial to the deal - the negotiator - is often the one that undermines the partnership's ability to succeed. The real challenge lies not in hammering out little victories on the way to signing on the dotted line but in designing a deal that works in practice. People who view the contract as the conclusion and see themselves solely responsible for getting there behave very differently from those who see the agreement as just the beginning and believe their role is to ensure that the parties involved actually realise the value they are trying to create. These two camps have conflicting opinions about the use of surprise and the sharing of information. They also differ in how much attention they pay to whether the parties involved actually realize what they are trying to create. Being a good deal maker means being a good closer. Frequently a signed contract represents a commitment to work together to create value. When that's the case, the manner in which parties 'get to yes' matters a great deal. A New Mind set. Five approaches can help your negotiation team transition from a deal maker mentality to an implementation mind-set. 1. Start with the end in mind. Imagine the deal 12 months out: What has gone wrong? How do you know if it's a success? Who should have been involved earlier? 2. Help them prepare too. Surprising the other side doesn't make sense because if they promise things they can't deliver, you both lose. 3. Treat alignment as a shared responsibility. If your counterpart’s interests aren't aligned, it is your problem too. 4. Send one message. Brief implementation teams on both sides of the deal together so everyone has the same information. 5. Manage negotiations like a business process. Combine a disciplined preparation process with post negotiation reviews.
Most corporate boards are completely in the dark about their companies' marketing strategies. A simple series of management reports can give them the light they need. In a survey of large US companies, more than one-third reported their boards spend less than 10% discussing marketing or customer-related issues. It is the board's responsibility to expose inadequate marketing, direct management to address the problem, and monitor management's progress. The brand and the company depend on it. Popular metrics such as customer satisfaction, acquisition, and retention have turned out to be very poor indicators of customers' true perceptions or the success of marketing activities. The board of directors needs to welcome the company’s customers and marketing strategies into the board room and pay careful attention to them. And marketers need to start thinking of themselves as general managers who can drive the business fwd rather than as functional specialists who are isolated from the company's strategy. Organisations take their cue from the top. When the board turns its attention to the company’s customers, the entire organisation will become more market driven, more customer-centric, and more focused on generating organic growth. HBR October 2004-10-14
The more power you have, the more important it is to exercise power collaboratively. You may get your way acting unilaterally—but almost always at a cost, and usually you have a smaller stock of power the next time you need it. Power and political capital grow when you act through others—work with your board, build allies, avoid unnecessary meddling in the responsibilities of subordinates and colleagues. In sum, never compete where you don’t have to. Seven surprises for New CEO’s
The more power you have, the harder it is to use. While several of the challenges may appear familiar, we have discovered that nothing in a leader’s background, even running a large business within his company, fully prepares him to be CEO. Through our work with new chief executives of major companies, we have found seven surprises to be the most common. They are important not just for CEOs but for executives at any level and in any size organization. Surprise One: You Can’t Run the Company Almost every new CEO struggles to manage the time drain of attending to shareholders, analysts, board members, industry groups, politicians, and other constituencies. CEOs hired from outside struggle to learn how their new company operates, but those promoted from within work equally hard to separate themselves from operations and learn the terrain of their outside constituencies. CEOs are apprehensive about, as one put it, managing the dual roles of Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside. The CEO learns often to his shock, that he has to let go of a lot of responsibility—not just for operating the company but even for knowing what’s going on in it. The CEO’s greatest influence shifts from direct to indirect means—articulating and communicating a clear, easily understood strategy; institutionalizing rigorous structures and processes to guide, inform, and reward; and setting values and tone. Equally important is selecting and managing the right senior management team to share the burden of running the company. Surprise Two: Giving Orders Is Very Costly The CEO is undoubtedly the most powerful person in any organization. Yet any CEO who tries to use this power to unilaterally issue orders or summarily reject proposals that have come up through the organization will pay a stiff price. Giving orders can trigger resentment and defensiveness in colleagues and subordinates. Usually, power is best used indirectly. It is rarely a good idea to unilaterally overrule a thoughtful decision that has cleared several other organizational hurdles. Indeed, a key indicator the CEO subsequently used to judge the health of the company’s management processes was how enthusiastically he could approve the decisions that came his way. The need to overrule something is a sure sign of a broader organizational failure. A new CEO must be willing to share power and trust others to make important decisions. The most powerful CEO is the one who expands the power of those around him. Surprise Three: It Is Hard to Know What Is Really Going On Immediately upon appointment, the CEO’s relationships change. Former peers and subordinates who used to constitute an informal channel—those who could read between the lines and who really knew what was happening at the ground level—go on their guard Several new CEOs stressed the importance of continuing to seek information from deep within the organization—from employees closest to the front line—even though that approach might not sit well with managers in the middle. Surprise Four: You Are Always Sending a Message. The first big message is in the CEO’s appointment itself. People develop assumptions and expectations based on the CEO’s background and previous experiences. Once in the job, the new CEO can no longer afford to have speculative discussions with employees, because any half-baked idea he puts forth runs the risk of being latched onto as a good one. A simple, clear message, repeated often and illustrated with memorable stories, is the best way for a new CEO to master the communication challenges of the job. Surprise Five: You Are Not the Boss Even if the relationship (with the board) isn’t contentious, it’s become a bigger drain on the CEO’s time and energy. Even if he was promoted from within and was previously on the board, their interaction with him was probably infrequent and brief. He has to spend time letting members get to know him and develop confidence in his ability and judgment. In our experience, it is almost always a bad idea for a predecessor to remain on the board. At the end of the day, the board—not the CEO—is in charge. A new CEO who is open with—and creates the opportunity to collaborate with—his directors will be more likely to garner support from these bosses. Surprise Six: Pleasing Shareholders Is Not the Goal Upon taking office, new CEOs often mistakenly believe that their primary responsibility is to keep the shareholders happy. The problem is that defining one’s goal as shareholder approval may not be in the company’s best interest. Actions and strategies favoured by shareholders (and analysts) may not benefit the ultimate competitive position of the company. A high stock price will eventually collapse without the underpinnings of fundamental competitive advantage. Instead of looking to shareholders for strategic direction, the CEO must develop and articulate a clear strategy to distinguish the company from others and address industry fundamentals. But a CEO with the courage to develop and articulate a sound strategy, even if it is currently unpopular on Wall Street, will eventually attract the right shareholders—those who buy and hold the stock because they believe in the big-picture strategy. Surprise Seven: You Are Still Only Human Too often, we view CEOs in the cinematic image of indefatigable superhero. Yet they remain bound by all-too-human hopes, fears, and limits. Invariably CEOs have had to come to terms with the fact that they can’t do everything well. They have found it difficult and ego-bruising to accept gaps in their expertise and admit that the job is more physically and emotionally taxing than any others they have held. It is essential for new CEOs to make a disciplined effort to stay humble, to revisit their decisions and actions, to continue to listen to others, and to find people who will be honest and forthright. Implications for CEO Leadership First, the CEO must learn to manage organizational context rather than focus on daily operations. Second, he must recognize that his position does not confer the right to lead, nor does it guarantee the organization’s loyalty. Finally, the CEO must not get totally absorbed in the role. Even if others think he is omnipotent, he is still only human. Failing to recognize this will lead to arrogance, exhaustion, and a shortened tenure. Only by maintaining a personal balance and staying grounded can the CEO achieve the perspective required to make decisions in the interest of the company and its long-term prosperity. HBR July – September 2004 Editorial by Thomas Stewart The vast majority of top management teams spend too little time together and fritter away too much of it on hodgepodge of incidentals. Seemingly urgent problems get the most attention while important issues get pushed to the next meeting. The problem of dealing with demanding people, such a senior executives, is often linked to the impossible task of herding cats. The comparison is misleading though, if you take it to mean ‘you can’t do anything about cats.’ Herding isn’t the same as managing. Cats can be managed – they just can’t be managed as you would cattle. Perhaps the most important problems in business are ‘managing cats’ problems. Getting senior teams to focus on the right issues is one. Another is sharing knowledge. Stop Wasting Valuable Time Michael C Mankins Companies routinely squander their most precious resource - the time of their top executives. In the typical company, senior executives meet to discuss strategy for only 3 hours a month. And that time is poorly spent in diffuse discussions never even meant to result in any decision. The price of misused executive time is high. Delayed strategic decisions lead to overlooked waste and high costs, harmful cost reductions, missed new product and business development opportunities, and poor long-term investments. But a few deceptively simple changes in the way top management teams set agendas and structure team meetings can make an enormous difference in their effectiveness. Efficient companies use 7 techniques to make the most of the time their top executives spend together. For example, they make sure they have considered all viable alternatives before deciding a course of action. And they insist that once a decision is made, they stick to it. Seven techniques to control the agenda
Diversity as a Strategy David A Thomas By the time Lou Gerstner took the helm in 1993, IBM had a long history of progressive management when it came to civil rights and equal opportunity employment. But Gerstner felt IBM wasn't taking full advantage of a diverse market for talent, nor was it maximizing the potential of its diverse customer and employee base. So in 1995, he launched a diversity task force initiative to uncover and understand differences among people within the organization and find ways to appeal to an even broader set of employees and customers. This article stresses that 4 factors are key to implementing any major change initiative: 1. strong support from company leaders, 2. an employee base that is fully engaged with the initiative, 3. management practices that are integrated and aligned with the effort, and 4. a strong and well-articulated business case for action. All 4 elements have helped IBM make diversity a key corporate strategy tied to real growth. ‘We made diversity a market based issue. It’s about understanding our markets, which are diverse and multicultural.’ By deliberately seeking ways to more effectively reach a broader range of customers, IBM has seen significant bottom line results. This was a significant philosophical shift – from a long tradition of minimizing differences to amplifying them and to seizing on the business opportunities they present. The sponsor for the white men’s task force was a woman; the sponsor for the women’s task force was a man. There were certain advantages in having sponsors who didn’t come from the groups they represented. Overall, the findings made it clear that workforce diversity was the bridge between the workplace and the marketplace – in other words, greater diversity in the work place could help IBM attract a more diverse customer set A focus on diversity was, in short, a major business opportunity. It became clear the IBM wasn’t well positioned in relation to the market’s fastest growing entrepreneurial segments – female and minority owned businesses. The MD’s efforts have directly translated into hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenue. And the MD has elevated the company’s overall level of cultural competence as it responds to the needs of IBM’s diverse customer base. IBM insisted that the task force create a link between the diversity goals and the business goals – that this be good business – not good philanthropy. The entire effort was designed to help the company develop deeper insights into major markets. IBM needed to get closer to its customers and become more externally focused. It also needed to focus on talent – attracting, retaining, developing, and promoting the best people. On both measures, the company has come a long way.
Get radical! For most companies the issue is less “Are we investing enough in innovation?” and more “Are we investing enough ideas with the power to make a real difference to our competitive performance?” An idea is radical if it meets one or more of three tests:
What makes an Effective Executive by Peter Drucker Eight practices need to be followed by effective executives:
The answer to the question 'What needs to be done?' almost always contains more than one urgent task. But effective leaders must focus. They may pick two tasks. Never more. Other tasks no matter how important or appealing are postponed.
Ask which top task you are best suited to pursue. Concentrate on that. Other tasks you delegate. Enterprises perform if top management performs - and don't if it doesn't. A decision that isn't right for the enterprise will ultimately not be right for the stakeholders.
The executive must ask: What should the enterprise expect from me over the next 18 months to two years? "What results will I commit to?” “With what deadlines?" "Is the course of action legal, ethical and compatible with the mission, values and policies of the organisation?" The action plan is a statement of intentions rather than a commitment. It must not become a straitjacket. Without an action plan the executive becomes a prisoner of events.
Studies of decisions about (appointing) people show that only one-third of choices turn out to be successful. One-third are likely to be draws - neither successes nor outright failures. And one-third are failures, pure and simple. Effective executives know this and check up (six to nine months later) on the desired results, they don't conclude that the person has not performed. They conclude instead that they themselves made a mistake. In a well-managed enterprise, it is understood that people who fail in a new job, especially after promotion, may not be the ones to blame. Executives owe it to the organisation and to their fellow workers not to tolerate nonperforming individuals in important jobs. It may not be the employees’ fault that they are underperforming but all the same, they have to be removed. Allocating the best people to the right positions is a crucial tough job that many executives slight, in part because the best people are already too busy. Systematic decision reviews also show executives their own weaknesses, particularly the areas in which they are simply incompetent. In these areas, smart executives don't make decisions or take actions. They delegate. Everyone has such areas; there is no such thing as a universal executive genius.
Good executives focus on opportunities rather than problems. Problem solving, however necessary, does not produce results. Exploiting opportunities does. Staffing is another important aspect of being opportunity focused. Effective executives put their best people on opportunities rather than on problems.
Top executives are with other people more than half of the business day. Good follow up is as important as the meeting itself. Listen first, speak last.
The demand of effective executives is far too great to be satisfied by extraordinary talent. Effectiveness is a discipline. And like every discipline, effectiveness can be learned and must be earned. Intangible Assets by Baruch Lev
The non-management of intangibles has measurable costs. To manage is to choose; the first role of senior executives is to decide where to compete and invest, how to allocate resources among many alternatives, and how to share the proceeds among the people who put up the money and do the work. The soft side of business needs auditing just as much as, and perhaps more than, the hard side. Measuring human capabilities and performance will (and should) never be done in precisely the same language as accounting for assets, liabilities and equity. (If physicians reported the results of their examinations according to general accepted accounting principles, fat would be an asset). But if the language is different, the rigor should not be. (My Comment: Just as we need to audit organisations for intangible value we need to audit and check individuals for how they either contribute to or subtract from intangible value.) Capitalising on Capabilities by Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood
Intangible capabilities - the collective skills, abilities and expertise of an organisation - are the outcome of investments in staffing, training, compensation, communication, and other human resources areas. They represent the ways that people and resources are brought together to accomplish work. Organisational capabilities emerge when a company delivers on the combined competencies and abilities of its individuals. How to perform a capabilities Audit Talent - Do your employees have the competencies and commitment required to deliver the business strategy in question? Speed - can we move quickly to make important things happen fast? Shared mind-set and coherent brand identity - Do we have a culture or identity that reflects what we stand for and how we work? Is it shared by both customers and employees? Accountability - Does high performance matter to the extent that we can ensure execution of strategy? Collaboration - Are we good at generating new ideas with impact and generalizing those ideas across boundaries? Leadership - Do we have a leadership brand that directs managers on which results to deliver and how to deliver them? Customer connectivity - Do we form enduring relationships of trust with targeted customers? Strategic Unity - Do our employees share an intellectual, behavioural, and procedural agenda for our strategy? Innovation - How well do we innovate in product, strategy, channel, service, and administration? Efficiency - Do we reduce costs by closely managing processes, people and projects?
Notes by Frank Olsson 13th June 2004 Harvard Business Review May 2004 Alpha Bets – about alpha males and their success… It is rare for star performers to shine as brightly after they move from one company to another. It turns out that a lot of their achievement is based on firm specific human capital – individual skills that are more valuable in one context than in others. Much of a star’s brightness is really the reflected light of colleagues. Take her out of her constellation and she turns out to be only faintly like what she appeared to be. How To Restore The Fiduciary Relationship… (Interview with Eliot Spitzer) There must be zero Tolerance for infractions of a real ethical mandate. One violation and you’re gone. Second, conflict of interest can be bad for business. Thirdly Executive compensation needs to be reviewed. As long as the public sees what it believes to be greed there is a problem. Often through compensation committees there is a rigged marketplace. The Risky Business of Hiring Stars When (Wall Street) firms hire stars, the share market views it as value destroying, i.e. the perception is that they are overpaid and the share price goes down. Clearly, when companies try to grow by hiring stars it doesn’t work. Most of us have an instinctive faith in talent and genius, but it isn’t just that people make organizations perform better. The organization also makes people perform better. In fact, few stars would change employers if they understood the degree to which their performance is tied to the company they work for. Everyone is familiar with the individual factors that contribute to performance: innate abilities, education (including professional training) and a person’s external networks (industry contacts and some clients). But most companies underestimate the degree to which stars depend on the following company specific factors: Resource and capabilities; Systems and Processes; Leadership; Internal Networks; Training and Teams. A little prodding is sometimes necessary to engrain team mentality in the organization: Lehman Brothers stipulated in 1992 that every analyst presentation had to refer to at least two compatriots. Goldman Sachs legendary co-leader 1976 – 85, John Whitehead, once cautioned an analyst: “At Goldman Sachs we never say I.” The magic bullet in interviewing people was asking yourself whether the interviewee was someone people were going to like. If he or she wasn’t we would let them go. Jack Rivkin who was Lehman Brothers research director was empathetic about whom he would not hire: “I have a no-jerks policy. To me a jerk is someone difficult to manage, marching to his own drummer, not interested in what is going on in the department and the firm. We are not going to have people like that here. The first step in winning the war for talent is not to hire stars but to develop them. (HBR April 2004 didn’t have any article catching my fancy and imagination.) Harvard Business Review March 2004
Recent studies suggest that layoffs destroy shareholder value. And research shows that treating employees as the assets they are - by investing in their development - boosts returns over long term. A growing body of empirical research shows that organisations that make extraordinary investments in people often enjoy extraordinary performance on a variety of indicators, including shareholder return.
Fully 90 % of managers observed wasted their time and frittered away their productivity, despite having well defined projects, goals, and the knowledge necessary to get the job done. The ability to seize initiative is the most essential quality of any truly successful manager. Successful managers break out of their perceived boxes, take control of their jobs, and become more productive by learning to manage demands, generate resources, recognize and exploit alternatives. They map out ways around constraints by developing and acting on long term strategies, making trade offs, and occasionally breaking rules to achieve their goals.
Once mangers command their agendas and sense their freedom of choice, they can come top relish their roles. They begin to search for situations that go beyond their scope and enjoy seizing opportunities as they arise. Above all, effective managers with a bias for action aren't managed by their jobs; rather the reverse is true. Breakthrough ideas for 2004…..HBR February 2004 (my own reflection is that these are all pretty obvious and have been understood by ordinary people for a long time – without any Harvard mba. Perhaps business schools in their current form are reaching their use-by dates.) You got a license to run that company? Managers must serve a higher purpose than just maximizing shareholder returns. Self-interest backed by the power of the highly abstract and systematic ‘science of economics’ is a very troublesome backdrop for business, given its control over material and human resources
To achieve growth the three T:s need to be prevalent: technology, talent and tolerance. To determine if a place has a culture of tolerance we look at the concentrations of gay, “bohemian,” and foreign-born people and the degree of racial integration. The tolerance and openness implied by these concentrations form a critical element in a place’s ability to attract different kinds of people and generate new ideas. (Sweden as a country came out highest in a table on creativity index with some regions in the USA rating very highly – Austin – San Francisco – Seattle – and Boston. Other research indicates that Canada – Australia and New Zealand have built dynamic creative climates.)
Companies need to enforce the ‘no-assholes’ rule. Tyrants, bullies, boors, cruel bastards, or destructive narcissists should not be tolerated.
Corporate recruiters have begun visiting the top arts grad schools. An arts degree is now perhaps the hottest credential in the world of business. The reasons are two fold – supply and demand. The supply of people with basic MBA skills is expanding and therefore driving down their value. Businesses are realizing that the only way to differentiate their goods and services in today’s overstocked, materially abundant marketplace is to make their offering transcendent – physically beautiful and emotionally compelling.
Positive organizational scholarship is inspiring researchers to look at work in a whole new light – and they are finding that happiness does pay. It’s beginning to look as if a positive workplace atmosphere is worth developing, and not merely for its own sake; it may be the foundation for true success. Biological block. Terrorism and fraud requires an immune system, not a series of firewalls, for effective protection. Success will come when every cell of the body politic has the capability to detect problems in the offing and the ability to trigger lethal immune response. The Loan Ranger Why does poverty persist in so many parts of the world? Because poor countries need trade and instead get aid! The United States puts a tariff on imports from Bangladesh that is nearly ten times higher than that on imports from France. At the same time rich countries spend nearly 1 bio dollars a day subsidizing the part of their economies where poor countries may have a real competitive advantage. European countries and Japan do the same. Solving the problem requires a fresh focus on the actual bottleneck. What is it that keeps rich countries’ governments from living up to their rhetoric about free trade?” Just this: a limited number of special interests that lobby aggressively on the part of dying industries.
No one has unreserved success, not even the most obvious winner. Each person needs to understand and develop his or her unique definition of success over time. The article suggests that enduring success has four components: Happiness – feelings of pleasure or contentment about your life Achievement – accomplishments that compare favorably against similar goals others have strived for Significance – the sense that you’ve made a positive impact on people you care about Legacy – a way to establish your values and accomplishments so as to help others find future success.
This issue is dedicated to ‘Leadership’ Leaders need to manage the mood of organizations. 1. BE REALISTIC. Emotional intelligence is usually defined as a loose collection of personal traits, such as self-awareness, optimism and tolerance. Emotional Intelligence is (from a scientific rather than popular view) the ability to accurately perceive your own and others’ emotions. To understand the signals that emotions send about relationships; and to manage your own and others emotions. 2. NEVER STOP LEARNING Emotional intelligence is the ability to build up the social capital needed to pull the best out of people under pressure. One problem often with newly appointed leaders is lack of empathy and concern for other people. 3. WATCH THE LANGUAGE Pick up when people are ‘off’ and try to be supportive. 4. GET MOTIVATED The central issue when change isn’t occurring isn’t lack of ability to change but lack of motivation. 5. TRAIN THE GIFTED Having a genuine interest in other people’s experiences and mental worlds is an absolute prerequisite for emotional intelligence. 6. ENGAGE YOUR DEMONS From the Greeks we have learnt that every leader must learn to control his own passions before he can hope to command the passion of others. 7. LET YOUR GUARD DOWN Be willing to float unformed and uninformed ideas – open up and encourage others to think freely and improvise. Elicit the group’s collective creative thinking. 8. FIND YOUR VOICE Authentic leadership begins with self-awareness, or knowing yourself deeply. Self-awareness is your understanding of your strengths and weaknesses, and purpose in life, your values and motivations, and how and why you respond to situations in a particular way. Managers and Leaders – are they different? by Abraham Zaleznik Leadership has the essential elements of inspiration, vision and human passion. Managers embrace process, seek stability and control, and instinctively try to resolve problems quickly – sometimes before they fully understand a problem’s significance. Leaders in contrast tolerate chaos and lack of structure and are willing to delay closure in order to understand issues more fully. Business leaders have much more in common with artists, scientists, and other creative thinkers than they do with managers. Creativity and imagination must be allowed to flourish. Understanding Leadership. by W.C.H Prentice As long as you work for me, I am going to see that you get every opportunity to use your last ounce of potential. Your growth and satisfaction are part of my job. The faster you develop into a top contributor to this company, the better I will like it. If you see a better way to do your job, do it that way; if something is holding you back, come and see me about it. My own view……. My own view on leadership is that you know it when you see it but that it doesn’t lend itself to any absolute formula. It may also be a bit different depending on who is to be ‘lead’ and what is to be achieved. Like life, it is a bit like playing the trombone – no fixed positions for anything but rather a search for and gradual achievement of the skill to play well and stir music in people’s souls. You need to touch people on their inside in as far as the power to turn on enthusiasm and energy and commitment rests with each individual and is an act of will. Leadership appeals to and mobilizes that will. Care and compassion are essential ingredients in this formula. Leadership is doing the things you wish others to do and having the ability to influence others to join in the pursuit of progress. Frank Olsson 6th January 2004. And a few earlier articles……………… Managing in the Cappuccino Economy HBR article March 2000 Most of the advice on organizational learning, transformational change, and employee commitment does not work and, worse, often leads to counterproductive results. Although the academics, change consultants, and executives providing or implementing this advice are sincere and honest, “professionally they are very good at being wrong.” Not only are these people blind to the gaps and inconsistencies in their advice, they are unaware of their blindness. The goal is to win as an enterprise, rather than as an individual. Critics tend to underestimate the virtues of capitalism, expecting it to promote destructive greed, when market pressures actually discourage that in the long run. And they expect too much participation in the democratic process, when government actually works better with minority rule and majority acquiescence so that the rich are co-opted rather than alienated. (Capitalism, Democracy.. book by John Mueller) Character will continue to play a role: the ability to review ones own performance and strive to learn and change has always been the mark of superior character and managers. All other things being equal, managers who choose to tolerate challenges and share power will build organisations filled with people who learn faster and act smarter than their competitors. It is better to work with great managers who have an OK idea than to work with mediocre managers who have a great idea. Leadership that gets ResultsHBR article March 2000Leaders who used styles that positively affected the climate had decidedly better financial results than those who did not. Extreme top-down decision making kills new ideas on the vine. People feel so dis- respected that they think, “I won’t even bring my ideas up – they’ll only be shot down.” People who like one another a lot talk a lot. They share ideas; they share inspiration. And the style drives up flexibility; friends trust one another, allowing habitual innovation and risk taking. Flexibility also rises because the affiliative leader, like a parent who adjust the household rules for a maturing adolescent, doesn’t impose unnecessary strictures on how employees get their work done. They give people the freedom to do the job in the way they think most effective. Leaders need to be sensitive to the impact they have on others and seamlessly adjust their style to get the best results. The first task in change management is to listen to key people. Goodbye Career, Hello SuccessHBR March 2000A passion driven career is good for the companies you work for because you’re there for the love of the work. The non-career doesn’t involve much marching. Instead, when opportunity calls, you leap. Fit your career around your life rather than the other way around. Let go of the notion of a linear, logical career path. More important is to attach yourself to great people, great teachers. People will deliver the impossible if you inspire them. Inspiration is a subtle art – a mix of empathy, respect, and love. In society we call obsessive-compulsive behaviour a disorder. People take medication to combat it. But when we demonstrate obsessive-compulsive behaviour at work and making money, it is considered completely normal and is amply rewarded. Part of letting go of career chasing is also letting go of status. Let your lifestyle be dictated by what you need to be happy, not what society prescribes as the trappings of success. Doing what you love to does, drive by passion may not get you up any ladder, but it will make your trip more interesting. It is up to you to define your life’s parameters. Notes by Frank Olsson 7/3/00 Cash flow comes from customers, not from Wall StreetYüklə 0,9 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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