Is Duncan Watt's just another Gladwell...

So I am halfway through Watts' book "Everything is Obvious: Once you know the the answer" and pretty much thinking.. Maybe Watts' should take his own advice...

Watts' rightly points out that Gladwell takes things a bit far with his ideas on nodes and social change, but Watts' commits the same errors himself. While I can agree that online social networking is real... there is clear evidence that online social networking is different from face-to-face social networking.. And pretty much the bulk of Watt's conclusions are based only on his research using online research (so far). While his points are valid when he is describing how humans operate in online communities (itunes purchasing), it really doesn't translate to face-to-face organizational cultures. Watt's assumptions that these environments are the same, and because his sample size is so large.. ignores fundamentals of research design and practice, but it also ignores research done by real OD scientists. It appears he commits the same sins he claims Gladwell does.. and over emphasize his points.. It is obvious to Watt's that Gladwell is wrong... cause he knows the answer.. I would argue they are both partially right and wrong.

That said, I am going to keep reading Watts.. he makes several good points.. and online networking is reshaping our traditional networks.. so it is still good read.. just not as accurate as I would have hoped.

Leading Change

I was honored this week to give the inaugural presentation to the National Association of Extension Program and Staff Development Professionals (NAEPSDP) across the Internet. The topic was leading through the sea of change. It is available online if you would like to listen in to what I shared.

https://connect.extension.iastate.edu/p32206844/

Succession Planning needs a new conversation

In the October HR magazine.. Theresa Minton-Eversole reports that most companies are unprepared for succession at the top. Not to diminish her contribution, but this has been a common theme now for a good 15 years. Just pick through any of the management, human resource, or organizational development mags and you will find articles saying the same thing.

When we coach managers on correcting employee behavior, we tell them that when a pattern emerges of repeat behavior, the conversation needs to change. When an employee is continuously late, it is a different matter than when they have only been late once or twice. Well, the pattern around succession planning has been there 15 years... leaders worry about it and then ignore it. And although HR and OD experts have continuously spoken to the need for better succession planning, I am familiar with few organizations that are even doing a good job with just workforce planning. Just having a staffing plan seems to be a challenge to today's organizations and few if any, once they identify gaps are spending the resources to fully develop their next leaders.

So the question is, what needs to change in the conversation to get leaders to invest in leadership development. What will help today's executive and leaders come to understand that investing a little now in development will save lots later... you tell me.. I have an answer, but would love to hear your thoughts first?

Lessons in Death

I have been honored to serve on my church council now for almost four years. Along with the role of giving leadership to decisions our church has to make, the council gets the honor of also serving the church. What that means is ushering during services, collecting money, even vacuuming after services when the cleaning crew is not available. In a sense, you lead by serving and there is a profound lesson in vacuuming at 11pm on Holy Friday so that the church will look good on Easter Saturday that gives you a great sense of humility. But of all the lessons I have learned serving my church, the best of these lessons have come to me when I have served on duty for funerals. It is a honored experience to help someone who has just lost a treasured loved one even when you don't know them. Over the years, I would say I have attended a number of funerals in which I knew very few of the family. Despite my distance from the family, each was always a moving experience for me. Each taught me the lesson of serving others I don't know. Most recently I watched a small funeral take place at the same time as people were voting in another part of the church.

Now.. I am all for ensuring everyone rights to vote, but I found it quite interesting how individuals who were campaigning were somewhat surprised when I asked them politely to avoid approaching anyone who looked like they were attending the funeral. Inside, the director of the voting process also kept worrying me about making sure the funeral didn't interfere with people trying to vote (I purposely closed doors as the beginning and end when there is a procession with the deceased.. he was nice..but still worried too much about voters and not the family). Now I am old enough to remember when we use to pull over to the side of the road, stop and say a prayer when a funeral procession drove by.. but times have changed. Recently I even saw individuals passing a funeral procession. The lesson in this post is a simple one..

We need to be there for people, even strangers if we hope to be authentic leaders. Leadership is more than decisions and being in charge... it is about serving others even in death. Some three years ago I was asked to be a pall bearer. The gentleman who died had lots of family, but through the years while I was on duty, I had helped him overcome the challenges of his age and his widow wanted me to carrying him his last walk. I was very honored. But above all, I realized that it is at those moments of sadness that people need service most.. To this day she is a special person in my life even though we have never had lunch, never took a walk, or even spent more than a minute or two speaking after church. She remembers my gift.. or really her gift to me. As for her husband, I trust he is somewhere and knows what a great honor I was given, but more important he probably knows I am a better servant today thanks to our last walk...

Generation X & Y Myths

While there are generational differences in workers today, I find too many people claiming way more differences that there really are. Jennifer Deal has an excellent book out "Retiring the Generational GAP" that deals with many of the myths. Here are some of the core principles she shares:

1. All Generations have similiar values: They just express them differently!
2. Everyone wants Respect: They define it based on the context.
3. Trust Matters to everyone!
4. People want (expect) leaders who are credible and trustworthy (See Principle #3).
5. No matter how old or young, organizational politics is a challenge.
6. No one really likes change! (Yes all of us.. some of like making others change though)
7. Loyalty depends on the context, not on the generation! "Promote me... then I'll be loyal!"
8. If you do the right things... it is as easy to retain young employees as your old ones!
9. Everyone wants to learn!
   
10. Almost everyone wants a coach.

And one more telling fact that kills the myth of the Gen X culture:

Between the ages of 31-35.. early Xers change jobs less often than the early boomers! Between the ages of 20-25, late Xers change job about as often as boomers.. In 2o years we will know more, but the truth is there is far less to be made about the Gen X culture being less loyal or commited to work!

Those of you who have sat though one of my presentation on Social Networking where I also discuss the Art of Persuasion.. might remember me using Jimmy V's great ESPY talk to demonstrate the art of the motivating others toward a goal. Well.. It is Jimmy V week! Here is a nice reflection page on Jimmy V! And if the thought of saving lives through more cancer research moves you, make a donation!

Randy Pausch - Forever in our Memory

Randy Pausch
1960 to 2008

Randy was a born just a little two months after this author in the year 1960. In his short life, he did much to help all of us with technology, innovation and to view the world in a little better way. In a way, being my age - his age, created a connect with him that left me deeply engaged with his journey. After reading his book, I was taken back by the thought that in the 48 years he has danced upon the planet and soared well over what most would have thought possible.

Randy was a role model... Look at the way he showed us how to live!

Randy was a teacher... There is much we as leaders can learn from just watching him teach.

Randy was inspirational - We were all taught the grace of facing death in a way that was very inspiration.

For his courage, his honesty, his openness... My hope is that his children will always know that he will always be with us. His spirit was great! My greatest hope is that I can one day face death with as much character and courage as he did.

I will end with a Jimmy Valvano quote:

“Cancer can take away all my physical ability. It cannot touch my mind; it cannot touch my heart; and it cannot touch my soul. And those three things are going to carry on forever.”

Randy Pausch.... exemplified Mind - Heart - Soul! Forever in our memory!

Is your work meaningful?

The need or drive to seek pleasure (Freud)

and the relentless pursuit of power (Adler)

were really just attempts to cover up,

but not necessarily fill, a

“void of meaning”

that existed in the lives of these individuals.

-Alex Pattakos on Viktor Frankl’s principle on the “search for meaning”

Emotional Attachement = Customer Engagement

Hot off the presses.. Human Sigma is HOT.. A must read for anyone who is interested in customer or employee engagement. John Fleming lays out for us all a great model for evaluating our efforts at customer satisfaction that is logical and research based. I love it and plan to use it to complement my already robust customer service programs. The model lays out four levels of Emotional Attachment.. the kind of attachment that has been proven to positively impact the financial statement. The model looks at these four dimensions:

• Confidence: What are you doing to create customer trust in your services? Would your customers say you always deliver on your spoken and unspoken promises?
  
• Integrity: Do you treat your customers fairly? When something goes wrong, do you apologize for the problem? How fair are you in resolving the problem?
  
• Pride: Do your customers have a positive sense of association and identification with you? Are they proud to be your customer? Does their association with you mean something to them personally? Does it define their own self-concept of who they are?
• Passion: Would your customers consider life not worth living without you? Ok.. that is a bit much, but the concept is the same... Are you indispensable? Would they drive across town for you? How much passion do they have for you?

I will use a easy example to bring these home.. Think of the last time you flew somewhere on an airplane, where things didn't quite go as well as you hoped.. close your eyes and imagine yourself waiting to get on the flight...

Confidence: How sure were you that the flight would leave on time? Were you confident that you would get where you were going on-time and with your baggage?

Integrity: Now whatever went wrong has happened.. they have been delayed, or your bags are gone.. etc..Do you think they treated you fairly? Did they demonstrate respect for you?

Pride: After the flight.. did you go around bragging on how you traveled.. I mean, did you become a poster child for the airline?

Passion: Now suppose you are going to fly again next week.. how important is it for you to fly on this same airline.. if they can only offer you bad connections or cost more, would you still fly on them?

Most likely, you answered no to all of these questions. It is sad, but I think the deck is stacked against airlines. They don't help themselves much, but they have little chance of overcoming the confidence dimension. Some have risen above.. take Southwest.. you could argue that they do most of these well. I have run into a few Southwest Air Passion Freaks in my days.. Better examples might be Apple or Nordstroms.

There is another piece of this pie as well.. It also links up to employee engagement:
Confidence is about knowing what to expect.. Integrity is about respect and recognition, Pride is about belonging and inclusion (FIRO), and Passion is about connecting to some future goal.. The result is employee engagement.. which equals retention. Incidentally, these concepts also overlap with concepts in Lencioni's new book on misery! :)

CEO = Self-Deception

Further evidence is presented in the September Harvard Review... CEO's often think their leadership team is doing better than the senior members of that team. When assessed on the following questions, CEO's reported the team as doing much better than the mean of the other senior members of their team:

• The Team is effective overall?
• Decision-making processes are clear
• Team deals well with conflict
• Members put the welfare of the organization above interests of their own divisions or functions
• CEO provides effective direction for the team.

The study is really nothing new, but it still reinforces the challenge for all leaders: Staying in touch with reality when most of your direct reports will sugar-coat what they tell you.

Nine Things They Don't Tell you about Leadership

Nine Things They Don't Tell you about Leadership
by Mitch Owen

1. Job Skill is one-third of the success equation.
Knowledge and skill is important, but it equals about 1/3 of the equation for success. Making successful decisions and building strong relationships are just as important.

2. 95 percent of real leadership is in doing the hard work.
Being in the leadership means you get to go to nice meetings and eat wonderful meals.. but the truth is great leaders know.. it is all in doing the hard jobs. Your people remember you most when your there during the tough times. Here is an easy question.. how many funerals and hospitals did you visit this past year? Think about it.. I still remember one of my dad's former football players just because he choose to fly 500 miles and spend a weekend telling me what my dad meant to him. I would follow him anywhere!

3. Everything is not equally important, but everything is very important.
Yes.. it says what it says. Somethings are more important.. One of the toughest job is deciding what is most important and staying focused on that and only that.. and yes.. everyone thinks everything is important, so be prepared to have a few doubters.. especially when you don't value their special projects as most important.

4. Most complex problems are really simple, we just don't like the answer.
Several years ago, an organization I was advising got into financial trouble. The creditors were bang on the door and even threating to foreclose. The President looked at me and said, this is such a complex problem, I am not sure what to do. Truth was, it was a very simple problem.. he just didn't want to face the truth. He had to sell a portion of his business to save the rest. Sure, he could use bankruptcy protection, but the solution was still the same. We did 23 different scenarios showing them the same basic answer.

5. Don’t forget where your taking them.
Much of leadership is making strategic choices where you want to take your team and then staying true that choice. In sports it is easy.. score the most goals, win games. win a championship, etc.. In life, it is not as simple. In my experiences, leaders have a tough time choosing what their goals will be. When they do choose a single focused goal, they usually do quite well. I am reminding of companies like Southwest.. who transformed an industry by focusing very specifically on things that matter.

6. When you throw your weight around, you usually fall.
One of the toughest dynamic of being a great leader is to exude confidence without being arrogant. No one follows you if they think you don't know what your doing, but no one wants to be around someone who looks and acts like s/he knows it all.

7. In the end.. it is personal
Everyone says that business is business.. it's nothing personal. Truth is, it is personal. Most employees who leave a job, do so because they don't think their boss cares about them. Caring about people is one of the most underused techniques in building teams. Trust me.. we all want our boss to care about us.

8 The rest of the world counts.
Even your enemy's matter in the world of leadership. Don't burn bridges.. don't hurt people when their down. Remember that even strangers matter in the long run. Touch strangers with your endless meaningful little acts of compassion and build friendships. Years from now, one of those strangers might end up being your boss...

9 Failure is necessary to be successful
If you really hope to be successful, you have to fail a time or two. It's true, there is even research to back it up. Not only does it give you humility, it also teaches you how to avoid failure when it really matters. So, if your having a rough year, just think of it as your last year in grad school..

Six Million Dollar Question

One of my favorite teachers from college was my soil science teacher: Dr. Martini. Although he was my best friend's father and quite entertaining, I think the main reason I grew to like his classes so much was the related to "Six Million Dollar Questions." Dr. Martini would teach in a very engaging style and at points in the lecture.. he would state "This is the six million dollar question.. if you don't know this question, don't even bother to come to class for the test!" Even more astonishing, was the fact that years later, I found that my grasp of soil science is still strong and those six million questions (or answers) made all the difference in my vegetable garden. It wasn't knowing the material that was so crucial to success.. it was knowing the right part of the material.. So, how does this relate to todays leadership challenges...

Today, most of are faced with challenges where there are no Dr. Martinis to lay out the six million dollar questions? We are looking at a large text book of material, having to make decisions on what to do and what not to do... and we often don't have clues as to which of these questions are most important.. and which can be ignored. We are overwhelmed with the hundreds of actions that we could take and we know that we have time for only a few... Let's take a simple problem:

If you offer a product, you should be doing some customer evaluation of that product.. and given what I have seen in my experiences.. most of you have somewhere from 10 to 25 questions your asking.. but is there a six million dollar question? Just one question that will serve you well.. allow you to evaluate a product and move on to decision.. the research says yes: The six million question is:

Would you recommend this product to a friend?

Yes.. all the other questions are helpful.. but asking this one question tells you whether this is a product that will continue to be wanted by your customer.

I would suggest that their are other six million dollar question that we learn from our leadership experiences. Do you have any. I have a buddy who use to tell me this one:

Does creating this rule control 1% of your workforce, while penalizing and limiting the other 99% of your workforce?

Of course.. we have those kind of rules, but the answer is hopefully no in most cases. What are the other six million dollar questions you can ask that will help you move through the complexity of today's leadership? Please share your's so that we all can learn from you experiences!