INCLUSION AND COMMUNITY: Conversations of commitment

Lack of results or failed businesses can be traced back to the breakdown in community. –Peter Block

Here’s a “burst your bubble” statement: “We are not born with the innate skill to be team players.” Yep it’s true, we are born little ambassadors of selfishness and self focus. Almost as soon as we can walk we also start excluding others at an early age… from games to tasty treats.

The behavior of exclusion is an inborn “corporate” behavior. Learning to appreciate our differences as a community, to play together nicely, and be inclusive are learned behaviors. These behaviors are coached forward by great parents and leaders.

The middle ground in this domain of inclusion and community is a deep chasm. It is not easy to go against our normal nature  and strive to be more “in tune” on collaborating with others. We know that it takes time and focus to build relationships, yet so many times businesses and families choose to take the easy road.

Let’s all snap our arm with a rubber band and then recite the following…“The things I really want (or are worth having) in life take work, effort, and commitment”. Repeat this phrase as often as needed. To cross the chasm of self-centeredness to being more inclusive (and willing to invest in building community) you will need to be intentional and goal oriented.

Families and corporations are systems made up of human beings with needs, wants, and goals. At the same time there exists a complete set of accompanying circumstances that can either hinder or enhance the ability to achieve these desired outcomes. How do successful people and businesses overcome these road blocks and take advantage of opportunities? They choose unconditionally to work and support each other. Our business environments are filled with “conditions”.

Great parenting is leadership clothed in unconditional love. Successful families have an establish set of processes, implemented through parenting. These processes have the goal to generate important collaboration and cooperation for the greater good of the family and each individual collectively. Successful families are really practicing the very things that most corporate systems, filled with adults (by age calculation), really need in order to thrive and excel in most global economies and industries moving into the future.

Great leaders, like insightful parents, demand inclusion and design the conversation for community. That is, they influence what the community will talk about. This is not about control, but framing up the vision and building “the container for how and where a successful community can happen and produce results.

Commitment is a conversation about values and goals that will in turn define/lead to action for a desired future. Inclusion is what perfects commitment and builds a robust community that shares the incredible experience of being in action; action that truly makes a difference…action that matters. Not action that is busy work.

It doesn’t just take a community/village to raise a child as Hillary Clinton wrote. It takes a community that is actively involved in a conversation of commitment. The narrative within a business or family about “what is important” builds the community. When the discourse stops so does the community.

Business Application – The need for inclusion and community is evident in and reflected by the choices customers make regarding their purchases. Customers want to be a part of a community when they purchase. Think about how our purchases reflect our values and what we care about.  Why would your customers be any different? How would having a thriving community within your workplace impact the sense of inclusion with your customers?

© The Heartwood Group, LLC 2011

Coaching to Core Ideals – Networks of Power

This is the final post in this series Coaching to Core Ideals. There are several topics in the running and in the making! Stay tuned!

The IDEAL LEADER is 1) Visionary, 2) Authentic, 3) Disciplined, 4) Accessible, and 5) a Strategic Learner. See the Coaching to Core Ideals post to get a quick overview and context for the series.

The IDEAL LEADER is a STRATEGIC LEARNER.

1. Thinking their business “ahead” of the game and also their own skills and awareness
2. Networks within the industry and the company to gain important perspectives and knowledge to make decisions

My desire is to make a real contribution to the narrative on how leaders can truly impact the lives of those around them and live an intentional life…an integrated life. This post completes this series on “Coaching to Core Ideals”.  I thank all of you who have stayed with me on my sporadic writing journey on this subject. The funny part about writing this post is that I have made a significant breakthrough for myself. I have been writing poetry and capturing ideas privately for years and have many more things that I want to explore…stay tuned there is more to come!

Leaders in many ways ARE their network. If that is the case then we need to define or distinguish just what a network is and it is often used as a verb. What we now refer to as networking has much to do with the connections and linkages within the domain of computers and Internet exchanges. Have you experienced trying to get your work done when the “network is down”?  Without the proper connections you are powerless and inefficient at best. You rely on your network more than you realize. It’s value becomes dramatically real when it is gone or weak at a time you need it the most in your career and personal life.

Powerful or power-filled networks expand your capacity to take care of personal and business concerns into the future. When we don’t network to create relationships we lack the ability to even find a good plumber or reliable mechanic. Individuals often make very poor decisions about customer acquisition or important career decisions because they lack a solid network of relationship. Success or lack of it in work and life can be a reflection of our ability to network. Quantity is not the answer. The quality of your network has a direct impact on the quality of your life and work!

To make connections that help you learn strategically requires some tacit personal skills in communication and a focused awareness. It doesn’t mean you need to be a polished speaker or social butterfly. It just means you need to be able to connect with people and information in a way that it makes sense to what’s most important to you personally and professionally. Joining the right association, clubs, or attending relevant industry/social events can all be vehicles for accomplishing the construction of a network. There are formal clubs and sponsored networking associations that help people build relationships and get connected. You need to enter those with a clear idea of the “forsake of why” you are building your network. Clarity of purpose and what you value in relationships is more important than eloquent speech.

Networking requires a results orientation…a clear focus on results wanted and objectives for desired outcomes. Social networking has been made possible by using the Internet to connect easily to gain knowledge and perspective from a broader community…very quickly. LinkedIn and Facebook are just two examples… and all of these venues can now be linked together using applications. Now you can network in a very efficient manner and yet this still doesn’t make the “power” point. It makes the connection, but not the construction of how you gain power. Power isn’t money. Its your increased capacity to act upon what you want in your work and/or personal life.

Learning happens when we are in relationship with people and now directly with information. A direct relationship with information is a fairly new phenomenon that has been enhanced with the Internet and access to information. There is also the increased access to lots of misinformation as well. The constructs of power for taking action requires that you must be of help to others in your network. Your network of help can be a valuable asset for you to be able to take care of all the concerns that you have in work and life. Really the key to strategic learning is engaging with others to “be of help” to them. Learning requires a relationship (something or someone).

Strategic learners are more empowered to make the best or most prudent decision.  No one can make the “perfect” call every time and yet decision making is what leaders are paid to do well. Even more important is helping others to make good decisions. Coaching leaders around decision making is foremost about awareness and perspective. You must help a leader explore their own perspective and encourage them to come up with the “real questions” that are being asked. We often are looking for answers when we really should first be looking for the right question. Find the right question and the answer will show up.

Internal or external networking is fundamentally the same. So many individuals struggle to gain good networks within their company. The reasons can be many, but most of the failure resides in the assessment of the risk in doing it, commitment, and practical access to people within the system. It’s hard to network if leaders or people don’t hang out with their organization. Go back to the 4^th core value of being Accessible and you can now see how important it is that people within an organization have access to their leaders and each other. You can gain tremendous power in helping your direct reports to maneuver through this landscape.

I decided several years ago to just be open and accessible to others that “show up”. If someone needed help, I worked to help them. It didn’t mean I had to be the person they depended on…I connected them. If you can be a “place” where people can connect to get help you will get help. Try it out and let me know…your network will grow.

Well, this wraps up the posts for Coaching to Core Ideals. I am excited about the next adventures in writing and publishing. As I go forward I have some passions around sales leadership, leading transitions and transformation (especially those associated within business/agriculture), sharing poems, and many other “thought leadership” topics. Email me and make a request for any specific topic that you would like me to engage in as well. Don’t settle go for the IDEAL.

Core Ideals

In my center I live,

From my heart I give,

With my voice I build,

Relationship and meaning,

Speaking into others what could be,

Their very essence an ideal.

Coaching to Core Ideals – Game Changer: Think Before You Lead

This is another post in the series Coaching to Core Ideals.

The IDEAL LEADER is 1) Visionary, 2) Authentic, 3) Disciplined, 4) Accessible, and 5) a Strategic Learner. See the Coaching to Core Ideals post to get a quick overview and context for the series. We are going to break each sub-topic down over the next few weeks.

The IDEAL LEADER is a STRATEGIC LEARNER.

1. Thinking their business “ahead” of the game and also their own skills and awareness
2. Networks within the industry and the company to gain important perspectives and knowledge to make decisions

Indeed some leaders start out early in their career open and excited to learn and then over time they become stale and set in their ways. Being a game changer is not easy for even the very best leaders. It can be a very challenging thing in business environments to get people to be proactive in skill development. You can make requests as a leader and if those you depend upon to implement don’t understand the “why”… it is important they will resist changing. 

My first leadership coach instilled in me the value of being aware of my thoughts and being a game changer. He would constantly challenge my perspectives and story about what was important and were my interpretations of what was going on around me correct. Out of this learning I began to be less “certain” about my own “certainty”. In other words, I hold onto to my truth and assertions with a softer grip…and even more so as I age, mature, and grow as an adult learner.

Thinking ahead is using the past wisdom to create a future with the new knowledge and understanding acquired in the present moment. As you may have ascertained by now my posts are not about grabbing ideas from popular books or catchy themes, but rather putting meat on the bone of coaching and being coached as a leader. Your skills, your growth, and your awareness of your perspective have a direct impact on the success of business results. Learner and Leader are synonymous.

A leader brings perspective that helps make the vision become reality through business results.  Business success today has everything to do with what took place much earlier in the lifecycle of planning and working. My experience in a hyper growth sales environment taught me the critical value of sound strategy…backed by a passionate vision for the future. When things are moving quickly you need a compass guide. I learned very quickly that while the team I was responsible for focused on implementing against our current plan; it was my job to keep the agreed upon business objectives and progress in perspective of the longer view. That’s what a leader must do consistently.

Thinking “the business” ahead is about leading change AND casting a vision that not only stretches those you are leading, but you as well.  You must coach leaders to be out in front of their constituents “cutting brush” for the next path. Scouting “new ground” so-to-speak is where many organizations fail to transition their leaders and they remain stuck in a reactive mode. Reactive mode is really about being stuck as a learner or not being a learning organization. How an organization approaches  learning and training indicates the strength and potency of their vision.

In order to think the business ahead you must value the time and space to actually ponder, plan, assess, and learn. It goes against our very nature to stop and think things through rather than just jumping in the pool only to find out later we forgot to fill it with water first. Abraham Lincoln said, “If I had 8 hours to cut down a tree I would spend 6 hours sharpening my saw”. Everyone gets the logic in this, BUT it is easier to espouse than to actually put into action. Especially when you are seeing the future that others just can’t or don’t want to admit to be true. We bank on wishes instead of intentions for our future…and therein lies the dilemma of trust.

Trust in leaving the immediate and critical objectives of the present moment in the hands of well skilled “others”… IS the definition of delegation.  Yet if I didn’t take the time to build the skills needed I feel challenged to delegate. “You are going to have to serve somebody”, as Bob Dylan’s lyrics proclaim. Either you react or pro-act.  Changing ahead of time requires a strong sense of trust in your own ability to make good grounded decisions and speculate based on what you learn. Your ability to learn and think ahead of the game is a competitive advantage and a cultural tenet for great businesses and organizations. Once you get this rolling it is leadership euphoria.

Knowing when the next business chapter and transition is going to be arriving and preparing for it requires a learner’s mind. I coach leader’s to grow the skills they need tomorrow right now today. Because tomorrow never comes, when it arrives it IS today. So much of what we think is important just isn’t so. It’s not…wake up and be honest with yourself. You have no right as a leader to squander the gifts and talents you’ve been entrusted with let alone the people (and their families) that depend on you.

In summary, your ability to think the business and your skills ahead is in direct relationship with you understanding what you are committed to being for your organization. I can’t tell you how many organizations know that training and development is key to the future success of their people and organization’s results. Even when budget is not the issue, taking the “6 hours” needed to sharpen the saw is devalued. Leaders will feign dedication and let their organization off the hook. It is never just about money. It is about building into yourself and others the necessary skills need to make your future happen the way you want it to. Think about the story of Noah in the old testament. No better metaphor for listening to the future and taking care of it before it arrived.

I think this poem I’ve written some years back may speak to the essence of this core value for leaders.

Thoughts on Growth

By Mark Uhlenberg

 Growth…it hurts to grow.  Growing pains…they say.

The pain of growth comes with so much stress and strain.  We resist.

Even so, like the strongest of steel your own metal is tempered.

The very metal of your own soul and being,

The emergent you is refined and the unnecessary left behind.

Now here you come! Into the core of your life,

Cutting cleaner, sharper, and more decisively through all the chaos of transformation.

You become a transformer and not a resistor…a true “being”,

Able to change, maneuver, and create peace through the myriad of choices.

You are leaving a good, strong, and well-marked path.

Your journey through life now illuminated,

And all that seek you can find you at the “cutting edge” of your life breaking into a clearing.

You are a clearing created and now prepared for all those who follow.

A voice of clarity, expectation, and generosity of spirit that brings wholeness,

An open clearing of choice… a heart born voice…

Good ground for those that are wanting and willing.

Solid ground and space for slumbering and restless souls who need a gift.

It is in this clearing where the pain of growth gives way to anticipation!

No longer asleep. No longer restless.

Now awake, alive, transforming, and transformed!

Growth is you. Embraced and created, as you will.

 © The Heartwood Group, LLC 2011

Coaching to Core Ideals – Ideal Loser or Leader

This is another post in the series Coaching to Core Ideals.

The IDEAL LEADER is 1) Visionary, 2) Authentic, 3) Disciplined, 4) Accessible, and 5) a Strategic Learner. See the Coaching to Core Ideals post to get a quick overview and context for the series. We are going to break each sub-topic down over the next few weeks.

The IDEAL LEADER is ACCESSIBLE

1. Physically available to the right people at the right time
2. Adept at creating forums that important knowledge, information, and direction setting goals can be shared and understood.
3. Emotionally, mentally and intellectually available

If you strive to be an Ideal Leader then you must be mentally and intellectually available to people when you are physically with them. When you are investing your time as a leader to be with someone…BE WITH THEM! Sounds crazy simple, but some people leaders are checking the box with their people time. Ideal leaders should not only value, but cherish purposeful time spent with a constituent or employee.

Have you ever lost someone’s attention when their smart phone beeped, buzzed, or vibrated? To all the managers that use a Blackberry or iPhone while in a conversation or meeting with your team or an individual…you are an ideal loser and not a leader. I am witnessing this disturbing trend firsthand. It is growing exponentially with the advent of smart phones and technology. A manager or ideal leader “wannabe” can be with someone physically, but spiritually and mentally be checked out.

I don’t think leaders aspire to fail their people. BUT when you grab your “Crackberry” when you are with your team in a meeting or individually you do not show up as an Ideal Leader. You actually show up more like out-of-touch, self-important, pitiful folks that don’t understand that the people you lead want your full attention. Don’t squander your greatest opportunity. It is invaluable for a leader to gain real clarity and understanding for what is most important to their people and to also communicate what you value to them as a leader. You do this by being connected with them emotionally and intellectually and being fully attentive and present.

Unless you have a life or death phone call; turn it off and put it away…and focus on being accessible. Outside of truly urgent things your emails can wait. Emails or texts don’t need to be returned or answered within minutes or even seconds. Why would you let a device train you to serve it rather than it serving you? If all your issues are urgent, then you have entirely other dire problems that need handling before you can set down with another person or your team and do some real work.

Some of the greatest perceived risks (by leaders) show up when being vulnerable in sharing–not only what they are thinking, but what they are feeling. To share or show emotions at times can be powerful and also uncomfortable. Being “in control” is important for many of us as leaders. And it really is important. There are times that you need to check in with your feelings and emotions and make conscious choices about whether it is appropriate for the moment to share them. It has everything to do with emotional awareness.

Feelings are a great source of information for leaders and they often get discounted in value to leaders. This is a mistake. I am coaching leaders to distinguish the difference between acting out of or upon their feelings and being aware of them as strong indicators of energy and commitment. When we tune into our emotions and feelings we access some very surprising opportunities to make powerful choices.

Simply acknowledging your emotions can be the beginning of checking in with your commitments. When you put your smart phone away and then experience anxious feelings that you might be missing something…ask yourself, “What is my anxiousness really connected to?” Is it about being left out or not being in control? Is it a behavior that you have just fallen into? Because, just like Pavlov’s dog experiment you have acquired a conditioned response!

The vulnerable leader is a powerful leader that is open and trusts their self as an emotional being. This power comes from understanding their own context and relationship to their feelings and intellect. A more powerful way of being with your feelings is to use them as a great source of information. Feelings “inform” a leader about what’s going on with them within the domain of the situation they are experiencing. Ideal leaders see that the situation is really taking place within them. And their own filters or feelings are a big source how they interpret that experience and the accompanying emotions.

An Ideal Leader strives to consistently own their interpretation. When you can name it and choose your response you have become emotionally intelligent. An emotionally intelligent leader seeks clarity and understanding of the origins of their own feelings. There is a narrative within the domain of leaders and managers that simply goes something like this… “There is no room for feelings in when it comes to leading a business or managing people”.

Intuitively leaders have varying degrees of awareness for (or a sense for) what they are feeling. They can’t differentiate themselves or the issues from what is really going on within the business and its people. They often can shut down their awareness of “feeling” to protect themselves from being human. This makes some very important data inaccessible or rarely acknowledged for the value it can bring to the power a leader needs to make decisions.

When a leader either doesn’t acknowledge their feelings as real or they act out of them in an automatic response they are not a differentiated human being. It often takes some very real life challenges to break some leaders down. The biggest and toughest woman or man that leads a Fortune 50 can be reduced to tears of joy or sorrow. It just depends on how present they allow themselves to be with what is happening.

Even more challenging at times is to share what you are sensing. Leaders often know they are walking the thinking and intuition tight rope when decisions get made. Even the most important decisions facing a company or individual are often based more on “feeling” then the head. In many ways leaders can’t take risks in being vulnerable by sharing what they are “feeling” or sensing. So, it becomes a challenge to acknowledge that you can’t think your way out of a problem. When you allow others access to your feelings and sense then they can contribute to you…if you’ve put your smart phone away and listened.

Coaching to Core Ideals – Environmental Engineering of Success

This is another post in the series Coaching to Core Ideals.

The IDEAL LEADER is 1) Visionary, 2) Authentic, 3) Disciplined, 4) Accessible, and 5) a Strategic Learner. See the Coaching to Core Ideals post to get a quick overview and context for the series. We are going to break each sub-topic down over the next few weeks.

The IDEAL LEADER is ACCESSIBLE

1. Physically available to the right people at the right time.
2. Adept at creating forums where discussion and ideas get shared.
3. Emotionally, mentally and intellectually available

Leading is about engineering success at many levels within an organization. Leaders are focused often only on the “output”. This is only part of the equation. The larger and more complex an organization becomes the more vital it is that I coach leaders around process. Leaders are responsible for the entire environmental system. Leaders are responsible for results or the output that is needed to create success. Success is certainly measured often with financial metrics, but results can be other tangible and intangible defined outcomes.

As an “environmental engineer” you need to quickly learn basic systems theory. The diagram below will provide your master’s level description.

INPUT => PROCESS => OUTPUT

<= FEEDBACK <=

You have to make sure that you have 1) the right inputs, 2) defined output, 3) effective processes, and 4) a grounded feedback. This post will speak to value of the process of creating forums to gain feedback and desired output/results for success. Each process should have a goal and each goal serves its accompanying process as clearly connected to the success desired.

A forum is a PROCESS where conversation can take place and people can be heard. Being heard is a basic human need. Regardless of what that content is…it is important that those you lead experience being listened to by you and others within your organization. I was intrigued that the definition of forum also included the words OPPORTUNITY and MARKETPLACE. Forums are about opportunity and creating an environment that supports not only the values of a leader, but the values of those they lead. A savvy leader knows that meetings/forums are an asset and not a necessary evil that is endured just to get—“the damn thing over with”.

Could you agree with this next idea? The extension of your internal forums into the marketplace makes powerful sense for many leaders to consider. In fact, the quality of the conversations you practice as an organization or team will directly impact the quality and effectiveness of conversations in the marketplace. How many times have we as leaders wondered, even aloud to a battery of subordinates—“Why do our customers feel that we don’t appreciate them?” I

s there a forum in your business that discusses “appreciation and acknowledgement” of each other and the customer? There is great benefit in getting people together in dialogue to share ideas, learn together, and develop relationships that establish accountability to the most important outcomes needed to succeed. There are several types of forums that leaders use to communicate their ideas. Meetings are just one of the important forums that can be a place where important knowledge, information, and direction setting goals can be shared.

Unfortunately communicating or sharing goals does not ensure they are understood and acted upon proactively. My coaching to clients and organizations is the following. Leaders are responsible for creating effective forums that nurture a well informed and aligned community within their business. Become adept at this skill and it will lead to proactive action, accelerated learning, and accountability.

The word “forum” has its roots in the Roman culture of public spaces usually in the middle of a city where speaking and debate took place. It was an important part of the Roman culture. In these forums (or meeting places) ideas, beliefs, and relationships were built. They had social significance for those that were a part of the community. With the Internet and mobile technology we can now create virtual forums like discussion boards, social medium, and blog posts as needed to respond to needs of businesses and customers.

These forums are valid ways for virtual and geographically dispersed teams/organizations to be engaged and connected to important with leader’s dialogue. AND it is often a huge miss on a leader’s part to not take advantage of using a forum to dialogue with their people and organization. It’s not always what does get said that hurts a company as much as what doesn’t get said. The unsaid things (have fun with this one), especially around times of stress (from growth or downturn) in the business, are missing links to understanding.

Managing transition and stress requires keeping people’s minds “right” around how to interpret what is going on in their organization or marketplace. Even more interesting is that when a leader doesn’t communicate people will make crap up. We are “meaning makers’ and we are constantly trying to make sense of our environment. Missing conversations are as bad as or more damaging than poorly held discussions.

One of the most potent and powerful learning experiences I have had as a leader and coach was training on facilitative leadership. Not all of it was about managing meetings, but there was a significant portion of this training around the whole domain of—how we meet. The process of meeting involved managing relationship, process, and results simultaneously. The core premise still resonates with me some 16 years later now. Meetings (or forums) are a microcosm of the larger organization. If you observe how a team meets you have a good view of the macro environment or culture of an organization.

What have you observed as a leader at meetings? Let me make a short list…

1. No agenda and lack of desired outcomes for meeting

2. No process for making decisions or even lack of what decisions needed to be made and by whom.

3. Too much for time allotted or too little time for so much…take your pick.

4. No clear roles defined for the meeting…like a simple “time keeper” makes a huge difference along with a note taker that captures commitments made, so that we can hold each other accountable

5. No clear purpose for “why” we are meeting in the first place.

I could make a list 3 times longer, but you get the point in most likely in your own personal experience. Death by meetings as a phrase even became a book by Patrick Lencioni! It’s a good read and the hyperlink will give you a good summary. There is even a clock that keeps track of the cost of meetings in time investment.

Content of a meeting is extremely important. However, I have seen very good content lose out for lack of meeting process and facilitation. Forums (like meetings) done well are energy builders and not energy suckers. They are forums of opportunity and not just opposition! Some people believe that modern day corporate environments are structured in ways that prevent productivity. I cannot necessarily disagree with that idea…yet coaching is about possibilities and I don’t see much opportunity in that point of view.

My coaching point here is make meetings an asset not “ass” set. Why waste precious time, money, and resources of your people…and maybe even worse is the time you squander as a leader. You could be out with customers or employees doing meaningful work and make more progress. Better yet engineer the environment you need to create a successful conversation within your business and marketplace.

Coaching Points:

• Leaders are responsible for creating effective forums.
• Engineer the environment you need to create a successful conversation within your business and marketplace.
• Forums can be energy creators and leaders should use it build momentum towards meaningful action.
• Building an aligned community within your organization will lead to proactive action and accelerated learning.

Coaching to Core Ideals – Be There or Be Square

Coaching to Core Ideals – Be There or Be Square

This is another post in the series Coaching to Core Ideals.

The IDEAL LEADER is 1) Visionary, 2) Authentic, 3) Disciplined, 4) Accessible, and 5) a Strategic Learner. See the Coaching to Core Ideals post to get a quick overview and context for the series. We are going to break each sub-topic down over the next few weeks.

The IDEAL LEADER is ACCESSIBLE

1. Physically available to the right people at the right time
2. Adept at creating forums that important knowledge, information, and direction setting goals can be shared and understood.
3. Emotionally, mentally and intellectually available in ways that they take risks in being vulnerable by sharing not only what they are thinking but what they are “feeling” or sensing

As basic as it seems, the biggest challenge for any leader is to show up. The gift of your presence is surprisingly underestimated by many leaders. Failing to be with your direct reports on a consistent basis is costing businesses and leaders dearly. Being with your people can not only increase top and bottom line results, but has huge strategic significance for you as a leader. “Showing up” for your people is strategically important in impacting long term results in a marketplace.

Spending time with employees and constituents in your organization is the foundation of relationship. You can’t build relationship without spending time. Not sure you would pay a consultant a lot of money to figure this one out, but I’m telling you that leaders within many organizations are spending very little time “in relationship” with the greatest asset in their business—the human capital —their people. Reasons abound as to why leaders run a deficit in time spent with people.

In many businesses the “span of control” has increased over the last 20 years to ratios that make for a very challenging leader/follower relationship. The increasing global nature of businesses has broadened the geographic dispersion to more internationally. Research has indicated in years past that 7-10 people are the ideal and thought to be the best ratio where teams and managers were most effective. More recently because of economic pressures and technology advances organizations have flattened out. Consequently there have been managers responsible for more and more direct reports.

There are many variables that could influence how to effectively manage more people and be available to them in meaningful ways. Some of it depends on the skill level of the individuals and the type of work being done by them. It seems more appropriate to think about the relationship that is needed in order to drive the results needed. All this aside, I’ve seen managers and leaders with very few direct reports fail miserably in “being” with the people they have been entrusted to lead. Conversely I have seen others build powerful relationships in spite of the large number of people they lead.

It really comes back to a leader and business owner’s clear line of sight to the success of people and the impact on bottom and top line results. We talk more in the next post about the concept of designing forums and space for conversation. Personal skills of time management and prioritization on the leader’s part are vital to success regardless of the numbers of direct reports. Managing your time becomes increasingly important though as people responsibilities increase. You must be better at everything you do to gain efficiencies in your time spent on any given task.

There are many ways that leaders determine when and where to invest in their human capital. With increasing span and consolidation/growth in the size of businesses segmenting employees has become essential in the talent development and management process. The implementation of the process of segmenting employees can be a good thing as long as it is kept in perspective. Success in leading people is ultimately done through commitment to a relationship to people and not a process. Processes should always serve people not the other way around.

Situational leadership is a great example of how a leader determines the focus and need of each individual. It really is a simple approach to making sure you spend time with the people that need you the most.  And when you are with them you are focused on the right conversation.

A good leader develops “the competence and commitment of their people so they’re self-motivated rather than dependent on others for direction and guidance”. – Paul Hersey

 The main thing I appreciate about situational leadership is that there is no one “perfect style” of leading people. Situational Leadership articulates that employees need support in building the necessary commitment and competency to perform. You can then determine not only what to spend time on with a person, but even the level of intensity. There may indeed be a time when those you lead have the skill, but lack the necessary commitment to be successful and vice versa. Understanding when someone’s performance is due to lack of skill or motivation is paramount to knowing what conversation needs to be taking place.

Showing up and being there for your people IS your job. BEING THERE is the core asset  whether you are the CEO of a global organization, president of a country, or line supervisor at a factory. Not being there could change the success of the person in their job and career and the long or short term success of the business. There are times that are critical points of a career, a business, and/or a crucial circumstance that will change the trajectory of a career or business; making yourself accessible is what wins the day for those looking to you as a leader in times that really count. And it counts every day.

 

Coaching to Core Ideals – Are You An Owner or A Renter

This is another post in the series Coaching to Core Ideals.

The IDEAL LEADER is 1) Visionary, 2) Authentic, 3) Disciplined, 4) Accessible, and 5) a Strategic Learner. See the Coaching to Core Ideals post to get a quick overview and context for the series. We are going to break each sub-topic down over the next few weeks.

The IDEAL LEADER is DISCIPLINED

1. Makes tough decisions in a timely manner
2. Talks straight and moves forward with feedback effectively and courageously
3. Does the not make their problems anyone else’s, they own them and act accordingly

In coaching leaders; whether they own their own business, lead an organization, or a team of sales and account managers there is one constant. Successful leaders are experienced in embracing their problems as their own and enlisting others in their network to help them. It never works to blame the market place or the incompetent leaders below you on the organization chart. Who do you think they get their leadership from anyway? This is not just a leadership play to run, but a powerful way to be with life’s twists and turns. The experience of owning anything is entirely different than renting or leasing it. Yet we all experience when we default to not excepting the “deed” on problems we face. Why would we treat the things we work so hard to acquire or dedicate so much of our lives to like they have no value? Doesn’t make sense does it.

Here is a part of the answer. When we have a clear line of sight to what we want from our life and business it brings more clarity to how we approach solutions to our problems. Our point of view is oriented in a totally different way. I heard this perspective quickly and simply explained like the following…

Scenario #1 – You’re driving a rental as a loaner while your car is being fixed and you need something at Wal-Mart. It’s a quick stop and these are the nastiest parking lots with high traffic and lots of shopping carts. Do you park way back in the empty spaces or do you drive as close as you can and even squeeze it into tight spot?

Scenario-#2 – You have been saving for 5 years and just purchased the car of your dreams. It’s a vintage Corvette or a latest model of the luxury brand you only dreamed of owning some day. Everything you ever wanted in a vehicle is now at your fingertips. Hey, it could even be a minivan! Now where do you park this vehicle? Even when you are in a hurry?

Likely the answer to Scenario #1 is YES to squeezing it into a narrow spot up close. At minimum you really aren’t even concerned with where you park unless you are trying to get your 10,000 steps a day in. The answer to the second scenario is likely—somewhere way back in the open spaces away from the masses of parked cars. Or maybe not, because there are a lot of people that treat their cars just like they treat their problems—they are renting them!

The car example defines that ownership can carry with it a completely different perspective. Ownership is an experience that has accompanying levels of responsibility. It’s still a challenge to sufficiently explain the concept of owning our problems and then getting into action on solutions. Mostly it is challenging because it is an experience or a way of being. There are employees or retail partners that have problems and struggle in overcoming obstacles that will grow their business. In corporate settings they can often serve as a rich resource of scapegoats for business owners and leaders. It is much easier to tell a story why something isn’t working or the numbers aren’t adding up—than to say …”I’ll own this one, now let’s look at some solutions. What’s possible here?”

Let’s look at the two words that can often start out most sentences for those just “leasing a problem”. IF ONLY…

• The marketing department had a better strategy.
• Operations had their stuff together.
• Leadership listened better to our customers.
• The price was lower.
• Our people could handle negotiations more effectively.
• I could win the lottery!

What does it really mean to own your problems? When does a problem become my problem and not someone else’s? How do I own something I don’t even control? If you have a case of the “IF ONLY’S” you need to find the cure and quick before you become irrelevant as a leader. This isn’t a “big company” problem. Individuals and small business owners can get caught up in this as well even when their own net worth is at stake. The magic comes when you can turn the culture of a business into one that doesn’t mouth the words “act like an owner”—it is powerful when you experience leaders acting like owners. Shoulder it up and move on down the trail.

What’s the magic in this discipline? It’s taking initiative at its very root. When I can have my business filled with solution oriented people it is a great day as a leader! Most likely the employees and down stream leaders are supported to solve problems on their own. They also have the resources and moral support behind them to ask for help. Realistically you will always have to stay in the game on this concept of being disciplined. We drift. Overtime we mellow out like fine wine and turn back into a fine “whine”. It is understandable that you don’t control all the outcomes or circumstances. I have to coach leaders to stay drilled in on the things they can control and influence. Crap happens even to the best of us, but how we deal with that “crap” is about being responsible. Able to respond in a way that will optimize and not minimize. How we deal with crap is all about responsibility. Park your car where you want…it’s your choice. You will just have to fix the dents in your leadership later. I leave you with this thought—if you have something be a problem then its your problem. You can decide what you will do about it and get after it or let it go. Get on it or get off of it and move on.

Next time—Ideal Leaders are ACCESSIBLE.  Where are you hiding out? Can my leader come out to play?

Bonus Read (read on if you like, I take a poke at corporate HR) —Have any of you ever evaluated an employee in a corporate setting on their pattern of behavior? I can bet one of those “desired” behaviors was listed as—“ Acts like an owner” most likely in the decision making category. A classic sub-description is—Takes responsibility and initiative to accomplish a given task”. This idea of getting employees to act like owners is missing the boat. In reality I’m an employee with an mid-year and annual review that has a manager that wants me to act like an owner. Now if I own a lot of stock in the company that I work for I just may feel more like an owner. The problem is this—I just don’t get treated like one most days. And in fact when you own stock all you really have is the right to vote at annual meetings and that has been automated. The answer lies in the conversation above. And the question is what do I really own?  These latest fads in Corporate HR efforts to find some magic words to manipulate the masses just don’t work.

If you are asking me, to join in the concerted efforts of making “stakeholders” and the CEO with his crew more money; that’s a rental car move (see story above). If you have outlined to me as my leader and manager what the employment transaction is and what you want from me in performance—I can make that connection. I can also then own my dreams and how that transaction with you will make those dreams come true. Plus, I’m watching you as my leader to learn just what owning my problems really is like…it’s an experience that helps me with my own career and portfolio of skills. If your people aren’t doing what you want them to it’s your fault not theirs.