Career Kaizen #5 - 5 Days of Leadership

Monday - Level 5 Leadership

Leaders help team members
solve their own problems.

Most agree leadership is important, but there are many definitions out there. Are you a leader? Do you have leadership in you? The ScrumMaster role is often described as a servant leader, so it's worth some focused time on it.

One of the classic business books is Good to Great. In the book, Jim Collins talks about Level 5 Leadership, the highest of all and a level few CEO's attain. There are good metaphors that describe that type of leader.

First, these leaders look out the window to assign credit, and look in the mirror to assign blame. Always try to deflect to the team when someone looks at the results and says "You've done a great job leading the team," especially if it's in a public situation, like a meeting. There are many ways to do this, for example, "It's not me. It's the team. Anyone could have done it if they had a team like this," or "Thank you, but really, the team is the one responsible. They have really put in a lot of time, effort and heart into this, " or even just point to some specific positive aspect of the team (perhaps from one of their retros), "The team really feels that _______ has been the key ingredient to the success we've had."

Second, these leaders want to make clock-builders, not be time-tellers. Rather than always have the answer, or be quick to solve someone's problem, Level 5 Leaders help team members solve their own problems or find their own answers. This builds their own abilities, ownership of the solution, empowers self-organization and makes teams faster. Many times making a clock-builder can be started by responding to a question with "What do you think?" I've been surprised how many times they already have an idea, they're just looking for feedback, support, or political covering. You can answer with, "Well, try that out and let me know how it goes," and watch as the team begins to solve more and more of their own problems.

Homework: Ask yourself: Does it feel good to solve people's problems? To be needed? Or to be able to help? Is your value based in part on how critical you are for things to get done? Are you okay with them figuring out everything by themselves?

Tuesday, Common Team Needs

Marcus Buckingham said that the difference between management and leadership is that management looks at what is unique among people, and capitalizes on it, while leadership looks at what is common among people and capitalizes on that.

Knowing what the common concerns are, or addressing a common need, is important. Vision, a key leadership trait, is pointing to a common goal or destination that enables a group to rally around and towards that - a common goal or challenge as they struggle, fail, win and journey together.

Homework: Look at the common felt needs of employees compared to what management thinks they need. What do you think the top three for your team members are? List them in the next retro and have the team dot vote them.

Wednesday - Positional or Influential Leadership

The challenge, and the blessing, of leadership in the ScrumMaster role is that you do not have authority over the team. You can't tell them or force them to do anything. Yet, traditional, authoritative leadership is actually the lowest form of leadership. People aren't as likely to truly be following you as a positional leader (for example, a manager). They are doing what you say, whether they like it or not, because they have to. In those situations, they're not giving the positional leader their best, but only the minimum required. Just enough to not get in trouble or fired or noticed.

Having people listen to you, follow you, as a servant leader means you must learn and grow in the powerful area of influential leadership. Forming relationships, understanding their needs and concerns, fighting on their behalf, protecting them, taking hits for them.

Homework: Looking back over history, who do you admire? Any heroes or people that you respect the work they did, the impact they had, or the challenges that they overcame? If so, in what ways can you apply lessons from them for your life and work now? What would they tell you?

Thursday - People Development Wins Championships

You must develop team members to win championships

John Maxwell wrote a very popular book on leadership. A few quotes from him:
"You can't lead people without liking them."
"At one level, you focus on becoming a change agent - focusing on productivity."
"Productivity wins games. People development wins championships."
"Besides the obvious competence, effort and skill, leadership also depends on intentionality."
"To succeed as a leader, you must help others move forward."

Homework: Pick one of the quotes you like (or another quote from the web page), print it out large to post on your wall at work, and small to put on your bathroom mirror or car dashboard. Keep it in front of you for a week. Don't start your computer or end your day without looking at it (even better to say it to yourself) or start your car or brush your teeth without the same.

Video Fridays

Stanton Complex - face the brutal facts, but don't let go of hope. In 1965, Captain Stanton was shot down and in a POW camp in Vietnam. While others kept believing any day that they'd be released, the reality was they weren't. These people ended up giving up, or worse. Stanton was hopeful, but not unrealistically so, and faced the reality that, also, they may never be released.

On your team, in your company, it may look grim. It doesn't help to believe things will magically change based on nothing other than your wishful thinking. And yet, we have to hope and believe that there is a chance, a chance worth fighting for, that they someday could.

Always respond positively. Don't join others in their complaining. Focus on solutions - what can you change, what experiment, what can you ask for, that might help. If you're not sure, ask yourself, "Is this noble or excellent?"

Homework: Watch the video of Jim Collins (or listen to his audio clips), or Patrick Lencioni.

Weekend Warrior: Review all of Jim Collins Hedgehog Concept items. List out the five levels of leadership.

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Teams, Being Smart Isn't Enough! You Have to Be Healthy

Some notes from hearing Patrick Lencioni at The Leadership Summit in August... 

Lencioni started by saying that much of what he was going to share were things we all already know, and quoted Samuel Johnson, saying "People need to be reminded more than they need to be instructed."

For the second time during the conference, I heard someone talk about Southwest Airlines (the first time was by Jim Collins). Lencioni started his talk, as he starts his new book The Advantage, by sharing a story from Southwest Airlines. For those who don't know, Southwest is the most successful airline, in a very competitive field, when looking at financial consistency (143 consecutive profitable quarters, including the only major airline to do so following 9/11), and customer satisfaction (consistently at the top for lowest customer complaints, most on-time flights and fewest baggage problems).

Lencioni was at a leadership event at Southwest listening to presentations detailing Southwest’s values (the ‘Southwest Way’ - a Warrior Spirit, a Servant’s Heart, and a FunLUVing), their unorthodox approach and the things they do to make their customers happy. He was sitting next Southwest CEO Gary Kelly. Lencioni leaned over and asked, "Gary, why don't your competitors do any of this." It was a rhetorical question, but he said, "Honestly, I think they think it's beneath them."

Building a Heathly Organization

Organizational health is the single greatest competitive advantage in business. It is virtually free and accessible to any leader who wants it, and yet it remains ignored by most leaders and virtually untapped in many organizations. Too many leaders think it's beneath them. It's not measurable enough. Not immediate enough, not push-button results.

To better understand why this is, Lencioni used contrast. In order to maximize success and to be the best, there are two requirements for success. You have to do things well in these two categories:

Be Smart	Be Healthy
Finances	Minimal Politics
Strategy	Minimal Confusion
Marketing	High Morale and Productivity
Technology	Low Turnover

Being Smart is all good stuff. You should be solid in the areas of strategy, marketing, finance, and technology. It's only half of what a company needs to be successful, but gets about 98% of leaders attention. We are more comfortable with those things that are easier to measure and less emotional. But to change organizations you have to make them healthier!

Southwest is fabulous, not because they are smarter than their competitors, but because Southwest is so healthy as an organization. They get so much more out of their number of employees than their competitors do.

CEO's want to improve their companies, but it's like a classic scene from I Love Lucy. In the scena, Lucy is on her hands and knees looking at the carpet in the living room. Ricky comes in and asks what she's doing.

"Looking for my earrings," she replies. 

"Did you lose them here in the living room?" 

"No, I lost my earrings in bedroom, but the light out here is so much better."

CEO's know they are missing some things on the human, touchy-feely right side, but they are out of their comfort zone in dealing with them, so...they gravitate back to the left side. They focus even more on strategy and technology, etc. But the truth is, if we want to change the organization, we have to make it healthier.

Thirty years ago, the Smart side was new. There were lots of gains to be made by focussing on that side. But now, you can't distinguish your company by focussing only on the Smart side. You can have lots of great people working at your company, and they can all have the domain expertise to be awesome. But you won't be able to tap into it. You won't bring out their potential. Southwest's people aren't smarter than their competitors. But they use every bit of knowledge they have.

Organizational health is the multiplier.

The next post will be on "How do we do it?"

A Slice of Humble Pie

Yesterday, as I climbed up my back steps, I had a realization that made me swallow real hard - like a something difficult to get down. It was, as we knew growing up in Texas, a slice of "humble pie."

Photo by Joselito Tagarao via Flickr using a CC-BY license.

Eating a slice of humble pie means that you rightfully were humbled. It could be the team asked if they could rotate the ScrumMaster and you're the ScrumMaster. It could be your team building idea completely flopped. Maybe a friend told you that you were the wrong in some gripe you've been carrying around for weeks. Your stock picks have brought what saving you had to almost nothing. In some ways, it's acknowledging failure. Although you might have failed, you are not a failure. And as John Wooden said, You aren't a failure until you start to blame. Failure is good medicine for us, but we often don't want to take it. We avoid owning failure - it hurts - and turn to blame someone or something else. Humility allows us to cut out the cancer from the body of experience, separating the good from the bad. Keeping the good things we need to learn from what happened, while cutting out the stinkin' thinking. Sometimes we need to realize that we're not great at everything, a shadow attitude that makes it more difficult to really listen and value other people's opinions. Humility isn't thinking yourself nothing, it's not thinking more of yourself than you ought.

For me, it was realizing that some was better than me at what I do. Even though I had been doing it longer, and I had even helped them, they were now far past me. Rather than push the surgical knife away by saying that they were doing better because of luck and circumstances (more on that from Jim Collin's later), I had to acknowledge that this person was simply more driven and hard working than I was. And that was hard for me to accept. But owning this allowed me to pause and ask myself, "Why are not so passionate so as to be that driven and hard working? What is not clear about your vision and goals that it's not that motivational for you?" That was the golden take away from this experience - my personal mission statement wasn't clear enough, and certainly didn't have a clear strategy, to empower me.

Jim Collins wrote in Good to Great that Level 5 Leaders look in the mirror to assign blame. This core leadership character trait and value doesn't come easily and needs to be developed. We don't get promoted into some leadership platform and then begin working on getting these leadership traits. Unless we already have them, the sudden, new power (however small) will quickly begin to corrupt and blind us. Instead, we develop these traits which will then qualify us for, and pull us up and forward into, leadership opportunities.

Resources
Patrick Lencioni's Fart Story (yes, really)
Humilitas by John Dickson: How the Virtue of Humility Can Turn Your Strengths into True Greatness in all Areas of Life
Great Video Clip on humility from John Dickson and Patrick Lencioni from The Leadership Summit
Jim Collin's Good to Great Diagnositic Tool

Looking Back at 2011

I had one of those great, intellectually charged conversations the other day with a colleague and friend, one of those discussions that leaves your mind abuzz. One nugget that came out of it was what books I had read this last year that have had the biggest impact on me as an agile coach and trainer. Here's the list I shared with him:

Must Read

Switch - How to Change When Change is Hard - A great read with lots of science and stories behind how and why people and groups change. Provides a structure to follow in leading change. A must-read for coaches and those leading change efforts.

The Lean Start-up - Eric's book provides the framework, reasoning and experience on how to swiftly determine the product to build. More than that, Eric provides pragmatic understanding of why traditional businesses and management behave the way they do, and how to deliver measurable, actionable way to change that. A must-read for anyone in IT, product development, management or executive leadership (so, everyone). 

Getting Naked - Shedding the Three Fears that Sabotage Client Loyalty - Patrick Lencioni shares what makes real consultants (and consulting) awesome, versus those traditional consulting companies that we all love to hate. A must-read for anyone in consulting or in other ways provides professional services.

I would add The Goal by Goldratt because I loved the use of a fictional story to learn about lean and the theory of constraints, but it hasn't had the practical impact that the other books above did.

Insightful

Mindset - The New Psychology of Success

Interesting 

The Black Swan - The Impact of the Highly Improbable

I'll add to this list several of "Must Watch" videos:

Joe Justice at TEDx - Agile used to create a 100 mpg road-ready car in 3 months. More lessons for all businesses in this 10 minute video than any other I know of.

Simon Sinek - Leaders, Start with "Why" - One of the Top 20 most watched TED videos. All companies know What they do, some know How they do it, very few know Why. Great for product managers, management and leadership.

Animated Daniel Pink Talk on What Motivates Workers - A very engaging video, using graphical notetaking, that I show in many of my classes that shares the three things that motivates workers (and none are money). Based on Pink's best-selling book Drive. 

Marcus Buckingham on Learning Your Strengths - A well-polished 10 minute introduction to strengths. It is part of one of several DVD's that I play for teams as part of team-building or learning self-organization in agile. 

And ONE "Must Attend" conference:

The Leadership Summit

"But, wait," you're surely saying, "didn't you attend four other agile conferences (and two one-day events) in 2011?" Yes. 

And I have referenced, quoted, shared, lended more by the speakers from The Leadership Summit (Lencioni, Godin, Booker, Schlesinger, Hybels, Furtick) than all the other conferences combined and doubled. And it was only two days. And 1/10th the price. And available (almost) everywhere in the world via simulcast. 

"But, wait - again," you might be saying, "isn't that a Christian event?" Hosted by a church - yes. Goal to make attendees Christians? Definitely not. Goal to change the world? Yes. I think it's good to be around a bunch of people who really want to, and honestly believe they can, change the world. Even if that means stepping out of your comfort zone. It may just radically change your Why (just as we hope to do in the companies we serve).

Overcommitment, Difficult People and the Defeated Mindset

In August I left the Agile 2011 conference two days early to attend The Leadership Summit. Although I heard there were some great sessions on Thursday and Friday at the agile conference (including oft-noted Linda Rising's closing session on The Agile Mindset), I have no regrets. 

As I posted previously about my prediction, and as came to pass, the Leadership Summit renewed and reinvigorated me. I needed this more than more information. It educated me as well, but most importantly, it inspired me. I find that agile coaching in the large enterprise is less about educating people and teams, and more about helping people grow, finding their strengths and helping them to see and apply them, challenging them, confronting fixed mindsets and old ideas, and having grace for people being human. All of which can drain you. And on top of that, I believe that we need to be leaders, and leadership is hard. So, with that in mind, let me share with you what I gained from The Leadership Summit this year.

Over the course of two days (mine at a simulcast site, one of hundreds across the world), there were eight sessions. The speakers were Bill Hybels, Len Schlesinger, Cory Booker, Brenda McNeil, Seth Godin, Steven Furtick, Mama Maggie Gobran, Michelle Rhee, Henry Cloud, John Dickson, Pat Lencioni and Erwin McManus. 

Bill Hybels on Overcommitment, Difficult People, and the Defeated Mindset

Bill Hybels, pastor of Willow Creek Church in Chicago and the founder of The Leadership Summit, began by saying, "I believe we can change the world, but we have to let go of the safe, the predictable and the comfortable." I was struck by this because of The Scrum Alliance's slogan of "changing the world of work." I love the vision and the challenge of what we have to let go of in order to get there. Hybels went on to add some great leadership axioms, such as:

• Everyone wins when a leader gets better. 
• Every leader can get better.
• Where do you show that you're investing in getting better?
• Swing hard or surrender your bat.

Overcommitment

The main thrust of the talk was on leaders watching their commitment or challenge level. He drew something like a thermometer, marking three levels of answers to the question of "What is your current challenge level at work?"

1. Under challenged (crossword, visit, watch the clock, don't feel fulfilled)
2. Appropriately
3. Dangerously over challenged (Look at to-do list and, OMG. Work late, not present

The ideal level was just barely into the Dangerously Over-challenged level. We learn and perform the best with just a bit of pressure and anxiety. I have seen this to be true on Scrum teams, and it's detailed as the best way our brains learn in Pragmatic Learning and Thinking.

But, he cautioned, if you go and stay above that level, you'll break down. At this level, we can't sustain the responsibility we've put on our plate. 

Do we, as leaders, set a bad example? The truth is, he said, is that we need a "discipline of replenishment". And we, as leaders, have to take responsibility for that. Leadership bucket. If you stay DOC, you can't have your bucket stay full no matter how many 3 day weekends, luxury vacations, hobbies, retreats, etc. you have.

Our performance over time, can go way up, but then it crashes. It's possible to overweb an organization. Also, we need to watch for being under-challenged, where there's nothing new, nothing that keeps us, our team or our organization on the edge.

Dealing with Challenging People

Hybels also asked, "What is your plan for dealing with challenging people in your organization?

Twice a year, he does personal evaluations, something he calls "The Line Exercise." He puts everyone on his team, that reports to him, or leads people, in order of keepers or indispensability. At the "not crucial" end, what you have is not bad people, just at the end of the line. This makes you ask some interesting questions. "Are these people carrying their weight? On the right issues? On mission? No longer a good fit? Are there known issues, but you're not looking at them? Are you avoiding tough conversations?" I've seen this a number of times in the places I've worked. The key to the future is unquestionably tied to ability to attract and retrain fantastic people, and also dealing with people no longer fantastic. He gave the example of "Bad Attitude Fred" - How are you going to deal with him? More importantly, how long will you let him spread his negative radio-active fallout?

Bill broke down an approach in the following way:

• If the problem is just a bad attitude, give him 30 days to turn it around and if he doesn't, let him go. The truth is, these people will often truly be happier somewhere else, but they're just scared to leave or change jobs. 
• If the problem is underperformance, given them 3 months to turn it around. 
• If it is that the role has grown beyond their capacity, and they are missing the elasticity needed to adjust to that role change, give them 6 - 12 months and try to re-deploy them, break your back to honor them, and break piggy banks for their severance if you can't make something else work for them within the organization and you have to end up letting them go.

As an important side note, Hybels said that your stock as a leader goes up when you fire for clear values violations. If you don't, you drag down everyone. Fantastic people want to work with other fantastic people. These problem people are not really happy people. 90% they find something else and come back thankful.

So, are you naming, facing and resolving the problems that exist in your organization?

The Idea Lifecycle Diagram and a Defeated Mindset

Hybels said that every idea has a lifecycle. The lifecycle has four phases - Booming, Accelerating, Decelerating and Tanking -  "Nothing rocks forever." Pick some core areas, efforts or values and decide "We won't allow it to tank." Use re-invention, staff-lead efforts, and tackle cross-department problems in order to save these few and feed them back into Booming. Part of your job as a leader is to look problems straight in the eye, and ask if you're going to let it fail or arrest those tired ideas. Create a systematic way to address problems. This injects energy and self-esteem into your team, saying that we are not victims and can solve problems.

When is the last time you re-examined the core of what your organization is all about? Ask yourself "What business are we in? What's our main thing? Could we put it on a shirt? What's our core?" One company sold cars, but came to realize that they were actually selling transportation solutions. They're new slogan was "Bring your transportation challenges to us."

So, he asked, have you had your leadership bell rung recently? Leaders rarely learn anything new without having their world rocked. 

Cast a bold vision. You want your people to either say "Count me in," or think you're crazy. As leaders, we need our boldness back. We've lost a little faith. How hard are you willing to swing?

As a process, he wrote that we often go through something like:

1. "If we could just do or be "X", we could rock."
2. "But we can't... "
3. So we stay stuck. 
4. "But we're sick of being stuck!"
5. But we're not sick enough.

I've seen this a lot, especially in large organizations. Hybels called this a defeated mindset, and said we're making excuses for being stuck instead of doing the hard work of finding solutions. Create an environment where people can be lead to bold solutions for stubborn problems. Don't just just preside over things, or preserve it from demise, but to move it from here to there, from Tanking to Booming. In agile words, "Move it from problem-saturated, political, fear-ridden, hierarchical bureaucracy to solution-orientated, growth mindset, empower, self-organizing, innovative teams." And Hybels added, "You have to believe God is willing to help you do it. If you don't, step aside. Make room for someone who does."

Hybels left everyone with a challenge, 

Maybe your next year could be your best. You could learn more, challenge each other more. Tell me why your next five years can't be your best? Your team deserves your best five. It comes down to whether you want to do it. Why go out with a whimper? How you finish is how you will be remembered. For those starting out, make your first year awesome, not average. Do you want that? Leaders call people to decisions. 

Also, check out this great summary of Hybels talk. 

More Information or More Change?

I have choose where to spend my time in August. The biggest conference in agile is coming up, as well as the most impacting leadership conference. Was I going to spend time learning more about agile, or was I going to spend time at the conference that had changed my life more than any other? The latter is The Leadership Summit - where I first heard Marcus Buckingham, who's work on strengths was the catalyst for change in what I was doing as a manager. It was where I heard Ken Blanchard, and then hunted up a copy of The One Minute Manager. I heard Colin Powell, Colleen Barrett (previous President of Southwest Airlines), USC President Steven Sample, as well spiritual leaders Erwin McManus and Bill Hybels.

While there's a lot that I've learned about agile principles and practices at conferences, more importantly I've been changed by The Leadership Summit. A parallel is that much of my coaching comes from a mix of business and faith-based (not agile) books I've read. As Seth Godin (speaking this year at The Leadership Summit) recently wrote, there is no such thing as business ethics, only personal ethics. I find myself at a loss when talking about Scrum values such as Courage, Openness, Respect, Commitment when there is no agile book or talk that I know of that coaches people on how to grow in these areas. Even getting agreement on what it means to coach at all is subjective.

I feel a responsibility to let others know that each of us needs to know where our roots are in these areas, and with conviction and confidence that goes beyond opinions and trends but can stand up to the challenges we have and will encounter when trying to introduce change in the jungle of the business world. In the end, I decided that I needed to fill up the personal leadership tank, and decided to leave the Agile 2011 conference early so as to not miss any of The Leadership Summit.

The Leadership Summit - Session 1 - A Vision to Die For

The Leadership Summit
Notes from Session 1 - A Vision to Die For, Bill Hybels

Vision must be owned. Ownership is the most powerful weapon in casting and maintaining vision for your organization. It's the painting of the picture that brings passion out of people. It ties into purpose – a sense of destiny beyond to 9 to 5.

Hybels referenced the book of John – Being an owner vs. just a hired hand.

"I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd puts the sheep before himself, sacrifices himself if necessary. A hired man is not a real shepherd. The sheep mean nothing to him. He sees a wolf come and runs for it, leaving the sheep to be ravaged and scattered by the wolf. He's only in it for the money. The sheep don't matter to him." - John 10:11-13

Hybels challenged us to ask ourselves, "At my current workplace, am I the owner of the vision, or the hired hand?" Do I pray for it, protect it, volunteer for it. Owners of the vision will sacrifice deeply. They will be high capacity workers.

Hybels then referenced a group that was an owner of a vision. On March 7, 1965, a group of civil rights marches left Selma, Alabama for Birmingham. They made it as far as the Edmund Pettis Bridge. There they faced state troopers and county sheriffs armed with billy clubs tear gas and bullwhips. The lawmen attacked the peaceful protesters and drove them back to Selma. This event became known as Bloody Sunday. Owners of a vision will be willing to die for the cause.

Out vision is so important. It should be bold, faithful, honorable, and clear. But vision needs to be owned by the people in our organization.

How do we do this? For some Type-A leaders who live on blazing a trail and calling back to everyone to follow their lead, it's a four letter word: P-R-O-C-E-S-S. Without process, we defeat every one left out (which is everyone but the leader).

There are three steps in the process for vision ownership:
1. Vision Formation
There is the top-down approach (bad), or the team approach (good). The top down approach is so often taken because it is quick, but doesn't take, doesn't hold.

The recommendation on the team approach was to have an offsite, with the focus being the question "What should our organization look like in five years?" It may feel slow or inefficient, and to some quick-acting leaders like "swimming in peanut butter." But this builds community, value and more likelihood of ownership. The team members may not always have their way, but they at least need to know their ideas have been considered.

2. Vision Refinement
Make a first draft of the vision. This crystallizes it, even in draft form. Take this draft to the groups at the next level out, trying to get different types of groups, feedback. Ask what's clear, what's confusing, what excites you, what scares you. The goal is to come away with a crystal clear, compelling vision.

3. Vision Declaration

Introduce the vision in front of leaders first, asking if it is clear and compelling. The declaration is not a solo effort, but a team activity.

Great leaders know that more time in the vision casting process increases ownership. Vision leaks, but don't berate the workers for this. Use any tactics to keep refilling the vision. And remember to celebrate progress.

Reasons Vision Doesn't Stick - Success

I was listening again to Andy Stanley's presentation from The Leadership Summit 2003, and was struck by this statement:

Vision doesn't stick when you're successful because when you are successful, you have options and if you have too many options you get unfocussed...You wake up one day in a large organization and the largeness has made it complex, and complex organizations are stupid organizations. The smartest [my organization] has ever been - unbelievably efficient - was when there was just six of us.

But as you are successful, you become complex, and complexity is the enemy of efficiency and complexity is the enemy of vision. It could be that you're in a successful organization, but the vision hasn't stuck. Everybody's busy, but you've lost the connection.

Putting Yourself at Risk: The Price of Leadership

Notes from The Leadership Summit 2oo5:

Session 4: Putting Yourself at Risk: The Price of Leadership, Eleanor Josaitis and Curtis Sliwa

Session 4 was an interview with Eleanor Josaitis and Curtis Sliwa. Bill Hybels introduced the session by saying that"leaders will always, always, always pay a price."

Eleanor Josaitis, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of Focus:HOPE, began interview by saying leaders need and are marked by passion, persistence, and partnerships. As far as opposition, she said "You have to outsmart 'em."

For her challenges, she used the approach:

1. Meet the need, focusing on efficiency and specifications
2. Solve the problem

Criticism. Eleanor's response to criticism is "You can either deck 'em or out class 'em. And then work twice as hard." During times of criticism, her colleague would give her a penny, reminding her that "in God we trust."

Curtis Sliwa, Founder and leader of the Guardian Angels, said it was about being the "first, not the best" and recognizing that the "problem is our own." He would ask people, "How are you making a difference?" and challenge them with the "grander vision."

He added that in society "we lost the idealism," the belief that we can make a difference.

Seeing the Unseen

Notes from The Leadership Summit 2oo5:

Session 3: Seeing the Unseen, Mosa Sono

Mosa Sono started out by noting how good it is for leaders to take time out to learn and grow.

Sono, from South Africa, said that leaders are called to continuously see the unseen. There will always be opposition, but know that God will see us through. Mosa said there is a saying in South Africa, "If the rooster doesn't crow, the dawn still comes." We need to stay hopeful, because "hope deferred makes the heart sick." We need to embrace the future, we can't settle. "Wherever you are is better than where you've been." He summarized this point by saying that leaders should be bold, strategic, humble and informed.

Sono also explained that we need to empathize with our people. He said that if we do not understand the needs of the people, if we can not speak their language of suffering, then we will give a prescription not asked for. We will "scratch where there is no itch."

conversely, Sono said everybody must do their part. It is the leader who must be seized by a vision, but we as leaders must engage the minds of others, show how they can be involved. We need to move people away from a dependence mentality, as if someone else will solve their problems for them. Sono gave examples from the bible where God helped many people only after He had them take the first step (roll away the stone, fill the jars with water, throw the net on the other side of the water, step out of the boat into the water).

This certainly ties into my previous post where the worker needs to be the change he or she wants to see. Even more, from Sono's perspective, the leader cultivates this in his people, calling for initiative and moving those asking for change to become stakeholders themselves. Perhaps it is that step without seeing, that personal investment, that helps the vital hope and trust in the organization grow.

I found another good review of Sono's session on Jeff Mikel's blog here.

Leadership Is Stewardship

Notes from The Leadership Summit 2oo5:

Session 2: Leadership is Stewardship, Rick Warren

The key point from the second session of The Leadership Summit was that our job or position at work can be our identity, income and influence.
And this very thing we hold on to so tightly is what we need to lay down. Our purpose at work goes far beyond the several paragraphs on the job description from Human Resources. It isn't strictly tasks and responsibilities. It is even more than motivating employees to make them more productive (turning Production Capability into Productivity - Steven Covey, 7 Habits).

Warren mentioned the difference between The Reformation, centered around creed and beliefs, and what he said we needed now - The Second Reformation, focused on deeds and behavior. What I take from this is that the software development professional has no lack of access to good software development lifecycle models, documented best practices and supporting metrics, consensus on modeling languages, and excellent development and network tools. We have an abundance of current international information sharing and technical, editorial and business-oriented topics. We lack in no way for knowledge of what is right, and my experience is that most IT workers believe in the same sense of the 'right way' to do what we do each day. Many willingly share extensively on what they think is wrong in their workplace and in the industry. Sometimes they even share ideas for solutions, what needs to be done.

What we lack is action.

If we already know what needs to be done, then what we need is deeds and behavior. We say "design first," but begin coding the first day with any design forethought at all (even the process-light XP gives design effort 20 minutes). We say complain about things, but often don't bring suggestions. Even if we do bring solution options, we don't take initiative or give effort to implement them ourselves.

So we don't like the SLDC we have, do we research options and give supporting information in the language of management (more efficient, cost-effective, higher-quality)? So we don't like the specs we are given, do we provide specific feedback to the author? Don't like the tasks we are given, so we do them exceptionally so as to earn the right to ask for something different?

For all the talk about management's shortcomings, other team's shortcomings, the company's shortcomings, our tool's and technology's shortcomings, I rarely see someone who feels passionately about specific issues working diligently to make a difference. It sounds abhorrently trite, but I mean it with all seriousness, "talk is cheap." It is easy. It costs us nothing. And often we feel better, for a moment, thinking that everything would be better if someone else did something about it. As I recently read, "Be the change you want to see."

As a manager, I feel I am asked to lay down the very position I have been given. Lay down my identity, income, and influence for the sake of the cause I believe in. Warren gave the example of Moses and his shepherds staff. The staff was a symbol of identity (shepherd's staff), income (that is what he used to tend the sheep and make his money), and influence (the staff itself was used to pull or push the sheep by the hook or the crook). The story from The Bible is that God told Moses to lay down his staff. When Moses did, it turned into a snake. God made it come alive. If I lay down my position, put myself second, perhaps my purpose will truly come alive as well.

Warren said that "prominence does not equal significance." We make a difference, are significant as leaders, no matter what position we hold (or don't hold). He also noted that the key aspects of the character of a leader are courage, endurance, and optimism. It takes these three character traits to make a difference day in and day out.

Finally, Warren added that the directive Jesus gave the disciples when going into towns to share the message was that they were to "find the man of peace." The man of peace was someone 1) open and 2) influential. This person didn't even have to believe the same as the disciples. This idea came as new to me and caused me to rethink how I work with others to bring about the change I believe needs to occur. These people don't need to see things the way I do. They just need to be open. And, for the sake of the cause, I need to invest time with open people who are influential. What I need to move away from is spending excessive time with those who already see things the way I do and who are not influential in bringing these changes about.

Although it seems a somewhat cold and calculated way of spending time and connecting with others at work, perhaps the uninfluential person who sees things the way I do would be happy with the end result of positive change in the workplace? Then, instead of jawwing about all the shortcomings we see, we could talk about how good it is to see genuine positive changes occuring in our workplace. And our job as leaders, though Human Resources didn't quite capture it, is to be doers, contributing catalysts of change with courage, endurance and optimism - good stewards of our influence and authority.

The Leader's State of Mind

Notes from The Leadership Summit 2oo5:

Session 1: The Leader's State of Mind, Bill Hybels
What precedes vision? For Bill Hybel's, it is what he called a "holy discontent," some issue or cause we can't stand to see left in its current state. This "furnace of frustration" becomes part of our purpose. Along the way to resolving this issue, a leader casts vision for others, builds a team, inspires and developers others, leads change, and intercepts intropy.

A key point of the session was pessimism vs. faith-based optimism. As bad as the current situation might be, leaders cannot let hope die. For me, there are correlations between what his points and my preious post.

Hybels also said several specific items that struck me. One, the cause can't afford my pride. To me, this means I need to not get in the way with what I think is best if the group conscious doesn't think so, or differs somewhat. Secondly, I don't need everything to be my idea. I didn't realize this was why I wasn't also happy for someone else when they came up with a clever idea, or made headway with an idea I had thought of (whether I told anyone or not) previously. Another reminder was to "engage team members more deeply." Even the term "deeply" made me reflect that these are people on my team, not simply task completers. Hybels also warned against grandstanding and "turf protection," two areas I know I have to watch myself.

The biggest impact from this session for me was understanding that my frustrations with specific situations at work are the very spark for leading change. Don't ignore them, don't medicate them away. Let them drive change, all while walking the fine line of staying hopeful about the eventual outcome.

...You Need to Know, Pt. 3 - Leadership

For the past two posts, I have been reviewing Marcus Buckingham talk "One Thing You Need to Know." This is the final post on the session.

The job as a leader, according to Buckingham, is to rally people to a better future. One trait of leaders is that they are deeply, deeply optimistic. They are not naive, nor unaware of the dangers and difficulties. They have egos to lead. Some would say a leader should have strong ethics and integrity. We all should have that. But leaders have self-confidence and assurance above what most people, including managers, have. Leaders want to steer the boat, and believe in their hearts that they should be the one to do it.

Leaders find what is universal about their people and capitalize on it. One universal trait among people is fear of the unknown. And leaders traffic there.

The disciplines of leadership are:
1. Reflection, typically on excellence. Many people fail because they fail to understand what success means.
2. Picking the right heroes.
3. Practice - the words, stories to answer the universal fears and concerns of their people.
4. Clarity. Who do we serve? What is our core strength? What is our core score/metric? What actions can we take today? Why will we win? What is our competitive advantage?

Getting back to engaging workers, outstanding management and leadership engages people, not leaving 20% actively disengaged, wasted potential, like, as Buckingham said, "sundials in the shade."

More on Gallup's Q12 that lead to First, Break All the Rules here...
A summary of the strengths movement is here and related materials here.

...You Need to Know, Pt. 2 - Management

In my previous post I review the first part of Markus Buckingham's session, covering the value of engaging employees. In this post, I'll review how management and leadership does this through management (Leadership will be Part 3).

Management's chief responsibility, says Buckingham, is to take their talent (people) and turn it into performance. They are a catalyst, and genuinely believe in their people. Great managers find what is unique about each of the workers, and capitalize on it. Buckingham compared it to the difference between chess and checkers. Good chess players understand how to take advantage of the different moves the pieces can make. The managers do this by:
1. Knowing a person's strengths and weaknesses, and managing around the weaknesses.
2. Knowing a person's triggers (what motivates them). This could be what work week schedule works best for them, more face-time with their boss, more independence, having an audience, being praised in front of peers or praise from the customer, awards, certificates.
3. Knowing a person's optimal learning style:
a. Analyzer - leave them alone with the directions. They hate mistakes. Don't ever throw them into a situation where they must perform right from the start.
b. Doer - Throw 'em in the ring and let them have it. They learn doing it. Give them the task, state the expected result, and get out of the way. For them, work doesn't have meaning unless it is for a real situation (meeting, presentation, production).
c. Watcher - Learns by imitation, watching. Have them rides shotgun with your best employee.

How does a manager learn what motivates their employee and what the employee's optimal learning style is? Pay attention. Ask them questions such as:
1. What was your best day at work? Why? How can you repeat it?
2. What was your worst day at work? Why? How could you avoid it?
3. What was your best manager relationship?
4. What was the best recognition you ever had?
5. When in your career did you learn the most? Why?

More on my next post...

Marcus Buckingham - One Thing You Need to Know

It's been a week now since I heard Marcus Buckingham's session "Discovering your Leadership Strength." Marcus Buckingham is the coauthor of First, Break All the Rules, as well as other articles and books.

Marcus' talk was focused on management and leadership and the impact of engaging employees has on company performance. Gallup polls had asked employees around the world if they felt they had the tools and skills to do their job (competent), knew what was expected (focused), and believed in what the company's mission (confident/spirited). Gallup then categorized workers as being Engaged, Neutral, or Actively Disengaged, depending on how the questions were answered. Engaged workers are in their "sweet spot", but account for only 29% of the workforce in the US. Of the rest, 55% were neutral and 16% were actively disengaged (Marcus jokingly said "bitter"). A German paper had reported on this information, and translated actively disengaged as "quitting in the brain."

The difference of having engaged or actively disengaged is reflected in one nationwide chain that had employee turnover of 10-15% in one store and over 200% in another store in the same area. Same company, same area, same company policies, same job descriptions, same benefits. Another company measured part of its success via safety. One site had 0% of employee accidents for the year, while another had 25% in only two months. Once again, same company, same safety policies, but different local engaged or disengaged workers.

Per Marcus, a company creates:

• Competent people by how the company picks and trades them
• focused people based on how the manage them and
• Spirited workers through how the company leads.

I'll review how management and leadership does these three things on my next post.

Tim Sanders Session at The Leadership Summit

I attended several sessions of The Leadership Summit last week.

Tim Sanders , Leadership Coach for Yahoo!, shared that we often don't have faith in our people or ourselves. There are those that have an attitude of 'scarcity', driven by fear of competition and filled with a sense of lack, what they don't have. It's the difference between social networking for other's benefit and networking for personal gain (which he said is actually prospecting or brokering). He gave a good word picture by saying "It's the difference between being a gardener and a butcher."

Tim said that at Yahoo!, if you are driven by scarcity (nay-sayer, doom and gloom), they will literally stamp a piece of paper with "Chicken Little" and stick it to your back, to be left there all day.

Tim made me think how often I look to the negative side of a situation. In software development, we need to look at the possible concequences, but really only as risk analysis. Even then, the downside should perhaps only be considered, noted, and then everyone should move forward on the project focussing on the upside. This doesn't mean be unrealistic, niave, or wear rose-colored glasses, it only means that we decide to concentrate our energy on the possible positive outcomes, encourage others, and be a contributor to the solution. And an IT project, we could all agree, is much more than flowcharts and code.