A few years ago management consultant Roz Savage sat down and wrote two obituaries: One for the life she had, and one for the life she wanted. The result? Today Roz is an eco-adventurer and rows a small boat around the world and across the the globe’s oceans to bring awareness to an increasingly delicate eco-system.
An inspiring woman, and an inspiring exercise. What would your obituary on 2008 look like? And what do you wish 2008 looked like?
This year the BBC children’s television show Blue Peter chose Save the Children as its world service project. The girl in the green and yellow was one of five children selected to receive aid from this collaborative project.
Each year Blue Peter chooses children from Bangladesh and South Africa to receive assistance. This year, Blue Peter chose to work with Save the Children, a relief program inspired by the international children’s rights movement in England in 1919. Today the organization works to help children in need around the world.
These pictures were taken by Dr. Randall P. White, who was there as a representative of Save the Children.
The little girl is surrounded by her brothers and sisters, parents and grandparents when she received a congratulations package. Of all the things she chose to hold for this picture — among a package of food and provisions — she chose to hold the jump rope.
Wanted: Leaders equipped for today’s trials To become an effective leader in today’s volatile job market, tap your strengths—and learn some new ones.
By Tori DeAngelis
With today’s rapid globalization, changing technology and the turbulent economy, leaders must excel at dealing with change and ambiguity, said veteran leadership trainer Sandra Shullman, PhD, at the Aug. 12 APA Committee on Women in Psychology Leadership Institute for Women in Psychology.
“The rate and pace of change is extraordinarily high,” said Shullman. “It’s why so many leaders both in business and academia are staying up late at night, because it’s often unclear exactly which direction things are going.”
Fortunately for women, the leadership styles in vogue are ones that research shows women both prefer and are more effective for them, noted Shullman, a managing partner with the Columbus, Ohio, office of the Executive Development Group, an international leadership development and consulting firm.
Shullman advised the women to:
• Take a democratic rather than autocratic approach. Sometimes called a “transformational” leadership style, through this approach, leaders delegate some power and autonomy to employees and encourage their independence and creativity.
• Foster active, ongoing learning for both employees and leaders. Such learning is critical in getting up to speed with today’s global markets or with technology, she said.
• Learn through experience. Research shows that great leaders learn 70 percent of their leadership skills on the job, 20 percent from mentors and role models and 10 percent from coursework. That may be a hard concept for people in academia to accept, Shullman added, but they need to overcome the tendency to overthink, so they can act.
• Exploit your personal style. Good interpersonal skills are a mark of effective leaders. In particular, good leaders can read and respond to the emotional needs of a situation, she noted. “When 99 percent of the people in a group you’re leading are angry and you reflect that anger, you’re perceived as an effective leader,” she said. “If 99 percent of the group aren’t angry and you’re reflecting anger, you may be seen as out of touch with your group.”
• Be a “good enough” leader. Research shows that if leaders have 10 major leadership areas they need to attend to, great leaders do two or three of them extraordinarily well and seven or eight “well enough,” said Shullman. If you’re a whiz in your field and a clear, courageous decision-maker, for example, you don’t also have to be a top-notch organizer or an ace strategist.
Being less than 100 percent perfect “is a hard concept, especially for women,” said Shullman. “We tend to use our best area as the standard for all other things, so sometimes we don’t try new things.”
• Embrace challenge. How much you learn is directly related to the size of the challenges you face. Good leaders admit their mistakes and learn from them, she said. “Many of us keep our memories of failure like they should be preserved in a museum somewhere,” she said. Instead, solve the problem first and figure out what may have caused it later.
• Work on your behavior. Good tools are available to help you learn and work with your leadership style, including an inventory called the FIRO-B (Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation-B), which participants took before arriving at the institute. The scale taps leaders’ expressed and desired needs for affection, control and inclusion and how those play out in leadership behavior preferences.
“Ultimately, people respond to how you act,” Shullman said, “and you can learn to work with your behavior.”
• Take time to learn. “You can’t teach people to be wonderful leaders in eight sessions,” said Shullman. Research also shows it’s better to focus on one or two things you can really sink your teeth into.
• Know your strengths and weaknesses. Work on your weaknesses to get them off of people’s radar. Work on your strengths “because that is what you could be known for,” Shullman said.
• No woman is an island. Research shows that people who share goals with valued colleagues are more likely to achieve them than those who don’t.
“Whether you go to a leadership training institute for one week, six weeks or six months,” Shullman said, “sharing your goal with significant colleagues at work is what seems to matter in terms of whether you do anything with what you’ve learned.”
If there’s a fork in the road, take it: Leaders who used uncertainty to their advantage
by Dr. Randall P. White
Uncertainty is an increasing reality for today’s executives. Those who can thrive as they charge toward the unknown share a predictable mix of savvy, attitude, and behavior.
In this era of uncertainty, we’re watching our greatest leaders emerge. These are folks who ignore the pessimistic attitudes around them, the too many cashed reality checks on the state of the global economy, and the risk and do something completely new. They move toward the unknown as a deliberate leadership strategy. They have to: it’s the only way they know how to behave.
Although we don’t always know what these leaders will do, new research shows that leaders like these share a set of measurable behaviors, including a penchant for risk, a dauntless attitude, relentless curiosity, and great skills—and while some are teachable, many are not.
We recently studied executives around the world using an assessment instrument called Ambiguity Architect. The instrument measures an executive’s tolerance for ambiguity and rapidly changing situations. As we move toward increasingly uncertain times, it’s essential to know an executive’s ability to manage uncertainty.
We find that those who are most adept at leading through uncertainty perform better than their peers, have a greater likelihood of being promoted, and are comfortable leading an organization through the uncharted waters of change.
Surrounded by support
As president, Joe Leonard helped AirTran recover from one of the worst airplane crashes in history and shape the company into one of largest low-cost carriers in the nation.
AirTran’s predecessor, ValuJet, lost a DC-9 when it crashed and burned in the Everglades, killing more than 100 people. Years after the crash, skepticism was still high regarding low-cost carriers, and AirTran was strapped for cash. Things were so dire that most executives would have said “liquidate.”
But Leonard isn’t known for going by the books. He’d risen through the corporate ranks on the engines-and-rivets side of the business, and according to a story on Leonard in USA Today, he thrived on challenges. He was literally raised near the airport and took flying lessons at 13. To pay for them, Leonard would gas and park the planes.
Leonard illustrates a key behavior we discovered in our research on executives that can handle uncertainty: once he started at AirTran, he surrounded himself with support. Leonard quickly reached out to acquaintances from the industry, all veterans of commercial air carriers. He learned about AirTran’s assets and defects, and years of experience helped him realize that the airline still had good routes and a loyal team.
“We were all extreme risk takers,” Leonard told USA Today about AirTran’s reinvention. And, of course, they were tenacious—“never give up” was their key mantra.
Doing the unthinkable
In 2007, when many newspaper organizations either braced for or announced lay-offs, the Norway-based media company Schibsted had good news. Its earnings rose 28% in the fourth quarter. Online operations will generate about 20% of the company’s revenue this year. Meanwhile, many traditional news industries are folding, according to the New York Times (“While Others Struggle, Norwegian Newspaper Publisher Thrives on the Web,” February 19, 2007).
Schibsted’s success started in 1995 when the newspaper industry faced a career-breaking decision: go with the wave of new media or wait and see how it would all shake out.
Schibsted didn’t hesitate. As other organizations quibbled over how to charge readers for what they read online, Schibsted invested heavily in new media. Then the company did the unthinkable: gave its print edition away for free.
Schibsted continued investing in building the credibility and content of its online newspapers. It started charging companies to pay for ad space and let the readers read for free.
In 2000 and 2001, Schibsted didn’t bail out of its new media investments, even as many other organizations did, according to the Times article. Leaders in the company said they recognized early that the Internet would forever change the traditional print industry. They stayed true to that vision.
The trouble with technology is it seemingly changes just as people get the hang of it. Not so with Schibsted. In our research, we call leaders like these future scanners. They possess an almost intuitive sense about technology—the way many other executives have an intuitive sense about strategy. You can’t always train a future scanner, but you can find them. They are the ones who can take advantage of even the faintest signals of what the future can be.
Tackling tough issues Google faces a different kind of uncertainty. Company buy-outs and mergers have brought growing pains and created a slew of sewn-together, fast-fix solutions for sales processes, according to a recent story in The Wall Street Journal, (“Google Push to Sell Ads On YouTube Hits Snags,” July 9, 2008).
So when Google’s ad revenues fell slightly short of stellar expectations, coupled with complaints from salespeople about a slow, paper-heavy process of purchasing ads, Google listened and then got busy.
In March, Tim Armstrong, Google’s head of advertising and commerce in North America, moved himself from his executive office to smack dab in the middle of the ad team’s cubicle spaces. He was determined to figure out Google’s YouTube sales process, according to the Journal. He emerged a month later with a list of 105 fix-its.
It would have been easy to pass off the work of tackling a tough problem to someone else. Instead, Armstrong launched Project Spaghetti to figure it out himself. It’s one of many oddly named projects Google launches (including Weed Days and Project Drano) to get to the source, not the symptom, of the problem.
Leaders like Armstrong do the dirty work. No one wants to get ensnared in a process like that, but everyone breathes a big sigh of relief when it’s done. You can teach an executive the strategy, but you can’t always teach them the “wanna.” Armstrong and other leaders like him have the wanna. It’s a behavior.
Armstrong, Leonard, and Schibsted probably all learned and developed the behaviors that made them successful long before they wore an executive suit. In fact, our research finds that most of these tell-tale behaviors started in childhood.
And there’s no doubt that with the uncertain times ahead, you’ll find some of your greatest leaders—especially if you know what to look for.
Dr. Randall P. White is co-author of the book Relax, It’s Only Uncertainty and is a co-developer of an assessment instrument called Ambiguity Architect. This instrument measures an executive’s tolerance and comfort for ambiguity and rapidly changing situations. For more information, visit www.edgp.com.
Right here on Elm Street the economy is forcing some tough questions: “Will I lose my job?” “If she goes, will I have to do her job, too?” And some of you have to answer the awful question, “Who stays and who goes?”
With so many companies already working with a slim staff and shrinking budgets, self-questioning and uncertainty gets louder every day. No matter where you sit in the company—in the hot seat or in the seat of making some cold, hard decisions—there are five questions you can start asking about your staff or yourself that will support your ability to lead through uncertainty.
It’s a similar set of questions we use to gauge a person’s ability to tolerate ambiguity, as well as to identify global leaders. Leaders with high emotional IQ, tacit knowledge, empathy, optimism, and quick learners transcend the multi-cultural idiosyncrasies of the times to lead a disparate group of people.
Essentially, we need people with transcendental qualities here and now. So instead of asking questions that lead to more uncertainty, like “Am I getting fired?,” why not ask yourself something that helps you tolerate, and prepare for, the unknown?
What’s my emotional IQ? People with a high emotional IQ don’t take themselves too seriously. They’re light-hearted. A little self-deprecation says a lot about a person’s humility. And most importantly, they have self-awareness of their strengths and weaknesses.
For example, President-elect Barack Obama caught a lot of flak for appointing Rahm Emanuel to Chief of Staff. Maybe this shows that Obama knows he’s a nice, easy guy who needs a tough guy to help him get things done.
If you don’t know your strengths and weaknesses, you can surround yourself with people just like you. Surrounding yourself with clones won’t help you move in innovative directions.
Are you empathetic? In business, empathetic people can take on another person’s role or point of view in a tough position. That doesn’t mean you immerse yourself in someone’s problems or take on their opinion. You simply understand it. Think about a time you tried to help someone learn or change. Ideally, you can acknowledge the challenges of learning something new as legitimate and not take them on as your own personal challenges or think, “If it were me, I would have felt about this differently.”
What are your street smarts? People with street smarts are politically astute and sensitive to how others act around them. They know that the best answers aren’t always found in books. They know how to get things done even when resources such as money and time are slim, and they can quickly traverse the sometimes complicated networks of policy and process to get something done in a timely way.
What’s your learning curve? The political biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin stated that the best candidate for president of the United States would be the one who could learn, grow and change (“Meet the Press,” October 21, 2007).
Think about a time you learned something not from a book but from experience. Think about a time you learned about true leadership. People with strong learning curves can learn on the fly, learn from their mistakes, and learn from a variety of sources.
Are you optimistic? My good friend and colleague David Campbell has said, “The higher you go, the more optimistic you are.” Optimism in business is the ability to take a negative situation and see it as opportunity. You can move forward without fear. If you’re going to fail, you fail fast and fail forward.
Think about a time you thought you were dealt a bad hand. How did you handle it? Or a time you had a bad boss. Can you reframe the situation? Can you say, “She was a bad boss, but I learned a lot from her”? The hope is that we can look back on times like this, acknowledge the challenges, and learn the lessons.
Once a company makes a logic-driven decision to downsize, many managers find themselves facing the grief-stricken emotions of the ones who were left behind. The employee “survivor syndrome,” as explained by David Noer in his book, Healing the Wounds, is just what it sounds like: Survivor’s Guilt. Survivors of a downsizing often feel:
Anxious
Ill at ease
Questioning “Why not me,” “Why wasn’t I laid off?”
Guilt
Low morale
The trouble is that some managers prefer that folks simply “soldier up” and go on, business as usual. Some managers want to have a pep rally and cheer everyone up. Some managers want to ignore the whole thing and hope that it will go away. Neither is the best way to operate. Feelings need to be dealt with directly.
Be direct. Get the team together and talk with them. Don’t talk at them, ask them, “How do you feel about this?” “How are you functioning?” Ask and listen to what they have to say. Use active listening techniques: Paraphrase what you hear, ask questions for understanding, and empathize. That doesn’t mean you have to agree. Let people know you’re listening. Do what you can. If there are things you can do, some changes you can make, do them. Go forward and let people know that you’re actively involved in searching with them for solutions.
When you’re done listening
Share your vision for how the team might adjust and get better.
Ask for input. You want and need support for plans going forward. You also want their input and coaching for how you could continue forward. What do they need from you, and how you could better provide what they need.
Lastly, keep tabs on the morale. Check in with people individually and as a group. You may be asking for suggestions, for what people are learning, and for how they might approach the short staff issues in better or more efficient ways.
This won’t fix everyone’s feelings. But it will communicate that you care, that you’re interested in helping people be the very best they can be and to perform at the highest level possible.
Sure, trainers have always had to make tough calls, but these days that means something a little different. Once mostly a face-to-face practice, executive coaches and facilitators are increasingly offering their wisdom via teleconference.
The sun never sets on executive education. As coaches and facilitators, we are global actors, as likely to be in Bangalore as Bakersfield. There are many enticing destinations, but it’s hardly Her Majesty’s Secret Service. A lot of what pays the expense account happens in our underwear on the dreaded teleconference.
It didn’t take rising fuel costs and time zones to make conference calls vital in the training world. Some functions of our work actually work better with a little distance and formality, not to mention the mute button. For example, the physical boundaries of a phone conversation can support presenting difficult feedback, by keeping the conversation on a more rigid schedule and by providing a medium that forces us to be precise in our conversation, because there’s no body language.
Teleconferencing is the forum of choice for pre-intervention planning with clients, coach team briefings, and client debriefings. And, as mentioned, giving feedback, although in those situations it’s likely to be a smaller teleconference, such as the learner and his/her boss.
Today, as travel budgets are more scrutinized than a few years ago, we definitely foresee more work by telephone.
How do training teams and clients make teleconferences more effective, efficient, and a little less dreadful? We’ve rooted out the bête noirs of huddling around a speaker phone and itemized this list of remedies:
1. At the start of the call, each person should sign in by saying, “Hello, it’s (your name).” We’ve been as guilty as anyone of starting a conversation with the host and then others can’t report in. While we are all friendly people, signing in and being quiet is the easiest and most efficient way to get the call started. Likewise, if the call is among people who may not recognize each other by voice, announce your name each time before making a comment. It’s a little more work, but at least you don’t have to wear “Hello, My Name Is” tags.
2. When the call has been particularly difficult to schedule, the host should acknowledge that and thank people for the time they are using. A sub theme here is to remember that in a global 24/7 world some people will be on the call late at night or early in the morning their time, and that is truly a sacrifice. If you’d like to see how it feels, schedule the conference call during their waking hours!
3. After the first five minutes (or when a quorum is reached), the host should review the list of people on the call and then give an overview of the call’s agenda, including order of items to be covered and time limit for each.
4. When you join the call late, be mindful that the call started without you. Don’t interrupt the flow of conversation! Wait for a clear break before announcing that you’ve joined the call. If people have been waiting for you to join, you will know immediately because the host will typically ask, “Is that you, Sally?” Then you can acknowledge your presence. Only apologize for being late if you have a significant role on the call, such as a discussion item that you had raised; otherwise, assume we accept your apology because everyone has the potential to get hung up (pun intended).
5. If you have to leave the call early, let the host know by IM/e-mail or at the start of the call when the host takes roll. Again, no lengthy explanations are necessary unless the call is somehow built around your agenda.
6. Be quiet! When you are not speaking, make sure the mute button is on. We are all on the go, and conference calls do not always get scheduled at the most convenient times. Ambient noise (from airport, auto, children, on the street) can impede others’ ability to hear. Be mindful also that mute buttons don’t always work, a la our favorite office products commercial.
7. Remember, this is not a social call and, when you consider the time investment of everyone participating, likely not an inexpensive one. Keep your comments succinct, to the point, and on the topic. Here’s where the benefit of a remote meeting comes in for coaching and training, which is always enhanced by carefully chosen dialogue supported by careful and active listening.
8. When the conference call is office to office—i.e., a large group on one end (face-to-face) and a smaller group on the other—we have known the groups to have a flag on the table for putting up people’s pictures. This can remind participants that these are real colleagues on the other end of the wire, and it’s OK to do some relationship building while still being task-focused.
9. Like any good meeting, toward the end of the call—say the last five minutes—the host or someone else should summarize the agreements reached, actions taken, next steps required—or, in coaching parlance, an action plan. If this is a routinized call, then people will agree to meet again at the appointed time. If not, a simple “thanks for your time” (see #2) will suffice.
10. Trainer, train yourself! Mute when necessary, take notes, be an active listener, encourage quieter participants to make a contribution, and realize that this call is as important as if you had all gotten on a plane and flown to one place to meet face-to-face, but a lot less expensive and time-consuming. (If it isn’t that important, you ought to be asking if you need to have the call.) Gosh, it’s 5:00 pm in Prague and noon in Boston—time for our next conference call.
Katie White, principal, Franklin & White, started at the Center for Creative Leadership in 1973 as executive secretary to Visiting Fellows Donald MacKinnon and David Campbell. By 1981 she was the Center’s first female vice president. In her tenure she managed a variety of administrative functions, including marketing, registrations, test processing, telecommunications, and publication sales. In her last position at CCL, she managed a staff of 28 handling program registrations and all test processing. She is a graduate of Guilford College, Greensboro, NC. Randall P. White, PhD, principal, Executive Development Group, is the author of both popular and academic books and articles, including the recent release of his book with Phil Hodgson, “Relax, It’s Only Uncertainty (2001, Financial Times Pearson Education).” He is an adjunct professor at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, has an adjunct association with Duke Corporate Education, and teaches at the Johnson Graduate School, Cornell University.
Here’s the view from my phone in Dubailand. It’s truly an amazing place.
I was there for the first time this past weekend teaching a leadership program through Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. A friend was teaching a course on how to have difficult conversations, and I was teaching a course on leadership behavior and how to lead effectively.
Probably the most interesting thing about Dubai is that they’re having financial difficulties, too. Only the biggest difference between Dubai and the US right now, is that Dubai is asking for help. They’re asking teachers to help them.
So we’ll see what happens.
Now that I’m home again, I’m not too sure what to make all of it yet. I can’t really make any conclusions, just “Wow.”
If ever there were an opportunity to learn something about leadership it’s 4Q 2008. And if you’re diligent and inquisitive you can earn an MA degree…Master of Ambiguity.[What is your capacity to deal with ambiguity?]
On the brink of the current financial crisis, United States Senator and presidential candidate John McCain offered a now famously Babbit-like bromide, “I think, still, the fundamentals of our economy are strong.”
But in fairness to McCain’s boosterism, nobody else really had a clue what was happening back in September, nor could anyone foresee the results.
But if a visionary leader had based her organization’s direction on a “fundamentally strong” economy, she might regret it today.
It’s time to look for “ambiguity leadership.” The visionary leader says to followers, “Let’s work together on how to make my vision happen.” The ambiguity leader says “Let’s work together on how we can learn what the vision should be.”
Identifying productive areas of uncertainty and confusion and leading the organization into those areas to gain competitive or other kinds of advantage.
Five years later in Relax, It’s Only Uncertainty: Lead the Way When the Way is Changing we illuminated the fact that in a situation of high uncertainty—like now—your view and approach are as relevant as anyone else’s. You’re winging it, but also you might be defining the marketplace for all competitors until the next “collapse of certainty.”
You can screw up, royally, too.
So one of the best hedges against ruin is to build a learning organization that can respond quickly to mistakes, so progressive thinking and implementation can propel you into the lead.
And if somebody says they’re certain about anything right now, get their best stock tip and do the opposite.
It’s a question I heard a few days ago during an NPR interview with the guy running the Mars Lander project. The interviewer asked a tough question, and the subject said, “That’s like asking if God is left-handed.”
That’s a phrase people use when they’re dealing with difficult questions. The current difficult question is probably, “What’s happening to my 401-K?” or, “When can I retire?”
Smart companies let people ask the tough questions. Even smarter companies address these fears and concerns with financial planning, counseling, even career training. Yet these programs are the first to go on the financial chopping block when money gets tight.
Most companies won’t ask the tough questions because it’s hard to say, “I don’t know.” Try this instead—say “I don’t know.” Then it’s not so worrisome when people ask the tough questions. You’ve already admitted you don’t have the answer. That’s human.
Even if you don’t have the answer, let people ask. Asking tough questions gives legitimacy to their concerns, fears, and frustrations. And for the first time, we need to get used to saying there might not be an answer; and what might be the best answer today, might not be the best answer tomorrow.
In the meantime:
• Accept the idea of not knowing
• Commit to trial and error
• Commit to learning from every possible source
• Trust your gut.
Do that, and you don’t have to worry about the answer, because you’re actually working toward a solution.
