Management 11

A very special person is lining up his first management assignment. 

He's been poking at the idea for some time, even tried for an opening in his organization a while ago. Another opportunity has now come along and we've been talking about it: what the current situation is, is he interested, is he ready, what are the implications, etc., etc.

These conversations are wonderful for me because I love sharing what I've learned and the results. I'm a strong believer in the pilot's adage: Learn from the mistakes of others, because you won't live long enough to make them all yourself.

So after an ask for help from him to prepare for this new opening, I've been thinking about how best to be helpful. How do I usefully condense 20+ years of management learning and experience? It suddenly occurred to me that I had posted thoughts on management before, and they might be useful. So the list below is an index of management topics from which anyone can pick and choose items of interest.

Management

• Management 1: The prospective manager dilemma
• Management 2: Precision of terms
• Management 3: My manager is a bozo
• Management 4: Some definitions, to have the correct discussion
• Management 5: My manager is my best customer?
• Management 6: Managing my manager!?
• Management 7: Jobs vs. Roles
• Management 8: Fun with role play
• Management 9: Management training?
• Management 10: Coaching and mentoring and asking for help

And just in case you thought you would see more on "leadership" in these, there are lots of posts on Leadership starting with:

• Leadership 1: Leadership can come from anywhere

through to 

• Leadership 13: Smart leadership

(If you want to scan through all the Leadership posts, just look in the Archive list (middle right), select an arrowhead beside a date to find the desired topic. (Google organizes by date instead of topic.))

Now the fun begins! What does he find most interesting? What did I leave out? Do these posts help him get results?
Stand by!

Team Tips - 17 {A word with you}

At first I didn't see this post as a "Team Tip". But of course learning is important for any team, and that's what I'm getting at here.

Here's my Best Business Books list.

• “Best” because I learned something important, and thought the author(s) explained it well.
• “Business” because I recommend these books to business associates for help with concerns in the workplace; however, they really apply to humans doing anything, anywhere.
• “Books” because most of them are books (they are all “learnings” but “learnings” doesn't have alliteration with “best” and “business”).

I was tempted to list them in some order of importance. But that is clearly in the eye of the beholder, so what you find useful isn't necessarily what I enjoyed.

Nonetheless, the critical few are “The Art of Possibility”, “Closing the Me-You Gap”, “7 Habits”, and “Software for Your Head”. And that's a reasonable order for increasing degree of difficulty, and volume and richness of concepts.

What is fun to do is to look for the similarities in fundamentals expressed in each - our essential stardust.

If you don't expect to read them all, I've added some of the concepts that were important to me from each to help you choose.

Please let me know of any you would add to this list.

Abrashoff - It's Your Ship

• how do you promote individual initiative and responsibility on a US Navy ship that is capable of starting World War 3?

Ackoff - Systems Thinking (YouTube)

• look for any of the lectures by Dr. Russel Ackoff on YouTube to understand the fundamentals of looking at entities as systems to avoid attempting to sub-optimize the various parts, and missing the interactions as the critical element

Collins - Good to Great

• insights from comparing very successful companies to their mediocre counterparts, determining the leadership, thought, and action that made a difference

Covey - 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

• what does it mean to truly be effective; i.e. work on the right things at the right time, and understand all of the roles in our lives and what is important for each?

Goldsmith - What got you here won't get you there

• from one of the foremost business coaches the insight that all the things that have made us successful so far aren't enough to guarantee our rise to the next level, and in fact might get in our way

Gray* - Creating Time

• how to use the Core Protocols from McCarthy Technologies to find more time than we thought we had for any endeavour

Gray* - Closing the Me-You Gap

• how to use the Core Protocols from McCarthy Technologies to build trust with others

Kahneman - Thinking, Fast and Slow

• explains the two systems of how we think - system 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional, system 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical; however, both can lead us astray due to evolutionary forces, and poor understanding of their operation

McCarthy & McCarthy - Software for Your Head

• starting from the typical human faults we encounter in the software industry, this book reveals the anti-patterns and provides the positive alternative patterns (Core Protocols) that let us interact optimally with others in any endeavour to fully realize our potential

Ries - The Lean Startup

• applying the total quality management principles from the Toyota Production System (and similar sources) to any business startup, we are shown in solid detail how to proceed systematically with any venture in any situation where high uncertainty exists

Stone, Patton, Heen - Difficult Conversations

• how to frame the conversation with someone about a very difficult topic in order to reach a successful conclusion (at least to the conversation)

Zander & Zander - The Art of Possibility

• “It's all invented” - in other words, the systems we deal with every day aren't the final or necessarily the best answer, allowing us to find new possibilities at every turn in all we do

Again: please let me know of any you would add to this list.

[* Vickie Gray is my sweetheart and partner in all things]

Team Tips – 2 {Where's the Boss?}

Assuming you've read the previous post – Team Tips - 1 – you know the definitions I'm using for “teams”, “boss”, etc. and can guess that I will be relying on the Simple Rules and Tools for Great Teams – the Core Protocols – in my answers.

Indeed, the underlying premise in all these answers is that the team is using the Simple Rules – the Core Commitments in the Core Protocols – and the Tools – the Protocols themselves, for their day to day operation. This is simply the smartest approach for any team that we have found.

So here is the “catch”. If what I am suggesting doesn't seem workable in your situation, then the organization needs to use the Core Commitments and Protocols (or something better).

Let's start with one of the most complicated situations Vickie and I have had to work on with a team, the question Jose R. asked:

“Does the boss belong to the team, or he just must work for it?” (I believe for the last part Jose meant “or does the team just work for the boss?”)

(Remember: “boss” as used here is defined in the prior post Team Tips - 1).

Boss

The simplest rule is NOT to have the boss be part of the team. The team works for the boss, and delivers the product or service the boss requires, in the timeframe the boss requires, with the quality the boss requires. And in large enough organizations the boss is on his or her own team with other bosses of other teams.

Team

In fact the teams working for a boss ARE THE PRODUCTS of the boss, and the teams across the organization are the products of the team of bosses. In the purest arrangement the bosses don't produce any final product or service for sale to their retail customers – their teams do.

And to get even more precise, the boss sets the initial conditions for the team – what must be produced and delivered by the team, and when, and within what constraints (resources, values, legislation, policies, etc.). The most experienced and mature teams can take responsibility for deciding what can be produced and delivered against a given deadline, or alternatively, what deadline they can meet for a given product requirement.

All of this works smoothly when there is a high level of trust and a high level of communication both ways between the team and the boss. And, of course, individual commitment and responsibility from each team member. (We'll explore trust and commitment more in future posts.) These elements are all comprehended and provided for in the Core Protocols.

But the situation gets trickier when the organization is smaller and, for example, the owners of the business are the bosses AND are also contributors to the team and its products.

In this special case the boss or bosses have to operate in two modes: explicitly as the boss, and explicitly as a team member. The modes have to be crystal clear at each moment in each transaction between all parties – that is why I emphasize “explicitly”.

In all cases, the boss's job is to have the team produce a result on time that is great in the opinion of the team and the boss. The boss does not have to be concerned with how that is done, what tools or methods are used, etc. as long as the initial conditions – the non-negotiable items – are met. If the result exceeds expectation or is finished early – fantastic. If there is any doubt that this will happen, the team should be reworking their methods, their focus on deadlines, their quality, etc., without expecting the boss to intervene or rescue them, unless they specifically ask the boss for help.

Similarly, in daily operation, the team relies on the merit of the best ideas from any team member at any time to proceed to producing the team result. The boss as a team member cannot have any special standing or influence, otherwise the other team members will eventually stand back and wait for the boss to propose all ideas and make all the decisions, and the huge opportunity for individual leadership, innovation, and energy is lost.

Accordingly, as the boss the business owner states the end result required or the deadline, then steps aside to let the team get on with it. As a team member, the owner acts as an equal with all the other team members to determine how best to produce a high quality result, or when the result will be completed as appropriate.

To be crystal clear about what mode the business owner is in – boss or team member – he or she may use a special name, put on a particular hat, etc. or simply say: “As the boss I need...” or “As a team member I propose...”

Needless to say, this special case can add a layer of extra effort and confusion, and so we recommend the simplest scenario for teams that are just getting accustomed to using the Core Protocols for team building and operation. But if there is no choice, we have a number of ways of accomplishing the special case.

If you already are knowledgeable about the Simple Rules and Tools of Great Teams – the Core Protocols – then you can see how this boss / team model works.

If not, then you will probably have many more questions on how this model can possibly work! So please send in your questions via the comments section below or @ReevesResults on Twitter.

ITIL in The Cloud - 1

ITIL in The Cloud (part 1)

At the risk of sounding like one of the Four Yorkshiremen in the Monty Python sketch talking about how rough their childhoods were...


When I was a lad I had to get up before going to bed, walk barefoot through ten foot snowdrifts, and write Assembler code and such for mainframes such as the IBM 360, DEC PDP-10, and Xerox Data Systems Sigma 7. (Yes; Xerox Corporation was briefly in the mainframe business after buying Scientific Data Systems. And their research facility really did inaugurate desktop networked Personal Computers etc. long before anyone else. All fascinating stories for another time.)


And in those days of mainframes closeted in well protected data centres we had to play by the rules – for access, usage privileges, changes, etc. - because the strict governance of these million dollar babies was crucial to the owning organization, and careers.


Today we have, ta-da, the Cloud.


So as we begin to operate “in the Cloud” should we toss away everything we learned fifty years ago, including solid business practice for managing computing resources and services such as the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL)?


A business associate, Will Shook, writes as he starts up another information technology and services company [Accelerence, LLC]:

The issue at hand for me is this:  we built a model around computing many years ago and very good practices were developed in the glass house.  Then we went to client / server computing and everybody forgot everything about controls and processes.   Skip forward to the cloud and it seems everyone has forgot about good governance once again as they get focused on the technology, but not predictable results from the technology.  Good governance is more important than ever now, given the sharing of workloads, the mixed model of asset ownership and operation, and the preponderance of devices, data, and access methods.  ITIL should be a huge win in the world of the cloud.

Absolutely should be!


As the technology gets more complicated, and the management of it gets more complicated, and the difficulty of understanding what is done for whom, by whom, and under what circumstances increases, doesn't it make sense to take advantage of good business practice?


In fact, for those organizations who have developed thorough IT Service Management processes with ARCI tables, Service Portfolios and Catalogues, strong Operating Level Agreements and Service Level Agreements (just to note a few) moving to the use of Cloud services is easier.  At least they know what services they are talking about, can plug in new roles and responsibilities readily, and pinpoint service level requirements and dependencies.


If you are about to change some or all of your computing model isn't it nice to know in detail what you do today, how you do it, and have insightful and directed questions for your new Cloud suppliers?


Beats walking barefoot through ten foot snowdrifts!


For more about ITIL and IT Leadership please contact me via http://www.BusinessImprovementResults.com

Software for Your Head 4

Finishing the project team kickoff meeting story from Software for Your Head by Jim & Michele McCarthy.

(from page 8):

Well, hell, if he did all that, you would consider him to be all the way checked in. Hmmm. What’s more, you think maybe, just maybe, that scenario might just do the trick for the whole damn team. Tell you what, you’d bet your bottom dollar that his teammates will at least respond with their fullest, focused attention. That’s just what people do whenever someone reveals himself a bit. If he’s talking and acting with just the least little bit of enlightenment, something new, they’re going to listen up and watch closely. As long as the person says what he says and does what he does with thoughtfulness and truth. But if it is true, you’d predict that the team, just by witnessing a more honest, genuinely new engagement level, will then be much more likely to act on questions of shared vision (which, you remind yourself, is the top-level symptom). At least, you figure, they’ll be more likely to act on things they care about, anyway, and that would be all to the good. Moreover, everybody who watched this thing unfold from just one person will have been really informed, and maybe even inspired, by the difference made by his acceptance of personal accountability for how he has been spending his own life. Really, not only for his own results, but for the results of all.

You half listen to the team struggling to cram everything in the agenda in the last few minutes. Maybe the others would also begin to experiment with the new power they are seeing and feeling (and there is tremendous power in accepting individual responsibility for achieving results together). If your guidance would help one or more of them to engage more deeply, and not to waste any time and never to do anything dumb on purpose, why, you’d have made a huge difference. Hell, the dumb quota can always be met by doing things you thought were smart to begin with. You don’t have to do anything dumb on purpose to meet the quota.

You imagine that a newly awakened team member would see a whole bunch of things, maybe all at once; the problem is not a case of a team without a shared vision, a case of just another stupid project, or another example of bad management or poor leadership. No, when he thinks it all the way through, he’ll see that the trouble is not “too few people,” or “not enough time,” or some other cockamamie story about how the mediocrity was out of his control. The crux of the thing is that he, personally, has been accepting less than he wants, and less than he deserves. What’s more, he has been doing so without making any genuine creative effort to get what he requires to efficiently create what he wants. He’ll see that the problem is his own lack of integrity and his shallow engagement. The problem is rooted somewhere near his deficient caring about his own life. To persist as it has, the problem requires his repression of passion, it mandates that he fail to accept his own wisdom, and it seduces him into daily acts of cowardice that promulgate rather than abolish the general foolishness of which he is such an important part.

But should just this one person truly check in, you think, the whole team will be moved to a better ground. Even if team members backslide, and all do,they won’t forget this vivid instance of accountable behavior and the simple, unambiguous actions that supported it.

One self-respecting person, you reflect, with even a modest degree of personal engagement, is all it takes to start this team on the path toward much greater achievement. No permission is required for the pursuit of greatness, no consensus to improve your own results. All the orgs and re-orgs in the whole damn corporate universe, all the resources consumed and processes proceeding can’t stop one honest person from making sure he spends his time wisely. And that’s all that is needed to get the ball rolling.

Why not believe, you think. Pretend. OK. So from this one moment of surpassing individual and dawning team clarity, this whole group will quicken, will revive. Of course, team members will need some new supportive structures; they’ll require whatever information there is about highly effective connection and collaboration. In particular, they’ll damn well want more moments of clarity, and will be willing to adopt whatever practices create just the right conditions for genuine checking in.

They can’t hold it, probably. And would they spread it around? You have a spike of unease, but then you reassure yourself that the team you are envisioning would of course look for any behavior patterns that would achieve its goals. If there weren’t any, team members would just figure a way to create them. And put them in a book.

But first, one of them must check all the way in. Just one. Who? All this, after one of them has decided that his life, time, and creative output really do matter. But not before.

Interrupting your reverie, your nascent vision, the meeting suddenly stops as people scatter and depart, ceasing to meet rather than finishing their work. Finishing is way different from ceasing, you muse. As you gather yourself, one of the team newbies, together with the team’s most infamous cynic, approach you. You bet they want your take on things. Your help.

So that's the kickoff meeting that we've all been to, and all have wished was better.

What have you done in this situation? Thoughts? Comments?

HSD 1

So you know how you can come home from a course all pumped up with new learning, new insights, energy from the participants, new connections, etc., etc.?

That's me!

And then you have to deal with “reality” back home, and the questions of how to share the new learning with friends, associates, loved ones, etc., etc. and it all starts to slide downhill, leak away through your fingers?

That's NOT me!

When I came home from the certification course in Human System Dynamics last week, I had the joy of continuing to learn, gain insights, get energy because my sweetheart, and business partner, had attended with me (or more precisely, I with her, since it was her idea in the first place). And we have continued our great discussions about the intersection of the consulting / training work that we do with the concepts of HSD. [www.hsdinstitute.org]

Did I mention that she is also my business coach? [www.adaptivecoach.com]

So we have been rockin'! – bouncing ideas around, reviewing past experiences and work, playing with new “what if's” in the context of “patterns”, “containers”, “differences”, “exchanges”, etc., etc. [“patterns, containers, differences, exchanges” are all part of the HSD lexicon]

Yeah; I know – kids with new toys.

• AND, our work is our play (Work = Play)
• AND, we've got all these great case studies of previous and current consulting engagements we've shared
• AND, we're seeing connections expand exponentially between the areas in which we work: IT Service Management best practices, Teamwork best practices, business Coaching, and Leadership behaviours
• AND, the science of Human Systems Dynamics is explaining to us how

1. some best practice adoptions go well / don't go well / do both
2. the teamwork retreat “BootCamp” accomplishes so much in just a week [www.liveingreatness.com]
3. some organizations are open to new ideas & practices / some aren't / are both
4. and so on...

Just in case you are thinking that HSD is only for organizations, consultants, change agents, folks who like new mental toys, ... keep in mind that the first word is “Human” and that, hopefully, applies to all of us. :-)

More to come...

Leadership 13

You can't beat having your own coach, soul-mate, and historian right at your finger tips. And it's wonderful when she – Vickie Gray, www.adaptivecoach.com – throws a wrench into my half baked thinking about Servant-Leadership with one comment.

Like: I think servant-leadership is attempting to solve an issue with authority.

Ooops! Another solution for symptoms – not the cause?

Let's continue the investigation on Servant-Leadership then and see what we can find.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_K._Greenleaf

"Larry Spears ( in the “Ten Characteristics of the Servant-Leader” ) distills Greenleaf’s (1977/2002) instrumental means into ten characteristics: listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, and building community (pp. 3-6). It is important to note that these characteristics are not simply traits or skills possessed by the leader; a century of research has rejected what Bass and Stogdill (1990) referred to as an “approach [that] tended to treat personality variables in an atomistic fashion, suggesting that each trait acts singly to determine the effects of leadership” (p. 87).

"Rather, servant-leadership is an ethical perspective on leadership that identifies key moral behaviors that leaders must continuously demonstrate in order to make progress on Greenleaf’s (1977/2002) “best test.” The “best test,” which gives us the ethical ends for action, combined with Spears’ distillation of traits that identified the means, create a powerful framework for a review of the literature that furthers the conceptual framework for servant-leadership.

"That person is sharply different from one who is leader first... The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant first to make sure that other people's highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and the most difficult to administer, is this: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?"

As Vickie and I discussed the evolution of leadership thinking that got Greenleaf and Spears to the servant-leader concept and traits, the question became: What prompted all this?

If we take the idea at face value, it all seems quite nice, and perhaps too idealistic. I know I haven't encountered one of these animals personally. Mohandas Ghandi is the best candidate I can think of.

But if we consider the historical context of leaders, rulers, kings, princes, generals, etc. behaving in their own best interests, using their position to exercise power, and that leading to excesses of manipulation, subjugation, even slavery, the need for a kinder, gentler approach becomes clear.

Even in the lightest case of employees working for a domineering boss, the concept and traits of servant-leadership become appealing.

But not necessarily for everyone.

• Some are very content to be led, directed, told what to do.
  
• Some are looking for strong leadership in the form of an appealing vision – a picture of the future.
  
• Some want a clear course of action laid out in a mission statement.
  
• Some want the bounded responsibilities of specific tasks that don't include tactical or strategic thinking.
  
• Some want a well defined “day job” that lets them have a life of their own outside of work.
• Some don't want the boss asking them their opinion.

The point that Vickie and I got to was: In reaction to absolute power corrupting absolutely (or less disturbing versions of that), servant-leadership makes sense.

But the servant-leader traits listed should be part of any leaders behaviours because it simply just makes sense. They are the smart things to do. They get the best results.

And for more reasons than we might recognize on the surface.

From: http://www.greenleaf.org/whatissl/MargaretWheatley.html
Margaret Wheatley gave a talk on “The Work of the Servant Leader” at the 1999 conference. In her talk, which was published in Focus on Leadership, she said:

"There are many patterns, many beliefs, out there about leadership, about people, about motivation, about human development. The essential truth I’m discovering right now is that when we are together, more becomes possible. When we are together, joy is available. In the midst of a world that is insane, that will continue to surprise us with new outrages…in the midst of that future, the gift is each other. We have lived with a belief system that has not told us that. We have lived with a belief that has said, ‘We’re in it for ourselves. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there. Only the strong survive and you can’t trust anybody.’ That’s the belief that’s operating in most organizations if you scratch the surface. The belief that called you to be a servant-leader, I believe, is the belief of who we are as a species. We have need for each other. We have a desire for each other, and, more and more, I believe that if the real work is to stay together, then we are not only the best resource to move into this future—we are the only resource….We need to learn how to be together: that is the essential work of the servant-leader."

I like letting Margaret Wheatley have the last word.

Leadership 12

Luke Schubert, Adelaide, Australia asks:
“Have you mentioned servant leadership in this series yet? That's a concept that interests me. Listening to others is a fundamental part of authentic leadership IMHO.”

In further conversations Luke said, “If I remember correctly, servant leadership starts with serving - working out what the needs of others are and how to meet them. Similar to the Alignment protocol [from the Core Protocols] though maybe from a different angle. Perhaps the motivation is different from conventional leadership as well. I was thinking that it lined up with Authentic Leadership as you described it in a few ways but hadn't thought about specifics.”

Thanks Luke (beauty, mate)!

Since, for Christians Jesus is the exemplary Servant-Leader, the Christmas season seemed a good time to get to this question.

Luke and I both went off to research more on this topic and met at the same places from which I have extracts below.

Before we even get to them it's important to distinguish between what I'll call “assigned” or “conferred” leadership – as a CEO or prime minister or boss – and Authentic Leadership as previously discussed – where any one can adopt leadership behaviours based on passion and taking responsibility.

The distinction between them is important to better understanding the notion of Servant-Leadership. One way to clarify the distinction is to see the “assigned” leader as a structural position – a job – where one may or may not exhibit leadership behaviours. I think this is often the cause of confusion between the descriptors “leader” and “manager” and their actions. The positions and behaviours of leaders and managers get muddled in many discussions, blogs, and instances of expectations not met.

I've covered this before in prior blogs; however, the key point is that a position alone does not guarantee, nor does it prevent, the desired behaviours. The concept of a role taken on being a different thing than a position or job assigned is at the heart of keeping the words, and hence the thinking, straight. Using that foundation, one can more readily see how Authentic Leadership is about a role assumed and behaviours demonstrated rather than a title or position conferred.

So a management position is different from a leadership position, and a person in either, or neither, position may demonstrate leadership behaviours.

And all of this preamble plays into what Luke and I found on servant leadership.

At http://www.greenleaf.org/ Luke found:

The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions' (Addressing the motivation of leaders ...)

Here the extract is differentiating between one aspiring to lead through a desire to serve (adopting a role) and one who is “leader first” (by virtue of their position).

Luke continues:
“Maybe the connection between this and authentic leadership as you define it is that they're both "emergent and spontaneous" - not formal or authoritarian. Perhaps servant leadership addresses a different aspect of leadership, more the emotional and social side ... (Which I think the Core Protocols also address)”

And, yes, the adoption of the leadership role is emergent – not formalized – because I have inserted the word “role”. As to the emotional and social side, more later.

Turning to Wikipedia, I found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servant_leadership:

The modern servant leadership movement was launched by Robert K. Greenleaf in his 1970 with his essay, “The Servant as Leader,” in which he coined the terms “servant-leader” and “servant leadership.”

The general concept is ancient. Chanakya wrote, in the 4th century B.C., in his book Arthashastra:

“the king [leader] shall consider as good, not what pleases himself but what pleases his subjects [followers]” “the king [leader] is a paid servant and enjoys the resources of the state together with the people.”

This matches a teaching from Laozi (Lao-tzu) in the Dao (Tao):

The ideal ruler restrains his desires, doesn't codify his own subjective standards of right and wrong, and treats all people with goodness and sincerity*

Aha! The wisdom of history pokes its head up. Time to turn to my coach, soul-mate, and historian, Vickie. And that generated a conversation that sharpened my thinking, provided more insights, and will start my next blog as we continue on Servant-Leadership.

*The Tao Speaks translated by Brian Bruya, Doubleday, New York (1995)

Leadership 11

A comment from last week's blog “Leadership 10” from Pixie Stevenson, www.enigmawellness.com:

“Are you saying you wish the paradigm of formal leadership would change to authentic leadership?

What I meant in my last comment is that leadership is also a part of the organic, evolutionary, and every expanding process of life.

Have there been cycles in leadership? Is the current formal leadership a relic from the past that is now suffering the labor pains and transition of birth into authentic leadership? Are you midwifing a new era of leaders?”

Pixie; thanks again for your comment – let's continue the discussion. :)

“Are you saying you wish the paradigm of formal leadership would change to authentic leadership?”

I believe we need both, and realistically it is unlikely that those in formal leadership positions would simply fade away. Nor should they. What I am advocating is that formal leaders recognize, and take advantage of, is the phenomenon of emergent and spontaneous leadership. That can occur

• by recognizing their own passion and responsibility that might be part of their formal assignment – why they are in their current leadership assignment – or might be in addition to their formal assignment, and / or
• by relinquishing their presumed need or task of maintaining control and being charge and letting someone else's passion and responsibility for action take over

The key is to allow both to operate as required to get the job done; i.e. move toward the shared vision.

“Have there been cycles in leadership? Is the current formal leadership a relic from the past that is now suffering the labor pains and transition of birth into authentic leadership? Are you midwifing a new era of leaders?”

I'm not qualified to speak to historical cycles; however, others have written, for example, about forms of “tribal” behaviour, and self organizing systems where leadership occurs outside of our commonly held model of organizational strata. The message here again is that while a hierarchical structure continually evolves to determine the “pecking order” - the formal leader being the one currently most dominant – that structure co-exists with spontaneous leadership emerging from any member. And the hierarchical structure is also fluid over time as the dominance of any individual ascends and wanes.

It may be that our current dependence upon the formal leader model is a carry over from the World Wars. To mobilize and direct armies, materials production, and countries, formal leaders were needed to provide clarity of purpose, consistency of message, a rallying point for focused effort. We sought out those who would carry us forward up the hill, or over the cliff, in a very directive, black and white, manner.

Similarly today, we look for those who offer to lead us out of the quagmire of difficult, unsolved problems. That makes it easier for us: follow the strong formal leader and sidestep our responsibility. If their solution works, we win by tagging along, and if not then push them aside and look for the next hopeful candidate.

So, in my view, today's focus and dependence upon the formal leader is a carry over from the recent past. Or more precisely, we have experienced success and comfort with that model and so continue to endorse it. And because we gravitate to the simple answer, the short version of the story, the sound-bite, we ignore the authentic leadership that was happening simultaneously through that history. The formal leaders – Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin – were the rallying points, but they engaged others who emerged according to their passions and desire to exercise their responsibilities.

It seems to me that both models were operational then, and continue to be today. The challenge for us is the mind shift from an exclusive “either / or” perspective to an “inclusive” perspective where both models are necessary and co-exist. And instead of the “hero worship” of the formal leader as saviour, we recognize that the norm, the natural or default model has been, and should continue to be, authentic leadership through passion and responsibility.

But, darn it! - that requires work and engagement on our part. We can't just simply leave leadership to others to do it for us. We can't just hide in our cubbyholes, and daily routines.

We have to think, expend energy, act.

We have to determine our passion and take responsibility.

Leadership 10

A comment from last week's blog “Leadership 9” from Pixie Stevenson, www.enigmawellness.com:

“Great post, Paul! My take on it is that leadership (life) is organic which to me is not mechanistic. Is that what you're saying?”

Pixie; thanks for your comment!

My answer is: Sorta. Kinda. Maybe. Perhaps. :) I'm not sure what you mean by "leadership (life)".

Certainly life itself is organic. Leadership may or may not be.

The FORMAL LEADER strives be in control and operate in a systematic way: inputs transformed into outputs by procedural activities. This person is leading by virtue of their appointment – by themselves, or conferred – to a particular position in the chain of command. In their thinking and behaviour they strive to fulfill a notion of the leader who is instrumental for success, who can't be absent, who should not make mistakes, who can't be surprised, who can't be vulnerable, without their part of the world – their business, their department, their family – falling apart.
Because they view their part of the universe as a system, then certain inputs – events, transactions, people types, etc. - can be dealt with by the appropriate activity. These inputs become “problems” that can be “solved” by the smart leadership action. In this manner the FORMAL LEADER can regain control of the system, after any disturbance, by the right move, the correct application of expertise, charisma, power, intimidation...

AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP as described by Harrison Owen, and fostered by the Shambhala Institute, and taught by the McCarthy teamwork BootCamp is not procedural, nor founded in organizational authority, but emergent and so spontaneous.
Realizing that life – and organizations – are organic, with spontaneous connections and interplay, with surprises, apparent chaos, etc. working, perhaps invisibly, with, around, underneath the formally defined structure, provides a different perspective. This perspective doesn't have to completely replace the systemic view, in my opinion, but does need to become our default, or instinctive view, in spite of all prior organizational training and conditioning.

Harrison Owen describes beautifully the confusion and consternation possible among those brought up in the framework of the Whole System Hoax when confronted with Open Space Technology (OST) leading to authentic leadership. The freewheeling, self organizing that occurs in OST just goes completely against the grain for us nurtured in command and control, firm directive behaviour, keeping the ducks in a row even when doing something as gooey as “facilitating”.

In our systematic world we may stretch our minds and take the risk of assembling a team – carefully picked, mind you – to allow some brainstorming – bounded, of course – toward a solution - already identified by the boss. But, dang, even then it could get tricky and get out of control, er... out of hand, I mean... unproductive! Someone may start going off on a tangent to our well prepared session. And what if the boss – the FORMAL LEADER – doesn't like the results? That team is now history, and our facilitator's certificate is in the dumpster.

But in an OST environment there are just four nonsensical principles and one law – and then it's everyone for themselves. Authentic leadership simply emerges. YIKES!

Of course, just like so many great ideas and experiences, if you only read about them it doesn't seem reasonable that some useful outcome can result. OST, BootCamp, etc. sound good, make interesting reading, appeal to our intellect. Aircraft and bumblebees are fascinating concepts, but they won't really fly.

But as my wise friend and associate George Abbot during my Xerox life shared with me: A mind is like a parachute – it works best when it's open.
Or even: don't knock it 'till you've tried it.
Etc.

If, after 20 years of OST, 15 years of Stuart Kauffman's insight into self-organizing systems, as many years of the Core Protocols developed in teamwork BootCamps,... if we haven't yet heard of, learned about, digested, implemented, practiced Authentic Leadership, what will it take to do so?

Leadership 9

Here's a crackerjack job description of The Leader (or more precisely The Formal Leader) as provided by Harrison Owen in his book Wave Rider (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2008)

• "deals easily with massive diversity
• comprehends mind-bending complexity
• works simultaneously on multiple levels
• rises above chaos, confusion, and conflict
• tolerates tidal waves of change
• never loses their cool
• always in control
• mixes all of the above to produce wholeness, health, and harmony"

Why this over-the-top description is “Mission Impossible”, even without the hyperbole, is nicely revealed as Harrison Owen works through the implications for leadership when we are knocked off track by some of the common organizational muddy thinking, such as:

• defining every business issue as a problem we can fix
• dealing with the unintended consequences of our fixes
• the Closed System Hoax
• the Whole Systems approach
• Process Re-Engineering
• we can control everything that is moving

If we hang onto these models and paradigms, and our common approaches to deal with them, then we truly need the Mission Impossible Leader.

But, of course, this leads us to the reductio ad absurdem dead end. There is no such Leader, and if anyone claims that they are – well, shame on you for paying any attention to them.

Happily, Harrison shares an alternative with us he has seen in action over the years of observing his brain child in operation – Open Space Technology. He has observed exactly what we have seen in our teamwork development BootCamps (ref. Leadership 1 blog, January 2009). That is, “Authentic Leadership”.

In other words, the Formal Leader (someone in charge due to their title, job grade, or the organization chart) is absent, and not only not needed but actually an impediment to productive results. But other leaders emerge as required to provide “the stimulus, direction, and focus for useful activity”.

And this type of leadership appears due to

“... Passion and Responsibility. Or more precisely, Leadership emerges from the confluence of Passion and Responsibility.”

“... passion united with responsibility create the needed sense of direction and focus that can get the job done. That is Leadership.”

How interesting that in his 20 years of observation of high performing groups he has seen the same emergent properties as we see in teamwork BootCamps. Even more delightful, Harrison recognizes these emergent properties as similar to those noted by Stuart Kauffman dealing with questions on the origin of life in his study of self-organizing biological systems. (At Home in the Universe, Oxford University Press, 1995)

How scary that we still cling to notions of the organization as a mechanistic system, and Leaders being in charge in a command and control model.

Leadership 8

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away... er... at least a long time ago, not so far away, in this blog actually, we were writing about Leadership.

The closing entry, before we launched into a discussion on Management, asked you to submit your stories on Leadership.

I asked you to let me know by Comment on this blog the answer to “Who do you perceive as a leader and why?”.

Luke Schubert of Adelaide, Southern Australia commented with his examples of great leadership. I have chosen his entry to post now, after a summer hiatus from this blog, to get back to the Leadership question, and start with some popular examples of what people consider Leadership.

Luke's reply was also the most significant one received. I can say that with total assurance because it was the ONLY one. :) That is an indication that:

• Leadership is an uncertain, undefinable thing, or
• good, lasting, examples are hard to find, or
• many are not brave enough to voice an opinion, or
• there are very few who follow this blog!

Here are Luke's comments from last February:

“One of my favourite leaders is Vaclav Havel, poet, dissident and then president of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic. Some quotes:

"We introduced a new model of behavior: don't get involved in diffuse general ideological polemics with the center, to whom numerous concrete causes are always being sacrificed; fight "only" for those concrete causes, and be prepared to fight for them unswervingly, to the end. In other words, don't get mixed up in backroom wheeling and dealing, but play an open game." - from Disturbing the Peace

"Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance." - Letter to the downthrown Czechoslovak Communist Party chairman Alexander Dubcek (August 1969)

(both sourced from Wikiquote http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/V%C3%A1clav_Havel)”

Luke continued with thoughts on charities, probably in reaction to my appeal to help support the leadership actions taken by the Deep Griha Society in India. (www.deepgriha.org)

“Two of my favourite charities are Kiva (one of the founders, Matt Flannery, is a software developer who's created a P2P lending charity with explosive growth) and AcumenFund (led by Jacqueline Novogratz) which has been investing in building developments in Pakistan, amongst other things. And then there's Forge (www.forgenow.org) which was much discussed on blogs recently after its founder went public with just how much financial trouble it was in ...”

Thank you, Luke for your response!

The great thing about blogs is that it is never too late to

• find new and interesting ones,
• backtrack through old entries,
• add comments and thoughts.

Accordingly, if you have some examples of Leadership, some thoughts, or questions about previous blogs posted here, please submit them - night or day.

Thanks!

Management 7

Q: So we were talking about things that were part of job descriptions – the essentials – and then you added this “roles” thing. Why do you keep making this complicated?

A: Well, it's actually simpler when you can keep the bits and pieces clear.
It's important to know what the minimum requirements of a job are – the outcomes of that position for which one is hired and paid. But we all quickly realize that there is much more to a job than that. We end up doing all kinds of things that weren't covered in the hiring interview or the position description.

Q: Ha! Tell me about it. And so?

A: Well, we need to meet our job description requirements to get paid. And we need to fulfill many roles to get the job done and be successful. Some seem to naturally be part of the job and others are opportunities to try something new, based on our manager's requests or our own initiative. We often talk about wearing a variety of different hats.
The job description requirements are normally word-smithed to be clear and exact; the roles are much more informal and based on tribal knowledge and experience.
For example: from a job description perspective, “directing” is more precise than “leading” for a management job. Leaders (as a job) determine which forest to manage, Managers direct their staff to which trees need to be harvested.

Q: That seems to be a scope or big picture vs. smaller picture question.

A: Exactly.
And also, as our teamwork sessions keep showing, leadership is not restricted to a particular job and can be done by anyone. So while Leaders need to demonstrate leadership regularly, as part of their job, anyone can, and should, demonstrate leadership when they have the best idea.

Q: Well at least we're getting back to the leadership question. But why are you concerned about job descriptions vs. roles?

A: The job description concept is simply a way to describe the essentials required in a job – the minimum set of activities for a given role. Our summary for a Manager is:

• planning
• organizing
• staffing
• directing, and
• controlling

These are the things that a Manager must do at the very least (their job description). These aren't in your job description, and they aren't differentiators in a Leaders job description.

Q: But surely some, or all, of these activities are done by the Leaders – the senior management or whoever you mean.

A: Yes they do in their role as Managers of others. It's when we don't recognize the roles people are playing – which hat they have on – that we get these things muddled up.
That is why it is best to think of the role each person is playing at a given moment to recognize what activities they should be doing to fulfill that role well.

Q: And roles are different than jobs?

A: For sure. Your job is a description of what you are hired to do – the results expected – and the skills and knowledge required to get the results. To get that job done you may play many roles including manager executing management activities (even with your manager), and leading when you have the best idea in your team or workgroup.
One way to look at it is:

• you have to do your job to get paid;
• the various roles you can play to do your job - get it done faster, smarter, with higher quality, with more value, etc. - make you a more valuable employee.

Q: So if I am just fulfilling my job requirements, that's my job, and if I need to exercise some management skills with my peers or my manager then at that moment I am acting in the role of a manager?

A: Sure. For small work transactions you may just describe it as exercising some management skills or activities, but for more extended time periods – for example, when your manager is away on vacation – you would say you are filling that role on their behalf.

Q: Got it; but again why are we fussing with all this definitions and categorization stuff?

A: Because, in my opinion, based on how people write about this and discuss it, we easily get messed up and off track. We think we understand and then realize it was all about something else.
For example: when the manager of a group asks you to “lead the group” what does that really mean?
Often it is assumed to mean “be in charge”, “provide direction”, “organize the work”, etc.

Q: Yeah; that seems OK to me.

A: So now you are being asked to “lead the group”, is that a new job? Are you now the group's Supervisor? Team Lead? Manager?. In other words is that a job assignment or a role?
And what responsibility, accountability, authority do you have?

Q: I don't know; I just get to come in late and put my feet up! Just kidding.
More likely I get to deal with all the problems.

A: Right. You would usually end up with more questions in your mind than answers. And not about the work itself, but about the people stuff. What are your boundaries? How directive can you be? What do you do to lead?

Q: Hey; didn't we agree already that anyone on the team should be able to lead when they have the best idea?

A: Yes!
So what does your manager want when he tells you to “lead the group”?

Q: Beats me.

A: Me too! When we get together again let's ask him. :)

Management 6

Q: Hey there; where have you been?

A: Hi. I was away doing a little informal family management – the “herding cats” and “leading from behind” stuff

Q: Hmmm. I'm afraid to ask.
Anyway, I did my homework and looked up the golden rule in “The One Minute Manager”*. Pretty cute.

A: And it said?

Q: The one with the gold makes all the rules.

A: Right. And that's also part of why your boss is your best customer.

Q: Alright – I've been waiting to get back to this one! What the heck do you mean?
How does my boss also get to be my customer? He doesn't buy any product that our company produces.

A: Well that is only one way to define “customer”.
A more generic way is to see everything we do as a chain of activities. I do something for you, you add work or value to it and pass it on. At each step, each person is, momentarily at least, the supplier and the next person in the chain is their customer.
You and I have the discussion in this blog (suppliers) and someone reads it (customer), then they tell a friend (now they switch to being a supplier) and the friend is their customer. And so on.

Q: Do you mean that in all the work I do I am the supplier to my manager?

A: Overall, yes. Another way to see it is to ask: Who cares about the quality of your work?

Q: Well, I guess that would be my manager. And also the next person in the production chain according to your description before.

A: Exactly. So if you want to get paid (golden rule) you would want to follow your manager's rules, and if you want to continue to get paid you would treat your boss as your best customer.

Q: So what does that really mean – a lot of sucking up?

A: Well, imagine yourself as a one person retail operation. Your manager comes into your store now and then and you want to maximize your revenue from him to stay in business. Sucking up probably wouldn't be productive, but paying attention to what he wants, understanding his requirements, suggesting good ideas, providing the items that meet his requirements, providing better quality and value than he expects, and so on would help.
When you are the customer, what does it take to have you come back and buy more?

Q: OK, fine. But sometimes he doesn't really know what he wants, or his expectations are way out of line.

A: Then you have to help him, just like you would in your store. You have to manage him.

Q: Whoa! Stop! Now you have me managing my manager?

A: In a way. You can at least guide, provide information, teach where necessary.
Let's step back and review management activities that we talked about before, and see if there are ones you can exercise with your manager. These were:

• hiring, supervising, measuring, and maintaining or promoting or firing

A more comprehensive list from Wikipedia** is:

• "planning, organizing, leading, co-ordinating, controlling, staffing, motivating

[And these come together as:]

• Management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal."

Q: It seems that there is a lot of different items – isn't there just one good list?

A: Unfortunately no. There's lots of variance of opinion between “experts”; however, some of it is wording. For example: staffing covers hiring, promoting, and firing; controlling covers co-ordinating, supervising, measuring, and maintaining; again, all depending on the level of precision you need.
But there are some areas where some interesting shifts in perspective have occurred lately.

Q: Such as?

A: Notice in the last “definition” the wording is “leading or directing”.
Leadership has become such an enigma and area of research lately that people, myself included, like to reserve “leading” as a special word.

Q: But isn't that just splitting hairs?

A: I agree it can seem like that. But if you remember our previous discussion about precision, then the implications of the word used become important.
For example: does a Manager lead or direct?

Q: Well, if there really is a difference, shouldn't they do both?

A: Yes! But perhaps not for the reasons you expect.
In a job requirements sense – the job description if you will – managers have to direct their employees. That's required. But everyone should lead when they have the opportunity.
If you are the Leader, however, you should always be ready and capable of leading. That's a Leader's job requirement.
It might be easier if we separate job requirements/job descriptions from the roles each of us play.

Q: I knew you could complicate this further! Can we have a break and get into this "roles" idea later?

A: Sure. :)

* Kenneth H. Blanchard, Morrow, 1982
** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management

Management 4

Q: As I recall, you were suggesting that we need to start at the beginning of the story?

A: That's right. If we are going to discuss “Management” we need to know what we are actually talking about.

Q: I feel some definitions coming at me.

A: Right. Let's see what some sources have to say.

Q: Is this going to take long?

A: That depends on you. :)
Here's the first one: Among Webster's offerings for Management: “the judicious use of means to accomplish an end” (1).
And for Manager: “to handle or direct with a degree of skill” (2)
and “to exercise executive, administrative, and supervisory direction” (3).

Q: So?

A: Well, for starters, your bozo Manager in our previous discussions seems to have fulfilled definition (1) - “the judicious use of means to accomplish an end”. Whether you perceive his contribution or not, he used the means – you – to accomplish an end – you produced your results.

Q: But he didn't contribute – he didn't help me at all.

A: Agreed, but he didn't need to did he? In effect he used definition (2) - “to handle or direct with a degree of skill”, with you as a capable employee. That is he handled you with skill by staying out of your way and letting you produce.

Q: But he didn't lead at all, and spent his time playing office politics.

A: OK. Will you give me an example of his “office politics”?

Q: Sure; he was constantly in meetings with the other managers negotiating priorities, and tasks, and who was going to do what, and generally sucking up.

A: Good; that sounds a lot like definition (3) - “to exercise executive, administrative, and supervisory direction”. “Executive” direction is about executing – getting tasks done. That requires working out and understanding priorities, and who is going to be involved. “Supervisory” direction is about arranging to have those “who”s – like you - actually do the tasks.
I do agree that “generally sucking up” isn't in the dictionary definition. :)

Q: So you are telling me that according to the definitions my Manager was actually doing his job?

A: Yup.

Q: But that just can't be right. Where's the leadership? Where's the getting involved and helping get the tasks done? I didn't see him contribute at all!

A: Right.
Based on your criteria he did a damn fine job – as a Manager. The definitions so far haven't mentioned leadership, or getting involved in your tasks.
And let's be clear about the record for your scenario. You said “I knew my job, I knew my objectives, I knew my boundaries, I knew how to get things done and I did them.” How did you know your job?

Q: Well, I was hired with the knowledge and skills I needed.

A: And who hired you, and checked that you had the knowledge and skills?

Q: My Manager and the Human Resources assistant with the skill tests and new hire paperwork.

A: And how did you know your objectives, and boundaries?

Q: They were part of the job description and my performance objectives documents.

A: Good! Definitely a better start than I've seen in a lot of companies.
How did you know “how to get things done”?

Q: I figured out who the important people were who knew the operation and the inside tips.

A: Excellent! Did anyone help make sure you got your job description, performance objectives, introduced you to key people with experience?

Q: OK, OK. Don't rub it in; my Manager set things up for me. But then I was on my own!

A: And it worked out fine from what you said before.

Q: But surely there's more to managing than what I saw him do for me.

A: Yup. There's lots, but before we get to that let me ask you something. How do you feel about your Manager now?

Q: Well I'm not about to give him a big hug if that's what you mean.

A: That's fine. There's probably some Human Resources policy about that. :)
Besides you don't even have to like him – just respect him by believing he is a smart, rational human being like you until you have solid data to the contrary. After all he is your best customer.

Q: Whoa! You might have wrangled me into accepting he's not as big a bozo as I thought, and in fact, according to you, did the right things for me. But my “best customer”? Now you are talking like the bozo. How can my boss be my customer?

A: Let's find out next week. :)

Management 2

Q: So here we are again talking about “Management”, and you owe us an explanation about your use of quotation marks around such terms from last week.

A: You're right. My intent was to indicate a general use of the terms, covering a wide spectrum of meanings, until we have a chance in this discussion to be more precise.

Q: What's this concern with being precise?

A: It's more like an obsession about communication. Clear communication is tough enough when we speak the same language and have similar interests. It's even more challenging when we aren't careful about our choice of words and that leads to mis-understanding. So my goal is to be as precise as I can about words, critical ones at least, that are important to the point. Let's call them key words.

Q: And there isn't enough precision?

A: Generally no. For example: we talk about leading a group of people, supervising a group, managing a group, etc. often interchangeably. That's OK when it doesn't change the point of the message – the understanding. It's fine when we are being general and don't need to make a distinction.
But it hinders us when we are trying to be clear about differences, getting at specifics, or looking for improvement opportunities. In these instances, the words are important otherwise our resulting learning and actions are inappropriate, and we end up with a mess.

Q: Alright; I guess I am OK with that. Now, can we get on with it?

A: You're asking the questions. :)

Q: Fine. Let's jump into the deep end. We've all worked for “Managers” who seemed to be bozos who couldn't lead their way out of a paper bag and spent all their time playing office politics. What's that all about? What use are they?

A: Well, first of all, thanks for using quotation marks to make your question general and applicable to a large number of situations. Nevertheless, I am going to ask you for more precision: What is your problem with that situation?

Q: You can't be serious! Clearly that's a problem – they are incompetent.

A: Perhaps they are, but we don't have that data yet. Let me ask you a question: As someone working for that kind of Manager how did you do?

Q: Well, I was fine. I mean: I knew my job, I knew my objectives, I knew my boundaries, I knew how to get things done and I did them. But what if I was a new employee or new to the group, then what?

A: OK; then as far as you getting the right results there wasn't a problem, right? So, if I were to judge your Manager on that basis I would say he did the job required; i.e. your Manager had you produce the right results.

Q: Come on! The guy was a bozo and had nothing to do with me getting the results I did – I did everything for myself.

A: Then it sounds like you were the ideal employee and your Manager let you get on with being successful. And so the problem is...?

Q: OK. So, first you try to flatter me, and then you ignore the other part to my question, and now you are trying to make me look silly.

A: And perhaps you are getting just a tiny bit emotional. That's good; humans are supposed to be emotional even at work. If I may, I want to talk more about the data here first, and deal with the emotion later.

Q: No way! Now you are being condescending and I'm getting angry. And being emotional at work is unprofessional and unproductive, everyone knows that!!

A: Alright. I understand that you feel like I was trying to flatter you, and I sounded condescending. I did indeed bypass part of your concern relating to new employees. I'm sorry my approach is annoying you.
I absolutely agree that it is commonly accepted that emotions in the workplace are unprofessional. Would it be alright if I explained myself a little before we continue?

Q: Hmmm... I think I need a break.

A: We can do that; and reconvene next week?

Q: OK.

Management 1

First of all:
My thanks go out to Luke Schubert of Adelaide, Southern Australia for commenting on this blog with his examples of great leadership. If you have been paying attention to international news you know that Australia has been going through an extensive drought, leading to huge wildfires. It's been hotter than, well... Australia... in the summer time - which is 40+ Celsius right now.
Luke and his family, including two youngsters, haven't been able to sleep properly in the heat. Nevertheless, he has been making time to participate in the on-line BootCamp / ResultsCamp that is underway, doing his regular day job, his dad stuff, and passed on his examples in the Comments to last week's blog. Thanks Luke – Beauty mate!

My intent is to collect such stories and add them to the leadership articles in the near future.

Second:
I was alerted last week via Twitter (www.twitter.com/reevesresults) of a blog by “RandsinRepose” (www.randsinrepose.com) on management (“A Disclosure”). Specifically it is about the situation of successful “specialist” being asked to lead his team and become their manager. It was very interesting reading about the dilemmas, anomalies, and other upsets in the work life of a new “manager”. (The quotation marks will be explained in a moment.)

And that got my sweetheart Vickie and I into another great discussion, this time about “Management”.

Since she is a business coach (www.adaptivecoach.com), as well as my consulting and training partner, and focuses on the Generation Y (also known as Millennials) cohort moving into management assignments, and has her own experiences dealing with Boomer Generation managers, we just had the best time exploring the whole “management” thing.

Once we had solved world hunger in that discussion, we agreed that it seemed that the “Great Forgetting”, that Daniel Quinn describes in “Ishmael” and his other books on the nature of our Taker culture, has happened with respect to the general understanding, or the lack of understanding, on “Management”. It appears that the basics of “Management” aren't taught, heard, or absorbed in organizations these days, and in our consulting lives, Vickie and I run into examples of this regularly.

Further; the distinctions between leadership and management are unclear, so why not jump into the “Management” water as well as talk about leadership in this blog?

So at the risk of sounding like the Four Yorkshiremen “dreamin' of living in a corridor” (luxury!) who believe the youngsters these days don't appreciate how good they have it, I thought some fun with “Management” might be in order. (Thanks Monty Python)

Question: So, Mr. Reeves, I take it that you feel there is a gap in understanding in what “Management” is all about?

Answer: Very perceptive! I keep running into confusion, mis-understanding, and general belly-aching about it.

Q: And you are just the Saviour to lead us all out of this wilderness?

A: Of course.

Q: How modest!

A: Think nothing of it. Just show up again next week after I have compiled my extensive knowledge and experience into a few thousand pages of notes.

Q: Wait a second – you haven't explained your use of quotation marks above around “manager and “Management”.

A: You're right.

Leadership 7

A quick update on the inaugural event of Friends of Deep Griha, Canada, held at Central United Church, Lunenburg, Nova Scotia last week:

• about twice as many attendees at the pot-luck lunch as expected (nothing like food to get people's attention)
• a lot more money collected than imagined, with the result that
• 270 toddlers will have nutritional supplements of eggs and milk for a whole month in Deep Griha's care!

It is astonishing how a little goes a long way, and how directly one can make a difference not just in one child's life but in a lot of lives.

Thanks to all who attended, and the even larger number who contributed!

*************************************************************************************
And now back to our sponsor.... :)
Please comment with your stories about leaders you have experienced, as suggested in Leadership Article 6.
If you have had trouble getting through the security screens, infrared sensors, and bulky, imposing guards to post a comment, please try again. Thanks!

Leadership 6

So what's left to talk about regarding Leadership?

Only tons...

But why don't we take a pause to hear about your stories.

Let me know by Comment on this blog the answer to “Who do you perceive as a leader and why?”.

Share with us all your stories about leadership, and I will collect them and post them in future blogs.

As Jimmy Durante? used to say: “Keep those cards and letters comin'!”

***********************************************************************************************

Sunday, February 8th. is the inaugural fund raiser by the Friends of Deep Griha Canada with an awareness pot-luck Indian lunch at Central United Church in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.

Help support the leadership actions taken by the Deep Griha Society in Pune, India.

Leadership 5

Let's summarize the concepts we have accumulated so far in this series on Leadership:

• a vision
• the best idea moving toward that vision
• a leader proposing that idea
• a cohesive group wanting to follow that idea

Some of a leader's attributes: Inspiration, Courage, Patience, Respect, Decisiveness, Firmness, and Connection with the individuals in their group.

A test for leadership:

• Followers = Leadership happening
• No followers = no Leadership happening.

Characteristics of a group and it's leader:

• a symbiotic relationship, mutual influence, agency
• a cohesive group – a social identity – ideally using tested and proven interpersonal tools to share information, make decisions, resolve conflict, etc.
• a transformational process creating the group, determining its identity, developing these individual and group visions
• again ideally, the opportunity for any individual at any point in time take leadership of a team by means of the team's acceptance of that individual's idea for moving the team forward - that leadership possibly being momentary or lasting as long as it takes for the team to achieve their vision
  

Finally; a modification of the definition of leader to: one who has willing followers.

Which leads us to some other notions to address, such as authority vs. power.

If one of the “proofs” of seeing leadership is to also see followers, what about situations where people are forced to follow?

We see lots of projects in the software industry become “forced marches” and some so dire they become “death marches”. Usually no programmers die, thankfully, no matter how poor their programming or teamwork, although some project managers contemplate homicide followed by harakiri.

In these cases, are we seeing leadership?

Hence the more precise way of describing followers by adding the adjective “willing”. If the person heading up a group has to resort to coercion or some other form of power – typically fear – then should we say that person is demonstrating leadership? I believe a consensus would say no. People forced to follow the person in charge in any situation would not be considered willing followers and hence the person in charge would not be considered leading.

Can we then make a distinction between power and the use of power in the sense of force, and authority?

If, as we see regularly in our teamwork retreats called BootCamp or ResultsCamp, the team (our cohesive social group above) willingly follows the current “best idea”, and in effect the proposer of that idea, then we can say the team confers authority of leadership upon that proposer. On the strength of that idea, and the team's understanding that to continue to progress toward their vision they need to act on the current “best idea”, authority to lead automatically flows to the proposer of that idea. Or even more accurately, leadership authority flows to those who begin action on that idea.

What we see then in our Camps is the following proven scenario:

• the team members develop their individual visions of their futures
• this impetus leads to the team readily developing a team vision
• the agreed and accepted stance of the team becomes a bias toward action to enact that vision
• this bias for action leads to the development of, and proposals to, the team, of ideas to move toward that vision – the elements of enactment
• the act of proposing an idea, and the team's acceptance of it, causes emergent leadership by the proposer, and then by those who act with authority to make that idea so

The results are:

• leadership emerging from any team member at any moment
• the team conferring authority on these emergent leaders to move forward decisively based on action towards results
• this leadership lasting as long as progress is made, results are achieved, and the next “best idea” appears

None of this contradicts what we have learned so far. And it does make a very exciting and promising experience. Because exactly what we need right now is leaders like President Obama of the United States to not only propose ideas, but to seek out those of us who will act. Clearly no one individual can accomplish all the change needed, nor do they necessarily know what the current “best idea” is. But together we can all find ideas, and act on them – locally, municipally, provincially, and nationally - as emergent leaders.