Tag Archives: Leadership

04-Managing a project team, feedback, team dynamics

You Can’t Be a Great Manager If You’re Not a Good Coach

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In a recent blog post on hbr.org, Professor Monique Valcour presents a powerful suggestion for managers to connect with and get the most out of employees. She argues that “if your job involves leading others, the implications are clear: the most important thing you can do each day is to help your team members experience progress at meaningful work.”

So how do you know what is meaningful to them? By developing a coaching relationship and having coaching conversations. These conversations will allow managers to understand what drives each person, help build connections between each person’s work and the organization’s mission and strategic objectives, provide timely feedback, and help each person learn and grow on an ongoing basis. The goal is to develop the employee, just as the goal of a pitching coach is to develop his pitchers.

To do so, she lays out 5 tactics for managers.

  1. Listen deeply. Listen with your full attention, and create a high-quality connection that invites your team member to open up and to think creatively.
  2. Ask, don’t tell. In a coaching conversation, it’s essential to restrain your impulse to provide the answers. Your path is not your employee’s path.   Similar to the Socratic method,  open-ended questions, not answers, are the tools of coaching.
  3. Create and sustain a developmental alliance.  Follow-up is critical to build trust and to make your coaching more effective. The more you follow through on supporting your employees’ developmental plans, the more productive your coaching becomes, the greater your employees’ trust in you, and the more engaged you all become. It’s a virtuous cycle.
  4. Focus on moving forward positively. Similar to Professor Smith’s recommendation to have a 5:1 positive to negative feedback ratio, the reverse is true here — when an employee focuses on the negatives during coaching conversations, it’s the job of the manager to end the venting session and steer the discussion into a positive, solution-based dialogue.  You might ask, “Which of the activities you mention offer the greatest potential for building your knowledge and adding value to the company?” “Could you schedule two hours of time for developmental activities each week as a recurring appointment?” “Are there skills or relationships that would increase your ability to meet your primary deliverables?” “How could we work more efficiently within the team to free up and protect time for development?”
  5. Build accountability.  In addition to making sure you follow through on any commitments you make to employees in coaching conversations, it’s also useful to build accountability for the employee’s side of formulating and implementing developmental plans. Accountability increases the positive impact of coaching conversations and solidifies their rightful place as keys to organizational effectiveness.

I wanted to share this article because viewing management through a coaching lens resonates with me. To this day, I deeply appreciate and have nothing but fond thoughts towards my high school athletic coaches — they took a genuine interest in developing me as an athlete and as a person. I’ve yet to have a manager take this same kind of interest my own development, but I imagine my response to that kind of attention would be to make my time at work more meaningful and encourage me to do more meaningful work.

04-Managing a project team, team dynamics

Adventures in Miscommunication

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In my work in science, there is often pressure to achieve “breakthrough” results in order to continue to receive grant funding and to publish in high impact journals.  As a consequence, there is sometimes the tendency to not directly falsify, but to prune data so as to cast experiments in the most favorable light.  Minimizing this kind of data manipulation requires effective communication of core scientific principles at all levels of a research team; however, team leaders need to be especially careful that they are sending the right message.  In “Business Adventures” by John Brooks, a book I discovered through an interesting review article by Bill Gates in the Wall Street Journal, there is an example of miscommunication of business ethics throughout General Electric’s entire hierarchy that seemed particularly relevant.  Although the book is several decades old, the series of articles on which it was based appeared from 1959-1969, it is “as much about the strengths and weaknesses of leaders in challenging circumstances as it is about the particulars of one business or another,” as Bill Gates writes in his review.  In the case of GE, the communication of the company policy regarding price-fixing with competitors began to be accompanied by an unmistakable wink from some executives and this eventually became so engrained in corporate culture that even a direct order by an upper-level executive to not engage in price-fixing was ignored.  In his conclusions, Brooks offers the following scenario, where he describes how effective communication requires you to consider not only what you are saying, but precisely how you are conveying it to your audience:

Suppose, purely as hypothesis, that the owner of a company who orders his subordinates to obey the antitrust laws has such poor communication with himself that he does not really know whether he wants the order to be complied with or not.  If his order is disobeyed, the resulting price-fixing may benefit his company’s coffers; if it is obeyed, then he has done the right thing.  In the first instance, he is not personally implicated in any wrongdoing, while in the second he is positively implicated in rightdoing.  What, after all, can he lose?  It is perhaps reasonable to suppose that such an executive might communicate his uncertainty more forcefully than his order.

The review is available here: http://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Business-Adventures, and the book is available either from the Emory library or Amazon.

04-Managing a project team, team dynamics, team roles

Listen, Learn and then Lead

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2) Planning the Work of a Team, 3) Managing a Project Team

http://www.ted.com/speakers/stanley_mcchrystal

So I openly admit bias on my inspirational and informative reference (but in fairness most of my other Military Officer vets have incredible admiration for the guy). The former commander of US and ISAF forces in Afghanistan, General Stanly McChrystal, gave an incredible lecture via TED that is applicable to anyone wishing to take on a leadership role in a not just challenging environment but seek to implement transformational changes to said organization. As with many of my peers, I too have been in (and will seek post-MBA) leadership positions that have entirely different duties and responsibilities than my previous roles. From the transition from a Platoon Leader as a Second Lieutenant in a Sapper Platoon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp5LqGCtzYI ) to my other less interesting (and more plans-oriented) positions I realized that there are certain traits that make leaders excel in any field or organization that they are placed in.

One of the common themes at the US Army Officer Candidate School is leadership is leadership: irrespective of your specialty or organizational level responsibility. It has taken years for me to develop (and am still learning in the corporate world now) but the key traits I have observed and am now especially cognizant of are best summed up by General McChrystal:

Listen, Learn and then Lead.

Reflecting on all the skills one learns during his or her MBA experience I believe it to be equally important to understand how to implement your ideas to fully utilize lessons learned from classes such as Management Practice. In the course of leading often skeptical clients or coworkers (or Soldiers and civilians in the General’s case), McChrystal suggests to first listen. Listening is quite possibly the most difficult task leaders have, particularly as we are prone to defaulting to preconceived notions on how the role and responsibilities should play out before we even arrive; this is especially difficult when compounded with issues such as generational differences, prior experiences and job diversity. Throughout the learning phase (continuous) the main goal is to build trust and rapport; people tend to work harder and with more conviction when they believe someone has their best interest in mind; this is particularly true when it comes to leading higher risk maneuvers or actions where the natural tendency is risk-aversion to prevent failure / negative performance reviews. Finally there is learning when to fully lead. “When in charge be in charge” is one of the idioms always taught to military officers; when you have demonstrated the listening and learning traits to your group this becomes significantly easier to execute. I have found these leadership maxims to be of extreme value regardless of leading Soldiers in warzones or my peers when implementing a new sales strategy as a novice to seasoned sales representatives.

The “Listen, learn and lead” design is paramount to a leader’s success, particularly of importance when leading teams with informational and generational differences.

03-Planning the work of a team, 04-Managing a project team, team dynamics, work plans

Making the Move into a Management Position

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I just read an article that discusses the issue of wanting to transition into a management role, but needing management experience in order to qualify. How do you gain experience if you need experience to get the position. This is a tricky situation that many people face as they try to climb the corporate ladder.

The article suggests some ideas for making yourself more visible at your firm and forming the opinions of your superiors so that they see you as someone with management potential. The author states that your focus should be doing your current job very well. Nobody will consider you for a management position if you cannot perform your current job well. Presumably this is because a management role will have much more responsibilities than your current role as you will now also be responsible for other people.
He then lists 4 steps you should take:
1) Do your homework. He suggests observing managers at your firm and what they do. Another great suggestion that he made was to read books on leadership. These books can give you a great insight into skills that you may need to develop. One book that he suggested that I plan to read is ‘The One Minute Manager’ by Kenneth H. Blanchard and Spencer Johnson.
2) Develop people skills. This may seem as a given, but people skills are truly important to be an effective manager. You need to be able to relate, speak to and influence people. You also need to realize that the same techniques may not work for different people. I think that one good way to enhance your people skills is through group work that you may do at work and school. Pay particular attention to how you handle group dynamics. Pay attention to how you handle situations of disagreement and conflict. These are opportunities for you to learn and grow.
3) Show initiative. Volunteer to do things that may not be specifically required of you. Showing that you are willing to go above and beyond what is required of you puts you in a favorable light with your superiors. Volunteer for planning committees. Again, this shows that you are willing to go above and beyond, but it is also a great opportunity to showcase your planning and people skills. Both of which are very important skills for a manager to possess.
4) Ask. The author suggests asking for a management position if this is what you want. This is something that I find particularly difficult as you do not want to come across as aggressive, especially for a female. However, my career has taught me that you cannot wait for anything to be handed to you. There will be other people willing to stand up and ask for what they want and they will be seen and heard more than the person who quietly sits back, working away. Voicing what I want is out of my comfort zone, but I have some to realize that it is necessary to achieve what you want.
I believe that these simple suggestions could produce a meaningful difference in your career. As someone who wants to move into a management position, these are steps that I can easily implement in my every day work life.

http://management.about.com/cs/begintomanage/a/FirstMgtJob.htm
01-Structuring a problem, 06-Building a case, 07c-Telling stories

What we can learn from the Declaration of Independence

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What we can learn from The Declaration of Independence about the art and craft of structured problem solving.

This past weekend, as our nation celebrated the 4th of July, I took time to reread the Declaration of Independence. The document contains the most famous and precious words in American history, and arguably the finest articulation of the idea of natural rights ever written: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

I have long marveled at the beauty and power of the Declaration, and been fascinated by Thomas Jefferson, its principal author. This document provides a good example of 3 key management practice learning objectives: 1. Persuasive communication 2. Successful, real-world, problem solving and 3. An incitement to action.

1.  Making the Case Through Persuasive Communication

In the spring of 1776 Jefferson devoted much effort surveying the opinions of his countrymen to get their thoughts on American independence. He told one correspondent that he, “took great pains to enquire into the sentiments of the people on that head. In the upper counties I think I may safely say that nine out of ten are for it.” In terms of American political history, Jefferson was among the first to generate data from a survey of public opinion.

The ideas of freedom and liberty, which define the central themes of the emerging American republic, were commonplace in conversations, sermons, letters, and printed essays of the times. In drafting the declaration Thomas Jefferson said that his purpose was, “not aiming at originality of principle or sentiment.” Rather his intent was to, “place before mankind the common sense of the subject,” and to offer, “an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion.”

Drawing upon the philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment, Jefferson built his case on a contract between government and the governed that was founded on the consent of the people. Both poetic and practical, his arguments are grounded in the context of a story. The effect is a compelling narrative, even a romantic version of reality, which helped create an American identity.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the document is the logical force and rational power of the arguments it presents, the most notable of which is the notion of self-evident Truths − Truths that are self evident by reason and definition and based upon assertions of reality. (The angles of a triangle equal 180 degrees)

Great writing commands respect. The Declaration is an excellent example of persuasive, evidenced based logic that shaped the course of history. Thomas Jefferson took the current American political ideas and put them into a form that the Colonists could read, appreciate, and understand. With the power of the pen, he articulated a new principle for the government of humanity: all men are created equal. He also ensured that from the beginning, the United States of America would be a nation based on the principles of rational thought.

2.  Creating Value through Real World Problem Solving

While Jefferson’s skill and abilities as a thinker and a writer were remarkable, he also possessed another important quality: the power to analyze a historical situation in depth, to propose a course of action, and shape the minds of the decision makers and legislative assemblies. The bulk of the declaration contains a list of charges condemning the actions of King George III, while creating sympathy for the American cause.

The main problems were subjecting the colonies to laws without representation and the increasing tyrannical abuses from the English system of monarchy. Jefferson provided a solution by focusing his structure on two important themes. The first was the concept of individual rights: ‘The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time: the hand of force may destroy, but cannot enjoin them.’ Second, and equally important, was placing these rights within the context of popularly sovereignty, or the right of a nation to govern itself.

It was Jefferson’s ability to link the right to self government with liberty, both rooted in a Divine plan, and further legitimized by ancient practice and English tradition, which gave the colonists such a strong , clear, and compelling case for action. All of this led to a momentous decision. The struggle they faced was a daunting one.

3.  The Call to Effective Action

With forceful logic, evidence, and a sense of urgency, the declaration details the reasons the American colonists had to declare themselves independent, given their mistreatment at the hands of the British. Implementing these ideals would prove to be enormously challenging.  And, of course, England did not recognize or grant authority to the Declaration of Independence, and it would take a war of seven years to give validity and meaning to our founding document, but Jefferson’s efforts were essential for defining and legitimizing the new nation. With persuasive written communication, a logical framework for understanding the problem, and by proposing a  justifiable course of action, he won the hearts and the minds of the American people.

Great events in history are determined from all kinds of varied and complex factors, but the single most important one is always the quality of the people in charge. It all comes down to leadership. Two hundred and thirty-eight years ago our founding fathers made the sacrifices necessary to create the freedoms that we enjoy today. With the English language they gave voice to the unspoken hopes and aspirations of people everywhere. In the words of Benjamin Franklin, it was “the miracle of human affairs,” one that would result in “the greatest revolution the world ever saw.”

Full text of the document: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/declare.asp

 

Sources that were used in the composition of this post:

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham 2012. Random House. New York

The Road To Monticello: The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson by Kevin J. Hayes. 2008. Oxford University Press.

American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph J. Ellis 1996. Random House. New York

A History of the American People by Paul Johnson 1997. Harper Perennial. New York

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Issacson. Simon & Schuster. 2003. New York

03-Planning the work of a team, 04-Managing a project team

Ways for Improving Management Skills

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The attached link contains an article that not only assesses your current management skills but offers suggestions as to how to strengthen them.

I find this particularly useful as I am currently a Senior Analyst and do not have the opportunity to manage anyone. This is a challenge that I face as I attempt to gain management experience and strengthen my management skills. This article offers ways for non-managers to improve their management skills.

Some suggestions that I plan to implement are:

– taking a leadership role in facilitating meetings. This improves your  communication and plannings skills. Both of which are listed as key skills for managers to possess.

– training and/or mentoring new employees. This is something that I actually already do as the most senior analyst in my group, but I never considered it as a vehicle for gaining managerial experience. Again, this strengthens your communication skills, your ability to motivate people and your ability to understand and encourage good relationships.

Anybody who has set out to improve their management/leadership skills through MP this summer should definitely read this article and take the assessment to determine areas that they should concentrate on. I found this article especially helpful and will be implementing some of the suggestions in my every day work life.

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMM_28.htm

04-Managing a project team, team dynamics

Did Netflix reinvent HR?

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“Candor is not just a leader’s responsibility, and you should periodically ask your manager: “If I told you I were leaving, how hard would you work to change my mind?”

This is just one of several unusual or surprising policies or questions posed in a Powerpoint presentation shared by Netflix CEO and Chief Talent Officer. I find it interesting and relevant to share with all of you because I think these notions of being consistently honest with ourselves and our colleagues goes against what we inherently believe, which is that good things will come to good people.

Netflix encourages speaking up both as an employee and a manager. If you don’t feel you are getting the most out of your team, it is encouraged that you find new team members who will outperform the ones you have, even if they are doing just fine. As an employee, you are rewarded for “sustained A-level performance, despite minimal effort,” which I find a little infuriating. Imagine a scenario where a coworker rarely came into the office and rarely contributed in meetings, while you worked long hours and coordinated large meetings, but due to some arbitrary scale of success you were terminated and your colleague was not. Or, even worse, imagine watching that happen from afar. I would feel paralyzed, unclear how I should behave or react.

Netflix also promotes a process-free (or limited) environment where employees are authorized to spend within their budget, make decisions on assignments for which they are ultimately responsible, and cut much of the red tape that paralyzes other businesses. How does this continue to work for Netflix? Are there employees just that much better at communication, following the prescribed guidelines or role descriptions, or is it something else? I think empowering employees is huge and can have massive implications for eliminating much of the red tape  we have all experienced.

The rest of the presentation, along with a Harvard Business article, can be found here. I could spend all day detailing the rest of the Netflix value system, but instead look to you for your thoughts on what Netflix is doing, how sustainable it is for the long-term, and if any of these policies or lack-of-policies are things you would adopt or wish your organization would adhere to?

07c-Telling stories, metaphors, storyline structure

90’s Reference, Caveman Stories, and Pigs in a Blanket

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Storytelling seems to be the stuff that mermaid tears and unicorn dreams are made of but there is an innate link between storytelling and the human condition as it relates to the work place and beyond. As I read this article, I couldn’t help but think of Tim, the Tool Man Taylor, and the deep conversations that he would have with his half-faced neighbor, Wilson. Tim, who could be quite dense in his relationships at home and at work, would talk to Wilson about his troubles. The neighbor would always recount a story in order to get Tim to realize the error in his ways. How did Wilson convey information successfully and incite Tim to action? Read more to find out why the mind has evolved in such a way that stories make much more sense to us as humans than mere facts and data.

This article discusses the evolutionary adaptations of the human mind through the lens of storytelling and how these specializations help us today in the workplace and beyond. The brain and the way we think – the mind – is considered an organ that is subject to evolution just as other organs. The evolution and natural selection of better acclimated minds that understand and construct stories allowed us to survive better than our predecessors.

Since, it is supposed that, we began communicating by using glances, gestures, and basic sounds, this became the groundwork for emphatic storytelling. As we incorporated language with the gestures, the information exchanged became much more intelligible and memorable than mere facts. As a simple example: imagine a leader of a tribe calmly, without gesture or intonation, says: “at 1,500 feet north-west, there is a tribe that wants to kill us and take our land.” He conveyed the correct information but did not rouse his compatriots to action, he did not gesture where the enemies were, and he gave no context as to what type of people they were about to battle and why anyone should care. All of this is conveyed through gesture, intonation, and emotion – all aspects of storytelling.

Think pigs in a blanket: Pigs in a Blanket without an attractive vessel of flaky buttery goodness, lukewarm mini hotdogs dislodged from a vacuum-sealed plastic bag aren’t very enticing but, nonetheless, an integral part of the all-American snack favorite. Similarly, important numbers, facts, and data sets mean very little to the vast majority of those we may come into contact with throughout our careers without giving them a reason to digest this information. We must find tactful ways to wrap these bits of knowledge into descriptive, savory, and meaningful anecdotes in order for people to enjoy and successfully consume the pairing.

Favorite Excerpts:
“To weave a good story, the storyteller needs to develop the capability to construct fairly complicated inner representations of goals, intentions, and emotional states of real or fictional characters”

“empathy and the ability to understand ‘other points of view’ are necessary for the working of our narrative mind”

ToM – “Theory of Mind” is that we know and acknowledge that other people have their own minds. We can also step into their shoes, empathize, react, and step successfully out of those shoes in the end. This is also used to create metarepresentations. Metarepresentations occur when we imagine five different scenarios before going into a tough meeting with someone. This is the human mind’s way of telling stories to itself in order to prepare for upcoming unpleasant situations and has served our species well for evolutionary purposes.

A successful company should be one that focuses on creating environments where there is a community of storytelling that allows for collaboration and recombination of skill sets and new ways to solve problems.

Real world examples:
Novartis restructured its building in Basel so that the work of each individual could be watched, talked about, and replicated. They called this a “knowledge campus” and guess how the information was transmitted: through authentic communication and storytelling – not through static, out of context presentations.

Pixar built their existing offices around the notion of information exchange through storytelling focused on collaborative efforts and recombination of ideas and backgrounds.

Yang, Chulguen (Charlie). “Telling Tales At Work: An Evolutionary Explanation.” Business Communication Quarterly 76.2 (2013): 132-154. Business Source Complete. Web. 14 June 2014.

Thank you in advance for humoring my metaphors.

http://web.b.ebscohost.com.proxy.library.emory.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=6&sid=d017ff20-1bf6-4bdb-9641-493eb889fb0d%40sessionmgr111&hid=119