Achieving Spezzatura

I enjoy Seth Godin. He challenges you and conventional wisdom and pushes you to examine your life and expectations.

As I have mentioned previously I recently finished his new book - Linchpins, about the people who are really the most critical in our organizations. Godin argues and I agree that the most important skills in any organization are the skills it takes to bind people together and convert them from a group into a team with a shared vision and goals. He also points out that linchpins don't value compliance very much. They value their "art" and the work. Unfortunately our current system has managed to institutionalize compliance in almost every aspect of our society from education to the world of work. He goes so far as to say the educational system was built to provide an army of compliant serfs to staff our "factories"; factories not just in terms of manufacturing, but computer programming and administrative functions. Anything where standardization and "process" are king.

He also argues that this standardization hurts rather than helps in the long term. When I look at the level of engagement world wide coupled with turnover and job dissatisfaction I am inclined to agree.

Sprezzatura is an Italian word that translates into being able to do your craft without a lot of visible effort- with grace and elan rather than sweating and grunting. It probably causes people with a strong Calvinist ethic to writhe uncomfortably in their chair.

When I watched the women's figure skating competition for the gold medal I think sprezzatura was what I saw exhibited by the young woman from Korea, it was not just that she performed a brilliant routine it was that she was so graceful and elegant you almost forgot how difficult those moves were to accomplish.

My personal goal is to achieve sprezzatura in my work. It has caused me issues in my "corporate life". I have actually had more than one supervisor criticize me because it didn't look like I was working "hard" enough. I asked them if there was an issue with my work or output and they indicated there wasn't, but one actually commented, "I never see you sweat".

I like the idea of organizations and people I work with experiencing sprezzatura, the work is performed and expectations are met , but in such a way that it seems effortless and elegant. It creates an opportunity for engagement not only for those doing the "work", but those enjoying the benefit.

Commitment or engagement is where employees "join up" rather than comply. They come into their organizations and their lives with a connection to both the work and the vision of the organization. They are in congruence. The studies say that this engagement can be correlated to higher results and benefit all key performance indicators. Maybe in some ways these organizations are allowing their employees to enjoy a level of Sprezzatura.

So I would leave you with a couple of thoughts:

• What would sprezzatura look like for you personally?
• Would you rather have your employees work hard, or achieve sprezzatura?

I know what my answers are......

A Real Paradigm Shift

Every once in a while you get to experience a real paradigm shift.

A number of years ago I had an opportunity to attend a presentation/demonstration by Monty Roberts the "Horse Whisperer". If you are familiar with horse training vernacular you know that for the last couple of hundred years the technique of training horses has been referred to as "breaking" the horse. In short to teach the horse to "comply" with our will and instruction. Roberts discussed some things that were pretty intriguing to me. The fact that horses are both a herd and a "prey animal". Their primary reaction to threats is to flee. The herd part of their instinct is that they are essentially programmed to "join up" with others rather than attempt to go it alone. With that in mind he proposed a different methodology- rather than "breaking" the horse why not extend an invitation to the horse to "join up" with you and become part of your herd? In the space of a little over an hour I saw a horse that had never been ridden accept a saddle, bridle, and rider. That is a paradigm shift!

Because of what I do my mind immediately went to my own experiences with people and organizations. What if we were to offer an opportunity to employees to "join up" with us rather than try to impose our organizational values or even our personal values for those of us that lead and manage teams? That became part of the fabric of my model of moving from compliance to commitment.

This week I had the opportunity to be exposed to another profound paradigm shift by a brilliant colleague. This model identifies behavioral "channels" in the subconscious mind and allows you to "retrain" the channel to create opportunities for profound and sustained changes in the behavior of individuals and teams. By creating the new "channel" you are allowing them to join up rather than imposing your model or view.

I am not confident or competent enough to discuss this model in detail at this stage, but I assure you you will be hearing more from me on this topic as I understand it and its application.

Thank you Reut for sharing your brilliance and your vision with me and the others. I am very excited about seeing where this new paradigm takes us... What new "paradigms" are you open to exploring?

Opportunity from Chaos

The Conference Board announced that employee satisfaction is at an all time low and several other studies say that based on "dis-engagement" the U.S. economy is operating at about 30% efficiency. Yet another study says that the supply of "experienced" talent is going to decrease while demand increases. So where is the opportunity? Well call me Pollyanna, but I see several areas.

In a recent article Daniel Pink, author of Drive as well as several other great management books, states that loyalty isn't dead it has been redefined. He even provides a whole bunch of ways to build this redefined loyalty into your organization and redefined loyalty can translate to engagement which directly contributes to sustainability, profitability, and productivity.

Although 25% of the workforce will be over 50 by 2020 in North America and Europe and the over 45 customer demographic will be 40% larger than the 20-45 group by 2012 these folks have more money to spend and incidentally research shows that the over 50s have as good or better skills as their younger counterparts. By matching up the customer facing workforce with the demographic shift it represents opportunity rather than loss.

Building engagement requires a strategy, but it is not necessarily cost prohibitive or limited to large, complex organizations. In fact many of the elements of an engagement strategy are pretty simple in their foundations:

• Hire the right people. Think about your organization and your values and the values of your customer base and build it into your hiring and selection processes.
• Create great jobs. Great jobs are not necessarily about compensation. They give people an opportunity to contribute and work in an environment that fits them.
• Participate in helping people build great careers. Loyalty should be based on contribution not tenure. Employees who give you 110% while they work for you are loyal. Employees who speak highly about you to customers and other potential employees are loyal.
• Re-recruit constantly. Smart employers spend a lot of time ensuring that employees understand their personal contribution to the business and where they fit in. Do you really think this is easier in organizations with thousands of employees than it is in smaller organizations?
• Take advantage of local resources. Most of the foundational element of successful engagement come down to relationship skills not technology. I am talking about things like setting expectations properly, giving feedback constructively, recognizing positive results and similar skills. Most of those skills are taught by your local Chamber of Commerce or community college. You don't need an expensive "top tier" consulting firm. Best practices and templates work great for the company who developed them and consulting firms who install them.
• Think local, act local. To a great extent most of us operate in our local community. By engaging and investing in our community we build and reinforce relationships and it relationships that drive organizations not technology or systems by themselves.

In my mind we must decide whether or not we will use the "lessons" from this latest recession as a learning opportunity or concede defeat. I am hoping it will cause us to examine root causes and to redefine how we work with our employees, customers, and communities and they we will capitalize on the benefits of commitment rather than compliance. We have to decide.

Looking Forward ..and Back

This New Year's Eve will be a bit different than many we have celebrated. It is the end of the first decade of the new millennium among other distinctions.

It seems somehow alomost surreal to think that 10 years ago we were in a panic about what Y2K would bring. Kind of turned out to be a non event. 2001 distinguished itself largely because of 9/11 and has changed our lives and shaped foreign policy and the role of government intervention in our lives. 2008 elected the first African American president and 2009 brought the worst financial recession in generations and the effective demise of several major institutions.

It has been an interesting decade for me as well. My children entered "adulthood". I spent the bulk of the decade in a "new" career as an executive in the financial services industry, specifically in credit unions trying to help re-shape our approach and go back to our roots. I can honestly say that some of my greatest career achievements occurred with some of the work I did in those organizations. I feel that in several cases we made things not only better for our employees and "members", but actually contributed to positive social change and bettering the communities we served.

I wrote and published my first book, which was a significant personal milestone and learned to embrace social media. I also began hearing about and writing about a phenomenon called engagement that I had described as moving from compliance to commitment which still represents a personal passion for me. I have to admit that I have been frustrated with my ability to articulate this model in a way that causes more organizations to embrace it. I truly believe it is a far superior model for organizations and their members to interact whether those organizations are businesses, communities, educational institutions or any other entity that brings people together.

It has been a decade of revelation and introspection for me. I have enjoyed some of that much more than other parts. In truth I didn't care much for 2009, I am not sorry to see it go.

Starting on Friday we begin a new decade. I will be curious to see what we do with it and whether or not it provides opportunity and promise or more disappointment.

So I will be curious to hear from you as to what stood out for you in the first decade of the millenium and what you hope to see as we move into 2010.

Change Is In the Air- I Think....

It has been an interesting couple of weeks. I have heard from several people I am close to that they have found important new roles that they are pleased about. I have decided to make a change and sharpen my focus in my own endeavors. The stock market is up- at least temporarily. Many economists are declaring the recession over.

The first thing that is interesting to me is the issue of the economy. I have heard "experts" begin to refer to this as a "jobless" recovery. I don't get that. Is that like Jumbo Shrimp? How to we pronounce the recession over if we have large numbers of people who are still unemployed or underemployed? Because the stock market is up? How is that affecting your personal financial well being?

I read some information recently about a change that concerned me, but didn't shock me. The "change" was that the large financial players have been using the bailout money to fund investments in the market rather than reinvesting in programs and things that really benefit the average American. Coming from financial services recently that doesn't surprise me that much. Most financial service organizations stopped making their profits in the traditional sense; the "margin" between what they paid for deposits and what they make loans for some time ago. They borrowed some "creativity" from other industries and found that there are much better opportunities to generate fee income for "services" such as overdraft protection, ATM access, and other transaction fees.

The interesting thing to me is that they are missing huge opportunities to increase their income and benefit their stakeholders by utilizing things like supply chain management and TQM techniques, but they have been relatively slow adopters.

This weekend the House passed the most sweeping legislation since Medicare on health care reform. Depending on which side of the equation you represent this is either a huge step forward or the continuing "socialization" of our economy. I am suspending judgement. I think our current health care system has significant flaws in a number of areas, notably our ability to deliver high quality health care in an efficient and cost effective manner.

I had hoped that the recession might cause more employers to examine their relationships with stakeholders, especially employees and to address flaws in our models that have existed for years. In many cases I feel like we lost traction. We went back to the "be grateful you have a job model".

We need a new leadership model. Much of our leadership modeling is based on financial and economic metrics- i.e. a "jobless" recovery. When I read about the stresses and reactions from those stresses I am concerned that we are kidding ourselves.

I have decided to focus my "change" efforts at a very basic level, by hopefully effecting the way organizations select and orient their senior leadership teams in their hiring and selection process. My colleague, Joseph Skursky refers to this as "hire hard-manage easy".

I see things on the web asking whether it is OK to probe employee's values alignment with your organizational values before you hire them. My answer is "duh", of course. You can't and shouldn't get into protected areas, but do you really want people in your lifeboat who don't support or understand your core values? I have to tell you after thirty years of experience, changing somebody's values is really hard. It is much easier to align them upfront.

As an employer you also have the freedom within reason to set the values of your organization and require compliance if not commitment to those values. You aren't saying to those who don't share your values they are bad people, you are saying they would be better suited in an environment where they share the organization's values. Trust me, people who are technically competent , but don't represent a good "fit" will never really be outstanding performers.

So I think that we are at a stage where we accept the status quo or we become our own personal change agent. I know which choice I have made, what about you?

Enlightenment in the Vineyard

My wife and I had an opportunity to spend this last holiday weekend in one of our favorite locations, the foothills of the Sierras. The Calaveras County of Mark Twain fame also makes some awesome wines!

The region is quite small with limited production and focuses more on Spanish style wines like Temparnillo, Syrah, Grenache and "warmer" climate wines. It is reminiscent of our Rogue Valley located near the California border. Just as the Sierra appellation is overshadowed by Napa, most people associate Oregon with Pinot's. I can tell you some of the "warm weather" wines from the Umpqua region are fantastic.

In addition to getting to drink some great wine and enjoy some great company I had the chance to read an excellent book , Do You Matter and actually see some of the concepts in action.

Although the premise of the book is the criticality of design I saw significant parallels to my own perspectives on successful engagement strategy. The parallels for me included the systemic nature (both need to be included in all decisions) and the criticality of the internal in the process. We call internal customers employees.

The author said that the design is really creating a "portal" to the customer's experience with your product or service. I would submit that engagement is the same. If you think about the five levels of engagement I have discussed before, the highest level is that of pride of association. You have gone beyond a commodity to a shared experience. You have connected.

They point out that if your employees do not share this "connection" it will be reflected in their interactions with your customers. BlessingWhite and others share this perspective about engagement.
To put it in context; General Motors sells transportation, BMW or Porsche sell a lifestyle or experience. They are aspirational.

The reason I use the analogy of this wine experience is I saw several key elements represented in this particular community. The "tasting" experience is likely representative of Napa in the old days. You may have an opportunity to discuss the wine directly with the wine maker and/or owner. I recognize you can do that in Napa as well, but not for free or a tasting fee typically under $5!

One of the other things that is quite interesting is that several of the vineyards have tasting rooms located in close enough proximity to be entirely walkable. This allows you to enjoy the experience without worrying about driving or chartering transportation. There is excellent lodging and dining all in a contained area.

In the "better" wineries (MHO), the personalities of the people in the tasting room is also part of the experience. A kind of enthusiasm and ambiance is created. You are sharing an experience with others beyond just having wine.

When I developed my system of Compliance to Commitment I talked about the Human Resources Pyramid created by Roger Deprey-

• What is my job?
• How am I doing?
• Does anyone care?
• What do we do?
• How are we doing?
• How can I help?

The authors of Do You Matter ask:

• Who are you?
• What do you do?
• Why does it matter?

Is is just me or do you see some parallels there?

So the "enlightenment" part comes in the concept that whether you approach it from the "people" perspective or the design perspective the conclusion is the same. Successful organizations build relationships, they don't engage in transactions. It is built into their processes rather than "engineered" over.

I was somewhat saddened to hear that one of the likely first casualties of the GM debacle will be Saturn. I remember when Saturn was cult like on the level of Harley. It was a culture designed from the ground up with the internal and external customer in mind. Their human resources systems were studied and copied and their customer satisfaction was on a par with Lexus. As they became more successful GM "fixed" them and demonstrated that culture eats strategy every time. In this case the GM engineering/finance culture crushed what was once Saturn.

A friend who left a large oil company told me that engagement isn't new, they have "done it" at her old company. Well, I hate to be a buzz kill, but it must have been "engineered" rather than designed in because the employees in the "stores" didn't get the message. If they have been immersed in that model they must have missed a few of the classes. To them I am definitely a transaction.

So perhaps it was the wine, but I think this culture by design and engagement thing has potential. It goes to stakeholders not shareholders and relationships not transactions. I like it.

As a consultant, teacher, and leader I would like to share the idea of organizations who seek commitment rather than compliance. I don't aspire to own it, but I think the idea of being kind of a "portal" to take organizations to a new place intrigues me. What do you think?

Reflecting on Leadership

What an interesting week on the leadership front.

President Obama gave his first two commencement speeches in two very different venues. At Arizona State there was a lot of controversy over both inviting him as well as the decision not to award him the customary honorary degree. The reason cited was that he has not completed his "body of work". He agreed and in fact challenged the new graduates that just as he has not completed his body of work they are only beginning theirs.

At Notre Dame, the most prestigious Catholic college in the U.S. the controversy was around his position on women's choice as it relates to abortion. His position here was that the two sides would never be reconciled, but we should take steps to stop demonizing those whose viewpoints is different than our own. Not just about abortion, but about many things.

It was interesting today watching the press reaction to Congress' vote on denying the funding to close Guantanamo Bay. They wanted to get the administration to take a position on whether or not that represents the President's first "failure". The Congress apparently has legitimate concerns about the disposition of the detainees and felt the closure is premature. They kept pressing for recognition of a "mistake". The Administration responded that while the Executive Order may have been premature, it did galvanize action.

We really want to classify things as right or wrong, as a win or a loss. I am not sure that is leadership, in fact I am pretty sure it isn't.

On a positive note a colleague of mine was elected to a position on the school board in our community yesterday. I am pleased on a number of levels.

• She is an "includer" and a thinker. I have worked with her in a number of capacities and rarely heard her express "right" or "wrong" positions.
• She is a listener. She weighs things carefully and thoughtfully before coming to a decision or conclusion.
• She is committed. Her personal history shows someone who has served her community in a number of capacities over an extended period of time. This is not any easy time to serve.
• She was endorsed and supported by people from many different perspectives and on differing sides of issues.

These things are important to me because we are a very polarized community. It is very important for many people to be "right". As a result we have no defined road map for how we move forward as a community. We have very high unemployment, budget shortfalls for our schools, and not much of a plan for coming out of it. Perhaps her election is a sign that we are beginning to recognize that progress begins with relationships and willingness to hear the other person.

Last week I mentioned Bill George and his new generation of leaders who focus on "stakeholders" not shareholders. I think she might be one of that new generation. I wish her luck and I offer her my continuing support.

This Monday we celebrate Memorial Day, a tribute and an homage to those who served and those who died to preserve our rights to disagree, personal competency and a number of other core values that we hold dear.

I wonder what those who passed and those who remain think about where we are today not only in terms of our economy, but our values and where we go from here.

I like the fact that the president of Notre Dame mentioned that even while he disagreed with the President on many core issues he was proud of a President who called for discussion and tolerance for differences rather than demonizing those whose viewpoint is different from your own.

I also agree with President Obama and Senator McCain that Guantanomo became a symbol that I didn't care for and that now the issue is not if, but when we close it; and that is a good thing.

What do you think......?