The Right Fit

A lot of you are probably tired of hearing about my ongoing love affair with the concept of engagement. Sorry I just can't help myself, it's my passion.

In my last post I talked about a couple of people who have made a deep and lasting impression on me even though they were quite different. I still think about those two people and others I have encountered that were similar. These people don't seem to spend a lot of time in that "uncertainty" zone wondering what their role or motivation is or should be. They are aligned.

I read a couple of things today that I found interesting. One was from a colleague who I respect a great deal talking about whether or not organizations should accept or even embrace their role in providing structure in a world confronted with a lot of ambiguity. His question was around social context and whether employers should play a proactive, reactive, or neutral role in creating and/or managing social relationships related to the workplace.

My response, perhaps naively, was that if you embrace a philosophy of engagement a certain amount of this need to "affiliate" will be met organically. If you share values and a sense of commitment with your colleagues the "membership" component will occur somewhat naturally. The employer will need to provide some boundary management and be sure that the approach is broad rather than prescriptive, but shouldn't have to artificially bring people together.
By prescriptive I mean being too structured as to what engagement looks like or must be practiced.

I find organized religion to be a little "prescriptive". Three of the largest religions in the world; Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are all "people of the book", but we fight wars over the "right" way to practice it. I don't really get it.

Another colleague posted a very different question about the relative difficulty of coaching someone from "incompetence to mediocrity" versus "good to great". My reaction was "Why would you want to coach someone to a career pinnacle of mediocrity?" Where is the value to the person or the organization. Perhaps I am being hypocritical, I play golf badly, but I enjoy it as a hobby recognizing that Tiger (even with his current distractions) need never feel threatened. Golf is a hobby, not a career.

If you look at the single biggest reasons for "failure" in the employment environment they are around "fit" not technical competence. The numbers are pretty scary too- exceeding 30% at the C level and even higher at lower levels. How many of us know colleagues who are "living quiet lives of desperation" performing a job where they are not very engaged or frankly a great fit. I feel for these people even though by some measures they are "successful".

Maybe I just continue to be contemplative because of the recent events of my role models. Maybe it is the season. Maybe this "fit" thing is overrated. What do you think?

It Takes A Village

I had a chance to read several different articles recently that at least to me reinforced something I have always intuitively believed, collaboration is more powerful than individual excellence in an organizational setting.

In many of the presentations that I do I use the illustration of the Nigerian soccer team in the Olympics a few years back. The team was composed of a group of people who were committed to the game and committed to each other. There were no "superstars" that would be recognized internationally. The interesting thing is that this group of committed individuals went on to defeat the "best" teams in the world and win the gold medal.

I think many cultures, at least western ones love the concept of the hero or all star. The individual who will ensure victory. The interesting thing is that these are usually individual contributors. I differentiate these individual contributors, even "superstars" from leaders. I think it is two different skill sets.

Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford is one of my favorite organizational development "gurus". He has written a short article on BNET about so called "stars" in the financial industry and the practice of large players to recruit such "stars" and pay them fabulous sums of money. He decided to do some research on the ROI of such investments. He found they typically fell flat, the "stars" performance rarely approached their previous performance much less exceeded it. He points out similar correlations in professional sports. A great recent example is soccer star David Beckham. The LA franchise that acquired him has yet to see the benefits of the dollars they invested in winning matches. They have seen gate receipts go up because fans will pay to see him play.

Pfeffer points out that it would seem that environment and coaching play a huge role in performance. Having supportive colleagues, access to resources, and good management and coaching seem to matter quite a lot. I think Malcolm Gladwell makes a similar point in Outliers, people who excelled had great innate ability, but they also had access to resources and a highly supportive environment.

The other interview clip I saw on BNET included industry leaders including the VP of Innovation for Google. She was asked about the impact of the recession and other factors leading to innovation or the lack there of. Interestingly she posited that once again the key differential in high performing companies is the human capital and creating and nurturing an environment that allows them to contribute. Pretty interesting coming from a technology firm. She also pointed out that many great companies had their genesis in recessionary times, the people at the firms collectively rose to the challenge and innovated and over came the obstacles.

As a student and advocate of engagement I am a big believer in this model. Statistics show that organizations with high engagement increase per capita 21% higher than their peers and outperform their peers and competitors on every critical metric. The key is that this is collective performance and per capita. The approach is collaborative rather than reliant upon "superstars".

In my previous post Dr. Dolan of the University of Michigan talks about a key attribute of leadership being the creation of an environment that attracts talent and its development. The role of the leader is to attract and develop, not to "perform" tasks as an individual.

So where am I going with this? I am not suggesting that you discard efforts to hire the "best and the brightest", but rather than suggesting that you not rely on hiring somebody else's superstar to increase your organizational performance as an exclusive strategy. Creating engagement and raising the collective talents and performance of your organization would seem to be a much more effective long term strategy.

Leadership should be evaluated in terms of their ability to build and create strong teams and develop talent rather than on the basis of individual accomplishments and talents. Being an excellent "coach" is more valuable than being the best "player" for those we put in management and leadership roles.

Just something to think about....

A Matter of Balance

The power of language intrigues me. I participate in a group of people much smarter than I am in trying to re-shape how we define words and their context and the effect that has on perception and understanding. I find it plays an enormous role in many applications, but the place that intrigues me the most is in the arena of leadership.

As many of you know I am an enormous proponent of engagement as a cultural norm. I feel that organizations where the inter linked relationships are based on shared values, respect, and a common vision and goals will always be more successful than a transaction based relationship. I also differentiate true engagement; which involves employees, customers, and shareholders, from engagement models that focus exclusively on "loyal" customers.

The Sotomayor nomination has created an interesting debate regarding the appropriateness of empathy in the judiciary. Should a jurist consider context and circumstances in rendering a decision or merely the "facts"?

I used that as the basis for a question I posed on LinkedIn as to the appropriateness of empathy not only in the judicial system , but to the essence of leadership. Is empathy an essential or at least important characteristic in effective leadership? The vast majority of the responders agreed that it is, but there was some dissent arguing that empathy can cause decisions to be made on the basis of emotion or disparate consideration for the interests of one "stakeholder" group over another.

I think we are finding much about our "objective" models that are based exclusively upon numbers and singular shareholder groups is flawed. I mentioned in a previous blog that Bill George of Harvard stated that a possible positive outcome of the current crisis is a new "balanced" model. Even more recently Richard Rumelt of UCLA mentioned in an interview with McKinsey that much of our current circumstance was based on reliance exclusively or primarily on short term "numbers" and indices that don't tell the whole story.

Another interesting debate is whether or not organizations should focus their efforts on shareholder satisfaction or stakeholder satisfaction. As you might suspect my perception is that organization who focus exclusively on shareholder value rarely maintain sustained success. I would submit that much of our current financial crisis is predicated on focusing on the value to the shareholder as represented by stock price to the exclusion of other stakeholder values. I have seen debates on LinkedIn and other venues insisting that shareholder value is the primary or exclusive measure of organizational success, but if you ignore or minimize the interests of the other stakeholder groups how do you stay in business?

In the past week I had a great conversation with a colleague who is trying to "re-invent" the practice of human resources management. Like me she is concerned that HR has become overly concerned with policy and procedure and systems rather than "people". We want to ignore or minimize the human element. Organizations are staffed by people.

I have another colleague who works in the area of trust. She has become frustrated occasionally with potential clients who don't particularly value strategies and systems to build and sustain trust with their customers, suppliers, or employees. They are not sure they can track a direct correlation to the bottom line. Hmm, sounds like a shareholder versus stakeholder issue.

Yet another colleague has designed a management system she calls KindExcellence(TM). Her belief (and I share it) is that kindness and excellence are not a polarity, but rather an axis. You need both to operate as an effective leader.

In my model responsibility and respect form a similar axis. If you allow someone to perform in a manner that doesn't live up to your expectations or their capabilities is that truly a respected based relationship?

I guess at the end of the day I agree with Margaret Wheatley that the most powerful force in organizational systems is relationships. These other elements are important as long as they are kept in "balance".

I think I will continue to endeavor to manage "whole people" and to include empathy in my decision making model. I particularly like the way a Buddhist philosopher put it in a quote a colleague shared with me.

"A person who cannot genuinely empathize with others can never excel as a leader. So much of what ails society today is the result of too many people in leadership positions who do not or cannot identify with the plight of their fellow men and women. It is in enduring pain and struggles that the earth of our humanity is cultivated. And it is from this earth that a capacity to be genuinely concerned for the welfare of others blossoms." - Daisaku Ikeda.

I think that sounds like balance......

Creating the Perfect "Brew"

I had a chance this week to spend some time with my very creative and talented sister in law. She works in the internal communications area in the adult beverages industry; they make beer, very good beer.

Her role is to assist in crafting the messages for their internal employees to understand the values and mission of the organization and how their individual and collective roles fit into it.
We were talking about the parallels between making beer and crafting a great message- it isn't just simply a recipe. All the right ingredients without that something "else" and you just have beer, not great beer. All the slogans and mission statements and team building without that something else and you have a good organization, but not a great one.

Her charter is to help her organization create extraordinary brands and she and her colleagues identified six elements that they feel are essential to accomplishing that objective. I would go further and say that like congruency and other concepts I have shared on this blog and other places these elements speak not just to beer, but have a dimension of universal application to them. These are the elements:

• A defining brand truth. Think about the concept of a defining brand truth. It articulates value statement not only to your customers, but also to your employees. It allows them to commit rather than merely comply.
• A set of in transient principles. Great brands refuse to compromise on their principles. They may change a process or a look, but they retain their essence.What they represent is foundational and consistent.
• Great brands are iconic. Think about great brands. Brands like Porsche, Mercedes, Xerox, Kleenex, McDonald's, Starbucks and others. They are a benchmark. Their "brand" is instantly recognizable.
• They create and reinforce an experience. Think about that. Great brands literally create an expectancy. You don't just go there or dine there, you experience them in a variety of ways.
• They are inspirational and aspirational. As we have talked about with the new definition of engagement a great brand creates a pride of affiliation. Employees and customers take pride in their association with the organization, they champion the product or brand. They become benchmarks.
• Great brands are enduring. They continue to deliver value to their stakeholders; shareholder, employee and community.

I am struck by the parallels between their elements and those described by BlessingWhite and others in achieving engagement. To operate consistently within the framework created by her and her colleagues is not for the faint hearted. The elements are systemic, you can't do one or two of these things you must do them all and you must do them consistently.

These elements are also built upon a foundation of relationships. They are based on interactions of people. Technology and systems will not create this alignment, they can only reinforce or erode the elements.

She is a passionate advocate for her "brand". She believes in it and works very hard to articulate the principle behind it to others. She "gets" engagement in a very visceral as well as intellectual way. She is committed rather than compliant. She also recognizes that as skilled as she is in communications that the real engagement will occur not in articulating, but rather living the brand promise. Every employee will look to their boss for consistency with these values. She is an explorer rather than a mapper!

I like their elements, I think like the five elements of moving from compliance to commitment (respect, responsibility, information, rewards and loyalty) they are clear and simple without being simplistic. They focus on relationships rather than abstracts. I especially admire their organizations commitment to crafting and communicating this message of who and how to all of their employees giving them a chance to "join up" rather than simply comply.

So I would be curious, what are the "ingredients" in your particular brew? Are you committed to creating and sustaining an extraordinary brand or content to be one of the "pack"?

Thanks for sharing with me Mel. You gave me some great insights and I am excited to see people and organizations recognizing that only through engagement will be be able to build the iconic organizations that so many of us claim to aspire to. Your "brand" is lucky to have such a passionate advocate!

A Convergence of Thought

So another interesting week. I enjoyed the desert, but I didn't go to Las Vegas. The stock market has been mostly up the last few days. Is this a trend or are we grasping at straws?
I really like the website BNET.com. It typically has great articles on it. Sometimes it is practical advice, sometimes it is just interesting insights. I enjoy the McKinsey Quarterly as well.

This week I had a chance to read two different pieces that caused me to pause and muse. The first was a piece by Jeffrey Pfeffer, the professor of management and author from Stanford University. Professor Pfeffer was lamenting and commenting on the loss of personal accountability in our culture. His point was how everyone from politicians to business leaders don't seem to accept any personal responsibility for either their actions or the impact of their action or inaction on their companies, their employees, and their shareholders. I don't think this is limited to politicians and business leaders. This may be impolitic, but right now it isn't very popular to assign any of the responsibility for the housing crisis to the consumers who purchased real estate far beyond their ability to pay for it in the hopes that "appreciation" would create enough value to protect them. I am not excusing the bankers who made the loans, I am just sharing some of the responsibility.

I kind of see the situation with AIG in a similar light. We have the CEO saying I know that we drove our business off the cliff and the taxpayers have bailed us out for billions of dollars, but we promised these executives millions of dollars in bonuses for "performance" that has nothing to do with reality or share holder value. I have to pay it out.

I hear employees,students, and regular "folks" taking the same approach. It isn't my fault.

I got to read another interesting piece with a woman who runs a philanthropic venture fund. Jacqueline Novogratz, CEO of the Acumen Fund, has a perspective I find both intriguing and inspiring. Her position is that traditional philanthropic giving can rob people of their self respect and create a kind of codependency. She actually invests philanthropic contributions in for profit businesses to create a return. She even goes further and suggests giving away services, even basic services is enabling rather than empowering. She uses the example of the slums as an experiment in capitalism. She describes the bartering and trading that goes on among even the most destitute.

Any of you that have had a chance to read my ideas on moving from compliance to commitment know that one of the key principles embedded there is the principle of respect. Respect for your self and respect for others. You need to respect yourself enough to engage and to perform the tasks of your job and your life to the best of your ability. We need to respect others enough not to make excuses for their shortfalls. We all have limitations, but there is a profound difference in recognizing that I will never play in the NBA and my expecting society to take care of me.

My friend and colleague Reut Schwartz-Hebron takes a similar approach with her model of KindExcellence. She feels and I agree that you need to create a balance of the two. They are inextricably linked.

I had a chance to work with my son on a paper discussing Aristotle's concept of moral virtues. Aristotle describes the difference between three different dimensions; faculties which he would describe as innate, emotions, which we endeavor to control, and moral states. His position is that a virtue must be a cognitive choice and it must be on a continuum. We must find the "golden mean". It must be learned and practiced.

All of these things converged for me with the concept of personal competence. They all embed rational, thoughtful behavior and personal responsibility. Aristotle went so far as to say that the pursuit of virtue is really the only thing that distinguishes us from other plants and animals. We are conscious. We make choices and we accept accountability for those choices.

Maybe I am reaching, but we seem to have entered a space where we debate whether leaders are "born" or taught. We seem to want to absolve ourselves individually and collectively for responsibility for outcomes.

Our economy is in turmoil, but maybe Pfeffer, Novogratz, and Aristotle are right. If we look to the government and/or philanthropy in its traditional form to "fix" things have we stripped ourselves of personal competence and dignity. I wonder.