Do Try This At Home!

I know for years we have encouraged people to think global and act local, but I want to explore a different paradigm with you.

As you know I am extremely passionate about the concept of creating engaged environments and strong employment brands. Often what I hear from people is " that's great Mark, but I am a small business with a small work force and small budget". The other thing I hear is "how"?

I came across a couple of pieces earlier this week that I thought were nothing short of brilliant in explaining both why and how this is relevant to small business.

Paul Mitchell, the brilliant Australian social scientist www.thehumanenterprise.com.au, shared some things that both resonated with me and were immediately applicable to businesses without regard to their size.

• The first thing that Mitchell did was describe leadership in a simple, but very compelling way. A leader excites their followers to exceptional performance. This definition is especially relevant because performance and effort are what engagement is ultimately about. Not happiness, not "satisfaction", but performance. Those others factors maybe contributors, but at the end of the day we need results.

The next thing that Mitchell talked about were the four key elements that every business should build into their "value proposition":

• Great leaders focus on followers. Mitchell and I share the belief that relationships are the "glue" in organizations. Truly effective leaders do things with people, not to people. With their employees, with their customers, with their suppliers, with their community.
• Build a sense of community. Following that same theme leaders understand they are part of a community and they invest in it. They build and nurture relationships on a foundation of trust and respect. They exchange value and values not transactions.
• Be yourself, but with more skill. Mitchell calls this authenticity. Everyone has allowable weaknesses, his point is to focus on your strengths and core competencies. Seek out other relationships internally and externally that complement your skill sets and offering.
• Focus on what matters. Mitchell suggests that we look for significance in ourselves and others. Find what you and others do right and celebrate it whether they are an employee, a customer, a neighbor, or a stranger. Connect them to the larger community and the larger context. We are a village, not an island.
• Build the excitement. There is an old amusing expression "if you are excited, you might want to let your face know". This speaks precisely to Mitchell's earlier definition of leadership. Be excited and share excitement. If you are not excited and don't believe in "you", how can you expect others to?

Added to this wisdom from over the "pond" I had a chance to see some results from the national survey and initiative on engagement from the U.K. that showed similar things. The country wide study found that there are four elements that build and sustain the engaged environment:

• Listening
• Treatment
• Coaching
• Role and role modeling

Once again it comes down to relationship. Listening and treatment speaks to my guiding principle of respect. Coaching and role speak to the principle of the big picture and autonomy. Role modeling speaks to authenticity and values. The British study also found that when leadership commits to these behaviors they become "viral", they spread through the organization both formally and informally.

By the way they did examine compensation as well and what they found was again consistent. Money may initially attract, but the most important qualities of compensation are perceived equity and fairness. So the short story is if you do compensation well it is a break even, it won't detract from engagement. If you do it badly it will destroy your foundation. Once again we see the tie back to relationship that once we get past survival mode it is about fairness and equity, not dollars.

So when you think about building and reinforcing your brand, be sure you include these elements. The interesting thing is you don't need a big budget or large staff and yes, you can do this at home......

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.

In Search of.....?

I have always found August to be kind of an interesting month. I am naturally restless so I struggle with it. I like the fact that it is summer, but the fact business seems to slow to a crawl drives me crazy sometimes. I have too much time to spend questioning myself and my purpose.

I read an interesting book this weekend, The Geography of Bliss, by Eric Weiner. The author, who is a self professed "grump" charted his journey through a number of countries ranging from Bhutan to Moldova and the U.S. in search of what defines and creates happiness for people. It is a pretty interesting book that demonstrates that the correlation between standard of living, weather, and other factors is not nearly as absolute as we would think. It would seem that Maslow had it right.

The importance of relationships between people was a constant recurring theme. People and cultures with a strong relationship network are generally happier. When the author posed the question of whether or not there was a higher "state" of evolution than happiness to an Indian guru, the guru responded that love and relationships are indeed higher.

The other thing that was profound was the relationship between doing something you perceive as having a purpose you can personally align with had on happiness or contentment. I know it is critically important to me, is was interesting to have it "validated". It was also interesting that being able to share that purpose with others by talking about it or literally sharing the activity is very important as well. It would seem happiness is rarely solitary.

It was also interesting that happiness needs polarity. Happiness without sadness or emotional "pain" becomes vanilla or complacency. People who pursue things vigorously enjoy the benefits of both "poles" more than those who navigate only smooth waters.

Probably the most interesting place he visited to me was Iceland. It is dark and cold there a lot, it is a relatively small geographical area, but has a very high "happiness" index. I particularly liked the Icelandic perspective that experimenting with multiple careers and interests is encouraged, not based on your "talent", but rather your passion. Since I seem prone to reinventing myself perhaps that is why it resonates with me. Sounds like the Icelanders where embracing and celebrating "whole people" long before I began pursuing it.

So in the dog days of August I leave you with these reflections-

• Relationships really are important
• Doing what you love may bring you more happiness than doing what you excel at
• Sharing your passions and interests seems to multiply rather than diminish them
• Happiness without pain or sadness is like love without passion, a little bland

What do you think...?

The Importance of Reflection

I read a lot. I guess I also think a lot and write a lot. I have found that time to be important to me and to the both the businesses I have worked for and those I supported as a consultant.

I am surprised sometimes when I talk with colleagues who spend almost no time in reflection, reading books or articles, and scoff at the idea of social networking sites like LinkedIn , FaceBook, or others and God forbid they would either write a blog or contribute to one. They bustle about "running the business". In many cases these are the same people who can't find time to coach and mentor their staff.

I read a couple of interesting articles this morning. One was on three leaders- Abraham Lincoln, Bill Gates, and Joe Paterno and how each made a commitment to reflection. Lincoln read Shakespeare and other classics, Gates scheduled a bi-annual trip to a cabin to read and think, and Paterno often coaches from the press box in order to get above the field and see things from a different perspective.

I read another article on leadership failures. It talked about some of the main reasons that leaders, especially new leaders fail. Some of the most consistent reasons were micro-management, and wanting to be the key decision maker in the majority if not all cases. They didn't trust their staff to make the "right" decision, they end up training staff not to make decisions at all.

My friend and colleague, Boom Daniel talked about the concept of a "bucket" as a fighter pilot and managing all the competing elements in your bucket. I think one way is to manage what you put in it.

How many of us spend thirty hours a week running from one meeting to another? In many of those meetings we don't even contribute directly. We are there as a function of CYA or "supporting the team". Is that always a good use of our time? I wonder sometimes.

I also feel that our society has come to really prize activity and the "hero" syndrome. The person who dashes about "solving" problems is the person we value and idolize. What about the person who thinks through the issue and doesn't let it become a crisis? Or the person who develops a team capable of making good decisions so they don't need to constantly step in with the "right" answer.

The first question I like to ask is "Why"? Why are we doing this? Why are we doing it this way? Do we have the right people involved? Does this decision need to be made at this level?

I don't know. Maybe I have too much time to "reflect", but I think that if we looked at the how and what of situations and the motivation we created maybe we would be more inclined to make better decisions.

What do you think?