THE LEADER’S DIGEST:
Timeless principles
for team and organization success
by
Jim Clemmer
Smashwords Edition
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PUBLISHED BY:
Jim Clemmer on Smashwords
The Leader’s Digest
Copyright © 2003 Jim Clemmer
All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
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Design, editorial and production: Matthews Communications Design Inc.
Developmental/managing editor: Peter Matthews
Art director: Sharon Matthews
Indexer: Barbara Schon
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Contents
Introduction
CHAPTER 1 Leaders Make the Difference
CHAPTER 2 Focus and Context
CHAPTER 3 Responsibility for Choices
CHAPTER 4 Authenticity
CHAPTER 5 Passion and Commitment
CHAPTER 6 Spirit and Meaning
CHAPTER 7 Growing and Developing
CHAPTER 8 Mobilizing and Energizing
CHAPTER 9 Leadership is Action
Appendices
Notes
Index
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Acknowledgements
“Many times I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fellowmen, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received.” Albert Einstein
I owe this book, and most of my career, to the unfailing support and strong partnership of my wife Heather. Thanks so much for all you do to keep our family and business life together. You are always there – especially when the storms toss us around.
It’s inspiring to watch our kids move through their sometimes turbulent teenage years and now embark on their own leadership journey. Thanks to Chris for striving to balance high achievement while living in the moment and enjoying the trip. To Jenn for setting high goals and working so hard to achieve them. To Vanessa for maintaining high energy and independence, balanced with generosity and sensitivity to others.
The CLEMMER Group owes much of its success to our ever-growing website and digital communication strategy. Our “digital diva,” Julie Gil, has been the incredibly strong rock at the foundation of it all. Thanks so much for always being there and continually going way above and beyond. And thanks to Ofir for supporting Julie. Tania Robson, Betty Kaita, and Rena Lanci continue to provide support to us and to our Clients.
Many of the concepts and approaches outlined in this book have evolved through years of work and innumerable contributions from countless people at The Achieve Group, Zenger Miller, and The CLEMMER Group. Special thanks to Owen Griffiths, Mark Henderson, Derek Mendham, Debbie Poulton, Patty Schachter, Scott Schweyer, and Andrew Vujnovich.
I continue to appreciate Dave Chilton’s invaluable advice and friendship. Once again, Peter and Sharon Matthews of Matthews Communications Design Inc. have provided strong editorial and design support to this book.
And thanks to so many people for sharing your stories, giving your perspectives, adding your humor, and taking action following my leadership speaking engagements, workshops, and retreats. I also appreciate the many readers of my books, our “Improvement Points” subscribers, and website visitors who send me emails with questions, suggestions, and feedback. I appreciate your perspectives and feel so privileged to journey a short way with you.
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introduction
While interviewing the legendary Jack Nicklaus, a reporter once remarked, “Jack, you have had a spectacular career. Your name is synonymous with the game of golf. You really know your way around the course. What is your secret?” Nicklaus replied, “The holes are numbered!”
If only leadership were so easy. (Given the sad state of my game, I’m the last person who should use “easy” and “golf” in the same sentence!) Unfortunately, there are no handily numbered steps that we can follow in growing our leadership. But after decades of studying leadership – of writing and speaking about it, of trying to practice it, as well as providing leadership coaching to thousands of managers – we at The CLEMMER Group have become convinced that there are timeless leadership principles which all of us can use to be more effective in our personal and professional lives.
These principles were introduced in my previous book, Growing the Distance. The response to that book, and the “timeless leadership principles” outlined therein, was so strong that I continued to develop them (see page 205 for more information). Growing the Distance focused on personal or self-leadership. A central theme of the book is that leadership is an action, not a position – each of us, as individuals, need to be leaders, regardless of whether or not we have a formal leadership role. This is where leadership begins – “in here,” before moving “out there” to influence, guide, support, and to lead others.
Now, with The Leader’s Digest, we take the next step, applying those same timeless leadership principles to the workplace. This book is written for anyone who has the responsibility of leading people in an organization – including supervisors, team leaders, managers, and executives. (Throughout the book I will use the generic term “leaders” and “managers” to describe all those who occupy leadership positions and roles.) Regardless of their organizational position, all these leaders can benefit from the principles described in The Leader’s Digest.
GETTING TO THE POINT
“Thousands of grapes are pressed to fill one jar with wine, and the grape skin and pulp are tossed to the birds. So it is with these grapes of wisdom from the ages. Much has been filtered and tossed to the wind. Only the pure truth lies distilled in the words to come.” Og Mandino, The Greatest Salesman in the World, The Scroll Marked I
Want to read up on the subject of leadership? Well, be my guest. A recent Internet search revealed that there some 10,000 leadership books in print!
What’s more, it often seems that there are as many different interpretations of “leadership” as there are people using the term. The result is a confusing multitude of leadership grids, charts, formulas, jargon, fads, and buzzwords. New ones seem to pop up every week.
One of my goals in writing The Leader’s Digest was to distill all the information on leadership down to its essentials – to provide a series of “executive summaries” or briefings on the key elements of leading people. Building on my previous work co-founding and leading the Achieve Group and now The CLEMMER Group’s many years of research and writing on leadership, as well as our experiences in training and consulting with hundreds of organizations, I have attempted to identify, illustrate, and demonstrate the application of the timeless leadership principles found in our Leadership Wheel (see page 22). To do this I have used a variety of both original and classic fables or stories, real-life situations, pithy quotations, citations from current research, personal examples, and how-to points – all punctuated with whimsical illustrations and graphics.
The Leader’s Digest is designed specifically for browsing, with a magazine-style presentation that allows you to leaf through the book to find the sections or approaches that are most meaningful to you. Some people, like me, are “quotaphiles” (sounds kind of suspect, I know, but it’s perfectly legal) and appreciate the pithy wisdom found in a succinct quotation or turn of phrase. Others like to read the sidebars with stories, illustrations, or research. Some people like to follow the main text and then read the other areas.
It’s your book and your choice.
WHAT’S NEW?
“A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever....What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, ‘See, this is new?’ It has already been in the ages before us.” Ecclesiastes
Historians, anthropologists and scholars of classic literature tell us that there are really just a small number of recurring stories in the entire history of humanity. Our books and movies provide us with endless variations on the basic stories of the human condition. That’s one of the reasons why my favorite recreational reading is historical fiction. So many of the same themes keep showing up in the stories of people and cultures thousands of years or miles apart.
The leadership principles outlined in my books are just as timeless. They aren’t new. But that doesn’t make them any less important; indeed, it is the timelessness of these principles that proves their value. We need to continually rediscover and repackage them for today’s circumstances.
FINDING YOUR OWN PATH
“Buddha left a road map, Jesus left a road map, Krishna left a road map, Rand McNally left a road map. But you still have to travel the road yourself.” Stephen Levine, spirituality and personal-growth author
After a strenuous afternoon of climbing up the face of a steep mountainside in the hot sun, two rock climbers – Pat and Andy – finally reached a plateau. It was an idyllic setting with a clear, cool glacial stream running through the alpine meadow. They had just started drinking the refreshing water and bathing in the stream when a large mountain goat came charging into the clearing and headed straight for them.
Pat’s first reaction was to scramble into a nearby small cave, leaving the goat to chase after Andy, who ran halfway around the clearing and desperately climbed up a small tree. The goat began ramming the tree so hard that it was all Andy could do to hang on as it swayed back and forth. Suddenly Pat came out of his cave and ran around the clearing, yelling and shouting. The goat dashed off after Pat, almost catching up with him before Pat had made a complete circle and slipped back inside the cave. Then the goat spotted Andy, who had started down the tree. He raced over to the tree and resumed his violent ramming of the trunk.
Just as Andy was losing his grip and about to fall, Pat came running around the clearing yelling and screaming again, luring the goat away from the tree, just before diving back into the cave. The goat then spotted Andy coming down the tree and ran over to ram it again. By this time, Andy finally had a good grip on the tree. He bellowed down at Pat in the cave, “Why don’t you stay in that cave and be patient. We can wait out this goat until he’s tired. This too shall pass.” Pat yelled back, “You wouldn’t be handing out all that fancy advice if you saw the size of the bear that’s sleeping in here!”
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Obviously, I don’t know the size of the bears in your cave. So I’m not going to attempt to give you a lot of fancy advice about how to grow your leadership. Throughout The Leader’s Digest I will present research, experiences, illustrations, and application suggestions. It’s up to you to pick what fits your situation and what doesn’t.
A key part of our continuous leadership quest is finding the approaches that fit our individual values, personality, and style. It’s like trying to find a path in a field of newly fallen snow. Once we walk across the field, we’ve discovered our path.
After years of consulting work, I realize there is no one leadership size that fits all. There are timeless principles we can all apply, but we have to make them fit our unique circumstances.
PRINCIPLES IN PRACTICE
Thomas Henry Huxley, the 19th-century English biologist, once said that “All truth, in the long run, is only common sense clarified.” Leadership is really just common sense. The problem for most of us is that it’s not common practice. One of my goals in writing The Leader’s Digest is to remind us all of common-sense principles where the practicing may be slipping.
It is one thing to know, it’s quite another to do. And many a manager has confused understanding leadership concepts with practicing them. Just like maintaining our physical fitness, growing our leadership is a never-ending activity.
GROWTH CAN HURT A LITTLE
Another of my goals in The Leader’s Digest is to be a comfort-zone stretcher. In my workshops and speaking engagements, I know I’ve been successful when I look at the faces around me and see some measure of discomfort or resistance.
The worst response is no response. The real enemy of growth and improvement is apathy. So please let me know how this book affects you. I would love to get your personal responses to The Leader’s Digest. Please email me directly at Jim.Clemmer@Clemmer.net.
Please visit our large and ever growing website at www.clemmer.net. We are continually adding material to make the site a major resource center for transforming personal, team, and organization performance. Join our mailing list and we will keep in touch as new programs and services spin off from The Leader’s Digest, as we update the resources on our website, and as my next books become available. (See page 207 for more information on our website.)
HEARTS OVER MINDS
Values. Integrity. Spirit. Energy. These are just some of the so-called “soft” qualities that characterize effective leadership – and the highly successful organizations where such qualities are respected and nurtured.
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Leaders Make the Difference
There’s no avoiding it. The eternal search for sustainable competitive advantage is leading us straight into the squishy softness of culture and character. Many business people won’t like it. They won’t be comfortable talking with colleagues about trust, honesty, purpose, values, and other topics out of the self-help section of the bookstore. They will have to face the fact that they will likely be eaten alive by competitors who confront these issues with relish. Geoffrey Colvin, “The Changing Art of Becoming Unbeatable,” Fortune
All organizations have access to more-or-less the same resources. They draw from the same pool of people in their markets or geographic areas. And they can all learn about the latest tools and techniques.
Yet not all organizations perform equally. In fact, there is a huge gap between high- and low- performing organizations. What accounts for this? Quite simply, it’s people. As the venerable Peter Drucker points out, “Of all the decisions a manager makes, none are as important as the decisions about people because they determine the performance capacity of the organization.”
And when it comes to people, the big difference is leadership.
WHAT ARE PEOPLE WORTH?
“Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.” Colin Powell, U.S. Secretary of State
“People are our most important resource.” This management cliché dates back to the beginning of the modern organization. Yet all too often it’s perceived as a tired old phrase with a high “snicker factor” in many organizations. Eyes roll as the boss dutifully mouths these words.
Meanwhile, investments in assets such as physical buildings, equipment, technology, products, and strategy development vastly outstrip investments in people. Little care is given to hiring and orienting the right people. Training is often an afterthought, given little strategic consideration and even less management planning and follow-through. Performance appraisals are bureaucratic “check off the boxes” exercises that cause more angst than development. Promotions are based more on technical or management factors than on proven people-leadership abilities. Teams exist in name only. Opinions and input from frontline people are rarely sought and often discounted. Processes and systems enslave rather than enable servers or producers.
For such an “important resource,” people are assigned remarkably low priority in many organizations.
A Wharton [School of the University of Pennsylvania] study found that ‘capital investments may be a strategic necessity to stay even with the competition,’ but the investments in workers yielded far greater returns. Says Patrick Harker, one of the study’s authors: ‘Machines can’t give you a competitive advantage. It’s all about people.’”
From Fortune magazine, in “What Makes a Company Great,” a survey of the world’s most admired companies:
An MIT global auto industry study found that a major reason Toyota’s productivity is far ahead of Nissan is because Nissan poured money into robots and computers while Toyota focused on people and processes (mainly through Kaizen). Toyota then used automation to support its people and processes.
A major international company studied their worker compensation claims and attitude surveys and found that where supervisors and managers are perceived to be more caring about people injuries and compensation, claims were much lower.
In the most admired companies, the key priorities were teamwork, customer focus, fair treatment of employees, initiative, and innovation. In average companies the top priorities were minimizing risk, respecting the chain of command, supporting the boss, and making budget.
SYMBIOTIC ROLES
Can a great leader be an effective manager? Or vice versa? While each requires different abilities, they need not be – and should not be – mutually exclusive. Both are essential for peak organizational performance.
MANAGEMENT VS. LEADERSHIP
Leadership and management are two distinctive and complementary systems of action. Each has its own function and characteristic activities. Both are necessary for success in an increasingly complex and volatile business environment… strong leadership with weak management is no better, and is sometimes actually worse, than the reverse. The real challenge is to combine strong leadership and strong management and use each to balance the other. John Kotter, management/leadership author and professor of organizational behavior, Harvard Business School
The terms “management” and “leadership” are often interchanged. In fact, many people view them as basically the same thing. Yet management is as distinct from leadership as day is from night. Both are necessary, however, for a high-performance organization. By contrasting them and understanding their differences, we can better balance and improve these essential roles.
One key distinction between management and leadership is that we manage things and lead people. Things include physical assets, processes, and systems. People include customers, external partners, and people throughout our team or organization (or “internal partners”). When dealing with things, we talk about a way of doing. In the people realm, we’re talking about a way of being.
COMPLEMENTARY STRENGTHS
Management : Leadership
Processes : People
Facts : Feelings
Intellectual : Emotional
Head : Heart
Position power : Persuasion power
Control : Commitment
Problem solving : Possibility thinking
Reactive : Proactive
Doing things right : Doing the right things
Rules : Values
Goals : Vision
Light a fire under people : Stoke the fire within people
Written communications : Verbal communications
Standardization : Innovation
Both management and leadership are needed to make teams and organizations successful. Trying to decide which is more important is like trying to decide whether the right or left wing is more important to an airplane’s flight. I’ll take both please!
GETTING TECHNICAL
In The CLEMMER Group’s consulting and training work we often add a third element – technical – to management and leadership to form what we call a “Performance Triangle.” This adds another dimension to the question, “how should the organization’s focus be allocated to each area?” While apparently simple, the question is often a very difficult one to answer, since there is no universal formula that applies to all organizations. Some need more technical skills or better technologies. Others need the discipline of better systems and processes. Most need a lot more leadership.
Another complicating factor is that needs are easily misidentified. For example, we have found that most organizations have communication problems of one kind or another. Often these are seen as leadership issues. Many times they are. But just as often the roots of the problem are intertwined with poor processes, systems, or structure – all of which are management issues.
The triangle depicts the balance between the three critical success factors. Imagine a pendulum swinging in the center of the triangle. It’s very difficult to keep the pendulum in a state of equilibrium. In some cases, organizations may need to swing the pendulum in one direction because that’s where it’s weakest. For example, entrepreneurial start-up companies often have strong vision, passion, and energy (leadership) and may also have good technological or technical skills. But their lack of systems and processes or poor management discipline leads to a lot of errors, poor service/quality, and frustration for customers and people in the organization.
The most common weakness, however, is in leadership. The triangle illustrates that a well-balanced organization has leadership at the base. This allows management and technology to serve rather than enslave producers, servers, and customers.
PUSH OR PULL?
Warren Bennis, Professor of Business Administration at the University of Southern California, has been extensively studying and writing about leadership for many decades. He explains why leaders are so much more successful than managers in harnessing people power: “Management is getting people to do what needs to be done. Leadership is getting people to want to do what needs to be done. Managers push. Leaders pull. Managers command. Leaders communicate.”
WELL-ROUNDED LEADERS
Leadership is first and foremost a way of being. It begins at the center and extends outward, following the timeless leadership principles.
THE LEADERSHIP WHEEL
The winds and waves are always on the side of the best navigators. Edward Gibbon, English historian
Leaders look beyond the current situation – beyond what is to what could be. That’s why leadership is all about change. It’s why leadership is action, not a position.
Growing our leadership is also a dynamic process. It begins at the center of our being and develops in multiple directions, each represented by the timeless leadership principles described in this book. This “hub and spokes” model is the basis for The CLEMMER Group’s Leadership Wheel.
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Each part of the wheel corresponds to an area of leadership. At the hub of the wheel, we have the vision, values, and purpose with which leaders effectively focus their teams and organizations on the core of their being (Chapter 2: Focus and Context).
Leaders also take initiative and do what needs to be done rather than waiting for “them” to do something (Chapter 3: Responsibility for Choices).
Leaders are authentic and lead by visible example, fostering openness and continuous feedback (Chapter 4: Authenticity).
Leaders are passionate and build strong commitment through involvement and ownership (Chapter 5: Passion and Commitment).
Leaders lead with heart and rouse team or organizational spirit (Chapter 6: Spirit and Meaning).
Leaders grow people through strong coaching and continuous development (Chapter 7: Growing and Developing).
Finally, leaders energize people by building strong teams, inspiring, and serving (Chapter 8: Mobilizing and Energizing).
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The wheel model provides a metaphor for situations faced by an organization. For example, just as a wheel’s weight-bearing ability depends upon the strength of its hub, so too does the strength of an organization’s hub (or core values) determine the weight of the performance and change issues that it is able to carry.
The wheel also represents the circular nature of leadership – there is no beginning or end. Each of the supporting leadership principles around the outside of the Leadership Wheel are interdependent and interconnected. If our team or organization develops all the leadership skills, the wheel is well-rounded. If it is deficient in one or more of these skills, the ride may be a little bumpy.
FEELING YOUR WAY
The timeless leadership principles make intuitive sense. When we look at the key factors for most organizational success, we generally find these principles at work.
SOFT SKILLS, HARD RESULTS
We should take care not to make the intellect our god. It has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. It cannot lead, it can only serve. Albert Einstein
Leadership deals with the world of emotions and feelings. It is more of an art than a science. Like artists, leaders have the ability to share their vision of the world. Leaders influence our perceptions and help us look at situations in new ways. These skills – and the leadership principles that guide their development – are critical to the success of an organization or team.
Of course, there are some people who remain unconvinced of the value of these “soft skills.” They’re typically managers with minimal leadership qualities, who prefer to focus on being bottom-line driven, strategists, marketing aces, technical experts, “snoopervisors,” and so on.
These managers often talk about the importance of personal effectiveness and development. They pledge undying allegiance to values, mission, and vision. They go on about people issues, like communication, teamwork, respect, and service. But they really think it’s just a lot of fluff.
Well, maybe they should think again.
Now there is hard evidence that those “soft” leadership principles are the major factor in what makes a high-performance team or organization. The exciting and rapidly expanding research on emotional intelligence shows that a leader’s personal characteristics and leadership competencies have a direct bearing on his or her personal performance – as well as on that of their team and organization. For example, studies show that even a leader’s mood is highly contagious. Depending on whether he or she is upbeat and supportive, or cranky and disapproving, the team will either be charged with high achievement or poisoned with deadly toxins.
LEADING BY EMOTION
Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee have conducted extensive research into the rapidly growing number of studies on the pivotal role of emotional intelligence. They have found that in 50 to 70 percent of all cases, leaders are directly responsible for how people in an organization or team perceive their culture. As they state in their book, Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence, “Leaders have always played a primordial emotional role. No doubt humankind’s original leaders – whether tribal chieftains or shamanesses – earned their place in large part because their leadership was emotionally compelling…the leader acts as the group’s emotional guide… in any human group the leader has maximal power to sway everyone’s emotions. If people’s emotions are pushed toward the range of enthusiasm, performance can soar; if people are driven toward rancor and anxiety, they will be thrown off stride.”
Emotional intelligence has profound implications for leaders and their organizations. “This emotional task of the leader is primal – that is, first – in two senses: It is both the original and the most important act of leadership.”
IMPROVING OUR EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
“There now is a considerable body of research suggesting that a person’s ability to perceive, identify, and manage emotion provides the basis for the kinds of social and emotional competencies that are important for success in almost any job. Furthermore, as the pace of change increases and the world of work makes ever greater demands on a person’s cognitive, emotional, and physical resources, this particular set of abilities will become increasingly important.” Cary Cherniss, Rutgers University
There’s not a lot we can do about the processing power between our ears. For the most part, we’re stuck with whatever intelligence quotient (IQ) we’ve got. The good news for many of us is that our IQ is dramatically less important to success and happiness than our emotional intelligence (EQ). What’s even better is that EQ, unlike IQ, can be improved. It’s not easy (nothing worth doing ever is), but it can be done.
As University of Toronto psychology professors Steven Stein and Howard Book (what better name for an author?) write in their book, The EQ Edge: Emotional Intelligence and Your Future, “We know that emotional intelligence can be enhanced because we’ve seen it happen over and over again as we’ve worked with corporate CEOs and other executives, school teachers, military personnel, counselors and consultants, mental health professionals and husbands and wives. Adopting proven methods found in cognitive and behavioral therapy, as well as from psychodynamic theory, we have trained many of these individuals to increase their emotional intelligence in easily understandable and proven ways.”
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Improving our emotional intelligence starts with a clear picture of our ideal self. This is at the hub of our Leadership Wheel: Where am I going (or what is the picture of my preferred future)? The next step is a “gap analysis,” or assessment of my current strengths and weaknesses, followed by a plan for bridging those gaps (building on my strengths and strengthening my weaknesses). Then the real improvement work begins – experimenting with new behaviors, reframing my thinking, developing skills, and mastering feelings. This can often be reinforced by forming new relationships or by changing the dynamic of existing ones. These steps are generally difficult to sustain on our own. That’s why personal coaches, counselors, and consultants have become so popular. They help us step back from the movie of our life to review and reset our thinking and actions.
From “The Business Case for Emotional Intelligence,” by Cary Cherniss, Rutgers University, from the website of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence (www.eiconsortium.org):
Competency research in over 200 companies and organizations worldwide shows that about one-third of the vast difference between high and low performers (top performers are 12 times more productive than those at the bottom and 85 percent more productive than the average performer) is due to technical skill and cognitive ability while two-thirds is due to emotional competence. In top leadership positions, over four-fifths of the difference is due to emotional competence.
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A study of 515 senior executives found emotional intelligence was a better predictor of success than either relevant previous experience or high IQ. More specifically, the executive was high in emotional intelligence in 74 percent of the successes and only in 24 percent of the failures. The study included executives in Latin America, Germany, and Japan, and the results were almost identical in all three cultures.
An analysis of more than 300 top-level executives from fifteen global companies showed that six emotional competencies distinguished stars from the average: Influence, Team Leadership, Organizational Awareness, Self-Confidence, Achievement Drive, and Leadership.
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From Steven Stein and Howard Book, The EQ Edge: Emotional Intelligence and Your Success:
Over the past five years, MHS, in cooperation with Reuven and other researchers worldwide, has administered the EQ-I to almost 42,000 people in 36 countries, building up a voluminous data bank and uncovering incontrovertible links between emotional intelligence and proven success in people’s personal and working lives.
A survey of over 700 multi-millionaires asked each one to rate 30 factors most responsible for their success. The top five were all attributes of emotional intelligence. IQ was 21st on the list.
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POINTS OF ORIGIN
Where do we want to go? What are the beliefs that will guide us in getting there? Why do we want to get there at all? These are the central questions of leadership. They provide an organization’s
Focus and Context
Successful leaders spend a lot of time creating the identity of the organization – what our values are, what our mission is, what our purpose is, how we are going to act together as one. Those are agreements of how we are going to be together. You can actually get a whole team or a whole group to hold one another accountable. The team self-regulates and members call each other in a much more immediate way than a leader can ever do. Margaret Wheatley, president of The Berkana Institute, a global charitable leadership foundation
It wasn’t by accident that we chose to arrange the timeless leadership principles in the shape of a wheel. Of all the principles, there is one that is central, one from which the others emanate, much as spokes radiate from the hub of a wheel. That core principle is Focus and Context.
So what is this all-important principle? In fact, it consists of three interrelated parts, which are defined by the answers to three key questions:
1. Where are we going (the vision or picture of our preferred future or outcome)?
2. What do we believe in (our guiding values or principles)?
3. Why do we exist (our reason for being, mission, or purpose)?
These questions are about as simple as I can make them. And this is important, because they can become overly complicated. Over the years I’ve engaged in too many “vernacular engineering” debates with colleagues and management teams that get enmeshed in numerous definitions of visions, values, mission statements, and the like. Too often we are just splitting hairs (which, given my follicular challenges, is something I really can’t afford to do) without really adding value to our understanding and application of the important leadership principles. So I usually try to reduce Focus and Context to its key components, using these terms: Vision, Values, and Purpose.
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Focus and Context is where the contrast between management and leadership is possibly at its sharpest. It is the very beginning point of strong leadership. Consider, for example, all the people you know well, and identify those you think of as being strong leaders. What characteristics do they share? Chances are they don’t just wait for things to happen to them; they go and make things happen. They don’t just follow the crowd; they blaze their own trail. They don’t wait to be told what to do; they do what needs to be done. Leaders seldom waffle or vacillate. They are purposeful and deliberate.
Within the workplace, a leader typically has a clear mental picture of what success looks like for a particular project or, more generally, for a successful team or the organization as a whole. He or she is able to “emotionalize” that picture and bring it alive for people. Leaders impart a sense of trust and credibility by living true to a core set of values or guiding principles – even if they haven’t articulated and labeled them. People respond to this leadership because they can clearly see the principles from which it flows.
Leaders always inspire a response, whether positive or negative. They move forward with purposeful action that, like a powerful magnet, both attracts and repels. Those people who are excited by the vision join the team and add to a powerful coalition. Those who are lukewarm or turned off by the vision, values, and purpose quickly turn away. Few are left indifferent and apathetic.
LEADING CHANGE FROM THE CORE
“Leadership is about coping with change. Part of the reason it has become so important in recent years is that the world has become more competitive and more volatile… doing what was done yesterday, or doing it 5% better, is no longer a formula for success. Major changes are more and more necessary to survive and compete effectively in this new environment. More change always demands more leadership.” John Kotter, “What Leaders Really Do,” Harvard Business Review
Change is a fact of life. And as the pace of change accelerates, organizations are being pulled in many directions by factors such as new technologies, customer demands, e-commerce, workforce demographics, business model challenges, fierce competition, shareholder expectations, shrinking cycle times, and shifting work ethics. Now, more than ever, organizations need the bonding glue of a strong culture to hold everything and everyone together.
At the core of that culture is a strong leader who knows where he or she wants to lead their organization, but is highly flexible and opportunistic in pulling teams together to try new approaches, to experiment, and to learn (as well as occasionally fail) their way to success. The hub of their leadership wheel is solidly built around a compelling vision, core values, and an energizing purpose.
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Leading change can be a lot like sailing a ship. We start off by setting our destination, establishing a course, and heading in that direction. In calm seas, we can sit back and sail smoothly along. But in rough seas, we often find ourselves off-course, harnessing the shifting winds, dealing with varying currents, or navigating hazards. We may have to batten down the hatches and keep the bow pointed into the waves as we battle an unexpected storm. Other times there is no wind and we just bob adrift in the waters. At all times we need to be watching for new dangers, checking our location, following basic nautical principles, and constantly steering so we’re not swamped by the ever-changing waves.
TEAM MEMBERS LEARN WHAT THEY LIVE
If a team member lives with fear, He learns to avoid risk-taking.
If a team member lives with power, She learns to resist change.
If a team member lives with mistrust, He learns to be suspicious
If a team member lives with control, She learns how to beat the rules.
If a team member lives with small expectations, He learns to have a limited horizon.
If a team member lives strictly within reality, She learns to focus only on what is.
If a team member lives with leadership, He learns how to take initiative.
If a team member lives with inspiring visions, She learns how to climb out of reality ruts.
If a team member lives with core values, He learns how to set priorities.
If a team member lives with a meaningful purpose, She learns how to tap into a deeper energy.
If a team member lives with growth and learning, He learns how to manage change.
If a team member lives with participation, She learns how to be a valued partner.
If a team member lives with emotional intelligence, He learns how to be a leader.
Jim Clemmer, inspired by Dorothy Law Nolte’s poem, “Children Learn What They Live” seeing the possibilities
Management deals with the here and now. Leadership looks beyond the present, to imagine what could be.
VISION
At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done – then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries before. Frances Hodgson Burnett, 19th-century American writer
Thomas Kuhn, the noted American professor of the philosophy and history of science, is best known for his work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, which sold over 1 million copies in 16 languages. The book challenged conventional thinking that scientific change was strictly a rational process. It also popularized use of the term “paradigm” as the mental model or framework scientists use to explain laws of nature. Paradigms are essential for learning and continuously improving upon theories and their applications.
However, paradigms are also very limiting. According to Kuhn, “What a person sees depends upon what he looks at and what his previous experience has taught him.” Many scientists – especially those with the most time and training invested in an established scientific discipline – resist new paradigms that challenge their established view of how the world works. They often ignore or just don’t see new contradictory evidence that doesn’t fit their paradigm.
Many organizations like to talk about “thinking outside the box.” Yet the role of managers is typically to improve on the accepted paradigm, or what is “inside the box.” They focus on what is, and work hard to enhance it. That’s extremely important and vital to orderly processes and systems that consistently deliver high-quality products or services. Leaders, on the other hand, are more inclined to smash old boxes or paradigms and construct new ones. Kuhn found that scientific paradigms don’t build on previous ones, they sweep them away. That’s often the case with new organizational paradigms as well. Strong leaders focus less on improving what is (established products or services, for example) than on seeing what could be.
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Just as the terms “management” and “leadership” are often used interchangeably, goals and visions are often perceived to be the same thing. They are not. While both are critical to success (and are therefore highly interconnected), the management act of goal-setting is quite different from the leadership act of visioning.
GOALS : VISION
Appeal to our intellect : Engages our emotions
Results and timeframes : A desired future state
Builds a business case : Kindles a cause
Rational : Intuitive
Pushes performance : Inspires and aligns
Targets and objectives : Images and feelings
Solves problems : Imagines possibilities
Logical progression : Irrational “skyhooks”
Written : Verbal
Goals and vision are different, but co-dependent. Visioning without goal-setting and action is daydreaming. Goal-setting without the broader context of an exciting vision is drudgery.
THE LIMITS OF PLANNING
“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.” George Bernard Shaw
No one disputes the importance of planning. It is a key management skill. It is critical to team or organizational success. But in most organizations, traditional forecasting and planning methods are limited by the fact that they treat the future as an extension of the present. As such, they serve to reinforce existing paradigms. This blocks change and keeps people focused on the continuous expansion of what is. As a result, the organization is less inclined to consider new possibilities that might point in different direction – away from what is and toward what could be.
Traditional planning tries to take the uncertainty out of life by forecasting the future. Yet this is clearly impossible. As the old Yiddish proverb teaches us, “Mensch tracht; Gott lacht” (Man plans; God laughs).
In The Fortune Sellers: The Big Business of Buying and Selling Predictions, William Sherden reports on his extensive study of the multi-decade track record of forecasting: “Of these sixteen types of forecasts, only two – one-day-ahead weather forecasts and the aging of the population – can be counted on; the rest are about as reliable as the fifty-fifty odds in flipping a coin. And only one of the sixteen – short-term weather forecasts – has any scientific foundation.” He concludes, “Even with all the advances in science and technology that are available to them, the experts are not getting any better at prediction. In some respects, we are hardly better off than the Romans or Greeks, who read animal entrails to make major decisions regarding the future.”
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Successful entrepreneurs are good examples of strong leaders who use vision to build new paradigms. Entrepreneurs know that there can only be experts on what was or is. There are no experts on what will be. One highly successful entrepreneur declared, “I am not a disciple of research – unless, of course, it agrees with me. Otherwise it’s useless.” Successful entrepreneurs are leaders with vision who predict the future by inventing it.
English artist and poet William Blake once observed, “What is now proved was once only imagined.” Entrepreneurs sell their imaginings to investors, customers, team members, creditors, partners, or anyone who can help make their dreams a reality. They may put business plans together to satisfy investors or bankers, but mostly they are “hooking themselves to a piece of the sky and hanging on.” They energize and rally people around the dream and make it into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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Walt Disney provides a well-known illustration of vision in action. He declared, “If you can dream it, you can do it. Always remember that this whole thing was started by a mouse.”
When he was a creative director at Walt Disney Studios, Mike Vance liked to tell the story of a conversation he had shortly after the opening of Disney World, the Florida theme park that had once been nothing more than bush and swampland. He remembers someone saying to him, “Isn’t it too bad Walt Disney didn’t live to see this.” Vance replied, “He did see it – that’s why it’s here.”
VISION AT WORK
“Vision is one of the least understood – and most overused – terms in the language… when you have superb alignment, a visitor could drop into your organization from another planet and infer the vision without having to read it on paper.” Jim Collins, author of Built to Last and Good to Great
Imagine the possibilities...
Strong leaders make people hopeful about the future. As editor and writer Norman Cousins reflects, “The capacity for hope is the most significant fact of life. It provides human beings with a sense of destination and the energy to get started.” Hope is a key activator. When faced with major changes, leaders optimistically focus everyone’s attention on the possibilities. They look for signs of progress and reinforce those to build forward momentum. A compelling vision of the team or organization’s preferred future keeps people from obsessing over present-day obstacles or getting stuck in the past.
Picture this...
Research in psychology and medicine has given us insights into such phenomena as the placebo effect, as well as created the tongue-twisting specialty of psychoneuroimmunology – all of which has proven a very strong cause-and-effect relationship between our minds (vision or expectations) and our health, happiness, and performance.
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Strong leaders inspire performance by reaching people’s imaginations with vivid images. They use physical models, stories, metaphors, examples of past successes, descriptive language – alone or in combination, with plenty of repetition – to help people form a compelling mental picture of where the team or organization is headed.
At The CLEMMER Group, we have been working with Peter Jensen, one of the nation’s top sports psychologists, and his organization, to deliver their powerful program, called ”Coaching for High Performance,” to our clients. After decades of experience advising professional and amateur coaches – as well as many Olympic athletes – Peter has found that the best coaches are those who can help their athletes or teams clearly see the performance levels they are shooting for. “Imagery is the language of performance,” Peter declares. “Until people can see what needs to be done and themselves performing the steps to doing it, they can’t perform.”
Rapid shifts in the marketplace had made it necessary for the company to overhaul its line of products and services. The company’s management team had been working very hard to make the necessary changes, but the members of the team seemed to be laboring at cross-purposes and constantly tripping over each other. We were called in to assess the underlying causes and to help them take a new approach.
Our investigation soon revealed that the teamwork problem derived from incompatible views of the company’s new business model, as well as its product and service strategies. It was as if all the managers were attempting to put together a giant jigsaw puzzle, with each assigned to pieces of a specific color – some green, some brown, others blue, and so on – with the result that each team had a different idea of what the finished puzzle should look like. Those working on the green pieces thought the puzzle was a mountain scene. The blue-piece group thought they were working on a seascape. The people working on the brown pieces thought the puzzle was a country garden. The solution was to restore their collective vision so that everyone was looking at the same picture.
All together now...
Great teams and organizations rally around a shared vision. Team members feel connected and proud to be involved. Strong leaders know and care about the people on their teams. They have frequent discussions about each person’s individual goals and performance objectives. These coaching conversations help the leader see the extent to which each person understands and buys into the vision. It’s also an opportunity to clarify the vision and further increase the “buy-in” factor. These leaders then look for every opportunity to align that individual’s strengths and aspirations with the vision of the organization or team. The vision helps to define a performance standard that inspires creative approaches and stretches performance targets. Adds Cynthia Tragge-Lakra, manager of executive development at General Electric, “Leaders need to energize people so that they rally behind the vision and take leadership roles themselves in bringing that vision to life.”
Failing forward
After a series of experiments failed to produce the outcome he expected, Thomas Edison was asked what results he had to show for all the time and money invested. “Results?” he replied indignantly, “Why, man, I’ve gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won’t work. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward. Just because something doesn’t do what you planned to do doesn’t mean it’s useless.”
Don’t just sit there planning, try something…
Successful leaders broadly share their vision and encourage team members to experiment, pilot, and muck around looking for the pathways that will lead them to make that vision a reality. If the vision represents a significant stretch or paradigm shift, there’s no management planning processes that will be able to lay down a sure course of action to success. Years of research on the nature of innovation shows that what look like brilliant moves in retrospect were often accidents. If we’re not failing regularly, we're not doing anything innovative. If we only walk in the tracks of others we’ll never make any new discoveries. True failure is not capitalizing on our mistakes, setbacks, and things that didn’t turn out as we planned.
PRIORITIES OF PRINCIPLE
An organization’s culture is defined by its core ideals and beliefs – not just declared, but acted upon.
VALUES
No men can act with effect who do not act in concert; no men can act in concert who do not act with confidence; no men can act with confidence who are not bound together with common opinions, common affections, and common interests. Edmund Burke, 18th-century British statesman
During the 1980s, when I was co-founder and leader of The Achieve Group, we worked with California-based Zenger Miller and Tom Peters to implement a culture-change process based on Peters’ and Bob Waterman’s book, In Search of Excellence. Adding to, and building upon, the work of their McKinsey & Company colleagues, Terrence Deal and Allan Kennedy, Peters and Waterman showed that the cultures of excellent companies are grounded in core values.
The idea of clarifying core values was new for many management teams at the time. We helped hundreds of teams in centering their change- and improvement-effects around their vision, as well as a set of three to five core values that best defined the culture they were trying to reinforce, change, or improve.
Today it’s a rare organization that doesn’t have a set (most often a laundry list) of values. In fact, values have become one more item added to the requisite organization checklist (Organization chart? Check. Strategic plan? Check. Budget? Check. Vision statement? Check. Values? Check). Frequently when we ask about the organization’s values, a dusty old piece of paper is produced. Quite often this is followed by a debate about whether or not this is the right version of the organization’s values.
BRINGING VALUES TO LIFE
“Values are the bedrock of any corporate culture. As the essence of a company’s philosophy for achieving success, values provide a sense of common direction for all employees and guidelines for day-to-day behavior… often companies succeed because their employees can identify, embrace, and act on the values of the organization.” Terrence Deal and Allan Kennedy, Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life
Many organizations can point to a list of values. The real question is how the values are lived. Have we just done our “values thing” during a planning session or are they actively used in our daily operations? Do they have a high “snicker factor” to be greeted with rolled eyes when they are occasionally brought forward? As a manager have I “Dilbertized” my workplace by going through the motions of periodically referring to vision, values, and purpose when the leadership spotlight is turned on us or when it is annual planning time again?
A key test of whether core values are alive and real in an organization is to ask team members at random to recite those values. If they can’t do it without referring to a piece of paper, there are either too many values (ideally they should be no more than three or four words or short phrases – five if you really stretch it) or they aren’t being used in daily operations.
Here are some examples of how highly effective leaders keep core values alive.
* Make “values fit” a key criterion in hiring. Most effective leaders know that you can improve a person’s skills and experience with training and development, but it’s much harder to train for attitude and almost impossible to change a person’s core values.
* Replace rules and policies with values and trust. Effective leaders treat team members as responsible adults who want to do the right thing for the team or organization. They know that with good support, training, and examples to follow, most people will exercise good judgment. The exceptions can be dealt with on an as-needed basis. This principle can also extend to customers. For example, we know of one courier company that automatically sends customers up to $300 for any damage claims. Experience has shown that customers are dishonest less than 1% of the time.
* Promote only those people who are role models for the organization’s values. Promotions are the clearest indication of whether values are lived or simply espoused. All too often, a manager will declare the values of teamwork, customer service, and trust, but then promote someone who is the meanest SOB in the place, manages by email, rarely sees customers or team members, and “snoopervises” rules like the Gestapo – simply because he or she gets the job done. In such cases, it becomes evident just how important (or unimportant) lived values really are.
Early in my career I found work that was a great fit for my skills and interests. I grew and moved through the company to ever-higher levels of responsibility. I was especially lucky to be mentored by a senior manager who coached and developed my skills, and brought out more potential in me than I realized I had at the time. Her trust and faith in me built my confidence and a strong foundation for future growth.
After one promotion that would take me across the country to manage the company’s largest branch, I spent a week introducing John, the new president (he was also new to me, since he came from another part of the company), to the various field managers I served and supported with my internal training and consulting work.
It quickly became embarrassing to be with him. He was an obnoxious boor who had all the answers – often to questions he wasn’t even asked. His personal time management was a joke. One morning, at the time we were to leave for a meeting, I had to rouse him from bed by pounding on his hotel room door (he’d been “out on the town” the night before). His honesty and ethics were questionable – you really did want to count your fingers after shaking his hand (or at least wash your hands very thoroughly). He was an elitist who treated frontline team members as “the little people.”
I subsequently moved 2,000 miles away from him and head office to assume new responsibilities at one of our branch offices. Since he was clearly an out-of-sight-out-of-mind manager I was thankful for the distance that separated us. But since I did report to him, I was still obliged to maintain contact through periodic phone conversations and occasional meetings.
During one of those meetings, some 12 months after moving from head office, we talked about the state of the company and his activities over the past year. I’d been hearing stories of his awful management behavior and the deteriorating condition of the whole Canadian operation. His stories of “conquests,” conflicts, “housecleaning,” and frustrations with the “unbelievable number of idiots out there” confirmed my worst fears. This guy was a disaster. My initial assessment of him had been, if anything, too charitable.
John did me a big favor that afternoon in his office. His complete lack of leadership and subsequent performance problems confirmed my growing belief in “people power.” Since I couldn’t in good conscience belong to a management team that had a leader like this guy, I decided it was time for me to move on. Flying back home that night, I felt a sense of relief and cleansing. I had been contemplating a career move into the training and consulting field. The huge mismatch between John’s values and mine gave me the push I needed to take a new look at what was important to me in life and rethink my career direction. A few months later I joined forces with Art McNeil to build The Achieve Group (it became Canada’s largest training and consulting firm over the next decade). Later I heard that many of John’s leadership chickens (or perhaps turkeys) came home to roost. He was fired.
Worthwhile work
* More than half of the 2,300 respondents surveyed at 50 top business schools were willing to take a 10-percent or greater salary reduction to work at a company that had values consistent with their own.
* When second-year students were asked to choose among 10 criteria for job selection, the overall choice was “values that are similar to mine” (number one with women; number two with men, after financial compensation).
* After graduation, women wanted to ensure they had meaningful work. Men sought learning and financial rewards. Ten years later women were looking for balance and fulfillment outside work (translation: time with family), whereas the men now badly wanted meaningful work.
The value of Values
My files continue to fill with studies that show the benefits of values-based leadership. Here are a few examples:
* A Boston College study examined the eight-year performance of 30 “socially conscious” companies. Those companies performed 106% better than their peer group.
* The Vermont-based Center for Economic Revitalization selected firms based on contributions to quality of life, responsible employee/labor relations, community participation, public service programs, and ethics. The “good guys” did indeed finish first. Over the 10-year period of the study, their share prices rose by 240%, while the Dow Jones Index increased by only 55%.