6 Steps To Improving Your Leadership Results

With the start of the new year, there is always a lot of focus placed on resolutions for improvement this year. If things run true to form, most of you made resolutions and have already discarded them.

So now is a good time to get serious!

As leaders of people, I have a couple of questions for you.

1) What improvements do you want your group to make this year?

2) What will you have to do differently this year to cause these improvements?

Remember that if you do what you always did, you’ll get what you always got. If you want to get different results, you have to do things differently.

The 6 steps to achieving better results are simple to list.

1. Get clear on the results you want and a way to measure your progress.
2. Determine what things, situations, relationships, communication, empowerment, etc will need to be in place to generate these new results.
3. Understand what will need to be in place to create #2..
4. Decide what you need to do differently with and for you people to put # 3 in place..
5. DO IT!
6. KEEP DOING IT!

The activity to implement these steps is not so simple.

Clear results. I mean really clear. If the better results are quantitative, plug the numbers into your thinking and conversations. (Remember SMART goals = Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Realistic, in a Time Frame). If the results are qualitative, clarify what the new behavior looks like and work that into your thoughts and conversations.

1. Things that need to be in place. Are they things, like tools and equipment? Are they new processes? Better information? Employees take responsibility to make “it” happen? More effective leadership or management practices? Employee engagement?
2. What is needed to bring the items that you determined in #2 come into existence? Most of you will have answers in the areas of tools, equipment and processes. The more challenging task is to help employees to change their behavior.
3. What you need to do differently. You know what needs to happen. YOU have to make it happen! How will you change your approach?
   1. What specific steps will you take to improve communication?
   2. What specific steps will you take to empower your employees?
   3. What specific steps will you take to improve employee engagement?
4. Now DO IT!
5. KEEP DOING IT! You might not be successful at first. People may change slowly. Or you may not be very good at this new thing initially. Be assured that you will become more effective as you continue to do it.

Dr. Deming was the first person (as far as I know) to point out that management owns the process. Thousands of people since then have said that management determines the organization’s culture. However, when you ask managers what needs to change, they invariably start their answer with, “They must change …” Wrong answer. Employees act and react according to what management does. So if you want them to act and react differently, you must act and react differently –FIRST.

You are not going to solve all of your problems with one grand gesture. Leadership is a journey. Pick the one thing you would like to change first. Get it working well before you charge on to the second thing.

You will able to get things much closer to your goals, and much sooner if you start now!

Tug of War – Everyone Loses

The New Hampshire primary is over. The noise level returns to normal. The moment the polls closed, my phone stopped ringing as if the wires were cut. In this blessed silence, I am dismayed to think about the overall messages delivered by the primary.

Each candidate’s message was that everything is broken and I am the only person willing and able to fix it. You wouldn’t want those other candidates anyway. They don’t have any character and you can’t trust them. My summary take away is the message that while any candidate may be bad, the other person is even worse. I prefer to vote for the better of the two choices. Based on this rhetoric, I will have to vote for the lesser of two evils.

Yes, Congress is broken. It seems like congress used to be concerned about what is best for the country. It has now deteriorated into a tug-of-war.  Each side only wins when they can pull the other side across the line. This causes at least two problems. The first is that the rope that they are using is the American people. If the rope breaks in the process, tough luck for the rope. The second is that in win-lose situations, the losing side digs its heels in and becomes more determined to beat you next time. The battle shifts left and right in the same space ad infinitum. Decades later the contestants are at the same place fighting over the same line. This is not a recipe for progress.

The country is an increasingly diverse, increasingly segmented society. Effective Leadership practices demonstrate that positive things get accomplished through cooperation, understanding where the other person is coming from, recognizing that everyone can contribute good ideas and staying focused on a common goal.

I am disheartened that the primary rhetoric delivers the message that “I can shout louder and more firmly than the others. I will be able to pull more strongly on my end of the rope. I am the best at making sure that the other team loses the tug of war.” This win at all costs attitude is not working. The message I take away from this primary is that the candidates promise to be better at playing by a set of rules that don’t work.

In the movie “War Games”, the hero has to convince the computer that nuclear war is a game where no one wins. I am looking for the person that can convince Congress that they are also playing a game where no one wins.

I haven’t seen that person yet.

Give Away Your Trade Secrets?

Who in their right mind gives away their trade secrets to their competition?

Companies have information that allow them to keep a leg up on their competition. Intellectual property, proprietary processes, patented technology, unique ways of combining components. These are the things that make them successful.

When these company differentiators are made available to the competition, there is outrage from the company. People are fired, arrested, sued and other forms of retribution, depending on the level of damage. We all know this. We have all seen it.

This is why I am bewildered about the amount of information that is being made available about the Osama bin Laden events. The information gathered, where it was gathered from,  the way it was combined, the decision making process, the action taken. Not only do billions of people know it, but so do an unspecified number of the terrorists. Doesn’t all of this publicity help the “competition” to be more successful?

Now that the terrorists know a lot more than they knew Saturday, won’t they be harder to track? I can’t imagine that the intelligence agencies are too happy that the terrorist are now better equipped to evade exposure and capture.

I understand the news media. They have to deliver 24 hours of “breaking” news every day, the more sensational the better (because the ratings say that the public demands it).

I don’t understand the people who are giving out this level of detail. Some of it is directly from the government. Some of it just seems to “appear” as facts without attribution. Leaks? Tweets? Anonymous phone calls? Doesn’t this come under heading of “giving aid and comfort to the enemy”? Isn’t this a real crime? As in against the law?

I guess it is better for me to stay in the business sector. I understand their motivation and behavior.  I just don’t have a clue about the rest of this.

(Or maybe I do have a clue, but I don’t want to believe what I’m thinking.)

What is your opinion of the events? Leave a comment.

Office Politics – Good Concept. Bad Rep.

I was thinking about the reasons that office politics has such a bad reputation. They include:

• People use it to polish their own apple.
• People use it to gang up on other people and ideas.
• People use it to get their own way.
• People use it to gain benefits that are out of proportion to what you think they deserve. But what is “it”?

Looking deeply at office politics, it seems to be:

• Influencing relationships
• Seizing opportunities
• Communicating in a way that the receiver understands and appreciates

For the purpose of moving an agenda forward.

These all sound like good things. So what is the problem?

When these good techniques are used by people to further a personal agenda, it is referred to as Office Politics. A personal agenda could include a promotion, a prime assignment, a better cubicle, or to torpedo a co-worker. This use is often accompanied by lying, telling half truths, misrepresentation of facts or playing to a power person’s weakness (being a yes-person), etc. Office politics in this context sows discord. It creates negative emotions, e.g. anger, disgust, disappointment, mistrust and more. I agree that anything that can cause this much disharmony in an organization should be viewed in a negative light.

When you use these same techniques to move an agenda forward, and that agenda is to improve the organization, this is a good thing! This is how progress is made in an organization. Influencing relationships, seizing opportunities to tell a story and communicating effectively are how new product ideas are approved, how process changes are introduced, etc. These efforts are using the same techniques but they should not be tarred with the same brush as “Office Politics”.

There are a lot of articles on the web that tell you how to win at Office Politics. However, I do not want you to go through life tediously explaining that you use office politics, but the GOOD kind. I think that we need a new term to describe positive Office Politics. I’m looking for a term that when you say it people react with understanding and enthusiasm. I would like the new term to generate the same intensity of emotion as the negative energy associated with Office Politics.

What suggestions do you have for a new term for positive office politics?

Leave your suggestion below.

New Year Goals. 2011 Success

The new year is rolling around in a few days. That means that the old year is closing out.

How did you do?

At the beginning of the year, did you have goals for what you would accomplish?
Did you get where you wanted to go?
If you did, CONGRATULATIONS!!
This puts you ahead of 95% of people.

If you did not, what stood in your way?
Will you do better this year?
What will you do differently to stick to your plan this year if you didn’t stick to it last year?

You did have goals and a plan last year. …Didn’t you??

As Yogi Berra said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll probably end up somewhere else.” Did you end up somewhere else?

OK. Never Mind. Last year is gone. The train pulled out of the station without you. So you are not any closer to where you hoped you would be. Of course you can’t count on hoping and wishing to make things happen. You actually have to take action to make things happen.

Missing the train last year doesn’t mean that you have to miss it this year. Go buy a ticket. …Oh. You need to know here you are going to buy a ticket. So where do you want to go?

Pick out a few things that are important to you. Write them down. Then pick out one or two that you are willing to put in the effort to improve, grow or change. Next, look at the reality of the situation. Can you really make them happen this year? Really??

You goals need to be achievable. If they are not, you will realize at some point that the mountain is just too high and you’ll get discouraged and stop climbing. So don’t set yourself up for failure. Set your self up for success. Set achievable (but still challenging) goals.

Then look at the options for reaching these goals.
Pick you path.
Create a plan.
Buy your ticket.
Get on the train.

Next year when I ask, “How did you do”? You will be able to respond, “Best year ever! I’m just where I planned to be!”

Go for it!!!

If the area you want to improve is in your leadership effectiveness, jump over to Elite Leadership Solutions to see how I can help you.

Uncover Leadership and Other Hidden Talents

Luis Urza was a small cog in a big wheel. He was just a shift leader in the Chilean mines. He kept the miners digging copper and meeting quotas. If the mining company follows the model of many companies around the world, the people in the front office would not have recognized him on the street.

Look at what the man did!

Luis Urza exercised exceptional leadership in the most dire of circumstances. He elevated an initially unruly crowd into a mutually supportive group. He convinced them that sacrifice (small food portions) was in the best long-term interest of the group. He organized activities that included everyone. He kept everyone healthy and focused.

A lowly shift supervisor performed at an exceptionally high level of leadership!

Talent is all around us. Sometimes it is hidden in plain sight. Other times you have to look for it. When you look, you may find it in unexpected places.  Who would have imagined that one of the great leadership examples of this decade would be found at the bottom of a coal mine?

The message for company leaders everywhere is that you have talent hidden in your organizations. You have people who could perform at levels much higher than you let them. You have people who could help you to grow and prosper, yet you keep them confined to the jobs that they are currently doing, boxed-in by job descriptions.

If you haven’t been paying attention, you will need to put a focus on discovering this untapped resource. You may have to use your leadership skills to tease this talent out into the open.

Look at the benefit. Look at where your company could be when you unleash the talent that is bottled up in your organization.

Do you look at your shift supervisors (and all other employees) and wonder what else they are capable of?

Does your company have a way to identify and harness the hidden talent and potential of the employees?

Leave a comment below.

Customer Service Done Right!

My last post was about customer service done wrong and the damage it can cause. So I was pleased to read about customer service done right and the benefits it can create.

Workforce Management had an article, Making The Call Themselves, which described the shift in customer service at American Express. (Oh they probably took my last post to heart.)

They are actually more concerned with increasing customer service than they are about cost cutting. AmEx previously had standard call centers: maximize transactions per CSR per day, rigid scripts, saying the customer’s name three times during the call, etc.  This formula was not delivering the results they wanted. They want customers to feel a relationship with the company. The one-size-fits-all scripts do not make the customers feel that they are important to the company.

American Express, as well as Zappos and Verizon, “are discovering that service quality depends heavily on workers who feel empowered and engaged.” When you have people who are ready, willing and able (and allowed) to do the job, the results are far superior to anything you could legislate. Hire the right people, train them well, and give them a compelling mission and empowerment. Then support this with coaching, peer mentoring, constructive feedback in close proximity to the call. The results can be staggering.

The key measurement, Recommend Us To A Friend, has gone way up. Turnover has gone way down. The cost saved from recruiting and training has funded somewhat higher salaries and performance bonuses.

See! Employee empowerment can work to benefit your company!

Is Your Reputation Worth A Penny?

I recently read an article about a unemployed cancer patient sending in her first COBRA patient. She didn’t get a letter notifying her of the amount. So she calculated it herself. Turns out that her payment was $0.01 (one cent!) short. This caused the company to deny the coverage. (Read the full article  http://tinyurl.com/Cancerpatient ).

If you were in line at the grocery store and the person in front of you was 1 penny short, I’m sure that most of you would reach into your pocket or purse and offer this person a penny. Yet here is an insurance-related company that presumably makes more money than you, quibbling over an essentially worthless penny.

The Customer Service Rep apparently was not very nice in explaining the company policy. The supervisor was a little smoother in explaining the company policy. It was only when the patient threatened to go to the media that the company relented. By the time it was resolved, the patient was so mad that she went to the media anyway.

The fallout of this incident made the national media, including MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” and the Huffington Post. Olbermann called the company president “The worst person in the world.”

There is a lesson here for all company leaders.  The lack of customer service can give your company a serious black eye! Excellent customer service can resolve differences quickly, efficiently and graciously!

• Do your front line people know that customer satisfaction is VERY important?
• Have they seen you support this value with action?
• Are CSRs rewarded for exceptional customer service?
• Or are they chastised because exceptional customer service may take a little longer and adversely affect Average Call Handling Time?
• Do your front line people have discretion to resolve customer issues (at least up to some limit)?
• Can supervisors override company policy for the good of the customer?

You can see from this incident that it doesn’t take long in this era of instant and widespread communication for one “little” incident to give you and your company a serious beating on national TV and to an international, internet audience. Can you afford this type of publicity?

How would the customer facing people in your company handle this type of situation? Review your policies now! You’ll be glad that you did, ….and so will your customers!

Do the  front line people in your company have sufficient empowerment to resolve most customer issues?

Leave a comment.

Indira Gandhi had it right

I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.
~ Indira Gandhi

In a business and industrial sense, from the time of Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and J. Pierpont Morgan, leadership has been about “muscles”. The people with the clout forced their ideas into being. This was the way of the world. The Robber Barons demonstrated that Might makes right.

At some point things began to change. Beginning with Deming, and continuing with Drucker, Senge and later gurus, the focus began to shift. The increased speed and the complexity of change has allowed people to be viewed as part of the solution. They could make a greater contribution that just running the machine. People are unique, not merely interchangeable parts. They bring energy and ideas into work. It has become the job, and the challenge, of leadership to allow people to release this unique energy and talent in the direction of helping the business to prosper.

More enlightened leaders have embraced the concept that energized people using their unique talents in conjunction with other people, deliver far more profitable activity than do people who work by themselves, just doing what they are told.

Do you see evidence that this evolution is taking hold? Or not?

Leave a comment

You’re WRONG!

People interpret events and data through a filter, which is instructed by their unique sets of experiences, knowledge, values, expectations, interests and personality. This goes a long way towards explaining why different people can have wildly different interpretations and memories of the same event.

When someone says something that you know to be wrong, it may well be wrong. …Or maybe its not. They may have taken in the same information as you but the information went through a different filter to arrive at a different conclusion. To paraphrase Willie Nelson,  “it ain’t wrong.  It’s just different.” So you should discuss it as a difference  rather than turning it into a  morality play about right and wrong.

When you tell them, “You’re wrong”, it has the same impact as giving a person a shove. You have shifted from a collegial discussion into a win-lose personal confrontation.We all know that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Before you told them, “You’re wrong”, the focus was on interpretations and opinions. Now these interpretations and opinions are transformed into weapons in the personal battle for supremacy.

Everyone has a right to their own opinions, interpretations and emotions. So rather than shove the other person, exercise your rights. State your opinion from your own point of view without reference to the other person’s statement. Simply say, “The way that I saw it was…” “My opinion is that…” At this point you have put your own position on the table without attacking the other person’s position or the other person.

Now you have two different positions on the table. You have the possibility of working with the other person to explore the differences. Begin your exploration from your own point of view. “When I heard what they said, I was thinking (fill in the blank) was important. So that made (my interpretation/opinion) seem reasonable.” Follow up with, “When you heard what they said, what were you thinking?” Now you’re including them in the discussion as an equal rather than trying to push them out of the discussion because they are “wrong”. You are keeping the focus on the facts and the process of interpretation, rather than changing the focus to the person.

If your goal is to be right or superior, attack away. However, if your goal is to increase participation or come to a consensus, try the softer approach. It works!

Note: Incorrect facts can usually be corrected without confronting someone’s ego. However, if key facts can not be agreed on, the conversation can not come to a happy conclusion. Delay the balance of the discussion until the facts can be verified.