Looking to build your strategic leadership muscle? Read our latest thinking on setting vision, strategic thinking, and operating at an enterprise level.
Clashing management styles do not always lead to management clashes. Recently, we’ve noticed a trend with clients asking for help in coaching and consulting around issues of differing styles — issues that we’ve had to sort out ourselves as we’ve grown our business. READ ARTICLE
Town halls, all hands, skip level meetings, the list goes on. Anyone who works in a corporate environment has experienced them. And the more senior you become, the more you bear the responsibility of using these vehicles to cascade information throughout the organization. But what happens when they fail to work? When they just don’t make the impact that you’re looking for? It made us think, what does one do when the run of the mill communication tactics just don’t cut it anymore? READ ARTICLE
You were fired up at the start — you pushed yourself and the team hard to get over the 50-yard line…you kept the momentum going over the 30 yard line…and as you finally approached the 20-yard line, you felt for the first time the end zone was clearly in sight. Great time to pause? Take a rest? Turn your energies towards a new exciting idea you have? READ ARTICLE
Most of us have some resistance to conflict. Instead of addressing issues directly, we try to be “nice” and end up spending an inordinate amount of time talking to ourselves or others — complaining, feeling frustrated, ruminating on something that already happened, or anticipating something that might happen. READ ARTICLE
For the past several months, it seemed that everywhere I turned people were talking about events in Ferguson, Staten Island, and North Charleston — in living rooms, classrooms, anchor rooms — everywhere but in most corporate conference rooms. In fact, I have not heard one corporate leader make the link between what happened in these places and what goes on inside their organizations. But there is a connection. After all, it’s not like the racial bias that underlies these social events doesn’t exist inside corporate walls. It does and executives shouldn’t be silent about it. READ ARTICLE
The icon may be gone but Steve Jobs has certainly left his mark – on an industry, a country, the world. By all accounts he was certainly the definition of visionary, and he seemingly found his own signature way of driving execution at Apple. There’s so much that we can learn from him about leadership. However, the story that stands out to me as I’ve read accounts of his life is this one he told in his graduation speech at Stanford in 2005:
“Because I had dropped out [of college] and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. … Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.”
While most of the world marches to the drumbeat of required classes, standardized tests and lock-step career paths, becoming more narrow and linear along the way, one of the biggest innovators (and job creators!) in our country made his success because he simply followed what he found fascinating. He gave himself permission to try new things and trusted somehow that his portfolio of interesting experiences would perhaps lead somewhere new and exciting. The Mac came from someone who had laid down lots of “dots” in his life, and found ways to connect them along the way.
I’ve seen many clients find great success, appearing very human and very authentic, and finding innovative answers, when they’re willing to connect disparate dots in their life to their work. It’s the hard-core scientist who supports a confused colleague through a poem he remembered from college, or the leader/musician who powerfully clarifies his role and vision for the organization by metaphorically saying he sees himself as the “conductor of the orchestra”.
While college and a degree(s) are likely a stock part of your resume, and you may not be inclined to quit your job to fulfill that long-held desire to be a celebrity chef or join an ashram, how can you intentionally create more “dots”, or connect the ones you’ve laid down, to find new possibilities in your work?
1) Engage in a creative practice. Find an activity that fascinates you and engages you in a new way – whether it’s taking a pottery class, flying airplanes, trying stand-up comedy or traveling to an exotic place — anything that requires that you get out of your comfort zone and find new ways to experience life. You never know where it may lead ten years down the road! And it’s all in the name of “work”!
2) Look for the next right answer. DeWitt Jones, a former National Geographic photographer is known for sticking with his shoot, even after he thinks he has “the” shot. When you think you (or your team) have “the” answer to a perplexing problem, or a visionary idea, don’t stop there-keep searching for the next right answer. Something tells me that Steve Jobs probably kept that creative conversation going beyond the first good answer, to find more dots to connect!
3) Find new connections in everyday life. Take two very unrelated ideas and see if you can find how they are related. Consider the latest intractable problem you’re facing, and just keep asking yourself very lightly throughout your day “how might this inform my thinking?” It could be as you’re reading the paper about the latest economic analysis of Greece, watching your son’s soccer coach run a practice, reading Dr. Seuss to your kids before bed, or seeing Les Mis at the Kennedy Center. How might each of those activities provide a new perspective on your situation?
Steve Jobs was certainly one-of-a-kind and his spirit of following his fascinations and trusting that the dots will connect is a legacy that continues to live on –for the sake of our economy and our humanity.
We all know that thinking strategically is important, but we have a hard time doing so when we’re simply trying to keep our heads above water with the day-to-day tasks that consume our time and energy. In our “get it done“ corporate cultures, we have somehow forgotten that “thinking”, and not just “doing”, is work. If we want to be viewed as a leader who thinks strategically, we must embrace the reality that staying in the weeds puts us on the fast track to nowhere. Whether you look within your organization, or to the iconic leaders of our time, you will find that those who stand out and make a real difference focus their time and attention on answering the BIG questions and thinking strategically.
To evolve your journey towards strategic thinking, check your mindset, skills, perspective and schedule.
Thinking more strategically is a different cognitive process and ability for many. It takes patience, courage and a conscious effort to hone and develop. However, the skills position you well for providing inspirational and strategic leadership to your organization. It’s well worth the journey!
– Nina Bowman
What do you get when you cross “leadership presence” and “leading change”, two hot topics in leadership development today? As executive coaches, we sometimes see the two leadership skills come together seamlessly, but more often than not, we see the “cascade collide”! Think back to the last time you had to cascade an organizational decision, policy change or reorganization. What did you do? Let’s take a quick quiz. Did you:
If you answered d, then don’t waste your time and stop reading now! If you answered a-c (or if you have a direct report who might be having trouble), then keep reading on. There are three key steps below that could increase your overall leadership presence and your change results.
Step 1: Drive Alignment. Too often, the meetings to plan for cascading don’t take place or are not effectively handled. Leaders spend so much time on the decision that they run out of steam when it comes time to work on how to communicate the decision. Who are the key stakeholders involved here? Senior leadership, another set of peers in a different function, certain direct reports you need to coach ahead of time? Get in front of it and make sure all know what the decision is about and are aligned around the “Why” before they cascade. Or if you realize you are lacking information from those above to effectively cascade, seek what information you need. But, what if the problem is you? You personally don’t believe? Put on your organizational hat and spend time connecting the decision to the mission or corporate ambition – this isn’t about your voicing your personal views, rather what connects to the business’ ultimate purpose. You can’t help others do that, until you’ve done that work first for yourself.
Step 2: Craft the Message. Leaders often fall short by communicating only “what” the decision is. Others are uncomfortable to cascade because they believe they have to be a disingenuous cheerleader. Craft three key parts of the message beyond the “what”.
Don’t sugar coat the reality of the situation. When you are asking people to embrace something new and different, there is nothing worse than the “pollyana” who doesn’t acknowledge the challenge. Stick to the facts versus moaning along or shoving it under the rug. Acknowledge the era which has passed, the good job achieved, and the realities of the new situation.
Focus on the “Why”. Be sure your organization understands why this decision is the best one for the organization (and, yes for the organization – not necessarily for you, your team, or others you know). If you’re short on time to prep, double down on your effort here.
Paint the Way Forward. Grab the leadership moment and paint the picture for what’s ahead. Keep the dialogue open to help folks end, explore, and take hold of a new way. As JFK once said, “Effort and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.”
Step 3: Motivate and Inspire. As those around you experience high beta and change, be the anchoring force. Stay on message and be consistent, across all forums — from what you share at the all hands meetings and even more important what’s shared in those 5 minute informal conversations in the hallway. Remember you’ve had a lot more time to digest the decisions made and people deeper in the organization will be at a different starting point. Create check-in points or meetings which allow open dialogue to continue and give you ample opportunities to hear what people’s experiences are, answer questions about the realities of the situation, the “why”, and the way forward.
Do you have an organizational change or message you need to cascade soon? How are you going to get in front of it this time?
– Amy Jen Su
As a coach, I often see the deep impact of board leadership on my executive coaching clients. Sadly, at times, this impact is not positive and lapses in leadership judgment have left my clients and the general public scratching their heads in confusion. So today, I’m turning the lens away from the leadership issues that our coaching clients face to leadership issues that their boards face. Why? Because leadership on the board is just as critical as leadership of the organization for which they hold fiduciary responsibility.
To that end, here are some quick leadership refreshers to course correct bad board behavior, especially during critical leadership times:
There can be no excuse for boards behaving badly. We wouldn’t expect it from our leaders. So, why would we accept it from the board? And to all those who graciously, selflessly, diligently and effectively lead on boards, a major kudos to you. There are many of you out there whom we can learn from. Keep up the good work.
– Muriel Maignan Wilkins
As many of us find ourselves in a constant grind of meeting overload, Lisa Kay Solomon and Chris Ertel’s book, Moments of Impact offers some relief. On a mission to “eradicate as many time-sucking, energy-depleting strategy meetings as possible – and replace them with inspiring and productive strategic conversations”, the authors add an important new tool to the strategy meeting toolkit. If you are a leader or someone who helps leaders design retreats, meetings, or important dialogues, then “Moments of Impact” is a book we recommend.
Soloman and Ertel help us to understand that leaders of today need more than just standard meeting or brainstorming session skills, they need capabilities for creating strategic conversations. Below, are some of the distinctions that Solomon and Ertel offer that especially resonate with us:
Moments of Impact ultimately highlights the tremendous impact we can have in our organizations by bringing a greater intentionality to our meetings and retreats with others as we seek to solve some of the most critical challenges and questions our organizations face today.
– Amy Jen Su
