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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
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.
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
