Archive for the ‘Leadership’ Category

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Simple Leadership Ideas

October 14, 2016

Learning is not compulsory…neither is survival. –W. Edwards Demming, quality guru

Kevin Meyer is CEO of a manufacturing company and has other extensive manufacturing and entrepreneurial experience. He is a practitioner and promoter of Lean Manufacturing principles as well as a student (in a way) of Zen. I’ve been reading his book, The Simple Leader: Leadership at the nexus of Lean and Zen.

Don’t let the Zen part throw you off, considering this is a Christian blog. I’ve learned much about mindfulness and calm from practicing Zen. No less a thinking and Christian than Thomas Merton explored the similarities.

However, back to the point–and our Friday leadership lesson.

Foundation of the thinking of the book:

There are two pillars of Lean: Create value through continuous improvement; and, Respect for people.

“Zen is not necessarily a religion: rather, it is a human- and present-centered way of life.”

They go together. I just visited a facility in Mason, Ohio yesterday that operates by Lean principles. You can sense the respect for people principle at work just walking in the front door. Then there is the shop floor. Quiet, clean, brightly lit, people going about their jobs at a steady pace lacking frantic actions and shouting–like it was when I started years ago.

Meyer says, “A hallmark of the best leaders I’ve been lucky to work with is that they are often the quietest people in the room. They don’t feel the need to assert their authority by talking, as they’ve already earned it with their authenticity.”

We know these leaders when we meet them. Talk about calm in the eye of the storm as a metaphor–or follow Jesus’ example of literally calm in the eye of the storm. Treating people with respect. Letting people be free to make decisions providing the context for them to know the right decisions.

For those of us who are task focused, it’s good to be reminded about the other people around. And how to treat them. And how to help them grow. Remaining in the present moment. Maintaining an aura of calm.

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Be A Bridge Not An Obstacle

September 16, 2016

Oh, if you need a friend
I’m sailing right behind
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind — Paul Simon

I have been thinking bridges lately. This song popped up on the playlist of one of the channels I listen to in the car (Sirius XM 32, “The Bridge”–interestingly enough).

Fridays are often “leadership day” here at Faith Venture. The concept of bridges fits for that, too. Leadership means relationship–we just don’t often think of it that way.

“Like a bridge over troubled water.”

Leaders take us from one place to another. The good ones take us from a place to a better place. Higher performance. Sales and profit growth. Higher levels of customer satisfaction (no matter who your customer may be–profit or non-profit organization). Continued growth as individual people and as an organization.

Let’s consider the opposite. Leader (or other person) as an obstacle. Perhaps you’ve been on both sides–been an obstacle or been impeded.

Leaders who place obstacles in the way of growth and success usually are unaware. Often they are self-absorbed. So worried about themselves, they forget the mission and the needs of others.

Do a self-check. Are you building a bridge or sowing obstacles?

In Yoga, we have a pose called Bridge (see, the word just keeps popping up). You lay on your back, bring the feet close to the body, knees up, arms alongside the body. You activate or energize the upper legs and “core” (abs, glutes, lower back) lifting the body off the mat. Weight is supported in the heels and shoulders. (Check it on YouTube.)

This pose strengthens, stretches, is good for circulation. It’s an all around beneficial pose. A Bridge.

Have a friend in need—build a bridge to hope or calm or confidence.

Leading a department, committee, company—build a bridge from where it is to where it is serving its customers.

See someone struggling to succeed—build a bridge to growth and success.

Be a Bridge, not an Obstacle.

 

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Diamonds on the Inside

September 9, 2016

“She’s got diamonds on the inside.”

I have no idea what the song was about, but I love that picture. I’m thinking of the beauty that shines through. Not wearing it on the outside for flash and attention. But coming from within.

The past few days I’ve read about “for profit” colleges shutting down suddenly. Why does pursuit of profit have to corrupt some people? It made me think of the three or four guys I’ve worked with over the years who wore their Christianity outside. Sort of a veneer. When we parted ways, they all owed me money. And other people.

On the other hand, I’ve known many leaders whose robust spiritual life shined through from the inside. They lived their beliefs. It was part of them. They had no urge to show it off or force a particular branch of religion. They were great to work for and with. And usually good at business or leadership, too.

I’ve joked in the past that when I meet an overtly Christian businessman I reach for my pocket for assurance that my wallet is still there.

But that is a bit cynical. True in some cases, unfortunately.

Still–where are my diamonds? Encrusted on the outside as a glittering veneer, or embedded inside showing through as a part of natural beauty?

Think of the people we know that are like that. I bet if we but stop and reflect we can think of many. Maybe when we’re contemplating upon that person we’d like to be we can focus on those and try to be like them.

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Unleashing Energy, The Creative Leader

September 2, 2016

You’ve seen it, I hope. The type of leader who unleashes the energy of everyone around. The organization may have been lethargic. Or complacent. Or dying.

The someone new comes in. She has a vision of success. He is transparent–no hidden agendas, no spies among the employees, no sudden directives.

There is something about a feeling of trust that is darn near undefinable where people can have ideas and share them. You feel you’ll be listened to. In fact, you feel encouraged to come up with ideas.

These leaders pop up all over the place. Perhaps not enough, but they exist.

There is a leader whose blogs I read and podcasts I listen to who is such a leader. He exudes energy and positive emotions. He’s driven to provide the best solution for his customers. He’s also driven to find ways to unleash the creativity of his employees.

There exists a pure joy of learning and applying what he learns. Try an experiment. It works, great. It doesn’t, well, scrap it and try something else.

The point is for all of us, how do we achieve that as leaders?

  • Vision of what constitutes success
  • Create trust by doing what you say
  • Constantly encouraging
  • Quick feedback designed to help not tear down
  • Celebrate the little victories along with the big ones
  • Constant messaging of the vision through every means available
  • Always inviting others to go along on the journey

What could you add?

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Leader’s First Response To Decline

August 19, 2016

You’ve been appointed to head an organization. Could be a business, church, nonprofit. Wherever you are in life.

The organization is thriving. All indicators were up. People affiliated with the organization are enthused. Good things are happening all over. Leadership teams are planning expansions.

Then a change happens. Imperceptibly at first. Few, if anyone, notice. But growth stopped. No real decline, yet. But a couple of staff leaders left, leaving behind some leadership gaps. You, the overall leader didn’t move quickly to fill the gaps. They just slid by.

Eventually the decline is in progress. At first only key people in the organization notice. Then more people notice. A key top staff person notices and brings to your attention. Conflict erupts. Now there is another key gap in the leadership team.

This is a situation I’ve seen several times in my career. I did try to salvage a couple. In one I was actually “president” for a short time while my partners tried to raise money for a takeover. They didn’t, we failed, now I’m writing here.

But back to our fearless leader. The one who seems oblivious to the by now obvious to everyone decline. If you were in that position, would you

  1. Call an emergency staff meeting of the perhaps dozen top leaders to address the problem; or
  2. Gather together a larger group–say greater than 25–and begin a month’s long vision planning exercise, or
  3. Do nothing and either ignore the situation or hope it reverses?

I have never been in the situation (and I can think of at least four I’ve been in) where the leader chose number 1.

Mostly I have seen the non-choice choice of number 3. Either the leader is totally out of their league and just flounders, or their narcissism makes them ignore the situation. Perhaps even degenerating into blame.

Then, I’ve actually seen number 2. All attention is diverted from important and immediate tasks while the entire leadership team squanders its attention on dreaming of what might be.

What should you do? I’d suggest steps such as:

Gather the top leadership team and get them to acknowledge the problem

Gather facts and stories about the situation

Perform root cause analyses (5 why’s, as we say)

Tackle one main problem as quickly as it is identified

If one of the issues that pops up is that “no one understands what we stand for”, then the messaging both internal and external has become muddled. In that case, it is time to go back to the vision statement of the organization and sharpen it. Then make sure that all messaging is consistent.

Maybe the customer experience is not good. Then a team can tackle that problem.

Notice that by doing this, the leader focuses the leadership team and infuses new energy. The new energy should spread throughout the organization as teams form and more people are involved.

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Leadership-How Does Your Team Communicate

July 29, 2016

Email is bad for you and your team because we get too many messages every day and the important internal emails get mixed up with other correspondence with people from the outside world.–Michael Sliwinski, Founder and CEO of Nozbe

Has your team ever been caught up in long chains of emails? Someone proposes an idea or someone else attacks something. Then another person “replies all”, and another, and another. Soon you’re reading down through a horrendous chain with blood pressure rising by the second.

It’s happened to me many times. I’ve also gotten caught in the problem where the important message dropped to the bottom of the list buried by the unimportant minutiae.

A few years ago I walked away from a couple of jobs that paid very well. My earnings are a little smaller, but expenses are down. And my email load? Cut by 80%. Some days I almost feel lonely.

Sliwinski says about his company, “To solve this problem we designed a new way to communicate: we use email for the outside world and something else for ‘internal communication.’ We use two apps for that: Slack and Nozbe.”

There’s a new book “Under New Management” by David Burkus that I heartily recommend. It includes some unconventional management practices, and one of them is apparently banning email. Sliwinski says it’s something he did in his company three years ago. “Something I didn’t think was new but now I see it really is. Whenever I talk about ‘No Office,’ people ask me about my email policy and they’re surprised that we banned email in our company. They give me this ‘Can you do that?’ face. Of course you can. You actually should if you want to have a productive environment for your team. Only allow email to the “outside world” and ban email within your team.”

It is worth the effort to evaluate how your team communicates. Then find the best tool. And, by the way, don’t check email every 30 seconds! Sometimes I get caught in an endless loop of answering messages. It’s asynchronous. You can choose when to answer. Choose wisely.

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Leadership And The Discipline of Focus

July 22, 2016

What defines a leader?

Not a manager or someone with a title? No, a leader.

We always start with vision. A leader has a vision of where to go. A vision of what the goal of the organization or committee is.

I knew a leader once. I’ve worked in a number of organizations and businesses. I’ve known few leaders.

It was a larger organization. Several hundred people–maybe reaching toward 1,000 for a while. A church, for what that’s worth.

He knew where he was going and where he wanted to take the organization.

He selected close advisors–mostly wisely.

He encouraged teams to develop–as long as they moved the vision forward.

He could change teams as situations changed requiring new responses–but still moving the vision forward.

Researching yesterday’s post, I remembered Nehemiah.

He had a vision. He convinced the residents of Jerusalem, who had become adjusted to living in a city without walls, that it was essential they build a wall.

He organized teams, recruited leaders, but always focused on his goal.

He accomplished the goal in a remarkably short time. If any one of you has ever been part of a construction project or watched one, you know that they are almost never done on time and under budget. Nehemiah did it.

He was focused on the task. “I am doing a great work and cannot come down.”

What great work are we doing right now? What are our potential distractions that could prevent us from doing that great work.

Focus. Recognize distractions and discard them. Keep the vision in mind always.

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Collaboration-It’s a Good Thing

July 8, 2016

They were sitting on the couch intent on their iPads. Chatting away about the project. My grandkids, that is, ages 9 and 7. They were building something in Minecraft, together, connected through iCloud. But also connected by voice.

Collaboration, it’s a good thing. Sometimes technology enables us to collaborate to build better things.

In my other profession, the one that pays the bills, I research companies and industries involved in a building and using a variety of technologies. But it always gets down to people. And how people interact.

Many companies foster silos. People exist only within their department or division or within their product group. They seldom share information or ideas. Many may not even know people in another division.

I’ve seen other companies where there is an attempt to bring people from a variety of functions together, but collaboration is hampered by what we call politics. The trust level in the company is not high. A person may be reluctant to say something out of fear that the comment may be taken out of context, spread to higher management ranks, and they may suffer career repercussions.

Once upon a time I led a department that designed machines to solve specific customer problems. We needed lots of ideas. White boards were a new thing. I bought a bunch. Put them in every cubical, office, and conference room. I told the engineers, sketch the problem on your white board. As you wander through the room to get coffee or whatever, look at the whiteboards. Talk to the other engineer. Maybe new ideas spring up.

We designed some pretty cool machines.

What are you building? Technology? Relationships? An organization?

Sensitize yourself to the atmosphere of the office or organization if you’re geographically spread. Are people sharing ideas? Are people receptive to ideas from others? What can be done to encourage collaboration?

One of my favorite quotes from the cartoon character Bugs Bunny was when somebody wanted to tell him something. “I’m all ears.”

Ah, the beginning of collaboration.

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What Behavior Does Your Leadership Encourage

July 1, 2016

James and John went to Jesus privately at the urging of their mother. They wanted to ask for the two top positions in the kingdom Jesus was going to start. Jesus wasn’t impressed. He stopped that sort of political backstabbing at the beginning.

My wife taught third grade for many years. Believe it or not, she did not like it when kids would come running up to her, “Mrs. Mintchell, did you know what [fill in kid’s name] did?”

Why did the kids do that? Same reason as the big guys. They were trying to make themselves look good often at the expense of others of their colleagues.

Two or three times in my career people have spread “stuff” around on me. One boss came to me once and asked, “Did you know that [x] has been going to the president complaining that you don’t have enough work to do?”

It bothered me, but taking the longer view, I knew both companies were tanking. It just gave me incentive to hit the job market before everyone else.

But what if there had been a new president who came in to turn things around? Part of her plan would be to form teams where people collaborated on projects. Just how much collaboration will we do when we’ve been in a culture of “tattling” and other such back-stabbing activities?

We know today that companies and organizations that thrive are those that build an environment where people are comfortable with each other and are free to collaborate and share.

  • Do we stop people who wish to manipulate us with out-of-bounds requests?
  • Do we weed out those who strive to make others look bad
  • Do we react to such gossip?
  • Do we let things go, afraid to act on it?

If we start to sense a lack of trust and collaboration in the organization, maybe it’s a signal to start evaluating our own leadership.

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Don’t Abdicate Responsibility For Decisions

June 17, 2016

Have you ever been part of a leadership team trying to achieve a reasonable consensus on a decision and have someone (or several) pass on contributing to the decision?

I’ve observed a phenomenon over many years of professional and personal life where someone who has the chance to contribute to a decision abdicate the throne and let others decide.

In this way, they also avoid responsibility for the outcome. Usually it means they also avoid responsibility for doing the work–one way or another.

There is another side to the dynamic. After the decision is made, these same people delight in continual criticism of the decision. I’ve seen it so often. In families, in committees, in churches, in business.

When I was younger and early in my career, I’d listen to these complainers thinking maybe they had some insight. But it didn’t take me long to discover that this was actually a strategy for avoiding decision-making, contributing to the effort, and responsibility.

It is as if they are trying to stay out of the way in case the decision was wrong. Yet, they’ll try to take some of the praise if things go well.

These people are to be avoided. Well, if you married one, then you’re probably stuck with constant criticism I guess. It’s a personality type. If they are on a committee or department or team you lead, try to marginalize them or even move them on to somewhere else.

Frank and bold discussion about decisions is to be welcomed. Snide comments and grumbling after the fact undermines leadership and the team. It is to be removed.

If you are a self-aware person, then recognize when you start to become one of those grumblers. Stop it and stay  quiet. Resolve to be part of the solution the next time.

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