Tag Archive for: talent management

When Jazz is Your Leadership Style…Leave the Symphony!

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If you lead like a jazz artist, then trying to conform to a leadership culture that runs like a symphony might not be the best thing for you or the organization.

I was reminded last night of a fantastically prescient article written by John Clarkeson, former CEO and Chairman of The Boston Consulting Group.  It might be useful to you.

Here’s the link.

Written in 1990 and entitled Jazz vs. Symphony, the article starts with an ominous set of questions…

Is there a leadership crisis? Are we really lacking executives to lead our organizations into the twenty-first century? Or are the specifications for the job changing: should we reexamine what kinds of leaders our organizations need?

Clarkeson then goes on to compare, with compelling anecdote and imagery, the leadership styles of the past (the symphony conductor) with what he poses as the leadership style of the future (the jazz ensemble leader).

He states–in 1990 no less–that the accelerating pace of change will make room for creative leaders who don’t have all the answers and who understand the quirks, nits, and foibles of their teams without demanding that their team be functional robots.

His outline of the “Jazzy” leader and their impact on teams is excellent.  He writes:

Leaders will be in the flow, not remote. Teamwork and cooperation will increase at the expense of individual competition. Cooperative support will moderate anxiety and encourage risk-taking. Talented people will be attracted by the ability to see and influence the whole process, to learn from other knowledgeable people, and by the opportunity to create and grow.

More importantly, he gets at what leaders really must do in order to embrace the Jazz metaphor.

Leadership will flow to those whose vision can inspire the members of the team to put their best abilities at the service of the team. These leaders will create rather than demand loyalty; the best people will want to work with them. They will communicate effectively with a variety of people, and use the conflict among diverse points of view to reach new insights. They will exert influence by the values they choose to reinforce. They will make leaders of their team members.

Note those concepts:

“Leadership will flow to those whose vision can inspire…”   It doesn’t flow to those who see it as a matter of position.

“Leaders will create rather than demand loyalty…”  Loyalty is a two way street.

“They will exert influence by the values they choose to reinforce.”  In other words, stated values flow less and less from a company and from textual artifacts and more and more from the actions of its leaders (even behind closed doors).

“They will make leaders of their team members.”  Leadership comes with an imperative to develop people as much as to direct them.

Clarkeson’s concepts hit home for me because they get at the most basic question of a person’s fit within a given organization’s leadership culture.  To be sure, 25 years after the publication of this delightful article, there are still a LOT of symphonies out there.

The imperative for you and for me is to know the difference between joining a symphony and joining a jazz ensemble.   Specifically, it gets at the question of whether one can be a Jazz musician in the symphony.

And, I’m not sure.

I suspect that Duke Ellington–the giant of jazz that Clarkeson cites–could have held his own riffing with any given philharmonic orchestra. But, I doubt he would have been special.  His lasting impact on music comes from his ability to adjust, cajole, entertain, grow, and create… Not to conform.

In Clarkeson’s words:

…he would offer up a scrap of an idea, suggest in general what he wanted, and then rely on his players to take cues from each other and to fill in their parts as they thought best.

His players were good but not without equal. He knew their quirks, their gifts, their problems, and he encouraged them to learn to do things they didn’t think they could do. Some players came and went, but many stayed for years. They developed through their membership in the group, and they learned from each other. Most of all, their capacity for innovation grew as they built on their cumulative experience.

I suspect that the moment a hypothetical symphony conductor attempted to stuff Duke in a chair and cut off his avenues of creation, he would have voted with his feet.

There, my friends, is the message.  If you and I aspire to play in a symphony, so be it.  Find a symphony.  Many, many leadership cultures still look to a single conductor for “truth” and bear the scars of such approaches in terms of wasted talent and difficulty adapting to change.

If we, instead, hope to play in a jazz ensemble; then let’s find one.

I suspect there is great pain and frustration awaiting a person with a jazz philosophy who chooses to play in the symphony.  In fact, I’ll bet that when such a thing happens…It’s all about the money.

Perhaps we should reflect on two implications of Clarkeson’s article for us as individuals:

First, the article was written 25 years ago, and there are still plenty of symphony conductors out there in leadership. Change toward a jazz style is slow and you likely won’t make it happen unless you are the key leader.

Second, which follows from the first: When jazz is your thing…leave the symphony behind.

Just for fun, and in case you never had a sense of what jazz can do; I’ll leave you with a short Duke Ellington piece.

 

What To Do When You Can’t Save Everyone

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In times of strategic tension, change, and stress; be sure to use the strengths you have to create the value you can.

This post was inspired by some commentary on a prior post regarding strategic cost reduction efforts.  In the course of thinking through the comments I received, I realized that there is a real gap in knowledge on some of the pitfalls that come with good, honest, and necessary restructuring activities.

If you read no further, read this:  In times of really hard choices about cost reduction, leaders, particularly mid-level leaders, can become so fatigued that they stop managing for value and start managing solely to the numbers.  It’s incumbent upon all of us as executives, advisors, and leaders to watch out for these attitudes of fatigued resignation.

The Insight: 

In the lives of nearly all business leaders comes a time when hard personnel choices have to be made.  Very few leaders escape it.  Even well known, visionary growth titans like Steve Jobs (who chopped Apple to a fraction of its workforce in the 1990s) have to experience these times.

But what happens when leaders having to make such choices to preserve value instead start making them out of a sense of resignation and duty?

They stop focusing on the value remaining, and start focusing on themselves…getting their job done.

And, then you start to hear a familiar refrain used by exhausted, resigned leaders facing tough choices.

“Well, we can’t save everyone…”

In the business environment, we often use such thinking to cope with making the hardest personnel decisions.

Constraints are real, and we all face them at some point.

However, you and I have to be careful not to let a truism about not being able to save everyone mean that we harden and decide not to save anyone.  Such a tragic false dichotomy has, in my experience, reared its head far too often in organizations making hard choices; and it results in the demoralization that people associate all too often with cost cuts.

Leaders harden.

They stop coaching.

They stop caring.

They “do what they are told.” And, often, nothing more.

They stop, in other words, leading.

I have witnessed, firsthand, fantastic people leaders turn into cold, distant souls following years of having to make challenging cuts.  The stress and pressure along with the cognitive dissonance of removing livelihoods to save corporate life build until each further action comes with that lament…

“You can’t save everyone.”

Yes.  But you can try to create a valuable solution that saves someone.

Think about how to redeploy, re-think, and, above all, sell!  Be willing to stand up and look for value.

An Applicable Parable:

One of my favorite apocryphal  parables touches on this topic. It is referred to as The Boy and the Starfish.

It goes like this:

While walking along a beach, an elderly gentleman saw someone in the distance leaning down, picking something up and throwing it into the ocean.

As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, picking up starfish one by one and tossing each one gently back into the water.

He came closer still and called out, “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?”

The young man paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean.”

The old man smiled, and said, “I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?”

To this, the young man replied, “The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them in, they’ll die.”

Upon hearing this, the elderly observer commented, “But, young man, do you not realise that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can’t possibly make a difference!”

The young man listened politely. Then he bent down, picked up another starfish, threw it into the back into the ocean past the breaking waves and said, “It made a difference for that one.”

The boy in the story took a bit of energy to save a few starfish from certain death.

Others thought he was doing fruitless work.

He knew he was making a difference.

So What?

Times of crisis or stress or pressure are the times we must think about how to create value the most, even in our own small corner of the world.

Other leaders may look at you and say “why bother? You can’t save everyone…”

When you face them, know that you can’t save everyone; but don’t use that as an excuse to keep from saving anyone.

I’d enjoy your thoughts and comments.

There Are No Executive Training Wheels

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Once you are an executive, the future is now…

Ben Horowitz of Loudcloud and Andreeson-Horowitz fame posted a while back on “The Sad Truth About Developing Executives.”

Here’s a LINK.

I encourage you to read it; and if not, at least give it a click.

The Insight:

Horowitz lays out the essential reasons that a CEO can’t afford to hire executives that must be developed.

He opens the article with a heartfelt and somewhat (for me) convicting notion…  Namely:

My greatest disappointment as CEO was the day I realized that helping my executives develop their skill sets was a bad idea. Up to that point in my career, I prided myself on my ability to develop people and get the most out of them.

 

Ouch.  Right?

He then goes on to explain why.  And, it’s compelling.

He gives 6 reasons.  First he outlines how time spent developing under-performing executives is a misappropriation of the CEO’s valuable time and skills.

Then he outlines the consequences ranging from bad results, poor cultural impact, and, in the end, a clear undermining of the person being “developed.”

The Application:

I like stretch roles.

But, assigning a person to a stretch role (that is, one they are not currently fully practiced to take) requires that they have the credibility within the organization to fill it and you have the confidence to let them fill it without undermining them.

Because of these two factors–credibility and confidence–at some level in an organization, the notion of “stretch” as “potential” has to be shelved.

The stakes get too high.

You and I wouldn’t want our neurosurgeon to walk into the operating room, pat us on the shoulder, and say “I’ve never done this before, but I’m really smart and savvy and my medical director thinks I’m going to be great…Let’s see how it goes.”

The horror.

He has no credibility, and neither you nor I have confidence in him…regardless of what his medical director thinks.

The executive level of most organizations comes with the same horror when incompetent or under-apprenticed executives are placed and then expected to “develop.”

The difference is that an incompetent neurosurgeon affects a single life; and an incompetent executive can affect thousands.

There are no executive training wheels.

As Horowitz explains quite nicely:  Once you are an executive, you are compensated based on your existing ability, not based on your potential.

Executives either gain or lose the confidence of those around them… There is no “wait and see.”

The organization, customers, and board members are watching.

They see when a CEO steps in to answer for an incompetent or under-apprenticed exec.  They see when a given executive is the project of a CEO.  They also feel the pain of incompetence when an executive leader just doesn’t have “it” when it comes to the business.  “It” might be the ability to work with customers or it might be the ability and knowledge of how not to significantly mar sensitive personnel issues.

So What? 

When you boil it down, allocation of talent is perhaps the most important activity in an organization.  It is strategy just as allocation of capital is strategy.  That is, unless the executive team allows it to become a hobby (or worse, a clubby exercise).

In thinking through executive roles, CEOs have to look toward demonstrated competence as the top criterion for a position.  Everything else pales, and I do mean pales, in comparison.  Executive presence, savvy, speaking ability, golf handicap, sense of style, etc. all need to be relegated (or, for most of these, disregarded).

The time for development was last year.   Humane talent management, just like capital investment, requires vision.  If you are staffing an apprentice into a master’s role, you probably lack vision.

One Disclaimer and One Beef:

I’ll offer one slight disclaimer here:  Some of you will read this and think I’m writing that everybody has to have been there in order to get there, and thus the talent for executive or “high stakes” jobs in an organization must be sourced from outside the company.  Nothing can be further from the truth.  Smart executive teams create apprenticeship roles with definite time periods and demonstrable tasking to build the credibility and confidence required of an individual who will take on an executive role.

And, then, the beef:  I agree with Horowitz that CEOs shouldn’t expect to coach their own people; but I believe in a strong focus on continuous improvement. Every executive has areas of emphasis that can be shored up with some coaching or counseling; and a good CEO enables that kind of coaching.  I doubt Horowitz meant that a CEO shouldn’t coach occasionally or enable continuous improvement; but I’d want to be sure.

Look for credibility in your executives, and lose the training wheels.

Never, Ever Stop Learning

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Like it or not, you have to keep learning to stay relevant.

“I don’t think I can learn anything else here.”

It’s a sentiment that, when expressed, probably means it’s time to move on.

You see, we live in the age of the autodidact.  It’s a fun word to say (well, fun to say to yourself…I’ve been around folks who might beat you up for dropping that one on the table).

But, more importantly, it’s a fact of life today.

You see, we are blessed with a set of tools that no generation has ever been blessed with before.  The poorest schoolkid can access the entire world of knowledge, practically up to the minute, from a terminal in a public library nearly every day of the year. 

But, once you or I settle in and stop learning, we are toast.

Toast, I tell you.

Why?  Simple competitive reality.

In past generations, a person could formally train on a trade or profession and then ply that trade for the next 30 years without a tremendous amount of change.

Also, in past generations, most companies thought of training as an investment to be built upon.  Today, it is often viewed more as a cost to be contained.  Any corporate trainer whose programs have been bid out by the procurement department knows this all too well.

So, you have to keep a strong focus on learning, no matter where you are in your career.

A case study

Have a look at the very long term history of computer programming languages posted by Tiobe:

 

 

What do you see?

If you look at a “mid career” point in time, say 15-20 years in, the results are astounding.

A person who is mid career today did their training between 15 and 20 years ago.  Let’s assume that the person has been head down and working at his programming trade for the past 15 years in a sort of “Rip Van Winkle the coder” approach to his career.

What does he find when he is exposed to the real world?

First, 5 of the top 10 programming languages today were not even on the radar when Rip started his career in the year 2000.

Second, If Rip started college in 1995, and trained on legacy systems, he’s in even more of a world of hurt.  The “middle tier” of programming languages from 1995–Pascal, Lisp, Ada, and Fortran–are essentially irrelevant today.

If Rip returns to the workforce, he had better get caught up.

Yeah, you say, but that’s computers…

Sure, the tech sector moves faster than others; and many innovators are moving forward with new learning models.  One of my favorite happens to be The Iron Yard and its code school (now closed – unfortunately), which is among a group of companies changing the way that career prep is done in the tech sector.

But the same career learning quandary is true across sectors when it comes to learning and career advancement–whether you are an accountant, clerk, manager, or even CEO…

What got you here probably won’t get you there.

Case in point:  There is more knowledge available to the average corporate executive today than ever before–at a valuable or nonexistent price point–through forums, experts, and networks.  In my experience, a plurality of execs tap only a fraction of the avenues available to them, and rely solely on methods and intuition forged in a different world.  One need only look at the degree to which executives use networks like LinkedIn to see how “current” they are.

“I don’t have time for that” you’ll hear them say.

I’d argue you can’t afford not to constantly learn and network in the world.

If you are truly busy, and your time is that valuable, have somebody else do it.

So what? 

I’ll offer two reasons that a healthy approach to constantly teaching yourself is imperative for people in all parts of the workforce today… And, they are simple.

First, you and your company need it.

If you are a corporate manager or executive today, you probably grew up in an age where expertise and distinct knowledge was owned by a few people and doled out at a very high price (through brand names we all know well).  That has all changed.  Experts can be found and tapped in a much more ad hoc manner, and if your company isn’t doing it, your competitors probably are.

Second, it’s insurance!

Today’s job market and the more “flexible” (some might say cynical) approach to employing people makes investment in your own skills imperative.  If your company isn’t investing in your current employability, and you aren’t either, then you may be in for a rude awakening when the whimsy and capriciousness of cost cutting comes into your life.

It’s much better to be employable than to simply be employed.  Employed is an instantaneous state…Employable is a transferable one.

We are in the age of the autodidact.   Embrace it.

Never, ever stop learning.

I’d be interested in your thoughts, experiences, and reactions…Leave a comment below.

Pardon the Manterruption

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Interrupting is just…plain…rude.

A couple of weeks ago at the SXSW conference, an interesting thing happened.

YOUR LINK IS HERE

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt and Aspen Institute CEO (and author) Walt Isaacson were called out for repeatedly interrupting Megan Smith, the U.S. government’s Chief Technology Officer.

The real stinger for Schmidt is that the person who did the calling out was none other than Google’s own Judith Williams, head of global diversity and talent programs and by some accounts head of Google’s “Unconscious Bias Program.”

From the article:

“The incident was a classic example of what Jessica Bennett, writing in Time magazine earlier this year, has dubbed ‘manterrupting’, or the ‘unnecessary interruption of a woman by a man’.”

While I doubt the real usefulness of the word “manterrupting” beyond being an interesting mashup–“interrupting” suffices nicely for all genders–I do think that there is a real lesson here in watching out for known biases.

Not to mention the lesson of watching out for simply rude behavior.  This is especially true for “smart” people or people who believe their position of power affords them the right to interrupt.

Most interruptors (like me at times) might say they do so out of excitement or passion or a “strong personality.”  (By the way, anyone who uses the term “strong personality” without their tongue firmly in cheek is probably somebody watch out for).

The truth is, it’s just rude and impatient.  And, it’s often just a blind spot for those of us who have or do suffer from the urge to interrupt.

The extent of such a blind spot can be shocking. For instance, after a frustrating set of interruptions, I once tested the mettle of a particularly egregious senior executive interruptor to see how far the arrogance of the interruption would extend.

While speaking, I grew to know the interruption was coming, so I chose–once–to just keep talking through it.

I made it about twice the length of this sentence while this person just kept talking before I, finally, relented. It seems that my upbringing wouldn’t allow me to sustain talking over someone for that long–even from the proverbial high ground.

Imagine a full 10 seconds of two grown people talking over one another, and you’ll get a sense of the ridiculousness of the situation. I’m sure the others in the room saw it.

Though I never tested it again, the person’s ability to interrupt and continue interrupting when room wasn’t ceded was a striking exercise of arrogance and impatience.

Don’t be that person!

On this Saturday morning, consider the need to let others speak.

Especially watch out for cultural or gender differences in assertiveness.

As I’ve posted previously (link here), this sensitivity can make your team better, not to mention make you (and me) a better person to work with.

To all those I’ve interrupted:  I’m sorry. I was rude.

Pardon the manterruption.

How Shared Vision Prevents Small Thinking

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When we’re not able to see that we are part of something bigger…We become part of something smaller.

Recently, I read the book Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Dr. Atul Gawande. Gawande is a surgeon and author.  The book is an excellent read about how individuals, cultures, and the medical profession deal with the concept of mortality.

In a decidedly challenging but altogether interesting narrative, Gawande surfaces an interesting concept that is directly useful to those of us thinking about strategy, talent, culture, and inspiration.

Namely, in one part of the book, Gawande outlines research by Laura Carstensen at Stanford University on how mindsets related to aging cause us to close off our horizons.

It seems that as young people with boundless time ahead of us, we (that’s you, me, and every other person in the world) think expansively, we seek new things, and we value unfamiliar experiences.  We “plug into bigger streams of knowledge.”

The world is our oyster.

Interestingly, as we age, and as we come to terms with the waning amount of time we have in the world, we become much more interested in spending time with people we know and love, focusing on what is tangible and immediate, and enjoying the things we are familiar with.

As you age, “your focus shifts to the here and now.”

Carstensen did multiple studies to test this hypothesis.  The survey based research on this topic shows that young people generally value adventure…expansive vision and activities. Older people generally value a smaller view of the world…their circle and its inhabitants.

But there is one shocking revelation about this that the book provides…

The closing off of horizons isn’t about age.

It’s about perspective.

For instance, among the ill, the age differences in mindset disappear. Young people who are terminally ill think “like old people”–small horizons, immediacy, and intimacy are important.

On the other side, when posed with hypothetical questions of how they would spend their life if a medical breakthrough extended it for another 20 years, old people think like young people–expansively and in terms of adventure.

Similarly, young people faced with major crises or uncertainty start to think “like old people.”  A great example is given from the research, which happened to bracket some very uncertain times for its subjects. To wit (and this is from Gawande’s book with my emphasis added):

“…A year after the [survey team] had completed its Hong Kong study, the news came out that political control of the country would be handed over to China.  People developed tremendous anxiety about what would happen to them and their families under Chinese rule.  The researchers recognized an opportunity and repeated the survey…Sure enough, they found that people had narrowed their social networks to the point that the differences in the goals of young and old vanished.  A year after the handover, when the uncertainty had subsided, the team did the survey again.  The age differences reappeared.

“They did the study yet again after the 9/11 attacks in the United States, and during the SARS epidemic that spread through Hong Kong in the Spring of 2003 killing 300 people in a matter of weeks. In each case, the results were consistent.  When, as the researchers put it, life’s fragility is primed, people’s goals and motives shift completely.

It’s perspective, not age that matters.”

People with a view of being part of bigger things–a longer future, for instance–think bigger, more creatively, and more adventurously.

People with no view of bigger things think smaller.

How this applies to you…

This insight is not about aging… It’s about how our minds deal with vision, purpose, and inspiration.

For instance, there are people in your organization right now who have no view of a bigger, longer term purpose for themselves in the organization.

It might be just a few…

…It might be every. single. one. of. them.

The research cited above says something very simple:  When people believe they are part of something bigger…that they have a future–No, strike that, even that they believe they could have a future that is long and interesting–they think more expansively and creatively.

When they don’t?

They worry about themselves.

Their world becomes smaller, intimate, and guarded.

So what?

You want to cultivate an organization that is creative, expansive, and vibrant?

Try helping people understand their future within it.  Be explicit about the long term, about how people are cared about; and about the prospects for the future for them and for the organization.

You want to cultivate an organizational culture that is insular, turf driven, selfish, dull, and dogmatic?

Try focusing people on the short term.  Ensure that word gets around that nobody is safe. Manufacture crisis and ambiguity. Conduct layoffs right along with your annual budgeting cycle. Fire people for taking risks. Create uncertainty and fear. Propagate a vision of the future that is inscrutable for the rank and file or simply insensitive to their goals.

The research cited above says that you and I think “old” when we undergo times of strife, uncertainty, and major change.

In short, we think “old” when we have no positive or stable vision for what the future holds.

Insularity, selfishness, and small mindedness are the insidious outcomes of a lack of vision.

So, when we’re not able to see that we are part of something bigger, we become part of something smaller…Namely ourselves and our own immediate circle.

A healthy vision of the future and what’s in it for the people in the organization just might be the key to keeping your organization forever young.

I’d be interested in your comments.

Don’t Waste Your Life: Overcome The Endowment Effect

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Never, ever let your current situation adversely define your future situation.

Here’s a quick hit in the spirit of Saturday and “Coffee and a Do Not.”

How often do you “stick” where you are not because it’s the best place, but because it’s “your” place?

You keep a crappy job, or a good job within a crappy culture.

You keep a car that constantly breaks down.

You own stocks that have been perennial losers.

Perhaps you are business owner that keeps holding onto an underperforming management team, or a set of underperforming businesses.

In really nasty situations, you stay close to bullies, abusers, cheats, and other ugly people because they are the ones you’ve grown up with.

It happens to all of us.

The explanation

In social psychology is a cognitive bias known as The Endowment Effect.   In short and simple words, this effect means that, as humans, we have a tendency to value things we currently own more than we would value them if they were somebody else’s.

A bird in the hand is worth more than a bird in the bush.  But worse, even when faced with a better bird right in front of us we keep the bird in the hand.

That car you have that constantly breaks down?  You’d never buy it from someone else, because better ones are on the market right now.

That crappy job you’ve stayed in for years?  You’d never take it again if you knew what you know now because, again, better ones are on the market right now.

That loyalty you feel to that clearly unethical leader?  You’d criticize anyone else who did that because you know better.

But, these are yours, and so you ascribe higher value to them–in many cases defending them irrationally–than you otherwise would.

The impact

The result of the endowment effect isn’t all bad.  It allows us to have some comfort in difficult times.  How many times have you heard people justify their current awful situation as a “blessing” when pretty much anyone else would say it was a curse?  That is, at least partly, the endowment effect in action.  Loyalty has some roots in this effect, and loyalty can be good…to a degree.

But, on the downside, the endowment effect has a highly insidious effect on your career, finances, relationships, etc.

It causes you to let your current situation define more of your future situation than it should. 

That’s right, you “stick” in bad situations, investments, relationships, and jobs longer than a “smart” person would, because your brain is wired to make it so.

Why else do people look back on years working for a particular leader and say “what was I thinking?”

The truth is, they weren’t thinking.  They valued where they were, irrationally so.

How to guard against it

I’m not one who believes that absolute objectivity is either possible or really a good thing.  We have emotional and irrational ties to everything; and in general they help us to function.

But…

Because this particular bias can cause you to waste valuable years of your career (or, even valuable time repairing a crappy car), you and I need to watch out for its effects.

The best way to guard against the endowment effect is to think.   Yeah, that’s right, just think.   Stop for a minute and ask yourself if you are valuing the abuse you take, or the ethical stretches you have been ordered to execute, more than a sane person on the outside would.

Stop for a minute and ask yourself whether you’d be better off making a trade.  That works whether we are talking investments, jobs, subordinates, superiors, or that priceless artwork you own.

You guard against the endowment effect by considering a trade.

A parting, and partly personal anecdote

One of the very interesting people I had the opportunity to work with and then know for years was the famous “genius” of American football, Bill Walsh.

Bill was famously effective as a general manager in the NFL–that is, he was great at making personnel decisions.  In fact, he made a lot of very high profile athletes very angry by trading them to other teams while they were still “good” players. Bill wanted to trade players a year before their production fell off.  This facet of Bill Walsh’s approach was chronicled nicely in the recent NFL Network documentary Bill Walsh a Football Life.

A famous aspect of Bill’s objectivity was that he asked his staff what they thought Joe Montana’s trade value was…during Joe Montana’s prime.  Joe Montana, for those who do no know, was and is one of the greatest quarterbacks in the history of the NFL.  Bill was willing to test the market for his quarterback–the lynchpin of his offensive gameplan–while his quarterback was still building a hall of fame resume.

Bill didn’t suffer from the endowment effect, at least in his player personnel decisions.

I guess I should call it a privilege to be a guy who was recruited by, hired by, and cut by Bill.  You knew where you stood.

As brutal as that seems, and I’ll write on the brutality of NFL talent management at some point in the future, sometimes we need to adopt a little bit of that mindset to protect ourselves.

Where does the endowment effect show itself in your life and experience?  Please share…

Coffee and a Do Not: Delegating Vision

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 The one leadership aspect that you cannot delegate is all too often the one that under-apprenticed leaders want to give away first.  

You see this situation play out all the time…

A person with good management skills flies up the corporate ladder because he can execute.

He can control, direct, and manage details with impunity; and that is a terribly valuable thing early in one’s career.

And then…he gets to a point and a position that requires him to do something very different.  He has to go from being “the guy” to being the guy behind the guy.  He goes from solving the problem to ensuring that the problem gets solved.

Through span of control, volume of work, or simply the sheer complexity the high performing manager has to make the leap to being an executive.  He has to be a leader.

And, wow, what a leap it is.

Why the leap from management to leadership is hard

The complication of the leap is that high performing managers, unlike executives, have the privilege of operating without having to have vision. Vision is provided to them in the form of budget directives, strategic plans, and senior management dialogues.

When our friendly manager makes the leap, he has to figure out how to “do” vision.

But, an odd thing happens to high performing managers promoted too fast…

…They suddenly realize that since vision is coming from no one else above them in the organization, they start to look for it from below them in the organization.

After all…it has to come from somewhere, right?

They feel the need to find things to manage, like budgets, or headcount, minute deal details, or–too often–how their subordinates do their jobs.  They are good at doing those things.

They ignore the need to provide vision because, well, they’ve never had to…and success has come on the merits of a strong management approach.

Thus, they “delegate vision” into the organization.

They say to their subordinates (sometimes explicitly, even!): “I don’t know where we are going. You show me and then I’ll know; but until then, here are some details I’ll dig into.”

The outcomes for our under-apprenticed “leader”

Three outcomes are possible for our manager. Two are good for the organization and one is bad…very bad…

First, if he is a good learner (which typically means good listener) and is able to absorb clues, training, and mentorship about what it is that leaders do vs. what managers do, he makes the leap.  He crafts his own vision. He learns to deliver that vision and to get out of the way.  This is a good outcome.

Second, if he isn’t a good learner but the organization is well governed, he “peters” out.  The Peter principle catches up to him. He has risen to the level of his incompetence, and in well-governed companies his sniff at an executive position is ended quickly, humanely, and soundly.  He returns to a solid management position.  This, likewise, is a good outcome.

Third, if the organization isn’t good at evaluating executive talent and/or acting on evaluations, he–shockingly–sticks.  In poorly governed companies–typically those centered on personality cults and favoritism or those with absentee hierarchies–high performing managers can populate executive positions (albeit ineffectively) for long periods of time.

The third scenario is a bad one:  The brutally bad reality of the manager sticking in such a position is that because he doesn’t know what it means to be an executive, he very often serves as an absolute antagonist to people with real executive talent.  They don’t “manage” like he does; and so they can’t be senior.  He blocks progression by the very virtue of his ignorance.

The more senior the high performing manager “sticks,” the more his foibles and contra-indicated style will metastasize in the organization.  It’s bad for the organization not only because the organization has a sub-optimal leader in an executive position; but also because latent executive talent votes with its feet.  It finds its place elsewhere. They know better.

So what? 

The leap between manager and executive is every bit as big as the leap between a high performing analyst with a spreadsheet and the manager of a pool of analysts.  The skillsets and mindsets are worlds apart.

The lessons of this particular “Coffee and a Do Not” are these:

First, executives should never, ever delegate vision.  Doing so is confusing to the organization and the result of it–a micromanaging executive–is actually a very strong indicator of a disengaged, demotivated organization.  (If you are interested, here’s a study from Stanford University that backs that assertion.)

Second, companies must have solid executive development, evaluation and coaching processes. People can learn. While executive talent is an intrinsic thing to some degree, executive behaviors are teachable. Ideally, high performing managers get to understand these things before they get their first bite at the executive apple.

Third, high performing managers and under-apprenticed executives need to develop themselves. If you are one of those lucky, high velocity, high performing managers who finds yourself in a senior executive role before really being apprenticed well enough…Go home at night and entertain the remote possibility that you might not be all that in your new role.  Be willing to listen…up and down in the organization.  Look for mentors.  Reflect.  Think.  Improve.

Delegation of leadership vision is an upside down, bizarre outcome of a leadership culture that under-prepares people for the next steps in their careers. This is a situation that individuals need to guard against and that companies need to watch out for.

Being a high performing manager and being an executive are very different things.

Executives need to be visionary.  No, not Steve Jobs visionary; but at least “next three years” visionary.

If this is your particular weakness, know this:  Trying to delegate vision will frustrate your organization, handicap its performance, and (assuming a well-governed company) shorten your tenure.

Do not delegate vision.

Should We Eliminate The “A Player” Trope?

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A recent Forbes publication calls into question the offhand assignment of “A Player” labels.

On the heels of my article on how organizations handcuff their talent (link here); and my use of the “A Player” meme in that article to boot, I find an article that calls the entire “A Player” meme into question.

And I like it.

In Forbes, Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta published an article titled Silicon Valley Mythbusting: Rethinking The Concept of ‘A’ Players.  In this article, Mehta dives into some of the structure- and leadership-oriented issues related to talent; and as the title suggests, calls into question whether the “A Player” label is actually a transferable thing.

Here’s your link.

The operative quote from the article is this:

As a leader, you get paid a lot to do your job. It is your responsibility to find the right people for the right roles with the right manager. It is also your responsibility to coax the best performance out of your team, and using terms like “A Player” does them a disservice. On the other hand, you can build your team into the best they can be, both together and individually: then you’d have an “A Team.”

Mehta’s article outlines how a so-called A-Player in one company could very well be a failure in another.  He brings it down to fit within company culture, fit within role, and fit with management.

So what? 

Mehta’s analysis (and mine in my handcuff article) is a take off on the old nature vs. nurture debate.  To be clear, it is not an appeal to the mindset of “we are all the same.”  I don’t see where Mehta is saying that all players are the same; but rather that it’s very hard to read talent from a single situation (great or otherwise).

It brings up questions like:

Is talent really situational? (I’d argue, yes)

Does a talented “A Player” really have the passport to be an A Player anywhere, or has the A Player really been shrewd (or lucky) about the factors that Mehta outlines (again, company, role, management)? (I think it’s a little bit of both)

Do we do a disservice to our entire talent base, as Mehta suggests, by labeling some people “A Players?” (In my opinion, maybe…especially if the culture allows that an “A” grade is untested after it is conferred.)

Finally, shouldn’t we be focused, as leaders, on building the highest performing team and not the team filled with the highest talent individuals?  (Yes, yes, yes…A thousand times)

Parting thought:

I have had the privilege of working alongside senior executives who have the talent to fit right in across any number of corporate cultures and leadership positions.  I have also witnessed under-talented and opportunistic executives who by happenstance, good luck, obsequiousness,  or sharp elbows found their only possible senior executive position in the entire world.

Knowing both, I can say that situation matters.

Senior leaders should be humble enough to assess others’ talent across time, company, and role.  Nick Mehta is onto something.

What do you think?

 

How to Handcuff Your Talent

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Talent waste is a leadership issue…

Have you ever walked around an under-performing business and marveled at the level of individual talent it has?

Have you ever seen a team comprised of “A” level talent deliver a “C” level result?

If you haven’t, keep looking. You’ll see it.

In a gross over-generalization of what constitutes “talent” it’s a proven fact that you can walk around some organizations and see hordes of squandered university degrees, MBAs, and PhDs; not to mention mountains of practical experience sitting shelved, squashed, and frozen.

We waste talent.  It’s a fact of life.  Sometimes that’s a conscious thing; and sometimes it’s accidental.

The curious case of Barbara the sales leader…

Let me tell you about Barbara.  Barbara is a deeply experienced professional in the technical materials field she has worked in for her entire career.  She has spent time across disciplines and functions, spanning engineering, manufacturing, customer services, product development, and–at the midpoint of this story–sales.

Barbara the sales leader was comfortable.  She had been working for Kenneth for a long time; and Kenneth called the shots.  Barbara learned when to speak up, and when to shut up. She was a good soldier.

When I engaged in a strategic planning project with Kenneth’s organization at the request of another sponsoring executive, Barbara was a distant figure–the sales leader who sat in the back of the room and didn’t say much.

On the one hand, I’d say Barbara was a good listener and perhaps a bit of an introvert.

On the other hand, I would call her disengaged.

She wasn’t under-performing.  She was “fine” as an employee.  She had good experience and used it well; but was a wallflower when it came to strategic thinking.

Then…Kenneth left the company.

And, Barbara, as the most senior person on the team, was named as the interim executive.

Guess what happened?

Barbara blossomed.

In one of the better examples of a senior person grabbing the bull by the horns that I have ever witnessed, she suddenly became a highly thoughtful, engaged, and action-oriented leader.  She has subsequently led the business to several successful years of performance, largely on the back of her own strategic and customer-centric mind.

It seems that all it took was to ask her to lead.  That, and to perhaps get out of her way.

Barbara was an A player just waiting to be asked to be what she was.  In a sort of sad reality, Barbara was only asked to be a C-level contributor; and her talents as a business leader were squandered for years because she was exceptionally loyal and remarkably under-led. 

What we can learn from the Barbara case

Just as Barbara was an A-player only tasked with a C result; sometimes, a team of “A” players can play like a team of C players.  They can produce a C result through a combination of disengagement and disenchantment.

I’ll go even further:  “A” talent is squandered when it isn’t tested.  In corporate cultures built on stability and loyalty, “A” talent waste can become acute.

Why?  Because in those cultures the employees with “A” talent are docile enough to let an organization squander their talent.

Shockingly, my experience has been that organizations that are exceptionally stable do more to squander talent than those that engender some turnover.  That’s why a talent performance management is a critical strategic tool.

In an odd and maybe counter-intuitive reality, organizations with high churn squander talent, but rarely squander careers.

Careers get squandered in stable cultures.  And it happens because of loyalty and leadership. These two powerfully valuable facets of culture combine to waste talent every day.

5 ways A-level talent can be led to C-level results.

I’ve alluded to all of these in the case above, but let me outline a few of the reasons great talent can combine into under-performing results.

1. Managers don’t systematically stretch their followers – They never figure out that they have A-level talent on their team.  They run a system based on time vs. one based on effectiveness.

2.  Managers know they have A-Level talent, but don’t want to let it go – A players are systematically hoarded by savvy bureaucrats who won’t open their hands and let talented people find their level in the organization.  A lot of bad leaders focus on talent having to “pay dues” in the organization; which is usually just code speak for “don’t take my job.”

3.  Managers are scared of good talent – Yep, it happens.  Insecure leaders will bury talented people in the organization. Ask around your organization, you will find stories of managers who have “killed careers” of talented people who have either taken a risk or shown up their manager (even accidentally).  As organizations approach the “cult of personality” archetype, this factor tends to be the dominant one.  Managers only promote those who promote them.  Ugh.

4.  Managers respond with indignance or confusion when A-players ask for “more” – Whenever a manager pooh pooh’s a talented subordinate’s desire to do more, he or she inadvertently puts a cap on what people will ask for in the future.  Pretty soon, people stop asking to be stretched.

5. Loyal followers learn the game and stop asking – Just as in factor 4, where people are subtly ridiculed for asking for more and stop asking, loyal people who “like their jobs” and “like the people” will understand that asking to be tested as an A-player comes with consequences.  So, they stop asking.  Pretty soon, they look at their careers and a decade has passed.

It’s sad.

When all of these things come together, you find yourself walking around the organization and marveling at the juxtaposition of amazing talent and middling performance.  You see brilliant people watching the clock.

And, you see senior managers with shocking blind spots about how they have kneecapped good talent.

The bottom line on this article is this:  All organizations squander some talent; but organizations that get a C result from A talent have a special combination of leadership myopia and organizational inertia.

Don’t let talent waste be a part of your company’s social contract.