Leadership Matters Now

Thought for the Week: Make your "smart" goals STRONG goals

First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end.   Aristotle

Around this time of year, many of us have created our goals and, if we've paid attention, we may have used the popular SMART acronym of goal-setting. In the standard approach, goals are defined as "good" if they are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-Bound.

These are o.k. characteristics and they have worked for decades. However, I am not sure they cover all of the elements necessary for successful goal-setting in times of great challenge. Today we need more than smart goals…we need STRONG ones.

Simple. For a goal to be useful, it has to be understandable. By “simple” I don’t mean it has to be elementary, but it needs to be focused on a single activity and outcome. Goals that have multiple parts are hard to understand and are difficult to deliver since the employee is unsure of what part of the goal is most important. A simple goal for one person may be an overly complicated goal for another person so this is a relative term based on the individual and the task at hand.

Timely. For a goal to be useful it also has to be relevant to the situation at the moment. Each goal should have an importance that is immediate. If you truly want me to make this goal a priority, I have to see how it plays a role in our success right now.

Realistic. For a goal to have its desired effect on performance, it has to be seen by the recipient of the goal as somehow possible to achieve. Unrealistic goals create demoralized troops. This is a point of negotiation. If you see the goal as realistic and your follower does not, you need to take the time to explain your thinking in a way that they can see the same reality you do. This does not mean the goal has to be easy..just possible.

Objective. For goals to be strong, they must be viewed as unbiased and real. One of the definitions of “objective” is “having a real existence.” If you want me to attempt to achieve a goal, it has to be termed in a way that it is real. “Making people happy” is not an objective goal. “Improving customer satisfaction” is.

Necessary. Useless goals are the bane of high-performance. For a follower to be motivated to achieve a goal he or she has to see the value of the goal they are pursuing. Goals need to be provided in a context of understanding so that employees understand not only the specifics of the goal, but also the goal’s importance in the bigger picture. The necessity of the goal can be a strong performance driver, especially for employees who are personally committed to the overall success of the department or organization.

Grand. Goals need to be aspirational. They need to represent performance that requires ingenuity and persistence. They need to be challenging. Remember that I suggested they are realistic, which means they are not SO grand that they are unattainable. But realistic does not mean that it’s a piece-of-cake…it just means that it is doable. Grand goals are goals that stretch us to grow in ways that mediocre goals do not. Grand goals can be exciting, if they are agreed upon by both the leader and the follower.

Whether SMART or STRONG or some combination of the two, goals that are imposed on people tend to be less successful than those that are established with people. A goal-setting session should be a dialogue…the actual establishment of the goal should be the outcome of the dialogue. “Gifting” your employees with their goals creates confusion about what you mean and what the priorities are. But a goal-setting session where each individual has the opportunity to share in the crafting of the objective can be inspirational in itself.

Engagement Matters

If you're one of those folks who think that employees who aren't "into" your company should just be replaced (it's a buyers market right now isn't it?), then think again. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) estimates that it costs about 50% of an employee's salary to replace them. But that's only if they are an "average" employee. If the employee who is disengaged has specialized skills or a high level of authority, the act of terminating the employee and bringing in a new one can soar to as high as 400%!

I know I've written on this before, but there is still a mentality among many leaders that each person below them is as replaceable as a worn out part in a car engine. Outside of the SHRM estimate is the additional cost of low morale, lost productivity, and general fear and frustration on the part of your team. There are times when a person has to go, but some thought about how to turn unproductive attitudes and behaviors into high contribution is worth you time and effort.

At 11:00 am EST today (Jan 25, 2012), Ken Blanchard ("Leading at a Higher Level") and company will be hosting a free webcast called "Quit and Stayed" which looks at the issue of employee disengagement and will address strategies and methods for re-engaging those employees. I'm one of the featured speakers and will be focusing on the difference between your view and that of your employees. I'll be joined by many other experts such as Lee Cockerell of Walt Disney World Resort, Grace Gorell of the University of Kentucky, Mark Miller of Chick-fil-A and many others.

You can register at www.LeadershipLiveCast.com.

 

Thought for the Week: Are We Really That Righteous?

To judge a man's character by only one of its manifestations is like judging the sea by a jugful of its water. Paul Eldridge

If you write about leadership, there are times when events almost force you to take the time to say something. After reading the wide range of opinions and articles on the death of Joe Paterno, I think this is one of those times for me.

Let me also say that, if your comment to this blog is that Paterno somehow “deserved” his fate, be aware that this is not the conversation I’m trying to have here. While I felt that his actions were inexcusable and that he had forever changed his legacy with his decisions regarding the Jerry Sandusky debacle, I am also grieved that this was actually the way the story ended. In our society, we are all free to have our opinions and to make those clear no matter how unpopular. But, in our society, we are also all granted the right to defend ourselves and try to provide some kind of explanation, even if unacceptable to the masses.

But as I read the comments on various news sites and blogs, I can’t help but wonder how many of those who are so vicious, have any basis of righteousness for their judgment? Are there really that many blameless people out there who can sit in such a comfortable moral throne that they can honestly say Paterno’s life’s work was worth nothing? Seriously?

The problem is, if I begin to list the positive impact Joe Paterno had on the lives of hundreds of students who came in contact with him, I will also somehow be branded as minimizing child molestation. For the record, I have two young teenage children and am as outraged (and frightened) as anybody about the reports from Penn State over the last few months and the activities there over the last few years.

It will be a long time before we are able to consider Paterno’s life work in any kind of balanced manner, if we are ever able to do so. But in his death, we have the opportunity to reflect on the fact that none of us...NONE OF US…are as clean of guilt as we would like to be. We like our leaders to be perfect and are always surprised when they are not. In some ways, this is inevitable and comes with the territory.

At the same time, as a human who suffered through his final weeks with both cancer and incrimination, isn’t it possible we could afford him, and his family and loved ones, a little grace in the end?

Thought for the Week: Facts only Begin the Process

There are no facts, only interpretations  Friederich Nietzsche

One of the biggest challenges to leadership is where we have all been at one point or another where you start to believe that your followers must be idiots. Especially when you can show them, and often do, that the change you propose will not only save money for the company, but allow future growth, or efficiency or whatever. It might even be that the business case behind your change initiative is so strong that it should “go without saying” that it’s an important move to make.

The problem is that “facts” never constitute the whole of a successful change process, small or large. For me to change as a result of facts means that I have to care about the facts. Just because you can measure something and show me a result doesn’t mean that I have any interest whatsoever in making the change happen.  And if you simply keep repeating the facts, it will soon feel to me as your follower that you believe the problem is that I’m just too stupid to understand.

The problem is a little more complex than that. It’s not even that I need to care. Of course I care about the wellbeing of the company or team with which I work. But as we’ve talked about in this blog several times, for me to be a truly engaged employee, I need to not only understand the vision and direction of the organization, I need to be a part of the team. I need to be willing to go above and beyond the task list that you’ve given me, not because I’m afraid of you, but because I want to.

If your change initiative or idea is driven only by facts, you have to take the time to consider the relational and emotional aspects as well. What kind of impact will the change make on me, or our customers or the culture of our organization? What does the change represent in the comparison of who we are versus who we want to be?

Facts by themselves never drive action. My response to the facts is what will drive action. For all of you “numbers people” out there, you have to keep providing the data. And ultimately to be successful, taking off on a change process because of a belief, without that data, is usually a mistake. But understand that it’s the heart, not the head, that will eventually make your change process a success.

Yahoo! Still Needs to Fix the Board

In an example of providing a solution to the wrong problem, Yahoo! today announced the hiring of a new CEO, Scott Thompson of PayPal. While it's clear that Yahoo! has had a lack of leadership at the top for awhile, hiring a new CEO isn't exactly what for the company that has lost nearly all of it's shine in the last couple of years. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the problem with Yahoo! isn't the CEO...it's the leadership at the board level.

As long as Chairman Roy Bostock and others insist that Yahoo! continue as a public company that can somehow evolve into a blockbuster again, I fear that results are going to suffer. I also suspect pride is part of the problem here. Back in 2008, Microsoft offered almost $55 billion for the company only to be snubbed by the board of directors. Today, their market cap is around $19 billion.

While it is important to have a strong CEO at the top, it is even more important for a board of directors to have the courage to make radical change. Yahoo! still generates a lot of traffic but hasn't found a strong way to monetize it. Even worse, the culture at Yahoo! is going to have to come alive with some kind of clear vision and direction for the future. With Thompson's background in technology, it's still hard to say what that direction might be.

Thought for the Week: An All-Purpose New Year's Resolution

Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation. Mark Twain

If you find it difficult to commit to a New Year's Resolution, no worries. I was inspired to construct the one below after reading some business press on New Year's Day. Please feel free to adopt this as your credo for 2012. And if it looks like something you might have created on your own, or worse, if it looks like your corporate vision statement, call me...we have some work to do.  Happy New Year!

I resolve to move into the success space for 2012 as I etch in stone and go live on these mission critical objectives. I will benchmark new synergies at a 30,000 feet view and avoid kicking the can down the road. I will establish a win-win mindset of best practices for sustainability and run the numbers on the burn rate of renewable resources. Having said that, I will continue to be top of game as I mind shower and partner with aligned human capital.  The upside of this new paradigm will be soup-to-nuts as I create a best-of-breed product that will virtualize shareholder value. I will lead the charge to drill down and ramp up our granular, out of the box core competencies in a cutting-edge scenario that will take the blowback out of the ballpark.  As a team player, I will circle the wagons with a dashboard that includes a dynamic, customer focused and heads up back end process.  By the end of the year, the elephant in the room will be herding cats, those around me will drink the Koolaid, and  the critical path to my target audience will be a roadmap of optimization. This tailwind will allow me to raise the bar in an ecosystem of pushback and will be the secret sauce of my real-time  solutions as I occupy the field in 2012.

 

To see some REAL New Year's Resolutions, get a free copy of the Special Report "CEO New Year's Resolutions 2012: A Focus on the Future"

Ok, Now You Pick

First, let me say that if you ever have the opportunity to be on national television news, beware that what YOU want to talk about is unlikely to be what you actually talk about on air. That was the case yesterday with my appearance on the Fox Business News network which was supposed to be an uplifting message about CEO New Year’s Resolutions for 2012. Instead, it was a discussion of who I believed to be the best and worst CEOs of 2011.

Granted, that’s still good coverage for the DeVos Graduate School of Management and Northwood University (and me), so no complaints about that. On the other hand, I’m always uncomfortable being put in a place of judgment when it comes to any individual, including CEOs. I only know what I see so it seems a bit unfair to say somebody is the “worst” or “best.” (On a side note, if you wonder why I look so serious at the beginning of the interview, we can talk sometime about the challenge of speaking to a camera lens in a studio in Flint and somehow making it look like you’re engaging in conversation with Cheryl Casone in New York!)

Anyway, the segment is about five minutes long which really doesn’t provide a lot of time for rationale, so I wanted to say a couple of things about the folks I spoke of yesterday. These were the ones I chose for Worst and Best CEOs of 2011. Understand (as I do) that this is all a matter of personal opinion, and I’m sure there were folks who saw it and said, “Seriously? You have to be kidding.”

Worst CEOs

For repeatedly telling a story that nobody believes, I would suggest John Corzine of MF Global is the worst for the past year. The best he can do is say, as he did in Congressional testimony,  “I simply do not know where the money is” which is supposed to be an excuse I guess for misplacing $1.2 billion. The excuse is confounded by the fact that he apparently was one of the most active traders as well. In the end, he is either lying or is one of the most disconnected CEOs we’ve seen in a while.

For providing the worst apology, and the worst strategy for delivering  that apology, I nominated Reed Hastings of Netflix. Not only did he insult hundreds of thousands of customers with his September email, but he is notable for how quickly he fell from grace in doing so. Earlier in 2011, Baron’s Magazine had him listed as one of the top 30 CEOs in America. By the end of the year, having lost 70% of market value and $11 billion, he unlikely gave up his spot on the next list.

The final answer I had for the top 3 of the bottom, was Bank of America CEO, Bryan Moynihan. I am reminded of a saying when I was growing up which was that sometimes, you just have to take your whuppin’ and move on. At a time where Americans are still ticked off with the fact that big banks apparently did not loosen up with the federal bailout, B of A decided to institute a $5 charge on debit transactions. The public went nuts of course and Moynihan in October stated that he was “incensed” at the constant criticisms of Bank of America. Yeah, I imagine.

Best CEOs:

With all the admiration generally given to Jeff Bezos of Amazon, I still think he is underrated. Looking at the evolution of the Amazon business, the enormity of the “One-click” model to sales, the success of Amazon Prime, and most lately the release of the Kindle Fire, I see him as one of the most innovative (and gutsy) CEOs around. Yes, Steve Jobs and Apple do the sexy stuff, but Amazon consistently roles the dice in areas that others are just playing with.

Similarly, Patrick Doyle of Domino’s has shown how to take brutal product criticism and turn customer service (and listening) into a brilliant marketing strategy. The thing is that they aren’t making this stuff up. Domino’s honestly did focus groups and surveys and follow-ups. They endlessly tested new recipes with franchisees and customers. In the end, they retooled the whole product from bottom to top and built their brand, and their culture, in the process.

Finally, Sam Palmisano, retired CEO of IBM, stands out to me as a strong and consistent leader, brave enough to turn the enormous company around and out of areas that were unprofitable regardless of the legacy of IBM. He also created some pretty neat leadership development programs, focusing more on developing leaders through structured experience than through classroom training.  During his tenure as CEO, for the most part Palmisano stuck to his vision and as a result, the IBM of today is a place where employees are proud to work and customers are pleased to do business.

Thought for the Week: Confidence for 2012

If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.  Abraham Lincoln

According to the National Leadership Index for 2011, recently published by the Harvard Kennedy School Center for Public Leadership, American’s confidence in their leaders has dropped to the lowest point since the Index was created in 2005. While this measure has been declining steadily, the drop from 2010 to 2011 was significant in itself. While none of the sectors investigated improved over the last 12 months, only two remained above average (Military and Medical). Not surprisingly, confidence dropped the most for leaders in Congress, and the lowest area of confidence was…Wall Street. Confidence in business leaders in generally dropped as well and leaders in Education suffered their second year in a row with a statistically significant decline.

Interestingly enough, most Americans are still optimistic. The report also states that 77% of Americans agree or strongly agree that we have a leadership crisis (9% higher than in 2010) yet 75% believe that leadership can also turn things around. At the same time, this number has also dropped nearly 10% over the past two years.

This means that it’s time to make 2012 the year of confidence building.  In fact, I believe this is the greatest leadership imperative that exists at this time.  Everybody needs a certain amount of self-confidence, but leaders have to build confidence in others as well.  As a leader you do this through:

1. Communicating a positive view of the future. Acknowledge the concerns, but don’t focus exclusively on communicating them. People know these are challenging times…what they are looking for is hope.

2. Listen to your people. There are great ideas out there among those who are working on the front line. Pay attention to them.

3. Celebrate every success. Even if you believe it is a small contribution, remember that your followers are making an effort. A simple “nice job” is all it takes sometimes to encourage those who look to you for leadership

The lack of confidence in leadership is not going to change by chance. It will change by the concerted and intentional effort of folks like you to lead your people out of the mess.

Get a free copy of the Special Report "CEO New Year's Resolutions 2012: A Focus on the Future" 

 

 

Christmas Post Redux

As a departure from my usual practice, I decided to repost this from last year as it was one of the most popular.

Merry Christmas.

Ok. There, I said it. Not Happy Holidays or Great End of Year, but Merry Christmas. Today's entry isn't so much  about leadership as much as it is about principle.

I love the fact that we live in a country where each person can worship the religion of his or her choice and that because I celebrate Christmas does not mean you should somehow not be able to celebrate Chanukah. In fact, one of my favorite memories was joining a past boss of mine and his family to celebrate a delightful Jewish holiday. But not for one second did he think I had become Jewish anymore than understanding the holiday of Ramadan would make me Muslim.

By the way, I also don't care if Christ was born on December 25, January 14th or July 8th. None of that matters because I am celebrating an event that, to my faith, has so little to do with logistics and details that it's totally unimportant to me. Was December 25th chosen because it allowed for an overlap between Christian and Pagan religions? Don't care. Not Pagan. No wood sprites in my house. Sorry. But there is a Christmas tree and there are gifts for each other because we enjoy the time together.

And finally, to any atheist readers or colleagues that I have out there. I also value that I live in a land where you can discover your own journey as well. But here I have to say, this year's atheist billboards are just a bit on the pitiful, desperate side in my opinion. 

  I'm pretty sure I can give you a lot more of an argument for celebrating God's presence on earth than I can on the success of "reason." Considering that I fail to see a universe appearing out of nowhere to be any more reasonable than a God-created existence, you're not going to win this argument with me. I do think the billboard is pretty though.

So, here's my point and in the end I guess it does relate to leadership after all. Because as a leader your faith and your beliefs represent in large part who you are. You don't need to sermonize or politicize your beliefs for personal or business gain, but pretending as if you are somehow neutral is not authentic either.

God has been great to me in every way and one of those ways is that I live in a society where I don't have to say "Happy Holidays" because I'm afraid I will offend a non-Christian client or acquaintance. If you have read my blog for the last couple of years you should realize by now that my Christian beliefs are woven into my leadership opinions and philosophy. My writing, coaching and other products are not often explicit about religious beliefs but they don't hide them when they are relevant. The easy way to stay comfortable with me is, don't hire me or read my stuff if you don't like where it comes from. But, for all of you who feel the need to share your opinion with me about the foolishness of my faith...well don't be surprised if I share my "foolishness" with you as well.

So, next week we'll get back to the leadership topics that are the core of LeadershipMattersNow.com. In the meantime, have a very Merry Christmas and a blessed time of rest and gratitude for family and friends.

 

Thought for the Week: A Focus on the Future

Change behavior, not people. Change processes, not standards. Change results, not goals. Mike Ferretti, CEO, Great Harvest Bread

The year 2011 is rapidly coming to a close and, while it’s somewhat artificial to consider January 1^st, 2012 as a special day where we are allowed to change, it is still a milestone that causes us to reflect on the past and plan for the future.  New Year’s resolutions are a tradition where we reveal our intent. By itself, a resolution doesn’t change things, but it sets us up to go on record with our priorities for the coming months.

Northwood University has just published my newest “CEO New Year’s Resolutions:  A Focus on the Future” for 2012.  It’s a free report that you can read or download by clicking on the link above or by visiting www.Northwood.edu and choosing the button at the top left corner on their homepage.

For this report, I contacted 50 CEOs of a diverse collection of organizations. These include franchise organizations like Great Harvest Bread listed above, large company CEOs like Tony Hsieh of Zappos and Jere Brown of Dimension Data Americas, non-profit CEOs like William Jones of Focus Hope and Viveka Rydell of PDI Surgery and leaders of tech companies like Andrew Schrage of MoneyCrashers.com and Sam Shank of HotelTonight. There are manufacturers represented like Ron Beebe from Euclid Industries and community organization leaders like Mike Woody from the Midland Tennis Center as well.

While this is not a statistically significant sample of all CEOs nationwide, it is still interesting and informative to see the consistency of the message in this report. As you read it, you get the impression that the leaders of many of our organizations are not cowed by current economic and political conditions but are instead focused on bringing growth and stability to their business in order to benefit their shareholders, their employees and their communities.  As I say in the introduction to the report, these business leaders also don’t represent the “1%” nor do they represent the “99%.” Instead, they represent the heart of American free enterprise.

I hope you find the time to check out the report. I would love to hear your feedback and comments.