The Instant Leadership Process – What’s Really Holding You Back

Posted on by Will Marre

In a previous post, I wrote that there is little to no evidence that our attempts at leadership development over the last 50 years have resulted in better leadership. That’s right, although there has been literally thousands of books written on great leadership, armies of leadership consultants, and millions of dollars spent on leadership development, we don’t seem to have a critical mass of great leaders.

Looking at employee surveys from the 1960s to the present, there’s no data to support that employees today have any better opinion about their leaders’ abilities than employees did 50 years ago.

I’m not suggesting we give up on training and developing leaders, but what I am suggesting is that we get ‘real’ about its effectiveness. 

And the problem that we have today is that the demands of leadership have radically changed in the last 10 years. Leading a company with a hierarchical structure is vastly different than leading an organization which gets work done though networks. In fact, it’s much harder to lead a network of people with varying skills and abilities to achieve goals than it is to cascade your leadership influence through a chair of command.

What’s needed is a radical new approach that gets work done by having people follow a leadership process.

I believe this is far more realistic and effective than depending on developing individual leaders to be great. I do because I’ve had direct experience with it, working in some outrageously competitive business situations and highly resistant cultures.

This is how simple it is.

When a leader of a team or an organization is trying to accomplish anything, this process must be followed.

WHAT: A leader must create focus by clearly articulating the goal.

WHY: People become creative and innovative and understand the purpose behind the goal. A motivating goal will have two dimensions – a human purpose and a business purpose. If your only purpose is to make money or win market share your people will quickly become exhausted and disengaged.

This step is essential with today’s workforce… it’s usually skipped by most leaders.

HOW: Everyone must collaborate getting to the best ‘HOW.’ This demands new disciplined processes that create universal engagement that breaks down silos and creates a continuous strategic-tactical conversation. When this doesn’t occur the law of unintended consequences destroys execution.

DO: Leaders must drive goal-focused action constantly. Team members should always be looking for the next smart thing to do and initiate.

REVIEW: Leaders and teams must swim in a stream of feedback. You cannot wait for formal after-action-reviews to make important changes. Action reviews informally take place in three-minute hallway conversations and constant communication. (Formal after-action-reviews are also vital when critical milestones are either met or missed.)

The power of this process is that everybody can already do these things.

They just need to get into a habit of doing it. It needs to become embedded in the leadership culture. Of course individual skill makes any of these five steps better. So no-one is off the hook for individual leadership development.

However, in my experience without a common leadership process organizations are simply held back by the lack of skills of their poorest leaders rather than by the abilities of their best ones.

The biggest challenge to implement the systematic leadership process is that bad leaders say, “I already do this.” When they do, I say, “oh yeah?” Then I simply go one or two levels down and ask, “What are your most important goals and why are they the most important?” I continue, “Do these goals and the purpose behind them inspire you or discourage you?” Most often the answers I get reveal that people feel confused, pessimistic or cynical about success.

That’s why they’re on the lookout for another job. That’s why they are disengaged. That’s why it’s so damn difficult to get much done.

See for yourself. Use 5-STAR and ask your teammates or your leader or your employees if they are clearly focused on your most important business goal. Ask if they know why it’s important… both the business purpose and the human purpose. Then ask if everybody has been involved with the execution process so that glitches are minimized and important changes are made on a timely basis. Then ask…

“Are we getting better at executing our most important priorities or are we repeating the same mistakes we usually make?” So go ahead, give it a rip… and tell me what you find. The bottom line is that we are no longer playing football where coaches call in the play from the sidelines.

Business has become basketball. Everyone plays offense. Everyone plays defense. Action is a continuous flow where players are always trying to make it easy for each other to succeed so the team can win. Is that how your enterprise runs?

 

Are You Your Biggest Problem?

Posted on by Will Marre

I am. I am a big fat problem for myself. So are you. We all are. That’s the way life is. It’s natural to think you are normal…but you’re not and neither am I. We are all quirky as hell. Of course we have a self-protective inner story to tell us that we’re not…but we are…each of us.

Decades of psychological research confirms that our greatest weakness is a lack of self-awareness. 

If you ask five friends to describe your strengths and weaknesses and the impact you have on others those five are likely to say things that are very similar. However, if you wrote down your answers to that same question and compared it to what your five friends say about you…your answers would be the most different. We don’t see ourselves the way others see us. We tend to exaggerate our strengths and make excuses for our weaknesses. Or we make the mistake of thinking our strengths compensate for weaknesses.

Like our family and coworkers don’t care that we’re crabby and short tempered because we mean well…we are just stressed. But that’s just a story. We made it up.

We make up a lot of stories.

The brilliant research on self-awareness, Daniel Goleman, tells us that we are Olympic gold-medal winning self-excusers. We expertly blame and rationalize to shirt responsibility for our frustrations and failures to people and forces beyond our control. The universal human pattern for this is simple.

First, we deny there’s a problem. 

That’s because if there is a problem, we will have to attend to it. We will have to invest energy and do something different. We just wish problems would go away on their own. Maybe if we wish hard enough…

Second, we blame others.

This takes a lot less effort than changing out behavior of ourselves to get a new outcome. We are not very psychologically agile. It’s much easier just to keep doing what we’re doing and blaming others for what doesn’t work.

Finally, we rationalize. 

We accept the previously unacceptable. We convince ourselves it doesn’t matter after all. We even use those terrible words “it is what it is.” This pattern is very common in human relationships going bad. It happens with couples, families and friends. It’s universal because we are all low on self-awareness and high on self-protection.

We judge ourselves through our motives but others by their behavior. 

This is much more than a personal problem. It is a central problem in leadership. It’s why countries go to war, governments stop working, and corporations fail. Research confirms that low self-awareness is the most common, single leadership weakness.

The signs of low self-awareness in leaders are overconfidence, insistence  and closed-mindedness. 

These outer behaviors are most often a mask for inner self-doubt. You see self-doubt as a natural outcome if you don’t have a strong sense of your essential identity. This is the deep, genuine inner ‘you’ that would remain the same no matter if you won the lottery or were forced to live on the street. Sometime when I’m coaching a leader I ask them “who would you be if you had been born and raised by a poor family in a developing country?  Who would you be if you hadn’t gone to college? Who would you be if you were born 200 years ago? “ Yes, I know these are strange questions… they are meant to be.

What I’m trying to get people to think about is who are you at your core?

Who are you independent of your circumstances, your upbringing, your job, your car, your house, your family? Who? How do you find meaning in life? What do you most value? Do you have any commitments or beliefs that you would die for? And if you do…. are you willing to live for them? Are you willing to stand for them? Speak up for them? The best way I have learned to transcend self-doubt is to get acquainted with your authentic, inner self.

The core part of you, your essential self, has no doubts about you or inflated views of your capabilities.

Neither is it self-protective or defensive. This is not New Age woo-woo. Rather it is at the core of deep, life-satisfaction. I have deeply enjoyed working with a few well grounded CEOs. I knew they had capacity to become great leaders because they sought feedback. They had the inner strength to remain non-defensive and very curious about their impact on others. Above all they know who they were, what they stood for and how they felt about important things. They demanded a lot from themselves but were also self- compassionate when they were tired or foolish.  They didn’t pretend to be perfect or to be anybody they were not. At the same time they had no excuses for their own failures.

Confidence without arrogance is extremely powerful.

So how about you? What’s your level of self-awareness? What’s your level of non-defensive confidence? Are you curious enough? Open-minded enough? Do you know what makes your life worth loving? Aristotle said that the best life is one in which you fulfill your nature in the pursuit of a noble purpose.

Do you know what it means to “fulfill your nature?”  

If you do, turn up the volume on your efforts. If you don’t know, invest your energy in becoming self-aware… it is the only foundation that will weather the storms of life.

 

How to Have a Career That Matters

Posted on by Will Marre

Are you whispering or are you singing at the top of your lungs? When I was doing research for Save the World and Still be Home for Diner, I interviewed scores of people who wanted to matter. Not in the look-at-me way. Not in the I-want-to-be-famous-on-YouTube way. They just wanted to bloom where they were planted. To sing their song. To make their difference. I talked to them and watched them work. As I listened to their stories about how they discovered their calling and turned it in to a career, I discovered something I never suspected.

Their success came because they were pushed by the current of two fast flowing rivers that converged in one glorious torrent.

River One is the river of ‘Inspired Desire.’ They really wanted to make the world better. Although some were now rich and famous, that was not their goal. Never. Making their difference was.

Research reveals at least six big challenges for humanity.

If you want the world to get better…becoming great at addressing one of these six challenges is pretty damn important. Here are the challenges:

  1. Human rights/oppression: equality, equal justice, dignity, women’s and children’s rights, tolerance, freedom of speech, worship, assembly, etc.
  2. Health/disease: wellness, sports, entertainment, disease prevention, education, research, children’s and women’s health, access, affordability, cancer, AIDS, heart disease, stress, care-giving, etc.
  3. Peace/violence: respect, diplomacy, communication, negotiation, ending war, terrorism, nuclear prolifereation, genocide, abuse, etc.
  4. Education/ignorance: literacy, graduation rates, arts education, science and math, girls and women, computer/digital early childhood, gifted special needs, etc.
  5. Sustainability/environmental collapse: pollution, water shortages, resource depletion, conservation, park development, cleanup, climate change, energy research, etc.
  6. Wealth/poverty: access to capital, food, housing, budgeting, entrepreneurship, career development, job creation, skill training, economic literacy, trade homelessness, etc.

There are many additional ways to help individual human beings and humanity. This is just a list to get you started thinking… Most of us will spend 100,000 hours of our lives working. Most of our waking hours. So why not do something that makes the world a better place to live?

With all the needs humanity has, it seems a shame to invest your gifts doing something trivial. 

What I discovered from the difference-makers I studied was that you can turn virtually any career into something that benefits humanity. You just need to hold that intention and the infinite numbers of ways you can make a difference show up every day. So, I am not suggesting that each one of us has to become Gandhi or Lincoln or Einstein…remember a humble janitor prevents the spread of disease by just doing their job well. I just wonder what kind of world we’d have if all of our mission statements for Me Inc. arose from turning our values into value. I am not suggesting that you take a vow of poverty, but rather a vow of purpose.

I suggest that because the happiest, most creative people I know work that way. 

And, it’s not that hard. That’s where the second river flows in. My interviews and observations of ordinary people with extraordinary careers helped me see it clearly. For these people, River Two is the river of their own Design. They are highly self-aware. They know what they are best at and what brings them joy ‘in the doing.’ They’ve come to understand how their talent and skills work together to create a measure of unique greatness. Most important, they know how to learn what they need to learn in order to do what they really desire to do.

Their stories taught me that sometimes learning is difficult. Painful. Exhausting. Yet necessary to unleash the power of their talents and passions. 

So that’s it. When you harness the river of your Desires in the river of your Design, your career begins to flow so fast it carves its own path to the canyons of life. Let me make this practical. I teach lots of career workshops for corporations for University of California at San Diego. And one thing I found is that people want fast, practical tools to convert these fancy-schmancy principles into immediate action. So here you go.

First, get clear on where you are in your career. You can do that by answering these questions about your work.

  1. What do you do? (What is the essence of your work?)
  2. Who do you do it for? (Who pays you?)
  3. What is the human and economic impact of it? (Why do you get paid?)

Some real examples:

  1. “I do computer programming.”
  2. “For an e-commerce company.”
  3. “To quickly change product offers to customers so my company grow.”

Here’s another:

  1. “I am the Chief Executive Officer that determines strategy and allocates resources.”
  2. “For a sports shoe and athletic apparel company.”
  3. “To ensure the company grows by designing and selling best-in-the-world products.”

One more:

  1. “I do project management.”
  2. “For a technology company.”
  3. “To eliminate waste and shorten delivery time.”

Okay, that’s pretty simple. Now, let’s paddle down the river you’re floating on. This time, do the same exercise except…imagine how you might answer those question two years from now if all your most inspiring career development plans paid off. And add one question.

How’s the world better off for you doing your job?

Here are some answers that are follow-ups to the examples above. The programmer:

  1. “I do artificial intelligence programming.”
  2. “For a progressive video games studio.”
  3. “To create wildly popular products.”
  4. “That teaches players real history and the consequences of making good or bad decisions.” (pretty cool)

The CEO:

  1. “I align our business strategy with a bigger purpose of using our resources to create a better world.”
  2. “For sports shoe/apparel company.”
  3. “To increase our customers worldwide in order to grown, prosper and…”
  4. “Promote the value of sports in developing self-discipline, skill, health and camaraderie.” (just plain amazing)

The project manager:

  1. “I design lean development processes.”
  2. “For the biotech industry.”
  3. “To help speed development time.”
  4. “To get life-saving medicines and therapies to people faster.” (so much more exciting than being a project manager)

See how easy that was? It all begins with your mindset.

Once you become clear on your deepest desires and understand how you are best designed to succeed, you will know what skills you need to master to do something extraordinary. 

You’ll naturally tell the world what you’re up to. You’ll find people who are interested in the same things you are. And you will see opportunities that were previously invisible. Maybe even in the job you have right now. The amazing people I interviewed didn’t have any special intelligence and often had major disadvantages compared to their peers.

What they had was clarity. 

And a willingness to invest in  their future self. They got started by taking the daily steps that got them moving in the direction that was most fulfilling. Anyone of us can do the same. My conviction is that non of us are extra. We are all different for a reason. We all have a difference only we can make. Just start.

 

Three Conflicts & The Only Way Not To Be Bullied

Posted on by Will Marre

Over many years of my leadership consulting practices, I’ve had to facilitate agreements among unreasonable people. Often these battles have occurred between chest pounding executives who are frustrated or frightened. I’ve also refereed Boards of Directors of merging companies and unions and management.

On a few occasions, I’ve been ambushed by spouses of clients who want me to help repair their ragged relationship…Yep, I’ve been in some pretty wild situations. Early in my career, I taught and relied on the tools of ‘seek first to understand and then be understood’ and ‘win-win’ to forge agreement out of the ashes of conflict. What I’ve found is that these tools are excellent to solve problems, Level One problems. Those are disagreements over tactics.

These conflicts arise when people have shared values and goals, but simply want to go about things in a different way. 

For instance, if both my wife and I wanted to take a relaxing vacation and I wanted to go to the tropics and she wanted to go the mountains, we could probably find a ‘win-win’ resolution by taking the time to sincerely understand what it is about those places that give each of us a sense of relaxation. Then we might come up with a simple solution like alternating vacations between the beach and the mountains.

We’d probably feel pretty good about the solution if we both agree that relaxation was the primary goal and that we actually planned our time and activities to achieve that goal. What makes this work is our supreme value for a harmonious relationship based on respect, fairness and mutual advocacy. Now if our conflict was a little more intense such that I want a relaxing vacation and she wants an exciting one… it would take a little more creativity. What’s not obvious about resolving Level One conflicts is that to maintain goodwill you need to not cave-in.

It’s important to have a reasonable tolerance for disagreement because this will stimulate creativity.

If you value harmony so much that it’s very stressful to even have temporary disagreements you will find yourself never taking the vacation you want or launching the marketing program the way you designed it… or any other priority that you’re willing to sacrifice to avoid conflict. The will to resolve Level One conflicts at high levels of mutual satisfaction stimulate creative innovation and resilient relationships. All good stuff… yet we often find ourselves in Level Two conflicts, which are more difficult to solve.

Sometimes far more difficult. Level Two conflicts are disagreements over goals. (Remember, Level One was conflict over tactics) sometimes I call these ‘small pie conflicts.’ By small pie I mean that there is simply not enough for everyone to get what they want in the amount they want. Sure it would be great if you could increase the size of the pie in every situation but that’s just not realistic. Once I was helping several physician groups negotiate their financial relationship with a large hospital system.

There was a limited amount of money to divide and it was clear that that small pie of money would not be growing very much anytime soon. If the doctors made more, the hospitals would make less and vice versa. Soon this escalated into a bare-knuckles battle with lots of accusations and emotion. The only way I could get these agitated adversaries to calm down was to ascend the ‘mountain the values’ until we could find common ground.

What they could agree on was that the hospital system and the physicians were sincerely dedicated to providing the best patient care possible. I was also able to get them to a common reality about their mutual finances.

When goals are in conflict it is critical to agree on the facts, so Level Two conflicts are resolved when people agree on both facts and values otherwise there is no path to agreement.

Now we come to ugly Level Three conflicts. These are conflicts over values. Most often they simply cannot be resolved. One example of Level Three conflict was the Cold War. The values of dictatorial Communism versus Western democratic values had no meaningful common ground. To preserve the peace we simply zoned off the world, rattled our sabers and frightened each other into avoiding war. It appears we have a similar problem with Al Qaeda. The unquestioned values that we have for individual freedom, self-expression and personal conscience are not shared.

Both sides actually believe they have the moral high ground so conflict is inevitable.

Throw in other high ignition problems like widespread poverty, political rivalry, tribalism and oil and you have a boiling stew of conflict. Level Three conflicts are not only geopolitical. They exist in the workplace and at home.

The most common Level Three conflict arises in working with people who are pathologically self-interested… just plain selfish.

Now all of us are selfish from time to time especially when we’re scared or stressed. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about people who refuse to empathize. These are people who treat everyone as either a threat or an ally to get what they themselves want. Their main tactics are bullying and manipulating. They bully by making threats, hoarding resources, stealing ideas and blaming others when anything goes wrong. Their arms get tired from throwing people under the bus.

What’s unfortunate is that bullies can thrive in hierarchical organizations that tolerate it.

Mid-level bullies are often miss-characterized as no-nonsense managers by senior executives. So they frequently persist and even thrive. Manipulators are passive-aggressive. They also blame others, deny responsibility and play the victim. An Olympic level manipulator seems to be able to figure out how to never be wrong or responsible…it’s everyone else’s fault. Bullies and manipulators are everywhere.

Social psychologists estimate that about 35% of adults never mature beyond this level of living. Every workplace has them and so does virtually every family. So what do you do with Level Three conflicts? There is only one thing to do. Create rules and boundaries for your interactions.

As the saying goes ‘you can’t make a good deal with a bad person’… at least not for long. When you’re in conflict with others because of the fundamental disagreement over values the conflict will never end. So you need to protect yourself from selfish nut-jobs. Unless the crazy person has a life altering experience which actually changes their values a healthy trusting relationship is simply impossible.

I didn’t always believe this. For 40 years I was a magnificent idealist. But the lessons of life taught me that the lethal combination of someone who is competitive and insecure will make them bullies. My attempts to have sustained relationships were totally disruptive to my own psychological health. What I found was that bullies look for people they can intimidate, and manipulators are simply parasites looking for hosts who will cave-in to the whiny demands.

What’s going on here is Level Three conflict. These conflicts will ruin your life if you allow them to.

There is nothing you can do to repair them and it’s not your job to.

Your job is to make a difference. Your job is to be healthy, loving and to do something that matters. The next time you’re in conflict take a moment to analyze whether it’s Level One, a conflict over tactics; Level Two a conflict over goals…or a code red Level Three.

Understanding the world this way changed my life.

I hope it does the same for you. Note to women:  Most women’s brains are wired for social harmony and empathy. This makes them “soft” targets for bullies and manipulators. The most common response is to become passive aggressive, which helps you maintain power without being confrontational.

The problem is being passive aggressive makes you psychologically sick and makes you feel weak. The best strategy is calm assertiveness. Know what you want. Ask for what you want. Create what you want. I know, it’s not as easy as it sounds… yet there’s simply no other choice.

 

How You Think – 5 Ways We May or May Not Be Wired for Achievement

Posted on by Will Marre

We have learned more about how our brains work during the last five years than the last 5,000. For instance, we know the old “right-brain, left-brain” model is a gross over simplification of how our brains really processes information and decides to act. The brain functions like a network drawing on vital information that is gathered and evaluated throughout the three pounds of flesh that rests within our skull.

We are constantly building our new neural network. Depending on what we are constantly thinking about, what stresses us, what interests us, what is vital to us. We are constantly constructing new “cell towers” that powerfully shoot electrical energy across our thinking network so that we can act and react. Each of our neural network is as individual as our fingerprint. Yet new research from Harvard’s Stephen Kosslyn (“Top Brain, Bottom Brain: Surprising Insights into How You Think”) confirms that each of us use one of several Brain Achievement Maps.

A Brain Achievement Map, something I call BAM, is our habitual way of thinking. It’s how we individually select what’s important to us. What keeps our attention, how we learn what we need to learn, who we go to for help, when to act and when not to. Most importantly, it helps us set goals and achieve them. So, there are five common BAMs.

Not surprisingly, most men are wired up for two of them and most women for the other three. 

Here they are:

  1. Achiever: This BAM is found among most business leaders. It focuses your brain on goal achievement. You set the agenda and establish goals. WHen this is your BAM you are looking at trends, competitors and opportunities. You tell others WHAT is important to achieve.
  2. Motivator: This BAM causes people to answer the question – Why? It is your brain seeking purpose. It seeks moral achievement over money, fame or power. When this is your BAM it is difficult to act unless you’re clear on WHY you should.
  3. Collaborator: This BAM seeks interaction. Clarity is created through conversation. Different points of view are welcomed. Inclusion is vital. Decisions are the result of synthesis. The HOW is arrived at as a team. WHen this is your BAM social harmony is pure oxygen.
  4. Driver: This BAM thrives on action. It requires sustained high energy and focuses on immediate goals. Results are what matter. DO it now, no excuses. When this is your BAm you insist on accountability and relentless effort.
  5. Adapter: This BAM seeks practical, immediate improvement. It focuses on what’s working and what might work better. Improving is what matters. If this is your BAM, you thrive on “do, learn, do some more.”

It shouldn’t surprise you that male brains tend to be more Achiever and Driver brains. Females tend to be wired as Motivators, Collaborators and Adapters. What’s critical to understand is these gender differences don’t seem to be solely related to the differences in how boys and girls are raised.

The white matter in a female brain is significantly greater than in a male’s brain. White matter is the substance the brain uses to connect the dots from the far reaches of our neural networks. This means the female brain is engineered to be more collaborative, more diversity-embracing, more synthesizing, more empathetic, and quicker to improve. Even the neural connections between our prefrontal cortex where our values reside, and the rest of our brain capacity is greater in women than in men.

That’s why women generally have better impulse control and start far fewer biker gangs than men do. 

All this has leadership implications that are mission-critical for our future. There’s a stream of new data from organizations such as Sodexo, McKinsey and Company, Catalyst, and the Center for Talent Innovation that convincingly make the case that having many women in leadership positions have a direct impact on growth, profitability and innovation. Sodexo’s research reports that when one third of board members are women, profit margins are 42% better.

That’s a lot better. The key seems to be in having enough women in leaders. One token female does little to influence the achiever-driven brains of men. So organizations become half-brained. Resulting in half-assed business strategy, and poor executed with disengaged employees. That – in my experience – is the norm. Whole-brained organizations have enough women in senior business-driving positions to make a difference.

Having a female head of HR is not sufficient. Women also need to be driving business development, R&D, sales, marketing, operations and every other male-dominated domain of the enterprise. This is not to say that all women teams are the best.

The evidence is that mixed teams of men and women leaders produce better results than one gender teams of either. 

Perhaps now we’re learning why that’s true. Brain Balance. And now some coaching for aspiring women leaders. Please recognize that leading is not easy because your’e doing a lot more thinking than men do. I know this is no surprise. A recent review of 46,000 male and female brain scans revealed that women’s brains were significantly more active in nearly 90% of human brain function.

Sounds good, right? Well, not so fast. All this super-strong brain activity makes you more vulnerable to self-doubt, self-criticism, anxiety and chocolate cravings. There’s an area deep in your prefrontal cortex (anterior cingulate gyrus) that makes you hyper sensitive to personal perfectionism. Your “How am I doing?” meter is supersensitive. Your heightened social awareness makes you feel vulnerable to judgement.

And your strong sense of responsibility can drive you to be over-controlling. Perhaps the most difficult news is that your brain doesn’t produce even half of the serotonin that men enjoy. Serotonin is the brain chemical that gives you a feeling of continuous well-being and the sense that all is well.

That’s why it’s usually men who say, “Life is good.” Women on the other hand are much busier trying to make life good.

I’m convinced that women are the primary source of civilization. Some current proof of that is the amazing 98% repayment rate of microloans make to women in developing countries. Microloans are made without collateral but with the mutual social guarantees of 6 to 8 women borrowers.

Each woman pledges her hundred percent support to every other woman in the group to ensure all loan payments are made. So they are. Most microfinancce organizations don’t even loan money to men. That’s because they either spend the loan proceeds or the profit from their business on gambling or alcohol. Women, on the other hand invest their profits in building their businesses, their children’s education or community projects.

Yes, that’s awesome and all, but very stressful. My counsel to women is to realize that in many ways you have one foot on your accelerator and one foot on your break. That creates a lot of noise and smoke, but not speedy progress. Your accelerator is your bright brain that is perfectly designed to thrive in our complex 21st century world. Your break is that inner voice that is constantly second-guessing you.

The bottom line is don’t expect men to behave much differently than they do they are simply not equipped to. And don’t you hang back. Don’t you wait. 

Our future needs a leadership revolution led by men and women working together to create a future we want our children to grow up in.

 

Ask More of Yourself

Posted on by Will Marre

I’ve been invited to attend a meeting of area executives to discuss corporate social responsibility in the San Diego (California) region. We will be discussing good things like how to increase volunteerism and sustainability among the large and small businesses fortunate enough to be located here.

This is good stuff… but not great stuff.

For years I have been pointing out that in poll after poll consumers view the first corporate social responsibility of business to be the well-being of a company’s own employees.

For instance, over the last 10 years Walmart has turned itself into quite a green company. They are world class at eliminating packaging waste and even reducing their carbon footprint. Of course they do this because it helps them save money. Nothing wrong with that but you have to wonder if it didn’t save money would they care about any of these things? Meanwhile how do you think they’re doing with their higher corporate responsibility of treating their employees with respect? If you think not good, you’d be right.

Their reputation for corporate social responsibility with consumers is in the basement. I don’t mean to pick on Walmart all the time it’s just that they’re such a juicy target. And they embody all the unintended consequences of shortsighted, self-interested capitalism. They have played a key role in the dismantling of America’s small business manufacturing capability, which has lowered the average wage for high school educated workers. These of course are Walmart’s key customers who are now spending so little money at Walmart stores the company simply cannot grow and it’s stock has been stagnant for years.

It’s been observed that capitalists are so shortsighted that they would sell their hangman the rope used to hang them with.

The fact that today that rope might be made with recycled help is of small comfort. So here’s another way to look at corporate social responsibility. Economists talk about “switching costs” as a key factor in making financial decisions. When switching costs are low consumers are not very loyal.

For instance, it’s easy to drive across the street to save two cents on a gallon of gas. Gas seems to be all the same and gas stations are all over the place, so getting the best deal seems to always make sense. On the other hand switching costs to change the source of your electricity from your local utility to putting solar panels on your house is quite high.

Switching costs are also a factor in social relationships. Dating websites are popular because switching costs are so low. You can suddenly quit talking to one dude or dudette as soon as a more attractive one shows up. But the switching costs of a 20-year marriage are much greater.

When switching costs are high, we have a high “stake” in the value of the relationship. 

Whether it’s with the company, our doctor or a spouse, we really want the relationship to work. When switching costs are low, you don’t care so much because there is no big price to pay by choosing something different. So what do switching costs have to do with corporate social responsibility? It’s simply this: corporate responsibility is fundamentally connected to creating benefit for all your stakeholders.

The moral question is,”Do corporate leaders have a greater responsibility to shareholders, consumers or their employees?” 

The prevailing idea promoted in business school is leaders have a primary responsibility to shareholders because they have invested money. Because of this view we created a hyper self-interested, short term ethic that dominates the decisions going on in most corporate offices. Not all, but most. But when you consider the switching costs the moral answers change.

Today, with high-speed computer trading, mutual funds hold company shares for an average of seven minutes. Now that’s speed dating! Even conservative mutual funds readjust their portfolios every 90 days. That’s why in many circles shareholders are not considered investors but simply gamblers. And their switching costs are tiny. There are thousands of stocks all over the world to choose from which you can readily buy and sell on a seconds notice. So it seems that investors have the smallest stake of all stakeholders.

Now consider consumers. We live in an age of tens of thousands of virtually interchangeable products. Companies are crazy about branding because their brand name is the only difference between a Dell or an HP computer. The switching costs for consumers is very low so they don’t have a very high stake in your company’s success.

But there is one group whose lives depend on a company’s fortunes. 

That group, of course, is the employees. Their switching costs are enormous. Losing a job is extremely brutal for older employees. Research reveals that out of the ocean of workers over the age of 50 who lost their jobs in this last recession, over half will never earn as much as their previous job. We also know that job loss has a stressful, health affect that actually lasts longer than divorce. So the stakeholders with the greatest stake in their employer’s success are the employees.

The biggest challenge that employers and employees face together is to keep the skills of employees up-t0-date and relevant. 

Employers need employees that add value. And the value they need to add is constantly changing because of the nature of our competitive economy. Yet the investment is improving employee’s capability, knowledge and skills, and health and well-being is infinitesimal. This is not true in Germany, the world’s largest exporter of advanced technology goods. There, employee development, health and well-being are welded into the armor of the employer-employee relationship.

They have a system of mentoring and apprenticeship that is the backbone of their value-added manufacturing base. And here, a crazy company called Zappos takes employee development to the extreme. Every entry-level employee gets four weeks of training and is then put on a development track consisting of constant classes over three years. Employees are constantly taught both hard and soft skills to help them excel in their job, and their lives.

Zappos employees are expected to advance into management within 5 to 7 years. No one gets to stay at a minimum pay job unless they choose to.  This process of on-the-job training formal classes and mentoring is how you professionalize a workforce.

And when people who have the greatest stake in the company’s success are nurtured and developed, a game-changing culture emerges.

That’s not hard to understand. It’s simply rare. So what about you? If you’re a leader perhaps it’s time to put some concentrated effort into how you could create a more remarkable workplace by over-investing in your people’s success. If you are an employee your focus needs to be on your own development. The question to ask yourself is

“What do I need to know and what experiences do I need in order to be in complete control of my own career?”

The best way to insulate yourself from the short-term thinking of Neanderthal leadership is to make the switching cost away from you too high. Invest in your own future.

Become extraordinary at something you value that brings value to others. 

It is time to become a warrior in the pursuit of your best future.

 

Becoming Great is Simple, Just Not Easy

Posted on by Will Marre

(Note to readers: the response to my recent blog, Three Reasons Why We Need Women Leaders Now has been nothing less than astonishing. What’s clear to me is that there is a deep thirst for practical leadership advice for women who want to excel as leaders, as well as a business need to elevate more women to senior leadership positions. So, I’ve decided to add a special note to women leaders whenever my blog deals with a subject that has a unique application for women. This blog does. The note is at the end.)

Good to Great, that leadership book with the red dust jacket, sits on the shelf of virtually every leader I’ve ever coached. The reason is simple, it’s a great book. For instance the hedgehog principle in which author Jim Collins (above) encourages people and companies to focus on things they do well that they are passionate about and can make money on is wisdom in its profound form.

Yet there is one big idea in the book that has caused lots of confusion.

It’s called Level Five Leadership. Collins tells us that the most successful leaders lead with paradoxical combination of iron-willed commitment and personal humility. What’s confusing about this is that many of the leaders we most admire don’t seem to have much humility. Nobody would accuse Steve Jobs or Winston Churchill of being humble yet both are widely admired as truly great, world changing leaders. And the list of not very humble leaders seems endless. Amazon hotshot Jeff Bezos and look-at-me Richard Branson are just two more that come to mind. So what’s up?

Did Collins simply get it wrong?

Well maybe not… In my 35 years of coaching leaders, some great and some not so great, I come to appreciate what Collins was getting at. I think we can all see that an unwavering commitment to build a special organization is essential to truly great leadership.

The nature of people working together generates chaos driven by the three-ring circus of human weaknesses.

Rampant nuttiness ranging from jealousy and revenge to arrogance and intimidation constantly tear at the fabric of any organization. Leaders who understand the value of a unified, agile team of people working to fulfill an inspiring vision need to expend oceans of energy to drown the demons of social chaos. That takes infinite commitment. I think that is easy to understand… but humility? What about humility? What I’ve come to understand about leadership humility is that it is not the ‘Aw shucks I’m nobody special’ kind.

Rather, it’s the humility of being keenly aware of the limits of your own knowledge and the fallibility of your own judgment.

It is open-mindedness. Of course nearly everyone claims to be open-minded. Who walks around beating their chest about their prejudices and unwillingness to entertain any newfangled ideas or different points of view? Yet those are the most common human behaviors of all. And unless we really work at it our inner voice is saying “I know I’m right, we disagree, therefore you must be wrong.”  Yes, we may act as if were open to new ideas and different points of view but our brains are wired for certainty not open-mindedness.

Much of the time our ‘humility’ is just an act. 

That’s why so many people are attracted to start up enterprises. Entrepreneurs frequently walk a tight rope were one false step can plunge the company into a crash dive. In those circumstances successful leaders are hungry learners. The best of them are passionately open-minded and constantly seeking the next best step necessary to create momentum and sustainable success.

And it turns out the most common characteristic of failed entrepreneurs is stubbornness… which is persistence without creativity.

Close minded passion is a kind of narcissistic poison. So, it appears Collins was dead right. Great leaders are both driven and humble; committed and open-minded. Rare qualities indeed. So how about you?

As the chief entrepreneur of your own career, are you at level five?

Do you have strongly held opinions about your career or your work that lead you to only look for evidence that confirms what you already believe? It is possible to reinvent your future. New research reveals that 93% of successful startups fundamentally change their business strategy in order to succeed. In other words the first business plan didn’t work.  It’s no shame if you’re stuck.  Just don’t spin your wheels. If things are not turning out the way you expected…stop doing what you’re doing.

Spend 30 minutes every morning for the next week reflecting on your deepest desires.

Ask “what’s something new that I could do that might get me on track…” that’s open-mindedness.  And if you are moving in the right direction, ask yourself “what can I do to accelerate progress?” Do that.

Note to women leaders:

I find that women are often a little too open minded in the workplace. It’s common for women to have a hard time saying “no” when other people want to mess with your agenda. You may have been so busy helping others achieve their goals that you become a bit timid in recruiting others to help you achieve yours.

So exercise your strong commitment muscles necessary for level five leadership. Don’t apologize for your vision, your goals and the fury of your commitment.

 

How Clear is Your Vision?

Posted on by Will Marre

The essential responsibility of a leaders is to form, hold and promote a clear version. Having a vision of a better future is both noble and powerful.

Virtually all that we have and enjoy that is worthwhile is the result of someone’s vision.

Great vision, world changing vision, focuses on one thing…creating new value. By that I don’t mean economic value. Creating value for shareholders or increasing your own net worth is a means, not an end. Making money is like food. It is necessary for survival because without it we starve. But being solely focused on making money is like centering your life on how much food you can eat…it will make you sick. The kind of value-vision I’m talking about is the seven core ways people’s lives get better. WHen I am helping people develop their vision, I start with a question like this:

How will you make people…

  1. healthier?
  2. happier?
  3. smarter?
  4. safer?
  5. more socially connected?
  6. economically secure?
  7. experience deeper meaning?

While there are other forms of value creation, there seven seem to get people thinking about creating value more than just harvesting it.

Notice that big vision is driven by what you can do for other people rather than tricking them into doing something for you. 

Lately, the news has been full of stories that illuminate failures of no vision. For instance, Microsoft finally threw their very bright and unimaginative CEO Steve Ballmer overboard. For years, Microsoft focused its mighty effort on harvesting the value of their Office software monopoly. The software itself has not materially improved in six or seven years. In fact, instead of making our lives easier, Office software has become bloated, clunkier and harder to use.

Meanwhile Microsoft has dabbled in things like Xbox, Bing, and MSN all of which are different but not better products than their competitors. With all the billions that Microsoft has and with their unique access to tens of millions of desktops around the world, you would think they could’ve come up with something that would truly make our lives better. But no, just a series of worse versions of old products.

There’s no doubt they could have done something big, like revolutionize worldwide education, which is the largest single economic enterprise in the world. 

After all, Microsoft has armies of very bright, well-meaning people. But without big vision, there is simply nothing. An now it appears that all the helium has gone out of Apple’s balloon. I truly hope Steve Jobs is on to better and bigger things. If he can see what is going on with his old company, he must be averting his eyes.

With nearly $150 billion in the bank, you think Apple could come up with something better than a new phone that is clearly worse than Samsung’s old one. It appears that the great and bold creators have been muzzled while harvesters are busy at work in the halls of Apple. With its oceans of goodwill, ability to attract genius-class talent and permission to be wildly creative, you think Apple would pursue the vision that would make us healthier, happier, smarter, safer, more connected, and more creative all wrapped in a “cloud” of meaning.

Instead we get a cheaper iPhone in pink…Awesome. And finally we come to Syria. Our leaders have had no big vision for a relationship with the Middle East for 50 years. Our interest in that region has been solely defined by extracting oil and protecting Israel. I am not so idealistic that I do not believe those goals are necessary. Yet, they’re simply not enough.

When either people or countries act only in their self-interest, they are neither loved nor trusted. 

Of course we need to do what’s necessary to stop the use of chemical weapons. But that’s not big vision. Big vision begins with how we might help the millions of Syrian refugees now living in Jordan and Turkey live a decent life. Perhaps if we spend our time and some of our enormous defense budget helping these suffering masses become healthier, happier, smarter and safer, they might feel more connected to us.

Our vision in the Middle East needs to focus on the younger and future generations who are much more likely to adopt the values of our Bill of Rights as they integrate them into their own traditions. General Patraeus became successful at stopping the civil war we triggered in Iraq in large part by creating trust between us and the warring factions driven by the values of tolerance and fairness and the vision of a better future.

Of course we left and it’s a mess again. The Middle East will not suddenly become a great place to live by liberating it militarily or manipulating it politically. The only investment that will ever payoff is the investment in ideas and ideals that actually create healthier, happier people. This will not be easy or simple or fast. It may take 50 years or two generations for universal human rights to be effectively embraced.

But if we don’t start now, where will be when every country has weapons of mass destruction because technology has made them so easy to build?

While it’s easy to take potshots at big companies and inept leaders, it’s harder to be self-critical. I frequently struggle with my own big vision as I begin what is likely to be the last lap of my race of life. While I many not have the assets of Microsoft of Apple or the responsibilities of creating peace, I have some role to play in my world I seem to wrestle daily with how to best invest my time in ways that might make others healthier, happier, smarter, more loved and more loving.

I am struck with how difficult it is to think in a big way without acting in small ways. My wife understands this far better than me. She is a hospice volunteer and a few nights ago we visited a 90-year-old bed-ridden woman in a clean but modest nursing home. Debbie simply fed her, brushed her hair and asked her about her life when she was a young mother.

In those few minutes of creating value for another human being, I experienced how a personal big vision changes the world. 

There is something infinite in the infinitesimal. I believe we all need a big vision…a vision for creating value for others right now, right where we are.

 

Vain Ambition

Posted on by Will Marre

The reason that nothing gets done in Washington D.C. is vain ambition. It’s a lesson for all of us in the downside of vanity. Have you read “This Town?” It’s written by the chief national corresponded for the New York Times Magazine. He rather proudly says that he is a part of the political -media- lobbyists’ club that runs America for us.

He calls Washington D.C. “suck up city” and compares it to high school… one where the students never graduate. It’s a surreal town where cheerleaders put on endless parties and jocks play politics. You see the deal is, whenever you get to Washington, you never want to leave. The sense of power, fame and specialness is just simply too intoxicating.

Like high school, the main motivation is personal vanity. 

People want to be popular and will do anything to go to the right parties, have the right friends, and have plenty of money to do what popular kids do. Imagine waking up every morning wondering who has said what to whom about you. Imagine being obsessed with whose news program you’re going to be interviewed on and whose sound bite might make the 24-hour news cycle.

Imagine having your mind constantly churning about what gossip you can create to make yourself more important and more popular right now. Imagine worrying about whether you’re going to get the invitation to a state dinner or the right party. Yes, it’s just like perpetual high school. Sure, when people first get elected they might come to Washington on a mission to serve the rest of us. They may even be sincere about their current convictions.

But convictions don’t run our political system… money does. 

And there is plenty of money and lots of lobbying jobs in Washington to go around for anyone who’s had a ticket to the party. That’s why no one leaves. It may sound awful at first, but psychologically, it’s pretty darn addictive… especially for the vain part of us. The addictive force of vanity is not limited to Washington. In my 35 years of helping high achieving leaders to fulfill their dreams, I’ve witnessed the push and pull between vain ambition and moral ambition.

It’s no secret that lots of high achievers are driven by an inner voice that spurs them to do whatever it takes to please their unpleasable or absent father. And there are others that are striving to fulfill the high expectations of adoring and supportive mothers. When this is the case, there is an unquenchable thirst for recognition.

But no achievement, no fame, and no amount of money can fill a bucket with a hole in the bottom of it.

Nevertheless, that doesn’t stop people from spending their whole lives trying. The problem is vanity is a powerful motivator but a lousy conscience. That’s why we so often see talented people work like dogs in the pursuit of things that have no intrinsic significance… of things that don’t create any real human value. Too often they sacrifice their health, their relationships, and their lifestyle for “success” that doesn’t really matter. It’s hard to see things clearly, I grant you that.

Our whole modern media world where everyone can try to build a personal brand and create personal fame by blogging, podcasting, videos, and tweeting has made us all a little crazy. Me included. The voice of vanity is never fully silenced. I think the only way to stay grounded is daily reflection.

I’ve developed a morning ritual in which I consciously think of what I’m really grateful for and the most important things I can do for others that day. 

I am never grateful for the things driven by vanity but rather for all of the things that neither money nor fame can buy. I am very fortunate. The years have taught me how important a psychologically healthy lifestyle is. It causes me to think daily about what’s most important to make sure that I create the time to attend to those things.

If there is one practie that has guided my life it is that… and I needed it. 

When I graduated from high school, my ambition was to be governor of California. Not because I had some unique agenda, but because it sounded good. It was my vanity speaking. Somehow, with the help of wise parents, humble teachers, and suffering at just the right moments, I traveled a better path. I am so glad I graduated from high school… if only our leaders would.

 

When It’s Bad To Be Great

Posted on by Will Marre

Based on current standards of business leadership, David Novak is a superstar. He is the CEO of Yum! Brands. The company that brings you the great foods of Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut. They have nearly 40,000 locations worldwide and open a new one every 14 hours. David is a star because he really knows how to make money for shareholders and he knows how to build a team of high-performing leaders to operate a complicated global business.

For shareholders, he’s turned Yum! into a money machine. Yum! restaurants have some of the highest operating margins and lowest costs in the business. He had the vision and the guts to move into countries like China and India full force before the rest of his competitors got wind that every human being likes salty, greasy food. So now Yum! operates in 130 countries selling pizza, mashed potatoes, tacos and rivers of soda to billions of poor people.

The good news for Yum! shareholders is that this is highly profitable. Yum! stock has returned 16.5% compounded annually since 1997. That’s pretty yummy. His blow-away financial results makes Novak an executive rock star. Fortune magazine (August 12, 2013) just published a gushing piece about how great a leader Novak is. And he is. I’ve only met David Novak once.

I was assisting with a leadership training, which he attended. He is a warm and sincere person who genuinely cares about his managers and the quality of the culture of the company he leads. That is the substance of the Fortune article… that David Novak is one hell of a great leader. All I can say is what a waste.

What a waste of talent, brainpower, creativity, and financial resources.

What a waste of time and effort of tens of thousands of people who wake up every morning to make the world just a little bit worse. If that sounds harsh, it’s meant to.

In a world of 7 billion people, can we enthusiastically condone a business operating in a moral vacuum in which employees get up every morning and work their guts out to make and sell stuff that is actually designed to hurt people? 

And as Charles Kinney writes in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, there’s no disputing that 1,000 calorie lunch made up of popcorn chicken, honey mustard dipping sauce, potato wedges and a 20 ounce Pepsi isn’t harmful. As he points out, obesity and heart disease is exploding in high-growth emerging markets where American fast food companies have seduced millions into habitually eating junk. 45% of Chinese men are now overweight. In every single new market that American fast food has penetrated, obesity has gone up, along with diabetes.

Is it really an overstatement to point out the emerging vicious cycle where global food chains make billions through ruining the health of people while spending on diabetes medicine to treat them skyrockets?

Maybe I’m missing something. Yum! Brands congratulates itself by saying it puts the health and nutritional needs of the customers first. After all, they discontinued their kids meal at Taco Bell. Wall Street analysts commented on what a clever PR move this was since kids meals accounted for less than one half of one percent of Taco Bell sales. Does that sound cynical to you? Of course, if you asked an executive of Yum! Brands how they sleep at night, they would say very well.

They would say if their meals are consumed only occasionally or in the proper amounts, that fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy can be part of a healthy diet. Hmmmm… but that’s not the business strategy of fast food companies. Marketing people try to identify heavy, repeat customers because theses are the customers most valued by retain food chains because In over 35 years of working with executives, I’ve never been in a business meeting where the discussion centered on how to get people to use less of their product. Never.

Perhaps my concerns are nonsense. I frequently listen to economists and others who claim that the role of the capitalist is not to make decisions for consumers, but rather to provide them with what they want. So the theory is if people want to eat themselves to death or lose all their money in Las Vegas or smoke cigarettes that’s their business.

But is preying on human weakness a legitimate business model?

It certainly isn’t a moral one. The first law of morality is to do all that you can to prevent avoidable suffering. So how can we celebrate super competent leadership of big companies whose business success relies on people making bad choices… creating suffering. Is that really the best we can do? Really? There are so many lousy leaders that it is very frustrating for me to see someone who is truly gifted like David Novak spend his life building a great company that sells shit. Haven’t we lost the whole point?

If each one of us is invested in our talent, energy, creativity and capital in products and services that help people live healthier, happier lives the world would be different. 

Making money is a skill. It’s not a purpose. If at the end of our lives we look in the mirror and say I spent my life learning how to make money rather than doing something that actually created a better future that’s just a waste. So what do you think? Can our world thrive with business leaders hiding behind the wall of amoral choices?

Do we really think our best future will come because we’ve created a special activity know as business that celebrates any legal way of making money even if it causes people to suffer? 

Do you ever wonder…”what in the hell are we doing?”