I use the word ‘Suck’ in the title for two reasons. First, there’s overwhelming evidence corporate diversity programs don’t work to achieve either the social or business goals of diversity. Second, diversity and inclusion programs suck the attention and energy away from what will solve the problem.

Lately I’ve been talking to many corporate diversity and inclusion leaders. They are frequently charged with increasing the number of women advanced into leadership.  They also want to ensure that minorities and disabled people are well represented in their employee population.  These are praiseworthy social goals.  And it makes a lot of sense because the war for talent is now on and our growing pool of well equipped non-white-male talent is growing fast.

This war for talent problem has dramatically escalated as the economy has improved.  The large consulting firm, PWC, recently reported that the percentage of CEOs that consider female retention as a major concern has risen from 12% to 64% in just the last four years!

Their research also confirms that business leaders have accepted the business case for women in leadership.  Over 80% of responding CEOs strongly agree that more women in leadership enhance business performance, strengthen innovation, and creates more customer focus.

Nevertheless failure continues.  After 30 years of formal corporate diversity recruitment and retention programs, Deloitte research reveals that 94% of Fortune 500 CEOs are white males. Senior executives are 85% white males and corporate boards are 82% white males. That’s not diverse . . .  and that’s the problem.

Promoters of diverse work forces have tried to change things.  But formal quotas and audits have proven to create perceptions of special treatment of women and ethnic minorities that cause male resentment and cantankerous corporate cultures.

Women continue to leave science and technology companies in a river of exits after they spend 7 to 10 years being frustrated

by ‘Boys Club’ cultures.  According to Deloitte’s research the main reason women leave their present employer is lack of opportunity. After 10 years, 61% of female employees do not believe they will get a fair chance for promotion. This lack of opportunity is the single greatest cause of female employee disengagement.

And the word is out.  A smaller percentage of women are studying science and engineering in college than they did 15 years ago.

Perhaps the worst thing about corporate diversity and inclusion programs is that they give corporate leaders an illusion that they are doing all they can to attract and engage a broad range of talent.  In fact, when I talk to such leaders they often whine and complain that their HR team needs to do a better job.

But they are blaming the wrong people.

The problem is that corporate recruiters do a good job of presenting their companies as collaborative hives of diverse men and women working together to improve the world. But that’s not what employees experience.  According to Deloitte, while 86% of new hires say that a collaborative, inclusive culture is very important in choosing an employer . . . within three years 71% of those new employees are cynical, reporting that their workplaces relentlessly drive for conformity to the dominant white male culture.

What executives are missing is that they are defining the diversity problem with civil rights era, affirmative action thinking. That is not the solution. And never has been.

Gaining the business benefits of diversity in leadership will only come through understanding that we need a whole new paradigm of human diversity.  Traditional thinking has put the focus on externals such as gender and race.  Thus, strategies have focused on pay equality and quotas driven by analytics.

But genuine diversity is not about externals. Rather it’s about the synergy that comes from recognizing the “internals.”  There are 7½ billion of us on our planet.  As far as I know, no two of us are identical.  The value that we bring to the world comes through three primary sources:

• Our individual identity-our values, ideas and personalities
• Our individual experiences which give us judgment
• Our individual capabilities-knowledge, talent and skills.

This “internal” definition of diversity isn’t just my idea.  Deloitte’s survey of millennials reveal that the new work force generation thinks this is the authentic kind of diversity that matters.

The breakthrough that organizations are seeking comes through understanding that the value of diversity doesn’t come from our gender or color.  Rather, it comes from within each person. But the advantages of individual diversity are mostly lost in big companies.

This has to change and it will.

It will because the millennial generation is the first color and gender-blind cohort of humanity in history.  They value tolerance and inclusion more than any generation that has been studied. Baby boomers agree that it is morally wrong to be sexist or racist but they still must fight their internal bias.  Children born since 1980 went to school and made friends with a ‘human salad’ of races and backgrounds, so gender and race bias is much lower. For instance, McKinsey research reveals that while men in their 40s don’t want to work for a women, men in their 20s expect to.

Our problem is that virtually all large organizations are authoritarian, which makes them slow to change. Authoritarian organizations create a gravitational field of conformity to the dominant cultural beliefs and behaviors of its senior leaders. This sociological fact is the biggest threat to organizational success in our modern era because it produces “group-think.”

Group-think occurs when a leader or cultural norms create psychologically choking pressure to agree with the prevailing assumptions about what drives success.  In a highly competitive world economy the problem of “what got us here won’t take us there” occurs daily.  Yet group-think creates an illusion of invulnerability and superficial agreement.  The pressure to conform leads people to avoid smart, new risks while reinvesting in slow but continual failure.

So what’s the solution?

It’s developing genuine cultures of diversity combined with processes that drive strategic alignment. It’s in these cultures of cognitive diversity where game changing innovation flourishes.

I’ve been most successful in breaking the chains of group-think in organizations that are suffering from massive failure.  There is nothing like humility and realistic fear to open people’s minds to good ideas coming from diverse sources.

One of the most amazing experiences I had was watching a woman executive who was given the responsibility to take a half a billion dollar company out of the death spiral.  She listened to the company’s board, several teams of outside consultants, and then decided to do something radical.

The company had about 1,800 employees. She wanted to hear all of their best ideas.  So everyone was asked to join a team to create a well thought out business case that would either help the company grow revenue or save money.  Then she traveled across the country to the various worksites holding “Shark Tank” sessions in which teams pitched their ideas. Perhaps the wildest thing she did was to put her tattooed chief of maintenance in charge of the whole project. She did this to engage everyone’s commitment.  It sent a strong message that she would listen to every idea as long as it was submitted as a business case.

At least 30% of the ideas were strategies, tactics and processes that no executive or consultant had thought of. Those ideas ended up being the true gems . . . the ones that were the easiest to implement, and made the biggest difference.

It took 18 months for the company to turn around and start growing again.  It was so successful that it soon went public.

I share this experience because I believe the ultimate solution to creating business cultures that truly value diversity will only happen when more women are in senior leadership.

The reason is simple and scientific.  In general, women have a much higher level of social intelligence than most men.  Both neurologically and sociologically, women are more likely to create cultures of inclusion and individual value.  And according to MIT research, women are more likely to value and consider new ideas regardless of their source.

The bottom line:

Most diversity and inclusion initiatives have not, and will not, create business cultures that attract or retain top talent. By 2025 75% of America’s workforce will be millennials who want to express individuality and work in organizations of diverse teams where merit matters more than conformity.
Women are uniquely suited to play the major role in transforming corporate cultures to be competitive in the 21st century.

What you can do right now is change the discussion about diversity and inclusion in your organization.  Focus on transforming culture to one that values “internal” diversity by training collaborative leadership skills and promoting more women who lead like women.

 

World leaders one year ago agreed on an ambitious set of global goals designed to tackle the world’s most troubling problems such as extreme poverty and inequality by 2030 at the United Nations.

Described as a blueprint for the future, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with 169 targets address such daunting challenges as climate change, hunger, education, gender equality, sanitation, jobs, justice and shared peace.

We asked some participants about the progress of the goals one year in and what has worked and what has not:

Helen Dennis, Acting Head of Advocacy at Christian Aid:

“To date, SDG implementation is patchy. Some have embraced them – Norway is integrating the goals into its budget process. But global politics often seem to pull the wrong way. More people than ever are forcibly displaced, yet we see inertia in response to refugees. There are 700 million people living on less than $1.90 a day, yet countries cut aid budgets. There have been small steps towards tax justice but much more is needed. We now have a decent climate agreement but trillions still flow into fossil fuels. A year on, there is a pressing need for courage and leadership.”

David Nabarro, U.N. special adviser on 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

“My aim is for 2 billion people around the world to be aware of the SDGs by the end of 2017 and for another million people to become activists — to be change-agents who press decision-makers and who hold them accountable until we have transformed our world and made it more sustainable. Children and youth have a particularly important role to play, as the face of social movements, the drivers of social change and the torchbearers of a more sustainable future for generations to come.”

Amit Bouri, Chief Executive, Global Impact Investing Network:

“What will help us realize the ambitious Sustainable Development Goals of the U.N. is to more fully tap the power of the world’s investment capital. If sufficient investment capital can be channeled to these goal areas through impact investing, the SDGs are achievable.”

Joanna Rubinstein, Chief Executive and President, The World Childhood Foundation USA:

“The sexual abuse of children is a hidden public health crisis. At least one in 10 children in the world, 223 million, are affected. But, with the inclusion of a target in the new SDGs to end all forms of violence against children by 2030, world leaders can no longer close their eyes to this universal problem. We need new approaches to raise awareness about the problem of sexual abuse and the ways to address it.”

Mark Malloch-Brown, Chairman, Business & Sustainable Development Commission (BSDC):

“The challenge of how to scale up global development efforts to meet this ambitious agenda is becoming clearer. The levels of investment, entrepreneurship and innovation require that business joins in. There has been an inspiring number of businesses coming forward to contribute to achieving these 17 ambitious objectives for ending hunger and poverty, reducing inequality and tackling climate change. But most have not yet internalized the risks of inaction and continue to tip-toe around implementation.”

Paul Bissonnette, Action Plan Executor, Merit360, an international group of young leaders:

“I believe that for the SDGs to be achieved there will need to be cooperation and collaboration between the highly interconnected SDGs and among all nations. My passion is in the air we all breathe, but the problem is that we don’t all breathe the same air; for millions of people the air they breathe kills them. I am working on a project called SPARTAN which aims to employ satellites to measure global air pollution.”

Sara Enright, manager, BSR (Business for Social Responsibility):

“It is exciting to see leading companies incorporate SDG targets into their core business. Through developing products and services that address sustainability challenges, companies can make a positive impact on global development. Yet, this kind of social business innovation is far from the norm. Greater ambition and ownership is needed from the private sector to achieve the global goals.”

 

Many years ago I volunteered to counsel criminals. I visited a maximum security prison Thursdays and Sundays to work with about 60 men who had committed serious crimes. Some had committed terrible crimes.  One thing I discovered is that all these men suffered from a similar psychological malady…  low impulse control.

If you want to imagine what prison is like, just imagine yourself being surrounded by physically powerful males who have low self-worth, high frustration and virtually no impulse control. It’s cruel, scary and violent. Living your life controlled by your temporary emotions is a living hell. That’s what prison is like.

Unfortunately, we don’t have to be in a prison to be imprisoned by our own minds. In fact, what I discovered in interviewing my inmates was that the stories they believed about themselves were largely horror stories.  Developmental psychologists report that most children have no psychological defenses until about age 5 or 6.  They actually believe what their caregivers tell them about themselves. As young children my prisoners were told they were stupid, useless and literally  ‘good for nothing.’ Children believe adults, so that’s what they grow up believing.

To make matters worse, new research confirms the early childhood stress inhibits the development of impulse control and emotional intelligence.  Most of my prisoners grew up in violent and impoverished conditions surrounded by screaming adults tangled in constant conflicts.

Sadly, I failed to help any of my inmates make permanent, healthy changes.  The most I did was offer temporary comfort and encouragement.  What I discovered is that my prisoners had literally “lost their minds.”  They had lost control over the inner voice that tells us who we are and what we are capable of.

Of course, working with inmates exposed me to an extreme outcome of extreme circumstances.  But all of us fight a constant battle to be in conscious control of who we think we are. And that is vital because our self-story either limits or expands the quality of our lives.

I bring this up today because I am increasingly talking to white male senior executives about the economic benefits of fostering cognitive diversity.  Hundreds of group intelligence studies clearly prove that the most valuable ideas come from initially considering the largest number of different ideas. That’s not hard to understand.  What’s hard for the dominant leadership class of business organizations to understand is how their prevailing biases shutdown ideas that don’t conform to their worldview. The result is that they patronize women and diversity programs as a politically correct necessity without really understanding the enterprise value of systematically changing the way employees are heard and lead.

The unintended result of most diversity and inclusion programs is to reinforce the story that women and minorities need special help because they’re not equal to the demands of ‘big-boy’ business.

It’s not easy for men and women who are trying to find better ways to work together.  Not really.  Most of us are highly conditioned by our early childhood modeling.  The way our fathers treated our mothers are a signal to boys about how women ought to be treated. And the way our mothers responded to our fathers is a pattern that girls learn as to how women ought to respond to men.

Thus, our childhood experiences become a deeply imprinted pattern about how men and women relate to each other. If those experiences were not healthy, or worse, dysfunctional, we become imprisoned by our story about what we must do to avoid pain and get what we want.

It’s a very rare leader who has the empathetic intelligence to really understand the effect of invisible prejudice that discourages both women and minorities from speaking up and fully participating in the intellectual grist of daily work. New research from Wharton confirms that nearly 60% of corporate employees are primarily compliant rather than engaged.  These workers are reduced to order-takers and doers because they are unheard and undervalued.  What an incredible waste of talent.  We have huge numbers of employees that are literally imprisoned by cultures they work within.

When I am training women to thrive in typical corporate cultures I start by stressing one thing:

THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU!

Whatever you have been told about your limitations is just someone else’s thoughtless opinion. You ARE good at math; you ARE good at solving problems.  In fact, you are great at systems thinking and seeing unintended effects in complex circumstances.  And no, you aren’t too emotional. Your hormones do not rule you. In fact, brain science confirms you’re much better at impulse control than males. In fact, testosterone is the most powerful hormone that affects behavior. Especially risky behavior.

That doesn’t mean women are perfect.  All I am trying to communicate is that classes of people who have been systematically left out of leadership, such as women and minorities, need to take control of their inner story.  I encourage them to follow the path of high functioning people.  People who exhibit something called positive constructive personality.  It has three main characteristics:

Positive Intention. When your thoughts are filled with optimism about your life and genuine hope that good things will happen to others you become a force for good.  Literally, your emotional energy becomes a source of strength and encouragement to yourself and others. This is a force that can now be measured. Research indicates that one of the beneficial outcomes to you is having more opportunities.
Take Responsibility. Clean up your own messes. We all make mistakes.  We all fail to keep commitments. Mature people take responsibility for the consequences of their choices and behavior. Don’t self-justify. Apologize thoroughly and completely, once. Don’t over apologize. Fix what you can, learn what you must.  The central theme of life is continuous improvement.

Practice the Golden Rule. According to the renowned authority on world religions, Huston Smith, treating others the way you want to be treated is the essential moral law of the 17 major religions that have thrived over the course of human history.  The Golden Rule is what separates selfish jerks from decent people.  It’s not hard to be good if you simply choose to be.
The bottom line…

Don’t imprison yourself by allowing the conditions of your upbringing, or the family or work culture you find yourself in, to diminish your self-worth. Do not let prejudice and bigotry take away your power as a human being to make your difference.

Remember always: You do not have to be perfect to be great.

 

3 Steps to Creating your Personal Leadership Brand and Sharing it with the World. 

No matter who you are, a clear personal leadership brand (PLB) can make the difference between success and mediocrity. I’ve spent the past 25 years helping Fortune 500 companies build their brands with effective marketing, public relations and crisis management tools, yet it’s always surprising to hear how many people fail to successfully create and build their own personal brand by telling a moving story, which can have positive and long-lasting impact on their success. The reality is that with so much competing noise in the world, it’s easy for messages to be briefly skimmed, not understood, or worse, not seen at all. We’ve all heard the saying, “out-of-sight means out-of-mind” which is the opposite of brand building, so what can be done to create  your own PLB and stand out for success? We all know brand building pays because corporations spend billions of dollars to build them, but you can build your own story by utilizing three critical steps. Most people will want to skip these steps and go directly to broadcasting their message, which can actually do more harm than good. None of us want to be “pitched” or “sold,” or hear a person’s life story; rather, we want to connect with people and organizations whose values and vision inspire us!

The following three steps create the foundation that Real Leaders utilizes to build the Personal Leadership Brand of our clients.

1. Passion + Pain = Purpose

Some people are already clear about their passion in life, but many people still need help in gaining stronger clarity. If you’re passionate about cooking, for example, that fact alone is not enough. Who cares? What serious problem or pain of another can you address with your love of cooking? How about obesity, high blood pressure, homelessness, gang violence, even climate change, perhaps? When you combine your passion with a treatment for my problem, (or broader societal issue) you suddenly have a solid purpose with which you can attract others. This will ultimately create greater success and fulfillment.

A great example of this was when we began working with Kevin Maggiacomo, the CEO of SVN, a leading international commercial real estate brand, a few years ago. Kevin was equally passionate about supporting commercial real estate entrepreneurs and getting more women into the boardroom to achieve gender-balanced leadership. The pain he needed to confront became evident when he reflected on his great-grandmother’s  journey of overcoming the challenges of being an  Italian woman  immigrant in 1915. Many of these issues still relate to women and minorities today, more than 100-years later; unequal pay, lack of flexible work/life balance, glass ceiling, hostile work environment, good ol’ boys networks, etc.

During the discovery stage, Real Leaders helped Maggiacomo see that his company could offer a solution to many issues he felt so passionately about – that diversity will lead to innovation, and that the inequalities toward women are  wrong. In fact, Kevin came to the conclusion that, as CEO, he was actually in a position to do something about it, and at the same time, could seize the opportunity to build an even better organization. Once he became more clear on this vision, he quickly moved from an all-male board of directors to a gender-balanced board and executive team. Last year 40 percent of all new SVN offices were headed by women or minorities – in a U.S. industry that is more than 80 percent white and male. Maggiacomo describes the results:  “Our profit margins at an all-time high, our risk at an all-time low, and the diversity of our team is moving beyond homogeneous group-thinking to more innovative and insightful decision making.”

STEP 1: Action

· Ask yourself: What do I love to do? (Passion)

· What issues do I care most about?
Why? (Pain)

· How am I in a position to address this pain? (Purpose)

· Will people pay for this solution so I can grow it? (Prosper)

2. Vision. Inspiring story. Talk or Video

Create a moving story around your inspiring vision. Everyone is moved by a big vision, so don’t be shy, and describe the world you dream of creating one day. Create a moving, short (under 10 minutes) speech in the style of a TEDx Talk that positions you as a visionary leader, with a mission that people will want to connect with. You’ll also need an “elevator pitch” of this vision, a summary that is less than 30 seconds long, for people who will ask: “What do you do?” Even if you never end up giving a speech, you’ll find this approach helpful in articulating a clear vision and purpose that resonates with others.

STEP 2: Action

· Test your elevator pitch on a sixth grader. If they don’t understand it, simplify and clarify it.

· Go to TED.com for tips and videos on delivering a story worth sharing.

· Less is more. Tell an inspiring story in as few words as possible. Twenty minutes is too long. Ten minutes is better. Five minutes is even better.

3. Tell your story

Decide on the target audience or community that will be most inspired by your story and who will want to participate in your vision. Focus your message on your target audience through  social media, events, interviews (yes, when you get this right you become newsworthy) and speeches. Almost every topic of interest has a gathering hungry for guest speakers – some even pay! Since engaging this process, Kevin Maggiacomo has delivered a highly-rated TEDx Talk and become a sought-after speaker on the subject of innovation and inclusion. He has testified in front of state legislators and was awarded two industry accolades for his leadership in promoting  gender balance. He had virtually nothing in his Personal Leadership Brand portfolio three years ago, but now recognizes that developing this strategy has been a game changer for himself and his company.

STEP 3: Action

· Test your story with a small friendly audience first and ask for their input.

· Join social media communities in your target audience and participate.

· Revise your social media profiles to reflect your purpose.

The three  steps to building your Personal Leadership Brand do require an investment in time and reflection, but don’t require investing lots of money. Real Leaders is passionate about helping leaders build a purpose-driven strategy and successful brand, geared towards a new world economy that rewards social impact.

I hope you found these fundamental steps useful.

 

More than ever, success in the workplace depends on your ability to influence others. Others you do not control. Others who have different priorities. Others who may have no interest in your success.

Welcome to the wonderful, intensely frustrating world of matrix management. In this world significant work must be done among teams of teams across functions, geographies, and departments.  Often, your responsibilities are great and your authority is nil.

You are told to collaborate but you must constantly fight through a jungle of competing priorities and individual urgencies that make collaboration a daily stress-dance of negotiation with other frazzled colleagues.

So how do you take control when the only power you have is the power of persuasion? Jedi mind tricks . . . that’s how.

Jedi powers were an invention that George Lucas invested in the tiny, ancient Yoda who had no power other than the energy of his mind which he harnessed to take control of the minds of others.

Well, science now shows us that mental energy is real and that certain ways of communicating can actually amplify your mental energy and capture the interest and cooperation of others.

We know this through the work of Dr. Uri Hasson who created a series of experiments scanning people’s brains to see what kind of information literally held their attention and opened their minds.

His conclusion is that “facts never speak for themselves.” This can be frustrating for analytical oriented professionals.  Engineers, accountants, scientists and lawyers typically distrust any claims that are not fact-based. That’s fine but they also assume that if someone has the same fact-set that they have there would be agreement. They also tend to assume that when people agree on the facts that people will harmonize the commitment to act on those facts. It turns out nothing could be further from the truth.

Hasson reports that his studies, which recorded people’s brain scans as they were shown a series of related facts, showed almost immediately that people’s thoughts begin to wander and signs of mental boredom appeared as soon as a few facts are presented.

Conversely, he found that when facts were presented in a certain formula that leads to a ‘call for personal action,’ people’s brains became focused.  He also discovered this formula stimulated the areas of the brain that also open the door to creative problem-solving.

Here is why. Dr. Richard Davidson of University of Wisconsin- Madison discovered that new facts come into our brain through two distinct gates. One gate is the right prefrontal lobe found just behind and slightly above your right eye. Our prefrontal lobes are the mental traffic cops for our brain. They sort stimuli into positive and negative categories. Stimulus that triggers the right pre-frontal lobe tends to excite our amygdala, which reduces thinking versatility by as much as 96%. Our amygdala is our threat assessment center, which not only sorts responses for fight or flight, but it’s also excellent at blaming and self-justification for not helping.

Davidson discovered that our drive to help others and to solve problems is stimulated when facts are presented as stories that stimulate our left prefrontal lobe. That part of your brain is just slightly above your left eye. It seems that our brains can much more easily digest the guts of a story and develop a wide range of creative and cooperative responses.

Fortunately, another scientist, Dr. Randy Olson has discovered the exact formula of a story presentation that engages our left prefrontal lobe.

A simple version of this formula is now consistently used by Hollywood scriptwriters to write movies that better engage audiences. The leadership version of the formula is simply FACTS + BUT + THEREFORE + CONSEQUENCES + ACTION (FBTCA).

Here is how it works. (FACTS) Our customer service complaints are rising because our new products are breaking at a high rate. BUT customers report loving our new products when they work. THEREFORE we need to work together on a new, more rigorous testing system. (CONSEQUENCE) If we fail to act now our company’s growth and reputation could suffer so significantly that our jobs could be in jeopardy.  (ACTION) I propose we work together to pilot a phased testing program so we can stress test our products at the key stages of development to avoid rework and product failures.

Although this is just an example, I hope you can see that this is far more compelling than simply calling a meeting and showing a slide of a statistical graph showing an increase in customer complaints or product failures.  I myself have been in many, many, meetings where such data has been shown and yet has caused no relevant response. The cause for this is that uncomfortable facts alone produce a defensive response in our brains that literally close our minds. Simply repeating or amplifying those facts only harden resistance, denial and self-protection.

Let’s try another example. This time I will use the word YET in place of BUT as it is sometimes helpful to use a less jarring “pivot” word.

(FACTS) Our mid-level women engineers are continuing to quit at a very high rate and exit interviews are showing that the primary reason is that they feel overlooked for promotions. YET when we do promote female engineers at the same pace we promote males these women are actually more loyal than men. THERFORE we need to programmatically review the pace of our female engineering promotions to make sure our women engineers are getting the sponsorship and opportunity they need to feel valued. (CONSEQUENCE) If we don’t, we will continue to suffer a talent drain that will block our growth and innovation. (ACTION) I propose we do and immediate internal survey examining the length of service of our women engineers. We will want to compare their job responsibilities, title and pay against male engineers with the same education and length of service. If we discover a gap we can go to senior management and present a business case for active sponsorship for advancing women. See, a simple Jedi Mind Trick that transforms facts to action!

The action step is critical to initiating high-impact collaborative work.  The action requested should nearly always be either a request to immediately prototype a solution or partnering to gathering validating evidence.  A pilot initiative that produces success data is usually the quickest way to get change.

(FACT) Our brains resistance is low when we are asked to try something new that we can easily abandon if it doesn’t work. This is why apps are so popular. BUT resistance to permanent change is very high. THEREFORE I recommend you always propose a pilot or a test to initiate change. If you don’t take this approach I am afraid the CONSEQUENCE of your call to action will fall on deaf ears. (ACTION) Think of a current persistent problem you have that someone else can help resolve. Try this formula out on them and see if you engage them to help you.

FACT: establish your credibility
BUT: interrupt old mindsets
THEREFORE: create focus on your recommendation
CONSEQUENCE: stimulate motivation to change
ACTION: create hope, momentum and accountability
With practice you may become as powerful as Yoda!

 

Spanish elections are driving the country crazy. We’ve done two rounds already and we may find ourselves having to vote again.

But what nobody’s talking about are wrinkles. Or rather, the absence of them among our so-called political leaders. What happened to our wrinkles of wisdom?

The answer is photography. When we invented a camera to reproduce the wonders our eyes could see, we overlooked the fact that eyes don’t only record images. They also feel. Human eyes, and most animal eyes, interpret the images they record through feelings. The eye is the mirror of the soul: It chooses what details to focus on in a politician’s speech. It is moved to tears by the feelings and authenticity impersonated by the eyes it looks into. It interprets movements and gestures in a much more humane way than scientifically objective camera will ever do.

Today’s celebrities struggle to convey pure perfection in front of omnipresent cameras. We all do, in fact. We know that the camera will miss out on the subtle sway of our hips which elicits attention from a room. Indiscreet lenses will show up every imperfection in our silhouette, no matter how much our expensive dress or suit was designed to hide them among real life’s shadows, twists and turns. Most cameras, in short, will simply erase everything that makes us memorable in real life. It takes a very skilled photographer, a master of human Nature, weakness and unconscious disguise, to really capture a person’s essence in a photograph or a video.

So we see many women in politics showing off shiny, wrinkle free faces. Men too. Their skin shines on camera as if they were my four-year-old niece’s chubby cheeks. Every inch of their faces has been carefully plumped up with hyaluronic acid to appear youthful. Sagging chins are rounded up. Falling eye-lids are held back up in place with a little botox here and some other awful substance there. The appearance of youth has kidnapped authenticity, wisdom and leadership. But hey! Everybody looks great on Instagram!

This may all seem the smallest of details to pass over. You may think it has no importance whatsoever. Let them all spend their salaries on a race against age that they will eventually lose anyway. If it makes them successful and happy, why not?

Well. If only because they are our leaders and they seem to have lost their own leadership. Cameras may prey on visual perfection. People don’t. People only follow those who inspire them, move them, make them feel cared for. People focus their human, non-scientific eyes on those whose own eyes convey a deep, knowing connection. The eyes of a leader are full of wrinkles and lines of expression, just like the eyes of a parent who supports you during the worst moments of your life, when nobody else dares to look you in the face. Through sickness, through loss, through personal ordeals that business meetings try to ignore and parties stay silent about. Only wrinkled eyes and skin faded like an old leather couch will look at you with love, compassion and utter faith in your ability to pull through it all. Such are faces which inspire millions to follow them into scary futures.

Because our eyes, our face, our very skin…they are the painter palettes of our own artistry in life, of our past experiences and how we’ve overcome them, what we’ve learned from them, how they will determine our response to future crisis, lead our people, build our societies. The rich texture our skin acquires as we live one decade after another is the outer reflection of what we come to understand about life’s layers of difficulty. Weathered cheek bones, somber brows or deeply imprinted foreheads express so much more complexity and wisdom with every gesture than the rigid, flat surface of a botoxed, hyaluronized face. Ironically, it is precisely what least flatters us on camera which makes us most interesting, memorable and humane. A leader without wrinkles is a robot nobody can feel secure or connected with.

I love to look at my niece’s innocent, glowing skin. Her shiny eyes full of surprise and wonder at every little thing she discovers in life. I laugh when I remember the time she tested me in the bathroom mirror as I washed my hands one day. She was barely two at the time. She had walked in to the bathroom behind me. “Pino I love you!” she said, purposefully spreading her mouth into a smile. I smiled back at her in the mirror and chirped in glee. “Pino I hate you!” was her next sentence. A small, pouting mouth and barely angry eyes underlined the turn in conversation. I followed her game and made crying sounds with my mouth sagging on both sides. And back to “Pino I love you!” This went on for several minutes as she thoroughly enjoyed the effect that different emotions could have on me.

Two years later my niece is still beginning to understand the six basic emotions depicted in Pixar’s “Inside Out” movie. That is all her primal expressions can come close to: joy, sadness, disgust, fear, anger –oops! It appears the movie left out surprise, our sixth basic emotion according to Paul Ekman –. The soft, smooth skin of our childhood reflects the rigid flatness of emotion we are equipped to express and comprehend.

Of course there is an irresistible magnetism to the innocent glow of youth. It reminds us of who we were before we got lost in intellectual endeavors and social masquerades. Before we faced trauma or grief. But to trust our futures into the hands of childish adults without worries, wrinkles or texture in their faces and hearts would be foolhardy. Idiotic, irresponsible, and only possible in the world of viral trends imposed by the collective ignorance of internet. It is wiki-stupidity. Pure and simple.

Melancholic joy. Sad acceptance of a difficult past. Pride in who we’ve become overshadowed by twinges of guilt on Sunday evenings. Deep love for a man who hurt us many times. Longing for a woman who knows how to be cruel, funny and irresistible all at once. These are the emotions of adults. These are the textures of middle age. This is what we need to share, express and read on our leaders’ faces. Both women and men.

Our beautiful Nature is brimming with ugly trash. Our planet full of abundance fails to feed millions while hundreds grow fat and idle. Our times of peace are more shaken than ever with terrorist attacks. Our financial markets live in a permanent turmoil we’ve begun to call normality. Our politicians can’t decide whether they want to be popular celebrities or wise pillars of our globalized society.

Our world is more complex than it’s ever been before. We need wrinkles, deep lines and weathered skins. Let’s remind ourselves every time we look in the mirror. Let us feel pride of the rich skin tissue we show the world, and the life, brimming with paradoxical emotions, that it reveals every time we smile.

Top-down hierarchies are out, creative and collaborative structures are in. This approach to management is starting to become a new norm in the startup world.

But can we expect this trend to gain significant traction in the mainstream corporate realm anytime soon? Could the CEO go the way of the dodo?

Innovation and disruption are the key ingredients for a successful fast-growth startup venture – as well as for any established enterprise wanting to keep pace in a quickly evolving competitive ecosystem. Today, even historically traditional organisations are starting to study the flexible structures found in startups in order to facilitate a capacity for change and nimbleness. Taken to its greatest extreme, the pursuit of an endlessly agile, flexible structure would theoretically result in abandoning traditional management hierarchies entirely.

Seeking the startup’s secret sauce

Indeed, the concept of “holacracy”, invented by software executive Brian Robertson and most famously implemented by Zappos, calls precisely for this. An organisation practicing holacracy “removes power from a management hierarchy and distributes it across clear roles, which can then be executed autonomously without a micromanaging boss.” Comparable structures, based around employee self-management and team-based accountability, can be also found at companies such as Morning Star and W.L. Gore (Gore-Tex products).

The move toward these flat, democratic management structures is rooted not only in a goal to replicate the success of the startup economy. They are also the result of an evolution in the way leadership itself is defined. “In much of Western culture, leadership has been psychologically associated with status and power,” explains Shaun Johnson, co-founder of the Startup Institute and a current entrepreneur-in-residence at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. “However, true leadership is actually about servitude and being able to put organisational success before your own personal triumphs. These bossless structures are meant to foster a more authentic model of leadership throughout an organisation.”

Still a phenomenon of the fringes

But while these companies make for fascinating case studies, real-world results of holacracy and other bossless structures have been mixed. And oftentimes the approach can produce more questions than answers. How do you determine whether employees are doing their job properly? What recourse do you have if they’re not? How do you establish hiring and compensation policies? And, of course, how will you ever find the CEO willing to introduce a management model that would essentially make their own title and authority obsolete?

“It’s still something practiced only at the bleeding edge of management circles – nowhere near becoming a mainstream phenomenon,” says Johnson. Yet, even if “bosslessness” isn’t a panacea for survival in the innovation economy, there is a broad spectrum of democratic management approaches that organisations can experiment with. Company-wide collaboration, transparency, accountability, productivity, and the most efficient and effective use of employee resources: these are some of the core goals and values of the democratic workplace. Goals which organisations today have the opportunity to address through any variety of means – bossless or not.

Laura Montgomery is a higher-education expert who blogs for The Economist Careers Network.

 

Leading teams to sustained success is the essential skill of 21^st century leaders.  This is not easy. It’s not easy because the way most work gets done in large organizations is like playing basketball.

What I mean by this is that in basketball all the players play offense and defense. All players need to have a wide skill set that involves shooting, rebounding, passing and defending. The game constantly flows and there are only a few time outs.  Decision-making is instantaneous and the need to keep everyone fully engaged is essential to success.

Winning teams are constantly innovating and getting better because once opposing teams figure out how to defend your style of play you are toast. The best leader-players of basketball teams gets everyone involved and is constantly putting other players in position to contribute their best skills. In fact one of the measures of basketball greatness is achieving what’s called a triple-double.  That’s when a player has at least 10 rebounds, 10 assists (for helping other players score) and 10 points or more.  This demonstrates fabulous versatility and the total command of the skill set necessary to lead the team.  LeBron James just had a massive triple-double in game seven of the NBA championship.

If you’re sick of sports analogies and wondering why I am even bringing this up it’s because I have recently been training members of siloed departments to work together as informal cross functional teams so better work can get done fast without drama. This is not easy because most organizations pursue work more like a football team.

Football teams are run as strong authoritarian structures.  The coaches have a playbook that players are required to memorize. In each play every player has a specific job to do.  Their coach tells them not to worry about the other teammates’ responsibilities but rather to “just do their job.” Quarterbacks don’t even call most plays. Coaches who often sit in press boxes high above the field send in plays via headphones to the quarterback. They do this because they believe they have more expertise and a better vision of the entire game than the players on the field. There is little flow to the game. In most cases between each play there is a huddle in which the quarterback relays the play called by the coach.  Then each player is expected to recall their memorized responsibility and do only what is required of them.

Well that might work well for football, in in which there is only an average of 18 minutes of action for every 3½ hour game (TV time). But In the rock’n roll world of highly disruptive business teamwork does not resemble football. In fact the football model of leadership pretty much sums up everything that is wrong with authoritarian leaders trying to lead agile companies.

With this in mind I recently did some research to discover the common principles of extraordinary successful basketball coaches.  People like John Wooden of UCLA, Mike Krzyzewski of Duke and our successful Olympic Teams, Phil Jackson of the Chicago Bulls and LA Lakers, and Pat Summit coach of the record-breaking Lady Vols at the University of Tennessee. Here are the 5 rules for success I discovered.

1. Align your ruling priorities. When you’re in a situation where you have little authority, position power or control over another’s work schedule, it is vital to invest your time in trust-building and goal clarity with your cross functional teammates. This is best done by vividly creating a logic chain between your organization’s business strategy, current tactics and critical priorities.  Often you will have to make a case that failing to align around your goal will cause significant business failures such as customer loss, poor product quality, unnecessary costs and profit failure.  You will need to point out that the cost of failing is real, measurable and perhaps catastrophic.  Without goal alignment there is simply no teamwork. This is not a one time effort. In all businesses external pressures are constantly shifting so your attention on aligning priorities and goals is vital.

2. Do more than you promised. Make promises carefully and keep them faithfully. Trust is built on making and keeping promises.  Today I find many professionals and managers being just a little evasive. “I will try or do my best” is not a promise.  It’s a pre-excuse for failure.  When you make and keep important promises you will attract other high-performing individuals who want to do extraordinary work.

3. No excuses, no blaming. The core of personal and mutual accountability is committing to put forth your best efforts until you succeed.  Remember, failure plus a good excuse is still failure. In cross-functional teamwork excuses and blame are epidemic. If you are leading the team make sure you cut off any expressions or conversations that allow people to wallow excuses or blame.  If the goal is worthwhile then it is worth everyone’s best efforts until success is achieved.

4. Focus on solving the “problem.” Significant goal achievement rests in your ability to overcome obstacles and solve difficult problems. Great team leaders reframe the work of the team by focusing team members on the few big problems that need to be solved to achieve extraordinary success.  This is not a negative way of pursuing great goals. Rather, it is the way life is set up to help us grow and become more capable and wise.  Success is primarily the result of problem-solving. (That’s was LeBron James’ mindset to overcome a 3-1 win-loss disadvantage to win the championship.)

5. Work with enthusiasm and celebrate successes every day. I have done several major leadership–culture transformation projects for companies lead by engineers or financial executives. Generally these types of people put most of their attention on finding flaws and identifying risk.  I found them to be very bad at celebrating or even experiencing genuine positive emotion when they’ve achieved great goals.  This is not good. In fact a recent study released by the University of California Berkeley found that teams that both verbally and physically celebrated successful performance or goal achievement during the actual game won more games than teams who were more circumspect or “professional.” Turns out that chest bumping and high-fives trigger the release of endorphins and the bonding neurotransmitter that sustains high levels of motivation . . . so when was the last time you celebrated?

 

When trying to lead cross-functional teams in which your power and authority is minimal, the depth of mutual commitment driven by the quality of trust and positive personal relationships is simply the fuel that ignites the rocket.

So Consider this this…

What team are you trying to lead?  Maybe it’s a work team or your family.  How much effort are you putting in to the 5 rules of team success?  If you chose just one rule to invest more time and effort in, what will the result likely be?

Do it. It will be worth it. There is something simply amazing about engaging others to achieve great and worthy goals.