ChoinqueCast

Just received an email from a client this past week: We’ve stayed connected since she first attended an open enrollment leadership course about three and a half years ago. She is an accomplished and talented HR director. She will be leaving her organization very soon. The message wasn’t a surprise and in fact, she should be very proud of her decision.

We had a long phone call a couple months ago. She spoke about the senior leadership team, and how one of them, in a chief marketing role, was seeking a “coaching activity” of some sort. She went further and described the organizational landscape, most notably that the senior leaders often “said the right things,” and even discussed during an executive off-site the need for leadership development training. Sounds like a classical case, where the CEO and CTO are founders of the company, and not surprisingly, struggle with growth and have a hard time letting go of anything.

A couple threads come to mind. 

Tony Hseih of Zappos speaks about living core values, and one of the ways he expresses how this is done is whether we hire or fire based on alignment with our company core values regardless of the ability of the person in question.

We can also go deeper, to Clayton Christensen’s How Will You Measure Your Life? Christensen shares a story about building a playhouse for his kids and he realizes that the journey, or the act of building the playhouse was his motivator, rather than the destination, or actual completion of the playhouse. For him, this was a revelation. Let’s pause and think about this for a minute.

There’s a very good chance that my client just had a similar revelation - just like Christensen. In discussions with my client over the years, it’s apparent that she wishes to be part of an organization that lives its values, rather than part of a cult, even a successful one. My guess is that her organization is a completely satisfactory, perhaps even fun place to work. But there are fissures, or stress fractures she and others are beginning to detect. And they are in conflict with both her values and how she wants to measure her life. 

She is courageous, and this ChoinqueCast is my way of telling her so. Indeed she is living her values.

Have you ever been in an organization like this? Or made a decision like my client did this month? Please reach out if you have or if you are thinking about it. Core values drive leaders.

Twenty-four books were reviewed this year:

Work Without Walls
Working With Difficult People
Disrupt Yourself
Counter Mentor Leadership
The Genius of Opposites
Pacing for Growth
Out of Our Minds
Violent Leadership
Thinking in Bets
The Introverted Leader
Career Leap
Crash
Radical Candor
Five Stars
Brave Leadership
the culture engine
Let There Be Water
Build An A Team
Creating Things That Matter
Why Great Leaders Don’t Take Yes For An Answer
open to think
Work together Anywhere
QBQ!
decide

bringing the total number of reviewed books on the Choinque Bookshelf too well over one hundred. Most of the books were generously donated by the author or their publisher and in several cases terrific books arrived unsolicited. It’s always fun returning from a business trip and finding new books ready for reading, and a new author to meet and interview for a ChoinqueCast. 

Recurring themes during leadership excellence courses throughout the year included how to free up time to become a better leader, which really starts by getting to know people better. Grouping Leadership Course attendees into Baby Boomer, Generation X and Generation Y teams proved both valuable and entertaining as we discussed common perceptions and misperceptions between the three, only to realize all three generations want very similar things from their leaders. A continued emphasis on the importance of coaching, especially distinguishing coaching from evaluation, was evident in leadership course feedback and attendee action plans.

Thank you to new partner Golden Media and Entertainment, a highly energized and youthful group working to bring leadership programs to Nigeria. Also, a hat tip to Bill Murphy of Piton Science and Technology, who kindly invited Choinque to join his Human Capital and Training Solutions, or HCaTS team earlier this year.

Looking ahead to 2019, we hope to bring leadership programs to Mauritius in addition to Nigeria, launch our first programs in Puerto Rico, and may return in the fall to Canberra, Australia. Stateside, Choinque looks forward to working closely with TK Lamb of JDI LLC allowing JDI to offer leadership initiatives to the US Government. A talk to students at Cornell is tentatively scheduled in February and a possible Keynote in the UK may occur later in the fall.

The ChoinqueCasts are a labor of love, curiosity, and passion to share knowledge. Let me know if you would like to connect with anyone in the Choinque network. Also, please provide feedback, especially positive reviews on iTunes so others may share our journey of goodness. Happy New Year!

During a recent executive coaching session, our primary focus was reviewing organizational changes made over the past 90 days. You see, the client is restructuring several groups, with the specific objective to improve operational results, eliminate redundant work, and vastly increase team accountability. The beginning of the presentation would please any executive interested in measuring operational results. One slide contained a line graph illustrating a dramatic decrease in team support response time. As substantial as that result was, it wasn’t the one that really drew attention. From our coaching sessions, it was evident one of the more important decisions was a hiring selection, bringing on board a program manager who could become effective as soon as possible. One of the charts showcased the new hire, and more importantly, all the work delegated and accomplished in a very short period of time. Looks like a very solid decision-making process was behind the hire.

The episode made me think of a story our Board Chairman shared years ago when in my start up CEO role. Durrell’s story was about an important engineering job he was responsible for when working at Motorola. The job was to design the first integrated circuits for Motorola’s first four-function calculator. Yeah, that was a while ago. Durrell could have done the work himself, or he could have delegated the work to highly experienced design engineers.

Guess what Durrell Hillis did? He assigned the job to a couple “fresh-outs,” or recent college graduates. Durrell cared as much about the development of the new engineers as he did about getting the job done. That what an engineering leader does. It’s also what my client is doing while restructuring her organization. For her, it’s not just about improved processes. It’s about changing the way work gets done by making good hiring decisions and letting people know they are accountable for results. As I listened during the coaching session, communicating this hiring and delegation story to the executive team at the 90 day checkpoint was the most important item. Especially giving credit to the new program manager.

How do you facilitate organizational change?  How much does development fit into your hiring decisions? Leaders delegate and instill accountability.

Day three of the new 2019 Academy Leadership Advanced Leadership Course took place this past week. Our Advanced Communications and Effective Decision-Making workshops were fantastic, each covering well over two hours. The contest winners in the Effective Decision-Making workshop received copies of Counter Mentor Leadership, The New IT and Lead From the Heart which was a lot of fun. Having two long workshops doesn’t afford much time for the third workshop, Leading Change. With most audiences, that’s not a big deal, and we usually zip through the Leading Change workshop rather quickly, often losing a bit of energy after the two robust workshops.

Not this time. We shared stories right away, confirming that constant change is the single most dominant characteristic of the world we live in — and for leaders, the choice is to lead change or be overtaken by it. Sometimes easier said than done though. Turns out the client is in the middle of multiple leading change initiatives, and that the associated challenges consume enormous amounts of energy by the entire team. We discussed Kotter’s Eight Step Change Process:

1. Establishing a sense of urgency
2. Forming a powerful guiding coalition
3. Creating a vision
4. Communicating the vision
5. Empowering others to act on the vision
6. Planning for and creating short-term wins
7. Consolidating improvements and producing still more change
8. Institutionalizing new approaches

learning that the client is still in the early stages. We also noticed that some of the intermediate steps such as communicating the vision and planning for and creating short-term wins can support earlier stages such as creating a sense of urgency. Change is tough. We were not surprised that 60-70% of transformation efforts do not achieve their goals. I asked the group if their Personal Leadership Philosophy includes provisions describing the need for change. Got a bit quiet then…

During our end of day self-evaluation, we found that we had not processed the Leading Change workshop as much as we had wished to. That was a first, and it was actually energizing to hear! The first action item was to email a link to Kotter’s Harvard Business Review article, titled Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail. We also agreed to spend more time on this in session four next month. 

How do you address change? Are parts of your organization resistant?  Leaders Create Change.

Day two of the new 2019 Academy Leadership Advanced Leadership Course took place this past week. The client and I decided to switch days two and three allowing our group of eight to launch the Core Values Alignment Workshop as soon as possible. At the beginning of the workshop we watched a short video clip by Jim Collins describing Core Values & Company Culture featuring Jim Collins, Tony Hseih, and Steve Jobs. The description by Tony Hseih of Zappos really touched our group, particularly the part where he defined “committable core values” as values you are willing to hire and fire in support of and completely independent of actual job performance. 

Let’s pause and think about that. Chances are we’ve witnessed firing based on something bad such as lying or stealing, or based on company policy. Consider why most people are promoted. Usually it is almost exclusively based on job performance, rather than company values, or the opposite of what Tony Hseih describes. Toward the end of the video Collins states that the “right people” don’t have to be tightly managed, and that if they do, we’ve likely made a hiring mistake. Rather, we should hire based on the values of our organization and then adopt a leadership, or development based mindset which will allow our aligned teams to thrive.

Our group was challenged to actually list the values of their organization. It wasn’t meant to be an exercise where everyone peeked at an organizational website broadcasting a list of 5-8 core values. We split into two groups and each group attempted to describe what the organizational core values were. Interestingly both teams identified a list of perceived core values, and commented that the majority of these values were not known to everyone in the organization and certainly not modeled by everyone. That’s a bold and brave step, the beginning of defining core values. It’s going to take some time for this leadership cohort to understand and agree upon what the core values are, and more importantly, to align and commit to them. But we’re moving in the right direction.

What are your organization’s core values? Do you have to look them up? Do you and your team agree what they are and make daily decisions based on them? Does your Personal Leadership Philosophy connect to any of them? Leaders Align Core Values.

Last year at a conference in Australia I was asked to participate in a debate. The topic to argue for or against was: “Co-located teams are always more productive than remote teams,” or something like that. Our team of three argued against the point and won the debate. However, the topic keeps coming up in leadership courses and coaching sessions. This brings to mind the definitive work on workplace flexibility - Lisette Sutherland’s Work Together Anywhere, and this is the first of undoubtedly many choinquecasts based on her pioneering work. Let’s begin with a bit of terminology. Sutherland describes:

• a telecommuter as someone who works remotely (usually from home), either full or part time, on a fixed team for one company.
• a self-employed freelancer who runs mainly service-based businesses and usually works with more than one remote client, whether simultaneously or consecutively.
• some self-employed freelancers who are also small business owners, whether solopreneurs or entrepreneurs (with a few remote employees or contractors).

Any of these types may be digital nomads, that is, they use portable technology to maintain a nomadic lifestyle. Now let’s consider a demographic trend. According to the 2017 State of Telecommuting in the U.S. Employee Workforce report, half of all telecommuters are forty-five or older. Let’s also recall Dan Pink’s findings that autonomy, mastery and purpose are primary motivators in a knowledge-based economy. 

Sutherland’s findings suggest that companies that don’t offer the remote option endanger their long-term viability, or more simply their ability to stay competitive, to retain and attract talent, to grow and shrink the organization as needed, and to reduce costs and increase profits. Consider the options the most talented have today.

What is your mindset? Or that of your organization? Do you have a managerial, or hours-oriented work mindset; or do you have a results-oriented work mindset? Leaders Seek the Best Talent.

During a recent in-house Academy Leadership Excellence course, the topic of feedback came up. One of the attendees mentioned Kim Scott’s recent book Radical Candor. More specifically, the client wanted to bring up the behavior Ruinous Empathy. Several in the course mentioned that not enough helpful feedback occurred within their organization, in particular coaching. One specific attendee, during a self-evaluation exercise, described an otherwise positive and knowledgeable boss, who in six years, had never actually provided any performance coaching.

So, what is Ruinous Empathy? Let’s start with Radical Candor. Radical Candor occurs when we care personally and challenge directly. When we care personally but don’t challenge directly according to Scott our lack of feedback constitutes ruinous empathy. Here’s Scott’s two other terms: When we challenge directly and don’t care personally we’re offering Obnoxious Aggression and when we neither care personally nor challenge directly our lack of  feedback is Manipulative Insincerity. We can think of ruinous empathy as the combined outcome of conflict avoidance and the knowing-doing gap. We care deeply, know we should say something, yet avoid doing it. We do this at work and we do this at home.

When reviewing attendee Action Plans after our in-house course, it was apparent the importance of feedback influenced the group. One attendee listed as their first lesson learned: “I learned about ‘ruinous empathy’ which helped frame, or title, a behavior I aim to avoid. I will strive for ‘radical candor.’”

What feedback have you been conflicted about sharing? Are you helping or ruining people you care personally about? Leaders Give Candid Feedback.

In a recent coaching session, the client shared a revelation which occurred after attending an Academy Leadership Excellence course. She realized her everyday work rhythm was an exhausting attempt to get as much done as possible, often performing multiple tasks at the same time. That’s right - multi-tasking. We all do it. And it’s a really bad habit we should avoid as leaders. A quick exercise will prove why.

Try this, either now, or sometime in the future. You’ll need something to record time, like a stopwatch timer on your smartphone. Start with two blank pieces of paper. On each page draw two vertical lines creating three empty columns. Here’s what to do. In the first column, you’ll list the letters a-j, the first ten letters of the alphabet. In the second column, you’ll list the numbers 1-10. In the the third column, you’ll list roman numerals i-x, the first ten roman numerals.

Here’s the catch: The first time you perform this timed exercise, you’ll fill the page moving across the page, starting with a, then 1, then i, switching columns each time. Go ahead and do that and have your timer record how many seconds it takes. You’ll notice a lot of starting and stopping. The second time fill out an entire column one at a time, starting with a-j, then 1-10, and lastly i-x. A lot less switching. Notice the difference in your times. Chances are it took you 40-50% longer the first time.

Why is that?

Context switching is why. When we switch between tasks, we’re spending time, and precious energy, simply moving between the different activities. And with each additional task added, the working time available for each task decreases. Typically the context switching loss between three exercises, as in the exercise we just tried, is about 40%. It gets worse. By the time we are performing five simultaneous tasks, context switching loss is nearly 80%. Might as well not even work anymore at that point.

It pays to identify your genuine High Payoff Activities, and then work on them one at a time. What are your High Payoff Activities? Do you prioritize them and focus on them every day? How do you avoid distractions? Leaders Avoid Multitasking.

In a recent coaching call, the client, who is in a senior leadership role in her company, shared her desire to elevate herself, and to learn to breathe. One of the improvements listed in her action plan is learning to say no more and to avoid low payoff activities and interruptions which take away from time she is trying to block off. How many of you also struggle like this? In our Academy Leadership Excellence Course, we learn that people who are in crisis mode:

Do First!
Manage Second!
Communicate Third!
And if they have time, they
Plan and Set Goals

Dan Pontefract, author of the fantastic book open to think, offers Open Thinking, as an antidote. Dan describes how today’s habits inhibit both the clarity and quality of their thinking, and the major block to open thinking is influenced by reflection and action. Imagine action on the x-axis of a graph, and reflection on the y-axis of the graph. If we reflect, but do not take action, we’re indecisive. If we take action without reflection, we’re inflexible, and if we are not reflective and do not take action, we’re indifferent. Open thinking occurs when we are both reflective and take action.

I’m going to recommend open to think to my client, because our coaching sessions suggest what she really wants is more open thinking. Her action plan and our first coaching session described it, and open thinking captures what she want to do more of.

How often do you reflect, or write in your journal about your growth as a leader? Do you take action without reflection? Leaders are open thinkers.

This week afforded time for an extended discussion with a Chief Information and Innovation Officer, starting with 360 survey results for a key direct report we’re using to set up executive coaching sessions. It’s always fascinating how different groups in a single organization rank organizational priority of six leadership competencies and six leadership characteristics. Recall, leadership competence, or what a leader does involves: Vision and strategy, job competence, industry knowledge, communication skills, leading change, and execution. Leadership characteristics, or who a leader is entails: Leadership image, developing a following, judgement/decision-making, personal ethics, coaching/mentoring, and building teams. Often a technically-oriented manager or subject matter expert will list competencies higher in organizational priority than their bosses, who may be looking for leadership growth by coaching toward leadership characteristics.

We went much further than the 360 review findings. The CIO described a future vision drawing upon multiple, disparate databases and sources of organizational data, which could be combined holistically as a valuable new service offering for numerous stakeholders. Thoughts turned to Jill Dyché’s The New IT, and her description of six organizational IT archetypes:

Tactical, or “Keeping the lights on”

Order Taking, or “Mastering the art of release management”

Aligning, whereby “Business Relationship Liaisons” are co-located with their business constituents.

Data Provisioning when organizations are “Increasingly compelled by the possibility of monetizing their corporate data.”

Brokering, when “Businesses grow to depend on IT for building and maintaining a web of relationships,”

and lastly, IT Everywhere, “Where IT becomes a thin layer of program oversight that monitors progress, reports on delivery, and projects future demand. It might not even be called IT anymore.”

Listening, I wondered which stage the organization was at, while the vision described embodied both aligning and brokering archetypes. It was also evident the CIO wants the entire team aligned with this future vision. It was energizing to hear. Between the 360 results and listening to the CIO’s future vision, the coaching plan gained valuable clarity.

How do you share your vision? What types of assessments and alignment tools do you use? Great leaders align toward a future vision.