Month: February 2016

When you are presenting your ideas, you don’t have to sublimate your personality. It may be your most important asset.

Effective leaders know how to inject their personality into their ideas. How?

• One, think about what you want to say. Make a well-reasoned argument.
• Two, reflect on what your words really mean. Whom do they affect? What the benefits of your ideas?
• Three, add an anecdote from your own life — or lives of people you know — to make your message more memorable and compelling.

Effective presenters connect with their audience on two levels: intellect and emotion. As a leader, you need to keep a balance between the two in order reach people’s hearts as well as their minds.

First posted on Smart Briefs on 7/10/2015

Improving employee engagement is not simply about improving productivity — although organizations with a high level of engagement do report 22% higher productivity, according to a new meta-analysis of 1.4 million employees conducted by the Gallup Organization.

In addition, strong employee engagement promotes a variety of outcomes that are good for employees and customers. For instance, highly engaged organizations have double the rate of success of lower engaged organizations. Comparing top-quartile companies to bottom-quartile companies, the engagement factor becomes very noticeable. For example, top-quartile firms have lower absenteeism and turnover. Specifically, high-turnover organizations report 25% lower turnover, and low-turnover organizations report 65% lower turnover. Engagement also improves quality of work and health. For example, higher scoring business units report 48% fewer safety incidents; 41% fewer patient safety incidents; and41% fewer quality incidents (defects).

While people define engagement in various ways, I prefer a plain and simple definition: People want to come to work, understand their jobs, and know how their work contributes to the success of the organization.

Jim Harter Ph.D., a chief scientist at Gallup Research explained what engaged employees do differently in an email interview: “Engaged employees are more attentive and vigilant. They look out for the needs of their coworkers and the overall enterprise, because they personally ‘own’ the result of their work and that of the organization.”

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First posted on HBR.org 7/04/2103

Finding a good working relationship with people different from you is good advice.

It’s not always easy finding opposites to work with. Here are three attributes to look for when seeking opposite types for your team:

• Curiosity. Curiosity is the stimulus that drives people to ask questions that begin with the word “Why?” These are types who question assumptions.
• Capacity. People who are hungry for challenges are those that have a capacity to work hard. You want people who will put themselves into their work.
• Cooperation. All of us have different likes and dislikes. That’s what makes us uniquely the people we are. That’s good. What is not so good is the feeling that we must do things our way all of the time.

By putting mission first, the savvy executive ensures that individual differences are channeled to improve probabilities of success.

First published at Smart Briefs on 9/18/15

A great many organizations invest a significant amount of money in trying to improve themselves. This commitment to getting better is laudable, but many times organizations overlook something within their organization that, when tapped, can sharpen focus, tighten alignment, hone execution, and — in the process — deliver better results. It’s called purpose.

While a veritable tsunami of resources — many of them first-rate — exist to help individuals discover purpose, a mere trickle of resources are available to help organizations discover theirs. This dichotomy led me to research ways to help organizations discover their purpose, and upon discovering it find ways to put it to good use. The result is Lead With Purpose, Giving Your Organization a Reason to Believe in Itself.

Purpose, as savvy leaders know, is the foundation for creating vision, executing the mission, and abiding by the values of an organization. Culture emerges from purposeful organizations, because purpose is what shapes individual’s beliefs and organizational norms. That foundation is essential, because it opens the door for organizations to do four important things, all of which are vital to success…

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First published at HBR.org 11/11/2011

What do you think the biggest problem facing leaders today is? Sanjog Aul, host of CIO Talk Radio, asked me that question during an off-air discussion.

The answer is that leaders need to find ways that they deliver value to their stakeholders.

So consider this word equation as a value proposition: Intention + Diligence + Attentiveness = Leadership Value

Intention is what you plan to do.

Diligence is what you do to carry it out.

Attentiveness is the vigilance you apply to process and more importantly to people.

A leader’s value proposition is ever-changing, and as a result a leader must question himself to ensure that he is delivering what he is supposed to be doing. Everyday.

First posted on Smart Briefs 8/21/2015

When things go wrong, blame – and solutions as well — begin with people at the very top.

Such is the case with the water supply for the city of Flint, Michigan. It is undrinkable because of high lead levels. How it happened is a study in expediency as well as arrogance.

Governor Rick Snyder appointed an emergency manager in an attempt to revive the city’s finances. In April 2014, the emergency manager, decided to replace the city’s drinking water which came from Detroit with water from the Flint River.

River water was cheaper but far more corrosive and as a result the harsh water damaged the city pipes allowing lead to leach into the water supply. Damage done to the pipes was discovered but it was ignored for months allowing Flint citizens to continue to use it.

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First posted on Forbes.com 1/23/2016

I play piano for fun and sometimes when I play, especially for a new audience, I get a bit nervous.

And so I turned to Dr. Julie Jaffee Nagel, who in addition to being a licensed clinical psychologist is a former concert pianist. Julie specializes in performance anxiety. What she advised changed my perspective.

“Focus on sharing rather than proving,” Dr. Julie said. When you focus on giving rather than impressing you become more relaxed and more calm.

Sharing is rooted in respect for others and in the joy that comes from meaningful collaborations.

First posted on Smart Brief on 9/15/15

Satchel Paige once said, “Don’t eat fried food, it angries up the blood.”

I would adapt that advice to Republican voters seeking to choose their nominee for president. If you want to stay calm, don’t watch the presidential debates.

The most recent debate, held in Charleston, South Carolina, was a festival of vitriol. Ted Cruz spoke like a vengeful Old Testament character threatening hellfire and brimstone on the enemies he sees everywhere. Marco Rubio hurled his talking points like daggers, sharp and cutting to everything that stands in his way. And Donald Trump prided himself on the “mantle of anger” he wears as a complement to his mission.

… Being reasonable requires self-discipline and for that reason the example of Satchel Paige merits more consideration. Paige knew something about anger since it was prejudice of the times toward him as a black man that prevented him from playing in the major leagues until he was way past his prime. “They said I was the greatest pitcher they ever saw…I couldn’t understand why they couldn’t give me no justice.”

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First posted on Forbes.com 1/16/16