Blog — Page 12

How to Hire Your Next Leader

Some kids grow up wanting to be a fire-fighter, a police officer, teacher or doctor. I wanted to be Mr. Rogers (the children’s entertainer). No eight-year-old will tell you she wants to be a manager when she grows up (and if she does, get her into therapy top speed). Yet there are more managers than there are fire-fighters, police officers, teachers and doctors combined by a factor of ten or more.

So how does this happen?

If management were a profession like others, someone would go to school to study the vocation of management, apprentice for some period of time, and then be deemed fully capable of executing as a manager. MBA schools have failed to do this effectively, and the vast majority of companies develop their managers in a haphazard fashion.

Most people end up as managers by going into to some line of work for which they show some aptitude, and then are promoted to oversee others doing similar work. Somewhere along the line, they might take a course or two, and some companies may even send their high potential new managers to business school.

Most organizations make the critical mistake of assuming that because someone is a proficient practitioner of a certain trade that she will be a good manager. Organizations need to change their focus away from the technical aspects of a particular function (or group of functions), and instead focus on what skills a manager will need to be successful in that environment.

If more than half that list of competencies is focused on technical aspects of the industry or job, then it has been done wrong.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not a big fan of pulling people with no industry experience, and placing them in key management positions. I don’t think this approach has worked very often. If organizations are serious about having great management, then they need to select people for management positions with the core competencies required to manage in that environment, and then continually develop them.

Either that, or select tall guys with brown hair, who wear blue shirts. That works too.

Your Call is Important to Us — and Other Lies

I was passing through airport security a while ago, and two of the people that are responsible for my safety in the air were having quite a conversation about how drunk they got on the weekend. I was completely invisible, and given that I was running a bit late for my plane, I made a critically poor decision.

I opted to offer these folks some feedback that they should probably be a little more focused on what we were paying them to do, and a little less on debriefing their leisure time. Much to no one’s surprise, I was selected for “random” additional security screening.

I can only claim temporary insanity at forgetting the very first (and only mandatory) rule of offering feedback: The recipient has to be willing to hear you.

Of course, everybody says they want your feedback, but in reality, they’re often not all that interested. How many times have you heard:

“Your Call is Important to Us”

“Tell us what you think”

“Your opinions are important”

Yes, we are constantly bombarded with messages that people want our feedback. In reality, people are really keen to receive feedback that tells them they have done well, or that reinforces their view of the world. Any other types of feedback will only begrudgingly be accepted.

Probably the most dangerous thing someone can do, is respond when their boss says, “I’d like your feedback”. That is the professional equivalent of a person’s wife asking, “Do I look fat in this?” In the history of humankind, no one has ever advanced their own cause by attempting to answer such questions.

The last time I was asked such a question, I ran away so fast, there was a Bob-shaped hole in the exit door. It’s like the “room-mate switch” – it has never been done, and we must never speak of it again. (Seinfeld reference – look it up on YouTube)

So the next time your boss asks you for feedback on his presentation, you need to answer as follows:

“I really thought you nailed the messaging, and came across in a powerful way.” If he pushes you for some constructive feedback, you might want to offer something like, “I probably would have opted for the arial font – I don’t think the cambria is as easy to read.”

Either that, or just run away so fast, you put a {insert your name here}-shaped hole in the exit door.

Tales of a Recovering Extrovert

Many people have asked the question as to whether great leaders are born or made. Certainly, we equate leadership success with the same shallow charisma that we simultaneously loathe and demand from politicians. But can an introvert be a successful leader?

Other than questioning someone’s parentage, is there a faster way to insult someone than calling him an introvert? Isn’t introversion something that we need to quickly cure people of by sending them to the Dale Carnegie Course?

People hear “extrovert”, and they think: outgoing, friendly, social, capable, productive, normal.

People hear “introvert”, and they think: shy, withdrawn, anti-social, elusive, dysfunctional, wall-flower.

In Good to Great, Jim Collins reveals the qualities that his research has shown as effective in running great organizations. Interestingly, many of the qualities of “Level Five Leadership”, are found more naturally in people with Introverted preferences.

You might also be surprised who may be a closet-introvert: High-profile leaders, television personalities, sports stars, maybe even one of your friends, neighbors, or family are introverted. They’re everywhere, so beware – you never know when they’ll want to slink into the back corner of a meeting room, and silently wish everyone would stop talking at once. Or perhaps pray that someone will listen to them for 20 seconds before interrupting them. Worse yet, they may think about something before responding to a question creating that awkward few seconds of silence.

So you may be wondering where I fit on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Grid.

As someone who spends a lot of time talking to groups of people, and a person who worked in television (for a short and spectacularly unsuccessful period of time), I am rarely accused of being an Introvert.

I prefer to label myself as a Recovering-Extrovert. We might need to create a new scale for measurement.

Does Business Education Matter?

Does business education matter?

I would hope it is a strong indicator that a person has a minimum proficiency in reading and writing. It probably also means that you survived for an extended period of time on a diet of beer and pizza – excellent training for future business trips.

There is no doubt that Business degrees should be more vocational in nature than they currently are. Therefore, it is up to the individual to ensure s/he gets the most pragmatic training from any academic business program. As a service to anyone considering business education, or is part way through such a program, here are some things I wish I knew before going to business school:

Kraft Dinner is not food.
Liberal Arts degrees may be fulfilling, but they almost certainly ensure a career in a location with a drive-through window.
However, you need at least a few Arts courses so you can learn to write clearly and quickly. This is a skill you will use far more often than the stats and accounting they teach you in Business School.
Likewise, good Project Management skills will serve you much better than anything you’ll learn in an Operational Research course.
Cheez Whiz isn’t something you eat – it’s something you seek out urologist for.
Take a Gap Year between High School and Post-Secondary. This is common practice outside of North America, and it will ensure much higher focus when you do start.
Your Business School Professors have most likely never been in Business.
Take Out and Delivery are not two of the food groups.
Student loans aren’t a bad thing. While it is true that society gets an 8:1 return on any investment they make in your education, you should still pay the bulk of it – your return over your lifetime is 17:1.
Build networks – that weird, awkward guy in your lecture might be building the next Facebook in his dorm room.

Note to Self: Take More Notes

A couple of thousand years ago, Socrates was lamenting the fact that writing things down was an intellectual crutch that was making the youth lazy. Or it might have been Plato – I really can’t remember because I failed to write it down.

It seems that as every year passes, I am able to hold less and less in my head, and rely more and more on writing things in a notebook. I have attributed this to the same reason my computer slows down after a few years – more and more bits of (mostly useless) information is taking valuable disc space away from what I need to remember most recently.

Case in point – I went to the grocery store looking for five items last week. The first four, I recalled without difficulty. The fifth item, however, completely eluded me to the point where I was wandering up and down the aisles with my mouth open, and eyes squinted hoping that item number five would magically jump off the shelf and into my basket.

I left the store with four items.

On the way home, there was a radio trivia contest asking about the actor that played the role of Skipper on Gilligan’s Island in the 70s. Any thinking person would tell you that it’s the legendary Alan Hale. Likewise, if you want to know Marsha Brady’s first boyfriend’s name (Harvey), I’m the guy you want to call.

In fact, I’m pretty sure I could take out a Craig’s List ad as the phone-a-friend guy for “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” contestants for anything that happened twenty or thirty years ago. Just don’t ask me who won the 2010 World Series. I remember watching the game, I just didn’t write down the winner.

I first started thinking about this blog post in the car, and had something really clever to say. Unfortunately, I couldn’t write it down, so you might have to check back every few days to see if I’ve remembered.

Note to self: Take more notes.

Living in the Post-Politically Correct Era

Recently, I was meeting an old friend for lunch. When I got to the restaurant, I wasn’t sure if he was already there, or if I had arrived first, so I asked the hostess if there was anyone waiting. “There’s a woman waiting on a party of four”, she explained, “and another man wearing a grey suit.”

I had absolutely no idea what my friend was wearing, so I said, “The man I’m looking for is a tall, bald, black man.” The reply I got was quite telling. The hostess looked quite uncomfortable, and replied, “I didn’t know I could identify him as ‘black’”.

“It’s OK”, I said, “he knows he’s black.”

I’m happy we’ve moved beyond Amos and Andy jokes, but the story above illustrates a hyper-sensitivity to cultural diversity that does no one any good

For this reason, I am self-proclaiming myself to be living in the post-politically correct era. This means the cultural differences between people have such little consequence for me, that it is entirely appropriate for me to comment on such differences.

Just the other day, I was saying to my Irish friend, Alexis Theodropoulos, that this politically correct garbage has gotten way out of hand. It seems that every Tom, Dick and Xianlong in town feels comfortable critiquing your tolerance simply because you mention in passing that you don’t like curried food.

I live in a city where the WASP population is significantly less than half the population. I live in a country where there are no majorities – not white males, not English speakers, and not people of Protestant faith. It’s a community of communities (with proper credit to Joe Clark).

These diverse groups do not integrate, but they do coexist, and do so nicely. So next time you see an Italian on the street – ask him the best place to eat schnitzel. You just might be surprised at the response.

Overwhelmed? Try the 3-Martini Lunch

Back when I had a real job, I would occasionally find myself completely overwhelmed with all the things going on around me. So I did what I was supposed to do: I took a couple of minutes, and tried to find some way to dissipate the stress, and refocus that energy.

It didn’t work.

First, I got one of those foam stress balls, but I found myself squeezing it so tightly, that what I really wanted to do was to bite little pieces off, swallow them, and then crap it out and throw it at the people who stressed me out.

I next got one of those audio files of soothing sounds. Being born near the ocean, I decided to play the “Sounds of the Sea”. Unfortunately, I couldn’t relax because I kept checking to see that those seagulls I could hear, weren’t going to come along a crap on me.

I took up yoga, but failed to find anything relaxing about some other stressed out individual invading my personal space by shouting “ohmmmmm” in my ear. Rather than calm me down, it inspired in me the need to punch people.

Finally, I resorted to the old standby of stress relief — booze. Of course, in this day and age, the 3-martini lunch is frowned upon, so you need to find more discrete ways to manage stress if you choose this option. I opted to take a flask to the food court – not very discreet.

Then I realized the thing that stressed me out most, was people telling me not to be stressed out. I figured out that for the last million years or so, humans have been stressed out, and what I was experiencing was really nothing new.

Feelings of stress are good indicators that it’s time for you to take action. Stress tells the body it needs to defend itself against external stimulus. In the case of the caveman, feelings of stress helped to not be eaten by a sabre tooth tiger. In the case of the modern office worker, it to not be eaten alive by corporate bullshit.

Feelings of stress at work are the modern equivalent of the “fight or flight response”. When faced with situations or people that inspire stress, you should quickly sum up your odds of winning, and react accordingly.

We still feel the fight or flight response, but we fail to quickly sum up our odds. As a result we try to win every battle, and end up spending far too many hours at the office.

It’s either that, or figure out the 3 Martini lunch.

Dealing with Employee Dishonesty (and a Bright Red Firebird)

Sooner or later it’s going to happen – you’re going to have to fire someone for dishonesty. Of course, all the management gurus will tell you that you need to trust your people absolutely, and because you’ve heeded this advice, you’ll feel betrayed and stupid.

On the opposite side of the trust spectrum, I was once told a manager must assume that every one of his people is trying to rip him off at all times. In this case, when you do have to deal with dishonesty, it’s not a shock or a surprise, but you live the rest of your work life in a perpetual state of jaded negativity.

Both mindsets are about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

Organizations’ inability to manage this dynamic is why employee orientations often suck so badly. There’s really nothing more welcoming in an organization, than when they spend an hour or so reviewing all the possible contingencies under which you will be fired. You can bet the HR and legal teams worked overtime on this stuff.

But I’ll bet you Jim Rockford’s bright red Firebird (if you were born after 1975, look it up) there’s a way for managers to negotiate this grey area.

You absolutely need to trust your people – much like you trust your children. You must also open your mind to the possibility that some employees are going to betray this trust every now and again – much like your children.

However, the parallel with children ends here. In most cases, you’re stuck with your kids, and all their mistakes. You have no such obligation with employees. If an employee breaches your trust by acting dishonestly, you have a responsibility to act quickly, decisively, and severely.

There are very few circumstances of employee dishonesty that I can think of that should not end in the termination of an employment contract. Failure to do so treats shareholders, and all the honest employees you have with great disrespect.

And don’t try to weasel out of this managerial burden by having the HR and Legal teams get together to put 400 pages of policy in place. You can’t legislate honesty… but you can fire the dishonest. Quickly.

I was unable to embed the video clip I wanted this week, so go look it up on YouTube yourself: “SNL Sexual Harassment and You”

Working for Idiots

Believe it or not, it is possible that you are a very nice person, but a horrible boss. The stuff of Hollywood legends, and blog anti-heroes is that of the grand-mal, asshole boss. The person who is evil incarnate, and takes great pleasure in making others miserable.

I’ve worked in dozens of organizations either as an employee, contractor or consultant – and I’ve never met this person. I have met a number of horrible bosses, and usually they qualify as horrible for much more subtle reasons than sitting in a corner office, and laughing like Dr. Evil while pulling the wings off living insects. Below are some of the most common horrible boss types.

Everybody’s Best Friend – this is the most common type of horrible boss. This person has a high need to be liked by others, and should therefore never be put in a position of leadership. Unfortunately, we usually promote people who are good technically at the work, and rarely test a person’s ability to be disliked by others – a core skill for leaders.

Mr. Insecure – This poor guy feels pressure from above because he’s probably not very good at what he does. He also thinks this peers and his direct reports are out to get him. As a result, he takes irrational actions and makes poor decisions. If you wait it out long enough, this guy usually manages to get himself fired.

Ms. Moody – This person is delightful one day, and a nightmare the next. You need to look for the cues in the morning as to what kind of day she is having. You can also be rest assured that when she’s having a bad day, you’ll have a bad day.

The Visionary – this person can be a good leader if and when he has a brilliant manager back him up. When this ingredient is missing, this is the person that comes up with a bunch of great ideas, but has no ability to implement them. One tell-tale sign of this type of horrible boss is assigning the same task to several different people.

The Prince of Darkness – this type of horrible boss desperately reinforces the hierarchy at every chance. She will usually do this because she never really expected to amount to much, and probably feels like an imposter much of the time. She’s so desperate not to be discovered, that she’ll do anything not to compromise her place on the corporate food chain.

Armed with this information, it is now your job to ensure that YOU are not any of these types of horrible boss. You can’t change their behavior (unless of course you choose to commit bossicide), but you can make sure that your direct reports are never exposed to such things.

Don’t Trust the Trust Game

“Let’s take everyone off-site for team building. It will help get people out of their comfort zones.”

The last time I heard that, I ran away so fast, there was a Bob-shaped hole in the exit door. I’m not exactly sure what logic leads people to believe that one day away from the office is going to make up for poor management and inadequate leadership on all the other days of the year, but you need to think very carefully about how and when you take your team offsite.

Don’t get me wrong… I do think some of these outings can be fun. I just don’t think it will have any impact on the business or the people. I am reminded of the manager who decided that taking his team out for Karaoke would be a good idea. It would help them bond as a group, and promote creativity. For the one aspiring rock star of the group, it was a great time. The rest of the people, however, were jaded and cynical that they had to sit through Karaoke without the one necessary ingredient to make it fun – booze.

Think about it – if you want to breach people’s comfort zones, then it depends a lot on the people. If you have a bunch of Type-A extroverts, then getting them to play silly games, and make asses of themselves is well within their comfort zones. The introverts will be horrified, and the extroverts will be in their element. If you really want to breach the extroverts’ comfort zones, get them to sit quietly for an hour and read a book.

I’m also reminded of the group that was encouraged to play the “trust game” where you fall backwards and trust that your team will catch you. You guessed it – one broken wrist later, they discovered it had far less to do with trust than it did with the physical logistics of catching 200 pounds in the palms of half-a-dozen sets of hands.

The bottom line is that most forms of group training and other team building exercises are a waste of time and money. There needs to be specific desired behavior changes that can be measured back in the workplace, otherwise save your money, and just take your team out for dinner instead. It will be cheaper, it is more sincere, and it will be appreciated more.