Leader's Digest August 2007

From PLN

1 August 16, 2007
2 August 31, 2007
3 Your turn: Talk about it

by Leslie Dillon

August 16, 2007

Strategy’s strategist: An interview with Richard Rumelt

Richard Rumelt, professor of strategy at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management and a giant in the field of strategy, gives some advice on strategic planning and the role of the CEO in this interview in The McKinsey Quarterly. Here's a brief summary of what I thought were his major points:

Most strategic plans have little to do with strategy. They’re three-year or five-year rolling resource budgets, and they coordinate deployment of resources--but that’s not strategy.
Strategic planning is “a pathway to substantially higher performance.” The best path to that “is to exploit some change in your environment--in technology, consumer tastes, [etc.]--and ride that change with quickness and skill.”
The annual resource budget should be separate from the strategy. Call “those budgets ‘long-term resource plans’--and start a separate, nonannual, opportunity-driven process for strategy work.”
Strategy starts with identifying changes. “Strategic thinking helps us take positions in a world that is confusing and uncertain.”
What’s needed is a “predatory approach. Leap through the window of opportunity and stay focused on big wins—not on maintenance activities. (Think Steve Jobs and the iPod.)
Most “innovation flows from the unexpected combination of two or more things.” (The iPod “came from knowledge and resources being adroitly combined.”)
“Most of the strategy concepts in use today are static.” If the terrain never changed, that would work, but in today’s world, change is constant.
“’Value denials’...are products or services that are both desired and feasible but are not being supplied.”" Value denials are business (or service) opportunities. One way to think about change is to ask yourself “what value denials it will uncover.”
Strategic analysis is really about solving a puzzle. Small groups of smart people are needed to solve these puzzles.
A manager’s most important job “is to break down a situation into challenges that subordinates can handle.” The manager “absorbs a good chunk of the ambiguity in the situation and gives much less ambiguous problems to others.”

(Dan P. Lovallo and Lenny T. Mendonca, ”Strategy’s strategist: An interview with Richard Rumelt,” The McKinsey Quarterly, Aug. 15, 2007.)

Mistakes new leaders make

The two biggest mistakes “executives make when hired in from the outside are (1) trying to recreate the organizations they left behind and (2) overestimating their change mandates.”

They’ve had success in their previous jobs; that’s probably why they’ve been recruited for this job. Their mistake is that they assume they can replicate their previous success. When the effort misfires, “the new leader loses credibility.”

New leaders “who overestimate their change mandates suffer similar fates.” They think they have a mandate to bring about significant change, but the support isn’t there. They don’t check with key stakeholders, “not realizing that understandings that are reached during the hiring process are unlikely to be the full story, and may in fact reflect some wishful thinking on both sides.” These key stakeholders then complain about, organize in opposition to, and even plot the downfall of the new manager.

The new leader has failed “to recognize an eternal truth: recruiting is like romance and employment is like marriage.”

(Michael Watkins, “Onboarding without going overboard: Traps to avoid when joining a new company,” Harvard Business Online, July 30, 2007.)

A guide for the CEO-elect

A third of the executives who rise to the top of US companies don’t last three years. Some current and former CEOs suggest ways newly-appointed CEOs can use the time between their appointment and actually taking charge to improve their chances for success. They can prepare themselves for their increased responsibility by examining their own weaknesses, probing the workings of the organization and creating a support network.

Identify and attack areas of weakness. Decisions “reached during the first few months of a CEO’s tenure are disproportionately important in determining its outcome.” Is IT your Achilles heel? Spend some time learning how to oversee IT before you try to do it.
Get to know the board. Understand each one individually, and learn how he or she perceives the organization and their role in it.
Have a story ready before Day One. Each major constituency should know that you know and care about its point of view. Have clear ideas about where progress is possible and what it would look like. Project confidence without making baseless promises.

(Kevin P. Coyne and Bobby S. Y. Rao, “A guide for the CEO-elect,” McKinsey Quarterly, Aug. 14, 2007, from 2005, Number 3.)

What great managers do

This is from Harvard Business Online’s summary of a full-length article in Harvard Business Review.

The author urges managers to capitalize on their employees’ strengths. Rather than trying to change employees, managers need to “identify [employees’] unique abilities (and even their eccentricities)--then help them use those qualities to excel in their own way.”

Try these three tactics:

Tweak roles to capitalize on individual strengths. E.g., a “store manager put a laconic but highly organized employee in charge of restocking aisles—freeing up more sociable employees to serve customers.”
Activate employees’ strengths. “Offer incentives such as time spent with you, opportunities to work independently, and recognition in forms each employee values.”
Tailor coaching to learning styles. Give “analyzers” the information they need before they start a task. Let “doers” start with simple tasks, then gradually increase the difficulty. Let “watchers” observe your most experienced performers.

First, you’ll need to identify employees’ unique strengths as well as their weaknesses. Next, have the employee partner with another staff member with complementary talents. Then reconfigure assignments to neutralize weaknesses.

(From Marcus Buckingham, “What great managers do,” HBR in Brief, Harvard Business Online, Aug. 7, 2007.)

The CEO's role in leading transformation

“A CEO who pays only lip service to a transformation will find everyone else doing the same.” CEOs can successfully lead transformative change in four ways:

Make the transformation meaningful. “People will go to extraordinary lengths for causes they believe in, and a powerful transformation story will create and reinforce their commitment.” CEOs need to be willing “to make the transformation personal, to engage others openly, and to spotlight successes as they emerge.”
Role-model desired mind-sets and behavior. “Successful CEOs typically embark on their own personal transformation journey. Their actions encourage employees to support and practice the new types of behavior.”
Build a strong, committed top team. “CEOs must make tough decisions about who has the ability and motivation to make the journey.”
Relentlessly pursue impact. CEOs need to roll up their sleeves and get personally involved when significant value is at stake, and to hold leaders accountable.

The full article has some good examples of how several top CEOs have implemented these key functions.

(Carolyn B. Aiken and Scott P. Keller, “The CEO’s role in leading transformation,” The McKinsey Quarterly, Aug. 14, 2007, from Web exclusive, Feb. 2007.)

Interview intelligence

You may want to consider training human resources staff and line managers in the art of interviewing, according to Development Dimensions International (DDI), a global human resource consultancy. DDI “found that two-thirds of job seekers say the interviewer influences their decision to accept a position.” How should interviewers behave? Here are a couple of tips:

Be respectful and efficient, but not unfriendly: 70% of job candidates found “acting like [he/she] has no time to talk to me” as common and annoying. Additional irritating interviewer behaviors “include withholding information about the position, turning the interview into a cross-examination, showing up late, appearing unprepared, and asking questions unrelated to job skills.”
Know what’s important to candidates: 67% of them believe a “compatible work group/team” is a significant factor in choosing a job, but only 37% of staffing directors rate this as highly. Moreover, employers underrate 2 additional critical factors for job seekers: the need for “a good boss/manager” and “an organization you can be proud to work for.”

(Inside Training Newsletter, Aug. 15, 2007.)

The dark side of trust

A Harvard Business School professor and a graduate student at Wharton investigated whether plumbers who enjoyed trusted relationships with their existing suppliers would resist looking into an innovative new product from another supplier. Why am I writing about plumbers, you ask? Because the study reveals that while trust between suppliers and buyers generates significant benefits, these trusted relationships can be significant barriers for competitors. In fact, that trust “can blind you to opportunities that arise outside established relationships.” This finding has important implications for library managers since so many of our decisions are based on the relationships we have with our vendors.

(Sean Silverthorne, “The dark side of trust,” Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, Aug. 13, 2007.)

August 31, 2007

Five books that will increase your ability to lead

Leaders are “powerless without others’ cooperation.” That’s why the ability to persuade is such a critical leadership skill. Theodore Kinni discusses 5 books that will help you “hone your ability to lead through influence.” (I’ve discussed a couple of these books in earlier Leader’s Digest columns, but the remarks here are based on Kinni’s article.)

Howard Gardner’s Changing Minds: The Art and Science of Changing Our Own and Other People’s Minds (Harvard Business School Press, 2004) provides a framework for understanding how minds change. The three aspects of mind changing are:

The entities. The concepts, stories, theories, and skills that change.
The levers. These effect changes and include reason, research, and redescriptions.
The arenas of mind change. These can range “from large-scale, heterogeneous populations, such as a nation, to the solitariness of one’s own mind.”

Gardner’s model “offers a method for analyzing mind-changing efforts and provides a tool set” to help you improve your ability to influence others.

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip and Dan Heath (Random House, 2007) gets its inspiration from Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (Little, Brown, 2000). The most effective messages are “sticky.” Sticky ideas are understood, remembered “and have a lasting impact.” The authors identify six key principles of stickiness: simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions and stories. Also, we need to remember to put ourselves “in listeners’ shoes when we craft our messages.”

Annette Simmons’ Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins: How to Use Your Own Stories to Communicate with Power and Impact (Amacom, 2007) discusses the importance of good stories and includes exercises to help you build good stories. Take your stories “from four sources close at hand: a time you shined, a time you blew it, a mentor, and a book, movie, or current event.” The ability of stories “to connect with people is what makes them influential.”

Stephen Young’s Micromessaging: Why Great Leadership Is Beyond Words (McGraw-Hill, 2007) “reveals how leaders can undermine their stated goals with micromessages--gestures, expressions, tone of voice--that don’t match the words being spoken.” Unfortunately, most of us aren’t aware of the powerful negative message our micromessages send. The book’s key message is self-awareness. “If you want to succeed in influencing others, don’t send mixed messages.”

Crucial Confrontations: Tools for Resolving Broken Promises, Violated Expectations, and Bad Behavior (McGraw-Hill, 2005), by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler, takes on a truly difficult area— how to resolve broken promises and deal with bad behavior. Many managers avoid confrontation, but “leaders who hope to change minds must learn to deal with it constructively.” Opinion leaders wield “influence because they were the best at stepping up to colleagues, coworkers, or even their bosses, and holding them accountable.” The authors developed a six-step process to master confrontation:

Choose what and if. Decide on the goal and whether it’s worth the effort to achieve it.
Master your stories. Ensure that you understand fully why and how the problem developed.
Describe the gap between what was expected and what was observed.
Make it motivating and easy for the person to change.
Agree on a plan. Follow up to ensure the problem is solved.
Stay focused and flexible. Monitor emerging problems and avoid getting sidetracked.

Here’s a bonus! Find out how good you are at managing confrontations. Take this free, online self-assessment (33 questions).

(Theodore Kinni, “Five books that will amplify your ability to lead through influence,” Harvard Management Update, July 2007. Available on EBSCOhost or from Harvard Business Online.)

Leadership that focuses on the customer--really

All too often genuine customer focus remains more theory than practice. Organizations often become inward focused, and while they think they’re focused on their customers, they’re really not. How can you make customer focus a reality in your organization?

Demonstrate a genuine commitment to customer focus. Mandate that managers have regular direct contact with customers.
Ensure that employees understand what’s at stake. Help staff see the link between what they do and long-term results.
Enable all employees to address customers’ needs proactively. If staff have the power to address problems and the tools to take action, they’re more likely to make customer focus a habit.
Ensure that your organization recognizes and rewards customer-focused behavior. Publicize “employees’ customer-focused actions”.
Establish “systems that communicate customer insights among employees,” all the way to the top. Create processes that allow staff to easily share best practices with one another.

“Not only will the organization’s customers be more satisfied and more loyal, but chances are that its workforce will be, too.”

Anne Field, “Leadership that focuses on the customer--really,” Harvard Management Update, July 2007. Available on EBSCOhost or from Harvard Business Online for $4.50.)

How to get others involved

“Employees genuinely support only those things they had a hand in creating. …That realization fundamentally changes the way you manage.”

To get things moving in an organization, you need involvement from both a realist’s and a humanist’s perspectives. On the realist’s side, you need involvement in developing plans and budgets, and ensuring that deadlines are met. On the humanist’s side, you need to make sure everyone understands the plan and is committed to it, and figure out how to handle resistance. You need to think about both the types of involvement and the levels of involvement needed.

Seek to involve “people with diverse points of view--this usually results in more innovative solutions.” It also makes sense to bring “resisters, detractors, and other troublemakers onboard.” It’s better to have them use their energies for a project than against it.

To keep people involved, keep “the vision for the project front and center. Remind people what’s going to be different.” Give them regular progress reports and let them know their input is valued.

Closure is critically important because it’s “at the completion of a project that you build a foundation for the future. Celebrating what’s been accomplished makes people more willing to participate in other initiatives.”

(Richard H. Axelrod, ”Five questions with Richard H. Axelrod: How to get others involved,” Harvard Management Update, August. 2007. Available on EBSCOhost or from Harvard Business Online for $4.50.)

Six steps to effective feedback

Providing effective feedback is one of a manager’s most important tasks; it’s also one of the most difficult. Here’s a six-step model, proposed by Jack Stahl, current CEO of Revlon and former president of Coca-Cola, to facilitate feedback and make it more effective.

Value the individual. Begin by affirming what the employee contributes to your organization. Be sincere and thorough. This step is critical because it frames the conversation.
Ask the person to identify his/her biggest challenges. Ask the employee to assess his/her performance, including both

strengths and challenges. This will help you pinpoint areas for targeted coaching.

Provide targeted feedback. Give specific examples of behaviors to change.
Agree on areas to develop for the future. The objective here is to focus the individual’s development and encourage him/her to practice specific new skills. You could also point him/her to training opportunities.
Agree on the benefits of improving and the consequences of not improving. This step is designed to fuel the employee’s motivation to improve or change.
Commit your support and reaffirm the person’s value. “When people feel valued, they can hear difficult feedback without being demoralized by it.”

(Christina Bielaszka-DuVernay, “A CEO’s six steps to effective feedback,” Harvard Management Update, August 2007. Available from EBSCOhost’s Business Source Premier or from Harvard Business Online for $6.50.)

Coaching competence

Estienne de Beer, professional speaker, leadership coach and author of Boosting Your Career--Tips from Top Executives, says it’s time to encourage “a coaching leadership mind-set in your organization.” Here’s why:

It levels the playing field. Team coaching helps teams work together “so the common goal succeeds over personal goals and interests.”
It boosts confidence. Coaching leadership mentors one-on-one, building “the confidence of team members by affirming excellent performance and behavior during regular feedbacks.”
It promotes individual and team achievement. As employees develop the habit of constantly assessing themselves, they come to “perceive what knowledge, skills, and attitudes they need to acquire team goals.”

(Inside training, Aug. 30, 2007.)

Changes at Google Scholar

In case you don’t read Information Today’s Newsbreaks, I want to call your attention to Barbara Quint’s article on Google Scholar because as she says, “In its own quiet way, Google Scholar has become a major force in scholarly communication.”

The service is constantly evolving, but we don’t hear much about new developments, which include: Google Scholar’s own digitization project, a new Key Author feature and expansion into non-English languages and non-U.S./Western European content.

Google’s Anurag Acharya won’t divulge how much content Google Scholar reaches, except to say it’s “pretty large.” But he did say that growth in the volume of users is “exponential.” And Google continues to make arrangements with major content providers. In fact, Google has just completed indexing Elsevier’s Science Direct collection and has several new publishers “on the horizon.”

New language coverage includes Chinese, German, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese and soon Korean. Links across languages will involve Google’s translation capabilities. Google Scholar’s non-English content lets users “find work they would [otherwise] never ever come close to.”

Google Scholar’s digitization program is small compared to Google Books, and it looks mainly “for journals that would otherwise never get digitized.” They’re currently negotiating with a Canadian scholarly society. Acharya said “content from the new digitization program should start entering Google Scholar before the end of the year.” However, many scholarly publications digitized by the Google Books project won’t reach Google Scholar. Bound volumes of periodicals come into Google Books from its library partners, but the metadata needed “to identify specific articles in specific issues does not exist and, at least for now, Acharya has no plans to create it.”

New features include Key Author listings. These listings are an attempt to solve the “basic fundamental problem of not knowing where the query wants to go. We need to take you beyond the query. Sometimes the Key Author feature works shockingly well.” It can be “useful in tracking new scholarly developments where new terminology emerged to describe a phenomenon after the original research. Using the Key Author feature, you can reach back to the original research.”

(Barbara Quint, “Changes at Google Scholar: A conversation With Anurag Acharya,” Information Today NewsLink NewsBreaks, Aug. 27, 2007.)