Ankle Breakers

While the tree is known for its beauty, it is also known for its spiked fruit. These “gumball” shaped droppings are very unpleasant to walk on, and they do not decompose. If left on the lawn, they turn it into an uneven surface full of lumpy pock marks. Here in North Carolina, they call the the fruit “ankle breakers” because both the fruit, and the holes they create in the lawn, are known to cause many ankle injuries.

As a newcomer, it was hard for me to understand why this tree was being removed. It looked like a beautiful tree. The decision to eliminate it, was not made in haste. Its removal had been considered for many year and it was finally time to create a new landscape plan. Its seasonal beauty and the shade it provided could no longer save it. The mess it regularly makes had finally sealed its doom.

Character Reveals Itself Over Time

As I watched the tree fall, I thought about the people I know who have faced a similar fate. They may possess many strengths, but for some reason, their weaknesses always seem to bring them down. In the beginning, their coworkers and leaders enjoy the immediate contributions they make, but in the end, the pollution they spew on their social environment is so toxic that they are asked to leave.

I find this especially sad because people are not trees. The “gumball” tree is what it is and cannot change its behavior, but people can. Some simply reject the idea of growing new behaviors. They believe that their strengths will always save them, so they refuse to deal with their fatal flaws. They are surprised when they are no longer wanted, but they shouldn’t be.

I foster a “strength based approach” in all of the work that I do, but I also make sure we take enough time to identify and eliminate any critical behaviors that can potentially derail a career. These characteristics are usually seen by all, but rarely addressed until it is too late. It is my job to discuss these unspeakable blemishes in such away that the needed growth is understood, accepted and embraced.

No one can really expect to hide these types of behaviors for very long. They are always revealed in time. The only way to deal with these challenges is to grow beyond them. That requires constant effort. I like to help people learn what they can do, instead of what they must stop doing, but sometimes they just need to stop doing certain things or they will continue to face similar consequences.

Leveraging the Perspectives of Others

I realize that it is difficult to see our own “fatal flaws” and that is why we must encourage others to tell us the truth about our behavior. Sometimes those around us don’t tell us the truth because they don’t want to hurt us, but the only way the truth can hurt us is when it is withheld from us or covered up. Plain and simple, we need to know if there is a problem.

Other times, the truth is spoken and we refuse to hear it. We tell ourselves that the person that is speaking it does not really believe what they are saying, or we argue that their perspective is not valid. The person trying to tell us the truth eventually loses interest and leaves us alone until we self-destruct.

If we want to thrive, we must be willing to listen to the spoken and unspoken feedback we receive from others. If we fail to do that, we will be cut down. It is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when.

• Are you taking the time to hear and understand the feedback you are receiving?
• Do you look for ways to uncover the unspeakable?
• What are you doing to encourage others to tell you the truth?

We cannot ignore the truth for very long. If we do, we will find ourselves in undesirable circumstances. Growth is much easier to accomplish when we see it ourselves. Don’t wait for somebody to tell you that you need to do it. Take care of your personal “ankle breakers” today.

Live Today! Love Today!

Andrew Thorn

760-559-3548

Relationship building, networking and community building are some of women’s finest gifts. Therefore, The Essential Feminine Company™ is opening its “Living Room” as a place for women to get together once a month to share ideas and suggestions about various topics. This is a free event happening at noon (Pacific Time) on March 24 and continuing on the fourth Wednesday of the months following. You will need to register for the event at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/448858688

We will begin our Living Room discussion with the topic, “Inviting The New, The Different and The Good Into Our Lives”. After the initial theme has been presented we will be opening the lines for announcements, wishes, desires, and general networking. Please contact us at info@theessentialfeminine.com if you have something you would like to share during the second half hour. We need at least forty-eight hours prior to each Living Room event for your comment or need to be considered.

We hope that you will take advantage of this opportunity to join women from around the globe and help us create a community of women who want to create their lives from their true selves and thus make a difference.

Maureen Simon

Note: Yesterday (March 8) “was International Women’s Day celebrating the progress women have made in their struggles for equality and development and also focusing on what remains to be done to ensure there is equality for all. The theme this year is “Equal Rights, Equal Opportunities: Progress for All.””

Note from The Hunger Project: “(THP) firmly believes that empowering women to be key change agents is an essential element to achieving the end of hunger and poverty. Wherever we work, our programs aim to support women, build their capacity and ensure their voice is heard and influence felt, both in their own communities and more widely.” To read more: http://www.thp.org/learn_more/publications/newsletters/february_2010

Note from Heifer International: Women Working Wonders; Since they received goats from Heifer, the members of Zambia’s Evergreen Women’s Club have been able to provide life-saving milk for their children, grow valuable crops to support their families and help their neighbors support themselves. To read more: http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.201594/?msource=kwg538

Maureen Simon
“Designing Business & Lives”
Create Your Blueprint for 2010
info@theessentialfeminine.com

http://womeninfluencingnow.wordpress.com

http://www.facebook.com/maureensimon

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Join our Facebook Group “Women Influencing Now”
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Very true, indeed. Think about your own organization. Have you ever attended a corporate retreat or executive training session that was titled something like Stupid Things We’re Doing That We Need to Stop Doing?

Or, when was the last time your CEO delivered an internal talk that focused on his negative traits and his efforts to stop this destructive behavior? Can you even imagine your CEO (or immediate supervisor) admitting a personal failing in public and outlining his efforts to stop doing it?

Probably not.

There are good reasons for this, largely allied to the positive tone and fast-forward momentum organizations try to maintain. Everything in an organization is designed to demonstrate a commitment to positive action — and couched in terms of “doing something.” We will start paying attention to our customers (rather than stop talking about ourselves). We must begin to listen more attentively (rather than stop playing with our BlackBerrys while others are talking).

Likewise, the recognition and reward systems in most enterprises are geared to acknowledge the doing of something. We get credit for doing something good. We rarely get credit for ceasing to do something bad. Yet, they are two different sides of the same coin.

Think of the times you might have seen colleagues go on a sales call and return with a huge order. If they’re like the salespeople I know, they’ll come back to the office ready to regale anyone who’ll listen with a blow-by-blow account of how they closed the deal.

But let’s turn that scenario around. What if, during that sales call, these salespeople crunch some numbers and realize they were about to agree to a deal that actually costs the company money with every unit sold? What if they decided, on the spot, to stop negotiating and say “no” to that sale? Do they rush back to the office and brag about the bad deal they avoided?

Hardly. That’s because avoiding mistakes is one of those unseen, unheralded achievements to which we devote little time or thought. And yet, many times, averting a bad deal or situation can affect the bottom line more significantly than scoring a big sale.

Think of Gerald Levin, the formerly admired chairman of Time Warner during the 1990s. He was hailed as a revolutionary business leader who foresaw the future of cable TV and helped invent HBO, and also transformed the company from a hodgepodge of magazines, music and movies to a media powerhouse.

But in 2000, Levin made a mistake. He merged Time Warner with online service AOL. It was the biggest corporate merger in U.S. history at the time — promising an organization that would dominate the media landscape for decades.

Of course, it didn’t work out that way. The merger nearly destroyed Time Warner: Its stock lost 80 percent of its value, and thousands of employees lost the bulk of their retirement savings. As for Levin, he lost his job, a big chunk of his net worth and all of his reputation. He went from being chairman of Time Warner to being the architect of the worst corporate merger in U.S. history (with the possible exception of the recent Daimler-Chrysler debacle).

Now, imagine if Levin had walked away at any point during the negotiations for this merger. Chances are, we’d never know about it (or wouldn’t give it much attention if we did). Levin certainly wouldn’t have held a press conference to announce the companies weren’t merging. If he had applied the brakes to this deal, though, his reputation and net worth might have remained intact.

That’s the funny thing about stopping negative behaviors and actions. It gets no attention, but it can be as critical as everything else we do put together. As you evaluate your own performance, consider how what you aren’t — or shouldn’t be — doing is having a negative impact.

Marshall Goldsmith (Marshall@MarshallGoldsmith.com) is corporate America’s preeminent executive coach and a founder of Marshall Goldsmith Partners. He is the author, most recently, of Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get it Back if You Lost It, as well as What Got You Here Won’t Get You There – the Wall Street Journal #1 best seller, and Succession: Are You Ready – published in February 2008 as part of the Harvard Business ‘Memo to the CEO’ series. Marshall is also on the faculty of the executive education programs at Dartmouth College and the University of Michigan.

This article in a different form originally appeared in Talent Management Magazine.

In order for our collective responsibility to change, we must change on a personal level. Attempting to change collective responsibility will fail, as it is a symptom and not the disease. For true change, we must accept our personal responsibility to move beyond fear, selfishness and superiority to a place of deep understanding and care for the benefit of all. Women are particularly needed to lead this new way of living/leading because we who give birth, by our very nature hold the potential for compassion for all (the whole). It is my wish that women step forward today and take a greater lead in where our collective (world) is headed. It is my passion to help that to happen.

Maureen Simon is the founder of The Essential Feminine Company™ (TEF)—a lifestyle and business design company that supports women in creating successful, powerful lives that incorporate their feminine attributes and gifts. She can be reached at:

415-381-5115
maureen@maureensimon.com

www.theessentialfeminine.com
http://globaldialoguecenter.blogs.com/women/
www.facebook.com/maureensimon

Join our Facebook Group ” Women Influencing Now”
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According to a Harvard Business Review article[1], 55% of all Fortune 100 companies define integrity as one of their “core” values. When working with a senior team, I could just cite that statistic if I wanted to discourage the inclusion of integrity on their list. Or, I could add that integrity was one of Enron’s values too. But either because I’m too polite to take a cheap shot or an optimist at heart, I take a deep breath and say: “Okay. If integrity is one of your values, let’s define it in a way that is meaningful to your organization.” And let the fun begin.

I always find it difficult to mediate the ensuing debate. What is integrity? What does it mean for this organization? How do we define it in concrete terms to understand it better? Other values, equally over-represented on corporate mission statements, do not create the same trouble. For example, senior leaders also love the words teamwork, respect and stewardship. No problem. What kind of teamwork? Teamwork between front line staff and management to provide great customer service. What kind of respect? To one organization it means respect for the traditions of the brand, to another respect for the environment. How about stewardship? Sometimes it means financial oversight or prudent investment, other times it means stewardship over the community’s resources. Defining those values in specific contexts gives them power.

But when you get to integrity, it is much harder to come to common agreement. Are we talking about commitment to quality? Honesty in dealings? Trust between employees? It’s as though there are too many synonyms and analogous situations available to sift through for us to pinpoint an exact meaning. I am reminded, each time, of what a teacher told me many years ago in rabbinical school: no institution has integrity, only people do. It’s more personal than other values.

But a theological argument is not completely satisfying in explaining our difficulties. So I’ve spent a few years contemplating the issue. Here’s a list of possible answers. Is the problem with integrity that:

A)   Corporations, by definition, don’t have any?

B)    I can’t recognize integrity because there’s something wrong with me?

C)    Integrity is not what we think it is?

D)    All of the above?

If you answered A, you’re more cynical than I am or I need to tone down my sarcasm; B and I’m worried about my reputation; D and you take too many multiple choice tests. The correct answer, at least by elimination, is C. I only realized that recently, however, when grappling with a serious values issue with a major client.

The organization, an insurance provider, was going through its values exercise. At the same time, in a seemingly unrelated event, it was being sued by a family for coverage that hadn’t been provided after an accident because of an issue with a premium. We went through our values work as the newspapers blared headlines about the progress of the court case. Perhaps because of that contentious atmosphere, our debate was particularly rigorous and thoughtful. When we finally came to agreement, everyone in the room was happy. Then one executive threw cold water in our faces: “If all of these values are really true, and I think they are, then we’re doing the wrong thing fighting this family in court.” It was a sobering thought, but one that galvanized a powerful reaction. Immediately, it was decided that the company would reverse its stand and pay up. The lawyers couldn’t believe it. But the executive team had a good night’s sleep, comforted by the certainty that they had done right by the family and the organization.

The reaction to this switch was overwhelmingly positive outside the company. It was in fact an event which had the makings of a genuine corporate legend – one of those stories which demonstrates what an organization stands for better than any list of values. The press loved the decision. Politicians applauded it. The community genuinely appreciated it as a refreshing gesture. Other companies, at a conference that took place soon afterward, admired it. They understood that it takes a lot of courage to do the right thing when that costs money. More importantly, the people within the organization felt good about the decision. The employees held their heads a little higher and could explain it within the rationale of the values. The executives, as we mentioned, slept better at night. As one declared: “We acted with integrity.”

Stop the presses… Integrity was not one of their values. I wondered, should we A) rewrite the values to include integrity, or B) think about what acting with integrity really means?

The correct answer, of course, is B. This realization was a major “aha” for me. Integrity is not a value, I realized. Instead, it’s the act of living your values. To violate a value is to diminish your integrity. Think about the powerful emotions aroused when a company gets caught in a hypocritical stance. For example, when a senior team turns out to be crooked, or a finance firm permits harassment of women to take place systematically, or a manufacturer pollutes the environment, the public (and internal) reactions can be severe. But the reactions will be much more severe if that company espouses financial stewardship, teamwork or respect for the environment as differentiating values.

To include integrity in a list of values is a redundancy. Integrity is not a value unto itself but a summing up of the other values together. Organizations act with integrity when they live up to their values. Doing so can be difficult when it costs money, competitive position or strategy. But even though the benefits of acting with integrity may not always be as clear as with the insurance company I described, the reinforcement of integrity, internally and externally has its own well-deserved rewards.

David Cohen is president of Strategic Action Group and the author of Inside the Box: Leading with Corporate Values to Drive Sustained Business Success and The Talent Edge: A Behavioral Approach to Hiring, Developing, and Keeping Top Performers.

In the emerging world of e-books, many consumers assume it is only logical that publishers are saving vast amounts by not having to print or distribute paper books, leaving room to pass along those savings to their customers.

Publishers largely agree…

Many of the organizations I worked with using improvement processes and philosophies like Lean. They make HUGE investments in money, time, and other resources to do Lean well. When I ask why they are willing to make this investment, most of my clients talk about how Lean has helped them manage their business, do things more effectively, and involve everyone in quality improvements.

Hmmm…somthing seems amiss here.

If you knew that a similar investment in your middle management function would improve strategic implementation and provide a great ROI, would you invest? Here are a few lower-pain/cost ways that leaders can better align, tune, and develop their middle management engine:

• Spend time with widdle managers to review and discuss strategy, goals, the desired culture (AKA values) and major intiatives. Make these meetings DISCUSSIONS not one-way informational meetings. This will go a long way toward ensuring that your middle managers are focused and able to best represent your intentions with their teams. They will make better decisions, too.
• Provide training specifically for middle managers that addresses the unique challenges they face. Help them manage multiple priorities, greater complexity, and be proactive change agents and implementors. Help them learn how to engage team members while improving accountability.
• Be very picky when hiring new middle managers. Middle management is THE toughest management gig out there and you don’t want someone who will drive away your talent (the #1 reason people quit is bad management). Change your job descriptions, interview questions, and promotion criteria so that you can better assess each candidate’s fit. Hire a great manager first, then look for functional expertise. It is much harder to find a great middle manager!

What do you think? Let me know.

Lisa Haneberg

Author of 10 Business Books including, The High Impact Middle Manager

www.lisahaneberg.com

www.managementperformance.com

lhaneberg@managementperformance.com

I looked out the window, and there, far below I noticed a field where some youth were playing soccer. They looked so incredibly tiny. I could not really distinguish the ball. I am sure it was there, but it was too small for me to see. All I could make out were the colors of the uniforms moving on dark green grass.

I drifted for a moment and wondered about the emotion and noises that must have been occurring on the ground. I imagined that a great competition was occurring. I knew that there was a different feeling down there than what was being evoked from my vantage point.

Life At The Top

I suddenly realized that the view I was experiencing was very similar to what the senior leaders of large organizations see when they consider their business operations. They can see the big picture, but they are so far removed from it, that when they look at those who work so hard to make it all happen they generally only see a bunch of dots on a screen.

I do not wish to suggest that they are bad people. My clients work at the upper levels, and I know they are good people, but they are often so far removed from what happens on the front line that they do not see the energy and the daily struggles that are required to make it all happen. They just see the reports and declare that “people are their most valuable asset” without ever realizing that what their actions are really saying is that “people are their most important tool”.

Seeing Things As They Really Are

My job is to help them see what is really going on down there. I want them to realize the impact of the organization on the individual. I need them to begin seeing everybody involved as a person, and not just a tool. This objective drives the results that are seen from the work that I do.

The systems I facilitate become energized from the many opportunities we create to raise people up to their full potential. That is why I often refer to the work that I do as “raising human capital”. The work we do together is focused on helping the senior leaders see that they are capable of offering so much more. It doesn’t take long for them to see that their people are just as interested in creating a thriving organization as they are.

Their people don’t want to be used and then disposed of when they are no longer needed. Instead, they are seeking opportunities to contribute and to be valued for their contributions.

Elevator, Going Up!

The work on the ground is just as important as the work at the top. Thriving organizations understand this and constantly look for ways to create opportunities for every individual to do what they do best every single day. Empowerment is not just a buzz word for them. Instead, they delegate both responsibility and power, which encourages and fosters independence of thought and action. They create cultures of accountability by constantly raising the bar on the way they value each individual. They encourage maximum communication.

Consider your organization:

What are you doing to help things get better?

Do you see and value the contributions from every level?

Are you modeling the way?

It all starts with you. No one else can do it for you. The choices you make will determine the direction of your organization. You may feel alone at times, but it only really takes one serious voice to create the conditions we need to thrive. Step into your potential.

Live Today! Love Today!

Andrew Thorn

andrew@andrewthorn.com – 760-559-3548

Michelin and its employees at the Nova Scotia factory decided to take the long view and came up with a different answer to a familiar problem. They knew that good times would follow bad so they had faith in the future. The crisis concerned only the short-term, a year or so at most. Admittedly, a year can look like an eternity from the usual vantage point of North American companies, but Michelin had a different culture and set of values to draw on. The mature view of its European parent allowed the plant to decide that values and committed people should not be sacrificed to bumps in the road.

The factory did not have a reduction in work force, though there was no work to do. Instead of layoffs, every employee was retained in their current job at their current salary. Since there were no tires to make, employees made repairs, cleaned and upgraded the plant, built an employee sports center, did intensive skill training, retooled and readied themselves for a return to production. A year later, the factory fired up again. When production resumed, quality levels improved, absenteeism decreased and employee loyalty and commitment soared. The gamble paid off in terms of profitability, the usual gauge of the myopic. A legend exemplifying the company’s values had been added to an already strong corporate culture. To this day, long-term commitment to product quality and people is a key leadership behavior in Michelin’s global competency profile.

Michelin, as a European company, found the long-range view easier than most of the North American companies I have worked with. Perhaps that’s because European culture has been around for a lot longer than North American society. Europeans have seen governments rise and fall and companies come and go. Unlike most Canadians and Americans, they know that their culture will sustain itself beyond the current generation. In transferring that view to business, European workers tend to be more laid back and concerned with quality of life. Sometimes this is a detriment to productivity and profitability. But for those organizations, which are highly competitive in the global market, the mature perspective allows them to be alert to and aware of short-term concerns, without over-reacting to the crisis of the day.  This is a mature -  adult perspective on work and performance.

Japanese companies are famous for taking the long view when it comes to strategy, brand, value and human capital. The Chinese, a Japanese executive once told me, make the Japanese look myopic. Given everything that has happened to Toyota, and the mediocre performance of iconic companies like Sony, no one’s looking to the Japanese for management models these days, but the value of a long-range view is worth considering again. After all, think of the trouble that short-term thinking has created for North American companies recently. The flip side of cashing in during the bubble has been a more painful cashing out during the downswing. CEO pay structure that’s geared towards strike-it-rich payoffs has seriously undermined longevity. Heavy layoffs and divestitures improve profitability but seem out of line with vision, strategy or organizational growth.

If European companies sometimes seem overly comfortable in their maturity, many North American companies can’t help but remind one of adolescents. Since American culture has been exported to the world, it’s not surprising that it permeates corporate thinking everywhere. In its most depressing form, it’s often characterized by a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately attitude, a look-at-me flamboyance, an outgoing edginess that doesn’t consider cause and effect.  Sounds like the stereotypical adolescent, concerned about the here and now and the experience, thinking that no harm can come their way; that they are invincible!

In the sequence of maturity, it is as though North American companies are in a state of adolescent rebelliousness. But what most people outside of developmental psychologists, school counselors and wise but weary parents don’t understand is that adolescent rebellion is not about breaking away, it’s about testing the limits to see how to fit in. Rebellion has more to do with the insecure need for immediate appreciation and recognition than it does with freedom. North American companies push the limits by seeking immediate gratification over sustainability and growth.  One of the most common statements by employees at focus groups throughout North America is that they wish their executives would think long-term instead of short-term, results now.

The typical performance review system is representative of that level of maturity. We award short-term success over long-term track record, we talk team but in reality set up a systems to reward individual heroism over team triumph, flurries of activity that get results now over sustainable building. Organizations that have a more mature view of performance management link job behaviors to organizational values, follow track records over years not months, integrate personal development plans into the longer term business strategy and incorporate the feedback of key “touch points”, not just direct managers. As a case in point, one European corporation is now doing something very interesting with its performance reviews – it’s comparing what employees have been doing in the last 12 months to what they have been doing over the last three years. In this way, they track the trend of performance over the long-term.  Making people decisions they way they make business decisions – from a longer-term perspective.

It seems to me that they are taking the long-range view to a deeper level in their new generation of people systems. They’re saying, we know we’re all here for the long run. We’re going to make it work. Let’s show how performance is linked to development that’s in line with organizational values and strategy.  They have taken the traditional “management by objectives” and “feedback on behavioral competencies” and put everything into a perspective that we as mature adults do latter in life.

For organizations that are not moving to a more mature approach to performance reviews, they might consider what is holding them back as a firm from maturing.  They also need to consider the message given by current people systems. How people are hired and fired, how they are rewarded and promoted, and how they are developed and trained, in good times and especially bad, is very telling when it comes to the organization’s attitude towards long-term thinking.

David Cohen is president of Strategic Action Group and the author of Inside the Box: Leading with Corporate Values to Drive Sustained Business Success and The Talent Edge: A Behavioral Approach to Hiring, Developing, and Keeping Top Performers.