Tag Archives: leadership

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Divide and Conquer

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There are some bad behaviours which managers and leaders leverage to retain their organizational power.    Growing your influence through positive leadership practices is not always easy.

Leadership styles focused on creating an environment where everyone is motivated, happy and most importantly understands thier role within the context of the organizations strategy and vision are obviously preferred.

Divide and Conquer

When a manager or leaders prime objective is to retain personal power, the managing style can be focused on creating chaos.  In this way others are too busy defending themselves and so are not able to create a united front to combat and ultimately displace the ineffective manager.

This is a pure power play usually employed by insecure mangers who have neither the time nor the willingness to excel.  Maintaining the status quo, that is their position and compensation level, is the primary goal.

Creating a Positive Perception

In effect by creating confusion and disharmony this leadership or management style enables the encumbent to be percieved in a positive light.

In essence, it is all smoke and mirrors.

And the Solution

If you are in this type of scenario you can either accept it, leave or influence change.  Each option has different levels of effort and associated impacts.

Influencing Change

The key is to first observe and gain an understanding of the most disruptive behaviors being used by the manager.  Then develop a plan to counter these behaviours.

For example the manager might ignore questions and requests for action.  Emails to them might seem to go into a giant void never to be  heard about again.

To counter this, your messages and communications could be crafted to carefully involve others (external or internal organizational stakeholders).

This approach would highlight the negative behaviours and bring along others to help in prompting the change.

There is no simple, absolutely certain approach to change or eliminate this management or leadership style, but being a successful change catalyst leads to personal satisfaction, a sense of accomplishment and is to the benefit of all.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Executing the Strategy

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To be an effective leader do you need to be able to define and execute a strategy?  Or is it enough to be a to just define or just execute?

My own research leads to the conclusion that it depends.  Ultimately what matters most is a leaders self awareness.  They know their own strengths and weaknesses intimently.

Strategy and execution are both required to succeed.  The leader needs to be able to assess gaps in strategy or execution, they do not have to personally resolve these gaps.

Work Smarter, not Harder

Achieving results through the path of least resistance is less effort.  Typically this means lower cost, faster turn around and often higher quality.

Strategies define what and how.  If the how is based on the underlying philosophy that easy is better, the strategy is better positioned to be implemented.

Innovation is a term widely used and often associated with a variety of interpretations.  To a large degree innovation relies on simplicity.   Why spend a lot of effort to achieve results if there is an easier way.

Of course the innovative approach can refer not only to the methodology but also to the result itself.  The key is that the innovative outcome, though possibly visually or tactically different, is functionally the same.

Outcomes

While strategy and execution are critical processes to enable the achievement of goals it is the actual outcome that gets measured and remembered.

The leaders focus is not on their ability to think strategically or act with a high level of operational effectiveness but rather to facilitate these practices in order to enable the achievement of the desired outcomes.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Everyone is Important

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Our worlds, specifically the people we are surrounded by, consist of many different personalities and perspectives.  Thriving on the differences, that is  embracing them, is more likely to lead to success, than otherwise.

The first step is to accept as a personal mantra, “everyone is important”.  Not lip service but a fully embedded personal belief that guides your behaviour.

Behaviour sets the tone

How you interract with others, from body language to verbal communication, sets the tone for receptivity.  If you broadcast the message that you believe everyone is important, it will be picked up.

People are sensitve and the underlying emotional tone is communicated whether intended or not.  This unspoken messaging can drive the entire tone of a collaberative interraction (or maybe it’s not collaborative, you could be sending the wrong vibe).

The Value Equation

Whats in it for me?  Believing, really believing, that everyone is important leads to powerful collaboration without even trying.  Everyone has a desire to be be recognized.

Treating others with respect requires recognition of their value.  Everyone brings something of use to any collaboration.  This acknowledgement works in all ways, i.e., you send the message and typically others respond in kind.

Everyone contributes to the end result and everyone succeeds. Everyone enjoys, everyone’s realizes pleasure.  It is easy to create this productive and effective environment.

Its all about me

Most importantly, you still are the most important.  Your life is all about you after all.  Focusing soley on yourself though is a big mistake.  The power of the human race as a whole far exceeds that of an individual.

 

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Restricted Trade Practices

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I often wonder what would happen if the only constraint on buying and selling goods and services (world wide) was supply and demand.  What effect would this have on the worlds economy.

Trade restrictions,  both political and financial have long histories around the world.  Basically for as long as countries have existed.  There are no examples of unrestricted trade to examine.

Unfortunately without the benefit of real experience the argument over controlling a societies destiny based on geography becomes philosophical and emotionally entrenched.

Patriotism has a cost

Countries enable specific societal and cultural practices to be enforced within controllable boundaries.  What if these constraints did not exist?

Laws, both creation and enforcement would need to be managed worldwide.  Is this feasible without regional boundaries covering specific populational sizes and associated areas?

It has never happened so far in the history of humanity. So albeit might be a good idea, seems like something that is not going to happen organically.

For me, intuitively, removal of artificial barriers to buying and selling sets the value bar in the most realistic way.  Of course,  it eliminates the opportunities for exercise of control and power through political practices, therefore,  those in governing roles find it a hard concept to grasp.

It’s all about me

Lately on a world wide basis, whether exemplified by Brexit or Trump trade positions or Euroexit politics, people are becoming insular and focused on “it’s all about me”.

Trade is good as long as it benefits me (my country). What benefits me is probably at the detriment of others, but thats okay. What a sad attitude.

And the truly sad part is currently this view is becoming more and more popular world wide.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Communication Maturity

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The maturity theme continues.

Todays focus is on humans most critical skill.  Whether living your life to the fullest, striving to be best or just seeking basic satisfaction, communication underlies everything you do.

Communication is simply the providing or recieving of information.  There are a multitude of ways to exchange information (i.e., communicate).  My blog, of course, is an outstanding example of this.

Of course once sent or recieved the information must be processed, always the tricky part.  Whether in an  individual or organizational context, the processing (which includes filtering) is most impacted by both parties maturity levels.

What is Communication Maturity.

One person tells a story to another.  They understand the information they have shared and check with the reciever “Got that”, “Yup” is the affirmative response.

Oh if it were really so simple.  In this example the receiver certainly got information, that was confirmed, but was it what the sender intended.?  Who knows?

Interpretation of information can be influenced by your personal filters, bias and most of all experience.  Maturity is all about experience and when applied as objectively as possible to information exchanges it can increase the likelihood of consensus understanding.

Consensus does not mean agreement rather common understanding.  For mature dialogue that is the goal.  A key attribute of successful  exchanges is understanding not agreement. This is the ultimate goal.

It is far more important that all parties view the base information the same way even if they don’t agree.  Without exception this leads to better outcomes.

Developing conversational maturity takes time (you need experience afterall) but it also take focus and effort. Experience is of little value if not applied.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Structuring for Success

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Groups of  people bonded together by a common purpose require a defined organizational structure.  This applies whether it is a large corporation, charity, non-profit, government agency, to name just a few of the numerous  types of groups, right up to just a simple family.

The structure can develop organically (e.g., the parent child relationships in a family) or can be very complex requiring a lot of time and effort to develop.Outside consultants may be hired to provide guidance in the more complex cases.

Whether, organic, intuitive or intracately detailed the purpose of the structure is to guide the organization toward efficient and effective achievement of it’s purpose.

This is quite different from the individual goals and objectives that may cascade throughout the organization.  The organization structure enables seemless integration of disparate operations all focused on the overriding purpose of the organization.

Every Piece is Critical

Many years ago, I heard the story of a janitor at one of the Boeing aircraft factories whom, when asked what his work was clearly stated ” I build airplanes”.

The point is clear.  Boeing  builds airplanes and everyone who works there, regardless of their own specific role, plays a part in the companies ability to achieve their outcome.

Well crafted organization structures are a critical tool in making this happen.  Like a school of dolphins or military aircraft in close flight successfull completion of the journey requires every part to fully understand not only their role and accountabilities but all the others as well.

Everything must operate in perfect synchronization to ensure success.

So organization structure is critical, what next?

Hopefully I have set the frame in this post for how critical your structure is to your operations overall success.  In future posts I will explore key aspects to consider while developing that structure.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

I am right

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Occassionally I have participated in discussions where assumptions are presented as facts.  Even worse, those assumptions can frequently take the form of an attack.

For example, “you are not listening to me”.  In fact these statements typically represent a subjective opinion , albeit presented with factual authority.

These are the worst kind of conversation.  Rarely do they achieve anything beyond creating animosity and bad will.  Which leads to the questions like why does this happen?

Seeking Something

Logic dictates conversations, discussions and meetings have purpose.  Whether it just be a cheerful discourse to make you feel good, exchange of information, plotting actions or a myriad of other things, ultimately there is a reason.

Animosity and bad will are probably seldom the goal.  Why would anyone initiate and sustain a discussion that could lead to  sadness or disappointment.  What is the point?

Feeding the Ego

Everyone is important.  Sometimes people get the feeling you don’t understand their importance.  This is one of the triggers of these difficult conversations.

The fictional Vulcan race from the Star Trek franchise are founded in logic.  By removing emotion from the equation, like the Vulcans do,  the type of discourse I have described here does not occur.

That is, assumption based attack focused conversations require strong emotions to be present.  With emotions removed from the equation,  solely reacting logically rather than how you feel (or a combination thereof) eliminates the possibility of a bad conversational experience.

In these cases the focus is on the outcome.  The objective is far more likely to be attained.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Hindsight

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“If I knew back then what I know now , then I could have ………”. Ah, what a sad lament.  The logic of the statement rings true.  For example if I knew shares In Apple were going to appreciate the way they have before the price began to rise.

Or that Nortel would go bankrupt.  That Bre-X was a fraud.  That Donald Trump would get elected.  The pain I could have avoided, the profit I could have made.

Lamenting the Unknown

The benefit of hindsight is fairly obvious .  There is none.  The probability that you will ever know what the future will bring with absolute certainty is nil.

Recognition that the unknown exists is key to making good decisions.  Attempting to predict the unknown and acting on those predictions can be a risky business.

A better practice is to quantify what you know and where possible what you don’t know.  In some cases of course you won’t even know what you don’t know.   Those cases cannot be quantified.

Knowledge Based Actions

Knowledge is a combination of the things you know and those you don’t know.  That is, you know of them, but don’t know the answer.  (Obviously things you don’t know of at all cannot be included)

Knowledge based decision making is  based on known information (included those with an unknown quantity but which you are aware of).  This method provides better results than hindsight or historical data.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Figuring it out

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When making a decision we use information to figure out how to proceed.  The information is basically interpreted through one or both of two lenses.  Those perspectives are commonly classified as objective and subjective.

Objective Analysis

Taken as an adjective, as in objective analysis or objective perspective, the term refers to an interpretation of information in a way that is not influenced by personal feelings or opinions.

When considering and representing facts objectively your behaviour is described by others as impartial, unbiased, unprejudiced, nonpartisan, disinterested, neutral, uninvolved, even-handed, equitable, fair, fair-minded, just, open-minded, dispassionate, detached or neutral.

To do this, the information must not only be interpreted objectively but the sources must be objective as well.  Truly objective data cannot be tortured into saying anything.

Subjective Analysis

Again considered as an adjective, subjective analysis is
based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions.  In essence the opposite of the objective view.

When considering and representing the facts subjectively your behaiour can be described as personal opinions, individually based, emotionally driven and perhaps  instinctive or intuitive.

Back to Balance

A theme that runs through many of my posts surrounds the benefits derived from balanced behaviour.  Using both objective and subjective perspectives in balance is a great example of this practice (balancing opposites).

This can also be described as the Art and Science of decision making.  Founding a decision purley on logic can result in the bi-passing of moral and emotional well being .

Purely emotional views can lead to high risk and even result in the goal not being reached.  Keep in mind, the next time you are making a decision both objective and subjective perspectives add value.

Recognize when you are using each and maintain an equitable balance, this will most likely lead to figuring out the way to consistently good decisions?

 

 

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Checks and Balances

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The law of supply and demand can act as a key behaviour control.  Action and reaction can also serve this purpose.  These two practices can be used as tools to effect change.

It’s So Unfair

I had a conversation the other day about people being mistreated.  Things like unrealistic job performance demands, little sympathy for hardship, or taking a hard line on working hours or working conditions.

Clearly wrong or harsh behaviour cannot always be corrected or resolved through a reaction or by managing supply or demand.  However, these approaches can influence change and do provide the opportunity to drive outcomes.

Whether successful or not, at least you tried.  Taking action is far more likely to achieve a result than just hoping the “luck of the Irish will prevail”.  That is, if you take no action you should expect no result.

(Side note, luck of the Irish refers to winning or succeeding at something for no apparent reason.  Like finding gold when others cannot or winning at gambling).

For Example

An obvious example of using the law of supply and demand to affect behaviour change is trade sanctions (limiting supply). In this case one group of countries might apply a trade blockade to another country to influence them to change their behaviour (e.g., stop developing nuclear arms)

At a more granular level, if an employer cuts your wage, you could just accept it but alternately you could refuse to accept the insult and provide supporting evidence of your value, (measurable evidence) and outline the impacts of losing you as a valuable resource versus some short term monetary savings.  The ability to react and how you react is up to you.

Give it a try

Next time you see unjust behaviour, try to effect a change.  What can you lose, beyond the time and effort to try.