february 2008

	Imposters	Ron Crossland
	Buenos Aires: Lessons Learned	Bob Johnson
	Over the Edge	John Colburn
	Making Training Stick

Imposters

By RON CROSSLAND

I had two recent experiences that got me thinking. The first was looking at New York publisher McGraw-Hill’s two-page spread in the December 31, 2007 issue of BusinessWeek. It showed the covers of four books with the caption, “Great leaders read great books.” Being a constantly aspiring writer, I looked up these titles’ Amazon daily ranking. It indeed appears these books are being read (or at least purchased) – Influencer (#568), The Toyota Way (#634), The Starbucks Experience (#1049), and Happier (#384).

Each of these books are about how to make things better. Each one offers straightforward, easy to remember ideas on how to build success – personally or corporately. The book on Toyota lists fourteen management principles, the Starbucks book walks you through their five principles, the book on happiness (which is also the most popular course at Harvard, where the author teaches) focuses on the secrets to daily joy and lasting fulfillment. The book on influence promises you how to have the power to change anything. They are all about achieving success through exploration of positive ideas.

The second experience occurred mid-January in New York City. I was part of the faculty/coach staff for a wonderful executive presence workshop hosted by the extraordinarily talented Gifford Booth of TAI, the corporate coaching side of The Actor’s Institute. He and I had designed this new experience that helped a group of managers take a deep dive into their own character to learn what it is to have presence with a group.

The opening activity concerned the pre-work. Each person was to recite or sing a passage from some source that held great personal meaning. Not the kind of thing you ask executives to do ordinarily, but amazingly revealing. While I’d love to write about all the terrific parts of this experience, I am going to focus on two lines from one of the poems recited that relates to the McGraw-Hill books. One person read from Kipling’s famous poem “If.” The two lines are:

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If Kipling is correct, that success and failure are both imposters, then why are we drawn so eagerly, with such thirst, to books concerning the successful impostor?

For some this question is pragmatic – I’d rather have success than failure. For some the question is psychological – success is positive and positive things affirm life, better mental health, and improve relationships. For some the question is capitalistic – too many failures and the company dies. For some the question is process related – success breeds success. And for some the question is ideological – success is the only thing.

Some will argue success and failure are relative – they are comparisons we make against some measuring stick. Is a silver medal really a failure next to a gold medal? Is dropping out of college a failure, if later you have a successful and prosperous economic life?

I would like to invite our readers to write in and tell us what they think. Are success and failure both impostors? If so, in what way? Are they different? We’d love to hear your answers. Email me your thoughts and we’ll post your views in a column later this year. 

Ron Crossland is the Chairman of Bluepoint Leadership Development, and the Co-Author of The Leadership Experience and The Leader's Voice. He can be reached via email.

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buenos Aires: Lessons Learned

By BOB JOHNSON

After over fifteen years of very reduced travel, in order to be in Calgary and watch my kids grow up, I have purposefully started traveling for work again.  Travel has always interested me and I crave going to different environments, seeing new places and meeting new people. With every experience comes a new view toward life and new lessons to add to the book of life.

This past summer I had the opportunity to go to Buenos Aires to lead a four day leadership development event. It was my first time below the equator, and my first experience of Argentinean culture.

I fell in love with the South Americans I came to know over the week. Mostly Argentineans, there were also folks from Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay and Bolivia. My introduction to the participants came early Monday, when there was great fanfare as participants came into the room and saw their friends again. Hugs and kisses were commonplace. The noise level was noticeably higher than the start of other similar events in North America. Getting them all to settle down and take their seats so we could start the real work became our first challenge of the week.

Little did I know that this challenge would last the whole week and one of my own greatest aha’s would surround this dilemma. Throughout the week I would stand in the doorway barking out commands to get back in the room so we could get started again. If we started 15 minutes late we felt we were on time! The term mañana (meaning operating in his or her own time frame) rang true in the morning getting started, after every break, and, most extremely, after each meal. I found myself rising to various levels of frustration. On the third day I continued showing my displeasure as I stood in the door trying to look as stern as I possibly could watching a stray group of participants stand in front of a painting hanging in the hallway joyfully talking away in Spanish with occasional glances my way. Later that afternoon as we debriefed another successful day of learning I shared my key learning as well.

I have made a living as a coach. I cannot imagine a better profession to share with the world. I have clear memories of impacting people’s lives often on a daily basis. In North America I find much of my work centers around a client finding their way through the maze of daily life, particularly their jobs, rushing with such furor that they often forget to slow down, connect with others and enjoy life. I get paid well to help open their eyes to the art of connecting with others, slow down the pace and take a strong look at what is most important.

And here I am in Buenos Aires completely frustrated with a culture that honors friendship, connection and appreciating life as it unfolds! Why won’t they just get back in the classroom, sit down and pay attention to what we have to say?

This past week I finished another four day leadership development event, this time in North America. I was back to coaching the participants to increase their ‘white space,’ and to make room for reflection and to clearly define their values and what is most important to them. The program included some scheduled time for self-reflection and connecting with others. The contrast to my week in Buenos Aires was stark.

My friends from South America can teach all of us a few things about leadership. Stop to smell the roses, connect with the people that are important in your life and consistently value the gift of relationships. We spend precious little time in both our professional and personal lives nurturing these valued connections. It is these thriving connections with others that can turn a good leader into a great one.

Bob Johnson is a Senior Facilitator with Bluepoint Leadership Development. He can be reached via email.

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Over the edge

By JOHN COLBURN

I work with a lot of busy leaders. They spend millions of dollars each year on technology that helps them manage their busy schedules.  From Blackberries, to Smart Phones to Pocket PC’s, their investment helps them to never lose sight of what needs to be done right now.  Whether driving to the airport, walking between meetings or attending a leadership workshop, they have instantaneous access to important business information.   This technology helps them stay on top of critical issues that need their attention immediately.  I have no doubt that this technology gives modern business leaders an edge over their predecessors.  Perhaps if Magellan had had a handheld GPS, he would not only have been the first person to engineer a successful circumnavigation of the globe, but maybe he would have lived to tell about it as well.  Though I am not as old as Magellan, it wasn’t that long ago that whenever I was on the road, I had to pull over and look for a pay phone to check in or to make an important business call.  Contrast that with today where my Bluepoint colleagues and I travel the globe delivering our services and are never more than a vibrating hip away from one another. But there are, I believe, potentially negative consequences to this crackberry induced addiction to instant access.

For better or worse, I believe that technology has seduced many leaders into an unhealthy need to manage the present.  Don’t get me wrong.  I appreciate as much as the next person a leader who is in touch enough with my job that she can roll up her sleeves and work side by side with me.  Walking the metaphorical factory floor is a great way to better understand the challenges that one’s constituents face on a daily basis as well as understanding how to improve work flow processes.  There comes a point though when the leader’s presence on the frontline inhibits motivation rather than fosters it.  Technology can sometimes make it too easy for leaders to dictate their involvement in ways that are ultimately unhealthy for leaders and workers.

This over functioning deep in the organization by leaders can have several unintended consequences.  Constituents may develop a learned helplessness.  Your insistence on instant messaged status reports, for example, may induce your workforce into an unwillingness in making decisions or taking actions without first running them by you – even decisions and actions that are well within their capabilities and responsibilities.  Worse, when the situation calls for an innovative response, workers may feel immobilized by the situation, thereby forcing your persistent oversight into ever more mundane issues.  It becomes a terrible self fulfilling negative spiral – they never develop their capabilities, so you do more, your calendar never clears, they become more dependent on you and everybody goes home tired.  The less enlightened leader then looks at his workforce and complains that the leadership pipeline looks empty. 

Another unintended consequence of over involvement in managing the present is that the leader does not have any time to create and reinforce her vision of the future.  Your employees want to know what your vision is for the rewards that will help guide them through the perilous waters of their daily lives.  It is your job as a leader to remind your constituents in a compelling and memorable way that their involvement in your organization, the work they do and the appreciation you show for it goes beyond their daily routine and their bi-monthly paychecks.    Your compelling vision of the future is precisely what they need and want to help them have the courage to slay the monsters that occasionally scrape the bottoms of their boats.   Reinforced over time, it is this vision that lifts the inescapable fog and helps them realize the greater rewards of fulfilling your company’s mission.  

So, what does it take to cure this technology fueled addiction to the here and now?  Well, for hints we can once again look at Magellan’s global expedition.  Starting with smart capable people who are well supplied and supported decreases the likelihood that you will need to step in to rescue in the future.  Do you allow your constituents the time to grow and develop?  Either through challenging job assignments, association with mentors or attendance at workshops, investing in the ongoing development of your workforce insures that future leaders are being nurtured.

Magellan aspired to be the first person to sail around the world.  To this bold vision, he applied the full force of his personality and will.  He prepared relentlessly and utilized the latest in mapping knowledge to chart his course.  He enrolled others in his vision constantly and was willing to sacrifice mightily for his cause.  What is your bold vision of the future? How are you enrolling others in your challenging but rewarding look forward?  Magellan’s men didn’t need him standing above them constantly reminding them of where they were headed.  Yet his vision was so compelling that they carried him on their shoulders constantly, emboldened by his vision. 

Try this test.  Keep a log for a week charting the amount of time you spend checking email versus coaching others, reinforcing your company's values and mission and further reinforcing and clarifying your vision.   Like Magellan, you might be surprised at what you discover.  Keep leading and keep me informed.  I’d like to hear from you about how it is going.

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Making Training Stick

Webinar with GREGG THOMPSON

The number one thing CEOs are looking for in their organizations for 2008 is execution.

Join Gregg Thompson as he discusses ways to ensure that workshop learning translates into real change in your organization.

February 19, 2008
1:00pm EST/10:am PST

Register here

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