In yesterday's post about courage, I referred to If Harry Potter Ran General Electric: Leadership Wisdom from the World of the Wizards. This post draws from the same wonderful book. The author, Tom Morris, is a philospopher much influenced, it seems, by Aristotle. I will tell you, pretty much all I know about Aristotle (which isn't much) I learned from Tom Morris.
According to Tom, Aristotle taught that courage is the midpoint between two extremes: the extreme of too little, (which would be cowardice) and the extreme of too much (which would be a rash form of carelessness). While I suspect most people think courage is the opposite of cowardice, Tom and Aristotle think courage is just as different from "a rash, unreasonable carelessness." Tom goes on to say,
"An act of courage is a properly motivated and measured response to perceived risk by a person willing to face that potential harm for the sake of securing or promoting a greater good."
Obviously, such an act of courage entails risk. But risk is just part of the package for leaders. In fact, Peter Drucker once said, "The essense of economic activity is the commitment of present resourses to future expectations, and that means uncertainty and risk." It seems to me that when courage is insprired by the greater good, some measure of risk and uncertainty is not only justified, but required.
More posts on;
Tom Morris,
Peter Drucker,
Courage,
Risk
I've never thought much about how courage relates to leadership. But, the new book from Tom Morris, If Harry Potter Ran General Electric: Leadership Wisdom from the World of the Wizards, certainly changed that. Drawing on his vast knowledge of philosophy and ancient thinkers, Tom suggests,"the fundamental virtue in business and life is courage." Which, I guess, makes courage a relatively important topic. He goes on to explain the experience of courage,
"Courage does not mean fearlessness, but a determination to do what's right even in the face of fear."
Tom says that courage is doing what's best, overall, rather than what's best for you. Which to my mind pretty much describes the responsibility of the leader. In his book, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, John Maxwell also makes this point when he quotes his friend, Gerald Brooks "When you become a leader, you lose the right to think about yourself." So true.
The gift and the central role of the leader is to rally the collective passion of the organization toward a better future. And that means a better future for all the people the organization touches - clients and customers, employees, suppliers and communities. That requires choices, sometimes very difficult choices. But as Dumbledore said in the Chamber of Secrets, "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."
More posts on:
Tom Morris,
John Maxwell,
Harry Potter,
Courage,
- New InSight: Lessons from Leaders Episode -
Rick Krska, President and CEO of LaserCycle, Inc. and InkCycle, Inc., encourages leaders to read and learn from history.
Watch part six of Rick's interview.
Rick also mentions the book Think and Grow Rich. Find out more about the book here
George Brymer's book, Vital Integrities, starts with a reference to some interesting research:
"A national workplace study conducted in 2003 revealed that just 30% of U.S. workers are loyal to their employers - that is, they feel a personal connection, are apt to recommend their organizations to others, and are resistant to offers from outside employers."
Interesting. Now, I'm not a researcher or a statistician - and I realize that comparing the results of one study to the results of a non-related study is probably bogus in the extreme, but I was still intrigued by this coincidence: According to Vital Friends by Tom Rath, Gallup Organization research reveals that "just 30% of employees report having a best friend at work." The percentage of people who are loyal to their companies is the same as people who report having a best friend at work. Hmmm.
It got me thinking: What is it that creates the emotional connection people describe as loyalty? Is it the paycheck and the benefit package? Is it the nice office, or the free coffee, or even the onsite daycare? I don't think so. I think it's our commitment to the relationships we enjoy with our bosses, subordinates and peers. That's what binds us to our companies - that's what creates the personal connection and makes us resistant to offers from outside employers. Company loyalty is a by product of the positive relationships we have at work. If you question that, ask yourself this question: If I left my company, what would I miss most?
More posts on:
Company Loyalty,
George Brymer,
Vital Integrities,
Vital Friends,
Tom Rath
Now you got to have friends
You know the feelings all so strong
You got to have friends
To make that day last long
I'll tell you right now, I never expected to quote a Barry Manilow song in this blog - or even admit to knowing a Barry Manilow song, for that matter. But after reading Tom Rath's new book, Vital Friends, I just can't get the damn Friends song out of my head.
I suspect this book was born a couple of decades ago when Don Clifton (Tom Rath's grandfather, one of the most important thinkers in the positive psychology movement, co-author of Now, Discover Your Strengths AND a bunch of other stuff) got interested in why some people recovered from homelessness and rejoined society, while others remained chronically homeless. In the opening pages of Vital Friends, Rath says,
"The men and women who remained homeless for decades had something in common: a lack of healthy friendships."
And while this is a book about friendship, it is not a sociology book - it's a business book, and an important one at that. Much of the foundation for the book emanates from the question on Gallup's Q12 employee engagement survey that asks employees if they have a best friend at work. Here's where it starts getting interesting - staggering, really.
According to Vital Friends, if you have a best friend at work, you are significantly more likely to:
engage your customers
get more done in less time
have fun on the job
have a safe workplace with fewer accidents
innovate and share new ideas
Not only that, but in Gallup's research, the best friend question "has consistently been one of the best predictors of an organization's profitability."
This book removes relationship from the realm of the touchy-feely (if you ever thought it was there) and quantifies its power. If you lead an organization or manage people, the facts and ideas in this book can help you and your people be more productive.
More posts on:
Vital Friends,
Tom Rath,
Don Clifton,
Best Friend
- New InSight: Lessons from Leaders Episode -
Rick Krska, President and CEO of LaserCycle, Inc. and InkCycle, Inc., discusses how finding a mentor is not as hard as it may seem.
Watch part five of Rick's interview.
- Excerpt from The Wisdom of the Flying Pig -
"Measurement just might be the magic potion. With proper measurement, productivity can double."
If you expect people to produce specific results, you must measure their performance. Without measurement your expectations have no validity; they are little more than idle conversation. Simply put, measurement tells you whether or not your people have done what you expected them to do. Isn’t that something you’d like to know? Isn’t that something your boss would like to know?
What you measure and how you measure it will be unique to your particular workgroup. But keep in mind, in every workgroup there are a critical few activities that drive productivity. We call these critical activities key drivers. Identify the key drivers and measure them relentlessly.
"Measurement improves performance and changes how people experience their work."
As a sous-chef in a large kitchen, Mike H. manages half a dozen cooks. He told me this story. Cooks in Mike’s kitchen rotate through several stations. Cooks hate the broiler station. It’s hot, it’s hectic, and they avoid it if they can.
Early in a promotion featuring strip steaks, at the end of the shift when he was doing the steak count, Mike happened to mention to the broiler man that he had cooked 100 strips that night—well over the average of 30 strips per night. The cook was excited and told all the other cooks.
From then on, every night the cooks hung around for the steak count to see if they beat the previous record. They stared vying for a chance to be on the broiler. The cooks even started exhorting the servers to sell more strip steaks. Instead of approaching that job with dread, they looked forward to their turn on the broiler. And by the way, one night they sold 276 strip steaks.
- New InSight: Lessons from Leaders Episode -
Rick Krska, President and CEO of LaserCycle, Inc. and InkCycle, Inc., talks about communicating vision and choosing great people can help your business.
Watch part four of Rick's interview.
Yesterday's Wall Street Journal published a feature by Joann Lublin entitled, Interview Etiquette Begins the Minute You Walk in the Door. The first couple of paragraphs told the story of a job candidate who had been kept waiting 30 minutes for an interview with the CEO of Gateway Computers. After 30 minutes the candidate decided not to wait any longer and left. A representative from the hiring company was quoted as saying, "I remember being really shocked."
Shocked!? Exactly how long is the candidate supposed to wait? An hour? Two hours? A day? Give me a break.
But in my opinion, Ms. Lublin's next sentence is even more absurd: "Most job applicants realize they should avoid such blatantly rude conduct during job searches." Wait a minute, who was late for the freakin' appointment? It seems to me the late person is the rude person.
The article also quotes Mark Jaffe of Wyatt and Jaffe - he says, "An overblown sense of entitlement can lead to a variety of candidate misbehaviors that will kill your chances." And I'm sure that's absolutely true. But it's also true that a variety of EMPLOYER misbehaviors will kill your chances.
I don't know this to be true, but I'm going to guess there's a plaque or a mission statement or a value proclamation somewhere in the Gateway headquarters that says something like, "Our people are our most valuable asset." And that may well be true - but this event damn sure doesn't support that idea. It seems to me that Gateway, the Wall Street Journal and Ms. Lublin need to get a clue - as leaders, we need them way more than they need us.
More posts on:
Gateway
Last evening I spent some time with my friend, Rick. As I always do, I came away humbled and in awe. You see, Rick is living every entrepreneur's dream. He started a company in his basement in the early 90s, and today he employs over 800 people. Our friend (and banker), Julie, calls Rick a rock star entrepreneur - and she's right. But that's not the awe-inspiring part. Let me explain.
As you might imagine, success like Rick has built brings some pretty cool perks: money, fame, respect, etc. And while I suspect Rick enjoys much of that - I've observed what really moves him. It's the experience of handing out bonus checks to his employees. When I saw Rick last night he was fresh from conducting 13 separate group meetings where he handed out the quarterly bonus to every single employee in the company. Rick's joy was palpable - he was so proud of his people. From what I've seen, there is nothing about his success that Rick values more than seeing his employees do well.
In Servant Leadership, Robert Greenleaf says, "The servant-leader is servant first ... It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions ... The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature."
I'm blessed to have regular access to a guy as close to the servant-first extreme as I can imagine.
More posts on:
Servant Leadership,
Robert Greenleaf
|
|
