In this month’s video newsletter, David goes in depth explaining the true power of vision.  He shows how one’s genius can be unleashed through the power of vision and makes a compelling case for vision being the antidote to many of today’s business challenges.  If you like the video then sign up for this month’s webinar entitled “What Does it Take to Be a Visionary Leader?” by following this link.

The ones who forward change are those who have taken a hard look at themselves.  One of my favorite examples is Nelson Mandela.  He sat in a prison cell for 27 years and while in those terrible conditions he took the time to reflect – asking who he needed to be to get through that time and help his country.  The transformation that happened to this great man – occurred a great deal because of his own self-inquiry that was forced during those years in prison.  Mandela came out of those terrible conditions with a much more powerful presence than before he entered the cell that gained deep respect not only from his countrymen and world leaders – he also became deeply admired by his jailers.  He stepped out of prison into his role as President of South Africa with the intent to integrate a country and he did!  He transformed that country yet did so only after transforming himself. 

Those who avoid such inquiry start believing their own hype – that the way they think, emote and behave is the only way to do so.   Such “leaders” do not have a vision for the common good and they are not really open to listening.  In essence they have accepted the status quo and use the past as a means to dictate the future.

True leaders look at themselves as an instrument for a vision that has a place for everyone in their constituency.  They lead by example and realize they do not have all the answers.  Yet, most importantly these leaders are willing to look at themselves and their closely held beliefs and they are willing to change these beliefs in order to achieve what is more important to them.

As I mentioned in my blog entry “The Last Thing Standing In the Way of Executive Development is the Executive” – the main reason why leadership development is not more practiced comes down to the resistance of leaders in organizations to engage the process completely and fully.  Why?  Because it means that an executive in a leadership position must question their views and do deep self-inquiry in order to become a more effective leaders.  Yes, this is uncomfortable yet true leaders rise above this concern because there is something bigger at stake.  Such leaders realize the more they have access to their true power – they will give others permission to embrace theirs.

Also, this discomfort is over emphasized in our experience because I have never met a person who committed to the path of their own development who over time not only found greater effectiveness in their leadership – they also found much more freedom and joy at work and in life.   A little discomfort was a small price to pay for the results.

So if you are looking towards the new year with a desire to change something at work or in the world.  Start by considering this quote from Ghandi:

Be the Change You Want to See In the World

Whether you like it or not – all effective change starts with you! Leadership development is not something for other people who “need it.”  It is for the ones who desire to have impact.  So, if you have a deep desire for change then make sure you are doing something next year to support your own transformation as a leader!

Focus on the Vision & Impact Yet Allow the "How To" Emerge Naturally Fully Utilizing the Brain's Creative Power

In short, too much time is wasted in organizations trying to figure out how to deploy a vision, strategy or even a goal.  Now I am not saying understanding tactically how to generate a results is not important – it is critically important.   Yet, when we go from goal setting immediately to planning – it is a mistake.  Why do I say this? Because when we immediately go to planning we do not take advantage of more creative means of success that are not initially apparent.  These alternatives many times are more powerful than ideas we feel pressured to manufacture analytically.

Research has shown our brains are “servo-mechanisms” around problems and questions.  This means when we present our whole brains (left and right hemispheres) with a problem and ask it for support to solve a problem – it will begin working on it.  Not only that if it is clear that the resolution of the situation or accomplishment of a goal is very important – it will work 24/7 to open up very creative solutions and pathways.  So how is this practically applied?

• Clarify the goal or problem you want solved
• Rather than rushing to figure out how you are going to succeed or solve the problem – let your mind sit with it for a while (e.g. sleep on it for a few days).
• To help the process imagine what it will be like to solve the problem or achieve the goal.  See it being realized and write down the impact it will have for you, the key stakeholders and organization.
• Review this a couple times a day for several days.
• To magnify this have your team do the same.
• Convene a meeting and brainstorm what has been emerging
• Decide on the solution that seems to offer the most promise and engage it.

By using this approach you will be surprised by the powerful solutions that emerge easily and effortlessly just be sitting on the goal or problem for a few days.  Give it a try and trust the powerful mechanism you and all those around you have.  It is rarely utilized by executives yet if it is deployed it will not only save you a lot of time – it will likely generate far better solutions and approaches.

Bringing Balance to Leadership

In an earlier entry “The Rising Power of the Feminine in Executive Leadership” – I highlighted solid research showing that companies with women in top leadership positions have stronger relationships with customers and shareholders and a more diverse and profitable business ¹.

A recent article in Forbes shows that most US Corporations are still not realizing the power that women bring.  The article highlights some sobering statistics as follows:

• Research done between 2004-2010 indicates that over 33% of women are leaving the workforce each year for various reasons.  For example in 2009 74% left for child care reasons, 16% left because their careers were stalled and a whopping 89% left because no executive in the organization was sponsoring their journey to success ².
• While 89% planned to resume their careers after a hiatus – only 40% of the women looking to reenter the work force after only 2 years found full time employment ³.
• Women who return to full-time work face a lower job title, a decrease in management and overall responsibilities and a striking financial penalty. Women who off-ramped for two years faced a 14% salary gap. The penalty tripled to 46% for those that left for three or more years ⁴.

This is just another symptom of organizations cutting their nose of despite their face.  Then there is the other side of the coin where an organization takes a talented woman leader and instead of leveraging her strengths and interests – they try to force her into a leadership position that does not fit because they want to show the world they are supporting the promotion of women.  While this shows some thoughtfulness – it is also misguided.

Those organizations who continue down this path just might find that this decision comes back to haunt them.  Why do I say this? Because another statistic shows that the majority of small businesses rising today are lead by women.  If your organization takes no action to change its trajectory – you might just find a fierce yet compassionate competitor lead by a woman eating your lunch.

Whether everyone sees it or not we are facing a major transformation in the way business is conducted worldwide.  If we do not take advantage of the lessons this difficult time has taught us – we will miss a huge opportunity.  To fully leverage this opportunity we need leadership and true leadership integrates a results focus along with a collaborative orientation (among other things).  We do not have enough male leaders who embody both sides of this equation and thus this is why there is a deep need for strong women leaders who for the most part have the capacity to embody both.   Men reading this might react negatively yet this is not about male bashing.  It is about finding balance and having leaders who can model the full power of leadership for everyone.  The question is will enough large organizations recognize the importance of such balance?  If not, there will be a revolution and for those who do not join – you will miss huge opportunities now and the pain of not joining will be greater down the road for you and your organization.

Leaders Are 100% Accountable

Taking 100% responsibility or placing everything on your shoulders and taking on all the stress around the success or failure of the business is not the point.   The point owning the vision and holding the expectancy it will unfold.  If a leader has developed a compelling vision and has done a great job of instilling this vision into their people – while mistakes will happen – in the end the vision will become reality.  Yet, if the leader begins to complain about how the market place is behaving, the problems with the economy, or begins to blame low performers for all the woos in the business – they are missing the point of being a leader as well as the power of vision.

If the market is not responding – a true leader does not blame the market.  They collect the best minds and ask what do we have to do to engage the market more effectively so people get who we are and want to do business with us?   If the economy is tanking and business is off – the true leader takes responsibility by examining with his top people the model they are using to develop business and will shift their approach to succeed or do better than they have in the tough economy.  If there is an issue with low performance – a true leader coaches the boss of that direct report to get to the bottom of it or they themselves explore what the issue is.   If there is not a fit – they let the person go.  If it is a coaching issue they work towards a new commitment with that employee to engage at a higher level and make sure that there will be rewards if they do and consequences if they do not.

The fundamental key here is making sure your people are enrolled in the vision and know their part in fulfilling it.  If the vision has come alive – the true leader knows with certainty it is only a matter of time before things line up.  They embrace the responsibility for creating an environment that is brutally honest about what the challenges are while also inspiring others to reach further to fulfill the mission and key priorities.

True leaders also expect their best people to take on their responsibility for their part of the vision and to be accountable for their results.  If they can not do this and not aligned with the organization’s mission and vision then they are in the wrong place and it is best to move on.  Yet, if the leader begins to complain about their performance with out proper feedback and coaching – then it is as much or more the leader’s limitations that are the reason for less than acceptable outcomes. Ultimately, the leader declares the destination, sets the course and is very clear about their expectations.  They want their people to take risks and failure is an option as long as everyone is learning and leveraging lessons learned to achieve the results and improve performance.

Your Choice

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For example, one of my clients reacted to the recession by asking each of its senior executives to make 5 new contacts a week with the goal of closing at least 1 new major account for the quarter.  To put this in context – up to the recession – this company had little concern for how to win business.  In fact, the organization had been doing quite well for over 10 years to the point it was having a hard time keeping up with demand.  So most of the executives they were telling to engage in more business development had not had to do so for much of their careers.  Yet, now they are being asked, from on high, to go out and market, sell and network.  They were not asked to discuss the existing state of the business, their ideas for growing the business were not requested, and there was no discussion around what support they needed to succeed in their business development efforts.   You might not be surprised that their efforts generated marginal results at best.

At its core, there is nothing wrong with encouraging more activity and yes we need to make more contacts so that we can develop more relationships so that they turn into more sales.  I get that.  However, just pushing for more activity misses the point of effectively engaging the market place or, for that matter, to succeed at any endeavor.  While action is important – the question you must ask yourself is how do we ensure that such activity actually generates results?

The formula for achieving leveraged or inspired action is as follows:

Generating Leveraged Action

In short, there needs to be some reflection and interaction around what we want to build, create, shift as well as doing gaining an aligned view of the current reality.   It is interesting that senior executives deal with challenges much like any human being.  They tend to focus on WHAT THEY DON’T WANT versus WHAT THEY DO WANT.  For example, as the recession hit many of my clients were focusing on how to survive the recession versus how to support their customers through the recession.  They lost mission focus and went to survival focus.  Now in some cases an organization must do this because they face real challenges.  Yet, the majority of my clients were living in fear this would happen – not considering their current state along with the long term view.

The first step of the model above requires the senior team to ask “How do we want to face this challenge and how can we use it to our advantage to strengthen our organization’s position and most support our client base?”   This leads to a more proactive vision, mission and set of goals. This is also a time to be brutally honest about the current reality being faced and to uncover any limiting beliefs or emotions that are driving the action forward.  As I mentioned above, in my view, any fear that is experienced is usually not warranted.  That being said, you don’t know that unless you can honestly assess the current reality.

The second step of the model has to do with engaging your direct reports around the vision as well as the challenge.  The goal here is to both enrich the thought process around how do we accomplish the vision and it also helps to instill ownership of the vision and the challenges by those you engage.  This is much different than pushing the edict down to “be active” in some way.

The third step has to do with energizing people. It is akin to filling up the gas tank in your car for a long trip.  Without the fuel you are not going to get far.  To get the most from those who are out there in the market place – you must be able to help them tap into whats in it for them.  When that is present people will engage in activity – even if it is a bit uncomfortable – because they understand the value for the organization AND THEM.   Here is where another mistake is made.  Sometimes senior leadership feels – “they are in this position for a reason – they should not have to be motivated to achieve our goals.”  This completely misses the point!  The question is do you want a 4 cylinder car or one running on 8 or more cylinders.  The more you energize people and engage their passion – the more they will accomplish.

The fourth and fifth steps can be taken together.  At this stage we are ready to act in a powerful way.  If the first few steps were done well – you won’t need to lay out elaborate activity goals.  You can but it is unnecessary – people who are engaged and energized will act consistent with the vision.  Plus you have the fifth step to ensure the activity is working to meet the vision and goals.  Taking time to take stock of progress and work through the process again will ensure more ownership, engagement, energy and effective actions.

Finally, another concern I get about this model is – “I can see your point but do we have the time to do this?“  I will ask a question back to you on that one.  You have two choices.  Door number one – accept a more narrow band of successful actions.  Door number two – you can take more time upfront time in order to ensure you will multiply your results many times over.  Which door do you choose?  Either choice is fine but one leads to what you really care about most – the other does not.

Umair Haque @ Daytona Sessions vol. 2 – Constructive Capitalism from Daytona Sessions on Vimeo.

Where is The Feedback?

Can you imagine the implication if guided missiles, satellites, GP-S’s, or your own body’s temperature gauge had no feedback mechanisms built in?  Bottom line, they would not work and in the case of the later the lack of a feedback mechanism would lead to death!  Now look at your organization and ask yourself -

• How effective are we at giving each other constructive feedback?
• If and when we do – what impact does it have on our performance and profitability?
• What, if anything, keeps us from having a more feedback rich culture (e.g. we are too polite to each other, we live in silos, etc.)?

Here are some common challenges that hinder an organization’s ability to improve performance through feedback:

• Engaging the performance review system is seen as a hassle and task to get checked off rather than an opportunity to provide substantial feedback and an opportunity to improve performance overall.  In addition, performance reviews are typically done once a year (sometimes there is a mid-year review).  While such reviews are valuable – they are not enough in and of themselves.
• People hesitate to give tough feedback to others or only give positive feedback. Time and time again I have seen this come back to hurt the manager, the person receiving feedback and the organization.  When less effective or disruptive behavior is swept under the carpet for even the best performers you run the risk of the behaviors escalating to the point you hurt team chemistry and/or lose valued employees.
• Even if an organization has a clear set of values or operating guidelines (and many are even lacking this) – they are rarely discussed let alone leveraged as feedback tools.  The benefit of having articulated values (or operating guidelines) is to ensure you are setting a context for how you work with your clients as well as within the organization.  Quite frankly, taking the time to develop values without integrating them into the feedback system is a waste of time!

Any of these sound familiar?  I would be surprised if none of them resonate for you.  To create a feedback rich culture you must:

• Create a context for feedback (e.g. your vision, mission, values, and key priorities) and make sure people know these will be used as vehicles to improve focus and performance.
• Provide feedback on approaches and behaviors that either support or detract from the context above.
• Make sure you have a process to support giving feedback that focuses on the items above and not the person.
• Leaders must model this and be open to receiving feedback themselves when they are not living up to expectations.

Again, feedback is necessary for any goal to be achieved.  Failure is part of the process of succeeding and failure must be embraced BUT ALSO LEARNED FROM!   Internal and external feedback is what provides those learning moments that allow us to navigate more quickly to our desired destinations!

A Network of Conversations

First attending networking events and being able to clearly articulate what you have to offer is not the foundation of networking.  Certainly attending networking events as well as being able to clearly articulate your value is important but these are tactical areas that support something more important.  Networking is founded on the following principles:

1. As mentioned in the outset of this entry, to become a consummate net-worker you must hold the fundamental belief that relationships are what drive your business and personal success.   If you do not hold this as a fundamental belief you will not have much success networking.
2. Relationships can be boiled down to being a series of conversations that when done well lead to deeper value and trust. The core driver of conversations, whether they be business or personal, is the innate desire to forward something of importance.  The way we move things forward is through the commitments we make with each other.
3. At any given point, most executives have a series of concerns that are open. Meaning – they have yet to reach commitments with anyone that will allow them to leverage specific opportunities or mitigate their most nagging challenges.  It is also important to realize that every concern that an executive has open is not of equal priority.  Most savvy executives are more or less aware of their priorities and eager to take action to resolve them.
4. Most executives tend to make a large amount of their commitments with people they know, trust and like. Again, when you are highly involved with your network [whether it be through a networking organization (e.g. your local chamber), conversations with clients, your volunteer work, etc] you will tend to establish a natural rapport that allows for deeper concerns to be more openly expressed.  Developing this rapport and being present to listen puts you in the position to be helpful!
   
5. By placing yourself in the right networking circles – you can develop rapport with a broad range of people and create a reputation that generates a lot of business opportunity.
6. Networking will start baring fruits once you are perceived as a go to person who can:
   1. Solve deep and complex issues in the area of your expertise.
   2. Refer a broad range of resources that can assist other executives outside your realm of expertise.
   3. Be a skilled sounding board to help clarify and prioritize issues for others.
   4. Expand people’s thinking about an issue.

As mentioned earlier – your job in networking involves far more than making sure people know you and what you do – your primary purpose is to become known as a high value resource with a lot to give. When you become known as such a resource – business will come more regularly and at times from resources you never even considered.  Why – because someone in your network started a conversation and you became the resource they referred!   Now that we have set a more powerful context for how to view networking – the next entry in this series will focus on helping you develop a clear strategy for your networking efforts.

Women In the Power Mix

• Collaboration and inclusion
• Teamwork
• More authenticity and transparency
• Building a culture the fosters creativity and innovation
• Coaching and mentoring high potentials
• Showing concern for how the organization impacts the community surrounding it

Yet even more impressive is that I have found women also have a strong drive to succeed and more importantly have the ability to achieve great results for their organizations.  This is not to say that women leaders have no Achilles Heels – they do and I will discuss three major ones a bit later.  That being said, my overall experience has been that women are more willing to acknowledge and accept their short comings which allows them to grow faster and increase impact faster than their male counter parts.  For the most part, they are stellar at taking in feedback.  It would be interesting to see a study on ROI with women versus men who leverage executive coaching.  My guess would be that while both would see strong growth – women may have the edge because they are more naturally open to the learning process.

As more women enter the work force and prove their meddle – they are also transforming the work place. Women business executives with families are dogged about protecting their family time.  On top of this they seem to have the ability to manage their work load so that they can make it to their kids softball game, to be home in time to make dinner, to be there if their kid calls, etc. Many organizations and most male executives have a challenging time appreciating the flexibility that many women executives require for job fulfuillment.  Even when a woman is clearly one of the best producers – men seem to wonder why they are leaving work at 3:30 to attend to family needs.  In short, high powered women executives with families have two jobs yet they have the ability to attend to both with a high level of quality.  Let’s take a look at some powerful statistics.

In Womenomics: Write Your Own Rules for Success published recently, Claire Shipman and Katty Kay, ¹ provide some very compelling research.  For example, did you know that:

• Women’ representation in the senior ranks of Fortune 500 companies grew from 10 percent in 1996 to 16 percent in 2002 ²
• 57% of women in the US hold a bachelors degree, account for over 58% of all those receiving graduate degrees and will soon be in the majority over men in the workforce (current women hold 46% of all positions). ³
• At the University of California at Davis, the graduate school of management concluded in 2005 that companies with women in top leadership positions have stronger relationships with customers and shareholders and a more diverse and profitable business.⁴
• In Norway the government has become so convinced of the value of women in business that the minister of trade has demanded that 40 percent of any company board be women‚ not to appear politically correct, but to make their firms more competitive internationally.⁵

Strong Leadership = Powerful Results!

If you really get your arms around  all of this, it quickly dawns on you that:

1. It is essential to be consciously focusing on the development of stronger leadership in organizations through hiring and active development strategies.
2. If you have a pool of talented highly educated women available who naturally embody key leadership competencies then it makes sense to leverage this and promote women to senior positions – especially if you want to add velocity to strengthening your leadership culture.

All of this points to the value of diversity and hopefully moves us away from trying to strike a balance by using quotas and recognizing how diversity strengthens our ability to be profitable and high performing.  On top of this, everyone has to start to realize that women’s efforts to create greater flexibility in the work force has generated something positive for both men and women.  For example, I have had a number of male clients who have taken time off of work when a child is born – taking advantage of new policies supporting maternity leave.  Similarly, men have greater latitude to attend events their children participate in and have the ability to leave work early to take care of a sick child.

What Women Must Learn

While many women have natural leadership instincts – there are at least three development areas that they must examine – these areas can be boiled down to:

• Generating greater confidence
• Not sweating the small stuff
• Reduce the drama

Again, these are generalities and like men – each individual woman will have their unique development journey.  That being said – let’s briefly take a look at each of the items mentioned above.

Achieving Greater Confidence:

Because many women are relational they tend to be concerned about how others are viewing a problem and can see great value in taking into account another’s opinions when making decisions. This is certainly a strength.  The problem comes in when women begin to discount their inner power and natural abilities when it seems others are taking actions that seem to undermine their own sense of value.  Many of my woman clients, and all the rest of us, tend to desire validation from the outside and create rules that this validation must exist for them to be confident.  Yet, ultimately, confidence is controlled by us – not through another’s opinions.   It is an inside out experience that collapses when we start using external opinions as the main basis for validation.  This is a central learning territory for most women.

Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

I have found that women, like all of us, can get stuck in small issues.  For example, they might fixate on a particular interaction and how they felt leaving that interaction losing site of the purpose of that relationship and the results they are trying to generate with the other person.  At the extreme, this can be perceived as “petty” and hurt their image.  The key to overcoming this is to hold laser focus on key priorities and engage others around the most important outcomes they are aiming to achieve.  This is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater either.  There are times when others are rude, insensitive or just plainly ineffective in an interaction.  The key is to bring this up in the context of the outcomes that are found mutually valuable and provide feedback that the approach they took to the interaction gets in the way of achieving those results.

Reduce the Drama

This trap door builds a bit off the last one.  And again, this can be an issue faced by both men and women.  Reducing drama is not about cutting off emotions.  One of the great things the growing population of women in organizations brings is emotional intelligence.  Yet, when we become overly dramatic when addressing an issue – it takes away from a woman’s impact.  Again, the key is to remain focused – on your personal purpose and vision for impact as well as the key priorities you are accountable for attending to.  Also, taking up something that helps center you whether it be meditation, Hatha Yoga, Thai Chi or some other proven method for finding focus can assist in smoothing out any habit to generate drama.

Certainly the items mentioned above can reduce a female executives power yet no matter how ineffective a strategy or habit is – all of us develop them for some reason.  Yet all habits have a shelf life based on the time in life we developed them.  This is a key understanding in development – how to let go of old habits that no longer have the same effectiveness.  The good news is that I find when a trusting environment is built in the coaching relationship – most women are more than wiling to acknowledge if one of these is getting in her way.

As I have mentioned before – a key to competitive advantage in today’s global market place is enhancing leadership.  Today organizations have a rich pool of talented women leaders ready to answer the call and help your organization move forward towards greater success.

Additional Resource LInks:

• More research on “Womanomics” by Cristian Dezső is assistant professor in the Logistics, Business and Public Policy department at the Smith School of Business, University of Maryland.
• Harvard Business Review – Women in Business Series
• Top 10 Companies for Executive Women
• Fast Company Magazine – The Most Influential Women In Technology
• National Association of Female Executives
• Network of Executive Women
• Executive Women – LinkedIn Group
• Women in The Professional Services Industry – LinkedIn Group
  
• The Multinational Development of Women in Technology
• American Society of Women in Accounting