Steve Jobs Leadership?

Author: Dave Crisp

29 Jan

One might think this question absurd in light of his company’s financial results over the last few years or you might write off his success to pure luck. I’m not sure either fits. His style is nothing if not controversial, but just maybe it can be explained with current theories of leadership success.

I used to puzzle over an expression I haven’t heard in a while – “the exception proves the rule.” How can we say this, I always wondered, when an exception by definition would seem to defy the rule. Later I read that the old meaning of “prove” was “test” as in “proving grounds.” So an exception tests the rule. and certainly if you find the rule still applies, it adds to the proof that the rule makes sense.

One can write off any success to luck and it’s always a key factor, but Jobs clearly was successful several times and clearly followed rules of his own, whether they seemed understandable to us or not, so it’s unlikely to have been pure randomness. The core question remains – was that good leadership. and, if so what does that mean to my leadership theory or the many others that would seem to say his style is unlikely to succeed (and certainly wasn’t pleasant for employees)?

In the wake of Jobs passing I put off drawing conclusions because I felt I was missing something. In the interim I’ve read two Jobs biographies, a number of reviews and a good many articles because I think it is important to answer such puzzles. Ultimately I’ve come to conclusions.

My leadership theory says three relevant things. First, luck is always a factor, but you increase your chances of success if you (second) include five key elements in your leadership style – balancing positive with honest, and strategies with habit-building or implementation skills (those are the five in italics). And you improve your odds further if you either develop great strengths in all five areas (rare) or develop them in some areas and find partners to assist you in the areas where you lack strengths.

Jobs is a very, very extreme case of this, but it worked, albeit in a rather odd way he certainly never planned out. I conclude he wasn’t a great leader by himself nor by knowing how, just through sheer determination and somehow sensing the need for the five elements in strength and finding ways to supplement what he didn’t have.

What he did bring to the party was mostly a rather strange twist on emotional intelligence abilities – those being the positive/honest dimension in my model. His staff used to say he could create a ‘reality distortion field’ in any lengthy conversation or presentation. He was amazing at presenting his arguments in such a way that people walked away totally pumped, completely positive he would succeed, wanting to participate. They ‘drank the cool-aid’ as some would say, time after time – and so did analysts at conferences and trade shows. He even pushed Apple to design top notch presentation software as a key priority, many say, in order to use it to further this over-the-top skill of his.

One reason he was forced to this super-positivity was because he constantly went over the top on the other end of the EI or EQ spectrum. He aimed to be so brutally honest that it was extremely painful to work with him. He would rip people to shreds the second they failed to deliver to his image of what he expected, often highly unrealistic expectations. The latter is typical of great leaders who ‘get away with it’ – to push for results that seem to almost everyone else beyond the realm of what’s even possible – but it’s also typical of wild visionaries whose whacky dreams fail miserably. Jobs stumbled into a very extreme balance, but balance nonetheless, by accident I think.

On another key axis – IQ, the ability to generate workable ideas and implement them, I think Jobs was much less adept, but no less extreme, perhaps even weaker would not be too strong. The defining feature that made his initial fortune through the Mac for instance was the concept of the computer ‘mouse’ with its ability to point, click and activate menus, commands, highlights and more. He didn’t invent this, but saw it at the Xerox PARC labs and recognized – that was his skill in the strategy area – recognized that it had world-class appeal and function. It did, but he couldn’t build it or implement it himself, lacking all the skills needed to do so.

Through his belief that one truly good employee could deliver fifty times the actual implementation of a poor one, he triaged through computer geniuses, insulting and humiliating many in the interests of finding a few who would buy into his reality distortions and deliver fabulous technical machines in a fraction of the time everyone imagined was necessary. It seems certain he was never happy with the results or the speed, but settled for the best he could get by cracking his whip and driving toward the idea he’d spotted that would appeal to consumers.

His strength in the strategies (or ideas) area was to spot and in the implantation area was to drive others since he had absolutely no skills there himself except to see when something wasn’t yet good enough to appeal, wasn’t simple enough to be mass marketed to non-technical individuals. In that respect you have to say his inability to do any of the technical stuff himself was actually an asset – he would simply keep pushing until something worked simply enough even for him.

So in a very odd way, Jobs does in fact fit my theory of leadership, albeit in a way I never imagined and would never recommend. He found a peculiar balance of the key elements, requiring that to balance them he had to be beyond optimistic on the other to balance brutal on the other and capable of identifying the one core idea that was better than every other on one end and driving the associates he could bamboozle into joining to produce it ever more simply, quickly and cheaply on the other.

But it didn’t always work. In several tries – with his Lisa computer, NEXT and in film animation he nearly bankrupted himself or the company because a reliable overall balance never really there. Nevertheless he believed in his own distortion field to the point of nearly losing his house investing in a new idea before it caught on barely in time and took off.

I’m far more interested in tamer applications of my model, ones that anyone can learn and succeed with, but there’s no doubt in my mind that this exception does ‘prove the rule.’ It also could have been disastrous had luck not clicked at the moments it did for Jobs because there was absolutely NO balance in the third dimension – how fast you go. As with riding a bicycle (an example of balancing several skills that I often liken to leadership), if you don’t go fast enough or if you go too fast the balance is in danger of being lost. Jobs risked going far too fast for safety, but that was simply another of his personality quirks and unlike many, many other entrepreneurs he got away with it big time. At the end of the day, it appears he was driven somewhat like Alexander the Great, by believing he might die young and so had to achieve greatness in the short time he had. and, like Alexander, the prophecy seemed to come true unfortunately, just when Jobs had matured more toward the point of planning the balance instead of crashing into it and nearly wrecking everyone along his way. We can thank his indomitable impetuousness for speeding us along the digital path, but we should be glad we weren’t part of the painful process.

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Filed under: 1 Balance - Judgment, Coaching Issues, Fix The Jerks, Human Resources (HR), Leaders of the Future, Learning Organization

Entrepreneurship versus Leadership

Author: Dave Crisp

22 Jan

In the usual cacophony of competing claims about these issues it’s great to read a piece that is simple, concise and clear. Coaches Rich Russakoff and Mary Goodman nailed it in an article for CBS Money Sense (link below).

Entrepreneurs, they say, are ‘lone wolf’ visionaries who make grand, risky promises they often can’t keep, thus letting people down as many or more times than they hit it big. Leaders, on the other hand (effective ones at least) work through and as part of teams. The good ones are ‘humble’ as Jim Collins observed because they recognize everyone contributes and they are just one among many. Although they may be ‘lead dog,’ a dog is still one of the dogs.

From this succinct description, you can draw a number of observations. Who wants to be a dog if you can be a wolf? Just in that seemingly silly comparison alone is captured a key reason why we revere the knight on the white horse CEO who is expected to ride in and fix everything – knights, like wolves, are seen as lone operators. Isn’t it odd how we create these metaphors, ignoring that wolves typically hunt in packs? No matter, it’s that image of greater aggressiveness and ‘doing exactly what you want without limitations of cooperating with others’ that we focus on. In reality knights needed elaborate teams to make them successful, dress them and get them on their horses, too, yet we bypass that in our thinking.

The only thing I disagreed with in this article is the characterization of Steve Jobs as one of the rare people who could meld both entrepreneurship and leadership successfully. Without beating this too hard, if you read some of the biographical material about Jobs, you soon see a pretty pure entrepreneur. Ultimately he returned to Apple, the company he founded, where he had to be fired previously due to his lack of cooperation, let alone effective leadership. Was he a better leader on his return or had he simply learned finally to let others handle such ‘details’ while he continued to drive the entrepreneurial promises of tinier, consumer-friendly machines to be delivered on deadlines no one else thought possible? Being first in the market is definitely an entrepreneur’s

dream and promise they may not be able to keep, not necessarily a leadership vision. Luckily Jobs later tenure at Apple was heading an already seasoned team.

So should we be duped by Jobs spectacular success into honoring entrepreneurship over leadership? Or does it have to be one or the other?

In my own career I once led a startup where we attempted to build a leadership team to support and further the entrepreneurial vision and style of one individual who had a gift for deal-making. It would have worked well even after we discovered he’d lied to us about the profitability of many new, large clients we were setting up with. Within a year or so of learning the truth we could have made them profitable, but in his drive to be the lone wolf, mister entrepreneur kept reporting to the CEO above us that our operation would lose money because ‘those guys in the lead’ had allowed non-profitable clients to be taken on. Get the picture? It didn’t matter we were his colleagues and, so he kept assuring us, friends. He was willing to shaft us so he could be seen as the honest one when the CEO asked him how things were going. It didn’t matter we took on those clients because of his wild lies to us about big profits, nor could he trust that we’d catch up and fix things so they worked. Ultimately we couldn’t survive in a turbulent environment. Talk about the frog and the scorpion.

Personally I’d rather seek effective leaders in the top spot who have the courage and risk-taking ability to promote the ideas of subordinates who have an entrepreneurial streak than try to work with an entrepreneur in the top spot who can countermand the common sense solutions his leadership team attempts to put in place. But you see the conundrum. Whichever is the top boss needs a team that includes the other skill set. It is indeed rare to find any one person with both although I do agree with Russakoff and Goodman when they include Kelleher of Southwest Air and Walton of Walmart.

It seems futile to spend much time looking for the extremely rare combination in one person. Better to spend it building succession plans that put the right mix together, with the right person at the top. and, ideally, a team of people who understand their strengths and weaknesses and how to help everyone function productively together. As always we will never be perfect, so erring one way or the other is the norm and not fatal as long as one can recognize and fix mistakes.

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Filed under: 1 Balance - Judgment, Business/Strategy, Coaching Issues, Fix The Jerks, Leaders of the Future, Learning Organization

Being Good – Fundamental to Better Leadership?

Author: Dave Crisp

1 Jan

Holidays provide change and time to reflect whether one intends to or not. This season various reports seemed to reinforce just how complicated human differences are. No two of us are alike, so the task of coming up with strategies that work reliably in varied situations with any consistency could be difficult. The chief leadership puzzle also popped up again in conversation – not ‘what is leadership’ or ‘does effective leadership make a difference?’ We know the answers to those. What we don’t know is why so many leaders don’t adopt the proven keys that make one leader so much more effective than others.

One answer seems to be that we find ‘nice guys’ not very leader-like, so we hesitate to emulate them. Instances to explore this question come to light constantly. A high profile example arrived in a newsletter pointing to an interview in Forbes of ING Direct CEO Arkadi Kuhlmann who has just written his second book of leadership wisdom called Rock, Then Roll: The Secrets of Culture-Driven Leadership, which Forbes says “gathers nuggets of information distributed to ING Direct’s employees over Kuhlmann’s ten years with ING Direct,” the second of his books to do so.

Mr. Kuhlman is a fabulous Canadian success story not many know much about. An RBC VP at age 33 he took on the challenge of developing online banking for Dutch-owned bank and financial company ING and made the new venture amazingly successful, both in the Canada and the US and several other countries internationally. I happen to know what an uphill battle he must have had within ING from recent coaching with another Canadian sub of theirs which found them almost impossible to deal with – never allowing the sub to make decisions and delaying giving permission needed to operate, exactly opposite to Mr. Kuhlman’s style.

As a result of these different approaches to leadership ING overall needed a $13 billion bail-out from the Dutch government, while one way to pay it back has been to sell Mr. Kuhlman and his super-successful ING Direct to Capital One for $9 billion. Those numbers make the value of effective leadership pretty clear. If you’re wondering whether ING head office will be reading Mr. Kuhlman’s books, I can guess almost certainly they will pay no attention to them despite his success versus their failure.

Mr. Kuhlman, before anything else, promotes an empowerment culture and what he calls ‘culture-driven leadership.’ That means creating a culture in which everyone potentially leads and no one waits on the CEO or anyone else to lay out orders. It is also a great affirmation of the principle that an excellent leader can carve out a highly effective culture in his or her segment of a company that otherwise is downright hostile to it. But will an old-line bank move from command and control culture to this? Not likely in our lifetimes.

The only hesitation I have recommending Kuhlman’s books is he hands out 302 leadership messages in them and another 46 since that latest one. From his interview I think the themes are likely pretty clear, but none of us is capable of digesting, let alone putting into practice, 348 bits of advice, especially when you recognize they fit a particular set of circumstances that you may never encounter again. Inspirational undoubtedly, but workable?

Oddly, a more usable description of similar, but literally on-the-ground ‘nice guy’ leadership is an analysis of Denver Bronco’s quarterback Tim Tebow’s style (also in Forbes). The highly religious Mr. Tebow has become quite controversial as a result of his very public devotional behavior on the field, but he’s simply one more unique individual with unique style. It’s hard to argue with his practical success as a leader, which Kevin Kruse (author of the recent book, We: How to Increase Performance and Profits Through Full Engagement helps us get a handle on.

Without much of a stretch it seems clear these are examples of similar approaches especially in intent, albeit in very different situations where specific details inevitably have to vary. I tend to like Kruse’s descriptions better because they get at more directly what I believe are the five key core concepts without confusing them with too many specific examples – being positive with everyone, but dealing honestly with challenges, bringing the unique pieces together in balance (together meaning ‘we’ over ‘me’ just as Kuhlman insists in his culture-driven model), keeping focused on delivering results. Both promote starting small and persisting to build momentum. and both provide excellent, but very different examples of all this working effectively. Surface differences, similar principles.

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Filed under: 2 Positive - Feelings, Business/Strategy, Coaching over Command Leadership, Fix The Jerks, How Simplicity Works, Leaders of the Future

How Virtual Leadership Differs

Author: Dave Crisp

18 Dec

More discussion has surfaced recently about managing virtual teams and workers. Clearly this is a growing reality in many organizations. In many cases it will have snuck up on us as more people are equipped with computers and communication software both at home and remote office locations. It poses some challenges.

A number of years ago this tended to mean one or two workers working the majority of their time from home or another off-site location (car, hotel room, temporary office). Sorting out best principles evolved so now many organizations have explicit guidelines for this.

In a real sense, a leader might be in charge of a number of employees working remotely, which by definition was a virtual team, but the emphasis tended to be on rules for the employees. Measurement systems that a leader might use to judge productivity tended to be secondary, but important. It was assumed leaders would keep in touch frequently as most seemed a bit skeptical anyway and could be counted on to want to keep close tabs on workers.

As time passed technology made most of us capable of working remotely at least part time with few special arrangements. It also enabled more people to tie into virtual meetings via various types of collaboration programs and online tools. The emphasis shifted away from remote workers as special cases that had to be monitored to an assumption that entire teams might be assembled from workers who are located somewhere other than where the leader is or teams in one location being led by a leader located somewhere else. Technology enabled ‘somewhere else’ to mean literally anywhere on the planet, so rules about attending weekly in-office meetings often no longer fit.

The literature filled with new concerns such as people working at home on off hours. Some unions are even bargaining for on-call premiums for anyone who carries a company cell phone especially since these are now small computers with email and more. But beyond that leadership questions have been multiplying for more complex situations.

Some excellent guides exist now for leaders of true virtual teams such as Jon Wagner’s 3^rd edition, just published with Russ Milland, “The Building Effective Virtual and Remote Teams Handbook” (note: although I haven’t met Jon as far as I recall, he’s a fellow member of Strategic Capability Network). How should leaders behave differently (or should they) if they rarely meet team members and conduct full group meetings and routine one-on-ones via technology? These guys have experience and have studied what works best, but can busy managers really implement 160+ pages of advice?

Other ways of looking at similar concerns and some of the newer evolving technologies and methods that one could consider are captured by Kyle Lagunas, the HR Analyst at Software Advice in a recent article. In his blog post, he discusses the challenges of managing with an “open door” or a version of the much recommended “managing by walking around” when dealing with virtual teams.

Suffice it to say the complete solution almost certainly hasn’t been written yet, nor have all the questions been discovered. It would be nice to think office politics can be overcome with effective processes, clearly set out, but human nature being what it is what happens when a group of employees conspire to rid themselves of an unwanted virtual leader or when individuals plot to become the favorite or divert the project or more? With a growing emphasis discussed in earlier HR Strategy posts about the need for managers to learn to confront each other and argue constructively to get disagreements out in the open, the chances for misunderstandings, shunning of people we don’t find congenial or cooperative and all those other natural, but naturally disruptive behaviors would seem to find greater latitude to cause trouble or at least tremendous inefficiency and ineffectiveness.

Maybe we need a few realistic novels or screenplays about the pitfalls, dangers and solutions as well as sound advice that not everyone will have the time or skill to implement. I’m sure there’s also a huge opportunity for some comedy in all this – “The (Virtual) Office” perhaps.

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Sorting Out Value from Hype

Author: Dave Crisp

4 Dec

Is it me or is there an increasing deluge of workplace advice to leaders? Of course I read this stuff routinely for work, but the sheer volume is staggering. Take just one issue of Talent Management’s email newsletter a couple of weeks ago, with some pros and cons.

One might think the topics would have to do with succession planning systems or the like and the lead article (from their magazine) fits. The HR guy for Sean “Diddy” Combs, Bad Boy Worldwide Entertainment Group, talks about talent audits, identifying hipos (high potentials) and, interestingly, career pathing among their 300 employees to ensure engagement and prevent poaching by rival entertainment organizations. That’s interesting and a great overview of talent management in brief as a unified, centrally branded approach that many companies would do well to emulate. Good for them for poaching a chief talent officer from a “global advertising media company” (I should say so – Young and Rubicam) – wow, what were they doing wrong?

So far so good, but it’s tough to find unique items like that every month or week. Next is a plea to help newly hired executives craft a leadership message – echoing others’ advice that being great presenters is now almost a prerequisite for leaders. Scary, but likely valid – and we might do well to help new leaders out with this. Again a relatively unusual bit of advice to ponder, a good second lead.

Skip the next report of a survey showing bomb squad technician is the scariest US job (edging out stunt person and high school teacher – maybe it wasn’t as difficult when I was in the latter role early on since I don’t recall shaking in my boots). Then an article on the need to convert annual reviews to on-going feedback to enhance performance. Not new, but true, followed by a pitch to get more value than damage from 360s by focusing them on development opportunities rather than (negative) assessment. OK, we’re still in talent management if not terribly fresh territory.

Skipping to popular stories of the week and archived favorites we see: a new look at engagement (not so new), how to create a solid working relationship with your boss, lessons from the ousted Tribune CEO (as noted in earlier posts here: a startling example of dreadful behavior), then: backstabbing bosses followed by building a civilized workplace (definitely some themes here for leaders, but do we really need this again and again).

But the one that caught my eye most was ‘Man’agers Best Friend: Sniff Out New Management Skills.

Oh my.

OK, I read these for my spouse who’s violently allergic to dogs and others in her family who are terrified of them even as adults because they had to avoid them as kids. Of course there’s an argument it can reduce stress in the workplace (for the dog’s owner and dog fans, that is), but it rarely rates a mention that it can severely increase stress and illness for others, to the point they quit or don’t take the job. Writers of such articles tend to pooh-pooh “a few” oddballs who are fearful of pets, but isn’t that a bit like saying ‘only some people get sick from cigarette smoke, so to heck with them, it reduces stress for smokers?’

How is this worthwhile Talent Management advice?

Well it turns out we can also learn major leadership lessons from dogs, too, to paraphrase: “patience, listening, forgiveness, minimal ego, minimal judgment, learning how to read people and how to be more open – a wonderful mirror on how others read your cues – just by watching how your dog reacts and recognizes.”

OK, I’m off the rails on the last bits. Are we to take one fond owner’s word for it that she can, and therefore that we should be able to, see these qualities in dogs. If you love animals and anthropomorphize their behavior, perhaps this is what you might think you notice reasonably consistently, but if you tend to see dogs behaving when afraid or over-excited, as unpredictable dangers that might bite unexpectedly or jump on you with muddy paws, claws and energetic licks that, to some, seem like germy opportunities to catch diseases, I don’t think you’ll be noticing patience or listening (as you cry, “down rover”). And dogs with muzzles? Somehow it’s hard to see them as patient.

By the way, I’d just as soon not work for a boss who took his or her leadership lessons from these creatures who probably know how to behave just fine in their appropriate habitats, but perhaps not so much at work, thanks.

At least it’s different. Oh the topics we have to call on to fill publications continually with new stuff. Aren’t we criticized in HR for always having a ‘program flavor of the month?’ There’s some inconsistency here.

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Filed under: 3 Strategic - Thinking, Fix The Jerks, Human Resources (HR), NewsLetters

Time to Put HR Under a Microscope?

Author: Dave Crisp

27 Nov

OK, if you follow HR issues at all you have to read an article with that title and the tag line: ‘we have to drive the HR professionals into making more strategic decisions’ (that’s the clip HRPA’s daily headline newsletter posted).

In short, CFO magazine published this report a week or so ago that makes one a bit dizzy. It aims to summarize a presentation given by the CEO of Taleo (the Talent Management software company) at a US Conference Board event on Human Capital Metrics. The report seems to be an effort to pull out the highlights, which include a blast at companies using too many contract workers (getting less engaged employees) and the need to localize HR programs when operating globally rather than ‘drop in an American or Australian solution consultant’ into China, for instance. In the latter case, the reason pulled out by the reporter is ‘you need a local person who speaks the language and understands the cost structure.’ Admittedly these are among the reasons for wanting local help, but surely from an HR view, there are quite a few others – understand the culture, the local HR regulations, what motivates local people and more. By this time you can see a mish mash of partial ideas and wording shaping up.

From here we launch into a clip of comments about the need to use social media better, emphasizing that referrals result in employees who typically stay longer.

So far I’m following the reporter, a little buzzed by the quick shifts, but still puzzling about the title ‘HR under microscope’ and waiting for the major criticism. I’m guessing the headline is due to an editor creating something to sell. But no, there’s more.

An interesting segue takes us through an interesting comment that HR can’t be more than an administrative function if it runs on a staffing ratio of 1 HR pro to 350 employees when (in the CEO’s reported opinion) it started at more like 1:60.

Then the blast arrives. Asking reasonably whether HR at these large ratios can be expected to know more about talent than the manager of 10 people, it concludes: “Yet in exit interviews, employees say the number one reason why they leave is that they [don't like] their manager. It doesn’t make sense. We have to drive the HR professional into making more strategic decisions.” Wouldn’t logic suggest from this we need to convince senior management teams to make more strategic decisions about how to staff HR?

Wow. I’m not sure what the point is here, but given that it made it into the tag line for the article, I’m sure it must seem important. Let’s see – HR doesn’t have the resources to get properly close to talent issues, so it falls to managers who are doing a lousy job. In some way that doesn’t make sense so we have to drive – great concept there: “drive” HR professionals to make more strategic decisions. Would that be strategic decisions to hire themselves more staff? Is that their fault? Or is it that perhaps they really could create a better environment at their 350:1 skinny department ratios if they just tried harder? Or am I being paranoid?

All this ignores analyses from years back that HR staff ratios vary greatly due to the structure of the organization as well as sheer volume decisions (you typically need more HR per employee if you have 600 units spread geographically than if you have all, say, 25,000 employees under one roof like a big plant). But of course what really catches everyone is the facile move to turn this into blame for HR’s lack of strategic decision-making. Get the whip, let’s drive ‘em. By this point I’m not sure exactly who said what, but the result certainly seems to have ended up twisted in a familiar way. Sorry we can’t score one for CFO Magazine’s effort to make an ally of HR and mitigate inter-departmental silos. Except for the punch lines it sounded for a minute there like we were on the right track.

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If Only All CEOs Believed

Author: Dave Crisp

20 Nov

When three CEOs presented their views recently at SCNetwork that HR is a valuable contributor at the most senior level of their organizations someone commented there wasn’t much new. I disagree. It’s not that we heard earth-shattering new techniques, but we did see something new in three CEOs who expect and insist HR should not only be at the senior table (our former peak aim), but should be challenging the other executives at that level, the CEO him- or herself and managers throughout the company to step up to higher levels of understanding and behavior with respect to HR issues. That’s a bit different from the usual “of course we value HR.”

When the CEOs broke it down, they were unanimous this won’t happen unless the CEO personally drives it. They’re aware managers in lower ranks feel quite justified in viewing HR as a purely transactional role – hiring, firing, disciplining and generally keeping up with the paperwork, the regulations and ‘all that stuff’ that line managers say they have no time for. That’s on a good day. These CEOs want to turn that around and help lower ranking managers develop greater appreciation for their own and HR’s strategic role. It’s interesting how they all seemed to be using similar key ways to go about this.

The two CEOs who hadn’t had direct experience in support roles expressed their surprise at discovering when they reached the CEO chair that they immediately started wanting strategic input from HR. Who else partners with the CEO to improve teamwork at the senior table? How they are expected to partner is also enlightening.

Although I’ve heard and read plenty in the last few years about the need for tough conversations as a regular diet, I was surprised at the vehemence with which this group supported the concept, one also mentioning Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team, which expands the same basic concepts more specifically toward team development. It’s true we might expect CEOs chosen for a panel to be on their best behavior with respect to HR, especially with their HR directors sitting in the audience, but asking them to challenge executives in such specific ways is new. Of course we’re looking at a select group, but one whose members are serious about engaging HR effectively.

A couple commented there isn’t enough tough feedback coming at the senior team from around the company and that ‘maybe we haven’t made it safe enough.’ The move to encourage constructive confrontation of issues in tough conversations is key to developing teams and turning them into high performing leadership groups, but not many CEOs are ready or willing to face up to that. They know they need HR to help that happen with fairness and balance, a word they mentioned frequently.

When asked about values, they were unanimous about their importance. Again this wasn’t new to an audience of converts in the HR field as the grounding for high performance, but two things stood out. These individuals are serious about making their values work to the point of insisting they and every manager in the company be called out if they weren’t walking the talk. That’s still truly rare, although getting more widespread as the news leaks that this is the way to financial results and customer satisfaction.

As an aside, it was interesting they are quite happy to promote values with t-shirts, mugs, posters, handout cards among the more common tools that have been called into question or made the butt of jokes. Either they’re too new at the game to realize this stuff is perceived by many as hokey or those who see it that way are missing the point – it all contributes – if, but only if, the CEO backs it up and is willing to be held accountable to live those values along with everyone else.

That of course led to the million dollar challenge question – will you fire a top producer who doesn’t live up to the values. To a person all three not only said they would, but gave examples of where they had (thanking their HR people for advice to treat long service well on the way out the door and do things right, but nevertheless, do them). To paraphrase one, ‘if you let stuff like this go, you’re just expanding the problem and undermining everything you’re working toward.’ That’s new despite having heard so many times before, as one said, “if the CEO doesn’t get it..”

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Filed under: 3 Strategic - Thinking, 4 Honest - Finding Reality, Fix The Jerks, Human Resources (HR), Leaders of the Future, Learning Organization

Can HR Executives Become CEOs?

Author: Dave Crisp

13 Nov

Following up on last week it seems appropriate to ask if HR execs can reasonably become CEOs. Everyone sees a slur against HR executives in the fact that few have so far ended up as CEOs. Interesting that when we note not enough women in CEO roles, today most of us don’t blame women as much as companies. Similar ideas apply to HR execs regardless of gender. HRPA called attention to a feature article in HR Magazine from the UK that at first glance seems to cover the subject thoroughly. But we need to look twice. To start with the idea that “few HR execs become CEOs” has to be by comparison, since the truth is few people of any sort become CEOs. In this case, perhaps the measure is few in comparison to CFOs who rise so frequently that nearly 50% of CEOs today seem to come from that function – perhaps not a surprise in a time of economic upheaval despite the fact that it appears many financially-oriented executives were at the bottom of our recent problems to begin with.

You have to love the article’s opening line, reminiscent of Fast Company’s “Why We Hate HR” – “Would it be a strategic, forward-thinking utopia [if HR took on the CEO role] – or a backwater that focused on tissues, teabags and time and attendance?”

I think this describes part of the problem – along the lines of saying the biggest disability so-called disabled people have is the opinions of the abled. One of the biggest disabilities of HR executives is the outright desire of other executives to paint them as concerned primarily about “tissues, teabags and time and attendance.” If true, it’s almost inevitably because that’s what the CEO and the organization demand and limit HR to. More often it’s what others want everyone to believe so they don’t have to accept suggestions from HR or face them as competitors for senior roles.

The article goes on to point out that few HR people end up as CEOs of big operations, but some do, of whom some make mistakes – what a surprise – ignoring the fact these mistakes are similar to the mistakes other appointees make – over-spending, etc. In the article this is naturally attributed to lack of “business acumen” (but no comment about how many other CEOs make the same mistakes, presumably showing an equal lack of business acumen).

Then follow some lengthy bits about how necessary it is for career HR people who aspire to CEO roles to get some profit and loss experience in some other function. That certainly fits with today’s view that leadership development for all types of top roles requires rotation through a series of assignments judiciously chosen to provide perspective and experience in dealing with varied types of situations including failure, turnarounds, P&L, functional and more. Quite a few organizations now see experience in the HR role as critical for future leaders who otherwise may not be aware of the huge scope and importance of this territory and its many potential pitfalls. So the article wavers on to a somewhat shaky lack of conclusion about whether HR people can or can’t expect to succeed as CEOs, with more examples of those who have than those who haven’t (it is an HR magazine article after all).

One interesting aside from the main thrust is the question of whether they don’t get to be CEO because they don’t want to. Again one might well ask if this is true of other department heads as well. Everyone sees CEO tenure tending to be short, CEOs being criticized and fired for nearly every variation of mistake it’s possible to make and the incredible hours and other commitments CEOs are expected to make, often to the detriment of family and having a life in general. Of course there’s always a line up to be CEO, but never the entire or even majority of the executive team.

My guess is that many HR VPs get to see up close just how complex, difficult to master and ultimately thankless the CEO job really is (unless you consider huge severance to be a form of thanks, which is arguably a cynical, but useful perspective). By contrast I believe a great many CFOs imagine they could do better than their current boss because they believe they understand what business is really all about much more – ie: in their view MONEY. Unfortunately success isn’t that simple, a fact some companies are recognizing to their great advantage. It even includes tissues, tea bags and time and attendance at time. It doesn’t hurt a CEO to understand those.

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Filed under: 3 Strategic - Thinking, Building A Career, Coaching Yourself, Fix The Jerks, Leaders of the Future

Respect, Good Leadership, (Ethics) and Quality People

Author: Dave Crisp

25 Sep

What issues rank among the top four or five that create high engagement?

Guess what Mercers and SMITH magazine just found from a survey of readers as reported in Canadian HR Reporter? 7000 people entered their Six Words About Work contest and these emerged. As they point out these four have remained constant despite the recession and continuing turbulence.

As far back as the dark ages (just before the dot.com bubble burst and was accused of busting the War For Talent) around y2k, I started using the top five that AON found in one of their massive surveys – and guess what? They found the same items in the same order, with just a little more definition of what those ideas mean.

We could enter this in the “how many times do we have to prove the same thing” contest, but why carp at reinforcing what we all need to keep in mind about the modern workforce? Good times or bad, employees want respect, which incidentally reflects instantly in leaders’ stance on work-life balance, which is why that issue ranks so high on employees’ want lists. If you respect people, you support them taking the time they need, when they need it, to get life in order.

Good leadership is about challenging people to be the best they can be and supporting them in their striving to succeed (and gain promotions, which is where the bigger salary increases come from).

Ethics, which the new survey can’t seem to find a word for, includes everyone being honest, but especially the pride employees want to feel that a company is delivering a decent product or service for the money, something that came out loud and clear in this survey. It slides into AON’s finding that employees want “fairness” which included fair rewards (the good do better than the poor performers) and fair in relation to what other companies pay, but also fair to other stakeholders and customers.

Quality people is about training and supporting staff who can thus deliver those good products and services as part of a team. as virtually all surveys find. All four or five, depending on how you count them, wrap into each other.

You can’t leave one or more out and expect the whole to hold together. Engagement comes when all these are ticking along smoothly most of the time and leaders are walking the talk as well as routinely talking about it in lofty vision and values statements.

And then along comes Yahoo, a modern, up-to-date company enlightened enough to hire a solid woman as CEO. and then. oops, as of early September, fire her. over the phone. Ever want to know a highly visible way to show your employees how much you do or don’t respect people or treat them fairly? This will generally go down as one way to make the point unmistakably.

Does one blunder invalidate everything you’ve put in place before that? Generally not, but if you can treat your CEO this way, I’d be looking over my shoulder as an employee for sure. and maybe tidying up my resume ‘just in case.’ If you want your employees thinking that way, just violate those four or five seemingly basic, but apparently challenging principles that we all know, that operate in good times and bad. Do we need to hear them proven again? Apparently some major operators do.

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Filed under: 2 Positive - Feelings, 4 Honest - Finding Reality, Coaching Others, Fix The Jerks, Leaders of the Future, Learning Organization

Can the US Get Its Leadership Act Together?

Author: Dave Crisp

4 Sep

In the explosively gyrating markets following S&P’s decision to downgrade the US debt rating we don’t want to miss the most startling reason they gave.
. that US leadership has demonstrated it couldn’t get its act together effectively enough to ensure stability for the future.

Of course they fell back on a financial result they didn’t like as well – saying another $4 billion should have been cut from spending, but the headline reason, which we all need to pay attention to is the leadership issue.

By contrast hardly anyone blinked when Moody’s cut Japan’s rating three weeks later because that decision was based almost purely on financial concerns. Ho hum. With the US, now all pension and investment companies are looking at what S&P’s action means to their management of funds. No one imagined the US could be shaken off the top rating. A different anchor for investment safety has to be considered. and for a reason that sounds like a long term systemic flaw in their government process – the dependable capitalist democratic ideal – not just a temporary over-spending problem. Ouch.

It’s ironic that the US currently has perhaps the best democratic leader since Abe Lincoln, but he’s saddled with impossibly high hopes from an electorate hungry for jobs and an economy seriously damaged by eight years of another unwinnable war started and pursued by ‘the other guys’ who poured unbelievable amounts of cash down a drain massively bigger than Vietnam ever was.

So we have an electorate, no doubt tired of all the wrangling, but desperate to find a fix. and a lot of opportunists taking advantage of the intensity to present themselves and their narrow interests as the savior. We also have a political system with such embedded checks and balances it won’t allow even four years of consistent policies to take root. Unlike the Canadian and British system which allows one party to organize things if they develop a majority, the US seems almost guaranteed not to be able to put together a program without it being destroyed by opposition between, as well as at, elections.

What does every politician say the moment they’re elected? “Let’s put aside our differences; I’ve been elected to govern ALL the people.” Many try, but interest groups adhere to no such principles. They can stand back and bash away at their points of view no matter how tiny a minority they are. and should they have clout in some other area of government, they think nothing of simply attempting to block every plan.

When we look at business leadership, we’re reminded of Jim Collins’ finding in his book Good to Great that the first requirement for leaders is to ‘get the right people on the bus’ and, by extension, the wrong ones off. How a leader does this is critical so as not to alienate and paralyze the remainder with fear, but still sooner or later, lining up those who want to work toward the goal and moving those who don’t somewhere else is fundamental. In government you don’t have that luxury despite the bigots’ common admonition that ‘if they don’t like it here they should go home.’ Obama seems able to develop a common plan, but how to prevent a few from scuttling every agreement?

In any case, it appears the US will have to spearhead a new model that sustains efforts at consensus or compromise or face the critics worst predictions that they may be slowly losing their dominant position in the world. mostly due to inability of anyone to gel anything done on any issue at all.

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Filed under: 3 Strategic - Thinking, Business/Strategy, Current Affairs, Fix The Jerks, Leaders of the Future

Archive for the ‘Fix The Jerks’ Category

Steve Jobs Leadership?

Entrepreneurship versus Leadership

Being Good – Fundamental to Better Leadership?

How Virtual Leadership Differs

Sorting Out Value from Hype

Time to Put HR Under a Microscope?

If Only All CEOs Believed

Can HR Executives Become CEOs?

Respect, Good Leadership, (Ethics) and Quality People

Can the US Get Its Leadership Act Together?

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