CAPTAIN KIRK AT 80!!

 Can it be true?  Captain Kirk (William Shatner) is 80!  

Tomes have been written about StarTrek.  I just came across a recent Forbes article that looks at the leadership style of the legendary Captain James T. Kirk and distills five key lessons on leadership from this iconic TV series.  

StarTrek’s (and therefore Captain Kirk’s) creator, Gene Roddenberry, had a distinguished military career in World War II as a bomber pilot. He was no stranger to combat and understood well the nature of leadership and command which he brought to the series.

Here’s the five lessons on leadership from Captain Kirk…and you can learn more about each  by reading more here. 

Lesson 1: Never Stop Learning

Lesson 2: Have advisors with different world views (join a Vistage group,ok?)

Lesson 3: Be Part of the “Away” Team

Lesson 4:  Play Poker, Not Chess

Lesson 5:  Blow Up the Enterprise!

FEED FORWARD

TRY  FEED  FORWARD  VS  FEEDBACK


Have your or your people struggled with the evaluation or feedback or 360 process?  What do they normally say about it?    Typically the comments are negative and they don't like it.  Results are short lived.

Well here is a refreshing alternative to that process from well known Executive Coach, Marshall Goldsmith.  Read more about it below and see what you think!! 

           Click here for more info


I have observed more than 50,000 leaders from around the world as they participated in a fascinating experiential exercise, in which I ask participants to play two roles.

In one role, they provide "FeedForward": They give another participant suggestions and as much as they can help with a specific issue. In the second role, they accept FeedForward: They listen to suggestions from another participant and learn as much as they can.

Step by Step

The exercise typically lasts 10 to 15 minutes, and the average participant has six or seven such sessions in that time. Participants are asked to:

- Pick one behavior they would like to change. Change in this behavior should make a significant, positive difference in their lives.

- Describe this behavior to randomly selected fellow participants in one-on-one dialogues. It can be done quite simply, e.g., "I want to be a better listener."

- Ask for FeedForward that might help them achieve a positive change in their behavior. If participants have worked together in the past, they are not allowed to give any feedback about the past. They are only allowed to give ideas for the future.

- Listen attentively to the suggestions and take notes. Participants are not allowed to comment on the suggestions in any way, nor are they allowed to critique the suggestions, even to make positive statements, such as, "That's a good idea."

- Thank the other participants for their suggestions.

- Ask fellow participants what they would like to change about themselves.

- Provide FeedForward - two suggestions for helping the other person change.

- Say "You are welcome," when thanked for the suggestions. (The entire process of both giving and receiving FeedForward usually takes about two minutes.)

- Find another participant and keep repeating the process until the exercise is stopped.

When the exercise is over, I ask the participants to complete a sentence - "This exercise was …" - with the one word that best describes their reaction to the experience. The words selected are almost always positive, such as "great," "energizing," "useful," or "helpful." One of the most common words used is "fun."

What is the last word most of us think of to describe the experience of receiving feedback, coaching, and developmental ideas? Fun!

Reasons to Try FeedForward

I ask participants why this exercise is fun and helpful as opposed to painful, embarrassing, or uncomfortable. Their answers offer a great explanation of why FeedForward can often be more useful than feedback as a developmental tool.

1. We can change the future. We can't change the past. FeedForward helps people envision and focus on a positive future, not a failed past. Race-car drivers are taught to look at the road ahead, not at the wall. By giving people ideas on how they can be even more successful, we can increase their chances of achieving this success in the future.

2. FeedForward can come from people we have never even met. It does not require personal experience. One very common positive reaction to the exercise is that participants are amazed by how much they can learn from people they don't know. For example, if you want to be a better listener, almost any fellow human can give you ideas. They don't have to know you.

3. Face it! Most of us hate getting negative feedback, and we don't like to give it. I have reviewed summary 360-degree feedback reports for more than 50 companies. The items "provides developmental feedback in a timely manner" and "encourages and accepts constructive criticism" almost always score near the bottom on co-worker satisfaction with leaders. Traditional training does not seem to make a great deal of difference. If leaders got better at providing feedback every time the performance appraisal forms were "improved," most would be perfect by now!

4. FeedForward can cover almost all of the same material feedback can. Imagine you have just made a terrible presentation in front of the executive committee. Your manager is in the room. Rather than make you relive this humiliating experience by detailing what went wrong, your manager might help you by offering suggestions for future presentations. These suggestions can be very specific and still delivered in a positive way - without making you feel even more humiliated.

5. FeedForward tends to be much faster and more efficient than feedback. An excellent technique for giving ideas to successful people is to say: "Here is an idea for the future. Please accept it in the positive spirit in which it is offered. If you can use it, great! If not, just ignore it." With this approach almost no time is wasted judging the quality of the ideas or trying to refute the suggestions. This kind of debate is usually negative, wastes time, and often counterproductive. By eliminating judgment of the ideas, the process becomes much more positive for the sender, as well as the receiver.

6. FeedForward can be a useful tool with managers, peers, and team members. Rightly or wrongly, feedback is associated with judgment. This can lead to very negative - even career-limiting - consequences when given to managers or peers. FeedForward does not imply superiority of judgment. It is more focused on being a helpful colleague than an expert. As such, it can be easier to hear from a person who isn't in a position of power or authority.

7. People tend to listen more attentively to FeedForward than feedback. One participant in the FeedForward exercise noted: "I think that I listened more effectively in this exercise than I ever have in my life!" When asked why, he said, "Normally, when others are speaking, I am so busy composing a reply that will make sure that I sound smart that I am not fully listening to what the other person is saying. In FeedForward, the only reply that I am allowed to make is 'thank you.' Since I don't have to worry about composing a clever reply, I can focus all of my energy on listening to the other person!"

When to Use FeedForward

The intent of this column is not to imply that leaders should never give feedback or that performance appraisals should be abandoned. The intent is to show how FeedForward can often be preferable to feedback in day-to-day interactions. Aside from its effectiveness and efficiency, FeedForward can make life a lot more enjoyable. When I ask manager how they felt the last time they received feedback, the most common responses are negative. When managers are asked how they felt after receiving FeedForward, they reply that FeedForward was not only useful, it was also fun.


    by Marshall Goldsmith

DIRTY, SEXY, MONEY !!

What does that mean?  All about money for your sales people.....right?  I have an upcoming speaker to my CEO Groups next month and was reading some of his material.  One of his blogs reminded me about the risks of compensating your people, the wrong way.  You might want to consider some of the insights presented below from Tom Searcy.


from  Tom Searcy, Hunt Big Sales        click here: for the website of Hunt Big Sales


In business, it’s all about the money.

Obvious, I know, but sometimes you’ve just got to seize the obvious, wrestle it to the ground and beat it senseless in order to make it work for you.

Companies get the money side of the deal—affectionately known as commission—wrong a lot of the time. If you want to land large deals, you have to change the money in a bunch of places if you want to make it work.

There are two simple ingredients that go into large accounts sales: time and people. Because it takes longer to land a large account than a small one, you have to hold the attention of sales people, who have the immediate gratification needs of a 3-year old, for a long time. The time-to-money ratio is not 1:1 for a sales person—the fact is that when you double the time it takes to land a deal you have to practically triple the money to keep them engaged.

Sure, part of that triple is built into the incremental commission of a bigger deal—and that can be a lot, depending on the size of the deal. But they’ll probably also need an extra something to keep them on task rather than getting distracted by little shiny objects, like deals that are small and fast to close. Stay with me.

So that’s the problem with time; you’ve also got to deal with people—not just sales people, ALL of your people. To land a whale, you’ve got to load up your boat with people of all skillsets (subject matter experts—or SMEs—who can speak the whale’s language), because one person (a sales guy) with a stick in the ocean is not going to cut it. How do you keep those people engaged as well? If they’re not seeing their efforts translate into money in a meaningful way (profit-sharing, bonus, spiff), they’ll too be distracted by the not-so-shiny-objects of their every day job.

To make this work, here are a couple of approaches:

1. Pay more for whales—spread it around. The sales representative is not the only person involved in the hunt. The fact is, after the initial interest is generated, the internal subject matter expert team does a lot of the heavy lifting.

2. Put a trophy-bonus on the wall. Don’t make it general, make it specific and personal. At one point in my career, I had a competitor for which I had a personal distaste. I wrote up on the wall that competitor’s top 10 clients and told my team, “I will pay a 20% premium on commissions for every deal we land from this list in the next 6 months.” We got 3 and it had a sweet taste.

3. Cut out the money on little deals. You can’t get people focused on bigger targets if they get similar ratios of money for smaller deals. Cut little deal commission in half. This is about changing behaviors and time investment.

Money is the driver and you have the gas pedal

LEADERSHIP - AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART!!

Leadership is not an affair of the Head.....but of the Heart!! 

What does this mean?  It is not about thinking of being a leader.....but what is your passion and what do you care about!   With my CEO Group of Vistage leaders, I recently shared a video presentation by Jim Kouzes around this topic.  He is the author, along with Barry Posner of The Leadership Challenge.  A very well received business book and based on research from thousands of executives.     (check their website at:   http://www.leadershipchallenge.com/)  

Kouzes asks the audience a fascinating question.  Among the various categories below, who would you choose to model or follow key principles of leadership?

   - Politician
   - Community leader
   - Business Exec
   - Celebrity or entertainer
   - Family member or friend
   - Pastor or religious leader
   - Teacher or Coach  

Who would you?  What do you think the highest categories are?   Maybe not surprisingly....the highest % was for Family member/friend and Teacher/Coach.    Not  Business leader?  Are you surprised?    What do we glean from this?   It is someone close to you as a person.....  i.e. someone you know well.   Someone who can make a difference with you.   So Kouzes point is that  the job of leadership is for every manager....not just the top executives.  

He then goes on to describe that the foundation of leadership is based on being credible & believable.    Somebody who walks the talk....who models the way....who you would willingly follow.  Makes sense.

Another key attribute is regarding sharing an important vision.  Not dictating one to your people, but laying out in a compelling way a path to a better future.  Key is that they, your people, can see themselves in this future....and it is worth doing.  It creates a better place for themself. 

The 5 practices then, for exemplary leadership include:

   Model the way
   Inspire a shared vision
  Challenge the process
  Enable others to act
  Encourage the heart

These are the keys to their principles.....good stuff.  You can listen to this presentation and hear the explanation by going to YouTube.   Click on:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt3hTGpfrSE 

Hope you find it valuable.  Then look at your own leadership practices and see what needs to be changed. 

What can leaders learn from the U.S. Navy Seals?

I recently had the privilege, along with a small group of award winning CEO Coaches, to listen to and engage in a leadership conversation with one of the past leaders of the U.S. Navy Seals program in San Diego, CA. 

The program is phenomenally impressive.....as you would imagine.  The most elite fighting men....the best of the best.  A grueling 25 wk program to determine who can make it through to become a Seal.  A view from the inside was quite rare and led to some eyeopening insights that can certainly apply to the needs of leadership for most organizations. 

Just a few of the numerous insights:

1.  Two is one......and One is none
   All of the training and exercises are done in PAIRS.  For support, for cross-training, to avoid a vulnerability if someone is injured or lost.   If you do things alone.....image the increased risk and loss of effectiveness.
Might this apply to your organization?  Can you afford the duplication?  Can you really afford not to consider this? 

2.  The main determinant of who succeeds.....who makes it through....is not about the most talented, or skilled, or the best athlete!!  It's based on who has the spirit or heart to make it through. 

This was HUGE to me!!  It's not the fastest or strongest that determines success.  It is who wants it the most and who will endure literal HELL to overcome what seem to be superhuman odds.  We asked the Admiral....in all of your pre-screening, tests or assessments, you could predict this in advance......right?
He indicated it is not for a lack of trying to determine this.  They have never been able to accurately predict which candidate will make it to succeed.

Sure seemed to parallel what we try to do in organizations.  We interview for talents or intelligence or past relevant job experience and success.  Well why then, do so many new hires not seem to fit the needs to create success after they are hired?  Do we focus too much on the talents and not the spirit or heart?  Then again.....how would we test or assess for the spirit or the big enough heart or motivation?  Seems the same problem that the Seals have.   Except they spend 25 wks in actual situations to determine who will make it.

What would be the parallel in our organizations for the 25 wk environment tests to determine success?  How many make the investment to do this type of in-depth effort?  Maybe we should if we want the same success rate that the Navy Seals have achieved!!  Worth some serious thought, I believe.

Thank you, Admiral, for these valuable insights. 

Edward Deming's 14 Steps to Quality

Eliminate grades in school.  Eliminate merit increases.  Eliminate quotas and numerical goals. 
Sounds pretty dramatic.....would you agree with this? 

These are some of the key principles from the father of Quality......Edward Deming. 
Take a look at the steps below and consider how it just might drive continuous improvement into your organization and remove some of the inter-department conflicts.  Worth considering.....I think. 

14  Steps  to Quality

1.    Drive out fear

2.    Eliminate quotas and numerical goals

3.    Break down all barriers between departments

4.    Eliminate inspection.  Learn to build products right the first time.

5.    Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.

6.    Remove barriers that rob workers of their right to pride of workmanship.

7.    Institute leadership:  the aim of leadership should be to help people do a better job.

8.    Eliminate slogans, exhortations and production targets.

9.    Adopt a new philosophy.  This is a new economic age.  Western managers must awaken to the challenge, learn their responsibilities and take on leadership of change.

10. End the practice of awarding business based on the price tag.  Move toward a single supplier for any one item.  Base this long-term relationship on loyalty and trust.

11. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service.

12. Put everybody to work to accomplish the transformation.

13. Institute job training.

14. Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service to become competitive and to stay in business and to provide jobs.

Harnessing Your Strengths

......Do you know what your strengths are?  Read this approach from Author Marcus Buckingham.

5 Questions with Marcus Buckingham: Harnessing Your Strengths and True Genius

 

Q: Can you start by sharing one simple step or tool that Vistage members can use to help them stay open to opportunities and on a "strengths path"? A:   I would say that the most obvious thing to do is to realize that you are the person in charge of what your strengths are. And we'll be talking about this a fair bit on the call itself. But most people seem to think that a strength is what you're good at, and a weakness is what you're bad at. And if we think that, then, we are not the best judge of our strengths because somebody else probably is the best judge of what you're good at and what you're bad at. But actually, that's not a very good definition of a strength. A strength is an activity that makes you feel strong—it's an activity that strengthens you. And of course, if that's true, if strengths really are an antecedent to performance, there are activities that strengthen you, that invigorate you, that you have an appetite for, that cause you to practice more, that then drive your performance.  If that's what a strength is, then there are signs that you can see all around you, if you've got the eyes to see them and the ears to hear them.  And I think that's one of the most basic rituals that we can all do, to stay on our strengths path.  To keep our eyes peeled for the most obvious signs of which activities strengthen us and which don't. There are a number of signs, but probably the two most obvious signs of a strength that you could pay attention to and really give your full attention to, is firstly, what do you find yourself positively anticipating, actively looking forward to? And then rapid learning: What do you pick up quickly? What do you find that you get so involved in, that you lose track of time? So in terms of a ritual, I think obviously, keep your mind open to opportunities on your career path. Keep experimenting. But as you're doing so, remember: You're always looking for those activities that strengthen you. The two most obvious signs are positive anticipation and rapid learning. And when you see those two signs pop up, it's a really good clue that you need to keep orienting yourself toward those activities and tilting your world toward them. Q: You've written an entire book on "The One Thing That You Need To Know…," which addresses great managing and great leading, as well as sustained individual success. What's the one imperative thing that everyone should know to be successful? A:   I think I would say that the thing we have to remember is that genius is precise. There are some areas in your job where you are probably better than 100,000 other people at those things.  And you are wired to be invigorated by that set of activities.  And it is non-transferable. So I move you even 5% in your job, and you go from A+ to B- so fast. Like for me, I'm a good presenter.  You put me in a room on a subject I know a lot about, where I'm prepared. And I know my subject. I'm a one in 100,000 presenter. You turn that into a teaching environment where I've got about the same number of people but now I'm not presenting.  Now I'm listening to the learners in the room trying to figure out where they're at with their learning.  Trying to tweak what they're picking up so that they can actually understand it better.  Responding to their questions.  Tailoring what I'm saying to accommodate that particular question.  And I'm a B-, maybe a C+. To an outside observer, it looks just the same.  It's just a room full of students trying to learn.  And there's a guy at the top and he's talking and it looks exactly the same.  But it isn't.  I go from A to C+ really quickly. Another example is with a sales person. A person in sales might say, "I'm a good sales person."  No you're not.  You happen to be a genius at opening up new accounts. You can go into a raw territory that hasn't had anybody in it forever and wake it up.  You're brilliant at, not just cold calling, you've got a way of getting people started, getting the momentum going.  And you just get invigorated by that.  To take something from zero to 10 miles an hour—you're just on fire. And then lo and behold, you get the territory running and you now have to build existing accounts. You've got to go into existing relationships that are already pretty sizable and turn them into something much bigger.  And you're average.  It's still the same job.  It's still the same job title.  You're a SALES person.  Same company, maybe.  Same product.  You're now average. Your genius, whatever it is, is really precise. Q: Is genius something that you can grow into?  Or is that just all part of the exploration? A:   Yeah.  I think that's how genius works. You're born with it.  And then you grow into it. You see a kid who's born with genius.  My daughter has genius in influence.  So she's brilliant at persuading people to do things for her. In first grade her teachers made her write her goals for next year. Her first goal is:  "Learn to read better," which is fine. It was misspelled, but you know, it was fine. The second goal is:  "Stop fooling the teachers."  And I was like, what?  I thought maybe ALL the kids are doing that.  That it might be generational.  But, no, my daughter is the only one.  "Stop fooling the teachers. What does she mean by that?"  They were like, "Well, she always tries to charm us into the fact that she doesn't know something or can't do something, and to 'please just give her the answer' because it would be easier. And she's just working it all of the time.  She's just working it, in a charming, lovely way." That's a gift.  It's a genius gift.  My son doesn't have it.  He doesn't even know he can fool teachers.   In his world that's an impossibility. And it's not a girl/boy thing because there are many girls that don't have it. There are some boys that DO have it.  It's just a thing. It's just a part of Lilia's genius. She's got to learn to channel that genius productively so that she becomes one. You have a genius and you become one by growing into it. Strengths are value-neutral. They can be used for very good ends and they can come out in obnoxious ways. Part of stepping into your strengths or channeling your genius is a growth process.  It's something you grow into as you experiment and learn how to best apply yourself. Q: In the upcoming Webinar, you're going to be addressing the opportunity that we all have as employees to apply our strengths at work to succeed.  Can you give us some insight into what it means to be a "strong manager"? A:   I'm going to draw a distinction between managing and leading. Leading is something you do with many people.  Managing is something you do with one. A great manager is good because that manager is able to take one person's personality and turn it into performance. So a great manager is somebody who is really good at generating performance out of an individual, one person at a time. And they do it through individualization.  Individualization is the key skill of a great manager.  Spotting how people are different, how people learn, how people are driven, how people communicate.  Knowing that some people don't communicate with email very well at all, some people love email, some people like face-to-face communication, or that some people like texting.  That's what a great manager is able to do. What is a strong manager?  Somebody who's able to realize that each person has unique strengths to offer and then is really good at figuring out how to capitalize on those strengths. Q: Any last thoughts you would like to share with our Vistage members? A:  I think the thing that we'll talk about a bit is, for us all to remember, that this is the responsibility of each individual person.  If you want to be a person who actually excels in your life and derives satisfaction from the work that you do in your life, there is no one who cares more about that than you. You can benefit from having a great mentor relationship, or a great manager relationship.  But what that person, that mentor, that manager, what they need from you, is they need you to walk in with a full sheet of paper.  Not a blank sheet of paper.  I think too many of us sit down with a blank sheet of paper and we look at the manager and we say, "Hey, develop me.  Help me.  Grow me.  Challenge me." And what we really should be doing is actually walking into that room and sitting down and going, "You know what; I know a fair bit about which activities strengthen me and which don't. I've done some really good thinking about it, not just theoretically, but practically.  I've looked to the activities that I'm feeling my week with.  I try to understand which of those activities strengthen me and which don't.  I've looked at the activities that drain me. And I'm going to sit down in front of you right now and I'm going to tell you in vivid detail what those are.  So that together we can think about course correction.  Together we can think about what kind of things I can do to fine tune where I'm spending my time or what new skills I might learn that can build upon what I now know about myself." As an individual, you're walking in there with the raw material.  You are the best judge of what I say invigorates you and what doesn't.  And it's YOUR responsibility to bring that to the conversation that you have with your manager or your mentor.  No one else is responsible for that.  And besides, you've got more insight into that than they ever will. So that's the thing I would leave everyone with is, that, it's not that people don't care about you.  They do.  But no one cares about you as much as you do.  And no one knows you as well as you do.  And it's your responsibility to bring that knowledge and that awareness to whomever you want to partner with in your growth and your development.

Interview with Vistage Intl 

 Nov 30, 2010