Leadership Symptoms Analyzed (2)

Editor’s note:

This post is inspired by a discussion that happened on the Leader’s Cafe Foundation Forum in LinkedIn. The forum can be found here: Link To LinkedIn Forum. And the specific discussion can be found here: Specific Discussion.

Dear Managers and Leaders!

In my two previous posts, I listed 6 symptoms that leaders should take really seriously and analyzed the first symptom: A team member does not produce what the leader was expecting. Today, we will continue our analysis and tackle the second symptom: Team members are not coming up with new ideas.

For a leader, getting a lot of fresh ideas from his team members is crucial. Without a good flow of new ideas coming from team members about the team’s portfolio, about the positioning of the team in the larger organization, about processes, or about the way the team is run, the leader is left alone with all the creativity. In this situation, the leader himself will have to diagnose the problems and find the solution. This is a big task for a single person. It is also likely to fail because the leader cannot know his team enough to understand every aspect of it as well as his team members do.

I believe it is natural for people to diagnose problems that are happening to them and find their own solutions to these problems. It is also natural for human beings to find ways to improve their situation. It is probably a trademark of the human race to always want to do better and always want to feel better. What that means is that the ideas are probably there in your team members’ mind even if they are not bringing them up to you.

Culture

So, how do you go about finding what is causing the problem? The first thing that I would question is the culture of the company. In some cultures, the leader has absolute power and it is not well seen for an employee to speak up, or help. If you have been leading your team for some time and your team members never came up with a complaint or an idea, then it is possible that you are in this situation. Are you bringing up issues and ideas to your boss yourself? If you do not feel comfortable to do so, it can tell you that the company culture does not allow for that at the moment.

Changing a culture is not easy, but at least this is something you can talk about openly with your team members. You can mention to them what you have observed and tell them that you would like things to change. Note that you are part of the culture and you will have to be ready to change and value the ideas that people will start to bring forth. Your reaction to the first comment that people will make will be extremely important. You will have to be open and treat this first idea with a lot of respect. You should probably publicly recognize the person who brought up this first idea to reinforce the importance of the action. Also, be patient. Cultures take a long time to change.

Bad Past Experience

The second thing that I would investigate is history. Is it possible that people brought a number of issues and ideas in the past and you did not take them seriously, ignore them, or did not take action? Is it possible that your vision is so strong that you are not open to suggestions that question its validity? You need to create an atmosphere where bringing ideas or issues is valued and show that you care and will take action when people bring up ideas.

To turn this situation around, I think you should talk to your team openly. Tell them that you recognize what happened in the past and mention that you will make sure that every idea will be treated with lots of respect from now on. Create a framework where ideas are recognized and welcome. For instance, you can keep an open list of ideas on your team’s web page with a list of actions, decision, and ROI for each of them. You can then have a contest where you recognize the best idea every quarter.

Lack of Responsibility

The third thing that I would measure is whether my team members feel responsible for the success of the team. Sometimes, team members do their job OK but don’t really value the success of their team. It is also possible that you, the leader, do not involve your team members in the team’s decision making and solution finding, not allowing your team members to take ownership of the team's success.

It is your role to make your team members feel responsible for the success of their own team. You need to give them a vision that they buy into for the future of the team and start involving them in the solution finding and decision making for the team. You need to create a sense of urgency around the success of the team and ensure that people feel their team is important and real. Challenge them to improve products or the team itself and then put the people in a context where they have to find problems and solutions. Open the door to getting help from people and you will see your team members unite to help you.

What about you dear leader, do you see other reasons why people would not bring up issues or propose ideas? Do you have other suggestions to stimulate team members to bring more ideas to the table?

Until next time,

Remi Cote

PS: InnovaChron offers a series of workshops and programs that create a great framework to involve your employees and get their ideas. To find out more, please visit InnovaChron's web site or contact me directly at remi@innovachron.com.

Leadership Symptoms Analyzed (1)

Editor’s note: This post is inspired by a discussion that happened on the Leader’s Cafe Foundation Forum in LinkedIn. The forum can be found here: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=1764277&trk=anet_ug_hm

And the specific discussion can be found here:

http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers&discussionID=3686766&gid=1764277&commentID=3976276&trk=view_disc.

Dear Managers and Leaders!

In my previous post, I listed 6 symptoms that leaders should take really seriously. Today and in the next few posts, we will analyze what a leader should do when he notices that these events are happening in his team. Here is the complete list again.

• A team member does not produce what the leader was expecting
• Team members are not coming up with new ideas
• Team members are unwilling to push their boundaries - Mediocrity is the norm, lack of motivation to move beyond their comfort zone
• Team is operating from fear - Lack of transparency, sharing of knowledge, or voicing of opinions. People start saying "yes" instead of questioning your decisions
• No one seems to know what’s urgent and what’s crucial, or at which point we are right now
• Resistance to change

A team member does not produce what the leader was expecting.

You will notice this situation when one of your team members misses a deadline, or when the work is not done to your satisfaction, or when elements are missing from the work that was done. This is a serious situation, but one that is easy to diagnose and correct.

The very first thing that needs to be done is to handle the current situation. If the deadline was missed, you need to correct the course and see what can be done to deliver the task as soon as possible and deal with the impact of being late. If the quality is poor or contents are missing, you also need to deal with that first.

Once you have dealt with the problem at hand, you need to understand the causes of the failure so that you can correct the situation and ensure that it will not be repeated in the future. I would first check with the person whether all the elements of the assignment were well understood (timeline, contents, quality). If they were not, you have to look at your way of delegating tasks to your team members and make sure that you are doing it in a very clear way for your staff. Maybe things are clear to you, but the real goal is to make them clear for your staff. Make sure that when you delegate tasks to your team that these four elements are perfectly clear for the people who will have to perform the delegated tasks:

• Nature of the assignment (what needs to be done)
• Boundaries of the assignment (how much decision-making power is given to the employee)
• Quality expectations (what you expect in terms of quality)
• Timeline (what is the deadline for the assignment or the deadlines if more than one milestone needs to be met)

You also need to make sure that the person you delegate the task to has what it takes to perform the delegated task. Yes you want to stretch people ability to develop their talent but you do not want to set them up for failure!

If you check with the person who did not deliver and every aspect of the delegation was clear to him and yet he failed to deliver, then you have to investigate some more.

• Maybe the person did not have the right skills to be able to accomplish the task properly. If this is the case, it is tough to blame the person except for one thing. He should have told you earlier than on the deadline. You have to make it clear to your team members that people must tell you quickly if they feel they cannot perform a task or will miss a deadline.
• Maybe the task got pre-empted by another one. In that case, you have to make it clear that you need to be consulted prior to switching tasks when there will be an impact on schedule or quality. You do not want to micro-manage your people, but you need to control the impacts on the schedule.
• Maybe the person did not take the task seriously. Although this is a rare event, you need to make sure that there will be a consequence for the employee who did such a thing. You need to make it clear to him (and the rest of the group) that this will not be tolerated and reinforce the importance of what the team does.
• Maybe the timeline was just not realistic in the first place. Once again in that case, I would question the fact that the employee did not tell you ahead of time that he had problems meeting the deadline.

Of course, this is not an exhaustive list, but I hope it can help you in your search for the root cause of your problem.

On the next post, we will look at the next symptoms.

Until next time,

Remi Cote

PS: If you find these postings interesting and would like to learn more about what I can do for you and your team, then please visit www.innovachron.com or contact me directly at remi@innovachron.com.

Six Symptoms Leaders Should Take Seriously

Editor’s note: This post is inspired by a discussion that happened on the Leader’s Cafe Foundation Forum in LinkedIn. The forum can be found here: LinkedIn Forum. And the specific discussion can be found here: LinkedIn Forum Specific Discussion. The author would like to thank everyone who participated in the lively discussion for their knowledge and generosity.

Dear Managers and Leaders!

Most people are aware that there are some health symptoms that should be taken very seriously. For instance, if you start sweating badly and if you feel intense pain in your left harm and having chest pain, then you will likely run to the hospital because you know those are symptoms of a heart attack. Similarly, if you eat nuts and you start to have problems breathing and feel pain in your throat, then you will also run to the hospital because you know that you are probably allergic to nuts!

Similarly, there are some symptoms that leaders should be aware of. I will list six of these symptoms here today and will elaborate on them in subsequent posts. I hope you will find them useful. This is not an exhaustive list and I invite you to add more items to this list by posting comments below. Leaders, like human beings, must be aware of a lot of these symptoms to keep their teams healthy! Sharing your ideas here will help everyone.

• A team member does not produce what the leader was expecting.
• Team members are not coming up with new ideas.
• Team members are unwilling to push their boundaries - Mediocrity is the norm, lack of motivation to move beyond their comfort zone.
• Team is operating from fear - Lack of transparency, sharing of knowledge, or voicing of opinions. People start saying "yes" instead of questioning your decisions.
• No one seems to know what’s urgent and what’s crucial, or at which point we are right now.
• Resistance to change.

What about you dear leader? Are you attentive to other symptoms? Do you have other events or feelings lighting up that light that tells you that something is not right and you need to do something about it? Please share your thoughts by posting a comment to this blog!

Until next time,

Remi Cote

PS: If you find these postings interesting and would like to learn more about what I can do for you and your team, then please visit www.innovachron.com or contact me directly at remi@innovachron.com.

People Development: Learning from a Good Professor

Dear Managers and Leaders!

I believe I already mentioned to you that my daughter plays the violin. Last weekend, she had her end-of-session concert. The concert was a real success with very young performers trying their best to play “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” to the older violinists playing the Brandenburg Concerto no 2.

Watching the concert, I started to think about the leadership required to be a violin professor. In particular, I started to look at my daughter’s violin professor’s ability to develop people. I felt like she could teach a lot about people development to the leaders of the world! Here are the lessons that came to my mind as I watched the show:

• Know the people on the team: where they are, where they can be, and what they can accomplish.
• Define attainable but stretched goals for everyone on the team.
• Define a framework for the development experience. The students know what is coming up for them, the next steps, and the longer term goals – in this context, the framework is defined by the Suzuki method of learning how to play the violin.
• Pushed the people hard all year so that they develop to their full actual capacity. Never accept to slow down the pace or lower the bar if you are convinced that the student is able to achieve what you ask.
• Pair experienced achievers with younger staff for optimal development. At the concert, younger people presented with really experienced ones. This gave them pride and pushed them further, faster in their development.
• Be engaged and committed. The success of your people is also your success.
• Love your people! Establish a close relationship with them and motivate them to attain new heights through the love you give them.
• Celebrate success! Applauds from the audience and your tender look and smile will do magic to motivate your people in the years to come!

To get optimal performance from his team, a leader must always do everything possible to develop his people. People development should be one of the most important activities of a leader. This is why I wanted to share these lessons with you!

What about you dear leader? Are you developing your people? Are you mentoring them, pushing them further by giving them stretched assignments? Are you pairing old timers and young performers to push them even further? Let me know about your experience!

Until next time,

Remi Cote

PS: If you find these postings interesting and would like to learn more about what I can do for you, then please visit www.innovachron.com or contact me directly at remi@innovachron.com.

The Power of the Team

Dear Managers and Leaders!

Have you ever felt totally energized and in perfect symbiosis when you were part of a team? Have you felt the power of the ideas suddenly flowing through your head just because you’re working with someone else? Have you ever felt that with your team you could accomplish anything, that nothing could prevent you from achieving your goals? We can often feel that in sport teams when a team is capable of winning just because they “play as a team”, even when they are weaker on paper than their opponents.

As a solopreneur myself (yes, an entrepreneur working by himself), I rarely experience this team power. I am usually alone in my office, sharing my space and time with my computer. I am the only one who can motivate myself, set goals for myself, celebrate successes, and assume my losses. It is great at times because I have the freedom to set my own agenda, but being a team player myself, I sometimes miss the energy and elation of being part of a team.

However, this morning, I had a long chat with someone I just started to partner with. I really felt this team energy and power while speaking to him. It felt really good to have someone to share my ideas with and get feedback in real time! There was also this feeling of growing an idea together: “we should do this” one says and the other to respond “yes, and we should add that as well to make it more complete” and so on and so forth. A great feeling indeed!

I have read in many places that leaders often feel alone at the top. I think it can be true because having a relationship with your followers is not the same. People will look at you for the final call. They will not tell you many things that you do not want to hear. Even if you have the most open organization, you will not feel the same freedom.

What I would suggest to those lonely leaders is to build relationships with peers. If you are not at the top of your company, then build strong relationships with your peers, people at the same level as you, likely the people reporting to the same boss. Your team of peers is really important. This is where you can feel team work and spirit for yourself. You can also, and this will also apply to those at the top of their company, build partnership with people who are in similar positions as you. You can do that through social networking on the Internet, you can take part in a professional association, or you can create partnerships with other companies! Once you do that, you will start to feel rejuvenated and energized by the simple fact that you feel you are part of a team or of a community. Doing something with someone else, or with other people will really boosts your motivation and focus.

What about you dear leader? Are you one of the lonely leaders I was referring to above? Are you feeling you are part of a team?

Until next time,

Remi Cote

PS: If you are interested by these postings and would like to learn more about what I can do for you, then please visit www.innovachron.com or contact me directly at remi@innovachron.com.

Two Leadership Lessons from Internet Marketing

Dear Managers and Leaders!

Nowadays, I’m studying the principles of Internet Marketing quite seriously so that I can start advertizing my management consulting business effectively on the Internet and reach more prospects. There are two main things that strike me every time I look into the world of Internet Marketing that relates to leadership.

The first one is the power of money and success as extremely strong forces to create a following. The world of Internet Marketing is a world of gurus. You see all these guys who have made millions on the Internet kindly telling you that they will tell you all their secrets so that you can replicate their success. I must admit that looking at these rich guys can become addictive. It is a bit like buying a lottery ticket. “Buy this package from this guru and you will become as rich as him in no time!” This is what most of these people are trying to make you believe:  Internet Marketing is the fast lane to easy money and these gurus are there to testify that it is possible.

Relating these successful gurus to leadership, it tells me that success is a really powerful force to create a following. These Internet gurus create trust by showing that they are highly successful making money on the Internet. No one would trust an Internet teacher that cannot show some previous success. Similarly, if you are a leader and you cannot show that you have been successful in the past, then you will have a hard time convincing people that they should follow you. This is what someone goes through when hired directly in a leadership position. He has to create trust before people start following him willingly. The early wins of Michael Watkins (in The First 90 Days) are exactly there to show your new followers that they can trust you. Once you built your portfolio of success stories, you can rest assured that people will follow you more easily.

The second thing that strikes me when I look at Internet Marketing is the fact that most people fail to succeed in starting an Internet business. They say that most people fail because they simply do nothing or too little. You then see all these gurus yelling at people that they must do something if they ever want to win. I believe most people hope that they will get easy money, but they are not ready to spend the time to actually get to a real return on investment and prosper. Another possible reason for their failure is that people are paralyzed by the amount of things they need to learn. They lack the vision of what needs to be done to really succeed. So they try for a while and then they give up before things start to work.

This relates quite well with the principles of leadership that I’ve been discussing in the “6 Steps to Leadership” mini-course (you can sign up at the right of this post if you are interested by the mini-course). To succeed in an enterprise, you need to create a vision of where you need to go, then you need to create a realistic plan to realize that vision, and then you need to implement the plan. If you do not have the vision in the first place, then it will be very difficult to create a plan and then implement it. I think the people on the internet have a vision of becoming rich, but they lack the vision of what the job of an Internet Marketer is. They want money, but they have no clue what it entails.

I think it also links to the first three habits of Steven Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People). These habits are: be proactive, begin with the end in mind, and put first things first. If these private victory habits were mastered by the Internet Marketing apprentices, they would have a better chance of succeeding.

What about you dear leader? Do you have a good portfolio of successes to easily create a following? Do you have a good vision of where you are going and a plan to achieve that vision?

Until next time,

Remi Cote

PS: If you are interested by these postings and would like to learn more about what I can do to help you or your team succeed, then please visit InnovaChron or contact me directly at
Remi Cote .