Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
SmartBrief on Leadership: How do you respond to failure by Art Petty
original post: http://artpetty.com/2010/01/25/leadership-caffeine-create-success-by-managing-your-response-to-failure/
Leadership Caffeine-Create Success by Managing Your Response to Failure
Filed under: Career, Crisis Leadership, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Leadership Skills,Leading in the Trenches, Management Education, Performance, Professional Growth, Talent Management, Your Professional Development "To Do" List
No one wants to fail. It’s not something that we typically seek out as part of our personal and organizational character building experience. However, from a distance, we tend to mythologize failure, especially in the context of achieving future success.- What went wrong?
- What did you learn?
- How can you prevent this from recurring?
- What are your ideas for moving forward?
- How can I help?
SmartBrief on Leadership: Stop hiding in the corner office! Take a Walk-A-Bout: Mike Myatt N2growth
Original Post: http://www.n2growth.com/blog/disconnected-ceo/
The Disconnected CEO
By admin | January 25, 2010
By Mike Myatt
My advice to CEOs, regardless of whether you’re running a start-up or a Fortune 500 company, is to go see things for yourself. I think you’ll find that your view of the world will change dramatically when you rely upon your own observations, as opposed to what you read in a management report, or what you hear third or fourth hand in a meeting. Think about it…when you’re sitting in front of the board, on an analyst call, providing testimony, or speaking at the annual shareholder meeting, wouldn’t it be great to actually know what your talking about as opposed to interpreting what someone else has told you?
So the real question is this…how does a CEO get to the point of being so disconnected from operations that he or she just doesn’t have a clue? The reality is that there are any number of reasons why this can happen, a few of which I’ve noted below:
- The Optimistic CEO: I have met a number of CEOs that simply choose to view the world through rose colored glasses. They will believe what they want to believe regardless of what they hear or what they observe. Even in the worst of times they believe nothing to be insurmountable. While optimism is generally a great quality for a CEO to possess, there is a point at which unbridled optimism can disconnect a person from reality.
- The Arrogant CEO: These CEOs believe they can will their view into reality in spite of circumstances, situations, or events. The arrogant CEO doesn’t value the input of line and staff management. These CEOs see management opinions as inconsequential, unless of course, they happen to be in alignment with their own beliefs and opinions.
- The Unaware CEO: These CEO’s will take any report or piece of information at face value. These CEOs are overly trusting, and often politically naive. They fail to seek clarification, validation, or proof supporting the information they have been fed. This is a very unhealthy state of mind for a CEO hoping to create any degree of tenure.
- The Disconnected CEO: Unlike CEOs who understand how to leverage time and resources via delegation while remaining connected to management and staff, the disconnected CEO does just the opposite. They have reclusive tendencies which cause them to often completely abdicate responsibility and remain disconnected from management by sequestering themselves in the corner office. Sticking one’s head in the sand will not make the circumstances of a particular situation go away, rather that type of thinking will likely on exacerbate the issue.
If you’re a CEO with clouded vision and desire to change the view from the top it is critical that you maintain open lines of communication through a variety of channels and feedback loops. All good leaders maintain a connection and rapport with both line and staff. Furthermore, savvy CEOs are always working to refine their intuitive senses. A good CEO demands accountability and transparency. They challenge everything of consequence. They understand that acceptance of general statements and ambiguity, or blindness to hidden agendas will only contribute to limiting their vision…
If you’re a CEO and you haven’t personally spoken with your top customers, suppliers, vendors and partners, you’re doing yourself and your company a great injustice. If your CFO handles all communications with your banking relationships, and your Chief Investment Officer handles all of your investor relations, you’re flat out missing the boat. If your CMO is making all of your brand decisions there will be h*ll to pay down the road. Moreover, in today’s litigious and compliance oriented world where the CEO is no longer out of reach, it’s just plain smart to take a more hands on approach. Remember that there is a major difference between delegating and abdicating responsibility. I think President Reagan said it best: “trust but verify.”
Let me be very clear…I’m not suggesting that you become a micro manager or that you stop delegating, I’m simply suggesting that you do the job the way it is supposed to be done. Great leaders champion from the front…they are not disengaged invisible executives. As the CEO you are the visionary, influencer, champion, defender, evangelist and you must have a bias to action. You can be none of these things as a recluse…
It’s important to note that the average tenure of a CEO is less than 5 years…if you want to extend your shelf-life or make yourself more marketable for better opportunities be very visible and very active. In addition to leading your organization, pay close attention to managing your reputation and your personal brand both inside and outside the company.
Harvard Business Review: How to ask for help - without looking stupid: Jodi Glickman Brown
How to Ask for Help — Without Looking Stupid
Last week, more evidence emerged in the Securities and Exchange Commission's debacle over the mishandling of theBernie Madoff über-fraud. While the SEC failed repeatedly to uncover the greatest Ponzi scheme in our country's history($50 billion and counting), the New York Times revealed a tale of "unseasoned people uncertain about what to do and unwilling to ask for help."
But learning how to ask for help — and how to do it right — is critical to doing your job well and setting yourself up for success.
You may be afraid of looking dumb, but to be afraid to ask for and get the help you need is inexcusable,especially when the stakes are high. Asking for help in the workplace is a good thing. In fact, asking for help the right way can show how smart you are: it demonstrates that you've got good judgment and shows that you know what you know and what you don't know. Moreover, getting help up front saves endless time, energy and resources on the back end; in the Madoff case, it could have saved billions of dollars and immeasurable heartache.
Of course, it's not just asking for help — it's asking the right way. I recently coached a young man in commercial real-estate who relayed a conversation he had with his boss about starting a new regional initiative for his firm's brokers. Several times he asked, "How should I do this?" or "How should I think about this?" I cringed every time.
Instead, think about the following strategy to get the best answer — and show how smart you are — the next time you ask for help:
- Start your question with what you know. Do your homework first. Get enough background information to put your issue or problem in context. Give the other person an idea of what you've completed to date or what you know already and then proceed to explain what's outstanding, where or how you're struggling, or what you need help with.
In the vast majority of cases, you'll get a lot further in your career by asking the tough, smart questions. Had the SEC junior staffers pressed senior management for more guidance and help, Bernie might have been stopped long ago.
Jodi Glickman Brown is the founder and president of communication consulting firm Great on the Job. She is the author of the forthcoming book Great on the Job, to be published by St. Martin's Press in early 2011.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Harvard Business Review: Zone Out - Idle Brains more likely to come up with new ideas! by Gina Trapani
 | Today's Management Tip was adapted from "Burned Out? Take a Creative Sabbatical" by Gina Trapani. |
@Mashable: Your brain can't handle your facebook friends... it caps out at 150: Stan Schroeder
By: Stan Schroeder
Your Brain Can’t Handle Your Facebook Friends
Even if you have thousands of friends, that number is really meaningless as far as true friendships go, Dunbar told Times Online. He supports this with traffic data. “The interesting thing is that you can have 1,500 friends but when you actually look at traffic on sites, you see people maintain the same inner circle of around 150 people that we observe in the real world,” he said.
This is a well-known concept. The company that produces Gore-Tex fabrics, Gore (as famously explained inMalcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point), keeps its employees divided into small teams because in very large teams the relationship between people start to deteriorate.
The number is a bit different for boys and girls, Dunbar claims, without going into specifics. “There is a big sex difference though … girls are much better at maintaining relationships just by talking to each other. Boys need to do physical stuff together,” he said.
Personally, I keep the number of my Facebook friends very small, around 100 – I friend only the people I know IRL – but I don’t feel that having several hundred friends would be meaningless. After all, when you count in the relatives, business contacts and other acquaintances, I’m sure your social circle can grow well over 150. As far as real friendship goes, well, I’m not sure that Facebook is the best indicator, anyway.
