Focus-Develop Your People

Listening and Conflict

Unless you plan on living forever (I have a member who does), someday you will exit your company. Your company’s value will be significantly impacted by how well the company runs without you as the CEO.

Do you understand that your company must change as fast as the rest of the world to just maintain your current competitive position?  Want to beat your competition?  Then you have to change faster than they do. And, that is dependent upon how well you develop your executive team and how well your executive leadership develops their people.

“How shall I train my supervisors and managers?” asked a member.

“How well do your employees listen?  How effective is conflict in your organization?” I ask. 

“Not very.”

“Start with those two.” I recommend.

Daniel Goleman and his work with emotional and social intelligence and Mark Goulston in his book “Just Listen” describe neurons that act as mirrors.  These cells allow us to create another’s experience in our mind.  Each time we feel empathy for others, it creates a need in us to be mirrored back; to have other’s demonstrate empathy toward our feelings.  To adeptly mirror, we must first listen. I’m not talking about the type of listening that most people do.  I’m talking about empathic listening: listening with all of our senses.  If you want to see some specific examples, I recommend reading Stephen Covey’s Seek First to Understand chapter in his book, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” 

Let’s talk about the “C” word.  The lack of conflict can lead to disastrous results, such as in the case study of the Challenger. The Abilene Paradox is a video, where a group of people collectively decide to take a trip for ice cream. The paradox is that, as individuals, no one wanted to go. If one person would have said what he was really thinking, the group would have made a different decision.  I have seen and experienced where lack of conflict resulted in some stupid and costly decisions.  I guarantee the same thing happens in your organization.

You go first.  Learn how to really listen.  Learn how to engage in productive conflict.  See what happens in your business and personal life.  Then role model and teach all your employees.

Focus-Can Do/WIll Do Model

Can Do/ Will Do Model

My members often struggle with how to help their people develop and grow.  Occasionally, they find themselves trying to change things about a particular employee that simply can’t be changed. 

Mark G. Gardner, CEO and Founder of Avatar, is a member of CE 372 and has developed a model to better understand the primary characteristics that ensure a person is a good fit for the job.  It describes six qualities, three that determine if an employee can do the job and three that drive the employee’s willingness to fully engage in the job, or will do.

CanDo Attributes:

Knowledge

Knowledge, such as management strategies and accounting standards, is what your employees need to know to effectively perform their jobs.  Knowledge is learned through educational experiences where concepts, principles and mental processes are taught.

Skills

Skills, such as how to use a computer program and how to conduct an employee performance appraisal are the physical manifestations of work performance.  Skills are acquired through training and practice and can be observed. 

Abilities

Abilities are the mental and physical traits determined by an individual's genetic makeup and include height, strength, coordination, visual acuity and to some degree, intelligence.  Some jobs require certain abilities. For example, a job unloading trucks for 10 hours, requires physical stamina and enough strength to lift 50 pounds.  Abilities can’t be learned. 

Will Do Attributes:

These attributes drive the employee’s willingness to fully engage.

Values

Values are the principles and beliefs upon which a person bases all decisions.  Values are learned at a very early age and change very slowly once a person has reached adulthood. Some commonly understood values include honesty, integrity and a good work ethic.  You can’t change a dishonest employee into an honest one by putting them through a “training program.”

Motivations

Motivations are activities and rewards to which an employee is naturally attracted.  For example, not everyone would like to be a research scientist, nor does everyone want to be a plumber.  Both occupations exist and there are people who are willing to, and who even enjoy, spending their lives in each of them. 

Personality

Personality is the general disposition of a person and is the foundation of how the person is likely to react to situational demands or interact with other people. Personality is usually defined in terms of traits, of which there are more than 100, such as dominance, compliance, attention to detail and extroversion, that can be measured through specialized assessments.

How to Apply the Can Do/Will Do Model:

Performance improvement, both individual and group, begins with an understanding of which characteristics a person needs in order to be successful in a particular role.

Your recruitment and selection efforts should focus on finding applicants who already have the best-fit qualities for the characteristics that you can’t change: Abilities, Values, Motivations and Personality.  And, your education, training and development processes should remain focused on improving knowledge and skills.

Understanding the Can Do / Will Do Model and applying it to each key occupational role, helps you establish the most effective strategies for achieving improved job performance. 

You can learn more about this at www.avatarms.com.

Focus-Design Your Organization

One of my members recently said that it is easier to start a new organization than it is to change one. Pretend that you are starting over. You are the architect. Design your organization.

1.    What is strategic focus of your company?  Three are described in the book, “The Discipline of Market Leaders” by Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema. Traecy and Wisera call these value disciplines, product leadership, operational excellence and customer intimacy.  Operational excellence focuses on providing customers with reliable products or services at competitive prices, delivered with minimal difficulty or inconvenience. Product leadership focuses on providing products that continually redefine the state of the art. Customer intimacy focuses on selling the customer a total solution, not just a product or service. Michael Porter, a famous Harvard professor and author, uses two main frameworks; cost and differentiation.  Another famous consulting company uses 6 driving forces.

I’ve seen my members argue over the definitions and how it may or may not make sense for their companies.  The exact definition is not important. What is important is for you to have a crystal clear idea of what your company is offering and how that impacts the design of your company.  If these framework models are useful to help you, then use them.  If not, then modify them. Keep clarifying until you have such a vivid picture that you can describe it to anyone.

2.    How will you deliver the above value to the market?  Culture. To be most effective, you must design it too.

Start with values.  What top 5 (See Cheryl’s rule of 5 below) behaviors do you want to instill?    They must be consistent with how you go to market.  For example, Apple is a product leadership company where design expertise is valued more than customer relationships.  Steve Jobs doesn’t care if his customers are cranky. He doesn’t ask customers for their opinions.  They do no market research. He cares that Apple’s products meet his standards.  They know how to design and build world changing products.  Long hours and near impossible standards for product development drive the culture.  And, the culture is almost perfectly designed and aligned with Apple’s product leadership framework.

WalMart is another example.  Their mission is to provide products at a price that the everyday folks can afford.  They mandate efficiency from their internal processes and outside suppliers.  Standardization is the name of their game which leaves little room for flexibility. 

Most cultures I see just happen.  They are an accumulation of the past; past employees, past fears, past failures, old policies, old technology, which adds up to; that’s just the way we do things here.

3.    What type of leadership does the culture need?  How easy or difficult is it for you to adapt your leadership to your designed culture?  Be honest.  If your personality isn’t congruent, then find someone who has a leadership style consistent with the culture to help lead. 

Performance is negatively influenced if your strategic framework, culture and leadership are out of alignment. Intentionally design them to work together.

Implied in my definition of focus is clarity.  After your design is complete, I want you to paint me a picture with your words.  A picture so clear, that I feel it, explain it and understand it as well as you do.

Cheryl’s Rule of 5

More than 5 of anything is same as having 75; too much.  Too much is as confusing as nothing. Whether it is goals or values, narrow it down to 5.

The Two Vital Functions of A CEO

Over my 30 year career, I have worked for or with a couple hundred of CEOs and Senior Executives.  Of all the important responsibilities of a CEO’s job, two stand out as vital: Focus and Barrier Busting.

The speed of change, 24/7 connectivity and an unlimited supply of information available in the palm of our hands is like a firehouse of demands gushing straight at our face.  I listen to my members talk about the constant meetings, the volume of email and the unrealistic expectations from all parties in their lives.  The discipline of focus and clarity has never been so important and so difficult to execute.  Unless, the CEO has it, the rest of the organization never will.

One of my members, recently acquired, was talking about the new owners building walls in the organization that no one will acknowledge.  This is a great example of a self imposed barrier. Because speed is like breathing in this global economy and because the CEO holds THE position of power within the organization, only he can bust the big barriers that impede execution and employee engagement.

I will explore these functions in future posts.