"I am building a cathedral"

For the past ten years a copy of The Daily Drucker has always been on my desk.   This book has a business pearl of wisdom for every day of the year so I try and get to it every day.  I also dip into it when I need some inspiration focusing on or articulating a thought around business and leadership.   It rarely disappoints.

My partner and I are constantly looking for stories to help CEOs and their leadership team frame their approach to developing the organization's leadership capabilities.  These people often struggle to see the strategic benefits of enabling all levels of their organization's leadership.  So these stories need to help them get beyond the "lack of budget", or "lack of time", or "lack of desire to develop leaders just so they can be poached", or "lack of being unable to see the ROI" default arguments.

This morning I was reading The Daily Drucker for the 29th of September.  It is an old story about the three stonecutters.  When asked what they were doing the first one said "I am making a living".  The second one said "I am becoming the best stonecutter in the country".  And the third one said "I am building a cathedral."

Investing in enabling the leaders in your organization who are 'building a cathedral' is essential.  Because, if you don't, you will be left with a culture that is based upon a lack of engagement and a myopic focus.  This sort of culture burns the two most important commodities of any enterprise: time and money.
 
So this Daily Drucker raises two questions.  Do you know which people in your organization are helping you build your cathedral?  And, perhaps most importantly, are you enabling them as cathedral builders?

nmja

Bad apples cost twice as much

Last week, in preparation for the upcoming Canada Day celebrations on 1st July, I bought a bag of apples to make one of my celebrated ("legend in my own mind") apple pies.  As I was putting them away I noticed there was a bruised one.  Shrugging, I reckoned that the pie would be long baked before the apple went rotten, so I did nothing about it.

In many organizations, from for profit to not-for-profit to volunteer, there is often an individual who is a bad apple.  The trouble with a bad apple in your organization is that they have the potential to negatively impact the organization in two key areas: the people as a whole and implementing strategic plans.  

For your talent (like the rest of the apples in my bag) the bad apple is festering away slowing spreading discontent and negativity.  In terms of strategic plans (my apple pie) the bad apple is undermining them by possibly forcing compromise or subverting the passion and skills of those engaged in the endeavour.  

Dealing with bad apples is never easy; often our default choice is not to deal with them at all.  Which is an odd leadership decision as we know intuitively that not dealing with them, through remediation (preferable) or letting them go (worst case), tends to end up costing us more emotionally and/or financially.

But back to my bag of apples.  By the time I got around to making my pie I discovered that now half of the apples were bad.  Cursing my laziness for not having dealt with that bad apple when I first noticed it (maybe saving the good bits and snacking on them or, if it had been past salvation, composting the whole thing).  At least then I would have only had to deal with the short-term pain of getting a single replacement apple.

But, with the shops closed for the holiday and no time left, I now had two problems.  One, not enough good apples to make a pie.  And two, I had no dessert for the family feast.

On telling my partner, her first question was: "Why didn't you deal with the bad apple in the first place?"

Leadership: surviving the Death Zone

It is climbing season in the Himalayas and already we have seen tragedy and triumph -  most of it taking place in the Death Zone.

On Everest the Death Zone is the zone above 8,000 meters where there is not enough oxygen to sustain life (an extended stay in the zone without supplementary oxygen will result in deterioration of bodily functions, loss of consciousness and, ultimately, death).  

What has this got to do with business leadership?  We use the expression Death Zone in the context of business leadership to describe the transition that managers must make when they are promoted into a leadership position.

Giving new leaders the intellectual and emotional tools, and coaching to survive this transition is an investment that has high ROI for both your people and your business.

Unfortunately it is more common than not, especially in marketing and advertising firms, to promote a 'craft' expert (manager) into a leadership role without giving them what they need to thrive as a leader.  When you promote someone it is essential that, right from the start, you give them the fundamental tools of leadership.  By this we mean the intellectual framework on how to direct a team, the practical framework to understand and manage a task, and the emotional framework to direct and nurture the talent and, ultimately, the coaching to sustain them through this transition from manager to leader. 

All to often we see people with great potential fail to transition the Death Zone and default back to their comfort zone of managing.  This inevitably means one, or all, of three things: 1) they end up suppressing the talent they are there to lead because they do their job (craft) for them; 2) the task is inefficiently executed (i.e. costly to the firm) due to poor decision-making burning hours and time (the two vital commodities in any firm); and 3) the team becomes dysfunctional due to a lack of clarity of purpose and roles and responsibilities.  Or, worse still, you will see an individual's passion and talent crushed due to the negative experience.

On Everest once you are in the Death Zone every decision you make, no matter how simple, has the potential to change your life forever.  To successfully transition the Death Zone requires skill, motivation, bravery, teamwork, leadership and personal drive in just the right mix. 

For those of us in business with the responsibility for selecting and nurturing leaders there are valuable lessons for us above 8,000 meters.

Clarity of purpose (Pt 1): Commander's Intent

Understanding the 'Commander's Intent' basically means that all activities (whether they be marketing, operational, manufacturing, advertising, etc,) are done within the context of a broader objective.  If your objective is not inextricably linked to supporting the achievement of an uber objective then there is a good chance you have not understood your task.  This will mean that those executing (using your objective as their 'commander's intent) are being set up to fail.

"Make it so." Stardate 2012

These three words truly define the difference between a manager and a leader.  With them Captain Picard (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZxHAZChcYU) confirms the task, empowers the team and demonstrates his confidence in the individual talent that makes up the crew.