Ice Breakers (II)

This is going to be a quick post. Here is another pretty fun ice breaker that I have recently used. It's called Hi's and Lo's.

Essentially, if you have a group where everyone might not have been introduced to each other, you can play this (well you probably can modify it and play even with people who know each other).

Going around the table each person starts by introducing themselves. They then tell the group the low point of their day, e.g., "The copier jammed on me" and then because we always want to end on a high note, the high point of their day, e.g., "My boss gave me a One-Minute Praising about my work on the XYZ project".

It's that simple! So try it out at your next meeting! Until next time.

-Jason

Followership

So why am I writing an article on followership? Aren't we all supposed to be Young Leaders here? Well yes, but the one thing that is often forgotten in discussions about leadership is the importance of good folllowership.

Lets face it, 80% of the time when you are in a group setting, at work or maybe in your community organizations, you will not be "THE leader". Of course you will have a manager or supervisor who you report to at work. In your outside organizations, you simply can't have the time or the interest to head up every single project. So if you're not "THE leader", you're a follower, but this is NOT a bad thing!

If there is anything that I can impart on you it is this: A Young Leader can demonstrate just as much leadership while being a follower as while being "THE Leader". This is because you can demonstrate leadership by working towards the shared vision and goals.

How to be a good follower:

• Be proactive - Don't wait for your boss to tell you to do something, if you see something that needs to be fixed, go fix it!
• Be a fact finder - If you don't know how to do something, try to figure it out. Expand your sphere of influence by learning more.
  
• Be an advice seeker - Be a mentee. There will always be people who have more knowledge or experience than you do. Seek out their advice.
• Be persuasive - Even if you don't have formal authority, you can still weild considerable influence.
  
• Be courageous - Do the right thing and convince others to as well.
• Be a collective follower, or plan well to stand on your own - Sometimes you have to put your own goals behind the goals of the team as a whole. However, when the time comes up that you need to go it on your own, keep things are good terms. It doesn't help anyone to storm away from a disagreement in a huff.
  

All leaders, especially Young Leaders, will have to take the roll as a follower. But learning to demonstrate leadership as a follower can be one of the most powerful lessons in being a true leader.

-Jason

Good to Great (II)

Last time we talked about what Collins calls Level 5 Leadership in his book Good to Great. This time I wanted to spend a little more time in disucssion about another important key to transforming an organization from Good to Great: Confronting the Brutal Facts.

Have you ever known someone who couldn't take any bad news? Whenever you had to tell them some "bad news" they would immediately just say "Oh, just don't tell me about it," or worse yet cover their ears and pretend to ignore you? What do you think about these kinds of people? You would think they were acting childish, right? Because, mature adults realize that the only way to fix a situation or to improve yourself is to realize where things are going wrong / where your shortcomings are.

This same rule goes for organizations, but it seems that many organizations today are acting "childish". You can't really blame the individuals in the organization though. Who really wants to go up to the boss and say, "Boss, you know this project that my team and I are working on? It really sucks. Not only don't we have the skillset to complete it, but also the project itself won't help us become more competitive."

Yeah, I didn't think so... So what can a Young Leader do to help his/her organization "Confront the Brutal Facts"? Well, it all comes down to creating an environment which has the goal of continuous organic improvement.

• Have "blameless autopsies" - After the fact, we need to find out "What went wrong" not "Who screwed up". If we develop a culture that focuses only on the facts and what we can do to improve, people will come out and tell you the truth. They will give genuine feedback about how they feel to YOU not just under their breath at the water cooler.
  
• Lead with questions - Until we get to this point where people will openly discuss the organization's and their own faults, you will have to lead with questions. I can't tell you exactly what to ask, but "What if..." questions are probably the best. "What if we did this... how would productivity improve? What if we did that... would people find it easier to do their work?"
  
• Have open debate and dialogue - This is one of those "obvious" things that nobody does. However, one thing to keep in mind is that a very powerful and charismatic personality can actually impede this. Think about it... people who are good at convincing might just convince the rest of the team that everything is fine, when they aren't.
  
• Create "red flag" mechanisms - These are a good start to getting towards the ultimate goal of culture of continuous improvement. You need to create a set of benchmarks... efficiency standards, quality standards, measures of morale, etc... and if any of these dip below a certain point you push the big red button and "Stop the presses!!" This is the important part. You need to find benchmarks that are critical enough that you will be committed to meet them or else have to spend the energy to ask the right questions, confront the brutal facts, and fix the problems.

Confronting the brutal facts can be tough. As Jack Nicholson said "You can't handle the truth!" For many people they can't. But hopefully all you Young Leaders out there will learn to be able to. Until next time.

-Jason

The 6 Human Needs

So I've been listening to Tony Robbins in my car on my way back and forth from work everyday. If you don't know already, Tony Robbins is the big crazy guy you see on TV selling motivational audio-tapes and CD's. Though as crazy as you may think he is, you have to admit that he is an amazing motivational speaker and life coach.

One thing that I thought would be very useful to Young Leaders to think about is Tony's "6 Human Needs". He also makes it very clear that these are needs not just wants. So here we go:

1. The need for certainty - People need to be certain about their future, certain about their health, safety, and security. It is probably the most basic human need.
   
2. The need for variety - People need some excitement in their lives... without variety life is boring.
   
3. The need for significance - Everyone has the need to be significant, to be recognized , appreciated, and respected.
   
4. The need for human connection - Human beings are social creatures. We all need and crave relationships with other human beings.
   
5. The need to grow - We all need to grow. Life without growth, is death.
   
6. The need to contribute - In the end human beings have a need to contribute to their families, communities, society, and world.
   

Why is knowing people's basic needs important for the Young Leader? Quite simply, knowing what people need, is truly one of the most important duties of leadership. When you know, what the people need, you can start figuring out how to lead them there.

So, learn what people need and want, and help to lead them there.

-Jason

Leadership Styles

I recently read an article in the Harvard Business Review (no I'm not a subscriber, someone made me a copy) by Daniel Goleman the acclaimed writer of the original book Emotional Intelligence. In this article he describes six different leadership styles and according to his research, the impact that each of these styles had on the working environment.

Let's go over the six commonly seen styles of leadership:

• Coercive: Demands immediate compliance. "Do what I tell you!" These types of leaders are your "military drill sergeant" types. According to Goleman's research these kinds of leaders typically have a negative impact. However, they can be quite effective during times of crisis when tough decisions need to be made and unconditional compliance is necessary.
  
• Authoritative: Mobilizes people towards a vision. "Come with me" Goleman found that the authoritative leadership styles seemed to have the most positive impact overall. No wonder it tends to be the leadership style that we think of first when we think about what is a leader. (Though the name 'authoritative' is probably a misnomer).
  
• Affiliative: Creates harmony and builds emotional bonds. "People come first" Affiliative leaders also make a strong positive impact, though some of the standards of work quality and worker responsibility may fall as compared to with the authoritative leadership style.
  
• Democratic: Forges consensus through participation. "What do you think?" We know this one... Typically positive though less than either the authoritative or the affiliative. With this style, work quality and worker commitment tend to suffer. (So maybe what they say about government work and workers... is founded in some truth?)
  
• Pacesetting: Sets high standards for performance. "Do as I do, now" The pacesetting leadership style was found to also have a negative impact. I would typically call this person the "micromanager". They might be high performers, but they probably also have a strict idea of the "right way" of doing things. This obviously, decreases employee/team morale.
  
• Coaching: Develops people for the future. "Try this." The coaching leadership style also has a positive impact however, however like the affiliative leadership style, worker responsibility is reduced, because responsibility falls upon the coach to constantly remind and motivate the worker / team member.
  

OK, so one thing to remember is that neither Goleman or I am trying to say that one leadership style is "the best". In fact, Young Leaders need to use all of these styles, just in different circumstances. How to choose when to use each style usually comes down to experience, but if you are observant and perhaps learn about psychology or strategy, you might be able to make a wise decision. More on this later.

-Jason

Efficient vs. Effective Meetings

What??! Another post about meetings! Yes, after writing that post I realized that if you have never organized or run a meeting before, running a Google-style efficient meeting might not be so high on your "Next Action" list. So I've decided to put together a little cheat sheet on organizing and running an EFFECTIVE meeting.

First off, you might ask what is the difference between "Effective" and "Efficient". To put it as best as I know, being efficient means getting the job done in a short amount of time. However, being effective means getting the job done RIGHT. For example, you can stay up late the night before writing and organizing your big presentation and this would be efficient, because you spent 8 consecutive hours to finish it, while others might have spent 20 hours or more spread out over a period of a few months. However, whose presentation do you think will be more EFFECTIVE in convincing the audience?

The first step to organizing a meeting is to figure out why do you need to have a meeting? Do you really need a meeting, or can the problems be solved via a few quick emails/phone calls? How much time do you think the meeting will need to take? Using these you can start to outline your meeting agenda.

Next you actually need to think about your meeting venue. How many people will need to attend the meeting? Are there any special audio/visual/computer needs? Is everyone physically located near each other or will some meeting attendees need to travel or teleconference to participate?

Now, scheduling a meeting is often pretty tricky, especially with people having tons of other commitments and full calendars. The key to overcoming this is early planning. If at all possible get meetings scheduled at least two weeks in advance. Even better is that you can use free online tools such as TimeToMeet which you can use to poll your attendees for the best times for holding the meeting. Also be sure to send out the meeting agenda in advance for people to review as well as a meeting reminder.

OK, you've made it to the meeting (hopefully a 10 or 15 minutes early for any set-up and last minute preparations). Now what do you do? As people file in, be sure to greet them (by name if you know them - learn and reembmer their name if you don't). Do an Ice Breaker! Run your meeting according to your agenda, encouraging all attendees to participate (if they don't participate what's the purpose in them coming and not just receiving the minutes).
When your meeting is about to come to an end, always be sure summarize the key points of the meeting, list any action items that need to be addressed before the next meeting, and let people know when the minutes will be sent out (you did have a note taker right?).

Afterwards be sure to leave time for some open discussion / questions. For non-work types of meetings (such as at community / student organization general meeting), it might be worthwhile to devote an extra 15 - 30 minutes for general networking / chit-chat and other minor business that attendees might not feel comfortable with bringing up during the formal meeting.

Hopefully these hints will give you an idea about how to run an effective meeting. Comments, including stories about particularly successfully run meetings you've attended or organized, as always are always welcome and appreciated! Until next time.

-Jason

Toyota: Sharpening the Saw

Are you happy? No I don't mean this in some sort of philosophical sense of happiness being a destination which is the point of our entire existence... All I mean is, "Are you happy with where you are exactly right now? Is everything in your life completely perfect? Can nothing be done to improve your life even a little bit?

To this question, the human answer is probably "no". But this is a good thing! Humanity's everlasting quest to better itself has given us all sorts of great innovations. So shout it out loud! "I'm not happy!" OK maybe don't shout that out loud, but take this as a small reminder to follow Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw.

I was reminded of this rule a short while ago while reading an article in Fast Company (a subscription I started on the recommendation of my accounting professor). The article was about Toyota, the world-wide #2 car maker, which is seeming like an unstoppable juggernaut poised for even more growth. How do they do it? There are quite a few books written on this topic, and they all seem to point to an obsession with innovation for improving quality and bringing down costs.

Every employee down to the shop room floor has a voice in coming up with ideas for improving processes. Even more, each of these improvements isn't considered a "project" or "initiatives". Instead the power of continuous improvement applied every day, to every employee, allows Toyota to make cars more efficiently than their American competitors (even while using the same workers!) And the thing is... no one can copy them. Well not exactly, but even if competitors copy their efficient production methods, they haven't been able to replicate the culture of continuous change (continuous sharpening of the saw) that is always challenging the status quo to see "How can I do this better, or faster, or with fewer errors?"

So what's the take away? Keep thinking about how you can improve and you'll be so far ahead of your competitors, it will seem to be like you're in a race where hardly anyone else is running!

-Jason

Run Meetings like Google

Isn't it something from Murphey's Law that at meetings people keep minutes but lose hours? Though they seem to be a neccessary evil; people hate meetings, but we all know we need them to get things done in teams. Actually, I recently read in an article that within some organiztions, meeting organizers are putting the total time cost on the doors of their meetings. This means, if they are having a one hour meeting that involves ten people, the meeting actually costs 10 person/hours. Multiplied by an average wage, this can add up pretty quickly.

As a Young leader, you need to learn how to use meetings effectively. In a school environment this could be even more important than in a working one, at school everything is voluntary and if people feel their time is wasted.... they won't show up (unless you offer free pizza - and even that doesn't work all the time).

So how can you run an effective meeting? Recently Businessweek wrote an article about How to Run a Meeting Like Google. Most of the points are pretty standard, so I'll outline them here:

• Set a firm agenda: This is a no brainer. What is the purpose of the meeting, What are the main points for discussion? Who is invited to attend the meeting? When/Where is the meeting to be held? How long will the discussion of each point last? And always leave time for extra questions!
• Assign a note taker: This is another critical piece. If you are presenting during the meeting, you need someone else to take notes. It's also great to have notes for those who have missed the meeting to get back up to speed.
• Carve out micro-meetings: Sometimes you only need 5 or 10 minutes to get something accomplished, it's also analogous to putting a solid item into the agenda for a larger meeting, which could be more efficient.
  
• Hold office hours: Hey if it works for college professors... Well sometimes it's just too difficult to schedule a meeting, but you set up a time every week (or everyday) that people can just drop by and discuss their concerns, it might lighten the load from your other standing meetings.
• Discourage politics, use data: Politics is a bad thing. Negative emotions make for a negative work experience and less productivity. Make sure ideas are chosen on their objective merits instead of subjective feelings, which can be construed to favoritism.
  
• Stick to the clock: Google sometimes uses a giant 4 foot tall projection of the clock on the wall in order to keep meetings going. Instill this discipline in yourself... and your meeting attendees will thank you.
  

So go out and get googled. (Oh wait does that sound wrong?) Anyway, wext time I will discuss some of the more "human" aspects of meetings.

Until then,
-Jason

The Book of Five Rings

You probably have not heard of The Book of Five Rings. It was written by a 17th century Japanese swordsman, Miyamoto Musashi, who held the legendary record of being undefeated in over 60 duels with other swords masters. So why am I writing about this book? Well, this book is often highly regarded as a classic treatise on strategy, along with Machiavelli 's The Prince and and Sun Tzu's Art of War.

Like those two books, The Book of Five Rings, has some good insight that is useful to Young leaders. However, Musashi writes for the purpose of training young samurai warriors, so very often readers have a tough time understanding what he is talking about or how they can apply this text to their lives. I will go over some of the themes that I found in The Book of Five Rings and attempt to explain them in context for Young Leaders.

Early on in the book Musashi calls the Way of the Warrior, the "way of death" and that when faced with the choice between life and death, the warrior should always choose death. Some people might take this as just something that sounds bad-ass. But if you take it another way, it could mean throwing your entire heart into whatever it is you are doing. You shouldn't go half-way, when instead you can take the plunge, going all-out.

Musashi later on has a brief discussion about carpenters building a house. He comes to the conclusion that the way of the carpenter is to have lesser skilled workers work on the simpler tasks, while master carpenters work on the finer details. This reminds me very much of "getting the right people on the bus" in Good to Great. You need to find the right people for the job, in order to have the job done right and your resources properly allocated.

In the main section of The Book of Five Rings, the Book of Fire, Musashi espouses many truisms that we might already be familiar with:

• Know your environment - Only by understanding the environment can you determine where you want to go (goals) and the best course of action to get there.
• Become your enemy - Leadership sometimes involves overcoming a human obstacle. Don't merely "know your enemy", see things from his/her perspective. Maybe you can think win/win and create a third solution.
• Never repeat a strategy more than twice - In college I studied quite a bit of Game Theory essentially the science of strategy. I would liken this piece of advice to running a "mixed-strategy". An overly simple example could be playing Rock-Paper-Scissors. You can't expect to always play "Rock" and always win. You need to learn to be flexible and to adapt.

Musashi is also known to have developed a sword fighting style which uses two swords. Samurai traditionally carried two swords, one long and one short, however typically fought with only one sword at a time - holding it with two hands. Essentially, he tries to get across the point that we need to learn how to make use of all our resources, even when it may be difficult at first to wield them all. In the end, tapping all of your resources, whether they be skills, contacts, energy, or etc... may make the difference between success and failure.

So if you get the chance, check out The Book of Five Rings. It's a short book that you can read in one sitting... though take a life-time to understand and master. Until next time!
-Jason

Managing Conflict

Conflict... It's a fact of life, we see it everywhere. People sometimes don't agree. This doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. But as a Young Leader, you need to know how to manage conflict to keep problems from spiraling out of control.

I was actually caught in a situation where I had some pretty heated conflict with a professor. But by making use of a third party mediator (my academic advisor - who just so happened to be the head of the department), we were able to resolve the conflict. In fact, in my college years following that conflict, I was able to form a strong relationship with that professor.

We probably all heard of the old adage, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." In this case, I would definitely say preventing conflict and avoiding the headaches associated with them is well worth the effort.

So how can we minimize conflict?

• One way would be to maintain an environment of trust. If you as the leader show that you trust your team members, they will learn to trust each other. And when people trust each other, they are more likely to be understanding of other needs and situations, thereby reducing conflict. Furthermore, it doesn't help to pit team mates against each other. Make sure the team remains a whole!
  
• Choose the "right" people. This is what Collins called "getting the right people on the bus". You need to make sure you have the right people on your team, before you can even get started. If you know someone really doesn't believe in the vision and doesn't seem willing to make the change, conflict is almost inevitable.
• Manage change effectively. This is a tough one, but we all know that human beings are creatures of habit. Understand this and try to make any process of change to be as comfortable or as easy as it can be. If you don't, people will resist it.

Ok, so now we have done our best to minimize conflict, but we still have some. How do we resolve it?

• First of all we need to understand the conflict. Listen to all parties involved. Give everyone the chance to talk (one-on-one conversations work the best). Also, make sure to separate "personal" issues from substantive issues. You can't force people to like each other, but you can force them to respect each other.
  
• Then take a systemic view of the conflict and think about a solution. Be open to all potential solutions, getting input from all sides. Think about the team as a whole when deciding. Also, avoid punitive discipline, because this will only breed more conflict in the future. Try to think outside of the box and win-win.
  
• After you have decided the solution, implement it. Be firm and make sure the promised changes are made. Also be available for further coaching in the future.

If only it were just that simple, but this is a start. As always comments are welcomed and appreciated. Maybe you could share a time when you had and resolved a conflict.

-Jason

Leadership in Organizations: Influence Attempts

This will be the first in a series of notes and thoughts I had from reading Leadership in Organizations by Gary A. Yukl.

Yukl discusses three different outcomes created by an attempt of one person to influence another: Compliance, Resistance, or Commitment.

• Compliance - We all know this one. Lawmakers, bosses, parents, teachers... make rules that we "have" to follow... sometimes we don't want to, but the consequences are not nice, so we comply.
  
• Resistance - Someone wants you to do something, but you don't want to... so you don't. Too bad for them!!
  
• Commitment - Now this is what we all are aiming for. When you attempt to influence someone else, the best result is commitment from that person to do exactly what you wanted them to do.
  

But Commitment is hard to get out of people. How do you do it? One way would be to use the Golden Rules from Dale Carnegie's Win Friends and Influence People.

I've heard over and over again of people pointing to how militaristic "leadership" styles can be highly effective. I would disagree. The military proper, forces strict compliance through a rigid system of rules and harsh punishments. However, the military doesn't aim for compliance. Instead they get commitment in one way by using Dale Carnegie's Golden Rule #19 "Appeal to the nobler motives", i.e., They reinforce the idea that soldiers fight to Defend Freedom or that they are true Patriots or Heroes by serving. Similarly, members of the military form extremely tight bonds of camaraderie.

The strong emotions tied to military services, which create the high levels of commitment, cannot be built overnight. Furthermore, most organizations simply not meant to have the dualism of coercive compliance coupled with emotional commitment. For this reason, I often think of leadership as having much more to do with empowering the followers, not to achieve YOUR goals, but rather to achieve OUR shared goals. It is much easier to get commitment from people when you keep their interests in mind. Think about this the next time you are trying to influence someone else. It might come in handy!

Until next time,
-Jason