Monthly Archives: March 2011
Much of leadership training focuses on how a manager can get his or her people to behave or perform in positive ways. But one dynamic that is often missed is the concept of Modeling. Simply put, modeling is demonstrating the behavior you would like to see others demonstrate. While this is an elementary idea–essentially a variation of the Golden Rule–it is easier said than done (do as I say, not as I do)!
Most organizations have structures and job roles in place that make it convenient for members in the hierarchy to avoid behaving as their staff needs to behave. Let me give you a simple example: work hours. “Exempt” positions, i.e., those not subject to hourly computation of compensation, work more by the job than by the clock. While people in these positions have more flexibility with their time on the job–they can schedule a personal appointment of catch their kid’s soccer game during “official” work time–they often are working at night or on the weekends without any additional compensation. So there are built in pros and cons to these structures. What does this have to do with modeling? ...Read more
In leadership training workshops, management “gurus” often advise leaders to develop a system of rewards and punishments to encourage “good” behaviors and discourage “bad” behaviors. While few would argue that you would not increase the frequency of desired behaviors in this way, there are limitations to what can be achieved and a number or risks that are often overlooked.
A careful reading of B.F. Skinner’s foundational work on operant conditioning reveals some of these limitations. If a leader chooses to rely heavily on rewards and punishments to meet his or her objectives, the leader must: determine what is “good” and “bad,” know exactly what is reinforcing and what is not reinforcing for each team member, design a precise schedule of reinforcement for each team member, and maintain that discipline over a very long period of time. Although that might be possible, the best outcome that could be hoped for would be mediocrity. ...Read more
Blog Post by Victoria Benodi
The other day, a woman invaded my castle. Crossed the moat, scaled the walls, charged the turrets. In other words, she came into my cubicle without asking.
Now, I’m an executive assistant in a fairly large company, and because of my role, I’m in an open area near my boss’s office. I have an “office” but it is bordered by a counter, not walls. That said, everyone is always very respectful, and pretends as though I have a door. Except for Melinda.
Her most recent transgression was the most obnoxious yet. She came into my space to get a binder and didn’t even acknowledge me. She then stood behind me, reading, not realizing that I had sensitive data on my computer screen. So I decided it was time to take action. ...Read more
William Stinnett, Ph.D. has educated and coached more than 10,000 executives, managers, and other professionals in leadership, communication, problem solving, and facilitation skills. He has facilitated the team building, strategic planning, or implementation plans of hundreds of management teams. He has received consistently superior ratings in his tr
aining seminars, which include Leader Effectiveness Training, Facilitator Development Workshop, Team Leader Training, Total Quality Management, Continuous Quality Improvement, Total Cycle Time, and many others. As a Master Trainer for Gordon Training International Bill has conducted Leader Effectiveness Training Workshops, Train-the-Trainer Workshops, and supervised trainer candidates in a wide variety of organizations across the country including Medtronic, Merck & Co., Inc., W.L. Gore & Associates, Fort James Corporation, Weyerhaeuser, and Walt Disney Imagineering. Internationally Bill has conducted workshops for the Republic Bank of Trinidad in Port of Spain, Trinidad/Tobago, Merck in Montreal, Hong Kong and Singapore, Nama Chemicals in Saudi Arabia, Medtronic in P.R.C and Cabot Microelectronics in Japan. ...Read more
Every year, scientists gather in Boston to poke fun at themselves at a ceremony where they award the Ig Nobel Prizes. These prizes go to researchers who have conducted unusual research that often provokes chuckles when described. For instance: remote sampling of whale snot, reducing asthma symptoms with a roller coaster and proving that wearing socks on top of boots improves traction on icy surfaces. The Ig Nobel Prize is given out by a group called “Improbable Research”, which celebrates “achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people’s interest in science, medicine, and technology. ” ...Read more
Leaders are charismatic, inspirational, and trustworthy. They have a vision. They are good communicators, good listeners, good problem solvers, etc., etc. Look up the word “leader” or “leadership” and you will find a list of traits or attributes that make someone a leader. I don’t argue that good leaders possess some of these characteristics and skills. But, that is not what actually makes someone a leader. You are a leader if someone else chooses to follow you. Period! There are many examples of terrible leaders who have led 
people into disastrous situations. Cult leaders like Jim Jones whose followers in Jonestown poisoned themselves or the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas or Heaven’s Gate in San Diego are horrifying examples. There are certainly many examples of gang leaders who have led young people into crime and prisons or to their death. Unscrupulous televangelists lead gullible, lonely people into poverty. There is, undoubtedly, a lot of power at work with many of these people. Why people choose to follow them is still, in many ways, a mystery. But follow them, they do. And, it is important to recognize that in every case, there is an element of choice. No matter how powerful the person may seem to be, there is a limit to that power. There are always choices. Those choices may not be obvious. They may not be very attractive, but there are choices. For every person who follows a cult leader, there are many who do not. For every young person who follows the gang leader, there are some who do not. There are those who watch the televangelist and don’t send money. No one knows all of the reasons people make these decisions but it is important to know that they have their reasons. ...Read more
Companies have been talking about teams for decades. But what does that really mean? Does it change anything to take an existing work group and call it a team? Are teams really different from groups? If so, what makes them different? Are teams really different? Better? More productive? Most leadership training includes material on teams. Few, however, really describe clearly what a team is or how to go about creating one. Many of the principles taught in leadership training such as the importance of clear expectations, clarity of purpose, collaboration, mutual trust building, relationship building and so forth are important for all kinds of groups and organizations, not just teams. Teamwork becomes important when the task demands that the members need one another to succeed. Interdependence is the key factor that separates teams from other kinds of groups. If the organization has tasks that naturally lend themselves to this kind of interdependence, then teams may be the right way to go. If you have to artificially create “interdependence” then the team members may feel manipulated. “Why are they putting us into teams? Wouldn’t this get done easier and better by assigning it to an individual and giving them a little staff support? What are they up to?” ...Read more
I get a lot of really smart participants in my leadership training workshops: doctors, chemists, engineers, architects, lawyers, and, (yes) rocket scientists. Often there are many very creative people as well: artists, designers, musicians, teachers and so on. It is not uncommon for people to fall into more than one category. These are highly capable people with immense cognitive capacity. They are really smart. Some are good leaders and some are not. There have been countless studies done to unravel the mystery of why really smart people are sometimes terrible leaders. We have all seen this. An excellent engineer gets promoted to a management job because she is an excellent engineer but she fails as a manager because she does not have the leadership skills she needs. A brilliant scientist cannot lead his team of brilliant scientists, etc., etc. Why does this happen? It is certainly not because these people are not smart enough. They are indisputably intelligent. What are the elusive “people skills” that are often cited as their weakness? Some say that it is a special kind of intelligence. The idea that there is more than one kind of intelligence has been around a long time. Daniel Goleman, building on the work of John Mayer and others , popularized the term Emotional Intelligence. The idea is that to be successful as a leader, you need to be smart in more than one way. In 1995, the cover of Time magazine proclaimed, “It’s not your IQ. It’s not even a number. But emotional intelligence may be the best predictor of success in life, redefining what it means to be smart.” Probably an exaggerated claim! But, despite the scientific controversy over whether EQ is a separate, measurable ability or not, the idea that understanding and dealing “intelligently” with emotions is an important skill in life. ...Read more
Facebook, Twitter, Yelp (sounds like something your dog does), Linkedin, Myspace, etc., etc., etc! So, who needs face to face communication? We communicate all the time with everyone we know. At work, we collaborate with our colleagues in Hong Kong and Turkey through e-mail and Skype. Video-conferencing has improved to the point that it seems almost like real life, real time. So, what’s the point? Travel is expensive. We are in tough economic times and hotels, airfares, auto rentals, and restaurants have not gotten any cheaper. All of these tools are powerful communication aids that help us do business in today’s world. It would be impossible to sustain business relationships with colleagues in remote locations without them. But, there are trade offs. If leaders rely exclusively on electronic communication, it becomes very difficult to truly build a team. Even if the subject is not on your leadership training agenda, it will come up during discussions and question and answer sessions. ...Read more
How often have you met a new client or a new manager or colleague and showed an interest in them by asking questions about their life and listening to them and then realize that they don’t show the same interest in you? Do you find yourself wishing, as I have, that the conversation was over?
It’s a basic human need to want to communicate and to have meaningful interactions with your date, significant other, children, friends, co-workers. And yet it isn’t easy or comfortable to achieve real communication or a meaningful exchange at any time much less in the workplace. It is often a discussion point during leadership training. “How much time should we spend talking about non-work related issues? Shouldn’t those conversations occur after work?” Of course, most day-to-day communication while you are at work should be about the job. But, organizations are systems of relationships and the ability to develop and maintain those relationships is an important part of the work and one that leaders should take seriously. ...Read more
Blog post by Denise Montgomery
Ever have One of Those Bosses? One who micromanages you to death, or throws you under the entire Partridge Family transport when things go wrong? The kind whose conflicting messages and demands leave you with your stomach in knots, unable to sleep?
And did you ever think, “No job is worth this”?
A CNN story out today confirms what many of us have known all along: A bad job (and the story makes it clear that a bad boss is a big part of a bad job) is worse for employees’ mental and emotional health than unemployment.
Yes, really.
Compared to suffering under the whims of a badly misguided, unskilled boss, we’re actually under less health-destroying, psyche-sucking, gut-wrenching stress when we don’t know where the next paycheck is coming from.
If that’s not an argument for investing in leadership training, I don’t know what is. ...Read more
The Importance of Systems Thinking in Leadership Training
It seems that in every leadership training workshop I attend, I am told, “This is the secret. This is the product, technique, program, software that will save your company.” Most of us know that those claims are exaggerated. We also know that no single thing will fix all of our problems. No matter how good the product, if you try to implement it in a flawed system, you will get poor results. No one speaks about systems thinking more clearly than Peter Senge[1] in his book, The Fifth Discipline. He says, “Business and other human endeavors are also systems. They, too, are bound by invisible fabrics of interrelated actions, which often take years to fully play out their effects on each other. Since we are part of that lacework ourselves, it’s doubly hard to see the whole pattern of change. Instead, we tend to focus on snapshots of isolated parts of the system, and wonder why our deepest problems never seem to get solved.” Managers try gimmicky programs. They have layoffs, outsource, install new software, hire a new consultant, form a team, etc., etc. While any, or all, of those things may serve a purpose, none will really work to optimize the performance of the organization if executed in isolation. If we don’t consider the potential interactions, long-term effects, unanticipated consequences, and so on, we just accumulate programs without really making any substantial progress. ...Read more
Why Leadership Training Should Get Us To Slow Down
“There’s never enough time. I’m behind at work, at home, everything seems to pile up. My team members seem to have an endless supply of complaints that need my attention. How can I find time to listen to all of that when I have so many other demands on my time?” Many leaders fall into this trap. It’s like the old saying, “The hurrier I go, the behinder I get!” It is a common lament in leadership training, “This all sounds nice but how in the world can I possibly find time to do this? I can’t do everything that is expected of me as it is.” ...Read more
There are a host of practical reasons to teach leaders about good communication, better listening, teamwork, win/win conflict resolution and the like but there are just as many compelling ethical reasons to do so. Yes, team based leadership leads to better performance, greater sustainability, more ROI, and so forth. The evidence is compelling. But, even if that were not so I believe that we should keep in mind that most business organizations are social systems where human beings spend a significant portion of their lives. The leaders of those organizations also have an ethical and moral imperative to treat their employees with dignity and fairness. Also, as important societal institutions, they have obligations to be good neighbors in the communities in which they operate. But, there is also and ethical side to the skills often taught in leadership training workshops. ...Read more
