Category: Leadership Training Articles
A young, talented engineer accepted the second job of his career. It was with a company renowned for its progressive culture. No more authoritarian leadership, everyone’s on a team, titles are not important, creativity and freedom are important corporate values. He was very excited about the opportunity. He would have a chance to try out some of his new ideas without worrying about some tyrant telling him to get back to work and stop bothering him with crazy plans. ...Read more
The small circuit board factory had made substantial gains in productivity. Quality was up. Defects were down. But, there were still many problems. The biggest issues included communication between managers and team members and conflict among team members, support groups (maintenance, engineering, human resources), and other teams. In other words, everyone was working harder and smarter but no one was getting along and everyone was worried that they would not be able to sustain the improvements that they had made. We made a decision to conduct some leadership training for all the managers, supervisors, group leaders and senior engineers. The leadership training heavily emphasized communication: effective listening, constructive confrontation, and win/win conflict resolution—it was the L.E.T. (Leader Effectiveness Training) program by Dr. Thomas Gordon. ...Read more
The joke goes like this. “We’re implementing a new work-life balance program. The committee will meet every morning at six to plan it. Any objections?” Maybe that’s a little bit of an exaggeration but not by much. Managers ask, “How much responsibility do we really have? Aren’t my employees adults? Isn’t it their job to make sure they are ready to work when they enter the building? How much time should I spend “babysitting” grown people? I have a job to do and they are paid to help me do it.” If you are too lenient, people will take advantage of you they fear. Managers don’t want to be seen as “pushovers” who can be manipulated. Yet companies promote their work-life balance programs when recruiting and when vying for a “best place to work” award. ...Read more
Date: September 26th, 2011
Food metaphors are everywhere. When someone is busy, we say, “Her plate is full.” Our competitors are going to “Eat our lunch.” When we have to cut back, our boss says we have to, “Eat our peas.” If we spend too much we are told, “You have Champagne tastes.” If we complain about being passed over for a promotion, we hear, “That’s just sour grapes.” I suppose that truth lurks in metaphors and that these colorful phrases make ideas more memorable or “palatable.” ...Read more
Date: September 19th, 2011
Nine percent and holding! Unemployment seems to be stuck at record high levels with little prospect of improving any time soon. No one seems to be able or willing to predict what will happen next. Another recession? Continued slow growth? Nothing? And what is the impact of this on our organizations? Is everyone waiting for the other guy to make the first move or are we doing what we can to be ready for a turnaround when it comes? Are our organizational leaders taking this opportunity to make needed changes and improvements in their companies so that we will be more competitive in the future? I don’t pretend to know the answers to these questions. I am certain, however, that these conditions put a lot of stress on leadership and on the workforce. ...Read more
Date: September 15th, 2011
We are all in this together. That is true on a lot of levels. Despite the animosity, bellicose rhetoric, intransigence, partisanship, pettiness and lurid reporting, we know, that in certain ways, our fates are entwined. We breathe the same air, drink the same water, travel the same roads, and live on the same globe suspended in space. During difficult times, it is easy to feel defeated. “Nothing I do matters. I might as well give up.” But, like it or not, sometimes the smallest acts can have immeasurable consequences, not only for ourselves but for our families, our neighborhoods, cities, countries, and the world. ...Read more
Date: September 7th, 2011
So, the man who changed the face of technology in the world multiple times has stepped down. Steve Jobs was certainly one of the most highly regarded CEOs of all time. He was, no doubt, one of the most well known. There will be lots of speculation about how well Apple will do without him at the helm (Just can’t resist those military metaphors). But a deeper question for organizational leaders is just how much influence should the leader have on his or her organization. Is it healthy for the organization to have a dynamic leader whom everyone looks to for inspiration? For direction? For permission? For forgiveness? It is hard to argue with the success of Apple Computer. By almost every measure, they are successful. But most of us don’t have a Steve Jobs at the top. There is no question that Steve Jobs is intelligent, brilliant, maybe even a genius. But, is he a great leader? I think that question is sill pending. If Apple prospers now that he has stepped down, I say his leadership was good (despite the temper tantrums and so forth). If Apple goes into the doldrums, I think we must question his leadership. Great leaders alway
s have as their goal the creation of an organization that will flourish without them. Dependency is the enemy of true greatness. So, can Apple survive without Steve Jobs’ “Reality Distortion Field”, his infamous ability to get people to buy into seemingly impossible ventures? No one knows. But, the broader question for the rest of us, who are not geniuses, is how much dependency is healthy or tolerable in an organization? Start-ups are often extremely leader-dependent, but as they grow it is reasonable to assume that they have a better chance of survival if they become less and less dependent on the leader for guidance. Too much dependency creates several problems for organizations: ...Read more
Those of you old enough to remember the no nonsense, Police Sergeant Joe Friday in Dragnet, will remember that he had little patience for assumptions, theories, conclusions, or interpretations from his witnesses. He wanted “Just the facts.” He believed that the only way to solve a crime was to determine all the facts of the situation first. The same is true of all problems. The first thing to do is to establish the facts. ...Read more
Let’s face it. Sometimes we are going to mess up. The best of us make mistakes, make bad decisions, overlook important details or take on tasks we are not qualified to accomplish. Certainly, we should take steps to prevent errors when possible. Many leadership training programs teach us to anticipate problems, identify potential “choke points,” incorporate mechanisms to alert us to obstacles before they become serious problems and develop systems to monitor progress. Certainly, the work of W. Edwards Deming taught us to be more attuned to prevention than to inspection. All that is to the good but even under the best of circumstances, we will still make mistakes. So, the question becomes, “What do you do about it?” It’s easy to get caught up in 
the blame game and go after the poor slob who wrote the bad line of code or dropped the circuit board or sent out the wrong memo. It’s a whole lot more challenging to look at the situation as a learning opportunity. ...Read more
“Why do you feel that way?” is a question I often hear in leadership training workshops when I am coaching participants to verify their understanding of another’s message. In fairness, the participant is normally trying to do a better job of paying attention to the team member’s emotional state rather than ignoring it (the more typical method for many managers). The result of that kind of questioning, however, often has the effect of completely shutting the other person down, the opposite of the desired outcome. We are taught how to 
ask good questions. We understand that questions can be very powerful. There are people in my life who are important resources for me precisely because they know how to ask difficult questions, the kind that challenge me to think in new, often more productive ways. ...Read more
