The power of being unsure, of remaining “in the inquiry” rather than settling for easy answers.
How to feel okay with yourself by helping others feel okay.
Presenting to Fortune 500 company executives.
The trap of over preparing your presentation.
Your brain’s skill for anticipating the future—and the dangerous illusions that creates.
Just click here and either listen through your computer or subscribe through iTunes to have this and all new episodes placed on your device as they become available.
In the first year or so it wasn’t just about proving how tough I was, I had to be tough. I was pretty sharp with people. But I’d learned in the classroom, the last thing you want to do is put somebody down because then they freeze, and not only do they freeze, but the whole class freezes. I had to relearn that lesson as a manager. … Early on I didn’t know how to delegate things. I was always trying to do other people’s jobs. I learned that first of all, you’ll drive yourself crazy doing that, and secondly you won’t have very good people working for you very long.
…
I found it useful to remember that most institutions don’t want to change. They’re institutions because they’ve developed a certain set of traditions and norms and expertise, and change is hard. A lot of the work I’d done as an academic affirmed that usually institutions change when they’re failing. It’s very hard to make them change when they’re succeeding. They take the cues too late from the environment.
I found three things helpful.
One is that you have to paint a picture of other times that that institution has responded to change and difficulty successfully.
Secondly, [it helps] if you can find in the institution a counter-narrative that supports the direction of change.
And finally, you have to look to see whether there are impediments to people doing the right thing. Mostly in good organizations, and the Department of State was certainly one, and I found this at Stanford too, people want to do the right thing — they don’t want to be obstructionist — but sometimes there are things that make it hard for them to do the right thing.
— Condoleezza Rice
On being Provost of Stanford University
& Secretary of State
in Harvard Business Review
Levy: Let’s talk about web services. Amazon Web Services is dominant in hosting—one observer says that you are the Coke of the field, and there’s no Pepsi. How did an ecommerce site wind up in the position where it’s hosting web powerhouses like Foursquare, NASA, Netflix, and The New York Times? … Young startups all tell me that even if Google offers them free hosting, they still want to use Amazon.
Why do you think that is?
Jeff Bezos: We were determined to build the best services but to price them at a level that customers couldn’t match, even if they were willing to use inferior products. Tech companies always have high margins, except for Amazon. We’re the only tech company with low margins.
Levy: How did you do it?
Jeff Bezos: We really obsess over small defects. That’s what drives up costs. Because the most expensive thing you can do is make a mistake. We can afford to focus on smaller and smaller defects and eliminate them at their root. That reduces cost, because things just work.
Years ago, while I was establishing myself in a new executive coaching practice, I supported my family by working as a part-time, outsourced CFO. Here is a reminiscence of a deep learning I earned during one of those accounting gigs.
I sought help from my own executive coach with the very difficult behavior of a bookkeeper employed by my client. She had called several urgent meetings with the partners and each time threatened to quit, more or less because of me. These meetings were very exasperating as she made charges that were either too vague to dispute or clearly contrary to plain facts. For example, although we repeatedly assured her that she had her job as long as she wanted it she insisted she could not continue to work under such uncertainty and would resign immediately because we were conspiring to take her job away. The partners felt obligated to placate and mollify her because she was the only bookkeeper out of several they had tried who was able to make any progress in getting their bills out to clients.
I said to my executive coach, “I am stressed and bothered because of her unpredictable behavior, of course, but I am mostly bothered by the fact that it bothers me. I am so ‘trained’ and ‘transformed’ I ought to be able to deal with her behavior without becoming stressed, hurt, or angry. I try to remain calm, not react to her outbursts, and keep on working because I need this income. I do what is necessary just to keep getting paid, so why do I lose sleep and spend my non-billable time talking about her with my coach, family, and friends?”
By the way, is this scenario reminding you of anything in your life, right now?
My coach reminded me of the dangers of attachment, of identifying with our property or positions. We confuse preferred outcomes with necessary results. We grasp so avidly to particular bits of property or actions by others that we forget we can still be ourselves without them. We attach money or prestige to ourselves so firmly that we forget that we are not our results or our reputations. What I want is not what I am.
I then remembered the old samurai expression (I suppose all samurai expressions are now old).
The most effective warrior dies before entering the battle.
The bookkeeper was not damaging my body or physically invading my free time. My attachments were the only things making my life difficult. I was attached to looking good in the eyes of my client, I was attached to (more…)
Knowledge at Wharton published a very well-done summary article on the problems with and alternatives to the traditional annual performance review. Here are my favorite excerpts.
“an overall performance management process — one that focuses on goal setting, feedback, coaching and clear statements of the company’s performance expectations — is absolutely critical” and indeed, is found in the highest-performing companies.
–Sibson Consulting/WorldatWork survey
Good managers provide feedback and direction that will help individuals achieve success. Bad managers don’t. They worry about (more…)
The New York Times recently ran a nice article about how Google–in its usual highly-analytic, data-driven way–measured the results of different management behaviors amongst its own workforce. The recommendations that emerged from this research will be familiar to readers of this blog.
I wish these were practiced as often as I preach them!
Google’s Project Oxygen
Eight Good Behaviors
Be a good coach
Provide specific, constructive feedback, balancing the negative and the positive.
Have regular (more…)
Revolution is in the air around the world. People everywhere are fed up with having arbitrary power exercised over them, with impractical limits placed on their everyday actions, with living in constant fear that someone in power will frown at them and destroy their livelihood without warning or objective justification. This global revolution differs from the Marxist model of the dispossessed and disaffected rising up from poverty to overthrow the business class. This time, educated professionals are actively engaged in the resistance. As a result, people long accustomed to wielding authority and position are rapidly changing the way they run things. Suddenly, leaders in many countries are peacefully giving up some of their power in hopes of participating in a new, more prosperous and humane community.
I am not talking about foreign countries. I am talking about where you work.
For as long as I have been in the business world employees have been mystified and upset by the performance review process. The managers conducting the reviews find them arbitrary, uncomfortable, and (more…)
I just read a talk by the head of the US government’s Office of Personnel Management, John Berry. He provides a concise and cogent summary of the new management thinking that I hope will become a major influence in organizations around the world. This shift in management is, I believe, the result of two major trends. First, the crash of 2008 made it very clear that we had been placing too much emphasis and confidence in our top leaders while day-to-day quality of life for the rank-and-file stagnated or declined. Second, a huge wave of research in behavioral economics and positive psychology is shifting management practice toward methods that are tested and proven rather than anecdotal and heuristic.
Below are excerpts from the speech that illustrate some of my favorite points, the practices I emphasize with my own CEO executive coaching clients.
But don’t read my excerpts.
I recommend that leaders of organizations, particularly chief executives, read his entire speech by clicking here. Try to forget that he is speaking about government employees. Ignore references to the President and Congress. Imagine, instead, that you made this speech to your managers and employees. What would the impact be of making these changes in your own leadership style, in your company’s performance review process, in your day-to-day life?
Selected remarks of OPM Director John Berry
Interagency Resource Management Conference
Kellogg Conference Center
What if, when setting performance standards, we engaged our employees and got clear about expectations? What if we made sure performance standards were detailed, objective, aligned to agency mission and goals, and had employee buy-in – that they weren’t just dictated from on high?
Consider the four essential pieces of how we currently manage performance: (more…)
Speak for yourself about yourself. Starting sentences with “I” is a powerful shortcut to this skill. You can state facts, opinions, emotions, concerns, requests, suggestions—whatever—if and only if you take ownership of them.
It is okay to carry a message or speak for someone else; just be clear about what you are doing. Label it.
Communicate to cause a result.
Stay in every conversation—whether in person, by email, telephone, whatever—long enough to learn how your communication lands with the other person and be responsible for their response. How they feel or act is your business and you should be ready to respond.
Include the whole team in team conversations. Avoid having conversations about any person not participating in that conversation. This guideline also includes those conversations you have inside your head.
The pace is slow for an online video but Brené Brown’s message is deep and true. Use the extra time to think about your own life, relationships, and desires.
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I sought help from my own executive coach with the very difficult behavior of a bookkeeper employed by my client. She had called several urgent meetings with the partners and each time threatened to quit, more or less because of me. These meetings were very exasperating as she made charges that were either too vague to dispute or clearly contrary to plain facts. For example, although we repeatedly assured her that she had her job as long as she wanted it she insisted she could not continue to work under such uncertainty and would resign immediately because we were conspiring to take her job away. The partners felt obligated to placate and mollify her because she was the only bookkeeper out of several they had tried who was able to make any progress in getting their bills out to clients.
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