A635.5.3.RB_DavisCarl Video Debrief of Team MA

                                  Buckingham Palace from St. James Park - CSD June 2016

Hello, readers! Week five finds us looking at a management assessment Embry-Riddle provided the students in the Organizational Change class I am in. To have an opportunity to discuss the assessment in a blog format, we were also asked to view a YouTube™ video about Steve Jobs and the start-up days of NeXT. We are going to discuss how the management characteristics the assessment identified would have (or not have) fit in the start-up days of a dynamic company.

We can start with a quick review of the situation Steve Jobs was in during the video (Petrenko, 2012). He had just removed himself from the company he had created, Apple, after battling the Apple Board for control. He decided the best way to move on was to start a new company, NeXT™, and build the computer he dreamed of building. Jobs had to finance the start-up of NeXT™ on his own. Many of his colleagues from Apple left to come with him, so the initial brain-trust knew each other and had worked for Jobs in a similar situation before.

The management assessment I participated in utilized personality defining questions to attempt to identify the work environment in which a person would be happiest. The scale of companies includes Start-up Company, Rapid Growth Small Company, Mid-Sized Dynamic Company, Conservative Company, Large Dynamic Company, and Large Company. NeXT™ would definitely fall into the Start-up Company category. They were going to be a Rapid Growth Small Company shortly, but they were only 90 days old when the video begins!

The company I currently work for is a Large Dynamic Company. Large because it has over 160,000 employees and dynamic because it is in the aerospace industry. Interestingly, the assessment tool indicated that the organization I would be happiest in would be a Large Dynamic Company. My first question for the analyst who walked me through my results was if they were just a product of the environment I had been operating in for the last 10 years. She insisted that the test results change only slightly over time and that they indicate the way a person is basically “hard-wired”. I am either lucky or there is an interesting force that pushed me to where I ended up working. That’s a story for another day.

The first characteristic that I indicated a preference for was achievement. Jobs had a strong drive for achievement and NeXT™ was his second attempt to make a positive mark on the world. In my job I often talk to my team about the altruistic benefits of the job our team does and the impact it can have on travel safety. Jobs wanted to make an impact on higher education that would impart a giant leap forward for years to come. On a daily basis, Jobs needed his team to achieve and he worked hard to keep them focused. I also have to keep my team focused on the daily hurdles we face and enjoy seeing them accomplish the tasks.

The second characteristic was innovation. The definition in the assessment said, “A balanced mix of the three key innovation attributes: problem solving, process creativity, and inventiveness, are essential in the leadership team of a large dynamic venture (Next Steps, 2016).” Jobs needed innovation and innovators in droves to get his company up and running on the timeline they faced. I have been involved with a group that is trying to transform a part of our company’s business and I have needed people who could be innovative to do it.

Independence was the third characteristic on the list. There are plenty of times that I am breaking new ground for my company and I need the ability to think on my own. I have been the provider of vision for my group. Jobs was not known for being a fan of those who did not follow his vision. His teams were regularly being called to meetings to hear the vision and to prove to Jobs they were on the way to making his vision a reality.

Number four was financial metric usage. I know this characteristic has developed over time, but I do feel it is important. Jobs was struggling with the financials of his start-up and had to have a lieutenant crack the whip for keeping people on budget. Jobs was primarily interested in getting the product out on time. In a very competitive environment, like aerospace, the dollars have to be tracked.

A tolerance for and the ability to assess risk were also identified as a characteristic of mine. I think Jobs team was probably doing risk assessments all the time, but Jobs rarely did. NeXT was a total high-risk proposition that Jobs bet $7 million of his own money building. My job directly involves situations in which people can be injured or killed. If one cannot tolerate risk mitigation, this is not the job for you.

Need for recognition was pointed out as a characteristic of mine. Specifically, the fact I would like others to see me as a role model. This characteristic is noted to be something that early stage venture leaders usually do not have. That would indicate to me that I would not have fit in as well as I could have if I was at NeXT™. Again, Jobs was, and needed to be, the one person driving the way for the company to go and grow. Others trying to take any of the limelight would not have gone well. Only Jobs closest confidant, Joanna Hoffmann, could truly call him out and she was very politically smart about how she did it.

The last characteristic identified was that of multi-tasking. For a person in a large dynamic company, this takes the form of juggling multiple projects and having the metrics available to see performance. For a start-up, Jobs described the very hands-on needs that he had to handle to get NeXT™ off the ground. The maturity level of the company dictates the type of multi-tasking and these two situations are quite diverse in type. While I know I could do it, I don’t know that I would enjoy the hands-on multi-tasking that NeXT would’ve required.

Overall, many of the characteristics the assessment identified for me are compatible in both situations. The more extreme dynamics of the start-up would be less enjoyable for me as I do like have at least a broad set of rules or standards within which to operate. I like pushing the edges of those standards, though. I am glad to be where I am and, as I said before, will continue to ponder how I moved from my past career to the one that agrees with my “wiring” so well.

See you next week!

Petrenko, S. (2012). Steve Jobs Brainstorms with NeXT Team, YouTube.
Next Steps Research (2016). Management Assessment for Carl Davis

A635.4.3.RB_DavisCarl Build a Tower, Build a Team

                                      Crossing from China into Kazakhstan in a B747-400F

Thanks for joining me again for another week on the Educated Leadership Blog. This week we’re looking at teams that are handed a problem and given a limited amount of time to deal with it. The way the teams are put into this situation is through a simulation. If you have a moment, you can go to this website http://www.ted.com/talks/tom_wujec_build_a_tower to see the logistics involved.

In case you cannot go to the site, what you would have seen was a TED Talk™ given by Mr. Tom Wujec about a team exercise called The Spaghetti Challenge™. In the exercise, teams of four people are given 20 sticks of dry spaghetti, a one-yard-long strip of paper tape, a one-yard-long piece of string or twine, and one standard size marshmallow. The teams are given 18 minutes to plan and build a tower out of the spaghetti tape and twine that will support the marshmallow. The goal is to have the tallest tower. The marshmallow must be at the top.

In what may be a surprising point, the logistical challenge of doing that is not the interesting part of the video. The data compiled by Mr. Wujec tells a very interesting story. The average height of the towers is around 20 inches high. The worst group at building the towers is recent business school graduates. The best groups at building towers are kindergarteners! The youngsters regularly build towers that surpass the 20-inch mark. The second best groups are made up of CEOs and their executive assistants. If the CEOs are in a group without an executive assistant, their performance falls off dramatically!

Mr. Wujec’s hypothesis for why the kindergarteners do so well is that they don’t waste a lot of time planning or posturing, they just start building prototypes and seeing what works. Conversely, the business people in the room spend a lot of the allotted time trying to make a plan for what should work and then are unable to make adjustments when their design fails to hold up the marshmallow. While I can see this is a big part of why the kids do so much better, I do not think it is the complete answer. A point that is not talked about is that kindergarteners do not necessarily worry about hurting someone’s feelings if they have an opinion. In other words, if they think what someone is doing is wrong, they will tell them. It may be done politely, or it may be done with a, “That’s stupid.” That cuts down on the time spent on designs that may not be as sturdy as needed. The kids also are not as likely to defer to a peer, so they will feel more free to speak up and more free to contribute ideas. CEOs may worry about the politics of saying something to a peer that runs a bigger company than they do, or who is older, or who is younger, or for some other reason. The fact that CEOs perform better with their executive assistants on the team points to the possibility that when CEOs do not have someone keeping them focused on the task, they are at a disadvantage.

One of the topics being covered this week in class is the subject of process interventions. Process interventions are when Organizational Development practitioners assist groups or teams in becoming more aware of the way they operate and the dynamics of how the group interacts (Brown, 2011, p. 199). The TED Talk video could be a good ice breaker for helping managers to see that standard business practices don’t always lead to the best results. Brown discussed group norms and growth as part of process interventions (2011). He noted that the norms of a group will drive what members of a team will or will not do (2011, p. 202). The kindergarteners appear to illustrate what operating outside of business norms may allow.

I will be showing this video to my team at a staff meeting in the very near future. I believe it will be a good conversation generator and will provide my team with data they could use in the future. Our overarching organization is discussing a structural and behavioral redesign and I believe information about process intervention could come in handy for them. Of course, it will ruin the surprise for them if they ever go to a workshop where this is the technique used to illustrate team dynamics!

Brown, D. R. (2011). An Experiential Approach to Organizational Development. Upper Saddle River, NJ, Prentice-Hall.

Talks, TED. (2010). Build a tower, build a team - Tom Wujec, www.ted.com.

A635.3.3.RB_DavisCarl 50 Reasons NOT to Change / The Tribes We Lead

Hello, readers! Welcome back to the Educated Leadership blog for another week of learning about Organizational Change.

This week we watched a TED2009™ talk by Seth Godin (2009) about the new world of tribes and reviewed a presentation created by Dr. Daryl Watkins (2011) on 50 of the best reasons for a company or department not to change their status quo. Both presentations provided plenty of material on the topic of change and some of the big issues that will hamper efforts to do so.

Dr. Watkins’ presentation (2011) compiled 50 of the most often heard reasons why making a change is a bad idea. Statements included, “It’s not my job,” “We’ve tried it before,” “It can’t be done,” and one of my favorites, “The competition won’t like it.” I am sorry to say that I have heard those comments and the 46 other statements at some point in my career. I am also guilty of having used some of these statements in my past. As I have gained in age and experience, I have attempted to refrain from using any of the statements because they are basically excuses.

As a senior manager, I cringe at hearing any of the statements in a business environment. I qualify that statement with a locale because I know that versions of all 50 reasons not to change are in the reference handbook most teenagers receive upon reaching their 13^th birthday. As part of asserting their independence, they are going to provide multiple reasons why something cannot be done. In a business environment, attitudes exemplified by the statements are great ways to stifle progress and success.

When I hear colleagues or employees make comments like, “The sales team says it can’t be done,” or “It won’t work in a large company,” I think back to a quote by Andy Grove, CEO of Intel, “Ask why, and ask it again five more times, until all of the artifice is stripped away and you end up with an intellectually honest answer.” (Brown, 2011, p. 118) This technique drives at finding the root cause of why the proposed change would be bad or impossible. The questions are an initial diagnostic tool and can serve as a way to illuminate the start of the path to change. There are a plethora of other diagnostic tools and techniques that can be applied to follow-up on the reasons for resistance to change. Surveys, observations, and interviews can all be brought to bear on the issue of change and provide Organizational Development (OD) practitioners with data and information. Overcoming the resistance that serves as the genesis for the 50 statements is where OD practitioners earn their keep.

In my experience, the greatest antidotes to change resistance are the articulation of a vision of the future and providing those impacted by change the information they need to see the benefits they will receive by participating in the change. The change efforts I have seen fail provided no way for the participants to see one or both of those ingredients of change. People are not going to, and shouldn’t be asked to, change just for the sake of change. They need to know it is going to lead somewhere. They need to know it is going to benefit them in some way. Leading change and overcoming the resistance typified by the 50 statements is why we are taking an Organizational Change class. The issues are complicated and intertwined with multitudes of intricacies. Educated leaders will examine the reason for the resistance from multiple perspectives and provide the vision to move ahead. I have utilized these techniques with success in my career. I also know I have much more to learn about. I have seen people I admire as leaders struggle, as have I. This is not easy work. It is rewarding work.

Seth Godin TED Talk™ from 2009 focused on the idea that the internet has allowed the human race to find subgroups, or tribes, to which they would have not previously had exposure. He proposes that this ability to find groups to belong to has created tribes that can each be lead. Godin postulated that each tribe needs a leader and permission is not required to take that role. In fact, Godin believes that these tribes are waiting for someone to point the way for their future (Ted Talk, 2009, 15:44). Another foundational point Godin made was that the leaders of these new tribes have an ability to provide the narrative that illustrates the vision for the tribe. His premise reminded me of another TED Talk™ by Nancy Duarte (2011) that discussed the format of speeches that have changed the world. It’s not just the story that needs to be told, it’s how the story is told. I applied Nancy’s techniques to a speech I gave last year to my organization and I was very pleased by the feedback I received. In fact, the impact of the talk I gave is still providing impact for my team because they all see the vision of our future.

Mr. Godin’s premise that change can be driven by tribes is one I can ascribe to, but change management is not as simple as just finding a group and providing them a vision or narrative. I would recommend watching his talk because it provides yet another perspective on the ways leaders can impact the groups they are privileged to be direct.

My takeaways from this week’s lesson are that communicating a vision is absolutely vital and that most groups are looking for that vision. My life experiences bolster that premise as I have been involved with many groups that are meandering through each day and have little idea what the future will look like for them. I have seen what great things can happen when a leader steps in and provides direction.

There have been a couple of cases where I had to step up and lead when the direction was non-existent from my managers. It was not an easy task, politically or physically. However, the resulting positive outcomes in team performance, overall satisfaction, and personal growth made the stress and strain all worthwhile. You, too, may need to step up and take the reins sometime. Keep studying and keep testing yourself. I wish I knew then what I know now and I will continue to work on my personal growth. The responsibility of leading people is enormous and cannot be taken lightly. You can do it.

See you next week!

Brown, D. R. (2011). An Experiential Approach to Organizational Development. Upper Saddle River, NJ, Prentice-Hall.

             

Duarte, N. (2011). You Have the Power to Change the World - Nancy Duarte talks at TED, YouTube.

             

Talks, T. (2009). The tribes we lead - Seth Godin.

             

Watkins, D. D. (2011). 50 Reasons Not to Change, Prezi.

              

A635.2.3.RB How Companies Can Make Better Decisions

                                            Napolean Bonaparte's Tomb (CSD - Oct. 2015)

Welcome to week 2 of our Organizational Change class! This week, we’re looking at quality decision making.

We watched a YouTube™ posted by Harvard Business Publishing that covered the topic of how companies could improve their decision-making processes (2010). Marcia Blenko of Bain & Co. was interviewed about her experiences as an Organizational Development practitioner assisting companies in improving their decision speed and quality.

One of the points Ms. Blenko asserts is that decision effectiveness correlates positively with employee engagement and organizational performance. In my opinion, she is absolutely correct. My personal experience has been that working for a person or leadership team that is capable of making effective, timely decisions is a far more enjoyable situation than working for those who cannot. Having experienced both situations, I have striven to be as decisive as possible when making decisions that impact the team I run. The feedback, both explicit and implicit, has been very positive. My team is very engaged, has a high level of job satisfaction, and are very high performing. In fact, two of my managers are being considered for positions of higher authority and responsibility. I expect they will be moving on in the next few months. I’m very proud of them.

To tie that idea in further, I believe that decision effectiveness is a major portion of the measure of trust that employees will extend their leadership. The higher the quality of decisions that are made, the higher the level of trust employees will be willing to give. The “bank account” of trust the employees generate have can be drawn upon by leadership. Long ago I was given a bit of advice by a mentor. He said, “Carl, always remember that in business (and in most of life – CSD) it takes 10 ‘atta-boys’ to make up for one ‘oh, #$@&!’.” In other words, a lot of good work can be wiped away or forgotten by making one mistake. In business leadership, a track record of good decisions will go a long way to building up the trust needed for when that bad decision comes along.

Conversely, a leader or leadership team that is slow to make decisions, or that consistently makes poor decisions will have find that the employee trust account quickly overdrawn. The employees become disengaged and the high performers will begin to look for opportunities to go to work for a different and higher performing team. As Yukl noted, “Decision quality refers to the objective aspects of the decision that affect group performance aside from any effects mediated by decision acceptance.” (2013, p. 112) Yukl indicated, as did Ms. Blenko, that the size of the decision is often irrelevant. Many seemingly small decisions have far reaching effects over time, making them just as important as high profile decisions.

If good decision making was easy, there wouldn’t be a section in Barnes & Noble™ full of books about doing it correctly. There are any number of ways to make less than optimal decisions. Start with making decisions without understanding the context or situation of the decision. The next impediment would be not having enough information. The other end of that spectrum is known as “paralysis by analysis” where too much investigating is done before committing to a decision. Another impediment is not wanting to take the responsibility for a decision. I have seen a few managers who believed they couldn’t get in trouble for decisions they “never made”. They aren’t employed at the companies I knew them at anymore. Not getting buy-in from the people affected by the decision will definitely impede the decision implementation or making process. Communication breakdowns will drive bad decision making, too.

In the Harvard Business Publishing interview (2010), Ms. Blenko names four elements of good decision making. She posits that Quality, Speed, Yield, and Effort are the keys to optimal decisions. I think it is interesting that one of the elements put forth is whether the decision is of high quality! We are rating whether or not the decision was good by asking if it was a good decision to start. Feels like a circular argument to me. The argument is somewhat semantical in that the other elements are as impactful over time, and taken as a group, they allow for a measure of overall quality. I do not believe there is an element missing from her list. The categories she provides are broad enough to allow for any other impactful elements to be considered.

Applying what I have learned from this lesson will be relatively easy. I am reminded of the way LEAN® processes were once described to me by a facilitator at a company at which I was working. They said, “LEAN® is just common sense written down.” I feel like Ms. Blenko has managed to do the same with decision quality. If I make high-quality, expedient decisions that are applied as I intended with just the right amount of effort, I should have an excellent batting average at good decision making! No, getting all those holes in the Swiss cheese to line up so the decisions I make can be good all the time is the bigger issue.

As it seems to be with almost all other situations that involve more than one person, communication will be key. The quality of the decision is enhanced with information and multiple perspectives. Those are derived via communication. Yield and effort are enhanced via clear and concise communication. Speed is a function of yield and effort and is therefore impacted by communication, too.

I have found that a team that is hearing the same message can operate on their own much more smoothly and efficiently. I keep them as informed as I can, while protecting them from noise and distraction. In doing so, they now have the foundations to make good decisions on their own, when they need to.

See you next week!

Publishing, H. B. (2010). How Companies Make Better Decisions, Faster - An Interview with Marcia Blenko - Leader, Bain & COmpany's Global Organization Practice. HBR Ideacast.

               

Yukl, G. (2012). Leadership in Organizations, Pearson Education, Inc.

                

A635.1.3.RB_DavisCarl 21st Century Enlightenment

Welcome back, readers! We’ve moved on to our next class together, Organizational Change.

Our opening foray into the topic is to review a video by Matthew Taylor at The RSA Group (2010). The video can be found on YouTube™ at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC7ANGMy0yo . Mr. Taylor discusses his perspective on what he calls, “The 21^st Century Enlightenment.” The first question to contemplate is why Mr. Taylor calls the talk what he does. After watching the video a few times and taking the time to think about the overall presentation, I believe I understand why. He compares today’s need for greater empathy across all cultures to the need in the 18^th century of making the mental leap from feeling and religion to a more science-based driver of norms and ideas.

At the 1:18 mark, Mr. Taylor stated, “To live differently, we need to think differently (2010).” I believe Mr. Taylor is making the point that if change is going to happen, it must first start inside of us. Gandhi is often quoted as saying “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” He didn’t actually say that (Morton, 2010), but the bumper sticker saying is a good variation of what Taylor is trying to convey. Taylor is saying that before we can hope to drive change, we have to change our thoughts. Without a doubt, I believe this is how change must start. I find myself facing change constantly. My home life and work life are excellent generators of the necessity of change. If I were to lock my way of thinking and refuse to adjust my thoughts and beliefs, the world would run off without me. As a practitioner of inclusion in the Cultural Diversity arena, being open to changing my thoughts when presented with evidence contrary to my beliefs of expectations has become the expectation I have for myself. Those of you that have followed my learning journey on this blog will know that the capability to be open to new and different ideas has been hard learned by me and I know that it must be continually practiced.

Later in the video, around the 4:10 mark, Mr. Taylor argued that “We need to resist our tendencies to make right or true that which is merely familiar, and wrong or false that which is only strange” (2010). I can remember the incredible eureka moment I had regarding this idea. Some seven years ago I was given my first opportunity to attend an in-depth class on Cultural Diversity and Inclusion. The class was a week long and was one of the most mentally taxing weeks of my life. Time and time again I was presented with opportunities to realize that situations or ideas that I had perceived as wrong were not wrong. They were different. They may have even been strange to me. They were not wrong. I felt as though I matured more in that week than in any five-day stretch maybe ever. Am I uncomfortable with some cultural practices? Yes. However, I look at them from a different perspective than I would have in the past. I look to understand, not judge. I try very hard to recognize that when I am uncomfortable in a situation I need to ask myself why. I am the one who is uncomfortable with the situation and I need to own that. It is not the other person’s problem.

We have a propensity as a culture in the US to become enamored with reality shows and the practice of anonymous degrading and insulting on-line. Mr. Taylor (2010) makes the point that we should spend more time trying to develop empathy in our citizens instead of nurturing the culture of degradation. My expectation is that society will need a greater motivation than currently exists to make the switch to building empathy. Money motivates media. Media swings a big stick when it comes to driving cultural changes. As in the case where implementing real Diversity and Inclusion programs in corporations won’t take off until there is proof it will drive revenue and earnings, media and the internet won’t stress empathy until it attracts viewers. I have noted in past blogs that Fred Keeton (2012) at Caesars Entertainment has made the financial case for diversity successfully, but he seems to be one of the few that have truly cracked that code. Can empathy be brought to the forefront in society? Yes. I think it may take some type of looming catastrophic event to trip the switch, though.

There is a point, around the 5:15 mark, where Mr. Taylor talked about the factors that are isolating people and groups from society. He notes that the growth of empathy has stalled as a result. Whether it is the widening income gap in the developed world, tensions between ethnic groups growing, or the growing anti-immigrant sentiment in the world, the impact is a fracturing of society. What does this mean to us as educated leaders? It harkens back to the point made by Dr. Steve Robbins (2013) about the way the human brain processes the feeling of being excluded. The punch line is that the areas in the brain that light up on a brain scan when a person experiences the feeling of being excluded are the same ones that light up when the person experiences physical pain. Dr. Robbins calls the pain from being excluded “social pain” and the brain cannot distinguish between it and physical pain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOlDTu6zg0c Therefore, as leaders, we must realize and remember the impact had on someone by excluding them. As a society, the impacts are incredibly powerful and the results of those separations are easily seen on the nightly news.

This video includes many ideas in its mere 11 minutes of running time. I have a few points that I will ponder as I go back to work tomorrow. The prime point will be the reminder that things about which I am not familiar are not necessarily wrong, they are certainly different. I will continue to work toward educating people on the power of diversity and inclusion. I will look for ways to improve empathy in myself and in those with whom I come into contact. The biggest point that will keep me searching is the thought about how to drive society away from idolizing the degradation of others and looking for ways to admire empathetic practices. Emotional Intelligence is definitely an additional avenue to look into as a catalyst in this particular arena.

See you next week!

Michigan, U. o. (2013). 2013 Business & Finance MLK Convocation - Dr. Steve L. Robbins 01/21/13, YouTube.

               

Morton, B. (2011) Falser Words Were Never Spoken. New York Times  

               

RSA, T. (2010). RSA ANIMATE: 21st Century Enlightenment, YouTube.

               

Unknown (2012) Diversity by Design: Fred Keeton, CDO, Caesars Entertainment. Diversity Best Practices