Lessons of Leadership

Lesson/Goal/Outcome
1. Thoroughly Know Yourself
- Become keenly aware of your strengths and challenges as a leader
- Learn your “blind spots” and their impact
- Solicit and act on feedback
2. Build on Strengths, Fix Your Weaknesses
- Remove skill deficiencies
- Pro-actively overcome debilitating biases
- Develop and maintain your own personal development plan
- Actively seek out opportunities to challenge your weaknesses
3. Master Difficult Conversations
- Be able to handle difficult conversations
- Use conversations as a tool of leadership
- Learn to listen on multiple levels and with empathy
- Get more accomplished through people
- Get buy-in to critical initiatives
- Deal effectively with performance issues
4. Communicate Pro-Actively
- Get the organization focused on the customer
- Speak passionately about your strategy and direction
- Openly ask for commitment to goals
- Become a powerful public spokesperson for the organization
- Write clear, crisp documents that get intended results
- Take full responsibility for interpersonal communication
- Build communication strategy into all initiatives
- Maintain a “transparent” approach to managing
5. Adopt a Facilitative Style
- Become a catalyst for idea generation
- Ensure innovative ideas are heard without judgment
- Successfully exploit the value of competing viewpoints
- Use conflict as a creative force for change
- Insist on data-based conclusions
- Lead powerful, productive meetings
6. Focus on a Few Initiatives
- Select initiatives with high-impact potential
- Set appropriate priorities for the organization
- Accurately assess situations before taking action
- Accurately analyze unintended consequences of actions
- Concentrate on results that implement strategy and profits
- Challenge and remove “activities” that do not lead to results
7. Drive Change
- Acknowledge and communicate the urgency of change
- Set challenging goals for everyone
- Manage the impact of change on the organization
- Insist on learning and growth in the organization
- Properly assess the current environment and its implications
- Develop strategies to remain competitive, vibrant, relevant
- Set high standards and demand accountability
8. Model a Clear Way
- Lead by example
- Consistently demonstrate the connection of work to strategy
- Model and enforce corporate values and personal integrity
- Be transparent in executing strategy
- Share your learning with your people
- Transmit the culture to newcomers
9. Let Leaders Lead
- Choose a team with impeccable skills
- Provide broad guidance regarding strategy, direction
- Build in appropriate reporting and check-ins
- Ask openly how you can help
- Delegate generously and stay out of the way
- Find ways to develop every person
10. Become a Life-Long Learner
- Stay tuned in to the changing environment
- Study the lessons of history
- Make learning a requirement of managers
- Lead and participate in development
- Consistently reward learning in the organization
- Make every manager a coach/facilitator
- Make ROI-based training a consistent element of strategy
11. Focus on People
- Fine tune your own people skills
- Build an organization that treats everyone with respect
- Recruit leaders with a record of getting results through people
- Recognize excellent performance, new ideas

Writing: 3 more ideas

The last several Learning Links have been dealing with the subject of writing and how to improve your business writing. This time let's look at formatting, clearer sentences, and adding some "action" to your written document.

Most of us do not think about the visual impact of our writing as we are drafting a document. But formatting makes a huge difference for the reader. For one thing, large blocks of text are not inviting and encourage the reader to skim over them and possibly miss the meaning. In a business document this is not good because we often tend to bury the important part of our communication deep inside a long paragraph.

Formatting Is Key

After you have completed your document and you are so proud of it, it is time to have a critical look for formatting concerns. Here are three suggestions:

• Use lots of subheads
• Separate lists with bullets
• Make liberal use of white space

Use lots of subheads
Subheads and another formatting techniques are "road signs" which give the reader some idea as to where the document is going. If our document is organized well, these road signs make it easy for the reader to grasp key points. Subheads separate out important information and make it easily accessible.

Separate lists with bullets
One of the nice things about word processors is that they give us lots of flexibility with formatting. Bullets help the reader absorb lists of related information and put that information in perspective.

Make liberal use of white space
Visual impact really matters to the reader! When faced with a series of pages of block text and no formatting, it seems a major undertaking just to get started. Break up the text with formatting techniques such as those referenced above and expand the amount of white space between paragraphs and key points. This makes the document much more interesting visually.

How Long Is Your Sentence?
This is not a reference to a prison term, but to the length of sentences we write in business documents. After you have written, it's a good idea to go back and break up those long sentences. Strive for a maximum of 15 to 20 words per sentence--and while you are at it, avoid semicolons since they really serve no purpose in a typical business document. (If the two clauses can stand alone, simply separate them with a period.)

Using Action Verbs
Passive tense is boring! Sometimes it is necessary but typically not in a business document.
Example: "The annual report produced a disappointed reaction among the board of directors. "
Revision: "The annual report disappointed the board of directors."
Example: "It is our expectation that we will see productivity improvement when the workers learn the new system."
Revision: "We expect workers to produce more when they learn the new system."
The revisions show action and produce a sense of excitement about the subject matter that is missing in passive tense. (Sometimes we try to diffuse responsibility with phrases like "mistakes were made" and maybe there are times when that is helpful, but for the most part you should avoid these types of sentences.)

What to do this week
Review your documents for formatting, use of white space, simple, clean communication and active verbs. Take a few minutes to make editorial changes and then ask someone you trust to review the document before you send it. Most of us have to do a fair amount of writing as part of our job, but our readers really appreciate it when we take them into consideration as we draft and format the document.

Writing Performance Goals--A special type of writing

This Learning Links issue is about a special kind of writing: Writing performance goals for yourself and for your team members. Most of us fail to obtain performance results from our associates because we have never made clear to them what we expect. The best way to do this is through well-written performance goals which follow the SMART principle. Goals need to be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Results-oriented, and Time-oriented. In other words, goals need to spell out what the person is to do in measurable terms by what date. If these conditions are met, at least it is clear whether not the employee achieved the goal and that should make the discussion about performance a lot simpler--and a lot more objective.
Goals need to be specificGoals such as "To improve communication with the team" are too vague to even consider. The question to ask is what is it that you want to do? If the goal is to provide a method of communication among team members, then spell that out and spell out exactly when it is to happen. For example, "To install an intranet web page for use by the team by February 1" is a much better goal.
Goals need to be measurableMeasures should be quantitative (To develop 10 new pre-qualified prospects by the end of each month) so that both manager and employee are clear as to whether or not the target was met. Of course if conditions change along the way, perhaps the measurement needs to change as well--but at least you have a starting point as to how to measure progress.
Goals need to be attainableWe can write many goals for ourselves and for our employees, but if they are not attainable or realistic, they are of little value in performance management. This is not to say that we should not have "stretch" goals. We should always be attempting to set goals that are beyond our reach. But goals such as "Relocate the parts department to the Broad Street location by Christmas" may not be attainable, for example, if it is affected by construction delays or other likely interruptions. Also, sometimes we make goals that would be difficult under any circumstances. Better to have a stretch goal and meet it than a nearly impossible goal and fail to achieve it. (One of my favorite definitions of a stretch goal came from Dana Mead, former CEO of Tenneco who defined a stretch goal as one you set having no idea at the time how you could possibly attain it. His theory, of course, is that reaching high greatly improves our chance for major improvements.)
Goals need to be results orientedIt doesn't make sense to have goals without a specific business outcome. So the goals we set need to be geared toward improving the bottom line, sales figures, customer satisfaction or the like. Many times we set goals which seem to be useful, but don't have an impact on business results. When that happens, it is a nice exercise but not very useful as a performance tool.
Goals need to be time orientedOne of the biggest failures many managers make in goal setting is failing to put a deadline by which the goal is to be met. A goal is not complete until it has a time measurement associated with it. Even if the time constraints are difficult to nail down, you should still associate a deadline with the goal, noting that it might be subject to change dependent on other conditions.
Here are a couple of simple goals which meet our criteria:

• To complete the migration to XYZ software for the sales division by December 15, 2009.
• To develop a performance management template for the human-resources department and obtain management approval by July 1.
• To schedule and complete a presentation skills course satisfactorily by August 1.

Notice all these are specific, measurable, and are results and time oriented. If we follow this formula, not only will performance likely improve, employees will feel that the system is fair and they will be willing to commit to the goals proposed.
Two other ideas:
1) As you begin drafting goals for yourself, a good place to start is the performance agreement of your own manager. What are his/her goals? How does your work fit into achieving them? If you're not sure, it is a good time to initiate a dialogue to clear this up. If your goals don't seem to be related to those of your manager, there's a serious absence of alignment which can result in a lot of lost motion.
2) Allow your associates to draft their own goals. Give them a copy of this Learning Links and suggest they draft their own goals. Research shows that when you allow an employee to draft his or her own goals, they typically make them more demanding than you would had you written them yourself! What a great position to be in!
In summary, writing goals for the organization or for your team is a valuable exercise--although frequently it does not get the attention it deserves. As a manager, you must ask yourself if an individual's performance is not up to standards, have you made your expectations clear in writing? The best way to answer that question is to write really effective goals and get agreement to their execution.
What to do this week
Have a discussion with your manager about his or her goals for the next time period, then draft goals that support your manager's goals. Next, share your draft with your manager, get approval, then share with those who report to you to help them draft their own goals. Use the measurement criteria above to make sure they are all conforming to the SMART formula.
What do you think?

Writing--Organization

Happy New Year!
This Learning Links issue is the second in a series on written communications. In the hundreds of documents, reports and presentations we have reviewed and critiqued over the years, nothing improves the document like improving organization. When most of us sit down to write, we simply start typing text and then "cut and paste" until we're satisfied with the document or presentation. There is a better way.

Start With An Outline
This sounds so boring and time consuming but it is our experience (and we have validated it over and over) that taking a few minutes to draft a simple outline greatly improves the organization and success of the document. The usual complaint is that it takes too much time. The fact is that if you spend 20 minutes writing a document and 20 minutes editing, you are no better off than when you spend 10 minutes outlining the document and then 30 minutes (or less) fleshing in the outline with a well thought out narrative. And of course the goal we're all pursuing is for our document to have an impact.
Clearly if the reader does not sense that you know where you're going with your document, there's little incentive for him or her to hang in there in hopes you will eventually illuminate the way. The outline does not have to be a rigid, constraining exercise (like you may have experienced in high school). Simply jot down the major headings of the document and some bullet points under each. Miraculously, as you do this, the points you want to make tend to find their natural place and the document becomes much more cohesive.

How To Create An Outline
Forget about the rules you live heard about beginning an outline with a Capital A or whatever and instead simply list the major topics and the bullet points beneath them as mentioned above. If you are not clear about where to start, consider making your major headings one of the following possibilities:

• The topics you wish to cover in order of importance
• A brainstormed list of options
• A "map" of how the points relate to each other
• Once you have begun this simple exercise, move the subtopics and details to the spot they belong in the document.

How To Organize Any Document
Any well-organized document has at least three sections: An introduction, some expository information about the issue, and recommendations or summary. With this simple structure, now all that is left is to flesh out the three sections.
In our previous Learning Links we suggested that you could start any document with "The purpose of this document is ..." and this is not a bad way to begin. By stating the purpose of your report, proposal, memo about change, etc. you alert the reader what is to follow in some (hopefully) orderly fashion. So your report should include:

• Statement of purpose
• Definition of the problem (what was happening vs. what should have been happening)
• A summary of principal cause and implemented solution
• Summary of the impact
• A detailed description of causes and how the solution addressed them

The same organization with some minor modifications can apply to sales proposals, requests for funding, problems to be solved, procedures changes, progress reports or even a letter to your mother about her finances!
The most important point to keep in mind in any writing assignment is whether the document reaches its goal of communicating clearly and without misunderstanding the points you wish to make. (In that regard, it is a good idea to let someone else read over your draft before you send it.)
If you can visualize your writing assignment as taking responsibility to make sure the reader understands and can act on the points you're making, it will change the way you approach the writing assignment. In other words, it is not about you and the struggles you're having putting the document together. It is about the reader and his understanding of your message.

What to do this week
Pull out a recent email or memo you have sent. Look at it critically to see where things could have been made clearer or where organization could have clarified the message. Quickly mark up the document indicating where things could be moved around to make it more readable. Then on the next writing assignment, resolve to begin with a simple outline instead of simply tapping out your message on the keyboard. If our experience is correct, you'll be amazed at the improvement! Good luck!