How To Be A Collaborative Leader

Edward M. Marshall's book, Transforming The Way We Work -- The Power Of The Collaborative Workplace, remains relevant today, more than a decade after Marshall wrote it.

Particularly useful is the book's section that teaches readers how to be a collaborative leader.

Marshall says that there are seven different, important roles and responsibilities of collaborative leaders when leading teams, and those leaders should select the appropriate style to meet the team's needs.

The seven roles are:

1. The leader as sponsor -- You provide strategic direction, boundaries and coaching for the team. You also monitor progress and ensure integrity in the team's operating processes.
2. The leader as facilitator -- You ensure that meetings, team dynamics, and interpersonal relationships function effectively. You also ensure internal coordination of activities among team members.
3. The leader as coach -- You provide support and guidance and you serve as a sounding board.
4. The leader as change agent/catalyst -- You hold team members accountable, make the unpopular decisions, energize the group to action and enable breakthroughs where possible.
5. The leader as healer -- You play the role of the mediator and serve as the catalyst to bring people together.
6. The leader as member -- You serve as part of the team, taking full responsibility for the success of the team and actively participate in the team's activities.
7. The leader as manager/administrator -- You serve in a traditional role of tackling the daily administrative responsibilities, processes, and systems essential to managing the boundaries within the larger organization or key stakeholders.

Within any collaborate workplace, leaders will find themselves fulfilling all seven of these roles at different times, and sometimes fulfilling a combination of the seven styles at the same time, while working with work groups and teams.

Four years after Marshall wrote, Transforming The Way We Work, he penned, Building Trust At the Speed Of Change. Marshall won an award for excellence in organization development from the American Society for Training and Development. He holds degrees from Claremont McKenna College, Syracuse University and the University of North Carolina. 

Ask "Why Not?" More Often To Drive Greater Success

Early on in Eli Broad's book, The Art of Being Unresaonable, he reminds us of the power of a child's instinctive asking, "Why not?"  Unfortunately, most adults lose that habit and Broad goes on to explain that it was his continuing to ask "Why not?" throughout his career that brought him success.

"The questions you're willing to ask when others think they have all the answers are doors to discovery," says Broad.

Other words of wisdom from the book, and my favorite takeaways, include:

• Most successful businesses have to begin by bucking conventional wisdom.  Invention and innovation don't happen without it.
• Do your homework no matter how much time it takes.
• Big ideas don't happen in a moment.
• You can't do it all yourself, so ask questions and delegate.
• The trick to delegating is to make sure your employees share your priorities.
• Find the best people to whom you can delegate, and know their strengths and weaknesses.
• Younger employees simply have fewer preconceived ideas of what they can and can't do.  Try to widen their perspective, deepen their sense of accomplishment, and build their capacity.
• No matter how much money your customers have, they still want value.
• The best way to mentor is to challenge people and then to set an example by letting them see you in action.
• When you challenge people to dig deep and do more and better than even they imagined they could, it creates a particular bond.
• Show me a person with an unblemished track record, and I'll show you a person who has dramatically underachieved.

Broad's book, subtitled, Lessons in Unconventional Thinking, is well worth the read.

Broad is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and the founder of two Fortune 500 companies -- KB Home and SunAmerica.

Choose To Live A Life That Matters

I recommend that all leaders every so often read the What Will Matter poem by Michael Josephson.

It serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of unselfishly serving and leading with character.

I've highlighted in bold and in color below my favorite parts of the poem:

Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.

There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days.

All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else.

Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.

It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.

Your grudges, resentments, frustrations and jealousies will finally disappear.
So too, your hopes, ambitions, plans and to-do lists will expire.

The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.
It won't matter where you came from or what side of the tracks you lived on at the end.

It won't matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant.
Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.

So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?

What will matter is not what you bought but what you built; not what you got, but what you gave.
What will matter is not your success, but your significance.
What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught.

What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage or sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example.

What will matter is not your competence, but your character.
What will matter is not how many people you knew, but how many will feel a lasting loss when you're gone.

What will matter is not your memories, but the memories that live in those who loved you.

What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.

Living a life that matters doesn't happen by accident.

It's not a matter of circumstance but of choice.

Choose to live a life that matters.

Parenting With A Story

Growing up in the 1960's sometimes my parents would say to me, "now, don't tell stories," heading off what they anticipated might be an untruthful account of events.  That negative stigma of storytelling stayed with me for quite some time.

Today, as an adult, I now know the immense power of storytelling.  Truthful stories, of course. 

Storytelling is indeed one of the most powerful ways we communicate.  Stories demand attention of listeners.  Stories inspire.  Stories are contagious.

"Stories put the listener in a mental learning mode," explains Paul Smith, author of the bestseller, Lead With A Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives that Captivate, Convince, and Inspire.

Paul is an authority on storytelling and has helped business people around the world to more effectively use storytelling.

Paul Smith

Now, Paul has a new book, Parenting with a Story:  Real-Life Lessons in Character for Parents and Children to Share.   

Based on extensive research into storytelling, Paul demonstrates the power of a great personal story to reach and teach children—by showing the hero struggling and succeeding in a way that’s interesting and meaningful to them, or failing and suffering the consequences. 

Since, as Smith acknowledges, “none of us has had the breadth of life experience to have enough great stories all by ourselves,” he provides 101 compelling real-life stories for telling kids something substantial—about themselves and how they treat others—that they’ll actually listen to and take to heart.

Paul spent a year interviewing people from all over the world, across a wide spectrum of ages, races, and life circumstances, and in an astonishing variety of fields and professions.  

He then pulled from those interviews to present in his book a story collection of real-life stories to reinforce 23 character traits vital for children to grow into responsible, successful, caring adults.

"I asked questions designed to elicit memories of concrete events in their lives where they learned their most valuable lessons—their unexpected moments of clarity," explains Paul.  I asked questions like: 

• Tell me about a time in your life when you learned an important but completely unexpected lesson. 

• What personal stories do you recall hearing as a child that taught you so valuable a lesson you still remember them to this day? 

• What’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made and why?

"Most interviews yielded between five and ten unique stories. From that total of perhaps 800, I selected the most compelling 101 to populate the pages of this book," adds Paul.

In the book, you'll find the stories to be uplifting, humorous, heartbreaking, and touching.  They will impart lived wisdom and valuable guidance to children on:    

• Ambition—including the importance of not only setting worthy goals, but also letting go of unhealthy ones.

• Open-mindedness

• Grit—featuring the story of a young gymnast who devoted more than a year of effort, two hundred-plus practice sessions, and well over a thousand attempts to mastering a basic maneuver that takes less than three seconds to perform.

 

• Kindness

Wondering when the best time is to share your stories with your children?  Smith suggests:

• Opportunistically - The best time to share stories like these is opportunistically – that moment when the need for it arises naturally in the course of your parenting. In fact, I’m of the mind that if you have to say, “Sit down and be quiet and listen. I’m going to tell you a story now,” you’re probably doing it wrong.
• Dinnertime is still a great time for stories. If your over-scheduled lives have taken this sacred time from you, reinstate it. It worked for centuries, and it still can. This is when your successes and failures from the day will turn into stories that explain the lessons you learned from them.

• Bedtime – Especially for younger kids, bedtime is always a great time for stories. Most kids would rather hear a true story about something stupid you did as a kid (and the lesson you learned) than hear you read another tired bedtime story from an old book anyway. 

Five Tips For Writing A Company Policy

Keep these five tips in mind when you craft your next company policy:

1. Keep the policy short and simple.
2. Get rid of two old policies for every new policy you implement.
3. Make sure that your organization's policy and procedures are written to serve your employees and customers--not just your organization.
4. Don't write a policy in reaction to a single incident.  The problem may never arise again.
5. Don't write a policy longer than one-page, no matter how large your organization may be.

Thanks to author Bob Nelson for these great tips from his book, 1001 Ways To Energize Employees.

How To Lead With Purpose

“Purpose is the why behind everything within an organization,” says author John Baldoni, of the book, Lead With Purpose.

Baldoni also believes that it is up to leaders to make certain that organizational purpose is understood and acted upon. And, to harness the talents of their employees, leaders must recognize their responsibility to instill purpose in the workplace.

Other recommendations include:

• Make purpose a central focus
• Instill purpose in others
• Make employees comfortable with ambiguity
• Turn good intentions into great results
• Make it safe to fail (as well as prevail)
• Develop the next generation

According to Baldoni, purpose forms the backbone of what an organization exists to do; upon which you can build vision and mission.

To define an organization’s purpose, you must ask three questions:

1. What is our vision — that is, what do we want to become?

2. What is our mission — that is, what do we do now?

3. What are our values–that is, what are the behaviors we expect of ourselves?

Some of my other favorite observations from the book are these two:

• We follow leaders not because they bring us down, but because they lift our spirits with their attitude, words, and examples.
• No job is complete without a review. Look at what went right as well as what went wrong. Understand that failure is not grounds for dismissal.

Lead With Purpose draws on extensive research, field work and interviews with dozens of organizational leaders. It also includes the results of an exclusive 2010 leadership survey conducted for the American Management Association (AMA) by NFI Research.

Baldoni is a recognized leadership educator, coach and speaker, and the author of Lead by Example and Lead Your Boss.

How To Step Up During Six Critical Leadership Moments

The book, Step Up, shows readers how to step up to the plate during six critical leadership moments.  Readers learn how to:

• Use anger intelligently in the workplace.
• Recognize and deal with terminal politeness.
• Make decisions when no one else is making them.
• Take ownership when others are externalizing a problem.
• Identify and leverage pessimism.
• Inspire others to take action.

And, before you start to read the book, you can take (via a QR code in the book) a fifteen-minute online Step Up Leadership Assessment, which will give you instant feedback on your leadership readiness and point you to the most relevant chapters in the book.

The book's two authors recently shared these insights with me:

A Conversation with Henry Evans and Colm Foster, authors of Step Up

What is a “leadership moment”?

• These are moments when leadership is required in order to see a problem solved, opportunity seized, momentum changed, relationship(s) built, or when the intelligent expression of emotion is required to drive a desired result. Leadership moments are when there will be an “easy thing” to do or a “right thing” to do, and you choose the “right thing,” even though it may be hard to do so. Some of the moments are counter-intuitive and will contradict some of the prevailing wisdom about leadership.

What are common misconceptions about leadership?

• That people who have the formal position of “leader” are good leaders and/or are always ready to lead. Another misconception, in our experience, is that people at all levels of organizations sometimes feel helpless and think that without a formal title they cannot lead.

Many books outline how to harness positive energy. Are negative outlooks—pessimism, skepticism, criticism—ever useful?

• In short, yes. The emotional intelligence community, ourselves included, have taught that emotions such as anger and frustration should be banned from the workplace. We have now changed our view. In our research and work with clients, we observe that the intelligent use of emotions like anger can lead to better business outcomes and stronger relationships. Stupidity is a problem, but not always anger, if channeled productively. Pessimists are often misunderstood and under-appreciated. Sometimes your pessimists are providing a counterbalance for unbridled optimism.

Are the six leadership moments important for both managers and non-managers? Can mastering how to act in the six moments help people advance in their careers?

• Yes. Leaders must demonstrate these qualities, and we promote the use of the six moments as criteria for reward and promotion across teams. We also believe that if you are working for someone who does not possess these qualities, you should train up, or trade up (get a new boss). Lastly, when you find yourself in a moment when you and your team are experiencing a leadership void, you can learn-how and when to demonstrate leadership in those same moments. You don’t need the title. You simply need to know how to recognize the moments when leadership is required, and of course, what to do when you are in one of those moments. If you demonstrate these qualities consistently, people are likely to view you in a new light, that of a leader.

What’s an example of a leadership moment in the news that a prominent leader stepped up to?

• Just a few weeks into the job, GM’s new CEO Mary Barra stepped up to the company’s recall crisis. The evidence looks like a leadership void may have led to the crisis and Mary stepped in to show very publicly how to turn this into an opportunity to lead.  She has been much more open, transparent, and accountable than auto company leaders have traditionally been about recalls. She still faces huge challenges ahead to solve GM’s crisis, but she has already been an inspiring example of how we can all step up and show true leadership when needed.

What can readers of your first book, Winning with Accountability, expect with Step Up?

• Winning with Accountability is a language-based system for driving better business results, and building better relationships through the language you use when making and requesting commitments. Step Up focuses on the six critical leadership behaviors required for leadership, regardless of your title or formal position. As with Winning with Accountability, you can expect more ideas that are easy to access, immediately applicable, and which naturally connect to your current business reality. In both books, we are action-focused, not theory-focused.