It’s Time for a New Discussion on “Women in Leadership”

The time has come to reframe the gender issue. The chancellor of Germany, the head of the IMF, and the chair of the US Federal Reserve are women. General Motors, IBM and Lockheed Martin are run by women. Sixty percent of the world’s university graduates are women, and women control the majority of consumer goods buying decisions. In the US, women under 30 out-earn their male peers and 40% of American households have women as the main breadwinner. In many companies and countries where I work, from Iran or Brazil to Russia, managers tell me that they recruit a majority of young women as they clearly outperform their male peers.

And yet women continue to be underrepresented in most businesses, especially at the senior levels. Given this split – women’s potential on the one hand, and their relative absence from the highest levels of business on the other – it is tempting to keep banging on about “fairness” and “equality” on the one hand, or to assume that surely the women who don’t make it to the top must be doing something wrong on the other.

In fact, it is time to shift the discussion away from a lingering women’s problem or an issue of equality and instead focus on this as a massive business opportunity. Instead of continuing to discuss the problem, we ought to present solutions: roadmaps to businesses that are better balanced, arguments that help companies and managers understand and benefit from shifting global gender balances. The shift is away from wondering what is wrong with women who don’t make it to the top, and towards analysing what is right with companies and leaders that do build gender balanced leadership teams – and tap into the resulting competitive edge.

Smart leaders have understood for a while now that gender balance delivers better and more sustainable performance. That companies with more gender-balanced leadership teams out-perform those with less. While the skeptics will spend another decade resisting this fact with demands to prove causality, the best leaders prefer leading the charge to following it. So it would now make sense to focus on the leadership competencies that enable certain leaders to build gender-balanced organizations. And to note those that don’t, and start calling them to account.

Building a gender-balanced organization takes skill, determination, and courage. It can be taught, encouraged, and rewarded. That’s what the best companies do. They put the focus and the accountability where change happens: on the front lines. As with other change management initiatives, the responsibility ultimately falls to leaders.

And yet today, many managers (both male and female) are totally uneducated in all things gender. Many business leaders around the world have no idea that women are now the majority of university graduates – from Sweden to Saudi Arabia. They aren’t aware of — or comfortable with — the differences between how men and women work. Executives have been raised to ignore gender differences (such as different communications styles or career cycles) rather than become skilled in managing them. For the same reason (“only competence counts” is the usual refrain), they aren’t used to thinking that balance itself may contribute to better performance, innovation and customer connections. So we must educate them. Stop creating internal, women-only networks — replace them with mixed-gender networks aimed at balancing management, rather than promoting women. Almost no one is against balancing, while many men and women alike are uncomfortable with targeted quotas for women. Men feel that they are deeply unfair, while women are insulted at the idea of being perceived as getting promotions only because of their gender.

I do think there is a role for advocates in this shift. External watchdog groups, focused on corporate performance and governance, can be powerful amplifiers of the kind of leadership that we are aiming for. They should be focused on measuring and celebrating what the best companies and CEOs do, and publicizing and shaming those that don’t deliver. They should be fun, relentless, and professional. They should also, I would argue, focus more on “balance” than on “women.” Include men who get it – and celebrate that fact. It’s time. Reframe, rebrand, and make leaders accountable for adapting to 21st century realities. That is the work that now lies ahead.

The world is living through one of its most historic and peaceful revolutions: the gradual rebalancing of the genders’ social, educational and economic power. We have never seen anything like it before – no wonder it has been a bit confusing. This rise, and its consequences, need to be better understood and managed by most businesses and managers. It has altered the life of every man, woman and child on the planet. It yields opportunities and competitive advantage to smart companies. Who would want to miss out on that?

Avivah Wittenberg-Cox

Avivah Wittenberg-Cox is CEO of 20-first, one of the world's leading gender consulting firms, and author of Seven Steps to Leading a Gender-Balanced Business.

3 leadership lessons from a CEO

There are three elements to effective leadership.                                            Everyone has his or her own individual style—no one brand of leadership works all the time for everyone. But, I’ve found there are three key elements to effective leadership. The first is authenticity. Organizations have finely tuned BS meters and can tell when a leader isn’t being authentic. When you are at the podium, you should be—at most—one degree of separation from the real you.
 ,
The second element is self-awareness. When a leader—any type of leader, not just a CEO—walks into a room, the dynamic of the room changes. You need acute self-awareness and need to know when your message is veering off course. For example, I like to use humor and sarcasm in my conversations with people. Occasionally I’ll say something that gets a laugh from the room, but the person I directed it at feels a little uncomfortable even though it was intended to be good-natured. At that point, I try to find a way to send a signal that I regard that individual highly. Self-awareness can be exhausting if you do it right!

The third element is vulnerability. You need to show it. Too many people think that leaders can’t show weakness. But people need to know you’re human and they can relate to you. I get the best responses when I tell stories about me not as the hero, but as fallible.

Avoid talent gaps: build a pipeline.
Years ago at our company, I set up a talent review process. This involves bringing our most senior staff together and discussing the broader management team. We spend half the day reviewing the people, their positives, negatives, and where they need to grow. We then spend the second half of the day talking about key roles in the organization and identifying the three best candidates for each. We have rules—for example, no one person can be listed for more than three jobs. Then we look at the list from a diversity perspective and seek a balance. We also identify what each person needs to succeed in that potential role. Do they require some coaching, mentoring, public speaking training, or something else? Before we started doing this, we had talent gaps in the organization. But with this process, we now have a talent pipeline.

Leadership advice for young professionals: Mind your Qs.
I love talking to young people about leadership. A lot of people believe that if they come into an organization and do a great job for their boss, they’ll be magically lifted up and promoted. But the reality is that some bosses don’t advocate for their people. Others are selfish and don’t want to lose good people to promotions. So I always tell young people that the first thing you need to do is network. The second thing is what I call “three Qs”: IQ, EQ, and PQ. IQ is about intelligence, and we like to think that we hire intelligent people. But I’ve noticed that a lot of young people who are really intelligent believe that it trumps everything. They think that if they just show how smart they are, they’ll be whisked to the top.

Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. Because how effective you are is a matter of how you combine that intelligence with emotional intelligence or EQ. You need EQ to help people feel that you are working with them. And finally, you need to be able to read the room. You need to know the reaction you are creating. You need to be aware when you are in political territory. That’s political intelligence—PQ. It’s not about being a backstabber. It’s about understanding the political dynamic of the organization. You need to find the balance between IQ, EQ, and PQ—you can’t expect just one of those to skyrocket you to the top.

Do the leaders in your organization share George’s passion for developing talent? How does that affect the culture? 

George Borst, CEO of Toyota Financial Services (TFS), received the “Outstanding CEO Award” at our 2013 Women in Leadership Institute™. In September, he retired after 16 years at the helm of TFS. George recently shared what he has learned about leadership and employee engagement throughout the course of his career.

A CEO’s secrets to successful employee engagement

"Keeping employees engaged means enabling them to “see themselves in the room.”

For people to stay at an organization and feel engaged, they have to “see themselves in the room.” If you have bright young people who don’t see themselves at the top, they’ll punch their time cards and then move on—and that’s a shame. There are a couple of things you need to do to keep that from happening.

First, you need to identify the key people who, with a little mentoring, coaching or outside training, could be promoted quicker than most. Then you make the differential investment to get those people ready. The worst thing you can do is promote a diverse candidate who’s not ready. That sets the individual up to fail and it sets the organization’s diversity efforts back as the naysayers and skeptics say “I told you so.”

The second thing you need to do is take care of the people who have long-term potential. How do you keep them satisfied? The key is to identify who is really great versus who is average. Again, make a differential investment in the great ones so they can continue to move up. For those who are above average, offer them some of the opportunities to improve so they can move from above average to very good. You don’t necessarily need to promote this group to keep them happy—they need to earn it.

Find out what’s really going on at the front lines.
I started having ice cream socials where I would bring 15 people into a room and give them the freedom to speak “anonymously.” To make it work, I made up my mind never to appear insulted or offended. And I had a rule that the only person who could be quoted outside of that room was me. This really helped to promote a safe-to-speak-up environment.

I would also go to our call centers and hold focus groups by myself with the people who answer the phones. It’s amazing what you find out from the people who are doing the day-to-day work when you create a safe environment. HQ has great intentions when policies are created, but sometimes those don’t work out when the rubber meets the road.

For example: the call center folks were evaluated on certain metrics—and one was whether they used the caller’s name six times in a conversation. That’s fine in a two- to three-minute call. But when it’s a simple inquiry, using the caller’s name six times within the 20-second call sounds unfriendly and forced—which completely defeats the purpose. Those moments make you realize that you really need to listen to what’s going on at the ground level.

BPGs are a tremendous resource.
Toyota does a great job with business partnering groups (BPGs) and they host a variety of events throughout the year. I still vividly recall the time I went to an African-American Collaborative (AAC) luncheon. The speaker had me spellbound and it was a huge “aha!” moment for me. Previously, I thought that these groups were more like clubs than working groups. But once I went, I realized how important they can be to the success of the organization.

Since then, I’ve encouraged BPG engagement from the top. The people that run the BPGs meet with key leaders to inform them of their objectives. We also dispel the notion that you have to have a certain background to join a BPG. In other words, you don’t need to be black to get involved with the African-American Collaborative. Anyone can learn a tremendous amount by going. We started with two BPGs in the organization and we now have nine, all of which work together collaboratively.

Show people it’s important to be present by being present.
The other lesson I learned from attending BPG events is that the simple act of showing up has a huge impact. I was stunned by the reaction of others to my being there. They were thrilled that someone at my level would go, and I was thanked time and again. Normally, no one ever thanks me for going to meetings! So I started talking about it. I didn’t mandate that people go, but I talked about the events I went to and what I learned. People think that if it’s important to the boss then maybe they should go, too.

Does your organization have employee resource groups like TFS’ BPGs? Do they get executive-level engagement? 


George Borst, CEO of Toyota Financial Services (TFS), was named the winner of the “Outstanding CEO Award” at our 2013 Women in Leadership Institute™. In September, he retired after 16 years at the helm of TFS. George recently shared what he has learned about leadership and employee engagement throughout the course of his career.  

So Many Leaders Get This Wrong

By Jack and Suzy Welch

We've always said that human resources should be the most powerful part of an organization. So why, in reality, is its impact more often felt in a negative way?

Because human resources, unfortunately, often operates as a cloak-and-dagger society or a health-and-happiness sideshow. Those are extremes, of course, but if there is anything we have learned over the past five years of traveling and talking to business groups, it is that HR rarely functions as it should. That’s an outrage, made only more frustrating by the fact that most leaders aren’t scrambling to fix it.

Look, HR should be every company’s “killer app.” What could possibly be more important than who gets hired, developed, promoted, or moved out the door? Business is a game, and as with all games, the team that puts the best people on the field and gets them playing together wins. It’s that simple.

You would never know it, though, to look at the companies today where the CFO reigns supreme and HR is relegated to the background. It just doesn’t make sense. If you owned the Boston Red Sox, for instance, would you hang around with the team accountant or the director of player personnel?

Sure, the accountant can tell you the financials. But the director of player personnel knows what it takes to win: how good each player is and where to find strong recruits to fill talent gaps. Several years ago we spoke to 5,000 HR professionals in Mexico City. At one point we asked the audience: “How many of you work at companies where the leader gives HR a seat at the table equal to that of the CFO?” After an awkward silence, fewer than 50 people raised their hands. Awful!

Since then, we have tried to understand why HR has become so marginalized. As noted above, there are at least two extremes of bad behavior.
 
The stealthy stuff occurs when HR managers become little kingmakers, making and breaking careers, sometimes not even at the leader’s behest. These HR departments can indeed be powerful, but often in a detrimental way, prompting the best people to leave just to get away from the palace intrigue.

Almost as often, though, you get the other extreme: HR departments that plan picnics, put out the plant newsletter (complete with time-in-service anniversaries duly noted), and generally drive everyone crazy by enforcing rules and regulations that appear to have no purpose other than to bolster the bureaucracy. They derive the little power they have by being cloyingly benevolent on one hand and company scolds on the other.

So how do leaders fix this mess? It all starts with the people they appoint to run HR—not kingmakers or cops but big leaguers, men and women with real stature and credibility. In fact, managers need to fill HR with a special kind of hybrid: people who are part pastor (hearing all sins and complaints without recrimination) and part parent (loving and nurturing, but giving it to you straight when you’re off track).

Pastor-Parent types can come up through the HR department, but more often than not, they have run something during their careers, such as a factory or a function. They get the business—its inner workings, history, tensions, and the hidden hierarchies that exist in people’s minds. They are known to be relentlessly candid, even when the message is hard, and they hold confidences tight. With their insight and integrity, pastor-parents earn the trust of the organization.

But pastor-parents don’t just sit around making people feel warm and fuzzy. They improve the company by overseeing a rigorous appraisal-and-evaluation system that lets every person know where he or she stands, and they monitor that system with the same intensity as a Sarbanes-Oxley compliance officer.

Leaders must also make sure that human resources fulfills two other roles. It should create effective mechanisms, such as money, recognition, and training, to motivate and retain people. And it should force organizations to confront their most charged relationships, such as those with unions, individuals who are no longer delivering results, or stars who are becoming problematic by, for instance, swelling instead of growing.

Now, considering your negative experience with human resources—and you are hardly alone—this kind of high-impact HR activity probably sounds like a pipe dream. But given the fact that most leaders loudly proclaim that people are their “biggest asset,” it shouldn’t be.

It can’t be. Leaders need to put their money where their mouth is and get HR to do its real job: elevating employee management to the same level of professionalism and integrity as financial management. Since people are the whole game, what could be more important?

Jack Welch is Executive Chairman of the Jack Welch Management Institute at Strayer University. Through its Executive MBA program, the Jack Welch Management Institute provides students and organizations with the proven methodologies, immediately actionable practices, and respected credentials needed to win in business.

Suzy Welch is a best-selling author, popular television commentator, and noted business journalist. Her New York Times bestselling book, 10-10-10: A Life Transforming Idea, presents a powerful decision-making strategy for success at work and in parenting, love and friendship. Together with her husband Jack Welch, Suzy is also co-author of the #1 international bestseller Winning, and its companion volume, Winning: The Answers. Since 2005, they have written business columns for several publications, including Business Week magazine, Thomson Reuters digital platforms, Fortune magazine, and the New York Times syndicate.
A version of this column originally appeared in BusinessWeek Magazine.

Posted by:Jack Welch

Four Traits of Women Who Lead

By TEC Canada, February 19, 2014

by Catherine Osler, President of TEC Canada


TEC Canada recognizes the importance of having a more gender-balanced approach to leadership roles. Forbes.com reported that according to studies, firms with women on their boards “outperform their rivals with a 42% higher return on sales, 66% higher return on invested capital and 53% higher return on equity.” Quite simply, women look at problems differently and often take a more empathic approach to leadership.  TEC’s peer groups are designed to challenge the status quo and encourage dynamic, inspiring conversations to process the issues senior executives face on an ongoing basis.  We welcome more women to contribute to this dialogue and this starts with having exceptional Chairs to guide that process.

While all of our Chairs have many awards and accolades, we would be remiss if we didn’t recognize two of our own successful women leaders:

• Joyce Groote, Vancouver Chair is receiving the Influential Women in Business award on March 3, 2014.
• Katherine Crewe from Montreal is one of TEC Canada’s newest Chairs.  She was recognized as one of the Top 100 Businesswomen to Watch by Entreprendre Magazine.

These women, along with all our Chairs, are committed to the relentless pursuit of excellence and providing their members with the tools to achieve success. I invite you to join me in recognizing International Women’s Day on March 8th. It doesn’t matter if you are a successful entrepreneur, a corporate executive, a new manager – or someone who is at a crossroads in her career and wondering “what’s next?” You are part of a sea of change in leadership style and behavior.

Sheryl Sandberg’s bestseller “Lean In” paints a vivid picture of how far women in leadership still have to go:

• Out of 100 global heads of state, only nine are women,
• In the corporate sector, just 15 to 20 per cent of C-suite jobs are held by women, and
• In the non-profit sector, women hold only 20 percent of the top positions.
Helping women to develop their leadership potential has been a passion of mine and a key professional commitment I made many years ago. After more than two decades of executive consulting, study at some of North America’s most recognized leadership institutes, and my role as CEO of TEC, I have found the successful women leaders I have coached and worked with over the years generally all share four particular traits. What follows is a brief look at these four and what some of the world’s most successful women CEOs have to say about them.

1. Believe in Yourself
Believing in yourself – your vision, your aspirations and dreams – will drive you forward especially on those days when you can’t see the forest for the trees. Author J.K. Rowling, fashion icon Coco Chanel, Body Shop Founder Anita Roddick – these are women with resolute beliefs in themselves despite their many critics and naysayers. Rowling, who was named the “Most Influential Woman in Britain” by leading magazine editors in 2010, achieved publishing success only after several years of constant rejection. “I was convinced the only thing I wanted to do was to write novels. So what’s the worst that could happen? Everyone turned me down; big deal,” she said.

2. Value Perseverance
Building a business, moving forward in your career and leading organizations all require dogged determination. Whatever obstacles may be put in your path, it is essential to move forward, modelling for your employees, colleagues and customers that you will not back down from a challenge. Cosmetic icon Estée Lauder once said, “I didn’t get there by wishing for it or hoping for it, but by working for it.”

3. Stay Focused
The power to set both short- and long-term goals should never be underestimated. Goals are the road-map to success and goal-setting takes place daily, weekly, monthly and annually. Consider what Mary Kay Ash, Founder of global cosmetic company Mary Kay, once said, “We must have a theme, a goal, a purpose in our lives. If you don’t know where you are aiming, you don’t have a goal.My goal is to live my life in such a way that when I die, someone will say ‘she cared.’” Staying focused is about knowing what you want, then mapping your path with the goals and measures to achieve it.

4. Be a Smart Risk-Taker
To truly accomplish great things, you must go outside your comfort zone because that’s where growth happens. As Sandberg says, this is where you need to “lean in,” raising your hand for opportunities and stepping into new challenges.

Never underestimate that quiet inner voice and its ability to lead and guide you forward. Your inner wisdom – something women are generally closer to – can help you to accurately assess risk. Calculated risks can lead to payoffs beyond what you thought possible.

Martha Stewart, who through her savvy, grit and determination created a brand and a business enterprise that has weathered all kinds of difficulties, maintains “it is within everyone’s grasp to be a CEO.” I am committed to making TEC the kind of organization where women business leaders can achieve beyond what they thought possible. 

If you are aiming to move your leadership skills and abilities to a new level contact Richard Peters @ rpeters@tec-canada.com

5 Traits of Men Who Lead

By TEC Canada, March 19, 2014

by Catherine Osler, President of TEC Canada

Business leaders have increasingly begun to recognize they need to develop and maximize their leadership abilities to thrive in the new economy. Leadership and influence is a complex, multi-dimensional topic currently being researched, explored and examined from an infinite number of perspectives. All of this new work can help business leaders achieve results beyond what they thought possible.

In my last column, I shared some of my research about leadership traits generally found in successful women business leaders. This month, I’d like to take a look at those generally found in men. Readers of both my columns will note men and women exhibit some of the same leadership traits. While recent research and my own experience indicates great leaders of both genders share common characteristics, here are the traits more generally associated with men.

1) Men are focused on crossing the finish line
According to Gary N. Powell’s study “Women and Men in Management,” women practice a more democratic style of leadership, while men tend to take a more direct, focused approach. Acting with single-minded focus to execute smart, well-conceived plans is a fundamental trait of accomplished men.

But to cross the finish line and achieve the desired end results means learning from the mistakes that inevitably occur even with the best laid plans. Great leaders see a learning opportunity in everything, but especially in their mistakes. Steve Jobs was fiercely even stubbornly single-minded, but it is generally acknowledged by his critics and admirers he learned from his business errors.

2) Men are natural risk takers
In 2013, Loblaw’s President Galen Weston Jr. engineered a $12.4 billion takeover of Shoppers Drug Mart, one of the biggest in the country’s retail history. This, along with his strong stance on the need for change in Bangladesh after the Dhaka factory collapse in April 2013, led Canadian Press to select Weston as Business Newsmaker of the Year.

Risk is a necessary part of change and growth. The blog “Leadership Freak” captures the dynamic of men and risk in the following statement: “Male leaders tend to take risks publicly and expect others to be inspired by their boldness.”

3) Men can keep emotion out of the workplace
Shaunti Feldhahn, author of “The Male Factor,” spent seven years conducting intense research, including interviews with more than 3000 men, in an effort to help women better understand how to interact with males in the workplace. One of her findings was that confrontations in the workplace don’t seem to distract men in their efforts to accomplish a given task. They can experience a tough conversation, an emotional termination, a heated Board meeting – and then move forward. As Peter Drucker wrote, “effective leadership is not about being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes.”

4) Men know their value
Several recent surveys indicate successful men recognize the responsible accumulation of long-term wealth – whether through entrepreneurial risk taking, salary negotiation or investment – is a trade-off for their hard work, skill, talent and knowledge. Men’s ability to put emotion aside means money negotiations remain strictly business and not personal. Successful men know financial responsibility and gain is the leverage to pursue their dreams.

5) Sharing Similarity, Celebrating Diversity
The traits I have been discussing in this column are a finely balanced exercise in leadership. While some traits may come more naturally to one gender, becoming an inspiring leader is about knowing your strengths and recognizing your weaknesses, with a goal to continuously improve. It is also a reminder to celebrate the differences between male and female leaders and the richness diverse leadership can bring to create greater understanding in the workplace and ultimately stronger organizations.

Is your business ready to move on without you?

You could ask business owners a million questions about their succession plans.
Most of them are keenly aware of the importance of this one: “What happens to the business, and to your family, if you are no longer able to lead an active role in the company?”

But succession planning often takes a back seat to daily operations, to the detriment of the company and its owner. Obtaining the best succession outcome not only comes from having a strong, well-managed company, it comes from planning for the future, so you don’t get caught flat-footed when life throws a curve ball.

I recently met with the CFO of a family business. If you need to determine an owner’s level of commitment to transitioning the business, he said, ask the following three questions:

1. Have you sat down as a family unit for a discussion?
People don’t have “money talks,” and “family talks” can be even more awkward. Many owners have plans in mind that never make it to paper, and they are certainly not shared at the dinnertable. Research by Financial Executives International (FEI) shows that only 26 per cent of owners have sat down with their families to discuss their businesses and their futures.

2. What steps are you taking to get ready?
The plan could be to pass the business to a family member. Or to leave it to a group of family members and outsiders. Or to sell the business entirely and try to craft a deal that would keep family members employed to run the business. All are potentially sound plans, but the reality may not match expectations.

The trouble is that sometimes when an owner leaves, there is no longer a business. For example, if the owner has invested years in growing the business and in developing deep personal relationships while serving its clients, there can be a lot of loyalty to the person instead of the brand. When the owner leaves, the customers are often not far behind.
Another problem arises when owners carry too many of important details in their heads. It can limit the development of formal systems and professional processes, leaving a big gap if owners get taken out of the equation.

When the CFO I met with asks about the state of readiness to put a succession plan on paper, it implies there’s a quick fix if a business is not ready. Putting formal procedures and policies in place can take a lot of time and effort, especially if it’s going to be part of the organization’s culture. This sort of “professionalism” does not happen by snapping your fingers – it takes time, resources, and thoughtful forward planning.

3. What do you do in the winter?
The big succession question is how long the owner can step away from the business. If she goes down to Florida and stays for a week, but she’s on the phone checking orders and other details, there is no business to sell. If the owner says “I go to Florida and stay for a month” – or three – you know it can run without her and there may be an attractive company for sale.

Jacoline Loewen is a director at Crosbie, which focuses on succession advice for family businesses and closely held small to medium-sized enterprises. Crosbie develops customized strategies, particularly in relation to M&A, financing and corporate strategy matters. Ms. Loewen is also the author of Money Magnet: How to Attract Investors to Your Business.

When It’s Time for the CEO to Go

At a directors’ meeting of a specialty appliance firm I was advising a few years ago, the agenda featured the selection committee’s report presented by Stefan, chairman and CEO. The board members had expected to get a list of the candidates to succeed Stefan, who was past retirement age. However, Stefan informed the board that, despite an extensive search, the selection committee had determined that no candidate was yet qualified: the three insiders needed at least four to six years’ seasoning, while the outsiders (in spite of their outstanding track records) lacked the kind of expertise that would fit the future needs of the company.

After a short discussion, the board agreed that Stefan should postpone his retirement for another four years. Yet several directors remained troubled. Something wasn’t quite right. Were there really no competent external candidates out there? And why did no one in the company qualify? What had happened to the leadership development pipeline all these years? As the company seemed to be on a holding pattern for the past two years, wasn’t it time to bring in somebody new? But was it also possible that the members of the selection committee, knowing Stefan’s attachment to his job, were in reluctant to confront him about succession?

How long should a CEO stay in his job?   The most common response I usually have from CEOs is seven years, plus or minus two. It’s a reasonable number: seven years is probably the period of maximum effectiveness for most people in what can be a very stressful job.   I think also that the nature and challenges of the job evolve over time, going through three distinct phases:

• Entry: This is the “honeymoon period”, the one time that a CEO has an open playing field. Most likely, it’s the period when he or she is most willing to learn, experiment, and innovate. It is also the point at which a CEO is prepared to take risks and make major changes, particularly if brought in as an outsider.  During this time the CEO is unlikely to perform at full potential. This is to be expected: many new things have to be assimilated: she has to gain control over a new environment, get to know her various constituencies, and select key lieutenants, the people who will help make it happen. She may also have to “kill” wounded princes, executives who had hoped to get her job.
• Consolidation: After a new CEO has established what his or her leadership is all about, in terms of direction, strategy and style, the second phase, the period of consolidation sets in.  If everything has gone well, he will start to see the fruits of all his work in the honeymoon phase. He has alliances with key stakeholders and top executives are committed to the course he has chosen. He has a good working relationship with the board. He delivers good results and is secure in his role.   The traps here, of course, are complacency and rigidity; as they approach the end of this phase, some CEOs start to resist even minor changes.
• Decline:  You know that a CEO has reached this stage in the cycle when the company has few or no new products planned for the near future and there are no initiatives to find new markets. Furthermore, there is no new blood coming into the top ranks of organization. Everyone sings to the CEO’s same old tune. The company is probably accumulating a lot of cash because top executives are running out of ideas about how to use it.  It’s during this phase that a CEO starts having problems. He may have stopped listening to other people’s ideas.   The job has become routine.  Performance is slipping.  In a fast paced industry, the problems tend to become apparent quickly; declining CEOs in a relatively stable environment can get away with it for longer.

So what is to be done when a CEO starts to decline?  The best scenario, of course, is if that the CEO himself realizes what is happening, acknowledges his increasing ineffectiveness, and looks for new horizons when the going is still good.  Ideally, that is at the point when they are at that sweet spot of being at the peak of their performance, just before the decline.
But many CEOs find it very hard to admit that the time has come to pass on the baton.

 Paradoxically, this reluctance doesn’t mean they stay closely involved; many actually distance themselves from day-to-day operations.   The reason is that because the day-to-day job has become routine, they look elsewhere for mental stimulation.

As long as they stick to safe pursuits (social, environmental or artistic causes, say), this is OK, maybe even reinvigorating.  The danger is that they may instead look for stimulation by involving the company in risky new ventures — typically a big acquisition. This offers a quick and emotionally gratifying solution to the company’s operational inertia (that they’re often aware of) as well as their own sense of inner unrest, anxiety, and boredom.  Deals are exciting, they impress the CEO’s peers, and they allow the CEO to pretend that he’s addressing the company’s growing problems.

It’s precisely at this stage that the board needs to step up.   If the CEO was an exceptional performer during the honeymoon and consolidation stage, this is unlikely to happen; human instinct is to trust the track record.  Over time, the CEO may even have filled the board with people indebted to him or her, who do not really take their review function very seriously. The result is that the board takes action only when things become really catastrophic — by which time it is often too late.

Leadership programs can also provide a form of stock taking. Through reflection — studying  “the leader within” — the CEO can increase his self-awareness and by working in a group he can exchange ideas with peers in similar situations.   Quite often, leaders who engage in this discover that they do in fact want to step down and find another job in a new environment.   Other CEOs take on a role as mentor or leadership coach to younger executives, which is a highly effective way of maintaining continuity in the organization and also helps to reduce the CEO’s anxiety about leaving.

In Stefan’s case, his reluctance and the board’s to contemplate change meant that it was eventually forced on them.  A well-known activist shareholder bought a sizable stake in the company and laid out the case for major change in the financial press. It didn’t take long before he was given a seat on the board.  With the help of fellow shareholders, he pressured the directors to push Stefan aside and appoint a new CEO.

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries is the Distinguished Professor of Leadership Development and Organizational Change at INSEAD in France, Singapore, and Abu Dhabi. His most recent book is The Hedgehog Effect: The Secrets of Building High Performance Teams (Wiley, 2011).

The Irresistible Power of Storytelling as a Strategic Business Tool

It’s not often that you hear Budweiser and Shakespeare mentioned in the same breath. But according to new research from Johns Hopkins University, the Bard’s deft application of storytelling techniques featured prominently in the beer company’s Super Bowl commercial.

In “Puppy Love,” a perfectly adorable yellow lab becomes inseparable friends with a Clydesdale. Sneaking out of his pen, the pup and the horse “talk” in the stables and cavort on an idyllic farm –until someone comes to adopt the dog. The distressed puppy whines and places his paws against the window of the car set to take him to his new home. All seems lost until the Clydesdale rallies the other horses to stop the vehicle from leaving. Reunited, the two commence frolicking in the horse pasture and, we assume, live happily ever after.

Forget the fact that Anheuser-Busch’s 60-second spot (which cost north of $4 million) aired close to the end of a lopsided championship game that was over before halftime. The Budweiser ad scored top honors in USA Today’s Ad Meter and Hulu’s Ad Zone for being the most popular among viewers. How did it not get lost amid the tantalizing displays of shiny vehicles, CGI tricks, and David Beckham’s six pack?

The irresistible power of classic storytelling.

If Keith Quesenberry were a betting man, he would have cleaned up. The researcher at Johns Hopkins predicted that the Budweiser spot would be a winner after conducting a two-year analysis of 108 Super Bowl commercials. In a paper that will be published in the Fall 2014 issue of The Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, Quesenberry and research partner Michael Coolsen focused on brands’ use of specific strategies to sell products, such as featuring cute animals or sexy celebrities. But they also coded the commercials for plot development.

They found that, regardless of the content of the ad, the structure of that content predicted its success. “People are attracted to stories,” Quesenberry tells me, “because we’re social creatures and we relate to other people.”

It’s no surprise. We humans have been communicating through stories for upwards of 20,000 years, back when our flat screens were cave walls.

“Especially in the Super Bowl, those 30-second ads are almost like mini movies,” he says. Quesenberry found that the ads that told a more complete story using Freytag’s Pyramid — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dramatic_structure a dramatic structure that can be traced back to Aristotle — were the most popular.



Shakespeare had mastered this structure, arranging his plays in five acts to include an exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and a dénouement—or final outcome. The “Best Buds” story also uses these elements to great effect. The more of the acts each version of the ad had, the better it performed.

Storytelling evokes a strong neurological response. Neuroeconomist Paul Zak’s research indicates that our brains produce the stress hormone cortisol during the tense moments in a story, which allows us to focus, while the cute factor of the animals releases oxytocin, the feel-good chemical that promotes connection and empathy. Other neurological research tells us that a happy ending to a story triggers the limbic system, our brain’s reward center, to release dopamine which makes us feel more hopeful and optimistic.

In one experiment after participants watched an emotionally charged movie about a father and son, Zak asked study participants to donate money to a stranger. With both oxytocin and cortisol in play, those who had the higher amounts of oxytocin were much more likely to give money to someone they’d never met.

The implications for advertisers, who’d also like to part people from their money, are clear. But advertisers aren’t the only ones tapping into the trust-inducing power of storytelling.

Strategic storytelling has also been enlisted to change attitudes and behaviors. Two studies from the health care industry show its power: Penn State College of Medicine researchers found that medical students ’ attitudes about dementia patients, who are perceived as difficult to treat, improved substantially after students participated in storytelling exercises that made them more sympathetic to their patients’ conditions. And a University of Massachusetts Medical School study found that a storytelling approach has also been effective in convincing populations at risk for hypertension to change their behavior and reduce their blood pressure.

The most successful storytellers often focus listeners’ minds on a single important idea and they take no longer than a 30-second Superbowl spot to forge an emotional connection.
Widely recognized as the leading trial lawyer of his time, Moe Levine often used the “whole man” theory to successfully influence juries to empathize with his clients.

Seeking compensation for a client who had lost both arms in an accident, Levine surprised the court and jury, who were accustomed to long closing arguments, by painting a brief and emotionally devastating picture instead:

As you know, about an hour ago we broke for lunch. I saw the bailiff come and take you all as a group to have lunch in the jury room. Then I saw the defense attorney, Mr. Horowitz. He and his client decided to go to lunch together. The judge and court clerk went to lunch. So, I turned to my client, Harold, and said “Why don’t you and I go to lunch together?” We went across the street to that little restaurant and had lunch. (Significant pause.) Ladies and gentlemen, I just had lunch with my client. He has no arms. He has to eat like a dog. Thank you very much.

Levine reportedly won one of the largest settlements in the history of the state of New York.

Storytelling may seem like an old-fashioned tool, today — and it is. That’s exactly what makes it so powerful. Life happens in the narratives we tell one another. A story can go where quantitative analysis is denied admission: our hearts. Data can persuade people, but it doesn’t inspire them to act; to do that, you need to wrap your vision in a story that fires the imagination and stirs the soul.

Harrison Monarth

Harrison Monarth is an executive coach, and the New York Times bestselling author of The Confident Speaker and the international bestseller Executive Presence. Harrison works with leaders and organizations on positive behavior change, authentic leadership and effective communication. His latest book is Breakthrough Communication. Connect with him on Twitter @HarrisonMonarth

The Most Overlooked Leadership Skill

 Even before I released the disc, I knew it was a long shot. And, unfortunately, it was a clumsy one too.

 

We were playing Ultimate Frisbee, a game similar to U.S. football, and we were tied 14-14 with a time cap. The next point would win the game.

I watched the disc fly over the heads of both teams. Everyone but me ran down the field. I cringed, helplessly, as the disc wobbled and listed left. Still, I had hope it could go our way.

Sam was on my team.

Sam broke free from the other runners and bolted to the end zone. But the disc was too far ahead of him. He would never make it.

At the very last moment, he leapt. Completely horizontal, Sam moved through the air, his arms outstretched. Time slowed as he closed in on the disc.

The field was silent as he slid across the end zone, shrouded in a cloud of dust. A second later he rose, Frisbee in hand. Our team erupted in cheer.

Sam’s catch won us the tournament.

It also taught me a great lesson: Never underestimate the value of a talented receiver.
I was reminded of Sam’s catch recently after broaching a sensitive topic with Alba*, a client. The conversation was about some concerns I had about an upcoming meeting she was leading as well as my own insecurity about how I could help.

Before I spoke with her, I was hesitant and worried. Was I overstepping my bounds? Was I exposing myself? Would she reject my thoughts? Would she reject me?

I entered the conversation awkwardly, apologizing, and offering too much context. Even once I broached the issue, I felt tentative, unclear. I cringed as I felt my words hang in the air.

Thankfully, though, Alba turned out to be a Sam-level receiver.

Alba listened without a trace of annoyance. She asked questions — not to defend herself or refute my thoughts — but to understand my perspective more clearly. She was gracious, skilled, and accepting.

Her ability to receive me, and my opinions, led to a deep and valuable conversation about her performance, my role, and the needs of her team. A few weeks later, she showed up powerfully and led a remarkable meeting.

Typically, we choose our leaders for their skill at conveying messages clearly and powerfully. But, in my experience, it’s their ability to receive messages that distinguishes the best leaders from the rest.

That’s because the better you are at receiving, the more likely people will talk to you. And that’s precisely what every one of us needs: to be surrounded by people who are willing to speak the unspoken.

So how do you become a great receiver?

1. Be courageous. We often attribute courage to the speaker, but what about the receiver? 
I may have been scared broaching topics with Alba, but I had the advantage of time and preparation. I could control what I said and how I said it. I was able to think about it beforehand, write down a few notes, and test my thoughts with someone else. 
The receiver has no such advantage. Like Sam, he has to receive my throw, however, whenever, and wherever it lands. He has to be willing to listen to something that might make him feel afraid or insecure or defensive. And if he is a great receiver, he will take in the information or message thoughtfully, even if the delivery is awkward or the message jarring. That takes tremendous courage.


2. Don’t judge. Receiving is as much about what you don’t do as it is about what you do. 

Resist the temptation — blatantly or subtly — to be critical of the speaker or what the speaker is saying. Don’t argue with her, poke fun at her, shame her, act aggressively, turn on her, become defensive, or act cold toward her.


3. Be open. In order to receive a pass in any sport — and at work and in life — you need to be free, open, and unguarded. 
Yet we often guard ourselves. Powerful feelings like fear, anger, sadness, and insecurity do their best to block our ability to receive a pass. If you want to be a talented receiver, your task is to feel your feelings without letting them block or control you or your response. Breathe. Acknowledge what you’re feeling to yourself — maybe even to the other person — without dwelling on it. 

Reiterate what you’re hearing, ask questions, be curious. Not curious in an “I-will-find-out-enough-information-so-I-can-prove-you-wrong” way. Curious to understand what the person is saying and to understand what’s underneath what they’re saying.

If you can be courageous, avoid judging, and stay open — even if the toss is awkward and the message unsettling — then, like Sam, like Alba, you’ll be able to catch pretty much anything.

And when you’re skilled at that, you’ll be a most valuable player of any team you’re on.

Peter Bregman

Peter Bregman helps CEOs and their leadership teams tackle their most important priorities together. His next Leadership Week is in October, 2014. His latest book is 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done.

Asking Whether Leaders Are Born or Made Is the Wrong Question

 

Are leaders born or made?  When I pose this question to executives or HR professionals, the vast majority say that leaders are made; that is, leadership is something one can learn. Yet researchers have found traits, such as extraversion and intelligence, which differentiate leaders from others.  This seems to imply that we can identify future leaders by looking at their traits – but we must be cautious when drawing such conclusions.

 

By failing to differentiate between leadership effectiveness (performance as a leader) and leadership emergence (being tapped for a leadership role), this research is often misunderstood and misused.  In fact, inborn traits are more strongly associated with leadership emergence. That is, within a group of peers, those who are more extraverted or more intelligent tend to have more influence on the group. Does this mean that these same people perform better than others when placed in a formal position of leadership? Not necessarily.

Let’s look at the relationship between extraversion and leadership effectiveness.  Some studies have found a relationship, but it is so weak that it is difficult to draw conclusions from it.  A much stronger relationship has been found when looking only at particular types of jobs: extraversion predicts performance in jobs with a competitive social component; for example, sales.  And if we look at extraversion in more depth, it can also predict other less desirable outcomes such as absenteeism.

What about intelligence and leadership effectiveness?  Again, the relationship is surprisingly weak and can be disrupted easily.  For example, if the leader is under stress, then it is no longer possible to predict the leader’s performance by looking at his/her intelligence.  It seems that stress makes people behave in unpredictable – and perhaps less intelligent – ways.  Interestingly, there is a far stronger relationship between leaders’ perceived intelligence (how intelligent they look to others) and how likely they are to be chosen as a leader than there is between actual intelligence and leadership.  Apparently, when it comes to leadership, appearances are everything.

So are leaders born or made?  What is this question really asking?  If it is asking whether someone will emerge as a leader among a group of peers, then those types of leaders are born.  But if it is asking whether someone will perform effectively in a leadership position, then that is dependent on the context, the type of job, and the person’s ability to develop leadership skills. This cannot be predicted by their traits.

Unfortunately, we often choose our leaders based on traits such as extraversion, charisma, and intelligence (or perceived intelligence). And then we wonder why their performance does not live up to our expectations.

Connson Chou Locke

Connson Chou Locke, Ph.D. is a leadership researcher, teacher, consultant and coach, specializing in leadership development, culture, and change. She is Assistant Professor of Management at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Dr. Locke is available for speaking and workshops.

Leadership Is Not A Title....

Employee Engagement: "It's Not in My Job Description"

For me, the sentence, "It's not in my job description", is a huge red flag.

It's a sure sign someone is not a team player.  It's a sign someone is a taker, not a giver. It's a sign someone is self-centered, putting their importance ahead of others.

I think I've said before how influential summer jobs can be, and today I'd like to share with you why I feel so strongly about the phrase in the title of this post.

Between my second and third years in university, I worked in the drill squad of the world famous Fort Henry Guard, based in Kingston, Ontario.

One of the unofficial mottoes of the Guard was "Remain Flexible".  The meaning of this was that, at any time, you could be asked to be a sentry, on gun drill, tour guide or cleaning up. Duties for sentry duty or gun drills were assigned each day, but sometimes we had more visitors than expected, which meant you had to be prepared to take on some new assignments.

While this may have been just a summer job, I think these principles hold true in any well-run organization.

In larger organizations, we tend to be slotted into narrowly defined roles and responsibilities that make it hard to be as flexible as we were at Old Fort Henry.  In smaller organizations, the ability to be functional in job roles outside your core responsibilities is vital.

At one company, our purchasing manager lost both parents within weeks of each other.  She was overwhelmed not only with the loss, but also the responsibilities of attending to both their estates.  As a result, she found it difficult to keep up with her job responsibilities, and purchasing was an area in which we were extremely thin on manpower.

While this was happening, we were also having quality issues with a company that supplied a critical laminated material for one of our products.  They were unable to identify for us whether the issues was the result of a fault in the lamination process or a defective batch of material. We knew we needed to find an alternate supplier for this lamination, and the process for finding one was normally managed by purchasing.

Because of the quality issue, we were prevented from manufacturing a product for one of our key customers, who were anxious to know when we would be able to re-commence supply.  They needed answers, not excuses.

I offered to take the lead on finding alternative suppliers because, in the end, it was a customer-driven issue: we had a customer who could not market their product because we were unable to supply a critical component.  So, while my job role was sales, handling a purchasing issue was also a way of solving a supply chain issue for a customer.

The more I researched companies who made one of the materials in the lamination we purchased, the more I came to realize there were literally only a handful of companies in the world who had the capabilities of making the material used, let alone being able to meet our specifications.  (Our customer thought there would be hundreds of companies who made this material and changing suppliers could be done in a couple of weeks). We were fortunate that two of those suppliers were located within a half-day's drive of our plant, so I visited them both to get a better understanding of the challenges in making the material we needed.

One of these suppliers analyzed samples of the lamination we used - both past and current - and determined that the incumbent had, despite protests otherwise, switched recipes and companies they purchased their materials from.  We now had scientific evidence to support our allegations there had been material substitutions.

A few weeks later, when our purchasing manager returned from bereavement leave, I took her to meet the company we felt represented the best opportunity to supply the lamination we needed.  This gave her a chance to see the plant as well as meet the executive team and allowed me an opportunity to transition the supplier search back to her so she could begin qualification trials.

Taking on a task normally done by purchasing gave me some insights into the challenge purchasing people face in searching for and selecting suppliers.  Given the circumstances, it helped forge a stronger relationship between sales and purchasing While helping the company respond to a customer in need.

When I left this company, the purchasing manager was the first person to come into my office and give me a hug and tell me how much they'd miss me.  I was really touched by this and it is a moment I will never forget.

I hope you can see that, in this situation, the roles of sales and purchasing were very strongly interdependent. Had we stuck to our job roles, we might still have solved the supply chain issue for our customer, but at the cost of several weeks being unable to supply them. Blurring the lines between sales and purchasing in this case demonstrated that our company really required a team effort to survive - and thrive.

Posted by Ronald Jamieson