The Leadership Road Blog

Almost every conversation I have with business executives and professionals includes “leadership.” I really relish those conversations because there is so much to talk about (and so many actions to take). At some point the words “collaboration” or “team” are mentioned.

These days, I’m really into talking about building high performance teams. It’s not just because I’ve written two e-books about it. Long before the books, I built a High Performance Team Model based on my experience as a football coach, corporate executive, professor and consultant. Incidentally, IBM once built such a model that was remarkably similar.

I hope this video will open your eyes and heart about “real” high performance teams. Building a high performance team is not easy to do; it’s not a magic act. This video will get you excited about the 12 actions you must start with.

When was the last time you went outside and the wind almost blew you over? It happened to me a couple of days ago. I made a mental and physical command to myself to stand firm and not give in to the power of the wind. I asserted my position to “stand my ground”. I maintained consistency.

Our business and government agencies must also remain consistent when social, economic or political winds blow too hard in the wrong direction. What keeps you and I, as well as our organizations, steadfast is what believe in – our values. Today, as we continue to regain the right path to success, we count on our values to be the driving forces.

The world continues to recover from the indigestion of July 2008. Values consistency – consistency between our personal values and those of our organizations — will strengthen our healing process.

Join me on my video below as I share some ideas and action on this most important leadership accountability in 2012.

Everywhere I turn over the last two months I see something about “leadership.” Companies and achievement-oriented employees have once again identified the need to learn how to lead.

It is not magic skill that people need. It’s a large number of actions that people must learn how to execute. It involves both cold, hard facts as well as emotion.

My latest contribution to the need for more leader action is sharing with you, over the next few months, 10 video blogs that identify some of those actions. The first one is provided to you now. In it, I set forth the four areas of “must-dos” for leaders.

Enjoy and let me hear from you!

The leader must communicated in many different ways to many different publics. The right information to the right people at the right time is crucial in the race for better business results. A communications matrix is an essential tool for hitting the right targets.

Lost in all such activity is the clear need to listen a great deal. This is not just about listening to the employees, customers, etc. It is also listening to other leaders talk about their successes in their day to day leadership activity. It has become essential to listen to other leaders, and can help add to your repertoire of hard hitting leadership actions. It is time to take time out.

I highly recommend that you take time to listen to Talking Working. Go to www.talkingwork.com and relax and click on one of their programs. You will find the conversations between Ty and Raechel right on target, as well as their interviews with experts. You will be thrilled to listen to the presentations and conversations. You can also listen to me on one of their podcasts.

A flashpoint often occurs when genius intersects with usefulness. Steve Jobs’ genius was constantly joining with usefulness. Indeed, it happened so often that the word “flashpoint” in a dictionary should have his picture right next to it.

Genius in this case refers not only to his intellectual prowess that led to such “beyond the galaxy” products, but also to the inspiration that he brought to the table at Apple. How many people do you know excited their employees enough to change the world? Whom do you know that brought so much to so many?

Yes! Steve Jobs was the world’s leading game changer in technology. He was a great inspiration to employees. An overall he is deemed to have been quite a revolutionary all over the planet. The communication patterns that he unleashed were remarkable! He made it possible for people to “touch” people who otherwise could have lived a hundred lifetimes and never, ever interacted at all. So, as you tip your hat and raise your glass to toast Steve remember his legacy.

Remember it so that you can use the tools to live and lead in ways that benefit the planet…actually, the people who live and work on it. When you do that, you have increased the value of what he did in ways too great to measure.

He did it for you. You ought to do it for them.

Hurricane Irene was flowing across my TV screen last evening.  There was lots of colorful radar and animation.  Everything was in a flow.

I began to think about flow in organizations.  More specifically, I thought about how a leader impacts the flow in his or her organization. The flow moves along a path where business results (both positive and negative) are constantly attained.  There is an ebb and cadence that develops as the leader keeps an eye on the correctness of the path.

But back to the flow.

The flow is never accidental!  The leader and associate leaders determine the flow through their patterns of influence. The patterns can be short and choppy, long and rhythmic or a combination (some short, some long).  A most important point here is that whatever patterns are activated, they must produce an ongoing energy surge of 90%.  You can achieve that kind of energy movement as you watch the sun move across the sky or watch a waterfall.

The leader and associates ascertain the right path, keep the flow going, manage the ebb and flow, and produce the consistent energy surge.  I call this “4th Option Leadership”.  That’s really what my book, THE LEADERSHIP ROAD, is all about.

I continue to think about Latin America, even though it’s been some time now since President Obama was there.  Of course, I’ve been thinking why North America and South American are not more economically aligned.  It used to disturb me that my professional association was all about Asia and Europe.  It was like Latin America didn’t even exist.

I don’t know what will come of the President’s trip.  At least he raised awareness.  Hopefully, American businesses will pay more attention to this part of the planet.  A positive sign for me was the recent workshop of the Great Miami Chamber of Commerce on doing business in Brazil.  Hello!  What a great idea!

I say this because some economists view Brazil’s economy as an example of what must be done to raise the world economy out of its slumber.  Yes, Brazil has a new president and no one knows what her leadership may bring.  The good news is that she was very closely aligned with the previous president.  He has received much kudos for his work on Brazil’s economy.  Anyway, it’s good to see the partial awakening.  It’s a reminder that we must look deeper for common interests to help re-focus the economies of North and South America.  Business and government leaders:  start your engines!!

People are hesitant to stay in a direction not sanctioned by their boss. The slow economic recovery we are currently undergoing has created that minds set in many of us. You can help you organization make the economic situation an opportunity.  It is time to step of out of line and give your organization a boost without putting your job in jeopardy.  It is time to be a rogue — a respectful rogue — but still a rogue.

This means that you must try something that runs counter to old ways of doing things. Get out there and make something weird happen (that will improve business results).  It doesn’t have to be some ginormous undertaking, but must be impactful!  The people who get ahead are the people who make things happen.

At one of the very first meetings with my new boss, he emphasized the need for thorough discussion of every aspect of a decision-making task. Once the final decision was made and we all left the room, all of us needed to be on the same page.  I left this management council meeting feeling terrific about this positioning of our decisions.

The reason I felt this was because I had been telling people in my leadership courses, seminars and workshops the same thing for the last 15+ years.  I have even gone so far as to say this is one of the three fundamental laws of successful team leadership.  It goes something like this:  “With this decision when all is said and done, we are one.”

Sure, we had arguments and used our best influencing skills.  We had plenty of data (and strong, emotional opinions!).  There was give and take.  There were also some immovable perspectives!  There was plenty of discussion about what the term “common interests” meant.  Then we were done and we had our decision.  Now it was time to lock arms.

Yes, we talked to our employees about the different options that we considered. But we emphasized that we all felt that the best decision had been made and we were united behind it.  Any behavior other than this would have been considered poor leadership.

A business columnist I know is writing a story about the work ethic of the millennial generation.  She had read about some research that contradicted most of what we read and hear about the group born after 1980.   Most would have us believe that their work ethic is weak.  A sturdy work ethic seems a contradiction for the Millennials; but the new research suggests that is apparently true.  How about that!

The ongoing effort to create generational differences makes for good reading and discussion.  Some colleagues and I are working on the values of baby boomers, Generation X and the Millennials.  One preliminary finding is that the three generations share a lot of the same values. This finding should make for a more value-adding discussion. The reasoning here is that the values we share will bring us together in the workplace.  Value chasms are not welcome.

I currently manage across four generations.  It is easy because I stay focused on areas of expertise, not value differences. Each person shines as an individual performer, brought together by a common mission to perform a shared task. Let’s bring people together in circles instead of creating value boundary lines used to separate our employees.