Focus Grasshopper!

Back in http://leadershippubtalk.blogspot.com/2009/03/it-takes-village-to-raise-leader.html, anonymous said the following: "A leader is completely FOCUSED on achieving a clearly defined mission. The leader knows where they are going. A person who refuses to accept defeat in reaching their goal. A leader is a WINNER, even though they face defeat they refuse to accept a loss as failure, losses are setbacks on the way to ultimate mission accomplishment.

This post is devoted to focus. A few of my own thoughts:

• For a leader focus is as much about repetition in communication as it is individual concentration and dedication. Repeating the same message in multiple ways is critical for a common direction across an organization
• Good to Great provides an excellent framework for strategic focus - where the "hedgehog concept" is introduced. Namely, having a deep understanding of the intersection between three areas in the form of a simple, crystalline concept that defines what an organization is striving to achieve. The three areas are:
  1. What you can be best in the world at (note that this is not necessarily the current core competancies)?
  2. What you are passionate about?
  3. What drives your economic engine (what's the denominator that profit is measured against? eg profit per customer visit - use cash flow instead of profit for the public sector)?
• Focus without listening and feedback can be dangerous. What measures or feedback mechanisms can you put in place to make sure you're not focusing on bringing down your organization?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on how to achieve focus, good books you've read on the topic, or any instances where you've seen focus as an issue. Post away!

Please Sir - Can I Have Some More (Telecommuting)?

Happy Holidays! I watched "Julie and Julia" this weekend, so I'm inspired to get back to relatively more frequent blogs. You can expect more of them to be a question soliciting your comments. This should help to get both more frequent posts and more of your thoughts rather than mine.

This year I completed my epic quest to finish "The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century". It didn't take me a long time because the book is dull. Quite the opposite - it's a large book AND filled with many thought provoking concepts (leading to frequent mind-wandering while reading).

Among many topics, the book referenced a trend for more virtual work. This leads me to the question of what is missing when people don't work in the same physical locations? How important is social interaction, and how closely replicated can it be via facebook, google wave, etc?

Would love to hear your thoughts, including whether you think telecommuting and virtual work are a good idea.

Over to you...

Are you a drummer or a singer in the band?

Great leaders are drummers, not soloists.

Given the responses to my last analogy (to sports) I figured I'd try another one...

Listening to one of my favorite jazz tunes (Ole by John Coltrane) led me to ask - what role in a band most closely resembles that of a leader?

I propose that it's the drummer - what do you think?

Drummers enable success for the soloist, The best solos always have a great drummer behind them.

The drummer establishes the rhythm and cadence of the band.

The drummer carefully monitors the soloists and adds fire to the rhythm when needed and gives space when it makes sense to.

Have a listen to Ole and focus on the drums. There's a lot complexity there. Never resting, but never dominating the soloists.

One more thought - if any of the above is true why aren't more band leaders drummers?

Before it's no longer relevant - how to motivate people when you have little or no cash to motivate with?

Firstly, thanks to Phil for his suggestion for this posting. It's a timely one for just about everyone I've talked to in recent days - except maybe not for Australians for much longer?

Let's start with your own suggestions. Before you read any more of this blog, please stop, hit the comments link at the bottom of the post (next to the time), and type your top 3 ideas for motivating people in non-monetary ways. When you do it, make sure to hit the "subscribe by email" link on the bottom of your comment box. That will make sure you get to see what everyone else suggests (including me).

With that, I'll be back in less than a week with my content on this thread. I promise. First I want to see your ideas. I promise to steal them shamelessly!

Casting Call - my favorite leadership podcast

In this post I want to share a podcast with you that has been an enormous source of actionable advice and inspiration to me as a leader.

The podcast is Manager Tools, and can be found at http://www.manager-tools.com/.

I was first introduced to the podcast early in it's life (around 2005). At the time I had been in leadership roles for 10 years, had done an MBA, a number of leadership training courses, and had worked with some outstanding mentors. Despite this there has been much for me to learn from this weekly cast, which continues to deliver new and useful content.

Much of the inspiration for this blog came from the manager tools podcast, and I can say that they were a major contributor to my third critical element of leadership (communication).

Along the lines of communication, a great insight provided by Mike and Mark (who deliver the cast) is that moving from individual contributor roles to leadership positions is about moving from being task focused to people focused. That is, making sure your people are taken care of before your own tasks. It's great advice for task-focused engineers (like me). While it seems obvious, it really isn't (see my comment on the post on the best advice you've ever received and how much the meaning of a single sentence can change over time).

I hope you enjoy the podcast and would love to see some comments back on this post regarding your thoughts on this great resource. Also, let us know if there are other podcasts you listen to which you'd recommend.

This is NOT a metaphor - play team sports

Stay with me on this one. At the end of this posting there's a controversial statement which I'd love to get your comments on.

In the first posting on this blog Scott made the comment that "leaders create and foster a team environment in which all team members feel that they are valuable and respected members of the team". It reminded me of something else he said to me once, that "great [sports] teams 'get around each other' when they need to come back from behind".

Going down this path made me think of something which I often come back to. Team sports are a WEALTH of leadership guidance. How to motivate. Coaching and feedback. The power of goal alignment. The impact of the weakest link. Making sure people are in roles (positions) they're best suited to and able to succeed. And the list goes on...

There's so much to learn from team sports that I'd suggest that anyone who wants to learn leadership study or (preferably) play team sports.

Additionally, I'd suggest that observing people playing team sports tells you how they'll perform in a workplace team. Will they naturally lead? Will they "get around" the team? Will they motivate? Will they make "all team members feel that they are valuable and respected"?
Bringing this together I'd suggest the following: ONLY hire people into leadership positions if they've played team sports, and ideally go play a team sport with them as part of the job interview.

That's the controversial statement. Comments???

Let's get this party started! A question - what is THE single most important thing anyone's said to you regarding leadership?

It's hard to believe it's been 2.5 weeks since my last posting! Thanks to all for comments on many of the threads - I'm really learning from your input and I hope that this community is also starting to learn from each other. After all - that's the goal of the blog.

To emphasize this (and to ensure I don't go a full three weeks between posts) I'm going to start this one off with input from YOU! I'll add my input at the end so that you can all contribute and collaborate in keeping with where I hope this blog will go - a true community discussing leadership philosophy.

The question is: "What is THE single most important thing anyone's said to you regarding leadership (in one sentence)?".

Looking forward to all of your replies. See you at the end of this one!