Balance by KarolusLinus

President Obama recently sparked an interesting dialogue about empathy when he stated that he would nominate a Supreme Court justice “who understands that justice isn’t about some abstract theory. … It is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people’s lives,” to replace the outgoing Justice David Souter.  In short, he wants someone with judicial empathy.  This has caused outrage from some and applause from others.  Regardless how you feel about this issue, it is interesting to see so much attention being paid to empathy within the context of the Supreme Court.

Personally, I am a definite believer that empathy has a place in leadership and business in general.  That said, it must be properly balanced with power in order for long-lasting, sustainability to be achieved.  Karl Long wrote a wonderful piece discussing this balance.  Leaders must find a way to appeal to those that they lead and simultaneously command the respect of these individuals.  Some people respect a leader who demonstrates care and concern for them.  Others respect a powerful authority that leads based on a command and control approach.  I have written about a related topic in the past in a piece entitled “Democratic Dictatorship“.  In this piece I made the point that a leader is ultimately responsible to the organization’s best interests, not those of any particular individual.  However, to be clear, this does not imply that a leader cannot show empathy toward individuals within the organization.  On the contrary, it is often in the organization’s best interests to keep the people who work there satisfied.  In fact, loyalty expert Fred Reichheld, has written extensively about customer loyalty and its direct linkage to employee loyalty.  And in these turbulent economic times, nothing can be more important to a business than keeping the customers that they have satisfied; in large part, by keeping the employees they have satisfied.

There’s even real science to back up the power of empathy within a leader and the physiological effects that it can have on others.  In a recent HBR article about social intelligence and neuroscience, the findings demonstrated “that certain things leaders do—specifically, exhibit empathy and become attuned to others’ moods—literally affect both their own brain chemistry and that of their followers.”  For example, in performance feedback settings, it was more the tone and emotional signals given during feedback vs. the actual feedback itself that established the recipient’s attitude and feelings about the feedback.  In essence, the way things were communicated were more important than what specifically was communicated.  In fact, we can all recall seeing this same effect when talking to a baby or even a pet.  If you speak with a particular tone, it is not relevant what specific words you are saying.  In these cases, the words are not even comprehensible to the baby or pet, but the tone of voice is clearly what dictates their response.

What does all of this mean to you as a manager or leader?  Well, if you want to get the best out of your teams, colleagues, subordinates, etc., use an easygoing tone and humor to engage the best neurons your folks have to offer!  In one study, it was found that “top-performing leaders elicited laughter from their subordinates three times as often, on average, as did mid-performing leaders.”  For business, it is true when they say, laughter is the best medicine!

Nina Nets It Out: A good mood can not only make your day better, but also that of the people around you. I guess this science has proven the French proverb “more flies are caught with honey than with vinegar.”  Be sure to balance your own drive, ambition and intelligence with an ability to empathically and socially connect with co-workers, business colleagues, customers, etc.

The Stevie Awards has named nine executives who will chair specialized final-judging committees for its Seventh Annual American Business Awards. I am proud to say that I have been selected as the chairwoman for the Management category. T

The nine committees are based on the categories that will be judged. The appointments are as follows:

• Company Categories: Ted C. Mesa, founder, president and CEO, Pointandship Software, Inc., Walnut Creek, CA

• Corporate Communications & Public Relations – Richard Ramlall, Senior VP for Strategic External Affairs, Programming, and International Marketing, RCN Corporation, Herndon, VA

• Customer Service – Troy Carrothers, Senior VP-Credit, Kohl’s Department Stores, Menomonee Falls, WI

• Human Resources – Rosemary Haefner, VP-Human Resources, CareerBuilder.com, Chicago, IL

• Information Technology – Anyck Turgeon, Chief of Market Strategy and Security, Crossroads Systems, Austin, TX

• Management – Nina Simosko, Senior VP of the Global Ecosystem & Partner Group, SAP Americas, Palo Alto, CA

• Marketing – Mimi San Pedro, VP-Global Marketing, Acxiom Corporation, Little Rock, AR

• Product Development – Glen Tindal, Chief Technology Officer, Intelliden, Colorado Springs, CO

• Sales - Sanford Brown, Chief Sales Officer, Heartland Payment Systems, Princeton, NJ

Finalists in The 2009 American Business Awards will be determined in preliminary judging to be conducted in April and May by volunteer professionals nationwide. Final judging, led by the committee chairs, will take place May 18 – June 3. The results of the 2009 competition will be announced at an awards dinner in New York on June 22.

“The Stevie Awards have named some of America’s most respected, influential executives to chair this year’s final judging committees for The American Business Awards,” said Michael Gallagher, president of the Stevie Awards. “These executives have demonstrated a profound understanding of the rapidly-changing dynamics of the marketplace, and they have a keen appreciation for the factors that contribute to success in their professions.”

Stevie Awards are conferred in four programs: The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, The Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service.  Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. I am proud to have been the recipient of the 2008 Best Executive – Service Business – More than 2,500 Employees category.

To enter The 2009 American Business Awards, visit http://www.stevieawards.com/aba. And to learn more about The Stevie Awards visit www.stevieawards.com.

Nina Nets It Out: The Stevie Awards are a wonderful recognition for worthy companies and executives. I encourage my readers to click on the provided links and read a bit about some of the wonderful participants, candidates and recipients. I am excited to be on the judging side of the Stevies which will afford me the opportunity to learn about so many wonderful executives..

Think of 20-somethings as a single work force, the best educated there is. In Japan, that work force will shrink by one-fifth in the next decade — a considerable loss of knowledge and skills. At the other end of the age spectrum, state pensions systems face difficulties now, when there are four people of working age to each retired person. By 2030, Japan and Italy will have only two per retiree; by 2050, the ratio will be three to two.

But as I have suggested previously, leaders need to work now to prepare their businesses for a different kind of future. We need to re-think the way that we manage the business of doing business – for economic crisis or not, the landscape in which many of us work will never be the same again. This means that, as leaders, we must now begin the hard work of orienting our organizations, our processes and our business cultures toward a new way of working that is more resilient and flexible – and one that builds learning into the very DNA of our operations. For while the “war for talent” goes through a recession-driven hiatus, this is not a permanent cease-fire. As the leading management author, Gary Hamel suggests:

Sure, it’s a buyer’s market for talent right now, but that won’t always be the case—and in the future, any company that lacks a vital core of Gen F [Facebook] employees will soon find itself stuck in the mud.

Hamel goes on to outline 12 characteristics of online life that will impact our management practices in the years ahead:

1. All ideas compete on an equal footing
2. Contribution counts for more than credentials
3. Hierarchies are natural, not prescribed
4. Leaders serve rather than preside
5. Tasks are chosen, not assigned
6. Groups are self-defining and organizing
7. Resources get attracted, not allocated
8. Power comes from sharing information, not hoarding it
9. Opinions compound and decisions are peer-reviewed
10. Users can veto most policy decisions
11. Intrinsic rewards matter most
12. Hackers are heroes

Now, I could easily write on each of these points, but I would like to concentrate on the last point – hackers are heroes. Having worked in IT companies for many years, I have had the benefit of seeing the power, innovation and energy that can come from genius programmers who push the limits of the work that they do. They truly provide the breakthroughs that we crave. But often this innovation comes at a cost – for while “hackers” make life uncomfortable for the organizations, they are celebrated in online communities. This can lead to a mis-match between the type of employee that we “want” and the type of employee that we “need”.

I have a feeling that, in the future, we will need to find a more cohesive way of bringing these “mavericks” into the fold of corporate life. And the thing is, we can’t wait for Gen Y to force this transition upon us – we should be actively preparing the ground work now. Our future prosperity and success may well depend upon it.

Nina Nets It Out: With so much change underway, you could be forgiven for wanting to “take cover”. However, now is the perfect time to begin the transformations that will pave your way for future success. Begin rethinking the way that your company works with the younger generation of workers. They are, after all, the future leaders of your business.

Well, the idea of paying it forward is really a good one. In fact, Benjamin Franklin demonstrated the idea of paying it forward in a letter to Benjamin Webb dated April 22, 1784:

“I do not pretend to give such a Sum; I only lend it to you. When you [...] meet with another honest Man in similar Distress, you must pay me by lending this Sum to him; enjoining him to discharge the Debt by a like operation, when he shall be able, and shall meet with another opportunity. I hope it may thus go thro’ many hands, before it meets with a Knave that will stop its Progress. This is a trick of mine for doing a deal of good with a little money.”

In business, there are SO many ways in which this concept can take hold. But to me, the greatest impact of this wonderful approach to helping can be done at the grassroots, or individual, level. I myself have experienced both sides of paying it forward. I have had the great fortune of being helped by many people along my career path. And to be clear, these folks did not do so with the expectation that they would receive anything in return; but rather for the sake of helping me out at a time when I was in need of assistance. I have had a few great mentors who took me under their wings and guided me through then-uncharted paths within my career. I am humbled by the unselfish nature in which this help was given and greatly benefited from it. It is, in large part, the reason I am where I am in my career.

So, in the spirit of paying it forward, I now offer assistance to others whenever I can so that they too can benefit from outside perspectives and guidance. I participate on the board of a non-profit [Reading Partners], I mentor colleagues both within and outside my company whenever I am able to, and I encourage those in my village to do the same. There are a couple of great commercials from Liberty Mutual insurance company that totally inspired me to write this entry and to shine a light on the notion of paying it forward. These commercials show how one person witnessing someone helping someone else, can find that helpfulness within themselves to pay it forward.

If each person who reads this blog entry, thinks about one person they can help with the explicit ‘rule’ that that person must repay the favor by helping someone else, imagine how quickly this valuable concept can generate massive good. Think about it, mathematically it doesn’t take long for things to grow incredibly fast as shown in this great piece by Alan Yu called “A Penny Doubled Everyday“. Starting with just one penny on day 1 and doubling the number each day, in just thirty days, you’d have over $10 million dollars…$10,737,418.23 to be exact.

As leaders, we must be sure to foster a culture in which people understand the value of helping one another. I try to do this as often as I can and those who work with and around me, are always welcomed to ask for assistance or the time to assist others. We all have times in our lives where we need(ed) help. The greatest thing we can do with what we have learned is to share this knowledge with others in our networks so that they too can benefit. It’s like, as Wally Bock asks, “what do you want to be remembered for?”.

Nina Nets It Out: Be sure to take every opportunity to help others and to ask them to do the same for people within their network. If we can create an atmosphere in which this type of behavior is commonplace, recognized and encouraged, the limits we have are boundless. And in these difficult times, helping others will be appreciated tremendously by all involved.

First up, polish your communication skills. When you work in a matrix, you need to be clear about your work, your direction and your deliverables. Different teams have their own internal cultures – and if you are new to that team or working across a division, you likely will miss the non-verbal communication at play. To combat this, over communicate – ask questions if you are unclear. Clarify the expectations of colleagues and learn to articulate your thoughts precisely. If you need to, take a course; but don’t overlook the importance of this communication.

Secondly, remember there are only 24 hours in a day. When you work in a matrix, you are likely to have multiple deliverables from multiple teams. That means you must manage expectations of all involved. When asked to take on a new project, politely explain your level of utilization and then ask your project leader to help you prioritize your efforts. Make sure that this is clearly communicated to the people you report to, along with the expected impacts. Be sure to avoid over-committing and under delivering.

These two steps can make a dramatic difference to your life. But what about leaders? How can you lead well in the matrix? Gill Corkindale suggests the following steps for leaders:

• Make sure the culture is robust, supportive and you have the right values and behaviors in place
• Ensure that you are a skilled communicator: networking, influencing, coaching and facilitating skills are paramount
• Draw up clear goals, objectives, and performance metrics for managers and staff and see to it that they are aligned vertically and horizontally
• Empower teams to make decisions and to resolve conflicts at an appropriate level
• Don’t tinker with the structure, but let the networks and matrix evolve over time
• Use your expertise and personal network to influence those over whom you have no formal authority

To this list I would add:

• Foster village thinking – create opportunities for your matrix team members to collaborate on both personal and professional levels
• Achieve with grace – when you are a leader in a matrix organization, many disparate teams will contribute to your success. Make sure that your success is achieved (and acknowledged) with grace.

Nina Nets It Out: Matrix organizations can deliver astounding results, but attributing these results to a particular line of business can often be difficult or fraught with political danger. Leaders must ensure that they continue to emphasize communication, team work and responsibility across their matrixed teams and share the spoils of success as they arrive.

I strongly encourage readers to click over and to explore not just the set of questions that arose from the office politics webinar, but to delve further into the Women’s Leadership Coaching site.  The webinar series is an excellent way to hear from various industry professionals on topics that are very relevant to those in the workforce.

And in case you missed my discussion with Jo, you can find it here.

In a recent entry on the Harvard Business Blog site, Freek Vermeulen writes about this issue in a piece entitled Slow and Steady Wins the Growth Rate. His piece resonates with me as he uses his own experience of learning to play the cello as an analogy for his point about “time compression diseconomies” – a term coined by professors Dierickx and Cool from INSEAD. I studied violin and played for many years beginning when I was nine years old. His piece highlights a very important point – three hours does not always equal three hours. The point being that doing something for a half an hour 6 times is not the same as doing that same activity for one three hour period. Think about exercise. We all likely realize that exercising 6 days a week for 30 minutes each session is much better for our long-term health than exercising once a week for 3 hours.

Rushing to accomplish something very rarely works out as well as we’d like. Growing a business faster by hiring more and more employees without allowing the business to properly onboard and acclimate these hires will not ultimately achieve the desired results. Rather, it will likely lead to challenging times with leaders scratching their heads in wonder and then commencing the downsizing that inevitably will follow. Patience, or “slow and steady” as Vermeulen says, is necessary in order to achieve sustainable success. Taking the time to “do it right” will ensure a better outcome versus scrambling to get it done as quickly as possible. Vermeulen’s own study of multinational companies demonstrated the effectiveness of this approach by showing that “growing at a moderate-yet-steady pace increased profitability much more than did short outburst of rapid expansion–almost twice as much.”

On a very simplistic level, we all understand this. How many of us would be comfortable to learn that our doctor’s office is measured on “patient throughput”? Ouch! When I have to see a doctor, I want to know for sure that they are interested in “getting it right” not getting me in and out fast. Businesses must balance these oft-competing objectives in order to strike the proper, sustainable result – and it is we, as leaders, who must make those decisions and set the priorities.

Nina Nets It Out: Whether you’re studying an instrument, exercising or tackling a business issue head-on, be sure to understand that there are real choices in how we go about accomplishing whatever it is we are doing. There’s an expression that comes to mind: “There is never enough time to do something correct the first time, but there is always time to do it over again.” Be sure to assess the needs of each situation and decide what is most important before taking your first steps.

Jo Miller, CEO of Women’s Leadership Coaching, and I will be talking about “Winning at the Game of Office Politics” on Tuesday, February 24 2009, 11:00am-12:00pm PST

Some topics we’ll be addressing include:

• Is it possible to navigate office politics without becoming a political animal?
• Learn the difference between office politics and organizational awareness.
• Discover the unwritten “rules of the game” at work.
• Understand the dynamics of power and influence in your organization.

Get a copy of the presentation and listen to the podcast by clicking here.

On the one hand we have TED, the Technology, Entertainment and Design conference, which brings together a raft of experts from across the broad spectrum of enterprises. And even if we cannot attend in person, the TED Talks series makes these fascinating and highly addictive discussions available to anyone with an internet connection. But how do we take this to another level? How do we move from ideas and talk to action?

Umair Haque has given this some thought and has written a Smart Growth Manifesto. His manifesto suggests that we have to reboot capitalism. And he provides four pillars around which action can be built. I have attempted to take these four pillars and apply it to the business of leadership and the challenges and opportunities that these present, as follows:

1. Outcomes not income. There is no surprise for my regular readers here – I strongly believe in focusing on outcomes. In this instance, the focus is on tangible human outcomes. This means looking beyond the dollar value. If it takes a village to produce good business outcomes, what is it, that we as leaders can do to ensure the village is happy, healthy, innovative, productive and creative? How do we find ways to authentically create value for our teams and our businesses?

2. Connections, not transactions. As leaders we will know where most of the creative hotspots are in our organizations. But we won’t know all of them. This is where the village comes in. Where does innovation hide within your business? Which project team is stimulating ideas that drive downstream innovation? Where are the outliers in your business that need your help to forge the connections that will prove valuable over the horizon thinking?

3. People, not product. Reinforcing the points above, a renewed focus on mobilizing the creativity trapped within your business will deliver outcomes. The thing to remember – people love to connect and create. Talk to them about the challenges your business faces and ask them for their best ideas. Give them direction, some guidelines and support their efforts. Your best people will produce the best product.

4. Creativity, not productivity. The answer to our challenges is not necessarily more product. We need to reframe the way that we look at our value propositions. Rather than supplying a market, why don’t we create a market? Working faster, producing more with less and so on will not transform our businesses or make our teams more resilient to the economic cycle. Working creatively and redefining the nature of what we do is, perhaps, one of the greatest challenges that leaders face in the period ahead.

Nina Nets It Out: Large and small organizations are wrestling with these challenges – and reinventing ways to grow. These four pillars focus on value creation. By identifying opportunities where you can impact the sustainability and resilience of your business, you will

I live by a modified version of this adage within my career – “trust must be unearned”. Under this approach, I believe that I am able to encourage a results-oriented mindset, allowing my collaborators to buy-in to our mutually agreed goals. And in the spirit of achieving positive results “faster, better and cheaper”, teams which start from a position of trust are able to move quickly from ideas to results.

I don’t suggest that this always works – it does not. However, I have found that people respect an approach such as this, and more often than not, rise to the occasion. Furthermore, nothing seems to engender trust amongst team members more than collective success, recognition and reward. Remember, as Wally Bock says, “If you’re a boss, we know at least two things about you. You’re the single most important factor in whether your team has high productivity and high morale.” This approach allows you to use your influence as a leader to achieve outcomes.

One of the challenges with teams (especially new teams) is that many people view asking for help as a sign of weakness. For them, doing so publicly demonstrates that they don’t understand or need further clarification of the issue being discussed. In any meetings that I host or presentations that I give, I always encourage questions right at the outset and let the audience know that to me, asking questions is a sign of strength and leads to better, clearer communications.

My sense is that if one person has a question, chances are very high that others have the very same question. In fact, when I myself am in the audience, be it a highly attended meeting or a one-on-one meeting with a client, prospect or peer, I make sure to ask for any clarifications that I need. I don’t let fear of others’ perceptions of me or my inquiry dictate my level of understanding. Even more, I have come to believe and frequently state that “my ignorance is my greatest asset”. I learned this concept when discussing my business with an “outsider” that I had just met. I now see that someone’s “blissful ignorance” permits them to ask questions without constraint or influence of embedded paradigms.

It is clear to see that my oft-mentioned focus on outcomes has the ability to modify our way of thinking or understanding of long-held beliefs or instinctive behaviors. Generally speaking, when I engage a new team, say an internal team tasked with achieving some organizational objective, or encounter a new client opportunity, I find that deploying these approaches — trusting immediately and asking lots of questions — leads to improved performance. It does leave one vulnerable to being taken advantage of or appearing ignorant. But, my experience indicates that the risk-reward trade off is favorable in the long run.

Nina Nets It Out: Sometimes we have to go against our own instincts to pursue actions or behaviors that don’t feel “normal” to us. However, doing so can lead to expedited results, improved outcomes, and more cost-effective solutions. Think about these approaches and how they might be able to positively affect your interactions with co-workers, clients, consultants and others that you come across in the course of your daily business. And don’t hesitate to let me know of other approaches that have had similar, positive impacts.