This was another time – and another world.

These days, our bosses can be across the country – or across the planet. We spend our time on conference calls, video and virtual conferences and yes, planes. We snatch productivity from the dead hours of airport lounges and the long nights of jetlag re-adjustment.

We have lost the proximity that helped us create culture, build and motivate our teams and intimately service our customers. As leaders, however, it is our role (and our challenge) to bring our customers and our teams closer together in a way that harmonizes all our interactions across time and space.

Now, you may think I am referring to technology – to social media, blogs and the like. Yes, these have a place – and a very productive place it can  be. But I am taking my lead here from John Baldoni’s Harvard Business Review blog post – How to Lead Without Saying a Word. John suggests that our non-verbal cues often say more than our words ever do – and in a “long distance relationship” with our teams, we need to be careful that our leadership style, messages, directives and suggestions are not misinterpreted.

Clearly this is easier said than done, but, John’s key points provide us a pathway:

• Relax: When you are speaking on the phone, your voice will sound “thinner” than it is in real life. By relaxing your neck and throat and breathing deeply into your stomach, you will free your diaphragm. This will help your voice to drop a little. This give you a deeper, warmer voice. It sounds “more real”.
• Invite conversation: Make sure that you have a list of all attendees on the call. Where possible, ensure that each person contributes – and if someone is silent, invite them to contribute on a particular topic. Remember, silence can appear forbidding – and you want collaboration and communication, not fear.
• Keep your powder dry: Encourage your team to participate early in the call. Add value where appropriate, but make sure that many voices are heard. Should a discussion escalate, step in at the right time – keep your voice steady and measure your words. Bring your skills and experience to bear and refocus the conversation on the agenda and the objectives.

To these points, I would also add the following:

• Encourage connection: Where possible, find ways to connect up people in your teams. If particular individuals are closely located, build projects around their involvement. Do the same for people who seem to “click”.
• Over thank: Encouragement breeds confidence. Even a short email or voicemail message saying “thanks” will put your team into a productive frame of mind.

Nina Nets It Out: Many of us are now working in locations that are separate from our teams. This demands new practices from leaders – think through what works for your “local” teams and translate that to new ways of working that help drive productivity and job satisfaction in your team members no matter where they work or live.

As with most conferences, it is not always about the mainstage. For example, SAP ran a Women’s Executive Leadership Breakfast event where attendees were treated to a conversation with Jeanne Ross, the director of MIT Sloan School’s Center for Information Systems Research. Tara Degler writes that rather than leading in with a raft of presentation slides, Jeanne shared her story – leaving the audience with three important actionable insights:

1. Work smarter – It is one thing to be busy – but quite another to be “productive.” When you multiply this across your organization, the effect can be profound.
2. Empower your people – Make sure that each and every role in your business is professionalized. Provide the structure to help make your teams successful and give them the power to achieve.
3. Create the space for unlearning – Old habits die hard, so when you want to transform your business and they way that people work, remember that it takes time to unlearn.

But how do you apply this thinking to your own situation? Are you working smarter? Are you empowering yourself? Are you able to unlearn?

Take a look at this brief interview with Shari Temple from Aidmatrix where she talks about the challenges of finding a mentor. While things have changed over the last 20 years, one of the most important steps we can take is (as Art Petty says), ask for a mentor. After all, as this breakfast demonstrates, there is no dearth of women leadership talent.

Nina Nets It Out: It’s great to attend events and be inspired by those you hear and those you meet. The challenge is taking your learnings back into the office with you. If you don’t have a mentor, think about reaching out to someone you respect. It could change your career.

But if we have learned anything from the last century, it is this – that change is possible. As Ann Veneman, UNICEF Executive Director points out:

Education is one key to better lives for girls, their families and their communities. Expert studies estimate that every extra year a girl spends in secondary education lifts her income by more than 15 per cent. Better educated girls have better employment and health prospects and, as they grow to womanhood, they pass these benefits to their children.

I have been a strong believer in the power of education for years. As a member of the board of Reading Partners, I see the benefits first hand. I see the benefits in my community, and as a business woman, in the intelligent, educated young women who are starting their careers. But most of all, I see the benefits that education brings these young girls and their families.

At Reading Partners, we see (on average) students jump an entire grade level in reading skills after only 30 hours of tutoring. The impact of this is immediate and lasting. It changes the students perspectives of themselves, and it changes that way that they relate to the world, their families and communities. It opens the door of opportunity, and it sets in train, a process of ongoing learning which benefits future generations (with mothers teaching and supporting the education of their children).

Programs like these exist all over the world. And somewhere, there is a young girl in need of a better education. She may be living in your neighborhood, or in a country on the other side of the planet. But if you can only do one thing this International Women’s Day – find a way to support a young girl’s education. The world will be a better place for it.

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.

Following my webinar with Jo Miller, there were many questions asked about leadership, virtual teams, work-life balance, and the like. I offered answers to many of these questions and Jo posted them on her website. This exercise made me realize that there are many people who have questions about these topics but who might not have a resource to seek out the answers. As such, I’ve decided to try something new on my website.

If anyone has questions related to business, leadership, management or similar topics, I’d like to offer myself as a resource to provide answers. Of course, it goes without saying that I am just one person with my own opinion. However, I have been working for many years and have held leadership positions in some of the best companies around, especially within the software industry.

This all said, if you have a question and want someone else’s opinion, advice, etc., please feel free to post your questions in the comments section here. I will reply publicly so that all readers have a chance to learn from these exchanges. In fact, perhaps some of these questions will warrant full posts which I will feature on this site.

I’m looking forward to hearing from you.

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.

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.

Marshall Goldsmith tells an interesting story about the behaviors and actions of a CEO, Bob — and how these combine to impact on Bob’s effectiveness as a communicator. Bob had fallen into the well worn trap of believing that those in his team liked being managed in the way that he enjoyed being managed. This presented a challenge:

My job was to make Bob see the problem, which I like to call the “golden-rule fallacy.” He assumed that his people were just like him and, therefore, liked to be treated the same way he did.

As we go about building our businesses, we find natural affinities with some people. We are drawn to them. We may even nurture those who demonstrate capabilities that are like our own. But what of the rest of your village? Sometimes we need to look into a different kind of mirror to understand how to inspire, drive and deliver high performance.

Professor Teresa Amabile conducted research that showed a powerful link between a leader’s behavior and the high performance, innovation and creativity shown by her teams. It boils down to five (yes only five) elements:

1. Emotional support: Clearly, if you consider your team as part of your village, you need to provide some form of emotional support.
2. Positive feedback: Leaders need to provide constructive feedback in a positive manner and also provide additional context to help your team members produce better work.
3. Recognizing good performance: It sounds trite, but publicly acknowledging good work is essential for high performance.
4. Consult with your team: Your village is a vast knowledge base. Use it to the advantage of your business.
5. Collaboration: One of the most powerful roles of the leader is to pitch in. Roll-up your sleeves and help your teams close the deal.

And while each of these elements seem to be “every day”, take a look into a different mirror. Think about what your team see when they work with you. What will they take away? How will your words and actions impact their performance both today and through the week? It is the every day, ordinary touches that can create an extraordinary team performance.

Nina Nets It Out: A leader’s behavior can have a significant impact on the performance of a team. Will your interaction with your team today result in a positive or negative experience? How do you ensure high performance? It is simple — focus on the every day interactions and watch the results.

One of the critical things that a leader must possess is honesty. Not only in the sense that they ought to be honest in their behavior, but also in that they must call things as they see them [see If You Can Only Focus on One Thing...]. Without doubt, leaders will come upon countless situations in which they must figure out the “right” way to say something to an employee or group of employees. For me, the easiest way to address these situations is to ignore the politics and just say what you believe to be the clearest, most honest communication you can put together. Often, people try to couch things in certain ways hoping that the desired message will be interpreted by the recipient.

I live by a philosophy that when a situation arises, I have a couple of choices to deal with it. One — I can say something about it; or, two — I cannot say something. For example, if an employee charged with an assignment does not perform to my expectations, I can tell them or I cannot tell them. For sure, the best thing that I can do to prevent similar situations from reoccurring is to tell them. After all, how would they know that they missed expectations or know how to correct things in the future without a clear, unambiguous communication telling them so? Some people find such communications difficult to hear — mostly those that have committed the undesirable performance. However, more often, people respond to such communications with appreciation for the honesty and the opportunity to correct course going forward.

Now, there can be no doubt that delivering such open, honest criticism can open one up to being labeled with less than desirable names. But, in a classic risk-reward trade off, it also can lead to being considered a clear, candid communicator. Without such communications, individuals who perform less than ideally, would not be given productive, fruitful criticism and, therefore, would not likely modify their future behavior or performance. Then, if such comportment is tolerated, others in the organization can witness this and come to the conclusion that senior management simply doesn’t care about the quality of employee performance. This belief, if allowed to fester and pervade an organization, can undermine myriad prospects.

So, in order to ensure the best team performance and outcomes, be sure to speak clearly, openly and as honestly as you can. To me, the risk of being negatively labeled is far worth the rewards of overall organizational performance gains to be had, as well as the respect which can be earned for demonstrating a focus on candor and integrity.

Nina Nets It Out: As I have stated in prior entries, “it is better to be respected and not liked than to be liked and not respected” [see Democratic Dictatorship]. In this vein, I strongly encourage those around me to speak openly and candidly with the focus being overall performance. Sometimes, it may create negative feelings, but when couched in the choice of “(1) saying something to make the person aware or (2) not saying something and hoping for positive change”, there can be no clearer answer than to say something as clearly as possible.

Some executives survey their org charts with a sense of achievement, while others look for ways to cut costs; but often a more productive path is to identify new synergies and think through ways to bring those synergies into the business.

When you head up a large business unit, it can be difficult to learn the names of everyone on your team; never mind trying to understand their skills, aspirations and abilities. But if you do pick up that org chart, look through the names that appear. Try to put a face to the name. How far down can you go? Do you know the intern? What about the new sales exec?

Now, you may not know the particular blend of skills that each person has, but most leaders will have a sense of the challenges that people face in achieving their daily, monthly and yearly work goals. Why don’t you reach down through the org chart and provide one of these people with a stretch goal or a special project? Pair them up with a mentor. Introduce them to someone from another part of the business.

Using the org chart as a tool, in this way, can yield unexpected benefits. And you can never go wrong when building the skills and capabilities of your teams — remember, your people are your competitive advantage.

Nina Nets It Out: Leadership means proactively developing the resources of your business — this includes people. Take a look at your organization chart and see how you can activate the hidden skills and under-utilized capabilities that you find there.