What It Takes to Be a Great Employer

What It Takes to Be a Great Employer
8:30 AM Monday January 3, 2011

One of the primary definitions of the word "engagement" is "a hostile encounter; a battle." Another is "a specific, often limited period of employment."

In the corporate world, however, engagement has come to signify just the opposite: some blend of an employee's commitment, passion, focus, motivation, morale and job satisfaction.

It's what every company wants, but few get.

Even in the absence of a fixed definition, more than 100 studies have now demonstrated a strong relationship between employee engagement and organizational performance. For example, a Towers Perrin study conducted in 2007-2008 among 90,000 employees in 18 countries found that companies with the most engaged employees had a 19 percent increase in operating income during the previous year, while those with the lowest levels had a 32 percent decline.

The study also found that only 20 percent of all employees were fully engaged. Forty percent are "enrolled," meaning capable but not fully committed, and 40 percent were disenchanted and disengaged. That's consistent with a number of other studies, including Gallup's.

So what most influences employee engagement?

In our work with several dozen Fortune 500 companies, we've come to believe the holy grail is the degree to which employers actively invest in meeting the multidimensional needs of their employees. Above all else, that's what frees, fuels and inspires people to bring the best of themselves to work every day.

Human beings share four core needs beyond survival: sustainability (physical); security (emotional); self-expression (mental), and significance (spiritual). Amazingly few companies focus on meeting any of these needs.

The primary value most employers offer employees is money. Too often, it's barely enough to survive. Five million Americans earn the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. For a 40 hour work week, that comes out to $15,080 a year. The poverty line in the U.S. is $22,050 for a family of four.

But even paying employees far higher salaries is no guarantee they'll be engaged so long as their other needs aren't met.

Our most basic needs, beyond survival, are in the physical domain. Among the companies with whom we've worked, Google does far and away the best job of investing in the health and well-being of their employees. Google provides them terrific food at no cost, fully equipped gyms, low-cost massages, napping pods, and on-site medical care.

How crazy is it that companies are willing to invest in preventative maintenance on fixed assets such as their machinery, but typically won't make a comparable investment to enhance and sustain the health and well-being of their employees?

The second core need all of us share is to feel emotionally secure — meaning valued, recognized, and appreciated. Less than 40 percent of employees worldwide feel their managers are genuinely interested in their well-being. Only one out of ten employees feel they're treated as vital corporate assets.

The more our values feel at risk, the more we become preoccupied with defending and restoring them, and the less energy we have left to generate value for our companies.

The vast majority of employers fail to recognize a simple and immutable truth: how people feel at any given moment profoundly influences how they perform.

Think about how you feel when you're performing at your best. Nearly all the adjectives most of us think of — happy, positive, confident, optimistic — reflect a high quantity and a high quality of energy. Leaders ought to be evaluated, in large part, on the degree to which they evoke those feelings in those they lead.

Our third core need is for self-expression — the opportunity to use our unique skills and talents and to figure out for ourselves how best to get our work accomplished. Instead, most employers tell their employees when to come to work, when to leave, and how they're expected to work. It's a parent-child dynamic.

Treated like children, many employees unconsciously adopt the role to which
they've been consigned. Feeling disempowered, they lose the confidence and the will to take real initiative or to think independently.

Empower and trust employees to get their work done, and what you're likely to get back is appreciation, higher motivation and greater commitment. If you're a leader, why wouldn't you measure your employees by the value they generate, rather than by the number of hours they work, or how they choose to get it done?

That's the mission of Cali Ressler and Jody Thomson, the two women who created the Results Only Work Environment (ROWE), in which employees design their own work days and are evaluated solely on their results. Ressler and Thomson instituted it first at the home office of Best Buy, their own former employer and they've since brought it to Gap Outlet, and several other companies with impressive results.

The fourth and final core human need is for significance. Once our survival needs are met, most of us long to feel that what we're doing truly matters.

Most large companies today have a lofty mission and vision statement, and an equally noble set of core values. But what gets written on a piece of paper counts for very little. What really inspires us are leaders who visibly, palpably, credibly and consistently stand for something beyond profit, and who give us the opportunity to get behind a meaningful mission.

That doesn't require that a company be in the business of curing cancer or solving global warming (although that certainly helps). Zappos is an example of a company that began with something as prosaic as selling shoes on line. But through a combination of a fierce commitment to great customer service, and to treating its own employees equally well, CEO Tony Hsieh and his team have created a company with a powerful sense of mission and high level of employee passion and loyalty.

Mark these words: The companies that make a paradigm shift from seeking to get more out of their people, to investing instead in meeting their core needs, will build huge competitive advantage in the demanding years ahead.

http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2011/01/what-it-takes-to-be-a-great-em.html

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victor aberdeen 1 week ago

Excellent article, it should be mandatory for all in management positions to view their staff as whole people to be treated with honor and respect.

However, this seems too much of a game change for most. I recall Rod Canion (CEO & co-founder Compaq) presenting that he was the least important person in the company, inverting the org chart he placed the customer at the top followed by every person who interacted daily with the customer. While that philosophy ran the company grew.

But many in management are driven by impatient greed extracting as much from the organisation as they can to the point that the C level payroll is damaging the growth potential of the business. In the UK the John Lewis Partnership reversed the idea in the 1920's when the owner decided to create an employee partnership, which teis the CEO's salary to the salary of the lowest paid employee. The founder, was voted out by his staff, now when you shop in their stores you know the kid behind the counter is the owner and it shows in the way they treat you, empowerment with substance.

What you describe is so simple, to treat people with respect and expect (as a manager) to earn the respect of your staff. To take the time to ensure each person has what they need to do their job, including the support of their manager and peers. To focus on what each person needs to deliver to make the business a success and remember that they have a life elsewhere that is more important to them than work. Yet when they know you respect their private life, there will not be a shortfall because they respect their responsibility too. Mutual respect, egoless team work where each individual's failings are covered by the team as a whole to drive greater success than any regular management methodology of carrot and stick.

Jim Collins calls it Level 5 and in this current climate we need more level 5 management not less!

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Jim Bearden 1 week ago

Tony,
Thanks for this excellent article. Many of the same organizations that behave as if money is the only thing that matters to their employees will quickly correct their own salespeople who lose business to lower-price competitors. We all know that money (their compensation package) is important to employees, just as price is an important factor to our prospects & customers. However, money & price are not the only factors that are important to those people. Here's the way I describe the phenomenon about which you've written so well: Each of our employees has his/her own, somewhat unique Definition of Value, and those definitions change. Effective leaders understand that the only reason employees will become and remain engaged is if they believe they will receive sufficient value to justify their doing so. So instead of relying on false assumptions, e.g., money is all they care about, they work to understand--and regularly update their understandings of--their employees' Definitions of Value. Here's a question bosses might consider asking, "What are some of the things that you want back in return for the things you're asked to do?" And one more thing, they'll probably have to ask more than once in order to convince employees that they really care. Thanks again for this very insightful article.

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Bob Ebers 1 day ago

Hello Tony, informative blog entry, thanks. With our clients we're using the multidisciplinary research on motivation defined by Paul R. Lawrence and Nitin Nohria both from Harvard who define the 4 drives to acquire, bond, learn and defend.

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Levi Smith 3 days ago

Appreciate the thoughts. I enjoyed reading the book by Cali Ressler and Jody Thomson as well as Tony Hsieh. We have a strategic objective at the company I'm CEO of, The Karis Group, to be a great employer. I believe it will be increasingly difficult for companies to be competitive without cultivating an exceptional culture that attracts and retains the very best people.

http://www.itsworthnoting.com

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Marcella Bremer 5 days ago

Agree completely and this is totally recognizable from our database gathering results of the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument. Simply put, the results show that people want more appreciation (Clan Culture) and professional autonomy (Adhocracy Culture) and much, much less control and stability (Market and Hierarchy Cultures in OCAI methodoloy).

The paradigm shift is also visible in “working 2.0”: executives have to manage employees on added value instead of clock hours and control when staff is not always at work in their cubicle but from home. People are done with the old, industrial-era management…!

I also like the child-parent remark. This is exactly what I mention in my blog about Undercover Boss and Employee Engagement, please read http://www.ocai-online.com/blo...

An interesting question remains: are there any substantial differences between USA and Northern Europe’s workplace cultures? The cliche wants the USA-corporations to work more top-down while in the Netherlands for instance, employees enjoy more democratic rights and can have a say about their work, the company’s strategy and so on.

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Lodi Planting 6 days ago

Tony - great post, but nothing new!

All this information is known for a decade. Unfortunately not a lot of organizations (at least in Belgium) preach this simple rules. Therefore I think it is good that we do some repetion once in a while.

Kind regards, Lodi Planting (Belgium)

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Rick Yvanovich 1 week ago

Great article. I just read a report from EIU about re-engagement and the disconnect that exists would be good fuel to everyone making comments and likely too for a follow on article.
http://www.businessresearch.ei...

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Jesse Lyn Stoner 1 week ago

Great article, Tony. I like your approach in showing how leaders that engage the hearts and minds of their people are meeting higher level human needs. Maslow first described his hierarchy of needs in 1943. He believed that until the lower level needs are met, an individual will not desire a higher level. This seems to hold true in extreme circumstances - when someone is starving, they are usually not interested in self-actualization. But it does not hold true in all cases. Consider Victor Frankl's amazing description in his book "Man's Search for Meaning" about his time in a concentration camp. He describes how caring deeply about something was what kept him and others alive. A less extreme example is one we all know: we know that many people will take a lower paying job in order to work in an organization they are excited about. So why do we continue to treat employees from a transactional mentality? I find it amazing that so many organizations have vision statements posted on their websites, and yet these statements do not describe the life in the organization and are not used to guide decision-making. A real vision is lived not framed. I agree with you wholeheartedly when you say, "What really inspires us are leaders who visibly, palpably, credibly and consistently stand for something beyond profit, and who give us the opportunity to get behind a meaningful mission." People believe what they actually see, not what you tell them they they are seeing.

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Jesse Lyn Stoner 1 week ago

My computer froze. See my real comment below.

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Keith Lawrence 1 week ago

Tony-

You are spot on in your obersvations and the fundamental premise. To support it let me share the experience Procter & Gamble has had in building high performance work systems in its manufacturing operations. The company has now over four decades of results in creating organizations that fundamentally respect their employees and invest in their success. The plants that have been successful in doing this universally delivered 30-40% better bottom line results than more traditional work systems that viewed their employees as an extension of the machines. They were also by far better places to work. Sustaining these organizations over time however does require strong leadership to prevent taking 'short cuts' (cutting staff, training, etc.) when times get tough.

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Shoba Shanker 1 week ago

Hi Tony,

Thanks for the good read. The question isn't if companies are aware that, money isn't the only employee motivation. But, the question here is, how many companies are willing to make that paradigm shift?

I hope your article is read by all those decision makers. :-)

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Arindam Guha 1 week ago

It's a delicate balance between "harvesting" employee output and "investing" in employee needs.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/ari...

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Emmanuel Robitaille 1 week ago

Excellent article Tony. The last phrase is so true. Hope Leaders in different enterprises and fields will read your text. Thanks

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Jo 1 week ago

Your link to the poverty line data goes to the minimum wage link...please fix.

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Epeebles 1 week ago in reply to Jo

Thanks for the heads up. It should be fixed.
Ellen, HBR ed

Redefining Greatness

Redefining Greatness (It's Complicated)

3:00 PM Tuesday November 30, 2010

Consider the following qualities:

Confident Humble
Courageous Prudent
Tenacious Gentle
Honest Compassionate
Decisive Flexible
Disciplined Playful
Strong Vulnerable
Deliberate Spontaneous
Discerning Intuitive
Outgoing Introspective




Which quality do you value more in each pair?

Is there any doubt that most of us tend to choose up sides between qualities, valuing one in preference to its opposite? Or that most organizations often value the whole constellation of qualities on the left over those on the right?

Many companies now build leadership programs around developing "competencies," a list of core qualities they expect all their leaders to embody. It's one size fits all, and the aim is to help people get up to speed wherever they fall short.

In direct reaction, the Gallup Organization began focusing a decade ago solely on developing people's strengths . The premise is that we're better served by cultivating our intrinsic strengths rather than by laboring, often futilely, to fix our weaknesses.

The problem is that both models vastly oversimplify the challenge of greatness — for leaders or anyone else — in a world of relentlessly increasing complexity.

Trying to build one's unique strengths turns out to be just as limited as single-mindedly seeking to overcome liabilities.

On the one hand, it's undeniably more efficient and more immediately satisfying to build on our existing strengths than to struggle with our deficits. On the other hand, even strengths have their limitations.

"There is always an optimal value," explained the philosopher Gregory Bateson, "beyond which anything is toxic, no matter what: oxygen, sleep, psychotherapy, philosophy." The same is true of personality traits.

The Stoic philosophers referred to this paradox as "antakolouthia," or the mutual entailment of the virtues. By this view, no virtue is a virtue by itself. They all include an opposite quality, and overusing a specific strength turns it into a liability.

Confidence untempered by humility, for example, turns into arrogance. Courage without prudence becomes recklessness. Tenacity unmediated by flexibility congeals into rigidity. Honesty in the absence of compassion is cruelty.

We're well served to rely on our strengths wherever possible, but not at the expense of valuing and developing their equally critical opposites.

Our brains are a good example. Most of our education focuses on developing the rational, deductive, analytic capacities of the left hemisphere. Far less attention is paid to cultivating the visual, imaginative, big-picture capacities of the right hemisphere. Each is necessary for the highest levels of thinking, and neither is sufficient by itself. Only by training both do we gain access to the full powers of the whole brain.

We need not be limited by our weaknesses, nor limited to our strengths. As Anders Ericsson and other researchers have shown, we're capable of achieving excellence at anything to which we devote sufficient deliberate practice.

"I don't do nuance," George Bush once famously said. It was his loss and ours. Greatness embraces paradox rather than choosing up sides, synthesizes rather than excludes.

Several years ago, I worked with the head of a large company who was very skilled at his job. Because no one doubted that, including him, he was also utterly at ease with acknowledging his shortcomings.

He was also eager for any kind of feedback, because above all, he wanted to grow and improve. What you got was a whole person, confident and humble, skilled and flawed. Not surprisingly, he was beloved.

I have a wise mentor who can be fiercely tough with me in one moment, and incredibly gentle in the next. Neither would be sufficient by itself. It's his ability to move between these opposite qualities, depending on the circumstances, that serves me so well.

Do I contradict myself?" Walt Whitman asked in Song of Myself. "Very well then. I am vast, I contain multitudes."

We all have an inclination to choose up sides — to find a comfort zone and stay there, especially in times of uncertainty. We go with what we know, and disregard the rest. Certainty makes us feel safer, but it also makes us smaller, and more defensive.

The less compelled we feel to defend who we are, the more energy we have to invest in becoming the best version of ourselves.

Greatness demands both decisiveness and flexibility, courage and prudence, strength and vulnerability, action and introspection.

The true measure of greatness is our capacity to navigate between our opposites with agility and grace — to accept ourselves exactly as we are, but never to stop trying to get better.

http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2010/11/redefining-greatness-its-compl.html

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paladin2011 1 month ago

I truly liked this article. It resonated with me on a personal level in so many ways.



The quote is awesome!
also: "We all have an inclination to choose up sides — to find a comfort zone and stay there, especially in times of uncertainty. We go with what we know, and disregard the rest. Certainty makes us feel safer, but it also makes us smaller, and more defensive."


Finding balance and the range within which we can agilly and gracefully navigate between the opposites

expanding that range - and getting out of that comfort zone

Embracing the duality of life.

Cultivating strengths and having internal honesty to identify and work hard on weeknesses
we can not ve one dimentional leaders.

Accepting ourselves as we are with intrinsic value, but yet striving all ways to become a better version - constantly evolving requires lots of work

Also embracing the paradox - its real, its not simple, its messy like "it depends". The courage to wade into the messy and sort it out means you may risk the appearance of getting dirty. Jesus did it!

Not fitting easily in a nice neat box. There is greatness outside that box!
Each is necessary for the highest levels of thinking, and neither is sufficient by itself. Only by training both do we gain access to the full powers of the whole brain.

Again with "If"
The true measure of greatness.

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lynn v 1 month ago

I love this quote:

“I have a wise mentor who can be fiercely tough with me in one moment, and incredibly gentle in the next. Neither would be sufficient by itself. It's his ability to move between these opposite qualities, depending on the circumstances, that serves me so well.”

I think this stresses another point about great leaders – having honest relationships with those around you. Great leadership involves using your own strengths for yourself and others. This mentor was wise because s/he knew when/how to be fierce or gentle - giving what you need when you need it.

Personally, as I am learning how to work well with leadership at a new organization, I’d love to hear others’ thoughts about how they adjust to this process – staying true to your own leadership style while adjusting to a new environment.

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FLeon12 1 month ago in reply to lynn v

Thanks for the quote, Lynn V, much appreciated. I agree in that a mentor should have an honest relationship with those around, especially a mentee. Assuming that this mentor has a good understanding of the mentee, is well balanced, and is not too jaded by any past notions of a mentee, I believe the mentor will be able to perceive and identify strengths and weaknesses of a mentee and have an honest conversation. Thus honesty is integral to self-improvement.

Interestingly enough, I am also working at an organization with leadership that is new to me. Adjusting to new leadership isn’t easy; in fact, I am still adjusting. This adjustment has required lots of listening, observing and questioning. I know who I am and the culture that I work best in (I hope that the hiring manager would have taken cultural compatibility into account), in the case that this organization is not the best fit for me I still must make the best of the situation.

During this observational period, I practice situational leadership- slightly changing my approach based on the individual I am working with while not compromising my beliefs. The goal is to maintain my integrity and my personal style, while collaborating with new colleagues and while being managed under new leadership; I think that in this case initially meeting people “where they are” can be helpful (again, please note I am specifically referencing the preliminary stages of “adjustment”).

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lynn v 1 month ago in reply to FLeon12

Thanks for sharing, FLeon12. As you have adjusted, have you consciously made changes to how you lead/interact with your peers and other leaders around you?

There were times when I told myself to make the most of it, too. However, in conversations with a friend, we discussed the difference between making the most of it and consciously practicing/expanding your leadership style in a new environment. He told me “making the most of it” gives the impression of “this could be better, but I’ll make do with what I have” – kind of a dissatisfied approach, still longing for what could be.

With developing your leadership style in a new environment, you consciously adjust your leadership – building the continuum of your skill set as some have mentioned in these comments – and are positively committed to really push your own boundaries, making you a bit uncomfortable but learning more in the end. What do you think? Do you feel you have expanded your leadership skills as you have adjusted?

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FLeon12 3 weeks ago in reply to lynn v

I do believe that I have made some conscious changes to my interactions with others. This is particularly true, as I have had the opportunity to observe those in my office and learn how they operate. I recognize that I will be interacting with people of various work/leadership styles in my new environment and will have to change my approach; the key is not compromising who I am. I do feel that as a leader I am growing and I am improving. I agree that growth can be uncomfortable; by going beyond yourself there will be very fruitful rewards.

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PREZ 1 month ago in reply to lynn v

Lynn V, I couldn't agree with you more:) and in fact I believe it is through the dynamics of an effective mentor/ mentee relationship that you are strengthened. It takes a special bond and trust to take the good with the bad when it comes to advice, and doesn’t it mean so much more when it comes from the heart instead of just the head? When someone is truly looking out for your best interest it seems no matter how harsh their comment, you really end up appreciating it in the end because you know you will be the better for it.

I also really liked the comment that we need not be limited by our weaknesses, nor limited to our strengths. As Anders Ericsson and other researchers have shown, we're capable of achieving excellence at anything to which we devote sufficient deliberate practice. We can only know what we have to improve in when we have a trusted advisor to point it out and lead us in the right direction. However, in the same respect we also need to be accountable for our own growth and take responsibility for honing our strengths and never stop learning how we can become better.

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Donald 1 month ago in reply to PREZ

I agree Prez. Lead with the heart and not just the head. Leading with the heart suggest that you actually care about the people you are leading. Great leaders care about those they lead as much as they care about the mission.

As you stated, harsh remarks are uncomfortable when we receive them but we end up appreciating them later because they were given to make us better.

The relationship can actually be compromised more when a mentor or a leader is not willing to give candid and sometimes stinging remarks. When they withhold valuable insight from those that depend on their guidance the follower misses out on an opportunity to grow and will continue to go down the wrong path. It also gives the leader a chance to grow, because he may need to come out of his comfort zone in order to give the needed counsel and direction.


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lynn v 1 month ago in reply to lynn v

Thanks to everyone for some great feedback. I appreciate your willingness to share your stories and experiences. Whether it’s a challenging or thriving relationship, it must be nurtured and valued.

This is especially relevant to me at my current position since it started off as a rocky one. No major problems occurred, but I discovered that my leadership style is completely different from the culture of the company. After a lot for confusion and frustration, I decided I needed to adjust… and fast. Initially, I approached my adjustment with caution. I knew my strengths, and I wanted to use them! However, I, obviously, can’t force my preferences into an established culture, and like IdealistJung mentions, I need to focus on producing results. So, I jumped in with both feet. While I definitely struggle at times, I am learning how to lead in this new environment. Similar to Donald, I am also learning more about the impression my style may give to others. Some things I plan to continue, and some things I intend to adjust.

I realize this new environment has helped me practice another component of great leadership – helping others discover and improve elements of their own leadership. This is so obvious, but many times, as a leader, I usually think about the “helping others” side of it, not always the “others helping me.”

Thanks for helping me reflect and gain insight.

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Donald 1 month ago in reply to lynn v

I agree honesty and honest relationships are important. A great leader with be honest with themselves and with those they lead. I had a situation recently that put me in a light I never really considered myself to be in. I consider myself to be a gentle and caring person. However, recently at my job I have been called the heavy, the one that gets people to do their job because they are little uncomfortable around me.

Their uncomforting was not so much a result of me being heavy handed as was a matter of them not performing up to par. I was honest and straight forward, not harsh or mean, and expressed to them what the expectation are and what they had agreed too. They were not doing their part and became uncomfortable when I reached out to help them. I asked them what kind of help they needed and they took it as if I was being forceful our aggressive. I was simply trying to get the job done. I believe a leader should be will to do his part to help if someone he is leading is having difficulties getting the job done. I was sincerely trying to help. But my offer to help uncovered some short coming on their part, which turn me into the heavy.

I am ok with being the heavy, actually I kind of like it. Not because it I am intimidating, but because it is what is needed right now to get the job done. And all I need to do is be true to self and those I am leading. I have a very good relationship with the one who is uneasy with me, they just know I have expectation and I am holding them accountable.

This goes to the bloggers point that you can not be one extreme or the other. As a leader you must be honest invoke the appropriate response based on the current situation.

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Aixa A 1 month ago in reply to lynn v

I was able to observe leadership, unfortunately at its worse at my mentorship, but I was humbled by it all. Why? Because I felt confident that it was all going to work itself out and the outcome would be nothing less than great. Due to the way I handled things and my natural reaction to the more than awkward situation I was in - those that mattered saw how I handled myself - professional and patient with a bit of tenacity. I was able to pull it off with a balance of qualities.

Other thoughts for me is that those that have a tenacious character have a tendency of being annoying at times, but one can balance that with gentleness like the blog states. It merges two qualities into one. I practice on being honest with an element of compassion in order to get through dilemmas in my personal and professional life, however sometimes it’s seen as a weakness. Many woman leaders are known as a “bi!@h” when she is honest, tenacious, decisive, disciplined and confident, but when she has qualities that are outgoing, playful and flexible – it seems that people view her as not strong enough - I personally love the outgoing quality of leadership, as long as its followed with disciplned. I have the balancing act figured out!

What struck a chord for me and something I practice is, “The true measure of greatness is our capacity to navigate between our opposites with agility and grace — to accept ourselves exactly as we are, but never to stop trying to get better.”

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MC-2011 NUF 1 month ago in reply to lynn v

Lynn V,

I think you point out an important part of the article which struck a chord with me too. In my current role at my job where I am still fairly new, I constantly look to my boss(mentor) for guidance. She is an excellent leader: smart, intellectual and a great manager, but also humble and down-to-earth. She is open to always listening to everyone's feedback and is always willing to make everyone under her feel like part of the team and that everyone's opinion matters. Further, she takes it into consideration and uses it.

In my opinion this is the perfect example of a good leader/manager, and someone I learn from every day. Although she has a wealth of knowledge and experience under her belt, she makes it a point to let each person on her team know they matter and their opinions are valued. In that role, I feel I couldn't be in a better position to learn how to be a leader in the environment I work in.

"The true measure of greatness is our capacity to navigate between our opposites with agility and grace — to accept ourselves exactly as we are, but never to stop trying to get better. " This quote also hit home with me because it is something I try to practice every day. It's easy to think that because of your own unique experiences and skills and knowledge, you don't need to take advice from someone or hear someone else's take on how you should proceed with something at work, or even in your personal life. But I believe that the different idiosyncracies we all have/possess are gifts that we can share with others and we are all learning from each other every day.

In my current position, I find that I am in a unique position to do just that. Further, my mentor/boss provides a good example for me to learn from every single day we work together. I consider myself pretty lucky to be able to have that experience.


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IdealistJung 1 month ago in reply to lynn v

Lynn V,
I had a very similar reaction to this blog and that particular quote. I also appreciated that Tony recognizes that "Greatness embraces paradox rather than choosing up sides, synthesizes rather than excludes" and that we need such greatness "in a world of relentlessly increasing complexity."

You also make a wonderful point about having honest relationships and the interdependence of leadership upon one's own and other's strengths. No one can do it all and do everything well.

To your question, I believe great and effective leaders will have a certain amount of elasticity in their styles to adjust to new environments and challenges. Staying true to your own leadership style requires honesty with yourself as well--recognizing your strengths and weaknesses, when you need help from others, what's working, or not, in a situation, and then being able to adapt in a way that is still "true to yourself."

I recall David Mensah saying something along the lines of: focusing on producing results rather than your style of leadership. If you can produce results on a consistent basis, you've got to be doing something right! One way to think of it is that leadership style is more a means to an end (producing results) and not an ends in itself. Ultimately, I think people will remember the value of the results you accomplished and not so much your style unless it was extreme in some way (abrasive, arrogant, alienating, awkward, appreciative, alliterative...!).

Personally, I've been listening, observing, reading, asking questions, and meeting with colleagues as much as I can in these first three months of my mentorship--and I expect to continue to do that throughout my remaining six months in Seattle. The first three months have definitely been a period of testing the waters and one personal trait/work style that I've shared so far is trying to add a bit of fun in the work/day. I don't think this is unique at all, and I think most people can relate to or appreciate some fun as long as I'm also getting other things done!

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SejS 1 month ago

Thank you for the thought-provoking piece on "Redefining Greatness".

I would like to highlight an excerpt from one of your previous postings:
"Dope, Dopes and Dopamine: The Problem With Money" (October 26, 2010).*

“It would be wonderful to believe that those most responsible for the current financial crisis learned sobering lessons from the worldwide havoc and suffering they helped to prompt… Don't hold your breath — especially so long as we continue to revere our citizens based on their net worth, even as they've knocked down ours.”

Here is a question: are we intoxicated by the “success” of others even if it is achieved through arrogance and recklessness? We can determine the quality of our leaders through due recognition and support; it would do us well to succeed at recognizing true greatness.


*http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/...

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Rick Ross 1 month ago

The key to navigating "between our opposites with agility and grace" may be identifying the destination. The first step towards finding it is viewing the opposites, not as a dichotomy, but as a continuum.

The continuum becomes clear when we work to appreciate the strengths of the view directly opposed to our own which underscores your point: "never to stop trying to get better". With an appreciation of the continuum, we're left with the final task of finding balance - that point along the continuum which is optimal for the situation.

Thanks for the wonderfully thought-provoking post.

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Jennifer 1 month ago

Thank you for starting a great discussion. I disagree with your analysis of strength and weakness. You miss the influence of context. Context can turn a strength into a weakness in a second and as your list suggests context is the arbiter of which one we choose is the "upside".

La Trobe
www.creativeconneciton.ca
www.creativeconnection.co.uk

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Cathy Carmody 1 month ago

This post on the redefinition of greatness is a great spark for discussion. You acknowledge the work-on-strengths vs. work-on-deficits camps, and I agree that to “get better” means working on both ends of whatever competency pair a company wants to emphasize for its leaders. Redefining greatness to include the "both/and" of various characteristics is long over due. I look forward to your examining more in depth the various points you raise (such as handling uncertainty and energy, both of which occupy my thinking).

One assumption, which I doubted at first and which seemed to contradict your point about balance, was that it's 'undeniably' more satisfying to build on existing strengths rather than work on deficits: perhaps it's just me, but I often find it very satisfying to succeed in something I haven't had as much success accomplishing than to improve what I consider myself already 'good' at, whether coaching leaders or hitting a golf ball. I’d much rather succeed at eliminating some three-putts than adding ten yards to my drive. Or is that not what you meant?

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Kounselor 1 month ago

"We need not be limited by our weaknesses, nor limited to our strengths." This quote resonated with me. Its so easy to place limits on ourselves and our own ability. We often think that we place limits on oursleves by focusing sloely on our weaknesses. Because I am not as skilled in a certain area, i stay away from it and this limits us. But we can also be limited by solely focusing on our strengths. I never thought about it quite like that before. Focusing on either never fully allows us to see the bigger picture or the larger issue. I think this helps us to become more strategic. It reminds me of the debate crime.Some argue we need reforms in education to solve the issue of crime, others argue we need to become tough on crime and incarcerate more people, however the larger issue is the correlation between poverty and crime. How do we have a serious conversation about addressing poverty to avoid some of its by products such as increase in crime?

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MC-2011 NUF 1 month ago in reply to Kounselor

Kounselor,

Good comments. Particularly, you bring up a great point on how just focusing on soley our weaknesses or just our strengths we may be losing sight on the ultimate big picture, or the final product we are trying to achieve.

I think this can be our downfall in general especially those who work in the public sector/govt sector or non-profit sector, where it is imperative that folks work together as a team. If we focus on just one or the other, it impedes our progress towards our ultimate goal.

Further, how you relate it to the war on crime proves the argument even moreso, being that focusing on just one or the other(crime and/or education) might not be all we should be looking at; we also need to focus on the root cause which is, ultimately poverty. This is an especially important point, particularly when talking about compromise or seeing the other side's point of view to get closer to your common goal - or even when working with different political parties.

In order to get to a decision, it is important to focus on what we all bring to the table, while learning from others on things that we need to work on. I see this every day in my work place. Some folks are just fine with showcasing their strengths, and not focusing on where they can improve. A balance would do wonders in achieving a collective task and will definitely be a more effective strategy in the long run.

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FLeon12 1 month ago

Wow, Tony; how insightful!

I really did enjoy your piece! I think this article really capitulates my personal and professional take on life… it is all about balance!

Finding balance is particularly difficult while working for an organization/company that operates in the realm of “black and white”. There can be so much beauty in “gray” yet I find that often times the gray is frowned upon.

I am guilty of functioning in a world of black and white; I like to be able to define things. I find it easier to operate under a manager that is somewhat predictable and has set clearly defined expectations. On the other hand, I do believe that embracing the “gray” and finding balance is critical to those in managerial positions, especially if a manager strives to ascend to the next level-- greatness. Here, being predictable or embodying one set of attributes or another does not necessarily constitute being great; then I ask myself, can one be predictable and find that balance???

A great manager should learn to keep any extreme personality traits at bay; as you mentioned, too much of any of the aforementioned qualities can yield negative results. It is my belief that in life we must find a way to be even-keeled and transcend its dualities. I am working, working, working but it is certainly a struggle!

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cc0711 1 month ago in reply to FLeon12

Felice, I agree with you comments. I think it it's important to be able to do a self-assessment of your own strengths and weakness and find a balance. The ability to posses personality traits that are opposite from one another makes one multifaceted personally and professional. I appreciate having the opportunity to be mentored by someone that is obviously great at what they do, but still has obvious weaknesses that they are working on to improve. The cross between confidence and humility allows me, as a young professional, that being a great leader does not mean you have to be GREAT at everything.

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Rick Yvanovich 1 month ago

Thanks Tony for the great discussion you kicked off. As @notmd said, we're all an ongoing work-in-progress. Personally I always like the sporting analogy of "raising the bar" so irrelevant of whether its a strength or weakness, like athletes we just have to continue raising the bar.

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Mike Brown 1 month ago

In the 1990's, I sat in an corporate audience listening to Jim Collins talk about what differentiates a great from a good company and got progressively more depressed as he gave example after example of companies that by sheer size, longevity, and profitability deserved to be called great. His epitome of greatness at the time was GE and to him Jack Welch was the paragon of a great CEO. When I asked Mr. Collins why we should call a company and its CEO great if they pursued profits without heeding environmental costs (e.g., polluting the Hudson with PCBs then fighting attempt to force them to clean it up and compensate affected communities; contrast with BP today) he mumbled that that's not what he meant by great. If nothing else the concept of greatness is in the eyes of the beholder.

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Dolores Diz Schrader 1 month ago

Just a reflection. I guess that greatness it can be defined as excellence too. And I want to go back to the parents of our occidental culture: greeks and romans. And recall the concept of what the greeks called "arete", and the roman concept of"virtus". Both words are bound up to excellence. This means, the act of living up to one's full potential. And this implies to develop oneself to find the virtus in all we do. The virtus can not be found in an extreme (too much-too litlle),never. The right place to find it is in the middle, and middle doesn't mean mediocraty. Because in terms of perfection and good, the virtus is extreme. Middle means the right point between being a coward and being bold. In this middle point is where bravery resides. ANd this can be applied to all the qualities described in this article. To reach greatness is necessary to find the right middle for each situation, person and place. I wouldn' call that flexibilty I would call it the perfect balance. And to find the right balance, the most essential talent you need is the power to discern and judge properly what is right and true for each circumstance.

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notmd 1 month ago

All of us are a work in progress..in some ways we are like a sculpture by Michelangelo..we are removing our ego to uncover our true spirit..I am still chipping away..

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Emmanuel Matuco 1 month ago

Respectfully do allow me to share. I would like to pursue this from a different angle.My apologies for the lengthy comment.

Doesn’t your beloved country possess all the above attributes already? Your country is great. Each country that went through a struggle for nationhood is great. All are therefore great. Since a country’s greatness is but the sum of her people’s struggles, doesn’t that make all citizens worthy of respect? Great? The elements found in a jar of ocean water are the same elements of the ocean such sample were taken from. Immanent.

If all nations are great then why are we trying to defeat each other? To be not great? Side by side with greatness stands mediocrity. Two forces inside our hearts struggling to outdo the other. Immanent.

So how do we ensure only the best part comes out? That “greatness” is within our reach. What dreams must we pursue? What doable steps must we take?

One can be the best parent if one wants. One can be the best brother, or sister, or neighbor if one chooses to. One can be the best friend or whatever meaningful role one willingly pursues to help another soul. Does the love of my parents for their sons lesser than the love of Gandhi or Lincoln, or Mother Theresa for their people? Does your parent’s love for you lesser than mine for my children? No. In the pursuit to serve others, we are all equals. We can all forgive those who trespassed against us. We can all be great in our unique way if we want to.

Nations go through a journey to greatness. Institutions go through the same process. So must individuals. The immortals of Olympus envy us because each point of the journey is a moment of discovery. Not something like that movie – Ground Hog Day. Predictable. Would you like that boring kind of journey? Not for me. Without struggle the core is weak. It will crumble against the slightest obstacle. A strong core creates its own happy state even amidst adversity.A strong core creates its own happy journey.

Respectfully I propose, we must think like the great stewards. Like the founders of the great religions. They never sought greatness. They only seek to serve others especially the ordinary people. They operate on millennial timelines. One generation starts from an ordinary starting point but putting in systems where the next generation becomes better and better. A burning torch, a mission handed down through a timeline of at least a thousand years. Today ordinary. Tomorrow great. In the future-magnificent!

Let’s journey together to whatever “greatness” is in store for us. Let us discover life again and enjoy it. Let's embrace all our trials with glee and prevail!

“Let’s lead lives of great joy. Let’s strive for the sake of lofty ideals. That’s what makes life worth living.” Daisaku Ikeda.

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Diqa 1 month ago

"Greatness demands both decisiveness and flexibility, courage and prudence, strength and vulnerability, action and introspection.
The true measure of greatness is our capacity to navigate between our opposites with agility and grace — to accept ourselves exactly as we are, but never to stop trying to get better."

Two prime examples that comes immediately to mind is a Mother & Nelson Mandela - each great in their own right. Mothers are forced to be able to switch effortlessly from one trait to another as she takes on all the roles demanded of her eg. carerer & disciplinerian, housekeeper & home maker, wife & partner, confidant & mentor. Nelson Mandela is the ultimate example of revolutionary & peace maker. True Greatness.

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Eric Bryant 1 month ago

This is good. Love the philosophical references there as well. We need more good philosophy infused in business ethics and management, I think. The ideas are not only Stoic, but also Taoist. "A thing contains the seed of its opposite inside it already," and the Yin Yan symbol captures this idea that a quality begins to wane at the moment it is the greatest. I liked this post.

Eric Bryant, Director
The Gnosis Arts Community Intranet
http://gnosisarts.com/home/Int...

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Silence 1 month ago in reply to Eric Bryant

Really

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Tvannest 1 month ago

Also, your political example misses the mark. I'm not one to defend GWB as a leader OR communicator, but his comment on "I don't do nuance," was actually a demonstration of other values touted as foundations of leadership--candor, authenticity, and focus. Did you really want "W" to be awash in details and nuance?...Is that what was needed at the time? Brings about images of a 9-11 "beer summit" (ugh).

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Frank Diller 1 month ago in reply to Tvannest

Actually, yes, I would have liked for George W. Bush to have had some understanding of nuance. Then maybe we wouldn't be in two unnecessary wars based on staunch ideas that turned out to be erroneous. Maybe if he had considered other perspectives, we would be saving billions of dollars in defense spending every year.

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Tvannest 1 month ago in reply to Frank Diller

Great point, Frank. I strongly recommend, though, that we only place our trust for dealing with complexity and nuance in the hands of the capable. Regardless of who's the sitting president or your own party affiliation, D.C. has shown little such capability (and, clearly, hasn't won my trust).

I agree with and greatly respect your perspective on strategy and value (i.e., best use of billions, cost of faulty info and assumptions or decision frames)--lessons for us all. Still, probably not healthy or complete place for a post-mortem on the war decisions you cite...such a debate here would take the same, underinformed, shape that you ascribe to the Bush Administration.

Like you, Frank, I dream for better decision making in Washington and I dream of more transparency (again, promised, not delivered)...I just don't trust the Rube Goldberg-like machine formed by the political influencing and logic-bending rules of Washington to deal with the nuance you value. I think this year's political lesson is, "Dial it back boys and girls...you're a big, complex machine best trusted with only the most basic of charters and decision-making." (see for ex: social security; energy policy/EPA; the tax code; etc.---a genuine mess!)

Here's a short list of "Hero's of Nuance" --- ENRON, the EPA, the FDA, the Intelligence Community, the UN, Credit Default Swaps, etc. (ugh!)

By contrast, Kennedy, Reagan, and even "W" were a bit more straightforward and productive. If you want a biz list, I'd start with Harvard's own contributor, Bill George, or Jack Welch from his G.E. days.

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Tvannest 1 month ago

This is great guidance about the folly of choosing the fixing competency gaps v. talent building (neither sufficient). However, the view here on COMPLEXITY AS A VIRTUE suffers two key shortcomings (below). Also, it is important that you don't confuse characteristics measured on a continuum (like the personality constructs you list in your paired columns above) and demonstration of a competency or skill measured in binary terms, e.g., "got it or you don't" (Y/N). Much value in nuance can come from personality insights and related leadership application, but it cannot be treated like a task list.

First = NEC. BUT WOEFULLY INSUFFICIENT: Certainly all humans should take your bow to our complexity as a compliment, there is no doubt that we are complex beings or machines. That said, many thought and practice leaders have found that, in fact, the path to real change and growth lies in simplicity and focus. Innumerable articles in this same forum (HBR) reinforce the power of focus and simplicity. In additon, think about key characteristics like Authenticity--it comes through behaving consistently with your own simple truths. Attempting to honor your own personal nuance tends to make you intellectually disingenuine (splintered, hard to pin down) and is rarely pulled off by anyone but the best of liars and thieves (or politicians).

Second=PRAGMATISM: We have a limited capacity (simply meaning 'less than ideal') to understand ourselves and others in nuance and layers. As demonstrated by the limits of psychotherapy, the high failure rate for organizational change, and the hulking size of the 'self-help' market, insight can be gained from the "I am complex" mantra. However, most actionable solutions aimed at living through such insight introduce MORE complexity (and lead to repeated failure as a result).

Most of us fall when trying to dance on the head of a pin (embracing "nuance"). Use the insight about your complexity to identify the most developmental value, then focus on 1-2 things that you can change to improve! (Necessary AND sufficient for progress...)

Keep it simple, Sparky!

Six Secrets to Creating a Culture of Innovation

Six Secrets to Creating a Culture of Innovation

10:26 AM Tuesday August 10, 2010 | Comments (24)

When IBM recently polled 1500 CEOs across 60 countries, they rated creativity as the most important leadership competency.

Eighty percent of the CEOs said the business environment is growing so complex that it literally demands new ways of thinking. Less than 50 percent said they believed their organizations were equipped to deal effectively with this rising complexity.

But are CEOs and senior leaders really willing to make the transformational moves necessary to foster cultures of real creativity and innovation?

Here are the six fundamental moves we believe they must make. In all my travels, I've not yet come across a single company that systematically does even the majority of them, much less every one.
Meet People's Needs. Recognize that questioning orthodoxy and convention — the key to creativity — begins with questioning the way people are expected to work. How well are their core needs — physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual — being met in the workplace? The more people are preoccupied by unmet needs, the less energy and engagement they bring to their work. Begin by asking employees, one at a time, what they need to perform at their best. Next, define what success looks like and hold people accountable to specific metrics, but as much as possible, let them design their days as they see fit to achieve those outcomes.
Teach Creativity Systematically. It isn't magical and it can be developed. There are five well-defined, widely accepted stages of creative thinking: first insight, saturation, incubation, illumination, and verification. They don't always unfold predictably, but they do provide a roadmap for enlisting the whole brain, moving back and forth between analytic, deductive left hemisphere thinking, and more pattern-seeking, big-picture, right hemisphere thinking. The best description of the stages I've come across is in Betty Edward's book Drawing on the Artist Within. The best understanding of the role of the right hemisphere, and how to cultivate it, is in Edwards' first book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.
Nurture Passion. The quickest way to kill creativity is to put people in roles that don't excite their imagination. This begins at an early age. Kids who are encouraged to follow their passion develop better discipline, deeper knowledge, and are more persevering and more resilient in the face of setbacks. Look for small ways to give employees, at every level, the opportunity and encouragement to follow their interests and express their unique talents.
Make the Work Matter. Human beings are meaning-making animals. Money pays the bills but it's a thin source of meaning. We feel better about ourselves when we we're making a positive contribution to something beyond ourselves. To feel truly motivated, we have to believe what we're doing really matters. When leaders can define a compelling mission that transcends each individual's self-interest, it's a source of fuel not just for higher performance, but also for thinking more creatively about how to overcome obstacles and generate new solutions.
Provide the Time. Creative thinking requires relatively open-ended, uninterrupted time, free of pressure for immediate answers and instant solutions. Time is a scarce, overburdened commodity in organizations that live by the ethic of "more, bigger, faster." Ironically, the best way to insure that innovation gets attention is to schedule sacrosanct time for it, on a regular basis.
Value Renewal. Human beings are not meant to operate continuously the way computers do. We're designed to expend energy for relatively short periods of time — no more than 90 minutes — and then recover. The third stage of the creative process, incubation, occurs when we step away from a problem we're trying to solve and let our unconscious work on it. It's effective to go on a walk, or listen to music, or quiet the mind by meditating, or even take a drive. Movement — especially exercise that raises the heart rate — is another powerful way to induce the sort of shift in consciousness in which creative breakthroughs spontaneously arise.

These activities are only possible in a workplace that doesn't overvalue face time and undervalue the power of renewal.

Tony Schwartz is president and CEO of The Energy Project. He is the author of the June, 2010 HBR article, "The Productivity Paradox: How Sony Pictures Gets More Out of People by Demanding Less," and coauthor, with Catherine McCarthy, of the 2007 HBR article, "Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time." Tony is also the author of the new book "The Way We're Working Isn't Working: The Four Forgotten Needs that Energize Great Performance" (Free Press, 2010).
More on: Creativity, Innovation, Managing people

http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2010/08/six-secrets-to-creating-a-cult.html?cm_sp=blog_flyout-_-schwartz-_-six_secrets_to_creating_a_cult

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George Sibbald 5 months ago

This is not real world. Nor is empowerment.
Innovation is inclusion not empowerment. This looks like HR or OD wrote it. Perhaps the hammer saw a nail when there was none.
Most CEO's want action with a sense of urgency. Action should have relevance to mission or strategic agenda. Innovation is relevant action

Taking a high leverage selection process (10:1 payback) with an iterative Pareto perspective (5/67 rather than 80/20) Leaders can get results fast, tap tribal knowledge, grow innovation capability, and overcome management paralysis.

Training and education for improving culture or innovation skills is a RAT HOLE. Don't go there. But rather set the organization, structure, process, and maintain consistent and appropriate leadership and you incubate a culture of innovation in all employees through high energy action (lots of small action, learning from failures and adding resources to successes make taking action mare important than being right) "feed the winners & starve the losers".

Leadership is process and action, NOT charisma. Innovation is leaned through experience so just start doing. Maintain a portfolio id ideas and a relevant action portfolio. The innovation culture will happen.

More importantly the process directly advances the strategic agenda.


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Drsmiel 5 months ago in reply to George Sibbald

I can't tell what you're talking about or what industry you're in. I tried. Maybe sales?

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Tony 5 months ago in reply to George Sibbald

"Taking a high leverage selection process with an iterative Pareto perspective"

Whew, sounds like a bunch of Gobbledy gook to me. Who said anything about leadership being about charisma? Who suggested action shouldn't be relevant to a particular agenda?

A lot of hyped up jargon here packed into a small space! Chill baby!

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George Sibbald 5 months ago in reply to Tony

Tony you may not know the Pareto curve, but it is the top tool of leverage in management time and resources. You may have heard of the 80/20 rule. 80/20 is only one point on the Pareto curve. Even greater time is 5/67. But if complexity of initial design of any innovation is 35-50% over designed the Pareto curve tells you that there is not enough time or resources to succeed. (also a 10% overdesign is requires 20 fold the effort and resource)
Iterative Pareto if fundamental business.
Prototype at 5/67, then look at where you are and do a second prototype 5/67 and perhaps a 3rd. After 3 prototypes you have 15% of cost and greater clarity of the end design.

Innovation culture follows these principles.

Look to Dave Evans of Evans and Sutherland as the Gold Standard of leadership in setting an innovation culture. Who is largely responsible for starting the innovation culture around computer graphics. Spin offs include Adobe, Netscape, Pixar.

The 6 secrets are NOT REALISTIC, although there is a essence of truth. What CEO has the luxury to meet peoples needs? Rather the people need to meet the needs of the organization. A preoccupation with unmet needs is more about too much time or bad attitude (assuming there is proper organization, structure, and process for people to gain earned respect) CULTURE will thrive on negativity of bad attitude. Any move to create an innovation culture must first ferrite out the bad attitude and cull those people.

As for leadership where is that in the 6 secrets? Corporate culture does not thrive without leadership. Innovation culture across a whole organization is counter intuitive to most managers making leadership the most important component.

As for "relevant action" it is all about the metrics. Can you link the portfolio of actions to expected results on the strategic agenda?

Culture starts with tribal knowledge and implicit strategy. What you have now. Most CEO's are not proactive leaders so they miss the opportunity to orchestrate an innovation culture. Instead they hand off culture to OD or HR (staffers) who almost never have the operations perspective and sense of urgency of line management.

Tony I have been around in the trenches as turnaround and productivity consultant and CEO, and I see innovation culture from a different perspective. "Bottom Line results"

People love to work if it is fun and they feel respected, and innovation is fun. A corp with organization, structure, process, and leadership that creates opportunity for earned respect for all people for their participation in innovation and relevant action will incubate the innovation culture.

Like Jack Welch, cull the bottom performers and bad attitude people to build you team. Of coarse you must use objective measure to evaluate, therefore expectation must be clear. Include innovation in the expectations and metrics and start with 5/67 leverage selection of ideas and you can get any corporate culture supercharges in 6 weeks plus generate big cash flows (audited results over 23 companies 3,800% ROI)

Tony, some times I think that academics and speakers like you are over doing the complexity. Most people have the socialization and creative ability to take what they already know and make it better. Small but relevant actions / successes earn self respect
and maybe the leaders, which enhances capabilities and innovation prowess.

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nimmypal 5 months ago

Superb! Loved the article especially because it indicates that what is needed for innovation is empowerment of employees and letting employees' natural talents emerge by providing an appropriate environment (as opposed to focus on training and direction - which reflects an attitude that employees are not capable of innovation themselves and need to be led).

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Doug Lowell 4 months ago

Tony, you nailed it. It applies to every business and every person in a business. Enough said.

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capojac 5 months ago

Pixar's culture of innovation is unparalleled...Ed Catmull and John Lasseter have created a safe haven where employees are accountable to one another another. As Pixar founder Alvy Ray Smith told us, Ed and John are a "technical and artistic collaboration of the first order...it's because they both have great respect for one another. They both know that they couldn't do what the other does, and couldn't do without what the other does." The Pixar leadership playbook simply calls for an open playground where leadership serves as a catalyst in the pursuit of big dreams.

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Mitch McCrimmon 5 months ago

I think it is a sad state of affairs that CEOs think that they need to be more creative. Do level 5 leaders need to be creative? No, because they draw ideas for new strategies out of their teams. Surely, a CEO needs to learn how to foster creative thinking in others, not be the source of new ideas. This is part of the old heroic model of leadership that still infests too many companies, the idea that executives are supposed to have all the answers. In an age of the "wisdom of crowds" we should be moving beyond our obsessive fixation on individual thinking at all levels and learning how to tap into group thinking.

The other point that, for me, is missing from this article is the need to change the culture that expects executives to have all the answers and to train them on how to foster creativity in others and how to react non-defensively when they are challenged by lower level employees. See my article on creative class leadership for more on how all employees need to develop and promote their creative ideas: http://www.lead2xl.com/creativ...

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Heather Brynn 5 months ago in reply to Mitch McCrimmon

The author doesn't seem to contradict anything you're saying here. He is talking about creating a culture of innovation--in other words, developing an environment where OTHERS come up with great ideas. Not to say that CEOs shouldn't think creatively as well, but obviously the point of this article is to explain who high-level leaders can develop more creative people.

To your second point, the author is not at all saying that individuals don't have responsibility for their own creativity. He is simply explaining how leaders can help with the process. You yourself say in the first paragraph that a CEO should "foster creative thinking in others." Well, that's what the author proposes.

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Tony 5 months ago in reply to Heather Brynn

Thanks Heather, very much, You said exactly what I was thinking, and said it well! Cheers, Tony

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Rus 3 weeks ago

I love the URL lol

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Nigel&Nigella Noone 4 months ago

We could not agree more with this post. We constantly write about how creativity is stiffled. There are so many companies that could be classed as those where people go to retire and therefore, rather than a lifecycle of jobs, innovation and creativity, a culture of protect within management is created. Through media, technology and the influx of constant disjointed processes and procedures, we have created a Corporate World of too little time to think and with no support for creative ideas.

It creates a de-motivated, lacklustre and unhappy workforce.

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Guest 4 months ago in reply to Nigel&Nigella Noone

After working for a number of years at IBM, I can say that it's the height of irony that this company drove a leadership survey. Then again, maybe they need the ideas.

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Bastiaan Walenkamp 4 months ago

Interesting topic.

the six secrets of innovation has are a mix of hard (structure) and soft (culture) factors. George Sibbald argues more on the side of hard factors. I think that both factors influence each other.

In my view/experience; Creating an innovative culture starts with the selection of the right employees (and management!). These have to be surrounded by the right organisational structure (stage-gate funding, clear objectives, etc). Then the appropriate culture (pro-active, curious, room for failure -brilliant failures-) will be created. The C.E.O. has a huge influence on both the structure as the culture.

This discussion has also an old academical background; "Does culture follow structure or does structure follow culture?"

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Chris Frost 5 months ago

A very simple set of innovation ideas, thanks for sharing. My view is to let people be creative and let them fail while pushing the boundaries.

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Rick Ross 5 months ago

While this is an outstanding checklist for supporting the creation of an innovative culture, it may be one of the best of its kind for other reasons. Enacting these recommendations would notably impact employee engagement and morale.

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athroop 5 months ago

Tony,
This is great content. I agree 100%! These are all very good practices and it's important to have a good culture and enjoy your workplace if you want to get good work done! Innovation and hard work are crucial in a great work environment.

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David M. Kasprzak 5 months ago

LOVE it! Great article. Thanks for posting it.

Much of what is presented here is discussed in detail in Pink's book, Drive. The key to unleashing creativity is to allow autonomy, mastery and purpose to take place. People are naturally creative - they learn to be complacent, compliant, and conformist.

My favorite part of this entire post might be in point #1: If you want to know what people need, ask them! People aren't dumb, they've just been conditioned to do what others expect, rather than what what the individual wants for him or her self. Remove that expectation, and watch the magic happen.

I have some posts on my blog that speak to the use of creativity in the workplace. Feel free to check it out: http://myflexiblepencil.com/ta.../

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Geri Stengel 5 months ago

Six very good practices and all have one thing in common: respect for the people who work for you, respect for their needs, their talents, their contributions, and their time. From that respect all sorts of good things can flow, as you point out, including innovation and hard work.

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George Sibbald 5 months ago in reply to Geri Stengel

Geri you have the most important point of any culture. RESPECT but it is only valued if it is earned. Setting up an organization where earned respect is delivered is a simple concept, but required management committed to appropriate organization, structure and process. Earned respect includes clarity of expectations and delivery of objective results.
Organization for delivery of earned respect will deliver more results than innovation culture, but they are almost the same.

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CharlieS 5 months ago in reply to George Sibbald

George, while I admire your obvious passion for this subject, I must say that your use of CAPS is distracting in the extreme. I hope that your efforts at managing are not accurately represented by the frenetic and almost aggressive tone of your posts.

It also seems to me that the crux of your argument is maintenance of the status quo culture. I wonder whether the current culture might suit you quite well and you feel it is reasonable to expect it to suit others also?

Many a person has slammed a great idea in its early stages because it is not realistic. As long as we confine ourselves to considering only the realistic or practical, we consign ourselves to achieving only incremental improvement, rather than opening up the possibility to achieve quantum leaps. Realistic is overrated.

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Paul Runko 5 months ago

Tony, I completely agree. I'm in the process of completing my first book .. . Smiley Balls: Building Successful Companies from the Middle Up, which references your research, but provides examples on how to address these issues and build world class collaborative teams.

Paul Runko 203-767-3208

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George Sibbald 5 months ago in reply to Paul Runko

Lower your foundation. Make it from the bottom up. Delivery of any success requires the rank and file, but more importantly they embody tribal knowledge, which is essential to any business transition.

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Dmytro Lukianov 5 months ago

Very important add-on for set of behavioral competence IPMA ICB (International Competences Baseline for project managers)! And for PMI PMBOK "Tool's&Method's" too.
"...Look for small ways to give employees, at every level, the opportunity and encouragement to follow their interests and express their unique talents. ..." Very good idea for your dayly activity as a team leader.

Six Keys to Being Excellent at Anything

Six Keys to Being Excellent at Anything

2:21 PM Tuesday August 24, 2010 | Comments (194)

I've been playing tennis for nearly five decades. I love the game and I hit the ball well, but I'm far from the player I wish I were.

I've been thinking about this a lot the past couple of weeks, because I've taken the opportunity, for the first time in many years, to play tennis nearly every day. My game has gotten progressively stronger. I've had a number of rapturous moments during which I've played like the player I long to be.

And almost certainly could be, even though I'm 58 years old. Until recently, I never believed that was possible. For most of my adult life, I've accepted the incredibly durable myth that some people are born with special talents and gifts, and that the potential to truly excel in any given pursuit is largely determined by our genetic inheritance.

During the past year, I've read no fewer than five books — and a raft of scientific research — which powerfully challenge that assumption (see below for a list). I've also written one, The Way We're Working Isn't Working, which lays out a guide, grounded in the science of high performance, to systematically building your capacity physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

We've found, in our work with executives at dozens of organizations, that it's possible to build any given skill or capacity in the same systematic way we do a muscle: push past your comfort zone, and then rest. Aristotle Will Durant*, commenting on Aristotle, pointed out that the philosopher had it exactly right 2000 years ago: "We are what we repeatedly do." By relying on highly specific practices, we've seen our clients dramatically improve skills ranging from empathy, to focus, to creativity, to summoning positive emotions, to deeply relaxing.

Like everyone who studies performance, I'm indebted to the extraordinary Anders Ericsson, arguably the world's leading researcher into high performance. For more than two decades, Ericsson has been making the case that it's not inherited talent which determines how good we become at something, but rather how hard we're willing to work — something he calls "deliberate practice." Numerous researchers now agree that 10,000 hours of such practice is the minimum necessary to achieve expertise in any complex domain.

That notion is wonderfully empowering. It suggests we have remarkable capacity to influence our own outcomes. But that's also daunting. One of Ericsson's central findings is that practice is not only the most important ingredient in achieving excellence, but also the most difficult and the least intrinsically enjoyable.

If you want to be really good at something, it's going to involve relentlessly pushing past your comfort zone, as well as frustration, struggle, setbacks and failures. That's true as long as you want to continue to improve, or even maintain a high level of excellence. The reward is that being really good at something you've earned through your own hard work can be immensely satisfying.

Here, then, are the six keys to achieving excellence we've found are most effective for our clients:
Pursue what you love. Passion is an incredible motivator. It fuels focus, resilience, and perseverance.
Do the hardest work first. We all move instinctively toward pleasure and away from pain. Most great performers, Ericsson and others have found, delay gratification and take on the difficult work of practice in the mornings, before they do anything else. That's when most of us have the most energy and the fewest distractions.
Practice intensely, without interruption for short periods of no longer than 90 minutes and then take a break. Ninety minutes appears to be the maximum amount of time that we can bring the highest level of focus to any given activity. The evidence is equally strong that great performers practice no more than 4 ½ hours a day.
Seek expert feedback, in intermittent doses. The simpler and more precise the feedback, the more equipped you are to make adjustments. Too much feedback, too continuously can create cognitive overload, increase anxiety, and interfere with learning.
Take regular renewal breaks. Relaxing after intense effort not only provides an opportunity to rejuvenate, but also to metabolize and embed learning. It's also during rest that the right hemisphere becomes more dominant, which can lead to creative breakthroughs.
Ritualize practice. Will and discipline are wildly overrated. As the researcher Roy Baumeister has found, none of us have very much of it. The best way to insure you'll take on difficult tasks is to build rituals — specific, inviolable times at which you do them, so that over time you do them without having to squander energy thinking about them.


I have practiced tennis deliberately over the years, but never for the several hours a day required to achieve a truly high level of excellence. What's changed is that I don't berate myself any longer for falling short. I know exactly what it would take to get to that level.

I've got too many other higher priorities to give tennis that attention right now. But I find it incredibly exciting to know that I'm still capable of getting far better at tennis — or at anything else — and so are you.


Here are the recent books on this subject:
Talent is Overrated by Geoffrey Colvin. My personal favorite.
The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
The Genius in All of Us by David Schenk.
Bounce by Mathew Syed


* Thanks to commenter Rick Thomas for pointing out the misattribution.


Tony Schwartz is president and CEO of The Energy Project. He is the author of the June, 2010 HBR article, "The Productivity Paradox: How Sony Pictures Gets More Out of People by Demanding Less," and coauthor, with Catherine McCarthy, of the 2007 HBR article, "Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time." Tony is also the author of the new book "The Way We're Working Isn't Working: The Four Forgotten Needs that Energize Great Performance" (Free Press, 2010).

http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2010/08/six-keys-to-being-excellent-at.html

How to Make the Most of Your Company’s Strategy

How to Make the Most of Your Company’s Strategy

by Stephen Bungay

In the decades since Peter Drucker first urged executives to manage by objectives, companies have replaced his famous “letter to the boss” with ever more elaborate and time-consuming processes for setting goals. The result is usually a profusion of measures and targets, finally approved six months into the year they are supposed to cover, that only add to the confusion about what really matters to the business. For most managers, the big unanswered question remains: What do you want me to do?

This article is about how to answer that question. In the following pages you will read about a process I call strategy briefing, a technique derived from the military. Through it, managers and their reports can move together from the uncertainty surrounding seemingly complex goals and performance measures to clarity about just which objectives each person needs to focus on, in what order of priority. The briefing also helps managers set parameters for two variables that are the bedrock of high performance: the extent to which people in an organization act in line with its leaders’ intentions, and how much freedom they have to take independent action. In essence, the briefing turns lofty strategic goals into a clear blueprint for execution.

In what follows I’ll walk you through the five-step briefing process, illustrating it with a fictional example stitched together from my own experiences as a consultant and a teacher. To conclude I’ll explain how to roll the process up, down, and across your organization.
The Road to Confusion Is Paved with Good Intentions

Joe was a star. An engineer, he also had an MBA and worked at a large, well-established information services company. A year after moving into product development, he was asked to set up a low-cost R&D center in Asia. By introducing new, less expensive offerings, the company hoped to fend off increasing competition from cheaper rivals.

Six months into the project, Joe convened an off-site. After presenting the company’s goals and challenges, he asked the people attending for thoughts on how they could help meet them. After a few moments’ silence, one of the senior technicians raised his hand. “I don’t want to sound negative,” he said, “but what exactly are we really trying to achieve?”

Joe was taken aback. “It’s perfectly clear, isn’t it? We’re creating a new center to develop low-cost products. We’ve got two years. You know the situation, and you know the company’s strategy. I just went through it.”

“Sure,” came the reply, “but frankly, I’m still confused. There’s lots of stuff in our goals about shareholder value, reinventing ourselves, thinking globally, and embracing change. There’s stuff about being innovative and delivering superior customer satisfaction, and there are targets for increasing revenue, lowering costs, and raising margins. Well, I don’t get it. From where I sit the sky’s falling in. We’re in a deep recession, the competition is eating our lunch, revenues are falling, margins are shot to bits, customers are starting to hate us, and all anyone seems to care about is getting rid of people to save money. Some of us are probably next. Where are we in all this? What are we supposed to do?”

Joe sensed that he needed to take control. “OK,” he said, “I hear you. And you’re right. Let’s sit down and work it out now so we’re all singing from the same sheet. Let’s not just talk; let’s write it down, so we all know exactly what we are about.”

http://hbr.org/2011/01/how-to-make-the-most-of-your-companys-strategy/ar/1

Failures vs Winners

"Failures do what is tension relieving, while winners do what is goal achieving."

--Dennis Waitley

Benjamin Franklin's Quote

"Well done is better than well said."

--Benjamin Franklin